Ryan Gebauer: Realtor, Disability Advocate
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Ryan Gebauer has led a very interesting life. In June 1995, when he was only 16 years old, Ryan and his friends were climbing a tree in his neighborhood, as teenagers often do. When Ryan jumped out of that tree into the lake below, his world was changed forever. Ryan lost balance, landed in the water breaking his neck at the C3-4 level and leaving him paralyzed. He was hospitalized for six months following his injury. During that time, he had numerous surgeries, went through rehabilitation, and generally learned how to live as a quadriplegic.
Since that day, he has been a quadriplegic, paralyzed from the neck down. While many would simply give up, Ryan made another choice. He chose to get better rather than bitter. With that positive attitude, in 2008 he received a Masters in Business Administration after receiving a Bachelors of Arts in Political Science, Criminal Justice and Business, a real estate license in 2004, became an advocate for the disabled, and a pillar of the community. Ryan was forced in the harshest manner and at a very early age to learn to overcome obstacles and with that knowledge he helps people.
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S01E13 Ryan Gebauer.mp3 - powered by Happy Scribe
Welcome to the Enable Disabled podcast. I'm your host, Gustavo Seraphine. I was born with a rare physical disability called PFG. My journey has been about self acceptance, persistence and adaptation. On the show, we'll explore how people experience disability. The stories we tell ourselves can both enable and disable our vulnerability is the foundation for strength and why people with disabilities can contribute more than we imagined. I hope that leaders, companies, clinicians, families and friends will better understand our capacity to contribute to the world and help enable us to improve it.
Ryan Gebauer is an entrepreneur and realtor, is the founder of the Ryan Realty Group in Coral Springs, Florida. Ryan story is powerful at 16, injured despite an accident and is quadriplegic. Like all of our guests, this is not the whole story, nor does it define who Ryan is as a person. I encourage you to listen to Ryan's story of adaptation and strength, thanks to a symbiotic relationship with technology. Ryan is thriving through his life journey and helping other people with disabilities find accessible real estate in South Florida.
If you're enjoying the show, please share it with other people that you think will enjoy it, too. Spreading the word about the work we're doing is a key component to our growth and sustainability. Thank you so much.
All right, Ryan, thank you so much for being here. It's an honor, it's a privilege. And my producer met you at the Abilities Expo and you have an incredible story. And you're doing a lot of exciting things that I'm really wanting to dove into. So can you tell us just a little bit about who you are? You know, just let's touch briefly on your disability experience.
So some. Thank you for inviting me. It was just a fluke that I came across, I really didn't know if I was going to be able to attend all the virtual. But it's great that that was an opportunity that abilities had provided because I would travel to go into the expo. One of the short of it is that with the virtual I've been able to learn a lot more and meet individuals like yourself, background on myself as I was not born with a disability.
I was 16 years old, just completed my sophomore year in high school here in Coral Springs, Florida. I was the group of friends. It was just something that we did. We were like the MTV Jackass guys. We just didn't have the cameras. We did all the goofy adrenaline rushing out of not the type of stupid pranks and anything that our case dealt with water. So I climbed up a tree about 36 feet up and I leap to the intentions to land in the canal.
And I lost balance and did a belly flop with the water. And that's when I became a C three four complete quadriplegic. At the time, I knew someone had a spinal cord injury because Christopher Reeve was injured. About a month prior to me in nineteen eighty five. I was doing ninety five years May. So I learned and heard through news and watching Sports Center and on the news in regards to his injury. That's how I learned of spinal cord injuries because of him.
So I knew at the time. But I also thought that life is over with. We provided me with technology, but the system of voice recognition wasn't really out there and where it is today. But we I was taught to try and dictate this is all part for me to return back to high school. So while I was in high school, I was in rehab. I thought that I was going to go home and she's probably better just to sit at home and do nothing, because how can someone at my level of injury be successful, be able to go out and about?
Yes, I has a wheelchair. Yes, my family was in the van. But, you know, why would I want to go back to school? Because school equals education and education, because work. And I would I need to work now with my disability. So thankfully for my parents, my father died in the fire. I'm going to say you need to go back to graduate to pursue in college and figure out what you want to do.
And I just wanted to remain where I'm at today. So ultimately is from twenty six years of living, a spinal cord injury shoulder movement is my highest functioning level outside my lowest functional level that I can use my head and neck. But everything below that shoulder is my paralysis level and I'm dependent on technology and my caregivers to assist me with my daily living as well as my independence.
So can you can you tell us a little bit more? Ryan, you said that your your mother and your family were obviously a huge a huge support structure. But as you started to make the effort and as you started to say, OK, I'm going to go back to high school, I'm going to graduate. What did your what did your adaptation look like? What did you start to pick up on in and see a little bit differently than than you were seeing before when you were basically ready to give up?
So my parents. They created the foundation and through the process of going back to high school and there was hurdle's and every step of the way it was one to sometimes it felt like a million hurdles that were being thrown because the foundation that my my parents had created, of course, although I was in essence tied by the umbilical cord, so to speak, they kept pushing and pushing. They kept pushing to extend that umbilical cord as much as they knew they were there to help me and support me if I ever needed to come back, drag me back in.
But the long and the short of it is, is that as they pushed me forward, I met others and I met others through teachers for counseling teacher in high school who said, do you have a lot of opportunity and inspire others to continue doing what you're doing? So that helped me in the back of my head and know continue moving forward. Friends, friends. I never even thought that I would even hang out with prior to my injury, became good friends and still good friends, so that even if that means Facebook them during the holidays, they became very great supporters.
And then once I started volunteering, it was an opportunity that was given to me to volunteer for some from living back in 1998 1999 that opened up doors of there. Are there resources that are out there going back to not only high school, but completing high school, getting over that hurdle and then going to college and the United States government, state of Florida providing accessibility, providing scholarships, providing vocational rehabilitation to allow individuals with disabilities to go to school, to attempt to do something that they have a passion for.
So then I go to school and showed me all the different technologies, like the one where I now the head mouse. I never knew of it. I only do voice recognition. So every step that I went forward was someone else's. I met another organization, another entity that said, Did you know about this? Did you know you can do this? You know, you can take these resources and build upon the initiative that you're focusing on. And that continues to this day to work on that.
So my parents were the ones that started the foundation for me. Tell me about that. Umbilical cord pushed me forward today. I will say that that support is no longer there. My mother passed away 14 years ago. My father my parents were divorced prior to that, I say, but my father was still there when needed emotional support. He's certainly there. I want I live independently is my sister and my nephew. And I know when I need the help, I've got it.
And I have other caregivers that are around me that help me do that and can reach where I need to go. And I'm just part of a great support group and great people and meeting someone like yourself and just trying to thrive and continue on doing the best that I can with what I have and being content with my lifestyle. And hopefully one day others could follow suit and understand that it's not just me, it's all of us, including yourself, that has a passion that they don't want to give up, that they can continue going forward.
And just the resources that are out there and making sure that you can you can grab them and move forward with.
That's amazing. Um, was an. And I just have one one question on there's a lot of great I want to go into the technology aspect of it, too, but, um, when you went into college, how accessible were you? Where you commuting to and from home or were you in the dorm rooms and college? Was the college that you went to really good about helping you with the things that you needed help with and giving you the freedom that you wanted as well?
Like, did you feel did you feel comfortable that you feel accepted? Did you feel like this is a great learning opportunity here? What was that college experience like or what what what were the hurdles there to so to we a little bit. When I returned to high school, a Broward County provided me with an occupational therapist and a physical therapist and mostly with the occupational therapists that wanted to make sure that each of the rooms that I was assigned to the class, that there was enough room for me to get in and that was my wheelchair.
So that was a step that I learned that this was something that I needed to understand moving forward in education when I when I provided me with technology. So I had a laptop with Dragon Dictate Software, and that's how I did my schooling. When I went to community college. I started up our community college college today first because I didn't want to just jump into the university. I so wanted to transition the transit transit student from home to to school and then went live on campus.
Been attending college, they were volunteers from each of my classes to volunteer to be a note taker. The disability office provided technologies as well as separate rooms for testing. So they provided resources that allowed extended time or for any person to come with me to do lots of research at the library. They provided those resources when I graduated and went to Florida. Atlantic University is where my undergrad as well as grad school for the Master's in business program. There was more resources at the university level that they could actually pay no takers to come to my class, take notes as well as a lab assistant or a library researcher.
All classes that I attended through 90 percent of my undergrad and grad school were in person in attendance because when I started college in ninety eight. By the time I finished undergrad, it was two thousand four, by the time I started, grad was two thousand five hundred graduate grads, two thousand eight. So we weren't really doing a lot of virtual as we are today. And we were not doing a lot of Internet courses. But I also had to take a couple of them at the tail end of my grad school, which that was a whole nother concept that provided books books out of the PDF for me.
Either way, each high school, junior college and university, there was some that was in charge, making sure that I had the resources, technology that I had, the accommodations, the classrooms, and that I was provided with all equal access and that I was given the same amount of equal time. If not, maybe a little bit more was needed because I had to tell someone to use a calculator or computations rather than let me do it myself.
So in a time and a half, but everything was given to me to to help assist with learning as well as accomplishing the tests and the assignments. And as the years have passed, technology has also become so much better, especially with the voice recognition stuff. But I have I haven't been in school since two thousand eight, so I'm sure there's a lot more resources that are given to students today.
That's impressive, though, to to know that. And the the work ethic, the desire, the the the internal motivation, all really important things that that. Helped you thrive, can we've met you've mentioned technology a bunch of times now, so can talk a little bit about your relationship with technology. What are some of the most important technologies for you for for daily living that you you know, that you really are important to you that help you do what you want to do?
So I'll give you a comparison. So when I was in rehab, prior to my injury, my family never owned a computer. We had a very insightful opinion that you can possibly imagine a library that's that's where research was done. And typewriters, basically anything was typed up if it wasn't ready. So we didn't we don't own a computer. I was injured when I was in rehab. I was taught how to use a computer, which was something I had overcome.
No one learned how to use a computer to not do the norm, which is a keyboard in the mouse. But using voice was another challenge. And I had to learn technology then speaking to voice recognition sound like this. So there's pauses between words as today as we were speaking to Google, Siri or, you know, doing speech to text to speech in a manner, as I'm speaking right now and answering your question. So we've improved significantly when I was in rehab and giving the opportunity to use the voice recognition once I was at home.
I continue to use that all the way up until two thousand. Two thousand eight. I was using voice recognition through my computer now at home, as I was called environmental control, and it was the company by the name Quartet and Quartet, similar to my superstrong that used to drive my wheelchair and a microphone that came around in front of my face. And the training would record three commands if I had a runny nose. I was under weather a little bit.
It really didn't work as great if the microphone was here and then come over here, it didn't work. So to be able to run the house of electrical components like the lights ceiling fan, the door opener was great because it allowed me to be fully independent. Fast forwarding two thousand eight, when I started to work after grad school, it was very difficult to use the voice recognition and be able to be on the phone because it commands for the voice recognition or wake up, go to sleep.
So as I'm here now answering your question, I'd have to have it in a sleep mode. But if I had heard something like the command, I just said, wake up, it would start typing everything out in front of me. And I was at the same and sleep. Now, if I'm on the phone with someone that doesn't know that I have a disability. Hold on a second. Go to sleep on the question, why are you telling me to go to sleep?
No, no, I'm not telling you to sleep on my computer. Go to sleep. Two thousand nine. Who's speaking to the computer? We all are speaking to our computer. So ask the question. You're speaking to a computer. What are you talking to? What are you doing? Who are you trying to learn? Other technologies? And that's what led me to the mouse. So I use that today so I can be on the phone with anybody.
They have no idea that I even have a disability now. Not that people often ask phone ask this to begin with, but it seems like a natural a true conversation when those conversations happen. Now, there are many people that I work with. I know I have this really understand what the last phrase like. Do you want me to email you or not? I can type it. I'm doing it right now as we speak. How are you doing that?
So they're quite amazed that that's happening. So the technology that I'm using right now, I can actually be typing something as I'm speaking to you. You would also see here because we're on video, which is audio. You would have no idea that was doing when it comes to the animation aspect of it that environmental control units and I no longer use Alexa to replace them. And I don't want to command too much because things will start to work here.
But when I use the commands today, I open the garage door, close it, open the kitchen door hughleys or close. It closes because it automatically lights fans ac the thermostat, these factories, the heat, ventilation, ac the camera, the ring, doorbell. Because I have the echo, you can even you can even control TVs and cable boxes.
And so what I'm wearing right now are the glasses so I can drive around the area. I can be in my and down the street. I have my cell phone. They make phone calls. I ask it to open the door, close the door. What's the process that I tell my text messages? Right, right on my glasses. When I'm in my van, I have the lotto. I can have it open the garage door before I even get to the garage.
I don't drive. We drive with me when I'm in bed. I can have the fan on and off the space heater. When we are closer and so forth, I turn on and off. I can control everything. And so it's made my life my whole life so much better since the simple voice recognition of Dragon and Dictate and the Quartet by remote control unit.
That's incredible. And so the glasses that you're wearing are basically tied to the Aleksa, so the glasses are her. Of the silver, that the silver hair square is an infrared in front of me, and when I move the milestones, I see, so I just basically took the sticker and stuck it on the glasses. OK, that's.
The power of technology is an incredible thing, and so my question for you I want to dove into is what got you into real estate?
So when I was in grad school, proprietaries for an opportunity to take a real estate class for business, which would have used as a elective credit, so I decided as I was waiting to get accepted to grad school after all my testing, because I just took a summer course with the intentions of using it for credit and I thought in real estate was interesting. My father was a real estate agent well before I was born. My father was also into interior design after I was born.
So housing, in essence, was around me in the business world on my dad's part. So I said, let me take the class or get credit for it, you know, down the road. And I was watching also for this house, which was in South Carolina at the time, and I thought it was really cool. So I had an interest in it, but I had no intentions. I was really going to do anything with that.
When I was in the class, the professor, I said that all of us, if you passed the course, you can take a state exam. So I for one as well, two for one to pay for it, which I did. As I grad school and I sort of become more involved with disability organizations and volunteering, I started to begin to see that individuals with disabilities, especially seniors, 50 or older, were having a difficult time finding the needs.
Now, I'm not talking an average 50 year old that could be playing football or play racquetball. I'm talking. A 50 year old that needs to use a rope later or a walker that needs to use some type of equipment for there for the accessibility and getting them around, especially around their own living environment. And a lot of that when it comes to the physical aspects of wheelchairs for those who use walkers, role, interest, space, they need the proper space.
So as I started to realize that some of the members of the support group that I was involved with were trying to just find basic rentals and rentals, that they can get into a bathroom building code and change it to the 90s because the ADA helped change the building code. But residential does not fall under lease. And so the challenge is that when someone was looking for a rental on a fixed income, is that, yes, to get through the front door and likely is they can get that from master bedroom, but from the master bedroom into the bathroom, you're talking 20 instore when their wheelchair could be 30 inches wide at the widest point, or they're a paraplegic and they would like to get into the bathroom.
But the way that the bathroom was. So with my purse, my ability to see angles, 90 degree angles and turning that radius as well as someone in a wheelchair is all based on the individual needs. You can't just take yourself and myself and everyone in a wheelchair and say, hey, everyone, are you going to work in this environment? We all have needs that are going to be different from each other. My church is very long based.
I'm going to be a lot of room when it comes to turning and the turning radius to someone that's smaller based furniture. I can do 90 degrees on a dime. So I was able to use that ability to see what we work and what wouldn't work. And as I started to gain more knowledge, I understood that this was an. A market that wasn't being met, that was a niche that I knew that I could get involved with and I did.
So I started working for a very large brokerage, national brokerage. And as I started to progress, my intentions were fully disabled and and senior. But then I started working with a lot of everybody, individuals that had no disabilities. So then there was another challenge there. OK, well, now, not only do I want to learn the real estate part of it, but. I'm not just your normal age now, they're using me because they want to use me, not because they're disabled.
So I had to get over that little bit of internal challenge for me. But as I started to see that, I can do this for anybody. And that anyone can do this, I really started to enjoy learning that can I sell a two story home in a wheelchair? Absolutely. Technology. So figuring those challenges and overcoming allow me to really progress. And I want to do more. So I decided to go on my own and create my own brokerage because I was able to do the things that I want to do.
And I had a lot more flexibility and able to then also be considered a minority because working for a brokerage firm, independent contractor. But being the broker, I'm a minority business owner because of my decision, so that that helped me as well and I started to see things grow, so see more individuals that I wanted to be involved. I currently have two great sales associates who have been licensed longer than I have been born or been alive and their licenses in the mid 70s, a few years before I was born.
So they are way more experience than I do when it comes to real estate, but they want to be able to help the senior segment. I have a gentleman who's a paraplegic and is a good friend of mine, so I wanted to be involved as well as a friend's father, who is also a senior. But they felt comfortable by working with me because I felt that there was the niche that they also liked, which was especially seniors or disabled, and thought I was a really interesting concept and wanted to hang their license and speak.
So that's where I'm at today. And I'm not against anybody working with me. And I don't care what color you are or what disability you have. I think we all have the right of doing what we want to do. If you want to be a real estate agent, by all means, tell everyone you may not go and sell that million dollar mansion, but at least you get an education so you can understand what it comes that time for you to purchase something that you have an education, just as I did.
Absolutely, I would imagine to Ryan that when. When you are meeting with clients and you are on your it's your own business now, like I have my own business to. There is a sense in which the clients choose you, but we choose the clients, too.
So we get we get the ability to say, no, I really want to work with this person. I want to earn this person's trust. This person is going to see that there's probably advantages to big advantages for how you see things, whether they have a disability or not. Maybe they have a family member who is maybe they have friends who are maybe they're going to say, you know, Brian's going to see things in a different way and it's going to be advantageous for me when I'm when I'm analyzing this property and whether I want to buy it or.
No. Yeah, it's very true and that's very true and I think because. Anyone who has a discussion with the real estate aspect of it. But anyone who has a disability, I realize I just go into a grocery store. I have had many, many older gentlemen, and the likelihood is they will send some type of service and I mean, they were a service men of some type of branch, I could tell that because usually they got the ability to have it on and on.
But their assumption is that I was a veteran. So they'll come over and be like, hey, buddy, keep up the good work. Thanks for being there for our country and how we're all here for each other. I was never a veteran. I was 16 years old, I jumped on a train to sustain my own injury. I did not fight for our country. But. What his notion is, is that in his mind is someone that's in a wheelchair like myself.
That those are in wheelchairs are veterans. And. He is acknowledging that he's glad to see me at the grocery store. Rather than stuck at home or in a nursing home. Go beyond that mindset. But when someone I come in contact with and I speak with and they find out like. I could be showing a property, for example. And I could be waiting for a client or I could be at a fifty five or older community, and I've had this happen multiple times and a lady comes up to me and says, we need to go over to the clubhouse because they will help you get in to the unit.
And ma'am, I'm a real estate broker. I have access to the unit. I'm just waiting. And her eyes light up like, you know, let me guess, I'm in a wheelchair. I understand that. But. To her surprise. And then the other portion of it is people are inspired, they're inspired by seeing those that are real true, that are playing wheelchair rugby, wheelchair basketball. You're starting to see Target with individuals in wheelchairs on the commercials.
This is an inspiration to our community that you can go out and be competitive and go out and work and be part of society. And there are companies and businesses and people that want to be accepting and want you to represent them and be their realtor or their insurance agent or the cashier at Target. And that's the great thing about seeing it, is people want to choose you because they're inspired by us, choose us because they're inspiring that we are not giving up.
No. Continue to thrive in.
Absolutely. And those are all those are three very, very different mindsets, the military one is interesting because I hadn't heard that one before, and that's really intriguing because I tend to think of that as. A healthier way of looking at it, as opposed to surprised that somebody with a disability is doing something right. So the fact that it's like. Whether you were injured or not, fighting for the country. Doesn't matter, doesn't really matter, but the fact that you are there at the grocery store showing up, the fact that you are living your life, the fact that you are thriving.
It's an acknowledgment of that, and that feels good.
And it also feels good that he's willing to come up to me and he takes his hand with big grip and I feel my shoulder smack right on my shoulder because I've been all up and not just here, I've had multiple times happen. And it's really it's really an awesome thing because I know I'm a veteran. He was he fought for our country. He fought for me to be there. And I start. It's credible.
What are some of the things, Ryan, that you would like to see changed? In the real estate market, right where the ADA doesn't have to have an effect, like what are some of the simple things that architects, designers, if you're remodeling a home, what are some of the easiest things that that we can do to make homes more accessible or to think like with a more universal design in mind makes them like.
You just nailed it. Universal design, universal design is the best concept ever put together for the fact that. When I'm speaking in real estate, I'm only speaking because of my experience in South Florida. There are other areas of the country that are have a lot of rural areas and a lot of development and have the land to do so. Here in South Florida, land is scarce. And if you can get a hold of land, which means downtown Fort Lauderdale, you knock down 20 homes and you build a three storey building.
That's great. They're going to follow the new building code. They're going to likely have a lot of amenities that are accessible, especially getting into the rooms and also to the card or movie theater that's on premises. But when it comes to the individual units. But, you know, for me, I don't hear about the. Roland showers with. But that doesn't mean that everyone needs that role and shower. So if you add a bench to a shower that you can roll a wheelchair into and not have any barrier that's going to prevent you from the wheelchair into which was those the step into the water barriers, the water from the bathroom?
I totally understand why they do it. The wider doorways, those 90 degree turns are not easy for everyone when it comes to. Right now, we're seeing a lot more land being purchased and two story homes or townhouses filling in those spaces, if that's the case and we need to start looking at two master bedrooms, one on the first floor that has accessibility and one on the second floor. Because not everyone that has a spinal cord injury, which I do.
Doesn't discriminate. So for someone who may live in a townhouse. Their bedrooms are on the second floor and all of a sudden they circumvent by the disability or spinal cord injury and now they have to return home where they return home. The the problem that I experienced most. Is that when a builder builds multifamily, which is five or more units. They're not taking into consideration the accessibility factors of. And they're just squeezing everything together as much as possible to follow the building code, but it's not leaving room, especially for those that maybe in their forties and fifties may need to start using a wheelchair power chair or even a relator walker that they've got these extra barriers and universal design plays a key role.
If we can design and make these features universal for all equal access and allows so many more opportunities for those with, with and without disabilities all the time to provide better housing.
And what do you think we can do as a real estate professional, as my company that is in the home technology space, what can we do? How can we help spread the word to those architects and to those builders and help get them trained? Like what organizations are out there that are helping them get trained on universal design?
You know, I'm not sure. So that's what I'm not aware of any. And I and I might be wrong. I might just be fortunate. And I'm oblivious to that even exists. I mean, I know that architects learn a.D.A because they obviously have to design. And I know general contractors have no idea, because in order to build that, a lot of the general contractors are focused more on the commercial because Australia is the only thing close to residential is multifamily.
But the multifamily aspect of it is the common area, which means the pool, the clubhouse, the parking lot, the each unit doesn't have to follow, which all that followed anyway. But. I would love to see. Residential has somewhat of a strict enforcement, but not as strict because you do not need a lot of what's required in the commercial aspect of it per unit. But when it comes to the residential aspect of it, that. There have to be universal design.
Now, one of the biggest issues is, is that when the ADA was established, I'm going to have to essentially I'm going to call when the area was established, there was a footprint of that. And I don't remember was by whatever year properties had to follow. But then you had this whole grandfather on the purpose, grandfather purpose for his grandfather. OK, that's fine. Now, you throw that into residential. Does that now mean that my next door neighbor has to convert their home at once?
I think we need to focus from here going forward. Anything built from here going forward needs to follow guidelines. And for those like my property that have been converted, accessibility features. That there is some type of through municipality or through county or state. I would probably say through the municipality. But they're aware of what these features are, if I need to put a hot water heater in my home, I see. Technically, in Coral Springs, if I want to put a satellite on my house, direct TV or dish as a permit.
But if I'm going to go put in a shower and shower, you're going to have to excuse me, you're going to have a change in plumbing, change in electrical if you get permits and doing so. Some of these are noted down, mostly in the case that they're just electrical and plumbing for some reason. That's a good point, because there had an old shower in one of the doors or whatever the case is. And now, for example, my house Springs has a role and showers.
We should have that on. No, because the problem is that if I turn around and sell this home to someone that's coming down from New York because it won't be in Florida, there's no law that says that my my own shower has to continue to shower. They can make their own shower back to the original design in 1971, and they can put it back to that time. So for me. Forget this, my property and I'm looking for real estate, and I said, oh, well, there's one house in Coral Springs two years ago.
I know it was so because I wanted a shower. Now it's back up for sale because those are from your when leave Florida and go somewhere else. It's now back on the market. And I remember that property as a realtor had a roll in shower and the agent didn't take pictures of the launch. I took a picture of the toilet and which is typical, but now I go to show the property was rolling here as a bathtub. How do we fix that problem?
I really don't have a direct answer to it, but I think one of the policies of the counties, especially in Florida in this matter, come together and say any type of construction that's being done, that's putting features, then we need to notice features and need to have a. The county property appraiser appraises each property based on square footage, some bedrooms and bathrooms. Why can't we have these extra features? I mean, you can go to our county proper place and see what kind of roof shingle the concrete pulled that for.
What is the walls? What is the function of the timing of all these things are there. Why can't we have this extra feature when it comes to accessibility?
I think that's a terrific idea right there. And if we do add those, there is the chance I think it gets higher and higher as we go on, that people are going to the value of the property is going to go up, at least for a good number of people because of those features. So, absolutely. I can tell you, working with individuals, one of the biggest thing is I just want to get my own place. But then the question is when I get my place along with all the dust and everything, and if those features are there, or at least some of the features are there, that provides them the quality of life, they would be so happy.
For example, if there is a wider door, there might be a step in shower, but the toilet is not. And it's own little closet, so to speak, has a little door and it's there for means for transfer. There is grab bars balzarini behind the toilet. But there's just a little step into the shower, that's not a huge issue. You basically just have to remove that a little water barrier rather than having to rip out of that, gutting the tiles on the wall and going in there and be doing it with paint and everything.
You may have to do what we do when you bear down, but. There's it's least minimal. Construction lines, for that example, than it is to say, are we found a good blueprint of a master bathroom? Now, we just had to come and go take about four or six weeks, which will permit us to take longer today, because now trying to find the workers to do it at four to six weeks, an average to do permitting to get someone to move in.
And what I don't want to have to see, I always say this and those type of scenarios is don't live in the second bedroom, because with all the dust that's being filtered through the ventilation, you're going to need that upper respiratory dondi and hell, all that stuff. If you have to stay where you're at, you need to be to whatever the case is and let the construction go as it needs to be done, but get cleaned up first, construction, post construction, cleaning and then moving on rather than staying there while all this stuff is going on.
Absolutely, absolutely. I also think we have I know we have we're short on time here, but I find it interesting that if we study other cultures, too, right, if you look at Japanese bathrooms, there's a higher percentage of them that do have rolling showers because what they usually do is they shower first to get clean and then they go and bathe to relax. So they actually have both in their bathrooms most of the time, even with their space constraints, even even within all of those those challenges, they still manage to do that.
So I think we have a lot to learn. And if we can bring some of those design influences from other countries here, I think it would also help.
That's a good point that. That's a look, it's interesting. I mean, I've seen their toilets, we. We have the closet, the toilet closet behind us when we sit on the toilet where an Asian culture is reverse, actually made fun of of politicians at the computer on top of the closet, and they are sitting on the toilet the wrong way in other cultures. That's actually how they use a toilet. They got the closet in front of them where you got the flusher and they're straddling it that way rather than sit around with their back.
Well, I think this has been a terrific conversation and I would like to continue it. I really thank you for your time, for your for your candidness, for your willingness to share everything. My last question for you that I ask everybody is what have I missed that you feel is really important to talk about? A little bit about yourself, because all I can see is from your shoulders back a little bit of a next time, next time, tell us about where you're from and any type of disabilities or.
Things that you've had challenges with.
OK. Absolutely. I will do that. Brian, where can people find you? Where can people contact you if they want to reach out, if they want to hire you, if they want to get to know you better? Absolutely. My brokerage's Ryan Realty group, the website is Ryan Cels, Florida. So that's our way and as well as Florida. And our idea from my email address is Ryan are looking at Ryan Salesforce.com. And my direct number is nine five four six nine six seven two zero four.
Awesome. Thank you so much, Ryan.
Thank you for the opportunity. So.
Helpful links:
Ryan Sells Florida: www.ryansellsflorida.com
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