BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 190: Building 61 Different Passive Streams of Income with Pat Hiban

Episode Date: September 1, 2016

Are you building vertical or horizontal income in your life? If you aren’t sure, don’t miss this exceptionally important episode of the BiggerPockets Podcast, where we talk with Pat Hiban about creating multiple streams of passive income. Pat, who is a New York Times bestselling author, shares his real estate journey with us today, starting from a humble “house hack” to participating in multi-million dollar apartment complex purchases. You’ll also learn why (and how) Pat has 61 different sources of “horizontal” income streams and the best ways to begin building your own. Don’t miss a second of this incredible show. In This Episode We Cover: Pat’s thoughts on being a real estate agent for 28 years Why many real estate agents don’t invest How he obtained his first property by house hacking The story of an illegal alien investor What Section 8 rentals are and why he invest in them The pros and cons of Section 8 tenants How he makes money through college rentals How he manages his properties How to make a property college-proof What exactly a “come bet” is Why he looks for track record before investing with someone A discussion on horizontal streams of income And SO much more! Links from the Show BiggerPockets Videos BP Podcast 188: Using 20+ Years of Studying Market Cycles to Buy Low & Sell High with David Gudmundsen BiggerPockets Webinar GoSection8 BP Podcast 048: Duplex Investing, Finding Great Properties, and Tips for Managing Tenants with Darren Sager BP Podcast 170: The Journey From Flipping Houses to Owning 1,470 Units with Andrew Cushman BiggerPockets Forums GoBundance Books Mentioned in this Show Retire Young Retire Rich by Robert Kiyosaki The Surrender Experiment by Michael A. Singer 6 Steps to 7 Figures by Pat Hiban Tweetable Topics: “My biggest regret is not buying a house a year.” (Tweet This!) “On Section 8, I buy where if they find out that I’ll put a Section 8 in there, they’ll be upset.” (Tweet This!) “Create bucket list moments and get the most out of life.” (Tweet This!) Connect with Pat Pat’s BiggerPockets Profile Pat’s Company Website Pat’s Podcast VPACQ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Bigger Pockets podcast show 190. So most of the world lives on what they call vertical income, which is, you know, you get a job, you get a 2% raise every year. And that's increasing vertically. And then at some point in your life, you get horizontal streams. 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, your 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 of the Bigger Pockets podcast here with my co-host, Mr. Brandon Turner. What's up, sir? Hey, I don't know. What's up with you? Man, summer is over. Today was the first day of school. Wow. Yeah. Is it a teacher being mean to you again? You know, All the other kids picking on you. They pick on me a little bit. Yeah, you bring your school lunch and your little Power Rangers lunchbox, all that good stuff. I was wearing my Power Rangers costume. Oh, they were just like underwear.

That's it. Don't worry about what I'm wearing down there. But, ah, man, school's in session. So, you know, I think I'm going to be getting back to a more normal schedule around here, which is always exciting. It's also sad that the travels and excursions of summer are coming. to an end. But yeah, man, things are good. Things are going really well. Yeah, work is good. B.P.'s good. Life is going well. How about you? Things are good. Finally got a property under contract again. I got a duplex under contract. It's been a couple of months. Kind of a dry spell here.

It's kind of weird. So, yeah, whatever. I'm getting out. Yeah, that would, yeah, should close here in a month or so. Congratulations. Thanks. That's great. Yeah. That's great. Are you, are you going to move in? You're going to house hack it? I'm not going to house hack that one. Well, why not? Well, here's the beauty of this one. It's actually rented both houses, two houses, two houses is one lot. Both are already rented cash flow from day one. Private lending is going to fund the inheriting tenants. You're not. Yes, I am taking the risk. I know. I'm taking the risk there. Have you vet them? I met both of them. You know, they seem all right. I might budget a little bit for an eviction at some point, but we'll see. Bad move. I mean, worst case scenario, I'm in,

I mean, I'm actually evicting some inherited tenants right now as we speak. You know, it's a bad move. You have to be prepared. Yeah, you got to be prepared. The property I bought a few months ago that I knew I was going to have to evict them. I just set aside like three grand. I said three grand in my repair budget was eviction money. So there's a little quick tip for people. Yeah, there you go. Well, I've got a, I've got a quick tip too. What's your quick tip? Today's quick tip. Today's quick tip is check out the Bigger Pockets video library. We just launched it. You can go to biggerpockets.com slash videos and find all your favorite BiggerPockets videos up there in our video library.

And it might be the prettiest page in all the bigger pockets. It is pretty. Who, Ed designed that, right? I think it was Ed. Yeah. He's a rock star there. He is.

It looks great. But yeah, so we've got a video library. You know, so many people, you know, like, hey, where do I get your videos? So instead of sending them off to lots of other places, which you can still find our videos on, but, yeah, just go to bigger pockets slash videos and the library will be there.

It's very cool. Quick tip. Quick tip. All right. Well, let's go on with Today's show is really, really awesome. It's by a guy who is actually a billion. We're interviewing a billion dollar agent,

which means he's sold more than a billion dollars in property. Such a amount. Yeah, a billion dollars in property. That's a very small club of agents out there who have done that. But he's also a real estate investor. And kind of a cool perspective on some stuff, especially like how he works with other investors who buy apartment complexes.

The whole kind of the partnership thing is really, really cool. I think you guys will like that kind of an angle we haven't covered before. Yeah, yeah. He was the top agent in the, entire world at remax for one year and also at keller williams i mean that's and obviously he's a real estate investor and so yeah lots of lots of great stuff we we we cover lots of topics from you know low-income uh rentals to yeah section eight stuff that was fun section eight yes multiple streams of income yeah it's it's a great show so his philosophy we get we talk about it towards

the end of the show but his philosophy on like what he calls horizontal income i think is something that every listener here fascinating every listener here fascinating every listener here should be listening and doing what he's talking about, I think. Well, you know, from what he says, what, the average person has, what, one to two streams? Yeah, one or two. At most three of horizontal income by the time they're retired. And he's got 60. Yeah, he's got 60 something.

It's amazing. I love it. I love it. Guys, this is show 190 of the Bigger Pockets podcast. You can check out the show notes at biggerpockets.com slash show 190. And otherwise, guys, really quickly before we get into it, definitely make sure to subscribe to the show if you have not done so already. Just hit the subscribe button on iTunes, Stitcher, SoundCloud, wherever else you're consuming the show, or if you're just listening on our

website, follow those links to Stitcher, SoundCloud, iTunes, you name it, and subscribe. Also, if you have a chance, please leave us a rating and review while you're at it. Let's get to this thing. Today's guest, as we already said, is a billion. No, he's not a billionaire. That would be pretty cool. Well, you know, if you are a billionaire and want to be on the show and invest in real estate, get in touch. We would certainly be interested in chatting with you. But no, our guest today, Pat Hybin has done a whole lot of transactions as a real estate agent and has changed and transformed his life and now focuses primarily on investing in real estate for income purposes. And he's done all sorts of deals. I think he's done about a hundred deals is what he said. And he's a New York Times best selling author. He is also in New York Times. He's a selling author. He's a podcaster. The guy's brilliant. Guys doing lots of great things. Most investors spend more time chasing deals than reviewing their insurance. But a quick coverage check can be fast, easy, and one of the smartest ways to protect

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So let's get to this. Pat. Welcome to the show, man. It's good to have you here. Josh, Brandon, thanks for having me, man. This is awesome. Yeah, no, it's an honor. This should be fun today.

Yeah, so we're talking about... He's famous, isn't he this guy? He's a big deal, I hear. That's the word. Rumor has it. Rumor has it. Tell us real quickly about yourself. Why would we say you got some accolades?

Yeah, well, I kind of wish that I'm in the real estate sales business from the beginning. And I wish it was a business where you could get rich without being famous. And I'm working on that now, actually, is how to get richer without being more famouser. Yeah. But it is what it is. So I've been a real estate agent licensed full time in the state of Maryland for 27, going on 28. years and read some very high peaks at some very big companies. In 2004, I was a number one remax agent in the world in 2006. I believe it was. I was number one at Keller Williams.

Hey, Brandon, can we get a more impressive guest? I don't know that this guy really cuts the mustard. Yeah, you know, well, he did a good job as an agent, it sounds like, but you also invest as well, correct? You got some real estate investments in there? Yeah, absolutely. So, and I, you know, that's part of my thing is I think that real estate agents or commission people in general, but mainly real estate agents don't invest. Like they just don't. They talk the talk, but they don't walk to walk. Oh, man.

Hallelujah. Yeah. I've been screaming that from the hilltops, man, for 12 years since I've been doing this. I mean, it just blows my mind. I was an agent for KW and Coldwell for like six minutes each was not very good either time. But what shocked me was that the agents were not investing. It's just like, I didn't get it. And I get it now.

I mean, I think most of them don't fully understand the business. They're not trained. They don't know how to evaluate deals from an investment capacity. And they think that they don't have the resources to do it. But, you know, little do they know you can be creative and actually get some deals done. But yeah, it's just, it's fascinating to me. Well, they tend to be right-brained animals, you know, so they're very gregarious and very salesmany and great with people,

but just terrible when it comes to numbers and operations and, you know, everything down the savings. You know, one of my favorite thing to do is to pick up a magazine called the Baltimore Business Journal. And in the back, it has three or four pages of all the tax liens in the Baltimore area and highlight names of real estate agents I know. It sounds mean, but it's just like, look at that sucker. Is that your weekly social media post?

And of course, on his websites, he's saying, you know, I'm the best and I'm the greatest. And look at me in this, you know, $2,000 suit. But here I am in the back of the newspaper with a tax lien on my house. Well, and that's one of the reasons I think so many, especially newer real estate investors, they take advice from their real estate agents who may or may not, but may have never bought a single property in their life. They may have never done anything, but they take all this advice, like, oh, my agent said that was a good deal. I'm going to go buy it. My agent said this was a good multifamily. I'm going to go buy it. And they rely on, you know, rather than doing their own

numbers, they rely on somebody else to tell them what's good and what's not. It's dangerous. I love your last guest, David Howe, and I'll never forget this. He said, he said, when you ask a real estate agent, how the market is, don't tell them if you're a buyer or seller. Yeah. Yep. That was deep. I was like, oh, there you go. Yeah. Yeah. I love that too. Yeah, that was an awesome show. So people can go back and listen to that, by the way, by going to biggerpockets.com slash slash show.

I don't even remember what number that was, 186 maybe. We'll put it in the show. Yeah, we'll put it in the show notes. Check out the show notes at biggerpockets.com slash show 190. Yeah, it was 87, I think, but 187. Anyway, all right, so let's jump back into your story. So, I mean, you were an agent for years. You obviously knew what you were doing in that business.

But let's talk about getting into your investing. Like, when did you first buy your property for yourself? Like, when did you jump from agent to buyer? I was 23. 23. Yeah. And so I bought a townhouse and I rented out the basement to two girls. And then I rented one of the bedrooms upstairs to a friend of mine and lived in the other bedroom.

So kind of and I shared a bathroom with my roommate. I didn't have my own bathroom until actually until I got married. So you house hacked. We call that house hacking. Yeah. I was so proud of that. Yeah. It's a great way to get.

started. I mean, yeah, whether it's a single family duplex, you know, triplex, fourplex, like, those, a good way to get started. Do you, I mean, do you look back on that with fond memories now, or you're like, what the hell was I doing? No, I think it was great. You know what I mean? Because I just did it. I never really paid rent for very long. And so I was always a landlord after that, you know, or own my own home. And I actually kept that house up until like five years ago, finally sold it. But, you know, I mean, that was a great deal. You know, I just kept it. And eventually it was paid off. you know. So anyways, that was, I'm proud of that, yeah. Well, that's, that's one of the, the strategies that we really love to share with newer investors. You know, a lot of people come out

and they're like, you know, I don't have a lot of money, I don't have resources, I'm not sure how to get started. And we always recommend looking at house hacking as a way to go because it's an opportunity to save on your own personal payments while learning the ropes of becoming a landlord. Do you have any stories from those days or any tips, advice, or anything like that for Well, what pops into my head is an amazing story. It's not about me, but it's about a guy I know. He's in Texas, and he's an illegal alien. He was brought here when he was a kid from his parents from Peru when they were on vacation or alleged vacation, and then they stayed here. And so my point of this is, now he's 26, so he's been here like, whatever, 16 years or something.

he has bought in Texas five houses from house hacking without being a citizen in that he cannot get a mortgage, but his name, let me think about this. Yeah, he cannot get a mortgage, but his name could be on the deed. So what he does is he gets a friend of his or someone he knows to get the mortgage, right? And then they split the house 50-50. They both own 50% of the house, and he has five investment properties now. That's awesome. That's actually when I had no money at all, I mean, that was my main strategy. When I couldn't get a mortgage, I had no job and no money, and I was trying to do this flipping house and buying rentals and all that. And banks didn't like me. That was my main strategy. Find a partner, somebody who maybe had good credit, who the bank loved to work with and say, hey, why don't we just split this 50-50? You get the mortgage in your name.

We'll both be entitled and we'll just split everything down the middle. And that worked out fantastic for me for a number of years. Well, yeah, I think that's a great lesson, by the way, a lot of people are curious, like how do I go for? from monopoly little greenhouses to big red hotels. Most people that go from little greenhouses to big red hotels do it with partners. Yeah. Do it with somebody else that's richer. So there's an answer there some people might be searching for. Yeah.

What I like about that story is, I mean, this is a guy who, like you said, I mean, illegal, you know, and that's not stopping him from making it happen. So if he can go and he can make it happen, then all you guys listening, who are saying, well, I don't have money or I don't have this, I don't have that. Like, those are excuses. I mean, there's an answer to all those things. And it may not be you're going to buy it today. It may be, you know, it'll take you a little bit of time. But, you know, anybody can do this. You just have to find the path. And there's a path for everybody. Yeah. Yeah, one of the stories I like to tell people, like I do this, I say it's on the

Bigger Pockets webinar every week is, or almost every week. I tell the story. Imagine for a minute that, I mean, people say I can't afford to buy a house. I don't know about money, right? So I'd like to use this story. Imagine that somebody, your next door neighbor, offered you their house for $1,000, just $1,000, but it was worth a million. But for $1,000, the problem is you didn't have $1,000 in your bank account. You had no money.

Would you figure out a way to buy, come up with $1,000? And everyone says, well, of course. And I said, well, how do you do that? I don't know. I'd ask to borrow from somebody. Okay, well, what else? You know, maybe I'd partner with somebody, not from half the deal. Okay, what else did you do?

And, like, the exact same situation applies to any real estate. If you can do with $1,000, I mean, the bottom line is you find a good enough deal, and you're going to be able to find the funding for it if you want it bad enough. Yeah. And there's a ton of people out there that want to invest in real estate, but don't want the pain associated with looking at houses and picking a house and dealing with contractors. So if you can take that pain away, you know, chances are that's worth 50% to them. You know, we use their money and their credit. You deal with all the pain.

And they're like, well, at least I own half a house or, you know. Yeah, for sure, for sure. Well, I think we want to talk more about the partners thing as we move along. Before we do, what came next? You bought this townhouse. You had the girls, the friend in the basement. You're starting to experience what it's like to be a landlord. I'm guessing you got the bug, right?

Yeah, so here's the thing. So this was like 1991, something like that. And so the very next year, I wasn't married at the time, but I did end up marrying this girl. I'm still married to her. But my girlfriend at the time, I had her. get an FHA loan on a house around the corner from this first one. So she ended up buying that house, which was really in both our names, but I needed her because it was a first time buyer loan. And I didn't want to put, I didn't have 20% to put down. So it was 2.3% down. So we put it in her

name. So we bought that second one. Now here's a mistake that I made. So that was say 92. Let's just say. So I didn't buy a house again until 2000 or maybe 1999. And a lot of people ask me, Pat, what's the one mistake if you look back or what's the one thing you didn't do that you kind of regret? And I think that would be it. It would be that I should have bought a house a year minimum in that eight-year time frame, you know, just methodically bought a house. Because the real estate market didn't change at all in the 90s. It was basically flat. You know, it didn't go up.

It didn't go down. It was just there. And now looking back, of course, those houses would be worth three or four times. as much and they'd all be paid off. So, but anyway, so I took an eight-year sabbatical. I got into what, like everyone else, got into the stock market. I actually took, I had, uh, in 99, 2000. Yeah, right around, all in the 90s, you know? Yeah, I made, uh, I wrote about this in my book. I actually, I think it was 2001, uh, I became a millionaire, right? And I used to have this software. I think it's still out, Microsoft money, where every night you'd go there and it would calculate

how much money you have. And it calculated a million and $13. Nice. And I screamed. And my wife's like, what's going on? What's going on? I said, we're millionaires. We made it.

We're millionaires. And I showed her, and she's like, what do you want to do to celebrate? And I said, I don't care what we do long as it doesn't cost more than $13. And that's a true story. And we ate Jerry's. cheese steaks and Miller Light. And I actually took a picture that I still have today. It's a picture of us sitting there eating Jerry's cheese steaks and Miller Light saying, you know, we're millionaires. So, but then there's another side of that story. And of course, then, you know, 9-11 happened

to market crash. So I lost 800 grand. Wow. I think my portfolio was at like at 1-1-15 or something. And so I was like $1,150,000, went all the way down to like 330 over a course of a year, right? One year, it just, it was all tech stocks. It was all margined out. You know, I was borrowing money to buy stocks. And I just couldn't get out from under it. You know, I was like, it's going to turn around. The broker was like, it's going to turn around.

Don't worry about it. Stick in. Don't bail. And it just went all the way down. And then it was at that point that I was like, you know what, I'm going into real estate. You know, I'm going to just start. I should have never stopped. I'm going to just go with what I knew because I knew real estate.

You know, I understood real estate. So then I started buying a bunch of rental properties and I bought a bunch of properties in the University of Maryland College Park and rented them to college kids. And then I bought a bunch of ghetto properties in Baltimore City and did Section 8 rentals. Cool. Can I ask you how that turn out? I mean, like, the Section 8 rentals and kind of a, it sounds like not the world's best neighborhood. I mean, like, what was that experience like? And do you still own them today?

Yeah, I still have six properties in Baltimore City. I try to buy. I kept, the ones that I kept or bought were in neighborhoods where if they found out that I was going to put a Section 8 in there, they would be upset. Okay. Does that make sense? Yeah. So I didn't want to buy on a block where every house in there was Section 8. because I felt that the risk is too high for a market to be created by investors that all want to sell at the same time.

It's fascinating. It is. And can you explain what Section 8 is, though? For the people who might never have heard of that term before that I listened to the show, what does that mean? And why is it potentially beneficial? What are the downsides? Sure. It's basically government money that if you're poor, let's just say, and you have a bunch of kids,

you could qualify for Section 8 because you can't afford to live where you want to live with all these kids. So you apply the government and then they usually will pay somewhere between 80% and 100% of your rent for you. And generally, the people that go through the process of applying and are organized enough because they went through the interviews and the processes and all that stuff, and they all have some job, whether it's working at a royal farm store selling chicken or it's, you know, working at a prison as a prison guard. I have one of those at Section 8. They're making some money, maybe $30,000 or something,

but they're not making enough to afford something in houses four kids and a mom. So anyways, they tend to be better than obviously, you know, for dup fiends or, you know, a professional criminal. So I don't want people to get the wrong idea. These are poor people with some sort of job. organized enough to pass all the interviews and things. Now, at the same time, they are socialized in believing that they're entitled to this after a while. So what happens is, if you have a problem with them, they're kind of like, well, I don't care. You know, I'm going to work the system.

I got a lady who actually lost her voucher. So she was getting, like the rent was $1,400. And she's getting $1,200 of it. So we're getting direct deposits for $1,200. bucks a month. She's giving us 200. It works out fine, whether she pays us or not. And then all of a sudden, she loses that $1,200 because she did something wrong. I don't know what she did, but she did something wrong. And they said, you're not a candidate anymore. So then we got to kick her out because she can't afford it. And she's like, no, you know, I'm going to work the system. She actually told us to our face, I'm going to work the system, which meant she was going to let it go through the courts, which in Maryland takes four or five months before you can kick him out.

So, and she did. Yeah. I was just I had a section 810. You had them too, right? Josh, back in the day. I had a lot of them. Yeah. I had one who wouldn't let the inspectors in to inspect her unit, which they're supposed to do.

So she lost her voucher, which then, of course, she can't pay. Same thing. And it took me three or four. I think it took me that one, three months to get her out. And had I, she threatened to shoot me in the process. Well, so, I mean, so the downside is that, you know, there's, lots of things going on here, right? They're getting assistance from the government. If that goes away for whatever reason, most likely because they screwed up, then you're going to lose your tenant.

What are the positives? Why would somebody, because I will tell you, you know, when I first started investing and I brought on Section 8 tenants, I was really excited. I was like, oh, I get a guaranteed check from the government. I don't have to worry if they're making the money. And if they, like you said, if that 200 bucks doesn't come in, as long as I paid right, I'm good. And in theory, that was great. managing Section 8 was not something I was down with, nor, you know, it takes a certain kind of person to deal with, you know, the lower income properties because a lot of problems tend to come with them. So what are the positives that happen besides the guaranteed rent? Well, in my experience, these are the positives. Number one, it's a seller's market, right? Because like I can get

four people that want, you know, one of these properties when it comes open again, that all want it. and I can pick which one I want. And if I tried to sell it to a regular family and get $1,400 a month, I couldn't get it. They're not going to pay that. It would then become a buyer's market at that point. So it's a seller's market from the get-go because of supply and demand, because less landlords want to do it. And there's a huge demand of these people that have these vouchers that can't find a house. Second thing is they pay above market rent.

They're generally paying me 10 to 20 percent above market rent. That's not in every market though, Pat, right? I mean, I know some markets, Section 8 will actually pay above market, but in others, you may end up getting flatter or slightly below, right? Yeah, I can't answer that, probably. I know in Baltimore, they pay above market. Sure. Because there's what it is.

And then the other thing is, you know, the direct deposit that always hits your bank account the same time, you know, the first of the month, it's always there, the money's always there. So those are the positives. And if they have little, if their kids are young enough, they tend, and I don't mean to generalized, but they tend to, you know, want to stay there. It's not unheard of that they could stay there a long time. They're not really, you know, out there shopping for something better, for the most part. Now, I just had a situation where the lady was a, she'd only been there six months and she was, she witnessed a crime and a gang that was involved in said crime,

came to her house and threatened her. So she called Section 8 and they called us and said, we need to get her out of there and move her to a new address. And I could have held her to the lease, but I just felt it was bad karma. Like I wasn't going to, you know, I didn't want to, I felt bad for her. She's trying to do the right thing and be a witness where the rest of the city would be like, I didn't see anything. I didn't see anything. So I'm like, this is bad karma, just let her out. We just let her out. That house is coming on the market in like two weeks. So I'll rent it right away again, I guarantee it. Gotcha. All right. So section eight, there's some positives. There's some negatives. It's not for everybody, but there's definitely an opportunity.

to make money. Really quickly before we move on, because I want to get to the college rentals after this really quick. You said that your properties, your section 8s generally tend to be in neighborhoods where it's not a ton of Section 8 housing, and I think that's actually a really good idea, I wish I thought of that.

How does one go about applying to make a property section 8? How does one do that? Well, you know, they just go on the Internet and they download the rules, and there are certain things you've got to do. You got to put a lot of smoke detectors and CO2 detectors and just make it safe. Lead paint safe. Just make sure it's safe according to their rules.

And then they come out and inspect it. The city will come out and inspect it. And if you pass your inspection, then it's eligible for Section 8. And there's a website, go section 8.com. And Section 8 people just go to go section 8.com, at least in this area, and they just look for rentals. And generally, like I said, there's more people that want it than there are landlords. Perfect. Cool.

All right, college rentals. So, you know, also a niche within a niche, right? Yeah. Why college rentals? What's your experience been with those? I've always been a cash flow guy, right? I never really bought too many houses in the area that I lived directly, like my little neighborhood, because I knew that those were appreciation plays. You know, I knew that they were stable and they're good neighborhoods and good schools, but the ratios were just terrible with what you can get for rent. So I always wanted to go to where I had an advantage, right? And Section A was one, I felt, and college rentals are another. And that what happens with the college rentals is you can charge by bedroom. So whereas a family might pay $2,400 bucks for a house, if it has five bedrooms,

I can get, you know, $3,500 from six college kids or five college kids by charging them $700 each. And if you look at what it costs to rent a dorm, the dormitories are probably 700 bucks, and you have to share a room with another kid. We're here in a house, you get your own room for the same price. And I'm getting market rents that are literally 50, 75 percent above market. I have one deal I did. I actually bought a piece of land, and I put two houses on it that are six-bedroom, two-bath, split, four-year houses. So two level houses, a bath upstairs, a bath downstairs, two bedrooms, a kitchen, and a living room upstairs, four bedrooms downstairs, and a bathroom, and a laundry room.

Side-by-side, identical houses. I bought the land for, let me think, the whole thing I think cost me a buck 75 a house, right? That's what it costs, 175,000 a house. Now, this was like 2002. Today, rent is nine grand for the two houses. Wow. So, four. $4,500 each house. And what happened was both of these houses are right behind sorority and fraternity row. So we have one sorority that's been renting them out, both houses for like six years. They pass it down, generation to generation, little brother, little sister to big sister, whatever. They keep passing it down.

We never have to market at nothing, no marketing costs. And we're getting $4,500 a month each house, $9,000. It's phenomenal. And some of that has to do what they made these laws with, the Fraternity Row where they could only bring like a 12 pack of beer in a month or whatever, something silly with the amount of beer that they're allowed to bring in. And they're like, this is ridiculous. You know, I think it was like one beer per person per night or something.

So there was an exodus of all these sorority sisters looking for houses, and they've locked in on these two. So anyways, I'm getting really high rents and their market rents. You know, I'm not gouging. Actually, mine are lower than some. I love that. I love this creativity behind that. Yeah. Like, it's just unique. So, I mean, how do you manage all that now? Do you have a typical property manager looks after? Do you go over there, hang out with the store or do you have, you know, separate the fights? Hey, girls, I'm here.

No, I don't. You know, a lot of these houses I haven't seen in years. But I have a, you know, I have a guy, Mike, who is a courier for the real estate team that I sold in 2010. And he's been with the team for, like, 12 years or something. So early on, you know, I hired him to do the property man's. I think I pay him 6% and he does everything, you know, except for the accounting. And then I have an accountant that I've had for years who does all the bookkeeping and things like that. And then he charges me 500 bucks a month, I believe, for 10 houses. Wow. Yeah. Sounds pretty good. And 6% is kind of a steal. So that's awesome. And he's happy. I'm happy, you know, so it works out. Hey, so how do you make a house college-proof, college kid-proof? Well, here's the thing, you know, it's really, believe it or not, it's mental because

if I never see the house, I don't really care what they do to it. It's not like they're going to burn it down, right? I mean, they might. They might, but no, probably not. And by the way, I have sprinklers. That's true. When I built them, I put sprinklers in them. Yeah, okay.

Number one. Number two, we put, you know, commercial-grade black carpet in them. Of course, we load them up with smoke detectors. But the real answer is this. We charge two months rent, security deposit. So I got nine grand each house. I got $18,000 a security deposit for these two houses. And we have the kids and the parents sign the leases.

And so, you know, it's pretty strong. Again, that's a seller's market. We're able to do that. But that protects us. We've never had a problem. I mean, we've had problems. But we never lost money on a security deposit. And even if they just did head butts into the wall with a headbutt contest and put massive holes all over the whole house, I wouldn't care, right?

Because I don't see it anyways. It's just a, you know, it's a business. Yeah. Well, so we had a on the podcast a long time ago, Darren Sager, and one of his big things was how do you tenant proof your house? I don't remember what show it was. And we'll link to that on the show notes as well. But, you know, he went and bought, yeah, I believe he got. that flooring that was just super sturdy, you know, extra hardcore walls and things like that.

You're not doing any of that beyond the commercial grade carpets and sprinklers. Yeah, no. And if every tenant, we have to repaint and recarpet, we don't, again, we don't care. And that rarely happens, you know, so. Got it. Cool. Okay, well, so moving on back to your story a little bit. So I know maybe before we get to the rest of your story, I mean, do you have an estimate? If you had to estimate, how many total, like, real estate deals have you done where you're actively a part owner or a full owner? and like do you have any kind of ballpark estimate?

You know, I like the number 100 or so. It's just hard to say, you know, I've been involved with a bunch of flips. I like to sell, you know what I mean? I'm not one of these guys that holds forever. I do like to sell. Sometimes I'm right. Sometimes I'm wrong, you know. But I do like taking money off the table, you know, like the deals I did with that I'm

doing with Andrew Cushman. Andrew and I and some other investors have bought eight apartments since we started buying maybe eight six years ago or something but we've sold four of them so we've sold 50% of what we bought so I'm not afraid to sell I think a lot of people are afraid to sell I'm not afraid to take money off the table and I'm not afraid to pay taxes on a game I'll try to 1099 it but if I can't I'll just pay taxes I don't care because I you know I think it's prudent to be strong enough to be able to sell makes sense interesting interesting yeah A lot of people get nervous about that and say, you know, I don't want to sell unless I could 1031 it into another property.

You're saying if I'm buying it right and I'm selling it, you know, I'm going to sell it with enough room where it's kind of irrelevant. I'm going to make a lot of money on these things. Yeah, yeah. And again, no one knows if I'm right or wrong until I'm 80 years old looking back on the whole thing. Yeah, sure. And I have 1099. I mean, I have 1031. Did I say 1099?

I don't know. 1031 exchange. I have 1031 a bunch of stuff, so I'm not against it. But at the same time, you know, if you're selling something and it's at its peak, you know, and then you're buying something else in the same area at its peak, then it's kind of, you might as well keep what you have, you know. Yeah. So I don't know.

And then I invest in other stuff too. You know, I start diversifying. I think I'm 38%. I call them combats. You know, if you play craps. A combed is when you bet on the role, the last role, right? So these are like something on the come. So something is going to, whatever comes next.

So they're more like private companies, more riskier things. Interesting. Where I used to be maybe in 2008, I can tell you, I was zero percent combats, zero percent betting on what was coming next. Now I'm about 30 some percent betting on what's coming next. Private companies, equity deals, hedge funds, stuff like that. but I'm still 65, 70% real estate. Okay.

I was just going to say, you know, it's interesting because a lot of people go all in there, like, let me go 100% real estate. I know what I understand it. And, you know, they say, I diversify through real estate within real estate, which, you know, makes sense. You're saying, hey, I'm going to look at these other opportunities, your combats and go forward with those. Why there's the ratios that you're choosing? Why 65% real estate? Would you ever want to go below 50% or?

No, it's too scary. And I'm also, I'm getting to the point now where I think that the world, the American world, let's just say, is too much ingenuity. Like with Shark Tank and playing over and over and over again and with all this money out there, there's like so much investing. And these people, I invested in 16 companies. And I'm starting to feel like, you know, some of these companies that I invested in, the hardest that they worked was when they were. trying to raise the money. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, and I don't see them anymore. I'm like, what did you guys do? I see them on Facebook and social media and I make sure I friend them all. And I'm here I am in France, you know, here I am doing this. I'm like, what the hell are you doing? Dude, you should be on postling. You know, where's my money? Yep.

So I actually about two months ago, I just started saying no to everything, you know, because I think I'm over leveraged. I think I want to be more cash. My wife and I bought, now we own two like primary residents. It's one in Maryland, one in South Carolina. I sold an office building that I made some money on and bought the house in South Carolina. It was like $800,000. We paid cash for that.

I think I'm just going to leave that. And then we have one in here in Maryland, which has like 50% equity in it. And I'm going to just leave that. So anyways, I'm starting to become more cash-focused. Gotcha. And I think that's just part comes with any real estate investor's life, is this kind of shift focuses as they go and eventually get to the point where you're at right now. Not to say you're old or anything. I'm just saying your experience.

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And I want to talk about, you mentioned earlier that you work on some apartment complexes with some partners, guys like Andrew Cushman, who we had on the show. Can we talk about that for a little bit? Coming from the standpoint of your, you know, we've had a lot of guys like Andrew on the show who are the syndicated. I mean, they're the guys that put together everything. But we haven't talked a lot about the guys who are the ones partnering with them, that providing the funding.

And I'm assuming that's kind of your main role, or are you also actively? That's the role. He's the brain behind it. You know, he does all the, analysis and all that, and then we're just the money people essentially. I mean, we we throw in our two cents, but essentially we're the money people or we're the people that know people with money. Yeah. Okay. So, and that's why I think this will be a fascinating topic because, again, not, I mean, for people listening to this right now, I want to hear a little bit about your experience with that,

both from the standpoint of when I'm trying to raise money from guys like you, like what are you looking for, what makes you feel comfortable to invest with somebody, but also people listen to the show who have money and they don't want to necessarily spend the next six. months putting together this gigantic deal. They'd rather just find somebody they trust. So from both those standpoint, can you talk about like what attracts you to a deal? What makes you say, you know what? I think I do want to go in on this deal and put my money into it. Well, I think that the people need a track record. I think that's so important because I get deals all the time. You know, people, I mean, this is not an exaggeration. I probably get a deal a day of somebody because I have a podcast

and people know I invest and they hear me and people I don't even know are like, hey, hey, you know, my brother's putting this shopping center development deal together or my, you know, blah, blah, blah. Anyways, make a long story shirt. And what I look at is, you know, do they have a track record? And a lot of times they don't. A lot of times they're just, for some reason, think that they're a syndicate person, you know, that they can put together a development deal. Yeah.

And they have no experience in it. It's ridiculous. So I think it's important that you look at who it is and how many have they done and what's the track record. and, you know, what are there averages and do your due diligence? Because I've certainly done deals over the years, all sorts of deals, where I lost all my money. And it is possible, you know, that that could happen. There's a dark side to capitalism.

I think that a lot of people have that wrong. They think that, you know, they can write a check for 100 grand and give it to somebody. And no matter what, it's going to do good. Well, you know, there's a dark side. Even though these little rentals, you know, there's a dark side. The key is doing enough of them. I have close to 60 now. It fluctuates between 55 and 60, like streams that pay me horizontally.

That's how I was essentially in 2010 or so able to get out of the real estate sales business and just kind of hang out. And so anyways, I think it doesn't bother me, you know, if my tenant moves out because of, you know, she was threatened. It doesn't bother me if a kid, you know, lights a couch on fire because Maryland lost a Duke, which did happen. But luckily, it was in the front yard. Wow. So anyways, am I making sense? Yeah, yeah, for sure. Hey, you said track record. I have two questions that just came from your answer. What about, I understand that people need you're looking for somebody with a track record. So that's, that's great. I think that's really important. Yeah. So those people that don't have a track record, how should they be?

build that track record. Obviously, it sounds like you're saying, don't start saying, hey, I'm a syndicator. Start maybe buy a house or two houses, five houses, whatever it is, prove that you can actually make money in real estate for other people on a smaller scale and then work your way up. Is that what you're implying? I think so. Some of these people I want to say, why don't you go out and just buy up a ghetto property? You know, why don't you just go out and buy a house for $30,000 and rent it out for $500 a month. You know what I mean? I mean, just get your head kicked in

and show that you have the wherewithal, because a lot of these people, you know, you don't, in real, they might not last, you know? I mean, they might not, you know, three or four years, they get another job. I don't know. You know what I mean? You want someone who's, well, like Andrew, right?

I mean, like he quit his job as an electrical engineer, whatever chemical engineer, and he's never looked back, like eight years ago and this is all he does. I don't think he's ever going to say, I want to be a chemical engineer again, ever. And there's so many people out there that are just think that they're serious now, but they're not.

They don't have a track record, you know? Did I answer the question? You did. You did. Talk about horizontal income, because you brought that up as well before we move on to back to track record. What exactly is that? So most of the world lives on what they call

vertical income, You know, you get a job, you get a 2% raise every year, and that's increasing vertically. And then at some point in your life, you get horizontal streams. One is Social Security. That's a horizontal stream. You get that, right? Whether you work or not, your retirement may be a horizontal stream. But you might only get two, maybe three, okay?

I've always believed that you should create horizontal streams early. So instead of trading time for money, which I understand you've got to do to get down payments to buy things and stuff like that. But at some point your goal should be creating horizontal streams. So I started creating them. You know, like when I first got into college park, the returns were so good, University of Maryland, I bought seven of them. You know, bum, boom, boom. And then, you know, with these Section 8 rentals, I started buying a bunch of them. And then, you know, with Cushman, you know, I was like, okay, I'll put a hundred into that one.

I'll put 100 into that one. And so my goal was actually to create as many lines as possible to diversify so that if one of the apartment buildings went bad or one of the rentals went empty, that the other ones were making me happy. And then I started doing the same thing with companies, which is a little trickier because I bought 16 private companies or portions of them, you know, percentages. And I would say out of those probably only five pay me horizontally. So it's harder to make that work.

Those are more kind of like equity plays, but the ones that do pay horizontally are great because then you're like, oh, wow, this is great. I'm going to get paid this forever, you know? And then if they sell the company, I'll make a ton too. But it's great. So that, anyways, that's the goal. That's cool. I'm a huge believer in that, you know, having multiple, like they say multiple streams

of income or multiple lanes or whatever people call it. Like, I love that idea. Yeah. And what you said there, I think was key. Like when you're younger or at least when you're, as soon as you can, Again, people spend so much time trading their time for dollars, right, at a job or whatever, but you start trading your time for these assets that you're building, these horizontal income streams. I know, I love that.

And you learn a lot. With each one that you do, it's a built-in education. So even if you're just looking at profit loss statements on an apartment building and looking at the pro forma on it, you know, read it seven times, you know, learn from it. even if you don't put 50 grand into the deal, you know, learn from it. And if you do put 50 grand into the deal, pay attention when you get an email as to what it says as what's going on with the development. Yeah. You know, it's one of the reasons I have a hard time with flipping houses.

I mean, I like, flipping houses, it's fun. But every time I flip a house, I'm like, man, that income's gone. It's gone for good. Like, man, I could have spent all that time and, you know, refinanced it, turned into a rental property and kept it for the next 50 years of my life. And I don't know, it's always a tough one. But going back, I have one more question before we move on to the fire round. But I'm curious, when you're working with somebody on an apartment complex, they come to you with a deal or whatever you're, you know, how much do you personally dive into the numbers?

And how much do you just trust that the person knows what they're doing? You know, like, how deep do you dive into that? So someone's bringing me a deal. Yeah, let's say, I mean, let's say, Christian and investing in it. Yeah, like Andrew brings you a deal. Brandon's got a deal. I'll bring you a deal. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, how much of this is just trusting me and how much is trusting the numbers? Well, I do trust, but I do verify, you know, that old cliche. But it's, I can look at, I have the ability to look at numbers, you know, get a couple coffee, shut the door, don't take any interruptions. That's how I got to look at them. But I would say it's about 70, 30 means 70% of it is trust because you just don't know. You know, you really don't know.

There's things that I thought would be terrible investments and they turned out great. There's things that I was like super confident of and they were complete disasters. And I've learned that I'm not that smart. You know what I mean? Like so I have to trust other people. I mean, that's good and bad, you know. Yeah. It's good because you pull the trigger faster.

Yeah. You know, if you trust them, you're going to pull the trigger. And usually action helps you build wealth or helps you, you know, people that act generally do well in this world. But on the downside is. if you put too much in it, you could lose a lot. So I guess the key is, you know, find people with a track record that you trust, even if you have to do background checks on them and a credit report on them. That's not a big deal nowadays, that you trust them,

but then do a little here and a little there and a little there. And, you know, it's not unheard of. You know, another friend of ours, David Osborne, he has 360 some horizontal lines. So don't think that, like, 10 is a big deal, right? you know, think like, oh, he's got 360, I want to get 400, you know. So, so yeah, okay, I'll put 25 in that one or I'll put 100 in that one. You know what I mean? It's like, okay, here's another line and we'll see what happens. So, Pat, on this, you talk about the track record. You talk about

obviously that 70% trust. You look over the numbers. Is there anything else that is going to attract you to a deal? Or is it just the numbers in the guy or Dow? Well, lately, It's been, you know, this is a timely question. Okay, because we're obviously, I don't want to say we're at the top of a market, but we're in the upper 30% of a market. We're somewhere between 70 and 100% at the top of a real estate market. Would you agree with that? Probably.

Okay. So you have to be more concerned with, is it recession proof? You know? And so to answer your question, the other thing that I would look at today that I probably probably wouldn't have looked at five years ago or even two and a half years ago or two years ago, is this thing recession proof? Is it in a path of growth that's going to happen irregardless? For instance, Andrew and I are looking at an apartment complex now that, you know, I won't get specific because it's, I don't know what I'm allowed to or not allowed to say, but it's in

what we consider the path of growth, okay, because of some things that are going in that are being built by the government, let's say. And that's a big plus. And if that weren't happening, we probably wouldn't be buying it because that helps it be recession proof, you know, should the market turn downside. It used to not have to be a factor. It used to be if the numbers worked and a performer looked good and I trusted the person, you know, I went in on the deal. Now it's more than ever now. I'm still buying.

I still will buy that. But I'm not as excited to buy, you know, just regular old stuff. Does this make sense? Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. It's got to be in a path of growth or got to be in an area where you're going to see appreciation. I hate to say that to anyone because my whole life I've invested in cash flow. But I think now, since we're at the top of the market or coming to the top of the market, you should invest in cash flow and also invest in a place where you see something that's going to pull it up that's not just the markets.

Yeah, got you. Fair enough. I love it. I've always been a big belief. of the idea that like cash flow helps you quit your job but appreciation is what's going to make you rich yeah and so like yeah i mean when i wanted to quit my job i needed 3 000 a month i said okay i went out and found 3 000 a month in cash flow i mean that it's doable right but yes when it's like hey i want to i want to have 20 million dollars that's a lot of rental properties to buying cash flow and have 20 million

dollars so right yeah yeah well cool all right well hey let's shift gears here and head over to the world famous fire round it's time for the fire round These questions come directly out of the Bigger Pockets forums. And today, Pat, we're going to fire them right at you. How could you get to those forums, Brandon? Oh, you can get to them by going to biggerpockets.com forward slash forums. Excellent. And you can ask questions of people like Pat here who can help you out.

So number one, when looking at, when looking for a residential property, what is the key you found that's brought you the most success? Is it location? Is it the type of property? What is it that you've, looking back, has been the most, I don't know. kind of rephrasing this, but what's been the most impactful, like one factor of your successful deals? I would say something that has a unique advantage, you know, like the college kids being able to rent them per bedroom or Section 8 in Baltimore paying 20% above rent, stuff like that. Great. I love it. I think that's great. All right. Cool. Next question. Let's say you've got a million

dollars to invest in multifamily properties. Where do you buy or what do you buy? Yeah. We've been buying, we like Georgia. Atlanta is a great area. It's hot area. There's a lot of people moving in. We, you know, we have several apartment buildings in Macon, Georgia, and some surrounding areas of Macon, you know, suburbs of Atlanta, so to speak. For multifamily, that's really where we like. We've looked at some stuff. We had one in South Carolina. We just sold. We had two in Texas. We just sold both of those. Texas is peaking. And we had, we bid on one in Florida last month, but we didn't get it. And they were like 18 bids on it. And the person that got it put $250,000 hard down on it, which is pretty unheard of in a commercial market where they basically said, if we don't go through with it after

our due diligence, you get to keep the $250,000. It was like a cash deposit that day and outbid everybody else. And that would be maybe a seller market-esque. So to answer your question, We like Georgia. Obviously, a lot of my regular little things are in Maryland, but that's just because this is where I grew up. Right on. Number three, do you consider real estate a business or an investment? Well, when I was selling and I was earning commissions,

it was definitely a business. I definitely, I would say the answer to the question is investment. Okay. Fair enough. All right. Last question of the fire round. My loan was denied because I've switched jobs to recently. Any advice for me getting a loan approved?

That's a great question. I had a situation where I wanted to get a loan on my house here in Maryland. You know, I did something, I've had some interesting challenges with loans. When the bubble burst in 2008, I panicked and I sold a bunch of crap, pulled all kinds of money off the table, and every other loan that I had, I paid off. So I had all these houses and everything in cash. Primary was in cash. Everything was in cash. And then when the market started getting hot again, where I wanted to start buying again,

I couldn't get a loan because I was living off my horizontal income and I'm a declared real estate professional on my tax returns, which if anybody listening isn't, they should be if you can. It allows you to massively accelerate things like depreciation and I get a lot of depreciation off of any income that comes in to offset it. Also, some of these apartment buildings, when we buy them the first year, we'll put hundreds of thousands of dollars in them in repairs, and that becomes expenses that we can write off. So to make a long short short, my tax returns were terrible. I couldn't get a loan. I went and I got commercial loans against some of my properties.

So that would be the answer to number one would go to a small local bank. If you're in South Carolina, go to wherever you're at. If you're in Charleston, South Carolina, go to Charleston Community Bank. And generally, they tend to lend a lot easier than a big mortgage company. And number two, I got a loan recently because I have loans now, I have a commercial loan that covers about 10 properties. Fannie Mae only lets you have 10 houses, mortgages with 10 houses. But I did find a bank that allows more than 10. And I did find a bank that won't even look at your tax returns.

So, yeah. Nice. So just keep looking and try. Yeah, it's out there. They're out there. You just have to find it. I'm sure like the bigger pockets for them is, you know, I'm sure. If not, if I'll go in there and post this guys, or I can text it, give you guys the phone number, this guy that just gave me a loan that does them after 10. Now, the interest rate I got was six and three-eight's, I think, or something like that. So I paid a high interest rate, but I, you know, it was my 11th investment that had a, you got. It was my 11th investment that had a, loan on it. Yeah, yeah, shoot me over. We'll put it in the show notes at biggerpockets.com. So, show 190. All right. So that wraps up the fire round. So now let's transition to the very end of our show, which we lovingly call our famous four. All right, the famous four. These are the same questions we ask every guest every week. And so I'm sure you know what's coming.

Pat, number one, what is your favorite real estate related book? Other than your own. I know you have your own book, which you'll tell us all about that. That's right. You know, I've read all of Robert Kiyosaki's books, but I think the one that he was in his flow on that made a lot of sense was retire, young, retire rich. That seemed to put all the pieces together real well. So I would say that. Okay. I've not read that one. So I've read most of the other ones. Has anyone mentioned it? Yeah, I don't think so. So cool. Good. Nice. Good call. What about favorite business book? So I just finished reading this book and some may say it's kind of earth crunchy.

Others may say it's a business book, but it's written by this guy called Mickey Singer. and basically it's called the surrender experiment. And it is a business book in that he develops a software and he had created a company in Florida with several thousand employees and he was the sole owner. So it's a business book. But at the same time, this is a guy who never wore shoes, right? He was a hippie.

And it's all about surrendering. And I've always been kind of a control freak my whole life. And basically what he says is, you know, there's some things that really don't matter and just let go of them and watch what the universe does with them. So rather than reach out and say, oh, you shouldn't do that or if you do that, this will happen or blah, blah, blah, blah, just delete the email, you know, or don't even respond and just say, I'm going to watch what happens in the universe. Just surrender to the experience. Or if you have an employee that you don't have faith in, you know, just surrender. and have faith.

It's kind of like the tenants and the college units. You know, you just surrender to that. It's surrendered. I'm not going to get caught up and they can have the wildest keg party ever. I don't really care, right?

I just surrender. Why? It doesn't make a difference to me. So it's called the surrender experience and experiment. And I just finished reading. It was a good book. Nice.

The author was, you said, Mickey Singer. It wasn't Brandy Turner with no shoes? No. Sorry. Oh, disappointing. All right. Pat, what do you do for fun, man?

Okay, so, you know, I saw my company, my real estate team and my partner back in 2010, and then I kind of just decided to kind of chill, basically, just become like an investor or I wrote my book. Now I do my podcast. I just do what I feel like doing. So what do I do? You know, I don't know. You know, it's funny.

My friends say, oh, did you go to Target today and stay? in front of the gum aisle and see what type of bubble gum to buy for 10 minutes, you know. And I, you know, I, um, good problem I have. I like, I like working out. I like being outside. I like hiking. And I like to travel. I just got back from Jamaica.

My wife and I went, met, met another couple we've known for years for a week there. Next week, I'm going to Vietnam with Gobundance for two weeks. And that's going to be an incredible trip. I'm going to Australia and New Zealand with my wife and kids. over Christmas. We're going to do New Year's Eve in Sydney. So, you know, I'd just like to create bucket list moments and kind of get the most out of life, you know?

That's cool. And you were one of the founders of Gobundance. Is that right? Yeah, that's right. Yeah, we've had like, what, five Gobundance people. I actually finally just joined Gobundance. So now I'm part of the cult. I mean, I mean, tribe.

No, I love it. I love it. That's fantastic. You're totally invited. All right. Well, very cool. Yeah, I'm looking. I love the bucket list kind of that kind of lifestyle.

Well, I love the quote. I like to create bucketless moments. I think that is beautiful. I really love that. Yeah. Create moments that you're going to take a picture of. It's not just a selfie. Here's me, you know, standing on this.

Like we went to Norway a couple years ago. We went to, you know, stood on that rock that sits in the middle of all those. Rocks? I don't know if you've seen it. But it's like in the middle of nowhere. This is rock and it drops down. It's called K-Rock, Kerbolton. Anyways, we got a picture on top of that.

You know, what can you get a picture of? What can you? You know, here's me with this orphan in Vietnam. You know, I mean, stuff like that that you're just going to remember forever through a photo. Actually, one of the things I did with Go Bennis, I was in charge of the Vietnam trip, and I bought everybody going a Polaroid camera. And I said, our goal is to leave a thousand Polaroid photos with children that have never seen a photo of them. themselves before.

That's cool. That's really cool. Yeah, that's awesome. Well, cool. All right. Well, my final question of the day, and the last of the famous four, Pat, what do you believe sets apart successful real estate investors from all those who give up or they fail or they just never get started?

I think it's the middle part that give up. You know, and being in a real estate sales business, I saw this a ton, where if someone would buy one rental property and it would drive them nuts. like, oh my God, the tenant's driving me crazy. I had to change this. And they called me over there and said this wasn't working. And the fuse box, the switch was off. You know what I mean? It was, blah, blah, blah, blah. And they just can't handle it. They let all that stuff bother them, going back to what we talked about earlier. You can't let any of that bother. You just have to say, like a mentor mine used to have this saying, this saying was everything's going normal. And that

was his phrase for everything. So whenever you're like, oh, my, God, you know, you say everything's going normal. That's how it's supposed to have. Oh, my God, the tenant's moving out. You know, everything's going normal. Everything's going normal. If you can do that, you can last so much longer in this game, you know. And that's probably the difference between success and failure, you know.

Yeah, I love it. I love it. I love it. All right. Well, before we let you go, I know you've got a book. You've got some other stuff happening. Where can people find out more about you? You know, what do you want to share, let people know that they should check out?

Yeah, I would say Google me. I'm all over the place, depending on what you want. I have a podcast, I have a book. I have a main website, Pat Hybin.com that I'm redoing now that should be, you know, all my different websites put together. If you're interested in some of these apartment buildings of Andrew and I do, you could just go to VPACQ.com. That's VPACQ. That's VPACQ. That's Vantage Point Acquisitions. Or you could Google that. It's the only company in the company. It's called Vantage Point Acquisitions. And, you know, that's it. It reaches six, oh, the book, by the way, six steps to seven figures. It's a guide for real estate agents, mainly on how to sell more houses and how to invest. Cool.

It's all over the place, Amazon, whatever. Awesome. Right on. Cool, Pat. Well, listen, man, thank you so much for coming on the show. We really, really do appreciate it. We thank you for your time.

And if you guys have any questions for Pat, you can do that at BiggerPockets.com. slash show 190 on the show notes. And thanks again, and we'll look forward to keep it in touch. All right, guys, that was Pat Heibin. Big thanks to Pat for coming on the show. Billion dollars in real estate transactions. Wow.

That's a lot. That's a lot. Hey, Josh, how many horizontal income streams do you have? That's none of your business. I know. I don't know what I have either. I don't think I have six. I don't think I have.

Yeah, 60. I'm going to sit down and count them, though, later. Yeah, yeah, I've got a few, but I need more. I need more. So I'm going to go out and find some more. That's my new goal. I'm going to go and get lots of new streams. And I just love that philosophy.

You know, like if something drastic happens to something, you know, one of my rental properties burns down, I've got another one to cover. You know, I've got other ones that are going to make me okay. I mean, even, like, I've kind of said that in the past. I think you and I've talked about that. You actually did have one of your income property. I did have one of them burned down. Didn't you?

And I didn't make rent for six months. Quite this. quite the story. Yeah, that was fun, and we're not going to relive that nightmare. Hey, Brandon, text. Your house burned down. Yeah. I burned your house down. I don't remember what it was. I was sitting next to you. You need to call me your house is on fire and then jerk. Oh, you know exactly what he said, don't you? Yeah. That's what we get when we buy low-income rentals, you know? That's all right. I'm not, I personally, like, I'm not a fan. Pat's on it. Pat's doing it and like props to him. But like, you know, it just takes a different. type of person to do it. I don't think I could buy a college rental and not stop by and see that the

walls were kicked in or that, you know, the keg has destroyed the banister or whatever else is happening in there for years at a time. I like that. That wouldn't work for me, but like it works for some people. And so like that's a great strategy for Pat. And I know lots of people who are also doing that. But, you know, so you've got to find what works for you. Not every story is going to, and inspire you to kind of do what they're doing. But you've got to take what they provide and learn from and take a lesson away from it. There you go. Yeah. Good stuff. What else was happening? My brother's getting married next week. Yeah, I'm going to be in a wedding. I'm going to be a goodman. You've got a brother. I do have a brother and he's getting married out in Boston.

Oh, wow. I'll visit the Boston Hava. Don't fat in the pack out and have a dad. I'll try not. Boston is amazing. I go go. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm I'm a Mets fans, so all my fellow baseball fans will know that this is really hard for me to say, but Fenway Park is an amazing stadium. I'll have to go look and see if they have a game. Well, that or Wrigley, I forget which one's the oldest. I think Fenway is. It's one of the two oldest stadiums around, and it's just like really cool to go catch a baseball game there.

It just feels nostalgic. I'm going to go look and see if they have one of them there for like four days, so maybe one of the nights. Same night as a wedding, whatever. What's more important? You tell me. We did Boston Tea Party this summer. Oh, nice. Just, you know, get out there, travel the town, man.

It's a cool town. Lots of fun stuff. I bet I will. I'll take the baby out clubbing. You should do it. You'd be clubbing? Yeah. Awesome.

All right. Well, good times. Guys, thank you for listening. Again, this is the Bigger Pockets podcast. Show 190. Make sure to check in next time on the show. And if you're not already engaged, connecting to other people on our platform, I definitely recommend you create an account today.

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