What does it take to have long-lasting success?

Today, we welcome Dave Van Horn to share important lessons he learned during the course of his 30+ year career. He started out as an agent and has been involved in residential and commercial real estate as a licensed Pennsylvania realtor, investor, title company partner, and commercial fundraiser. Networking is key for those looking to start or scale a commercial real estate business as well as being comfortable in going after bigger deals. He also gives emphasis on being trustworthy and authentic in building meaningful relationships with colleagues and clients. Serving as the President and CEO of PPR Note Co., Dave talks about what we need to know about non-performing loans and offers his perspective on the constantly changing market.

[00:01 - 04:25] 30+ Years of Expertise

Dave discusses his vast experience in real estate

Creating a real estate networking event helped him raise capital for CRE and notes

Starting PPR Note Co. and focusing on commercial real estate and non-performing loans

[04:26 - 09:21] What We Need to Know about Non-Performing Loans

What strategies they're using in dealing with NPLs
Dave sees risks in the nonperforming loan space and is always looking for ways to mitigate them

Downturns are usually beneficial
They consider unemployment as the biggest economic indicator

We can make money in any market; what matters are our exit strategies
Dave talks about his team and having almost $600 million AUM

[09:22 - 20:58] Lessons Throughout His Career

Using leverage sooner to accelerate the business
Focus on one goal and avoid shiny object syndrome

The ultimate end goal is generating passive cash flow to reach financial freedom

Be trustworthy and kind in order to build credibility
Learn from the experiences of others through shadowing or mentorship
Real estate is a team sport

Capitalize on other people's strengths

[20:59 - 21:58] Closing Segment

Dave's final advice: Don't be afraid to go big and invest in commercial real estate.
Reach out to Dave!

Links Below

Final Words

Tweetable Quotes

"There's one goal in life and that is to get as much passive income as quickly as possible." - Dave Van Horn

"It's about being authentic and being yourself and being real, being kind, and being human." - Dave Van Horn

"Success leaves clues. You can learn a lot from people that are really successful at doing it." - Dave Van Horn

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Connect with Dave through the PPR Note Co. website, and find him on BiggerPockets and LinkedIn.

Resource Mentioned:

The ONE Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan

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I love helping others place money outside of traditional investments that both diversify a strategy and provide solid predictable returns.

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Email me → sam@brickeninvestmentgroup.com

Want to read the full show notes of the episode? Check it out below:

[00:00:00] Dave Van Horn: And I just think it's being authentic and being yourself and being real and, and being kind and being human and all these things that people talk about today. But it's, it's quite simple, really, it's are you a trustworthy person? Do you go above and beyond even when the chips are down? I mean, I've had deals that went south, but I did every, you know, I did everything under the sun to try to save those deals or hire attorneys at my own expense and try to, you know, do everything I can. And I think people know that.

[00:00:41] Sam Wilson: Since 2007, Dave Vanhorn has served as president and CEO of PPR Note Co. It's a holding company that manages several real estate and mortgage investment funds. Dave, welcome to the show.

[00:00:52] Dave Van Horn: Hey, how you doing Sam?

[00:00:53] Sam Wilson: I'm great, sir. And yourself?

[00:00:55] Dave Van Horn: I never had a bad day.

[00:00:57] Sam Wilson: Wow. That's awesome. I love the positivity there, man. I don't hear that very often. I need, I need more of you in my life. I've never had a bad day. Tell me this, Dave, there are three questions. I ask every guest who comes to the show: in 90 seconds or less, can you tell me where did you start? Where are you now? And how did you get there?

[00:01:13] Dave Van Horn: Where did I start? Well, I'm in Philadelphia. I've been here my whole life. So I guess I started and ended here. I started as an agent back in '86, '87 was I first, licensed. And then I bought my first rental property, which was a duplex that I built some commercial garages on. And I bought that in 1989. So that's where I started. And then I had gotten up to about 40, I had about 40 rentals. I was also, years ago, I've been investing like 35 years. So a lot of things happened in 35 years, but I was I had been a contractor, so I was a contractor for 22 years. So I was a realtor, a property manager. I owned a title company, you know, a lot of different things I did over the years, but I had accumulated quite a few properties. And then I managed a lot of properties for other investors as well. And that's pretty much it, but, you know, I just kept scaling that and then eventually got into raising capital and was started out raising capital for commercial real estate, and then started raising capital for notes. That's how I met my partner. I used to run a real estate event, pre-meet up, pre-all the technology you see today. It was really simple. We sat down, had a meal, got to know each other. That was, and you could bring your deals. That was how simple the meeting was. But the meeting actually grew from 12 people out of lunch. Over a six-year period, ended up being in five states, six cities from Baltimore to New York. And we had 8,000 people in our database. So it grew quite rapidly, this little, have a meal and talk about real estate thing. So that's kind of how that network actually became in a way my bank, you know, how I raised capital for other folks' deals, how I raised capital for myself and even PPR today, if you think about it, we're the, you know, we're kind of our own bank, so to speak with our private equity, right?

[00:03:00] Sam Wilson: Tell me about what does PPR do today for the listeners that may not already be familiar with you?

[00:03:07] Dave Van Horn: Well, we started out doing, believe it or not, we started out doing delinquent second mortgages, and we started as investors. So it was somewhat of an accidental business. In fact, we used to have a short sale company and that was the main business and that went out of business and the note company took off. So who knows, right? And then we went from junior liens, as we kept raising more and more capital and growing, we went into first mortgages and then, you know, have morphed into commercial notes as well. And now back into commercial real estate again, so the company's grown and diversified quite a bit, although we're relatively new to commercial real estate recently, I guess the last year and a half, two years, you know, we first started getting into short term business loans, commercial loans, construction loans, bridge loans. We actually aggregate those up. We buy them. We have an affiliate that does hard money lending and has an REO platform online that sells REO properties. And then we, you know, we also finance that stuff as well. So that's just some of the things we do. And a lot of that we do to regulate capital, but still, the majority of our business is in the non-performing loans space. We do like the commercial real estate though, because it gives us tax advantages, depreciation, things to offset the carried interest from our bulk of the business, in the loan side of the, of our company, you know.

[00:04:26] Sam Wilson: You said the bulk of your business is nonperforming loans?

[00:04:30] Dave Van Horn: Yes. I think last year we did about 325 million nonperforming...