BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 122: 5 Myths Holding Investors Back From Real Estate Greatness with Chris Clothier

Episode Date: May 14, 2015

On this episode of the BiggerPockets Podcast, we’re talking about myths. No, not about Sasquatch, elves, or the abominable snowman. We’re talking about real estate myths that might be holding YOU back from greatness! We’re excited to bring back Chris Clothier, a seasoned investor and business owner who shares stories from his own experiences to help you achieve new levels of success. Don’t miss one second of this incredibly powerful and actionable podcast! In This Episode We Cover: Who is Chris Clothier? What got him into real estate? Getting to the top 50 Home Buyers Five Real Estate Investment Myths Myth 1: Don’t work with family Myth 2: Past performance is a reliable predictor for future investments Myth 3: Investing in real estate is a big time sink Myth 4: You should only invest locally Myth 5: You should avoid risk at all cost Five specific scenarios that are risky and how Chris would handle them Learn an amazing tip when closing a deal! How not to get ripped off by a property management company And SO much more! Links from the Show BP Podcast 026: Building a Scalable Real Estate Business and Tenant Management Tips with Chris Clothier RealtyTrac BP Podcast 005: Dealing with Death – A Financial Discussion with CFP Neal Frankle 20 Questions To Ask Before Hiring Rental Property Management How To Train A Property Management Company BiggerPockets Webinar BiggerPockets Forums BiggerPockets Marketplace Books Mentioned in this Show Make It BIG!: 49 Secrets for Building a Life of Extreme Success by Frank E. McKinney Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It…and Why the Rest Don’t (Rockefeller Habits 2.0) by Verne Harnish Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action by Simon Sinek Tweetable Topics: “You don’t have a job for everyone.” (Tweet This!) “In any partnership there should be clear lines, clear boundaries, and clear respect.” (Tweet This!) “A lot of investors look to go out of area first because they don’t understand real estate.” (Tweet This!) “There maybe more risk with a lower cost investment, than higher cost investment.” (Tweet This!) “Our fear of losing money is greater than our desire to earn.” (Tweet This!) “Risk is all about assessing the good and the bad of making the decision or not making the decision.” (Tweet This!) “For investors, risk is not a bad thing.” (Tweet This!) “There is no perfect time.” (Tweet This!) Connect with Chris Chris’ Company Website Chris’ BiggerPockets Profile Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Bigger Pockets podcast, show 122. You are exactly right. It does not take a lot of time to engage. 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 Josh Dorkin. Host to the Bigger Pockets podcast. Looks like Brandon lost his best friend. Oh, there he is. What's up, Brandon? Welcome to the show, man. Thanks. Me and Charlie, just hanging out here.

You know, doing our thing. Is Charlie your imaginary friend? Charlie is my dog. He's a Yorkie and he's the cutest dog on planet Earth. And he likes me to hold him during podcasts. Yeah, that's real interesting, man. Sometimes I hold them like a baby, rock them back and forth. Look at this.

And for those of you who cannot see this, it means you're not watching us on YouTube as well. We're putting our podcast out on YouTube. Not immediately, but they come out a week or two or so later. You've got to see this. It's embarrassing. It's cute. It's cute. No, look at this guy.

Yeah. Anyway, how are things, Brandon? Things are good. Refinance on the apartment complex went through today. Congrats. Thank you. It's a good day. So, yeah, I'm excited.

made another offer on a property like 10 minutes ago. That's great too. Oh, look at you. Getting fancy showing off again. Yeah, there's a quick tip for everyone. Make sure your agent can do digital offers because it sure is nice to not have to leave my room. It took me like a minute and a half to like click a few times. Click sign. Click sign. Of course, branding click, click, click, clicks without reading his contracts. I read every word. I'm just a fast reader, 10,000 words a minute. Well, that's the nice thing too, though, about being like my agent and I are like that, you know, like because Steve's, yeah. Yeah. So he knows exactly. what I want and we do the same offers every time pretty much. So that's great.

There's something about that consistency works well. So anyway, and do read your contracts. Please. Yeah, read them. Yeah, it's important. Yeah. Yeah, it is. Cool. That is not our quick tip today. Our quick tip today. Actually, it's our quick tip. All right. So our quick tip today, I talk about this a little bit in the show today. But so, well, quick tip number one, I should say pro tip number one is post ads in the marketplace when you need things like private lending or if you need a deal or you need a partner. But so I did that actually. I needed a private lending on a deal. So I posted it. And I got a bunch of people to reach out to me and we talked and, you know, built relationships with a bunch of people. But in that process, somebody also reached out to me who was not a very good person. And they were a

scammer. And, you know, there are some, there's some obvious signs I could tell, you know, just the way they phrased things. Maybe, you know, and it was like too good of an offer to be true. So I talked him on the phone anyway and they wanted a, you know, large upfront fee. And then I searched their IP address where they're from and found out they're not from America. And it was just, you know, Nigeria. Yeah, yeah, they were a Nigerian scam. And so, uh, anyway, my, my quick tip today is everyone, just be safe out there. You know, if things sound too good to be true, if, you know, there's red flags, definitely research, dig in. You know, there's nothing wrong with asking a, even a private lender for references. Nothing wrong with that at all. So absolutely. And yeah, I mean, you know, listen, we at the

end of the day, do everything that we can to keep bigger pockets safe. But at the end of the day, you know, we cannot vet all of our users. There's no way it's impossible. Facebook doesn't do it. LinkedIn doesn't do it, you know. I try to go to all their houses and knock on the door, but people come out with their shotguns and get angry and it. There you go.

It's weird. Yeah. There you go. So, you know, just be careful. I mean, with anyone you meet, whether you meet them in person, if you meet them at Aria or if you meet them on bigger pockets or anywhere else, you really want to be very diligent in vetting people. And, you know, it's just a smart thing to do.

And, you know, I wish we were immune. to it. I mean, you know, but at the end of the day, we are not the police. We are not a courtroom. We're not a court of law. We do not have the capacity to do that job for you. So you really must do it yourself. And just be smart. That's all. Ask your friends. Ask other people who you know for recommendations. And definitely be careful. And I, you know, I'm glad Brandon did his vetting. And when we found out that this Nigerian scammer was on the site, they obviously got the boot. So that they did. Cool. They did. They did. Anywho, moving on to today's show.

We have a really cool show today. We've got another repeat guest. We've got Chris Clothier. You know, every time we talk to Chris, whether it's on the podcast or in person or when I, you know, I saw him in person a while back or on the phone, every time I talk to him, I walk away feeling smarter. Because he's one of those guys that just knows how to communicate things so well to help you become a smarter person. And I love that. So that's why we had to have him back.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, Chris spoke at our conference a bunch of years ago. I mean, I've known him for many, many years. And what I like about him is, amongst other things, his mission is to build a thriving business. His mission is not, I'm going to be the best real estate investor on the planet. He's going to build the best real estate investment business on the planet. And those of you who can't tell the distinction, you should listen to the show.

Because, you know, there is something very different about, hey, I'm going to buy 10 rental properties where I'm going to grow. a real estate investment business. It's a mindset. There's a certain way that you think about, a certain professionalism that you're going to put into things when you build a business versus just, hey, I'm going to haphazardly buy a bunch of properties. So this show is pretty cool. And part of the show, primarily the goal here is to talk about these five myths. It's the five myths holding investors back from real estate greatness. And there's just a whole lot of great stuff in here. This show is really for anyone, whether you're just getting started or you've been doing this

for a long time. And we definitely recommend you listen up. Do you ever notice how every passive investment somehow turns into a very active lifestyle, active spreadsheets, active phone calls, active stress? Here's a better question. What if you could buy brand new construction homes, 10% below market value, in the best markets across the country, without making real estate your second job? That's exactly what rent to retirement does. They're a full-service, turnkey investment company, handling everything for you. In some cases, investors get 50 to 75% of their down payment back at closing, plus interest rates as low as 3.75%. They've partnered with BiggerPockets for over a decade, helping thousands invest smarter. If you want to do the same, visit BiggerPockets.com

slash retirement to learn more. For decades, real estate has been a cornerstone of the world's largest portfolios. But it's also historically been sort of complex, time-consuming, and expensive. But imagine if real estate investing was suddenly easy, all the benefits of owning real, tangible assets without the complexity and expense. That's the power of the Funrise Flagship Fund. Now you can invest in a $1.1 billion portfolio of real estate, starting with as little as $10. The portfolio features $4,700 single-family rental homes spread across the booming sunbelt. They also have 3.3 million square feet of highly sought after industrial facilities, thanks to the e-commerce wave. The flagship fund is one of the largest of its kind. It's well diversified, and it's managed by a team of professionals.

And it's now available to you. Visit fundrise.com slash BP Market to explore the fund's full portfolio, check out historical returns, and start investing in just minutes. Carefully consider the investment objectives, risks, charges, and expenses of the Fundrise Flagship fund before investing. This and other information can be found in the fund's prospectus at fundrise.com slash flagship. This is a paid advertisement. If the new year means getting rentals back in order, listings are a good place to start. Avail, part of Realtor.com, makes it simple to list a rental for free and get it in front of millions of renters. One listing, one click, posted across 24 top rental sites.

Avail even helps generate listing titles and descriptions to save time. More visibility means fewer days sitting vacant and getting your property rented quickly. It's a fast, free way to find renters without the usual hassle. Get started at Avail.co. slash bigger pockets. That's A-V-A-I-L-C-O-S-Bigger Pockets. All right, guys, let's get this show started. We're going to bring them in. All right, Chris, welcome back to the Bigger Pockets podcast, man.

It's good to have you here. Thank you, sir. Glad to be here. Glad to be here. That's been a while. When was the last one? Do you remember? It was, I should know that, but it was early.

It was one of the early shows. Something 20-something? 26. That was the show that had like six, six listeners, I think. Yeah, so put the show in order of the fewest listeners, and you'll, you just go to the bottom. Oh, yeah, there it is. There it is. Yeah.

BP Podcast. So go to biggerpockets.com slash show 26. If you want to hear Chris's entire getting started story, that is where you're going to hear it. You're not going to hear that today. Today we're going to talk about some other fun stuff. Cool. Exactly. That was fun.

That was fun. That was fun. That was actually a really good show. I mean, like, joking aside, that was an awesome show. It was all about, like, building your business, not a, you know, I'm buying a house here. I'm going to buy a property there. It was about building a scalable business. It was awesome. So I learned a lot. And that's what I think, you know, Brandon and I talk a lot about you, Chris. And I think, well, not a lot, not like, you know, all the time. You know what Chris would say in this case. When we talk about you, we talk about, you know, like, hey, this is a guy who thinks like a business person. You know, it's not, he's not thinking on a house by house basis. He's thinking on an enterprise level. And I think that's why you've become so successful. That's

why your company is doing so well. And, you know, that's why we got your back is, you know, you're here, you're crushing it. And, you know, I think you got a lot to teach people. And it'll be fun knowing what we're going to talk about today because some of the, some of the things that have made me kind of who I am come from, you know, part of our topic, part of family. I mean, you know, I owe a lot to my dad, my older brother and having worked with them since I was young. I mean, a lot of my successes due to them. So, cool. The way I think and that kind of stuff.

So let's talk about that. today we are going to talk about, I'll kind of introduce the topic of today, a little bit different again, because we've had Chris on the show before. We decided to go kind of with a more topical approach. And the topic today is five real estate myths that are holding investors back from greatness. So we're going to talk about five minutes. And this is kind of a little bit based off of a blog post or two that you've written in the past. I kind of looked at those and I really, really enjoyed it. So I thought, why don't we just, you know, revamp that and talk about it today and find a way to help the listeners. So yeah, it should be fun. Cool. I like it. Yeah. All right.

You want to take the lead on this thing, Brennan? Yeah, well, when we start number one. Myth number one. What is the number one myth? You know, actually, before we get to that, for those people who did not listen to the last show. Yeah, let's do like a brief catch-up fairly quick. Who are you? What do you do?

What's your story? So, yeah, Chris Clothier. I own a, along with my family, have a business called Memphis Invest, which today is one of the top 50 homebuyers in America. And we've got offices in Memphis, Dallas and Houston. For lack of a better way to put it, we're a turnkey company. a turnkey model. We are, all of us are active investors ourselves, just real into the, you know, kind of into building businesses, which is what was so interesting about this particular, you know, kind of endeavor that we went into because we built a lot of different businesses as a family,

but this is the one that we've stuck with the longest because it's, it's just, it's kind of like every, every year that's just something, some new challenge coming out, some new way to grow, some new thing to try and maneuver around, you know, it's not just, it's not just a company anymore. It really has become a growing type of enterprise. So we manage almost 3,000 properties. We'll hit 3,000 in fact, the next month. Yeah, yeah, we've got, like I said, we're in three cities. We've got 1,100 clients that we work with.

And, you know, I guess since we talked last, that's been the biggest thing, the biggest change for us, is that we went to Dallas and Houston and have just been having a blast doing it. Just having a blast seeing what comes next and how do we get around it and keep growing. And you started this. I mean, you didn't start with like a, you know, billion dollars in the bank. I mean, you started this thing from the first house. I remember, I seem to recall, in Denver, you had picked up some property and there was drama. I don't remember

the whole story, but, but, I mean, you know, just like everybody else, you know, you started one house at a time. No, you're exactly right. I had, um, the way I, the way I originally got started in real estate was I had a home for sale and it was in Memphis. I lived in Denver and I was living in a hotel because I had to sell my house in Memphis first and I'd been there for 11 months. And a guy came to me and he wanted my house, but he had a house he had to sell first that was near a university. And so my very first transaction ever was I went to him and said, I'll buy your house near the university because it cost a lot less and I could buy my home in Denver if I did it. So I bought his house near the university. He bought my house. I rented his property out. I bought my

first home in Denver to live in. So that's cool. From then, yeah, that's how I got started. Completely by accident. Didn't, didn't mean to be a real estate investor. Were you involved in real estate before? Because I know your father's kind of like the patriarch or the family, like, you know, the business, right? Was he into this at the time or did you drag him into the business of real estate? That's a great question. Yeah, I don't know this story. You know, it's, and it is, most people find it hard to believe, but all of us got into it independently. Completely, none of us knew that the others were doing it because I owned, I a grocery brokering company. That's the business my father taught me. I owned it in Denver. My father

had a small grocery company in Memphis and my brother had moved down to Florida. My older brother and he had a grocery company in Florida. And independently, all three of us were starting to get into real estate on our own. And so really my dad was the one who did it much bigger and much better than we did. He was before we knew it, he was talking to Rias. He was telling his story. He was buying real estate very creatively, lots of different ways. And then he's the one who was first approached by a FedEx pilot who said, I don't have time to find and renovate and rent a property. Will you do it for me? And that guy was our very first turnkey client. And so that's how he got started. Then he and my brother, myself, we were all talking. We all, you know, always keeping

contact, kind of seeing what's going on with the other. And it just developed. You know, Memphis was a great market for long-term buy and hold. Denver and South Florida at the time were not considered that. They were considered much more fast, you know, flip-type markets. And so we began to send investors to him in Memphis to do the turnkey model. That's how this whole thing started back in 2002, really. It was when we first started doing that. Right on. Awesome, man. So you've grown, you've got this big thing going on. And that's great. And as we talked about, show 26, bigger pockets.com slash show 26. They get the whole story. All right. Let's get to real quick. Sorry, you mentioned you're one of the top, like, 50 homebuyers

in America or whatever. What does that mean? in terms of like, do you mind sharing, like, how many deals are you buying a year now? Well, Realty Track, I spoke at a conference about two months ago, and Realty Track was one of the gentleman that came up to me, and I spoke with them there, and he just mentioned to us that, you know, that we were on their list as one of the top 50 homebuyers in America by volume, and that's by, I think that was by a number of units, because we had closed something a little over 600 houses the year before. Whoa.

And you do that all about yourself, right? Yeah, yeah. No, it's strictly me. I'm a little tired by now, but. Yeah. You look good. You look good for somebody. Yeah.

Two a day. I mean, you know, a lot of closings. You handle it. It's good. Yeah, it's interesting because we never, we didn't know that. We never, there was no reason for us to even care. That's not even something that we really talk about. But in one of those things, it's just, it was interesting because he was looking at us and he was like, I just want you to know.

He's like, all the research and a lot of the data that we did. dude, your name pops up everywhere. You know, you guys are... You're kind of a big deal. Well, that's... And now he talks about it. Did you notice? Yeah.

By the way, just, you know, the first thing I'm going to tell you guys, we're one of the top 50 homebuyers. And, I mean, you know, it's not important. But I'm just listening here because, you know, it's just a little thing. I'm never going to live that down. That's what...

Not on this show, you're not. That's my passive aggressiveness. You know what I mean? That's my, yeah, we don't ever talk about it, except for when I talk about it in passing. You know, it's just, yeah, right. Okay, well, cool. So 600 houses you did last year.

I mean, is that typical or is that just a crazy big year? Well, it's what we grew into. So we're probably going to be closer to 750 this year. Yeah. Man. So it's just part of the close. It's awesome. I'm patting myself.

I gave him the opportunity. I wanted to know because I know, like, your business is so different than mine. You know, I'm still in that buy one house here, one house there. I'm doing two next week. supposedly I talked about that last week, and it's the only time I've ever done two in a single week. So I'm, you know,

I'm growing, right, I guess. So it'll be fun. And it's funny, as you and I were talking before, it's very different for me now. I'm still an active investor,

but I just invest in such a different way than I even used to. I was sharing with Brandon that I just, you know, sometimes I miss getting my hands dirty. Sometimes I miss, you know, going in there and crawling underneath the house and looking at it. I mean,

but I have all that taken care of now, all that's done, you know, the company's grown. But, you know, but we're still an investor. Well, I'm still a real estate investor. I just do it differently than what I used to. Yep. Yeah. Right on. Right on. All right. Let's get, let's try again. Let's get to this show. We've got some good stuff we're going to talk about besides you, Chris. Yeah. I'm going to talk about you talking about other things. And no, I mean, listen, we've got you on here because you're doing a great job. And, you know, I think there's no reason that we don't cover this stuff. So thanks for sharing all that. All right. So today we're doing, again, the truth behind five real estate investment myths.

myth number one, don't work with family. Now, I will tell you, I like this myth. Since I'm bringing it up, I like this myth. I've personally worked with family. It wasn't great. I know other people who've worked with family wasn't great. But it's not a rule, right? I mean, you guys clearly all work really well together.

So let's talk about it. Well, and we haven't always worked really well together. Another part of the story that way he knows, I actually left my father. He and I, I learned a business from him. When I moved to Denver,

I was moving away from his company. I left his company and went to start my own. And that was a big deal at the time. That was one of those things that got, you know, it was just ugly for us for a little while. And my brother has done the same thing.

I think that working with family, it just means that more than ever, more than in any other type of partnership, there have to be clear lines, clear boundaries and clear, just clear respect. And, you know, now I'm, I showed you guys my glasses earlier. I am older. I'm, I turned 43 this year. And. Wow, you're old. Yeah. I said, older. Older. I'm, I, when I was in my 20s, I didn't work well with family. I mean, I thought I knew it all. When I was in my 30s, I was learning it and still didn't work very well. And

now that I'm 43 and I do know it all, I'm, I'm, It's just easier to work together now that I'm older and I've got more respect for where my dad is and where he's come from. How does that feel? I mean, because I stop and I look at our company. I look at our team and I'm the old guy and, you know, I'll be 40 next year. And I'm like, how the hell did I become the old man on the team? I mean, when did that happen? Yeah.

I mean, is it, you know, beyond the kind of immediate working with the family, I mean, just being 43 changes perceptions. it changes how people look at you, talk to you, communicate with you, work with you, deal with you, right? Sure, absolutely. Well, and it changes this is the way that we think, the way that we operate, I guess. That I like to think that I'm a little more thoughtful. I speak a little less and I think a little more than I used to, you know. But it's, you know, I think I've, in some level, some way that you earn respect and as you get a little bit older and you become the old guy on the team, It's pretty interesting when there's a bunch of younger people that are truly looking up to you. Like from a level of respect. It's not just you're the old guy.

It's like, wait a second, you actually know something. Why don't you help me out and teach me something? But that's only happened of the last few years. And I guess you'll get there, Josh. It'll happen. I mean, I've known you for a while and I still don't respect you. Yeah, yeah. It's getting there.

All right, so let's get back to working with family. So, you know, there was this drama up front. And then, you know, as you've kind of got. and older, it's changed. Yeah, and there's, you know, it just depends on what your family dynamic is. You know, for us, at work, it's all work. It's all business. And sometimes there's harsh words to be said.

There's harsh realities when mistakes are made, that kind of thing. But then literally, we walk out of there and we go home. None of our wives understand it. They don't get it because we'll go home to a dinner or something or we'll see each other. We'll go to dinner or go to a basketball game or something. It's like all the yelling from the day is, over. And every once in a while, I'll, you know, I'll bring it home. My younger brother may bring it home. I'm sure my dad does too, where we've done something that really, really irritated the other

bad. But, you know, for the most part, as I said, it just takes that. For us, we have clear levels of who does what. And as long as everybody does what they're supposed to do and everyone else respects it, it's okay. Doesn't mean there won't be, you know, that's what happens with family. There have been, there have been times. It's really funny. We had a girl that she was in our first week with us and she sits out in the front office and we had a real knock down drag out. I mean, throwing stuff across the rooms at each other. I want a video of that. Calculators come whizzing by. And, you know, it's just one of those things where I don't know why, but, you know, we were, we were at it and we were going at it. And it's usually it's me and my father because he and I are

so much alike. My little brother, he says all the time, he says, I just sit back and eat popcorn. He's like, I just let you tell him. I'm just going to eat popcorn. And, you know, but, but when we all set and done, this little girl sat there. I mean, she's probably 22 when we hired her and she was dead silent. She wasn't even looking here. She's just kind of looking around like, what just happened? And a lady that had worked with us from the day one, she went and grabbed her and said, let's go get a cup of coffee and kind of walks around the hall and said, so every once in a while, that happens. Okay, so that's your story. That's how you guys have kind of, you know, that's your interaction. And that's great, right? So except for the calculators knocking you out. But I'm sitting here. I'm a

listener, I'm listening to your story. You say there should be clear rules and expectations. What else do I need? So if I'm going to work with my brother, my cousin, my nephew, my uncle, my dad, whomever it is, what do I need to do to make sure it's going to work? Well, it has to be respect, number one, and you have to have a reason to bring somebody in. I now have nephews and I have an uncle and I have a cousin. So I've got nephews, cousins, and uncles now that work in the company with us. But we had a set role for each of them to come into. And so when they came in, yes, their name is clothier,

but we were very upfront with them about who the owners were and what each role, each of them had to play. And none of them are owners of the company at all. But they all had a very, very set role to play within the company. They had a piece of the business they were supposed to handle and what they're supposed to do. And then the real key to this making it work is that we hold them accountable the way we would any other employee, any other team member.

I mean, it's exactly the same. They do something wrong. They just get hammered like anybody else. And they do something great. They get praised, you know, lifted up. Do you actually use a hammer against them? Every once in a while. Okay.

So, you know, it's just, it's just be real. Be up front. Be very, you know, you don't have a job for everyone. And if you do that and you bring in all your family members because you just want to give somebody something to do, it's never going to work. It has to be, you know, you need something. You be very clear with them on what it is they need to do. And then hold them accountable.

to do it. Well, they also better be qualified, right? Yeah, well, sure, sure. I mean, that's, yeah, I guess that goes without saying. But sometimes people do that, right? I mean, I think people tend to, they tend to work with family. This is true for both, you know, private lending and in terms of working in a team. Like, they hire somebody based on convenience, not based on skills, right? It's like, well, you know, my brother's there. He's available. I like them. I'll work with him. Right. But it's not that he's competent to be able to do that skill. I mean, my brother's confident. I'm, if you're listening, Chris, just kidding. That's what Chris's dad did with Chris. And, you know, I mean, yeah, he's competent, you know, 20 years later, but sure. It's, it is, uh, it's a good word

that I just mentioned. It's not charity. And here's my, you want to say hello? You can say hello. Okay. Hi there. Hello. She's, she does not have black eyes. Those are butterflies around her eyes. She's got a face face. Nice. Look at that. That's great. Speaking of working with family and you're a family man, that's great. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And it's funny that here I am, I'm on vacation, but this is the other part about working with family.

I'm on vacation, but I'm working. And when we go on vacations together as a group, when we go on vacations as individuals, that's what we still do. I mean, I was in our staff meeting this morning and it just never ends. When you're with family, there's a lot of expectation, I guess. Yeah. And I think a lot of that is also. also being the owner of a business.

I mean, when you're the owner of a business, there's really no escape, even if you've got a team that's competent. I mean, you're never really fully away, are you? Are you, Josh? No. As I see Brandon going, nope. Nope.

No, no, no, no, no. Yeah, that's not just family, but that's business in general, yeah. Cool. Last question I have on the family thing is, How do you protect yourself? You know, earlier you said have roles and stuff. But how do you, if I'm going to go in partnership with a family member,

how do I make sure that that doesn't end really, really badly? I mean, is there a form I got to sign with them? Do you have any tips on that? Well, it's a tip on partnerships in general. Now, look, I believe that every partnership is going to end. That's a mentor of mine told me that early on, said all partnerships end. You decide on the front end if it's going to end good or bad. And my father and my brother and myself,

as our business has grown, we've taken time to change the rules on how this will end, if that makes sense. So we know that should we decide to break up and go do something on our own or, God forbid, there's a death in the family, anything along those lines, whatever ends up being an end, we've already decided how that's going to take place. Now, when you're hiring a family member, it's not going to be a partner with you, I think that, again, on the same thing. I think you just have to treat them as if they are another employee. If that, you know, and that just sounds harsh, but that's the reality that the same expectations are there and the same ability to rise and same ability to be let go exists. You know? Sure. But I just think it's all on the front end.

We've had very open discussions with all of our family members that we've hired on, like I said, what their expectations are. And then as partners, we've been real clear with one another that if anybody wants out, this is how it's going to break up. This is how we're going to do this. So it's not ugly. Yeah, no, that's great. Well, we did a show, it was our fifth show, actually. It was BiggerPockets.com slash show five was dealing with death. Financial discussion, we had a CFP, Neil Frankel, and the show was all about that.

It was all about kind of planning for the end, being prepared, making sure that you know how your business is going to end, making sure you have all your ducks in a row. It's a scary concept. It's a scary thing, but I can't tell the listeners how important it is to have all this stuff prepared. especially before you go into business and knowing and preparing for the possibility that things are going to end. Because you have to look at the negative and you have to say, hey, if this happens, then we do this. If that happens, we do that and kind of go through these different cycles. It's the only responsible way to go through planning. You have to do it.

And that show is really, really important. So I thought I'd just mention it again. Well, and you know, whether you have one house or five houses or a business that buys and sells houses, it's important to do that because you have something of real value to pass on. Yep. Exactly. Awesome. Oh, let's go to myth two, Brandon. Why don't you take it?

Sure. So myth two, I've got written down here and correct me if I'm wrong, Chris, but I got past performance is a reliable predictor for future investments. What do you mean by that? Why is that a myth? Well, because so often when we're buying real estate, we look to the past. to tell us what's going to happen in the future. We look at comp sales. We look at past sales of that particular property. We look at, you know, all these things that have already occurred either to the property or around the property to tell us what's going to happen with that property going forward.

And the thing I found about that, especially now that I've started buying into other levels of real estate, so I've started buying vacation properties, looking at commercial properties. I haven't done anything in the multifamily sector, but we've started buying. I've started buying vacation properties. We've looked around a little bit, but what we're finding is that it's almost impossible to look past, to look to the past, to be able to tell us what's going to happen going forward. I mean, it's much more important to look, the point of that, it's much more important to look at what's going on forward. So what's happening with housing permits, what's happening with zoning regulations, what's happening with things of that nature, which are going to tell us what's going to be taking place around us as we're going forward instead of what happened in the past as an indicator.

That makes sense. That makes sense. And I mean, I think about stocks in the same way, right? You've got all these people who are like, oh, this stock's been going up, going up, going up, going up, going up. Housing markets going up, going up, going up year 2007. Doesn't mean it's going to keep going up. We can't predict what's going to happen no matter what. I mean, we just have to prepare for the inevitability that things can change, right? Yeah, yeah. And like, it's so, a big part of that myth and the advice I think that needs to go around, this that there's so much data without getting confused and without getting overloaded, but there's just pieces of data that you can look at that are going to help you that are probably going to be that are going to be more significant to you than what was happening two, three, four years ago with the property. And when, you know, the recent past last couple of months, what's been selling around it, yeah, that's, that's important.

But, you know, too often we talk about, as you just said, Josh, like these past housing cycles and housing always goes up and housing is always a good bet. And the reality is that there are pockets in every city that you can look at and see houses that maybe sold in the 70s, the 80s, the 90s, the 2000s, and may already sold in 2010s where they all sold for the same price every single time. You know, it's this cycle of it was built, it was sold, it was sold, it was sold, somebody bought it, real estate crashed, it foreclosed, it was sold for pennies, you know, it's just this cycle. And so, you know, try and show people that just because the last four or five years, something's looked really good doesn't mean it's going to ever go beyond what it's done. You know, you've got to look at what's happening going forward. If there's no housing being built around it, if there's no development, there's no new jobs coming in, how do you expect that particular property that you're buying to go up in value or to perform better? That's what I was, that's what I'm trying to drive at. Gotcha. Gotcha. And, you know, I'm a, I'm a big proponent that, you know, buy for, cash flow, and if you get appreciation, it's a bonus. And, you know, I think the things that you just mentioned are key factors in kind of, you know, improving the likelihood that appreciation will happen, right? Sure. Absolutely. So the question is, I mean, do you guys follow that same kind of mindset of,

you know, hey, listen, you know, we're looking at properties here that are solid cash flow properties. appreciation might be a factor at some point, but, you know, we'll improve the odds by looking at properties in these demo demographics and, you know, and these economies and these places, is that kind of your perspective? Well, yeah, it's kind of what I call, and I personally look at the path of progress. And so I look at, I'm like you, I buy all for cash flow. I'm not in these wildly appreciating markets. Memphis, Dallas, Houston certainly are not you know, wildly appreciating. And, but they're, they're good markets for me anyway to be able to find cash flow,

just as you had said. So what I look at is path of progress. What's being built, as I'd said, what's, are the new shopping centers, are the new schools being planned? Are there new roads, you know, being widened, developed, new sewer systems? You know, whatever it ends up being, I want to try and get near that, if I can, or get in the way of it, unless something run into it. Yeah.

Yeah. And so, and I've done it all. I mean, I've done the inner city where there's no development, there's no gentrification, there's anything like that. And I've done parts of the inner city where that is coming. And I've done parts of suburbs where, you know, on the path of progress. I've just, for me, I've simply found that the easiest way for me to predict what's going to happen with my particular property is going to be looking at what's ahead of it. What's being developed out there, not what's taking place in the past. It just doesn't, it hadn't been fruitful for me to build a buy.

that way. That's great. Yeah, cool. Awesome. All right. Let's move on. Myth number three. I've got here, investing in real estate is a big time sink. Yeah. What do you mean by that? Well, so I have a lot of people that think that you have to put an inordinate amount of time to any endeavor you do. You know what I mean? I've heard this over and over and over again, people saying, I just don't have time to invest in real estate. Now that's, that's, that's, that's a, that's a, that's one of those that you have to be really careful with because you have to know what you're doing. So you have to put time in. You can't just go in blind. But once you've gotten started and once you kind of kind of get going, um, you know, literally an hour a day on bigger pockets is enough time to be really educated

if you're focused on what it is you're trying to be educated about. You know, if you're trying to learn about everything, then, then an hour a day on bigger pockets is going to take you a while. but if you're really focused in on what you want to do with real estate, how you want to begin investing or build your portfolio out, it's not that difficult. It's not like it's one of those things you have to go eight hours a day, you know, and all your free time and take away from your family and everything to do.

It's just not, that's not the case. And then even so when you own it, there are more passive ways to invest in real estate today than, well, they've probably always existed, but they're just right there in front of you. And, you know, again, not that I'm trying, to bigger pockets, but you understand what I'm saying. It's all right there in the forums. I mean, whether it's turnkey investing like I do, if it's note investing, if it's private

lending, if it is partnering, it's all, the conversations and the forms are right there for you to get in and get educated with a small amount of time. And each of those ways of investing don't require a lot of time once you've done it. So, you know, one thing that I talk about a lot, I mean, whether it's on like the big, I mentioned it almost every week in the bigger pockets webinars, but just, I mean, everywhere, I talk about this topic of, you know, what people say, I can't do something. And I, you know, I encourage them to say, how can I do it? It's the same thing with, like, the time, like, oh, I don't have time to invest in real estate. If you shift you're thinking to, well, how, how do I have time? How can I have time to invest in real estate?

How do I make that happen? You know, there's like this mindset thing that's different. You start thinking about it like differently instead of thinking, yeah, I got to go out and change the water heater and then I got to go collect, you know, drop by their house and pick up rent. That's right. And that's how people think of real estate. And if that is how you think of real estate, that's how you will run your real estate. And you will not have any time to do anything else but that. So as soon as you start thinking about it differently and asking that question of how do I outsource this or how do I run it differently, you know, amazing things happen. Well, it's a shame that a lot of people today, they're interested in real estate from watching

TV, watching the TV shows. And they give you such a skewed version because they're, They're meant to build up drama. So you see a lot of drama and you see a lot of, you know, everyone, not everyone, but a lot of the shows, it's like, you know, it goes across the bottom. It's 2.30 in the morning and the person's still awake trying to paint saying, I got to get it done because I got an open house tomorrow. And, you know, so that becomes what we believe is the reality and it's just not the case. Right.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. You know, and I think the, you know, the people who are listening, I mean, we're now, this is a crazy number. we are now averaging right around 50,000 listeners per show of the Bigger Pockets podcast. That is an insane number. There are probably 50,000 plus people are going to be listening to the show. Of all those people who are listening, I'd say a pretty good percentage of them don't own any real estate.

Sure. But they probably own stocks. And they probably have other investments. And they probably know as much about the stocks that they own as they do about real estate. meaning they probably don't know anything. Sure. And so, you know, real estate as a time suck, you know, if you put that time in your stock portfolio, if you're going to take the risk on buying stocks, because you are taking a risk by buying stocks,

the same risk can be applied towards real estate and it can actually be mitigated because you have a lot more control by applying that time that you're spending. So, I mean, I think as as a, I'm blanket out in the word, as just an investment type, you know, real estate is something definitely worth consideration to those people who are sitting saying, oh, it's going to take too much time. Oh, it's so hard. Well, you probably have stocks. You probably don't know anything about that. You're probably risking a whole heck of a lot in the market with those stocks. Stop. Take the money out. Think about it. Learn something and consider real estate as a possibility. Well, the nice thing is, even to your point, Josh, those that are listening that do know about their stocks, for the same amount of time they spent probably studying PE ratios and, you know, earnings reports, all that kind of stuff to know what's going on with a stock. It takes about that much time to know about investing in real estate in a passive manner that can be very rewarding, very lucrative, just like a stock hand. So it's not, it's neither, it certainly not, does not have to be the all-consuming time suck.

Yeah. Hey, do you have any, like, good tips for people, especially just starting out who don't want their life to be consumed by real estate? They don't have time. They have a full-time job. They've got kids, family. Do you have any just good tips for people to minimize the amount of time that real estate takes? Well, no. Not without plugging. Well, I mean, yeah, it's kind of funny. It's that, you know, it's whatever you put time to is, is where. you're going to begin to excel. It's just it doesn't take a lot of it. It doesn't, you know, and I'll go back to it again. One hour on Bigger Pockets, focus is really good. There are at your library, the bookstore, you know, if you don't want to spend money,

go to the library. If you want to own the books, go to the bookstore. There are a tremendous number of good beginner books out there. So many of them have been talked about right here on the Bigger Pockets podcast. And there's lists all in the in the show notes. articles, yeah, that the good place to start is just wherever you're at. You know what I mean? It's like the tip to get started is to say, I'm going to devote one hour.

That's it. I'm going to put an hour towards this, and it's going to be from eight to nine at night or seven to eight in the morning or whenever it's going to be, but I'm going to put one hour a day into this. And I'm going to, if I want to do it, I'm going to do it really well. And so I'm going to understand what I'm doing and then go forward. I think you touched on something really important there too is I heard a quote the other day. I don't remember who said it or what the exact phrasing was.

But basically the idea was, you know, small actions taking every single day consistently, you know, add up to a massive change in your life. People often think I have to go devote the next month of my life to learning real estate. But like you said, an hour a day, just consistently every single day moving forward, you can accomplish amazing things. And that's for everything. Yeah, it's life changing. Yeah, absolutely.

Well, Chris, you and I talk about that with bigger pockets. I mean, bigger pockets for Chris and his company, I know is one of the, you know, we drive a lot of business to you. Not, you know, not for anything other than you come on bigger pockets, you engage, you participate, you connect with people. You're not doing 10 hours a day. You spend a tiny bit of time consistently. And by doing so, you've built a brand, a reputation for yourself within our platform. And people, when they think of turnkey and reputable people, you know, they look and think at you. Yeah, it's, you're, you are exactly right. It does not take a lot of time to engage.

And that's the, that's the, that's the, that's one other point, Brandon, to what you just said is that, or the question you had asked is if you'll, if you'll just devote that a little bit of time and then engage, don't be, don't think of yourself as a newbie that can't, you know, add to value to someone else, that can't answer questions, they can't give their own thoughts and viewpoints. The reality is that you have to engage. If you want to get better at this and you want to find the right partner or the right deal or the right. you know, money lender or whatever it ends up being, just engage. Just get engaged, get active.

Cool. I love it. Love it. Our myth four, you should only invest locally. Talk about it. Yeah. So before the advent, really of the internet, I think it was probably hard for people to invest in other areas because, or it would have been hard for me because I just don't know

how I would have ever gotten over the idea that I'm going to invest somewhere else. I mean, you know, it's certainly somewhere across the country. Yeah. But the reality is that, or the way you do it is with family, and that's how I got started. I bought my first long-term buying holes in Memphis only because my dad was there, only because he was running the company, and I had a high level of faith that it was going to be done the right way. I did some fix and flips in Florida with my older brother, Kent, down in Delray Beach and Fort Lauderdale area. and, you know, they worked, but only because of him, only because I knew him.

So, you know, I think now that with the admin and the internet, and certainly the resources that are available to people and the ability to get on and look and check and do data searches, I mean, the whole world is open to you. If you want to, if you literally want to invest and you're looking for markets that you trust, that you understand a little bit or that you, and they may be far away from you, you can do that. You don't have to invest down the street or across town anymore if you don't want to. I have an interesting theory about this also as to why some people go out of area. And it's not controversial in any way, but it's just, it's real. It's about being able to look in the mirror and being real with yourself.

I think a lot of investors look to go out of area first because they don't understand real estate. and it's easier to say, if something goes wrong, it's easier to say that it was someone who did me wrong if I bought far away from where I'm at. If I didn't have to drive past it every day. But if I bought down the street and it went wrong, it's no one to blame. Yeah, it's all square on me.

And so on the forms all the time, I really encourage people to, before you just go by somewhere else in the country, get to know what's going on around you locally first. Know what's happening. Educate yourself. Know what you're talking about and what you're doing. And then if locally is not good enough for you,

do the time or you don't, you're not going to, you don't have the time to do it. You don't have the time to learn it enough to be active in it. Or you just have decided that I don't want to actively invest. I want to passively invest. Then go by out of area, if that makes sense. Hey, Chris, I mean, you guys have a lot of clients that are out of town, obviously. So what would you say are the biggest reasons that people give you guys for investing out of town, at a distance?

Well, almost all of them is due to their own time. Almost all of them are not active investors, nor do they want to be. They only want to be a passive investor. Now, they can do that. Some of them could definitely do it locally. And then it becomes other reasons. That's more about our company or whatever. But for them personally, it's almost all due to active.

They don't want to be an active investor. They only want to invest passively. Yeah. And I think back, Josh, to those, you know, you and I, our two companies, co-sponsored some surveys a couple of years ago. Yep. And when I look back at those surveys and even kind of extrapolate it through today, I think that I firmly believe that there are more passive real estate investors out there than there are active real estate investors. I think there's more people that passively invest in real estate today, especially when you factor in that they might be invested. in notes, they might be investing in REITs, they might be investing in turnkey or whatever.

I just think that there are more people that would call themselves real estate investors today that are passive than who are actively fixing and flipping or building and selling that kind of thing. Interesting. Interesting. And hey, maybe we'll do another survey and find out. Yeah. Well, you know, so when you look at it like that and you look at kind of what we just said, if you're going to passively invest in real estate, then you literally can invest anywhere in the world you want to invest. Yeah.

You know, it just takes you getting to a level of comfort where you feel like you've done enough due diligence to buy. Well, so all that said, and, you know, I think you've firmly dispelled the myth that local is the only option. That said, local is a great option for people, especially those people who are going to be active. I would say, you know, local is where you should absolutely start without a doubt, right? Yeah, if you, and that's the other thing that there's a lot of people that buy passively, they buy out of area, but in their own, their own personality says that was a mistake. Like, they want to be involved. They really want to be hands on or they want to, you know, maybe they like testing colors to see what works best for a renter or a seller or whatever or a buyer. And so they need to be active. They need to be hands on, but yet they buy a passive property in another area because they think.

that maybe the prices are better or the, you know, it might be turnkey and they want to go turn key and it's just not what's good for them, but that makes sense. So a lot of, a lot of if you're going to buy passive or active, it depends on who you are and what you enjoy. And if you enjoy being active, absolutely invest close to where you're out so you can be in the job every day, you know? Right on, right on. All right, cool. Cool. Let's move on to myth number five. And that is kind of the one I really wanted to focus on today as well. And we don't have a ton of time left, but the myth was, you should avoid risk at all costs. So I wanted to kind of have a discussion on the topic of risk. Because, I mean, obviously, that's on a lot of people's minds when they're

getting into real estate as well. I don't want to lose my money. I don't want to, you know, waste all this time and humiliate myself in front of my family and friends. So, I mean, maybe you can just talk about how does somebody get over that fear of taking a risk? And what kind of risk should a person take? You know, I wrote a, I wrote another article, and it's really funny. I thought I was being fairly unique with the article I was writing. I did a video for the BP blog. And then, of course, over time, as I continue to search and study on, I realized that I wasn't being unique at all. Like, there's all this research out there about mistakes that we make. And so risk is one of those things that it's very dangerous for investors because those that

don't want to take risk, they oftentimes will make decisions that are more risky. For instance, our fear of losing money, because it's what you just said, Brandon, our fear of losing money will oftentimes lead us to risk fewer dollars. And let's just say there's two houses and there may be more risk with a lower cost investment, whereas there's less risk with a higher cost investment. Absolutely. Yeah, the higher cost investment means I got to risk more dollars. but my risk of losing it is lower. Whereas my lower cost investment, I have to risk fewer dollars,

but my true risk is higher. In probability, I will lose that money, whereas with the higher cost investment, I may not. I mean, my risk of losing is actually less. And so it's one of these things like our fear of losing money is greater than our desire to earn. Yep. And so I think with all risk,

everything's calculated. Even as a businessman, we take risks all the time. And some of them pan out and some of them don't. And some of them, I was sharing with you recently, Brandon, some of them, we lost a lot of money on some major risks we took in Texas. And ultimately hindsight 2020, when we look back at it, we got outside of our normal pattern of decision making. And we, which was our risk. That was the risk we were taking. We decided to, change our pattern a little bit and try something a little bit different, and we thought it was going to propel our company in Dallas. Instead, it set us behind. I mean, we looked up 90 days later, and we were really far behind where we wanted to be. We lost some team members. We had acquired some bad assets. We had lost some valuable time. It's a great way to put it, and it cost us a lot of dollars, too.

And so, you know, we 90 days in, we make a quick change. We go back and switch to, you know, kind of the decision making we'd always used, but ultimately when we looked at it, it was a great risk for us to take because it really taught us a lot about our team and the way that we make decisions. And so risk is all about assessing the good and the bad of making the decision and not making the decision because it's good and bad on all sides. And so I think with investors, risk is not a bad thing. You just have to know the risk you're taken and be aware of what your upside is. And is that risk, it. We always say is the juice worth the squeeze? If it is, you go for it. Hey, I love your point

about the cheaper property. The property you put less money on might be considerably more risky than, and that's one of those big lessons that I suffered through. I was like, hey, I know real estate. I'm going to buy some cheap properties that make tons of money. Yeah, we've talked about this. I mean, you know, and, you know, awesome, you know, let's go buy in Detroit because we could get them for $3,000 and we're going to make all this cash. Yes. Sorry, I haven't talked about Detroit in a while, so I had to bring it back. It has been a while.

But yeah, I mean, listen, you know, today I'll go on a, you know, a property in a middle class neighborhood that's, you know, stable, that's, you know, cash flow and considerably less over a property that's in a transitional neighborhood that's going to bring a lot more cash,

but probably going to come with a lot more problems, higher eviction rates, issues, and things like that kind of come with it. Absolutely. And to add to your point, Josh, that when you, because you're in Denver and you just mentioned Detroit. Yep. So if you were going to buy in Detroit, just the simple fact that the space between where you are and where you're buying, the fact you'd probably do it through some form of turnkey or you'd be lying on other people. Supposed turnkey. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All of that raises your risk. That's, that was my point that there's, so there's buyers that are there in Detroit that probably know those neighborhoods very well. And they, they're active investors. They might do great there at that. price. But it just you add to the risk when you add those other elements. I mean, every time you take one more element to it, so I'm removing myself from it, I'm trusting someone else. It's very low

cost. You know, all these things add to the risk. It's just assessing what your risk is and whether or not you're willing to take it or not. But so often people say, hey, it's fewer dollars. So if I lose, big deal. You know, it's less money, but you're going to lose. Yeah. Well, it's like buying penny stocks, right? Same thing. Yeah. Yeah. Great point. I get a lot of people, you know, because I talk about my area a lot here on the show. You know, like you said, 50,000 people listening to it. And you talk about, like, the numbers that I get on my deals. And it's like, that's, you know, that's like the lowest price on the West Coast you can get.

And so a lot of people email me and ask me, hey, should I invest in your area? And like, not even to be like mean. Like, it's not like I tell people probably not. Oh, you totally not. No, I tell people, you probably shouldn't invest in my area. Like, you don't know, like, you don't know that B Street. I would not touch that street, but go three blocks over the other way. The neighborhood looks worse, but I would invest in a heartbeat.

Like, they don't know that. And so unless they've got a guy like that, you know, they completely and utterly trust, unless you've got somebody on the ground, it's really hard to do that. And that's where I think, I don't know, I think people get in trouble is that they see these numbers and they see other people who have success there and they just try to jump in in that market. And it's scary. And boots on the ground, you said, Brandon, I think that word is so important, that phrase,

you know, I think if you can find that boots on the ground in any market that you trust. And really, like, we're talking about risk. So the word trust and risk go very, you know, they're hands in hand. They have to be used together. You have to find people or companies that you trust if you're considering investing at a distance. And you have to consider all that with any kind of investment that you're making. But, you know, and that's the key is how do you find boots on the ground? And maybe apply to you, Chris.

Like, how do we find boots on the ground that we can trust? Well, it is a process. And as amazingly as it sounds, there are more, right now, there are more investors out there that will trust based on recommendation, based on reputation, based on conversations on the phone or whatever. There just hasn't become a level yet where people say, I have to go see things for myself. There's just a very trusting, it still exists here. and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it. I'm just saying it raises your risk. And so, of course, I want to say that if somebody does that with my company, they're going to be okay. But the reality is that they're still taking a big risk.

Sure. You need to go and investigate for yourself, put your eyes on it, meet people face to face. So much can be learned from someone when you shake their hand and you speak with them and you just get that feeling. Is this the kind of person that's going to take care of me and make me feel like I'm investing next door instead of 1,500 miles away? And, you know, I can't, again, I know, I know what we do and I know how my company operates and I know the investors. And yes, sometimes I still, you know, I just kind of shake my head. I'm like, wow, I'm still sometimes amazed that we have the investors that we have that have never met us face to face. And as I said, that's the reputation and the credibility part and the, what do you call it, the, somebody giving you a recommendation.

but I don't think any of that ever replaces actually physically meeting somebody face to face. Yeah. So would you advise them there? If you're going to go invest in another market, you're saying hands down, fly out there and go meet them and talk to them, look around. Look, I tell if an investor, if you were an investor saying, hey, Chris, what do I need to do next? I want to buy properties from you, but I've never met you. I would say get on a plane and come see me. Okay. Absolutely. Every time. It's going to, it's just going to solidify where you're at and where you're going. Yeah, I mean, it's a fairly small investment of what a thousand dollars for a flight and a couple nights on a hotel, you know, to secure your future. And I think if somebody, if you're looking at, for example, Turnkey and the operators that you're considering don't say that and don't want you to see their operation and don't want you to see how they work, I think it's a giant red flag.

Oh, huge red flag. You are correct. It is a huge red flag. And I don't know of too many people that would do that. I just don't know of too many operators that would say that. But you're right. There's probably some that under, you know, kind of their own little way would try and dissuade an investor from coming to see them face to face would say that they don't really need to do that. And I would never buy that way ever. I mean, it just doesn't make sense. I agree. Wholeheartedly. People love to call real estate passive income, which is interesting because most of the investors I know are very busy. Busy finding deals, busy managing teams, busy worrying they pick the wrong

market. Rent to retirement flips that model. They help investors buy turnkey new construction homes, often 10% below market value in top rental markets across the country. Their local teams handle the build, the property management, and the details, so you don't have to. In some cases, investors even receive 50 to 75% of their down payment back at closing, and there are interest rates as low as 3.75%. They've been trusted partners with BiggerPockets for over a decade, and if you want to learn more, visit biggerpockets.com slash retirement. For decades, real estate has been a cornerstone of the world's largest portfolios. But it's also historically been sort of complex, time-consuming, and expensive.

But imagine if real estate investing was suddenly easy, all the benefits of owning real, tangible assets without the complexity and expense. That's the power of the Fundrise flagship fund. Now, you can invest in a $1.1 billion portfolio of real estate, starting with as little as $10. The portfolio features 4,700 single-family rental homes spread across the booming sunbelt. They also have 3.3 million square feet of highly sought-after industrial facilities, thanks to the e-commerce wave. The flagship fund is one of the largest of its kind.

It's well diversified, and it's managed by a team of professionals. And it's now available to you. Visit fundrise.com slash BP Market to explore the fund's full portfolio, check out historical returns, and start investing in just minutes. Carefully consider the investment objectives, risks, charges, and expenses of the Fundrise Flagship Fund for investing. This and other information can be found in the funds prospectus at Fundrise.com slash flagship. This is a paid advertisement. You just realized your business needed to hire someone yesterday. How can you find amazing candidates fast? Easy. Just use Indeed. When it

comes to hiring, Indeed is all you need. That means you can stop struggling to get your job notice on other job sites. Indeed, sponsor job posts help you stand out and hire the right people quickly. Your job post jumps straight to the top of the page where your ideal candidates are looking. And it works. Sponsored jobs on Indeed get 45% more applications than non-sponsored post. The best part, no monthly subscriptions or long-term contracts. You only pay for results. And speaking of results, in the minute I've been talking to you, 23 people just got hired through Indeed worldwide. There's no need to wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed. And listeners of the show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at Indeed.com.

slash rookie. Just go to Indeed.com slash rookie right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. That's Indeed.com slash rookie. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need. All right. Well, cool. I want to get a little more specific here. A lot of this show has been a little bit theoretical. So let's get very specific with some case studies here. I just want to ask you, I got like a list of six or seven specific situations that are risky. And how would you advise you? somebody to reduce the risk on that. So number one is losing money on a bad deal, like just losing cash flow or if it's a flip losing, you know, at the end of the day losing money. How did you advise somebody to reduce that risk of that happening? Wow. Well, I tell you what,

on the, you reduce risks in all areas by making sure that you have priced correctly. So if you're talking about a property that you're losing money on the rental side, make sure that your rent is priced appropriately, that you're not too high for the market. One of the other things I would do always is that if you're going to, if you're going to own a rental price, property in the market, make sure you rent in the sweet or you own it in the sweet spot of where people are renting. So in other words, if 70% of the renter population rents between $700 and $1,100, I would not buy properties that are going to rent for $450 a month. You know, I wouldn't, I would, because you've got fewer people that are looking for that. I wouldn't rent a property

that or try and buy a property that's going to rent for $2,000 a month. You're going to be searching for this little sliver of the population. I would stick where everyone's looking. Yeah, that's awesome. I'll tell you on the flip side, the biggest mistakes that I made flipping properties were, number one, I would over renovate, which that's just a risk to some of the return you're going to get. The property is still going to sell. The biggest mistake I ever made was my realtor comped a property for me in Denver, and they comped it even within a block or two. I mean, everything was like within less than a tenth of a mile. but yet it was so different. I mean, even a tenth of a mile, this property, it was like this street was all to itself.

You could only take comps from that street itself because even a tenth of a mile away, the properties were just so visibly nicer. And it was more appealing, more attractive. And so, you know, I bought a property expecting it to be worth $450,000. In the end, I was lucky to sell it for $300. And I owned it for way over $300.

So, you know, it's one of the first of, those things of trust but verify. You've got people on your team that are giving you good data and they're there for a reason. Verify everything that they're telling you. So if I'd looked at that part of my eyes on the front end, I would have known that I was incorrect, but I didn't. I bought it at first based on their data. Right on. Good advice. What about going over a budget on a rehab? How do you mitigate the risk of doing that? Of that actually happening? Yes, sir. Well, there's a thing that we call inspect what you expect. And so you only go over budget on a rehab really in two ways.

Number one is if you're failing to inspect what you expect. So the job is dragging on. Things aren't getting done in a timely manner. Things are getting done in a half-ass type manner. So you've got to come back and do it again. Or number two, that you fail to look around you what else is in your area. And so you've got this budget set up and you come in and you start doing it. And then you walk and you say, well, wouldn't this look really good if I put, you know, some other type of countertops here?

And wouldn't it be really nice if I did these really, these nice new light fixtures instead of the light fixtures are normally used? Let me try this. And you keep experimenting and experimenting with something new and better and bigger. I'm very guilty of that. Well, there's no payoff. Yeah. You know, that's the thing. There's no payoff in the end.

It doesn't increase anything for you. It only increases your budget. Yeah. So I think the biggest one, though, is in the same. inspect what you expect. If you're not around, those contractors are, it doesn't matter how much you trust them. It's just, it's human nature. Things aren't getting done to your level. There you go. Nice. Right, right on. All right. Third one, how do you mitigate the risk of tenants destroying your property? Man alive. Um, individually, if you're, if you're, if you self-manage,

I think that some of the ways you're able to do that are by being at your property, you know, whether you're collecting rent or you're doing inspections just on as often of a basis as possible. When you, I'll tell you, like when you're like a management coming like us, we've got 2,300 properties in Memphis and it is, it's impossible for us to put them all on an inspection schedule. I would, the staff that I would have to carry and the cost to carry to actually put them on an inspection would be astronomical. So what we do on our front end is it's a very, very serious process of the closing with a very strict lease written up and very kind of authoritative type of messaging to that tenant. And then the way that we conduct ourselves is very much that it's, you know, it's, you are a guest of this particular house. So we expect to be kept in a certain way.

And what we try and do is minimize the number of homes that actually are torn up by a tenant. And you do that by programs you offer the tenant. You do that by the way that you treat and talk to the tenant. You do that by, as I said, inspect what you expect. So we hold them to a certain level of expectation. And then we keep them there. And so, again, not to kind of toot us, but I wanted to make sure I pointed out that so we have a length of stay of almost four years.

If that's the case, then there's going to be wear and tear on that house that's going to occur. But if you have these major wear and tear after four to six months that they don't stay in the property, then you've done something wrong with the management on the front end. You didn't set the right expectations. You know, when they came in, they just destroyed it and moved out on you. I just think it's so important that you inspect it as much as possible, and then you really, really set the right expectations on the front end. Yeah.

And Chris, you've written quite a few articles on bigger pockets about property management, about how to find a good management company, how to screen management companies, what to look for. We'll see if we could tag some of these and attach them, to the show notes at biggerpockets.com slash show 122. I think the people listening would find them great reads. And yeah, I think that's great. I mean, screening obviously is also a key.

Yeah, it's just so tough to know who you're getting. It's really, I tell you one great thing. This will be without taking too much time, that when you set an appointment with someone to close on a property, if you self-manage, then don't close at the Starbucks or the local Burger King or the hood of the car. And in my opinion, we say don't even close at the house. If you own rental properties near you, then you probably have a closing attorney.

Borrow your closing attorney's closing office. Let them allow you to close your rentals there, even if you have to rent it for them for the hour. Have your rental closings in a place that screams business, that screams professional to that renter on the other side, and then schedule it for a time. And if that renter cannot show up on time, then you don't rent to them. And you tell them that the wrong way to start this relationship is you showing up not on time, because that means my rent won't be on time. And that's just one little shift to change the type of renter you're going to get, and it does, believe me, prevent houses from getting destroyed. That is a cool tip. That's an amazing tip. I've never heard that before. I love that. Yeah. I got to talk to my attorney now,

see if I let me use those room. I love that. That was great. All right, man, how do we mitigate the risk of getting ripped off by a property manager? We kind of got into this, but what things can we do to avoid that? Well, right off the bat, communication is key. They have to have a way set up for you to be able to speak with them on a monthly basis. And it can't be an email and this. It has to literally be that they have to be willing to spend the money to have the staff there to be able to handle you as an owner and the request of other owners to be able to speak with them one on one every month. The biggest way to keep them getting ripped off, I think, from a property management company is you don't go for the low end.

The reality is that the cheapest property management that has the lowest fees and the lowest services or cost to you are going to give you the lowest service. And they are the ones who are going to run right on the skim of success and failure. And so, I mean, they're just, they're teetering one way or the other. A big month of moveouts with no rental income coming in and they could be gone.

They could, because they just don't have the revenue to be able to stay alive. So I would suggest that you find a good company that charges a good rate. And that means you've got to talk to a bunch of companies in a city. But just find out what they're all charging. And then you find out, all right, so what's it look like the normal is? And don't go for the low end. And just because it's more expensive doesn't mean it's better.

But my point is definitely that you're looking for somebody that says, I know how to make money as a management company. So I'm going to be here. And I'm going to use that revenue that I'm able to make to provide great service to you as an owner. That's who you're looking for. That's great. Cool. Really, really, really good advice.

Yeah, I love it. All right, the last one I got for you here is the risk of analysis paralysis. In other words, the risk of never actually getting started in the first place. How do you overcome that risk? That's not risky, is it? Nah. Well, you're not going anywhere. That's for sure.

I guess that's the risk. You know, and I'm going to plug bigger pockets again here real quick. And I'm going to tell you that there are some amazing people on that site that they give of their time and they give them their knowledge. And I would tell you that the best way to avoid analysis or paralysis by analysis is to seek advice from other experienced investors, either in your particular niche or in your area

or in the area that you're buying. One of those three, depending on, so no matter what you're doing, that person exists on bigger pockets. And, you know, I just don't know of, of, and of course it's gotten so big now, you guys. I don't even know all the people on there. that are, so there's so many probably commentators that are excellent that I don't know.

But my point is that there's probably 25 that I can think of right off the top of my head, that they're always active on the site. And if you ask them a question, they will give you an answer. And that's just something you don't find too many other places. And so if you feel yourself like, I want to get started, I just can't get over the hump, ask for someone's assistance. They will help you to make that right decision. They won't make it for you, but they'll help you get there.

that's the best thing I love it I love that awesome I've got one last quick question before we go to the fire round which is you know you're you're what are you 53 now is that least yeah

63 okay so now that so now that you're old and just for men being used in your hair what what are some lessons you wish you would have learned earlier well I wish I'd learn

When you were a child of Brandon's age. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I wish I'd learned that cheaper didn't mean better. That didn't mean it was easier to get started because I lost a lot of money on cheap properties early on. I wish I'd learned early on that just because somebody says it doesn't mean it's real. I had a lot of, I lost a lot of money by trusting people that I shouldn't have trusted early on. And I think the last lesson I wish I'd learned early on was that there was no, like, perfect time. Like, I didn't have to get started right now or else I was going to miss out.

Because especially with the Internet, especially with the ability to invest, really anywhere in the country that you want to invest, any day. Tomorrow is a great day to get started. Two weeks from now will be a great time to get started. You know, it just, you don't have to pay attention to all these real estate. cycles and everything, it's not as important as it used to be because you can make money in real estate in any market through any cycle. Yep. Agreed. It's great. Agreed. So, yeah. And that, by the way, that's a huge, huge, huge myth that's put out there by, you know, the major financial press. I mean, that's one that, you know, I'd say sophisticated investors get it, they understand it.

people who don't understand real estate have no idea how important and how true what you just said is. And, you know, if you learn anything from this show, listen to that one piece of advice that Chris just gave because it's huge. I'm going to give you one more. And this is my pet peeve right now, okay? Because companies within my niche do this. And even gurus do this, gurus being the education guys that just that are selling more myth than reality. Warren Buffett did an interview on CNBC. I don't know.

It's probably been a year, maybe two years ago, might be even longer now, where he said, in the gist of what is purported today is that Warren Buffett would buy all the single-family houses he could. Warren Buffett loves buying single-family houses. That's not what he said. What he said was that if he could,

and the if was the biggest part of his entire equation, he said if he could, he would buy thousands of single-family homes and put them on a mortgage, put them on some type of leverage to be able to leverage that money out because money was so cheap and the houses were so cheap. But the point of what he was saying was he didn't have the mechanism to do it. He didn't have the teams in place. He didn't have the ability to be able to make that work.

And so he didn't do it. He didn't make a bet in single family houses. But today it is reported so many times over and over and over again by companies that want to sell to new investors that, you know, Warren Buffett, the Oracle of Omaha, you know, and then they'll just put that little clip on there. If I could, I'd buy 2,000 houses today. That's not what he said. That's not what he did. Well, and what's interesting about that was I think that kind of sparked this craze by, you know, some of these big funds to buy, scoop up, you know, billions and billions of dollars in properties with no infrastructure to manage, take care, maintain, you know, or anything.

and I think we're still going to see the ramifications of that at some point in the coming future. Well, for a company like mine, it's an opportunity. Brandon, you had asked earlier about growth and that kind of thing. And so, yeah, we are very blessed. We've made good decisions along the way. There's no white board that says this is what we do to get where. We've been lucky enough to make good decisions at the right time. And we're in a position now where when these funds, especially in the area,

that we operate when they decide that they want to sell 50 or 100 or 150 or 200 or whatever it is, that hopefully we're in a position to build a buy big bulk, some packages of those things, which is a very sustainable model for our company going forward because we can buy them and make sure they're fixed and stabilized. And then we have inventory for investors to buy from us. So it's, you know, for us, you're right, Josh. It's this, I don't know what you call it here, but it's like this natural cycle that's going on. it's just going to continue to feed it coming for a while.

So. Yeah, for sure, for sure. Cool. Great stuff, Chris. Really, really good. I think it's time to move to the next section of the show, which is. It's time for the fire round. Let's hear it, man. He's sick. He can't do it.

All right, the fire round, these are questions that we, Brandon always does this. I don't even know what I'm supposed to say here. You're listening to the world famous fire round. There you go. All right. So the fire round is. we fire questions at you. You fire answers right back. These are questions that come from the Bigger Pockets forums, which you can check out at biggerpockets.com slash forums. All right, first question of today's

fire round is, my tenants want to buy the house. They are renting for me. Should I sell it? Yes. That's a very good fire. Do you want to expand on that at all? I know this is quick. Feel free to go a little deeper. Look, if you're making money on the house every month and you can re-rent it? Absolutely not. If you want to hold this thing forever, keep it. If you can sell it to them and make an incredible return on the property, sell it. There you go. All right. There you go. My tenant, this is actually a true story that happens to me occasionally. My tenant is not paying the water bill, but still paying the rent because the water bill goes with the house. So it's ultimately on me if they don't pay, yet they've refused to pay the water bill. But they're paying the rent

is fine. So what do I do? And that was, I didn't ask that question in the forums, but that is a situation I deal with. So what would you do? Move to evict, if you can. Move to evict, get an eviction notice on them and put them on notice. Do they pay the water bill or they go? There you go. Well, and isn't that something you should have in your lease? I mean, yeah, yeah. And here's the thing that if you just move to evict, usually you move them off center. You get them off of, okay, I'm either going to lose the price or I'm going to I'm going to pay the water bill. So usually you get them to take the action you want them to take. But if you do nothing, you've trained them already to never pay the water bill and just pay rent and they get free water. Yep. There you go. There you go. Awesome.

We've had that one of the towns in our area, like a lot of my rental properties are in. They made the rule recently where tenants can no longer have water in their name, period, because I got tired of collecting from tenants. So now landlords have to have it in their name, and I have to go and build a tenant directly. And then the tenants don't pay me. And then I'm like, I'm evicting over a $50 water bill, but I'll threaten it all day long. I haven't had to actually carry out yet, but I'll threatening it. For everyone who wants to buy a property in Potent, Washington, keep this in mind as you're thinking about it. This is the thing. People don't know that, right? They go to Hocum to go buy a property because properties are 40 grand in Hokewim. And they're like, oh, I'll buy it

there. They don't realize that there's these little nuances, you know? So stay away. I got this. Just a little nuance. No, what I do, I mean, I just bill them. We just like send them a separate bill for their water just like we do for their rent. And most of them pay it. But, you know, the ones that don't. We just, well, most of them are a month a month. And so we just give them notice to leave if they don't and then they shape up pretty quick or they move. So there you go. There's ways to deal with it, but there, it's not always easy. Nice. Nice. Chris, what do you think of the

buy rehab, rent, refinance strategy? Buy rehab, rent, and then refinance. I like it. Okay, okay. I like it to to an extent. I'm not a big fan of leverage anymore. That's due to my own experience with leverage. age. Yeah, with my age. So I'm a big fan of levering for smaller amounts of time.

And so it also depends on what you're going to do with that money. So you buy it, you fix it, you rent it, you refinance it to get your cash back out. What are you going to do with that cash? Put it to work for you. If you're not put it to work, what was the point of doing it in the first place? You know? Yeah. Go do your next project.

Yep. Great. Right on. I love it. And I am a huge fan of, I mean, generally a huge fan of the whole buy rehab rent. refinance. I call it like hybrid investing. That's kind of my name I throw it. But I do like the idea if you do it right. But like you said, you got to have a use for that money. But yeah, it's a good way to it's a good way to get in for like no or low money down to deals. You know, you put your own money in,

fix it up, rent it out, refinance it a few months later and then get your cash back and go do it again. You can do it a number of times before you're usually stopped from the bank. Absolutely. And I don't disagree with that at all. My thing is know what kind of mortgage you're going to put it on, don't just put it on a 30-year mortgage because it's going to give you the most monthly cash flow. What people don't understand is that for the first 24 years that you're going to own that loan, your interest payment alone is the single largest expense you're going to have on that property. And so you just tied yourself into 24 years of a tremendous expense that, so you're giving your rent to something else. I'm one of those, I'm pretty passionate about it,

that if you're going to do that, put that money to use. I mean, you know, using it. it three, four times over so that, and then don't put everything on a 30-year note. Put it on a note that allows you to pay that off and use it again within the cycle of that particular property. Don't, you know, a 30-year, I'm sorry, I'm rambling now. It just drives me. Just keep rammer alone, man. That's my pet peeve, yeah. I hear you, buddy. Cool. Nice. All right. Final question. Was this, this is mine. How do I find private lenders? Wow, I could have had a very funny comment right there. I decided not to. It was it at Brandon's expense, and if so, do it.

Nope, it was not at Brandon's expense. It was a product plug that I was not going to do, but you would. Okay. I'm kidding. So the best way for me to find private lenders, we find private lenders from our immediate surroundings, you know, people that we've done business with, people that know our track record, know our success, the best way that you're going to find private lenders, I would think, the same way. And here's what's interesting, once again, plugging bigger pockets, but you might find, like some people might say, okay, you go to a RIA, and at the RIA is where you're going to find people that have private money, all the kind of stuff. But, you know, if your RIA has 50 people

at it, and today, for a lot of Ria, that's a good-sized RIA, as sad as that sounds. And there might be 10 people at that RIA that are actually doing something. And then a handful of them might build a linch of money at the most. But if you just go on to bigger pockets where you have a much broader audience and probably a much bigger influence over people, especially if you're active on the side a lot, right there. I mean, gush, good gosh. You know, one thing out there and suddenly you've got a tremendous number of people

coming back saying, hey, you know, I want to be partners with you. I did that recently. I have reached out to two or three guys out in California and said, I have money to use. I want to put money to use with you out there on the West Coast. let's do something. And did it work? Well, it's gotten all the conversation started. Okay.

We all know that, I mean, we're moving forward. It'll be the, Josh, it's funny, it'll be the first time that I will have done something like that. It'll be the first time that I will do a deal with someone where I initiated it like that. I do, as you know, as you said, a lot of business with people from bigger pockets, but it'll be the first time I've gone on there and said, hey, I've got money to lend. But I'm only doing that to very specific investors on the West Coast because I've watched them, I've listened to them.

I know that they know what they're doing and I'll have success. they'll have success. Yeah. I love that. And Brandon, you're doing that right now as well, aren't you? I did. I actually put up a thing on the bigger pockets marketplace looking for a lender for this property I'm buying. And I got probably seven or eight people to respond to it.

And, you know, I'm only going to use one of them, but I built relationships with six other people. And I discovered a Nigerian scammer, which I talked about in the intro of this podcast. But, you know, yeah, figured these things out. But, yeah, yeah. That is incredible. Wow. Which part? the scammer or the getting the lenders oh no no no no the the Nigerian scammer

yeah yeah we're we're on top of it you know they're gone it's it's the real deal that's the and no I own nothing of bigger pockets I have no stock in bigger pot you don't have stock yet right so I couldn't own any stock in it but I continue to plug you guys because it's I mean it's real it's it's the um if you're looking for certain things going on with real estate, it's the place to go. There you go. Love it. Awesome.

All right. That's great. That's it. So, why don't we move over to the world famous? Famous for... World Famous, Famous for these questions we ask everyone. And we asked you these questions back on show 26 when you were here last time. But I'm going to ask them again in case anything's changed.

It's been a little over a year. So number one, what is your current favorite real estate related book? Or all-time favorite? All-time favorite. Geez, wait. It's still going to be Frank McKinney's Make it big I mean that's still my favorite

Real estate book I still read it every year Okay I have not read that one yet Even though I said last time I was going to pick it up But I have not yet You didn't have to tell me that But that's okay

Slacker, slacker Just tell Frank, you know Yeah, I'll let him know Next All right What is your current favorite business book What do you read in now What business books

Have you read recently That are influencing you There's two of them One is the Rockefeller Rules And the second one is start with why. Simon Seneca, right? Yep.

I like that book. Yep. Nice. Good, good, good, good, good, good. All right, hobbies. What are you doing lately? I know you had a big family event that has led to different hobbies, so to speak. Yeah.

Well, I've got five kids now. Oh, my goodness. We are, we are very, very busy. But I'm coaching competitive soccer with my son. And then I'm coaching just regular little soccer with one of my daughter. So I'm into coaching right now. That's cool. I just put a video up on my Facebook today,

and I think I've shared it on my Twitter today as well. Go check it out, Chris. There's some soccer moves that will blow your mind. They'll just make your ankles hurt just watching. Really? Yeah, it's crazy. Did you find some of my stuff from when I was in college? I was just going to say the same thing about me.

Just your face on there. Awesome, man. Awesome. And congrats on number five, obviously. Thank you. Number four. question of the famous four. What do you believe sets apart successful real estate investors from those who give up fail or never get started in the first place? I think most people would say

action, but I don't think that's it. I think the biggest thing is surrounding yourself with people that are going to have the right influence on you. That you will be the six people you surround yourself with. So if you surround yourself with people that take action that are successful, that are good real estate investors, you will be one. Love it. That's very succinct and smart. Yeah. There you go. Not that I was shocked by that, but, you know. Well, you have a shocked look on your face. You know, I expected you to talk more because, you know, sometimes you do that. Wow. All right. Chris, as always, man, it's been an absolute pleasure. Tons of really good information. We really, really appreciate having you back on the show. Before we wrap it up, where can people find?

more information about you and your company and your company. They can find us at www. memphisinvest.com. And you can always reach out to me. If you want to reach out to me directly, you can call me at 901-751-7191. You're out of your mind. Yeah, I know.

50,000 people. I'm just saying. Good luck, dude. Get a new phone number. And they can find you on bigger pockets, right? That's what, hang on. Don't call that number, guys, please. Actually, do it for me.

Just say, ha ha. And, Chris, no, what a bad idea of putting his phone number on the podcast was. That's why it wasn't myself. But it wasn't the office number, that may have been, I don't know which one would have been worse.

You can, yeah, absolutely on bigger pockets. I'm on bigger pockets quite often. try and get on there every day. I totally miss one day in between being on there. So, yeah, absolutely. All right, everybody, make sure to check out the show notes

at biggerpockets.com slash show 122. And please don't prank, Chris. At least if you do, do it and say that it's Brandon. Brandon, if you need to edit that out, you can just say the website in the bigger pockets, it's all good.

We're not edit it. If you want us to, we will. But all right, let me wrap this up, guys. All right, Chris, listen, absolute pleasure, man. Thank you so much for being on the show. For those of you guys listening, obviously Chris has a whole lot going on. And as you can tell, he's on the site. He's making things happen.

He's getting business. He's using our platform to help him. If you're not doing it, you're missing out, period. End of story. Set up an account. Get on there. Get on board. You know, and make things happen.

Take action. You know, get your career going. And, you know, listen, we all have different pathways. So find the path that's right for you. Figure that out before you go and take action. Obviously, don't just make moves and be impulsive. Chris made that mistake early on. Brandon made that mistake early on.

I made that mistake early on. I think a lot of people do that. And the cool thing is today there are tools, things like Bigger Pockets that can help you to hopefully avoid making a lot of the mistakes that we all made in the beginning. So get out there, make it happen. Thanks for listening. And we'll see you next week on the Bigger Pockets podcast.

I'm Josh Dorkin. Sign it 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. Be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from BiggerPockets.com. Your home for real estate investing online. Do you ever notice how every passive investment somehow turns into a very active lifestyle, active, Redsheets, active phone calls, active stress.

Here's a better question. What if you could buy brand-new construction homes, 10% below market value in the best markets across the country, without making real estate your second job? That's exactly what rent-to-retirement does. They're a full-service, turnkey investment company handling everything for you. In some cases, investors get 50 to 75% of our down payment back at closing, plus interest rates as low as 3.75%. They've partnered with bigger pockets for over a decade, helping thousands of $1,000,000.

invest smarter. If you want to do the same, visit biggerpockets.com slash retirement to learn more.