032: Patrick McGrath talks seller financing, Buying foreclosures, growing a portfolio, working with your spouse, and the joys of deferred maintenance

Welcome to Investories Patrick McGrath. 

Patrick McGrath talks Seller financing, Buying foreclosures, The joys of deferred maintenance 

Why you should listen? 

Patrick McGrath, one half of the RentalPropertyCouple has built a real estate career organically, taking advantage of, and creating opportunity after opportunity. In the episode Patrick sets out his blueprint, delving into his mindset, how he got started and how he fosters relationships to grow his portfolio. 

Starting with a primary residence bought through foreclosure, Patrick talks the next steps, growing into more SFHs, an apartment building and eventually commercial deals. Mostly through seller financing. 

Along the way Patrick sets out his mindset tips, the concept of FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early) and how to grow relationships. Finally Patrick breaks down how he sets and smashes goals. This is one you don’t want to miss. 

Patrick McGrath: 

• The Real Fi Podcast Website; https://linktr.ee/therealfipodcast
• Instagram; https://www.instagram.com/therealfipodcast/

Investories:

• Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@investoriespod
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/investoriespod/
• Email: investoriespodcast@gmail.com

Kyle:

• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/yourmultifamilymentor
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/your_multifamily_mentor/?hl=en

John: 

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hoopeezy/?hl=en
• Airbnb: https://airbnb.com/h/ponderosapinehaus

Transcript

Welcome to invest stories, a podcast about real stories, real estate and taking real action. Join hosts, John hoop and Kyle Robertson. As they talk, investing mindset and taking that first step, we all have a story. What's yours. The I podcast.

Welcome to investors. I know you're disappointed. It's just me again. Um, but Kyle is actually back, uh, for the next episode. So that's kind of exciting. At least that's something new, right. Um, and I'll throw in a booya, uh, to show my excitement as well. Uh, today we've got, uh, Patrick McGrath. Patrick is, um, one half of the rental couple, uh, on Instagram.

And Patrick's really interesting, really interesting journey from, um, from. Not investing at all to, uh, you know, really delving into some of the creative ways to invest and right up to, um, you know, building out RV and boat storage. So there's a real journey there. We talk a lot about kind of people's journey people's stories.

And this is, this is one of those episodes, uh, via, uh, helos and foreclosures via seller financing and seller carrybacks. Uh, He goes into some of the goal setting and mindset and, and the techniques around that. And also then what he looks for in a, in an investment, in a property and, and how he kind of figures out how, um, something's gonna work, how you're gonna add appreciation and how you are going to kind of out the back of that, um, refinance to buy the next one.

So there's a lot of strategy and techniques in our, in our conversation, in the story. Uh, so really worth a listen and. With that. In fact, before I throw to Patrick and I's interview, I'd really like to go and hit up the, um, the review button and give us a five star if you've done it before. Cool. If not, you know, why not do it and why not do it again?

Uh, and also do, please reach out to us on socials, um, at investors' pod. Uh, on, uh, Tokin on Instagram and, uh, without further ado here is Patrick.

Welcome to investors, Patrick McGrath. Uh, AKA, I'm gonna say AKA, um, at rental property couples, or at least, uh, half of rental property. Couple Patrick. Welcome. Thanks, man. I am looking forward to having an awesome real estate conversation with you today. I know we're on the opposite ends of the country, but we're here together today at the same time, same place to hopefully inspire and, uh, teach some people some stuff.

So let's get into it, man. If we can impart one piece of advice, one, one action, then Hey, we did our jobs. That's right. And Patrick's over in Mary, I'm still in San Diego. Uh, they, they haven't kicked me out yet, so that's always, always good. So, um, super interesting. Um, Patrick hosts, a podcast. You wanna give you a podcast, a quick, uh, plug.

Yeah, it's called the real fi podcast. You can find us on Instagram, um, the real fi podcast or the real fi podcast.com. Sorry, the real fi.com still get that mixed up. But yeah,  and, and like investors, um, it's, it's all about real conversations with real investors and, and all that good stuff, so well worth checking out.

And, and speaking of which I, I really want to get, and I've followed your social media journey, uh, yourself and your wife, Danielle. One thing that I really like is, um, that authenticity in terms of the voice and what you do and how you're living it and kind of how you, um, quit your W2 and all that good stuff.

So can you give us kind of the, the intro, like the, how you've got to where you are today kind of thing. Yeah, of course. Um, so we started. Just like most investors start, which was buying our primary residents. Um, you know, most people that's, their first investment is their first primary residence. But what we did is we knew that that place wasn't gonna be our forever place.

So we bought a foreclosure as our first property that we were gonna move into that needed a little bit of work. So I knew that we could. Add some value and make it worth more money down the road. So then we could use. To invest in more properties. So that's basically what we did is we, we bought a foreclosure.

We spent like three or four years kind of fixing it up, doing bathrooms, doing the kitchen, replacing the flooring. And we, uh, we were able to get a home equity line of credit on that house. So we took out a home equity line of credit. We got $45,000 that I believe, and that's what we used to go out there and buy our first investment property.

And. At the time, this is like 2016, 2017. When this is going on, there's a lot of foreclosures available, um, on the market. And we were able to find a house right down the street from our house. It was like eight or nine, 10 houses down. And that was really the first property, um, that we bought. It was a single family property, uh, three or four bedrooms, one and a half baths.

And we pick, we were able to pick that up for $175,000. We used that $45,000 HeLOCK that we had for the 15% down payment. And then we used whatever money was left over. Maxed out credit cards, basically like redoing the entire place, redoing the hardwood floors, new windows, new roof, new bathrooms, you know, granite countertops, tile, back splashes, new appliances, all this stuff, you know, we're like our, our first rental is gonna be amazing.

And we basically made our first investment. Way nicer than the house that we lived in, like 10 houses down.  that's a true investor right there.  right. Yeah. So, uh, my wife, Danielle, who's the other half of the rental property couple, she was like, Hey, uh, this place is way nicer than our house. How about we just move into the new property and rent out our house.

So that's kind of how it really started. Like we bought. Spent way too much money, fixing it up and made it too nice. So we moved into that one, rented out our primary residence, which was the plan all along. And, uh, that's kind of how we got into our first rental property and kind of figured it out like, Hey, when the rent check started coming in, We were like, holy crap, this actually works.

Like someone's paying us to live in a property that we own, and we're really not having any issues. Like this is amazing. We need to continue to do this. Um, so fast forward, we're living in that house for like a year and we were just ready to move. So I wanted to move to an area that had small multi-families and there was an area that a couple of our friends lived in about an hour north.

Um, that was really nice and it had small multi-families. So we took out another home equity line of credit on our. Now primary, which was that first investment property, we've got $85,000 and we used that to buy our new primary. And then once we moved up here, we used the remaining amount to put a down payment on our first Plex.

So that didn't happen until 2019, so 2019. So two years from the time we bought our first investment property to we bought our next investment property, which was a triple. And we got that one for $204,000. And we spent me and her like painting, ripping out carpet, redoing the floors, putting new vanities, lights, all of that stuff in, um, we spent about $15,000 over the next four months.

Just redoing all the units. Mm-hmm  tenants were moving now. They were paying, I think they were supposed to be paying seven 50 a month. These are for two bedroom, one baths. And we got new tenants in there for 1200 for all three units. And, um, six months later, it appraised for 350,000. So we were, we were all in for 2 25 and it appraised for 350,000 and we did a cash out refinance.

We got our $65,000 down payment, our 10,000 in closing and our 15,000, um, money that we put in there back plus an additional 10,000. And, uh, we used that to go and buy our next one, which was from the same seller. So, so you forged a relationship with the seller to. They had multiple, uh, li oh, a lot of inventory that they could then pass on.

Yeah. So, um, basically when we moved up here, I found an ad on Craigslist for a guy that was selling 13 units, like five properties mm-hmm  and, um, Basically, he had two left that didn't sell. When he post, when he had all these investors, the Plex was one of them and there was a fourplex down the street and the Plex had been on the market for like over a year.

It was listed for two 50, but I know that I had his email from when I emailed him on Craigslist. So what I did was I kept emailing them every month. Like, Hey, I see your property still on the market. Would you like to sit down and have coffee? Mm-hmm . Hey, your property's still in the market. We'd like to have coffee.

So like five months go by. And he finally says, yes, I'll sit down with you and have coffee. And we met at a Starbucks and we ended up having like an hour long conversation, just older gentleman. He used to own two car dealerships. And basically I was like, look, I want to be sitting where you're at one day.

Like, but. Your property's been on the market for over a year. It's obviously not. We two 50 I'm at like 200, like let's try to make something happen. And he came back at two 10, we did the inspection and there was a, some stuff wrong with it. And I said, basically, look, Hey, I'll buy it at the pro at the two 10.

If you give me some seller help, but I'll also buy your other property. Once my refinance goes through so you can sell both of them to me. Amazing. You just have to wait a little bit. So that's kind of how we were able to get the other one as well. So we packaged them up together. As soon as the refinance went through, we were able to buy the other property.

He a he's actually holding $85,000, um, a three year note on that one for us. So we were able to bring less money to the table. And that was kind of our, our. Like seller financing opportunity kind of thing. Um, and that basically got us to, I think that's like nine at this point. And then we bought a single family during the pandemic.

Um, and we got, we got that. So here we are now we've got our first primary residence that we bought that we turned into a rental, the first investment property that we bought, that we turned into a rental. Another single family, a Plex and a quadplex. So we're like mini moguls, you know, we have like nine or 10 units.

Um, and I was still working at W2 at the time. So I was a regional sales manager for a construction elevator company where I was gone, like at least a week, a month. Mm-hmm  if not, you know, a week and a half, two weeks. So we're doing all these renovations, we're managing these properties while I'm traveling, you know, and my wife's at home.

and we're able to do this. So anyone out there who says they don't have enough time, like I was basically gone half the year and still able to make this happen, you know? Um, so my wife is getting her haircut and the, the owner of the salon was like, Hey, we're moving. Um, just wanted to let you know, she's like why she's like, well, the woman that owns this building is thinking about selling it mm-hmm  and it was like, uh, salon in the bottom three apartments up top, and then another building that has six apartments.

And my wife got home, you know, went to dinner. She's like, yeah, Pam's moving. They're the thinking about selling the building? I was like, Did you ask her for a number like, meanwhile, I have no idea how to buy commercial property.  I just know that like I wanted to get into something like that. And here's an, here's like an off market opportunity.

Let's let's figure out what we can do here. Um, so need, let's just say she gotten her number. We went and toward the property and, um, She really liked us again. I told her like, Hey, look, I wanna be in your shoes one day. Like I'm, I'm local to the area. Like let's make this, let's make this work. And we were able to make that work.

That was 10 units. We were able to get for 850,000. Wow. Um, at the time it was renting for the total rents. It was bringing in was 7,200 a month. And that was may. 2021. So here we are, September, 2022. It now brings in four, uh, 14,275. So almost doubled, um, the income of the property in a little more than a year.

Um, so I mean, but we, we turned over almost all the tenants we've spent probably close to $125,000 fixing up all of the units, changing out mm-hmm. Everything, you know? Um, but we, so the people are like, well, how did you get the money to buy an $850,000 property? So what we did is we sold. Our first two investment properties.

We sold our first two single family properties that we had, and we did, what's called a 10 31 exchange where we were able to take the profits, you know, tax free, basically tax deferred. And use that for the down payment on our, uh, on this 10 unit apartment building. And then we did a cash out refinance on the four unit to help get some more money to do the renovations and all of that.

So this, this whole time, we're just like recycling all of these funds over and over again. We're using the same money over and over again. The snowball's just getting a little bigger. Um, and, and that's the power of, um, of appreciation, right. And forcing that appreciation. So by, in making those investments and, and kind of not just turning over tenants, but providing better quality accommodation, you are pushing the value and therefore you can.

Get another line of credit against it, or you can increase that line of credit against a, a property. I do wanna, I do wanna unpack a couple of things cuz that's amazing. It's such a, such an amazing journey and the, the steps to go through. And I feel like it's, it's uh, expressed kind of version through real estate that some people take years and years to go through all those different kind of classes and, and.

Products. I think the first one is you, you said you bought your first place with a, uh, it was a foreclosure. So for a lot of people listening, a foreclosure is probably terrifying. Um,  as a proposition to acquire what were the steps to get educated and kind of who convinced who, in terms of making that first step?

I know my wife's just super cautious, so she would be terrified by a foreclosure. Yeah. So at the time there was so many bank foreclosures that the bank was, the bank was actually, you know, fixing them up a little bit. So it had like a new H V a C, it had new carpet. It wasn't like new pain or anything, but it really wasn't an.

Shabby shape, you know? Um, but I just, we, we were living in an apartment at the time and we weren't even married. And I told, you know, my wife at the time LA or my girlfriend at the time, who's now my wife, like, Hey, we really can't afford anything else. You know, like, this is what we can afford, but we, we can make it nice.

Um, with. With the full intention down the road, that we would turn it into a rental property. And I was reading a lot of books at the time. And basically, like I said, between that was 2013. We didn't buy our first rental property until 2017. So almost four years it went by. So during this time I'm like looking at a ton of properties, doing a ton of research and I'm like, look, I think we can do this.

And I basically just said, we can do let's try it. If it doesn't work. You know, then we just, we won't do it again. You know, we'll, we'll caught our losses and we just won't, we won't try it out again. And that first property, you know, we basically made like a hundred thousand dollars in nine months in equity and we were collecting rent checks and things weren't going wrong.

And that's kind of how it really started for us was like, look, just gimme a shot. Um, let let's just try this out. And it worked and then the next one and the next one and the next one and the next one. And, um, it's kind of hard, you know, to not believe when you start having thousands of dollars coming in and then tens of thousands of dollars coming in.

You're like, okay, well this is working. No, I think, I think that's, that's really interesting. Uh, one of the other things you, you talked about, and I'm, I'm kind of jumping around here, but, um, in terms of the, you mentioned a seller carrying a. And for I'm, I'm currently doing a seller financing course, and it's fascinating.

And all the options it's like going into the ma or breaking out the matrix, all these options you didn't even know existed are there and exactly being played with. What does that mean? And how does that work with say traditional financing models? So if they were carrying a percentage of the financing, how does that work with the rest of the financing for that asset?

Yeah. So it really depends on how you, how you end up doing it. So the way that we've typically done it is we call it a seller. Carryback where the seller is carrying part of the down payment. So they hold, you know, 10, 15, 20%, and then the bank will finance the rest of it. Um, that's the way that we've been able to do it.

A lot of people think, um, A lot of people think that seller financing is where like the seller's holding 90 or a hundred percent of the property. And they're like, well, why would they do that? Or I need to find a property that, you know, they don't have any.  um, any note on the property, like no loan or anything.

So what we've been able to do is we found a bank that will allow the seller to carry that equity because the bank, they, they only wanna loan 70, 75, 80% of the value. And typically you are the one putting that 15, 20, 20 5% down to get him to that number. It doesn't matter really where it really comes from especially commercial loans, as long as the bank is only lending on that 70, 70, 80%.

So that's what we were able to do and tip. And all of ours are like three year terms. So they're 5% interest only, you know, 36 month balloons. And the plan is for us to. Get in the property, fix up the property, increase the rents, go back to the bank and refinance. And when we refinance we'll pay off, you know, that seller note of that 20 or 25%.

And that's the bit we were talking about, um, which is that appreciation of the, the asset performance rather than just strictly looking at it is it looks nicer. So therefore it's worth more. It's it's about the fundamentals of how much it, it earns and how much it costs to maintain those kind of elements.

Right? Exactly. Especially when we're talking five plus unit properties, cuz they're based on the net operating income. When you're talking about single family. Duplex Plex quadplex they're they're based on what the comps are in the market around it. Just like a single family. When you get into these five plus unit properties, it's all about how much money the property is producing.

So if you can lower expenses and increase your revenue, then you can drastically increase the value of the property that someone will pay for it. And that the bank will loan you. No. That's awesome. Thank you so much. When, when you look at a property, what do, how does that work? What's your kind of, what are the reps or what are the steps you go through when you walk through a property?

What do you look for? Yes. Um, so what I look for is I look for ways that I can increase, um, value, whether that is adding a bedroom, whether that is changing. The kitchen out, um, the flooring, the lighting, all of that. But I, I also look for like the major things, um, and really just look at how the property, um, can be increased, like the efficiency of the property.

Um, my biggest thing is I want properties that need work that have had deferred maintenance, um, that have undermarket rents. Um, That have headaches. I want to buy headaches from people because if I'm buying someone else's headache, that means that I'm getting a discount on the property for dealing with those headaches and taking those problems away from them.

Um, so I'm not buying turnkey properties. I'm not buying properties that have been. Renovated. I'm not buying properties where tenants are paying market rents. That's some people's strategies, but that's not mine. I want to be able to be the one to force the appreciation in these properties. So nine times outta 10, when I'm buying a property, it's just barely meeting the banks.

Requirements, like just barely. They're like, okay, we'll lend on you. We'll lend this to you. Um, those are the types of properties that, that I want. And then I can come in and paint the building, you know, replace the windows, replace the flooring, replace the lighting, replace the tenants, you know, fix up the parking lot, fix up the landscaping and then.

You know, transform this asset that somebody mismanaged and make it something really, really nice. And my mine and my wife's thing is we need to make each and every unit to where we would live in it. If I wouldn't live in it, I'm not renting it to somebody. And that that's our standard. And, um, Every single unit that we've done.

Um, I would live in if something ever happened where we would, we were forced out of our house or something like that. I would happily move into any one of my properties and any one of the units there and be next to the tenants that we have and be happy with the accommodations. And that's the standard that I have.

And I think that's, what's made us success. I really like that as a, so I often make a note about, um, you know, questions and I always put it as around a philosophy, like what's your investing philosophy or what's, what do you look for? That's hence that question. And I think that's a great, um, take on it, which is somewhere I'd live myself is, is kind of fair, right?

Yeah. So we have. I basically have like a little motto or like a mission statement and it's to provide safe quality, affordable housing for families to be able to plant their roots. That's, that's what it is. Um, and as long as we make sure that we're living by that mission statement, um, then that will be the guiding light for us to make sure that we're doing the right things.

No, I, I think that's, that's great. Um, I really like that you talked, um, briefly about, um, quitting your quitting, your job, quitting your W2, which is kind of, uh, I think most starting investors or most investors see that as, as a goal, um, kind of as a, as a bit of a yard stick and Hey, that's something to work towards and, and really, um, I've heard you on a few interviews, talk around the fire movement and kind of retirement and what that looks like.

Can you talk me through kind of your approach to how you transition from your W2 and then kind of what the, what the movement means to you or what that kind of, uh, stepping away looked like? Yeah, so, um, it wa it wasn. A hundred percent planned. Like we, my company at the time, we decided to just kind of go our separate ways.

Um, it was a week before we bought the 10 unit apartment building  so a week before we were closing on like the biggest deal we've ever done, um, we went our separate ways, which. As I look back at it was, was very scary, but it was also like the best thing that's ever happened, you know? Um, at the time I think we were bringing in roughly like $5,000 a month in cash flow, um, which we could cover like all, all the stuff that I was paying for, you know, but we weren't.

Rich or really living financially free. It could just cover. But the lucky thing is I did have a large 401k that I, I had, I did have, I was saving 25% of all of my earned income for like wow. The past couple years. And, um, I did have some, some investments in like some crypto and some NFTs and different things like that.

So we, we had a nice, like, Safety net behind us. Um, so that, that was really the key, but the, the fire movement, um, financial independence retire early. We were inspired by that because I didn't, I don't wanna work forever. You know, I didn't wanna make anybody else a ton of money. Like, and that's what I was doing.

I mean, I was closing, you know, multimillion dollar deals. I, in five years I probably brought. Over 22 million worth of business, um, for this, for this company, you know, and I was doing okay, but I, I could have been doing a lot better, you know, and just since I left, like, we have basically tripled the amount of real estate that we've bought in like the last year and a half, just because this is all I'm focused on every single day, you know?

And I. That's really, the biggest thing is, is when you're passionate about it and you have the freedom and you have to do it like mm-hmm , I, I, I did, I didn't wanna go back and work at another job, you know, especially making less money. Um, so we, it was kind of like, I had to go out there and, and make it happen.

And luckily, you know, we have, um, but it's, it's all the preparation, you know, it is that it's those five years of grinding. It's that five years of being away, you know, almost half the year saving 25% of your income investing. Every penny that you have. Into buying rental properties and building your small portfolio and getting that cash flow and, you know, doing the right things and recycling your money over and over and over again, um, that leads you to be able to do that.

So it's, it's all the hard work leading up to it. And then even when you go after it, you still have even more hard work ahead of you, but at least you're doing it for yourself.  you know, and I think that's the biggest thing behind the movement for me is, um, I get to choose what I do every day. Um, and I'm passionate about it.

So I'm working harder than ever. No, I, I love that. And I think, um, I, I echo that that's, that's my goal. I, I still work at W2. Um, thankfully I'm at home and I don't travel. It's kind of nice. It's kind of cush, but then equally, then it gets you into a comfort zone and you'll still, um, you'll still kind of subject to the, what I call the W2, drip.

The, the feed of a little bit of money, a little bit of money, but, um, yeah, and, and that's something, Kyle, uh, my co-host, uh, has talked to a lot, which is having that time to spend it on, on the stuff you wanna spend it on. Right. And what's the value of, of kind of money coming in from a job. If you are then not able to manage kind of your time to, to do the real estate stuff.

That's really interesting. Exactly. And the having the conversations. Yeah. I mean, and, and being able to have the conversations like every single day, like I'm on the phone every day, talking to other investors, other business owners, um, just meeting all the contractors, having the conversations with them, just like always being around my properties, working on them, meeting with everybody where I'm building relationships with with everybody else.

Um, and that's, and that's. What takes you to that next level? It's real estate is it's, it's a people business. Mm-hmm, , it's not, it's not an asset business. I mean, you buy assets, but you know, people are your customers and without the people, you literally have no business. So you need to become a people person build great relationships.

And that's really what sets you. Having the time, freedom to be able to build those relationships, meet those people. When you need to be able to go to lunches, go to real estate meetups, you know, be able to go out there and shake hands and press skin. That's that's really what gets you to the next level.

I love that. And yeah, absolutely. That's a common thread that we get, um, on the show, which is, is all about people. Go, go to your local real estate meetup. If you don't have one set one up and invite people. And if three people show up, you know what? You, you've made three really strong contacts and. Talk, you could nerd out on real estate.

Right. So that's, that's really interesting. Um, one, one of the things I, I really wanna get your, your take on is, and, and kind of your W2, um, happenstance of, of leaving your W2 and, and kind of doing this full time is, is a bit of a, a, a driver for this, but, um, how do you set goals or do you set goals or are you just kind of open to things?

Do you have that kind of, um, mentality or. Yes. So basically I set quarterly goals and a yearly goals, and I have them broken down. I have a, and it goes out for a three year plan. So I have a three year plan. And then in that three year plan, it is broken into quarters. So the quarters for this year, and then it'll have the goals for next year, the goals for the following year kind of broken out.

So I will basically say. For the first quarter of this, of this year, you know, I wanted to close the six unit apartment building that I found off market. And, and then I have a rent goal. Like how much, how much rent, how much total rent am I bringing in? How much net are we bringing in? Am I trying to start, um, doing off market marketing for wholesaling, you know, and I just, I have it all broken down in.

Three month chunks. And then I have my overall goal for the year and I can work backwards from that. And then I have my two year goal and my three year goal. Um, but I, I don't have daily and weekly goals. Sometimes, I think you can get too caught up, you know, in, in having these daily, weekly goals. And if you don't hit, 'em, you feel like you're not you're, you're not achieving what you, what you want.

So I kind of make 'em a little broader and then I have an overall goal, but you, you have to have goals. Um, To really be able to track your metrics and see what you're doing. And I know if I'm not putting in enough work, um, and accomplishing those quarterly goals, I'm not gonna get anywhere close to those yearly goals or those two or three year goals.

So yeah, you, you, you have to have a written down plan. I mean, they say, um, What is it? If you actually write a goal down, then you're ahead of like 90% of the people out there. So just writing it out and having like it sitting there and going over it every couple months is, is great. And, uh, we do have a free, uh, a goal sheet.

Um, that you can get at in our link on, um, on our Instagram. So, and we'll post the, the links in the, in the show notes for this. I think that's really interesting. Yeah. I, I struggled that for a long time taking a really high level high concept, like a number or a goal, or I want this many units. And then what I wasn't doing was taking that time and I call it strategic time and I try and calve some out every week to just think like, so how do okay.

That's where I want get to, how do I break that down into, I, I like the quarterly idea. I'm gonna, I'm gonna definitely try that out. Yeah. Because it's like, okay, well you want to hit $10,000 a month and you have two rental properties and they're bringing in $300 a door. So you're making 600 a month of two rental properties.

Great. Well, you need to, you know, times that by 15 to get your 10, you know, so you need to buy 15 more properties. All right. Well, if you're buying 15 more properties, you have to break that down and you go, all right, well, would it be faster if I bought a quadplex would it be faster if I bought a 10 unit?

How am I gonna get this money? So you gotta, you got to break that 10,000 down and go, all right, I need this many doors at this purchase price. That's gonna give me this much per door. And then you can, once you have that number in your head, you start working backwards and then you can really put a plan in place or Hey, Uh, is this rental better, long term or is it better as a midterm or an Airbnb?

If I did, instead of buying 15 properties, I could buy five properties and do Airbnb and hit that same number. That sounds more attainable in my three years than buying 15 long term rentals. So, and I, I like what you said, there's just giving yourself the time to like, really think about those goals. And how you're gonna accomplish them.

And then it's telling people what they are like, you, you've gotta tell your, your friends, your real estate people, your, you know, anyone has to know what your goals are, because those are the people that are ultimately gonna be able to help you achieve those goals. And I'm gonna add to that. You need to have the, the skin to, to allow them to.

Scoff or laugh, or, and, and as you said earlier, a lot of people don't set goals or a lot of people wouldn't write them down. And so then therefore just by doing that, you're ahead. But then by taking the action, people are gonna look at you. Very strangely. I moved to the us, I bought a house people before I bought a house were like, how are you gonna buy a house?

I bought, I bought a short term rental, how are you gonna buy a short term rental? So all these, all these things that people are gonna kind of not laugh at you, but have disbelief until you start doing them. And by taking that action and building that kind of cadence of, of actions. And, um, yeah, that, that was the biggest change for me was having the time, like taking time to figure out, well, how do you get from a to B and not.

I've written a goal that's enough. And I'll just throw it on a whiteboard or put it in my notes or calendar or whatever. So that's, that's really interesting. Yeah. I mean, so, so what happens when you're out there at these meetups, when you're putting yourself out there and then all of a sudden you get the partnership opportunity of a lifetime.

You have no money, you have a guy that has tons of money, but doesn't have any time ask you what your goals are and how you're gonna achieve them. And then you're like, oh, well, you know, I thought. This, but if you're like, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. Here's what I need. Here's what I'm going after. Here's my plan.

Like you need to be prepared. You never know when that opportunity is gonna come and you need to be able to strike. So if you really want to achieve financial freedom, financial independence become a successful real estate investor. You need to know exactly. Your market, you need to know exactly what you want.

You need to know exactly how to get there. And when you can articulate to people, you're gonna find someone that can help you. A partner, finance person, someone who's got deals, it's a wholesaler. So you're gonna find people that are gonna be able to help you. Um, but if you don't know what you want, then you're never gonna get.

Amazing. No, I, I like that a lot. So I'm gonna put you on, on the spot a little bit. Um, so I I'd really like to get kind of either your best piece of advice you've, you've got, uh, in your career so far or the biggest lesson you've learned. So I'll give you the choice of those two. Okay. Um, Yeah. So the I'll do both of them.

Um, the biggest lesson, the biggest lesson that I've learned is really to believe in yourself. Like you you've gotta believe in yourself. Um, and that doesn't mean just like, oh, I know I can do it. That means you gotta put in the work to believe in yourself. You have to know. Everything that you need to know to be the best at what you want to do.

And that makes you be able to believe in yourself when you have the doubters, when you have your friends, like, how are you gonna do that? When you have your family members telling you that you're crazy, they have no right to give you advice when they haven't done what you're trying to do. And you need to be knowledgeable enough to accept that, you know, what's.

and that is, that's what true believing in yourself is mm-hmm, , it's being able to accept, you know, that skepticism and all of that stuff from people who aren't doing anything. And know that you can push forward and, and go for it. So that would be, you know, um, the biggest lesson learned is just believing in yourself because I've turned down things, listening to other people that I knew I was right on and it costs me a ton.

Um, so there's that, and then the. The other thing is really what my hat says right here. Decide, commit, take action. That means, you know, if, if you need to do, if you wanna be financially free, you need to decide to be financially free. Mm-hmm  you need to commit to doing it, which is then taking the action.

That's putting a budget in place. That's putting your goals in place. That's reading your books, listening to your podcast. That's taking action. Whether that. Going to a meetup, whether that's calling lenders. Uh, I, I don't, I can't qualify for a house. Okay. Well, have you, have you talked to a lender yet? No.

Okay. Well then you don't know if you actually can, you're just putting a roadblock in front of you, like decide, commit, take action. Like you're gonna get a bunch of no's, but someone's gonna give you a yes. And that's really, what's gonna propel you past everybody else. Who's not doing that. So yeah, those would be those, the, the two, the two things right there.

I, I really like that. And I love the fact that that. Like pick up the phone, speak to a lender, but don't speak to. Speak to 10. See what 10 say same with a, with a, a real estate agent, speak to 10 agents and, and get a kind of take. And just by having, getting those reps in, then it becomes like muscle memory.

So you pick up a phone. I, I pick up a phone to a realtor now across the country and I can have a, a broad conversation really easily. The first one, I was like, you know, stuttering on the phone, like, hi, nice to meet you, blah, blah, blah, and all that stuff. And now I can have a very pinpoint, Hey, this is who I am.

This is where I'm at. I'm not Warren buffet. , but this is where I'm going. And again, linking back in the goals, this is my, this is kind of my north star and where I wanna get to, um, you can start having those, those really strong conversations. Uh, so exactly I did have one question that I should have asked you a little bit earlier.

And so it's a little bit out of, um, out of kilter in terms of how you find deals. What do you, um, you say off market deals, for instance, how, how do you find. Yeah. So for everyone out there, who's heard of this little podcast called the bigger pockets podcast.  um, I've heard of it. I, I was, uh, I was listening to that and they were talking about this app called deal machine.

And you could download this app and drive for dollars. Um, and they'll send out postcards to people. And I was like, All right. Cool. I'll download the app. It's $40. And, uh, they tell you how to buy a list. So you go on the list source, you plug in your parameters for your area. You buy this list for, I don't know, a hundred, 200 bucks.

You'll upload it. And then you start sending people postcards. So I was like, okay, that's what I'll do. So that's what I did. I spent $200 on the list, 40 bucks to get the app and, uh, started sending out mailers to people in my area. And, uh, I spent roughly about $2,000 and I was able to get, uh, a six unit building for $430,000.

The seller is holding 20%, which is 85,000 for three years. And it's gonna be worth about $900,000 when I'm done and it's gonna cash flow four grand a month. So that was the best $2,000 I ever spent. . Same thing. Another guy reached out to me last year, and this is the first time I'm telling this. Um, I've been working on this other deal for about a year and a half now, and it's a seven unit property and I own this guy's two.

The guy that I bought my, my Plex and my quadplex from this is the guy that he bought the stuff from. So this guy used to own like a going up the chain. Yeah. This guy used to own like 150 properties in my area. And this is his last property. This is like his baby. Um, And, uh, we, I, he has the contract in hand.

He, it should be signed tomorrow. Congratulations. And that will give us another seven units. Um, and he is also going to hold 20% down. So we're gonna get a $750,000 property for $40,000 out of pocket. Um, And that's from building the relationships that's sending the postcards like, and I didn't do anything special.

I didn't do handwritten letters. I didn't do anything. I literally went into the app, uploaded the addresses. Did I changed my name and phone number and email address on the standard. Is this your property? I'll send, let me send you a free offer or whatever. I didn't do anything. And. You know, when I did, I decided I committed to doing it and I just started sending the stuff I want you, I got some deals out of it.

I want you to say those numbers one more time, cuz that is powerful. Yeah. So $750,000, seven unit property, which will be the most money I've ever spent per unit on a deal. But he's going to hold 150,000, which is 20%. For three years at 5% interest. Um, so it's gonna be $210 a month interest, $290 principle.

Um, and I'm gonna need to bring $37,500 out of pocket to get into a three quarter of a million dollar property. Wow. So. Yeah, you can do it. I'm no one special, like, literally I'm asking, just like you said about like calling your realtors and everything. I just ask everybody if they're, if they be willing to hold.

20%. I'm not asking them to hold 80%. I'm just asking 'em to hold 20% like, Hey, you know, the property, um, needs a little bit of work. Look, would you be willing to hold like 15, 20% just because I'm gonna need that. I'm gonna need that money to fix up the property, you know, take care of some of the delayed maintenance and other things like that.

And then when I refinance it, I'll just pay you back in, you know, two years, three years before if I can. That's what I always say before. If I can. And. What's the worst they can say is no. All right. So you, you gotta buy it like everybody else anyways, like just ask . I love it. No, that's awesome. Um, the, I guess the, kind of the next question I have is this is really looking kind of to the, to the future looking forward, like, what's next?

What's your, what's your target? Are you changing assets? Anything? Yeah. So, um, we've got some exciting things going on. We're looking at some commercial properties, um, and then I also have a development, uh, deal going on. So we are currently under contract for 16 and a half acres in Virginia. Wow. To develop a RV and boat storage facility now.

A year ago had to me thinking about I could a year and a half ago, I didn't even know how I was gonna buy a 10 year department building. And now I'm talking about developing, you know, 16 acres into an RV boat storage facility, um, which is crazy. Um, but you know, we had a guy on the podcast and he was talking about it and I've always wanted to get into storage, you know, uh, storage units, mm-hmm , um, or storage.

You're you're basically just, you know, renting a box or renting a piece of dirt. Um, so there's no electricity, there's no toilets. There's no nothing like no evictions, all that. And uh, this guy brought the deal to me and I really, I liked the numbers. The numbers were insane. So I said, Hey, let's try. So we put the land under contract and it is under contract with a condition that the city has to approve what we want to do, which we've already went and kind of got like the handshake agreements from everybody, but it has to go through the proper process.

So it's gonna take, um, three to six months to go through the conditional use permit process. Um, I actually have. You know, I don't think you could see it, but I got the, we, we got the updated engineering today. Um, so it's gonna be 328 spaces. Um, if you do some quick math, we should be able to rent it for between 125 and $150 a space.

So that brings us anywhere from. Roughly 30 to $45,000 a month gross. Um, our expenses should be a little more than 8,000, so we're gonna net anywhere between 25 and $35,000, um, a month, one less. And we, and we're a majority owner. Um, so right now we have, we own 85% of this. So this is gonna be life changing.

Mm-hmm  like the number, my goal was $30,000 a month as like my first, it was 10,000, you know, that was like our financial independence number. You know, everybody kind of has that $10,000 a month. That'll change your life. Um, and then it was 30. Was the next goal and this will put us like surpassed that no problem.

Um, and that was in like a year and a half, which is crazy. Crazy. Yeah. But, um, I, I have no idea how to run a storage facility. I've never developed anything before. Um, we're just going for it, you know? We have, I have a partner who lives down there and knows a bunch of contractors and he's part of the deal and he's doing all that stuff and we're doing the finance part and I'm figuring it out, you know, love it.

So I did, if you've got time, I have one more question. I got, yeah, I got plenty of time. Awesome. So you started in 2013, very different market. I, I actually started in 2013 as well with, with just casually buying a property at the, at the lower end of the market. Right. So, um, mm-hmm, , you know, I've not forced appreciation.

I've just had kind of rocket ship appreciation based on buying a, a cheap property in a good area. That's, that's gone up in value thinking about today and the kind of market conditions. What, what would you do now? What would you do differently? Uh, That's tough. Um, I'd tell you what I would probably, I, I turned down so many deals during like 2000 16, 17, 18 over like $5,000, like five grand, like $160,000 houses that were just selling for like 3 5400, you know, last summer.

Um, but. I, I don't think I'd do anything differently really, cuz it, it got me to where I am today, you know, and maybe if, if I bought a bunch more single families back then maybe that I would've got stuck in the single family game and not went to small multifamily or moved or bought this apartment building and kind of got to where I am today.

So when I look back on it, I look back and go that that's what got me here. You know, I, I can tell you what I'm to change my question. I, I guess I'd add, what would you, if you were starting out today, what would you do? And I guess that might be the same answer, but oh, if, if I was starting out today, what would I do?

Um, yeah, a hundred percent. I would house hack a four year unit, a Plex or a fourplex. I would house hack. I would do that for two or three years. When I was young, you know, if, if, if I was starting off again, I didn't even know that was an option back then. But I would've been able to convince my wife when we were like 22, 23.

And within three years you could have, you know, six to 12 units doing it with a duplex or a quadplex. And that would set you up for the rest of your life, you know, to be 26, 27 with 12 rentals, and then go buy that dream house. Like that would be the one thing that, um, I would do differently just if I'm young, like, and you're an investor, like skip the single family.

Buy a small multifamily, it's the same exact process. You're gonna make more cash flow. Um, if that's what you, if you really want to build like a solid foundation, um, which I look at long term rental assets as kind of like the foundation to real estate. And then once you build that solid foundation, then you can go do some of those higher risk, higher return things like short term rentals, midterm rentals, furnished finders, vacation rental.

Development storage, you know, commercial buildings, all this other stuff that's out there, you know, get your long term, you know, foundation of consistent monthly rentals in, and then you can go do some of this more creative, you know, higher return stuff. Mm-hmm . No. That's awesome. Um, what's the best way people can connect with you?

I think we talked about Instagram, but feel free to, uh, to put the socials out there as well. Yeah. So the, if anyone wants to reach out, um, you can reach out at, um, at rental property, couple. Um, so I'm the one that runs the page. So you can reach out to us at rental property. Couple, you can do, uh, the RFI podcast on Instagram, uh, rental property, couple on TikTok, all of that.

Or you can find me on Facebook at Patrick Ryan. Um, we've got a meetup. So if you're in the Maryland area, we just started to meet up last month. Um, So it's in Northern Maryland, it's called ails and assets. You can go on Facebook and just type in ails and assets, um, west mins or carro county meetup, and come join us at the meetup man.

And, uh, yeah, you can find me at all different places. I respond to everybody just don't, you know, Asked me to invest in like your crypto scheme or anything like that. But, uh, , that was my next question. I'm not gonna do that, but, uh, yeah, reach out, reach out to me on there and, uh, I'm happy to help anybody.

Patrick, thank you so much for today. It's it seemed to fly by. So, uh, thank you so much and it's, uh, it's a great conversation, so much great, uh, advice and content and, and kind of next, um, Next kind of things to think about and get the brain worrying. So hopefully our audience loved it. Um, if you did leave, love it, you know, hit us up  or he is on the socials and, uh, we'll be back next week.

Patrick. Thank you. Thank you guys. And make sure to go lead this podcast to review on apple or Spotify or any of them. Five stars. Good, great point. I, I don't say that enough. So, uh, thanks, Patrick. And we'll be back.

Thank you for listening to the investor podcast, we all have a story. What's yours, the investor's podcast.