BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 547: 52 Properties in 52 Weeks with Omni Casey

Episode Date: December 21, 2021

Buying and selling real estate portfolios isn’t what Omni Casey was raised to think about. As a middle child in a large family, Omni was never given the “investing talk” and was often surrounded... by people who thought landlords were greedy. But, Omni had the entrepreneurial spirit, and through trial and error, found real estate investing to be the most reliable, practical, scalable, and fun business around. He started with a single “condotel” in his native state of Hawaii before branching off into out-of-state investing. For most of the past two decades, Omni never spoke about his investing career to those outside of his immediate family. It wasn’t until recently that he started the “Cash Flow Breakfast Club” for agents in his brokerage to talk about investing, financial freedom, and generational wealth. Now, with over one hundred properties, Omni is on a mission to purchase fifty-two properties in fifty-two weeks! Although it’s not the end of the year just yet, we’re quite confident that he and his team will successfully cross the finish line. In This Episode We Cover: How to get into real estate when your family doesn’t openly talk about money Finding a mentor and using their expertise to propel you forward Purchasing real estate in expensive markets and when to value appreciation over cash flow The questions to ask a potential property manager in a new market Buying and selling real estate portfolios to create a win-win for both parties 2022 market predictions and why you shouldn’t depend on today’s political environment The “Cash Flow Breakfast Club” and Omni’s new book And So Much More! Links from the Show: BPCON2021 BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast Cashflow Board Game Click here to check the full show notes: https://www.biggerpockets.com/show547 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey everybody. It is David Green here. As you all know, Brandon's stepping away from the show at the end of the month. Now, we have some great co-host lined up in the new year, and we also want to take this chance to get to know anyone else out there who's interested in contributing their talent to the BiggerPockets Podcast Network. If you think that's you, you can make a submission to our system at biggerpockets.com slash talent. That's BiggerPockets.com slash talent. You'll see a few questions and a place to submit a video reel of yourself. Again, that's biggerpockets.com slash talent if you'd like to lend your voice to the growing Bigger Pockets Podcast Network. This is the Bigger Pockets Podcast Show 547. Today we're going to sit down with Omni, the investor guys.
Starting point is 00:00:43 He's going to explain everything from how to get your kids involved with your real estate investing, how to buy giant portfolios, and a whole lot more. Stay tuned. Because I used to worry about who got elected, right? and I vote and obviously I care, but my portfolio or my ability to invest got better and better regardless who was in, just based on my experience. So the better investor you are, the market's really good for you. What's going on, everyone?
Starting point is 00:01:17 It's Brandon Turner, host of the Bigger Pockets podcast here with my co-host, Mr. David Green. David, this is the show where we teach people of financial freedom through real estate, right? And today is a perfect example of that, huh? Yeah, and you're coming directly from. a what, 20,000 square foot suite that you have in Las Vegas right now? So 70, I mean, I'm literally in a 7,500 square foot suite in Vegas right at his moment with our guest today. Omni is actually joining me in studio, in suite, in sweet today.
Starting point is 00:01:46 That sounds pretty sweet. Yeah, this. Yeah, we're doing a, I grabbed a bunch of my buddies and we're doing a goal setting day tomorrow. We're going to spend the whole day going through goals for the next year. So I thought, why not rent a stupid nice suite for the event? and that's what we're going to do. So I'm excited about that. But man, I can literally see, like, it's called a hundred and 80.
Starting point is 00:02:08 It's called like Sweet 180. I can like see 180 degrees pretty much around. You know what I love about what you're doing is first off for most human beings to stay in a 7500 Vegas, 7,500 square foot Vegas suite. It's an incredibly foolish decision that you would just treat yourself moment, right? Yes. So you actually found a way to structure this event so that enough value was created from the people that you brought together in the event you did that the suite. did that the suite was paid for and the people who are there at the event are actually going to make money from being there. They're not even wasting their money by spending it to go hang out in
Starting point is 00:02:39 Vegas. You did what we're all looking to do is how do you get the best parts of life and without having to feel guilty about it because you're doing it in a way that actually creates more wealth than you spent to do it. It's an investment, which is what we're all about here at bigger pockets. Yeah, man. Well, and people are like, hey, I want to be in Vegas in a suite. Just go just grab a handful of your friends and just find out how much it costs to rent a cool spot because there's something magical about going to, this is today's quick tip, by the way. Quick tip. I have no voice. By the way, I have no voice today because I just came from Nashville where I went out way too late and hung out at a honky-tonged bar and yelled for like three hours straight trying to over
Starting point is 00:03:12 the music. So no voice. But today's quick tip is, yeah, grab like a bunch of your buddies who are like goal-minded and say, hey, let's get together and split the cost of a stupid, big, expensive, cool place. There's something magical about, like, it's not to be 7,500 square feet, but just go out of the norm. Like, take that intentional moment. and divide the cost of what it's going to be and have a cool experience. Like there's so much that can be done in those moments where you pull out of the day to day and go into some special thing. So that's a quick tip for today is by the end of the year, try to do that with a bunch of your
Starting point is 00:03:44 friends and maybe just meet people in bigger pockets or organize it on the Facebook group, whatever. But yeah, pull some time out of your life to do this because I'm excited about tomorrow. So it should be a good time. Well, the key is you're not going out to Vegas to get smashed and waste money gambling and enjoy yourself and that's it. you're actually doing it with a purpose that's going to create more value than what you spent to get there, which is what investing is, right?
Starting point is 00:04:04 How do I put a resource into something that will give me a higher return than what I put in? There we go, man. Well, that is today's show. So here in live in Vegas, well, we're just, we're not live. We've never been able to say that on the show. I'm also going to the UFC fight that played into it a little bit. It was like, why Vegas? Because the UFC fight was here.
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Starting point is 00:06:02 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 NRE.com slash BP pod. That's NREIG.com slash BP pod. Now it's almost time to get into today's show. Hey, quick reminder for everybody, at the end of this year, if you haven't heard, I'm going to be taking off from the Bigger Pockets podcast, handing over the reins to David Green. So in case you haven't heard the news. That's the news. I'm going to spend a year focusing, or at least a while, focusing on my family and a little bit more of the Open Door Capital stuff that I'm doing. So, anyway, I'll still be back on and off. I just won't be the regular guy every week.
Starting point is 00:06:39 So if you're wondering it happens in the future, that's what's happening in the future. But you can still follow me on, you know, all the social network, so you'll find me there. All right, so we've got to get into today's show. Today's guest is Omni Casey. And Omni was actually the guy who won at BP Con, the Bigger Pockets Conference. We had a charity auction, and he won chatting with me. basically just one-on-one, like, coaching. And then, like, the first time I talked to the guy, I realized, no, I should be getting coaching from him.
Starting point is 00:07:04 Like, this guy is legit. He is, like, incredibly gifted, talented and experience when it comes to real estate. You're going to learn a lot of stuff today about, like I mentioned, buying portfolios. We talk about how the property manager can make or break your deal, how to invest in a distance, how to invest in your inexpensive market, how to do it with kids, and a whole lot more. So that and more coming up here today. Anything, David, you want to add before we jump up. And just make sure you stay all the way to the end because Brandon and I and Omni all sort of go into a pretty good conversation about how to make sure that whatever you buy today is still profitable, 5, 10, 15, 20 years from now if the rules of the game change.
Starting point is 00:07:42 If we have different politicians, different laws, different financial structure in our country, there's still a way to build your portfolio in a way that will keep it safe and profitable for a long time. It's a discussion I don't think I've heard anywhere else. So you definitely want to stick around and don't miss that. There we go. All right. Well, with that said, let's get into the show with Omni Kaci. Omni, which I called you Omni many times and you graciously allowed me to. Amni. Welcome to the Bigger Pockets podcast, man. Good to have you here. Thank you. Yeah. So we're going to dig into your story a little bit today. Learn a little bit more how you became the man, the myth, the Omni. You like that? It's pretty good, right? And when we started at the beginning, how did you decide to get into
Starting point is 00:08:19 real estate? Yeah, real estate. I mean, so I tell everyone, I kind of like real estate, but I love business. At some point I realized that real estate was an amazing business. And so just kind of putting it all together. I grew up in Hawaii, you know, on the business track, had a few small businesses actually held own a retail store at the mall. Oh really? Yeah. And then. That's cool. Yeah, just kind of figuring out that the one winning in all that was the landlord. I'm looking at, you know, I hated retail after, you know, having that business up and running. And so I wanted to get out of that. And I saw all my friends that own these shops that some were successful as some weren't. And really the one winner in the entire equation was the landlord.
Starting point is 00:09:00 So I said, how can I become a landlord? And I put some effort into finding out the best way to get to real estate investing, found a mentor and or mentors. And I've been doing this for almost 20 years now. Awesome, man. Well, let's go through the very first thing you bought. What was the very first property? Very first property was a partnership with, it was a condo in Waikiki. So it was just a rental property, a small condo property and did some sweat equity renovations. And I did the grunt work. And my mentor was a guy, I'm kind of leading everything. And we kept that as a rental property.
Starting point is 00:09:30 And I did a few of those in that same building with them. And eventually stepped out on my own and started buying my own property. So it started out with a lot of condos and then completely did a shift away from condos, you know, further on in my career. All right. So let's talk about the condo thing. Because, you know, for those who don't know, why Kiki is an expensive, expensive area of Oahu, of Honolulu. And it's a great place. but it's very expensive.
Starting point is 00:09:55 And how did you, I mean, how did you get the guts to do that? What did you pay for that first property? What was going through your head then when you're like, I'm going to go buy this condo. Like, what was going through your head?
Starting point is 00:10:03 Sure. I was just looking at my mentor. He's like, he's been doing it and I trust this guy. So let's go ahead and go into it. So on the condo side in Wikiki, there's two different types of condos. There's a regular,
Starting point is 00:10:13 regular fee simple condos. And there's actually something called condoel, which is zone for resort. And so I started on the regular side and realized that I started on the regular side and realized that I couldn't Airbnb, Airbnb wasn't a thing back then, but couldn't go on the vacation rental side. And then he eventually got into the condo tell, which brings its own challenges for financing,
Starting point is 00:10:33 much harder to get financing. But, you know, with a partner and mentor that was able to bring a lot of the capital, we were able to make it work. That's cool. Yeah, you know, this is one of those benefits of, I've said on the show for years, but when you start associating with people who that's just like normal business for them, it's like, it makes it so much easier for you. Like, for me, like, I don't know, some random thing like hockey, right?
Starting point is 00:10:54 Like, I don't know anything about hockey. I don't know how to play hockey. I haven't skated since I was, like, four. And so, like, that would be incredibly difficult. But if I was, like, with somebody who was a professional hockey player, they'd be like, oh, yeah, you just put on your skates like that. And then these are those skates you obviously want. Everyone knows.
Starting point is 00:11:06 And then you obviously just stand up. And it is so obvious to them and easy that then I'd be like, oh, yeah, it is that easy. And you just listen to them. And then all of a sudden, you're playing hockey. And it might not be a pro right away. But it alleviates a lot of that fear. Yeah. So that's cool. All right. What did you pay for that first one?
Starting point is 00:11:22 In the 430 range. $430,000. When was that? Almost 20 years ago. Wow. What's that worth today? We don't own it anymore. We probably should. It's probably in the $750 would be my guess. Yeah. All right. Okay. So that's how you got started. So for those people listening in their inexpensive markets like Seattle, L.A., New York,
Starting point is 00:11:43 every other city in America now, what's your recommendation on getting started like that? where that price of a condo is 400 grand. Sure. Yeah. Finding a partner is obviously a key element. But being from Hawaii, I had to learn how to quickly invest elsewhere. Very similar to David.
Starting point is 00:11:59 He wrote the book on this, but long distance investing. I had to figure out how to invest outside of, you know, our market there and find the markets that I could afford to do things on my own. Yeah, that makes sense. Makes sense. So at the time that you were starting your long distance investing journey, I'm assuming this is before the book was written.
Starting point is 00:12:16 And so we're you in a position where a lot of people were saying this is crazy, you shouldn't be doing this. You're going to lose a lot of money. Yes. However, I didn't tell most people. Like I kind of, my mentor was very private, right? It was like, own nothing, control everything kind of mindset. And growing up in Hawaii, there's kind of this inherent distrust that we have of people with money. And it's almost evil to want the success.
Starting point is 00:12:40 Right. So I literally went most of my investing career without talking about it, without not even my parents, not even my siblings knew, and I just did it because I knew that they would say it's crazy. And so I just wanted to prove it. If I was going to fail, I was going to fail by myself. If I was going to succeed, then eventually, I guess I would told people, but I didn't get around to telling people until, you know, really a couple years ago. Well, I think there's a lot to that too, because I think a lot of our listeners are in a position where maybe they're not Hawaiian, but they're in a family that doesn't trust people that have money that assumes the only way you get
Starting point is 00:13:13 money. I know, Brandon, you've talked about this, is you have to take advantage. of somebody else. And that's kind of like a popular narrative that's going around right now that if the CEO is making a million and the person on the front line is making $25 an hour, there's something obviously wrong with that scenario because one person's making more than the other. And for those of us that have sort of we function in that CEO role, we see the risk that CEOs take. We see the stress that they take. We see the investment of themselves. They have to put into the company and the skill set they're bringing. Many times, I think if you took the $25 an hour person and put them in the CEO's role. They'd say, no, thanks. I don't want this. This is nuts.
Starting point is 00:13:49 So I'm curious, you know, just hearing your story, I'm sure you went through a lot of self-doubt. There had to be, as you have everyone in your world that you know believes what you're doing is maybe even morally wrong or at best risky, then you have one mentor that you're watching and you're like, but that's the path I want to follow. Can you just speak briefly to the mindset that you had to develop in order to move forward in an environment like that? Yeah, I don't know if, So I come from a big family. I'm one of eight kids and I'm three. So I think I thrive in the middle.
Starting point is 00:14:20 Yeah. And my whole life, I think I've been good at just kind of blending in in the background. Love my family, amazing, amazing family. But I was able to just kind of step away and do that. And so I think I had that mindset from just growing up.
Starting point is 00:14:32 I just tried things, started a few businesses. Even my family didn't know about those businesses until they were off the ground and running. And I said, hey, come to our launch. You're like, you know, what are you talking about,
Starting point is 00:14:41 right? So kind of took a very similar approach. And I think I'm just comfortable because maybe I'm a third of eight and I'm comfortable in the middle there. Tell me how you chose the market that you chose when you started investing out of state and then what struggles you found because you now don't have the backing of your mentor who's native to Hawaii and probably knows how to grease the wheels and knows the right people to talk to you. Yeah. So when I decided to break out on my own and do my own thing, well,
Starting point is 00:15:08 I kind of backing up a little bit, you know, wanted to, I was all over the place, right? So there's so much equity, you know, in Hawaii. There's a lot of appreciation, there's not a lot of cash flow, then all of a sudden, you know, swinged over to look at cash flow markets. This is amazing, but then you don't have the appreciation, the equity in those markets, right? So I had to come to terms of the difference. So I kind of created this classification for myself, right? So I flip properties, I've hold sell, I've done almost everything throughout my career. And I had to understand that I was in a different role for those types of properties. So, you know, I think every investor falls into one of three categories. You're either
Starting point is 00:15:43 doing it as a profession, full time or part time, right? That's a flipper, that's a wholesaler. And it's a job, right? And it's a great job to have. And there's nothing wrong with it. But once again, your cash flow is gone, right? And then you have the financial freedom kind of area, which I really wanted was financial freedom. And then you're going to focus on the cash flow. But most of the best properties for cash flow don't appreciate that well. And we hear some people saying, well, you know, only do cash flow and appreciation is risky. Or some people say it only focus on appreciation and cash flow is not going to make you, you know, wealthy. I just had to realize it's a different category altogether. So the third category is the generational wealth. Once you're
Starting point is 00:16:20 financially free, I was able to think a little bit differently. Say now I can focus on those different types of investments that do have higher appreciation, maybe don't have the cash flow because I don't need the cash flow anymore. So kind of put me into that category. So once I understood I wanted to be in that second category of financial freedom, then I really just looked that, okay, for this three, four, five year period that I was trying to commit to becoming financially free, I'm going to focus on cash flow. With the understanding that at the end of that period, I'm going to shift my strategy because I'll be financially free and what I do next is a little less risky.
Starting point is 00:16:53 That's such a great point. Yeah, like, because when you view real estate that way, there are different types of investments for different purposes. And that's why like today, like I don't buy a lot of cash, like really cash flowing property. I'm not going to buy properties that lose money, but I don't buy a ton. that because I have financial freedom, right? So once you get over that, but to get financial freedom, like, it's kind of like I would say that.
Starting point is 00:17:14 I don't regret the properties that I bought back in Grazed Harbor, Washington, but man, I would not buy them today. There was so much work, but they got me to financial freedom. So where were the properties that you started buying that got you to that financial freedom? So I'm embarrassed on how many markets I tested and never did a ton in every single market. And really what I found was, once I found a market that cash flowed, if I couldn't find that rock star team, that property manager to support it. That might be the only property that it's, I've done in Texas. I've done in Georgia. And it wasn't until I found really markets at
Starting point is 00:17:48 cash flow and I have a rock star property manager. So there's a few pockets in Maryland, you know, and there's some in Virginia as well that a lot of what I'm doing recently is. And so, and it's not because they're the best cashful markets because they're not. They cash flow to my terms, but I have amazing property managers and teams that could take care of it for me. Who is the most important member of a team when you're going to go long-distance real-stance real-state investing? Who should you, number one, make sure you have? Yeah, I think the real estate agent is crucial. I eventually got my license and I understand I still hire real estate agents, even though I'm licensed.
Starting point is 00:18:19 If it's not my market, I will hire somebody to go do the due diligence for me. So crucial, but in the long term, the property manager, if it's cash flow, your property manager is crucial. I think a really good property manager could take an average investment and make it stellar. Yeah, right? Yeah. On the other end, you can have an amazing investment and you have a subpar property manager, it will eventually become subpar. And so that's a great point. Understanding that that key element within your team, those are my two key people. Can you break this down into like a story that you
Starting point is 00:18:49 can tell me about how the same property, how one property manager can run it into the ground and how the other can make it flourish? Yeah, absolutely. So I mean, you got these rules of thumbs, right? The 1% rule has been around for a while and I look for markets that, okay, can you hit the 1% rule and you'll have people screaming at us saying, it's impossible. And you're going to have people saying, well, I bought that yesterday, right? So it just depends on the market there. So, you know, kind of finding, you know, for cash flow, that 1% rule, understanding that I'm not looking at equity at the moment within that phase. However, that 1% rule, if you buy, let's say, a very low, low price property, $200,000 or so, although you're hitting that 1% rule, you're getting a good
Starting point is 00:19:28 return, one repair, one repair, like, takes out your cash flow for a year, takes out your cash flow. and it's usually poorly managed properties that need the most repairs. And so if you have a, let's say a fourplex in Georgia that, you know, it's just mismanaged. And when they move out, you're having to do a full turn of $5,000 or whatever the case may be, all your return is gone. And you can have a break-even property in a cash flow market if your property manager is not on top of it, setting the right expectations with maintaining the property. Yeah, that's such a good point is that like a great ten,
Starting point is 00:20:04 when they move out, it might be a $200 turnover. A bad tenant when they turn over might be $5,000 or $10,000. And it's like, who decides who's going to be that tenant? It's the property manager. And so, like, and I think that turnover cost is something that a lot of investors don't think about because, like, that's probably the largest expense we have other than mortgage. Like, in all reality, like the fact, if you have a regular turnover, like once a year,
Starting point is 00:20:30 you're spending five grand on turnover, like, which is the case for a lot of my properties, when I first got started and I didn't know how to screen tenants. Every year it was five grand. And I'm like, this is a lot of, like, this is just as much as my mortgage. And so that just shows you the power of that property manager in finding someone that not only is going to treat it well and you won't have the heavy turnover, but it's going to stay for two, three, four, five years. So over the course of five years, one property manager could lead to, you know, $30,000
Starting point is 00:20:55 in loss, you know, like negative. And the other one could be $30,000 more just based on those decisions that's made. Yeah, across my portfolio. I try to, as a rule of thumb, reserve 10% of rents for maintenance and things like that. That being said, some properties in areas that aren't managed well probably need 30%. You know, some properties need way less just because they run a tight chip. So across the board, and that's why I do like scaling up at a higher level and people say, you know, how can you, you know, absorb that risk?
Starting point is 00:21:24 I think I am diversifying my risk, the more properties I have. If I have one property, that is risky. Right? You have one tenant. You have one maintenance bill, and it might be 100% vacant at $10,000, you know, a cost there. But if you have 100 properties, if you have 10 properties, you're scaling up. And as long as you have good people in place and manage it along the way, you're actually reducing that risk. And you can kind of reduce your overall cost if you do that.
Starting point is 00:21:49 Yeah. You know, one thing, Brandon, you've told the story that when you first started managing your own properties, you sort of like were just really nice to the tenants and didn't hold them accountable to very much. and they took advantage to say it at least. And then you learn I need to set very clear standards and I don't let anything grow into something bigger. So if they're late on the rent, it's boom. You're late notice.
Starting point is 00:22:11 You were told this would happen. This is the process is being started and they weren't late anymore. So Omnai, what you're kind of describing here is, are you getting Brandon at the beginning of his career managing your property? Or are you getting Brandon once he figured it out managing his property? Can you share with us some of the questions you ask property managers to figure out, which version of Brandon you might be getting. Yeah, that's a great.
Starting point is 00:22:33 And I would say probably my weakest element is being able to interview and find these property managers because everyone interviews well. Everybody, everybody interviews well. Dude, that's such a good point. Yeah. And the reality is they might be a good property manager, but you're not the most important person to them right now, which sounds terrible because I just bought one property. It's three units and they have 300 units are managing, right?
Starting point is 00:22:53 So I'm their least important to find. And so what I, my shift over the last few, years has been can I more centralized in areas and I started asking my property managers the ones I like what will it take for me to be your number one client like doors how many doors do I need to be your number one client because I want to be your number one client I want to be the most important person because no matter how good they are if you are 1% of their portfolio they can't commit that amount of time to you but if you're 50% of their portfolio then they're gonna
Starting point is 00:23:23 commit a lot of time to you so so it kind of I knew I need to become a better landlord and a better investment for my property managers so that they could take me more seriously. I used to get angry about it, but then I had to look at it from a business standpoint. I was their least important client. And so you take some pretty good property managers. Then you say, I'm committed to become your number one client, which means, and that's been a huge lead flow for me, because I tell them, I'm committed to you, I want to buy more in your area. So I'm going to show them, I add units every once in a while. But I tell them, any of your landlords that are looking to exit,
Starting point is 00:23:58 the last few years, we've had any of your landlords looking to exit, tell me about it. Yeah. Because they're going to come see you first. Tell me about it. I will buy their portfolio. I'll buy their properties. I'll keep it with you. So I don't, because if your property manager gets contacted by one of their landlords and we're selling a property, they know they're probably losing that property. Right. Someone buys it to move in. They don't need a property manager. Yeah. Another investor buys it. They probably already have a property manager.
Starting point is 00:24:21 So now a lot of my properties come from my property managers in forms of small portfolios of landlord's just saying I'm done. I just go, that's great. Kind of, you know, kick my butt. I think I want to get out just, you know,
Starting point is 00:24:34 now that things are stabilized and I've done a few of those. I love that for a couple reasons. One, because you're establishing this relationship with the property manager and you're, you're trying to become their top client, you're working with them, like they're going to want to make that push to help, you know, buy the portfolio.
Starting point is 00:24:49 So, right, they don't lose that. That's cool. But then also the property manager that knows the history of the property. So they're not hiding, like there's not some seller hiding it. Yeah. So you know what you're getting.
Starting point is 00:24:57 And I know they're, like, you don't, we don't talk a lot about that, but that idea of buying a portfolio is such a powerful strategy. Because, like, and there are a lot of investors today, like myself included. Like, I, if somebody for the right price came, I would probably sell my entire Great Harbor portfolio in one shot right now. Now, I'm going to get hit up by like a million people. Right. Now, does that mean, like, I'm, I mean, would I take a discount for that? Probably for the hassle of not having to go through. Like, I would probably sell, I'm not going to give somebody 50% off.
Starting point is 00:25:26 but I would give the discount to somebody so I don't have to go through an agent. I don't have to get each one ready and then go through each one in numbers. It's a hassle. I'm actually selling a lot of them right now on the MLS and it's been a huge hassle. One at a time, yeah.
Starting point is 00:25:38 And from the purchase standpoint, it's a hassle. So I set out this at the beginning of the year a really big goal, 52 properties in 52 weeks. I've never done that. And so I just kind of wanted to stretch myself, right? So that's my goal. I'm at 44 purchases this year. I don't know if I'll get it by the end of the year.
Starting point is 00:25:53 Come on, man. You want to buy my portfolio? You'll have it. You'll be there. The only way is by doing portfolios. I lucked out. I got two mid-sized portfolios. Oh, man. I love it.
Starting point is 00:26:02 And you're solving a problem because a lot of these mom and pop landlords, let's say they bought them cash or they're paid off for a while. But then at some point, they went back and crossed collateralize them. And they took out a loan across their entire portfolio because they got a lot of small properties, some great properties, some mediocre properties. But what that means is if they got to sell, their bank, every bank's a little bit different. Usually won't let them sell one property because they gave them a little.
Starting point is 00:26:25 loan on all properties combined. That's a great point. They need to find someone that can usually pay cash, right, and buy the entire portfolio there. And so I've been able to do that to reposition, you know, equity and funds to do that. And then obviously one by one, try to pull out, you know, use a birth strategy and, and re-leverage on the back end. But they cannot put it on the MLS because I just bought one that was a 13 building portfolio. And every single one was tied to the same loan. So they had to close. Same buyers, you know, exact same. time it's just complicated there. So if you solve that problem, it can get a deal. I wonder if there's not a way, and if somebody listening to this knows the answer, maybe you know
Starting point is 00:27:02 the answer, is there a way to publicly, like using public data, find loans that go across multiple residential properties like that? If you could find that list, right, you would know every landlord who has those commercial loans over all their properties. I don't know if that's a thing, but that would be fascinating to figure out. So I don't know the automatic way to do it, but there is a way, so you look at the tax records, right? And let's say it's a $200,000 duplex and there's a $800,000 mortgage on it. Oh, right. There's something wrong there. You look up that owner in that state or wherever you're looking for and say, okay, he owns X amount of properties. And then you're seeing that same
Starting point is 00:27:39 $800,000 mortgage attached to all of these properties. Genius, man. There's a way, I don't know if there's an automatic way. Yeah, I don't know either. But yeah, somebody's listening to this right now. I want to figure that out. That would probably help a lot of people buy portfolios. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's just such a cool strategy to the portfolio thing. Yeah, David, would you ever sell your portfolio. What are your thoughts on that? I know you're an agent, so you like the one-off and stuff. I mean, you're used to that. But if somebody came to you and wanted to your whole portfolio right now, would you consider it? I would absolutely do that. In fact, that might be the only way I could do it. Because when you try to sell a house that has a tenant already inside of it, in general,
Starting point is 00:28:13 you don't get as much money for it. Yeah, it's hard already. You can't sell it to someone who wants to live in it. So now you're limited to investors who want a deal, and they have to put 20% down. So your buyer pool shrinks quite a bit. Your ability to get, multiple offers almost goes away completely. So you really want to try to sell rental properties when they're vacant, but my properties are not set to all go vacant at the same time, right? Like your leases were all signed at different times. So you end up not able, you have to almost sell them ones and twos unless you package them all and you sell them to an investor. Now, I will say if someone's trying to do that, there's probably not a better time in history to be doing it than
Starting point is 00:28:46 right now because there's so much money out there. Everybody needs to deploy capital. So you can get away with things that you couldn't get away with before. But yeah, that's just based on like the workload that people like the three of us have to trying to sell them one z-toosies like that is agony. The other reason that's really powerful right now is going to go a little bit into the weeds, but it might affect some people. So when when people sell a property that they're landlord, right, they want a 1031 exchange it. But it's so hard right now on 1031 exchange stuff. And if you're selling your whole portfolio one off, one off, one off, you got all these different 1031 things to try to do. It's just a mess, right?
Starting point is 00:29:23 But right now, again, David, you go to this is the best time to do this. Right now we've got this accelerated depreciation thing going on and the cost segregation studies. So, like, people can invest. Like, I know people who have sold their property, not done a 1031 exchange, and then took all the money that they made
Starting point is 00:29:39 that they have to pay taxes on now. They just go and dump it into like my fund or somebody else's fund or their syndication. That syndicator, like, they will go and do the cost segregation study and the accelerated depreciation. And it offsets almost the entire. amount. So it's almost the same as a 1031 exchange without the actual effort of doing the 10th 31 exchange. And you're not in that pressure of like having to buy a bad deal within 45 days and
Starting point is 00:30:00 identify it. So that, like, and that's a short window. The accelerated depreciation is ending here over the next five years. But right now it's a, it's a cool time to do that. So yeah, it's an easy exit for the landlord to do that. But, but I look at it and I'm not in big multifamily like you are. I have midsize multifamily properties and small multifamily. But I look I got a portfolio like a mid-sized multifamily. Yeah, yeah. I got flack for that because it's not the same, right? It's more work, it's, I agree.
Starting point is 00:30:26 However, you have one person managing it for you. You can, in the area, you can treat it like that. But I like it because you can't buy a 50 unit building and decide these two underperforming units, we're just gonna sell off, right? It's not a condo. But on this portfolio, I can buy, you're usually getting some really good properties, some average properties and some subperforming properties. I can still sell those subperforming properties probably at retail.
Starting point is 00:30:49 wholesale, wholesale into somewhere else, and basically I'm left with at the end, just the cream of the crop. And I paid a premium in terms of having to come up with the upfront capital to do that, but that's short term because I'm going to back out with leverage. Yeah. Dude, that's such a great point. You're just like cherry picking the best ones. And, dude, I love this.
Starting point is 00:31:08 This is such a great strategy. This is going to change a lot of people's lives because, like, the idea of buying a portfolio is something that we've never really dug into on the show before. And if you could find the mom and pops that don't have good property managers, right? They're doing it themselves. They're stressing out right now, right? Because they had tenants that weren't paying. They had, you know, and really, we know that tenants' pain is really a direct correlation
Starting point is 00:31:27 for the most part of your property manager being really good. And if it's yourself, I would be a terrible property manager. I know that. If I managed on my properties, my tenants would not be paying. I'd be a high vacancy. I'm not built for that. And some people, you know, they kind of started out small and they grew bigger than they thought, but the autopilot, you know, kind of wore off.
Starting point is 00:31:46 and now they're subperforming properties for them. You know, there's another call out to people listening to who knows technology more than I do. If you could find a way to automate the idea of like who's done multiple evictions, like if you could find that like the landlord's name in an area that they've done three evictions in 12 months, like that's a really good indication that they're struggling and that they're a bad landlord or at least they've done a bad job of screening or whatever. They're hating their life. Yeah, they're hating their life right now.
Starting point is 00:32:13 Yeah. I've always liked that strategy too of just like going to going to the county court, house, find out who's going through an eviction, and you just hit them up. Because, yeah, whenever I'm going through an eviction, or especially when I was, like, emotionally involved in it, those are the moments I hated being a landlord, and I would have taken any price just to take my property off my hands. It's just an easy strategy for if you're new to real estate and you're trying to find deals, like, it requires, like, actually, like, talking to a human being, so it's a little scary,
Starting point is 00:32:36 and you got to maybe actually go to your courthouse because a lot of places don't keep digit, it's not online yet. It's still, like, paper and pencil sometimes. But by doing so, you're doing the work that, nobody else is willing to do. And you're going to get the rewards that nobody else is going to get. So let's shift back to your portfolio. What's it look like today?
Starting point is 00:32:53 Like, what's the size of your empire like today? So we're trying to get one per week. It's always shifting, right? But I broke the 100 property unit mark and I got single family homes. I got land for development. Oh, cool. And I've got, you know, my biggest property is an 18 unit multifamily. So I don't have, you know, large scales there.
Starting point is 00:33:10 But 100 properties, 100 properties. 100 properties. So a lot more units than that. A lot more units. And a lot of those are developed. development projects that were lining up. So I like buying vacant buildings as well. Completely fixing them up and burn them into the, you know, stabilize them and burn them out. Right now, I think everyone's coming up with the travel, the trouble of material shortage and things like that.
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Starting point is 00:36:12 Yeah, I mean, so I became an agent, broker. So I have MLS access everywhere. And I employ agents, you know, all over in areas that I focus on. And I tell them, this is what I'm looking for. So I do look on market. And I do buy a handful of on market deals a year. And then wholesalers, you know, networking with wholesalers. And I will say when I started telling people that I am investing, like for most of my career, I never told anyone just the last couple of years started telling, it became so much easier. Like, it just tell people, this is what I'm looking for now. I'm looking for small multifamily. I do flip a few properties a year. But really, I'm looking for the, the due place.
Starting point is 00:36:44 triplex, potplex is my bread and butter. You tell people, and they send it to you. So whether they're official wholesalers or not, and then, you know, the big chunks come in those portfolios. I love it. This is that thing we talk about all the time in the show is, like, define what you want, like have an idea of what you want to go after. Like, oh, I'm buying duplexes or I'm buying small multi,
Starting point is 00:37:00 or I'm buying large multi. And then just tell everybody. It's like that simple. When you're clear about what you want, everybody around you will conspire to get you that. Like, we do it all the time. Like, if David was like, oh, man, I just love, I don't know, whatever, red Bulls. And we're out hanging out, I'm going to go to the store and get him a Red Bull because I want to be a nice friend of David.
Starting point is 00:37:18 Or if I see a Red Bull, I'm like, yeah, I'll have that for David because I know he wants a Red Bull. But if he's just like, oh, I'm thirsty, you know, I might not be like, well, I don't know what he's going to want. I don't know. I don't get him something. He doesn't want. I'm like, hey, David, I got you a coffee. And he's like, I don't drink coffee. So, yeah.
Starting point is 00:37:34 How's that metaphor? David? Is that a David Green metaphor? That's really good. It makes me think of when you're the agent and you're working for the client who doesn't know what they want. Yeah. And you're like, okay, what do you want to drink? And they're like, well, you know, I'm kind of open to anything.
Starting point is 00:37:47 Yeah. I would take a Red Bull. I would do a monster. You know, if it's a really, really good deal, I could look for a rock star. But, you know, I don't want to pass anything up. Yeah. And you're like, I don't know how to help you now. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:37:58 Like I can't go to the store and find that. Yeah. Agents hate that. And people just don't have the ability to network. They don't know that, right? Yeah. And you preached that. You guys both preached that.
Starting point is 00:38:07 We ran a meetup. We did a regular meetup. We had about 100 people last week at this investor meet up, right? A little bit of education and then a lot of go talk to someone that can do a deal with you. And I had to start like, like doing the short burst networking, you know, eight to 50 minutes. But at the beginning, I remind everyone, exactly, you can come up with your crystal court criteria. Because if you say I'm looking for a deal, send me a deal, no one's going to send you anything because they just don't know. But if you say, I'm looking for a portfolio, I'm looking for a duplex in
Starting point is 00:38:34 this area, in this price point that I can add value. There's someone in this room that probably already has that and can make that connection. So he's just reminding us of how do we actually put that out there and tell people what we want. Well, it's also a good reminder. Like, when you see this, a lot of times people are thinking, well, there's so much competition out there. I can't find deals because there's so much competition. But there are so many types of real estate. I did a real estate meet up the other night. I was in Nashville, Tennessee, and I had about almost 100 people come out for this thing. And I'm talking to everybody like, what do you do? What do you buy? What are you into? And I think every answer was pretty unique. Like there was a few that were the same kind of the
Starting point is 00:39:08 general I buy a single family houses in this, but most everybody has a unique thing. And so when you get a group of people together at a networking event or at a bigger Pockets meetup or a RIA and you just tell people, you'll find like, oh yeah, well, if I ever see that, I'll let you know. And then just keep track of that. And then when you start letting other people know, hey, I found you a deal, now they're going to want to reciprocate back to you again. So that's cool.
Starting point is 00:39:28 All right, let's move into financing then. 52 properties in 52 weeks was the goal. You're almost there. You might hit it. We'll see. That's an incredible. amount of money needed to buy that. So what are you doing for financing these days? Pulling equity out of properties where I'm really good at earmarking income for things. And so like cash flow that comes in,
Starting point is 00:39:52 it just doesn't come into our main bank account. We hide it from ourselves. And we let it pile up and pile up and we've been in that for years. And so the only thing we buy with our cash flow is more cash flow. Yep. And we have separate properties, very specific properties that are set aside for our lifestyle expenses. But that's it. And they bring in predictable amount of income and that that's all we need. But if we saw all the cash flow coming in, sure, our lifestyle would definitely creep as I think David, David calls it, and we'd be spending a lot more, but we're really good at doing that. So we're able to self-fund most of this through our cash flow and then pulling out through equity, you know, it's the cheapest way to get money right now is your
Starting point is 00:40:27 first strategy. Yeah, I call that cash flow recycling, right? It's like your cash flow, you just recycle and you put it back into the machine and it makes more cash flow and you put it back. It's like snowball. It's like Dave Ramsey's debt snowball, but it's like wealth, the wealth, the wealth snowball, right? Absolutely. Yeah, you just build wealth and you put the wealth back into the machine to build more wealth. And that snowball is incredible.
Starting point is 00:40:45 And so when people hear sometimes, like, well, I could never buy all that. You don't need to. Start with one. If you bought one property that cash flows $300 a month, and it doesn't seem like a lot of money. So after the end of the year, you're making, what, $3,000, $4,000? You dump that back in, though, again. Maybe that'll get you some direct mail letters.
Starting point is 00:40:59 Maybe it'll get you a little, you know, half another property or you partner with somebody and you divide it up. But then two years later, you got enough for another one. And then one year later, and then six months later, and then three months later, And pretty soon that wealth snowball is just flowing down a hill and just gaining speed at such ridiculous rates. And then you're just like, I'm trying to buy 52 properties in 52 weeks. And it's not a crazy thing because you've got that momentum going.
Starting point is 00:41:22 So that's awesome. I love that. All right, man, where's the market headed? Crystal ball time. You see a lot. You're an agent. You buy in a lot of areas. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:41:32 Supply and demand is kind of keeping us in a comfort area, I think. Right. So I'm not worried about the market and people, you know, the moment people start to say, hey, should we pause a little bit? That's when I really want to ramp up my purchasing power for that exact reason. You know, I think we've got several really good years ahead of us in terms of, you know, appreciation. But once again, it really depends on what bucket you're buying for. So if you're buying for cash flow, it doesn't matter too much what the market is because the rents are not coming down, right? The rents are staying consistent. I think the rents are going to continue to go up. I think I've heard both of you guys mentioned this. You know, we're probably going to see more, more. government intervention in terms of making housing affordable, making housing a right, right? And more of the Section 8 and the housing programs. One of my biggest tenants is the government and they've never missed a payment. So I'm okay with that as long as you manage the expectations with the property manager. Will you explain that for those who don't know what you mean by that? Why is the government one of your biggest tenants? Well, if you're in a, let's say you buy a studio or one bedroom and your price point is, you know, four to $600 rent, right? So that is a low income rent there. And so
Starting point is 00:42:34 your average tenant is going to be someone that needs assistance. And I know a lot of people that don't want to touch Section 8, they don't want to touch government assistance, but it's a guarantee check, right? So all it is is replacing income that they don't have. We still need to vet that client. We still need to vet that tenant to make sure that they're a good tenant and a good, there are bad tenants that are not on Section 8, right? And they'll trash your house. There are great tenants on Section 8 that will take care of it. And especially if they go through the work of getting that secure, they really don't want to move. They are longer term tenants than your average tenant. They instead of a one year or two years stay, they're like, can I just live here forever?
Starting point is 00:43:12 Sure. Like, you absolutely. David, where's the market headed? I think that we are going to see a lot more inflation. To be fair, when the shelter in place first kicked in, we were doing this podcast and everyone was playing Chicken Little. The sky is falling. The sky is falling. And I remember I took a stance and Brandon, you kind of supported me on it that I just don't think that's going to happen. It's not popular, but I think we're going to stimulus our way out of this and we're going to have inflation. And I took some heat on that. And now I'm looking pretty smart. I don't know how many people remember what was said back then. But you're seeing what's happening is even if you made bad decisions that rising tide build a lot of people out. And that is good in the
Starting point is 00:43:53 sense that owning assets is very, very powerful because your money is becoming worth less. it can be problematic in the sense that the syndicators that are raising money and they're deploying it can operate fast and dirty and not very well. And they can make it work just because rents are rising across the board quickly due to inflation as well as property values. And then cap rates depressed. So even if you made bad decisions, your property became worth more because there's more demand to get into it. But at the point where that stops, you may find yourself with an asset you don't want to own that you can't manage very well and you're not being bailed out by inflation. So I would say in the short term, as weird as it is to say, the majority of deals that anyone does are going to look really good. Just they're going to be propped up by inflation.
Starting point is 00:44:36 It's just how good you do. And then at a certain point, if we get inflation under control, we get our monetary policy under control, that's when you're going to find out who's been swimming naked when the tide goes back down. So my personal philosophy is, it sounds very similar to Omnize. I want to own an asset in an area that I like owning that does not drain me of my energy, of my time. even if it's not the most cash flow strong thing, I don't want another job. I want it to be more passive income and I'm willing to play the long game. And I think that the metrics that our government is creating support that strategy. I just want to caution people that are buying, if you're going into a D-class neighborhood
Starting point is 00:45:13 and you're trying to make something work, it might look good for the time being because you're watching your assets value increase, but you're still going to be stuck with that thing when the music stops. And is that what you want, right? I wouldn't mind knowing something in Y, Q. key when the music stops. I don't know that I want to own it in one of these like stereotypically bad areas that aren't good for landlords. So yeah, I hope that kind of answers the question. What are your thoughts? Yeah, well, you know, this morning, my CEO O'O Walker texted me and he said,
Starting point is 00:45:41 hey, just food for thought for a fun conversation starter. What's the biggest risk to my company, you know, ODC and over the next 12 to 24 months, right? And I was like, oh, that's a good question. What is the biggest risk to us, right? And I thought the biggest risk is that if inflation hits, and I'm curious to you guys' thoughts on this, if inflation hits really hard, like, harder than we expect, and especially if it hits in the rental market, where from supply and demand and from inflation from everything else, but the average rent, let's start going up 20% per year, let's say. Now, that sounds really great for us, right, because our mortgage is the same, but the risk is in the politicians, will they just, you know, just put like a, like, whether
Starting point is 00:46:19 it's nationwide rent control and be like, you know what? We're cut in all rent in the U.S. by 30% starting tomorrow. There was some, like, lady in Seattle on the Seattle, like, city council who, like, proposed, like, that all landlords have to give their tenants equity in their properties. Like, like, it didn't go anywhere. But, like, that's, there's a segment of the U.S. political spectrum who would be okay with a thing like that. So I think that, anyway, that's what I think is the biggest fear is if we see too much inflation or too much problem with rent growth, we're going to see a backlash because, hey, I want to get reelected next session. How am I going to do it? I'm going to make everyone's rent go down.
Starting point is 00:46:57 And I'm going to be known as the guy who made everyone's rent go down. So that's my theory. Have any thoughts on that? Yeah, I think you're exactly right. So the political spectrum does play. I think it affects the newer investors the most. And how's the market I think is affecting everyone. But I think it affects the newer investors the most because I used to worry about who got elected.
Starting point is 00:47:19 And I vote. And obviously I care. But my portfolio or my ability to, invest got better and better regardless who was in just based on my experience. So the better investor you are, the market's really good for you. If you are a brand new investor, guess why? It's a tough market. You've got to buy your first property and not be a brand new investor anymore. And then next year, it's going to be a better market for you. And if you do that two years, next year's going to be a better market for you as well. And really it's going to be directly proportionate
Starting point is 00:47:45 to your experience as an investor versus what's happening politically or in the market in general. This is such a good question that you asked, Brandon. Did you have a point you want to make? No, go ahead. Continue. I don't know that any other podcast in the world is talking about what we're saying right now. It just doesn't get brought up. And so I want to make sure we don't gloss over it because I think this is really powerful. The problem with following the herd, like, well, Omnai is investing there. So I'm going to go invest there or short-term rentals are hot.
Starting point is 00:48:12 I'm going to go get a short-term rental is you're putting a target on your back. Okay. So you hear a lot of prominent real estate investors that will brag openly and publicly, I don't pay any taxes. This comes up all the time. All that does is send a message to politicians that, oh, really? And so they go to the tax code in all the ways that we benefit like accelerated appreciation, 1031 like kind of exchanges, that things are actually healthy for the economy because they encourage people to invest their money and create jobs and create wealth and improve things. They're just going to take it away. They're like, oh, that's what you're doing to not pay taxes?
Starting point is 00:48:46 Well, we're going to remove all that. And now it actually makes it harder to build wealth through real state than it would be through other means. And I think that when you're following the herd, you put yourself in a position where you can easily have the branch you're standing on chopped off. So the advice that I would give to people is that you have to take action, but you can't assume that the environment you're buying into right now is what you'll have in 10 years, in 20 years, and 30 years that you need to be thinking about exit strategy. So if you're buying an apartment complex, simply because of the tax benefits that you get. And like Omni said, or you said Brandon, they come in and say rents are now being capped at this percentage of
Starting point is 00:49:24 whatever the median income is for that area. And you can't raise rents enough to make it worth owning. And you're stuck with the headache of owning that property over and over and over. You can't cry victim. You knew going into this that like politicians make rules that affect how that works. And right now a lot of those are in the real estate investors favor. The tax code is written in a way that encourages development of communities. But that may not be the case all the time. regardless of if we think that's stupid or not, that could happen. So when you're making these decisions, if you're buying into an area with a very expensive short-term rental, you're paying $2 million and you're just like, oh, the gross revenue is incredible,
Starting point is 00:50:00 this is going to change my life. What are you going to do in a year if they come in to outlaw that? What if the hotel lobbies all gather together and say, no, we're not letting that happen anymore and the politicians go against you. And you're stuck with a $25, $30,000 mortgage payment. You can only rent it out for $5,000 a month. I think today's investor that's making moves should still be aggressively going after what they want, but you need to be playing chess.
Starting point is 00:50:23 You got to be thinking a couple steps ahead of where you are right now to protect that wealth because I do think that like what you said, Brandon, there's a politician who's saying we think that landlords should have to give equity to tenants. If that catches steam and it starts to pick up, like I think Omni could probably speak about that better than anybody living in Hawaii as he's seen how easily the masses can influence the way that the laws are written. Yeah, yeah, it's a sketchy, scary proposition. So, David, what do you suggest? And, Ami, what do you suggest for to best prepare yourself against a changing economy or a changing government? Because
Starting point is 00:50:58 I don't want people to walk away in this interview being scared, right? Because like you said, like it doesn't really matter who's in, as long as we're smart, we're going to figure out a way. But so what are some tangible things people can do? Either one of you got an idea? I'll let you start, Omni. Yeah, I think you guys hit on the key points here. But when I buy a property, especially if cash flow, right? It's a little bit safer on the cash flow side because you have cash flow, right? If things change, you have, but if you have a drastic change and rent there, when I buy a cashful property, I would love to not ever have to sell that. I do sell my properties, but I'd love to never have to sell it. But I absolutely think at what is the one or two exit strategies that I have
Starting point is 00:51:32 exactly what David said. Do I need to cash out? Do I need to pull my money out of this? Do I, can I sell this if we drop at 10% and I'm still okay with that return there, right? So I have, you know, kind of triggers of what makes sense if I need to exit. And If there's something drastic across the board, you just need to know when you're going to make that move. Yeah, that's really good. David, any one, Ed? What I love about this podcast is we don't fall into the trap that our competition does the other podcast, where what most people do is they recognize what's trendy right now, short term rentals. So they make the short term rental podcast.
Starting point is 00:52:03 And every episode is about someone who crushed it with short term rentals. And you can too. And if you buy our short term rental course, we can teach you how to do it. And they capitalize on like in football, like the wildcat offense was really popular. for a while. There's always a gimmick in any sport that's working good before defenses figure it out. And they just hammer that point home. And they make you think all you need to know is this one little thing. And it caters to the worst part of human nature that's like, just tell me the quick answer. Just tell me where to invest. Tell me where to find the house. I just want to do it.
Starting point is 00:52:31 I don't want to have to learn how to do this. I just want to be able to get myself wealthy in a year or two. What we do is we actually force you sort of to listen to us talk about all the different tools that you need in your tool belt to make this worth. The strengths and the weak. of individual markets and individual strategies. And when you understand that, it's like knowing the game of football, not just knowing the gimmicky play. It doesn't matter what the government throws at you. It doesn't matter what the economy throws out you. If you have these tools in your toolbox, you will adapt to what happens. So my advice would be like always consider area first, location first. There's a lot of people going to Midwest markets and buying turnkey homes. And in this climate, that will work because you're seeing a lot of inflation and it's not that hard to rent out a property. Well, if the economy goes down, those areas tend to get hit the hardest because they don't have as many options as far as employment opportunities. And those properties are typically difficult to manage. And if you're not seeing a lot of appreciation, you're going to lose money as soon as the HVAC goes out. Or like you said, Branden, you have one bad turn that costs you five grand.
Starting point is 00:53:31 Your cash flow for a year and a half is gone. You're sort of pigeonholed into a bad location that worked in a climate with rising tides but doesn't work anywhere else. So you start off by saying, where are the thriving areas that people are moving to and businesses are moving to that if, my short-term rental strategy doesn't work. I have a backup plan. I can turn it into two units or three units. I can go corporate housing. I can rent it out and maybe lose three or four hundred bucks a month as just a regular rental, but in two or three years, I'm okay again. Or I could sell it because somebody wants to live in it to buy there and I can get my capital out and reinvest to the better place. That would be the best thing that I could offer is don't just get locked into
Starting point is 00:54:08 looking down the scope of, you know, your analyzation tool and only seeing cash flow, cash flow, you know, whatever that flavor of the month happens to be in real estate investing. Yeah, very good. Really good stuff. Omna, what is the cash flow breakfast club? Cash flow. I saw that written somewhere. So I probably blame this on you guys.
Starting point is 00:54:29 I've been a closed book for most of my life, right, in hiding, ashamed of being an investor. And then I found bigger pockets, right? You guys are talking about it. And it's cool now, right? And it wasn't cool when I started or at least I didn't feel it was. And then the more I listen to you, like the more guilt I had of not sharing what I know, right? Because my friends, my family, my own agents that I love dearly have not taught them anything along those lines. And you're having conversations with somebody about a transaction.
Starting point is 00:55:01 You're just thinking, why does this even matter, right? You know, we're talking about such a small piece when most people are not focusing on their financial freedom. So a couple years ago, you kind of decided to start coaching agents. agents, you know, to become financially free and help them buy rental properties. And then we slowly open it up to their friends and their family and things like that. And then my family have been able to buy with them. But it started with this agent investor club. And we just called it the breakfast club just because, you know, just for it to play on the movie.
Starting point is 00:55:31 But it was focused on cash well. And so we met. We talked about it. And it allowed me to a safe space to take off my broker hat, take off my agent hat and say, all right, I'm an investor. You've never heard me say any of this before. This is something different. This is something I'm not telling you as an agent, not telling you I'm telling you as a broker.
Starting point is 00:55:49 But we're going to talk about investing and we're going to dive deep into it. And if you're going to be in this club, you're committing to buying a property in the year. And if you're going to be in this club, you're committed to buy X amount of doors in X amount of years. And you could leave if you're not comfortable with that. But I want everyone in here to be comfortable being an investor, stepping outside of the comfort zone and doing it on a regular basis so that you guys can go spread the word to your friends and your friends and your family. family and kind of ripple through effects. So it's an actual club that I started and I wrote a book several years ago, never publish it. Didn't have a name. Really? Yeah, never published it. And and I- Come on, man. You got to publish. Okay, keep going. I thought about publishing it under an
Starting point is 00:56:26 alias because once again, it's the step-by-step process of what I did to become financially free and what I think most people could do to become financially free. Problem, it was my story. And I wasn't ready to tell that story. I wasn't really used to tell anyone else I was doing that. So thought about using it, publishing it as an alias and just kind of put it on the back shelf. Once I started this cash flow breakfast club over the last two years, one, I love the concept, and so I kind of rewrote the principles of the book through a power parable almost, right? So a fictional story of a guy that happened to grow up in Hawaii that happened to be an investor and things like that, and I was able to remove myself from the story and just to keep the principles
Starting point is 00:57:04 in there. But really it's a story of this guy that, you know, just doesn't know what he wants. wants, but knows he wants to do something other than work for, you know, 30 plus years and retire at 65, he stumbles across rich dad. Poor dad. He plays the, you know, cash flow quadrant game. And then he finds a group, he finds a mentor, he finds a club that helps them, helps him understand what you talked about, the stacking effect of your cash flow properties. And then understanding that once you become financially free, there's a whole other world of investing that's not cash flow related and jumping out of that. So that's kind of the crux of the book.
Starting point is 00:57:40 And basically all the lessons that I've taught my agents over the last couple years are just thrown into this book. So if someone says, I need help, it's like here. It's all in here. Read through this. If this doesn't scare you, then we can talk. Yeah. That's so good, man. So is it officially out?
Starting point is 00:57:56 People can make you go get it. By the end of the year, my goal is to have this published. So it's written. It's ready to go. So I have one unpublished copy right here. And this is like my training manual that I use from. and by the end of this year, I think I'm hopefully going to get this published. All right, man.
Starting point is 00:58:12 Well, let me help you with that. I've done it a few times. Exactly. We're going to get this thing out. And we'll put links to the show notes. I don't even know what this show. Yeah, 547. So you can go to BiggerPockets.com.
Starting point is 00:58:21 So I show 547. And we'll have a link in there to the book. Even if it's not out by the time this show airs, we'll have a link to maybe like a landing page that can go, put their email in and then they'll get it when it comes out or you'll be able to send them where they can buy it from or get it. So, yeah, we'll make sure that everyone can get it because that's awesome. And you had a cool story. So last question before we moved to the famous four. Where are you headed in the future?
Starting point is 00:58:42 What do you foresee for Amni? So I was mentioning this before we got out. This feels like a therapy session for me. You know, we were speaking last week or a couple weeks ago as well. And I haven't been thinking that big. I haven't really been thinking about what are my big goals. I have three young kids.
Starting point is 00:58:58 They're my world, right? My oldest is 12. My daughter is nine. She's like our investment CEO for my family. And then my youngest is seven. And so everything I'm doing now is investment related, but can I do it nearby, closer by, so that I can involve them. So I'm trying to figure out a better way to have dialogues with children about this, right?
Starting point is 00:59:19 And we play the cashful breakfast, the cashful game, you know, quite often that helps. But they're out with me on the weekends, you know, every single weekend looking at properties. And, you know, I think there's a need for that because I think there's people that are age or older that, yes, they like investing. They do investing or they want to get into investing. but if you can think about the next generation to come. And how can you instill the things that we never talked about growing up, right? And so I'm trying to figure that out, but I've got three test cases with my kids right now every single weekend.
Starting point is 00:59:48 Yeah, how are telling me exactly what's working and what's not working? Yeah, what are you doing? Like, what are some things that you're doing to pass on, not just the wealth, but more importantly, the knowledge that comes with it. So what are you doing with your kids? Yeah, we started out with the cash flow game, playing that, you know, quite off to almost every single weekend. and now we've got my kids that can, we used to help them on the game, but now they can play on themselves, and my son wins quite often against us. Whenever we're looking at properties and analyzing properties and walking through properties, I usually have one of my kids, if not two of them,
Starting point is 01:00:19 walking through and just taking notes and say, here's what we're going to be doing here. And then most recently, when we started a meetup, I started to bring one of my kids, usually my daughter fights to be the one to go. And she, like, sits through, we have an education a moment, right? like an hour of education, and she just kind of sits through the details of it. Like we started talking about inflation last week. And, you know, then she comes back and says, why is money losing value, right? And so she came to the next one, and she's like, I'm raising my hand to talk about what inflation is, and she wants to kind of put it out there.
Starting point is 01:00:47 So I think it's just exposing them to the dialogues and the conversations. And I've been more open about, you know, putting it out on Facebook over the last few months telling people about it to start this uncomfortable conversation because if we can have that uncomfortable conversation with our friends, our family, and our kids, it becomes normal at something. Yeah. Man, that's awesome. Really good stuff. I want to relate back on a metaphor or analogy I used in the beginning of the show, and I'm just going to put it together in my head right now. But remember I mentioned hockey earlier? Like, if you want to be able to be good at hockey, hang out with somebody who plays a lot of hockey, and it's so easy for them, right? But a thing I'd never really
Starting point is 01:01:24 thought of before is, like, that's why we need to involve our kids in what we're doing. Not that they have to know everything and not that we have to be real estate people but for us talking about inflation is easy for us talking about cash flow is easy for them it's not so the more that they get into that world of talking about financial things it's like we're the hot we're the professional hockey player and our kids the one that in that way we give them that training without like sitting down and be like all right today's a lesson is this it's just they're involved and because we want to make it so when they graduate high school or going to the world like oh yeah just cashful that concept that most of us never knew sure like that that's just easy it's just
Starting point is 01:01:59 like putting on a pair of skates. So, dude, this has been amazing. We're not quite done, though. We've got to head over to the last segment of the show. It is time for our... Famous Four. The Famous Four. It's the part of the show where we go through the same four questions every week with every guest.
Starting point is 01:02:13 And this week, we're going to ask Omni these four questions. So, number one, Omni, favorite, either all-time or current, real estate-related book. Yeah, it's going to be the same book everyone does. And I book them together. Rich Dad, Poor Dad, and Cash Book Quad. I think they have to be together, and it's what changed my life is what changes every. It's the first book I recommend anyone read before they ask me for help. Yep.
Starting point is 01:02:39 Love it. Love it. Next book. What is your favorite business book? There's a lot of good ones. Probably my all-time favorite is the Go-Giver. There's a Go-Giver series. You know, it's just the not-keeping score concept, right?
Starting point is 01:02:51 You know, I think this comes from my guilt of hiding all this time and not sharing. And so now I just really want to, you know, share with as many people as possible. it's not a business for me. I don't get paid for coaching or anything along those lines, but it is very rewarding. And I've done more real estate in the last few years than I've ever done because I've started to give, right? And so the more I teach, the more I help, I do realize it comes back tenfold. And so it's a really good parable, really good story for anyone, any business, you know, to follow. Awesome, dude. All right. What about some of your hobbies? I used to water, everything water used to be my hobby. When I moved away from Hawaii, it hasn't been
Starting point is 01:03:28 you know, as ideal. Where are you at now? So I'm out of Northern Virginia, actually. My wife's from there, so we moved there. It's closer to some of the properties that we've invested in. So her family's there, so it was a family move a while back. So not a lot of water things going on. Really, I embarrass to say my hobbies are real estate investing with my kids.
Starting point is 01:03:47 And so there's nothing I look forward to more. And real estate investing by my fund, myself is okay and fun, you know, analyzing deals and things like that. But like we just, it is a family event to go out, you know, and drive. and walk through properties. We're buying this property. What do you think we should offer? And so we just kind of make it a game.
Starting point is 01:04:04 And my kids like it for the time being, I think. Awesome, man. Very cool. All right. Well, my last question of the day, what do you think separates successful real estate investors from those who give up, fail, or never get started? Yeah, I've heard so many people answer this question,
Starting point is 01:04:20 and there's so many really good answers, and there's no one right answer. But I think it's two-part questions, right? So the first part is not get started. You've just got to get over the, the fear of failure, right? People don't get start because, don't start because they know they're going to fail or they're worried about failing. Yeah, you're probably going to fail. Everyone fails to some level. Every property you have will have failure involved in it. You have to be comfortable knowing
Starting point is 01:04:40 that that's just step one. But for those who give up without starting, I think it comes down to a concept that I put in the book is what I call it the three batteries, right? We all have three batteries, at least starting out in investing. And one battery is our time, right? One battery is our capital. The money we can bring. And one battery. battery is debt to income when you're when you're using leverage and I think people make the wrong move starting out use up too much of those batteries to start and it kind of puts them in a pigeonhole to say well like I max out at one property I max out of two properties so I think putting that right plan in place of where you actually start is helpful and most people that we've helped over
Starting point is 01:05:18 the last couple years really were at a place of they gave up they bought a property five six years ago, but they kind of hit a wall. And so kind of putting into that succession, the right, what kind of properties I should be buying first is probably the easiest way for people to kind of move forward and do this full time. All right, man. I love it. I love it. Well, thank you very much for joining us today. It's going to be a great episode. People are going to love this thing. It's going to change a lot of lives. So David, I guess I'll give you the final question, as usual. Where can people find out more about you? Tick-Tock. I'm all over. doing your dances. That's what I thought. Not on TikTok. I'm on Facebook. Um-N-I the investor guy. OM-N-I,
Starting point is 01:05:58 the investor guy. And I'm on Instagram. I'm embarrassed on how little I do on Instagram. I'm trying. We're going to get you there, man. Yes. You need to be Omnai present. It was taken. So I'm just, I'm not the investor guy. I love it, dude. All right. Well, thank you very much. Thank you for joining us today. And David, thank you as well for joining us today. It was a blast. I'm not. I really appreciate your insight. You can tell that there's a lot of wisdom that's coming out of you and that you also have a very good heart. So thank you for coming and sharing what you're doing and sort of letting us take this show and make it less about specific tactics and more about overall how you build a healthy portfolio that will last for a long period time because it doesn't matter
Starting point is 01:06:37 how much a wealth you build if you end up losing it. Absolutely. Thank you. This is David Green for Brandon. He's on TikTok and you know he won't stop Turner. Signing 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. On the host and executive producer of the show, Dave Meyer, the show is produced by E&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. www.com. The content of this podcast is for informational purposes only. All host and
Starting point is 01:07:19 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. BiggerPockets LLC disclaims all liability for direct, indirect, consequential, or other damages arising from a reliance on information presented in this podcast.

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