Welcome to creating wealth through past your apartment investing podcast. In this show, we will discuss about best and worst experiences about rescue on at two apartment investing and I'm your host, pharma Christina. Let's begin the show. Today is our guest is Ryan narrows from Al Qaeda's group. LLC Welcome Ryan, thank you for having me. Yeah, thanks for being on the show and a little bit about Ryan. Ryan graduated from Wake Forest Industry in 2000 and nine with a major in psychology in 2016 with an M. B. Concentrating in operations and business analytics statistics. After achieving its Nb, Ryan joined Wells Fargo as a part of the leadership development program since 2015 and has participated in war 30 million of transactions while driving millions of equity creation by its systems based approach. Currently, Ryan focuses on locating new opportunities and separating the portfolio. Whether tryin, would you like to add anything to your background?

I would, I started with nothing. I had no money, I had no network and I had no experience and thankfully no excuses. And what I learned through this process is that you don't need money. You don't need experiences. You don't need a vast network. What you need is a willingness to do what others aren't willing to do, which is putting in not only hard work, but smart work. Hopefully we'll talk a little bit about some of that today. Sure. Thank you. So what is financial freedom means for you on? How do you plan to do that? Yeah. So I've been financially free for how many years now? Several years now. And the funny thing about it is you're never really free. And let me explain what I mean by that you're never really going to retire on a beach and just have passive income coming in. It's always something, even if you just won the lottery and you have millions and millions of dollars and you're looking to place capital passively, it's still going to take work to vet the operator understand where you're going to place your capital, You have to be right, you have to pick the right operator in the right fund the back.

And even if you do that most maturity zar 5 to 10 years. So in other words, if you found an apartment or self storage unit or mobile home park and you did everything right every 5 to 10 years, you get your capital back and you have to do it all over it again. My friend Andrew keel has a great podcast. It's called passively investing in mobile home parks where he just absolutely beats to death every little Itsy bitsy detail you should be considering when you invest passively in mobile home parks specifically. And again, it comes back to the same point whether you're investing passively or actively, you're going to be doing work and you're gonna need to take a risk and you're going to need to be right. And so to me, even though I have, you know, air quotes, financial freedom, I don't really ever feel like I'm truly done or retired and even if I was, I get bored quickly and I don't like being bored. So I always want something to do and I always want something that is higher and it adds higher and meaning and purpose to my life to make sure I don't wake up one day and go, yeah, I always money that's coming in.

But you know, I got nothing to do. Sure. Sure. And thank you, thanks for sharing that and message towards real estate and mobile home parks. So how did you get into real estate and mobile home parks? Yeah. Look I've been trying to start a business for years. It took me three years to find mobile home parks and then took me to more years to give time. So I mean it took me and before that it took me years to develop skills and confidence and it's not a quick process but what got me interested in real estate to begin with was I read rich dad, poor dad, which many of us have and I just realized maybe this is one area I should look into and I got discouraged pretty quickly when I felt like I needed money to play ball in it. So I house hacked that was my first ever real estate acquisition was just a three bedroom town home and I moved into some of my best friends and that was my foray into multi family if you will and went horribly as you would expect. So again, I kind of read rich dad, poor dad drank the kool aid and then realized, yeah, maybe this isn't quite for me and it wasn't for several years later that I started digging more into things like the four hour workweek and mastery by robert green and some other books and conversations I had with folks that really got me interested again in real estate.

And then I just realized, man, I was attacking it all wrong. What I needed to do is find the real estate that got me excited. That got me excited to wake up every day. That gave me meaning and purpose. That gave me a reason to wake up every day. And that wasn't single family homes for me didn't make sense. Mobile home parks, It made sense. And I'll tell you why it's because no one ever told me to do this. I just did it on my own. I have for basically, since I was a teenager, always given my time and my money to charities that help educate underprivileged kids and through that process I developed a passion for the working class and for folks who just, I was so lucky growing up, I may have started with nothing, but I didn't start with negative and there are a lot of folks in this country who started with who started and start with negative and it is so hard to lift yourself out of poverty. So in that regard, I feel incredibly blessed and lucky and I want to give back and help someone like me who just didn't have the things that I was born into, get themselves out of poverty and because of that passion, because no one told me to do it, I just did it.

I knew that if no one tells you to do something you just do it. That means you have a passion for it. So when mobile home parks hit right, hit my table and I said this is a possibility of things that I'm going to do, it was a no brainer, not just for the charity aspect, for the higher meaning and purpose aspect, but also the skills I had been building up up until that point in time, fit like a glove into mobile home park. So who's everything, it was compassionate was my skill set matched. It was, and the funny thing is when you finally find whatever it is for me it was mobile home parks, everything just makes sense. And all of these issues like not having money and not having experience and not having a network like Marcus Aurelius says the obstacle becomes the way. And would it have been nice if I had a whole lot of money six years ago when I got started? Yes, absolutely. But the truth of the matter is I'm so fortunate and lucky that I didn't because it's forced me to get much more in the weeds and it's made me become a better operator, which has made me become a better on writer and better at seeing deals right in front of your face that a lot of folks don't see.

So it's a long winded way of saying, find your passion and be patient. It will take years. Sometimes you'll see it and not know it's really your passion. Sometimes you'll do it and not realize that it's your passion. You just did it wrong the first time. So you have to be patient and you have to find whatever makes you really excited and then you find like you hit passive income and you almost don't even care that you have it. It's just kind of there, it's great. But I got the money, that's wonderful. But I'm doing what I love. That's way more important. Yes. So true. So true. And thank you. Thanks for sharing that. So we wouldn't share any of your challenging experiences in finding bills and share your strategy to find them. Yeah, deals are very, very difficult to find. And I think people don't find deals for two reasons. I'm very public about this on my podcast. Mobile home parks in real life. I. M H. B. I. R. L. This season 2021 season is about why people can't find deals. I think it comes down to two things. Number one, a faulty strategy. In other words, they're looking for all the wrong things and number two faulty underwriting.

And I don't just mean people who don't understand how to do the math. I also mean people who lack the vision to apply to that math. In other words, garbage in garbage out. So what Ian my business partner and I am specialist in over the years is finding really hairy, messy, awful looking deals that nobody else wanted to touch, but going in and doing what we do best, turning the properties around, bringing in good people dumping capital in and making properties better. And what we found over the years is there are a lot of messy, dirty harry deals that actually aren't that bad. It's like home flipping. If a home looks bad, it has an awful facade, you walk in, there's no carpeting or padding and it's just bear flooring, but look really deep into it and you're like, wow, the foundation is really strong and so is the roof, If I do X, Y and Z maybe take out a wall over here, put in X, Y, Z over there. All of a sudden I'm sitting on a goldmine. That's exactly how IAN and I look at sourcing deals. So in other words, because we didn't have money to start out, we had to be our own operators.

We had to be our own property managers. And what that did was that taught us at a very intimate, very granular level. How this business functions, how does it breathe, where the arteries, how does the blood flow? And because of that really intimate knowledge we got by literally living on our properties, we were then able to better underwrite. Not just because we understood expenses and costs and whatnot and gross revenues, but we also understood what properties we could take on in which properties we could not. And then it's all about patience. I have a deal. I'm about to put under contract knock on wood that I've been talking to this woman for five years. She told me point blank, she's not even going to take another call with another person because she wants to sell to me five years is a long time. So and I may still not even get it and people don't want to hear that because people want to get rich now, people want to quit their job. Now people want passive income now. And the truth of the matter is if you just have patience, what you can end up doing is you can end up beating other people out.

People that are smarter than you are richer than you. You can beat them out and get reasonable deals in a hot frothy market because you're willing to do what the next person isn't, which in my case is having a good strategy, applying vision to my underwriting and doing things that other people aren't willing to do, which is have patience, take five years to win someone over and be the only person they come to when it's time to sell. Be patient. I told you earlier on this episode, it took me three years to find mobile home parks in two years to get full time. And in that year too, by the way, full time meant quitting my job and moving to a mobile home park. So in other words, that's a sacrifice a lot of people don't want to make if they have kids and a mortgage. Well, I made that sacrifice because I saw the dream and the vision. So in other words, it's very challenging if you're going to be conventional, if you're looking for all tenant own home, next to no work stable, but maybe you can raise rents a little bit. Everybody in the world is looking for that, what you should be looking for is harry messy deals that fit your thesis, whatever that is, and don't be afraid to pay up way too much for a property if you know, you can make it into something else.

That's vision. And everybody in this marketplace right now has a vision now, are they right? Are they overly optimistic and they're going to be wrong, or are they right? And they're going to be bailed out by a rising tide or they're going to successfully execute the business plan, you know? I don't know, But if you're one who's sitting back saying, man, I'm not going to buy anything because everything is overpriced, I think personally everything is not overpriced. There's still plenty of already I've had over, I've had eight deals under contract so far this year. Only in major markets. I will tell you why it's because I'm patient and I'm not afraid to pay 10% more for something that I think it's worth because I think in five years it's gonna be worth double what I bought it for. So all of a sudden, you know, if you were able to buy Apple stock 10 years ago for 10% over whatever the stock price was, which you do it heck yeah, you do it. Why? Because you know for a fact it's going to be a multiple of whatever you bought it for now. So yeah, sure. I'll pay 10% over that is vision. And you only get that vision when you fundamentally understand the markets you're in and when you fundamentally understand the assets and how they breathe.

So I hope that answers your question. But yeah, it's very challenging and you have to be different awesome. And thank you. Thanks for sharing. So what markets here? We're looking at what kind of business plan your group implementing an emergency space? Yes. So we are buying only in major M essays. I want deal that nobody else wants. I want to preserve affordable housing. What does that mean? A property that small or private utilities or it's all park on homes or X, Y and Z. Makes it not attractive and it's going to sit and no one's going to touch it. And eventually a developer is going to come in and demolish it and put up luxury apartments. I want the opposite. I want to go in. I want to spend my time, I want to spend my capital, I want to preserve the mobile home park and I want to enhance the mobile home park. I want to provide touchless pay e sign documents. I want to give my residents the opportunity to build their credit every single time they pay rent if they choose.

I want to continue with our partial college scholarship to hopefully help folks lift themselves out of poverty if they feel like that is a good option for them or if they're happy with in my communities with a lot, which a lot of folks are, which I talked about on my podcast is a lot of folks aren't actually air quotes poverty. They just really love the community feel, which is amazing because apartment complexes just don't have that neighborhoods nowadays, don't have that anymore. I mean, I remember growing up and people would knock on my door ringing the doorbell as a kid and we would all, my whole family would jump up. Oh boy, we got company now, someone rings on my doorbell or knocks on my door. I go, who the heck is this? No one text that are called saying they're coming over. I don't like this. So it's just a very different culture nowadays and mobile home parks provide some of that old school, you know, someone knocked on my door. I'm so excited, I have company and some folks choose to live there and I want them to I want to provide that. So that's how I'm different. I don't, I've experimented with secondary and tertiary markets.

It's a good business model. You can make good money and and serve people in a really great way. But I prefer primary markets and I prefer messy and dirty. And again, I want to do what our politicians say they want to do, which is preserve affordable housing but they aren't doing which is preserved and enhanced affordable housing. So that is my business model. Good. And so from average sponsors, would you really share some best practices and the systems and process your group implementing to increase. Ny Absolutely. So you want to be doing anything that can be automata. Ble all of my accounting is automated. You can use avid exchange for your accounts payable. You can use rent manager to do all sorts of crazy cool things, including electronically reconcile books for you. So a lot of folks who are like you should hire a bookkeeper. No, you should use technology that is at your fingertips. Because if you hire a bookkeeper, you're still going to have to answer all the questions that a computer could do for you more efficiently.

And that applies to all sorts of stuff. East sign documents. Touchless pay where someone can literally go take cash to walmart or pay online. And if they pay online they can often the credit reporting and build their credit. I pay for that for my residence and I'm proud to say I do. So if you can look at this business ad technology to it, then you can start alleviating a lot of issues. You can also use things like base camp or Asana or monday dot com for project management. And you can build out a way so a lot of your business happens when you sleep happens, even if your property manager quits on you, right Manager text for example, I've coated out all my rep manager text. So that way if someone is delinquent, if there's a bunch of people delinquent, all I have to do is jump in and will automatically pull name, property balance and property managers, name and phone number and basically say, hey, listen, you gotta balance of this. Please get in touch with your property manager, bam and most folks who are late, they're all they needed was a nice, gentle, polite touch on the shoulder that can be automated, which is amazing.

So in other words, the more stuff you can automate the better. However, it's really hard in my space to hire a third party management company and pull it off successfully on my podcast mobile home parks in real life. I just interviewed palled stout who just told a nightmare story about how he hired one of the best in the business and it just went completely sideways. In other words, if you want to get into mobile home parks and you need to understand, it's going to be, it's very, very difficult. It is not like apartments. You can't just partner with someone who wants to do the operations. There's not a lot of people who want to do operations by the way and there's basically no third party management. You can find a good one here or there, but no one's going to care about this, like you care about this. So what does that mean? Well, what that means is you stuff like rent manager monday dot com base camp find ways for technology to auto send out reports to you and all of your investors or employees. Every Wednesday morning at six am, every single one of my employees gets an email in their inbox that has every property violation that all anyone who has bad skirting or trash in their yard hasn't cut their yard.

Those violations are there and we go through it once a week and then we drive through the properties ourselves to make sure all things are running as according to plan. So in other words, you need to build out systems, you need to use technology and then you need to trust, but verify, what do I mean by that? You need to double over and look over the shoulder of your property managers and employees to make sure they're doing their job. If you do not hold people accountable, what will happen is they won't do anything. You can pay someone $100,000 a year. If you don't have clear expectations and accountability, they will do nothing. Trust me, people will do nothing and brag about it to their friends. Oh man, I don't do anything on my job. No one ever checks in on me. That is not how you run a business. If you're going to buy a mobile home park or an apartment or self storage, unless you're investing passively in a fund and you're in a limited partner, you will be doing work. There is no passive general partner that is a fallacy. So use the technology at your beck and call. Listen to podcasts like mine. Mine is, I believe I am the only as of this recording, the only mobile home park podcast that talks about operations in detail.

All the other ones talk about how to passively invest or how why mobile home parks are great or here's a mobile home park chat. You know mine is, here's how you run one of these things and whether you're an apartment or self storage or whatever. There are podcasts out there like mine who will really help you run a business or like Andrew keels will really help you figure out a way to park your capital in a good passive investment fund and not get burned in the process. So whether you're going to be a general partner or a limited partner, you need to do work, you need to fight to preserve and and multiply your capital. And the only way you do that is doing work cool and awesome. And thank you, Thanks for sharing that and we share about any of your best mobile home park experience so far. My best experience is probably on my website. My charity tab. My favorite moment was when we paid off a predatory loan that one of our residents had just surprised her out of the blue, we heard about it and we said we're going to pay for this out of our own pocket.

And that was a very special moment because a lot of folks, they live in mobile home parks because they have no other option and they have to do things. This woman for example, she had, she had no money and she had no choice. She had to go and buy a mattress and had to basically get a predatory loan to buy that mattress the way she couldn't sleep. And I just broke my heart hearing how much money she paid for something, She paid like two or three times more early. She was going to pay two or three times more than what that mattress was retail. And just to sleep and to me to be able to go in and help someone an environment like that is absolutely what makes me wake up and get excited every day is knowing that beyond just, you know, one person paying off a predatory loan. There are countless people who cannot find good, clean, safe, affordable housing. And if you look at the macroeconomic Studies, what they find about Children and education is that if they're in an environment with a lot of crime with a lot of broken windows theory type situations, what that will do is that will funnel people into a life of crime or they'll underachieve within their lives.

And the mere fact that I'm helping people raise Children in a safe and clean environment or live out their days and a safe and clean environment to me, that's what gets me excited every day. And it's, you know, there's a million of those little stories like, oh, I found out such and such as a predatory loan, I paid it off. You know, there's one guy who told me to my face, he's like, you literally saved my marriage because you help me find a place for family members that were down in the dumps. And long story short you found them a place. And what that's done for me is now, I don't have to basically share this tiny place that I'm living in with all these family members and all we're doing is fighting all the time. Now you have my, your space and I have mine. And now my marriage is getting back to where it should be. So it's moments like that where you house someone, you help someone find a job, you pay off a predatory loan. You hear about how one of their kids got into Georgia tech. I mean, it's like, it's a million little stories like that where it makes you excited to provide a much needed service in this space and to do it with a heart and also for the capitalist listening and doing it and making a profit, Which is a win for literally everyone.

It is a win for your residents first and foremost, there your customers is a win for you. You make a profit. It's a win for your investors. And if you're a passive investor and you're investing in something like a mobile home park with a good operator, guess what? You can be happy to knowing that you have someone who cares about these folks and is going to fight for for them when no one else will. So it's, you know, the best deals and the best moments are when everybody wins and you can do that in my space, which makes me enamored with the space and why I picked it and why I'll be here for hopefully a long, long time. Sure, sure. And so did share any of you are challenging or was mobile home park experience? I got to tell you probably the worst thing is lawsuits and I'll tell you why we live in a litigious society. People love suing each other and I hate suing people. I've had to, I've been sued, I have to sue for stupid things. I mean I don't, I think there's maybe one lawsuit of all time that was at least now. They think about less than five that were really legitimate. But they ultimately all came down to like really stupid things like a guy, we have an easement and a guy built a barrier preventing my residents from getting to my property.

And I'm like, here's the easement. He's like, I don't care, you're not doing X, y and Z. And I'm like that doesn't mean that's not how an easement works. You have to get an attorney and then they dodged the person serving them and then you have Covid so you can't get a court date. It draws out for six months. Then literally the day before the court hearing they go and tear down the blockade and basically say all right, fine, we give up. I'm like great, well that took how many months? Someone almost lost their life because of a fire and the fire folks couldn't get through in time and this woman almost lost our life. And we're going to do all these shenanigans. Just so at the last second we're not even going to fight this out in court. You're just gonna do what I asked you to from the beginning, it's nonstop people trying to score free rent by saying you did X, Y. And Z. And providing no evidence. It's nonstop. If you are on the general partners side, there is no such thing as passive investing. You have to be an L. P. To get true passive money, true passive money. And it's really challenging. It doesn't matter if you win every single lawsuit you've ever had, it will still wear on you, it'll wear on your pocketbook.

It'll wear on you mentally. You'll think on and on and on. Did I do this right to do that wrong? You'll be, you'll be horrified. Like what if I did something wrong? What if I hurt somebody? And that's lawsuits? And if you're doing business in the United States of America, I would, I have to say that is probably the number one, number one thing. That is just an absolute challenge And it never gets better. There's always going to be someone who is going to come and try and take something from you. There's always gonna be someone who's going to do something stupid and harmful because of X, Y or Z. Reason. It is nonstop very few times where you'll have a legitimate lawsuit. It's a lot of frivolous stuff and it will wear you down. So I got to say that's probably my biggest challenge that I face as I continue to exist and grow is you just have to have some good attorneys get him on retainer and um just brace for even if you win for a show and not a fun one. Cool. And thank you. Thanks for sharing. And what is your current focus share something you're exerted about now. My current focus right now is building out more systems so I can grow even bigger.

I think that there's an opportunity in the mobile home park space that will close within 5 to 10 years. So call it by 2025 if you will 2026 I want to hit it. I know what I can do for residents and I've seen what some other folks do and don't do and I know that I can really take a property to that next level. And so I'm really excited to build out systems to take it to that next level. And so that is what I'm excited about. What I'm focused on is preparing my properties and my systems to basically do another 1000 lots and good luck. Thank you. And anyone advised that impacted you personally. I have a lot of advice that impacted me. But the number one best advice that I love sharing with folks because they hate hearing it. I got to say the best advice is the advice you hate hearing because that's when you know you're growing, the best advice I ever heard is literally no yourself, two words no yourself.

Why do people hate hearing that? Because at first people go, I know myself that's stupid. Or they go, they start poking around and they start realizing there's a lot about themselves that they didn't know, that they don't want to know because it's not fun. Like for example, you think you're really smart person, but you look at your test scores and you realize you're not even in the 90th percentile. It's like, well that's not really that smart, right? Are saying, yeah, I'm a really great runner, but you've never competed in a five K or you go do a five K and you get destroyed. You finished in the middle of the pack. There are a lot or like, hey listen, I really want to buy a mobile home park because it's going to be passive and not being honest with yourself with lawsuits and ridiculous things that happen on the properties fires, you know, storms, all sorts of things you're building out systems, you know, you have to know yourself before you can build out a strategy. And I got to tell you one of the biggest things that I hear is, well, I want to buy a mobile home park. I want to, I want to get passive investment income and I want it now. Why? Because I want to quit my job.

That's not a reason to start a business. And people hate hearing that. And people go, well, that doesn't make sense. I should be thinking about myself. I should be on the phone finding deals. No, you shouldn't. And I'll tell you why again, like I mentioned earlier, you need a good strategy and you need visionary underwriting and guess where both of those things come from, knowing yourself, being brutally honest with who you are and who you are not, where your comfort zone is today, where it could be tomorrow, where it will never be and being and spending literally years. It took me years, years to really, truly understand who I was and I still don't even, there's still things about myself, I discover all the time. You have to constantly be looking at that because otherwise you're going to trade a job for a job and in most cases a job you hate even more than the one that you have. So the best advice I have is two word. No, yourself, be open to an ego beating, take your time with it. Listen to yourself. It's okay to on the car ride to work, not have any music on not having just listen to who you are and try to understand what you like and what you don't like.

And then eventually pair who you are with a strategy and visionary Underwriting to take it to that next level by far and away. That is my best advice could there so powerful and anyone book that impacted over life and what way I it's so rich dad, poor dad for our work week seven habits of highly effective people, mastery. I just read the alchemist which just blew my mind that there are so many good books out there. I must say if you are not reading you are missing out. You're talking about people who are at the top of their field for decades are literally going to put together their best wisdoms and something you can consume for like $20 or less at your leisure. And it's entertaining. Books are absolute no brainers if you can't read because you have a. D. H. D. Like I I do I listen to a lot of my books however you're gaining your knowledge your you're sitting down and reading or you have trouble focusing and so you have to listen to him however you consume it.

There are is just life changing knowledge out there and there are a lot of great forums and book clubs you can join too. That will help you not waste your time on books that won't get you there. But I mean gun to my head if we're talking real estate the bible of real estate is rich dad, poor dad got to start there. So if I got to pick one that will be a sure thank you and anyone person habit that helping to be successful I'll go back to knowing myself know yourself, know who you are, what you like, what you don't like where your comfort zone is today, where it could be tomorrow, where it's never going to go the better, you know yourself. The quicker decisions, you'll make, the more effective of a human being, You'll be, the more refined your strategy will be, the more visionary. Everything you do will be and you will find people that are smarter than you and had more money than you will be complaining on the sidelines. Oh man, there's no good deals to buy anymore. And meanwhile you've got like a bunch under contract and you're like buddy, speak for yourself, know yourself.

Yeah, Thank you. And how about giving back to community? I've got to say that's the one thing that gets me excited to wake up every day is anything from our partial college scholarship to the credit reporting that we help pay for. And we offer to our residents to all sorts of cool, fun stuff that we do, like helping folks with their roofs, skirting, thanksgiving time, meals giveaways here and there. We like to talk to our residents face to face sometimes in spanish. I can speak spanish and try to really understand our consumer of our product, really understand what would make a big difference and it's not the same at two properties. And that's also really, really fun to me is having people around me that are also passionate about helping others so we can learn and find the best ways to give back. So I love charity. It's a big part of my life, my time, my money, it's what gets me excited every day and I encourage anyone listening in. It's not just that you're making the world a better place, it's also making you a better business owner as well.

So it's a win win all the way around good. Yeah. And how can listeners can connect with you? I am really easy to find. My last name is near is it's N A R Us. That's N like nancy. And if you google Ryan nearest my website and my linkedin or the first two things that come up, you can contact me directly through both of those. I want to hear from you. If you're a ceo of a fortune 500 company or broken unemployed, I don't care. I am happy to help you absolutely free and I don't need anything from you. I just, I want people to go out in this world and make it better because they were here. And if I can help you do that, then please reach out to me. You don't owe me anything. I have my podcast, mobile home parks in real life. If you liked what I've had to say today, there's so many more nuggets about the mobile home park space that I have there. So definitely reach out to me. Don't feel like you need anything to give me anything to do that. I'm here to help everyone just because awesome. And thank you Ryan and thanks for sharing your wisdom. I really appreciate it. Yeah, thank you for having me.

Yeah, Thank you. If you like the show, please subscribe, share rate and review and if you want to connect with me, please send me a message info at Bouchard capital dot com. Thank you for listening. Creating wealth through pass through apartment investing podcast. I hope you learned something from the show. See you in the next absorbed. Thank you. Any information provided from these shows or educational purposes? Only. As always, please consult with your own C. P. A. Legal and financial advisor before investing.