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626: How “Turnkey” Rentals Can Help You Build Real Estate Riches Faster w/Zach Lemaster

June 23, 20220 comments♥ 0
00:00This is the Bigger Pockets Podcast Show 626.I mean, there's not a lot of difference.Whether you have a $200,000 single family in the Midwest, a $2 million deal in a more expensive neighborhood, you know, you still evaluate the numbers the same.So don't limit yourself looking at, you know, the larger deals and getting scared at participating in those, even if it requires bringing in some private money.What's going on, everyone?I am David Green, your host of the Bigger Pockets Real Estate podcast.here today with my fantastic co-host, Rob Abasolo,where we get into an interview with the CEO of Rent to Retirement,
00:37Zach, was it Lee Master?How did he say it?Zach Leamester.You know what's funny is when Brandon did these shows,he always messed up the last name,and now I, as the host, find myself doing the exact same thing.It's funny, because when I was the co-host, I always knew what it was.And as the host, I don't.
00:52Well, Zach gives us a great interviewfrom several different dynamic perspectivesof real estate investing. So Zach owns investment property himself all across the country,some of it small multifamily. We get into talk about a luxury property that he actually boughtin Colorado in a ski area that he is going to be renting for $5,000 a night at peak season.He also owns a turnkey company. You may have heard their name rent to retirement. They arefamiliar in the bigger pocket space. You probably heard his ads on our show. And we get intohow he runs a company, how he hires, why he believes turnkey could be better for some people
01:28really good stuff. Rob, what was your favorite part of today's show?You know, I think it was really nice to hear his insight into turnkey properties.You know, he really kind of spoke a lot on stacking your strategy and staying hyper-focusedbecause he's at a very cool trajectory in his real estate journey.He went from being an optometrist to going into wholesaling, then to residential,then to commercial.And like you said, incredibly successful business owner as well.So just really fun to always dig into those stories a little bit deeper.
01:55Absolutely.Before we bring in Zach, let's get to today.quick tip. Today's show, we talk about the W2 mindset and how it doesn't always fit into theworld that we work in, which is an entrepreneurial space, what I call the 1099 environment,where you don't have clear paths drawn out for you for an employer to walk in. You've got thishuge, immersive 3D environment. You can take any path you want, and it can be very scary andunsettling when you bring a W2 mindset into this world. So ask yourself, in what ways are youoperating in a W2 mindset? Ways that you may be and not know it. Is an unseen,
02:28expectation that other people should be telling you what to do. The thought that when somethinggoes wrong, somebody else should be having to fix it and not you. The belief that you shouldn'thave to do work after 5 o'clock p.m. or that during the hours of 9 to 5, you need to be workingall the time. None of these are rules that are hard and fast set in stone. They are habits that we'vecreated because we've worked in a W2 world for so long. And if that's you, that's okay. But ifyou're trying to get into the world that Rob and I and Zach operate in on a daily basis that could be holding you back.So find out somebody sit down and talk about what ways you might be experiencing a W2 mindset it's holding you back.Rob, you have anything you want to add on that topic?
03:08No, you know, I think it's always very helpful to talk to someone who's actually made the leap and sort of has struggled with just going full on and the self-employed.You know, and I think one, funny enough, I was used to say that I was unemployed.And then Tony Robinson, rookie, rookie host was like, no, man, you're self-employed.Be proud of it.And I was like, that's right.I am.So, you know, find someone, pick their brain and learn.That's all you can really do.
03:33All right.Well, that sounds great, Rob.You ever head out on a trip, lock your door, and think, cool.My most valuable asset is now doing absolutely nothing.Because while you're off traveling, your home is just sitting there.Quiet, empty, not contributing.Which feels like a missed opportunity, considering it has solid Wi-Fi.in a very comfy bed.
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05:06side room wants a side hustle. Even your Wi-Fi is like, we could be networking. You're on vacation,spending money like it's a sport while your staircase at home is fully capable of sending your incomeupwards. Here's the twist. You can go on a trip and actually earn money. Airbnb makes that possiblewith the co-host network. If you're away for a while or have a secondary property, you can hirea vetted local co-host with real hosting experience to handle it all. A co-host can handleguest communications, it can manage reservations and keep things running smoothly so you don'thave to check your phone between beach days. That means less stress and more time enjoying yourtrip. You can relax, knowing guests are taken care of, and your place is in good hands. You travel,
05:52your house works. Everyone wins. If you're ready to host, but could use some help, find a co-host atAirbnb.com slash host. I'd say with that anymore, adieu, we should get into our interview withZach. Zach Leamester, welcome to the Bigger Pockets podcast. David, Rob, thanks for so much for having me.I'm excited to be here. Yeah, we're glad to have you too. So let's get started by asking you,What does your portfolio look like right now with real estate and business?Absolutely.This is kind of an ever-evolving, you know, scenario.But today what we're looking at, we mainly have transitioned to owning a lot of commercial
06:26retail space.That's the majority of our personal holding.So we have 30 commercial spaces or doors, I guess.That's spread out across seven doors.We have 29 residential units.Two of those are single family in Canada that we own.My wife's Canadian.Majority are here in multiple states.
06:46We have a couple duplexes, one fourplex in that.We have one very unique, large short-term rental, and we have 18 build-to-rents.Those are all single family.Awesome.And then what about from the business side?Yeah, on the business side, so what we're doing is our core business, rent-retirement.We're a turn-key provider, and so we work in multiple markets throughout the U.S., mainly in Midwest and southeast.We probably do about 50 houses a month. These are mainly single family or small multi, where they are rehab, leased and managed for our investor clients. And so that's really our core business. Sweet. So you've got your wealth in real estate. You make your money in business in real estate. You are like us, a real estate nerd. So how did you get started in this whole space? Yeah, I think real quick to your point, David, it's interesting is we, you know, we interview a lot of people that are really successful in real estate and other.
07:40businesses. There's there's so many people that make money outside of real estate in other avenuesand put it into real estate. And there's so many people that, you know, flip houses, but don'thold houses. I always thought that was a very interesting thing. But going back to our story,so I'll try to keep this somewhat short for you. We have a background in health care, I guess.My wife and I are optometrist by education. We met in school in Oregon. I think I initiallygot interested in real estate investing, as many people did, reading just Robert Key,You know, rich dad, poor dad. That really stuck with me just in the mindset. I continued to alwayseducate myself about, you know, different aspects of real estate, although it took many years to
08:20actually take our first step into investing. So we went to school in Oregon. I was on a scholarshipwith the Air Force after a professional school. So I went in as an Air Force captain for five yearspracticing optometry there. That's where we started investing in real estate. My first house was ahouse hack duplex used a VA loan to purchase that excellent loan. We kept that house as a rentalfor many years, continued to move out of that and scale up over time. One thing I always tell people isevery single year since that first duplex, which is over 10 years at this point, we've bought moreand more real estate every single year. And that has really allowed us to scale our portfoliowhere we're at today. That's just an internal goal we've set just with that scalability mindset.
09:02One other thing we did early on was wholesaling. We started to explore wholesaling we thoughtwas an interesting way to just basically use a side hustle to make money in real estate and was,I guess, rather low risk, at least initially, as many people have done. I paid a large amount,$25,000 for a course, money I didn't have at the time just coming out of school. So we put it on acredit card. I was very nervous about that. Couldn't sleep, you know, worried about losing the money.I brought in a partner that end up paying 50% of that and helping us, you know, get started withwholesaling. We grew our whole.wholesaling business to the point where we were probably doing 15 properties a month, decided to
09:42keep some of those as rentals and scale that over time, and then decided to also manage those,which many mistakes were made there. Of course, we started to scale over time investing in differentstates throughout the U.S. And I think that's really a pivotal moment for us, because that openedup our eyes when we found out that, hey, you can invest out of state. Following it's really the sameprocess as you can locally. It's all about your team and systems and place.and that allowed us to really focus on growing our portfolio in areas that had the best returns.Some of the first two properties we bought were turnkey properties from a turnkey provider.These were Southside Chicago, D-class assets, numbers looked great on paper, high-end rehab, you know,
10:24and so it looked all good on the initial investment, and they just performed terribly.And actually the provider we bought him from, who also managed the properties,he ended up dying a year later, had a brain aneurysm.We were stuck with these properties.There's just nothing to do, no one to help us.But that was really the catalyst for us to start our turnkey business is, hey, we can go out there and do this on our own and develop our own systems just through having to learn through those experiences.So fast forward to where we're at today.You know, we're investing in multiple markets throughout the U.S., scaling our portfolio and doing a lot of transition into the commercial space.
11:00We have a lot of commercial retail, and that's an area that we're focusing on allowing us to scale quicker.do the tax advantage benefits of like cost segregation studies on those so that's where we're at todayso i kind of want to like jump back just a hair here and i wanted to ask you oh i mean you kind ofyou spent 25 000 on a course and you split it with the partner a lot of people do this ummy question to you is when you're getting started do you feel like the success that you had kind ofthe boost that you had from this course did it come from the fact that you just spent money on itand you said, I am financially committed to this thing now, so I'm going to do it?Or did the success come from the knowledge that you got from it?
11:40Like, I'm always kind of curious to hear, because I think it's like 50, 50 for a lot of people.Rob, you hit the nail on the head.It was 100% the financial commitment.It's like, oh, crap, I better do something because I just drop this amount of money that I don't actually have.Sure, the course had some educational stuff.You had a little bit of coaching.They reviewed some contracts with us.The reality is all that stuff was available online for free or just, you know,
12:04networking with the right people, but it's definitely the financial motivation behind it. I don't thinkthat's necessary, you know, but but definitely it's, you know, going to light a fire under you to makesure that you do something in that scenario. That's what happened to us. For sure. And so when youwere first, like kind of getting started just so I understand the timeline. I know you said you,you were into the optometry industry. Was that what really sort of fueled your, I don't know,like the initial capital to get into this or, you know, how did, how did that work out when you'refirst getting started, or were you using the money from wholesaling to really fund the purchase of allyour residential properties? It was a combination. I mean, we were also in debt. We had, you know,
12:43six-figure student debt, so that was a little bit of a burden, of course. Having the VA loan allowedus to purchase that first property with no money down. That's an excellent loan structure.But actually, wholesaling rather quickly became the main method to fund a lot of the rentals that we wereholding. Wholesailing was key for us because it allowed us to evaluate deals, learn how to findand evaluate deals. And that, I guess, was crucial in allowing us to evaluate how to take on dealsthat we were going to buy and hold. But that was a great side hustle, I guess, that allowed us tobuild capital much quicker than we would just in our typical, you know, profession.Are you still in that, you know, I guess it's, it's a little bit more of a, of a front hustle at
13:26this point. But are you still in that world or did you sort of move on once you kind of built youryour backlog of capital and everything like that.You mean in the healthcare setting?No, no, in the wholesaling setting.Like, do you still execute that side of it at all?Or are you just now fully into like the other niches that you discussed earlier?Yeah, wholesaling is always an exit strategy that's a potential.If there's a deal that we're not going to take on, we're going to sell it to another rehabber.
13:51So, I mean, that is something we've definitely done.But it's not the core business.Really now we buy a lot from wholesalers to actually, you know, take on that we're going to add to our own portfolio.So it's something that's not a main focus, but definitely I think it's just an exit strategyto be aware of it.Totally.Yeah.And I guess it's very rare that we have someone in your position here where you do have a
14:14really great business and you also have an amazing real estate empire.So just from a philosophical standpoint, I wanted to dig in a little bit, you know, on your,on the kind of how you handle your investments and sort of personal philosophy on how you'refunneling money from, you know, one side of the business to.the other. And so what I was kind of curious is, do you ever, you know, do you take all the profits fromyour real estate side and just keep reinvesting that? Because it sounds like you're always just,you know, growing your portfolio and buying more and more. Or is there a little bit of, you know,reward that you actually take from your real estate portfolio? Or do you live solely based off of
14:51business income? I mean, we live, we don't live huge lavish lifestyles by any means. It doesn't take muchto, you know, replace the income that we, we have today. But,I mean, when we started to earn significant income through our business, the tax burden was painfully real.And so a lot of our strategy now is to reinvest that money.And that's following our philosophy of how you should, you know, reinvest your proceeds.And so a lot of our active business we take and we put it into at this point now, these commercial retail centers run cost segregation studies on those to reduce our taxable income and just try to keep scaling that way.So I guess the answer, Rob, is just reinvesting it, absolutely.Yeah, this is something that I really find a lot of entrepreneurs and real estate investors, you know,
15:39struggling with, especially when they do have a business like you're talking about and real estate.And they just don't know, like, how do I pay myself?When do I pay myself?You know, when is that appropriate?Because for me, in my personal investment career, I've never actually spent any of the money that I've ever made in real estate.Not really anyway.I mean, not anything significant.I've always taken the profits that I've had and I've just dumped it back into.
16:01to the portfolio to just keep it growing. And it's really hard because obviously, you know,I feel like you do have to reward yourself every so often. But, you know, I'm sort of in adifferent, or in a similar scenario where I have another business outside of that. And that's kind ofwhere I'm, you know, my income is mostly coming for that so that I can just protect the realestate nest egg that I'm slowly building over time. Absolutely. I love that. When it comes towhat you really love about real estate, why you left your former profession todive into this. What can you tell us? Like, was there a moment where you saw something that youhadn't seen before? Was there an element of it you fell in love with? Was it a pure business
16:39decision? Like, what got you into leaving your old job and going full steam into this one?I think probably the moment that we were just like, hey, we got to go full bore into this.This makes complete sense. It's a simple fact that real estate, it's not time associated.You know, with working in the health care setting, your time, you're compensated basedfor your time in the chair, right?You can only see so many patients.You can only, you know, be compensated.Even owning businesses, too, you're wearing multiple hats.
17:09And a lot of, a lot of healthcare professionals are not great business owners.But just the ability to create income streams where you are growing your net worth and providingconsistent passive income, whether you're actually working or not.I mean, once we kind of saw the writing on the wall with that, David, that was very much like,hey, we got to go all in.We've seen a successful business model.We have a proven track record.It was an emotional change, though, too.
17:37There was a lot of people like, hey, you spent eight years of college going to school for this profession.What are you doing?So, I mean, there's a little bit of that, and it was an emotional change, but the best decision we made,absolutely.So this is probably a good point to ask you.Like, we've talked about what we love about real estate.What are some of the challenges that you've encountered that you were not expecting when you first got into it or some of the things that stop you from growing at the pace that you wish you could?It's an ever-evolving world.
18:05You really need to stay up on legislation, on financing.I mean, financing is a huge thing.That's been a big obstacle for us as we've grown our portfolio over time.One thing we always do is interview multiple different lenders to try to find the best financing options.we hit a little bit of an obstacle with some of our commercial properties we purchased wherethey required, they gave us the best loan terms, but then they stuck us with all these loancovenants and requirements. They wanted a 10% liquidity requirement, just sitting in thebank, just letting inflation eat that away. And they check that quarterly. So it's just a little bit
18:41of a hindrance to be able to use that money to grow and scale. I mean, there's all sorts ofobstacles in real estate from all different capacities. One thing that's allowed us to besuccessful, I think, is just being creative. And I also like that. That's a challenge,obviously, with the obstacle, but being creative to find a solution to those problems to beable to scale your portfolio, whether that's a tenant, a financing issue, whatever the case is.We've had some bad partnerships in real estate. I mean, that could be applied to business ingeneral. We've lost a lot of money in partnerships that we jumped into quickly and scaled too quicklywith that unwound. But that's just part of the game and trying to stay the course.
19:22Rob, as you hear this, what are you thinking about when you're like thinking about what yourexperience has been? And now we hear like Zach's doing this at a pretty big scale.What kind of thoughts are going through your head as far as the challenges that you've had as theycompared to Zach's? Well, you know, Zach is obviously you've scaled up. And there's a really bigdifference between running a 20 unit portfolio and a 100 or 200 or 300 unit portfolio. And I kind of,It's a very interesting challenge, you know.I think that the scaling is something that a lot of people are, you know, they have a lot of trouble, you know, because, you know, everybody has a very different idea of what scaling looks like and how to successfully execute it.And so now that I've been doing this in scaling and growing my team and kind of making this work for me, I'm starting to understand that like it feels, and I don't say this in a negative way, but it feels like I'm leaving the golden days of like, you know, when I was learning everything and cutting my teeth and I could still make mistakes.
20:15mistakes and I could still fail really big. And now I'm really, you know, having to hold myself accountableand be like, okay, you know, playtime's over. We experimented. It was the Wild West for the first fiveyears of my career. But now there are a lot of things that I have to take in consideration and they'relike jobs on the line and I pay people, I pay employees. And so for me, I'm kind of just in the throesof scaling. But I still, it's like, I know that even five years from now, I'm going to say that right nowis the golden days because I feel like this is going to be the most important day or the importantperiod of my life is figuring out how to scale my business. And so, yeah, I don't know. I mean,I have a lot of respect for people that that can grow a portfolio past 20 units, you know,
20:5420 doors just because the team that's, that's, that's, that it takes to do that is very difficultto build. It's very difficult to find people who, who are on your page on the same page as you,I guess. Yeah. So, Zach, what's your thoughts on that, that element of what you're trying to build?Yeah, systems. I mean, systems and, you know, that's scalability is the hardest thing. I think it'srather easy for a lot of people to scale their real estate business and portfolio to a few million,you know, with a handful of employees, but to really take it to that next level of growing yourportfolio where you have, you know, maybe 20 plus employees or you're really making this a legitimatebusiness. And really any business, I think for that matter, scalability is tough, you know,
21:37and dealing with real, real big issues with employees. And I mean, that's a hard thing. I think we allare consistently facing. And I haven't figured that out yet, but, you know, everything, every step we take onscalability, you just, you know, you try something out of it doesn't work. You try to implement a bettersystem to do that and, you know, continue to add the right people to your team. That's what it's allabout. I mean, we've heard the, you know, the term of, or the saying of, you know, hire slowly andfire quickly, you know, sometimes we've done the opposite. But the right people are really what it'sabout creating those systems. So another challenge that investors face,is where they live can have a geographical hindrance on their investing. So if you live in a great
22:19market, you don't really think about this if there's opportunities to buy properties, if you've gotcash-filling properties that are where you are. But if you're in a market that's not so great,you're painfully aware that this whole investing thing kind of sucks. So you've had to learn how tobuy properties in different parts of the country out-of-state investing. I mean, you're actually atother countries with some of the stuff. What are some of the challenges that you encountered whenit came to long-distance investing? And how did you overcome those? Yeah,I think the challenges of real estate really, there's some challenges that don't matter geographicallybecause you're going to have the same issues. And then there's some that are obviously, you know,
22:52there's this comfort, this mindset associated with, hey, if a property is close by, I can solve thisproblem, which could be true to some extent, but it can also, you know, maybe take up too much of your time.The reality is if you have the right people and teams and systems in place, it should follow the sameprocess regardless of where you're at. But investing out of state, I mean, finding good contractors,how do you build that team, whether it's locally or in different areas. Obviously, there'sdifferent state legislation you need to be aware of in tax structures. It's like, what are the tenantlaws and how do we know that we're abiding by those? Can we vet tenants the same way that we do inthis area? How does the eviction process work? You know, there's a lot of things to look at as far as
23:32managing the property's long term. Internationally, I mean, you know, constantly, and we havefamily that owns a property in Australia and many other countries as well. I always love tocompare the U.S. to those countries as far as like a lending and tax structure because there'snothing else that comes close. I mean, there's no such thing as a 30-year fixed loan in Canada or anyother country. Australia does negative gearing where they actually buy negatively cash-loing propertiesto offset taxes. So that's a constant reminder that, you know, the U.S. has so much benefit to investand that's why we have so much international money coming. But as far as like the challenges,I think they're all really the same, David. You know, I think you face the same challenges
24:09regardless of actual location. And that's why it's vitally important to have the right people set up.Yeah. So I wanted to kind of dive a little bit into it because I know you're a big turnkey guy, right? And soI wanted to ask like, what does that look like? What do you consider a turnkey property? Do youtruly consider that when you're investing in something that is in that category, a hundred percentdone, lockdown, ready to go? Or do you still kind of go into, you know, a potential turnkey property,with any kind of renovation budget, whether it's three or four or $5,000 just to get it up to,you know, up to your standard.Yeah, turnkey is, I mean, we could go down many different rabbit holes with this, right?
24:53I think there's a lot of people that have different opinions about turnkey versus, you know,doing syndications or something like this.I think in general, turnkey, and obviously this is our business, right?But I think turnkey is an excellent option if you're working with the right people to allow you toscale, to allow you to have a little bit of handholding starting out and allow you todiversify into different areas. But it doesn't make you immune to the same sort of challengesthat you would have with real estate in general. When we look at turnkey, I mean, what ourdefinition is is a house that's newly built because we actually participate in a lot of new
25:25construction. That's about 50% of what we do at this point in time is build a rent. But we want tosee a house that has, you know, at least eight to 10 years of life expectancy. So if you're if you'reHVAC, your water heater, the, you know, roof needs replacing, then, you know, definitely those are yourKAPX items. Those are the biggest items to do that. And then, of course, lease and manage the property.But we also, even though we sell turnkey products, we also buy turnkey, you know, a lot of thecommercial assets we buy, I would consider those even more so turnkey. Those are triple net leases.Management pays our taxes, pays our insurance, pays our mortgage for us. You know, they,those are triple net leases often corporately guaranteed.
26:05So, I mean, there's a lot of different philosophies about what turnkey really is.But I think it's really just going and having the right team in place to assist you in learning how to do that.And I also think that turnkey is not not the only option out there.We see so many people that are buying turnkey.And this is the exact same thing with us too, Rob, is turnkey is a great way to invest in a certain area alongside what else you're doing.You know, if you're doing your own flips, if you're doing your own wholesale, wholesaling, whatever the case is, it's a great way to diversify into these different areas.But as far as rehab budget, yeah, we have an expectation.You know, we have different contracting teams in these different areas, and they have a specific budget and line item as far as what the expectation is.
26:51On management, we don't do any internal management at this point.Same sort of thing for property managers.We have a specific process we want the managers to follow as far as vetting.tenants and how they're actually managing the properties. David, are you still doing any,are you buying any turnkey these days? Because I know obviously you're the value ad guy right here,Sir Burr, and I know that obviously that has been a very big component of your career. But obviously,I know that you're a very busy and a very successful real estate entrepreneur. So as you kind ofgrow in your business, I know that your time is more limited. Does that mean that you're typically
27:28looking for more turnkey stuff at this point?Are you still kind of in the value ad space?I think that's a really good question here.My heart is in the value ad space,but depending on what I have going on at any given time,I've had to be humble enough to admitif I take on this project,like one popping in mind right now,
27:49a property having a contract in Savannah, Georgia,that is in the historic district.It's coming with short-term rental permits.There's a lot I really liked about it.But in the inspection,it's got some significant issues.needs to be torn down to the studs at some point, needs a complete new roof.And I was thinking, you know, if I'm honest with myself, if I buy this thing right now,
28:08I am never going to manage that rehab.I'm not going to know what's going on.I don't have a person in place that I trust that could manage the rehab.That's the wrong move for me, even though it's got a ton of value add potential.I won't be able to execute on that.And I'm probably more geared towards when we say turnkey in the short-term rental space iswhat I'm looking at.I need something that is coming furnished, doesn't need a whole lot of work.
28:30out the box is good to go and I recognize I'm not getting the built in equity I used to havebut I'm not going to be bleeding trying to find how am I going to get furniture brought into this placewhen we are having the supply chain shortages and how am I going to get a contractor in one ofthese really hot markets where it's very difficult to find them it's going to be 90 to 120 daysbefore someone even starts the project then I got to sit in the permit line that's going to be reallylong because everybody else is doing the same thing so it is a balancing act that you'reconstantly having to go through andAnd at times, the turnkey option is definitely better for me.
29:04But there could be a moment where everything's running great with the business is.I've got good hires in place.People are doing good.And I'm like, hey, this is the opportunity to go take on a bigger project.David, I think that's a crucial point, just being realistic with what your capacity is, right, at this point in time.And if you're looking for, if your time is limited based on other things that you're doingthen your business or building your portfolio. I think a lot of people are looking for, you know,they may get distracted with, you know, if you don't have the time to dedicate to a deal,
29:37then you're not going to perform on it to the best of your ability. And so it's just beingrealistic with, you know, what you bring to the table and what your time capacity is and whatfits your goals at this point in time. Yeah, and that's, that's an important thing to acknowledgein real estate in general because there is a temptation. I need to come up with a name for it. This iswhere I miss Brandon Turner because he was so good at coming up with clever names for things.But it's this idea that there's a part of human nature that wants to ask the question of,what am I supposed to do? Just give me the blueprint and I'll just go do it. As if life works thatway, as if there's just a path that everybody can walk and that isn't the way that this goes.
30:11There are many paths and depending on your skill set, your time, your goals, they're all goingto be different. And part of, I believe at least, part of being good at real estate is knowingyourself well enough to know what type of properties that you should be getting into and whereyour time is better spent. Like I think that's one of the reasons that I went out and I builtbusinesses and built teams instead of just focusing on buying a whole bunch of smaller propertiesis I had a skill set where I like leading people and I'm sort of a visionary, whereas somebodyelse, like that's not what they're good at. They're really good at bookkeeping. And so they just needto be running syndications and buying multifamily properties. And it's both frustrating when you're
30:48new, trying to figure it out, but it's beautiful when you're experienced because all of a suddenthe tree like explodes into branches and you have all of these different ways that you can walk inthat makes your job more fun. And I know, Zach, one of the things that you believe in is thisconcept of strategy stacking. It's, hey, you're good at this asset class. What's the next assetclass that you can bring in that will sort of complement what you already got going on? Can you can you sharewhat that strategy is and how you've worked into your business? Yeah, absolutely. And I think so many people,especially starting out, David, they get the shiny object syndrome, right? And it's like,oh, I want to do this. I want to do this. And that's a beautiful thing about real estate. There's
31:24so many different ways that you can make money investing in real estate and be successful,but you can't start with all of them at once. And so you need to stay hyper focused on what makessense for you. And then just understand that as you continue your journey, real estate investing is alifelong journey, that there's going to be multiple different ways that you can learn about and participate in.That's exactly how our business and our personal investing has grown over time.We bought our first duplex and, you know, the next year decided to buy two more duplexes and continued to scale over time.We tried wholesaling.That was a lot more work than we initially anticipated, but that allowed us to learn how to evaluate deals.
31:59Guess what?We wanted to decide to keep some of those deals because we really like the idea of long-term holding.Then we started to build this business and be successful with that, investing in different areas, started to make more money.What do we do with that money?We got to put it back into real estate.We didn't want to own, you know, 500 single-family houses.I think I heard you refer to your portfolio is like hurting cats at some point in time, you know,and that's very much the case.
32:23I love single family, but only to a certain degree.And so we needed a place to scale quicker and larger deals, takes those tax benefits.And there's all sorts of different strategies to invest in real estate.And that's a beautiful thing is you can be successful in multiple at once.But you've got to stay hyper-focused with one strategy at that particular point in time, learn it, succeed at it.grow over time. Yeah, so when you're entering a new strategy, I guess, because it seems likelooking at your portfolio, you did wholesaling, residential, now a little bit of commercial,you've succeeded at it. Is it a matter of, oh, I feel like I've succeeded at this time to
33:02try something new? Or do you think of it as more like, I need to master this strategy before Imove on? What's your mindset there? Yeah, I wish I could tell you that I have this clear actionplan, Rob, but it's more or less, you know, learning about a new strategy, being intrigued by it,because if you're interested, if you're passionate about it and you're interested in a strategy,then you're obviously going to migrate towards that more and want to learn about that and take it on.I've always been attracted to the idea of commercial in general just because it's, you know,longer term leased. Now, there's a lot of risk and volatility with that as well.Make no mistake about that aspect of it, single family and residential, I think is,
33:42just your bread and butter solid way to build wealth, at least initially.But that's been something I've always been interested in just to be really passive and havethese long-term leases in place.So we decided we want to do invest in commercial, well, probably five to six years beforewe even bought our first one.But it was just, you know, talking with the right people learning about that.But the next, when we hear about different strategies, and this applies to the tax side too,when we learned about cost segregations and investing in opportunity zones and things,
34:12like this, my mind was blowing because I was like, there's really ways to completely, you know,reduce your taxable liability. If you're in, and invest in real estate doing the same things we arealready doing, we love real estate for all these reasons, you know, so it's learning about it and,you know, just continuing down that path until the next thing comes up. So what are some practicalexamples that you can think of where the average listener can sort of, let's say somebodystarts on the small multifamily path. I think that's probably the most common way everyone getsstarted. Rob, you were part of the Pokemon generation. So it was like, was Pikachu the first Pokemoneverybody gets? No, you usually choose between Bulbosur, Charmander, or Squirtle. Okay. So that real estate's just
34:55like that is the same thing. You've got the small multifamily road. Maybe that's Bulbosaur. Then you've gotthe single family like house hacking road. That's Squirtle. And I don't remember what the other one you said was,but there's like another route that Charmander, right? Maybe that's going to be like just buying single family homesand cash-filling areas like Kansas City, like lower price point areas.So there's typically those three passive people start on.You're going to house hack.You get into single-family or small multifamily.Small-multifamily is probably the most common way that people get started.
35:24You learn the fundamentals of real estate the best.Zach, you mentioned you have a lot of duplexes, triplexes across the country.That's not a coincidence.So somebody gets seven, eight, nine of these things and they start to experience what I call thathurting cats feeling.It's like in the cartoons where there's a leak in the submarine and they stick their fingerin it and then another leak pops out and then they stick their finger another one they sticktheir toe and then they got to let go of one finger to go plug in another one in the water's
35:47coming out from there and for me it was like every single day another little leak was popping upand none of them were going to sink the boat but they were freaking annoying and it just it wasn't funto be investing in real estate because I'm dealing with these very small problems of a leak goingon a sewage line breaking an air conditioner going out a tenant complaining about something and I justthought, you know, I could sell 25 of these houses, replace it with one house 25 times as big or asgood or, you know, an apartment or something and get the same benefits, but not the 25 differentholes that I'm having to plug. So for me, that was my moment where I realized, right, I need toget into a different asset class. Can you, I guess what I'm getting out here is can you share
36:27some practical examples of what a listener who's got seven or eight small multifamily propertiesthat's ready to get another stack added onto what they're doing, some possible scenarios thatwould work for them. Yeah, absolutely. I think that's really what a lot of people think about whenthey're trying to achieve financial independence or significant passive income is how do I scale upinto some of these larger type of deals. And there's multiple things you need to do to position yourselfto really be the most attractive investor. Biggest thing is on the financing side. I think that'swhy starting out with single family, small multifamily puts you, not only does it give you theexperience investing in real estate, but it also positions yourself in the best financing position.
37:08in when a commercial type of lender, whether we're talking commercial, retail, office, industrial,multifamily, when they're evaluating you as a borrower, they're going to look at your track recordand your performance. Most people are not jumping right into real estate, buying a 50-unit apartment complex.I think it's a great way to scale up over time and also show the bank that, hey, I can be asuccessful investor buying and holding these properties and running them successfully.and that's going to dramatically change the type of lending that you can accomplish.Having that experience gives you the confidence as well to look at larger scale dealsand just changing your mindset about that.
37:47But I think financing is the biggest thing to really look at, make sure you're having a successful portfolio.Other than that, I mean, there's not a lot of difference.Whether you have a $200,000 single family in the Midwest, a $2 million deal in a more expensive neighborhood,you know, you still evaluate the numbers the same.So don't limit yourself looking at, you know, the larger deals and getting scared at participating in those,even if it requires bringing in some private money.Practical examples, though, I mean, running a business successfully with those smaller rentals,that's huge.
38:23And also scaling your team over time.As I mentioned on the managerial side, your management, and David, did you have management on,I mean, you weren't doing your own management, right? You had employee management. It was stillthis hurting cats feeling even though you had management. Yeah, even with the managers that were inplace, they still had come to me and they're like, what do you want to do with this? What do you wantto do with that? And it was, well, the bid that you got, like, I remember one of them, there was asewage line that broke underneath one of the properties and they came back with a bid for$46,000 to fix it. I remember thinking like, I mean, I wouldn't let a house go to foreclosure,
38:57but that would make more sense than what they were going to want to me to spend on this.So I said, all right, well, who did you talk to?They gave me the name of the company.And I said, did you send anyone else out?No, would you like us to?I was like, oh, like I've told this, here's a side note.Property management companies go through staff so fast that you can tell someone,this is what I want, and they probably hired three people since the last time you spoke to
39:19him.And that person has no idea what you had said to the first one.So you're always reiterating these instructions.And we sent somebody else out, and he said, oh, I can fix this for $2,700.They read a scope through line and figured out where the problem.was whereas the initial bid was they were just going to rip out the entire like floor of thehome to try to find where the leak was and I just remember thinking I could have easily just repliedyes fix it and through $46,000 at a $2,700 problem and that was with property managers so my
39:48issue was more I needed to hire a person that could manage your property managers and I wasn'tthat's been a very difficult thing to find so practical examples from that and I agree with you100% is yes knowing how to manage your managers if you need to hire an asset managerat some point in time, it's worth doing that because they will also allow you to be more successfuland more passive. But I mean, even in that scenario, right, with your property managers,even if they took care of the issue, which clearly in your case, they didn't, because they justgave you the first most expensive quote and left it at that. But even if they take care of everythingand you're just hearing about it, that's just so much noise, you know, and it distracts your mindset
40:24from what's actually, and that could be a super successful property that you, you know, selland have huge appreciation in the future. But there's so many of those issues.that are distracting you from being able to focus on your business. So, yeah, focusing on how tomanage the manager, how to find and vet good managers, and how do you solve individual problems whenthey come up? Sometimes it takes getting on the phone and calling those contractors and beingcreative and finding the right people to actually solve those problems. It's the same type ofissues. Single family house. It's just maybe a larger scale issue, but solving those problems isprobably one of the best skill sets you can have and learning how to follow through with that.
41:00I'm curious, David, what was that job title?Was it property manager, property manager?Kind of.Or was it property manager, comma, property manager?So that is another issue I read into a business where your staff is always asking for a title or a job description.There's this like, I need to know what's my title, what's my job description?I'm like, well, I'm hiring you to do all this stuff that I don't want to do.And there's a lot of different things.
41:29So I don't know that I could possibly come up with every possible thing that could come up.But can I just trust that if you have to send an email out through MailChimp, you could do that?Do I need to include that in your job description?So I don't even think I called them an asset manager because every time I put something out for that,I got people that wanted $200,000 a year.But basically what they had to do is sit in front of the email that all of the property managerswould send the statements and their repair requests to and handle the emails that came in withsome degree of common sense. And if you ran into a big problem, no, I need to go bring this in front
42:04of David and kind of learn from what he did and fix it. So I learned quickly that giving the titleasset manager was not a good idea because it was like, oh, well, I'm an asset manager for thishuge corporation and they pay me $250,000 a year. So I'll come work for you and I'm like, no, this isonly like three hours a week of work that I actually need done. Yeah, I just sent out a very, I sent out anemail yesterday that was like eight roles. And I put in the email that, you know,each role would require like one to two hours a month, you know, it wasn't anything.It was like it was to help like the people in my program.I'm trying to like expand the capabilities of it.
42:37But I had a lot of people that reached out and they were like, oh, I want X amount and X amount.I was like, oh, no, no, no.As per my email, it's like two hours a week, maybe, you know, it's not a lot.So I think that's probably pretty common.Well, no one's going to care as much as you care, you know, about your properties.And so how do you make that higher, you know, how do you make someone, how do you find someonethat can make those executive decisions for your portfolio.It's tough.
43:02But if you find a good property manager, which that's a tough, that's a tough job, right?I mean, that's a tough business.It's really like you have mad owners and you have mad tenants and you're just in the middle of it.You know, but there are good ones out there that can usually, if you give them good direction,handle the majority of the issues.Yeah, I would say to the people listening, if they're trying to figure out how do I kind of get into the next step,I really believe, and Zach, I'm curious if you would support this and you as well, Rob,a big hindrance to people being successful in our world, which I'm going to call the 1099 world
43:33because it's just you're responsible for your own success here, is they bring a W2 mindset into it.They're expecting structure and rigid rules and a 9 to 5 schedule and all these thingsthat we've been conditioned to expect from grade school into the workplace to where it just,like, we almost have a moral system set up around you shouldn't have to work past fiveor like weekends you should have off.And if you're asked to do something outside of that, it feels like you're being taken advantage of.Even if you sit in the office and do nothing for seven out of the eight hours you're getting paid for, right?So when somebody comes into our world with those expectations, it's very difficult to adapt to something.
44:11Like you could have a problem in a short term rental.Like let's say that there's a mouse running around inside there at 9 o'clock at night.And the tenant isn't looking at it like, oh, I'm bothering the person.I want this mouse out of this house and you don't want a bad review.So the right thing to do is to jump in and fix it.If people could have that flexibility with understanding that you're getting paid to solve problems and they can pop up at any given time, but there's benefits to this as well.I personally think we would have more people in our space that were able to get more involved in what the three of us are doing and therefore they would learn.Is that, Zach, do you take a similar opinion to that?
44:46Well, that's the hardest thing, David, is finding staff that that has that mindset.I mean, the entrepreneurial mindset, you know, there is.no nine to five there is no on-off and and you know that's a hard thing too i think that we can probablyall attest with this i mean sometimes you need to turn turn off your own mind right and focus withyour family when you're at home that's a hard thing to do and i've i've struggled with that it's likemy wife constantly reminds me but to find someone that has that same sort of mindset i don't knowhow to do it i mean it's it's a it's a biggest challenge is finding good people and if youhave someone that has that entrepreneurial mindset and to keep them, I don't know, they,
45:26they would likely want to be some sort of partner to some degree at some point. How are they,you know, how are you going to compensate them and keep them happy to stay? It's a tough thing.What do you think, Rob? Yeah, this is hard with the W2 and the 1099 thing is we won all the goodthings of the W2 world when we're 1099, but none of the bad things, you know? And so it's likewe want our cake and we want to eat it too. And this is something I deal with a lot. You know, I'm, I'ma podcaster, content creator, real estate investor, there is no moment in which I'm not thinking aboutreally those three things other than if I, you know, try to turn off at like five or six. And my wifeand I have an incredibly, you know, flexible life. And so do the kids. But, you know, it is not fun when I
46:08come home at 630 because she's like, well, you can come home at four, right? And I'm like, well, yeah.But I still, if I, if I don't work, we don't, you know, we don't pay the bills kind of thing. Andit's really similar even with hiring employees and everything because, you know, I'm the entrepreneur.They're not. And so the meeting of the minds there can be very difficult because, you know,I have to really make them understand, especially like my assistant who, she's like my propertymanager and everything. And I have a lot of sympathy for her because, you know, she'll bemessaging Airbnb guests at, you know, seven in the morning, seven at night, midnight, two,three, but she might have downtime from one to six p.m. because there wasn't a single peep on it. So it
46:52ebbs and flows. And I think you're right. I mean, I think you just have to prep people that's like,look, it's not, it's not. It's not. Like when it rains, it pours. And, you know, you have toreally understand that with the real estate space because it's just, it's never a nine to five thing. It's anine to, you know, nine. But that's what you're building. You know, that's what you're growing over time.You got to put in that work now.You got to be willing to do what no one else will right now, you know, to build thattype of lifestyle and portfolio long term.So, you know, it's just part of the game.
47:24Although I will say that, you know, when I was living in an apartment and stuff broke allthe time and I would put in my maintenance requests, they wouldn't come fix it for liketwo or three weeks.I kind of wish I could do that where things go wrong.And I'm like, yeah, I'll give it a couple weeks and then I'll fix it.I am envious of that.Here's the truth about passive investing.If the strategy isn't right on day one, the returns won't save it.
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48:54the co-host network. If you're away for a while or have a secondary property, you can hirea vetted local co-host with real hosting experience to handle it all. A co-host can handle guestcommunications, it can manage reservations and keep things running smoothly so you don't have tocheck your phone between beach days. That means,less stress and more time enjoying your trip. You can relax, knowing guests are taken care of,and your place is in good hands. You travel, your house works. Everyone wins. If you're ready to host,but could use some help, find a co-host at Airbnb.com slash host. If you think property managementis expensive, try mismanaging a vacancy or an eviction or a maintenance issue that turns into a
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50:21sites with one click, completely free. That includes places renters are already searching, likeRealtor.com, apartments.com, redfin, and more. No copying and pasting. No juggling multipleplatforms, just one listing that shows up everywhere. If getting rentals organized and filled fastis on the list this year, start with Avail. Sign up for free at Avail.com.slash bigger pockets. That's A-V-A-I-L-C-O-S-Bigger Pockets.All right, the next segment of our show is the deal deep dive. In this segment of the show,we are going to dive deep into one of our guest-specific deals to see how it turned out,how they found it, and a bunch of other juicy details. Remember that you can do more deals
50:58yourself with the help of bigger pockets, tools, and resources, so be sure to check those out.So question number one is what kind of deal is this?So the one we're going to be talking about today is right up Rob's Alley. This is a luxury short-term rental out in the mountains in Keystone, Colorado. We actually found it basically just through broker relationships. It was listed and poorly marketed and then just became a stagnant listing. Okay. And how much was the deal?So it was listed at $4.8 million and that was far over list price, far over market.Of course, Zillow has it at like 5-5.You know, and I think that they were going off of that is kind of their pricing structure.But no one, there had been zero activity on it, no bids, anything.And it was listed by a broker that wasn't really, I think, checked in.
51:52And, you know, it was maybe on the ski mountain more than they were answering their phone.So that's what it was listed at.Okay.And then how did you end up negotiating it to get it in contract?So we looked at it.And we don't have a lot of short term.I mean, we have limited short term space.And so this was really a big learning lesson for us is evaluating it,
52:12looking at areas for value ads.So this is something we looked at is, hey, obviously we need this, the numbers to make sense,be positive cash flow.We evaluate all these deals, even if they don't make sense on the surface,just to see what kind of opportunity there is there.So what we did is we basically gave them an offer.We saw that this is a stagnant listing, no activity.and so we just put an offer in our initial offer was $3 million.
52:38And so that was significantly less than what they,especially in today's market, you know, they told us to,well, they didn't even respond, right?That's just insulting.And so that's what we did.We threw it out at $3 million.We heard back from them later, I think it was three months later,still no activity on it.
52:54And it's a unique house too.It's like 9,000 square foot, eight bedroom, 11 bath,you know, just a very large, unique house.I don't think a lot of people wanted to take a lot of people.on either. And we ended up going under contract at 3-2 ultimately. Sounds very, very familiar to a dealthat me and David just did. How did you fund it? So we actually used a second home loan for this property.And this will be a good, I mean, good learning lesson just on the financing side to look at whatdifferent financing options are out there. Because of the price point on it, we were told by probably
53:2820 different lenders that no way can you do a second home loan with 90% loan to value. This isjumbo. You know, they, you're going to have, you know, this is above our underwriting criteria that wewould allow for. And so most lenders were quoting, I think it was like a 60 to 70 percent loan tovalue on it. They also didn't know how to value the property. They're like, well, why are youbuying it below market value and, you know, what's wrong with it? So we actually ended up findinga credit union locally that had had done some financing for us commercially in the past. We got a secondhome loan with 10% down. They actually waived the mortgage insurance because there was no companythat would provide mortgage insurance at that price point. And yeah, so and the interest rates as well.
54:18We almost used an arm product on that just because interest rates were a little bit morevolatile at this point in time. Arm products were still, I mean, we got, I think I got an armquote at 3.75, but we ended up getting a long-term fixed product at 4.25 on it. That's theinteresting thing, too. Some of those larger loans and on the commercial space, you can actuallyget a lower interest rate than, I mean, those interest rates have less volatility sometimesthan your single family. When was this again, just so that I know? Yeah, so we just acquired thisearlier this year. Okay. Yeah, because we just closed our $3.25 million house at, I think, six and a half,earn a 6.25. So just a little bit over years. Yeah, and that's a tough thing. We were getting a lot of
55:02quotes at, um, uh, so this was obviously, you know, a couple months ago, interest rates weredefinitely different than, than right now. Um, but still, we were still, I mean, we're stillseeing some quotes on, again, armed products below that four, four percent, um, you know,and it's just, I think, finding the right credit unions and banks to explore with. So what did youend up doing with this deal? So this is a short term rental. I mean, it was, um, there's not a hugevalue at as far as renovation. It was built in 2000.So it is dated and we'll put some renovation into it over time. But really the opportunity with this one is the property manager, which was also the listing broker on it. So you know, you can kind of imagine how that property was run. It's large enough where it's a wedding venue in the summer as well as like corporate space. Some so that actually has quite a bit of activity in the summer. But they they kept the rental at I think a $1,700 a night throughout the entire year. I mean, I think that's a lot. I mean, I think that.That's probably rule 101 with short-term rents is having dynamic rents, especially in peak season.
56:02Ski season, that property is projected to rent out between $4,000 to $5,000 a night in peak season.And she was still renting it out at $1,700 a night.Now, she kept it rented for $340 nights last year.But obviously, you know, there's much more upside potential.So that's our use of it is obviously going to keep the short-term space.Probably do a little bit of value add just in the renovations.also increase that income significantly.Well, I guess we sort of talked about the outcome.
56:32Is there any other specific outcome that came out of that?Or we're still kind of figuring out exactly where you're going to net out, right?Yeah, this is a new deal for us.So we'll look at it and see how it performs over time.We're excited about it.If there's a huge equity position, maybe we'll do something with thator look at 1031 in the future.But, you know, I don't know.
56:52I mean, we'll plan to use it.Of course, maybe a couple times a year when it's not rented out.But we're excited to see how the path goes.And just on initial projections, I mean, they did just in using dynamic rents and not changing anything else about the property, we were able to increase the income by over 30% on it.And that's huge.And so that took it from being a, you know, a property that didn't cash flow at all at 90% loan to value.We would have been losing quite a bit of money on that to actually being a positive cash flow, which,is been hard to do. We've been looking in this area for short-term rentals for probably three or four
57:32years now. And it's always a scenario where it's like, okay, we'll buy it. If we're, if we're notputting, you know, 30 to 40% down on it to make it cash flow, it's not, it's not going tocash flow. We just could not find anything. So I think the ability of finding something at thisprice point, unique house, you know, undervalued rents. We're just excited to see how it performs overtime. Have you guys out to ski in the winter. Oh, yeah. Count us in. So what lessons would yousay you learned from the deal? I would say, well, we didn't really talk about too much of thenegotiation. I went straight to the point of what we actually ended up acquiring the property at.There was a lot of tactical conversations throughout the process of, oh, we have this person,
58:13you know, we have some people, because they knew we were interested in it. We were the onlypeople that viewed the house, even though we gave them a low ball offer. It was, hey, we're interested,you know, we have some other people that are interested. They're putting in these offers,you know, and countering us. And we just,stuck to our guns the whole time. We knew the number. This wasn't an emotional buy. That's thebiggest thing. I think in this one, David, this was not an emotional buy that you can easilyget yourself into, I think, especially in the Airbnb space if you plan to use it. But we knewwhere our numbers were to make it make sense. And we stuck to that the entire time. And that
58:47allowed us to actually acquire it at the price that we needed it to. And we just is a waiting game.but we just stuck to, you know, the numbers, as well as exploring different financing options.That's a huge thing. I encourage everyone to look at at least five to ten different lenders for every deal.Even if you have a lender, I think we so often fall into this category of, hey, I want to use a lender that I've been using because I feel, you know, loyal to them and I feel comfortable and it's easy.I don't have to turn in all my docs. Well, lenders are not created equal and they're quite dynamic as well.So if you have a good relationship with someone, absolutely explore that. But every deal is different.and definitely be willing to look at different loan options out there.We had so many people that tell us that you cannot finance that and 90% loan to value.
59:32You know, we don't have mortgage insurance on it.And, you know, a lot of people said that that's just not possible.So those are the biggest takeaways also just looking for value.And sometimes that takes some time, especially in today's market.Awesome.And lastly, who was the hero on your team for this deal?Is this a new question?I don't know if I've heard this one before.
59:52It is.We're throwing you a little curse.curveball, Zach.All right.Well, my, my wife's a hero.I have to give her the shout out because even though we, I got emotionally attached to,I was willing to pay more than we should have, but she was the one that really rainedus back in and said, no, we'll find something else.
01:00:14You know, you don't need this.You don't stretch this to make it work just because you've been looking for three yearsfor something like this.If it makes sense, it does.And if it doesn't, we'll find something else.It's not a big deal.And so I think really that is the biggest aspect of just keeping us focused, knowing the numbersand going through, you know, our criteria.
01:00:33And so definitely wife is a hero on this.They always are.Yeah.Yeah, she made me say that, by the way.She knew that we were courting this today.She's standing on the other side of the camera like, you better say it.Yeah.All right.
01:00:46Well, that brings us up to the last segment of our show.It is the world famous famous for in this segment of the show.Rob and I will ask you the same four questions we ask every guest.and we're excited to hear what your answers would be.Question number one, what is your favorite real estate book?And I don't have anything that hasn't already been said.You know, there's been so many good books, a huge Kiyosaki fan,but probably for right now, the millionaire real estate investor, Gary Keller,
01:01:08that one's just huge for me and I try to read that once a year.Section 2 talking about the different stages of think, buy, own, and receive a million.That's huge implementing systems.I mean, that's just an outstanding book.I encourage everyone to read it if they have.haven't. Great, great. Question number two, favorite business book? Business for us. I mean,this kind of goes to what we were talking earlier about the entrepreneurial mindset. So the E-Mith,absolutely, or E-Myth revisited on this one with Michael Gerber. This is definitely something that
01:01:40I try to read consistently as well to remind myself to focus on the business, not so much in thebusiness. I think this is a crucial book for anyone running a business in any capacity. And,And definitely something that is just, you know, how to build a team, focus on systems.It's an essential book.Awesome.And when you're not building a turnkey empire and commercial empire, what are some of your hobbies?So as I mentioned to you before the show, we have a one-year-old.That's our hobby right now.
01:02:12You know, we're loving that.We used to travel quite a bit.We, right after we got married, we did a seven-month honeymoon and visit like 30 countries, scubadive a lot.We love to travel.We're excited to get back into the.that once the kiddos old enough to do that. And other than that, just enjoying nature out herein beautiful Colorado. In your opinion, what sets apart successful investors from those who give up,
01:02:35fail, or never get started? I think I'm going to say, I'm going to use three terms because I believethat all of these are vital essential for people to be successful in real estate. First of all,they need focused. You've got to stay focused on what you, what path of investing you want toparticipate in. If you're a new investor, don't get the shiny object syndrome. Choose a path.and take action and follow it.But the biggest thing over time, I think, is just staying the course.Tenacity and creativity are the two other keywords.Real estate has a lot of obstacles, and it's not easy, right?
01:03:06Like, this takes a lot of time.This takes work.This isn't a get-rich-quick type of scenario, and it's challenging and frustrating,but as long as you can stay consistent to investing,this is a lifelong journey, generational journey as you teach your children how to be asuccessful investor as well, but you've got to stay the course and be creative about solving problems.There's always a solution, multiple solutions often and, you know, put in the due diligence to find out whatthose are. Very wise words to live by, Zach. Lastly, can you tell us where people can find out more about
01:03:40you? Absolutely, our YouTube page, although it's a newer page, we're trying to put out as mucheducational information about all things real estate. So our page is just rent to retirement,rent T-O retirement. They can go to our website as well. That's rent to retirement.com to learn more aboutour team, different things that we have going on if they're interested to learn about turnkeyinvesting in any of the areas that we operate in. And that's got links to all our social mediaaccounts as well. So that's a great place to start. Rob, how about you? Well, you can find me onYouTube as well on Robbilt. That's R-O-B-U-I-L-T. And you can also find me on Instagram at Robbill andTikTok at Rob Biltoe. All right. And if you like the interview that you heard today with Zach,
01:04:24go check out BiggerPockets YouTube page. We have a ton of stuff. I guess it's called a channel,not a page. Tons of stuff on there. Different interviews. I'm interviewing people. Rob's got somestuff that's on there, lots of different BiggerPockets personalities that if you want to get deeperinto this world, there's plenty of content. And then be sure to check out BiggerPockets.comslash podcasts where you can see the other podcast that we've got for you to listen to on specifictopics. If you want to follow me specifically, I am David Green 24 on Instagram and everywhere else.Zach, this has been fantastic. We really appreciate you being here with us and sharing yourinformation. Is there any last words that you'd like to leave with our audience before we let you
01:05:00go? Go out and take action. It's a crazy world right now. You know, high inflation, moreinterest rates are crazy, competitive markets. There's still deals to be had and people are stillbeing very successful in real estate. Don't let that stop you. Educate yourself and take action.It's been fun, guys. Thank you so much. Awesome. We'll let you get out ofhere. This is David Green for Rob Power Quoff Abasolo, signing off.Thank you all for listening to the Bigger Pockets Real Estate podcast. Make sure you get all our newepisodes by subscribing on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Our new episodescome out Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I'm the host and executive producer of the show,
01:05:57Dave Meyer. The show is produced by Ian K. Copywriting is by Calicoe content. And editing is by ExodusMedia. If you'd like to learn more about real estate investing or to sign up for ourfree newsletter, please visit www.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.
01:06:21And remember, past performance is not indicative of future results.Bigger Pocket's LLC disclaims all liability for direct, indirect, consequential, or otherdamages arising from a reliance on information presented in this podcast.