BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 318: 100 Units in the First 2 Years (Using Bank Financing!) with Collin Schwartz

Episode Date: February 21, 2019

Interested in buying over 100 units in two years’ time? Today’s guest did just that! Collin Schwartz shares the amazing story of how he built an impressive portfolio on the foundation of direct m...ail and networking through meetups. You’ll learn how Collin utilized a clever twist on the BRRRR method to avoiding paying cash for properties (but still get back his down payment), how he uses balloon notes to do this, and how his highly targeted direct mail strategy led to it all being possible. Collin also shares how he runs meetups to find deals, what his criteria are for buying properties, and how he partners/leverages with others to make this incredible success possible over such a short period of time. Collin also earns income managing properties—and even leverages that business to find deals too! If you want a solid game plan that will lead to impressive growth, this is an episode you don’t want to miss! In This Episode We Cover: How Collin went from handwriting 191 letters to over 100 units in two years How he uses networking to find deals His direct mail strategy How he uses the BRRRR method and traditional financing His 50/50 partnership structure Tips for using RUBS to increase profit What criteria he looks for in properties How to run meetups to find deals Advice for using balloon notes to get into deals (and later refinancing) How to outsource paperwork and bookkeeping to others How he makes money managing his own properties And SO much more! Links from the Show BiggerPockets Forums BiggerPockets Webinar ListSource Invoice America BiggerPockets Events BiggerPockets Podcast 234: Tenants, Evictions, & The Dark Side of No Money Down with Ryan Murdock BiggerPockets Jobs Zillow Loopnet Books Mentioned in this Show Who: The A Method for Hiring by Geoff Smart and Randy Street Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki The Millionaire Real Estate Investor by Gary Keller Shoe Dog by Phil Knight Tweetable Topics: “In my mindset, more units, less risk.” (Tweet This!) “Real estate is forgiving.” (Tweet This!) Connect with Collin Collin’s BiggerPockets Profile Collin’s Meetup Collin’s Instagram Collin’s LinkedIn Profile Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:00 This is the Bigger Pockets podcast show 318. I told my wife, hey, honey, this weekend, we were going to handwrite a 191 letters and stuff them and send them out to these owners. I did that, sent those letters out, and I was able to get six deals off of those letters. 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 high, you're in the right place. Stay tuned and be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from biggerpockets.com.
Starting point is 00:00:38 Your home for real estate investing online. What's going on, everyone? This is Brandon Turner, host of the Bigger Pockets podcast, here with my co-host, the man of the hour, the man of the year, David Green. What's up, buddy? Thank you, thank you, Brandon. I appreciate that.
Starting point is 00:00:54 I'm doing wonderful. I'm actually looking to hire a new intern for the David Green team, so I've been going over resumes and, getting people to email me and then trying to systemize everything that we're doing. So we've got someone who's running my rental portfolio. I'm looking to step up by flip business and looking for an analyst to help with multifamily stuff. So I'm stepping up my game in 2019 and looking to bring people into teach. How's things over there on your end?
Starting point is 00:01:16 Not too bad. Speaking of hiring, so I was thinking the other day, I was talking to some buddies of mine. We basically had this conversation about at the end of the day, like one of the most important skills a person could have in all of like real estate or business or anything really that you want to grow, larger than yourself, like knowing how to hire a good employee, like bringing good team members, like finding talent is the most important skill you can really have. Like, because at the end of day, if you want to grow bigger than yourself, you have to find talent and talent is hard to find. Anyway, so in that conversation, one of the guys asked me, they're like, do you ever like read a book
Starting point is 00:01:47 on hiring? I'm like, no. I've read a million books on real estate, but I've never read one on hiring. Why not? So anyway, I just read one called Who. That's pretty good. All about like, here's a system for hiring. I'm like, oh, weird. Like, we have a problem and there's, I bet you Some guys got it figured out. Some guys got to figure it out. Anyway, so I'm big on hiring, but it actually leads to today's quick tip. I mentioned this last week. I'll say it again this week.
Starting point is 00:02:08 Bigger Pockets is hiring for a couple of different roles in the marketing team. Last time I talked about retention, a person that's going to be working on pro retention, which is like working with our pro members to deliver value. We're also hiring a just a pro, I don't even know what you call it, a pro or Bigger Pockets Plus pro sales marketing consultant person, whatever. I don't know if there's an official role title yet. it. Anyway, go to bigger pockets.com slash jobs. If you are in Denver or willing to move the Denver and you want to work very closely with the marketing team, including myself, because I'm
Starting point is 00:02:38 the head of the BiggerPockets Pro team. So anyway, if that's you, go to biggerpockets.com slash jobs and do what it says. Pretty cool opportunity to work in what you love, right? Yeah, very, very cool. And it's really fun. Bigger Pocket's such a cool place. And their office in Denver is amazing. Like, it's amazing. So it's probably the coolest office I've ever seen anywhere ever. Now it's time. to get to today's show. So today's show is a ton of fun. We're in every one again named Colin Schwartz. Colin has an amazing story. I mean, he, two years ago, he was listening to the Bigger Pockets podcast, just like you're listening to right now, right? He went, learned stuff from the podcast and from others and started meeting people, networking, reading. And two years later, now he has
Starting point is 00:03:20 over a hundred units and including he, he bought like six of them, right, on his first direct mail campaign. You're going to be blown away by his numbers. Very, very cool story. He talked, he talked, a lot about that, talks a lot about what it takes to be really successful, how he ran out of money around the 20 unit mark and how he got through that. He's tax about deal flow, property management, and like so much more. Y'all are going to love this stuff, just tons of gold in here. So take some notes. You're going to love it.
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Starting point is 00:04:48 fees. It's just cleaner. Sign up at baselane.com slash BP and get a $100 bonus. Baselane is a financial technology company and not a bank. Banking services provided by Threadbank. Member FDIC. A lot of property managers think their job is answering tenant emails and coordinating repairs. That's not the job. The job of a property manager is protecting and growing your operating income and earning your trust while they do it. And that comes down to three numbers, occupancy, delinquency, and net promoter score. If those numbers slip, your income slips and your trust slips too. And most PMs don't hold themselves to performance standards. They focus on activity, not outcomes. Mind is different. They obsess over the metrics that actually grow your cash flow.
Starting point is 00:05:34 Go to mine.co slash show me to see how mine performs and get a month of management for free. Because if you're going to hire a property manager, hire one that manages your investment, like an investment. So without further ado, let's get to today's show with Colin Schwartz. Welcome to the Bigger Pockets podcast. Colin, how you doing? Great. How are you, buddy? Man, I'm doing, I'm doing good. This is going to be fun talking about your story, real estate, all that good stuff.
Starting point is 00:06:00 So why don't we start at the beginning? How did you get into real estate? So, yeah, just kind of some background on me. I'm 34 years old, live in Omaha, Nebraska, married, got two young kids. The moment that I knew I was going to be a real estate investor was kind of one of those pivotal moments. And like lots of people, I picked up the book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad. This was January 1st, 2017. I remember exactly where I was, last day of vacation, kind of dreading going back to my
Starting point is 00:06:26 cubicle. And I picked that book up and immediately I had this mind shift. I finished the book within two days and I knew that I had to start making a change. Otherwise, I was going to be that individual at 64 years old, staring at his Vanguard account, praying that the market doesn't crash and that I can retire next year. It really hit me, hit me like a ton of bricks. My wife was pregnant with her second child. So I knew my 10 days of vacation off a year was not going to cut it anymore.
Starting point is 00:07:00 Sure. Anyways, started educating, started reading pretty much as much as possible. Millionaire, real estate investor, all those types of books. When you start reading those, kind of some of the big takeaways are to network to go out, meet people. So I started doing that. started reaching out to numerous agents. These agents, you know, turned me out to bigger pockets, which then occupied my mornings. Nice.
Starting point is 00:07:25 Every single morning with Professor Turner and Professor Dorkin on my drive to the gym. First and only time I think anyone will ever refer to me as professor. I'll take it. No, it's great. No, but seriously, it had a tremendous impact on me, you know, listening to all these stories. But anyways, going through it, I realized I had some finances, you know, I had some money saved away so that I would actually be able to invest and get better returns
Starting point is 00:07:52 in the stock market. But the challenge is finding a property that's going to be worth anything. And I think a lot of people realize, you know, you go on Zillow, you go on LoopNet, and the numbers usually aren't reflective of actuals. They're, you know, the pro forma's or anything like that. So I did, I guess what. I heard the other day, pro forma is Latin for lie. that that that might be a true but anyways i guess i did what any sane person does i pulled the list from list
Starting point is 00:08:24 source and i told my wife hey honey this weekend we were going to handwrite a hundred and ninety one letters and stuff them and send them out to these owners so yeah i i did that you know this was about a month later after reading those books and i'm kind of one of those ready ready fire a people where i'm I wasn't possibly being patient enough, but I wasn't getting the results from agents. You know, some of them would laugh at me. Some of them would be like, yeah, everybody's looking for, you know, a nice 10-cap property, 15 to 20% cash on cash returns. Anyway, sent those letters out and I was able to get six deals off of those letters. No, yes, yes.
Starting point is 00:09:06 And really, that was one of the biggest catalysts for both confidence. but yeah, just to actually get me started in investing. So that's kind of where my journey began. Since then, started a meetup group, a networking group. Actually, Mindy's been out to one of them as well when she was down for the Berkshire event, Mindy Jensen. So yeah, that's kind of how it started. All right. So I want to dig in on the six deals.
Starting point is 00:09:36 I mean, I know people who have sent thousands of letters and not got a deal. I mean, I sent a couple years ago, I always tell the story of how I built my daughter's fourplex. I sent out 300 letters and got back like 40 phone calls, got one deal. 191 letters and six deals. What did you do right? Or what did you do wrong? So that's funny.
Starting point is 00:09:56 I get that question a lot, you know, what's in the letter? And I'd be happy to go over and tell everybody what it is. It's no real secret sauce. I found some properties in specific areas that I liked. They needed to be located next to my work so that I could go service them on my lunch break, before work, after work. You know, I was running errands over my lunch breaks. That was kind of what I had to do. But anyways, I identified the certain zip codes.
Starting point is 00:10:24 I identified that the individuals had owned the property for more than five years. That would hopefully increase the likelihood of them wanting to sell. And then I filtered down to multifamily. From there, I actually, what I wanted to do. do was I know a lot of people do send off letters. I know a lot of people send postcards. And I know every single postcard I get, I throw in the trash. Every piece of junk mail I get, I throw in the trash. So I figured if I'm actually handwriting, you know, the sender's address, I actually put my real home address on there. I figured I'm kind of intersecting myself into these people's lives and saying,
Starting point is 00:11:02 hey, I know you own this. I want to buy it. Some people take a lot of offense to that, which which is okay, but I know anybody that's done direct mail has gotten kind of that, those hate calls, why are you sending me this? But I just put in kind of, you know, a sincere saying, you know, hey, I'm an investor, I'm looking to purchase your property, I'm not a real estate agent. I didn't put anything about being able to buying cash because that wasn't my intent. My intent was to go through bank financing. And I think that really set the conversation up a little bit better than if I would have
Starting point is 00:11:36 just on, you know, the typical postcard route. Yeah, I feel like, I mean, there's a lot of people who are just doing the, I don't even as you call it, like the shotgun approach or, you know, you just like blast out hundreds and hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands of letters. And that obviously works. We've had people in the show before who are doing that. But you took a much different approach. You said, how can I send a smaller amount of letters and really just get these to agree?
Starting point is 00:11:59 You know, like how do I really make myself a real person stand out, a pure difference? Say five years owned, multifamily. So you were looking at multifamily straight off the bat, right? Straight off the bat. So I think, you know, listening to your podcast and everything, I know lots of individuals with more units, more risk, in my mindset, more units less risk. You know, you can have 10 units, one vacant versus, you know,
Starting point is 00:12:22 the single family home route where if you have one vacant, you're basically paying the mortgage at month. Yeah. Okay, so that makes sense. So, all right, send these letters. What kind of multifamily were they single? I mean, like duplexes, triplexes or larger? They were primarily duplexes, four plexes.
Starting point is 00:12:38 I was able to get a sevenplex out of it. But yeah, basically anything that I could see that had value at opportunity, rents way too low, and that I knew that I could go in, maybe make some changes and increase those rents. Wow, that's awesome. Okay. So a lot of people to ask this question, well, what if I make multiple offers and get more than one deal accepted? You know, now I'm screwed because now I got two good options, right? You had six options out of that first year.
Starting point is 00:13:07 How did you put that together? Ready fire aim, I guess. I ended up meeting a gentleman through networking. He had owned and managed 50 units. So I started talking with him. He really helped guide me through the process and said, hey, you know, if you find these things and their deals, we're going to figure them out.
Starting point is 00:13:29 So yeah, I did have. So the process to get those six deals probably took five months or so. So, you know, back and forth with some of them. But three of them were immediately. I just realized that they were good opportunities. And I guess my mind was fully into this, that this is what I wanted to do, that that's what I had to do. But yeah, he really helped guide me through. You know, I could call him.
Starting point is 00:13:52 I probably sent him, I don't know, 5,000 text messages in the first two months asking every single question about being a landlord, you know, the type of lease to use. What do you think of these people? What do you think of this? contractors, all those recommendations. But yeah, I guess it never, it never really occurred to me. I mean, I definitely got overwhelmed and probably still do as I'm constantly getting properties under contract and, you know, always, always wonder, you know, how am I going to make this one work?
Starting point is 00:14:21 Especially when you're closing on one, but what I've realized if there's, if the property really is a deal, that there's usually a way to figure it out. And of those six deals, I actually did wholesale one and flip another. So that was able to bring in some additional income to kind of offset what might have been the additional responsibilities for me because I was and still am managing the properties. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. All right.
Starting point is 00:14:45 So let's talk about financing these properties. And I know we'll move on to the rest of your portfolio. But it's just a cool story of like, you know, these first six. So when you got that, did you just go to run to a bank right away when they started coming in and you started getting these deals accepted or how did you work financing? No. So the first deal didn't close till about man. you know, going through due diligence back and forth and everything. So one of the first things I did
Starting point is 00:15:08 after the education was realize what the finances, what is my finances, what is my gunpowder? What can I actually do? So I reached out to four different banks, two of them being local, one in which I banked with and one just kind of big name bank. I wanted to get the gambit of what I could actually do. So no, I actually had the pre-approvals. I was ready to go with those. Yeah, yeah. So that was kind of, it was a lot of preparation on the front end because I think, you know, I couldn't go and buy a $5 million property at that time. There's no finances for that. So I wanted to know actually what I could buy, what the bank's risk tolerance was, what they would think of a person who's never invested in real estate before, whose family doesn't invest in real estate, who, you know, sits at a cubicle and doing IT work, what they were comfortable. giving me and what types of terms. Okay. So I think that's smart.
Starting point is 00:16:08 You know there's that famous quote from a, I think it was Abe Lincoln, though, everything's subscribed to Abe Lincoln on the internet, right? But like it basically says if I had six hours of chopped on a tree, I'd spend the first four sharpening my axe, right? Or something like I'd like about preparation, right? And I think that's so key is like getting prepared before you get into real estate, like getting the pre-approval lined up, getting your financing kind of figured out, getting the education front-loaded.
Starting point is 00:16:28 But on the other side of that equation is people who just prepare all day. long and they spend nine hours sharpened in an axe and then realize the tree is still standing. So like, how do you balance between the two? And what would you tell a newbie listening about getting prepared versus being two prepared? You know, it's funny. I'm sitting down and, you know, I've been doing scrambling over taxes and meeting with my bookkeeper and everything. And looking back, I probably would have changed a hundred different things. You know, just just setting up of everything. You don't realize what scale you're going to go to. You don't realize any of that.
Starting point is 00:17:04 But what I can say is that if you put yourself out there and you actually do go through the deal and you have the mindset that you want to do this, you will be able to figure it out. You're just going to have to continue to reach out to people. But putting yourself in those uncomfortable positions, you will typically be able to find your way out. Now, you're going to make mistakes. Obviously, you could prepare for two years. But if I had sat there, I mean, I think about it. It's about two years since I started. If I had prepared this whole time and got everything perfect, my structures, everything like that, I might have lost the desire to do it and might not have done it.
Starting point is 00:17:45 So, yeah, I really think you have to go ahead. You have to do it. It's okay to prepare. But, you know, instead of going out, talking to the attorney, getting your LLC, you know, setting up your software, making sure that you have all these different, different, everything. single piece in place. It's really important just to get out there and have some fundamentals and be willing to put the extra effort in. Well, that's how growth happens. We always, I wouldn't say we always, but oftentimes we want everything to be all our ducks lined up in a row before we take the first step. But the reality is things are built in phases. It's kind of messy the
Starting point is 00:18:21 way it goes. So, you know, you often won't know who your contractor is going to be until you've got a couple deals to look at. You have to go through bids. And the contractor you first use won't be the guy you end up with. And it's not so you do a couple deals that then you get credibility and you start a meet up. And now you meet people at the meet up that have better contractors. And the whole thing builds that way. So you sent out some mailers. You got some houses under contract and you started this meetup. Can you tell us, Colin, where are you at right now? How many units do you own? I have 110 units. Oh. Okay. How many? That's a lot. How many properties is that spread out over? Yeah, in two years. So it's about 20 properties. I don't own them all myself. Typically, it's a 50-50
Starting point is 00:18:57 partnership about I think 14 it just closed on two duplexes on Friday 14 of the units I own solely but the rest of them are are in partnerships 50 50 partnerships now this is an odd question but are you happy with owning 110 units or do you feel like you would have done it differently if you could go back and do it again like if if I would have bought better performing or if I would have yeah maybe better performing units or different kinds of units like are you happy with having a whole lot of houses or do you feel like that was an inefficient way to do it just for the people who are like wow I want to go do that do you think that's the best way to do it you know for me it was and the reason being is I really wanted to get out of my job my job wasn't terrible by any means it was a good job you know
Starting point is 00:19:43 everybody would look on it you know it paid well it was it was a good job but for me to get out I needed to supplement my income and the way in which I've I've done that is become the property manager for these properties, take a property management fee in which I partner with. So that has allowed my income to grow to that level. To say I would have done it differently, I really don't think so. I think I'm pretty happy with how I've done it. So what about how did you start finding properties after the direct mail campaign? Have you, hasn't been word of mouth through the networking stuff you talk about?
Starting point is 00:20:15 It absolutely has. The next property, one of my partners, he actually brought it to me. It was an 11 unit. another partner brought me a 24 unit which we partnered on so really i've had lots of wholesalers reach out to me um it it is kind of that that exponential curve where at first you are literally grinding grinding grinding and you don't think you're going to get any deals nobody's given you the time of day you really have no credibility and once you start doing those deals the deals do find you yeah i love that and a lot of people do struggle a lot and you
Starting point is 00:20:51 learn little things along the way too, like that you, like, I mean, that you, that you weren't doing in the beginning when you thought you were hustling really, really hard, but in the beginning, you're usually hustling on stuff that probably doesn't matter, right? Like, man, I've been spending 18 hours a day designing this business card and I'm not getting any skills, right? Exactly. Exactly. My website looks so good, but, you know, they're not getting any deals. All right. So you get out there, you started working at it. I mean, 100, over 100 units in two years. It's amazing. And you say you did it through partnerships. And, and you said, you said that almost like a like you were, I don't want to call it apologizing, but you were like,
Starting point is 00:21:26 oh, well, it's not all, you know, it's partnerships, right? But that's amazing. Like, you enabled other people now to invest in real estate as well. You're working with other people. You're helping other people build wealth at the same time. So I want to talk about partnerships because I am a huge, huge fan of partnerships, right? I talk about them a lot. So how, I mean, let's talk about how do you typically structure a partnership? What does that look like? What are they bringing? What are you bring in and does that change over time? Yeah. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:21:52 So the partnerships, it's really just a 50-50 structure. We share in, we share in all the cash flow, everything. It's very much equal partnerships. I do the management. Yet we're both responsible for, I mean, overseeing the property, getting the property to close, you know, whether it's setting up insurance, whether we're meeting with vendors, whether we're just challenging each other to. to look at the property.
Starting point is 00:22:19 You know, my partners, we talk all the time and like, well, why is this expense this? Or maybe we should change our snow removal company. Maybe we should use this lawn care company. Maybe we should institute this rubs program. So really, it is a partnership as the individuals I am partnered with. They are working a full-time job, or at least two of them are, but they are very much 100% vested and invested in wanting to be real estate investors full-time. Can you define rubs for us?
Starting point is 00:22:50 A re-utti billback system. Basically, when a landlord is paying for water, gas, and sewer is a typical one, he can take that total amount of the amount that I pay, and he bills that back to the tenants. So basically, he's reducing its expenses. It's like using an algorithm to figure out who pays how much, as opposed to putting in a meter where you just get a number, basically. Exactly, exactly.
Starting point is 00:23:14 So it's usually done in a rear. So you spend $2,000 a month on water gas sewer the next month. You bill back the 20 units, you know, $100 each. Yeah. So that's also a really good way for individuals. If they're underwriting properties and they're like, well, I can't increase the rents. You know, everything's kind of stagnant. Look at what the landlord is paying for.
Starting point is 00:23:38 If the landlord is paying, lots of these older landlords are just paying for water, gas and sewer just because that's the way they've always done it. They don't know these systems exist. but that that can significantly increase your income. That can be the value add right there. Yeah, typically, when I look at a rental property, there are actually very few things you can control. I mean, like, you can't really control the taxes.
Starting point is 00:23:58 They are what they are. I mean, before you buy it, of course, but once you buy it, like, there's not a lot you can do except for utilities, like they're often the largest lever and vacancy. If you can fix those two things, typically, I mean, again, you're not going to jack the rent up 500 a month and hope that people will pay it.
Starting point is 00:24:12 They just won't. It's market dependent. But, yeah, utilities, can be a great way, but you can't always rubs, right? So, and shift the payment. So how do you, I guess, first of all, what area you bind in? And you probably said that earlier, but if not, what area you buying in? And then, like, have you always been able to do that?
Starting point is 00:24:27 Omaha, Nebraska. Okay. So typically the units that I buy, the meters are already split out. But for example, this one of our most recent purchase is a 24 unit. That was really where the value add came. You know, we were able to increase the rents five, six, seven percent. But to be able to reduce our expenses by $1,500 a month and bill those back to the tenants, that was huge.
Starting point is 00:24:53 We actually use a company. And what they do is they'll send off the invoices and people can just mail in their checks or pay online. That's cool. Do you know what they're called off top of your head? Invoice America. Okay. Might be give them a shout out. That's cool.
Starting point is 00:25:06 All right. So that's awesome. Again, yeah, great way to increase your income by reducing expenses that way. I want to go back real quick to the partnership thing. I'm curious, are you guys equally putting in like both partners, the money, or are you, they just doing the money and you're doing other parts? Or how do you break that out? So I guess that varies.
Starting point is 00:25:23 On the front end, not necessarily that there's been some deals where I've shown up with $0. But we do a promissory note and I pay that money back or at the refinance. Oh, interesting. Okay. Or, I mean, but typically the amount of equity invested is equal. there are some instances that really help me because I basically ran out of money at, you know, maybe the 15 or 20 unit mark.
Starting point is 00:25:49 There's money goes, capital goes really quick at this business. So I would find these additional off market properties and I would add acquisition fees. So at closing, if I'm acting as, you know, I don't want to say the realtor, but if I'm acting as the agent between myself, my partner and the seller that I would throw in, you know, a two, three percent acquisition fee. and that would help me finance the properties as well. That's cool. I mean, I hear that with syndicators from time. I mean, all the time, right? If you go syndicate a 200 unit apartment complex,
Starting point is 00:26:20 there's a one, two, three percent fee on there, almost always. I mean, I don't think I've ever seen a deal that didn't have that, right? So why not? I mean, if that's what you work out with your partner and that's part of your value you're bringing to the table, why not do it? I think that's an awesome idea. Yeah, so it almost be similar when I did recently, rather than, you know, wholesaling the property, the individual wanted to get in.
Starting point is 00:26:39 we partnered on it. But at closing, I still took a, you know, $5,000 assignment fee for that, for running the deal, working with it for, you know, six, seven months, kind of putting all the pieces together, working with the banks and all that. Cool. So how do you find your partners? You know, it's really networking. And, you know, we have to build. So partners, you know, it's definitely a lot like a relationship. You want to make sure that you guys are on the same wavelengths, but that you also bring strength to each other. So typically, I mean, just sharing things in common,
Starting point is 00:27:15 one of them I met actually through bigger pockets. We were competing. So we kept competing on deals together. We kept showing up at showings together, and we kept competing. And, you know, we had talked for probably a year before then. And we're just like, how about we just think about partnering and sit down and really figure this out? So, yeah, that's kind of been, you know, just networking. It's actually fascinating, the idea of like find your biggest competitor, like in your area.
Starting point is 00:27:42 Find somebody who's just doing a really good job and partner with them because two people should be able to, if they're both good, two people should be able to do the work of 10 if they're running. And I could just tell, you know, for instance, he was just a hustler. He was out there. I mean, we were on phone conversations. I mean, we'd spend hours on the phone, you know, just talking about real estate. And we just kept showing up at these deals together. We kept talking about these other deals. And, you know, finally, we're just like, what are we doing here?
Starting point is 00:28:07 He's working his full-time job. I'm doing the management. We both got along really well. We both had some opposing but very good strengths. And, you know, very open with each other. We're like, let's just partner on one of these and see how it goes. And yeah, it's been great. It's funny you say that because I'm in a very similar situation with another realtor,
Starting point is 00:28:25 a good friend of mine. He sells an insane amount of houses. He's really, really good at being a realtor. He has incredible systems in place. Pretty much all the things that me as a guy two years in is trying to build, right? And eventually I will get that foundation laid and like any skyscraper. When there's a foundation laid, you shoot up really fast, right? But he doesn't want to shoot up.
Starting point is 00:28:44 He doesn't want to have to like throw gas on the fire and recruit new agents and train people and get new leads coming in. He just works his old referral business that he's had and he's got this really good system in place that he doesn't want to go faster. And I want to go faster, but I don't have a system in place that can support that speed. Like my car would fall apart on the track. And we're talking about the exact same thing. It's so funny you say that.
Starting point is 00:29:04 Rather than seeing him as competition, we're fighting over. the same listings. It's if we put this together and build this super team, it gives every other realtor a place to go where they're going to get better training and systems and they can succeed better. And you've turned an enemy into a friend. And I'm sure there's some Chinese proverb that says that really cool that I'm not calling right now, but that's what you want to do. One of the things that he likes about me, and this is a good segue, is that I host these meetups in the Bay area where I teach people how to invest in real estate. And it's all free. I get quite a big following, probably like 120 people that come. I'm starting to do one a week in different locations throughout the Bay.
Starting point is 00:29:36 And these meetups are growing really quickly. And it gives people a chance to meet me. It gives me a chance to get to know people. It's good for business and it's good for them. I know you're doing the same thing. So can you tell us for the people who are listening that either want to go to a meetup or maybe you want to start a meetup, what some things they should know about how to do it? And how has that positively impacted your investing business?
Starting point is 00:29:56 Yeah. So when people think of meetups, you know, I think this also goes to how people can hesitate to start because they think they need to have all the pieces in place. how I started the meetup is I was on this Facebook group and I saw people keep kept talking about real estate investing. Well, at the time, I was rehabbing a fourplex. So I just posted on the group, guys, I'm going to be at this fourplex Thursday night, want to bring a six pack and come check it out. 12 people showed up, you know, it was a good turnout. So from there, we did it at a buddy's house who just rehabbed a house. From there, it really doesn't have to be a super formal thing, just showing,
Starting point is 00:30:34 just providing some value and I don't know having something interesting really really helps from there we actually started doing it at a at a bar so we do have meetups in town they're more of the high school gymnasium PowerPoint type meetups I wanted a place where I could go out on a Wednesday night and go have a beer and talk real estate with a bunch of guys a bunch of guys and gals so yeah I really designed it kind of around what I wanted and it turned out that a lot of Other people wanted that as well. That's cool. I am a huge proponent as everyone who listens to show knows of these meetups.
Starting point is 00:31:12 We do them out here in Maui. I did them in Washington. David's got his almost every week now, right? Like, getting it and sometimes it can be a professional PowerPoint type thing if that's the purpose of the meetup. And sometimes, like, it's just get together for drinks on the beach or whatever. Like, I mean, it's getting together networking. Like, if you want to get in shape, if you want to be fit, go hang around with a bunch of really
Starting point is 00:31:34 in shape, fit people, and you'll just naturally become more like them. If you want to be a good real estate investor, get around a bunch of really good real estate investors or others who are passionate about it, and you're naturally going to find yourself climbing there as well. And course, we have a place, everyone listen to this. If you haven't checked it out, you have bigger pockets. com slash events, E-V-E-N-T-S, you can actually create an event and host, you know, find a bar in your area, a beach or a park or a restaurant or whatever, go to Red Robin, get some good burgers and just like, hey, I'm going to be here at this time. Or go to one of your properties like you did. That's a cool. I love when meetups do that, meetup properties,
Starting point is 00:32:06 because you get to talk to people. And it's a good way to potentially find partners, to find lenders, to find people to work with, to share contract information. There's so much good about meetups. So yeah, go to biggerpockets.com such events. Look there. If there's an event in your area, go to it. If there's not an event in your area, or it's lame, start your own, right? Like, be the hub. Yeah, so a couple things I didn't touch on. The other meetups in town do charge. I didn't want to start one in charge. It was just, you know, I just wanted to network with other people. And what I found is that people wanted to start speaking at these meetups, whether it's
Starting point is 00:32:39 promoting their business or just, you know, giving back, you know, being that center person. You know, they'd put a presentation together. They were working on their business. So they'd come and present for, you know, half hour, 45 minutes. So that really helped the following as well. So as far as structure, it's typically, you know, an hour of networking, no more than an hour of presentation and slash questions and then networking for the rest of the night. We have, you know, email groups and we post on bigger pockets and all that.
Starting point is 00:33:08 But yeah, it's been a lot of word of mouth. Also, I was able to find a buddy who was part owner of a bar, so I was able to use their space. Rather than paying the $250,500, I said, hey, I'm going to bring these many people. Well, sure enough I did, and it became one of their biggest, largest nights that they would have just from the group. So they were happy to accommodate us. so that we did not have to pay them anything so that we could still keep the event for free. So I know you got a lot of deals out of your meetup, right, Colin? So can you give us an idea?
Starting point is 00:33:42 What do you look for in a deal? What's your quick analysis that makes you say, hey, this is something I might want to look into? Yeah. So the location of the property is, you know, paramount. It don't invest in D areas, you know, higher crime, higher issue areas. Typically, I'm looking in B, B, B, minus C plus areas. typically more in the B areas. And I'm looking for properties that are probably more in the C level as far as condition
Starting point is 00:34:08 that I know that I can bring up. Also, I want them to be, they don't have to be, but typically this is where you find a good deal, grossly mismanaged, rents way below. And I look to see that I'm going to be able to at least hopefully burr out of the property by rehab, rent, refinance, repeat. So basically go through that process to pull my cash back out. and that it's still going to cash flow well after that I do, after I do refinance it. Now, you do the Burr method with money, though.
Starting point is 00:34:38 You don't use cash. So you go in with financing, you buy it with a down payment and then you refinance after. Is that correct? That is correct. Okay, so tell us how you're able to add enough value through a property that you use financing to get your cash back out. Yeah. So one of them was super interesting that we just did. It was a fourplex trying to think we purchased it about seven months ago.
Starting point is 00:34:58 It was rents were 40, 50 percent under. what they should have been. I went in when we purchased the property. As I said, we did use bank financing. We went in and increased the rents. Everybody left. Nobody was going to pay the new rents. They had been there for 20 years and we're paying half the amount. Super popular area of town. We went in. We did a little bit of repairs. You know, we made the units a bit nicer, updated some electrical, some ACs, got new residents in nearly immediately and we're able to pull all for money back out in about three and a half months. I love that.
Starting point is 00:35:32 So that's typically what I'm doing is using the bank financing, though. And are these loans that you're using, like, typical Fannie Mae Freddie amount? I mean, if you're doing it in three months, you're probably not getting typical financing. Are these portfolio lenders? These are local GIP portfolio commercial lenders. So, you know, they typically balloon after five years, you know, the total amounts do or you get a reprice. And that they're amateurized over 20 years. Typically, rates are higher than, you know, residential Fannie Freddie.
Starting point is 00:35:59 but the speed and the agility and the flexibility of them has really allowed me to do a lot of things in like an effective fashion. Any tips for finding lenders like that? Well, first off, I mean, reach out to your network, see if anybody has any recommendations. I really like the local banks, but I think I've talked to probably seven or eight banks total. I think it really is, you know, make sure that you're comfortable with them. Also knowing if somebody else has done business with those individuals, some bankers will tell you It promised you the world.
Starting point is 00:36:30 And then kind of in the final hour, the 11th hour, they'll say, oh, sorry, we can't get this done for you. You know, your debt to income is a little out of whack. So I think, I mean, just as like finding a partner or anything, it's just really building trust, you know. It's building trust with those individuals. Does it worry you at all, like having the shorter, like the balloon payments? Like if you got to pay this thing off in five years, does it worry you? And what do you do to hedge your risk against that? So yes, of course it does. I would say it worried me a bit more at first. Most importantly, I try to factor in an additional buffer of both the value add even after I refinance, but also the ability to have rents decrease as well, that I'm kind of in that middle range. I'm not high end A class. I'm not, you know, in the D level. I'm kind of in that comfortable area where you can get people that may have to move down from A class to move into this property.
Starting point is 00:37:29 So there is some obviously inherent risk, but I try to have enough value into the properties. And plus, I'm not spending the cash flow typically and saving the cash flow, whether it's to reinvest. And then these properties are continuing to rent and bring in more rental income. So obviously there is a lot of leverage, but I always keep a large cap X on hand for each property just in case, you know, a roof goes or when a roof goes, when a furnace goes. But yeah, there's obviously some inherent risk. And, you know, we're kind of at that level in the cycle where everybody's kind of tiptoeing waiting for when it's going to fall.
Starting point is 00:38:07 But for me, if I didn't do this, I was going to be doing the same thing for the next 30 years. So the risk is, you know, it's there, but it's not as bad as, you know, sitting behind a desk for the next 30 years, you know, wishing I had done something. Yeah, people often will look at real estate investors and say, you know, isn't that risky? And we look at people with jobs. We're like, isn't that risky? Like, it's like every one of my coworkers, I think, you know, they're like, oh, that's so risky. You know, you're jumping in. And honestly, I mean, the amount of income streams, you know, from these properties and everything is just, you see that there's a light at the end of the tunnel.
Starting point is 00:38:45 Yep. Yeah. That's fantastic. I really, really, really enjoy like that story. I love it. You started with, you know, rich dad, poor dad, like a lot of us do and jumped in, started listening to the podcast. just did what other people are doing. Hey, direct mail seems to work.
Starting point is 00:38:58 I'm going to do that. I'm going to try to do it the best I can. Got a bunch of properties, built up the system. And then you just figured things out on the way. I mean, it's just like the perfect story. So where do you see yourself headed now in the future? So that's kind of a, that's a good question. You know, if I look back two years, I would never guess that I'd be talking to you guys
Starting point is 00:39:15 or have 110 units. That's just not, you know, that's that it's really cool. And I think, you know, we sometimes underestimate what we can do. What do they say? You underestimate what you, underestimate what you, underestimate what you, can do in five years, overestimate what you can do in a year. But looking to still acquire more, but really build up a solid property management company for my portfolio and for my partners. I want to have the best customer service at the level that I do. I want to have the best
Starting point is 00:39:43 properties for the best value. I think, you know, especially when you're buying some of these properties from the old landlords, they see cash come in every month, you know, they put it in their pocket and that that's kind of it that it's finding a tenant and forgetting about it for me i really want this to be a successful business and a reflection of kind of you know my 12 years working in different industries and and coming to this point so yeah it's it's really just building the portfolio continuing to grow having it be more systematized i've hired a few people this year such as you know a bookkeeper accountant. She's awesome. Obviously, you probably know better than I do, but paperwork gets awful. So that was the first thing I needed to get off my list. But yeah, just continuing to
Starting point is 00:40:33 build and really getting things systematized and feeling better about all of it. That's fantastic. Yeah. I mean, that's really, there's like different phases in people's investing, right? In the beginning, you're just like, acquire what you can, build your portfolio, get some stuff, quit your job. And then it's like, okay, now I got to manage all this. Like my wife and I went through the same thing. Now we got to systematize this. Let's hire some people. Let's make this a well-run business. And the cool thing about property management, you know, you're managing these properties and you said you want to be the best customer service. The bar is really low. Like, it's really low, right? And so like if you answer, you say contractors, if you answer your
Starting point is 00:41:07 phone, you're in the top 10%. It's like with property manager. If you answer your phone with a smile, you're in the top 10% instead of like, what do you want? Nah. You know, like, absolutely. The bar is low. That's a quick tip. Look for something in life to be good at where the bar is super low. I love that because it is. I mean, I think that's why I've done so good as a realtor, to be honest, in the first two years.
Starting point is 00:41:29 The competition is so pathetic, man. I'm like the cleanest shirt and the dirty laundry. It's not hard to be really good. But to Brandon's point about how like you start up when way and it becomes something else, that's true for all business, right? And we really see it in real estate investing. And I think that investors get discouraged because they think, think like how could I ever do what that guy's doing? But if you just think about a human body,
Starting point is 00:41:52 how it starts as, you know, like an embryo and then it slowly becomes more complex until it becomes a fully developed human being that then continues to grow and get bigger. That's how businesses are. It starts with one cell that's doing everything. And its very first split into two cells would be like, you know, your first partnership, you hire out some stuff. And then each of those cells splits into two more. And with every one of those splits, each cell becomes more, specified and defined and like highly trained in one little area and eventually it splits off into so many pieces that you're only doing that part that you really like and enjoy doing and that's where you get a guy like Colin who's like happy about real estate investing and they're not frustrated and worked up and
Starting point is 00:42:31 like Brandon you know like you said we've we had to really systemize and make it a business well you kind to turn into a human being as opposed to just one big messy thing in the beginning so be encouraged it will start off like rough but with every every step of growth right you get get out of a little more of the stuff you dislike and you get better at the stuff you do. And eventually you get this really cool complex machine and it all works together. And you're in Hawaii like Brandon, hanging out and getting a tan and showing off your blue eyes to everybody that walks about you. I don't, I don't tan.
Starting point is 00:43:03 Or you're doing property management in Omaha where there's about two, three inches of snow. You become a snow angel like Colin. That's exactly right. Looking to get to Hawaii. Yeah. Yeah. No. You bring up some good points, though.
Starting point is 00:43:16 But yeah, definitely the, you know, and maybe all smiles about it. But it's a ton of sacrifice. And really, I think what you said, finding where the bar is low, because that's where nobody wants to go. Nobody wants to be a property manager. Everybody you hear, I want to invest passively. You know, they think of real estate as an event, not a process. They're going to buy 10 properties.
Starting point is 00:43:35 It's going to cash flow 250 bucks a month. They're going to have $250, you know. But there's a lot of processes to it, kind of what you said, you know, the whole analogy with the embryo. and sells of it's ever evolving. It doesn't stop. So, no, that's a really good point. Cool.
Starting point is 00:43:49 Well, hey, let's shift gears over and dive a little deeper into your life with the deal deep dive. When I bought my first rental, I thought collecting rent would be the hard part. Nope. The admin crushed me. Every night was receipts, tax forms, and checking who was late on rent. I kept thinking, if this is one unit, how do people run 10? Base lane changed that. It's Bigger Pocket's official banking platform that handles expense tracking, financial reporting,
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Starting point is 00:46:06 That's Indeed.com slash rookie. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need. All right. Let's get into the deal deep dive. This is the part of the show where we dive deep into one particular. deal that you've done. That's a lot of D's.
Starting point is 00:46:20 One particular deal that you've done. So let's do that today. Number one, what kind of property with Dave? Let's do that with David. All right. Number one, what kind of property are we talking about today? I'm going to continue with the D's DuPontz. I like it, man.
Starting point is 00:46:36 All right, David. How did you find it? Direct mail. David, you just ruined a perfectly good opportunity. How did you discover it? Oh, man. Oh, direct mail. Okay.
Starting point is 00:46:49 Yep. This is really good. Oh, how many dollars was it? $100,000. Okay. How did you drive the seller to give it to you? So it was, this was about six or seven back and forth phone calls. This was an owner-occupied duplex.
Starting point is 00:47:11 The guy owned it for 20 years. Basically said he wasn't in a hurry, but he was going to sell it to me at a good price. So I kept calling him every weekend when I said I would. And went and met him at his doorstep. And yeah, we signed a contract right then. Okay, that's awesome. All right. So, this is going off the rails.
Starting point is 00:47:34 How did you develop funding? So that I've got nothing. So this is a bank finance deal, 20% down. Was that your deposit? That was. Yes, the $20,000 was the deposit towards the due points. That was your down payment. Good job, Brandon. That's why you're the host and I'm the co-host. What did you do with it? So basically, I had to turn all the units. One of the tenants, the owner occupied left right away.
Starting point is 00:48:09 The other side was trashed. People I'd live there for 20 years. They were paying 500 bucks a month and rent for four-bed, one bath. So went in, rehab that, put about $20,000 total throughout the process. This is also a real quick tip. When somebody shows up that wants to move into your properties, has cash and is ready to move in that day, run, because those were the first tenants I took. And about six months later, thankfully, I signed a six-month lease and numerous cop calls, drug overdoses, they were out of there.
Starting point is 00:48:44 I was about to sell that property for $140,000 and just be done with real estate investing. Anyways, I kept with it. I've got great residents in there and actually just refinanced it and it appraised at $205,000. So I was able to pull out $66,000. Wow. That's a nice. That's a nice deal there. All right.
Starting point is 00:49:06 David wants me to ask here, what was the disposition? But we already know that now. So I'm just going to end it with David. I'm stealing yours, David. what lesson did you discover from this deal? We are never doing this again. No, that's terrible. Don't give up.
Starting point is 00:49:25 I guess you can make a lot of mistakes in real estate, but don't give up. If I would have given up, that could have been the end. I could have just thrown in my bag of keys and just quit. But just keep working towards it and learn from your mistakes. I make mistakes every single. day, every single day. And sometimes I make 10 mistakes. Ask my wife. I probably make more than that, but really just stick with it. And there is a silver lining, but it's just not easy. It's, you know, it does take work. But yeah, and you can also make some mistakes in real estate. And I have found,
Starting point is 00:50:01 and I think you say this, Brandon, that real estate is forgiving. Yeah. As long as you buy right. As long, yeah, yeah, as long as you buy right. But even if you don't, like, like, I bought in bad deals that they end up usually over time. If you hold them long enough, they end up okay. it's forgiving. I mean, I'm not saying go buy bad deals, but it's forgiving. The whole thing is long enough, you're going to be probably okay over time. So, well, that was definitely a delightful deal deep dive. So, all right, with that, let's get over the next segment of the show. This is the fire round.
Starting point is 00:50:34 It's time for the fire round. All right, let's get to today's fire round. These questions come direct out of the bigger pockets forums, and we're going to fire them You're going to get you right now, Colin. Are you prepared for this? I hope so. All right. Number one, from the forums.
Starting point is 00:50:56 I want to purchase my first rental property. I know what city I want to invest in, but I want to narrow it down to a neighborhood. What kind of information should I look for when choosing a neighborhood? I guess I would ask have they been to the city in the area that they want to go to. You know, you want to look up crime stats. You want to pull up Zillow and look at average rents. You want to see if properties are selling.
Starting point is 00:51:17 are they single family homes that you're looking at? Are they multifamily properties? Call some property management companies, call some agents. But for me, especially if it's your first property, I would probably want to fly out there and see the neighborhood and judge for myself. All right.
Starting point is 00:51:32 All right. Next question. Joe from Kansas City says, I am considering starting a property management company. What are the important things I should know? Also, how do I find investors who need property managers to use as clients? So I guess I'm not sure if he's
Starting point is 00:51:47 looking to do it as a third party, because mine is for properties in which I own. There is incredible demand for good property managers. So it should be pretty easy to find somebody that's looking for a property manager. You just want to have some good systems in place. It also helps if you understand the investment aspect because you're going to be working with investors. So read as much as you can. Get yourself into the investing community. And if you haven't, maybe go work for a property management company for just a little bit, shadow, see what their systems are and then see how you can improve it because likely you can. Yeah, that's a great suggestion.
Starting point is 00:52:24 I mean, why reinvent the wheel when a six-month investment and getting paid could maybe, you know, six months to a year getting paid to learn somebody else's system. Yeah, that's cool. Isn't that how Ryan Murdoch got started, becoming an assassin? Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, Ryan Murdoch started with a, I mean, he started buying his own properties, then he became a property manager of his own deals. Then he started doing a property manager company.
Starting point is 00:52:45 Then he ended up becoming working for another property manager company. Now he is a bigger pockets. Yeah, he is actually, so those don't know, Ryan Murdoch is now the newest Bigger Pockets team member. So Ryan, you all heard it before. He's been on the podcast. Congrats, Ryan. Yeah, Ryan's now.
Starting point is 00:53:01 He's like your muscle basically is what he is. You're at a Popatian, Kingpin, and he's like your goon. You're like, yeah, we like mercenary better. It's like a merr, it's like, yeah, the mercenary. Yeah, the merdoxinary. So you're all going to probably hear from Ryan in the future, actually, because Ryan's going to start interacting, especially with our pro members. So if you're BiggerPockets pro member, you'll probably hear a lot from Ryan. He's going to be involved, having conversations with pros, finding out ways to help pros even better.
Starting point is 00:53:26 And hey, by the way, we're also hiring for another role, a couple of roles at bigger pockets right now. I think I mentioned it during the quick tip, but if not, I don't remember what today's quick tip was. But basically, we're hiring for a couple roles in the marketing slash pro team. So if that's you, go to BiggerPockets.com slash jobs. All right. Number three of the fire round. I'm currently looking to purchase my first rental, and my agent sent me a list of tenant-occupied homes for sale. I'm wondering what people think about tenant-occupied homes. Would it be smart for a
Starting point is 00:53:53 newbie to buy one, or should I only buy a vacant one? Yes and no. I mean, what I always ask if I'm buying a property that has a current tenant in it is how long is the lease? If the lease is, you know, two years and you walk in the property and they're paying half of what they should be in the property's trashed, you probably want to pass on that because it's going to be hard to recover those costs in those first two years. But yeah, I mean, I have some great inherited tenants, you know, that I've gone in. I've slightly increased their rent. They've been on month the month and it's worked out well. So it's very situational. All right. All right. Let's jump into the next segment of our show, the famous for. But before we do, let's hear from Mindy about who's going to
Starting point is 00:54:34 be on the Bigger Pockets podcast on Monday. Hey, Brandon. Hi, David. On Monday's episode of the Bigger Pockets Money podcast, Scott and I talk to Rishon and Rob, a couple from Texas, who nine years ago got married and discovered the Dave Ramsey book, The Total Money Makeover. They implemented a modified version of Dave's Baby Steps program and paid off $28,000 in student loans, both cars and their $300,000 mortgage. But what's so interesting about their story is that it's not unique. It's totally repeatable for just about anyone if they adhere to the basic principles of spend less, save more, and invest wisely. Okay, thanks guys. Now it's time for the famous full.
Starting point is 00:55:13 All righty. Thank you, Mindy, as always. Hey, y'all want to do something kind of cool? Go leave a rating and review for Mindy's show for Mindy and Scott Show, The Money Podcast. They need some love. I mean, they're doing really good. They're actually growing faster than we grew, the Bigger Pockets podcast, but they could always use some love over on the rating and review side. So check them out, rate and review them. Let them know you love them. Let's get to the famous four. Number one, what is your favorite business book? So this one I just read, and I've really, We read it twice as Shoe Dog by Phil Knight.
Starting point is 00:55:46 It is phenomenal. Brandon, have you read that yet? I am three quarters of the way through the Audible. It's good. It's long. Yeah. I haven't finished it. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:55:55 But you know what I love about that book? I think that's a show because I'm listening to it. What I love about it and it shows like what entrepreneurship really takes, right? Like there's like this dream of entrepreneurship. And this applies to real estate or anything. Like at the end of the day, like Phil Knight was, that's name right? Phil Knight? For some of that, I was thinking, Phil Collins, because your name is Colin.
Starting point is 00:56:17 Okay, yeah. Anyway, Phil Knight, like, the guy was obsessed. Like, he was just obsessed and everything he did just push, push, push, push, push for years to build up Nike. It's kind of what, like, almost every successful person I've ever known has done. Like, they get obsessed about their entrepreneurial venture. And it's not just post on Instagram that you're an entrepreneur, hashtag entrepreneur, and suddenly you are, right? Like Brandon Turner and Josh Dorkin with bigger pockets, perhaps? Like Josh and then me later, we obsessed.
Starting point is 00:56:46 Obsessed. Yeah, anyway. Right, Colin? Yes, sir. Yeah, absolutely. Own your obsession. No, it's super encouraging, though. When you see all the struggles that he went through like two years in, I'm two years
Starting point is 00:56:57 in, I'm like, okay, you know, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. So, yeah, I won't ruin how the book ends, but Nike's still around. Good. Right on. Okay, Colin, what are some of your hobbies? I like to work out. I do CrossFit. Love to travel, although I haven't been traveling nearly as much as I would like. But yeah, we took the kid out of Hawaii last year. So we got some more. We're going to head over to Hong Kong and April. Yeah, hang out with the kids. Those guys are, they're demanding. So, you know, Paw Patrol. The zoo. Those are some of my hobbies. Nice. Yeah, those are good hobbies. We watch a lot of, what's the show called? Doc McStuffins. That's our, that's my hobby these days. Doc McStuffins. Yeah, amazing.
Starting point is 00:57:44 Anyway, number four, what do you believe sets apart successful real estate investors from those who give up, fail, or never get started? So I think you have to be willing to sacrifice. If you really want to jump in this, I gave up basically watching TV for two years and didn't catch a football game. You know, my daughter was just bored when I started. And I can honestly say that I wasn't around too much for her first year. It was the sacrifice that I had to make to get to where I am. I was able to quit, you know, my job a year later. But it takes a lot of sacrifice. You have to be willing to make those. And it also helps to have a great support partner. Like, I could not have done it without my wife being able to put up with me constantly on my phone, running around, working
Starting point is 00:58:30 weekends, 16 hours a day. So surrounding yourself with the right people and be willing to sacrifice. You know, I had a conversation another day on that note with a buddy of mine. And he was saying he's got a little kid at home, I mean, like a year old and another one on the way. And he wants to build a real estate business. He wants to be a real estate agent. He wants to build a stuff. But he also working a full-time job. And he's like, I just like, I talked to him week after week after week we talk. And he's not made any progress at all towards his real estate or investing. And he's like, well, I just, you know, I just, I feel bad leaving the kid and not being around. And I'm like, I get that. I mean, I totally do. Right. We're in real estate. But you have a choice. You can be, you can sacrifice. You can be. You can sacrifice. sacrifice a year or two and have the next 18 when they're going to remember you. Like, I'm not saying don't be around for your kid. Be around for your kid as much as possible. But, I mean, you better not be watching. If that's your excuse, you better be watching no Netflix at all. You better not even have a phone that you're using for anything other than texting business contacts.
Starting point is 00:59:22 Right. Like, I mean, there's a lot of hours in a week that we are not working. Absolutely. Yeah, it drives me a little bit nutty. You can tell. Like, it's just like, if you really want something, you'll find a way. If not, you'll find an excuse, right? Everything is possible.
Starting point is 00:59:35 Get rid of Facebook on your phone. Get rid of Netflix. If you're a Broncos fan, don't watch the Broncos. You know, sorry. What do you want more? What do you want more? Something people don't talk about a lot is like, yeah, I want to be there with my kid. I want to be there for all the stuff.
Starting point is 00:59:48 But if you're there as like a grumpy, unhappy person who isn't satisfied with how life is going, no kid wants that right around, right? You'd rather have a little bit less time and a happier dad or happier mom than, yeah, they were at everything and they were irritated the whole time and on their phone trying to, right? So just keep that in mind. Like, if you can work really a whole, hard and then give them a really good life and be happy yourself, your kid would much rather have that.
Starting point is 01:00:10 Yep. And if you just keep pushing, I mean, now I can take off a random Wednesday and say, hey, we're going to go do this. You know, we're going to go get breakfast. We're going to, you know, it's that silver lining at the end of the tunnel. But you got to suffer a little bit in the beginning and make those sounds like. Rosie's not going to mind all these pictures of her three years old playing with Uncle David on a beach with a sunset in the background of Hawaii because Brandon Hustled where he was
Starting point is 01:00:30 at. So that's a cool story. It's definitely something people should look forward to because real estate, will pay you back for everything that you put into it and a lot of things in life, don't. All right, Colin, final question for me. Tell us, where can people find out more about you? Bigger Pockets, definitely message me on there.
Starting point is 01:00:45 I'm on Facebook, Instagram, kind of, Colin underscore C, underscore Schwartz. And I have a LinkedIn account too. So, you know, but Bigger Pockets is great. We'll put links to all at the show now. The show notes, of course, are at biggerpockets.com slash show 318. So if people want to jump in there, they can find links to all your social media and all that good stuff. And, of course, they can comment there on the show notes and talk to you and ask questions there as well. So thank you, Call.
Starting point is 01:01:12 This has been fantastic, unbelievably good. Like, really, like, I love your story. I love where you came from. I love where you're going. So keep it up. And you have to come back in the show sometime and tell us when you get to the next level, how you got there. Awesome. We would love it, guys.
Starting point is 01:01:24 Thank you. All right. Thanks. All right. That was our show with Colin. Thank you very much, Colin. And thank you, David, for being an amazing. analogist today here on the show again.
Starting point is 01:01:35 I like I use alliteration to call me an amazing analogist. That seemed to be a theme. I know. That was kind of a theme in today's show. It was definitely a delightful show. Yeah, that was really good. Yeah, he's just an awesome guy. That dude put together a plan and executed at a very high level.
Starting point is 01:01:52 And what I love about it is it is not something that requires an MBA to do. He's like, I'm going to send out some mailers and I'm going to do some meetups. And I'm just going to network and be a fun, nice guy that everybody likes. and he just was like, oh, I happened to have stumbled by it, and went to 110 units in two years. I mean, it's like such a cool story that anybody can follow. It's so true, so good, so awesome.
Starting point is 01:02:12 All right, y'all, well, thank you for listening to the show today. If you're enjoying the show, make sure, as always, leave us a rating review if you have not yet in iTunes. I know we have like, I don't know, 4,000 or 5,000, but there's like a quarter million people who listen to the show. So that means there's a lot of people who have not yet done that. I'm looking at you. Yeah, you driving there in your car.
Starting point is 01:02:27 Yeah, I see you. Yep, right there. When you get home today, leave me a rating review. I appreciate it. Thank you. Please do. If you guys liked this kind of stuff, I started putting Instagram stories of me in my car, much like what you're doing. Oh, yeah, you have.
Starting point is 01:02:38 Thoughts that I've been having. So if you guys want to hear more of that type of stuff, it's kind of like an extension of what we talked about today, a lot of it. Follow me at David Green 24. Follow Brandon at Beardy Brandon. Get more of the stuff that you love because we live this stuff. And go apply to work in bigger pockets. That's something you're thinking about.
Starting point is 01:02:54 You should absolutely do it. You don't want to look back in 10 years and say, why didn't I? I think that. Yeah. That being said, this is David Green for Brandon. and bearded Blue Eyes Turner, signing on. You're listening to Bigger Pockets Radio, simplifying real estate for investors large and small.
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Starting point is 01:03:36 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 Calicoe content, and editing is by Exodus Media. If you'd like to learn more about real estate investing or to sign up for our free newsletter, please visit www.biggerpockets.com. The content of this podcast is for informational purposes only. All host and participant opinions are their own. Investment in any asset, real estate included, involves risk.
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