Podcast Episode 129 Transcript

Episode 129: How To Take Advantage Of Bridging Loans & Inflation with Mike Desrosiers

Folks. This week on the Prereal podcast we're joined by Mike, the CEO and founder of Growth Capital Group. So Mike has been an intermittent investor in real estate for most of his life. One family, two family, a deal here, a deal there. Over the last three years, they have stacked 1100 units in the multifamily space and they did it the right way. They kept their eye on inflation rates and what was going to happen when these bridge loans came due. They were very selective in their loan product. They were very smart with rate caps. They really paid attention to the deals. If you're interested in listening to a pro and how they built at unbelievable scale, give the show a listen this week. Really a tremendous amount of value. We get in the weeds quite a bit. It's a good one, you don't want to miss it. Folks, are you ready to bring your real estate game to the next level? My name is James Prendamano. I'm the CEO and founder of Prereal. And over the past 25 years I've closed over a billion dollars in transactional real estate. Each week I'm meeting with outstanding investors, high performing individuals and visionaries operating in the real estate space. These are the people that are actually out there in the real estate game right now getting it done. This podcast aims at bringing anyone's game to the next level. This is the prereal podcast. Welcome everyone to the Prereal podcast. We're joined today by Mike Desrosiers. He is the CEO and founder of Growth Capital Group. So Mike is a multifamily syndicator, focuses on what I call elbow grease, properties, value add propositions, extensive background in education and asset management, acquisitions, investor relations. He's a GP in at last count at least. Mike, according to our research, was 13 multifamily projects through ten syndications, 1100 units and $100 million in assets under management. Did I get it close? Very close, yes. Well, congrats, first of all on we were talking offline on the fairly new addition to the family. God bless. Thank you. And man, that's a heck of a portfolio that you've put together and the listeners in the audience, it's a pretty wide audience. We have some really seasoned investors, a lot of mindset folks, but we also have people that are looking to make the transition, folks that are looking to step out of their current path, if you will, and pursue this life of, as the TikTok investors say, this life of freedom. I'm still looking for that part, but looking to get into the game. So I think it's interesting if we can kind of always go back a little bit with the guests and talk a little about your background and how you ended up in the real estate game, if you will. Sure, you bet. I've been around a long time and I've been an entrepreneur for quite a long time. I've been in multiple businesses, mostly in the marketing sales kind of type of businesses, but it could include including the food industry, the satellite industry, limousine business, car business. I've been in all kinds of businesses, but all along it's the real estate that I purchased on the way. And it's interesting because I remember I was probably 18 years old, 19 years old, and rented my first office for my business. I was in the meat business, food business, and the landlord that I was renting it to, he told me he was an older guy, probably sixty s, seventy s at the time, and owned this whole building that I was rent, you know, where I was renting. And he just, and he just wanted to give me that little, you know, advice. And he said, he said, you know, I was an electrician for 40 years, and the end of the day, you know, I I just closed my doors of my business. But the real estate that I bought in those 40 years made me wealthy beyond belief. And I always remember that. And you know what, it's been so true for me. So to answer your question, it's really been that path. And I've been involved in these different businesses. They've all given me kind of good lifestyle and vacations and homes and things. But the real estate investments that I purchased along the way with the money from that, at the end of the day, was really what created the major wealth for me. So I've always had rentals of one type, another, mostly all single family. I only got into the multifamily space just a few years ago and got lured in through some of these education systems, as many do. But for me, it turned the light on super fast, because I'd already been involved in real estate and I knew the potential. I have other friends that are involved in multifamily, but you look at these large buildings of 100 units or 200 unit complex, it might be ten or $20 million initially. You just don't think that's something you could be part of, right? It's just too much money. Right? It's just too much money. But after kind of learning the syndication process and bringing the ability to raise capital, bring in investors to help with that, and how that's all positioned where you're not going out and asking for money, you're not asking to borrow money or anybody. That just to give you money. You're basically giving an opportunity for them to come in and ride the ride with you. And positioning it that way makes it a whole different, just a game changer. So anyway, getting following that path, learning through the education of the process and accurate underwriting, and how to raise capital, and how to position yourself and legally raise capital as an incentivation, all started coming together, and I was able to do that. And so I got into kind of my first property I actually bought on my own in Las Vegas, I live in California, and that was another kind of AHA moment in this education, is like how do you buy out of state? How do you really buy something that you're not really can't run to in an hour? And so I bought into Las Vegas, kind of testing those waters out, realized that was not very hard at all, got invited to participate in somebody else's syndication as a capital raiser to come in on the GP side. And I was able to do that through a little my own money in as well as raising some capital. Not a whole lot, but it kind of got that ball rolling. And also with my business experience, I was able to help that syndication team that operators in other ways just as far as systems and processes and how things were going, because they were growing very fast, so they really liked that. And then they just kind of kept inviting me into more and more deals and I started bringing more and more to the table as a partner. And then I got invited, met some other operators. I came into a 426 unit property in Kansas City and raised a little over a million dollars for that property. It just kind of grew and grew and I just enjoy it. You covered a lot of ground and a lot of things that are pinch points for folks. So if I can, I want to just go back and address a few of the things that we touched on. So you're 18, you're renting a space, and this landlord explains to you that 40 years in the business as an electrician kept the lights on, but real estate is what built the wealth. Was that an AHA moment for you? Was that like something you can point to or was that just one piece of a puzzle you had mentors in your life at that point that were bringing you down a path of real estate? Or was that really like a moment for you? Well, it's certainly a moment because at my age now and I still remember that going way back, but I wish I would have followed that trend far faster and harder. But I did. Again, I had already had bought my first condominium at age 19 and rented it out, moved out to another house and then rented it out and so on. So it did start that path for me and I've always had that in my mind. So yes, I guess that was really an AHA moment for sure. So you start to stack assets. You're sticking primarily in the single family space. This is quite optically, it's quite a leap in practice. It's not, and I think you were making reference to that as you grow and scale the systems. If it's a ten unit building in your backyard or it's 100 unit building a state away, the process is not all that different. It's really not. I think that most of the trip hazards for folks in that process occur right here. Mindset is the number one limiting factor for most investors that are trying to make that transition, take that step. And I know for us it took far too long for me to recognize that the business acumen, the experience, just talent in understanding how to identify, how to source, how to negotiate close real estate transactions. And the deals that we've acted on over the years are we call them unicorns, but they keep coming around. If you're in the right places at the right times, these things continue to come around. And it took me far too long, Mike, to understand that's the value that is the opportunity. If you're going out begging for someone to participate in your deal, you've either got it entirely wrong in your head or the deal is entirely wrong. Would you agree with that? Yeah, absolutely. So you transition in and start to take down large projects, projects not in your backyard. That's a process that involves increasing your circle of influence. That includes learning and understanding and training. Could you give us a little bit of detail on a few pointers for those that are out there looking to take this stuff up in class? Try and give me some specifics like what are things folks should be doing now if they want to try and make that step? Yeah, absolutely. Education is really the key here because this is a business that you really can't fake it until you make it. I mean, you can if you're buying your own property, single family, and maybe even doing it with your mom and dad's money or something. But if you're really raising capital from investors and bringing money in, especially in these large properties, you got to know what you're doing or you have to have a team that knows what they're doing. So if you're not, the smartest thing to do is to partner up with somebody who is and then you are. It's like I tell I bring in partners all the time. I partner almost pretty much on all of my properties one way or another. And this is a team sport. Nobody takes these large properties down by themselves. They can't. And if you did, I mean, they could. But if you took even a 20 unit or 50 unit, it's going to consume your life, right, for forever, five years or however long you're running this. But when you have a good team around you and some, really some partners that are educated in these great underwriter and a great person to handle financing and to handle the operations and the asset management, it happens much. Easier, much quicker. And you're able to excel much faster because you can quickly get into additional properties and keep building a portfolio. Because it's really easy for these people to do these jobs, right? And it really does make it a lot more fun. It really does. And you as an individual, no matter how much education you have in this space, by surrounding yourself around these people every day on all these hundreds or thousands of zoom calls or whatever, but you're learning every single time. So it's a very quick learning curve. And as you said in this business, it is about who you know and it's about being in the right place at the right time. Which is meaning like being around the right people that come up with these opportunities. Because you're working with some individuals that are in the fast lane. They're doing this business, they come up with deals all the time and they're constantly putting deals together. And so they initially are going to reel in people that are kind of close in their inner circle. And that's where you want to get into that inner circle. So I want to touch on two of those points and then I have a specific question on the education. When you say really is comes down to who you know and putting yourself in the right place at the right time for the audience, that does not reflect a closed system process. It used to be that way. It is not. Now, by knowing the right people, that means you're doing the grunt work, you're getting out there, you're increasing your circle of influence, you're making sure that you're reaching out, you're attending Masterminds, you're going to seminars, you're putting yourself, you're creating your own luck, right? It's not going to fall out of the back of a truck for you, but it is not a closed system. If you want to get into real estate investing and you want to skyrocket up through the ranks and you are intentional and you attack this with a relentless approach, literally every tool is available to you. If you're putting yourself in the right place and you're with the right people at the right time, there's pathways now to do that that don't require a ton of capital. They require hard work, they require dedication, intentionality, but that's about it. If you have those tools, I believe that anybody can enter the space. That doesn't mean you're going to walk in and you're going to be mike with 100 million in AUM. That's not going to happen. But that's what you build to, right? That's how you climb the chain. You talked about education twice. What are some specific resources? Is it podcast, books? Is it paid courses? What have you found to be the most valuable resources for folks? Where can we point them to start? Absolutely. Well, all of the above. I mean, obviously the podcast, there's a lot of free education out there for sure, and that's a great place to start. There's some paid education and that's a fast lane way to start. I did do that. I'm not an easy sell, believe me. I'm the guy in the Timeshare presentation that's got his arm closed and going, you're not selling me. There's no way, right? That's not going to happen. And I was very leery going into that because, you know, they're the, they're selling the sky and the moon and, you know, in a dream. But it started to just make more and more sense and I kept getting drawn into more and more and the more, and I was following kind of the least expensive path going forward, but eventually just bought in and got into the full education, coaching and process. I came through Re Mentor, which is David Linda, who wrote several books on the industry, have been around for quite a long time, and they're based on the East Coast, but they're all over. And I came through their system, and there's many out there that are just terrific. They all kind of teach the same thing, honestly. It's not the multifamily space and syndication is not anything that's different, but maybe they teach it different ways or have different processes through it. But one thing I like about our meters is their support system. They have a terrific networking group because they've been around so long, so they put on many events and gives you great opportunities to meet others in the space. But again, no matter how much education you have and where you are in the space, it's really about you applying yourself, determining what you're good at, coming up with your superpower, as they say, or where you feel you can really stand out. You don't have to do it all. You don't have to be an excellent everything. You just got to be really good at something and get even better at that, and then you become valuable and these others that aren't so good. Underwriting is an example, right? Because I use that all the time. I can underwrite. I can read spreadsheets. I do Excel all the time. I understand them. But I'm not the guru on Excel. I'm not the guy who wants to be up at 02:00 in the morning in front of a spreadsheet calculating. But I have partners that are right. I have partners that email me at 02:00 in the morning with, hey, I have this and look at this, I'm asleep. But I see when the email came in and they're the type that stay up in the front of those Excel spreadsheets all night. And that's the perfect partner you want when you're not that in the other token, like they hate going to maybe networking events or socializing, maybe these events or something, right? And so I really love doing that. And so together we're able to get the deal flow going right, and actually be able to do something with it. I have another partner who's been a contractor for many years, and he does a lot of the asset management for us. And so he can look at these quotes, he can size up a property and walk to a property and pretty much tell what's going to be needed for the capex on that property all in about 20 minutes. And that's a really big help for our team as well too, right, so it's just those kind of people or partners that work together as one. It's pretty awesome. So jack of all trades, master of none is not applicable in the syndication world. And I think that for those of us that have grown businesses and have come from humble beginning innings, that's kind of the only way we know that you kind of have to have your hand on everything we think we do and we build a model that works. But then you get into the syndication world and you find that you don't want someone that's a jack of all trades and master of none. For me, it was particularly difficult to put that mindset down and find my superpower, as you had referenced, right. Just because I can read and interpret spreadsheets, just because I can do cost estimating, just because I can apply a vision to an asset, because I can source deals, doesn't mean I should be doing those things in the syndication space. Excuse me. It's about finding your superpower, your gift. What do you absolutely best at, what is it that you're willing to take that responsibility for your team, that you are the point person on that specific discipline, and you don't have to worry about those other areas because you have counterparts and you have other people in your syndication that are absolutely experts in those areas. So for me, that was particularly difficult of a mindset to break. What is your superpower, what is your gift in these deals? Yeah, James, I come out of the same mold, obviously, as you do. So I was the same being an entrepreneur all of my life in these different businesses. I was really a jack of all trades, but a master of none, right. So I had the ability to put things together, I had the ability to keep a business going and cut corners where needed, cut expenses and so forth. But yeah, I never really kind of had a big master of anything. And when I got into this, at first the thing that I thought I was going to be the strength that is acquisitions and being able to do broker relationships and be able to get the properties under contract, I really thought that was going to be my strength. Right. Because I feel confident in that level and I still do. But I realized quickly that takes a lot more time than I expected. Right. Just the broker relationships, the phone calls, the multiple calls, and then they're firing all these deals at you and you got to review them and get back. Then I also felt strong in the capital raising side. And so when I was able to get involved in my first deal that obviously had turned that pipeline on and got into that side, I really realized I really like that a lot better. I love dealing with the investors themselves because I feel like it's more of a one on one conversation. And I being an investor and being an entrepreneur and being in that position for many years, some businesses sometimes did really well, and I had money, but not necessarily knowing what to do with that money and how to make money on that money. Right. I did put it into real estate, but it was in a single family. So anyway, the conversation flows for me much easier and I really enjoy that. So I kind of came in more on the capital raising side, which obviously when you start raising capital, especially in larger amounts, I've raised upwards about 20 million at this point. And you do become the bell of the ball, right. You all of a sudden get Christmas cards from everybody, right? Because everybody needs the money. But I don't take that lightly for sure. Right. I mean, I truly value my relationships in the industry for other operators and so forth, certainly my partners. But I really like being able to deal with the investors direct, one on one. I enjoy those conversations. I enjoy meeting them. It's not a one off call or conversation. It's a lifetime relationship that you're building with these people and taking the responsibility of the money, which is extremely important. Right. But with my jack of all trades background, it does give me the ability to vet other operators and vet deals pretty quickly and get a really good sense of who are good operators and who aren't and that kind of thing in the business, which is important as a capital raiser. Right? Because you can't raise capital for everybody. You're just going to do it for you're going to come in to deals and teams and partners. And I have maybe three or four partner teams that I work with that I really trust and like and do most of my business with. So your holdings now, I think it was Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas City, Vegas and California. Is that correct? Yes, correct. So you're not afraid to decentralize, you're an emerging markets guy. You're looking for that upside, which we are as well. I'd like to talk for a few minutes about the status of these emerging markets. I think that there is a permanent shift underway. I think that there's this decentralization from many of the big cities that is very real, it's very underreported and I believe it's here to stay. Some of the impacts post COVID where bigger companies began to adopt this work from home strategy, whereas before that was very much frowned upon as I was coming up through the ranks. You were first in, last out, six days a week, seven days a week. If there was an 8th day, you know you were there. That's really evaporated pretty quickly. And I think some of the big firms have said, you know what, all of the work office issues and drama and headaches and lawsuits and insurances, I think that they've recognized that there's a more efficient way, as you had pointed out earlier, finding those angles, trimming expenses. I think that the bigger companies have had to get a little leaner and meaner and that's one of the ways that they're doing it. And COVID opened the door for that. And to me that means that you don't have to live in a less than ideal place because not all of us are in love with the big city. Not all of us are in love with the hustle bustle the rat race and folks are opting for quieter, safer, cleaner, less expensive places to call home. And I believe that is going to have a continued impact, at least for the rest of my professional investing career. And we're betting heavily on emerging markets. What are your thoughts on that statement and beyond, of course, what are your insights on these emerging markets? Yeah, I feel the same. I think that the kind of whole work from home thing, it's going to there'll be a lot to go back for sure, and some are already kind of proving that. Of course there's a lot of kickback and fight from the employee status, but there are certain businesses that certainly can, and they've learned now that they can efficiently have people working from home. And the water cooler talk that goes on in the offices ends up being just really a lot of wasted time and certainly the commuting time to and from and so on. So I think you can have much happier employees and really be way more efficient with your time if you're working from home, if you have that mindset. For sure. So I do see that the emerging markets are something I always keep the pulse on and looking for where that growth is happening because that's where we like to invest. It doesn't guarantee success, but it certainly puts a feather in your cap and it makes it a better likelihood of success in that market. It's the jobs, the job growth. Also, we do follow solo because when companies move into markets, they always bring jobs following with that and they're usually higher paid jobs. So we keep an eye on that kind of population growth. Some of the markets that maybe have over inflated from Cobid and from the work at home, I stay a little leery about it, to be honest with you. I mean, I think some of that can soften and they've blown up pretty quickly in this recent couple of years to three years here. So can it maintain that without the actual jobs being there? I don't know. I'm kind of a little skeptical of it myself. Yeah, so there are your kind of usual suspects when the markets start to turn and inflation sets in and interest rates start to rise and some of those markets are in Texas, Arizona, South Carolina, Florida, the sunbelt almost in its entirety where you see this crazy bubble and then you see a crazy pop. I believe that there will be attrition in some of these locales and we know we're talking the same places, right? We know these places where the growth just didn't make sense and the infrastructure isn't there. There's a lot of problems behind some of the explosive growth, but short of those markets, typically by now we would have seen these secondary markets and tertiary markets nosediving. I mean, interest rates have been steadily rising for some time. Inflation is out of control and we would typically see the fire sales starting to occur. I've been through two of these market shifts already and disasters. You go into some of these states and it's like you're watching The Walking Dead. Entire complexes, like the boat still in the driveway, keys are on the counter, like wild stuff, right? And there's 100 homes on a 1000 home subdivision. 100 are built and there's three people that are still living there. I don't think we're going to see that type of up and down in these secondary and emerging markets anymore, at least not for the foreseeable future. I do think that it will be stable short of these anomaly places where it just made no sense at all. So when you're identifying these deals now and you're looking to place money, where are you starting? Do you have established deal maker relationships in market? The people on your is that part of how you're building out that particular syndication? What does that process look like? How am I choosing the markets now? Is that what you're asking? When you're looking to find more deals in these emerging markets and you've got to get a good sense of conditions on the ground, you don't live there. What are the opportunities? How do you get those either off market or upside deals because they become more and more challenging to get your hands on as more and more investors enter the market. What does that process look like? How are you penetrating these new markets? Yes, you have to immerse yourself into the markets. It can start with a lot of free data that is online. Citydata.com or Citydata.com is a terrific website for anybody who hasn't seen that. That pulls up pretty much every metro in the country. And you can type in small and large and smaller cities. It brings pages, I don't know, 20, 30, 40 pages of information on that city. Everything from crime rate to population growth, to job growth, to demographics of the city and income and so forth. So there's a lot of information. But with that said, it's also a little older information. It's not current to this year. It's usually only current to maybe a year or two ago. But it gives you a good guide

going to those markets. You have to spend some time there. You. Do need to travel. Getting to know the brokers is really key. And anybody that's in the business on boots, on the ground there, the brokers are a tremendous amount of information, right? No matter where you are, if you're looking at Oklahoma or Tulsa or something, if you get in a conversation with an experienced broker in that market, they really can tell you almost everything they know. They know it down to what happened last week in the market. They have their feelers completely on the market there and they can tell you cap rates, they can tell you what areas of town are growing, what areas aren't, new companies that are moving in, where the path of progress is, where they're building the new downtown or the economic development economic development partner is doing this or doing that. And so they can fill you in. They can be a big resource. So can title companies, so can any escrow people. The title reps, if you can get connection with a title rep out of title company, the title reps are, I learned that quite a long time ago that these title reps, their jobs are kind of like the cheerleaders for the title company, right? But they run around all day, every day servicing the realtors and they're trying to get brokers to do business with them. But they know exactly what's going on because a lot of times they'll actually even with transactions, they'll bring the information or pick up stuff and deliver it for them. They do all kinds of things so they really do kind of a good contact. They can also provide lists by the way, a little anybody looking for a particular market, if you find a market, I mean the direct mail is something that's effective in this kind of economy. When we start to see this type of shift happening, it can be very effective. Title reps can pull lists for you of all the multifamily business owners in a particular market and they can dial it down to even like big thing going on now, right, is these bridge loans. A lot of owners that got into these bridge loans and the rates are going up, right? And they have, they only have a certain amount of time where they got a refi which could be coming up this year, next year, not this year, next year. And they can pull a list of all the owners in a certain size or in a certain area that have bridge loans and have bridge loans coming due. They have that kind of information. So guys, that's gold. What Mike is telling you right now is utter and absolute gold. There are a number of folks that got into deals with two and three year terms. They're looking to refinance now and they can't. Candidly, the big banks are still buttoned up. The small to mid cap banks are seeing cash reserves plummet, which means they're not lending anymore. In fact, they're not even renewing a lot of the debt they already have on the books. And there's no conduit for those notes that have come due. And what that means is you got a damn good chance that that person is going to listen to you at numbers that they would have laughed at you over a year or two ago when they took that loan, not keep an eye on what was coming up. And through direct mail to these highly targeted folks with expiring notes, knowing there's no conduit is a wonderful, beautiful, very intentional way to start discussions with sellers. That's exactly right. So thank you for that bit of information. I started to smile as you went down that path, and I'm thinking, yeah, I know where he's going. And man, oh, man, is that a powerful tool. It's circumstance, right? It's everything. And your perception of circumstance can change in real estate by the month, literally. So you've stacked a lot of assets over the last three years? A lot of assets. What has your philosophy been in acquiring those assets? Were you going longer with your debt? Yes, obviously, the bridge loans are not making any sense anymore and the rates are just incredibly high. Fortunately, on our properties, we did get some bridge loans, but we were always pretty proactive on purchasing the rate caps, which has turned to be an amazing blessing. We have properties that had a $10,000 a month interest only payment that are now approaching $30,000 a month interest only. Right. But we have these rate caps that are paying us back $15,000 of that, and we'll continue to do so.

It's still increasing our cost of that, but it ensures that it can't go up any further. But the long term debt is I see interest rates continuing to climb. I think it'll slow down, it'll be smaller increases next year, and then hopefully we're thinking the outlook is maybe 2024, where we'll start to see some decline. So long term debt with the ability to be able to get out of that debt in at least like a three year time frame. Right. Because that's the downside, is if you lock in a long term debt at a high interest rate and then to try to get out of that loan and you have these step downs or prepayment penalties, then they can be harsh. It could be a million dollars prepayment penalty to get out of a loan too early. Right. So you're either stuck paying this higher interest rate or you have to pay that prepayment. And when you're looking to invest, folks, and you've never seen a bad pro forma, right. Everybody's pro forma is look wonderful, everything is all roses. But this is the detail that matters. Mike Hedging and paying for rate caps doesn't look great on the sheet. When you're doing your deal and you're raising capital, it's additional expense up front. It's less capital that's available to go into the deal. But that's a smart, experienced deal maker understanding what's coming around the corner, understanding that this is a cycle, so many people forget that and your debt has to be structured in a way where you can get to the other side. So those bridge deals are fine as long as you've got those rate caps and you've got the hedges in those of you that locked into long term debt just before or at the beginning of these increases. Great job and keeping an eye on the prepayment penalties today for when we exit. I agree completely with your timeline. I think as we head into the next presidential election cycle, that's when we'll see these rates start to come back down. But I do think that for the better part of 2023 we're going to see steady increases that will incrementally decrease over each quarter as we move throughout the year. And that puts us in an interesting position. Do you think that the next twelve to 24 months are great times to buy, great times to sell? What are the magic ball? What's it telling you? Yeah, I mean it's both depending on, again, the kind of loan, if you're into a high interest loan, it's a great time to sell for sure. I do think that it's a great time to buy, no question about that. I don't know that we've hit bottom here on what we're doing. I agree with you where I don't see a major crash here, but we are going to see some softening and raising of cap rates and some lowering. There's a lot of sellers out there but they haven't quite come to grasp of lowering the prices. I think as we go into next year we may see that and there'll be some terrific buying opportunities. The key is keep your pencils sharp and keep your education sharp and make sure you keep your relationship sharp because when it does happen, it can happen quick and you have to be able to act quick on the properties, right, because there'll be others that will take it ahead of you. So you have to be ready and keep your capital together, keep your investors together, keep your underwriting sharp and keep up to date on the markets. More great advice folks, from someone who's in market. Just smashing right now. Mike, what's the best way for folks to reach out to you? My website is Grow Cap Today, grow Cap Today and I have a lot of information on there as well too. There's some downloadable ebooks and connect with me with my investor club and we send out newsletters information about the market and what's going on. And you also have an ability to schedule a call with me direct from the site as well. I really appreciate the time, the candor and the sharing of your expertise and insights. You really gave the audience some great, great points to consider as they continue or embark on this journey. Mike, thank you so much. Thank you, James. Pleasure. Thank you for having me on. Pleasure was mine. Best of luck, as always, everybody. Please stay safe. That was great, Mike. Thank you. Yeah, you did it well. You flow it right through there. Keep it. Thank you. So my folks will put all the links and all the information in as we promote. And before we release it, we'll send it to you with all the links for the different sites. I think we created one master link that will work on any platform at this point. But is there anything outside of the website that you want us to promote in particular on the show Notes, or is that the best way to do this? They can connect me on all social media, LinkedIn, obviously, as they get a strong connection there as well too, and through my website is the best. That way I'm able to connect with them more long term. Okay, great. If I can ever be a resource, please don't hesitate to reach out. And best of luck, man. Yeah. Well, tell me, James, just before we hang up, where are you at in the space other than putting on this, obviously this podcast? And you're certainly involved in the industry, no question, but are you also partners with some operators and acquiring or raising? What do you do? So we have a few different pathways that we've cultivated over the years. So the mothership always has been the real estate brokerage. So we built a company that's kind of founded on the principle that the game is changing and the seasoned dealmakers are losing ground because they can't keep up with this digital onslaught that is required to be a top flight agent today. So I brought in a CMO guy, Peter, who spent a few years over at Apple, and we basically split the company. We've got a digital marketing company, in essence, on one side and a deal making company on the other. And the agent's obligation for legion and marketing and all that stuff stops when they drop the file. Like we want to keep them in their gift, which is deal making. They're not digital marketers, and the older the agent, the more seasoned they are, typically, the better they are, the more experience they have, the deeper their book. So my idea is to take this now to a few emerging markets, pick the best in class deal makers there, bring the platform and set up shop in these emerging markets because that's the only way to get access to the off market deals, right? So that's one side of it. From an investment side, I have holdings from here down to Florida, as far west as New Mexico. I partner with two or three people. Primarily. We own everything from shopping centers to a golf course, motels, to multifamily. We're not really multifamily guys. It's something that a lot of the questions I asked you were for me because I want to diversify more. I want to do more investing in the multifamily space, but I don't want to continue with the model I currently have, which is where? It's me and one other. We have 91 assets in New Mexico, me and one other partner. Now, we have an infrastructure, of course, but it's too demanding, it's just too much. Are you single? Family mostly. No shopping centers, motels. That's where the golf course is. Some industrial, some vacant land, some single family, but it's pretty wide berth. Being a broker, for most of my life, I wanted to be an expert in everything. When I started to do new construction, I became a licensed expediter. When I started to do fix and flips, or selling fix and flips, I became a licensed general home improvement contractor. I just had to know the process. So you couldn't bullshit me in a deal, right? Yeah. I wanted to know and represent my people professionally, and you can't do that if you're ignorant to the process. So I picked up a lot of skill sets as an agent and started applying it in the investment realm, I don't know, maybe 15 years ago on a small scale and really over the last five years, at scale. For me, at least, it's at scale. But I'm lacking in this space. There's something sexy about it for me, where I can enter deals, bring my skill set, stay in my lane, put capital in or not, depending on the structure, and make the deal work and not have to be in 52 places at once. Right. It's fun and it's exciting, and there certainly is a fire that burns to do that. But I'm 47 now, and I'm starting to look at things a little differently. Like, I'm not so sure I want to be doing this when I'm 57, certainly not when I'm 67. So I think the multifamily is going to offer incredible buying opportunities over the next 18 to 24, maybe twelve to 18, and I want to start to enter the space in a meaningful way. Fantastic. Yeah. Well, let's definitely stay connected. For sure. I don't know if I have you in my database, but I'm going to put you in there. If you get too many emails, feel free to opt out. But no, please do connect us at least to see kind of what I'm doing. We're starting a more of a disaster relief fund next year, starting January, where we're going to raise capital strictly to go into some distressed properties. Right. But I'm pretty excited about that. So natural disaster, financial I shouldn't have said disaster, but distressed. Distressed, yeah. So just property. We feel exactly what you said and what we talked about is that coming this next year, we're going to see some property. Some operators are going to run into trouble, and they're going to need money. And they're either going to sell the properties at a fire sale or they're going to need a cash infusion to keep it going. So we'll look at both of them either purchasing or taking a property that we feel has the potential, but they just ran out of cash. And then we buy in and take a strong percentage of the property. Yeah, you're going to smash mike. I saw so many deals over the last few years that these young kids that didn't understand, when this cycle turns, there is no capital available. It's not, oh, we'll just make less money, and our third liquidity event won't happen in three years. No experience. They didn't have the experience. And you look at some of these pro forma going, you're telling me you're going to decrease expenses by 30% in a market where you have no presence in an inflationary environment? At least I saw the inflation was coming. And you're going to raise rents by 50% because you put in a washing machine? Like, you know, there are anomalies and right. Like these things happen, but, like, it was deal after deal after deal, and I just said, well, this isn't the time for me to enter. Let me wait a couple of years and see. But I think that you'll do really well with that, and best of luck with it, man. Thank you very much. Thanks, James. They're great. Great talk with you, and terrific meeting you, for sure. I think we are cut out of the same card there, I can tell. Yes, sir. I look forward to some emails from you. And again, if you ever need anything, please don't hesitate. Thank you, James. Be well. Enjoy the holidays. Thank you very much. You too. Happy holiday. Take care.