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How to Scale Commercial Real Estate

577 Episodes

18 minutes | Jul 1, 2022
From Building A Small Multifamily Projects to Syndication and Partnerships
  Brian Wagers is a multi-family investor. He grew his family's portfolio to 500 units before moving on to syndication where he is now involved. Been involved in over 150 million worth of apartment transactions. With over 2,000 units through his experience as an owner and general partner. He now seeks to invest and help other high-growth professionals and business owners put their money in a tax-advantaged, risk-adjusted growth space that is multi-family. Highlights:   [00:00 - 05:48] Opening Segment Brian Wagers started out in Northwest Arkansas and bought a single-family home before moving on to multi-family and building a portfolio of 500 units Brian partnered up with Elevate Commercial Investment group.   [05:48 - 11:38] How to Capital Raise Like a Pro: Tips from a Veteran Brian discusses how he has succeeded in the capital raising space by being organized, adding value, and being competitive. He talks about the challenges of the capital raising space, including interest rates and cap rates. He emphasizes the importance of underwriting for higher cap rates and staying ahead of the competition. Transparency is Important in Communication   [11:39 - 15:00] Investors Shift Focus to Classier Properties Their Company is keeping its cap rate at 2% or 3% annually, depending on the location and asset class. They are starting to look more seriously at A-class assets due to the compressed cap rates. The market for A-class assets is appealing to institutional investors and provides less risk than buying a house. Developers Look to Multifamily Properties as an Exit Strategy The interest rates for multifamily properties have decreased, which has made them more affordable for buyers. Multi-family properties are becoming more liquid, which makes it easier for buyers to find and exit these properties. Class A developers are looking for premiums in multifamily properties, so buyers must find a value that they can add to the spa [15:06 - 17:36] Closing Segment Reach out to Brian Links Below Final Words Tweetable Quotes   “I think, transparency is really important in communication and making sure we are updating our investors, whether things go wrong or whatnot .”  -  Brian Wagers ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Connect with Brian on  LinkedIn   Facebook  Instagram   or email him at Brian@elevatecig.com or visit their website: Elevatecig.com Connect with me:   Facebook   LinkedIn   Like, subscribe, and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or whatever platform you listen on.  Thank you for tuning in!   Email me → sam@brickeninvestmentgroup.com Want to read the full show notes of the episode? Check it out below: [00:00:00] Brian Wagers: I think, transparency is really important in communication. Making sure we're updating our investors, whether things go wrong or what not just when things are going right. [00:00:09] Brian Wagers: If things are slower than expected to let them know what's happening in the market, there's a lot of people are worried about where the market is headed, is it, too hot interest rate changes. So just keeping them updated with educational material on that, I think is important. [00:00:23] Brian Wagers: Making sure you explain your underwriting, I think. Investors are getting more and more sophisticated.  [00:00:41] Sam Wilson: Brian Wagers is a multi-family investor. He grew his family's portfolio to 500 units before moving on to syndication where he is now involved. Been involved in over 150 million worth of apartment transactions. Brian, welcome to the show.  [00:00:54] Brian Wagers: Hey, thanks. Thanks Sam.  [00:00:56] Sam Wilson: Good to be on here. Hey man, pleasure's mine. [00:00:58] Sam Wilson: There's three questions. I ask every guest who comes in the show in 90 seconds or less. Can you tell me, where did you start? Where are you now? And how did you get.  [00:01:04] Brian Wagers: Yeah. So I got started in Northwest Arkansas. About six years ago bought a single family home quickly, diverted over to multi-family had a 12 unit scaled that into another 12 unit and a 20 unit combination of family money, seller financing. [00:01:20] Brian Wagers: Got my hands dirty with a medium sized, small multi-family projects, built up a portfolio of about 450 to 500 units with just me as a lead sponsor me as the only general partner with, friends and family. And just as of recently partnered up with elevate commercial investment group, where now I'm a general partner on, thousands of units. [00:01:43] Sam Wilson: That is really, really cool. I love that story of, building, building a portfolio of 500 units. I'm really curious, once you had figured it out and once you had made it to that 500 unit mark, which is a lot of units, by the way, if you're just a single general partner in 500 units, that's a lot of units, what was the impetus for, joining another team and being a general partner with other people when you can really own a hundred percent of your own deals right now,  [00:02:09] Brian Wagers: right? [00:02:09] Brian Wagers: Yeah. So it was always in the back of my mind. It was, I don't know that it was a aha moment. I think when I first got started in multi-family, the people that I was learning from, they were doing the syndications and they were doing the larger projects. But for me to get started, I really wanted to, have a track record proof. [00:02:25] Brian Wagers: I have somewhat of a proof of concept, My hands dirty and do you know all aspects of real estate. So I've always had multi-family syndications in the background of my head. That's always thinking about different things, but I knew I was gonna focus on multi-family. Just, I was open to doing it different ways, so, About two years ago, I was scaling my portfolio and I was starting to make offers on some of the same deals that I had seen before, they had come back full cycle. So I knew I was playing in a somewhat smaller space. so I knew. that thought of going bigger was going to have to come soon. [00:03:00] Brian Wagers: So I, I was really starting to plant some seeds with some other bigger time operators and looking at how I could provide value to them as I continued to grow. So yeah, I could keep, a hundred percent, and keep trying to do the smaller deals. But I think for me, it was one was the inventory there, where I was coming across. [00:03:19] Brian Wagers: Some of these deals, a couple times. So that was kind of, a good moment for me know, knowing that I had to expand. and it was okay giving up, a portion of that in, in order to really grow, it's who not how you get there. So I'm firm believer in that, partnering up with strategic people to get you to continue to grow. [00:03:38] Brian Wagers: And I didn't want, I'm always trying to be the best version of myself , in all aspects. So. It's okay. To relinquish some control in some areas. And, for me that was partnering up and giving up some of that  [00:03:50] Sam Wilson: partnership. [00:03:50] Sam Wilson: I like that idea there, Brian, that, Hey, I gotta get outta my own backyard. [00:03:53] Sam Wilson: I've gotta go somewhere where somebody else has local market knowledge that you don't have to then rebuild. You don't have to go get into a new market and say, all right, how do I figure out this market? You got somebody else that you that's experienced in it. I guess the question I would have if someone's already in a market and they've already got people on the ground, they're already running a very large operation. [00:04:12] Sam Wilson: What did you bring to the table? Or how did you position it, such that they would say to you, Brian, I'd love to have you be part of the team. What did that conversation look like? Not that you're not a great guy and you don't have great skills. Cause obviously you do cuz you've taken down 500 units on your. [00:04:25] Sam Wilson: But even, so it seems like they would already had all the seats on the bus taken care of.  [00:04:30] Brian Wagers: Yeah. So for me, that was positioning myself, to continue that track record. So it wasn't just, Hey, I'm gonna be a partner with your firm. Like, let's go, it was a deal, work with them on a kind of a JV. Case by case basis. [00:04:46] Brian Wagers: So it wasn't just, I was like, Hey, let me give me an opportunity to prove myself, that's all I wanted was an opportunity to, say I'm going to do what I say I'm going to do. So, that was raising on a couple deals. So we raised on three or four deals before we actually, agreed on a partnership. [00:05:05] Brian Wagers: And that was. Asking for me, I focus on the capital raising piece. So that was going to be my focus. So when I was reaching out, I was reaching out to other operators and seeing if, Hey, is that something that you could bring on? And for the operators that I'm looking at, I'm looking at high. I was looking at high growth operators. [00:05:23] Brian Wagers: So, the two main. Flows of multi-family real estate is, deals and equity. So that was. My main, pivot point was, Hey where can I bring value? And that was in the equity piece.  [00:05:36] Sam Wilson: Right? Right. No, that's that's really cool. What, and again, I'm sorry for digging in, maybe on this so much, but I think it's an important, stepping stones for people who are in this business looking to scale, looking to grow. [00:05:48] Sam Wilson: They want to go, okay. How have other people done? So focused on capital raise. Why not just cog? What would what was the impetus again? I'm just trying to figure out again, not that you're not a bad, not a good guy, but you know, for the other at elevate, was it elevate equity? [00:06:03] Sam Wilson: Was that, was it two elevate commercial  [00:06:04] Brian Wagers: investment group. Okay. Yeah. So, right, right. Like, so, and additionally to just COGP in there was,. Okay. What areas of their business did I find? Like bringing I'm just, when I'm just cog and I was just the capital, but right. Adding value outside of that, during these other deals. [00:06:22] Brian Wa
21 minutes | Jun 30, 2022
Creating Systems in the Fragmented RV Park Industry
RV parks are booming, but there's still plenty of opportunity. Here to talk about how we can take advantage of the space before institutional investors come in is Jeremy Hans.   Jeremy is the co-founder of Climb Capital and has been an active multifamily real estate investor since 2010. He believes that RV parks are a great investment because of the high returns and low risk and discusses their opportunistic approach in finding deals. Jeremy is also passionate about what he does and shares inspiring insights of choosing a lifestyle he wants to live.     [00:01 - 03:29] Building a Lifestyle You Want From reservist to real estate investor How Jeremy is finding work-life balance   [03:30 - 19:38] Pivoting to RV Parks The opportunities in the RV parks industry What a deal looks like in the RV resort space The advantage of being the frontrunner in a lesser-explored asset class Investments that Jeremy and his team are staying away from The long-term potential in destination RV parks Adding amenities and testing the market Launching an RV park investment fund   [19:39 - 21:03] Closing Segment Reach out to Jeremy!  Links Below Final Words Tweetable Quotes   “You could give me multiple millions of dollars in my bank account tomorrow, I wouldn't change what I'm doing. I've chosen the lifestyle that I want to live.” - Jeremy Hans   “If I had better criteria, there'd probably be a lot of more people in this space because there'd be a lot more data, but right now there's not. So I'm making my own and we're making it work.” - Jeremy Hans -----------------------------------------------------------------------------   Connect with Jeremy at the Climb Capital website. Email him at jeremy@climbcapital.com and follow him on LinkedIn, Instagram, and TikTok!   Connect with me:   I love helping others place money outside of traditional investments that both diversify a strategy and provide solid predictable returns.     Facebook   LinkedIn   Like, subscribe, and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or whatever platform you listen on.  Thank you for tuning in!   Email me → sam@brickeninvestmentgroup.com Want to read the full show notes of the episode? Check it out below:   [00:00:00] Jeremy Hans: I think it's more of an issue of where does it kind of fit in the local kind of economy in both size, location, and distance to things that people want to be at. So if you're an RV'er, if you ever RV'ed, you don't necessarily need to be right next to where you're trying to go, but you want to be close and close is relative. It might be an hour. It might be 30 minutes depending what you're looking at. And so, Hey, is there a draw? Is there a reason somebody want to be there? It's it near a major highway? Does it have a water feature and is it a place that I or my family would ever want to visit are kind of the basic criteria that we look at. And if I had better criteria, there'd probably be a lot of more people in this space because there'd be a lot more data, but right now there's not. So I'm making my own and we're making it work.  [00:00:46] Sam Wilson: Jeremy Hans is the former Navy helicopter pilot who began investing in multifamily and commercial real estate while on active duty. He skipped residential real estate almost entirely and recently he has pivoted from multifamily syndications to RV parks, amongst other things. Jeremy, welcome to the show. [00:01:03] Jeremy Hans: Sam. Thanks for having me glad to be here. [00:01:05] Sam Wilson: Hey man, pleasure's mine. Three questions I ask every guest who comes in the show: in 90 seconds or less, where did you start? Where are you now? And how did you get there?  [00:01:11] Jeremy Hans: Sure. So, Jeremy Hans started as a middle class, white kid from the suburbs of America, as white bread as they come, right? So, I did all the right things, went to school, and learn nothing, but, you know, just keep taking the next step to get a job, join the Navy ' cause I thought that was the next step in my life to get, get me started. That was great, had a great time, but realized pretty quick, the harder you work in the Navy, the more work you get, and you don't get paid a dollar more. [00:01:30] Jeremy Hans: So, started planning my exit pretty early on. First thing I ever bought was a fourplex in San Diego as a 22 year old kid. House hacked and BRRRR before those were words and then got moved, not by my own choice to Pensacola, Florida and realized I got to do something else, right? There's no fourplexes to buy here. [00:01:44] Jeremy Hans: And so jumped into commercial real estate on a small scale, met a partner, trying to buy the same mobile home park. And then together we kind of get, got a bunch of education, started just doing deals, started syndicating on a small scale, and slowly kind of grown that to Climb Capital. So today we're a team about 10, primarily focused on syndicating RV parks and then doing some private equity stuff on the side as we continue to sell and operate a few of our apartment and mobile home park deals still.  [00:02:07] Sam Wilson: Wow, man. That's a lot of moving pieces. Now you are, you're still active military? You're reservist? What's your status?  [00:02:14] Jeremy Hans: So I I'm a reservist, so I left active duty in 2017, did a couple more years on active orders as a reservist, but now I'm just a part-time 60 day a year flying helicopter pilot in the Navy reserves.  [00:02:26] Sam Wilson: Oh, man. That's, that's really cool. You, you have a lot of things in the air. What's something or a lot of moving pieces, like balls in the air was the phrase I was looking for, a lot of balls in the air, a lot of moving pieces. How do you organize all of it?  [00:02:38] Jeremy Hans: You know, I, I think the thing that I tell people all the time, right, I also got four kids, got an airplane, do a lot of stuff at church, right? I keep it busy, right? You could give me multiple millions of dollars in my bank account tomorrow. I wouldn't change what I'm doing, right? So I've chosen the lifestyle that I want to live. I want to run a company. I want to be able to do these things. I know that's going to mean a lot of work right now. I'm okay with that. I know that's going to be a lot of long days with little kids. I'm okay with that. And it's just putting kind of, you know, lifestyle priority in check. And maybe that means I don't hang out and watch as much Netflix as I'd like. But I go, I'm done. So, I think that's my answer. [00:03:05] Sam Wilson: Netflix isn't that much fun anyway. Let's, let's all be honest.  [00:03:09] Jeremy Hans: Listen, when you don't watch it for a month or two and you go back, like, there's nothing you want to watch. Like, it's amazing how, you know, it becomes an addiction that you don't even realize when you stop, you know, doing some of that stuff that... [00:03:19] Sam Wilson: Oh, for sure. For sure. and again, you're building a lifestyle that you want. And I think a lot of people at times people use Netflix as an excuse to get away from the lifestyle they built. So, that's, that's awesome, man. Good for you. Tell me, when did you guys switch from multifamily to now syndicating RV parks? [00:03:35] Jeremy Hans: So we made a pivot, really at the end of 2021. We bought our first RV park beginning of 2020, kind of, we're not really planning to do it, just kind of a deal fell on our lap. And then a second one, the same. And then we looked up in the middle of 2021 and we said, Hey, COVID eviction were terrible. [00:03:48] Jeremy Hans: These deals for class C multifamily are getting really thin. The people are not getting any better, locations aren't getting any better, but these RV parks. They're making a ton of money. The people are happy to be here. They're growing by leaps and bounds. There's no information. Let's jump and do something a little bit different. [00:04:01] Jeremy Hans: So, we kind of had a hard conversation, lot teeth sucking and said, okay, let's do it. So, we said, let's sell off everything else. And let's put our full focus on this kind of macro trend right now. And we'll ride this until the wave crashes, I guess.  [00:04:13] Sam Wilson: Well, hopefully the wave doesn't crash, but tell me, tell me what I guess what were the things that turned, you know, the deal fell in your lap, which I think is funny part of the story, like for most of us where all sudden it's like, oh yeah. And then there it was, and then I just did it, but it, there had to be enough compelling information that came your way as you guys dissected this first deal that said, man, this is where we need to go long.  [00:04:34] Jeremy Hans: Right. So, you know, we kind of stair stepped it. Our first deal was an RV park, in the RV park space, wasn't an RV park, but it really looked, operated more like a, a mobile home park. And so we had to learn some of the complexities of the RVs specifically, but the actual model was much more mobile home park esque was something we understood and done for years. And in that process, we brought on our own in house management from day one. [00:04:53] Jeremy Hans: And so we had a little bit more flexibility. So then when we bought our second RV park, that was actually a traditional kind of resort style, you know, destination RV park. We kind of already had built half of the team necessary to run that thing. And so what has been hard for a lot of other people to switch to, which is you can't just call up somebody off of the internet to go run your RV park. [00:05:10] Jeremy Hans: We had already built basically half the system to be able to do that. And so, that second RV park is when we really realized if we kind of dig into this a little bit deeper, there's a lot of opportunity. And so that's when we really started, hey, to expand, you know, basically provide the same CapEx kind of turnaround that we did into a classy multifamily. Similar idea, right, into a hospitality product and just kinda watch that continue to succeed. And then macro, I mean, people want to do, you know, live on the road, remote w
19 minutes | Jun 29, 2022
Investing on Class B and C Assets
  Colby fryer civil engineer that is now a multi-family investor, specializing in C and B minus class assets. And the Principal and Founder of Mountain Bridge Capital, a Multifamily Investment Company specializing in apartment real estate. With a goal  to maximize returns for their investors and provide a stable income source for them over time. Colby and his team are very passionate about providing clean, comfortable housing for people across the country in need of housing.   Highlights:   [00:00 - 06:04] Colby Fryer: Multi-Family Investor, Specializing in C and B Minus Class Assets He started investing in 2013, bought six houses and then decided to get a coach and mentor to help him transition into the multifamily market. Since then, he's invested in over 136 units of multifamily, which has been an exciting journey. One of the biggest challenges he faced was learning how to overcome uncertainties when investing in C and B minus class assets. He recommends reaching out to family and friends for help when starting out, networking with brokers, and doing your due diligence. [06:05 - 11:49] Colby's 4,000 Door Goal Colby’s team is now focusing on turning the property around and getting it rented again. They are expecting to increase rents by 50%. He shares that they are looking to transition out of the real estate business within the next few years. [11:49 - 17:33] How to Succeed in the Real Estate Market in Today's Economy Colby discusses how he scaled into the multifamily space, from no deals to 136 units in a year and a half He recommends starting with lower returns, but going with something that is already done if possible Mentorship is key, selecting someone who is not a guru but will be a mentor [17:34 - 18:50] Closing Segment Reach out to Colby Links Below Final Words   Tweetable Quotes   “I think once you start doing it and you talk to a few people, it gets easier and easier. And, I think you just gotta own up to who you are and. What you're really doing and you have to come up with that new identity.”  - Colby Fryar ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Connect with Colby on LinkedIn  or email him at: colby@mountainbridgecapital.com   Connect with me: Facebook LinkedIn Like, subscribe, and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or whatever platform you listen on.  Thank you for tuning in! Email me → sam@brickeninvestmentgroup.com Want to read the full show notes of the episode? Check it out below: [00:00:00] Colby Fryar: I think once you start doing it and you talk to a few people, it gets easier and easier. And, I think you just gotta own up to who you are and. What you're really doing and you have to come up with that new identity. [00:00:12] Colby Fryar: I'm a, apartment investor now I'm not civil engineer. I'm not whatever else you have to identify that with yourself and when you do that, That really changes the game for you and helps you to connect with people. And people want to help you if they trust you and they like what you're doing. [00:00:29] Sam Wilson: Colby fryer is a multi-family investor, specializing in C and B minus class assets. Anything over a hundred units, Colby. [00:00:49] Sam Wilson: Welcome to the show.  [00:00:49] Colby Fryar: Awesome. Thank you for having me, man. Appreciate  [00:00:52] Sam Wilson: the opportunity. The pleasure's mine. Three questions. I ask every guest who comes in the show in 90 seconds or last, can you tell me, where did you start? Where are you now? And how did you get.  [00:01:00] Colby Fryar: My background's in civil engineering doing a lot of construction project management. [00:01:05] Colby Fryar: So it really transitioned well into what I'm doing. In, multifamily. So we started investing in single family in 2013 bought six, six houses and then decided, well, that's not scaling as much as we like to be. So jumped in, got a coach and a mentor and over a year and a half ago. And. Right now we're sitting at over 136 doors of multifamily. [00:01:29] Colby Fryar: So it's been a journey, really exciting.  [00:01:31] Sam Wilson: I'm sure it has. I mean, going for C and B minus class assets and coming from the engineering perspective, everything I know about engineers tells me that you guys really like to know. Like to a very, very fine degree, what it is that's going on. You're getting into C and B minus or class assets and there's quite a bit of uncertainty, I would think sometimes when you're investing in those projects, how do you overcome that? [00:01:57] Sam Wilson: Yeah, so  [00:01:58] Colby Fryar: It was huge to have the guidance of a coach and a mentor through the process. Somebody that had been through that a little. But yeah, there was definitely some challenges to learn and having that engineering background, you like everything lined out and kind of organized in a package and this business is not that way. [00:02:18] Colby Fryar: You kind of put things together on the run and, it's crazy sometimes but well worth it just a lot of challenges to overcome  [00:02:25] Sam Wilson: for sure. Right. And having a mentor is one thing. What do you feel like some of the questions were that you had early on that were like, I guess, things that made you concerned about your next steps in this business. [00:02:38] Colby Fryar: some of the big things were how are we gonna get money? how are we gonna find the deals, all those things that you have to wrap your head around. And, you kind of have to do a little bit , of both. And so the big thing for us was to start reaching out to family and friends and just let 'em know what you're doing. [00:02:56] Colby Fryar: Tell everybody, and so you start to build those relationships, start to network with people. , and that was really big for our first capital race that we did. , but at the same time, you're, meeting with brokers and so I find that's important for an investor. You don't want to just be a one trick pony show. [00:03:13] Colby Fryar: Or have one, wear one hat per se. You want to be able to do multiple things when you're starting out. I think that drives a lot of value, brings a lot of value to a team in order to get involved in this business. How did you  [00:03:27] Sam Wilson: select your first market?  [00:03:30] Colby Fryar: So our market kind of came through my network and the mentorship group that I was in. [00:03:35] Colby Fryar: Also I'm from New Mexico. So I grew up there and knew Albuquerque well, which was our first multifamily asset that we purchased. And then Las Cruces. I went to college there. So a lot of background in the state and familiarity with the market. And so that, that really helped.  [00:03:55] Sam Wilson: Right, right. [00:03:56] Sam Wilson: absolutely does help. Tell me about this. I mean, know, you went from single family investor in 2013 and 2019, or I can't remember when you said it was, but you decided, Hey you're gonna go into multifamily. Was there ever consideration of any other commercial real estate asset classes? [00:04:09] Colby Fryar: not really. I. looked at mobile home parks. I had looked at a little bit of office space in terms of businesses and that sort of thing, really like the mobile home parks and not opposed to that may do that someday. Storage. I've seen that a little bit, but I think multifamily was really what we wanted to focus on. [00:04:29] Colby Fryar: I think you can get, if you start looking at too many things, you get that, shiny object syndrome. And then, and I think that takes away from your focus sometimes. And I think, especially to start with, you need to just focus on one. And that was why we went with multifamily. Just great asset, I think in terms of cash flow, stability through recessions just can't beat it. [00:04:52] Colby Fryar: Right. And  [00:04:53] Sam Wilson: that's why we chose it. Absolutely buying C or C and B minus assets, probably more in the C class assets. This question may be framed, but how did you know, I guess when you're looking at those assets, there, there can be in what we call a lot of hair on the. How did you know, you could turn 'em around. [00:05:09] Colby Fryar: Yeah. That that's a good point. And we always heard that you gotta be really careful when you go into those types of deals. especially on the C class, you gotta really do your due diligence, but, our main focus was just really trying to get a deal. And this seemed like a great opportunity. [00:05:27] Colby Fryar: And that's the thing with these C assets is even though there's a lot of hair out on 'em, there's a lot of opportunity there because you have the value add. And so if you can turn those assets around, you can typically get 'em at a pretty reasonable price and then drive that value, increase the value which can really help your investors. [00:05:45] Colby Fryar: Now. Other side of that, there is increased risk with those investments which we've learned a lot about.  [00:05:51] Sam Wilson: Tell us a little bit about that. I mean, is there anything you can, as you kind of review, the last year and a half, is there anything you feel like you could've done better or that you would do differently? [00:06:01] Sam Wilson: Yeah,  [00:06:01] Colby Fryar: I think during our due diligence, we could have done a lot better job. There was some things there we could have seen. And I'm talking about our bigger deal in New Mexico that we did. It was a syndication. This particular deal, like you said, had a lot of hair on it. and when we visited the properties and did our inspections, I think we missed out on, on seeing some of the issues there were, that were there with tenants. [00:06:24] Colby Fryar: We had some, some problem tenants that we had that we're having to deal with now. And, there was some signs we missed, like broken windows and other things that, that could have really helped us when we started.  [00:06:38] Sam Wilson: What would you do in that case? If you could go back and say, Hey, look, there's problems, tenant it's on this property, you see these broken windows. [00:06:45] Sam Wilson: How woul
22 minutes | Jun 28, 2022
Attracting and Engaging Potential Investors
Finding investors is easier than we think.   In this episode, Ace Karimi reveals the secrets to getting investors interested in your deals. He is the co-founder of Invest Capital, a real estate investment firm that is dedicated to buying A and B apartments to provide double-digit returns to its clients. Ace goes to the nitty-gritty of their unique syndication model,  how they are turning around projects with heavy deferred maintenance, and the importance of setting the right expectations with investors to increase the chances of success.     [00:01 - 06:47] Getting Out of the Hamster Wheel of Wholesaling and Flipping Making the leap from single-family to multifamily Ace breaks down their first deal Taking massive action and getting the word out Finding an asset that feels right Running the numbers   [06:48 - 20:26] Building a Unique Syndication Model Presenting the offers to investors The #1 thing investors are looking for: when will they get their money back? Ace on asset management fees Taking on heavy-lift assets Offsetting refi risks Looking out for the worst-case scenarios Helping everyone to be an investor   [20:27 - 21:50] Closing Segment Reach out to Ace!  Links Below Final Words Tweetable Quotes   “Just getting your name out every single place possible. That's the thing. It's like, you got to let everybody know you're buying unapologetically.” - Ace Karimi   “Investors are hungry for deals. There's so much hunger and desire for just an opportunity, right?” - Ace Karimi   “Money finds deals. Money's trying to find deals to go into and the only thing is you need is to have good enough deals that the money wants to be a part of.” - Ace Karimi   -----------------------------------------------------------------------------   Connect with Ace! Follow him on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn and visit the Invest Capital website.   Connect with me:   I love helping others place money outside of traditional investments that both diversify a strategy and provide solid predictable returns.     Facebook   LinkedIn   Like, subscribe, and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or whatever platform you listen on.  Thank you for tuning in!   Email me → sam@brickeninvestmentgroup.com Want to read the full show notes of the episode? Check it out below:   [00:00:00] Ace Karimi: The owners, they don't care. Like, they're not looking after the property. They're just, Hey, I'll just take a check and whatever happens, happens, and property management's usually not involved. And you know, that's just, what's going on. Nobody really cares. Like, we care about our properties, right? My team's involved every single week. [00:00:16] Ace Karimi: We're on Slack. Well, we have a communication channel, 24/7. We do weekly pulse checks. You know, we're looking after our asset for our investors, but also for ourselves. That's always how I am with any business I do. I'm keeping my eyes on the prize.  [00:00:41] Sam Wilson: Ace Karimi buys cash flowing apartment buildings through a unique indication model, and he teaches others how to do the same. In 2021, he bought 35 million in deals and they are growing. Ace, welcome to the show.  [00:00:53] Ace Karimi: You're welcome, Sam. Thank you for having me.  [00:00:55] Sam Wilson: Hey, man. Pleasure's mine. There's three questions I ask every guest who comes in the show in 90 seconds or less, can you tell me, where did you start? Where are you now? And how did you get there?  [00:01:04] Ace Karimi: Wow. I like it. Rapid fire. So we started, I think three years ago, we, we jumped in from single family. [00:01:10] Ace Karimi: We used to do a lot of wholesale and flipping, pretty sure you're familiar with that, doing the hamster wheel, always hunting the next deal, next deal, next deal. Like, looking for those single checks, I realized we wanted a better way. We wanted consistency. We wanted predictability. So, we made the jump. [00:01:25] Ace Karimi: We made the leap one day. It was actually. Right before COVID happened, believe it or not. But we went really, you know, full all hands on deck. Like, Hey, we're not turning around. This is it. And that was the year that we ended up buying 35 million in apartment buildings through our unique syndication model in which we're able to give the investors, their money back a lot sooner, 24 to 36 months usually give 'em an infinite return while still kill while still keeping most of the deal. [00:01:51] Sam Wilson: Now that is really cool. So you guys went, went long in multifamily at the beginning of the pandemic. How long did it take you to get your first deal?  [00:01:59] Ace Karimi: Let me think. So here, here, it's the funny thing is, you know, how you start doing it initially, you're kind of just looking at deals on a side here and there. [00:02:07] Ace Karimi: And if I look at it from that regards, probably like, I don't know, three four months, something like that. But when we really went like committed, Hey, this is it. We're going to find a way. It was like maybe 60 days.  [00:02:19] Sam Wilson: Okay. Okay. That's pretty fast for people, you know, out there listening. I mean a lot of people we talk to on the show, just say, Hey, look, you know, be patient when you get your first be patient, you know, as it cuz it takes time to get your first deal. [00:02:32] Sam Wilson: What do you feel like you did differently that allowed you to find your first deal? So fast?  [00:02:37] Ace Karimi: Massive action.  [00:02:39] Sam Wilson: What does that mean? Can you define that for us? [00:02:41] Ace Karimi: Dude, just, just getting your name out every single place possible. I mean, that, that's the thing. It's like, you got to let everybody know you're buying, you know, unapologetically. [00:02:48] Ace Karimi: I was letting it be known. Like, Hey, I'm going to buy apartment buildings. And everybody that I was talking to, I was flowing up with them consistently. And I'm like, Hey look, do you have something for me? Do you have something for me? I'm looking, I have capital sitting right here. Then I eventually found one. [00:03:01] Sam Wilson: Okay. Tell me about the first deal. What, how big was it? What, what were the parameters of it? And, how did you know that was the one for you?  [00:03:10] Ace Karimi: Oh man. So yeah. Great question. So, you know, your first deal, it, it means so much 'cause once you can really identify what a deal is, you know, it, it makes everything a lot easier for your second, third, fourth that, you know, the domino trickles down. [00:03:23] Ace Karimi: My first deal we got, we were at our first deal four different times. I had one down in Georgia. I had one down over in Maryland, like I'm in the east coast by the way. Right. I'm in DC. So I'm over here looking out of the area, which, you know, you're as an more of an inexperienced investor getting into multifamily, you're just looking anywhere and everywhere for a deal, which is a big mistake, right? And so, it was so many close times where the numbers looked good, everything looked good, but something just didn't line up. And we had to pass on it, which, you know, you have to have the discipline to do. And we ended up finding this deal that literally passed and checked every box that those other properties didn't right. [00:04:01] Ace Karimi: It was a 72 unit property, in my home state here in Virginia. So I'm right out of the DC Metro I'm in Northern Virginia. And great property. Beautiful, right? Still, it was like a seventies build, but it didn't look like it. Right. It just, you know, the owner had, was already starting to put a lot of CapEx into the property as we were looking to buy it, which was great. [00:04:22] Ace Karimi: Already started doing the windows, the roof and the plumbing work and a lot of the exterior stuff. So, you know, he was already getting that ball rolling for us. We, we came across the deal and it had a beautiful view of the mountains. Believe it or not, which was, you know, amazing. That's just one of the things that's like, it felt good. [00:04:39] Ace Karimi: I think that's one of the things that you just know of. It's the deal. Something feels good about it. It's in a great location. You're just like, dude, I would love to own this asset. Right. And then the numbers, like I, the numbers look kind of slim at first. Like, we bought it for 3.8 million. It was a 72 unit asset, right? Market rents were nuts. They were, they were at $600. And at the time, yeah, exactly. And at the time the, the rents in the market were like 900. So there was a $300 discrepancy. And now fast forward to now it, they went up to like 1100, by the way. So it we've got a big, big boost.  [00:05:16] Ace Karimi: We came across a deal, you know, we, we had a discussion and we went back and forth and then we ended up, putting it under contract at 3.8 million, put $600,000 into the property. We knew we could drastically increase the value. So, we underwrote the valuation around six and a half million, I believe, conservatively. So there was, you know, there was a couple million in equity at play and from our modeling, we realized that, Hey look, we don't necessarily need to give up most of the meat of this bone. [00:05:43] Ace Karimi: It's, it's a heavier value add property. We have a lot of work to do, really have to, you know, roll up our sleeves. And so we used our own syndication model in that regard and we gave up a higher preferred return and we actually kept most of the equity for ourselves because of the work that was involved. [00:06:01] Ace Karimi: And we promised an 18 to 24 month principal return, which we're actually on pace to do that even faster right now we've already initiated our refinance and essentially that's it. And they get to stay in the deal in, in perpetuity and they get a hundred percent of their capital back and a check and they get to keep the press, you know, and they get to stay in the deal. [00:06:22] Ace Karimi: And on top of that, they get a, they get a check at exit. So it's pretty aw
16 minutes | Jun 27, 2022
Opportunities in Self Storage
For 12 years Andrew Leedom has been working successfully with his W2 job as a Structural Engineer, being a father, and finding he transitioned into commercial real estate specifically in self-storage.  Highlights: [00:00 - 04:19] Transitioning from a Structural Engineer to an Investor in Real Estate Andrew Leedom is a husband and father to four kids.  He transitioned from his structural engineering to investing in commercial real estate, focusing specifically on self-storage.   [04:19 - 08:33] Self Storage: A Hot Asset Class The self-storage market is hot and there are opportunities to invest in this sector. Self-storage is a good investment option because it is a hot asset class and the market is consolidating quickly. It is important to make deals that are profitable and have long-term potential.   [08:34 - 13:06] Trying to Focus on  Projects that are Already Available Conversion of a 60,000 square foot warehouse to indoor vehicle storage Looking at deals where the market isn't oversaturated and there's still some demand Underwriting for an indoor vehicle storage facility Andrew shares about doing a feasibility study specifically on boat and RV storage He expects  to start leasing within a month [13:06 - 16:11] Closing Segment Reach out to Andrew  Links Below Final Words Tweetable Quotes   “Going to the dealership Just making sure they know what we are doing and that we’re here, that could assist them in selling the vehicles.  If their customers know they've got a place to put them”  - Andrew Leedom ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Connect with Andrew Leedom on LinkedIn  or visit their website at: Self Storage Stewardship Connect with me:   Facebook   LinkedIn   Like, subscribe, and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or whatever platform you listen on.  Thank you for tuning in!   Email me → sam@brickeninvestmentgroup.com Want to read the full show notes of the episode? Check it out below:   [00:00:00] Andrew Leedom: a lot of it will be word of mouth going to the dealerships and getting in touch with the folks that are selling the vehicles. Same thing with the RVs going to the RV dealers and just making sure they know that what we're doing and that we're here and, that could assist them in selling the vehicles. If their customers know they've got a place to put 'em.  [00:00:31 ] Sam Wilson: Andrew Leham is a husband and father to four kids. He transitioned from his structural engineering w two to invest in commercial real estate, focusing specifically on self-storage. Andrew, welcome to the show.  [00:00:41] Andrew Leedom: Thank you for having me, Sam. I'm glad to be here.  [00:00:45] Sam Wilson: Hey man, pleasure's mine. There's three questions.I ask every ghost. She comes in the show 90 seconds or less. Where did you start? Where are you now? How did you  [00:00:50] Andrew Leedom: get there? Well, where I started, I studied to be a structural engineer and did that for 12 years and transitioned to the commercial space about a year and a half ago. And currently investing in self storage and working with a. [00:01:05] Andrew Leedom: A group doing multi-family self storage, some hotel conversion stuff, but I'm focused on the self storage part of that.  [00:01:11] Sam Wilson: Interesting. So you were a structural engineer for 12 years? Yes. What were you doing as a structural  [00:01:18] Andrew Leedom: engineer? I got to see a little bit of everything. I did started my career off in the inspection world, doing some bridge inspections and transitioned to building design and then to waterfront design. [00:01:29] Andrew Leedom: So designing bridges, designing peers and waterfront structures doing some work for the shipyard port of Virginia doing some my, my latest job. I got to do some underwater inspecting, which was, A lot less glamorous than it sounds  [00:01:44] Sam Wilson: right. I mean, you're like decked out in scuba gear doing other water inspections. [00:01:48] Sam Wilson: Oh, my word. Yes. That's that's wild. When you look at the difficulties of the projects you were designing and building and inspecting, and then compare it to self storage. Do you feel like you, you now it's much easier or is it just different.  [00:02:05] Andrew Leedom: It's it's different, but you know, one thing that, that led me to pursue self storage when I was determining kind of between the various asset classes was the It's not an easy business, but it's a simple business. [00:02:19] Andrew Leedom: So the simplicity was very appealing. Both the structure as well as the business. I mean, the structure you're for drive up units, you've got a concrete slab and steel building. And not a lot of moving parts. So I appreciate that.  [00:02:34] Sam Wilson: I bet you do. Yeah, I would think from a construction perspective, you're like, okay, this is really easy compared to say a bridge over an enormous river. [00:02:46] Sam Wilson: Yeah. Yes. That That is really cool. So you made a point there where you said some of the effect of, when you were, assessing the various asset classes. Trying to figure out which one maybe you wanted to pursue. What was that process like  [00:02:58] Andrew Leedom: for you? I started off my investing career back in 2015 in the residential multifamily, a few duplexes Plex and through the years, saw that, real estate really is, there's nothing like it's it was doing. [00:03:12] Andrew Leedom: What I thought it would and growing but the time it was gonna take was gonna be a lot longer than I like. And so that was kind of what got me set on the commercial space. And I started just as a passive investor and some multi-family syndications and and then made the decision with my wife, that we were gonna make the commercial thing work. [00:03:31] Andrew Leedom: And so the start of that was just evaluating. Various various asset classes and really came down to three. It was multifamily mobile home parks and self storage. And so I just broke those down. I really like all three of those asset classes. I think they've all got a lot going for 'em recession resistant. [00:03:50] Andrew Leedom: Multifamily is the bread and butter it's, the everything's built on that. When I was looking at where I was with my W2 and just trying to figure out something that I could build and get my foot in while working a full-time job. I thought the multi-family space just with all the institutional money and the. [00:04:11] Andrew Leedom: How hot the space was gonna be a lot more difficult than the other ones and same thing with mobile home park, what led me, I, I really like that asset class. It really serves That affordable income and especially when you can own the ground and and lease the space. [00:04:29] Andrew Leedom: But really in that space, similarly, they're building and developing fewer and it's most municipalities aren't allowing 'em. And so. I just saw the competition growing and growing in that space as well. And so self storage was kind of where I landed, both what I mentioned earlier, just with the simplicity of the business model and the ability to really set up a business, to run remotely. [00:04:50] Andrew Leedom: So you're not as stuck in the location and with the self storage it's still several years behind multifamily in, in that the market is consolidating rather quickly. , it's definitely been the buzzword the past probably four to five years and is a hot market. [00:05:09] Andrew Leedom: But there's still a lot of potential right now, currently the market there, it's still over 50% mom and pop. And so there's that opportunity to have direct to owner contact conversations and really pick up opportunities direct from those mom and pop. Owners. And so that's where I felt like I could get my foot in the door and, focus more on the secondary tertiary markets and and get started. [00:05:34] Sam Wilson: Got it. That's that's really cool. Tell me at what point in time did you know you could transition from your W2 and what steps maybe would you recommend to somebody else thinking about that.  [00:05:44] Andrew Leedom: Yeah. I the the W2 transition was was actually a mix. I closed on my. My first two properties last year, and both of them were from, mom and pop operators and really kind of run into the ground. [00:05:57] Andrew Leedom: Very low occupancy needed a lot of capital improvements. So I knew purchasing those. It was gonna take a while before the cash flow caught up to where I would be able to step away from my W2 job. Right. And so the plan was just to, to run them until we hit. Hit that break even point and be able to step away and, try to scale. [00:06:18] Andrew Leedom: But fortunately com I mentioned earlier community investment group, who I had invested in as a passive investor and they're local to me. And I've really grown to be friends with a lot of the guys in that group. And they knew what I was doing and. Had kept them up to date. [00:06:34] Andrew Leedom: And and so once I got to that point they offered me a position with their team and just said, well, why don't you just come and join us and start our self storage division? So you don't have to wait until. Wait until your cash flow catches up to where you need it to be. So you can take the jump and start doing this stuff full time. [00:06:52] Sam Wilson: That's cool. So you went, you, I mean you, so you're still a w two or did you go in as a partner? How did you  [00:06:57] Andrew Leedom: arrange that? Yeah, it's right now I'm a 10 99, but also have some partnership on the deals. . Hi little girl. [00:07:05] Andrew Leedom: What are you talking about? I am talking about self storage. Can I come see you after I'm done? All right. Bye. Bye.  [00:07:11] Sam Wilson: You know, Andrew, I think we might leave that in. That's that one that's super cute. And two, the reality of, what it takes to business, right. I mean that's right. [00:07:23] Sam Wilson: A lot the stuff from home there's kids in the background, there is transition there's just everyday life
22 minutes | Jun 26, 2022
Pitfalls and Opportunities in Self-Storage Investing
Learn about the good and the bad of the self-storage space with our guest, Mark McGuire!   Mark is a limited partner in 12 syndications ranging from multifamily to industrial hospitality and self-storage. He talks about how storage units are becoming an increasingly popular asset, why it’s important to build relationships with brokers, and what bad investments to avoid in the market. Starting from the bottom of the ladder in his career, Mark also shares the lessons he learned as he worked his way up to success.     [00:01 - 03:08] Taking Action and Following Up How Mark climbed the ladder to success Investing time with people smarter than us   [03:09 - 21:03] What You Need to Know About Self-Storage Investing The self-storage industry is controlled by a select group of brokers This is the right way to approach and interact with them Comparing the first and the last self-storage deal he did Looking for locations The landscape then and now Mistakes multifamily investors make when transitioning to self-storage How Mark and his team position themselves and make moves in the current market The benefits of investing in self-storage What is a bad storage investment?   [21:04 - 22:24] Closing Segment Reach out to Mark!  Links Below Final Words Tweetable Quotes   “Find someone smarter than you, go ask them what you should do next, do that thing, And then once you're done, let them know that you did it and ask 'em now what the next step should be.” - Mark McGuire    “Self-storage is like the halfway house for recovering multifamily addicts.” - Mark McGuire    “The people who are willing to pay the most are young females and young females want properties that are well lit, and that are aesthetically pleasing, and have a lot of security cameras.” - Mark McGuire  -----------------------------------------------------------------------------   Connect with Mark at InvestingInMark.com and follow him on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.   Connect with me:   I love helping others place money outside of traditional investments that both diversify a strategy and provide solid predictable returns.     Facebook   LinkedIn   Like, subscribe, and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or whatever platform you listen on.  Thank you for tuning in!   Email me → sam@brickeninvestmentgroup.com Want to read the full show notes of the episode? Check it out below:   [00:00:00] Mark McGuire: We've been in an atypical market where we've been up to the right for the last four years. So, you know, despite how poorly you've operated a deal or priced a deal like you could sell it just in spite of your knowledge base, but there will come a day when you reach the high water mark and then pricing starts receding. And then at that point in time, brokers are going to be calling you asking, what do you think this is?  [00:00:33] Sam Wilson: Mark McGuire's biggest passion is wealth building and investing. He's a limited partner in 12 syndications ranging from multifamily to industrial hospitality and self-storage. He's invested in multiple private companies in the biotech, finance and AI spaces. Mark, welcome to the show.  [00:00:49] Mark McGuire: Thanks for having me, Sam. I'm pumped, man. Excited.  [00:00:52] Sam Wilson: Thanks for coming on today. Certainly appreciate it. Here's three questions I ask every guest who comes to the show in 90 seconds or less: can you tell me, where did you start? Where are you now? And how did you get there?  [00:01:00] Mark McGuire: Yeah. So started in, as the maintenance guy, the assistant to the maintenance guy. So I started, if there was a bottom rung on the ladder, I think I started in the ground and currently now functioning as the chief investment officer at Hearthfire Capital. And we focus in the syndication of the self-storage space and, you know, my journey getting there was from, you know, doing all of the work that nobody else wanted to do and kept finding people who were smarter than me and asking them for advice and then executing on the advice they gave me and going back to them and saying, Hey, I did that, now what? If I could give one piece of advice, find someone smarter than you go and ask them what you should do next, do that thing. And then once you're done, let them know that you did it and ask 'em now what the next step should be.  [00:01:48] Sam Wilson: And that is the follow-up that I think 90% of people miss is that, Hey, I did it. Lots of people are willing, lots of people are willing to say, Hey, you know, what do I do? And then they listen and it makes 'em feel good to hear what they should do. Then one, they don't do it. And then secondly, they don't follow up and go back and say, Hey, I did it, now what?  [00:02:06] Mark McGuire: I mean? Yeah. Some of the smartest people that I know, people that have mentored me, you know, I've asked them after the fact, like, why did you choose to invest time with me? Because, you know, time is a resource that people who, it doesn't matter how wealthy you are, you can't make more of it. [00:02:21] Mark McGuire: You can earn more money. You can earn more time. And the answer that I got from multiple people is you were a dealer. You went and you did what I told you to do. And then you followed up with action. So take action.  [00:02:34] Sam Wilson: Absolutely. That's an inspiring story. I think for all of us, I love starting, if there was a bottom rung of the ladder, I started in the ground. Did you, did you go to college? [00:02:43] Mark McGuire: I did three semesters, non consecutively, and never graduated.  [00:02:47] Sam Wilson: I love it. I love it. That's one I'm my, now it makes the story even better. Tell me what you guys are doing today.  [00:02:53] Mark McGuire: Yeah, so Hearthfire Capital, we currently own 12 facilities, about 420,000 net square feet buy, operate, manage, improve self-storage facilities. That's what we do.  [00:03:08] Sam Wilson: That space has seen, I mean, as all, I think real estate asset classes have, have just seen an incredible interest from the institutional side of things. How is that changing what you guys do, your strategy, your return profiles. I guess I asked that question and then like, we'll start there got too many questions for you, but we'll start with that one. [00:03:30] Mark McGuire: Hey, fire away. It's interesting. I was actually just on a call before I hopped on here today with a broker in the space. Just asking them what they're seeing. 'Cause we've been, self-storage has really been controlled heavily by a small group of brokers. So it's interesting in self-storage, that's different from other asset classes is that it's not, like there's a bunch of people, especially everyone comes from multifamily. Everyone knows multifamily. It's the easiest one to get into requires the least amount of capital. There's the most amount of possibility, but there's not a lot of like good trophy properties. And they're, the brokerage of those properties is A, a lot of them don't ever get on the market that they maybe get limited bid at best. [00:04:10] Mark McGuire: But two, there's a lot larger pool of brokers competing for the inventory versus in self-storage, it's controlled by like eight or nine groups that really do the vast majority of the industry across the country. So when you get in with a couple of them, you prove that you can perform, you sign deals up on the front end. [00:04:29] Mark McGuire: You don't retrade them. You take them down on the back end, obviously, assuming that, you know, you didn't get lied to or debt didn't go up 200 basis points over the time in which you had it in your contract. That's how you get in with these people and self-storage is really controlled by a select view group. [00:04:46] Sam Wilson: Got it. So how did you crack that egg? If you're coming in is the new guys on the, on the block, like what would you say to somebody if they wanted to get in front of these people and actually become a credible buyer?  [00:04:58] Mark McGuire: Yeah. So, you know what I would tell anybody who's looking to make that move, you know, reach out to them, sit down with them, tell 'em what you're looking for. And then when new offerings come in, that are what you're looking for, offer on them within like, you know, 24 to 48 hours. And, and if they don't work for you, tell them why that property wouldn't work and give them actual reasons, not just like, I don't feel like buying this today. [00:05:27] Sam Wilson: That is, and I hear that over and over and over. I think I've heard that 10 times in the last three weeks from guests on the show and it's something I just think that just needs to be reiterated again. I mean, I, I can't thank you enough for saying that, which is tell 'em, tell 'em why it doesn't work. [00:05:42] Sam Wilson: Communicate with your brokers. And I think that's, I need to go back and just kind of splice all these and put like a broker advice podcast together from about the last 30 guests and say, Hey, this is, this is how, you interact with brokers, 'cause it is, it is an interesting art and figuring out how to get in front of, and stay in front of them and what it means to be a valuable buyer to them. [00:06:01] Mark McGuire: And so many people misunderstand that they, they have the relationship with brokers confused. People think that brokers are supposed to bring them deals and, you know, brokers are out looking for deals, but the expectation of you telling somebody that you want something one time, A, is bad that, that's a horrible assumption that they're going to actually remember that they talk to you, let alone remember the specific criteria that you gave them. [00:06:28] Mark McGuire: And you want to find a way to bring value to them. 'cause sometimes brokers missed a mark on their pricing. And sometimes, you know, they look at it and we've been in an atypical market where we've been up to the right for the last four years. So, you know, despite how poorly you've operated a deal or priced a deal, like
22 minutes | Jun 25, 2022
Building Lasting Wealth with Multifamily Real Estate
  Andrew Cushman is a former chemical engineer who found his entrepreneurial calling in real estate. He started out flipping single family properties in Southern California. In 2011 Andrew transitioned to multifamily acquisitions and has successfully syndicated and repositioned over 2,500 multifamily units.   Highlights:   [00:00 - 06:58] Find the deal, the money will come there is truth to that, but there's caveats Andrew Cushman,  decides to quit being a chemical engineer in 2007 and has since flipped houses full time in Southern California. Andrew and his wife decided to go into the apartment market and found the guy who had already done 18,800 units. They syndicated their first deal in 2011 and have since done around 26,700 units. One of the things they learned in their first process was that you need to have both capabilities - finding deals and raising money - simultaneously.   [06:58 - 13:55] How to Scale Your Business When the Deals Are Harder to Find Andrew notes that the current market is much more competitive than in the past, with prices for properties increasing significantly. It is now necessary to have a good relationship with a broker in order to find and buy properties. There are many things that can be done to make brokers think of you first when looking for a property, such as being reliable and truthful, being consistent and predictable, and having a clear understanding of what you are looking for.   [13:55 - 20:59] How to Put Yourself in a position where your broker thinks of you first Being top of mind. Not only because building an actual real relationship, but by knowing exactly what you want the brokers would exactly know what you want They think of you first when that thing shows up and that applies whether you're looking for any Real Estate Assets.  [21:00- 22:27] Closing Segment Reach out to Andrew  Links Below Final Words Tweetable Quotes   “It's about being top of mind. Not only because you've built an actual real relationship, but by knowing exactly what you want so that they know exactly what you want.” - Andrew Cushman ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Connect with Andrew Cushman by visiting their website at: https://www.vpacq.com/ Connect with me:   Facebook   LinkedIn   Like, subscribe, and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or whatever platform you listen on.  Thank you for tuning in!   Email me → sam@brickeninvestmentgroup.com Want to read the full show notes of the episode? Check it out below: [00:00:00] Andrew Cushman: Find the deal, the money will come there is truth to that, but there's caveats, right. The assumption there is that you've built an investor pool, or if you haven't. The assumption is, well, you're gonna take it to somebody who has, and now you're going to be giving away either control or equity or something like that. Andrew Kushman has syndicated over 2,600 value out apartment units in the last 10 years. Andrew, welcome to the show. Hi, good to be here, Sam. Hey, the pleasure's mine. Thanks for coming on today. There's three questions. I ask every guest who comes in the show in 90 seconds or less. Can you tell me, where did you start? [00:00:47] Sam Wilson: Where are you now? And how did you get there? Is that 90 seconds  [00:00:50] Andrew Cushman: for each or 90 seconds? Total, total. Ooh, geez. All right. well, I started back in 1977. My dad had a twinkle in his eye and, fast forward a little bit. I was a chemical engineer. Quit doing that in 2007 to flip houses, full time in Southern California. [00:01:05] Andrew Cushman: That was great, but it was the equivalent of another full-time job. Right. And so we want my wife and I, my wife's a business partner. We wanted to move into something that was more scalable and also provided more recurring income and had the higher probability of building lasting wealth. And so in 2010 we said, Hey, everyone just got foreclosed on. [00:01:26] Andrew Cushman: And they, so that means that no one can either can buy a house or wants to buy a house. Cuz they're all scared of it. We had a huge recession, which means we're going to be having probably a long expansion so that rentals should probably do well. So we went and found the guy who'd already done. [00:01:39] Andrew Cushman: 18, 800 units hired him as a mentor. Did our first syndication in 2011, it was 92 units on the other side of the country in Macon, Georgia. And. since then, I've been doing it full time and we're somewhere around 26, 2700 units. So  [00:01:53] Sam Wilson: that is that's really, really cool. I love just you found something you liked and you stuck with it. [00:01:58] Sam Wilson: Was there ever any temptation along the way to look at other asset classes?  [00:02:02] Andrew Cushman: No, not really. I'm a big believer and there's different theories on this when you're building businesses about having like, multiple businesses and diversification. And for us, we found the best thing is try to be really good at one thing. [00:02:15] Andrew Cushman: And that's what we're striving to do. I know guys that do multi-family and industrial and self storage and bunch of other things, and those are great investments and they've done really well. There's nothing wrong with 'em at all. Right. I. Feel like we know and understand multi-family and I feel like we're getting pretty good at it. [00:02:31] Andrew Cushman: And we wanna just get that much better. So stay focused,  [00:02:34] Sam Wilson: right? No, I think that's really great. I guess, uh, talk to us about this process. You said, Hey, we're gonna go buy our first 92 units in 2011 syndication. Really? We're probably wasn't even a buzz word like it is today. [00:02:48] Sam Wilson: How did you guys take those down?  [00:02:50] Andrew Cushman: That was a struggle. That first deal is a. Big part of why my hair is as gray as it is. and you're right. Syndication. Wasn't a buzzword. There was no one, Dave Al was like the one guy out there teaching people about apartments and that was it. [00:03:03] Andrew Cushman: There was no one else. There was no billboards in Dallas about how to become an apartment syndicator and So, we had, like, I, like I mentioned, we had started flipping houses in Southern California. And so we had some private investors that, if we bought a $400,000 condo I'd go to invest and be like, Hey, give us the money for this. [00:03:21] Andrew Cushman: We'll give you an interest rate and then we'd flip it and do all that. Right. And so we went into the, apart into the apartment world so that first one we bought 92 units for 1.2 million out in Macon, Georgia. And for anyone who's looked at a deal today, you're saying, well, wait, hold on, Andrew. No. You said something wrong. You said 1.2 million for 92 units. No, that was the price. [00:03:41] Andrew Cushman: I think as, again, works out to roughly 7,500 a unit that's. That's what the market was like in 2011, right? It's either really easy to get money and really hard to get deals, which is kind of today, or it's really easy to get deals and hard to get the funding. that's what it was in 2011, the market was at a bottom lots of distress and everyone was scared to death of real estate and no one wanted to touch it. [00:04:07] Andrew Cushman: And there was no liquidity and you couldn't get loans on a lot of this stuff. So the pricing reflected that so 1.2 million, and that included the rehab, the actual purchase price was 6 99. And the total that we needed is 1.2. And we had our mentor uh, we were a bit naive in terms of how easy it would be to raise $1.2 million. [00:04:25] Andrew Cushman: Back then it took us six months just, one investor at a time, 10,000 here, 50,000 there. And actually at the end part of how. Got there is we got the seller to carry a $200,000 note. So that we could at least get to closing and get it finished. And then we actually raised the last few pieces over the next few months after closing. [00:04:46] Andrew Cushman: So it was, a brutal process that first one. But wouldn't be here if we hadn't done it so glad we did. What  [00:04:52] Sam Wilson: were some things you feel like you learned in that first process that you could help other people either, emulate or avoid.  [00:05:00] Andrew Cushman: one of the big questions that you hear is, oh, well, do I get the deal first? [00:05:03] Andrew Cushman: Or do I get the money first? It's both work on your deal, finding capabilities and your money raising capabilities simultaneously. Don't wait until you have a deal. To then start talking to your investors, to potential investors. Then also don't go and get a big pool of investors, all excited about investing with you. [00:05:24] Andrew Cushman: If you don't have anything to ever show them. Right. So it's a simultaneous thing. And if you're like, well, but I haven't done a deal, so what do I talk to investors? Then? What you do is you look at deals, you analyze 'em, you put 'em together, you put together like a little package. [00:05:37] Andrew Cushman: And then when you're talking to people, say, yeah, these are the kind of deals I'm looking. Right. And you're not gonna, you're not gonna mislead people and say, oh, I'm buying this deal or anything like that. You're gonna say, you know what? I offered on this one. We didn't get it. But if we had, oh, it would've been a great deal. [00:05:52] Andrew Cushman: And I'm looking at lots more like it. Right. So be transparent and honest about it, but that's what you do while you're looking at deals. Then when you have one. Hey Sam, good news. Remember that deal that we looked at a month ago. I showed you that I didn't get, that was really good. [00:06:05] Andrew Cushman: I got another one just like it. And this time they accepted my offer. Right. So you build both at the same time. Right? Right.  [00:06:12] Sam Wilson: Yeah. I think that's that's really valuable cuz that is, I mean you hear the find the deal, the money will come, which is nonsense. But I also like the idea that you said that you have to build, you have to fi
20 minutes | Jun 24, 2022
Raising Capital From Foreign Investors
Is it possible to invest overseas?   Bernard Pierson proves that you certainly can.   Bernard, Managing Partner at Equiti Partners has over 10 years of real estate experience. He has specialized in ground-up development and investing opportunities. Most recently, he led the development of over 100,000 square feet of single-family homes and condominiums, including land and infrastructure works. In this episode, he talks about his experience being a developer in Latin America and eventually focusing on multifamily and working with foreign clients.     [00:01 - 06:52] From Food Broker to Real Estate Investor Bernard explains his background in food brokering Developing in Latin America The political and economic risks they experienced Transitioning to active multifamily Investing Investing passively first and building relationships   [06:53 - 17:45] International Investing The advantage of knowing the native language and the culture Getting a CPA and attorney with expertise in international tax law How to start investing with Bernard and his team   [17:52 - 19:32] Closing Segment Reach out to Bernard!  Links Below Final Words Tweetable Quotes   “It's not going to be like your US or domestic investors where they can sign a PPM online and they can wire the money into the next day. It takes time and I encourage them to talk to a CPA.” - Bernard Pierson “If you're a syndicator or you're trying to raise money from, foreigners, it just makes your life a lot easier if they invest as a US person through a US entity.” - Bernard Pierson -----------------------------------------------------------------------------   Connect with Bernard at bpierson@equitipartners.com and follow him on LinkedIn and Facebook. Know more about the work they do at EquitiPartners.com.  Connect with me:   I love helping others place money outside of traditional investments that both diversify a strategy and provide solid predictable returns.     Facebook   LinkedIn   Like, subscribe, and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or whatever platform you listen on.  Thank you for tuning in!   Email me → sam@brickeninvestmentgroup.com Want to read the full show notes of the episode? Check it out below: [00:00:00] Bernard Pierson:  I mean, there's great benefits of investment with a huge operator, right? There's nothing wrong with that. There's plenty of good big shops that you can invest with and get good returns. But if you want to do this actively you're going to need relationships. This is a very relationship driven business and networking is, great. And one way that worked for me at least to network and build relationships was to invest passively with other operators first.  [00:00:33] Sam Wilson: Bernard Pierson has been in real estate for 10 years. He started off in development and has since transitioned to full-time multifamily investing and syndication. Bernard, welcome to the show.  [00:00:43] Bernard Pierson: Thanks, Sam. Happy to be here.  [00:00:44] Sam Wilson: Hey, the pleasure's mine. There's three questions I ask every guys who comes to the show: in 90 seconds or less, can you tell me, where did you start? Where are you now? And how did you get there?  [00:00:52] Bernard Pierson: I started in, I used to do food brokering. That was basically, I mean, I had a job out of college for, W2 for one year, but right into, you know, pretty soon I, I quit. I was an accounting job. I was bored out of my mind, so I quit. So I like to say I started off with food brokering, which is kind of like my entrepreneurial path that I took. We did pretty well. [00:01:11] Bernard Pierson: Very transactional. And I figured that out pretty quickly. And that's how I found real estate and ended up partnering with some guys that, great guys, great partners that had experience. And that's how I got into development. And we did some developments in Latin America specifically Nicaragua and Costa Rica. [00:01:29] Bernard Pierson: And I've then transitioned over the last five years or so, just a full-time multifamily investing in the US. Because I found out that there was a lot of risk and a lot of things that I was not thinking about before that Latin America exposed us to basically. So yeah. I think that was around 90 seconds. [00:01:48] Sam Wilson: No, I think that was perfect. Well done. Thank you. Yeah. Food brokering. Can you, that doesn't mean anything to me. I'm just really curious. Can you give me a ten second highlight? What does that mean?  [00:01:59] Bernard Pierson: Yeah. So we would source the suppliers and, find buyers for beef. We get coffee, we did sugar. I'm from, I'm a half in Nicaraguan, part Nicaraguan part American. And I, I grew up in Nicaragua a lot of my life. I lived there from like six years old to 18. So I, just know a lot of people, it's a small country. It's a very agricultural country and a lot of food production. So that's how I got into that.  [00:02:23] Sam Wilson: Got it very, very cool.  [00:02:25] Bernard Pierson: Very transactional though 'cause it was, it was based on finding the seller and the buyer. And as technology, you know, and globalization has grown, the value of being that intermediary is, is not as, as valuable, I guess, anymore. So we used to have a transaction here and there where, and we used to make a lot of money on the transaction or good money. But it was very transactional. We weren't really building a, a sustainable long term business that would work without us being there.  [00:02:49] Sam Wilson: Let's jump into the next section of your story there. Developing in Latin America, it sounded like there were some risks or some lessons you learned the hard way. [00:03:00] Bernard Pierson: Oh yeah. There's two reason. I ended up going back to Latin in America. So when I was 18, I came to the US. I lived here for a long time. But when I got back into real estate, there was two things I was looking for. One was partnering with someone who had experience. [00:03:12] Bernard Pierson: So development, in my case, checked that box. My partners or my potential partners at the time had experience developing for many years in, in Latin America. And the other thing was going, in my case, I was going back to Nicaragua, originally, at least at the beginning. And this was home, right? [00:03:29] Bernard Pierson: It was a place I knew a lot of people. I knew my, the area very well. So I checked those two boxes. I was local to Nicaragua and, and I had partners with experience. The part I missed was Latin America can bring money risks that we, we just aren't aware of here in the US and those are specifically going to be politically and, or just political risk. And just the economy in itself is not as robust as it is here. Investments are going to be a lot less liquid. There's just a lot more risk in general. And I did a lot of research into that at that time, right? And I really found out that risk adjusted return, at least for me, or from my point of view or the analysis I did was a lot better in the US than in Latin America. [00:04:15] Sam Wilson: Right. So if I'm hearing you, right, you're saying that there was, you were taking on a lot of additional risk without the additional return that would be involved in assuming that additional risk. Was this something, when you were doing these development projects, is that where you cut your teeth in raising capital and bringing in outside investors? [00:04:33] Bernard Pierson: Most of our developments, what we would do was the seller of the land would get some sort of, we, we would creatively finance the deals where the seller of the land would some, that's either equity or, or maybe. I don't know if we were building a condo building on the seller's land. [00:04:49] Bernard Pierson: Well, then they would've got a condo or two, depending on the value, right, of the land in payment for, for their land. So we didn't really work with investors much. It, they didn't require tons of capital. A lot of the capital we put up, which was just a at risk capital of the preconstruction phase, which is the designs, the architectural work and all that stuff. [00:05:07] Bernard Pierson: The seller of the land put up most of the equity. An d then the bank put up the rest, which was just a construction, right., Or the, the bank would basically finance our hard cost. We would finance the soft cost and the seller would just finance the equity or the land.  [00:05:23] Sam Wilson: Got it. Got it. So you did a few of these projects. You said, man, there's way too much risk in that I see g reener pastures in investing in the United States multifamily markets. What did you do to transition into that space?  [00:05:36] Bernard Pierson: Right, so, the reason I found out was while I was developing in Latin America, I was also investing passively in real estate. I was, I was an LP. And I was seeing, man, I'm getting great returns on these LP deals. And not putting much work into it, right, or if, if any, at all. No work into it, except the due diligence, right, at the beginning and signing the paperwork and all that stuff. [00:05:56] Bernard Pierson: I was traveling. When I was developing, I was still living in the US. I wasn't fully living in Nicaragua or Costa Rica. I would travel every week, Monday through Friday. It's a two hour flight from Miami, so I was based out of Miami and I would just travel every week. Sometimes I would say the week, and my wife would come over. [00:06:13] Bernard Pierson: And, but I was basically, we were half and half between the two countries, right? So as I was seeing my LP investments, maybe not out, outperforming, but at least matching, and in some cases outperforming my active work in development. So, so my LP, my passive stuff was doing better, you know, when I was doing nothing. I was like, no, did you know, this is something I have to transition to at the time also Nicaragua, back in 2018, we had a pretty bad social economic, political crisis that the economy came to a standstill. [00:06:41] Bernard Pierson: It still hasn't recover
17 minutes | Jun 23, 2022
Choosing the Right Real Estate Asset Class
Ep. 571  From Management Consulting to Commercial Real Estate Investing’   Matt Jones is a real estate investor based out of Minneapolis who specializes in investing in both small and large multifamily properties. He has a master of science in mental health counseling which comes in handy for building positive relationships in real estate. Let’s hear him as he shares his thoughts about adding value to your clients and maintaining that relationship to achieve exponential growth.     Highlights:   [00:00 - 05:08] How to Add Value to Others and Get Ahead in Real Estate Matt Jones is the CEO of Hawkwing capital, which raises capital from passive investors to own large apartment buildings. He also wrote the book Book About Real Estate. In 2019, he learned about real estate syndication and decided to switch to this model to speed up his progress. He currently owns 244 beds of senior assisted living and is looking to raise capital for some other deals. Opportunity for him right now is through broker relationships.   [05:08 - 10:19] Real Estate Investor Shares Tips for Success Matt’s shares his experience in real estate, including their time as a manager of group homes for adults with disabilities and their current focus on multifamily properties. Success for the author is defined as achieving goals that expand one's horizons and making progress towards those goals. Matt anticipates transitioning more from an active investor to a passive investor in the future.   [10:19 - 15:20] How to Raise Capital and Take Down Deals Matt suggests that you should raise capital from people who you trust and who understand the risks and rewards of the investment. When raising capital, you want to make sure that you're the people raising capital from and that they understand what they're getting into. Matt’s approach is to first ask somebody if they would be interested in investing in a deal, and then to show them the investment and how it would benefit them. If someone says yes, Matt will ask them for their contact information so that he can contact them about the investment. Matt had success raising capital by being patient and being prepared with possible outcomes as seen today's market    [15:21-16:56] Closing Segment Reach out to Matt  Links Below Final Words Tweetable Quotes   “You want to add value to other people and it doesn't even necessarily have to be real estate related. Let's say you meet somebody who maybe they wanted to play the guitar and if you know how to play the guitar, you can offer them some free lessons right there. Then they're going to want to do business with you. Or you never know where things go with this, but by adding value to everybody around you at all times, good things are gonna come back your way ” - Matt Jones   ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Connect with Matt Jones by visiting their website at: https://www.hawkwingcapital.com/   Resources Mentioned:      Book About Real Estate     Connect with me:   Facebook   LinkedIn   Like, subscribe, and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or whatever platform you listen on.  Thank you for tuning in!   Email me → sam@brickeninvestmentgroup.com Want to read the full show notes of the episode? Check it out below: [00:00:00] Matt Jones: You wanna add value to other people and it doesn't even necessarily have to be real estate related, yes, it's great. If you're able to raise money or you're able to find deals or, you know, some kind of real estate related value, but let's say you meet somebody who.Maybe they wanna play the guitar. And if you know how to play the guitar, you can offer them some free lessons right there in an instant value. And then they're gonna like you, and then they're gonna wanna do business with you. You never know where things go with this, but, by adding value to everybody around you at all times, good things are gonna come back your way.  [00:00:36] Sam Wilson: Matt Jones is the CEO of Hawking capital, which raises capital from passive investors to own large apartment buildings. And he also wrote the book about real estate. That literally is the name, the book about real estate and co-host of pillars of wealth creation podcast. He also owns 244 beds of senior assisted living. [00:00:56] Sam Wilson: Matt, welcome to the show.  [00:00:57] Matt Jones:Hey, good to be here.  [00:00:59] Sam Wilson:  Hey man. Thanks for coming on today. There's three questions. I ask every guest who comes in the show in 90 seconds or less. Can you tell me, where did you start? Where are you now and how did you get there? [00:01:05] Matt Jones: So in 2015, I bought my first Plex. I was living I house hacked it and I saved up money from my W2. It took me a few years before I was able to buy a second triplex and by a second Plex. And I was just so frustrated at how slow my progress was going. Like the idea was like eventually own like a large complex. And I was like, oh, this is gonna take me. Years before I can scale up at this pace.And then I learned about real estate syndication in 2019 and thought like, oh, this is bananas. Like, like it solves all my problems with now. I don't have to save up my own money. I can use other people's money and I don't have to wait to scale up to bigger properties. I can just jump in and start right now.And so then I found a mentor to help me out who actually I co-host the podcast with now. And Recently raised some capital with him for a 228 deal in Kentucky and then looking to raise capital for some other deals as  [00:01:58] Sam Wilson: well, man. That's that's really, really cool. I mean, 2019 till now that's pretty fast progress.I would say. , know you said , you had a mentor, but what are some other things you feel like you did right. That other people should emulate  [00:02:10] Matt Jones: I think, well, the biggest hurdle that I had to get over was my own mindset. So if you can, change your mind of thinking, like, how can I do this rather than like, oh, I, I couldn't buy a a hundred unit place. [00:02:20] Matt Jones: Like, whether you say you can, or you can't you're right. think it was Henry Ford that said that. And so, Getting into the mindset. Like I can do this. I just need to figure out how or better yet who I can work with to get me to that level.  [00:02:33] Sam Wilson: Right, right. That's that's really cool. Tell me what are you guys doing? I heard you say something about opportunity there in Louisville. What are you guys doing right now to find opportunity? You moved on from the Plex world, cuz you said that was two slow growth. You moved into mostly multifamily and I hear some also assisted living, but what does opportunity look like for you right now? [00:02:52] Matt Jones: It's primarily through broker relationships. So, built to connections with brokers. And so we're seeing a lot of on market deals, but I think some people prefer off market or on market, but with, on market it's you get all the numbers like it's presented in a way that's they're the seller is ready to sell.And you have the broker there to help make sure everything falls into place. So, plus through, on market deals, we get a lot of deal flow and right now you gotta look through a lot of stinkers before you find that one gem .  [00:03:19] Sam Wilson: Yeah, you do. How are you underwriting those to where it makes sense.That's what we're seeing a lot in across all asset classes is you're just. I don't even know how the current buyer is making this pencil. So what do you guys doing differently? Feel?  [00:03:31] Matt Jones: Well, we just go through the numbers. Yeah, the I'd say yeah, 99 out of a hundred deals, we just kind of shake our heads at like , I don't know how this is gonna work at that price point, but once in a while we find that one that actually does pencil in and then when we think oh what did we do wrong in the underwriting?But we're still underwriting conservatively. We're still, stress testing the numbers to make sure like, okay, if. If there's another recession and we get to like the record high, they can see raids or record high concessions and things like that. Is the property still gonna make money to ride through a potential recession?If yes, then that is a good deal. But a lot of these properties are like you say, they're going at these prices that if anything goes wrong for these operators they're gonna lose  [00:04:10] Sam Wilson: their pants. Talk to us about positioning, how are you positioning yourself in front of. The sellers. It's a, it's almost an art.I think of putting yourself in front of the sellers in a way that makes the seller wanna work with you, which is kind of a weird place to be in the cycle where it's like, Hey wait, like, why am I trying to court? You? Shouldn't you be courting me as the buyer, but it's not the way it's working. What are you guys doing on that front? [00:04:32] Matt Jones:Well, it comes down to relationships as well, relationships with our lenders, property management, the brokers, when you can build a reputation, or if you don't have one right now, partner with people who already have a good reputation. And so you can say like, my team, this is our experience and to show to the sellers that like, Yes, we can close we've closed on, X number of units and, taken so many units to, full cycle and such. And we already have the professional property management, that's local. That's gonna do a good job that already does a great job with these other properties. Just to show the seller like, yes, we can close. Yes, it's gonna go smoothly. And we can make it happen  [00:05:08] Sam Wilson: right now. I saw, we read that there in your in your bio there in the, in intro that you are also involved in assisted living. So, is that a core focus for you or is that just an opportunity that came your way and you participated in it? Walk us through. kind of being diversified across asset classes [00:05:23] Matt Jones:. Yeah. That was an opportunity that came up my way. And the numb
20 minutes | Jun 22, 2022
Building A Long Legacy
There’s no quick way to success in real estate. It takes patience and consistency to create wealth and leave a lasting legacy.   In this episode, we share an inspiring conversation with Marcus Long as he talks about his journey to multifamily. Marcus is a husband, father of a seven and four-year-old, and an active duty Naval Officer with 21 years of service. As he transitions out of the military to focus on family, charity, and real estate full time, he is excited to serve others in new ways. He is passionate about positively impacting the communities he chose to invest in and finding financial freedom.     [00:01 - 05:51] There Is Value in Slow Growth Marcus talks about how he got into multifamily How he’s able to do deals remotely while living in England Trusting the process and being patient   [05:52 - 11:24] Lessons Learned Going Into Multifamily Raising capital overseas and establishing trust with his investors Networking and letting people know what you’re doing Don’t take rejection personally A failure Marcus experienced and how he overcame it The importance of systems and processes   [11:25 - 16:10] Living Life in Your Own Terms Marcus’ definition of success Being present in his family’s life It’s not just about the money, it’s about giving back to the community Setting goals as a couple Encouraging conversations about real estate and investing opportunities   [16:11 - 19:32] Closing Segment The best piece of advice Marcus received Reach out to Marcus!  Links Below Final Words Tweetable Quotes   “People can't come to invest with you if they don't know what you're doing.” - Marcus Long   “Something's only a failure really if we label it as a failure.” - Marcus Long “Trust that process and be consistent with it. And the results will come.“ - Marcus Long -----------------------------------------------------------------------------   Connect with Marcus! Visit their website and find their socials here.   Resource mentioned The One Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan Connect with me:   I love helping others place money outside of traditional investments that both diversify a strategy and provide solid predictable returns.     Facebook   LinkedIn   Like, subscribe, and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or whatever platform you listen on.  Thank you for tuning in!   Email me → sam@brickeninvestmentgroup.com Want to read the full show notes of the episode? Check it out below:   [00:00:00] Marcus Long: That's one of the first things I really did, was kind of turn around and like, make sure everyone knows what I'm doing, right? People can't come to invest with you if they don't know what you're doing. And so just kind of going back through, you know, social media, Facebook, LinkedIn, and everything else, just kind of reaching out to contacts and just letting people know like, Hey, this is the transition that I'm making in my business. There might be some opportunities available in the future if you're interested in, in having that conversation. [00:00:34] Sam Wilson: Marcus Long is a husband, father of a seven and four-year-old, and an active duty Naval officer with 21 years of service. As he transitions out of the military to focus on family charity and real estate full time, he is excited to serve others in new ways. Marcus, welcome to the show.  [00:00:49] Marcus Long: Thanks, Sam. Appreciate it.  [00:00:50] Sam Wilson: Hey man, pleasure's mine. There's three questions I ask every guest who comes to the show: in 90 seconds or less, can you tell me, where did you start? Where are you now? And how did you get there?  [00:00:59] Marcus Long: Yeah, so, you know, I grew up in rural Missouri. I enlisted in the Navy right out of high school. And a few years later I got selected for a commissioning program, was going to the University of Missouri when I bought my first real estate condo there. I did some house hacking, kept it as a rental when I left and I still own it today. [00:01:15] Marcus Long: And, after that I was doing a lot of deploying. And so I wasn't necessarily super intentional, but opportunistically, you know, picked up a dozen or so single-family multi-use buildings and stuff back in Missouri through my career. And about three or four years ago. You know, I went home from work early one day and my daughter was pretty young at the time, asked what I was doing home. [00:01:34] Marcus Long: Cause it was still light outside. So she was surprised to see me. And it was kind of a, a bit of a gut punch and, you know, kind of confirmed my desire to start my transition and off-ramp out of the military and preferably in a way to do so without having to have a W2. But, I realized the cash flow from the properties I had wasn't enough to do that. And so I kind of had to, to dig in, look at the numbers and figure out a path to do so. And that's kind of where I decided to start transitioning over to the, the multifamily side. And after investing in a few limited, as a limited partner, a few syndications, I transitioned to be a GP. [00:02:08] Marcus Long: And, by the time this airs will have, you know, Co-GP about 400 doors in the past 12 months. So that's where I am now.  [00:02:15] Sam Wilson: That is really cool. So I guess the, the long-term plan is to go long in multifamily. Do you think you'll stay as a Co-GP or do you see yourself going out and taking down deals on your own? [00:02:26] Marcus Long: Yeah, I think that's a combination there, you know, I've already kind of, you know, been analyzing deals and putting in some offers on my own. And just the way timings and stuff, some of my partners have ended up getting offers, accepted and stuff, and pulling me in on, on some of those deals with them. [00:02:41] Marcus Long: So certainly I'll, I'll do some on my own if those opportunities, present themselves. But, you know, I think, being a Co-GP and partnering has also been a big part of, you know, what has allowed me to scale at the pace that I have, you know, over the past year or.  [00:02:55] Sam Wilson: How did, I mean, you live, and we didn't talk about this yet here in the show, but we did off air. You live in England right now. You're stationed, I think, in England.  [00:03:02] Marcus Long: That's correct.  [00:03:03] Sam Wilson: How, how did you find partners? How have you vetted deals? I mean, there's a lot of these things that are kind of boots on the ground task. How did, how did you tackle that side of this business?  [00:03:12] Marcus Long: Yeah. So interestingly enough you know, some of my other partners are actually here in England and, and stuff as well. [00:03:17] Marcus Long: Although some of them are back in the states. And so, I think, you know, just between the, the group of us, like some of us have other connections, one of my partners has a mentor and a, a college roommate and a college classmate and stuff that was boots on the ground there. And so, really just by network And things and finding other partners that maybe already had some of those boots on the ground. [00:03:36] Marcus Long: You know, I have a couple of partners that are in, in Texas. A couple of our properties are in Texas and stuff as well. And so really a lot of that, you know, meeting people was really just getting networking a lot, whether, you know, that be meetups and other things and met some of them through partnerships and, and deals. [00:03:51] Marcus Long: And a lot of my initial partners were other military guys and girls, and that we, some of us were in similar masterminds together. So we spent a lot of time together in, you know, weekend calls or accountability groups and things like that. Really getting to know each other and then I've met other people through them. [00:04:05] Sam Wilson: What do you think someone should take time-wise from, you know, where you started? I mean, you kind had a, a base in real estate. But what, what would you say is an estimated time someone should budget in for all right, this is when I'm going to start digging in, doing what you did, joining masterminds, talking to people, figuring out what markets to be in, how to, how to grow and scale. How much time do you think that should take someone?  [00:04:29] Marcus Long: Yeah. You know, I think that's a difficult question because we're all in, in a different phase of life. Some of us still have a W2. Some don't have a W2, some have a family, some don't have a family. And so I think it's difficult to like compare to other people in, in their journey and we're all on our own journey to do that. [00:04:43] Marcus Long: But one thing I would say is, I think we, we do need to be patient with ourselves, you know, and stuff. I'm in some of these masterminds and, sometimes, you know, someone's just starting out and, you know, they start taking these actions and they don't have results in three, four, maybe even six months or something, right. And, and, you know, they, they want, we have that, want that instant gratification of something. And I think it's important for people to realize like, you know, once in a while, someone may get lucky or may have that, you know, deal come through early on, but you know, we have to be patient and trust the process and give it the time, you know, to, to take effect. [00:05:15] Marcus Long: 'Cause I mean, even if you have people that, you know, want to invest with you or brokers that want to work with you, you know, it doesn't happen based on one conversation, you know, it's a repeated follow up and stuff. And so, you know, I hate to put a time on it, but you know, I think a, you know, a good year, you know, for people to even really kind of expect results and stuff is probably. [00:05:34] Sam Wilson: Probably a fair number. [00:05:35] Marcus Long: Non-conservative approach, maybe.  [00:05:36] Sam Wilson: Yeah, no, I, I absolutely agree. Absolutely agree 'cause that's, I mean, that's what we see a lot of times is, you know, people are like, Hey, you know, they come out expecting two to three months. They're going to get through and that happen
19 minutes | Jun 21, 2022
From Management Consulting to Commercial Real Estate Investing
Ernest has more than 12 years of experience as a management consultant providing technology and business consulting to Fortune 500 companies. His project/program management, business development executive background, an entrepreneurial mindset, provided him with opportunities to merge his enthusiasm to work in the technology sector and real estate as a broker and investor in residential and commercial RE since 2010. In this episode, Ernest Peralta discusses his journey from corporate consultant to successful real estate investor. He advises listeners to seek out mentors and learn as much as possible about the industry before jumping in, and to focus on specific asset classes during turbulent times.   Highlights:   [00:00 - 05:35] How to Scale Your Business in 6 Months or Less   Ernest Peralta started 12 years ago and has experience in management consulting and real estate. Took the route of consulting after he graduated with his undergraduate degree He networked with people in the industry and took courses to learn more about the business Right before the pandemic hits, Ernest educated himself about real estate and did some research. He considers Covid as a time of education and Post-Covid as implementation.   [05:35 - 10:50] How to Scale Your Business and Attract Investors with Strategy   Ernest uses programs such as Microsoft Office to create a project plan outlining steps to scale within six months to a year and where they could be to where they are today. He also recommends reaching out to potential investors through mailers, conference calls, and mastermind groups. Ernest shares that bad advice often includes telling people to find their passion.   [10:51 - 16:00] Follow Your Passion But Work on Your Daily Plan   One of the main things Ernest recommends is to not only follow your passion, but also to work on your daily plan and action plan. Ernest has found that the current market is challenging, but he is still optimistic about the future. One of the biggest challenges Ernest faces is finding investors who are willing to pay a high price for his properties." Tweetable Quotes “I would say it would be better advice to not only follow your passion, but work on your daily plan, work on those things that you don't want to do on a daily basis, because those are things that you actually need to do in order for you to accomplish your goals.” - Ernest Peralta   ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Connect with Eric Peralta on LinkedIn or visit their website at mvpequitygroup.com You email him through  ernest@mvpequitygroup.com Connect with me:   Facebook   LinkedIn   Like, subscribe, and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or whatever platform you listen on.  Thank you for tuning in!   Email me → sam@brickeninvestmentgroup.com Want to read the full show notes of the episode? Check it out below: [00:00:00] Ernest Peralta: How can I scale within six months to a year? And where could I be to where I am today. So, you know, the first thing that I wanted to do was really understand the business. [00:00:08] Ernest Peralta: So I always go back to COVID because to me that was my learning year. And then the following year after that was my implementation year. So the first year was all educational for me, just really trying to understand, put together a plan of how can I learn as much as I can about the industry. [00:00:24] Ernest Peralta: But aside from learning, a lot of it is trying to, to implement can learn as much as you can, but if you don't implement, you're never really gonna pursue or grow.  [00:00:45] Sam Wilson:  [00:00:45] Sam Wilson: Ernest Peralta has combined his passion for multifamily investment management, consulting and personal development with his personal philosophy of goal setting, envisioning and manifesting success to help people who wanna live their best life. Ernest, welcome to the show.  [00:00:58] Ernest Peralta: Thanks a lot, Sam, thank you for having me. [00:01:00] Sam Wilson: Hey man. The pleasure's mine. There's three questions. I ask every guest who comes to the show. Can you tell us in 90 seconds or less, where did you start? Where are you now? And how did you get there? Yeah,  [00:01:08] Ernest Peralta: absolutely. So I started about 12 years ago. My background entails management consulting, but my family had a small portfolio of residential real estate. [00:01:18] Ernest Peralta: And so that's kind of how I got my start was kind of through my family. And over the years I basically had always had real estate in the back of my mind, but I took the route of consulting cause I had finished my undergraduate degree. My master's degree kind of did the whole educational thing worked in corporate arena for, several years long and long story short is that I ended up stumbling into commercial real estate right before COVID and tried to find out what asset classes or what areas could actually help me sustain if anything was to come again like this to impact me and my family in the future. [00:01:51] Ernest Peralta: And I came across commercial real estate. Man that's and that's  [00:01:54] Ernest Peralta: where I am today. Tell me real quick. I mean, the term corporate consultant for somebody that has no experience in the corporate world doesn't mean much to me.  [00:02:01] Sam Wilson: Can you break that down for us.  [00:02:02] Ernest Peralta: Absolutely. Yeah. It's always a confusing thing. [00:02:04] Ernest Peralta: When you say corporate consulting or management consulting, it's like, what is that? Right? So what it is basically is I provide advisory services, whether it's project program management for fortune 500 companies. So you name the big retailers I've consulted for, companies like, and I'll say this here, like Microsoft AT&T , Costco. [00:02:24] Ernest Peralta: Bill Melinda gates foundation, all of their companies, basically I come in and I provide strategic type of guidance, whether it is pushing an initiative, a business initiative that they have a new application or a software. Sometimes it could be data privacy or security type of issues. These are things that I help them. [00:02:40] Ernest Peralta: Either document work with a team. It's usually a global team that I work with and we have timelines and processes that I typically kind of project manage until delivery of, these products and service. Is  [00:02:51] Sam Wilson: that something you're still involved in today or have you switched completely to commercial real estate? [00:02:55] Ernest Peralta: I did. Yeah. I actually had switched over about a year now. Okay. And so I ended up making that switch over. I spent about a good 16 plus years in that arena and I decided like, I mentioned earlier before jumping on COVID actually had impacted me. So this is where that pivotal moment for me actually happened is when I decided to look back into commercial real estate since I had done, residential real estate many years ago. And so that was my pivotal moment. And this is where my focus is right now.  [00:03:26] Sam Wilson: What was your strategy? jumping into commercial real estate just before, COVID probably had to be a little bit unnerving, but what was your strategy? [00:03:34] Sam Wilson: Once you said, okay, I'm stepping out of corporate consulting role. what did you do to get involved in commercial real estate?  [00:03:40] Ernest Peralta: Absolutely. Yeah. Great question, Sam. I think for me, one of the, one of the things that I always like to do is I like to strategize like, okay, I don't know too much about commercial real estate. [00:03:50] Ernest Peralta: Where do I start? So the first thing I ended up doing was trying to find individuals out there that actually could help me as a mentor or maybe I could take courses. So I did a lot of, research online and I came across a couple of individuals, like the Michael Blank of the world, the Peter Harris' and Dylan Borland, those individuals were folks that I had actually looked at research prior to me jumping on board and, really dedicating myself into commercial real estate. So that was number one, was trying to find experts in the industry. Secondly, I networked with people at that time, a lot of zoom calls. [00:04:23] Ernest Peralta: So a lot of interactivity, in, in, in the social media realm, if you will. So I did a lot of. Connections through LinkedIn social media with individuals that already had experience in commercial real estate. Now at the time I was really trying to focus on, okay, what aspect of commercial real estate do I wanna focus in? [00:04:40] Ernest Peralta: Cuz there are various different asset classes I realized at the time that, multifamily mobile homes, as well as, different types of retail could potentially be lucrative. In times of turbulent recessions, if you will, that happen in our economy. So I ended up just focusing on multi-family for the fact that it was kind of a segue for my family and I, when we had owned a couple of duplexes in the past. [00:05:03] Ernest Peralta: So for me, that was kind of a no brainer to kind of step into that arena that had became my focus, going forward. So kind of to where we are today, I ended up just really networking very well with individuals that are in the industry, tried to learn what it was to be like as a limited partner. [00:05:20] Ernest Peralta: What is a cog, what is a GP? And also, how do you equity raise? All those things kind of came into play for me to really understand, okay, what aspect of this business do I want to focus in? And how do I get involved? So that was basically my start.  [00:05:36] Sam Wilson: I love it. I bet. From the corporate consulting side, you did a lot of strategy in planning. [00:05:42] Sam Wilson: So what did you do? Find the experts network on social media. Did you lay out like a 10 step plan and said, okay, I'm gonna do this first and I'm gonna do this. And here's how I'm gonna raise equity. What did that blueprint look like if you had one and I'm sure you probably did.  [00:05:56] Sam Wilson: I
21 minutes | Jun 20, 2022
Revolutionizing Real Estate with IoT Technology
If you’re still not sold on the power of the Internet of Things (IoT), then listen to this episode!   There are endless applications of the technology in real estate, and our guest John Humphrey joins us to discuss how STR owners can mine crypto on their property using IoT and create passive income. He also talks about their company, LinxSTR, and the work they do to help people optimize their business operations and build wealth by leveraging the potential of IoT.   [00:01 - 06:20] Decentralizing the Internet John talks about his background Helium and creating the world’s biggest IoT network   [06:21 - 20:15] Passively Earning Crypto Rewards Losing money in their short-term vacation rental properties during the pandemic Starting a technology arm of their business Building their own Helium hotspot box How STR owners can benefit through mining HNT What’s LinxSTR’s next play Smart solutions using IoT John breaks down the best way to set up the hotspots in properties   [20:16 - 21:24] Closing Segment Reach out to John!  Links Below  Final Words Tweetable Quotes   “Almost a hundred percent of our lives in three years right now is going to be all interconnected.” - John Humphrey “Me and you won't be talking over cellular towers anymore. Our phone, our actual communication is going to box to box, to box, to box, to box, to get anywhere it needs to get.” - John Humphrey -----------------------------------------------------------------------------   Connect with John for a strategy session! Book now at iotjohn.com.   Connect with me:   I love helping others place money outside of traditional investments that both diversify a strategy and provide solid predictable returns.     Facebook   LinkedIn   Like, subscribe, and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or whatever platform you listen on.  Thank you for tuning in!   Email me → sam@brickeninvestmentgroup.com Want to read the full show notes of the episode? Check it out below: [00:00:00] John Humphrey: Right now in the next three years, 75 billion new devices are going to need a place to hook up to the internet. I mean, this is everything what's going to happen. Almost a hundred percent of our life in three years right now is going to be all interconnected. It's really crazy.  [00:00:28] Sam Wilson: John Humphrey's a seasoned entrepreneur author and is best known as The Revenue Generation Expert. He is an expert at implementing systems to generate ongoing income for not only his own companies, but also for his clients worldwide. John, welcome to the show.  [00:00:42] John Humphrey: Sam. Great to be here. Thanks for having me.  [00:00:44] Sam Wilson: Pleasure is mine. Three questions I ask every guest who comes on the show: in 90 seconds or less, can you tell me, where did you start? Where are you now? And how did you get there?  [00:00:51] John Humphrey: Okay. Started 20 years ago, originally from New York. I'm out here in California, 20 years, April, this past April is 20 years. My wife and I had been out here in California. Yes. We came out of California to create fame and fortune and become entrepreneurs. And that's where our kind of our journey started. Fast forward 20 years, you know, I've been in business with like one of my best friends that I met out here california when we first got out here, Jerry Conti and we've owned three or four different companies together on our latest company right now, LinxSTR, is revolutionizing the new IoT Helium platform that's being launched worldwide. And that's our latest play right now. And it's a, it's super exciting what we're into.  [00:01:35] Sam Wilson: Can you, can you break this down for us? You may have used a bunch of words that if entrepreneurs like me just said, what did he just say? Helium IoT LinxSTR and my eyes glaze over. Break it down for us.  [00:01:48] John Humphrey: I'm going to tell you all about it. It's actually, it's, it's a, it's a pretty cool concept. It's right around a little bit over two years ago, a cryptocurrency called Helium, the actual cryptocurrency said, okay, listen, we're going to create our own new cryptocurrency. [00:02:01] John Humphrey: You know, it's right now there's 8,000 cryptocurrencies in the world that most people will never hear, right? This one said, we're going to do something different. We are going to create the world's biggest IoT network and IoT stands for internet of things. Now, if you don't know what that is, I didn't know what the hell it was when we got this whole thing rolling. [00:02:20] John Humphrey: But basically it's a network that is an, basically an outdoor network of the internet. I'm just going to give you the plain, plain simple truth. So like I was sharing with you saying like inside our house, we have, you know, we have our wifi in the house, right? But we go outside, we're using cellular data, but there are billions of new devices that are being developed right now for everything from, from a motor scooters to the cameras that go around your property to temperature monitor, to, to leak detection, to all sorts of things that can happen with a property. These, all these little devices need to be hooked up into the internet, but typically they're not going to hook up into the wifi 'cause a lot of these devices are actually outside the property. So how did they hook up? Well, they're not going to hook up to cellular because it's too expensive and they're not going to the satellite cause that's even more expensive. So over the last number of years, there's been a, there's been a network called the IoT network. [00:03:18] John Humphrey: Now the IoT network has been around in major cities for a very, very long time. So if you ever gone to, you know, swipe your credit card and a parking meter downtown. Well, your information is getting beamed into this outdoor internet network called the IoT network. If you've ever gone to a, like the, like the line motor scooters that you know, the little electric scooters you see everywhere downtown, how does that all operate? [00:03:44] John Humphrey: That's an IoT device. So now what's happening is that not only are more and more IoT devices becoming made. Right now in the next three years, 75 billion new devices are going to need a place to hook up to the internet. I mean, this is everything what's going to happen. Almost a hundred percent of our life in three years right now, it's going to be all interconnected. [00:04:05] John Humphrey: It's really crazy. So what do they do? Well, they created this, so Helium said we're going to create the world's first 100% connected worldwide network and how they're going to do it is not by building it centrally. They're going to decentralize the internet. So now this isn't the size of an actual box, but it's about the size of what's called, what's called a Helium hotspot. [00:04:28] John Humphrey: Okay. So imagine having this in your house and all this little device does is it looks for other IoT devices and all it does is it beacons and witnesses, it just basically shares the network to create a network. So think of it this way. If Netflix got started today, they would send you a little device that you would plug into your router. [00:04:50] John Humphrey: This is what they would do. And they would say, great, we'll send you the device. And when your neighbor orders, a TV show or a movie, and the movie has to go through all these devices to get to your neighbor. And this little movie goes over your box to get to your neighbor's box. We're going to pay you every time that that happens. [00:05:09] John Humphrey: This is a peer to peer network that is being built. This is really what. You know, Web 3.0 really is, it's called decentralized the network, having the people own the network. So Helium is known as the people's network, and this is what's getting built right now. So super exciting. There's about, like I said, there was about 700,000 of those little devices worldwide in 5,800 cities and 200,000 of them are in the United States. [00:05:36] John Humphrey: So there are quite a number, but people are saying, well, you know, how many will it take? It'll take about 2 to 3 million devices to completely blanket the United States. So think about this in a few years, and this is, this is kind of crazy me and you won't be talking over cellular towers anymore. Our phone, our actual communication is going to be going box to box, to box, to box, to box, to get anywhere it needs to get. [00:06:02] John Humphrey: The entire world, this is where it's going to be happening. So Helium's going to be really the biggest data provider, you know, in, in the world in the next few years, this is what's happening.  [00:06:13] Sam Wilson: That that is really amazing. I mean, this is, this is obviously you're, you're at the front of this, I guess. Tell us, give us the backstory on how you saw the opportunity here. I mean, was this what your background was in and, you know, are you a big tech guy?  [00:06:28] John Humphrey: Nope, not a tech guy. I love tech, you know, I like to use tech, but I'm not in the weeds when it comes, I'm going electrical engineer or anything. I'm more of a user, right? So, so here's what happened. So my, my partner, Jerry, we've had a short-term vacation rental development company for many, many years. And we actually taught people how to convert large homes into luxury short-term rentals. And we did that in the arbitrage model where we're basically, we would go rent a giant house. I convert it. And then Castro, the property was amazing. I mean, one of my properties at Arizona, I was paying 10,500 a month rent, which was nuts. [00:07:05] John Humphrey: Right. But it was bringing in $35,000 a month and bookings. Super great business, but then 2020 happens and we all know what happened in March of 2020, we had the pandemic. And what people don't realize is in the month of April, Airbnb came out and said, listen, we know everybody's panicking with travel, so here's what we're going to do regardless of your cancellation policy with your host, if you want to g
18 minutes | Jun 19, 2022
Investment Opportunities: High Yield Cash Flowing Real Estate
Eric Neely is a truck driver and  Acquisition Manager & Customer Relations of Febros Captial, Eric who has been in the real estate industry for over 20 years. He started to learn more about investing and networking with other professionals in the finance world and created his own podcast, The Wealthy Trucker, in 2017. Recently, he partnered up with another real estate professional and invested in a smaller apartment complex.   Eric Neely handles broker relations and even speaks directly with asset sellers. He also maintains relations with bankers and our investors. As a highly educated and experienced entrepreneur, Eric brings specific skills to the table, and always asks the right questions when evaluating a possible asset.   Highlights:   [00:00 - 05:48] How to Succeed as an Investment Professional  Eric Neely is a real estate professional who focuses on developing private placements in apartment complexes. He is also the host of the Wealthy Trucker podcast and has invested in larger apartment complexes. He recommends networking to build trust before attempting any deals.   [05:48 - 11:39] Full-Time Truck Driver Becomes Property Manager. Eric shares his experience in scaling a real estate business, including their first deal and subsequent deals. He recommends avoiding relying on myths about real estate and instead of learning as much as possible from personal experience. he added the importance of regular communication with property management companies, as well as taking care of finances and distributions.   [11:40 - 17:45] Closing Segment For Eric it learning the importance of screening tenants and learning the importance of being personable and talking to people while taking care of them should be priority  as its not only making money for yourself but also impacting lives. Final words Reach out to Eric See links below  Tweetable Quotes   “Cause we don't allow, people to just come sit on the property, so we're impacting more than just the people who live there we're impacted the community. And then beyond that you're impacting people who are looking for passive investment opportunities.” - Eric  Neely   ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Connect with Nick Neely visit their website at FebrosCapital.com Or listen to his podcast: The Wealthy Trucker Podcast with Eric Neely   Connect with me:   Facebook   LinkedIn   Like, subscribe, and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or whatever platform you listen on.  Thank you for tuning in!   Email me → sam@brickeninvestmentgroup.com Want to read the full show notes of the episode? Check it out below:     [00:00:00] Eric Neely: the fact that we self manage that it really ironed into my head, how. , you may be creating an investment vehicle for somebody. You may be trying to make money yourself, but you're also impacting people's lives that live in your Eric Neely is a real estate professional focused on developing private placements in apartment complexes. So the everyday professional has an opportunity to invest in high yield cashflowing real estate. And he's also host of the wealthy trucker podcast. And if I'm not mistaken, Eric, you're calling me from the road today on interstate. [00:00:43] Sam Wilson: I think it's i70 there in Kansas. Welcome. Welcome to the.  [00:00:48] Eric Neely: Thank you, Sam. It's a pleasure to be here and yet that's correct. I'm sitting on the side of the highway right now in my office behind the windshield.  [00:00:56] Sam Wilson: Yeah, I have to say this. I give you props for having fairly good audio for a guy sitting in a semi-truck. [00:01:01] Sam Wilson: That's pretty good. I've had people sitting in their own home offices with poor audio, so that that sounds good. I appreciate it.  [00:01:08] Eric Neely: Nope, no problem. Well, I, I have a lot of experience of listening to podcasts. And also like you said, I run my own podcasts. So audio is something that I had a little bit of time to research because I knew it was pretty important. [00:01:21] Eric Neely: So the headset I bought was specifically so that I could do what we're doing right now. Oh man. That's  [00:01:26] Sam Wilson: fantastic. I love it. There's three questions. I ask every guest who comes on the show in 90 seconds or less. Can you tell me, where did you start? Where are you now? And how did you get.  [00:01:35] Eric Neely: Sure. Well, I started, honestly it probably, driving a truck, I've been a trucker for 20 years almost. [00:01:41] Eric Neely: And, really didn't take investing seriously at all. Honestly I had a 401k and I always put money. But I just ignored it pretended like it wasn't even there that way. It wouldn't never be tempted. So I didn't even know how well it performed. So that's where I was. And as I was driving trucks, I spending all this time out on the highway. [00:02:04] Eric Neely: I started, thinking about how am I going to get out of trucking. Eventually I can't do this forever. It's beaten up my body. And I don't know. What I need to do to prepare for retirement. So, ended up starting to educate myself through podcasts and ran across the infamous BiggerPockets podcast and thought, well, maybe I can start flipping houses, something like that. [00:02:27] Eric Neely: And just ultimately the more I learned about it, the more I realized, man, I'm already working 60, 70 hours a week out here on the road. There's no way I can flip houses and do it consistently. And I also have a close friend of mine who's in the finance world. So I started talking to him about this multi-family syndication thing that I'd heard about and said, what do you think about that? [00:02:49] Eric Neely: And he he said, man, I've got clients that, that I do their taxes, and this is exactly what, I already understand this. I'm like, well, what do you think about us? Getting into partnership and doing something like this. And he goes, let's do it. Let's make it happen. So. I said, well, I'm going to spend the next couple of years learning how to do it while I'm out here on the road. [00:03:05] Eric Neely: Use the highway education tool. So podcasts, audio books, and started networking. We created our own meetup a few years ago that I host in our local community in Wichita, Kansas. And and then I started the podcast the wealthy trucker and. The sky's the limit and wherever the Lord will take us is where we'll go. [00:03:27] Eric Neely: And so now, today I own my I joint ventured into a apartment complex a couple of years ago. I J I've invested passively into larger apartment complexes and we are in the process of closing a larger syndication. So. If you take the education you get and apply it, you can go anywhere. [00:03:51] Eric Neely: And I still worked full time driving a truck. So it's still sitting in a truck right now,  [00:03:55] Sam Wilson: man. That's a lot of moving pieces and you've done what I think a lot of people. Are unwilling to put themselves out there and do right. I mean, you started a podcast, you started a meetup. [00:04:06] Sam Wilson: You those are obviously thought leadership platforms but also just kind of built a brand and a following around what it is that you're doing. I think that's really cool because then that takes a little bit of courage. Did you do that at the same time that you already had deals going? [00:04:19] Sam Wilson: Or was that something you had first? What would you recommend to somebody in your shoes?  [00:04:23] Eric Neely: You've got us. You've got to tell people what you're doing and it's challenging to do it when you haven't done a deal yet. And that's where, I mean, I guess if I look back on what I did and how I could maybe do it different, the one thing I regret is not starting the podcast, as soon as I did. [00:04:39] Eric Neely: I mean, I get more reach with the podcasts. I talked to more people because of it. and again, Your name out there so that people know what you're doing. And that's ultimately what it boils down to. People have to know what you're doing. This is very much a people business. If people don't know what you're doing, they're not going to invest with youth. [00:04:54] Eric Neely: They don't know who you are. They don't know. They don't know. I can trust you. That's the common thing you hear. So they don't know, like, and trust you. Why would they invest with you? I don't know how many times I've heard people say, well, if you have a deal, the money will come. I think. Not really true, because if people don't know who you are, if they don't trust you, why would they invest with you? [00:05:13] Eric Neely: I don't care how good your deal is. So that's kind of how it is, but that's how my mindset works. Anyway, if I could do it different, I would have started the podcast sooner. We did do the meetup pretty early, but, and Wichita, Kansas. Anyway, it's a smaller community, don't know how many people we have there around less than a million. [00:05:32] Eric Neely: And so. the reach, there was not as great as it might be in a bigger metropolitan area. So my meetup ranges anywhere from 10 to 20 people on average per month, it's a small amount of people. It still gets me there, but The more people you can reach, the more people that you're talking to, the better off you're going to  [00:05:48] Sam Wilson: be. [00:05:48] Sam Wilson: Right. Tell me about your deals. You said, can you rewind that a little bit for me? I know you said what you guys have bought so far. Can you give us the S the summary on what you guys own currently?  [00:05:59] Eric Neely: Sure. We bought our first one, like I said, it was a JV deal. It was really between me and my business partner. [00:06:05] Eric Neely: I was telling you about that. Does the finance, and then one of them. Primary capital partner. He put more, most of the money into the deal between the three of us. We bought that we self-manage it. And really that's because that third partner that I'm talking about, he is retired and he wanted something to do. [00:06:25] Eric Neely: And
25 minutes | Jun 18, 2022
The Golden Rule in Real Estate
Is it worth it to invest in gold?   Bringing in years of experience working for the oldest continuously family-owned and operated precious metals dealer in the US, Robert Goodin answers why we should add gold, silver, and platinum to our portfolio. Robert also gives his perspective as a real estate investor and talks about networking with leaders in the business, finding value in the market, and helping others get the financing they need.   [00:01 - 04:12] Networking is Key Robert shares his background Selling precious metals and side hustling in real estate on the side Building relationships with successful people    [04:13 - 10:25] Investing in Precious Metals Comparing the US dollar to gold Why gold is similar to real estate The potential of silver and platinum   [10:26 - 22:16]  Starting Small in Real Estate and Scaling Up Scouring the market to find value Turning around raw, underappreciated land How marketing and subdividing are keys to profitability What Robert and his team do to help people who are struggling to finance a property Working with notes and the importance of pre-payment penalty Finding the right people Robert’s thoughts on debt   [22:17 - 24:31] Closing Segment The best piece of advice Robert has received Reach out to Robert!  Links Below Final Words Tweetable Quotes   “Gold still makes sense. Countries buy gold. Central banks are buying gold.” - Robert Goodin “You've got to know your market to be able to identify value.” - Robert Goodin “It's about the right people. You can kind of tell when somebody has your interest in mind.” - Robert Goodin -----------------------------------------------------------------------------   Connect with Robert at robert@mcalvany.com or 8556385616! If you want to know more about the precious metals market, check out their show, the Golden Rule Radio on McAlvany Financial's YouTube channel. They post every Thursday!   Connect with me:   I love helping others place money outside of traditional investments that both diversify a strategy and provide solid predictable returns.     Facebook   LinkedIn   Like, subscribe, and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or whatever platform you listen on.  Thank you for tuning in!   Email me → sam@brickeninvestmentgroup.com Want to read the full show notes of the episode? Check it out below:   [00:00:00] Robert Goodin: There's been times when it only takes 50 ounces of gold or a hundred ounces of gold to buy the median home price in the states. That's a good trade. So gold buy real estate. If it's too high, it's over 200 being, I think, above the average. Well, real estate, may be a little too high compared to something else like a commodity gold. [00:00:31] Sam Wilson: Robert Goodin, a good old boy from Tennessee who believes in the golden rule, like his YouTube report, Golden Rule Radio, Robert, welcome to the show. [00:00:39] Robert Goodin: Hey, thanks. So glad to be here.  [00:00:41] Sam Wilson: Pleasure is mine. Same three questions I ask every guest who comes on the show: in 90 seconds or less, can you tell me, where did you start? Where are you now? And how did you get there?  [00:00:50] Robert Goodin: Yep. So I grew up in Tennessee, rural Tennessee, outside of Chattanooga, had a family who had some businesses. They were in the boat dock business Center Hill Lake, Dale Hollow Lake, Fontana back in the 50's, 60's, 70's. So my mom grew up. Doing that running the businesses with my grandfather. And so I kind of always had an eye for trying to recognize opportunity. You know, what makes sense, what makes sense in a business sense and societal sense. [00:01:20] Robert Goodin: And then what doesn't make sense when, when to not say something does work went to college at Sewanee: The University Of The South, got exposed to some of the, you know, older money crap. And my grandfather had always said, you know, those, those types of people can employ you. They can give you opportunity. [00:01:37] Robert Goodin: And it was about the people, not the education that I was going to get there 'cause it was totally different than what I expected walking in there. And so I recognize that he was a smart dude and he always said go west there's opportunity out west. I ended up right out of college, worked for SunTrust bank, did some mortgages, stuff like that for a couple of years. [00:01:57] Robert Goodin: And then, through a family that I went to college with, they had an opportunity here in Durango, Colorado. I quit my job cold Turkey at the bank didn't know what I was going to do, but I packed up my car and left Tennessee, headed out west, ended up in Durango, Colorado, and started working for them, met some more of the right people. [00:02:15] Robert Goodin: And I've been doing precious metals for the last 15 years. I worked for the McAlvany family. They're the oldest continuously owned and operated precious metals dealer in the states. The founder helped get gold legalized in the seventies. So I worked for a neat family and my side hustle real estate. [00:02:37] Robert Goodin: So I was at the real estate conference there, The Best Ever Conference, met you a few years ago, Sam, and then saw you again, not too long ago. So been doing side hustle real estate deals, started small scaling up and, you know, I sell precious metals as a, as a career, but the real estate thing's worked out well, Colorado real estate's been good to me.  [00:03:00] Sam Wilson: That's awesome. I love your story there. There's so much to pull out of that. The one, the one thing that I like what you said, which if you're listening that don't know about Sewanee and it's pretty probably one of the prettiest campuses. I think that existshere in the States. That's a, that's a gorgeous campus there in east Tennessee, but you know, it is, it is about I think building your network. [00:03:22] Sam Wilson: And I think that's a, that's a repeating theme I hear on the show. It's not, you know, the, the, the kind of overused phrase is not what it's, who, you know, but. It is, and it's putting yourself in those situations. And I think that's a, that's something that you just do over and over, right? I mean, it didn't end when you went to Sewanee, you had to continuously, and you still do put yourself in the right environment in order to grow. [00:03:43] Robert Goodin: That's right. Yeah. I think it is about the people. It's kind of like the saying don't marry for money, but look for love among the wealthy. [00:03:56] Sam Wilson: I've not heard of that. That's pretty good.  [00:03:59] Robert Goodin: You know, so my, my grandfather encouraged me to get involved with people, you know, who had businesses and, and learn from.  [00:04:08] Sam Wilson: Yeah, no, that's, that's absolutely, absolutely true. Tell me, you know, a little bit about, let's talk about gold and precious metals for a minute. I don't want to stay here for too long, but certainly want to hear, you know, what it is that you do, what you're seeing in the market, why people are going to gold. Just, just give us your overall market sentiments, because this is not something that I know that much about, and certainly don't specialize in a day-to-day.  [00:04:34] Sam Wilson: Sure. I think the interplay between the dollar being what everybody considers as liquidity and capital and gold, I consider gold capital. I go between gold and real estate. [00:04:50] Robert Goodin: The US dollar index right now, hit the highest level a few days ago since 2003. And it sure doesn't feel like the dollar is strong. If you go to the store and buy something. But there's weakness in Europe specifically that has been driving the dollar index way up. And I think it's, it's a better form of measurement to measure the dollar price in some commodity like gold instead of looking at the dollar index because the dollar index is at a high that it hasn't been, there was a high in 2020, and during COVID because the dollar was liquidity, it was the safe haven currency. There was a high in 2017, but the dollar poke just above that. And it hadn't been that high since 2003 on the index, right? Well, obviously you don't feel that buying something and being a consumer here in the states, but the dollar index is at a high. And the last two times a dollar index was, is a high 2017, gold was around 1212 to 1300. Then again in 2020 at a high again around where it is right now. And gold was in the 1600, 1650. [00:06:01] Robert Goodin: Today, Gold's around 1900. So you've got gold, kind of stair-stepping higher. And I think that's a better barometer for how powerful the dollar actually is. So I see gold as a safe haven going forward especially. And it is, there's some overlap between the real estate market and gold and silver, because you can do precious metals in your self-directed IRA. [00:06:26] Robert Goodin: So it's one of the reasons we were at The Best Ever Conference. You know, the, that group already, you, a lot of them have self-directed IRAs that they're doing real estate deals, Well, you can do precious metals in there as well. So there's a lot of overlap there and it's a mindset of a tangible asset. [00:06:43] Robert Goodin: You know, gold is basically real estate that you can move hide and, and trade and liquidate. Liquidity, it is a big, big thing I think, in today's market.  [00:06:52] Sam Wilson: Yeah. And certainly, certainly, you know, traditionally gold has been held as an inflation, you know, as a, as a hedge against. So, you know, seeing, seeing that, and I love, I love the idea of not heard anybody talk about that yet about comparing gold to the dollar index, because you're absolutely right. [00:07:10] Sam Wilson: None of us are going to, the, none of us are going to the gas pump or the grocery store and paying five or six bucks a gallon for diesel or gas. And then, you know, you didn't pay in 25% and 30% more for the same product and going, yeah. My dollar is buying a lot more. Clearly our dollars not buying more. And so that's a, that's a really intriguing kind of interplay between. [00:07:30] Ro
16 minutes | Jun 17, 2022
Three Secrets of the Wealthy
Often in the media, Rennie supports individuals and business owners to create work as a choice, instead of a requirement, just as he did for himself. Complete Financial Choice® As a highly rated instructor at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA), Rennie uses his award-winning, #1 best-selling book, Wealth on Any Income, to teach the effective money skills from both the emotional and psychological aspects, as well as the practical components. His book has been translated into eight languages. Stay tuned and listen to Rennie Gabriel and his knowledge of the secrets of being wealthy. [0:00 - 06:53] Opening Segment Rennie Gabriel is the author of the best-selling book Wealth on any Income. It's been translated into eight languages, just as a Fun Fact: He failed high school Math and was broke at age 50, and is now a multimillionaire He considers himself an execution master, and he works side by side with people he calls visionaries. Rennie realizes that most of his success happens when he does it with other people and failures come when does it alone.   [06:53 - 13:13] How to Handle Money Powerfully: The Foundations Doing an income and expense report:  How Rennie was taught to help other people by maintaining or enhancing their wealth, but not how to do the day-to-day items regarding money. He discovered this and shared it in his book,   He now has enough, Rennie says that if he can continue to donate to charity the happier he can become. Setting aside 10% of your income for Emergency.  This is his challenge to most people. [13:14 - 16:34] Closing Segment   Reach out to RennieSee links below  Final words Tweetable Quotes   “If I look back at my situation where at one point I had to actually, collect soda bottles and cans to get the refund money, to buy food for my family. When I look at the tens of thousands of dollars a month of income now, and I'm living on maybe 40, 50% of that, I've got enough. If I can continue to donate to charity. The thousands of dollars that we donate. I mean, granted, it could be more, but it's enough. “ - Rennie Gabriel   “The more money I can donate to charity. The happier I am”-  Rennie Gabriel   ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Connect with Rennie Gabriel. Visit the following websites:renniegabriel.com Wealthonanyincome.com    Resources Mentioned:Wealth on any Income The Richest Man in Babylon  Connect with me:   Facebook   LinkedIn   Like, subscribe, and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or whatever platform you listen on.  Thank you for tuning in!   Email me → sam@brickeninvestmentgroup.com Want to read the full show notes of the episode? Check it out below: [00:00:24] Sam Wilson: Rennie Gabriel is the author of the best-selling book wealth on any income. It's been translated into eight languages, just as a fun fact, he failed high school. Math was broke at age 50 and is a multimillionaire by the age of 58 Rennie. I am looking forward to jumping into today's episode and learning about you and your story.    [00:00:55] Sam Wilson: Welcome to the show.     [00:00:56] Rennie Gabriel: Thank you, Sam. My pleasure to     [00:00:58] Sam Wilson: be here. Pleasure's mine. Three questions. I ask every guest who comes to the show in 90 seconds or less. Where did you start? Where are you now? And how did you get there.     [00:01:06] Rennie Gabriel: Where I started, I've always been an entrepreneur. And I guess I could say in terms of real estate started pretty much at 50, after two divorces and the business failure, that's the reason I was broke.    [00:01:17] Rennie Gabriel: And where am I now? Don't have to work for a living because of the rental income from the properties we have.     [00:01:23] Sam Wilson: That is fascinating. I'm looking forward. Looking forward to this always been an entrepreneur. You said two divorces and a business failure. Can you tell us what were some lessons you learned in that business failure?    [00:01:38] Rennie Gabriel: Biggest lesson is that when I have partners, I have success. And when I do things on my own it's mediocre or a failure.     [00:01:47] Sam Wilson: Okay. Break that down for us. Cause one of the things even though we talked about here off air was that building wealth is a team sport. So can you talk to us about that?     [00:01:57] Rennie Gabriel: Absolutely. So I had a pension administration company in the 1980s.    [00:02:03] Rennie Gabriel: I had two partners. We sold it off to a public company. I had a lot of money at the time and that was the first time I could choose to work or choose not to work. Then I got divorced, so I kind of ate that up. I had an art gallery business that failed and I was the solo person involved in that art gallery business.    [00:02:24] Rennie Gabriel: In the real estate business. When I started at age 50, I had my wife as a partner and a realtor and the three of us, Worked together. And what I recognized, at age 50 and looking backwards, the successes who are when I had partners and didn't do it alone. And the failures were when I tried to do things by myself.    [00:02:46] Rennie Gabriel: And then I decided to be an angel investor and really saw the value of partnership from this standpoint. Oh, Sam, you know who Warren buffet is, right? I've heard the name. Yeah. And probably also know who Charlie Munger is. Do you I've heard the name. Okay. But most people, when I ask that question, they don't know who Charlie Munger is, but he's half of Berkshire Hathaway.    [00:03:11] Rennie Gabriel: Right. And you go Steve jobs and Steve Wosniak you go to Elon Musk, Elon admits he knows nothing about building cars or rocket ships. But he has execution masters. Elon is a visionary Warren buffett's a visionary. Steve jobs is a visionary and what they have in their business organizations are people who can execute on those visions.    [00:03:35] Rennie Gabriel: In the real estate business, we had a realtor who was a visionary. And I was the execution master. I had taken a class at UCLA on how to manage apartment buildings 14 years earlier. So I took care of the tenants. I, oh, I met the plumber at the job site, or I met the painter at the job site and he found the properties.    [00:03:56] Rennie Gabriel: We bought the properties by X, but I executed on keeping tenants, happy renting showing units.     [00:04:03] Sam Wilson: Now is that what you guys did? You went into the multifamily space and that was what really set you up to financial     [00:04:09] Rennie Gabriel: independence? Yes. As a matter of fact, when I met my wife she, and this realtor had three rental houses and I said, Well, I actually have a bias against rental houses.    [00:04:21] Rennie Gabriel: I think we should buy a multi-units and now again, I was broken 50, but what I did was I took a principal that's 5,000 years old and I paid myself first and I was making 5,000 a month. I set aside $500 a month. And in three years I saved up a whopping $18,000. Right. And that's what was used to be a partner in the first property we bought, which was a triplex.    [00:04:50] Sam Wilson: Got it. Oh, that's wow. That's a long, I mean, saving $500 a month for three years in order to accrue 18,000 in investible, capital is a, that's a lot of plans.     [00:05:02] Rennie Gabriel: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I was looking at the future from the standpoint of, oh my gosh, I'm flat broke. Like I said, two divorces in business failure at age 65, 15 years from then, am I going to be eating cat food or am I going to eating tuna?    [00:05:17] Rennie Gabriel: And it was out of that desperation I said. I've got to make this work. And this principle has worked for 5,000 years. It's going to work when you and I are dust. I got to get serious.     [00:05:29] Sam Wilson: Right. No, I liked that, that they do put tuna and cat foods. So you could have it both ways if you go to the shop or pet shop.    [00:05:39] Rennie Gabriel: Yeah But I don't know if it's the quality tuna.     [00:05:42] Sam Wilson: Just want to throw that out there that may, maybe that you might have a dietary meet in the middle, if you really wanted to that. That's really cool At what point in time did you really start to see success though? I mean, 18,000 bucks, three years in you get your first triplex    [00:05:56] Sam Wilson: when did you finally know man, we're on the pay dirt and I got the traction going that I've, I've been working so hard for,     [00:06:02] Rennie Gabriel: I'd say in another couple of years, what I could see as this property was increasing in value because we were able to remodel it. Now I put physical labor into it.    [00:06:11] Rennie Gabriel: We'd re rented it. We increased the rents and with multiunit properties. The value is a multiplier of the gross rents. Right. Really simple. And so I could see my gosh, this is working. I borrowed money to make down payments with my wife and the realtor. And we went from that first three in a purchase within five years, we added another 47 units.    [00:06:36] Sam Wilson: Right. Yeah. And that was enough to really set you up for success. Is that what your book is about wealth on any income? Can you kinda give us kind of the backstory on the book and the principles that we may learn in that?     [00:06:48] Rennie Gabriel: The backstory on the book has nothing to do with how I made all this money in real estate.    [00:06:53] Rennie Gabriel: It's the foundational concepts of handling money powerfully. The first third of the book deals with the emotional stuff. That's in the way of people actually taking action. And okay. Sam, let me ask you a question. Let me put you on the spot here     [00:07:08] Sam Wilson: Sure. 
20 minutes | Jun 16, 2022
Keeping Your Fingers On The Industry Pulse
Real estate investing has long been one of the proven ways to become wealthy. But like any other business, it’s not as easy as it sometimes appears. Wesley Yates is the Co-Founder of VFR Capital Investments, a real estate investment company focused on the acquisition, management, and disposition of opportunistic to core-plus multifamily assets that can be repositioned on behalf of and for its investors. With his years of experience in real estate space and management, he shares valuable lessons on how you could start investing in real estate with little capital, finding the best people for your team, and how to qualify deals.   In late 2018, he turned down an Operations Management opportunity with Amazon to begin actively networking within the real estate investing community. Quickly building relationships with other like-minded entrepreneurs, he has created an extensive network of accredited investors who believe in his vision for methodically acquiring commercial assets.    Wesley is an enthusiastic leader and brings with him skills crucial to building successful teams and driving performance.   [00:01 - 03:14] Walking Away From a Job Opportunity to Get Into Real Estate Get to know Wesley Yates How Wesley led his team in growing their portfolio from zero to 862 units in just a little over 15 months   [03:15 - 09:11] Learning from Failure Experiencing his first failed deal Putting up his own team together  Achieving self-confidence with his wife’s support Being willing to admit defeat and reflect on what went wrong   [09:12 - 17:31] Tips on How to Stand Out and Succeed in Real Estate The bad advice he received while scaling When it is best to get greedy Learning to say No Take the time to build relationships with the gatekeepers How Wesley leaves a good first impression Know who you are working with   [17:32 - 19:49] Closing Segment The best piece of advice Wesley has ever received Reach out to Wesley!  Links Below Final Words   Tweetable Quotes   “It's not a matter of when you hit a problem. It's not a matter if you have a problem. It's a matter of when. So who you have with you fighting those is really going to determine on how successful you are.” - Wesley Yates “Sometimes you got to look yourself in the mirror and just really go, what do you want? What can you live with? At the end of the day, what can you live with? Can you live with saying, I failed to chase a dream? Or I was too scared to try?” - Wesley Yates “You can't make a bad deal good. But you can make a good deal better.”  - Wesley Yates -----------------------------------------------------------------------------   Connect with Wesley Yates for commercial real estate investment opportunities! Visit the VFR Capital Investments now and follow them on Facebook and LinkedIn. Email Wesley at wesley@vfrcapitalinvestments.com.  Connect with me:   I love helping others place money outside of traditional investments that both diversify a strategy and provide solid predictable returns.     Facebook LinkedIn   Like, subscribe, and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or whatever platform you listen on.  Thank you for tuning in!   Email me → sam@brickeninvestmentgroup.com Want to read the full show notes of the episode? Check it out below: [00:00:00] Wesley Yates:  One thing I will say and whatever advice you're taking it from vet out who is giving it, right? So if someone's telling you it's okay to overpay, meaning you know what if it's a good deal and you believe in it, then it's okay to get more aggressive on your price.  [00:00:28] Sam Wilson:  Wesley co-founded VFR Capital Investments, a syndication company that is owned by a team of veterans and first responders. He served as the CEO and he's led his team and growing their portfolio from zero to 862 units in just a little over 15 months, estimated about $70 million in assets under management, Wesley, welcome to the show.    [00:00:47] Wesley Yates:  Thanks, Sam. I appreciate you having me on.   [00:00:49] Sam Wilson:  Hey, man pleasures mine three questions I ask every guest come to the show 90 seconds or less. Where did you start? Where are you now? How did you get there?   [00:00:56] Wesley Yates:  Where did I start? I started at the bottom. Where am I now? Closer to the top? How did I get there? A lot of hard work racking my brain and most importantly, having the right team by my side. Because it's not a matter of when you hit problem. It's not a matter if you have problem. It's a matter of when. So who you have with you fighting those is really going to determine on how successful you are.   [00:01:20] Sam Wilson:   Man, I love that. That's absolutely right. Tell me when did you decide to take the plunge from smaller deals into larger deals?   [00:01:29] Wesley Yates:  So yeah, like a lot of people I think, you know, they started with residential, really wholesale. And I was more like a plus one. My wife was the one that was really in real estate. I was on a contract to go to Amazon. So I'm like, Yeah, I'm just here, you know. So as I was networking, it was really that was the story. But I got a phone call on July 19 of 2019 said, Hey, do you want to do some syndication? I said, Do I need a license for that? They laughed. I was serious. But showed up the very next day and just started networking had about 250 cards in my pocket after the first event. First conversation went something like this, Hey, what do you guys do? They said, You know, we're investors, investors, investors, I'm LP and this many doors, all that what do you do? Oh, I'm gonna be raising capital for a group. That's, you know, syndicating multifamily. They asked me, you know, the typical questions, what's your cash on cash? What's your target IRR? What's your total returns holding times? I didn't know a single thing that they had said. So I reverted back to my old days of being a leader in the military. You never could say, I don't know, you could say I will get you the answers. So that's exactly what I said. You know, those are great questions, I'd really like to get you the right answers. So whenever we get closer to ironing out our numbers, I'd like to be able to get those to you. Do you have some way for I can reach out to you later on? Boom, boom, boom, five cards, went back to the group that invited me there. said, Yeah, I have no clue what cash on cash IRR. So back and forth, I went for a good hour and a half of that event. And still, by the end of it was having full-blown conversation. So cared more about the journey ahead and building momentum than how dumb I looked asking what people would call dumb questions. So that's where I started. And that was, you know, was that almost three years ago now? So   [00:03:15] Sam Wilson:  Oh, and so you started off raising capital for somebody else? Yes, sir. And is that what you do now?   [00:03:23] Wesley Yates:   No, I will like I am now in a more the CEO route, found out that I was better with my brain doing the operations overseeing the formulas, the processes, you know, I've got the whole six sigma training, the, you know, I was gonna go work at Amazon as one of their manufacturers was the operations managers. And so a lot of tracking performance, tracking efficiency, you know, driving that all forward. And so that's kind of what I did to our team and our processes is put a manufacturing engineer mindset to it. And we really started cranking out some deals. But it wasn't until I put, I guess, my own team together that I ever closed the deal our first year and a half of syndicating with other teams, I was not successful.   [00:04:11] Sam Wilson:  What do you mean by that? You were not successful? I mean, if you're putting deals together with other teams, did all the deals fall through today?   [00:04:18] Wesley Yates:  Just yeah. So in a nutshell, the, you know, as I was raising a capital A, you know, raising capital for that first role for that first team. You know, there were some things that I found out later on, once we really got into due diligence of our first deal, kind of notice that or some unethical things that have been done in the underwriting some unrealistic things that had been changed in the underwriting to just make numbers work. And, you know, I kind of rapidly dove into everything to where I could, you know, read the underwriting, or at least started catching on to those things. So yeah, I had to say, hey, look, I can't move forward with this deal in my better judgment, and told my investors in good faith I cannot advise you to invest in This deal, some of them kind of said, Okay, most of them respected that. And one of them is actually now one of my partners on my company today. So one of the co-founders of our company, Robert Newbern was actually originally going to be a passive investor. So, you know, less than I kind of learned a lot. I mean, still is, you know, you can have many different definitions to that. But did I close a deal? No, I did not close a deal, until I started my own team with the right people. So up to that point, it was more of an I was learning, and it was a trial, and fail and learn and move forward. So   [00:05:40] Sam Wilson:  what gave you the confidence to keep moving forward or being as the new guy to the space you're learning from some other people, then you get involved and you put time, effort and energy, you're going to conferences, you're shaking hands, you're talking about deals, you're, you know, have an investor conversation, then you get halfway through it, you're like, oh, wait, I don't like any of this. And I don't want to work with these guys anymore. I mean, that's, that's, that's a lot of setback for somebody new to the industry. What gave me the confidence to say, you know, that I'm on to something, I just haven't figured out the right way to do it yet.   [00:06:10] Wesley Yates:  Well, I don't know. To be honest, sometimes I made the joke that I was just
19 minutes | Jun 15, 2022
Boring is Beautiful - Why Industrial and Self-Storage Will Remain Strong For The Next 5+ years!
Dan Kryzanowski is a serial revenue driver and active alternative asset investor. Prior to joining Rocket Dollar, Kryzanowski led new initiatives, partners, and teams across multiple startups and Fortune 50 companies, including General Electric and Merrill Lynch. He also serves as an advisor to entrepreneurs and executives across the FinTech worldand self-storage industry. In addition, Kryzanowski is a certified Project Management Professional, and a graduate of GE's exclusive Experienced Commercial Leadership Program. He also serves as the Corporate Board President of Hugh O'Brian Youth Texas Capital Area. Kryzanowski graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and has an MBA from Thunderbird, graduating with distinction (top honors). He resides in Austin with his wife and son.   Stay tuned and listen to how Dan Kryzanowski shares his knowledge on Why Industrial and Self-Storage Will Remain Strong For The Next 5+ years!   [00:00 - 05:26] Sponsors Get 20% on Raise if You Use Your Retirement Dollars in My Next Deal using your retirement dollars in your next deal. This can help sponsors get about 10-20% of their raise. The solo 401k is a powerful tool for sponsors because it allows them to defer taxes and generate high yields. Sponsors should go talk to a lot of people before investing in a deal, as the market has changed and preferences have shifted. Investors still want some appreciation in their investments, even in an inflationary environment. Classing a class B can provide this   [05:26 - 10:54] Delaware Statutory Trusts Can Help You defer taxes The benefits of a Delaware statutory trust (DST), which is a type of trust that allows property owners to sell and take the appreciation without paying taxes on the gain. Many DSTs are portfolios that contain different properties, which can provide diversification and low-to-mid single-digit returns. As an LP, it's important to be aware of when a DST expires and to get moving on selling the property as soon as possible in order to avoid paying taxes.   [10:54 - 16:11] Storage Industry Continues to Grow The industrial fund closed on four properties in four Q last year, allowing the company to enter the California student housing market at a favorable cap rate Storage is now a natural extension of the housing experience, with demand for RV and boat storage increasing Specialized storage is becoming more popular, with high-end facilities catering to those with high incomes and multiple properties"   [16:12 - 19:34] Closing Segment   Reach out to DanSee links below  Final words Tweetable Quotes   "Once again, you on property, You own and operate today. So what's your options. You can keep on owning and operating or you can sell. Now, if you sell, you generally have two options.A of course you pay your taxes or you own and operate property. B pretty much the same. It's just a different property. Now in the middle. I like to say per se as well, I don't want to own an operate, but I want to maintain the tax benefits.  - Dan Kryzanowski  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Connect with Dan Kryzonowski on LinkedIn.   Connect with me:   Facebook   LinkedIn   Like, subscribe, and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or whatever platform you listen on.  Thank you for tuning in!   Email me → sam@brickeninvestmentgroup.com Want to read the full show notes of the episode? Check it out below:   [00:00:00] Dan Kryzonowski: My suggestion I've seen this play out time and time again, is that in your communication to your investors, to your prospects, one sentence saying, did you know, you can use your retirement dollars in my next deal? That alone from my experience sponsors tend to get about 10 to 20% of their raise.   [00:00:17] Dan Kryzonowski: Whether it's through an STI rate with the legacy custodian or solo 401k. And of course that ties to rocket dollar very powerful, especially as more folks are moving self-employed for better or worse. The solo 401k is pretty exciting   [00:00:29]   [00:00:40] Sam Wilson: Dan Kryzanowski is a capital raiser equity owner and LP investor generating double digit yields and lower taxes, but via commercial real estate, he's currently bullish on Texas commercial real estate, industrial self storage, and 10 31 and Delaware statutory trust.   [00:00:56] Sam Wilson: Dan, you're a wicked smart dude. I'm lucky to have you on the show. Thanks for coming on.   [00:01:00] Dan Kryzonowski: Sam. It's great to be here. And if the calendar's right, I think I was originally a number 44. So thank you for bringing me back. And I think today may actually be my 44th birthday. So, Hey, how about that? Hopefully there's something.   [00:01:11] Dan Kryzonowski: Well, look   [00:01:11] Sam Wilson: at that number 44 on your 44th birthday. That's right. Yeah. You came on the show January 12th, 2021. So it's been, yeah, that was 500 and something episodes ago. Tell me, what's happened here in the last, almost year now.   [00:01:27] Dan Kryzonowski: Yeah. I think high-level, and I was at a CEO conference here in Austin and one of the gentlemen on stage so that, Hey, in 2021, people were buying and in 2022 people are shopping and this extends everything from going to the supermarket cause inflation to I think our world.   [00:01:44] Dan Kryzonowski: And I think it's, in some ways it's a great thing. In some ways it's a challenge. So for fellow sponsors and hybrids on this call, realize. You're not the only game in town and somebody, if they are interested, your buddy that you worked with for 20 years at corporate, he or she is now listening to multiple podcasts, going to a few shows, talking to multiple sponsors, doing the diligence.   [00:02:03] Dan Kryzonowski: So just throwing a deal out there and thinking, ah, if you build it, they will come. Not as much. So, I always think it's what education, what can you play into, are you, have you listened to your audience? Your investors in the past, year and a half. And then what are you bringing them down to fulfill their needs?   [00:02:18] Dan Kryzonowski: So I feel this in all walks of life, but especially here in our real estate of passive investing world,   [00:02:24] Sam Wilson: man, I'd say it's absolutely true. The number. I feel like the investor conversation has changed. For me, I don't know, I probably have 15 investor calls. And it's changing, the preferences are changing.   [00:02:36] Sam Wilson: You're right. I'm hearing that more and more. It's like, oh, Hey, I've talked to X, Y, Z. You're like, they're shopping, I'll hear, eight to 10, we're talking to eight to 10 sponsors figuring out what's out there as well. They should, as limited partner, I encourage that. Go talk to a whole bunch of people.   [00:02:47] Sam Wilson: You may find you hate what I do. And I don't want you in my deals. If you hate what I do, you may find that I have bringing something unique to the table that you really find valuable. So I want you to, I want this to be a win-win, but they are shocked. And the other thing I think I've seen here recently, maybe you can attest to this is people are shying away from the appreciation play and really hunting for just cashflow go in.   [00:03:08] Sam Wilson: And I hear that across the board. Have you seen that?   [00:03:10] Dan Kryzonowski: I have, and we in that spirit at the, we recognize that, especially with inflation, creeping up, A lot of folks said, Hey boy, I'd love to get, I love to know I'm going to get a win for a year and then let's see where the world plays out.   [00:03:23] Dan Kryzonowski: So, typically a development multi-family is three to five, three to seven years through this feedback we have DV said, Hey, how about we chop it up to a stage one and stage two. And as a thank you to our current investors, we paid upwards up to 20% on money for up to a year on the stage. The, once again, listening to your investors, this is what was valued.   [00:03:43] Dan Kryzonowski: Now that said that we feel a lot of them are going to roll the principal and interest into the second stage. But I giving folks, Hey guys, you want to hop off the train or you want to wait a year and come on the train. I think investors prefer the sort of optionality. And once again, if you have the scale and you do your diligence to legal, et cetera, it's something you can provide your initial.   [00:04:01] Sam Wilson: Now stage one versus stage two, or are you talking about on a development deal where there may be no potential cashflow early?   [00:04:10] Dan Kryzonowski: Yeah. So think of generically called stage one, the land, almost a land loan per se age, two's going to be your typical development. And this can be your, development multi-family or maybe it's lots.   [00:04:21] Dan Kryzonowski: And you're say you're putting the pipes underground and the people come and purchase a lot. Both of these we've seen pretty attractive at least here in time.   [00:04:29] Sam Wilson: Right. Yeah. That's really intriguing. Yeah, you're absolutely right. I think that's something that providing that options, providing those options for your investors.   [00:04:36] Sam Wilson: And we've seen that also just in class shares. That's become a big thing is to class a class B do you want to clip the coupon? Do you want to clip the coupon with upside, but take a smaller clip? What's that look like? Tell me, what are you guys investing in right now in BV cap?   [00:04:51] Sam Wilson: And then maybe if you can give me a, some color to that as to what you guys are doing to protect against inflation, but also just protecting us market risk.   [00:04:59] Dan Kryzonowski: Yeah. So one thing, kind of in the spirit of our parents stock bond portfolio, we at BV feel. There's still a similar want and need that folks want some appreciation.   [00:05:11] Dan Kryzonowski: And that at times folks want a portion of their portfolio. That's a little more predictable. So
24 minutes | Jun 14, 2022
How to Gain a Competitive Edge in Real Estate
Real estate is not just about buying properties. It’s about building a business.   Brian Alfaro and Cody Laughlin of Blue Oak Capital join us to discuss what it takes to be competitive in the real estate market. They talk about the different components of real estate as a business, how we can make an impact with marketing, and what we can do to get brokers on our side. For new investors, Brian and Cody also list the 6-step proven framework that helped them raise their first $1 million.   Blue Oak Capital is a Houston-based real estate investing firm that focuses on acquiring cash flow producing commercial real estate. They partner with busy professionals who are seeking to grow their investment portfolio by investing in real assets like real estate.     [00:01 - 08:34] Finding the Best Business Partners Why Brian and Cody decided to form a partnership Making the transition from single-family to multifamily Slow growth vs instant success Building relationships and the infrastructure for a sustainable business   [08:35 - 16:44] Strategies for Your First Capital Raise Brian and Cody break down the 6-step capital raising framework that worked for them  Why these steps should work simultaneously The importance of persistence and consistency in execution Focus on the marketing-side   [16:45 - 22:19]  Standing Out From the Competition Go bold and be willing to get uncomfortable Find a story behind the opportunities Nurture strong relationships with brokers Visibility is key Get your first transaction done Be the best buyer that you can be   [22:20 - 23:56] Closing Segment Reach out to Brian and Cody!  Links Below Final Words Tweetable Quotes   “You've got having a strong brand, having a website, using a CRM, sending out a newsletter, making sure you're on social media and then trying to become a thought leader in this space.” - Brian Alfaro   “Don't focus on taking people out to lunch. Go focus on getting deals done. And that's how you build relationships.” - Cody Laughlin -----------------------------------------------------------------------------   Connect with Brian and Cody! Head over to the Blue Oak Capital website and follow them on Facebook and LinkedIn. Email them at brian@blueoakinvests.com and cody@blueoakinvests.com.    Connect with me:   I love helping others place money outside of traditional investments that both diversify a strategy and provide solid predictable returns.     Facebook   LinkedIn   Like, subscribe, and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or whatever platform you listen on.  Thank you for tuning in!   Email me → sam@brickeninvestmentgroup.com Want to read the full show notes of the episode? Check it out below: [00:00:00] Cody Laughlin: You know, when we talked about real estate investing, we talk about like buying the real estate, right? We talk about the apartment buildings or whatever, but what you really don't understand, especially in this multifamily space, you're operating a small business. And you know, when we talk about putting these pieces in place, what you're doing is you're building the infrastructure of a business. [00:00:17] Cody Laughlin: You know, you're wearing the marketing hat, you're wearing the, the revenue hat you're wearing the acquisitions hat. Like you're wearing all of these different variables that go into owning and operating a small business.  [00:00:39] Sam Wilson: Blue Oak Capital is a Houston-based private equity firm focused on the acquisition of cash flow producing multifamily real estate across the US, Brian and Cody. Welcome to the show.  [00:00:50] Cody Laughlin: Sam, pleasure to be here, man. I appreciate you having us for having us.  [00:00:52] Brian Alfaro: Thanks for having us, Sam. Yeah, we really appreciate it.  [00:00:54] Sam Wilson: Hey, man. Pleasure is mine. There's three questions I ask every guest who comes on the show and maybe one of you can take this and just answer this for the firm itself, but the three questions are, where did you guys start? Where are you now? And how did you get there? So I'll leave it to you guys to figure out which one of you wants to tackle that.  [00:01:09] Cody Laughlin: Well, kind of high level overview. We all our Houston-based. Brian and I are two of the three managing partners here at our company. We all collectively met through networking channels and, and whatnot, and then formulated our, our company early, late, like late 2019, early 2020. [00:01:27] Cody Laughlin: And you know, the biggest kind of glue that's kind of held us together are our value propositions that are complementary skillsets and really that how the team has meshed and that's been how we've been able to grow, right? And so, but since our inception in late 2019, you know, like you mentioned, we've, you know, acquired and partnered in 847 units as general partners and looking to do some, some really big acquisitions this year, a hundred million dollars plus in acquisitions this year, hopefully. [00:01:56] Cody Laughlin: And really, it just comes down to great partners, great relationships and just a great network of investors and partners around us. So what do you think, Brian?  [00:02:04] Brian Alfaro: I think, I think you hit the nail on the head.  [00:02:06] Sam Wilson: Yeah. What are some things when you guys, 'cause this is a common you know, I hear this, this discussion a lot on this show, but I want to hear your, your take on what it was like figuring out one that you were onto something and then finding the partners, even if it was within the same network, like there's, there's, there's a lot of back and forth and like, Hey, should we, could we maybe we'll build something. Maybe we won't. How, how did you guys navigate that? [00:02:29] Cody Laughlin: Go ahead, Brian, tell them your side and I'm going to add to that.  [00:02:32] Brian Alfaro: Yeah, I, I think I knew I was onto something when I saw a lot of people around me were having success in commercial real estate. So you talked about commercial real estate. Cody and I both come from the single-family residential investment space. We were both doing that, Cody for way longer than I was. I was doing it for about two years. [00:02:46] Brian Alfaro: And I was kind of looking around and watching guys build their portfolio and seeing people, just regular people that were just like you and me doing big things. So why not me? It was the question I really asked myself, why couldn't I do that as well, especially as it was transitioning and getting a little bit older. [00:03:02] Brian Alfaro: I'm 33 right now. So, you know, back in my early thirties as I'll call it, I guess I'm still there. But I was looking around and going just, just regular guys doing this, there's regular guys buying these massive $20, 30, 40 million properties. And I'm like, why not me? So, it all starts with education. So it became a lot about educating myself, joining a mentorship group. [00:03:18] Brian Alfaro: And that's when I also met Cody and John and that's when I knew we had something was because these are two great guys. It all starts with the foundation of good business ethics. Work with people that you want to go grab a beer, right? So I'm gonna grab a cup of coffee with people you want to hang out with on the weekend. [00:03:32] Brian Alfaro: If you don't like your business partners, you're probably not going to get very far. So that's when I knew personally that I found something good because I had two guys that I really enjoyed hanging out with really enjoyed spending time with. So the idea of being on calls at 9, 10, 11, 12, 1 o'clock in the morning, you know, going through underwriting, basically giving up your nights, giving up your weekends, kind of hustling to make it happen. [00:03:53] Brian Alfaro: These are two guys. I had no problem doing that with it. Wasn't an inconvenience, right? So once we got that to together and we started form our team, you really just start to see things flourish. It took a lot of time, a lot of slow growth, as we like to say, it took about year and a half to get that first deal done. But that for us that's that's for me, at least that's how I knew it was on to something.  [00:04:11] Cody Laughlin: Yeah. And I will go with Brian's sentiments that, you know, I was exposed to this idea of syndication back in 2011, through a local networking event here at Houston. And at the time I had no idea what I was being exposed to. All I knew it was just this investor on stage partnering, 17 people, everybody got passive income and everybody was happy and I'm like, oh, that sounds awesome. [00:04:32] Cody Laughlin: You know, a lot better than the wholesaling, single-family also like I was doing at the time and, you know, fast forward several years later, you know, after kind of having to go through some refocus and some re development of goals and things like that, you know, really was getting frustrated in the past that I were taking as far as trying to find a fit for me, what was ideal from my investing thesis, what was going to get me to my financial independence, you know, all the things that we've all hear about and are challenged with and, you know, making that transition to multifamily. [00:05:04] Cody Laughlin: You know, you could look back and you see, man, there was so much wealth generated and created over the past decade from multifamily investments. You know, I mean, there was just so much wealth that was being created and the fundamentals projected an even more positive forecast for years to come. And, you know, it was just really, that was kind of very eyeopening. [00:05:24] Cody Laughlin: And so, and then having gone through some hard expensive lessons along my journey to get to this point in multifamily. It was a kind of a no-brainer that once, you know, once I met John, once I met Brian and we saw the synergies and we saw the power that be, you know, with all of us working together, you know, we just put the blinders on, stayed discipline, stayed focus. [00:05:44] Cody Laughlin: And I th
19 minutes | Jun 13, 2022
The Future of Real Estate Syndication
  From the Atlanta area, Jake Marmulstein is an entrepreneur and business executive with a variety of experience, including ERP to SaaS, digital marketing to education technology, and hospitality to real estate. He has advised executives of early-stage companies, lead operations and finance, product, sales, and customer success efforts.   In his current operating role, Jake is the Founder, President & CEO of the Real Estate Investment Tech SaaS company Groundbreaker Technologies. He made the initial angel investment, completed key hires, established selling, financial and operational systems, lead a Series Seed-round of financing, and continues to grow the company.   Jake received his bachelor's degree from Cornell University, where he emphasized hospitality and minored in real estate. He studied abroad in Rio de Janeiro and at Cornell was involved in grant writing for grassroots community service organizations while also forming a non-profit peer-to-peer mentorship organization. Jake has worked abroad in London, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro, and Puerto Rico and has a working proficiency with Spanish and Portuguese. Stay tuned and listen to how Jake Marmulstein shares his knowledge on the future of Real Estate Syndication through their Groundbreaker Technologies.   [00:00 - 04:29] Groundbreaker Technologies: How to Scale Your Real Estate Investment Business Jake started his CRE investment career in 2011 at Watermark Capital Partners, a hotel REIT in Chicago He co-founded Groundbreaker, a software platform for real estate syndication, and began to build it out The platform is now used by real estate operators to raise money and manage their deals Jake has experience in software development and engineering, which helped him build the platform   [04:30 - 12:19] Groundbreaker Partners with JV Equity Partners to Bring on Larger Deals Jake shares that they were able to get press coverage for their solution after building a basic version on the web. This helped them to attract interested prospects, which led to them being able to pay their office expenses with revenue from their solution. They are looking to build a comprehensive ecosystem of services that will help their customers grow and be successful.   [12:19 - 17:20] Groundbreaker Software Introduces Education Program to Help New Class of Real Estate Syndicators Succeed Knowing that operators don't do deals alone, Jake and his company study carefully what that experience has to be and build a feature that allows people to do deals with each other without the problem where they share the data from their own investor list with the other group. They Don’t want to be a CRM system or an email marketing system, but instead an investor management software. Jake notes that they have overcome alignment within the organization, but it's really hard to be able to work with people who aren't yet successful at doing a deal.   [17:20 - 18:45] Closing Segment Jake Marmulstein, CEO of Roundbreaker, offers listeners a three-month free trial of their annual subscription if they type "Bricken" into their website's request form. Jake also recommends LinkedIn and Roundbreaker's website for contacting him.   Reach out to Jake See links below  Final words Tweetable Quotes   "At the end of the day, were we going to be a financing system, were we going to be software? We can be both and really fielding those all structuring my questions and doing customer discovery."  - Jake Marmulstein     “It's real estate syndication. There's some complexity in doing that. Even marketing yourself to investors and building your investor base requires you to have an investment thesis and understand who the investor is that you're going after.” - Jake Marmulstein   ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Connect with Jake Marmulstein on LinkedIn. Visit their website   Connect with me: Facebook   LinkedIn   Like, subscribe, and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or whatever platform you listen on.  Thank you for tuning in!   Email me → sam@brickeninvestmentgroup.com Want to read the full show notes of the episode? Check it out below:   [00:00:00] Jake Marmulstein: if you're an operator and you're looking at who can be the best partner for you. You want to surround yourself with companies that are gonna really care about where you are now and help you to scale as you continue growing to set objectives that are mutually beneficial for both of you so that they have a vested interest in your success.  [00:00:21] Sam Wilson: Jake began his CRE investment career in 2011 at watermark capital partners, a hotel REIT in Chicago, and after struggling to raise capital for his own deals, he found a groundbreaker a software platform for real estate syndication, Jake, welcome to the show. [00:00:47]Jake Marmulstein:  Hey man, pleasure's mine.  [00:00:49] Sam Wilson:  There's three questions. I ask every guest who comes on the show in 90 seconds or less. Can you tell me, where did you start? Where are you now? How did you get there?  [00:00:58] Jake Marmulstein: So when I studied at Cornell university an undergrad, I did a real estate minor. I graduated, worked in the city government of Rio de Janeiro doing foreign investment promotion. And that's where things all started for me. Now I'm in. Chicago, Illinois as a CEO and founder of groundbreaker technologies, a real estate investment management software company. And I got here by getting the experience, the basic experience that I needed. Throughout my early corporate career to identify there is a pain in the space for a lot of real estate operators experiencing it first myself, and then going to the market and looking at the way different firms were dealing with the problem. And I just, started with 10 grand in my bank account and the dream.  [00:01:48] Sam Wilson: That's awesome. I love that. Do you have a background in software development, engineering, anything on that front?  [00:01:56] Jake Marmulstein: I have friends.  [00:01:58] Sam Wilson: All right. I liked that. I liked that. So tell us, how did you from concept to getting the idea hatched and built? Give us that quick story, because I think this is compelling for a lot of people that are sitting on ideas and don't necessarily know where to start.  [00:02:12] Jake Marmulstein: So the, when, when groundbreaker was conceived as a idea, it was the first step frustration. And then there was changes in legislation, such as the jobs act, which pushed real estate platforms that were technology driven to do crowdfunding and market themselves pretty widely. So you think of like fundraise and Realty, mogul and Realty shares, and groundbreaker. Started basically as a result of some of that, we came into the market and said, well, there's a lot of people that are raising capital and underwriting deals, but the software in this technology to infrastructure is still needed.Is there going to be a world in which everybody has a technology and they're raising money from their own investors or crowdfunding, or, how's this all going to play? And we saw that the technology is needed in the space. And it's just a matter of time before all real estate operators will be tech enabled to have a system that they can use with their investors. So that raising money happens over in electronic means data and information is no longer stored in Excel. And that's the vision that I had when all of that was happening. it's a combination of laws that were changing and just the times, and, consumer behavior where people are moving towards using more digital solutions to interact with financial technology, looking at banking, brokerage, all of it is going towards having a login and a portal. So you can check your information from your phone. Why not real estate?  [00:03:52] Sam Wilson: Yeah. Yeah. That's a, that's, you're absolutely correct. So what were some of the first steps you guys took in building this out? Having friends, but then going all right now, we're gonna develop a software. Now we're going to bring on team members. Now we got people to pay salaries, payroll, like how did all that work? And then when did you say man, this thing's actually gonna make money.    [00:04:12] Jake Marmulstein: So that part was a little bit more nebulous when we began. We had a vision and that vision was strong enough to get people to come on board and spend their time working with us without having to necessarily take a salary. So we had equity in the early days, they were giving to the talent that came and built the product for us. And then we use that vision to convince. Reporters to talk about our solution. After we had a very basic version up on the web. And so we got press, which gave us free advertising, which brought in a lot of interested prospects to our website. And I would feel the calls and talk to them about their problems without actually knowing what the solution was going to be at the end of the day. Where we going to be a financing system where we're going to be a software where we can be both and really fielding those calls, structuring my questions and doing customer discovery. There's a course that Steve blank does called customer discovery. If you're ever going to start a company, you should absolutely take that course because the process to understand the customer segmentation and their pain points. Helps you to be able to chart the course on which problems you want to solve and which problems you don't want to solve and for whom. And so we identified that the problem was while people wanted access to capital, there was also a segment of the market that wanted better systems to be able to manage the capital that they did have. And so looking at the way that the market was moving. And the risks associated with being the capital provider and underwriting all those deals. We wanted to move in that direction of being a technology provider. And so we use that vision to sell those early prospects were really interested in wh
24 minutes | Jun 12, 2022
Leveraging Historic Tax Credits to Rescue Historic Property
If you’re interested in rehabilitating and repurposing historic properties, then this episode is for you.   Kyle Southard started his investing journey by buying a single-family home in Colorado Springs with zero down and no money out of pocket using VA loans. He also purchases and renovates historic buildings in downtown Shreveport, Louisiana and is utilizing historic tax credits. Tune in as Kyle dives deep into federal and state historic tax credits and how these tax incentives can make a difference in your deals.     [00:01 - 04:12] Military Homeownership and Real Estate Investing Becoming a real estate investor and developer How he was able to benefit from VA loans    [04:13 - 10:07] Bringing New Life to Communities Kyle breaks down their development project in downtown Shreveport The uptick of new residents moving into downtown Shreveport, especially millennials Revitalizing abandoned buildings and properties Finding a gap in the market for short-term rentals   [13:42 - 22:13] Understanding Historic Tax Credits Historic tax credits incentivize people developing a historic buildings You have to own the building for a period of five years in order to get the full benefit of historic tax credits Federal and state tax credits You don't get the incentives until the completion of work Kyle explains their deal structure with investors   [22:14 - 23:48] Closing Segment Reach out to Kyle!  Read his book: Military Homeownership and Real Estate Investing Links Below Final Words Tweetable Quotes   “It's incredibly risky, but we think with great risk comes great reward.” - Kyle Southard “There's a lot of wealth in the world and people want to utilize their wealth wisely, and we can help them do that.” - Kyle Southard -----------------------------------------------------------------------------   Connect with Kyle! Follow him on LinkedIn and contact him directly at 318-900-1070. Head over to the Barksdale Real Estate website as well. . Connect with me:   I love helping others place money outside of traditional investments that both diversify a strategy and provide solid predictable returns.     Facebook   LinkedIn   Like, subscribe, and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or whatever platform you listen on.  Thank you for tuning in!   Email me → sam@brickeninvestmentgroup.com Want to read the full show notes of the episode? Check it out below:   [00:00:00] Kyle Southard: So a historic tax credit is basically a dollar-for-dollar trade-off to incentivize people to develop. And so the way this works is I acquired this building for $160,000, totally vacant. $160,000 acquisition. None of that acquisition cost goes towards historic tax credits at all. So if I pour $1.5 million into the building through construction costs and soft costs, hard costs, et cetera, to develop the building. Not all of that is going to go into the bucket of money that we can call historic tax credit eligible. And so that bucket of money is called a qualified rehabilitation expenditure.  [00:00:52] Sam Wilson: Kyle Southard is an investor. He's a developer as well as a real estate agent licensed in Louisiana. He left the military a year ago to pursue real estate full-time and hasn't looked back, Kyle, welcome to the show. [00:01:03] Kyle Southard: Thank you. It's good to be here, Sam.  [00:01:05] Sam Wilson: Hey, man. Pleasure is mine. Yhree questions. I ask everyone who comes into the show" in 90 seconds or less, where did you start? Where are you now? And how did you get there?  [00:01:13] Kyle Southard: All right, well, I started out as a military guy. I went to the air force academy four years, spent the following nine years on active duty I was in Turkey, Louisiana, Indiana, and Colorado, and somewhere around the Indiana Colorado range. I got interested in real estate, investing through a book called Rich Dad Poor Dad. And that changed my world paradigm. I realized that if I wanted to have a life of freedom, then I needed to get some passive income going. [00:01:38] Kyle Southard: And I thought real estate was the best way to do that. So I looked into how do I buy a house first and foremost? And I knew that I had a bit of a VA eligibility to tap into for VA loans. So I bought my first house in Colorado Springs, Colorado with zero money down. And I'm sure a lot of our viewers and listeners will know that Colorado Springs has become a really hot market. [00:02:00] Kyle Southard: So I was right place, right time refinanced my first ever single-family home that I bought I bought a second single-family home, lived in that for a year, sold that home a year and a half later for $130,000 profit. And then bought another bigger home in Colorado Springs and then some stuff here in Shreveport, Louisiana as well. [00:02:19] Kyle Southard: And because of that, I was able to get some passive income through Airbnb and long-term rentals as well. And it allowed me some financial freedom to take some risks in life. So I left the military. And started investing in real estate full-time and I'm developing as well. So I've got a development in downtown Shreveport right now that's using historic tax credits. [00:02:39] Kyle Southard: And that is a really exciting frontier that I'm learning a lot about every single day. And I'm just amazed at how wonderful real estate can be when I really let go. And let God take over for me and really help some of this stuff take shape.  [00:02:54] Sam Wilson: That's cool, man. I love that. Let's talk I guess, you know, on a VA loan side of things, what's the limit of VA loans you can have active at a time.  [00:03:04] Kyle Southard: That's a really good question. And it's going to depend from person to person. But what I have found for myself is that I was able to have one active VA loan in Colorado Springs. And because there was still some availability left in my VA loan limits, I was able to then finance a second property using a VA loan. [00:03:23] Kyle Southard: However, I couldn't just do another $0 down again, because for me, I only had about $120,000 to work with in terms of VA loan eligibility. And so I had to make up the difference and there's a ratio to make up there as well. So I bought a second home for $270,000 and it had to come out of pocket about $30,000, but it was still a really good rate and a really good situation because it's pretty close to 20% down anyway.  [00:03:49] Sam Wilson: Right, right. Yeah. Do you guys or do you still have your rental portfolio or have you sold that off?  [00:03:55] Kyle Southard: So we still have a rental portfolio in Colorado Springs. We sold one of those houses because the getting was just too good not to. But with the proceeds of that, we use this section 1031 exchange to trade up to a bigger property and that produces a little bit more cash flow per month. And we hope that this one should appreciate quickly as well.  [00:04:12] Sam Wilson: Right. That's cool. All right. Let's talk about the historic tax credits project you're doing right now. You said it's a development project. Is that a redevelopment? What is this project? Give us the skinny on the whole, the whole project and how you discovered historic tax credits and how you're using them. [00:04:30] Kyle Southard: All right. Well, downtown Shreveport is relatively vacant compared to your average mid-sized cities downtown. And what I mean by that is there are several buildings, probably more buildings are boarded up than are active in commerce. And so we were looking around, I was looking around with some friends of mine at some possible properties to acquire and rent. [00:04:52] Kyle Southard: And one property that came to mind was this shoe store on the bottom that had been vacant since 2002, but it used to be a shoe store. And then on the top, it used to be a hotel apparently, but it had not been used as a hotel since the 1930s. And so a lot of the original features are still on that hotel all the way down to the wainscoting pink color, et cetera. [00:05:13] Kyle Southard: And this particular building is called the Sanger Drug Building because it was built in 1900 by the Sanger brothers who went on to build Sanger Entertainment Industry who then sold out to Paramount for a good sum of money. So it's a good bit of history in this building and in researching what we could do with the building, I just learned about historic tax credits and I have a friend of mine, who was a gym partner, turned into a business partner and we researched together the benefits of historic tax credits and how we can get creative financing done and, and bring in investors in syndicated deal to everyone's benefit.  [00:05:49] Sam Wilson: Right. That is really interesting. Let's find out first. Why is half of Shreveport not, I mean, why are the buildings all boarded up?  [00:05:58] Kyle Southard: It's a great question. I mean, I know that, you know, Shreveport has had about a 1% per year decline in population over the past 10, 20 years. And that's just due to economic situations that have, you know, bigger picture macro take on, on the world than I could possibly imagine right now. [00:06:16] Kyle Southard: But as a result of that, you know, a lot of folks are moving to south Shreveport or moving across the river to Bossier City. Or they're just choosing not to live in downtown Shreveport anymore. And because of the lack of downtown residents, there's a lack of downtown commerce as well. But what we've noticed in the past five to eight years is that there is new influx of residents moving into downtown Shreveport. And because of that, there's a slight influx now of commerce going in there too. And so we've got the military installation across the river here called Barksdale Air Force Base. And I know when I first moved here to Barksdale Air Force Base, I was looking for a place to live in downtown Shreveport. [00:06:53] Kyle Southard: At that time, there weren't many places, but now you're seeing lots of mom and pop investors like myself and developers turning formerly abandoned buildings into somet
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