Podcast
How to Scale Commercial Real Estate
Hosted by Sam Wilson · EN
Remove the guesswork from real estate investing and establish a clear path for consistent returns. Here, building wealth is straightforward and fun.Discover how commercial real estate investors from all over the world got where they are today, how you too can generate truly passive, tax-efficient income, and confidently invest in real estate, even in the face of risks and unknowns.Real estate has made more people wealthy than any other form of investment. However, it can come with a steep learning curve and high risks if you don't know what you're doing.If you are a business owner who dabbles in real estate and wants to grow your portfolio or expand your network, you are in the right place.Welcome to How To Scale Commercial Real Estate. On the show, we expose the most important, needle-moving real estate investment strategies, leading you to maximize your returns. This is your friendly guide to getting past the roadblocks of investing in real estate so you can sail smoothly toward creating the financial and time freedom you've been wishing for.The best minds in real estate give you the tips and tricks to scale your real estate investment portfolio. Listen to industry professionals as they reveal insider secrets that helped them acquire multimillion-dollar assets in a strategic way.Hear details about the most crucial and painful mistakes they made in real estate so you know what to avoid and how to plan carefully throughout your real estate investing journey.Learn about leverage, real estate metrics that matter, and gain valuable resources, connections, and tips that will shift your mindset toward an immediately more prosperous, passive income-generating path.Discover how investors build high-performing teams and find the best deals and then implement their advice to build your own robust real estate portfolio. Your host, Sam Wilson, is passionate about helping you fully grasp real estate fundamentals and know what to look for in any real estate deal, whether residential, commercial, short-term or syndication. Real estate syndications are group investments in large commercial assets where you can invest your money passively, alongside dozens of others (including Sam!) and earn reliable passive income through distributions and equity. Sam Wilson is an active investor in self-storage, multi-family apartments, RV parks, laundry facilities and single-family homes, bringing vast industry knowledge from a diverse background to the show. Unlike other established real estate investors, Sam is in the middle of his own growth journey. He invites you to rise alongside him and his team members as, with each conversation, he's learning too! Sam is the Founder of Bricken Investment Group, where he helps clients find commercial real estate syndication investments that align with their investing and lifestyle goals. Likewise, this podcast guides listeners through real estate's steep learning curve to mitigate the risks. If you want to be a successful real est...
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Note Investing and Business Success
Aug 7, 2022Tap to summarizeWhat 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 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 Connect with me: I love helping others place money outside of traditional investments that both diversify a strategy and provide solid predictable returns. Facebook LinkedIn Like, subscribe, and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or whatever platform you listen on. Thank you for tuning in! 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...
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My First Million Dollar BRRRR!
Feb 27, 2022Tap to summarizeIs commercial real estate worth my time? Matt Drouin will explain why it is. Matt is a high-performing real estate leader with 15 years of experience in real estate management, development, and brokerage. He specializes in asset turnaround and stabilization of distressed assets, as well as building and developing world-class management teams. Coming from a family that struggled financially during his childhood, Matt vowed to find investment opportunities that would give his own family enough income to buy their needs and wants. He paid our podcast a visit to share his real estate experience and the steps to take for aspiring investors to replicate it. [00:01 - 02:14] Opening Segment Matt Drouin tells us how he jumped into the real estate business What Matt realized about the potential of real estate as an investment [02:15 - 07:38] Investing in Commercial Real Estate The reason Matt is investing in historic buildings Matt reveals how he educated himself about the real estate business What is the number one expense driver in multifamily according to Matt The behind-the-scenes of investing in commercial real estate [07:39 - 12:28] Finding the Right Broker and Tenants How to find the right real estate broker for you Matt shares some tips Protect your investments from inflation with these tips from Matt The asset classes and markets that Matt's team is looking at right now [12:29 - 14:04] Closing Segment Your way to make the world a better place Advocating for financial literacy and empowerment Reach out to Matt See links below Final words Tweetable Quotes "With commercial [real estate], you got to pick up the phone, you got to call, you got to build, you got to work your relationships. So, it's definitely, a full-contact sport, and…you got to be very, very involved." - Matt Drouin ".Don't jump at the first opportunity that comes to you…you just got to be patient on the leasing end thing there and not get too antsy." - Matt Drouin "We believe our young people, especially our underserved population, is our greatest investment, so we partner with some nonprofit and also for-profit organizations that offer [financial literacy and financial empowerment] coaching programs to those young people." - Matt Drouin ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Email matt@oakgrovecompanies.com to connect with Matt or follow him on LinkedIn. Check out OakGrove Companies to help them in developing communities, one building at a time. Connect with me: I love helping others place money outside of traditional investments that both diversify a strategy and provide solid predictable returns. Facebook LinkedIn Like, subscribe, and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or whatever platform you listen on. Thank you for tuning in! Email me → sam@brickeninvestmentgroup.com Want to read the full show notes of the episode? Check it out below: Matt Drouin 00:00 Started building relationships with commercial brokers, there's guys out there and women that have had decades of experience in leasing. It's one, number one most important thing is leasing in commercial. So just getting a pulse on the market, you're going to need to build relationships with commercial brokers anyways, if you're going to get into that field, standard, commercial property and also even mid to large multifamily. Intro 00:25 Welcome to the How to Scale Commercial Real Estate Show. Whether you are an active or passive investor, we will teach you how to scale your real estate investing business into something big. Sam Wilson 00:34 Matt is a partner at OakGrove Development, a real estate investment and development firm with a special focus on value add commercial and residential properties in Rochester, New York. Matt, welcome to the show. Matt Drouin 00:45 Hey, thank you so much for having me on. Sam Wilson 00:46 Hey, man pleasure's mine. Same three questions I ask every guest to come on 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? Matt Drouin 00:54 So where I started was for family owner occupant property, I was getting kicked out of my dad's house. So I had to find a place to live. And I was a real estate broker at the time. That's where I got my start. I started I got bit by the bug with that when I had, you know, closing that property. I had like 1,800 bucks in rent checks two weeks later. So that's why I got the bug. And I started scaling from there, buying more smaller multifamilies. And then I had my aha moment when I bought my first commercial property back about four years ago. Sam Wilson 01:23 Interesting. Tell me about that aha moment. And what did you buy? Matt Drouin 01:27 Well, my parents were like, struggling financially, my entire childhood. And the one thing that I see are the two things I see, like, Americans, like, that stress them out the most in terms of financial milestones is one, how are they going to pay for their kids' education? And two, how am I going to retire? Right? And so I bought a commercial property with a commercial office building really great location. And that one deal, basically paid for my girls' college education. So like, that's one deal. And I was like, "Damn, it's like, can I find one to fund my wife's retirement?" And so I did that. And I was like, "Man, this deal was easier to close than for family property that by" so that's really when I started, you know, getting interested in scaling to larger deals. Sam Wilson 02:15 Gotcha. That's really intriguing. Yeah, one deal, and you go, hang on. That's it. That's all it was, was one and many more times. Yeah. It's a very empowering feeling. That's really intriguing. So what was the asset class that was in again? Matt Drouin 02:29 That was office. Okay. Yeah, it was a B-class office historic building. Yeah, one of the things if you look at our portfolio, it's a lot of like pretty, old, historic-looking buildings. I have a passion for historic preservation. So that's kind of what we buy. Not the smartest thing to buy from a financial standpoint, I don't think but yeah, we do commercial, we have multifamily, residential. And then we also have some retail, we do a lot of artists studios, as well, we have a, really, really strong arts and cultural scene in our city. So yeah… Sam Wilson 03:00 Got it, man, tha's really, really intriguing. How did you pick that niche? And then how did you educate yourself on it? Matt Drouin 03:07 Well, when I started residential, I thought in order to scale that I needed to, you know, start learning to how to manage larger asset classes. So I got a job with, you know, pretty large property management company. And that's how I got the experience sort of secondhand, you know, not being the actual owner, but managing the property. So that's how I got exposed to that niche. And it was something I, always scared me, because I was like, I've heard, you know, a commercial space goes vacant, it's gonna be vacant for 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 years. And I'm gonna, you know, have to declare bankruptcy and so on and so forth. But it definitely established a comfort level with that. And that, you know, knowing if you purchase a property in a great location, that you'll have no problem finding tenants, it may take you a little bit longer, maybe three months, maybe four months. But you know, you got very, very little turnover with commercial tenants because they're very sticky. So whereas you're buying a residential area, you got people that turn, you know, they basically, you know, buy a house, they move out, so your turnover tenants every two to three years, especially in the markets that we serve, so turnover is the number one expense driver that we witness in multifamily. Sam Wilson 04:15 We're sure. Yeah, your vacancy is one of your biggest numbers you plugged in when you're doing underwriting, you're like, :Okay, how much vacancy we have?" That's really intriguing. How is that asset class on the, you know, B-class historic office buildings? How does that fair in the last couple of years? Matt Drou...
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