'Married to Real Estate' stars dish on their 19 year marriage and even share some useful tip for new homeowners.

<div class="block"><i>Married to Real Estate </i>stars Mike Jackson and Egypt Sherrod, joined &#39;Stretching Your Dollar&#39; with some useful tips for new homeowners. A Cheddar News poll found that the biggest concerns among new homeowners are renovations and decorating. The dynamic duo talks saving on design, looking for the best bargains and how they&#39;ve managed to stay together for 19 years.</div>

Stretching Your Dollar

Stretching Your Dollar: How 'Married to Real Estate' Stars Work Together

Well, our next guests are experts in helping new homeowners stretch their dollar all while doing it in a marriage and raising their kids. So here to give us expert tips and all things. Real estate are the stars of married to real estate. If she and Mike Jackson, welcome, we so happy to have you join us from studios. I will start with you on your show. How do you help people stretch their dollar when it comes to home? Well, my middle name is literally Bargain birth. I am the queen of stretching a dollar, but I think most mothers are right. We learn how to things go really far really fast with our clients. It's, you know, number one, what is the budget, what are our needs? We put our needs first and Mike takes care of those obviously with the renovation and construction. Our wants are often in the design. And so, you know, sad to say as a designer perspective, I do take a back seat when it comes to client renovations. But what, what we'll do is always find a way to give you the look for less. There are always alter materials that could be used to achieve the same aesthetic but for, for a much less, you know, number on that price tag. OK. I like that a lot, Mike. I know Egypt mentioned that you're more of a builder per se. Egypt sounds like more of a designer on a broker and real estate broker. Yes, Mike, talk to us about how you come in here and help families and people stretch their dollar alongside Egypt. Well, for example, there's a lot of cases where we run out of materials or materials show up late. So we gotta be strategic and plan out that situation. So like my wife says, sometimes we'll substitute the supplies, for instance, instead of using a particular type of wood, we may use an MD F which is cheap, right? It's always about getting creative and using what you have where you are. How is the working dynamic together between you two? It looks like you have a lot of thought on the show. Is it, is it always miles and curious? No, it's not. That's just what you see. You gotta imagine. Listen, we've been together for 19 years. Um We, we love each other. We work together obviously. Um Yeah, we, we like each other but on Wednesdays, no, we, we have, we have our moments. I mean, I, I quit the show, I quit, quit him and I quit our business for five minutes last week and I came back, you know, after I got a good milkshake. I came back. So, you know, it's marriage and business at the same time. I I love that. Ok, so I know working together obviously comes with a set of challenges. Uh but it sounds like you two have a great approach to it. We do have a clip of you working together. Let's take a look. Ok? So it's not my fault. Ok? You had Jamila tell me why didn't you just tell me what happened? They called me today and said they were behind and can't install the stone backslash until tomorrow. That's our entire hood. The whole backslash. Here's the deal. We're supposed to turn the house over tomorrow afternoon. If they show up early in the morning, it's gonna be crazy if they're working down to the last minute it happens. Look wai come here wsa. Right. What do you say all the time? Half faith, right? Pressure is faith. OK? Good. It's gonna happen. All right. Is this true to form? That is the clip you gotta show that is true to form. That is, that's every day. Yeah, that's every day. But we see our way through it and uh we woo saw and we hug it out. Yeah, I like that. I like that. So overcoming challenges obviously is part of it. But uh it sounds like you two have a good thing going on here. Yes. Yes. We we, I I wouldn't choose to do this life this business or this show with anybody but this guy right here, he keeps me laughing. I love doing what we love to do with each other. We love each other. So it works. Egypt. I know you mentioned earlier that you're a real estate broker in addition, obviously to help you with design, design mean. Uh So what's your best advice on finding a new home? You know, right now, there's still a housing shortage in many areas in the nation specifically where we live in the Southeast region, you know, after COVID, it was like the, the just the the great influx of people moved south, therefore pushing prices high inventory low. And so I am with, with our clients specifically in my brokerage seeing this every day, there's still multiple even with interest rates having, you know, risen so high. So what I'm telling people is number one, stay encouraged, recognize that real estate is cyclical already. They're talking about dropping rates a few times next year. And so I, I would always say buy the house date, the rate that's, you know, something we say in real estate is, you know, there's never a bad time really to get in and off the fence and if rates aren't where you want them to be, guess what if they drop, you can always refinance later, but that house may not be around. I like that by the house date. The that's, that's a good piece of advice here. Ok. So with your combined years of expertise together, what have you noticed is the number one money mistake that people make when it comes to a new home, you take that on here. One that comes to mind when you said that a lot of people throw a monkey wrench in their situation by making big life changes before they purchase a house. For example, one, either they get divorced, which is unfortunate, they go buy a car or they go buy something that throws their credit report off. And so when they go to get pre approved, they can no longer get pre approved because they did not know they should not have made this big purchase. That's before renovation, that's before buying a house. I would say also if the numbers don't work and this is what we say if the numbers don't work neither week. So budget for everything you're going to do in a renovation, make sure you're getting a bonded quote. And that's what a lot of people overlook. You know, when you hire contractors and the numbers just keep changing. And you say, wow, how did we get $40,000 over where we started? You need to make sure that you've worked through those numbers to a t that they're estimating square footage as well. Um You know that they're itemizing the materials and then get a bonded quote and that'll help you stay on budget. Ok. Such good tips. Uh what can we expect to see on season three of married to real estate? Well, some more of the funny, some more of our family. Um, you're gonna actually see us elevate and evolve into our new business, actual having our business because season one and two, you see us trying to progress into finding an establishment. Season three. We actually, yeah, we, we brought all of our businesses into a one stop shop. And so that is um that was definitely a stressor because Mike's been in business for himself. I've been in business for mine but, and, and being married get it all under one roof. You know, it definitely comes to a head, but Indigo Road is now your one stop shop for real estate renovation and design. And so you guys get to see that this season as well as us renovating Cau Clark Atlanta University. So that's a big one. Ok. Uh This is a lot of fun and very helpful. Thank you both for joining Egypt and Mike and you can catch season three of married to real estate December 28th 9 p.m. Eastern on HGTV. We'll be watching. Thanks guys. Bye.