Do it, do it yourself, and do it at home. Wait… what are we talking about here?
Today’s episode is going to be a fun one because Dan has no idea what the episode is about! Well… he does now, but at the time it was recorded, Anthony kept him in the dark.
Dan and Anthony are going to give you 3 ways for you to de-risk investment. All you have to do is: Do it, do it yourself, and do it at home! So what the heck does that mean?
Find out on this week’s episode of Multifamily Investing Made Simple.
Tweetable Quotes:
“Those are all three really good ways to de-risk an investment and we could spend an entire episode on those, but instead, we’re going to spend our entire time on these.” – Anthony Vicino
“The probability of screwing up theoretically should go down. I think.” – Dan Krueger
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** Transcripts
3 Ways To De-Risk An Investment
[00:00:00] Dan: hello and welcome
[00:00:14] Anthony: to multifamily investing made simple podcast. It’s all about taking the complexity out of real estate investing so that you can take action today. I’m your host, Anthony of Invictus capital joined by Dan. Give
[00:00:24] Dan: me my Bieber. Oh, I got fever fever. Is that a thing people say? Yeah, they still say it
[00:00:30] Anthony: for sure.
Yeah. Yeah. And I have to
[00:00:33] Dan: give context or should we just move on and pretend like that? Didn’t I don’t think
[00:00:36] Anthony: context is needed. Let’s move on it. Yeah. Even right through. So that is your ed. Is your. Witty banter for this week. People let’s get straight to the topic at hand, um, which Dan doesn’t really know what we’re going to talk about.
And in full transparency, I’m not even certain what we’re about to talk about. However, our listeners, they, they clicked [00:01:00] on this episode and probably the title is somewhat leading. So they, they have you right now, listener have a better idea. What we’re about to talk about. Then we do think about how weird that is for.
It is weird, man. Enjoy that little is a trap. It’s like a tiny urge to flee at that time travel story.
[00:01:18] Dan: Well, I mean,
[00:01:19] Anthony: we can’t flee the doors over there and I see
[00:01:22] Dan: literally, and you’re watching it until you say what we’re doing here. I ready to bowl. Let me say this.
[00:01:29] Anthony: So this must’ve been a comedian, but this was also, this also happened at.
So when we were arranging the manufacturing floor, like we had to be really cognizant of like fire hazards and like things like that. And at one point, one of my employees asked a question about so-and-so’s cubicle and how, if there was a fire, would he be in the way? And I was [00:02:00] like, if you have two lanes, In a fire scenario, you’re never in the way you’re going to be fine.
Like he’s not going to be there. He’s not gonna, he’s not going to be blocking the door. He’s he is going to be through the door and gone. Oh, I don’t know what any of that had to do with this. I still don’t know. I just remember that now though, like very distinctly, like somebody was genuinely worried that bill in my bill and bill was going to sit in front of the door and.
I mean, they have a chair, so they were afraid. Bill was going to stand in front of the door, in a fire emergency. And I was like, is this
[00:02:36] Dan: real? I think bill needs a raise because that applies. He’s going to fricking bills going down with the building. What I like bill, I
[00:02:43] Anthony: was like bill never, even at his workstation anyway, people were fine.
Anyhow, we got to take
[00:02:49] Dan: these, these things serious topic today. I’m a Jones in the find out
[00:02:54] Anthony: let’s Jones’ a little bit longer. And how about, instead of telling you what we’re going to talk about? How about you? Tell me your bad investing [00:03:00] advice.
[00:03:00] Dan: Lead Barry action. Okay.
[00:03:02] Anthony: Barry, it’s all like a boysenberry
[00:03:05] Dan: sounded better in my head before it came out of my mouth.
Now it just sounds like a weird fruit. It’s probably poisonous to lead buried. Don’t he don’t lead berries. All right, guys, let’s get serious. Let’s get down to business. Um, don’t buy the top of the market. That’s my advice for you today? Not by the top of the market. That sounds like pretty damn good advice.
Right?
[00:03:29] Anthony: How could you know, is this really a time travel episode? Cause like the only way you can ever know you’re at the top is if you’re looking back in time.
[00:03:36] Dan: Well, that’s true. No, I think what I’m implying here is that if you’re at an all time high. That’s not a good time to buy. I think a lot of people have that perception and this is stemming from a lot of questions that, that we get as new potential investors come into our, our sphere.
We have conversations with them and they ask us, you know, pretty frequently, like, how are you guys making deals work? We’re in this hot market. It’s been hot for a long time. I’m gonna [00:04:00] try and say hot one more time, just for no good reason. Uh, but this is a common question because I think a lot of people are coming from a single family home perspective.
They haven’t invested in multifamily before. Y at these historically high price points all time highs, are you guys still buying things? Um, how’s that work? And my answer is, um, we get things off market, right? The key to doing well is, you know, there’s going to be opportunities in very strong market. At the top of the market, there’s going to be opportunities at the bottom of the market.
Probably a heck of a lot more at the bottom of the market. It’s a lot easier, but there’s opportunities throughout the entire cycle throughout the entire real estate cycle. And so the key to doing well, isn’t it stand on the sidelines just because we’re at all time highs it’s to buy. For less than their market price.
And if you can add value in some way, that just helps us scenario, but we’re able to buy things at prices below market rate, largely due to the relationships that we’ve curated over the years. But if you can get something at the right price and it’s got the right [00:05:00] amount of upside, you could be at all time highs and still do pretty damn good.
Even if there’s a turn in the market, I’d argue. What do you think that I’m apples?
[00:05:09] Anthony: Hm.
[00:05:11] Dan: Hm. So, is that an apple or a lead
[00:05:15] Anthony: Berry? I don’t know, but it’s tasty. It’s tasty. I’m I’m, I’m chewing on it. I’m chewing. And here’s, here’s my deep, insightful takeaway. I agree. I think, uh, I agree. Listen, real estate is not a game that you wait to buy.
You buy them. Is that D does that sound as deep and provocative as I was hoping it did.
[00:05:40] Dan: No, it’s been used a lot. Yeah. But
[00:05:43] Anthony: it’s true. It’s true. At the end of the day, like buy, buy something for less than it’s than it’s less, less than its book value, buy a thing for less than it’s worth and you’re gonna do okay.
Yeah. I actually
[00:05:54] Dan: heard a clip of a, of buffet talking from his, um, uh, shareholder meeting I think was [00:06:00] like last weekend.
[00:06:00] Anthony: Pretty sure. Oh, he’s so on the crypto train, people buckle up. We’re going to create. As I’m thinking of Michael Saylor. Nevermind. Yeah. That’s
[00:06:12] Dan: pretty consistent. Um, but, uh, but yeah, no, there was a comment in there.
Someone had asked a question, something along the lines of like, how did you guys know not to be buying at this point? And how’d you guys know to sell this point? And, um, he said something simply that like, He, and Charlie never know what the market’s going to do. They’re not buying because they think the market’s going to go up and they’re not selling because they think the market’s going to go down.
They do something very simple over and over and over again. They look for things that are trading for less than their books. Alright, that works in good markets and bad. They don’t look at, they don’t try to project what the market’s going to do. They just go on, they try to find something that’s worth a buck and buy it for 90 cents, 80 cents, 50 cents, whatever it is.
And that works throughout any market cycle. So even buffets on
[00:06:54] Anthony: it. Wasn’t really funny stories about Warren buffet is Charlie Munger is I can’t remember which, which company this [00:07:00] was, but they were like evaluating a company that they wanted to invest in. And they knew they knew they had a slamming good deal because.
The assets, like the physical assets of the business could have been sold for more than what that business was currently trading at. That’s really common, actually. Yeah. If you think about that, you’re like, forget the business. Like the business could shut up shop right now. We could just sell all that stuff and it would be worth more like the machinery and all the infrastructure, like that type of stuff.
Yeah. Regardless of how hot the market is. You have to be looking for those opportunities where there’s price disequilibrium. There’s an opportunity because for whatever reason, this thing, you can get it at a rate that is below market expectation or like what that somebody else could get it. So, yeah, I think it’s always about, regardless of where the market is, you don’t know that’s, that’s my big takeaway.
This is all the time travel episode. And unless you can come back from the future, What’s going to happen in the next three years and how the [00:08:00] market’s going to go up and down. Like we, we won’t know until it’s happened. And so you can’t, you can’t plan for that. All right. Are you ready to pull out the lead bury still work?
You ready to pluck some lead barriers off the Bush?
[00:08:14] Dan: Yes, please. Okay. Big juicy one.
[00:08:17] Anthony: Here’s our topic for the day, which the listeners at home have already known. Um, it is three ways to do de-risk and investment. However, Dan does not know what these three ways are. I have pulled them out of the sky. And so let me ask you before I, even before I even tell you what these three are, and we kind of unpack them for the listeners off the top of your head, what are three ways to de-risk?
[00:08:44] Dan: Uh, number one, add time. Okay. Number two, number two. Um, is the purchase price variable or is that already fixed? Can I play with that? Do you do whatever you want? Alright. Uh, buy something for less than it’s worth today. Okay. That’s good. That’s a really good one. Tying that back [00:09:00] full circle has a really good time.
Buy it for less than it’s worth. Uh, add value. Um, now let me change it. I’m going to have the different one for the third de-risk. Um, don’t overlap. Or reduce leverage.
[00:09:14] Anthony: Okay. Okay. Okay. Those are all three really good reasons. The ways to de-risk an investment and we could spend an entire episode on those, but instead, we’re going to spend our entire time on these.
Um, now that I’m looking at them worst ways to de-risk investment. All right. So number one, do it.
[00:09:37] Dan: I’m
[00:09:37] Anthony: not mature enough. Um, w what do you, what do you hear when I say.
[00:09:43] Dan: Uh, this is where I lie. Um, I’ve, I’ve kind of had this little sound bite I’ve used quite a bit over the years. Uh, something along the lines of, uh, the more times you do a thing, um, the better the, the risk profile gets or the, the lower, the risk profile gets, it kind of implies.
You [00:10:00] get practice, you get better at it. You learn the pitfalls. Um, you learn, you know, what, what could go wrong? You learn what you did, right. That you can do again, you learn what you did wrong that you can avoid doing. You just, you get better. So, you know, doing something over and over again, you don’t have to worry about being the new guy in the room.
Once you’ve done it, 50, 62. Yeah, that’s
[00:10:17] Anthony: that’s exactly. I think repetition improves skill and investing in real estate is a skill and a large, if you want to go and add value or just buy it below value, like this is a thing that requires a Warren, Buffet’s going to be way better at evaluating a business than I am, because he’s done it a lot.
And so this is why we’re big fans of just hyper-focusing on an asset class. We’d like multifamily hyper-focusing on a market, like over and over and over. We just do the same thing in our market. All day long. And every time we do it, we become incrementally better theoretically. And therefore that investment, our previous investments w which we still hold and our future investments all become less risky because our skills, our capabilities are improving.
[00:10:58] Dan: Yeah. The probability [00:11:00] of a screwing up theoretically should go down. I think, yeah,
[00:11:03] Anthony: it sounds right. It’s like an asymptote where it, like, it’s gonna, it’s gonna like start to level, gets to zero. It never gets there, but if it’s gonna hover, it’s going to get real close. That’s our that’s our goal is to be the asymptote of, uh, Minneapolis investing, interested in sound to it.
That’s pretty fun. Okay. Uh, how about this one? Do it at home.
Nope. That, um, so number one was do it a lot. Number two is do it at home.
[00:11:31] Dan: Your way of, uh, wording. These is distracting
[00:11:34] Anthony: me in real estate until you get to the third one. All right.
[00:11:37] Dan: I see, I see where you’re going here. Um, play, play in your home court, right? Is that what you’re saying? Uh, invest in your backyards.
Um, Invest locally where you live or we’re a partner or someone on your team has some, uh, specialized knowledge about that area. Yep. Um,
[00:11:53] Anthony: honestly like an Excel sense. It’s not even just about the location. Like physically, I also think about this and like doing it where you w where, you [00:12:00] know, like what, you know, do stick to what you know, where, you know, it in your backyard is a place that, you know, really well, your hand is the thing that, you know, really well.
So like stick to those things that, you know, really well it’s another
[00:12:10] Dan: Warren ism or buffet is. Thing that Warren buffet says. Yeah. And I
[00:12:14] Anthony: think it’s over, it’s overlooked, but play where you have a unique advantage. And that’s, that’s maybe the big takeaway of this whole, this whole episode is that successful investors figure out what their unique edge.
And instead of just going and investing in an index fund that kind of like plays to the entire market average and then gets average returns as a result. Like if you want to exceed that, you have to have some unique edge, something that makes you better. And so you do the thing a lot and you do the thing at home to do the thing that, you know, like those are ways of getting that unique.
[00:12:42] Dan: Yeah, no, I think this is especially relevant today, just because the access to different things and there’s new new products coming out all the time that people can, can get access to obviously cryptos the big one, a brand new thing. 15 years ago didn’t even exist. Um, and the [00:13:00] accessibility to the types of deals that we do, multi-family syndications, there’s developed deals.
There’s all sorts of things that people could start to get access to. It was just fantastic, but I think a lot of people start to think that, um, you know, the grass is always greener. Like this new thing that I heard about is the new thing. That’s going to take off, go to the moon and it’s gonna leave them behind.
And people tend to want to gravitate towards those things. And, uh, I was chatting with somebody the other day, who’s asking. Uh, some investment advice, um, someone who has some cash that they’re going to have some access to, and they don’t want to put it into the market and they want to put it into, um, something, something else.
Right. They didn’t really have to figure it out beyond that. Uh, this is somebody who invested in a few of our deals and I was chatting with the skeleton. She was kind of asking me like, what were the best opportunities out there? And I was like, obviously the best stuff is primarily B markets being babies.
[00:13:48] Anthony: Oh yeah. Beanie babies are coming back. Okay. Okay. You were saying private. Yeah, private markets
[00:13:56] Dan: generally gonna show you some better opportunities than, than [00:14:00] the public markets. Um, and that’s probably, I’d probably kind of start to zero in on that, because this is somebody who has some real estate already.
They’ve got their, their stocks situated, maybe take a look at some other private stuff. And our next question was like, like what? And I was like, well, it’s a, world’s your oyster there’s things you could do, but should probably find something that you have some, uh, unique or specialized knowledge. So you can look at it and say, Hmm, this makes sense to me.
Good example. This would be a physician friend of mine. Who’s, uh, getting into the angel investing game. And he’s looking at big surprise stuff in the medical industry. Right. And he knows what he’s looking at from that perspective. And so that’s really where I think people need to be living is find something that you understand as opposed to what you think is like the next big thing.
Like, forget that, invest in what you know, and you’ll be good. And that’s,
[00:14:46] Anthony: uh, the, the medical industry. One’s a really good example. Cause you showed me the. And I love Angela investing, but I looked at them. I’m like hard pass after five minutes. Cause I’m like, I don’t understand anything about this industry and how it’s monetized, how its customers, how you, of the contracts I’m like, and I [00:15:00] could learn all that stuff.
And you sure this there, this is literally a cure to cancer is right where you’d be like, um, uh, aids, aids, uh, uh, cancer of the eye cancer of the world. Uh, eight. It’s literally a cure for aids. And I’m like, I can’t invest in this and this will look like the stupidest thing in the, in the world, if in 10 years from now, it does in fact do that thing.
And it was like, it could have been a billion dollar thing, but I don’t know anything about it. I know
[00:15:25] Dan: nothing about, yeah. I mean, you could tell me just about anything’s the cure for aids and I’d probably believe you, cause I just have no knowledge of medicine or any of that type of stuff. And so you could say that this random chemical concoction is the cure.
I’d be like, go, okay, cool. That’s good. Here’s my money. Can I just give you money
[00:15:41] Anthony: now or
[00:15:43] Dan: shutting your shocks?
[00:15:45] Anthony: How do I, how do I do this? Anyhow? Okay. Um, number three, are you ready for number three? I guess was number one. Um, do it a lot, lot. Number two, do it at home. Number three, do it with a partner. [00:16:00] Cute. I know.
[00:16:03] Dan: Do we need to, do we
[00:16:04] Anthony: need to explain the impact like. But, yeah, let’s go ahead and unpack it. Otherwise we’re just juvenile children who were making funny jokes.
[00:16:12] Dan: Uh, yeah. I mean, if you guys have listened to our content, you know, we were a big proponents of partners. Partnering with people, right? Because you can’t do all the things yourself.
Um, you’re, self-aware enough. You’re, you’re going to be able to know that there’s a certain small segment of things that you really enjoy and you’re, you’re really good at. And all the other stuff you need to try to fill in with something else. Um, it could be a partner. It could be, um, staff that you bring on board to help you out.
But, uh, having a partner is definitely a good way. De-risk a deal, right? Theoretically, they should be bringing some other skillsets that you don’t have. Hopefully some track record, a little bit of a balance sheet there to help mitigate the risk because erotically, they they’re taking half of that off your plate, if it’s a 50 50 thing.
So
[00:16:55] Anthony: another one, uh, on that same thing, it ties into angel investing. It ties to some questions we’ve [00:17:00] gotten recently from prospective investors, um, which is like, what happens if one of you gets hit by. Like, I know some angel investors who will not invest in a startup with only one founder. Cause they’re like, what happens if that guy gets knocked out for some reason.
So like that’s another way to look at the, the de-risking environment is having multiple heads is always better than just one. But I love also your, your explanation of like complimentary skills and like to in the case of a good partnership equals I’m sorry, one plus one in a good partnership equals far more than two.
I don’t know, 2.73. Pretty good. So yeah, those are three ways to de-risk and investment. All those
[00:17:40] Dan: buses, man, they drive everywhere. This is how
[00:17:42] Anthony: they get. Cause they lull you into a false sense of security and you think there’s no way because I’m 36 years old and I’ve never been hit by a bus before. I’m not 36.
I don’t know why I threw that out there. I’m 37 turning 38 next month. So I don’t know how old I am, but those buses, like it has a good ring to it. Yeah. [00:18:00] The buses, because I’ve never been hit by one, I assume I never will. So remember, uh, Past a track record of success does not imply future success. Right?
So just because I’ve never been hit by a bus doesn’t mean I’m never going to get hit by a bus just because I’ve been successful in real estate investing doesn’t mean I’m going to be successful in real estate investing.
[00:18:20] Dan: So past performance is not indicative of
[00:18:23] Anthony: future results, whatever you said it better.
Yeah. I told you I’m getting old and this is what you come at me
with.
[00:18:28] Dan: It’s cause you’re playing hooky as buses, man. That’s not good. It’s not good for you. Clean with no hooky. Um, Yeah, please. Chicken, chicken. It’s Friday.
[00:18:40] Anthony: And I thought, I thought in badasses, the past, past failures and future successes, I still don’t know how it goes.
All right guys, it’s Friday. We’re tired. What do you want from us? Um, hopefully not work yet. This is it. This is all you get. Um,
[00:18:56] Dan: we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel today
[00:18:57] Anthony: and at the bottom of that barrel, I’m [00:19:00] just here scraping it. Oh, look, book.
[00:19:04] Dan: It was a good one. Um,
[00:19:06] Anthony: feel like you just peeled it off a sticky floor.
Yep. That’s what I’m picturing. And what’s interesting is that this, that might be where you have to go and find this book is like, interestingly enough, this book is out of print, not just out of print, but like it is the author of it pulled it, um, and took away all rights to distribution and everything.
Like you cannot find this book. You cannot find it anywhere. Um, so, so this might be a really weird book to recommend. Um, it’s called margin of safety by Seth Klarman. It sounds like a book. Are you familiar? And you don’t know this book? Oh,
[00:19:44] Dan: oh,
[00:19:47] Anthony: okay. So here’s the here’s here’s the skinny, if you guys know who Benjamin Graham is, you know, um, Warren Buffett’s mentor the guy who kind of.
Invented the concept of value investing, legendary figure, who tied it, Warren and everything that they [00:20:00] know now, Seth Klarman was this guy in the eighties, the nineties, and even today, um, who is like this remarkable investor. And I think he’s pretty much packed up the shop because he had such great results.
He’s like, I don’t care anymore. Um, is the guy that everybody else in that world of trading looks at and they were like that guy’s like legit. And he wrote this book called margin. Which is really like a version 2.0 of Benjamin Graham’s intelligent investor, which is like the Bible of what was the, cause it was like a
[00:20:30] Dan: strategy that pulled
[00:20:31] Anthony: it, but it’s not really, yeah.
It’s like that, but it’s also about the psychology of investing and the difference between speculation and investing. And he writes it in this incredibly accessible way. Um, the problem is it is a book that has become like this mythical. Figure now because it’s so hard to find a copy of it. You have one?
I do. I do have a copy of it. I have a PDF that I found I’d I dredged it up at the bottom of the internet on the bottom of the barrel. [00:21:00] And it is so good. It is, you would
[00:21:01] Dan: love it. I, I could tell by the title and everything, you just would love it,
[00:21:05] Anthony: but I am not about to on air. Incriminate myself in the commission of a crime by offering somebody a copy of this thing.
I’m not going to do that. Even if you’re saying email me, Anthony at Invictus multifamily and say, I don’t care what you said. There’s no chance. I would give you a copy of the book. Even if you,
[00:21:29] Dan: even, if you asked me, do you really nicely, Anthony ed Invictus, multifamily and said, Hey, can you send me a copy of that book?
[00:21:34] Anthony: I would be like, I can not do this. I might be able to point you in the direction of a link or I wouldn’t, I don’t know. Probably I wouldn’t just who’s to say all it costs is an email. And potentially me saying, sorry. No, the FBI has camped out at my door because they listened to this podcast and now they’re just.
[00:21:57] Dan: They’re on a stakeout. Paul Tudor Jones [00:22:00] did something similar. He had a documentary made about him and like, it was like 85. It was like right before black Monday. And, uh, it was really fascinating because he was effectively just predicting the black Monday crash in the documentary and you get to watch.
Kill it, uh, in the documentary, but he had the same, not the same, but his, his feelings were that that documentary showed too much of his process process. And he actually spent a lot of money trying to get it all taken back and buying, uh, back copies. And then, I mean, now it’s on YouTube. You can find it just search for trader documentary.
Paul Tudor Jones. It’s pretty good. Damn YouTube. Yeah, it’s kind of same thing. He’s like, oh, this is too much information. Get, I
[00:22:42] Anthony: think it’s too good. But, um, this book is really a good margin of safety. Um, so, uh, for your listeners at home that want a copy, I think you know what to do. I don’t know. Anyway, um, I’m intrigued.
You can’t get a copy. [00:23:00] You’re the only one that, Hmm, the only one. All right. That any, any parting words of wisdom or. Uh, malice and you parting words of malice,
[00:23:13] Dan: passive investing book.com. Go by.
[00:23:16] Anthony: That was very good, but not quite accurate. Leave a review, not quite accurate. Leave a review. It’s the passive investing book.com please. You gotta put in the, otherwise it will go to a
[00:23:26] Dan: different color. The possum bestselling book.com go buy it. And while you’re at it, while you’re doing things, typing things into that little bar at the top of Google.
Just go ahead and go to iTunes icon search for this podcast and leave a bunch of reviews or just one. Yeah, we’ll take one. Just one. Okay.
[00:23:42] Anthony: Here, we’re going to pull this episode. We’re going to make it full circle. Go to iTunes, do it a lot. Do it at home, do it with a partner, drop a review with a partner, a lot of reviews.
Do it a lot. As many parts, as many reviews as you can get. [00:24:00] Um, go to all the different places
[00:24:03] Dan: that this episode she had been done, like 10 minutes ago, I think. Yeah. I sent about two minutes then if
[00:24:12] Anthony: anybody’s still listening to this episode, like they, they really get. Really get us, or they have a lot of regrets.
One of the two is happening, so that’s going to do it for us, everybody. We are, we apologize. We’ll do better next time. Goodbye.
