Navigating Austin’s Market & Building Authentic Community

0:00 Well, my name is Keating with the science of building your nest podcast I am extremely grateful for Paul Daniels with the Daniels team to come on here and share his expertise in in real estate and a lot of the similar passions that we have not only in cars but in audio as well, so Paul welcome and you know, please Please expand on basically everything that you do because we're all interested to hear. Thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah, so Born and raised in Austin, Texas since 1975. I basically grew up in downtown kind of the Bolton Creek area around Old Tork and South First and just, you know, saw the dynamic of the change over the years from what it was when I was a kid there to what it is now. It's

0:46 pretty interesting. It's sometimes a little scary to see the the big price points that have taken over, but you know, that's growth and being in real estate, it's important to me to see growth. We want that. Yeah. And you are one of the few born and bred Austinites. Yeah. Lindsay's also born and raised here as well. Kind of more in the hill country area, but we're both a real estate team that love our city. Yeah, been here for a long time. That's amazing. Um, so from 1975, you said what has been the biggest change for you over the past, um, you know, 50 years. Yeah. Yeah, it is. I do have a birthday coming up here next month and I will be hitting that 50 marks. Um, I just, I believe it's more of

1:33 the kind of the culture of the entrepreneurs that are coming in and the business growth, the visions and basically the amazing things that people have done here in Austin that it's not the small hometown that it used to be, which is Berks from Air Force Base, which was the big thing in Austin Aquafest back in the 80s. And it's turned into something pretty brilliant that we actually have a spot on the international map now, even with the Circuit of the Americas. All the things that happen in Austin. So it's pretty cool to see it grow Yeah. And for people that aren't from Austin, maybe have visited in the past or even people that have moved here in the past 10 to 15 years, they probably can't even imagine the type of city that it was in the seventies. Uh, you know, it was, it was probably

2:19 more similar to California and you know, you have these sayings out there. Don't California Kate, my, my Austin, right. Um, back in the seventies, it was the hippie craze and then you had the disco age of the eighties. And that really set up the east side and the, um, you know, in the bar scene and the culture that was here. Yeah, Sixth Street was a big part of my life. I love to dance. Me and Lindsay go out salsa dancing a lot. But I grew up going down to Sixth Street doing hip hop dancing and just EDM, electronica type music, dancing in the clubs. And I just love dancing. And so, yeah, to see that growth from Sixth Street even expand over to the west side, the warehouse area, it used to be called the warehouse district. And even over to the east side, the way it's changed over there, it's just... It's really cool to see there's something

3:04 to do all over the central part of Austin area if you like to get out and have some entertainment. All right. Right. And the expansion, um, especially being from the Bolden, uh, Bowling Creek area, right? You've, you've seen it really expand, um, north toward the domain. And now we have a lot of expansion heading south. Um, I'm sure back in the day, Round Rock and Georgetown were, you know, opposite sides of the map. Yeah. Leander and Cedar park even of it. Now those are some primo places to live and, uh, affordability is a little bit better. You get more bang for the buck in those areas. And they've just grown into their own large communities and cities that they are now. So it's been nice to see that. No kidding. Yeah, no kidding. We'll touch on your experience

3:49 for your buyers, right? Someone who's lived in the city for so long really knows the deep pockets very well because there's different neighborhoods in the city that have a completely different feel than others. And so being from here and knowing that culture so well gives you a huge leg up when you're interfacing with your clients. Yeah, one of the first questions I ask, I'm a buyer specialist is what I concentrate on. Lindsay is the listing specialist. She makes homes beautiful and has great marketing for selling homes. But on my side, one of the first questions I ask my clients is, what do you enjoy? What do you want to enjoy in your life, your lifestyle? Do you have kids that you, you know? have certain

4:34 parks you like to go to or do you like restaurants or even nightlife clubbing and dancing? So once I kind of identify what their lifestyle is, I can then understand the place that would be best for them according to their budget. Definitely. And that, you know, it requires a level of detail in the pre-conversation, right? So do you have a process when you walk through this conversation, right? Because you have to know someone pretty well for them to understand what you're getting at, right? And to help you help them. Precisely, and it all comes down to building trust with people. Really just taking the time to listen. I do like to talk. I'm the talker of the two of us, me and Lindsay. She is the, uh, the one

5:19 that really knows how to put systems together. And I just kind of flat my beak and I don't listen. So something I've had to grow into over the years is listen and just understand, hear the person's perspective, uh, kind of the emotion and what they say and really just try to even help them understand what's best for them, even though they don't know it. But sometimes that's my job is to help them find out the things they don't know. Totally. And to operate with integrity, it means that you have to have tough conversations sometimes. Yeah, can you tell us a little bit about the real estate market five years ago versus today and maybe how you've had to change the conversation with your clients? Yes, we're definitely at this time, we're in June 2025, definitely more of a buyer's market. The inventory is high,

6:08 there's a lot to choose from and homes are sitting. Most of the people that reach out to us to sell a house, Even though Lindsey's a listing specialist, I do partner with her on everything and she does the same with me. We have to have the conversation about what do you think your home is worth and let's then analyze the market to deem what is the market to take that your home is worth. Because once they understand that their home maybe isn't worth a million dollars like they think, everybody thinks they have a million dollar home, the data, the numbers do show what the homes are being valued at at this point and so bringing in proper comparable properties and just helping people understand the market activity and days on market really helps them to start gauge like what price

6:55 point do I need to be in and if we can put them in a price point that is right not too high not too low but a very accurate price point that helps us garner multiple listings I mean multiple offers. That's the goal, multiple offers. If we can get our sellers to obtain multiple offers through our marketing and our price point strategies, they always benefit. Typically we get over asking because we know how to negotiate and really get the emotionally invested buyers into the property to come up a little bit until where they feel like that they're kind of maxed out. And that is the best thing for a seller. to get the top

7:40 dollar for their property. When it comes to buyers from my side, I have to also have that conversation that if this house is priced pretty darn good, we are going to probably run into competing offers. So we need to make sure that we don't insult the buyer or the seller. We don't want to insult them with such a low offer. We want to make sure that we're bringing in an offer that's, you know, Somewhat accurate with the market but also depending on how how invested the buyer is with wanting that house Sometimes they might spend a little bit more because it's the one they want but ideally we want to make sure that we have those conversations about price point because People are still kind of in that mindset two or three years ago when the market was going crazy there if they haven't been paying attention The last couple of years

8:26 has been totally different. So that's a really big conversation to have Yeah, especially when you talk about the million dollar home, because two years ago you could have maybe gotten 1.1, 1.2 for something that would be under a million today. Yeah, absolutely. And from your perspective on the buyer's specialty, you're now able to have a flip of the coin conversation with your buyers as well, because you're negotiating tactics not only work on the seller's end, they have to work on the buyer's end too. When they get very invested, I know from the home buying process, when you walk into a house, you start to envision your life inside of that home, right? You start to put yourself there. You put your kids there, um, and you imagine what life would be like in that home. And that can be, um, very, uh, you

9:12 know, you're, you're mentally attached inside of that home and, uh, the buying process, usually when you're attached to something that's going to drive your, uh, course of action. Yeah. Yeah. And that, that's where Lindsay really, um, delved into a, a, uh, a service that she created and she trademarked it in the U.S. called Conscious Real Estate. I'll let her talk more about that when you interview her but it is having that mindset about helping our buyers and sellers create an environment by design for what their lifestyle is, definitely for their health oriented goals and being conscious and aware of the things around them. One of the big things that I run into a lot A lot of times buyers that are new

9:58 to Austin don't realize well this house is right next to a railroad track and so granted that's still doable but most people need to know that they need to be aware of that there are areas in Austin where it might be a no blow zone no horn blow zone for a train and it's not as bad but we definitely want to cover you know the the interrupts of life at your house if you're going to be next to a railroad track. Another thing is even busy streets, not so much of a problem until you have a stop sign or a speed bump there. And being a car guy like myself, I understand your hot rod, your Harley Davidson.

10:43 all of those kind of vehicles where people like to get out and play and modify their cars they're going to produce a lot of noise and so those are the kind of things I like to really point out to our buyers to help them envision what is their life going to be like and is it something they want to want to go with or not. And it certainly helps that you've lived here for a long time and know the areas very well. From a friend that was looking for a house, he was looking at some that, hey, I might want to show up at 9 a.m. on Saturday morning when I might want to be sipping a cup of coffee on my back porch to see if this is going to be a noisy area. Those are things that buyers don't realize. Right. I do explain to my buyers a lot of times even when we go look at a property One of the things I like to give them interest in is going back by there, meeting

11:30 some of the neighbors, talk to the neighbors, just get to know them a little bit, ask some questions. But sometimes when we show properties, it's during the day when everybody's at work. So I say, hey, go back at night, check out the streetlights. Are they all working? Do you feel safe in that area? Is that something that you do want to pursue? Are there cars parked all down the street at night that we didn't notice during the day? Definitely want to be aware of things like that and give them those little tidbits of advice to to kind of like really study and entertain that thought of the dynamics of the property they might be wanting to buy. Just go by and check it out more than once. That's great advice and great education. This is one of the biggest purchases of someone's life. And so making sure that they're extremely happy with all of

12:16 the details, not just the house itself, can make a huge difference. It will be their environment for quite a time. So I want to make sure it's the right one for them. That's right. And for their lifestyle as well, I mean, you had mentioned cars parked up and down the street or all the street. like streetlights working, I think that's a big one for, hey, I have a dog and I'm going to want to take walks at night when I get home from work. I want to make sure that I feel safe within a half mile radius of my house to make sure that my lifestyle is according to the house that I live in. Right, right. And one of the things that we're not supposed to talk about as professional real estate realtors, agents, and with our code of ethics is crime in schools. And so we have to be careful with some of that. But I will say, when we're out doing showings I will observe if necessary and point out like

13:03 there's a few burglar bars on houses around here you know things like that to help the people get an idea of the neighborhood they're in so Yeah. And that's, you know, that's an important thing in every city. Um, in Austin specifically, there's definitely pockets that maybe five years ago, 10 years ago, um, you know, you see houses down the street from a nice new build that do have bars on the windows. Um, but you have to take into account the amount of money that's being poured into those different areas. And maybe the bars just haven't been removed. Yeah. Yeah. And usually going by on a couple of trips with the buyer, if they want to go by there a few times, they'll start to get an understanding. If they do feel safe or maybe it's a little sketchy, but hey, some people want to be in areas where it's a little more vibrant and lively. And I'm kind of the same way. Actually, like I said,

13:48 I spent many years down on six street dancing as a club kid. So it doesn't bother me one bit. And, and, um, being from Austin, you obviously have your favorite pockets of the city. Can you give a few maybe off the top of your head that you really love selling houses in or buying houses in? Yes. Um, I would say. definitely the downtown kind of Bolden Creek area is very just eclectic and fun and versatile. There's all kinds of, you know, dynamically designed houses down there. And it's just a fun lifestyle. Walkability is great down to South Congress. It's a fun area. I also really, Lindsay and I are with KW Luxury, so we're luxury agents as well. But on that side

14:36 of things, The Lakeway area is a lot of fun. A lot of beautiful homes out there. And Dripping Springs has really been up and coming with some gorgeous houses. So we do like that area. There's a few pockets out in Westlake that are fun as well. Terrytown down in Clarksville downtown area. So I just love it all, to be honest. Yeah, and I think, you know, it's from from a home service industry background I know, you know, I've lived in Austin for 18 years now 19 years And seeing the city grow was part of it, but it's also being able to go to different houses every day, right? Yeah You really get to learn the streets and the city better when you're in the field and driving through it So, you know not only growing up back in back in the late

15:21 70s But now being able to go to all the pockets and expanding out outside really into central Texas. I'm not just in the Austin area. You're able to get a feel for how these different areas of Austin are opening up. Yeah. Yeah. We've got places like Liberty Hill that are starting to really pick up, um, Manor out there. We've done a few deals out in Manor. It's a great place. A lot of opportunity out there when it used to just be kind of a, one of those one horse town kind of things back in the days, but it's, uh, It's grown all over. Buda and Kyle are definitely up and coming. They've just expanded like crazy over there. Buda Kyle is one of my favorite places to explore with buyers that want to be close to the action in Austin, but maybe the price point's not in their favor at that time because

16:08 most of the things that happen in Austin are south of the river. They're generally kind of south. Now we have like the domain Galleria is a lot of fun stuff out there and whatnot. But if you want to get down in the heart of Austin, you're pretty much south or right there by the river. So that's one reason Buda Kyle area is a great opportunity for people to have something with more affordability, but then have access to the entertainment and lifestyle they want. I've only lived in South Austin for my entire 20 years here. I am definitely more slanted towards the South Austin vibe versus the North Austin. Not to throw shade up north, but I definitely think from the... From my side where I'd like

16:53 to go in the green belt, right? We have a great green belt system down south and when we look at the the highway system from the Buda and Kyle we've You know expanded the toll road all the way down to 1626 now So we're going from Buda is really only a 20-minute drive to downtown I'll put the caveat with no traffic maybe right and then there's like old San Antonio Road, which is a little secret path to South Austin without getting on I-35. And I-35 can be a little bit scary. In Austin, we have a couple of highways and I-35 is an interstate highway where you have big trucks, a lot of 18-wheelers. So it creates more of a, I guess, an anticipating concern when you're going down I-35 versus a little bit more west. You've got Mopac or Loop 1, which they're not supposed to have large trucks on

17:40 that part of the that highway. So you feel a bit safer over there. So I often do hear a lot of the larger families want to be kind of more on the west side due to that one reason because of the less 18 wheelers on the road. So bring us back a little bit. So you, you grew up in Austin. Um, one, one question that I would have is what made you stay in Austin? I don't know where else there is to go. It's my home. Um, it's, it's too cold anywhere else. I don't like cold, my wife either. Uh, you get up to Dallas, it snows a lot there compared to Austin. So it's not for me, but, uh, yeah, that's, that's one of the things family is here. Um, I'm, I love the hot weather and I love the growth of Austin.

18:28 Yeah, that's amazing. So, um, before you became a real estate professional, can you give us a background of, of your history? Yeah, so I came from the hardware engineering side of things at Intel Corporation and I worked at AMD, Selectron, Marvell, Semiconductor, so kind of a change for me. Interestingly enough, I've always been kind of an entrepreneur at heart. I got into internet marketing while I was working at Intel. I started learning on the side how to create websites and how to actually market to people things that they don't even know they they want or need by using keywords and how Google allowed for that with building a keyword SEO optimization for websites and whatnot. And when was this? To put

19:13 in perspective, 25 years ago, you were you were on the up and coming. Yeah, internet marketing was really picking up with all the dot comers. And so I was at Intel, love my job there. I do love that industry. But at home, I had a couple buddies that were talking about this internet marketing thing and it just really captured my attention because to understand how to get into the psyche of people to find you when they're not looking for you now that's a quest like how can you make that happen and so yeah that was something I really enjoyed getting into so internet marketing tech field that was my thing Being in the tech industry I got into a position unfortunately

19:58 to where I would have to have frequent layoffs and I would be out of work for a time and so that's one thing I did in my days off was internet marketing learning that field. Lindsay and I got married in 2013 and she was a UT student that was a later student at school there and she was finishing up her degree and when she graduated I lost my job at Intel. and she had no work. So we were kind of like, oh man, what do we do? I'd had a little bit of savings saved up and I was doing okay as far as having some money, not a lot, but enough to live. So I remember

20:44 sitting in Lindsay's guidance counselor's office at UT, one of our counselors talking about what can you do with your degree, your liberal arts degree at UT? She was going to be in the CIA. So that was kind of cool because she changed her track later. But anyways, she was in international relations, international studies, liberal arts. And I remember her counselor saying, here's a list of things you can do with this degree. And I remember sitting in that office and we saw real estate. Lindsay said, where's real estate? And I looked over and I said, no, those guys are like snakes, like used car salesmen. We don't want to do that. And now we've been doing it for over 10 years together. Ironically enough, yeah, so while I was at Intel, I also really

21:32 enjoyed audio being a techie. I grew up around speakers, subwoofers, car audio, started getting into home audio a little bit later out of high school, and basically started buying and selling speakers on Craigslist. And I realized... through my internet marketing training or skill set that I acquired, I realized that utilizing those keywords and how to write a good marketing description for something can really help something sell on Craigslist. Along with that comes with proper photos, measurements, very well lit photos, not something that's dark and you can't tell what it is. So what I used to do is buy speakers. I focused on speakers mostly or sometimes audio

22:19 amplifiers, but mostly speakers was something I knew I could pick up and get a return quickly. So I would buy a set of speakers, make an offer, get a really good deal on it, bring them home, clean them up and take good photos, write a great marketing description and sell them for double, triple, quadruple what I paid. And so I was making a little bit of money on the side, about 1200 bucks a month, just flipping audio, having some fun and learning about it because I would get to play around with the speakers, test them out, enjoy them. Maybe I would keep a pair for a while and then sell them later. So audio was something that really got me into the sales portion of how can I make money that's almost like free

23:05 money out there if you know how to just play the game. And so when Lindsay graduated, I lost my job at Intel. I at least had audio that I was flipping to bring in a little bit of income. And that led me on to another area in life later where I built the largest audio community on Facebook, probably if not in Texas, maybe the US, like a private localized community. I'll talk more about that later, but basically, Being laid off at Intel and having to find something to do for work. That's where Lindsey and I really started saying what can we do Paul? You're good

23:50 at selling speakers What if we consider selling houses instead of speakers and I started really processing that with Lindsey and real estate started becoming our focus at that point and so I had had a few cool cars at the time I had a A 2005 Ford Mustang was my daily driver and it was kind of souped up and I also had a Dodge Viper. It was kind of my toy that I would enjoy and me and Lindsay actually built a supercharger system for that Viper so it was kind of cool. She helped me with that. Not a whole lot but she did help me install the supercharger on the car and that was a special time. So we had those two cars and then I had my 401k with Intel. Lindsay

24:37 had a 2005, no 2004 Honda CRV. So we decided to sell the Mustang, the Viper and take out my entire 401k at Intel and push all the cards in and basically, or push all the chips in, not the cards, but we went all in and basically said, we're driving your CRV till it falls into the ground and we're starting a real estate business. One story we like to tell people, it's kind of a little historical story about burning the boats or burning the ships where some explorers went to an island and they committed. And the way they committed was by burning the boats so that

25:22 they could not return. They then had to make a new lifestyle and make something happen on that island. And that's what we did. And it was hard. And we've had our ups and downs because business is really hard. It's something that especially with your spouse, you know, she is the boss. I want to clarify that I work for Lindsey. So I don't want to get in trouble if she sees this later. But nonetheless, that's pretty much what we committed to doing. And taking that skill set from selling speakers for so many years and understanding internet marketing with all my web design and graphics and video editing and stuff that I was doing at that point as well. we were able to start to apply that to our real estate business and that's how we caught on quickly

26:08 and were able to start putting food on the table through real estate. Such a great story. I love hearing the background because there's, especially for an entrepreneur, there's so many different things in life that you have to piece together to make this work. And I love the burning the boat story because in a lot of cases for entrepreneurs, it's true, right? You're pushing all your chips in and you're making it work hell or high water. And to have a partner with you because, you know, Entrepreneurship on its own is hard. And obviously, you know, a lot of people do it where, um, you know, maybe the, the spouse works separately, right. And they kind of are able to scrounge up enough to put food on the table while the, uh, the journey is happening on the back end. But you guys are doing it together. Um, what

26:53 a, what an amazing opportunity for both of you. I'm sure spending quality time together is not something that you guys lack in. Well, define quality time. Usually it's, uh, business oriented and it's more consisting of yes ma 'am and we'll get right on it as soon as you tell me to. But yeah, it's great. I love working with Lindsay. I could never imagine anything better. I didn't even know it would be like this but as anything it's had its challenges because we're around each other all the time. We're working on real estate when we wake up in the morning to when we put our head on the pillows at night and even at that point we're still Talking about, you know, clients or real estate till we fall asleep or marketing ideas. It just, it doesn't stop.

27:39 So we do have to be conscious of that and try to put some time aside for each other because it can overrun you if you let it. Certainly. And life gets in the way of a lot of different things. I think in general, when we talk about building this healthy lifestyle, there's so many boxes that we have to check. And it can be very difficult just on your own, but then when you add another person into the mix and you both are battling through your own struggles through life, right? I think it's a test to both of who you are as humans, probably, to be able to do it together day after day. It has been a journey for sure and we're still on that journey. Lindsay has really dealt with, unfortunately, some genes

28:27 genetically that just don't let her detox very well. And she's got MTHFR, which is a genetic SNP, which really doesn't allow the body to detox. So it's kind of hard because I can eat, drink, do anything I want. And I'm great, you know, maybe if I don't feel good the next day, I'm fine. But with Lindsay, it really stays in her system and it wears on her and it affects her productivity, her moods, emotions, she's just down. And so that's where we ran into you guys is through that journey of understanding our air quality in our home. And because of Lindsay's journey, Spending it's been over ten years of

29:14 us really trying to delve into her her health concerns There's so many different facets so many different doctors. I believe we were Spending about eight hundred dollars an hour with a doctor at one point for sessions and it's when when you're Not working on real estate because you're spending time with health needs Your real estate can start to slow down but then Your expenses don't stop. They actually increase with the doctors. And so that's been one of the biggest struggles in our journey is optimizing Lindsey's health. And my heart goes out to her because even today she was just kind of down and really not feeling the best. And part of that is that she is such

30:01 a productive woman. She is a leader. She is a master at being productive in systems. So when her own body is fighting against her to allow her to do what she's good at, it's discouraging. And so we have those moments. Certainly. Yeah, certainly has as every relationship does. And, you know, I think that's probably the great thing about being a team, right? When one partner is on the other side of things, then, you know, hey, we've got to do this as a team. Yeah, yeah. And I'm thankful. I'm blessed that I'm able to be home to take care of her when she does have those moments because I could be at Intel in an office, you know, till six, seven at night, like I used to be. And basically she would be on her own and probably just discouraged with

30:47 not many people to help hear her, listen to her and take care of her in that way. So I'm just fully blessed that even though it's hard for us at times and we're not where we want to be. we're doing this together and that's important. No, that's an awesome story as well. I think you both are pushing the envelope in a lot of different ways on the real estate side. I think bringing two great minds together, two people that are very passionate about what they do, that care about their clients, putting two forces together, a lot of times it rocks the boat even more and starts to really change the industry or how people look at things. And at the end of the day, it educates people in a different way. Yeah and there's a lot of real estate agents

31:33 out there, a lot of realtors, a lot of great professionals and a lot of questionable professionals. Good way to put it. So with us where we're at, we have to find what is our expertise. How can we be a little different? How can we market differently? How can we obtain clients uniquely? you know and without doing the mundane systems that every realtor does and that you know is kind of top. How can we think outside the box? Or status quo, right? I mean, I think, you know, there's, there's a saturated market at some point with the amount of real estate agents that are there. A lot of, you know, what you see on the numbers side is someone gets a real estate license because the kids are finally out of the house and they just

32:18 want to do a side job. Um, so yeah, there's, there's plenty of, of, uh, of the, the normal things that people can do to try to find leads. Right. Right. And it, and it kills me then. the side hustle agents doing one or two deals a year. Anyways, don't get me started on that. One thing that we did to utilize my expertise with audio is we created a audio group on Facebook. I created a community called Austin Audio Files. That was about seven, maybe eight years ago now. One of the things that I did to really help leverage that group. Not only to build community, because

33:03 that is the most important part of the groups that I've created, community. When you have community, people feel like they're at home. And I've had people come up to me in restaurants and gas stations and say, hey, Paul Daniels, right? Yes. Who are you? Well, I'm such and such. I'm part of your awesome audio files community. Thank you so much for creating that. I found my people and it's like my home. And that has just been a blessing. And through that journey with Austin audio files, I realized this is a database of people that have a common interest and trust with me. So why don't I give them some free speakers for real estate referral? And so I started marketing in my group, free speakers for someone that sends

33:51 me a real estate referral, or if you buy or sell a home yourself, I'll give you these speakers. And so we were able to start marketing within our group. We have to do it tastefully because the last thing I want to do is be a guy that owns a community and then is just always blasting his own ads kind of stuff. That's not the way I want to come across to people. I want to be a person of integrity and someone that people look up to as a leader but also provides a service, a good quality service for them. But on the other side you're authentic in the sense that you love music right and you love absolutely you love audio Absolutely. Yeah, and so that group has grown to be about 3,600 members at this point and it's a solid local community only for Austin

34:38 The reason I created it like that is because I want people to have Listening parties at their houses. I want people to engage the local Audio shops and There's a lot of audio groups out there that it's not anything different, but when you're too broad, you can't create community at the level to where people can see each other, engage each other. Somebody has a problem with some audios needing some repair. Well, of course, you can get on Google and find something in Indiana or New Jersey. But what about my local shops? Where can I take something where somebody knows how to work on capacitors on this amplifier? So. I pulled in all of the local audio professionals that work on audio equipment for home theater

35:25 and home audio and also sales. So a lot of the businesses, small businesses in Austin that sell audio are all in my community. And I actually created a list, a database list of all the businesses, repair shops. There's a couple guys in there that actually can bring in audio from different areas of the world. And so these people are in my list that our group members can reference to. And so that community has been amazing and I've gotten some really cool speakers in the house because of it. But after going through that journey, it's still in play now, the Austin

36:10 Audio Files community. I also created a lot of people wanting to buy and sell their own equipment. So I created like a sister group called Austin Buy-Sell Audio and that has five or six thousand members in it. And that's where a lot of the audio deals locally take place as well. So it's kind of cool that all of this has organically happened and I've learned so much from it. And the biggest takeaway from that is just people are longing for community, which is a beautiful thing to have. Yeah, especially after COVID and, you know, being at home and, you know, kind of alone for a long time. Well, during COVID, yeah, it really picked up because people were home and didn't have anyone to, you know, hang out with. But we have music and movies. And so it picked up around that time frame as well. Yeah.

36:58 I love how you've combined a lot of your passions into one, right? You've been able to strategize your life around your passions. That's so important to feel fulfilled, especially as an entrepreneur, because we put a lot of fulfillment on our business. And when business is good, we're good and when business is bad, sometimes we can feel bad. But to have other passions that make you get up every day and at least facilitate life in a different way besides business is so important. It is. It's been an outlet for me as well to where I feel like I can still engage in the things that I enjoy and the things I'm good at that I really aren't work. But how can I also utilize this to put food on the table? Because I still have to eat at the end of the day. So we did the same

37:47 thing with another community. We built the largest private exotic car community, if not in Texas, possibly the U.S. We have close to a thousand members and it's all local Austin based. It's called Austin Supercars and Exotics. We call it ASE for short. So the reason I built that community is because we did have a good year in real estate. Since I sold my Viper and my cool toys back in the days, Man, I went about a decade with no cars. We shared Lindsay's car for so long. We had a good year and we picked up a really cool Audi RE white body. And ironically enough, it was even our branding colors, white, black, and red, which match all of our Daniels

38:35 team logos and our branding. So we were really excited about that. Lindsay even picked out a cool license plate that says real estate on the back. So that's kind of cool and When we got that car We could not find a community to be a part of Years back. I did have another exotic car community in a message Message board forum back when those were popular had about 400 people back in the day So I've been kind of a leader in the car community for about 25 years. I know a lot of people so We couldn't find a community and Lindsay came out to me in the garage one day, I was tinkering on something and she said, Paul, build it. And I said, okay. I said, are you sure? Because this is going to consume me.

39:21 She said, build it. And so I took all of my knowledge and experience from Austin audio files and I applied it to building Austin supercars and exotics. And that has been something that's just been amazing because we have connected with the. Most brilliant people in Austin high achievers. It's taken us up a level because we are the people we hang around and so We we've had these immaculate stunning events with multi multi million dollars worth of exotic cars out hyper cars things that people won't ever seen their lifetime and It's just been a dream come true for me. It has also allowed us to sponsor events with the Daniels

40:07 team So we haven't had a ton of business from that group and that's not why I built it, to just obtain all this business and these leads. The group is a passion project because I'm good at cars and I know a lot of people and I wanted to build a community like Austin Audio Files and sure enough... I have people coming up to me saying, Paul, this is just so awesome. This community, everybody's so nice because a lot of the communities when you get into that kind of higher net worth of people are kind of like private hush hush as far as you have to know somebody to get in. And this is a community I built and designed to say, if you've got an exotic car, you're in, you don't have to know anybody. Just hang out with us. If you work in the exotic

40:54 car industry, for instance, if you're a technician at Ferrari of Austin, Maybe you sell cars at Ferrari or with Lamborghini. Well, you need to be in our community because these are our people. So we've sponsored events and we've had we've collaborated with Ferrari, Lamborghini, high tech motor cars has been one of our biggest collaborators. They sell Bentley, Aston Martin, Maserati, Porsche, and I'm missing one, Rolls Royce. And then they also have a luxury division where they sell Lamborghinis, Ferraris, and other resale cars. They also sell Lotus. So we had them sponsor with one of our big events recently called La Bella Vie that me and Lindsay put on with a few people. And

41:40 that was a phenomenal experience. And it really allowed us to promote the Daniels team and do it in a tasteful way to where we're not throwing it in people's face in our community, but on events we're able to sponsor. That's been a big blessing. And that community is a community that you would definitely, it requires time to build trust with people. So it's not something that's happening overnight to start having a bunch of people from the community jump out and say, Hey, Paul and Lindsay, we want to get you guys to sell our home or we want to buy a home with you guys. It's a long game and it's okay. But the best part of it is we get to enjoy something together that's just out of this world. So yeah.

42:26 And guaranteed it would have never shaped up that way if it hadn't been done in an authentic way. Right. I agree. And that's what's really cool about it is Going in with it with the right intentions because we did not go into building the community to get business We wanted a place to hang out with people around different settings and scenes and we wanted to build a community But organically we started finding ways to say well, wait a minute. We run a real estate business why can't we sponsor an event with our Daniels team logo and and Get some recognition for it. And so that's organically how some of that has happened Quite a fun journey. You've mentioned community so many times and you've created one

43:15 for your love of audio and now one for your love of cars. What is the purpose behind it from your perspective, right? Why do you feel like you really love the community aspect? I think community is something we all is inherent in our human nature. Isolation is one of the worst things that anybody can go through. It's very detrimental to be isolated. And when you have community at any level, and I see this even with the higher net worth people that you think just have it all, and they're great folks, but man, they come to life when they're around their community. And it's something that no matter what phase of life you're in or what stage of life, your

44:01 net worth, we just all need community and I've been part of community groups at churches I guess back in the days and I kind of started really understanding and learning what that word meant as far as that type of community but putting it in just typical applications of passion and hobbies it's something that people really just taught me something from it. It's been awesome. One of the great things too with our ASC, Austin Supercars and Exotics community is we're able to give back, but we've done probably 30 plus events over the last couple of years. We're only two years old in that community. And there's

44:46 been all kinds of charities that we've had sponsor at our events. And so Lindsay and I are able to give back through that by creating and helping to organize the events so that the charities can then benefit. So it's also a great way of giving back. I don't know if it's because you're from Austin but there's such a down-to-earth grounded energy. that you give off, um, and to, to be so interactive in the community. I mean, you know, I, from those, from those adjectives, I almost take more of like an introverted side, but you're so extroverted and you're so out there. You, you present yourself like a true entrepreneur. Um, but to have that grounded and down to earth nature is so cool. Yeah, thank you. I think I've had a lot of practice. I've had a lot of speaking,

45:32 uh, opportunities with, with individuals one-on-one. and really trying to connect with people and be authentic but have that childlike energy too when it comes out. I love life and I love people. Yeah. And then you talked about community, man. It's a, you know, especially in this day and age where we're glued to our phones or our computers. Um, you know, the community aspect is so vitally important to the health and wellbeing of, of everyone. Um, you know, you really get it, but I think there's, there's a lot of sayings out there. When, when you start to get older and you stop doing what you love, you, you crumble. Um, and, and the, the being around the community and the people that, um, the, the things that you, that you love and enjoy coupled with the

46:19 people that also love and enjoy those things. Yeah, I, I highly agree with that. It's something that we all need. We all need to tap into that inner child and let, let loose and be around the people we love and connect with. One of the biggest things for Lindsay is the Latin community with salsa dancing. She lived in Mexico for a couple years and went to language school. The people of Mexico became her friends, her family, her people. And she had a culture shock when she came back to the US at that time. It was years ago before I met her. But we go out salsa dancing frequently. And when she's not out salsa dancing, if a week goes by or two weeks, I see it in her in her energy. She's like, I'm missing out, you know, and we might be doing a car event

47:06 that weekend and I'm getting my fix, but she's not getting her fix. And so it's like, Hey baby, let's go salsa dancing. Let's go hang out with your friends. And, and she has some great guys that she knows from the salsa dance community. She's been a part of that community for way longer than myself. And she has these friends that she's danced with for many years that are, I just, I love watching them dance and cut up and laugh. And it's just something that brings her joy. And we don't get that. it at home or place of business or school, you know, whatever we do is as people of society, we have to have those outlets to really just, you know, have those big belly laughs and let loose. So it's a lot of fun. Yeah. And man, you touch on, you touch on the community that people create and now you're

47:53 able to create a community. that someone can be introduced to by, um, you know, the area of town that they might want to live in. Right. And so, yeah, I mean, just to tie this back on the real estate side, like the more that you can get ingrained with the person that wants to buy a house. Now you're really able to tap into the area of town that they might find their community in. Absolutely. Lindsay and I are both really big on connecting people. We're connectors. If someone has a need or something they have interest in, we'll find a connection for them because it's important for them to. come to Austin and live life to the fullest. Totally, totally. I'm sure you get it a lot, but you guys are a true power couple. Thank you. Thank you for coming on Paul. How can people get associated with you? Obviously your Facebook groups are going to be,

48:38 if you're an audiophile or if you have a super car, you know exactly where to find you, but also the danielsteam.com? Yes, just even Google Paul Daniels, Lindsay Daniels, we pretty much pop up at the top. Our actual business is the Daniels team with Keller Williams Luxury. So that's also pretty easy to find. We have websites and all of our social media, Instagram. We have all kinds of great content out there for people to look at. That's amazing. And I'm sure you've gone from back in the day to get the keywords optimized. Yeah. Awesome. Thank you very much, Paul. Thank you.