BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 100: The 1st Deal, Management Drama, and the Birth of BiggerPockets with Joshua Dorkin

Episode Date: December 11, 2014

For the 100th episode of the BiggerPockets Podcast, we bring you the interview that you’ve been asking for since the beginning: the story of Joshua Dorkin, CEO of BiggerPockets and host of the BiggerPockets Podcast. Learn about Josh’s journey from real estate investing newbie to BiggerPockets founder — and all of the obstacles he had to overcome along the way. Get insider information on topics from starting your own business to property management and HOAs. And leave inspired to tackle your own hurdles and get your real estate endeavors off the ground! For BiggerPockets fans old and new, this is an instant BiggerPockets Podcast classic you won’t want to miss. Get ready to learn more about the man behind the BiggerPockets curtains! In This Show We Cover: How Josh got started in Real Estate The ins and outs of beginning your own business Thoughts on getting your real estate agent’s license How to get into Real Estate without any prior knowledge about it The importance of properly assessing a property What you need to know about HOAs Josh’s thoughts on appreciation Lessons regarding investing from a distance How BiggerPockets got its start Why BiggerPockets is hard on real estate gurus Why you should be authentic when using BiggerPockets The importance of building relationships online And MUCH more! Links From the Show: Brandon Turner’s Book on Amazon BiggerPockets Files BP’s Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Real Estate Investing BiggerPockets Keyword Alerts BiggerPockets Marketplace BiggerPockets Plus and Pro Accounts BiggerPockets Support Should I Get My Real Estate License? An Investor’s Examination of Benefits & Costs by Mindy Jensen (The blog post Josh referred to!) SNL Appearance Books Mentioned in the Show Four Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason Brandon Turner’s The Book on Investing in Real Estate with No (and Low) Money Down Rework: Change The Way You Work Forever by Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson The CEO Code by David Rohlander Connect with Josh Josh’s BiggerPockets Profile Josh’s Twitter Josh’s Facebook Josh’s LinkedIn Josh’s GooglePlus Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Bigger Pockets podcast, show 100. You're listening to Bigger Pockets Radio, simplifying real estate for investors large and small. If you're here looking to learn about real estate investing, without all the hype, you're in the right place. Stay tuned and be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from biggerpockets.com. Your home for real estate investing online. What's going on, everybody? This is Brandon Turner, host. or co-host of the Bigger Pockets podcast.

Coming to you today on show number 100. And if you're a regular listener of the show, this is weird, right? This is weird for me. I don't usually say these things. Josh, help me out. Wow, man, that was really awkward. It was really awkward, right?

I don't usually do that. Yeah, it doesn't have the panache. It doesn't have, there's something there. There is something missing. I don't know, we miss you. But today is a different show, so we're doing things a little bit differently. Ah, what's going on, Brandon? What's happening today?

Today is show number 100, which is awesome. Which, I mean, while we're on the topic, I just want to say thank you to everybody, all the listeners, all the guests, all the sponsors we've had. Everybody liked that. You guys have been incredible to get us to number 100, so we owe it all to you. And thank you to you, Brandon. You're a great co-host. I very much enjoyed having you on board, except for the somewhat weak introduction today. You've done a pretty good job, man.

That was a past tense. I really enjoyed having you on board. Should I be worried? Is 100 the limit for co-host? I have enjoyed. Okay. Yes. We're hiring Labovich now.

Okay. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, good luck. All right. Ben couldn't do what I do. Come on. All right. So today, show 100 is different because our guest today is the mysterious and elusive Joshua Dorkin.

What? Yeah, that's our guest today. It is. Are you really? We are interviewing Joshua Dorkin today on the Bigger Pockets podcast podcast. You had like, you know, some trick up your sleeve today. I didn't really trick me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, okay, so when I do meetups and we go to meetups all the time, the number one question I get all the time is, who's Josh? Like, where is he from? I don't know anything about him because you are a kind of a secretive guy. Like, you don't, you're not as public. Yeah, you're not in the public. You don't share as much as the rest of the world does on your story. So. It took 100 shows for me to convince you. We'll see how much you can get happy. Yeah, we'll see how much we get out of you today. So that's going to be good. No, we're going to talk about your story and all that. But before we do, let's do our usual beginning stuff.

For example, our quick tip. All right. Today's quick tip is, I don't know, what is today's quick tip? I don't have notes, guys. I'm really running naked. I'm dressed, but I don't. So, Brandon, what's today's quick tip? All right, today's quick tip is a little self-serving.

Oh, I know what the quick tip. You told me earlier. All right, today's quick tip, guys. This is self-serving. It is. It's okay. If you have purchased the Brandon Turner's book on Amazon, which is the book, you know, the title is long.

The book on invest in real estate with no and low money down. All right. If you've purchased that book on Amazon and have not yet left us a review, please go on Amazon and leave us a review. And I'll take it one step further. if you've also bought Jay Scott's books, the book on flipping houses, the book on estimating rehab costs, you know, leave us a review on those as well. We've sold a lot of these books, guys, and we've only got a few dozen reviews and would definitely appreciate additional ones. They certainly help us get the word out about them.

So thank you very much in advance for doing that. And that takes us to today's pro benefit of the week. All right, today's pro benefit of the week. Yeah. All right. Today's benefit of the week is, if you're a bigger pockets pro member and are tired of seeing that guy who keeps giving advice that you just drives you mad, you can hide them. We now have the feature that you can hide people.

So basically, yeah, on the forums. Not in real life. I mean, you try to hide them in real life. Put them in a box in your basement, lock him up. Okay. You're creepy. Definitely time for a new post. You're fired.

All right. So basically you could just hide that user's post. So, you know, you just kind of skip past it and it doesn't infuriate you like it might. So, you know, we've got a lot of members and we just kind of giving people additional options to make their experience more pleasurable on the site. So there it is. There you go. But yeah, you know, that's what we got for you. You've upgraded how to buy properties. But did your insurance get the memo? When investors start scaling, insurance can't be an afterthought. Most policies were designed for a single property, not multiple rentals, LLC. ownership, short-term stays, or properties mid-rehab. That's where blind spots can creep in.

N-Reg works exclusively with real estate investors. They understand portfolios, how risk compounds as you grow, and why insurance should protect your upside, not just a checkbox. One uncovered claim can undo years of progress. Before your next acquisition, review your insurance. Talk to N-R-R-R-S-specific coverage from specialists who actually understand real estate at N-R-E-G.com slash B-P pod. That's N-R-E-I-G-G-com slash B-P pod.

A lot of property managers think their job is answering tenant emails and coordinating repairs. That's not the job. The job of a property manager is protecting and growing your operating income and earning your trust while they do it. And that comes down to three numbers, occupancy, delinquency, and net promoter score. If those numbers slip, your income slips. And your trust slips too. And most PMs don't hold themselves to performance standards.

They focus on activity, not. outcomes. Mind is different. They obsess over the metrics that actually grow your cash flow. Go to mine.com slash show me to see how mine performs and get a month of management for free. Because if you're going to hire a property manager, hire one that manages your investment, like an investment. Most investors spend all their time talking about their high level returns. But that's not the number that actually matters. What actually matters is what you keep after taxes, and that's where multifamily real estate quietly stands out. With built-in advantages like depreciation, the right deals can generate steady cash flow while reducing the tax drag. Bam Capital

structures its multifamily investments around those fundamentals, pairing tax efficiency with disciplined operators and a long-term approach. This isn't about chasing hype or guessing market timing. It's about building durable, tax-aware wealth over time. Learn more at biggerpockets.com slash bam. All right. All right. We're moving into it. We got to have time. It's going to be like a seven-hour show. Oh, geez. Yeah, here we go. All right. So we're going to talk about- shut up, does it? Jeez, can somebody get him off the show? All right. So today, our guest is the one and only fabulous Joshua Dorkin. Oh, fabulous. Yeah, Joshua Dorkin. Let me do a quick, I'm going to do this from memory. Josh started investing back, I don't know, a little over 15, about 15 years ago, you got kind of into this game. And then you built the world's largest real estate investing website that anybody's

ever seen. It's huge and massive and you all know about it. So we don't need to go into it. And today we're going to talk about how you got started in that whole process. So yeah. All right. So again, let's get to this interview with Josh. Should we? Josh, how's it feel to be a guest on your own show? I'm honored to be a guest of my own show. Finally invited after 100. Finally invited after 100. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Josh, what are you going to ask a question?

I got to start. I got to start the same way you always do. Josh Dorkin, welcome to this show. Glad to have you. I'm glad to be here, Brandon. It's a, it's a pleasure. You know what? You guys do a really good job, you and Josh.

Thank you. I don't know. I think it'll be fun. What? I think it'll be fun. What? What? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay, so today's show is going to be, it is going to be fun because honestly, I mean, this is 100% true. I don't know hardly. anything about your story. I mean, like, I've been working with you for you for two years now. Every day, we spend eight hours a day on Skype, and I know, like, nothing about your story. Like, we just don't talk about your story. You're a private guy, like I said. So why don't we start at the very, very beginning? Okay. How did you... Yeah, how did you get into real estate? What got you interested in that? What got me into real estate? Well, so I grew up the son of

entrepreneurs. My entire family was in the world of creating businesses. And so being raised around that gave me, you know, gave me, I guess, the inspiration or the energy or there was just something unspoken because my parents didn't say, hey, you're going to grow up and be an entrepreneur. You're going to go and do this. There was something there that just kind of was innate watching watching your folks build a business. And I don't know. You know, I went to, college in St. Louis, Washington University, and went there for business, ended up with a marketing and political science two degrees. And while there, my senior year in high school, in high school, I'm very nervous. I'm nervous being on the show, man. All these people listening, there's like,

I don't know, what are like 10 listeners? All right. So, you know, senior year in college, I had a roommate. and we, you know, we were renting this apartment, I think it was like $450 for the two of us per month. And we just one day stopped and we were in B school together and we said, you know, what are we doing? We're spending all this money so this guy can get rich. Why are we doing it? You know, why don't we figure out a way to buy this building? And I think it was a six or an eightplex. I think it was a sixplex. And we'll buy it. We'll buy the property and we'll become the landlords and we'll collect the, you know, all the rest. rent checks and, you know, start our way. And, yeah, we didn't know what we were doing. We had no clue. We had nowhere to go. We, we, you know, there was really, there was nothing other than a couple,

you know, the books that you can buy at the library to really help with that. And so, you know, after scrounging around and realizing that we didn't know what we were doing, didn't have really a lot of cash, we just kind of moved on. And fast forward, post-college, I, I, I, I, I, I, ended up moving to Boston, lived there for a little bit, ended up. I didn't know that. I did indeed. See, how about that? I know. I was in Boston for a bit, then moved back to New York. Did you pack the car in the garage in Boston? I fatted in a pack cat. Yeah. So I was there. I was a, I was a prop trader. What's a prop trader? It's like a day trader. I worked at a shop at a firm. I had put up some cash and they let me work with some of their reserves. And basically I bought and sold stock all day and did that for a little bit. Left that industry. You know, back then screens, computer screens weren't as good as they are today. And so staring at screens all day, not only staring at a screen, but like staring at little tickers, little numbers going up and down all day long, I would go home with these horrible migraines. And so.

I eventually just, I couldn't do it. I, you know, it was physically hurting me to be in this industry. So I left and moved back home with my parents. And that was in New York? That was in New York. Yeah. So I was back in New York, living with my parents. And I got into the entertainment business.

You were a stripper. I was a mipper. A male stripper. I'm sure you were. So I got into the entertainment business. And, you know, I was, as a kid, I was always into acting and things like that and decided, you know what, this was a good opportunity to try it out. So move in with my folks, went into Manhattan all the time and was doing auditions, realized,

you know what, I didn't want to only be on one side of the camera. I wanted to learn the industry, want to learn the business. So I did. I taught myself the business by slaving myself on student films, independent projects. just working for free as basically an apprentice. Go ahead. Can you tell us how you got on Saturday Night Live? Because people don't know this.

I cannot tell you that. I would have to kill you. Can you tell the story of what were you on SNL or what did you do? I've done a couple little bit rolls on SNL. I was like a basketball player. I was actually a Jewish basketball player on Jerry Seinfeld's basketball team when Jerry Seinfeld was on SNL. One time I was like,

a police academy recruit with Ben Affleck. I've done a couple of random little bit things. I'll try to find those clips and put them the show notes. At biggerpockets.com slash show 100. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, so the way I work is I want to learn something about a business. I have to

really learn all sides of it. And so I mean, I did the worst possible jobs. I was the low man on the totem pole on a free student film. And I was willing to do that because I knew that by doing that, I could learn how things work. So fast forward, that brings me, the entertainment business brought me out to L.A. I did a bunch of random stuff in L.A. including teaching high school.

And one of the things I did while I was in L.A. was to get my real estate license. I was like, you know what? This is a good way to make some money. I've always kind of had an interest in real estate, got a license, ended up, doing real estate sales in West Hollywood. And realized pretty quickly it wasn't for me. Let me ask you. And you can obviously go on to that.

But I want to know, like, you asked this question a lot of people. So I'll ask you, do you think it's a good idea for new investors to get your license, like if you just start not like you were? I think it depends. When I was an agent, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I didn't know how much it was going to cost. I didn't know all the numbers associated. In fact, there was a great post, and I forgot who wrote it last week on BiggerPockets

about all the expenses that go with getting a real estate license. And we'll point to it in the show notes of biggerpockets.com slash show 100. It was great, great article. But yeah, I wasn't prepared. I didn't know. I didn't realize I was going to have to spend a whole lot of money in marketing. I didn't realize I was going to have to join MLSs and that was going to cost me money. I didn't know that there was all this stuff.

I thought I could do it on the cheap. and I quickly realized that I could with my little circle of people that I knew who were interested in buying real estate. But beyond that, I'd have to find new customers. And that was not easy. It was not easy. So I think getting your real estate license is fantastic. I really don't see a lot of negatives to it. However, you need to be prepared for the cost.

And there is cost, and it's thousands and thousands of dollars per year that are associated with at least kind of getting the ball going. and getting your marketing and kind of getting things moving. But as an investor, if the savings you get and if the advantages you get from your real estate license are worth, you know, financially are worth it, then do it, you know? And what is that number? I guess, you know, if you having your license is going to get you access to one extra deal or it's going to let you pull the trigger more quickly or you're going to save money on the sale of a property or the saving commissions when you sell, then why not? I think it's

absolutely worthwhile. So anyway, I did that for a little bit. It wasn't for me. It really wasn't for me. So I decided to get out. Well, when you say it wasn't for you, like, what didn't you like about it? I didn't like, primarily I didn't like the company I was keeping. And this sounds awful, But I found, again, I was in West Hollywood, you know, the plastic capital of the planet. And there were a lot of plastic people that were doing the same job as I was. And so, I don't know, just kind of on the day-to-day basis, looking at listings, dealing with folks who I just, I couldn't relate to, you know, folks who just, you know, folks who just, I don't want to say it because I'll probably offend a lot of plastic. people out in the Los Angeles basin. But, you know, I, I just, I couldn't deal with it. It was, it was mind-numbing. It was really mind-numbing. And, you know, doing the business side, you know,

and looking and crunching numbers was cool. But when when the time came to have to negotiate or talk to people and deal with people out there, I mean, I just wanted to bang my head against the wall. It was not, it was awful. So I stopped. And again, I ended up teaching high school. That was, I was a subteacher, long, long story short, I got a subteaching credential and went to do a substitute teaching gig. And my first day substitute teaching, the teacher that I was subbing for, quit. So I had a job. And lo and behold, four years later, I stayed on. I think I was there for four to five years. I didn't know that either. I thought it was like a year. No, I was there a long time. And it was a special ed school in San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles. I worked with some unbelievable kids and

some kids who were pretty horrible, but mostly unbelievable kids. And I keep in touch with some today. But yeah, it was really cool. It was an amazing experience. And all the while, my interest in real estate never faded. So to make a really long story short, and I didn't make it short at all, I just made it really long. One day I got a call from my brother. and he said, hey, Josh, I think you should check out this, you know, what I'm doing here. I've decided it's time to buy some rental property. And he kind of gave me a bunch of information about what he was doing. And I was like, yeah, well, this is cool.

This is something that I've always wanted to do. And so it triggered me to start doing a little bit of homework on rentals again. And eventually led to me buying my first multifamily. family property. He kind of got me excited, got me hyped up, and I bought my first rental property. But before that, I was, I don't know, 23, I think, 23, 24 in West Hollywood. And I needed a place to live after living on my friend's floor for, you know, oh, man, it was, it was a couple weeks. When I went out to California, I had gone out to visit. I was looking at different acting things in California. And while I was there, I was so enthralled by it. So I called my parents and I said,

you know, mom, dad, when I get home, you know, I know you're not going to like this, but I'm out of here. And they're like, no, you're not. This is not happening. I was like, no, I'm leaving. You know, I'm giving myself one week from the day I get home and I'm getting in the car and I'm driving to California. And they thought I was crazy. And I did that. Literally one week to the day, my car was packed. All my, all my belongings were in there. And I was set out to drive from New York all the way to Los Angeles. I didn't have a place to stay. I didn't have a plan.

I didn't know what I was doing, but I knew that I'd figure it out. And so halfway there, found a friend of a friend who, you know, referred me back to another friend. And, you know, he said, yeah,

crash on our floor. So I did that and, you know, paid for groceries while, you know, they let me hang out there and play video games all the time. And, and,

yeah. Anyway, so I needed a place to live and I was like, I'm in California. This is a good market. And I ended up buying a condo. And so that was like my first purchase was, was this condo purchase. And I was just going to ask you. Wanted to ask about that. So what was your very first to best? Or what was your first deal? I guess that would sort of be it. Yeah. So I bought the condo and it was, I paid $250,000. It was in this amazing building in West Hollywood. I moved in, lived there, lived. for those people who were old enough to know it, it was kind of like Melrose Place. It was unbelievable. A lot of fun. A lot of fun. Did you buy it knowing that like... It was a lot of fun, by the way. It sounds like a lot of fun. Did you buy it knowing like, I don't know, anything about as an investment where you're like, well, this would be a good investment property? This is a, you know, cheap place. Was it, you know, inexpensive when you bought it? I mean, how'd you pick that place and why did you choose it? So I, you know, for me, A, the first and foremost was I needed a place that I'd be comfortable living in.

So what I did when I moved to this new city was I got in the car and I drove up and down every single block. First, I would kind of drive around and find different areas that I liked. And then once I found an area I liked, I'd drive up and down every single block in that area, looking at the different buildings, looking at the property. And once I kind of found areas, then I started to do some shopping and did some research. And when I found this place, I think I ended up paying more for the unit than anyone had previously paid for a single unit in that building. So I overpaid, but when I did the math,

you know, A, for me to live in made sense. And B, if I were to get out and rent it out, it made sense. You know, the numbers worked. And so I bought the condo and it was great. I mean, love living there. You know, everything was good and well until I started to get these notices that we were getting these one-time assessments. And that was like the first time I was like, oh, man, wow, real estate. Like, you could really, really kind of get screwed if you don't know what you're doing.

And I didn't know what I was doing. You know, I was 23. I bought a condo and assessments. I mean, I had read all the paperwork when I bought the place, but I didn't know they could start, you know, charging you out of the blue, like random stuff. I thought, you know, I pay X amount a month for HOA fees. And that's what I'm paying.

I could predict that. Sure. So for those people who don't know, what is it an assessment? Assessment, I mean. Because I don't know. Basically, you know, if there's some kind of charge, some kind of bill that comes up or something that the association wants to spend money on, they can come up with these assessments, these one-off assessments to take care of it.

And so I don't remember what the first one was, but I was really angry. I was pissed off. I was like, this is, you know, that's a lot of money for a lot of us. and I didn't expect it. I didn't budget for it. And so that was one of the first turning points for me of H-O-A's being negative. There was a lot of, you know, H-O-A is all politics. It's people on power trips.

A lot of people who, you know, have nothing doing in their life and want the power of managing and controlling something. So they go and they, you know, beat up other people. And listen, I get H-O-A's. There is a need to some extent. But I think a lot of the politics in H-O-A's is very detrimental. instrumental to HOAs and to the people who live in these communities. Bottom line is the HOA that I was a part of turned out that, you know, they, we did not have earthquake insurance on this building.

And I was kind of ready for a new, another big quake to come. And I was like, you know, the board, I don't love the board. I don't trust them. They don't want to get earthquake insurance. There's just a lot of stuff. And so I ended up getting out of the condo. I ended up selling it instead of holding on and renting it or anything else because I feared that my investment was in the hands of people outside of myself. And one of the things about real estate is it's better in my mind than stocks and bonds and other things because you have control of that investment. Well, when you're buying an HOA, you don't necessarily have control of the investment. There are other parties and players who can really, really affect that investment for you.

And I don't know, that was a big turnoff for me. And so I'm fairly anti-H-O-A from an investment perspective because I think that it's too easy for these boards to affect potential cash flow by coming up with assessments, raising rates, raising fees, things like that. And frankly, making rules that you may not like

and may not work for you. Do you think it would have been better had you run for the HOA board, you know, been on the board? I know some guys like Serge Shukai. who we had on somewhere in the 60s on his podcast, one of the most popular podcasts we've done. I think it was. Yeah. One of the most popular ones we've ever done. But one of the things talking to him just recently, he was saying how he's on or he is like the board of one of his

properties. I wonder like would that have changed things for you or could you have gone that route? I was going to and the rules were pretty much stacked against people and stacked in the favor of the people who were on the board. And, you know, I had friends. I had made friends with a bunch of people, but, you know, the folks who were in power at the time were made a pretty convincing argument why they should stay in power, even though they were actually doing bad things above and beyond everything else that we're talking about. So bottom line is, you know, if you're looking at condos or homes or anything else that are in a HOA, do your homework, read the docs before you buy the property and make sure you kind of know what you're getting

yourself into, know what's possible. Because it could turn around. it hurt you. Yeah. I know. I've been looking into like condos a little bit, whether it's in Denver. I kind of want to buy one in Hawaii, maybe, you know, random places like that. Must be nice to be Brandon Turner, right guys? Amazing, right? No, I want to buy a corner on Hawaii. Meanwhile, my Parisian estate isn't doing so well. I'm just thinking, I'm thinking as an investment, right? I don't pay you that much, bro. So I'm thinking as an investment. So I want to buy something in Hawaii that I can rent out using like Airbnb when I'm not there and it'll give me a nice excuse to go every year a couple times. Yeah, wouldn't that be great? We should totally buy a nice condo

and and, and, but that those are the things I'm worried about. I mean, I'm worried about the HOA all of a sudden, hey, by the way, for the next three years, extra 500 bucks a month because we got to put a new roof on because we didn't calculate that correctly. Like that freaks me out. Like, oh, crap. You know, like there goes cash flow for the next few years and then, hey, we want to redo all the carpets, even though we did it four years ago. You know, hey, you know, let's do something else. And yeah, and, you know, ultimately the people are supposed to have a say in these things. But, you know, again, politics can be very interesting when it comes to organizations like that. Is it like House of Cards? Were you like Kevin Spacey trying to navigate? I was not like Kevin Space.

I ran into quite a few Kevin Spacey, but yeah. Nice, nice. Well, did you, okay, so you bought the condo. You lived in it for, how long did you live there? I was there, I think three. years and sold it. I think I sold it for $370. Now, I mind you, all this was going on, the bubble in Los Angeles was frothy, man. It was, you know, this, I bought it in 2000. I mean, I was watching properties go like crazy. You know, the prices were increasing like bananas. And, you know, I kicked myself in the pants because, you know, a couple of years later, the very same condos were selling for $6.50. Oh, wow. Yeah, but still, you made it, what, a little over 100 grand. I made some money. It was, it was good, you know, and a great experience

and, you know, use that to kind of parlay into the next thing. And, but yeah, so, you know, it was, it was a unique experience. So you kind of did a accidental, kind of pretty much exactly what I did, kind of an accidental live and flip. Even though you didn't have to fix and flip it, necessarily, you know, you wrote that appreciation way. So, well, so maybe we can talk about that for a minute. Your experience or your thoughts on appreciation. Like, you, you know, you. I benefited from it. You benefited from it. But was that luck?

Was that just a combination of being in the right place, right time? What was that? And should other people do it? It was absolutely dumb luck. I'm, you know, I got beat up on the stock market bubble. I was real, I mean, I remember I was a stock trader, did fairly well in the market. You know, getting into the market allowed me to end up buying that condo. So, you know, I was fairly good at it.

but I also was kind of loosey-goosey like a lot of people were and ended up losing a considerable amount of cash. And so that made me pretty conservative when it came to real estate, which is also why I ended up selling when I sold. I saw that I had gone, my condo and little time had gone from 250 to 370. I was like, wow, that's crazy. This thing is up, you know, 150% in short order. This is crazy. this can't sustain itself. Well, it did for another four or five years.

And it shouldn't have, but it did. And, you know, I think, you know, between the financial institutions, I think, you know, various folks and power, you know, senators and other officials of power encouraged the bubble to continue. And I think that's what kind of allowed it to keep going. but it was dumb luck. I, along with millions of other people, you know, saw appreciation. So the benefits of it, I saw that it would end at some point and I got out.

Again, had I held on, I could have done better, but had I held on, I could have done worse too. So whatever. In terms of appreciation, I think there is some merit to strategically purchasing properties in the way of growth. So like a lot of our guests, I believe that appreciation is something that would be a nice factor that you can can't guarantee it. You can't count on it.

But if you're buying long term holds in the way of growth, you should see appreciation. So, you know, whether it's take here in Colorado, the Denver Boulder corridor, you know, there's this, you know, these two cities that are 30 miles apart. or so, and I've been here almost eight years, in that time, you've seen this corridor between these two cities just fill in with suburbs. And so, you know, if you had the foresight to say, oh, you know what, at some point this is going to start to happen, I'm going to invest in property somewhere in here and you get in early. You're probably going to ride some what of a wave of appreciation as, you know, demand grows to go in there. But I'm not going to tell people, hey, just buy there because you expect the property to go up in price because I think you're just

gambling. I mean, at that point, you're straight gambling. Sure. So, you know, buy with fundamentals, buy a property, a value, look for undervalued, discounted properties, purchase those. And then, you know, if you're in the way of growth, you should expect some kind of appreciation over the long run. But if you don't get it, as long as you've got the cash flow coming in, you're good to go. So that would be my highest and best aim for, you know, what's the best way to kind of go about doing this. I like it. I like it. Okay.

So let's talk about, you said you kind of parlayed that into your investment, your first investment. So let's talk about that. You mentioned earlier your brother was trying to get you into it. Can to take us from there? So, I mean, really quickly, just he was snapping up a duplex. is four families, a bunch of multis around the Midwest. And, you know, I was looking at the cash numbers and I said, wow, that's awesome. And he was there. And I was like, all right. Well, you know what, this isn't a bad idea. Let's do this. The numbers look good. And so, you know,

I started with low end multifamily. And where was this that? You said, St. Louis, right? Yeah. It was a mistake. I'll just put it that way. This was not a good. good decision, buying properties thousands of miles away with no experience managing people and

expecting that I'd walk away with a good result. When you say low end, what do you mean by how low was this? I mean, this cardboard box. I mean, these were neighborhoods that you don't want to walk in at night. I didn't want to walk around at night. Now, I, you know, I didn't love walking around during the day either.

But, you know, I did. And it'd be properties where, you know, three, four doors away, you'd have a vacant property with people hanging out on the stoop. You know, yeah, I wasn't quite Joe Pesci, but it was, you know, it was, you know, these are tough areas. And so I think the biggest thing I took away from that was new investors should not do it. Investing at a distance is definitely a strategy. It's a viable strategy. buying turnkey or just buying long distance and managing it yourself absolutely is viable. But I really do believe you need to get some kind of fundamental base before you go out and do that. I really, really do believe that. I think it's to your advantage as an owner to know what you're doing before you go out and buy something that is going to take you at the very least.

you know, a flight to get to. Yep. So, you know, I made a lot of mistakes. I, you know, I counted on property managers that, you know, I didn't know how to vet and I bought properties I shouldn't have bought because, you know, I didn't know what I was doing. And I'm going to, I'm going to drill you about those mistakes here. And I'm going to go deep in this. All right. Whatever, you know. So it was, you know, it was a learning experience. And listen, here's the thing. All that. All that. all that, all those mistakes, and just the experience in general is why you are here talking to me. It's why anybody listening to the show is listening to the show.

It's why the, you know, countless, you know, 20 million, you know, tens of millions of people who have been through our platform, have been through our platform. Bigger pockets would not exist without me having these negative experiences. And so, you know, they were horrible. however I took these things and said I need to do something I need to better figure out a better way and that kind of birth you know BP well and and I want to get to that um but I also want to know like that first I mean let's talk about specifics a little bit like how did you find the properties was it just your brother and then what was the I mean how did you finance it kind of those kind of questions so finance I had cash for all the same all cash no no I mean I but you know

I bought four families, so you can get a traditional loan on a four family, put 20% down, found them, basically flew into town, got in the car, and drove around and, you know, looked at countless, countless Detroit-esque properties. I mean, man, the one property that just, you know, and any experience investor has been through these, but, you know, the one thing that stands out for me. We all have like that one property that just like, oh, man, oh. We walked into one and there was a carpet of mold on every surface in this entire property. Like, you know, I had seen mold, but there was mold on every, there was mold on light bulbs on glass. How does mold grow on glass? I don't know. I don't know how that's possible. There was mold on

every surface. And that's the one property that to this day just stands out to me. You didn't actually buy that one though, right? No. Okay, good. Okay. Hell no. Now, there are people who would and today I might. Yeah. But no, no, no way. I knew I had some limits at the time. But, you know, no. So we, we just kind of drove around and looked at a lot of properties and kind of took a yellow pad or a notebook and put down, you know, what did what what did these things look like? What was the purchase price? What was the, you know, what I have to put down? What was my rank going to be? What were my kind of estimated expenses? And again, I was, I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't know how to estimate expenses. I didn't know how to estimate management costs. I didn't know how to estimate repairs. And those, my friends are the killers. Yeah. Those are the ones that most people don't get right. And those are the ones that will cost you and that will hurt you. And I was okay. I was okay. You know, even though I, I, I, I,

underestimated. I was still fine. But, you know, it hurts. It hurts when you, you know, you don't know that you're going to get 10, 12 percent on that. It hurts and you don't know that, you know, in low income property, somebody's going to break a toilet every week. Yeah. How do you break a toilet? I don't know. I don't know, but it happens. I'll clog a toilet, but I'm not going to break a toilet. You know, I don't know how that works. I don't know how I had a unit that I had somebody. There was a hole in the floor in the kitchen. in a hardwood floor. There was a hole.

How do you put a hole in the hardwood floor in the kitchen? I mean, do you drop an anvil? I mean, I don't know. I don't know. But it happens. And so, you know, I don't know. You had a question somewhere and I just ramble. That's all right.

I want to know, but you mentioned you didn't expect, you know, the cost for property management. I want to talk a little bit about the PM stuff because I know you, you rail on PMs a lot, property managers on the podcast here. So obviously you've had some bad experiences. So I guess my first question is, how did you find your first property manager?

Do you remember? I do. I know you're getting kind of old and getting a little fuzzy out there in the members. What did you say? First property manager was my sister-in-law. She was a real estate agent. And she managed for me very briefly. she ended up, you know, stopping managing for other people.

And so, you know, I went and found somebody else. I don't, who was another realtor, I believe. They just weren't, you know, the first one just wasn't doing a great job. I felt like, you know, I would ask questions, didn't get the answers that I needed or wanted. And I was like, oh, okay, well, this is not working. You know, I'm pretty anal retentive about things. Not at all. I was waiting for, you know, a little joke.

I respect my elders, come on. Oh, man. All right. So I went and I found another one. And what the issue with that one was they had maintenance in-house. I didn't have the, I don't believe, I may, you know, I don't want to misquote myself, but I'm almost certain I could not use an outside handy guy. So I think I had to use their handy people.

And so their costs were like crazy, you know, inflate. I kind of felt like I was getting kind of the run around on certain things. And it just felt like every time, I don't know, I mean, I felt like I was being taken advantage of. And I may or may not have been, but I just something didn't feel right about the whole thing. And I felt like I had to get out. So I got out. I ended up with another company. I mean, I had a company that had take it.

They basically were, these guys were complete crooks. But what they did was they basically decided one day, hey, we're going to shut down our business. We're going to open up a new business and take on all the clients and the units that we like and, you know, the units that we don't like, you know, we're not going to work with. But all the deposits that, you know, they had collected somehow never got paid to the owner. Yeah, there was a lot of like real bad stuff. I mean, a big group of us ended up kind of working together to recover some of that stuff. I mean, we went to the attorney general. I mean, we dealt with a lot of the, and I've written about this stuff on bigger pockets, actually.

But yeah, I mean, just people screwing people, you know, doing bad things. You know, co-mingling deposits, just doing stuff that you are not supposed to do as a manager. And I don't know. So, well, what do you suggest for people to do if they're looking for a property manager, whether it's locally or far away? What could you have done better and what do you recommend others to today? So I could have talked to my local network of real estate investors, which I didn't have because that was far away.

There's another problem, right? Yeah. I was at a distance. I didn't know who to talk to and had no one to kind of get recommendations from. Oh, yeah. Bigger Pockets does that. Oh, yeah. No, yeah. You can just say, hey, who's got, you know, who knows of a good manager in St. Louis?

Who have you worked with? Who would you like? Who do you not like? Who have you interviewed? We put together an interview worksheet. They're available on the BiggerPockets fileplace of Biggerpockets.com slash files with questions you want to ask the manager. You know, you want to know who they work with. Do they, you know, are they managing their own properties? Which some people say, yeah, that's a great thing if they're managing their own properties. Other people may say it's a terrible thing. I found I actually had a tenant who had moved out and ended up telling me that they moved out because they ended up in the unit of one of the property manager's units. And because we had to establish a good relationship, they told me that. Well, no property

manager should be stealing clients from their from their clients. I mean, that's just crazy. That's crazy. So get recommendations, interview them. You know, I think. what most people, new investors and new people in kind of any industry get wrong is they feel like, you know, they'll walk in the door and the property manager starts asking them questions. And they feel like, okay, well, I'm going to sit here. I'm going to answer the questions. And it's an interview. But the interview is actually supposed to go the other way.

You are supposed to interview the property manager. They can ask you all the questions in the world. But at the end of the day, you have to ask them questions. You have to be happy with their answers. And if you're not, get the hell out. move on. So do you have any good suggestions for questions that you can ask people? I mean, what should I ask a property manager when I'm interviewing one?

Put me on the spot, man. Yeah. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. I would say, you know, start with how many units they manage. Where do they manage units? What's their policy on screening tenants? What's their policy on evictions?

you know, how do they handle late rent? How do they, I mean, you pretty much any and every question that you would have for yourself as an owner. Like, hey, what do I do in this situation? Ask them it. And if they don't want to answer it or if they don't have, they're too busy or they don't want to sit there and deal with you, that's a really good indication that you're not going to be a good fit. How do you communicate? And what happens if such and such happens? Do you email me?

Do you call me? Do you text me? You know, how much money do you want to have as a reserve? How much money do you want to spend without my permission? You know, is it $2.50? You know, because a lot of property managers, they don't want to call you every time they've got to fix a doorknop. But, you know, so you have to give them some latitude on what they can work with. Is that the right number?

What's your percentage? You know, do you get, what are your fees based upon? Are you just charging 12% of rent? Well, what if you don't get it, rent it? Yeah. You know, so am I going to keep paying you for six months? if you can't fill a vacancy for six months, these are the questions you want to know. Legal, you know, can I work with a real estate eviction attorney? Do you have one?

Who are they? Let me talk to them. What other clients do you work with? Give me their names. Let me call them and talk to them. If anything kind of raises a red flag, move on. Yeah. I think that's good. I mentioned a couple weeks ago here on the podcast that I transferred over my first two properties to property management. And they were like my problem property. the ones that I don't like dealing with. And, you know, it was really great. It felt really relaxing. But now I'm having this problem.

And maybe you can offer me some advice. I feel like I have to be telling my property manager to do everything. Like I call- Yeah, it was like two weeks into it. And the guy hadn't paid rent yet. So like my wife emailed and said, well, it was like, you know, day six, whatever. So rents do. She emails and said, hey, did we get the rent?

She writes back, no. My wife says, okay. So what do you normally do at this point? She says, oh, we deserve a three-day notice. usually. My wife says, did you serve it? Oh,

no, but should we do that? Yes. Okay, we don't need, you know, you don't have to give permission. Now it's the next month. So he only owed like 200 bucks

for rent because of how it prorated. And my next month now, it's today is what, today is the eighth. And I do not have rent yet from that 200 from last month or this month. Has she served a notice? I told her to on the first

that if he didn't serve it. But I have no, I don't think he, I don't think she did. So now I got to call him, tell her to serve the notice. It's so annoying. No, no.

actually you have to call her and fire her. Yeah, I probably have to call her fire her. Maybe she did it. No, there is no maybe. I mean, like if she, listen, I, like, here's the thing. You're a nice guy. I'm, well, a lot of people think I'm not, but I'm actually a very nice guy. This is a business.

This is your business. Okay. That person that you've hired to take care of and manage your business is not managing your business. It is not your job to babysit the property manager. and if you have to babysit the property manager, you need to fire the property manager. Which then goes back to the issue, though,

if there was only two in my town I could rely on and one was old and one was this one. Time to dump all the properties in your town. If you don't want to, no, I mean, it's... This might answer my question of, should I just open up my own property management company? Yeah. You might want to hire someone else.

Because this person is not doing what they're supposed to be doing, right? Their job is to work for you. If you're telling them what they have to do, they're not trained. They don't know what they're doing. Then you're not working with a property manager who's worth their salt. Yeah.

I feel like all we're doing right now is my wife is still the property manager. We just now have a liaison between the tenant and us. And that's not what I hired for, you know, 10% of the rent. Yeah. Anyway. Well, listen, I mean, the bottom line is here's the issue. Like, this is something that a lot of people don't know. Listen, Brandon Turner, who is Mr. Bigger Pockets, right?

Is that my name, Mr. Bigger Pockets? No, I think I'm Mr. Bigger Pockets. right maybe we need a little guy with a top hat probably yeah um but uh you know i mean you're asking these questions and that's okay and you know what again that's kind of the beauty of bigger pockets by the way is like there is no there is not a stupid question these are questions that just stupid people i am not uh you all right no but i mean these are questions brandon you've been investing for years and years and years and years and you're asking this question and i think you know the answer and you're asking it because you're such a nice guy that you're afraid to actually

face the truth, which is you need to fire this person. But that's the thing. That's why I created bigger pockets. I mean, that is fundamentally why I created the site. I had property. I had questions. And I'm sitting around looking for a place to go where I could find an answer to those questions. And there were websites at the time. I mean, Facebook didn't even exist, by the way, at the time that Bigger Pockets was born. But Zillow didn't exist at the time Bigger Pockets were born. There were sites. There were a bunch of communities for real estate investors.

And, you know, as a budding investor, I looked at them. I was like, oh, this is so cool. There are these communities. That's great. And as I went and kind of spent time, what I found, what I felt was these communities purpose was not, their primary purpose was not to serve as a community for real estate investors. Their primary purpose was to serve as a channel to sell content, to serve not sell, not content, but to sell courses and boot camps and trainings and all that stuff. And for me,

you know, I didn't need to buy somebody's $1,000, $5,000, $20,000 boot camp. I just need an answer to a darn question. And I didn't need the answer coming from somewhere where I didn't really trust that I wasn't going to be sold on something as soon as I got an answer. So, you know, I felt like there was a need for another, there was a different model that had to exist. And so I had been building websites since 94 when I was in college. And I just said, you know what, I'm going to create a community that's not going to be about upselling, not going to be about selling people anything. I'm going to create a place that's just a place that guys like me can go to help each other be successful. And that was kind of how BP was born.

I think you were possibly going there. I was going to ask also where the name Bigger Pockets come from. Oh, man. All right, bigger pockets. Da, da, da, da. I was an actor. Many of you are aware now that I was an actor. And so one of my friends, Sean Sims, shout out to Sean.

And Sean had done a movie, low-budget movie. By the way, Sean is the doppelganger for Barry Bonds. So it's always fun to hang out with Sean and watch people like double. Everyone thinks it's Barry Bonds and Adam Levine hanging out together. There you go. There you go. Smart guy. But he was playing this role where he was like, I don't know, a drug dealer, I think. He's in this shady bar and he's sitting there and he's trying to pull out this wad of cash, just a big fat roll of cash. And it's literally stuck in his pant pocket and he can't get it out.

And he's like, man, I got to get bigger pockets. And I was like, I love that. I love that. And it wasn't until later, you know, I act bigger pockets. When I first created a website with the name Bigger Pockets, Revelation here, I was trying to create a community for actors, for people in the entertainment industry. And it was going to be called Bigger Pockets. And I was, you know, I started and I was like, you know, this sucks.

This is terrible. Nobody wants this. Nobody's going to use this. And then the time, then, you know, it came time to do this real estate thing. that I was doing. And I was like, bigger pockets is perfect for this. It just worked so well. And so I transitioned it from this acting bigger pockets to bigger pockets to real estate community. I had to use the name somehow, some way, and it just worked. Nice. That's funny. I bet you like 99.9% of people listening to this did not know that. They did not. Yeah, that's funny.

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It took time, obviously, to build. I mean, you built, what year did you actually start it? We just had the 10-year anniversary, right? It was the 10-year. So 2004, I was working, I was a teacher. I was making not a lot of money. I was working away, you know, slaving away at a job, working crazy hours and, and, uh, and, and started doing this on the, on the nights and weekends.

You know, it was, let me just kind of create this place, you know, that I can go to. And, you know, nights and weekends, we just put time in, you know, connecting with other people, just kind of building the, the, the kind of the community and interacting with the people who started to show up on the site. You know, apparently the word started to leak out, uh, that there was this place where you can go where you weren't going to get sold at every second on buying these expensive trainings. And so little by little, I mean, it grew and grew and grew and grew. I remember that first guy that I got on, the 10th guy, the 100th guy. I was so excited to have these people.

And, you know, I would keep call, you know, I don't even keep track anymore. I think we're at like 230,000, give or take, somewhere around there. but uh well let me ask you this what why do you think i mean there's been a lot over the years a lot of real estate websites that have tried to do what you've done yet bigger pockets is today i mean hands down the largest most i mean it's it's the it's the site i mean it really is like the you know the walmart of you know of online i wish i was making our walmart yeah you know but you know you are the you are monopoly i guess so to speak so why oh don't use that all right so for the government, this is not on and up. But you know, like you, you run this thing. So what sets you,

what sets bigger pockets apart? Why is it so much bigger and why did it take off the way that it did and get to the level that we are today? Isn't that like famous for question number four? It kind of is, but not quite. I think what's said, and trust me, like over the years, there have been a lot of imitators have come up. A lot of companies have come on and they, you know, very smart marketing ideas. They come. They create exactly. what I've got and they show up on bigger pockets and say, hey, come check out my community. It's just like bigger pockets. Really?

That's how you're going to promote. Like, you know, as I always say, you know, McDonald's doesn't walk into Burger King and put up a placard. It doesn't work. You don't do that. That's what we call not cool. You know, you just don't. But I don't know. I think I've stayed honest and true to myself.

I've stayed honest and true to the initial intent of bigger pockets. I stayed honest and true to our users. I've entrusted them with the ability to be there for each other. I think, you know, this has not been easy. Ten years, you know, I've got a couple grays going on. But, you know, it hasn't been easy. I think people, what people love about bigger pockets is they know that we stand firm for them. And we're not, you know, we're not going to sell out. And listen, not a week goes by and you can

attest to this where one of us on the team here has an idea. I was like, oh, yeah, hey, you know, this would be so cool if we, and then we're like, oh, no, we can't do that. We can, I mean, how often does this happen, Brandon? Every day. We can't do it. Wait, come on, Josh, this would be so good. What do I say? I don't know, make a plan. I'm putting you on the spot. No, I say, No, we can't do that, right? Our people would get, our users would get pissed off and they, they'd, you know, scream and yell and, and leave. There's all, we always says, like, bigger pockets, we could, we could abandon our principles and turn it into a hundred million dollar business and be living on, you know, the beach in Hawaii for the rest of our lives, if we wanted to.

Oh, yeah. And that's, I, I don't know how sustainable. I would. No, no, but you could, you could, ramp that thing up real quick, offer some $50,000 training for everyone, uh, and overnight do it. And I think, I mean, from an outside perspective and then coming in, like, that was what I noticed was set you apart from everyone else. As no one else made that commitment, I feel like, too, I won't sell out our users. So anyway, that's what I've always seen. It's hard. It's hard, Brian. I mean, like, you know, I look at how much money is made in the education space, right?

And I say, we can make the most amazing piece of real estate education for everything and everything. in real estate investing. And we can sell it for a lot of money. I just, I can't sleep with myself. That's awkward. Yeah, that's awkward. I can't live with myself if I do that, right? I mean, it's just something that I can't, I can't do.

And so there's alternatives, right? I mean, we've written our ultimate beginner's guide. It's a free, amazing guide. I mean, we write, if you take all the content in bigger, There is no book. There is no course. There is no boot camp that comes even remotely close to the compound knowledge that is bigger pockets. There is nothing.

There is nothing on planet Earth that comes even close to it. And so, you know, we have to make money, right? I mean, absolutely to have a business, to be able to continue to do this and build this business to help serve the investors of this country and around the world. because we have visitors in almost every single country in the world every single month. It's unbelievable. We have to make money. And there's one core philosophy that we have on doing that. And are we going to go and build this education and sell it?

And the answer is always no. No. No, no, no. Now, we did, listen, some people are going to say, you guys are hypocrites. You've got a book. You sell education. I guess we're hypocrites. We do sell education.

But we sell education at a rate that's extremely affordable. You know, I see very different purchasing a book than purchasing a $997 course, a boot camp for thousands of dollars, you know, a one-on-one for $25,000, $75,000, whatever the hell they're charging today. I see selling a book for, you know, $20, $25,000 is very, very different. And the other, I was going to say everything in the, like, that's the way I guess I tell people, like everything in the book, Jay Scott will say the same thing as I'll say

is every single salt to a thing in our books is free on bigger pockets. You're paying for convenience not for... There's no secrets. You're not getting anything that's, you know, life-shattering, but it's organized in a way that kind of makes sense. And, you know, I think having

credible books that are well-written on a topic is a great way to go. I do not see any distinction between that and I'm providing tons of value to people. Well, I want to ask you one more question on those lines then. So a lot of people, I guess this is a criticism that Bigger Pockets gets a lot.

I'm going to say the number one criticism we get is that we're too aggressive against promotion or against we're too hard on the gurus, on the trainings, on the courses. I mean, I get that a lot from people that, especially from, you know, it's usually the ones that have courses and trainings that say that. But I want to know, kind of like for people listening to this, why are you so aggressive against self-promot? and against the boot camps and the guys that are, I mean, aren't they just like any industry you can pay for a consultant? How is that any different from that? I mean, what are your thoughts on that? So I think my issues really stem from the fact that I believe overall that the gurus take advantage of people who are vulnerable. Yep.

take if you took an investor like yourself okay you've been doing this for what eight years nine years 10 years yeah eight years yeah eight years I think you've been doing for eight years you're savvy you kind of know what you're doing thank you the most part yes and I asked questions like you did earlier but that's okay we all have them a guy like you I would have very little issue with you going and spending $25,000 on a a one-on-one mentorship. I really would because I think you're at the point where you know the basics, you know if somebody's pulling the wool over your eyes. You've got the fundamental knowledge to be able to evaluate the value that you may or may not be getting. When I see the ads on TV and on the

internet and on the radio and I see, you know, hey, you know, so-and-so is coming to town and, you know, come check out this free thing that, you know, they're offering. It's, almost like rioting. There's a sense of hype that happens, right? I mean, people do things out of character when they're in groups. And so when you go into some free seminar with 500, 300, whatever people that you paid for nothing for, you know, there's a lot of hype and energy. And these guys are master marketers who know how to manipulate the psyche of an individual.

you suddenly go out and do things that you may not normally do if you weren't under those conditions. Okay. And not only do you go and sign up for that $997 boot camp from the free boot camp, because that was the whole purpose of the free boot camp was to get you to the $997 boot camp. The $997 boot camp was the whole purpose was really just to get you to the $5,000. And ultimately the 5K was intended to get you to the 10, the 25 or the 50 or whatever it is today. And you know what? People fall into it. And it's a funnel. We use the word funnel all the time in our work. And it's, you know, a word that, you know, you send your yellow letters out. You're going to send a thousand. You know that 2% are going to do this and X percent are going to do that. It's the same thing. But I think it's the, I really do believe that the intent is to take advantage of people who don't know any better. I really, it's just that's what I believe. And I've seen it because in the years that I've been doing what I've been doing what I've, I do, I get email after email after email from people who say, oh, Josh, I wish Bigger Pockets

was around a year and a half ago, 10 years ago, 12, whatever it was, right? Because I wouldn't have signed up for that thing because, you know what, I didn't need to spend $25,000 to do. I didn't get much. I got a couple of nuggets out of it. It wasn't worth the money I spent. What I get out of talking to other investors on Bigger Pockets is just a is more valuable.

You know, I could ask any question. I don't have to, you know, hey, you're going to get so-and-so on the phone, but you actually get their underling who has never done a deal themselves, whatever it is, right? You know, that to me, it just kills me. It really kills me. It feels like people are being taken advantage of. It feels like the way the marketing is done is designed to take advantage of people. And frankly, I don't like taking advantage of people.

I think it's bad form. I think it's a practice that should be stopped. I don't care whether it's in the real estate investing industry, the commodities trading industry, the stock industry, financial services industry. This happens across a lot of industries. And so for me, it's just, it's kind of my thing. You know, I just, I think there's other ways to go. Now, again, is there a place for these folks? I think there is.

I think there are people, some people don't want to troll around a forum to get information. Some people don't want to do the. Some people want to get information. They want to spend money. A lot of people feel good if they spend money on education. They think, hey, if I spend money, it's money well spent. Which is fine. And it is true in many cases, but in a lot of cases, it's not.

And so, but if that works for you, if that's how you learn and you're okay knowing that you're not guaranteed to be rich after taking a course. You're not guaranteed to be successful after taking something, then go ahead and take it. Go ahead and take it. And there's other models. There's models where folks will say, hey, I'm going to take a piece of your deal, each deal you do going forward. And that's something I did that when I started as an agent. I had an agent who mentored me and he got half of my first two deals.

And I was perfectly content with that because he taught me the business. Right. But there are some folks who take it even further. and they say, hey, you pay me a piece of the deal until I've made a million dollars. Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah. That's crazy. So there's, you know, I just, I don't know, I fundamentally have an issue of people taking advantage of other people.

And I think much of that industry is designed to take advantage of people. And that's why we do what we do. You know, bigger pockets is kind of a place you can go and you don't have to spend a dime. You don't have to buy our books. You don't have to do anything. And you could ask anything and everything and learn anything you want to learn. that you can learn from any training boot camp or whatever else on bigger pockets and it won't cost you a dime.

Yeah, I think that's great. One of my last questions before we hear over to the fire round, I want to know, like, I guess what is your biggest suggestion for people who are listening to the show about getting involved growing through bigger pockets? I mean, where should people turn to? It's a big site. What should people do that are listening that aren't currently involved? They should ask my wife.

I don't know. She's the boss. She is the boss. She is. No, and by the way, we wouldn't be here if she weren't there to support me. You know, when I first started BP, you know, the first couple of years I was teaching, I actually quit my teaching job. And the first couple of years of working on bigger pockets full time, I was not making any money.

I was, and so we, you know, she supported us both. And so, you know, to Julie, if you're listening, I know you put up with me enough. I'm sure you're not. But, you know, thank you. I mean, really, definitely wouldn't be here without the support of Julie. So, but, you know, to tips and to using the site, I think the key to bigger pockets and to those who are successful in bigger pockets is being authentic. You know, it really, and it's a word that's, I think. played out in a lot of ways in the social space for people who kind of are studies of social media.

But it's true. If you join, well, first off, I mean, the biggest problem is, you know, I love these, these emails. Hey, I join your site. It sucks. I, you know, close my account. You know, angry people. Okay. What sucks?

Well, I joined the site. Nothing happened. Oh, nothing happened. Well, my friend, magic is not going to happen. You need to make moves. This is a tool. Bigger Pocket is a tool to help you better your business and better your knowledge. And we could only, you know, there is nothing that will make you a successful investor.

There is no tool. There's no solution that's going to put deals in your pocket. There is nothing. I want to build something that does it. It doesn't exist. There's nothing like that. You have to do the work. You have to do the work. And whether it's learning the basics, learning the fundamentals of how to evaluate properties, looking at properties, looking at deals, networking with people, you know, whether you've been doing this for 10 years and you need cash, cash doesn't fall in your pocket. You have to get out there and work to get the cash. Deals don't fall in. in your pocket. You have to get there and work the deals. No matter what you do, you have to work. You have to hustle. That's one of the things that I took away from my family and I took away when I was in the entertainment business from my friend Al, shout out to Al Thompson, who really is the guy who kind of taught me grind, the hustle, the grind, work your butt off. Hustle, hustle, hustle,

you know how you beat the other guy. You work harder. You work harder. You work smarter. You put systems in, but you got to work. And so to answer your question on how do you be successful in bigger pockets, well, don't just create a profile and say, oh, I'm going to be successful. That's nonsense. And anybody who has done that and has a profile, if you don't get out there after listening to this and actually do something with that profile, connect with people, engage, participate, you might as well close your profile. And I know, and this is maybe this is why people like bigger pockets because I'm not afraid to say that. Like there is no point in you having a profile in our community if you are not going to do anything with it. Yeah. You have to engage. You have to be active. You have to talk to people. And once you do, then you have to take it to the real world. Connect with them on Skype. Connect with them on Google Hangouts. You know, if they're locals, sit down for coffee. If they're not, you know, connect remotely. But you can't just expect. to profile, I get you anywhere. So what's my tip? Connect. You know, if you're an expert in

hard money, go on our forum, set up a keyword for hard money. And every time somebody's talking about hard money, you talk about hard money lender, right? You help people up. People see that you're being, adding value. They see that you're involved in the community and they're going to say, oh, you know what, that guy's vested. Let me work with that guy, you know, versus the other guy who may spend money on advertising, promotion, whatever, but isn't willing to put in the work. I personally, I'm going to work with the guy who I know is involved, who I know, who I see, is given, you know, Brandon Turner and Jay Scott a hard time. Well, that guy's, you know, hey, he gets it. Okay, let me, let me, let me work with that guy. Or whether you're, you know,

a new investor. And you say, well, I have nothing to add. I have nothing to say, right? That's what you guys all think. You guys are all saying it. I know it. Well, you do. You know, you know, something, you know your area, and frankly, you have opinions and things like that. I'm not just saying go and give BS advice and opinions on matters that you'd have no right to say things about. But, you know, maybe go to our new member introductions and greet new people in your area as they join the site. Yeah. You're a face that they see. They start to talk to you. They get to know you. And they may also be in a similar situation or they may be able to help you. But if you don't open your mouth and say something, aka type something, you guys would, never forge that bond. So bottom line is stop hiding, get out there, communicate, connect, interact, you know, like read comment, you know, leave a comment. If you read an article that you thought was awesome, leave a comment. I've done that in areas of internet business building where, you know, my policy is I'm going to try and leave a comment or remark or share something that I find valuable anytime I come across something. So if I find an article that I read and I like,

I'm either going to share it on Facebook, Twitter, Gplus, LinkedIn, whatever, or I'm going to leave a comment to the guy who spent the time to write that. And here's what that does. That guy now sees me as somebody who's sharing their content or sees me as somebody who's willing to engage with them. And we've now established a first bond of a relationship. It happens again. Suddenly, we've got more. Now all of a sudden I can reach out and say, hey, Bill, you know, you wrote a really great article back in the day and you wrote this. I'd love to chat with you a little bit more about so-and-so.

Bill says, oh, cool, yeah, I remember your comment. That was great. You know, cool. Now you guys are connected. Now you guys are talking about deals or whatever the heck it is you talk about and you make things happen. That is the beauty of bigger pockets. That is how to do it.

You just get out there and talk to people. Nice. That was like 12 tips. Whatever. You know, once I get started, I can stop. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm a very difficult interview subject. I just don't shut up.

That's a good one tip. That's a good one. Best tip. I like it. All right. All right. We're moving on to our world famous. It's time for the fire round.

All right, the fire round. These questions are coming from the forums. And to be 100% honest, I didn't even look ahead of time. I'm just going to pick some because I know you know, you're the expert in everything. So here we go. Number one. Pass. You can't pass.

All right. I declined to answer that question on grounds that can criminal. Yeah, yeah, you were. You're going to plead the fifth on that? All right. Let's see. What's the best approach to find a good market to invest in? Look in your backyard. Oh, all right. That was quicker than I expected. You wanted to fire around, man. You fire questions at me. I fire answers back at you. No, I mean, look in your backyard. There is no, we've talked about this a million times. There is not a single market in the United States where maybe Hawaii. I don't, I'd, I'd, I'd have to study Hawaii, but there is no market in the U.S. It is my understanding and belief that within a

two-hour drive, you cannot find reasonable deals, whether you're in San Francisco, Chicago, New York City, Boston, you name it. Within two hours drive of Miami, any major city, there's deals. So look out, look in that radius around your home and start looking. and start to get to know those areas because I think the best place for a new investor to invest is in a place that they know. Okay. I like it. All right. This question comes from John Horner here on the forum. So, oh, a plug for John Horner. Yeah. Well, I thought. Wasn't that like a, wasn't that like a nursery rhyme, little John Horner or something? I don't know. I don't think that's a thing. All right. So here's the thing. He's asking, so I switch property management

companies to a new company on his property. The current rent is $8.50. The new property manager thinks he can get an extra $200 a month out of rent. Should he get rid of the tenant, like, you know, raise their rent with them possibly leaving at that point or just live with the lower price and not have to rock the boat? I think that's kind of the gist. Gist. Jish was what my brother used to call me when I was a kid. Nice. I don't know. That's a weird nickname. Yeah, it was kind of weird. So you keep them or rock or rock the boat and potentially lose them? You know, I mean, I think there's a lot of depends in there. And I'm not talking the undergarments.

How's your pair going by the way? Thanks. I'm holding up well. You've gotten past that whole problem? Not yet. Okay, good. Wow. The, you know, if you're in an area where finding a renter is difficult, is it smart to

kick out somebody who's potentially been stable and been with you a long time, I think that's potentially a dangerous proposition. If on the other hand, you're in an area where, you know, finding somebody to fill a vacancy is easy. If the market is saying that the increased rent is definitely attainable, you know, and you can tell that by looking at what other people are renting, how fast the properties are renting out, you know, might be worth something worth considering. But I mean, I think I prefer the incremental approach, you know, which which is kind of somewhere in between, which is, you know, start raising the rent on, on those tenants. And you'll eventually find that point where you've gone too high. And so, you know, I think just be smart,

look at your situation. And obviously, you also want to look at local rent laws. And, you know, if you're in rent control, don't do that. Yeah. Don't do that. We don't get into that mess. All right, a couple of questions actually about Bigger Pockets forums, just because I went to that forum about Bigger Pockets questions. So first one, Barry asked this, where in Bigger Pockets do I post investors to partner or provide funding for building homes? Like, where do I post about investors or partners on the site? Gotcha. So we have a marketplace, BiggerPockets.com slash Marketplace, and there's a link in our nav. And that's where you would post any kind of ads or solicitations at all on the site.

know, the key is, you know, what I found about online communities is this. I don't want to go to a community and ask a question, like, hey, can somebody explain to me how a VA loan works, you know, and get people who say, hey, you know, VA loans. Yeah, I could help you get a VA loan. Hey, jackass, I didn't ask you to get me a VA loan. I asked you how a VA loan works. Yep. right? So the vast amount of communities online, regardless of topic and, you know, primarily in real estate.

I mean, this happens in every, every real estate community I've seen. You go, you ask your question, and you get somebody beating you on the head. And you asked me earlier about why I'm so hard on people promoting and, you know, selling. You asked me that, you know, half hour ago before I started bloviating about whatever the hell I was talking about. But the answer is, I want the answer to the question that I asked. So give me that answer. And if you answer that question and add value, like I said before, people may say, oh, you know, this guy, Bill Johnson, hopefully that's a fake name, is really, really savvy at VA loans. And if I decide, I want to reach out to you and ask you more or ask you if you can help me get one, I'll do that. But it's not your business to come into my

world, my question, and start pimping yourself out. So we are really, really hardcore about enforcing the no solicitation rule on the forums and across the site. We will throw people off the site without blinking an eye, no matter who they are, what they've done, how long they've been on the site if they break that. That to me is a line you cannot cross. So the marketplace, you go to the marketplace, biggerpockets.com slash marketplace. You can post your ads, your solicitations. I'm looking for this. I need this. I've got that. Check out my this website or whatever real estate related, of course. And to post it there, and to post there, you do need a paid account. You need a pro account or a plus account. And those accounts cost nine bucks a month for the plus and

$29 a month for the pro or you can buy an annual package and, you know, market whatever you've got to market. And frankly, if you have things to market or you you're looking for things and you're not using the marketplace, let me go back to what I was saying before. You're not using bigger pockets. You're missing out. I've got this opportunity. Why aren't you telling people about it? Because it costs you $9 a month. Yes, we do have to make money, absolutely at bigger pockets. But if you're not willing to spend nine bucks to post an ad on a deal, you probably shouldn't be in this business. So the marketplace is, you know, let's let's Let's give a couple examples.

Renan, you've got a triplex in the past that you're promoting, right? Well, advertise the triplex. Or, hey, you found a great deal, but you need a partner to come on. Well, that's a great place to post it. Or, hey, I'm looking for this. I need that. I've, you know, whatever it is, whatever your need or want is. And by the way, every single person listening to this show and every single person on bigger

pockets has a need and a want. if you're not posting those in the marketplace, nobody's going to know what they are. So get out there and post it, and that's where you do it. Nice. All right, last question. And just because you mentioned that,

so a guy named Tom S said, question about pro accounts. Can anyone tell me the difference between pro and plus and why should I upgrade to pro? So I'm going to give you like 30 seconds, Josh. Done. Wow, good job. Yeah, you know what's amazing?

One of the, you know, we've got a lot of members we survey them and we ask them, hey, what do they love about bigger pockets? And, you know, we have people who sign up for our calculators. We have got, you know, these fantastic calculator. We've got a flipping calculator, a buying hole calculator. And we are actually, finally, actually blame Brandon, not me, launching at some point in the coming month or so, a wholesaling calculator. So we've got a suite of calculators. You get full unlimited use of the calculators. You can print out these amazing reports, which you should give. You could give to your lenders or bankers whenever you're looking for cash. So the calculators, you can find members. We have, anyone can use our search, but we have more enhanced search that paid users can get. You can look for people in certain zip codes who meet certain criteria. And a pro membership can get you that enhanced signature.

If you're looking to build your brand, your company, you know, you can put your company's logo at the bottom of all your posts. And so as you answer questions and help people out, they could see your brand, get to know who you are, what your company is and say, oh, okay, that's becoming familiar. Let me work with those guys. You can add a video to your profile where you can tell people who you are, that authenticity that we talked about. Like, hey, my name is Josh, and I've been investing for X long and I do this and I've done this and this and this. And here's my track record. put that on video, right? I love this function.

This is probably one of my favorite. To date, I think, the more underused, which is sad because if I'm thinking about working with you, Brandon, as an investor, and I go to your profile, all I see is words and a picture. And I can go and I can see what advice you've given on the forums or what you've written in an article form. But until I stop and I see who you are, look at your face on film talking to me. I can't connect to you. Yep.

And that extra connection that you get from being able to embed your video is phenomenal. Yeah, there's a whole slew of tools. You can find at biggerpockets.com slash pro. It'll give you the full rundown of pro versus plus. And above and beyond all, I mean, if you love bigger pockets and you're passionate about bigger pockets and we're helping you, you know, build your business, be successful, it's another way of giving back to. We get emails from people all the time.

Hey, I join pro. You know, I've got, you know, I do all my spreadsheets in Excel. I don't need your calculator. I've got alternatives for all these other things. But I love what you guys do. But, and I just wanted to give back. And they get pro accounts. And those guys, I'm, I'm kind of, I'm honored.

It's weird. It's a weird feeling I have, you know, that people almost see us like a NPR. Yeah. You know, like the service that, that, you know, they want to give back to. And we are a for-profit business. We are absolutely a for-profit business. But, you know, first and foremost, to be profitable, we are trying to provide value

and service and maintain a community in a world where you can feel safe and feel like you're not going to get beat up. Now, people may beach up if you ask, you know, a question and say, hey, everybody, I've got deal in all 50 states. Yeah, deals in all 50 states. Or, hey, you know, I mean, man, what are some of the crazy, crazy ones that we see? I get a lot of people who are just like, I don't know, ask, you say there's no stupid questions, which I agree completely. But I wouldn't recommend jumping on and saying something like, I don't know, how do I get started and invest in real estate? Right. Like, that's not a, it's not a stupid question, but it's a question that you should put the work in to find the answer to because we've done that. it's been asked a thousand times. And frankly, you should go check out our ultimate beginner guide, Alton Beginers Guide, BiggerPockets.com slash UBG,

which can help you with all that stuff, right? But, uh, cool. Yeah, I don't know. I hope people are interested. I mean, I hope this is helpful. I know this was not my decision, by the way. I will tell you anyone listening. The reason I am the guest on the show today is because Brandon forced me to.

He told me he was going to quit. Well, if I did not do this. That's funny. All right. We're moving on. We're moving on to the last. Actually, I actually have two more questions for you. Where do you see bigger pockets headed, first of all?

And where do you see your own personal investing headed? Fair enough. Bigger pockets, not a day goes by where we don't sit around with the team here and elsewhere, you know, our remote folk like brand on. And ask, how can we better serve? investors. What can we do to make the lives of real estate investors better? You know, can we improve the platform? Can we build tools that can help investors out? Can we, you know, provide more information? Can we change the format of our podcast? Can we create more

free guides? You know, what can we do to help people out? So going forward, we want to keep going. We want to keep building tools to help you with your business. We want you guys to continue to look to us. Bigger Pockets is a place, a credible, trusted source that we're here to stand behind you and support you and be there to assist you through the good and bad. Because we all have good, but we all have bad too. And when that happens, it could be a lonely place. And I think that's one of the greatest things about a community like ours is we all

hopefully get to pat each other on the back and kind of hold each other's hands when things aren't going so well. So keep going, keep fighting the fight, keep trying to stand up for people who need to be stood up for. You know, I think something that we don't talk about a lot is I do want to transform real estate. I think really, I think really, estate investors get a black eye. I know a lot of people are shy when they, you know, when the time comes like, hey, I don't want to tell my friends. I don't want to, you know, they're just going to call me slumlords. They're just going to, you know, give me grief about doing all this stuff until I prove that I'm successful. And then they're going to be like, oh my God, how did you do that? Which is exactly

how it goes, right? Hey, I want to be a real estate investor. Oh, dude, really? Yeah, I don't know. You're going to be a slum lord, huh? Funny, funny, you know, I bet you everybody who's active as an investor has gone through that. And it's nonsense. There are bad people out there. Absolutely. There are gurus that make bad names for people who are legitimately teaching other people. Local, local coaches, local mentors, things like that.

I mean, there are landlords who are doing bad by their tenants that aren't taking care of things that are just treating them poorly. there are flippers who are, you know, slapping lipstick on a pig, right? There's wholesalers who are doing bad things. I mean, there's, you know, commercial guys who do bad things. But I think those people as a whole represent a small percentage of our industry. The real estate investing industry has a lot of really, really amazing people. And the vast, vast majority of us are just trying to build a business so we can get somewhere, you know, to support our family.

to get to retirement, whatever the purpose is. You know, we're not trying to do bad. We're trying to do a good thing. And so, you know, I try my best to speak out on that and, you know, try to let the press know, and do my part to give examples to them of, you know, the good stories because it's so easy to go in the newspapers and, oh, this landlord plow down their tenants, this and that. Or this guy did that.

You know, those stories are fun, you know, but, you know, for the press. But they give us a black eye. and we don't need it. And I think we need to all stand together as real estate investors and say, we're not going to take it anymore. And, you know, if you see an article like that, write your local press and say, hey, guys, what about this guy, you know, who's, you know, flip 15 houses, put millions of dollars back into the town and giving people a good place to live? What about that guy? Let's talk about him. Because he's the guy that matters. He's the guy who's helping us get out of the recession. He's the guy who's helping our economy, he's the guy who's helping to build, you know, this country into the

country that it is. Yeah. Because without him, we'd all be living in, you know, slummy slums. Podunk. Or potunk. So that's on bigger pockets. Me personally, man, I don't go a show without being inspired. And I'm not inspired by me. I sure as hell I am inspired by you. But like the folks we bring on, and whether it's somebody who just did their first deal or their 50th, I don't know. I mean, I think I'm really interested in notes. The idea of buying notes and not dealing with tenants, toilets, and what's the other one? I don't know.

I don't know. Termites. Yeah, sure. But, you know, I like that concept for me personally. I, you know, I would like to own some more rentals, probably on higher-end properties that would hopefully require less headaches going forward.

But, you know, I know myself and I know that if I am trying to build bigger pockets, I don't have the attention span to go full gung-ho on building some real estate empire at the same time. I can't do it. It's not me.

Some people can. I cannot do it. Because I care about what I do And I'm not saying people who are doing that don't, but I just can't focus on two things. It's who I am. So, you know, I right now I'm, you know, I'm plotting. I'm planning. And, you know, I think I'm probably going to get into the note space and potentially commercial, smaller commercial in the years to come. But, you know, very methodically.

Nice. Cool. All right. Now, I believe it is time. for our world famous. Famous for. These are the questions, Josh, that we ask everyone. I know you've never listened to our show before, so these are going to be new on you. I'm not prepared.

You're not prepared. So number one. My favorite game is Candy Land. What is your favorite real estate related book? If I were Brandon Turner, I would say, well, not to plug myself, but my favorite real estate book is the book on no money. Which is a good book right there. I think... I'll plug anywhere.

I know you will. You're shameless. I think the book that impacted me the most was the richest man in Babylon. Nice. You know, it's a parable. It's an easy read, but it's, you know, you can just,

you can see the value of of being smart with your money. And so, you know, is it a real estate book? I don't know. But yeah, it's a real estate book. It is. Because I say so. Yeah, I mean.

Because I say so. And you are Josh Dorkin. I am no one. I love that book too. And I need to reread. I haven't read it about a year at least. So that's one of those books I want to reread, just like, you know, rich dead, poor dead or the others.

I want to read them every year. They inspire me and they keep me remembering why I do what I do. So anyway, great. All right. How about business book? I think only because it's fresh, but it was a really good book. It's literally sitting next to me here. Rework from Jason Freed and David,

Henmeyer Hansen. It's about kind of building a company and how to do it. And it's fascinating. Actually, you know, it's cool. I got a I had somebody who, and I forget her name, I'm mad at myself, but she had sent me a private message saying, hey, Josh, the ultimate beginner's guide is so valuable as a book. I just want to thank you for it. So she asked me for my address, and she sent me this. It's called.

the CEO code. I haven't read it yet. But how to create a great company and inspire people to greatness with practical advice from an experience executive. Man, people don't send me books. Yeah. There you go. Okay.

Anyway, well, I got in the mail, like a couple days later, this package, and I was like, what is this? And it was bubble wrapped, and it was like, I'm like, I hope this is not like somebody with some bad anthrax or something. I was freaking out. And I unbundle it. And it was this pin.

So trust me, I'm a CEO. And I think it was the same person. It didn't have a return address or anything. I thought it was kind of cool. But yeah, I mean, I like to read books that are about improving our business, improving what we do and how we provide a service and better that. And so anything along those lines is definitely helpful. And to those people listening,

let me just say this. For about 20 episodes, I got a lot of grief about a book at the four-hour work week. Well, me, a cul-a folks. It's a good book. I have some issue with the book. I don't like the idea of shirking on your responsibilities and kind of giving it to somebody else to do your own work while you're out vacationing. I don't like that concept. I think that's a bad concept.

But like, you know, thinking about how to build the lifestyle business, that is, that's why a lot of people come on bigger pockets. That's why a lot of people get into real estate. And so I did finish the book a while ago. And I think it's good. And I walked away with a lot of stuff. In fact, I was talking with my wife about it the other day because I watched a movie called The Secret Life of Walter Middy. Have you seen that? I haven't.

It's a movie with Ben Stiller and he's this guy who works for Life magazine and he's daydreaming all the time about like, just himself doing all this cool macho stuff. And he finds himself in the situation where he's actually doing these adventurous things. And he's jumping from a helicopter into shark-infested waters. And I'm like, man, this is for our work week right here. This is like finding a way to kind of find what you love. And one of the things I love is experience. I'm not a big guy on buying stuff.

I don't need the junk. I don't need stuff. I'd rather my kids have experiences than toys. I'd rather, I, you know, I look back at my life and I, what do I remember? I don't remember the toys, the Chotchkes. I remember the things that I've done. So that's why I think I like that book. It kind of challenges you to find a way to live today, not when you're 65, when you may not be able to anymore. Yep. I agree wholeheartedly. Exactly the same thing. It's about living today. Why wait to you're 65 and too old to enjoy life, to enjoy life? So I think that's great. And I know I'm, I know

I'm going to try harder to do that for myself. I think it's important for me and my family, and I hope everyone else listening does the same, because life is short. And I've had a bunch of family tragedy in the past couple of weeks. And anytime that happens, it always gets me, you know, thinking about these things. And I kick myself sometimes for, you know, working too hard or whatever,

which we all know I'm a ridiculous workaholic. That you are. Well, speaking of that, what do you do when you're not working? What are your hobbies? I have three amazing little girls. And my hobbies have kind of been put to the wayside. I mean, I think, you know, for too long bigger pockets was my hobby and my job and my life. And I'm finding a way to dig myself out of it.

But, you know, once I started having kids, I mean, they became my life. And anyone who knows me knows that, you know, everybody thinks work is number one for me, but that's not even close to true. I mean, my family is by far number one. I will, I can testify. We'll be having like this really good conversation, but here's this amazing new thing we should be building and all of a sudden the phone rings, sorry guys, got to go. It's my wife or it's my kids. And it's always instant. And I respect you for that. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. So I mean, my family, what do I, what do I like doing? I love skiing. I love, love, love, love, love skiing. I need to do more of it. I got to get out and go hit this.

somewhere. I always find it a pain to go get the pass. And it's just a headache. But I got to just do it. I want to ski South America. I want to ski Europe. I want to do more skiing. I love windsurfing. Travel. Love, love, love, love traveling. I've been to South America. I've been to Asia. Haven't been to Europe since I was a kid. I haven't seen much of it, most of America. But I want to do more. You know, just being outside. I don't know, man. I get it's, I'm at that point in my life. where right now, I really do. No BS. I get so much joy watching my kids. In fact, this weekend, just yesterday, my middle daughter rode a bike with no training wheels for the first time. I got her riding with no training wheels. And to me, like, I'm as excited, as ecstatic, as proud of that than, you

know, skiing the hardest slope that I've ever skied. It just, it brings me joy. And so I, you know, my family or my hobby. And they're my, you know, it's, what I live for. Nice. I like it. Yeah. All right. Next question.

What do you believe in all your experience, like with hundreds of thousands of investors, millions of them coming through bigger pockets? What do you see sets apart successful ones from those who either give up, fail, or never get started? I don't know if the listeners have noticed, but I don't actually ask this question. We always have Brandon ask it. There's a couple of reasons. One, it's hard to say.

It is hard to say. It's actually difficult to say. I'm going to sit here and ponder and maybe Brandon could fill the air with his rendition of something. But I think the people over the years that I see who go on to be successful, they're honest. They don't try to take advantage of people. So they're kind of true to themselves. They put in the work. So they put the time in to be a study of real estate.

They're not lazy. so they really, they work hard and they don't let little things stop them. And, you know, there's a little crazy in there too. And a lot of risk taking because, you know, it's hard. You know, think about anybody who's been doing this for more than a couple of years. We've all had a bad situation. And being able to walk away from that bad situation and say, say, I'm going to keep at this. I'm going to keep doing this. You know, you need to have,

you got to have some cahones. You got to have some fortitude to kind of stick this thing out and say, oh, well, I just got screwed over by my tenant or this contractor just burned me or, you know, I just lost a bloody fortune because of whatever, whatever, and come back and say, you know what, but I'm going to keep at it because I know that this is a path to success. I can't put in words what that is. There's something. So it's that stick to witness, maybe that kind of they have and a passion and a love for it. And to kind of bring another answer to it, everybody has your own success. And you and I have talked about this a lot, Brandon. What works for so-and-so does not work for you, may not work for you. There is not a single path to success in real estate. There's not one way to go despite what the guru

will tell you. We all have a pathway. We all have our own way of going. And I may just want to have three properties and be done. I don't want to have 50, 100, a thousand. That's okay. You don't, not everybody needs to have that. So figure out, you have to be true to you, be true to what you know, who you are, what you want. And if you stick to that, despite the down times, I think you're going to be successful. That's good. It was deep. I like it. Thank you. Hey, hey, Josh. So where can people find out more about you? Where can they get in touch? All right. Well.

Your cell phone number is what? Yeah. Don't even go there, dude. The, uh, um, it can find me on Bigger Pockets, obviously. Uh, biggerpockets.com slash users slash a bigger P.O. Don't know why that became my user name. Bigger Po.

Bigger Po. I'm the bigger po. Um, I'm on Twitter. Twitter.com slash J.R. Dorkin. Um, uh, Facebook. I probably will not friend you on Facebook unless I know you. It's just one of those things. LinkedIn is the same thing. If I know you,

if we're familiar, I'll connect. But, you know, I keep some of these networks a little closer to heart. Gplus, I'm all out and about. And obviously,

you guys know where to find me on the site. I've got that Tom from MySpace thing when you join the site. You're my friend all of a sudden. I guess I didn't have a lot of friends growing up and thought, you know, maybe this was a way to, to get there. So just join BP and you'll be my my best buddy in the world. Yeah, just connect with me on the site.

You're on the podcast every week. I'm on the podcast every week. And, you know, if you guys have technical questions that you want to ask me, please don't ask me. I get so many. And I know Brandon has the same issue. We actually have a support team now, guys. And you can get in touch with them through the contact form on BiggerPockets at BiggerPockets.com slash contact or you can email support at biggerpockets.com.

If you want to get in touch with me and just say, hey, you know, hit me up anytime on the site. I'm happy to connect. I try to answer everybody. I don't get to it as much anymore, which is hard. I really do like to try and talk to everybody, but I can't. So that's it. Cool. Yeah, man. All right. Well, you want to close this thing out? I think we better close this thing out. So, Josh, thank you. I'm sorry if you listened, by the way, all the way through. Yeah, I think you were trying to go for the longest show ever. Is this the longest show ever? It's close. I think Ben's going to be. you on that digital coffee shop episode but you know we're close we're at a little almost almost two hours

but uh anyway everybody thank you for listening obviously josh and i really really appreciate uh all the support a hundred shows uh i never never thought we'd get here when we started out i don't think we thought we'd get to the show five no i yeah we had no idea we were we were like listen back to those first no don't listen we were awful we were awful i mean the interviews were good but we were not very good Yeah. So anyway, thank you guys. We appreciate it. Obviously, jump on to bigger pockets. Josh said it 100 times today. People who succeed there are ones who get active and involved and take a approach that they're going to make themselves successful, not rely on some magic. So jump in, greet some new members. If you haven't done a new member introduction, do one today. And then of course, follow us on Facebook, Twitter Gplus and the usual. I'm engaged with us. You know what? I'm going to add in. I don't. I don't say this, but like, share. Like share, if you think bigger pockets is awesome, I know I do, and I share it all the time.

And I may annoy my friends a little bit, but, you know, they get, they get offered. Share what we have. Like, if you find a cool thread, like, share it on Facebook. Your friends may say, oh, my God, you know what? I didn't want to tell him that I was investing in real estate, but this is so cool. You know, if you read an article, share it on Twitter, share it on Facebook, share it where you are. A, it helps us. If you love bigger pockets, sharing our stuff will help us, and it'll help you. Here's how. The more people we have on bigger pockets, the more potential partners you have on bigger pockets. The more people are connecting, engaging, the better, the faster you're going to get answers. So as we grow, we all grow together. So help us grow by sharing, telling people about us and getting the word out. That's it. Cool. So close it up, man. Do it. I'm doing it. I'm doing it. All right. Bigger pockets of that. This is show 100.

You can check out the show notes at biggerpockets.com slash show 100. That's all we got, guys. Thank you very much. This is Brandon, signing off. You're listening to Bigger Pockets Radio, simplifying real estate for investors large and small. If you're here looking to learn about real estate investing, without all the hype, you're in the right place.

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