Our guests for today are the founders of Adventurous Real Estate Investors. They specialize in Return on Impact. Through real estate investing they create immeasurable impacts; in their family, with their friends, in their community, with the families (residents) they serve, in the spaces where they want to be generous…. everywhere and anywhere!
Let’s dive right in and learn from Suzy Sevier and Michael Barnhart on how to Reset. To regain control of our lives, secure financial freedom, create a long-lasting impact and discovering our why.
[00:01 – 12:52] Opening Segment
- We introduce our guests, Suzy Sevier and Michael Barnhart
- Suzy and Michael talk about their background
- What they did during LOCK downs
[12:53 – 18:53] Why Would Invest In Something Thousands of Miles Away?
- Bad Investing Tip
- The process of investing in the USA overseas
- Checklists and systems
[18:54 – 34:57] The Return On Impact
- What are you doing with those gains?
- The goal to change one person
[34:58 – 42:39] The Biggest Takeaways From The First Deal
- Verify income multiple ways
- Ask for the top 4
[42:40 – 47:20] Closing Segment
- Final thoughts
- Book recommendations:
“when you’re interviewing these property management companies be very conscious of like what they’re saying” – Michael Barnhart
“if you’re so used to doing everything in your backyard, like it’s almost difficult to actually leave” – Suzy Sevier
“it is very amazing to me how many people just blindly give their money away to people or the casino, the stock market” – Michael Barnhart
“you just need to find the people who are doing it and just not copy them, but make it your own” – Suzy Sevier
“if all we are looking for in real estate investing is like more time, how can we give that to residents as well? How can we give that to our investors? Like how can we streamline that with our property management company?” – Suzy Sevier
Connect with Suzy Sevier and Michael Barnhart! See their links below:
Go to their LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram, pages to connect with Suzy Sevier and Michael Barnhart! Visit their Website, Podcast, and YouTube.
Being an Adventurous Investor with Suzy Sevier and Michael Barnhart
Anthony Vicino: [00:00:15] Hello and welcome to Multifamily Investing Made Simple, the 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 DeCurtis capital joined as always by Dan. He’s wondering what his middle name is going to be today. Krueger, how’s that for being kind of meta? That was good. You didn’t see that coming, did you?
Dan Krueger: [00:00:36] Know? It made me think. And plus, of course, I like it. So you don’t think I’m good because it was a lot of things going on. I don’t know. People can’t eat much, but if they do, they might be aware that there’s something coming up. The pipeline is going to be posted. But by the time this is posted, there’s going to be something.
Anthony Vicino: [00:00:57] Oh, it’s out. It’s officially launched by the time this comes out. So if you’re listening to this in the future, you’re part of the future for the future people that we fear coming back to eradicating us. But for you guys in the future, if you guys are not in Armageddon, robots taking over the world scenario that we all fear is coming, then you should go check out passive investing made simple, the new book it’s got. OK, so that’s a shameless plug. I won’t do another one because today we probably will just. Yeah, totally, totally fair. You keep listening. So today we are joined by some excellent guests, which if you’ve been listening to the podcast pretty regularly, you know, we haven’t done a guest episode in a while, so we’re a little rusty with our interviewing. So just bear with us as we ask really awkward questions. But today is going to be a lot of fun. I had the pleasure of joining these two. I want to say Yahoos,
Dan Krueger: [00:01:46] But
Anthony Vicino: [00:01:47] They have a freewheeling spirit about them that I really enjoy. So today we’re joined by Suzy Subha and Michael Barnhart, and they are the founders of adventurists, real estate investors. And they specialize specialized in the most important of all metrics, the most important ROIC return on impact through real estate investing. They create immeasurable impacts in their family, with their friends, in the community, with the families, residents that they serve, and in the spaces where they want to be generous, which is everywhere and anywhere. So I’m really excited. This is going to be a fun conversation because these two are coming from very far away. I don’t even know how the wi-fi reaches you guys, but you guys are from the UK. So without further ado, Michael and Susie, thanks for being here, guys. How are you doing?
Michael Barnhart: [00:02:34] Doing great. Anthony is really excited to be here. And Dan, it’s such a pleasure.
Suzy Sevier: [00:02:38] Yeah. We’re going to how it’s going to be a great party.
Dan Krueger: [00:02:40] We appreciate you guys coming on because it’s been a whole lot of just me and Anthony for a long time. So I’m sure I was talking to each other.
Michael Barnhart: [00:02:46] Variety, nice and refreshing for your listeners and
Suzy Sevier: [00:02:49] Just rescued the cobwebs. It’ll be
Anthony Vicino: [00:02:51] Great. Yeah. So we got this and this is going to be a really cool conversation because I don’t know. I think the last time we spoke to somebody outside the US was Hodda or be from New Zealand. And so we haven’t talked to a lot of investors from outside the US. Also, we talked to Ava in August from Canada, but they’re like, that’s practically us. So it can’t count that. But you guys give us your story. Where are you? Where are you right now?
Suzy Sevier: [00:03:21] Yes, we are in Cambridge, England, and we are here because Michael is activity Air Force, but he’s getting his Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge. So he does not have a traditional military role. And we’ve been here for about a little over two years and we should be here for another year or year and a half. So that’s what brought us to the side of the pond. And it’s pretty fun. I like it a lot. As you heard before, Michael’s not the greatest fan of the weather. I just think it’s great.
Dan Krueger: [00:03:54] But I get to ask, what do you get here? You study
Michael Barnhart: [00:04:00] Biochemistry. So I was yeah, it’s like I’m not necessarily going into academia. Like, a lot of people get to either go into industry or academia or whatever, like I was teaching at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs before. You know, we’re just a master’s degree and they want me to continue to see this. I mean, hey, you want to go? Yeah, absolutely. Do it anywhere. I was like, sure. And then I chose Cambridge, brought in the bill and they’re like, OK, I’ll make that’s
Dan Krueger: [00:04:30] Why of so many questions. So what you guys are doing and how these all together we try to dive into it, that’s super interesting.
Anthony Vicino: [00:04:41] I’m curious which one’s more complicated, what you’re doing right now with, like the chemicals, or what you’re doing with the multifamily real estate?
Michael Barnhart: [00:04:49] They both have their own. I love them both, so, yeah, I’m analytical, and so, of course, I am very attracted to the underwriting side of multifamily and stuff like that. It really is attractive to me, attractive, attractive for me as well. Biochemistry. So like there’s like nuances and things and also a project manager like in my previous life. And so like that whole asset management aspect of multifamily as well, like bleeds over into that. And so like, yeah, there are so many things that kind of just blend together and more integrated between the two then that
Dan Krueger: [00:05:24] I’m the same way with the whole analytical and quantitative side of the real estate business. And basically, anything that’s kind of in that category is automatically tracked in its numbers and science-based on doing so. I can appreciate that. I’m sure they both kind of like the real estate and the chemistry. They both kind of scratch to different niches. I would guess they’re both analytical and quantitative, but at the same time, they’re both very different fields. So you kind of get a change of scenery, which helps keep.
Michael Barnhart: [00:05:55] Absolutely, absolutely. And I think Anthony and I had this discussion before, but with my ADHD, it’s good to be able to jump around to various different projects and whatever kind of attracts my interest at the time.
Anthony Vicino: [00:06:07] So I guess it begs the question, like, what was it about real estate that attracted your attention as you’re over there with you know, you didn’t like your biochemical shenanigans, we’ll call it, and you’re traveling around doing all this stuff? Oh, yeah. Yeah. These are shenanigans. Sure. What was it then about that, like real say, how did that cross your path?
Michael Barnhart: [00:06:33] I’ll let Susie tell a story about how that whole thing started and
Suzy Sevier: [00:06:36] How it crossed our path. That’s a great question. So during our first lockdown over here, it was a little over one hundred days. And just about any perspective, we’d have had three. Everybody was sent home from their work. So I had to start my job. And Michael’s researches what research? And so they were like, OK, well, if you can’t do research, then you should write your first report. And once that was done, he was like, OK, well, what are we going to do now? Because all we could do was work out once a day and go to the grocery store, the pharmacy. So Michael and or I decided, I guess, for us that we were going to do a mini-book club with each other. And one of the books was Multiple Streams of Income by Robert Allen and a couple of chapters in talks about real estate investing. Michael looked at me and he’s like, skip all the first chapters, just go straight to real estate investing. And like when he found out, it’s like the power of passive income and like really what you can do for your life. And once we also found out that everything had gone virtual, we just knew it was the greatest opportunity that we ever had.
Suzy Sevier: [00:07:48] But so that’s really how we came across it. And I think what was most interesting is that, like in traditional military life, like for me, I would have to jump from job to job to job like with every move. And like with Michael, it’s like, OK, well, you hit 20 years and you have that opportunity to retire, but like, what do you do next? And when we thought about the two combined, it was like people I never have to apply for, like over 50 jobs again. Right. Because that was a huge struggle when I moved here. It’s like, well, who are you from this foreign country? Do you actually have a visa? What’s happening right now? And for Michael, it was like, oh, I have an exit from the military. I actually now have a plan. And because we had the opportunity to spend so much time together and just really put that all into perspective, it was like, wow, we can be best friends and just do this forever, you know, like MIT. And so that was like we’re the life, I guess,
Dan Krueger: [00:08:50] Know, I can relate to. I mean, they going to look for a job, it’s kind of like dating. It’s exhausting. You get rejected a lot. It’s a really humbling experience. So is this that kind of process and just that that style of life, what made you pick up that multiple streams of income in the first place where you kind of look at it like, how can I get some other stuff going on the side? So maybe I don’t have as much a sense of urgency to go out to get that job. Maybe it becomes more options, that kind of where your brain was going with that. Because I was curious, like why that book was the first one in the book club.
Michael Barnhart: [00:09:26] Yeah, I wish it was that analytical then, but unfortunately, I haven’t read this book called The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson. And then in the back of that book, he has like a list of like books of like the books that he recommended, of course, like think you grow riches in there and some of the other mindset books from Napoleon Hill as well. And like and Milton and Robert Alan’s other books are in there as well. And like so where I started to police is like, well, we’re going to lock down these books and we’re going through books like every couple of days or whatever and nothing else to do. Right. And as we just started to list and started working to down and I regret to that book and we got to that chapter about real estate and he explains in such a way that makes it sound so simple. And I was like, hang on a second. I was like, this is way too easy. Like, why don’t we do it?
Anthony Vicino: [00:10:18] Can’t be this this can’t be that easy.
Dan Krueger: [00:10:21] So. Well, the rest of the world was watching Tiger King. You guys look amazing. I think you hit it on the head like I had the same response when I went down the rabbit hole because I was working in corporate finance and it was full-on on that trip. And then I stumbled down the rabbit hole of real estate with the itch. The bulb came on and it was the same light bulb as you. It was like, this is so simple compared to everything else. You could be invested in it since everything else is so speculative or confusing. It’s like it’s gambling and there are all these unknowns. But this is like the simplest thing I’ve ever found. It ties up top to bottom. All the math makes sense. And that’s really what I found excited for the simplicity of it. And I think that’s what I think a lot of people are coming to say about it. They don’t realize that. They think it’s complex and exotic because there’s some lingo and stuff. But once you get past the cap rates and some of the jargon, you kind of realize that this is basically just kind of like simple addition and subtraction of you manage a household budget and kind of extrapolate that a little bit further into managing properties.
Michael Barnhart: [00:11:26] So absolutely, it is very amazing to me how many people just blindly give their money. Your way to people or the casino, the stock market, if you will, and so in real estate, you can basically you can control a lot of things in real estate. Right? Like, you can’t control anything in the stock market, right? Yeah.
Anthony Vicino: [00:11:47] It’s funny. You guys mention two books that I have never heard of, The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson. But what’s interesting about that is we just bought a property off a guy named Jeff Olson. Not the same, Jeff, but it’s pretty. He’s out there writing books and selling properties
Dan Krueger: [00:12:02] For the blackheads before. I think I’ve had that on my radar. I was going to ask about this one. I’ve never heard of this one. I feel like that title is something I would probably gravitate towards had it compressed my radar.
Anthony Vicino: [00:12:12] So we’ve got it sounds pretty cool. One of the things like you know, this is the part of the show where everybody’s like, oh, come on, guys, just get to the bad investing advice already. So here’s how I’m going to Segway and transition the show. And you guys are going to look back and be like by those masterful I know it, the bad investing advice now. But so the question people are probably wondering as they’re listening to your story is like, OK, you guys are in Cambridge, you’re in lockdown. You start reading about real estate, but you can’t. You’re reading about investing in real estate in the US. Right. So. How did you guys manage to invest in the US from England? What is your best investing advice for the week? I say as if I don’t know where this is going.
Suzy Sevier: [00:12:53] That’s a great question. You know, some about investing. His advice is that you have to invest in your backyard. So that is like so, so, so, so far from the truth and. You can and it totally works, but you also don’t have to because it totally works like so many people want, time, freedom. And with that, I often hear like, oh, I want to travel with my family or I want to go on extended this. And all of it has to do with time. But like, if you’re so used to doing everything in your backyard, like it’s almost difficult to actually leave, you know? And so for us, it’s just that we want to show people that you can do it from anywhere in the world as long as you just have the right systems and processes in place because that’s what you’d have to do even if it was in your backyard systems.
Anthony Vicino: [00:13:52] Yeah, yeah. So walk me through, like, what are those systems, those processes that allowed you guys to make that mental leap, not just like the mental leap, but also the actual leap to then investing in the US? Like what? What was your process for that? Was there any moment of doubt where like maybe this won’t work for us because we’re too far away or any limiting beliefs around that? Or were you guys just like forge through? Nothing’s going to stop us,
Michael Barnhart: [00:14:14] You know, absolutely. There are multiple times people told us, like you, you can’t do this. You’re going to fail time and time. Why would you do that? How would you do that? So they’re like, you can’t for a thousand miles away from every successful. It’s risky.
Dan Krueger: [00:14:30] Yeah. I have to say,
Suzy Sevier: [00:14:31] That’s my
Michael Barnhart: [00:14:32] Favorite as I invest in Dogecoin, all these things. Right.
Anthony Vicino: [00:14:36] So my mind was doing great until it wasn’t.
Dan Krueger: [00:14:40] Oh.
Michael Barnhart: [00:14:44] But, you know, we didn’t know what systems or processes we needed. Right. We just started slowly accumulating them. It’s like we knew we could do several things over here. We could underwrite we could make relationships with brokers and builders. I chose the brokers, get deals and then raise capital. Right for those deals. We could all do that from where we’re basically the only thing that we were kind of missing out on was like having a boots-on-the-ground partner. So the first thing we had. But then with that system is a process. If we can’t be there in person, what would we want to know? What we want to see. Right. So we came up with a list, right. Like a checklist before we submitted our property. When you do a property walk with a broker, you need to check, take pictures of this right down. This, you know, look at this like all these checklists and these systems, if you will, for our boots on the ground to provide the information for us so we can make an accurate projection on underwritings.
Suzy Sevier: [00:15:40] Right. But even to add to that. Right. Because so many people are like, wow, I don’t know what would go on that list. Yeah, that’s totally cool. Neither did I. Like I went and searched all of the top real estate investors and all of them. If they had a free download or guy that talked about due diligence, I downloaded it and saw what was similar in all of them. Like it’s like none of us are trying to reinvent the wheel. Like, I’m not trying to come up with super new things, but there are so many resources out there like that’s where people stop. It’s like, oh, I can’t write this blog post because so many other people have written about it or I can’t talk about this on YouTube because there are thousands of videos out like that. It’s like, no, you just need to find the people who are doing it and just not copy them, but make it your own. You know, that it was just like doing little things like that. So like put together a list where other people had been successful with it. And, you know, like that list was a great start because then the boots on the ground could go look at that. I mean, like even just being consistent, like with systems and processes, a lot of it is about like making it like very consistent and streamlined. And so, like, even with our investors, like, it’s like keeping that great balance because you have to do those multiple touchpoints. Right. Or else like they forget about you. It’s like, well, how do I create content and be in the space at the same time while having to talk to Brokers’? You know, it’s like finding balance with all of it. But you can do that. Like you can find time to write a blog post while you have to go to a meetup and you have to talk to your broker because it does seem really overwhelming. But it’s like just doing little bits at a time and knowing that there are other people out there who are in the exact same shoes that you were.
Anthony Vicino: [00:17:30] Mm-hmm. It’s a lot of people get hung up on that whole. Well, I don’t have anything new to say. Everybody else has already said if they’ve already put up this content. And it’s so interesting because there are no new ideas, really. It’s all just a matter of technique. It’s just a matter of your voice and expression. And so I think there’s a lot of value in not trying to reinvent the wheel, which is a really interesting topic of conversation with a lot of potential investors that we have where people will say things like, well, real estate’s not very sexy, it’s kind of boring like it’s tried and true. There’s not a lot of variance in it. Once you kind of once you understand how it works, it is kind of boring. And that’s a great thing. Like, we like that about it. But it can also be it’s not Dogecoin. It’s not new, I would say, mentally taxing application of like biochemistry. Right. Like, it’s not that at once. You know, the wheel, you just keep turning that wheel over and over and over. Now, the really cool thing about that, we’ll want to know how to turn it. Now, you can start to generate really cool returns. And the return that you guys are focused on, which I find really interesting, doesn’t return on investment and it’s not cash on cash if it’s the return on impact. So let’s walk through exactly what that means for you guys and how you’re living that in your day today.
Michael Barnhart: [00:18:44] And that was a really great transition. I love that. Thank you. Yeah.
Suzy Sevier: [00:18:49] Yeah, I do too. But I’m not ready for it.
Dan Krueger: [00:18:51] Ok, should be out the way.
Suzy Sevier: [00:18:54] So I just want to add something that you said, how it’s like boring. I think that’s the like. I strongly dislike that because I think it’s a huge thing versus instant gratification versus long-term gratification, right? Because even with systems and processes like because I just have to more things popped into my head like we went through every single email after our first acquisition and made like a huge checklist. I don’t know what two hundred ninety-three points of everything that we had to do for the next one. And yes, it could change, but like that might seem boring, like long-term gratification on our second acquisition, it was phenomenal. That feeling was much more exciting than going through each email, but like with real estate investing and now I can pivot to return on impact. That like that is way more exciting. But like that’s the whole point of it. It’s like, how are you actually looking at real estate investing? Because so many people want to be in the stock market and have these huge gains and have this instant gratification of like what do you then doing with the gains? Are you just because I mean, you know, because this actually goes into your podcast that was just released today, like achievement versus fulfillment.
Suzy Sevier: [00:20:10] So what are you getting out of it all? And so, like for us, like the fulfillment is like being able to take care of each individual resident, like how do we create a life for them where they’re thinking about striving instead of surviving. So like one of those like just for example, in our business plan, like we added the connections for in-unit washers and dryers and then added washers and dryers, like going just beyond the traditional renovations, because when you can spend time at home doing your laundry instead of spending all those hours at a laundromat, like even five extra hours for somebody in a week is a lot like I think right now. If I were to ask a majority of people, they would say they wish they had a fight like an extra five hours, even four hours, whatever that is, to do a load of laundry, like thinking like that, like how can we give them more time if all we are looking for in real estate investing is like more time, how can we give that to residents as well? How can we give that to our investors? Like how can we streamline that with our property management company? So other processes and procedures or systems and processes like we use an Asthana, it’s a program or project management software.
Suzy Sevier: [00:21:29] So like we all communicate in there, instead of having to go through like a thread of thirty-five emails about what do we do when people throw the pool furniture in the pool? I mean, that’s like a very small problem, but you know what I mean? It’s like we like trying to find a way where it’s all in one spot so that we’re not wasting time with that, but. It’s just thinking beyond like ourselves, like how can we serve beyond our four walls, how can we help impact the lives of others truly, whether that’s events, whether for the residents to bring them together as a community, whether that is like helping them with financial literacy like we want to go above and beyond because like the fun fact, I’ve actually never owned a house, so I’ve only ever rented. And so I know what it’s like to only rent and I know what I wish I would have been given to me, because, like, we all have bills. How can we find assets that help pay us and our bills? Like, I wish somebody would have said that to me when I started renting 13 years ago.
Dan Krueger: [00:22:36] Something I kind of picked up on there, while you’re kind of explaining before we got to the R y piece, I mentioned that the boring nature of social media can’t just keep producing the same stuff. I think that’s all kind of related because I think fundamentally what you guys are doing is instead of focusing on the usual return of the usual early return on investment, it on how much money are you to make fixated on that, you’re focused on the things that really matter, which is helping people, providing value. And when you’re kind of in that frame of mind, you know, you’re not thinking about your content production from that perspective. You’re thinking about, how can I help the people around me or the people around me who probably don’t know much about real estate. So, yeah, if I make a video about cap rates and how the real estate business works, it might have been done before. But my friends and family are looking for those videos. They’re never gonna see that stuff. So if I put it out, that puts it into their feeds in front of their eyes and that provides value. So it’s not about trying to create a new thing to make money. It’s about trying to help the people around you. If you are focused on that, you’re going to end up being successful just organically. So I think you guys are focused on the right stuff and that’s why you’re able to do these things that other people might find stupid, boring, risky, whatever. Your folks do the right thing. So you just do organically with the things that are right. And that yields good results long-term, which is kind of like karma, basically. So I think that’s really cool. If you just focus on that stuff, like how to provide value to people, like the rest is going to work itself out. The money will show up in your book someday.
Michael Barnhart: [00:24:09] Yeah. And we love that like this for like for example, our YouTube channel, like we have created that in order to help. If I could just highlight one person. Right. And there’s this one, one gentleman who’s a subscriber and he just loves it. And that’s all I care about, like creating videos just for him. Like if I can help one person get past. Just help one person, that’s all we’re trying to go for and trying to help a million people, right?
Dan Krueger: [00:24:35] So that’s one positive comment. We’ll keep you motivated for a good month or two if you like. It just makes it feel like all those months of filming and editing and posting just one comment, just saying, like, hey, this really impacted me. This cleared up this concept that this was just really well done. That is amazing. So there’s.
Suzy Sevier: [00:25:00] When you think about it, like with one percent, right, so like just impacting somebody one percent every day, whether that’s value or whatever that is like there are almost eight billion people on this earth. And even if, like, a fraction of us started to think that way, just that little twist like, oh, how can I impact myself or somebody else one percent positively every day, like even that long term is would be huge. Right. But again, like, that’s not something that comes with instant gratification like that might seem boring, like, oh, if I pay this person’s coffee, what does that really do? It’s like, well, what does that person do next for the next person and what does that person then do? It’s like it’s that ripple effect that is the amazing part. I mean, that’s why you see so many people, like some people, throw two or three rocks into the lake. If they don’t skip, they stop. Like once you actually get it to skip, you know, like people will say. And they’ll do it again and again and again and they’ll do it again. It’s just having to wait to see when that stone will actually skip again for it to work. But that’s when it’s really beautiful.
Dan Krueger: [00:25:57] Yeah, this reminds me of the second book about Amazon, eBay. So it’s not the one that came after that blanking on the name right now. But the frequent theme with Bezos was everything was all about the customer experience of making that as streamlined and amazing as possible at the shareholder’s expense, at his expense. They didn’t turn a profit for a decade, but he had that long-term vision. They focus on providing value and I think worked out for he just bought a half-billion-dollar gap and it worked well. It took a while. It wasn’t like dogecoin. You can download it in thirty seconds. It’s just a lot of long, hard work and everyone’s like, got better from what he created. And he made a pretty good too. So it’s good
Anthony Vicino: [00:26:43] To the idea of changing one life, like just one person make an impact in one life is I think most powerfully realized when you follow this train of thought, which is if you change yourself, you change the trajectory of your life, you change the trajectory of your family’s life. And if you change the trajectory of your family’s life, you change the trajectory of your neighborhood. And if you change your neighborhood, you change your community, your city. If you change your city, you change your country. And if you just keep thinking about like, if I can change one person, if I can help them improve, just impact them just a little bit. What’s the downstream effect of that person then going in, helping one person and then that person going on, helping one person? It’s network effects. And pretty quickly, we’ve changed the world. You know, it all starts with just like one person helping another person. And so I think this idea of of of impact is very large. And a lot of people this is one of the soapboxes I get on quite frequently is people lose sight with real estate because a lot of times people get into real estate investing because it’s a great way to make money.
Anthony Vicino: [00:27:43] We all know that if you want to build generational wealth, save on taxes, get cash flow appreciation, all these things like multifamily investing, a great ways to do that. So a lot of people get in it for the money, but then they lose sight of the people that they’re serving. So they lose sight of the flesh and blood living inside the sticks and bricks. And they think the sticks and the bricks in the numbers are what it’s all about. And it’s like, no, it’s not really what it’s about. It’s about the customers. But the residents, the people, the families that you’re serving inside, they’re not only them but also the people that you’re giving meaningful work to your property management team and also to your investors. And so it’s like that’s what I get really jazzed about, is when you start to realize like there’s actually a lot of people involved in this equation that is positively being impacted. And if we can just like focus on that, then the numbers take care of themselves and a lot of cases.
Suzy Sevier: [00:28:29] Absolutely. And even something as simple as like thank you. Like those even go. I really, really, really long way. And people don’t even think about that sometimes. I mean, like even like with our property management company, like after every car at the end of every call, like Michael is always like always. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You can tell like I can hear smiles when they say things back and even that is significant. And I don’t know what happened somewhere along the way, but people forgot about the things you people forgot about the pleases. And it’s all just like fast, fast, fast, go, go, go. But like, I don’t know, that’s not fun. And I don’t know if it’s because we were in lockdown for so long. I really got to, like, think about things and sit in my garden and look at life go by slow. But it’s crazy like what we miss out on because people are, so anxious to go so fast like there is no present moment thinking. It’s all like, oh, OK, well what am I going to do tomorrow and what am I going to do after the day after that? It’s like, OK, well what are you going to do right now? Let’s do it right now because that’s way more fun and it’s right in front of you.
Anthony Vicino: [00:29:35] This seems to be a podcast episode today where that people are going to walk away with like a million books to go read. So the book that I’m reading right now. So every morning I have a book that I read a couple of pages out of, and it’s usually something spiritual or like enlightenment or Zen. And this book right now is The Power of Now Eckhart Tolle. And it’s all about living in the now and realizing that the only thing that you have is this instant, this moment. My voice and your ears. That’s all. That’s it. There is no. There is no past. It’s all just now, and if you can live in that moment, then that’s really powerful. But for you guys, you guys read the book, you got turned on to multifamily. You’re like, OK, we’re going to do this thing. We’re living in the now. We want to make an impact. What’s the next step to realizing that impact for you guys? Like you didn’t just jump into creating the systems, right? Like you had to go create the relationships, the brokers. You had to go find the boots on the ground, operators, people to work with. So like, what was that experience like? Because that can feel so overwhelming just in itself, like how on earth am I going to find an awesome partner to work with? Like if I can’t sit down with a coffee, like, how do I get comfortable with them? Like how do I know, like, and trust that they’re going to be somebody I want to work with. What was your guy’s process in that
Suzy Sevier: [00:30:44] So many, so many phone calls.
Anthony Vicino: [00:30:48] That’s 20, 20. In a nutshell,
Michael Barnhart: [00:30:52] We hustle hard if like no joke. I think we had over 600 calls in the past year. And so we actually probably was our first time before we closed our first deal, which was in February of this year.
Suzy Sevier: [00:31:10] So, yeah, yeah. I mean, it so broke it down. Right. It was like, OK, well we don’t because brokers are people too. It’s like, how do we bring those conversations? And because I’m not we’re not just going to call them and say like, hey, we’re from the UK, we want your properties. Like we’re not that cool. So it’s like, how do we do that? Oh, wow. We talk to them about their family. We call them again and we talk to them about soccer and then we call them again. And that’s how their weekend was because that’s how you stand out. So that’s way more than like one call saying that, hey, we’re from the UK and then you get this whole whirlwind of you needed to start raising capital yesterday. It’s like, oh, OK, neat. Now we have to put our foot on the pedal. So we did like twenty to twenty-five, if not more investor calls a week, which would be mornings. And because if we wake up at four o’clock in the morning we can still reach people on the West Coast at 8 pm, you know, like because we have to accommodate to all those people, like we’re brand new, you know, like in our friends and family, we’re not going to be the people investing with us. So we have to figure it out for when they’re available. And then you have to go to conferences and meet more people, you know, because you have to do that networking, because we didn’t know right off the bat that you had to keep had to or you might have needed to copy.
Suzy Sevier: [00:32:29] Like, how do you meet, and if you don’t know KP, you know, that’s hard to do if you’re not networking. It’s like all of that. But then even finding partners, I can I just talk to them one time and I have to see them showing up in the space and not only showing up in the space, but then like taking action of being in the space you are. I don’t know. I wish I could tell you. I felt like I was a bug with like four thousand eyes, like all of the time, you know, like, what are people doing? What do I need to be doing? What content is being put out? Like what changes are being made? It’s. It’s a lot it’s never-ending, but like that’s the whole point is that doing a lot seems boring and that’s not sexy at all. Like most people would not ever want to work the number of hours that people have to work in when they’re doing a Ph.D. and working full time and being in real estate investing like it’s just part of it. If you want to choose you if you want to choose to achieve your own goals instead of achieving your employer’s goals, that’s just what you have to do. You have to do way more than what your employer is doing right now.
Anthony Vicino: [00:33:36] Yeah, that’s one of the things I think a lot of people overlook when they start looking at real estate investing is because the narrative out there is like, oh, anybody can do this. It’s simple. Hey, we have a podcast that’s all about how simple this is. Simple, but the big thing that I cannot stress enough is that simple does not equal easy. It is incredibly difficult. It doesn’t mean it’s complex. Like we’re not doing rocket science here. Like, it’s pretty straightforward or biochemistry. Not that, but it’s simple, but it’s hard. It is very hard. You have to put in the work if you want to be successful. And the thing that I think a lot of people lose sight of is the timelines that we’re dealing with in real estate. This is the best. Get rich slowly but surely plan that there is. And the keyword there is slowly like it takes a while. And so you have to play that 10, 15-year horizon before you like, really generating the sorts of numbers that you hear so many people talking about. But why don’t you guys just kind of walk us through that first deal? Sounds like you close your first one in February. What was the biggest takeaway from that first property? Because it’s unlike you created a to-do list of like one hundred and ninety things. But what was the biggest one we like? OK, we got to fix that one.
Michael Barnhart: [00:34:58] Yeah, that’s a great question. So one that sticks out in my mind is if you’re dealing with a seller that is vertically integrated, meaning that they have their own property management company, you have to make sure that you verify income multiple different ways when you buy that, like bank accounts, tax returns, certified drumrolls, resident ledgers, like however, you can verify income, you need to verify multiple different ways. We could have probably verified income in more ways. We thought we were following a mentor’s guidance or getting mentors’ guidance. And it is a learning experience for him as well. Right. But, yeah, when you have your own property management company and the seller has their own property, and guess what? They can fudge the numbers.
Suzy Sevier: [00:35:46] Yeah. And like, just because you want to create an impact does not mean that other people do like money, means different things, controls people different ways, is powerful to people in different ways. So it’s like if you’re if you want power and control means you mean something the complete opposite to somebody else than money, then is going to be treated completely differently.
Anthony Vicino: [00:36:09] It’s a trust but verify the concept.
Dan Krueger: [00:36:11] Yeah, I’d even argue that even if it’s not a company, I still want to do that. Yeah, definitely. I just kind of assume that if a seller is giving me an I can glean some inspiration from it for like ballpark purposes. But generally speaking, I assume that they are going to be presenting the most glorious cherrypicks data that there is and that there’s probably some stuff that’s factored in there.
Anthony Vicino: [00:36:40] If you’re really put that down, it’s inspiration, it’s inspiration, not truth.
Dan Krueger: [00:36:45] So we are very pessimistic guys. You haven’t gotten yourself. So we assume that we’re going to take the very worst year and just apply the most pessimistic assumptions to it. If it works, then or feels pretty good. But, yeah, we we we don’t assume that the sellers are showing us the most accurate information ever. Yeah. In my to
Anthony Vicino: [00:37:11] My stance is I always assume incompetence rather than malice because incompetence is is just rampant and a lot of mom-and-pop shops and this is where a lot of the value of money. Exactly. Yeah. Even the big players can still be like what is this, what is this craziness. But it’s sometimes that’s the value that you’re acquiring. Is that bad paperwork or do they have bad
Dan Krueger: [00:37:38] Advice, then you can make some money. Sometimes it sometimes
Anthony Vicino: [00:37:43] Is like stepping into a black box. So it sounds like there was a learning opportunity and there how do you guys like since then and the subsequent acquisitions and like from creating systems moving forward, like what have you done to ensure that that’s not happening? Is that just like from day one before Alawi’s go out or after it says airside, you’re like, we need this information, we need to get this locked down?
Michael Barnhart: [00:38:10] Exactly. Yeah. So now we ask for all four of the four things that kind of hit on, like tax returns, bank accounts, certified bank accounts, certified rent rolls, and as well as resonant ledgers. So those are the four things we can ask for from that, but yeah, luckily we had to surround ourselves with very competent people, associate property management company and yeah, I mean, it was rough from when we took over, but yeah, we’re good. Yeah.
Suzy Sevier: [00:38:43] So, yeah,
Anthony Vicino: [00:38:44] I know nobody makes it through that first property without a little little bit of scathing.
Dan Krueger: [00:38:49] It’s going to be
Suzy Sevier: [00:38:52] Like even with your property management company, do not just go with the one that is huge and why are you here. Like Oh, people use blah blah blah. I should use them to like take a property management company, like interview them so that they like to align line with your goals, values and your values because like that’s huge as well because you might have an idea for your business plan. But if your property management company is so you like working with operators who just want to add fees and like do a right increase every six months, you know, like that can derail like your business plan when it can even derail you, like, oh, this isn’t what I want to do now. It’s conflicting with my values. I don’t know
Anthony Vicino: [00:39:35] If you’re a slumlord
Dan Krueger: [00:39:37] Now, how did this happen? And on top of that, there’s it’s very common out there for landlords, even in large property management companies, to make a business out of cutting corners, even if they’re not trying to overload people on fees and overbill, take advantage of people like that. It’s not uncommon for them to just do some slapstick repairs so that they can meet their budget. But whatever they do is not actually going to last long term and may not be safe or up to code. So that’s another thing that I’ve noticed quite a bit, is just the cutting of the corners and that kind of coming back to your values, the philosophical beliefs you put yourself in the good part of the country. You don’t have to worry about that. But there are so many out there that are just going to try to hit the numbers to make you happy as an investor and make you money. But if they’re doing it, they’re cutting corners. That’s going to burn in the long run. And it could be morally conflicted with respect to how that impacts the rest of their experience.
Michael Barnhart: [00:40:42] Absolutely. Yeah. And one thing to add to that, and it’s just, you know when you’re interviewing these probably companies very conscious of like what they’re saying, like how they’re using for us. And this is not this is just for Susie and me. Right. And if interest rates investors well, like when we’re interviewing private energy companies, when things to listen for is like, do they use the word Tennet or do they use the word resident? Right. Because tinnitus is like a bad word that we hear that we cringe right there
Dan Krueger: [00:41:09] To assert yours. No, you’re. Exactly, exactly.
Michael Barnhart: [00:41:12] So they use resident or they use Tennet. Do they use a unit or do they use apartment home or do they use a complex or they use community like just like little nuances like that. And when you’re asking them, hey, can we make these changes here or can we do this to bump rents or whatever these additional fees, if they’re just giving you. Yes. Answers, if they’re a yes man or woman, like maybe you need to rethink. Like, you need to have a dialogue. It doesn’t need to be a monologue. Right. You need to have a dialogue with your partner company saying, well, you know, this sub-market doesn’t really support luxury covered parking in a C, C minus asset write like things like that. Right. You’re trying to steer in the right direction to make sure that they align with you and that aspect as well. So.
Dan Krueger: [00:41:57] Yeah, I believe we’ve come across quite a bit just for the quality people, and at the end of the day, they are representing you on sight. If you can’t be the right person, regardless of the money and the risks and things like that, you just want somebody who’s going to be an accurate representation of your core values on the ground, which I think is especially important when you’re not there physically yourself. They’ve got to be your representation. So you don’t want to end up with somebody who’s painted you guys in a light any less good than you actually are, supportive, rated poorly, but basically saying that you’re sort of trying to get out, or is it hard? I know it’s been a long day.
Anthony Vicino: [00:42:40] I get it. I get,
Dan Krueger: [00:42:42] I guess, all. Yeah, I mean, I feel like nine-book recommendations, but yeah, this
Anthony Vicino: [00:42:47] Has been a crazy one recommendation episode. But let’s get another one
Michael Barnhart: [00:42:52] Who not hell.
Dan Krueger: [00:42:53] Oh yes. I recommend that all the time, especially for your dance.
Michael Barnhart: [00:42:58] Yeah. Yeah exactly. Exactly.
Dan Krueger: [00:43:00] It’s a great book.
Suzy Sevier: [00:43:02] I mean like so you hear so often like. Oh yeah I know I have to hire someone but you don’t understand how much impact like that will have on your business and how much you can scale and actually think about the things that you’re good at instead of trying to be an expert in every field, you know, like
Dan Krueger: [00:43:19] It’s just every self-employed person. It doesn’t matter what industry, real estate, whatever. Like you need that book yourself
Michael Barnhart: [00:43:27] And hearing that word just real quick, your listeners are like, yeah, I get the excuses, I get the concept, hire somebody. Like when I first heard it, I was like, sure, I’ll read that book when I get to it. Right. But then I was like, no, you got to read this as I read. And I was like, wow, mind blown. So yeah.
Anthony Vicino: [00:43:44] Yeah. And I would even go one step beyond just hiring. Right. Like it’s about partnership and thinking outside yourself of like who do I have in my network right now who can help me do this thing, who would be better suited for this. And you really your success in real estate and life and business, whatever is predicated on how effectively you work with other people and through other people. And so a book like that is powerful because it helps create a framework for how you actually go and find those whose.
Suzy Sevier: [00:44:13] Yeah, and I hope it gets rid of the stigma of asking for help, you know, because, like, you really get so much further when you ask for help and you actually, like, deepen relationships when you do it as well.
Anthony Vicino: [00:44:24] Yeah. Yeah. But got nothing to add. There is something I struggled with in my younger years for sure. This idea that asking for help somehow takes away from your credibility. But it doesn’t at all. Yeah.
Suzy Sevier: [00:44:39] It adds to it if.
Anthony Vicino: [00:44:41] All right. So that’s like what, ten book recommendations. Awesome. Perfect.
Dan Krueger: [00:44:45] Our cover is right there.
Anthony Vicino: [00:44:49] Yeah. I’m going to I’m going to be going and picking up. I haven’t read The Simple Edge or Multiple Streams of Income by Robert Allen. So both of those are going on to my list today. I’m excited. Now, before we let you guys out of here before we open up the cage and say, you know, fly, fly free, where can people get a hold of you? I know you guys just launched an awesome YouTube channel. So where’s that? How do we get to it? And if people want to work with you and get to know you better, how do they do that?
Suzy Sevier: [00:45:17] So the YouTube channels on YouTube, I’m just kidding.
Dan Krueger: [00:45:21] That’s why, you know,
Michael Barnhart: [00:45:25] It’s like the second largest search engine
Dan Krueger: [00:45:27] In the world.
Anthony Vicino: [00:45:29] But just go to Google Google YouTube. You’ll get
Dan Krueger: [00:45:34] There.
Michael Barnhart: [00:45:35] You’ll find the best way to find us. Is this the simplest way? It’s just going to be adventurousrei.com for such info. And that’s a landing page which you can read more about the return on the impact that we talk about with we talked about you can find our podcast, The Adventures of a real estate Investor. You can find our YouTube channel, The Adventures of a Real Estate Investor, which will release three videos a week every Tuesday and Saturday content. There’s a lot of content. Yeah, it’s good. Anything from mindset to multifamily investing to asset management on that YouTube channel. And you can also connect with Susie and on that landing page as well and reach out
Dan Krueger: [00:46:18] I love it.
Anthony Vicino: [00:46:20] So, guys, Susie, Michael, I want to say thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Because I think. Thank you, as we’ve already alluded to, are in short supply these days. So thank you for being here. We appreciate you. And to our listeners at home, you know, you’re not off the hook yet. You’re still here. So thank you. So thank you for being here and listening and joining us in the conversation. We appreciate you if you do us a favor, I got a different request from you this week. It’s not to go and leave a review for the podcast. It’s not to go and leave a review for the book. Danz over the of those. It wasn’t any of that. I just want you guys to think I want you to reflect this week on what does. Return on impact means for you and what are you doing to live that out, and how can you go and just make a positive impact on one person’s life this week? If you can do that, you will have done us a solid and we will appreciate you into infinity and beyond. And we’ll see you guys next week.
