The SFR Show

In this episode, we welcome House Canary’s Director of Research, Brandon Lwowski to look at what has been happening in the real estate market over the last years and where we are headed as an industry. We discuss the health of the real estate market, the residual effects of the response to COVID-19, and the main challenges facing investors today. Brandon Lwowski built his career after studying Computer Science Mathematics at The University of Texas at San Antonio. In his role at HouseCanary as Director of Research, Brandon distills what is happening in the real estate market through data analytics and machine learning to help investors make more informed decisions about their portfolios. Links: https://www.housecanary.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandon-lwowski/ --- Transcript Before we get into the episode, here's a quick disclaimer about our content. The SFR show is for informational purposes only, and is not intended as investment advice. The views, opinions, and strategies of the hosts and the guests are their own and should not be considered as guidance, from Roofstock. Make sure to run your own numbers, make your own independent decisions and seek investment advice from licensed professionals.   Michael: Hey, everyone, welcome to an episode of the SFR show, the place where you get all of your up to date SFR investing information. I'm Michael Albaum, and today my guest is Brandon Lwowski, the director of Research over HouseCanary and he's gonna be talking to us about all of the things that have been going on in the market over the last several years and months, and how we can use that information going forward. So let's get into it.   Hey, Brandon, what's going on? Thanks so much for taking the time to come jump in chat with me today. Appreciate it, man.   Brandon: No, of course, it's good to be here to get an opportunity to discuss the real estate market for sure.   Michael: Yeah, I'm super excited. So you're the director of Research at HouseCanary. Give us all just a quick little bit of insight background on who you are and what house canary is and what they do as a company.   Brandon: Yeah, definitely. So HouseCanary, you know, it's basically a national brokerage and so it's really known for its real estate valuation, technology and accuracy. This company has been around since 2013. It was founded by Jeremy Sicklick, our CEO and our Chief of Research, Chris Stroud, kind of off of the 2008 housing crisis, they did decide to form this company to kind of help speed up the transactions and speed up and really gain knowledge and just competence in the real estate market through using analytics machine learning to provide 100 and 14 million valuations on properties as well as 91 million rental valuations. So if you think of how scary it's built around the analytics and valuations of the United States real estate market.   Michael: It was at $114 million valuations that you said since it since inception.   Brandon: No, that's monthly, we produce 114 million property valuations. Of course, the 114 million is a subset of you know, every property in the United States and that repeated monthly, but we train this very complex machine learning model AI model to produce 114 million property valuations.   Michael: That's incredible. Well, I want to come back to HouseCanary as a company here in a minute. But I want to first start by asking you, Brandon, because it is so analytics and data driven, what is it that HouseCanary as a company and you as an as the director of research are seeing in the numbers in the data with regard to just where we are in the market, there's so much chatter about market cycles and ups and downs and bubbles, give us a little bit of insight to what are the numbers and facts supporting where we are right now, as we're recording this brand new into the new year 2023.   Brandon: I think kind of the one of the biggest headlines to kind of drive home right now, especially in the market, we have this unique combination of these elevated interest rates and you know, the slow buying season that we typically see during the winter months, this has really impacted across the board, our new inventory coming into the market, our new listings, listings going under contract, all of these metrics that we typically look at to understand the health of the market and the health of the real estate market, have really had significant declines year on a year over year basis, that's across the board inventory listings under contract, the Feds kind of you know, their fourth straight 75 basis point interest rate increase, you know, as the thing is, the fourth month straight or the fourth, fourth one straight, has really had that negative impact on net inventory. But this is just providing more evidence that you know, supply of homes is still squeezed and it's remaining negative over time, we've kind of seen this trend since August, right where our supply of affordable housing and actually all housing in the market has really continued to drop and this is basically you know, the biggest driving factor here is that interest rates shot really driving down these new listings volumes to like a multiyear low since pre you know, I don't use the word pre pandemic because you know, we're still in the pandemic, but that pre pandemic peaks we'll call them we're seeing you know, all its multi-year lows in terms of new listings, everything going on the real estate market. The biggest picture here is even as these interest rates come up, our supply just remains extremely negative and still going in a downward trajectory.   Michael: And when you say downward trajectory is that From 12 months prior, or is that from the prior month?   Brandon: We're looking at a year a year basis right now. If you think about the month over month basis, we are still seeing declines. But when we're talking about these multi year lows in terms of net new listings, on the purchase side of the market, we've reached those multi year lows. I think, you know, the reason why this supply crisis is also happening right now is, in this current real estate environment, it's really difficult to convert homeowners and current renters and convert them into future homebuyers, right. In this elevated interest, interest rate market, it just doesn't make sense financially for a lot of people to enter the market, you think of this large group of, of homebuyers that purchase homes at record low interest rates, they refinanced during the peak of a call it the peak of the refinance, boom, that happened during the pandemic and for them to reenter the market, it just doesn't make financial sense for them. So in order to move out of their current home and into a new loan, they're going to be paying a higher premium for the same quality of home. So they're available availability to spend money has definitely decreased and I really don't see this inventory shortage, kind of relieving itself or beginning to increase well into, you know, the first quarter, second half or first half of 2023, the supply just remains super squeezed.   Michael: Okay and so that, like the supply aspect is, I'm guessing one ingredient in the recipe, so to speak, what are some of the other things that you're looking at, and that you're seeing, to give you an indicator of where we're headed and where we are currently.   Brandon: Right. So I think so the supply is, has been squeezed, I think since COVID, there's been a really tight squeeze on the flat supply side of the market. But with those low interest rates that were happening, I mean, 1- 2% interest rates, people were getting their home loans that the demand for property shot up, which is why we really saw that two, three years of just record breaking price growth and the real estate market. Now we're looking at the demand side, and we're actually in the seventh consecutive month of double digit declines in on a year over year basis, we're looking at the listings that are coming under contract in the market. So if you look at inventory as a supply of new listings coming in, if we look at listings of those listings, and the existing market, this existing supply, existing supply, listings under contract is still seven consecutive months of double digit declines since November, are all of our data right now, it's kind of up to that first week of December 2, so we kind of think of it as, as of November. This is this kind of is the driving force behind this is, you know, we've never seen this kind of seventh consecutive month of double digit. So it's kind of driving a lot of fear into homebuyers and home owners and the way we kind of know that this is not normal, it's kind of beyond the typical seasonality we'd expect during the cold winter months to have seven consecutive months, this kind of uncertainty in the market around interest rates, economic downturn, the inflation, they just continue to force homeowners and would be buyers, you know, to play the waiting game, they're, they're gonna sit in the sidelines, they're gonna stay away from the market and so they're a little more competent in in where this kind of roller coaster is going.   Michael: As I'm thinking about such a visual thinker. I'm thinking about this as almost like a race to the bottom in a sense of like supply versus demand once because it sounds like they're almost moving in lockstep negatively, we were having a reduction in supply, but we also have a reduction in demand and once right is that is that the right way to think about it?   Brandon: The demand has definitely began to decrease or is decreasing at a faster rate than supply because supply has been squeezed since the pandemic whenever the shutdowns happened. People just stop selling houses. They stopped listing their home so the supply side of the market has been squeezed since the shutdown the pandemic. The demand side due to the interest rate hikes the economic uncertainty, that's where we're really seeing the decrease on the supply side where the decreases are coming from. So even though you know supply is always been net always been tight. We've been tight recently in recent years. A lot of the continued decrease on supply side is actually coming from net new listings so people aren't putting listings on the market right now. For the reason that we discussed earlier. It's hard to get homeowners back into the game. They're actually down around 25% on a year over year basis, in terms of like how many new listings are coming into the market, but even a bigger piece here is on the supply side is our removals of listings are up 65% on a year over year basis. So houses that were listed last month six are being removed from the market further impacting supply, while supply has been remained squeezed like very, very tight supply of properties over the years, there still is a decrease in net new listings, and also an increase in removal. So in that supply is being affected. But when it's so squeezed already, that that impact in the market will not be as significant as the impact of a decreasing demand side of the market.   Michael: Yeah and that makes total sense and so what are you seeing with regard to sale, as opposed to sale of percent of this price and then also days on market?   Brandon: Yeah. So I think some other key indicators, the market, you kind of just discussed, you know, we have days on market, I think price lists ratio is important, I think, the median price, right, the time series of how is price behaving in this environment, all important and understanding kind of the overall health of the market and I kinda like to go with the big one first, in my opinion, which is the median price, right? Where is the market going? I kind of macro at a national scale. The, if you look at the year over year basis, median price of all single family listings, right, so single family dwellings, that those are actually up 10%, on list prices, and actually up 2% in terms of actual close prices. So even though we're seeing the storyline of these prices really starting to decline and kind of freefall, we're still seeing as a year over year basis, because we hit such a huge peak in the middle of 2022. We're still up year over year, by those two percentage I meant mentioned. On a month over month basis that compared to last month, we are slightly down, but it's very, very small. We're down around one and a half percent on listings and down and less than half a percent on close prices. So we see a lot of the storylines and the headlines across the news, that these prices are falling drastically. We're in a deep decline. The roller coaster rails are off and we're down to 2008 again, but just looking at the data alone without any sort of human interjection or opinions. I'm not an economist, I'm a data scientist. But by heart, I'm just looking at the data because we had such a high peak in the middle of 2022, in terms of the median house prices were still up year over year and on a month over month basis, the declines in price are very, very miniscule, to what we're kind of hearing in the media. So that's one thing, right? The median price is definitely a driving factor. Everyone's concerned about like, what am I going to get for my property? Where's the trend of our nationwide real estate market heading and even though we're in a slight downtick month, over month, if you look at long term, we're still up 10% on listings and up, you know, 2% on closed prices.   Michael: It seems like there has been so much resiliency, if we're seeing such a miniscule price reduction month over month and year over year, there seems to be a lot of resiliency to interest rate increases for folks, and that they're still closing transactions, even at this much higher interest rates, and they're not saving a lot or really anything at all, in terms of the price that they're paying out the door.   Brandon: Right, I think what's causing these prices to, I don't wanna say remain elevated, but kind of not declining at the pace that we would expect is that tight supply. Now, we're still a few months probably away from seeing how this kind of mass layoff and technology could affect the real estate market. Because, in my opinion, what's really going to drive these prices down is when we see supply, increase at levels that the demand has decreased and that imbalance in the market is what will really drive those prices down and the reason why kind of refer to that technology, layoff if that same style, that same volume of layoffs, hits other sectors of employment, then we're going to see defaults and people need to give up their homes because they can't afford it anymore. So unless something in outside of the real estate market really drives the demand. I'm sorry the supply side of the market to escalate at a very fast rate, that safety net is there to kind of keep our prices from really crashing, like we saw in 2008. We don't have the same supply that we saw in 2008. So we're kind of have that safety net there. Unless like I said, something really drives that unemployment up and forces people to default and give up their homes or sell their homes because they can't afford the mortgage anymore.   Michael: But it's interesting, because from all the news that I've been hearing, and correct me if I'm wrong, maybe you've been hearing, the unemployment rate is super low. Like there just doesn't seem to be those mass layoffs that we saw in the tech industry, yet anyhow, affecting so much of the so many other industries. So it doesn't feel as imminent.   Brandon: 100% right, I'm hoping I mean, just for the health of our economy, I'm hoping that that mass layoff doesn't reach other sectors and I hope that we're done with majority of it. But we're probably a month or two away from really understanding did that actually have an impact on our median, price per square foot or median close price of a property and then we can track those defaults, and those the supply over the next few months to see if that really impacted the real estate market or not.   Michael: And that makes total sense. We'll talk this Brandon about those other two factors that you mentioned the price to list ratio, and then the days on market.   Brandon: The price to list ratio has actually been on a pretty big decline. I think back in May 2022, it may have been June or May, I think we're at a multiyear high of around 102%. So most properties, were selling 100 or 2% higher than the list price, which means that it's definitely a seller's market, right. If I if I can list my house for X amount of dollars, I know I'm gonna get 102% return, I mean, I happen to present a 2% return on that is definitely a seller's market. We actually for the first time in about mid-August of last year, we're now down below 100. So that's just an indicator that the markets kind of switched right now buyers kind of have that power and that ratio now stands around 98%, which is kind of the levels before COVID emerged, and actually the lowest number since the first half of 2020. So we're not we went from a high of 102 in May to now we're down to about 98 which is definitely a key indicator that buyers now have more power than the seller's because of you know, just multiple aspects that we've been talking about the high interest rates buyers be a little more choosy. Even though the supply is down sewer buyers, there's not enough buyers in the pool to compete with me anymore. So I have a little bit more pool, which is why we're seeing that sale to list price or price to list ratio, starting to decrease. That kind of in parallel, what we see with that is to kind of tell that same story that we're now entering that buyers’ market, even though demand is low, if you look at the volume of price drops, right, think about how many times a listing comes on the market for 100k. It sits there for 30 days, they come back and they say hey, you know what, let's list it for 95 maybe we can get more buyers, those price drops in terms of volume are actually up 142% year over year since the last time. It's just more evidence that buyers now because demand is so is so squeezing this high interest rate environment, they get more power listings are staying on the market longer list to or sale to list price ratio is down and then but yet the because supply still squeezed, we're not really seeing a huge impact that we're kind of seeing in the news right now, on the actual median price of all listings.   Michael: Brandon, just out of curiosity, I think I remember if my memory serves me correctly, which it often doesn't, but like in the height of 2022, the max or the highest median home price in the country was like 395k. But do you happen to recall what that number was and maybe what it is now today?   Brandon: Yeah, so if you look at the peak of 2022. So kind of that halfway mark, I think it was right around the ending of H 122. The actual median price is actually higher, at least according to our data, right? The data that we have availability to our actual median price was actually above 400,000. We're sitting right around like 420,000 was kind of that median price for closed listings for active listings was actually even higher than that. So for closed listings were around that for 120,000 range, right now as of the first week of December is kind of our data cut off. Right now in terms of the data that I'm giving you, we're sitting right around $380,000 as the kind of median price per square foot, I'm sorry, median price of closed listings, it sounds dramatic, and we go from, you know, that 420 ish down to three, it's a pretty big drop. But as you look at the entire time series from, we'll call it the pandemic, the start of the closed downs, all the way to today, if you bought a house, during those pandemic years, you're still doing really well in terms of the amount of equity, it's still in your home prices haven't dropped that drastically to where you're now upside on your loan, you're still well above you know, what you bought the house in, during the bottom of the pandemic years, what's really going to cause kind of some worry, and headaches is these people who kind of bought later in the year, kind of towards the end, or middle of 2022. Now, they're beginning to worry the most because they didn't have that same amount of cushion that these homeowners bought when they don't worry about houses a year or two years ago. So that number does seem like a big decrease. But if you look at the longevity of the time series of the pandemic eight pandemic shutdowns to now, you're still up quite a bit in terms of percent and you have a large cushion before you even have to worry about being upside down in a mortgage or, you know, losing a large amount of equity in your property.   Michael: Does the data give us any indicators as to what's coming down the pike because obviously, data is rear looking. But how can we use that to be forward looking or is there a way to be?   Brandon: Yeah, so I think you're talking about forward looking, you know, the next 6,12,18 months. If you look back slightly, we hit this topic quite a bit. It's a big topic right now in real estate is these large interest rate hikes. If you look at the timeline, the time series of the real estate market in terms of medium price terms of you know, list to sale rate of sale to price ratio, you look at, you know, the days on market, it seems that with the large amount of growth that we experienced in two years, you know, record growth, that was actually able to absorb a lot of the impact that people would assume, continuing to month over month raise this interest rate to higher and higher levels, they assumed that it was going to impact the real estate market at much a much quicker, much faster way. So then they can stop, right, the goal of raising interest rates tend to raise them forever. They're just raising them until they kind of see the market growth kind of settled down and adjust and kind of normalize. But it's kind of shocking when you think about how much and how quickly that interest rate rose and until a few months back. I mean, most of 2022 there was very little impact from those rounds of interest rates. So it's one thing that we can we can learn as, as we saw record growth, even that dramatic increase really did not impact the real estate market as we thought it would. Secondly, what's really kind of driving any sort of kind of negative view of the real estate market right now around this interest rate, is you gotta think of like purchase power of our homebuyers, right?   We didn't see salaries raised at the same rate as the real estate market, we didn't see household income raise at the same rate as real estate. So the really big question here and the kind of the, you know, the driving force here is the purchase power of homebuyers. We actually seeing and this is from Freddie Mac, I believe a 32% decrease in purchase power, based on this 30 year, you know, FRM, that's given the same monthly payments for a loan made at the end of 2021. So we're really seeing a decrease in what homebuyers can afford and that combined with hopefully the Fed has definitely signaled smaller rate hikes in the future. We're hoping that housing fundamentals can hopefully come back to a quote unquote normal seasonality cycle and the expected returns, but into early 2023. I think we're still going to see you know, a real estate market that's just characterized by this continued tight squeeze on supply tight squeeze on demand. With the exception of what we discussed earlier, which was a major economic event causing mass layoffs or firings, then I'm thinking early 2023 is going to be characterized the same kind of, of patterns we're seeing now, which is tight supply, shrinking demand, days on market, increasing. median price is slowly decreasing month over month, until we see hopefully towards the second half of 2023, a market that's brought back to its normal seasonality and its normal housing market fundamentals.   Michael: Brandon, I want to be super respectful of your time and get you out of here, man. But before I do if people want to learn more about you and the research team HouseCanary has a whole services that y'all provide. Where's the best place for them to do that or get a hold of someone?   Brandon: Yeah, I would definitely just go to https://www.housecanary.com/ . From there, you can get a list of all the products services, there's probably people on our company that can explain the better business use cases and appear researcher, I'm all about the data. But if you go to https://www.housecanary.com/, there's plenty of people to contact through there and also, I'll attach my email. I'll pass it on to you, Michael after this. So you can share it with the listeners.   Michael: Thank you so much for taking the time. This was super informative and definitely again, curious to see how things all pan out.   Brandon: Yeah, stay up, same tune. I think next week, our new market pulse comes out as well. So if you're interested in different states and how the market is performing, and also at the national level, it's a free report and that report will be valid all the way up into the end of December. So it will have kind of our December numbers added to that report and you can see those trends going on there as well. So usually is dispersed on our website. Also LinkedIn, if you follow HouseCanary on LinkedIn, that report is shared monthly for free and you can see all those metrics that we talked about updated on a monthly cadence. So you can kind of have competence in your decision making process.   Michael: Love it, love it. We'll definitely check that out as well. Well, thanks again, Brandon. Appreciate you and we'll chat soon.   Brandon: Appreciate it, thanks, Michael.   Michael: All right, everyone. That was our show a big thank you to Brandon for coming on and dropping so much knowledge, facts, data and statistics on us to help us guide our investing through these kind of tumultuous times. As always, if you enjoyed the episode, we would love to hear from you all ratings and reviews are always appreciated as are comments with additional topic ideas that you are interested in learning about. We look forward to seeing on the next one. Happy investing…

This episode features the masterminds behind Roofstock OnChain, Geoffrey Thompson, and Sanjay Raghavan. We discuss the revolutionary product of tokenized real estate, how it works, the problems it solves, the incredible scaling power of this new technology, and who it is for.   Geoff Thompson built his career at top-tier law firms practicing in the areas of capital markets, banking and credit, structured finance, private equity, and cross-border transactions. Geoff's prior role at Roofstock was as general counsel where he advised on partnerships, product innovation, fundraising, deal structuring, real estate matters, securities law, international expansion, and all other legal and compliance matters. Sanjay Raghavan is the Head of Web3 Initiatives of Roofstock onChain where he leads the real estate investing platform's blockchain initiative. After being accepted into Cypher Accelerator, Sanjay continues to build connections between real estate investing and blockchain. Sanjay is also an advisor at Pudgy Penguins NFTs. Roofstock onChain is the Web3 subsidiary of Roofstock, the leading digital real estate investing platform for the $4 trillion single-family rental home sector. Relevant links: https://mobile.twitter.com/eth_sanjay https://mobile.twitter.com/_gthomps     Before we jump into the episode, here's a quick disclaimer about our content. The Remote Real Estate Investor podcast is for informational purposes only, and is not intended as investment advice. The views, opinions and strategies of both the hosts and the guests are their own and should not be considered as guidance from Roofstock. Make sure to always run your own numbers, make your own independent decisions and seek investment advice from licensed professionals.   Michael: What's going on everyone, Michael Albaum here from the Remote Real Estate Investor, we're actually in the midst of a pivot and so we're changing the name of our show to be the SFR show. Reason being is we really want to double down on the single family rental industry as a whole and so we wanted to pick a title and a name that's reflective of that. So join us here on the new show, the SFR show where we're gonna be bringing you everything you need to know about SFR investing from what the market is doing at the micro and macro level, to what the factors are influencing and changing the space. So let's kick it off with this first episode. We hope you enjoy.   Hey everyone, welcome to the SFR show. We're going to be talking today with Geoff and Sanjay on Roofstocks web three team about cryptocurrency tokenization, alternative investments, portfolio theory and risk management just to name a few. So with that, let's just jump straight into it.   Geoff and Sanjay, good to see you both. How have you been?   Sanjay: Great. Good to see you again and, Michael, you look really different from the last time we spoke and so much younger and much more refreshed, I think after the holidays.   Michael: Thank you. Yeah, I came back from the holidays ready, you know, cut, put some 10 pounds on and took 10 years off my face. So I'm doing the best I can, so…   Geoff: That's it.   Michael: That's it. So for anyone who didn't catch our prior episode together, I'd love if you could give a really quick intro who you guys are and what is it that you're doing here at Roofstock.   Geoff: So yeah, we are co leading the web three business unit every stock. I'm Geoff Thompson, this is Sanjay Raghavan and we have been at Roofstock for several years and over the last year, we've spent all of our time focusing on how to use blockchain and web three technology to improve the real estate transaction process and to generally make single family rentals more accessible and asset class.   Michael: And for anyone who isn't familiar with what web three is definitely go back and give that prior episode a listen. Sanjay gets into it and kind of what the technology is. So I'm curious gents where we are today, where are you seeing blockchain and tokenization playing a role in the single family space.   Sanjay: So first of all, we had a sale of our Genesis property in mid-October. So for your audience who may have read about it on crypto Twitter or on media publications, that was a very successful launch of this product, we spent about 10 months working on legal and tax analysis of how to structure this product so that it would be compliant and when somebody was purchasing this property in a web three as a web three home, they were in fact getting, you know, ownership of the underlying assets. So that took us about 10 months to engineer and the sale. The first sale that happened in mid-October was a huge success, went viral on crypto Twitter, and was picked up by all the leading crypto and non-crypto publications and the reason for that was because for the first time, what really happened in crypto and blockchain, which, if your followers are looking at the market, in general, this has been a really particularly bad year in the industry for the stock market. Inflation has been at a 40 year high feds have been drastically, like we went to 475 basis point interest rate hike and so, you know, we're going through this very tumultuous time in the industry and crypto has not been an exception, either, they've, you know, Krypto has been having an unprecedented winter, where either like Bitcoin and Aetherium lost 60% of their value since last year to this year and then a bunch of crypto companies went insolvent, because of various either it was just poor risk management or just, you know, for whatever other reasons, you know, they didn't have the capital to withstand the, this bear market. So during these times, you know, this was sort of like a ray of light in this industry, because we had successfully demonstrated that it was actually possible to sell a single family rental property, which normally is a three four week closing process was done instantaneously using battery technologies. But we were also able to find a leverage partner who was able to provide a loan for that property at a 65% LTV and so the combination of all of this really was a very positive thing in the industry, and we got a lot of outreach because of that.   Michael: Hopefully it wasn't FTX, right…   Sanjay: No, the leverage partner was not FTY, it was Dehler finance. But specifically, you know, about your question about, you know, with respect to blockchain tokenization, what does that really mean for real estate is that, you know, we've been able to now demonstrate that it is possible to have a better sale experience, right? When you typically look at the three week closing process on a real estate transaction, there's a bunch of contingencies on an offer, both the buyer and seller are extremely nervous about what happens during the diligence period in those three weeks. You know, like, for example, as you're aware, you know, the inspection results come in, and then you find out something about the property that you were not aware of before and then there's typically some kind of negotiation that goes on the offer price after the fact. There's an appraisal, contingency financing contingency, and, you know, so anything can happen during this three week period, the seller and buyer, even though an offer was accepted, may have a disagreement later on, you know, based on the results of further analysis, and sometimes the offer can be rescinded and then you're back to the drawing board trying to relist the property and sell it. So it's a particularly stressful time, both for the buyer and seller and doing it through this web three mechanism essentially allows us to take a lot of that diligence, which still has to happen, but we're just moving it, you know, upfront in the process, so the buyer and seller have access to the same information about the property, and the buyer is able to perform all of their diligence upfront. The way Geoff talks about his experiences, you may spend a week or two looking at Amazon Prime to figure out what you want to buy for Christmas. But once you've made that decision, you want it to be delivered, you know, on Amazon Prime, same day or next day, you don't want to wait four weeks for it to be then shipped from China to you know, get to Los Angeles, and then from there to be transported to, you know, San Francisco. So, you know, we really want to make this process easy for people, right. So you do all your diligence upfront, but when you decide to make that purchase decision, it happens instantaneously and on top of that, when you add that financing in a way that's asset based and not based on your personal credit underwriting, you're not trying to find a lender and you know, sending them two years of tax returns and bank statements and as you as you're aware, Michael, what happens in this process is you send all this information, you get a pre underwriting approval and then as you're getting ready to close on the property a month or two have elapsed, and all your information is outdated, and you're resending all the information back to the lender. So you know, you want to avoid all of this as well, because that's also incredibly stressful as you're going through a purchase process and here, because it's a rental property, it's cashflow generating, you based on the value of the asset, you can actually underwrite the loan and say, you know, it's a $200,000 property, I'm comfortable giving you $100,000 loan against it and that makes the lending paradigm a lot simpler as well. So overall, it's generally a better experience, both for the seller and the buyer, when you bring in the battery technology into this process.   Michael: This is mind blowing, you guys. So, I'm curious, like, how are you seeing really or rather, are people doing this at scale? I mean, is this we did it once we've, we've proven that it can be done once. But what is the scalability factor look like here? For both buyers and for sellers?   Geoff: It is yeah, I can jump in here. It is scalable. It's scalable in the same way that buying and selling homes today can be done, you know in bulk, or you can assemble your own portfolio over time. It's not you know, there isn't a delayed production process in creating these and preparing them to be sold on the blockchain. We do get that question a lot. Well, how much does it cost to mint a token? You know, is it 10s of 1000s of dollars? No, that's, that's essentially free. How long does it take, it's essentially instantaneous. The work that we do to prepare this to be sold is, is what Sanjay alluded to the diligence and inspection making sure everything photos have been taken, taxes have been paid HOA square all of those things. That's what we do up front, which has to happen in any real estate transaction, we just package that up in a very short timeframe of you know, call it five or 10 days, once the home has been purchased, and rehabbed and you know, it's ready to be listed for sale. So this can be this can be scaled and then once the home has been put on chain, then this is where the seller really is going to feel the scalability and the ease of interaction because imagine that you own five or 10 or you know some number of homes, you want to rebalance your portfolio. Maybe you want to get into one market and get out of another market. Right now you know, you'd have to do that through the traditional process. It might take a few months and involved a number of different intermediaries. In our case, if you if you own those homes as tokenized properties, we can get them ready for sale in five or 10 days, and then they can be listed immediately and once they've been listed on an NFT marketplace, the sale can happen with one click. So you don't as the seller, you don't have to go through a you know, a prolonged and painful back and forth with the buyer countering after they get the inspection and you know, trying to haggle on the price or trying to get a discount here, whatever it might be. That's all taken care of up front. So in that sense, it's it does make this much more scalable and much more liquid than the traditional process.   Michael: Should audience and listeners be thinking about crypto almost like a foreign currency and so just quick anecdote. So I've invested in Portugal, I signed my purchase agreement to purchase the property in Portugal back in 2020, just before the pandemic, then where the dollar was really strong against the euro than the Dollar tanked against the Euro and so I changed money after the fact and just got totally hosed on the exchange rate. How should people be thinking about exchange rate, if you will, between cryptocurrency and whatever currency there?   Sanjay: Yeah, that's a that's a really good question, right and when you think about a cryptocurrency, like Bitcoin or Aetherium, these are the two sort of more commonly discussed cryptocurrencies, in a way it is, you can make the analogy that these are almost as though they are, you know, sovereign currencies of their own and there is an exchange rate between the US dollar and Bitcoin or Aetherium. The only difference here being that, you know, unlike Euro, or the British pound, where they have their own fiscal and monetary policies that, you know, determine what happens to their bank against the dollar, in the case of cryptocurrencies, they are highly volatile and we see that there's, they're very, actually strongly correlated to the stock market today. So, when, for example, the, there was an indication that the feds might slow down the rate at which they're increasing the interest rates and I think the expectation for, I believe this week the Fed is meeting and the expectation is that this week, it will be a 50 basis point taken sort of a 75 basis point high, the stock markets rallied and sorted Bitcoin with that and however, even though they're kind of strongly correlated, they're also highly volatile and so when we talk about people having cryptocurrencies that they can use to buy these properties, we actually suggest that they buy and keep their money in stable coins, which are pegged against the US dollar and there are companies such as circle which have USDC, and Paxos which has its own version of dollar pegged stable coin. And having your money in stable coins means that you're not subject to the same volatility, as Bitcoin or Aetherium might be which can drop or go up in value by 20-30% in a single day and that's, that's how we will really think about it. If people want to, you know, have an allocation, if somebody is really long on Bitcoin or Aetherium, and they want to have an allocation in that asset class, that's fine. As long as they're aware that those are highly volatile and in the short term, they could be, you know, fluctuating quite a bit.   Michael: Yeah and that makes sense and so when are you seeing people make the change from the stable coin to whatever coin they're going to be using to purchase the properties?   Sanjay: So the stable, you can actually purchase properties with stable coins and because, you know, we have a way to when we received those stable coins, for example, if we are the seller of the property, and, you know, property is purchased using, let's say, serpents, USDC. Once were paid in USD C, we have a way to convert that back into US dollars. So that's, you know, it makes essentially, you can think of the stable coins as programmable money meaning this whole transaction is happening on the blockchain, and it's happening through a piece of computer code, there's no you know, you and I are not sitting across the table signing documents and you know, giving a check and receiving title and in return. So, this is all happening because a piece of computer code is transferring money from you to me and transferring the, the LLC through the NFT giving you the LLC that I own, which has this property and since this is all being executed by computer code, this stable coin is really, you know, we refer to it as programmable money because a piece of computer program is able to move money from you to me, and, and allow this transaction to happen in that one click process that Geoff was talking about earlier.   Geoff: You know, it feels like this is the way things should work, right? If you think about the system that we have right now for closing property transactions. It's basically inherited from England 800 years ago. You know, we've made small advancements, but not really and it shouldn't you know, it all of everyone who is involved in these transactions, and every step that's taken is taken for a reason it's solving a particular problem. But if you stop and rethink how this is done, you realize that by reordering some things, and maybe, you know, using a splash of new technology here, you can actually dramatically change the experience for everyone and it's not necessarily, you know, a zero sum game, I think it's best, it's better for everyone, everyone who's in the industry is going to be better off, there will be more transactions, because it's easier to transact, there'll be more demand because people are interested in getting in, if they know they can get out easily, right? Right now, you know that if you're looking at buying a property, you're probably going to have to hold it at least five years to recover your closing costs and wait for it to appreciate a little bit and you know, it's going to be a headache, when you do have to sell, if you don't have those constraints, you know, transaction fees are less and the time involved is less, you'll be more inclined to get in the market, because you know, you can get out when you need to.   Sanjay: And, you know, I'll also add one more thing to that, right. So Michael, if you think about, you know, back in the day, when there were these kind of all day, buyers, a lot of them were like businessmen that, you know, one year, they might have made half a million dollars, but you know, then another year, it was only 150, or something and so it's very hard to underwrite those types of folks through a traditional underwriting process, because you're looking at two years of, you know, income and tax returns, and all of that, and a lot of them may not can qualify for more conventional financing. However, in an asset based lending type solution, you know, as long as you have the money, and, you know, you're not constrained by, you know, your income for the last two years or three years, as long as you have the money to buy the, you know, to put in as down payment on the product, and the asset itself has the value, you're able to borrow against it much more easily. So, you know, we just talked about the complexity of closing a real estate transaction, in general. But once you add in the financing layer, on top of that, it gets even harder because, you know, there's, again, in a in a, you know, when the market is going up, you just, you just don't know, if you know the max, you want to make the best offer, you can but at that offer, you don't know if you will qualify for the loan, because the also the rate might have moved since the time, you initially got underwritten and suddenly, with the new rate, you don't qualify anymore for that and you have to find that little bit more down payment to offset it or buy some points. You know, you and I have gone through this numerous times in our lives. But you know, you can avoid all of those types of issues because in an asset based lending program, you know, that when you buy this asset, which is worth $200,000, there's a lender, if they're willing to come in at 65%, LTV, you know that based on the value of the asset, you're going to get that loan.   Michael: And if we just decouple the crypto piece of this and blockchain piece of this, I mean, asset based lending, is that available for regular folks?   Sanjay: So in the traditional finance world, it is available, right, but it becomes it becomes harder, because when you're buying an investment property. As you know, Fannie Mae puts limitations on how many investment properties you can get financing for as an individual. Once you get past that limit, then you're looking at pretty much private money, hard money type lending solutions, until you can get up to a scale where you have enough properties where Citibank or Wells Fargo or Goldman Sachs might be interested in working with you. But there's this pocket where after you know, your first 10 properties till you get to a few 100, we are primarily working with, you know, non-bank lenders who are generally, you know, where the rate could be 10 or 12% and then, oftentimes, some of these lenders will also ask for a personal guarantee on top of it. So it's not, you know, while it is possible to get financing on investment properties in the traditional finance world, at some point, it doesn't scale very well and, you know, you're sort of in that desert for until you can somehow figure out a way to get to 200 properties when suddenly the larger lenders are willing to talk to you. So that problem goes away when you're using Blockchain, and specifically decentralized finance or defy as we refer to it, because they're incrementally each property that you're buying is getting financed based on asset value and so you know, you're able to get a much more sort of a pleasurable experience to get through the lending process on the blockchain than on the traditional work.   Michael: Let's pivot just a little bit and talk about risk management and portfolio theory and as folks are starting to scale their portfolio or really as institutions have already a sizable portfolio, where does tokenization fit in to their playbook? When's the appropriate time? When should people be thinking about it in general?   Sanjay: The way I like to answer this question is if you as an individual, if you went to your financial advisor, and said, okay, you know, I have, you know, a million dollars, I want to invest, and I want to make sure there's, you know, come up with a portfolio allocation, that makes sense for me, typically, they're going to, like, in the old days, it was just a sort of a 60,40 rule, there was 60%, in stocks, 40%. In bonds, yeah, but I think people have gotten smarter over the last 10 years and nowadays, when you go to a financial advisor, they're going to say, some allocation in stock, some allocation in fixed income bond products, and then an allocation to alternative investments, because that's where, you know, you can get non correlated yields, because the stock market moving in one direction should not and like, you know, God forbid, if you have an emergency, and you need some cash, like this would be a, you know, if you bought at the height of the market last year, this would be a really bad time to sell, you know, your S&P 500 shares to, to, you know, pay for whatever you had to write, whether it's a wedding, a doctor's thing, education, whatever it is. So, generally speaking, financial advisors these days suggest that you should have an allocation in alternative investments that are non-correlated to the stock and bond markets and, you know, you can access that pool of capital, you know, when you need to, right. So from that, from that perspective, diversification, and then when you talk about alternatives, there's, obviously, there's a wide range of assets there. But real estate is on top of mind, for almost all the, you know, anytime we talk about alternatives, real estate, sort of is one of the top things people talk about. So from that perspective, you know, almost every investor should probably be looking at some allocation, and it will depend on their individual circumstances, whether their age, their income, their marital status, and you know, their need for cash there, this cauldrons and all that, but, you know, advisors might ask you to put five to 10% or, or more into alternative asset classes and so the same financial hygiene should also be applied by corporations and institutions, because you're sort of being asked to manage the treasury of your company, let's say you are a venture funded company, and you just raised $100 million, well, you are going to keep a good portion of that money in cash and cash like instruments, money market, and so on, because you have working capital, you have other things that you need to be spending on. But some allocation of that you might put in US Treasuries, for example, right and in the crypto world, crypto institutions may keep some allocation in Bitcoin and Aetherium and other protocols that they have high conviction and but nevertheless, whether it's a web two institution or a crypto institution, it's just basic financial hygiene to have an allocation in alternative asset classes and specifically, with our product, being a web three product, you know, that money can stay, you know, essentially, the token they're purchasing is a is an NFT and it is part of the blockchain ecosystem, so they can keep their assets within the crypto world without having to continuously off ramp into US dollars and then on ramp it back into crypto when they need to switch back and forth with respect to how they receive rental income, of course, you know, if your properties are managed by a property manager, which they should be because institutions are not in the business of managing properties, you can collect your rent in cash if you have, you know, if you have to, if you have expenses that need to be paid out in US dollars, but also if you want to collect your rent and USDC or DDM, you have the option to do that as well.   So whether you're a two institution or a web three institution, depending on your cash needs and your crypto needs, now you can have a yield generating crypto asset, and the yield can be collected in Fiat or in or in cryptocurrency. So, you know, it is good financial health to do it. We encourage everybody to have some allocation, whether it's through Roofstock, or through any other channel channels that they would like to pursue, but they should have some allocation and alternatives if it just makes sense. Geoff, if you'd like to add something back?   Geoff: No, that's it. I mean, in our case, because we've designed a solution that allows you to transact with crypto natively. This is something that we've heard from a number of crypto or web three institutions that it's potentially very interesting for them, as opposed to maintaining all of their assets in a cryptocurrency or a stable coin, this isn't a way to get access to, you know, a diversified asset that does create yield and it does have a price appreciation component. So there are a lot of, you know, we've heard from the web three community in particular that this is a perfect diversification play.   Michael: And if I'm someone that owns a sizable portfolio, maybe I own it all in cash, because that's been my mantra and I do need that quick capital injection. I mean, could I tokenize these properties and then go get asset based lending and convert that into cash very quickly.   Geoff: Yes, that's your thinking ahead, I like that. Yes, the properties can be tokenized. Basically any point in their lifecycle. If you own them, now, you bought them through a traditional sale and settlement, you can, you know, basically what it means is you have to drop it into an LLC and the LLC has a particular structure that we've worked out, it is very particular. So you know, we'll work with you to set that create that LLC, to help transfer the property into the LLC. In most states, I think the vast majority of states that transfer from an owner to an LLC that's owned by the owner doesn't create transfer tax obligations. So there's, you know, there's a little bit of the traditional closing costs, recreation fee, or whatever that might be part of that. But it is perfectly possible to onboard existing assets that you own into the system and similarly, for if we're talking about other points in the lifecycle for builders, we've had a few builders reach out and say they're close to completing a community and they might want to try to sell some of these as in an NFT form, those can those new assets as new properties that really have never been titled before, those can also be titled directly into an LLC. So it's a very flexible structure, it accommodates property at whatever stage of the lifecycle it's in.   Michael: Anyone who's got conventional financing experience under their belt might be listening to this and saying, Well, you're talking about lending or talking about LLCs. Those two things often don't jive play nice get in the sandbox. So the acid base lender that we're working with, or that we are going to be working with, I would imagine has no issue lending to an LLC. Is that right?   Geoff: Yes, that's exactly right. The lenders that we're working with are the web three lenders, we have talked to numerous traditional lenders, and some of them expressed a lot of interest in digital assets and maybe they've even created a team. But in most cases, the underwriting aspect of it isn't, isn't there yet. They're not ready to take this to credit committee and make a loan on the structure that we're proposing here but that's okay because there are there's a lot of money that's available in the web three space, and it is more flexible in terms of what it requires. They don't necessarily need to have all of the same checks and balances that a traditional lender would be in terms of underwriting against the individual. They can be comfortable underwriting against the asset, because they're comfortable that in the event of default, that asset, it is already in their vaults. So it's in the lenders wallet at the time of default and because we're building this system where you can sell them through an NFT marketplace, there is liquidity that there wouldn't otherwise be if you were holding this you know the traditional way so you to your to your question. Are Trade Fi lenders, the traditional finance space interested? Yes, we've heard some say they're interested we haven't seen anyone actually show up to engage in detail. But there is an entirely separate pool of capital into web three space that's much more flexible and willing to work with Blockchain structure.   Michael: I think my last question, guys before I let you out of here is like I'm sold this sounds obviously like a really great product, like a really cool technology that exists. Who isn't this for who, who listening to this should think about that. It's not a good fit for me because XY and Z.   Sanjay: Yeah, I mean, I can start with a couple of things and then Geoff, you can add to that as well. So if the property already has financing in the Trade Fi world, this structure is hard, because we can't really transfer unencumbered property into an LLC and then tokenize it right because there's a traditional mortgage on the property and there's a whole kind of thing that's a fillip off chain, in terms of financing. So it's not going to work. If primarily you're looking to get off chain financing, then this is not for you. You have to you know, sort of follow the traditional sense. But anybody that's open to purchasing this as a web three property and open to looking at web three financing alternatives. For those people, this absolutely should be something they should consider. The one kind of drawback or question we've heard from a lot of people as they need to become familiar with how to use crypto wallets and how to essentially convert money into USD C or some stable coin, and then use that to go and make a purchase. We're here to help with those types of Q&A, right? The, you know, until you do it for the first time, it's hard, but after you've done it, then it's you know, it's easy, right? Just like when we, the, you know, iPhones first game, and people didn't know, you know, how do you which way do you swipe to do what, but then over time you get used to it and so we're absolutely happy to help anybody that's staying in the sidelines, purely because they don't understand the technology aspects of it, we can help them out. But for people that have financing constraints or other things, and you know, for them, it is until they can, you know, overcome those issues and look at sort of a pure web unencumbered property in the web three world with, then financing added to it on the blockchain. So for those audiences, that might, you know, until they figured out that, it might be a challenge.   Geoff: I'd also add for owner occupants, the financing isn't fully worked out yet. So the financing that we added to the initial home sale a few weeks ago, that was very much geared towards an investment property, and for the immediate future, to the extent that we're building out the different options for defi lending, it looks like most of them will be focused on these as investment properties, as opposed to owner occupant properties and that's for lending law reasons, not wanting to cross over into a mortgage lending licensing requirement and it also just dealing with, you know, the people that are different in the, at that point, the underwriting is different as well, because it's not as easy to necessarily sell that asset if the owner is living in it and so that type of thing. So for at the at the moment, we're thinking of this mostly for investment property, use cases.   Michael: Really, really cool stuff. For people that have questions that want to reach out that want to learn more, what's the best way for them to do so?   Geoff: Reach out on Email or Twitter. We're, we can drop our emails here, but it's: gthompson@roofstock.com or is it sraghavan, right?   Sanjay: Yeah, it's a sraghavan, so: S R A G H A V A N @roofstock.com. I'm also @eth_sanjay, Sanjay, Y on Twitter, so you can also reach out to me there. One thing before we sign off for today, we're super excited to say that we are in the process of closing our second property, that's going to get tokenized. Soon, this one's going to be in Georgia, at CES Atlanta suburb and we'll be going through the process as soon as this is closed in the next few days, we will be going through the process of documenting what the property looks like when we bought it and any Rehab we end up doing on it and you know, they'll be you know, talking about it on social media quite a bit as well as people who are new to real estate investing, maybe this is an opportunity for them to understand, well, you know, what are the kinds of things people should be looking at when they're analyzing a rental property and so as we go through the process of rehabbing this will sort of document that a little bit. But that, you know, once the rehab is completed that that'll get, they'll get tokenized soon, but once the rehab is completed, we'll have it available for sale.   Michael: Awesome, we'll definitely have to keep my eyes peeled for the process and for the property once it's finished. That's super exciting. Well, guys, it's always a pleasure, great seeing you both. Thanks for hanging out with me.   Sanjay: Thanks for having us.   Geoff: Always great to chat.   Sanjay: Bye!   Michael: Take care and talk soon. Hey, everyone. That was a wrap to our show. Thank you so much to Geoff and Sanjay. Super, super, super interesting stuff. Definitely leave us a rating or review wherever it is you get your podcasts and definitely reach out to those guys if you have any questions about web three, about tokenization about cryptocurrency home purchases. Again, really cool stuff. We look forward to seeing you on the next one. Thanks so much for listening. Happy investing…

Being only an employee leaves you vulnerable to the ups and downs of the market. Real estate investing is one powerful defense against job loss and economic downturns. In this episode, Neil Timmons provides insight into the real estate business and shares his experience with overcoming economic adversity to secure a robust financial position. Neil Timmins is the CEO of Legacy Impact Partners, where they invest in real estate opportunities ranging from houses and apartments to industrial and medical offices. In 2021 Neil published his first book, Unicorn Hunting for Real Estate Investment Companies: How to Easily Attract, Screen, and Land a Unicorn. The book is tailored to helping real estate investors find and retain top talent through the strategic systemization of hiring. Neil also hosts his own podcast, “Real Grit” where he pulls back the curtain on real estate investing through interviews with industry titans. “Real Grit” provides listeners with the tools they need to secure their lasting real estate legacy!   Episode Links: https://legacyimpactpartners.com/ https://legacyimpactpartners.com/podcast/ --- Transcript Before we jump into the episode, here's a quick disclaimer about our content. The Remote Real Estate Investor podcast is for informational purposes only, and is not intended as investment advice. The views, opinions and strategies of both the hosts and the guests are their own and should not be considered as guidance from Roofstock. Make sure to always run your own numbers, make your own independent decisions and seek investment advice from licensed professionals.   Michael: What's going on everyone? Welcome to another episode of the Remote Real Estate Investor. I'm Michael Albaum and today with me I have Neil Timmins, who is an author, a podcast host, entrepreneur, real estate investor and he's gonna be talking to us about going from an agent and employee to building a significant business in the real estate space and what it takes to do so. So let's get into it.   Neil Timmons what is going on, man, welcome to the podcast. Thanks so much for taking the time to come hang out with me today.   Neil: Good. It's so good to see you again. I appreciate the invite. Looking forward to this for some time now.   Michael: No, likewise, the pleasure is mine. I'm super excited. So you and I of course know each other. We were chatting offline just before we hit record. But for anyone who doesn't know Neil Timmins, give us the background quick and dirty. Who you are, where you come from, and what is it you're doing real estate.   Neil: High level out of Des Moines, Iowa, born and raised, started as a residential real estate agent built a built a brokerage there on to REMAX for a number of years was a top REMAX guy with my 20s and then eventually found my way stumbled into investing worked my way through single family investing, we still do a little today but morphed into commercial investing. And that's a primary focus today.   Michael: Love it and I hear this this theme so often with agents start as an agent, got my teeth cut, then went into the investment side. My guess if you're a top performing agent, in your local market, you're making a lot more money on an annual basis than you would if you're investing. So why did you make that transition? Why'd you make that jump?   Neil: Yeah, no good question. Well, the not so fun story is I was probably 31 ish at the time. Maybe 32, I came home one day to my wife of a decade in our three little kids, all about five or younger, and my wife had them all packed up and said she was leaving, leaving for good. I had spent the better part of seven years or so working like a dog every day of the week, I worked. My second year in real estate, it worked 355 days. So that business was built, ultimately, you know, I was able to put his team in place and that business, but it largely was built on my back and my effort and so it was at that point that, you know, I had an ultimatum and I begged and pleaded with her to go, you gotta give me give me an opportunity. I understand. So give me an opportunity. She did thank God. 45 days later, I sold my REMAX and took a whole bunch of time off to decide, well, how am I going to how am I going to do this? How am I going to make a living in contribute because I like doing what I was doing and not the not to the degree in which I did it. But I enjoyed real estate a lot, right? The people, all the fun things around it. So it took some time off to evaluate things and then ultimately plugged back in largely on the investment side.   Michael: And today you own a business around the real estate investing space. Tell us about that.   Neil: Yeah. So I own a couple of things. On the on the investment side of things. We're primarily focused on commercial investing, right, we buy by multiple asset classes, you're on a primary ladder, Des Moines, Iowa, we still do fix and flip in the office. Although I'm not largely involved, we've got a nice little machine that runs that really good. Contractor base in place, literally same contractor. Don't quote me on how many but we've done probably nearly 200 with the same exact crew. So it makes running things and the efficiencies there of all awfully simple. I love talking to people going you know what I don't like flipping because then I gotta go pick the carpet, I gotta pick the paint whatever else I'm like, What do you mean, you have to do that we picked it once. It's the same carpets, the same paint, same countertops, the same appliance, nothing, nothing changes. You're not doing a whole block of these things. It's not like anybody notices. You just pick it once yeah and so then also, I run an education business, which we launched this year, which has been very well received from folks who want to make that bridge want to leap into commercial real estate and, you know, figure it out either how to do their first deal or how to do their next deal.   Michael: And I'm curious, Neil, because I also come from the education space, and the folks that you're working with, are they the DIYers or are they the folks that have heard of commercial and want to get exposure to it in some form or another are a mix of the two?   Neil: Yeah, no, it's really DIYers. Yeah, that's not largely the passive investors, if you will, it's people who are active in real estate like, like using… if you will, you know, in my career was it just laid out you know, as well cradle to grave if you will, coming through I'd like if you were to go, how should someone progress? Although most don't do that, you know, they end up in one thing and often stick there, but I kind of work my way through that. Is this constant evolution of how do we elevate oneself and one skill set to take it to a to a new level and that's where these folks are they know they've done, they've done single family, they've largely been exposed to it, maybe they've been exposed a little commercial, but just haven't gotten to the results. They haven't they haven't been on a foundation, a legacy had been on a foundation of financial freedom and, you know, arguably, in mice that that commercial gets you there faster and easier.   Michael: And within commercial because it is such a diverse asset class and really name where do you see folks going that are having the most success?   Neil: Oh, good question there. You know, we bring people in, and we do a lot of things from a training standpoint, want to be in an asset class exercise to go alright, well, fill this little asset class matrix out, we have my hand if answer a handful of questions to go, you know, do you resonate better? Would you rather work with people or businesses, and we just bring them through a series of questions, and that lines it up to go well, top to bottom ranked, we focus on six level six largest asset classes, there's top to the bottom, here's what here's what it looks like and then my encouragement from there is, Listen, if number two resonates a whole lot better with you than number one on that list, that's what you should do, because it's just easier and you know, this, if we were to go work on something you can get passionate about, it's a whole lot simpler, then put a little more effort into it and something you're just like, huh, maybe?   Michael: Totally, totally and, you know, I'm curious, so many folks, I think can go invest in single family on the side as a project as a test as an experiment, the DIYers that are doing commercial real estate, are they doing it on the side? Are they really jumping in with both feet, kind of like you did, and making this their full time gig?   Neil: Yep, great question most are doing on the side, most are either stacking it on to their single family business or, you know, if they've got a day job and several folks do is they're doing this, you know, in the evenings, nights and weekends, side hustle, if you will and you think about you know, from makeup, a number of you were to go market to single family or markets or commercial just by being in commercial, the number of available prospects has been largely diminished. It's a much more manageable group of makeup, an asset class, let's say self-storage, you're going to go market self-storage is in your county, well, in comparison to houses, it is a mere fraction. So your ability to call text or you know, mail somebody or connect with a broker, perhaps it's very manageable. You don't have to do it full time. In fact, that would not encourage it, because you're gonna sit around, you're gonna get discouraged. Because there's candidly not enough to do versus the single family side, you could always find something to do.   Michael: Interesting. Talk to us about kind of the exits and the thought process around the exit from that business. Because in my mind, and I think in a lot of other investors’ minds, a house is a house is a house, you know what it is? I know what it is everybody on the street, you know, that you bump into knows what it is, and knows how to buy it, versus a self-storage unit. I could maybe Name one person that I know that's involved in that business and so if I'm trying to sell it, who's gonna buy it?   Neil: Yep, no, exactly. So that's, you know, what I do on the training side is bring people through, even if you know, largely set some goals, understand why you want to be in this business, and perhaps what you'll do get through the training go, I don't want to be in the business. And that's okay, too. That's okay because what you don't know or what you what you now know, empowers you, right? To make a better decision about what the path you should be going down. So we bring people through that large infusion for retraining to expose them to what this world looks like, and then how to, you know, identify an asset class that really resonates with you how to price something up, how do we get leads, so largely from a marketing standpoint, from a lead standpoint, what do we say then? How do we value it? How do we actually put something a price to it to go alright, this looks like a potential really good deal, then how do we put it under contract and then from there, you know, the exit plans largely are or we get to resell the property. Occasionally, we get a property that comes in our wheelhouse, what I call, it's not our perfect seller, so it's a good deal, just not for us. Now, can we move that along, so to liken that to single family wholesale it double close it novated right, do all the same things in the commercial side or, you know, we decide, hey, this is our perfect seller with the property we want to own. So how do we how do we close it up or we get to raise equity? How do we go get debt and then how do we bring the whole thing together to properly manage it? So that's what we show folks how to do and ultimately starts you know, on the front end of the process to go Alright, how are we buying this because I know what our required returns are and if it doesn't hit that I'm that's gonna lead us down a different path to either go it's either a non-deal or we're gonna get this moved along to another investor and cash up the big check that we can utilize for the next year.   Michael: Yeah, that makes a ton of sense and you use the term that I'm not frankly familiar with novate. What does that mean?   Neil: Novation is that this has become very popular on the single family side. So there's a lot of buzz on the single family side, especially for those in the wholesaling business. Okay, it is to replace one contract with one another with another contract. So essentially, if I was to, you know, say, for example, I was to buy a property from Mr. Jones, I have a contract in place with Mr. Jones, I decided I want to move this property along under innovation process, you would then provide me a contract that would replace mine, there's typically a difference in pricing, right, you're gonna pay more than what I've just paid and that delta ultimately gets paid back to me. As part of the process. I'm high level in here. There's some moving pieces but high level?   Michael: Yeah, okay okay. Great to know. Neil, I'm curious if we can zoom out for a little bit, because you went from realtor agent, which is a kind of a unique profession and that, yes, you are an employee, but also you are kind of the business owner, your own of your own little business, your own little domain, and then you went and put a team in place, and then you ultimately sold that business. But for so many people that are employees in a traditional nine to five w two employee position to make the transition from employee to business owner, I think is a big leap for a lot of people. What was that like for you mentally going from? I'm going to be an agent to now I'm going to start and run and operate a business.   Neil: Yeah, no good question in it. I think that's, it comes in incremental gains, right. So how do you how do you elephant, right, one piece at a time and so the same thing occurred from me mentally and I think that is? It's a terrific question because I think so much of this business, in business in general is mental, right? It's a six inch game in between your ears and so how do you combat that I read a book when I was probably 20 to 23 years old. The Millionaire Mind by Dr. Thomas Stanley. He wrote The Millionaire Next Door, that's probably his most famous book, The Millionaire Mind was incredible and it broke it down to, you know how millionaires think and my thought process, of course, is well, if you just think like a millionaire eventually, and then, therefore, act and operate like a millionaire, I will eventually become one, right. So it's not it's not hard success leaves clues. So there was a lot of things in there that that impacted me at a very deep level and one of them, the biggest takeaway for me was, the largest risk that one has is being an employee. They can let you go any day of the week, this is what I came to believe in, it's still my operating beliefs today are just risky, if you have no control and I, I am well aware that as a business owner, as an operator, as a real estate investor, we take tremendous risk. There's no doubt about it but I still think they pale in comparison to putting all eggs in one basket, men have an employer of someone else.   Michael: Yeah, it makes total sense. So as you started moving things along, and created and formed and founded your business, how did you figure out who the right people were to put on the proverbial bus because I think, again, so many people have either a great idea, and they're really good at maybe doing that one thing. But doing that one thing isn't a business and so how do you scale it and have a proper functioning, running operational business?   Neil: Yeah, no, great question and that's, that's probably, if I was to attribute any of our success over the course of last three ish years, two and a half years, somewhere in that range, we've had significant success in that period of time, it's largely been correlated to my evolution as a leader, knowing that the only way forward is ultimately with and through other people. And so I've had a focus internal so go back to a question you just asked earlier, from a mental attitude of taking that leap. For me, it's how do I develop as a leader how to become a better a better person, somebody that people look up to somebody that people want to be around, so many people want to listen to, and, and be on the same bus with going rowing in the same direction and so that has largely, that's been a big focus over the course the last couple of years. When I was at a spot where he's gone, it's time to grow. You can't hire and retain a player's unicorns as I call them. You can't hire and retain unicorns if you're not one. So how do you how does one improve their personal self to be able to get to that level? That other a players want to be around?   Michael: Yeah, that makes total sense. So what it what did you do? Can you open the vest a little bit, let us peek under the curtain…   Neil: Yes, you know, it's, I wish there was a silver bullet here, but it's largely just been, you know, what do they say what's mentionable is manageable and for me, it's just having that Cognizant thought that okay, well, now, I'm mindful of this and so now I need to give thought to this. How do I say things how do I handle things? How do I handle certain situations? What is the impact when making this isn't with an employee or with a team or with a customer in front of folks, how's this gonna resonate? What does this look like and then having the vision as a leader, as any leader, doesn't any organization, that vision to go, where are we going and this isn't about me, this is about us and so oftentimes you'll hear me say, we did this, I almost, you know, I try very hard to say that 100% of time, I didn't do anything. We did this collectively, all the results are collective right. It is us together and that reading, continuing to stay focused on that, stay ahead of what's transpiring, trying to, you know, hosting a podcast being around other people like yourself, other people in the industry having an understanding what's going on. So been trying to be on that curve from a knowledge base standpoint about what's transpiring that's helpful, too.   Michael: Yeah, yeah. I love that and asking for a friend. I hate people and I don't think I want to interview people and screen people and that sort of thing. Does that mean that I shouldn't start a business with my great idea?   Neil: The first part is I don't like people. So let's just call that the introverted, right? They don't want to interact with other people. My right hand gal is an introvert. She's not very gregarious as it relates to people. She's very good with people. But she wants to she's far more task oriented about how do we execute on what we're doing? I think that's terrific and now, what hadn't you hire her because she's the Yang, right? It's Ying and yang. She complements me in a perfect opposite fashion and I do the same thing. The other way around. Yeah, it's, I think that's terrific. I think it's wonderful, if you can, what you just expressed was, you know who you are, if you know who you are, you can identify a path forward and I would encourage you absolutely. Knowing what your deficiencies are is wonderful. We're all we're all given strengths someplace, just balance this balance your weakness with somebody else. Don't try to what are the what don't master in the weaknesses, right? So anytime we have a weakness here in anybody, you know, largely for me, it's going just don't do it. Don't master in the minors, because at the end of the day, you're still going to be a d minus for you, no matter how good you get at your weakness focus on your A's.   Michael: Yeah. Oh, that's such a good expression. I can't tell you how many times I've heard people say, oh, I wanted to visit with my best friend. We're so similar that I'm like, that doesn't sound like a good partnership.   Neil: Sounds like sounds like a great bar and I but not a good business decision.   Michael: Yeah, I know. Totally, yeah right.   Neil, if we zoom back into the commercial side of real estate coming from the single family space, what is it that you see is the biggest hurdle of barrier to entry for folks that want to make that leap into commercial but utilize someone such as yourself to help them get there?   Neil: You'll never guess us? Are you ready for this?   Michael: I hope so.   Neil: I know, you're it's a mental barrier. It's all made up in their head. It's they don't think they can't. Yeah, but they don't think that that is it because past that, the ability to go well, okay. Well, if you've ever let me let me liken it to single family. A duplex is like a single family rental house, right? It's just two doors and the numbers change a little bit? Well, a 20 packs is the same thing. There's largely, there's not much difference in these things you're adding some zeros are calculated a little differently, but it's pretty much the same. In fact, management, in my opinion, gets easier. The more doors you have, right, you get professional management, you get it, it becomes simpler. Yeah and then to make a change to go into some other asset class, we just have to make a bridge. What does that look like? They have to go to an industrial buildings on a triple net lease, which is probably the simplest thing to calculate and get one's head around when you're going, well, they just pay a lease rate, and then they fix all the stuff that goes wrong with it, right? That's it your true and your true and why is the rent, we've got multiple properties like that and we're the management company, which means we just get the rent and never hear Yeah.   Michael: Yeah, that's by far the easiest piece of property in my portfolio is triple net.   Neil: Yes, correct. But people are, you know, we're scared about what we don't know and that's true of all of us, right? We're scared about what we don't know, afraid to make mistake, which is totally understandable and so we just help folks, we educate them as we go answer questions as we go and show them the exact path to be able to get from, you know, I want to learn more about commercial real estate, I'd love to be able to buy a deal to actually get to a close.   Michael: That's awesome. And I'm curious, Neil, what's your favorite asset class and why?   Neil: My favorite asset class, although I own I'd have to calculate up four or five different asset classes, but my favorite today is going to be industrial.   Michael: Industrial why is that?   Neil: Yeah, industrial is in demand like crazy. Secondly, in 2021, had the second largest rent increase across all asset classes, only trailing two apartments. But in comparison to apartments, they're far easier to manage, right, I get a triple net deal, or a double no deal, there isn't much to do, there's very few moving pieces you end up with, on average, let's say a five year to 10 year lease is pretty straightforward.   Michael: Okay. So if I'm playing devil's advocate here, and we're looking at this industrial building, this is suited only for a business. This is not for people can't come live here and the type of business you might have to build to suit it out for that particular business 5-10 years down the road, that might be a future Neal problem. But let's drive down that path that tenant leaves goes out of business, what have you economy turns? If businesses aren't doing well, in the area, are you stuck with this vacant building now?   Neil: 100%. If businesses are doing well in the area, meaning they're laying off or not employing people, my thesis is you still have you still have an apartment problem relative to occupancy and or rent rates. This goes back to earlier question is, admittedly, we have to take a risk someplace, right? It's just my comfort level and I like the box, you know, not a somehow engineering building has been added on to or defined for one, one person's exact use, I like a big giant box, just a rectangle, that's it, a business of multiple businesses come into that and fill it out in which way they want to. So like the fact that if I can buy my, my preferred buying is for buying some older not buying brand new stuff, buying some older buying something with a value add or on buying at a discount of some managers, the intent is to buy it correctly. And if I can buy a property, let's call it make up a number right now 70 to $80, a square foot brand new construction is gonna be 120 to 130 a square foot, I think I'm in pretty good shape over the course of coming years, I think that my dollars, and my rent rates get pulled up to the fact that sheer cost of new construction is gonna be 60% higher.   Michael: All right, I dig it, I dig it and for anyone, I'm just realizing now, some of our listeners might not be familiar with the term double net triple net lease, can you give us a quick definition of what it is?   Neil: Yeah, it just defines what people pay for double net, for example, is probably one of the least likely terms that use but let's say triple net triple net means ultimately that the tenant pays for everything, there may be some nuances inside the lease, but taxes, insurance, repairs maintenance, the tenant pays for that. So if your releases 100 grand a year, your net is 100 grand a year before, before your mortgage, any sort of debt payment you have on it. A double net means they don't pay for everything they pay for perhaps taxes and insurance, but not all the repairs and all the maintenance, and therefore your NOI is gonna be a little lighter, depending on what you have to maintain and pay for.   Michael: Okay, perfect and I'm sure some of our listeners are hearing that and thinking like, this is the best thing since sliced bread. I'm gonna go put all of my single family homes and all my apartments on Triple Net leases. Why is it only a thing that's been heard of in the commercial space?   Neil: Yeah, no good question. You know, to liken it to single family, you're like lease with an option or a contract sale, that's probably the closest thing you get to a triple net in the in the single family house side, right? So you kind of contract sale, somebody that mean that contract buyer is now responsible for everything associated with that house, right? That's what it looks like. If you look at the closest thing, there's some differences there. Obviously, a contract sale into a down payment interest rate. That's not the same as a triple net lease on the industrial side but that's probably the easiest way to liken it to single family.   Michael: Yep. Yeah, that makes total sense and for anyone listening, like Neil mentioned, it's just the cap rate is like the easiest thing ever in the Analyze easy thing ever, you got a million dollar building cap rate 6% they're paying 60 grand a year, then bam, boom, end of discussion. You're not paying taxes, you're not paying insurance, you know, capex and maintenance. So you can calculate your true return, and then look to calculate what your debt service payments gonna look like and determine what your return looks like after that, versus the traditional single family rental or apartment or traditional residential space. They pay you a set fixed amount, the rent, and then you have to go figure out the taxes, insurance, repairs, maintenance, capex, that sort of thing.   Neil: So hey, just because I like it or you know, in other investors likes something else doesn't mean it's right. There's only what's right for you.   Michael: Yeah, yeah. I love it. Neil, this has been so much fun, man. I want to be very respectful of your time. Let's get you out of here. But before we go, like where can people reach out to you find out more about you continue the conversation if they're interested?   Neil: Yeah, no, great question. Well, if you want to learn more about commercial real estate getting rich in what I call the 20x niche, why do I call it that? Well, because our target internally is to produce in a monthly return that's 20 times that of us Single Family return so we're scaling up largely is just go to my website give you a free download free report just you can learn more about the industry getting into commercial. So www dot legacy impact partners forward slash gift JF T legacy impact partners Ford slash gift: https://legacyimpactpartners.com/   Michael: Right on thank you so much and before I let you go I mean I'm not gonna let you out of here without mentioning your podcast you're also the host of a podcast was that was a you're kind enough to have me on what is that called and what can people expect to hear on it?   Neil: Real grit is the name of it it's about the trials tribulations anybody from real estate. So we talked about single family talking about commercial talk about everything in between. But really, so that we fully admit that you know, life isn't all about Lambos and big houses on cash and checks and everything on Facebook that or social media wherever you'd see it right? That there's ups and downs there's, there's we have to go through stuff and many times to be able to find our own personal success and so we talk through that and people's personal stories and how they got there because all bunch people, they get their different ways and it's really exciting. It's, we get into some really interesting, very dynamic conversation a lot of fun, love it. You and I had a great conversation.   Michael: I had a ball. I had a ball.   Neil: It was a blast, man.   Michael: Awesome. Well definitely go check out that podcast, real grit, a lot of fun, really cool stuff going on there. Neil, thank you again. Any final words thoughts for our listeners?   Neil: No, you're going to find me you know, like I shared it though the website I'm also on all the all the social media platforms. Facebook's the best place to find me Neil Timmins, or there are many Amin just spell it right you got me   Michael: Right on, many thanks again. Appreciate you, see you soon. Bye.   Neil: Bye, bye.   Michael: All right, well, that was our episode. A big thank you to Neil for coming on the show. Really, really interesting stuff that Neil's been through seen and experienced. As always, if you enjoyed the episode, we'd love to hear from you with a rating or review wherever it is get your podcast, and we look forward to seeing on the next one. Happy investing…

Today, we welcome Billy Keels back on the show to discuss how he went from living the corporate life to running his own business. We discuss his motivations, the mindset shift, the challenges, and finally, the rewards of his decision. Before becoming a real estate entrepreneur, KeePon Cashflow’s founder Billy Keels worked in the corporate world. In fact, he was one of the best “corporate soldiers” you’d ever want to meet. Billy says that he was happy enough in his J.O.B., but something was missing. An emptiness and longing for a different life chewed on him, pulling him to what he knew he wanted to do more than anything else. Billy wanted to be an entrepreneur who brought two worlds together. So he took steps and kept on the path to his goals. Today, Billy is an international real estate entrepreneur, problem-solver, author, coach and mentor. He sees opportunities where others often don’t in real estate. --- Episode Links: https://www.firstgencp.com/ https://www.firstgencp.com/paylesstax https://www.linkedin.com/in/billykeels/?originalSubdomain=es --- Transcript Before we jump into the episode, here's a quick disclaimer about our content. The Remote Real Estate Investor podcast is for informational purposes only, and is not intended as investment advice. The views, opinions and strategies of both the hosts and the guests are their own and should not be considered as guidance from Roofstock. Make sure to always run your own numbers, make your own independent decisions and seek investment advice from licensed professionals.   Michael: What's going on everyone? Welcome to another episode of the Remote Real Estate Investor. I'm Michael Albaum, and today with me I have Billy Keels back on for another episode. For anyone who missed it Billy is an entrepreneur business owner ex former tech sales guy, and he's gonna be sharing with us today about how he started his business, why he started his business, and really the mindset shift around going from employee to entrepreneur. So let's get into it. Billy Keels, welcome back for round two, man. How are you? It's so good to see you. Billy: Michael, what's up man? I, um, super excited to be back. This is nice.   Michael: I'm super excited to have you here. So for those listeners that did not catch our first episode together, give us the quick and dirty who you are, where you come from, and what is it you're doing in real estate.   Billy: Very cool. But you know what? You know what I have to do first man, because you're very kind to welcome me back and I just wanna say everybody, by the way, if you haven't already, Leave Michael a nice, wonderful, honest written review as well as rating. It helps to… Michael: Oh my gosh…   Billy: Bring guests to you, which is phenomenal. No, I mean seriously. I mean.... The energy, you all bring the organization, you bring the structure. Uh, and also I know a lot of the things that you are doing are making positive impact cause you're helping to educate people and also inspiring them to take action. So it's the least I could do also as a fellow podcaster, um, to go out. Uh, and, and, and ask of that. So, um, but yeah, Billy Keels, I'm still the, the same guy from the Midwest, uh, of, uh, of Ohio, who has spent the last 26 years of his life, uh, in corporate up until recently, uh, no longer, uh, in the corporate world. I've also been spending the last 21 years, uh, living in Europe. I know Michael, that's close to your heart as well? Michael: Very much so. Billy: And specifically, yeah, specifically between, uh, France. Italy and most recently Spain. I am someone who really, really had a great corporate experience. I really enjoyed it. It was fantastic. Some personal things happened in life that helped give me some clarity that was time to do some other things. Uh, and now I am very, very fortunate to be living, uh, you know, I'm living my, my best life and, uh, was able to make my nine to five optional and doing that in a point in time where I'm still in my forties and, uh, living between, uh, the US and, and Europe and that was part of my life goal. Uh, very, very fortunate and super excited to be back here and share another conversation with you, man. Michael: Oh my God, I love it, I love it. Billy, before we jump into it, I'm just curious, do you remember the best compliment you've ever received? Just outta curiosity. Billy: The best compliment. So you've kind of putting me, putting me on the spot, man. Um, I don't know. I think that's when you have to ask my parents. I don't know because they're , you know? I don't know. I just, I don't know. I, I, I can't remember. But usually it's, it's probably something that's not related to me, but something that I would've learned from my parents. More than likely. Um, but I don't remember specifically why, Why do you ask? Michael: I love it. I'm just curious, man. I'm curious to know if people remember, like human psychology, if people remember the compliments more, or do they remember the insults more? Billy: I spent 26 years of my life, uh, 20, one of the 26 years in sales and sales leadership roles. So the, the bad stuff I've learned to just kind of let it go. , the good stuff. I try to. Um, but if it, like, one of, part of the process that's happened with me is I try not to internalize too much of this stuff because then I kind of keep that and there's a tendency to say, Well, I've heard this so many times, therefore I am, um, I always try to work and be in the best version of myself, so even if I get a compliment, it's kinda like cool. I appreciate that. I probably learned that from my mom, from my dad. It's something I've seen from my brothers or something that my, my wife is helping me to be better in. Michael: I love that man, I love that. Can we turn back the clock a little bit, Billy, and talk about. Your corporate career, because I think that you have a, a similar story to a lot of folks, especially listening, have an amazing corporate job, are killing it in whatever it is they're doing. Um, and they can see themselves doing that maybe forever you had kind of a life change. I'm just curious, like why did you decide to go into business for yourself? Billy: So, you know what, Michael, this is actually super, um, such a wonderful question and I can tell you, I think the last time I told you that there was something that happened to me when my, um, it didn't actually happen to me. It happened for me when my son turned three, I missed his birthday right and I, because I chose to go to a business meeting that was in Germany because I was chasing the corporate dream. I was, you know, that was the thing that I was supposed to do, I was a really young father in that day. It was, I felt an incongruency in my, like, in my being right. I was, I woke my wife and son up to, you know, wake them up and our one year old just to give a hug to our three year old and kiss and then I was out the door. So that was the thing that made me realize like, hey, look, I've gotta kind of take action. I really like my, my corporate career, but I got lost somewhere along the way and my priorities got outta whack and so that helped me to take, start taking action, stop reading a lot of books. Cause I'd been reading books for probably three or four years, right? I knew all the numbers, all the theory, all the stuff, but I didn't take any action and I'm very, very proud to say that I've just celebrated a decade later, right? A decade later, I was able to accomplish the goal, which was being able to make my nine to five optional and even though I went in probably for the last three years and I didn't actually financially need to, I chose to go because, um, the life balance that I had was much better than it had been the previous years. Um, I was still enjoying the things that I was doing in my role. I was really well recognized. I was, you know, making way more money than I thought I ever should be, Uh, making and a decade later, like I literally just came back from, uh, Ohio, uh, where I was, uh, over visiting some friends, got to go to a, a sporting event, which was fantastic. Saw family members and then was able to be back here. Uh, for my son's 13th birthday. So a decade later, I recognized that the action that I took for a decade while I was working my day job, having this side hustle, like it really, it's paid off and it hasn't been perfect. Michael, Um, not even close to perfect, but the fact of the matter is I got outta my own head. I started taking action. I started seeing results, and then I started multiplying on that action and. Even though I left the corporate, because something also non-financial, and I think we talked about this last time, happened with my dad, and it helped me to realize like, okay, I really like what I'm doing, but there's some other things that I can do now less than a year later and my son's, you know, 10 year, 10 years later, his 13th birthday, I'm at a point where I'm like, wow, you know, all these things that I dreamt and wrote about on my dream board. They actually came to fruition. Um, not perfectly, like I said, but you know, being able to be in this point now is, I, I, you know, I'm glad that I started taking the action and I'm glad that I started that side hustle and I know that I worked through a lot of, you know, a lot of crazy hours during some of that time, but it wasn't all for nothing. Michael: Yeah. That's amazing, man. Well, first off, congratulations. That is super, super exciting to hear and I'm sure your family is super thankful as well. Let's talk about like, I think so many folks get it in their head that they can't have a side hustle, or they can't go build a business of their own either because they don't feel creative enough, they don't feel inspired enough, they don't feel called to do something, or they just feel like they don't have enough time. So talk to us about the mindset around. I'm working my nine to five scraping by or doing really well, not even scraping by just doing really well, but I'm exhausted at the end of the day. How does someone like that even think about doing something else? Billy: Yeah, so, and you know, I, I guess I kind of put it in a, there's a couple different things inside of me. I kind of always knew that I wanted to do something else as well, because I think one of the best things about working in a corporate role is in specifically like I was in the IT sector, right and not only in it, I was in software. So this is like super cutting edge, massive profits, and so it was great place to be every single day and so there are so many, like I realize like for a while, I just wanted to continue to work and be an employee and, and things were great and I was really, really fortunate because I had great salary. Um, you know, I was given opportunities to learn to grow leadership opportunities, great training and so for that period of my life that I didn't really wanna do anything. This was like, this was the most amazing thing ever. But then also as I started getting into the other phases of my life, I realized like, hey, listen, there are other things that are really important to me. I want to be able to be here or be there, or just be nowhere when I want to do it and not have to worry about somebody else telling me when and so when those things started happening for me once again, I started realizing like, okay, well, number one, the things that, because I didn't grow up with money at all, but I got into a point where I actually was not just saving money, but investing money, but then I realized that it was outside of my control. Like the stock market couldn't control that, but that was the only thing that I'd been taught to do, which was buy low, sell high, not really a winning strategy, and I didn't take enough time to get educated on that. That happened in 2000 when the DOT combo will happen, and the same thing happened again in 2008 I lost 33% of my portfolio, so I knew that even though I was in a really great c. Opportunity and create corporate experience inside of me. I needed something else. I wanted something else. I just didn't know what it was and so it wasn't until I came across that little purple book that so many people have read that that started turning like the idea on in my mind. But even with that, my goal, like I said, it took me like three and a half, four years to go from theory to practice and it took me missing my third, my son's third birthday to actually start to take that action and so, once I started, uh, you know, being able to, to take that action, I realized like, hey, listen, as long as I continue to give the outputs, cause I was in sales and sales leadership, like what are the outcomes that are expected In my role, I always performed at a high level. Like I was in the top talent program. I was going to Hawaii every other couple years for, you know, overachievement against quotas and stuff like that. So I felt like it was always important to be able to give everything that I gave during my corporate time because that was also providing me the income to be able to do the investments in the other stuff, which is actually creating my runway for my own life, like the one that I was building for my family. So it was finding that balance between being, a really good sometimes great. Uh, corporate employee, I think even, well, I don't think for on my, for a while on my, um, on my LinkedIn it said, hey, you know, happy corporate employee like that was my moniker. So that, that was like the thing and people were like, You really a happy corporate employee? Like yeah, I mean it's treated me really, really well. Yeah. Um, but it was something more that was inside of me that said, hey listen, it's time to do something else and I was afraid for a really long time because I was a high paid executive who was visible and people, you can't be doing anything else, man. You like, you need to be client facing all the time. You make a lot of money, you're doing this, you're doing that. But I knew that it was, um, it was something that I, I really wanted to do and there was sacrifice that also went on, right? Cuz you, you, you're in that type of role, you're expected to be on. Almost 24 hours a day. So I was waking up really, really early in the morning and I was staying up really, really late at night and fortunately both my, my, my wife and my kids understood that, um, once I got back on track, um, and, and it was about being able to find that balance. So I know it's maybe a little bit of a, kind of a longwinded answer, but I think it was about, you know, recognizing how fortunate I was in the corporate role that I was in and I did like it. Uh, I liked it a lot and at the same time, at a certain point I knew that I wanted something more. I knew that I wanted. The control. Initially it was of the financial, uh, outcomes of my life and what I realized it was, I really wanted to have more control over my time and it manifests itself just a couple days ago, which was a decade later, which was me being able to fly to my hometown, stay there for a week, hang out, and then be back for my son's 13th birthday. So, um, yeah, so that's. Hopefully that answers your question. Michael: Freaking amazing, man. So let's talk about like the next obvious question because you were an executive in it, tech sales. So what did you end up doing? Like what kind of business did you start?   Billy: Yeah, so, um, so the thing that I started to understand was it was a thing that came across. It was really, this is kind of dumb luck. It happened, it just really happened that I read that low purple book. The proof of concept was really simple. He was like, okay. I was working in this intangible world selling software. You can't touch it. You pay multimillions for it and then there was, hey, you pay a couple hundred thousand, then a couple million, and you get this actual, physical, tangible thing that you can touch. People wanna sleep in it, so they'll pay you for it. So that's the revenue line. By the way you've gotta make sure that this place stays in order. So you've got some operating expenses, you know you gotta pay your insurance taxes, maintenance and operations, maintenance, repairs, things like that. Then afterwards you get to this line, which is net operating. Well cool and if you have some debt service or mortgage, you pay that mortgage and everything else you get to keep. I was like tangible, simple business model and there's a need for it. So I went and started investing in real estate and I think we talked about it last time, but here based in Barcelona, Spain, but investing always back in the United States, exclusively in the US. So I started with the, with the smaller multi-family and then I bought a mobile home park and then I opened my mind to thinking about new things and I was like, okay, cool. Once I understood that, I get the education, start to build a network around people and then start to continue to take action on this imperfect information I started seeing my asset base grow and those assets, you know, the smaller multi-family, the mobile home park, the ATM machines, and then I started investing with other people because that made a lot of sense for me because I was a high paid executive. So I started realizing like, this is really, really cool, but it's taken a lot of time. I need to do something where I can actually leverage the e efforts and expertise of other people and I was somebody who was a credit investor. I figured that out later and so then I started giving, or not giving, but investing my capital with other people and things like the ATM machines and things like, um, larger multi-family buildings and some development projects in the hospitality space and then I kept having this one specific problem, which was, I was investing in all of these, and I don't wanna get too technical, but passive streams of income, like IRS definition of passive income and I kept still paying 40 plus percent in income tax, and I was like, this doesn't work. So then I started realizing that I needed to start asking different questions. I got into a specific area within the energy space, and that energy space helped me do a couple things, which was continue to build my asset base. That was generating income. This time it was active income, but it was also helping me out as a high paid executive. It was really helping me on my income tax because there were some specific, um, tax code rules related to energy production that helped me not just generate, you know, income moving forward, but it also helped me keep more of my income through income taxes and income tax deductions. So it was looking at all of these different things. At a certain point when I left my corporate career, I thought, I really like this building the asset base. I like continuing to do it and I'd build a lot of relationships and the one thing that really made the biggest impact on me as a high paid executive was the, the thing that was helping on the generating active income and, and keeping more of my active income. So today I really focus, uh, my company in that area through syndicating capital with accredited investors, uh, for those people that are very similar to the way that I was when I was in my corporate role. Uh, and that's, my business has continued to evolve, uh, today. So hopefully that answers the question as well. Michael: I love it, I love it. And Billy, can you give us, I mean, because you're in the energy sector and if anyone's been paying attention to the news or the world or living not under a rock, the energy sector has gone a little bit haywire over the last couple months, years. So can you walk us through like, what has your business gone through over the last couple years with Covid and the war in Ukraine and this sort of thing? Billy: Yeah, man. So this is, so this is really, really interesting, right and one of the things that I appreciate us as, uh, as investors in real assets, right, is number one, it's just, and whether we start in real estate or we start in something else that's tangible, it, it starts to open up our mind to way of thinking, right? I remember when I was just doing stocks, I just thought about stocks. But then when I started investing in real estate, it was like real estate. Oh my gosh, this is simple. this makes sense and okay and yeah, and then it opened my mind to other things and so I was then open to, uh, doing other things and it's very similar, right? If I think about now what I'm understanding about energy, like energy has always been super important, right? If you think about it at a very high level, every single output that we have, it has two component. The first component is labor and the other is energy and I thought, wow, okay, well yeah, that kind of makes sense and as I start realizing that, and then I started saying because of some of the incentives that are related to energy and energy production specifically, it made it a place that I really wanted to learn more about right and, and it, I've now started learning about a lot of different types of energy. But to your point, because energy is everything and everything is energy regardless of what's happening at, um, at your house down the street or even across the world. There's always something that is going to impact energy and the need for more energy, and so, It's very similar to what I started thinking about from a, um, basic needs perspective. When you need a place to live or you know, you need or want a place to live, the proof of concept already exists and so being able to explain the need for energy, to your point, I don't, you don't, I don't really need to explain it. It's just a matter of how is the energy being produced. That's where more of the, the explanations come. Um, and because of that, because it's something that most of us understand or understand the need for um, that part has made it relatively, uh, easy to have conversations about. Of course, there's always, um, very specific conversations or if I'm speaking to somebody who's in, uh, for instance the energy or oil and gas space, and they may be an expert, I always learn stuff, uh, as well. So, um, so just recognizing all the different things that have happened, uh, in the energy space and also having now a real focus on it. It's something that I've seen my business expand exponentially. Like what do I mean by that? So remember I was, uh, a high pay professional. I was, you know, very visible and at the same time I was, you know, syndicating capital, bringing people together around common goals and common dreams and just to kind of give you an idea from the first year, more or less that I was doing this, or a little bit year and a bit, Um, while I was still working my corporate role, since I've left my corporate role and have now done focus just specifically on helping accredited investors that are looking for these, uh, types of investment opportunities that generate returns and also help with income tax problems, um, our business has multiplied by seven right and so what that means to me is one, I have more of a focus now. Um, I'm understanding the accredited investor base that we are serving because also it helps that I am one of those people. I understand, uh, what it's like to go every single day, all day from early morning to late night and recognize that you're doing a hundred percent of the work, right? I was doing a hundred percent of the work, and many times I would bring home, you know, 50, 55% of the work at a certain point, I didn't like that, especially because I was open to learning about new investment opportunities because the real estate that helped open my mind is now continued to keep my mind wide open and so, now being able to look at new opportunities, evaluate those new opportunities, understanding the teams behind those opportunities, it's just, it's one of the things that's now an extension, uh, of where my business is and how we're serving, uh, those accredit investors and why and the energy spaces is one that's, I think, gonna be around for quite a while, kind of like real estate. Michael: That's great, man. I'm curious, Billy, for yourself, I mean, you're clearly a super bright individual. You're very open, you're very curious for the person that is just getting involved in the investment space or maybe in the real estate space that's new for them. They're high paid professional, they don't understand that world. They don't have maybe the same curiosity that you do. I mean, what's the mindset shift around hey, I know stocks and bonds. This is what I've always done and it's worked for me. Why should I bother with this alternative asset class this, this, something different? Bolly: Yeah. So I'm gonna probably, um, cheat a little bit here because we're asking the question and you are asking the question of me and the person that's listening that had that question. Here's the good part, You're already here listening, so you know that something inside of you knows that something's wrong, knows that there's something more that's out there. So what I would suggest is that you've already taken the first step, right? You're already here listening to Michael. You're learning from the guests that are here. So, you know, continue to go down that path. The curiosity's already there because you're already here, right? Yeah. Um, and the, and the reality find out, listen, um, you know, talked about it before. I mean, you have an opportunity to even leave an honest review and in your review, say, hey look, I would really like to have this question answered. I guess what, somebody's probably gonna respond to you and it's about being able to take the steps that you feel comfortable with, um, as an investor. The curiosity's already there. You're already here you heard the question asked, so give, you know, I would say I would give. The ability to continue down this track. Listen to more of the podcast. Start to read about the things that you believe will help to, um, move you forward, move you closer to whatever your, your goal is, um, because everyone has a, you know, have as an investing goal and allow yourself to get educated, move towards the things that you really want to be able to do and ultimately that's gonna help you. So, um, I only say that because I know that they're listening. If they're here, they're listening to the question that you ask, and they just need to give themselves the, uh, ability to keep going down that path. Michael: I love it, I love it. I'm curious, Billy, for most of the clients that you work with, the credit investors you work with, are you having to sell them on this idea of, of your business model and what it is that you're doing or are they already here coming to you saying, hey, I've already done the research. I know who you are, I know what the asset is, like, let me give you money and, and or throwing money at you. What does that look like Billy: Well, so I'm, I'm pretty particular, right? Like, I don't, um, if our relationship started that way, it wouldn't be a relationship that would last very long and, and what I mean by that is, is yeah. What I mean by that is if someone just wants to throw money, uh, at you, I don't want a transactional relationship right I want to build a long lasting relationship. It, that may be the person's intention. Hey, look, I, I eventually want to invest with you, but the type business culture that we're building is we're building an investor family. And so in the same way that we want to get to know one another, you know, I'm very intentional. Hey, let's you know, let's invest 20 minutes in getting to know one another. At least have a 20 minute conversation, 30 minute conversation, understand a bit more about your goals, your dreams, priorities, and also understand about me and my business, what are our business goals and priorities because if there's an alignment, then it makes it really easy for us to take the next step and say, okay, well listen, you can, I know you have an investment, uh, opportunity. You've probably seen something about me somewhere online, or you've listened to this wonderful podcast and you're thinking, okay, well listen. I think because we sound pretty similarly aligned, so what's the harm in investing 30 minutes to get to know one another, right? I'm doing that multiple, multiple, multiple times a day. Um, and so from there that, that's the first part is to, to be able to, to start the relationship on the right foot. Getting to know one another, getting to, to like one um, you know, one another, you like one another, eventually you trust one another. But also, like, one of the things, and this is probably comes from, you know, the 26 years of, of working in, um, you know, really a relationship based type of roles in the last 21 years in, you know, high value type of, of selling, um, and relationship building.   It's really about like, I wanna always help and I want our company to always help those accredited investors that we're serving to make an informed.  because what we do, like the solution that we offer, it's the solution. Like it does what it does. So you have to be comfortable, you have to be informed, you have to ask all of the questions that you feel uncomfortable asking, and my team and I have to be able to give you the information or the data in the way that makes the most sense to you, so that you ultimately can make an informed decision. Because the worst thing that can happen is you look at something, you're like, Wow, this looks absolutely awesome. The numbers are fantastic. You don't spend time getting to know the person or the company that you are going to invest with. You don't know if you're aligned and you're making a decision just based on some numbers that you saw and when as soon as things don't go according to plan and you haven't done the prep work on the front. That's when things get really, really wild and out of, out of control. Like at least that's what I've seen at least in the last 21 years of my experience and so I do have a lot of focus on, you know, being aligned up front, being able to get to know one another, and then also being able to help someone make an informed decision and then after that, you know, if they're informed decision things go. Hey, listen, at least they were informed, they knew about the risks and you know, we will also wanna protect on the downside and, and talk about risks, because that's something that's also very, very important to helping someone make an informed decision. So, um, I don’t know if that's a little bit long winded, but hopefully that answers the question. Michael: No, it's, that's great, man. I mean, as you were saying that, I had this, this question you were saying, you know, we're not transactional. We wanna develop this relationship and in my head, I'm, I'm thinking, why, why, why, right? Because from a, from a growth standpoint, from a revenue standpoint, Yeah. I mean, people could look at, at you and say, well, Billy, you're doing it wrong. You're taking too much time with this person. You're spending too much time there. But I think you've explained the why so eloquently and it is because you're protecting the downside when something, if something, probably when something goes side based when something happens, you've got, you've got that foundational relationship to look back on and say, Hey, this, you know, we trust each other. There's not a finger pointing game going on, I would imagine. Billy: Yeah. Well, that's part of it and then also too, you know, I guess this goes back to the company, is that I've worked, been fortunate enough to work for, a lot of this is about business models. It's like I was talking about earlier, Well, let me, let me put it this way, maybe so, I like food. My kids like food and there are things that, like my son, when he's given the opportunity to go somewhere, well, he chooses to go to McDonald's, right and so that's where he likes to go and he likes to eat McDonald's.  Um, I don't so much, but, um, the, well, sometimes when you used to a lot when I was smart, younger, and then there's other places… Michael: There Mc Flurry outta control, right? Billy: All right, I'll go agnostic, I'll go agnostic. Some people like fast food. I probably should have done it that way. Some people like fast food, right? Um, and there was a point in my life where I like fast food as well. I'll change it up a little bit. Um, there's also another point in my life where I like to be able to sit down and I wanted to have more of a, you know, you wanna sit in the booth and you wanna talk and you, um, you just wanna spend a little bit more time and then there's also a.  in my life where I like to take my wife to. Very nice. Sometimes one, two or three Michelin star restaurants, right? The thing is, each one of those business models work. They can all be profitable. But the thing is the business models are very, very different. Do you like fast food? Do you like slow dining or do you like Michelin restaurants? All of them are profitable and it coming back to… Michael: It's got tingles, man, that's such a… Billy: But it's, but, but it's coming back to the question that you ask. , our business is not a high volume business, right. I would rather invest the time to build a deep, valuable relationship and that also means that the, the, the, the investor base that, that my company is serving, I is the investor base that we've decided to do is a, is an accredited investor, is typically a busy high pay professional. That once they have more control over their time and I recognize that for some people that's gonna be a challenge, but it's also for the person that's willing to invest the time. I know that that person has a much higher probability of getting to the goals that they're, that they're really wanting because they're gonna invest that time outside of the stuff that they're, that's keeping them busy and they're gonna be investing the time on the things that's gonna get them closer to their life priorities. That's our business model. There are other models that pretend that will prefer to go to a high number of, right? It's, but there's no wrong business model. That's just the one that I think works the best for me because I'm kind of that person today. Uh, that's the person that I understand the most. Michael: Yeah, man, I love that I love that so much and, and your analogy, the restaurant, different service types just was like, loved it… Billy: Use it whenever you want. Michael: Yes, Yes. I'm gonna, It's, you know, tm Billy Keels. Um, this has been so much fun as always. For everyone who's stung, who stuck with us this far, and there's like on the edge of their seats, what is the name of your company if they're like, I have to invest with this guy. Billy: Yeah, it's first Generation Capital Partners that you can find it at firstgencp.com and actually for people who are the credit investor, having that challenge around, um, being able to find things that where you can find investment opportunities that are gonna get you closer to your life goals, generate income for you, as well as provide tax benefits earned income side of things. We have a guide for you. You can go to firstgencp.com/payless tax. Um, that's a probably the best way to find out exactly, you know, what we're doing. Have a nice little white paper there and if it makes sense for you to continue to move forward, love to be able to get on the phone call and talk. Uh, have a conversation with you, Michael the other thing is, and this is the kind of, people can find out more about me as well, but they should go. Um, the going Long podcast, episode 2 21, where you absolutely crushed it . So going long, podcast episode 2 21 with your buddy Michael. Uh, and then from there, I, I think I'm the only Billy Keels in Barcelona, Spain. So if you wanna look me up on LinkedIn, you can go there. Uh, like I said, Billy Keels, Barcelona, Spain, just let me know that you heard Michael and I, uh, having a conversation here and it's gonna help us to, uh, keep our conversation going. So, uh, with that, I, you know, I love being able to be back here. I, I feel very, very thankful, grateful, uh, for the, uh, for the ability to be back here and share a little bit more of my story. Uh, Michael team really, really appreciate it. Thank you so much. Michael: Oh no. The pleasure is ours, Billy. Thank you and we will definitely be in touch, man. I'm looking forward to doing this again soon. Billy: Thank you. Michael: Take care. All right, everyone. that was our episode. A big thank you to Billy for coming on again, opening his vest a little bit, showing his cards, being a little bit vulnerable, and sharing some of his mindset and what was going on in his life when he made some of those massive transitions. As always, if you enjoyed the episode, we'd love to hear from you with a rating or review wherever it is to get your podcast, and we look forward to seeing you on the. Happy investing…

In this episode, we welcome Public Adjustor, Andy Gurczak to speak about the role of PAs, and how you can make the most out of the undesirable experience of haggling with your insurance provider -- ensuring the highest possible settlement under the terms and conditions of the policy.  Andy Gurczak started in construction as a laborer and got his in as a public adjustor through a contractor he worked for.  Quickly climbing the ladder, he helped grow the business by attaining new clients and further building relationships with existing clients. Andy started his own company, AllCity Adjusting, where he and his team process over 1000 claims per year. Andy’s Contact Info: https://www.allcityadjusting.com/ c: 708 655 4186 --- Transcript Before we jump into the episode, here's a quick disclaimer about our content. The Remote Real Estate Investor podcast is for informational purposes only, and is not intended as investment advice. The views, opinions and strategies of both the hosts and the guests are their own and should not be considered as guidance from Roofstock. Make sure to always run your own numbers, make your own independent decisions and seek investment advice from licensed professionals.   Michael: What's going on everyone? Welcome to another episode of The Remote Real Estate Investor. I'm Michael Albaum and today with me I have Andy Gurczak with All City Public Adjusting. And he's gonna be talking to us today about what a public adjuster is, and why anyone who owns property should consider using one if they have an insurance claim. So let's get into it.   Andy, what's going on, man, thanks so much for taking the time to hang out with me today. I really appreciate you coming on.   Andy: Mike, thank you so much for having me on. It's a pleasure. It's always it's fun to do these. So I'm excited.   Michael: No no. It's truly my pleasure. You're the first like we've done I think this is episode 300 and change and you're the first public adjuster we've had on so anyone who knows me knows that I'm a total insurance nerd and insurance buff so but for anyone who's not familiar, like what is a public adjuster and kind of give us a quick and dirty of what you're doing in real estate.   Andy: First of all, Bravo on 300 episodes. Plus, that's awesome. So thanks for you guys. And I'm lucky PA so this is pretty cool. Yeah, so public adjuster is is licensed by the state, he's legally able to represent the insured in their claim process, negotiate and settle the loss for them. Whether it's commercial or residential. It's basically like having an attorney on your side or an accountant doing your books. It's the same exact thing. They're licensed by the state that they work in as well.   Michael: Okay, okay. And I mean, it just seems like kind of counterintuitive. I go and pay an insurance company every single month, every single year to give me insurance. Then when I have a claim, an insurance claim, I go to the insurance company said, Hey, insurance company, here's this claim, pay me for the claim what I'm owed. So why do I need a public adjuster? Like why does your job even exist?   Andy: Yeah, that's a that's a great question. The reason our job exists is because insurance companies don't pay claims and don't pay them fairly. We've talked about this before the show, Mike, you work the insurance side. So you know, that claims, actually two people that work in our office work the insurance side, and they've got they seen how bad a guy and came to our side. Because claims are handled, I mean, horribly every year, it gets worse and worse. And our we just had a meeting with a couple of attorneys just discussing what's going on and what we could do in some situations, because it's getting so bad, that, you know, insurance companies aren't responding for a month or two months, or just I mean, so having a PA on your site, even though it's your claim, and you think you have to remember that insurance adjuster, that staff adjuster and every one that they send out every vendor contractor they sent out, they all get paid by the insurance company. So they're all working for this one entity. And then you're by yourself. And you're thinking, well, they're on my side, no doubt on your side. It's all about profits, margins, all that good stuff. So…   Michael: Yeah, I know it's so the word of news is sick. When you find out kind of what's going on under the hood. It's really what should be a partner relationship. Like you mentioned, everyone on the same team working for the same goal can be come very contentious very quickly. So you said it's like having an attorney or like having a bookkeeper on your side? I mean, it sounds expensive. How much do public adjusters charge? Like, how does that work?   Andy: Easy. Yep, Pa is most of the time charge a contingency fee. So there's no retainer is nothing, it's all contingency on what they recover. And you know what the claim settles for. And standard is 10%. Like our company has adopted just a 10%, nationwide, whatever claim we're handling, whatever the size is now, some situations where we come in, let's just say months after a year after the claim has been paid, and we're just trying to figure out maybe another coverage or paid additional than it might be a higher fee of maybe 20-25 on the money that we recover above that amount that would the only difference,   Michael: Okay, and so just so we get it crystal clear for all of our listeners, because I just went through this on a claim to fire claims I had on a property. If the insurance company comes into my claim, and says, Hey, Michael, we're gonna give you $100,000 For your claim, and I'm like, There's no way it's gotta be worth way more than that. You will come in or a public adjuster comes in, you end up getting me a million dollars, you're gonna take 10% of that additional 900k That you got me above and beyond what I was originally awarded.   Andy: Yeah, exactly. And something in your situation. So when we have claims, and we have large investors and management companies, we have a pay scale that actually the percentage goes down once it reaches a certain amount. So reaches, you know, half a million that 10% may become nine, right for every client, we kind of work with them, just because we kind of know their position. And again, we want to create a relationship that is long term, because then we're getting called when before the claim even starts right because we want to be there. You know, another question is when do you want to hire PA for the day you have a claim, because you want to make sure if that claim is a legit claim, if you should even file that claim, whatever your deductible is, is that even a covered loss?   A PA will, you know, we do this for our clients all the time we do their policies with their claims without making any money or charging any fee. It just part of our relationship with our clients.   Michael: Okay, I'm so glad you brought that up, Andy, because I get this question all the time. Because so many people don't like, insurance, education is not something that's really provided out there. And I'm wondering if that maybe is on purpose by the insurance companies, but like, how should people if they have something happened to their property? And statistically, if you own a property or enough properties long enough, you will probably have a claim?   So what's the process? Like if you could articulate and paint us a picture of as a property owner, whether it's our own property or an investment property? What should that process look like? What should what should owners be doing? Who should they be talking to?   Andy: Yeah, if you don't have a PA, and you're kind of going to try to do this on your own, you want to first stop whatever loss happens, you want to mitigate the loss, right, you want to get first you want to you want to get your copy of your policy to you want to see if your agent because you most likely don't have a copy, because no one knows that they don't have a copy until they have a loss to be like, Oh, I have this page, I'm gonna get your declaration, you need your policy, your booklet, you know, no one gets that usually, until something happens. And then it's hard to get it from the insurance company, it's like, they don't want to give you your own policy, very normal. Then you want to mitigate the loss. So if it's a fire, you want to board it up, protect it, make sure no one can get in there. Or if it's a roof, you want to cover the roof, if it's a roof claim, and then you want to go and take pictures and document as much as you can, and then call the claimant.   And when you call on the claimant and you're trying to set the reserves high enough. So then when they come in, and let's just say you have $100,000 loss, but when you told them the claim, you might have said, well, it's a small fire in the kitchen, small smoke, they might have reset the set the reserves at 25,000. And now the claim is actually 100. So now when we're trying to fight it, we're going to five managers like what's the example at State Farm, for example, once it goes past the reserves, you're going through letters like five managers to approve one payment are one extra additional line item, it's it gets really crazy.   So the most important is mitigating, mitigating the loss, getting your policy, reserving the claim calling the claimant, right? And if you don't know the answer, when you're discussing that claim, when you're calling it in, just say I don't know, because a lot of people get into trouble by trying to say too much to be too honest. And it's not about being honest or not, or, or lying. But people say the wrong words, they might use the word like mold, I see mold. Oh, well, molds not covered. Here's a denial letter. Well, the water, you know, the water happened three days ago, we have there's mold, because you know it's wet, it's humid mold molds catch up, but there's still water damage that's covered.   So different words they use. So you gotta be careful with words you so you want to do your due diligence, or even call your agent to call that claimant for you. If you need help.   Michael: Let's talk about that for a minute. Because in the agent world, you have captive and non captive agents. And so just like you were saying all the vendors are paid by the insurance company. I mean, in a lot of instances, aren't these agents paid by the insurance companies as well?   Andy: 100%. And I have friends that are agents and I know people are agents, and agents have a bonus if their clients don't file claims. So there is a bonus, there's a perk of them if their clients don't have claims or the correct. So everyone's got a benefit if the claim is not filed, and if it's underpaid, everyone gets points on that.   Michael: So can we surmise that if you have a claim, you should just call a public adjuster immediately?   Andy: 100%. Because it's a free review, what's the worst is going to happen? He's going to come in there and say don't file it. You don't have to sign with that PA but at least get that expertise. Now you want to make sure you find the right one. But if you do you have them looked at it and in depth look at the claim inspect the roof, inspect the fire damage inspector water damage and let you know everything you should do.   Michael: Yeah, I am. I had my first big claim to have them back to back couple years ago, I had two fires in a commercial building back to back a week apart, which I used to work as a professional fire protection engineer. And it's like statistically impossible to have that happen. I'm the one exception, right? So I went through the claim process I had the insurance company come out do their inspections like oh, it's small fire just like you said, you know teeny tiny claim payout. And I'm like dude, that doesn't even cover the materials that were sitting on the roof when I had the roof fire. So I brought in a public adjuster and they know about 15Xed that claim. So I can't sing their praises enough. When someone is searching for a public adjuster and you just mentioned this, you want to find the right one, like what does that process look like? What questions should you be asking?   Andy: I've never been on the other side. When I look and talk to our clients how they found us obviously they were looking online Googling and stuff and they were doing a search engine and kind of we came up online we do a lot of blogs and stuff. So we'll come up there with a lot of tips and stuff for people so they'll find our name. Otherwise, so if you're not looking online, you know, you can check websites like patio, which is Texas associations of public insurance adjusters, California has their own, some states have their own. There's the NAPIA National Association of Public Insurance. So there's different associations that you could go on, and find adjusters pas that have been screened and have backgrounds and pay their dues, because they're part of an organization. So that would be your, you know, your best bet. Referrals. Again, if I, if I knew you, I would say, Hey, Mike, you had a couple of fires, you know, did you hire who's a PA, you have someone to recommend. That's, that's your best bet. Someone that they worked for referral.   Michael: That that has had the actual experience with them? Yep. Okay. Are there certain questions that someone should be asking? I mean, what separates the different pas that are out there? Because I'm sure if I google that would get tons of different results. Is one better than the other? Like, is it just based on the fee structure? What should people be be considering? If they're going to hire someone?   Andy: That's an awesome question. So a lot of what you should be asking, and when you go online and look for PAs, a lot of them say, you know, fire water, they do all these things. But 90% of PAs handle just roofing claims, usually residential, some commercial. So it's, you have to make sure that hey, how do you handle fires? And how many fires have you handled? Or what do you specialize in? You might say, Well, we do a lot of roofs. That's not the PA, if you had a fire, you don't want the guy that's handling roofing claims. Right? For us, we do large loss, fires, water, hurricanes, we don't if someone calls for a residential roof. We don't we don't do residential roofs, we would love to, but we don't we don't specialize it. There's other PAs that do a great job, here's a couple of names you can call or, you know, Google and and find the problem just and it's in that it's just a committed, you know, attorney, some attorneys do, you know, personal injury, some do properties. Same thing with PA some PAs are better at some coverage than others.   Micael: Yeah, that makes total sense. Andy, let me ask you a question. Because it happened to me. And I'm curious now with the hindsight, what the proper move is, so I had this fire, and it was on the roof. And it was during a reroof. So they had all the materials up there. So all the materials burned up. And my public adjuster said, Don't touch anything on the roof. He said, We got to come out, we got to photograph everything we need to take care of, you know, we need to document everything. And meanwhile, it's really windy. There's debris blowing onto the neighbor's property into their, into their, into their courtyard and their fence. And so the neighbors called me complaining threatening to sue, they got crap blown everywhere. And I'm like, I can't it's like an active insurance investigation.   So you were talking about you want to mitigate the loss stop the loss from getting any worse. But are there instances where physically mitigating the loss than is like evidence tampering is the wrong word, but you understand how it's changing the scene.   Andy: Double edged sword? Yes, a double edged sword. We walk into properties all the time. And you know, or let's say we go into a hurricane area, or right now in Florida, and we see people outside with all their contents, right? Like all their house stuff, just in a pile. And I'm like, did you guys order material? Everything's gutted? I'm like, did you guys inventory take pictures? Well, no, but the insurance company said to just throw everything up. That's the worst idea ever. That's what they want. You just get rid of all your evidence. So that's a double edged sword. So when I say mitigate, you're supposed to mitigate the loss because they can technically your duties after last say you will mitigate. So if you don't, they can deny it. But what's mitigate right? If I had a pipe burst from the third story water comes as floods my whole house right? The insurance company is going to want to send a vendor out to pull some drywall or spray everything or dry everything and leave it. That's the goal. That's mitigation. But mitigation is you turning off the water. That's already mitigation, because it doesn't specify what technically mitigation is. It just says mitigate. So by me turning off the water, I have mitigated the loss. And I will tell my insurer just leave it because it's already all damaged. Whether you dry it or not, that's just gonna go against your thing. It's already damaged. It can't be its category three water. So it's got to be all replaced. Instead of paying a vendor all this money, this has got to be gutted, all that money should just go to you instead of that vendor.   So yeah, there is instances. So in yours, just because we have insurance, karma saying any Can we start rebuilding? Well, now because we're still fighting with the insurance company, and we're still negotiating, and if you start the repairs, then you you can date that's what they want. They want to keep holding, holding until you actually accept it and start the repairs.   Now, if they don't start the repairs, then they'll go well, why didn't the insured start the repairs? Right? So it's, we're trying to keep our clients in the best situation to make sure it's the best possible outcome. But it's hard sometimes, especially with landlords when they have tenants, right? Hey, my tenant is going to sue me or my tenants gonna go this if I don't do the repairs. Then do the repairs, I guess. And this is the settlement we're getting. So an insurance company knows this. So, in your situation. That's a tough call. What do you say like either the PA say, Hey, we got to do it this way. And he was doing it the right way. Because if you did mitigate or clean up that thing? And they come in? They're like, ah. Even if you document it, I'm telling you, it's like they don't even look at your photos. They don't care. Yeah, so they did the right thing.   Michael: Okay, good. Well, that's good to hear. I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go send them another thank you text after this episode. Yeah. Andy, can you give us like, maybe two scenarios to stories that you've experienced one where things went perfectly well, or as good as they could have gone and what you you're insured what your clients did to get there. And then maybe a scenario at the opposite end of the spectrum where things just like, just like, give us like the worst thing you've ever seen happen? Just so we have a little bit of context that…   Andy: Part of like claim handling or like? Okay, so I'll tell you, we were just like I said, we had the attorney, we were kind of going over claims and we have one, and I won't say the insurance company. This is in Gary, Indiana. This this poor lady that waged her claim has been handled, and it's by an adjuster that we've seen handle bad claims for other people in that area. Whether it's color, race, area, I don't know. But the way this this claim has been handled this lady the under oath and everything she's been through, like we thought we had it all over, they finally after six months, say okay, well pay the claim. And here's the money, we got to argue with them. They started at 30,000. It's $160,000 claim. But then we have contents another 160 that we sent wants to go and now we're asking what's going on with the content. So they come back well, well, which which was the insurance and which was her daughter's. Why does it matter? If you had a fire Mike, and you have your kids and your wife stuff in the house? That's all personal property? They're not on the pile? Are your kids on the policy now? Yeah, no kids are on the policy, but their stuff is covered. Right? So why are they're asking her so now they want to examine her again and her mom. So this is going to drag on for 10 months. So this and this claim is ongoing. So to us that to me, it's like, well, now I'm powerless as a PA. But what can I do?   So the only way is the attorney can help. But again, she's still going to have to do that examination. But it just shows how long they'll drag it and try to find ways of however, to underpay or just deny that claim. So that's bad. Yeah. And we have a bunch of those. So those hurt a lot of them, we win, this one again, we got the structure paid and figured out. Now we thought the contents was going to be a slam dunk, easy. Here's everything, even your vendor said, you can't clean this stuff. Great. Here's the list. Here's the pricing age of items. And now they come back with this. So, another tactic to delay the claim.   On a good note, we had one, it was a it was from another podcast, one of the investors students called us, he got the number to us and he called us he had a 16 unit in Champaign, Illinois, burned down here to ACV policy, you are familiar with actual cash value. Your listeners might not but meaning he would not recover depreciation, he would not get that amount even if he rebuilt. So he was just getting what's what it's worth now. So that building, he had a fit 550 limit that just came in, he wrote like 560. And they depreciated and cut him a check for maybe 300,000, something like that. So when we got hired, we sent our letter representation, and the adjuster called and said, Hey, Andy, you know, I paid this, I paid this to Max, I don't know why he hired you. I'm like, Well, you didn't pay loss of rents. And also you haven't paid demolition expense, and you only paid 300 when it's a 550 policy, you stopped writing, because our estimate is like 900,000. With no like edit, like this is just it.   So then we reconcile and the insured ended up getting 100%. So 550 plus 5%, debris removal, some other endorsements, plus he maxed out everything. So he ended up walking away with another 400, like 300K. So again, when an adjuster says, you know, we don't need you. And that's it again, there's many claims like that, those are the positives, it's the ones that drag on, and that you like, you know, you're close, but they're still like delaying, delaying, delaying. And it's like they want the insurance to just finally say, Okay, well, I'm done.   Michael: I'll just throw in the towel.   Andy: Yeah, it sucks. And, you know, there is statutes in each state, which they have to follow, but it's never followed, because no one ever calls them out on it. Because unless you actually go to court or litigation, that's when they show okay, we didn't do this. They didn't do this. But other than that, they don't really know. They kind of do their own thing.   Michael: Yeah, because they're so big. And you bring up you bring up a really good point ACV versus replacement costs for anyone that's not familiar with the to give us from from like the PA side of things. What is the benefit of one versus the other? Because I'm sure your clients have seen like the reason your client probably had the ACV was because the replacement costs value on that 70 unit 50 unit was just probably astronomical. So it's often a cheaper policy to get like what's the downsides of going with one versus the other and what risks do people run by choosing one versus the other?   Andy: So the riskier is with the actual cash value policy and most most policies are RCV based. And then they have the actual cash value endorsement that says we only pay actual cash value, what happens is why you would do that policy where some people might get that policy and our insured wasn't even aware of it. But the agent sold it to him didn't explain to him the differences. He didn't know that he had that extra cash value policy. So you know, that's another story. He went on his own. But, so what happens is you, it saves you a lot on your premium, especially if you're investing you're trying to make margins and you know, it could save you on a property like that 2-3-4K a year, right? Well, it's great until you actually have a loss, when you have a loss. You know, it's especially on older buildings, it's cutting your payment by half. And you can't recover that money because it's actual cash value. So the replacement cost of you know, your home today is 300,000, but the actual cash value after depreciation, your actual cash value is 150. Well, you're only getting that 150. Even if we got the settlement of 300. With insurance, your policy will only allow for the actual cash value of 150, which will leave you with only half the money to rebuild.   So you're always as an as an insured, you should always have a replacement cost policy. And now they have you know, different like guaranteed replacement costs and all this other openly, openly insurance actually has it. They don't even have its guaranteed replacement, because they don't even have a limit. I think it's up to one like there's no limit on structure a   Michael: Holy smokes.   Andy: So there's some new carriers that are really, really, really good, actually.   Michael: Okay. And that brings me to my next point. And I'm so glad you brought it up. Like Should folks be involved in public adjusters in their insurance carrier decisions as they're looking to go place insurance on properties?   Andy: I would hope so. Because all we do is read policies every day. All I do is read policies interpret policy. So I know when I'm looking at a policy, I'm like, Well, you have a good policy, but you don't have you have a finished basement, you don't have any water backup, you your roof is actual cash value only. Oh, I didn't know that. I didn't know there's a lot of stuff you you should be aware. So yeah, our longer term clients will actually inspect their properties, look at their policies to make sure they don't have any exposed liabilities. Right. Now, it's not our job. It's the agents job. But most of the agents now are just, you know, selling policies instead of actually doing their due diligence and ensuring the claim the right way, they insured.   Michael: Yeah, I just want to echo exactly what you said, for all of our listeners, like now the public adjuster that I worked with on this on these fire claims, I sent him every policy and every quote that I get for properties, and he told me he's like, happy to do it. He's like, Yeah, this is a great carrier. But this is the other thing. And also, he can tell me like, Hey, I've run up against this insurance carrier, we see them all the time, like they don't pay claims, we're going to be working together a lot more if you have a claim if you go with this company, which is super great insight to have.   Andy: That's, that's awesome. And that's the same thing. I would say, I would say this carrier, we have a lot we have, you know, this many claims every year. And you know, maybe it's a lesser policy, and that takes longer, but they'll pay the claims, right? These guys just don't pay or they didn't know, I have a list of insurance companies that I know that are easier to deal with. Now, it's your claim guarantee you're gonna be paid when you file a claim with them. No, it still might be a hard process. But they're much easier than these eight other carriers that they're that are out there.   Michael: Yeah. This has been so great. Andy, my last question for you, man. How many claims do you handle a year just out of curiosity? So I can we give people an idea of…   Andy: Yeah, we do over 1000 claims a year?   Michael: Well, but how many how many public adjusters in your office?   Andy: Oh, right now we have four. Right now we have four and we're just we just keep growing. We do a good job marketing and, and building our social media presence. And yeah, it's, it's, it's good. And I mean, I guess it's bad for the insurance. Maybe these claims are handled. But yes, tactically, we, our business grows and we get more calls.   Michael: That's awesome. And I want you to share with everyone your contact information where people can get a hold of you and like what kind of I know you said you don't do residential roofs, but what kind of claims should people consider reaching out to you for?   Andy: Any fire, you know, water claims, you know, whether it's broken pipes sewer backup, we can inspect those or at least advise sewer backups, usually, or water backup limits, they usually have a limit. So I see your limit is 10,000. I look at the photos and I'm like, Well, you max out the limit. You don't need a PA this one's just a max policy easy. A lot of people that call us if we get to two calls, three calls a day of clients that we just kind of give them advice because there's no need for a PA in some instances, they will but we can give them at least advice and help them out.   But fire claims hurricane even commercial roofs we do commercial roofs a lot. Residential roofs is just the one thing we don't really do. Just because we we don't have the staff to do it. So…   Michael: Yeah, okay, fantastic. And for people that want to reach out learn more about your take advantage of your services, what's the best way for them to do so?   Andy: The easiest way is my cell phone. It's literally for your clients they can for your listeners, they can call me it's 708 655 4186 that's literally my cell phone. They can text me call me I'm really easy to get a hold of while I still can. I'm able to get my phone away so write it down because I might have to switch here I might not be able to give my phone away and my wife gets mad with more calls.   Michael: I hope you're so busy that happens.   Andy: So ya know so far so far. Okay, wife's not getting mad, so…   Michael: Awesome. Andy, thank you so much, man. This was super great anyone watching the video could tell I'm super giddy talking about insurance stuff. It's so great to meet someone that's also as giddy so no, I really appreciate the time.   Andy: No, it's fun to actually have a host that actually knows that that area and yeah, it's fun. You You know you've been through it now yourself. So you kind of know the you know, you know, you know what we do and what a PA can help. So it’s, good.   Michael: Big time, big time. Well, thanks again, man. I'm sure we'll be in touch.   Andy: Mike, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.   Michael: All right, everyone. That was our episode with Andy, A big thank you to him for coming on and sharing some great information, some great knowledge and wisdom with us. Definitely. If you are someone that is going through an insurance claim or will go through an insurance claim in your lifetime with the property you own, definitely consider hiring a public adjuster they are worth their weight in gold. As always, if you enjoyed the episode, please feel free to leave us a rating or review. We'd love to hear from you all in the comments section and ideas on future episode topics. And we look forward to seeing on the next one. Happy investing

Mr. Fernandez is President and Chief Executive Officer of 1031 Crowdfunding. Before founding the Company, he was Senior Vice President of Healthcare Real Estate Group in Irvine, California. Since January 2001, Mr. Fernandez has been responsible for researching and compiling accurately verifiable documentation across various industries, including assembling compelling content for marketing materials related to the purchase and acquisition of various real estate holdings. He has over 20 years of inside and outside sales experience. He is personally involved in raising over $800 million of equity from individual and institutional investors through private and public real estate offerings. He hired and trained a national internal wholesaler and external wholesaler sales force. In this episode, he shares how he interprets the current state of the economy and the real estate market; and how his company, 1031 Crowdfunding, creates opportunities to take advantage of during times of uncertainty. Episode Link: https://www.1031crowdfunding.com/ --- Transcript Before we jump into the episode, here's a quick disclaimer about our content. The Remote Real Estate Investor podcast is for informational purposes only, and is not intended as investment advice. The views, opinions and strategies of both the hosts and the guests are their own and should not be considered as guidance from Roofstock. Make sure to always run your own numbers, make your own independent decisions and seek investment advice from licensed professionals.   Michael: What's going on everyone? Welcome to another episode of the Remote Real Estate Investor. I'm Michael Albaum, and today I'm joined by Ed Fernandez, President and CEO of 1031 Crowdfunding and he's going to be talking to us today about the state of the economy, the market, and his company, 1031 Crowdfunding, and how we all can take advantage of crowdfunding 1031 exchanges. So let's get into it.   Ed what's going on, man, thanks so much for coming on and hanging out with me today. I appreciate it.   Ed: No problem. Michael, thank you so much for having me.   Michael: No, it's really, really my pleasure, I am super excited to chat with you, because you've got a really cool company doing some pretty cool things. So I know a little bit about it but for all of our listeners who aren't familiar with 1031 Crowdfunding give us a little bit of background, what is it that you all are doing?   Ed: Sure, so what we're doing is we're taking real estate, packaging it up and selling it to investors in little pieces. For those investors that are either tired of the tenants, the toilets in the trash, or they run out of this 45 day Id period that you have to actually do for the IRS and so if you're looking for institutional real estate, but you really don't want to go running around trying to find your own property in this limited period of time, you can come to 1031 Crowdfunding, where we have a slew of institutional property for those investors who are looking to be passive, and defer their taxes through a 1031 exchange.   Michael: Man, I love it, we are definitely going to come dig deeper into that because I was under the assumption that you couldn't turn 1031 into a passive investment. So we've got a lot to talk about. But before we get there, I would love if you could give us a little bit of insight into where you see us currently in today's housing market with all the stuff we got going on. We're recording this towards the latter half of September and 2022. What's going on man?   Ed: Well, as you know, yesterday, the Feds hiked rates again to another 75 basis points and so what's so what they're trying to do, obviously, and it's currently not working, by the way, they're trying to slow down in the housing market. But with money continuing to flood the economy, real estate prices are still exceeding and going up and people can afford real estate or housing, because interest rates are going up. So we're in a weird market today, I can say we can go back to 1991- 1992 and kind of look at that market, very similar type of events that are occurring today.   Michael: Okay, and for all of our listeners that weren't plugged in to the to the real estate market back then what was going on back then.   Ed: So back then it was the tech boom, right? Remember the tech bubble that blew up?   Michael: Yeah.   Ed: Prior to that event occurring, interest rates on loans were double digits 12-14% and people were still borrowing and buying houses and getting involved in real estate. But then the bubble burst in the tech industry and all that money flooded into real estate and that's where you had all this appreciation on the real estate side. So in today's market, even though we're not in double digit interest rates, interest rates are higher than what real estate is producing. So we're not as bad as we were. But we're actually pretty close to where, and who knows, we might get there. If the fence keep doing that. So those are the similarities where interest rates exceeded yields on real estate, and real estate just kept going up.   Michael: Yeah, that's so interesting. I mean, I remember hearing about those double digit interest rates, but I also have to think back and you could go park your money in a bank CD and make 6,7,8, 9%, which now is unheard of. So it's, again, we have these super high interest rates, but you can't make a yield, letting your money sit in the bank. It's getting eroded by the high inflation. So it's a really unique time   Ed: And I'm glad you brought that up. You know, what's very interesting is that Treasury bills now you could buy a federal backed treasury bill, fully liquid and get 4% where real estate is producing three and three and a half percent. So you're kind of seeing what's going on in this market.   Michael: Yeah, yeah. Where do you think we're headed? I want you to break out your crystal ball, change the batteries out put fresh ones in there. What's going on in the next two, three years?   Ed: You know, it's, it's, it's a weird market, you know, I'm not gonna get into the political frying pan of who's doing what?   Michael: Yeah…   Ed: Right. But if money continues to flood this economy, I don't know how you put on the brakes on inflation, if that continues to happen. So what has to happen and what I hope happens is that money tightens up so that the feds can kind of slow down and we can get real estate to a level where people can still buy a home, the millennials, those are the first time homebuyers and investors can still get a yield. I don't see that happening at least for another two years. That's where I think we're headed but we'll wait and see.   Michael: Okay and are you thinking that the interest rate hike is going to continue along that two year frame or are we kind of plateauing and we just have to wait a little bit longer for the effects to take hold?   Ed: Well, if Feds continue to raise interest rates, then now we're gonna go into a recession and how do we come out of that? So it's a fine line of how much to push and how much not to push. So we just got to wait and see, look, if I had a crystal ball, and I can tell you exactly what is going on, I would not be on this call. I'd be on my 200 foot yacht in Monaco watching F1. So I'm just letting you know.   Michael: Totally. Yeah, that's a great point to make. All right. Well, I am very curious to see how it all shakes out, I think, as are many others, but and let's transition here and talk about temporary 1031 Crowdfunding.   So someone has an asset to sell. They've, they've seen the skyrocketing appreciation and let's just walk through it like some numbers as an example. Because I find that makes the conversation a bit more concrete. someone's property is worth a million bucks. They got 400,000 and debt on it and they want to go 1031. The thing, so they sell it for 1,000,000 1031 rule says they got to buy something for at least a million, if not more. Where does sentry one crowdfunding come into play here? Does someone have to bring additional 400k that was in debt to the table to invest in have a proper 1031, how does that work?   Ed: No, no, absolutely not. So one of the one of the biggest things of a 1031 exchange is what we call closing risk, right and so you have 45 days to try to find something and then that's not, you know, there's holidays, weekends, that all counts, right? So you're out there, pounding the pavement, trying to find a replacement property within that 45 day period, which makes it very difficult. So in using your example, if an investor had a million dollar sale with $400,000 of debt, they can invest as long as they're an accredited investor and let me define that either an annual income of $200,000 a year for an individual 300,000 per couple or a million dollar net worth excluding the home you live in, you can come to our website and at any given time, we have anywhere between 30 to 50 different options to choose from and these investments are called Delaware statutory Trust, the term we use is DST been around since 2004, directly on the IRS website, and really what the DST is, is very similar to a living or family trust, where there's a trustee managing a trust for the beneficiaries, you as an investor, or a beneficial owner of a trust that's on title real property. So it could be a $50 million apartment building $100 million Amazon distribution center and for as little as $25,000, you can own a piece of this big property, right off all your expenses, like you're doing today, on your schedule II get paid cash flow on a monthly basis every 15th of the month, and when the property is sold, all the investors get 100% of the upside, and you're still in another 1031 exchange. So that's what we do. We're looking for those investors that are looking for passive investments, tired of the tenants and toilets in the trash or running out of time? Those are the ones that give us a call.   Michael: Yeah, no, that makes total sense and it sounds awesome. So if we go back to our example, of the million bucks in the in the 400k in debt, how does it work because like, my understanding is if I'm if I'm selling something for a million, I gotta go replace that with a million dollars of property. So if I go invest with you all, do I have to bring the extra 100,000, how does that work?   Ed: No, here's how it works. I'll give you an analogy. So let's say I'm a trustee. I'm going to go out and buy a $20 million apartment building. I'm going to create this broader. As the trustee, I'm going to the bank. They're approving me as the warm body, and they're underwriting the real estate, let's say they lend me $10 million. I'm the one that signs on the bad boy carve outs, and I'm the one that signs on the loan. So now the profit, I have 10 million of debt, I need another 10 million in cash. So I write a check for 10 million, and I close the property inside that trust. So to make the numbers easy, let's just call it 50%. LTV or loan to value and so let's say you sold your property for a million dollars, and you paid off the loan, and you got $500,000 in cash, and you got to buy something for a million dollars or greater. Well, when you invest in the DST, the DST already has a 50% loan on it and what happens is that it applies that debt to your position, along with the $500,000 of cash that you invest it. Now at closing, you own $1 million of this $20 million property, which allows you to satisfy your exchange.   Michael: No way. Everyone watching this video just watched my brain explode. That is why that is super cool. All right. All right, I dig it and can people invest using an entity? So like, if I have an LLC that I own this property in that I'm now selling? I need to keep that same entity, right as my purchasing as my up leg for the new property can folks use their entities to invest with you all?   Ed: Shoot, Michael, send me your resume I should be hiring you here quickly… Absolutely. So, so yeah. So you have to use the same tax ID number, right. So one of the one of the things we do in process in talking to investors is we ask them, are you owning this as an individual, an LLC, a trust and based on whatever tax ID number they're using on the sale of the property that tax ID number is the purchaser of this DST. So yes, you have to invest the way you sold.   Michael: I love it, I love it and are you I know you said you're passing on cash flows and 100% of the upside, which is insane. We're gonna talk about that in a minute but are you also passing along depreciation to the investors?   Ed: Absolutely. So whatever remaining basis they have from the sale will carry forward to this investment and based on the asset type, if it's an apartment building or residential 27 and a half years, or commercial 39 years, yes, depreciation will carry forward, in addition to that some of the opportunities have what's called a Cost Segregation analysis done on it, where you accelerated depreciation on the personal property in the first year, which is a huge help to shelter cash flow from tax.   Michael: Yeah, I love it, I love it. I've done several of those ad it's just been amazing to see what my taxes look like postclassic.   Ed: Yeah, It's good stuff…   Michael: And just getting back just for a minute on the accredited investor designation, because the question I'm realizing I've had for a while, and we always joke in the podcasts are super self-serving, I get to get educated here along with all of our listeners, we talked about the requirement having 200k as a single or 300k as a couple for the last two years. Is that adjusted gross income or is that net?   Ed: Adjusted.   Michael: Okay adjusted…   Ed: That's adjusted and here's the here's why that's required. It's because the investments in a DST are illiquid, right? So the regulatory environment wants to make sure that if you do have a financial emergency, that you have other funds to go after, and it doesn't have drastically affect your life, because you are in an investment that's illiquid. So that's why the requirements there.   Michael: Yeah, that makes sense and the alternative way to qualify as having a million dollar net worth or more, right…   Ed: Correct, or let's say you're in the financial services industry, and your securities license, and you don't have the net worth or the income, because of your professionalism and the designations that you hold that also actually qualifies as an accredited investor.   Michael: Okay, good to know. I was gonna say, yeah, because it could be kind of interesting. Speaking about cost segregation studies. If someone's got great income, but also has a great tax strategist, their AGI is probably going to be zero, if they know what they're doing and so that they could get discredited that way. But the net worth piece probably comes into play more often than the income piece, I'd imagine.   Ed: It does. Yeah, because we deal our client profile is anywhere between 55 to 90 years old and so they're always saying that they don't have the income, but they definitely have the net worth.   Michael: Yeah. Okay. Why is that? Why is your target demo in that age bracket?   Ed: It's because if you're younger, you know, I'm a control freak, right? I want to control everything. When you're younger, you want to control your destiny. Though most younger real estate investors go by their own deal, they manage their own deal, and they live or die with their performance. But when you get a little older, and you've already built up your net worth, you get tired of those tenants in those toilets in those trash, right and so you are looking for a passive way to continue to kick that can down the street, i.e. taxes and so normally the demographic is 55 years or older, they're kind of slowing down on their real estate investment portfolios.   Michael: Yeah and that makes total sense and so talk to us a little bit about what the exit looks like on some of your deals, because I was looking at your website, before we hopped on, I noticed you have some triple net stuff. So I'm just curious, you know, how are you exiting those assets?   Ed: Sure. So it's got to be accretive to the to the beneficial owner or the investors, I would say triple net lease stuff. Those are bonds. If you're looking for a Walgreens $1, General and Amazon, you shouldn't expect appreciation on those opportunities, you should just expect that coupon plus getting your money back, right? If you're looking for appreciation, which I would call more like a dividend stock. That would be a multi-tenant asset, apartment senior housing, student housing, self-storage, where you have the ability to mark rents to market which gives you that that appreciation. So the exit really is going to be based on the economics is or are the investors making money. If they're not making money, there's no reason to sell because it's still producing the cash flow, right. So as soon as the property starts appreciation to a point where the sponsor or the trustee feels okay, it's time to sell. That's the exit, you put it on the open market, you got a real estate broker, you get the offers coming in, and then you pick the best offer and you sell the property.   Michael: Love it and are you all targeting value add type of stuff, are you getting stabilized assets? What is the mix look like?   Ed: So the DST cannot use value add assets, meaning it can't move walls, and has to be stabilized assets? Unlike a tenant in common, right. 10 in common, you can do that, right, so the DST is all stabilized assets and when I say stabilized, it's either if it's multi-tenant, that's 90% plus occupancy and if it's single tenant, triple net investment grade tenant corporately guarantee and leases.   Michael: And is that regulated by the DSDM, is that a requirement of the entity structure that you're using?   Ed: That is the structure, yes, sir. That's the structure. Because if you if you disqualify the structure, You disqualify the exchange and now, people pay taxes, because it's not approved by the IRS.   Michael: Interesting. So the IRS is actually dictating what type of asset you can own in order to get this 1031 designation and benefits.   Ed: Yeah, if they're, you know, there's a specific structure and a specific way that needs to be structured. That's why a DST should have a legal tax opinion attached to it, from your securities lawyers to show that the structure is complying with this approved structure, that it should not be challenged if you invest and qualify for the deferral of tax via 1031.   Michael: Interesting, are there other vehicles out there that you could do something similar but have a value add component   Ed: Tenant in common. A tick, we call it a tick, the similarities are very similar to the point where you own a fraction of a piece of property. The differences are huge. Tenant and Commons. The investors make all the investment decisions. A tenant in common can have a capital call, a tenant in common can use non stabilized assets, a tenant in common can leverage the property and so back in 2000, and 4,5,6, and seven, the tenant in common was the most primary way of syndicating 1031 exchanges. But then and so, you know, everyone is going to agree as far as the investors are concerned when real estate goes up but in 2008, great recession, you have savvy investors, not so savvy investors. It's called hurting the cats. They disagreed on everything, right and so about six and a half billion dollars went into receivership by tips and so banks will not lend to a tenant in common structure. So your question and previously of how do I replace the debt would not happen in a tenant in common. That's why more tenant in common deals are all cash and the way they address Sit to investors is, hey, all cash, no foreclosure is owned, by the way, we're going to lever you up, pull the cash out and get it back to you tax free. Well, that's what happened in 2008 and everyone lost their money. So ticks in our business is a four letter word.   Michael: Very interesting. Okay, this is really good to know it. I'm curious and maybe some of our listeners are as well, because the investors are getting the cash flow, the investors are getting 100% of the upside, you're doing all the work, how does 1031 Crowdfunding make money, how do you all get paid?   Ed: So it's aggregating a portfolio. So yeah, we charge an acquisition fee, right anywhere between two to 4%, upfront and then we also get asset management fees, it's anywhere between half a percent to 1% off of the cash flow, but you really don't get rich doing that but the idea as a sponsor is, if you're managing $5 billion worth of assets, and you're charging a 1% asset management fee, you're making $50 million a year just unfortunately, watching paint dry.   Michael: It's not a bad business model.   Ed: It's not a bad business model. But you know, there's a lot of work to it. I'm thinking I'm kind of, you know, dumbing it down, but that's how sponsors make their money.   Michael: Okay, all right. This is great. If someone is considering investing with 1031 Crowdfunding or a different syndication, what are some things that they should be looking for? How do they go and educate themselves about the sponsor and about the deal?   Ed: You know, that's, that's a big deal right there and that's a great question because these deals have an upfront expense, we call it the load, right and even though the load doesn't affect an investor's capital accounts, so if you put a million dollars in, you're getting credit for the whole million in your cash flow is based on that whole million. The problem is, is that you overpay for that property. So let's give you that $20 million example that I used earlier, right? Let's say there's a 10% load on it. Even though I bought it for 20 million, I have to offer it to you for 22 million and even though your capital account is not affected, it's when you sell the real estate when that becomes material and so you need to make sure that the real estate can appreciate above its expenses, before entertaining a sale, right? So that at least you come out at par if you're going to invest in these things, and you're using a financial advisor to advise you to do this, the most important question you should ask is, Mr. Advisor, when does this investment overcome its upfront expenses and if that guy is any good, you should be able to tell you that, that's the most important thing when it comes to investing in these DSPs.   Michael: Yeah, that's super, a super great question to be armed with and so are most folks who are investing with you coming to you all via their advisors or via their team or they individuals. I mean, how do you find most of your clients?   Ed: So I'm, we do a lot of marketing, right. So we do a lot of SEO, a lot of SEM, I do things like this, my PR team is working. So we get anywhere between five to 700 new registrations a month on our website and we currently have about 60,000 registered investors today and so they just Google 1031 exchanges, and we pop up. So we're not, we don't use the financial services industry to distribute these products, even though we are in that service. But people normally just find us on their own or an attorney might say a CPA might say their friends might have used us. We have wonderful Google reviews. They just find us that's how they get to us.   Michael: Yeah. Okay, that makes a lot of sense and I'm wondering if you can shed light on like your worst deal ever, how it went wrong, and what happened?   Ed: That's a great so 2020 on the east coast of Florida, apartment building got hit twice by hurricanes within three weeks. Okay and you probably it's right, that time when Maria was coming and all that stuff. The property got flooded. 50% of the units became uninhabitable. Cash Flow stopped to investors, enough cash flow to pay debt service and then you had to get to the insurance companies and get the catastrophic damage insurance payment and the renter's interruption insurance payment and remember, I told you in a DST you can't do construction, right. So how do you fix the unit, right? So there's a term called a springing LLC. That's an every single DST ppm or private placement memorandum and what that what that means is that you dissolve the DST and now you're a member of an LLC, non-taxable event, your exchange is still good but now in an LLC, you can do construction, you can modify loans, you can do all these things to fix the property, right? So you go and you start fixing the property, you release the property, reinstate cash flow, right. But the issue is, you can't go your separate way anymore. You're in an LLC. So the entire LLC has to do an exchange or not. So they don't want to mess up there at 1031. So the LLC sells the property, does an exchange into another property and then two years later, the terms called Safe Harbor, you can convert it back into a DST and then everyone can go their separate ways when the property sells. That is the worst deal that has happened since I've been doing this.   Michael: And did the insurance proceeds cover all of your expenses enough in your business interruption to kind of make you guys hold in during the process?   Ed: Yeah, absolutely. So even though the timeline was delayed, the investors did very, very well. They just lost cashflow for about a year but then when the property was sold, they did well.   Michael: Yeah, I love it, I love and that's one of the things I really love about real estate investing as a whole is if you understand what you're doing the downside just isn't that scary…   Ed: Yeah, I agree. I mean, dirt is never gonna go to zero, right? It's just not gonna happen.   Michael: Right, right, man twice in three weeks. I mean, the only thing that I've heard of comfortable that I'm doing, I'm in the midst of a develop redevelopment project and I had two fires in the same building a week apart, during the course of construction.   Ed: Wow. Oh, that's not good. It's sucked.   Michael: It sucked, so… Oh, man. This has been super fun, man. If people want to find out more about you, continue the conversation invest with you, or what's the best way for them to do that and get a hold of you.   Ed: So you can go to 1031crowdfunding.com , like a crowd of people not a crown on your head, right or you can dial our number 844-533-1031 and you're absolutely you'll be able to find us.   Michael: Good stuff. Well, hey, thanks again for coming on and sharing and helping educate our folks. We'll definitely chat soon.   Ed: Michael, thank you so much. Looking forward to hearing back from you.   Michael: You got it, take care.   All right, everyone. That was our episode a big thank you to Ed for coming on super interesting stuff. I learned a ton. If you are in the middle of a 1031 or thinking about it definitely an interesting option to take advantage of. As always, if you enjoyed the episode, feel free to leave us a rating or review wherever you get your podcasts and we look forward to seeing on the next one. Happy investing…

Daria Davydenko is a Securities Sales and Operations Specialist at Roofstock where she supports Roofstock's fractional ownership product, Roofstock One. Prior to that, Daria served as Vice President at Goldman Sachs. Her background in finance provides her with a unique view of financial markets and risk management. In this episode, Daria walks us through the history of public and private REITs, and who might be a good fit for investing in them. Additionally, she covers Roofstock's exciting new investment, Roofstock One, a fractional ownership option for accredited investors. Episode Link: https://www.roofstock.com/one --- Transcript Before we get into the episode, this podcast is intended for general informational purposes only and is not financial, investment, or tax advice. The information provided is not directed toward any investor or category of investors and is provided solely as general information products and services or to provide general investment education. Nothing in this podcast should be construed as, and may not be used in connection with, an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy or hold, an interest in any security or investment product.   Michael: What’s going on everyone? Welcome to another episode of the Remote Real Estate Investor. I'm Michael Albaum and today with me, I have Daria Davydenko, who is our sales and operations lead for Roofstock One and she's going to be talking to us about the history of public and private REITs really what they are, and who might be a good fit for investing in them. So let's get into it.   Daria, what's going on? Welcome back to the podcast. Great to have you back.   Daria: Hey, Michael, good to see you again. Thank you for having me.   Michael: Yeah, my pleasure, my pleasure. Great to see you again. So today, we're talking about a really cool offering Roofstock has Roofstock One. Can you give us a really quick insight into what that is and then I would love if you could help walk us through kind of the history of REITs in this product and how it came to be?   Daria: Yeah, sure. So Roofstock One is a relatively new offering that we have as part of all of the different products use that we have on roofstock.com. Roofstock One is structured as a private REIT. So one of the benefits of investing in Roofstock One is if you invest in real rental properties, you have the benefit of knowing exactly what your own. While it is a nice benefit, generally, it's not available to visit more passive real estate investments like REITs, public or private. However, we made Roofstock One different, even though it is structured as a private REIT. It is a fully transparent and customizable. So you know exactly what your own by buying a share of Roofstock One. So it is the first of its kind single family rental rate that's transparent and somewhat customizable to investors.   Michael: Awesome. All right. Well, we're definitely gonna dig more into that here in a little bit. But I would love if you could give us again, a kind of a background, like what is a REIT? How did we get here public versus private, bring us up to speed.   Daria: Yeah, so actually, what so REITs have a very interesting history, that I don't think a lot of people realize how the first I guess, you know, private equity firms have emerged, and then how can a REIT structure was created. So back in the 1980s, investors were mainly individuals and they were kind of using real estate to kind of harvest losses and shelter profits. So that was kind of the main reason why people were investing in real estate and also in the 80s, there was something that was called S and L. That they were created by the Federal Home Loan Bank act of 1932. They were like Savings and Loan Banks that basically had some caps on interest rates on deposits and loans, and but they were able to basically lend money to those individuals so they can buy real estate. Now, obviously, in the 80s, we all know that there was a recession and so because of the restrictions that were placed, placed on this SML banks, you know, because they had some caps on interest rates on deposits and loans, it greatly limited their ability to compete with other lenders as the economy slowed and inflation took hold and so for instance, as savers spelled money into the newly created money market funds that were yielding, like a much higher interest rates, like SNL just could not compete with those traditional banks due to their kind of lending restrictions and so when you add the recession of what happened is because the recession was sparked by the high interest rates that were set by the Fed in an effort to end the double digit inflation, which is kind of what we are kind of seeing right now, nowadays. So now we're left with little, you know, little more than, you know, kinda like a dwindling portfolio of low interest rate mortgage loans and so obviously, their revenue stream, you know, were severely tightened and so in the 1986, Reagan changed the law and then this indication was, you know, basically it was no longer working and there was no longer like the tax loss harvesting that was allowed in real estate, that can actually cause a real estate values to crater because a lot of people did not see any value of investing, I guess, are holding real estate anymore and so that actually caused SNL crisis and so I think a lot of people don't realize but during the SNL crisis, there were like 8000 banks that have failed. So, because of this, yeah, because of this kind of crisis that happened. I mean, this was like the largest crisis, you know, since the largest collapse of US financial institutions since the Great Depression.   And so like that, that kind of happened in the 1986 and so what happened, right, so once there's no kind of crisis happened, the government had to step in. So while they found that there was a lot of highly levered foreclosed personnel that owned a lot of real estate, and so government inadvertently owned those banks, and so they end up owning hundreds and 1000s of properties. What happened next is they have created something that's called the Resolution Trust Corporation, that basically became a property manager. So there sole purpose was to own and dispose of those distressed assets. So Resolution Trust Corporation or short, RTC was a temporary federal agency. So basically, from the 89, to the 95. You know, they largely were trying to kind of resolve this SNL crisis that happened in the 1980s, they, you know, they were basically like trying to do some property management, cleanup, what kind of what was left behind and another, I guess, purpose or creation, the RTC was to dispose of this assets. Now, the government wants to sell a lot of assets and so they need to have, you know, it's going to be highly inefficient for them to find like a single bar and buy, like, you know, who can just buy like a single property. So what they had to do is they had to figure out how to find a pooled vehicle that can just come in and buy this pooled kind of assets and so that's when the first private equity firms were created, who kind of came in, they were able to kind of pull financing, and then kind of buy like large amounts of this kind of real estate that was left behind after the SNL crisis. So that's where kind of their real estate or you know, kind of private equity investment was created. That's kind of the history of it. Now, the real estate investment trusts were a way for individual investors or intervene institution investors to get exposure to real estate without kind of having to go through, like active management of the underlying real estate. So Real Estate Investment Trust was a way to, for you to get exposure to, you know, real estate as a class. But you don't, you don't have to kind of forego, like, you know, the whole kind of financing closing, you know, property management aspect of it, while still enjoying the benefits of getting dividend distributions from the rental income, you know, the appreciation of the properties, etc. and then, in addition to that kind of REITs were created to encourage investors to get into the real estate market, and also get some kind of tax benefits from it. Now, I know I spoke a lot. So I just want to make sure I, you know, there's any questions that I can answer for you, Michael.   Michael: This is super interesting. I mean, one thing that terrifies me is this idea of government, governmental property management, that just would have been an absolute nightmare, because we all know how that probably worked out. But no, I think that makes a ton of sense and so the so these private equity firms were created to buy all of the hundreds of 1000s of distressed assets that the government ended up owning because of the collapse and the financial crisis. But so maybe, help me understand what a REIT is, like, is a REIT a share of the private equity company that then owns these properties, is that how that works?   Daria: Yeah, so REIT is basically like a pooled vehicle, you can imagine that, you know, let's say, like, just as a simple example, let's say you, Michael, you own kind of 10 different properties and you would like to allow other, you know, investors to kind of participate in ownership of those properties. You know, you can package them basically into a read. Of course, this is more complex than kind of what I'm describing, but in the simple terms, you can package it into the REIT and sell basically shares of the three to other investors who can get economic benefits of kind of owning 10 of those properties. REIT like many companies, they distribute earnings to investors in the form of dividends, unlike many companies have a REIT incomes are not taxed at the corporate level. So kind of that means that REITs are actually they avoid the double taxation of corporate tax and personal income tax. So instead REITs are sheltered from the corporate taxes so their investors are only taxed once and this is a major reason why investors value REITs over you know, other dividend paying kind of structures out there. Another benefit of REITs I guess, that they were created is that they're widely used because they're highly for favorable tax advantages are REITs are required to distribute 90% of their earnings to investors and so that kind of like allows them to avoid the double taxation that I mentioned previously and so this benefit kind of trickles down to all the underlying investors, you know, they're not being double taxed, and they can receive the maximum amount of capital from rate, I guess another advantage, I mean, we all know that investing in real estate, one of the biggest advantages of is the depreciation.   So depreciation can be passed through to individual investors, even in a REIT structure, basically, you because you get to offset your income is a depreciation kind of tax deduction. Let's say you might be earning tax dollars, that $10 per share, but you only will be paying like $7 as an example, paying taxes on the $7 of those earnings and in addition to that, if you're kind of holding your shares, for longer than a year, you will be paying the long term capital gains taxes, which is kind of much lower than your ordinary income tax. There was another kind, I guess, good, good question that you raised Michael, about what is the difference between private and public REITs, the main difference is private REITs are less liquid, you know, compared to public REITs, public REITs are the ones that are being traded on the public stock exchange and so you're basically kind of they're just like stocks, you can buy them and you can sell them and you will also be getting the dividends while private REITs they're not being traded on the public stock market and so hence, they're being sought after as like a less liquid option for you to own real estate. But at the same time, they're less volatile, obviously, because they're not subject to all of the changes that are happening in the public markets. So you just kind of there's just some kind of major differences, right? The liquidity but you know, because you're foregoing the liquidity, you're obviously getting less of like volatility in the stock price of your, you know, under the ownership of the shares of the REIT. So that's kind of the major kind of difference between public and private REITs.   Michael: Okay. Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. Thanks for walking me through that. I guess the question that gets begged next is the Roofstock has been a marketplace for transacting on single family homes for years now. Why, like, why is this product coming about? Who is it designed to serve and who might not be a good fit for?   Daria: No, that's an excellent question. I think we what we have found as we've been speaking with investors who come to the roofstock.com website and who really enjoy owning kind of real estate and single family rental properties, in particular, one of the feedbacks we have been receiving from investors is that they are some of them you know, obviously, if you want to buy properties outright, you are getting, you know, there is like a large deposit, I guess, that you have to put to buy a property, there is a financing, there is like a very long process of kind of closing, the Roofstock does a very good job at making sure that we simplify this process for investors. So we tried to make it as simple and as friendly as possible. But still, there are multiple steps for you to close on a single property. But obviously, you will be kind of subject to that single asset race grade, if you are only owning a single property you will kind of whatever happens with this property, it will kind of great greatly affect your cash flow, now we have created Roofstock One because investors have been basically asking us, hey, I really can enjoy single family rental investing, but I'm still kind of trying to learn the space and understand how it works. I've never owned single family rentals before and so kind of I'd like to dip my toes into this asset class and so I think Roofstock One kind of offers this perfect opportunity for somebody to own this exposure to this asset class, single family rentals, while you know being completely passive, so meaning you don't need to go through the kind of the whole process of closing on the property, finding the financing, you know, finding the property manager, we do all of that for you.   You just kind of buy the share of stock one REIT you get exposure to this particular asset class and then kind of get, you know, potentially get quarterly dividends from the rental income and kind of just learn a little bit about single family rentals, how it works, how you know how you receive the dividends and gonna get accustomed to kind of owning single family rental asset class, where we have seen as there are, you know, some investors who really enjoy kind of being actively involved in the day to day of managing properties because you get this kind of owner exposure means that some people really like and so for those people, maybe Roofstock One might be a little bit too hands off and so they might kind of prefer to do like the direct ownership of the property. But there are also like a certain subset of individuals who just don't have the time to, like, investigate and spend time with property management companies and figure out like, you know, if they should increase the rent, or drop the rent, just kind of just to find tenants for the house, or should they kind of, I don't know, change the roof, or change the water heater in a property or wait for another month or two. So it kind of… Michael: All the operational stuff…   Daria: All the operational stuff, all of this kind of micro decisions that you kind of don't realize, but they do pile up and they do take a little bit of your time. So you know, some, some of those individuals are like, Look, I just want an exposure to this particular asset class, I want it to be passive, I really enjoy it, I think, you know, I believe in single family rental, kind of asset class in particular and so, you know, this is like, a perfect way for me to get a passive exposure, while still kind of feeling like I'm owning some, you know, underlying properties and we try to kind of make it as transparent as possible to investors, so they actually can see, you know, what properties are inside, you know, Roofstock, one reads, so they can understand, you know, what homes, kind of their tracking the economic performance of, and so they're still kind of getting the feeling of like, okay, with this share, I potentially can own 10 to 20 you know, how many properties they would like, still kind of feel like they're owning those properties. But you know, they don't have to spend as much time on the operation or day to day stuff. So yeah, that's kind of the major reason why we have created the Roofstock One is just to serve certain subset of our investors that we have seen come through roofstock.com website and, you know, obviously, there is absolutely still a lot of kind of benefit of owning the properties outright. But there's also like, you know, there's just a time kind of aspect that's involved in it as well.   Michael: Yeah, that makes a ton of sense and you said something about, for those people that are still learning want to dip their toes into the water, Roofstock One might be a good fit. But if I'm thinking about like a traditional REIT, I can go buy it on the stock market, I buy a share of it. I don't hear from anyone, I don't know what's going on in the day, like, I have zero insight into this. Is that different with Roofstock One like can someone truly expect to learn a little bit about what it's like to own single family rentals with roof stock one, or is it going to be just as hands off in passive and kind of, at a distance, like a traditional route would be?   Daria: I'd say it's somewhere in the middle. So I mean, it is just as hands off and passive. But I guess the major benefit is in public creeds, I guess it's a little bit more of like a pooled vehicle. So just by buying a share of like a public REIT, let's say, for example, that there are like 60, and 1000 properties that are public REIT owns. Now they can be in different like various markets, right. So there could be across many different states in the United States and so you kind of get exposure to all of those kind of little, you know, properties a little bit. So Roofstock One allows you to be a little bit more targeted, if you wish to do so, we have something that's kind of cool, called like a tracking stock, which is like a mini portfolio of subset of properties. So let's say if you're interested in a certain region in the US, just as an example, let's say Georgia, because you believe in this region, or maybe you have invested in this region before, you can get exposure only to the properties in Georgia instead of kind of getting the exposure to all of the properties inside the Roofstock One. But at the same time, if you don't have anything, you know, any convictions and you just kind of enjoy single family rental kind of asset class and you just want to have diversification, then you can also just kind of do that and you can just by exposure to all of the properties inside the restock one read. So we kind of just provide like an ultimate flexibility of investors coming in and kind of creating their own journey. Almost like a custom rate, create your own custom read…   Michael: The subway sandwich of REITs…   Daria: Exactly. Yeah, it's like a Subway sandwich. You're correct. Yeah, that just you know, you choose whatever you want, like and you can even choose your own sauce visit.   Michael: Except we use real fish and real meat in our subway sandwich. Don't know if this is the best analogy but people get the point.   Daria: Yeah, like yeah, we're you know, we're the like a guest who's probably accretes you're just kind of getting the you know, whatever the prepackage Subway sandwich that, you know, is not customizable, and you can't even choose your sauce. So that's kind of how I would think about it. I think the benefit of it is like, look, you can still kind of see what are the properties, underlying properties inside the, like those mini portfolios, for example, which is definitely something that you want to get with like a traditional public REITs, I feel like that they're kind of more giving you like, hey, this is our general structure, or a general investment objective, this is what we're doing this is like, let's say, 30% of our portfolios in Georgia, like x percentages in some other state, which is also great for those people who don't really have much conviction, and maybe they just want to get the general kind of diversified exposure. But you can also have to just be mindful of this kind of this still difference, there is still like this difference that exists between private and public REITs, where no public REITs are still subject to the same market volatility as any other stock would be, you know, I wouldn't say that there is like one, right or wrong way, just kind of, it's all about diversification, and what fits your investment goals and investment needs, and what makes sense for you, and for your investment portfolio and, you know, we're just kind of offering a way for real estate investors to create their custom REITs, if they want to get exposure to the whole asset class, if they wish to do so. They can also mix and match they can invest a little bit into public rates a little bit into private REITs and again, you know, there's it's always, diversification has always been a good way for you to kind of diversify your risk, so…   Michael: Yeah, okay, I do get well, Daria I have a question. That's maybe on every buddy's mind who's listening, you talked about the hurdles and barriers to entry of investing directly, and that's usually coming in the form of down payment heavyweight financing and there's steps involved, how much does investing in recycling cost? What's Is there a minimum investment is our maximum investment, like walk us through what that looks like?   Daria: Yeah, so we actually kind of tried to bring it down to minimum investment is $5,000. So anyone who so there is like a limitation that we you do have to be an accredited investor and accredited investor is something that's basically set up by CC, that's kind of their rules and regulations that in order for you to be invested in private REIT, you kind of have to be an accredited investor and I think it's kind of basically done for the benefit of the investors themselves. Since it is a limited liquidity you do want to make sure you have enough liquid cash that kind of set aside you know, that you have access to because you will if you're invested in into like any private vehicle private REIT or anything else, usually you know, you will not be able to like us you know this drill those money for like five years or so and so, I think that accredited investors just kind of really done to make sure that investors understand that this particular funds will not be able they will not be able to access it and they have enough liquidity on hands to you know, meet any some sort of like liquidity needs that they have during their like day to day life. Now accredited investor, someone who, who is an accredited investor, guess accredited investor is someone who has a net worth of a million dollars and that can include their real estate, investment portfolio or retirement, you know, retirement portfolios, or, you know, bank assets, kinda you name it, it can't include their private primary residence, but if they have secondary homes, and, you know, if they can only count equity basically on those properties, so if they have like a mortgage on the secondary home, they will have to figure out like how much of equity they have, and they can count it towards their networks. Another way to understand if you're an accredited investor is if you are making over $200,000 per year, and you've made over $200,000 per year, in the past two years, or you and your spouse or partner are making over $300,000 together this year and in the past two years. So those are kind of some of the limitations that beans set and they just kind of follow those limitations. But as long as you are kind of accredited investor, you can put you know $5,000 into like a Roofstock One REIT and there's $5,000 can be invested across all of our offerings. So we you know, we are not limiting you can only put $5,000 into like a separate a single kind of mini portfolio or a tracking stock. What we call, you can, you know, put $1,000 or $100 into tracking stock and the rest into like a giant, like a bigger font or you know, vice versa. So you can customize this $5,000 as much as you would like. So yeah, that's, that's kind of the limit. Yeah…   Michael: Great. Okay and I would imagine that other private REITs and for sure, public REITs that have been around for a while, have a track record the history of performance does Roofstock One have that yet or is it too new, like, how has it been performing to date?   Daria: Yeah, we do have a track record on Roofstock when you launched Roofstock One in November last year. So we are a little bit close to like a year of existence. So we have been distributing dividends and the dividend yields that we have distributed for the historical or like our past offerings, they are listed on our website. They can be accessed here, the investor reports and we also do have appreciation of the assets that has happened since we acquired them back in, let's say, November. So we just recently started to calculate something that's called nav, which is net asset value of our investments and that's in general, how private REITs figure out what is the value of their shares. So unlike public REITs, where the share price has been determined by the kind of just the normal forces of the markets, private REITs, because they're private, they, you know, they had to kind of figure out a way to value the assets, the underlying assets that they have and so the net asset value is kind of the common term where NAV is kind of a common term that they use to figure out what is the share price of their rate and that's what the Roofstock One does as well. So we are just like any other private three, we calculate NAV, we publish it, and then can investors are able to track estimated value of their shares. Now the reason I say it's estimated is because obviously, until we sell the assets, we wouldn't know the exact value of, of the underlying assets, we can only kind of do like an estimation of where we think it is right now. But it is, you know, a good proxy, I guess, for an investor to think, hey, this is like my estimated value. But you know, until you can actually sell the assets and just kind of the nature of real estate market in general, that it's very illiquid, and you wouldn't know the value of the asset until you actually like listed for sale and you started getting some buyers who are interested giving you offers etc. So very similar, you know, in REITs, because we own underlying assets. There, you know, we're kind of subject to the same market forces as any anyone else who owns real estate. But you know, net asset value is a good measure for someone to use to determine what is the estimated value of their shares.   Michael: Okay, okay super informative from the history to the product offering and why it makes sense. This is awesome. If people want to learn more about private REITs chat with you learn about Roofstock One, where's the best place for them to do that?   Daria: Yeah, we can be found on the roof stock.com website, or someone can just type in www.roofstock.com/O N E -one. That's our website. Now feel free to give us a call there is a button that you can click on and request a phone call and we have very friendly people to chat and they're always happy to talk about real estate, private REITs single family rentals investing. Now we love investors ask us questions and they love talking to them on various subjects. So yeah, you know, feel free to check out our websites style by ask questions and we are always happy to chat.   Michael: Amazing, well thanks again and definitely looking forward to seeing where Roofstock One goes from here. Talk soon.   Daria: Thank you Michael. Thank you for having me today.   Michael: You got it, take care.   Okay, everyone, that was our episode A big thank you to Daria for coming on really interesting stuff with the product offering as well as the history of REITs themselves. So go check out the website at roofstock.com/one. As always, if you enjoyed the episode, definitely love hearing from you. All ratings and reviews are super appreciated and we look forward to seeing the next one. Happy investing…

Brian T. Bradley, Esq. is a nationally recognized Asset Protection Attorney. He has been interviewed and a featured guest on many top shows such as: Bigger Pockets Rookie, Flipping America Podcast with Roger Blankenship the “Flipping America Guy” and member of the Forbes Magazine Real Estate Council. Brian was selected to the Best Attorney’s of America’s List 2020, Lawyers of Distinction List three years in a row (2018, 2019, 2020,) Super Lawyers Rising Star List 2015, nominated to America's Top 100 High Stake Litigators List, nominated to the 2017 Law Firm 500 Award. Brian also writes on high-end asset protection. Ownership of real estate has many benefits from an investment and tax standpoint. There is downside risk, however, since the value of real estate holdings may be significant and can be used to cover damages awarded in a lawsuit. Therefore, it’s important to consider asset protection strategies relating to real estate holdings in order to minimize such risk. In today's episode, Brian lays out how asset protection really works from a legal standpoint and dispels some common myths that are thrown around in the industry. Episode Link: https://btblegal.com/ --- Transcript Before we jump into the episode, here's a quick disclaimer about our content. The Remote Real Estate Investor podcast is for informational purposes only, and is not intended as investment advice. The views, opinions and strategies of both the hosts and the guests are their own and should not be considered as guidance from Roofstock. Make sure to always run your own numbers, make your own independent decisions and seek investment advice from licensed professionals.   Michael: What's going on everyone? Welcome to another episode of the Remote Real Estate Investor. I'm Michael Albaum and today I'm joined by Brian Bradley, asset protection attorney and he's going to be dropping some knowledge about all the things we should be aware of as real estate investors when it comes to protecting our assets. So let's get into it.   Brian, what's going on, man? Thanks so much for taking the time to hang out with me today. I really appreciate it.   Brian: No, absolutely Michael, thanks for having me on. It's going to be an important topic, a fun topic, I'm gonna try to keep it fun and not legally dense and you know, just like I'm not anyone's, you know, Attorney here legal guru. So we're just gonna be talking generalities, right? We're gonna learn a lot in this, you know, it's gonna be a lot of fun and as you're building scale and making more money, you know, you're getting a bigger red button on you and so like this world of where we're gonna be talking about asset protection is kind of a big deal. There's just a lot of ways to skin a cat, different layers, different strategies for where you're at in your life. So, you know, I think as we break these down, hopefully I can, you know, make this will make a little bit more sense for you and your listeners.   Michael: Yes, it will. Thank you. I am super excited to learn a lot because before we hit record here, you and I were chatting about some of the topics that we'll be covering today and I was like, what is that totally brand new. So I'm really excited from a self-serving perspective. So give everyone that quick and dirty background who doesn't know Brian Bradley, who you are, where you come from, and what is it you're doing in real estate today?   Brian: Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I'm an asset protection attorney, you know, we're talking about it off recording, like from Lake Tahoe, so you know, big snowboard ski, you know, ski bum, you know, Lake bum, I got into asset protection from the litigation side of the law, I was selected to America's best attorney list 2021-2020 Super Lawyers rising star 2021-2015.   Michael: My guess is that no, that's not like an online survey, you filled out to get that…   Brian: Oh, no, and another do with me, that's really just people that you work their butt up in court, and then they recommend you or judges recommend you and I have nothing to do with it and it's actually pretty, you know, I appreciate even just the nomination, let alone winning it, you know, to where I think they only say 1% of all attorneys in the nation even get nominated for those awards, let alone then, you know, 1% of those even gets picked to as a as a winner and so…   Michael: Congratulations…   Brian: Thanks, yeah and for me getting into, you know, asset protection, which will define what that is, you know, in a minute, like, that'll be like our think our base starting point. I just, I just got into this weird area of law, because when I like money, I like investing, I like, you know, not paying as much taxes as you know, as I can and as you grow, you got to be smart with your money, right and who can take it from you and so as a trial lawyer starting out, I just had so many clients who were being sued and their lives just turned completely upside down coming to me after they're already being sued and at that point, you know, you're just too far down the rabbit hole, you know, it's like going to get a car insurance after you already got in an accident or, you know, home insurance after your house already, you know, caught on fire, it's just, it's not gonna happen and so I see a lot of people thinking that they don't need to do anything is another misconception. You know, it's kind of human nature, right? You know, like, I'm just gonna ride lady luck. I'll deal with it when I when, you know, it hits me later on and that's just not how anything that needs to be proactive in the legal sense is going to work like insurance or asset protection. Wishful thinking is not a protection tool. You know, that's how everything you know, like, go to Vegas, go to breaks and hit the roulette table and see how long your wishful thinking is gonna last for you, right? You know or, you know, as you're leveling up, people forget about this. Like, as your wealth is leveling up, you're leveling up, you don't level up your protection, you don't level up your insurance. Yeah, people go buy an umbrella policy, but they don't realize what an umbrella policy is just like everything else, right? You know, it just provides more access and money to, you know, for coverage, but it doesn't, it's not the same escape clauses, you know, like, there's no insurance in the world that's gonna say, okay, hey, if I go punch you in the face, are you gonna cover it for me? No, like, they don't cover you for intentional wrongdoings or allegations of fraud and intentional wrongs and so that's how they have their escape clauses out especially for very big cases. You know, if you're talking about like a million dollar or more lawsuit. A couple other big misconceptions that we need to address as we lay this landscape is just, you know, the revocable living trust, if people think like, oh, yeah, I have a trust, right, that you know, they don't realize trust. There's a lot of different types of trust. Your family estate plan, your revocable living trust are not designed to protect you while you're living in they don't have the lead have teeth to be able to. So once you pass, they're only designed to avoid probate not protect you while you're living from lawsuits and then over the last five years, I've noticed this massive misconception about the use of limited liability companies. LLCs and they just think that they're like, you know, Silver Bullet Dracula slayers and you guys miss, like, first word first letter, like limited, I tell you. Whereas, whereas this happened, where's this come from? Like, they're not hiding the fact they tell you like they titled it telling you limited liability. So like, now we have to reeducate people on this, like, yeah, don't put everything in the world under one LLC. Otherwise, if it gets pierced, you're gonna lose it on like, What are you talking about, which we'll break that down, you know, in a little bit. And then the sad thing is like, and I think it's worth explaining is this, if you just look around, and you look at, you know, our legal system and the world we live in, it's just broken, it's a broken system, you know, and we're so happy nirvana and just to like, kind of lay this framework down a little bit more. We're no longer about justice. We're about redistributing wealth from the haves, which is you, your listeners, people trying to grow and accumulate more to the have nots and over the last 40-50 years, things that didn't happen in the past, or that weren't allowed to happen in the past like contingency fee lawyers or law from advertising their common place. and then this created a cultural shift of a predatory legal system that's no longer about justice. So it's about profits now and then when you get on the road of high net worth, in affluent families and wealth, this level of protection, now we have to deal with taking a macroeconomic, more of like a global look about what's going on and the big picture here is really that we have a global financial system that has structurally deep rooted issues. You know, we have government backed fiat currencies that are now in question. This is also including the US dollar. So don't think like, just because we're in the US, we're exempt from all of this, you know, monetary policy today, you know, the one that exists is, you know, inflate or die and then you got governments looking for a deep and accessible pools of financing and meaning our money, you know, the hard workers, the people who are investing, along with financial repression, monetary economic manipulation. So this just adds all the challenges that we have to deal with when we're looking to protect your assets and so asset protection is that modern best bet to level this playing field by using a lot of the tools and the combination of the tools that we're going to talk about today to make it very hard for you to be collected on and so what this is really about is just like a talk about giving you peace of mind, lifestyle preservation, and you know, really just how collectible are you at the end of the day…   Michael: Love it. But well, I am all about doing things to help peace of mind and insulate ourselves from the world at large. This you happy world at large. So help us understand Brian, like, what are some of the things when someone says asset protection to you like, Brian, I gotta protect my assets? What does that mean to you? What alarm bells are going off in your head?   Brian: Yeah, absolutely. One is like, do you understand the difference between tax mitigation and asset protection and I've been getting this a lot, you know, especially this last year, obviously, as we see what's going on, you know, within inflation, taxes and everything right now, asset protection is not tax mitigation, like that's your CPE and wealth managers job. If creating an asset protection plan or an asset protection, trust or going offshore, you know, where to create tax havens like one that's illegal, it's fraud, you know, so system won't work, and then you go to jail for that type of stuff.   Michael: So don't do that is what you're saying.   Brian: That's not what this is about. So people always like, oh, I want to protect my assets and I don't want to pay taxes, completely two different things. The asset protection plan is to protect your assets from predatory lawsuits and litigation, not saying I want to not pay taxes, that's tax mitigation, talk to your CPA and wealth managers. First, lock down your assets from lawsuits because if you get sued and lose everything, what's your miracle working CPA going to be able to do for you if you have nothing for them to work on, so order of operation, protect your assets, then let them work through the system that's created to actually like mitigate, you know, forced depreciation, all those wonderful things that they do cost segue analysis…   Michael: Yeah but Brian, to that, to that point, really quick. I'm just curious, like, do you work with a lot of CPAs because I can see, I can envision a scenario in which the legal side of things is super buttoned up super tight, but maybe isn't very tax efficient and so my guess is there's probably a happy medium, or some input that a CPA or wealth manager can inject into the situation to help make both things as tight as possible.   Brian: Correct. You got to, you know, the issue generally is people don't involve their lawyers until later on down the line and it creates a lot of problems. So for example, a lot of CPAs will set up S Corps for investors, especially real estate investors for some reason, and great for tax purposes, horrible for litigation and I get this call a lot, you know, and most of my clients are calling with like 50 $100 million of real estate all stuffed in one S Corp. Okay, great again, for tax mitigation, horrible for let's say you get sued and now you're S Corp and all the shares get frozen and cease, there is nothing I can do for you. At that point, I can't move assets out and then even if I want it and you realize like, oh my god, I have so many pieces of property under one corporation like this is very risky, I need to start diversifying and employing these assets out, you're stuck, you're not going to be able to and I just had this call yesterday with a potential client. The reason is, when you're all the benefits of the S Corp, right? You know, deferred taxation and all this stuff, you're kicking the can down the road, once you start taking the assets out, you have to pay the money back and so people don't generally have millions of dollars sitting in their bank account saying like, okay, hey, I feel like you know, taking all the assets out of my S Corp now and now I'm going to go and pay the piper and the IRS. So because you don't have that money sitting around to pay the IRS and the taxes, we can move the assets for you and I'm not going to force you to go, you know, and have the IRS coming after you to collect on you and move the assets out anyways, because now you're just creating a bad situation for the client. So the lesson here to learn is if you're thinking of investing, you need to talk to both the lawyer and the CPA, because a lot of CPAs, they shouldn't be giving you legal advice. They're not lawyers, and they're not going to understand the aspect of what happens actually in court with s corpse and C corpse, when it comes to litigation, and why we don't want to use those to protect your assets. So we have to all talk together. The problem is I get this all I get the mess after the fact right, and then I have to start supporting afterwards and so when done, right, really, the modern, you know, estate planning is asset protection, what we're doing is creating legal barriers between your assets, and your potential creditor, the person suing you, the person trying to come after your money before it's needed and that's it, you know, it's like a safe for your gold or your guns or your valuables. Anything of value, you know, you want to put behind the legal barrier and out of your personal name so that it's not easily attached with a lien or reached and so I just like the rich, I really liked the Tony Robbins saying success leaves clues. The rich don't own things in their personal names their businesses do their trust, do they just get the beneficial use and enjoyment out of them while separating out that legal liability and we do that through just like different tools and mechanisms that we have kind of like key concepts and roadmaps like LLC is limited partnerships and trust.   Michael: Got it. Okay and so when real estate investor comes to you, they're just getting started. They are moist clay, you can totally mold them, they don't already have a bunch of issues. What is your go to, like ideal scenario for asset protection?   Brian: Yeah, so there, I mean, you're just starting out your green horn, like really just going to be an LLC and insurance and that's where you're gonna go, okay and as you think about how to use these systems and how to grow within them, okay, I want you and your listeners to think about winter, okay, like we were talking about this before we started recording like I'm from Lake Tahoe, snow, cold snowboarding skiing, I lived in Michigan, freezing cold arctic, you know, minus 40 degree weather for a while, well, I'm in Portland damp cold, you got to really layer you and so the first entry layer is as your base layer, when you're getting dressed, it's going to sit on your skin. This is the equivalent of an LLC and insurance. This is you know, when you're just starting out investing in you have zero to three units, or you know, zero to three properties, you're exposed net worth generally is like 250,000, net or below and then as you grow, and you add more assets, and you hit around that four unit or four property mark, you could be starting to invest in a couple different states as well, you know, you have now around like 500, to 700,000 exposed nets, what you need is a mid-layer, which is usually a little bit thicker, that's going to be made out of like a merino wool sweater, or for you ladies a car and again, this is your management company, like a limited partnership and I can break down that later on if we have time and then when you hit around that 1 million net worth mark, you know, you're gonna want to water shell waterproof layer. This keeps you nice and dry and warm when the weather's really bad. You know, this is your doomsday lawsuit protection layer is going to be an asset protection trust and specifically for our clients, we use a hybrid trust, which is combining an offshore trust and domesticating it through the IRS. So when a client comes to me, I receive it I realistically, you want four things you know, you want you're going to want an effective plan to have, you're going to want to control your plan. Three, you want a reasonable and sustainable cost, you know, depending on what layer you're at, is going to be individual for the for the client profile and then four you want a plan that's going to be easy to maintain compliance on what the IRS like I can create the strongest thing in the world for you. But if you're not going to be maintaining it and you don't want to do the IRS compliance with it, eventually you're just going to stop doing it and the whole system falls apart. So as you go through the valuation process and you're talking to different attorneys and you're vetting the process, just remember the acronym ECCC effectiveness, control cost and compliance and as long as you can start checking off all those boxes, you know you're gonna have a really good system. If you want to I can break down the first layer if you want to Trying to kinda go there like LLCs, or just really wherever you feel like directing this.   Michael: Yeah, so I think our listeners probably have a good handle on LLCs. But I would love if you would walk us through what this hybrid trust is because it's not something that I'm familiar with, I've never heard of before.     Brian: So yeah, and I think the reason why is like not many people focus on asset protection at a high level, you know, I think events like insurance, a lot of people wonder not only purely asset protection attorneys, right, they're generally business attorneys who do some asset protection or their real estate, you know, attorneys who do a little bit and they take continuing legal education course, learn about LLCs, and the kind of stops there and like insurance, they kind of tried to cast a large net nationwide, what was one thing you can cast nationwide and LLC and so I kind of think that's why like, the base layer, knowledge kind of stops there, because not many people just focus on, you know, very, very strong protection. This comes with the asset protection trust. So it's this final layer, the bad weather, you know, the outer shell waterproof layer, is this asset protection trust, it's going to be really the heart and soul of the system, especially when you have over 1 million exposed and that wealth and what I mean exposed is like your 401 K is exempt. So I don't include that in a net worth evaluation, because it's already a reset protecting some states, like if you're a Florida resident, we have a very strong homestead exemption of 100% of your of your primary residence. So I will take that out of the equation too, depending on the state you're in and the homestead. So what we're looking at is exposed unprotected, and that, you know, equity and wealth, all right. The great thing about trust is that they can be sculpted, to fit how you need them and they can morph as you need them without dealing with funding issues that you're going to fall into an LLC and other business entities that get their protection pierced, meaning now you're going to be held personally liable. So I just love trust and having a trust at the very top of the planning is very powerful and this is where picking the proper jurisdiction for a trust really comes into play. The standard 101 trust that I'm sure like everybody's familiar with, you know, kind of started in the 60s is the family revocable living trust. So you know, like when trust, you know, trust don't die. So then when you do, you act, and you fund your trust, which a lot of people forget to do, like, oh, I created my estate plan, and then they never transfer title into it. Remember, fund that fund the trust, if it's just, you know, your revocable living trust, the benefit of it is when you pass you don't have to go through probate, you can just skip the court system and probate and it changed the landscape of estate planning. Then you have what are called land trusts for real estate, you know, you hold your land, and then you connect them to an LLC. But land trusts don't have any protection in and of themselves. They're only as strong as the LLC that they're connected to, you know, so they're just a privacy mechanism, not a protection mechanism. Okay from there, you have higher levels of trust. They're called asset protection trust and I really want to spend the time, you know, with this and break down the three different types, you know, and after this, I think you and probably 99% of your listeners are going to know more than 99% of all the attorneys out there about asset protection, trust, they came, yeah, they came about in the early 1980s. You know, and so an asset protection trust is what's called a self-settled spendthrift trust. All sell settled means is that you created it for yourself, you know, they're for you, by you, as your own beneficiary, and they have very important spendthrift provisions in them. So this lets you protect your assets while you're actually living, you know, from creditors trying to sue you from not having to relinquish control of your assets. The difference is that they allow you to protect your assets, not just for your grandkids, but for yourself, which you weren't allowed to do in the past and then like I said, you're probably familiar with another type of self-settled trust the revocable living trust. They're the same and that they're self-settled created for you by you. The difference is that with an asset protection version of this trust, it includes these critical provisions called spendthrift provisions and what spendthrift provisions are is they are provisions that allow you to protect your assets from the creditors, they're the actual teeth behind it and for those to work, the trust them has to be not revocable, but it will revocable. So it's a very different type of trust, you know, just like chocolate or vanilla, both ice cream, just different types of ice cream.   Michael: Yeah…   Brian: You know, this is where the fun really starts to actually happen. There's two major school of thoughts here you can go international meaning offshore, another country jurisdiction, you know, you hear about Cook Islands, Cayman Islands, Belize, in the Bahamas, or domestically here in the US, you know, Nevada, Delaware, Wyoming, Texas, um, so you can set them up here in the United States and you know, if you don't mind, I think a great way to talk about it, just kind of talking about it through historical context, because I think if you understand the foundations of both offshore and domestic then you understand the principles of how we combine them together and why you want to   Michael: Yeah, let's do it.   Brian: Alright, cool. So again, you really have these three options, right, you can establish them offshore, you're going establish them domestically, and then we can hybrid them out like a hybrid car, take the best of both worlds put them together. So from the historical concept, the offshore trust actually came first, in 1984, when the famous Cook Islands, they created the first asset protection trust. I like and choose the Cook Islands if and when it's applicable, just because it literally offers the best home court advantage and why it's the best is because asset protection is just what these trusts in the Cook Islands were specifically drafted for and the power here is they have this wonderful word called statutory non recognition of any other jurisdictional court orders in the world, including the United States and so what this means is that if you have a judgment against you, in the United States, and you took it down to the Cook Islands, your US judgment is literally worthless, it literally has no value whatsoever. statutorily the Cook Islands they prohibited from recognizing it even from their own constitution and so if somebody wants to sue your trust, and it has a Cook Islands, you know, clause in it. So as a Cook Islands trust, they will have to start their case all over from scratch, the person who's suing you, they're going to have to prove their case beyond the reasonable doubt. This is the murder standard, the highest legal standard in the world that 99% sure standard. Not that you know, 51%, preponderance of the evidence, I'm not sure we don't know what happened. But we don't like the way they look right now. So let's just let's just give it to them. You know, you can't get a contingency fee attorney to represent you, because they're just not allowed down there. It's an ethical in the Cook Islands, just like it used to be unethical here in the United States. But then that got changed in the 60s, the claim meaning the lawsuit, you know, it's not amendable. So what this means is that it can't be changed or amended after the discovery process starts like we can do here in the United States. Like we can literally just say, okay, I'm suing you for this, dig around start discovery, then completely change what We're suing you for, because we started using as a fishing expedition. The person suing you, yeah, no, I mean, this is just like standard trial tactics is like, okay, hey, let me just flood you with discovery and like, start poking around and say, oh, hey, we didn't even know this was right here. Now I'm gonna add this to the complaint and sue you now, for this looks like a better cause of action anyways, I can't do that down there. But we can do it here all the time in the US.   Michael: So it sounds like I need to go move to the Cook Islands.   Brian: Now. Well, here and maybe not right, because you know, there's, there's cons to things, we'll get to the cons in a minute. So the person suing you, they're gonna have to front the entire court costs by the judge from New Zealand and if you lose your pay, you know, and I honestly think this is one of the worst things that we don't have here in the United States, though, like the loser doesn't need to pay the legal fees and the cost of the winner. So if you get sued for something completely bogus, I mean, a frivolous lawsuit, and you spend $200,000, defending yourself on legal fees, then the judge finally is like, this is ridiculous. I'm throwing this case out, you're still out 200,000 bucks, you know, the person who sued you, they're not going to be getting the bill for that because our legal system in the United States, they just that will discourage lawsuits and our legal system is run by trial lawyers who don't want to discourage lawsuits and there's only a one year statute of limitations. So if you go back to those four things I mentioned, right, remember, like effectiveness, cost, control, compliance, I mean, effectiveness, five out of five stars, nothing really nothing beats statutory nonrecognition. So what about the other ones, right, you know, control costs and compliance. This is kind of his kryptonite, you know, these are the drawbacks. If you're going to be purely foreign, like a purely foreign trust, you have a lot more IRS reporting, compliance and disclosure. So you have these things called IRS forms 3520 3520 A's. What this is, is a full balance sheet disclosure of everything that trust owns, and sometimes even the entire trust agreement to be disclosed and submitted to the IRS and it is expensive for this IRS forms to be done every year. Also, you're going to have factor compliance, because you're going to have a foreign bank account at that time.   And of course, we're these trusts to work, you're going to be out of control of the trust. That's why they work so good. That's why they're the creme de la crème and clients are just not comfortable with this. So while we literally have the most effective trust in the world, by far, it's not something that I generally start with, I probably only say like 1% of my clients, I will go to a purely foreign trust with which then brings us right to the second option. Okay, we're not going to be going forward and what about these domestic trust? Yeah, they came about 10 years later down the road of all places, Alaska started it out and then not to be outdone, obviously, you're gonna be like, Well, hey, we're Wyoming and Nevada and Delaware like this is what we're known for. So we're jumping on the gravy train, right and then now about 19 other states now have created some form of asset protection, self-settled trust statutes. So we're seeing as a state starting to jump on board seeing yeah, our legal system is a threat and things have to get done to protect your assets and so as to protection the United States is very is very important to understand this ballot on It's just the concepts like how you go about doing it is very important. The issue with a purely foreign under the purely domestic asset protection trust is that, you know, we live in the United States of America, we have a Constitution, Article four section one for Faith and Credit Clause. What this provides and means is that every state has to grant the full faith and credit to the judicial proceedings of every other state. What this is means what it's telling you is that, for example, Nevada can pass and has passed an asset protection statute, okay, but it cannot ignore a California or Washington or like another states court orders. So where the Cook Islands can literally just throw that California judgment in the trash. Nevada can't do that. Nevada has to respect it constitutionally and even litigate it and then you have courts that are just simply ignoring the choice of law clause. So I mean, like literally, like bait levers more dissent in re Hubber, cucumber Steelman, Dover still all great facts, all great cases, they should have one of those cases, and judges literally just use their superpower public policy, we're ignoring the you know, choice of law clause, trust is breach means loss of assets, that's just completely unacceptable and so because of the case law that we're seeing, I'm not a big fan of a purely domestic asset protection, trust or anything purely domestic without something offshore built into it. This is why I prefer the hybrid version called like, we just call it a bridge trust, but it's really just like a hybrid, hybrid trust, think of them like a hybrid cars, okay? What we're doing just combining the best of both, and then making a better product and so these trusts have been around for almost three decades. So they're not, you know, the new lady to the dance, they've been around for about 30 years now and at the end of the day, what you're doing is taking a fully registered foreign Cook Island, offshore asset protection, trust, what all that for two years of solid case law, again, so it's fully registered offshore from the day we created with the offshore trustee, they're there in standby just in case you need them and then we build a bridge back to the IRS for IRS classification. So the IRS is literally taking this foreign trust and then they're classifying it as a domestic US trust, by complying with USC Section 7701. It's called the court test control test and so because of that bridge, as long as we have our compliance in place, we stay classified domestically and what this does is that the trust is now going to be cheaper to create. So generally, a purely foreign trust is going to cost like 4550, even $60,000 plus $12,000, a year to maintain very expensive, a hybrid trust is going to be cheaper, you're generally gonna be talking about, you know, 23 to 30,000, to set up a hybrid trust, plus no IRS tax filings whatsoever, while you're domestic because it's classified as a domestic US grantor trust, so you have no more IRS tax filings, unless God forbid, we have to break that bridge and now you also get the power of the offshore trust. If and when we need it. It's in our toolbox now, just like a contractor who says like, okay, hey, I don't need to use all my tools today. But I'm going to need them possibly at some point. So now I can use them as I need them. Versus coming to me later on after the fact oh, my God, Brian, I mow somebody over with my car, like, can you help me? You know, like, I want that foreign trust? Well, no, sorry, it's after the fact I can't do it now. But if we have the hybrid, I could have engaged it. So that would be like during the State of duress, we would break the bridge, stop being an IRS compliance, you are what you are a foreign trust. Until that point, you want to be classified domestically. So that hybrid trust is very, very effective, you may control of your assets, you may take control the trust, right up until that doomsday scenario where you don't want to be in control of it anymore. You know, maintenance and compliance with the IRS. Very simple. So at that point, you've now checked off all the boxes, effectiveness, cost control and compliance check, check, check, check, check and so this is where you know, for our clients, we generally are starting with these hybrid trust.   Michael: Wow, this is wild, is super cool and so are you thinking that most folks that are in that kind of million dollars of expose net worth, this is where that starts to make sense.   Brian: That's exactly like, so our main client profile that comes in you would think they'd be like, you know, 10s of millions of dollars for us, like realistically, I would say 75% of our clients generally around that 1.2 million, exposing that. Some high risk, probably like a doctor or surgeon lawyer, or just straight real estate investors. I have some of my favorite clients, nurses, firefighters, cops who self-funded their retirement through cash flowing properties, and now they're about to retire and they realize like, I can't lose all of this now because this is literally my nest egg and my legacy. Yeah, they need to lock it down and so you generally see the average client profiles like 1.2 to 2 million of exposed net with some risk, and it makes sense at that point. Yeah, get the LLC get the limited partnership get the trust for like 30,000 dollars locked down a million plus, and then sleep well at night. That's when the investment kind of makes sense for this type of protection.   Michael: Yeah, that makes total sense and what would you say because I would imagine, after listening to this folks might go to other attorneys they work with mentioned this type of hybrid trust and they might be told now you don't need an LLC is good enough. I mean, what's the I know, we've talked about kind of a counter argument, but how does that conversation get ahead?   Brian: Most of the time, I was, say, like the one the estate planning attorney, they will know about this, because their knowledge base, you know, is just not going to be around, let alone foreign trust. I mean, there's not that many people who even know like that much detail about how a foreign trust works, let alone using the incorrect domestic asset protection trust, you know, how many times I have California residents, using the Nevada asset protection trust, and the person who set it up for them, like the lawyer has no idea like, okay, what about this case? We're still in 2012, California case that said, hey, you're a California resident, we don't recognize asset protection trust, because we don't have the statutes here. So your Nevada asset protection, trust, and sorry, it's worthless, it's not gonna it's not gonna work, you know, so unless you go to an actual specialist and say, hey, here's the case law, here's what's going to happen down the run. Most people don't have that level of education, because they're not in that world. They don't exist in in it. So I feel bad for the clients because where's the knowledge come from? You think you're going to an attorney who was specialized in this, but you're not taught this in law school, you're not taught this for the bar exam, so how you develop this level of knowledge is really just did you get into the right group of people and were you passionate about it enough to like transition your practice into it… That's why I do these talks is just to educate people and you know, just the base thing, like, why not just an LLC, they're disregarded entities for tax purposes. So they're disregarded for taxes. That means it's disregarded to you for lawsuits and liability, meaning you're pierced. If you're using them for real estate. They're not businesses, they're holding companies, which means the number one argument that will win and pierce that every time is well, Your Honor, this is an actual business. It's an extension of Michael is just a holding company. Boom, you're pierced funding issues, bad accounting systems, like there's four ways to pierce that veil right there and I don't even have to think part about it. Charging, charging order protection mean, like what state do I go set these things up in? You know, how many times I hear people like, oh, just go create a Wyoming LLC? Are you a resident of Wyoming? Is the asset in Wyoming and the answer is no to either one of those, you just tried to buy another state's jurisdiction, that you have no connection to try bringing another state's laws to like California and other state that you're not connected to, and there's no reason to, you're gonna get laughed out of court. Like, it's just you can't go by other states more beneficial laws and bring them, you know, to another state that, you know, that has no jurisdictional connection to it and anonymity is the other like, really, like, flavor of the last

As a lawyer in Nashville, Tennessee, Brian Boyd helps clients with real estate, construction, and business matters. It is with that knowledge that he and his wife, Dawn, have grown their portfolio to a six-figure income. Brian earned his BA from the University of Tennessee—Chattanooga, a JD from Samford University’s Cumberland School of Law, and an LLM in Taxation from Georgetown University Law Center. When not practicing law or working with Dawn on their real estate ventures, Brian can be found on the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu mats at his local gym. His newest book is Replace Your Income: A Lawyer’s Guide to Finding, Funding, and Managing Real Estate Investments Today Brian talks about corporate structures, how they differ, and what you could be doing to protect your assets. Episode Links: www.briantboyd.com. www.boydwills.com --- Transcript Before we jump into the episode, here's a quick disclaimer about our content. The remote real estate investor podcast is for informational purposes only, and is not intended as investment advice. The views, opinions and strategies of both the hosts and the guests are their own and should not be considered as guidance from Roofstock. Make sure to always run your own numbers, make your own independent decisions and seek investment advice from licensed professionals.   Michael: What's going on everyone? Welcome to another episode of The Remote Real Estate Investor. I'm Michael Albaum. And today with me, I have Brian Boyd, who is a legal tax professional as well as an author and active investor. He's gonna be talking to us today about what we need to do to protect our rear ends. So let's get into it.   Brian, what's going on, man, thanks so much for taking the time to hang out with me today. I appreciate you.   Brian: Hey, Michael, thanks for having me today. I'm glad to be here.   Michael: I am super excited to chat with you. Because you are a legal attorney and investor something we don't often see too much of.   Brian: Yeah, I am. I started out in Washington, DC as a tax attorney at a company called Ernst and Young. And over the years, I got into real estate and investing because I was representing a lot of contractors and developers and started looking at the way they were doing their businesses. And from there, I started tweaking their models trying to figure out well, how can I make this a little bit more tax efficient, create a little bit more loss with a lot more cash flow. And so that's when my wife and I in 2017, decided to get into real estate investing on our own. And now we're up to 25 doors, and we're cash flowing just fine. You know, in, in fact, maybe in the next year or two, she could step away from her full time job. And we'll just manage real estate.   Michael: Man, I love it. And so is your background in tax or on the legal side of things, or both.   Brian: So I have a JD and I have an LLM, which is a master's degree in, in law. But It specializes in tax. So yes, I do corporate formations. I do business transactions, helping people the real estate, anything and everything to do with businesses, individuals and their finances. In real estate investing. That's what I do. So there was a time I used to go to court, but I don't go to court anymore. My partner goes to court, and I just do business transactions and real estate investing.   Michael: Man, I love it. And before we get everyone's hopes up, you are located out in Tennessee. But is that the only state in which you practice in? Or can you help folks all over the place?   Brian: So I am licensed in Tennessee and Vermont of all places. My partner is licensed in Tennessee in Maryland. But if it has to do with federal law, I can work all over the country. However, if people are asking specifically about California law, I'm not your guy, call a local attorney speak to a local attorney. But from a structural standpoint, I can give you the basics and kind of point you in the right direction. But unless you're in one of those jurisdictions, and you want me to practice in those jurisdictions, those are the jurisdictions I'm limited to.   Michael: Okay. Well, let's talk about that for a minute. Because I think we were chatting before the show, we hit record, and there are a ton of Californians physically moving out to Tennessee. But my guess is they're probably a lot of Californians investing out in Tennessee. And so for those folks that maybe live outside Tennessee, but are investing in Tennessee, in terms of structuring their team around them, should they be thinking about having a local attorney local to them, as well as someone such as yourself or a an attorney located where the property is? How should you be thinking about that?   Brian: No, that's great question. I actually had an attorney contact me a few weeks ago and he is a he's in Chico, California. He called me and said, Hey, I properties in Tennessee. Can you help me on what? Yeah, I'll absolutely be happy to help you. And so what we did is we structured a Tennessee holding company with a wholly owned Tennessee subsidiary. And even though he's out there, he owns the LLC here. And as he invests around the country, like Texas, or Florida, or you know, any of the other states, you know, we'll set up other holding companies to represent those entities. But he can stay in California and own these companies, as long as they're structured properly, to pass through to him over in California.   Michael: Okay, awesome. Well, Brian, give us like, the quick and dirty if there is such a thing of what investors need to know, because I think a lot of our investors are starting to scale their portfolios that got a couple of deals under their belt, and they're really looking for some asset protection. What are some things they need to be aware of and where have you seen people go wrong?   Brian: So I have seen people go wrong with a few misnomers about what they believe series LLCs are and what land trusts are. So a series LLC, I know that everybody hears therefore multiple properties. and they are. But they also don't understand that when you have a series LLC, you have to have a separate bank account, a separate tax ID separate books, all of that creates an administrative burden on you to keep all these bank accounts separate all these books separate all these tax IDs separate. And typically I see those used more efficiently if you're a developer, that way you can develop a series, sell it, and not worry about it. Again, if you're holding your assets in series LLC, and you have series one through 10, for example, that's 10 tax IDs, that's 10 sets of books, that's 10 book keeper entries every month for those separate things.   Whereas if you just have an LLC, and you treat it properly, so your corporate veil cannot be pierced. And a corporate veil is the corporate formalities that you have to adhere to. So your corporate structure is honored by the courts. And typically, here are the things that people get popped for, they'll pay for their groceries out of their LLC, they'll pay their own mortgage out of their LLC, or they'll just treat their LLC like a checkbook. And that's not what it's for. It is a standalone entity, and it has to be treated and respected that way.   So if you don't do those things, you're fine. Your one LLC is going to handle it just fine. For example, my wife and I have, we have a parent company, and that parent company has two LLC is underneath it. And one LLC is for our portfolio over here. And the other LLC is for that portfolio over here. And it all flows up into the holding company, which is a perfectly fine way to structure your holdings. Yes, it is more filing fees every year, it's three filing fees. But if you're trying to get away from filing fees by creating a series, LLC, you're losing the war to win the battle on a filing fee. Because you're gonna pay all these other expenses for tax IDs and book entries and bank statements. And you're just creating a mess. I would not use series LLCs.   Now as it relates to land trust, we mentioned that earlier, I've heard a lot of people say, Well, I want to use a land trust. Why do you want to use a land trust? I understand that land trust, get it out of your name. And I'm well aware of that. But it doesn't really create any protections like an LLC would. A lot of people say, Well, I want the anonymity of an LLC, well, you can have the anonymity, you know, of an LLC without using Land Trust. Many states, Wyoming, Tennessee, Texas, you can file your LLC documents, and your name won't appear anywhere on there as long as you use a registered agent. So you can receive the benefits of the anonymity that comes along with the land trust by simply using the LLC. And you'll get more protections with the LLC.   So I would encourage your listeners to go talk to a lawyer about setting up an LLC to hold their assets, I tend to eschew Land Trust, they don't really provide the protection that people think they do. Unless you're using an irrevocable trust, which is a trust that gets it out of your estate. Not only does it get it out of your estate, it gets it out of your control, and you can't do anything with it, you have to go through a trustee and that trustee is supposed to use their best judgment on what to do for the trust. So think about that, as you move forward. And these these ideas that people read about online, I really like LLCs, my wife and I use them, I encourage my clients to use them. So that's just coming from my experience and what I do day to day in my practice.   Michael: Yeah, from a lot of the folks I've spoken to it sounds like the LLC has come like the Colt 45. For real estate investors. It's reliable, it's standard issue, it can do a lot of the things you need, you need it to do. It's nothing fancy, it just can get the job done.   Brian: No, absolutely. I agree with that statement completely. Okay, cool.   Michael: And, Brian, I think you're a good person to ask because I think we have similar styles of investing and asset protection, which I'm glad to hear. It sounds like you've broken down your portfolios into two separate LLCs What comfort what level of comfort do you have with the size of your portfolio in each LLC, before you want to further break it up or bring additional LLC online?   Brian: And you know, that's a good question. So the way we have treated our LLCs is we go by city, what's in each city. So for example, in Chattanooga, we have an LLC for Chattanooga, and Knoxville and Gatlinburg, we have an LLC for those properties. And in our short term rentals are Montana and the West Tennessee property. We have a separate LLC for that because they're out west So we've kind of broken it down over here, over here and over there. And then we have a parent LLC over top of it. So it's not really a matter of the number of doors or number of properties that have in an LLC. For me, it was geographic, and being able to keep everything separate. And especially for our bookkeeper to know that, hey, these are Chattanooga, they're in that LLC. When you run that k one, it needs to include all these properties. Same over here. So it wasn't a matter of my comfort level with the number of properties, it was just a matter of how can I segregate out all the separate assets that we have and make it user friendly? And also, we're not clumping all of our assets into one LLC. We're spreading them out. But we're doing it geographically.   Michael: Right. Okay. And as you and your wife do start to scale, I mean, is there a number of value that you that you'd see hitting in a particular LLC and saying, oh, that's maybe a little heavy, and that LLC, even if I'm investing in the same geographic area, let me bring online, another LLC, just so I don't have so much value sitting in a singular bucket? Or is not? Is that not really a concern of yours?   Brian: No, that's not really a concern. And here's why it's not a concern. It's because it doesn't really matter how much my entire portfolio is valued at, I'm always going to be deploying that equity somewhere else to get into another deal. And that equity may get deployed into another LLC. So it's not really a matter of oh, we're too heavy in this particular market. If I had 1000 doors in Chattanooga, I would still leave everything in that one LLC.   Michael: Okay, right on. Let's talk about insurance for a minute. Yeah, how much is enough?   Brian: I would tell people, you can't have enough. You can't. So we, we have homeowners insurance on every single property. And then our LLC is have business insurance as well. So we also have business insurance for the LLC. And each property is fully insured. And then we require renters to have homeowners insurance. And on top of that, we require renters to use a product called say Rhino, which is security deposit insurance. So they're not paying us a security deposit that we're holding an escrow for them, they're paying monthly, you know, let's say, you know, a month's rent is $1,000, we typically require two and a half months of rent for a security deposit, will Rhyno only requires them to pay like $8 per 1000. So they would much rather pay 20 to 24 bucks, as opposed to tune $2,500 in security deposit. And over the over the year, it comes out a lot cheaper for them. And we're safe and secure, knowing that as long as they're paying that Rhino insurance. If we have to make a claim, it's there, we've got it, they'll take care of it. So we're we're layering insurance, on insurance, on insurance with every everything we can do. So not only from a corporate standpoint of the company, and the asset, but also the tenants and the security deposit. So that's four layers of insurance.   Michael: Run that by me again, what rino does so so they are basically ensuring the security deposit, then you can make a claim for damage against that security deposit up to that limit.   Brian: Yes, yes, absolutely. That's exactly what they're doing.   Michael: And what about the tenant that goes haywire, decides I'm gonna stop paying rent? I'm not paying this right. No nonsense. So they stopped paying it. They've paid six months to date. How does that work?   Brian: Yeah, we make a claim. Like if, and so we're, we're on top of our rents and our tenants. And it's in our lease that you have to pay all this stuff. And they do. And if they don't we just make a claim immediately.   Michael: And how is your claim experience spin with those folks?   Brian: We haven't had to make a claim yet. But the person Yeah, the person I learned this from, he turned us on to it. And we're like, what, have you ever made a claim? He's like, Yeah, they paid us in four days. I'm like, done. You know,   Michael: Yeah, I'm sold. I gotta go check this company. What's it called?   Brian: Say Rhino. Okay. And, you know, we looked into it. I did my research on it. I think they just did another round of fundraising. And we were sold. We've talked to him, they're easy to work with. They won't reject any of your tenants regardless of credit. As long as you approve them, they're approved. So I take it look, yeah, no longer holding escrow and no longer dealing with security deposits. Let them deal with it. And our experience so far has been great. Let's knock on wood. I don't have to use it. But if I do They'll also pay attorneys fees. So, if you have to let somebody Yeah, go make a claim.   Michael: Man, this podcast just took a wild left turn, but I love it. I've totally here for it.   Brian: Yeah, it's, it's, it's great. And that all goes into ensuring our company, ensuring our tenants making sure everything's taken care of, but also protecting us, because we have put a lot of money a lot of time into these assets. And, you know, we want to protect those assets.   Michael: Yeah, no, it makes total sense. Speaking of Brian, let's talk about this topic for a minute, because you're another good person to ask because you have both short term and long term rentals. Do you see a difference in risk exposure between the two and grouping both asset classes in us in the same LLC?   Brian: No, I don't. The only risk that you run with short term rentals is the seasonal market. In that, you know, we were just talking about Gatlinburg, you know, and people don't realize that the high season is actually summer in Gatlinburg, and it's not winter, which is kind of weird. But yeah, people don't want to go to cabins in the winter. So you've got to be able to weather those low months. But no, I would keep both assets in the same LLC if it's in the same geographic area for me.   Now, that's not to say it's not right for you. And you know, we could also talk about what's best for you. But no, it doesn't matter to me. Because for us, as everything flows up into our tax structure, we've created this, this LLC step tax structure, that everything flows to the top as a pass through. So everything's flown to the top and the parent company pays all the mortgages on everything. So if you have long term rentals that are just, you know, clicking along and you have a week, month, say in Gatlinburg, like we both know that January, February is a week, month in Gatlinburg. You know, there's plenty of money just to go ahead and pay that note. So that's, that's how we do it. And that's what I encourage clients to do. Because you're, you're not really breaching the corporate veil of everything flows up in the parent company's paying for everything. And that's how we structured it. So we're still, you know, adhering to the corporate formalities, respecting those corporate formalities, and everything is paid from the parent company.   Michael: Okay, cool. And then from like a legal risk mitigation perspective, short term rental doesn't sound like it poses any additional risk as compared to a long term rental.   Brian: No, I wouldn't think so. Because the the management companies and I don't know, if you use the management company, but they have them sign all these documents, and they have their own attorneys, or all these waivers in there, and they have to put a security deposit down, you know, to rent the property and, you know, a cleaning deposit. And there's so many different deposits that we tend to get good renters at all the properties.   Michael: Okay. Okay, fantastic. And as someone is thinking about scaling their portfolio into multiple properties, maybe some different asset classes, from an entity structure, is there anything that they should be aware of, or they should be doing differently, if they've already, you know, started using LLC us in the past?   Brian: I would stay with LLCs. If you if you turn to like a C Corp, you get the double layer double layer of tax. If you turn to an S corp, I think you're gonna have to deal with more corporate formalities than you are with an LLC, an LLC is very flexible with what you can do with it. I wouldn't go with a partnership, a general partnership doesn't tend to have the protections nor does a limited liability partnership. You really want the corporate structure of the LLC to stay in place.   So there is no other entity out there that I would encourage people to use other than the LLC. You know, reasonable minds can differ on that. I wrote a chapter in the book on it. But at this point, I am not advising clients to use any other structure other than the LLC, it's very flexible, it's easy to buy and sell assets through and quite frankly, you know, it's it's easily respected in the state of Tennessee and in other states as well, I'm sure you know, LLCs are just common now, you know, as common now as s corpse were in the 60s 70s 80s and up to the 90s.   I would also encourage people to look at Wyoming, Wyoming is on the cutting edge of LLC formation. You know, they recently came out with a new type of LLC that has to do with crypto currencies and blockchain protections. It's it's crazy what they're doing out there. Tennessee follows shortly thereafter and we're all still trying get our heads around it because one, I'm not a crypto guy. I don't know a whole lot about it. But you're starting to deal with like blockchain technology for the way people can vote. It's, it's really fascinating. So I do like Wyoming, I have a Wyoming LLC for one of my assets. And, you know, it's a great state as well.   Michael: I dig it. You mentioned your book, let's talk about that for a minute. What's it called? Where can people find it? And what should they expect to find if they get a   copy?   Brian: Sure. It's, it's called replace your income, a lawyer's guide to finding funding and managing real estate investments. And they can find it on Amazon. Or they can go to www.BrianTBoyd.com. And they can order it through there. So the reason I wrote this book is because I'm having conversations very similar to what we're talking about now, about, how do I form things? What do I form? Why do I form it? Should I put all my assets in one LLC? And this book came about as a compendium of all those conversations I've had over the years with, with clients in real estate investing, how do they get started? How do they find properties? How do they get a loan? You know, what kind of loans are available? What platforms do I use? Do I do I use, Say Rhino? Or do I use Bildium? Or, you know, what's available? How can I do this using technology to leverage efficiency here? And so it's 13 chapters on all of that, including tax benefits, finance tips, how to structure an LLC, what you need to think about when you're putting together an operating agreement? You know, what's the difference between an operating agreement and bylaws? What's the difference between a charter and an articles of organization. I try to break it down. As if I'm talking to my 11 year old son, anybody can understand it. And that's what I want people to know about this book. It's, anybody can invest in real estate. You don't have to be a professional or have, you know, a six figure income, you can be a college student and start house hacking. You can easily you know, get a loan go buy a small two bedroom, one bath apartment somewhere, and get a roommate, move a roommate and then charge them rent and now your house hacking and now your real estate. And so it's possible for everybody.   Michael: Yeah, I love it. I love it. Brian, curveball question here. What's the best compliment you've ever received?   Brian: That I married up?   Michael: Is that Is that a compliment to your wife? Is that a sort of backhanded compliment to you?   Brian: It's probably a backhanded compliment to me, but I I, I could not do what I do without my wife, my wife is, you know, she's an inspiration. She basically runs the entire company. She only lets me talk to people if she can't figure it out. And she is the backbone behind this company. And the funny thing is, I had to drag her into real estate investing, I kept telling her about all the tax benefits of this honey, we can, we can make passive income. And, you know, let me tell you about appreciation and depreciation and how we can, you know, offset some of our income taxes. And she didn't believe me. Now, mind you, I have a master's degree and like, I went to school to do this. And I actually did this for a living for years. And somebody handed her Rich Dad, Poor Dad, and she read it and we're lying in bed when I was like, Hey, did you know that? If we did this, we could pay for a car?   I was like, yeah, she's like, did you know we could write our phone bill up? I'm like, Yeah, I did. She's like, did you know like, we could buy a computer and write it off in one year? I'm like, yes. I've been telling you this. And she doesn't believe it coming from me, the guy who has two graduate degrees and does it for a living, but she believes it from the guy that wrote the book, and I'm like, Okay, well, maybe I need to write a book and she'll she'll listen to, but she still doesn't listen to me. So it is what it is. But she she runs this company. And you know, I couldn't do without her. So when somebody says, I'm married up, I'm like, Yeah, I did. And I'm very lucky I did.   Michael: Amazing. So amazing. Well, Brian, that brings up maybe my last question for you. Before I let you out of here. I think there are a lot of folks probably listening to this that have a partner significant other that aren't interested or aren't involved with a real estate investing, but they would really like them to be or they need them to be. And so you went through this struggle with your wife, how how should people be thinking about bringing their other partner into the fold?   Brian: What I would tell them is you don't have to buy the book. You can look online and see the tax benefits of it. Is that You're going to create positive cash flow. And you're going to create tax deductions that's going to offset not only your cash flow, but your current income tax liability. So if you would like to pay less in income taxes every year, look at real estate investing. Look at it. You know, if you decide not to do and it's not for you, okay, don't do it. There are other things you can invest in. But our Congress has codified our public policy of investing in real estate in our tax code. It is there for you to take advantage of, look, when it comes tax time every year, I always kind of get a little tense, but then I'm like, Okay, well, let's go go buy another property. And then we can cost segregate that property, accelerate the depreciation, and create a larger tax deduction for ourselves, and it's not so painful come tax time.   I'm sure you know that as well that, hey, we can cashflow this property. And, you know, the government actually is encouraging us to go buy real estate, the government is encouraging you to succeed. And that's all I want for anybody is to succeed. You know, this book, I think it's 19.99. It's a lot cheaper than sitting down with me for an hour. And this is everything I've already talked about with people, and I do on a regular basis. So if your spouse is struggling to get on board with your idea of real estate investing, you know, maybe buy the book for them and show them that, hey, this is possible.   You're talking to a guy who worked two jobs to put himself through law school, and then two jobs while I was in graduate school on top of that, and I'm still paying off student loans. But you know what, I paid off a student loan last week. And I did it because we got a refund. That came back to me as a result of the deductions I have through real estate. And the first thing I did with that check was, hey, it's enough. I'm going to pay off that loan. And I did. So it's, it's a real example of how real estate can affect your bottom line.   Michael: I love it. That is awesome. And congrats on getting that loan paid off. That's really exciting.   Brian: Oh, thanks so much.   Michael: You got it. Brian, we're gonna get you out of here. If people want to continue the conversation, learn more about you. What's the best way for them to do so?   Brian: They can get in touch with me at the law firm. The website is www.BoydWills.com. And, you know, you can reach out to me on the Brian T Boyd, Facebook page and on Instagram.   Michael: Okay, amazing. We'll be sure to do that. Brian. Thanks again for sharing some amazing wisdom man. Appreciate you coming on. We'll talk soon.   Brian: Thanks, Michaels. Good to be here.   Michael: You could take care.   All right, everyone. That was our episode. A big thank you to Brian for coming on and sharing some wisdom about LLCs asset protection, tax benefits and some loopholes that we can take advantage of as real estate investors. As always, if you enjoyed the episode, feel free to leave us a rating or review wherever you get your podcasts and we look forward to seeing on the next one. Happy investing

Neal Bawa is a technologist who is universally known in real estate circles as the Mad Scientist of Multifamily. Besides being one of the most in-demand speakers in commercial real estate, Neal is a data guru, a process freak, and an outsourcing expert. Neal treats his $947 million-dollar portfolio as an ongoing experiment in efficiency and optimization. The Mad Scientist lives by two mantras. His first mantra is that "We can only manage what we can measure". His second mantra is that "Data beats gut feel by a million miles". These mantras and a dozen other disruptive beliefs drive profit for his 700+ investors. In today's episode, Neal gives his take on what is happening in the multi-family market today, the dynamics of the current economy, and what he sees coming over the next year. Episode Links: https://multifamilyu.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/neal-bawa/  --- Transcript Before we jump into the episode, here's a quick disclaimer about our content. The Remote Real Estate Investor podcast is for informational purposes only, and is not intended as investment advice. The views, opinions and strategies of both the hosts and the guests are their own and should not be considered as guidance from Roofstock. Make sure to always run your own numbers, make your own independent decisions and seek investment advice from licensed professionals.   Michael: Hey, everyone, welcome to another episode of the Remote Real Estate Investor. I'm Michael Albaum and today joining me again is Neal Bawa, who is the founder of MultifamilyU and a big time multifamily syndicator and Neal is gonna be putting his finger on the pulse of the multifamily market and sharing with us some pretty hard hitting facts. So let's strap in, and let's get into it.   Neal, welcome back to the show. Thank you so much for taking the time to hang out with me. I really appreciate you coming on.   Neal: It's great to be back, Michael. Great to be back.   Michael: Thank you, Neal. So last time, on our prior episode, we talked a lot about the single family space and what we saw going on with the market today. I'd love if we could focus our conversation on multifamily, since I know that you do quite a bit in that space as well.   Neal: That's right. I live and breathe multifamily. I started with single family like a lot of you know, the folks that are using your platform did, but multifamily is more scalable. So we currently have about a billion dollars of multifamily 31 projects about 4800 units that are either in construction or in lease up or you know, are stabilize, right. So, you know, a significant portion of them are already stabilized that we're holding, but we're also building a bunch of them, and working on the construction of some of them. So it's you know, what's happening today is so dramatic and so unusual. We you know, one could compare, maybe it's not as dramatic as the first three months of COVID. But otherwise, it's pretty crazy. It's pretty dramatic, dramatic. So it's, it's a great time to talk about multifamily.   Michael: Yeah. So a billion dollars and just turning back the clock a minute. I'm curious, how long did it take you to get to that point from when you started?   Neal: So I you know, ignoring a past company where I was a partner, this particular company has basically gotten to that billion dollars since February 2018. So, so about four and a half years, roughly.   Michael: Holy smoke, I was just interviewing a gentleman who's got a business he wants to scale to a billion dollars over a nine year period. So you mourn cut that in half, that's incredible growth. Neal: Well, keep in mind, I don't want to demean what we've done, because we're very proud of it. But with a when you're purchasing multifamily, the numbers get big, pretty, you know, quickly, right? So 100 unit multifamily today is $20 million. So you do get up there very fast. So I still consider myself to be a mid-level syndicator. There's dozens and dozens and dozens of companies that have bigger portfolios than I do and also, for reference, a billion dollar portfolio usually only equates to about 10 employees in a syndication business. Now, in my case, I have 30 employees, because I've 20 of them in the Philippines and that's helping me scale and so I have 20 full time employees in the Philippines in addition to those 10 people. But I think it's useful to have that frame of reference, I think that you're setting targets in multifamily, a billion is actually not a bad target the set.   Michael: Okay, I will definitely keep that in mind as I as I scale my portfolio. That's, that's really great to know. But Neal, let's transition and I would love to get your thoughts because you are a data scientist, you have so many great analytics to kind of backup your thoughts and opinions and viewpoints. Tell us what like what's going on in the multifamily space as we recording this today late, mid to late September.   Neal: Prices are falling and they will continue to fall. It's a bad time to buy any kind of multifamily in any market in the US and I rarely, I've never actually said that before, maybe with the exception of you know, first month COVID. It's currently right now, no one should be buying anything in the United States. But here's the good news. You don't have to wait very long. The market is now adjusting very rapidly. So I think that I think February March of next year would be a terrific time to buy you know whether it's the one to four units that get listed on Roofstock. By the way, I currently have a triplex listed on roof stock, check it out, it's on Brandon Avenue in Chicago. Whether it's those units or it's the you know, the larger unit we were also selling, you know, a 200 unit property at this point in time not on Roofstock but we're not buying anything. I mean, we've basically told our acquisition people to be pencils down stop looking, stop talking to brokers stop traveling to properties, because we are halfway through a correction. So and I'll explain why. Multifamily is a very different animal from single family. So let's say Michael is buying a single family property and it's next to another one that's identical to it. So there's two row houses and next to it. Well, if somebody last month paid a million dollars for the first one, Michael can get a loan that appraises for 1,000,000 value for his property, he can get that easily, regardless of what really happens in the market, he can get that, you know, and prices take so long to fall that even if the price actually falls, Michael can use a comp from half a mile away to still get that million dollars in value. So the banks on the single family side are really trusting you to do your, you know, to not to overpay, right. So if they're just looking at it, is there a comp that matches it and if it does, we'll just give this guy alone, right and if they feel like the times are hard, they might change their LTVs from 75 to 70 and but that's pretty much as far as the single family market goes. The multifamily market is radically different because a multi one multifamily property is a business. It's like you're buying a Tommy's carwash, or you're buying, you know you're buying a subway or a chain of subways, that's the best way to look at it. It's a business. So your underwriting really doesn't matter. It's the banks underwriting that matters, the bank that's giving you the funding and the moment that we start seeing interest rates go up in the market, the value of the property immediately decreases. Why? Because the bank's underwriting decreases the value of the property, because multifamily properties are based on just two things, something known as a cap rate, which is basically the market's estimate of what the property should be worth and then something else known as net operating income, which is basically rents minus expenses right? Now, the moment and you know, the moment your interest rates increase, and most multifamily today in the US is on floating rate debt. So what that means is, as interest rates go up, your mortgage is going up something a number called DSCR. I won't go into that into detail on that. But there's a number called DSCR, that basically starts to fall. So the higher your mortgage goes, the lower that number is. This means that, you know, let's say I'm a buyer and I'm selling two multi families and they're right next to each other, right. So they're same number of units, same occupancy, same design, so that their net operating income for both of these properties is exactly the same, like down to the last cent right. Now one, let's say one soft sell sold for $30 million. Okay, and I waited a month like 30 days, and the Fed raise interest rates by 100 bits right, but basically 1%. The second property now is worth less. It's worth less, even though there's another property that sold 30 days ago, that's identical with the same number of tenants with the same rents. It's now worth less so multifamily is on a sliding scale and that sliding scale is affected by interest rate hikes much sooner than single family.   Obviously, single family is also affected. We've seen there's 90 bond markets in the US where single family prices are coming down, but they're coming down really slowly, right. Like the I think the average decline in the last six weeks has been 2%, right and I mean, seasonal declines are bigger than 2%. So I don't even know what to make of that 2% yet, but on the multifamily side, depending upon the market, we've seen declines of six to 12% in multifamily prices already and in remember, the Fed only really started raising in May of this year that you know, we're doing this in the middle of September, right. So in five months, the Feds basically raised everything there was a tiny raise back in March, but it was it was so tiny that it really didn't make any difference. So in five months, the Fed has basically affected multifamily prices to the tune of six to 12%. Here's the bad news. That's not the end, because everybody including yours truly was thinking that when last week's inflation report came out, we would see a downward trend, and the Fed would give us some guidance that yeah, okay, well, instead of raising by 75 bits this week that there's a Fed meeting going on this week, we're gonna raise by 50 and then we'll see what happens in November, maybe we'll raise it by 25 and we were like, okay, if that happens, great. You know, where the Fed funds rate is at 2.25. They raised by 50 pips this week, then they raised about 25 pips in November at 3%. We're done with the Fed funds rate, and that means that multifamily doesn't have to drop any further. Well, it sucks but that didn't happen. Inflation didn't drop and so now the Fed this week is definitely going to raise interest rates by 75 bits, maybe they might even do it by 100 and that basically will spike up interest rates by 100 points immediately and then they'll have to do 75 points in November and maybe another 50 points or 25 points in December. So because of that bad news, we now know that we're midway through this drop in multifamily, right. So we think that there's another five or 6% drop coming by February or March. Is this bad? No. If you're not, you know, if you're not buying anything, just wait for five or six months and you get five or 6%. You know, you know benefits. What the heck is wrong about that because the market isn't bad. Rents haven't decreased, rents are continuing to increase nationwide for both single family and multifamily. So this isn't like 2008, where there's 5 million empty homes show me empty homes. I mean, there really aren't any, the market is an amazing occupancy levels. This is just one single factor, the cost of debt. So, if you can, in February, buy a property for 5%, cheaper, you will have had two advantages. Number one, the next six months, you're not paying for that high cost of debt, right? Number two, you would, you know, say 5%. So your property is cheaper, so your debts less right? Number three, you will be within six months of the Fed cutting interest rates. This is the part that most people don't understand. The Federal Reserve is not trying to kill us. They're just doing their job. and their job is to control inflation because if you don't control inflation, really bad shit happens really, really bad should happen. So it's much better to control inflation and obviously the industry that is most affected when you raise interest rates is real estate. No other industry in the US is affected as much as real estate by interest rate hikes. Here's the good news though. If you look at the last 61 years, the Fed raised interest rates nine times sharp up sharp down. So if you buy in Feb, by, I think July or August, the Fed should be dropping interest rates or at least talking about dropping interest rates.   Why is that important? Mortgage rates are guesses. So single family mortgage rates and multifamily mortgage rates in the US are just guesswork where the market tries to guess what the Fed will do next. So if the Fed starts talking about interest rate declines, the market starts to prices in., right and when the Fed says oh, well, we might hold, right the market reacts. So the interest rates basically adjust even before the Fed actually does anything. Perfect example of this: In December, the Fed started talking about interest rate hikes, but didn't actually raise anything. They didn't change anything until March. But in those four months, interest rates went up 100 basis points, they went up an entire 1% because the market was guessing what the Fed would do. So if you buy a multifamily in February and the Feds basically start to lower rates by June, July and August. Now you're in a better environment and as long as your rates are floating, they may float the other way, they may float down and give you a benefit. Where you start high and then you float downwards. That's why I think it makes sense to wait. I've seen a lot of my friends that have larger portfolios and me 2 billion 3 billion send emails to their investor saying we're pencils down. mean, what that means is we're not even underwriting a property we you know, we see 10 properties a day and normally we underwrite three or four of them. Pencils down means you just click the delete button 10 times and you're done with your job for the day.   Michael: Wow, I have so many questions. But I guess the first one is, why are mortgage rate guesses? Why doesn't, why don't banks look at actual data and what the actual borrowing rate is today and not worry about forecasting, but use hindsight. So it takes the guesswork out of it.   Neal: I'm not 100% sure on that. Just so you know, that's what the multifamily market does, right. So the multifamily market has two kinds of loans or I should say three kinds of loans. One of them is the guesswork kind where they try and guess what the Fed is going to do. The other one is one that's based on LIBOR or now called Sofer, these are basically and basically they're based on like treasury bonds and what those numbers are those loans. The moment the Fed hikes the they're going to hike this week, right so that they have a meeting on Wednesday, that we're probably going to hype it by 75 pips. Well, if I have that kind of loan, and I do at some of my properties, guess what, on Thursday, my debt is a lot more expensive. 75 basis points more expensive. So you can see that on the multifamily side. I have never, ever seen a single family loan do that. Every mortgage that I've seen 30 year 15 year five year ARM, they're all guesses forward looking guesses on the Feds rate. Why? I have no freaking clue.   Michael: Okay… We'll have to find someone out there that can give us a definitive answer as to why that is. But I'm also curious now, you mentioned at the beginning of our conversation that in the single family space, the banks are kind of depending on us as borrowers to look at the value of the home and determine hey, this is worth or not, which seems very counterintuitive because the majority of multifamily investors that I know, tend to be able to underwrite really, really well, oftentimes better than the bank and so why is the bank's taking the power away from a multifamily investor and really giving it to a single family owner it seems a little bit backwards now.   Neal: Single Family is considered to be a REIT in the United States and single family lending is encouraged by politicians. The overall banking system believes that even if they go a little it over on the single family side, it's not such a bad thing, obviously 2008 was 2007 was different because it was not a real estate failure. It was a failure of lending standards, you know, they were basically giving gardeners million dollar loans, right. So that's not going to end well. So obviously, I don't see any evidence of that kind of stupidity existing today. So there are lending standards, they're pretty tight on those lending standards, they're not going above them, you have to be, you know, a good, good buyer. But beyond that, they as long as there's an appraised property that similar your property will appraise. I am not in favor of this other countries do not do this. Banks underwrite single family loans in other countries, the way that we underwrite multifamily loans. But because of Americans believe that single family is a very key part of their life. We've seen this appraisal based system for the last 30 or 40 years and every once in a while it blows up a bubble just like it did in 2007. So this is a conscious decision that the people that run this company had a country have made, and it has lots and lots of good sides, because it tends to overall increase the prices of single family appraisal, you know, somebody buys for more, the your property is more than next was more next one's more. So generally, it has a beneficial effect on the real estate market. But it also tends to create more bubbles than other countries.   Michael: Interesting. Okay, that's really good insights. So knowing that this isn't the ideal time to buy multifamily. What should people be doing? Is this the time to get educated, is the time to go get capitals is the time you know, what should folks be doing right now?   Neal: Um, I think that I'll give you some ideas, right? So I'll give you kind of a sense of, Well, what would Neal Bawa be doing and what would maybe somebody that's newer than Neal Bawa, you know, doesn't have a lot of multifamily should be doing. So let's just focus on that piece first, right, because what I do is really different from what you should be doing, depending upon where you are in the process. So let's say you're early in the multifamily process, you should be educating your investors, that an extraordinary opportunity is going to present itself most likely in q2 of next year. So that's, you know, April, May, June and that opportunity is there for the first time since the Great Depression, that in the 2008, depression, we have an unusual thing happening, and that will be multifamily prices, not single family, but multifamily prices will be low in q2 next year, compared to let's say, now, or compared to, especially compared to a year ago, they will be low. But the economy will not be anywhere like 2008, it'll still it'll be weak, it will be in a recession. But this is what is known as an artificial recession. So recessions are of two kinds, they come in two flavors. Number one, a recession that is artificially created by the Fed to cool down inflation, and we're about to go into one of those recessions, those tend to be shallow, and the they don't damage the economy in the long term, they create short term damage, and the economy tends to recover fairly quickly from those unemployment doesn't tend to go down too much. You know, so, so go up too much, I should say, you know, so. So we're about to go into one of those and those are the kinds of recessions where you want to buy multifamily. Why because multifamily prices still decrease as interest rates go up, regardless of the strength of the underlying economy. So the underlying economy right now is amazingly strong, right. So with all the hand grenades that the Fed has thrown at us for over five months, they've managed to move the unemployment rate from a historic 3.5% to a historic 3.7%. In five months, they basically haven't managed to dent the unemployment market at all and even that point, 2% increase has largely been because of being because of more people joining the workforce. So post COVID, a lot of people took a year and two years off, a lot of those people are now returning to the to the workforce because they're running out of that stimulus money and that's really what that point to otherwise, when you see like you might see, you know, news about layoffs in the United States, Google it actually look at the statistics. Anytime at any point in the economy, there's layoffs, right. But there haven't been more layoffs than they were six months ago or 12 months ago. It's just the regular layoffs that happened in a normal economy. So there's the economy is extraordinarily strong, and it's going to get dragged into recession simply because the Fed is going to keep throwing hand grenades until the economy goes into recession. But because the underlying economy will stay pretty strong during this shallow recession, you've got a onetime opportunity to buy cheap multifamily because multifamily is just as affected in terms of price. Whether the economy underlying is weak or strong right and you have a quick chance to come out of it and make a lot of money. You should be educating your investors telling them about this opportunity, because I haven't seen that opportunity at all since 2013.   Michael: Interesting.   Neal: That's what you should be doing, telling every investor about this and telling them, I am not buying anything now. Well, you probably know me, you know, don't have the investor money to buy anything now. But what's the harm in saying it's still true?   Michael: Right, right, right. Do you think though, Neal, that at that time, q2, next year, that folks, sellers, owners are going to see that, hey, there's this dip in prices, and therefore, I'm not going to sell because I don't want to sell at a loss I bought 234 or five years ago, I'm going to hold on to my property and no, there will be an inventory shortage, or do you do not foresee that happening?   Neal: There is already an inventory shortage in multifamily prices have still dropped. So the if you look at the inventory available to sell in the multifamily market, it's half of what we had a year ago. But multifamily is different from single family in single family is shortage of inventory tends to drive prices up. With multifamily a shortage of inventory cannot drive prices up because banks are underwriting and they don't give a flying F about what the inventory is. They just care about your debt cost and your debt cost is going up. So when so the key thing is that the single family and multifamily markets are fundamentally different. One of them is just a business and the business is based on its debt cost, and its net operating income and nothing else right. Whereas single family is based on demand. If there's nothing available on your street to sell whatever appears is going to sell for more. That's not how multifamily works. So even right now, supply is pretty low. But that doesn't mean that people are over able to over bid, because if they over bid, guess what happens, Michael, they can't get a loan for that amount and now they have to raise lots of extra equity, which reduces their returns and so a lot of them are like this is painful, we're just going to sit back for three to four months for the market to adjust. Buyers have sellers have to understand that either they just keep their property off the marketplace, which you know, you can do infinite infinitely, you can do it for some amount of time or they will adjust their pricing as they already have. Remember, we've already seen a six to 12% delta in just six months. That's how quickly multifamily reacts and I think that's why I'm in the multifamily business because I liked the logic of that. If your costs are increasing and your profits are decreasing, you should get a lower price, right.   Michael: It’s pretty black and white.   Neal: Yeah, yes and that's how it works in multifamily. With single family, you can very often see costs increasing, but because everyone's holding off, nobody's basically selling their property. Everyone's like I've got lots of equity in the property. Now there's no property in the marketplace and even with costs increasing, you can often see increase in pricing. To me that has no logic and so I don't play in in that in that field.   Michael: Yeah, yeah, no, it makes total sense. Neal, let's talk about multifamily loan products and some of the different ones that are out there. You mentioned there's three different loan types. There's the fix for five 710 years, there's the LIBOR, floating rates, what's the third one?   Neal: So the second one is tied to so I'll go back, right. So the first one straightforward, fixed, usually it's five years and 10 year fixed. The second one is tied to a number called LIBOR or LIBOR or so far, these days, it's called Silver. That's kind of the new version of LIBOR. So it's a number and the loans will be, you know, LIBOR plus something LIBOR plus 2.25, right and what that means is the moment the Fed changes, interest rates, that's gonna change, right? So your, the interest rate, you're paying changes the very next day, right, the bank's gonna send you a letter saying, hey, Sofer has changed, therefore your interest rate is now x, right and boom, you're paying more, the third one is available, that is basically a rate that you it's a floating rate. right, but it's not tied to LIBOR. It's not tied to Sofer. It's speculative in some sort of ways. Now, it does tend to go up as interest rates go up, it's really tied to treasuries. Now, US Treasury bonds are a speculative product, right? So today, something happens in China or something happens in Russia, something happens in Ukraine, and all of a sudden, treasury bonds will shoot up or shoot down and so that particular rate is tied to the treasury bonds. So it's speculative and so, you know, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, often these floating off of these floating rates. Now, in the end, the rate is going to end up more or less where the Sofer one is, but it's not immediate. It's not like you don't get that happening the next day after the Fed raises interest rates and I'll tell you why because it's tied to treasuries and treasuries move upward. Are downwards because of 100 different factors. Only one of those are interest rates. So geopolitical situations can often make treasuries move downwards. For example, if the Chinese economy collapses tomorrow and there's blood on the street, treasuries will go downwards, even if the Fed continues to raise interest rates. That makes sense? So, to these sorts of things, these movements can happen so that rates that are tied to the US Treasury bonds tend to move up and down with Treasury bonds. So those are the three kinds.   Michael: Okay, and who is do you think well suited or conversely, not well suited for each type of loan?   Neal: So in terms of who is the lender?   Michael: No, if I'm a buyer, and I'm going to buy … Yeah…   Neal: I think, yeah, yeah. So there's also something known as a bridge rate, when it bridge loans, which no one is getting, I don't know, if a single person that's gotten a bridge loan in the last 30 days, because there are simply very high there are 7%, or even higher in the last, you know, 30 days. So the vast majority of people today that should be buying, let's say you have to buy for whatever reason, you're not stopping you want to buy the key advisors, everyone should today should get a floating rate loan, because if you believe like I do, that the feds job is to raise rates and then drop them and that's what they've done nine times in the last 61 years, then you have to believe at some point in the future 6-12 18, 24 months rates will be lower, because right now, they're pretty darn high, right? So if you believe that locking in your rates doesn't make sense. So the market today, all we have is really Fannie Freddie floating lanes, rate rates, which are similar to what your local bank would provide. So maybe you have a smaller project, you want to go with local bank, those are the same kinds of rates that Fannie Freddie provides, they're probably charging you a quarter point more, but you've got a relationship with them, their points are lower. So lots of people go with local banks. But I think that's the only game in the market for multifamily today and the other thing that's happening in the multifamily market, which is driving prices down as you get multifamily, you might in a really boom time environment, you could get loans that are 75%, loan to value, right and then when the market starts to tighten up, they go to 70. Well, a few weeks ago, most lenders went to 65. So they're giving you a lot less loan to value for the same property forcing you to raise more equity. When you raise more equity, your returns go down, your underwriting suffers. So once again, people are like this not working. I'm not going to make any money. My investors have something known as pref or preferential treatment. So the property underperforms, they're going to make their pref I'm gonna make nothing. So a lot of people are stepping back, pencils down.   Michael: Yeah. Yeah, that makes total sense. That makes total sense.   Neal: And, and none of this has anything to do with a crash, you know, the 2008 scenario. If you believe that that is going to occur in the next 12 months, you're not data driven because the 2008 scenario, if you look at every if you list the top 10 factors that caused it, because it wasn't any one thing, right? None of those factors, not one of those factors exist today, right? What we do have is we pulled demand forward in 2021. In 2021, we basically helicoptered $10 trillion, worldwide, not 10 trillion in the US, luckily, 4 trillion in the US, but 10 trillion worldwide, we helicopter money to people for the first time in modern history. We've done a little bit of it before in 2009. But remember, we were bailing out banks, we were bailing out General Motors, the money wasn't going directly into people's pockets, right. So here we helicopter $10 trillion worldwide, and there's an inflationary effect. It pulled demand forward, everyone, all of a sudden had money, everyone spent money and so we pulled demand forward from let's say, 2023, next year, to 2021 and when we did that, we ended up creating massive amounts of inflation, nothing to do with the economy itself, but it created massive inflation and now we have no choice but to deal with it. I can tell you this if on the one side you said you know will you take 7% single Family interest rates right over the Fed stopping you know their program now just let him stop it I would say don't do that. Hyperinflation is so insanely dangerous, and so insanely destructive, that I would, even though it would really hurt me. I would take 7% interest rates any day, I will take 8% but I wouldn't tell the thread to stop doing what they're doing. 9% inflation if it gets entrenched if everyone believes that two years from now we're going to be at 9% It's astonishingly destructive.   Michael: Wow, wow. Okay and Neal, I'm just curious in based on your research the nine times over the last six to 10 years, the Fed has raised rates and then pretty succinctly thereafter dropped them. How far do you think we're gonna get, how low do you think inch rates are gonna go? I want the Neal Bawa prediction the crystal ball, if you will…   Neal: The federal funds rate, right, the Fed funds rate is what the Fed raises, they don't raise or lower mortgage rates. It's currently at 2.25% and in two days, it's going to go to 3%. We believe currently that the peak is going to be either 3.5 or 3.75% for the Fed funds rate and we think that on the downward path, they'll cut it all the way down to 1.75%. So from their peak, they'll go down 2%. So from the peak, whatever that peak interest rate is, it should go down 2%, right. Now, sometimes they have to go past that 1.75 on the downward leg, because they've hurt the economy so much when they were raising rates that they have to compensate. But we think that the Meet the perfect equilibrium rate for the Fed is around 1.75. Now, in their, in their public, in the public, they talk about it being 2.25. That's where they would like equilibrium to be. But they never seem to ever achieve that. It's always lower than that in a normal market. So they just like to talk it up a little bit to set expectations. So we think that whatever that top interest rate is that you're going to see the highest interest rate, the mortgage rate. Once the Fed is done and brings it down, you should see mortgage rates 2%, lower. So it there's a possibility that sometime in the next 180 days, you'll see a 7% mortgage rate, right. So it might touch that number, but I don't think it goes further beyond that. Okay, but I could be completely wrong, because if the Fed doesn't kill inflation, then all bets are off.   Michael: Right, right. Yeah, this is all under the guise of inflation getting tampered back because of the moves and so just to kind of put that in perspective for people as the end users, 2% reduction of the Fed funds rate will typically constitute a 2% drop on what a borrower is going to pay. So if rates get up to 7%, and then Fed Funds pullback to two by 2%, we would expect mortgage rates to hover on that 5% in the consumer market.   Neal: Yes, exactly four and a half to five and a half going up and down a little bit, you'd remember it's speculative, but you'll have plenty of opportunities to you know, lock something in under 5%. So I think the key message is this, never be afraid of 5%. It's really beyond 5%, that the single family economy starts to you know, it starts to miss heartbeats. That's where it starts to be problematic until five, I've really not seen much of an impact in the marketplace, there'll be a little slow down in price increases and right now a slowdown is healthy, they've gone way too much way too fast and so retrenchment is a very healthy thing.   Michael: Yeah. Okay and just for frame of reference for folks, during COVID, the Fed funds rate was zero, right?   Neal: They dropped it. It was zero, correct. So there were we've gone from zero to 2.25, in five and a half months, right and they were threatening to do it for about four months before that, but they wanted the market to adjust before they actually raise the rate. So we've gone up to 2.25. It was zero for two consecutive years. So two years, in two months, the Fed funds rate was zero.   Michael: And has that ever happened in American history that you know if?   Neal: No, I think that pandemic is very unique. We saw the Fed funds rate fall to about 1% in 2009 2010. But they didn't take it down to zero. So the only time they've ever taken it to zero is this time, I expect all future crisis will go beyond zero now that the eurozone has gone negative and Japan's gone negative. There's no stigma attached to going negative. So I think the next crisis will go below zero.   Michael: Wow and that'll be an interesting time to have a loan tied to LIBOR or Sofer?   Neal: It'll be is it's fantastically interesting. I think what we are, Michael, we're living in the middle of the greatest financial experiment in history and it's, it's an experiment that has no precedent, it doesn't have anything that you can look back to, right. We're doing some truly crazy stuff and we're hoping that it will work out even though we have about three years three or 3000 years of monetary history that says it's never worked out for anyone in the past. So we're just hoping that we are different so right it's all about you know, as long as the musical chairs are going people are you know, people are walking and that's how it's going to be and I don't know when the real challenges happen. I think we're getting closer and closer. I feel like China is just about ready to combust at this point. We'll see what happens.   Michael: Okay, well, I will definitely stay tuned, Neal. This was amazing as always, for people that want to pick your brain more, continue the conversation learn more about you. Where's the best place nice for them to do that,   Neal: Um, you can connect with me simply by typing in my name. I'm the only Neal Bawa on the worldwide web. So just NEAL BAWA, hit enter, there's a couple 100 podcasts that I've appeared on. There's webinars, conference recordings, where I'm on stage. If you'd like to chat with me on LinkedIn, once again, I'm the only Neal Bawa on LinkedIn. So go ahead and connect with me there or go to my website, multifamilyu.com. So that's multifamily, followed by the letter u.com. There's about 30,000 people that attend the webinars that are on that site, we have a new one coming up, which is the impact of interest rates on the economy, and the upcoming recession. So real estate at this point is officially in a recession. The housing market is now in a recession, because it's declining. But I think the rest of the economy is going to follow it and so we have a webinar on that and I think that's going to be in three weeks.   Michael; Okay, fantastic. Well, Neal, thank you. Again, really a pleasure to chat with you and have you on and I'm sure we'll stay in touch.   Neal: Awesome. Thanks for having me on.   Michael: You got it, take care.   All right, everyone. That was our episode a big thank you to Neal for coming on love his data driven approach to his conclusions, which I think we probably all could use another dose of that. As always, if you enjoyed the episode, feel free to leave us a rating or review wherever you get your podcasts and we look forward to seeing the next one. Happy investing…

Garrett Sutton is a corporate attorney, asset protection expert and best selling author who has sold more than a million books to guide entrepreneurs and investors. For more than 30 years, Garrett Sutton has run his practice assisting entrepreneurs and real estate investors in protecting their assets and maximizing their financial goals through sound management and asset protection strategies. The companies he founded, Corporate Direct and Sutton Law Center, currently help more than 13,000 clients protect their assets and incorporate their businesses. Garrett also serves as a member of the elite group of “Rich Dad Advisors” for bestselling author Robert Kiyosaki. A number of the books Garrett Sutton has authored are part of the bestselling Rich Dad, Poor Dad wealth-building book series. There are three types of entities most commonly used to own real estate: Limited Liability Company, S Corporation and Limited Partnership. Tune in for todays episode where Garrett provides a quick summary of the best entities for real estate investment. Episode Link: https://corporatedirect.com/contact/ --- Transcript Before we jump into the episode, here's a quick disclaimer about our content. The Remote Real Estate Investor podcast is for informational purposes only, and is not intended as investment advice. The views, opinions and strategies of both the hosts and the guests are their own and should not be considered as guidance from Roofstock. Make sure to always run your own numbers, make your own independent decisions and seek investment advice from licensed professionals.   Michael: Hey, everyone, welcome to another episode of the Remote Real Estate Investor. I'm Michael Albaum and today I'm joined by Garrett Sutton, who is an attorney, investor and author with over 1 million copies of his book sold and today Garrett is gonna be talking to us about all the different entity structures we should be aware of as real estate investors, as well as wherever we might want to think about forming those entities because it plays a big role. So let's get into it.   Garrett, thank you so much for joining me on the show today. I really appreciate you taking the time.   Garrett: Thanks, Michael. It's a pleasure to be with you today.   Michael: No, no, the pleasure is all mine ad I'm super excited to chat with you. I know a little bit about your background and what you do kind of on a day to day basis. But I would love if you could share with our listeners who you are, where you come from, and what is it that you're doing in real estate today?   Garrett: Well, I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area like you and I moved to Reno in 1989 and Nevada is a great state for setting up LLCs and corporations along with Wyoming. So I practiced corporate law since 1978, and became associated with Robert Kiyosaki and have written a number of books in the rich dad advisor series and you know, have enjoyed talking to people around the country around the world about how to protect your assets. As you start investing in real estate, you need to think about how you're going to protect that real estate because we live in a very litigious society, people sue each other all the time and unfortunately, they don't teach this in school, you have to get this information on your own and so that's what we provide is the information you need and then we offer a service to help you protect your real estate and brokerage and other assets.   Michael: Love it and just right off the bat, I read one of your books for our Roofstock Academy book club, it was a great read, so I can definitely vouch for it. But what are the books that you've written and then what talk to us about your most recent book?   Garrett: Well, I've written a number of books in the rich dad advisor series, including start your own corporation, that's kind of a foundational one, and then run your own corporation, a lot of my clients and I set up a corporation now what do I do, and you have to run it properly. Then I also did loopholes of real estate, which is kind of the tax and legal strategies for investing in real estate and then the newest book is veil not failed and that deals with the corporate veil, you set up an LLC or a corporation to be protected and too many people do this themselves, Michael, they just set it up online, and they don't realize that there are additional steps you have to take to stay protected and so if you don't want your veil to be pierced where someone can sue the company, there are no assets there. They can go through the veil of the company and get it your personal assets, if you don't want that to happen and that's why you set up an LLC.   Michael: That’s the point, yeah…   Garrett: It’s that you don't want it to happen. You need to follow these corporate formalities and so that's what the book veil not fail is about kind of stories, horror stories of people who didn't follow the rules and then in the latter part of the book, it shows you how to follow the rules so you can stay protected.   Michael: Yeah, great. and where can people find out if they're interested in picking up a copy?   Garrett: Amazon has it the veil not fail. It was supposed to be out in April, but we have this thing called supply chain problems.   Michael: I've heard of that.   Garrett: Not enough paper out there. So it's not out until November but you can go ahead and preorder it.   Michael: Fantastic. Garrett, let's talk about I think a pretty hotly contested and debated topic in the real estate space and that's LLC versus no LLC, I think and it's tough because we're I'm California based. A lot of our listeners are California based and so to have an LLC in California, you're paying at minimum 800 bucks a year and with today's cash flow based on some real estate investments that can eat in to your investment pretty significantly and so I've heard folks say, you know, forget the LLC, go get umbrella policy, go get high liability limit insurance and call it a day. Don't worry about it. What are some risks pros cons associated with doing that, that you've seen folks run into?   Garrett: You know, there's a whole area of law called Bad Faith litigation, and that's when insurance companies collect the premiums and then find a way not to cover you. All right, the insurance companies have acted in bad faith over the years. errors in collecting the premiums and then having exclusions, that little tiny print that you never read and so, you know, the insurance companies, let's face it, they have an economic incentive to not cover every claim and so they're going to find reasons not to cover you and so I always recommend that people have insurance. That's the first line of defense but these LLCs are the second line of defense, in case the insurance company doesn't cover you, or what about a situation where your insurance is, say 2 million, but the judgment is 4 million, right? I mean, you're personally responsible for that extra 2 million. If the property is in an LLC, they can get what's inside the LLC. But if you've done it, right, if you if your veil is strong, they're not going to be able to reach your personal assets for that extra 2 million. So the idea that you're just going to rely on insurance is, in my opinion, quite naive.   Michael: Yeah. Okay, I love it. I'm of the same opinion. I always, I never like to play my hand, though but I love hearing that because I come from the insurance world. So I know how bad things can go and I also have seen how they're supposed to work. But I think you're totally right, there's totally an economic incentive to not pay claims and the insurance industry as a whole gets kind of wrapped in with the folks that are doing the latter, not the former. So I think it makes a ton of sense. But Garrett talked to me about I've heard this concept, and this idea that, okay, there's this, you can be over insured, there is such a point. Now, if I go get a $10 million umbrella, because I really want to be protected. Does that then put a target on my back for a claim or a plaintiff to say, well, hey, he's got a pretty a pretty massive insurance policy, you know, I was only going to sue him for a million, but let's go after the full 10.   Garrett: Well, I mean, there are a number of factors there. I mean, having enough insurance is not a bad thing. If the claim is a million, it doesn't give the attorney the right to try and collect 10 million, you know, I mean, the claim is a million. So you know, the fact that you have extra insurance isn't a bad thing. The attorneys, you know, what we like to do, what we tell our clients is you want to have enough insurance to cover any claim and so you want to have insurance on the property fire casualty, right? You want to have a personal umbrella policy of insurance covering your home and your autos because I think that's the biggest risk out there is a horrific car wreck, right. Do you need that umbrella policy, a commercial umbrella policy over your various rental properties, maybe I had a part such a policy for a while but here in Reno, it got pretty expensive and so I just have regular insurance on the properties. I have regular insurance for my home and autos and I have an umbrella policy for me personally and so you get in that horrific car wreck. There's enough insurance money for the attorneys to get at. They know how to get at insurance monies, they get a percentage of what they collect and then if everything else is held in LLCs you know you'll have a an LLC if you own a property in Oregon, you have an Oregon LLC on title, you own a property in Utah, you'll have a Utah LLC and tie on title and then those two LLCs are owned by one Wyoming LLC. That's how we like to structure things and the attorneys are going to have a tough time collecting from a Wyoming LLC and so they leave you alone on the LLC. Do you have enough insurance to pay the claim and they'll leave you alone on the LLC is that's how we recommend our clients structure things.   Michael: Okay, and why Wyoming LLC because I know you made a very deliberate point of saying where is formed, what's the point?   Garrett: There are three really good states out there and they compete against each other to be the best which is good for us. Instead of having one federal law that applies to every single state. After the American Revolution, each state wanted their own corporate law and so now we have each state with their own corporate law in Delaware, Wyoming and Nevada compete against each other to be the best. You know, the filing fees every year that come in are pretty good. It helps fund the government. So the reason I like Wyoming over Nevada and Delaware is all three protect the owner of the LLC the charging order is the exclusive remedy and all three, but in Nevada and Delaware the annual fee is $350 a year and in Nevada they list your name on the state website. In Wyoming the annual fee is $62 a year and your name does not show up on the State web site. So Wyoming offers lower cost, better privacy and equal protection. So a lot of our clients set up Wyoming LLCs.   Michael: Yeah, okay, well, I'm sold. So being a California guy, though, this is what I've heard and would love your insights. So I've been told that California they want their piece of the pie. So I've got to register any LLC that I own. In California, because I'm a resident here, I live here, even if it has not doing business, because the way California defines doing business is basically me living here. So if I do I own property in Oregon, I own it with an Oregon LLC, that LLC is owned by the Wyoming LLC, but then I gotta register both of those here in California?   Garrett: No, you raise a very good question. So in our example, we had an Oregon LLC and a Utah LLC and if those were owned by you, as a California resident, we'd have to pay 800, twice, once for Oregon, once for Utah, by having the Wyoming parent there, the Wyoming LLC, and we qualify that one to do business in the State of California. You don't have to pay the 800 for Utah, or Oregon. So that's a way to save the $800 for all the title holding LLCs yes, one of them has to pay right $800 to the state of California and you know, California has gotten a little bit looser, you don't have to pay the 800 the first year, that $800 is a credit on the first $50,000 in profits. So it's not like it's wasted. So, you know, I've had people move from California to Nevada, because of that $800 fee. It's just infuriates people. But there is if you love living in California, there's a way to work it so you have protection, and you don't have to pay $800 for every single LLC you own across the country.   Michael: Okay, fantastic and then in going back to that example, if I've got the I've got to register the Wyoming LLC here in California, do I lose out on any of the anonymity that Wyoming affords me because now it's registered here in California?   Garrett: Yeah, you'd have to list your name in California.   Michael: Okay, all right. Yeah, maybe I will think about moving, who knows? All right, Garrett, in your book, and I want to get really nice here for a minute, because I've got you. You talk about quitclaim deeds versus warranty deeds and I think a lot of our listeners out there have utilized this practice, or have heard about this practice because if you go get a conventional loan from a traditional bank, they won't lend to an LLC. So you go get the name the loan in your name, then transfer the property title to an LLC after the fact, right. In the book, you talk about quitclaim deeds versus a warranty deed, can you give us a little bit of insight into what the difference is and why someone should think about using one versus the other?   Garrett: Well, the warranty deed or the grant deed says, I warrant that I own this property and if I don't, if I transfer it to you, and I don't own it, for some reason, you can sue me. All right. So it's a more powerful deed. The grant deed, the quitclaim deed rather, says, I don't know what I own. But I'm transferring whatever I own to you and the title companies go, well, he quit claimed that property and so that severs the title insurance, right because he didn't know what he had and so we're not going to cover him on it on a quitclaim deed and so and too many people pronounce it quick claim.   Michael: I know, I know.   Garrett: You know, and it's the same deed with a couple of different words in it. But you really always want to use the grant deed or the warranty deed because in many cases, you sever the title insurance, when you use a quitclaim deed, okay, and that's….   Michael: Okay and that’s even if you're going from yourself as an individual owner to an LLC that you own 100% of?   Garrett: Right, yeah, just ask for the grant deed. Also, if you're buying property from someone, you want to insist on a grant deed or a warranty deed, because if they don't deliver the title that they've promised they are going to deliver, you have the ability to sue them for failure to perform.   Michael: Okay, super good to know, super good to know, Garrett, as people who are just getting started on their investment journey, I mean, what's the appropriate time to set up an entity because I've heard people say, I'll do it later. I'm too small. It's too expensive. You know, what are your thoughts there?   Garrett: Right at the start, you know, it's just not that expensive. We do not charge a lot of money to set up LLCs for people. It's very affordable. It's a business expense, you get to write it off. But I'll give you an example Michael and I I've told this story 1000 times, but I was in San Francisco at an event and I gave a talk about asset protection and this lady comes up to me and she goes, Well, I'd like to transfer title. I just bought a duplex and I'd like to transfer title into the name of an LLC. I go, that's a great idea. I go in California, it's $800 per year per entity and she goes, oh, I can't afford that and so I'm giving a talk in San Francisco again and she comes up to me and says, I've been sued by a tenant, I'd like to set up that LLC now. Well, it's too late, right? You know, the tenant rented from you, in your individual name, UX, they have a claim against you as an individual, and they can reach all of your personal assets as a result and once you've been sued, or even threatened to be sued, it's too late to set up an LLC. I mean, you can't put a seatbelt on after the accident. Yeah, right. So you really want to set this up right at the start and I've heard CPAs say, oh, well, you know, just set it up when you can and that's bad advice. I mean, you know, the joke I tell is that CPA stands for can't protect assets. It's just, you need to set this stuff up right now.   Michael: Yeah, yeah. Okay. I think it makes a ton of sense and I love the seatbelt analogy. I think that really hits home for a lot of folks. So as someone that's getting more sophisticated with their investing strategy, what like tools or strategies should they be aware of as they're starting to scale up and they're investing?   Garrett: Well, I think having that Wyoming, LLC is the parent holding LLC is a good strategy. We talked about an Oregon LLC and a Utah LLC owned by one Wyoming LLC and that Wyoming LLC is passive. It's not going to hold real estate, it's not going to do business with anyone, because if someone sued the Wyoming LLC, they could get at Wyoming at the Oregon and the Utah LLC. That's what the Wyoming LLC owes. So that Wyoming LLC is passive, it doesn't do business with anyone because we don't ever want it to be sued. All right. So that's a key strategy in protection. Now, if your clients are holding brokerage accounts, right, bank accounts, gold and silver stock brokerage accounts, in their individual name, the same rules apply. If they get sued personally, and they have all these assets at a Charles Schwab account in their individual name, someone can very easily get those and so what we do is we set up an LLC for the paper assets for the bullion and if you get sued, and that horrific car wreck, they're in an LLC, it's much different, much more difficult for an attorney to get at those because the exclusive remedy in Nevada and Wyoming is what's called the charging order and that is a lien on distributions in the state of California if you own an LLC that owns a piece of real estate in California, the law in California is that the car wreck victim can go to court and the judge can say yes, you've been injured, you can set forth the sale of the duplex. All right, and that is not good asset protection. So we like Wyoming and Nevada where the court says, okay, you have a claim. But here's the remedy that we offer in our state, you are entitled to distributions that come through the LLC, you can't barge in and force the sale of the real estate, you have to wait for distributions to come and that's not a good use of the attorneys time. You know, monitoring if distributions are made there on a contingency fee, they get paid when they collect on the insurance monies. So their time is better spent going to the next case that has insurance. So that Wyoming LLC that offers the charging order remedy, not where they can barge in and force the sale of the real estate but where they have to wait and monitor distributions that go to you. It's a much better system for protection than choosing a weak state like California, Utah is a really weak state, New York is weak. So we have to understand which states are strong and weak and structure your plan accordingly.   Michael: Yeah, interesting and Garrett, talking through all this kind of makes me beg the question of in our Utah, Oregon, Wyoming, California LLC example where the Wyoming LLC owns the properties. There is a holding company rather, if the tenant in Oregon falls and Sue's sues the owner. I mean how far Is this go and where is the court date held, how does that all work?   Garrett: Well, if you, if the tenant has is renting from the Oregon LLC, that's or they're in contract with, so the claim would be tenant would sue the Oregon LLC, the lawsuit would take place in Oregon, right? That's where the property is. That's where the tenant fell. The action stays within the Oregon LLC, it doesn't give the tenant a right to go down to the Wyoming LLC, which is the parent, it doesn't give the tenant the right to go over to the Utah LLC. That's a separate business entity. So the key here is that if the tenant sues, you want to get notice of that lawsuit as soon as possible, right, you want to turn over this claim to your insurance company, so that they can assist in settling the case. Too many people, Michael have this idea that if they use a land trust, where no one will ever know who the owner is, and no one will ever serve you is just nonsense because you want to get notice of the lawsuit as soon as possible. In the Land Trust scenario, they say, well, geez, no one will ever find out who the owner is. Well, what happens is they go to court and they say, Look, we tried to sue the land trust, we couldn't find out who the owner was and the court says, okay, well published notice in the newspaper. So they published it little two point type in the newspaper that We're suing the Oregon LLC, or the Oregon Land Trust, rather and you don't get notice of that either. They go back to court and say we tried to serve them, we published notice in the newspaper, and no one ever showed up. The court says default judgment, meaning the tenant has won and then when they're trying to collect, you know, you find out that you've been sued, the insurance company can say, Well, look, you should have had notice of this lawsuit, we could have defended you, but we're not covering you now. You didn't give us the proper notice and so this whole idea of a land trust and privacy is just nonsense. You want to get notice of a lawsuit, so you can turn it over to your insurance company.   Michael: Yeah, that makes no sense. I guess it's kind of like the ostrich approach like if I stick my head in the ground, I don't see it. I don't hear about it. It's not a problem.   Garrett: Yeah, it is a problem.   Michael: Interesting, okay and Garrett talked to us about some of the different entity structures that are out there. Because there's the C Corp, the S Corp, the single member LLC, multi member LLC, like should we as real estate investors be thinking about utilizing some of these different corporate structures or is really the LLC that that kind of 45 of structures.   Garrett: Pretty much the LLC is the way to go, if you're going to hold real estate, you in some cases, the limited partnership can work. If you're syndicating real estate and you want to absolute control, the limited partnership can work, you're not going to hold title to real estate in a C Corp or an S Corp or any other kind of corporation, tax wise, it's just not the best way to go. So the LLC is pretty much I mean, 98% of our formations for real estate are LLCs. The other 2% would be LPS for syndication purposes, or, you know, for estate planning purposes where mom and dad with an LP, the general partners, which would be another LLC can own as little as 2% and have absolute control over the property. So mom and dad through their LLC have 2% ownership, the limited partnership has 98% ownership owned by the kids as limited partners, and the kids can't force mom and dad to sell the property. So there are cases where the limited partnership works but in the vast majority of cases, it's the LLC that is on title to the real estate.   Michael: Okay. Good to know, good to know. I had another question for it and it totally escaped my mind.   Garrett: Well, how about fail not fail the new book?   Michael: Yeah…   Garrett: You know, people have these promoters out there just say that most wrongheaded stuff about LLC. I mean, they say that you don't need an operating agreement- wrong. They say that you never have to issue stocks or timber membership interests certificates- wrong. So you you'd need to treat your LLC, like a corporation whereby you have to follow these formalities. You have to have the annual meeting, right and the idea that you never have to have a meeting is when you get into a court of law, you're in front of a judge or a jury. I want you to have a minute book with the minutes of every yearly meeting in it and these promoters say, well, you never have to have a meeting. I want you to walk into court and tell the jury, yeah, I ran this property for 12 years and never had a meeting. It just doesn't work.   Michael: It’s not going to fly.   Garrett: It's not going to fly. So you know, the reality is, when you're in a courtroom, the reality is not when you're in office with a promoter telling you don't have to do anything to maintain your LLC. It's just not accurate. Yeah, so that's why I wrote the book, because there's so much misinformation out there about corporate formalities. So with a corporation, you need to follow the corporate formalities and with an LLC, you need to follow the corporate formalities because someone suing can pierce the corporate veil on a corporation, they can pierce the veil on an LLC. It's very, and the rules are not hard to follow. They're really easy. It's just if you don't follow them, they can go through the LLC and reach your personal assets.   Michael: Yeah no, that's such a great point and also, Garrett, I mean, to that point, if someone listening is thinking about reaching out to an attorney for help with forming for entities or restructuring entities, I mean, what are some questions they should be asking and things they should be looking for, with an attorney that they want to put on their team?   Garrett: Well, does the attorney invest in real estate? I mean, I think that's a good question to ask because, you know, I invest in real estate, I've been through the wars and so it just helps you appreciate what the client is going through to have done that yourself. You know, I think some attorneys specialize in personal injury. In contract cases. I mean, you want someone who really knows the ins and outs of LLCs, and appreciates that we have good states and weak states, and that you have to put the combination together to fully protect the client.   Michael: Yeah, that makes total sense and we're recording this, let's see September 2022, what is like the reasonable cost to form an LLC, and then what are any kind of maintenance fees associated with maintaining the LLC?   Garrett: Well, we charge a flat fee of $795, in that, and then the filing fees are on top of that. So Wyoming, for example, is $100. That 795 includes the registered agent for the first year. So you're not paying any extra for that. We also have a system whereby we keep all your documents and if you have lost your operating agreement, we give you a portal where you can go on and download your documents. So we kind of have this backup service for you and then so you pay the 795, the first year, and then the second year, it's already formed, so everything drops down, you only pay 125 to four, the registered agent. Now we give you a book that shows you how to do the minutes because you really should do the minutes every year and even though we give you the book with the forms in it, a lot of people don't do it. So we offer a service where for $150 a year, we'll make sure that your minutes are done and we want to keep you in good standing, we want you to have those annual meeting minutes in your file, just in case you don't want to be in a courtroom and say I never had a meeting.   Michael: Right, it's too late, then like you said, Garrett, this has been super informative and people want to reach out, continue the conversation, take advantage of your services, what's the best way for them to get in touch?   Garrett: Well, they can go to https://corporatedirect.com/schedule/ and set up a free 15 minute consultation with an incorporating specialist that you'll work with this person all the way through the process and they'll give you a quote for what our services entail and you know, just see if there's a fit, we're happy to talk to you and so we set up entities in all 50 states, maybe you're you set up your entity already, it's an LLC, you don't have an operating agreement, you haven't issued the membership certificates. Don't tell anyone but we can clean it up for you. We also offer a registered agent service in all 50 states. So if you've got one company here, one company there we can be your one company to serve as the registered agent in all 50 states. So we'd be happy to help your listeners Michael and you know, have them call corporate direct or go, go visit the website, corporatedirect.com and there's plenty of information and articles there and kind of tells you what we do.   Michael: Amazing. Well, Garrett, thank you so much for that. One final question before I let you out of here. We've said the term a couple times. But for anyone who maybe isn't familiar, can you bring them up to speed on what a Registered Agent is and what the importance is?   Garrett: Well, the Registered Agent is someone in the state where you set up the entity or where you're qualified to do business and the idea is that instead of having someone who's trying to sue you search all over the state of Texas for you, right? The Registered Agent is an address where someone suing, you can go and serve the registered agent with service of process. So it's just it's kind of an efficient way for the justice system to work. It's one place where you can serve an LLC or a corporation, and then they're responsible for forwarding that on to you and so you want to use a reputable registered agent service that knows the importance of a lawsuit, if we get a notice of a service, we're on the phone immediately to our client, because you've only got 30 days to get an attorney and answer that complaint. So you don't want a mom and pop that is going to go out of business or doesn't appreciate the consequences of being served with a lawsuit. So it's an important function and if you fail to pay the Registered Agent, they're going to refuse service a process and then they're, you know, the person suing us is going to go back to court and get, you know, authorization to publish notice in the newspaper, and again, you're not going to get noticed to this cert of the claim. So you want to have that registered agent on your team at all times.   Michael: Yeah, yeah, super great point and the Justice Department looking for efficiencies. That's not something I maybe I've ever heard before. So really exciting stuff.   Garrett: It's something that does exists, so…   Michael: Oh, Garrett, thank you. Again, this was super informative, and I definitely would love to have you back on once your book comes out in November.   Garrett: That sounds great. Thanks, Michael.   Michael: You got it, take care. We'll chat soon.   Garrett: All right.   Michael: All right, everyone, and that was our episode a big thank you to Garrett for coming on. Definitely take advantage of that. 15 minute free consult if you're interested. As always, if you liked the episode, feel free to leave us a rating or review. We'd love to hear from you all and we look forward to seeing on the next one. Happy investing…

Derek Dombeck, a Real Estate Expert hosts and runs the WiscoREIA based out of Wausau, WI. There he coaches and teaches other real estate investors his keys to success. He is currently hosting 3 national Mastermind groups called the R.E. Circle of Trust and puts on an Advanced training and Networking event each winter called The Generations of Wealth Voyage. In the last podcast episode, Derek talked about creative financing solutions for real estate investors. In today’s episode he will be tackling the other side of the coin and will share some insights about private capital, lending and how that plays into real estate investing. Episode Link: https://gowvoyage.com/ --- Transcript Before we jump into the episode, here's a quick disclaimer about our content. The Remote Real Estate Investor podcast is for informational purposes only, and is not intended as investment advice. The views, opinions and strategies of both the hosts and the guests are their own and should not be considered as guidance from Roofstock. Make sure to always run your own numbers, make your own independent decisions and seek investment advice from licensed professionals.   Michael: Hey, everyone, welcome to another episode of the Remote Real Estate Investor. I'm Michael Albaum and today with me, I have Derek Dombeck again on the podcast and for those of you who missed his first episode, I highly recommend you going back and giving that a listen. But Derek is the owner of best REIA funding a private lender, he's also an investor. So today, we're gonna be talking about private lending, and also what we need to know as investors and how to utilize it. So let's get into it.   Derek, what's going on, man? Good to see you. Thanks for coming back on the pod.   Derek: Yeah, absolutely. Glad to be back.   Michael: I'm super excited to have you on. So last time, we talked about creative financing solutions for real estate investors. Now we're going to be tackling kind of the other side of the coin and so talk to us about private capital and lending and how that plays into real estate investing.   Derek: Well, I like to talk to our clients that are coming to us for loans in more along the lines of what how would they want to structure if they were the lender? So it makes more sense to them why are we asking for what we're asking for? We design our company, primarily because we were borrowers ourselves, and we want to do it in a way that would be probed by our borrower, but still safe for our investors. So a couple examples, we don't collect monthly payments, we don't collect interest payments, we let it accrue. Very, very few lenders do that. The methodology is that when you're when you're the lender, and a payment is missed or late, that gives you an indication of something could be going wrong with the loan and that's true. But we don't want to have to collect payments every month on 175 outstanding loans, which is typically what we're carrying at any given point in time. It's another staff member that we would have to have basically just to do that do collections. So as a borrower when I was borrowing the money, that's what I would have wanted, right? As a lender, it's different. So a lot of times I'm trying to have these conversations with our borrowers, as I mentioned, in a way that shows them that we're their ally, we're not just somebody sitting across the big fancy desk with a, you know, a suit and tie on looking down their noses at them. We want them to really realize that we are their business partner, in one way, shape, or form. Most interactions with borrowers if they've never met me before, it just starts out with a brief overview of our loan program and I often tell them, well, if you were going to be the lender, if it was your money, what would you want to see happen, especially if they're, you know, if your listeners are out there trying to apply for loans. There's three things two to three things that I think are super important. First one is whether they're going to a bank, a hard money lender, or a private lender, or their great uncle, have all of your documentation ready to go. At the I mean, at the drop of the phone, right? Like we get off the phone, bam, you can submit it. What drives every lender crazy is when they send stuff in piecemeal. You know, and we always have to ask for it and then we have to remind them and follow up that makes you look so foolish in the eyes of a lender. Okay, another thing for us, we don't require appraisals, but most people do. So, and we don't require appraisals in our loans, because I don't trust appraisers. They have no skin in the game, we have way more experience. But we're in a niche lending market of lending on rehabs and some appraisers may never have picked up a hammer in their life. How do they know what the after repair value is going to be based off of a scope of work? You know, if I get a scope of work that's submitted on an application and they claim they're gonna put a brand new kitchen in for $2,000 I'm gonna call bull ** because I know what it cost to put in a low end, middle end or high end kitchen. But again, as a borrower trying to help your listeners in that regard. If you're going to an appraiser or you're coming to us and we don't require appraisals, but having your data somewhere you had to come up with your numbers, right? When you made your offer to buy the property, I want to see, an appraiser may not want to because some of them don't necessarily like to help. But I want to see, because, you know, some of them are just arrogant. Let's be honest at it.   Michael: It's the ego play, yeah…   Derek: It's an ego play. But for me, it's not for me, it's required. I want to see those comps, or CMA, or a BPO, from a real estate broker, something to show me how did you come up with your valuations? If it's going to be a rental property, where's your cash flow analysis, you wouldn't believe it how many times we get applications in and they want to rent borrow money from our short term to fix the property, get a tenant in there and then refinance. But yet they have not talked to any long term lenders, typically banks to even know what their refinance terms would be or if they'd be able to get refinanced. They haven't done a cash flow analysis. Again, have everything ready for your lender as much as possible, right? Gosh, what else as a borrower, you know, coming in with a backup plan, a plan B, is so crucial. Our job as the lender is to expect you to fail and every question we ask is, is asked, because we want to know, if something goes wrong? Can we either take the property back or lien against the, you know, the borrower to get our money back? I mean, that's what it's all about. We are asset based lenders, banks are gonna look at the asset and their income, every lender is a little different.   But the bottom line is, can we protect our investors’ money? Can we protect our money and if that borrower walked out of closing, sign the papers and got hit by a bus and died? Can we recoup our money, right? Borrowers don't think that way. Borrowers think sun shines, and sunshine and unicorns, right. Nothing's ever gonna go wrong, the project is going to be on time on budget, we're gonna get under budget. You know, it's total bul****. But that's, that's our jobs to explain that to them in a way that's, you know, we're not trying to drive them from our business, we want to do business with everybody, that's got to legit good deal. But they've also got to be realistic and the number one, two spots that most borrowers come in sunshine and unicorns, their budget is too low on their renovations, and their comps are too high. So they want to use the top comps and we don't, why don't we because the markets shift. Now, if they came in on evaluation, I'm going to use Wisconsin numbers, you know, because that's what I'm used to, if they come in with an after repair value of $200,000 and I look at the comps that they submitted to me and there was one house that sold for 200,000. But the majority of them sold for 175. Which one do you think is the lender want to use?   Michael: Yeah, the 175.   Derek: Right, so we're going to lend based on 175. Now, that means they're going to have to put some of their own or more of their own money into the deal. If they sell for 200 bonus for them. That's great, I hope they can. But as the lender, we can't live on hopes and dreams, we got to live on reality and what happens most of the time is they're trying to come in with as little money out of their pocket as possible by using the highest comps, the lender takes on all the risk, which is why we use the middle of the road comps and I don't go to the very low end either. But we're using the middle and again, if they have to put in 10 20,000 extra dollars, and they're confident in their numbers, they shouldn't have a problem putting in 10 to 20,000 extra because according to them, it's going to sell for 200 they should get their money back and then some but when you start changing that or having that conversation with them. Boy, it's amazing when they have to use their own money, how they start to sing a little bit different tune.   Michael: Yeah. Interesting. So it's almost like you have to protect them from themselves.   Derek: Absolutely and we will tell them that I mean, there's plenty of times where we have just flat out told people you should walk away from this deal. Like we want to do business with you in the future. We want to give you a loan, but you are setting yourself up for failure on this deal and most lenders wouldn't typically do that most lenders will just say, we're only comfortable lending up to x, go ahead and do the deal and then when they fail, the lender will take the property back and the lender is in good position depending on loan to value. But we don't, I don't really like that model. I mean, it's certainly not our model and at the end of the day, if I take care of that investor, and I save them from themselves this time, hopefully when they come back around, they're more educated, and they bring us a really great loan, they've got a really great project. That's what it's supposed to be all about.   Michael: Yeah, yeah. Well, let's talk about that for a minute, Derek. So it sounds like the things that you asked for, from your borrowers. It's really an opportunity for them to showcase their experience level that they've taught, crossed, the T's dotted the eyes and really thought about it and in very proactive in that, what if someone's just getting started? I mean, how much hand holding should someone expect from their lender or can they expect from their lender to help them get to a point where they're feeling confident or do you tell people hey, you know, go kind of skin, your knees somewhere else, and then come back to us when you're a little bit more polished?   Derek: So the answer is, it depends. There's, most lenders out there do not want to deal with brand new people. I mean, it's just a reality of life. We are different in that regard, too because we may say to the applicant, alright, we want you to partner with somebody, and that person has to have, you know, we'd like to see at least three deals worth of experience. Now, I don't care if they get mentored for free, or if they split the deal 50-50. I don't care what that partnership looks like. But we would like to see somebody with experience that is backing this deal and if they can't do that, or they don't want to do that, then we typically would say sorry, but we can't lend on this deal right now and if they don't know anyone else, which happens, we have an extensive network throughout the state. So we can pretty much in any market, we can line them up with somebody that would be willing to, to mentor them and get some feedback from them. So but I don't think there's a whole lot of lenders that would do that much hand holding… Yeah, you know.   Michael: And that makes sense to walk us through because you're a private money lender. So you are kind of this middle person where you take investor money, and then lend it out to other investors that are that buying real estate. So when the Fed talks about interest rate hikes are this sort of thing? Like, how do you set your pricing and what should listeners be expecting if they're going to private lenders in terms of rates, right now, we're recording this almost near early September and August 2022. What are you seeing an image of you'll be expecting.   Derek: So it's very volatile, depending on where you are in the country, and how much competition there is, we certainly have national, hard money lenders that are that are, you know, advertising, much cheaper rates than we offer. But they sell off their loans. Almost many before the ink was even dry. They're white labeling almost everything, which means that there's a hedge fund or another note buyer, that is fronting the cash to close the loan and at the closing table, that loan gets transferred and you know, the person that you signed the paperwork with may still be the servicer of the loan. So you may not even realize it's been sold off. But most of the national lending companies, that's what they do. The challenge with that is, when the borrower gets to any kind of a challenge, we'll call it with their loan, maybe they need an extension, or something's just going terribly bad. Those lenders are not going to be willing to work with them because they don't own the loan anymore. It's gone. It's in some hedge fund on Wall Street, and it's just a number. It's just a loan number, they don't care. They just okay, you failed, get out, we'll take your property. As private lenders, we don't currently we don't sell off any of our loans.   We are 100% privately backed, so I don't have any institutional money at all. That has their thumb on us telling us what we can and can't do and our investors are all individual people there, some are mom and pop. Some are, you know, a little bit higher net worth individuals, but we can have conversations with them. So for example, let's just assume that the markets crashed and 20% of our portfolio defaulted and we had to go take these properties back well, if the market isn't really viable, viable option to sell them off and be made whole, we can go to our investors and we've done this with all of our investors. Prior to them even getting started with us, we have this conversation, but we can go to them say, okay, you know, we still myself, my business partner still run a full time real estate acquisition company, we have rentals, we have everything in place. So we're gonna have to take these, you know, whatever it is 20, 30, 40 properties, and we're going to lease them out and we're going to just collect rents until the market comes back and our investors are, that's not their first choice, but they're okay with it, because they know it's a Plan B, I mentioned that before, you know, the, the borrower's don't want to come in with a plan B or Plan C, we've got that in place with all of our investors upfront and, you know, we pay our investors 9% currently, maybe they would have to agree to go down to 7% or 8%, it would have to look at the cash flow numbers. But that's still better than the alternative of losing money.   Michael: At zero, yeah, zero or negative.   Derek: As far as rates are concerned with us, what we pay our investors dictates what we charge and at 9%, we've got a three to four point spread on interest rate. So we charge 12%, throughout the bulk of the state of Wisconsin, and we charge 13%, currently in Milwaukee and it's really just to be 100% honest with you and your listeners, Milwaukee, we could probably charge more, because our competition is charging 15%. So we don't really have any intentions of increasing our rates, we don't have a lot of junk fees, that's another thing your listeners really should consider looking at when we're looking at any lender, the interest rates might be much, much better, but their junk fees, I know of a lender within my state, who charged something like $3,500 to get paid off. In order for you to pay the loan off, you had to pay a payoff fee, which is asinine. We see a lot of lenders that are charging several $100 to do a construction draw, or a loan or an escrow draw for your construction proceeds, that's your money as the borrower and you now have to pay three, four or $500 to get your money out of escrow. It's crazy, you know…   Michael: I've seen that.   Derek: All these fees are they're nuts. We do charge an extension fee if they go past our six month term and it's equal equals to what if we weren't able to redeploy that money and another 12% in three origination points. So for an extension fee, for us, it's a point per month, up to three more months. Why because we want that money back to redeploy it. So we could charge three more points, right? So but it's not some 10 points in some crazy, crazy astronomical numbers, it's really just trying to get our same level return on our money, whether it's extended or redeployed to a new loan.   Michael: Okay and people listening might be getting excited about using private money, because it sounds like so much more flexible, and just investor friendly. Other people might be a little bit scared hearing this and so I'm wondering if you can talk to if those people are listening, can they get involved on the investor side of things where they're funding other people's deals, and just clipping that 9% coupon or whatever the return is?   Derek: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, if whether it's with me or with somebody else, I'm more than happy to talk to anybody about it and if you invest with us, you do if you don't, I don't, that's fine. But I would say there's some very important things that everyone should know if you went and borrowed money from your family. Okay, so maybe they're talking about a private lender being an individual that they have relationship with, or they might be using somebody's retirement account. I've seen this happen so many times, it makes me cringe. There was a couple young couple, I mentored them years ago, now they're, they're super successful, but they were just getting into the business and they were, they bought a flip house and they said, We borrow the money from my uncle at 2% and we can pay it back when we sell the house. So that's fantastic. That you know, this was back before 2% was popular, right? Yeah and I said, okay, did you put a note and a mortgage in place to protect your uncle and they said, no, he didn't care. He just said, pay me back when you get it, you know, when you get the money? I said, okay, do you have the property insurance? You know, the listing them? In case the place burns to the ground? Nope. Did you get them title insurance? Nope. All these things like they did not protect their family at all. So picture them getting sued by a contractor or anybody. Here's a free and clear property without a recorded mortgage against it and not and they lose it. Let's say we lose a lawsuit property gets taken away from them. Now they still owe their uncle all this money, and he had nothing to protect himself or we go back to the they get hit by a bus walking out of the title company, right?   Property, the money's gone, the money went to whoever they bought the property from, how does that family member collect or get their money back, if they don't have a mortgage in place, they can't foreclose on the property... So I just caution, anybody that's, you know, on the borrower side, that's going to borrow money from friends or family, make sure you always get title insurance to protect your lender. You know, the property insurance, the lender should be listed as a lender, not as an additional insured, there's a big difference and, you know, go through a title company, go through a closing attorney, make sure everything's aboveboard note mortgage in place, or deed of trust, depending on your state because you're just, I mean, you're hurting your family if you don't do it the right way. So always, always, always protect your lender, no matter what and if you're going to take a loss on a property or a project, I don't care what it takes, you make sure your lender is made whole, because we've lent money to people that screwed up their deals, but they took care of us and next time around, we lent the money again but you got to take care of your lenders. On the other side of it, if you want to be a lender, there's a lot that you have to consider just the whole underwriting of the deal. Is it a good deal? Is it not a good deal and how are you going to make sure that you get paid back are you going to have third party that goes there and make sure that the property is being managed, right, or if it's rehab, or you're gonna have somebody that's checking on the project and releasing money on construction escrow drawers. If you do want to collect monthly payments, who's going to do that who's going to service the loan. So there's a lot of things that it don't get me wrong, it's a great business, but there's a lot of things that people don't necessarily think about and I've seen it happen enough times where, you know, somebody has 100 200 $300,000 sitting around, and they just do a handshake deal, and lend the money to somebody, again, not getting the proper documentation in place. We had one ***hole and I say that, because he really was an ***hole, he took money out of his disabled brothers, IRA, to fund a rehab project and he had three other lenders on that project and he never he told his lenders, he was going to record all their mortgages for them and he never recorded the mortgages and it turned into this in this really nasty lawsuit. But he lost his disabled brothers IRA in that transaction and he's just the snake, you know, and they're out there. But you got to protect yourself. You know, I still believe in taking somebody at their word and believing the handshake. But that doesn't mean you don't write down and memorialize what you just shook hands about.   Michael: Right and if someone wants to get involved in the lending side of things, but you know what, you just said, what you just shared kind of makes them a little bit gun shy, or they want to have someone else take care of the day to day operations. I mean, are there businesses that they can plug into it? So here, take my money, pay me a return, I don't want to hear about it or know about what you're doing with it.   Derek: I mean, there is there's a lot of crowdfunding companies that you know, that became very popular. It seems to have died off here lately. You know, I don't hear as much or see as much marketing about crowdfunding. I would say the best way to do it is either find somebody in your local market at a RIA meeting, or, you know, a meetup group or even online, Bigger Pockets or something like that. But you got to spend some time getting to know who you're doing business with and, you know, Google the hell out of them, do background checks, all that kind of stuff. I invite anybody to Google me I have nothing to hide. You know, I'm never I just, I never tried to screw anybody over you know, and I mean, yeah, and it shows. But at the end of the day, you've got to know, this is I don't think this will ever circle back around. But I was invited to be on somebody else's podcast and I won't say the name. But then that gentleman was having a four day online conference and he asked me to speak for 90 minutes on this conference and I said, yeah, absolutely, I'd love to do it. He was expecting, you know, four or 500 people and so I was gonna send it out to my email list and help advertise it for him and it wasn't out there for 30 minutes, and two of my closest friends, one being a really good attorney were emailing me saying, Have you lost your fricking marbles? Like this guy is the biggest con artist and scammer there is and he actually the attorney sent me case studies of actual cases that this guy lost, and how he's not in jail, I don't know and I was just, you know, took and took him at his word. He's got a reputable podcast, right? So I'll go and speak on his conference. Well, who will you associate with can reflect very horribly on you, especially on social media. So I didn't mark it to anybody at that point, I still, I still spoke because I said I would and I believe in you know, I gave my word and I and there was a lot of other speakers at that event that were good. But I would never do business with that man and so that's the same thing. If you're going to lend money, or you're going to borrow money. Do you want to borrow money from a lender that doesn't want to be flexible if you run into trouble? Yeah, for us, we've only had to foreclose on nine properties in the last 10 or 11 years of lending, which is, is very, very, very low as far as the default rate. That's not to say we haven't had other people that had problems because we have, we have borrowers that have problems every week. But we're there to help them work through it, versus the lender, that's lending money as a backdoor way of getting properties.   Michael: It's a much more adversarial relationship.   Derek: Right, so you got to vet your lender, no different than if you were vetting somebody that you're going to invest with, we have a very clear in writing no ***holes policy within our company. I swear to God! Michael: I love it.   Derek: If I have somebody that and this has happened, I've had people that had several million dollars that approached us and said, We want to invest in your company and after half an hour, 45 minutes of talking with them, we just knew they were going to be the biggest pain in our *** and we turned them down. Same thing with our borrowers. If our borrowers stopped communicating with us, and stop doing what we agreed for them to do, then the ***holes  policy kicks in and we will have to default we will have to foreclose or at least we're not going to give them a loan next time. But the life is a lot better when you wake up in the morning and enjoy doing what you're doing and dealing with people that are not fun to deal with takes away from that. Yeah, we just don't do it. You just avoid it entirely. So I'd love to work with any of your listeners, unless they're an  *hole. Don't call me.   Michael: Okay, fair enough. Fair enough. Derek, on that note for people that do want to reach out that do want to work with you that have more questions about private lending, what's the best way for them to do so?   Derek: My, my personal email address is Derek spelled DEREK, @ bestreifunding.com (Derek@bestreifunding.com)  and I keep an eye on my own emails, my if I miss something, my assistant will grab it. But I'd love to chat with anybody that's got questions and again, it's this isn't a sales pitch. I mean, if somebody just says legit questions about lending, and they have no intentions of wanting to work with me as an investor, whatever, that's totally fine. I don't it's not about that for me and then the other thing I'm writing a book right now about lending in from start to finish. What happens when an application comes in all the way through closing and servicing after the fact and that's going to be coming out towards the tail end of the year, November December it'll be published. So I'd love to give your listeners that for free the electronic version for free.   Michael: Awesome.   Derek: So they just send me an email that same email address (Derek@bestreifunding.com) , and say, hey, I heard you on this podcast and put you on the list when the books published we'll get it out to you.   Michael: Fantastic. Thank you so much and I just have an ask for all of our listeners that do reach out to Derek if you wouldn't mind please referencing that you heard him on the Remote Real Estate Investor in the subject line. So he knows where you're coming to him from. That would be super helpful.   Derek: Absolutely.   Michael: Well, Derek, this was great, man. Thank you again for coming on the show. Really appreciate it and I'm sure we'll be chatting soon. Can't wait, can't wait to read the book.   Derek: Yeah, I can't wait to finish the book because it's great when you're writing a book, except some weeks are more stressful than others trying to hit deadlines and stuff. So I'm looking forward to it, but I'm really looking forward to it being done, too.   Michael: I can imagine I can imagine. Well, hey, man, we'll definitely be in touch soon.   Derek: Awesome. Thanks so much for having me.   Michael: You got it, take care.   All right, everyone. That was our episode, a big thank you to Derek for coming on again and sharing his time and knowledge with us. As always, if you enjoyed the episode, feel free to give us a rating or review wherever it is eat your podcasts, and we look forward to seeing in the next one. Happy investing…

Raising finance for new real estate projects is difficult. Property development firms face interest rates as high as 29% when working with banking institutions as single-source loan providers. They also face challenges with multiple loan sources as crowd financing can be difficult to administer. Blockchain simplifies access to alternative financing models by facilitating investor management for developers and ensuring investment transparency and continuous ROI tracking for investors. In today’s episode Goeffrey Thompson, Chief Blockchain Officer of Roofstock, and Sanjay Raghavan, Head of Structured Securities and Co-head of Digital Securities Initiative, walk us through what blockchain technology is and how they are tokenizing properties in a revolutionary way to buy and sell property.     Episode Link: https://onchain.roofstock.com/ https://twitter.com/rsonchain --- Transcript Before we jump into the episode, here's a quick disclaimer about our content. The Remote Real Estate Investor podcast is for informational purposes only, and is not intended as investment advice. The views, opinions and strategies of both the hosts and the guests are their own and should not be considered as guidance from Roofstock. Make sure to always run your own numbers, make your own independent decisions and seek investment advice from licensed professionals.   Michael: What's going on everyone? Welcome to another episode of the Remote Real Estate Investor. I'm Michael Albaum and today I'm joined by Geoffrey Thompson, who's the chief blockchain Officer here at Roofstock and Sanjay Raghavan, who's the head of web three initiatives here at Roofstock and we're gonna be talking today about what blockchain is, and how it applies to us as real estate investors. So let's get into it.   Goeff, and Sanjay, thank you so much for hanging out with me today. I am super excited to chat with you both.   Sanjay: Likewise.   Goeff: Thank you for having us, thank you.   Michael: No, absolutely, absolutely. So I know a little bit, obviously, who you guys are because we work together. But for anyone who isn't familiar with you. Give us a quick and dirty description who you are, and what is it that you're doing at Roofstock? Goeff, I'll kick it over to you first.   Goeff: Sure. So I'm Goeffrey Thompson. I currently have the title of Chief blockchain Officer at Roofstock. Previously, I was General Counsel and I've been a lawyer for by training for a long time and now heading up the blockchain initiative at rootstock together with Sanjay.   Michael: Awesome, great.   Sanjay: I'm Sanjay, head of web three initiatives. Previously, I was leading securities initiatives at roof stock coming up on actually three years this week. So super exciting tomorrow, I think.   Michael: Right on, so really quick follow up questions for you both. Jeff. Were you just like a crypto guy in your everyday life? I mean, how does a real out as a lawyer turn into a blockchain official at a company at the C suite level? I mean, that's incredible.   Goeff: Yeah, I kind of backed into it. That wasn't a plan but I had been advising friends. Since 2017, during the ICO boom, the initial coin offering boom, and I started hearing people in my network, talk about it and say things like, oh, well, it's not a security because it's a coin. So you don't have to follow the securities laws, you know, and I thought, I don't get a lot of the technical stuff that talking about, but I know I can help them with the legal stuff. So then I just I was acting as legal advisor for a couple of years and, and then Gary, our CEO knew that and last year, maybe 12 months ago or a little bit more, our board came to our CEO and said, you guys, Roofstock, you need to get smart on blockchain. We're not saying you have to do it. But you know, we want you to have an idea of whether there's something there and so he asked me and Sanjay, because he knew I had some crypto background and there's a lot of legal and obviously, the financial structure is critical as well, so we kind of got into it together.   Michael: Awesome and Sanjay, at the risk of sounding like a total rookie, what the hell is web three man, I hear so much about it. Break it down for us.   Sanjay: All right. So I know it's so web low. So let's take a step back, right. So web one, which was kind of the first incarnation of the internet, right? There were sites that had static information, you could like type a URL, URL and go and, like, consume that information. But that's all you could do is just a read only type of a platform and then a few years later, the internet evolved to kind of web two, which widely is known as the read write version of the internet. So not only could you consume information, but you could go and, you know, provide information and content to the internet as well as a consumer and what happened with web two was it you know, that ability to read and write created all kinds of new interactions, and that allowed a lot of kind of the internet economy to bloom around it, where the Googles and the apples and eBays and other large companies were able to curate a lot of the content and manage a lot of the traffic. But you know, with social media and stuff, you are providing content as well, and you are consuming content, there was ecommerce, so a lot of these things came about, but the power resided with a very few large corporations that kind of controlled all of these transactions and the when, when web one started, the kind of original vision behind it was a more collaborative environment, where the consumers and the creators and consumers could actually work with each other and use a token economy and share you know, revenue and monetization. So that idea of you know, read, write and then adding on to it at the end. So it's a read write own type of economy that's decentralized. permissionless trustless has its own native payment rails, where the content creators and con Then consumers are all working together and you know, there's no power resting with large corporations, but it's, you know, giving power back to the people. So that's how that's how I would sort of succinctly describe, three and it's so it's a sort of a new way of thinking about things and it's super exciting.   Michael: Yeah it does sound super exciting and so give us all like a background again, treat me like a third grader, because that's probably my IQ level when it comes to the crypto and blockchain world. Give us all an idea of like, what is blockchain and what is cryptocurrency and then we'll get in maybe on how to be thinking about it. With regard to the real estate space and why it even belongs here you don't think this…   Goeff: Yep, sure, so the core concept for blockchain is that it's a network that can be validated the data that's recorded onto the network, which is the chain can be validated by an a limitless number of third parties who aren't organized or connected in any other way. So these are called validators I could have when you could have when they just computers that read the information that's coming in from the blockchain, they perform some mathematical calculations, and then they verify that the data that's been submitted is, is what it says it is and then at that point, it's formalized and recorded to the block and then, so these blocks are really just pieces of data, data that had been put together and then as you form one block after another, that becomes the chain. So it's really just a chain of data that's been validated by third parties that are completely decentralized. So why is that important because it means that there's no third party, a corporation or government, whoever it might be, that can intervene in the functioning of the blockchain, once it's up and running, and you have enough people who are validating and writing to the to the system, it goes infinitely, and it can't be shut down and so the first use case that really grabbed a lot of attention was payments, right? That's what Sanjay was alluding to, in the early you know, the current web two universe, you don't have an easy way to send value to another person without going through a bank or a financial services company, Blockchain, Bitcoin allows you to do that, it's just simply on the on the chain, if you have value in the in the form of Bitcoin, you can send it to any other address anywhere in the world, instantaneously and no one can stop you from doing that. So this really arose from kind of an idealistic perception, like, we have to be able to have to guarantee our own freedom, you know, the government can't intervene and prevent me from sending money to you and that's where, you know, it came from, like the sophisticated cryptographers mathematicians who had an idealistic view, and that's where Bitcoin came from and then since then, it's expanded to a lot more utility, where you can do much, many more things other than just send payments. You can, you know, NFT, you can have lending platforms, you can have social media companies that are effectively on a blockchain and can't be shut down or controlled by third party. So that's, you know, that's the overview of kind of where it came from and why it's important today. Sanjay, anything to add?   Sanjay: Yeah, no, taking a step from there right and that's exactly right, Geoffrey, the original idea was, you know, this all came about during the great financial crisis of 2008 2000, you know, 10 or so, where people thought that these, you know, financial intermediaries are, you know, in control of our lives and so Bitcoin kind of, you know, that was the reason why it came about as a peer to peer system where you can exchange value without involving these intermediaries. But then over the years, we've kind of seen that world expand rapidly and there's other cryptocurrencies now and one of the notable ones is Ethereum and on the Ethereum network, there's actually the ability to create what's known as a smart contract and a smart contract is essentially a piece of computer code that will execute based on a certain event occurring and why that is important is if you think about it from a disintermediation perspective, you know, in a transaction where two parties are involved, and party A needs to provide a good or service and party B needs to make a payment for that. You need a way to make sure that both parties are adhering to their portion of the agreement, or contract, right and so oftentimes, what happens in the financial services world is, in order to make sure that both parties are compliant with their aspects of the contract. You create an intermediary in the middle that takes that position of collecting information or payment from both parties and sending it across and a very common example of this in real estate. Michael, you as a, an owner of, you know, dozens of properties, you've gone through this process many, many times. But you there's an escrow agent involved exactly what I was thinking sure that, you know, right, the property title moves over to, you know, the buyer and the money goes to the seller, right. But imagine you had a piece of computer software that executed on a sale, and it made sure that the two parties were both appropriately receiving what they were expected to receive and there was no intermediary involved in this process. So this, this all executed, basically on the click of a button, right? Like that would be game changing in the real estate world and that's what we're trying to do now with through stock on chain.   Michael: Holy crap. For anybody who's not watching this video, I just didn't pick up my jaw up off the floor, because that was totally a game. So I have so many questions, I want to take just a step back and so Goeff, you were talking about this, these validations that can be done by any number of people. So I'm thinking about like a real world example. So if I go to the store, and I buy something with my credit card, I put down my credit card, they give me the goods and then in this case, would the validator be like the credit card company that says, look, this is the charge that like how do I think about that from like a traditional example.   Goeff: That's exactly right, the validator or usually there are multiple, but they'll they play the function of the credit card company. But instead of sending your data and the transaction data to the credit card company, where the credit, you know, the data goes to the credit card company, the credit card company says okay, this person has credit and the transaction is now going to be posted on their account, and then they send the okay back to the merchant. Instead, the merchant would send the data to a blockchain, the blockchain validators would pick up that transaction, they would validate that, you know, all of the details are the same. Usually, it's a small number of validators that have to agree on the transaction details to make sure that there aren't, you know, nothing's been missed and then once they've reached that consensus, whether that's five or 10, validators, or whatever it may be at that point, then it goes back to the merchant and as it says, The Merton now the blockchain has been updated to show that this transaction occurred, Goeff, or you or whoever was spending the money now no longer has that money. So I had that money in Bitcoin. I gave it to the merchant, the merchant side of the blockchain and said, hey, guys, can you verify that you're debiting Goeff’s account and you're adding it to my account? Everyone said, okay, verified, validated, coming back. Now, I can't spend that money, I don't have it anymore and it's in your account. So that's, you know, a high level how that would work.   Michael: Okay   Sanjay: And a couple of more things there, right. Like, if you, you know, credit card transactions for small dollar values is one example. But if you look at larger dollar values, and there's ACH transactions that take three or four days to get validated through the banking system, a wire transaction, if you're trying to buy a house, and you need to make a wire payment, you're rushing to the nearest retail brand, scheduling an appointment to go into the wire, right?   Michael: It's such a pain.     Sanjay: It is all such a pain and like, imagine you had a way 24/7, right, like, you're looking at, you're browsing a site today, you find a property you really like, you want to buy that property, it's Sunday night at 10pm. You just click the button, and you know, your wallet says you have enough money and the smart contract validates that you have the money transfer property over to you, right, like imagine a world that's like that, where you don't have to worry about waiting three or four days for an ACH or running to your bank and getting an appointment waiting in line to get a wire done and it's all literally you're doing all this from your computer, click of a button 24/7 AMS and payments do anywhere in the world.   Goeff: And the cost is in most cases, negligible. You know, the wire fee is whatever 35 $50 It takes a day, you know, some amount of time to process ACH could be clawed back. The claw back concept that exists with ACH that doesn't happen in blockchain that doesn't exist. Like once it's final, it's validated, it's done and you could, you know, a simple payment transaction might cost from a few cents to a few bucks, but it's not going to be anywhere near the cost of a wire transfer.   Sanjay: And the transaction is immutably recorded on the blockchain, nobody can contest it, because you can go and open up that transaction on the blockchain and say, these two parties agreed to this transaction and it's hot, you know, it was hashed on the blockchain and there's this unique hash that represents this transaction, right. So there's no disputing later on. The parties agree that transaction gets done, it's instantaneously recorded and so that that makes this platform as a technology choice. You have innumerable number of possibilities because once you have those types of payment rails, you can build all kinds of applications around it.   Michael: This is insane, you guys. So like, we were talking about the validators and Goeff, you were saying, whatever, four or five or 10 validation points and people are doing it. So is it literally like people on their computer going, like watching their screen for these payments going back and forth or is this happening automatically?   Goeff: No, it can happen. It happens, it's automatic. Yeah, you set up a server that has the right hardware, there are different hardware and software requirements for different blockchains. But it runs silently in the background, or in some cases, it's, it's loud, because there are a lot of fans this morning.   Michael: I heard that, yeah…   Goeff: Yeah, but it's happening 24/7 In the background, and, and in most cases, it's just set or forget, set and forget, you don't have to be online all the time, doing anything manually.   Sanjay: And one other thing I wanted to point out was, you know, obviously, with banks, you can go there on weekends, after hours bank holidays and such, but even a MasterCard or Visa, if they're having a problem with their servers or something, you can have outages where you know, for a couple of hours, you're not able to do any credit card transactions, right? Whereas on the blockchain, that doesn't happen, right because there's blocks can be like, even if my computer was one of the validators, but for whatever reason, it's not working right now there are hundreds of other computers that are doing the same thing that are waiting to pick up the next block and compute it and solve the puzzle and so, you know, as Goeff was saying earlier, once the blockchain is up and running, and there's, you know, enough infrastructure in terms of validators that support that blockchain, you know, it's then it's permanently out there, and it's you can shut it down.   Michael: So that kind of brings to my next question and so you both are talking about this decentralization aspect and I think I've heard so much about the crypto world, it's like getting away from big banks and government and that sort of thing. But if this information is, I mean, it's public at this point, right? When I, Goeff, when I send you money or buy a service from you, it's now public information.   Sanjay: Just to just to clarify on that, right, the part of the information that's public is that this wallet address transacted with this other wallet address. But it's not necessarily public that, you know, Michael transacted with Goeff, right. So what's publicly stored is just the, you know, so, you know, when we talk about privacy, oftentimes, people use the words privacy and anonymity interchangeably, but they're two different things, right? You know, in one example, where there's just two wallets transacting with each other, you both still have full anonymity but the privacy concerning the fact that the transaction occurred between two wallets, that may be public information, but that's the kind of subtle.   Michael: Got it, yeah okay. Okay, that makes total sense, because, well, I was going with the question is, if I send Jeff money for a service, I mean, that could be a taxable event on the traditional world, like, if you were a credit card company, or you were a merchant, I send you that you have sales tax to pay. So I'm imagining government's point to the me sending you money and say, well, now we're going to tax it. But Sanjay, what you're saying is that the actual dollar amount, or what it was for, might not be available to them, all they could see was, someone sent money to someone else, end of story…   Sanjay: We use you the amount of money that went from a to b, but you don't like people don't automatically know who a and who B where the US are going as far as…   Michael: Or what it's for…   Sanjay: Right, in the US people are required, basically to report their own earnings and that's, you know, whether it's on the in the crypto side or non-crypto side, but, you know, you're required to report your earnings and in other countries and jurisdictions, they've passed laws where crypto transactions are not necessarily taxable. So, like, if you bought Bitcoin for, you know, $5,000 and sold it for $20,000, you may not have capital gains taxes in other jurisdictions in the US we do and that's, you know, self-reported, for the most part,   Michael: This is so nuts. Okay, so, taking one more step forward, we're talking about these coins. We talked about Bitcoin, and we mentioned Ethereum, as well, what gives these things of value? Is it just that we have generally I mean, the same thing can be said for the dollar, it's enough people have accepted or any currency have enough people have bought into this idea that this piece of paper that has an old president's face on it is worth what we've decided it's worth, same thing for Bitcoin and Ethereum.   Goeff: Exactly the same. All right, yeah. Nothing else. There's nothing else to we, you know, we all agree today that Bitcoin is worth 20,000. If it goes up, then you know, that's literally the market price. It's set by the people in the market who are transacting on a you know, every second and so it's a very clear pricing mechanism.   Sanjay: In a way you know, it's pure demand and supply that drive pricing for the these types of alternative currencies or crypto currencies, the dollar, for example, you know, we price $1 bill to be worth $1, right and so you will always be able to redeem $1 for $1. But, you know, inflation and other characteristics might make it less valuable to you, right like if a loaf of bread was 50 cents, and now it's $1, you know, you're paying more money to get it, but you know, you're not paying more bills necessarily, you know, like, the dollar bill is always $1 Bill, right? Whereas, one, one Bitcoin or one Ethereum, its value can go up over time, almost like the stock market, right? If you're looking at a share of Microsoft, it's $100 today, but because we all think Microsoft is very valuable, or Apple is very valuable, and the next iPhone is the most sexiest thing that's come out, and therefore, you know, we think we should, you know, put more value to the Apple stock, right? So the concept is similar with Bitcoin and Ethereum. It's simply people that are there are people who are, you know, buyers, and then there's their long on Bitcoin and then there are people who are short on Bitcoin and if there are more people long than short, then the price is going to go up. If there are more people short at a particular point in time price will come down. There's fewer demand.   Michael: Cool and so we mentioned, I think you both mentioned a couple of different use cases for the blockchain and for crypto. What, like, where do you see this going and for Roofstock, specifically, maybe you could talk about what we're doing as a company with regards to blockchain and where do you see it evolving from here?   Goeff: Sure, so, the, you know, the easiest use case for the blockchain technology is for something that is entirely on chain right payment is a perfect example, right? The you know, I give you send you something of value, call it Bitcoin, you accept that, and that's all on the blockchain and that's pretty easy. What we're doing is, we think taking the next step forward for blockchain and we're not the only ones. But we think that we do have something to add here, which is to bridge blockchain to real world assets and that's where things start to get a little bit tricky because let's say that you have a home, you call it a home on chain, a tokenized, home, whatever it is, and you have a token, a blockchain representation of a home, but it's a real world home and so you know, you say, oh, I go to my blockchain wallet, my crypto wallet, and I see I have this home token. That's great but let's say it's not the home that I live in and in fact, it's a home somewhere else in the country and I haven't been there for a while. How do I even know that there's still a home there, right and if I want to sell it to you, you know, you like the idea of using a smart contract to buy and sell this home? You like the idea of having a one click transaction of having certainty that you're going to get what you know, the home token in exchange for your money. That's all great. But how do you know that you're actually buying a real home and not just something that is called a home on a blockchain, whatever that even means, right.   And so that's where we've spent all of the last nine months and the better part of the last 12 months, diving into the nitty gritty legal details to understand and practical implications to understand how we can put this together in a system that works and the answer is, you have to have some type of validation from the real world as well, obviously, you know, the scenarios that I just mentioned, we can't allow that to happen where someone purchases a home token, and finds out that the home burned down three months ago. So you know, you just got nothing and so the way that I think what Roofstock can bring to this equation is the deep, detailed knowledge about how real estate transactions work, plus the blockchain, the blockchain, structuring the legal implementation and that's the value add that we have. I think there are a lot of others in the space and we encourage everyone to get out there and try, you know, try to build, but we do see others who don't have the real estate experience and even though they have a beautiful blockchain strategy, they don't know how to connect that and that you end up with something that's not useful. So what we're doing is designing a system that ensures that before any home is transacted, it's gone through all of the usual checks and balances that are necessary for real estate transaction and inspection has been done recently. We've done you know, made sure that taxes are paid, made sure that insurance is in place, make sure that the title is you know, unencumbered. We do all of that, because you have to do all of that no one's gonna buy it, if you doubt, but we do that behind the scenes, and so went by the time that you as the buyer come to see our site and you see the home, the home tokens that are listed there, you know that you have a data room that shows all of the documents that I just mentioned and more. So your diligence is already done for you. You don't need an inspection contingency, because you have an inspection report sitting right there, you know, you don't need on the on the on the flip side, you know, you don't need an escrow agent, because the smart contract simply it won't execute, it won't perform its function unless the buyer has the funds that it says it has. So you know, this smart contract at the time that you as the buyer purchase, you click, I want to buy this home, the smart contract checks, do you have money, the right amount of funds in your wallet? You know, they check the other side. Does the seller have a home, which is already been approved by Roofstock to be sold? Yes, yes, the transaction happens, and it's not and if one of those isn't true, then it fails and you know, we have to go back to the drawing board and fix whatever was wrong.   Sanjay: Right and then to add to that, right, the kind of the first version of smart contracts and NF T's and all these things that came about on web three, you know, a lot of those assets themselves had the value in it, right. So you might have heard about projects like board a, or crypto punks, these are well known NFT projects where people are spending Saturday 98 to buy, you know, a JPEG image of you know, this popcorn ape. But in those cases, that image itself has that value embedded in it and when people get that image when they buy that they've already exchanged value, right. But the example Goeff is giving us with a real life, real world asset, the NFT is a representation of that real world asset, but it's that real world asset that has the value in it and so when people are transacting these NF t's on the marketplace, Roofstock has to make sure that you know what they're buying and selling corresponds to that real world asset that has that value and we've gone through the inspection and other diligence process to make sure that is still true, right. So that's the sort of the next leap in the web three world where you go beyond just the you know, cryptocurrencies and crypto Native Assets getting traded and now you start looking at real world applications.   Michael: Goeff, I'm thinking about is like, so if I'm trying to understand this, I'm I buy this token, which the underlying asset kind of backing the token up, if you will, is the home, right? So I then own the home as well. How does that work for like, insurance purposes? If I gotta go get insurance on his home? Am I Michael, like going out to my traditional insurance people and saying, okay, well, I own this home, or like, who's on title of the home? How does that all work, is the token on the title?   Goeff: All the right questions. So the way that we're setting this up, each home is titled in its own LLC. So we have a limited liability company where the home is titled and so that really facilitates the transfer between different parties, because you don't have to record title, every time that home token is sold. The title obviously has to be recorded the traditional way at the county recorder’s office, the first time that it's transferred into the LLC and then from that moment on, it doesn't need to be retitled because the only thing that's changing hands is the LLC, the ownership of the LLC, the membership interest, it's called like the share of the LLC. So that's, that's how we unlock that. So that when I sell you my home token, I'm selling you an LLC that owns the home and you as the owner of the LLC, you have full control of the LLC, and thereby full control of the underlying home. So you can do whatever you want with the home. If you want to rent it, you can rent it, if you want it to be a long term rental, a short term rental, you get to decide all of that you get to decide when you put a new roof on or if you want to repair the roof instead of replace it. You make all those decisions. As far as the insurance question that you asked, we do have an agreement with an existing insurance company that's tech forward, and they're interested in working on this project. So we've already set that up. The first time you buy a home from us, it will come with one year of property insurance, it's prepaid. If you want to change that you can you can change it if you want to cancel it and replace it with a different insurer. You can what we found is that a lot of intermediates in the space are not necessarily comfortable and dealing with this type of transaction. So we've spent a fair amount of time diligence seen a lot of, you know, providers in the market and we think the ones that we have are very good, but it's up to you as the owner, if you want to have a specific insurer, or a specific title company, you can do that. But otherwise, it's already in place and it's really as easy as just paying your annual premiums you can, you don't have to think about it, if you don't want to.   Michael: Okay, so the follow up what popped in my mind immediately, and then we're going to get you guys out of here, but we live in California. So Roofstock obviously doesn't have a very big footprint here, because there's not a lot of cash flow potential, or it's much more difficult to make the numbers work as compared to a lot of other parts of the country. So, Sanjay, if you buy a home for a million bucks, tokenize it and now you your property taxes in California are based on your purchase price. So if five years down the road, you sell it to me for 2 million bucks. Traditionally, my new property tax value is going based on that 2 million bucks. But are you saying that because this trent this sale isn't getting recorded, as it would traditionally that my property taxes are still gonna be based on your original sale price of a million bucks.   Sanjay: In many state that's, that would be true. But in California, unfortunately, prop 13 would pick that sale up. That's it's a state by state analysis and in most of the states, you know, the transaction would be fine. You individually report any capital gain on your taxes, of course. But in California, the transfer does get picked up.   Michael: Damn it. They always get you somehow but maybe in some states, it sounds like that might not get picked up, right. There's less of an issue…   Sanjay: That’s right, in many cases…Yeah.   Michael: Interesting. Okay, man, I thought I had this huge unlock but clearly you guys have already thought of, of all this. So this is this is super exciting, guys. We definitely need to continue the conversation, got a lot more questions, a lot more information. I would love to disseminate to our listeners. But thank you both so much for joining me. If people want to learn more about web three and blockchain and crypto in general, is there are there good resources out there that we can point people to?   Sanjay: Yeah, I mean, definitely come to our website to learn about real estate tokenization. That's https://onchain.roofstock.com/ and also, you know, follow us on crypto Twitter. It's at @rsonchain and then individually, like Goeff and I do contribute in Twitter and LinkedIn and other areas as well. So, you know, look us up and follow us as well, on those platforms.   Goeff: And don't feel don't hesitate to reach out. Like you know, we're happy to talk we're here. We're you know, we're doing something new. We know a lot of people have a lot of questions, and we're happy to answer the questions and then he conversation. So ping us, we're happy to chat.   Michael: Amazing, amazing. Well, thank you both again, for coming on and super looking forward to doing this again soon.   Sanjay: Thank you. Thanks for having us.   Goeff: Likewise. Thanks.   Michael: Alright, anyway, that was our episode. A huge thank you to Goeff and Sanjay for coming on. We're gonna definitely be having them back on again soon. So if you have additional questions about things you just heard, or blockchain things in general, we'd love for you to see those in the comment section. Wherever it is, you get your podcasts, and we will try to get to them on the next episode with Goeff and Sanjay. As always, if you liked the episode, feel free to leave us just traditional rating or review. We love those as well and we look forward to see you in the next one. Happy investing…

An international commercial airline pilot who, after the tragedies of 9/11, was forced to realize that his “Safe and Secure career” was nowhere near as safe and secure as he had thought. Steve Rozenberg chose real estate investing to be able to control his own destiny and create his own generational wealth. He created the fastest-growing property management company in the state of Texas. Managing over 1,000 properties across 3 major metropolitan cities. Steve built the business up and created maximum cash flow positioning his company for a very profitable exit.   He has been a guest and collaborated on countless panels, webinars, masterminds, conferences, and podcasts as well as being a published author. In today’s episode, he shares his story, how he began real estate investing, and how important your mindset is to be successful in this business.   Episode Link: https://steverozenberg.com/ --- Transcript Before we jump into the episode, here's a quick disclaimer about our content. The Remote Real Estate Investor podcast is for informational purposes only, and is not intended as investment advice. The views, opinions and strategies of both the hosts and the guests are their own and should not be considered as guidance from Roofstock. Make sure to always run your own numbers, make your own independent decisions and seek investment advice from licensed professionals.   Michael: Hey, everyone, welcome to another episode of the Remote Real Estate Investor. I'm Michael Albaum and today I'm joined by Steve Rozenberg, who's an airline pilot and entrepreneur, and he's gonna be talking to us about the mental mind shifts we as investors need to make in order to scale and have successful businesses. So let's get into it.   Steve, what is going on, man? Thanks so much for taking the time to come hang out with me today. I appreciate it.   Steve: What's happening, fellas, good to see you.   Michael: Oh, super good to see you, Steve. I am super excited to share with our listeners a little bit about you and your background, because I know a little bit about it. But for anyone who doesn't know who Steve Rozenberg is, bring us up to speed quick and dirty. Who you are, where you come from, what is it you're doing in real estate today?   Steve: Sure. So I live in Houston, Texas, born and raised in Los Angeles, actually, my career brought me out here and that careers, what got me kind of involved in being a real estate and being an entrepreneur. I'm an airline pilot by trade and I got hired at 25 years old. I was the second youngest person ever hired by this particular major airline and hired at 25, I had the best job in the world is flying all over the globe. I was 25 years old and it was the most safe, most secure job that anyone could imagine having. Until a certain day in history. That day was 9/11 and that day changed my life, it changed a lot of people's lives. It changed my life because on 9/13, two days after 9/11 in the towers fell, I got delivered a furlough notice and I was basically told, hey, Steve, you know what that safe, secure job that you thought you had, it was never safe and it was really never secure and you're about to be on the street with 50,000 other pilots.   So to say that I got punched in the face very, very hard within about 48 hours would be an understatement and it was it was rough. You know I always I ever want to do as a kid is be an airline pilot. I didn't want to do anything else. I was fulfilling my dream and this something happened, which I realized it had nothing to do with me but it affected me. You know, I didn't I wasn't a part of 9/11 but I was a repercussion, a ripple effect, if you will and so I started to talk about what I could do, what could I do? What to survive to make a paycheck, right? All I knew was to be a pilot, but there was many, many other pilots out there probably better pilots than me to be honest with you that you know, we're also on the street and I looked and I saw that everyone that was tied to wealth somehow was tied to real estate. I didn't know anything about real estate, but I was like, okay, I mean, I knew some pilots who had rental properties, but I didn't know much about it. So this is 2001. So there was no YouTube or Facebook. So I had to go to the library. I had to get a library card.   Michael: A lot of our listeners are probably asking, like, what is that?   Steve: Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's a big house with a lot of books and so I had to start learning about real estate, I read a book a week and I just I read everything I could, because I thought that I was behind the curve of figuring out what I was going to do with this airline thing. If there was another terrorist attack or something happened, I was gonna be out of work and so I learned all the different things you know, now it's very cliche, you know, burrs and all this other stuff. But I just I learned how to buy I learned how to flip I learned how to wholesale properties. I got lied to, I got ripped off, I got cheated on. I mean, you name it, I just kept getting pushed down face down in the mud every time. But I kept getting back up because I had to I didn't I didn't have a choice. I had to figure out this combination and I, I saw people that were successful. So I was like, okay, there's a recipe. I just don't know it. But I can think like, I'm not the dumbest guy in the world. But I could figure this out and then I started getting better and I started winning a little bit more than I was losing and I started figuring out and what I realized was communicators are actually the ones that are the most successful, not the contractors.   It's four walls in a roof. It's relationship driven. It's not anything else and that relationship is driven by business models, and it's driven by systems and so I started realizing that the four walls and a roof and the dirt really had nothing to do with being a real estate investor. The successful people were good communicators, and they understood the value of leverage and team and then I started looking back at my real estate in my airline career and I started looking at how airlines run and I was like okay, systems, procedures structure and I kind of started melding the two and that led me into start learning to become successful as with my, my old business partner, Pete Newberg, who has been on your show, he and I built a very, very successful property management company, by understanding how to leverage those models and how to leverage systemization and then I've gone on to do a lot of other things, coaching people working with people, helping people understand the systemization of a business is very fundamental to be successful, is what I've learned and that's what I help people with.   Michael: I love that and we're gonna get into a little bit more of the systemization here in a minute. But for anyone listening, it's like, well, Steve, Michael, I'm not an extrovert. I'm more of an introvert, I'm more of an insert inside kind of person, like, Am I just doomed to never be a real estate investor like, what should I be doing if that's me?   Steve: So that's a good question because a lot of people you know, are a lot of people that go into real estate, what I've learned is they're running away from a life or job that they don't want you when you talk to real estate investors, and I coach a lot of real estate investors all over the world and when I talk to them, I'll ask them, why are you doing this, and a lot of them will tell me, I don't want this, I don't want that. They're running away from something and what they're running away from is a life that they don't want to have. Unfortunately, when you're running away from something you don't want, that's what you're focused on, and you run right back into it. I mean, that's the cycle, right because that's your filter. But what I've learned is, you don't have to be the best communicator, but you have to have good communicators on your team. There's things that I am really, really good at and there are things that I am horrible at. It's a matter of understanding, what are my strengths? What are my weaknesses, I don't think that I should become like, that's just my opinion. I don't think it makes sense to work on my weaknesses. I don't know anything about accounting, I would make a company go bankrupt if I started doing the accounting books for my business. So why should I go and take two year courses at a junior college to learn how to do books, or I just hire someone and that's what they do. So I've taken my weakness, and I've actually turned it into a strength because now I don't have to think about it, I don't have to focus on it. I have someone in place that is run by KPIs and metrics and accountability and I just, I just parceled, that whole piece of my life off.   So to answer your question, I don't think you have to be good at that. A business needs it like my business partner, Pete. He was the integrator and I was the visionary. I was the forward guy, I was the guy out in front. But I sucked at the operational side, he was like the mushroom in the in the back room and, you know, my job was to break his business all the time. It's like I wanted to have so much sales and marketing coming in, that he would go Steve, I can't take it anymore and that was like my victory lap of showing. That's the that's the sales and marketing tug of war that goes on, right and so I don't think that you have to be good at everything because the reality is, is you're not, you're probably good at one thing and you suck at everything else that you do. It's a matter of identifying what am I good at? What am I not good at leveraging out those other things and focusing on that one thing to be the very best that you can be and if you can do that, you will help the business, the organization and you'll be much happier too.   Michael: I think yeah, I think it makes a ton a ton a ton a ton of sense. So talk to Steve about like, you got three to five properties, you're looking at scaling up, you're realizing maybe a little bit more and more, you're self-managing, hey, this might be more of a job than I was anticipating I'm trying to get out of a job that people what are some systems people should be putting in place and how should they be thinking about systemization if that's a new term for them, that's never something they've done before?   Steve: Yeah, that's a great question and let, I'm going to back it up a little bit if it's okay, because a lot of people, if they have three to five properties, and I get a lot of people that will call me and ask me that question like, hey, Steve, you know, if I'm in front of them, they'll put a deal like three inches from my face and they're like, hey, is this a good deal like being closer makes it more sense? I don't know. But they'll put this right to my face and they're like, is this a good deal? Well, I don't know what a good deal is for you. So first question is, what's the goal, right? What is the date of that goal? So if they don't know the goal, and they don't have a date, and a timeline and a way to achieve that goal, I can't tell them what to do. I can't give them directions. It's kind of like if you said, hey, Steve, we're all gonna go to Disneyland and we got to be at the front gates at 8am on Friday morning and we're going to leave our house at 6am and we're going to take the 405 to the 91. Get off on Disney drive, and we're gonna go into the gates to be there ready to go. Well, if along that way, you get lost, you're gonna pull over and you're gonna go, hey, Steve, can I get directions? What's the first thing I'm going to ask you? Where are you? Where are you going? If you say, I don't know, I'm just driving around today, I'm gonna go with it. I can't help you, because I don't know where you're trying to get to. So if you take that same analogy, many people buy properties. They don't have a goal. So they say, should I buy more properties? My question is, is I don't know what's the goal? Because, you know, many people, you know, they think that owning rentals is the goal. That's just the strategy to achieve the goal. That's like saying, I'm going to get on the 405 freeway and you're going, where are you going? I don't know, I'm just gonna get on the freeway and drive and the reason I know that is when Pete and I first started buying properties, that's what we did. We were just buying properties and we're going the wrong way, in the wrong direction at a very, very fast pace and nobody stopped us to say, where are you guys going because we're just driving. We're like, we're making great time. Unfortunately, we're going in the wrong way. So to answer your question, to going back to what you're saying about systemization, every business normally has about eight to 11 systems in their business, it's a matter of looking at what you do and systemizing everything. So if you took a system and put it in a vertical, let's just say when you're going to rent a property, what is the system that it takes to rent that property, you've got to basically first thing you've got to do is maybe the first trigger of that system is when the Make ready is done. Now the property is in rent ready condition, it now triggers this system to happen. What's the first thing you got to do? Well, maybe you've got to go and take pictures and video of the property. Step one, what's the next thing you got to do? Well, then you've got to do some comps and check out the area and see what the property is renting for. That's step two. So you're going through and you're just basically talking to me, like I'm a three year old or third grader and you're explaining to me in very painstaking detail, what you're doing. These are all steps in the process of a systemization. Once you create the system all the way through to getting the property rented, once the property is rented, that system is complete. Maybe that system is 19 steps, right? Then you look at that system and go okay, is this the most efficient way to run this system, does or is there any redundancy? Is there any things that we don't even do or should not do? Are we missing some things? Now, let's say for example, this person, he, let's just say he grows and he gets an employee to do these tasks, right and or he subs it out to a company. This company needs to know very, very clearly what they're doing because the definition like look, I think we can all agree that when you own one business, or you own 50 businesses, which are rental properties, those are businesses, that you've got to treat it like a business, right? The challenge is, most people don't they don't have any systems that don't have any structure and it's chaos, which is why so many landlords get sued, because there's no systemization or standardization, meaning how you lease a property. When you're in the airlines, right, we'll go back to being an airline pilot, if I'm an airline pilot, and I came out and said, hey, everyone, this is gonna be a great day today. We're off to Hawaii. This is my first time ever doing this. So wish me luck. I'm just gonna wing it and hopefully we make it there. How would you feel?   Michael: Yeah, a little bit shaky.   Steve: Right but yeah, you'd probably be like, I'm not getting on this plane. Yeah, but that's what many people do with their rental properties and they're doing that with their financial lives, right? This is your real life, you're trusting me with your life but you don't do that with your financial life. So there's a disconnect as to the training and, and the way that you can scale because if you have to do everything in your business, you don't own a business, you own a job and a job is not scalable, because you have only so many hours in the day, and you have so much knowledge of what you're good at and what you're bad at. So I don't know if that answered the question but there's, that's a very hard thing to unpack.   Michael: No, it totally does. It totally does. Two things. First thing is I think you must be having been out of LA for a long time, because your analogy you're talking about getting on the 405 Dizzy land, you leave by six get there by eight. There's no world in which that happens today. Yeah, first and foremost. But secondly, so like, how does someone make that mindset shift because I think so many of us and specifically, it seems to be pretty pervasive in the real estate world, this DIY mentality, you know, I do it myself, do it myself, do it myself. How does, how do you make that mental leap of, okay, I'm going from doing it myself, small business owner to hiring someone or contracting it out or putting it to somebody else so I can get out of my own way?   Steve: Sure. Well, there's a couple things. Number one, you've got to you have to be willing to let go of your ego and pride, right? Because ego and pride are success inhibitors, they will kill your success quicker than anything. I should do it because I'm in charge, right and so let's go back to the goal, right? If I said, hey, what's your goal and you didn't, you didn't and this is what I use this example when I coach people, I'll tell them, okay, let's just use this as an example. I call it a 2020 2020 properties in 20 years, giving you $20,000 a month in passive income. It's a bait. It's a goal, right? Yeah, it's, it's got a time limit on it. It's something that we can attach an actual goal to and we know how we're going to achieve that goal because we have a scoreboard to see if we've made that. So that means that each property needs to be giving off $1,000 a month in passive income to get 20 properties give me $20,000 a month. Okay, that means, okay, so let we're gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna answer your question in a roundabout way, we've got to say, Okay, if we want to have 20 properties, that means by year 10, we have to have acquired all those properties so that from year 10, to your 20, we're going to pay those properties off, because we want them free and clear by your 20. That means between year one and year 10, we have to purchase 20 properties, which means we have to close on two properties a year, which is every six months, which means every three months, we have to be looking for deals.   My first question is, is do you have the finances to even make this happen? Do you have the do you have the financial means to achieve this goal? If they say I don't have a job, I'm gonna go well, then we're done talking because first thing you need is the financial means to make that happen. That's number one. Then we say okay, when you achieve the goal of 20 20 20, right, and we get to where we want to go, what I have learned and what many people I'm sure some people will learn, it's not a bad thing to learn. But a lot of people identify success by their accolades, meaning how much money they have in the bank, or how many properties they have, how many doors whatever they want to whatever they want to use as their gauge. That's how they quantify their success, or lack thereof. Now, I had Pete and I had a very successful property management company that we sold to a venture capital much larger firm and I can tell you that when you get that money in the bank, it is very, very, very anticlimactic. Like I mean, literally, like after we sold our company, and we sold it for well into seven figures, all of a sudden, I thought I'm done, like, oh, this is awesome. Now, mind you, I still am an airline pilot this whole time. So I'm okay financially but I thought, man, if I just if we sell this company, we're good. You don't happen Monday morning, after we sold the company?   Michael: You put on your uniform and go fly a plane.   Steve: My wife said, hey, don't forget, take the trash out the trash bin or come and I'm like, when I sold the company, like I sold my goods just like, don't give a shit. Take the trash out. So, but the point is, is like all of a sudden you think you're in some magic club like you think you break through this glass ceiling and the reality is, is nobody cares and the reason I'm saying the reason I'm going somewhere with this is that we think that once we achieve a mark or a goal that's going to make our lives complete and sadly, it doesn't, it actually makes it more hollow because you realize, like, wow, I've been doing this all these years, and nobody even cares. Like they're, you know, everyone's moving on. So what I always tell people when I talked to when I told you earlier that a lot of entrepreneurs, they buy real estate, and people want to get involved in real estate and I asked them why they say I want more freedom, right? I'm sure you've probably heard this, I want anytime freedom, do what I want, blah, blah, blah, they use this word freedom, like it means something special to them. I tell them okay, well, let me ask you this, why don't you just sell all your shit today, go live in your car at the park, and you'll have all the freedom you need. No one will bother you, you'll have your freedom. They think about that I'm like, but you know, what you won't have is you won't have the memories that you want associated with that freedom.   So we're really not buying freedom. What we're buying is memories. So when I sell a business, or I have rental properties, giving me cash flow, what am I doing with that cash flow, it's giving me the ability to have freedom to go buy the memories. It's the memories we want. So going back to your question, how does somebody step out of what they want? I would first ask them, what memories do you want to buy because at the end of the day, we're not leaving, we're not leaving this earth with anything except our memories, right? When we go when our when our expiration date happens. We're not going anywhere, except with memories in our brains. What memories do you want, right in the real estate, and the cash flow or whatever you're doing with that will give you the means to buy those memories. So buy the memories don't buy the time is you go to prison and have all the free time you want. You may not like the result, but you'll have free time by the memories, right? Go to you know, have dinner on the Mediterranean in Greece, right? Go to this African Safari, the Rolling Stones in Wembley Stadium. Those are the memories that you want and that's what real estate gives you. So going back to your question when someone says, hey, like, you know, how do I get out of it? I'm like, what memories do you want? Do you want to be an employee? That's trading time for money because that's what you're doing? I'll give you an example. So my son, he bought a rental property at 14 years old. Okay and everyone's like, oh, that's awesome. Yeah and he bought it with his money, you know and so everyone's like, man, that's awesome. That's great. Like, did you have him do the rehab and clean the house and I'm like, No. Why would I do that? They're like, so he can learn. I'm like, I don't do that. Why should I make him do that? That's being a hypocrite. I want him to be a business owner, not an employee. Don't get me wrong. There's nothing wrong with being an employee but that's that that is not the goal of one rental property like, hey, congratulations, you want a rental property? Now go learn how to cut wood lay tile, put it insulation but dad, you don't do that. I wouldn't even know how to do that. Like, again, working on strengths versus weaknesses, right? People seem like when they get a rental property that like, all of a sudden, I've got to learn how to put a toilet in and I gotta get up on the roof and inspect it. I'm like, have you ever done that before? No and I'm like, Well, then why in the heck would you get up on a roof? If you didn't know what you're doing like this is how you become a statistic. But we think we should because of ego and pride. So that's kind of a long answer but that's my answer.   Michael: I love it, I love it a great answer. Steve, great answer. Talk to us a little bit about, like, the qualities and what you see really successful people do who are able to implement systematization like what like, what skills should people be go out there and refining in order to be able to execute here really, really well?   Steve: Well, yeah, that's a great question and I've studied a lot of very successful people. I've been coached and mentored by some very successful people and I'm a constant student, I still a mentor to this day. Anyone who says that they don't need to be coached, and they don't need to be mentored, is missing out on a lot of opportunity. I look at Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, these guys are at the top of their game, and they still have coaches and mentors. All professional athletes have coaches, you don't become a professional athlete, and then lose the coaches. They make you better.   Michael: So I'm done.   Steve: Yeah, it's like I'm done. Um, you know, even Kobe Bryant, I mean, everyone, they all have coaches. I mean, that's how it works, right? Right, it's brings the best thing out of you. So number one, I think you always have to have somebody holding you accountable and if you look at all successful people, they have accountability. They have somebody holding them accountable in somebody, you know, a three feet distance is a world of perspective, right? In the simulators. When we find the simulators and we're practicing engine failures and all these things. The simulator instructor is about three feet behind us the control panel, and we joke and he they know, they're like, yeah, I'm the smartest guy in here because I'm three feet behind you, I can see all the mistakes you guys are making. You don't see it, because you're in the heat of battle. He's like, I can see it coming a mile away. I'm the smartest guy in the room. So having somebody three feet away, is a world of perspective, having an organization help give you guidance to when you're looking to acquire a property that's giving you that three feet difference. That's a world of difference, right? So, there is a recipe for success and I'm a firm believer. If you look at all successful people, they follow a very simple recipe. It's not magic, people who are failures, they follow a recipe also and I think that every day that you wake up every day that we all wake up, we have a decision to make. It's very simple. Am I going to be better than yesterday or am I going to be worse than that, initially, is our decision that we make every day because you're not good, you're they're getting better. You're getting worse, we never stay the same ever and so when you wake up in the morning, what is the decision you're gonna make? Are you going to do any reading? Are you going to do any I’m statements? What are you going to do to focus on solution based questions slash trying to be better or are you going to be in blame excuse or denial? So going back to your question, I think that people that if you want to learn how to become better at systemization, then talk to someone who knows what they're doing and that can help you become a systems expert because, look, as an airline pilot, right? I've been I've been flying for almost 30 years, I've been trained by Boeing, I fly one of the most complicated aircraft out there a Boeing 787. I didn't, I wasn't born that way, I had to be trained and guess what, we still go back to training every six months, and we go back through all the initial stuff. So just because you reach the pinnacle, you don't stay up there and if you look at people that are successful, they're always trying to be better, just because you have three houses or five houses or 500 houses. Look, the crash to the bottom is much faster than the rise to the top, as we all know, and seen, you know, with banks crashing and other things. It's the people that are cognizant and follow that recipe and again, I don't think it's a very complicated recipe and if you look at people, you know, they do a lot of things in the one thing that I've learned, I'll give you a quick story. I was with one of my mentors one time, guys. 11 businesses, right. He's on the board of 11 businesses and he was my mentor, and we lunch and I was like, man, I don't know how you do it. Like you have 11 businesses. I'm like, how many days a week do you work? He's like, Tuesday, Thursday, and sometimes half a Friday. It was like this guy was talking Martian to me. I was like, like, how is that even possible and he goes, You know what, Steve, you know what the difference is? He says, I say No, way more than I say yes and I said, you know what, that's easy for you to say because you're this multimillionaire that has 11 businesses and he said, I would have never become this way. If I didn't start saying no and he said there's an opportunity cost that every time you say yes to something, you are saying no to something else, right.   So he goes every time you say yes to doing something that is not the most high income producing activity, you are saying no to something. He's like, it's again, he goes, it's your choice. So when I coach people, one of the things I do, and this will be a freebie for people watching is, I always have them do a two week time study, okay? So it's a very simple time study that they have to go and they have to write down for two weeks, every single thing that they do, right, you want to go on a diet, you start tracking your food, you want to see where your money's going, you go on a budget, you want to see where your time is going and start tracking it at the end of the day, they have to give me an executive summary. Tell me how your day went? I don't care. I don't care what you did. I just want to hear it from your words. Within one week, within one week, they will be like, I now know where my time is going and most people think they're so productive, like, oh, I work all day long. I'm like, bullshit, you don't work all day long. Yeah, study and we'll see. After they do the time set, he's like, man, I'm only working like three hours a day. I'm like, because everything else is reactionary. A five minute interruption, a five minute phone call is equal to 23 minutes of lost time. How many times as a as a real estate investor entrepreneur, do we get the sideways calls that interrupt our data, and they sidetrack us, if you get 10 calls a day, that's 230 minutes that you were never expecting to lose, you just lost that chunk of time. So now you're living what's called a reactive life and when you're living a reactive life, you're in chaos and when you're in chaos, you're not in control and when you're not in control, you're not making money. So the challenges is what people don't put a factor into this chaotic life, is the mental stress that it weighs on you. So once they do the first week, the second week, they have to go back in every day, they have to do this and I and just the type of coach I am, every day, they have to send me a picture of their time study and I tell them, the day you don't send this, to me is the last day you will hear from me, because I can't want it more than you like it's very simple. Like, even if you pay me all the money, you're done like that's just how it is I can't I don't have time to waste if you don't want to be better. So when they do this, the next day is they have to put an H or an L next to that high income activity, low income activity. And guess how many low income activities they do on a day?   Michael: Probably the majority…   Steve: Probably the majority. So then what we do at the end of that next week, we go, okay, these are the things that make you money. These are the things that don't we need to outsource systemize or automate the things that you don't make money on of these high income activities. Which ones do you like doing? Which ones are you good at? I like this, and this, okay, this is the focus, we need to find someone else to do these other high income activities. We don't ignore them and so my point is, is one of my mentors said that he goes TV goes understand saying no is not saying that. No, the way you think it. He goes when I say no, it just means I'm not doing it. He goes, I just make sure that other people are getting it done, but it's not through me. He goes things to have to get done in a business but he goes, it doesn't have to be you. That's your ego and pride, thinking that you have to be the one doing it all. So that was a very valuable lesson for me that I share with you, you in the listeners.   Michael: Yeah, thank you. I mean, as you're saying this, I'm just like, oh, my God, I have so many hours in my day, this is insane.   Steve: Yeah, we do. We all look, we all do. And it's a matter of stepping on the scale whenever I'm coaching someone, or someone gives me a call, like, man, I just feel like I'm losing it. I'm like, just do a time study. I mean, it sounds it sounds so simple, or whatever but I'm like just do the time study you will see very clearly, and then just fix it. Look at the pendulum swings. It's okay but you got to do something to take corrective action. Otherwise, it's going to keep swinging, it's never gonna go back on its own. You don't all of a sudden become more organized and more productive. It doesn't work that way, right? You're always gonna go back and you've got to start focusing on making that decision every day. What am I doing? You know, and it could be something simple. It could be reading for five minutes, could be writing your day could be whatever it is, but start creating habits and those habits become patterns and those patterns will change your life.   Michael: Mike drop exit stage left, Steve, that was amazing. Man, I want to be super respectful of your time. If people want to talk with you more, learn more about you reach out, have you as their coach, what's the best way for them to do so?   Steve: Yeah, they can find me on all social media handles. It's Rozenberg, Steve on Instagram, Steve Rozenberg on all the other stuff. They can also go to my website. My website is https://steverozenberg.com/ , it's ROZENBERG.com and you know, I do a lot of coaching. I do three day masterminds with very high level, people like Bradley, the iron cowboy, other people, I bring them in. It's all about mindset and it's all about, you know, the one thing I'll say real quick before we go and I want to be respectful of your time is don't be selfish, and to the people watching and what I mean by that is as entrepreneurs, we watch these shows, right? We buy real estate, we do all these things, and we do it for the people that we love but here's the thing, we never actually share the knowledge that we've learned with the people we're doing it for. To me, that's the definition of being selfish be selfless. Like I said, my son bought his first rental property and 14, create generational wealth, right? Bring them into the loop. Don't be selfish, because when you're selfish, you're isolating yourself, have an open mind and the ability to give abundance and share the knowledge that you learned from this podcast, show reading, bring the family that you're doing it for into the mix, and you will have a much, much more fulfilled life and you'll be much more successful not just financially, but personally relationship and all that stuff. So don't be selfish.   Michael: Yeah. I love that, Steve and one more final question before I let you go. You mentioned you're running a mastermind and I think a lot of our listeners maybe have been to how to coach or been to seminars or been in real estate trainings, and just whoever reason can't implement it. They take the classroom knowledge, but they can't execute a role. So what have you seen people do who are really successful at that and actually applying what they've learned and taking that excitement and went out and actually ran with it…   Steve: That's a good question. So and the reason I created my mastermind is that very reason, right? Everybody goes there, rah, rah, they leave in there, like two weeks later, they're like, it's in their car underneath their seats, all the dogs chewing on it and so what I do when I do my masterminds is once they're done, they get unlimited coaching from me, they get my phone, they get my text, they get my email, if they need me, they call me. So I'm there as accountability for them every single day. It's not that hey, I know you have a problem Monday morning with a tenant exploding your house but we're supposed talk Thursday at three so call me then that doesn't work in the real world. I don't think that that's a very successful model. I give unlimited so that they have me and they have me as accountability. I think the biggest challenge when you leave these events and coaching is the accountability part. If the coach if you have a coach and he's not accountable, find them accountability person, one of the things I do when I coach partners is I have a board of directors meeting, I create a board of directors for them going over the P&I statements going over balance sheets, going over the goals. This is what you need to do in any organization, all businesses do it. Most people don't. So if you can't make your coach be accountable, or you can't afford a coach or whatever the case may be find a friend, a family member or go to the bum on the corner. I don't care but make someone hold you accountable that you actually have to answer for what you're doing and I think if you're accountable, based on what you learned, that's why I do unlimited coaching, you're going to be much more successful with achieving the goals that you set out to achieve.   Michael: Makes total sense, Steve, this was a total, total blast, man, thank you so much for taking the time to hang out with me. I really, really appreciate it.   Steve: Thank you, man. It's good having you appreciate you having me on.   Michael: Hey, we'll definitely talk soon.   All right, when that was episode, a big thank you to Steve for coming on super, super, super great stuff. As he was talking. I was like, oh my God, I need to start doing a lot more of what Steve is talking about. As always, if you enjoyed the episode, feel free to leave us a rating or review wherever you get your podcasts and we look forward to seeing you on the next one. Happy investing…

Kellie Chrisman is a California licensed attorney who has experience in estate planning, trust administration, contested trust matters, conservatorships and business/corporate law throughout California. Following graduation, Kellie found her passion for helping people and clients by making the complexities of the law accessible and approachable during the worst of times, planning for a loss or following the loss of a loved one. It is with great pleasure that Kellie feels she can take the worries and difficult tasks of legal issues off her client’s minds and allow them to simply be in the moment and focus on what is most important to them. Tune in for today's episode where Kellie shares her insight on what you as a real estate investor need to be aware of to protect your estate and some real-life experiences of some of her own clients.   Episode Link: https://www.taylorchrismanlaw.com/ --- Transcript   Before we jump into the episode, here's a quick disclaimer about our content. The Remote Real Estate Investor podcast is for informational purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. The views, opinions, and strategies of both the hosts and the guests are their own and should not be considered as guidance from Roofstock. Make sure to always run your own numbers, make your own independent decisions and seek investment advice from licensed professionals.   Michael: Hey, everyone, welcome to another episode of the Remote Real Estate Investor. I'm Michael Albaum and today with me I have Kellie Chrisman who's returning on the podcast with me. Kellie is an attorney extraordinaire, and she's going to be talking to us about all the things we as real estate investors need to be aware of when it comes to protecting our estate. So let's get into it.   Before we get into the episode, I would definitely encourage everyone listening to go check out the Roofstock Academy at roofstockacademy.com. It is a one-stop shop education platform that comes with over 50 hours of on-demand lectures one on one coaching access to private slack forums and our community as well as a bunch of other financial benefits depending on which program you opt to enroll in. Just come check us out at roofstockacademy.com. Looking forward to seeing you in there.   Kellie Chrisman, welcome back to the show. It is always a pleasure to have you on.   Kellie: Awesome. Thanks for having me.   Michael: No, it's totally my pleasure. I'm super excited. You are an attorney, an amazing person, a mother a rockstar. For anyone who hasn't heard your prior episodes, give us a quick and dirty who you are and what it is you're doing.   Kellie: Oh, this morning…My name is Kellie Chrisman. I'm an attorney I practice law in California and kind of I practice California law for other people throughout the United States. I grew up in Chico, which is in Northern California town, Sierra Nevada, beer, Chico State, things like that and then went to college at UCLA law school at Loyola and then my husband, I say we got stuck in LA for about 10 years. But we loved it, we had so much fun and then moved back to the Sacramento area to be close to family and really close to the mountains, we can get to Tahoe in an hour and a half we can get to San Francisco or an hour and a half. It's awesome. So that's where I'm based now and practice state planning, business for setting up business entity that has information and strategy for smaller investors and real estate clients and if I can't help somebody I like to send them where I would trust. So yeah…   Michael: Love it, I'm so glad you mentioned estate planning since that's the topic that I really want to focus on today. So I think I mean, in full disclosure, you are my attorney, you've helped me so much with estate planning and entity formation and just getting all my ducks in a row. So I want everyone to know how amazing you are and I can personally attest to that. Kellie: You can say it I can't, you know I can't. I really appreciate it…   Michael: Absolutely. So let's talk about what investors specifically real estate investors need to know when it comes to estate planning. What are some things that people should be aware of? What are some things they should be doing? What are some things that they should be thinking about kind of long term?   Kellie: Yeah, I think that, for me as an attorney in this area of law, because I do I do before people pass away the planning part and then I do when people don't plan anything. So I've seen both sides, and I've seen the worst of both sides but it's not necessarily just investors, it's anyone over 18 than then then when you add on, if you own property in California at all, we'll get into the dirty details, I'm sure, then you not really needing to trust powers of attorney. If something happens to you while you're alive, who's managing your investments, who's making sure you know, tenants are paying who's making sure you know, you're in the middle of a transaction and that it can close all that type of stuff, is stuff you can accomplish through an estate plan and I think it becomes this big giant thing a lot of people don't know anything about and a lot of attorneys try to make very complicated but it doesn't have to be.   Michael: Okay. So it sounds like just having a will from Legal Zoom, that maybe isn't going to cut it.   Kellie: I mean, it'll, it'll get you somewhere.   Michael: Maybe it’s not where we want to go.   Kellie: I legally was great and so I think that there's this is one of those areas where I actually had a conversation with a client yesterday where she was very surprised by the cost and I told her, you know, there's always going to be someone cheaper, there's always going to be someone more expensive. You can go to Costco and buy the wills drafting program or go to Legal Zoom and buy a will and it will do some things it'll avoid, you know, maybe getting your property where you don't want it and you can get your property where you want it. But there's a lot of little nuances in this area where I think if you do it right the first time you, you don't have to pay for it. Again, it's an investment in your future and it's a gift to your family down the road. So it's interesting.   Michael: Needless to say, so talk to us about like, what a trust is, how does it get set up? Like, what should people be thinking about in terms of cost, or like who even needs one as opposed to just a will? Kellie: Yeah, so the difference between a trust and a will and I think the big thing in this area is probate and probate. People get very scared, and it's simply the court monitored administration of an estate. That's all it is. So you can pay, go to Beverly Hills, pay $10,000, for a will, or by your Costco will drafting program and pay $40, for your will, and you're both going to end up in probate. The scary thing about probate it's public. So if you want to know what was in a celebrity's a state that had a will, you can go and look it up, see where it went. They publish about it and it takes about a year. I say a year you say your NADs about a year and a half, with the way that COVID has affected the court system, and it's expensive. So the attorney ends up taking about two to 3% of the estate, the fees are set by law and then the administrator or executor, whoever does it takes two to 3%, then everything is distributed. Versus a trust is when you have enough that you need to trust which is in California $166,000. Whether you have a mortgage or not. A trust avoids the whole process. It says here's who I trust, to administer my estate and here's where I want it to go. The court is not involved. That's the that's the goal and that's the difference between having a trust you've done yourself, or trust that's been done completely, and having it done in tailored to us that the trust has been created correctly, it's funded correctly, and it just functions seamlessly down the road for you. So the will is great, and it says where your property goes. But it's probated and the trust is the same thing. Avoiding the probate process.   Michael: Got it, and so why, like, Why does a will exist versus a trust? Like, it seems like a trust is the obvious choice for anyone that has more than 166,000 in asset or value?   Kellie: I think so many so many levels to that answer. I mean, the will is something that has been adopted from common law, something that's been based on what was done in the UK back in the day, which is where a lot of our laws are from and at a basic level, not everybody needs a trust. So if you don't own over 166,000 and assets, so you don't really in California, I just assume if you own a house, you're over that. In every state's a little bit different. I've noticed in some states, I know not everybody's California, some states that's as low as like 45,000. So it's, it's vary state to state. But it just, it's there because it's easy. and so if you don't have enough assets to maybe make the trouble of a trust worth it, then the will is there and allows you to say where you want your things to go. So it avoids what the basic, okay, the other thing is, uh, wills a lot easier to create. You can hand write a will, as long as it's signed and dated, which I've told some of my friends, they they're going on vacation, and I'm like at least handwrite it out.   Michael: If you don't want it on the airplane on the napkin.   Kellie: You can do it on a napkin. You can do it, people have done it, you know, dying with a crayon on a wall, that's a valid will wow. At that, at that core level, it's just easier. You don't need a notary, you need witnesses. So it allows you to do things, if you have kids, that's where we do guardianship. So wills do all sorts of things and then and then to add a layer of attorney complexity, if you have a trust, you're also going to have a will which actually ends up making sense, but it just doesn't do as much.   Michael: Okay, okay, got it and so yeah, for all of our listeners that are not California based, is what we're talking about, at a very high level universal in the sense of if I have a will I'm going to probate if I have a trust I'm not is that was that national universal?   Kellie: Pretty universal and you can pick you don't necessarily have to have a trust from your state. Obviously, an attorney in your state is going to know the ins and outs of the probate law. But if I have a client that I set their trust up and they're in California and they move to Texas or New York, that trust is still valid, and they can continue to use it and that a lot of times I have clients that are not in state and they elect to use a California trust and we work together and I can fund and do everything the same way. So, yeah, this is something that these, these documents that comprise an estate plan are pretty universal.   Michael: Okay, cool and it's funny, because we so often hear that California law is like the worst for real estate investors or investors. So why would someone elect to use a California trust? I guess, specifically, like, what are the provisions in that that make it attractive as opposed to any other state stressed?   Kellie: I think that it's not necessarily the law itself in this area is pretty similar. It's not like business law, business is pretty unique. If you're talking about LLC formation, and, you know, Nevada, Delaware versus California. Like all that's a, it's a hot topic. But in this area, it's kind of not the exciting parts of this law, area of law come from other really the family dynamic, but yeah, it's, there's not much different. So a lot of times people will choose California law because they have an attorney that they trust that's in California, or it's simply where they were living or whatever it might be.   Michael: Okay, cool and so I live in California, now I invest almost exclusively out of state and I think a lot of listeners are in similar situations, should they be using a trust in the state in which they invest or should they be getting a trust in which the state they live or does it not even matter?   Kellie: Oh, I have to I have to use my typical lawyer phrase, it depends. It doesn't really matter. What matters is that whatever trust you choose, you fund it, that you when you get assets later, you add those assets into your trust, because you can have the best trust in the world and if your assets aren't in it, you're going to probate   Michael: And so I could have a trust and still go to probate?     Kellie: You can and that's why I, I say I fix a lot of Legal Zoom trusts, because people create this fabulous trust and they've, you know, they hey, it's super simple. I've got, you know, two kids, it's going to them equally and they don't fund it, or they don't maintain it, or their kids are under age, there's so many different considerations. Their kids are under age, and now they're getting a check it 18. So if you don't fund your trust, you don't add the title of your property. So you deed your property into the name of your trust, you update your bank accounts, an attorney will work with you to say this asset should be in the name of the trust, this one's okay out things like that, then you go to probate and that's where you have what's called a pour over will if you have a trust your will says everything I have that's not in my trust, goes to my trust, it pours over into the trust pot and the trust does the work. But it's still probate. So Funding Your trust is extremely important and in California, we have a couple of tricks to avoid that process. So you can we avoid probate at all costs. But it still can be avoided just by doing it right the first time.   Michael: Yeah. Okay and when you say fund the trust, I mean, it just sounds expensive. Let's say the listener has five properties. This is just the first time they're hearing about maybe thinking about, they should have a trust or set up a trust. What is involved with that listener for a couple of properties that they have that are titled maybe in their personal name, or to the name of an LLC?   Kellie: Yeah, so to fund a trust, there's a couple of I always say there's like good, better and best. Good is that you listed in your schedule of assets. So there should be a page to your trust. Usually, it's the last page and it should list everything you intend to be part of your estate, or your trust and your intent is a lot of the law. It gives me my defense down the road, hey, he intended this to be in his trust, but they took it out to refinance. So therefore give it back to the trust. So you listed on your schedule of assets better is it's titled correctly. So primary residence is titled in the name of the trust. It's in the Kellie Chrisman trustee of the Kellie Chrisman trust. That's what puts it into trust, LLC. If the property is owned by the LLC, we kind of trace up right so we have the property properties owned by the LLC, then we put the LLC into the trust and so then when we trace down, the ownership is still in the trust. So we don't need to change necessarily the details the property. So that's better. So good is scheduled assets better is titled correctly and then best is both if I see both of those things, there's no argument hey, you know, he didn't want that to be part of the trust. It's like, well, he clearly did.   Yeah bank accounts can be the same thing. So you can either make the trust the owner of the account or are the beneficiary. So funding doesn't have to be scary and I think the signs of a good attorney that's going to help you with this is they're going to give you instructions, they're not going to hand you the trust and say, all right, thanks for the money. They're gonna say, here's the next steps. Here's what to do. Here's what to watch out for. Here's the support on the back end, that when you buy a property five years down the line, and you're like, What do I do? I don't remember, you can call their office and they're there to support you.   Michael: Okay, fantastic and if someone is looking for an attorney, maybe they're just getting started with their real estate investing and haven't had a need for one in the past? What are some questions that they can use as like screening questions, or red flags to look out for as they're trying to reach out to an estate planning attorney, if they're going to use someone other than you? Which I don't know why anyone would do but you know, teach the round?   Kellie: Yeah. Well, and I like to offer people I mean, when I talk to clients, I see if they're interviewing people, I say, here's what to look for, right? You want somebody that that you trust. You can I think referrals from friends are great. If you're Googling, you know, try and look for Google reviews, or there's a website called Avvo- AVVO, it's like, the Yelp for attorneys. How exciting. But they'll kind of narrow it down in your area, look for great reviews on that. But things to look out for, what are they including? Are they doing the funding for you? Are they doing more than just, you know, the bare minimum? Are they and then what are they? What are they charging down the road? Right, so I see a lot of attorneys charge a yearly maintenance fee. That's great for the attorney, there is no reason you need to do that and I think if you have an estate plan, you've never had to do anything to it. There's no maintenance, I don't do anything as your lawyer, you know, I have a PDF copy here and, you know, if you need help, I'm here. So watch out for those yearly maintenance fees, you don't need them watch out for what's included. So you want to at least in an estate plan, a typical state plan is a trust, certification of your trust, the funding of your trust, then you want to will powers of attorney for finance and a health care directive. Those are kind of the core documents, we say trust Well, Power of Attorney health care, okay, the core four, make sure those are there. And then see what amendments cost down the road. That's the other thing, you know, they might be super cheap, but then you want to change something and it's quite expensive. I like to offer my clients, I do amendments for free for a year because I have major buyer's remorse. Like if I make a decision, I'm always like, we have to so and they're pretty simple to change. So that's kind of in you want that support, you want to be able to oh my gosh, I'm closing tomorrow, and they, they need a copy of my certification of trust, I'm on vacation, or I don't know where to find it. My clients will shoot me an email or give me a call and I just, you know, fire it over to title or whatever they might need. So what you're getting for the money, I think is huge.   Michael: Okay and is there a ballpark like figure that people should have in their mind as they go to an attorney to get this thing because I know you mentioned you know, the Beverly Hills $10,000 will versus the Costco $40. There's a big range there.   Kellie: Yeah, she'll be in the middle of that. It depends. So generally, and I think that it's going to depend by state right, but what I am seeing is pretty market is about that $3,000 Mark, for a married couple, the what… I guess one of the other key things you're going to look for is most attorneys do this on a flat fee basis. It's not hourly, because they'll make money. It's a standard process and usually if we can estimate how many hours it's going to be in, then we win some and we lose some right like some clients, I end up spending way longer with and make less…Excuse me and some, you know, it's, it's pretty easy and standard, but it's a lot of paperwork and so that flat fee would be a structure I would look for and that I would lean towards if I was paying somebody or telling family. But every stage is different. So will is cheaper. If you're a single person having an estate plan for yourself, should be about 1500-2000 and then I look for you know, if you want to have a trust and your wife wants to have a trust, look for discounts, I mean, an attorney is going to have to do far less work. If they know you and they know your wife then there so there should be some kind of a benefit there as well.   Michael: That's great to know and then from a like a lending perspective if someone is going to buy a property, they're going to get the loan in their personal name, but they want to take title in the trust. I mean, is that our lenders open to that or do they need to close in their personal name and then quick claim deed it over into the trust? How does that work?   Kellie: Every, every lender is different. So it's, it's more and more common for trusts to be there and I think that lenders get the benefit, if you're to pass away, it being in your trust is a huge benefit to them, because they're able to follow the trust. So the lender should let you close in the name of the trust, super easy. If they don't, or if it's some huge hassle because sometimes, you know, either lender or title is not familiar or comfortable. It's very easy, we ended up just doing a trust transfer deed after we closed. So a lot of times, our client will say, okay, Kellie, it's closed, and then it's a one page document that you have to assign in front of a notary. Some states have more expensive transfer fees, or transfer tax, that you'll have to pay. So that's a consideration to watch out for and those can be pretty significant, like five or $600. So in those states, it might be more advantageous to close in the name of your trust, but a simple process if, if you forget, or if you're if there's a property.   Michael: Okay, awesome. What else should people investors need to be aware of when it comes to planning their estate?   Kellie: I think managing who you trust, you know, who's going to take over who's going to get your property if you're gone. I think that a lot of the law assumes that an adult is 18 and over, so if you have kids, and, and they are under 18, or they're not responsible, and over 18, or the you just don't want them to get a large sum of money and trust should be able to contemplate all sorts of things. I see a lot of clients, you know, hey, I love my kids, but I don't want them to get a lot of money. I want them to, you know, work for it. So everything is held for the kids benefit, you know, education, whatever it might be, but they're not getting money until 25 or 30. The other thing I often see clients worry about is you know, who's going to be in charge, you know, if I am incapacitated, I get in a car accident, having those people that you trust, and then if that person is not there, then who I always say always tell clients in my intakes, and like, I'm going to come up with the worst scenarios where every person you tell me is unavailable and ask you for someone else. So yeah, watching out for that stuff.     Michael: Okay, love it. Can you tell us like a gooey horror story of when something went really wrong?   Kellie: So many, I mean, even like, amongst my, my lawyer, friends, everyone's kind of like, Oh, you do that area of law, like, is it boring? It is fascinating. Um, because families are fascinating.   Michael: Family dynamics. Yeah, for sure.   Kellie: So one of the reasons, I guess one of the reasons to have a poor overwhelm, I would say, we had a, there was a situation where somebody won at a casino, very exciting, when a significant amount of money, went out and bought a motorcycle, didn't put the motorcycle in the name of the trust, which is fine. But didn't put the money anywhere. They you know, it's just in a bank account, it was coming their way, crashed their motorcycle and died. Now we have this huge amount of money out there and that's not in the name of the trust. So the goal is to pull it in and probate it. So we go to void and we don't have to probate. So we have stuff like that happen. I've worked on cases where, you know, the parents have an estate plan that's been in place for 25 years, and then dad has dementia and suddenly has an amendment play a month before he dies, that leaves everything to one kid and that's the kid that took him to you know, the attorney.   Michael: Oh, my gosh…   Kellie: There's so many nightmare scenarios. That stuff we can get overturned. But I mean, all of these have solutions, right? If you already have it in place, and then families just fight. I mean, I think especially if you have a family that's going to, you know, your kids don't get along or you know, there's that one person I always tell people, every family has something or someone and if you don't know who that is, or that what that is. It's the right client. Also, you need to look at yourself like what's, what's good because the state plan can take that into consideration. I had a client that had a DeLorean and four boys and she said sell it and I said, okay, you don't want it. We can come up with solutions. You know, do you want to have a to flip a coin, do you want to have draw straws and she said, no, whoever wins, the other three will hate them and I said, okay, so it has to be sold and I, and then I was thinking to myself and like, well, if it was me, I'd have my buddy buy it right, like, and then I get the DeLorean. So it had to be sold, like out of state to a third, like a dealer or somebody like we had, it was so detailed, like pages about this DeLorean. This is one of those situations where I lost on a flat fee, right, because I'm drafting a car. But it was fascinating, because she goes, I know, it's gonna ruin my family and I want it sold. So we could do that.   Michael: Wow. It's crazy. That's pretty impressive.   Kellie: Yeah.   Michael: Okay, cool. Well, Kellie, I want to make sure that we are very respectful of your time. But before we let you out of here, you said something, and I just want to kind of come back and double click on it about in California, if you've own $166,000 and assets, then you're going to probate unless you have this trust and you said that if even if there's a mortgage on the property, so let's say I own a property, it's worth 200k. I've got 100k mortgage on it. My net value are my, my net worth is only 100 grand. So do I fall into that bucket? Where do I land?   Kellie: Yeah. So there's a there's a, I think, yes, you do. So you start thinking about all these other things. So the way that that probate law works, is they look at the value of the property, not the equity in the property, the value of the property because they see a significant asset that somebody could sell out from under the mortgage company, which is hard to do anymore, but and run away with and so they look at the value of the property itself, and then the equity down the road in the probate in terms of what everybody's paid off, and what is distributed is taken into consideration at that point. So I have clients that will say, well, I don't really want to pay for the trust, I just want to pay for the will and because I'm gonna put beneficiaries on all my accounts and my property, I'm just going to play joint tenancy.   All of that works if everything goes perfectly according to plan, right?   Michael: So which it always does…   Kellie: Always goes according to plan. You know, parents always outlive their kids. They live till they're 90, the kids are responsible, never get divorced, you know, they never see anything else happen. The problem is when it doesn't work. The last thing your spouse or your kid is going to want to do when you pass away is to see a lawyer which unfortunately, they usually need to do. But that property then if joint tenancy goes to one person, and now it's just one person that owns it, and it's not a trust, so it's you know, your husband dies now the wife owns it, and the wife isn't going to she's grieving. She's doing all these things and isn't going to think about it and then when the wife dies, it's probated. Same thing with kind of beneficiaries on accounts are you know, if I leave it to my husband, he passes away. Now where does it go, that money can go into probate. So that's where we get IRAs 401 K's things like that can end up in probate so people will list their kids next, I'm avoiding it. I still not over that. 160,000 miles, I have a contingent beneficiary. My question is then what ages are your kids getting it? What is you know, now we're letting that fidelity or whatever company whatever bank it might be, come up with where it goes, if one of your kids is in the car with you and dies with you and your husband now where's their share going? Is it going to your grandkids is it going to the other kid there's and so by having a trust you lease the trust is that contingent beneficiary it goes into the trust and the trust does all the work so if the worst happens a good lawyer has already contemplated if a kid dies before you what ages all of these things, and you'll avoid the whole mess but yeah, if you want a house in California estate plan if you are trust or if you want significant assets, significant amount of stock, things like that beneficiary accounts yeah, you can technically your pay on death pod. You can avoid it but it scares me. I make a lot of money off of people that do that because they pass away and I would rather probate I make a lot more money probating for clients than I do doing estate plans but that's not the goal. That's not why I do this.   Michael: Yeah. I love it, I love it. Super, super helpful, Kellie, for people that want to learn more reach out to you for your services, just chat with you because you're a cool, interesting person. What's the best way for them to do so?   Kellie: So I mean, I'm great with email, and my website is just https://www.taylorchrismanlaw.com/ TAYLOR Chrisman is like a Christian man stuck together, CHRISMAN.com. My email is just Kellie@taylorchrismanlaw.com, AWAL I am on there are my phone number you know, you can always reach out I've got someone that answers the phone all the time. 916-292-8646. But yeah, whatever people have questions on I'm always more than happy to help. I guess you should look for a free consultation because I that's I'm always happy to talk to people and if they're not if I'm not the right fit or you want to find somebody in the you know, in your state or whatever it might be, I like to help connect people where it might be I think if you put that good karma out there, it helps.   Michael: Amazing, amazing well Kellie, thank you so much. Again, this is super insightful as always, and I'm sure I'll be chatting soon.   Kellie: Yeah, sounds good. Thanks, guys.   Michael: Got it, take care.   All right, everyone. That was our episode. A big thank you to Kellie for coming on, as always in sharing some wonderful wisdom and really great insights. As always, if you enjoyed the episode, feel free to leave us a rating or review wherever it is. You get your podcasts and we look forward to seeing the next one. Happy investing…

Pete Neubig is a realtor who focuses on investment properties. Pete has been investing in real estate since 2001. He has owned and managed a 39, 52, and 100-unit apartment complex. He currently owns single-family homes and a 52-unit apartment complex. Pete created a property management company based on the motto "By investors for investors". His property management company has clients from Houston and all over the world. His technology-based systems allow owners to see everything that is happening at their property without having to be involved. Tune in for today's episode where Pete talks us through some of the mistakes that he made as an investor and how he's doing things differently today. Episode Link: https://www.vpmsolutions.com/ --- Transcript Before we jump into the episode, here's a quick disclaimer about our content. The Remote Real Estate Investor podcast is for informational purposes only, and is not intended as investment advice. The views, opinions and strategies of both the hosts and the guests are their own and should not be considered as guidance from Roofstock. Make sure to always run your own numbers, make your own independent decisions and seek investment advice from licensed professionals.   Michael: What's going on everyone? Welcome to another episode of the Remote Real Estate Investor. I'm Michael Albaum and today with me, I have Pete Neubig who is a real estate investor and CEO of VPM solutions and Pete is going to be talking to us today about some of the mistakes that he made as an investor and how he's doing things a little bit differently today than maybe your typical investor. So let's get into it.   Pete, what's going on, man? Thanks so much for hanging out with me today. Appreciate you coming on.   Pete: Michael, thanks so much for having me, I'm really looking forward to it.   Michael: No, me too and so before we hit record here, you were telling us about the three different lives that you've lived. So you are a super interesting guy. Needless to say. So for anyone who hasn't heard of Pete Neubig before, give them the quick and dirty rundown of who you are, where you come from, and what you're doing in real estate today.   Pete: Sure. Well, real quick. Let's see, I'm from New York City originally, I moved to Texas in Houston back in 1995. So I have a gun. So I guess I'm a Texan now.   Michael: Give me one when you move to the state, like I think…   Pete: They give you a cowboy hat, a gun in some boots, you know. So I started buying real estate in 2001 when I bought my first property, actually, I bought a duplex and a single and a a 100 unit apartment complex like same day, like I closed on the same day, I ended up owning bunch of property that I ended up starting a property management firm and I got so busy doing that, that I stopped buying real estate for a while just to build the investment, the property management business, I ended up selling the property management business and now I started a an online platform. It's a virtual property management solutions or VPM solutions where we connect the real estate industry with virtual talent around the globe, so…   Michael: That’s so cool. Pete just taking a total step back to say you're from New York now living in Texas, do you remember like I don't know in the late 90s, early 2000s there was that pace salsa commercial where like all the cowboys were sitting around like, where's that guy from New York City, New York City? When you say that, that's like the first thing that I thought of like, oh, hey, salsa commercial.   Pete: And I still can't say y'all correctly I get I get I get yelled at all the time and I'm down here saying y'all, so…   Michael: Y’all with the New York accent, I love it, I love it. Well, you did you I mean, this is a really cool trajectory that that you've ended up on and I would love to focus on kind of the first stage of your investing career where you own a bunch of rentals and again, we were chatting before we hit the record button, and you were saying that you had sold a bunch of them off, and then actually paid off some of the remaining ones. So walk us through, you know, like, why because I think I think a lot of people would be like, oh, that's stupid, like, what is Pete doing? You gotta have leverage. That's how you juicy return. So, you know, walk us through how you built up the portfolio and then why you decided to sell them but then keep some free and clear.   Pete: Sure thing. So I started buying on my own first right so I own like 12 I think it was like duplexes. I was for some reason I was love duplexes. I think most people would say, well, it's the cash flow, right? Duplexes, have a great cash flow and I was always looking at just cash flow and I think if I go back in my, in my investor life, I can tell you, Michael, I've lost so many millions of dollars by not buying houses with very low cash flow, because I forgot about this thing called appreciation, right? I wasn't buying cash flow, right and my goal at the time, I was a young man, I was early 30s, like 30-31 when I started buying, my goal was to get enough cash flow so I can just leave my corporate job. That's kind of what the way I was thinking. So I buy a bunch of properties and then I get I get talked into being a passive investor for 100 unit apartment complex and I told if I buy one apartment complex, I can retire right? So I'm like, oh, great, you know, monopoly, I'll buy a bunch of houses, sell them and all that good stuff. Well, it just never materialized. I was buying lower income homes and if anybody knows the lower income homes a cash flow is really just on the sheet of paper. It's not it's not true returns unfortunately, because there's little things like you know, the evictions or you know, not getting all the rent and in the make readies are not a couple 100 bucks or a couple of $1,000 because people in low income they take what's called parting gifts. You know, they take your AC, your doors…   Michael: Your goodie bags, you know…   Pete: Yeah, good. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So, so I ended up connecting with a business partner named Steve Rosenberg, who he's kind of a a national speaker now but Steve and I ended up finding his guy who is offloading a lot of his portfolio. So we thought this is great and we ended up buying like 30 houses and we were both enamored with buying property. But we didn't had no idea what to do once we bought them. Like we were terrible and how to manage them. So what happened was…   Michael: Pete was this was this local in New York or local in Texas, there was this remote?   Pete: Yeah, great question. So I was, I was, I had lived in Texas at the time, we're buying everything in Houston. I there was no such thing as Roofstock that we knew have to go buy stuff in other areas and back in the early 2000s, the average price of a single family home in Houston was like around 130. I was buying it for 35,000. Like, lower low income houses. Yeah.   Michael: But not have roofs, like, what's the deal?   Pete: Man, they were just in low income and today, those houses are now worth about 150, right, 20 years later, and I was buying them at 35 and they were worth 50 to 55,000. So I was buying them below. But I just found an investor who wanted to offload stuff but he was offloading me all his problems, right and if you don't have good management, behind you, if you have a good management company, by the way, it's really difficult to manage these low income stuff. It just is because they don't pay online, they don't abide by the lease, they have dogs, when they say they're not going to have dogs, all that all this stuff that you have to deal with. It's just difficult and so Steve and I, we ended up buying 31 homes. So now I have 31 homes, and we advertise bad credit, okay, no credit, okay, like you have you have a pulse and $1 will, we're gonna let you in the house and of course, that comes back to bite you to the point where not only are we not making the cash flow that was projected, but we're losing money at the end of the year, now I have to come in and pay for my taxes and my insurance and so now I'm working even harder at my nine to five than I did and I'm working hard to manage these properties.   But all of a sudden, this this like, dream that you have is becoming a nightmare and so, you know, caution, number of cautionary tale number one for your listeners is buy absorb, right, and then buy some more like don't just keep buying if you can't manage the assets, or number two is go find a professional management company that will take your properties. My problem was I had my problems was so low, I couldn't get a professional management company to take my properties. The manager companies know how hard they are and I'm like, Well, I'm gonna give you 25 They're like, Yeah, great. Keep it like, we want to charge you more. So I ended up creating the management company with Steve so we can manage our own properties and so there's been two there's two things, the two big instances that happen in my investing life that has propelled me to pay off properties, right. So let's get to your question. The first thing was I bought all those properties, and I wasn't making cashflow, right, but I had to pay the note every month, right and at the end of the year, now I'm getting in tax and insurance. And so there was no cashflow there and there's no appreciation I just told you it took him 25 years to get that double or triple of appreciation. So I own these properties for 10-12 years for 35,000 and they were worth like 45,000 right 50,000 I told you I got equity, but that nothing ever increased. So when that when the banks are coming and asking for their money, and I gotta go work a double because I need more money, or I gotta go sell off stock because I got to. So that that was something that kind of made me realize maybe I want to be the bank myself, or maybe I don't want to owe the bank so much money. So that was the first thing. The second thing was, I ended up buying that 100 unit apartment complex that I told you about and that 100 unit apartment complex. I am still today friends with the lead investor, he's a good guy, we just had a bad plan. We lost the apartment complex. Now I was a passive investor and now here's cautionary tale number two for your investor listeners. If you're going to be a passive investor, make sure that you either A have an attorney you trust or be read the documents yourself. So I was a passive investor, but I was legally on the hook for with my credit. So I personally signed the note. Yeah, I see you I see you if you for those of you not look, for those of you listening and not watching the video, Michael's jaw just dropped, right and so and then what happened was because the plan was bad, we couldn't we couldn't make a payment and so the bank led us to believe that we can restructure our debt. Well, they ended up having somebody that would buy the debt would buy the property from under us. So they foreclosed on us and sold the property for more than what we owed, which in normal cases, you think that's fine. I owed 1.1 million they sold for 1.5 million. I should be off the hook. Well, there was a little checkbox that said no, if they foreclose on me regardless how much they sell, they can sue me for that amount. So I got personally sued for one point $2 million.   Oh my god all because now I will tell you this, I paid a mentor and I paid an attorney. Before I got into that deal thinking I covered myself, I got a guy who's done a bunch of apartment complexes, I have an attorney, they just missed that. They just missed it, the mentor wanted to deal to get done because he was the broker on a deal. So it really was it wasn't aligned. You know, are you know, of course, at the time, I was like, get the deal done. But he needed to protect me from myself at that time and so when you owe, so long story short, I ended up selling. I had a six unit apartment complex that I sold, made 30 grand, and I actually was able to, to pay $30,000 to make the lawsuit go away. So the bank knew that what they were coming after me, they knew that they didn't really have a good case because they made their money. So they just wanted their attorney fees paid for but that put the fear of God in me to be quite honest and so I vowed that I don't want to ever be over leveraged, right and so of course, Kiyosaki talks about other people's money and every you know, rich, Guru, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, guy, every guru out there will tell you, if you can borrow 110% borrow 110%. Well, back in the early 2000s, you were able to borrow 110% I don't know if you remember and so I did that, right now. I was fortunate that I was able to overcome when the properties weren't making any money because I had a job. But if you are again, a cautionary tale number three, if you are a full time real estate investor, you cannot survive when you when your cashflow negative, it's very, very difficult, and you have to sell off assets. But if the assets are worth less than what you owe, that's a challenge. So when I got into property management, I realized pretty quickly that people will manage Class B homeless people will buy and rent Class B homes, I always had this mindset that people will only manage or rent Class C or D homes. I'm like, no one's gonna pay $800 in rent or $1,200 in rent, and go buy a property, a nice property and have $1,200 on my mortgage, right? Like it was a mindset thing and so another tale is if you're an investor, don't you don't try to buy anything that you would live in you. Other people will live in stuff that you like, why would they rent stuff when I when you can buy something? So when I found that aha moment, I pivoted and I hired a property manager. Finally I was trying to property manage and I was terrible at it. Like, I'm like, I had to hire a property manager. First day she comes in, she goes, okay, we're gonna fire half your clients, this tree store, we had 67 doors, 30 of them were mine. She's like, we're gonna fire half your clients, because those houses are in are in a low income area. They're not worth managing. We're gonna pivot, we're gonna get these Class B homes. Oh, and by the way, you need to sell off your homes. We're not managing your homes either. So you know what I said, You know what, I've been trying to make this work for so many years and are every year I'm coming at the end of the year, I gotta pay money. Now I quit my job to start my property management firm, which by the way, I was making $105,000 a year now making $12,000 a year am I okay? These properties, they can't be an albatross around my neck. So I sold a bunch of homes. So I had, I think 31 of them and 25 are in kind of the lower income area and I couldn't get rid of some of them. So I owner financed them and that was when I had an aha moment. So I was able to wrap the note, I had a very good, I had a local bank and I had a very good relationship with a local bank, and they allow me to wrap the note, right. So basically what that means is I've sold the property to you Michael, right. But I still own the property, you pay me 10% 20% down, you're gonna pay me a mortgage, and then I'm gonna pay the bank, the mortgage, and I get the spread. Yeah, the first time ever that those properties made me money.   Michael: Wow, okay. Were you able to sell them for much more than you paid for him? I know, you said there wasn't much appreciation.   Pete: No appreciation. But remember, I did have equity. So I sold them for like 50,050 to 55,000. I bought it for 35,000. So I was able to make money that way but if you think about it, I lost so much by owning and by doing the rehabs that I kind of broke even. Okay, it's great. Like, I'm able to be on podcast now. Tell that story, I guess. You know, it's the school of hard knocks, right? That's it. So college is way more expensive than that, by the way that just took me a lot of time. I ended up breaking even and making a little bit of money on it. But what happened was so when I when I started my property management firm, I don't know if you've ever started a business from scratch, Michael, but it is not easy, right? I didn't I didn't build it. I didn't buy somebody else's business, right. I built it from scratch and, you know, it's at 90 hour weeks. It's every day, you know, and so I got away from the investing thing. So I sold off my assets at a 52 unit that I sold office well took a bath in there, investors lost money.   So I don't like multifamily. I can just tell you that much. I know you do. I've listened to some of your stuff. But we could debate that on another pod. A lot of fun things off. So when I, when my property management firm seven years later started becoming like I was working now five hours a week, 10 hours a week, I started getting back into buying investment properties. So I was able to find and a bought a couple of properties for about $120,000. It's called Baytown. So it's a little bit it's like a Class B, B minus area, blue collar, I like it gray area of town in Houston to buy in, because there's a lot of renter's there, but I started buying them and I started buying cash. So of course, you have to have the cash, right. So I had some cash I was able to buy in cash and so all my other properties that I did keep, I kept paying those down, and I have those in cash. So today, instead of 31 non producing properties, I have eight properties, one of them is paid for, and I own the note. So I sold it, I did an owner financing sell and I make more money on that property now than I ever did when I rented it out. I have three others that are paid for three or four, four others that are paid for and then I have four others that have a note on them. With the four that I bought the last four, I bought a boat with a note, it was one of those commercial loans. Package note, I had to put 30% down I did, I bought them in January of 2020. So right before the pandemic, there I bought it for 535 from a California investor he was done. We I gotta because I own the management company. So before I went on the market, I made him an offer and so I got him for 535 they appraised at 640 and I put 30% down and they kept they cashflow beautifully and I have I have a small note and now if I want them to sell one of the houses, I can take it out of notes, sell it pay the note down. So now I own eight or nine properties total and they're worth you know, close to, I want to say like one like one, let's call it 1.2 million, I only want 300,000 or 350 on the whole thing, right and my cashflow is about 12,000 a month, uh, me a little bit less, a little bit less, a little bit less, maybe like 10, five around there and so, so I'm a big fan of owning the property outright. So I have both houses that aren't paid for right, so. So it's just hear me out on this, I am now in my 50s. So in my 30s I was a big fan of taking out mortgages, as much as you can bind as much as you can, because you got this thing called time on your side, you can make mistakes, right? At 50 you have less time, right? I've 20 years less, so I can't really make the same mistakes. So I believe even though I make less cash on cash, right? Less overall, I have this thing where I can sleep better at night, right? The house is paid for like, for example, I own  a house, I just had to put in a brand new AC and heater, right cost me like I think like six grand. That's cash flow for a year in most in most instances, right and you can't afford it because you don't have the money. Well, when the house is rented for 2500 a month. That's only two to three months. It's not terrible. It doesn't it doesn't knock you out of the game. You're not always stressed for cash. In my in my in my bank account for my business, my housing business. I got like 30 to 35 to $45,000 sitting there all the time, right. So if anything ever happens, I'm okay and so that in now because they're paid for I have more cash flow. I don't have to pay all the notes all the time. So, so again, as you get older, you're like, okay, well, how can I have like, How can I afford to live day to day? Well, if I have $12,000  a month coming in, and I only have $22,000 going out for principal and interest. Well, now I'm at 10 grand and now you figure another 3000 a month in taxes and insurance. So now I'm at seven grand. Well, that's, you know, that's almost 80,000 a year in Texas. It's not terrible and of course if maintenance happens, which always does you never get that full 70% right you never get that full deal. So because of my past issues with banks, by the way the bank on the 100 unit apartment complex really, they really screwed us they let us believe one thing and kind of did the end around and so because of that, I'm really you know, just I was scared is not the right word, but very unjust and very hesitant, hesitant to do it now. That doesn't mean that I won't take on a note, especially if I can't afford to buy something in cash, but I'm gonna He's going to put 2030 40% down, whatever, whatever the bank wants, and then a little bit more and then I'm like, I'm at the back into my life, right? So I am looking to, to pay these things off. So I have 20, year amortizations. If I could, if I could pay them off in 15 years. Okay, I'm 60-65 and now I have no notes, and I have all these houses paid for and at the end of the day, you want to live on cash flow, right? You don't want to live on like hoping that your properties increase in value, and then you can take the money out. If they're if they're paid for in 10 years, I can go take you know, 80-70, 80% of the value of the house, which are increasing now. tax free. So I have so I do have ability to, to go take the money out. Should I should I choose to do that?   Michael: Yeah, man, this is wild, man. This is this is such a cool story and of course, I'm so sorry to hear that you had to deal with all that nonsense, Bs. But it sounds like it helped lead you to the decision and kind of path where you are today. So would you say that you're thankful for those experiences as crummy as they were?   Pete: Yeah, look, whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger and I am truly I think I'm a better business partner today than I then I was back then I'm a better investor today for sure and so overall, I feel like I'm, I'm better, I'm a better as a person, because you won't like, like I said, if it doesn't kill you, the one thing that you as an investor, as a real estate investor, you have to make sure that you don't make the mistake that could put you out of business, right. So in my when I had the 100 unit apartment complex, I use my 401k. No my IRA money, so I went and did a self-directed IRA and that's how I invested my money, lost it all, by the way, okay. Again, at 31, I lost 120 grand, which is a lot of money for me back then. A lot of money for anybody right now. Okay but it didn't put me out of business.   Once I once I was able to clear my name with the bank, my credit was cleared, everything was clear. Like it was never it's not on my it's not on my credit history at all, because they know that they messed up and I was part of our deal. So that allowed me to get back in the game and by I had another pair of business partners, that they ended up taking bad advice, they ended up using credit cards, taking money out of their credit cards, cash advances, to put money down to buy this apartment complex, because some guru told them that he did it, just because he did it and it's possible doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. Well, they had declared bankruptcy. So they were they were out of the game. They you have a bankruptcy, you're not going to be buying investment properties. Why don't you know, you're not going to buy your personal home, let alone investment properties. So as a real estate investor, for the for if you're listening to this, you know, it's great to take on some risk. I mean, obviously, we all take on some risk, right? We know there's no guarantee price is gonna go up. There's no guarantee that people are going to pay their rent. There's no guarantee but don't take on a risk that will put you out of business.   Michael: Yeah, I love that and I think that makes a ton of sense. Pete, you said something kind of at the beginning of your story that I want to come back to and that's you were buying these low income properties, and you bought them and you scrimped and you saved and you and you put these deals together, and they really hadn't appreciated very much and you sold them because your property manager, right, yeah, that after that, they appreciate it. So like, talk to us about how people should be thinking about if they're in a similar situation, they bought a property. They did all this work to get the deal done. they scrimped and they save and they just haven't seen very much appreciation. Maybe they're in a similar situation where it's not cash flowing, or it's just covering its expenses. It's just not what they thought it was going to be. When should someone cut their losses and run and maybe go try something else or how do they know maybe they should keep hanging on because we're right around the corner from that appreciation jump?   Pete: Yeah, that that is if I had a crystal ball, I could I could answer that. I can just, I can just tell you from my perspective, I did everything I could to make those properties work. I mean, I would put it you know, like when we did a rehab, we made the house even nicer than it was right? We got rents up, but for whatever reason, and we just can never get them to cash when we were losing money. After about five years, I think you got to if you do not have the cash flow, where you can lose money every year on your properties, and it hurts you. You know, I think you got to cut the cord after a couple of years of trying everything. You have to try everything though. I'll tell you my grandfather before he passed away, he was in his 80s and he when he passed away, he was worth I think 30 million. So this is a guy who knows a thing or two. But he told me one of the last conversation I had with him he said, Pete, never sell your property. When grandpa died here. We had a lot of property it was he was a mess. The guy didn't put any money into it. Son of a gun when we had to deal with it, but it was luckily all those properties appraise or appraised value over time, time heals all wounds if you can afford it and knowing like, hey, like, I can tell you this when I bought the properties in my early 30s, I needed the cash flow as a means to I try to exit out of the of my, you know, my w two life, right?   Luckily, my w two allow me to handle those properties, right, allow me to handle the losses. When I got into starting my own business, I knew the upside of starting my own business was great but starting my own business meant I had to take a huge step back in how much money that I can afford, that I was going to be able to extract out at a business. I wasn't venture backed, none of that stuff, right. I mean, I literally just hung a shingle and I started working. Well, I couldn't afford to lose the money on those properties anymore. So that was, that was a big reason on why I decided to sell. Now I will tell you, I sold all those properties in 2015. I bought them in like 2008 2005 I bought most of them and I saw them 10 years later. So it wasn't for lack of trying Michael like I tried right? Even after 2015 they didn't jump up until recently, like this pandemic has me all jacked up, I have no idea what's up what's down, like, I thought the price would come down. So I sold my last property in that area of town for 120. I bought that piece of property for 50 in 20 in 2005, so here we are. So it kind of matches up right 2005. Here we are 15 years later and that thing actually, you know, more than doubled. Now that property I owner financed, I sold it at 120. It was probably worth 100. Alright, so probably doubled in value over those 15 years. I always pay, I always sell it for a little bit higher because I'm holding a note. I want to build in that appreciation. You want to go through the numbers on it real quick?   Michael: Yeah, let's do it again. All right.   Pete: So when I when I own the home, and I rented it out, I was renting for 1000 bucks a month.   Michael: Okay, you bought it for 50 renting for 1000. So crushing the 2% rule. Everyone on paper is like, oh, you're killing it.   Pete: Right? Exactly. On paper, right. So 1000 bucks a month. So now you like Pete, you're making $1,000 a month. But am I Michael? I'm not making $1,000 a month, right? What do we have? We have taxes 300 bucks a month now making 700 a month? What do we have? We have insurance 120 a month. Okay, so now I'm down to 580. My management fee was 80 bucks, I'm down to 500 bucks a month and that's before you get into maintenance and turn, right. So on my best month I make 500 bucks a month.   Michael: Oh no.   Pete: You wanna go through the numbers?   Michael: Yeah, let’s do it, man.   Pete: Or go through the numbers. Okay, so I'm renting that property for $1,000 a month, right? I bought it for 50 rent it for $1,000 a month, right? So am I making $1,000? a month? No way? No, right because the taxes were 300 a month. So now I'm making 700. Right, my insurance is 120 a month. So now making 580 and my manager fees are 80 bucks a month. So I'm making 500 bucks a month and asked me for any kind of maintenance happens or turn. So the best I can do is 500 a month, right? So now I sold the property I sold for 120 got 10% down. So the notes 113. I sold on a 20 year amortization 7%, I found a company that will actually serve as the note for 30 bucks a month that I pushed on to the buyer. So right now it's cost me nothing. The principal and interest on that house is 7-78 and it's like I think it's like $67 is principal and $7 is interest and that's what I make on that house every month, right? If taxes go up, does it affect does it affect me and my cash flow? No insurance goes up doesn't affect my cash flow. Refrigerator breaks doesn't affect my cash flow   Michael: Vacancy could be vacant doesn't affect your cash flow.   Pete: Doesn't affect my cash flow. Now I ended up selling this one to an owner occupied. So I didn't sell to an investor on this one. So the owner occupied and he pays and all I gotta worry about is if he doesn't make his payment, I can foreclose on him. I don't know what the laws are in California in Texas, it's about 21 days. Before we before we can start the process and start the process.   Michael: Okay, okay. Okay.   Pete: So 21 back in the day used to be 21 days, you get them out now it's like…   Michael: That's what I was going to ask. Yeah. Okay. So just real quick on owner financing, because I think this is something that a lot of our listeners who own property should hopefully their ears are perking up. How do you underwrite a buyer, someone who's going to be, you know, seller financing from you as the lender as the owner.   Pete: So, I don't really care about credit at that point because if they had good credit, they're not coming they're not buying.   Michael: They go then to a bank…   Pete: Right, exactly. So what I'm looking for and what I'm always looking for is why is it credit bad, right? So are they not paying their rent or are they not paying the you know, the electric bill or whatever, whatever, you know, car or bill or whatever it is, right? So I want to know what kind of why they're why they have such bad debt. I don't care why they have such bad credit, I don't care that bad credit and then I'm looking at cash, how much money they make. So what happens is a lot of these guys, so guy that that bought my property, he's in like the construction business, right? So he has his own little deal, he can't show he shows no income, but he showed me his bank statements and he showed me his deposits for the last couple of years and so I just look at how much cash do you have, can you afford it right and then, as a property manager, I always go to two and a half to three times. So if I can get two and a half to three times of cash for what it's going to cost them all in, then I feel I feel at that point, it's not that big a deal. Also, he's paid me 10% down. So I have some cash there. So if he did move out, or couldn't afford any more, I got a little bit of cash, I could make the place a little bit nicer. Okay but the mentality of somebody who buys your property, even if it's owner finance verse, somebody who rents your property, let me just tell you what happens, right? When somebody used to rent that property, what they used to do there give me a long list of stuff that didn't work in the house, that they wanted me to fix it, right, even though the lease says, as is all that good stuff, right? When somebody buys a house, they're getting a long list, and they're improving the house. When somebody rents your house, they're paying the car to pay the electric, they're paying their damn Hulu bill before they pay you because they know that they can they know the eviction process all the way through and how long it take them right? When they own the house were they paying first and for paying…   Michael: The mortgage first. Every time they pay the mortgage, first…   Pete: Hulu gets put on the back burner, the car payment gets put on the back burner. So the mentality is completely different. I've only I've only you know, I think he's been over there a little over a year, never had one issue with payment. Knock on wood.   Michael: That's great and is the term is the note do you get it full term to 20 years or is it a couple of shorter year term with a 20 year AM?   Pete: I will have to double check but I'm pretty sure it's just a 20 year amortization and he just pays me to 20 years and then that's it. So what a lot of people say to me is well, Pete, you're missing out on the appreciation, right? Like, if you sold the house or 100, or the house is worth 120,000 or 200, right? So if you think about this, Michael, most people don't pay extra. Most people don't pay the house off early or if they do right grade, they pay the house off early. They make my money. But he's paying $60 In principal and $680 in interest, right? If you if you pay that house off in 20 years, he's gonna pay that he's gonna pay about 240,000 hours on that house. I think I got my appreciation.   Michael: Just fine. Yeah. Oh, man. I love it, I love it. That is so cool Pete. That is such a great story.   Pete: I built into cushion of 20,000 so that he can't refinance right away. Right, because the house is only worth 100. So by no one's gonna give him $110,000 or whatever it takes to refinance the house. So by increasing it a little bit, you save yourself at least those first you know, five years or so.   Michael: Super, super smart. Super smart.   Pete: Yeah, that's a good one.   Michael: That's a that's a really that's really good, man. Pete, we could chat for hours, man. What's the best way if people want to learn more about you reach out to you for, nobody gets to cover your VPM solutions today, but learn more about your words, where is the best place to do so?   Pete: Yeah, you know, best thing is they can actually I'm on all the socials I guess. But it's Pete Neubig NEU big and you can email me at: pete@vpmsolutions.com or you can just go to our website to https://www.vpmsolutions.com/ and check us out.   Michael: Right on man. Well, thanks again for coming on and sharing some wisdom, really appreciate you.   Pete: Thanks, Michael. Very good talking to you.   Michael: All right, when that was our episode, a big thank you to Pete for coming on super interesting way of thinking and doing things just a little bit differently than maybe we hear about what we need to be doing as investors. So as always, if you've liked the episode, we'd love to hear from you ratings and feedback are always appreciated, and we look forward to seeing you the next one. Happy investing…

Real estate investor, author, and podcast host Henry Washington entered the industry in search of building passive income to achieve financial freedom. In just three and a half years, Henry built an impressive rental portfolio and now turns his focus to teaching others how to create wealth through real estate investment. Listen in todays episode where Henry talks us through how to work with small banks to get initial loans, make contractor connections, market effectively to generate leads, and adjust your mindset for success.  Episode Link: https://henrywashington.clickfunnels.com/order-485129501621009952063 --- Transcript Before we jump into the episode, here's a quick disclaimer about our content. The Remote Real Estate Investor podcast is for informational purposes only, and is not intended as investment advice. The views, opinions and strategies of both the hosts and the guests are their own and should not be considered as guidance from Roofstock. Make sure to always run your own numbers, make your own independent decisions and seek investment advice from licensed professionals.   Michael: Hey, everyone, welcome to another episode of the Remote Real Estate Investor. I'm Michael Albaum, and today I'm joined by Henry Washington and Henry is an investor and he's gonna be talking to us about how he went from zero to like a gazillion doors in a very short amount of time, and what he did to get there. So let's get right into it.   Henry, what's going on, man, thanks so much for coming on and hanging out with me and I really appreciate you.   Henry: Hey, man, thanks for having me, I appreciate it.   Michael: No, it's gonna be a lot of fun. So I know a little bit about your background but for those of our listeners who might not be familiar with the Mr. Henry Washington gave us the quick and dirty who you are, where you're coming from and what is it? You're doing real estate today?   Henry: Yeah, Henry Washington, I'm a real estate investor based out of the Northwest Arkansas market. So it's the northwest corner of the state. It's this like little unique bubble have an area. There's so much huge recession proof industry here. So it's a lot of money in this little part of the country that makes this market pretty unique and so I've been investing here, four and a half years, I'd say close to five years now I bought my first house five years ago and prior to that I was a nine to five or working for I worked for Walmart and so they're headquartered out here. It's one of the companies, you know, that's, that's based out here and so I did data analytics and software development for them for 10 years, and made a great salary and I also spent a great salary and so I often found myself not having money before I was to get paid again and, you know, I think a lot of people find themselves in that situation.   My, I guess the pivot for me came when I got married, got married fairly quickly, my wife did not want to run out of money before we got paid again and that was that was the first time where…   Michael: A reasonable request…   Henry: I guess. It's so I, you know, I started to realize that the path I was on financially wasn't going to provide me the life that I truly wanted and I knew that but when it was just me, like, there was no like, I was okay, I was like, whatever, I'll figure it out but like, when you have somebody else who's depending on you, you know, a lot of those things become a lot more real and so I had a panic attack one night, after we tried to buy a house together, and I couldn't be on the loan, because my credit was so bad and the bank said, hey, you're gonna ruin this for your wife, if you guys want to be able to buy a house and so then we, you know, we had conversations as a couple of about our future and what we wanted and kids and dream houses and you know, all the things married couples, young new married couples talk about, and I was like, I can't afford any of this. Like, I just, it was just as unsettling realization that like, even though I did all the things inside me told me to do, you know, I got the good grades, I went to the good schools, I got the good degree, I got the good job and I still couldn't do normal things, you know, without an extensive amount of like planning, budgeting, and like, it just was normal, things were going to be difficult and I just, I didn't want life to be like that and I didn't want her to feel like she was struggling by choosing me as her partner, and so I had a panic attack. Three in the morning woke up in a cold sweat because I was like, I gotta figure out a way to make some money and so I googled, how can I make some money and that's when that's when real estate kind of hit me over the head were really, really long story short is that's when I started to like pay attention to the articles that were popping up about passive income and about building wealth and well, you know, all those buzzwords that we all hear all the time, but like none of it seems to stick in our brains.   Well, it started to stick and I started to realize that like, owning real estate was feasible. I just never thought it was feasible before. I just thought super rich people in corporations on real estate, but like, stumbling upon us across articles on bigger pockets and all these places and seeing that it's just regular people that have real estate and they are building wealth and they are retiring from their jobs and I was just like, This is crazy and I didn't I didn't know it was I didn't know it was achievable, you know, and so I just made a decision that three in the morning and then I was going to figure it out because I figured it if all these people on the internet have figured out how to do it, there's no reason that I can't figure out how to do it. Pretty smart guy, so I'll just I'll just I literally said, I'll just do this and I had bad credit still and I had only had $1,000 in my savings account. So I didn't have any money. I had bad credit, but I made the decision that I was going to be a real estate investor and, you know, at the time, I'm sure that sounds like a crazy idea. But you know, now fast forward five years, I've got, we just counted yesterday, we've got 75 doors, and we are, we flipped 10 to 12 to 15 houses a year and I teach people how to be investors now and CO hosts a couple of Bigger Pockets podcasts and you know, why stick in a crazy turn in five years.   Michael: Dude, dude, that's amazing. So, okay, I have so many questions. Tell me some of them in the episode, when you say we are talking about we owning sending code, or is that you and your wife is that you and a partner, tell me about that?   Henry: Yeah, so when I say we, I'm referring to my wife and I, so my wife and I own the majority of our portfolio. Together, I have about 25 doors that I do have with a business partner that we bought early on in my investing career early on, I'm still early on in my office, but like in the first couple of years, and then I've got a few other doors and some partnerships, but you know, it's a mix, but the majority we owe…   Michael: Okay and so there's a pretty big gap in your story here, Henry, from the day that you woke up at 3am, Nicole 12 1000 bucks to now having $74. So fill in a little bit about for us and let's start with kind of that first deal. I mean, what did you do because I think so many people listening to this right now are in a similar boat. They're like, what I'm doing isn't working and I just discovered that real estate investing. I've always thought it was for other people. But I'd realize it can now be for me. So walk us through how do you get that first deal done?   Henry: Yeah, man. So I'll give will give to a couple of mindset and a couple of practical pieces of advice. So what I've learned, through retrospect, I didn't I wasn't the smart one at AG when I actually did it. I didn't know what I was doing. But now that I've looked back here, and I see I see what it was right and so I think the thing, the one thing that I did, that led me to where I am today had nothing to do with buying real estate. It had everything to do with mindset and I know people get all like, ooh, it's not that easy. You can't just make up your mind. You're rich, like, you're right, you can't but you can make up your mind that you're gonna do whatever it takes to hit to your goals, right and so that's what people that's what people mean, when they say the mindset changed their life because without the mindset, none of this was possible and so for me, the thing that I did, that led me here, the one thing was at three in the morning, I decided I was going to be a real estate investor, I made a decision I chose right, decide the suffix of the word decide aside, like suicide, or homicide, it means to kill off, there's no other option, right?   It's option A, or there's no option B is going to work or it's gonna work, right and when you decide, what you're doing, is you're telling your brain that this is what is going to be. So when we can't figure out how to do something, brain, go help me figure out how to do it, right, and you just open your mind up to helping you search for the answer for the root for the path for the thing that you need to get around the obstacle, like our brains are powerful, they do that. Like, if you tell your brain, if you tell your brain that we're doing something, it's gonna help you try to figure out how to do that and I think that most people, when they go down a path of anything, a business or a new venture, you know, fitness, whatever it is, like when you go down that path, most of us say, well, yeah, that looks cool. I'll give that a try, right? I'll try that out and when you say you're gonna try something, what you're telling your brain is like, we're gonna do it until we don't know what to do anymore and then we're not going to do it, your brain is just not going to help you navigate the difficult parts you didn't tell it to. You just told me you were trying it. You did, right and so I think the most powerful thing you can do is like truly make a decision in your heart and your mind. Like no matter what option A there is no option B, I knew I was gonna be a real estate investor, period, I was gonna figure it out and so everything I did to that point, like all the subsequent decisions that were made, were made with all that in mind, right and so when I bumped into walls and I obstacles and things. It was it was never like, well, I can't do it. It was just like, how are we gonna get around this obstacle, right? It's got to be a way people are doing this right and so I would say that's the biggest thing you can do is like, really do some serious soul searching like, you're you? Like, are you interested in real estate or are you committed to real estate, right? And if you're interested in it, that's cool. Do some research. See, see what's out there, right. But being interested in is isn't gonna get you to wealth being committed to it is, if you're committed to it, that means you're doing it no matter what, right, so.   Michael: Yeah and so what? Yeah, walk us through, like what you did, like, clearly, at the very end, you're committing to it, like, what did you do next?   Henry: Yeah, that's a great question. I had no idea what I was gonna do and so I just like….   Michael: You had to put it out to the world, you declare him….   Henry: I put it out there and then my thought process was like, alright, well, I don't know how to do this but somebody here is doing it. Like maybe I can just find people who are doing it and so I just started Googling, like real estate investment groups, meetups clubs, like I did all the words I could find to find people who were into this kind of thing. Who me I mean, there's, there's knitting groups, and there's, you know, there's dog walking groups, and there's, you know, you know, absolute backgammon groups, and like, I was like, there's got to be some investor groups, right and so that's what I did, I went and I found every investment Meetup group club, you know, association, wherever there was investors in a room in my area, I got in the room because I've always, you know, even before I was investor, I've always believed like, you know, who you know, who you choose to be around, let you know who you are, right? We are the sub parts of the people who are closest to us, right? We naturally as humans take on the characteristics of those who are closest to us. It's just human nature, we can't help it, right and so I was like, well, I'll just get around other investors and then it'll do a few things for me, it'll start to show me like how they're doing it. So maybe I can do it similarly, or how they're doing it. So maybe I don't want to do what they're doing or it'll start to show me what's possible because we like as people, we determine what's possible, based on what we see those closest to us doing, right?   Our views are limited to the knowledge that we have about a particular subject based on the people that are around us, right and so like, I knew that it seemed daunting, and I knew I had no idea how I was gonna buy a property. But I knew if I got around people who were buying properties all the time, it wasn't gonna seem as daunting anymore and so and so I would say the best, the next best thing you do is just surround yourself with people who are doing what you want to do, you will naturally start to take on those characteristics and remember, you told your brain, you're gonna figure it out and so as you're in these rooms, and you're hearing these people talk, and you're networking with these people, and you're starting to understand what's happening, your brain is listening, it's actively listening for the things that you need to know, that's going to help you down your path, right. It's the, you know, I would say it's like the, it's the red truck. I forget what they call it Pavlov's law or something like where it's like you buy a red truck, the truck you see is red. It's the same thing, right? You've told yourself, you've told your brain, I'm going to be an investor and so now every time something like it still happens to me, like if I'm out to dinner, and I hear somebody say something like rental, I'm like, who's to rent a property? There, it is good like, my brain is actively listening for it like, and then I'm like, yeah, I rented this boat. I'm like, it's not like your brain, it's gonna help you out, right and so when you go, and you surround yourself, you're not only learning new strategies, that you're meeting the people who are going to be able to help you down that path. That business partner I mentioned on 25 doors with, I met him in a real estate group. I met him at that same real estate group that I googled and found that that first day at the panic attack, the title company that I've used for almost every single closing I've ever done, I met through a connection at that real estate investment meetup and they have been a godsend to my business. I've met several contractors that I've used in that group, the banks that I've used, that have financed my deals at almost 100% sometimes I found in that group and so like you are, you are building your network, you are learning what to do and you are you're putting yourself in a position to be successful, you're putting yourself in a position to be ready, when the opportunity calls when the opportunity knocks. You know, we look at people sometimes and we say yeah, he's Henry's real estate investor, but he just he just fell into it, you know, because my first deal came from a friend of mine who heard I was buying houses and so from the outside looking in, it just looks like oh, your friend just called you and had this great deal, that's not going to happen to everybody.   Michael: I don't have any friends that are in real estate.   Henry: Yeah, right that that happened because I put myself in a position for things like that to happen and for me to be ready for them when they happen. That happened because I surrounded myself with other investors, I just started telling people, I was an investor, I had never done a deal, didn't know how to do a deal. I only had $1,000 and I had bad credit but I started telling people, I'm a real estate investor. That's what led my buddy to call me and tell me, hey, I'm in a tough spot with this property, I need somebody to buy it, right and so it wasn't luck. It's positioning, you've got to position yourself to be ready to take advantage of opportunities and so by just getting in the room, and it's not just going to one meetup, because I think that's what a lot of new investors do. Everybody knows, like, yeah, real estate investment meetups, but what happens is they go to one meeting, and then they go to maybe the second meeting the next month and then when they're gonna go to the third month, like life kicks in again, right, and they've got a kid thing, or they got a dog thing, or they got up, work early the next day, and they don't go and so the consistency is not there and when the consistency is not there, people don't know your face, people don't know who you are, what you're trying to do, they don't know how to help you, investors will genuinely try to help you. If you show up over and over again, you know, who else shows up over and over again, people doing deals, and when they see you in there, and they see you're hungry, you're trying to learn, you're making sacrifices, you're in there trying to contribute, and people will help you, they will help you, they'll send you deals, they'll send you contacts, they want you to be successful. It's a super cool group people.   So get in a very, very long winded way of saying, get into every real estate investment group you can get into because that is 100% what I did, and it really started to change the trajectory. You know, I listened to a story. I can't remember who it was but it was a guy whose first deal was a large apartment building and I remember hearing him get interviewed on a podcast and they said, well, what made you buy a you know, 150 unit apartment building for your very first deal. That's crazy people, like people work the way up to that they don't do that and he said, I didn't know I wasn't supposed to all my friends that I hung out with bought apartment buildings. That's what they did and so that's just what I did, right and I just thought that that's boom, that's it, like you have to surround yourself with people who are doing what you want to do well, because it will just make it seem like that's that means it's so achievable. If you tell somebody who's never ever bought a house ever, that they can go buy an apartment building, they'll look at you crazy, right but if you buy somebody tell somebody who's never bought a house ever, but all they hang out with is do to buy it, but grant cordons then they'll be like, yeah, I'm gonna buy five apartment buildings, right…   Michael: Like that’s right. Yeah, I think that's such a good point and then also with regard to like, get getting around meetups and go into these events. I think the investor that goes to one or two, and then the life thing comes up that I think also the mindset like, oh, well, I don't own a property yet. It's like, this isn't working, or I don't have anything to add, like, what's the point? I'm like, no, like cart before the horse, my friend.   Henry: Absolutely. You know, it's, it's interesting. So I did, I went to Hawaii with my family and then I had a, I met up with a local real estate investor out there who I just happen to follow on social media a lot and so I was like, well, let's meet up and then we have that. Then it turned into this whole, like meetup and people coming from all over to go to this meetup and we went, I went with my family and a good buddy of mines, family, we all went together and got this big, you know, Airbnb property. So all of our kids were hanging out super fun, right and that guy, he is. He and his wife, I have like been trying to drag them along into real estate investing, kicking and screaming for like, several years and so I finally gotten them to buy a property, one that I had found, and then I sold to them, right and so like, they bought it, and I manage it for them, right. So it's like, they're kind of like their foots kind of in the water, right. You know, they own they own a property, right. It's and so but I don't think that they see themselves as real estate investors, I think that they just see themselves as, you know, folks who happen to have a rental property and so we went to this meetup and my buddy, like, I remember it, you know, he, he said to me, it kind of seemed like maybe, I don't want to say that he kind of like felt out of place, but it kind of felt like, there was a bunch of investors there and then he was there with me. Not like he was there as well, right and so, you know, when I talked to him afterwards, I was like, you know, what do you think and he was like, yeah, it's kind of cool. You know, some people were doing some stuff and I was like, like, you belong. You're one of those people investor.   I was like, half of the people over half the people I talked to never bought a property. You own more property than half the people there, right? You fit there more than half of those people did, right and so it's all just like, it's like mindset is so huge is like if you see yourself as an investor, like the opportunities follow the relationships follow on like, if you have approach that meeting with the mindset of you're just a person who's not who's there who's not an investor, then you won't get as much out of it as if you approach it as I'm an investor and I'm here to help some people and gain some information and some knowledge and grow and grow as a person and grow as an investor and those things, you'll get those things.   Michael: Yeah, I just took Henry this class, about mindfulness and self-compassion and it was a six week course it was amazing and they said, okay, I want you to think about how if your friend is going through a hard time, how do you talk to that friend? What's your body language? What's your tone, what kind of words you're using and then think about that? Okay, that was the reason they said, and now think about how you talk to yourself, if you're having a problem and we're like, idiots, who have you beat yourself up? It is the same thing like, I feel like so many people look around the room and think every one of these people has something to offer me, but they don't think about themselves. So I love that you shared that story and has your friend has your friend since changed their tune a little bit, did it click a little bit for him?   Henry: He's closing on his second property tomorrow.   Michael: Yes, I love it, I love it, I love it. Well, Henry, I think so many who are listening to this, especially who are just starting out or maybe have a couple of deals under their belt, look at you 74 units, and you're like, holy crap, that's like not even the top of the mountain. That's a whole mountain range, right? That's the Everest and so it's something I hear all the time and I'm sure it because you coach and mentor folks as well. You hear too? Well. What about the 10 loan limit? Like how do you have 74 doors? How do you get? Talk to us a little bit about what the scalability looks like and how should people be thinking about that because I think a roadblock that I hear stumbling blocks that people share with me is like, yeah, I can do one to whatever through 10. But then, but then what do I do, like I really want to blow this thing up? How do I make it big? So talk to us a little bit about how you've been able to scale so massively?   Henry: Yeah, great question. So you need you need to solve two problems in order to scale, right? You need deal flow, right. So you need a consistent flow of deals that you can purchase under market value, right? So you need deal flow and you need money flow, you need money to be able to buy these properties. If you can solve the problem of getting enough deal flow coming in, and having the money to be able to close on them, then you can scale as fast as you want to. I know that's like yeah, Henry, of course, you need money, right? I get it right, but…   Michael: Just turn on the money…   Henry: We're buying real estate, there's a bajillion ways to buy a property and so they only teach us the traditional ways to buy property, which is some conventional loan, right, where you can put 25% down and buy a property. But that's just one loan product, there are hundreds of loan products that you can use, you have to go educate yourself on what they are, so that you know that all the tools at your disposal and so what I learned early on, we never got into talking about that first deal. But when I bought that first deal, what happened was I told you, my buddy was in a tough spot with the property. He heard I was buying property, he was like, hey, come buy this house. If you could buy it, I need to sell it out, I need to make this amount of money, I need x for this property and that because that gives me the exact amount of dollars I need, because I have to go buy this property for my church and I was like, okay, he's like, so I need to sell it to you for 115 because it gives me the money I need. It's worth like 150-60. I don't care about that. I just need this amount of money as long as you can close on in 30 days, you can have it for this price. He was like, can you buy it? I said, yes. I had no idea what…   Michael: The price was in 1000 bucks. How are you going to come up with 115?   Henry: Right, right. But most people would do that most people would go I would love to buy it. But I don't have the down payment because they think they need it, right? We make decisions for other people all the time, right? We decided we can't buy it. Who told you that databank tell you that? Nobody told you that? How do you know? Like, go figure it out first and so I told him, I was like, yeah, I can buy it, even though I had no clue. But I had that network of investors and I went to them and I said, Well, how are you guys doing this and they told me about like, you know, go talk to go talk to a bank. They'll talk to a bank and see what they can do and so I went to the closest bank to my work happened to be this small local bank and I went in and I walked in and I had the contract in my hand. I said, Hey, I need to speak with somebody who could potentially do a loan for this investment property.   Michael: It's your money person.   Henry: Yeah. Who's, who's, who's the guy that gives people dollars? I want some of those. I would like some please. Yes and they looked at the contract and they went, you know, this is really good deal and I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Will you give me the money for this really good deal and so they line me up with the commercial lender. The commercial lender told me he was like, look, we'll lend you 85% of the purchase. We'll give you all the money you need to renovate it. as well, as long as you can come up with a 15% down payment, and I was like, he was like, do you have the 15% down payment and I was like, yeah for sure, right and so I went to I went to my, told them, yes, because I wanted the money in real estate investors and I was like, hey, people who do this all the time? How the heck are you coming up with these down payments and they just started like, the guy who was actually my business partner. Now that I met in that room, he was one brainstorming with me. He was like, hey, try this in. What about this and what about that? And I was like, no, no, no, those are gonna work and he was like, oh, well, you can borrow against your 401 K and I was like, what's that mean? I don't want to pay penalties. He was like, no, no, you can borrow.   He was like, so you can take a loan out against a 401k and then the, you have to pay yourself back with interest. But it's your money. So you get the interest too and your employer will just take the money out of your paycheck, and they take it pretax, so reduces your taxable income and I was like, and then you buy the real estate asset with it, and then the cash flow pays back. So your tenants are essentially paying back your 401 k loan with interest to yourself, and you reduce your taxable income and I was like, that's a cheat code, like that's a thing. Yeah and he was like, yeah, and I was like, cool. Now I gotta go find a 401k. I told you, I wasn't gonna love it. So my wife, obviously was the smart one with money and I went to her and I said, hey, remember that time when I said, we were going to be real estate investors? Well, we need to borrow $20,000 from your 401k. So we can buy this property and she said, Let's do it and we did and that's how I got that first property, right and so all that to say, like, most people don't know, you can do that they don't know about 401 K loans. They don't know that there's a commercial bank, there's a commercial loan product that you can use. That only requires a 15% down payment and not a 25% down payment. And you can use it on single family homes, and you can use it on single family homes and they don't care where your down payment comes from, like if I would have tried to do a conventional loan, and then I told them, I was gonna borrow the money from my 401k. Like, I would have had to give him like blood samples and like my firstborn child, money would have to be in my bank account for like, 72 years before, like, it's officially my money to be able to use. There's all these hurdles, right? Yeah. But with a commercial loan, they don't have those hurdles. They're like, I don't care. You can bring the down payment, we will loan you and we'll give you the renovation money and I was just like, right, but because I told myself, when my buddy said, hey, can you buy this and I said, yes, even though I didn't know how it forced me to go figure out how, right and so there's more loan products than people say. So yes, I don't commercial loans from small local banks, you can have as many as they will let you have, like, it's up to them and as long and what you're doing, so small local banks, what I learned because after I bought that property, the bank called me and they were like, hey, that property that you bought, it was a really great deal and there's equity in it. So we want to give you a line of credit against that equity. So you can go bring us more deals like that and so they opened, they did a HELOC for me and I ended up with access to like another 30 grand and like, 90 days before that I had a panic attack, right and now I had an asset that was paying me in the bank gave me access to $30,000 and so like, now I could go rinse and repeat and do that again and what I learned through that process, and what I want people to understand is like, when you're a real estate investor, like small local banks, in order for them to stay in business, they don't do like conventional loans to stay in business.   That's what big banks do. Small banks loan money to small local businesses, right, they're lending money to small businesses in order to stay afloat and most small businesses fail, right within the first five years. So if they if they have to choose between loaning to like a new food truck, versus loaning to a guy who's buying a property at 115,000, that's worth 150. If we both fail, in the rest in the food truck, they get access to like a food truck that they can sell for not the value it was worth or scrap that right or they can get an asset of a house that they can sell even though it's you know, they lend it 115. But they could probably sell it for 130, it was worth 150 they'll make more money doing if I foreclose they make more money on me than they do if I just pay my interest. So it's, it's like they want to loan to you and so you just have to go out and do the research and find out what loan products are out there and available to you. There's more than just what's out there and so don't take what you hear as fact, you've got to go do the research and you've got to talk to people who are actually doing it. A lot of the times when people say, well, there's a 10 loan limit and my debt to income ratio is not good. Well, you don't know that. You haven't spoken to a lender that told you that your debt to income was bad. You just assume it is. Go, go figure it out for yourself.   Michael: Yeah and even if you do find not to be true, like there are tons of people with bad credit and high incomes that are still investing in property. So like, go find a way…   Henry: All the time.   Michael: Yeah, Henry, we're running short on time here. But I want to circle back to something that you said. You said, buying property under market value but the deal flow, why is that so important? What about all the people who are like I want to buy turnkey, that's my strategy.   Henry: So for me, it's about multiple exit strategies because especially when you're new, there's so many things you don't know that can cost you money, right? You don't know how to estimate rehabbed values as well. You don't know how to estimate ARV, or after repair values as well, you don't, you might not truly know what a really good deal looks like yet and, you know, you don't know how long it's going to take you to renovate a property, you may think it's going to take you 90 days, but it's probably gonna take you six months, right and all these things end up costing you money, the best protection from all these mistakes, isn't to get better at doing those things. I mean, those things do help but the very best protection is cushion is your how much you bought the property for versus how much you're going to be able to disposition that property for and so the better deal you buy, the more exit strategies you have, if I buy a deal, if I buy a really, really, if I buy a house that's worth 200,000, and I pay 100,000 for it, I may be able to wholesale it to somebody for 105 110,000 or I can wholesale it and stick it on the market and sell it for 125, 130, 545,000 or I can spend 3040 grand fix it up and sell it for 300 or 200,000 or I can take that good lead and not close on it, not assign it and just call another investor and say hey, here's a phenomenal lead.   I got them they agreed to pay, you know, to let me pay you 100 for this, you can take this lead and just give me you know, just give me two grand after you close, right? Like that's five different ways. I just told you that you can monetize on a good deal and the only reason that that thing is possible is possible is because you bought it right and so if you do a turnkey, your only exit strategy is to keep it as a turnkey rental because you're paying market value for it, you probably can't turn around and sell it for more than what you're paying for it plus there's a tenant in it, which is going to make it harder to sell unless you sell it to another turnkey investor. So the only exit strategy you have is to continue to rent it. But if you buy a deal under market value, you can rent it you can flip it, you can wholesale it, you can wholesale it, you can just birddog it to somebody and so it's just better protection.   Michael: I love it. It's like that game Bob its wholesale spirit. That's Dude, that's like a million dollar real estate investor game idea right there. Let's trademark it. We're gonna blow it up.   Henry: Oh, man. Oh, man.   Michael: Henry, this has been amazing. Like we get I'm sure we could chat all day but I want to let you get out of here. For people that want to continue the conversation reach out to you ask your questions. Where should they do that?   Henry: Their best place is Instagram at the Henry Washington on Instagram or go to my website www.henrywashington.com .   Michael: Right on well, hey, man, thanks again. Definitely look forward to chatting again soon.   Henry: Thanks so much.   Michael: You got it, take care.   Okay, well, that was our episode a big thank you to Henry for coming on. Super great stuff loved, loved, loved the mindset discussion because I think it is so applicable across so many things in life. So as always, if you liked the episode, we'd love to hear ratings, feedbacks reviews from you all, and we look forward to seeing on the next one. Happy investing…

Derek Dombeck, a Real Estate Expert hosts and runs the WiscoREIA based out of Wausau, WI. There he coaches and teaches other real estate investors his keys to success. He is currently hosting 3 national Mastermind groups called the R.E. Circle of Trust and puts on an Advanced training and Networking event each winter called The Generations of Wealth Voyage. In today’s episode, Derek shares his strategy for creative deal structures and how he raises private money to execute more deals.   Episode Link: https://gowvoyage.com/ --- Transcript Before we jump into the episode, here's a quick disclaimer about our content. The Remote Real Estate Investor podcast is for informational purposes only, and is not intended as investment advice. The views, opinions and strategies of both the hosts and the guests are their own and should not be considered as guidance from Roofstock. Make sure to always run your own numbers, make your own independent decisions and seek investment advice from licensed professionals.   Michael: Hey, everyone, welcome to another episode of the real estate investor. I'm Michael Albaum, and today I'm joined by Derek Dombeck, who's an investor, owner of a private lending company as well as conference host. So let's get into it and hear about Derek's private money and sophisticated purchasing strategies.   Hey, Derek, what's going on? Thanks so much for taking the time to hang out with me today.   Derek: Yeah, I just appreciate you having me on.   Michael: I think it's, it's totally my pleasure. I think we're gonna have a lot of fun today, because we're talking about a pretty interesting topic here but before we get into the meat, and potatoes and sausage, as you mentioned, the in from Wisconsin, give all of our listeners a little bit of background and insight into who you are as an individual and what it is you're doing with real estate today.   Derek: Well, don't forget about the beer in Wisconsin as well.   Michael: That's right. Before we get to the beer and sausage…   Derek: Yes, I just started out as a construction worker back in the day and started in 2003, just like most people do, you know, we buying and selling at that time holding rental properties and we were buying in the state of Wisconsin buying cash flow properties but we also got, I don't want to say sucked in in a bad way. But we kind of got sucked into the craze of building new construction in Florida in the early 2000s, which went really well until it didn't. So and in 2007, you know, in that short period of time, my wife and I had built up a pretty nice portfolio and, yeah, it we lost it. We lost it all down there. Fortunately, we didn't lose our personal residence but the majority of our holdings, I mean, at that time, we had about 29 doors, right around $4 million in assets and just within months, it was down to a million dollars in assets on paper, cash flow was negatives and I look at that now, as such a blessing. It didn't feel like a blessing back then. I mean, it was definitely a blessing in disguise. But we would have never been forced to learn how to get creative and learn how to structure deals creatively because when we started, we use banks for everything. You know, we were just like lending tree, everybody was throwing money at us and we had great credit, good income, jobs, all the stuff that banks love and we quickly realized how little control we had over our business, the bank's control their business and when the bank stopped lending, we were dead in the water. So it took a few years but fast forwarding on we learned how to get creative and more than that, I learned how to talk to people, because I didn't hide from our problems. Like many I didn't join all these class action lawsuits, blaming everybody for everything that went wrong. There certainly were people that did us wrong. But at the end of the day, we take responsibility for our own actions and I want it to be able to, you know, approach the banks, and especially our local community banks, that we have been doing business with, and they wrote it out with us. I mean, I had a couple of community banks, who didn't get their doors locked, that ultimately, you know, hung on with us and rewrote those notes and you know, the stuff in Wisconsin was cash flowing. It was the stuff in Florida that was burying us and you know, we made it through. But as we've transitioned forward and met my current business partner about 10 years ago, he had never used a bank ever to do any kind of real estate and he started one or two years after I did so we've both been in the business since the early 2000s and he had always raised private capital to fund all of his deals and so combination of raising private capital for the cash deals and structuring terms on the creative deals. That's how we've grown our business to this day. Right now we our goal is to buy two or three real estate acquisitions a month, but our bread and butter actually transitioned into the lending space because we got really good at raising money to fund our own deals to the degree we had more money than we had deals.   Michael: Wow, you never hear that…   Derek: Yeah, so we had a lot of friends and I think this is important, Michael. The first eight years of my business I was a closet investor. I didn't go around trying to build a network, I didn't really tell a whole lot of people what I did, I had a full time job and I, I built my real estate, you know, on the side with my wife. After that, we realize it's a team sport and I had to go out and find people to work with, and, you know, people to collaborate with when I needed help. So that's actually how I met Jeff, my business partner, he was running the real estate investor Association in Green Bay, Wisconsin, which is about an hour and 20 minutes from where I live and, you know, I started to see the importance of having a network growing a network and since then, that's where we found all of our borrowers we had, and that's where we found a lot of our private money as well. So we had the reputation of being reputable, we knew what we were doing on the real estate side, our investors had money to place, our friends needed the money for their own deals, and we started playing monkey in the middle, and getting paid to, you know, put the deals together, that parlayed into what is now about an average of 20 to 25 loans a month, going out the door, and, you know, several million dollars a month in in loans and it's we're still 100% privately funded, we don't take on institutional money, I won't sit here and say it'll never happen, but we have no intentions of it because part of the cool thing, Michael is what I do with mom and pop investors, I get to help them, right, a lot of our investors were getting, you know, 1% 2% 3% return on their money, and they're getting nine, secured by real estate, like it's changed a lot of their lives, and a lot of their retirement accounts and things like that. So it's been really, really fun. I honestly don't know where it's gonna lead to I mean, the, the opportunities are presenting themselves and, and we're, we're open to growth, as long as it's controlled growth and you and I talked a little bit before we jumped on camera here, about our, our lifestyles, and I really like to be able to travel with my, with my family, and work remotely and that's something that the lending business affords us versus managing flips, or even rental properties. We still do that, and we have staff, but if I'm going to scale a business, I want to scale the lending business versus the land lording business.   Michael: That makes sense. Yeah, it makes total sense. So Derek, I'd love if we could dive into something that you mentioned and that's about structuring deals creatively. Since I think it's something that people talk a lot about. A lot of our listeners have probably heard the term creative financing or creative deal structuring but let's talk about and unpack what does that really mean? So give us a little bit of insight when you say that you structure your deals creatively, what like, what does that mean?   Derek: So I think I want to clarify what people title creative deal structuring. So you've heard of purchasing a property subject to its mortgage, you've heard of leases, you've heard of options. You've heard of land contracts, or contract for deed, seller financing, using notes and mortgages. Those to me are all individually, they're all strategies. When you stack those strategies together in any 1234, you know, different strategies all together, I consider that deal structuring. Okay… That's, that's my definition for it. So when I get a seller, I do the majority of my negotiating over the phone only because we operate in a fairly rural area and we operate in a 200 mile diameter. So, yeah, and I don't want to jump in the car. Even though gas is cheap, I don't want to jump in the car and drive 100 miles to a house, if there was never a chance that I was actually going to put a deal together on that house. So I got really good at it being able to talk to people over the phone, and getting them to open up about what their goals are in it. It's to me, it's super important. solving their problem. I don't even need to mention what my goals are because I know them internally. I'm not going to do the deal if I don't hit my goals. So I'm only working towards their goals. I'm only talking about their goals and through those conversations, you know, a lot of negotiation books and gurus and people at Teach sales really try to tell you just ask questions, ask questions, ask questions, and that's not incorrect.   But I really feel it's important how you ask those questions. What the tone in your voice is what the response and the tone in their voice is the body language even if you can't see them. You can hear it and very much on that. that type of stuff. So I just did a presentation last week. So I'll probably use a couple of the same case studies but I did a presentation down in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on this very topic and people are like, well, how do you get somebody to tell you what they really want? How do you get somebody to tell you what they owe on their loan? How do you get them to do all these things and I feel like number one, I'm just really blunt. It not in a rude way. But I don't hold anything back. I have no problem. If somebody is going through a foreclosure for example, I have no problem saying, Michael, I, I've been through several foreclosures myself, I lost everything. I know how you feel and they know if I'm bullshitting them or not, right, especially if they can see me if we're at a kitchen table tonight and I'm able to do that they can see the my face. But yeah, you know, I've lost family members, I've lost my father. So we've dealt with the grief and the probate and everything that you go through, if you're dealing with somebody that's selling an estate. So I have no problem opening up about that being vulnerable, letting them know, I am clearly here to help and I am going to profit and I'm not going to hide that fact, I'm going to profit if I'm able to help them, but I'm helping them. So the first thing I do within the first two minutes of any phone conversation, or in person, but typically it's on the phone, is I have a little elevator pitch and so Michael, I'm just gonna you use you as the seller, right?   Michael: Please…   Derek: Michael, I just want you to know that we buy houses in several different ways, all cash is not a problem. But that's typically going to be our lowest offer. If that doesn't solve your needs or doesn't meet your needs, we can look at taking over your payments, if you still have debt. If you don't have debt, we can make payments to you over time and in some cases, we actually just lease your property and put a document in place called an option and we purchased it in the future that really works really well. If we're dealing with a landlord who's trying to offset some capital gains taxes for right now. Just tell you all this, Michael, so you understand. I'm going to ask you some questions that most people probably would never ask you. But I'm really trying to give you a solution for your problem today. Is that fair? And finished...   You can tell I've said that right? A couple 1000 times or more. One, what that does, is that sets up any question I asked moving forward, they now know why I'm asking it. I'm asking it to, you know, when I say Michael, do you have any debt left on your property and that's important, too, like the way I just said it? I don't say, Michael, what's your mortgage or Michael, do you know? What's your loan payment? I don't say those institutional words. I come across soft and subtle and, Michael, do you have any debt left on your property in a tone, right and people just…   Michael: It feels so different. Even just as we're having this conversation…   Derek: People open up and that's the tone of the entire conversation. And I don't care if it takes 15 minutes or an hour. As long as it's going in the right direction and I'm leading them. I'm leading them to a pre preconceived conclusion that I already have. But I'm not doing it maliciously, or trying to take advantage of their bad situation, right. It's kind of like, Have you ever gone to whitewater rafting?   Michael: Yeah, it's great.   Derek: So you have a guide, when you go whitewater rafting, and they know that they're going to take you through a class four rapids, and it's going to be a possible shit show. But they also know that the joy and the excitement that it's going to bring you when you get to the to the, you know, the soft water at the bottom of that, and everybody's high fiving and they're excited, they got the adrenaline rush, they already know what was best for you, I do the same thing. I know what I can do for a property owner, I know I'm gonna have to get him through some class three or class four rapids and they're gonna have to, you know, take faith that I know what I'm doing to get to the end when we're all high five, and then the problem is solved. So I don't want to manipulate them through the class three in class four rapids, but sometimes, you might have to just, you know, throw them into the class three and class four rapids. No one, we're going to be okay.   Michael: Yeah that’s a great analogy.   Derek: Yeah, so that's what we do.   Michael: Derek, I'd love if you could walk us through what a case study looks like your example looks like that that you've seen, because I think you threw out a bunch of really great strategies, but hearing how they all start to piece together and fit together and be really helpful.   Derek: Yeah, for sure. So I want you to know the case studies I talked about have all been done in the last couple of years during the hottest selling market we've ever had, because I don't I'm not going to give your listeners old information.   Michael: From 1979 a deal that was done…   Derek: For sure but I had a ranch house on five acres of land and Central Wisconsin, to give you an idea, our median price points here are 150 to $250,000 houses in most cities and you get rural, it can be a little bit, you know, plus or minus depending on acreage. But I, you know, this was a three bedroom, two bath ranch built in the 70s had some additional outbuildings sat on five acres land, and in a nice condition that would have been worth about $225,000. Now this was about a year and a half ago. Okay, so today's market, it would have been up another 20-30 grand. But Randy had two mortgages on his property and the if you wanted to do a full renovation on the property, it needed a $50,000 renovation. It had some dated stuff in it, part of it had been updated but Randy was a bachelor there was not a lot of wear and tear on the property. But he had some foundation issues, we had some leakage going into the basement, a lot of those things can be easily solved, which I'll mention in a second. He was retiring, and apparently had met a woman from out of state and he literally wants to retire and move within a week and go move to South Dakota where she lived. He did not want to deal with a realtor or showings or having to do anything to the house to make it pass a home inspection, anything like that. His two mortgages were totaling $132,000 and my cash offer to him was 124 and he said I can't take 124 for some obvious reasons and some other reasons he just didn't want to write. So we talked about potentially doing a joint venture where it's Randy, I could come in, I could stick the time and money into the property and we could you know, I want to get my money back hit a certain profit margin, we could split any extra proceeds. I don't like doing that with civilians. I don't mind doing that with other investors. But I'm not a fan of doing it with civilians and ultimately, he didn't like it either because how do I trust you? How do you trust me and I said, okay, well, what do you want to get in your pocket? And he said, I really want $150,000. If I got 150,000, I walk away, I've got a little bit of money to start over with and I said, well, you know, if you listen to this with a realtor, you could sell it for more than 150 and he said, Yeah, I know but for the same reasons I already mentioned, he didn't want to deal with it. I said, how long would you typically list your property with a realtor for and he said six months… Again we know the answer already. But I'm still asking the question. I said, okay, Randy, what if I had six months on an option to purchase your property for $150,000 and I stick whatever I feel necessary into the property to sell it. In the next six months, whatever I sell it for over and above the 150 is my profit and he's yeah, I'm okay with that and I said, okay, I also want to lease so I have the legal right to use the property, and I'm not going to use it to live in, I'm going to use it so that I can fix it up and he said, that's great. I said, What do you think is a fair price for rent? Now remember, I'm going to be paying the utilities and I'm going to take care of this was the fall of the year. So there's leaves falling and there's yard maintenance and some landscaping, which a realtor is never going to do, right? Yeah, potentially there could be snowfall during the six months. So I'm gonna have snow plowing and all these other expenses and he said, well, I don't really need anything for rent. I will tell you, he backpedaled before we signed the documents, he ended up chiseling me for the taxes, the real estate taxes monthly, so I ended up paying $220 a month for rent, which, you know, I gave it on that one. So, so I had use of this building for six months for $220 a month plus utilities. Okay, I am now going to go in there and only do the renovations to it that I feel necessary to get it to pass a home inspection, and an FHA loan or any government backed financing, because conventional would already qualify, but I want to make sure it's gonna qualify for all these other programs. That meant taking care of the water problem in the basement and ultimately, we painted everything the basement walls, we freshened everything up, did a deep clean on the property did some landscaping, five days’ time, and $2,000 out of my pocket in labor and material, and we put that property on the market.   We had when I listed it with my real estate broker friend who already had a buyer in her pocket, but we did it legal and we marketed it. Her showing was the first showing we had 14 showings scheduled within the first 24 hours and I ultimately accepted the original offer which was my full asking price to $100,000. They had no inspections, they had good financing conventional financing, they were able to close in about 26 days. I never owned the property, Michael, I controlled it with an option and a lease, our net was $36,000, so…   Michael: For five days working to raise…   Derek: For five days working to raise work. So what's the what's the return on investment annualized? Who cares enough, right? It's enough. But it gets important on how you structure this because we talked about strategies and structuring, right. So initially, I had an option, and I had a lease and that was great but I want to protect myself and this is something you probably won't hear anywhere else, because very few people talk about it. You have the right to record an option on public record, right. So that Randy, Randy can't go and sell it to somebody else or, I mean, Randy could see oh, my gosh, he put this on a market for 200,000, which actually we talked about because I'm again, I'm opening blocked, I told him what my intentions were, he was totally fine with it and spoiler alert, he actually knew the kids that I sold it to they, his their parents were friends of his they just didn't never knew his house was for sale. So he was happy with who ended up with the house. But what I do in that scenario is I secure my option with a mortgage. A mortgage is nothing more than a security instrument, which typically is going to tie a property to a promissory note alone, right. But a mortgage or a deed of trust, depending on what state you're in, can secure an option it can secure lease, it can secure any agreement, because all it's doing is pledging the property as collateral in the event that the agreement is breached or defaulted. Okay, so why is that so important? Why don't I just record the option? Well, let's say that Randy decides he does not want to close, I do all this work, I find a buyer he doesn't want to sell to me because he, you know, he's seeing dollar signs, and he wants to backdoor the deal and go sell to somebody else. options have gotten missed in title searches. I mean, they're not as common as a mortgage and everybody's taught to look for mortgages or deeds of trust, if the option got missed, and that property actually closed, and Randy sold it to somebody else, what's my recourse, as the option holder?   Michael: Probably pretty limited.   Derek: I could file a lawsuit, I'm never going to get that sale reversed ever because it's done. It was sold to a third party, it'll never happen. But I'm sitting in front of a judge arguing contract law, which is gray at best and the judge has the ability to have an opinion on what he thought we meant. In this option agreement. If I record a mortgage instead of the option, number one, I don't want the public seeing what the terms of my option are and if they're public record, they get to see what my purchase price is. And they get to see how long I have to purchase it and everything else that's in there. So I could file what's called a memorandum of option. But I don't want to do that either because again, it could get missed now if I file a mortgage. How often do mortgages get missed, almost never but even if it got missed, I still have a lien against that property that's in senior position to who just bought it. Title insurance is going to kick in, there's going to be a bunch of stress, but I can start a foreclosure action, take the property back or if Randy refuses to sell to me, I can say, okay, Randy, thank you for being an asshole and not living up to what we agreed to. Now I have to turn this over to my attorney and foreclose and take the property away from you. In which case, you're likely gonna get zero instead of the cash he would have gotten, because he pledged the property as collateral to secure our agreement.   Now I would be in this particular deal I would be foreclosing subject to the senior liens, I would still have to pay off his bank loans… which is totally fine, because that's the way it should be anyways. And then here's the final piece. I always have power of attorney on the properties from Randy. So when I went to list the property, if I was going to sell it to anybody using government financing like FHA, any loan program that still has seasoning issues or title seasoning requirements, I should say I could not buy the property from Randy and then double close it 10 minutes later and sell it to you because there will be a title issue with seasoning of title because I had power of attorney from Randy. I listed the property as Randy's POA and I actually signed the closing documents on behalf of Randy to the end buyer and I got paid as a mortgage payoff on the closing statement. So it doesn't trip up any FHA underwriting or any other loan underwriting because they're doing a title search. They're seeing Randy's name is on title, right? I'm Randy's POA makes total sense   Michael: Oh my gosh…   Derek: and my payoff is just going to be a mortgage payoff which looks normal to any lender. Right? So we stack a couple of different tools there and that's creative deal structuring.   Michael: That is what for anyone who's watching this, you'll see my mouth is a game for anyone listening to SAT, take my word for it, my jaw just dropped to the floor. That's wild Derek, how did you figure this stuff out man?   Derek: I have a PhD of public high school diploma and I have I have a network. I mentioned earlier, it's all about your network, I have friends that I you know, most of them are, you know, in their 60s and 70s. I'm in my 40s but these guys have been there done that. So when I have a deal that comes up, I'm able to pick up the phone and talk it through with my friends and over the years now people are calling me to get the advice that I learned from them, right. But it's all about the network. It really is because you can read it, you can hear it, you can look at it in a book or a seminar until you're actually on the streets, work in the real deals, most of the time doesn't sink in. It doesn't for me, at least, you know, I gotta be, right. So I mean, that's one deal, which was actually pretty basic. In my world, I didn't stack a whole lot strategies there, it was really just a lease option but they get more intense, and they get more layers, depending on what we're trying to solve. I won't probably have time to give you the details but I'll tell you, we bought a house, subject to a first mortgage of roughly $65,000. I don't have in front of me. So I'm going to kind of round up the numbers, right?   Michael: Yeah…   Derek: The seller wanted 105,000 and so first mortgage subject to 65,000, she needed $10,000 cash and she was willing to carry the remainder of the purchase price on a second mortgage with payments of $200 a month until paid in full at 0% interest I needed about $20,000 tend to give her into cash and tend to stick into the property to do some paint and carpet and cleanup and I was going to lease option it to a tenant, future buyer. So I approached the financial friend who has a small IRA, how do I know they have a small IRA because I communicate with all my financial friends as small IRA, I said, hey, Dan, I need $20,000 I'll give you 6% interest only quarterly and I'll give you 25% of the equity in the property someday when we sell it. He said okay, cool and that's in his IRA. So that's growing tax free for him. Right. So I'm in the deal with nothing out of my pocket. We ended up about a little over two, two and a half years later, it sold, you know, to a lease option buyer and everybody got paid off. Dan got his portion, she got the remainder of her second mortgage, you know, the bank got their money, everybody got paid. I can't remember what the ROI was. But it was pretty sick because I had nothing into it, and, but that we stacked a lot of strategies in that deal structure.   Michael: This is wild, Derek, we got to do like five episodes with you, man just talking to all this. This is mind blowing but we're gonna wrap up here in a minute. But you said a couple things that I want to come back to and make sure that people really hurt and it sank in and one of which is that you said you're trying to solve these folks problems before mentioning what your goals are right? Not even maybe mentioning what your goals are, which I think is so important because so often in these in just sales in general real estate transaction, It's you versus me, us versus them type of mentality but what you're talking about is coming, hey, you know, putting armor on the person we're on the same team. Let's figure out how to get you out of hot water, which I think is so critical.   Derek: It is and it's a lost art in the United States and that lost art is sad because people don't care about people anymore, right. Many people don't even know their neighbors names. I live in the middle of nowhere. So for me, I got 40 acres and some horses and my family and I know all my neighbors around me I've been in the same area my whole life. But I go to these cities and I buy these houses and the first thing I do literally is I go on every house on either side of me across the street and behind me and I shake their hands, I give them my business card. I let them know what our intentions are with the property. Now I have a built in security system, because they're all watching the house for me and they all have my cell phone number and they're also seeing the improvements we're making to their neighborhood. So when they have a friend or somebody else they know that's trying to sell a property, they call, right like, but that's just a lost art that nobody everyone just wants to hide or they're the other way they want to put everything on social media and brag, that's a whole another thing…   Michael: We could do a whole episode about that.   Derek: Yeah but that's, I mean, what I do is nothing magical. I just truly care. And if I solve enough people's real estate problems, I'll make a healthy living and raise my family. That's really what it comes down to.   Michael: I love it, I love it. Derek, we're gonna get you out of here in just a minute but before we hit record, you were telling me about some pretty cool side projects that you're working on and I think you mentioned that you're writing and also coauthoring a book. Is that right?   Derek: Yeah. So I'm authoring my own book, which is not titled yet, because we're in the process of it and I'm coauthoring a collaboration book with a bunch of other really cool authors and they're both gonna be out towards the end of the year. So I can't give anything today, I just would have to have people reach out via email and let me know how I can get it to them later. But I'd love to give your audience the free version of both of those books and then…   Michael: Amazing… Derek: Yeah, so I mean, simply my email address is my first name: Derek spelled the shortwave, because my mom probably thought I was gonna be smart enough to spell it the long way, I'm not sure. But it's so derek@bestreifunding.com shoot me an email, tell me you heard me on Michaels podcast and put you on the list for the for the free books and when they get, you know, released, I'll have my assistant just email blast them out to everybody. So that's the first thing, I'd just love to do that.   Michael: Thank you.   Derek: The other thing, Michael, I host the conference once a year and we actually, this, this was handed down to us from all of my peers that I learned all this cool stuff from, we just became very close friends, they used to run a conference on a cruise ship and they it, you know, they aged out and so we don't do this anymore. So we took it over. It's called the generations of wealth. It's going to be in Cancun, in February, late February 2023. So, what I'm super proud of Michael is we have non selling speakers. So this isn't a pitch fest. We have a five day conference, we have people speak from nine in the morning until one in the afternoon. On advanced strategies, this is not really for brand new people. I mean, you still get something out of it but it's advanced stuff, what we're just talking about for last 25 minutes. But then the whole afternoon is spent just networking hanging out at the pool, having a an adult beverage, if you're you know, have like that kind of thing or if you're from Wisconsin having 12, adult beverages, whatever and then people are out to dinner together, people are hanging out by the pool, whatever. Then in the evening, we have these townhall sessions which are totally optional. I mean, you can come and do as much or as little as you want but those are more interactive discussions.   But what I really love about it is we encourage people to bring their kids, especially ages 10 and up, we don't charge you to bring them they can sit in on every session at free of charge. Last season or last February, when we had it, we had about 18 kids there and about a dozen of them sat through every lecture regardless of the fact that didn't have a clue what was being talked about. Other than my 15 year old daughter did a presentation on how to get your kids involved in your business, which made me super proud. But I want our kids to build a network of people in their teenage years and early 20s across the nation who have parents who are freaks like us, who just don't conform to a lot of the stuff that's being taught in school systems and if they never enter the real estate world totally fine but they know that there's other people out there. I mean, literally my daughter has friends in about seven different states and they communicate daily, weekly. It's unbelievable. So generations of wealth. The website is: G O W https://gowvoyage.com/ -G O W voyage.com. It's literally just being opened up to the public as we're recording this and which is it's not going to be this huge 400 person conference so there will get potentially a point where we're gonna have to shut it off because I've only got so much room blocked off at this all-inclusive resort, but it's going to be awesome.   Michael: I love it. We'll definitely go check that out everyone listening or watching Derek what's the best way for people to get in touch with you if they have more questions want to follow up? Is it your email that you gave earlier is there another way?   Derek: Yeah and that's my personal email guys. I actually check that and I'm more than happy to talk to anybody about, you know, whether they're private lenders or deal structuring or whatever. Yeah, reach out to me, I'd love it   Michael: Right on. Well, Derek, thank you again so much for coming on and sharing so much wisdom. This was really incredible. Definitely, we'll be in touch soon, man.   Derek: Awesome. Thank you so much, Michael, ever have a blessed day.   Michael: All right, everyone. That was our episode, Derek a big thank you to him for coming on and sharing some really interesting insights into creative ways to purchase properties. As always, if you liked the episode, feel free to leave us a rating or review wherever you get your podcasts and we look forward to seeing the next one. Happy investing…

Shawn Moore was selling high-end resort properties back in 2008. He was making big money, living lavishly, and about to close on a new mansion in Newport Beach. When, out of nowhere, the owner of the resort they were selling for got indicted on securities charges. Feds came in and shut everything down overnight, including their paychecks. In this episode, discover how Shawn came out of this huge loss and turned around to excell in a related sector. Shawn shares his strategies for growing and scaling a short-term vacation rental portfolio. Learn from Shawn's 20 years of ups and downs as an investor. Episode Link: https://vodyssey.com/ --- Transcript Before we jump into the episode, here's a quick disclaimer about our content. The Remote Real Estate Investor podcast is for informational purposes only, and is not intended as investment advice. The views, opinions and strategies of both the hosts and the guests are their own and should not be considered as guidance from Roofstock. Make sure to always run your own numbers, make your own independent decisions and seek investment advice from licensed professionals.   Michael: What's going on everyone? Welcome to another episode of the Remote Real Estate Investor. I'm Michael Albaum, and today I'm joined by Shawn Moore, who's the founder of VITC, a short term and vacation rental education program and he's gonna be talking to us today about what we need to be aware of as we get involved in the space as investors. So let's get into it.   Shawn Moore, what's going on, man, thanks so much for hanging out with me. I appreciate you.   Shawn: Awesome, Michael. Thanks for having me, man. I really, really excited to chat with you.   Michael: Now, likewise, likewise. So it's gonna be a lot of fun. We're gonna be talking all things short term vacation rental today. But I want to give our listeners a little bit of background into who you are, where you come from, and what is it you're doing real estate today?   Shawn: Yeah, awesome. Well, first, thanks for thanks for having me and, yeah, we've been around the real estate game for a little while now. I've been a full time real estate investor for 22 years, if you can believe it. I feel like I've been around the block a time or two and really started my journey into real estate in the fix and flip game for a long time, I was just doing mostly fixing flip houses I wholesaled. One deal, it's what got me into the into the game back in 2000 and then realized I wanted to wanted to start doing the actual rehab on the properties and did that for a good bit of time and I remember going back in the day to a real estate investment club, local real estate investment club meeting, kind of sticking my chest out and acting like I was a big shot and telling everybody how awesome I was at I think I was about 23 at the time and felt like I'd had I had arrived, right and I remember this old guy named George, he came to me and put his arm around me and just said, Hey, Shawn, you I know you think you're pretty, pretty big deal around here. But you're really not a real estate investor, you need to quit referring to yourself as an investor, you have a job fixing up houses and at the time I really shot my ego, right? I was like, man, this this kind of sucks. I mean, he's like, if you can't be an investor, if you don't have any passive income and that was that was back in the you know, I was a couple of years into real estate in what I thought was investing, which a lot of people a lot of us have done fix and flips and but he was right, you know, really I was, I'd buy a house, I'd have to fix it up and I'd sell it and I have to keep doing over and over and over again and really that's what I had, I had a job of fixing up houses and selling.   So it opened my eyes back then that conversation to the idea of passive investments and passive income in real estate and, you know, there's lots of avenues, lots of lanes that you can run down in real estate and the natural lane that I ran down at that time was single family rentals, and just buying some single family properties over the over a couple year period. Back this was back in the early 2000s and if you could fog a mirror, you could get a mortgage and so we were able to get a lot of mortgages really quick. We got about 52 properties in a period of a couple of years. All single family homes, we had one four plex everything else was single family or duplexes. But I and so we started building that passive income up, it just wasn't exciting for me, it didn't. It was one of the biggest mistakes in 2005 we sold them all and I always tell people I at the time I acted like I was a genius because we sold them course right before the crash. But kind of the top of the market, they're close to the top of the market that it was, I mean, obviously, we were making like I think out of that entire portfolio, I was making about $3,000 a month in passive income. But on each of my flips, I was making you know, 30 to $50,000, depending on the flip that we had and I was like man, this I can make, you know, making a year's income with one flip is versus having this whole portfolio that I was managing myself and it's just kind of a pain, and really didn't figure the game out as far as how to how to actually make them passive and so we ended up selling them all. I had, you know, again, those probably the biggest mistake we ever made, because then we went back to not having any passive income, right, I had this portfolio that people were paying for. I was making money, not a lot of money, but I was making money every month and ended up having to get out of that game.   But at that time when we sold them. We started getting into the high end resort properties. We started really diving into resort properties and second homes and I'm talking like really high end private ski Golf Resort properties like in the 20 to $30 million range and so not what we do now, and it was this really exclusive resort but it introduced me to this new world of the hospitality world the second home world the resort type style properties vacation home properties, right and, and at that time I had bought a, we bought a cabin, my wife and I bought a cabin in 2006. And that was our first vacation rental that we ever bought. Well, in 2008, we started doing this in 2005 2006. Well, in 2008, late of 2008, the FBI came in and shut down this resort that we were selling properties for these really high end resorts, the owners got indicted on securities charges and so like we literally just overnight, computers are gone with the resort, we've gotten the word that we're involved in and selling properties that all of a sudden get shut down and we're like what is going on, right? We, we stopped our fix and flip business. I didn't have any passive investments at the time because I sold them all and I had this one property, this one vacation rental, I sat on my hands for about six months and threw myself a six month pity party and started to realize nobody was coming to save us. We didn't know what to do. This is in 2009 at this time, and the markets were tanking every day that the you know, the news is there's more foreclosures than there are you know, every single day, there's just worse and worse news. We're in the middle of the great recession and I started selling real estate I started I had a real estate license, I had never done that in my life. As far as actual an actual residential sales Asia, we started doing that I started working with investors to help them build portfolios of again, because I understood that I understood investors, I had been one but I didn't have any money to invest at this stage and really started getting back into selling real estate and kind of hustling to pay the bills and during this whole time, as I was throwing my six month pity party, we lost our house, I lost my vehicles we started, we literally lost everything because I sat there and blamed everybody and everything on my situation rather than doing something about it and I had this one asset, this one property that during this entire slide was it was producing and it was a vacation rental and at the time that was before they were really popular, right that was, you know, they weren't mainstream. They were obviously Airbnb was around and VRBO was around, but they weren't as mainstream as they are right now and I started to, I started to at least those seeds were planted in my head that this might be a viable asset class to, to pay some bills, make some passive income, even during a pretty rough time of real estate, right, even during the that eight 9, 10 that slide that were in the middle of and so as I started to build back up and get back involved in investing and developing properties, again, I had a we ended up my wife and I ended up having some kids and we ended up having twins in 2011 and that kind of changes your perspective on everything, you instead of this really cocky freewheeling, like, you know, okay, I can just make money whenever I want and do whatever I want. I, my perspective on everything started to change, I started to ask different questions I wanted it to be you start to say, okay, what kind of an example can I be? What am I really building? What am I really doing things for? So you ask those different questions and as they started growing up, I started to say, you know, I love real estate. I remember walking on the beach with my son, and he was they were four, we were in Hawaii, we always go to Hawaii for their birthday and I was frustrated. I was working on a deal. We were doing development deals at the time and I was working on a deal and I got off and he could tell us frustrated and he's just a little kid and he's like, Dad, you should just do real estate in Hawaii, it's way fun.   Like, like Dallas, all my problems, right? Like we're hearing, why might Why don't you just sell real estate here and do stuff here because it's you won't be frustrated on your phone calls, right? That's the perspective of a four year old but what really got me thinking was, what do I love about real estate and one I loved investment properties. I loved the idea of building passive investments and passive income from real estate and I loved that resort style, that vacation style world that we were introduced to, even though it all came crashing down and I had this one property and I really started at that time, forming this idea of what we do now with odyssey of really taking vacation rentals as a vehicle to build financial independence and wealth and financial and lifestyle freedom and that's really when it started back in 2000. That was back in 2015 and then we fast forward to where we're at right now and we've got Odyssey is the number one vacation rental education company in the world now and it's just been a lot of fun and a wild ride. So Long's longer winded answer there for you, Michael. That's kind of what brought us to where we're at.   Michael: I love it Shawn. Well, as you mentioned, it seems that vacation rentals are the new thing. Everyone's talking about them. You hear about them all the time. So curious without giving away the farm. What do people need to do? How do people knock it out of the park with vacation rentals and then conversely, I want to ask how do people really screw it up?   Shawn: Yeah, great question and really, there's really three phases that we focus on that I think are critical for people to get and it's the acquisition phase. So really understanding the underwriting, really understanding, there's a lot that goes into a good property and a good area, and really understanding and they're harder to underwrite, than what we're used to underwriting with a long term rental, like, you know, because you've got nightly rates that are fluctuating all the time, you've got occupancy that's fluctuating all the time, most of these areas are very seasonal and so you have to take in all of these factors that are moving targets, and figure out how to compile that data to actually run the numbers because you'll have really good properties and really bad properties in every area, even the best areas you're going to have not every property works even in the best areas and so there's a lot that goes into that first phase of acquisition and really underwriting and in I would say, in the beginning, that's where most people screw up. Most people think, hey, this is a great, this is a great market. It's a vacation real market that I like there's the you know, let's say Destin, Florida, everybody's down in Destin or Orlando, right, the kind of the home base for vacation rentals, that must be a good market, because everybody's down there, and I'm gonna go buy down there that doesn't, that's not how you underwrite these deals and so the very first part is, is really where people mess up is not understanding how to run the numbers and it's not rocket science, it's just much different than what people are used to and so that's the first phase that that you really want to focus on and dial in, you've got to be able to underwrite and find the best markets, and the best properties and it's not always about finding the top vacation rental market, some of the most, some of the like, the I call them backyard resort, communities that maybe are unknown, outside of a regional area can be some of the most productive, you know, markets to invest in, we've got one of our members who's a traveling nurse, and he builds a portfolio around major medical centers.   So there's all kinds of different markets that can work for short term rentals and it's not always these Class A resort towns that everybody thinks about. So really understanding how do you analyze a market? How do you analyze properties within that market and what works, and that's that very first stage of that acquisition, and then the next stage is the setup and management phase and where a lot of people dive into short term rentals, and they say, well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna manage this property my on my own and like, I can tell you like I have a portfolio, I don't manage any of my own properties, I know how to manage properties. But it can be a full time job to manage your own properties and unless you want a big side hustle, and you have the time for a side hustle, which a lot of investors that's not what they're looking for, right? We're looking for passive investments and so you really have to walk into it with your eyes wide open of what the management side looks like, and how do you build a management team so that it can become passive, and one, how much you're going to pay for it, because it's going to be your largest expense and so really diving into that second phase of that setup and management to really get the property set up correctly and then that third is the marketing and that the marketing side is how are you going to stand out in these crowded markets, right? A lot of these markets, like you talked about vacation rentals are kind of the thing. They're the they're kind of the trending vacate, or the trending real estate investment, if you will, for a lot of people, they because they think it's, you know, you know, the Wild West is, you know, you make way more money on short term rental versus a long term.   Well, that's not always the case, again, going back to the underwriting of it, but when you dive into these markets, how are you going to get your unfair share of business? How are you going to stand out because these markets are crowded? These markets are getting very, very saturated and I always tell people do. I really like saturated markets, because it shows there's huge demand, but you better know how to stand out in a crowd, right and so, and it's not always what people think and it's more how you set that property up. We always talk about delivering a unique experience, like right, a lot of people who are in real estate, because we're dealing with real estate, they'll have I always give an example of if you have a Zillow listing, and you have an Airbnb listing, they should look completely different and a lot of people a lot of times they look the same, they'll use the same photos like right, they're selling the architecture, and the property and the house on Airbnb, and that's not what you sell. You've got to sell the experience, you've got to sell what it's going to be like to use that property and so that's what we really dive into and that's one of the that's by far and away the biggest mistake once people own properties of what they're doing and what they're how they're how they go about this business is not understanding how to articulate what they have to offer outside of just pictures of a house. Does that make sense?   Michael: Yeah, it makes total sense. And something that I always joke about, Shawn, I always say you got to you got to have a high Instagram ability factor and your short term rental listing.   Shawn: Yeah and it's selling the experience right. It's not like it, we like Instagram because we can dive into people's worlds and we can see what they're doing and we have to have that same thing with the properties. It's not just having property photos, you better be able to, I should be able to look at your listing, and put myself in, in like, mentally put myself in that setting and say, This is what it's going to be like to stay in Michael's home because it's, you know, it's always in, I talked about delivering the fairytale having, you know, unique story, given that property, a soul, when you're really trying to articulate that to your prospective guests, that's looking online, where, and it's actually if you get that right, now, all of a sudden, you're playing in a category of one, and you're really standing out in a marketplace, because nobody takes the time to do that. Everybody just goes and hires professional real estate photographers to take pictures of their property, but they're not doing anything to articulate the experience.   Michael: Right, right. So Shawn, question for you, for everyone listening out there that's raising their hand, it's like, that's not me, I don't have that vision, I don't have that creativity. What should they be doing or should they not even be playing in the short term rental space? Does that mean that it's not a good fit for him?   Shawn: It's a great question now. One, you can definitely still play in the game. I think people think, because you can do a really good job of being it doesn't have to be this in your face, like creative theme that you're that you're putting together. But you do have to be able to put together an experience and so you may it may not be the right fit, right? If you're just like, I talk to investors all the time, that will say, hey, I just want to buy a short term rental because it has better returns. I don't care where it's at, I don't care what it's doing. I just want the returns and I always tell those investors, that's you're probably getting into the wrong game because that's not what short term rentals that's not how should you succeed with short term rentals. So there is an element there, Michael, where you do have to say, I do want to provide a really fun, unique experience for somebody, I really do want somebody to come experience this area, like I experienced it and I always tell people you should buy in areas or around properties that that will attract that you're attracted to you should be part of your target audience because if you're not, you're going to fall flat. When you're delivering that experience. When you're setting up an experience. I have a property that is a fly fishing property and it's up by Yellowstone National Park and we I said I love to fly fish and so it's very easy to for me to articulate what a great fly fishing experience is because I understand that group, right? It would be very difficult for me to put together a wellness yoga studio for somebody because I don't I don't, I'm not in that group, right. But we have some of our members that do these amazing wellness retreats, that are these I mean, these beautiful properties, and they have these yoga studios, and they do all this stuff, because but they know how to articulate to that group and so there is definitely an element to that and so if somebody says, you know, I'm not, I'm not that creative, I challenge people to say you probably are you want to set something up that you're attracted to and if you're absolutely not attracted to anything, and you're like I really don't care, then it's probably not the game you want to play because you're going to struggle when it comes to really maximizing the asset.   Michael: Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. That makes a ton of sense and Shawn, you said something that I want to come back to and it was with regard to the underwriting kind of that first phase that you mentioned, in the long term rental world, we have the 1% rule. So if something rents for about 1% of the purchase price, it'll probably cash flow with a mortgage and we have the 50% rule, which says take roughly 50% of the income throughout the window, the operating expenses, what's leftover is to pay the mortgage in your cash flow. Do you have those similar types of rules, I'm gonna say in quotes to help people underwrite at a 30,000 foot level.   Shawn: Yeah, and so the easiest. So I usually use the 10% rule of so you want to have about 10% of your acquisition price in gross annual income. So if you buy a $500,000 property, your breakeven amount for the end your annual breakeven amount, you need to generate about $50,000 in revenue. So it's and…   Michael: Is that with debt that?   Shawn: Yes, that's with debt and with management and so that that gives you that'll give you about your breakeven amount. Expenses are going to vary based because you got one big variable expense and management and your management's can vary anywhere from roughly about 20 to 35% and so that's a big, that's a big of your gross revenue, right? So that's a big, that's going to be your largest expense by far and so usually your expenses to cover debt service and management is going to be somewhere around. It's usually around that 65 ish 60 - 65%. So it's a little bit higher than like what you would find on long term rental, but your breakeven mark is easier to get It's an easier number to come up with because if you've got, because usually what the way we underwrite these, Michael is we're looking for annual gross revenue, because your 1% rule is on a monthly basis on long term rentals, right? The 1% rule, our monthly, our monthly income is inconsistent on these properties. So we have to look at an annual basis, a lot of these areas, you'll make 70 or 80% of your gross revenue in a three month span, right. So you're going to make it during the peak summer season, for example, in some areas and so that 1% rule, you might be negative cashflow for six months out of the year, but you can be really profitable at the end of the year, because your peak season made up made way more up for like than what you had to on those months that you were losing. So the one is close to the 1% rule, that 10% rule is close to the 1% rule, but you have to annualize it, because your the way that we run the numbers is going to be on an annual basis because your monthly numbers are going to be fluctuating so much.   Michael: Makes total sense and then you said about 65% on the expense ratio side of things.   Shawn: Yeah, yeah. Yeah and so and the biggest, the biggest jump in that is your management because your your fixed expenses are going to be very similar to long term rental, right? You got your your principal interest, taxes, insurance, you're gonna have higher utilities, typically, because you're paying the utilities on the short term rental side. So you're, you're gonna pay, you're gonna pay more of your utilities, and you're going to have a higher management costs than what you would on the long term rental, everything else is going to be pretty consistent as far as the other. So that's why it's a little bit higher.   Michael: Okay, that makes total sense and should you be factoring in this? Is your personal opinion, for cleaning fees? Is that part of your gross revenue or is that same dollar insane dollar out? So we're not even gonna count it?   Shawn: Yeah, it's a say it's $1. In dollar out, it's a pass through expense. So we don't even count it. Now you can, there are people that will run the numbers, they count it, and then they count. So they'll count it as revenue, but then they have it as an expense, we just we just cancel it out because it's passed through, we don't make money on cleaning. Some people do and so if it's a revenue generator for you could add it in that way. So that it's, you know, you know, $1 in or $2 in and dollar 50 out, right, so you've got a little bit of a buffer there. I just, it's anything that's a pastor expense, we don't we just don't factor it in.   Michael: Okay and that makes sense. Shawn, I'm seeing I'm curious to get your thoughts if you're seeing the same thing. But these vacation rentals and short term rentals as they're being sold and marketed. They're being marketed like a business and they're saying, hey, based on the NOI performance, this is the value of the property but as you and I know, to go get a single family rental, or a single family mortgage, it's gonna be based on the appraised value. So how are folks squaring those two things?   Shawn: Yeah, it's a great question and I think that I think it's going to be a little while before people, I think that you've got a lot of sellers that are trying to value properties based on performance and base like a business, but you're not able to get lending that way, right. They're still from a for all intensive purposes, most of the lenders out there, you're still buying and getting residential, regular mortgages, second home, vacation, home investment, property mortgages, it's going to be based on the property appraisal. Now, we're sellers have been getting away with it a little bit, because it's so competitive, and most things are selling over appraisal. So people are paying an appraisal gap, right? We're seeing that even outside of the vacation rental space, right? People are paying over and paying that appraisal gap. So sellers on vacation rentals, that's how they're starting, or they had been pricing properties and that's we're still we've been used to multiple offers, we've been used to cover an appraisal gaps. As things start to soften a little bit, I think that sellers are going to struggle to continue to price properties that way. I think that you there's a definitely a good argument. But you still have to get the right buyer that's willing to still cover that gap and say, yeah, I'm willing to buy it based on performance, because you're still not going to get lending based on performance. It's not it's going to be few and far between as far as lenders, even our DSCR lenders, even the asset based type lenders that are tackling more commercial type loans, they're still there. They're looking at revenue that the property is generating, but they're looking at they're still looking at average, they're not looking at individual property revenue. For example, if I have a really high performing property, they're not going to give lends you more money on my property, they're going to look at the market average and so it's still difficult, I think, to prop to price properties that way and we're where we see people trying to price it is it is about that 10% rule. It seems like okay, if a property's generating $100,000 or say, okay, we're going to, we're going to sell this for a million, it still has to be dang close to the property value though. At the end of the day it comes down to the what the property is valued at and what it appraises for. Ultimately, it's got to be somewhere close to that or we just don't we seem fallen flat if people are stretching too much.   Michael: Okay and that makes total sense. Shawn, you brought up an interesting point that I want to come back to and that's around revenue projections. I think most owners, short term rental owners will tell you that the last two years have been banner years for them and so how do we square what has been with what will be kind of given today's market?   Shawn: Yeah, great question. So one of the things that, that I think that the reason it's been banner years is because occupancies have been so high, right, we've had that we've had two years of basically never ending summer, right, we have we have seasonality has gone out the tube, it's been, it's been really high occupancy across the board. So we've been talking about I talked about this, you know, all even the very beginning of this year is kind of our projections is we're going to see occupancy, in short term rentals, come back down to the normal seasonal type levels, when we underwrite our deals. I never underwrite based on that, that top percentage of occupancy, like there are people that will say you should, you know, you can get 80 90% occupancy and short term rentals, we don't do that. I don't believe that that's a long term. I mean, short term rentals are short term for a reason, your occupancy is going to be somewhere 70 to 80%, in some of the best markets, where we've seen the last couple of years, some of those best markets are 80- 90% occupancy, that's not sustainable. In the short term real game, if you have a short term rental, and you've been tried to have 90% occupancy for an entire year, it's really, really difficult because you have these odd days that are there in between days anyways, that throw that occupancy, it's, it's just hard to do, right and so you have to say, okay, look back.   So when we underwrite we underwrite back to 2019 18, 17 levels with our occupancy, we look at that occupancy in those years, when we're doing our underwriting. So that helps us bring that overall revenue down a bit now that the flip side of that is, revenue numbers have been consistently going up, they didn't revenue didn't spike average nightly rates didn't spike like occupancy did. So the overall gross revenues had this huge spike in these banner years, but it was it was driven by occupancy. Now rates are a different story rates have been consistently going up. But they didn't have these big spikes they've been in where you will find in short term rentals, which is interesting is there's a gap in the market, you've got, you've got the you know, the bottom of the market, you got the middle of the market, you've got the top of the market and so when we underwrite these deals, we're very conservative on our occupancy and then we want to look at the range, we want to look and say, okay, given this given occupancy on this area that we're underwriting, I want to look at the bottom of the market, as far as average nightly rates, I want to look at the middle of the market for you know, three bedroom homes and the average hourly rates here and then I want to look at the top of the market, that will give me a revenue range that we're looking at, then what we want to do is say, okay, based on this property, I'm looking at where do I think it's going to fit in this market.   If I'm in a beach market, and I'm not on the beach, I'm probably not going to get that top revenue range, because most of those top revenue properties are on the beach, for example. So I have to take these, I have to start to now take make this logical analysis on this range of revenue. But you want to wait the way that I know, the original question is how do we how do we say, okay, the last two years have been an anomaly. It's an anomaly based on the occupancy for sure and then you've got to start to look at those nightly rates, and then take a more conservative approach back in 17, 18, 19, as far as occupancy, and that's how we underwrite the deals now, because we just don't think that occupancy is going to continue now, what we saw was, we saw another spike in occupancy this summer, again, really high, where we started to see kind of normal occupancy come in the spring, and then we just saw that a big spike again, this year, but I just don't think it's going to last and so we take a very conservative approach as far as occupancy goes.   Michael: Okay and that makes total sense and, Shawn, my last question for you is with regard to expenses. You mentioned in the kind of the long term space, your PITI your property management fee, we could throw in there and then in the short term realm, we've got your cleaning expenses and the utilities. What else should people be expecting to have on their line item for expenses for the short term rental?   Shawn: Yeah, so you're so you're, again, your fixed expenses are really pretty similar, right? Yeah. PITI, you've got the on your fixed expenses, what's going to be different than a long term rental or other types of properties are going to be your utility costs, right? You're going to be paying internet cable, you know, your electrical all that stuff is going to be that's going to be as part of your fixed expenses. So that's going to jump your expenses. As up, the variable expenses are what a lot of people miss calculate and variable expenses when you start to add in your and these are, these are based on the number of stays and they're going to be based on the gross revenue, your management company is going to take a percentage of your gross revenue, your booking your booking sites like Airbnb VRBO, they're going to take a percentage of your gross revenue, right. So when you get a booking, they're going to take a percentage of that those, those fees are what's going to eat into your overall profits and so a lot of times be like, Well, man, I'm making three or four times what I would make on a long term rental and a short term rental doing this nightly. But by the time you add in, you know, 30%, and management fees, all those different things start to add up. Now, you're not making three or four times the profit typically. So the biggest expense that people mess up is the management and I always tell people, there's, there's a couple of approaches you can take with management, even if you self-manage, and you put your properties on Airbnb VRBO, you're going to still run an average of about eight to 15% of basically a management fee, that's going to go to those booking sites, where you're booking your property, if there's a hybrid approach, where there's companies like evolve, and some of those companies that will do a 10%. But they're going to be 10% plus that eight or 10%, right from the booking fee. So you're going to be a total of about 20% and management, if you have that hybrid approach where you do some of it, they do some of it. If you go the full service route, which I suggest most people take that route and that's what it's going to be different than what most of the other coaches out there are ever going to tell you to do because it because it doesn't look good on the front end on the numbers, right?   It is but I just believe most people are not set up to manage short term rentals at a high level, you're better off getting a full service management committee to help you and that's going to cost you 30 to 35% of your gross revenue. That's a huge line item, right? That's a huge expense and so you have to make sure one that you get the right fit, because they're going to be your largest expense, you want to make sure they're doing a good job and I always tell people good management company is worth their weight in gold, a bad one is really a nightmare. So you want to make sure that you've got the right fit there. But it's a that's a big a big expense that a lot of people don't think about and I have on every one of my properties, I use full service management on every one of my properties for a reason, right? It because it's what makes these properties allow us to be passive investments and I want something that is a passive investment. I'm not looking I'm not looking for another job to manage these properties and so those are the biggest ones, the management and then your fixture your utility costs that you normally wouldn't have to pay for.   Michael: Okay, that's great. That's great. Shawn, this has been a ton of fun, man, I want to be very respectful of your time. If people want to learn more about you, or more about VODYSSEY where's the best way? How can I reach out?   Shawn: Yeah, awesome. I appreciate that, Michael, so they can just go to https://vodyssey.com/ . It's VODYSSEY, you can go check out our stuff. I've got a book there. It's called: What the hell is lifestyle acids number one bestseller on Amazon. So you can go check that out talks about our whole process, taking you through that acquisition phase, that setup and management phase and ultimately the marketing phase and then you know, you we've got a ton of I've got our podcasts on there. We've got a YouTube channel, we've got tons of free stuff that people can dive into if you just go to https://vodyssey.com/ and learn a little bit more about us and our view of the vacation rental world and then yeah, that's a great place to start right there.   Michael: Right on. Well, Shawn, thank you again for coming on and sharing some wisdom with our listeners really appreciate it and I'm sure we'll chat soon.   Shawn: Awesome. Thanks for having me, Michael.   Michael: Okay, everyone, that was our show a big thank you to Shawn for coming on super eye opening, really informative to learn about the vacation rental space from his perspective. As always, if you enjoyed the episode, please feel free to leave us a rating or review wherever it is get your podcasts and we look forward to seeing you on the next one. Happy investing…

Neal Bawa is a technologist who is universally known in the real estate circles as the Mad Scientist of Multifamily. Besides being one of the most in-demand speakers in commercial real estate, Neal is a data guru, a process freak, and an outsourcing expert. Neal treats his $947 million-dollar portfolio as an ongoing experiment in efficiency and optimization. The Mad Scientist lives by two mantras. His first mantra is that "We can only manage what we can measure". His second mantra is that, "Data beats gut feel by a million miles". These mantras and a dozen other disruptive beliefs drive profit for his 700+ investors. In today's episode, Neal shares insights about his strategy for multifamily investing, some interesting market statistics, and what he expects the future of the real estate market to look like. Episode Link: https://multifamilyu.com/ --- Transcript Before we jump into the episode, here's a quick disclaimer about our content. The Remote Real Estate Investor podcast is for informational purposes only, and is not intended as investment advice. The views, opinions and strategies of both the hosts and the guests are their own and should not be considered as guidance from Roofstock. Make sure to always run your own numbers, make your own independent decisions and seek investment advice from licensed professionals.   Michael: Hey, everyone, welcome to another episode of the Remote Real Estate Investor. I'm Michael Albaum and today I'm joined by my very special guest, Neal Bawa and he's talking to us about multifamily investing syndications and some really, really interesting market statistics about looking forward into what the real estate market future holds for all of us. So let's get into it.   Hey Neal, thanks so much for taking the time to come on the show with me today. I really appreciate you coming on and sharing some wisdom with me.   Neal: Well, it's exciting to be here, especially because I am a fan of your company and until five minutes ago, I didn't know that I was doing a podcast with Roofstock. So super excited to be here.   Michael: Awesome. Well, surprises always tend to keep people on their feet. So I'm really excited to chat with you today. So I know a little bit about your background and who you are but for anyone listening, who might not be familiar if you can give us the quick and dirty who you are, where you come from, and what is it you're doing in real estate today?   Neal: Absolutely. I'm a geek, a nerd, a maverick, I come from Silicon Valley. I live in Silicon Valley, I'm a data scientist by profession with a computer science degree. I've had a successful tech career, which, after 17 years ended in the sale of my technology company. I got into real estate because I live in Texas Fornia and I was paying 53.7% of my gross income in taxes and so you know, I looked around and looked at lots of different avenues to save money, looked at solar panels looked at oil, and came to the conclusion that none of those were anywhere close to real estate in terms of the incredible taxation benefits. I tell people, real estate is America's number one legitimate tax mafia. That's really what it is. I mean, no other area has the astonishing, the shocking tax benefits that real estate has. So I started doing real estate for that and started sharing a lot of my data science, you know, thought processes and ideas and it sort of just exploded from there. The first time I shared my insights on data science, I had four people in front of me. A week ago, I had 1100 listening.   Michael: Oh my gosh, that is really, really cool. So I love chatting with data scientists with geeks and nerds as the self-proclaimed title that you gave yourself, because I think it puts a process. They come from very process oriented backgrounds, and it allows them to apply the same processes to real estate, which I'm sure we're gonna get into in a little bit. But you're doing some pretty amazing things in the multifamily space if I'm wrong, mistaken, right.   Neal: I am, I am and I'm a huge fan by the way of the single family space and often direct people to single family, but multifamily is where I've been simply because of its amazing scale. So I started off in single family and I have now moved over to multifamily. So currently have about 750 million in construction and various multifamily spaces such as built around and apartments have about 250 million that I'm managing that I purchased that are existing buildings, and then I dabble in other areas as well as multifamily is kind of the core foundation of my business, but I dabble in self-storage, industrial townhomes for construction and student housing as well. So I love all kinds. I love all kinds of different asset classes at different times. But I always come back to the Foundation, which is which is multifamily.   Michael: Okay, now, you said a lot of amazing things with a lot of big numbers and I want to come back to that in just a minute. But I'm just curious on a personal note, can you share with our listeners, what's the best compliment you've ever received?   Neal: I think that the compliment had and I actually use it now you already heard it today was a person that walked in and said, This is the geekiest and nerdiest presentation I've ever heard that was still very entertaining. So that second part was like, okay, so I can I can get geeky I can get nerdy but I can still kind of get it down to the level where people enjoy it and are not snoring, you know, five minutes into the presentation. So I love that comment because it's hard to be a geek and be a nerd and still, you know have these aha moments for my audience. So I've worked really hard on that.   Michael: I love it and clearly you're doing it well because people 1100 people are coming to listen so my hat off to you. So let's talk about what excites you about multifamily because I think that there's an argument to be made that the fundamentals but you talking about going back to the basics is single family. So why do you think that it's multifamily? Why do you make that argument?   Neal: Because of single family? The short answer is this single family is why I'm excited about multifamily. Okay. So, you know, you hear a few numbers all over and over again, people say these numbers that don't quite explain the meaning of this, right. So we say in this home, the you hear this all the time, we have a shortage of single family homes in the US 5 million, the actual shortage is 5.1 4 million. You also hear we have a shortage of multifamily or apartments in this, you know, in the US and the actual shortage today is 600,000 units. So you notice most of the shortage is actually on the single family side, right? 5.2 million there 600,000 on the apartment side and for both of those, the vast majority of the shortage, not all of it, but the vast majority came from the fact that the US actually didn't really build anything single family or multifamily between 2011 in 2015. So we used to build, you know, I don't know, eight 700,000 800,000 a million units and then all of a sudden, 1112 1314 15, we built less than half of that creating this massive supply demand gap. It was enormous and that's why that has led to rental growth being you know, to AX what it used to be in the previous 30 years, we've also seen massive growth in prices on the multifamily side where, you know, we used to buy, you know, properties at, you know, $40,000 a door, and now we're buying the same properties at $250,000 adoor. So it's just an incredible, massive increase there in Parador prices, a lot of it really comes back down to the fact that we are absolutely unable and I haven't seen any evidence to the contrary, we are absolutely unable to build starter homes in the United States, we actually don't have a shortage of single family. It's a very common misconception. We don't have a shortage of single family, we have a shortage of starter homes and when I talk about starter homes, I mean anything that in a reasonably reasonable Metro, I'm not talking about San Francisco Bay area, but let's say something in Phoenix, right? Being able to build a nice three to four bedroom home that's brand new for about $275,000 that has become categorically impossible today. Okay, for I'll give you an example of this, as you know, multifamily scales a lot better because when you're building 100 units, you get all these economies of scale, blah, blah, blah, okay, my cost of construction in New Braunfels, which, by the way, is not a major metro, you've probably never even heard of it. It's in the corridor between Austin and San Antonio and so you one could say Austin and San Antonio are both, you know, secondary markets, not primary like San Francisco or Los Angeles and in so and this, so this market must be like a tertiary market because it's in between my cost of construction for townhomes, not single family is well over 300,000 units. That's what my cost as a builder is, right.   So you understand what's happened since March 2020. Construction costs in the US have gone up by 34%. That's basically about 27 or 28 months, they're up 34% and the problem was there before COVID. So before COVID, even in the face of outstanding and insane amounts of demand. We were only able to build enough single family enough multifamily housing just to keep up with demand. So remember what I said 11, 12, 13, 14,15 those five years, we under built massively, and then 1617 1819 20, those five years we built okay, we did find we stayed up with demand. But we didn't make any dent in the single family shortage. We didn't make any dent in the multifamily shortage, those numbers stayed the same, because we were just building enough. And that was before this once in a century 34% increase in construction cost. That was before that increase. Today, construction cost has gone up. So but people who think that home prices will drop 20% simply have no understanding of the fact that there is it's impossible to supply a product. If home prices dropped by to even 10 or 15%. Most builders will either go out of business or simply pivot to build the rent. So they'll stop building anything for the market and what that will do is make the shortage worse, which means that there's even worse it's going to make it much worse, right? Because we absolutely have to build 500,000 units a year just to keep up with this year's demand. Forget about the shortage from before, right, we still want to keep up with the demand for this particular year. So we can keep the shortage from getting worse.   You know, otherwise, that number that 5.2 million number will go to 5.5 million and 6 million and 7 million so we'll keep getting worse and every time it gets worse rents rise prices right? So there's a cushion under home prices and most people wonder mentally failed to understand the mathematics here. If your cost of construction goes up 34% how are you going to deal with prices going down and if developers don't make enough homes, the only homes available in the market are the existing homes, right? So will competition on them will increase and haven't you been reading already in the last three months that permits in the US have dropped to 30% because as the US economy goes closer into a recession, so it's inevitable at this point that we'll go into recession, builders are very skittish, their construction costs are at an all-time high and so they're backing off. They're saying, You know what, I'm not going to take the risk of building 10,000 homes, I'll build five. So if everybody drops their permits by 30, or 40%, you're digging now a new hole for the construction that would have afforded for the delivery that would have happened next year and the year after. So now we're digging a hole in 2023, deliveries and 2024 deliveries. How do you reconcile that with a 20% drop in prices? The mathematics, the fact that people actually keep saying this with a straight face is mind boggling to a data scientist.   Michael: Yeah, I love that because you like everything you just said, I don't know, if you're watching the video, you saw my jaw on the floor, I'm gonna have to pick it back up here. But it just people feel like it feels because prices are so high and toppling, then interest rates are so high, but everything you've just said, I mean, factually, and mathematically makes so much sense and so how should people be listening? How should our listeners be thinking and reconciling? Okay, well, interest rates have gone so high, so fast. So the purchasing power has been drastically reduced. How should you be thinking about like, what's going to happen next?   Neal: So the first thing you should do is study the past, because the past gives you some wonderful examples of what happens when these sorts of things happen, right? So I'm gonna give you some benchmarks that will really blow you away, right? So in 1982, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates so fast, and so many times that mortgage rates went to 18%. As we're recording this, mortgage rates are at 5.3%. So when I say this in front of a an audience, I was teaching in Seattle, there were 500 people listening. So just, you know, for shits and giggles, I basically went down to the stage and I stuck the mic in people's faces and I said, So if interest rates were at 18%, would you buy a single family home? No. Okay. Do you think anybody else bought a single family home? No. What do you think prices went down? Why the answers were 20 to 50%? Well, history tells us that in 1982, when interest rates to buy new homes were 18%. Home prices declined by 10% for one quarter, bounced up by 10%, the following quarter, and actually ended the 1982 recession higher than the beginning of the recession. study history. It tells you how sticky real estate is. Now, everyone, the biggest reason why people feel that prices are about to fall off a cliff is 2008. There's no other reason because if you look at the data from the last 61 years, all you notice is home prices are extraordinarily sticky when interest rates go up, because interest rates haven't gone up once or twice, or three times. Nine times in the last 61 years, the Federal Reserve has hiked rates to kill inflation, nine times, right? Eight times the economy went into a recession, how many times you'd be have real estate prices go down? Once 2008 because 2008 was not a recession. 2008 was the largest single evidence of large scale fraud in American history. Millions of brokers and 1000s of bank banks committed large scale fraud on about 20 million Americans. That's what caused those home prices to fall. I see no evidence of fraud at this point. If I if anything, underwriting standards are pretty darn robust. The people have trouble…   Michael: getting a mortgage is such a pain.   Neal: Right? So when you look at this, and you say, so every everything that you're doing is based on what you saw in 2008. But you're not comparing the US economy today to 2008, right. So let's go back to looking at 2007 and comparing it to today's economy. So you want home prices to drop by 20%? Okay, fine. Question is, have you looked at how many jobs the economy was creating in 2007 and have you compared that to today's jobs, right? So in the last three months, and people are saying we're in a recession, and maybe we can talk about that, in the last three months, the US created 500,000 400,400 1000 jobs. That's 1.3 million jobs in the last three months, we actually struggled to create that many jobs in most regular years. So in three months, we created 1.3 million jobs and of course, before you know anybody says, hey, the quality of the jobs is very low. They're part time no, they're not. Please go back and look at a a shockingly high percentage of those are full time jobs and then people are like, Yeah, but people are not getting paid enough.   These are standard objections, right because people are not studying the radar. No wage inflation is very high in the US right now in work have the upper hand. Wait, inflation is at 5.1%. Most years, it's one and a half percent. What that what does that mean? People are good people who have existing jobs are getting big raises and then there's 11 million open jobs in the United States. This is the first time in US history that we've been at 3.5% unemployment and still have 11 million jobs open. So the economy is producing jobs at two and a half times. It usually does in a normal marketplace. How do you factor that in with home prices falling 20%? It's the it's a highly desired asset that people want. Now, it's absolutely likely that home prices will fall. But the big question is, will they fall on a nationwide basis and the answer is that there is no data to support that. markets that are red, hot, white hot, some of those markets that I invest in Phoenix, Boise, Las Vegas, Austin, these are markets that are at risk of a 10% correction, maybe some markets might even get a 15% correction. But the US is combined of 330 markets. When you look at those 330 markets, the chances that we will see a 1% overall price reduction is still low and most people are talking about 10 to 20% based on what data?   Michael: Ah, I love it. I love it. Neal, this is this is super, super insightful. So kind of thinking about the feel part of the emotional part and the people talking about the 20% correction. There are those who have said that the Zillow or the kind of red fins that give estimates of value or rentability. It's almost a self-fulfilling prophecy if I'm an investor and I go on Zillow and see hey, this was only valued at 100k by Zillow, but it listed at 120 I just wanna be paying 100k. Is there some risk of that with public sentiment that prices should be falling with the Zillow effect that's not trademarked?   Neal: Let's call it the Zillow effect and actually, it's a very important thing to talk about because if you know, the question really is, is there a risk of that the there's a 100% chance that the Zillow effect will drag home prices down? Here's the catch, though. The Zillow effect is both ways, right? So we've also seen the Zillow effect when prices go up. So you're gonna see a short term curve downwards as the market adjusts and then when it adjusts, a whole bunch of people are like, home prices are 10% down, this is my chance to get in and it's not just, it's not just the individual investors anymore. America is fundamentally different in 2022, than it was in 2008. There one single company called BlackRock, I think is Blackrock or Blackstone, maybe I'm confused about that, it has now launched a $50 billion fund, just to buy homes during a dip and their definition of a dip is 7%. So the moment they see home prices falling 7%, they're gonna come in, and there aren't, it's not a billion dollar fund. It's not a $2 billion fund, it's $50 billion, just Google it, right. So just Google $50 billion home buying fund. Now, that's one company, but there's at least two dozen of them. So real estate now is an institutional asset class that rival stock markets, and people who invest at a big scale in the stock market, their dip is 5% 7% 10%. So you'll get that dip and they'll come in and they'll, you know, scoop up a bunch of these properties and then at some point, people will realize this market isn't going to crash 10%, they're going to be like, Yeah, but it's seven or 8%, or 12%, down in my area. Let me grab some properties and then you're going to see that correction and now all of a sudden, your backup as before you know it, this is normal, right? The market that we've had for the last 10 years where prices only go up. That's bizarre, that's abnormal. That's never happened before in US history. What we've seen before is prices go up. But they don't always go up in a straight line, they go up, they're just a little bit, they go down for three or four months, then they go back up, and the overall direction is upward. in markets like this. The Zillow effect is necessary, right?   I'm telling people number one, a dip in market prices is incredibly healthy. I've got my fingers and toes crossed that it happens. I've got my fingers and toes crossed that the US economy goes into a recession and most people would beat me up for that. It's like, why would you have your fingers and toes crossed for that? Short answer is when we have this much money floating around. If we do not occasionally adjust the economic cycle, we always end up in a bubble and bubbles when they burst of this size, create trillions of dollars in losses and can drag us into a 2008 type recession but if you look at the history, and again, I keep going back to this, the Fed has raised and income interest rates nine times and eight of those the US economy went into a recession, right? Only one of those eight was a destructive event 2008. All other seven events were in economic cycle, reset or adjustment and when you actually look at the effect of that recession over a three year timeframe, the net effect was zero, the cyclically adjusted, some of the bad companies fell out some of the bad developers fell out some of the bad money in the marketplace fell out and in the if you look at the long term trend, that that bumped down that six month recession had no real impact on the economy 2008 I can't say that, right. So once again, there's one time when we've seen total destruction happen, and that was because we perpetrated large scale fraud on American millions of Americans and using that as our benchmark to make all decisions in the future simply means we're ignoring 61 years of history.   Michael: Which seemingly is easy to do for a lot of people.   Neal: But for most people, it seems right. So I'm kind of looking at this going, this doesn't make any sense. Do you not realize that we just produced 1.3 million jobs in the last three months and isn't that the best way for company, companies are saying we're worried about recession, they're issuing earnings, you know, forward looking, and they're saying your earnings might reduce, and then they go off and hire 500,000 people in a month, right. So I mean, it's lip service for the stock market, it's lip service, for their for their, you know, phone calls with their investors. But they're not doing what they're saying they're going to do, which is reduce hiring, reduce hiring is half a million. Now normal months tend to be about 200,000 reduce hiring should be 100,000 new people being hired or 50,000, not 500,000.   Michael: Yeah, yeah. It's so interesting, Neal. So how do you take the data and use it when you're investing?   Neal: So one of the things that I do, and I'll kind of give you a little story on this on how I got started, so right, so I'm a data scientist. So right around 2009. I am, you know, looking at the real estate market, and everything looks incredible for me, of course, everyone else is telling me this is the worst real estate market of all time. So I go and tell my family, we should be buying all kinds of real estate today. Just buy everything in the marketplace, you know, with every last dime you have and then my family basically decides that I'm so stupid that they don't want me attending family events in case I infect other people with my horrible ideas. So I'm excommunicated from the family because, they like this guy is going to infect other people and we're going to lose millions dollars. So I'm like, okay, I'm gonna prove these people wrong. So I go and get gathered the best of my data science information and  I mined the Zillow website, I mined the Bureau of Labor Statistics website, along with a Ukrainian hacker was pretty good at mining. So we, you know, gather all this data together, we put it in a statistical software called R and we look at every city in America and up at the top is an unknown city, a town called Madera, California, mid era, it's 20 minutes from Fresno, right?   Nobody's ever heard of Madera, California. I know Madera, right and so Michael, what my data is telling me is, Madera, California is by far fallen way more than it should have, because from Peak 2005, it had already fallen in 2009 by 73%. So prices had fallen by 73%. But most markets fell by 30 and 40%. You know, some markets didn't even fall that much like Dallas only fell by 11%. So I'm looking at this falling 73%. I'm like, statistically speaking, this is the greatest market of all time. So I drive a jump into my car, I drive 144 miles to Madera, and I go there, and I see all these very beautiful Kaufman and Broad homes. They're like, gorgeous, like, they're brand new, right? Nobody's clearly nobody's ever lived in them. So I go to a broker in Madera, and I say, hey, what's happening here? I mean, these homes are gorgeous, right? Why doesn't anybody want to buy them and the answer is, well, Kaufman and Broad basically sold these two farmworkers, none of them had documented income. They've all left, so half the city's empty and I'm like, so. So what does it cost to make these beautiful five bedroom homes today? So it's like, yeah, if you were doing new construction would cost 250,000? So I'm like, but I'm, what are they available for? Oh, you can buy these for 90,000 any day, you know, they're all available for 90,000. You can buy as many as you like and I'm like, why in God's name? Would I not buy these for 90,000? He says, Neal only for one reason, one reason only one reason. You can't rent them. There's too many empty homes in Madera, so you can't rent them.   So you basically would have to buy these homes and then keep paying your mortgage in the hope that the market comes back someday. I'm like, I have to find a solution to this. There has to be a solution. So I jumped in my car again, I drive another 20 miles to Fresno, which is the big city, right and I go there, and I talked to a broker and I say, I want you to sell me an ugly property. He's like, Neal, no, no, no, no, I'll send you a brand new one. I've got plenty of them. None. I said no, I want a 30 year old ugly property in Fresno and he says, okay, well, these, you know, sells me a property. I buy it in cash. It's $110,000 on Summerfield, right? I take that property, I put pictures up on the web, and I go to my Ukrainian team and I say I want to In an avalanche of leads, rental leads for this one property and they're like, why? I mean, it's a pretty decent rental market in Fresno. Why do you want that many leads, I'm like, trust me, just give me like 5000 leads for this one property and they're like, okay, so the guy is sort of goes to back to his Hacking Team, and he hacks a bunch of sites, and he writes a bunch of scripts, and all of a sudden that property is like on the web 300 times in 26 different places and so is just listing it continuously using his engine and before I know it, the phone's just ringing off the hook, I'm, you know, my mailbox is filling up with leads. So I hired a person in the Philippines, this lady on a full time basis, and I say, call every one of these people and tell them this property is rented. But I have nine brand new properties 20 miles away in Madera and I will give you $50 amazon gift cards, if you just drive there and attend an open house $50, no questions asked. We'll just give you an Amazon or gas card and so she starts making phone calls. She was pretty good at her job. She'd been in a call center and you know, half the people swore at her because they would they were like, yeah, but this is not press No, this is Madera and it's like, well, this property is rented, I, you know, I've got these options and she would keep sending pictures to them by text, right, because people weren't reading, reading their emails, she would keep texting pictures of these beautiful properties and before I knew it, people were attending those open houses, I already had to deal with the banks where the moment I got a rent contract signed, I would pay cash for the property the next morning. Well, before I knew it, 11 properties were rented and then I turned around and repeated my success with my family and all of a sudden, I was making massive amounts of cash flow on these brand new homes, that now of course, they're all you know, $400,000 each.   But even back then, I was making so much money every single day on properties that I knew had to come back. It's all about the cost of construction. You don't hear about this on podcast, if it costs $250,000 to build something, and it's available for $100,000. Buy it because construction costs have never gone down in human history. They've only gone up and they've gone shockingly, up in the last two years. But even before that they've never really gone down. Nobody was able to reduce construction cost during the 2009 downturn. They simply didn't build anything, right. But did anybody get a reduction in construction costs? That's not possible. Most of our construction material doesn't even come from the US or I mean, our steel comes from places like China, right? You can't get a discount simply because your economy is in a recession. So it's all about construction costs. So once I had proven this algorithm, I decided I'm going to tell the world about it. But that's another story. So that's really how I got started in in single family and then I wrote algorithms, again and again, published them. As I said, the first time I had people that were for people listening to me last week, I had 1100 people listening to me, it's really about those algorithms. The only thing that's changed and this is the answer to your question, sorry, long winded but the answer to your question is, what I found was, when I spend this, use the same algorithm for single family that it has everything that I can possibly imagine except scale, I can never grow to a billion dollar portfolio, I can maybe grow to 10 million or 50 million, and a lot of people have. But if I apply the exact same data with multifamily, I have an 18 month crystal ball and I'll explain what that means and I was getting the same exact results. But because I was buying 200 units or building 300 units at a time, I was able to hit my goal of a billion dollar portfolio and I did it in I don't know that from 2014 to 2021, right. So seven years, I was able to hit a billion dollars. You just can't do that in the single family side. Otherwise, single family pretty awesome.   Michael: Neal, I love it. I absolutely love it. What happens and then I want to hear about your 18 month crystal ball. But what happens when things switch where the cost of new construction is cheaper than buying something that's existing?   Neal: My business is in trouble. We're all in trouble. But and so I obsess over that greatly. I go to all the conferences where I see new real estate technology coming out. I go to the modular conferences, I go to the 3d printing conferences. I look at what Amazon is selling online in terms of you know, kits I look at. I look at everything and I can tell you with complete confidence that in the next five to seven years, there is no technology that will drop cost of construction in the US. The first technology that I think will make an impact right around the 2030 timeframe is 3d printing. Modular is a laughable technology in the US. less than point 1% of homes in the US are made through modular and the total volume of modular factories in the US is under 5000 units. We need a million. So unless Congress decides to put $150 billion towards building ala carte factories, there's no volume and because of a company called KATERA, a very famous company K A T E R A going out and losing $2 billion of investor money. Nobody in the right white mind wants to build a modular factory modular completely, you know, not useful. 3d printing, yes. But remember, 3d printing only works in edge case scenarios, because the property looks odd because of all that concrete that you have to basically put on. So I think it'll work in subsidized housing for the first 10 years. So let's say 2030 to 2040. It'll be in subsidized housing by the end of 2040. I think 3d printing will completely change all math around construction and we'll do a full reset of real estate. So luckily, I'll be gone long before them.   Michael: I would say, well, hopefully this podcast is still in existence, we'll have to have you back on in 2040. To talk about it. Yep, so give us give us some insight into your 18 month crystal ball because that's something I've never heard before.   Neal: Yeah. So I love you know, again, going back to Statistics, right? So when we're crunching numbers or big data with our teams, one of the things we realized is when a market starts to see home prices going upwards. Okay, so it's home prices are screaming upwards, right in a certain market. What we noticed was between 12 and 18 months later rents in that market explode. Okay, between 12 and 18 months later, but not immediately and you might say, why not? Well, the short answer is, what happens is that there's a bunch of people in that market that are looking at home prices going up, and everybody wants to be on that train when it's going upwards. So they jump in, they buy these homes, and then that makes more people want to jump in and buy those homes, because they're friends, you know, their homes are worth a lot more and so you see this upward momentum and then finally, the market hits a critical point where most people that are looking to buy a new home in that marketplace, their income doesn't allow them to qualify, not most substantial portion of those people, right, so you get to maybe a quarter of all the people in market X can no longer qualify based on their income, right and the moment that happens, those people, they realize that their dream of homeownership is gone forever and then they don't want to go live in an apartment, what they'd want to do basically is they either wanted to go live in a class A apartments, so it's amenitized, with pools and gyms, and all those kinds of things or they want to go live in a built to rent community, which I'm building lots of, which essentially is the same as a single family home, but it's for rent.   But it's better than a single family home, because you've still got the pool and the jacuzzi and, and the dog park and the park, right, because it's 200 single family homes in one community, it's just that you're renting that home instead of buying it. So now you have a massive increase in demand for those kinds of assets because people realize I simply cannot buy any more unless I get a huge salary increase. I'm going to be renting, then those people they want to rent the best property they can find. At the very high end, they're going to be doing built around a single family rentals below that they're going to be doing built around. Below that they're going to be doing class a multifamily below that they're going to be doing Class B and Class C multifamily. So all of these rental markets see a massive boost. So this crystal ball works for every market, we've never actually found an exception to this rule with some weirdo exceptions in in rent control markets where rents simply can't rise. So as long as the market is not rent controlled, we have never seen an exception, the crystal ball works. The only part of it that is a little fuzzy is sometimes we see rents going up as soon as 12 months after the explosive growth of home prices and sometimes it takes 18 months.   So that crystal ball makes my life so much simpler because crystal balls are so hard to find actual crystal balls and reliably work are so hard to find. So I just look at these markets that are seeing these massive increases in home prices and I go buy a multifamily there, I have a business plan to rehab that multifamily and do value ads with it and do or maybe I'm doing new construction. So either way, I have a business plan. But that's my plan A but what I've found so far is in every instance that I've done this plan B has worked better, which is simply the market just went exp has explosive rent growth. So I didn't actually ended up implementing my business plan. I simply ended up selling my property in 18 to 24 months and making my investors a lot of money. I mean, I don't know of anybody else in the US that uses Core Data Science, not just numbers, but core data science to do what we do. We've had 37% IRR 47% annualized returns for our investors by simply using the crystal ball over and over again, over and over again. I mean, and I can tell you what those cities local like today, and I guarantee you've not heard of many of those cities.   Michael: Neal, I love it. What would you say have seen massive price appreciation? What is that mean because I think massive could mean different things to different people. So is there a percentage that you say, hey, you know what we crossed this threshold, that's the city that I want to invest in?   Neal: Oh, absolutely. The short answer is with multifamily. It's only about 25- 30% increase in prices. So one of the things that most people don't understand is, you don't need prices to double to double your profits, because you use leverage. So let's say somebody buys a $10 million building, and $3 million of that is equity, right or down payment, and 7 million of that is a loan. Now, let's say this building goes from $10 million to $13 million, right? So you've it's only gone up 30%. So if you sell it for 13%, and you return that $3 million in equity, right, there's $3 million in profit, plus all the rents you got for two years while you were holding it. So you've doubled people's money in two years or three years, right, even though the property's only gone up 30%. So that's very important to realize, 25 to 30% increase, usually doubled investor money in during the whole time and recently, those hold times have been very short, two years, two and a half years. So essentially, that means 45-50%, annualized returns. Now in normal times, it takes about five years to get to that point. So you're, you're doubling investor equity in five years, but that's still 20% annualized returns and I think that's pretty awesome because the investors are doing nothing, they attend a quarterly webinar, and they read a monthly update and if they, if they like you, they don't even do that. They just sort of delete your emails when they come to cash flow, right. As long as their cash flow checks are coming in. They're not reading anything you're sending them.   Michael: They're not complaining. That's it, that's it. Neal, this has been so much fun. Where can people learn more about you continue the conversation, and what's the best way for them to get in touch?   Neal: So I'm lucky enough that I'm the only Neal Bawa on the World Wide Web. So simply typing in any URL, and bawl and hitting enter into Google. There's a couple 100 podcasts that I've been on. They're geeky and nerdy, like this one too. But and if you're interested in my metrics, if you want to figure out what is that next unknown city that is going to have explosive growth, type in Neal space Bawa