and I would say you’re more I’ve talked to other people too and got this heard this about James he’s more of like a sniper I’d say when it comes to like evaluating a deal and looking at deals he’s very selective which is Honestly made him very successful I think to where a lot of people look at a lot of deals and and I just I don’t know that’s one thing I’m going to pick your brain on today too James is how to be selective and find the right deals because I know patience can be huge these days so anyway that’s a little bit of James background James you can add anything to that and then I’d love to kind of just jump into your story a little bit how what got you to here today in 2023 that’s funny I was telling a group of investors last week that I’ve been investing for half my life I’m 42 so 21 years is half so I’ve learned a lot of lessons along the way a little bit of background that got me into it my dad actually taught the the real estate class in California at Introducing James and his entry into real estate Community College and so I’ve always had a bit closure to real estate through him and my original entree was sort of the house hack you know buy a house with four bedrooms ran three of them out so that was my first investment in 21 and learned a lot of lessons from there but it showed me the light so that was that was the original start for me wow what year was that you did your first house Hack That was 2001 2001. yep awesome oh that’s cool well cool we’ll keep going so I know you got a background too and uh when you’re actually when you’re working out in California before you kind of moved into real estate and you because you were doing managing what some funds or managing or you were go ahead yeah so I was an investment advisor by background I worked in Newport Beach at sort of a boutique investment management firm so that’s the lens that I bring on the real estate side as well just being able to evaluate cash flows and financial statements and really understanding and investment from the financial perspective and not everybody goes through that you know a lot of times you get emotional purchases or emotional buyers so I’d say that’s one of my strengths is removing that emotion and really just being disciplined about making a purchase so yeah I get to marry those two passions in my life the original passion of investor management and then today over the last 21 years with real estate it’s been a great combination yeah love it so another cool thing is always to get people’s background and like how they and even whether it’s real estate or whatever they got into like what did they go to school for and how did that kind of whether they use it today like I’m probably example where I don’t really use a whole lot of what I want to learn in college but other people though that have came into real estate had degrees College background and its influence that really propelled them but yeah I’m curious your kind of college background how that he used that today it’s funny you know they say 90 of people don’t utilize whatever they went to college for uh I guess I have the exception I was a finance guy and I I was actually in kind of a pilot program that allowed me to get my Certified Financial Planning uh certification at the same time so that was a great background so I used the finance component every day after that I went on to get my MBA which really was just a rounding out for myself kind of a polishing of Education I never intended to go back to the normal Workforce and be an employee so it was really just the the knowledge that I was hoping for at the time and kind of filling in between undergrad and MBA probably five or six hundred books related to investing flipping all sorts of you know development everything that I could find I tried to devour and I would say that those were probably as valuable as the formal education that’s interesting because that’s yeah how a lot of people have got it it’s through books yeah go into that more actually kind of the balance between yeah what you learn in through your MBA and through undergrad and into these books and how you kind of merge them all I think you know the idea of formal education is maybe the process of learning how to think or discern and you know make make just make decisions how to synthesize information really from the Tactical standpoint uh you know you get the Strategic maybe in formal education but I feel like the Tactical can often come from books or podcasts or online sources you know even you know things like this and that’s been really useful for me because one of the things I struggled with was implementation yeah the bigger ideas and theories that you might learn about in school or even in some books and figuring out how do I take the first step forward and make it a practical application so feed those books were a fantastic Bridge from one side to the other and it’s just amazing what people are willing to give you for a 12 book in terms of background and information I always say there’s typically one nugget that if you can snatch one thing from a book it’ll probably be life-changing so you know I kind of joke about it’s basically an overnight success 21 years in the making or 23 years in the making of having read and dissolved and uh you know digging in all that information really yeah just keeping compounding it book after book after book man yeah that’s uh yeah and so we used to kind of paraphrase that like the implementation sounds like you could get that from the books right because the books would give you something hey this is not only here’s the concept of it but here’s how people really probably good books where people showed how they implemented it and that’s that kind of helped you Propel you absolutely and I think you know in some ways when you hear somebody’s personal story it helps you break down the barrier of well how do I get this accomplished because you see that somebody else has done it sometimes they give you a blueprint and sometimes it’s really just giving you some perspective to say well this person’s no smarter or more better prepared than I am they just jumped in and made it happen and so it’s kind of like you know an accountability buddy that you might get not having it directly but indirectly from a book to say well this person’s done it I’m going to jump in and do the same thing yeah love it now it could totally relate to that because a lot of times it’s like yeah you I don’t know as you read a book you’re like if this guy can do it there’s he just laid it out for me I just got to go execute it now so so yeah to walk me through too how you kind of made that transfer from yeah from more being on the like Investment Banking side and like you said the boutique kind of fun type you’re in that space to kind of moving into more commercial real estate and even becoming an agent or is that all at the same time or how did that transition yeah it was a bit of a bit of Building a strong real estate network an evolution when I was when I was doing my investment advisory piece a lot of these high net worth people had significant Holdings of all types you know stocks and bonds were certainly a component of it many of them were self-employed or just hiring professionals but I noticed that among all of their Holdings as you’re doing planning for them many of them made a substantial portion of their wealth through real estate and so that was kind of interesting to me you know to see those case studies some of them owned real estate that their that they’re business operated within and leased out some of that space if they didn’t use it all a number of them had owned and purchased single family or multi-family properties some near them some from a distance and what started to happen was as I developed those relationships and reports with them they would bring me a deal and they would say you know this is a deal that I’m looking at in another state or that my real estate agent has brought me or maybe I’d be looking at they would be looking at it from a limited partner standpoint and they’d want me to just shoot holes in the deal and what I realized is the majority of these deals were terrible and they were happening you know as the as the last real estate cycle was up and coming and things were getting feverish and uh you know you sometimes struggle to tell people that the deal that’s in front of them that their friend or brother-in-law or whoever brought probably isn’t a great deal and I realized that I really loved the aspect of analyzing those and looking at ways to improve the cash flow or maybe change the strategy into a property and I thought there’s got to be ways for me to marry those two interests and so I’d already been kind of a small investor on my own and I decided there’s probably a way for me to add some value for myself and continue to grow my portfolio by increasing my knowledge and then ultimately I just decided I’m going to jump off and help other people on the real estate side both in commercial and in residential mostly investment and so I was able to take my background from investment advisory to take my interest in real estate and my experience kind of looking at those deals and bring it to fruition back in 2017 when I got licensed really okay cool man a lot of impact there so you mentioned too the last cycle so you were actually poking holes in in uh yeah in syndications or more or real estate funds or different types of deals so before pre-2008 huh is when you were yeah so I was looking probably 2006 and seven was when a lot of those deals were coming in you know hot and heavy and that was an interesting time because you just had deals that had no cash flow in markets that should have cash flowed you know and Rust Belt type of markets where people were seeking opportunity but yeah it was it was interesting for me then having had just marginal real estate investment background myself but I understood numbers and I understood opportunity cost if if these people were tying up their money and having a degree of risk and not getting a commensurate return it just didn’t make sense yeah oh that’s fascinating any other takeaways you saw back in before that big correction in 08 that you saw that you maybe even apply today you talked about a couple of them just not really having deals that wouldn’t cash flow but I’m curious even what they were uh what they were just spending on appreciation basically or yeah largely they were betting on appreciation and that’s the thing is that at the end of a cycle you often get people who don’t really understand what the fundamental drivers are and so they end up purchasing things with the expectation that the last five to seven years are going to be an indicator of the next five to seven years and that isn’t always the case you know a lot of markets have big swings uh Relocating to Cheyenne, Wyoming: A timeline both up and down so it’s really understanding a cycle when to be aggressive when to be conservative and I think identifying where you are in the cycle really should in many ways impact your investment plan yeah absolutely well that’s one of the big things we’re going to work on or jump into today and really get kind of from your background then to what we’re seeing in the market now and kind of your strategy but I guess before we get in there so yeah you just said hey became an agent started helping people in commercial and in residential at least in 2017 right is that and that was in and when did you actually move to Cheyenne Wyoming so I’ve been in Cheyenne since 2009 I spent about a year and a half in Fort Collins Colorado before that and then originally from Orange County California so I think I moved to Fort Collins in 2007. gotcha okay okay so you started helping and then yeah what did it look like kind of from say 2017 to kind of today um how you’ve kind of developed to be in becoming a Super productive agent and also building your own portfolios and becoming and yeah and raising money and capital on bigger deals yeah so a little bit of background there in 2017 I had two businesses that struggled and put me in a really tough Place financially and so that was really the impetus to jump off and become an agent full-time but what that did is it kind of hamstrung me for a while I couldn’t do much in 2000 2017 because I was moving into a new industry so I didn’t have the experience of that income behind me to get traditional financing and not having a significant Nest Egg to go invest I was sitting on the sidelines for a lot of 17. I think I bought one thing but what became clear was as I got more involved in the community and the investment kind of network within the area I was able to find deals and you know we call this being on the tip of the spear catching deals when they first come in either through your network of just other investors or other people who can be conduits to a deal attorneys and bankers and you know all sorts of people and being an agent certainly helps if you’re looking for smaller deals smaller multi-family or single family being an agent is helpful you can see it on the MLS You’re Building relationships with other agents so I just found myself in the catbird seat of all those things having come together at once they’re presenting a ton of opportunity so in 2018 I started buying with both hands um a lot of smaller multi-family fourplexes triplexes and duplexes and and then from there I started learning a little bit about syndication in 2000 late 2019 and that that was really kind of what opened my eyes into a different path of investing yeah talk more about that too because you’d obviously seen you’d been on the other side of it um with in your previous roles and seeing how other people were raising money in it and now you went to go obviously start to raise some of your own money knowing how to underwrite Deals how to poke how to poke holes in it before you probably presented it to your uh your LPS but yeah just curious how you how that evolved so I was very fortunate in my in my office here at my brokerage I shared a wall with somebody who’d already been doing um basically Partnerships you know they’ve been doing smaller Partnerships with two to ten people for probably five or six years prior to me getting introduced to him and uh he and I just kind of clicked we had similar goals similar interests and we found ourselves attending the same conferences uh you know like a lot of syndication related conferences as we were becoming more interested in wanting to grow our knowledge base and so that kind of became a natural for us we’re in a similar location we have similar interests and backgrounds and now we’re both wanting to get into that syndication realm so having having gone down that route we decided this is a small town there’s no reason for us to compete let’s team up so I had the benefit of somebody who really had a mentor in this space for probably six years so I wasn’t starting from scratch I was able to lean on some of the experience that they had packaging deals finding Money Getting It financed learning how to pitch it and that has made all the difference honestly learning it all yourself is certainly possible but it’s definitely a slower Road excuse yeah love it maybe we’ll we’ll dive into more like syndications and funds and kind of structure possibly later but yeah we started to touch on the yeah just the cycle of the market so Exploring the current market conditions curious your kind of outlook on what you’re seeing now and how kind of the moves you’re making again knowing you’ve seen you’ve seen the bigger Corrections you were in the game prior to 2008 saw the cycle and and yeah just curious I’ll let you go on that if you’ve got a ton of ways but what do you what what’s your plan yeah well I guess there are two answers to that it’s kind of the the larger overarching cycle that’s going on in the in the National economy and then maybe how my local market May differ somewhat I would say on a national basis we’re going to see a retraction 2023 is probably not a year to swing for defenses is what I’ve been telling people be selective about your deals be underwriting in a very conservative way whatever you’re packaging if you’re even if you’re a small flipper or you’re just a Buy and Hold or you’re you’re packaging things for syndication um definitely being more conservative in all your numbers I think that we’ll see softness probably into mid-2024 likely because it’s an election year we’re going to see a little bit of a little bit of dovishness or softness and probably see those rates often that’ll probably begin to move the market I would say in mid-2024 in advance of that over the next few months I think we’ll continue to see some softness there will be opportunities out there but I think people should be laser focused on what they’re what they’re wanting to get into in terms of asset classes if they’re cash flowing or appreciation place and just kind of making sure that those are out there in the world so you know exactly what the opportunity is when you come across it perfect yeah now that’s a good summary to yeah being conservative understanding whatever you’re doing yeah just really underwriting your deals so yeah and then go ahead I’d love to go into kind of specifically Cheyenne uh what you’re seeing because yeah there’s some markets where yeah you might not necessarily see it might not be a big correction yeah I would say depending on segment of price we’re seeing probably three to eight percent um reduction from values from the top what’s starting to move now I think we got really rough 90 days November December and January the market was almost dead and it’s a combination of the the cycle softening coming off of the top and also the normal seasonality that you get around the holidays in the winter here people don’t typically want to move when it’s terribly cold but with that being said over the last two weeks we’ve seen a significant change of action partially related to a little bit of rate decrease but I think at the end of the day the demographic drivers haven’t changed where you have the Millennials that are the largest demographic in the country larger than the Baby Boomers they’re still going through the process of housing formations you know graduating college or getting together getting married um which drives people wanting to have their own place either purchase it or rent it and so you know that those demographics that have not changed the demand is is not changed if anything it’s probably going to have some more pent up demand as people who were considering purchasing a year ago maybe have held off for the last seven to nine months those people still want to purchase something or they still want to make a move but it might have delayed them a little bit so we’re starting to see that thawing that’s what I’m reading Nationwide and that’s what I’m seeing locally that things are starting to move the projects that we did that were smaller projects we had after repair values and really we’ve only probably trimmed our our sale prices down three to five percent from what we expected those to be so not significant softness something we fortunately built into most of our models but certainly it’s it’s still a buyer’s market at this point interesting so that’s I wanted to dive into that because you talk to some people in places like Boise or Phoenix or some of these markets where it was like a 20 30 correction off of the high right but again you’ve seen so you’re saying like three to five percent is typically what you’ve seen yeah I would say around the median price point three to five you might see something a little closer to eight on the higher end and during the last bust in Cheyenne that’s about what we saw was the highest the area highest segment of the market got hit the hardest just because a lot of those people if you’re not a cash buyer you’re Levering pretty hard you know you might be a teacher and a firefighter making 250 a year stretching for an 800 000 home you know those people have gone away now because cheap money is gone and Cost and services considerations the cost of servicing that loan just isn’t feasible for them so that that really has slowed down that market which also includes new construction because mostly what they have to deliver are at the higher price point based on the costs the cost of building yeah interesting and you I was going to ask you about that too like what you how the market in in Cheyenne and you can just kind of use this in general for Wyoming I know you’re you’re no Cheyenne as well are the best but at you so historically in those years it was more of a flat line as you said it was the top of the market got hit a little bit but it wasn’t a big correction so yeah just I’d love for you to talk more about like kind of the drivers what causes that because I think a lot of people that invest maybe in other states they do see these big swings and they they also see big appreciation swings but talk more about just kind of the steadiness and or the or the constant appreciation you’ve seen in Cheyenne yeah so having been here since really around this area since 2004 but an investor here since 2009. this this the segment of this Market is really it’s fairly steady because there are a lot of what I call Guaranteed employers you see the federal government city state county a lot of times there’s uh it throughout Wyoming whether it’s larger towns or even mid-sized towns there are schools community colleges or otherwise sometimes they’re technical schools a lot of times those are drivers for employment that don’t have significant swings based on the booms and busts of the economy so Cheyenne specifically during the last bust Peak to trough roughly 2008 to 2009 or 10 wherever you want to call the bottom the median sales price point was down three to five percent so it wasn’t a significant swing and so you know when I talk to people about this Market specifically we’re sort of at the top of the Front Range region we’re getting a lot of overflow from people who want to leave Colorado as its Dynamics change both economic social cultural Etc but we have that steady employment here that that just doesn’t cause this area to bust but it also doesn’t boom in the same way you know we don’t see growth of 20 year over year um I would say since I’ve been involved in this market the largest year we’ve seen was probably about a 12 move wow wow yeah to me it’s fascinating and trying to explain that to people the Dynamics of Wyoming to where you’ve got consistent may not be huge appreciation but it’s consistent appreciation and you don’t have to see the big swings to where um because that’s where you can get caught and if you’re flipping or if you’re maybe syndicating or doing a big multi-family deal you could get caught in a in a big downturn and that might be a couple years or whatever but from what I’ve seen and what you’re saying is like typically it’s going to be pretty steady and up you might have some flat periods but even what do you I mean even like worst case like say you’re underwriting a deal and I know you do this James like kind of your worst case scenarios what are like your worst case scenarios in in specifically Cheyenne over the next 12 to 24 months look like well and I think it’s largely if shine gets sucked down it’s because the rest of the economy is really tanked and Nationwide we’re in a world of hurt and there’s been a lot of Analyzing potential scenarios postulation about what that looks like you know 20 to 30 retractions in some of these markets like San Francisco and some of those in the Sun Belt that have been extremely heated I would say from this point I would be surprised for Cheyenne to retract another five percent largely because all of the damage that is going to be done by rates has been done they probably don’t move up from here we’ve probably reached some sort of a midterm equilibrium if not likely seeing Improvement what you might see though is sort of a of a hangover of of people who haven’t made moves over the last few months who might in some ways get motivated to sell from Life circumstance change of job aging whatever it happens to be so I think we’re still likely to see some more things come on the market and we just kind of hope we have enough demand to to take all of that and absorb all of that new inventory I think that we will but if you look at what’s coming with the drivers for the Wyoming economy in general a lot of employers moving here because of the political and economic landscape there’s so much growth on the horizon that I think we will get pulled out of any potential protracted recession before most of the other areas in the country will and so from that standpoint it’s probably a very concern play to be to be in this market probably more so than many others and as people call me and they’re looking to make investments throughout the country they’re seeing this as a market that is stable and I don’t want to say it’s immune to Cycles but it’s less impacted by the cycles that are that are naturally in in the real estate world yeah and he backed it up with like again history shows us this and just the yeah the microeconomics the macroeconomics of just what’s happening in jobs and all that it yeah logically makes sense of why this isn’t just a yeah just James’s gut feel there’s a lot of data and a lot of people are seeing the same things it’s good stuff where do you think the real opportunities are and we’ve kind of talked a little bit about it but where are you seeing the big opportunities in the next 12 to 24 months because I know you’re be we’ve talked about it you’re definitely gearing up to to be ready for those where do you see those potentially coming they’re all over and uh you know I hate to hit one segment because people who might be listening to this or watching this might be playing in different Arenas but even if you’re a small investor and you’re looking to try to get into the game I see a great opportunity there to purchase something with significant concessions from sellers on price and closing costs and there are a lot of I would be hunting Sourcing deals through direct owners and investors rate assumptions right now if you’re a small investor looking for smaller deals try to find something where you can assume the rate and I’m in the middle of those right now a handful of those right now you can pick up something at three and a quarter when the Market’s you know double that or more probably for an investor so I would say that’s short-term opportunity where you can scoop something up with some price softness and maybe get a good rate if you can find an assumption if not find a good deal with the thought process that probably sometime in the next 24 months you can refinance it at a lower rate I think there will be some real opportunity in scooping up some larger multi-family and some commercial properties that have been purchased with cheap money that may have loan resets coming over the next probably 18 to 24 months when you’re buying something at three and three quarter percent and now your interest rate is eight and a half percent there are a lot of deals that shouldn’t have been done that really were marginal that become terrible deals that people are going to have to get bailed out of and so finding those deals either through directly through owners or even having conversation stations with lenders who might take some of those deals back to scoop them up for pennies on the dollar that’s where I see opportunity over the next two years yeah that’s good love that part and backing up a little bit when it comes to assuming rates so this isn’t really good so I didn’t have this one today but since you brought it up so investors typically that’s a big that’s a there’s a lot of value there right if you’re looking to to buy a deal assuming someone’s Loan in Us in any Market but especially in this market is there’s a ton of value and a great way for people to get in that maybe don’t have a cash but you being an agent typically the challenge what I see as a as an investor or buyer is um is even if it’s a listed property getting getting agents or someone to understand what you’re trying to accomplish because it is very unconventional but yeah what is your kind of thoughts on how you versus some agents that are maybe confused by that and or think it’s hey this is not some may argue that this is you you’re not even allowed to do that but I’m curious how you approach that and when it comes to like a actually an on Market deal on Marketing deals on the MLS a deal on the MLS so some agents have been Savvy and they’ll be marketing it as such as an assumable loan because they understand that it’s a great tool to get a property sold to the benefit of the seller if that isn’t an option and somebody’s really hunting and rate assumption is their primary goal I would have their agent probably look at properties that are on the market go back to the most recent sale that’s recorded on the MLS and see how it sold oftentimes they have they have financing data and they’ll show that it’s sold with a VA loan which was which is largely assumable so you might go hunting properties that are currently on the market that last sold with a VA loan and you might go hunt and see and make offers with assumptions in mind or call and talk to those agents and so that would be a way that I would be trying to find those that might not be advertising themselves as rate assumptions but would have that as a potentiality that is a great Golden Nugget James just gave you guys it’s yeah literally just search for go back to the records you’ll check out VA loans because as you mentioned those ones are assumable other loans that are not assumable can be a lot more complicated to make that happen and or even impossible but that’s a really good nugget cool well let’s transition I like talking for Creative Finance I could go for while there but let’s talk about more like raising funds and syndications Tips and advice for limited partners and kind of like the value I’d love for you to talk about more so you as the GP or somebody’s a GP but really talking to those LPS out there they want to put even in this current market right where maybe they’ve got some cash maybe they’ve been in the stock market and has it performed as well or maybe they’ve sold something or maybe they’ve just been keeping cash on the sign line and they’ve got an opportunity to get in now like what would you kind of say to those people I often look at risk adjusted returns and there are all sorts of charts out there historical data that shows how real estate has performed against every other asset class for those people who you’re largely raising money from they’re probably of an age that they’ve been through enough stock market cycles that they’re sick to their stomach with the volatility in the market which is dictated by so many things sometimes even just the legislative stroke of a pen and so you know in our conversations with people there are a number that have lost the confidence in the market uh the stock market specifically and they know they need to put the money to work in a productive manner they’re looking for some tax benefits and syndication is a fantastic fit because they don’t want to Valuable insights for new investors be dealing with tenants or trying to seek deals directly they really are looking for mailbox money and I would say the world is Awash with people who are looking to to put money to productive use and it’s really just giving showing them the value proposition that this is probably a lower risk opportunity than many of your other Alternatives it’s barely pretty much pretty much passive once you make the commitment to invest and it has some tax benefits that most of your other Alternatives won’t have once you navigate that process with people it kind of sells itself how do you do it whether when uh it’s a new investor who’s new to this and it’s been primarily had their money in the stock market and and maybe you don’t have a greater it’s not something you’ve known for a while but they’re interested in getting into it right because if they understand you and they know James Bowers or they know myself and they know we’ve been in the game and they’ve been producing returns but they maybe don’t quite understand the low risk of that how do you kind of walk those people through that they might still look at you like hey well again I’m this is a guy that I don’t have a long relationship I’m betting on his track record but I’m just curious how you how you make those people comfortable with hey this is as you mentioned this is a less risky return than the stock market but they might not look at it like that well you can break out all sorts of charts and data to support it if you get to that point then there’s probably been a breakdown in the communication or relationship our process has been finding other investors to do the sale for us let me give you a good example if you’re at the Country Club golfing and someone that you know well an associate or friend has been investing in one of my funds over the last few years they’re going to make the sale for you and say look this thing has been successful the returns have been consistent they make sure that they’re protecting the downside risk on the front end by doing all sorts of these things I utilize the Engaging private investors and limited partners other investors past investors and current investors in our deals and allow them to kind of make the sale and make the introduction because it can be often challenging to find somebody cold off the street and say you don’t know what syndication is let me explain it to you and why it’s the best option I’m not a sales guy by by Nature I kind of inform and let people decide but you can utilize the other tools that you have which are the other past investors or other people in their Network who have a relationship with you if you have the track record without that it’s a little more challenging yeah that’s good be back what would you say to a uh like a limited partner that’s looking to get into a syndication or a fund right now what are some of the things that you think that you would look at right now again you used to poke holes in that stuff what are some kind of quick tips you can give them well you always ask the question about you know what’s the worst case scenario and I think that’s what I would be asking now as a limited partner if they pay too much for it if you can’t sell it for what it’s worth if the operational costs are substantially more if you hit on all three do I lose all my money is this a terrible deal so I would be looking at it through what is the worst case scenario and have your general Partners thought about that and communicated those potentialities to you and kind of running you know running multiple scenarios we like to do this as we’re as we’re kind of looking at numbers on a deal if we don’t hit our Target or our expectation what is the potential return is that an acceptable potential outcome or is it not so I would say being very conservative in vetting experienced people who are playing in the space that they have some experience in a track record specifically in that segment and really understanding what the downside risks are and if that’s acceptable to you some people over the last few years are probably involved in syndications that maybe shouldn’t be because they don’t understand the risks because they haven’t been communicated properly and that’s one of the pieces that I’m always sensitive to yeah how do you what are some of the questions too there’s a way any tips you can yeah that you can ask to understand and hey does this guy is this guy just a function of a market that’s been going up for five years or is he actually understand the fundamentals and well and part of it is understanding I always ask the difficult question you know tell me about the worst deal you’ve ever done how did it go wrong well what have you learned and what would you do differently and most people if they don’t have a deal that’s gone wrong they might be too new to be taking outside money or I guess they could just be lucky but likely haven’t been in the game long enough so I think my dad always says I would rather go into battle with with the you know the grizzled veteran somebody who’s been through it doesn’t mean that they have had to have been in this for a very long time but certainly have had a lot of deals under their belt and seen a lot of things because there’s there’s a very very few things that can replace the direct experience of making mistakes and having successes yeah that’s thought on just asking understanding what they’ve been through like the hard times and yeah they just teach it so much I think you just drove a great Point home I meant to ask you earlier you were talking in 2017 that you had were just um gotten out of some businesses that didn’t go as well as you wanted I was curious were there any lessons from I’m sure you’ve got lots of them but lessons you learned from that that you’ve applied today absolutely well one is I got into two businesses that I thought Leveraging referrals and networking for secure investments were going to be passive so really understanding what passive means um and kind of defining your interest and potential involvement in an investment if whether it’s a partnership or it’s a business that you’re buying I chased things that I wasn’t passionate about had no background in no interest in learning and geographically we’re we’re not near me and so I probably hit the quad Factor there of things not to do but it was a fantastic learning experience for me to understand not to go do things just for the money um you know if you’re getting into maybe learning more about syndication either as a general partner or a limited partner if you become passionate about it and it’s something that you really enjoy you’re going to take the extra effort to go the extra mile to learn everything you can and that’ll help you avoid a lot of mistakes just having the passion behind the purpose for getting involved in something whatever it happens to be so I would say the lesson for me many of which but one is to just stay in an area that you’re absolutely passionate about because the education will be easy yeah love that man that’s good I was curious too you mentioned this earlier too talking about people Lessons learned from past experiences when you’re talking about um because you talked to LP limited partners or investors or people that are looking to put money to work in real estate across sounds like across the country I’m curious what you kind of you what you’ve seen or and or what you advise people as far as diversifying in different markets whether it’s Wyoming or Texas California east coast Sun Belt like what do you um yeah I’m just curious your outlook on that do you try to be Diversified do you try to have different markets with different appreciation different cash flow I’ve just over the last probably 18 months gone down that path and part of it is you know I get too heavy personally in certain markets and then you realize you have a degree of risk if something a Black Swan type of event happens in that market so I would say yes certainly finding markets that maybe they don’t necessarily have to run and counter Cycles but having having some variety there will help give you some protection but oftentimes I tell people stay in your lane so if you know and love self storage you can replicate that Diversifying across different markets self-storage Investments throughout the country I have typically decided to spend my time in markets where I find I have a competitive Advantage so I’m looking at tertiary markets markets with less than 150 000 people probably that might live in the shadow of a larger MSA because I feel like we have some competitive advantage in finding those owners those deals we understand the Dynamics that drive those markets they’re less competitive there’s not big money chasing those deals as often and you can get some better returns so understanding the markets that you can be successful in the asset class that you can be successful in and when you need to diversify I think most people understand that naturally that there’s a need to do that but usually not until you’ve really you know amassed some pretty substantial assets yes I love I’m going to want to dive more into the tertiary Marcus because me and you’ve talked about this and I have a lot of conversations with like why so I live in Houston Texas but I do a lot of our investing in Wyoming and Montana in these tertiary markets for some of those things you mentioned of like hey there’s Assessing potential risks not because if you have conversations with people in Houston or Atlanta or some of these other markets these bigger Sunbelt markets there is yeah there’s all these hedge funds all just a ton of money a ton of buyers buying stuff right but it creates so much competition to where if you’re trying to find those deals you’re competing against a bunch of people but it’s easier to sell them right but but when it comes to these smaller tertiary markets they just love to dive a little bit deeper into like and maybe what are some of those like the reasons why because some some people might make an argument that hey well in these tertiary markets they’re they seem too risky they seem like hey well if we don’t have all the hedge funds and all the money putting or institutional money there then maybe that market is more riskier but what would you kind of say to that and how really defining that really is there more risk in these tertiary ones well I would say the the risks are things that you can quantify and deal with more easily into the model you could hit on one which is if you have an asset in Houston versus having one in in Laramie Wyoming your buyer pool is substantially different but you need to bake that into the deal meaning you need to have a very conservative uh sale value or back-end value and so those are those things in many ways I find like are easier to predict let me give you an example if you have a market like Cheyenne that might take one step back and then you know it takes incremental steps forward versus a market like Denver which is one of the biggest swingers in the country where it takes five steps forward and then three steps back how do you predict your cash flows and really all of our investments on the syndication side or even as an individual investor are all about managing the time value of money how can how you can expect the potential future cash flows either from operations or from sales and in big markets it’s much difficult much more difficult to predict because of the volatility whereas if you’re in a market that doesn’t have significant volatility you’re less concerned about your your window to sell you’ll have a good time Horizon to sell in five years or 15 years whereas if you’re buying in Denver you know it’s typically 10 years up and two years down you don’t have to time your purchase and sale a lot more you know I would say a lot more diligently so from the standpoint of of risk if you’re if you’re looking at risk as a function of volatility which is how they often measure that in the stock market that’s why I like tertiary markets many of them don’t boom and bust in the same way so from the standpoint of compounding my money compounding investors money it’s much more easier and much more easy to predict yes it’s just about to say predictable if they’re so much more predictable than some of these other ones but yeah I love and I love how you the one thing I want to highlight you said is the basically you work it in when you go to sell like it’s your your back end value which you’re going to sell the asset for yeah you’re going to be more conservative and because maybe you’re not going to have all the buyers or all the as you mentioned the buying pool or you’re not going to have institutional buyers or a big hedge fund buying a bunch of properties but there are still going to be buyers and just be a little more conservative on the buy side yeah that’s really how you de-risk it but your cash flow should be much more consistent and you can find different numbers yeah that’s a really good recap okay and something else to consider is if you’re buying a deal that’s going to run 10 years full cycle in either Market Denver or Laramie your Denver deal may not have a huge payday until year 10. your cash flow might be minuscule you might be getting three to five percent cash cash on cash return whereas in a deal in Laramie you might be getting 12 to 15 cash on cash return every year and maybe you’re not going to Triple your investment at the end like you might in Denver it might only be a double but you’re getting the time value of money you’re getting your money back sooner in the Laramie deal and in a more predictable fashion so if you look at the internal rate of return how the investment actually performed you might have made more dollars in totality in Denver but it took you that much longer to earn it so those those soldiers those dollars didn’t come back to you for reinvestment so you know and when you’re banking on Purely appreciation there are so many potential things that can impact that are a long-term risk over a 10-year deal tax changes Finance changes things that are difficult to that are difficult to see and so if you’re hoping for the golden payday at the end and that doesn’t come in the Denver deal you’re in a world of hurt yeah that’s like it’s a really strong point because yeah again you got time value of money in these tertiary markets you’re getting cash flow and generally if you’re doing the right deal and yeah and then you’ve got a predictable payday at the end that’s really good the last thing to dive into there with these tertiary markets is you mentioned you guys kind of understand how to find them how to negotiate them how to look at the key drivers I’d love to dive more into that because again you it’s a it’s a different game than playing in in a big MSA but versus a Data analysis and research before investing tertiary Market how do you yeah how are you able to and I know we do a lot of this as well but I’m curious your perspective of how do you how do you know each one of those little markets that may be a little bit Niche or have specific just little intricacies and and maybe especially like when you’re not just in Cheyenne right like I’m sure Cheyenne you’re going to know the ins and outs of that but how do you know another tertiary market and get in there or you just Supply the same things so it’s interesting the approach can be sometimes different let me give you an example when most people are are looking at Austin or Houston or Denver or you know these these larger metros they’re sitting on their computer and they’re pulling up data from the past it’s always looking through a rear view mirror right and you’re so you’re guessing on the projections but largely you’re taking that data in a vacuum just pulling it from some Source if you’re often removed from what’s going on because it’s such a large community it’s tough to know what’s going on in there oftentimes in the smaller communities you can go visit or pick up the phone and talk to the people that are running the Chamber of Commerce so the Local Economic Development entities or go into the communities and talk to those lenders the people who are the pillars of the community they’ll tell you what’s going on they’ll tell you about the drivers and the Dynamics of how you gain data in those markets are very different and because there’s not as readily available data to analyze a Laramie or a Cheyenne the person who’s willing to put in the time to be the boots on the ground has the competitive advantage and so that’s what I mean by being in markets where we can have an advantage of somebody analyzing Cheyenne is not going to get on a plane and come have these conversations the same way that I’m willing to do and part of it’s the culture of kind of the Midwest or rocky mountain region um being willing to be belly to belly but I always tell people one of the greatest things that one of mentors told me when I started is real estate is a contact sport a lot of things happen belly to belly you can try to do deals and analyze them from a distance and make offers on things you’ve never seen that’s fine but the rubber really meets the road when you physically are there seeing what’s going on in the community and talking to people love it real estate is a compact sport I was just yeah that’s a great great takeaway and I love the relationship just so to summarize it’s a versus data in a bigger Market in a tertiary Market it’s more relational and you’re just knowing the right people and it’s both I mean you know you utilize site to do business and all the other places where you can find the data to aggregate it and I think that supports your case and you’re utilizing that as your underwriting or your your sharing that as a pitch and in a syndication so you have that but it’s not of the same quality and depth as would be available on the larger in a larger City so it’s as much art as it is science that makes sense that’s a great way to put it cool well yeah any other um that’s kind of that was we got through a lot of stuff today this is what I wanted to highlight um any other things you’d kind of say with Future advice for aspiring investors and how to connect on social media people that are looking to make moves over the next that’s as we’ve been talking next 12 to 24 months whether they’re uh an agent whether they’re an investor a limited vest or a limited partner what would you anything else thoughts you would you leave them with James I would just say be a student of the game and uh if you’re whatever segment you’re interested in if it’s syndication there are podcasts there are books their resources find a mentor if you’re wanting to be a small Buy and Hold investor find somebody in your Market that’s been successful that might be able to teach you the ropes of the game this is a great opportunity to keep some powder dry be very diligent about uh disciplined about the deals that you execute and learn as much as you can in in this opportunity of kind of what could be a quiet year but certainly present some opportunities I think we’ll see those toward the end of the year becoming more and more privileged awesome good well good stuff James I really appreciate you taking the time he gives a lot of good perspective on not only just a local Cheyenne Market but also National and even look at it fundraising to being limited partners to finding your own deals and what to yeah what to look for it’s been awesome a lot of golden nuggets as you may have learned by tuning in to this episode of Gregor sense the easiest way to make real estate investing hard is by going at it alone so as you continue learning and seeking knowledge of the industry I want to encourage you to build relationships with other professionals who are passionate about real estate whether that’s an agent a business owner or a managing investor like myself there are Pros that want to see you succeed and are willing to help you by sharing their experience you can always reach me by visiting Casey gregerson.com and scheduling a call I look forward to connecting with you and continuing to share my experience with you here on Gregor sense mobile until next time I’m Casey Gregerson thanks for tuning in