BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 202: Escaping the Rat Race Through Rental Properties with Mark Walker

Episode Date: November 24, 2016

Most people dream of getting out of the “rat race,” quitting their day job, and living on passive income sources. However, usually that’s just wishful thinking. But today, we’re excited to introduce you to a real estate investor who did just that using rental properties, and he explains just how he did it. You’ll learn how our guest, Mark Walker, used single family houses at first to begin building his portfolio, and how his passive income really took off when he switched to multifamily. And you’ll love the in-depth discussion on exactly how he acquired his 64-unit apartment building! In This Episode We Cover: How Mark got started with a duplex that yielded a 36.5% cash on cash return Tips for shifting from developments to rentals Why he doesn’t want anything to do with property management Why it’s a matter of finding the right financing The basics to know about amortization and cash and cash return How to partner with the right people along the way How he finances his deals How he structures his partnerships The difference between conventional and commercial loans How he ended up partnering on a deal with a property manager How he knew that it was the right time to quit his job Tips on job shadowing someone with great experience Details on his 64-unit deal What you should know about syndication How much time he is spending on his business And SO much more! Links from the Show BiggerPockets Bookstore (Black Friday Sale!) Mindy Jensen’s BP Profile  Mr Money Moustache BP Podcast 201: Flipping 100+ “Zombie” Houses with Justin Stamper BiggerPockets Webinar Quickbooks Dancing with the Stars Books Mentioned in this Show Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki Best Real Estate Investing Advice Ever by Joe Fairless Tweetable Topics: “I’m the guy who likes to say yes. I don’t like saying no. I let somebody else do that for me.” (Tweet This!) “It’s been a pleasant surprise for a multifamily owner. Once you get that property stabilized, it can go to autopilot.” (Tweet This!) “Never stop learning. Learning leads to action, and action leads to success.” (Tweet This!) “Do your first deal and learn from it. Ask yourself what’s working, what’s not working, and what can improve.” (Tweet This!) Connect with Mark Mark’s BiggerPockets Profile Mark’s Company Website Free gift for BiggerPockets’ listeners Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Bigger Pockets podcast show 202. There's a lot of people out there that are very successful in this business and they've done it in a short amount of time. Don't fall for that. Hey, I'm not telling you don't set your goals really high either. But do your first deal and learn from it. Ask yourself the whole way through what's working, what's not working, and what can improve. Because that's going to make your next deal and every deal after that so much more successful. You're listening to Bigger Pockets Radio, simplifying real estate for investors large and small.

If you're here looking to learn about real estate investing without all the hype, you're in the right place. Stay tuned and be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from BiggerPockets.com. Your home for real estate investing online. What's going on, everybody? This is Josh Dorkin host to the Bigger Pockets podcast. Here with my co-host, Mr. Brandon Turner. What's going on, man? No, not much. Just having a pleasant Thanksgiving afternoon right now. It's not really Thanksgiving, but this episode comes out on Thanksgiving.

It does. I'm hanging with my family, eating turkey, getting chubby, you know. Hey, Brandon. That's some fat. What? No change there. No change. Hey, Brandon. What's up? Happy Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving. You know, I'm very, very thankful. I said this in the show, actually, the recording later, you guys will hear. But, you know, I'm super, super thankful for bigger pockets. Like, almost everything that I have in my life, like, that's good. I mean, besides, like, my daughter. But, you know, like, like, my properties. and my house and all that. So much of it is because of what you built here. So thank you,

Josh, and thank you, bigger pockets. Thanks, man. I appreciate that. That's, that's pretty cool, dude. That's, that's very nice. I'm actually, you know, I'm humbled by it. Are you crying? Are you no, but I bet you, like, how many millions of people out there have had their lives changed by bigger pockets, right? I mean, like, they have more income. They have more freedom. They have more time with their family. You know, I bet it's millions of people have been touched. And, you know, so thank you. Yeah, I think it's great. I think it's great. Well, thank you. And And thank you for being awesome. You're awesome.

It just comes naturally to me. Come on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. Anyway, hey, man, it is not yet Thanksgiving, and I know your little girl is sick, and so I do hope she feels better. But at the time, we are recording this.

Anyway, happy Thanksgiving to everybody. You guys, we have a really, really great show today. I know we say that a lot. In fact, most of our shows are really great. This show, I don't know, once in a while you have those shows. You're like, oh, it just feels really good, something about it. connects to you and this one really worked for me. This guy is awesome, local Denver guy and,

you know, really just kind of scaled up his business and is working on some big multifamily now and has done lots of other stuff. It's great. I mean, lots of really good information that I think a lot of people may never have heard before. You talk about, you know, a source of funding, a type of funding that we've never covered on the podcast. We talk about lots of really cool things. So definitely stay tuned. Let's get into this thing though, right? Before we do, let's get to some of the details. First, we've got our quick tip. All right, today's quick tip is only relevant if you're listening to this, you know, the week, the weekend that this podcast comes out. But I'll say it anyway. We are actually having a sale on books this weekend because we are such a big believer here at Bigger Pockets in Reading. And so we're for, what's it, Black Friday through Cyber Monday, we're having a 20% off sale on all books on Bigger Pockets. If you go to biggerpockets.com slash bookstore, you can find out of all of our books there. And you can, you can, you can, get 20% off, but you had to use the coupon code. Give thanks, 2016. All capitals, no spaces. It's easy. Give thanks, 2016. We'll get you 20% off. Any book package sold on bigger pockets. So there's your quick tip.

Yeah. That's awesome, man. Great, great, great, great, quick tip. Cool. Here's why savvy real estate investors are obsessed with bonus depreciation. It lets you take that rental property or commercial building you own and depreciate most of the cost against your income. Legally, 100% IRS compliant. That's instant cash flow improvement. Cost segregation guys is the number one firm nationwide, specializing in identifying these faster depreciating assets in your property. They've completed tens of thousands of studies across all 50 states from remote cabins to apartment complexes.

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the right deals can generate steady cash flow while reducing the tax drag. Bam Capital structures its multifamily investments around those fundamentals, pairing tax efficiency with disciplined operators and a long-term approach. This isn't about chasing hype or guessing market timing. It's about building durable, tax-aware wealth over time. Learn more at biggerpockets.com slash bam. For decades, real estate has been a cornerstone of the world's largest portfolios. But it's also historically been sort of complex, time-consuming, and expensive.

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All right, guys, this is show 202 of the Bigger Pockets podcast. You could check out the show notes at biggerpockets.com slash show 202. Today's guest, Mark Walker, real estate investor in the, what is it, Longmont area? of Colorado. So it's like a little city north of Denver about 20, 30 minutes away. And yeah, Mark has done everything from single families. He's done townhouses, buy and hold. He's done a little bit of developing. And his story's great because he's this guy who's kind of, he scaled up his business. He's actually scaled it to the point where he can quit his job. He eventually quit his job. And now is living off of the passive income derived from his real estate

portfolio. Working a few hours a week, I mean, you know, he's got the quote unquote dream, right? So he's a great guy to learn from. He's very well spoken and extremely intelligent, and I thought it was a great show. So let's bring him on. Let's do this. All right, Mark, welcome to the show, man. It's good to have you here. Hey, thanks. It's a pleasure to be here. Yeah. So you are, I'm getting ganged up on today because both you guys are Denver guys, or at least Colorado guys. So where do you live? He lives in her ugly stepchild. Ugly stepchild of Longmont, is that right? Yeah. I live up here and we call Longtucky. or we've earned the name.

But yeah, we're in Longmont, Colorado. It's just north of Denver, borders Boulder, which everyone knows Boulder. That's like a half hour away. Cool town, right? So, yeah, we're a bedroom community up here. Lived up here for, oh, about 15 years now. And we're having our second summer. It's literally like 75 degrees out right now.

That's awesome. Last day of summer, man. Last day of summer. It's November. What are we in? November 16th. Yeah. It's crazy.

That's crazy. You guys are nuts. At least I have sun today the first time in a few weeks out here in Washington. Let's talk about your investing. We're here to talk about that, not Longmont, apparently. Sure. All right. So, by the way, Longmont is also where Mindy Jensen, who is the Bigger Pockets Community Manager

actually lives in Longmont. So shout out to Mindy, yeah. And Mr. Money Mustache apparently lives there as well. So there's all sorts of people who live there. All right. So anyway, real estate. That's what we're talking about. How did you get started with the whole real estate game?

Oh, boy. Well, I started as early as 2004. I read that book, Rich Dad, Dad, Poor Dad. I mean, right? 80% of the people that come on your show have read that book, and that's what inspired them. I bought a duplex in South Denver, and that first deal had a 36.5% cash on cash return in the first year. Whoa. You know, yeah, I mean, when you do that as your first deal, it just lights you on fire.

Yeah. And so I owned that deal for about a year or two. And then I sold it with the intent to 1031 exchange into something else. I actually ended up sitting the next few years out, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise, because we know what happened, right? And in about 2010, I started networking again. I met a general contractor, and we decided to buy a single family house in a real trendy part of Denver.

It's called the West Highlands. And we scraped that house, and we raised up a residential duplex, three stories in its place. We sold off each side. We ended up doing one more of those just down the street on the Berkeley side, another trendy part of Denver. Then after that, that's when I started buying rental properties. So it did the development stuff. It was a lot of fun, really enjoyed it. But I really wanted to start building passive income.

Sure. And so as in 2011, I started buying a whole bunch of single-family properties. I bought a lot of townhomes and condos. No, was this all in Denver? or are you buying all over the country or where you're rebuying it? At the time, I was just buying in Denver. Now, that seems weird to me because, you know, a lot of people tell me, oh, you can't invest in Denver.

It's too expensive. There's never cash flow. It's impossible. I'm going to sit down and watch Dancing with the Stars instead, right? I mean, like, everyone's got their reason why they can't. You have an obsession with that show. Well, you know, first of all, Brandon, let's set something straight. I don't ever watch Dancing with Stars.

Okay. Ever, okay. Okay, good. I was worried, you know, you kind of look like the kind of guy who does. You don't have that. No, no, no, no. And I have no rhythm at all. Okay, just ask my wife.

You know, back to real estate. Let's keep in mind the timing. You know, this was 2011. I mean, properties were a dime a dozen here in Denver. Literally what we're hearing that's going on in Denver right now, it is a phenomenon that probably started about two years ago. It just, the market just flipped. And now we're being compared to coastal cities like San Francisco.

It's just absolutely amazing. So this was 2011, and I was buying up property. for a dime a dozen at the time. And I wouldn't even touch anything that didn't pencil for a 20% or greater cash-on-cash return in the first year. Is that with property management or without? It was with property management. That was something, too, that we learned when we owned the duplex in 2004.

We self-managed and we realized then we did not want to have anything to do with property management after that. Why is that? Let's talk about that. Why did you go that route? And I'm not going to knock. Because there's some people that do self-manage and they're incredibly good at it and successful. It's not that I don't believe I can be successful, but it's just something that's, I think it takes a special person to be a really effective property manager to enforce your lease, you know, and be that no person sometimes.

I'm a yes man. You know, I'm the guy that likes to say yes. I don't like saying, you know. I let somebody else do that for me. Can I have some money? How much, Josh? How much do you need? I love this yes man.

The question is, is what interest rate I'm going to give it to you at. But yeah, absolutely, you can have money. All right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, okay, so you just felt like it wasn't your thing. You needed somebody to step in, which is fine. Yeah, that's great. A lot of people should never be managing their own property.

Even if they want to, they shouldn't be. You know, if you can't enforce the lease, if you can't hold people to the fire. Or if you don't want to. Or if, like, that stuff stresses you out and drives you nuts. Like, hire somebody to do it. That's what their job is, right? I would not do it if it weren't for my wife. Like, my wife can do that.

She's that lady. I'm not that guy. Like, I'm just like, you, my mark. I want to say yes to everyone. I get that. I get that sense for me, Josh, that your wife does, you know, control the relationship. Wow. I just met you.

And you're an asshole, but I like you. I love it. All right. Let's get back to this thing. All right. So I know you're getting through the story. You talked about buying those single families. Before we keep going.

I'd like to get back because I had a few questions on the very beginning of the story. And then hopefully we could progress forward. So Rich Dad, you got the duplex in South Denver, the 36% cash on cash. Like, that was your first deal. So tell us really quickly, like, how did that go down? You know, you just read the book and we're like, all right, I'm going to go buy a property and you found a property, bought it. And that was that.

I mean, what was the quick and dirty of the story? Yeah, you know, I read the book, which literally. led to me reading several other of the books that were written by the rich dad advisors. And I just, you know, kept learning. You know, as Robert Kiyosaki puts it, you know, I put a lot of emphasis on my financial IQ. Fortunately, my mother-in-law is a realtor and was at the time as well. And that deal actually was just down the street from where she lived. And she saw it hit the market.

We went and saw it on the first day, got an offer in. And on the very first day, it hit the market. And the rest is history. It was a matter of finding the right financing as well. You know, I had been developing a relationship with a mortgage guy on the side, and I found the right loan for it. At the time, you could get interest-only loans for residential properties, and that helped obviously play into a 36.5%. When I started buying rental properties again in 2011, those types of loans weren't available, at least the places that I was looking. But I did, you know, 30-year AMs on the stuff that I bought from 2011 on.

But back then, you could get those interest-only loans, and that played a big role, too. Cool. Can I ask a couple quick questions just to dive in. For people who are maybe new to this real estate thing, I want to dive into a few things you talked about. First of all, you mentioned just the word 30-year am. What does that mean? 30-year amortization. So basically, you're going to make 360 payments.

And every single one of your payments is going to have an interest portion and a principal portion. And after making 360 principal plus interest payments, you're going to be free and clear. All right, perfect. And then the next question is cash on cash. return. I mean, we don't usually dive into necessarily this, but I want to make sure people who are, who get confused about that. What does that mean? When you say, I got a 36% cash and cash return or I don't buy anything with 20% cash and cash return. What does that mean? Good question. You know, the best way that I explain it to people is I compare it to dropping your money in a

savings account at the bank, right? The same concept, right? If you go put, you know, $100,000 in the bank and they pay you half a percent interest, which seems to be the going rate. That's a good rate right now. You know, you're going to get, you know, what would that be? Would that be $500? It would be $500 at half a percent of interest per year at the end of the year. Now, by the way, inflation is probably going to wipe that out. But at the same time, in 2004, when I bought a property at 36 and a half percent, that would be the equivalent of taking that $100,000 and instead invest in a portion of that. And that same $100,000 would get me $36,500 in interest versus the half of that.

percent interest at the bank. Same concept, right? However much your capital is, your cash outlay, and how much you're getting back in your first year. Perfect. Yeah, that was a great explanation because, again, I think a lot of times you take for granted that we just know these terms. And so, like, I like to sometimes on the show, we break things down a little bit. So very cool. All right, so you got the duplex. You sold that a few years later, you said, right? You divided it up. Actually, you subdivide, I mean, you separated it and sold it. No, that was the next one. Or that was the next ones. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Those are the development deals in, uh, 2010 and 2011.

And these are your second and third deal, right? Like you went, bought this first duplex, and then you went and developed two duplexes after literally doing one real estate deal. Yes, that's right. Wow. That's awesome. You know, I think of what has a lot to do with that, guys,

is knowing the right people, you know, knowing the right people to partner with along the way. Obviously, I partnered with a general contractor that had done that before in 2010 when we did those development deals. And that was a huge win and a huge help because he's also the one that introduced me to my banker, that I still, you know, that hold a lot of my loans today. They were a portfolio lender here in Colorado in Denver. It's a state bank.

Many people might have heard of first bank of Colorado. Nice. And so we all know what a portfolio lender is, right? You can explain it. You can explain it anyway. Yeah, go for it. Sure, sure. So what I like about portfolio lenders, especially in the residential space, is that they also called a balance sheet lender. Most lenders are originators of loans. They give you a loan and then they turn around and they sell your loan on the secondary market to Fannie or Freddie. Okay. So when they do that, they've got to check all of the underwriting requirements that Freddie and Fannie have. And so they're going to be more strict. A portfolio lender is still going to probably use, it's not that they're going to be more lenient. but they're going to be able to give you more loans. Fannie and Freddie don't allow you to have more than four, sometimes 10 loans, including your personal residence. So a portfolio lender keeps these loans on their own books.

They don't sell your loan on the secondary market after the fact. So in many cases, they're willing to give you more than four or 10 loans. So if you're wanting to build a real estate portfolio, you could save yourself a lot of time and trouble if you just work with a portfolio lender from the beginning. Yeah, right on. That's great. I want to ask a little bit more about the relationship with the G.C. Because I love that you come in.

You have very limited real estate knowledge at this point. I mean, you've done one deal, which is not a ton. And now you've got a guy that's really experienced. What did this partnership look like? Why did he need you and how did it all work out? He needed me as a money partner. And so I was able to bring the down payment for the construction loan. And he was able to obviously bring the experience.

he was able to bring the lender that was willing and able to do those loans. He had a reputation with them. So that played a huge role as well. And obviously he brought all the relationships with the contractors and everybody that we needed in order to get that job done. So it was a great combination. And I just took a flat 40% return off of that deal. And there's a million different ways to structure a deal like that. But that's just the way we chose to structure it.

And that's interesting because, you know, it's funny. One of the things we hear a lot is like, oh, well, we were 50-50 partners and you got 40%, which I think it's great. It's better than nothing. You literally had a experienced guy do this entire build for you. You just supplied the money. And, you know, you got to see, you know, a piece of the action as a result, which is better than not knowing anything and never doing anything, right?

And I gained the network as well. Like I said, he's the one that introduced me to the lender that, you know, holds a lot of the loans for my rental properties. And that was a portfolio lender. So we, you know, then it turns around too is that when I started buying the rental properties, I went to that lender and I said, hey, do you work with anyone or know anyone in your network that is just a power broker in finding these cash flowing rental deals? And he says, oh, yeah, I got the guy for you. made that introduction. And wow, that was a huge win as well because I, again, a relationship I still have today. And he brought me a lot of great deals that I ended up buying.

That's awesome. Yeah. And I love the fact that, you know, we talked about that last week. You know, the show just came out last week with Justin Stamper. And we talked a lot with him about this concept of like just getting out there, talking to people, meeting people, maybe more experience than you are. And like just building the relationships. I mean, if you guys have not listened to that show yet, go back and listen to it. that show. It's number 201, bigger pockets.com slash 201, show 201.

But anyway, I mean, like, I love that the same story kind of comes this week as well, where get out there, meet people, especially rock stars, no other rock stars, right? So you find a rock star mortgage guy, he's going to know a rock star broker. He's going to know, that guy's going to know a rock star, you know, whatever, title guy. And they tend to run in circles together. That's why networking is so important. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And so after that, you know, I spent about most of my time from 2011 to 2014, just buying tons of rental properties here in the Denver market. And again, this is before the phenomena really started to hit. It was in 2014, I'd say that the market really started going up and getting crazy here.

You know, still found deals, though. You know, deal of a lifetime, you know, comes around all the time. So, you know, I did those. And it was in 2013, the tail end of 2013 that I ended up doing a small multifamily deal. I bought a 12-unit apartment complex. And was that also in Denver? That was also in Denver. Yep.

And that was my first introduction to the larger multifamily. When I say a larger multifamily, let's define that as anything five units or greater, right? So I got a commercial loan on that one from the same portfolio lender, by the way. And really quick for those people listening. We're defining it differently, specifically because, you know, it's really the same managing a five and a four unit. but you can get different financing on five plus, well, four and under, then you can five plus, correct? That's right. I actually got a commercial loan on that one. So yeah, it was different. And the way they underwrite those types of properties, too, when you get a commercial loan is different. Rather than

looking solely to you to cover the debt service, you know, and in your income, they now look at the actual property for the debt service. And so the underwriting process is very different for a commercial loan. Yep. Yeah. Okay. Awesome. So you bought the 12 unit there.

I mean, tell us a little about that. How did you find it? I mean, would you end up paying for it? Why did you decide to buy it? That's a great question. It was in a little bit of a rougher area, this first 12 unit deal. My property manager wanted to do this deal. And we ended up partnering on this one.

So this is the first one I partnered with somebody on. Okay. You partnered with your PM on that. Yes, with my property manager. And so we decided to do it together. And it was kind of my introduction into multifamily. And, you know, we originally put together a plan to say, this is going to be a 10-year hole. And, you know, it had an attractive return.

I mean, it wasn't, it didn't pass my 20% cash on cash return sniff test. I'll tell you that. I think it was more like, you know, 10% or something like that. But I just wanted to, you know, do a bigger deal. I wanted to dive into this multifamily space and, you know, acquire 12 units at a time, you know, economy is a scale. And so we went ahead and bought it with the intent to hold it for 10 years. About a year in, someone came along, completely unsolicited, off market, and offered us a price that was within spitting distance of where we expected to exit in year 10. Nice.

So this is where Denver's starting to get pretty crazy. And we thought to ourselves, you know what, bird in hand, let's go ahead and sell it. So we did go ahead and sell that. And that's when I, and that sold last year in 2015. But let me back up just a little bit because it was in January of 2015 that I escaped the rat race. Yeah, I wanted to touch on that and ask you, were you still working a job? When did that end, all that? I was.

So up until January 2015, everything I had done, I was doing. while I was working a full-time job in high-tech. Okay. And I did marketing for that high-tech company. And by the way, Brandon, I'm about half as good at marketing as you are. Okay. Let's get that straight. You must be a terrible marketer.

Wow. Yeah. I agree. Wait, what? What? What? Hold on. You want to say how good I am in marketing?

You should come to the BiggerPockets webinar next week at biggerpockets.com slash webinar. or sign up today. You like that? Fantastic. That's my marketing skills right there. Awesome. Yeah, I'm pretty good at that. I like it. Anyway.

All right, so you quit your job in tech in 2015 and you were financially, quote, unquote, free. I mean, you work for yourself basically, right? It's financially free. And, you know, I think it's worth noting here that, you know, even when you do escape the rat race. And I don't know, maybe this is just something that I went through. Maybe everybody goes through it. I don't know. But, you know, as I, when I escape the rat race, my mind,

had been trained for the 14 years prior to that. I worked for that company for 14 years. So for 14 years, I knew every two weeks, this money is going to magically appear in my bank account. And I'll tell you what, when you escape the rat race, no matter how confident you are in that, you still have his little voice in the back of your head, you know, that's so used to seeing that money magically appear in your bank account. That's a little bit of a mental battle or hump to get over. And I'd say it took me, probably six months, maybe even 12 months to get used to that. So for anybody out there that's, you know, that aspires to do that, start preparing yourself now and thinking about that because

that's something you just might struggle with. I love that. Yeah. Hey, can I cut back to this PM relationship? Yeah. It's not something that I've heard anyone doing. So I was just curious, why your PM was it, did he bring the deal? And what exactly did you? did that relationship look like? And, you know, I mean, what were your roles, I guess? Yeah. So, well, obviously, he wanted to manage the property. So, you know, he managed the property.

At the same time, my property manager, and I love this about all the people I work with, he's not just a property manager. He's a property owner as well. He's an investor. You know, so, you know, he has the unique ability to see a deal from both sides as an investor and as a property manager. And so, you know, it made sense. It was a, we had already worked together for, oh, I don't know how long we had known each other, probably at least a couple of years.

We had known each other at that point, respect each other, respecting each other's accomplishments. And, you know, there was some synergy in what we were wanting to do. So, you know, the relationship made sense. Cool. Here's the truth about passive investing. If the strategy isn't right on day one, the returns won't save it. Multi-family real estate offers structural advantages. Many investors are overlooking, including depreciation that can help offset 10.

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That's indeed.com slash rookie. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need. That's cool. Yeah. So, all right. So you partner with the podcast. property manager did this, got out a 12 unit, which I think is awesome. Before we move on to the,

to the next deals that came after that, I want to talk real quick again about the full-time job thing. When did you know it was the right time to quit your job? Like, did you have just enough to pay your bills or were you making more than enough and then some? Like, how does a person know now is the right time? Sure, sure. For me, what I did is I set a goal in my head, you know, while I was investing, while I was doing this, I had set this goal in my head. But once I hit, it's X number of dollars per month. And by the way, that covered more than my bills, then that's the time to get out.

Now, I'll tell you, too, again, I was going through that mental battle, right? Because I was making really good money. I mean, I'm not going to downplay that in my high-tech job. I was saying to myself, I might be wanting to go another two years. But the truth is that I was starting to get a little jaded, you know, at my job.

You know, I'd been with the same company for 14 years. It's a long time. Yeah, it is a long. time, especially by today's standard. You know, so many people, you know, might spend five years, you know, with the company. And that's considered a long time. Well, Brandon, we're getting there. I know, we are.

It's five years here. See later. Is it four years coming up here next month or like next week? Yeah. Yeah, it's four years. Yeah. Yeah. Please don't go.

I'm a little domestic here. I'm not leaving. I'm not leaving. I'm not leaving. I'm not leaving. Sheesh. Don't leave me. Please.

All right. So you got 14 years, get a little bit jaded. I was getting a little bit jaded. You know, it was time, you know. And so I went ahead and I decided to, you know, jump the rat race. And at the same time, too, I was really fortunate because I have a cousin who's a 30-year veteran in multifamily. Oh, nice.

And he doesn't just, I mean, he does the really big stuff. He won't even look at anything less than 100 units. Wow. And so, you know, over the year. It turns out he had moved to Colorado a few years, probably around like 2011, 2012, I can't remember. And so we'd get together for lunch, you know, maybe every six months or so.

We'd keep in contact. We'd kind of talk about things we were working on and doing. And so it was so funny because he called me, I remember it was a morning in like maybe October or November of 2014. And he calls me up and he's just like, well, how are things going? How's work? And I just remember saying, going, well, it's just not fun anymore, you know. And, and, you know, I was at this point,

I was looking at how quickly my real estate business was growing and how quickly I was able to make decisions with the help of my, you know, partners like my lender and my property manager, you know, my insurance agent and stuff like that. And, and the fruit that was bearing. And then I was comparing that to this full-time job that I had where everyone had the power to say no, but nobody had the power to say yes. Yeah, yeah. And so I was just frustrated. And before I could even finish my sentence, he says, well, why don't you come job shadow me?

Now, that's a great opportunity. Now, I'll tell that to anybody listening to this. You know, if you ever have an opportunity like that to go job shadow with a 30-year veteran, whether it be a family member or a non-family member, boy, you really have to consider, you know, jumping on that opportunity. And so when I left the rat race in January of 2015, You sat around to watch Dance with the Stars. Yeah, I watched my cousin dance around some of the biggest multifamily deals.

And I'll tell you what, it's a completely different ballgame. Cool. And so at this point, you know, so now we're into 2015, right? My journey is essentially looks like playing the game cash flow, right? You start doing small deals and you start doing bigger and bigger until you start, you graduate into doing big deals, right? So here I have, I have no job. I'm financially free, but now what? After spending about nine months job shadowing him, I made an offer on a 64-unit apartment complex in Irving, Texas.

So I've gone to Irving now. I've gone to Texas because Colorado's gotten, is getting really heated up and crazy. It's totally a seller's market. And I ended up acquiring this 64-unit apartment complex in Texas in December of 2015. Okay. Now, was that through your, what was it, cousin or uncle that you found it or you found it on your own? You know, actually, so he owns a management company in Texas. Yeah.

And so they manage it. And so, yes, it was while I was job shadowing my cousin. that I stumbled across this opportunity. Got it. Okay. So I went through the, you know, that was my first time doing a larger deal. I was able to get agency debt on that. So we talked up a little bit earlier about commercial loans. That was with a bank, okay?

Agency debt is even very different, which you can get on larger multifamily properties. The loan is non-recourse. What I mean by that is they have more stringent underwriting or requirements. But if you do qualify and you get these loans and something goes wrong, they won't come after you personally, unless of course there's some bad boy carve out. It's like fraud or something like that. Yeah. But these types of loans have very attractive terms, but as I mentioned, they're very difficult to get. There's three things that they look at. One, they look at your experience. And that's probably one of the, you know, most important. That's probably 50% of the decision right there is

is your experience. So everything leading up to this moment in time contributed to me being able to get that agency loan. Yeah. And also owning the 12-unit apartment complex and successfully exiting with a big fat gain on that property, you know, played a big role as well. Sure. The second thing that they look at is your net worth. They want that. They typically want that to be equal to or greater than the loan amount. and then thirdly, they want you to look at your post-close liquidity. Now, notice I never mentioned anything about having a job or anything like that. So rather than looking to me to cover the debt service, me and my job to cover the payment, they look to the property. They underrated the property and make sure it had enough net operating income to cover the debt payments.

Perfect. Perfect. And was that through contacts or how did you end up getting that agent? debt. Was it through a traditional portfolio bank, commercial bank? What did that look like? Yeah, I went through a loan broker down in Texas. And I'd say that this particular one is really good at helping people do their first agency debt deal. Got it. And so that was a huge, and that was, of course, was a relationship that my cousin, you know, had that I made that connection, you know, through, through him and his business dealings. Back to relationships, right? Yeah. It's, It's just huge.

So, yeah, I did that. And that was a value add, a C-Class apartment complex. So I spent the first half of this year renovating that property. So I originally set out to renovate about half of the units in that 64-unit property. Did some exterior upgrades as well, you know, landscaping, added up, you know, picnic area, you know, upgraded the pool and, you know, upgraded the office and then stuff like that. And, you know, I'm happy to say that that deal, knock on wood, I originally set out to raise the rents to about a dollar a square foot by the end of this year, by the end of 2016. Right now, I'm sitting in a dollar eight to square foot in place. And I have a path to get to about a dollar 12 a square foot, possibly by the end of the year.

So it's just, it's been a great first larger multifamily. family deal and it's been a great experience. And now I'm looking for the next one. So let's let's dive in a little bit more on this thing. So what did you pay for the property? I paid $2.625 million. $2.625, okay. And go ahead, sorry. Yeah. Then the CAPEX budget was $325,000. Okay. And then the, um, I'll tell you, as it went for the loan, the loan allowed me to do loan to cost. So there's loan to value and there's loan to cost. Can you explain the difference?

Yeah, loan to value only lets you borrow on the acquisition price of the property. Loan to cost allows me to borrow on the acquisition price of the property plus the renovation budget for the property. The other advantage with the agency debt is they let me roll 3% in for soft costs. So on a property that I acquired for $2.625 million, my loan was actually $2,418,000. Oh, wow. So it's almost like you borrowed, I mean, it's basically like nothing down almost, but I mean, obviously you put something into it. But it feels like you got 100% of the purchase price. Yeah, almost.

You know, and so there's a 200K difference. Is that what we're talking about? Yeah, something like that. Yeah. So they took, they shaved off $325,000 at closing and they put that into an escrow account. And that was, and that over the next six months I drew against to pay for my renovation. Hey, when you say soft costs, what do you mean by that? 3% for soft costs.

Oh, it could be legal. It's your, you know, any additional title costs, you know, your loan origination fees, you know, things like that. Okay. So you bought for $2.6 million, roughly. You put in 300,000 cap-ex. What would you say it's worth, like, today, or what do you plan to exit at at some point? Like, what's the final? Yeah, you know, I think it's worth, you know, actually my exit plan, I should probably have it in front of me.

But, you know, I'd like to exit about mid-threes, you know, on it. I've modeled it on a five-year hold. And on the five-year hold, the first year, I projected about an 11% cash-on-cash return. And then the internal rate of return, which takes, you know, five years into account, is at the property level would be high 20s in terms of an IRR. So can you explain real quick? It's a little bit more complicated topic, but I think it would be kind of cool to go into. What is the difference when you're talking about a cash on cash return versus the IRA or like an overall return? Great question.

Yeah. Yeah. So cash on cash return is how much money is coming back to you from operations of the property. You don't recognize your internal rate of return until you actually exit the property. I'd say when your investment's done, you basically look at all the cash flow you got off the property, plus any, capital gain you had after you sold it. You factor all that in and you basically know what your total return was, your annual return, what your return would be over that period of time on an annual basis. I don't think I explained that very well. No, I think it was great. Okay. Yeah, it combines in,

yeah, the equity growth, the loan getting paid down over time. It combines all those things into one a nice number internal rate of return. Yeah. And it's a more complicated number that not a lot of like, you don't usually use on like a single family house. People don't usually care about that. on smaller deals, but on the bigger deals, it matters quite a bit, especially if you're raising money and you got to tell your investors, what do you expect to get over the next five years? That can come in really handy. Yeah. Yeah.

Fantastic. Absolutely. And what was also unique about that deal is that was my very first syndication as well. I brought about 35% of the money to take that deal down. And then the other 65% came from two other investors. Okay. Yeah. Now we got to dive in on that.

Man, you can't make you show more and more confidence. I know. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm just that kind of guy. Explain what a syndication is because you can't just go and get two buddies and say, hey, we're all going to plow in a hundred grand and into a property without having lots of legal around it, right? That's kind of what the syndication is.

Yeah. Yeah. Lots of legal is an understatement. You know, I'd say, yeah. So the two guys that, fortunately, the two guys that came in as investors on this, I already had an existing relationship with Han. So that made it a little bit easier, right? From a securities, you know, law standpoint and stuff like that.

Yeah, you're not out there putting an ad in the New York Times saying I'm trying to raise money for this deal. Exactly, exactly. And if I was going to do that, I'd look to get your help to do that because you're a marketing expert. I have a marketing expert. You know, you might want to find somebody else. Well, you don't trust me to put an ad in the New York Times? Come on, Josh. Give me that response.

I'm going to put a front page ad for bigger pockets. Hey, Hey, Saka, get your money here. No, I would just put on the front page of the New York Times that there's a bigger pockets webinar coming up this coming Wednesday, and you can sign up a bigger pockets. Here's Josh Dorkin's phone number. And here's Josh's phone number.

All right, moving on. So you got the paperwork, the legal, you got that all worked out. Yeah. So, yeah, we obviously, we formed a separate entity. Okay. And we obviously had an operating agreement that we had, to agree on and all that stuff. So there was quite a bit of legal work as well as, too,

when you do a larger multifamily deal to, you know, your loan documents and, you know, you oftentimes have an attorney drafted contract for the purchase of the property as well. So there's a lot more legal involved in that. So, yeah, it was definitely a much more complicated transaction. Really quickly, and then we're going to try and burn through the rest of these questions.

We're running a little long on time here. All in all, what do you think the legal cost on soup to nuts to get this property purchased? So what did this syndication cost you from a legal standpoint, give or take? Okay, mine's probably not the best example because I'm sparing you some of the details, to be quite honest with you, that made this transaction even more complicated. So mine's not the best example. That's okay. But I spent about 20,000 bucks.

20K. And that was definitely on the high end. If you're doing a typical multifamily transaction, anybody that's interested, when you talk with your attorney, I would strongly encourage you to see if you could flat fee it. What I mean by flat fee is agree with the attorney up front that they're going to give you full representation from the attorney-drafted contract representation there to your operating agreement, you know, your private placement memorandum, if you have to end up doing that for your syndication, just for one flat fee.

I love it. That's a great idea. Because, you know, it'll probably save you money in the long run, especially if it's your first deal. You're probably going to have a lot more questions, you know, along the way. And you're probably going to be tugging on that attorney's time a lot more than normal. Perfect. So how much month are you spending on this property?

How much time are you spending every month on that particular property? And then how much time do you think you're spending overall? on your business at this point. On this particular property, well, when I was renovating it, I was spending a lot more time. You know, I was going out to Texas once or twice a month. I was spending most of my time during the week, I'd say probably 20 hours a week, you know, talking with contractors and, you know, overseeing that renovation. Now I'd say I'm probably spending about an hour or two a week on that property because

the renovation is done. It's pretty much shifting into autopilot mode at this point with the management. company. Gotcha. And overall on your business? Overall in my business, you know, because I have professional management and all of that stuff, I really probably wouldn't even have to get out of bed in the morning if I didn't want to.

That's a good place to be. It is a good place to be. You can watch Dance with the Stars all day long. You can just DVR that show. Somebody's obsessed here. Mark, did you notice? I mean, like, what's going on there, Brandon? I don't think I've ever seen an episode.

I either need to check out Dancing with the Stars or I need to like. You know, pray for brand. But yeah, I mean, the one thing that I do still, you know, do a lot of when it comes to my residential portfolio is I do pull all that, the data from my management company into QuickBooks. So I do, you know, still do my own books per se. I've put some things in place systematically that, you know, make that a lot easier. But I still do, you know, a lot of my own bookkeeping. outside of the day-to-day property management, you know, stuff. And I don't know, that's probably a couple hours a week.

My last question related to this property, the 64 unit. What has surprised you as being easier than you thought, like, as you got into it, and what's been more difficult than you thought it would be going into it? Like, looking back at the whole thing. Yeah, I guess I'll start with, I guess I'll start with what's been more difficult. And that is one thing that took me by surprise was the city. And I think that, you know, now that I've been through the process and I can give some advice on the matter, I'd say that if you acquire a multifamily property, have an expectation that you're going to

be partnering with the city to make that property as awesome as you possibly can. And, you know, they're going to, they're going to require you to do that anyway. So there's city inspections that they do. In Texas, it's a little different than Colorado. When a property trades hands, you have to get a new certificate of occupancy. Now, that's unique. Interesting. In Colorado, you get a CEO when you build the property, and that's it. In Texas, every single time the property trades hands, you've got to get a new CO. And that's when the city comes in and says, okay, I want you to fix this and this and this and this. And that may be in your CAPEX budget that you've already put together, and it may not.

I'll give you an example. I wasn't planning to put $15,000 into the pool. The pool seemed fine to me. It passed inspection. There was nothing wrong with the pool, but they decided they wanted me to replaster the pool, which, of course, once you replaster the pool and you start peeling back the onion, and something that maybe costs, you know, five, six thousand dollars turned into about $15,000.

This was San Francisco, right? No, this was, could have been. Could have been. This was Texas. Okay. So, you know, I mean, that sounds like a law you'd find out in a place like San Francisco. But yeah. Yeah.

Interesting. Yeah. Well, at least not a law, but the type of suggestion, I guess, you know, particularly given that it had a past inspection already, right? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. What about the easier part? So the easier part, boy, what has been really easy? Well, I'd just say that in general, once you're past your renovation, you've got that property, you know, stabilized, then I'd say you can shift it over to autopilot, give it to the management company and let them do their thing.

You know, of course, that assumes that you have a good manager in place and that they have good systems in place on their end as well. But, you know, that is a nice, pleasant surprise, you know, for any multifamily owner. Once you've got that property stabilized, it can just go to autopilot. That's awesome. That's awesome. Cool. Well, let's kind of close up this part of the show and move on to the next, which we lovingly call our fire round. It's time for the fire round.

All right. Let's get to today's fire round, which, of course, is the questions that come direct out of the bigger pockets forums, which our listeners can get to and interact with for free at biggerpockets.com slash forums. All right. So let's get to these questions. Question number one from the Bigger Pockets forums. I think I want to invest in a townhome. Is that easier or harder to invest in the normal single family houses?

And I don't know if you've done townhomes, but... I have. Okay, so, yeah, easier or harder. Yeah, I've done a number of townhomes, and I think they're easier. And that's because, you know, oftentimes the town home, you've got a homeowners association in play. And again, I'm going to throw this caveat in there. As long as you've got a good HOA, you know, then you actually have a partner in the deal as well. because they handle everything for you exterior-wise.

You know, they mow the lawns. They do landscaping. They take care of the roof if there's something wrong with the roof. You know, all you really need to worry about with a townhome typically is what's inside your own four walls. And so I love that about townhomes. There's also one other thing I love about townhomes and condos. The post-tax return is typically higher on condos and townhomes than it would be a single-family home. Here's why.

We all know about depreciation. right what you can you know you can appreciate you know your acquisition price or a portion of your acquisition price on your taxes well you can only depreciate the cost of your building so with a condo or a townhome there's typically less land associated with the acquisition price of your property so you can on a percentage basis you can depreciate more so your post tax return is typically going to be better on a town home or a condo look at that great feedback yeah that's awesome yeah didn't know that very cool cool I never thought about it so cool yeah crazy. All right, next question. I'm just getting started. Should I begin with the 20 unit that came on the market in my area or do something else? Wait. Yeah, you know, I think as long as you're financially, you know, I'd say if the numbers work on the 20 unit, go for it. You know, and if you've got the right lender in place, and I think the big caveat there is as long as it underwrites and makes sense and you have a plan in place, there's no reason to wait. Do it. What are you waiting for?

There you go. Take action. Make it massive, right? Absolutely. I have something I say all the time. It's never stop learning. Learning leads to action, and action is what leads to success. There you go. I like it. I like it. Fancy. It's a very tweetable quote right there. I like it. All right. Number three. I need to get Twitter account. You got to get a Twitter account. Come on.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. All right. Number three, what should I look for in my, I like this question. What should I look for in my city? This is from a newbie. What should I look for? Should I look for an up-and-coming neighborhood? like a trending neighborhood or just a blue-collar neighborhood. I'm just not sure where to begin looking to pick my neighborhood. Oh, boy. Well, I'd look for housing shortages. You know, but I love C-class deals, you know, or value-ad deals, deals, deals where you can go in, you can do some improvements and then raise your rents, you know, or, you know, sell for more. So those are the

types of deals that I look for in my neighborhood. You know, I like C-class deals, too, because they appeal to working people, you know, and they're always looking for affordable housing and great, awesome places to live. So, you know, value add deals typically, you know, really resonate with them. So that's what I look for. And like I said, look in areas where, you know, there's a housing shortage, you know, because that's going to up your chances of, you know, getting it rented quickly or even selling it quickly, if that's your exit strategy. I tend to avoid, you know, bad areas. But I look for those C-class deals in a B-class area, as I say. But, you know, I'm not saying C-class areas. are bad either, you know, but that's just me.

Yeah. Cool. Yeah. Awesome. All right. Last question. What's a good goal for me to have for my first year as a real estate investor? What's reasonable? Just do a deal, you know, and learn from the experience. You know, there's a lot of people out there that are very successful in this business and they've done it in a short amount of time. Don't fall for that. You know, I'm not, and hey, I'm not, I'm not telling you don't set your goals really high either, you know, but do your first deal and learn from it. yourself the whole way through what's working, what's not working, and what can improve. Because that's going to make your next deal and every deal after that so much more successful. That's awesome.

That's great. All right. Let's move on. All right. Let's get to our world famous. Famous for. All right. These are the same four questions we ask every guest every week.

And I love to hear what people say. So number one, what is your favorite real estate related book? Oh, I just read one. It's best real estate investing advice ever, volume one. by Joe Fairless. Nice. I think I'm in that. Aren't I in that?

I think I'm in that. I do a check, but I haven't read it, but I think I'm in that. Self-promotion. There you go. That's what I do. That's what I do. You know, what I really love about that book is it's not just Joe's insight, right? He's gathered the collective knowledge or awesomeness of so many different investors.

And you get to see so many different perspectives, whether you want to be a flipper or whether or not you want to buy rental properties, whatever. You know, there's success stories in there and there's learnings and takeaways from every single one of them. So I think that book is just so rich in content. Love it. And I actually don't know if I'm in there, but I know I talked to Joe once about doing it. I don't know if I ever got in there. You want to know you have to. I know.

I got to go read it now. Okay. There you go. All right, favorite business book. I'm going to say rich dad, poor dad. You know, a lot of people associate that with real estate. But actually, I classify it more as a business book because it, you know, really deals with your perspective on money and financial education. and, you know, yes, there's a lot of real estate emphasis in it, but, you know, I think so many of us love that book and have been inspired by that book, whether you be a real estate investor or just an entrepreneur in general.

Right on, man. What about hobbies? What do you do for fun? Oh, I like to travel. I like to ski and camp, you know, spend time with my family. We go to the theater sometimes. I have a five-year-old daughter, so, you know, this is just a great, great time. And, you know, I love spending time with her and, and my wife.

life. Cool. Awesome. All right. Number four, my last question of the day. Mark, what do you believe sets apart successful real estate investors from all those who give up, fail, or never get started? I said it earlier. I said it earlier. I said it too soon. We never stop learning. Learning leads to action and action leads to success. I mean, so think about this. Oh, you said those exact words earlier. It's like you haven't memorized. Yeah, I did. I say it a lot. You know, and, you know, think about it. I mean, a lot of us, you know, are afraid to get started in real estate. We're afraid of losing money or, you know, whatever, you know, and that's, I think, oftentimes because we don't, we don't understand the concepts, you know, the more you learn,

the more comfortable you're going to become with the strategies and the concepts. And it's the learning that's going to enable you to actually take action, you know, to feel comfortable enough to take action. And, you know what, you're never going to see success if you just sit back and you never take action. So the other thing that I'd really challenge people to think about is if you adopt this mentality, you're never going to lose. I never lose, right? I never lose because I either win or I learn. And if you think that way and you take action, you know, you'll find success.

Awesome. All right, man. Before we let you go, how can people find out more about you? I know you've got a website you want to share and some other stuff. So why don't you spread the word? Yeah, yeah. Well, first of all, I'm on BiggerPockets. I don't have a whole lot of colleagues.

I want some more. So find me there. And we'll link to you in the show notes at BiggerPockets. com slash show 202. Awesome. Awesome. And the other thing is, is you can find me on my website at www.

luxemana.com. That's L-U-X-M-A-N-A. And if you go to forward-slash bigger pockets, I'd love to make a free gift available to everyone for just listening, you know, as a way of saying thank you. I've written a paper about multifamily investing. It's called 10 not so obvious ways to boost your multifamily property, NOI. And there's some secrets that I reveal in this paper, things that I learned along the way. I might jumpstart your journey into multifamily if that's what you aspire to do. I'm going to go look right now because I want to, well, as soon as you put it up anyway.

cool so that was that slash bigger pockets right lux yeah what was that saying luxemana luxemona dot com forward slash bigger pockets all right cool good deal thank you awesome man well mark thanks so much for coming on the show we really do appreciate it lots of luck going forward and you know we we do hope to hear from you and your future successes as you have them well thanks so much for the opportunity and guys thanks for what you do you know the the community that you've created is fantastic and uh it's second to none and you're helping a lot of people. So thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. Awesome. What were you going to say, Brandon? I was going to say thank you, Josh, because

you know, today is the Thanksgiving episode, right? So, you know, thank you, Josh for creating bigger pockets. Something to be thankful for bigger pockets. I am thankful for bigger pockets. You guys are awesome. You guys are awesome. Thank you. All right. Take it easy, Mark. You too, guys. Thanks. All right, guys, that was Mark Walker. Big thanks to Mark for coming on the show. Yeah, that guy's doing some cool stuff. I love. I love how he did his last deal, the big multi-family. I love hearing about his method of financing. I just love how he's kind of scaled the business and found his path, his goal, which

was to get out of his job. I believe he didn't implicitly say that, but it pretty much sounds that way to get out of the job. And now he's got this great life that he's leading thanks to real estate, and it's so cool. Yeah. I just like, I like that one, he's very good at explaining things. So it was kind of nice having him explain things step by step. you know, defining some terms that are a little bit more complicated, but also just like how, like, simple, I don't want to say easy, but simple, he makes the whole process. Like, you buy properties that

cash flow and you make enough money to quit your job and then you buy bigger properties. And, like, it was just so like, like, that's what I want to do with my, the rest of my entire life. Like, I love that. I, like, just that process. Yeah. Yeah, it's great. That's great. And I think you nailed it. I mean, he just, he really simplified it. Made it, made it nice and easy. You made it easier. My phone is blown up, sorry, for all the stuff, guys. You're a big deal, you know? It's okay. Yeah, things are happening. Things are happening. Anyway, big thanks to Mark again for coming on the show.

Really do appreciate that. And otherwise, guys, hopefully you have a happy Thanksgiving. Thank you so much for listening. Big thanks to all the listeners. We really, really do appreciate you guys. It means an awful lot to us that you guys are willing to put up with Brandon. I know it's hard. It is a tough thing to be in my presence, you know?

It is. It is. It is. It's great on people's nerves. I don't know. Yeah, you're a little grating. You're a little grating. So I thank you for listening to the show and putting up with Brandon and me.

I'm difficult, too. Well, it's not so bad because they don't see your face most of the time, so it doesn't hurt them quite as much. Thank God. Yeah, yeah. That would be really bad. When you look exactly like the sexiest man on Earth. The rock. Dwayne Johnson?

Right. Yeah. Oh, last year sexiest man on earth. Adam Levine. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah. This year was the rock. I thought you were telling me you look like the rock.

I didn't even know that it was the rock. Rock? Yeah, he got voted. Sexy Spadro? Hey, good for Dwayne. So I look a lot like Dwayne. You know, like me and him are like, he's my doppelgamer. Is that the word? Doppelgain. That is the word, but that is incorrect. No, we look identical. Exactly. Look right here. Look at this face. Okay, clearly there's something wrong with your brain. I mean, I've known that for a while. We look identical. We look practically the same. Right. Anyway, point being, you guys, thank you very much for listening to the show. We really do appreciate it. We do ask, obviously, like we like to ask, that you please subscribe to the show if you, you

just listening for the first time or the fifth time, but definitely subscribe to us. Best way to do that is probably on iTunes. Stitcher SoundCloud is also great, but definitely subscribe. Leave us a rating and review if you could. That really helps us out. We do appreciate those an awful lot. And otherwise, please take some time if you have not yet already and jump on bigger pockets. If you haven't created an account yet, I mean, we have 600,000 plus, I don't know the exact number, but it's 600,000 plus members on the site. I mean, there are so many amazing people like Mark who are on Bigger Pockets, connecting, networking, helping one another out, helping one another to be successful. So if you're a newbie, jump on, create an account,

introduce yourself. If you're an experienced investor, jump on the account, create an account and go help some other people out. Because the beauty of Bigger Pockets is as you do that, as you give, you actually see in return a built better network, possible opportunities, things like that. So I definitely encourage you to do that. That's really it. Thank you so much, guys. We really do appreciate it. Happy Thanksgiving. And we'll see you next week. So with that, I'm Josh Dorkin, signing off. Oh, me too. I'm Brandon Turner signing off. The Rock. I was going to, yeah, Brandon, the Rock Turner signing off. Nice. You're listening to Bigger Pockets Radio. Hey guys, this is Brandon. You just got to finished listening to episode 202. And Josh does not know

that I'm recording this. But at the beginning of the show, I actually mentioned how, you know, Most of what I have today, like the real estate success that I've had, is largely due to Bigger Pockets. And I'm very, very thankful for Bigger Pockets. So what I wanted you guys to do, actually, just real quick, behind Josh's back is if your, if your life has been changed in any way from Bigger Pockets, if you want to thank Bigger Pockets, do me a favor. Jump on Twitter or on Facebook and just shoot Josh, which is at J.R. Dorkin on Twitter.

Or go to the Bigger Pockets Facebook page, Facebook.com.com slash Bigger Pockets. And just let Josh know that Bigger Pockets has been instrumental in your life. I just thought it would be kind of a cool Thanksgiving. weekend gift or surprise for Josh. So anyway, you guys keep it real. 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. Make sure you get all our new episodes by subscribing on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Our new episodes come out Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I'm the host and executive producer of the show, Dave Meyer. The show is produced by Ian K, copywriting is by Calico content, and editing is by Exodus Media.

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