Get into the Real Estate Mindset with Eric Nelson

From engineering to creative real estate endeavors, Eric Nelson has found his groove in multifamily apartment investing. He uses his expertise to help new investors get into the real estate mindset. If you are hesitant about passively investing in real estate, Eric will encourage you to take action.

LISTEN FOR THIS

• Eric first got into the real estate investing biz by buying a house where he was going to college and renting it to his college friends. After a few more single family home investments, he bought a six unit multifamily apartment from a man putting up a “For Rent” sign and the rest is history!
• Two hurdles for new investors in apartment investing is assuring them it’s not a pyramid scheme and then to help eliminate the fear of trying something new. What a lot of new investors don’t realize is apartment and real estate investing like this has been around for a long time but it was only accessible to the ultra wealthy. It’s how the rich earned most of their wealth. 
• When your investment is in the stock market, you don’t have access to the people who are running the companies you have stock in. You can’t ask them questions or get updates on what’s happening. When you invest in a real estate syndication, you have access to the very people who are managing it. You’ll get updates and get answers to all your questions.
• It’s a good idea to understand the timeline of an apartment investment as it’s different from investing in the stock market. 
• What is the “worse case scenario” in an apartment investment? 

QUOTES
“Be patient and don't be afraid to spread your money out over a couple deals.”

“Maybe you just want a little bit safer investment… that's kind of where I encourage people to step away from the traditional path of the 401K…believe in real estate .”

ABOUT ERIC NELSON
Eric has been investing in real estate since 2007 and for two years in larger multifamily apartments. Eric and his team at Wild Oak Capital offer investment opportunities in multifamily syndication.  Eric is the host of the Real Estate Mindset podcast. He has found a passion for coaching and sharing tips to success.

CONNECT WITH ERIC
Website: wildoakcapital.com
Podcast: wildoakcapital.com/podcast

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Website: hansenholdings.com
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Transcript

I'd like to welcome to the show Eric Nelson Eric has been investing in real estate since 2007 in the last two years he's really focused on large multi-family in his team at Wild Oak Chapel offer investing opportunities in multi-family apartment syndications and Eric is the host of the wildly successful real estate mindset podcast it's a great show check it out I think he's at 87 episodes already now and he has passion for coaching others and sharing tips for how to be successful real estate investor welcome to the show Eric glad to have you here Matt awesome awesome to be here man it's so good to see you again because you were very recently on my show yes and it's so it's so cool to like kind of flip-flop and now I guess I get to do all the talking and you have to just ask a few questions so this is I love being a guest so thanks for having me oh it's great to be here so what I always like to start with what's your origin story how did you discover the power of real estate investing Eric okay cool man I have I'm gonna talk for a while here because I've actually sort of two stories um but first okay so my very first foray in real estate was I was in college with my brother and uh we were paying rent to this to this place like all college students right like paying rent living having fun whatever but uh he was actually just out of the military so he had a little bit of money and I was on like it was on summer break so I was like in an internship at this engineering company and I was actually making pretty good money uh for a college student right and so we were like man I bet we could this 2007 too by the way so like anyone could get along so I was like I bet we could get a loan buy a house and we could rent to our friends and like that's kind of that's it like there's no math there was no like real thinking behind it my brother's like yeah let's do it so we got a real estate agent who's super cool like such a good guy uh trusted that we could do it you know and found this house unfinished basement and bought this house and uh you know again we probably had no business doing the loan right like on paper but they sort of said okay well you make some money and your brother has some cash yeah let's do it it was 2007 right so anyway so uh we did that we bought it and we've slowly finished the basement now we rented it to friends like even some of our friends were like renting the space before it was even finished because it was college and no one cared and it was like a bed in the corner of this concrete floor and like a beer pong table like classic College learned a ton though learned learned a lot um and over time like you know the market kind of hit hard but we didn't really even care or no because we were in college and our friends were paying us for rent and it was just like kind of that that same real estate story was like we just weathered the storm because we had renters right um so we sold that in 2011-ish made a little bit of money not a lot because the market had been a little rougher and then sort of fast forward a little bit my wife and I so we got married shortly after that traveled around quite a bit landed back where I live now we bought our house and then we were kind of just like working you know like cruising along and and like a lot of people I was like I don't want to do this for the next 40 years just punch the clock you know and like the 401K thing because I kept doing the math I'm like how can I put more in my 401k how can I get to retirement early and then some somewhere along the way someone was like oh man you can also invest in real estate and so we bought this rental house uh with my actually my father-in-law my mother-in-law who are awesome people we partnered up and bought this house together and again there was very little math involved which is unlike me because I have an engineering background but I was just like oh we can cover the mortgage with the rent like it'll work like that's pretty much my thinking um but then we got into that rental and I was like a friend of mine then started tipping me off on podcasts you know like Rich Dad Poor Dad you know kind of the classics right like Bigger Pockets that stuff and I was like oh there is a there's a business behind this and that's why mine really shifted I was like oh you can actually buy rentals and make a little bit of money and over time like build some wealth and so that's where it kind of clicked in my head and unfortunately it took a long time to get there but eventually I did so then once we knew that then we started looking for specific deals and then we started buying out of town um and then I have a really cool story about a sixplex but I'll let you jump in if you'd like before I dive into that no no that's that's great so what was the gap between okay you're in college and you and your brother just decide hey we're going to be we're gonna we're gonna invest in real estate and you did quite well on that between then and when you got married and you started okay I'm going to intentionally go and invest in real estate was there a couple years there how long was that the Gap yeah so that was uh 2012 13 so uh yeah there was kind of like a five-year Gap and part of it was just like our stage of life like we're traveling around and we just I like my head wasn't in that at all which I'm glad for right um but once we settled down and kind of where it worked like w295 Jabs that's what I was like oh I don't want to I don't want to do this forever and and so that's where real estate investing sort of clicked in my head and so I think some listeners could probably relate to that right like if they're if they're investing passively or maybe they want to buy a rental house or maybe they want to be a Syndicate or any of those things all of those work for you to to have a different path towards retirement or diversification or maybe you just want to be a little bit safer investment perhaps um so that's that's kind of where I encourage people to step away from the traditional path 401K is For Better or Worse unfortunately probably didn't work like they originally designed them and we just believe in real estate I think you and I can agree on that just I think it's just a better system at 100 because you know my story is like yeah I had all my money in 401k and in the stock market and I lost 300 000 during 2007 and eight um it took for years and years to recover that some of I did lose so you're right and so your motivation was okay I know I've worked you know I've got a W-2 here I've worked for a while I'm thinking do I really want to do that in the rest of my life that was your motivation say okay we're going to actively go out and invest in real estate gotcha so that was the Tipping Point that said okay you know what and you knew a little bit about it you had some early success which is impressive in in college doing that that's you're an entrepreneur at heart if you did that at that point yeah I think so I mean honestly like maybe just risk tolerant as well you know I'm like I was always like what's the worst case scenario like we foreclose and we go bankrupt we don't have any money anyway

take my stuff I have nothing but that wasn't really my thinking it was more obviously like I'm a positive person so yeah we can make it work like everyone wants to rent a house in college um but yeah we I mean there's some luck and there's some skill I mean a little bit of both obviously but then once I knew the business model once I really understood the math behind it okay even a single family like single family math isn't terribly difficult it's like management fee if you're not going to manage it repairs ten percent whatever that might be some reserves ten percent just ballpark in here and then your mortgage and then that's kind of like okay here's your expenses what's the rent and what's the difference and that's what you're going to make more or less right multi-family is a little bit more complicated we can get into writing but basically it is a math game it's basically okay is the rent generally speaking more than all your expenses that's a good investment the other thing is you get the principal paid out you're gonna pay that down over time and someone else is helping you pay for it appreciation don't want to bank on it but it's usually there I mean there's just a lot of things going on for real estate that we can talk about on and on and on but yeah so you're right my mental shift was basically I don't really want to do this forever and so on to kind of my long story which I'm excited to tell you about what I what I would do in that time period was I would walk my son was just born so actually this is 2017 now I have a little bit of knowledge I have some understanding uh we again we actually took a year off and traveled South America but that's a whole different story um but yeah so we were like okay let's invest so I was walking my newly born son all over their neighborhoods and every time I'd see a for rent sign I'd call it and I'd say hey uh beautiful house I'm not looking to rent I'm looking to buy is there any chance you'd be willing to sell it and I got lots and lots of no's right but um I was kind of pushing him along one day and saw this like multi-unit couldn't tell how many units it was and this gentleman out front was like putting a sign in the ground like a for rent sign and uh so I just walked up to him I was like hey I you know I really like your property here um you know again same story like what are you renting for this one looks vacant looks like you have a friend sign you know would you be interested to sell then he was like yeah maybe it's like he never thought of it right older gentleman probably 65 or so maybe a little older and you could just tell he was almost like worn out the sign the friend sign was like faded he'd use that same sign so maybe like 10 years yeah it was way under rent so I was like oh man uh this is kind of an opportunity here so he's like yeah I would um but I you know I hadn't really thought about it I was like okay cool why don't you talk with your uh wife because we had a little chat like we talked about you know where he's from and how long he owned it blah blah I said Okay I want to talk with your wife I'll call you in a couple days we'll see what you think so I called him and uh got to talk and it turns out it's it's a six Plex and he wanted he was like you know what I'd want a million dollars and you could tell in his mind he was like a million dollars is astronomical number right like he'd inherited the property so I don't think he knew what it was worth and in my market I live in Colorado oh okay yeah okay now I realize oh that's a good deal probably yeah exactly so I'm like a million dollars in a lot of markets that's a terrible deal but where I live that's a heck of a deal so I was like hmm yeah actually that might work and I think it shocked him he's like oh wow like I think he thought what a sucker and I was thinking he's a little low right uh but I also wanted to be honest with him I was like I actually think that's a fair price I'm not negotiating whatsoever I think that actually might work I need to see the units right so then we meet again go through all the units it turns out one unit's down it's stuffed with all of his unfortunately his past mother's stuff like she had lived in it passed away and he just jammed it on one of these apartments and you could tell there's some emotions right and I was like okay look um you know we would we definitely would want to buy it but we don't have a down payment for a million dollar property I know that you inherited this would you consider financing it and he was like what's that I was like okay well here's kind of how I want to find financing works so I sort of random through more or less that process I said okay again I know it's a lot to take in think on it talk to your wife and I'll call you in a couple days same story called him back he's like yeah I think we would like to do that I was like all right here's the thing is I think I can get your rent or your payment from me as much as you're making in rents because remember his rents were super low and you do nothing and then if we default you get the property back and I'll probably have put some money into it and he's like okay this sounded pretty good I'm like but here's the kickers I don't have any I have a lot of money so can we put three percent down on a million dollar purchase which is 30 000 bucks he's like sure so so we got a million dollar six Plex for 30 grand down we had a little bit obviously put some into it to fix it up once we cleared out that down unit I was doing immediately a 60 unit to rent we got it fixed up and rented and it cruised along there's actually more to that story but ultimately the point is if you're creative and you're willing to be like friendly I think that's the point I like to make of this story is like it's always about relationships you know I could have been greedy and pushed and been like oh you know let's negotiate whatever right but he was giving me such a good deal and he's such a cool guy you know we still talk to this day so like that's kind of the point of that whole story is if you're willing to be one hear a bunch of no's because I heard a hundred no's before yes two is about relationships that's really what this business is all about exactly and you solve the problem and also that you're right this is really interesting interesting case study because for him to get a million dollars he's going to pay tax on so he's going to net you know 700 or whatever but if you we call it in Michigan a land contract so basically it was a seller finance is that if you default on it he gets it back but he's getting these payments more than what he was making probably when he was running it and doing all the work and at all the expenses he just gets that check from you every single month I mean that's a great deal for him too he's not his huge tax bill he just he just didn't jump into the highest tax bracket that year that really was a win-win that was great that you you know you helped them out too dramatically I think yeah I mean truthfully like we helped each other right like you're exactly right that was the pitch was hey you could pay a lot of taxes or you can defer those taxes pay some of this down over time and then yeah when you're ready for the big check you know we can have a blend payment or whatever whatever works for you so it was kind of this really cool win-win story and again there's much more to the story because it's all about relationships and helping each other and being willing to be honest you know and yeah could I have negotiated with them maybe got it for 970 or something maybe but it's like was it worth it at the end of the day no so yeah that was just a cool story I like to tell about uh owner financing and just being creative and also just being kind right okay now are you willing to disclose what so you live in we're whereabouts in Durango yeah I live yeah I live in Durango Colorado so Southwest yeah so I actually sold that property recently if you want to hear the rest of the story will you tell me how much you feel I really want to know because I know yeah so we sold it Colorado the hottest market so we bought it for a million we owned it for just over a year because I and I actually wasn't looking to sell but I run a Meetup in my town like a local real estate Meetup and so people come and we just talk about real estate whatever and there's this guy who is asking you know people come to me because I'm the person who's running it and they're like hey do you know anyone who's selling anything I was like well not really right now but I have I have a project I'd sell you and he's like okay let me hear about it but what I decided to do is like all right let me talk actually the lender first and you know make sure he's cool with that before I sell to you so I went to him and I said hey um would you actually pass on this loan to another buyer that I trust he's like oh yeah that'd be sweet no problem so then I told the the new buyer I said hey I've got owner financing in place by the way it was four and a half percent interest rate and a forty four zero year amortization so the payments were fairly low um just just to make the math work right so he was the new buyer was Jazz he's like oh sweet debt uh and because I hadn't paid much down I think we owed probably you know 965 or 960 or something like that because the original note was 970. if that makes sense yeah um so I sold it and I basically like brokered the deal where the original financer the original owner is still the financer for the new buyer so it's a win-win-win I got out of the deal we made a little money sold it for 1.15 about a year later so we made it about after everything we put into it let's just call it 100 Grand maybe in a year's time on that six Plex so that's the power of real estate yeah yeah and the thing is it's like it's crazy I get a little bit of Goosebumps about it like that's a lot of money right that's as much money as I made in a year in my W-2 so like just kind of side gig right and it's totally doable so your show is the real estate mindset so let's talk about because you've so you've interviewed 80 some people let's talk about mindset I guess really is why aren't people first off if you discover most people don't know you can passively invest in real estate because all Wall Street does is keep your money and keep your money here that's what they advertise so they don't know about it but when people do discover what are the mindsets that you feel they have to overcome to invest you've interviewed lots of us like this in commonality you see that people have to overcome so here's what's interesting is a good friend of mine like he's he's a person that I like have drinks with right like he knows me well he called me up and he said hey I've been seeing that you're doing this other thing because I you know I I'm an engineer by trade so I still do civil engineering it's more or less a part-time now about about half and half of my time is spent on real estate half is still engineering um I'm kind of blessed to be able to kind of dial those up and down but uh anyway so he called me and he said he knows me as an engineer he said I see you're doing this other thing um is it a Ponzi scheme or is it a they said a pyramid scheme I think and I was like what would make you think it is like what would make you think it's a pyramid scheme you know me man like I'm not I'm not scamming people out of the money like the biggest investors in my friends and family so I would say the biggest obstacle is believing that this asset class is as good or better than Wall Street which I know you love to talk about like first of all it is you know so you kind of have to just more or less Trust and then the second mindset is basically pull the trigger because you know fifty thousand dollars let's just say is a minimum investment a lot of deals that's a lot of money so you kind of have to know like and trust is the language we use all the time in the sponsor so we can talk about sponsorships groups for sure but I think those two hurdles is like one is not a Ponzi scheme if you especially if you know and trust the person and two you're just gonna have to uh let go of that that tight hold on your cash and allow someone else to be the expert and what's interesting is we have no problem doing that with brokerage firms with our cash in a 401k it's like oh okay cool yeah you run it you're Pro but like if somehow if you're a real estate professional I don't know why but it just seems harder to trust your money with someone so those are kind of the hurdles that I see okay and let's talk about a little about how to overcome those it's you touched upon vetting the deal and the sponsor so how would you how do you recommend people vet both of those aspect yeah I love it so I think you know first of all if you don't know the sponsor I think the first thing is if you know them you're immediately going to know if you trust and like them um but if you don't know them one thing that I recommend people do is if they find me on my podcast or they find me from a friend or whatever and they're like hey you know how can I be sure about you kind of thing and say how about this why don't I connect you with some of my investors and so it's basically references so you can ask them hey can I talk with other investors so what I do obviously very obviously I call those people first I say hey do you mind talking to this new investor and like explaining your situation I'm not just going to toss their number out right but if you if you can ask them to supply references that's huge especially if you know the references say hey my friend invested with you you just say oh cool go talk to your friend ask about their experience with us and how it's been so far that's one to overcome it and then two you know what's cool about this Matt is like your podcast right like people could come and listen to you talk about this stuff and I found that to be pretty cool so if someone's new or they don't really understand some stuff I'll say hey go listen episode whatever 68 with Matt Henson and we talk about the difference between your retirement account and what's going on here and it's cool you just give an immediate reference and then event you know then eventually they can start listening to oh you are a professional oh you do know what you're talking about and you know the space at the end of the day it's always a risk you have to say that but in my opinion it's a more calculated risk than being the stock market yes that's a really good point you just blindly put your money in with somebody you don't know and they're motivated just they make money even when the stock market goes down they still make commissions at fees when it goes up they make it so yeah it's really interesting you put it I never even thought it that way it's like yeah you blindly have millions of dollars in the stock market do you know those people they're not accountable to you you can't call them if things start going sideways say can you explain to me what's going on with my investment yeah and that's the thing is like all of my investors have direct communication line with me like if any one of them texts me emails me calls me I'm gonna answer right and explain like of course there'll be times that are hard you know we've had hard times we've had a couple of tough situations in our investments for example we had like a fire in one of our kitchens and one of those tenants we had to put in a hotel because we were fully occupied so we had they had this expense and we're like you know what let's get him a gift basket let's like treat them like I would want to be treated in that situation so we have to tell the investors say hey we had this kitchen Fire cost x amount of money for the property we took care of it cleaned them up took care of the person onward and upward and you know people like that communication and and there's just times that it's not always as smooth as you want it to be but the point is as long as you're honest and clear every investor should have a direct communication line to your sponsor right so that's so that's kind of vetting the spots or the individual do your due diligence admin like you said whom their content find out what type of person they are I mean and there's there's people you just don't Vibe with and that's fine you know that you you that's that's really good that that's why it's important that we're putting stuff out there and you do a great job of Education First off your podcast is fabulous then I know you and your website you've got articles and stuff and you've got lots of other information to get them educated on it but let's talk about the deal how do you vet a deal how would you recommend a new investor vet a deal yeah so we um you know every every group's different we do a webinar and we try and touch on the main points right we're going to touch on your Returns the risks behind it why we like the property why we like the market why we like you know all those things so I would say there's a handful of things as a passive investor you should look at one is market right like let's say you're buying in Dallas Texas I mean that's kind of a bad example because Dallas is such a hot Market let's say like Lubbock Texas what's better like okay what do you know about Lubbock chances are probably not that much right so do a little bit of research on the market is there job growth is our population growth Your sponsorship group should explain to you why they like that market but as a passive investor take a little bit of time to do some homework do you like that market as well if you don't say out of it right like you don't have to invest ever so market research one two would be uh property research so then the location of the property itself like it's kind of hard to know like what's a good you know uh neighborhood within a city but you can get a pretty good look from Google Earth you can even call real estate agent say hey is this neighborhood decent a little bit of research and you can find out is this location decent as well again if your sponsor is doing their homework they should be able to answer that question but you don't want to trust them blindly right and then as far as the underwriting goes it depends on the person some people love love to dive deep but a couple questions I always encourage people to ask maybe this a little bit too in the leads for this listener base but what is the cap rate and what is the exit cap rate which is meaning do you expect the market to be worse or better condition than it is now right so we're we're always assuming the cap rate is going to be worse when we sell even if it's a high cap rate scenario we're just going to say you know what chances are worst case scenario if our sale date is five years from now we're going to have X number of basis points worse cap rate when we sell a property and so those are that's a question I encourage people to ask and try and understand is are you going to sell at a worse cap rate are you projecting that you're gonna then you're buying and then you could just start kind of asking a few metrics right like is it a preferred return meaning do the investors get paid first try and understand that a little bit and then probably the most important thing is what is the timeline for the investment so you have to understand your your money is illiquid so that's the one downfall of this is you once you put your money in you have to understand it's in for the life of the deal and if there's kind of the bumpy road maybe the group will want to hold a little longer so you need to be okay with your money being in there so those are kind of a handful of metrics I normally uh tell people to look at and kind of hammer on like what is the exit cap rate for that deal are they projecting it to be better because that's a pretty dangerous assumption that's really those are excellent tips because in essence you're asking stress tests along with that one the one we always look at what is the minimum occupancy to cash flow and you know is it is it 60 or is it 85 if it should be what what would your rule be on that what's the what's the minimum I want your number yeah I love it well we're going to Target probably 65 but it depends on the deal right like if it's a really really nice property I think you can kind of bring that up especially if that's historically High occupancy if it's a really tough property like C minus property we're gonna be like 50 55 because you know there's just more risk involved with that and you have the potential to have low occupancy so it does depend on the market depends on the deal a little bit but we'll just say generally I liked your number let's say 60 as a as a rule of thumb what's your number I guess I'll ask you like where our current deal it's a big deal but it's in a nice area in Florida it's 67 percent

it's a nice idea The Heist I've ever went is 72 but I know yeah people that were buying in the a really tough neighborhood yeah it needs to be below 50 because it's just going to take you a while to recover to to um renovate the union and fix it all up maybe bring in security so you're right it's dependent but anything over seven I don't think I've ever done a deal over 72 percent yeah that's a bit too icy yeah somebody's saying it's 75 80 no no that's not good because that could just be a bad a bad year or whatever and you go down to 80 now your cash flowing so that's a really good tip I don't think I've ever talked about that but yeah I think mid 60s is really good and it depends on the property you could go up to maybe 72 73 but yeah if it's a really like a Class Property yeah I would feel comfortable there I mean you're gonna get in hot water with your lender anyway so there's other things to talk about yeah you know with that but but just generally speaking what's a stress test you know can you be can you survive 70 for a year you know and still still be okay that's a cool that's the other cool thing we don't talk about all that often is like people ask me what's the worst case scenario as passive investors they ask me that a lot I say well worst case scenarios you lose all your money you don't have to say that right but what what the question I like better is what's the worst case most likely scenario the worst case most likely scenario is the property doesn't do as well as we thought we have to sell it maybe same price maybe a slight loss everyone gets their money back maybe loses a little that's the the most likely worst case scenario and that would be a really tough situation I mean something horribly would have to happen so that's what's cool about real estate it's like it's unlikely I mean of course it's possible it's unlikely that you're going to lose a ton of money it's more likely you're not going to make as much as they said so that's you know that's kind of fun to talk about as well as like what's the most likely thing uh anyway so yeah that's true and then we're insured I always mention that is anything Wall Street insured so if a hurricane hits one of our properties in Florida it's insured and not only to recover rebuild the property but lost rent we have lost rent insurance too now okay I'm going to ask did The Lost rent kick in was that the claim too small for just one person to move out did you even file a claim was it worth it yeah we didn't file a claim I mean we just we thought about it was like yeah it's honestly not worth it and we talked to our agent our real estate agent and they were like yeah probably your premium is going to go up more than that you know which I appreciate their honesty but actually I do know and I won't mention any names but you might know the person too I know someone who had a big fire in one of their properties recently it was like last year and it did it took out like 10 units luckily no one was hurt um but yeah insurance covered everything all the repairs all the Lost rent like it was incredible and they you know they're really stressed of course and then talking to them later they're like actually Insurance kind of covered the whole spank plus lost rent plus you know no none of the tenants were even mad we we were able to replace most of them in our newer units like it kind of just worked out and that's the that's a good example of insurance like as much as insurance we might like to kind of tease them and make fun of or whatever but it it's there for a reason and so yeah you're right nothing on Wall Street has that backing yeah it protects your investors so in that situation I didn't I'm pretty certainly I know what you're talking about there's been a couple of those but now you have 10 brand new units that are like oh beautiful because you you have to rebuild them so that's fantastic well now it's time you've been dropping some great knowledge now we're ready for the lightning round

I love it yeah this is a lighting round for the lightning round I didn't even know this was coming but exactly find fun questions just to learn more about you Eric okay first one what was your nickname as a child I never well actually out of a cool one so my uh when I was born my brother was two and my name obviously is Eric but my brother was two at the time barely learning to talk and my aunt said hey what's your new brother's name like in the hospital he goes uh urkit you can't remember Eric and so my aunt called me irkid until I was like 30. and I'm you know like finally she kind of realized it was getting a little old when she was calling me that in front of my kids I never really cared but it was just so people called me Erica my grandpa called me irkit for ever so that was kind of fun that is pretty good that's fun that is really fun okay number two are you a morning person or a night owl okay naturally Night Owl I I like to exercise in the evening but I've sort of forced myself to be a morning person for one of the reasons mostly kids but my kids get up around 6 45 so I I always get up at least 45 minutes before them and kind of have a morning routine I'll call it I don't really like exercise in the morning again because it makes me I just don't I don't like it but I will have like some time alone I'll do some yoga I'll do some like intentionality some gratitudes like kind of a quick thing to set my mind right before the kids get up so naturally Night Owl but I've sort of forced forced myself to get up early what a good dad you are what's number three what was the first thing you do if you won the lottery it depends on how big of the lottery because there was most recently a billion dollars which that's kind of a different level let's say I want like a normal Lottery amount like a million bucks I would go find a multi-family property and buy it and uh own it with my wife and I and just you know put my money where my mouth is uh but if it was big big big money I would probably buy a couple houses plus multi-family that way I could travel around with my family to different parts residents like okay a house yeah like let's say we have a beach house right yeah and then we'd have like yeah yeah then we'd have like and a private plane as long as I'm Dreaming let's get big the point is my wife and I love to travel and so if I could travel with my family to places that we own that'd be really cool well here's the next question number four if you could live anywhere in the world where would it be now I think that's tough okay my mind goes to Barcelona Spain first just because I love love that city um but realistically with the family where we live is pretty hard to beat Durango Colorado is pretty sweet because there's desert near we have skiing so I would probably just for a change of pace I probably live on the beach somewhere so let's say I don't know La Jolla California I don't know something like that my favorite we lived in San Diego for a while oh when we go back and visit we stay in La Jolla and I've got friends that's the best that is like one it is just the weather is beautiful year-round it's just such a nice place so I'm with you there okay um number five what's one piece of Golden Nugget advice you give to new investors to help them get better returns one piece of advice area golden advice oh man I feel like we're kind of giving away all the secrets today um no I think I think uh be patient basically like let's say you find someone you you know you learn about syndication you learn about this this process be patient you don't have to put all your money in the first deal so let's say someone comes to me and they say I have 150 Grand I want to invest in your next deal a lot of times what I'll say is yeah great but what I'd encourage you to do is spread that over let's say two deals or three Deals so the Golden Nugget would be don't put all your eggs in one basket if you have a someone you like let's say you're a Matt's investor ask him hey how many deals you planned for the next year can can I be patient and invest in two or three rather than the first one um so that's usually usually advice I give you know as much as we like to be able to raise the money quickly and be more secure with the capital it's it's the investors come first so what I'd normally say is spread your money out over a couple deals even if it means it's not my deal like my investors I'll say look even if we don't have a deal I'll tell you another good syndicator that I like and then you can have your money in multiple deals so the Golden Nugget would be be patient and don't be afraid to spread your money out over a couple deals okay Eric where were you seven years ago so that was the first seven years ago when I first get into pass investment so I had a bunch of money I was putting in and I didn't do the minimum I so I invested like five deals and I could have invested in probably 10. had I done what you said and that's something I coach people if you're brand new just come in for the minimum getting a couple of these now if you've been doing it for a while good people have invested in like 12 deals over the years go put do whatever you want to do and they'll they'll do a couple hundred grand but I love that advice Eric and no one told me that when I first started out when you're new it's because mostly syndicators want to get that raise done you know like it's and that's I mean I'm not trying to bash on anybody that's the feeling you get because there is kind of the rushes on but right yeah ultimately what we're after is long-term relationships and to do that you got to do right by your investors so yeah I wish I was in this business seven years ago but I'm I'm still fairly new it's worked out quite well well thanks so much for your time how can first off you have a program too I would I do like my best my my guests to plug whatever they're doing to help other people so you do have a coaching program so tell a little bit about that yeah uh so I coach people to uh if they want to learn the business now I have coached some passive investors I don't think you need nearly as much coaching obviously we could do a couple sessions and say here's what I would encourage you to do to figure out you know what you need to know to be a really really educated uh passive investor you could also just listen to this podcast you don't really need coaching necessarily but what I coach is for people to learn how to purchase multi-family so that's become the passion of mine is like what are the pitfalls what are things I've learned you know a lot of coaches will will teach you to go from zero to the deal and then see an ever but after the deal there's a lot to learn right from either from Asset Management all the way through even the loan process all that stuff so that's kind of what I what I focus on and then yeah the other thing I'll plug is just my website is Wild Oak Capital and there's uh my my podcast lives there and like you said some educational materials so hopefully people get a little bit out of it good thanks so much and all that stuff will be in the show notes so you guys can can check out Eric's stuff and that's really important that you can't do it alone this is not a individual single family homes you can do it by yourself but multi-family you need to have somebody like Eric or somebody that's coaching you along the way because their mistakes could be million million dollar mistakes so I really think that's great that you're doing that you're helping people so they don't get in a situation where they lose people's money or do something that that could cost them a lot so that I think that's very important tonight I'm all in for Education invest in yourself and that's why you're offer in that area thanks so much for your time no I was gonna say it's not your money though anymore right so like if you're buying a single family lose your own money all you want yeah once you're dealing with other people's money you got to be way more diligent so yeah thanks for the plug Matt absolutely thanks again for being on the show I appreciate all the knowledge that you've shared Eric yeah thanks it's been my pleasure