BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 191: Buying Out-of-State Rentals and Investing Later in Life with Bill Manassero

Episode Date: September 8, 2016

Today on the BiggerPockets Podcast, we’re excited to introduce you to a man who didn’t start investing until later in life but has built an impressive portfolio in the past few years. Even more, he bought his rentals thousands of miles away from where he lives! You’ll learn the inspiring tale of our guest, Bill Manassero, and how he went from running an orphanage in Haiti to buying rental properties and the challenges that transition caused. You’ll also be inspired by Bill’s heart and his real purpose for creating wealth through real estate. You are going to love this powerful episode, and it just might change why you invest in real estate! (And don’t miss Bill’s story of how his family appeared on Oprah!) In This Episode We Cover: Who Bill is (and why he’s hung out with Oprah) Why he built an orphanage How his plans transitioned to real estate Thoughts on investing while nearing retirement The risk profiles for various ages How he focuses on family and not just the money How to reach your freedom number How he and his family got onto Oprah What exactly a turnkey property is — and Bill’s turnkey story A few red flags when it comes to turnkeys His goal of reaching 1,000 units How he finds properties The struggles of reaching his goal, from finding funds to working with the right people How he maintains the property And SO much more! Links from the Show BiggerPockets Videos BiggerPockets Webinar Child Hope International BP Podcast 115: Getting Started with Apartment Complex Investing with Jeff Greenberg BP Podcast 151: Finding Your “Freedom Number” with Clayton Morris Desperate for Tenants in Memphis [Forum Post] BP Podcast 190: Building 61 Different Passive Streams of Income with Pat Hiban BiggerPockets Forums Loopnet BiggerPockets Calculators TEDx Talk by Robert Kiyosaki [Video] 021: Buying Properties with Little or No Money Down with Brandon Turner[Podcast] Books Mentioned in this Show The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Real Estate Investing by BiggerPockets The ABCs of Real Estate Investing by Ken McElroy The Book on Investing with No or Low Money Down by Brandon Turner Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss Tweetable Topics: “I got tired of working for these other folks, so I decided to become an entrepreneur.” (Tweet This!) “I want to be able to go where I need to go.” (Tweet This!) “You gotta get in there and get your hands dirty, and that’s where the learning really starts.” (Tweet This!) Connect with Bill Bill’s BiggerPockets Profile Bill’s Company Website Old Dawg’s Podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Bigger Pockets podcast show 191. You know, I want to be able to produce not only just enough income from my family, but I also want to help support what we're doing in Haiti. So, you know, what would that be? And I kind of calculated it out and so forth. And I said, I want to do a thousand units. 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 height,

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 here with my co-host, Brandon Turner. What's up, man? Hey, not a whole lot. It's actually been the craziest real estate week of my entire life, probably in terms of sheer number of things going on.

Two properties under contract, two duplexes, a house listed, a house sold. and a tenant moving out and going to list that one this week. All within a seven-day period. It's been insane. Wow, you're an impressive guy. It's just been a weird fall, you know? This has been, or summer, it's not quite fall yet. Not quite yet.

Well, congratulations, as we say mazeltave to you. Thank you. That is outstanding. What does that even mean, mausel to? What's that actually is important? I mean, I know how people say it, but I don't know the, like, let's hear you say it. Let's hear you say it.

Mazel to. How do I do? Not well. But that's okay. We'll work on it. I'm not Jewish. One day soon, we'll train you, my friend. Thank you.

My son, I will teach you. Well, that's great, man. Good news. Yeah, yeah. What about you? What's been up? Kids are back in school. Yeah, you're sitting at home watching soaps, watching your stories all day.

Clearly, clearly watching my stories, doing a whole lot of nothing now. No, you know, just dealing with that, getting starting to, you know, get back into the rhythm, the non-summer rhythm, which, you know, will be nice for the next, you know, nine months. And then we'll get back to the craziness. But yeah, things are good, man. Work is good. BP is going extremely well. And we're growing, we're hiring. Yeah, I hear we've been the biggest days on the site ever, lots of traffic.

People around in about real estate. It just tells you, real estate's getting popular. Popular time. It's popular. And, you know, there are pluses and minuses, right? There are plus. You may be seeing a few markets that are looking. We are seeing a few markets that are looking quite topy.

Yeah. So, you know when, like, the guy at the bank is like, oh, hey, I get a question. So my mom's looking to buy a house, and I'm like, oh, man, you know, it's like everyone you talk to now is really starting to look, which is great, but it also is potentially a signal amongst others that, you know. Yeah, what do they call it? Don't they call it like somebody on one of our early shows, a taxi cab effect or something like that? It's like when you're taxi driver starts talking about how they want to invest in real estate of time to get out. Yeah.

I remember hearing that. It was like one of the first like dozen episodes we did. Somebody said that. And I always thought that was great. Yeah. It is great, but at the same time, our goal here is, you know, we do want to encourage everybody to get out there and do it. We just want them to do it in a smart manner. You know, you don't want people just randomly buying property.

Hey, I'm going to buy a house because my uncle and my cousin, no? Yep, that's true. You're going to go broke if you do that. Be smart. Yep, know your numbers. All that. Hey, you want to see something cool? Not at all.

Okay. Well, those people who are listening do not get to see this, but those people who are watching on YouTube, this here is Rosie's first appearance on the bigger. Pockets. Hey, Rosie, look at you. Yeah, Heather just dropped her off here for me to do some, uh, fathering. So I'm going to hang out with Rosie here during our, uh, introduction here. So anyway, nice, nice.

Let's get to this thing, man. Yeah, let's get to this thing. So today's, uh, quick, uh, quick tip. All right, today's quick tip is I want to invite each and every person listening to this right now to next week's webinar. And I know we talk about the webinar a lot here, but there really is an important reason for coming to this coming week's webinar. We're talking specifically about how to you.

use all the features and benefits of Bigger Pockets to take your investing to a new level. I mean, there's a lot of cool hidden features on BP that most people don't even know about. We're going to talk about those, some ways that you can keep track of your properties better, some ways to do numbers better, some ways to just kind of some cool features that, you know, potentially attract private lending, all those cool things, how to use Bigger Pockets to do it. You can sign up at BiggerPockets.com forward slash webinar. I hope to see you guys there. Love it, love it.

Yeah. Cool. Well, this is show 191 of the Bigger Pockets podcast. If you want to check out the show notes, go to Bigger Pockets. ats.com slash show 191. And there you can ask questions to our guest. You could look at all the resources that we may be talking about and kind of give you a heads up of what the show is about.

But today's guest is awesome, man. This is one of those people you're like, oh, yeah, I'm not worthy, right? He's doing great things for the world. And that's amazing. And what I think is the coolest is he's using his real estate business, not only to support his family, but also to support his cause. and the causes that he supports. And that's amazing.

You know, we cover everything from, you know, he's a slightly older gentleman, not too old. But we talk about, you know, how to get started if you're in your 40s, 50, 60s, and up. And we cover just everything else from turnkey to, you know, lots of buy and hold and tenant issues. So definitely listen up. Did you know your house gets bored when you leave?

I can't actually prove that, but it probably misses out on the action, the footsteps, the late-night fridge raids. Yeah, when you're gone, your place is basically on unpaid leave. It's sitting there in the dark thinking, I could be contributing right now. Your side room wants a side hustle. Even your Wi-Fi is like, we could be networking. You're on vacation, spending money like it's a sport while your staircase at home is fully capable of sending your income upwards.

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All right, Bill, welcome to the show, man. It's good to have you here. Hey, it's great to be here. Cool. Yeah. Awesome, man. I know you are so much fun. No, no, you are. No, you are. I got to just start the show, Brandon. I'm just, you know, I know, Brandon usually jumps off with this thing with the first question. But I'm going to just take the lead here because I'm changing things up. Fascinated by you. You're a fascinating man. Well, like, we're doing our research, and I'm looking, and I'm like, Bill Minasaro, Google. Oh, wait, is he chilling with Oprah? What? What?

Dude, what is going on? Who are you? All right, Bill. So you're a real estate investor, but we got to take it back. We got to get this whole backstory and figure out, like, how you got into real estate and, like, what's this Oprah business? Talk to me. Okay. You know, I just started as a poor little kid in San Fernando Valley, and I was a musician and kind of put my way through school.

Yeah, I was in the 60s, okay? So, you know, the best I can remember, I was musician now. And I, you know, kind of grew up. And it wasn't even legal back then. It wasn't even. And I, you know, just kind of grew up and said, you know, I just trying to, the starving musician thing for a long while and finally said, look, I got to go get a job. I got in the corporate world and advanced. pretty fast when financial services, the airline industry, automotive industry.

And then I just wanted to kind of, I got tired of like working for all these other folks and decided I wanted to be an entrepreneur. So I launched my own businesses, advertising agency, public relations agency, ended up moving into launching an internet startup. And just to see these, you know, my stock options just expand and grow and then the internet bubble burst and pretty well, it just had a lot of paper that I could. used for much of anything. And then just, I don't know how far you want me to go here, but whatever, man. Yeah, just, we don't need to say anything at all. It's better that way.

No, and just ended up, you know, kind of at the, right when that internet bubble burst, my family and I, we decided actually, I have a daughter, nine-year-old daughter, Ariana, and I had this dream to go to Haiti and build an orphanage and a school and a medical clinic and all this stuff. And so we went to visit, ended up coming back home after the visit, sold everything we had, went back to live in Haiti full time, and started an organization called Child Hope International that we have a home for girls, a home for boys, school, vocational training, micro-businesses, all these things to help out the kids in Haiti. And did that for 11 years. And then pretty much at the end of that 11-year cycle, we're kind of looking at it, we're getting

kind of old, and we're kind of thinking, okay, you know, what are we going to do? And I started looking at, okay, you know, I've been living on faith most of my life here. And so I need to do something. You know, I have a little bit of money in an IRA when I was in the corporate side and stuff. But I was kind of looking at options. So while I was in Haiti, I started different things. I did an online business, sold things on eBay, got kicked off at eBay. And it didn't last real long. But hey, it was good while it lasted. But I always had an interest in real estate. And so it just kind of, you know, led to, I started reading, started doing research. and so forth. And I was thinking, well, I was going to flip, you know, and I was thinking,

how can I flip homes from Haiti, you know, in the States? I mean, that's going to be kind of tough to do. That would be a good story, yeah. Although some people say they do it, you know, you have to find those guys and make them guess, I guess. So I was kind of going, well, I don't know if I can do that. And I got this kind of unexpected inheritance check. And I said, gee, I got to do something. So I, you know, I'd been researching markets that I wanted to buy in if I could buy in. and basically hopped on a plane from Haiti, flew to Memphis, flew to Atlanta, came back to Haiti with three properties, two single family and one duplex. So there was a turnkey, it was a turnkey, you know, a company that I got started with. And that's really, that's kind of how it started.

And as I started, you know, we knew we were coming back to the States for sure. I was just kind of gearing up. I said, well, I wonder if I can grow this thing. And then it kind of just grew from there and started buying more properties and learning in the process. That's one of the things that really just kind of move me is that, you know, here I was a senior. You know, I was like 60 years old, kind of looking at this, I'm getting started late. And I got turned on to you guys really early on. And that was really helpful for me, actually, because there was, you know, a lot of anxiety doing what I was doing. And I had no clue what I was doing.

And I would watch the podcast, I would listen to the podcast, watch the videos. And then. Do we calm you, Bill? Brandon's got quite a human voice. Yeah, people tell me that. I tend to stress people out, I think. No, it was like great. Well, it was a little bit, I was a little bit, you know,

you guys kind of jacked me up a little bit. But it was like, it was good. It was kind of good. Because you guys were like, you know, you're like challenging, you know, us to kind of like, okay, just do it. And that was really kind of the primer that actually made me hop on that plane. So I got you guys the thing for that. But in that process, I kept encountering other people that were seniors that had similar situations.

A lot of people that lost their pensions and so forth in 2007, 2008. And so it just kind of evolved into more than that. And I started kind of advising people and sharing what I was doing. And even though I really still am considered a newbie, a real newbie here. But then it moved into a podcast and we started reaching out more to seniors and so forth. and, you know, because they're in a unique situation. Yeah. So I actually want to talk about that.

People who are investing later in life. Like you said you were in Haiti. You had a whole different life. And all of a sudden, like late in life, I mean, not late in life, but, you know, on the, on the downhill, you know, coasting. Hold on, Brandon. The foot. It's hard to talk. It's hard to get the foot in your mouth.

Yeah, I'm working on that. On the later. You're a youngster. The later half is kind of decaying. And maybe one day you'll be able to live a real life. but you know, just think tomorrow you might die. Yes, exactly. Wow.

I think it's okay to say later half when you're 60. That means you're living to 120, right? So we're going to assume you're living to 120. So you're at like 60. You're basically reinventing your life here and saying, I'm going to do something totally different that I had never done before. So, you know, a lot of the bigger pockets audience, and I want to go back and talk about a lot more stuff that, you know,

covering your story. But a lot of our audience are 20-year-old, you know, guys and girls. but a lot of them are also 40, 50, 60 year old people who are, you know, later in life. They're not 20 years only anymore. They're not, you know, out there, you know, I don't know, you know, still learning how to shave. Like they're, you know, grownups, right? So do you have any advice for those people? Yeah.

Yeah. Do you have any advice for those people that are listening right now that are maybe later in life and they're looking at their retirement's coming up soon? Like, you know, they can see the end of, you know, working and they're like, I need more money. Boy, that's too depressing. I heard you. Not the end of their life. I'm having a hard time here, isn't he?

I'm going to get up this call and be really depressed. No, I'm thinking. I know what you're saying. And yeah, I think the main thing with this group of people is that, you know, you've got, okay, if you've got some money in the bank and you're kind of like holding on to it, you're thinking, gee, you know, what costs are going up, you know, cost of living and so forth. And, you know, what should I do? should I invest in anything, but then I don't want to spend, you know, our nest egg, you know, on something.

Do I want to take a chance on real estate and stuff? And I think that that's probably the big, you know, there's that fear factor. And I guess it could go with any age, you know, people just taking the leap and getting started. But I really, I would just say for those people really, look, you know, listen to bigger pockets, you know, watch the videos and get an idea of people that are out there that are doing it. You know, I know people like, you've had Jeff Greenberg on your show. You know, he started later in life, and, you know, now he's doing gangbusters out there. And a lot of people that started after 50. And so, you know, start small if you're nervous and you're uncertain about it, get a duplex or, you know, even a single family home.

But, you know, don't let your fear, you know, kind of just stop you from doing anything and then just get stuck. You know, you're just kind of like, you know, clipping coupons and hoping that you're going to make it, you know, you're not going to live too long, right? Well, we're laughing. I guarantee you there's a whole lot of, there's thousands of people right now listening to this show, nodding their head. Like, yeah, yeah. I'm waiting. I mean, I know people in my family who were like, you know, I don't know. Let's see, I'm 65, I'm 58, I'm 72, and I don't know.

I get another 10, 20. How am I going to stretch what I got plus Social Security? Like, that's not going to work. I mean, that's happening every single day to these people. And so, like, your story, I think is so exciting and motivating because, you know, like, you were one of these people and you're like, you know, yeah, I'm not going to sit around and, you know, wait into my, you know, usable capital, usable resources diminish down to nothing.

You know, I want to be more proactive and find a way to get presumably cash flow, you know, you're doing turnkey and other rentals to live off of, right? So, I mean, that is that end all be all goal? I mean, you know, if you're investing in stocks, right, you're looking for, you're a lot more aggressive when you're younger, right? As you get older, presumably you're going to go far more the safe side of things, I would assume, than you would aggressive, yeah? Right. Our focus is all on cash flow. I mean, it really is. I mean, that's it. You know, you're, I mean, if you get the equity part of it, great, you know, I mean, I think where I didn't want to be is a place where I'm so conscious about, you know, just watching every dollar I spend that, you know, I mean, I've got younger kids. I've got daughters yet that get married and so forth.

I've got, you know, I've got seven kids, so they kind of spread all over the place. And if something happens, you want to fly out and see one, you know, you don't want to think, oh, how much the plane tickets. You know, I mean, I want to be able to go where I need to go, you know, and spend time with them if they need it. If they need help, you know, buying their first house, I want to help them, you know, if they need a, they want the wedding of their dreams. I want to be able to do that. And, you know, I don't want to just live this life where I'm just, you know, I'm just like so concerned about every dollar that, you know, I don't want to be wealthy. I just want to be able to have access and be able to do the things that you want to do, you know. I love that.

I love it. So, you know, we talk to a lot of people in the podcast and everybody's kind of got their own goals. And, you know, there's no one path to success. We talk about this all the time. However, I think what you're saying is probably a pretty good generalization for, let's say, I'm not even going to be. going to say the 50 and up. I'm going to say like even somebody my age. I'm 40. I got three kids. Right. I'm thinking the same thing. Like I want to be able to have the resources and, you know, maybe a job's not. I don't see the end line with a job because, you know, it's, I'm capped by salary or

whatever it is, right? So, you know, I know Brandon kind of asked you, how would you start? You said, you know, slowly. But in terms of like just a broader strategy, right? What would you recommend somebody who's thinking about this from a similar mindset as you? You're not trying to be rich. You're not trying to be a bazillionaire. I made that word up, guys. But you know, you want enough to be able to kind of freely jump around and take care of your kid and all that. But how does one get there? Because I think a lot of people look and they're like, well, by the time I get there, I'm going to be dead. Is that true? Does that have to be true? You know, I think there's that process. First, it starts with education and just getting comfortable enough about investing. What do you need to do

in terms of the types of properties you need to buy to get what you want to do? And then you set goals. those goals, you know, you look at some people maybe they only need 500 more a month or a couple thousand a month or whatever, you know, and you look, again, you work your way backwards. And you look at, okay, if I buy this single family home and I finance it, you know, well, I'll get, you know, $200, $150 a month or whatever it is. And how many of those do I have to get to get that extra amount? Or you look at a multifamily, which I personally think is better, you know, getting a multi-family where you can, you know, how much per door.

and you can start to plot out how many doors do you need in order to get to your goal. And I think that's really where it starts. I love that. And I think that applies to everybody, listen, not just people who are later in life, but I mean, everybody was, if you can look at, you know, this is what I need to quit my job. I mean, we talked about that with Clayton Morris back on, I'm not sure what episode it was, but a while back. The Freedom member, right?

Like, pick that, how much do you need to retire? So for me, my initial goal, when I was 23, I think it was, I wanted $3,000 a month. I thought that was rich. I'm like, man, if I had $3,000 a month, so I said, said the goal. I said, I want 30 units making $100 a month each after everything's said and done. And I went out and just worked my tail off to get it. It took me like three or four or five years to get there. And I got there and I was like, all right, I did it. Well, let's push the next goal. So I raised my numbers. But I mean, like no matter what age you're at, like set a goal, set a number, work backwards from that and you got it.

I love that. I love it. I love it. Let's transition back a little bit and go talk about your story. First of all, I wanted to address Josh mentioned earlier, Oprah. So that was because of the Haiti thing, correct? Right. So you guys were there for the earthquake, I'm assuming? Yes, yeah. I mean, we went there, gosh, I think it's like 2004. You know, we've been through everything from major coups to, you know, just all kinds of diseases that kind of flowed through Haiti on a regular basis. We have attempted kidnappings that my wife and daughter just barely escaped from. We've had earthquake hurricanes. I mean, it's just been, it was incredible ride. I mean, we absolutely love it.

I mean, I've had dengue fever and malaria at the same time. All of my kids have had malaria. I mean, we're pretty, you know, we've been through it. But, you know, it's just been an incredible experience, and I wouldn't replace it for anything. I mean, I loved every minute of it. I hear being in a room with Oprah, it's like staying at a holiday and express. Well, that's an interesting story. My daughter wrote to Oprah when she was like, when she had this dream, like she was eight or nine years old.

She had written her, never heard back from her or anything. And I guess it was probable. My daughter wrote when she's eight or nine. Oprah made her first trip to Haiti like my daughter was like 20. And so she was coming to see Sean Penn initially and I was going to interview Sean Penn and wanted to, you know, see something else in Haiti. And she went through her archives and found my daughter's email. I mean, who holds emails that, especially Oprah? You know, how many?

Anyway, she found this email, and she goes, I want to go see this little girl and see if her dream came true or whatever. And so that's kind of where it started. And so she did this, like this big special on Haiti, Donna Karan or some designer, I don't know. Karen, yeah, Donna Karan, yeah. Yeah, Donna Karan, us and Sean Penn. And, yeah, she came in and was very gracious, really, you know, really sweet. And she had her crew. they just lived with us for like a week before she even came over and they just kind of you know

filmed the kids and all the different things that we do and so forth and then she just showed up and you know we just spent the day with her and it was great it's really yeah it was really a really blast that's cool that's awesome that's awesome well let's let's let's dive back thank you for sharing that i think it's it's pretty neat for sure and you know one of those unique life experiences along with dengue malaria and all the other fun things you got to see so you said you said you said you started with turnkey? What's a turnkey property and why did you start with that? And how was that experience for you? You know, I was really where I didn't intentionally set out to do turnkey. I just knew I wanted to buy some properties. And I actually got this email. I was getting emails

from this lady that was sold a lot of U.S. properties to Asians, you know, people from all over China. She's her company is based in Singapore. A red flag right there. I should have thought before. But anyway, so she basically had been sending me all these emails, but she was in all the markets I wanted to be in. So I, you know, I, wow, that sounds kind of good. You know, I wouldn't have to go in there and fix the property up. You know, I wouldn't have to worry about like capex stuff, you know, like as I need a new roof because they put new roofs on. They do all this stuff. I wouldn't have to find tenants, you know, because they already got tenants in place and stuff.

So I just said, you know, I just kind of fell hookline and sinker. This is why, you know, I just filter out a lot of my emails. But I just, that seems so easy. And so I literally, when I flew there, I purchased these properties in cash. So I didn't even have to deal with banks or financing or anything. So that's kind of how I did turnkey. And I said, this is great. I mean, I'm going to buy all my properties turnkey.

And then as I held the properties, things started to happen. And it wasn't such a perfect picture. Well, so what happened? What was the experience like? Well, at first it was really good. I had the tenants, you know, I, like, paid for the property the next month, you know, three, three different properties, three checks, you know, I didn't really get checks in the mail. I don't think anybody gets checks in the mail anymore, but it went into my, into my account,

okay? So I go, look at this. This money just shows up. This is so cool. And I just bought the property, you know? So I'm just sitting there going passive income, man. I'm just rocking. I'm just having so much fun.

And then, strangest things started happening. And I found out that, you know, one of the tenants disappeared. And I go, what do you mean, disappeared? Yeah, they just, they're gone. So I go, well, we got to replace them with another tenant. And so, you know, I had a property manager in place. This was a property in Memphis. And, okay, we're going to try and try and find you a tenant.

And then all of a sudden the other one disappears. And I'm going, okay, wait a minute, I got two vacancies. This wonderful little cash cow here is all of a sudden. But I was really thankful because I had a six-month guarantee that they would cover my rent for six months. for six months. This was something through the company. Yeah, that was part of their offer. Also, again, I think a red flag, but nonetheless, it was like, you know, they said,

okay, so I'm just kind of sitting easy going, you know, find them some tenants, no problem. Well, they just weren't finding any tenants. And it's getting closer and closer to the end of my six month, you know, grace period here. And I'm freaking out. So, you know, you guys have had like four months and you haven't found any tenants for this place. So now I'm freaking. And I'm already on BP. Okay.

So I go to the forums and I start writing stuff in the forums. I go, okay, I got this property. I ran out of my, I told the whole story just what I told you. And I got just a whole variety of, you know, feedback, you know, from like, you know, lose that dog. It's in a war zone, you know, take the loss, you know. You know, I'm like crying, you know, reading some of these stuff. And then. It's not all flowers and sunshine, right?

Yeah, you know, like you just got duped, you got taken, you know, and I'm going, oh, man, you know, I'm just getting just depressed. But then a couple of, you know, kind of positive voices emerged from. And I mean, there's a long trail of, you know, feedback that went on in this little forum piece. And, you know, one guy kind of came up and he started asking me more specific questions. Well, tell me about it. And he goes, well, he goes, first off, I know the neighborhood. It's not a war zone. So I was going, okay, good.

And he grew up in that area. And so he's kind of like encouraging me. I started to feel a little bit better. And then he opens up because, yeah, well, you know, I'm an investor, but I'm also a property manager. I go, seriously? And he goes, yeah. And I go, would you take this property?

And anyway, so cut a long story short, he basically, you know, switched over. He had this place rented in like three weeks, both sides. I mean, just, boom. And they were paying probably like 10. percent more than what I was getting in rent. And so I'm just like freaking out. And I wrote this whole big thing at the end of this, you know, form because all these people had been wondering what was going on or whatever.

And I wrote this whole deal to talk about this end to this perfect ending here, perfect story. And that, you know, that kind of, it just ended on a really great, great place. But I found out that we, you know, these tenants were like, they were like squatters that were that were kind of put in there by the owners. And they weren't really real tenants. And they were just kind of placeholders so that they could sell the property. And so, yeah.

That is shady. Yeah. That was like the deal. And so, you know, I had another property from them and I was kind of concerned about. But, you know, I was okay in Atlanta, the other property that I was concerned about. Can I ask a few questions based on what you just said? You bet. All right.

It's my show. Of course they can. All right. How did you, are you for sure that they were squatters? How did you discover that? And for those people who are thinking about renting from a term key company, like how would they know? We talked to a lot of people about making sure that you do your homework when you are inheriting a tenant, you know, learning as much as you can. And, you know, oftentimes it's not in your favor to do so. In fact, I think we talked about that in last week's show, right, Brandon? You've inherited. something that you've got to get rid of right now. So how would somebody, how does somebody deal with that? How does somebody make sure that that's not the case? Let's start with that. Yeah, I, well, okay, like I said, I went into this thing with blinders on, and that was my problem, is I just totally trusted this turnkey company. I did no due diligence. I mean, you know, these things could have been on a toxic waste dump, and I wouldn't have known it, you know. So that was, that was my learning experience. in the process is that even if you're buying turnkey, do the same due diligence that you would,

including the inspections and everything else, you know, just to make sure you've got what's right. And that was my problem is that it just sounded too good to be true because I kind of made it too good to be true. And if I would have done my due diligence, it wouldn't have been a problem. Okay. And that's great advice. I mean, I think it's easy to look and say, hey, you know, it seems like this company's got a good reputation.

I'm going to just go ahead and trust them. it sounds great, you know, particularly, I mean, you know, since we've somewhat been talking about folks who are a little bit older, you know, I think a lot of people do prey on folks. So, yeah, I love that. I love that advice. You know, do your due diligence, do your homework. And if you need help, if you're not sure what to ask, if you're not sure what questions, I mean, that's what the forums are for on bigger pockets, you know, get the community to help you do what you have to do or know what you have to know in order to vet a company like that. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. I mean, seriously. I would, and I'm kind of doing this on my own. So, you know, have a partner or anything. And so,

you know, going to BP was like, you know, these guys were awesome. You know, they, they, they, it really does give you, uh, that kind of feedback you need, you know, to, to make good decisions. Cool. So what, what happened next? You've got, you know, these, these three properties. Where did, where did the, the pathway lead you from there? Well, I, you know, I said, I wanted to grow it. And, you know, So that was year one. It was like 2014. And it was at that time, I said, where do I want to take this thing? And I said, you know, I want to be able to produce not only just enough income from my family,

but I also want to help support what we're doing in Haiti. And so, you know, what would that be? And I kind of calculated it out and so forth. And I said, I want to do a thousand units. And, you know, so I looked at what would I have to do to get a thousand units? And I thought, well, if I could double the number. of doors I had each year and six years I could have a thousand units or more than a thousand units. And so that's kind of what I did. You know, the first year, I, you know, I had the,

it was equivalent of four doors. And then so I had to get eight doors the next. I bought a duplex, but that was the same year we were coming back from Haiti. So it was kind of a crazy thing. We also adopted two Haitian kids. So we're like in the midst of a lot of stuff. So, so all I got were my, you know, was that duplex. I bought in Indianapolis. So, and then, but I still had to hold true to that. So in year three, which is, I mean, right now, I bought a 22 unit. And so, you know, kind of playing catch up. And that's kind of my thing is I'm trying to double each year if I, if I can do that.

And until I reach a thousand units. That's cool. Wow. Well, and what I like about that, that idea of scaling up that way is it's very, like, reasonable. You know, to go back to the conversation we had a lot earlier about somebody who's 50, 60 years old and saying, well, I don't have 30 years of my life to go on. But you could, you know, think of it. What if you bought one property this year and about two next year? I mean, that's reasonable.

And then you could do four. And then could you do eight, 16, 32? I mean, like, it doesn't take that long exponentially to scale up to a lot of units. And in a decade, you can have a massive portfolio. That's cool. Yes, it's true. And what it is, like, since I paid cash for the first three, the second one, I was going to also pay cash for it, too, because I had the funds.

But I didn't have any credit. I mean, zero. I've been, like, debt for you for 20 years. you know, so I was realizing, you know, if I'm going to actually apply for a loan, I'm going to be turned down because I don't even think I'm even, you know, in any of these loan. Yeah, I mean, I just have no history. So I financed the, this property in Indianapolis, the duplex. I mean, it took forever. It was like almost impossible, but I got it because it was a, it was cheap property. So it didn't cost much, you know. But then I, you know, start, I've been building up my credit since then. But the idea is, you know, you can, you can invest in cash and get into something. You can refit. You can refit. buy later, use that to purchase, you know, do a down payment on another, bigger property and, you know, keep going from there. Yeah. Yeah.

On that Indianapolis, so the first few were in Memphis, you now have a property manager you're happy with, and you said, I'm going to go and buy in Indianapolis. Great. You know, now, do you know Indianapolis at all? Or did you, again, go and find a turnkey company to help you with that? Or how did that purchase kind of come about? Yeah, I mean, it was one of the years I was researching. It looked like a perfect market. You know, there's certain markets that are booming. There's others that are just steady and just

kind of on the increase and are great for cash flow. You know, I bought this duplex for like $51,000, I think. And, you know, it was a great buy. Yeah, to answer your question, they were kind of a turnkey company. And they had presented them. So, in fact, they advertised on BP as a turnkey company. And that was another issue for me because I couldn't be there to fix it up. And so they did all the rehab, everything was ready. They had tenants in place. And it was much easier for me on that end to do the turnkey thing. But I think as I get into bigger units, there aren't a lot of turnkey apartment buildings

and so forth. So I'm kind of easing away from that. But I think it's a good place for people to start. Definitely do your due diligence. Research your companies. get references. Like I should have gone on BP and like said, here's this company that I want to do business with. Does anybody know them?

Have they dealt with them? But I didn't do that, you know. And I think it's really important to, you know, just to vet the turnkey company really well, make sure, you know, they're all they say they're going to be. Cool. And so this year, you bought a 22 unit. So you'd had a few turnkey properties and you're like, yeah, you know what? I got this. I'm buying 22 units.

Was there management in place or no? No. Yeah, I had to find, I had to put a team together. And luckily I was already in Indianapolis. So, you know, I did. I had an attorney there. I had property management, but I didn't think that they could handle the larger property. And so, you know, I still had to put more people together.

But basically in the process, you know, from the L.O.I all the way to, you know, to closing of escrow, I'm putting a team together and for the property. had to, you know, and I'm doing rehab right now as we speak, doing, you know, upgrades and it's a value ad deal. And how did you, did you say how you found that? On that one I found actually on LoopNet. Okay. And I found on LoopNet, it had just been sold and I was real bummed about it and, and had put it in an offer, like a backup offer. And months, months later, they call me and they say, you know, if you want it, it's yours. And I mean, the process went much longer than that, because I also went into financing.

Now I'm financing a bigger property. It's not like, you know, it's not under five units. So now, you know, it's a commercial property and just went through, you know, luckily there was a wonderful seller that worked with me. And I don't know, I think the whole process took probably about seven or eight months. It was really, yeah, a long-term deal. Can you talk about that? Sorry.

Yeah. Initially, I think when you're in a new market like that, you rely a lot on brokers for your referrals. And my broker had said that Wells Fargo was lending and looking to lend a commercial in Indianapolis. So I contacted Wells. You know, they knew my situation. I didn't have a long credit history because I haven't been, you know, doing anything for 20 years. And they were willing to work with me. And they were going to do both the cash out refi on the properties in Atlanta and Memphis,

and they were going to also do the commercial side of it. So this is great. So I worked with them for about, oh gosh, it probably was about three months. It was the longest ordeal I'd ever gone through. And at the end of it, it came down to, well, you don't have W-2 income. I go, well, you knew I didn't have W-2 income when I got into this. Al has 1099 income. And so, yeah, they turned it down.

So now I'm like, okay, the clock is ticking. I've got, you know, earnest money. I've got all these things I'm, you know, I could lose. And so I got a referral for mortgage brokers and I talked to a bunch of different ones and, you know, a lot of that just didn't develop. Finally, one guy came through. I paid through the nose. It wasn't really hard money, but it was as close to hard money as you could get to get that financing done. Did the property support that financing or did you have a strategy knowing that you were going to pay so much more as a percentage for the financing that, you know, you needed to kind of alter what your plan was?

Yeah, it worked within the plan that I had, but it was really, really tight because we were counting on, you know, immediate rent increases as well as reducing some key expenses. And we kind of ran into a little bit of a glitch because my property manager, we had an aggressive program as going to over two month period. We were going to do rehab. We were going to increase the rents and so forth. And in that process, he had a family tragedy and it just kind of changed my whole. whole timeline. But we've been okay. We've been, you know, kind of doing it month the month, but we're a little behind schedule. And I was hoping we'd be able, because the mortgage payments are pretty big and it's a little concerned about that. Is your plan then you're going to refinance

the property? I'm assuming you get the lower mortgage payments soon? Yes, soon as I can. Anybody listening if you, you know, no. Do it. Do it. You got an audience. So when it's all said and done, I mean, like, you're repositioning in this apartment complex, which takes, It takes a lot of work, takes a lot of effort. You don't make a lot of money, if any, during the process. But it's all of a sudden done. What do you expect it to bring in per month? Do you have an estimate on what you think it'll bring in?

Well, I did this little thing on BP here. Oh, look at that. The Rental. The BiggerPockest rental property calculator, which you can get to at biggerpockus.com slash kelk. There you go. And this says that I'm going to make a lot of money on that property. So, good.

No. But basically, yeah, it's, I mean, it will. It was amazing. I think the property I offered or bought it for $350. It was appraised for $400. It's a very low-cost property for 22 units. But I had a great cash on cash and cap rate. Everything was very attractive.

So there was a lot of room in there, a lot of wiggle room. And we've been able to increase already about 75% of the rents. So we've come pretty. pretty far. Yeah, but we've got some vacancies that resulted in that process that we're trying to fill as quickly as possible. But yeah, I think we're going to, you know, it's going to net probably about 5,000 or so a month. That's awesome. That's awesome. So one more question for you before we move on to the fire round is what is it like managing a rehab from a long distance? And I ask that for kind of selfish reasons because like I want to buy an apartment building and I probably have to go

out of my area and I like repositioning things. I like the Burr strategy, right, buy rehab rent refunds. Yeah, I love that. So I've never done a massive rehab from far away. So what can you tell me about that? It's just kind of like getting started in real estate investing. It's the same deal. You got to just do it. And then you learn in the process.

So I, you know, that's, yeah, I would, there's times when I go, I'm just going to be there. I want to be able to deal with this. And part of why I'm investing out of, out of the state is because I want to be a passive investor. And if it were down the street from me, I'd be there every day. And it would not be, you know, that passive income stream. I would be working full time. And so that's kind of, yeah, there's some real drawbacks at times you're going to want to pull your hair out.

And you're going, I hate this out of state investing. But believe me, I think once it's set up, you know, and it's running smoothly, then it's, you know, it's okay. But you've got to understand there are going to be some bumps and grinds there, you know. There's no way around it. Yeah. Makes sense. My last question, it ties back to the property. So how do you actually go about repositioning it?

So obviously you want to raise the rents, right? You've got 22 units. What's the strategic process? You're not, you can't, I'm assuming you're going in, you're fixing up some of these units, you're cleaning the outside of the building up, you're doing things like that. What does that look like for you in this particular property? And what was the strategy? What was step one, two, three, four, and, you know, the steps that have yet to come?

Well, you know, we had an advantage in that the rents were already, undermarket, which was the plus. So we could come up to match market pretty easily. I think most people knew that they had a great deal. But sort of our strategy was to, one, to come in and let people know that this is going to be a better place to live. And with that, you know, first thing we did is just start fixing things. And there was a, you know, a door, you know, the security was off. We had to put in brand new doors on front and back of this building, which really expensive. And we did a lot of nice stuff on the outside. Then we started tackling the common areas. And when they see that you're really serious about making it a better place to live, the people are a lot easier to go along with it.

So, you know, you're hitting the common areas, you know, trying to make this place, trying to bring back almost some, you know, it's a building built in 1925, so we're kind of trying to bring back that feel that, you know, trying to track also, you know, the, what I call in that area, they're kind of the hipster Hoosiers, you know, and, you know, and, yeah, and that crowd, that doesn't mind, you know, that kind of a place. And so in that process, we're, you know, we're also rehabbing units as people leave too and trying to bring them up a few steps.

So that's it. You know, I think we also had a little thing where, you know, we were doing window air conditioners. We were adding as a, you know, as a little incentive if you signed up at this particular time and so forth. That's cool. So start with the curb appeal. The outward presentation of the building and the inside common areas

shows the tenants, because if you start with the units themselves, not everybody gets the benefit, right? So if you do the outside and you do the areas that people share, suddenly the entirety of the building benefits, and they can see that you mean business here, you're here to turn it around, and then you kind of can start justifying rent increases and things like that. Right, right, exactly.

And I mean, we have some of the people that we kind of inherited that were there, and they're real nice, real nice people, are like on disability and so forth. And one guy that came out, he has a prosthesis leg. And he just got really pumped about it. And he just said, can I help? Can I keep the hallways clean? Can I do this?

Can I do that or whatever? And so he gave him a little job, gave me a little bonus or whatever so he could be kind of like our on-site caretaker. And he's just loving it because he's usually sitting home all day. And now they're taking pride in the place that they live in. So it really did make a difference. And we're not done yet. We want to put in security cameras and some other things just to really show them that we care.

Yeah. I love that. I think it's awesome. And for everybody listening, I think it's hard for some people to understand. Like, oh, my God, it's this big thing. I have to go and spend ridiculous amounts of money to turn over the entire property at one time. And you don't have to, right? I mean, what's your plan on turnover?

Is it like two year, three or four? year? How long are you? Yeah, I mean, I'm looking at, you know, if we can stay on track within the next three years, I would hope that this property would have increased significantly in value. We'll have to see, you know, especially if I can refinance it sooner, you know, then it'll make it a little bit, I'll hold onto it longer. I might hold onto it forever, who knows. But I'm looking at maybe, let's, you know, let's stop and assess it three years and see, see where we're at. Maybe we want to leverage into another property or something. Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Thanks, Bill. That's great. Yeah, it's cool stuff. Well, before we get out of here, let's transition over to the world famous fire. It's time for the fire round. Did you know your house gets bored when you leave? I can't actually prove that, but it probably misses out on the action, the footsteps, the late night fridge raids. Yeah, when you're gone, your place is basically on unpaid leave. It's sitting there in the dark thinking I could be contriended.

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But, yeah, I would ask for references right off the bat. And I think another thing you'd want to find out, too, is, you know, can we talk to the property manager? Who's actually going to be managing the properties? Usually you're talking to some salesperson, but I want to talk to the property manager. I want to see what they're all about and, you know, find out, you know, just find out their philosophy and so forth. Yeah, right on. Good stuff. All right. Should I start with single family or small multifamily as a new investor? I would say small multifamily.

It's just, you know, I'm talking duplex minimum to get started. It's just, there's just, I don't know. Once you're in multifamily, I just find that there is just so much better. If you have a vacancy, it's not 100% vacancy. You know, the duplex, it's a 50% vacancy. You know, with an apex, it's, you know, and so forth, you, it's just, to me, I think the best, the best way you can go is starting with, if you can, if you're not comfortable doing that, you know, a lot of people, because they bought a home, they feel comfortable buying another

home, you know, something, a three bedroom or whatever. And that's cool. But I'm just finding economies of scale are just so much better with multifamilments. Yeah. And risk mitigation. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Cool. Number three, how do I get my spouse on board with all of my real estate goals? I was going to ask you guys that question. No. Ribery. My wife, no, she's excited about it, but she's not involved at all. And she just kind of cheers me on and stuff. And that's cool.

But yeah, it's funny because I know one guy investor I just saw recently in Boston. And his, you know, he had to do all cash. like he was doing these transactions on the side, trying to build his real estate investments, and then come to his wife and say, yeah, look at all this money we've made. I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't do it behind his wife's back.

But I think the main thing is, you know, you've got to share your goals for them. And not talk in terms of doors, number of doors, no, you're talking about, hey, this is Vienna's wedding. Okay, this is going to be, you know, Elijah's soccer club. This is going to be, you know. And when she's, see stuff like that, you know, it's like, oh, that's cool. So when's it going to happen? Yeah.

I like that. I do like that. That's actually really cool. You tie a certain property or number of doors to, you know, this is this is prep school or this is college or this is, yeah, like you said, the wedding. That's really cool. I'd not heard that before. That's what I did for the fourplex I bought recently. It was, it's Rose's College Education. I said, I'm going to buy this fourplex and I'm going to put on an 18 year mortgage. I'm going to pay it off in 18 years. And when it's paid off, It'll be worth about 200 grand, and she can have that to do what she wants with it. She can go to college with it, or she can use it for a business or start something or invest in real estate herself. I don't care. It's hers.

You better go to college. Yeah, we'll see. That's great. All right. All right. Last question in the fire round. Nice and long one here. I am working on my first deal for buy and hold property. It's currently rented and managed by the property manager that handles my existing property.

It just fixed up the property, placed a property, placed a property. renter in there a couple months ago. Everything seems fine to me, but should I request an inspection on the property before purchasing it from them? Yeah, always. I think, man, I mean, I found out so much in each inspection that I've had. In many cases, it affects the price of the property, too, because there are fixes there that they really need to do before you move in. So, yeah, I would never, ever assume that everything. I think people of their own buildings don't even know that, you know, what the, what their buildings are really all about until an inspection happens. Yeah.

Yeah. Right on. Cool. I just did one yesterday and I found powder post beetles that had rotten out the foundation. So I would not have known that had an eye good inspection. I got to deal with that today. But anyway, all right, cool. That was great.

Good answers for the fire round. So last segment of the show, Bill, let's shift over to the world famous. Famous for. All right. These are the same four questions we ask every guest every week. And I know you've heard them before. So let's see what you got to say. Number one, what is your favorite real estate related book? Okay. That's hard because you read so many of them. It's always the most recent I'm reading.

Yeah, but really, you know, as I, you know, again, I don't want people to think that you guys hired me, you know, to come in here and promote BP. But no, it was the, it was the, what do you call it, the ultimate beginner's guide. Yeah, that really got me started. And it gave me enough information that I felt confident that I could do it, you know. So I think anybody, and it was like free. And I was kind of going, I don't know if it's still free, but yeah. And I was just going, gee, this is great stuff, you know. And I don't know, to me that was like, I don't know, just a good start. And then I kind of went into the ABCs of real estate investing with McElroy.

And then recently, the big one I'm really high on is low or no money down. I still haven't done any deals yet. but I'm really trying to understand it so I can do it. And I'm coming up on one where the seller financing that might happen for an eight unit. That's awesome. Cool. By the way.

No, that's great. And he did not have to name Bigger Pockets. I like that. But I'll give you some quick links for people listening. If you want to read the UBG, if you've not read it at the Ultimate Beginners Guide, you can get it at BiggerPockets.com slash UBG. It's also on Kindle for free. And it's on the site for free.

You can download the PDF for free. And we have a free video course that accompanies it now, which most people don't know about. You can get to that at Bigger Pockets. dot com slash courses and the no and low money down book you can get at bigger pockets.com slash no money. All right. All right.

Favorite business book, non-real estate. Yeah. I kind of throw rich dad, poor dad into that category because I think it's, you know, I got me to think in a different way about assets, you know. I mean, to the point where I was like, I'm freaking out when I had to buy a car and I was going, but it's not going to generate an income. But maybe my son could do an Uber or something. and generate funds with you.

You just kind of get thinking, you know, in a different, different mindset. I love that. That's funny. That's great. And the other one's four-day work week, which, I mean, four-hour. Four-hour. Yeah. Yeah, four-day.

Right now it's four-day, but no. I want to be four-hour. Yeah. There you go. Yeah, those are both excellent books. I actually just watched the TED talk that Kiyosaki did recently. I thought it was excellent. Oh, really?

Yeah, he did a TEDx talk. So it's on YouTube. Check it out. Cool. Cool. All right. You're a man of the world, saving the planet, helping people out. I mean, to that, we all owe you a debt of gratitude.

But surely beyond that, you have some things that you do for fun. What are you and your wife and family? What do you guys like to do? Wow. You mean like a wingsuit flying and stuff like that? So he saves the children, hangs with Oprah, and jumps. No, I don't do any of that. Bill, not bad for a guy who might die to my own.

Well, I figure, you know, I'm going to leave soon anyway. You're out of a bag. I really, the thing I love doing in my spare time, hanging with my kids, hanging with my grandkids, and, you know, I'm an old musician. I like to hang out with dinosaur musicians and play, you know, and jam, garage band style, you know. So, yeah, that's, those are the things. What do you play? I play guitar, piano. Nice.

Yeah. Well, we'll have a jam someday. me and you, Bill. Josh can come to and he can sing. He's a good singer. Oh, sweet. Yeah, you don't want that. I've never heard Josh sing, but I'm assuming you're a good singer.

You do not want me to sing. I will just say it's not good. You got a good voice. I could be good. Yeah. Breath control. Breath control. I don't know.

All right, Brandon. All right. My last question. What do you believe sets apart successful real estate investors from those who give up, fail, or just never get started? Wow. I think it's a person's perception of fear. I think to me, the only thing that kind of holds people back is fear. And it may be fear of failure, it may be fear of success.

But I think, like a true sort of entrepreneurial spirit, you know, the people that really do survive, they embrace that fear, you know, and embrace the failure when it happens, you know, and just celebrate, you know, that fear, that failure because, you know, that's how we learn. You know, you can do all the education you want. You can do everything, you know, you can read all the books, watch this, you know, the seminars, everything. But really, when it comes down to it, it is just, you've got to get in there, get your hands dirty, and that's when the learning really starts. So I think it's just your perception of fear and you just, you can't, you know, if you really want to do this thing, you just, you got to grab a hold of it and say, okay, bring it on.

I'm looking forward to that first failure. And that's going to be my first lesson. There you go. All right. Before we let you go, where can people find out more about you? I know you've got a website. Yeah. Podcasts.

Yeah, I've got a podcast or website. It's called Old Dogs, spelled D-A-W-G-S, okay, old dogs, R-E-I-Network.com. And they can go there. We're on iTunes and Google Play and all the other places and Stitcher and stuff. And they can also punch in Old Dog and find our podcast as well. So yeah, just reach me through there or they can just write to me Bill at Old Dogs, R-E-I Network.com.

Be happy to write you back. You're also on Bigger Pockets. I am on Bigger. I'm a pro member. Okay. Yeah. That's right. That's right.

And I'm digging. That's awesome. Nice. Nice. Awesome. Well, Brandon's, you know, chiding and. bugging of you probably stems from the the whole old dog moniker and so you know we can't be too hard on him you know he can't really control himself but but bill thank you thank you for coming on

the show really do appreciate it and and yeah i mean i do mean it thank you for all the the things that you do i mean there's the world needs people like you so that's that's awesome and i applaud you and we really do appreciate your time and look forward to seeing you around man well thank you guys and likewise you know i'll tell you one thing that really affected me is the fact that you do what you do because you love it and you also you've you know you're not selling anything you know you really aren't and yeah you get your books and you know and and brandon you know but you're yeah he's he's a problem but he's a marketing guy that's what i do but you know but no seriously and it's That same approach, you know, that I took with the old dogs network is that I'm not charging

anybody anything. I'm not going to have some $20,000, you know, mentoring fee or something. No, I mean, I think we got to help each other out. And I think, and I really admire you guys in your stance that you've taken. And that had a lot of big impression on me. So thank you guys. Yeah, appreciate that. Good job, Josh.

All right, Bill. Well, thank you again for your time. Be well. Good luck to you. and, you know, we'll talk to you again hopefully soon. All right. You bet. All right.

Take care. Bye. Take care, Bill. Bye. All right, guys, that was Bill Monastero. Wow. Yeah, that guy's legit. Brandon, how many times have you had dinky fever?

I have not had. I didn't even know that was still a thing, but apparently in other countries it is. It is. It just shows he's got a good heart. He's going to put up with that. He had a good attitude about it. I mean, like, he was there. Yeah, he got malaria.

But, I mean, I know, I know. I was on his podcast a while back, and we talked a little bit more about just the stuff he did there, the work he did there. Just incredible stuff. Like, I mean, just transforming hundreds, if not thousands of kids of lives forever through education and through like, just empowerment. Like he said, microloans, all that stuff. It's so cool. It's a neat organization. I love it.

I love it. Yeah, good guy. And I like his approach. I like the philosophy, the idea starts small and kind of double each year. And, you know, and not being afraid to take that leap. being afraid to take the risk, you know, for example, on that 22 property, the 22 unit, you know, I may not know everything, but I know enough to feel comfortable. I'm going to jump in and I'm going to make some mistakes. I'm going to learn some things along the way. And then we're

going to keep going, right? Yep. That's it. I love it. I love it. Cool. Yeah, man. Well, what do you say? Yeah, I'm going to, you know, probably just play with my little girl here. She's been really big until like laying on the ground, looking up in the sky and just laying there. It's been really fun. Being a dad is pretty cool. It is cool. I've been telling you that for a long time. I know. You've been telling me for years. I need to get a girl and finally got myself a little girl. There you go. That's what I'm talking about. Cool. Well, guys, thank you

so much for listening. This is the Bigger Pockets podcast. You could connect with people like Bill and our other guests and hundreds of thousands of other amazing people by jumping on the site today, creating a free account at www.biggerpockets.com. Ask questions in our forums, biggerpockets slash forums. read up on our blog. We actually got a great video library that we launched,

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