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Be the Solution with Maria Quattrone
Maria Quattrone, a leader in real estate with over 21 years of experience, is the driving force behind RE/MAX @ HOME - Maria Quattrone & Associates in Philadelphia. Her passion goes beyond selling homes; she’s dedicated to helping others succeed. Through her 'Rise in Real Estate' training program and the "Be the Solution" podcast, Maria shares her expertise, inspiring professionals and entrepreneurs to excel. With over 3,400 properties sold, Maria's success is evident, but her true mission is to empower others, build strong brands, and foster meaningful connections.
Be the Solution with Maria Quattrone
Turning Property Nightmares into Dream Investments: Sheryl's Landlording Journey
Ever wondered what it takes to navigate Philadelphia's complex real estate landscape as a landlord? Sheryl Sitman, founder of Philadelphia Landlords Connect and Real Landlording, offers a refreshing perspective on the challenges and opportunities facing property owners in the City of Brotherly Love.
Sheryl's journey began during the 2009 market downturn, seeking "headache-free" investments before diving into distressed properties in Philadelphia. Like many new investors, she learned painful lessons from costly mistakes and predatory contractors – experiences that fueled her mission to create solutions for other landlords.
When COVID's eviction moratorium threatened landlords' livelihoods, Sheryl built a community that has grown to nearly 3,000 members who help each other navigate Philly's regulatory maze. Unlike other markets where you can simply buy property and rent it out, Philadelphia landlords must obtain rental licenses, lead certifications, rental suitability certificates, and more – creating significant barriers to entry and diverting resources from property improvements.
The disconnect between policymakers and housing economics creates further challenges. Recent proposals to cap rental application fees below the actual cost of credit checks and require security deposits in installments demonstrate fundamental misunderstandings of landlording realities. Meanwhile, thousands of vacant lots owned by the Philadelphia Housing Authority sit unused while potential buyers face insurmountable barriers to purchasing and developing them.
To address these issues, Sheryl is launching a comprehensive website through Real Landlording, designed to support property owners at every stage of their journey. Her goal? Create win-win scenarios where landlords can operate efficiently while properly maintaining their properties and keeping rents reasonable.
"What's good for landlords is usually good for tenants as well," Sheryl emphasizes, challenging the false narrative of landlord-tenant conflict that often dominates policy discussions.
Tune in to hear how successful real estate investing creates freedom to design the lifestyle you want, and discover practical insights for navigating Philadelphia's unique real estate environment.
Connect with Maria Quattrone:
Facebook: Maria Quattrone
Facebook Page: REMAX at Home Facebook
Facebook Page: Rise in Real Estate Facebook
LinkedIn: Maria Quattrone
YouTube: Maria Quattrone
Instagram: @maria_quattrone
TikTok: mariaquattronerealestate
Website: MQrealesate.com
Office number: 215- 607-3535
This is the Be the Solution podcast, and I'm your host, maria Quattrone, and today I have my quote for this morning. So what I was thinking about in the shower was whether you think you can or think you can. Either way, you are right. And this morning we have our guest, cheryl Sitman, real Landlording.
Speaker 2:So, cheryl, welcome to the show. Thank you so much, Maria. I'm really excited. I was excited to get the invitation and I really appreciate it and looking forward to our chat.
Speaker 1:My pleasure. So how I met Cheryl was well, this is our actually first time meeting online, but she has this great group called Philadelphia Landlords and always posting all this great information, and I saw that she runs a group, so I said what better person to interview than Cheryl about what's going on in Philadelphia real estate with tenants and landlords? And I'm going to unpack today how Cheryl got in the business. So I'm excited to talk with you. So tell me okay, what'd you do it?
Speaker 2:So, um well, it's a long story and I'll try to make it short. I got into real estate what is it about 15, 16 years ago, when I wasn't even living in the country Just because we knew that this is something. It was an opportunity around 2009. I'm sure you remember that as a real estate agent.
Speaker 1:Wonderful time to get into the industry. Lots of opportunity.
Speaker 2:Right. So I started buying some property and the most important thing to me was because I didn't know anything about real estate, nothing about the housing industry at all, and I just wanted to make sure I was doing things that would be headache free, as though there's such a thing.
Speaker 1:Headache free okay.
Speaker 2:So I was just buying really stable, safe things not with great ROI, and accumulating some properties, and that was my introduction to things and understanding quite quickly that there's an amazing opportunity. So then, around 2016, moved to the Philadelphia area, which I was born in Philadelphia, but I had moved overseas and started buying distressed properties and figuring out pretty much everything on my own and not even understanding that there was someone who could maybe mentor me or guide me. I eventually discovered BiggerPockets things like that provided some general information but really stumbled through it, made a lot of mistakes, got taken advantage of pretty badly in the first years. And because of that experience, I'm the kind of person and that's why I really like the name of your podcast Be the Solution, because I tend to. If I figure something out and I have the solution, I want to share it with other people Because, like, why should anybody be taken advantage of, for example, by a contractor, if you can avoid it?
Speaker 1:And so, as I learned A lot of that out there. Still, Cheryl, still, oh it's terrible, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I am the kind of person who, when I figure something out, I like to share it. And then, back in 2020, during COVID, I was freaking out because there was the talk about the eviction moratorium, and I remember distinctly thinking that on April 1st, nobody's getting their rent, because the way all the messaging was put out there was as though nobody needs to pay rent anymore, and I was really afraid that that's how tenants would treat it. And so I formed this group on Facebook for landlords and I don't you know what. I don't even remember the name. I could look it up, but I don't remember what I called it. But it was based around moratorium and what was going on with COVID at the time, and so it was just a small group of landlords really good people, who had a lot of information and helping each other navigate through this difficult times.
Speaker 2:So that group grew. Obviously it's called Philadelphia landlords connect and we have almost 3000 people in there. It could be much bigger, but I'm careful about who gets in there, because we want only landlords and to have the discussion on a on a high level. I manage it very closely and don't allow you know all kinds of you know advertising and different things. Yes, bam Crazy conversations trying to keep things you know, keep politics out of it.
Speaker 1:Oh yes, A lot of these groups turned into like these political things right right, like everything, always, that is not the reason why we came there like help me get pgw. Do you know right now that they've been down for weeks to submit? Yeah, it is for the landlord application. Oh, pico, no PGW, okay.
Speaker 2:I didn't know that, okay.
Speaker 1:No, we've been waiting for at least three weeks and the system's been down. We can't submit it to get into the landlord program for a couple of my properties. I mean, how does that? I don't understand Right, do you? I don't. I don't understand a lot of things that go on.
Speaker 2:I don't understand right, do you? I I don't. I don't understand a lot of things that go on. I don't know if it's a Philly thing a lot of these systems that that don't work well. I remember that until a few years ago, I always found that Pico was really easy to work with and then they switched over to a new system. I I know that's. I think it's since I think it's about a year now that they haven't straightened things out and that's their excuse all the time that they moved over to a new infrastructure, technology, infrastructure and they haven't been able to get their act together. So there's people who, like, didn't get bills for many months and then get surprised with a huge bill all kinds of horror stories. There's no lack of problems.
Speaker 1:There's no lack of problems.
Speaker 2:So be the solution.
Speaker 1:Yes, be the solution, lots of solutions to have. I mean, you have this great group, you know. I kind of want to dig in a little bit about what is going on today in the landlording, like in regards to the city. And you know, every time I talk to another investor, they're mad and they're frustrated and they're sick of it. And you know, yeah, they're frustrated because they can't get people out. It takes nine months to get them out. The tenants don't pay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a real problem with it's a combination of policies, politics, a particular type of what I call landlord-tenant culture that's been allowed to develop in Philadelphia, what I call landlord tenant culture that's been allowed to develop in Philadelphia. And it's interesting because just the other night there was the HAPCO yearly meeting. So HAPCO, for those who don't know, is the advocacy group for small and mid-sized landlords. I think it's really important. Anybody who's a small landlord, whether you have one property or a hundred properties, should be a member. It's very reasonably priced and just to give them that little bit of boost to have more members and have the budget to advocate for us, because that's it Nobody else is out there able to push for. It's not just about what landlords need. What I always try to explain, especially to politicians, is what's good for landlords is usually good for tenants as well. So it's not a us versus them. And that's one of the big problems is that it's framed as a battle between landlords and tenants. So at the event at Hapco the other night, they had some city council members and you can see where the disconnect is very clearly.
Speaker 2:Many city council members think that they're serving their constituents by fighting against landlords, like one of the recent proposals was to limit the fee that you can charge for a application for a rental. So they want to limit it to $20. Well, it costs more than that for you to run a credit check, right? So why should landlords? My checks just went up too. So, yeah, I mean these are things I don't do myself, so I'm not so familiar with the fees, but I know it's more than $20. Like, most people are charging $40 or $50 for an application and it's not a money-making activity, it's to cover their costs. So when you hear a city council member talk about this and you try and explain to them but nobody's taking advantage of anybody that's just what it costs to have to check whether a tenant has a criminal record and all these things that we have to be able to check. So why does a landlord have to eat the cost? Think of somebody with one or two properties. They can't lose that money. But not only that, they also want to change the security deposit requirements to make it that you have to break it up into four installments over the year. And again, just this total disconnect of what's the purpose of a security deposit and what's the reality that many of us end up needing to keep that security deposit because the amount of damage that tenants sometimes do to a property and it's real, I mean I've had properties the security deposit doesn't come anywhere close to covering the damage that someone did. Most tenants are good, but there's plenty out there that are causing a lot of damage.
Speaker 2:So a lot of things got said at the meeting the other night that it's like, wow, you guys just don't get it. Like, are you ever talking to landlords? What is it that you're trying to achieve? I think it's like, wow, you guys just don't get it. Like, are you ever talking to landlords? What is it that you're trying to achieve? I think it's a lot of misunderstanding. Even just basic economics, right. Like when rent control gets discussed and like, ask any economist out there, rent control actually makes rent go up because of what happens to the market when you implement rent control. It's been proven in places like New York and other cities that have tried it and it doesn't work. But it sounds good, right, that the politician can tell their constituents I'm looking out for you. I'm going to make sure that your rent doesn't increase too much. But if it's not a profitable venture, then landlords are going to leave, they're going to sell their properties, and you probably see that happening as an agent.
Speaker 1:Well, certainly I have many excuse me, frustrated investors that do want to exit. And then there's people that are buying. So it's, there's season and a reason, right, all right, people have been in it for a long time and they're like, yeah, I'm now just say, I'm now 60, I have 20 properties, 30, 40, 50. I'm not going to sell them all at once, I want to sell five a year. I'm going to start the exit now. So, and there's other people that you know they're looking, they're asking for portfolios and they're ready to buy a hundred units. So just, yeah, well, it definitely is more difficult. I mean, that's kind of ridiculous that the public sector wants to put what you can ask for whatever you want. If it's a high-end residence, sometimes they ask for two and three months security deposit.
Speaker 1:There should be, no limitation on what you ask. It's your property.
Speaker 2:Right, it should be more of a free market. I actually I spoke at the Hapco event the other night and I was trying to convey is that when you do open up the market and you make it easier right, make it easier easier to become a landlord, reduce the costs that landlords need to invest in order to get their properties compliant and rented, then rent goes down. So you know, I gave some examples, like you know, example that's totally unrelated to real estate, but like because I was looking for different examples of industries and that have happened in the market that made prices go down. So a good example is the hearing aid industry and it used to be highly regulated and you had to get a hearing aid. You had to get a prescription, which meant you had to go to the doctor and then only certain companies could, so a hearing aid was like four thousand dollars.
Speaker 2:Well, now they changed the laws a couple years ago so you can. Hearing aid is much more affordable, which means what More people who have hearing disabilities can get hearing aids, and isn't that a good? That's a good thing. It didn't make anything more dangerous, and so a lot of the in Philadelphia are presumably to make our housing safer, and what I want to ask the politicians is like have you noticed Philadelphia housing is not nicer or safer than other cities where they don't have as much regulation? In fact, in some ways it's the opposite, because landlords are spending so much money on compliance instead of on fixing their properties.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's only so much in the kitty, there's only so much money to go around, and if you think about it it's like, okay, you got a trash fee, rental license, you know if you have to pay for PICO, if it's in the hallways, you know if it's multifamily, and then you have your maintenance and you have your vacancy costs and you have your accounting and you have your attorney and you have leasing fees.
Speaker 2:And also the, the, the, the, every step that you have to take, it's, it's, I tell people cause I, I, it's in multiple States. And in the earlier days, after having gone through what I had to go through in Philadelphia to become a landlord, it was natural for me to ask, in every play, every market that I entered, what do I need to do to rent my property? And in so many places I just got this blank stare Like what are you talking about? You bought the property, now rent it. What do you think you need to do? I'm like well, don't I have to get a ID and a rental suitability certificate and a commercial license and a rental license.
Speaker 1:Don't forget the lead certification, the new one that they you know a few years, however many years ago, right.
Speaker 2:You have to get the, so you have to. You have to find someone to do the, the testing. Then they get you the the test right and you have to upload it to a special site on the philadelphia gov millions of sites it's, it is, uh, it's a lot.
Speaker 2:Yep, it's a lot, and so it's important to like keep at it of letting the politicians know this is not good for anybody. It's it's making I can guarantee you it's not making housing safer. I compare what I can rent in in philadelphia, like for, say you know, a typical three bed say I'm getting one thousand eight hundred dollars a month. In other states, for for a month I'm bringing out brand new properties, sometimes like in communities that have pools and pickleball, and you get so much more for your money in other markets where it's easier to be a landlord and to own property.
Speaker 1:You see people wanting to invest in other areas. A lot of developments even moved to New Jersey and Bing and Lancaster places outside of the city.
Speaker 2:Philadelphia.
Speaker 1:I'm born and raised my whole life and been in this industry for 21 years, and it's not an easy city for business owners. They've never made it easy. You know there's not a lot of. We don't have a lot of large corporations here. A lot of them moved out. You know the birth taxes. You know you can go on and on, but it's not business friendly right and there are many people like myself that are out there, you know, hitting the payment, saying as you when are you going to change like, when are you going to get it?
Speaker 2:so well, it does seem that the mayor parker has a better vision and I I understand like she brings a lot of people in who are business oriented and it sounds like, I mean, some goods are happening and have happened and I have a good amount of optimism. I think that it's really important for people to make you know, just make their voices heard, and there's always going to look, philadelphia has a lot of wonderful things, right. I mean, you live in the city, you know, like, how great the food is and you know being it's a very walkable city and all the interesting neighborhoods Like it's a really rich and diverse place. So it's not going away, that's for sure.
Speaker 1:No, no, I mean, these are that are, you know, more so for people in the business of Philadelphia. I mean, living in Philadelphia is definitely becoming better than it was. There was a lot of people that had exited like any other big city during COVID. It's nothing unusual, it's all over the entire world, not just Philadelphia. But people wanted to be away from big cities. They wanted to have more space. You know a lot of people that were downtown. They moved to their shore houses and at the Jersey Shore you know Margate, avalon, stone Harbor, longport, and these people also that did that full-time move were towards the end of their careers. So more of empty nesters, more affluent people that made that move. So you do see a sector of those people who didn't are not coming back. They're just not Right, you know. But there's new people that move in. We have every year residents you know Philadelphia's eds and meds, big industry years. We have residents that come, residents that go, right. They're here for four years, five years, six years, whatever they're, depending on their program.
Speaker 2:What if John Fry being made president of Temple University? Do you think that he's going to have an impact in North Philadelphia?
Speaker 1:I mean, I would hope so because it is not great around there Right and I sell a lot of real estate in that area and I went to Temple in what year? Early 90s, that was at Texthel and then Temple, so that was 90. And it's not that much better today. Campus is bigger, campus is better, but talking about in the area surrounding, they really need to make that part of temple Right, to make temple better, because it is.
Speaker 2:Well, I look at, look, I spent University of Pennsylvania in the 80s, in the late and or maybe actually I think it was the early 90s, but um, and what I remember is that it was considered the most dangerous campus in the country. And look at it today and look at what university city has become. And it's my understanding that John Fry had a lot to do with Trexel and Penn.
Speaker 1:Yes, 100%. But look, that's the thing. Look what Penn did and Temple looks exactly the same as it did 30 years ago or 30, however many years, what's that? 90 and how many years? Is that Too long ago? Aging ourselves? Not supposed to be doing that this morning, but I guess it's 30 years or 35 years or whatever it is, but it's not changed. I'm there, I was just there the other day, and I hope, I hope that people, students in the, the community there, that they really figure this out. He right, if anybody can figure it out he can right, okay.
Speaker 2:well, it seems that you know, talking about change, um, someone said something very interesting. I I don't remember um it was, but I, I, oh, um an event where I this is terrible. I remember his name, kevin something, who's at there's a Drexel like institute. What, kevin, gillian, right? So he pointed out how, if you don't have whatever you want to call it change gentrification of whatever you want to call it change gentrification, it's not that things then the alternative is that we'll stay the same.
Speaker 2:Things get worse and it's a fact. I mean, I see it everywhere. So all of these, the neighborhood groups and some of the decision makers and influencers who try to resist change, they're really doing a disservice. It could be you don't want a particular, like you know, a high-rise building in the middle of a residential neighborhood or you know some kinds of commercial activities, but you have to allow, like developers aren't evil, these are the people and companies are fixing the city and otherwise things are just going to keep falling apart. You can see it like look at any vacant property. It doesn't stay the same. It's like a structure is actually a living creature that will slowly deteriorate.
Speaker 1:That's right, that is correct. It does not stay the same and you know a lot of developers have moved their money other places and it's not big. It's hard to even make a deal pencil out today, Right, Right. So we've seen least amount of permits pulled in something like 30 years, so yeah part of it, you know.
Speaker 1:I think that Mayor Parker is really, you know, out there doing the work and working on making things better, but it's. It comes down to council people and the fact that there's this councilmanic prerogative is a big problem in Philadelphia, and those are the people that I know they want to have like they're protecting their constituents, but they're really not and they hold things back in neighborhoods. They have too much control and that should be wiped out of the charter. I've been saying that same thing, stance, for 21 years and I believe that they can control property that the city owns gets developed or not.
Speaker 1:They have to sign off on it. They're the hold up with more development happening, more properties that first-time buyers can buy. They're the hold up with more development happening, more properties that can that first-time buyers can buy. They're the hold up because it's in the land bank and they have to sign off on it and a lot of times they don't want to right and who were them.
Speaker 2:That's it's, you know it's for like someone like me that's um far less involved than than than i'm'm sure, in the day-to-day of like the laws and developments that are going on in Philadelphia. But when you walk around and you see all these empty lots and you see vacant properties and a lot of it is owned by PHA Like I was surprised. I have a property that had a lot of next to it and somebody was just using it to store their junk and so I wanted to get rid of it, because why should my tenant have to live next to a junkyard? And I was really surprised to find out that PHA owns the lot and I'm like let me buy it.
Speaker 2:What are you doing with it Other than letting it become a junkyard? Let me buy it, but there's no way for me to do that. I think if I live house, then there would be some kind of option maybe for me to buy it, but there's no way for me to do that. I think if I, if I live house, then there would be some kind of option maybe for me to buy it, but because I am a investor, landlord, I can't better to have it just sit there and collect trash.
Speaker 1:There's new logic, that's I would buy it and do something with it I've run up against this for so many years.
Speaker 1:Like it's just sickening. It really is. They have a program called Turn the Key now, but you have to have you can't, you have to have a lot of experience. There's an RFP that goes out. It's a whole big thing. They are, though, building these houses where buyers can buy them for like a brand new construction for $280,000. There's all kinds of grants available as well Philly First. There's also grant from like Wistvis has one for 10,000. You marry the two. Very little money out of pocket for them. The kicker is they hold it for 15 years, otherwise, when they sell it, they cannot get the equity from it because there's a soft second of $90,000 against it. You're really getting a mortgage of $200,000, $190,000, the mortgage, but there are income in regards to that. But that's also part of the land bank program and the council people have to sign off on this land. But you see them how much there are.
Speaker 2:Right, oh yeah, thousands, maybe tens of thousands, no, no, Tens of thousands, right, right. So it's interesting because what happens is a situation created where there's this complex web of programs and opportunities and laws and regulations and all these things that the average person or even the average investor there's no way they're going to know all these things right, and that you offer these services and knowledge that can help somebody navigate it as a real estate. And I'm trying on my end to put you know, get the knowledge out there. So one of the things that out there, so one of the things that you know. I try in the Philadelphia group, as I gather information, I try to put it out there, and I realized like it needs to be put into a more organized way. Actually, like Philadelphia has a lot of good websites, the government to put out information. When you get there you realize like it's really hard to understand. So I'll give like a basic example.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of programs for tenants out there that can help them with utilities, with rent, all kinds of things. When I go and look at these things I'm like I don't know what to do. There's no, if I can't figure it out, probably the tenant can't figure it out either, or it might not be just about figuring it out, it's just very complicated. You have to send in this document, that document, and it's like this or that. That's correct, yeah, so there's a lot of money out there that goes totally unused. I'm sure that there's like none of these programs that get funding end up being able to do most of the funding because of that barrier to entry. So one of the things that I want to do so I've established, like this entity called Real Landlording and actually soon we're going to launch a new website. It's already and we're just debugging it now. So we're talking about within days or a week or so that we'll launch and the idea is that anywhere where a landlord is on their journey whether they haven't even started buying properties yet and need consulting and help in analyzing properties and all of that kind of thing um, how to you know how to design it to for for for the tenants? Um, how to get the work done hiring contractors or hiring maintenance people every step of the way that they can come to the real landlording website and find a solution that that that's a reliable solution.
Speaker 2:And, like I was, you know, I knew before we actually started the podcast that in my journey I found that I got severely taken advantage of in my early years. I lost quite a bit of money to some corrupt I don't know what to call them I have I have some that I won't use here contractors that took advantage of me and it was clear like they knew as soon as they started talking to me. This woman knows nothing and I'm taking advantage of that. Okay, they know, they know as you open your mouth, whether you know or not, and there's, unfortunately, people who will take advantage of that and that, because I'm through that, I really sincerely feel like other people should not go through that and and that because I'm through that, I really sincerely feel like other people should not go through that, if I can help them to avoid it. And it's not that hard to avoid it once you have some knowledge and connections and things like that.
Speaker 2:So I want you know, I want to have landlords be better landlords and be able to manage themselves through different challenges and just the basic that you need to do in order to be a good landlord or investor. But that has a win-win or win-win-win, because it's better for investors to increase their bottom line, but that also helps the tenant because if your expenses decrease and it's easier for you to be a landlord, you can manage your rent not just your rent better, but then you have money to invest in the property to keep it maintained. There's nothing worse than like having you know if you have you're a tenant and you have a landlord who's struggling financially and and there's issues that you have in the house. It might not be that you know that they're a bad person, that they don't get things taken care of. It could be they don't have the funds to do it. Indeed, indeed.
Speaker 1:So that's exciting, have your website launching. I guess you're creating a community, basically, yeah, a community and a network that people can rely on, that's awesome. Yeah, yeah, I think that's awesome, that's pretty good and that's going to launch in the next couple of weeks, next week or two.
Speaker 2:It should be within a week, but I'll be letting you know.
Speaker 1:Ah, very exciting. Lots, lots of be the solutions going on. Exactly be the solution, exactly exactly. We have so many other things, cheryl, that I would love to talk to you about in the future. In regards to, like you know, how people can do it, like how can they get in the business, I'd like to schedule a time when we can unpack that and do a case study. For sure I would love to do that. That would be super cool, and then you could put it on your website too, yeah, you could do that.
Speaker 2:I'll have to interview one of these days.
Speaker 1:I'm ready any day, Ready to bring it you got to have I'm always ready Energy, enthusiasm, regardless of whatever's around us.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:I'll ask you this question, cheryl what are you and maybe you're going to tell me the website most excited about for you, for your personal future?
Speaker 2:Well, for real personal. So, like I said, I used to live and when I moved here, I moved here with my youngest child, who at the time was a junior in high school. But my other two kids still remained overseas and just a few months ago one of them and moved over with her husband. So she's here now. So I have two out of three here close by and in the summer, my third child along with my grandson and his wife to move here. So that's for me the ultimate. There's nothing more important than family and everything I mean. I know it sounds cliche, but everything I do is about family. It's having the resources to help family and spend time with family and it's about making a lifestyle the podcast that through real estate and investing, you can have more control over your life and shape the kind of lifestyle that you want to have. So that's what I'm excited about having my kids nearby.
Speaker 1:Nothing better than having family. Really I mean family's everything.
Speaker 2:Everything.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so last question for you, guilty pleasure.
Speaker 2:Ooh, Wow, you didn't prepare me for this. Guilty pleasure, yeah, I guess. In general it goes back to this like having control of my time. So I sense from that you're kind of this too, because you scheduled this podcast for 730 in the morning. So you like to make use of your time and fill your days, and I definitely am like that as well. But because I do have control of my time, that I can set days where it's like this is mine, set days where it's like this is mine If I want to sleep in, if I want to spend a stupid amount of time I don't know at the gym hiking or watching TV on the sofa, whatever it is, and I don't have to feel guilty about it.
Speaker 1:So doing what you want when you want, because you create the life that you want to have.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, but not taking that doesn't mean every day just doing want when you want, because you create the life that you want to have exactly. But not like, not taking like. That doesn't mean every day just doing whatever well, of course, then you wouldn't have any business right, it's like and it wouldn't be satisfying, because when you do it too much it's just like I don't know. It doesn't feel good.
Speaker 1:I said to have the office. I said like if I'm sick it's horrible because I have to be at the house. You can't like infect people and it is the worst. Like I could stay at the house for like three hours, uh-huh, maybe five, but after that it's like stir crazy. Uh, if I'm not sleeping it's bad right yeah, well, we're so.
Speaker 2:We're social.
Speaker 1:Social beings need to be around people we are and if it was like, oh, if I wasn't sick, like it'd be fine, right, like you'd have something to do, but now I'm not a good sick person like saying, and I'd like to be out and about, but this is a great podcast. I appreciate you, cheryl, and looking forward to having you on again and looking forward to getting to know you. Yeah, me too. I really hopefully.
Speaker 2:I really appreciate this. A new friend. Yeah, we're going to have to have a coffee, absolutely A good Italian coffee, that's right.