Month: February 2022

Ashley:
This is Real Estate Rookie episode 153.

Terry:
It was a point I had to open up an extra credit card, increase the credit lines, just to get that project done. But I just knew I was like, it’s going to work out. I’m hearing everyone’s success stories in the BiggerPocket Podcast. I’m reading the book. I’m like, if they can do it, why not me?

Ashley:
My name is Ashley Kehr. And I am here with my co-host Tony Robinson.

Tony:
And welcome to the Real Estate Rookie Podcast, where we share all of the inspiration, information, education, motivation, anything else that ends with a “Tion” related to real estate investing you’ll get it here because our goal is to help you become a bigger, better, happier real estate investor.

Ashley:
My business partner, he always tells his son like for any sport or anything, even like his band concert the other day. He always says, who is the best snowboarder? And his son will say whoever. And he is like, it’s the one having the most fun. So who is the best real estate investor? So one having the most fun.

Tony:
Having the most fun. I love that. You got to have fun. You got to have fun. But I think that’s part of what makes being an entrepreneur enjoyable is that you get to pick and choose. And if you’re doing something that doesn’t bring you joy, you can stop doing it. Ash, it’s so crazy I was having a conversation the other day with a group of other investors, and we were talking about what financial freedom means.
And it’s funny because everyone kind of has a different definition of what that is. And for some people it was a net worth figure. And for someone else it was like passive cashflow. For other people it was like, I need this much money in the bank. My definition, and it’s evolved over time. But I think the one that I’ve leaned on a little bit more now, and it’s a little harder to define, but it makes sense for me, is having the freedom to choose what I do on a daily basis, without worrying about the financial repercussions of doing so.
And that last part is super important. Because technically anybody can choose what they do on a daily basis. Someone who has a job today, they can choose to not go to work, but if you do that enough, something’s going to happen with your job, when you can’t provide for yourself. So I think in my mind, the definition I’ve landed on is having the freedom to do what I want without worrying about the money aspect of it.

Ashley:
Tony, I love that. That is great. Just not having any repercussions. And it kind of leads into mine, like being spontaneous where you can do whatever you want every day. And my business partner and I like joke about this, where we’ll say something like, do you want to go do this or that or whatever. And then we look at each other and we smile and say, “We can do whatever we want.” And it’s like, but even further taking that, let’s just like us deciding what we’re going to work on that day or things like that.
But taking it a step farther and just being able to enjoy and be spontaneous without those repercussions. So I think that’s great. I love that you just shared that with me because that’s a great way to tie it in as to how you can be spontaneous. Because you’re right anybody could jump on a plane today and go to Florida, but does that mean they’re putting it on a credit card? Does that mean they’re going to lose their job because they didn’t show up to work? So I love that. Thank you for sharing.

Tony:
Yeah, absolutely. We’re not even into the interview yet and we’re already dropping some knowledge.

Ashley:
This interview today is awesome. As you can see, because we spent a long time recording because as you’re looking at me now, it’s pretty dark, lots of shadows. And that is because you know me, I only use natural light. And the sun has started to set because we went log on this recording. And so when we actually switch to the interview, if you’re watching this on YouTube, it will be bright and nice. And you’ll watch the sun go down.

Tony:
The sun starts to set on Madison’s face, but it gives you a nice real dramatic look.

Ashley:
And I still have my bum knee. So I couldn’t even run to flip a light switch on very quickly, efficiently, it would’ve taken a while.

Tony:
Well, today’s guest, his name’s Terry Harris. And he’s got a really interesting backstory. He’s a professional basketball player in the minor leagues for the NBA. And just kind of shares the story of how he became, I guess, infected with the real estate bug. And Tarry and I actually met on Instagram. I can’t remember how, but we were chatting on Instagram and he kind shared a story with me. I thought it’d be really cool to get him on the podcast.
But one of the things that he shared, Ashley, that really stuck out with me that I want the listeners to kind of pay attention to. And he does this throughout the entire episode. So it’s not one moment, but just look for the moment where Terry just like turns the hustle to 100, because you’ll see that happen a few times throughout the episode. And he’s also going to give like a really, really good masterclass on how to wholesale land. Listen to the end, because that part gets really cool. But throughout the entire episode, he sprinkles in a lot about how he just hustled his way to make these things happen. So overall, fantastic episode, I feel like we could have gone forever with Terry today.

Ashley:
Yeah. It definitely was a great conversation and we both were able to learn a lot and you guys will take a lot of value. Make sure you listen through to the end too, because the end is where he does that really deep dive into land deals. And it’s not just looking at a parcel and saying, oh, a house could go there, let me sell it to developer. What are the things that are of actual will value to somebody who is looking to develop land and where to find that information out.

Tony:
Yeah. He actually gives four specific things to look for when you’re looking to wholesale land. So keep an ear out for those.

Ashley:
Okay. Well, let’s get on with the show. Terry, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for joining us. Do want to start off with just telling everyone a little bit about yourself and how you got started in real estate?

Terry:
Yeah. Well I appreciate you and Tony for having me on the show today. This is something that I’ve always been, getting into real estate or always listened to the BiggerPockets podcast. So finally being on the show is like, it’s the dream come true. It’s a little bit surreal too. But my journey comes from starting to play in the NBA G League and a typical season in the NBA G league is five and a half months. And while I was playing in the G league, I never knew what was going to happen when my season ended. I didn’t know if I was going to get a call up to the NBA. I didn’t know if I was going to play in a different country and I didn’t know if I was going to get paid after those six months. So I mean that whole time in the G league, I was really just indulging in as much resources about real estate as I could.
And I just stumbled at Barnes and Noble one day, and saw that blue book, the book on rental property investing by Brandon Turner. And me reading that triggered my mindset and just gave me the ability to know how I can really start to get into real estate. And that’s how the journey started. And fast forward to today, about two and a half, almost three years later, I now have five properties under my belt, one short term rental, one long term rental, a couple parcels of land. And actively wholesaling as well. And in the year of 2021, my company we’ve done a little bit over 20 wholesale deals this year.

Tony:
I mean, Terry that’s awesome, man. And your story reminds me a lot. We had Lili Thompson on the podcast and she was another athlete. She was playing professionally with the Harlem Globetrotters actually. She was a like going all over the place. But a very similar story to where she knew that basketball wasn’t going to be her only source of income. And she wanted to kind of use some of that extra time that she had to phone something else.
So anyway, if you guys want to hear that it’s episode 91 of the Real Estate Rookie podcast. Now, Terry, I guess here’s a question about, because I would assume that it’s a pretty busy, hectic schedule being a professional basketball player, trying to build that out simultaneously with a real estate business couldn’t have been easy. And obviously not everyone that’s listening is going to be a professional basketball player, but they may not be juggling real estate and professional sports. But maybe they’re juggling real estate and a spouse or real estate and children or real estate and a day job or real estate in X, Y, Z. So how did you kind of find the time or make the time to be able to balance those two things?

Terry:
Yeah, I mean, I just had it programmed in my mind when I was playing with the Delaware Bluecoats that I’m going to buy a house this year and I was going to buy the right home. So when we were on the road, traveling on the flights, traveling the games, I would bring my books with me. And anytime we were back in Delaware, I was calling realtors to go and view houses. And every day I was trying to get better in some way or just increase my knowledge on real estate in some way. And I just always was like, I’m going to figure the time out and manage the time so I can go and invest in real estate and do it at a high level. So I guess that time management really set me apart to do that.

Ashley:
Terry, before we move any further, can you just give a brief overview of what you started out with and what those deals looked like and what your portfolio looks like today?

Terry:
The house that I did buy in Delaware, I purchased it for $180,000. I did a 3% down FHA loan and on that house, I actually got $10,000 of seller credits. So I didn’t have too much money at the time. So I went to close with a check about, I think, $6,000 and I was able to receive $10,000 in seller credits back. So I actually made money and got the keys to the house.

Ashley:
Terry, can you just explain what a seller credit is for somebody that doesn’t know and how do you get that when you’re doing a deal?

Terry:
For sure. So a seller credit is basically a credit from the sellers. And when we did the inspection for the home, we had an inspection contingency, which allows us either to back out or renegotiate the purchase price due to the inspection and the wear and tear to the home. So the house did have some safety damages and some things that we wanted to get fixed. So me and my realtor, we asked the seller like, “Hey, either you can fix these, we’ve gotten quotes from various contractors or you can just credit us $10,000.” Well, actually, we first said $15,000 and he countered back at $6,000 and then you say, can we meet in the middle at $10,000? And then they agreed to credit us $10,000. So that was a big plus. And when doing my first real estate project, I thought I could have renovated this whole property with $10,000.
And you know first projects, they’re never as expected with the renovations. And then I think about eight months ago, I refinanced that home and I put about $20,000 into that property and the bank appraised it at $320,000. And that was my first property.

Tony:
Holy crap.

Terry:
So that was a solid one. I’ll never regret. I was just so happy to be… And it was so stressful at the time, dealing with contractors, not having the funds. And it was a point I had to open up an extra credit card, increase the credit lines just to get that project done. But I just knew, I was like, it’s going to work out. I’m hearing everyone’s success stories in the BiggerPockets podcast. I’m reading the books. I’m like, if they can do it, why not me. So that was my story.

Tony:
I just want to pause really quick. Because that’s amazing. You bought this property for essentially no money out of pocket once you factor in this credit and you put money into the rehab, but then it appraises for almost double the price. Double the price. And this is the power of real estate investing. Is you can take a relatively small sum of money. I feel firmly that most Americans today can bring $6,000. They can save up $6,000 just from hustle. You could hustle your way to six grand and you took that into a property that’s worth $320,000. $6,000 to $320,000. That’s amazing, man. So I just wanted to pause on that because I didn’t want you to roll along without really reveling in the success you had there, man.

Ashley:
And Terry, I loved your energy as you told us that like, that’s why I love this show is I love one guests come on and they’re still pumped up and motivated and you’ve done so many deals since then that you’re still so excited about that first deal that got you started. And everyone listening I know is going to be inspired by you.

Terry:
I appreciate that. That first deal, there’s nothing better than that. When I got that tenant in and to just look at the photos from before and after and just like, “Oh, I did that.” But I mean, I did have a little bit of self doubt, but when you hear stuff, when you ask about… And you ask people who are not in real estate and they say, “Are you sure you can get that rent or are you sure it’s going to be worth?” I mean, I just kind of stayed to myself and like, I just say I knew this property is going to do well in some type of way.

Tony:
So can we pause on that? Because I think what you just said is another really important piece to highlight is that for people that are just getting started, that feeling of the lack of community is very common. Because you’re the person that was in Barnes and Noble that day and found the book. You’re the person that’s bringing all this reading material along with you when you’re traveling. Not your friends, not your family. So you’re going down this rabbit hole of understanding the power that real estate investing has. But all the people around you aren’t.
So as your mind and your ideas start to transform and progress towards this idea of financial freedom, everyone else isn’t. And it can get lonely and you can start to second guess yourself. So I always try and plug building the right community. And luckily BiggerPockets. You got how many millions of people on the forums now. You got the Real Estate Rookie Facebook group that’s got like 40,000 plus members strong. So there is a community for you. So if you’re listening to this podcast and you feel like how Terry felt when he was getting started, that you don’t have the community around you, get active on BiggerPockets, get active from the forums, get active from the Facebook groups and you will find your tribe.

Terry:
Definitely. And I could attest to that because when I was in that situation being around my team, they would joke around laugh at me when I used to be on the bus, reading the books and things like that. But my thing was like my circle, my team, really for real estate was the BiggerPockets fan. Listening to podcasts every day, driving to basketball games to practice, even just listening and indulging in information like that was my team.
So we’re hearing you guys, your success stories was just like, look, those are my friends, they’re doing, we talk every day. But like that was my success. It’s so funny now today some of my teammates be like, “Yo, we were really making fun of you.” And they’ll really just say, it’s like, now you want to really work with you. It’s just the funniest thing.

Ashley:
I saw this video. It was an Instagram reel that some motivational speaker put out where it was a video of him when he was in college, I think it was. And his friends videotaped him like leaving the bar and him just like I have to go. And it was him basically going home to work on whatever he was working on while all his friends were staying out at the bar and they made fun of him. And now he’s super successful.
He put in the grind, he learned what he wanted to. And that kind of reminds me of your situation there. It just shows like don’t let other people influence you or try to give you that negative talk. And even though they’re probably not trying to be mean by not being supportive, they just want you to hang out with them or do what they’re doing. But you got to get out of that mindset of trying to please everybody and just focus on what’s going to be best for you and your family.

Tony:
And Ash, can I have one more comment to that before we roll? Because it was so funny. I was just talking with my son about this the other day. He’s 14 now, he’s in eighth grade. He’s at that stage where everyone else’s opinions are like super important to him. He’s changing five times before he goes to school. And he’s worried about this, that and the other.
And I was talking to him. I was like, “Hey, dude as part of becoming an adult, you have to be able to learn how to filter out advice depending on the situation, depending on who you’re talking to.” I told him, I was like, “Look, I’m your dad. And I feel like I’ve given you a lot valuable life lessons.” But I asked him, I was like, “If you wanted to learn how to become a brain surgeon, would you come to me?”
And he laughed. And he was like, “No, I wouldn’t.” I was like, “If you wanted to learn how to fly a helicopter, would you come to me?” And he was like, “No, I wouldn’t.” I was like, “But if you wanted advice about real estate, would you come to me?” He said, “Yeah.” And I told him, I was like, this is the lesson. Whatever it is that you’re looking to achieve, whatever it is that you’re looking to get better at, you have to filter feedback on that thing from people who have done it.
And if the people who are giving you advice on how to be a real estate investor have never invested in real estate, then that’s like you going to your dad, asking him how to be a brain surgeon. It’s just doesn’t make sense. So for all the rookies that are listening, don’t be afraid… Accept it, whatever, your friends, your family want to tell you things like, let them say it. But just know, okay, let me file that away as my dad, trying to give me advice on how to be a brain surgeon. So I just wanted to add that in there. It was a conversation I just had that the kind of floated to my mind.

Ashley:
Tony, I love when you give your dad advice. You give your son such like intellectual little pieces of tidbits. I love it.

Tony:
All right. Well Terry, we’re not here to talk about me not being a brand surgeon. Let’s get back to the real estate piece, man. So you get this first deal in Delaware and obviously it goes amazingly well. But you’ve made some transitions in your business. So what happens after this first deal? Where do you go from there?

Terry:
So after the first deal, then COVID happens when COVID happened, that ended my season and it allowed me to spend some time at the house doing a lot of DIY projects and doing stuff and helping out. But we finish it. I get a tenant in there. He pays a year up front in advance, which is amazing. And then I’m like, I’m working out. I moved to Los Angeles because that’s where I do a lot of my workouts for basketball and month after month. And I’m asking my agent “What’s going to go… What’s happened?” He’s like, “Hey, COVID, everything is just shut down. Just keep working out.” I’m like, “Well I need some money. I need to get paid.” So I stumbled on wholesaling, and I started hearing a lot of people like Fetch, Wholesale a Million, Brent Daniels.
And I was just like, wow, people are making 25, 30, 40, $100,000 off one wholesale deal. I was like I’m already kind of in real estate with my one rental property. Let me kind of get into this market as well, get into this game too. And I started doing a lot of research. I started indulging in as much wholesaling information as I can and I just start driving for dollars. And that’s basically looking for opportunity. And for those who don’t know wholesaling, it’s basically the art of finding opportunity and getting opportunity, getting houses locked up under contract and assigning your contract to an investor and may making an assignment fee that’s like 10, 15, $20,000 or even more. So I’m new. I’m driving around looking for homes and I’m just completely brand new and just trying to get 20 houses a day.
And that was my goal. After every workout, I was going to drive for an hour, put a podcast on about wholesaling and find 20 vacant distressed properties. Two, about two and a half weeks goes by and I get a list of about 200 people. And I’m doing all this completely not the traditional way, but I’m like taking the numbers from… I just screenshot it on my maps on my phone and then I’m going and uploading them. Finding the owners and calling them through white pages.
And I’m just like, “Hi, this is Terry. I’m a local investor in area. Wanted to see if you were willing to consider an offer.” And I stumbled upon somebody who’s like, “Hey, I inherited the property from my sister. She passed away and we are looking to sell, why don’t you come by and check it out.” So I was like, “Well, great. Let’s do tomorrow at 12:00.” After my workout, I go and I checked it out.

Ashley:
Terry, I was just going to ask how many phone calls did you do before you got that person that said come and check out the property.

Terry:
I would say around 250, 200. I would say around 200. It was about 200.

Ashley:
How did you keep going without getting discouraged? I mean, that’s a lot of phone calls. I hope you have an unlimited plan.

Tony:
Only on nights and weekends. Only on nights after 7:00 PM and on weekends.

Terry:
I mean, when I hear success stories of other people, that’s why I love podcasts and hearing other stories. It’s just like, oh now let me try to do this. And it’s like, I know I can do it. And I was hearing other people’s… And I heard like, I think Brent Daniel said, if you just make 100 calls that’s not enough. We’re making thousands of calls and getting the like you got. And so my thing was, I got to at least make 1,000 to get my first deal. So I wasn’t going to stop till I made 1,000 calls. That was my thing.

Tony:
So you get this phone call. They’re like, come through, check it out, I guess, before we lead into this conversation, Terry. This is your first time getting face to face with the seller?

Terry:
First time, yep.

Tony:
Were you nervous? Did you feel calm, cool, collected going in? Like how did you mentally prepare for that conversation?

Terry:
So I’m a fake it till you make it type of guy. So I put a collard shirt on, came with a little notebook and like not really knowing what’s going to go on, but I’m like, all right. Let’s just… And like I find like a wholesale contract online. I was just like, it is all really, really soon. But I was like, let me just see what’s happening. Let’s just go for the ride. So I go there, I walk around the house, he shows me everything. And I just didn’t really know my market too well. And so my thing was… And going into this, I’m like, all right, I got to offer low four hundreds. And that’s the way I can find somebody at maybe 420, 430 and I can make probably $5,000, $10,000 about spread off this. So I go, I was like, “Okay what do you think your bottom line?”
He goes, “My bottom line is $500,000. I have a realtor kind of contacting me about listing it. But if you were to give me $500,000, I’d sign off on it with you today.” And I was like, “Ah, that’s too high. Would you do low 400s.” And he was like, “Nah, 500.” And I was like, all right, I just left. I was like cool. But thank you. I’ll think about it. So I go back and I was just like, all right, well, let me keep calling, let me keep doing my thing. I was like, that’s probably not a deal. So I contact a wholesaler who’s in the same market. And I was just like connecting with him. And I was like telling him a couple deals. I’m like, “Hey, I did have a seller for this property. He wanted to sell for 500,000.”
He’s like, “Oh, what’s the address?” So I give him the address and he is like, “Wait, he said $500,000.” I said, “Yeah. I was like, that’s a little too high.” He goes, “No, no, no, no, no. $500,000.” I was like, “Yeah.” He goes, “Bro, go lock that thing up for $500,000. Get off the phone with me right now and go lock it.” “Oh, okay. Cool, cool, cool.” And this is about, I would say a week and a half, two weeks after. And so I get on the phone with the seller. I call him right back. I was like, “Hey, Mr. Seller this is Terry. I came by your house two weeks ago $500,000, I can do $500,000.” And first thing he says, he just laughs, “Just sold it on the market with a realtor. Sold for $620,000. Thank God I waited,” hangs up.
And at that moment, I sat on my couch and I was just like… I sat on my couch and I was just like, wow. I was just like, I could have had he made a $50,000 assignment fee. Or even more to an investor who would’ve purchased that same property. So I was like, look, I told myself two things. I was like, I can one forget about wholesaling and never try to wholesale again.
Or I can, two, go even harder than I was before. And try to rep this and do this four or five, 10 more times. Because if I stumbled on it that time, I could probably do it again if I even indulge even more into it. So I was spending about three hours a day wholesaling. I was like, look now, after this day, I’m going to spend at five, six at least hours a day, wholesaling. I’m going to be driving for dollars, cold calling, listening to more podcasts, listen as much information. And then within a year, this was about, I would say October of 2020. Fast forward to 2021 now with the year we’ve closed 20 wholesale deals.

Ashley:
Congratulations. That’s awesome. What a starting story, losing out on a deal, but it was also such a great learning experience as to how we make sure that doesn’t happen again.

Tony:
And Ash, can I add one thing. Something that you mentioned Terry, that I thought was really interesting. There’s this, I don’t know, this personal development theory out there. It’s called habit stacking. But basically you take a well established habit that you already have and you add on top of that, a new habit or routine that you’re trying to implement. And what I thought was really interesting was that you said you had this goal of wanting to spend X number of hours, driving for dollars see X number of houses. And you said every time I would leave practice or training, I would just go drive for dollars. And it’s really subtle, but that’s a really powerful strategy to implement new routines into your life. You already have this really well established routine of training. As an athlete, you have to do that.
So you said before I go home, let me just have just enough willpower to make this left down this other road. So I can go explore this new neighborhood and hopefully get a few houses that way. So for all the rookies that are listening, if you’re trying to analyze more deals, if you’re trying to reach out to more agents, if you’re trying to find wholesalers, find a part of your day that’s already really structured. A part of your day that’s already really habitual and see if you can add it on top of that. So if it’s every morning when I get out of bed, I’m going to brush my teeth with my laptop right there. So as soon as I put my toothbrush down, I’m going to analyze five deals. Whatever it is, but just find that part of your routine that’s already really habitual. Then add on that new part that’s going to help your real estate business. I like that. Cool. So just dropping knowledge there.

Ashley:
So Terry, after you get into wholesaling, what’s kind of the next piece of it. How long are you wholesaling for? And then what’s the next thing you take on?

Terry:
So when I first got my first wholesale deal, it was like the best feeling in the world. I was just like, wow, I just figured another source of income. Another way I can make money that’s not the traditional job, the 9:00 to 5:00 way.

Tony:
Terry really quickly, sorry. How long after that failed deal, did you actually get your first wholesale deal?

Terry:
To close it took around 60 days.

Tony:
All right. Not even that much longer. That’s awesome, man.

Terry:
So it was definitely a great feeling, but I told myself I want every deal I do I try to invest back into the business. And then as I’m starting to wholesale and I’m wholesaling in the desert, I’m starting to see the numbers and the numbers that investors are making. I wholesale the property to an investor in a desert. It was early on, it was part of my fourth deal. And always to check up on the investors that I wholesale my property. So I’m like, “Hey how’s that property doing?” And the property at the time was a $300,000 property. And she says, “It’s doing amazing. We just made $7,000 and grossed it in a month.” And I was just like, “Wait, $7,000.” I’m like, “You made $7,000. I just bought a property in Delaware that’s worth 300,000. And it makes $2,000 in rent every month.”
I’m like, so now one, I’m wholesaling to you and I’m seeing the numbers you’re creating. And it’s just like, oh wow, okay, I might have made $5,000 off an assignment fee to you, but you’re making more than that every single month. And I was just like, okay, wholesaling now to me is really just a means to an end. It’s a way to build capital now. But that capital is not just for me. That capital is going to be to invest into real estate and invest and do what these investors are doing. So my next thing was the next deal I got, when I was financially ready with enough capital from wholesaling was to take down a property for myself. So I happened to get a deal that was for $230,000 under contract in the desert for a great short term rental destination. And at first it was like, okay, I can go wholesale.
It’s like, I think I could do $15,000, $20,000 on an assignment fee. And then when I went and toured it and viewed it myself, I was just… I just had that feeling. I was like, I got to hold onto this one myself. I got to take this one down myself. And I think I’m at that point, I’m ready to do that. So the wholesaling was great. It taught me, really, how to invest the proper way by just following what investors were doing. And when the time came, when I had enough capital, I bought the property, renovated it. And now today I’m looking to either one, sell it on the market for around $500,000, which is a huge spread or two it’s a short term rental in December, we’ll see around $8,500 in gross rent from Airbnb.

Ashley:
That’s so cool, Terry. So when you decided to purchase this and to keep it for yourself, well, first of all, it reminded me of Ryan Dossey. He has a slogan, something about like, keep the best, wholesale the rest or something like that. Where as a wholesaler, you can keep the best properties for yourself. And then the ones that are still good wholesale those ones. But with your first property that you bought for your short term rental, how did you finance that? Had you saved enough cash from your wholesaling business to purchase this property?

Terry:
So it was about… I would say that was my fourth or fifth wholesale deal and I did save enough cash. And then when I close on it I knew I had two more wholesale deals coming in that same month. So I was like, I have more than enough cash to really start to renovate this. And that was about a year later after my Delaware property. So I was able to do another 3% down payment as a primary residence. And I took about three months to really renovate it, get the right contractors in there, and it was a really solid project.

Ashley:
That’s awesome. I want to ask kind of like a lifestyle change here. So you’re making this quick cash from wholesaling. How did you not go out and splurge and how did you make the decision to save that money? Because I think when you have such a rapid income growth in a short amount of time, what would be your advice to someone who experiences that and not just blow it all on a sports car and to continue to invest the money?

Terry:
I always knew, because wholesaling to me, it is a lot, a lot of work. And I kind of wanted to be able to take that wholesaling money and put it into cash flowing assets that produce passive income. the money that I really don’t have to work for. And I keep like a little sheet on my computer and it kind of shows me all my cash flowing assets and all my passive income. And for me, it’s like, I want to be financially free within the next three, four years. So I only have one asset that’s really given me financial freedom and it was my house in Delaware. And with all expenses in the house in Delaware, it really was netting me about $500. So even though I have a lot of money coming in from wholesaling, it was just that all right I’m not close to being financially free.
I want that $500 to turn into $10,000, $20,000. So I was like, all right, the best thing to do to make that happen would be to invest back into real estate and invest into short term rentals and start creating passive income. So it was just like, even though I’m working and making a good bit of checks each and every month from wholesaling. It was just, this is not the lifestyle I want to be working, getting on the computer for six, seven hours a day. I want that money to be in real estate. So I just didn’t look at it like, okay, life’s great. I’ve made a six figure business. I can keep doing this year over year. I was kind of like, no, this is just a little bit of cash that’s liquid. Now let’s take this money and let’s turn it into repeatedly cash flowing assets of money.

Ashley:
That’s awesome. One thing that I’m super curious about that I saw in the show notes that you do is you do land deals, and you’re wholesaling land deals. I would love for you to kind of break down what one of those land deals are.

Terry:
So I started off mainly doing wholesaling homes and houses, and sometimes houses and properties can be really, really, in my opinion, really, really tough. And houses do in my opinion, also get the highest assignment fees. But land on the other end, it’s a lot easier for me. Because one, everything I need to see about a lot or a parcel of land is really on a satellite image. And I don’t have to show up in person. I don’t have to be there. I don’t have to inspect it. I can do land deals almost anywhere around the earth.
So a lot of land deals really for me, are just finding out the condition of the land. Just like how you’re wholesaling a property. You need to know the condition of a property. Is the roof good? Is the HVAC system up and running? But for land deals, the only condition that you need to know for the land is the utilities.
And those utilities, water, does it have electricity? Is it accessible? And all those information you can find out from the city or through the parcel maps. And when I started just doing that land over and over, it was just like, wow, I don’t have to show up, investors pretty much know what parcels of land they want to buy. And the sellers didn’t really have that same emotional attachment to the parcels of land as they do with properties. So it kind of helped me go from one deal a month to now doing land, do two to three deals a month.

Ashley:
Can you give us a breakdown of the numbers on one of those land deals and kind of what it looked like, how you found the land deal, what was the purchase price, how you negotiated it with the seller?

Terry:
Recently I had a land deal. We locked it up for $30,000 called the owner, and the owner happened to have inherited the property. She said she was paying taxes and just didn’t want the parcel of land at all. And really was just looking for a quick closing. So I was saying, “Hey we’re able to offer you that.” And in my opinion, I think $30,000 we’ll be able to close very quickly. So I spoke to a couple investors who I know who are purchasing land at a high level out in the desert. And I said, “Hey I have a parcel of land.” And I kind of thought this was a… I like to start off high. And haven’t worked me. And I said, “Hey, I have a parcel land for $50,000.” And one of the investors said, “I’ll take that parcel land. I like that area.”
So I had this land deal already locked up under contract for $30,000 in escrow. So I sent him the assignment contract and the assignment contract basically states that he’s to purchase the parcel of land for $30,000 and pay my corporation, an assignment fee of $20,000. And in total, he’s to pay $50,000 in all to purchase the property. So that happened. And after the seller was really happy to just get the land off their hand. And he was, hey, keep giving me more land. And I was able to collect $20,000 assignment fee. So that was my best land deal.

Ashley:
Yeah. I would say once you get that $20,000, you’re going to get a little hooked on land deals after that. So Terry, how did you find like an end buyer for the land deals?

Terry:
Finding my sellers and my buyers. I use PropStream for all of this. And so PropStream allows you one to find motivated by specifies any type of criteria that you’re looking for on PropStream. So you can do high equity, vacant, vacant land, tax delinquent, any type of property, prop stream’s going to show you every homeowner with that specific criteria to the property. And then on top of that, when I find my cash buyers, I use sometimes word of mouth, going on Facebook groups. And then sometimes I pull a cash buyer list of everyone who’s bought property with cash in the area within the last year, in that same area that I lock up a property in. And I usually go and send out texts or call them and ask them if you’re interested in this property.

Tony:
So Terry let’s pull on this spread a little more. So when you’re cold reaching out to someone who’s purchased land previously, what does that dialogue look like? What are you saying? What are you telling them?

Terry:
I’ll usually blast out the land, “Hi buyer. I have a off market land deal available, wanted to see if you were interested in it.” And then I’ll give them some details on the land and put my name at the end. If that’s the first like introduction. A lot of times they’ll say “Who’s this.” And ask a lot of questions and I’ll just say, “Hey, name’s Terry. Local investor in the area, found a parcel of land. Wanted to see if you were interested in it. If not, I can take you off of listen never text you again.” And a lot of times these land buyers who are frequent land buyers. They’re like, “No, no, no, keep them coming.” And of course, you’ll get some land buyers who are like, “Please don’t text me again.” Which is fine. People who probably just buy one land for themselves and not really an investor. But yeah, that’s typically how the conversations go.
And then always after, when I build a relationship with them, I’m always looking to kind of ask them, “Hey, are you looking to do with this parcel of land?” Or, “Hey, how do you look on developing this?” Or “What are you looking to do with this property?” And the reason I do that is because I want to kind of… I see what price they’re buying the land at. I kind of want to know how you’re developing, what you’re about to spend to develop. Because in the end of the day that like, that’s what I want to get to. And that’s the type of level I want to get to. So I value those connections and relationships with investors.

Tony:
Terry, you seem like a hustler man. I love the fact that you’re grinding out on the phones to get that first deal. You’re cold calling up people who are buying land, building your cash buyers list. You’re not just waiting for these things to fall into your lap. You’re going out there and you’re making it happen. And I think that’s such an important point for all of our Rookie listeners to understand is that if you want to find success, you got to grind it out.
You got to take the action. You can only watch so many videos on YouTube or listen to so many podcasts or read so many books. At some point, the rubber has to meet the road. And I feel like what’s partially attributed to part of your success is the fact that you’re not afraid to go out there and make that happen, man. You got to do it. You got to do it. So going back to one of the point that you mentioned when you’re actually looking for the land. You said that one of the things that you’re really looking for is utilities and that you don’t even have to in person to kind of figure those things out. So kind of walk us through that process. I know we’re looking for water, power, maybe gas, but what exactly are you looking for? How are you finding those things? What’s a good sign? What’s a bad sign? How do you make your decisions?

Terry:
Yeah, so I like said, land is just… It’s honestly, I wholesale over 10 parcel of land and I’ve never been to any of them physically. And when I see the satellite image and land, you can have 2.5 acres in one location. You can have 2.5 acres in another location. One to me can be worthless. And one to me can be worth over $100,000 dollars. And both of them are the same size, but really what depicts that is the utilities. And for one, the first thing I look is it one accessible by road. A lot of times there’s a lot of what I call or a lot of investors call landlocked properties. And landlocked properties are kind of lots that makes it so you can’t access to it. And most of the time when they are landlocked, that means there’s no water going to it.
And if there’s no water going through it, the price to bring water to a property that’s landlocked and bring a natural road to it will cost an investor over… Could cost them over $200,000 and which completely makes it not a deal. Another thing I look for on the satellite image is to see if the land has any washes going through it. So a wash is it’s a natural drainage that goes through lots of parcels. And usually, well in the city I’m in, but in most cities you’re not allowed to obstruct a wash. So if a wash is going through a parcels of land it’s going to make it completely un-buildable for an investor to come and build upon. That’s another thing that I look out for. And then of course, electricity, I look for electric poles and if a property has a water meter, has electricals and it’s accessible, I look at it as gold.
That’s a property that an investor can go on and build upon quickly and easily. I think what’s been separate, what’s taking me to the next level in wholesaling is starting to really think like an investor. Now I don’t go into these properties like all right, I got to offer this because I think an investor will go into it. I go into it as like, hey, I’m an investor. I want to build. It’s accessible. It has water, ti has electricity, at $20,000, I can build on that and it can be a good deal. And I think that connection with your buyers or your investors and seeing what they want, why they want that specific criteria for their land, home or whatever, it’s only going to help you with wholesaling and investing in general.

Tony:
So Terry, I want to, I want to drill down a little bit on how you’re identifying some of these things. So some of the things you mentioned are access roads, washes not running through the property, water connections, and then electrical poles. So I just want to kind of run through each of those separately. So in terms of the access road, how can I determine if a property is accessible or not just by looking at an image. Should I be looking for some kind of marker on app or am I calling the county? How do I identify if there’s access to a specific parcel?

Terry:
Access, it’s pretty easy to find. Any type of map, Google maps, your iPhone maps, you’ll see the road name and then you’ll be able to see the parcel right next to it. But if the parcel is, if you see like the road name and then there’s the parcel, and then there’s another parcel two parcels behind it. It’s most likely not accessible. But like say Main Street and it’s right along Main Street, then that’s how it’s accessible to that property. And then if an investor comes in and wants to make a driveway from Main Street to their property, it’s super simple for them to do that.

Tony:
Gotcha. So that handles the accessibility. Now what about the water connection?

Terry:
So the water connection is a little tricky depending on the city that you’re in. I usually call the city up or sometimes they have an online website where you just put the parcel number in. And when you put the parcel number in, it’ll tell you, okay, there’s either a water meter or not a water meter. Or they’ll tell you if water’s running on the main line. And sometimes they’ll even tell you the price to extend the water line on the street. And I’ll get all that information online. And if to be honest, if it costs more than $60,000 to extend that main line, I kind of is like, ah, it’s not that good of a parcel of land.

Tony:
Okay. So it was really easy to get that information online. Is it similar for the electric connection as well? Are you following the same process or it’s something different there?

Terry:
For the electric I go onto the satellite image and I’ll zoom in and like, you’ll see like that little pole kind of sticking up and like you’ll kind of even see like the little electric lines going. And if that’s right along the street, perfect. That means you got electricity there. Sometimes electricity is further away or really far away. So when I see that, that kind of indicates to me as like, all right, electricity’s not in this area.
One, the investor’s either going to have to extend the electric poles or do solar panels. So it’s not a deal breaker if the electric’s not in the area, but I just have to inform the investors that the nearest electric pole is probably 1,000 feet away. And then another thing I do look at is are there houses nearby. Now, if there’s houses nearby, that kind of shows me, okay, there must be water on the street. There must be electricity. Now if there’s this parcel of land with no houses near it whatsoever. You got to think like, okay, no, one’s developing here. And that’s probably a reason, no one’s developing here.

Ashley:
Terry, that was so much great information. Almost like a real deep dive into what you need to know about land. Because I think a lot of times you just think like, oh, land, it’s just a personal land. I don’t need to do any due diligence, nothing. I just maybe make sure the survey lines are correct. And then I could sell it to somebody else, but you’re right there’s so many little things that can change the value of the property. That if you’re going to wholesale or to develop, you need to look into before you actually purchase the property. Thank you so much for sharing that all with us.

Terry:
Of course.

Ashley:
I’m going to take us to our rookie request line. You guys can give us a call at 1-888-5ROOKIE, and when you leave a voicemail, it’s actually emailed directly to Tony and I. And we get to listen to them. And we love when you guys share with us your questions so we can play them on here for a guest.

Speaker 4:
Hi, my partner and I, Vanessa and Ariana, we’re both wholesalers and we’re new at this. And we are wondering how do people find the accurate equity on a homeowner? So we did the drive for dollars, and we just need some information on what websites or how to find accurate information on a homeowner and their property. Thank you.

Terry:
This is so great, because this is like the information that I didn’t know in the beginning when I was driving for dollars either. So great question and I use PropStream. Now PropStream does give you a seven day trial, it’s about $100 a month, but those properties that you do find driving for dollars. If you input the street address, state 123 Main Street into PropStream, it’s going to show you everything about the property owner. Even the little bit of too much information, they’ll even tell you the mortgage amount, how much they owe on a property, who they have the mortgage with, who the owner is. If they have another owner. Almost everything you need a new, you can run comps through PropStream as well. They’ll even give you a little evaluation of what they think the property’s worth.
And I think it’s a great, great tool and you can even skip choice through PropStream as well. So say if that person wants to call them, they can get their number and email address to reach out to them. It’s been a great tool, it’s been a tool that I’ve used to close almost every one of my deals. So PropStream will definitely [inaudible 00:45:15] that information out. And it also does… It has a driving for dollars system on it as well. So when I was driving for dollars in the beginning, I was like, “Hey, I was on this street already.”
So what PropStream does it tracks every street that you’re on. And when you go back to your map and you just like go into the driving for dollar system okay I already was on Main Street. I already found some properties there. So that’s just a good thing that it does. And that could definitely answer that person’s question.

Ashley:
There’s a couple other apps too, that I’ve used as a Land Glide and even onX Hunt where you can like drop a pin on the location. And onX Hunt, it’s actually four hunters to track yourself as you’re hunting or to track where you have a food plot or your tree stand or things like that. And to look at you shoot a deer and it runs onto somebody else’s property, whose property that is to see if it’s okay to go there, call them whatever.
But I was looking at 1,200 acres recently and we took a side by side out there and we used the tracker to track where we were going on the property. And we spent like three hours out there and we hadn’t even covered like a third of that 1,200 acres, but it was just so cool to like see the visual of it and just, technology and apps that are free or such a low cost that a lot of these tools can help you provide so much value to you and help you run your business more efficiently too. You said how you had already been on that street and now you can track that to see where you’ve already been.

Tony:
Can we pull that thread a little more, actually, what other… So you talked a lot about PropStream Terry. What other, maybe, software tools are you using in your, either your wholesale business or you’re a short term rental business to kind of help things stay automated and fresh?

Terry:
I use Mojo Dialer. Now, Mojo Dialer allows me and my virtual assistants to contact everyone on the list that we pull at a higher rate. And it kind of keeps things a lot organized as well. So what Mojo does is a three to one dialer. And it’ll ring three people at once, and it’s going to put you on the phone with the first person who answers. And then drop voice messages to people who don’t answer. So in the beginning, when I was cold calling by myself, I just printed out a list and I had three highlighters and I would call everybody one by one by one, after the workouts for like three hours a day. And it took me about four hours to really contact around 80 people. Each day my virtual assistants contact around 400 people with the Mojo Dialer. So it makes things way faster and more efficient and way more organized too.
So that’s one thing that we use. And another thing we use is Roor R-O-O-R, and that’s a texting system. So like I said, in the beginning, it took me four hours to reach about 80 people. So with Roor, it allows me to do a text blast and say, if Tony and Ashley are both on my list of homeowners that I’m targeting, it’ll send a custom text message like saying, “Hey, Tony, or, hey, Ashley, was contacting you about your property at both of your guys’s address, wanted to see if you guys are willing to consider an offer.” So it’ll send that text. And when I do a text campaign, I’ll probably reach out to 2,000 people within two hours and it’ll be custom text and Roor also has phone numbers too. So your phone number’s not going out to everybody as well. And those are kind of the main tools I use. Really the main softwares I use is Roor, PropStream and Mojo Dialer.

Tony:
Awesome, man. So I appreciate you sharing the software stack. Love to kind of hear what’s running in other people’s business, man, because I know I got my software that I love. But I love hearing what other people would use, man. So Terry, you’ve man, given so much value and I feel like we could bring you back, man, just to kind of dive into how you built out your systems and processes as well. Because you just dropped a little nugget at the end there that you’ve got VAs kind of making a lot of your phone calls now. So we could do a whole episode on that.
But before we wrap up, I want to give a quick shout out to week’s Rookie rockstar. And again, if you want to be highlighted on the podcast, get active in the real estate, Rookie Facebook group, we’re on the BiggerPockets forums. Maybe tag, Ash and I on something on Instagram. We’ll pull from there as well. But today’s Ricky rockstar is Manny. And Manny closed on investment property number one. Manny said “Lots of hard work and sacrifice for us here and we couldn’t be more prouder. We did a two or three K loan on this two family residents and with full determination, we got it done in under 60 days with my wife being in her 39th week of pregnancy.” Cutting it really close there. “So we’re happy to start out as real estate investors and all the information and learning, reading, and constant research related payoff.” So Manny, congratulations to you and your wife on the real estate investment and even more so on the new baby that’s coming into the world.

Ashley:
Terry, thank you so much for joining us. Can you let everyone know where they can reach out to you and find out some more information.

Terry:
Thank you guys for having me again. And if anyone wants to reach out, Instagram me, feel free to message me, I try to reach out to everybody. And if you have any questions about wholesale and real estate short term rentals, feel free to just DM me. My Instagram is TerryHarris15, and I just started a YouTube channel this year. So I’m trying to kind of create some traction on that and speak about wholesaling, real estate and investing in general. So the YouTube channel’s name is TCash, T-C-A-S-H.

Ashley:
That’s awesome. I’m excited to check out your YouTube channel.

Terry:
Appreciate it.

Ashley:
Thank you so much for joining us. I loved your motivation and inspiration and I love guests like you because it gets me so pumped up to like go after another deal or to do something big and to keep going. So yeah. Thank you so much, Terry.

Tony:
Ashley can I add one last thing before we go. Because Terry, I feel like we should… I just want to give some context to the guests. I think when a lot of people hear professional athlete that maybe they assume that you’re like LeBron James and you’re making multimillions of dollars a year. I’m not asking you to share how much you’re making, but was that true starting point? Were you Kobe Bryant salary?

Terry:
I’m going to share with you guys. So the NBA G… And a lot of people do think that, so an NBA G league is actually, it’s a $35,000 salary. So with that, and I try to tell people it matter to me, what your salary is. You can make it happen with real estate. So that’s what I made in those six months, given granted that they accommodated living for us. But it still was tough to get that first property up and running.

Ashley:
This was when you were living in LA.

Terry:
Oh no, this is when I was in Delaware.

Ashley:
In Delaware. I was going to say in the cost of living in-

Terry:
I don’t know if that would happen.

Tony:
Yeah. Well, thank you for being transparent here. I wanted to make sure that we shared that with delicious because people might hear professional athlete and automatically assume that you’re like some multi-millionaire already. So you’re on your way there. But there’s a journey for all of us.

Ashley:
Yeah. And also even if he was a professional athlete that has made a lot of money over the years, kudos to those that are, that have succeeded that way and that are taking advantage of that opportunity and spending it on real estate investing and growing their wealth instead of splurging on other things and not having anything for retirement. Well, thank you so much for joining us. I am asked at Wealth From Rentals and he’s Tony at Tony J Robinson. And we will see you guys on Saturday for a Rookie reply, but lastly, before you go, let’s check out what’s new at biggerpockets.com to provide you guys the most value.

 

 

It was a record-breaking 2020 in the BC housing market. It was a record-breaking 2021 in the province’s real estate industry. Will this trend persist in 2022?

From Chilliwack to Victoria, British Columbia has enjoyed exceptional growth throughout the COVID-19 public health crisis, in terms of home sales and prices. Much of this is a result of strong demand and low inventory, and a testament to the professionalism and adaptability shown by BC real estate agents.

Last year, according to the British Columbia Real Estate Association (BCREA), residential sales surged 32.8 per cent year-over-year, totalling nearly 125,000 transactions province-wide. The immense demand, coupled with shrinking housing supply, resulted in an 18.7-per-cent increase in sales, at an average selling price of $927,877.

Moreover, total active residential listings fell 41.2 per cent to an all-time low of just 12,179 units. But new housing construction did pick up in December, advancing 29 per cent year-over-year, according to new data from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC). While inventory levels are at historic lows right now, more supply could be coming online in the future.

“Last year was a record year for BC home sales with seven market areas setting new highs,” said BCREA Chief Economist Brendon Ogmundson in a statement. “Listings activity could not keep up with demand throughout the year. As a result, we start 2022 with the lowest level of active listings on record.”

What might this mean for the year ahead? The future remains to be seen, but many expect activity across the BC housing market to continue on the same upward trajectory.

BC Housing Market Could Sustain Record-Breaking Activity

Up, down or stagnant? It depends on who you ask in this market.

The consensus throughout the BC real estate industry is that housing prices are expected to continue rising, buoyed by shrinking supply and decent demand. However, growth may not be equal as some prospective homebuyers trade major urban centres, such as Vancouver and Victoria, for suburban locations within the province.

For example, according to the RE/MAX Canada 2022 Housing Market Outlook Report, Vancouver and Victoria could see price gains of 5.5 per cent and five per cent, respectively. However, home prices in Nanaimo and Kelowna could rise eight per cent and nine per cent, respectively, according to insights from local RE/MAX brokers.

Despite the regional trends, the overall BC housing market will likely benefit from a couple of factors.

The first is the federal government’s plan to accept more than 400,000 new immigrants or permanent residency applicants into Canada this year. Since Vancouver is the nation’s third-largest city and a common landing place for those arriving from East Asia, fresh demand could be the norm for the next several years.

The second factor is that interest rates will likely remain low in 2022. Although the Bank of Canada (BoC) is expected to tighten monetary policy this year and pull the trigger on a couple of rate hikes to curb inflation, rates will still sit below the historic average. This will keep a lid on borrowing costs, allowing high-income homebuyers, or those with a lot of equity, to bid up a property.

That being said, the BCREA does not expect 2022 to be a record-setting year. Instead, according to commentary from the association’s chief economist late last year, activity will only be “vigorous.”

“After a frenzied start to the year, activity in BC housing markets has settled back to a level that is broadly in line with long-run trends. The strength of the first half of this year has sales on track to easily break the previous record for annual sales,” said Ogmundson. “While we do not anticipate a repeat of the record-setting market of 2021, we do expect housing market activity to remain vigorous in 2022.”

But this might depend on the Bank of Canada and how it will guide monetary policy in the coming months.

Ogmundson published a new study that looked at the effects rate hikes would have on the BC real estate market this year.

According to the report, returning to a pre-pandemic level of 1.75 per cent, or even increasing to three per cent, could trigger a sharp of 25-per-cent decline in home transactions over the next two years.

“If the Bank does raise its policy rate more aggressively in response to an overheating economy, then our models show that home sales would decline more significantly,” the study said. “With markets so out of balance, we expect home price growth to slow, but to what extent depends on the final rate destination for the Bank of Canada and Canadian mortgage rates.”

Some traders are anticipating as many as six rate hikes over the next year.

Sources

Public-private investments are now a hot item due to recent SEC rule changes to private offerings making them more accessible. And, according to a 2019 SEC Report, capital raised through private offerings now exceeds capital raised through IPOs. This has created a feeding frenzy attracting companies of all types competing for your investment capital—many credible and many not so credible. 

As such, numerous investors have set their sights on real estate syndication opportunities, which are real estate deals in which a group of investors pools their capital together to purchase a large real estate property. This is done to pool together not only fiscal resources, but other types of resources as well, like knowledge of the market or property management experience, to ensure stable investments.

There are typically two diverse roles in a property syndication deal: syndicator and investor. For those who are interested in investing in their first syndication—or even for those who have been around the syndication block—I’d like to offer some helpful insights from my own experiences into how to navigate the syndication labyrinth and come out alive. Here’s what you should know.

Two rules for vetting syndication opportunities

“Rule No. 1: Never lose money. Rule No. 2: Never forget rule No. 1.”

– Warren Buffett

Warren Buffett’s first two rules for investing are pretty good starting points for vetting the syndication opportunities presented to you. If you proceed cautiously and ask the right questions, you’ll improve your chances of not losing money in a syndication.

Three questions to ask yourself before investing in a syndication

Before we get into the top questions to ask a syndication partner before investing in a syndication, there are essential questions you should ask yourself, which are outlined below.

It’s important to ask yourself these questions prior to vetting any partners or potential deals. After all, knowing your personal investment objectives is crucial to not only finding and vetting a syndication partner with investment objectives that align with yours but also deciding if syndications are even suitable for you to begin with.

1. What are your investment objectives?

• Cash flow?
• Growth?
• Asset preservation?
• Tax benefits?
• Wealth accumulation and preservation?

Determine what your investment objectives are well before vetting any potential deals or partners. That way, you’ll know whether your objectives align with theirs—which will tell you whether the deal is a good fit.

2. What is your investment timeframe?

Do you value liquidity, or are you comfortable with illiquidity and locking up your capital for extended periods? Knowing your ideal investment timeframe beforehand will help you choose the right syndication investment opportunities for you.

3. What is your risk tolerance?

Are you risk-averse, or are you comfortable with opportunities that many consider high-risk—but where the risks can be mitigated? Your risk tolerance will play a significant part in the deals you choose to take part in, so be sure you know what yours is before vetting any of the possible opportunities or partners you may encounter.

Three questions to ask potential syndication partners

Realizing your own objectives isn’t the only crucial factor at play. You should also ask the right questions of any potential syndication partners. These include:

1. What is your exit strategy?

I start with this question because the answer will tell you a lot about your syndication partner.

Suppose management gives you a clear timeline and provides insights into how they came up with that timeline. In that case, this information will provide you with valuable insight into their experience, their financial savvy, their investment objectives, and their business plan.

For example, consider the following two potential responses to this question:

• Response #1: “After the capital raise, we expect to be profitable within one to two years. Our exit strategy is to sell after six to 10 years of operations, depending on the market. Investors will get half of all the profits.”
• Response #2: “We have set a drop-dead date of raising our target offering six months following the launch of our private placement. Once we achieve our target offering, we will mobilize and allocate the proceeds outlined in our Private Placement Memorandum (PPM) and proforma. We expect to cash flow one year from the launch of the offering. Our plan is to operate for a period of five years—providing investors with a Preferred Return of 6% per annum and 50% of profits from operations and from the sale of the asset at the end of five years. Based on our experience, we project to improve the cap rate from the acquisition of 7% to 10% at disposition. Can investors expect average annual returns of 19.44% with an IRR of 16.76%? Our projections are based on the following assumptions…

Which response gives you more confidence? You may laugh at the first response, but don’t be surprised when you encounter that type of response. I certainly have.

2. What is your investment strategy, and why are you pursuing this strategy with this particular asset?

If the syndication partner is pursuing a core or core-plus strategy, ask them why. Is it based on their experience of dealing exclusively with these properties? Or, is it because they’ve never done this before—and this is a conservative strategy?  

I’m interested in the value-add and opportunistic plays—but more interested in why the syndication partner is adopting this strategy and why they think they can pull it off.

If the syndication partner rattles off their experience, infrastructure, personnel, professional support connections, and resources as reasons they’re comfortable with a value-add or opportunistic strategy, this would give me the confidence that my capital would be in the right hands.

3. Do you have any skin in the game, and how will you be compensated?

You should be leery of any syndication partner who doesn’t put their guts on the line—but still gets all of the glory. In other words, they have no skin in the game but get paid no matter what. In those situations, it’s you, the investor, who pays the price.

What the syndication partner puts into the syndication—and what they expect to get out of it—will tell you where the syndication partner’s priorities are.

The more telling question to ask would be, “If I lose money, do you still get paid?”

If the syndication is thick with upfront management fees, I would be concerned. On the flip side, if investors are given preferential treatment over profit distributions—and management is only paid if you get paid—then I would be less concerned.

Management is entitled to reasonable reimbursement for typical business expenses. But, you should always weigh investor compensation with the management compensation and see where the scale is tipped. It should tip in favor of investors.  

Final thoughts on vetting your syndication partner

Many investment experts consider private investments such as syndications to be high-risk. However, many don’t realize that with private investments—unlike public equities—a substantial amount of risk can be reduced by investing in the right partners or managers.

The ones with experience, a defined exit strategy, a clear investment strategy, and a precise business plan that put the investors first will typically offer the best odds to help keep you from losing money and fulfill your investment objectives like creating and accumulating wealth through long-term cash flowing and appreciating assets.

And, asking the right questions—both of yourself and others—will go a long way in vetting your next potential syndication partner. 

With the way real estate prices have been headed, even $1 million doesn’t seem to get you much in the major Canadian cities anymore. However, there are still some areas in the country where the dream of affordable homes is much more attainable, and one major city attracting investors is the city of Calgary.

For any investors interested in the Calgary area, we wanted to take an opportunity to go into more depth on why you should invest in Calgary and how to choose the perfect property for you based on your budget and needs.

To help us with that, we spoke with Jesse Davies, a top local realtor, about some of the things you should know when choosing an investment property in Calgary. Not only is Davies an agent working in Calgary, but he is also an investor himself and has a family history in the Calgary real estate industry. When he speaks about the city, you can be assured his information comes from a deep wealth of knowledge and experience in the area.

Why invest in Calgary?

Calgary is one of Canada’s major metropolitan areas and has all the comforts you would expect from a city of its size. In addition, the city has been appealing to newcomers for its growing and diversifying economy and its beautiful surroundings, including the nearby mountains that many Calgarians enjoy visiting.

As far as investing goes, Calgary has managed to stay relatively affordable, but many are pointing to a bright future for the city.

“I think Calgary has a great opportunity to outperform the rest of Canada due to the fact that our real estate prices are extremely affordable,” says Davies. “Beyond that, it’s a beautiful, clean city and incredibly friendly. We have a professional hockey team, a professional football team, and some great amenities like world-class swimming areas, tennis facilities, golf courses and more. On top of that, Calgary is one of the sunniest cities in Canada, even when it’s cold, and that can be attractive to a lot of people.”

Investing for different budgets

Affordability is one of the big highlights coming out of Calgary and the city has a lot to offer for people looking to invest with different budgets.

When it comes to homes, the average single-family home in the city sold for approximately $547,300 in December of 2021, while semi-detached and row houses went for $432,400 and $300,100 respectively. Those prices mean that Calgary is one of the most affordable major cities to buy real estate today, while still enjoying a fantastic return on investment. On average, homes in the Calgary market appreciated by 10% in the last year.

For those looking to get into the market for a little less, the condo market in Calgary has properties available for $252,000 on average, which makes this one of the lowest barriers to entry markets.

“With the way that the market has gone, condos haven’t yet recovered in the same way as other segments,” says Davies. “So as houses become too competitive and too expensive, people are being forced to consider condominium living. But we also see people that are coming here from other provinces, usually executive couples or a single person in their early twenties that are looking for affordable condos they can actually purchase, whereas if they’re from Vancouver or Toronto, for example, they can’t afford a condominium based on their income level. So this gives people the ability to get into an affordable market that has good potential to grow.”

In terms of what condos to look out for, Davies offered this tip:

“I think there’s some great opportunity in buildings that are five to 10 years old. The reason that I like those types of assets is that there’s some history on the condominium. So you can review the condo docs, the quality of the build, and such. “

In terms of investments with the best bang for your buck, Davies highlighted potential in older semi-detached houses with multiple units that offer a good balance between price and opportunity.

“These work both from an appreciation and cash flow perspective, because the majority of the value of the asset will be in land value because it’s an older property, but the best use will be to continually rent it out because it would be cash flow positive.”

“Now if you have the budget, you could also buy a side-by-side duplex that has separate entrances and convert that into a legal fourplex,” continues Davies. “Something like that would cost you about $650,000, while each half of a duplex might cost you $400,000. So you can see there’s actually a discount for buying both sides.”

Davies goes on to explain that this segment offers a lot of options for investors who are willing to make improvements on their property, such as renovating for legal basement units. And as the home itself ages, these lots can become valuable locations for new builds years down the line, leveraged from the equity of the existing homes.

“The asset will hold its value because of the value of that land to a developer. It’s only going to continually go up as there’s less and less inventory as they build out in these inner-city communities.”

Advice for rentals

Davies also offered some advice for those looking to rent their properties. For those looking to buy from out of town, he stresses that you may want to consider newer builds that will require less attention and maintenance on your part.

“For example, if you’re buying an older building that’s built in the fifties and sixties, that’s obviously going to come with a lot more attention and care as things like appliances, furnaces, roofs and the like are coming to the end of their life. Whereas, if you kind of want to be a little more hands-off and not have to worry about that type of stuff, then maybe look at buying a newer home that was built in the last five to 10 years or so, and the likelihood of you having these types of issues will be a little less.”

Areas to invest in

There are multiple different areas that are great for investment in Calgary, but finding the right one for you is crucial. And when it comes to rentals, the surrounding area can have a big effect on the rent you can charge and the kind of tenants you can take on.

“I already touched on the inner city, which I like because of the land value and its proximity to the downtown core and most of the amenities in Calgary. So you’ll be close to the rivers, walking paths, and infrastructure that’s well developed.”

Further out into the suburbs, however, Calgary is experiencing the same high demand and supply issues as many other areas, causing a lot of competition between buyers and a very hot real estate market.

“The suburbs are some of the hottest markets, right now. For example, the Northeast is probably one of the hottest markets I’ve ever seen,” said Davies. “Also, new builds are extremely hot. There are waitlists of 40 to 60 people and they’re only releasing around 10 lots a quarter, so they have people lining up at 6:00 a.m. in the morning to try and buy. I was lucky enough to get a bunch of investors into some new builds and they are seeing great cash flow.”

“If we talked in, in 2020 or early 2021, our conversation would be a lot different than what we’re experiencing right now. And it’s just because there is such a lack of supply and I don’t really see that getting much better very quickly.”

Working with the right agent in Calgary

If you are interested in investing in Calgary, having the right agent can make all the difference. Davies and his team are ready to help you not only buy but to make the smart investment choices that will perform best for you.

Contact Jesse Davies on his site for more information about investing in Calgary.

David:
This is the BiggerPockets podcast show 565.

Kindra:
Maybe you would say, I’m never buying a house on a corner ever again. And like you said, maybe you’re like I’m done. I’m out. I can’t do this anymore. Keeping those stories in check, they happen to the best of us. They probably even happen right now, even with all of your experience, those negative stories are going to be creeping in and it is up to you to keep them in check.

David:
What’s going on, everyone. It is David Greene, your host of the BiggerPockets podcast, the show where you learn how to harness the power of real estate to live life on your terms, whether you dream of quitting your nine to five, wanting to retire early, or just want to back a plan, you’re in the right place. We help you do this by bringing on other successful investors that have found financial freedom through real estate, so you can learn from what they did, help avoid their mistakes. And then at times gain the mindset of what successful people have.
In today’s episode, we are speaking with best selling author, Kindra Hall, who is an expert on the stories that we tell ourselves. She’s also a real estate investors, so we get some really good information about how people sabotage their success, as well as how to tell yourself the right story to find success. Here with me today is my good friend and co-host Rob, Robuilt, Abasolo. Rob, what’s going on?

Robert:
How you doing, man? Man, I’m so excited to get into today’s episode, because I think Kindra really brings a different approach to real estate investing. A lot of us get so wrapped up in numbers and nuts and bolts and details, but she really helps open up a different way of thinking, I think, when you’re wanting to get started in the game.

David:
When we were talking to her, I started to conceptualize like, well, how is this actually tactically applicable? I started thinking about how so many investors just live in a spreadsheet and they let the spreadsheet make the decision. And so they try to move forward based on what the numbers are telling them in the spreadsheet. But then when it comes time to pulling the trigger and actually moving forward, there’s fear, there’s apprehension, there’s doubt, and they never do it.
Kindra has shifted away from the spreadsheet and into, what’s going on between your ears? What’s making you take action or not take action? How are you actually setting yourself up for failure in certain ways? And so this is a really impactful episode, I feel like, for anybody who’s listening, who either wants to get started, or maybe who’s already started and is looking to take the next step.

Robert:
100%, man. I think spreadsheets are a very useful tactic obviously for analyzing and everything like that. But today was a really good way to understand that the inner voice in your head that stops you from getting into that deal can be tamed and can be trained to help you think a little bit more positively about just jumping in and making it work.

David:
I like that. How to tame and train your own mind with, Rob Abasolo.

Robert:
I know. I just came up with that like yeah.

David:
Yeah. That’s very Brandon Turner esque, making something that rhymes or creating an acronym on the spot. Very good. In today’s show, you want to pay attention to a few things that will really help you on your journey. The first would be how the stories you tell yourself affect the way that you pursue your own goals. We also get into how Kindra took action when others didn’t, because she told herself a different story than other people were telling themselves. Maybe most importantly, the four steps to recognizing the story you’re telling yourself and then how to change that story, so that it’s something that would fit.
Kindra’s books are very good. She actually has a recommendation from Seth Godin on her book, Stories that Stick. And he says, “Whatever you do, wherever you are in your career, this is the book to read right now.” That’s a pretty compelling endorsement. Make sure that you stick around and listen to the show because there’s some very good content here. Rob, anything you want to say before we bring in Kindra?

Robert:
I’m just honored to be here as always. Actually something just occurred to me Dave, has anyone ever dubbed you Seber? Because I feel that’s a great nickname for you.

David:
I love it. This makes me feel Brandon’s here. No, I’ve never heard Seber, but that’s actually very funny.

Robert:
I’m going to get you a family crest for the wall behind you.

David:
It’ll be full of frozen emblems of coldness for bur. I like it.

Robert:
Which is very topical, because we do get into frozen.

David:
That is a good point.

Robert:
… at the very end of today’s episode.

David:
Make sure you listen all the way to the end, so you can hear exactly how this will come full circle.

Robert:
Let’s do it, man. Okay, well let’s bring in Kindra.

David:
All right. Miss Kindra Hall. Welcome to the BiggerPockets podcast.

Kindra:
I am so happy to be here. David, Rob, thanks for having me.

David:
So are we. Now, rumor on the street is your husband is actually a really big fan of the podcast and we should give him a little shout out before we get started.

Kindra:
You should. He’s definitely in the other room right now, listening. He might have his ear up against the door right now, but that is Mr. Michael Hall. Huge, huge fan.

David:
That’s awesome. We love when we get fans.

Kindra:
I think he’s more nervous. He was definitely more nervous than I. Was very nervous for me. He kept coming in this morning as I was getting my thoughts together. He’s like, make sure you include. You need to leave. You’re making me very, this is very stressful for me.

Robert:
He’s like, hey, I’ve prepared some jokes.

Kindra:
I know. He actually did. He was like, say this. I’m like, I don’t know the terms. He was going to print out a glossary for me. We’ll talk about that after we’re done recording.

David:
Well, we’re going to make sure we do him proud. Now I understand the two of you are actually real estate investors yourself, and you’ve written a couple books. Can you give us a brief background on your history as an author and then let’s jump into how you guys bought your first investment? I know you have a funny story about that.

Kindra:
Yeah. Well, my background is, my entire expertise, my study, my field of work is in the power of stories. The stories that we tell outwardly as we grow brands and businesses for sales, for marketing and the stories that we tell ourselves inwardly. The stories that are and repeat in our minds all the time, really dictating the way that our life shapes out. I write books. I talk on podcasts. I speak sometimes at live events, sometimes from my bedroom, as the case has been recently all about the power of storytelling.
In terms of investing, my husband, Michael has been interested in real estate since as long as he was allowed to have access to, he’d been saving from his paper route. He’s one of those guys. Saves the money from his childhood paper route. And so investing was always something that he wanted to do. He had a property before we met, I bought a house, gosh, I signed the paperwork the day before our wedding. It was, gosh, that would’ve been in 2009. But our first investment together was shortly after that. As a matter of fact, very shortly after that, I was at a happy hour at a girlfriend’s house, she had just moved in. It was a really hot and up and coming neighborhood.
This is in 2009 in Phoenix, everything was hot and up and coming. I was at her house. He was back at our place. We were just visiting. My girlfriend said, hey, there’s a really great house across the street for of us that’s going to be going up for sale. And again, it was hot. If you had any insider information, it was a really big deal. Similar to where we are right now. The numbers were a lot lower 10 years ago, but a similar feel. I never thought I’d say that, but here we are. And so me and my two girlfriends left her house, walked across the street, we’re appearing in the window. She’s like, no, I know the neighbors. They’re going to sell that house.
Then we came back to her house. I called our agent. We had just wrapped up a deal on a different one. No, no, no. First I called Michael. That’s what happened. I called Michael, hey, there’s a great house available, but he didn’t pick up. Again, this is a hot market. I called him again. He didn’t pick up. I called our agent and said, please put in this offer. I listed the offer exactly how I wanted. I was feeling pretty cool, because we had just finished a house. We had just bought a house. She put in the offer. Michael finally called me back. He was in the shower. He takes very long showers.
I said, I was just calling because I put an offer on the house and he was shocked. I told him what the offer was. He said, that’s actually pretty good. We eventually got the house. That was the beginning of our career of investing together, if you could call it that.

Robert:
Okay. You were getting married, and around that time, the day before you actually were going to get married, you go to a closing. I got to imagine that was somewhat crazy, right? To deal with the whole extravaganza plus closing.

Kindra:
Yeah, it was. The house that we bought, it was something with, now I’m going to get my, he will fact check me afterwards, but it had something to do with an $8,000 tax credit if you were a first time home buyer. Does that sound familiar from 2009?

David:
Yep. It does. President Obama put that in place, it’s like $8,500. Yup.

Kindra:
Yeah. Okay. 8,500. Hey, I get 500 bucks back or something. I thought it was eight. And so I was still a single woman. Right? I’d never bought a house before. We found this house. We were like, hey, we got to buy it. But we have to sign the papers before we get married because I won’t be a single woman anymore. And so the house was in Phoenix. We got married in California. We had a doc presenter come to my in-law’s house. We’re sitting there, people are running, getting the wedding dresses, flowers are coming in and out, and I’m sitting at the dining room table signing documents for a house. We like a little chaos in our lives. Who doesn’t?

Robert:
Pretty low key wedding, I would say. Right?

Kindra:
Yes.

Robert:
I’m curious, we’re like, hey Michael, I put an offer on this house. Was this a surprising thing? Or are you one to just put offers in houses when the right opportunity pops up? How did he react to that?

Kindra:
I, in our relationship have always been the crazy idea one. Hey, let’s just let’s do this. Let’s go with this. I don’t think he was necessarily surprised. Because one of my positive stories that I hold true, as we’re talking about the stories we tell ourselves, is that things will work out for me. I just have this, things will work out for me. Why not put in an offer on the house? I know that there’s multiple steps in which they could reject me, I can reject them. Right? Michael on the other side was dealing with a lot more limiting belief stories and the things that you’re supposed to do and what is risky and what you should do and what you shouldn’t do.
The clash of those two things at once, I think it probably took him aback when he realized that I had done it. But overall it has served us very well, and it’s helped him, I think, overcome some of those limiting beliefs and push him forward into making decisions that have served us and our family very well.

Robert:
That was one of the first purchases in your overall portfolio?

Kindra:
Well, no, it wasn’t. He had a first one which was a condo and we can talk about the condo a little bit later. But that was a condo in Scottsdale, Arizona, at about that time was as far underwater, it could have discovered new sea creatures at that point. It wasn’t a success from the get go. But that was one of the first things we did together.

Robert:
Can you give us a little bit of the nitty gritty financials on those deals? Because I’m a really big fan of the mentality of let’s get the offer in. We’ve got many opportunities to walk away from this if it doesn’t work out. You ended up closing on this house and moving forward with it. Can you give us a little bit of the top level of how that deal ended up panning out?

Kindra:
You know what, I remember about that deal panning out or not panning out, the house across the street from my girlfriend’s house is, we had put in an offer and we heard back from the family that was selling the house that they already had an offer in. They were going to honor that offer because it was in first and whether or not ours was better, it really didn’t matter. It was one of my first experiences of the heartbreak of putting in an offer and it not going through, especially once you’ve decided that you love the place. You start creating the story of what your life will look like in that house.
I wasn’t looking at it as an investor. It took me a while before I started thinking about these things as an investor. It was a lot of, we lost it. We tried to put more money down, but we only had so much cash that we could put down. And then I remember we actually worked together. We were working together at the time. I was sitting in my office, the deal was done. It was over. I was on a conference call and he walked around the corner and was holding a little sign that said we got the house. Apparently the first offer it had fallen through, they went through all of their rights to cancel it and were dragging their feet. And so then our offer came together.
Now as far as the nuts and bolts of the financials, that I can’t remember, it would’ve been, it was like 2009, but it was the beginning of the entire emotional roller coaster of what it is to buy a home.

David:
That’s a good segue into your area of expertise, which like you mentioned earlier, is the stories that we tell ourselves. At this stage in your investing career, were you already looking at the world from that lens or was this something that came up later?

Kindra:
This was something I hadn’t realized actually, David, to be honest, that we were weren’t seeing these properties as stories at that point. We weren’t necessarily aware of the stories that we were telling ourselves that were serving us, nor were we aware of the stories we were telling ourselves that were holding us back. But now looking back on our 12 plus years of investing, I realized that the single greatest thing that has happened to us is our ability to crush those hesitations, those things that you tell yourself, I can’t do this, or why you can’t or why you shouldn’t.
Anyone who has a dream of investing and is listening to this podcast and is wondering, how do I even take the first step? The first step up really is recognizing that you have these stories holding you back. And as I look back on our 12 years, our success in it has accelerated only because we have shrunk the amount of time that we spend stuck in these limiting beliefs. We’ve gotten really good at telling ourselves the stories and reminding ourselves of the things that have gotten us to where we are, so that we have the faith in ourselves to take the next step. Wt the time, no. Now, definitely. That’s what was going on.

David:
Would you mind sharing what it was that happened in your life that caused you to be aware of this aspect of telling ourselves a story and maybe how much control that has over the outcome we ended up getting?

Kindra:
I started this passion for storytelling in general at a very young age. I told my first story when I was 11. It was an assignment for fifth grade. I had to go tell a story to a room full of third graders. I remember exactly what the classroom looked like. I remember the teacher sitting in the back of the room. I remember the third graders bouncing off the walls. I remember putting the book down and just telling the story and holding these third graders in the palm of my hand, and realizing that, hold on a second, is nobody else realizing what’s happening here? All I’m doing is telling a story and I could get these kids to do anything that I wanted them to.
My interest in stories started there and throughout my lifetime I started, I was telling stories. I was studying stories. I was practicing stories. My research is on storytelling in organizational culture. I worked in sales and marketing and was recognizing even in real estate, the difference telling a story can make in having a house sell or getting a buyer to say yes to you if you’re an agent. There’s nothing more storied than the homes that we live in or the homes that we buy and sell. And so my first book actually was about that science and skill of outward storytelling and how you can use stories in your sales, marketing, et cetera, to capture an audience’s attention, to influence their behaviors.
Now what’s interesting, and I will say that I was planning to keep developing that. I was like, I should write a book about stories and real estate, because it’s such a 360 experience, right? There’s so many interested parties, so much story happens there. But then as a part of my work, I do a lot of keynote speaking. And so I’ll speak on stages. I can see the audience there in front of me. I was going through various transitions in my career, my personal life at this point. I was at the top of my professional game, traveling, speaking 75 times a year. I was a mother. I had young kids at home.
I felt this conflict about what counts as being successful. Can I be both a business owner and be a mother and be successful at both? The stories I was telling myself about that in particular were holding me back, or at least siphoning off the joy. Anytime I mentioned in a keynote about storytelling in business, the importance of the stories you tell yourself, that is what the audience would stop me for afterwards. That’s what they wanted to share their stories about. And so from that interest, I started to backtrack and realized that so many of my decisions, personal and professional were focused on the stories that I told myself. I dove into that research and here we are today.

David:
You have four steps to changing your story. Do you mind going over those with us?

Kindra:
Yeah, I think that that was a really important part of this whole process, is I don’t want to just say, hey, you can change your life by choosing better stories. The next question is, how? And that’s why people tune in here too. Right? They want to hear that they can be successful. They also want to hear exactly how. There are four steps on this path. The first step is to catch these automatic stories that we have in the act. I feel if it’s okay, we pause there even just for a second. Because a lot of times we don’t consider, we don’t even realize the fact that we are telling ourselves stories all day, every day, they are automatic and we don’t even know it’s happening.
It’s as automated as the breath in our lungs, the blood in our veins, the stories in our head. Depending on how these stories play out, they can allow us to take action towards the success we desire or hold us back. The first step in the methodology is to pause and catch these oftentimes limiting stories in the act, so that we can’t address them. The second step then is to analyze it, where is this coming from? Why is it here? And probably most importantly, is it true and does it serve me?
This third step then is really simply, if the answer is no, the story isn’t getting where I want to go, I need to choose to tell myself better stories that do. And then finally, to install those chosen stories so that they become the automation instead of the negative stories that your brain often prefers.

David:
Now, I’m curious, it seems like someone could take this information and manipulate themselves into telling themselves a story that they want to be true, even if it’s not true, you could actually create delusions of grandeur. Is this something that people should be worried about or does that not happen?

Kindra:
Well, you can. Any storytelling can be twisted to serve a delusion. We can take a look at Theranos, that is an ultimate storytelling example, right? However, if you know where you want to go, right? For example, my husband and I knew that we wanted a successful real estate portfolio. We really had a divide and conquer plan in our lives. I was going to handle the upfront, revenue, generation of money with is speaking in keynotes or books and keynotes. He is managing the long term game with our real estate investing. We’re very clear that that’s something we wanted to do.
However, being clear about it and believing that it’s possible, we all have those doubts. We all have those inner thoughts that keep us from moving forward. And so, is there a chance that we would’ve gone down this path and it’d been a disaster and we both work at Best Buy for the rest of our lives? Fine. Yes, of course. But if that’s what we really want, then why not tell ourselves stories to at least play it all the way out.

Robert:
I wanted to ask, because we’ve talked about it from the conceptual level and I think it’s fair to say that you know a thing or two about stories, right? We’ve got our four elements of this stories. We have catch, analyze, choose, and install. Now what I’d love for you to do, if you have a story that can maybe anchor some of these elements down for the listeners at home, that maybe can help us understand each one a little bit more on the conceptual level, starting with catch.

Kindra:
Happy to. And actually as we go through each of the four steps, I have a house, an investment that illustrates each one of them and how each one of these four steps played out. The first one is catch, as I mentioned, it’s to stop the automation and become aware of the possibly limiting stories that are holding you back. I want to take you to the end of 2010, 2011. Again, we are in Phoenix, Arizona, and there is, I feel there’s always a lot going on in Phoenix, Arizona, when it comes to real estate. I used to say the real estate agent was the state bird of Arizona. You couldn’t throw stone without someone being involved in real estate, including ourselves.
And so my husband had this suspicion that now is the time. Now is the time to really start picking up some properties, making a difference, a long term plan. However, he had some stories playing in the back of his mind. One was from a family member who said, one night at a dinner, which we don’t even see these family members that often. But Michael could tell you exactly where he was when he heard this comment. One of the family members said, man, that foreclosure stuff that is risky business, you just never know. I wouldn’t touch that with a 10 foot pole. That is scary stuff. That one story right there, from a guy who doesn’t even do real estate investing.
He’s like, okay. So he gathers that. That’s a story that’s in Michael’s, in the back of his psyche. Then there’s also this story that you hear so many people saying, other financial experts, and it’s not necessarily untrue, but it’s this dogma of whatever you do, do not touch your 401(k), do not mess with your investment or your retirement. Don’t go there. Nothing is worth it. Well, we had this healthy 401(k) that would serve us really well if we were to parlay that into real estate, but I can’t do it. I don’t have that cash. Yes. I have the cash in the 401(k), but I can’t touch the 401(k).
And there was another story. There was so little stories, but here are just a few of them that are, again, keep in mind, playing in his head. He doesn’t even realize it’s there. They’re just in the back of his mind. One of them is, you have a baby on the way. Yes, I was pregnant. I had just quit my job. Because I was going to pursue a path as a professional storyteller, which we had no idea what that was, but we fixed our family finances so that I could pursue this passion. We found out a week after I quit my job, that I was pregnant. And so here, he’s got a wife at home, no income, pregnant, and he has this itch to buy a foreclosure, because in fact there was a foreclosure, there were several of them.
One of them was just down the street a little bit. And it was 1400 square feet for $47,500. I’ll say that again, 1400 square feet for $47,000. He was like, what? I can’t. All these stories were playing. But he had this like, wait, what if this, what? I can’t imagine you can’t rebuild this house from the ground up for less than that. He was really struggling with taking action, the action he knew he should take. And so it was in some of our conversations, that we paused that automation and he was able to realize that, yeah, he had his relative story playing in his mind. He had all the stories of the financial advisors, but what retirement is supposed to look like.
He had the social story of having a baby on the way. We decided to pause all those stories. We broke open our 401(k)s. We made the cash offer, bought the house and he renovated it. He rented it for a while, was able to sell it several years later and parlay made, oh man, he’s going to be mad at me that I don’t know how much he made. It was a good amount of money. We parlayed that into another project. But that right there is catching those stories, all these beliefs that he had of why he couldn’t do it. And once you identify those, now you’ve got a place where you can move forward.

Robert:
It feels like it’s pretty common for the bad stories to be a little bit stickier than the good stories when you’re starting out. Because for me, when I’m teaching people how to, for example, Airbnb, I tell people that I do Airbnb and I’ve got a pretty big portfolio doing that. Everyone is very quick to say, well, what about the housing crash? Or what about all the big parties that happen every day? I’m like, that’s never happened to me. I know someone who’s done it, but I think that just comes with experience in recognizing that, yeah, do the bad stories out there exist? Sure. But with a little bit more experience, I think it makes total sense that you can start to cancel out the bad story, the bad inner monologue in your head that stops you from making an investment

Kindra:
Well, and to know that A, our brains are programmed to collect and focus on the negative stories, because our brain is program and to keep us safe. It’s no wonder that he’s got his first child on the way and his brain is going to be like, don’t do anything that is going to put you out in the cold. And your brain is as people around you, we love telling negative stories. Of course people are going to tell those negative stories more often. It’s this combination of two wrongs, make it worse.

David:
What about the second stage in analyzing? I understand you also have a real estate story that goes along with that.

Kindra:
This goes back to that condo that I told you about. The analyze phase, once you realize that you’ve got some stories at play, these stories that are maybe holding you back, the next step is to take a closer look at them, to figure out where they came from, to figure out why they’re there. And ultimately if they’re true or not, and do these stories serve you in the ultimate goal that you’re seeking. I had mentioned that Michael had a condo, which for a long time in our lives was a four letter word, even though it is five letters. Essentially he bought the condo in 2005 in Scottsdale, Arizona. It was super cool, open concept. He was just single guy living it up. He painted the walls maroon, got a matching maroon couch at Costco. He was living the life.
And then it was 2007, 2008. There was the crash, the value cut in half. And the HOA went up like 200 bucks a month. This sustained for an extended period of time. It was costing us three grand a month. The most we could get for rent was 1500. Again, just this open wound that on a monthly basis, we were just, blood was gushing out of our financial accounts, right? You have something like that happen and you just think there is nothing you can do about it. You’re so far under water that you can’t see the light of day. We just did, we just bled out the money and assumed that this is just how it was going to go. There were a lot of those stories around us at that time, Right?
It was just chaos. It was mayhem. It was a disaster. We were listening to those stories and then one New Year’s Eve, I’ll never forget. We were talking about our goals, because that’s something that we love to do on New Year’s Eve. Everybody else goes out and gets drunk. We get drunk at home and look at our goals. So it’s great. We decided to take a closer look at this condo and the stories and ask ourselves, well, is it really true? Are we destined to bleed money indefinitely until the market corrects? Or I don’t know what else. By taking a closer look at that story, that just seemed so definite.
Is it true, led us to ask ourselves, well, are there other options? Is there a way we could make this a one time pain point instead of a monthly pain point? For us, I should say, because we had future real estate investment goals, foreclosure really wasn’t an option. We just didn’t see it as an option for us. We couldn’t walk away. We wanted to maintain a clean record. And so at that time rates were coming down a little bit. We had a little bit of cash. And so we decided that maybe the two of those things could come together. We put in the cash, we had the rates work on our side. We were able to keep the condo. We are now breakeven. It’s breakeven, we’re not bleeding.
And we can carry that thing until the end of time, which I don’t think we would’ve made those decisions, I know we wouldn’t have, if we hadn’t just stopped and analyzed what the situation and the stories really were.

Robert:
Awesome. Can you give us an example of moving in through this four elements, going to choose, because as I understand it, this is around the time where you considered actually building a house instead of acquiring a house for the first time.

Kindra:
Now we’re in the present day. Since this time we’ve bought homes, we had that first one that was the happy hour house, right? It is now long term rented. We’ve had renters in there for a long time. We actually left that house. We lived in it for a while, moved to a different house that we bought. It is now long term rented. We used the house from that cash buy. Remember I said, we sold it. We used that cash to buy this pristine house on golf course that we remodeled. And then on a whim, we decided to move to New York City. We rented out the house on the golf course. There’s been a lot of things that have happened over time.
And of course you start to think, what can I do next? And the bug in Michael’s ear right now is I want to build a house. I want to build a house. I’ve never built a house. I’ve remodeled homes. I’ve fixed them up. I’ve been the general contractor to not necessarily have the flip in mind, but be able to take a dilapidated property and you either live in it ourselves or rent it out to someone else. But I’ve never built a house. Now, of course you start thinking about that. The old stories come up, you’ve never done this before. Who do you think you are? Think of all the problems that could happen.
And it’s in those moments that it’s really important that you start choosing what stories you tell yourself. Now, David, this is where that idea of delusion can come in, right? Just start telling yourself fantastical stories. But what I recommend is to rely on the stories from your past. One of the strategies is to reroute. True, Michael’s never built a house before, but we have made real estate moves for the first time. There was a time where he never bought a house for cash. There was a time where he never bought a house from an opposite side of the country. We’ve done things we’ve never done before and we’ve figured it out.
Rerouting some of those experiences can help build up the belief that, all right, maybe the same is true for this opportunity. Maybe I really could do it. There’s another strategy which is to research, which is to look for other people, which is one of the reasons that this podcast is so great, who have done it. We have a friend who is a designer all the way to a builder. That’s his business model. He buys the lot. He designs the home. He builds the home, he sells the home, that’s his job. And so Michael’s seeing that as a success from someone else, he can use that story to at least bolster the belief that maybe he too could do it.
And then finally, one of the other options for choosing a better story is simply to write one for yourself. Prepare yourself, create the story you’ll tell yourself if it all falls apart. We’re sitting here. This was actually just this New Year’s Eve when we were like, no, this is something we’re going to pursue this year. 2022, let’s try to build a house. The question comes up. Well, what if it fails? We decided that if fails, yes, we will lose, but that’s the price of the education. You would pay more than we could lose on an MBA at Columbia. Right?
Being ready with the story, all of those things put together, we’re ready to start pursuing that in a way that we put probably wouldn’t have if we hadn’t been applying this self storytelling approach.

Robert:
100%. I feel that. First of all, let me just say that you guys have to build a house. I think you can do it. I know you can do it. When I was getting started in real estate, one of my very first deals, my biggest project as someone who’s in this space now was, I moved to LA from Kansas city where the cost of living was a lot more than Kansas city. About four times more. We bought this house and I wanted to build a tiny house in my backyard. And my wife was like, do you know how to do that? And I was like, no, but it’s two by fours and plywood. How hard could it be? It was very hard. I learned a lot through the process though.
I had breakers in the electrical panel blow up in my face, water leaks and just a bunch of different things that I’m really glad. For me I think it’s really important to embrace all the mistakes and all the bumps and bruises along the way, because at the end of the day, I think it makes for a better story. I’ve gone on from there to, we picked up on a whim and moved to Gatlinburg, Tennessee to build a tiny house village out there. I built a tiny house in Joshua Tree. Every single project that I’ve ever taken on, I had no idea how to do that.
I think it’s actually really quite exciting to take on a project that you’ve never done before, or a new construction, because at the end of the day, the worst that can go wrong is you learn a really good lesson I think, a very expensive lesson.

Kindra:
They can be expensive, and that is certainly the case. But even if you’re playing a long game, that is, again, that’s the expense of the education. And each one of those setbacks, each one of those things that blows up in your face, hopefully not literally, though that does happen, becomes then another story that you can tell yourself after you’re on the other side of it. Listen, if I can handle this thing blowing up, I can handle whatever unknowns there are ahead of me.

Robert:
Absolutely. I think it’s the long game. Real estate is the long game. Very rarely do I meet someone who’s been in the industry for 30 years, who absolutely hates their job. Right? Because they’ve seen it all. And at the end of the day it’s something that you can laugh at. Granted not everything is funny, but for the most part, when I’m talking to a pretty seasoned vet, if I come to them with a problem that I’m having, they’re always like, yes, I remember back in 73 when that happened to me. It’s always just remembering that at the end of the day, 30 years from now, all the different mishaps that you might have had on your journey really just end up making you a much, much better, stronger investor in the long run.

David:
I think if you tell yourself the right story though, there’s a lot of investors that have something and go wrong. I tell the story in the podcast of this crazy mindset that I had, the second house that I bought. It was on a corner. Some drunk driver missed the turn, drove over the front lawn and crashed into the fence and went into the backyard of the tenant’s house. When my property manager called to tell me about it, I started blaming myself. I was like, what an idiot. Why would you buy a house on a corner? You should have known that something like this would happen. Only an idiot investor would ever buy a house on a corner.
I started thinking I just want to sell these houses, be done with it. I don’t want to do this anymore. In the middle of that I thought, what are you saying? You’re actually going to blame yourself because there’s a house on the corner? All these corner houses, they don’t have that happen. You just need to have lower expectations for what you can control and what you can’t control. Instead of being mad at myself because I didn’t get the right insurance to replace a fence if some drunk driver went into it, I just thought, okay, I’m going to lose a little bit of money this month.
A couple months later I realized the house had appreciated $100,000 and that $1,500 fence really wasn’t. But it was the first moment that I recognized my mind will just go on these ridiculous tangents, telling myself all kinds of crazy stories that are not rooted in reality at all.

Kindra:
Yup. That is a perfect example of what that is. If you aren’t paying attention to that, maybe you would say, I’m never buying a house on a corner ever again. Like you said, maybe you’re like, I’m done. I’m out. I can’t do this anymore. Keeping those stories in check, they happen to the best of us. They probably even happen right now, even with all of your experience, those negative stories are going to be creeping in and it is up to you to keep them in check.

David:
I see this all the time with the clients that we’re helping on my real estate team. When they’re buying a house in one thing goes unaccording to plan. Rates go up a little bit, because they took too long to get their paperwork turned in. Or they wanted a house but they needed to ask seven people what those people thought, by the time they came back, the house was gone. What we’re looking at is we tried to talk to you about getting your criteria lined up before we got into this situation. Now I hope you understand why that’s important. Let’s adjust and move forward.
And you know what they say? You know what, this is just God’s way of telling me that I shouldn’t be buying this house. Right?

Kindra:
Gosh. Yeah.

David:
I get that one all the time. Fate just didn’t want me to invest in real estate because it didn’t work out.

Kindra:
That’s a story of delusion too. That can split one of two ways. Maybe they didn’t really want it, and so that’s an easy out, fine, take the exit ramp and go on your merry way. Or two, if this is something that they really want, then that’s a really sad way to let it go. Actually one of the things, instead of, this is fate telling me this, one of the more useful I think perspective, is to say, well, look at this middle of the story. The middle of the story is messy. It’s confusing. It doesn’t make sense. The middles of stories are where things go wrong.
But if what you really want, now, again, if you don’t want to be a real estate investor, if you’re just doing it because, and make no mistake, to do anything, to write a book you have to really want to write a book. There is nothing easy about the entire process. You have to really, really want it, because it all comes with so much crap. It really does. And so if it is something that you really want but you’re stuck in one of those setbacks and you feel the old stories coming in, whatever it is, to pause and say, this is an interesting middle of the story. I can’t wait to see what happens next.

David:
Very cool. Now, have we got into the fourth element yet? Do you install?

Kindra:
No.

David:
Okay, let’s hear about that story.

Robert:
The resolution.

Kindra:
The resolution. Really the installation is the insulation. This is where we reinforce where we’re changing that automation so that we take that control of it. You do have to be an active participant in doing this at first, because soon it will become the automation. Your limiting beliefs are going to pop up from time to time. That’s the way our brain is programmed. But this is also something that we, so a story for that, is still for us a story that hasn’t happened yet. In addition to wanting to build a house, we have the other interest in buying real estate in New York City. Right now we live in New York city. We rent in New York city.
There are so many stories about why you shouldn’t do it. The yields are so low. There’s so much red tape. It’s really just a money pit. These stories are everywhere, right? However, and it could end up that, like we were just saying about the exit ramp, it ends up being a goal that we want to exit. We’re like, no, we don’t want it that badly. We’d instead rather do this or that. However, now knowing what we know, having been through all these experiences, we already know the storytelling process. And so we’ve already gone through catching it. We’ve analyzed what our hesitations are. We’ve chosen better stories.
We have a lot to choose from and now it’s installing them, carefully curating the stories that we’re telling ourselves anytime he starts looking online at properties that are available. We tell ourselves the stories of the things we haven’t done before. We tell ourselves the stories of people we know who have successfully bought real estate in New York City. It’s one of the big reasons that he’s such a fan of this podcast, is taking in other stories of creative thinking and keeping your mind in that space, because the rest of the world is going to tell you no, is going to tell him no, at this point.
Because these stories, they will dictate your actions. You have to be very cognizant of which ones you’re putting in. For example, he told me, he was like, remember when I used to always watch. Here’s two different real estate approaches, right? He can listen to this podcast or he used to watch Holmes on Homes. Do you know the show Holmes on Homes? Right?

David:
Yeah. He’s a bald guy, a little bit shorter than me. Not quite as good looking and he [crosstalk 00:42:40]. Not quite, not quite, but close.

Kindra:
Not nearly as handsome. But basically what the entire show is, is buying homes and they’re complete disasters. The ceiling. It’s for TV, but he would watch that show and want to invest. This was way back in the day. It still haunts him today, and think, but all these things could go wrong. Well, A, it was in Canada. At the time when he was really watching it, we were investing in Phoenix. The problems are not the same. Right? But carefully curating the stories and then retelling them to yourselves, the stories that get you to your goal versus the ones that don’t. That’s where we are right now.

David:
Tell me about the Montauk example that incorporates all this into one project.

Kindra:
Montauk. I think really what Montauk is, is as an example of, of course the title of the book is, Choose Your Story, Change Your Life. I recognize that that is a bold title to suggest that you could change someone’s life. But this Montauk investment really is an example of applying this method over and over and over again, and how you can quickly move from a place if you’re stuck to a place of action, to a place of prosperity. It was March 2020, I’ll remember those days, we have our real estate portfolio, it’s very healthy. But a big chunk of our income as I mentioned, that’s our retirement.
And our money, our liquidity is from me giving presentations to large audiences of people, multiple times a month, sometimes multiple times a week. March, 2020 was chaos in so many ways. But as a person whose job is to speak in front of large conferences, it got really ugly, really fast. Events were postponing. Events were canceling. They were moving forward a year, in some cases, two years. The liquidity was frightening. We had post-its on in our kitchen door of how much money we could spend at the grocery store to pull it off. It was a dire situation. We realized real quick that while real estate investing is a great long term strategy, when you need cash, we were hurting.
We decided to sell that first house that I bought as a single woman. Remember that house?

David:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Kindra:
We sold that house. There was a ton of equity in that house. We’d had it for 12 years. 10 years, there was equity there. We had some cash. I also had a two book deal, just signed at that point. It looked like some really good income. These two things combined, looked really attractive to a bank and they were real. This was right. We were able to then pull a HELOC on another one of our investment properties that had a lot of unused equity. And now we were on track. These were our defense moves, right? We had the cash to pay for rent, to buy the groceries, to do whatever we needed to do until whatever was going to happen with my business, which is the front end, which is the liquidity for us, until that sorted itself out.
I would love to say that it has fully sorted itself out, but 2022 is just 2022. Here we are, we are doing good. We’re on the defense. We’ve got our thing. And then all of a sudden in late April, Michael looks at me and says, hey, do you remember that house we looked at in Montauk two years ago? Montauk is this little beach server town at the end of the Hamptons, you wouldn’t call it a Hampton. I don’t think it refers to itself as a Hampton. It’s at the very end of the Hamptons, epic surf break, and there was this shark. Talk about Holmes on Homes, there was mold in the basement that was furry.
It looked like a wallpaper texturing. The mold was so thick. Nobody was touching this house. It was such a disaster. They had it listed for 1.3. In 2019, we offered 1.2 and they turned us down. We’re like, all right, we went on with our lives. We had other things to do. But here we are late April, 2020, we had the cash. And usually what our stories would’ve done, was say, we got to play it safe. There’s so much uncertainty. We don’t know what’s going on. We have our cash. Let’s sit on it so we’re safe. But we already know what those stories are. And we know that we don’t want to be defense people. We want to be on the offense as often as possible.
And the fact that we carefully monitor our stories, puts us in a place that we’re able to mentally at least get there. We call the people back, the house is still available. We offer under a million dollars. Ocean view, it’s two blocks from the beach, and they took get.

David:
Yay.

Kindra:
I know. If you can believe it. We got an automatic discount, but we would not have taken that chance, made that investment at that time, if it hadn’t been for the practice of already being able to know what the negative stories were going to be and how to get rid of them to move forward on something that we really wanted to try.

Robert:
Wow. That really is the full circle house, right? Because you said that you started with your house, the one across, you sold it and then that ultimately all just snowballed into the Montauk beach house. Can you give us a little bit of context about where you are in your portfolio? How much have you grown? What are your aspirations moving forward? Do you plan on expanding it pretty significantly here in 2022?

Kindra:
Yeah. We like doing the single family homes. Renting them for a while, maybe selling them, letting the equity grow. I know that we have, ready for this? Five doors in Arizona. One in Montauk, and depending on where we either build or if we decide to buy and renovate in the city, we’ll go from there. Eventually some of those homes in Arizona are extremely under built at this point, and with the way the market is going, that could be one of the builds and build those up and sell them. It’s the slow game. It’s not the massive of multifamily, but for right now it’s serving our desire as well.

Robert:
That’s awesome. I’m mostly single family myself. Super jealous, because I love Arizona. I think there’s a lot of opportunity there. And just in the last year I’ve seen a tremendous amount of growth.

Kindra:
It’s insane. It’s crazy.

David:
I think it’s going to continue. I would encourage you to buy Arizona.

Kindra:
Just keep doing that.

David:
All right. Well that was fantastic. We’re going to move into the next segment of our show. It is the world famous, famous four. All right. These are the same four questions we ask every guest on every episode. Your husband, no doubt is very familiar with these. Don’t worry, none of them are very hard. Question number one, what is your favorite real estate related book?

Kindra:
The real estate related book that I have read is, Rich Dad Poor Dad.

David:
Very nice.

Robert:
Awesome.

Kindra:
It’s classic. Right? I remember meeting him at a holiday party once and being like, oh my gosh, you’re Rich Dad Poor Dad. It was embarrassing, but that was a good one.

Robert:
It’s classic for a reason.

Kindra:
It is.

Robert:
Question no number two, favorite business book.

Kindra:
I would say so, most people maybe wouldn’t think of this as a business book, but I believe that it is, and it is, Big Magic by Liz Gilbert. It’s more the creative side of business, but I believe there’s a lot to it there of paying attention to the magic in it.

Robert:
Awesome. Question three. What are some of your hobbies?

Kindra:
I need to get better at that. I would say a hobby is building Legos. I love Legos. That is one of the things that I enjoy a lot, and going to Broadway musicals when I can. I have a secret desire to be in a Broadway musical. I will first have to learn how to sing, but from there, sky’s the limit.

David:
That’s funny. Tell yourself the right story. I’m sure you’ll get there. Right?

Kindra:
Exactly. Who knows? I will. We’ll see.

David:
I think you could play, what was the lead character in Frozen? Was it Elsa or Anna? I always mix those up.

Kindra:
Yeah, there was Elsa. They were shared leads actually, which was controversial.

David:
The one that had the magic that all the little girls want to be.

Robert:
Wicked.

Kindra:
No.

David:
She wasn’t that.

Kindra:
No, that was Frozen. It was Elsa. Let it go.

David:
Did I not say Frozen?

Kindra:
You did say Frozen.

David:
Okay, good. Yes. You could play mean Elsa on Broadway. That’s what I was saying.

Kindra:
Mean Elsa. I should. They just-

David:
Not like an angry Elsa, but a very good Elsa is what I was trying to say.

Kindra:
I’m going take that. I’m going to work on my upper range. She’s a belter that’s for sure.

David:
If you listeners are not listening on YouTube, make sure you check out the show and you can see just how much Kindra resembles Elsa from Frozen. All right. Question number four, Kindra, in your opinion, what sets apart successful investors from those who give up, never get started or fail?

Kindra:
Well that’s easy. What sets them apart are the stories they’re telling themselves. Come on. That answer, right?

Robert:
Come on, that was [crosstalk 00:52:03].

David:
All you had to do was slam it.

Kindra:
It really was. It really was. I’m going to say, the stories they tell themselves. No, but again, back to that middle, I think that’s what it is. Even if you dip your toe in the water, there are going to be setbacks. There are going to be things that go wrong. Actually just today, Michael was talking to a guy that he found on Craigslist, because there was a ton of rain. We just had to put a new sewer pipe or something in the Montauk house. The guys who did it, didn’t level it out right. We had water pouring into the basement that wasn’t moldy anymore. Because we fixed that. But now it was going to be moldy.
He’s on the phone with a guy from Craigslist. The rain’s coming in. They’re leveling it out. It’s going to be a mess on some days, but as long as you can be like, well, this is going to be a good story to tell someday. That’s the difference between the successful ones and the not.

Robert:
Awesome. Last question and maybe the most important, Kindra, can you tell us exactly where people can find out more about you?

Kindra:
Yeah. Kindrahall.com is my website. Kindrahall. Of course my books are available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, anywhere books are sold. I am on LinkedIn, Twitter. I spend the most time personally though on Instagram at kindrahall.

David:
That is awesome. Instagram at kindrahall. Rob, where can people find you?

Robert:
They can find me on the YouTubes at robuilt, Instagram, robuilt. TikTok, robuilto, because someone took robuilt. Any of those you guys can me on.

Kindra:
Robuilto.

David:
Right on. I am davidgreene24 on all of social media. Kindra, I’m going to give you the last word. Anything you want to share with our audience before we get out of here?

Kindra:
No, I think it’s really, I remember being at the very beginning of it and how scary it was. There are a lot of things that would keep you from pursuing this. If you’ve been listening to the podcast, if this is the first time, if you’ve been listening to it for a long time, I would say, go ahead, choose the right story. Take the first step and we’ll be cheering for you.

David:
Awesome. Well thank you very much for your time. Rob, anything you want to say?

Robert:
No. Thank you. That was very impactful. I think you have given the listeners an opportunity to think very differently how to approach real estate investing. Thanks for your time. We appreciate it.

David:
Kindra, what was your husband’s name?

Kindra:
Michael Hall, the great.

David:
Michael, thank you for being a great-

Robert:
Michael.

David:
… BiggerPockets fan, supporter and listener.

Robert:
Is he there? Is he still on the other side with the glass?

Kindra:
Well, yeah, he had to go get the kids from school. So now I think he’s back though. At least I hope he went to get the kids from school. One never knows.

David:
Hopefully somebody is at least, right?

Kindra:
I know. I hope so.

David:
All right. Well thank you very much for your time. This is David Greene for Rob, Robuilt, Abasolo, signing off.