BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 193: Finding and Managing Rental Properties While Working Full-Time with Steve Garner

Episode Date: September 22, 2016

Everyone knows rental properties can be a great way to build wealth and cash flow. Yet so few people ever take the steps needed to build their portfolio. That’s why we’re excited for you to listen to this week’s episode of The BiggerPockets Podcast! On this show, we sit down with Steve Garner, a North Carolina investor who currently is building and managing a rental portfolio while working a full-time job he loves. You’ll learn several creative methods for finding deals that have worked great for Steve, as well as some of his clever tricks for managing tenants with minimal work! In This Episode We Cover: How Steve got started in real estate How to build courage to get started investing Details on his first deal Why Brandon and Steve love tenant-proofing their properties What “REO” means What REIA is How he landed his second property using Homepath Tips for looking at cash on cash return How many deals has Steve done so far How he finds deals How he handles CapEx How to puts money aside for CapEx Steve’s 10-unit townhomes How he finances his properties Thoughts on managing properties Why he’s very particular when a tenant’s about to leave What his full-time job is The importance of screening and having standards for tenants And SO much more! Links from the Show Denver Startup Week BiggerPockets Jobs Carlton Sheets Cassettes BiggerPockets Webinar BiggerPockets Events BP Podcast 004: Commercial Real Estate Investing With Frank Gallinelli BP Podcast 186: How to Get Your First Few Properties — Even in a Competitive Market with Dave Meyer BiggerPockets Forums Books Mentioned in this Show The Book on Investing with No or Low Money Down by Brandon Turner The Book on Rental Property Investing and The Book on Managing Rental by Brandon Turner and Heather Turner The Millionaire Real Estate Investor by Gary Keller Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki Landlording on Auto-Pilot by Mike Butler The Success Journey by John C. Maxwell The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie Tweetable Topics: “I am a long-term buy and hold investor so I try to rent-proof my properties.” (Tweet This!) “The time to get credit is when you don’t need it.” (Tweet This!) “There’s so many good tenants out there that you want to make sure you find that good tenant.” (Tweet This!) “Beyond being a continual learner is taking action.” (Tweet This!) Connect with Steve Steve’s BiggerPockets Profile Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Bigger Pockets podcast, show, 193. I just feel like in today's market, because it is a landlord's market, as far as that goes, you can rent properties very quickly here. And all you had to do is... 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 other.

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, Mr. Brandon Turner. What's up, man? Not much. What are you up to?

I'm actually speaking later on today at the Denver Startup Week. You can speak? Those of you listening, you know, will, this will be a week old. But, yeah, I'm going to speak on a panel about It's building your business, whether you should take money or bootstrap. And I, of course, bring in the, yes, you should bootstrap angle. Nice.

I heard you're going to meet the governor or something like that soon. I don't know that I'm meeting the governor. I was invited to a dinner that the governor will be attending. I'm sure I am one of like, you know, 5,000 people there. It was going to be like six of you at a Burger King. It's going to be amazing. Well, now that would be fun. You know, like, come on.

That's cool. Like, you know, one of many, many hundreds or thousands. Yeah, whatever. Whatever. It's still an honor. Good job for being a big deal. Thank you. I'm a whole big deal of nothing.

But yeah, man, no, things are good. We got lots of cool stuff. We actually just brought on our graphic designer here at Bigger Pockets full time. And next week, we've got a new product designer coming on board. So lots happening. We still have a bunch of positions open at Bigger Pockets. And if you are looking for a job, check out BiggerPockets.com slash job. and you could find out what is currently available.

Even if you're not looking for a job, we would take you anyway. BiggerPockets.com slash jobs. I don't know about that. I will still good talent anywhere. How about you? What's cooking? Same thing I do every night, Pinky, trying to take over the world. What's that from?

Gee Blaine. Do you know what that's from? Did I not just respond to what you? Oh, yeah, you did. I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't know what that was from. So it's Pinky's accent. Okay, Blaine. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay, so. Pinky in the Brain. Yeah, Pinky in the Brain. I love that show. One of my favorite little cartoons. That's really funny that you knew that. I was actually, I did not think you would know what that was from. I was even going to like tease you for not knowing.

Yeah, that was a great show. What is a genius? Oh, wait, it's just like us. It's just like us. It's just like us. Now there's insane. All right. Hey, Pinky.

Yeah, yeah, whatever. I don't think I'm Pinky. I think you're, actually Pinky was the tall one and Brain was the grumpy one. So I don't know. All right. Moving on. Today's show is fantastic. I really, really, really like today's show.

It was a one of the guy named Steve Garner. Steve got, I don't know, he's just doing really good stuff buying single families, by multifamily, got some really creative ways of finding deals. And towards the end of the show, we talk about his goal setting process. You guys are going to love this. I've never heard before. Really kind of actually rocked my own world a little bit and like made me kind of rethink how I'm doing things.

So check that out. All while working a full-time job, but yeah, all while working a full-time job. This guy's pretty legit. So you guys love that. But speaking of goals. let's get to today's quick tip. All right, today's quick tip is, now, of course, depending on when you're listening to this,

it could be different. But right now, we are three quarters of the way through the year. And so I want to encourage you guys, we are in 2016. Just making sure. Yeah, when you get older, you start losing that. But anyway, I forget what year it is. But anyway, 2016, and my quick tip of the day

is look back to your goals that you set January 1st. You probably did early January. What did you have a goal for this year? year, look at where you're at and then adjust accordingly. Are you ahead of schedule on the number of properties you want to buy or the number of direct mail letters you want to send out or the number of connections you want to make, whatever your goals were, evaluate. Yeah, I love it. I love it. Yeah, get out there and do it because, well, first off, if you're not doing that, why don't you sit out and start ready goals? Yeah. Set end of your goals for this year. It's a great start.

You know, what am I going to do in the last quarter of this year to help me accomplish what I'm trying to accomplish. If you're a newbie who's never done any real estate, maybe it's, you know, go look at 100 deals, evaluate 50 deals, you know, walk in the door on 25 deals and make an offer on one. Whatever it is. You know, track it. Use the tools on bigger pockets, like our calculators and other stuff to help you out. But set those goals, create those goals and then see where you are. And as Brandon said, you know, make adjustments to ensure you're accomplishing what it is that you're trying to do. If you're not mapping, if you're not planning these things out, how are you going to get it done? Yeah, you're just living reactively and that's not cool. Exactly. Exactly. Good, good, good, good, good,

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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. Here's the twist. You can go on a trip and actually earn money.

Airbnb makes that possible with the co-host network. If you're away for a while or have a secondary property, you can hire a vetted local co-host with real hosting experience to handle it all. A co-host can handle guest communications. It can manage reservations and keep things running smoothly so you don't have to check your phone between beach days. That means less stress and more time enjoying your trip. You can relax, knowing guests are taken care of,

and your place is in good hands. You travel, your house works. Everyone wins. If you're ready to host but could use some help, find a co-host at Airbnb.com slash host. Let's get to the guest. Do you want to introduce them? Of course.

All right, guys, Steve Garner, he's a real estate investor from North. Carolina, good guy working a full-time job that he loves and does not want to leave. And all the while, he's building up a really nice portfolio. I think he's at 19 or 20 units at this point. And he's working, what do you say, about 10 hours a month on his business, which is great. I mean, it means that anybody can do it. If you say, I don't have a time, well, you know, you do.

You can do it. Yeah, yeah, you can do it. So let's bring him in. Steve, welcome to the show, man. It's good to have you here. Thanks a lot. I look forward to this. Yeah, it should be fun. And I know, Steve, you listen to the show, right?

I listen to every one of the shows, and I've gone back and listened to all of them. All right. That's good. So you know what's coming. You know the harassing you're about to get. Yeah. I do apologize for that. So what do we start with the question I like to begin with is how did you get started with real estate? I had always been interested in real estate, even back when I was in college. I still have my Carlton Sheets cassettes. Nice. But I never did anything with it. I got out of college, went to work, and started putting money into 401K. So really what happened there is when the economy tanked, our company was looking to cut expenses everywhere possible.

And they cut out doing the match on the 401K. So I thought that was a perfect opportunity for me to set that money aside and start learning about real estate. And so started going to ARIA, found bigger pockets, started learning and saving during that. year and I got up to courage to buy foreclosure and kind of caught the bug. Cool. What year was this, Steve? It was 2000, probably 2009 is when the, well, 2008 or nine is when the company quit doing the 401k match. And when I would get paid, I would just have that same amount of money I had been putting aside directed to another account. So it just was piling up. In the meantime, I was started reading books, started going to the local RIA and started

listening to Bigger Pocket. So my first purchase was in November of 2010 after about a year of homework. Nice. So I've got a couple of questions. One, you talked about getting the courage to get into it and to get started. What was that like? What did that require to build that courage up? And why were you able to do it where so many people who say they want to do it never get there? I think it was just, you got to have the education first that kind of helps remove some of the fear in my mind. And then, you know, and then you just have to take action. So that's kind of what I did. I had studied the market, you know, an area that I felt real comfortable with and kept watching, you know, what homes were selling for, what homes were renting

for. So I was real comfortable with the numbers, you know, with that. And, and so I just, you know, finally I just got up the courage to buy one and it went, it was a lot easier than I was expecting. And so, you know, my wife and I thought, you know, we'd always heard the horse stories about the bad tenants and the way they don't take care of things and pay late and call you all the time. And we just didn't experience that. We, you know, we bought the house. We fixed it up. We got it rented and off we went.

And so we just kept piling up that money from that rental as well as, you know, the money we were saving anyway. We just didn't touch any of that. So we just wanted to continue to build. And it was a year after that that we bought our second property. Yeah. Okay. Nice.

Nice. And really quickly, where are you? Where are you located? I'm in Wilmington, North Carolina, which is, most people know where Myrtle Beach is. I'm 60 miles north of Myrtle Beach in North Carolina. Wrightsville Beach, Topsville Beach, that area. Okay. What's the typical purchase price look like in that area?

Like, maybe the first deal, what did you buy it for? That's a good deal. deal I bought for 125. It was a foreclosure and needed a little bit of work, but not a lot. Okay. And what did you end up getting it rented for at the beginning there? I think I first rented it for 11, I think it was 1100. Yeah. So roughly like a 1% deal. And then you were self-managing it, correct? Correct. Yep. I was self-managed. And it, really all it needed is paint and those vinyl at the front doors and kitchen. and I had that replaced with tile. That's one of the things I do because I'm a long-term buying hold investor.

I try to rent-proof them. I don't put carpet or vinyl. You know, tile and LVT, things that are going to last. Yeah, that makes sense. I wish I could do more tile, but I live up in the Pacific Northwest, and like it's so abnormal to have tile anywhere that, like, there's nobody who does it. So, like, you know, to get a tile guy, it's like $30 a square foot. So, like, I just don't do a lot of it anymore.

But anyway, I totally agree with that. Yeah, the more you can kind of tenant-proof, your property, make it indestructible. That definitely helps a lot. Hey, really quick, Steve, you said it was a foreclosure. So it sounds like it was an REO. Is that right? Yes. Here and maybe everywhere, it seems like a lot of the REOs, what they were doing is they would go in and kind of lipstick them. They would put new carpet in and paint them. But you had to pay attention because some of the faucets may not have been hooked up. They looked okay, but you still needed to go through them and look at it closely, and that's

what this was. So it had been completely painted, had new carpet. They just didn't replace the vinyl, and it had spots and so forth on it. For those people listening who don't know what an REO is, REO is a property that was foreclosed upon by the bank, and they basically, all the liens are clear, right? So you don't have to go to an auction and worry, like, hey, is this property going to have some liens, am I going to end up bidding on a property that is going to cost me more money. You know, what you pay for is what you pay for, right? You get what you pay for. I know they

were doing some work on REOs across the country. A lot of folks were doing that to bring it to more of a state where, you know, our buyer is going to come in and get it. So you picked this foreclosure up. Was that process complicated or was it pretty basic? No, it was pretty basic. It was pretty basic, you know, it was listed with an agent. You know, I just riding by, saw the property. I called the agent that was, you know, that was on the sign. And fortunately, I mean, I recognized his name because he was part of the RIA group. And so I was a little bit familiar with him. But, you know, when when I started going to RIA, I really didn't know that much. I was really just sitting back listening and learning, not real active or involved. It was just learning. And so I knew who the

person was on the sign, but really hadn't spent any time talking to him. And, you know, he not only is a, you know, agent, but he invest in property as well and has been real active in RIA for some time. So, yeah, but it was easy. It wasn't, you know, it wasn't like a short sale or anything like that. So, sure. You mentioned the RIA a couple times here. Can you explain to those people who have never heard that term? Like, what is a RIA? And also, what are some tips for getting the most out of that? RIA is your local real estate investors group, and most areas have one, and depending on where you are, it probably depends on the amount of people that show up. Ours meets once every month, second Thursday of the month, and just local people get together.

I mean, some of them are flippers, some are buying hold. There's usually agents, real estate agents that attend. There'll be brokers that, you know, mortgage brokers that attend. And so it's just a place where you get together and there'll be a top. topic once a month that you talk about and you just learn from each other. And you help each other out, finding deals or cooperating on deals or selling deals to each other, that kind of thing. So do you have any good tips for people who are like, you know, maybe going to show up their first time, what should they bring, what should they do, what should they say and not say,

how do they not get taken advantage of from somebody who's, you know, weird? I would say, you know, bring a notebook to take notes. Don't be embarrassed to ask questions. You probably every month, half the people that show up are new people that have never done a deal in real estate. And you know, unfortunately, you know, there's, I've been there for six years. If you look around the room, you know, this past month, half of them still had probably never done a deal. But then you've got other half that are active and are involved and are buying deals. And a lot of times people that are, you know, doing deals, they don't show up to every, you know, every meeting, but they're going to show up on a pretty regular basis. And you can get.

to know them and learn from them. And I mean, they're just a wealth of knowledge. I mean, ours, it costs $100 of a year to be a member. And just to be able to pick up the phone and find, you know, a contractor or something like that, you know, it more than pays for itself real quick. Yeah. Yeah. I enjoy local real estate groups because it's a good place to like, yeah, like you said, find local, I mean, hey, I need a contractor. Anybody got one? And people like, yeah, I got this guy, John. He's great. Like, it's good for things like that. People want to, like, find local real estate groups in their area. Just let people know they can go to biggerpockets.com slash events, EV-E-E-N-T-S, and a lot of the real estate clubs around the country put their

events there. And if you are listening to this and you go to a event, a regular event, talk to whoever is in charge. Make sure that they're listing their event monthly or whatever it is on bigger pockets events. I mean, there's thousands of people going there. So, I mean, we want to, as bigger pockets, we want to help take the online world to the real world and, you know, help people succeed in whatever way we can. So again, biggerpockes.com slash events. So, all right, so what came after this first deal? You got this thing rented. You moved on and you said a year later you bought your second deal.

What did that look like? Yes, actually, it's same neighborhood. It was right around the corner. This one happened to be on the Home Path program, which I think that program's still available, but I think it's kind of, it seems like they're winding it down. That program, first time home buyer, I think only has to put down like 3% and there's no PMI and I guess the government helps subsidize some of the things. All right.

So you were saying, home path program, which I know, like, I'm on a lender, but I know home path, like, it was a big thing and they are winding it down. A lot of it's already shut down. I know. Like, and part of it, they're not doing it anymore. Anyway, people can learn more about that. Just search Home Path on bigger pockets. You'll find some good stuff. But anyway, so you bought that property. What was that thing? Yeah, that was a three, two, right around the corner. I bought it for 134. I only had to put 10% down 13,000 into it. And, you know, it cash flowed well. I think back then the, the, the interest rate. They do charge you about a half a percent more interest rate. Back then, the rate was, I think, five and a half. Since then, I've refinanced it and brought the rate down to four and a half. So it was a good deal to get into. The same kind of deal. They had gone in, new carpet, new paint. I think I had to replace the dishwasher, maybe put in a garage door opener, but it was very minimal. What was it running for? Do you know? I think 1150. So it's a little bit less than

the 1% deal, maybe 0.8 or whatever, I guess the thing about it is it just didn't need any kind of the roof is good, just didn't need any kind of repairs. And I kind of look at a cash on cash return. So I paid more for that one than I probably would pay today. But I was looking at the cash on cash return and not, you know, that was my main criteria at that point I was still learning soon. And I still am learning soon. So what have you learned from that? I mean, like, you know, You said you paid for cash on cash return, but it sounds like you're doing it differently. Your criteria is a little different today. So what is different about your criteria?

Today I'm looking for more equity in the deal up front. I realize even today it's hard to find deals out there, but I want to have some equity, more equity in the deal now than when I first started. So I think I'm lowering my offers and I'm making sure that I have. a larger return at this point, just because of the unknowns. I mean, you know, I've been very fortunate. I've had a few, a couple HVACs go out, and that's, you know, $4,000 to $5,000 to replace that. And so those are some big things that you should pay attention to. But that's probably been the biggest, you know, the biggest thing. Hey, Steve. So really quick, how many deals have you

done so far? A total of 11 deals that nine single family, yeah, nine single family homes. one condo, and then most recently I bought a 10-unit townhome. A 10-unit town home. Okay, I want to talk on that here in a minute. But before we do, so we kind of, that's how you, I guess that's the size of your business. How do you find, like typically, how do you find deals that you've got so far? It has been all over the board. It is, you know, driving neighborhoods.

It is getting on some of the drips from the different agents. It is a little weird that you give them the same criteria, but certain things show up on different agents. And if they send me a deal, I go to them to make the offer. I've bought one from, you know, I was riding by one of my rentals or riding that neighborhood and I saw a for rent sign. And so I called the person and said, hey, you know, I've got a house in the neighborhood. Would you ever consider selling it?

He goes, I actually being my partner recently talked about selling that. And so I ended up buying the house from a, you know, for rent sign. That's awesome. That's awesome. Somebody tell people on the Bigger Pockets webinar, there's been a few times where I've done this webinar talking about how to find deals. And I said, if you have no money at all, a very easy way to start finding deals or at least talking to people is like go on Craigslist or drive your neighborhood. Look for four rent advertisements. So again, Craigslist, newspaper, or driving for dollars and just driving around your neighborhood. And call the landlords.

I mean, at any given time, I'd probably guess 20% of landlords would be willing to sell if the price was right. And you also like get, I mean, they give you their phone number right there on the sign or in the Craigslist ad or whatever. So I think that's cool that that worked for you and you got to deal that way. On the sign, you start to come from North Carolina. I'm learning. I pick up the accent of whoever I'm talking to. That's why I get like the angry New Yorker when I'm talking to you. Oh, is that what's happening?

Yeah, that's exactly. Yeah, when I talk to, I get a little bit. I'm not going to try it. Great strategy, by the way. I love it. Yeah. I don't think we had heard of anybody who had done that successfully. So I love it.

Yeah, the condo I got from the Ria group, you know, a guy mentioned he had a deal and nobody spoke up. And it seemed like a good deal. Came home that night, did the research, looked on the tax records, looked to see what things were renting for, and saw that it was a really good deal. So he called him the next morning and I made an offer on that sight unseen. And he said, you know, I'd really like you to see it, but, you know, I'll take some earnest money. And I'm glad I did because within an hour. three other people at the RIA meeting had kind of waited to the next day to do their research

and called about it and I had I had already kind of spoken for it. Oh, that's awesome. That's cool. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, so you had talked about, you know, looking for more equity and then you had actually mentioned having to do some HVAC work. You know, I think it's really important whenever that comes up to just mention and remind, especially the new people who are trying to calculate a deal, trying to calculate the numbers on a deal on an opportunity that you have to take that stuff into consideration up front. Unless you replace it today, and even if you do replace it today, HVAC is going to have a usable life. And they don't make stuff like they did 50 years ago, something, you know, my last house had the original HVAC from the 50s. And it probably won't

need to be replaced for another 20, 30 years. I'm guessing that thing was solid. But today, they're not as good. So you have to calculate that, right? Pay over the lifeline of this property, we may have to replace it once or twice. The roof, things like that, always account for those things because they will ding you, won't they? Yes, they will. I track not only the money that I'm putting into these properties up front, but I look back and see how much I'm spending on average on repairs a year to help give me an accurate

number to plug in for, you know, for CAPX. So over the six years, I know on each property I've averaged, you know, $100 a month. I've averaged $1,200 a year. on CAPX in the six years that I've been doing it. You know, I put more money in on the front end. You know, I may average, you know, $7,000 on the front end, getting everything the way I want it. And then after that, usually that number's a lot lower.

But you do have to plan on it. I've had a pipe burst that my deductible was $2,500, but, you know, it ends up costing you more than that out of pocket. So you just have to plan for those kind of things. On the 100 a month, is that on average for properties that you're not putting the extra work up front? Or is that on the ones that you are actually? What I did is I've just, I've kind of charted out on a spreadsheet, you know, every year what I spend on each property. And then so at the end of that, it gives me an average.

But then I, you know, then I calculate that first year. The first year, I always, seems like on almost all of them. I'm spending, I guess the last one I bought, I spent $4,000 on some things there. The one before that, the one I bought from the four rent sign, how that came about is he had let that property really get in bad shape. And I don't think he could find a renter because I put $15,000 into it. He would have had to probably put eight or nine really to get it into a decent shape to rent it to a good tenant. I think he had it on Section 8 and, you know, cabinets needed to be replaced and he had just let it run down. So for me, it's like if I put that in the estimate going in and know what my return's going to be, I'd prefer to do that because that's how you get, that's how you get the equity in the deal around here is it usually needs some kind of work.

So most of them other than the foreclosures, you know, that's the way I've bought them is you've had to, Had to do some kind of work to them. Gotcha. Makes sense. You know, the CAPEX thing, I think, is an important discussion. You know, we've had it a few times on the podcast, but I think we should talk about it again. And Josh just mentioned this a second ago, and I'll just kind of reiterate. I mean, there are certain things like HVAC and others that are such an expense when they come up.

And so people will buy property that's like, let's say cash flows $100 a month. And they're like, oh, great, I'm making $100 a month in cash flow. Woo! Yeah. Five years down the road, they got a $10,000 bill for a new roof. And then five more years, they got a $10,000. $10,000 bill for a new HVAC. And then 10 years later, they got new windows. And 10 years later, they got new plumbing. And so at the end of the day, they actually, properties at that they never make anything. And I have a couple of those properties. I mean, I've been there. I know what it's like. And it sucks. And so like if you don't calculate and set aside money every month for those things. And I like usually between 100 and 200, you know, depending on the age of the property and how well I fixed it up to begin with. But I like to set that side of because, yeah, it can be, it can turn a what you thought was a good deal into just a money, money pit, I guess. guess is a, right. Terrible. Well, and I, and I will say this, because I think the homes you're buying,

Brandon, are a lot. All of mine are, I think all of them, but maybe one or two were built 95 or later. That's cool. Yeah, all mine are like 1940 and earlier. So, yeah. I actually want to ask both you guys this. So with putting aside that CAPEX, are you guys including that as part of your quote reserves or what are you, are you just, you know, making sure you have that cash available? How are you actually accounting for putting that money aside? I guess I'll start with Steve. That's a good question. I make sure I have that money available to me. I'm not, you know, I have all my security deposits set aside in a, you know, in a trust account. So if I'm ever audited or whatever, that is set aside and, you know, it's not touched. The CAP-X, I just want to

make sure I have the cash or the credit available to where if something comes up, I can pay for it tomorrow. So, yeah, I'm not going to go out and spend all my reserves because I have to have that cushion. Yeah. I'm actually probably pretty the similar. Like, I don't necessarily take every month a chunk of my CAP-X budget and put it aside, except for my partnerships. A lot of my partnerships I've worked with people. We actually do that because I want to make sure that if something ever went bad on the partnership, I wouldn't have to go with a partner and be like, hey, you know, there was this problem. I needed you to write me a check for five grand.

But on my own life, I'm like, okay, well, if something went wrong, I expect it so I can write a check for my own checking account if I had to. So, yeah, I'm kind of the same way. Well, let's continue on this line here. So we're talking about CAPX and talking about reserves. Brandon, you said you calculated one to 200 bucks. Steve, you said it adds up to be about $100, give or take. What other reserves would people want to have cash available for? I always just have, and I don't necessarily, I hate a lot of cash sitting in the bank not doing

anything. I want to either pay down debt with it or something like that. So for me, I have a few different lines of credit that, they're just non-secured, you go to the bank, But those also allow me to do, you know, if a deal pops up, I have the line of credit that I can use for that. I mean, I've gone to two different banks and I think I may have heard one of your guests talk about it. I mean, the time to get credit is really when you don't need it. Yeah. So right now I don't need it, but I go there and I get a line.

And if a deal pops up, I can just write a check for it and then I pay that off pretty quickly. But every month I'm using my cash flow. I'm setting that aside. I'm not touching kind of my investment income. So it's kind of, it's building up every month until I get the money to find a deal. But those lines of credit allow me to, you know, act if I run across something and I don't have the cash right then and there. Or a CAPX problem, a leak pops up or a HVAC goes out. I'm just not going to get that down on cash.

I'd rather miss a deal than not have the money set aside. Sure. Fair enough. I have one more question on this line. Speaking of lines, this line of credit, do people have to go to the bank where their money is? I just got that, by the way. Yeah. Thank you. A line.

Can you go to any bank, any local bank can get a line of credit? Or do you actually have to have cash or money with that bank? You do not. They prefer you, you know, lots of times they'll say set up a checking account, but you can do that and put $25 in it or whatever. Yeah, I've got one line with Wells Fargo. I do some banking there, but my largest line of credit is for citizens, and I don't, that's the only account I have there is just the line of credit.

I borrow them. And I will say this, they, I would say use it some. In fact, that's how I've gotten it increased. I've ran across the deal. I had the cash to do it, but I used the line of credit. you know, it cost me a couple hundred dollars for a few months and then I just, I paid it off. But then when the line came up, you know, they renew it. I think it's a two-year term.

At the end of that two years, they say, do you want to renew this line of credit and I always ask for an increase. So, you know, they've increased it a couple of times just because I have used it some. Yeah. Yeah, that's a great tip. Yeah, that is a great tip. Cool. All right. Well, hey, let's shift gears a little bit and talk about the multifamily because you bought a, what was it?

Did you say 10 unit? Is that what it was? Yeah, it's 10-unit townhomes. Yeah, it's two separate buildings that there's six units in one building, which I own that whole building. There's six units in the building beside it, and I got four of those. Two of them are owned individually. Interesting. So, I mean, did somebody before that to separate out two units and sell them as condos, basically? Yes, I'll say that whole complex. There's probably 60 or 70 units total. you know, in this little town home area. And the guy I bought them from, actually he had bought it, bought these 10 out of foreclosure, sometimes a few years ago.

He had fixed up five of the 10 within that time period. And then it was being advertised as a multifamily with an 8 cap. And so I started looking at it and, you know, did some due diligence. And the thing attracted me to it is I can break them up. and for what I paid for them, if I broke them up, you know, I'd have an instant profit, you know, profit if I just sold them off individually. Or I could hold on to them and accept that monthly income. So I think there's several different, you know, for me, there's some value there that was kind of being overlooked. And how did you find that property?

I had been talking with, we had a commercial real estate guy come in to local RIA and do a presentation. So I'd gotten his information. I had run into a situation where I was, you know, it was harder and harder to find residential deals. So I reached out to him and said, hey, if you run across any multifamilies or even commercial, he actually, you know, I was looking at buying a little strip center that had a dollar general in it, but didn't like the location. So he was looking out for things for me and ran across this one and it fit what I did. So that's cool. That's cool. So when he approached you with this?

Yeah, I'm going to know, like, what did you, what did you see in it? What made you excited? And then what did it look like numbers? What did you buy it for? Well, it was, like I said, you know, ACAP, it was, I think it was listed for 975 or something like that. I ended up paying $8.85 for it. You know, when we got into the units, you know, some of them needed some repair. You know, I knew, you know, the five that he had fixed up, you know, were in.

good shape, brand new HVACs. He did a good job fixing those up, but then there were five other ones. And so when the appraisal came in, you know, it was lower than what he was asking for. So I just went back and said, hey, the appraisal was what it is. And so he kind of accepted that. And the numbers worked. And so that's what we went with. Okay, cool. And what did those units rent for? At the time, when I ran the numbers, they were averaging 875. When I'm putting new tenants into them, we're bumping it to a thousand. That's awesome. That's awesome.

And for those people who are confused when you say the word, what is an eight, like, what's an eight cap? Can you explain? We don't have to get real deep into commercial valuations, but what do you mean by that? It takes your net operating income. So, you know, it's taking your gross rents minus all expenses. divide that number by the value and it comes up with a, you know, a percentage of return. And that's excluding any kind of mortgage or payment on the property. Yeah. So it's kind of like saying this is what the return on investment would be if you paid all cash for the property.

Is that sound about right? Yep. So it's a good way of comparing between apples and oranges because all commercial properties and multifamilies are so different. It's an easy way to say, hey, that's an 8,1, that's a 7, that's a 6, that's a 5, that's a 4. Right. Right. And see, again, that's what attracted me to it. So, you know, I ended up paying each one of these units are 1,245 square feet. So they're pretty large units, three bedroom two bath. And, you know, I bought for an average of 88.5 when I looked at them, individual units are selling for around 120 each. So, you know, I could break them up and make a profit just selling them off individually or I could accept that monthly cash flow. So I felt like there was. as some security going into it that way. Yeah, kind of like you build some equity into it and you get the cash flow.

It gives you lots of options for figuring out what to do. I love that. Right. Well, and as you know, as you increase the rents like I'm doing, I'm increasing the value of the property. Yeah, that's one thing. I mean, that's why we love multifamily properties is because, yeah, you increase the rent. You lower the expenses. Either way, your net operating income goes up and the value, is that right?

Yeah, it goes up. And so therefore the property value goes up. Yeah. stuff. All right. So how did you finance that property? Did you pay all cash or do you get a loan? No. I got a commercial loan from a local bank and actually it was easier than most of the residential properties. I mean, the paperwork is about half as much as what you do on a residential. They just, they look at the deal itself. They look at what the income is. They look at what the expenses is. They make sure that your, you know, debt to income on that property is enough to cover until they're

comfortable with it. And besides that, that's kind of it. I mean, they're not asking you for all these other, you know, your most recent bank statements or your most recent HOA dues or copies of all these leases and so forth. They just, you know, they look at the numbers and if the numbers work, they'll lend you the money. If they don't work, then they're probably not going to lend you the money. You'll have to go somewhere else. So if, so it's really all about the deal. I was surprised. I kept expecting them as we were getting closer and closer to closing. I was expecting them to call me and, you know, asked for something else, and they never did. But the residential properties, there's always a list of things you have to get them right before closing.

Your most recent, you know, check stubs and bank statements and whatever. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I've been turning down deals lately, like small, like single family houses and duplexes and stuff. Like even though they were good deals, I just don't want to handle the paperwork that's going to be required to do a deal that's going to give me $100 a month. Like I feel like I get so irritated with residential financing because they want, I mean, they want everything that I've done the last two years, every bit of work I've done on properties. And yeah, like it's like a colonoscopy. Like it is they really dig into you. How's that feel, Brandon?

I'm still young. I don't have to do those yet. I don't know. Yeah, they're not fun. Let's just, let's just leave. I've done residential financing though. I think I have an idea. But anyway, no, I think you make a small hand.

I'm not that old yet either, but I'm good. All right. So, so I think you make a super valid point there. I mean, commercial lending can be a little bit easier, potentially less, at least less paperwork. I was also surprised when I get a refinance on my 24 unit. Same thing. It was like way less paperwork. So, all right.

So let's shift gears. One last section and talk about before I move on to the fire round, managing your properties. Because you, it sounds like you're still, are you still self-managing everything? I manage all the ones individual. The multi-unit, the townhomes, they were under property management when I bought them. And as I looked at it, six of the ten were going to be, the leases were going to be ending within three months of me buying them. I work full time. I've got a great job. I love what I do. And I knew I was going to be traveling during that time. So I left them,

and they currently are, I still left them with property management. We're still kind of, I'll say, feeling ourselves out with that because for the most part, they do a good job. You know, when I when I did my walkthrough, one of the tenant really didn't take care of the property. So I informed them that when the, you know, when the lease was up to get her out and fix the place up, raise the rent, and get somebody better in there. And that process, they knew the tenant would be leaving, but it took them 60 days to turn that property. So, you know, I've had a conversation with them. That is kind of unacceptable to me.

I really believe I could have flipped it in 30 days knowing that she was going to be out. So I was not happy about that. But other than that, you know, everything else has been okay. So I'm kind of seeing, you know, Brandon and Heather got a great book on how to manage rental properties. And I've learned a lot from that. So I kind of have my systems in place and I feel like I do a pretty good job with that. So my expectations for property management are probably higher than most. No, I think, Steve.

As they should be. Hey, Steve, so, you know, talk about that. How can, how does somebody know whether or not they found a good property manager? I know this is your first experience. But like, you know, what should they have done? What did you expect of them, I guess? Well, I guess I think about how I would have, you know, I think about how I would have managed it. I knew the tenant would be leaving.

I would have arranged, you know, I would have. made sure I had the painter on the schedule, the flooring company, because all the flooring needed to be replaced. I would have had appliances picked out or, you know, whatever. And I just think, you know, once they're out, I know they're out at the end of the month, you know, I would have had the, you know, the trades go in right behind it. I understand. And there were a few unexpected things when the tile guy was in there doing the tile. He said, hey, you need a plumber because the valves are leaking or whatever. But usually you can get a plumber pretty quickly in there to go through that one unit.

And so I just feel like in today's market, because it is a landlord's market as far as that goes, you can rent properties very quickly here. And all you had to do is get it fixed up. And that's where I feel like they drag their feet is, you know, some of these contractors are busy, but know when the tenant was leaving, I would have expected them to have have that lined up. Yeah. I find that no property manager I've dealt with is ever proactive. I feel like they're all reactive. It's like, oh, now the tenant's out. Now we better start working on this. And like, I don't know how you train somebody to be proactive. Yeah. And I don't know.

Yeah. Yeah. So that's, yeah. So that's, I'm really in the feeling outstages. I mean, you know, I really don't spend a lot of time on the properties that I have. The most time I spend is when a tenant leaves and doing that turn. over and really, you know, I've got one that's leaving it the end of this month and I advertised it last week. I got a, you know, deposit to hold, you know, the thing I learned from Brandon got that yesterday. So I've got it rented. The old tenant is still in there to the end of this month, but I've got a new tenant lined up to go in right behind them. And so, you know, I would think that that's what they do all the time, that they would be as good at it as I am, you know.

Yeah. How many hours a week do you spend on your business? You said you don't spend too much time. It's so inconsistent. I don't know. It's probably only maybe 10 hours a month, but most of that is just tenant texts and says that, I don't know, the toilet isn't working correctly. And so I text my repair guy saying, hey, contact this tenant. I've been very fortunate in to find good contractors that, contact the tenant immediately is probably the number one thing to let them know, hey, somebody is, you know, is on it. And so I just ask them to contact them immediately and schedule time to go fix it. So that's kind of it. It's probably more paying bills. And I've heard Brandon say it, you know, dealing with, you know, insurance errors or things like that.

I mean, all the paper that comes, you know, the, you can set mortgage payments and insurance payments and all those different things to do auto pay on bill pay. It's just matching all those things up probably takes more time than anything else. Right on. And lastly, you said you love what you do for a living. You work full time. What do you actually do? I work for a flooring distributor. We sell to like the local flooring stores, mostly hardwood, but then also laminate and LVT. wood products or products that look like wood flooring. So you're telling me that you work at a flooring company, love your job, and on top of that, you're running a rental business with 19 units.

That's pretty good. Yeah, like I said, it's from the beginning. It's been easier than I expected. I mean, for all these years, I just, I kicked myself for not doing something when I was a lot younger. So I'd be in a lot different position than I am now. You know, what you said there, I think, was so true for me and so true for most people I know who ultimately jump into becoming a landlord. It is generally easier than people think.

Like, I think there's like this, in our culture, there's this fear of being a landlord in the middle of the night phone calls and the tenants and all the toilets and all this stuff. But like those are the stories that we tell at a party because they're funny. They're not the day-to-day drama that we deal with. Like, being a landlord isn't actually that difficult, I feel, especially when you have systems set up, when you just run your business the right way. I don't think it's too difficult. I think screening your tenants and having a, you know, a standard that you're going to go by, you know, it helps you avoid so much down the road. That's so true. So, yeah, I mean, you do get a lot of, you know, people that aren't qualified or that they won't get approved through a process.

so they do seek out, I'll say, individual owners that are renting properties that don't run it like a business. And so you just have to, you know, I put in my, you know, FICO score of 600 is a minimum. So, you know, I put that in the ad. And I think that probably detour some people from even responding, but still, I still get, you know, a good percentage that say, well, my credit score is not that good. but would you consider me anyway? And, you know, just unfortunately, you've got to say no. And there's so many good tenants out there that you want to make sure you find that good tenant.

And check the references. Call their previous landlords. Call their – I mean, I always call their employers, make sure they're going to have a job in a year or two or whatever. And so, you know, do the homework. And that's what I said. The turnover is where I spend more time. Fortunately, you don't get the turnover. if you take care of problems, you know, most of my tenants have only left really to go buy

their own home. That's awesome. That's awesome. So many good tips right in there. We could probably do a whole show just in how you manage your properties, but you're doing an awesome job at it. Yeah. And if people want to know more about managing properties, you mentioned it earlier, Steve.

So I'll plug it here. You can get the book on managing rental properties at biggerpockets.com slash rental book or slash bookstore or get it on Amazon. And my wife and I wrote that together. So anyway, that's, that's what, look at you. I know. Shafeless plugging. I know, I got to, you know, congratulate my wife.

She wrote most of that book and she is a rock star. Good job, Heather. Good job, Heather. Yeah, she runs a tight ship here. Cool. Shall we? Shall we? We shall.

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Just go to Indeed.com slash rookie right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. That's Indeed.com slash rookie. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring, indeed, is all you need. All right, the fire around. These questions come direct out of the BiggerPockets forums. We're going to fire them right at you, Steve. Where do they come from?

The BiggerPockets forums, which you can get at biggerpockets.com slash forums. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, it's really a cool place, Josh. You should check it out sometime. That's pretty cool. Yeah, it's really neat. Like, this guy invented it like a dozen years ago and it's helped a lot of people. Yeah.

Awesome. Yeah, check it out, guys. There's like thousands of posts a day out of there, people linking up. All right. So these are some of the questions that people have asked. So let's see what you've got to say, Steve. Number one, is there anything specific that you do to make sure you reach your goals and that the goals will motivate you? Like, what do you do for your goal setting in your life? This is a big one for me. And I've always been a goal set. We, and I say we, me and my wife, we not only set individual goals, but, you know, we kind of meet together at least usually around the first of the year. and I'll share my goals with her and she'll share hers with me.

And so we try to help each other meet those because sometimes they, to a certain degree, can contradict. I mean, I may want to buy property and one of her goals may be to pay down debt. And so it's a perfect time to talk about that. And then I think you have to keep them in front of you. I mean, I post mine. I've got them taped to the back of my phone. I've got them taped to my dashboard.

I've got them taped on the front of my computer. So my goals are always in front of me. So it helps motivate me to, I'm going to say, almost create some self-accountability to move towards those goals. So I would say keep them in front of you, set them and evaluate them and track them. I love that. Yeah. That was great.

The phone thing, that's kind of a cool idea. Put it on the back of your phone tape it to that. That's cool. I also love that you mentioned the spouse thing because, I mean, so many of us, I mean, like, you know, a lot of real estate. investors, a very A type personality. We just jump in. We do things. We got goals. And we kind of forget that our spouse may have completely opposite goals. I mean, I think you might be the first of 180 guests to bring up the fact that your goals may be completely contradictory to your spouses. And you got to work that out.

Otherwise, you just steamroll right over them. And I know, now it makes me really think I got to talk to Heather. Make sure we're on the same page here. You guys need counseling. No, but my wife and I do the same thing. And I think you did it too, Josh, right? Go out, beginning of the year, go out with your spouse, work through your goals, figure out what do you want for the coming year? Yeah, and then we have a notebook. We keep a notebook and it fluctuates where it is, but it's usually a very visible place.

And we keep flipping, you know, every couple days we're looking at it and making sure we're making progress on some of those things. So, you know, pen and paper seems to work for us. Yeah, cool. Do you have any advice on raising your kids to be financially savvy? One of the things I heard as far as, like, raising your kids. And I did it with my daughter. My daughter's 27 now. So she's grown and living in New York. But I guess just a short story. And I think it was maybe John Maxwell that told it.

But he said when he was growing up, he went over to a buddy's house. He's 10 years old. And his buddy is, you know, wants to go out and play. His dad says, hey, you need to take out the trash, clean your room or whatever to get your allowance. And so John realized, hey, my parents don't pay me an allowance to take out the trash or make up my room, that kind of thing. So he went home and asked his dad, said, hey, Johnny gets paid to take out the trash. You know, why don't you pay me and my brother to take out the trash? He said, well, if I wanted you to grow up to be a trash man, I'd pay you to take out the trash. And so what he did is he paid his kids to read books. So like my daughter when growing up, I would pay her to read, you know, richest man in Babylon,

rich dad, poor dad, you know, how to win friends, influence people. So when she wanted money to go to the movies or to buy something, that kind of thing, I would just give her a book. And so even now at 27, she'll buy books like that and give to her friends because they may not know how to manage money or know how to do different things. But it served me well in learning that early on to hand her books and allow her to fill her mind with things that would help her later on in life. That's awesome. I love that. I love that. I'm going to totally steal that idea. I might steal it too. All right. Next question in the fire room. What have you learned is the best way to collect rent from your tenants? Because my work calls me to travel quite often in the beginning, I'd have them mail me rent or that kind of thing. But I'd be gone for a week and I'd get home and then I'd have to try to get them to the bank. Now I have, I set up a rental account at a, you know, usually at a bank close to the nation. neighborhood, and I have the tenants, they, not only they deposit the rents, but every rent

is set differently. So I don't have two rents that are $1,100. I may have one that's 11.03. I may have one that's 1098. And I get alerts, text alerts. So when the deposit is made, I get an immediate alert saying this amount was paid, and then I can go in on my phone or when I get home or whatever, and then I move that money. The bank has told me that there's no way that a tenant could withdraw that money. But when 20 different people have an account number, I just, I don't feel comfortable with that. So I leave $25 in that account. When I get the text, I go in and move it to an account.

They don't know. That's clever. I like the different rental amounts. That's kind of cool. I don't know how scalable it is when you have hundreds and hundreds of units. 700 units. Oh, that was $1,147. Oh, okay.

Yeah, that was Bill in 4D. Yeah, when you get that many. But for me, I just, you know, it happened by mistake. I had two the same amount, and I didn't know which tenant was deposited in the rent. So I had to come up with a way to figure it out. No, I think it's clever. I think that's cool. So neat.

All right. Number three, what have you found of the biggest differences in investing in residential properties, like single family? I think they meant two multifamily. Well, with the multifamily being under property management, I haven't been as involved with those tenants. I guess from my perspective, the biggest difference was the financing. And I was surprised because the amount of money that you're borrowing on the commercial side, I would have thought that would have been a lot more involved.

And it wasn't. I mean, it was actually a lot easier. And even when you go to the closing table, it was probably less. than half the paperwork that you're signing for that commercial deal versus the residential. Okay, yeah, cool. Right on. Why don't we go to... Last question.

Do you feel you learn something new with every deal? And if so, what have you recently learned? I like that question. That's a good question. Yeah, that's a good one. I'm glad I didn't come up with it. Thank you, BP Forums. Yes.

Yeah, what have you learned recently? I mean, I guess the most recent deal that I did was the multifamily. So, and this goes back, it's funny to hear this, but I went back and listened to your podcast number four from Frank, was it Gianelli? Galli. Gallenelli, yep, yep. And so you guys were just getting started. And so I wanted to listen to something about commercial property. And so he goes back, he does a good job of talking about how, you know, how value is determined on that commercial property.

And so I never really had to do that with the residential. So learning the cap rates, learning how that value is. And that's what helped, I'm going to say, make me feel comfortable even doing that deal, realizing that, hey, this is calculated this way because of the net income. I could break these apart and sell them individually. And so there's some real value here that's really not being calculated into this number or a cushion. So anyway, so I guess that's, That's the big thing that I learned on this most recent deal.

Cool. I should go back and listen to that one again. That's been, yeah, a couple of years since I heard that episode with Frank. But I remember that was a good one. It was. And yeah, we were just, we were terrible. We didn't know what we were doing. We still don't know what we were doing.

Anyway, very cool. All right, well, I love the fire round. So let's, before we get out of here, let's shift gears one last time and hit up the Famous for. All right, these are the same questions we ask every guest every week. So you've heard them 190 sometimes. now, if not more. Number one, Steve, what is your favorite real estate book? I'm going to say the millionaire real estate investor by Gary Keller. It just motivated me to get started and it just showed how

many different ways, you know, you could be involved in real estate. Now, you know, rich dad, poor dad is a great one too, but that's got to be the number one. And then to help, if you want to do buy and hold, I mean, you know, no joke, you know, the book you and Heather did on managing rental property, There are some other good ones out there, but that is the best one that I've read. Landlording on autopilot's pretty good. But really just setting up the systems. I mean, those are the real estate books, I'd say. Well, thank you.

And yeah, Mike Butler's book, All right, Llander, Autopilot, that helped us a ton when we were getting started. Cool. All right, favorite business book. This one is, I don't think I've ever heard anybody mention it. And I'm going to say it's kind of business-related. it's actually called the success journey by John Maxwell. It's not necessarily a business book, but what it does is it's a book about,

you know, finding, you know, knowing your purpose and growing to your maximum potential and sowing seeds to benefit others, that kind of thing. So what it's done for me is it's kind of, it helped me get on the path of,

you know, of learning and growing and continuing to push myself to be better. And so I'd say that that was the one just because it motivates me to do a lot of reading and listening and that kind of thing. Cool. Right on. What about hobbies? What do you do for fun? Well, we're full time.

So real estate is kind of a hobby even though I run it like a business. But my wife and I, we love to travel. Since we live here on the coast, we like to go stand up paddleboarding. Nice. Like to work out, play golf, that kind of thing. Fun. That's awesome. Yeah.

Cool. All right. Last question of the day for me anyway. What do you believe sets apart successful real estate investors from all those who give up, they fail, or they just never get started? First, I think you have to, I said it earlier. I think you have to learn, a continual learner. But then beyond that, you can't just learn it. You have to take action.

So it's turning that knowledge into action. And, you know, I heard somebody say this a long time ago. the difference between where you are now and where you'll be in five years is really the things that you put in your mind, the things you listen to, the things you watch, the things you read, and the people you associate with. So, you know, if you want to grow or want to do something, that's the kind of thing you need to put in your mind and you need to take action on that. Love it. Yeah, I love it. That's really good. It's really good. All right. Lastly, where can people find out more about you? How do they link up with you?

Bigger pockets. I don't have web slide or anything, but just look me up on bigger pockets. Cool. And we will link to that in the show notes. You can find the link to Steve's profile and everything else we chatted about on the show notes at biggerpockets.com slash show 193. Steve, thank you very much. Really do appreciate having you on the show. Lots of luck to you going forward with the business. And we look forward to hearing about your future successes. Well, thanks a lot for the, thanks for the website. Between it and Ria, it is what helped me buy these properties and help me learn what I've learned. So thank you for what you do. Yeah, perfect. Awesome. Thanks, Steve. All right. See you around, Steve. All right. Bye-bye. All right, guys, that was Steve Garner. Big thanks to Steve for coming on the show. It looks like he's building a nice little business for himself, a good little cash cow. And I love seeing how his philosophy has changed. I like his insight into to manage. and things like that. I think he's doing a great job. And I like that he's read my book. So, you know, win-win.

There you go. It's all about you. It's all about me. Ego City. That's all this is. Now, so, I mean, I, again, I like that he's managing his properties. You know, he's got the multifamily testing out property management, which, you know, is always something that you want to test out. I mean, you don't have to have property management. You can and it's something that's going to be different for every person. But it's kind of cool. He's testing that out. And we'll see people have him back. Yeah?

Hey, when was the last time you called somebody? who had a for rent sign and asked them if they wanted to sell. Man, it's been a while. Man, I stopped hustling as hard as I used to, you know? I'm going to do that. When's the last time you did it? Yeah. I don't know.

Never. Yeah, it's been a little while. No, but it's a great idea. I love it. And yeah, man, Steve's doing good things. Cool. Well, listen, next week, I think we've got a little different show. I think we're going to have a bit of a guest host.

For the first time in. 193 shows. I will not be here on the Bigger Pockets podcast. No, no, we, I don't remember what show he was on, but our co-host, my co-hosts, will be Dave Meyer. Works here at Bigger Pockets, and he was one of our guests. But yeah, it'll be fun. It's going to be a lot of fun. You know, actually having an adult conversation, you know, allowing our listeners to, you know, speak to a mature, you know, listen to mature hosts. I'm going to be hanging out with like 900 financial. financial bloggers out there at the FinCon conference. So that's where I'll be.

You'd be hanging out here on the podcast in terrible cold, gross, Denver, Colorado. Oh, yeah. Is it cold and gross? I don't know. No, it's amazing. What are you talking about? Yeah, Denver. It's always nice.

Cool. Guys, this is show, what is it, 193 of the Bigger Pockets podcast, definitely make sure to check out the show notes at biggerpockets.com slash show 193. If you haven't left us a rating review, please do that today on iTunes, Stitcher, SoundCloud, wherever else you are listening. And otherwise, jump on Bigger Pockets. Get in there. Get involved.

Get active in the community. I can't. I say at every show because it makes a difference. Like when people go and do that, they're like, oh my God, why didn't I do this sooner? Yeah. It's amazing. So get out there and make it happen.

With that, I'm Josh Dorkin. Signing off. You're listening to Bigger Pockets Radio. Simplifying Real Estate for investors large and small. If you're here looking to learn about real estate investing, without all the hype, you're in the right place. Be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from biggerpockets.com. Your home for real estate investing online. Thank you all for listening to the Bigger Pockets Real Estate podcast.

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