BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 474: How this Busy Mom of Three Bought $75M of Real Estate w/ Pili Yarusi

Episode Date: June 3, 2021

Letting go of something successful isn’t easy, but what if you know it’s costing you your dreams? Today we talk to mother, real estate agent, and massive multifamily investor, Pili Yarusi, about doing what it takes to stay focused, engaged, and on top of your life. Pili moved out to New York from Hawaii with dreams of becoming a star in theater but ended up working as a bartender. Lucky for her, bartending is where she met her husband and future business partner. Together, they started flipping houses, which taught her not only to systematize investments but also to use her creativity in an efficient way. She and her husband later expanded into wholesaling. Pili knew something was missing and she wanted to focus more on growing a multifamily portfolio. With help from some mentors, she realized that the main thing holding her back was her current (and very successful) flipping and wholesaling business. She closed both businesses, got herself systematized, and went head first into multifamily. Now this homeschool teacher/mom is sitting on $75,000,000 in real estate, totaling in at 850 units. No small number by ANY means! She gives some incredible advice on what new investors need to do before they can reach their goals of owning big portfolios. In This Episode We Cover: Limiting your creativity (in a good way) when doing flips and rehabs The 4-3-2-1 principle and waking up with A.L.O.H.A Identifying as the person you want to become, and letting go of less useful identities The right (and the wrong) way to train employees and build a team 506b vs 506c syndications, plus what to know if you want to start one And SO much more! Links from the Show BiggerPockets Forums Clubhouse BiggerPockets Podcast 325: From Major Business Failure to Buying 20 Houses a Month With Aaron Amuchastegui Real Estate Rockstars Podcast InvestNext  Check the full show notes here: https://www.biggerpockets.com/show474 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Bigger Pockets podcast, show 474. I mean, this is where the creativity comes when it comes to the numbers. Like, what can you do to this building that nobody else can do, that nobody else has found? Our underwriters will underwrite the deal. And then Jason and I will go in, we'll, like, dig into the building, dig into the actual, like, how the building's been run, where the deficiencies are, how we can bring it up. Like, that's where the creativity lies. 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 to everyone? It's Brandon Turner, host of the Bigger Pockets podcast here with my co-host, Mr. David, Lieutenant, Lieutenant. How do you say it, Lieutenant or Lieutenant?

green. What's up, man? I think Lieutenant was how they said it originally in Old England. It's turned into Lieutenant. I know, I think so too. Anyway, what's up, man? How you doing? You're actually more than Lieutenant. You're like my general. You're my president. That's what you are? Then what does that make you, like, the leader of the galaxy?

If I'm the president, you're still ahead of me. Makes me the janitor cleaning up in the back room. You left the birthday cake from the office party there, so I'm just putting it all in the garbage. What's up, man? That's exactly right, man, but I'm going to be the best general or the best janitor, I should say, that can. It's going well. I'm getting my Airbnb's up and running. I'm probably going to start looking

to buy a couple more. And I'm still looking to hire people for both the real estate and the loan team looking for leaders. Yeah, I'm just wrapping up my Airbnb as well, just getting the rehab done on it. We went. Okay, so today's show, we talk a lot about like having the systems and not getting emotionally invested in your rehabs. No, I am totally getting emotionally invested in this rehab right now. It's crazy. But I haven't done one in a long time like this. So my wife and I, like, are going to like lows and picking out the perfect tile and we're doing all this stuff. It's a, it's actually a lot of fun because it's kind of a side project, not really my main business. I think short-term rentals are the loan exception you can get away with that a little bit more with. I agree. Because you

want it to be unique and special. Right. If you go crazy like this on a commercial property with 105 residential units, that can really hurt you. But if you're looking to make it unique and the profit margins high, I think that that's okay. I don't know why. We're looking at a tile and like there's like tile it's like 268 a square foot and then my wife puts out this other stuff it's like 480 and she's and i was like that's really expensive and she's like brandon this place is going to rent for like four hundred dollars a night like who cares if it's an extra dollar or two a square foot at the end of the day we're talking multi-million dollar properties and like and it's not a 3,000 square foot place either exactly yeah and we're talking it's going to be like 300 bucks exactly is that

funny like yeah how we do that with things like we're like oh that apple is a dollar 25 i i i don't want to spend more of a dollar on an apple. But that car is 35 grand. We'll buy that one instead of the 30 grand one. Like it's just, it's, yeah, people are ridiculous anyway and myself included in there. All right. Well, today's show is really good because we talk about where you can get creative in your business versus where you need to stay disciplinedize and systemized. We talk a little bit about this whole general cadet thing that we started off with you and I hiring with our guest, Peeley, the hiring struggle she's having. And then we give really good advice to the listeners about how to make yourself someone that people would want to hire and how to grow,

within a company. And then we also talk a lot about transitioning from one asset class of real estate into another one and how you can use some of the skills in the first way you learn to help you in the next. So our guest today is Pili Yerrucci and she is amazing. They got over 850 units right now, her and her husband, and they have been just killing it on the real estate front. But they had to shift their identity to go from the small deals to the big deal. So that's what we're going to talk about today. This is one of those shows where we just got lost in conversation. being that in the best way. Like, we just forgot the microphone was there.

And David, Peely, and I were just having a really good conversation. It's like you guys are sitting on my Lanai, listen to us, talk story, which is how we say it in Hawaii. It was just like talking. And it was so good. And it actually, Pili is from Hawaii, so I can say talk story. And it kind of makes sense. So with that said, we got to get on with today's show because you guys are going to love it. But first, today's today's show.

We talk a lot about identity and how you don't want to have too many of them. because it messes with your reticular activity system. You'll hear all about that later. However, so that's a quick tip for today. I want you to grab out a piece of paper sometime today and write down all the roles that you currently are in your life. Meaning like, hey, I'm a small multifamily investor or I am a house flipper.

I'm a wholesaler. I'm a real estate agent. I work this job. Write down that stuff. And then ask yourself the question, what do I need to let go of in order to improve the ones that really matter? So I'm going to say on that right now. You'll hear more about that later.

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great if you could actually earn money while you're traveling. Well, you can. Airbnb has something called the co-host network. While you're away, you can hire a vetted local co-host with hosting experience to help take care of things, communicating with guests, preparing your space, managing reservations, everything runs smoothly while you're off making memories. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.com slash host. Our guest today is Pili Yerusi. So she is a mom of three kids. They have over $75 million in real estate. Like I said, 850 units. Been doing it now for, I think, seven years. Actually, got started by in listening to the Bigger Pockets podcast. So in a very similar spot to many of you. So without further ado, I think

it's time to get into today's show with our guest, Peeley, Yerusi. And hey, real quick, if you're watching this show on YouTube, do me a favor. Click that little thumbs up button below the video. And make sure you're subscribing to the YouTube channel here at Bigger Pockets. if you like real estate investing or just success, entrepreneurship-minded content. This is your place for it. And in the comments section, you can ask questions to Peeley there. And she'll be able to jump in in response. So blow up those comments.

Now, let's get into our interview right now. All right, Peeley, welcome to the Bigger Pockets podcast. Good to have you here. Aloha. So excited and honored. Oh, thanks. Aloha. So you are originally from my side of the world right now.

Is that correct? Originally from the Big Island, lived in Maui, lived on Oahu. I miss it so much, so so much. And you left here, it went to New York. Is that what I read? I left it there. That's quite the adjustment. Jeez, that was August 2001.

That was a time. That was a big jump. I had dreams of different dreams of doing theater for the rest of my life. And I became a bartender. Same thing. Same thing. Drama either way. Yeah, drama no matter what.

Hi, good. So walk us through how you got into real estate. was your very first deal, like maybe even before the first deal, where did the idea even come from that you wanted to get into real estate? So my husband and I met a long time ago in 2003. We worked in a bar together forever, but it wasn't until around 2012 that we finally actually saw each other. And then, you know, in 2013, we decided we were going to start a family. And 2000, oh, the date escapes me, but Hurricane Sandy happened. And his family is huge. into house lifting, house raising.

They actually take a house and lift it up and take it to the new base flood elevation, the BFE, and set it down on its new foundation. And there you have a nice new house in the flood zone. So after Sandy. I could actually use his family right now in one of my properties. Yes. Actually, two of my properties. Anyway, okay, that's cool.

I totally would come to Hawaii, but it's not cost effective to bring that business there. Yeah, totally understandable. So anyway, all right. So he was in that. So, so that's the construction company. So 2013 happens. We decided to start our family. 2014, I get pregnant. And I'm like, I'm not going to do the restaurant business anymore. I've been bartending for a long time, managing restaurants. And the next step was to get into real estate. I sit down with my father-in-law and my husband, Jason. And we talk about house flipping and how we can like renovate homes and, and, and do. fun things like that. I'm like, okay, I'm in, I'm it. And then I find this thing called

Bigger Pockets and someone on Bigger Pockets says, you know, get your real estate license, because then you'll have access to the MLS. I'm like, what's the MLS? So I am in my first trimester and I take my real estate exam. I passed it with Flying Colors Gun 98. And that's how we started. It kind of started out of a necessity for my husband and I, and then growth for my husband's family's company. Let's dive into a couple things here. First of all, today you've got, you know, over 800 and some units and you've been in this now for a number of years. But when you're first getting started, you heard to get your real estate license. Do you still think that's a good idea for people listening to this show? Should they get their real estate license? When is it

beneficial? When is it not beneficial? See, for my husband and I was great because we had an astounding partnership because we'd have worked together for years. We butt heads for years. We got through all that like early partnership stages. And so we made a really, really good team. So I got my license. He didn't have it. So when we were flipping and wholesaling, depending on the rules in your state, some states don't allow you to wholesale as a real estate agent. So you either have a you have to have a partner that you absolutely trust to give them all those deals or you just don't get your license. So it really depends state to state. I think it's great because you get this ingrained sense, at least for me, of having a fiduciary duty toward basically everything, having, like, putting

others before yourself. That's what real estate agents are supposed to do. We're supposed to put our clients' needs before ourselves. So becoming an agent really ingrained that into me, and I was able to help a lot of people. So my final answer is it really just depends on what state you're in. I actually think it's a really good idea because it's a great way to learn. And learn. earn the business at, you know, a very, very high level. Peeley, let's talk about your very first deal. What was it? How'd you find it?

How'd you break into this game? So my very, very first deal, that was, that would be house flipping. So house flipping. We got our first deal. It was off market. My husband found it actually through a real estate agent. It was a pocket listing. And we took it and we had our whole plan.

This is our first deal. We're going to make a ton of money. We had all the numbers stacked. And so what we didn't, I'm laughing because I would never, ever tell somebody to do this. So our plan was exactly what we said we were going to do. We could take these flood ravaged homes and buy it basically at cost, you know, hopefully below, but at cost because of the value we could put into it. So our plan was to take this home, lift it up not once, but twice into the air.

and add a new first story and add a garage. And it seemed like a lot of value. And we were going to like revitalize these towns. And we did do a couple of these homes. But we didn't take into account how long it was going to take. And it took forever. What we thought was going to take six months actually took us a year to complete. And you know the cost of time.

And it was, it ended being a beautiful house. And I'm really, really proud of this first, the first flip week. did, but it took so long. So one of the first things that we learned was you need systems, which we didn't have. You don't need to do such a big project for your first one. We since have learned while we're flipping and wholesaling to really dive in and do those easier flips, like get the flip that maybe just needs paint and carpet. Of course, with those, we would always end up putting in a new bathroom or adding some sort of value that wasn't there. But as we learned and as we grew into the flipping and wholesaling industry, we learned that

systematizing, getting mentorship, and really following what others have done before really, really helped us to go back, systematize that business and then grow into what we do now. Can you explain what you mean? For those who listen to the show and going, wait, what does she mean by systematized. Like, what are systems? I don't know anything about this in real estate. Like, what's an example of that? Basically with flips. You don't, you know, HDTV is awesome. It's really, really pretty. But even those amazing people have systems that they follow. Like, for instance, getting a flip under contract. You get a flip under contract and you know exactly what you're going to put into each flip. You have the skew numbers. You have exactly the, you don't, it doesn't

leave very much for imagination. I tried, especially when we were flipping, I try not to put too much imagination into our flips because imagination costs a lot. So everything was systematized. We had exactly what we're going to put in for each flip. We had our cost down. We had everything had a date attached to it. So that's what I mean by systems. Like making sure you're not just flying off the cuff. It's great to have imagination, maybe put your touch into small things, but every single flip should follow the same map. So by systems, I mean, having a map for everything that you do. That's so good. Yeah, because we watch HGTV. Most people, I mean, I started this way with flipping. I'm sure you did as well. You watch the

flipping shows. And every time they go to the tile store and they pick out a brand new tile and every time they go to, you know, this store and they pick on a new flooring in there. And then when I started talking to real flippers, like, they don't do that. Like they've got one thing that they just do over and over and over. at all. And it's not, yeah, I don't know. Yeah, it's because it makes it much more systematized and much more less emotional. You just know what works and you know what product works. Your contractors get used to installing it and it becomes just a machine. It's kind of a McDonald's model, which is exactly what you want. So that's like, so we got to bring in so much of what we learned from flipping and wholesaling into large multifamily because that's all business. That's all numbers. That's everything

is the same. We don't go in and put in fancy sparkly tile or you do what your budget says to the T. Everything looks the same. And the creative part in multifamily is how you can work the numbers so that your tenant, so that your investors make either their returns or above that. Yeah, that's a really good point. And I want to get into that here shortly, this idea of like transitioning from the small deals into the larger. Because again, and you brought up that good point, that the larger deals, they are math, they are systems. But the smaller deals are flipping, the wholesaling,

even like individual rentals, it's easy to forget that and treat those like a hobby or treat those like a just something you do and you kind of wing it. But the people I see really successful, right out the gate especially, is they treat their small deals like a big deal in the way that they've got those systems and processes.

Do you agree? The way you do one thing is how you do everything, right? Yeah, yeah, how you do anything. Yes. Yeah. So if you make your bed in the morning, if you get up, if you take on your day, chances are that's how you're going to take on everything. If you systematize your flip, you systematize your wholesale.

Chances are when you get into larger deals, you're going to be systematized and ready to go in that as well. It's not to say that you can't change, but you have to take those baby steps to grow into doing things. I don't want to necessarily the correct way, but there's a way to do it that will take you there quicker. And by doing everything kind of the right way first, saves you on the back end. So let me ask you this, Pili, in your experience, what causes people to devalue systems and put more value on creativity and imagination? Oh, see, the funny thing is, I'm one of those people, or I was for a very long time. I was like very creative. I want to do all the

things, put all the pretty things. And what makes them value that? Is that? Because that's, okay, number one, HGTV. That's the only thing that they really see. That I mean, really, that's the only thing. When it comes to real estate, that's what they see. They see the prettiness. They go walk these houses. They're nice. They don't understand that making sure that you have the systems to take that first step. And that's another reason why maybe getting your real estate license or getting some sort of training before you get into flipping or wholesaling or even into any sort of real estate, having that training and making sure you're following the systems that others have like set in stone, maybe not in stone, but have set down, will help guide you

into the creative parts of it. So I'm not saying that, you know, with a large multifamily building, you can't put some creativity into it. There needs to be some of it. But there stands a chance that every time you put that creativity into that one unit and then you just do the same thing over and over again. So I think when people put too much emphasis on the creative, maybe real estate's just not for them. Maybe they need to go into the arts. Maybe they need to go into teaching. Maybe they need to to maybe go paint to paint a mural. I paint with my kids all the time. I get rid of my,

or not rid of, but my creative bug is settled. You're not trying to take that urge to be creative and apply it to business. You're recognizing, no, let's keep it in this box over here where it belongs. Yes.

I mean, you can be creative in business to a sense, but there comes a point where that creativity is going to start costing money. Be creative within your system instead of, instead of in addition to or an exception of the system. Brendan, is this a problem that you have? You're pretty creative.

Every flip I do, I'm the guy that goes to the tile store every single time. And this is why I don't do a lot of flipping because it's a tremendous amount of work. I've never systematize it. But when I like Open Door Capital, it is such a machine and such an engine that I, and so the key is, I'm not involved in the day to day of Open Door Capital from a like, I'm not deciding exactly what the direct mail letter looks like that we send out. I'm not deciding, you know, that kind of stuff. but I get to use my visionary, like creative, whatever juices for the big picture.

Like, here's where we're headed down the road. And here's like, here's a really cool new strategy we've never tried for trying to find deals off market. Let's try this thing. So I funnel the creative side into that. But I let my team. And I don't want to, I don't want this to sound bad to my team. So if you're listening to this and you're anybody by my team, you're all awesome. But the analogy would be like McDonald's, right?

like a McDonald's owner or a franchise owner, they can be creative in the way that they market, maybe the way that they try to grow. But there is a very simple procedure for flipping a burger that each person on the team learns and they do it the exact way. And so that's why I don't flip burgers because I just can't, like, I just want to be creative. So I had to find other people who are okay following the system. And my team is like they have their systems and they follow it to a T.

Now they get creative in their own ways within that, but they're hired to, do the systems and processes that we have built and defined. And so I guess that's the long answer to that is I find other people who are willing to be the system makers or system doers. And I just get to be creative in the system. I completely understand. Does that make sense? Because you have your your people who are so good at underwriting. I can underwrite a deal. Yes. Do I like putting in putting all the numbers? Not really. So we have those people that love digging into the numbers. And then my husband loves, I mean, this is where the creativity comes when it comes to the numbers. Like, how can you, how can you, what can you do to this building that nobody else can do,

that nobody else has found? That's the creativity part. So our underwriters will, will underwrite the deal. And then Jason and I will go in, they'll be, we'll like dig into the building, dig into the actual, like how the building's been run, where the deficiencies are, how we can bring it up. Like, that's where the creativity lies. And there's, And my favorite part is the creativity when it comes to providing the opportunity to my investors. I love talking to people. I love talking to investors and trying to see different ways that this particular opportunity could help them.

There's your creative. It doesn't need to be in like, you know, changing a light bulb or a fixture. Yep. Yeah, or like, which glass tile do you want to use in the shower this time? It's like, yeah, that, that is a $10, $20, $30, $50 an hour job that you can. could hire a good person to do, but trying to decide, like, what program can we get to get our investors to average instead of 100,000 investment to go to 150 or 200,000? That problem is so much more valuable to solve. And it requires the same level of excitement and same level of,

what's the word, creativity. So, yeah, that's cool. All right. So you mentioned a minute ago, how you do anything is how you do everything. And then you mentioned, you know, that you make your bed or whatever in the morning. I read in my notes here, my producer said, make sure you ask Peeley about her morning routine. So I want to jump back on that. What is your morning routine and what's that about? So the first thing that my husband and I do is four, three, two, one. So we wake up at 432, or at least we try to. You know, we have three kids. And so four, three, two, and we've won our day. So that's the first thing. Because anyone that is, like that is. looking for more time and your day will understand this because that's the only way we can find time

is if we go to bed early enough that we wake up early enough to really start our day. Because once the kids get up, I am all about the kids. We work at home. Everything is at home. Our office is at home. So, and we're home schooling. Like, seriously homeschooling. Pull the kids out.

So I need that time to reset my day. And so my husband and I put together something called the Aloha mindset. So A is for awakening, which is basically what I just said. You get out of bed. Get out of bed. Make your bed. Brush your teeth. Do whatever you need to do to get out of bed and to stay out of bed.

I'm going to be honest, though. There's some times I roll out of bed and I know those days. I know that's going to happen the night before. And I make sure my yoga mat is right next to my bed. So yes, I might be doing some slow movements. But I am up. I am taking on my day. am waking up and then I slowly crawl myself to my coffee machine and I make myself some coffee.

But anything you need to do to get out of bed. The next is love. And that's basically taking the next five, ten, sometimes 30 minutes for yourself to meditate, to pray, to do whatever it is you need to do to really set your mind, your goals. And I know from talking with you, Ryan, and you have your vision board. You have your goals down. I'm sure you look at that thing. Cabillion day, A billion times in a day, that's the same thing I do. I have my vision board. I kind of just stare at it. I just stare at it just to make sure it's like in my head.

And I set myself up. And then next is the opportunity. So that owes for opportunity. Again, with the vision board and setting myself up to know that there is opportunity out there. It's like the cash flow game with the opportunity cards. Like if you think to yourself that life is a bunch of opportunity cards, all I need to do is reach out and grab them, read them, make sure they're the right opportunity

for me, and take action on them. Next is health. My husband and I are huge on health, especially after everything with COVID and 2020. We really, really dug in and got healthier and made sure that our kids saw that even in this crazy time mommy and daddy were taking care of themselves, we had actually completed 75 hard back in August. That's a huge. It's a fitness program. You work out twice a day. One's outside. I hate the cold. So when it was winter, that was really, really hard. But it's about doing the hard things, right? So making sure that you make your health a priority, not only like your fitness, but eating right, drinking water. We drink a gallon of water a day. So making sure that that is set. And the last one, A, is

aspire. And that's all about surrounding yourself with the best. people. And I'm not even talking like in person. I'm talking social media, making sure that you are following those people that are of or above your mindset, making sure that when you're scrolling through and looking at, you know, consuming all this information, that you're consuming the right information, surrounding yourself with the best books, talking to the best people. I mean, during COVID, I started moms of multifamily, which was kind of an offshoot of our podcast and mothers of real state, which is, it was a weekly show that I would just go on live and basically mastermind with three amazing other minds. And we would invite mamas to come in. And we would just talk because during that

time, it was just hard to talk to people. So we would just make sure to get together, talk and mastermind and kind of reset our minds. So that's how we wake up every day with Aloha. That's really good. I love having frameworks, you know, like, where you're like, this is what we do. To bring it back a little bit, you systematized your morning, right? Like, it's not a, it's not waking up reactively going, well, what do I got to do now? Okay, I'm going to down some coffee. You turned your wake up into a system. I have to, which is because I am not. That's great. I'm not a systems person. I really am not, which has forced me to become an extreme systems person. Because if I don't take those systems, if I don't do the time blocking, if I don't do the one thing, if I don't do the one thing, if I don't do

these things, my day kind of floats and goes everywhere and sometimes I'll be working on art with the kids or maybe I'll go look at some underwriting. No, I have times, exact times when I'm with the kids, when I'm looking at work, when my one thing is happening. I even have a time where my husband gets to ask me to do something. I'm like, during this time, you get to like ask me to do something because they're like, we both have lists of things to do. So we like let each other know during that time because he knows if he asks me to do something, my mind will go directly to that thing and I'll forget the other thing that I was doing. So hope that helps someone. Let's dive into that a little bit more because I think a lot of people get stuck on this exact thing. I've noticed when I've come across

investors that are having a hard time catching traction, when I say, what do you catch yourself doing every day? It's almost something, almost always something that I and Brandon would say isn't very dollar productive. Analyzers like to analyze. I hired a guy one time to manage my portfolio and he spent four months building me the most impressive and completely useless spreadsheet you've ever seen, right? It was like constructing this amazing car, but we didn't have any gasoline. There was no need for it. But that's what he likes to do. He likes to analyze things. Networkers like to talk and network. Marketers like to make videos that are, they think are inspirational. There's always a component of our personality that bleeds into our business and oftentimes from what I see sabotages us.

What are the things that you have found, Peeley, in your business that have led to you guys actually becoming successful? I believe you have, what, 850 units or so right now? Okay, that's a lot. You're doing something well. What are the things that you really make sure you focus on? And do you have advice for people that are having a hard time getting to that same place? Okay, so the first things that hopped into my head were the things that we're not good at. So I'm not good at multitasking.

I have to leverage people. So the one thing that Jason and I have become really good at is leveraging people, finding those people, like we talked about before Brandon and David, we hire those people that can do things either for us or better than us or want to do these things that we just don't want to do. Like, for instance, we're really good. I'm actually really good at spreadsheets. I just don't like them. I forced to. I will spend my time looking at a spreadsheet, creating things, like creating content, creating spreadsheets, creating all these things. Is that a good use of my time? No. Creating PDFs and those like little funny

content things, that's not a good use of my time. So what do I do? I hire other people. I hire people and I leverage others. And the thing is, it's not that I'm giving them like the bad things that I don't want to do. There's people out there like you said, David, that want to do these things that like the networking part, that like to analyze things, that like to do all these things that I might necessarily not like to do. So that's one key figure that has taken us to the next level. The second thing is our, well, was our inability, but now ability to focus. So I've told you, people are usually like, they're like, how did you do all these things? So we had our construction company, which Jason was the president of, no longer. We had our flipping company. We had our wholesaling

company. I was also a real estate agent and I was helping buyers out because I really like doing that and not a good use of my time because I would take them to see all the houses. What else do we do? Oh, I've been either pregnant or with a small child since 2014. And my oldest is six, my youngest is two. So we had all these balls in the air. So one day, I sit down with my, actually, this was at a mastermind and one of my mentors, as I'm walking in as I'm giving my kind of, I was doing a hot seat. And I was asking, you know, I told them all the things that we're doing and we were having all these successes. And we had just taken down a couple of other buildings. And I was like, I need to focus.

How do I, how do I focus? How do I get more focus? And my mentor said, well, Pili, you've been asking us this for the last two years. Just do it. And I just about broke down crying because this was a flipping and wholesaling. mastermind that had become kind of part of the family and I was like, I need to get rid of flipping and wholesaling. I know there's there's amazing investors out there that know how to like take on everything and can do multiple businesses, but I can't. I just, I couldn't. So in order for us

to become better versions of ourselves and to level up, we had to get rid of that business, which was making a ton of money. And it was scaling and we were growing and it was doing really well. but we knew that multifamily was the next level that we needed to be at. We were excited about it. Flipping and wholesaling had become a job. We weren't excited about it anymore. I couldn't go to the store and pick out tile anymore because I knew that wasn't the best thing for me to do. So we got rid of flipping and wholesaling. It still took, I mean, we were spending like, I don't know, 15,000 a month on marketing for a wholesaling business. Cut that. Took us a year to close shop on that. And, Now we're full force into multifamily.

So that's been a huge factor in what has gotten us to where we are at is the focus and the now ability to see where when mine or my husband's focus waivers, that's when our business starts going down. That's really good stuff. Let me dig in a couple of things here. First of all, it reminds me back on the podcast a few months ago. I don't remember who the guest was, but somebody asked the question or they brought up the question,

what do you have to let go of to get to the next level? And I remember it's been such a powerful question. Like, what do you have to let go of in your life right now to get to that next level? And sometimes it hurts. And sometimes it's a huge part of our identity and who we are. We're known as that person. But everyone goes through periods of growth. And sometimes that new growth doesn't get there.

It also reminds me the quote, good is the enemy of great. Right. Like, it was good to flip houses. I'm sure you weren't complaining like, oh, wow, I'm making lots of money. This sucks. But it wasn't your. ideal version of yourself, of your life, where your mentality was going to, where your excitement was at. And so, yeah, letting go of something in order to do something else. I did the same thing.

I had to let go flipping last year. And maybe I'll bring it back up someday when I find the right hood and the right team. But it was holding me back from bigger things. And so, yeah, right there with you. I've noticed when it comes to that, your reticular activating system has a hard time being given multiple assignments. So my guess is Peeley, you and your husband, we're looking at everything from the lens of can we wholesale it, can we flip it? And even though your logic tells you, oh, you can do multifamily too, you have plenty of time in the day, your mind can't switch back and forth between the opportunities that it's looking for. And so I'm curious if that played a role in why you think you had to let it go. That played a huge role because, like I said before,

I can't multitask. So I couldn't do multifamily, obviously because I couldn't, the flipping and wholesaling company was kind of like my baby. It's something that Jason, I grew up in. into, we learned a lot of what we use in multifamily. And it was really, really hard to let go, because like you said, it had become a part of who I was. I loved talking to sellers. I love going into buildings that I could go in and I knew exactly, exactly how I was going to fix up this building. I could tell you the numbers. I could tell you, like the construction cause. I could tell you all these things because I had studied and I had ingrained myself so much into it. But I knew, I knew letting go of that was the next step to really up-leveling into large multifamily.

And it was hard, too, because I felt like I was a little bit behind the eight ball, because I kind of stayed behind and made sure that we closed up shop correctly. I made sure that the clients that we had and the sellers that were calling us, they were taken care of. We let go of most of our team in the flipping and wholesaling company because we just didn't need them. and I took all of that. And at the same time, we were learning multifamily. So, but I wasn't able to jump in as much as my husband was. Again, we're a team. So when I came into multifamily, I was like, okay, let's let's let all that go. Let's jump in full force. And sometimes you have to let yourself

have that growing pain. And it took me at least a year, a year and a half to really, really let go of that mindset of smaller multifamilies and single families and looking at and looking at those numbers and then transitioning and looking at like the multifamily numbers when when we started talking about like 50 units, 100 units, maybe 500 you is seriously my head almost exploded. But it was the next level. Man, this is so good. This is so good. You know, David brought up a point here and then you're just perfectly illustrating it here.

but I want to explore this for a second because I feel like this needs to be in a book someday that David and I are talking about writing a book together on actually a similar topic. But uh, so the idea of like it's not about like capacity. It's not about ability. It's not about even time about focusing. Right. We oftentimes think like I'm so busy. So therefore I need to do fewer things. But many people are like, well, I can do multiple things. I got lots of time. But like David made that point. Like it's not about them on a time in your day. It's about the reticular activity system. And even more so, I'd go, it's about your identity. Like, you're, you can only, like, hold on to one identity.

You are a small-time investor. You are a large investor. You are a, you know, what exactly are you? And so shifting that identity is probably more important than anything. I mean, it makes me think of, like, a couple years ago, I got rid of all my tools. And I had to do that because I had to get rid of the identity that I can fix things myself, that I can take care of it. And so just the other day, my brother-in-law was out here in Hawaii. and he's doing a project for me.

He's like, hey, where's the tile saw? And I'm like, I threw it away. And he's like, you threw your tile saw away? He's like, why the hell would you do that? I'm like, because if I had a tile saw, then I am clinging to the identity that I may use that tile saw. Flushing those drugs down the toilet. Yeah, that's what it is.

Yeah, I had to flesh it. So anyway, I'm just kind of mentally processing this concept of like, sometimes you have to make that shift and you have to burn those bridges or burn those boats sometimes, right? To use that analogy or metaphor of like you're on the beach, you've got to burn. and stuff sometimes to adopt the new mentality. And that is hard. But you did so, Peeley. So I want to get into what came next. Once you did that, you said, I'm buying multifamily. What was your first big multifamily? So we learned multifamily. You can't just jump into it like you could with like we did with flipping and wholesaling. Yes, I became a real estate agent. But then we jumped into large

multifamily. And it was at least, it was six months of just like learning. We jumped in with a mentor and we learned all the terms. We started talking to people. We started talking to brokers. We started figuring out what market we wanted to go to. We had pulled together a couple of markets. Finally, we were digging into San Antonio and like the Carolinas, but somebody mentioned to us Kentucky, which made a lot of sense to us because my sister-in-law lives there and one of Jason's best friends lives. there. So we dig into this property and we end up putting in an offer for 2.3 on a 3.2 building.

Okay, 2.3 on 3.2. And they came back with, I think, 3.15 or something. And so we're like, oh, no, thank you. And the thing is with multifamily, you don't want to try and make things work. So we leave that one alone and we keep on looking at other deals. Finally, I don't know, three or four months pass and it's still on market. we noticed they've dropped it a couple thousand dollars hundreds of thousand dollars so we go back and we offer i think it was like 2.4 and they come back to us with like 2.6 or something and then now we know we have something there but i want to pinpoint a couple of things with this property number one like a good wholesaler and a good flipper we kept on with our sellers so that's something we learned

from flipping and wholesaling. We checked in with our sellers. We made sure our hands were always on the market. We kept on talking to the brokers. So we talked to this broker, and we ended up, I think we ended up at like 2.65. And that was our first deal. And that was after, I think we were into large multifamily for about eight months at the time, learning, really diving in. but because some of the things that we had already learned, like following up and negotiating

and making sure we came to an agreement that not only worked for us, but worked for the sellers as well. They really just did not want to be in the property. And we had been really nice about them not taking our offer. And we found out later that, you know, other people had like came in with low numbers. and weren't so nice. And that was our first probably. That was a 94 unit in Louisville, Kentucky. We have since exited the property.

But we learned so much from just that one property. And the thing is, that first one came in, I said, eight months after we had gotten into large multifamily. Our next one didn't come until a year later. So there was quite a bit of time because it wasn't like we're not looking because we were. but large multifamily for Jason and I are, it's the long play. It's not like flipping and wholesaling where you need to have, it's like that like next hit.

You need to have one going on, one on the deck and a few like just you have all these balls going up in the air. For large multifamily, it's like if the numbers work great, you want to keep on underwriting. You want to keep on looking at deals. And at this point was just myself, my husband and one of our partners. and you want to keep that machine going. But if a deal doesn't hit, it doesn't mean that you have to get worried because you need to make sure those numbers work because that's what commercial real estate's all about, right? So residential real estate, you get all these emotions and these thoughts and feelings.

Commercial real estate, it's, yeah, you still have thoughts, but you keep your feelings to the side. You make sure those numbers work. Well, if your feelings are attached to numbers working, you're good, right? That's the secret. I've often heard people say, I don't get emotional about real estate. It's all just logical. And I say, no, you get emotion about the logic. When the numbers work, you get super excited. You're like, let's take it down. Everybody makes decisions off of emotions. It's just where those emotions come from.

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That's Indeed.com slash rookie. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need. Peelie, I want to ask you something maybe no one else has. What lessons do you think you took from flipping and wholesaling that you applied to multifamily that allowed you to be successful where people who just started in multifamily maybe didn't have your same level of success? The ability to take rejection.

So actually, I've learned that for them a long time because I, wanted to get into Shakespeare. Obviously, I am not doing Shakespeare right now, and I am not an actress, but I've been hit with many rejections. Getting into real estate in general, just as an agent, you get rejected by people all the time. Like, why, why don't people want me to represent them? Why don't, why doesn't the seller want to sell to me? Why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why? So you have to understand that these rejections are not, are not you. It's not, it has nothing to do with you. A lot of times, rejection has more to do with the person. A lot of times with the rejections that you get, maybe they just don't want to sell to you.

Maybe they don't need to sell now. Maybe they want to go with their cousin down the street. Who knows? Whatever it is, just me knowing that that rejection has nothing to do with me, especially, and this is the caveat, though, especially if I did everything I could to get that sale, to get that whatever it is, that number, that whatever it needs, that number, that whatever it needs to be, if I'm rejected for that and I know in my heart of hearts that I put my all into that, then I know it has nothing to do with me. So that's one of the big things

was the ability to take rejection. I'm not saying it doesn't hurt sometimes. But your ability to take the pain, right? There's something to be said for that. Successful people can take more. What were you not doing in your first year of multifamily that you are doing now that has made you more successful now than when you got started? Oh, we talked about this. That's a great question. It's a very good question, but it's leveraging people, which we've had to learn from failure after failure. By not leveraging people, we don't grow. By leveraging people and by leveraging other people's talents, we were able to grow into the machine, into the business that we are today. It's probably one of the biggest. Brandon, would you say that's where you're at too?

Yeah, I mean, a couple things. What am I doing today? If I think open door capital, like large deals, I can go small as well. But if I think the large business that I do, today, we set a number of offers we're going to make every single week. So that's one thing that we do. We didn't do the beginning. The beginning was just kind of like, oh, when something lands in our plate, we set a number of brokers we're going to reach out to every single week. And we actually have a system for following up.

Like, every four weeks, we follow up with a broker, every six weeks. And we have a random, like, off-the-cuff conversation that was very deliberately planned on a certain day. So we take what feels, it feels super organic and natural to the other end, but it's all systematized. So we didn't do that in the beginning. We didn't do, yeah, we're tracking number of phone calls, leads, broker discussions. number of direct mail letters we send out, all of that. We weren't doing in the beginning. So, David, what about you? Like, what are you doing from your real estate investment side today that you weren't doing earlier? And then maybe from the agent's side as well, what are you doing today

that you weren't doing your first couple years in? Shocker, it's the same thing you guys are saying. I'm trying to hire somebody right now to manage my portfolio because I recognize that I wasn't buying properties, simply because the energy that it took me to manage something I already bought was just killing me. And it's costing a lot of money in the future that I'm not acquiring them like I were. So in order to keep buying, I needed to find someone that could manage it for me. So I'm working with Holly right now. Holly, if you're listening, you're doing a great job, keep it up,

trying to get her and her husband to move out to California to take over managing that. And what I've noticed is that everything I want to do, I can if I submit to the fact I have to hire and train someone to do it. If I do it through other people, I don't have to choose flipping or multifamily or wholesaling or whatever. But if I try to do it myself, I'm very limited to what I can do. So I think what I'm trying to do differently now is I'm trying to develop. people that can run these components to the ecosystem that I'm building instead of running them

myself. And it's taking me what I feel like is a long time to build that skill. It's, you know, like I learned how to invest in real estate. I learned how to analyze deals. I don't know how to learn how to manage people to do that. That's a completely different thing. And so I'm guessing Peeley, it's probably a similar situation for you. Yeah. Actually, the question that just ponds into my head is that how do you get over the fact that you think you're the best person for the job? Because you know you do. I know there's a lot of things that I shouldn't be doing that. I'm just like, well, if I just take this time and just do it myself, I could just get it done right now instead of showing some people, showing somebody how to catch that fish so they can keep on catching that fish for you.

It's the general mentality, I think, is if you see yourself as the general, you will resist the identity to pick up the rifle and get down there in the trenches. If you see yourself as a soldier, every time you get into the general's box, your guilt will bug you and you're like, I got to get down there in the trenches with the guys again. that guilt gets me every time. Yeah, this is why my performance coach that I talk with every other week, like we use that language of a general versus cadet all the time. He just,

if he, all he has to do is ask the question, Brandon, are you being a general or cadet? And it instantly changes my mindset. And I go, oh, you're right,

I'm being a cadet. Lay down your gun, like pick up a map, stand over the map and tell us where we're going. Like that's that can, and it doesn't, like no matter how many times he tells me that, every week there's something I'm going to cadet on. I have to be reminded, which is why I love

performance coaching so much. It reminds me that I have a different identity than what maybe my default happens to go to. So let's shift this to for Peeley's situation. What we're talking about is we need more cadets. And most people listening to this are sort of in the cadet phase of their investing career, looking for a general to serve under that can maybe take them to the next level. Peeley, in your experience, what would you say makes a good cadet? What advice would you have for people that are trying to break into this industry that need to make themselves more valuable to a general. What makes a great cadet? So this amazing, amazing, amazing woman that we just hired Alessandra. So Alessandra, I know you're going to be listening to this. You're amazing.

She loves underwriting. Loves it. Just learned how to do it. And she's like, Pelae, I could just do this all day, every day. So I think for a really good cadet, it's finding that one thing that you are extremely good at and letting those generals know what you do and how well you do it. I think that's number one, but you have to open your mouth and you have to say something. I happen to meet Alessandra on Clubhouse of all places. And she came into a bunch of the rooms that I was hosting or, you know, being part of the Mod Squad or whatever you want to call it. Yeah. And she kept on asking amazing questions. And really, I could see her start to follow into the rooms that I was going to and really, really ingesting the information. So one day I reached out to her and I was like, let's talk.

So she told me where she was in her journey that she was learning underwriting through a couple of other people. And I was like, okay, why don't you, why don't we hop on another call? And then she was like, by the way, Peeley, I'm moving to Tennessee. I'm moving to Nashville. I was like, great, when are you moving? Great. Let's have a meeting. It just so happens that somebody that we had hired to be in that assistant place, that cadet place, left because it wasn't the right place for her.

In comes Alessandra, and she was the perfect fit because she wanted to do those things that Jason and I did not have the time to do, that we could spend more time with the creativity part, like looking at the numbers that she had inputted and looking at those things that we could bring to it. How could, for me, it was like, how could this benefit my investors? How could we go in and add value to this multifamily building? So again, one of the hugest things that a cadet can do is to pinpoint that which they are good at. So that's one way to break into this business. The other way is to simply get educated on how it goes. And then again, I'm going to come back to that, finding that thing that you are really good at and pinpointing and focusing, really focusing in on that.

Because then you can spread out later. But if you really focus in on that and then you partner up with those that maybe somebody has the money that you don't have, maybe somebody has the connections that you don't have, partnering up with those people and showing them your work ethic and the type of person you are will take you to the next level. And I think having that focus will also help you when you work your way up to becoming a general. That's really good.

Hey, one more note on that while we're talking this metaphor of the general and cadet, there's a level in between there. I like to call lieutenant. When I started a bigger pockets back when Josh and I started the podcast nine years ago almost, I was very much cadet. Josh hired me as a W-2 job to edit blog posts. Like, I was a cadet.

But very quickly, like over a couple years, I moved into this kind of lieutenant role where it was more like now I was managing some people. And you know what, that thrilled Josh Dorkin. And then later I moved in kind of a general sort of role at bigger pockets. today I feel like I'm more like I don't know what you'd call me like a consultant role but like I move to this thing and the reason I bring that up is like open door capital my own company right so

Walker was hired originally as a as a cadet like he came in as an intern and then Walker ended up becoming now today he's much more of a lieutenant and this is the point I want to make here nothing thrills a general more than to promote somebody from cadet to lieutenant to eventually general because when when walker can be general that means i get to move up to be i don't know what commander president whatever that thing is right like like we love to see that growth in people and that is our job as entrepreneurs is to foster these cadets and to bring them in to train them and to teach them leadership skills to be able to take on more and more because that's how you win a war that's how you win a country is by building that system there so if you're somebody listening to your cadet right now

just like you have a there's a lieutenant or a general in your life work with them so that you can get to that next level as well I love how you put it that way because I, and Alessandro will probably hear this on this podcast. I want to promote her to lieutenant so badly and she's right there and she will get it. But then I'm going to have another cadet. Maybe I'll have Alessandah to help you with that. Yeah. I've gone through, I think, five assistants in the past two years because every one of my assistants

has moved from that cadet to a lieutenant kind of phase at their business. David, I want to ask you, because you have a ton of experience with hiring people and training people and bringing people in. Like, what do you think is the key? Like, what have you found successful for getting people from cadet to lieutenant or moving them up in your organization so they can take on more and more responsibility? What's worked for you? What hasn't worked for you?

And then I'll fire that at you as well, Peeley. It has not worked when I've given them more responsibility just because they wanted it when they hadn't made the emotional commitment to take that on. So what I've found with my companies is not everyone, but the majority of people come in and say, all right, I'm willing to do this. they'll say for a long time, but what they mean is a couple months. And then I want to be making good money. I want to be a top agent.

I want to be crushing and I want to have a nice car. I want my name on David's Instagram. I want to be the man. And they close 10 deals. And for an agent, that's pretty good. But for a top producing agent, that's nothing. It's not even a blip on the radar. And their expectation is, okay, now I know how to close a deal.

And they want a lot more responsibility than what they can actually handle. And the few times I've given it to them, the weight of it crushed them. Their whole career, they lost it. They lost their confidence. lost my confidence, they lost the client's confidence, and they quit. So there's a balance of keeping somebody fed, which is, they have to eat, they have to make money, they need repetitions, without like shoving food down their throat to where they're going to starve, which can happen sometimes, and trying to get them to recognize they control their own destiny. I think a lot of

people in the cadet world think the general's holding me back or the general promotes me, but that's really not accurate. The general's looking at their cadets and saying, who's ready for the next step. Yeah. Okay. And so that's, I'm still trying to learn how to maybe manage that. Well, I think a lot of people come in here and they say, I'm on the David Green team. I made it.

And we're like, you made the team. We have no idea if you're actually going to contribute to the team's position and what we're trying to accomplish. So that's what I can see. And I'm just trying to learn how to get better at conveying it and leading. No, that's, that's exactly what happened with our old assistant and with some of the other teams that I've, I've tried and failed managing. So I tried to build, like you, David, I tried to build a team. I just wasn't good at it.

I was also pregnant at the time. So there was that. Yes, I was building. I was actually building two different teams. I had, I had just, I just started with EXP Realty and I started building this, I wanted to build this mega team. I had these ideas that I could do the team and I could, I was still doing the wholesaling. I was still doing the flipping and we still had all the things. And I failed. And the one thing is because I wasn't focused enough. Bring it back to the focus.

So as the general, I wasn't, and this is the one thing that we failed at, or I failed at, was I didn't keep to the map. I didn't put down that rifle. I didn't lead them correctly. And we had so many things going on that I wasn't able to focus in. And I remember when I let everyone go and I dismantled the team, I was like, I apologize. I hope you can take everything that I've taught you. you and take yourselves to the next level because you're right there. But I am not the right leader for you at this time. So I've learned through my failures that I cannot, I can't grow before

I'm ready also as the general, as the leader. And I was growing too fast for me to handle that. So the reason why we had to let, well, she didn't, she wasn't let go. She left on her own was because she wasn't the right fit for our team. She just wasn't the right fit. We needed somebody that was excited about what we were doing that could come in and totally put her mind to something, just like Jason and I do, just like my husband and I do, but that she could do something that I couldn't, which was, Asandra, can you put this on our calendar? Can you also do this?

Can you do this, this, this, and this other thing? Great. Now, and then she'll go back to exactly what she was doing before, which is something that I cannot do. Jason can do somewhat. So it's learning those things that you're not good at and making sure that the people that you hire can come in and fill those gaps that you can't. And it's taken us a while to learn that. I was just talking to Aaron and Muchistaghi, the Real Estate Rockstars podcast host about hiring trouble in our industry. And what I realize in the middle of talking is this is so hard because there's no college degree for working on a real estate.

team or analyzing multifamily or running a wholesaling business. We need people. We're trying to hire people and they like real estate, but there's no way that you go get trained and how to do this. It's not like being a bookkeeper where you learn bookkeeping principles and then you get plugged into a company and you have a small adjustment you make with how they do it. That makes it so hard for people in our position, but it also creates such ridiculously big opportunity for the people like the Alessanders that are up to the challenge that say, hey, there's not a lot of structure, there's not a lot of direction. I'm going to have to figure a lot of this out. All systems go. I'm in. She's in a couple years going to fly to the top of a company. And if she's effective in making

you guys more money, buying more property, she's just created her own promotion. She can have whatever she wants. That's what I really want to encourage everyone. This path does not look the same as a traditional, like go to school, learn a task, go get into the workforce and do said task. That throws you into this pot with the millions of other people that do the same thing. It's very hard to get ahead. In this world, if you're just like 50% better than your competition, which isn't as hard because they don't really know what they're doing either, you can get ahead so fast. Well, it's also the other thing with real estate is that you're also, and I don't like using this word, but I can't think of any other word. You're also training what could be your competition.

So I don't believe in competition. I don't think it really exists, at least not in that sense. I love competition, but not in that sense. So we gave, we have a training program for people who want to get into multi-family. So we gave Al-Sandra all of that. We're like, take a look at it all, ask us questions, and let's get you up to speed with what we're doing. So having your people look at that stuff, anybody who's in real estate, anybody that's in the general spot should have that map. I mean, we all have that booklet of how we run our businesses. And if you don't, you should have that booklet of how you run your business so you can give the Al-A-Lanjans of the world exactly what you need them to do. So we obviously have the same, but it's just all in PDFs

structured for her. So she goes through it and she has all these questions. And I told her one day, we sat down. I was like, Alessandra, you know at one point with all the knowledge that I've given you, you could go out on your own. I've like had these conversations with her. Because I know what's going to happen. She's like, oh, no, Pili. I just, I want to be a part of your team. And I'm like, I'm really, really happy to hear that. But I also want you to grow. So that's a another thing if for people who are just getting into this industry, be with others who want you to grow. Because there's those that just that only want to hire you to be their cadet and keep you in that position and have you be the soldier, have you take up that rifle every single

day, all day without the thought that you're going to up level. I want, I want to be positive and say that you know you're going to up level no matter what and you are. But make sure you surround yourself. Again, it comes back to surrounding yourself with the the best people, right? So surround yourself with those that want to take yourself to the next level. That's why, I mean, like Jason and I, what grew up, listening to the Bigger Pockets podcast, because it was part of our system. It was part of those people that were taking us to the next level, using the analyzers, surrounding yourself with other people, other people in like large multifamily, if you want to get to large multifamily, surround yourself with those people.

Not only those people that you consider mentors and friends. and generals, but also people on like the day-to-day basis, like listen to people, listen to podcasts. And this is what I tell Alessandro to do all the time because I know at some point, like you said, she's going to get so good. She's going to get so good. And I'm hoping that one day will create a partner. Well, if you make your world big enough, then that's exactly what will happen. If you stop growing, her opportunity stops growing. She will outgrow you. She will leave. So that puts responsibility on the general to keep building bigger and bigger opportunity. And I would say the flip side of that is that cadet has to come in with some loyalty as well.

If the general gets the sense you're just coming to learn how to be a soldier and then you're going to be a mercenary, you're going to go work somewhere else. They're not going to commit special forces training to making you great. Nobody invest their own money into a rental property. If I don't own it, if I'm just renting it, I'm not putting in new flooring and upgrading this thing. When I own a property, I will invest into that property. And you got to look at people the same way. If you want the general to invest in you, your loyalty is an asset that is even more important than your intelligence and your technical skills.

It's got to be a win-win for both parties. It literally doesn't work if either side, if the general limits opportunity or if the cadet limits loyalty. And so you got to get that secret sauce just right. So if you look at one of my bios, I say I lead with Aloha. The next thing I usually say is I invest in people. That's what we all do, right? When it comes down to it, yeah, we invest in these large buildings or whatever we invest in.

But we invest in people. We invest in those investors that come in with us, our partners, our tenants. We're investing in our tenants. We're investing in those that come and work on our buildings. I mean, that's one of the biggest things I love about large multifamily is that I get to help more people. I get to invest in more people. And I get to keep on growing, like you said, David. This is good stuff.

That's so good. Well, I know we got to get out of here pretty soon. But let's get a quick summary of where you're at today. So you bought a bunch of multifamily. Is that correct? Like where did you buy them at? How did you fund them? What's that side of your business look like today?

So we have, most of our holdings are in Kentucky, mostly Lovung, Kentucky. We have one building in Tennessee in Murphy'sboro, which is actually where we live. And we're about to take, we're about to actually jump into the Arkansas Little Rock Market. And we have one more building in Murphy's Borough that we're about to take down. So it's about 850 units, upwards of $75 million. And yeah, that's basically our portfolio. How do you fund all that? How do we?

Are you doing syndication then? Yeah, we're doing syndications. Mostly 506B as in buddy, which means we get more, we source funds for mostly friends and family. But our last deal in Murphy's Bro, we actually did our first 506C, which was a lot of fun because now I got to talk to more people. Yeah, can you explain the differences? I mean, just for those who want to know the difference, yeah, because we do C, we do 50 at ours.

But yeah, what's the difference? Again, the easiest way, again, I, okay, so I'm not an SEC attorney. I'm not a, any of those things. Please, please do your due diligence and talk to an SEC attorney or your accountant. So a 506C and a 506B is basically ways that you can syndicate funds. So the 506B as in buddy means that you can only fund your deals by those that people that you know. And I guess the rule of thumb is three touches. So I have us, or we used to have a spreadsheet. Now we use a program called InvestNex. Oh, we use that too. Oh, it's awesome. I love Brad.

Not to, this is not meant for a plug, but really that CRM, that's so much better than what we're using before. And we did extensive research on other CRMs. It's taken another thing that has taken our, our business to the next level that it's allowed us to grow. But before that, we a simple Google spreadsheet. And on this Google spreadsheet, I would actually have, I listed everyone I knew, and I put down how I knew them, and if I just met them, the three touches that I had with them, just in case the SEC decided to knock on my front door, I had that all down. So that's for a 506B. A 506C means that you can widely, I can come on here and tell people about my next deal. I could go onto Facebook. I can actually put it out into the world. But with a 506C,

I can only accept accredited investors. Yeah, we're the same way. The reason I chose mine, and David, whenever you do a fund or a syndication, you'll probably do the same is if you have an audience, it's like, I want to be able to talk about my deals. And I couldn't do that if I went 506B. So yeah, just a little bit of details there.

Hey, I'm wondering, so you've got $75 million of real estate, yeah, 850 units, which is awesome. Where are you headed? I mean, you are trying to get some number that's there? Like you, we make sure we do. a certain number of offers per week. And we talk to a certain amount of brokers per week. And we make sure we touch back with those brokers a certain number of times per month. So we have the system going in place. And especially with Alessandra, it's here to help us. It's really going.

So our biggest goal right now is to, again, I have to, I still have to figure out what we have to let go to get this because our goal at the beginning of 2020 was, to take down a larger property upwards of $20 million. That hasn't happened yet. We have taken down our, like, our threshold was, or has been $10 million. We haven't done more than a $10 million property. And the largest raise that we've done is $3 million. Is that correct?

Doing the math, $2 million. Two million. So we want to get into those higher numbers, into more institutions. deals into just thinking bigger because we took the jump from single family flips and wholesales into large multifamily anywhere from I think the smallest deal we've taken down is 23 unit and our largest has been 94 we combined two of our buildings to to make 108 unit but I don't know if that counts so so we're going to count it we'll count it Brandon Turner says that's that's good he declared it I declare it yep

I declare it. So we want to take that next step. And the only way we're going to see if that's the right way to go is if it happens, and we take that next step. So we're still in process because it hasn't happened yet of figuring out those things that we might have to let go of and figuring out those things that we're going to grow into. So I highly am optimistic that by leveraging other people like Alessandra, like other people that we're going to be bringing on to our team,

we'll be able to reach that goal of just kind of climbing higher in the numbers. We should definitely talk off microphone. But yeah, maybe we'll do a deal together because I feel like you got the expertise and you got the systems down and I got the ability to raise funds. Let's do it. I don't know. Maybe we'll do something together and you'll be back in the podcast and a year from now talking about our 300 unit that we just took down together.

Who knows? This is how networking has done, people, live on the podcast. Right here. No, but the truth is, like, there are things, like, as you're out there talking to people, like, what can they do, what can you do, like, have an idea of what you're good at, what your specialty is. And then every meetup, you go to every conversation you have with people. Like, they're going to say what they're good at. And what they're in getting that information is how you build partnerships and JVs and you start working together because you realize, oh, you're really good at that. Like, I met, I met a guy the other day who's, like, amazing at, like, land acquisition and, like, the zoning and legal side of that.

that sounds awful to me. He's like, no, that's what we do. We do it well. We're amazing at it. We're one of the best in the world at it. And I'm like, okay, well, you know, I'm really good at is mobile home parks. What if we work together? You find land.

We develop a mobile home park. That's what we're good at. And all of a sudden, together, we can do 10 times what we could do individually. Because that's what a good, like, that's how synergy works, right? That's how good partnerships work is that both sides can do way more together than they can do separately. So anyway. Yes.

And it's all about really listening to people, though, right? Because if you don't really listen, you're not going to hear those things. So if I have time, I have one more story. Like one of the deals that we're raising for, I was like, you know what? I'm going to put it out to this one investor first. So he got to see it like about a day before I started like kind of like putting it out some of my other investors. And I kind of knew this was going to happen.

He like, he texts Jason and I back and he's like, can I? I have an idea. Can I, can we talk? And he was like perfect. And he actually, I guess he was really. So he writes us an entire email, and he's talking about JVing on the entire deal. And that's bringing in a nice bunch of cash, but he had said this multiple times before and had told us no on some deals that I thought would be perfect for him for this very reason,

because he was looking for a deal that he could take down as part of the GP, general partnership, on a small team that he trusted. And because I knew that, I put it out to him thinking that, okay, I'm going to put it it out there. Sometimes you have to put the bait out before, I don't know, before the hook. But it's really, really listening to people and finding out those things because obviously you're not talking about me, Brandon, because I don't know zoning. So hopefully, hopefully you don't need anybody on your zoning team. Yeah, I don't, I don't know anything was on either. But there are people who love that and they just like, that's their thing. They're so good at it. So yeah,

this has been so good. I mean, just this, this, everything we've talked. about today. I mean, I wrote on a ton of notes here. Everything from the imagination costing a lot, the 4-3-2-1 principle, how you use Clubhouse to find a key employee, the identity shifting that goes into shifting from single family to multifamily, building a team, like all this stuff, going into the large multi, what's working, what's not. Amazing episode. So I think we're to have over to our Famous Four next. So anything, David, do you want to ask before we get there? No, let's get there. All right. Time for our Famous Four. Famous Four is a part of the show. We ask the same four questions every week to every guest.

So we're going to throw them at you right now, Peeley. So question number one, do you have a current or all-time favorite real estate investing book? It's my Bible. So it is by Joe Fairless, the best ever syndication book. I'm saying it wrong. I actually, I usually have it right behind me. I swear, even though I usually, I don't really need it. I still go through it like yearly.

Yeah, it's really solid, solid book. What about a favorite business book? Favorite business book? That would be the one thing by Gary Keller. That's more mindset. Without that, I wouldn't, I wouldn't have a good business. So it would be the one thing because I have to focus on one thing each day. That's really good. What about some hobbies? Some hobbies of mine. So I have my kids. So could that be considered a hobby? I actually, through homeschooling, how many kids do you have? Three. Okay. So through homeschooling, actually, I've learned that I've loved painting all my life, but I stopped doing it. So I started to do it. So I started to do homeschooling. I painting again. So that's one of my hobbies. I'd love to paint. All right. Last question for me then. What do you think separates successful real estate investors from those who give up, fail, or never get started? Knowing that with every failure, you can get up, knowing that you have to sometimes let yourself fail in order to take that next step. So maybe with that failure, you don't go back into real estate. That's okay. Just don't.

Acknowledge that. Don't live in that. Take the next step into that that you're supposed to supposed to be doing. So if you're listening to this podcast and you're like, I really don't want to do that. That's fine. Go figure out what you want to do. But if real estate's really what you truly love doing that you want to get into, and this is how you want to help more people, then get into it, find that avenue that you need to take, that avenue that you need that path that's right there in front of you. You just have to like dust it off and see it and take that path. And you're going to trip, you're going to fall. Like dust yourself up, get back up. Or Or look up and you'll see that there's someone there putting their hand out, wanting to lift you up and put your hand on and accept that.

Sometimes it just takes you accepting the help. Last question of the show. Where can people find out more about you? The easiest way is just to go to our website, www. www.jurusiholdings.com. You can find everything on there. Thank you, Pili. This has been fantastic, amazing, and just super thought-provoking.

So we appreciate you. Appreciate you too. Next time we'll talk more about Hawaii. That sounds good. Yeah, come out and visit again. Yes. We miss you on the islands. I miss Hawaii. All right. All right. Well, thank you, Peeley. This is David Green for Brandon, the Dollar General Turner, signing off. You're listening to Bigger Pockets Radio, simplifying real estate for investors large and small. If you're here looking to learn about real estate investing, without all the hype, you're in the right place. Be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from biggerpockets.com. Your home for real estate investing online.

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