#15 Single Family Crushes Multifamily with RJ Pepino and Dave Payerchin
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Itunes – www.TonyJavier.com/itunes
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Guest Bio: RJ Pepino and Dave Payerchin are a dynamic duo doing 100+ deals a year in the midwest. We talk about the benefits of Single-Family over Multi-Family investing.
Listen to the full episode at www.TonyJavier.com/itunes and please leave a review.
If you want to watch the video, go to www.TonyJavier.com/podcast.
More about him – www.TonyJavier/rjanddave
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Show Transcription:
Tony (00:00):
All right. Welcome to today’s episode. We have RJ Pepino and Dave Payerchin on the line today out of Ohio, they are partners. We’re going to talk a lot about rentals. We’re going to get into a lot of different, great topics. I’m excited to have them. They’re doing over a hundred deals a year. I’ve been in the business I think over 15 years now. So lots of experience. So looking forward to having you guys, this is the first time I’ve had a team on my podcast. So welcome on and looking forward to diving into some good things today.
Dave (00:50):
Hey, we’ve got the gray hairs to prove it. Every single gray hair that your listeners or viewers see every single one of those is the deal that’s gone bad. So we’re definitely, definitely.
Tony (01:01):
That’s a lot of deals. I hate to say it, man, but that’s a lot of deals on my back. I used to say I had like a couple like a handful of gray hairs and I’d say that’s for every sister I have, you know, it’s like, and then, you know, and then more star coming in and it’s like, yeah, man, it’s probably bad deals. You’re right. So.
Dave (01:18):
RJ’s gray hair are coming. He’s got a baby coming any day. Now I’ll be at the hospital with this guy. He’s about to be what he’s going to look like Santa Claus here real soon.
Tony (01:30):
Congrats, man, I got a 16 month old man. It’s you’re you’re in for you’re in for about six to nine months of torture, but then after that it gets better. So just a fair warning to you.
RJ (01:40):
I’m ready, man.
Dave (01:42):
Happy to be here brother. Happy to be here, man.
Tony (01:44):
Cool, man. Well, thanks for jumping on guys. So, you know, we were talking just a little bit before we started about single family. We were getting ready to jump in. So I’m like, you know what? Let’s just hit record and get going on it. So the first thing, or one of the things you said before we jumped on David was talking about single family rentals right now, the market’s hot things are appreciating it’s, you know, it’s a great time to sell, but at the same time, prices are going up. So we talked about that a little bit. And then you said single family rentals are better than multifamily. So there’s some people that would say some, you know, different, but let’s just jump into that topic real quick. So I think we’re in the same boat. We both have, you know, round or over a hundred rental properties we buy and flip. We wholesale, we do all kinds of different things. So what is your reasoning by saying single family rentals are better than multi-family.
Dave (02:32):
Oh, let me count the ways. I mean, come on, we’ve got a global pandemic going on. Number one. Nobody wants to be living in an apartment when they have to work from home and homeschool their kids. And you know, it’s, they’re crawling all over each other. People are afraid of this virus that’s going on. Sothe demand for single family housing number one is through the roof. The opportunities are far more abundant within single families. There’s way more of them out there. You can buy them more creatively. The financing is better for single family than you could get on an apartment building right now. There’s far more exit strategies for single family than you could do with an apartment. Let’s say you run into a cashflow crunch. Well, you can’t just pair off an apartment here and there. No, but you can with a portfolio of single-family rentalsyou know, nobody wants everybody wants space right now. People are moving out of apartments. I mean, RJ, what have you been seeing in property management?
RJ (03:36):
Yeah. So in our business, I always see a lot of the property management rehab and stuff like that. And what we’re seeing is like an uptick with a lot of our prospects coming from apartments are coming from townhouses and duplexes kind of closer to downtown, wanting more space and going into the suburbs and into rural areas. We have some single family homes kind of outside of in those outer pockets of Columbus. That’s kind of where we do our,he majority of our business. And it’s, funny because a lot of them are also asking for, you know, more space like, Hey, you have you know, extra room in the basement for their pets. And it’s just in the last four months, we haven’t seen a lot more apartments going to houses, you know, prospects from apartments to houses than houses to houses, which is, we typically would see.
Tony (04:27):
That’s interesting.
RJ (04:28):
That has changed or at, but there’s also, there’s many more aspects of why we think, and we feel that based on our experience that single families are a way better than apartments.
Tony (04:39):
Yeah. I was actually talking to a guy the other day, he’s syndicated over 2000 apartment units. And he’s shifting to single family because he’s like, he just can’t syndicate deals anymore. He said that he didn’t exactly say why, but I’m guessing it’s because people are moving out of apartments. It’s maybe harder to find deals because the apartments out there are, you know, have appreciated so much and maybe people owe too much on them now to be able to sell them for what’s needed. But I think Dave, you, you know, spot off about10 reasons why single family is great. And I totally agree. You know, you can find them cheaper, more exit strategies. It’s easier to sell a a hundred thousand dollar house than it is a $10 million apartment complex. I guess the only caveat that I would say that is if you can find an apartment complex, that is a good deal, that needs work, that you can improve it and increase the rents. You can do a hundred apartment units,probably about the same. You could maybe let’s, let’s call it 10 single family houses. So, you know, there’s both sides of that, but I agree overall,
Dave (05:46):
That’s the number one argument not to cut you off Tony, but that’s the number one argument is the scalability factor, right? You can scale apartments much faster, but what good deals on apartments? Sure. You got your pros out there. We could rattle off the names. Those are unicorns though. You know, the day-to-day investor who’s looking for apartments are paying too much. They’re going to get hammered, right? People are paying way too much for apartments. There’s just not a lot of good deals. And one thing we didn’t mention Tony is you could buy creatively single family homes. I mean, we buy subject two deals constantly that loan stays in the seller’s name and we get the ownership. We get the deed, we do this all day long. You can’t do that with apartments. It’s a no brainer. The only argument that the apartment investors have, and they won’t even debate me. I would love to debate anyone on your podcast who argues, you know for the case of a apartment. No, the only thing they have is, Oh, scalability, scalability, the average investor, Tony, they can’t even find one deal. I mean, you’re sitting around, you’re saying you’re an apartment investor. There’s a hand full of guys who are successful and we’re friends with all of them. I mean, they do a tremendous job. They’re phenomenal. I’m talking about the day-to-day investor. The day-to-day listener to your podcast. Guys get involved in single family, learn creative real estate, build a portfolio of what our mentor Jack Miller calls, horizontal apartments. It is far more beneficial to own a portfolio of single family rentals than it is one apartment building. You’re going to be waiting around forever to find an apartment building. That’s a good deal. There are no good deals out there.
Tony (07:39):
So tell me, you said you had 50 apartments or 50 houses rather. Sorry, I didn’t mean to say apartments 50 houses in the last year or so that you added your portfolio, was that a packaged property where those just deals that you bought one off that you just decided to add? So what made you decide to keep those as rentals, as opposed to just flipping those and making money in a hot market right now where you can get multiple offers on most houses.
Dave (08:05):
RJ has got that one, what you got RJ.
RJ (08:07):
So, I mean, a lot of the houses that we buy are in areas where we have multiple exit strategies. So if we you know, through our marketing come across a house, it’s just not in the area. Then we can wholesale it. Right? So our suites, we like to stay in you know, still in the affordable price points but in B class and A class zones, and we would love to hold on to that, but we would love to sell it for a profit right now, but we can still sell the ones that don’t fit our model, not the best ones. You know, we keep we’re now able to cherry pick the best ones because of the marketing that we do. So the 50 that we have that we’ve added, they’re all the best ones. And we have these funds who are willing to pay more. So why not, yeah. We have wholesale to them all day. Right when the pandemic hit it was a, it was a great decision for us to not take down big, big rehabs. You know, we like to stay in where we can do a cosmetic rehab in and out of it within a couple of weeks, put it right into the leasing department and get at least and we’re in and out of it, you know what I mean? We, we did some big, big rehabs when we were doing a lot of turnkey flipping, right. That the whole, like let’s sell the rentals away. And that was a good business. But we weren’t focusing on our own portfolio. And, so once we said, Hey, you know, we’re not doing that anymore. Let’s focus on building this we saw a lot more we increased our net worth. We increase our cashflow and we’re just a lot more profitable, my opinion with less headache. And that allowed us to actually go from a brick and mortar type office virtually. So happy with that,
Dave (09:55):
Not to cut you off my brother, but yes, as RJ alluded to we are a hundred percent virtual, but let me ask you, I mean, Tony, you do a ton of deals. You own a bunch of rentals for your day-to-day listener. Who’s just focused on wholesaling. What is the tax bracket for a wholesale deal, right? Like, so if you were not, and I’m speaking to your less listeners right now, if you were not taking advantage of the opportunities to buy and hold right now, not only the low interest rates, but the tax benefits, it’s called depreciation. You probably talk about it on the podcast, right guys. So yes, we continue to wholesale. We still wholesale. We’re not against wholesaling. You know, it fills the cashflow gaps, but that is highly taxable income. Tony.
Tony (10:50):
That’s the hard thing, because you want to make a lot of money, but you want to pay as little taxes as possible. So it’s interesting because I’ve been in business 19 years now. And I think the first 12 to 15 years, I paid pretty much zero taxes because I loaded up on rental properties a long time ago, I was able to, I’m able to depreciate them. I bought a building a couple of years ago. So speaking of taxes and I’m not giving tax advice, but I’m telling you what I did. So I bought a building about two years ago and we put about, I think it was about a million and a half dollars into it. And there’s what’s called accelerated appreciation now. So on commercial real estate, that’s right. You can take accelerated depreciation on stuff like carpet. I think paint, parking lots, you know, there’s things that in the tax code, if it can be depreciated under five years or maybe 10 years, I can’t remember the number you can now take it
Dave (11:46):
I think it’s 20 years brother.
Tony (11:49):
I think you’re right. I think it’s 20 years. You can now depreciate it and it off in the first year. So I’ve got over a million dollars worth of write-offs that I can use from last year to this year. But that’s on the commercial side. On the residential side, you can appreciate and I’m sure there’s some creative ways you can take the renovations you’re doing and write those off as well. So you’re right. There are so many tax benefits that you can take advantage of. And if you’re just flipping and wholesaling, you know, if you make, you know, 500,000 a year, that’s a huge tax liability. So for people that are making big money by not flipping some of those houses, they lower their tax bracket and they get the depreciation. You put a lot more money in your pocket. So I’m guessing that’s kind of what you’re alluding to.
Dave (12:31):
Well, not only that, but the leverage available to us now, the low interest rates, the artificially low interest rates available to us. All right. Now I think every single one of your listeners, every single person hearing this should maximize every dollar borrow is much long-term low interest debt, as you possibly can. And secure it against cash flowing real estate. I don’t know how you lose in that trade. So on your, on your long-term stuff, are they 30 or fixed? Because a lot of the stuff I do is local lenders. They, you know, I’ve got a lot of lines of guidance lines with them, but it’s a five-year term and a 20 year aim. There’s a lot of guys that are doing 30 year fixed interest rates, a little bit higher. Are you guys doing fixed for 30 years or do you adjust after a certain amount of time?
RJ (13:22):
Well, I mean RJ knows as well. It’s like the golden 10, like you’re allowed 10 conventional mortgages in your name, 10 conventional mortgages in your spouse’s name or your business partner’s name. And that’s where you’re going to get the 30 year fixed rate mortgages. But yeah, that, I mean, maximize those ones first, and then you pretty much got to go with what they’ll give you, you know, there’s a lot of 20 year am products out there. But maximize those golden ten first, you can get 3% 30 year money right now. Take advantage of that. Every single one of your listeners should be doing that.
Tony (14:00):
You guys are getting 3% money.
Dave (14:03):
Only because we can’t get two and a half percent money. But yeah. Yeah. I see there’s people out there right now with primary residence as getting two and a half percent money all day.
Tony (14:15):
I mean, yeah, yeah, for sure. For sure. Primary. So primary residence, you get a lot lower interest rate, but as far as long-term rentals, I imagine that’s probably closer to the 4, maybe 5%.
Dave (14:25):
Now it’s 3.25 fairly conventional. Absolutely.
Tony (14:30):
Are those national lenders you’re dealing with?
Tony (14:32):
Excuse me.
Tony (14:33):
Are those national lenders you’re dealing with?
Dave (14:36):
No local. Local credit unions, local banks. They’ll give you 3.25 for those golden 10, but once you step out of that golden 10, you’re exactly right. You’re going to be in the fives, you know.
Tony (14:52):
Gotcha. Gotcha. Cool. So you guys have been in business 15 years now. There’s a lot of people. I don’t want to say a lot, but there’s quite a few people I know that were in business even 10 years ago that are out of business for whatever reason. So to start a business is one thing to find your first deal is really tough. Like you mentioned, I can’t remember if it was on the podcast or before we started talking, a lot of people have trouble finding their first deal, let alone, you know, flip hundreds of deals or be in business 15 years. What do you guys think has gotten you from where you started to lasting as long as you have and being strong 15 years later.
Dave (15:26):
I want RJ to answer that, But also keeping a business Partnership together, Tony, and your experience with this podcast and all your experience in real estate, how many business partnerships have lasted as long as me and RJ.
Tony (15:40):
I mean, I can tell you right now I’ve had many partnerships and none of them lasted. So I totally, I totally know how hard it is.
Dave (15:47):
RJ, what’s the key to success brother.
RJ (15:51):
So, you know, a lot of it has to do with like your, you know, your innate core values between you and your partner. If it’s way far off, it’s just not going to last my last couple of years. Right. And it might work in gel. So being on the same page there, but then also open communication being transparent having, asking help when you need help. Right. We’ve been very good at, you know, reaching out to our network, right. And we’re just talking about this, we’re talking about a network. We are part of you know, several years ago and we’re still part of that network. It’s utilizing your network and getting your ego out of the way to say, Hey, I need help and reaching out to them. And then implementing what you learned and failing, implementing what you learned again, making adjustments with the market. We’ve always been in the single family space, but our start was in the seat in the C class. It was hard, but that’s where we had our you know, private money was pretty expensive and that’s where that the numbers work. And so as we got better, as we were able to be replace the the amount of interest rates that we’re paying our private lenders, we’re able to get into better asset classes and be in a better position now. But those are some of the key things I would say that you know, having a business partner like Dave and I, and knowing kind of now, because you know, we’ve been seeing each other every day and know what, what makes the other person tick and the compliments of each other and bounce off ideas. Sometimes it’s so crazy. Like we’ll finish off sentences and we know what each other’s thoughts are. It’s crazy, right? It’s like a best friend, almost like a brotherhood. But keeping that intact your core values intact is very key and important. And I think that’s helped us through some of the tough, especially as we were building this and having to worry about like, you know, closing the next deal to keep the lights on in the begining. It’s like taking a lot. But, you know, I would say is that,
Tony (18:14):
So usually there’s a visionary and an integrator in a company, you know, with really successful companies, there’s a visionary, like a Steve jobs that knows where they want to go. They got this big vision, Elon Musk kind of personality. And then there’s the integrator, the likes to integrate and actually be kind of behind the scenes, integrating things, managing things, you know, the small details are which one of you is a visionary integrator or are you guys both the same?
Dave (18:40):
It’s very difficult to say, but we’ve been able to build a team now of 12 people underneath us. So we kind of share a visionary role, RJ and i have both very much fire first aim second kind of guys, we love making money and we love helping other people make money. And,o we’ve been able to build a team and be co visionaries. I would say RJ correct me if you disagree, but, and then kind of empowering people on our team to be that integrator role, like the operations manager to, to handle that. So we can like the greatest part about having a team for me personally. I mean, I would put myself and I would put RJ in the same category. It’s like a visionary is like, we just want, we know what to do. And the best way to get anything done is to delegate it for like either one of us, like either one of us caught up in the details of building this, that, and the other. It’s like, it’s not serving either one of us. Like, we’re both very, very firm on our thesis, very firm on our vision. I feel like we’re making the right plays and that’s what we talk about RJ and I are like, I would consider as both co visionaries and neither one of us wants to be wrapped up in the nonsense of integrating. So we’ve empowered a team. RJ does a great job. I mean, RJ is a far better manager, I would say of people than me. I’m probably too emotional. I would say I’m more of a sales guy. The deal and just kinda like win people over if that’s a thing. But,that’s more my thing, RJ is more methodical or discipline. RJ, would you agree?
RJ (20:33):
Yeah. So a lot of what you just said Tony about like visionary integrator and all that. We did implemented dos, we implemented the culture index for predictive index profiles. It came back as, Hey, we noticed that we had a ton of visionaries in our, you know, two or three. And we were like, why? Because we were hiring people like us, you know, Dave and I definitely have both traits. I tend to have a little bit better integrating traits than Dave, but Dave also has better visionary traits. Right. So we compliment each other that way. And so we decided like, Hey, we need a full-blown integrator, a full-blown operations manager. And we found somebody to do that in our company. Now we have a team. But we did that culture index. And I came back at like an architect type, you know not so friendly architect, but Dave was like a very super friendly architect, but that’s our dynamic, you know? So we have, we have a checkpoints when we’re like, Hmm, I wonder if we can do this, you know, I wonder if this is a good idea. I’m like, eh, then the other one,ave would probably be like, yeah, but that would probably take, you know, this amount of time and this amount of effort and us, and we probably could work smarter, you know? So we always bounce ideas off each other and he likes what I call it, the sniff test, you know, like, Hey, here’s kind of an idea that I have, what do you think of this? And he’ll go through it and try and poke holes at it. And if he can’t poke holes at it, then it’s like, all right, I think we can implement this. I think this would work. Same thing with Dave. They will be like, Hey, I have this idea. What do you think about this? And so I look at it and I’m looking at it all ways. And if it’s something that I can poke holes in, it’s not a good idea. Then we both agree. Like we have a thing where if we can’t agree on something, then we’re just not going to do it. And partnerships you’ll see that one person really wants to do something so bad that it’s like, it’s, you know, it’s more thinking about themselves versus them thinking as like a team in a unit as a whole. I think we’ve done that really well to distinguish that.
Tony (22:45):
I want to point out something you said as far as our kind of leading to is it’s hard to have because I used to try and hire people like me too. I’m like, why can’t you be like me? Why can’t you? You know? And it’s like, no, you there’s, you know, you can’t have too many of the leader there. It just doesn’t work. So you’ve got to hire someone that compliment you. Like, for me, I’m the same way it’s ready, fire aim. Like that’s me. I’m like, let’s go. I need that person behind me picking up the pieces saying, wait a second, Tony, you need to slow down. You need to stop this or I need to organize you and that kind of thing. So you’ve got to have those people that compliment you and that make sure that you know, like you said, they’re like can kind of reign you in a little bit, because I can, I’ll start 10 different companies tomorrow. And I need people to say, wait a second, let’s get this one, you know, where we need to, and then move onto the next one. So it’s interesting the dynamics and it’s great that you guys have gone 15 years because you know, the longest partnership I think I had was probably maybe five and they all ended up okay. In the, in the end, but they didn’t last it’s usually because you know, our goals, weren’t aligned expectations. Maybe weren’t, you know, put forth in the beginning. So I commend you guys and I can tell you guys, you know, it seems like you guys are pretty good friends too and run a good organization. And I think that’s another big thing is the culture right? You guys probably have built over the years, a good culture. So when someone comes in your organization if they don’t fit your culture, they’re out and if they do fit in your culture, then they probably succeed and thrive in your culture. So let’s talk about that. Let’s talk about what 12, 15 people, I think you said, and you had your organization, what are some things as long with EOS that you, I guess, implemented in your company kind of helped you guys to grow and be where you are now,
Dave (24:38):
I’ll take this one. So I’ll tell you this. RJ is parents came from another country from the great country, but Philippines.
Tony (24:49):
I knew you gonna say that I’m actually half Filipino.
Dave (24:53):
It’s probably why you’re so good looking, you know, RJ, thanks. The you know, like my parents did whatever it takes, works, fast food, you know, we’re, so what we share is grit and not giving up, like the core value is like not quitting. When we are not entitled individuals, Tony, we are not individuals who sit around and wait for the phone to ring and hopefully we’ll get a deal today. We’re going to get out there and put life in a stranglehold and get things done. And that’s what we share. That is the core value of a blue collar, white boy, like me or a set of an immigrant family who has worked their ass off like RJ. Like that’s what we care. There’s no excuses. We’re not hurting anyone. We’re just not gonna accept mediocrity. We’re not gonna to accept you know just waiting for things to come to us. We will make it happen. And that is just what we share. And I think there’s a lot of greatAmericans, blue collar Americans, you know, out there. And like with that work ethic, your listeners, I’m sure. Usame as you Tony. I mean, do you get the same work ethic? It’s like, you know, you gotta get out there and make it happen. That’s what RJ has in his mind. Every day he wakes up, I’m going to make it happen. I wake up, I’m going to make it happen. We’ve got to make this happen. So we attract people with that same ideology in their mind, you know? And it’s just not this, like, we’re not this like so called flatter or kind of guys who are like, life has been handed to us. And every, all our bills have been paid. No, we’ve struggled. I’ve filed bankruptcy before Tony. I was in real estate back in Oh five is when I started, I went under a new seven Oh eight before I met RJ. You know, and I’ll tell you this, you know, I’ve been at the bottom of bottoms. And so as RJ and I’ve been, it’s never the top of the top. Cause we take nothing for granted. That’s just the mentality we carry. RJ, would you agree?
RJ (27:10):
Yeah. Everything that you said Dave is spot on. And you know, one thing that I will add is that we work our butts off Tony, but we also like to have fun and keep it light too. And so we change things up a lot in our, you know, in our meetings because everyone hates meetings, right. It’s like, all right, we had another meeting, you know, and ELS is all about meetings, but we try to keep it fun. We want people having fun, but also making a ton of money. And that’s what we bring to our culture in our team. And, you know, when we went virtual, everybody loved being virtual. I mean, we were kind of thinking like, well, we like it, you know, because we can, you know, we’re the owners and we can go and you know, maybe take a phone call we’re in Puerto Rico or we’re in California or we’re in whatever, you know, but we were like, I’m wondering if the team like introduced this idea of going virtually embraced. It was the best thing everyone loved it. Everyone loves working from home. And and so that, I just wanted to add that, like we like to have fun. You got to have, you got to enjoy your hard work, you know?
Tony (28:20):
So how hard you guys work. So obviously you work hard, but do you guys work nights? Do you guys work weekends? Like what is your, what is your guys’ schedules look like?
Dave (28:30):
I’ll be upfront with you. I’ll, I’ll take the start of that one. RJ, like when we were first starting out, it was a nonstop grind like night and day. And RJ is a beautiful bride. In fact,I’ll let the cat out of the bag. RJ has his first child coming here in the next week or so, but when we were first starting out, you know, he was just dating his wife and, you know, and, and she had to go through that as well with us. Would you agree RJ? I mean, you know, like we, all we did was work, bro, like all through our 20’s, you know, like OLS we did well, when it was just us, it was me RJ, a spreadsheet, there’s two box full of receipts. That’s how we started a portfolio of North of 130 properties. And buying more in this, that raising private capital, everything started with phone calls, hard work. We would take a call at nine o’clock, 10 o’clock at night. There’s no you know, time, there’s no punching in punching out. It’s like, we’ve got to make this happen. So in the early days it was nonstop. But, we are finally at a place where we can empower a team and that’s what we’re all about is bringing on a team. But if any, one of your listeners is just starting out, you better get your ass to work. That’s what RJ is going to tell you. Like, what are you talking about? You’re in your twenties and you think you know you just gotta like sit back and hire some people and you’ll be successful. No, you got to do whatever it takes. RJ, are you with me on that one?
RJ (30:06):
Absolutely man it’s. So now, nowadays it’s, you know, we have our, we have our daily huddles and it takes about half an hour throughout our day. And it’s just kinda like managing and popping in when we have to either mentor somebody or, you know, train them on something new that it’s something completely new. You know, we have our operations manager announced. So a lot of the day-to-day stuff is something that we’re, that we don’t do. What we’re creating now is obviously we have a, you know, a mastermind that we’re creating or we’re enjoying doing a content videos and talking about the market and that’s kinda like what we’re doing. Well, that’s what we’re up to now. Before I was in the phone calls, going out the inspections. Now, if I’m going to go to a property and shooting video to show somebody how to do what we do, that’s part of this you know, other side of the business that we’re, that we’re building here. So it’s a different, mou know, in the last couple of years, three years by a little bit more different than when we were starting out. But, e know we’ve been there. So none of the stuff that our team’s doing, we haven’t done, you know, besides like, you know, with the hammer and getting the drywall up. I mean, you have contractors to do that, but every other aspect of the business we’ve done,
Dave (31:21):
I’ll tell you something not good to off RJ, but for your listeners, Tony, and you’ve been there as well. You’ve taken action. You have a portfolio. You’re doing deals, right? It’s that fearlessness, if we can instill anything into your listeners, you’ve got to surround yourself around people who are going to help you get through the fear. Because we’re still afraid. I don’t care who you are. If you’re a human being, there’s fear, we make big moves, just like you do. Right. So surround yourself around people. That’s what I get from RJ. Shit. I mean, we make moves and sometimes it’s scary, man, in the early days, there’s a lot of fear. If you could surround yourself around people to help you, who’ve been there already to get through the fear aspect, become fearless and you will become successful.
Tony (32:17):
Yeah. You shared something. I appreciate you sharing your story about 2008. I mean, obviously some of that was out of your control, the real estate crash and that kind of thing. But that’s, you know, people look at real estate investors that are successful and like, Oh, they haven’t made, they have had it easy or maybe they had something handed to them or whatever. And you guys are thinking their same boat where I started my business scratch and had to work my ass off to get where I am now didn’t have family with money. We’re a middle-class, you know you’re always not always, but there’s going to be times where you have your down periods, you know, and I used to take those down periods and think that I was a failure when I got down. But looking back now, it’s like, man, those are the times that make you, those are the times that you rise up, you get up, you dust yourself off and you figure out how to make things happen. And now 20 years later, it’s like, if something like what happened, you know, 10 years ago where I had to fire my whole staff and basically start over from scratch, if that ever happened again, I think I can handle it 10 times better now because I’ve been through so many ups and downs. So I think those down periods are really what makes you and you know, really makes you grateful for where you are.
Dave (33:29):
It’s extremely difficult to embrace the down periods though. I think anyone, but I’ll tell you, I mean, if we’re, if we’re keeping it real, me being the more emotional person, the down periods hurt me more than him, you know? So I’ve always had a strong you know, crutch to lean on even during the big swings, but Hey, tell any one of your listeners who are just starting out this net embrace the swings, the best you possibly can. It’s very easy to say and very difficult to do. You know, but just surround yourself around the right people I feel is very good advice. We’re not talking about people who had just come up and, you know, older wisdom is few and far between and you know, and surround yourself around people who have done it. People like you, Tony you know, you were, you practice what you preach, same with guys like us, and we’re happy to help people, but I’m telling you don’t get caught up in the shiny object syndrome. Oh, I’m going to do real estate and be in business for a year. And this, that, and the other, this is a grind. I’m sure you agree and surround yourself around the people who are going to just help you understand that these downtimes are actually beneficial in the long run.
Tony (34:51):
Yep. And you’re right. You do have to grind in the beginning because there’s so many things you have to put together and you’re probably starting with little money but there are ways to leverage yourself so that at some point you have to figure out just like you guys did with hiring your team, how to leverage yourself, leverage resources, leverage mentors, leverage, you know, mastermind groups. If you’re in, surround yourself with the right people, you know, 10 years ago when I had my big, you know, the, probably the, the worst bottom ever for Ben and I didn’t have anybody to go to. Right. I just, you know, I I’d been divorced. I just put my head down and just kind of grinded through it. Now, if something like that happened, I’ve got dozens of people in my network that I can say, Hey man, you know, something’s going on? What do I do? And now I’ve got a Rolodex of people. I say, Rolodex got an iPhone full of people that I can text her phone, you know, jump on a call with and say, Hey man, I need some help. So good advice, man. So any, any last words that you guys want to leave to our listeners that can help them, whether they’re starting off right now, or they’re already a seasoned real estate investor?
Dave (35:55):
I got one. I want to just say that. RJ first And then I’ll bring us home.
RJ (36:01):
Probably the biggest thing that always gets in our way is you know, it’s ourselves, it’s our pride fullness. We’re all proud of our accomplishments. And sometimes when things are good, you know, things are good. Tend to kind of pick the guests are a foot off the gas pedal and you get complacent. So just be careful on those times. Like we, we understand that when times are good, it’s actually, when you actually have to the hustle a little bit more like how to harder, you know, work. I mean, we’re all about working smarter, right? We worked hard in the beginning. Now we can work smarter and use leverage and stuff like that. But when times are good, it’s when you have to be on your toes at all times, because that’s when you need to really look around you and say, okay, I’m here. And what’s the next level who, who it’s who not the, how at this point, who, you know, who can help me there or who or who is the person that we need to hire or use for leverage to get to that next level. So in the good times, especially right now, since, you know, the pandemic hit and everyone it’s okay now, and then like, you know, the, the real estate prices are back and houses are selling inventories down. So if you’ve got a really good deal on a house, you can easily sell it. And times are getting and things are selling well, stay, don’t be complacent, stay on your toes. Because that’s how you’re going to sustain it. Because, you know, as you know, a lot of people think that real estate is like, get rich quick. You know, it’s, you’ll definitely get rich. You will, if you hang in there and stay persistent, but in the good times is when you need to be very aware of what’s going on in our company.
Tony (37:47):
Things are going well, that’s usually when the money’s coming in, it can easily go out and you’re not know where it goes, Right?
RJ (37:53):
Yeah. What about you, Dave?
Dave (37:57):
If I was to piggyback on that, I’m just going to say this man, like we’re talking about leveraging a staff. It didn’t, we didn’t start out with the staff. Me and RJ didn’t have a, our first assistant for four years in business. I mean, we’ve done every single role in this company. We can do it all, you know, from acquisition to disposition, to leasing, to managing a rehab. And you know, like we get it. So my closing point would be, don’t try to outsource stuff that you don’t know how to do yet yourself, get your ass in there, get your nose bloody, figure it out because what you’re going to do, if you don’t understand something you’re trying to outsource, right. Or at least understand that you don’t need to know the specifics of a spreadsheet, we’re talking to admin work or something like that. But you got to know what the end result looks like. And you’ve got to understand things before you outsource it, you know? And if you have this fear inside of you where it’s like, well, it’s like a little bit scary to me. That’s the one thing Gary Keller’s book. The one thing, the one thing for me, man, is hanging in there and hanging in there during these crazy frustrating times where I’m trying to read financial reports and stuff like that. You can’t outsource certain things until you understand what to look for. So before, like, if you’re just starting out, man, and you know, you’re about to bring on a, an admin or you’re about to bring on an acquisitions person, you better kind of like understand your business to a level to where you can outsource it. If that makes any sense or else what you’re going to do, if you don’t really get it and you can’t clearly train or clearly like,uexplain what this person’s going to do, they’re going to fail. And then if your ego is too big, you’re going to blame them and not take responsibility that you didn’t train them well enough. And you’re just going to be on a perpetual downward spiral. Like you got to get your ass in there and understand your business to a level before you start to start outsourcing and whatnot. That would be my 2 cents.
Tony (40:08):
Cool man. Well, good stuff guys. I appreciate Rover time. You wanted to go 20 minutes, Dave. I wanted to go 30. We went 40. So
Dave (40:17):
It’s because you’re so interesting, Tony. We appreciate you, man. We appreciate you having us on here, brother. Very much.
Tony (40:24):
Absolutely man. Congrats on your success guys. I’m proud of the organization. You built, not a lot of people can build a team out and be successful in it. So congrats man. Look forward to connecting again soon and thanks for everything you provided our listeners today.
RJ (40:40):
Thanks Tony.
Tony (40:41):
All right. Thanks guys.