The SFR Show

As the author of A Brief History of Doom (2019) and The Next Economic Disaster (2014), Richard Vague established himself as a clear and independent voice in the ongoing conversation about the role of private sector debt in the global economy. His illustrated business history of the United States offers a more general audience a clear-eyed view of 250 years of wealth creation and the people and personalities who drove that growth — and hold it today. And now, Richard's new book, The Case for a Debt Jubilee, offers a compelling case and policy recommendations for new forms of consumer debt relief. Following a career that has spanned fields as varied as banking and energy, credit, and the arts, Richard has served since 2020 as Secretary of Banking and Securities for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

In this episode, Richard explains the current state of American debt in the private sector, how that affects the economy, what the government response to COVID adds to this calculation, and how investors should be looking at their relationship to debt while building their portfolios.  

Episode Links:

https://www.richardvague.com/

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Transcript

Before we jump into the episode, here's a quick disclaimer about our content. The Remote Real Estate Investor podcast is for informational purposes only, and is not intended as investment advice. The views, opinions and strategies of both the hosts and the guests are their own and should not be considered as guidance from Roofstock. Make sure to always run your own numbers, make your own independent decisions and seek investment advice from licensed professionals.

 

Michael:

Hey, everyone, welcome to another episode of the Remote Real Estate Investor. I'm Michael Albaum and today I'm joined by Richard Vague who serves as the Pennsylvania Secretary of Banking and Securities and he's going to be talking to us today about debt and the American household. So let's get into it.

 

Hey, Richard, thank you so much for coming on and chatting with me today. I really appreciate you taking the time.

 

Richard:

Well, it's a real privilege. You guys have a great show and I'm honored to be on it.

 

Michael:

Thank you, appreciate that. So we are here today to talk about something that I think is on every real estate investors mind. And well, most real estate investors might…, and that's debt and you've got a really unique position to be able to talk about debt. So for anyone who doesn't know who you are, where you're come from, and what your background is, you can give us a quick intro, a quick insider's peek into what those things are.

 

Richard:

Well, I was in the banking industry forever and ever, which included some amount of mortgage lending a lot of consumer lending. I spent about the last 10 years in venture capital, which obviously includes more equity than debt, but includes both but kind of as an outgrowth of the Great Recession of a decade plus ago, I've written a series of books, including: The next economic disaster and a brief history of doom and more recently, the case for a debt jubilee that really get deeply into debt and both the positive and negative aspects of debt. So it's a topic that remains heavy on my mind.

 

Michael:

It's your… sounds like and for anyone interested, where could they find those, that book?

 

Richard:

Well, if you go to my own website, which is https://www.richardvague.com/ , and Vegas, spelled V as in Victor AG, UE, you can see all those books.

 

Michael:

Okay, fantastic. So let's dive right in and I'm curious, Richard, in your opinion, I mean, how and why is debt such an issue in in the states in this country?

 

Richard:

Well, you know, over the course of pretty much my own lifetime, certainly in the last couple of generations, you know, let's call it World War Two forward, household debt has tripled, you know, in 1950-ish. Household debt, if expressed as a percent of GDP was about 50% and today, it's about 160%.

So there's a lot of it around and a lot of

A lot of real estate investors start out with single-family homes and soon realize that multifamily helps them scale much faster. But multifamily properties can come with more complications and many investors appreciate having learned the ropes in the single-family space before taking on this asset class. So is it smart to start small and work your way up or just dive into the deep end?   

In this episode, Emil and Michael share their experience on this topic and point out the pros and cons of either strategy.

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Transcript

Before we jump into the episode, here's a quick disclaimer about our content. The Remote Real Estate Investor podcast is for informational purposes only, and is not intended as investment advice. The views, opinions and strategies of both the hosts and the guests are their own and should not be considered as guidance from Roofstock. Make sure to always run your own numbers, make your own independent decisions and seek investment advice from licensed professionals.

 

Michael:

What's going on everyone? Welcome to another episode of the Remote Real Estate Investor. I'm Michael Albaum and today I'm joined by my co-host…

 

Emil:

Emil Shour

 

Michael:

…and today Emil and I are going to be chatting about does it make sense to start with single family or with multifamily? So let's get into it.

 

Alright, Emil, how's it going, man? It's been a minute.

 

Emil:

Good dude. How you doing?

 

Michael:

Hanging in there hanging in, I got a couple of refinances that just close today that I'm working on for a long time, so really excited about that. So I'm going to be redeploying some capital here to some short term rentals. How's, how's the triplex sailing all smooth?

 

Emil:

Yeah, I haven't, I haven't received an email in weeks. So that's my favorite kind of news is no news for my property manager.

 

Michael:

It’s a good sign.

Yeah, oftentimes I would say.

 

Emil:

Yeah, yeah…

We've got tenants in place, you know, they're all fresh, no bad news. So fingers crossed, it keeps staying that way.

 

Michael:

Sweet! Well, today, Emil and me want to talk about if it makes sense to start with single family or multifamily as you're just getting started. And you are someone that started with single families, right?

 

Emil:

I did! My first investment property or actually any property I purchased. It was an investment property. It was a single family in Jacksonville, Florida in 2017.

 

Michael:

Okay, and now you're a seasoned investor, you've got six units, I think, you've done some multifamily.

 

Emil:

Yes sir.

 

Michael:

Should you have done differently?

 

Emil:

I am happy I started with single family. I think starting with one tenant, one home one unit, is the ideal way to start. I don't think, I don't think this is like one of those. There's a better or worse way. I think it's what is what is your appetite for pain? Do you do want to like learn really fast and deal with a lot of craziness at first or do you want something slow and steady and just like an easy on ramp?

So for me having a full time job, at the time, starting with a single family was perfect. It was like, I got to learn how to manage a property manager different things that can go wrong. It was just an easier transition for me and I'm happy I started that way.

 

Michael:

Yeah, it's funny you say appetite for pain. I think we just want to be careful to not give people the impression that single families can't be a highway on ramp to pain because you know, my first, my first investor was also a single family and it was like the most painful one ever. So I think it's, it's you can have you can have it either way. You can have horrible experiences with single family, you can have amazing experiences of multifamily. So it really just depends, I think how the asset is structured and where you're buying it.

 

Emil:

Yeah, but you could… let's say you bought a quad Plex, right? You had the same thing, but times fours. It's just like your percentage.

No, actually, I

Charlotte Dunford is the managing partner of Johns Creek Capital. She brings a unique perspective to mobile home park investing as she comes from humble beginnings. Charlotte is a first-generation American citizen and college graduate of the Georgia Institute of Technology, where she earned her B.S. in Business with a focus on business analytics and technology. After leaving China with just her belongings at age 16, she has come a long way to now owning over 20 mobile home parks. Charlotte, along with her business partners, currently sponsor the repositioning of 24 value-add and turnaround mobile home parks.

In this episode, she will share her journey as well as her process for finding trailer park deals, property management, and her tips for passive investors. Charlotte has great insights for anyone interested in investing in this asset class.

Episode Links:

https://www.johnscreekcapital.com/

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Transcript

Before we jump into the episode, here's a quick disclaimer about our content. The Remote Real Estate Investor podcast is for informational purposes only, and is not intended as investment advice. The views, opinions and strategies of both the hosts and the guests are their own and should not be considered as guidance from Roofstock. Make sure to always run your own numbers, make your own independent decisions and seek investment advice from licensed professionals.

 

Michael:

Welcome to another episode of the Real Estate Investor. I'm Michael Albaum and today I'm joined by Charlotte Dunford, who's the managing partner of Johns Creek capital and today Charlotte is going to be talking to us about mobile home park investing and how she got her start and it's ultimately syndicating deals across the country. So let's get into it.

 

Hey, Charlotte, thank you so much for taking the time to hang out with me today. I really appreciate you coming on.

 

Charlotte:

Thank you so much for having me.

 

Michael:

It's so my pleasure. So we're gonna be talking today about a topic that I know very little. But before we get into that, I would love if you could give our listeners and audience just a brief background on kind of who you are, where you're come from, and what it is that you're doing in real estate.

 

Charlotte:

Right, perfect. So my name is Charlotte Dunford. I am the managing partner of Johns Creek capital, which is Johns Creek capital is a private equity firm, focusing on small mobile home parks syndications. So this niche, our niche features value add properties, with higher cap rates in the 7% and up range at purchase. So we currently have 24, mobile home parks under management with over $4.6 million investor subscriptions and we started in 2020.

 

Michael:

Oh my gosh, and how did you find yourself in that space?

 

Charlotte:

So it's interesting how you know, how I find myself here. So I am a firm believer in escaping competition, one of my favorite books of all time, called from Zero to One by Peter Thiel, he is the co-founder of PayPal, and he suggested this strategy called, you know, it's kind of like Blue Ocean Strategy but it is all about escaping competition. So when I first my first job, out of college at 25, I started doing real estate on the side, using my salary to qualify for financing. But after two deals, I shot myself in the place where my salary wasn't keeping up with my ambition of scaling up the real estate business as much. So I took a calculated risk and quit my full time job about three years ago at 25 to start this company, and pretty much right after I started the, you know, it was a big risk for me, because my husband at the time was still in school, he didn't have a job. So now I quit my job. So to launch this venture, but I took a calculated risk because I saw the mass potential in the mobile home park space because of the demand of for affordable housing just kept growing, but the supply remain very low because zoning regulations and people are not building new mobile home parks. So that's

Matt Faircloth is the co-founder and president of the DeRosa Group, a real estate investment company that specializes in buying and renovating residential and commercial properties. Matt and his wife, Liz, started investing in real estate in 2004 with a $30,000 loan. They founded DeRosa Group in 2005 and have since grown the company to managing more than 370 units throughout the east coast. DeRosa has completed more than $30M in real estate transactions involving private capital—including fix-and-flips, single-family home rentals, mixed-use buildings, apartment buildings, office buildings, and tax lien investments. He is the author of Raising Private Capital, has been featured on the BiggerPockets Podcast, and regularly contributes to BiggerPockets’ educational webinars.

In this episode, Matt shares his background in real estate investing, and a roadmap for investors looking to raise more private capital to close more deals. Additionally, he talks about the reality of running a real estate business.

 

Episode Links:

https://derosagroup.com/

https://www.instagram.com/themattfaircloth/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mdfaircloth/

https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/contributors/mattfaircloth

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Before we jump into the episode, here's a quick disclaimer about our content. The Remote Real Estate Investor podcast is for informational purposes only, and is not intended as investment advice. The views, opinions and strategies of both the hosts and the guests are their own and should not be considered as guidance from Roofstock. Make sure to always run your own numbers, make your own independent decisions and seek investment advice from licensed professionals.

 

Michael:

What's going on everyone? Welcome to another episode of the Remote Real Estate Investor. I'm Michael Albaum and today with me I have Matt Faircloth, author, podcast speaker, co-founder, president, investor, syndicator. He does a lot and we're gonna hear a ton from Matt about what he's been doing in the real estate space, and what he's currently putting together and actually closing on today. So let's get into it.

 

Matt Faircloth, thank you so much for coming on the show today. Really appreciate you taking the time to hang out with me.

 

Matt:

Michael, I appreciate your time and having me on your show, man. Thank you.

 

Michael:

Absolutely, absolutely. So I know a little bit about you but I would love if you could share with our listeners who maybe have never heard of you. They've been living under a rock for the last couple of years, who you are, where you come from, and what you're doing in real estate?

 

Matt:

Where did you come from…

 

Um, it's cool that my company's called the DeRosa group and I just love saying this, that we're a company dedicated to transforming lads real estate through real estate transforming lives to real estate. We can get into that in the show if you like. I… where I came from, let's see, I grew up Baltimore, bopped around the East Coast for a minute. Before I landed in Philly, met the woman of my dreams because she put Rich Dad Poor Dad in my hand, and we were still dating, that got me to read that. And that that gave got me to drink the entrepreneur Kool Aid, which I guzzled and quit my job in 2005 to start a real estate company, bumped into a lot of walls, you know, did a lot of it, made a lot of mistakes, made some money and then and then just built it and grew over time and just learned how to run an effective real estate company through the school of hard knocks. And now I've been doing it for 16 years and just apply what I've learned over the years, you know, attracted more and more the right people who work with me and build what I think to be a phenomenal brand now.

 

Michael:

Oh, that's awesome, man. That's awesome. You said that once or twice before I can tell it just rolled off your tongue there so nicely.

 

 

Matt:

You know, this is not my first podcast. Sometimes people ask me, let's just get real, screw it, man. Let'

Joe Porter is a Roofstock Certified Agent and the founder of Lighthouse Real Estate LLC in Charleston SC. Joe is focused on helping clients buy and sell homes, while offering his considerable experience in construction and the large network of tradesmen he gained during his acquisition years.

In this episode, Joe shares his knowledge of the Charleston market; economic factors, demographics, neighborhood scores, geographic considerations and the current environment on the ground

Episode Links:

[email protected] 

http://lighthousecharleston.com/

https://learn.roofstock.com/blog/charleston-real-estate-market

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Transcript

 

Before we jump into the episode, here's a quick disclaimer about our content. The Remote Real Estate Investor podcast is for informational purposes only, and is not intended as investment advice. The views, opinions and strategies of both the hosts and the guests are their own and should not be considered as guidance from Roofstock. Make sure to always run your own numbers, make your own independent decisions and seek investment advice from licensed professionals.

 

Michael:

Hey, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Remote Real Estate Investor. I'm Michael Albaum and today with me, we have our certified agent Joe Porter for the Charleston, South Carolina Market. He's going to be talking to us today about all the things we need to know as investors before getting involved in that space. So let's get into it.

 

Joe Porter, what's going on, man? Thanks for taking the time to hang out with me today.

 

Joe:

Hello, you're welcome. Thanks for having me.

 

Michael:

My pleasure. I am super excited to talk to everybody with you about Charleston, South Carolina.

 

Tell us a little bit Joe, first off who you are, where you come from? How long have you been an agent? And are you an investor personally, quickfire questions to get started…

 

Joe:

Absolutely, ready to go. So I moved to Charleston to attend the College of Charleston about 22 years ago. And like many other people, never left. I came from the Washington DC area and visited the region one time and never looked back. So shortly after graduating from the College of Charleston, I was one of the many residual recipients of ninja loans, okay, so, you know, I knew a ton of people who needed rooms for rent, and I got the bright idea, let's buy a house. And I was working at a bartender out on Folly Beach at the time, and was making tips and Wells Fargo decided to give me $200,000, which I bought my first house with that sort of kicked off my real estate career.

 

Once I found that house, I kind of got the bug and never stopped looking. So I went in from there and got my real estate license. I'm not a very sales oriented person. So I knew from there, I wanted to embark on sort of the investing side of things. So I signed on as a buyer for: the we buy ugly houses franchise home investor.

 

Michael:

Okay.

 

Joe:

So that sort of gave me the framework of looking how to, you know, analyze a deal, the repairs, and how to present an offer to the seller. And right about that time, I established a brokerage to sort of dovetail my, you know, investing, dealings and offers to then list retail, I experienced some success there. And then the bottom of the market fell off and I just had a bunch of listings and no buyers. At that point, I guess this was around, you know, 2000/ 7, 8, 9 I came up with a bright idea to start buying houses. So I put together a little mean, machine of a crew with the idea to have the acquisitions improvement and management all under one umbrella. And we started buying houses, okay.

 

So the first house I bought was in North Charleston, it was a single family detached home for $12,000.

 

Michael:

What?

 

Joe:

It pulled… Yeah, oh yeah. Someone had yanked all the copper plumbing out of it, all the copper wires. It had been, you know, sitting vacant as a foreclosure, you know, owned by, you know, the Bank of New York and so that

Dan Sheeks is one of the newest BiggerPockets Publishing authors, with his book, First to a Million: A Teenager’s Guide to Achieving Early Financial Freedom. The book introduces teenagers to the strategies, concepts, and mindset needed to achieve early financial freedom. He is a high school Business/Marketing teacher, real estate investor, and personal finance advocate in Denver, Colorado. He and his wife have a variety of real estate investments including multifamily, single-family, Airbnb, and out-of-state BRRRRs (buy, rehab, rent, refinance, repeat).

Dan’s passions include working with teenagers, advocating for personal finance education, investing in real estate, and promoting the FIRE movement. In his 19-plus years of teaching high school, he has taught various business subjects, including financial literacy, entrepreneurship, and marketing. In this episode, Dan will share with us his passionate work how he is helping teenagers in personal finance, passive income, real estate investing, and early financial freedom strategies so they can live their best lives.

Episode Links:

https://www.sheeksfreaks.com 

https://www.instagram.com/dsheeks/?hl=en

https://store.biggerpockets.com/products/first-to-a-million

https://www.amazon.com/First-Million-Teenagers-Achieving-Independence/dp/1947200461

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Transcript

Before we jump into the episode, here's a quick disclaimer about our content. The Remote Real Estate Investor podcast is for informational purposes only, and is not intended as investment advice. The views, opinions and strategies of both the hosts and the guests are their own and should not be considered as guidance from Roofstock. Make sure to always run your own numbers, make your own independent decisions and seek investment advice from licensed professionals.

 

Michael:

What's going on everyone? Welcome to another episode of the Real Estate Investor. My name is Michael Albaum. And if you're watching this on camera, I've clearly got a shiny head tonight. I think it's my lighting.

 

On this episode, I will interview Dan Sheeks, author, investor, teacher, and just someone who's full of wisdom and golden nuggets. So let's get right into it.

 

Dan Sheeks, what's going on, man? Thanks so much for coming on the show with me. I appreciate you.

 

Dan:

You bet, Michael, great to be here. Thanks for having me.

 

Michael:

Oh, my gosh, my pleasure. So we were chatting a little bit before we recorded, we you know, hit the record button. And so I know a little bit about your story. But I would love if you could share with all of our listeners, who you are, where you came from and what it is has to do now with real estate.

 

Dan:

Sure. Um, it's not it's not a crazy exceptional story. It's… so I'll keep it short. It's… I've been in Colorado for a little over 20 years. My main gig currently is that I am a high school business teacher in a public high school, just south of Denver and a suburb.

This is my 19th year doing that. And I teach classes like entrepreneurship, personal finance, marketing, stuff like that. I love my job. I absolutely love my job. I have great kids and great program. All my classes are electives. And so most of the kids that are in their want to be in there. And so it's it's fun to teach them.

 

I bought my first property…. say 10 years ago, but I really started investing I would say about six or seven years ago, when my wife and I, at the time we weren't married, we had just started dating actually. But we both were just kind of starting to scratch the surface around real estate investing. And when, when we met, we also both found the BiggerPockets community and the Choose FIRE community and really dove like full on into those communities and their blogs and their podcasts and all that good stuff. And so luckily for us, I guess that's probably why we're married. We were really in sync with our future financial goals. And the idea of real estate investing to build wealth. So we've been hammering it ever si

Chris Meunier is a program manager working at Google, but one of his biggest passions is real estate investing and personal finances. Over the past 10+ years, he has worked to build a real estate portfolio with his wife, Jessica, which includes a primary residence in the SF Bay Area and rental properties in California, Indiana and Georgia. Chris believes there are many strategies to achieve your real estate goals and they can be used to accelerate and generate wealth. When not working his day job or keeping an eye on the real estate market, you can find Chris spending time with his family, hiking outside with his dog or planning his next ski trip. 

In this episode, Chris will share how he started in the real estate business as an investor, some tips & insights and how he found a platform that provided a holistic approach to him.

Chris always enjoys talking real estate and personal finances, and you can reach him directly at [email protected].

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Before we jump into the episode, here's a quick disclaimer about our content. The Remote Real Estate Investor podcast is for informational purposes only, and is not intended as investment advice. The views, opinions and strategies of both the hosts and the guests are their own and should not be considered as guidance from Roofstock. Make sure to always run your own numbers, make your own independent decisions and seek investment advice from licensed professionals.

 

Michael:

What's going on everyone? Welcome to another episode of the Remote Real Estate Investor. My name is Michael Albaum and today with me, I have Chris Meunier, who's talking to us about, what it's like to convert your primary into a rental and how he's scaling out estate and what that looks like. So let's get into it.

 

Hey, Chris, what's going on? Man, thanks so much for coming on and hanging out with me. I appreciate you.

 

Chris:

Yeah, thanks for having me, Michael.

 

Michael:

No, my pleasure. So in… you know, I obviously know you and we have a relationship. And so I would love if you could just give everyone listening a background of who you are, and how you got started in real estate.

 

Chris:

Sure!

So my name is Chris. My wife and I have, we've been married about almost 10 years now. And I work my day job at Google. My wife's a, she's an entrepreneur, a personal finance coach, which is really exciting. So we're both very passionate about helping people with their finances and real estate as well.

 

And going back a bit, I grew up in a family that was very focused on real estate and had a lot of family members who work in real estate. My dad was an agent, my brother's an agent, uncles and aunts who've done you know, home inspections and things like that. So I was surrounded by all of that growing up, I bought my first property back in 2009, a condo in the San Jose area of California, and, and did whatever it took to get in there, I put 3% down. Because I knew that the earlier I could get in and get my foot in the door that it would be well worth it. And sure enough, it was and I still have that property as a rental. And then I think from there, we've… we've really just kind of kept building from there and look for ways to not just focus on our primary residence, but look for ways out of state as well to build our real estate portfolio. So that's kind of a little bit of background on where we've come from and where we got into today.

 

Michael:

Awesome. And, and just with the goal of being fully transparent, you are a Roofstock Academy member, right?

 

Chris:

Yeah, we've been for I think, a year or two now we've been with the Academy. And I've really enjoyed it and got a lot of value out of the courses. I'm a program manager in my day job so I've taken I built a lot of Evernote sheets and took copious notes and action items and things like that. So we've really gotten a lot of value out of the academy. And I used it to really, like, analyze properties differently and build out like our ten year plan a

Liz began her real estate journey in 2005. She co-founded DeRosa Group with her husband, Matt Faircloth where she helped the business grow for over a decade. During this time, Liz was active in management consulting where she developed an expertise in a personality assessment program, working with small and Fortune 500 companies. She has created and facilitated hundreds of trainings and workshops for universities, conferences, and executive level trainings. While earning her Masters’ degree in Social Work in her 20's, Liz developed a passion for supporting women. In 2018 she came together with her good friend Andresa to launch the Real Estate InvestHER® podcast and community. Their mission is to empower women to live a financially free and balanced life on their own terms.

In this episode, Liz will share how she started in the real estate business as an investor, some tips & insights on how she started her portfolio on her own terms after not finding a platform that provided a holistic approach.

Episode Links:

https://www.therealestateinvesther.com/

https://www.instagram.com/therealestateinvesther/

https://derosagroup.com/

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Transcript

Before we jump into the episode, here's a quick disclaimer about our content. The Remote Real Estate Investor podcast is for informational purposes only, and is not intended as investment advice. The views, opinions and strategies of both the hosts and the guests are their own and should not be considered as guidance from Roofstock. Make sure to always run your own numbers, make your own independent decisions and seek investment advice from licensed professionals.

 

Michael:

Hey, everyone, welcome to another episode of the Remote Real Estate Investor. I'm Michael Albaum and today with me I have Liz Faircloth, syndicator, investor, women empowerment speaker and podcast host and she's gonna be talking to us today about all those different topics and more. So let's get right into it.

 

Liz Faircloth, thank you so much for joining me on the show this morning. I really appreciate you coming on.

 

Liz:

Yeah, thank you so much for having me, Michael, excited to be here.

 

Michael:

Oh, awesome. Well, I know a lot about you, I've read so much about you and so for anyone who might not be familiar with you, I would love if you could give us a little background, who you are, where you come from and what it is you're doing real estate now.

 

Liz:

Sure, sure. So I got my real estate start about 16 years ago, in my 20s. A long time ago, my husband and I actually started investing together. Quick story I was getting my degree in social work, wanted to be a therapist, and my husband was an engineer, at the time, get a job in engineering, so completely different fields. And we both had to share a passion for like creating a bigger life than what we had at the time. Both of us came from very middle class, wonderful families, hardworking families. But you know, we both had this shared passion of doing something bigger with our lives. And quite honestly, impacting a lot of people was a value we both had at the time rates, I still do.

Anyway, at the same time, around the same time, my brother in law, who was the only entrepreneur I knew, you know, I didn't grow up with entrepreneurship or investing or anything like that. He handed me: “Rich Dad, Poor Dad”, and I did like personal growth books. I said: What are you giving this to me for, I'm gonna be a therapist. I don't know why I'm reading this, but I'll read it. He said: You have to read it, you have to read it.

 

Michael:

Yeah.

 

Liz:

And I got really inspired by that book like many people. I think mostly because I was learning about concepts I never heard of before, you know, in passive income and creating wealth and you know, just things you don't you just really think about trading your time for money. That's how I, you know, thought of it. And so reading that book, and then changing my career right after that I actually got a job in consulting an

In this episode, Devin and Michael talk about some of the most important things they have learned from their mentors, the importance of having experienced people to network with, and if coaching is actually worth paying for.

 

Roofstock Academy

https://www.roofstockacademy.com/

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Tranacript

 

Before we jump into the episode, here's a quick disclaimer about our content. The Remote Real Estate Investor podcast is for informational purposes only, and is not intended as investment advice. The views, opinions and strategies of both the hosts and the guests are their own and should not be considered as guidance from Roofstock. Make sure to always run your own numbers, make your own independent decisions and seek investment advice from licensed professionals.

 

Michael:

What's going on everyone?

Welcome to another episode of the Remote Real Estate Investor. Today, I'm joined by my co-host, Devin Redmond, and he's gonna be talking to us today. Actually, we're both gonna be talking to it to you all today about mentorship, getting some coaching, how we kind of got our start in the real estate space and how it's impacted our trajectory going forward. So let's get into it.

Devin, what's going on, man? Good to see you.

Devin:

Hey, Michael. How are you?

 

Michael:

Good, good, but not as good as you. You're out in Hawaii. Right?

 

Devin:

I am at the moment. Yeah, I've got a few rental properties here. So I've been here almost two weeks now, doing some renovations and got a vacancy that I just leased up, found what I think is gonna be a great tenant. So going well, so far. And every once in a while I get I get to the beach and work on the tan, too.

 

Michael:

Talking about aligning incentives may get to invest in rental properties in Hawaii, and then go there.

Love it. Love it.

 

Devin:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

 

Michael:

So Devin, let's chat today about how you kind of got guided in your real estate investing journey. Because I've got I had a personal mentor of mine. And I'll share a little bit about that. But I'm curious, did you have someone in your world and your sphere of influence that was like, really shaped how you became the investor you are today?

 

Devin:

Yeah, you know, I would say there's not necessarily one person in particular. But my first job after business school, this is going back 15 years now was in the commercial real estate world.

 

Michael:

You don't have to date yourself. No one was asking…

 

I said you don't have to date yourself, that was asking…

 

Devin:

I own you an apology.

 

I went to business school at 15, so…

No. No, just kidding. It was a while ago now…

 

But yeah, I worked for a big office, developer owner investor. And so there was, you know, a group of senior folks there who had been in the business, you know, up to 30 years, and it kind of seen a lot of cycles. And so I really learned the business from them, how to analyze deals, how to talk to investors, and get them excited about investing with you, without overselling, right.

 

So there was kind of that balance always to try to find. And, you know, I think most importantly, what I learned from doing both acquisitions and asset management after the fact was that, you know, on the day you close, that's great, you did a bunch of analysis, your model looks beautiful, that all goes out the window, the day close.

You start hearing from actual tenants as to what the real deal is at the property.

 

Michael:

Right…

 

Devin:

When you start to break, you have to deal with stuff, the market changes underneath you. So all those things start happening in a very real sense, once you actually own the property. So, you know, that was something I learned very, very quickly, very early through both experience. And from working with this, you know, this group of real estate folks that had been around a while.

 

Michael:

Now that's such a good takeaway, and how cool that you got to like, learn and kind of get your teeth cut with other people's money, kind of p

Real estate investing is not a solo act, especially if you're doing it remotely. Building a solid team is crucial for success. But building good relationships with solid agents, property managers, CPAs, contractors and those who you can outsource the endless things that come up is tough. In this episode, we share why having a team of real people you can count on is so important and how you can go about building yours.    

 

Episode Links:

https://www.roofstockacademy.com

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Before we jump into the episode, here's a quick disclaimer about our content. The Remote Real Estate Investor podcast is for informational purposes only, and is not intended as investment advice. The views, opinions and strategies of both the hosts and the guests are their own and should not be considered as guidance from Roofstock. Make sure to always run your own numbers, make your own independent decisions and seek investment advice from licensed professionals.

 

Michael:

What's going on everyone? Welcome to another episode of the Real Estate Investor. I'm Michael Albaum and today I'm joined by my co-host Emil Shour. And today Emil and I are going to be chatting about why is it so important to build a local network? And then actually how do you go about doing that if you're not local to that market? So let's get into it.

 

Alright, Emil, it's been a while man, how are things in your world? What's going on?

 

Emil:

Things are good. I have very good news report so the triplex is fully leased.

 

Michael:

Yes, yes!

 

Emil:

Finally, we're good. We got the townhouse portion leased at the rent we wanted. And that pesky one bed, one bath, finally rent it out as well to two solid tenants. So that's making money.

 

Michael:

Congratulations. So how long was it making four in total?

 

Emil:

The one bed one bath was vacant for about six, seven months.

 

Michael:

Okay.

 

Emil:

Including, including like the three months it took us to, like get everything fixed. You know, it was like, major contractor crunch and all that stuff. So that took us like probably three, three and a half months. And then like three or four months vacancy, which sucked but we are through it now. The townhouse took like two months to rehab, and then it was probably vacant for a month. You know, we like went into December getting ready to lease it up. And that's like the worst time to try to rent something because it's holidays and people are checked out. But New Year and new tenant so certainly right.

 

Michael:

Sweet, man.

 

Emil:

Yeah.

 

Michael:

Very exciting. And you had some reserves built into your pro forma, right?

 

Emil:

Yeah. So we've, I think we've talked about on another episode, I actually just keep my real estate checking account separate from everything else. And I don't touch any of that money only, it's only to reinvest, right, so the rehab budget came out of this bank account, I didn't have to like go and grab it from somewhere else. Everything kind of just goes into its own real estate account. And just, it's just used for subsequent properties or yeah, like the reserve.

 

Michael:

Okay, cool. I guess the point that I was getting at is that you had money set aside for a rainy day. And the fact that your property is vacant for six months means you didn't have to go sell it because you couldn't afford to pay the mortgage on it.

 

Emil:

No, man we talked about on the show like don't… don't liquidate, don't use every penny. I mean, a bank won't even let you do that. You know, they require some reserves, but you always have to have some money on the side. And the worst thing you can be as a force seller, right? That's what we've talked about here. And that's not when you want to sell you want to sell because you have a good opportunity now because you have to.

 

Michael:

Totally.

Alright, well, let's shift gears here and talk about why it's so important to build a team, a local team, or maybe is it even important to build a team so curious to get your thoughts your rem