Nathan Smith, Founder of Clearwater Capital Group, joins us his journey from a single house to a Multifamily portfolio of over 200 units. We discuss seller financing, operating in multiple markets, doing deals without outside capital, and much more.
Connect with Nate on Instagram @dr_nate_realestate.
To join the DJE Investor list visit https://www.djetexas.com/access
For multifamily mentoring visit https://www.ApartmentEducators.com
Welcome to the DJE podcast where you’ll learn about real estate investing from real life examples. Here’s your host, Devin Elder.
Oh, hey. Hello. Welcome to the show. Really glad to have you with us today. My guest is Nate Smith. He’s a pharmacist and real estate entrepreneur and walks us through his journey of starting a house hack, a house that he bought and would rent out to his buddies and college friends. And that got him the real estate bug and he started buying more single family real estate after that and got good at it and got into owner financing and seller notes so that he could have a little more access to capital at some really good rates too.
So he kind of walks us through how he did that and then expanding into the multifamily world. So buying multifamily from duplexes up to a hundred unit apartment complexes. And so we talk about that journey and how he’s gone from that single house hack up to where he is now having 200 doors or so under management in all the adventures in between building a property management company and different things they’ve seen put into the capital together.
They’re not really bringing on outside investors. So he’s been able to scale that with a partner, which is really cool to hear how he’s done that. And so I think you’re going to enjoy this story. Nate’s a great guy. I’ve known him for many years and was really interesting to dive into his real estate story and his progression over the years up to now owning 200 doors. So we’ll jump into that in just a moment. First a word from our sponsors. And before that even, I’d like to say if you’re listening to the show, thank you so much. A five star review and Apple would mean the world to us that helps the algorithm and helps the reach of the show.
So if you’ve got a minute to go there and leave a five star review. And if you’re feeling really ambitious, maybe go into Chat GPT and write a glowing… Have it write a glowing review for the DJE podcast and stick that in there. But if that’s too much, I get it. Maybe it’s a five star review to help the old show here propagate through the inter-webs. Thank you so much. A word from our sponsors and then we’ll get into the show with Nate Smith.
This episode is brought to you by DJE Texas Management Group, a San Antonio, Texas based real estate investment firm with a track record of transacting on several hundred million of multifamily land and industrial deals throughout Texas DJE’s been in business for over a decade and is approaching 100 team members in San Antonio. To learn more about DJE, visit DJEtexas.com or the link in the show notes of this episode. This episode’s also brought to you by apartmenteducators.com, a complete ecosystem for professionals to learn how to find finance and operate large multifamily properties for profit. You can get started with a free mini course and learn more at apartmenteducators.com or visit the link in the notes.
Nate, welcome to the show. Very glad to have you. How are you?
I’m doing well Devin. Thanks for having me on.
Yeah, awesome. We’ll look forward to diving in, talking shop here and kicking around some real estate and business stuff. To kick it off, how about an intro? Where are you from? What brought you to the entrepreneur real estate game here?
Yeah, I’m just a small town kid from Wisconsin. My hometown’s like 500 people. Did the whole small town thing. Went to a little local state college there for undergrad. Went on to get my PharmD University of Wisconsin, which is kind of when my real estate career started. Did just a classic house hack while I was there. Dad paid the down payment, did that, rented out rooms to my buddies, lived in that. Not a great investment to be completely honest with you, but I learned so much. Managing leases, tenants, utilities. We remodeled the basement while I was there, so doing a rehab et cetera.
Sure.
Learned from there. And that kind of started it… As soon as I got out of college or actually I had purchased two more before I graduated. Then it just kind of morphed into buy-in at the time. At that time it was a lot of student rentals back in my undergrad market ’cause that’s the only spot I had competitive advantage honestly, because I had just lived there for four years. So I bought those for probably the next three or four years and kind of got to financial independence doing that.
And the last three or four years has kind of been me pivoting to newer built multifamily. So I don’t buy anything older than 1970s now and I’m anywhere between two and a hundred units, kind of a little bit underneath you guys, kind of where you guys operate I feel. But yeah, mainly in my markets in Wisconsin, that’s kind of where I’m super competitive, love the strong cash flow that the Wisconsin market has. Don’t get some of the appreciation that I’m sure you guys get, but that’s okay too.
Sure, yeah, that’s trade off there. Hey, on those houses you were doing… I guess on that very first house, what inspired you to do that? Was it your father? Was it books you read? Not everybody does. That seems like a cool place to start, but what sparked that for you?
Yeah, exactly. My dad owned the… He’s the town veterinarian in our small town, so he did own a business. There was small business talk in my life. I was always bent towards entrepreneurship pretty early on in life. I remember, I think my first panure was me diving at the local golf course in the pond and getting the go… And this is not glamorous. There’s all types of weird stuff down there, grabbing the balls, washing them off and selling them. My mom would bring them to the hospital she worked at and I’d sell them for five bucks a dozen, just super sheep and make a couple of bucks.
Yeah. So I guess I always had this bent. One of the big things that I think just kept coming up in the books I was reading, ’cause I did like to read a lot, was real estate. And another thing I often talk about is I was a commercial… Sorry, a charter fishing guide in Alaska and we take…
Oh, awesome.
Yeah, we take vacationers out. If you wanted to go out and fish, you’d look up my company and I’d take you out. And then naturally we’ll be on boat-
Is that like a summer thing or that you did that all the time for a couple years? That sounds like an awesome gig.
Yeah. It was perfect. So it was summers during college, it was the perfect gig. It was about a hundred days, usually memorial to labor day-ish, that’s when you went up there. The common scenario is you’re going to Alaska, I’d be on the boat with you and we’re locked on a boat and basically a bedroom for 12 hours. Yeah, there’s going to be some talking happening for sure. So I might say, “Hey Devin, what do you do?” And you’d be like, “I’m in real estate.” Okay cool.
And then what I learned to do is just ask some very open-ended questions because the people that come to my lodge were pretty wealthy people. It cost a fair bit. So eventually I’d ask something like, “Devin, if you were 21, 22, what would you do?” And you might say, “Hey, I’d look at real estate.” And it kept coming up with these guys on my boat. I just would ask them these questions. I’m like, I got to look at this real estate thing. I think that really kind of set me down the path.
Yeah, that’s cool and there’s nothing like somebody that’s already doing it and has the thing or is taking the vacation or whatever. You’re like, man, I want to emulate that person because a lot of times in our jobs we can’t find that person. Maybe we find it with our families that we’re lucky, but a lot of times in our jobs there’s no heroes to emulate. But it sounds like you’re spending all summer with prospective role models here. They’re telling you what to do. That’s pretty compelling.
Yeah, absolutely. And as you touched on… When you’re on vacation too, it’s a different aura, right? It’s like everybody’s guard was down, everybody seemed so happy. It’s like man, I want to be these guys. To your point.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. I love it. I love it. So you get that first house done and then you mentioned a series of houses after that. Capital as a young person in real estate… I mean real estate’s pretty capital intensive, kind of any way you slice it. So how are you handling the debt component, assuming you’re using loans and then how are you handling the equity component on getting these projects done?
Yeah, exactly. So when I started purchasing, some of these houses were a 100,000, 150,000 property. So pretty easy. And then I was coming out of school with a PharmD, so I made very good income right away.
What’s a PharmD?
Pharmacy. I’m just a pharmacist.
Oh, got you, got you. Okay. Excuse me. Yeah.
So decent amount of income. So I was probably able to clip off two or three of these a year just with my down payment money. And I started doing that and then I learned that there was a better way, I’m known for seller financing, so I’ve probably taken two and a half to 3 million in seller money over the years. So I got pretty good at just having an open conversation with sellers saying, Hey, my name’s Nate. I’m a pharmacist, I’m from this area. I have a great W2 here. Look at whatever you need to look at to feel comfortable. Let’s say you got a hundred grand house, I can get 80 over here from the bank. I got 10 saved up. Would you give me the remaining 10 on a three-year balloon payment matching the bank debt? Yeah, I’ll do that. It was kind of the right time. So yeah, it resonated.
So were you getting rates on in the fives on owner finance stuff or you giving them a lot more juice in that?
No, honestly I’d say five would be on the higher end. Honestly, a lot of times I would go in asking to match bank debt and if you remember bank debt at that time, three, four. And a lot of times they would, so I just had to show them my loan terms and then we were good to go. I think the highest I’ve gone on sellers second money is six and that’s more recently.
Sure, sure. That’s awesome. And you’re not dealing with the bank, it’s such a it better life lead. I mean, in our companies I’m always trying to figure out how do we do this deal without the bank? There’s ways-
Especially right now. It’s expensive right now.
Yeah, bank debt feels like hard money rates from a couple years ago. But yeah, it unlocks this whole world to do that. I want to get very specific. People get wrapped around the axle around loan docs and stuff like that. Have they never done an owner finance deal and they can’t kind of mentally get through it. How did you do that on some of your first seller finance stuff? Did you have a mentor or did you just go to the title company and said, hey, draw up the docs.
No, so like you mentioned, I had a mentor slash partner at the time who was further down the path than I was.
Love it.
And we did this deal, I think it was in 2015 or something like that. I was just kind of a fly on the wall. I was the W2 income, I showed very strong income to back this up. Had a kind of distress portfolio that was getting separated. Two partners were in mediation, separating it legally. They had to separate these assets. One side was a property manager who we knew and was going to keep his side for sure. The other side didn’t know much about property management and was very open to us taking over that half. So we were in close communication with them. It was actually a double close. They separated the assets in the morning and we bought his half in the afternoon.
And what it came down to is it was 32 units, across I think eight or nine properties and it was about 2.5 million. It was a full holdback. And I literally remember this, I walked into closing with a pen and my ID and I walked out with 50% of 32 units and I think we got a check for a hundred grand because you got prorated rents, you got your taxes. And then I think we got a 50 grand credit and I was just like, “What just happened? How is that just possible?” So that honestly opened the door. And to his credit it was honestly mostly my partner. I was kind of a deer in the headlights on that one.
The numbers can get pretty big. I mean even if you have a good paying job, you’re talking about multi-million dollar real estate deals. It takes some time to wrap your head around that stuff. But that’s fascinating man. What a cool kind of story to go through and then open your eyes to this whole private capital owner finance market. Okay, so that worked for some of the single family stuff, then you start getting a multifamily. What are you doing right now today? You mentioned two to a hundred units. What does that look like? What’s your buy box? What is a deal that would make sense for you right now?
For sure. I mean right now it’s anything that pencils, we were kind of joking earlier, it’s tough to find stuff that pencils, but if you’re like Nate, can you paint your ideal scenario? My ideal scenario is B-class that could be built anywhere from probably 75 to 2000. Anything newer than that, it’s harder to make pencil, the A-class is really tough that’s been built in the last say 10 years. I’d love a little piece of value add. My markets I know stuff good enough and I have my property management team in place and we can usually squeeze a little bit more than the average operator. So even if it’s at market, I can usually get another five, 8% out of the market based on just my systems and having a significant market share. But a little bit of meat on the bone is all I need.
Five, 10% value add to the layperson is more like 15 to 20 to me and I can really kind of run with it from there. Even the last couple years though, I’ll just buy stuff because the market did it for us. Right? Yeah. I mean last year was just phenomenal. Everything I bought in 21 went up 10, 15% just because the market said it was going to and rent wise you didn’t have to do your value add. But that’s not the case anymore. So it’s tough to find those value add deals and people that are willing to have those conversations about cash flow because it’s kind of been not as popular the last year, year and a half. People are buying this crazy stuff.
Yeah, different animal. At this point, are you bringing on investor equity, investor debt? Are you doing seller finance or how are you structuring the capital on these bigger deals now that you’re doing?
Yep. Yeah, exactly. So I’ve been kicking the syndication model. I’ve reached out to you several times as you know. You’ve been just a great wealth of information, kind of a mentor in that space for me. I haven’t done a syndication, I’ve always done my own capital. I have mentors that lend me money just on a straight return. I keep a hundred percent equity. Yeah.
Nice and simple.
Yeah, it’s simple and I don’t have to yet. My problem right now and what I imagine syndication would fix for me is as soon as I run out of money, I’m out of money and then I’m… We’re real estate guys, we’re millionaires, but we can’t afford Snickers. All our money’s deployed all the time. So that’s a constant struggle I have right now I’m building the war chest up and it’s pretty strong right now, but then I’ll deploy it and hopefully in the next 12,24 months and then I’ll be like man, I’m broke again. So I think the syndication model would help me out a lot with that. But until I really feel like I’m coming across all a plethora of deals that I can take down confidently, I’ll probably just keep clipping them off myself. I can keep doing it.
I think that’s an awesome model. I mean that’s simpler for sure and if you get a sweet spot of deals, a market, a deal type that you like, there’s no reason not to just keep doing that. I mean just because you could go and raise money doesn’t mean you should for anybody listening, right? It’s a very different animal when you’re raising other people’s capital for sure. I mean a totally different standard of care in my opinion. In most people’s opinion raising capital, they feel much more obligated to that third party capital as they should. And if you got the ability to do it yourself, man that’s great and you kind of keep growing bigger and keep rolling it forward. Next thing you know look back and you know get this portfolio that you don’t need partners on. And I like what you said about the debt too.
I was just talking to some friends of mine that were trying to put a deal together and it wasn’t multifamily, some other type of deal and I was like, they’re trying to figure out an equity structure and it was kind of getting complicated. I was like, just see if you can raise some debt. It sounds like a short-term deal. Your investor, who’s now your basically lender, they know what they’re getting. It’s cut and dry. And so we’ve done a lot of debt deals too where it’s just quite simple. Your investors are not hanging on waiting three years to wonder what the market’s going to do for their IRR, which could vary wildly. It’s just kind of like, hey, give me x amount percent return and return it by this date. Boy, that’s a win for a lot of passive capital for sure.
Yeah, exactly. And my mentor is one of my main lenders and there’s like a cycle I think a lot of investors go through. You’re pretty active in the beginning. Maybe you transition into a syndicator operator, then the back end you’re kind of just trying to manage your herd and your herd is your money and you don’t mind taking three, four points off of what you’re going to get just to be safe. At that point, you just don’t want to lose it. Right? And that’s kind of where my mentor is just he’ll take just a five, 6% return and he knows it’s safe and he wants to help me out.
A hundred percent. And at that point for somebody there’s like a spectrum of labor on one side and capital and you kind of start on the labor side and hopefully if you want to progress over the capital side where you’re just deploying capital and for that person it’s very much a return on hassle and return on risk.
Exactly.
I could get maybe a higher IRR but then my hassle goes up, my risk goes up and I don’t really want to do that. A lot of people are in that situation.
Yeah, exactly. And that’s what we’re trying to find right now, is the risk of owning an asset right now just doesn’t seem to be worth it. There’s not a premium to owning that asset right now, so that’s tough.
Yeah, a hundred percent. So what does the portfolio look like today? Have you cycled out as some of the single family? Do you still have that? Are you in multiple markets or what’s the footprint look like today?
Yeah, so we’re at about 200 doors across all markets right now. I’ve sold a few. Everything I purchased… I think I sold six or eight properties the last couple years just because people are just paying pretty good prices for them. I still own probably a dozen single family homes. I still have a lot of those student houses. They’re paid down way down. They cash flow extremely well. Use them sometimes to pull equity for big deals obviously and things like that.
But yeah, I’m in about three markets mainly. Kind of the Green Bay Appleton area, the Eau Claire area. And then in the central there’s something called the Wausau Stevens Point area. Those are all markets in Wisconsin. I guess Green Bay Appleton, [inaudible 00:19:00] probably closer to a half million. The Wausau area that’s kind of about a 100,000 and Eau Claire is probably 150,000. So smaller markets than San Antonio or anything like that. But that’s our bread and butter and keep holding and cash flow’s good so we’ll keep going.
Yeah, I love it. And no exit pressure. I mean if, gosh you don’t have a bunch of LPs on it, it’s like just keep holding. We’re in Texas, you’re up north there. What is the climate introduced to the real estate investor in your neck of the woods that maybe we don’t think about down here?
That’s a great point. We obviously have a lot of humidity up there. So things go… I don’t know if this is true, but if I run through the analogy, you’re guaranteed you’re going to hit 20 below, at least there. Let’s say it’s just to be conservative 20 below at some point in the winter and it’s going to get to a hundred. So all your materials are going to see 120 degrees swing every year.
Sure.
No matter what. Those are your two extremes. But things have to be very durable. And then obviously we usually have a couple weeks where it doesn’t get above zero. So then you’re worried about… Especially with the older houses I invested in early on, you’re worried about pipes freezing so you need to make sure you got really good heat wrap tape, really good installation. Sometimes on the student rentals, if everybody knows how colleges go. They usually go home just before Christmas and don’t come in back till mid-January.
Yeah.
We are babysitting them. “Leave your heat on, do not turn your heat off.” Some of them we know… I got rid of a lot of my problems in the last couple years. Some of them we know would freeze every year. Should be like, hey you got to leave this faucet on as a trickle ’cause it’s going to freeze if it gets below -15. We just know it is.
Sure.
So stuff like that that you don’t necessarily think about. Right now, is a big problem. Just like in mountain properties we get ice dams. So water has this weird property, maybe nobody thinks about this but everybody knows it. Water has a very weird property. I’m a chemistry major, so this is weird. Usually things go from a gas state, which is when they’re the biggest down to a liquid state and then down to a solid state and they keep getting smaller as you go down, water is one of the only substances that goes gas state big, liquid big or smaller.
And then solid bigger water expands when it freezes. Right? Yeah. It’s one of the only things that does that. And what that does is every time… If you think about the spring thaws, so water’s melting on all my roofs right now all day, but then it freezes again at night and it expands the crack just a little bit and then it does the same thing next day and it expands it a little bit more. That’s why our road care in the north is way more expensive. Our property taxes are super high because of that. Every little crack in those, that asphalt road just gets widened every time it freezes and melts. So that’s water’s our big thing up there.
Yeah, that totally makes sense. Do you guys have snow plowing and stuff in your line items for your multifamily stuff?
Huge deal. Yep. Yeah, absolutely. So it depends on how big the asset is. If it’s a big apartment complex, you’re looking $500 easy every time it snows. So I mean you’re hoping for just a couple big snow storms and not these one two inches that happen two to three times a week, but you can’t really control that. But yeah, it’s a huge deal.
Yeah. Yeah, that’s interesting. Such a different kind of probably P&L than we’re used to seeing. We got our own problems down here. But that’s interesting. I appreciate you sharing that. So you spread out into these markets which are relatively geographically if you zoom out nationwide, they’re relatively close but still it’s not like it’s all on one block or one neighborhood. How are you guys handling management. I’m especially curious around some of these assets are smaller, so what does property management look like for you guys? How do you handle that being that some of these assets are smaller, they’re geographically dispersed.
Yep. Yeah, so I had started a property management company with that same mentor back in the day. So I sold out of that in 18 and we kind of took that to each market we went to. It has since actually retracted out of the Green Bay Appleton market. So I have a third party PM there which we can talk about is all… Has its own can of worms managing the property manager. But that same property management company that I sold out of, manages the assets in two of the markets, very comfortable. We have a strong market share that that allows us to manage those small assets and we do manage other people’s stuff mainly to just keep market share like that.
Yeah, that’s interesting. Taking on third party clients, do you guys actively look for those clients or is it just referrals, people know you? How do you kind of approach that?
Yeah, so I do think they are actively, again looking, we’ve waxed and waned on that. So my experience, and I think you have a similar mindset on this as well. There’s a couple of advantages to managing other people’s assets, but there’s not a lot, to be honest. This isn’t a glamorous business. You’re not rolling around in cash. The two advantages we saw is when we scaled and took on other assets and I don’t think you have this same advantage because your scale is already there. Say we had 50 or a hundred units at the time and we brought on 300 more of other people’s that allows us to get a more skilled maintenance technician that I couldn’t support on my own hundred units or a full-time CPA. Right? So we got to play bigger than we were at the time I guess you would say. Not that you guys have that problem ’cause you guys already have [inaudible 00:24:34]. And then the other thing is-
Yeah. It’s a constant battle to try to… I mean you staff one person on your management company that’s a payroll burden every month and you got to spread that across a certain number of units. I mean it’s definitely a balancing act. I mean if you’re in the private equity side, the money’s there on the property management side, there’s no money there. Start a property management company unless you own a bunch of stuff.
That’s exactly it. And then the only other advantage, and again that has nothing to do with profitability, but sometimes, and I did get a lot of units this way is if owners were going to sell, we’re usually the first second call. So a lot of times I got first look on things and I did take some units down. Yeah.
Yeah. It’s like the property management benefits are almost all ancillary, right? Better performance.
Exactly.
Maybe first look at deals, none of that shows up on a P&L for the property management.
For the property management company. Yeah, that’s exactly right.
But a lot of times beats the alternative though. It’s tough out there. Yeah, we’ve done a few third party clients, but our thought is it’s just so intense dealing with different owners and everything and so what I feel like’s inefficient and then the fees are so small. I mean, we’re collecting three 4% of revenue on the property side, which even on a 200 unit property is just not a lot of money.
No, it really isn’t. And some owners, there’s just so many different styles. You think every owner has your style, hey, I’m going to fix this issue. I’ve always been big on over renovating and fixing issues before their rise. That’s not the case with most owners. So they get mad.
They got to write checks for that stuff.
Exactly. So yeah, it’s tough dealing with those different personalities for sure.
Yeah, yeah, for sure. But it’s a balancing act and it’s always interesting to hear people’s take on the property management side. So what do you see… We’re talking in 2023 here, the fed raise rates 25 basis points yesterday and the banks are blowing up around us. Kind of interesting times here. We’ve been in a rate hiking cycle for close to a year now. What’s on the agenda for you guys for the rest of the year? What are you looking at? Is it pencils down? Are you looking at different markets or asset classes? Are you just looking at the same asset classes? What are you seeing in the kind of months and in the rest of the year here?
Yeah, absolutely. I wouldn’t say pencils are down. I mean my pencil’s always up if the deal works as we talked about.
Sure.
It’s tough to make things work. I did get something the other day that comes across that works. It’s an early 1970s built, just a duplex in a market that owner just kind of wants under what I know market value is and it does cash flow pencils marginally, but I just know it’s probably 25% under where it would go on the MLS. So we might just do a quick little flip on that.
Nice.
I like using 23 to build cash. So on this one I’ll probably take 60, 70 off the table if it goes how I plan it anyways. And just building that up for better opportunities I think in 24, near the end of this year into 25 for the long term hold side of things. Definitely not against holding it. Just things got to have multiple exits right now. So this one, like I said, it pencils and actually kind of meets my buy box. I think it’s like a 7.8 cash on cash, so it’s not smoking. Usually I want eight plus, but that kind of gets close to my buy box.
So if I end up having to hold it, no big deal, but I probably will try to get out of the asset quicker just to get my cash back if I can. But yeah, multiple exits is huge for us right now. Don’t want to be pigeonholed onto one business model. So here we looking at some mountain properties for… You can STR if you want to do that, but regulations are coming down so it kind of has to pencil as a long-term rental, otherwise we’re not doing it.
Tough. That’s such a good point. I don’t have any STR stuff I used to… But always the regulation aspect of it always scared me and I think it’s really smart, especially if you’re listening and considering STR, have some options if can you at least break even or have a minimal negative carry if you’ve got to throw a 12-month tenant in that thing and you’re buying $6,000 worth of furniture, whatever. I totally agree and it’s going to make your life a lot easier and make you a lot more money if you’ve got multiple options and exits going in. For sure.
Yeah, it’s incredible, the regulation issue. And then the other project we talked about briefly that is going on right now is just kind of a personal in Colorado, but again from the multiple exit standpoint, we’re going to live in that house, but we’re walking into a couple hundred grand of equity. So say things go wrong in the business and I got to bring the register, I know I’m still in a good spot to do that. I didn’t pay market value. So I think that’s super important right now, is just being able to get out of whatever you’re going to get into. And to your point on STRs.
A bunch of the GoBundance guys, one of the big counties here in Colorado where I live, Summit County, it includes like Breckenridge, Keystone, Frisco, Dillon, Silverthorne, they just went from unlimited STRs… They’ve been starting to regulate that down to certain areas, but your grandfathered in now they’re just trying to pass something for only 36 days a year, and I know a bunch of the-
Oh, my word.
60, 70 stays a year and they’re like, “Oh my God, we’re getting crushed.” And they bought on those numbers where they could do unlimited stays. That’s going to be very detrimental to that market.
And if that thing doesn’t pencil as a long-term rental, which it’s tough, a paid close to market for it. So yeah, I love the optionality of getting into these things. I think that’s really smart. What would you say… So you’ve been at this for a number of years, you’ve been successful, you’ve had a lot of different approaches, asset classes, love the way you approach capitalizing these deals with some of the seller financing. If somebody’s starting out in this game or maybe you when you were just starting… Now with the benefit of the hard one wisdom, what do you say to somebody that’s starting out or wanting to get a real estate or maybe you’re on that boat and there’s that 20 year old guide out there and you’re on your vacation and he’s asking you what he should do. What do you tell that person?
Yeah, I would preface the conversation I will list too. There’s just some old adage that usually what was good the last decade maybe isn’t going to be so good the next decade. We’ve lived through just a phenomenal decade of real estate.
Yeah.
I will say that the vintage of real estate investors that are getting started today in the next three years are going to be… Now, I think I can say this on your… Kick ass because they’re going to have to figure it out and they’re going to really come up in a tough, tough environment. Tougher than I came up in even willing to say that. I came up in a pretty easy environment, so they’re going to have to really figure it out. They’re going to maybe be tougher than me in 10 years, but it’s tough to get started right now.
But I solemnly believe, and I would tell the 20-year-old kid, if it’s to be, it’s up to you, man, and you can do anything you want on this world if you want it bad enough, you absolutely can find deals in this market there. We still find them on a monthly basis. They come across our desk. You can do it, but there are some headwinds right now. But again, my overarching theme is the vintage of real estate investors for the next three years are going to be awesome if they make it.
I love it. Yeah. Stronger the wind, stronger the trees, right?
Exactly.
And on that note, it’s going to take out this entire swath of people that otherwise might be doing it that are just not going to make it or not even going to be able to enter. And so your competitive pool goes down too. And I totally agree with you. We’re always trying to make deals pencil, always looking, always ready to buy. Sometimes they’re easier than others but that’s just the game. If you’re going to play it, you always got to be… Somebody said it, always stuck with me, “Hey, I’m a professional investor, this is what I do. Sometimes you’re better than others. But I don’t just sit out three years waiting for something to happen. I’m a professional investor is what I do.”
So I think that’s a very, very valid point. That’s exciting, man. I love hearing your story, love hearing what you built and can’t understand how you guys deal with the snow in the cold, but obviously you figured that out. You probably can’t understand how we deal with 110 degree heat down here, but we figured it out. If somebody listening, Nate wants to connect with you, what’s a good avenue for that?
Honestly, my Instagram, I’m doctor_nate_realestate. Try to put out some daily content there. Get right down into it. Just a lot of numbers stuff. Show you how I structure deals, walk you through all the sellers stuff I do. So if you find value in that, give me a follow.
Awesome. Well we’ll link to IG there in the show notes. If you’re listening to this show, you can scroll down and click through to that. Nate, it was a pleasure having you on, man. Great catching up and wish you guys success in the year ahead.
Yeah, you guys too. Can’t wait to catch you on the next conference.
Awesome. We’ll see you.
See you man.
Thank you for listening to the DJE podcast. For more information, please go to DJEtexas.com.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Email