BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 488: From 4 Units to 2,000 and Why Large Multifamily “Isn’t So Scary”

Episode Date: July 22, 2021

The average journey of a real estate investor tends to go something like this: buy a house, use profits to reinvest into another house, buy a duplex here and there, and buy another house again. Does this sound like you or someone you know? For Feras Moussa, stacking single-family properties was never the goal, especially after he had to manage his first rental investments. At some point, it becomes too hard to scale and you’re stuck with 30+ units and 30+ tenants all trying to get your attention to fix something. This is how real estate can become more of a job than a business. Feras knew this so he started venturing into medium/large multifamily investments instead. His first big multifamily deal was a 99-unit deal in Atlanta, Georgia. He was able to take a neglected apartment complex and turn it into a cash-flowing, high-value piece of property that he later sold for a sizable multiple. Now, Feras does bigger deals, like a $50M+ apartment complex that his company Disrupt Equity and Open Door Capital are partnering on. If you feel too scared to jump (or even dip your toe) into bigger multifamily investments, hear out Feras. He shows it’s a lot less scary than most people think. In This Episode We Cover: How to scale your real estate investment portfolio with medium/large multifamily The habits that a successful multifamily investor develops Networking and being more than just the “business card” person Why masterminds are a HUGE source of deals, partners, and friends Underwriting and how it differs from basic deal analysis Using “value-add” to increase the value of a property and cash flow The red flags you should look for when buying multifamily properties  And SO much more! Links from the Show BiggerPockets Forums BiggerPockets Calculators BiggerPockets Youtube Channel GoBundance Brandon's Books Best Ever Conference Blackstone Check the full show notes here: https://biggerpockets.com/show488 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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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 in morning? It's Brandon Turner, host of the Bigger Pockets podcast here. With my co-host, Mr. David 31 Flavors Green. What's up, man? How you doing? Well, I just got a new nickname, so I got to say I'm doing pretty good.

Can you explain what that means? No. No, I'm not going to explain it. It's going to come up later in the show. You'll hear it later. So stay tuned for that. A little bit about David's background. You might not know about him.

Then I did not know about him. And I'm like your bestie. I'm a little offended, actually. I didn't know this. So I learned it today. That's because all we ever do is talk about you. If you talked about me more than yourself, you'd know a lot more. Listen, man, enough about me.

Let's talk about you. So what do you think about me? I think that part of the reason we get along is, yeah, that's actually very good. It's like you said a comment one time, but before I was on the podcast that I always thought was good when you said millennials will say things like I'm a millennial. I don't like labels or I'm a millennial. We don't like labels. I always thought that was one of the funniest things I ever heard. I don't know if I was Tim.

I think I said that and you just made fun of me for it. I don't remember. Anyway, today's show is not about you. It's not about me. Today's show is about Ferris, actually. An amazing guest named Ferris Amusa. Ferris is a super awesome guy. He's going to talk a little about going from like the small deals and the mindset of like the single family and the small multi. Started with a fourplex all the way into buying like a hundred unit.

And now like today, like he owns like thousands of property. He's bought thousands of units. I mean, so cool story. You're going to hear a lot about that today. A little bit about underwriting, how to run the numbers on properties and make sure you're not making it messing up there. We talk about networking. That's really good. I'll talk about how David's a master networker.

You're going to learn David's secrets today. So I grab a pen for that and a lot more. So that and more to come. But first, let's get to today's quick tip. David, why don't you hit today's quick tip today? Something real estate related. What can you share? Today's quick tip is don't make the fatal flaw of assuming that year one numbers are going to be the same as year 30 numbers.

Real estate is an evolving moving target. Many deals don't look great right off the bat and are incredible three, four years other deals look like home runs and are nothing but a headache three to four years later. So the quick tip now is what I call zoom out. When you zoom in, you tend to see the problems and you then amplify them in your brain. You look at an inspection report. You see there's a foggy window and it just becomes a deal breaker for you. But if you zoom out 30 years, there's not a person alive that ever bought a house that could

tell you what was even in that inspection report. And they're very glad they bought the property. So take some pressure off of yourself by taking a bigger picture approach. I like it. It's actually one of the reasons I like the bigger pockets to calculate. like the rental property calc, especially in the bur calc, is because at the bottom of that page, when you go to the results page,

like it has like year one, two, three, four, five, ten, 15, 20, 25, 30. And you're like, oh, wow, if I hold this $100,000 property for the next 30 years, that's going to make me a $1.1 million in profit, you know, over those 30 years. You're like, oh, I guess the $20, like, light bulb, you know, that I'm freaking out about right now

is really not that big a deal. Yeah. Zoom out. I like it, man. Good job. Are you a passive investor? If you are, then you need to come to the Passive Pocket Summit from April 30th to May 2nd in Denver, Colorado. This conference is both exclusively for the limited partner.

The investors now invest in other people's deals. So if you're on a great place to network, see deals, and learn how to do better due diligence, then come to the PassivePockets Summit. Go to PassivePockets.com forward slash summit and use a coupon code podcast to save you $50 off the ticket. Hope to see you in Denver. There are two kinds of real estate investors. Those who have reviewed their insurance and those who think that they have. Most don't realize their coverage wasn't built for how they actually invest.

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dot com slash BPod. That's N-R-E-I-G.com slash B-Pod. Most investors spend more time chasing deals than reviewing their insurance. But a quick coverage check can be fast, easy, and one of these smartest ways to protect and even improve your property's cash flow. As the months get colder, frozen pipes, icy walkways, and seasonal wear and tear can increase the likelihood of claims. And traditional insurance companies aren't always built to handle these claims quickly or smoothly. That's why more real estate investors are turning too steadily.

They focus exclusively on landlords, whether it's a single-family rental, a burr-builders risk policy, or midterm holiday guests. You get fast quotes, flexible coverage, and protection for property damage, liability, and even loss of rental income. Now is the perfect time to review your rates and coverage. Get a quote in minutes at biggerpockets.com slash landlord insurance. Steadily, landlord insurance designed for the modern investor. All right, we're about ready to jump into us. Now, quick disclaimer, I do want to put this out there. Ferris, who's our guest today.

He is actually a JV. We're doing a JV deal together right now. So I just want to make that aware of like, we're doing a big apartment deal together. So if you're wondering, that's not why he's on the show. He's got a cool story. And he's super good at explaining topics. But I don't want people to think that I brought him on and didn't mention that he's a partner of mine.

So Ferris is a partner of mine. Kind of like David Green here. It's a partner of mine in like about a hundred different things in life. In crime. Partner and crime. Partner and fighting crime, baby. We fight crime together. You're getting triangled.

What do you, my geometric partner? You triangle me all the time. Ooh, I like it. Geometric Turner. That might be my new nickname. I'm going to give myself. All right. Forget Beardy Brandon.

We're going geometric Turner. With that said, time to get into today's show. And hey, if you're watching this on YouTube, don't forget to the little thumbs up like below the video and subscribe to our channel for more amazing podcasts like this. Ferris, welcome to the Bigger Pockets podcast, man. Good to have you here. I'm glad to be here.

Thank you very much, Brandon. Yeah. Well, let's jump. to your story a little bit. I mean, you and I hung out in person there down in Houston, Texas a couple weeks ago. We really hit it off and I was like, I got to get this guy in the show because you have a cool story. So how did you get into the world of real estate? Why real estate investing? What were you doing before that? And then kind of where did the inspiration come from? Yeah. So I mean, for me, you know, my background software, right? I used to work at Microsoft,

had a software kind of company in high school. Then after Microsoft had a software company. And really, you know, I was looking to invest in something. And believe it or not, I started listening to the Bigger Pockets podcast many, many years ago. And really, you know, I'm the kind of guy that I don't listen to a lot of podcasts, read a lot of books and hop in and figure it out. So I pounded down probably 100 episodes the first, you know, three months and, you know, really got inspired. And, you know, bought my first purchase, you know, really a fourplex down the road from our office now.

And so bought that, got a good taste of what multiple units looks like. And, you know, bought a bunch of houses, realized it doesn't scale and the rest is history. So I fell in love with real estate, right? It's the things that I love. It's people's numbers systems. So that's maybe the short answer. I'm happy to give you more if you want to know. So I want to jump into the fourplex then.

Tell us about that. Where did you find it? What were you feeling like when you got it? Walk us through that. I was still in Seattle at the time and literally, you know, I got inspired to go buy a four place. I knew I was going to move back to Houston and did all the research, found a deal, ran all the numbers.

And again, I'm a very numbers guy. And I just called up a random agent that I found on bigger pocket because I'm like, hey, I've already found the deal. I just need someone to transact it for me. And boom, lo and behold, being out there. And my dad thought I was nuts because I never bought any real. did in my life and, you know, bought that fourplex and did very well with it on the long run, but it was nice for me because it gave me a taste of what having more than one unit looks like,

right? That's kind of the big thing. So, and coincidentally, it's literally a mile and a half from our office brand. So, you know, we almost drove right by it. I didn't point it out to you. That's funny. All right. So walk us, you said you bought some houses as well. What were the big family and the single family for you? Like, what did you find and why did you get attracted to the multifamily? Because I know you do a lot of big multifamily today, but what scared you away from the family long term. Yeah, so, you know, maybe to give it a little bit more to the store. I bought that fourplex in Houston because that's what everybody was talking about, but there's not a lot of fourplexes and duplexes in Houston. That's part of the problem, right? Houston's a very, you know,

we grow out, not up right here in Houston. And so really didn't find me any more fourplexes. So I bought a bunch of houses. Skeldine, I did, I think it had 16 closes in the first year, year and a half. So did a lot and then realize it just doesn't scale very well, right? It's not a business where you can have a dedicated team until you get much bigger, right? And so I didn't really like that the fact of it and you're really it's a numbers game right you know you get one hit and sure you just bought a house but that house is a 200,000 dollar house right you can't get me you can't grow much more quickly and that said I was going to go do my own small apartment you know I'd already kind of got a taste of the fourplex I saw the power of that one because guess what a tenant leaves

there's still three more people they're paying rent right and as long as two people were there you know that that house would have that fourplex would have been mine for free in the long run and so um you know did that and then yeah just learn about apartments and luckily I did not win that very first deal that I had offered on. It's a 32 unit in Conroe here and, you know, kind of near Houston. And it's kind of a funny story because I didn't win that deal. Well, fast forward three years later, right? Obviously, I buy much larger apartment complex. It's now. And that broker, you know, I had asked him about a deal that he had for sale. I think it was a $70 million. And he asked me, he's like, how do you go from the 32 to the $70 million? And I asked him

the same thing. I'm like, how do you go from listing the $32 to listing that $70 million deal. So it's kind of funny how things come full circle. It is. So why, I guess you said earlier, you said, I'm glad I didn't get that 32 unit. Why? Because I would have, I would have been stuck with it, right? Meaning I would have focused all my time and effort in that. And yeah, I would have done well with it, right, but it's not a, that's a get rich yourself kind of business, but it's not scaling and building a business. I love, I'm an entrepreneur. I love building businesses. I love building teams. I love building cultures, right? That is just building well for me. Whereas, and I would have probably spent two years with that deal and not really opened my eyes up and learned more about

syndication and kind of started disrupt equity, right? So that's maybe the reason why I'm happy I did not win that deal. Dude, I'm so glad you brought that up. So this is an important distinction in real estate, right? There are, and in fact, you know, the book that we're launching here at the end of July, the multifamily millionaire is in two volumes, volume one and two. And people ask, what's the difference between them? Well, volume one is all about like the first thing you said there, which is like the small deals, I'm in it, I'm getting rich because I'm involved, right? Like, that's a different approach. Like the way you buy a duplex, a five unit, a 20 unit is very, very different than the way that, for example, we're buying a 530 unit, right? It's a completely

different game. Same business and still real estate, but like you would never plan on picking up a toilet and moving it because you can't get at the plunge right. You never do that in a 500 unit. Like you just, it's a different, it's really it's a mindset game, right? And it absolutely is, right? One's a me sport. One's a team sport. Right. And so, you know, getting past that and not understanding that piece of it, I think it's crucial people. And I think that's what that's what I love about it, right? That's why I'm glad I didn't win the smaller one because again, you know, it's fun to do things with a team, with people and, you know, build entire companies out of it if that's what your thing is, right? So, you know,

I'm on the younger side, right? And so I still got many more years in me and I want to really build a, you know, a company with a track record and reputation. So that's kind of why I'm happy I win that direction. Yeah, that's cool, man. So question for you. Do you think people, I got a lot of questions for you? It's a podcast. Hey, me with them. Get them all. Do you think people should start is there a case where somebody should start with the big, like start with the 50 million or 60 million or whatever that, like, you know, 20 million even? Like, should they start there or should everyone go through the fourplex, the single families, the 10 unit, and then scale up? What are your thoughts on that? I mean, so you learn a lot, right?

I mean, Brandi, you know this yourself, right? You learn a lot changing those toilets or dealing with those contractors. And you start to learn about quality, right? in people and how shady or unshady people can be. So I think those are valuable lessons that you learn. I would answer the question as it depends, right? If you are doing a larger deal with qualified people that have done many of them that know the ins and outs, that's okay, right? You're there to learn. But if you're going to go do that yourself, I mean, I think unless it's your own money and you don't really care if you lose it all, right? I think it's reckless to kind of go at it,

you know, with other people's money, really. It's kind of a big part of how I look at it. So I think it's valuable to learn a lot about closing real estate, about operating real estate about even transacting and selling real estate, right? And what does a buyer look for? And what does a seller look for? Right? Those are two different parties, two different people and kind of putting yourself in that mind thought. And sure, you can do a larger apartment. It's all this to what you said, Brian, it's all the same thing just happens to be scaled out, right? And with teams involved instead of individuals. So going on on that same topic of the bigger deals versus a smaller, Maybe you can dive into, like, what are some of the skill sets that you have to develop in order to do that bigger, those bigger deals, the scalable ones?

And you mentioned team. It's a team sport. I agree. It's not a me sport. It's a team sport. So what are those things you got to be good at? Now, the very first thing you got to be good at is delegating, right? You know, and I think a lot of people really struggle that. It's not about you doing everything, even though you can, right? And on constantly my business, I pause and I think about, okay, what is the thing that is taking the most of my time that I could bring someone in that is better at it than me that can really micromanage that and do it more successfully, right? And so I think that's a huge skill that you have to learn, whereas whenever you're buying a smaller residential house, a fourplex, it's all you. You're wearing every single hat, right? That's one piece. The other thing I'll say actually is structuring, right? I think where you get really successful with real estate on the larger side is being able to get creative in the structuring, understanding the dead, understanding the seller and their situation, right, and really being able to get creative, right? You know, people talk about that on the residential side, really on kind of the wholesaling front, but it really has kind of a multiple on the commercial side, right? And being strategic, being smart, and knowing that, I think is a huge skill set that you learn over time because it starts to open up.

more doors. So whenever we analyze a deal today, it's very different than whenever we analyzed the deal four years ago. Right, right now we literally have a checkbox of different ways that we could structure this thing to make it possibly work and figure out what is the way to reduce the most risk, but get the most gain. So I think that's a huge piece of it. Yeah, the reason that it's much harder to use creative financing on smaller deals, specifically for and under is really the financing. Most people are using a Fannie Mae Freddie Mac loan to get into that, which is great because they have these low down payment options if you want a house hack and they have really low interest It's easy to originate those loans.

Well, they're available to a lot of people, I should say. The problem is because they're done at scale, the lenders have to comply with these Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac guidelines that are very not flexible. It has to fit in this box so they can go sell that loan. And that's why you don't have a lot of the stuff that you hear Brandon and I talk about and Farras is going to talk about with smaller deals is because the lender won't allow for that.

But when you get into commercial lending, everything opens up. You're not held into that box. And you also have more moving pieces, which means there's more stuff you can play with where you move this piece over here and move on to that. Is that similar to what you found in your investing? No, absolutely, right. Even the simplest example. I want a seller to keep money in the deal. You can't pull that off of the Fannie and Freddie, right?

That's a simple concept, but you can't do it. Whereas right now we're doing a deal in downtown Atlanta. It's an office to apartment conversion. And that deal only works because the seller is going to keep a significant chunk of money in the deal. They believe in the story. They believe in everything. they did not have the rest of the team to get that deal done, right? But we're able to make that deal work, and it's an awesome deal because the seller's

going to keep a significant amount of equity. Us and our investor are bringing a small piece, and guess what? We sit sister-sister. So it's reduced risk for everybody, right? The seller is obviously the one that believes in it the most. They're keeping the, you know, putting their money where their mouth is. But doing those kinds of things is a way you can unlock a, you know, really potential a deal.

And so that's maybe the biggest thing. And maybe the last thing I'll add, which kind of ties to this brand, and David is just underwriting and really understanding the intimacies of underwriting, right? In the end, you know, it's all numbers, right? I'm a numbers guy. I'm a spreadsheet guy. But really being able to look at a deal kind of quickly sniff it out and understand, hey, what potential could there be? And then figure how can I back into it creatively to make that deal potentially work, right? And nine times out of ten, it doesn't pencil out, but sometimes you find that last piece of it, right? And oh, can I add one more, Brandon? Please, please do. Please do. Networking. That is probably the biggest thing that is huge

in the multifamily world, I think that is. And I regret this, right? Whenever I was in, you know, whenever I was still at Microsoft or even have my software company, I wish I was better at building my audience and networking with people. I've met people all over,

amazing people, but I did not follow up with them or not keep up with them, right? Whereas multifamily, it's a whole other sport. And so I think that is probably actually, if I was to say, if I was to say the number one thing

that can differentiate a person is a person that knows how to network themselves probably more than anything else, right? Because you can bring in other good people for each piece of it, right? But if you know how to network, you know how to get out there, meet people,

for meaningful relationship, I think that's huge. Yeah, that's such a good point. There's a bunch of stuff there I think we could unpack. But yeah, like networking, for example, like the fact that, I mean, if you think about here's the long picture shortened down into about three sentences. But I went to a real estate conference, right? I think it was best ever conference with Joe Farrell's event. And that's what inspired me to get into the large, like to change my game from the

me game to the team game, right? So that's what shifted it, was being around those people. Then I started this Maui master class, mastermind here in Maui, where people came out. And the first year I did it, Brian Murray shows up, right? And Brian Murray and I became good friends. And we ended up starting open door capital together. And then from there, Brian introduced me to you guys. Well, that's funny.

So then I'll tell you my side of the story, right? You know, I joined a mastermind. People say, oh, why do you spend that much money on a mastermind? You go out there, you're just hanging out with people. Well, guess what? I had that mastermind. I met Brian. And then I happened to sit with him to dinner on the bus on the shuttle over.

so we kind of got to have a real meaningful conversation, and now we're partnering with you guys on a big deal. So, you know, you never know who you're going to meet. And, you know, you have to explain that to people. Even to my wife, you know, she's like, you can't possibly meet more people. I'm like, no, you never know who's out there, who's looking for what. Do I have a solution to their problem? Do they have a solution to my problem, right?

And can we all grow together? And I think it's really getting out of that mindset that it's not just about you building. Well, it's about a team building kind of growing together. Yeah. That's a really good point. Yeah, you know, sometimes people ask me about different masterminds of a part of, like, for example, go abundance, or my Maui Mastermind or the master class stuff we do.

Any of that, is like, is it worth? I do always get your money's worth. And I'm like, well, it's like, you might go to an event and have a great time and then go home and nothing might have a come from it. And you'd be like, well, that was a waste of five or $10,000, whatever it was. But if you went to four of them, and out of four of them, three of them, you know, you didn't get any, like, tangible money-making value. But one of them, you met a partner who ended up helping you buy $100 million

of real estate. It's like, oh, well, that kind of, so, like, you can't look at it in a, like, did I get my exact return on a event? from this event that I went to. It's a lifestyle, right? Networking connections reaching out. It's a lifestyle. Does it pay back?

Yes. It totally is. I think that's a very good way to put it. It's a lifestyle. And to your point, it's more about, I just look at the caliber of the people there, right? That's the value. Then it's for me, it's up to me to go fish that group and, you know, see if there's any connection, right? Maybe I don't connect with anyone, like you said.

And, you know, something doesn't fizzle them. Maybe you meet someone really cool. And so it's all networking and that's how you can grow, really, right? So, hey, David, can I ask you this question? Because David's, like, David's like, I don't know, I got to have a good analogy for it, but you're very like under the radar, amazing networker. What I mean by that is like, David's not the guy that's out there like passing out business cards and flashy.

Like, David, you're usually in a corner having a deep conversation with someone and then you end up doing business with that person or people walk away from that conversation going, David just changed my life because that guy. Like, you're like the under the radar, like one of the best networkers that I know at these events. So I'm wondering, David, what's your secret? That's a really good question. I think part of it is just that's who I am. My personality is I tend to go an inch wide and a mile deep. So if I try to play the role of what I think a network are supposed to be, which is this idea we have in our head of someone just out passing out business cards like candy at Halloween and talking to everyone, it won't work. You get a business card. You get a business card. You get a, yeah. Yeah. Like those people give, just as a side note, I think business cards are actually a terrible way to network. Yeah. It's just no, I get, I put it on my pocket. I throw it away. I think everyone does too. You're way better off to get a follow on social media or somewhere you can keep connection. But what I'm looking for is who could I actually benefit? Who could I actually help in their business or in their life or with whatever there's going on? Because I don't think I can help everybody. So if I'm trying to network with people that I don't believe I even can help, I

off the bat and being disingenuous and I'm missing the point of what you're trying to do, which is to bring mutual value. So the reason I kind of sit back is I like to look and get to know people, what problems are they having? Can I help them? If I identify, that's a human being that I can help in some way, then you have that conversation. And during that conversation, it comes up if they are willing to help me or if they could help me or whatever. That's why, I mean, what you're really talking about is like making friends or being a good person, but we throw the word network onto it and all of a sudden people are like, I don't like that. Well, first off, for being just a great networker, David, I'm disappointed.

We haven't networked and met at an event, so we're going to fix that here soon. But, I mean, you know, and to hit the point that we're saying, networking is not about just giving out a lot of business cards. Some people really think that, and we all know those people. They just come up hanging a business card and walk away, and I'm like, great, what do I have? I have some starter from my fireplace. I mean, you know, I got no value from that. And I really like what you said, David, around, you know, really looking at is how can I add value to them, right? And I think that's where it starts because if you can add value to them, they are more receptive to having that conversation.

engaging, right? And it's about building meaningful relationships that, you know, you maybe spark something and then you can follow up offline. I think that's, to me, at least what networking is about. And so the people that come at it as just, hey, who do I need from here? Well, you know, you might not find anyone, but really there are people that might know someone or might have other ways to really add value if they had heard what you could do first, right? So. Yeah. Yeah, that's really good. Really good stuff. All right. So you mentioned, you know, the networking thing's super important, especially if we want to get bigger and get into real estate. small time. You're doing your first deal. You're trying to buy a duplex. Just going to local meetups.

So now that COVID's kind of winding down a little bit, hopefully it stays down. You know, meetups are opening back up again. Conn's opening back up. B.P. Con's happening soon. There's lots of conferences going to be happening because everyone missed out on last year. So like I just my advice to people listening is get out there. Even if you're scared, if you're not good at talking with people, you're not an introvert, you're not an extrovert. Just go to these events. And like David said, go like don't worry. freak out about meeting lots of people. Like, aim for like three.

If you meet three people total in the entire four, three, two-day event, whatever it is, and you meet three people that you have a good conversation with. Like, I'd call that a win. And if you do that every year, like, you're going to build a good relationship with people. And don't be scared. They want a network just as much as you want to network. So it's a mutual thing. I think people really forget that.

And, you know, and maybe to drive the point home brand, I mean, I little met my partner, Ben, at Amito, right? That's how I met him. And, you know, fast forward. We started this company. And now we have multiple companies, right? all because I happened to go to that meetup and get to really know the guy. So.

Yeah. Actually, I met, I met Ryan Murdoch, who now lives here in Hawaii next to me and his bond of my partners. Ryan and I met at a meetup, which is, yeah, funny. Actually, David, you and I met at a Go Abundance Mastermind weekend. So crazy. Like how much. Mid person.

Mid person, yeah. Our first, like, bro date. Yeah, that's it. That's it. However, even more, you came on the show because Hal Elrod introduced you to me. That's, yes. And how Elrod knew you from the Go Abundance Mastermind. So it's, again, almost every like, yeah, relationship that I have, I feel like today came from some sort of networking event.

I first learned that principle when I was trying to get my first job. And I went and I drove all over town dropping off applications at every single place I could pass. I probably dropped off 50 applications. It was like months of time. And then I was complaining to my friend about it. And he went, oh, I think we're hiring at Basker Rob is I can get you a job there. And I had a job in three days. And I just, that's how the world works.

And so like going against the grain makes it very difficult. I don't know you worked at Baskin Robbins. It's my first job. That's funny. Oh, so you were like a classy version of what I did. You're like, oh, that's cool. Your first car was a Honda Civic. Yeah.

I had a Maserati. You don't sing for tips? I mean, come on. I do. Yeah, so that's why it's so important that the impression that you leave people with is that you're a good person because things get done through what people say about others. Yeah. People want to work with people they enjoy working with.

Period. Yes. That's so true. Man, that's so true. Like, people want to work with people they enjoy working with. I always say, like, people want to sell the people they like. They want to buy from people they like. They want to buy from people they like.

Like, if you just remember that and be likable and like stop trying to do it, like, David said, stop trying to pull the networking word, like, just be like, make friends with people. Like, it's amazing what happens. All right. So, all right. So you mentioned the networking, huge skill for any real estate investor to be focused on. And by the way, I do want to say this as well, all those skills that you laid out a minute ago about like you know the networking and the underwrite like those are the same skills you have to be

good at the small the small deals as well but just on the small deal sometimes you do got to be good or you you try to be good at changing the toilet or you know painting the wall those are added skills but you don't need to i mean you like david doesn't paint or move toilets and david has a you know a portfolio of smaller deals but anyway yeah so i just want to warn people don't just turn this off because you're like well i'm just i'm not buying big deals so but i want to go back to underwriting for a little bit. A lot of people want to get into multifamily. And the word underwriting just sounds overwhelming. Like, you're like, wait, whoa, whoa, I know how to analyze, but underwriting, what is that? What is a whole new thing? Can you explain what underwriting is? And then can me walk us through like

your process? Like, what do you do to define the right multifamily investment opportunity? How do you know there's a bad one and that you should stay away from it? Absolutely. So underwriting is no different than what the lenders do, right? It's called underwriting because you are assessing risk. That is what everybody is doing, right? Whether you are an investor or you're a lender, right? You are assessing. risk. And all it means is analyzing a deal and figuring out where it performs today, what you possibly have to do to get it perform better, and what that performance looks like and what it takes to go from A to B. That's in a nutshell what it is. Don't let it scare you, right? So let's just

take a very, very simple. Let's not even talk about apartments. Let's say you're going to buy a pizza shop, right? You know how much it costs to make a pizza. You know how many pizzas they've been selling on average for the past, you know, 100 years, right? And so therefore, you know what your income and your expenses are. Now, you know that, hey, if I can upsell 10% of my customers with a Coke, well, now my income can increase, but maybe my expenses, you know, stays about the same, right? And so now I've created more value. I've created more income. Now, apply that to apartments. Same exact thing, right? I know where the deal collects and where what the expenses are, right? We know what our taxes are. We know what the insurance are. We know what our repairs and maintenance are.

There's a lot of things. And again, for those of you that look under, right, go get educated. There's tons of content out there between, you know, this podcast, other podcasts, books, right? Brandon's got a book coming out here as well, right? There's a lot of information out there. Go get educated. We're in a world where it's easier to learn anything than it's ever been, right? And so there's a set of expenses that we know. There's a set of income that we know.

And ultimately, we're saying, okay, based on, you know, the income of the expenses and whatever debt that I have, and that's where we talked about getting creative, right, how much cash can I produce for this thing, right? And meaning, if I get the thing 100% finance, let's say I bring $1 to the and that's all I had to bring to that deal. Well, guess what? If all I did was make $1, I've made 100% return that year, right? And so you're really looking at how much money that I need to bring based on the structure

that we have, based on the income and the expenses, and how much profits that generate. Hopefully that simplified it. Not too crazy. I mean, you're at a high level, happy to dig in. Sure. Yeah. And I mean, like, you can go real in-depth on analysis and you can have a 40-tab spreadsheet and all that.

And eventually, if you're trying to get into the big deals, you might get there. But in reality, it all can kind of boil down to, yeah, how much comes in, how much goes out, and understanding those numbers, like, not just like, what taxes are this? Well, what are taxes going to be next year? You got to make some assumptions maybe a little bit, but you can, you know, dive into that information. And the more you know your area and your market, the easier those become. So, yeah, underwriting is basically that income expenses and then what's it look like in the future. Yeah, and as you underwrite more and more becomes secondhand. Like I like to joke with my partner, Ben, that I can smell a good deal, right?

Like a little like glance at it, I can tell, hey, okay, there's some opportunity here. Let's go spend the time and effort to get the team and go decipher everything and pull quotes, right? But as you do more and more of it, I can quickly say, hey, this payroll on this property is $1,600 a door. It could be $1,250 because that's what we have in our portfolio in Houston, right? Like, I know that number off the top of my head. Tax the same thing. Hey, the taxes are here. Well, I know Harris County, which is Houston, is a very aggressive county.

They're probably going to get us to 95% of what we buy it at. So that's where we need to assess the tax. And if it comes in lower, great. We just made some extra money. But it's those kinds of rules of thumb that you start to build as you do more of it. So definitely get out there, get educated. It's not that scary. Can I take one second to comment on this concept of projecting for the future? Working with so many investors with the David Green team and just talking to people that we come across, I think this is one of the biggest sticking points that stops people from getting started investing. There's this need the human brain has to understand exactly what's going to happen. And that that alone stops people from getting into investing because they don't know what to expect. But even when you've accepted that and you're in the game, it stops you from buying deals when it doesn't work on day one. Now, for a long time, we've told people, don't buy anything that doesn't cash flow on day one. And you can't expect any kind of appreciation. And that has been sort of like the, what's the word that you're looking for, just the knee jerk response or the classical advice, whatever it is.

What's that? Safe answer. Yes. The safe answer. And that is true in certain conditions and for certain people. If you don't have a lot of money that, yes, you want it to cash flow. We don't want you to lose your property. Or if you don't know what the economy is going to do, that becomes even more important.

It could lose value so you want it to cash flow. But in many situations like Brandon, you and I talk about, the rules of the game start to change. When things like inflation creep up and your money is losing value by not investing it and not just the property's values appreciating, but the rents are appreciating as well, it becomes foolish. to not have some form of projection that taxes are going to be raised, rents are going to be raised. Expenses could be going up. The wage you have to pay your handyman or your maintenance person should be increasing just like everything else. And I see so many people that get scared by that unknown. I don't know what it's going to be five years from now. So I just won't do anything. And it's probably the worst thing that people could do. So I just want to give encouragement that

from experienced investors, it is okay to not know exactly what rents or expenses are going to be in three, four, or five years from now. It's not okay to have zero idea where they're trending. You should have some idea of what to expect, but you're never going to know altogether. I think a lot of people start looking at multifamily deals and they look at what it is right now and they say, oh, I can't buy that. That's only a 4% return. Whereas the three of us look at that, we say in five years, that's going to be like

a 17% return. Plus, I'm going to have all this benefit. Plus I have this value ad. That's a clear great deal. And I just see a lot of people that don't get in the game because of that. So I wanted to kind of highlight it is okay to understand that the way your property performs in year one is not going to be the same as it is in year five. Is that similar to the experience that each of you have had in your portfolios? Absolutely.

I think you hit on a lot of good things that kind of maybe to highlight a little bit, right? A, it's a numbers game. Not every, you know, don't fall in love with the deal first of all, right? Like the numbers are the numbers. They speak for themselves. But to what you're saying, David, it's about, you know, really assessing enough risk to be comfortable with it. but you're not going to know everything, right? And really, even at the high level, right?

So not to get too political, a ton of money got pumped into the economy, right? Right now, CDEs and 10 years are worthless, right? They're pennies. They don't generate any money. So even if someone has looked, you mentioned a 4% return, David, right? That is so low, but that is probably 20x what they can get in a 10 year, right? So it's actually very attractive for bigger money, so you have to kind of look at the bigger picture.

So to someone else, maybe that's a really good return. And again, if the deal checks a lot of your boxes and, Maybe it's not what you wanted on the exit because you're being ultra-conservative. Well, think about the bigger picture, right? And to your point, I mean, you know, every deal I didn't buy as a deal or regret not having not bought, right? But, I mean, it's about assessing risk, right? And really, and that goes to a lot of things. Can you structure it in a way to reduce risk, right?

On the deal we're doing now, we are going in significantly lower leverage than what we could, literally to the tune of $8 million less leverage to reduce risk, right? We don't know what the future holds, but we know we cash flow and we reduce risk. So it's a safe investment, right? It's about, that's what I love about real estate. Again, it goes back to what I said earlier. It's about getting creative, about structuring things. And can you reduce risk while also keeping the upside that you want, right?

Up to the level. And the majority of your risk will be at the beginning of the deal. The first couple years is when you have the biggest degree of risk. And so people often get like, oh, all this stuff could go wrong. I don't want to do it. And they just forget, it's not going to be that way for the first 30 years or the next 30 years. Just like the first workout you get is hard. It sucks.

you don't get very much of a return on it. But if every workout was like that, we would never work out. I see that all the time where, like with surfing, right? Right before you catch that wave, you expend so much energy. It's so stressful trying to make sure that you put yourself in the right position. You get enough speed. You're paddling really hard. Then you got to stand up.

But once you're up, man, you go really far. And I found real estate investing is very similar to that. But the new people just focus on that very initial part and they get scared. Yeah. And I want to mention one quote that I think I heard on this point. podcast. It's real estate is not a get-rich quick scheme, right? It's a get-rich slow thing, but you do build wealth over time. And so really, to your point, that first year is always the worst year. I mean, once you, you know, because you don't even know what you just stepped into, right?

Like, yeah, you know, the numbers, but you don't know where the bodies are buried on that property, so to speak, right? And that's where, you know, it's what Brandon said a little bit earlier, right, about know who you're buying from. You want to work with people that you like working with. So on the deal we're doing now, we know we're buying from institutional. They're great folks. we know that there's not going to be a lot of skeletons in the closet, right? Versus we've bought in deals from people that we probably, that should have never owned an apartment, right?

And so that first year is whenever all of this comes to ahead and you start to figure it all out and, you know, challenge after challenge after challenge, but then it all summers down and now you know where your kind of baseline is to grow. Well, and there's one more thing I'll throw in there about, like, people who are afraid and they're like, well, I don't want to take a risk. And it supports what David, what you were just saying. But like the first few years, yes, are risky.

but we're not investing for a year or two, right? We're investing for a decade, two decades, for our kids, for our grandkids, right? So when I make a big investment, yeah, we like, for example, like, Ferris, the deal that you were doing together right now, right? Like, we don't know what five to ten years are going to look like in Houston, right? I don't know for sure. But I can see the trends of the population moving there, a million people going to be moving there, right, in the next few years.

I can see the lack of housing that they're building. I can see, I can see these data points that help offset some of the risk as well. So it's not like we're sitting there, like real estate investors just making a guess. We're saying, look, what does this mean in a world where they're printing money like it's monopoly money and they're not enough building going on for the amount of people who want to buy? And like, what does all this mean? I think it supports that rent's going to go up pretty dramatically and supply and demand is going to make property values go even higher over the next decade. Might we see a blip in there?

Of course. But long term, I don't think any of us believe that a property in any of these major cities is going to be worth less in 20 years from now than it is today. Exactly, right? So again, I tell people it's about assessing risk and squeezing the risk out, right? And so even to the points that you made, the risk that you do have, oh, is there a blip in sometime in the next few years? Great.

There's ways to solve for that, right? It's a problem. You solve for it and you move on. So as long as you believe in the bigger picture, I mean, it's absolutely kind of the way to play it. I think that's really the point I wanted to highlight, Brandon, that you were saying is it's okay to let go of needing to understand if I do A, B will happen. That is not the way this works.

And experienced people have that fluidity where they are making decisions based up that. And the last point I'll make for a move on is when Blackstone was buying every single house that they could possibly get their hands on, there was a lot of people criticizing them. Oh, that doesn't even cash flow. They don't know what they're getting into. These guys are, they're idiots, right? As if we're smarter than the brightest minds and the biggest hedge fund that's ever existed. And now, like, they didn't care. They just kept buying.

And now Blackstone looks like complete geniuses that probably made the smartest move to any come. And we're all trying to buy from them like Ferris was just saying. So I just got a deal from them like two weeks ago. There you go. So like when you hear, you know, your neighborhood real estate investor that owns two properties at the pub talking about how dumb someone is for buying a house or just consider that there's people that take a longer term horizon that don't know exactly how it's going to work out that do very, very well compared to the people that operate from. that. I need to know exactly what to expect. Yeah. You know, I once heard Jocko Willink say something about like in the military, maybe it was in one of his books, but he's like in the military and you're going into a situation, you don't know the other variables. You don't know who's hiding around

the corner of all that. All you know is what you know, right? So, but a leader takes what they know and like this is a situation as I see it and they're decisive. They make a decision. They move. Right. And then they get to a new spot and they say, okay, now what's the situation that we know right now, now we're going to make a decision and we're going to move again. And so so many people in real estate, again, like you were saying, David, they look and they can't see down the road 10 yards or, you know, a thousand feet, a mile, whatever. So they just like stop. They don't do anything. But like if you treat it like a military operation, we cannot know everything. What do the facts say right now based on what we know and make a decision, be decisive, go for it, but then correct course along

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And what kind of, what's your portfolio look like? And then we'll kind of unpack it. Yeah, so right now we have about a little under 2,000 units currently. We've also done four deals full cycle. And we have another, I think, three or four that we're selling this year. So by then you'll have about eight units, eight properties full cycle. Then we'll probably be at maybe closer to 1,600 units because we're selling off a lot. So that's kind of stuff that we found, but, you know, we own and operate as well.

So, yeah, so full cycle, meaning just that you bought it, fixed it up. Did your, did your value add? Exactly. So, you know, like I said, we went into Atlanta a couple years ago. We've done very well in Atlanta and just, you know, we're getting on solicit offers at crazy price points and we're opportunistic. So we'll take that. We'll take that, we'll take that by when we can. I love that.

All right. So let's go, let's go to how you got, because we talked about the early years, talked about the 30-some unit that you missed out on that you're glad you didn't. What was the first big deal that you did? The first big deal I did was actually an Atlanta deal. So my partner, Ben had done a deal. For me, you know, I was going to go do this deal regardless and that's really the deal that we built up our partner. on, right? And so, you know, for me, it's what I've learned, right, I left Microsoft with the vision of building software in old industries like real estate. What I've since learned is

the real opportunities actually use the stuff that is the norm in tech to make us a lot more effective, efficient than everyone else, right? And that goes from asset management to even how we market ourselves, to even, you know, what we do on the property management side, right? And using all the tools and systems and processes to just really help to kind of what David said earlier, right, assess the real risk and understanding of the lay of the land. And so, you know, that's maybe kind of the answer there. Cool. So let's, let's walk through that. How did, like, what was that feeling buying a, how many units was the first one? 99 unit deal. All right, 99 unit deal. Like, was there 99 units in Atlanta, nine down units.

And it was a deal that, honestly, the current owners should have never owned. I mean, you know, they're just guys that stumbled into an apartment, right? But I learned a lot from that deal, right? I learned about how many skeletons can you find in the closet, right? And really, you know, but it was a challenging deal. And we worked through it, right? And that's where I like to say I got my one of my four steps to a PhD in lending, right? I learned about how bad a lender can be, right? They were on that deal was really a loan to own shop.

They said that it was the best deal, best turnaround they've ever seen. We literally took a rough deal in an area and turned it into the diamond and, you know, turned it into a family-friendly place, right? Where literally people came up to us and said, thank you very much. you've completely made this place, you know, you've transformed this place into a place we are happy to be at. But we learned a lot, right, from, you know, bringing on security. We took down occupancy to give you some metrics, right? 80% is what we bought it at on paper.

We brought occupancy down to 40%. Then we brought it back up to 95%. We had nine down units. We put about a million dollars into this property. And, you know, ultimately made a really strong exit for our investors on that deal, right? I mean, that was a deal that, you know, we think we got to about 25, 30% IRA. So it did phenomenal on that deal, but it was a hard deal. And so I like the joke, that's the deal where my partner, Ben lost all his hair, right? So, you know, it was a hard deal. And, you know, this is where it's, but to what David said earlier, right? We assessed the risk. We knew the things to be aware of, right? You get in there and there's more challenges than you expect. But it's about having the gusto to go solve one problem after another, after another, and work through them, right? And ultimately, if your business plan was reasonable, you can hit it and deliver. And it's like that with everything else in life too, okay?

You start training in jujitsu. There's risk. You could get hurt. So what they do is they say, we're not going to have two white belts go together. We're going to have a person monitoring what these people are doing. We're going to see that person's out of control. Let's stop it. This doesn't mean you stop doing martial arts, but you assess risk.

You put mats in there. So we're not slamming our heads on concrete all the time, right? Like when you're learning how to drive a car, it's very risky. So we put an instructor in there with you. We make you pass test. We go really slow. When you show you can do well, you go do more. Everything in life is like that. We're not saying something unique to real estate.

Like, oh, there's risk and you just got to be okay with it. Like, there's risk in every single thing we're doing. And we are naturally looking for ways to lower risk, which tends to be the most in the very beginning. Like we were saying earlier, that's when your risk profile is highest. So if you're the person that can just make peace with that and get comfortable with the fact that, yes, there's risk, who cares? That's how life works. I will take these steps to limit where I can get hurt with risk. And then as I start picking up momentum, you start worrying less and less about risk. And things start to get smoother and smoother. And then you start to worry about the stuff that we're talking about today, building a team,

finding skill sets that are different than yours so that you can scale. Seeing angles other people don't see. I'm sure on that big deal that you just mentioned, to bring it from 80 to 40 would have terrified most people. Oh, yeah. But you went into it knowing that could happen. And here's our plan for how we're going to survive that stage. I mean, was there a specific plan you can share for why you were comfortable going to 40%?

occupancy. Well, that's funny. We did plan to get down to 40. So I'll tell you the thing we didn't plan for. It goes back to that lender. You know, whenever you're at 40% occupancy, trust me, people, you're operating in the red. You are losing more money each month. Your goal is to get out of that and get it back up to 60, 70 is probably where you at least break even. And on that deal, the thing we did not account for was that lender essentially intentionally trying to see if we default. That was a little, in hindsight, we should have learned more about the lender. You think all lenders are you created equal or they're not. Trust me, I've learned the ins announced We've seen the good, the bad, the ugly, and all the different deals we've done.

On that deal, the lender, and I'm not going to mention any names, but they intentionally, basically, they were out there. They said, we love the property. We love what we've done with it. They know that we did a draw request, right? So the way, for those of that don't know, right, in multifamily, whenever you're doing a big rehab, usually the lender holds onto the money. You do the work, and then you submit a request.

They fund you back the money. Well, on this deal, we submitted the request, and the lender basically said, you know what? No, we're not going to fund that. And they started making up excuses as to things they wanted us to do, even to the point where they said if you do ABC, we'll fund you, why? And a month later, we got ABC done, and they're like, oh, our investors didn't agree with us. And ultimately, Ben and I look at each other like, so why did you tell us to do ABC, right? They're intentionally, the thing we didn't plan for was them not giving us the money that they have.

That's our money. And so ultimately, Ben and I literally funded $200,000 into the deal, unjammed it, got it, you know, out of the negative. Because we know we're operating in the red, like it's not going to help you because you can't get out of that runt. And so got it out. And like I said, got it to 95% four months later and rock and roll. So that was part of the business plan, going back to the wrist thing and just being resilient and willing to work through it, right? So how did you get lending on that?

I mean, not lending, but how did you raise money on that first deal? Because you hadn't done it. You didn't have a huge track record. You didn't have a ton of experience in the big deal. So how did you get investors to fund you? Friends and family. And Ben had done a deal too. So I had been able to leverage some of his experience, right?

But like I said, I was going to go do that deal alone. So it was, you know, what was nice about. It was 99 units, so it's not huge, but not tiny. And it was, you know, big enough that I felt like with a couple of friends, I can talk some people into buying it because it wasn't, you know, it was a, I think $1.2 million check size, right? If I remember correctly on the amount of equity we were brought to the closing. So it wasn't that much. So, you know, would you buy the property for? Would you eventually sell it for?

Yeah, so that was a deal. We bought at $39,000 a unit. We sold it for 73,000 a unit. And we could have sold it for more. But, yeah, I mean, you know, that's in 18 months. So, I mean, did very, very well in that deal. This is why I love value-ad real estate, right? Whether it's a mobile home park or an apartment complex or a shopping center.

Like, I just love value-ed. Can you explain to those who maybe have never heard that term before? What the heck is value at? And why does it just work so well sometimes? Yeah, so let's start with how commercial real estate is valued, right? So the problem with houses and fourplexes, the way they're valued is you look at the other houses in the neighborhood, how much they're selling for. That's your theoretical valuation. Well, if commercial real estate is all about how much money does that generate, how profitable is it, right?

And so if I can make it more profitable, I've actually increased the value significantly as well. So value add is all about can I bring money to the table, inject money into the property, increase the income, and therefore not only increase my cash flow, but also increase the valuation, right? So let's take a very simple example. Let's say I have an empty, I have an empty lot, right? It's worth something. But now let's say I turn it into a parking lot. You know, and I stripe it and I put a little machine. Well, now I've added value.

I've spent money into the property. I've put up a machine. It's generating cash. So now we do that in apartments, right? Usually it's a combination of doing things like spending money on the interiors, making the interiors nicer, right? So the deal we're doing right now, Brandon, what's the play? The play is to do exactly what the seller did on the first floor, do it on the second floor, right?

And, you know, continue that out. So we're not having a guest that rents. We know what they've gotten already. And then on top of that, do some other things like Carports. Carports is a really easy way to add a, really you're adding in a many for the tenants and the tenants are willing to pay for that, right? Low-hanging fruit. And yes, it might only be $30 a month, but 30 times, you know, let's say you do 50 spots. Well, that's real money.

Then times that by 12 and then divide that over a cap rate and valuation. You've added $500,000, a million in value to the property. So that's maybe my short, long answer for you. I love it. You know, this is one of the examples I'll give in the mobile home park space. when we buy a mobile home park. We like, we want to fill in. Like our expertise in the mobile home store space is called infill.

We want to put a home in there that's rented. And we'll even pay and we will lose money purposely to get a home brought in. For example, let's say, you know, lady Cheryl, she rents from another person's mobile home. She owns her own home, but she rents from another park. We will pay her the cost of moving her home into our park. We will lose $10,000 sometimes to get somebody to bring their home. home in our park. And the question is, why would we do that? It's because that $10,000 loss, we will now add, let's call it, $300 every month in law rent. Well, 300 times 12 of lot rent

is, what is that, $3,600 every year? You know, on a $3,600 a year, which means in two years, three years, really, we're payback our investment. But the real key there is by adding $3,000 of annual profit to our business, that's worth about $50,000 in value to the park. So in other words, we will spend 10 to add the value of $50,000 to a park. Plus, we get paid back our money over the course of three years. So it's not a big deal. So that's like how we look at value out on the park side. And the apartment side, the same thing.

Let's say like the deal we're doing, right? We're going to remodel a unit. We're going to spend $5,000 to remodel that. unit and it's going to get an extra, let's call it, $100 in rent. Now, people are thinking, well, why does it matter to add an extra $100 in rent? That's not a lot of money. Well, across 530 units it is. But then additionally, the value created there is $1,200 a year.

Divide that over a five cap or a four cap. Like, now it gets dramatically different, which is why value at apartments are so much fun. You can give you a very simple. I literally just did the math while we're talking, right? So let's say you're in a six-cap market, right? for every dollar of revenue that you increase, right, on that property a month, you actually create $200 of value a year, right? In the valuation, so in the math I did, for those that want to validate, I did one times 12,

12 months in a year, right? So $12 generated and divide that over a six cap. That's $200. So to your point, Brandon, for every $1 you brought into that park, you know, as long as it didn't cost you more than $200, you're actually in the positive, right? Yep. Yeah, and this gets so fun. We talked about this on a recent episode we did with Sharon Letcher on the,

the podcast, the co-author of Rich Dad Portad, we talked a lot about this idea of like businesses like real estate, like commercial real estate, are valued, like you said, based on their profit. So it's a really fun game. I love this game where you get in and you buy a property, you buy a business, which is exactly what an apartment is, it's a business, you buy a business, you decrease the expenses and or increase the income. Now it's way more profitable. You make way more money. You either refinance it, pull a bunch of money into your pocket, tax-free, or you sell the thing and make a bunch of profit that way and then just turn that into the next deal. And it's, it's fun.

Yeah, exactly. Commercialists that you are buying a business. There's dedicated team, dedicated people. Let's say business, you need to treat it and run it like a business too, right? And so that's what I love about it. I like to say, like, we're serial entrepreneurs because each one's a different business. And, you know, I mean, disrupt management's 110 people now, right? I mean, that's a real group of people.

And, you know, they're on the properties, right? So it's a business. I've noticed a lot of the people listening to the podcast think when they hear this. Well, why would I be able to increase the rent or decrease the expenses if the current owner didn't? The assumption is everyone that owns real estate cares about it as much as we do who record and listen to podcasts religiously about this topic. But I'm sure, as you guys have found, most of the people that were buying real estate from have not paid attention to it in a very, very long time.

They don't want to deal with it. So the value that we're bringing is our knowledge and our time or the same. systems, like you were saying earlier, that allow us to increase, decrease the expenses, increase the rate, increase the performance of the property. And you're probably buying it from somebody who hasn't been doing that. Yeah, and actually, I'll add one more thing to that, too, right? Because people ask me this. So the deal, let's keep going down on the story, the same deal we're talking about, right? That 99 unit in Atlanta. I care a lot about it to what you said, David, right? We obviously looked over very carefully. We thought we squeezed the juice that we had, right?

Well, guess what? We only brought a million dollars in CAPX to that deal. So the amount of juice, like a squeeze out of that deal was limited by that million dollars while i sold it to the next guy and guess what he cares a lot about real estate too and so the question is why would the next guy pay the price that we sold it for right it's ultimately because he can bring a set a fresh set of capax right a new set of money and do things that we had no more money to do so while we could operate the property and cash flow and pay distributions like we were right it's actually more beneficial to get someone to pay a premium for it because they know if they bring another million or two or three whatever the business plan is, right, they can actually elevate it to even a higher level. And so sometimes it

makes sense to sell. People always ask that, why are you selling? And people ask the inverse, why is that guy selling them? And it's really the same answer, right? I'm coming into the fresh business plan. I can bring things that's current owner doesn't have, which is usually capital, right? So. Yeah, what I find is on small deals, typically, almost every small deal I have ever bought has been from a failed landlord or a distressed seller, right? Almost everything has been because a person failed at it. They gave up. But in the commercial world, that's not usually the case. You're not just buying stuff because they failed it.

I'm sure the person, Ferris, that we're buying our deal from together, like, I don't think they're looking at themselves going, oh, I failed at this deal. I'm sure they're going to make a killing off of it, right? And someday we'll make a killing off it. And the next person may, and like in the commercial world, that's just what it is.

Like people recapitalize for a number of reasons. They sell for a number of reasons. It's usually not failure. So, I mean, just go to the deal now, right? Why are they selling? That's a good question. Well, they reach the end of their fund. They're already making the profit.

and there's a clear pathway for someone else to do something. So they're selling because they have a time bomb. They have to sell. We're buying because we see a way to do value add, right? We can push the rents, great area, great deal. So it makes sense for both parties, right? It's in commercial real estate. I think people really think negotiation is about I win, you lose.

And that's not really how it works. The best deals are the ones where you structure them, I win, I win, both sides win, right? Whenever we sell a deal, we also set it up in a way that the next guy has a clear pathway to pay a premium to us. improve the deal. And whenever we're selling a deal, we also make sure that we don't blow up their debt and we give them all the stuff they need to make it easier, right? It's a win-win. Yeah, that's really good, man. Well, let me give you, I kind of relate this back to the small deals. I know a lot of people in his show are into the, you know, trying to buy their first deal, second deal, third deal. So I'll say this to give some hope out there. So I got a, I got a property

right now. It's a duplex that I'm going to sell. It's in Grace Harbor, Washington. And it needs, like, it needs a, it needs a, it needs a work to make it really nice. Like, it's been 15 years since I remodeled this thing. And I'm just not going to do it. Like, I just don't want to do it. I bet you fixed up it's probably worth $2.50. But like, I'm like, I don't, I just don't have the energy or the desire. It's not a failed property. It was fine. But I'm going to sell the thing probably for like 180, right? So somebody's going to get like potentially, they can buy it for the 180, let's say. They put in 20 grand worth of work. And now it's worth, they got $50,000 equity. Great. Meat on the bone. But I just don't need that. I'm at a different part of my investing career that that doesn't matter to me

anymore. What matters to me is moving on to these bigger deals, it's different deals. So again, I say that because I want people knowing, like, by contacting local landlords in your area, by small mom and pop landlords, they probably have property in their portfolio that they would be willing to part with because they just aren't a different part of their life, a different part of their investing, they're tired of it, they're just burned out. They don't care about that property anymore, but you get to bring fresh enthusiasm to it. So when people say there's no good deals anymore to be found, like they're everywhere, just get out there and there's a word again, network, right, connect with people who own property.

I'm in the same boat, Brandon. I mean, those properties that I house that I have been slowly selling them off. I sold that four plates a year and a half ago. And, you know, there's meat on the bone for the next guy and I'm okay with that. And they're, you know, they're happy. It's a win-win. So, you know, again, it's not worth me to spend all that energy and effort. I'm happy to give up that $5,000, $10,000, $20,000 of meat to them.

And, you know, you kind of move forward. Yeah. Cool, man. Well, what about, let's talk about some, like, red flags you see. When you're trying to buy in a large multifamily deal, where do some, like, that you're instantly like, oh, yeah, I don't, I don't want to deal with that. Anything come to mind? So on the buy side, not on the investor side, right?

So you're asking. So on the buy side, I mean, ultimately, we've learned from that Atlanta deal, really, to understand who we are buying from. We've bought from the institution, and we've bought it from the guy that shouldn't ever own a deal. And we've seen the spectrum, right? And I kind of, I've learned I want to be halfway and up of the spectrum, right? And yes, sometimes there's a lot of money to make on these deals, and that's okay. But, you know, there needs to be more meat, right?

Like the Atlanta deal, our investors did phenomenal. but I mean it was probably way too much work for us versus what we got out of it, right? And so it's really understanding who you're buying from is a really big red flag, right? Understand if they're doing third-party management or are they poor-boying it themselves, right? They're managing it themselves. Oh, man, I literally throw out the financials and I just basically say, okay, if I just adopted this deal out of the blue, what could I do with it? Right. That's another really big red flag is just looking at the financials and the quality of the financials.

And then really, I always like to understand the story. Right. Someone, you know, there's a story behind every deal and understanding the store and see if it jives with what, what you're seeing on the deal, right? And that could be a red flag in itself versus, you know, hey, it was a partnership. One of the partners passed away. They thought we were going to keep it for 10 years and now it's for sale. We saw that deal literally, you know, four miles away from here. And we offered it. But again, it was not in a great area. We couldn't get the rents that we wanted to, so we ultimately did not win it. And so, I mean, we really like to see deals that have meat on the bone. That's the other thing, too, right? can we actually do a value add or is it the BS value ad, right? You hear this all the time. I mean, every deal has a value add and every deal is off market. But in this day and age, that's not true. Every deal, larger deals, goes through a broker one way or another, right? Because again, I think it's reckless if as a seller you don't. And then the other thing is, brokers say every deal has value add, but you need to assess what your risk is and how do you agree with that value add? And so we like to see a track record, a proven pathway to value add, right? Either we own a deal next door and we know what we're getting in that sub-martial, or the seller did a decent number, you know, like on this deal, they did more than half the

unit. So we know what we could get, right? It's continuing that. And so those are maybe the biggest red flags I'd say. And then that's really funny that you mentioned some of those like off market. It's one of those deals that people just throw around. Like I think the word foreclosure used to be that way 10 years ago. You said, I want a foreclosure that was synonymous with I want a really good deal. That's really, that could just find really easy. But foreclosures, if they actually go through the foreclosure process, get put onto the MLS, just like every other property once it's a REO. You're not getting a better deal on those than anything. And now it's just off market. We have a lot of people that will come literally to our team and say, can you guys find me an off market deal?

And I say, well, who would be paying your agent? Like, you're going to have to pay him. And now of a sudden it's not a great deal anymore. So you're making a very good point that you need to know the specifics of what you're looking for. Don't just throw around words like, oh, I want a value ad deal. An experienced broker will sniff right through that and just like this, this, this person does not know what they're doing. I'm not going to waste my time with them. So what I wanted to ask you was, what are you specifically looking for in a deal for you to say this could work? Let's put this into our pipeline of analyzation. Great question. So, you know, where we are in our career in our business is we are, I like to say glorified matchmakers, right? What we bring to the table is we

have a very, like I said, I'm a tech guy. So our acquisitions pipeline, Brandon saw it himself. It's, it's definitely a thing. We built a system to underwriting. and look at more deals than anyone I know and really do it in depth on all of them. Now, why? We made that investment because we match deals to equity, right? If I have an investor that wants a 1% return and the best deal in the best area, I can buy just about any deal in Houston, right, any deal in most of the country, right? Now, it's about, again, I need to find a box that fits my investors. And so typically what we're looking for today, we're looking for deals that are, you know, for a newer deal, maybe a seven and a half cash on cash average without the whole,

on a B and C and up, you know, we're looking from seven and a half to nine and a half, 10 and a half, right? You know, that's kind of the cash on cash play we're looking for. We are cash flow investors, so that's our number one thing. And we're looking, you know, as we've grown, we're really looking for 250 units and up deals, right? More institutional-ish, you know, quality assets, right? We're not really looking for the deep, deep distress deals. Yes, there's money in those, but again, is it really worth the time and effort? Probably not.

It's risky, right? There's a lot of risk in those plays. So we're looking for deals that have a clear pathway to value at, whether they're A, B, and C, you know, I like to say risk-adjusted. And I like to make a joke about some, you know, some groups that will buy an A and a B and a C, and every time their returns are the exact same. That doesn't make sense to me, right? It needs to be risk-adjusted and, you know, realistic underwriting, right? It's not about just making the numbers work, right? Because, again, I'd rather not do a deal than do a deal that we can't deliver on.

So, you know, that's maybe kind of the answer there. It's just really deals that fit our box, that cash flow. and we're looking to double people's money in that five to seven year play. You know, when we were meeting in person, you mentioned something to me. You said you went over a year at one point during your career without a deal,

like where you were analyzing a ton, underwriting a ton, and you went a long time without one. What was going through your head doing that point? Like, were you just thinking, you know, this doesn't work anymore? I should just give up. Or were you just plowing forward,

analyzing, analyzing, offering offering? I mean, for us, it was, you know, patience, right? I mean, again, you know, it's easy to buy a deal. I can buy any deal. It's really easy to buy a deal, right? You have investor confidence. You know, we have a long track record.

Our investors will believe in us in anything. But again, I guess what's going in my head is, you know, my partner and I were both in our mid-30s, right? We're younger. We got a long career ahead of us. We cannot falter, right? So patience, patience, patience. Because guess what? If we do the right deal, we continue to grow and continue to buy more in the future versus, you

know, there's people that will just do a deal to do a deal. And it's, again, it's easy to do a deal. But, you know, and me and my partner's mind, our goal is to really, we dump the money back in the company. We keep continued to do that. And we have a 30-year career. And my wife likes to make fun of me. She's like, do you ever plan anything short-term?

I just know, right? I have a long-term plan. And so, you know, what's going in my mind is patience, patience, patience, right? And also maybe to add to that, Brennan, I've since started looking at nicer newer deals. As we've seen cap rates compress, the difference between an A and a B and the C has gotten so small that sometimes it's worth paying a little bit more for a much newer asset versus continue to, you know, to duke it out and, you know, in the C value add. So yeah, I agree. That makes that makes a ton of sense.

Yeah, I think, yeah, there's a level of like deal that you cross into, for example, like, when you're buying duplexes, four plexes, eight plexes, like, I want to say you can be reckless. You shouldn't be reckless. But if you were reckless, you could probably go and do more of those. And nobody, at that level, nobody would ever know that you screwed over some investors or you, you know, you ruined your reputation with this. small group of people. But what's interesting at this level, when you get to like buying the 10, 15, 20, 50 million dollars, you know, 57 million dollar like we're doing right now, like when you get to that level, like everybody knows everybody in that space, especially in an area, right? Everybody in Houston knows everybody who's doing that size of deal, all the brokers know each other.

So if you lose your reputation because you were greedy or because you were impatient, like you're not just affecting that one deal. You're losing, you're affecting your entire career. And I've had, I've had numerous investors say this to me who are in my fund, you know, invested in opener capital, investing because they know that I can't afford to lose my reputation because like it's just I can't hide like if if I lose that it's just too big so it's interesting like and that's one of the reasons that I you know I chose to work with you guys and we deliberately have been building this relationship is because I'm like dang like I like I like that you're patient and you're not like oh crap it's been 30 days we better go and just you know adjust our underwriting and get a little bit more fuzzy with

it to land something because you're like you said it you said it perfect I can't afford to lose people's right? And it's not just that every deal is perfect, right? Every deal has us challenges, and we have the home runs and the deals that have been a pain, but we ultimately will perform and keep that reputation. But it's, you said it exactly right. I hadn't heard it that way. But yeah, I really can't. Because, you know, again, whenever you're, some people will just do three, four deals as fast as they can before anyone knows any better and boom, right? Whereas, you know, again, if you're trying to build a sustainable company, that's why we continue to hire on more, more people. Like, you know, we are, there are people that have three times many units

that we have, which have half the staff that we have. But it's about doing the right thing and really, to your point, can't afford to lose that, you know, that reputation. Yeah, super important. When did you quit your job, your day job? When was that in your career? It's funny because after Microsoft had a software company and, you know, then what happened is really we started, we had made a lot of money with apps. And then after that, really, we, you know, we knew we made a lot of money in apps.

We knew that was not long term. It was not sustainable. So we decided to double down and build property management software of all things, right? Because I was getting in the real estate thing. that did not pan out. And so that was kind of a nice transition between that winding down while I was starting to grow in real estate. And so those two things kind of went hand in hand and it made life a lot easier. That was what that transition like four years ago, five years ago. Wow. Yeah. And then you found Ben somewhere in there. So like why him? Like let's talk about partnerships for a minute before we kind

of begin to move towards the end. Like why? Yeah, what attracted you to Ben and so I've had multiple partners, right? I've had multiple businesses. And you know, the thing I, you know, the most important thing is someone that has the same kind of outlook, right? Like I said, Ben, you know, doesn't complain whenever we continue to invest back in the company, right? I have a joke with Ben. I'm like, don't worry, one day we're going to make money from this business, right? That's really our joke because, you know, we continue to pay everyone else and continue to build on and bring better people in, right? Because we have that same outlook, so I don't have to fight those battles with Ben on, hey, are you cool with me hiring on this person or this much, right?

We have that, that's an important thing. And ultimately, Ben is similar to me where we will both roll our sleeves up, good, bad and ugly and just like if I got to go replace the toilet of property, I'll go do it, right? Like, you know, it's not a, some people have this stigma or this mentality of, hey, I'm not, you know, that's beneath me. Whereas Ben and I, it's like, hey, you know, it's about getting what we need to get done, done and moving on. So, you know, we're both very dynamic, very fluid.

And like I said, I met him at, you know, the meetup, you got to know him for multiple meetups, right? And then fast forward. And the joke I have with Ben is he'd been running that meetup for like a year prior to me. But again, he had, it wasn't systematized. Like he'd literally hold his finger to the air and say, you know what? I'm going to hold the meetup next month, right?

For next week. And once meeting and partner, it became very much a system, right? We do it the first Thursday of every month. We're actually doing it this Thursday. We started back after COVID, so we're excited. We should have probably 150 people out there. But we're the first Thursday of every month. We started at 7 o'clock.

We have people sign in. Three days before the meetup, we send them an email. The day of the meetup, we send them an email and get it buttoned up. And so, you know, it's been a good partnership and we both look at it continue to grow that. And so, you know, someone that you drive with, someone that you trust, and someone that has that same outlook, I think is the biggest. thing, right? Whereas I've had previous partnership where, you know, we were almost too similar, right? And that has its own problem. So Ben and I are different enough and we're both willing to

kind of grind it out where it needed. Yeah, that's really good, man. What about like, let's go with money real quick. Let's talk about money. For people who are listening to is going, I want to get into the bigger deals. I want to invest in the big stuff. Do you have to invest, like, do you have to put a lot of money into your own deals? Is it possible to do no money down value-ed multi-family syndications, or is that, is that, like, how does that world work? Yeah, so, I mean, once it gets past, you know, small, like, let's say 50 units and up, right? It's hard to do no money down, right? Like, yes, you know, your lenders will finance you 70, 75, maybe 80%, right?

But someone's bringing money somewhere. Whether it's, you got creative when you had a seller, keep money in the deal, you put your own money or you syndicated and abroad investor money, right? And so there's definitely money involved, but it does not necessarily mean it have to be your money, right? And so I've heard of the phrase OPM, other people's money, right? Now, Ben and I, we invest in every single deal because I'm also not a big believer in just being a fee guy and onto the next, right? And it's funny. My joke is literally our biggest home runs were the deals that I had to leased in, and the deals I had the most in or not. And so, you know, but it's a

numbers game in some capacity, right? And so, you know, it's about really just kind of having that fiduciary duty to the investors, right? And also showing them, look, I'm aligned with you. My money is sitting on the same side of the seat as yours. right. I really want this deal to work. Trust me. Yeah, I'm a big believer in that. Like, I don't need to put money into open door capital, but I've put money to every one of our funds because I want every investor knowing like that I'm on the LP side as well. It's almost more of like, I mean, yeah, I know my deal is going to do really well.

I know it's going to make a good return better than I can get in anything else. But it's more important to me that everyone else knows that like I'm not making, I'm not getting rich off this. I'm getting rich when this makes you rich. And by putting your own money into it, yeah, it's been a big piece. So, yeah, I'm glad to hear you say that. And I'll add one more thing, too. It's about taking care of your investor, right? Because, again, if you're in it for the long haul, right, you're not making money a

quick book from one deal. You make money from 100 deals, right? And so the real example is we literally got an unsolicited offer. Brandon, this is like last week after you guys left. On one of our deals in Atlanta, we bought the thing for $14 million. Let's just say we got an unsolicited offer at 26, really, really high price point. Like in two years. And on that deal, I remember, I had to half my initial investment.

because we had too much investor interest, and I wanted one of our main investors to be able to get into that deal, right? And now I'm just like, man, that deal is a home run. But again, it's okay, right? Because it's, you know, but it's taking care of the investors and, you know, showing again,

look, I am invested, I'm aligned with you, but then also kind of give them the meat on the bone. Yeah, that's cool, man. I love it. Well, it's been fun to hear kind of your story, how you got from, you know, just getting started on those small deals, jumping into the big ones,

and now you're taking down just, I mean, massive projects that, like the one that we're doing, what it's a 57 million, like crazy. But it just shows it scales. It's all about having the right team and the right people networking, right. That's what it is. The right network, the right people, the right team, the right mindset going into the stuff.

So getting into value of multifamily is totally doable. And I want to encourage anybody to listen to this right now. I don't feel like it's something you have to have an MBA for. You have to be super wicked smart for. You have to be like well-connected and born a, you know, a Trump. Like you don't have to have any of that stuff. Like you can just like learn this stuff. Like read a book or two on it or or attend some classes.

on it, like, follow somebody around. Or what you said earlier, you know, you said you've partnered like that first deal with Ben, the first big one, because he had done a deal before. And now we're going into the large multi-space. We're partnering with you because we're like, hey, they've got the experience that we don't have in the large apartment syndication space, right? So a lot of this is just, again, building the right team. Even if you're not the, the hero of the team, you can be a partner or a piece of it or an employee of it or whatever you've got to be to get that knowledge, get that experience, get that traction, and then it sure makes the rest of your career look a lot easier.

Absolutely, man. Put better people around you and all grow and learn together, right? Have the same goal and you can accomplish anything. Like literally right now, I'll give you even a better example. I'm hiring on a key position in the company. And, you know, yeah, that's well above our range of what we initially thought. But ultimately, if I have a team of superstars, I can go accomplish anything, right? So again, it's a short-term pain for a long-term game.

Yeah, it just goes back to the, you're thinking long, you're not thinking year, two years, three years down the road, you're thinking 20, 30, 50 years down the road. And when you look in that horizon at real estate, it's amazing what's possible. Yeah. Absolutely. That's what I love this business. I love it. All right, man. Well, we're almost ready to get into the famous four. But first, question for you. Where do you see the next 10 years of your life headed? Do you guys have like big 10, 5, 10, 15 year goal set? Or is it just like to see where the world takes you? Oh, great question. I mean, for us, you know, like I said, we're vertically integrated. We've continued to make the investments in the different parts of the business that makes sense, right?

So, you know, for us, it's really about continuing to build up the management company, you know, first and third party, right? but acquiring deals, right? I mean, multifamily is what we do A to B, 80s, A to C, sorry. And, you know, having other partners for other things, right? So we're not disrupt multifamily. We're disrupt equity. I love that phrase, right? And multifamily is our expertise, but guess what, Brandon, one day I'm going to beg you guys

to let us go do a mobile home park with you guys so we can again, you know, go do something bigger, better together, right? And so for us about having key operators that are experts in their space continue to provide that as, you know, as an opportunity for our investors. And, you know, we vet the deal. we make sure things, you know, look attractive, right? We provide that benefit to the investors, but really continue to grow that. And building a company and a culture, right?

That's what gets me excited, right? It's money is one thing, but I love building a company and a culture and a place people want to be at, right? I really like to say, and you came by the office. I mean, I think we run our company more like a tech company than we do a real estate company, right? Yeah, you have, what's that game called with the, the, whatever the little bean bags. I don't even know what it's called. That's a random thing. Cornhole, yeah.

Cornhole, yeah. Yeah, there you go. So, you know, I'm like, yeah, it's just really building a cool culture or a place that people want to be in. I think I'm seeing that more and more, especially with management. Management's a really hard business for a lot of reasons, right? And it's a high turnover business. Now I'm really kind of fixated on how do we fix that, right? What's missing in that type of business model to make it that culture, that place that people want to be at?

And I'm the kind of guy that's crazy. I'll literally, Brandon, I joke with a team, but very, very soon. We have a team in the Philippines as well. And I tell our team here, hey, soon, I'm going to fly the whole team out there. We're all going to do a big, you know, powwow there, in the Philippines. with the rest of the team, right? And so make it that thing. Because if you can take care of people for life, there's a phrase that, and I just blanked out, the Oracle guy has a really cool phrase, but essentially it just boils down to, you know, teach people to be able to leave, but make them want to stay for life

kind of thing, right? So I'm a big believer in that, and that gets me excited. So kind of where we're headed is really continuing to grow that, really build out each part of the business to be the best in class in each space. And then, you know, really focus on that culture. I love that. I love it. Well, now you mentioned you got a team in the Philippines. Explain that. What are they doing? Yeah, so great question. So one of the, I would say in tech, you know, having what we call VA's virtual assistance

is kind of a normal thing, right? I mean, I had them literally 15 years ago, whenever I first had my first one. And, you know, one of the things we've done on the management side, I think in terms of innovation is having that team as well, right? Where we have an extension of our on-site staff. They are people in the Philippines, all digital, but they are very qualified people. And we pay them really well, you know, for over there. and they do things that help really facilitate the business.

And I'll give you a real example, right? A very simple one is I have them call every week, call every single property and every Friday we get into teams, right, we use Microsoft Teams. They dump a report saying which property answered, which one didn't, which one called back, which one didn't, which one introduced himself, which one didn't. Very simple things like that that, you know,

and Brandon, you probably have all these cool ideas that come to mind and you're like, man, it'd be cool if I knew ABC every day. And guess what, I can turn around and we have a savvy enough team to go and turn it into a process. process in a system and we get to see that every week. So, I mean, literally the list goes on and on. There's like 60 of these things, right? And to the point where I'm just like, man, we get a lot of reports, but it's good stuff,

right? Because it helps you keep performing up and take care of the important parts of the business. That's awesome. All right there's a good quick tip for. We love our team out there. So if they're watching, I mean, they know they're an awesome team, you know, they're phenomenal and we like to take care of them. That's awesome, man.

Appreciate it. Well, let's move on to the last segment of the show. It's time for our famous for. Famous for. same questions we ask every guest every week and so we're going to throw them at you first one what is your current favorite real estate or all-time favorite real estate related book i'd say the the millionaire real estate investor right and the reason for that right is it's an eye-opener right for people that are new in real estate it does a good job i guess for me i only really like it because one one part of the

book where it talks about the couple that doesn't make a lot of money but how over 30 years they retire millionaires, right? Just that really is an eye-opener. And I remember reading that. So, you know, and any book written by Brandon Turner obviously fits that, that, that, that, well. Well, thank you. Thank you. All right, what's your favorite business book? I'd say the E-Mith Revisited. I'm a big proponent of that book. And I, you know, and I was thinking just the other than I'm like, it's been five years since I've, you know, read or listened to that book. And I think I'm at the point in our business of probably listening to it again, right, and really rethink it. And so for those I don't know, the book really talks about how do you systematize

a business. How do you really, you know, how do you not become the chef that's really good at cooking, but really does not how to run a business? And how do you really bring on a role and kind of systematize that. So, yeah, I love it. Yeah, I 100% agree. Life-changing book. All right, next question. What are some of your hobbies? Me, man, I love selling. Unfortunately, I'm in Houston, and Galveston's really ugly, right? But, you know, selling is a lot of fun. Mountain biking is fun. But lately, it's been just, you know, a lot of family time, right? Between you, my hobby is real estate. That's really maybe the short answer. I love real estate.

And so that takes up a lot of my time and I enjoy it probably too much. And then the other stuff is, you know, as I can find time for it. That's cool, man. What do you got? What you got? What's your... I mean, you know, I heard a phrase, you know, while ago and I really resonated with me. It's basically health, family work, choose to, right?

So, you know, unfortunately, I guess, you know, I'm not as in shape as I used to be back in my Seattle. So that's maybe my, you know, I used to be into mountain climbing and, you know, all that stuff. but there's something to that. I've been trying to figure out my whole life. I always say either my bank account's healthy or my body's healthy. I've never been able to get both at the same time. I think it must have something to do with just your reticular activating system. And when you're thinking about fitness, you're scheduling time to go to the gym and you're eating healthy and work just fits and around it.

And then with work happening, just all your resources are going towards that. You have no like emotional energy. I wholeheartedly believe it, David. Let's write a book on it. What do you believe separates successful real estate investors from those who give up, fail, or never get started? I guess the answer really, people that will just put in the effort, right? Problems come up, and I see it a time and time where people hit a problem and they just like implode on themselves, right? It's be confident, have confidence in yourself and really work through them.

There's challenges every step of life, really, right? And just don't let it kind of overwhelm you and just work through it and move on and realize everything, there's a problem, there's a solution. And so I think that's the number one thing I see, right? Whether it's people that get bogged down with analysis paralysis or people that for whatever reason don't get a deal done and they just say, you know what, this sucks, right? And I've seen all of that, right? Whereas, you know, we've been through A, B, C, and D, right?

And, you know, you get up and you go at it and you work through it and move on, right? So that's my answer. I love it. It's a great answer, man. All right, with that said, we've got to get this thing closed up. So, David, last question. What do you got?

Where can people find out more about you? Yeah, www. disrupt equity.com, D-I-S-R-U-P-T-Equity.com, or send me an email Ferris at DisruptEquity.com or Brandon will appreciate this. My Instagram is ferris. M-O-U-S-S-A. So I'm not good on the Instagram thing. You know, Brandon's going to inspire me here.

We're going to get you there. We just got to put some more funny, stupid videos on your Instagram. That's the software company we should have done, right? There's no one better if you want funny and stupid videos to have in your corner than this man right here. All right. I was actually, we were laughing when Ferris and I were hanging out in Houston and we're talking about how like, I wonder if there's other syndicators out there who are having a conversation about putting together some, you know, $57 million deal at the same time making funny animated mouth, like talking videos of like, you know, I don't know, Michael Jackson's songs. I'm like, I don't know if there's other companies out there I'd do it. But I like operating that way. Same here, man. I like to say, I'm the kind of guy that despite how old I get, I'm always going to be the guy standing on the shopping cart and pushing myself through, right? Like enjoy life. Like, you know, Be laid bag.

Don't be that uptight person, right? That's really my philosophy. Is that where you made the video that I put on my Instagram of the Shakira? Yes. Yeah, I was saying that was Ferris when I made this. Yeah, you singing Shakira. Yeah. If you guys want to see David singing Shakira, go check out his Instagram.

It's back on, I don't even know a date, probably end of, was it early June? It would be like probably one of more recent posts. I don't post that often. It's me and you and you and you and you in the C-Shed. They just click on that one. Yeah, okay, there you go. And you'll see David singing some Shakira. It's pretty great.

All right. With that said, we got to get out of here, Ferris. you so much. Appreciate you. Love to hear your story of going from the small stuff to the big stuff and kind of the mental shifts you had to make to do that. Making millions through value had multifamily. It's awesome, man. I love it. Thank you guys very much. Definitely a pleasure. Love it. It's a lot of fun. Take care. All right. This is David Green for Brandon. Magic Mike 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.

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