8. You Don't Need to Invest in Your Own Backyard with Yuri Gomez

Today’s guest is Yuri Gomez — a seasoned investor who offers wisdom to new apartment investors. Yuri explains how he’s bringing massive value to South America investors, the benefits of scaling up in U.S. multifamily apartments, overcoming fears as an apartment investor, and why anyone can succeed in real estate with the right knowledge and effort.

LISTEN FOR THIS

• One of the benefits of apartment investing is that you can invest anywhere when you have property managers who are handling the day-to-day operations. They are local people who know the market and represent the investors.
• Yuri specializes in helping his Hispanic audience invest in large multifamily apartments in the United States.
• Through education, Yuri strives to eliminate the fear of apartment investing. Understanding the strategy and process is what encourages investors to take action and invest.
• Questions to ask about an apartment investment include “What is the break even point?”, “Is it a market with high appreciation?” and “Is there a high population growth in the area?”
• When vetting someone to invest with, find out how many deals they have done, have they gone “full cycle” with an investment and if they have invested their own money into the deal. 
• There are great benefits to investing with someone who belongs to an apartment investing group. Yuri and Matt both belong to “Think Multifamily” which is a group of people who are extremely experienced in multifamily apartment investing. The group provides all the resources to ensure successful investments.

QUOTES
“Define what are the most important next steps and start doing them you know right away."

“One thing I have learned is diversification. Diversify, diversify, diversify. If you have three deals in the same city I recommend your next deal should be in a different city.”

ABOUT YURI GOMEZ
Yuri Gomez is a Real Estate investor, actively involved in small and large multifamily apartments. Yuri is passionate about teaching his experience to others while always learning how to become a better Real Estate investor.

CONNECT WITH YURI
Website: golandscapital.com 
@yurialexinvestor on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and TikTok

CONNECT WITH US
Learn more about passively investing in apartment buildings:
Website: hansenholdings.com
Free Webinar Training: hansenholdings.com/webinar
Schedule Call with Matt: Schedule Intro Call
Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram

Transcript

Well I'd like to welcome to the show my good friend Yuri Gomez Yuri welcome to the show hello Matt how you doing good good well I'm getting to share a little bit about your background and then we're going to get more deep into that but you're a Savvy real estate investor already you invest in large and small multi-families I know you do a little Airbnb stuff pretty well Diversified in that you're really passionate about helping others learn about investing in apartments specifically and you do something really great you do you put out a lot of educational content in Spanish when there's a lot a lot of people doing that which I think is wonderful you're giving exposure to a lot of people that haven't heard or seen about it um through through your your content so I think that's wonderful we're going to chat a little bit about that so let's go ahead and start with how did you get involved in real estate how did you discover real estate so I was working for a telecommunications company I had a W-2 career job um very happy at it and then I met a co-worker that started doing real estate uh on the site um you know fast forward he created an Empire worth millions of dollars in only a few years wow and he was a close friend of mine and I really gotta first see it uh looking at all of his success how good he was doing um I got to ask him a lot of questions when he started investing he was still working he was my co-worker so I got a first seat uh looking into all his success when I bought my first multi-family he gave me a lot of coaching he really mentored me and held me um you know how to start because I wouldn't have done a four-plex by myself without you know any experience knowledge I had some guidance you know I had this friend of mine that helped me every step of the way then we did a few more multi-family buildings and then it would start um you know it was the time to scale and then that's when I got introduced into the large multi-family excellent excellent that's really good in What markets are you primarily focus on I've invested in Texas and Florida for the most part most of the projects deals that I'm invested in are in Florida right because you're native to Florida so that it's convenient for you to do that but I love the fact that you're investing outside of your your state you know they say live where you're on a live invest where it makes sense so that's what you do but Florida is one of the the top one or two markets from population growth and employment growth so you're already there and you're you've got home court advantage on that one Gary which is great yes and one of the benefits of large multi-family is that you can really invest anywhere you have property managers that are handling the day-to-day uh you're basically just auditing inspecting that the business plan is it's it's going up to plan so um you get to invest anywhere you want and the the criteria should be invest in a good Market you know that it has uh is adding uh uh population growth employment Growth Properties are going up there's a lot of this a lot of metrics that we use um that make it uh really attractive to just choose a market because of the numbers and it doesn't matter if it's a couple hours of flight uh it really does not matter uh you have a property manager that's going to take on the day-to-day and you just go whenever you need to go really yeah that's the beauty of passively investing you don't have to be the boots on the ground and that's where we have you know local people that know the market really well and they they kind of represent us you're right you know in that fashion let's talk a little bit about again I mentioned earlier in the intro is that you're you're one of the few people you're an influencer I'll say in the Spanish-speaking market in terms of educating people on you know what you can passively invest in real estate and I know so many of your investors are from South America specifically Columbia so tell us a little bit about how you're doing that and how you're spreading the word of okay don't rely on traditional stuff that may be more risky this is actually one of the lower risk adjusted Investments you can do so tell us a little about how you're doing that so when I started you know I was targeting you know an audience uh what was what was who's going to be my audience and I realized that investing in large multi-family requires some education you don't really have to be an expert because you got guys like us that are going to do all the job and you're basically just passively invest and you just get a return and you just wait um but you know on my side there's still some education that needs to or we need to explain different metrics that we use what constitutes a good deal um what are the markets what do we look for in different markets so as I was going through that education you know I got like a light bulb moment when I decided why not teach this to Hispanics um you know I I of course I started with Colombia but I've also had um investors from Guatemala um I have um very good leads in Mexico so um I I am start I am basically talking to a Hispanic audience in general uh teaching them how to invest in large multi-family in the United States and they get a lot of benefits not only they get the returns from investing um you know in these larger deals which have better returns than smaller deals but also they get that currency growth you know the dollar is always appreciating in value uh just this year the dollar has appreciated 20 um against the Colombian Peso so that's another um type of return that the investor is getting because uh the dollar keeps appreciating we are going into into uncertain times and during times of Crisis you're always going to look for a strong uh currency um from a strong Market which is the US so right and you'll get that Global patriarchy you've got International clients if you will so is what is what's different about somebody in another country because I know we've investors in Canada and some from Europe occasionally what is there any specific challenges how do they invest do they have to use an LLC can they use their name tell us a little bit more about that yeah so speaking about the challenges they're very similar um and you know outside the U.S it's very similar you know there are some specific laws that apply in different countries as far as Colombia it is recommended to do it through an entity if you do have a Social Security in the U.S because you you're a citizen of the US but you live um outside of the U.S or you were arrested at some point and you're a are you still um you know do taxes in the U.S then at that point um you can invest um as an individual most of my investors end up going The Entity route um it is the easiest if you are a foreign that don't really do taxes in the US you're going to start doing taxes because you don't have investments in the US so they start with an LLC is one of the most typical ways of doing it it is case-by-case scenario so it doesn't mean that everyone has to do it through an LLC but it is one of the most common vehicles to invest in the US then that way through that LLC they can do taxes in the US as an as a foreign so they create a U.S limited liability Corporation with an EIN number so basically the LLC will have its own social security number that's how they set that up that that is correct and then we have people here that we recommend um that we refer to so that they can help them through the process because um there's also the language barrier it's one of the big challenges um that investors outside the U.S especially in Latin America have um a lot of them don't speak English or maybe their English is very um it's minimal so that's where I come to help um my referrals I have accountants lawyers they're all Spanish-speaking they're usually based out of Florida and what I do on my part is that through my social media platform I do educational videos to show them um you know to just teach him um all of the little details and things to know about investing in the US all in Spanish that way because you investing in the US can be scary for a lot of people and you know the way to mitigate that fear is through education so that's that's what I do I educate them really well with all the videos that I post I'm on Tick Tock YouTube Facebook Instagram and just through my education in Spanish you know show them um what are all the things they need to to know so that instead of being fearful they can get educated and be ready to make that first step and say okay I'm gonna go ahead and take action that's so powerful that's you're doing such a great thing so you've created a resource or kind of like even like an ecosystem of okay if you're in South America and you want to invest here I'll help you I I've got contacts that are tried and true that okay you trust these people to set up your LLC correctly accountants and all that because to somebody go out to you live in Colombia and try to do that on your own would be so difficult and you you know you you run the risk of okay you're dealing with somebody that doesn't really know what's going on or there's a language barrier and all that so that's wonderful it's an additional service that you kind of provide is like okay you know it's just to help them you know position their money in in the US that's wonderful that's really good um let's talk a little bit about the deals that you're doing what do you think is a good investment right now with what's going on in the world like where are you primarily focused on what type of asset classes you like so um talking about the deals one of the things that um I like uh with my investors is uh to invest in deals that have uh prefer returns just because of the uncertainty in the markets um right now um deals where we have what we buy it's everything over 85 percent occupancy um actually I would even say most of the deals that we get involved are 90 occupancy having a high occupancy is going to help us in times of Crisis uh when we have um times that are not as good as as we've had for the last 10 years um unemployment starts going up when unemployment unemployment goes up in the market where you have invested uh then the occupancy is going to go down right so by buying properties that already have a high occupancy that are already cash flowing from day one you have that um you know you have that mattress or Gap right that can help you even even if occupancy goes down 10 uh if your occupancy equilibrium is uh 65 then then you are still um paying the debt uh paying all the operating expenses and generating some returns um to your investor so we do like uh 65 60 65 to 70 percent um to be the occupancy equilibrium what that means is basically at what occupancy are you still able to pay the bills so that you know you're not going to be in trouble so so we like to have that um that gap or that mattress there's uh to work with um and and the way uh we we know that our investment is conservative excellent that's good that cushion because you're right you started at 90 and if things go bad even if you lose 10 of your occupancy you're at 80. and it would call the break-even point equilibrium point the Breakeven Point like in most of the deals we do and we do you and I do similar deals is that it's like 65 or 68 so you can go all the way down to that before you have to worry about okay we're not cash flowing or you know so that's real that's a that's like the Golden Nugget of the day is like make sure when you're passively investing in a deal somebody shares that you ask that question what is your Breakeven Point yeah and another another thing that that we we like to look at is we invest in markets that have a high appreciation in rent um also that it's creating a lot of jobs so that's gonna because um you know High population growth which is what brings uh rents uh up could be temporary but employment is not temporary if you have a lot of uh companies um that have you know tens of employees or hundreds of employers or thousands of employees that are moving into the market where you are investing that's a trend that could last a decade so you're going to have a lot of growth um so even in uncertain times you will have some growth and you're able to continue to raise rents and continue to field your occupancy excellent excellent It's really some really good tips there for uh particularly for your new passive investor you need to look at all those details what are the things that should a new investor look at when they're vetting the general partner the person they're going to be investing in what do you what do you look for and I know you're you're great at this that's why I'm asking like how do you treat your investors what should they what are the standards they should be looking for when they're looking to passively invest with someone so one of the most important things or the most important thing um whenever you are considering uh doing an investment with a general partner it's to ask the right questions that applies for every business you know the like I was talking about you first get your education the education is going to allow to take action and to have the knowledge to know which questions to ask so you should ask the general Partners first of all who are the general Partners how many deals have you done you know as a group and individually the the general partner you're investing with um have they gone full cycle full cycle means have they bought a property operated it and then sold it so when you go through the through the full cycle um I don't think that's a it's a deal breaker if if some of the general Partners have not gone full cycle but it's important that some of the general Partners have gone full cycle so they have that experience that they bring to the group um that's going to help us in making the best decisions you know at any point also are you investing as a general partner are you investing in the deal that's very important that um that you as a general partner have some skin in the game so as an investor you want um again not a deal breaker but it but I think it would be nice if the general partner is investing in the deal so that um he or she has uh skin in the game so you know they're heavily invested and the you know you have um aligned um values uh the passive investor and the general partner because you you are are both investors in the deal so that's very important so basically ask the right questions that's going to lead you to understand or to have an idea if it is a if it is if it is a good group you're investing in or if you should just you know continue to look at other groups uh you know to to invest I like and one of your key points that you said is that look at all the general Partners not just the one person what who's backs up that person if that person steps away or something happens to them so I love the fact and that's where I got caught years ago and one of the Investments I went into I knew the one guy I didn't know the other partners really well and that one guy stepped away and when the deal kind of went downhill a little bit but because I didn't vent all the partners know who the asset managers know who's the other General partners that are going to run the show some so that's a really really great tip is to to really make sure you look at the whole team and ask lots of questions that's the whole point is ask a question and that's why you do you do such a great job of Education people educating people up front so when they do come in time to invest just they know what to ask and they're more comfortable in their investment because that's the worst feeling is that somebody invested and they feel like ah should I have done that should I wrote that hundred thousand dollar check is this going to be safe you're mitigating that by educating them which is just wonderful wonderful any any missteps that you any investment you've had that you've learned from like like my example there anything that you've learned from that you think a listener should know okay here's something you really should be looking out for that you've experienced so um my career in large multi-family I would say I've been doing this for about a year so it is um limited I do get that um I am I am taking on the momentum from my general Partners you know I mean I'm part of such a great group I am also a member of family syndication Group which which is amazing um and you know they give me all the everything that I need to learn everything that I need to do so I am I am being involved with them and and they allow me to not make mistakes but one thing I have learned is diversification diversify diversify diversify in anything uh in the market you're investing in for example um if you have three Deals in the same city I recommend then your your next deal should probably be in a different city probably in a different state from where you are investing in I think that's very important um I've invested a lot of my deals this this year I have one in Texas as a limited partner and three well actually and then one as a limited partner in Florida and then three more as a general partner in Florida so my next deal is probably going to be outside of Florida I think that's one of the things that I have learned um and also uh you also want to be part of uh in think multifamily which is uh the the owners or the founders of family syndication group within our group we have so many different operators that are always um getting deals um you know um in contract that I I as a general partner um that's uh bringing uh my investors to these deals I have a lot of options which is a good problem to have so also diversifying operators it is not a bad idea you know um no because that's how you learn because I like I really like the operators I am involved with today but the more operators that I get the more people I do business with the more I'm gonna learn different perspectives in the business and that's going to help me um you know continue to grow um this um this career um as a multi-family investor so definitely diversification would be one of the things that I'm gonna start doing I wouldn't call it a mistake or Pitfall but it's definitely something that as I had started uh this career it's something that I see on the horizon that I need to you know start doing I think it's a really good point and in full disclosure Yuri and I belong to the same group The think multi-family group Mark and Tamil Kinney fabulous and Mark's on one of my earlier episodes check that out um is that because we're in this group we're all I I would say it's a pretty Elite group we're mostly all high net worth individuals that have got great experience and we know these individuals for three or four years the people like like I invest in Texas and Tennessee and Florida with people that I know I can trust for years and that's what's great about us being in part of that group is that these people are pre-vetted we're all filing standard work processes we've got one of the best SEC attorneys the insurance companies The Lending Brokers and we have access to markets all over the United States I mean we're invested our group is buying in Georgia Arizona Texas Florida Tennessee the Carolinas I think that's most I think they even bought one in Michigan so we do have that diversification that okay if you don't like Florida well I've got somebody that I know I can trust it's going to do a great job of managing your money in Arizona and we do have friends in Arizona now in our group so that's a really good point that I didn't think of that okay in in it versus nothing against us a one-trick pony somebody that just focuses all I do is San Antonio Texas that's great and you should invest with that person but you shouldn't have all your eggs in San Antonio you should have them in other states so I love that that's a great valuable tip here either I didn't even really think about the benefit of that group is that we have access to all different markets with experts in the market that we really know like and Trust yeah one of the hardest things in this industry is to find the deal um and fortunately for us um there's always an operator that's going to put a deal under contract so we partner with them we look at the deal we look at the underwriting that they used we look at the numbers and then you know we already know them as far as their track record because we're part of the same group so that's something that we've already did we did that homework of knowing who to invest with um and after that and looking at the numbers uh then we make a decision but there's always going to be deals within our group for us to choose so that's one of the benefits is one of the things that I like about being part of this group for me when I when I joined one of the things that made that was a decision maker in joining family syndication group was the fact that it is a filter you know I am new in large multi-family I am going to conferences I don't know if the person that I'm talking to at a conference is for real or or if it's a Ponzi scheme or a pair I made I don't know so yeah just being part of a group that has done deals collectively for years allows me to do my due diligence and find out hey have you worked with this guy how was your experience how is he their communication and allow me to find out more about everyone within the group because we all know each other um I mean I still don't know everyone in the group but I think I know um a pretty good chunk of of the group so um it is great because I can always ask around and and so I see it as a filter where I'm I know that my investors uh money is safe I can sleep at night and you know there's always some risk in every investment you make but the fact that I know at least um you know there's not going to be fraud or things like that things like that our investors are always thinking about you know so who are uh who is Yuri getting involved with so I like to share my criteria everything that that I did in order to get to the point where I am that way they can feel comfortable yes I think this is a um you know it's a good choice to to invest With Yuri and you know that's part of my train of thought of being part of of a larger group right exactly in their standards and Mark and to me all have high standards and and we don't do we say no to so many more deals and we say yes to because of our standards and our strict criteria that we're going to protect our investors are always number one our investors are always number one so I love that about the group well that's wonderful let's go ahead and move into to get uh people to know you a little bit better or do this little fun five rapid fire five questions Yuri pretty tough questions here so are you prepared be ready okay let's do this okay as a child what was your nickname hmm do you not have a nickname at all I don't know I mean my I had a okay so I have to say I have to tell a story so Yuri in Colombia it's a name that it's used for females so I guess I was called Yuri but uh not in a good way so uh I guess my nickname was actually my name um I hated my name um when I was um in elementary um and then I moved to the US my middle name is Alex so I started telling people my name is Alex um and but then I realized that in the U.S Yuri it's a really cool name to have yes I went back to Yuri so yeah I guess my nickname was Yuri that's fascinating yeah right right I do like it's a very unique name you're my only friend with your the name Yuri so I love that that's great okay uh number two are you a morning person or a night owl definitely a morning person so I know you very well met and I know you're a night owl which I don't know how you do it um well I I do have little ones so I would put him to bed you know we started the routine the night routine uh at 6 p.m so 6 to 8 P.M is what my wife and I call the crazy hour and and after 8 P.M they're asleep and about an hour later I'm starting to get dizzy so so believe it or not I go to bed very early I I wake up at about six in the morning um you know and then I I start the routine I make breakfast um you know get the kids ready then my wife and I we we give them food we spend some time together and then my my day starts at about eight in the morning uh it's when I'm okay I'm now focused on work um and but definitely morning person even on the weekends you know if I wake up at 7am it's really late I envy you I wish I could be more like you I don't know if this is true but I have heard that you wake up like at noon I don't know yeah it's nooner one yeah but I go to like last night I went to bed at five in the morning so I'm going to bed an hour before you get up because that's my prime time you know midnight to five so when I do most of my work you get you don't get people calling you and you know so you're more you're probably more efficient at that time too so yeah there's no no distractions though so that's great interesting okay number three what would be the first thing you did if you won the lottery what's the first thing you do if you won the lottery so I don't consider myself a betting man but if I were and if I won the lottery which I really don't buy the lottery but but if I did and I want it um so I'll probably so the first thing I would do I will invest it all just to make sure that I'm not I'm not diluting the capital uh you know you hear some crazy stories about everyone that won the lottery that immediately uh you know after a couple years they they lose it all so I will first invest it even when I when I start thinking what am I going to do with it I'll first just invest it all and save stuff you know bonds you know ETFs real estate um you know I'll just I'll be I'll be very I'll diversify my money a lot probably 80 of it is going to go into real estate just because I consider that to be the best uh investment you can do and then with the cash flow or revenue or or returns that this money is generating me that's when I was to start planning um I'll open a non-profit help out you know um people in Colombia my wife and I were always donating clothes we take clothes from the US to Colombia as much as we can um my parents in law are always taking clothes it's something I would always love to scale at some point um so definitely um doing a non-profit and giving back and I will definitely continue with my you know I've been documenting my my life Journey so I think winning the lottery is a pretty cool story so I will just continue documenting my on social media all of my life Journey what I would be doing with with that money those Investments um starting my my non-profit at a bigger scale and I'll just probably continue educating people and just documenting my journey so everyone can see you know everything that we're doing I love that that's great and so well thought out um number four if you could live anywhere in the world where would that be the United States of America I do not see myself um in any other place I love my country I love Colombia we always talk about maybe someday going back um but I don't know if I was if if um once I'm there I would I really like it because I really like the system here I just I just like everything and I live in Florida so I live in Paradise um so um but I I really like everything I just like the the way of living the the food you can find in the supermarket the proximity of things to do around where I live um the fact that I have really no traffic traffic's really bad in Colombia and and so it is and it is also very bad in every major city in the US I don't live in a major city I live in Sarasota so so there's a lot of things that I enjoy and I really don't see myself I'll see myself traveling a lot you know traveling to Europe I could see myself moving to Europe for one month right in Colombia for one month and just just traveling the world but as far as long-term living I think I'm very happy where I am right now that's excellent I'm happy for you that's wonderful and then the final question what is one piece of advice that you give to new investors to help them get better returns it's the one piece of advice the Golden Nugget that everybody should know as a new investor educate yourself and and I've already said it before um so I'm just gonna take it one step further um there's a lot of things you need to do there's a lot of logistics with every decision big decision that we need to make so find that find out what are those uh most important next steps so you get to finalize that decision that you want to make like oh I'm gonna buy a house but I've never bought a house this is so scary what do I need to do divide every most important next step into like small tasks and and just decide what those things are so that you're not scared about buying the house you know one of the things is educate yourself but another another thing you just be sending an email to someone asking questions to somebody that you know so just start that process of doing those defining what are those most important next steps and start doing them you know right away excellent advice excellent advice as usual from you well this is wonderful thanks so much for your time today how can people I know you're on all the social media platforms and everything will be in the show notes but how is the best way for people to contact you Yuri so I try to make it easy so um my name on the zoom call uh Yuri Alex investor is the same name across all of my platforms so it's gonna be on YouTube Instagram is the main one where I have the most updated content and then I also post in Facebook and Tick Tock so you can find me uh Yuri Alex investor um you can also you know call me my number 786-423-2399 my website it's uh golenscapital.com there you can find more information about the large multi-family projects that we do you know everything that I do that involves you know bringing in investors excellent thanks so much for being on the show and bringing all the value to our investors here I appreciate it have a great day take care bye-bye