BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 536: How to Get 'Unstuck' | Coaching Calls w/ Brandon Turner

Episode Date: November 25, 2021

Real estate investing can feel complicated, even when you’re doing well. There’s usually a time when every investor hits an invisible wall and moving on to the next deal, partnership, or business can feel like a slog. When this happens, it’s a good idea to lean on experienced investors who have been through these waves of success, failure, and stagnation. Brandon Turner, host of The BiggerPockets Podcast, is back with live one-on-one coaching calls with three different investors, all experiencing some form of investor paralysis. Brandon talks to Mike who’s having trouble letting go of control on rehabs, Stephanie who’s had past success but can’t pick her next move, and Sterling who wants to build organic relationships with sellers. These three investors are in three completely different parts of their real estate investing journey, but all share some of the same headaches. Brandon walks each of them through their predicaments while illuminating some paths forward that could yield them more money, less headache, and a larger portfolio. In This Episode We Cover: Always thinking of yourself as “the general” and not a foot soldier in the war Prioritizing time with family over simple outsourceable tasks Why real estate investors need to go “a mile deep” to survive in 2021 (and beyond!) Building organic relationships with off-market sellers Systematizing an outreach network and drip campaign that allow deals to come to you And So Much More! Links from the Show: BiggerPockets Youtube Channel Jason Drees' Website Open Door Capital Etsy ebay Audible Joe Fairless' Best Ever Conference Website BiggerPockets Podcast 500: Robert Kiyosaki: America’s ‘Rich Dad’ Sees a Real Estate Crash Coming BiggerPockets Podcast 409: Giving Yourself Permission to Go BIGGER: the “Bluefishing” Mentality with Steve Sims Brandon Turner's Instagram Brandon Tuner's TikTok David Greene's Instagram Check the full show notes here: https://www.biggerpockets.com/show536 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Bigger Pockets podcast, so 536. Now I'm stuck feeling like I was back when I was just sitting on those three properties. Like, I want to be doing all this stuff and I want to be growing. And I don't know where to go. I don't know what's next. And so I just want to make progress on the real estate investing side. But of course, you know, have all these things going and would love your advice on how to figure that out. What's going on, everyone.

It's Brandon Turner, host of the Bigger Pockets podcast here with another, I don't know what we call these, consulting, consultation, Q&A, Ask Brandon episode here of the Bigger Pockets podcast. And as you notice, there's no David Green today. It's just me. And I'm going to be just answering some questions from three real estate investors. Now, we did this a little while ago, and it was a huge hit. People seem to love it. So we're going to do it again.

And maybe we'll do it again in the future. I just sit down and spend 15 to 20 minutes talking with investors, like today we got three investors. One's like fairly new. One's kind of the middle of the road and one's a bit farther on their journey. And just see if I can help them get to the next level. And so we talked today a lot about focus. We talked today about like picking your niche, your crystal clear criteria.

We'll go into things like, you know, how do you provide value to sellers? How do you build a follow-up machine to sellers? Kind of going off market. We talk about some of that stuff today and more. still hang tight for all of that. You've upgraded how to buy properties, but did your insurance get the memo? When investors start scaling, insurance can't be an afterthought.

Most policies were designed for a single property, not multiple rentals, LLC ownership, short-term stays, or properties mid-rehab. That's where blind spots can creep in. NREG works exclusively with real estate investors. They understand portfolios, how risk compounds as you grow, and why insurance should protect your upside,

not just a checkbox. One uncovered claim can undo years of progress. Before your next acquisition, review your insurance. Talk to NREG and get investor-specific coverage from specialists who actually understand real estate at NRE.com slash BPPod. That's N-R-E-I-G.com slash B-P-Pod. 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. Vacancy periods, rehabs, short-term rentals, or LLC-held properties.

These gaps surface only when filing claims. That's why investors work with N-Reg. They specialize exclusively in real estate investors, understanding portals. portfolios, risk at scale, and cash flow protection. One claim can erase years of returns. If you own a rental property, don't assume you're covered. Have NREG review your insurance with someone who gets investing at NREG.com slash BPPod. That's NRIIG.com slash BPPod.

You just realized your business needed to hire someone yesterday. How can you find amazing candidates fast? Easy. Just use Indeed. When it comes to hiring, Indeed is all you need. That means you can stop struggling to get your job notice on other job sites. Indeed, sponsored job posts help you stand out and hire the right people quickly. Your job post jumps straight to the top of the page where your ideal candidates are looking. And it works. Sponsored jobs on Indeed get 45% more applications than non-sponsored post.

The best part, no monthly subscriptions or long-term contracts. You only pay for results. And speaking of results, in the minute I've been talking to you, 23 people just got hired through Indeed worldwide. There's no need to wait any longer. speed up your hiring right now with Indeed. And listeners of the show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at Indeed.com slash rookie. Just go to Indeed.com slash rookie right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. That's Indeed.com slash rookie. Terms and conditions apply.

Hiring Indeed is all you need. I think it's time to get into our conversations with the three real estate investors. from the Bigger Pockus community. And we got first, we're going to talk with Mike, second, we'll talk with Stephanie, and third we'll end with Sterling. So let's start this thing off talking with Mike. Mike, welcome to the show, man. How you doing?

I'm doing very good. Thank you, Brandon. Thank you for having me here. Yeah, for sure, man. Well, give us a little update on who you are and where you're at and where you're at physically and in your real estate journey. Physically, I'm in northeast Tennessee. Okay.

And my real estate journey, I'm still very new. Okay. I've completed one deal. It was a triplex and it was super simple. Like, it was practically turned key. Very cool. The problem that I'm having is my second one. There's what we'll get into, which is the second triplex is one.

All right. So the second deal, it's actually a pretty common, like people who can do, there's this common phrase in real estate, right? Nobody does one deal. It's like they do, if you do one, you can do more. But it's also a very common thing is people are like, well, I could figure out the first deal, like how to get. there, I don't know how to figure out the second. Eventually, they all figure it out. Everyone figures

it eventually, but it's a little bit tough sometimes. So let's go through some of the reasons for that. Okay. What are you stuck on? My biggest issue with it is letting go of control. The first one, like I said, it was pretty much turnkey. I don't have any issues with doing the work or finding the deals. It's letting it go to let the contractors do what they're supposed to. I know more than what most people probably do. I have a degree in engineering that focuses on construction. And especially now that, you know, prices are gone sky high and contractors are backed way up. I'm like, oh, I'll just do it. I'll just do it. I'll just do it. And I know that's not scalable. I can justify it every way logically in my mind that there is no reason that I should do this. There's none whatsoever. I could get

done faster, start, you know, having income. I've read books on like who, not how. I don't have issues with letting some people do some things, like the electrical, the H-back. I had no problem with that. I don't want to touch that stuff at all. But things like the framing and the drywall and the painting and the carpet and the tile, or not carpet, but the floor, I just, I'm having an issue letting those things go. When somebody says, you know, oh, it's $4,000 to pay. I know I don't have the time to paint the whole unit. It's going to cost me a whole other month of holding costs. So I'm like, I should just pay the money.

So I guess for you, my biggest question is, how do I let go of the things that I know how to do myself? I know you've experienced that. You said you had to just basically throw away your tools. I don't think I'm there yet because I'm at the very beginning of my journey. Sure. But at some point, I'm going to have to step back and go, whoa, I can't do this. but I can't logically or realistically get it through my.

Yeah. Yeah, no, I hear you. Yeah, I did. I had to throw away most of my tools to give away some, sell some, and throw away a whole lot of stuff that, just to give me to stop doing it. And I still fall into that a little bit. So let me ask a couple questions.

First of all, how much of this is, would you say a money issue when you're faced with, let's say, going to do some drywall? And you're like, okay, I need to re-drywall this wall here or this unit or I need to redo the flooring in here. is that, man, I am not paying some contractor $5,000 when I could do this in a week. Like, how much is that playing to it versus, man, I love doing drywall or I love doing the Florian, and I just, this would make me super happy to go spend time doing this this week.

Do either of those come into play there? Financially, no, I've gotten to a point right now where I could pay somebody to do it, but I don't have the time to do it. But I can't, it's like, oh, should I give away $3,000? but it'll take me a whole extra month or you know so i could i could afford it not the issue the issue is just me simply being i guess too much of a penny pincher do let that go because i know i could do it yeah so this is where yeah that's kind of where that the question kind of focuses is it is it is it a question of you know some people are like i do the work because i love doing the work

but most of us it's not that way most of it's that it almost seems unfair or it feels not right to pay somebody to do something when it's so much cheaper to do it ourselves. Like, is that a huge piece of this? Like, it's just so much cheaper to do it yourself. Yes, and especially when I enjoy it. Yeah. And I know it's cheaper. And it'll get done better, I'm assuming.

Yeah. But in the long run of the business, I know that I have to let it go. There's no way I can get to 30 units or 100 units doing everyone by myself. It's not feasible. Yeah, that's true. That said, I'll throw a couple of thoughts that come to mind. First of all, unlike maybe some in the real estate world, and even maybe as opposed to what I've said in the past,

I don't think it's the world's worst thing to do your own work on a few projects. I don't know if you're at the scalable point now where it makes a lot of sense. I mean, yes, you will go slower by doing it that way. Yes, you will build wealth a little bit slower. But over the course of a 20-year period, if you spent a couple years doing more of your own work to make sure the first few were solid and you saved money and that's, and it was done right,

I just want to relieve that guilt from you that you're doing something wrong. You're not doing anything wrong. There is no right or wrong way to do this, right? There is fast and there is slower, and I would argue that that is a slower method. But, you know, at the same time, you're also saving money, and so maybe it allows you to grow a little bit faster. So anyway, first of all, just relieve any guilt you might have there.

There is no right way. The way you're doing it is probably fine. Most importantly is, do you feel like you're doing a thing that makes you fulfilled? Is it exciting? Is it not robbing time from your family? I don't know if you have family or kids or anything like that, but do you feel good doing that work and you just feel like because of the podcast or because of people on the podcast or because of me, you feel like you should outsource that.

How does that sit with you? I do feel a little guilty because I am taking time from my wife and my little boy and my twin girls taking time from them. Okay. But in the back of my mind in some weird way, I'm justifying it because I'm older and I'm thinking if I get this done now and work hard on it the next few years, I can spend, more time with them later. But I'm giving away years that, or days right now, that I will know I will never get back.

Yeah. So, yeah. It's hard. Yeah. No, I hear you. The other thing that comes to mind here is something that I had to really, had to come out in my life. Because that so much of my identity was wrapped in the fact that I was a technician or I was a guy who did the job.

I did the work. Part of that was growing up with, you know, the feeling like a real man changes his own oil, right? A real man changes his own plumbing or fixes the plumbing when it leaks. A real man does the painting because that's what a real man does. So there's these identity like things that were in my life anyway. This might not be the case for you, but like this, like I needed to do that work because that's what people do. And so I had to give up, first of all, that identity. And the second identity I had to give up was this idea that I am like the technician or I use the analogy in my head of a general or like a war, right? There is there are privates out there. There are lieutenants and there

generals. There's probably other things in there as well. But when I would approach doing things myself, drywall, flooring, paint, whatever, I might have loved to do it. It was fun and I don't regret it. Again, there's no right or wrong way here. But when I look at it, the reason I defaulted to doing that and the reason that I would say things like, well, it's just way cheaper for me to do the work is because my identity was that of a private in a war. Like I was the guy with the gun jumping out of the boat on Normandy Beach. I wasn't. the guy in my head, I wasn't the general back in the tent looking over the maps. And maybe that's a self-confidence issue, probably was, but also just a lack of experience.

I wasn't experienced in being the general. But when I made that shift in my head that, no, I am. In fact, I like, I have a performance coach and Jason Dorees, and we talk about this all the time. He even uses that terminology to me all the time saying, is this what the general would do when I start getting stuck back into being a private? He's like, is this what the general would do? And I'm like, no, what would a general do? And I kind of step into that identity.

It seems almost silly. Like you imagine like Patton or Heider Eisenhower or whatever, like grabbing this little gun and right, you're running on the beach. No, he's just going to get shot and then the war's over because the leader isn't there to do it anymore. So changing that identity to, oh yeah, I am the general. I am the president. I am the leader of this organization.

It makes it, in my opinion anyway, it makes doing their own work almost silly because you start seeing yourself in a whole new light that you would never be that piece. Does that resonate at all with you? Yeah, and that's part of what my training was when I got my engineering degree was to be project managers. I have the skills to do that. I know how to read a Gant chart. I know how to arrange all this stuff. But in my mind, I'm still thinking like a private, even though I have the skill set to act like a general.

Yeah, man. Yeah, I totally just got that. I totally just got that when you said that. I've always been thinking I should be doing it. So I can point at it like an ego thing and go, yeah, I built that. I built that. Yeah. Because your identity, just like mine for a long time.

And maybe to some degree still is, is built in that idea that like my value or a lot of my value in this is being able to point to that thing that I did. And so what I've changed, I guess I've been working at changing is today like I get a lot of my self-esteem and my ego. And I don't mean that in the bad sense of the term. but like I give a lot of my, my positive self-worth out of the fact that I'm now, I'm no longer pointing towards the stairs that I built or the wall that I built. I'm pointing towards the machine that I built, right? That's why I talk a lot about open door capital and the machine that I built there. That's the thing to be proud of because that's what a general is proud of.

A general is not proud of like, well, maybe it is a little bit, but of like, hey, I went and shot one person or I went and like stormed this one little, you know, section. It's like, no, I just won the war. I just took the beach. I just took this country. And so it's just shifting what you're proud of. And, you know, and there's a million little things. Obviously, you've read, again, you've read the stuff.

Like, you know, there's a dollar per hour attached to everything we do. And, like, logically, you get all that stuff, which is 90% of people, like, don't even get that. Like, they just, all they're thinking about is the money. But, yeah, I really think so much of it is wrapped in that identity. So I would encourage you to find physical ways. This is just something I learned from my coach a long time ago. But, like, find physical ways to remind yourself that you are the general. You know, like, I don't know, whether that's a, you find a war hat that you get on Etsy or eBay, right?

Like, you know, some kind of, general, I don't even know what a general wears, you know, like, more like those little, the little stars or the bars or whatever, they're on their five star general. Like, if you put like five stars on your wall, that would be an example, right? Like in your office, it's just five stars. And that's just a reminder every single day of your new identity, that you are shifting your identity. This is who I was.

It served me well then. Like, I needed to be the private at that point of my career because I wasn't ready to be the general, but now I'm the general. And then you're always asking, is this what the general would do? Is this what the leader would do? Is this what the CEO would do? Is that what Jack Welch would do? Is that what, you know, a president would do?

And anyway, that seems to help me quite a bit. It's an ongoing battle. It's an everyday thing. But, yeah, then you're really excited about the machine you're building, about the war that you're fighting versus the individual battles. Yeah, I need to focus on shipping my idea. Now, I do know that you're well read. Do you have any books that you would recommend?

On that topic? Because I have read, and I say that, you know, in quote, I've listened to Audible, nearly every single book, book that you have ever suggested multiple times. Because during what I do for a living, I'm able to listen to audiobooks 12 hours a day. Oh, nice. Yeah. Those are any books out there on shifting your identity?

The one David Green and I are going to write eventually. David Green and I are literally putting together notes every time we talk. Like, oh, yeah, let's put this in the book. So David and I are working on this book eventually. In the meantime, I mean, I've read books on identity, but like none stand out to me as like the book on the subject on this topic. I would say, you've probably read it, but 80-20 sales and marketing by Perry Marshall. Have you read that one?

That is in my wish list on Audible, and I will download that today. That made such an impact on me in terms of, again, the logical side, but also just the more theoretical side of like the dollar per hour, how everything we do has a dollar attached to it. But it really made that clear to me that the 80-20 rule, which of course is 20% of what you do gives you 80% of the results or 20% of the results come from 20% of the inputs of anything, right? And how he applies that concept to people and the roles that we play within our organization, I thought was just, just game-changing. And so, you know, essentially, it goes to the

argument, I said this a few weeks ago, I think even here on the podcast, where I said, I know a lot of people get really upset with CEOs of companies making $10,000 an hour, right, or 10,000 times more than they're $15 an hour employees. And people are like, that's unfair. And the truth is, like, and they're like, well, is that person really working, you know, 10,000 times harder than their $15 an hour employee? And I'm like, yeah, I mean, not harder, but they are 10,000 times more effective than their $15 an hour employee. And that's just the truth of it. Because that, like, the 80-20 rule, it's like 80-20 is true, but then also 80% of the 20% is also the most effective of that group. And then 80% of that 20% and then 80% of that 20%. So at the end of the day, you know, one person in an organization can be the equivalent effectiveness of 100 or thousand or 10,000. And it doesn't mean it's intelligence or the amount of hours they work,

but that's what we want to get you to is the general is worth 100,000 privates. It's just, it's, again, it's not something that the world wants to hear necessarily because we all want to believe that we're all equal and equal value, which we are. But in terms of effectiveness and getting something accomplished, yeah, yeah, the general is more important. So yeah, 8020 selling marketing was an awesome one for that. All right. Thank you. Cool, man. Well, hope that helps. does extremely. It is open my eyes. Okay, good. Last thing I'll say is this, and I say this all the time to people, but I would definitely look into getting with a like a performance coach of some kind, like a business performance coach. If you can afford it, I mean, it's not always cheap. You might pay five or

10 grand a year for performance coach, but somebody that can continually remind you because it's like, it's like going to church, right? Why do people go to church? It's like to remind themselves what, no matter what religion, it's to remind themselves of what they believe every week and to kind of like reinforce that worldview every single week because it just goes away over time. Performance coaching is like church for the mindset. It's like reminds you, oh yeah, I'm the general. Oh, I've not been acting that way the last couple weeks. I need to get into that.

So yeah, if you can find a good performance coach, that's one of those things that you pay five or ten grand a year. And it's almost impossible not to have a payoff a hundredfold over the course of your life. So that'd be my final recommendation there. Thank you very much, Brandon. All right, good luck to you. Thank you, Mike. Have a good one.

All right, you too. Bye-bye. Bye. All right, moving on, we are going to bring in, or I'm going to bring in, I guess I'm always talking to the we, bringing Stephanie. So, Stephanie, welcome to the Bigger Pockets podcast. How you doing? I'm doing great.

I'm so excited to be here. Well, awesome. We'll give us updates, just like I asked Mike, where are you at physically and where are you at in your real estate? So I'm physically in Denver, Colorado, and I started investing in 2008. I had always wanted to be a real estate investor and have cash flow. but I really didn't know too much about it and was just divorced, raising two small children, and 2008 came, and I got an opportunity.

So I bought my first rental, and then I bought two more. And then I sat on those because it was super stressful, being a landlord, not knowing what I was doing. And I just sat on those things. And then in 2014, I really wanted to dive in and do more. So I took my equity and left Denver and went into three other markets, still. with single families, small monthly family, and went up to 10 rentals. And then in 2018, my kids were leaving the nest. I'm like, I need to go bigger. Like, I need to really do this thing. So I learned about apartment investing. I hired a coach. I am a GP on several syndication deals.

And, you know, that's great. But there were aspects that wasn't clicking. And so the pandemic came and I'm like, I'm going to buy a franchise. So I bought a business. Anyway, now I'm stuck feeling like I was back when I was just sitting on those three properties. Like, I'm not, I want to be doing all this stuff and I want to be growing. And I don't know where to go. I don't know what's next. And so I just want to make progress on the real estate investing side. But of course, you know, have all these things going and would love your advice on how to figure that out. Yeah, so kind of the summary gist is like you've had a lot of success and you're trying to figure out like what's the next level and how do you get there. Is that a good summary? Absolutely. Yep.

Yeah, I feel like that's where I was when I was at that. I tell the story a lot, but I was at that conference. It was Joe Ferrell's his best ever conference in Denver and I'm there and like speaking and I was like, man, I, like I have been resting on my successes and my laurels, you know, too long here. I need to take this to the next level. I just been kind of sitting for a number of years buying like. like one property here and there and doing the podcast. And that's when I really like doubled down and started opener capital. So a couple questions on that. First of all, the business that you bought the franchise, what is that thing? Just out of curiosity. It's a children's martial arts franchise, really focused on personal development and character building for children. And that's with my son. That's like a legacy project. And he's kind of managing that. Okay. So it's not like a day-to-day thing that's taking a lot of your time. Right. Okay. Do you want to do more of that style of that?

things like franchise up or you really just want to do real estate you want to get into the kind of the next level of real estate no really the business was to fund more real estate the idea is as a family we we're a family like real estate my son's very into it and it's building our legacy and just having more income streams to further that so definitely figuring out the next step in real estate investing is my goal okay right now are you actively buying things or are you literally just you haven't done anything in a while I haven't done anything since 2019. Okay. Since actually the pandemic.

I was getting ready to make my next move and then didn't. Okay. And then maybe last question. We'll see. I'll probably just keep asking you questions for a little bit. But where are your other rentals at like right now? Where's your portfolio look like? Texas, Dallas, Fort Worth area, Kansas City, Missouri, and Memphis, Tennessee.

Okay. Good cash flow markets. And do you want to continue to build there or do you cannot care? Where are you? Depending on what I do. Yeah. If it's something that I'm more active in, you know, I have property managers. I have things in place there.

So that seems like it would make sense to leverage what I already have in those markets. Okay. And why haven't you yet? Like, why have you not? Maybe the question is like, what are you waiting for? What stopped you up into this point? Is it just I don't know where the market's going or I'm not really sure the next step or I don't even know where to go?

Like, what's the holdup do you think? I feel like my holdup is shiny object syndrome. home like I'm I jumped to okay next I'm going to do small the midsize apartments with just a few JV people and then we're going to rent them out short-term rental and then I'm like well wait I really want mobile home parks and oh but you know the demographic is people are getting older maybe I should do that and those are all like a lot of learning for me to take on right I haven't done some of those things before yeah yeah no I was I know exactly how you feel because I was I was right there too for years.

I was just going, like, there's so many things to do. And, like, this is really important. And though, this could be really good, too. And today, when people ask why I got into mobile home parks heavy and, like, why I chose that. And then a lot of other people did because I did. I think the funny thing is, like, the only, the best answer I have is the reason I chose it is because I chose it.

You know, the reason I wouldn't do it is because I picked it. And so at some level, it's like that quote from the book, Traction. It says it's more important that you decide than what you decide. And I had to finally like internalize that inaction wasn't leading me anywhere. That so A, inaction leads me nowhere. So I had to do something. B, it just doesn't really matter that much what I do because I am smart enough and capable enough and you are smart enough and you are capable enough and you and driven enough that

that you're going to succeed in any of them. It just doesn't matter whatsoever. You could be like, I'm going to do vacation rentals and you kill it at that. If you were focused. I mean, imagine, like, can you imagine that life where like you're 100% clear on where you're going and you're like, this is what I'm building. and this is where I'm going, and everyone's like, oh, my gosh, Stephanie's going there. Like, could you not succeed at that?

Like, you'd kill it, right? Like, you know you'd kill it. And so it's really just a matter of just picking. And I don't know why we, because I'm in the boat, too. Like, it's so hard to pick that, to pick a thing. Because I think it's FOMO, right? If I pick the wrong thing or it's like part shiny object and part, like, I don't want to, you know, I don't want to just pigeonhole myself into one thing.

I go into vacation rentals and then, oh, man, I should have gotten self-storage. that would have been fun. Or I did self-storage and, oh, man, I should have done, you know, senior care because that's a growing demographic. Does that play? Does that resonate in you as well? Definitely, definitely. FOMO, I kind of want to do it all. It all sounds so fun.

And then, of course, the fear part, like, well, this would be, you know, apartments are saturated, all the things that go on in your head. Yeah. And it's true. Apartments are saturated. But so is mobile home park, so it's self-storage. It's all a very, in fact, buying just normal houses. normal rentals in any market, right? It's all so saturated and crazy right now.

And there's really no sign that it's going to get any better. I mean, like, yeah, we may see a crash at some point, but we may not. This may just continue until we're just equal to Europe where everything's just super expensive. So because of that, we can't really, you know, obviously make that decision one way or another. So again, it just goes back to just saying, like, agreeing in your head, I am going to make a decision. Now, I can put a date on my calendar.

And I like doing this. Whenever I have a big decision to make and I've been waffling on it, I like just stick a date in my calendar, like, two weeks out and, like, circle it and, you know, put on your Google calendar, on your wall calendar, and say decision day. Like, that's the day I'm going to make a decision. I have to know 100% clear on that day what I'm going to do. And I talk a lot about, like, in the new book, The Multifetime Millionaire, I talk about the crystal clear criteria, right? It's like your location, condition, price range, property type, and profitability. Like, what do I need to make it a good deal? If you need to find those five things by decision day and just acknowledge the fact that,

A, it doesn't matter. B, you can always correct course or add on things later. But see, knowing that you have to become an expert today. That's the biggest thing I noticed in the past, in the past like three years of real estate. This is probably the biggest shift I've seen in the last three years. You're no longer able to be an amateur and do okay in real estate anymore. Like maybe on the small level, you go buy a duplex, you go buy a single family house, you go flip a house. Maybe you can be someone amateur and get lucky once or twice. But you're competing against just such talent today that the only way to win is to go a mile deep.

And then once you're a mile deep, like we went a mile deep and opened her capital on mobile home parks. We've bought in over 2,500 units now. Botten? Is Bodden a word? I'm going to go to Bonn. All right. We've bought over, over 2,500 units. And now we're going apartments as well, because now we are a mile deep.

I think we are the smartest mobile home park investor in the country. And of course, I'm sure other companies are saying the same thing. But I'm pretty confident. Like, we know more than 99.99% of the world on mobile home parks. Now we are going into apartments. And eventually, once we get a mile deep on that and we're really, really good at it, we're going to probably go into self-storage. Or what I like better is I love the idea of like the senior housing.

I think, like you pointed out, the demographic trends are moving that direction. That's what Kiyosaki was talking about the other day when we interviewed them. But so is self-storage. That's also moving in the positive direction. So is Section 8 stuff. I mean, I think the government's just going to be like printing out money to give to landlords over the next 20 years. So Section 8 could be a great option or just find a way private public partnerships. Huge.

There's all these trends happening right now that, yeah, you can't screw it up. I said a little bit ago to Mike. I said, like, there's no right way, right? Like, you go do one. You'll never know you chose the wrong one. That's probably the thing that I tell myself a lot and maybe the most when I'm trying to make that hard decision is you'll never know you chose the wrong option. Like, you'll go with one and then you'll do awesome at it.

And you're like, oh, yeah, I'm glad I chose this one. Like, you're not going to look back and be like, oh, man, I only made $18 million instead of $25, like I could have through, because you don't know. You don't know how much you would have made in the other niche, right? So does that make sense? The idea of just putting a date on your calendar saying that's Decision Day. You know, I'm going to do whatever research I need to between now and then. But something tells me you probably already have done the research enough that you could make the choice.

It's more of just you haven't sat down to make the choice. Does that resonate? Yeah, I think the crucial part for me with what you said is go a mile deep where instead I'm skipping a lot, like going so far deep with all of them. So, yeah, I'll research a little on one aspect and then one asset and one market and I'll just get stuck there instead of going deep. So that's very helpful. Well, good. Yeah, it really is. I mean, I really think you need to go a mile deep.

And by a mile deep, you also get really good at certain niches within that. Like, let's say you were like, okay, I'm going to do senior housing. Okay, great. But let's go even deeper on that. Like, what's the need for senior housing? What can you be the best in the entire country at doing? For example, what I think would be really fun, I've said this on the podcast before. and somebody will try it and then tell me that I either worked or didn't,

or I'll try it someday. But I want to build like 20 little single family houses in like a horseshoe with like a little like event, a little like center in the middle at, you know, a shuffle ball court or shuffle. Is that what's called shuffle ball? Shuffle. Yeah. Whatever. I don't know.

Whatever. Like old people's sport. And like a little like room for them to gather for like birthday parties and like 20 single family homes all in a little U shaped in like middle America, put it in the middle of Ohio in some like medium size town and like like all like you know single level no stairs walks right in everything's like just age in place like i love this idea and i would love to build that someday and try that out like i don't there's probably somebody out there doing it but could like let's say you just were like yeah i'm going to do that thing and this is just an example right hypothetical you're like i'm going to

learn everything i can about this idea of putting a bunch of single family houses on one little property and then renting them all out and then you might find oh that doesn't work that numbers just don't make sense there well let's tweak it and try it this way and then let's tweak it this way. And eventually with all your little tests and tweaks, eventually you're going to find the math that works out in this super unique thing that nobody else is really doing that you can just be like the best at. And then you just pour heavy into that because you're a mile deep, not just in the niche, but in that like subnitch within it. Then it's just rinse and repeat. Then you're just like building this machine that can just build a ton of these things or whatever it is that you end

doing. Right. You just build in a machine. So yeah, mild deep. It's huge. And then again, remind yourself, you got a long life ahead of you. Like, we're all, like, you're going to live another hundred years probably. With the rate that, like, technology's improving, like, we're all going to live until forever, unless we get hit by a bus. And so, like, you got time. This whole next five years you could spend going a mile deep, and the next five years go a mile deep on something else, or add an a thing to go mile deep on.

I mean, I've only been in mobile home parks for two years, and I feel like we are a mile deep. We're like 10 miles deep. And so it scales pretty quickly. One more question to throw at you from the focus part. I mean, besides the focus part, do you feel like you have a good team yet? Like do you plan to go it alone? Do you've got partners? Do you have the ability right now to go big into one of these things in terms of team with? Yes and no. I have a, you know, networks and close people that I've built relationships with in real estate investing. We're all kind of doing different things. And we talk about coming together on something. But what that thing is is out there. So I feel like if I could come up with some unique thing like you described, I could bring together a team or go, you know, I feel like I could do that. Yeah, that's so what I found to be so true in my own life and other people's lives is this idea that when when you are confident and you are moving in a direction, people naturally want to surround themselves with people who are moving and that are confident. Right. So as soon as you're like, I am the, you know, whatever, the small, you know, the 20 to 50 unit apartment complex, burr.

queen of America. And that's what I do and I do it better than anybody else. And this is where I'm going and I got my vision. And in three years, we're going to own a thousand units and we're going to syndicate to be able to do that. This is where I'm headed and it's broadcasted. Everyone's like, yeah, go follow Stephanie. Let's do it, Stephanie, because you know where you're going. This is like the world craves that leadership that just has the confidence to like start moving. And I can totally say that with you. It's like, you'd just be like, people just flock to your side to want to be a part of that. raising money becomes easier because everyone's like, oh, that person knows where they're going. I can invest with them because they're confident.

And, yeah, that is just fun. It's just fun because you're just in total, like, alignment with, like, your vision and your goals and what you're doing and your team and you just, like, feel crystal clear. And it's like the best feeling to just be in that alignment. So, yeah, you got this. I really feel good about that. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Yeah, Stephanie. Yeah, I want to see you do it. And then you got to come on the Bigger Pockets podcast and tell us you're like, hey, I did it. And this is what happened. You'll be mad if I do your thing. Yeah, do it, do it, do it. I love it. Well, Stephanie, thank you so much.

Any final questions before I guess you let you out of here? No, I appreciate all your time. Thank you. All right, thanks, Stephanie. All right, moving right along, everyone. Hope you're enjoying today's show so far. Real quick, before we bring in Sterling, and I will say this,

if you've not yet left a rating or review for the Bigger Pockets podcast, wherever you listen to shows, that helps us out a lot, so please do so. There are two kinds of real estate investors. 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. Vacancy periods, rehabs, short-term rentals, or LLC-held properties. These gaps surface only when filing claims. That's why investors work with N-Reg. They

specialize exclusively in real estate investors, understanding portfolios, risk at scale, and cash flow protection. One claim can erase years of returns. If you own a rental property, don't assume you're covered. Have N-Reg review your insurance with someone who gets investing at N-Reg.com slash B-Pod. That's N-R-E-I-G.com slash BPPOD. 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. Vacancy periods, rehabs, short-term rentals, or LLC-held properties. These gaps surface only when filing claims. That's why investors work with N-Reg. They specialize exclusively in real estate investors, understanding portfolios,

risk at scale, and cash flow protection. One claim can erase years of returns. If you own a rental property, don't assume you're covered. Have N-R-R-Rug reviewed? your insurance with someone who gets investing at NREG.com slash BPPOD. That's NREIG.com slash BP pod. All right, rental property investors, listen up. Our friends at Dominion Financial already have some of the best DSCR rates in the industry. Now, they're the fastest, too. They just launched

10-day DSCR closing. That's right, 10 days. And they're still the only lender with a DSCR price beat guarantee. That means faster closing. The best terms. zero guesswork, that's Dominion Financial. Check them out at biggerpockets.com slash dominion. Again, that's biggerpockets.com slash dominion. If you think property management is expensive, try mismanaging a vacancy or an eviction or a maintenance issue that turns into a five-figure problem

because no one caught it early. That's expensive. A good property manager isn't overhead. Their protection against small mistakes turning into big losses. And that matters more than ever in the, this economy. That's why I like Mind. Unlike other property managers, Mind manages your property like an investment. They obsessively measure the things that matter for your bottom line. Things like

occupancy, delinquency, and net promoter score. And they have the results to prove it. Go to mine.com slash show me to see how mine performs and get your first month free, which is much cheaper than learning the hard way. All right, Sterling, welcome to the show, man. How you doing? Good, man. Thanks for having me. Yeah, so let's hear your story. I mean, what are you, uh, where you at physically and where you at in your real estate? So I'm from where I'm in Dayton, Ohio. Right now with real estate, I've been doing it for a little less than two years to 10 doors with a partner. And then I got a primary residence that a rehab value add. And moving forward from there, we'll probably sell it after two years. Okay. And you got a full-time job, I'm assuming then in there?

Yeah. So like right after this all started, I ended up starting an LLC, just basically construction. rehabs, things like that, that tie in with what I was doing, which was adding value to multifamily, small multifamily. Okay, that makes sense. And you own that company and you, do you work day to day or do you have a bunch of employees or what's that like? So it's still proprietorship, like one and a half full-time guys. That's the best way to word it.

That makes sense. All right. And where are you headed in your real estate? What can I help you with today? Yeah. So, you know, I'm still working towards getting more smaller multifamilies. but then, like I'm trying to make the leap, basically, that you guys have talked about going from level two to four and not necessarily slowly building up or whatever.

I'm still taking the time to learn. I'm tracking all the metrics I can where my hours are going because I currently manage our properties. And making that leap from two, four units and a duplex into a, you know, say 24 unit apartment, that's a value add situation, trying to get my foundation in place, financially experience, partners, you know, the things that will help me be taken more serious in that, in that route. I'm starting to find off-market apartments. So contacting the owners directly at that level, I can still pretty much find out, you know,

just at Google search, basically find out who they are, where they are, give them a phone call. But one of the things that I think, and this is kind of my question for you, or this is my question, As far as building those relationships that will lead to opportunities. The last example I can give you is a 24 unit. Got to talk to the owner. It's been under contract for a little while. Super great guy. There was no place that I could offer value to him.

So I just thanked him for his time. I'll check back in in a couple weeks or a month, however long. But as far as building those relationships, creating relationships in that manner, if you had any advice there. Yeah. So when you say you couldn't really add value, I mean, did he just not want to sell? Is that the idea? He just didn't want to sell? It was already under contract. So he's letting go of a good junk of his portfolio. He is selling three more at the, you know, beginning of next year's tax year. So definitely want to keep that open. Yeah. So you want to keep a relationship with this guy, but also just in general, other people and try to just keep that up. Is that kind of the goal?

Yes. Yeah. So the first thing I would say is to not rely on, and not that you are, but not rely on remembering and. And oh yeah, I got to do that and that kind of stuff. It's to so systematize outreach and off market interactions that it becomes almost just a machine in itself. And so like if people saw the level of like tracking that we do in terms of like brokery outreach and off market outreach and wholesaler outreach, like we are so like we don't forget that stuff because every three week or every three weeks, you know, it pops back up. Here's the nine brokers you need to reach out to this week. Here's the five owners that we're talking with in this area. we need to talk to this week.

And this is what the outreach looks like. And this is where we're at. And we keep track of notes with each of the conversation. Like, oh, yeah, how's Jill doing? You know, like your wife. Is she through the, you know, whatever yet? And so, like, we are very meticulous with our tracking and with our systems around that outreach. And I think that most people, and myself included for years, just left it to, like, what I

could remember doing and what I think I'll do later versus, like, sit down for an hour with then pet and paper, and you will have a nice system worked out. Like, the first thing we do is this. A week later, we follow up with this. You know, two weeks after that, we send him a letter. Three weeks after that, we send him a little trinket in the mail, like some stupid little, like, I don't know, like frying pan. That's really cool, right?

Kind of giftology style, right? And then three weeks after that, we do this other thing. And now we've got, basically, they call it an internet marketing. They call it a drip campaign. Like, if you join most, you know, join an email list, you get a drip campaign, which means every week or every two weeks, there's like this, these are the emails you get every week for like a year. And so it looks like you're just getting these like random emails from this company, but really you're on a drip. You're very much, it's just dripping like an IV drip to you every

couple weeks. We just took that same concept and applied it to off market and to just relationship building in general. And it's amazing the effect that it has because like they don't know that you're doing that. They think it's just completely random. I mean, even Steve Sims, like we interviewed him, he's author of the book, Blue Fishing, he would talk about if he's at like a hotel, he'll, like, tear up, like, a page out of a, whatever, a magazine at the hotel and, like, right on the, hey, I saw this picture, I thought of you, and then send it in the mail, right? Like, little things like that. Again, that was kind of, like, off the top of his head.

If you can find ways to systematize those kind of, like, organic, quote-unquote, outreach moments, people just think that's cool. And then you're so much more likely to get a deal from one of those people. And then also, you're able to go way wider. right like how do you get 500 of those people on your list and every week you're hitting them with new stuff and new phone calls and new conversations like that's how you build that pipeline that keeps going does that sound like something you can do or does that sound helpful at all yeah absolutely yeah what other stuff you got from me i mean anything else i can help you address on

there yeah yeah go ahead this is kind of a different direction but please okay so for me like specifically i haven't been able to technically afford any of the four properties that i owner have ownership of I came in at a really like low income level and then it hasn't necessarily increased. None of the profits are getting touched for trying to tap into, you know, compound effect, things like that. Yeah. So I've had, you know, the more experience, the more things I can do, the more stuff I'm able to take on, I have the ability to increase my income, but I don't see it beating,

increasing my investing in real estate. So one of the things that I'm focusing on is, you know, obviously I have to make, you know, For me, it's like $4,000 a month to survive. But too far past that, that's where, like, I'm choosing to spend my time trying to land an apartment complex, three duplexes, or, you know, these other things I'm actively working towards that fits my goals. It fits the direction I'm heading in. I just kind of wanted to get your input on that. Yeah, a couple of thoughts. I don't know if it's quite addresses it, but let me ask this way.

How many hours a week would you say you put into the construction side of your business? of your life. How many hours a week you work in that? Around 30. Okay. And so it sounds like there's this belief in there that says like if I wanted to make more than $4,000 a month, I would have to put in more than the 30 hours that I'm currently doing. Does that sound like a logical progression there? If we leave out the value add real estate investing side of it, yes. Okay. So I guess I would first of push back on that thought a little bit and start asking a better question of something like, well, how do I work half those hours? How do I work 15 hours a week in the construction side, but bring in $30,000 a month or $20,000 a month? That's a fun question to start answering, right?

Like, how would you do that? And I don't have an answer for you right now, but I guarantee you there those construction guys out there that are working 15 hours a week that are making $20,000 a month profit that they can then dump into real estate. So now you get the best to both worlds, right? The reason I bring that up is because oftentimes I think we get stuck in this pattern of like of where we're raised, right, dollar per hour. We make money for the amount of hours we put in. So if we want to make more money, we got to put in more hours. But when we change the paradigm entirely, we start looking at like, you know, lateral thinking

of, wait, how do I work fewer hours but make more money? We start asking that question repeatedly. And you start taking time out of your week every week, maybe a couple hours every week. You're just like literally sitting in a room in silence with no phone. And all you got is a notebook and a pen. And you just keep asking that question to yourself. It's like, how do I work half as much and make five times more? Or how do I make more by working less?

And your brain will start to come up with answers to that, which gives you the best of both worlds. So now you're making 10, 15, 20 a month in profit. And you've got all this time now to go off to the real estate, which now you can fund the real estate yourself. So I guess that's just one way I'd answer that to look at that is it's totally doable. And I feel like I'm talking to myself 10 years ago or 15 years ago when I started my own construction. company. We're like, I just didn't think that way. I just thought like, this is what I make and this is how I do it. But had I been asking myself better questions and had I been thinking of myself as the general, and we talked about earlier today with Mike, the idea of like, oh, no, I wouldn't

even consider doing my own work. I mean, like, because that's not what a general would do. I would never, like, all I do is attract talent and let my team do what they do, right? Like, I don't know. I mean, like, right now, if I were to, I don't know if this is going to be helpful enough, but I'll just spitball here. If I were to today start a construction company and I knew I didn't want to work more than 10 hours a week at this construction company, the first thing I would do is hire an amazing marketing person who's really good at getting like direct mail marketing and ads and all this stuff out there. I would hire a salesperson right away. And I know like we can have about like, how do you afford this stuff and I can get to that. But I'd hire a salesperson who does all the calls

and does that. I'd hire a foreman to oversee the jobs, right? And to do bids. And then I'd hire a crew of like, let's say, I don't know, whatever, two, three, four people. So total I've got, let's say, six people on staff going to be costing me somewhere in the range of $50,000 per month in salaries. And it feels like an excessive amount of money until, like, you ask the question, if you had a person full time doing marketing, full time doing like the sales presentations, and somebody to oversee the whole, the construction side and do the work, your only job is to meet with your, and then probably an integrator in there too somewhere. Your only job would meet,

or my only job would be to meet once a week with my, like, each department head if I was integrator, and make sure they've got metrics and goals. And for example, the marketing person would have a very clear goal on how many leads they need to track. The salesperson would have a number of goals of conversions.

The former would have a number of hours and profitability, and then the workers would all have their goals as well. Could you not make $50, $100,000 a month of profit? Totally doable. It's a different way of thinking, right? I would never even think of a person, approaching a construction company anymore of like I got to go out and buy a hammer so I can go build a construction company. It just wouldn't even occur to me, right? Because I just,

I'm not there. Does that, does that help at all? No, 100%. That definitely helps. And it was definitely either or lens I was looking through. Yeah. If we can shift that to like, how do I get both? And how do I change my role, my identity to go full circle here to doing that. Yeah, that's definitely a big piece of it. And then there's one more thing I was going to bring up to. Oh yeah. Another idea just to throw at you, if you're good at the construction side of things, I wonder if there isn't a marketing angle here, and I'm just spitball in here,

but where you reached out, like, let's see you had a list of 500 multi-family property owners in your area that were, I mean, this might take a few weeks to compile this list and to drive by the properties or whatever you've got to do to identify. Like, if you had a list of 100 or 200 or 500, like these are the properties I want to acquire in this area. And then you marketed to those people specifically,

and called it like at cost construction. And you literally sell them on this idea of like, listen, I own a construction company. I charge a lot of money to people. I will not charge you a dime of profit. I will do it at cost. Whatever I'm paying my employees and my insurance and all that costs, I will do any construction job for you at cost. Why would we do that?

Because I want to build relationships with real estate investors in this area. And that's what I'm doing. And that's the value I can provide. because now you're not losing anything other than your time, which really you're not the one doing the work you'd hire people to do it. Like if somebody came to me and was like, I will do your work at cost just to build a relationship with you Brandon, I'd be like, yes, I will hire you right now. And so anyway, it might be an interesting way for you to provide value to all these people at a large scale. So when they are ready to sell, of course they're going to go to you because they feel like they owe you. It almost creates this like reciprocity thing there.

So anyway, I don't know if that would work or not, but that I think would be a really fun test is to even start with 20. people or 10 people is like, hey, we'll do work at cost. So I don't know. How's that feel? Yeah, I like that a lot. I don't know if it's exactly that, but that's, yeah, I don't know. There's something there. This is where the, this is where the idea of sitting in a room for two hours just comes in so handy. Or I love to like, I have a masseuse from the four seasons like hotel comes in my house once a week and literally like 90 minute long. I did it yesterday. It's best 90 minutes of my week. It is not a relaxing massage. She's like a therapist. So she's like hurting me. It's like a tattoo the whole time. But.

But it's like 90 minutes where I just think, no phone, no nothing. And I just think, and that's when things like that come up. And the first idea, like that idea is probably dumb. But you start playing with it. You start marinating on it. And then it starts, and like that is a $10,000 per hour task. Those times where you're thinking through those ideas. Because if even just one of them worked out and led to a huge deal on the road that made you a million dollars, it's huge.

So, yeah, make sure you're taking that time every week to just think. Thank you. All right, dude. Thank you, Sterling. Hope you have a great week, and good luck to you, man. You got this. I'm excited to see where you head up. Had to and end up.

So good luck. Thank you. Thank you. All right, everyone. Thanks so much for joining today. I hope you enjoyed today's episode of the podcast. And if, like I said earlier, if you didn't leave a rating your review yet for the show, please do so. It really helps that a lot.

Make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel at Bigger Pockets. You can follow Bigger Pockets all over social media. You can follow me personally at Beardy, Bray. Brandon over on Instagram or TikTok. And you can follow David Green. Of course, he's not here today, but you can follow David Green at David Green 24. That's the number 24 at the end of his name, Green with a name. So thanks everyone for joining us today.

And hope you have a fantastic week. For BiggerPockets.com, my name is Brandon Turner. Signed off. Thank you all for listening to the Bigger Pockets Real Estate podcast. Make sure you get all our new episodes by subscribing on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, or any other podcast platform, our new episodes come out Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I'm the host and executive producer of the show, Dave Meyer.

The show is produced by Ian K, copywriting is by Calico content, and editing is by Exodus Media. If you'd like to learn more about real estate investing or to sign up for our free newsletter, please visit www.w.w.com. The content of this podcast is for informational purposes only. All host and participant opinions are their own.

Investment in any asset, real estate included, involves risk. So use your best judgment and consult with qualified advisors before investing. You should only risk capital you can afford to lose. And remember, past performance is not indicative of future results. Bigger Pocket's LLC disclaims all liability for direct, indirect, consequential, or other damages arising from a reliance on information presented in this podcast.