From Broke to Building Empires and Unlocking Secrets to Multifamily Success with Christian Osgood

[0:00] Welcome to the REI Agent, a holistic approach to life through real estate. I’m Matthias, an agent and investor. And I’m Erica, a licensed therapist. Join us as we interview guests that also strive to live bold and fulfilled lives through business and real estate investing. Tune in every week for interviews with real estate agents and investors. Ready to level up? Let’s do it.

[0:24] Welcome back to the REI Agent. And we did three podcasts together this week. We recorded three podcasts together. We did. It was an unlikely week for us to be able to do that, but we did it. I told you this yesterday. I feel like after all the hard months, the really hard months we had, I feel like yesterday was the first day where I felt like, I’m back. I’m getting it. And do you feel the same? Are you there yet? I think, yeah, I’m slowly getting back into it. I feel like yesterday was the first day that I felt like I caught up on sleep for the most part. Everybody was back in school. I got back to my routine. Yeah, I feel like we’re feeling pretty good. I did a really good, I had a good time on the workout yesterday.

[1:13] I’m a little bit sore today in a good way. Yeah. It feels good. I don’t think we could really feel back without being sore from the gym. That’s the key piece right there. Is that the most important piece to feeling back in rhythm and feeling good? I think so. And it’s funny because we were like, oh, we’ve been out for a month. It’s going to take us for forever. And then earlier today, you were like, all right, I got some muscle definition. I was like, it’s been 48 hours. I spent a good 30 minutes looking at myself in the mirror this morning. It was great.

[1:50] As you should. That’s not true. No, but yesterday I was able to write on my book. That’s been something that I’ve not made any progress with for a while. I mean, part of it being the horrible month we had. But I think even a little bit past or before that, it was just not, they hadn’t made progress. So that felt amazing. I think anytime you can knock something off the, if you want to check something off the list that you’ve been meaning to do forever, that’s been nagging you, that’s been bugging you for a long time, like that can be cleaning. That can be like, you know, a lot of different things that if you can knock that out, that’s just kind of a guaranteed like boost, right? You’re going to feel good after doing that, that thing.

[2:34] So, you know, maybe that’s a life hack to try to, to keep those things in, in, in mind for, you know, Hey, I need a boost. I’m going to just knock this out today instead of, you know, grabbing a bottle of wine, which you did both. I did both. And both are highly recommended at times. I, uh, or you go do a girl’s night. Like I did last night, went to a basketball game with a girlfriend and that was super fun. And took a minute to get out of the house. Cause I had like literally had children clinging to my leg and around my waist all the way down the driveway before I could detach myself and escape into the car. They were like a running back shaking tacklers. Um, yeah. And then, you know, I actually had a really good time with the, with the kids too.

[3:27] Uh, they weren’t thrilled at the beginning. We had some fights over or what to eat for dinner, but we got into playing the animal game, uh, where you have to think of an animal. Another person has to guess, uh, what it is by asking questions that narrow it down. Um, our oldest daughter was getting really into it and was, I was kind of teaching her how to, you know, ask broad questions and narrow it down. And then I’ve had to make a rule like, okay, you, okay, you can only guess what you think it is once. So you’ve got to ask questions about what that, what you think it is to figure out if it is or not. Cause she would just, you know, be like cow, kangaroo, giraffe, right? Something like that.

[4:07] And, and, and then with the way she is, she, um, she asked me like five times, does it hop? Cause she was, she just in her head, she knew it was a kangaroo, but she couldn’t say that. And she asked me, it was a rhino is what I was thinking of. And, and we’d both seen him at the zoo. And so that’s kind of where I think her, her mind was going, but she just like, does it hop? And I’m like, no, she’s like, okay. And then she like got on the floor and like hopped. Does it do this? Like, no, but, but yeah, it was, it was a lot of fun. Uh, and you know, something that I, I, especially when you were leaving, I felt like could be a really miserable night, but that ended up being a, a pretty good one.

[4:51] Yeah. It’s good for me to get out of the house so that you have that time with the kids where they can’t lean on me. Yeah. Yeah. And that, that kind of, I will get into this really quickly, but, um, that reminds me, we, in my, uh, kind of mastermind group, uh, I had been making goals primarily on, on Erica, like increasing our relationship. And the, the idea was maybe that it would be a trickle down economics effect of, if I have a really good relationship with Erica, that I’m probably gonna have a really good relationship with my kids. Um, but what I found was having, making three goals related around Erica, um, was hard to find them to be like, you know, a consistent daily thing or, or that all of them were, had the same kind of level of impact or meaningfulness.

[5:39] Uh, hope I’m not getting like how many date dates per month, that kind of dates per month. Yeah. Um, or, or doing, I think maybe at the beginning we did something with love languages, but anyway, so this time I decided to bring the kids in as well into the goal to try to have like, kind of like, you know, a whole family goal. And one of the guys, uh, said that what he had done with his kids was he was every quarter he was going to take, um, his kids on a trip without mom, or I think one time mom left. And so they were at home without, without mom. So at least one overnight. Um, and you like that idea, like the, you getting out, she’s booking a ticket as soon as we get off this call. Um, but anyway, so I thought that was a really, really cool idea and looking to, to implement that this year.

[6:29] Um, so hopefully you’ll be hearing about, you know, what that looks like here in the weeks and months to come.

[6:38] Yeah. You were saying that you feel like you have to make it really, really fun, which, which is probably true, but then I want to come. Yeah. It’s this weird, uh, dissonance there because I feel like I have to make it really good because they already, like I mentioned it once, like, no, I don’t want to go without mom. So I have to make it good, but then I, yeah, I feel guilty and I know you’re going to have that FOMO. That’s okay. That’s okay. It’s important. I like that goal. Yeah. They need you. Maybe we can do a combo thing where you leave too. And yeah, anyway, um, today we had, uh, the great fortune of speaking with Christian Osgood. Christian was a lot of fun, uh, to talk to. Um, I, there’s not often that I feel like we could really have like a three or four hour podcast, but I feel like we probably could have with him.

[7:29] Um, cause we, we, there’s just a lot more depth we could get into, but I think, uh, we covered a lot of great stuff, mindset stuff. Um, the shift from having nothing to, uh, having a lot and how that changes a person or not. Um, you know, we’re both having that Dave Ramsey background, which was interesting, but it was a great conversation. He was a lot of fun. Yep. So, uh, yeah, without further ado, uh, Christian Osgood.

[8:01] Welcome back to the REI agent. Uh, we are here with Christian Osgood. Christian, thanks so much for joining us. Absolutely. Thanks for having me. It’s an honor to have you on here, man. Uh, you are, uh, yeah, very prolific. I’ve, I’ve seen a lot of your stuff, so I’m, I’m excited to talk to you, uh, and have this conversation. Tell us a little bit about your real estate journey and what got you in there, into the investing scene. Well, I always share this story the same way and the rest of this podcast will be very unique, but if you’ve ever heard my story ever before, I started with Dave Ramsey’s, not Robert Kiyosaki. Like every other podcast, feel like, well, I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad, and it changed my life.

[8:39] It did change my life, but a lot later on, uh, I grew up with the, you go to school, you get a job, you earn money. And if you earn enough money, you get to buy some rental properties. You get to get into income. I was always pro real estate. I always wanted to own real estate, but it was, you have to work your way up without borrowing other money, without taking additional debt, buy the house first, no credit cards, the whole nine yards. So I went from first, second, third, fourth, fifth grade, middle school, high school, college, first, second, third, fourth job, bought a house, bought a couple of duplexes. I was eight years into a career with two duplexes. Each cash flowed a thousand dollars a month.

[9:18] Of course, I bought my house back when interest rates were like 3%. So I had a $2,000 mortgage on my tiny little house in Seattle. And I got to a place on that method where my real estate was paying for my real estate. I had three properties, all of which covered themselves. I was able to live in my house effectively for free. So my cost of living was like food insurance. It’s a good place to be. It’s a cool goal. But my original goal was I need to keep saving so I have more money and I need to keep buying rentals so I have more income. If you’ve ever like seen what a goal is, that’s not really a goal. That’s just like a kind of meandering in a certain direction, which kind of worked. My wife got injured at school.

[10:04] She was a kindergarten teacher at the time. This was right when we got back from the pandemic. I won’t say the word so we don’t get the strike of the thing that happened in 2020. She was teaching kindergartners in an impoverished area of Seattle, a high refugee area. So a lot of the families there had four or five kids. Often both parents worked or they’re in a single parent family. And English was their second or third language. If you can imagine teaching a kindergartner over Zoom in normal circumstances, that would be very, very hard. This was one where they had four other siblings on the internet. They may or may not speak English and the parents are not available to help in many cases. No one’s fault, but holy lord.

[10:49] Hard job. We come back. She gets pushed down on the playground. And due to racial tension at the time, politically, the school decided, hey, we want to cover this up instead of assist. It was quite an issue. So my life went from, hey, we’re moving forward. We love our jobs. We love what we do. To like, the district has turned on us. My wife hates her job. I need to retire her immediately. Unfortunately, I had just left my job to keep buying rentals and pursue full-time real estate. So we went from the whole save, earn, scale a career to, hey, our income is about to drop to zero. How do we solve this? I can’t do it one duplex at a time. This method is no longer the correct vehicle. And that’s where I got to where I’m at today.

[11:41] My next deal was 38 units. It was seller financed. I bought it for $2 million. Raised $300. I’d never raised money before. I didn’t have any friends or family with money. So it was from three people I’d never met before. Okay. 11 months later, that building appraised for $4.1 million. We used the refi to buy out the investors and pay myself about $350,000. By the time I’d done that refi, we’d already bought 50 other units. And away we go. So the vehicle changed because life changed. It had to change. And so that was the big lesson. Set a clear goal and the goal has to matter. And that goal really, really mattered to us at that time. Yeah. Well, I just have to say we also started with Dave Ramsey.

[12:29] And I had read, I think I was kind of looking through, trying to figure out life and all that stuff as a young kid before we were dating. And read the Total Money Makeover and had that kind of mindset. And then when we got together and then when we got married, we actually tallied up all our debt in the airport on the way back from our honeymoon, which is so much fun. So we were like $120,000 of debt and we were making like $50,000, $60,000. So we just bought a house as well. And so all that to say is we tackled that, paying that stuff off for the next couple of years. And I guess my transition away from that line of thinking was maybe more gradual. I think I just kind of slowly understood debt and all that kind of stuff a little bit more and more.

[13:20] The more I read, the more I became an agent, investor, et cetera. Just kind of moved away from that a little bit or graduated is kind of the way I think of it too. It’s almost like a financial 101, like where it’s not necessarily, it can help people. It helps a lot of people. It can be a decent thing for people to do, but you can get a lot more sophisticated, which is what you talked about. But it sounds like you kind of went, you like flipped a switch and it was just like all of a sudden you’re going all out. Well, I would say too, I mean, Christian, what I heard you say was life threw you a curveball you weren’t expecting. And then you were almost forced to pivot. One of the core things of Dave Ramsey’s is how to set a clear, specific goal.

[14:02] That’s like one of his main things. I’m like, how did I miss that one? I thought the goal was like, okay, scale the career and build rentals. If you actually go back and read the book, the thing that I did really was his step one of like define clearly where you are going, which requires like a destination, a timeline. And I added to that, what is the actual monthly cost to live the life you want to live? Like for me, it’s about $15,000 a month. I’m like, well, eight years I’ve generated two through real estate. So this method works. It doesn’t work well enough for where I’m trying to go. So then what are the other vehicles to buy real estate? And what is the correct vehicle to get to where we want to go?

[14:46] And that ended up being larger buildings will make more money because you can’t have more bottom line without more top line. What resources helped you switch that mindset and getting more comfortable with that, et cetera, or just the risk maybe is another way to take on a huge building? Like, I mean, podcasts, books, I mean, what route did you go? So there was a – so I left my job and I went to a group in Tacoma, Washington, and I was running a call center for them. It was a data aggregation thing for a property management company and a brokerage. So I worked in one office, and in an office, same company, but like two blocks down the street, there was a 20-year-old who had just closed on his 30th unit.

[15:37] His W-2 history was 34 minutes at Safeway, which is a grocery store. And he was like, I don’t like this. They tell me what to do. This is awful. He had made $5,000 as a real estate agent. He’s closed one small deal, and he dropped out of college after his first semester. So he has little to no education. He has no money. He did not borrow any money from friends or family, and he has 30 rentals. I have four, and I did everything right. I did everything the conventional way that you’re supposed to do it. I’m like, okay, well, this – how did you do this? And so I was talking to him, and it boiled down to this. He wanted to list the 12plex that had dropped out of contract, and the owner had talked to him and said, hey, why don’t you just buy this?

[16:28] And he’s like, well, because I don’t have any money. He’s like, well, I wanted 25% down, but I really only need 10. I would love to help you get started since that’s your goal is to own real estate. If you can find 10%, I can spot you 90%. That started two trains of thoughts. One, someone who is unbelievably less qualified than me to buy real estate. At the time, he’s eight years younger. He’s done none of the things that one traditionally has to do to buy real estate. He has a lot more real estate than I do. That’s number one. Number two, instead of being worried about, hey, where’s the money coming from, this person put it in a different perspective. The seller who convinced my buddy to buy his first property, if I figure out the first 90%, can you come in with the last 10?

[17:19] And so that started – that flipped the whole thing upside down for me. Everyone who doesn’t have the money to buy the real estate they want to buy gets stuck on, well, what if the money doesn’t come in or where’s the money coming from? He started with, I have an opportunity, and then there’s a debt product that covers 90% of it. So you have the deal first, then you have the debt. Now you’re only working on 10% of the deal, and it’s the last 10%. If you’re trying to find capital, even if you’re, in his case, he was 19 on his first deal, even if you’re 19 with no money, no experience, I have 90% of a deal. I have 100% of an opportunity, and I have 90% of the money. I am looking for one person to bring in 10%, and if I do this, in the case of that deal, I make hundreds of thousands of dollars.

[18:06] That is so much easier to find capital for 10% of an opportunity that you already have that is mostly funded. The mindset is totally different. I went, oh, okay, so we’re not trying to find $3 million to buy a $3 million building. We’re trying to find a building that will cash flow day one on long-term fixed rate debt. So we’re going to buy it, and it’s going to keep paying us. That’s what I need. I want to buy a deal that increases my cash flow. That’s it. That’s the objective. I need to find someone who wants to sell a building, and then I need to find a debt product that brings in most of the money. If we can just do that, capital raising should, in theory, be easy. And so since I was urgently trying to retire my wife, I was like, well, let’s go test this theory.

[18:51] We bought the 38plex. Two weeks after we closed that, we closed on a sixplex, same method, 10% down, seller financed. Then I closed on a sevenplex in Seattle for $1,000,000, 3.5% down on a 3% interest rate, seller financed. I was like, wait a second. This keeps working. We did this in three months. We did three deals in the same three months. Close, close, close. Close, close. Wow. And I was like, this, I believe we have proved concept. And then we did this over the next few years. We did it in central Washington, western Washington on the coast, Dallas, Houston, Laredo, McAllen. I was like, okay, it’s not market specific, and it’s not luck. We’ve done the same thing for several years again and again in different locations in red state, blue states, big cities, tertiary markets.

[19:39] I’m like, apparently, this is going to keep working. Good news. But that was the theory. Deal debt equity instead of find the money, match it to an opportunity. It was find an opportunity and then tailor the money to the opportunity. That was the thing that flipped for me. And I was like, okay, this is going to work. And it’s kept working for me and a lot of other people. Wow. I am curious to hear what those early conversations were between you and your wife when you were first starting to do some of these transactions. If this was clear to her also and she was on board. Because I was listening to an earlier podcast of yours. And you were the guest and made the comment, you know, a confused person says no.

[20:19] And I’m just curious what that process was like between the two of you. It was so easy for my wife and I, which was such a blessing because it’s not for everyone. Sometimes there’s a lot of tension there because it’s a huge mindset shift. Right. My wife and I, I remember the conversation specifically. It was with the 38 unit. I was like, okay, this is the first time we’re taking on a deal where I can’t earn my way through it if it doesn’t work. The two duplexes in the house, I’ve proven through my career I can go out and I can earn enough money. So if all of our tenants left, I can still spot the mortgages. Like I know that I have the ability. The 38 unit, if everyone left there, I can’t support that mortgage.

[21:02] That is borrowing too many millions of dollars. I can’t do it. So that was a jumping off point. I talked to my wife about it. The first thing we did is prayed. The second thing we did was we just talked about, okay, how did we get to where we’re at today? What do we know that we can do? And our conversation, it was about 15 minutes long. It was not a big challenge. It was, okay, we bought our first condo. We moved out of that condo. We bought another house. The one thing I know that we can do is buy another house. We started from zero not that long ago. We can already do the things that we’ve done. Our goals are bigger than where we’re at. So I think we need to go for this. And we were both 100% on board immediately.

[21:43] It was just like, okay, if it fails, the worst thing that can happen is I lose the house. What do we know we can do for a fact? We’ve bought two houses before that we’ve lived in. We can probably do that again.

[21:57] Never lever or risk anything you’re not willing to lose. But both of us were 100% willing to start over again from zero and take the risk. That was never a tension between us. We loved our little house. But I could buy another house that I love. And my wife was on the same thing. She’s like, we can start over again. And we have the skills and the ability. Let’s just go for it and see what happens. I believe her exact word was, I want to play the game. I was like, I do too. Cool. We have literally had that same conversation. I think that period of time, the three-ish years that we paid off that $120,000, really, we lived on so little. And it was actually one of the happiest times of our lives.

[22:44] We were just so focused and determined and on the same page about stuff that it just was really, for some reason, even though it seems… I think from the outside, our friends were all like, what are you doing? It’s like, you can’t come out. You can’t come out again. You can’t come out. And it seemed like it was a miserable thing for other people looking in. But to us, we were, yeah, like I said, really happy with it. And we’ve talked about how we’ve done this, so we could go back and we could start over. That doesn’t really scare us either. Yeah. We’ve talked with other friends, too, who have come from generational wealth, and neither one of us, Matthias nor I do. And in many ways, it seems like it’s almost helpful to start from nothing.

[23:29] Because then we know we can do that, and we’re happy with it, and we don’t really need any more. But then it makes it almost easier then to take more risks moving forward. Because then we could live in a tent and be fine, probably. Isn’t that the most interesting thing? And I have found, so ultimately what we did for all of these deals, you have to go from being an outsider to an insider. The best deals trade to people that you know, like, and trust. Like, if I’m going to sell a building, I’m going to call the people that I know before we list it and pay an agent to sell it. Not that I don’t love paying agents, because I do. Agents will do a lot of work for you if you consistently make the money.

[24:09] I love paying agents. But on a deal, if I can just sell it to someone who I already know, I’m always going to. And it always goes at a little discount, because it’s someone you know, like, and trust. You have less fees. You can just, the best deals happen that way. Sure. That’s how most seller financing happens, too. It’s to people that you trust enough to not screw it up so you don’t have to take the property back. No one wants to go legal on each other. Right. You want to, especially on a low-down deal, the lender’s risk is higher, so they have to have some amount of trust in you. So I have found that is the method. And while I’m getting all excited about this, I’m like, don’t lose the point, Christian.

[24:45] When you’re getting in here and you’re building these and you’re focused on the relational side of the business, I have just found that, one, the game is way more fun. Two, you move forward in a way, just like building a career. It’s exactly like building the stability of, like, okay, I have these skills now, and now I have this job, and this job will help me get to the next job. If you’re just really connected in the thing you do and you have an abundance of opportunity, the risk does go down. Like, my ability to start over, and, you know, I’ve tested this, right? I’ve moved to another market, and I have over 150 units here. I know for a fact that you can pick me up and you can airdrop me anywhere in the country, and I can do the same thing and build the same business because I’ve already done it multiple times, multiple places.

[25:36] One of the things that I think people have to do is you just have to, like, if you have something where you’re like, I want to do this, I believe this will work, and it’s not irrational. Like, run your ideas past other people. Sometimes you do have bad ideas. But if you have an idea that you believe in, and other people seem to think that it’s plausible, go out and test your theory. It’s not that scary. And real estate doesn’t typically go to zero. Right. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary.

[26:13] It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary.

[26:47] It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. It’s not that scary. None of them had generational wealth. Not a single one. To your point earlier, Erica, it wasn’t the people who, those are the people who are always scared to buy a deal. They’re all typically people who are like third, fourth generation, unless they’ve been trained really well by their families.

[27:27] A lot of them are like, boy, I’m really waiting for the market to do something. Or I’m here, I’m over here sitting on the sidelines. Yeah. The people who really take the field, the first three owners that I met who I bought from, two of them immigrated from another country. English is their second language. They moved from sale money. I’m going to say that too. One of them was a potato peeler for $5 an hour. Wow. He has a book in his house that he bought for $3 million that he displays on his walkway. Now, I’m not all about material things, but it’s like, for context, he went from peeling potatoes for $5 to like, I can buy a decorative book for $3 million. That’s insane. That is kind of insane to think about.

[28:07] I don’t know any generational wealth people have done that. It’s all people who came from the bottom and made it to the top. It is a different mindset. Yeah. And I love it when people are like, hey, I started here. I’m like, oh, okay. So your risk tolerance is different because you’ve had nothing and you’ve had something and you’re okay with both. Yeah. Yeah. That’s a really good point. I hadn’t really thought much about how like not having anything is gives you that comfort to not be afraid of going back. That’s a really, really good point. I think there’s also just a certain grit that comes along with some of those immigrants. I was thinking the same thing. I have friends too that have really been self-made and just have this work ethic that’s so much more than most people.

[28:52] And I have to imagine it’s just part of that, part of like coming from nothing, seeing all the opportunity here too. Like if you’re coming from a country that there aren’t many opportunities. I mean, even, you know, I spent time in Europe and you get kind of boxed in, in a career. And most people don’t even own real estate. You know, like there’s like so many renters, all that kind of stuff. It’s just a lot harder. There’s not really low down payment options, those kinds of things. So if you have that kind of experience of, you know, why wouldn’t you take opportunity with all these opportunities around you? I think it just maybe that it’s a perspective shift. It’s some sort of grit that people have.

[29:29] That’s, you know, I like to be around. It helps me be motivated myself. Almost always the people who are least qualified to succeed seem to be the ones who are succeeding, which I guess technically means everyone who’s feeling stuck, who has all the traditional advantages, it has to be you, right? It has to be something in your head that’s holding you back as people who should be succeeding, who don’t have your advantages, who don’t speak the language, who don’t have any money, are the ones who seem to be 20 years later, the ones who have all the real estate and have the successful businesses. And you see that not just in real estate. I mean, you see that across all sectors of business. There are a lot of people who have nothing, who create a lot.

[30:11] It’s usually the people in the middle who are scared to lose the teeny bit that they have are the ones who get stuck with the least, which is the weirdest thing. Because I feel like the internet’s been a pretty nice thing, especially for someone at my age. I’m 33. Like, I got the golden era of like, if you want information, I can just click on it. Like, as an entrepreneur, I have everything. There’s nothing holding back people from making money, real estate or not. Like, there’s a lot of ways to make money. And it was never this public. It’s the easiest it’s ever been in the history of ever. But a lot of people don’t do it. Mm-hmm. Or don’t know what to look for or, right, what they should be looking for.

[30:54] Or they get suckered into some stupid online funnel for some dumb product or stupid trendy idea. Yeah. That’s the other thing that happens. Yeah. You do a dumb idea or you do nothing. Those are the two things that seem to happen to a lot of people. Yeah. And then some of us, some of us, this was the big thing for me. I had a mentor who would buy buildings and he was amazing at creative finance. I learned so much about creative finance from him. He had no business ethics though, a terrible human being and kept losing all of his buildings. He would, he could buy anything. He convinced anyone to give him money. He would invest it stupidly. He would, he would treat real estate like a slot machine.

[31:33] Like I’m just going to gamble on this because if it works, I’m rich. That was the mentality. So he bought a bunch of condos, zero down, lost them all. I bought an office building, which today is still probably the single best real estate transaction I think I’ve ever seen. I was like a no down seller finance million dollar building for a $2 million property. Like he got it 50% off zero down. And then he’s like, I’m good at this. Then he put a building across the street for three times what it’s worth. Seller finance and lost both buildings. I remember sitting there being like, he would be so rich if he was able to hold these. If you could both buy and hold them, like you can buy them, not lose.

[32:09] Yeah. And that what is, what does that equal? Oh, okay. So the path of being wealthy in real estate is probably buy and hold. You have to be able to do both parts. What is the math to do both parts? There’s nothing crazy about buy and hold real estate, right? It’s probably the boringest, most tried and true thing you could possibly do. And it makes money. Buy them where they pay you to hold them so that they appreciate later. Don’t bank on the market. Get long term fixed rate debt. While everyone’s freaking out about rates going down. People thought I was stupid when I was borrowing at 6% for cash flowing deals when rates were at 4. And then rates went up to 8 and I’m like, oh, I was getting paid at 6% when rates were 4.

[32:52] Now it’s at 8. I have 10 year debt. None of this affects me. I was on podcasts all the time. Like how are you surviving the interest rates? I’m like, oh, that’s right. They changed. That doesn’t, that has nothing to do with my business. Doing simple, try and true things well and competitively seems to still be the best way to make money. Yeah. Well, I think you, you had said too, if it’s simple, it’s repeatable. And if it’s repeatable, it’s scalable. Yes. And that makes it easier too. I, I wanted to ask you a quick question. Let me make sure I can remember what it was. I had it in my mind. Um, oh, I wanted to ask you since your financial position has like shifted since back when your wife was a teacher back in Washington.

[33:39] Um, what, how is your, your view on wealth and finances changed between for you and your wife? Just how, what you spend your money on and especially now that you’re a new parent, how to raise a child, um, and how to handle those kinds of situations too that might come up. It’s, it’s interesting. Um, I had a long time, like a long time under that Dave Ramsey mentality. So spending didn’t change. I remember, I remember the first time I started to be like, we actually have a lot of money. I really didn’t think about it until we had like a million dollars in cash and there was like $5 million of net worth. And the drive was like, we hit $5 million. And I was like, we’re still sharing one car because it’s, I didn’t change anything.

[34:33] Um, at one then, you know, the projects and the obligations. And as you get employees that it didn’t feel a lot different. It felt bigger. I had this conversation with employee. I had, I had, I’ve only ever had one deal where it just didn’t quite go to plan, but the balloon was like a million one 50. And so I’m like the stress that a normal person would have of, Hey, I have $25,000 of debt. I really have to grind my way through it. I was just making more money with larger obligations. I had that one thing coming up where I’m like, I don’t make a liquid post tax million one 50. So now the mission is how do we do it? Um, it’s not all that much different, right? It’s bigger liabilities and bigger incomes.

[35:14] Like you make more, you owe more. It’s, it’s not unbelievably different. The only thing that really changed is like little things don’t make a difference. I, I had a friend who was stuck with like $15,000 of debt. And I talked to them. They’re trying to figure out their situation. They’re really stressed. And I was like, well, what, what interest are you paying on this? Like, well, right now it’s at 31%. It’s just like, I, I see the problem and it was amortized and they’re like, I’m stuck. It was, it was a cool moment for me when it didn’t, I didn’t feel it to be like, I can, I can give you the $15,000 at $20,000. And we can do it interest only. And then we, we mapped out their finances and created a budget.

[36:05] And I’m like, you should under this new debt product, be able to save about $48,000 a year with what you and your husband currently make. You’re borrowing 15. You’re getting eaten alive by unbelievable interest rate and principal pay down. If you, if you added the principal, like the required principal and the interest rate, it was close to like, it was a, I think it was 298%. Uh, basically they’re paying three X what they owed every year to try to stay alive. And I was like, okay, we can take those payments down from thousands of dollars a month to 150. And I don’t feel it. That was the one thing that really changed. I’m like, I can actually help. And I know that’s for you guys are like, well, you’re rich and you, you lent to them.

[36:50] Yes. I still don’t give away all my money freely. I worked really hard for it. Um, but we were to, to be like, I have an extra $15,000 and I can help someone with $15,000 in a way that like it was life changing for them. Like I hopped on the phone. I’m not very emotional personally. Just I’m not, they cried. I cried. I guess it was like a, it changed their lives. Being able to do that was cool. That is the one thing that money has given me. That was different. Uh, today I now have two cars, uh, and they’re both relatively modest. Uh, my house has gotten bigger, but that was my original goal was have a house that I can raise kids in. Um, and that’s about it. Like nothing else is, else is different.

[37:32] I can give more generously in a more meaningful way without feeling pain. And I have two cars instead of one. It’s not all that much different. Uh, I still just want to grow the businesses. I love business. So I’m, I’m playing a board game and I’m enjoying the game. It doesn’t really change too much. If I have more money, I would buy more real estate. I don’t think I would do anything notably differently than I was when I was when I was a kid. I was trying to buy duplexes. The buildings are just bigger. Yeah. Sorry. I like process my way through that question. By the way, you’re like, quick question. I was like, I don’t have an answer for this. I need to learn for myself while explaining to you and external.

[38:15] Oh, Christian. That’s what I like. Good questions. I often tell people in session that it’s, it’s so good when you feel like you’re just word vomiting it out. Cause it, I do a really nice job of pulling all these little pieces and putting them together. And I do a good job with that. So that was perfect. And that was really fun to hear you talk through it. Cause as you were talking, I was thinking, oh, you know, we’ve said like very similar things and not a lot has changed for us either. Other than I think we’ve been able to take more international trips, which international travel is really important for us. And Matias, his family, his mom’s side lives in Switzerland. They’re Swiss. And so we’ve been able to build more relationships in that way.

[38:55] But otherwise it’s, it’s pretty similar to what you’re saying too. So that’s just interesting to hear. You know what the most meaningful thing was actually asking about this? This is a good story. That’s short Disneyland launched a thing where you can pay 400 more dollars and have like unlimited lightning pass. Oh yeah. Not spent people freak out about paying like $200 a ticket to go to Disneyland, not worrying about an extra $400 to skip the lines. That’s what I was like, honey, we made it. That’s the difference. That’s the difference. I’ve been having $400 per version being like, that didn’t hurt. In fact, this is going to make my experience $10,000 better. We’re going to spend $400 on this discount.

[39:38] Totally. I remember reading an article where people were complaining about Disney upping their price. I’m like, they finally have a product for me. We’re in. That was the epitome of making it. That’s how life’s changed. I don’t wait for Disneyland anymore. That is 100% worth it. Yeah. Agreed. If you’re looking for the meaning of life, that is very close to it. That’s right. If you have not found God, do so immediately. After that, make enough to go to Disneyland without waiting in line. If you do those two things, you have succeeded. Well, it’s funny because we still do things like playing the games with credit cards for points and travel with that kind of stuff. It’s just like, why not? We can still hack the system, even though we probably don’t need to as much.

[40:27] And also the business cards and the spends are higher. You get bigger rewards and all that kind of stuff. It’s fun. I did want to, there’s a couple of things that you’ve talked about. It’s a couple of themes. I was going to say, one, you talked about it not being very different from like where you started to where you are. It’s just bigger numbers. And I think that’s, and you also referred to it as a board game. I think that’s one thing that people often don’t get either when they’re starting and they have all the fear is that, you know, yeah, why not scale? Why not go big? You know, like it is, it is very similar. If the math checks out, if it’s cash flows, well, if the deal works, why not?

[41:05] Just because the number is bigger. Is that just scary? And that’s, you know, I think a lot of people get, you know, stopped there. And I think, I think it was Brandon Turner that wrote that, like, you know, you could do the, the, the doubling game or whatever, like you buy a duplex and go to the quad, then buy eight or whatever, but there’s no real reason. The stack is that what he calls that? Yeah. That’s what it is. Yeah. Um, but yeah, I mean like you’re living proof that you don’t need to. I mean, I think it’s just, if you can understand that you’re making a good move and have the education and then, you know, have the courage to do it, there’s no real need. Um, and the other thing that you said, I think is, is great is the, it’s, you know, usually not a zero sum game and people think they’re buying a million dollar property.

[41:47] That they could lose a million dollars. Um, it’s a big risk and it’s, you know, rarely, uh, that kind of thing. It’s, it’s, you know, if you end up like, you know, on a flip, we do flips and those, those kinds of things as well. Um, you know, it might be that you don’t make as much money. It may not be worth the paycheck at the end of the day because of all the headaches and the work and the time. Um, or you, you could lose a little bit, but you know, it’s rarely like, you know, you’re making a, a $200,000 investment and you’re going to lose, you’d be able to potential of losing $200,000. It’s, you know, it’s, it’s pretty rarely that. Um, I, I wanted to ask you as well, um, about your, have you pretty much only bought with owner financing or have you gotten other types of debt as well?

[42:33] Have you gotten, um, non recourse loans, um, anything like that? So 16 of my last 20 deals were seller financed. Um, it’s my favorite tool cause you get to name the price, the terms, the interest rate, the balloon, any special clause you want. And there’s no financing contingency cause the financing is agreed upon before you go under contract. Like it’s the best product of all time. Yeah. That being said, you can’t sell or finance every awesome opportunity. People do in fact need to be cashed out. Sometimes people 1031, uh, seller financing has three main avatars. You have people who are scaling up who have money, but don’t need their small stuff anymore. And that happens all the time. They’re like, they’re like, I don’t need to manage the sixplex anymore cause I’m buying 70 unit buildings, but I have money and I can sell or finance and the note would be better than managing the property happens all the time.

[43:23] People who are downscaling. Typically they’re a little older. They’re usually doing estate planning and they’re saying my kids want the single family stuff. Uh, they don’t want this midsize multifamily stuff to manage. So I’m already rich. I’ve made my money. I’ll sell or finance it. Or it’s people who have high equity positions who are struggling to manage their property. And now you’re solving a problem for them where the property is not bankable. Sure. That’s like the three things that you would get seller financing for. If they don’t fall into those three buckets, it’s very, very unlikely that seller financing is the solution. Um, I have done all of those deals, $0 out of my pocket. Um, two deals we destroyed on price.

[44:06] I bought a mobile home park or an RV park more specifically on the water. Beautiful location, beautiful RV park, uh, needed a little bit of love, but like locations, 10 out of 10 bought it for $300,000 because that had failed septic system and the owners were drowning. Um, bought it with hard money. Okay. Uh, for, I got borrowed 600,000. So I got 200% loan to purchase price. Um, I don’t sell properties, but we got an offer in at a million too. I borrowed six and made six. That’s a fantastic deal. You could do that with hard money. If you can prove, Hey, this thing is worth over a million dollars, you can borrow 600. I borrowed it 13 and a half percent and a cashflow day one. That’s insane. Those don’t come up all the time.

[44:54] Um, I did it with a hotel conversion as well. I bought a 30 unit hotel in a prime area with a failed roof for a million six. I borrowed 120% loan to value, which replaced the roof and the electric panels and the interiors and the mini splits. Was that hard money as well? Hard money. I don’t do a lot of that because it doesn’t hit the longterm financing thing. I have to have a deal where I have the next debt product already lined up before I close. And then I bring the teams out and I’ll do those. So that’s, that’s why I’ve only done two out of last 20. When it happens, it happens. You have to get a screaming price to make those. Yeah, sure. Then on the ones that are pretty good price, uh, and in pretty good condition or occasionally in great condition, I just bought a deal.

[45:41] 44 units, uh, actually class a like full clubhouse with gym, um, internal office, huge two bed, one bath units with all the, you know, dishwashers and unit washer and dryer, the whole nine yards. I even have a laundry room, even though everyone has their own washer and dryer in case one breaks, they have a lot. Like it’s, it’s nice. It’s very nice. I bought it for a million eight 50. That was the easiest thing in the world to get financing on. A bank came in 80% loan to value. I didn’t have the cash cause I just bought a whole bunch of other properties. So I brought in, uh, three investors each brought in $180,000 first money in first money out, which means at refi, they get paid out. And then all of us just own the building $0 in.

[46:31] So that’s a, that’s a longterm partnership. We’re all staying partnerships, but the point is you can do no money out of pocket seller financed. You can do no money out of pocket. I’ve done a hundred percent seller finance for two. One time, very rare, but you can do that. Yeah. Um, one time tiny building, but we did like, you can do seller financing. You can do bank financing. You can do hard money. There’s a way to structure all of them, regardless of the money that you have. It just depends on the opportunity that you have. If there’s a great opportunity and everyone can make money, you can bring in money. You can bring in people, you can bring in debt. Some of the buildings I own myself, like a hundred percent financed.

[47:10] Why would I need another person? It’s a hundred percent financed. Right. This other deal. I’m like, we can buy this beautiful class A building at half price that cash flows day one, but I only can bring in 80% of the money as debt. Otherwise the cash flow stops, but there’s a ton of upside. We’ll bring on some investors. Uh, the point is you have a million to all, not a million tools, but you probably have like 10 or 15 different ways to take out a deal, regardless of how much money you have. Sure. Find the opportunity first. Uh, yeah, it makes so much sense. And I think that’s something that, you know, even as, as an, an agent understanding, even just different loan products that are kind of more standard, uh, makes you so much more valuable to your clients.

[47:56] And, uh, when you get into this kind of space, especially like, I mean, just having some knowledge about how, how creative things can be. Uh, and that’s one of the things I love about, uh, the owner financing stuff too. We have a deal that we did owner financing that required three different parties. Um, and it wouldn’t have worked for any of the parties, like without all three being involved. It was, it was just a really unique deal. Um, and, and I think that’s the beauty of it is that you, you, you really, all the terms are on the table and it’s not just purchase price. Um, and so I, I love it. It’s so much fun to, to think through and, and be creative on how to make the deal work. Right. I mean, like, like you said, they’re knowing the tools you have at your disposal, uh, is so helpful to be able to fine tune and pick up property that, you know, other people may not see an opportunity, uh, for whatever reason, cause they can’t figure out financing or whatever.

[48:52] But yeah, I think the easiest muscle to develop, especially if you’re a young person getting into real estate is play more board games. Every single, like any strategy game, you have to ask yourself every single term, turn, and how would I, how, how do I win? Like, what is the simplest answer to win? By the way, I’m really good at board games. Um, I have a whole room dedicated, uh, only to board games. Uh, that was part of the design of this house was I, we need to have a, I need to have a movie theater and a board game room. Uh, those were like the, the thing. No, no theater is generous. I have a blacked out room with a nice couch. That is, it’s a dedicated TV room. That feels like a theater.

[49:33] I was going to say two cars and a full movie theater or anything. I was like, Oh wow. Well, I’m hard to the movie theater now. No, but I have, I have my small theater room and in my big board game room. Well, that’s the mindset is the same though. What is the simplest answer to make the deal work? I think most people will look at a deal online. They go, it’s too expensive. This is this, this isn’t a deal. And they move on or they try to low ball it and they go, okay, I’m going to just negotiate price. And, uh, it doesn’t work. I’m moving on. That’s most of the deals. I buy a lot of on-market deals too. If you know, I picture a soccer pitch. I know what a goal is for me. A goal for me is long-term cash flowing, fixed rate debt.

[50:12] It’s always that it’s, I’m going to buy it and it pays me day one. It’s going to keep paying me in perpetuity forever. And then one day, because properties do appreciate over long periods of time, regardless of what the market does, it will be worth more. And it paid me to get there. Like that is my goal. If you can map out the objectives of whoever is selling the property, and I don’t think of them as sellers. I just think of them as other owners. They’re just another player. Hmm. What does the other owner need? What problem are you solving? And what are the fixed variables? If they’re stuck on price, they’re willing to sell their finance, but they’re stuck on interest rate. It’s like, okay, instead of saying, darn it, this deal doesn’t work.

[50:49] It doesn’t work at this price in this interest. You go, okay, what would make the deal work? I did a deal where we were winning on price, but the fixed price was 2 million. They needed 5% interest. Their rents were like $300 under market for all 25 units. So significantly under rented. They’re at 550. They should be at 850. They were renting them at 1,125, I think, if I remember correctly. So they were way under market rent is the moral of that story. I needed to cash flow day one. It wasn’t going to cash flow day one at 5% interest, 15% down, $2 million price. But the price is an amazing price. Easiest answer. My payments are less than the interest. Did a reverse AM, which is usually not the right answer.

[51:42] In this case, I’m winning on price. So essentially I pay 3.5%. The additional principal or the additional amount owed is added to the principal over the life of the reverse AM, which is the first two years. And then it goes to 5% and my payments are 5% interest only. I’ll add $50,000 to the loan balance. So the math was, would I buy this for $2,050,000? The answer is yes. I absolutely would buy this for $2,050,000. I had a way to write the deal. Simplest way possible. I’m like, hey, would you accept a ladder of 3.5%, then 4%, then 5%. No, I would not. I need 5% interest. I’m like, okay, what if my payments were 3.5%, 4%, and then 5%, but it was 5% interest. You just say yes to everything they need, and the deal closed.

[52:35] And now that deal is making 8%. That deal cash flows $7,500,000 a month. That’s a great deal. That’s a great deal. But it was the easiest answer. It was like, what is the simplest answer? I need the cash flow. It doesn’t cash flow right now. How would it cash flow? I pay less. How would I pay less? I’m going to ask you if I can pay less. It’s not like it. People make it sound like it’s this incredible thing that we do, where it’s like, you do these creative deals, and you’re like a wizard. It’s like, I’m so dumb that I can’t think of anything more creative than the simplest answer. It’s like, what is the dumbest thing that we could do that they could say yes to, so that we could say yes to everything they want?

[53:19] That’s all it is. So if you like mapped it out on like a whiteboard and said goal for me, goal for them, I literally have drawn this as a soccer pitch before. The actual pitch does nothing for you. You don’t need the middle of the field for this. But I draw it out. I’m like, what are my goals? What are their goals? If you just go, where do we both win? Right. I’m going to jump ahead. I know later you guys are going to ask for like a favorite book, but I’ll choose a different one. I’ll choose a second favorite book. My favorite book, Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss. That redefined negotiation for me. It wasn’t just I have to win everything, which I do because I need to cashflow every time I buy a deal.

[53:57] That’s the big sense. How do I never split the difference for them either? Is there a way that we can get a perfect 100% win-win every single time? If you propose, you correctly identify what they need and what a goal is for them. If you propose what they need and it falls within what you need, you get a yes every single time. If you get a no, it means you’ve misdiagnosed what they need. There’s no amazing psychology to this. This is like negotiating with a toddler, right? Like toddler wash bottle, get bottle, toddler happy. I don’t have a toddler yet, but I have a three month old. I understand where the goalposts are. It’s not different with adults. It’s like if you get what you want, you’ll say yes.

[54:41] If you spend the time to get to know what you want, you’re done. We just did a podcast earlier this week with Rosie Noel, who’s a CliftonStrengths coach, personality coach. I’m just sitting here thinking, oh my gosh, you would have to be so high strategy. You know, you do such a good job of thinking about like, you know, how, how do I make this work and how do I put these things together? But you also seem to be very observant and you notice the things around you, what other people are doing and how they do them well and figuring out how that works and how you can do it. And you just seem to have a brain for it. I, that was a learned thing. So there’s something called, I’m not going to coach everyone, but super briefly, call it the square drill.

[55:25] You have like four boxes. You have the things that, so you basically write out as like, no, don’t know, no, don’t know. And then all the intersection areas, like what are the things I don’t know that I don’t know? Well, you only find those by getting around people who know the things that you need to know. So you need to figure, you need to identify what do I not know that I don’t know so I can start actually learning it. And then you go into like, okay, what do I know that I don’t know? Okay. I’m going to start learning it. The things that I don’t know that I know, which is the most confusing box, but that essentially is just like, I haven’t mastered this. I know it’s here. I understand the concept, but I haven’t actually put it into practice yet.

[56:03] I haven’t executed on the idea, which is where most people get stuck. Almost everyone gets stuck there. That was me buying the 38. I’m like, I understand how to underwrite a deal. I understand renovation. I have not done this project before. Then you do the project and now it’s something that you know, you know, I actually have a map. Like I have one whiteboard in my house that is just the square and I write stuff in it all the time. When you identify it that way, you just learn faster. It’s just a learning hack. It’s not interesting. It’s not even like having a brain for it. It’s just like I have four boxes and I move things through the boxes faster than other people because it’s visually in front of me all the time.

[56:44] I’m not kidding. Just play more board games. If you’re not rich yet, play more board games. It’s the only, that’s the answer to everything. Like I grew up playing magic, the gathering and Warhammer, which are like super nerdy games. Like you got to like write list and balance your points. You know how to do that. Real estate is so much easier. You have three resources. You got cashflow, liquidity and equity. That’s it. That’s the whole board. Yeah. That’s easier than Settlers of Catan. You like, you have to balance like your wheat and your sheep and your bricks and that you’re building like roads. That is true. I’m looking at a game. That’s amazing. Chris, I mean, maybe it’s the first time doing a creative deal like this, but I know that I spent a lot of time coming up with, it was more than just the three parties that, you know, bringing the capital, bringing the seller financing and, and, and bringing the, you know, the management or whatever to the table.

[57:38] But we, we, we, I thought through a few, a few different things. There was like, you know, it’s a two duplexes put together, you know, have it, how we can put stack the capital or the stack, the debt on one half as opposed and leave the other one free and clear all these different things that, you know, at the end of it, when it all kind of came together, it was such an awesome feeling. So I imagine, do you still get that or, or is that like kind of just, you know, just another day in the office for you now? Like, did you have that experience when you first were putting creative things together and you found that win-win and you found that where everybody was, yeah, getting that strategy to, you know, getting the yes.

[58:13] Or is that still something that gives you joy? The planning phase of the game is still the one that I have the most fun. So there’ll be the last board game analogy I do. I promise. But on, on any game, I always enjoyed creating the list or building the deck or coming up with the strategy more than I actually enjoyed playing the game. The actual, like, how are we going to make this work? The intellectual drill of putting it together. And then when your plan fits and you’re like, Hey, the thing that I wanted to execute on, I found a way to make it work within the parameters of what we’re doing. That’s where the fun is. I still feel like when you have a deal and the more you do this, the faster you see the solutions, right?

[58:58] Cause you’ve, you’ve thought through this before. So it’s not, you have the muscle memory. When I find a deal and I can look at it, especially when they’ve been on market a while. So I know everyone else has already taken a look at it. I’m competitive. I look at it. I’m like, when I look at it and I see it and I’m like, I know how we’re going to close this deal. I know we’re going to get a yes. That is still my favorite part. I only do three or four deals a year cause I buy larger buildings. So for me to buy 150 units in a year, I need to do like four transactions. So I’m transacting once a quarter. I only get this endorphin hit once a quarter personally. So for me, it is always fun when you see it.

[59:37] I’m like, I’m like, I am a hundred percent confident that we’re going to buy this deal. And I see how it’s going to come together and it makes perfect sense. And then you propose it and they, they just, they don’t even counter. They just come back with, yes. I’m like, we did it. That is still my favorite part of the whole thing. And then you go through the due diligence and you do the underwriting and you do the part where you play the game, which I hate the middle of a transaction. I always have. I hate all the partners like, okay, well now I have to go to work. But then you have after the property. And now, now you go back to the rewarding part of because it’s profitable, I get to reinvest in this community.

[1:00:13] I get to make the properties nicer than the prior owner did. I get to run it better than the prior owner did. My tenants are happier. My buildings are nicer. And as a bonus side effect, we’re making more money. I love that piece. The middle never enjoyed. I did. Sure. The part where we pull up all the bank statements, I can do it. I can do it well. But man, that, that part where you find the, you find the thing where everyone wins and you propose it and they say, yes, is still, it just, it’s best feeling in the world. I, I can completely relate to that. When, yeah, when we put this one together, man, we could talk for a lot longer. Like I’ve got a lot. I’ve got a lot. I get excited and every answer I have is long.

[1:00:59] I only know how to speak in stories. So my apologies. No, no, no. I’ve got so many follow up questions. We will have to do a part two or something. But, um, uh, so we heard number one book. What’s, what’s a number two favorite book. Um, Jordan Belfort straight line theory. That’s a Wolf of wall street. Um, he wrote a book on selling and the funny thing is none of my favorite books are real estate books. They’re all sales and negotiation. I read that book and the realization was okay. So straight line through any sale and right. Purchasing property is a sale. Um, I also realized this is true for everything that you want to do ever. We add steps. People spiral over here and spiral over there. I have a lot of friends and I’ve mentored a lot of people.

[1:01:47] About a thousand students, a little bit more than that over the last four years. The most common thing people do is, Hey, I feel like I need to wholesale to get money to buy a property. Or I feel like I need to become an agent to become an investor. Cause I’m going to build this client base and relationships. And that is a Dave Ramsey go to school mindset. That’s a, I need to do this to qualify for this. So I want to be an investor. And so I’m going to go become an agent to become an investor. Straight line method is what are the steps to get from A to B? We can’t skip any steps. Otherwise you lose like, right? You can’t just not do due diligence or something, right? What steps does it take to go from A to B?

[1:02:31] Then we’re going to not add steps. So when we’re getting off the path, we identify, wait a second. This is not the step. And you go back. What that distilled it to was there’s only one way to become an investor. You buy a property. Well, that’s a lot more simple than I needed. I worked at the co-star group, apartment.com, loop net. For years and years and years. Work for lands.com, work at loop net, go to apartments.com, sell, sell, sell, save up, buy a house, buy another duplex, scale slowly. The goal was own apartment complexes. I went like this for eight years. And then that 19 year old in the office went, I bought a building. Oh, so that book, not only does it help with tonality and relationship stuff, you have to listen to an audio book going through a chapter on tonality without hearing is possibly the dumbest idea ever.

[1:03:24] I tried reading. I was like, this makes no sense. Straight line method, Jordan Belfort. Belfort, that changed the way that I approach life. Communication, real estate, business. That allows you to think and go faster than anyone else around you who’s spiraling off the Pluto. It’s a thing they talk about in that book a lot. If they’re not on the line, they’re spiraling off, you drag it to the next point in the line, away you go. That’s the new one for us. I don’t think we’ve heard that one yet. So yeah, thanks. We’ll have to check it out. I, yes. My reading list is so long from this, from this podcast. She doesn’t problem with podcasts. Then you have to read forever. Most of these books behind me, they’re all references for my podcast.

[1:04:10] Or someone’s like, I read this. I’m like, crap, they know something I don’t. That sounds like a really good book to read. Yeah, no, I totally. I’ve incorporated a goal of like, I need to at least read 30 minutes a day. Like, you know, it could be audible, whatever. Just so I can try to keep up with all the recommendations.

[1:04:32] Life would be impossible without audible. Yeah, no, totally. Okay. So what, where could people, if they, if they, they like your style, like what you have to offer, where, where can people find out more about you? Social media, the website, et cetera. Social media at Christian Osgood on Instagram. I share a lot of stuff there. A lot of my stuff is like funny because I, there’s a lot of funny things that happen in real estate. So I, I’ll have a lot of great tidbits on there and tactical advice. I’ll also have just a lot of ridiculous stuff that happens managing properties, especially with renovating slummy properties. When we, when we come in there, there’s a lot of funny things that you find, taking a gross building and making it nice.

[1:05:12] So if you want a good laugh and you want to have like a good lighthearted, this is what it really looks like to be a landlord. I think I did a great job of documenting that on Instagram. Uh, if you want like the actual information, like how do you do this multifamily strategy on YouTube? Uh, we have 120 ish thousand subscribers. It’s been a huge blessing to have a huge community like that. Nice. Um, I, about, it took me 2000 videos to get there. That’s actually not very nice. That means, that means I was really bad for a long period of time. Um, so it’s good now. People like it. Um, it’s an actual thing. They gave me a, they gave me a plaque. That’s awesome. So if you guys want to check out multifamily strategy on YouTube, the information, the information lives there.

[1:05:53] I have a community to mentorship, but I tell everyone the same thing. It’s like information is free applications, everything, but information you have to have. If you’re interested in this, you’re like, I want to check this out. Go to YouTube, go to multifamily strategy on YouTube and just see what it’s all about. I documented from when I was in a basement with my buddy with two units saying, Hey, we’re going to go buy a hundred units this year. And then we actually go do the thing. So you can watch before we had anything to today, which was a really cool. Again, we’re in a cool technology era where we can actually like document these things publicly. So, uh, that’s the invitation. Christian Osgood on Instagram and multifamily strategy on YouTube.

[1:06:34] Yeah, that’s awesome. Christian. Thank you so much. This has been a really fun conversation. Yeah. Thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for letting me over talk. Thanks for listening to the REI agent. If you enjoyed this episode, hit subscribe to catch new shows every week, visit REI agent.com for more content until next time, keep building the life you want. All content in the show is not investment advice or mental health therapy. It is intended for entertainment purposes only. All content in the show is not investment advice or financial advice. All content in the show is not investment advice. All content in the show is not investment advice. All content in the show is not investment advice.

[1:07:05] All content in the show is not investment advice. All content in the show is not investment advice. All content in the show is not investment advice. All content in the show is not investment advice. All content in the show is not investment advice. All content in the show is not investment advice. All content in the show is not investment advice. All content in the show is not investment advice. All content in the show is not investment advice. All content in the show is not investment advice. All content in the show is not investment advice. All content in the show is not investment advice. All content in the show is not investment advice. All content in the show is not investment advice.