← 🎙️ Local Real Estate Developers
🎙️ Local Real Estate Developers
Building 100 Affordable Homes With No Real Estate Experience | EP#63
01:02:57
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- [00:00]
A
This is the Local Real Estate Developer Podcast where we share the stories of locals across the country who took that empty lot or that old building and turned it into something awesome that their community needs. I'm Christy Candle and I've been a real estate developer my entire career. My co host Rafael is a commercial broker and together we're sharing the stories of locals making a huge impact on their communities. And what we've learned is you don't need millions in the bank or decades of experience to get started. You just need the confidence, tools, and the right people around you. This podcast is your chance to gain the confidence to get in the game. Because real estate development isn't just for the insiders anymore. It's for people like you too.
- [00:41]
B
Welcome to the Local Real Estate Developer Podcast. I'm your host, Rafa Collasso, located here in Louisville, Kentucky. I'm a commercial broker, investor and developer and we're excited to be here with Christy Candle, my co host. It's always awesome to see you.
- [00:54]
A
Hey, awesome to see you. Yeah, I am down here in Fort Myers Beach. I'm a real estate developer investor and I teach locals how to become developers in their own community. And I'm pretty excited because I found someone on Instagram was like, whoa, that's. That's a pretty ambitious goal you put out there. You seem like our people. We need to talk. So I would like to bring Alex into the show.
- [01:16]
C
Happy to be here. It's good to meet you guys.
- [01:18]
A
Awesome. Yeah, great to. Great to meet you. And why don't we start with giving a little bit of background on who you are and where you're at.
- [01:27]
C
So I'm physically in Greensboro, North Carolina and I am a father of five and my wife and I moved out here about five years ago from Arizona. So we both grew up in the desert of Arizona, Gilbert Chandler area. And during COVID for whatever reason, we just felt like moving. I feel like that was a weird phenomenon. Everyone wanted to move. So it wasn't really like business related or anything, but we had spent some time in North Carolina years previous and fell in love with the place and felt like that would be a good adventure. And so, yeah, been here for a while. I don't think we'll move away. And so I've always been either self employed in some sort of all commission sales role or launching a business. I haven't had a V2 since high school. It's just kind of all I know. You know, I don't think it's for everyone, but I just don't think I'm employable, you know, wouldn't know how to do it. And so the ups and downs of entrepreneurship, the excitement of it is just, I love everything about it. And so we very recently started a new venture that really isn't related to anything I've previously done. I mean, everything is related in some ways, right? But as far as like the industry and the niche, I mean, I have not done hardly anything in real estate. So to go deep into this niche of real estate and with some big ambitious goals without any real estate experience kind of adds to the, the adrenaline rush of it, I guess, you know,
- [02:47]
B
first off, go Devils. I went to asu, so I lived out there quite some time.
- [02:53]
C
Awesome.
- [02:53]
B
It's a great, great community. But, but second, second, I mean, I, I think that you're probably similar to a lot of people that listen to this podcast. I think that entrepreneurship is one that. I had an itch from the beginning. Even when I was in corporate America, I was doing side projects and I was getting into just things that I could do to make money outside of what I was doing before and then ultimately got into fully commissioned role in the brokerage side. And it fits personality very well. It just fits my personality very well. I've really enjoyed that. And having been in real estate for quite some time now, I don't know, I mean, I'm glad that I found it because I don't know if I would have really had a fit long term what I was doing before. But to your point, what made you decide to pivot away from what you were doing as an entrepreneur in whatever vertical you were exploring, to then jump into a brand new industry like real estate? And if you could elaborate a little bit on what your vision is, that'd be great.
- [03:50]
C
Yeah, well, in the case of this most recent pivot, life kind of pushed me out the door to force a pivot in a way, because my last startup was something I started in mid-2022 and I had a lot of experience with sales to that point. I had been doing commission sales and running commission sales teams for the previous, like 10 years, but I had no experience with the fulfillment side of anything we had ever sold. And I'd certainly never managed a construction company, but that was the thing I set out to do. So we had a goal to not just sell residential, solar and H vac units, but to figure out how to do it all vertically integrated. So we were the installer, we, you know, hired and employed the electricians. The H vac guys had the Trucks. And so that was like a really scary thing to launch into. But I, if I'm good at anything, it's getting good people, competent people bought into a vision. So that's my cheat code. Like I think people think I'm maybe, maybe some people think I'm a little bit smarter than I am. They probably don't know me super well, but from a distance, you know. The key though is if you can just get really smart people around you that have an area of expertise. That's like the magic key. But the challenge is being able to convey a vision that will get those competent, high energy, high trust people to leave what they're currently doing to jump into something with you. Because if they're great people, they're probably up to something pretty cool already. Right? So I was able to.
- [05:16]
A
We're not even five minutes in and you already said the key thing that everyone brings up is that development is all about relationships and it's getting the right people on your team to bring this forward and make it happen. So you're, you're 100% right. You don't have to know every part and facet of development. You just have to bring in the right team members and then it's not so scary. Which you clearly have experience in the, in the last company. Trying.
- [05:38]
B
Yeah.
- [05:38]
C
And you know the thing that's, the thing that's interesting about that is a lot of times the people that are great at the specific skill set, they have like, let's say like just a great operator, someone who's really good at like managing complexity of inventory and crews and construction or whatever, they might be one of the best you've ever seen at that thing, but they may not be the type of person that's going to have the idea and just the unique type of guts or crazy to just want to go start something from scratch with no safety net. And that's okay. But there's a place for people that have that thought process, that mindset kind of the vision. And it's a great pair. And so if you can find those people, bring them in. They appreciate the fact that you've got this interesting vision and hey, we're going to go chart this course because they need that. But then a lot of times the visionary, high energy person is not the best at the detail oriented operation. And so it's like if you can form a team that has the right balance of those different skills, I think it's a dangerous team that could like really pull some big stuff off. So I feel like, we did that pretty well at the last company. It grew very quick. So I don't know how much you want to get into the previous company. But anyways, it was. So the short version is, you know, I'd been selling residential solar for a few years at that point, but only selling, you know, we were just a dealer for other companies that handled all of the hard part. I mean, arguably sales is the hard part. Depends on who you are.
- [07:07]
A
Right.
- [07:07]
C
The people that are in operations tend to think, I could never do the sales. The people that are in the sales, vice versa. But we just knew how to acquire customers. Then we would just hand it off and say, we hope it goes well. And it was the case that we would sell a lot of volume. And then the fulfillment partners, because they had so many different sales partners, they just didn't prioritize our deals as much as we did because we worked hard to acquire the customer. And so when things went wrong, we felt so handicapped in our ability to make it right. We were essentially like calling a customer service line, you know, help my customer. I couldn't really help my customer. I just had to go to the installer and hope that they would come through. Right. And so that was really frustrating and also just like hurt our own credibility at times. Our own. Like, we felt like our ethics were being sacrificed because we told Mary we were going to do something and it's not happening, but we're kind of like, not really in control. So that was like the catalyst for saying, hey, if we're going to stay in this space, what if we actually just figured out how to not need these other groups, could we do it? And I had some people that were doing it really well that I used as mentors, and they gave me a lot of consulting and guidance. And I just started it in North Carolina. And by the time we were eight months into the business, we were doing a million dollars a month in revenue. And by the time we were three years in, we did 52 million in a year. And it was all sales install, and it was going super well. And so we had a group come in and acquire a majority of the company from me. Really early on, I didn't like, expect that, but it was just like kind of the perfect storm. And so we took that deal and I was there for about a year. And if you're like a real entrepreneur mindset, the second you're kind of a part of a bigger organization where I was still getting K1 income, I wasn't like an employee, but I felt Like, I was. I felt a lot of obligation to do things rather than, like, the one kind of driving it. And for me, it's not really an ego thing, like I need to be in charge. It's just that's the mode I am most familiar with. And so I started to fill my own motivation and focus waiver. And at the same time, this is where I was getting back to. I feel like the universe gave me a push, was the solar industry started to crack. There was two big things that happened. The interest rates spiked, obviously, for everybody. So the lenders that we used were struggling, their businesses got ill. And then the big, beautiful bill that the Trump administration passed took away the 30% federal tax credit, which was a huge thing that the industry leaned on. And so I kind of saw the writing on the wall. I felt like this is not going in a good direction, so I should probably start now to think about the next move, you know.
- [09:40]
B
So you got at a perfect time almost, and that enabled you now to take on a different project. And regarding the Pivot, so you see, I'm assuming as part of the buyout agreement that you had with this group, there was a provision that required you to stay on board to be able to help the transition after that point in time, were you kind of working towards trying to figure out what the next step was? If you could just kind of talk a little bit about that thought process and what made you decide to now take on what you're doing now?
- [10:11]
C
So the thing is, way scarier than launching and running this, like, complex construction business, which had plenty of scary moments. Way scarier was actually like, when I made the pivot and did not actually know what I was doing next. I felt like previously in my life, the next game kind of started to materialize as the previous game was fizzling out, but that wasn't the case here. I was like, I do not even know what I want to do at all. So I took this sabbatical where I cleared my schedule for 60 days and just traveled and went and flew to Florida and to Utah and Arizona, Washington, places where I had network people that were just up to cool things, people that are just the kind of people that I get inspired by. And I was just talking to everybody. I'm like, hey, I'm a free agent and I do not know what I want to do, but I'm just looking for inspiration. I'm looking for something. And that, like, kind of didn't materialize into anything, really. I had some cool experiences, some really cool conversations, but I mean, it was, like, going on a year where I had started up, I joined a group that was doing some Internet sales. You know, just. I know sales. So I'm like, all right, let's just go sell something that makes commission so we can just keep cash flow coming in. But I knew that wasn't the thing. And it wasn't until one of my really good friends and a guy that was out there selling Internet with me, his name's Naaman. Late one night, we're out of town on a sales blitz, staying in an Airbnb after just grinding on the doors. We knock doors all day long, and we're sitting there at midnight, and he finally tells me about this little real estate idea that he's had for the last year. And he's been kind of quietly just researching it and geeking out on it, learning about it, networking within the space. And I had never heard him talk about it before. And he tells me, he's like, yeah, it's called a land home package. It's like, you buy raw land, you develop it, add the utilities, and you put a manufactured home on it. You sell it on the mls, you sell it like a spec home. And I'm like, well, dude, thanks for telling me. Is this cool? Are we doing this? So he's like, well, yeah, here's the margins. Here's the process. And I was like, okay, let's keep doing what we're doing, because we're just selling Internet. We're making good money. There's nothing crazy, but let's just do one together. So let's just like, cobble together the cash that we need to just go do one property. And we. We did that, and we were in the process of developing this land. And then one day, as I was headed out to another sales trip, I literally pulled into a chick fil a parking lot, and was just like, dude, why don't I just go all in on this thing and pull together a dream team, and let's just make, like, an insane goal and just stop doing anything else that doesn't feel nearly as exciting as this? So I made a couple calls to exactly who I'd want to be involved. They both basically said yes right away. And a week later, we all went down to Kiawah island, which is one of my favorite places in South Carolina. We rented a house, and for four days, we just hunkered down and just set these goals, figured out the business model, just, like, brainstormed. And then that was where we came up with this idea that hey, let's do 100 of these in the first 12 months of business. Because everybody we talked to in this niche, which is a pretty small niche, it seemed like the big players were doing like 10amonth. Most people were doing a couple a month. And so we just thought, we've got a lot of horsepower here as far as like, partners and just guys that have a ton of energy and have nothing else distracting them. Why don't we go for 100? And I added the public accountability to the equation by deciding, let's actually document this and like, have a social media play and see if people are interested in following the journey. And maybe that ends up being a bunch of people that we can form a community with and maybe educate and help along the way. And so that's what we did. And we're on day 118 right now.
- [13:58]
A
I love that. So as far as the guys you pulled in, did you. Because one of the things that comes up all the time is partnerships and people being willing to not just do it by themselves, but to partner and development as a team sport. So how did you go about knowing, hey, I want these guys on my team, and then maybe why? From a strengths and weaknesses and skillset standpoint.
- [14:19]
C
Yeah, it's a great question. I was actually just talking about this to someone the other day. Like all of the previous games that I've played, I just think of life as a series of games within the.
- [14:31]
A
I love that you call this a game, because I do. I call it the game of life. And I'm like, yeah, and if I don't like the game, I'm not going to change the rules. I'm just going to start a new game.
- [14:40]
C
Yeah, exactly. When you treat it as a game, I think you play a lot looser and more creatively than if it's a test, if it's like this obligation, like survival thing, let's just treat it like a game. So all these previous games, even the ones that seemed to end in a dead end or didn't work out along the way, I was making connections with great people that even if right then there was no clear path to me working with them on something or partnering, they just kind of go in this list in my mind where it's like, hey, this is the kind of person that I would reach out to if the right thing popped up. And so, yeah, I knew Naiman was absolutely the guy. I've known him for a long time, love and trust him and he knows this real estate thing for sure better than the Rest of us, because he's been researching it for a year. He loves real estate. The day I met him, which was like seven years ago, he's always been with me, wherever I've been, he was like, my dream is just to do real estate. So I'm like, obviously him. And then I have just curious.
- [15:33]
A
So if his dream was real estate, what was he doing when he wasn't doing real estate then?
- [15:36]
C
Selling stuff with me.
- [15:38]
A
Okay, so just in sales of. Yeah. Hustling. Okay.
- [15:41]
C
We were selling solar when we were in Arizona. We were selling solar when we.
- [15:44]
A
Yep.
- [15:45]
C
Started my company out here. He was one of my top sales reps and he always just felt like he didn't know where in real estate he was gonna end up. And it's good.
- [15:54]
A
It's a big field. Yeah. Yeah.
- [15:58]
C
So that was obvious. And then as the main operator, my brother in law, Zach, he had been the guy that ran all the construction operations at our previous company and he's incredible at it. And he happened to be not a free agent completely. He had a job, but I knew he didn't love it and I knew it was not a long term job. And so I was like, I bet I can sell Zach on doing this. And then my other brother in law, Benson, we had worked together in the past and we're super close and he's extremely talented with raising capital. He's very strategic thinker. And so we put together what felt like the dream team and set a goal and have just been figuring it out literally every day. We're just like figuring this thing out on the fly, but it's going well.
- [16:39]
A
I absolutely love that. And it's very clear in the way that you picture your teammates and partners. It's like, okay, so that makes sense from a family perspective because there's a saying out there which I don't buy at all, but don't do business with friends or family. What's your take on that?
- [16:56]
C
I just think it's kind of an overused cliche. Personally, I've done business a lot with close friends and with family. I have two brothers in law that are partners of mine. So I don't know what to think about it. I just don't really resonate with it. I would just say the issue with any partnership or any relationship, if especially money gets involved, usually comes down to expectations not being managed and roles and responsibilities not being clearly outlined. And also the risk not being clearly outlined. People need to know if you're starting something, you're going to go develop something. That doesn't currently exist. We need to all be eyes wide open that most of the time these things fail. This is not the probability of winning and winning as easily as we might think. We're fighting upstream to make this happen. So I just think if the relationship is solid enough and it's built on more than this business and the right conversations are had upfront, I just think good relationships can take a lot of hits and still be great relationships. You know, whether the business sinks or swims.
- [18:03]
A
I completely agree with that. At first, I tried to hold off on that because of what I was told, and I'm like, wait, why am I going to work with strangers and then go be really successful with them when I know that I have rock stars of people that I know how they act in good times and bad times? Like, when you have history with people, you know, stuff hits the fans like, okay, this is how you're going to react in this situation. I actually get a lot of my friends from, and business partners from beach volleyball because you're, you're not going to win every game. And I want to see how you react when you go down by 5, 6, 10 points. How do you rebound? How do you come back?
- [18:42]
C
That's actually, that's actually a really good point you make. Just because, like, one of the things that's most difficult to know about somebody if your relationship with them is new, is how they behave and act when things go not according to plan and things go total chaos mode. Because whenever you meet somebody, I mean, it's a given that they're probably on their best behavior, they're bringing their best self, they're presenting all the good things about themselves, right? And so if you've been through family life, family drama that happens or whatever, life changes. If you've been through a previous business where you've seen what happens when all hell breaks loose and you were able to pull through it. I mean, man, I would much rather hit repeat on working with them than go take roll the dice on someone where it's like, I don't know what happens when things get tough. I don't know what happens when there's no money in the bank account. Like, I just don't know how they're going to react, you know, hey, can
- [19:33]
A
we chat for a second? Since you're listening to this podcast, you're already thinking like a developer. You see the potential in your community and you're ready to do more than just watch from the sidelines. That's exactly why we created the local Developer Vault. It's a free resource full of tools, templates and trainings to help you take action. And here's the best part. When you sign up, you'll also get access to our local real estate developer community. It's full of people just like you who are making real things happen in their neighborhoods. So don't just listen to the stories. Become the next one that we spotlight on our show. The link in the show notes to unlock the vault and join our movement. Yep, 100%. Hands down. Hands down. Yeah. And like you said, too, setting those expectations up front. So I think it definitely comes down to setting the expectations, the roles and responsibilities, and just making sure the communication never stops. And like any relationship, the minute you stop talking or the minute you're like, something happens and shifts that dynamic, that you're done. So you have to be willing to swallow your pride at certain times and step in and say, I'm gonna have this hard conversation or I'm gonna own up that, guys, I messed up. Like, you're right. You called me out. I messed up. And I'm not gonna try and make an excuse and be like a hundred percent right. Here's what we can do to maybe come back to it. And I found the more businesses later and the older I get, it's much easier to, to, you know, step into that and do it. And really the, the bigger thing is like, don't let stuff fester, like, just the minute, you know, it's there. Talk about the elephant in the room.
- [21:00]
C
Yeah, that is extremely true. We experienced that recently, actually, with our partnership, where there were a couple of things that had started kind of like weeds in the garden, right. Where it's like a couple of small weeds had cropped up. Because when you start something new, I feel like you can only do so much to clearly define roles and responsibilities, because a brand new thing is a lot of wet concrete. We don't know what we don't know yet. But as it develops, you want to make sure that you keep the pace, follow the development pace, with also continuing to refine the roles and responsibilities. Because if that lags too far, it's very easy for people to start feeling like they're carrying an undue burden or they're keeping, you know, track of, you know, what they're doing that the other person isn't helping with. And yeah, so we caught ourselves and had this is a couple weeks ago, you know, very recent, where we had the best meeting we've had in our short time in business. You know, we're four, four and a half months in or something. But we had a really clarifying meeting about roles, responsibilities, what needs to pivot, what needs to change. And every partner has said like that was the best, healthiest meeting and just kind of the vibes were just reset. Everyone's feeling really good now. So just to, you know, retweet what you just said, it's very true.
- [22:15]
A
Yeah, yeah. And a lot of times. So we will say this and we'll tell people, define your expectations, your roles and responsibilities. The reality of it is, and I just started a huge project and company in elevate southwest Florida. So it's like 15 to 20 acres. It's 140 million. It's a five to six year development three phase. And with the two other founders I'm with, like I've done development for 20 years. They have completely different backgrounds. And we there. It was almost impossible to at the beginning for this type of project and how big it is for us to say here's the roles and responsibilities because there's so many different things. But what's been cool over the past, even since we. So we, we came up with the idea in August. We found our location of August of last year, we found our location in February, closed the deal in April and then opened on June 1st, phase one. And from June 1st to now, so we're at July 9th. Like it has all fallen into place in the sense that we're like, oh. And probably two weeks ago we had a conversation like, oh, oh, we know for this, this is a Chelsea thing. For this, this is a Julia thing for everything else right now this is a Christie thing to drive the ship until it's clearly defined and then can pass it off and they can go run with it to where we had that same conversation to go, okay, like we knew it wasn't defined. We were all just kind of picking up where our strengths were. And if you observe and go, okay, she always picks us up. Like that must give her energy. That must be part of her unique ability. And same. So when you see that, then it's like cool. Then you take all, all the stuff that is kind of aligned in that. So bottom line, it's not going to be clearly defined at first, but you must communicate and you must probably. The key thing is having the right people with integrity who have a similar passion and work ethic. Because like we say we're sprinting a marathon and we all know how hard sprinting is. And if you're sprinting a marathon, you're in it for the long haul, and that's what any development project is. So you got to know that the people you're in the trenches with that you can count on.
- [24:04]
C
Amen. Yeah, very true. Can agree more.
- [24:08]
A
So. So we've. We've defined, okay, you've got your team. You're trying to do 100 affordable homes. What market did you pick? How did you. I guess. What market did you pick? How did you structure the deals? Like, are you taking land, subdividing and building, like, 20 at a time in a certain area? Are you doing. How. How are you finding the dirt? Or what's that business model look like for this?
- [24:29]
C
Yeah, so here's kind of the summary of it. We quickly did research on North Carolina, hoping that it would turn out to be a viable market because we live here, so that'd be a great place to start. Also, our previous business, all the construction that we did was in north and South Carolina. So we have a feel for the area. We dealt with counties getting permits. We dealt with a lot of subcontractors. We cleared a lot of trees. So they're definitely. You know, I say, I've got no experience at this. It's like, I have experience with some of that. It just never had applied it to real estate, you know, so that's why we chose North Carolina. And then it made sense to just expand in the South. And probably the most common reaction I get from people when I tell them about manufactured homes and this model is they think that it's buying big tracts and putting a lot of these close together. I think a lot of people think it has something to do with, like, mobile home parks. And it really is not that at all. We actually are not trying to buy big tracks of land. We don't want to subdivide anything. It's not saying we won't ever do it, but our whole thing is like, we want to do one thing and figure out how can we make the process as efficient as possible. So if buying 20 acres that are not subdivided is going to add months to the process, which means we're going to float money longer. We're like, well, if there's other options that don't include that, let's do those. And for us, that's just buying individual lots. And we have just found lots mostly through wholesalers, people that just sell land. Right. And believe it or not, Facebook is the land of milk and honey. Like, yeah, Facebook Marketplace is where we found our first initial few deals. Just people posting on Facebook Marketplace and Then another kind of pro tip is for anyone doing any sort of real estate development, I think is Facebook groups are very underrated thing. There's Facebook groups about, like every topic, manageable, imaginable. And there's a bunch of Facebook groups in our case that are like, rural land for sale, farmland for sale, North Carolina, you know, so we've just joined a ton of them and we just post in there. We're like, hey, here's what we're looking for, you know, in the month of July, this month, our goal is to buy 30 lots. And right before we started this, I got a text from someone, someone on our team. We just put our eighth property under contract in July. So eight out of 30. So we've got, you know, we're on pace for the month. But anyway, so when you announce that you're going to get a lot of people that for a living, they sell land so they love you and they're going to be send leads. And so the game has been how to like filter those leads, underwrite them, because we get a lot of stuff that we don't want. Right. We get a lot of weird leads coming in. So we've done some work.
- [26:59]
B
Not buildable.
- [27:00]
A
You don't have utilities? Yeah, yeah.
- [27:02]
C
Someone sends me like a. A townhome that was just built. I'm like, what. What are we doing with this town home? Like, we're looking for land. I mean, so, yeah, so we, we go under contract on the property if it looks good enough to go under contract, which for us is basically, we confirm that it's zoned for manufactured homes, and then we look at the comparables in the area to determine if other manufactured homes have sold in the last year, new manufactured homes, and we look at the price they were sold for, and we punch it into our calculator and say, okay, cool. We think we can hit our profit target on this, but we still don't know for sure it's going to work until we've done a perc test and tested the soil to see if a septic tank can be installed and if it's going to be a traditional septic tank or if it's going to be one that's five times as expensive and really complicated. So we'll go under contract with a refundable deposit, and then we'll order a perk test, send a soil scientist out there, and if he comes back with a green light, then we'll close on the property and begin the process of developing it, adding all the utilities we'll order the home and. And go from there.
- [27:59]
A
I love that. So. So being able to find them individually, that's where Facebook Marketplace wholesalers and yeah, agreed. The land flipping groups are. Are great for that because they. Yeah. So when you. Once you close. So getting the perk test and zoning are pretty much the big ones. Do you look for any other utilities and stuff ahead of time or have like a checklist, evaluate or I guess. How do you evaluate all the leads that come in? What's the. What's that process?
- [28:25]
C
Well, I would say talking about roles and responsibilities, naming my partner that I've talked about earlier. He has gotten really good at vetting this land and so he does the majority of it. And so we're looking for the slope. You know, you can't have a super slopey. Needs to be under 5% slope. We look at how many trees are going to need to be cleared and we get kind of a rough idea of how much is that going to cost. But the perk test is probably the biggest thing. Perk test and the comparables and the zoning, like that's like those all have to be very clear green check marks. Now if we come across the property that happens to already have a septic tank and it's not crazy old, then that looks really good because we're going to have it inspected. If that thing's still good, sweet. We don't have to do that. Sometimes we'll find properties that have county water. And so that's just going to be a hookup that we have to do instead of digging a well. So those properties are more rare, but we have acquired some. And that's just like kind of a home run because it's just going to mean the process is quicker and easier. But typically it's dig a well, install a septic, have the electric company come and run power to the lot, clear the land, grade the land. We kind of just have this whole order of operations and then we ordered the home from the facility. We have a company that we have a few different companies that will do the setup for us. So they'll actually take this thing off the semi truck, put it on, merge the two halves of the home together.
- [29:39]
A
Right.
- [29:39]
C
Because these are double wides, they'll put it on the footers, the foundation do all of that. And so it's a process. We've learned a lot. We've made some mistakes, but so far those mistakes have all been survivable. They haven't been crazy expensive. It's just been things where we're like cool, we're not going to do that again. And we have three homes now placed and two of them are very, very close to being listed on the market. We're hoping by late next week we might have those listed for sale. And then total we have 40. Well before today we had 46 properties in the pipeline and we've added a couple more today, so we're getting close to 50. And that's north Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, we now have six properties. And then Georgia, we just got our manufactured home license there. We haven't yet bought a property, but we want to be in Georgia as well.
- [30:26]
A
So do you use the same builder for the manufactured homes that goes to all areas or do you find a different one per state?
- [30:32]
C
There's really not that many manufacturers out there. So Clayton Homes is the one most people have heard of and then Cavco is one that's a little bit less known, but we like them a lot. So there's different facilities is what they call them. It's a factory. And each facility or factory has their own series of home, their own product line and they have their own sales rep that you work with. It's almost like a little mini. You don't just do a deal with Clayton, you do a deal with Clayton in Rockwell, North Carolina and the people there. So we would call around, get to know the different facilities. What products do you offer? You know, someone might only offer a really high end home. That isn't really our sweet spot. So we're not going to work with them necessarily right now. But we found a few facilities that are kind of our go to Cavco and Clayton and they're great to work with. It's cool. I've toured these facilities. It's insane if you've never seen a manufactured home facility. It's a cool field trip. They've literally made a long way. Yeah, one day.
- [31:29]
A
So one day they can print out
- [31:31]
C
or make out 10 homes in one day, like completely finished. And it's just like this huge assembly line. So it's like they just start with the floor and then they move it and by the end there's a home with recessed lighting and appliances and someone in there like vacuuming the carpet like every day. It's insane. It's cool too.
- [31:49]
A
That's awesome. So being in Fort Myers beach, we got wiped out by the hurricane in 22 with Hurricane Ian. And so some of the building back is of course the mega mansions that are waterfront. But in other areas we're using modular to Where Affinity out of Georgia does that and they can Basically there's this 21 days in the, in the factory and then they ship out. So like a 1700 square foot home ships in four modules that can drive in trucks. And then they come and they take the crane and it's about a four, three and a half hour process. And they put each of them up and put them together and then they pop the trusses up, they connect it, do the utilities. And yeah, it's, it's very awesome to see technology and construction going this way because otherwise, like you're what, your plumber and electrician, they're all in the field when it's raining, when it's hot, your roofer, like all the conditions you're, you're mitigating to where and, and maybe also touch on the, the cheap aspect of it's not good quality because that's, that's one of them. Yes, it can be known for that, but that's not necessarily true all the time.
- [32:51]
C
Yeah, no, that's a, a key, a key point to make because we are combating some stigma for sure, right? When people hear, and there's a lot of terms used interchangeably, but they hear mobile home or trailer, manufactured home, modular home. Most people don't know the difference. And most people are thinking of, you know, some mobile home that was built in the 80s and it's, you know, a tin can, poor quality. But regulations have changed, things have changed where these are like builder quality homes and you know, they're HUD certified, we're able to get people, like people can buy these with a traditional mortgage, which wasn't the case in the past. And there's some fine details to things we have to do from a development standpoint to make sure it's eligible for a traditional mortgage. But whenever people are kind of like naysayers, like I've been trying to post documentation of kind of the journey online and I'll always get comments. People are like, cool, so you're just putting ugly trailers out there. And I'm like, look, you just need to pull over. The next time you drive down a highway and see like a Clayton Home center, there's a bunch of them all throughout the country. Just pull over and just walk through one and then let me know if your opinion did not change because you'll walk in, you're like, dude, this thing's got accent walls, stainless steel appliances, like cabinets that go all the way to the ceiling, a jetted tub, four bedrooms. A family could live here. And they could live on an acre or two and they could do it for 220 grand or something. Compare that to their other options. Are they going to get that much land? Are they going to get a brand new home? Are they going to get a home with four bedrooms? That's in their price range, especially right now. It's just the gap is widening so dramatically between what the average family can afford and so they're just downgrading their expectations as far as space and it being new and land. And so we're passionate about this from that standpoint, which is like, we're actually offering a really quality product that people are extremely hungry for. And affordable housing is something that is not really argued about, you know, like, it's not a partisan thing. You don't have. Who, who doesn't agree that there's not enough affordable homes? Like, everyone agrees. And so that's another kind of, like, I think, pro tip anytime you're looking to start anything is if you can go tackle a problem that is widely agreed upon as a problem, you don't have to convince people it's a problem that's like going to be some wind in your sails. And so that's what I like about the affordable housing thing.
- [35:17]
A
Yeah, 100%. It doesn't matter what community I lived in or I'm working in. They all have the same challenge of there isn't enough housing for teachers, for firefighters, for police officers, for city workers, for, for servers, for bartenders, for like, for the people who make communities run. You can't seriously. There isn't enough housing. So it's actually from a job and recruitment standpoint, it's actually a huge issue that a lot of communities have because they're like, I really need this city engineer, I really need this firefighter, I really need this teacher. Oh, and they're, how are you going
- [35:46]
C
to get great teachers? You know, you want your schools to be better? How are you going to get these great teachers to move here when the average home that'll fit their family is 500 grand at whatever interest rate there is? It's like, you're not going to get them. So. You're exactly right.
- [35:59]
A
Yeah. So, so it's coming up with solutions like this and it's changing the stigma because we also, like you say affordable people go, okay, section eight. And it's like, no, it's actually attainable housing. It's, it's, it's a way that somebody who doesn't have to spend their entire monthly salary to get a home to live in just to have a roof over the head and feel saf. So it's, it's finding solutions like that and it's not, it's not a one size fits all. It's, we need pocket solutions like this that fit in different markets that, that can help bridge that gap. So definitely, definitely love that for sure. So from a financing standpoint, and I know because I've, I've looked into this in a couple different markets in Reno and in Florida and you had mentioned HUD certified and different lenders. What are you guys doing to be proactive to, to make it to where the people buying it have the easiest path forward?
- [36:44]
C
Yeah, well, we partnered with someone that has been in mortgage lending for a long time and is kind of a specialist at helping people get approved. That might be kind of right on that line. And so yeah, again kind of back to the first thing we said, like go find experts and make them part of your team. So we got really fortunate to find someone that was willing to be both a, be a funder of projects for us, like an investor and be our exclusive lender, like a preferred lender. You know, just like you'll have builders out there that say hey, buy our home, you can use your own mortgage company but if you use our preferred lender, we've got some perks. So I don't know if that's really been done at scale with manufactured homes. We're going to try it. I think it could be cool. And so yeah, you know, it really shouldn't be much different than someone just applying for a 30 year mortgage on a, a spec home that was stick built in a subdivision. And so we'll see. That's what that's part of, like kind of the next phase. Though we haven't sold one of these things yet. You know, the financing we were more concerned about was our own financing. Like there's a reason people that do this do a couple a month and they're like, they're like a big fish if they're doing a couple a month, you know. And so to set out to do a hundred in a year, which like to be candid with you, our goal is actually bigger than 100 a year. We thought, hey, let's just like give a nice round number that we're going to commit to the, the people of the public that we'll do. But we're trying to sandbag and we want to do more. So it takes a lot of capital. Our average project's about 180 grand to develop and so we need tens of millions of dollars afloat. And we did pull together some cash that we had as a partnership, but that's nowhere near enough to accomplish this size of goal. And so we just talked to people and just opened our mouths. We're just willing to not be embarrassed to be like, hey, let me pitch you on this. Would you be willing, and I'm talking like small, small time investors, relatively speaking, find someone that would be willing to do one project. I think a lot of people that hit us up and say they'd love to learn this. They're like, yeah, but I would never be able to find someone to provide the capital. And I don't think I would be approved by a bank for this. So I don't know if I could do this. And I'm like, I'm always telling them, like, dude, you probably know someone or someone you know, knows someone that has some money sitting that's not making an impressive interest rate. They would like something that's a little bit, you know, call it higher risk, higher reward. And then when you explain to them that this is real estate, they're going to have a lien against the home and the land. It's easy for people to understand you're not raising money for some tech startup that could go to zero. It's a real asset. And so the thing we've been pleasantly surprised by is the capital side has been really, really smooth to this point. We've raised a lot of money and we haven't really like solicited money in any sort of like public way. It's been just people we know and then people they know. And you know, I do know that a lot of that is because we are fortunate to have a great network. And so some people that are looking into this are like, sounds like that's a you thing, Alex. Like, I don't know people with any money and I understand that's a real struggle. But I think people would be surprised if they're just willing to put themselves out there. You can find it. And if you could just find one deal, like it's just about the first deal, right? And you can make a crazy deal for them. Like if someone's got money and you have no money, say, hey, how about you give me the money and I'll give you the lion's share of the profit or all of it. Like whatever you have to do, like, it's just about getting the first deal. Because once you have proof of concept, then getting more money is way easier because you can Say, look what I did, not what I'm saying I'm gonna do. I did this. Here's what it costs, here's what I sold it for. Here was my margin. Do you want to give me 500 grand? And people will be like, yeah, I do. You know, yeah.
- [40:28]
A
And people will be like, no, I don't believe you. It 1000% true. I was just having this conversation yesterday with someone who is currently renting their space, been a business owner, crazy awesome multiple business owner for 20 plus years. And it's like, I think we actually need to build our own space. And I connected with them for a different reason. And I was like, well, you know, I have this stuff. Like I'll give you all these resources, like take the courses, do the stuff for free. Like go, go do that. Cause you're clearly an action taker. But I was like the, the money part because what was stopping her was like, well, where am I going to get the capital? I've got to work for at least six to 10 more months to have enough to be able to put the money down. And the bank had pre approved me for this. And it was like, no, no, no. This is, this is real estate development. Like you will have people on the sidelines, just start telling people what you're doing. There will be people on the sidelines who don't know how, who don't want to put the vision together, who don't want to put the plan, but they want to. And it's not. The fact that it's real estate is very helpful. Just like you said, there is a tangible asset that they can be. Okay, cool. I have, I can see it, I can touch it. There is something there. It can't go to zero. But then also they're betting on you, they're betting on you, the person to go execute. And you've got a 20 year track record that you can do it or you've got like your case, you've got all these other companies that you can do it.
- [41:40]
C
Yeah. And the other thing is. Yeah, so I have a couple thoughts there. It's like, even if you don't have a track record, the thing you're trying to develop, in our case, a land home package. Even if I can't go to a prospective investor and tell him that I've done five of these, I'll tell him I've done zero. But I've done other things. My partners have done other things. And like you said, they're betting on the horse, I think is the term they're betting on the action taker. And people that are really, action takers are way more of a scarce resource than capital. And it's a paradigm shift for people that are ambitious but don't have money because they don't have money right now. And they may feel very scarce with money, like, dude, I'm barely paying my bills. They tend to think that that's like everybody and it's not. So when you actually open your mouth and start talking about investment, you're going to find your uncle or your neighbor or whatever that lives a super modest lifestyle and drives an old beater car. They've been working hard for, for 40 years. And guess what? They've got a million bucks sitting in a mutual fund. They would love to throw a couple hundred grand at something that's a little more interesting. And people just need to take an effort to a be an action taker. Show people by the way you live and other things you've done that you're for real. And then the capital is actually kind of the easy part.
- [42:58]
A
It is. And being the action taker, because there are so many people who say they want to do something, their actions don't prove that. It's like, if you truly want to do something, your actions will back that up and you'll go make it happen. And it's. Yeah, very, very, very few people will do it. So you're setting yourself up there. Yeah, it's the, the money on the sidelines. And like you said, people are going to get in just because they're, they're curious, they can touch it, they can drive past it and be like, I funded that, I did that.
- [43:23]
B
Yeah.
- [43:24]
A
Even if they're the money person. Did they? Yeah, you gave the money, you made that happen. But we actually built it, we did it, whatever. So. But everyone gets to be involved in that, which is super cool.
- [43:33]
C
People aren't like fired up necessarily about having their money in the S&P 500. Like, first of all, people are super uncertain about the state of the world and geopolitics. It's like a lot of people are just like, it's scary to feel like I don't even know what's going to happen. I'm in this lottery, I'm in the stock market casino, which I'm not anti stock market. But like you said, there's something that hits a different part of their brain to be like, this is land and a home and a family is going to live in it, that there's not enough of these homes. I mean, It's a story that you really can sell because it's a true story.
- [44:05]
A
And something else too. The, the whole fact that people can invest their retirement dollars into your deals so they can self direct their IRAs, to be a private money lender, to be an LP, to, to go in. So I, I do it. I, I both invest into other people's deals and I have people do that to invest into mine. And if you think about it, it's like, oh, well, I'm, I mean, I kind of look at the retirement dollars I put in there as fake money because I can't touch it for how long unless I pay a penalty. So I'm like, yeah. So I tried out private money lending to someone or I, I'll invest into other people's deals because I'm like, yeah, not doing anything else. We can, there's typically bigger upside, but that's a way. So if you're like, I don't know anyone with that much cash sitting around. Yeah, but they have retirement accounts probably. So biggest thing here is just open your mouth and tell people what you're doing. And you'd be very surprised. A lot of my partners have come out just because they've heard me talking about my deals. They're like, I want to get in on one. I just told my tech company I want to get on this. I just did this. I want to do that. But if you don't say anything about it, they don't know.
- [45:00]
C
Here's a little, here's a little like pro tip. Okay, here's like a little hack. So if someone is like, all right, I've got a thing I want to develop. I need money. I'm sheepish about asking people directly because then if they say no or they don't have the money, then they feel awkward. I feel awkward. I don't want to do this. So here's the way around that. Don't ask them directly. You say, hey, I'm looking for someone and I want to know if you know anybody. Let me tell you what it is. And then that person you're talking to goes, well, actually me. And you're like, oh, really? Oh, hey you. It's like, that's the way to make it less awkward. So there's a, there's a little pro
- [45:33]
A
tip from a, from a real sales guy over here.
- [45:36]
C
That.
- [45:36]
A
A hundred percent. Yeah, that, that's awesome. So you've got, you've got your first ones that are going to go on the market. So what did, did this year start? January 1st or did your 12, when did your 12 months start for your goal?
- [45:49]
C
March 11th, I think we the day I posted my day one video on Instagram, we're calling day one, which was like early March. And so we have 12 months from that point so until March of 2027 to have done a hundred of these. So yeah.
- [46:05]
A
And to take full cycle, what is that like from the time you, you see the deal, you. You go ahead and bet it to it being done. Is that a four to six month process? Is that a three month, like just ballpark.
- [46:17]
C
If we suck, it's going to be five months. If we're good, it's four. And if we can really get efficient, we can get this thing closer to three.
- [46:24]
A
And is that to actually sell or just to be in the contract to sell and then go through that next 30 days?
- [46:28]
C
Yeah, it depends on like how you want to count it.
- [46:30]
A
Yeah.
- [46:31]
C
We tend to talk about from the point we close on the land, right. So we go under contract due diligence, but we close on the land to when we go under contract with a buyer is one way to look at it. That should be four months.
- [46:45]
A
Yeah, Yeah.
- [46:46]
C
I actually think it's more from closed on the land to closed purchase on the home. I really think four months is still realistic in some of these areas. So. So again, some of these things are still theory. But I would also just add this, like as much as I talk about be an action taker and figure things out, even that you don't have experience doing, like, just go for it. I want to add like the. There's a disclaimer that's important to add, which is you don't want to be a pioneer. Russell Brunson said, you know, you know who the pioneers are because they have arrows in their back and they're facing the dirt. So if there's other people that know how to do this, you need to glean as much as possible from those people because there's no reason to go make mistakes they've already made. If you can pay for, for their time, if you can somehow serve them and add value. Some people are just really willing to just share advice for free. Cause they just love to help. So we went and paid for a course. We called and just Facebook messaged everybody that we could find that was doing this like, hey, can we get on a call? And people are like stoked to give you advice and tips. And there's been some like invaluable things they've told us that would have totally like been A disaster if we didn't know. So yeah, you gotta combine like, go learn from people that are doing this. But then also don't think that you have to have 10 years experience like them before you take action. Like, you can do both of those things, you know?
- [48:01]
A
Yes, that is great advice. And it's, you don't know the landmines. You don't know so good getting out there and finding that mentor. And people are like, well, how do I find a mentor? How do I whatever, you know, being on the other side of it now, it's like if you show me, if you ask me questions, I will give you, I will give you time. If I see the right characteristics, I will give you time. Initially if you go out, do something and report back and go, oh, I got to here. I pushed it to here and now this, and, and now I, you know, what do I do here? I would literally keep pouring into people, not getting a dime out of it because I'm just like, oh my gosh, you're doing it. Like you just need someone, every time you hit that, that you need a backstop to go, oh, here I can keep going. And like, we just need more people to take action in this world. So finding that mentor, finding that people, like there are so many times people will give me a call, I'm like, oh yeah, I hit that development thing. Like, here, try this, this and this and, and try and work around it. And we are more than will information just because it's, it's like we already had to learn it the hard way. We learned from the school of hard knocks or, and, or someone else gave a handout to us and said, hey, here, this'll, this will do it. So of course we're paying it forward.
- [49:02]
C
Well, it's also counterintuitive that a lot of times when the newbie or the rookie is reaching out to someone who's experienced, you may think like you're just being a nuisance to them or something. A lot of times the experienced person, let's say, actually gets a lot from that conversation. Because if you're really deep into a thing, any area of expertise, it's not that often that you're forced to articulate the fundamentals of the thing and in doing so, you're like, I kind of forgot about that. It's very clarifying. So a lot of times, like whether it's sales related or like my limited experience in this or other businesses that I've built, people will call me and think that I'm doing them this huge favor. And I'm like, dude, that call was super helpful for me. Thank you. And so just keep that in mind if you have any aversion to like asking people for advice, like they like it, you know, they're talking to their wife or their husband endlessly about business and they're like, stop talking about this. So someone else that wants to like ask them questions about the thing they love to do, like, people like it, you know.
- [49:56]
A
Yeah, that is so, so true. I love that. So, I mean we, we've touched on so many awesome things and we've got your, your current plan, which I mean you are clearly, clearly an action taker. You've got the plan, you got the people together and really right now you're just about building the pipeline and then executing and sure you're going to hit the hiccups along the way, but as long as you avoid the deathblower, like of course you can build this. Like I see the path, like of course you can build this machine and it goes. So let's say this machine is, is up and running. You're, you're an entrepreneur. I feel like you're going to have different itches or, or niches that, that you might want to venture into outside of just single family affordable housing. So what, what would maybe like the 5, 10 year goal be now that you're getting into the real estate realm? When would it be staying in there and would it switch asset classes or is there a bigger picture vision and plan?
- [50:42]
C
Yeah, so what I would say to that is on the real estate side, I would say I like the idea of getting familiar with real estate generally. Learning the terminology, just getting my, my feet wet because there's so many tangents that may look interesting and lucrative and like great timing five years from now that we'll be able to just dive into. Right. So I just like that as opposed to some things that could go out of stock while we were in solar, solar got hit by a nuke of legislation and macroeconomics just I was in
- [51:18]
A
hydrogen at the same time that year I did a decade of hydrogen fueling stations in California, building the supply chain, all of that. And then all of that dries up, the venture capital dries up and everyone goes, oh, maybe not in the commercial sense.
- [51:30]
C
Yeah, so like kind of a value I try to have be a North Star for anything I do in business. It comes from Naval Ravikin. He says play long term games with long term people. So I feel like real estate generally is a long term game and I'M teamed up with people that are long term people. But beyond that, I just find entrepreneurship stimulating and fun. And so one of my goals is I just want to have enough financial capital ability to go and invest in people's startups and give, you know, consulting and help, but also, like, give them dollars.
- [52:06]
A
Yeah.
- [52:07]
C
And if I could do that. And a lot of my life was just having different deals come my way and deciding which ones I want to go be a part of, that seems like a game you could play till you're a hundred, you know, so, yep.
- [52:19]
A
Getting to see someone else realize their dream and go, oh, I, I can do this. And then you can help make sure that they, they get it right. Yeah, yeah. I'm so with you on that. That's amazing. Yeah.
- [52:27]
C
Cause you get the, you get the rise out of, like seeing something that you think of in your head go to, to fruition. And so like, you get that same feeling. If it's like someone you helped and they 100% do, I would argue it's even better. And so, yeah, so I think about, like, hey, let's make enough money that we don't have to like, solve the money problem anymore personally, but then we can just go out and like, look for ways to, you know, infuse that into people that are doing good work and have good ideas.
- [52:52]
A
I couldn't agree more. When the little birdies fly and they go do their thing, I'm literally like the proud mom. I'm just like, yes, go, go, go. I'm your biggest cheerleader. I love it. That. Well, that, that is an incredible. And I love the mission and what you're doing and, and I think we need to put those big goals out there. Because if you had said, I'm going to do five this year, great. Yeah, you can do five. But by doing a hundred, you're challenging and pushing so many limits that are going to teach you guys a lot about yourselves, your partnership, the theory, the community you're going to then inspire and impact so many people along the way. Because you're, you're selling the people you're partnering up with, the manufactured homes, the installers, the, the just every, even your wholesalers, everyone you're touching, you're impacting because they're like, whoa, this is crazy awesome. Like, I want to be part of this. And so you're helping change and rewire their brains too, which all of that I, I love is awesome. And it's like, okay, what if you only get 50 in year one? Guess what? That's more than 5 or 10 that you could have started with playing it safe. And how many other doors, opportunities, partnerships, relationships were open as a result of just saying, hey, let's go do this.
- [53:53]
C
Yeah, yeah.
- [53:54]
A
Or maybe you blow it out of the water and do 5,000. You never know.
- [53:57]
C
Yeah, you never know the guy that's just a vendor right now or you know, the, the gal that you're like talking to because she owns the well digging company. Like these are all people that you interact with along your journey that you don't know what that's going to turn into way later. And that's been so the case for me. I actually have this like opinion on social media personally, that, you know, social media is like this kind of polarizing thing. A lot of people are like, hey, we're too addicted to it. We shouldn't have it all of that. True, yes. But for me personally, especially because I moved east away from my whole network, I've tried to share something either educational, entertaining or inspiring to my story for the last 15 years of my life. Every day I have this group of people that they feel like they know me and I feel like I know them. A lot of them we've never met in person, but I cannot tell you how often it's been one of those people that the perfect thing comes along and now we're working together. That happened with my buddy Ned Eric. We just were friends over social media and when I started my company, I just needed someone with his skill set. But I thought there's no way he'd come do this. He's got a really big boy job. He's in venture capital. He went, I'm just this college dropout sales hustler. He's not going to want to. And he dropped everything, quit his job, moved up and was our chief revenue officer and just crushed it for us. And then after we exited, he now works for Alex Hormozi and is a VP over there@acquisition.com. but if I hadn't put myself out there, I never would have met Ned. We never would have had that experience. And so there's just a lot of value. Whether it's social media or not. You want to make connections and keep those connections warm because there's going to be a way you can serve them or they can serve you. And that's just the best stuff in life.
- [55:40]
A
100%. Relationships, connection, collaboration, it's just. Yeah. And I'm also a big fan of the Dan Sullivan and Ben Hardy wrote the 10x is easier than 2x and I just, I love that because if you think about doing something 2x of of what you're currently doing, you go, cool, I can put in more hours, more time, more money. If you say 10x, there is zero chance that you can do that by yourself. And so it forces you to think differently. Okay, who are my. Who's. Who are. Who are the people that I can then connect to make this crazy ambitious goal happen?
- [56:09]
C
So, yeah, so I'm a big fan of Ben Hardy. And on my little like 60 day sabbatical adventure, you know, one of those trips was down to Florida with Ben. I stayed at his house and just hung out. We become friends and like, that is an example of a person that is not normal. Like, talk about a high performer that actually does what he says, knows what he's talking about. Like, when you come across people like that, you need to make sure that you notate. Okay, hey, this is. You'll meet a lot of good people that have the character that you want to be around. You will also meet some people that are true outliers, like true high performance human beings. And I'm just glad that you mentioned Ben Hardy because, yeah, that's. He's one of those. So, yeah, great books.
- [56:55]
A
100%. I was in. I was in Strategic Coach and some different stuff when he was super big into that. And, and yeah, and it's. You're right. You. You can attach and see. Okay. You are someone who is doing something amazing. And yeah, I, I love it. Well, I could keep nerding out forever, so. But we probably shouldn't. Where? Well, one. Is there anything that I didn't ask you that I should have or that you want to share? So our, our audience is people who are probably on the peripheral of getting into development themselves. They probably have some residential or some type of investment. They do, but they're like, man, I keep looking at that building in town or that vacant lot and I'm. They need that extra step to get over the hump. Is there anything that, that you would tell them about just getting started? Yeah.
- [57:38]
C
And when you say development, are you referring to real estate related development, specifically, like different forms of real estate?
- [57:44]
B
Yeah.
- [57:46]
C
Well, I mean, I would just say, hey, if you need a little confidence, like, I have no experience in real estate. I know how to sell, I know how to assemble teams, I know how to work hard and I take really good care of my friends and my people. So whatever your set of like whatever's on your baseball card that you're good at, because you have things that you're good at and you have things that you're good at in a very unique way. Naval Rava can't calls that specific knowledge, like nobody has exactly what you have. And so take that, realize there's so much value there and then go find someone else that has the things you don't have and do it with a team. It just changes the whole game. You're way more willing to take risk if you've got a copilot. So I would say you don't have to go do this alone. That can help. And then yeah, I think just everything else we've said, it's like the things you think are the impenetrable barriers, whether it's capital or expertise. Look, we live in the age of Claude and ChatGPT. Information is not a scarce resource. It's action takers and people that are willing to take risk. And another thing, I don't know, I keep mentioning Naval Ravikant, I don't know if you know who that is, but legendary. And he just put on my mind today because I just reread his book for probably the fifth time. It's called the Almanac of Naval Ravikant. And he says that in a modern society down risk is, he says upside is virtually unlimited and downside risk is limited. Like in America if you go full send on something and it goes completely wrong as long as you avoid total ruin which is life altering injury or death or prison. Right. So you can't avoid total ruin. Don't get involved in things that could sabotage your name and your credibility forever, take away your freedom, commit crimes, hurt people, hurt yourself. But financially, like how many people do you and I know that have gone completely bankrupt, had everything repossessed and they are killing it today and they might have multiple.
- [59:45]
A
Yep, exactly.
- [59:46]
C
Those are just called cycles. But it's so contrary to like our whole wiring. Like we're just like don't risk things. But it's like life is risk anyway. The person that's got the W2 job that thinks hey, business is too risky, like doesn't fully appreciate the fact that they are an expense item line that someone's going to come along and fire them. Like.
- [60:03]
A
Yep. At some point they're, they're cutting it.
- [60:05]
C
Yeah, yeah. Kind of just like recontextualize what risk really is. And I would say that not taking risk today in 2026, like risk is the riskiest thing you can do in a sense because you know the thing that you're calling like Comfortable and stable is probably not as stable as you think. If it involves other people continuing to exist and do what they do. You've got to like bring the locus of control in, in and learn to be a little bit more the captain of your own ship. Because if your ship burns down, you're just going to get another ship. Like you're the, you're the asset, you
- [60:35]
A
know, I love it. We could go into that in so much more detail too. So how can people, you said, you mentioned social media. How. What is the best way for people to follow along on what you're doing with the affordable homes? But personally and just all the different business ventures, what's the best way for them to connect and support you?
- [60:52]
C
Yeah, honestly, just Instagram, it's my favorite app in the world.
- [60:55]
B
World.
- [60:55]
C
It's great. So I'm on Instagram. Alex Martinson. I think it's an underscore. Alex Martinson Underscore Landown Package guy. You'll see it. And yeah, I'm just trying to share things about the process and there's links on there to some of the other stuff we have going on related to this. And yeah, I'm coming out with. I saw in your email you sent me, I think you said you like to have like something you can like offer to your people, like a free
- [61:15]
A
resource if you have something that can help. Yeah.
- [61:17]
C
So I'm working on it right now. I'm almost done. So if people want to follow along, they'll be able to get access to this. It's something people have asked me for a lot. It's just like a PDF that breaks down a deal, a Land home package deal, line by line, so every single cost. And so I'm just going to basically offer that to anyone who wants it. And we're starting a Facebook group. I just started it today. I haven't even told anyone about it. I just was doing that before. So I think we're going to kind of have some just community vibe going on in there. It's called Land Home Package Insiders by Alex Martinson. So those are a couple ways people could like get close to this if they're looking for an idea of what to develop. I think they should look at affordable housing, they should look at land own packages. There's a lot to love about it. So.
- [61:58]
A
Well, thank you so much for joining us today. This is my favorite hour of every week. Just because I love other entrepreneurs, real estate investors, developers, and just because we think differently and we get to think outside the box, we get to create things that don't exist and that just, it opens so many doors of possibility. So thank you, thank you again for being part of this.
- [62:19]
C
Yeah, thank you. And you're awesome, Christie. Appreciate what you're doing and happy to just be another resource, another person that, you know, if there's any, any way I can ever help or collaborate, you know, I'm open to it.
- [62:31]
A
So, and, and likewise. So again, action takers. Action takers unite.
- [62:36]
C
That's right.
- [62:38]
A
Awesome. Well, thank you all for listening today to local real estate developer podcast. If you can please give us a five star review, like share subs, whatever you can do in that sense helps us get the word out further to get more people in their communities to take action. And we appreciate you and everything that you do. So we will see you next time.
- [62:57]
C
Thanks, Krista.