KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Nicholas Landis

Episode Date: June 20, 2024

Welcome to the Success Fester podcast, and I'm really, really excited about having my pal, Nicholas Landis, on the call today. He has done some amazing things with his business over the last few years. It's been fascinating to watch him. So I coerced him to spend some time with us on the podcast. So Nicholas, introduce yourself a little bit. and when did we connect? I don't know. Anyways, tell us about yourself a little bit. I'm so bad at this part. In fact, I'm literally so bad at this when we do like team meetings when I'm meeting somebody new, I'll go with a business partner and we introduce each other.

It's such a nice way of doing things. Oh, you want me to introduce you then? I would love that. Would you like? Okay. Okay. Let me give it a shot and then you just steer me if I'm going in or under direction. Okay. So Nicholas and I, how long have you had your real estate license? I just had my seventh anniversary. Okay. So Nicholas and I met seven years ago when he was a brand new agent and I was a director of training at Keller Williams. And here comes this good looking, trendy guy in my office. And he's like, help. Let me figure this out. Okay. And then, and we hit it off right away. And we got involved in, we both got involved in a national LGBT real estate organization and that, that just tightened our friendship. But we spent a lot of time together. Fast forward. So here we are just

seven years. And, oh, he's in Austin, Texas. So fast forward seven years, particularly over the last couple years, it maybe started about three years ago. You're going to fill in the details here. But he has taken his business to now building high-end luxury, new construction, and renovations, remodels, and probably a flip or two or three, and helping other people do that as well. How is that as a description? How'd I do? That's accurate. Yeah. So it started, I actually just had an.

anniversary a couple of months ago for when I started my flipping business. The LLC that we, that we incorporated was in January of 2018. So that was just a four year anniversary, just like in three months ago. Yeah. So you started with a flip. Yeah, I started with a flip out in Elgin. And how did that happen? Was it purposeful? Or did you just like stumble upon an opportunity? And you're like, I'm going to flip this. I think anybody who's watching that maybe has wanted to do a lip is probably experienced what I was experiencing four years ago. I was so ready to get started. When my wholesaler sent me something that was remotely interesting, I just jumped all over it. And now being being, I call myself a seasoned investor. I'm only been doing it for four years.

But now that I've experienced as much as I have, I am a lot less trigger happy, I think. Or there's a lot more data points that I can focus on before I make it. decision. Sure. You know, I have to make decisions even faster now than I used to because of how competitive this market's gotten. But I have a lot more experience and knowledge that I can draw on and make educated decisions. And that first one, I should never have bought that house. Did you lose money on it? No, but barely. But barely and only because I had an insurance claim because it flooded. Oh, wow. On your first one, it flooded. And it did. once, it flooded three times.

From what? So the first two times were things that were beyond our control. There was some plumbing work in the wall that had been done previously before I bought the house that was not done well. Two different times. We had like a band-aid on it or something. Exactly. Yeah.

Low quality plumbing work. And both of the times that happened, we happened to be there. We got the water shut off really quick. It was a small deal. I didn't even file an insurance claim. It was no big deal. The third time it happened, we weren't there. Dikes. And the house flooded. And it was a total disaster. And thankfully, my insurance gave me more money than it wound up costing me to fix it because I did a lot of the work myself. So the only reason I made money on it was because of that insurance claim. And I wound up owner financing it to my buyer because I made so many mistakes. I couldn't find a buyer for the house. at a place where I could make money.

So the buyer I wound up finding, I owner finance to him for three years and I made some money on interest in the long. So massive learning experience on your first one. I like to do stuff the hard way and just get it out of the way. My first build was the exact same. So many, so many learning lessons and so painful.

But you know, all those lessons, get it out of the way. and then everything's easier on the second one. Yeah, you're getting, you're getting smarter. And so, no, when you, I just want to ask you this because when you say, my wholesaler, what does it look like? How does somebody find a wholesaler or are able to call them theirs? My wholesaler. It sounds like you're married or something.

I am possessive in my speech a lot of times. I talk about my team or my projects. So just when I say my wholesaler, he's the guy I've bought. I have only ever bought, I think one deal from somebody that was not him. And I bought that directly from the seller. So every deal I've bought, every piece of land I've bought as an investment, I've bought through my one guy. Yeah. Well, because that's one of the challenges. I mean, we're both in Austin, Texas, but a lot of people can relate to this because there's such low inventory from from coast to coast. So we're in a market where it's not like you can just go out

and you have all these properties to choose from on any given day. So by having a wholesaler that you can call mine, that's their job. They're out there all the time just trying to find properties. But then they have kind of a list of people like you, like a Nicholas Landis, that has cash, has clarity, is trigger out. happy and knows how to pounce on the right opportunity. So that business moves pretty,

pretty fast. It does. What were, you know, what were some of the, what were some of the greatest challenges getting started? Because I don't think, and this is my observation, I don't think it was your mindset. I think you had that. You know, it's interesting. I think my mindset was a struggling block for the first year. And I'm really emotional. You're probably going to you're probably going to see me tear up because a lot of this is very fresh. But I think my mindset was definitely my limiting, my limiting fact. I've had my real estate license for seven years. I feel like I did a really cool first transaction. But I feel like for the three years after that, I didn't really do anything remarkable. I had a, I, I say that to say, I had a lot of business that was

referral business, which I think is remarkable. But I came nowhere near my self-imposed goals that I wanted to hit. I felt like I was kind of floating. And in March of 2019, I stopped drinking and I stopped smoking. And I think those two things, well, it's proven, they're scientifically proven. They're both depressants. So when I stopped doing those two things, I had so much energy. it was I literally felt like the energizer. I felt like somebody had flipped a switch and I had so much energy. And I've always had a lot of goals. But now I had all the energy and I just started going after them like like crazily.

I didn't know exactly where I was going to land. I bought a small poker company. I started a small luxury car rental business. And and I had my real estate license. And then I bought my first flip. So I was doing all of these things trying to figure out. I didn't really know what my thing was. I was waiting for somebody to something to stick, something to feel right.

I chased as many things as I could. And what stuck was the flipping intrigued me. My first one was very difficult. So I got gun shy and I got really scared because I spent a ton of my time to effectively break even. So I lost an insane amount of my time. And I lost money in the long run if you look at it. But you didn't quit.

because that a lot of people, a lot of people quit. I know I, you and I both know a lot of real estate friends that have kind of given a shot at maybe a, maybe a flip. And they don't always work. They don't always work as, as planned, but you kept going. And honestly, I don't know. I really don't know why other than I really enjoy fixing things, like taking something and and making it better. That process to me is so enjoyable. I used to do that in my past jobs. I was

kind of like the fixer in my in my restaurant group that I was in. I'd go to the restaurants that were struggling in sales. And I was kind of the fixer. It was my job to change the culture or hire and fire the right people to kind of turn the organization around. And I feel like I did that really well. And real estate is just kind of a different version of that. And take a property and flip it or take something that's, you know, unsightly or a health hazard for a neighborhood, tear it down and build something beautiful in its place. It's intoxicating. But I was scared. That first one really scared me. So I wanted buying a house that I was going to live in. And I was, I flipped that one while I lived in it. It was so much less risk because I was actually,

you know, it was my home. I had to have a home either way. I had to bring less cash to the table to close because it was a personal purchase. It wasn't an investment. My, monthly mortgage was less because it wasn't, you know, high interest of flipping loan. So it was so much easier. And I, and I really never intended to flip that house. I was just kind of fixing it up because I bought a house that was a little out of date. And by the time I was with it, I had people over. People were like, wow, this place is amazing. And I, I didn't really, it was weird, Julie, truly. It was just a place I was living in. And somebody made a comment like, I wonder what is worth now that you've done all this work.

And a light went off in my head and I was like, let me find out. So I pulled the comps and it was I had spent I did almost all of the work myself, all the tile work. I did almost all of it myself. So I'd only spent like $17,000 improving the house. Oh wow. And it was probably like $65, $70,000 worth of equity that I was sitting on.

And at that time, that was that would have replaced my previous year's income. So that was a lot of money to me. And I was like, okay, I'm going to sell the house. So I sold it and then bought another one and did the same thing, lived in it and flipped it while I lived in it. And that one was also successful. So then when I did my fourth flip, that's when things, that's when I was like, okay, this is a business now. I had learned enough from the first one that I messed up on. And then the two that I lived in, I'd learned enough to where I felt more comfortable taking a bigger risk.

So I hired a general contractor and bought my fourth flip. Oh, you hired a general contractor. Okay, good. So there's an evolution in. It was always my intention to do that. I wanted to do the first couple myself, so I knew enough to know what I didn't know. But yeah. And now I'm getting ready to finish my third new build and getting ready to,

we're working on getting it to a place where there's somebody in charge of all the builds. And I can, instead of working in my business, I can work on. business. That's a massive. Well, and you're at, so the one you're working on it, your, your price point has increased over the years. I've observed. Tell us about the one you're working on right now. So I have a couple. I've got, I've got three pieces of land I own by myself, and we're building five houses on those three pieces of land. And then I've got one piece of land that I own a third of. I have two business partners and we're building 12 homes there. So we're, I'm in the process of 19, building 19 new construction homes. Two are actually

coming out of the ground. Two are getting ready to start coming out of the ground. And then our 12 unit is hopefully going to start coming out of the ground by the end of the year. So we got to officially, you're a developer, my friend. Yeah, very, very new developer. I'm in my freshman year. but yes, I'm excited. Wow, that is so cool. What's the highest price point you're working with on your properties? And I know with new construction, and it's very hard to name your price because the market keeps moving.

So I understand that six months from now, it's like, no, the price is here. I'm actually sitting in a double wide at the moment that we own on the east side. And it's about a month from getting its permits approved. and this this is probably the most expensive one we're working on. It's going to be a seven bedroom, seven and a half bathroom property when we're finished. That's massive. Yeah, it's going to be, I think it's probably going to be about $4 million when we're done. Wow, that's fantastic.

Tell me about like one that you've done. What's one that you're like most proud of or love to talk about? It's got to be the one we finished last year and sold in July. This will work really well on the podcast to have the cat show up, to have the kitty show up. I love it. It's got to be Garden Villa. Okay. So tell me, tell me about that one while I get rid of this kitten.

Okay, keep going. It was the house that almost killed me. I had two mental breakdowns in the 15 months that we were developing the project. and it was hard and it took me to the edge of it took me to the edge to be honest but I'm so proud of the work that we did there because it's a gorgeous house and it was really well received by the market it was my first ever new build I bought the piece of land from an agent in my office that I had kind of mentioned that I was looking into building something and I just kind of put it out there. I'm looking for a lot. I want to build something. I had no idea what I was doing.

I had done maybe at that point, maybe only seven or eight flips, but I knew I knew that I wanted to get into the building. That's, I love creation. I love building from, you know, something from nothing. So this agent called me and she's like, I got this lot. You want to, do you want to look at it? And I was like, sure. And I put it under contract before I even knew how I was going to finance it, before I knew how I would finance the build before I had never done it. So I had like 45 days to figure it out. And I posted in an investor Facebook page and basically said, you know, I had this property under contract and I was looking to hire a builder. And my idea behind it was hire a shadow builder or hire a builder that was willing to kind of let me do a lot of the legwork.

In fact, most of the leg work and just kind of learn along the way. But we closed on the property in March of 2020 or in February technically. And then the owners moved out in March and the world flipped upside down. Yeah. And the guy that we had contracted to do the build for me, every time I met him, he was looking more and more disheveled and come to find out he was on the verge of bankruptcy. He had all of his own projects and nothing was selling because it was that. that one and a half to two months in the market where everyone was terrified.

Just stopped. Yeah. So he was trying to stave off his own bankruptcy. I now have just signed up for a million dollar loan and am making those payments. And no progress is happening on the build. Like no permitting progress, no nothing. So I had I called my mentor in Dallas and I said, and she's a custom home builder up there. They do probably 12, probably 10 to 12 homes a year that are like. like eight to 15,000 square feet. They're, they do huge. Huge. Yeah. Sounds like Dallas.

Exactly. I called her and I was like, Connie, I don't, I don't know what to do. I'm really scared. What do I do here? I own this. I don't know what I'm doing. I've never built anything before. She's like, well, you can do one or two things. She's like, you can sell the lot or build the house. And I said, well, what would you do? And she said, I'm a builder. I'd build the house. So I remember the conversation specifically. I told her I've never done this before. She goes, okay, what haven't you done before? And I said, poor foundation.

And then she goes, and is that it? And then when I thought about it, that's really the only thing I hadn't done. Because with flipping, you do framing, you do drywall, you do plumbing, you do everything. So she convinced me to go ahead and build the house. She's like, spend your time to find somebody to do the foundation the right way. That's the most important thing. And she said you can figure it out. And it was the hardest thing I've ever done. And it's nothing like flipping. And I should have sold the land looking back on it probably. I mean, when it sold, Julie, my monthly obligations were probably around $30,000 a month for all my employees and all my project mortgages and everything. And I had $8,000 to my name. So it took me to the edge. I borrowed money from everybody I knew. I went $352,000. over budget. And I had to come up with all of that money because the bank only, I only asked for

$525,000 construction budget from the bank because the house I started to build. And then the way the market turned and the what I wound up building were so different. I borrowed money from my best friend. I borrowed money from my mom. I borrowed money from everybody I knew. I maxed out every credit card I had. I took out personal loans from my bank. And I still was down to my last $8,000. when that house sold. It was. Yeah. Yeah. So nervous breakdown. I had two. I had, I had, too. Yeah. That sounds like a tremendous, tremendous amount of stress. God, and you, you push through it, man. What a story. Yeah. I don't, honestly, looking back, I don't know how I did it. I really, I had a really amazing partner that I don't think I could have done it without him. He was the, the reason that I could

make it through and my mom. My mom moved in with me at the basically right before the pandemic started. And without the two of them, I'd never made it. Yeah. Aren't you, is your, your sister's in business with you now. Is that, is that accurate? Tell me about that. What's that look like? And I know you guys are close. It's been the most, it's been the biggest gift of my life. Wow. She understands me like, other human being on earth. She understands, she's an empath. So she understands everybody. And she has a really, really innate and unique ability to read a situation and understand what people actually need, not just what they're saying they want. So she's going to take me into the stratosphere. I'm, I'm so blessed to be able to work with her. But her main focus is development of affordable housing. So I've

been trying to get her to move here and work with me for years and years and years and years. And she is a musician and lived in L.A. and had an amazing life and loves everything about Los Angeles. So it took the right thing for her to want to move. And when I told her, you know, I really need you here. I don't know how that's going to look yet. Let's just come visit and we'll figure it out. And she flew into town. And we had like basically brainstorming sessions. for eight or 10 hours a day, like three or four days in a row. And then we came up affordable housing. And that was the thing that spoke enough to her that she was like, yeah, I'll move.

So she's- Now what you've described to be so far isn't, I wouldn't put it in the affordable housing category. What, like, what's, what's ahead for affordable housing? And by the way, to have an empath that you're like hand in hand with, it's like, we could all use an empath. like hooked arm and arm. That's, that's, that's, that's amazing. But tell me what's like, what's ahead with the affordable housing? Because this is, and I find this fascinating because you're

doing high-end multi-million dollar properties and you're very in this affordable housing thing. And I know it's important to you too. I remember you talking about it years, years past. So where's that going? Yeah, it's important to me for a lot of reasons. My sister, in a, it's important to her for a lot more, more, she's really has been housing insecure for the great majority of her life. She moved to 17, she moved to Los Angeles when she was 17 and was effectively homeless for years. Stayed with friends and, and, and, you know, never stayed on the street, but was, was homeless. Living in Los Angeles was really expensive. So for her and for me, it's really important because we came from nothing. I mean, my mom worked three jobs to make $28,000 a year when we were kids.

I remember, you know, we never worried about where a meal was coming from, but we had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches a lot because we could afford. And I remember part of it was access to affordable housing. When my mom got a grant from McKinery County, there was a nonprofit organization that gave us a grant for us to buy our 900 square foot house. And without that, we would have been, I don't know where we would have been. I love that I am a developer. I love being able to say that. I love that I can build beautiful things. But a lot of what makes Austin cool is getting pushed out. And we want to offer, and we're not sure exactly how it's going to happen yet, but we want to be able to offer a significant amount of affordable housing units so that some of

these people that made Austin cool in the first place can stay. My sister wants to build affordable housing communities for artists so that they don't have to worry about, you know, paying $2,000 a month and rent. And then the creativity gets sucked out of their life because they don't have any time to create. So our goal, our business plan is 10,000 units in the next 10 years. And we're, the way I think we're going to get there is it is a, it's a combination of a couple of things. It's 3D printing, which I think is going to change the game. Yeah, but we figure out there's, it's such a different way of building. There's, it's going to be hard to scale as fast as we want. So we're aware that there's a lot of challenges

there that we're trying to work around. But I think also one of our major goals is to do really tiny micro units and to build, build like co-op spaces for lack of a better word, where there's a big, beautiful bathroom facility and maybe one or two massive kitchen. that are shared and then there's tiny micro units that just our living space so that we can build them much quicker much more affordably we don't have to run plumbing to each of the individual units you know that's that is our our goal this is phenomenal and and and for the and for the music community man put a recording studio in that community that's like her goal is wow her goal is to is to create a relatively self-sustaining environment, that there's enough land where people can grow their own,

you know, their own food, that there's enough space where people can get outside and be part of nature, you know, that it's, we don't want concrete jungle, we don't want, we want it to be a place where people can go and actually be creative. And instead of worrying about how they're going to pay their rent, you know, how are they adding to the world with their art? That's what we want to see. And I think if people have the ability to live for super affordable, then that creativity is going to be, you know, multiplied. That's phenomenal. Yeah. Well, I'm just, I'm really excited to see, I think to see what connections you start making.

I mean, y'all are, you have the vision. You're talking about it. You're putting it out there to the universe. So it's going to be really fun to see it, get some legs and get some structure, get some following, get some fans. Yeah, I have one person in particular that I think I'd like to introduce you to that I think would be really, really interested in this conversation and this type of thing. Wow, it's fascinating. Oh, it's so cool. She's currently working on the 1023 to get our nonprofit design.

nation. Okay. And then a business partner of mine that I in a separate venture is, has operated in the nonprofit space at a really high level for a lot of years. And he has just brought somebody in house that it's a grant writer that's secured $8 million in federal grants for developing affordable housing. So with my partnership interest with him, I'm hoping I'm going to have access to that person so that we can get. some backing. You know, we, we, we, I know for sure we can do, we're already developing six affordable units now. And my goal is to, is just finish 16 by the end of next year. And then after we finish those 16 and kind of prove the concept, we're going to be working on how can we

scale this? That's the, that's the main focus is how can we? We already, you know, Austin's got like about a 3,800 person homeless population, by estimates that I read in the middle of the pandemic, maybe it's a little bit more than that now. The goal is that by the time we can actually scale this, if the population of homeless in Austin has risen to 5,000, half of the units can go directly to the homeless population. The other half can go to affordable housing for artists or people that are at risk or fill in the blank. There's plenty to fill in that blank. Right. teacher. I mean, just like teachers, firemen, nurses. How do these people afford to live in

Austin anymore? It's getting expensive so quickly. We're, we are desperately trying to figure out a way to make a difference. Normally on my podcast, I ask a question like, so, what's next for you? It's like, wow, I did not need to, I do not need to ask that question. This is just some amazing, amazing stuff. You know, it's interesting. I just, I didn't realize that, um, kind of your, that your affordable housing piece was really getting some legs because what I was observing, just kind of watching you on Facebook, I was observing you, you know, really starting to build, you know, some luxury and high price point properties. Um, and, and you know, and that makes sense that that market exists in Austin. And, and I think, you know, I think you should pay attention.

to where the opportunities are in any given market, and that can fund other projects, right? Right. So the goal is that the high-end building supports the affordable housing. It's going to kind of be, it's going to, you know, that business is going to a portion of profits to the nonprofit every year so that the nonprofit is self-sustaining. I love this. I mean, it's just, it's interesting. So just even in these seven years, so you started off with the real estate license that you weren't quite sure even what you were going to do with it, what you wanted to do with it.

The first year was all over the place as it is for many agents. It started to get some legs kind of year two and three. But then this other stuff started to, these opportunities started to materialize for you. If you had known everything that you know today, and if you had, if somebody had, if somebody had, handed you a list of all the pain you would go through to get to where you're at today. And you look at that list and you look at the financial risks and the breakdowns. And that would be enough to scare a lot. Folks would be like, yeah, no, nope, I'm not doing it.

Right. And fortunately, I guess fortunately, we don't have that, we don't have the ability to look at it that way. because look at where you're at and just even who you are, who you are today and that you're getting in business with your sister. And wow, you guys are just doing some amazing, amazing things. Wow.

Yeah. I'm humbled. I am just humbled. It's fantastic. Keep going. You're very kind. I just, you know,

I came from nothing. I have a lot of imposter syndrome, I think. So I have a lot of need to prove myself. I think even not to anybody other than just myself because I had one pre-spun idea of who I was going to be and how my life looked like when I was in high school. I think like a lot of people do. And then I had, I had, you know, we moved in my senior year and my entire everything changed. I went from being in the top 2% of my high school class before I even walked in the door of my new high school.

I was not even in the top 10% based on the way that my grades transferred. So I was going to go to Harvard. I was going to be an attorney. I wanted to be, you know, a litigator. I wanted to argue in court. And then that entire, that entire preconceived idea of who I was going to be evaporated in two months. So it was really tough for me. And I just feel so blessed to be where I am that I've made this journey. Now my goal is like how many people can I help that look like. like that you know that started from where I started and I just want to build an organization like when I all the time if I see somebody talented like a waiter that I meet or a service person somewhere I look at my mom and my sister I'm like I need to build an organization that's big enough so I can hire all the talents people I come across and that is actually kind of like a low key goal I want to I want to show everybody what's possible I am not the smartest guy in the room I'm not eminently well qualified on an education level. I don't have a degree. I didn't, you know, seven years ago, I didn't have a

great network. I don't come from wealthy parents. I didn't have any. And I say all that to say, I'm very aware that being Caucasian and male in this country is a major benefit. But besides those two things, I don't feel like I had any major legs up on my competition. The only thing that I think has helped me to become successful has been my never-ending drive. I, because I'm not the smartest person in the room, I'm going to outwork everybody. I'm going to work twice as hard, three times as hard, because that's what it took. Okay, so long story short, back in high school, I was the valedictorian of my class. I was number one ranked person in my class for two and a half years.

And I remember specifically having a conversation with my mom. I am not as smart as my classmates. There is going to be a time when I can't outwork them anymore where they surpass me. And that happened because I wasn't, there are kids in my class that were way brighter than me, just naturally warm. So I've always felt that need to work really hard. And it just, I don't know, it's never gone away. And now, that's, that's an important life lesson.

and you were out hustling them. It's never the smartest person in the room who's accomplishing the most. It never is. And that's a huge, it's such an important life lesson. And you were, you, you were aware of that like at age 15. You had a 14. 14. You just, you knew it.

And you were, you were out hustling kids that, you knew were capable of getting higher scores than you. It was a work you worked you worked harder. I did the the so my first report card high school freshman year my first report card everybody and I'll never forget this day. It was my second period class math class in the basement and we got our report cards for the first time and everybody was like talking about the number that they were and their class ranking. and I was looking at mine and I was like, I don't understand what, what's everybody talking about? And my friend that was sitting next to me, grab my report card. And she goes, oh, my God, you're number one.

And I was like, what is that? I literally had no. You didn't even know what it meant. I didn't know what it meant. It was not a goal. It was, I was just always told that school was the most important, that it was going to be my way to make a better life because we were freaking poor. So I just studied hard and I had straight A's.

So I was number one in my class. And I stayed that way, like I said, for two years. And then the people in my class that were, I mean, I went to school with some really bright people, amazing, amazing people that are just doing the coolest things today. And then you move to another school that was just a higher academic school, it sounds like. And so all of a sudden there were a bunch of kids that went up the deal? I don't think it was higher. I don't think it was just a different state. So the way the grades transferred, I see. Okay. Yeah. Mess. I mean, literally my whole life was flipped upside down as a senior in high school. I was going Harvard. I wanted to be an attorney. I had my whole preconceived idea of what my life was going to look like. Yeah, but you probably would never have never have because I can see the vision now. You would have never created, I don't think you would have ever created a Ford. housing solutions. I don't think I would have been as successful as I am. I don't think I would have been as happy as I am. It was the worst thing that had ever happened to me in my life up to that point. And it was my biggest blessing. Let's let's let's let's let's let's wrap this up. Although it's hard to we can go on forever. This is just really really phenomenal. And I know a lot of people. It's just very inspiring your story and folks are going to really, really love listening to

this episode. Is there anything else you kind of want to, you want to throw in there? How can people find you? And have we forgotten to talk about anything that you wanted to touch on or any final thoughts? People can find me. My company's name is Tyke and it's spelled T-Y-C-H-E. It's the Greek goddess kind of like the homestead and of this of kind of like the protector of the city so tyke property group is all of my socials instagram tick tock all that's tyke property group i think the only thing i would want to touch on that we haven't so far was all the time i get people all the time asking me what's the key to being successful and i think key to being successful in my mind is the belief that that you can change your circumstance. I think a lot of times people in life and

circumstance gets people beat down to a place where they don't think that it's possible. And that's so it's really, it makes me emotional to think about because I had was in that place. You know, I remember my mom telling me as a kid, well, nobody wants to grow up and be poor because I had all these huge dreams and goals when we were poor. And she goes, nobody grows up and wants to be poor, but I've been chasing that success in my mind since I was 12. And if people haven't been chasing that success in their mind, it's time to start chasing it because anybody can be successful. It's how hard are you willing to work and how hard are you willing, you know, how hard are you willing to push yourself when you fall down? Getting back up is painful. There's,

There's no way around it. It's painful. But success without failure is impossible. It's literally impossible. So you have to fail to succeed. It's part of the process. So I would just say, find somebody who gives you hope to know that you can be successful and then chase that every single moment of every single day and don't give up.

It's not a matter of if. It's a matter of when. If you if you spend dedicated, focused, intentional, specific time on a dream, anything's possible. I mean, if you look around you, the world, everything in the world that's not organic is made by man. Everything in the entire world that's not organic was made by a human. So you can do anything you want, you know, it's just how hard are you willing to work? One of my observations for you and many, many people is when I listen to, to success stories, it amazes me, especially the really high success and the highly inspirational

stories, I'm amazed at how often it's with a person or it's because this person really had struggles early on or really came from very kind of limited resources, financial scarcity, and pulled it together and did some amazing things. I see that theme, that story play out again and again and again. So it doesn't matter who your family, well, it matters, but it doesn't matter. It doesn't. It's the grit. It's the grit and it's the getting up again and getting up and get up and move forward

and move forward and move forward. And it's also about putting yourself in front of the right audience. you know, there's a, there's an old story and I'm going to not even do it justice, but in order to save time, it's about a really old watch. And this dad is trying to teach his son about value. And he gives the son this old watch and he says, do not sell this watch, but take it to the pawn shop and see what they offer you for it. And the son takes it to the pawn shop. And it's a Rolex, but it's really old and bad shape. So the pawn shop offers him a hundred bucks. And he doesn't say, he comes back and talks to his dad and his dad says, you know, what did they offer you? And he says,

$100. And then he goes, okay, now take it to this antique collector. And he takes the watch to this antique collector and the antique collector offers him a hundred grand for the same, for the same watch. And he doesn't sell the watch, brings it back to his dad. Dad says, what did they offer you? And he says 100 grand. And he goes, okay, now take the watch to Sotheby's. And he takes the watch to Sotheby's and they go, oh, we think it'll probably sell for about a million. And the point, and the point, is I have no idea whether it's true or not, but the point is if you're not putting yourself in front of the right audience, you're not going to get the answer you want. So I think the key to being successful is is never giving up, but also making sure that you're talking to the right

audience. You can be really talented, but if you're not putting yourself in front of the right audience, you're not going to be successful. You can't, you can't, you can't like try to go sing to, I mean, this is a bad, bad example. But I'm trying to put it into like an analogy. If you want to be a famous singer and you're singing to your church and those are the only people that hear you sing, your likelihood of being a really successful singer is really small. But if you're doing open mic nights, if you go to L.A., if you're spending time in Nashville,

if you are in front of the right audience, your value will be different. Your value is, you know, when we're selling houses, especially in this crazy market, the value is what somebody is willing to pay. You are going to find people that are going to discount you in your life. Everybody can find people that are willing to discount them. But if you get in front of the right audience that sees your value, that's where you are successful. I, and not having money is not an excuse.

It's just not an excuse. It's your lack of, and I tell this to people when I'm talking to like new investors and stuff is your lack of money is your excuse. And. If you want to be successful, you've got to eliminate the excuse. I mean, I have done the most interesting financial deals. I have done seller finance deals. I have done subject two deals. I have done deals where I had to bring a certain amount of money to the table. And my wholesaling company that I own, my LLC that I started to wholesale, left the table with money. So I was in the deal net for very

little. I mean, lack of money is a lack of hustle. If that's your excuse, it's just a lack of hustle. Well, and I think the other excuse is, well, I don't understand that or I don't know that. You didn't know any of this stuff seven years ago. None of it. None. Zero. Right. And somebody may hear you say that and go, yeah, but I'm not willing to take the risk he's taken.

I'm not willing to get that uncomfortable. I'm not willing to take on all that stress. Then go learn it from somebody who's already done it. My process personally is I like to do things the hard way and I'm stubborn as hell and I have to do it the hard way because then I learn it. I can't I don't learn by somebody teaching or telling me. I learn by doing. So if you know, if that's not your learning strategy, go learn from somebody else. The wheel, the chances of somebody wanting to do something in building and flipping that's not already been done is low. You're not reinventing the wheel. Go learn it from somebody and then do it.

Yeah, figure that out. Yeah. It's not, it's not hard to figure it out. Oh, my God. This is so good. Okay. So can we, we need to do this again down the road as, especially as the affordable housing thing starts to gain a foundation. I want to do this again because that's fascinating and we can help. We're going to need to spread the love and the word on that. And yeah, so I want to do some more of this.

It's really cool. I think the most immediate thing we're going to do is I'm looking for a piece of land out in the middle of nowhere with no restrictions and we're just going to do a barn dominium and fill it with and fill it with like I was talking about just really small micro units no bathrooms and just have a main bathroom facility that will be done by the end of next year the the 12 unit multifamily we're developing in north Austin off of runberg 50% of those units are going to be affordable and that should break ground by the end of the year. It's three contiguous single-family lots, but we're developing it under a city charter called affordability unlocked. And in order to do that, they require a commercial site plan, which is a whole different ball of wax and a lot more difficult. You have to have civil engineers and you have to do all these different machinations than just building a house.

But after we figure out all of that multifamily stuff, it should be coming out of the ground by the end of the year. I have a couple people. I need to introduce you to. Okay. I, yeah, I'm always, I'm always. I love networking and talking to people and hearing experiences. Okay.

So you stay on for just a minute. Y'all, thanks for being here. Nicholas, you're amazing. I adore you. I love you. And thank you for being on the podcast today. Of course. Thank you for having me.