How to Reduce Taxes: W-2 Employees (Single and Married Scenarios)

What are the top lessons learned over a four-decade real estate investing career? What are his thoughts on the current real estate investing market compared to other difficult markets that he has been through in the past? Is there such a thing as work-life balance? We are chatting with Stephen Bittel, Chairman and founder of Terranova Corporation, he manages their sizeable portfolio of properties in several asset classes such as retail, multi-family and office. Read this entire episode here: https://tinyurl.com/2s3u5u3yWhat is like investing today compared to the past?This is the hardest investment market we have ever participated in. There's staggering uncertainty about the future, with half of the pundits predicting a recession and others foreseeing a soft landing. People simply don't know what's coming, and this uncertainty freezes both debt and equity capital.Part of the challenge today is that most of the people making investment decisions have only experienced an era of continually declining interest rates and cap rates, where you didn't have to be particularly skilled to make money. However, the current situation is different. While there was a brief interruption in the last quarter of 2008 and 2009, the past 15 years, and even longer for those under 50, have been relatively stable. Positive leverage, which used to be a hallmark of real estate investing, is now extremely difficult to achieve. In the past, we could finance properties at lower rates than their initial yield, resulting in immediate profitability. However, achieving such positive leverage today is nearly impossible. Despite this, we continue to invest in properties with tighter yields if we see opportunities to increase income.What are some of the toughest lessons learned, and what advice would you give without someone having to experience it themselves? Managing cash flow is crucial both corporately and at the property level. We've always prioritized managing our balance sheet, promptly paying down debt after liquidity events. The key lessons are:Invest in projects with potential for revenue growth, especially in areas experiencing positive population growth.Establish strong capital partnerships, as demonstrating the ability to close deals is vital. Seller financing can be advantageous for both parties.Consider being a nonrecourse borrower to protect against personal liability in challenging times.Honor loan covenants, and prioritize maintaining a clean balance sheet.Regarding nonrecourse loans, although they may incur slightly higher costs, the benefits of a clean balance sheet outweigh the expense. While our model may not be replicable for everyone, I would advise paying the premium for nonrecourse loans if given the choice.Commercial real estate is a fantastic industry with long-term wealth-building potential. While it's not without challenges, such as the current uncertainty in the market, it offers numerous advantages, including tax benefits and opportunities for cash-out financing. It's essential to treat real estate investment as a full-time commitment and to prioritize understanding the details of every transaction. Ultimately, success in this industry requires dedication, hard work, and a deep understanding of market dynamics.Stephen Bittel [email protected] our newsletter here: www.montecarlorei.com

We continue our education of the history of The Irvine Company, picking up where we left of  in the 1980's through 2013. Excerpts from the book: The Irvine Ranch: a Time for People" by Martin A. Brower. Read this entire episode here: https://tinyurl.com/y6s85em4About 4,000 residential ground leases made over a 15-year period were coming up for renewal. The new rent, set at 5, 6, or 7% of the fair market value of the land, had been written so that rent would remain flat for an original 20 or 25 years. At expiration, the Company could charge 5, 6, or 7% of the new fair market value, but few foresaw how steeply land values would rise during the two decades. The residents created a Committee of 4000 to ask the company to discard the leases they had signed and to obtain more favorable conditions. They secured extensive news media coverage, took advertisements, held mass rallies, and won favorable community support, and as a result, the Company’s credibility plummeted. The Company made the Committee of 4,000 a new offer. The leaseholders could buy their land at an average of 50% of its appraised market value, and because interest rates were high, the Company would permit homeowners to pay for the land over a 30-year period with a variable-rate loan beginning at 10% - an acceptable interest rate in the mid-1980s.Key takeaways:Donate land to create a university or anything that will attract a lot of people to live in the area, build around it.Donate a lot to the community to help your company have a good public image.There were many trials and tribulations, even when the city entitled something; some activists were able to reverse that.They went through all economic cycles. They very rarely, if ever, sell, which is something I fully believe and agree with.I heard from someone familiar with being a tenant that they are very strict landlords; you can’t have one thing out of place.I personally looked at some of their multifamily apartments, and they are very well run.He is very particular about how things look; he would remove trees that looked “old school” and put palm trees to make a certain area look better, and now I notice that every shopping center he owns has palm trees.He made his execs work very hard; I met someone here that knew one of his VPs, and when this VP was taking a vacation, Bren made him come back to work due to a problem, and it turned out that the problem wasn’t that big of a deal. To me, what that says is that the VPs were highly paid, and also that we all need to resolve an issue very quickly when it arises at that level, or at any level, in my opinion. Don’t ever let things linger.Nothing lasts forever; if you made a mistake on one thing here, you fix it for the next one.Key takeaways on purchasing The Irvine Company:Be where the people are, go to the events that they go to, be in front of them. One of the partners that Bren had was at a horseshoe, and he ran into an Irvine Company family member, and that started the conversation of “has the ranch been sold yet,” which led to this person partnering up with multiple people, including Bren, to make the initial 50% purchase.Talk to the people who will get the deal done, in this case, they contacted the same lender. Bren always worked with the top people in the industry, whether they were CPAs, attorneys, lenders. Always go to the top for a significant opportunity.Get the seller what they want, in this case, one of the heiresses, Joann, to be a 10% stakeholder on that initial purchase.Corporations have a target number they will stop bidding at; this one was just under 20x of annual earnings, this one 3 million below the 20x annual...

We continue the introduction to the richest real estate investor in the globe, the owner of The Irvine Company, Donald Bren.Read the entire episode here: https://tinyurl.com/m2ehfys71970'sAt that point, cities and the County were increasingly imposing costly demands on the developer. These demands included roads, flood control channels, parks, and schools — all of which were previously provided by the cities and the County. The James Irvine Foundation became serious about selling The Irvine Company to comply with the Tax Reform Act. When thinking of purchasing the company, Bren combined forces with Taubman, Allen, and the others. Understanding from Bren the need to have heiress Joan Irvine Smith on their side, Taubman and Bren had decided to allow Joan Irvine Smith to become an 11% partner of the consortium, allowing her to retain partial ownership of the Company she loved after the proposed purchase — which she relished. On May 18, 1977, Mobil bid $336.6 million. The next day, May 19, the consortium bid $337.4 million — more than one-third higher than Mobil's original offer. At noon the following day, May 20, 1977, Mobil announced that it would not attempt to outbid the consortium. The consortium was prepared to go higher. The court approved the price, declared Taubman-Allen-Irvine the winner, and the sale of The Irvine Company was completed. Therefore, 112 years after James Irvine acquired the Irvine Ranch, the company became a Michigan corporation.The consortium purchased the company for $337.4 million. Key to the financing of the acquisition was the $100 million loan, which was assembled by a group of 9 banks. The timing of the acquisition could not have been better, as the nation came out of the 1973-74 recession, and the economy grew warm in 1976 and 1977.1980'sIn 1983, Bren made a startling move. He offered to buy out Taubman and his partners by launching his own leveraged buyout of The Irvine Company, for their 51 percent of the Company, for which they had contributed less than $100 million six years earlier, Bren offered the “Eastern” shareholders $516 million. Determining that they had made a sizeable profit and uncertain about the future resulting from the heated “greedy eastern carpetbagger” campaign and the residential leasehold crisis, the Taubman-led easterners agreed to accept Bren’s offer. Orange County newspaper reporters tried to uncover why these astute businessmen would sell a company which appeared to have an unlimited financial future, but Taubman would only comment “My father always told me you take some and you leave some.” To his hometown “Detroit Free Press” he boasted: “This was a better deal than the Louisiana Purchase.” But Joan Irvine Smith objected to the buyout price as being too low, and objected to Bren’s saddling the Company with a $560 million debt (the $516 million buyout plus interest due to five banks making the loan). This valued the company at just over $1B and her 11% shares at about $100M. She filed suit. With the buyout also came $560M of debt. Bren worked with First Boston Company on financing the buyout, and he worked closely with accountants Kenneth Leventhal & Company on how to make the payments. The lawsuit lasted quite a few years in the 80s and after endless months of discovery, depositions, the trial which was in Michigan (where the company was incorporated) resulted in the judge awarding her $256M including accumulated interest.Join our newsletter here: www.montecarlorei.com

A little background on the history of The Irvine Company.Read this entire episode here: http://tinyurl.com/55zadwbjIn 1864, James Irvine and three partners bought a 101,000-acre ranch, for around $26k. Much of that is now a city called Irvine, in California. It was initially a ranch focused on agriculture and it also encompassed coastal land. In the early 1900’s they started developing some of the real estate, and in the 1950’s they started large scale planned community development, also known as master planned communities, which encompasses building everything from residential to commercial and industrial buildings. The city of Irvine became one of the largest planned communities in the US.I recently read the book The Irvine Ranch: A Time For People by Martin A. Brower, and I will be sharing what I highlighted from the book below for my own knowledge.50'sNovices in such real estate transactions, The Irvine Company prepared lease and sale agreements which did not require development as proposed nor reversion of the land to the Company if not used by the lessee or purchaser.60'sAs they were expanding and continuously growing, one of their developments in the 60’s pioneered the “zero lot line” concept, in which a house is placed on its neighbor’s property line, resulting in one wide side yard rather than two small and useless side yards for each home. The unique plan placed groups of homes around a series of central green parks. Homes were priced from $27,000 to $32,000, a step below the prices in Turtle Rock Hills.As with all other Irvine Company village centers, included architecture consistent with its community, an attractive service station with pumps away from the streets, and with a supermarket and shops opening from a broad walkway rather than directly from the parking lot.Master planned to group buildings by size and use, the IIC was developed with strict covenants regulating land coverage, architectural design, landscaping and sound, odor and visual emissions. They were known for their innovative planning concepts.70’sThe Company’s Residential Division had developed strict guidelines for each village which builders had to obey if they wanted to be invited to build homes on the Ranch. One of the homebuilders in Greentree — The Bren Company — was felt not to be cooperating. It was determined that Bren would never again be invited to build on the Irvine Ranch.When a citizen spokesman completed an attack one of of the Irvine company’s plan for a new project and the city stood with him, the president at the time Raymond Watson, applauded. “You’re not supposed to applaud,” chided Company director of public relations Martin Brower. “Sure I am, this is real democracy in action, with each of us respecting the other’s role”.We will continue this exploration on the next post as I will highlight how Donald Bren became a partial owner of The Irvine Company and how he then became the sole owner of The Irvine Company.Subscribe to our newsletter here: www.montecarlorei.com

How to canvass tenants for retail properties? What are some techniques to get a new tenant? Who to target? Beth Azor, the "Canvassing Queen", CRE leasing coach, developer, investor, author/speaker, and CEO of Azor Advisory Services shares her knowledge.Read this entire interview here: http://tinyurl.com/2jdstyraHow to canvass tenants for retail properties?Canvassing is when we knock on doors to find tenants to lease spaces in our vacancies. I was taught very early in my career not to sit around and wait for the phone to ring, go out, and knock on doors. If you think about what would qualify as a great tenant, it would have other locations, someone that's paying another landlord rent. How easy is it? This is why I love retail, It's just great to be able to go within 1 to 2 hours from your property and knock on doors of retailers to see if they're interested in expanding or opening in your shopping center.Canvassing tips and examples:- I was sitting at a red light, and there was a van across the way from me. On the bottom of the van, there was a plumbing supplies company, and they had five locations listed. What I always tell my students or my leasing agents who work for me is this: if someone has one location, it's a 50/50 shot if they want a second; if they have three, four, or five, they want more – they're in the expansion business. That is why I took a picture of that van, saying, "Hey, everyone, open your eyes, this is a business; they have five locations, here are their locations." Now, I know that one of my shopping centers was a hole in their doughnut of locations. I called the place, and they said they weren't interested in my area, but they gave me two other areas, and I have no friends that own properties there, so I sent my friends the information.- There are prospects everywhere. There are prospects on bus benches, where you're driving down and it reads "Hey, have a smoothie!" and they list multiple locations under the bus bench. I love getting the little magazines that they hand out at doctors' offices or pediatrician offices, where it's the little community magazine. I grab those, and then on the weekend, I go through them, and I have found tons of prospects, because what does it tell you if they're advertising in a magazine? They've got money because we know the first thing that goes, if attendance is not doing well, a business isn't doing well, is marketing. They have another location, and they have money to spend on marketing, so I'll call them.- I just did a deal with a men's clothing store that I found an ad in a magazine and called them up. I said, "Hey, I've got this property; we'd love to have men's clothing," and they were very interested. Within 90 days, they opened in one of my properties. - I have an assignment that I'm working on in Cleveland, where I took over a 15% occupied mall and we have signed 49 leases in two years. I've met over 1800 businesses in Cleveland personally in two years. That's how you sign 49 leases. I realized that because the property was in downtown Cleveland, with lots of office buildings around and the food court had only two or three tenants, but because we got their sales, we knew that they were doing very well. I created a flyer that showed a picture of the nine available food court spaces. I said, "Food court spaces are available. I think it's a great rate, utilities included." Then I asked, "Which ones had hoods and which ones had refrigeration?" And I went and handed it out to 50 restaurants like fast-casual restaurants. Within 90 days, we leased five of them. Flyers—where the guy can come into the store and the gatekeeper goes, "Oh, this lady dropped this off, but...

Will interest rates come down in 2024? What is the economic outlook? What will happen with inventory by the time the rates go down? Should you buy real estate right now? Chad Zdenek, real estate investor, and owner of CSQ Properties, shares his knowledge.Read this entire interview here: http://tinyurl.com/8y6b9k57You are in tune with the economy and economics. We have some interesting news on interest rates recently; let's dive into that and see where your thoughts are for 2024 and 2025.The interest rates and how fast they increased have been a big shock to the real estate system. Any industry relying on borrowing has been challenged by the interest rate increases, and real estate has been hit particularly hard because we normally have 60 to 80% leverage on the commercial side, and that involves a lot of loans. Anyone on variable-rate loans has been feeling the pressure.At the Fed Funds meeting, they mentioned they're not planning on increasing rates. They didn't increase rates, shifting away from the narrative we've been hearing for a while, which was higher for longer, meaning these interest rates, which increased the fastest in 40 years, were expected to remain high. The Federal Reserve aimed to take some steam out of the economy, but they've seen that while unemployment is still low, inflation has come down. That's encouraging, and they indicated they are looking towards three interest rate decreases next year. The 10-Year treasury, on which many mortgages in the commercial world are based, has already been retreating, and that good news for investors with debt on their properties. It will also indirectly affect cap rates, correlated with interest rates. Cap rates, how we value properties, have expanded, meaning property values have gone down, and different real estate sectors have seen different decreases, but with interest rates coming down, we hope cap rates will compress, and values will go up.You started with multifamily and then moved to different asset classes; can you share your reasoning behind it? Why did you pick those asset classes?I'm investing in three asset classes: multifamily, medical office, and self-storage. For people newer to real estate, they might see real estate as an asset class, but within real estate, there are several different asset classes.I was heavily invested in multifamily and knew I should diversify because you never know what will happen. I diversified into self-storage properties, which has been great. I also invest in California and out of California. Living in LA, I'm one of the rare investors who invest in California and out of state. Diversifying within different asset classes has been a good way to spread out the risk, especially with tenant rules and regulations constantly evolving, they're a lot more strict with multifamily than with self storage. Migration patterns affect both asset classes similarly, but tenant laws and COVID restrictions apply only to multifamily, not self-storage. During COVID, seeing restrictions in multifamily, I realized my investors were exposed to legislative liabilities. Diversifying into self-storage, with less regulation but good returns, has worked well.The last 18 months have been crazy in the real estate world, and some people have a mutual fund or stock mindset, trying to time the market. A common saying in our world is that it's not about market timing; it's about time in the market. These should be long-term investments. Whether you buy at the bottom or 10% off the bottom, they should be viewed as long-term.Chad Zdenekwww.ihelpbizownersretire.com

What are some ways that real estate operators and syndicators could market themselves in today's world? What are the benefits of a mastermind? Kyle Wilson founder of Jim Rohn International, YourSuccessStore, and KyleWilson.com, shares his wisdom.Read this entire interview here: http://tinyurl.com/3z7wnnd2What are some ways that real estate operators and syndicators could market themselves in today's world with all the technology, and now even ChatGPT?After I sold my companies, I retired for seven years and when I decided to come back and create my mastermind, I had to put myself out there. And my first thoughts and observations were social media. I'm a big believer, in The Wheel which I started in 1993, you're the hub and each thing you do is a spoke. The big question is how to get people on the wheel, and then take them around, and I think a lot of people leave out is the getting them on the wheel part. And I thought social media had a couple of powerful components: 1) anyone in the world can find you and you can reach anyone else in the world and, for the most part, it's free. And so, I thought, "Okay, I'm going to have to get in the social media game." I didn't want to, I was still missing my story, and I was living a very almost private life. I wouldn't even do a Jim Rohn post, and not even mention that he was my business business partner and that I owned Jim Rohn International, the company that I'd sold. We have to be willing to put ourselves out there. It's our ego that doesn't want to be judged, I had to be content to say some people are going to judge me, they're going to say, "Oh, I'm bragging, or I'm whatever", versus the other people that say, "Kyle, I've been following you, you're making a difference in my life."If I can get them on the wheel, that's not a funnel, funnels have agendas, I'm not talking selling, everything I've ever taught is about attracting, it's about fishing versus hunting. I've always talked about marketing as principles and tactics and tactics change all the time. The tactics to fill a room in 1993 changed in 2004, and that changed 2010, and that changed 2016, and today is also different, but the principles haven't changed at all. The core principles are:1) Build a relationship with people, and build trust. To do that, you have to have a way to talk to them and social media is the first step, podcasts are great for that as well. And from there, getting people onto an email list that you have a little bit more control over.2) You have to show up where the people are. I'm a big proponent of events, especially specific types of events that are industry related and your avatar will be there. You have to show up sometimes whether it's groups or events, or that can be online. But again, anywhere I go, there is an intention, if I meet my avatar, is there something of value I can bring to them in the way of some resources. I have a bunch of free resources and that's how we became friends, you got on my email list, and we followed each other on social media, and we met at an event. I've done that 1000s of times but I also am not going to just hard sell them, it's the wheel. They go on the wheel, you put it out there, there's no agenda and when the customers are ready, that's when it happens. It's not about who, it's when the right person is ready, and taking the agenda out. But first, you have to get them on that social media's first step, or that email list.Kyle [email protected]

How do you approach requests from a national tenant that can hurt your property value? What do retail landlords care more about? How do you balance TI with free rent and how much to give of each? Bethany Babcock, Founder and Principal at Foresite Commercial Real Estate shares her insights.Read this entire interview here: http://tinyurl.com/mryukh4jThere's a lot of pushbacks that we need to give tenants, how do you approach that because when you're talking to a national tenant, they have a lot of the upper hand.I like to explain to them how it impacts the value of the property, because sometimes, especially if it's a national tenant, they're working from a real estate department, they've never had to think about it from a landlord's perspective. I like to show them how it's going to impact the landlord, and how do you propose we solve that? And put the burden back on them to come up with the solution. Once they understand that what they're asking for is a $100,000 ask, but they feel like it's a $10,000 ask, they start to weight their priorities a little bit differently because their goal is to get a deal done. Putting the weight back on them to be able to come up with solutions is important, some of these things are more important than others.Vague or generous assignment language: tenants are priced based on their risk in retail, and so, when you have a tenant that can assign their lease to another guarantor, if it's not clear that the guarantor is of equal or greater strength, it can impact the value of the building. That's been happening a lot. You see that in single-tenant properties where a large operator will set up all of these locations, guarantee the lease, but have the ability to assign the lease to another operator. And so, someone will buy it at a lower cap rate with this really strong credit and then later have it assigned to a tenant with a lower credit, that's an immediate reduction on the value of the building. Tenants need to know what they're asking for and understand that their credit is the value of that building.Retail landlords care more about the use more than they do about the rent: brokers will sometimes get frustrated when the first question the landlord asks, or the landlord rep asks is, what use? And they'll think, just tell me the price! No, it depends on what use, they want to know who are they, and how many locations they have, you can't just say I can't disclose. It wastes everyone's time because there might be an exclusive that prevents that use from being at that property. And that might keep them from doing a lease or waste everyone's time, but also, they might not like the use, or it might not fit with the overall feel of the center. There's a lot more psychology that goes into leasing out a shopping center than leasing an office building, for example.Not every landlord wants the longest lease term possible: Brokers are very much incentivized to do a very long-term lease and sometimes the landlord doesn't want that, and sometimes the tenant doesn't either, so it's important to make sure that everyone's asking the right questions. A landlord is assumed to want the longest lease term possible and that's not always the case. One of the reasons is because they might want to stagger the expirations so that you don't have more than 30% rolling over in a year. Or sometimes the conditions might throw off the deal and that's one way to get it back on track by shortening it a little bit, or they might have a different long-term plan for the property.Bethany Babcockwww.foresitecre.comwww.twitter.com/bethanyjbabcock

What are the top things that you should be aware of when negotiating a retail lease? Bethany Babcock, Founder and Principal at Foresite Commercial Real Estate, reviews some major points for landlords to negotiate with their prospective tenants, large and small.Read this entire interview here: http://tinyurl.com/y8cppmt8You represent both tenants and landlords, what are the main things we should be aware of when negotiating a lease, especially from a landlord's perspective?1. Fixed renewal options: in this world where now we're seeing rental rates increase dramatically, especially on retail properties in our area, when you're putting fixed renewal options, which give a tenant the right to renew at a specific price in the future, it's equivalent to putting a cap on the owner’s value. That's important because if the owner wants to sell or do anything, that's the cap, it doesn't get much better than that, so at that point, the value of their property is going to go up and down, subject to the market and the cap rates, but it's not going to go up and down based on rent anymore. That's a bigger ask that I think most tenants realize. A lot of times they'll ask for a five-year lease and then they'll want 20 years’ worth of rent options, that's never a good deal for the landlord.2. Free rent upfront versus lower overall base rent:how to maximize the value of the lease? It's really important if a tenant is saying, I need to be at $20 a square foot, and you're thinking, that's tough, I don't think I can make that work, it's not working on my pro forma. One of the better ways to do that and still be able to maximize the value is to tell the tenant, I can't give you $20/square foot, what if I gave you a year's worth of free rent, and the first year is at zero, and then your effective rent over the period will be about $20/sf. But in year two, or year three, it'll be $23/square foot. What that does for the landlord is that when you're capping the value of the property, you're doing it after the free rent period, and they get the benefit of the higher rent, whereas the tenant still gets the same effective rent. That's one way to get a win-win scenario for both parties.3. Buying up the rent to get more TI: Once you go over market rents, it doesn't help anybody. A really good example of this is Starbucks, back in 2006-2007, when they were expanding fast, they were buying up the rent high by getting a ton of TI and having their buildings just delivered to them. But in 2008, when the market adjusted, suddenly you had all of these little Starbucks that were closing, and the rents they were paying at that time were $50 a foot, and now it's even much higher. They couldn't replace or backfill those locations, even though it was a good real estate with those same rents and so a lot of landlords were in hardship. It matters because it's going to affect the value of their property. 4. HVAC and plumbing: If you're on the landlord side, make sure that it's a one-time event, or that it has an end date because if those issues go on indefinitely, that means every buyer or lender that underwrites that property is going to have to underwrite that possible event. If you have an end date, within one year or two years, they can put it in and once that period has passed, that risk subsides. But if it's ongoing, then it's going to diminish the value of the building, because it has to get underwritten each year, or conservatively, every few years, however often they think it might occur.Bethany Babcockwww.foresitecre.comwww.twitter.com/bethanyjbabcock

What went right and what went wrong in 2023? Which goals did I accomplish and what have I failed on? Since a lot of you have been following my career for a few years I thought it would be good to share the things that went right and wrong in 2023.My goals for 2023 were to purchase 6 properties worth $5M each and get one land ready for development in CA. My other goal was to sell or convert the car washes. Here is what I accomplished:I accomplished 3 properties worth $5M, and this was in a partnership with 2 different people that helped me get there, so this is a fractional ownership of these opportunities and not exactly what I had in mind, my goal was for me to have sourced, closed on and operated the deal, along with my investors. And this was a partnership with a couple of other parties.I also accomplished closing on another property that was part of my 2022 goals. This property took a long time to close because it was off market, and the seller was not organized, he hadn’t done his taxes for 3 years and it was like pulling teeth to get him to file his taxes. It took almost one year to close on this property and we are at least doubling the value of it in the next few months. The best way to describe the closing on this property is with two words: follow up. This is something I reiterate often in this podcast because nobody follows up. Only a few successful people follow up with me, and if you want to get something done, or a relationship built, you must follow up, period. Especially with someone that is busy, they get so many requests, emails and people trying to reach out to them. The only way to stand out is by following up. What went wrong in 2023:The car washes are not doing well because I am not a car wash operator nor do I want to be one. After my best employee had to leave due to personal issues, it went downhill, people started stealing, breaking in, things started to break and the list of things that needed fixing started to pile up. I am actually grateful for it because I learned quite a few things such as: don't ever invest in a new asset class that you know nothing about. If you find a property in a good city, make sure that the property is in a good part of town. This will save a lot of headache and potential issues.I am also still not making what I was making at my sales job. I fully expect to make what I was making in 2024. One of the ways I will be doing that is partnering up with someone that has build many properties before and we will get land in contract, get them entitled for building either storage or multi-family and sell the entitlement.Get a copy of my book here: http://tinyurl.com/52bak7thIf you'd like a PDF file of the book, please send me an email at [email protected]