Epic Real Estate Investing - Multifamily Investing with Corey "The Big Kahuna" Peterson | 887

Episode Date: January 4, 2020

This weekend, Matt is joined with Corey Peterson, “The Big Kahuna” of multifamily investing! Stay tuned and find out Corey’s tips and tricks on developing and maintaining a successful real estate business. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is Terrio Media. Success in real estate has nothing to do with shiny objects. It has everything to do with mastering the basics. The three pillars of real estate investing. Attract, convert, exit. Matt Terrio has been helping real estate investors do just that for more than a decade now. If you want to make money in real estate, keep listening. If you want it faster, visit R-E-I-Aase.com.

Here's Matt. So please help me welcome to the show, Mr. Corey, the big Kahuna Peterson. Corey, welcome to Epic Real Estate Investing. Thanks, brother. I'm glad to be on the show, man. Yeah, we've been talking about it for a long time and we've finally able to get our schedules to line up. So, yeah, I'm happy to have you here too. I got on the short list, man.

Right? Totally. So where are you calling from right now? Are you in Hawaii? Oh, man, I wish. You know, I like to go there a lot, but right now I'm in Phoenix, Arizona. Oh, it's kind of like Hawaii. In the desert.

In the desert, right? It's good. Marles. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. All righty, so I guess you're a big, giant multifamily real estate investor, and that's become of light, and you've created quite a name for yourself here in the last, I don't know, 24 months or so.

Tell me a little bit about your business, what it looks like today. You know, what it looks like today is totally different than it looks like almost five years ago, three. Yeah, when we met, I think that's very different today, right? Yeah. I was still doing the same things. I was still always, I've been investing in multifamily since 2011, is when I bought my first deal. But, you know, sometimes it takes, you know, you still got to have a little other ways to make income. So I was wholesaling up until about really honest two years ago. And then I, that's when I went full time. I had enough apartments that, honestly, I didn't need any other income. And, you know, life was simpler, actually. So we now, we now,

Like this year, we'll close almost $35 million worth of apartments. Get out of you. And that's pretty cool. Yeah. What that does is creates a lifestyle, a cash flow lifestyle that is beyond imagination. All I can tell you is I'm living, I'm living my dream right now. That's fantastic. Yes, I love the cash flow, boy.

It resonates over here. So I think that's the only way to go. I think those have flipped properties. Like, they're working way too hard. You know, so think about it, right? I mean, you probably read the same book. did. Robert Kiyosaki's rich dad, poor dad. Never heard of it. And so when I read that book, I was like, oh, man, that's what I want.

And he always talked about cash flow and making money. And but then somehow, I think a lot of us, we turned on the TV and we sold flipped this house and wholesaling. And honestly, those are great ways. I mean, listen, I was just on Tom Crull's podcast and, and, you know, he's going to make a million dollars this year wholesale. Right. And so, I mean, it provides great income. But the only difference is he'll have to do it next year and the year after and the year after. And I won't. Right. Right. Yeah, no, I mean, I don't, I mean, I kind of poo-poo flipping houses every once in a while. But, you know, you have to have some source of active income to feed into the investments to produce the passive income. So yeah, because, yeah, exactly. The one, one feeds the other,

truly. If you're doing it right, because that's where Robert was always, I think, talking about say, hey, listen, if you're going to make these monies, use it and then work on getting out of the rat race by investing in the long-term stuff, that passive stuff. Exactly. Exactly. And that's really what I've done. I mean, I've been just playing monopoly, man. I mean, you know, buy four greenhouses and then trade up to an apartment. Right. Right. And if you get enough of them, then all you have to do is you only buy the red stuff, right? We don't, you know, like, you got enough cash. When you learn how to raise private money, then all you have to do is buy the red stuff. By the big, buy the apartment. It's exactly. So that stuff works. Hey, my kids teach or my mom and dad taught me that game early on. Yeah. And speaking of the greenhouses, you know, I'm very familiar with how you go out and you find those greenhouses below market. How is it different when you're looking for the red big buildings? Yeah, you know, it actually is a couple different ways. So some people say, well, it's just the same. You can do the same,

you know, the marketing and things like that. Now, personally, I don't do it that. way. I do it. I think it's more of an old archaic, old boy, good old boys system, meaning it's more about relationships. It is. And, you know, you have commercial brokers in the world. And if you will find a region of four or five states and then all the cities get to know all the brokers where they know you by your first name and you have something other in common other than real estate. Right. And that's called the relationship. So if you can, and the only way, what I found is the best way to get to that is to say like, hey, Matt, what do you like to do for fun? And whatever you tell me, like let's say, now if you told me golf, which I hate golf,

I'd be like, well, what else do you like to do? But other than that, you're like, I think I can have fun doing that with you. I think you like the Dodgers. Right. You're absolutely right. When you said you're, I'm like, dude, I love the Dodgers. I remember watching Tommy LaSorda, you know, and who's my guy that has the big windup.

He just threw the pitch in, like, for one of their big games. Fernando. Fernando Valaswell. Yes. You threw it the right hand, so it threw me off. So that's why I was, like, I had to think of the right hand. I know the big windup was Fernando. Yeah.

And so, but like, that's when I, every time I would call you, if I'm, if you were the broker, man, I'm opening with, we're talking Dodgers, bro. Right. That's all. I mean, I'd be like Googling what's going on with Dodgers because you're, probably going to know. And then we have an opening conversation on that. And then we get to real estate. When you do that, that's the magic, man. And then they're like, they want to go to work for you and help you get a deal. That's the secret, man. Yeah. Boy, we should we should put that

in a book somewhere and sell it. But yeah, good old fashioned relationships. Who knew, right? When they say it's a people business, they actually meant something by that. You know, it's funny because it works the same way with raising private money. Yeah, no, totally. No, 100%. It's all about, you know, a big part of what we teach in our REI ACE program, because we got the A stands for a track, convert, exit, and that C, the convert, it starts with building rapport to turn on that conversion process. And that's just the same regardless of what you're buying or selling. You've got to build the rapport, right? It is, man. Like relationships, I mean, we're in the people business, believe it or not,

a real estate is just a vehicle, but we're truly in the people business. And so if you can get to people at a people level and get them to no like and trust you and understand what you're doing and then have integrity, that solves a lot of things, right? Right. And puts you in like the top one or five percent, right? 100%. Yeah. And you just said no like or trust. I think the likeability outweighs the other two, right?

If you can be the likable person and the one that they would like to spend time with anyway, you know, you can be a little deficient in the other two and still pull up. off great relationships and pull off good business. Yeah. And it's funny because I look at my investor pool. And so, I mean, I'm a very outgoing person, obviously, right? You are too. But sometimes a lot of my clients are not so much, right? And so when I'm around them, I tend to mimic them a little more. I try to, I mimic their mannerisms because that's what they are attracted to. Not the crazy wild person, more the, you know, so you have different roles you have to play for your different people. And that, because you've got to communicate in a language that they understand. Yeah, yeah. Basic mirroring skill. That's a big part of rapport building. It's right out of the

How to Win Friends and Influence People book. I didn't even know that. You did. You didn't. Well, good. I'm not that smart. Did I tell you that, by the way? I love to teach you something. I barely made out of high school, okay? There was actually a book about that. Thanks to Kevin Heinfeld, I pass math, man. It was like, you know, first hour. hey, you know, because math is in third hour. So it's like, Kevin, bro, I need the homework. What trends are you seeing in the market right now that either has you concerned or are excited? And how is it changing the way you're operating?

Man, I'm excited about rising interest rates. Explain. That sounds weird, but it's because, man. Actually, too. I just want to see our answers. Yeah, so as interest rates rise, tap rates are going to rise faster. and there's a lot of stupid money chasing apartments right now. Like that kind of seems like to be the buzzword is apartments in cash flow.

And so there's a lot of inexperienced operators that are probably operating on razor-thin margins. And a little hiccup, like a rate increase, is going to screw the pooch. And when that happens, it's going to create opportunities for Cory Peterson, right? for people that are really good at understanding what our operations are and how we can affect change, right? And so I think there's going to be things that are going to be coming up on sell. Now, we still have a great, strong market, right? So we're still buying apartments. We're not saying, oh, we're not buying anything.

I don't think it's going to be as crazy as what we experienced in 08, 09, right? That kind of, but I feel like a downturn or a slowdown. I don't know if it's going to be a slowdown because, like, we have so much. it's more going to be an interest rate play, right? As interest rates go up, because there's still a lot of demand for housing for apartments. I mean, the millennials are not buying, the baby boomers are downsizing. They're moving out of their homes and into things that are done for them, right? They don't want to do the lawn. They don't want to, they just want an apartment makes sense for a lot of them. Right. Yeah, no, I'm liking the interest rates going up a little bit to slow down the

appreciation a little bit and, you know, extend the inventory and the days on market because when you're dealing directly with with the motivated private sellers, you know, and a lot of times the rebuttal can be, well, I can just go sell this on my own and get close to market value and, you know, they kind of can. You know what I mean? Yeah. But check this out. We're buying apartment right now that, gosh, in cash flow is like stupid, almost like a 1.8, 1.9 DCR debt coverage ratio. That means almost two times the amount of my payment I'm making profit. That's stupid, right?

Now, why? Well, because the guy's just, he's a developer. He built the building, right? And he built it in 2006. But he hates he's an owner-operator and he's not really good. He's a developer. Sometimes guys that can build stuff are really good at building stuff. Right.

They're not so much good at managing stuff. and so there's that stuff like that happens all the time in the marketplace and another example is this like we have a property we bought three years ago and we were projected to sell it in five years at 5.1 million we are putting the property up for sell for 9.2 we bought it for 3.6 right nice profit well even if we sell it for seven and a half I'm still going to be pretty dang excited but But the thing is right now in this where we're at in our marketplace, it's heated. And there's lots of people that are buying stuff that they just, I mean, and I guess what can we talk about bonus? Sure.

Everybody loves a bonus. Tell me about it. Okay. So depreciation. I'm talking about depreciation, right? Oh, got to got it. Cost segregation studies. In the multifamily world, what I do.

Like back in the 80s, remember the savings and loans crisis? I feel like this is happening too right now. Now, the new law that was just passed allows you to take what's called a 100% bonus on year one. So, for example, I'm buying a $10 million property right now, and I'm going to get a $3 million depreciation the day I buy it, right, for the next tax year. That's a lot, right? And so that offsets a lot of income. So there's some people out there that they don't even care about making a return. They just want a $3 million loss to carry on their taxes.

And that's going to catch up one day. There's more opportunities coming down the road for that too. And you'll be right there to swoop them all up. What system or technology have you, and I realize this is a dangerous question for you because you're not the big technical guy. But what system or technology have you implemented in the last 12 months that's had the biggest impact on your business and how? So this is great.

I know how to answer this question. All right. The biggest system that I've impacted is understanding that Corey Peterson sucks at systems. And then I just go find people that are great at implementing systems. So I'm going to call this my management play, right? The reason I'm a successful operator is not because I'm a great operator, is because I'm very good at finding great operators to manage my properties, right? I realize early on that Corey Peterson's gift is not the details, right?

And so that's a deficiency that I have. And I realized early on that if I wanted to grow my apartment business to millions of units, you know, like a lot. I mean, I've got this vision and it's like Donald Trump vision, like big. And so, and the only way I can do that is by having a team, and the write team. So I really, I would say, and my systems are learning how to write to ask better questions, right? In other words, when I was trying to find management companies, you used to say, hey, well, tell me about your management company. Well, once that question goes out, everybody has a great story.

Oh, we're the greatest. We're awesome. And, you know, then you believe them. And where I realize you've got to ask questions like this. You've got to ask all the crows. crappy questions, man, like, tell me about a time when you got sued by fair housing, right? Tell me about a time, not like, I wonder if it happened, because if they're an operator, they've experienced this, right?

Tell me about the time that this happened, you had a pool inspection that went bad, right? And how did you guys mitigate it? Right. And when I learned those, that those are the types of questions that I had to ask, I started formulating all the right questions. And by doing that, I started to find really, really sharp. management companies. And now I only have one management company that managed me, manages my stuff nationally. And by far, they're the reason that I look great and so successful

is because they do most of the work. So I know that's a long way to get to the answer. No, that's great. It's a perfect answer. You know, you suck at systems and you've got to delegate someone to do the systems. Yeah. I mean, there's really, and that's legitimate. Yes, that's me. what's the what's the biggest mistake you've made in the last 12 months and what did you learn from it well i always want to say like that's the short answer is i don't ever listen to my wife and i wish i'd listen to her more that was a good answer especially when she's sitting right behind you yeah so make sure that i get all you know get all my rewards done now um the biggest mistake um so i got to go back i can't do it in a year

i got to go back like like my my biggest mistake was my second deal i ever made my my first second apartment deal that I ever did. And this, it confirms what I just said in my last answer, is I hired a management of a company that was out of Georgia to manage a property in Tucson, Arizona. And I live in Phoenix. And they just didn't have the right systems. They couldn't go that far geographically, right? And they failed.

And so here's where the mistake came in. Corey Peterson said, oh, I'm going to self-manage. Ooh. Oh, bad idea. And it got worse. I went from bad to worse. And for about two years, I had sleepless nights because I had raised about $1.6 million of private money. And unfortunately, I didn't lose my investors' money, but they didn't make any. I got my investors money back to them with no interest, but principal for two years. And there was sleepless nights for two years, my friend and I'll never forget the pain of every month having to go in front of my investors

and say, guys, we're not doing it. I've eventually hired the right company. We righted the ship enough to sell it and then exit. And half of that money I'll never see again because they, it was the first time they ever invested, right? Now, the other half were people that have and have been in many deals with me. And so they just said, Corey, great, you're not perfect, but let's just go to the next one. And so, but, man, trying to think that you can do it all, like you're invincible and not going back to principles

of underwriting and what a deal is and what a deal is not. That was the lesson I learned is to make sure that you stay true to underwriting, process, procedures. Don't think that you can do it, hire the right people to do it for you. Got it. Yeah, I resemble so much of that story.

I think we all do at some point. If you don't, you're not in the, game. Show me how much money you've lost, right? That's if I know you've got to experience. Exactly. Yeah, you're making money or getting an education. So, biggest win in the last 12 months, and what did you learn from it? That one, so my first apartment I bought in 2011. I bought it for $3.6 million, $1.4 million of private money, sold it last summer for $8.8 million. bucks. Nice.

Almost $5 million profit. Right. That's when you became famous in the community. That's where you saw what's funny, right? That is truly what happened. So I didn't show my HUD to like very many people, but I put it on collective genius. On their private page, I put a little picture of my HUD. And honestly, but that deal set me free, right?

Once I, it's not actually the sale. It's when I bought the next property, right? I did a 1031 exchange. on a $12.6 million deal, and that deal will pay me like almost $375,000 for the rest of my life, cash flow. And I made like a $400,000 acquisition fee. And that just put me really on track. And we've got lots of other deals behind it.

So that one truly, that was my start to finish all the way through to prove that my system does work. You buy them, you fix them up, you hold them for a while, sell them for lots of money. You can sell them for lots of money. I like it. What's the best book you've read in the last 12 months? What did you find most valuable about it? I personally, my favorite, favorite book is, besides Rich, that Poor Dad, is the richest man of Babylon. And a tenth of everything I make is mine to keep.

That's kind of what I take out of it. But honestly, the book that I just read is, hold on, let me just pull it up. I should have this ready. You got me off. guard here for a minute. That's what a good interviewer does. Right? Yes.

You've already got me there. It was about it's a how to sell. Oh, how to sell with story. Mm-hmm. How to sell with story. I don't have the author right now. I'm not going to find it, but you can just how to sell with story. Right.

And you'll be able to find it. But the power of story, when I learned to really, as I become an info marketer, right, to sell my education and stuff like that, I've learned. that you've got to become a good storyteller to be able and but it's helped in everything now so like now when i'm even talking with capital i start telling stories of operations and things like that and they remember the stories yeah stories work really well when you're buying property too right yeah yeah you can relate to somebody right say the what the facts tell the stories sell right yeah the stories buy too um what's in the future that has you most excited and why

What's going on now? Man, I'm most excited about having complete autonomy from working. So honestly, I've been, for the last two years, I've been working really, really hard, you know, to launch an info business, it's a lot of work. There's a lot more work than I thought. But I actually, I really enjoy my events. We've got all our coursework built finally, so that's kind of nice. and to know that I'm in a spot now that like I want we're getting ready to close on on this next property I'm going to buy a can am right like a little four-wheeler thing uh to so me and the kids can go and like because we live in a great place in the desert to go take those things out and go have fun and so this year this next year is all going to be about saying no a lot more right and I kind of like my I don't give a crap meter has went way of up. Right. And I love it there, and I don't ever want to change it. Yeah, no, that's a good place to

live from, for sure. This has been a pleasure. With the, it's funny that you had said about the info business is a lot more work than you thought. Yeah, I thought it was going to be a cool little side gig just to leverage what was in my head and produce a little extra money on the side. Are you there when I got roasted? Arrested? Roasted. No, roasted. Oh, roasted. At Collective Genius. I was, and I remember it, but I don't remember the contents of the thing.

I remember a lot of people telling you that you were crazy, but I don't remember what the reason was or why they were saying you were crazy. So here's what happened, man. I come up there and said, I'm a full-time dad. I own apartments, and I'm the big gahuna, right? And then I go up and say, I'm going to start this info business, and then I'm going to write a book. I'm best-line author.

and all this stuff. And then we started talking about private money, right? And I was like, well, I'm getting my money at like, what I've learned how to do is raise a low cost of capital. Like I pay a 6% pref and I give a 6% on the back end. So a total of 12%. And it's not 20. Okay. It's 12 and it's for equity, meaning they don't have any collateral. And they're like, you can't do that. And I'm like, but I am. So like, I don't, you know, explain to me how I am. I'll show you how I am. So, like, you can't keep that going. There's no way you can sustain that, but I am.

Yeah. And so, you know, it was a crazy spot. Now, I will say this, though. I'm doing exactly what I said I was going to do, but I wasn't ready because the feedback that I got was like, Corey, don't do it. And really, what they were trying to say, it came out a little weird, but it was like, you don't understand what you're doing. And there's a right way and a wrong way.

And when I realized the value of things, that it saved me from myself, right? Because a lot of times we get great ideas as entrepreneurs. We get great ideas like every five minutes. And sometimes you've got to have enough. You can't be so full of yourself that you can't, you got to take the cotton out of your ears and listen. It was hard.

It was hard for me to do, dude. Oh my God. But the truth was the timing was not right and I was going to do it wrong. And now that I've actually built it right, it took a long time. and it was a lot of work. It was a lot of work to get it going. I'm so thankful that I built it the right way.

So now as I'm exiting out, going and continuing, it's still fun and enjoyable. That's the key. 100%. Yes. Why do it if it's no fun? Isn't it amazing when people tell you that you can't do something that you're actually doing?

It's the best. There's a little, I don't know, Chinese proverb or something like that. Those that say it can't be done need to step aside and get out of the way the people that are doing it, right? Call that a trailblazer, you know, so like, you know, and the difference is, is my belief, right? So like a lot of times it's like the matrix. I'm not the one, but I know I can go do something, right? And so I just knew in my mind, my vision was so strong. I knew what I wanted to do. And I knew how to get there and I was doing it already. And I just knew that if I, uh, if I, if I focused that I could do exactly what I wanted to do.

But that's like anything in life, even with doing real estate. Someone wants to start real estate, and they're not in real estate. And there's a lot of fear and there's a lot of, and there's all your friends and family will tell you what. You're crazy. You're crazy, yeah. You're going to lose your shirt. You see what happened in 2007?

Yeah. I'm going to be one of those people? Yeah. And the right people know how to self-talk to themselves and try to, you know, and forget. all the naysayers and they go anyways. And I think that when you get to that point, when you really get to that point and say, listen, I'm going this way, hell or high water, I'm burning every bridge that I walk across, there's no coming back. It is all or nothing. That is when you actually

become successful because you will now work with a ferocity that is unmatched by anybody. Yep. You know that when you talk about naysayers and this is, I've seen this meme floating around and I've seen in a few different ways expressed, a few ways a little differently. Of no one that's doing more than you is going to tell you that you can't do what you want to do, right? The naysayers always are the people that aren't doing as much as you're doing. You know, every time. Every time. Every time.

And, you know, I invest a lot of money in my network, basically, the different masterminds and the groups that I hang out with and the trips I take in the seminars and conferences that I attend. I mean, they're not your normal little rich dad, poor dad, free seminar on the weekend type. stuff. But, you know, and I look for those places where I'm the smallest fish in the pond. And it's pretty amazing, the different types of conversations and the different levels of encouragement and the different levels of advice and suggestion that you get when you are very intentional about creating your environment and hanging on and spending your time with the right people. Man, that's, if you asked me the question again, now that I, you just framed it that way,

when I say the biggest thing I've ever done, like my biggest win is really joining collective genius and about three other groups that are masterminds that were very intentional. And dude, I've learned, I've grown more as a human being, as a businessman, as a father, as really all, you know, understanding my priorities. That right there is the greatest gift. Hang around those types of people. You cannot help it, but become better and smarter. And then the network that all that provides, that is, that's the reason.

mean you're talking. Exactly. Exactly. You know, the, I always say that the concept of peer pressure, you know, it works both ways. We were in high school when we hung around the bad kids, we did dumb stuff and got in trouble. And you get older, hanging out the good kids. And then lots of good stuff happens. It's amazing. Yes. What a concept. They've only been saying you're the average of the five people you spend most of your time with for decades or centuries maybe. And it finally hit, finally connected. I think about if that lesson was taught, you know, your senior year in high school, how much more could have been accomplished in your 20s? And I would say if you would have swapped out, say, catcher in the rye. We don't need that book. Let's just put in the rich dad, poor dad book there

instead. What an impact that would have on people's future. School is failing our kids. Let's just get that out of the book. Right. Of course, my wife's like, our kids are going to college. I'm like, yes, they are. But like, they're going to come work for dad. Right. But school is failing because they don't teach the line. skills, right? Man, I would say the same thing. Like, the biggest thing you, stay in contact with everybody that you know or meet, some way or form. Have an Excel spreadsheet where you can ping people every once in a while because it's always not, it's not always what you know. It's, it's who you know. And another cliche that's got the more truth in it than people

like to think, right? Yeah, yeah. 100%. Well, thanks for showing up here today. Cori, I know you're busy. Well, you're not somebody busy anymore. But you are the best dude. I love hanging out with you. If someone wanted to get in touch with you, what would be the best way for them to do that? Two ways. One is, you know, if you want to learn about the multifamily space, go to our podcast, multifamily legacy podcast. And the other one is cahunawealthbuilders.com. That's our education site. And yeah, any of what place you can go, those are the two to go get fed. All right. Sweet. Cool. So let's check in. and then a few months and do this again.

Yeah, I love it, dude. Perfect. Let's talk about some pain stories next time. I can give you a whole seminar, a whole series of just all the mistakes and crap that I've done wrong. Yeah, I've got a painful experience I'm going through right now. Hopefully it'll be resolved and I can try and match you. Anyway, all righty. So thanks for being here on the epic real estate investing show.

God bless to your success. If you want to do deals, just stay tuned here. We give it all away for free. We hold nothing back, as you can tell. We've got great guests like our friend Corey Peterson here today. But if you want to go fast, go to R-E-I-Ace.com. Take out. Yeah, yeah, we got the cash flow.

Yeah, yeah, we got the cash flow. Yeah, yeah, we got the cash flow. You didn't know home for us. We got the gas flow. This podcast is a part of the C-Suite Radio Network. For more top business podcasts, visit C-desweet Radio.com