The Power of Defining My Life and How Real Estate is Helping Me Get There with Corri Golden-REIA 482

Welcome to Real Estate Investing Abundance, the show for busy, fulfilled professionals like you to learn how to develop financial independence built on solid passive real estate investments. Now, here is your host, Dr. Allen Lomax.

Hello, enlightened investors, and welcome back to Real Estate Investing Abundance. I'm your host, Dr. Allen, and I am delighted that you have joined us. Once again, today we're going to take a look at the power of defining our life and how real estate can help us to get there. And with us today is Corey Golden, and he is a full-time real estate investor with holdings totaling over $50 million. Over the— most of his holdings are in the eastern, southeastern part of the United States. Corey's experience in real estate stems back to 2004 when he worked as a commercial real estate broker while earning his degree in business and real estate urban development. He transitioned into commercial real estate property management where he managed over a million square feet of retail, office, and industrial properties. So welcome to the show, Corey, and just take us into the show and share with us a little bit as to how you got started in real estate.

Oh, well, thanks for having me, Dr. Allen. And I guess I'd always say my start in real estate has really come full circle because after graduating high school, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I had a friend who wanted me to get involved with— what's it called— networking marketing, network marketing. And she introduced me to the book called Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. And so, uh, I never did get involved with her business, but I did want the lifestyle that Kiyosaki was talking about. And so I just thought that real estate would be the direction for me. Unfortunately, I was telling everybody that I wanted to be an investor. And unfortunately, one day I was talking to a friend of mine, a coworker, an assistant manager overheard my conversation and he came to me and said, you cannot be a real estate investor. You need a lot of money to do that.

Mm-hmm.

And now, Dr. Allen, at the time I was making minimum wage. And so I just believed him.

Wow.

And allowed that to dash my dreams completely. But I still love real estate. I just knew that I couldn't be an investor. And so I was living in California at the time. I decided to move back to Nashville out east where I got my degree in business and real estate urban development. And during the same time, I started working as an affiliate commercial real estate broker, and we're doing tenant representation for office buildings and retail as well. And so that lasted probably about a good 4 or 5 years into 2008, and the economic crash happened and unfortunately, uh, left me without a job.

Hmm.

And so, uh, I guess I can keep on going with this. I don't want to take too many rabbit trails, but I started traveling for about, you know, a good 4 or 5 years, spent some time in Buenos Aires, Argentina, several years there. Eventually came back and I realized that, uh, I needed to make some money once again. I needed a career. And I decided to get involved back in real estate, and I got involved with commercial real estate property management this time because I just didn't want to take the time out to build a roster and kind of grow the legwork of becoming a broker again. So I became a commercial real estate broker. I was managing retail and office properties, and once again, I did that for about 4 to 5 years. I realized that it's not something that I wanted to do. I was kind of looking at people, my higher-ups and my directs, And they were having like nervous breakdowns and, you know, it was just too much and their work-life balance was just completely skewed. And so eventually I decided that, you know what, this is not for me either. Once again, I was left where I was left before, not really knowing which direction I wanted to go to. And that's when I sat down, Dr. Allen, and decided to map out what I wanted my life to look like. And that's what led me to real estate.

Well, it's one thing to map out your life and to develop a vision, which clearly that is what you did. And I guess somewhere along that process you came to the realization that your boss didn't know what he was talking about when he told you that you had to have a whole lot of money to invest in real estate. How'd you come to that realization?

Well, so my brother, he's an entrepreneur, and so I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I tried to start a couple of businesses and those just quite didn't align with what I've kind of set out for myself. So my brother bought tickets for me to go to a real estate seminar in Atlanta, Georgia. And so I went to that seminar not really thinking that I would get into real estate, just, I just wanted to report the information back to him and just let him know some of the things that he can do as far as expanding his net worth or just cash flow. So I'm sitting there, Dr. Allen, in this seminar, and I realized this is the same thing that I heard back 20-something years ago, right? And so I'm like, something must be right about what I learned back then. Something must be wrong about what the assistant manager said if people are still doing it to this day. And so from that seminar, I started to listen to more podcasts like yours. Read books, things of that nature. And just some of the things that I was just realizing is people are doing this, people are making money, people are changing their lifestyles and their lives with real estate. And I said, you know what, why not me? And so instead of allowing someone else— and it could have happened again, but what I had realized from that time when the assistant manager said I couldn't do it, instead of allowing someone to say something to me and allow me to believe it, Mm-hmm. I decided to do some legwork into it myself, and once I started doing more digging and diving into the benefits of real estate investing, I realized that he was completely wrong.

Yeah, well, a 20-year detour there because of misleading advice that you took to heart there. You know, unfortunately, that is— those kind of detours are not uncommon in people's lives. And certainly they— I've certainly gone down many detours and rabbit holes in my life to get to where I finally was able to get to. You know, a lot of that, it seems to me, at least certainly from my own personal experiences, is not so much that we don't have the knowledge, but we don't have the confidence in ourselves to actually believe in our own dreams and, and, and believe that we really can fulfill those visions. Did you find that to be true in your life?

Yeah, that's a great point. No one around me were entrepreneurs, no one in my family or, you know, family and friends, no one invested in real estate. And so I just allowed my current situation as far as working in a coffee shop, earning minimum wage kind of defined my future. And so you're exactly right about that. It was just, you know, the confidence was lacking as far as, could I really do this? And so someone else who had more of an authoritative voice, because he was my manager, once I kind of heard that, I just kind of let it seep in and kind of plant roots inside of me.

Well, what changed? You went to a seminar And they had told you information that you had heard 20 years ago. So what was different about the 20-year difference there? What was different?

Well, desperation is part of it. No, I mean, just realizing, you know, from that start of being 18, not knowing what I wanted to do, and then fast forward 20 years later, realizing that commercial estate property management or just working In real estate in that regard was not something that kind of aligned with what I wanted to do. Um, you know, I was desperate to kind of, uh, follow a route that kind of would lead me to the lifestyle that I wanted to live. And, you know, I guess you can say fear as well. Um, fear kind of made me courageous, if that makes sense.

Mm-hmm.

And so, um, I was afraid of what my life would look like if I hadn't gone down this route, this road to kind of make my life better? What would my life look like if I continuously did things that wouldn't allow me to get to where I wanted to go? And so the fear propelled me, the fear pushed me forward, and I'm certainly glad that I was able to do it. And I had a lot of support, you know, mentors and things of that nature that pushed me along.

Yeah.

So it wasn't just me and my mentality trying to get there. There was other people that kind of believed in me and was kind of encouraging.

Well, it certainly is one thing to develop your vision and another thing to have a mindset to be able to fill that vision. I'm sure that once— that once you got into it, it wasn't like just turning on a light switch. I'm sure there were many challenges as you decided to go down that road.

Yes.

So what were some of those challenges? big hurdles and big challenges that came your way?

Yeah, well, so initially I started out like a lot of people and just single-family and small multifamily properties and, you know, putting down 3.5% to 5% down. And even at the time, for me, that was still a lot of money, but just trying to make sure that, you know, I was making the right decision with these purchases, even though I was going to live inside of them. And so just the fear of making the wrong decision, So originally I thought I was going to do the homeowner kind of route, kind of get one every single year, fix it up a little bit, then get another one the next year. Then I was introduced to the idea of going direct to owner as far as making purchases. And then that was a game changer for me. But even with that, the first, let's say, 5 months, I was doing a lot of— pouring a lot of money into just marketing. I just wasn't getting the results, Dr. Allen. A lot of money was just kind of going out the door. And I just had to have faith that this was the right direction to go.

Yeah.

And right there while I was kind of on the edge a little bit, a phone call came through and we had a chit-chat. He told me about his dilemmas. We were able to work something out. Then I was able to get my first property going direct to owner. And then from that month, Dr. Allen, things just started piling up and piling up and piling up. And so I was able to get about 13, 14 doors that year. This was back in 2022. get 13, 14 doors in a parcel of land. But for those first 4 months, yeah, you know, spending a lot of money in marketing and not getting the results was kind of, kind of a load on the shoulders. But eventually the waters broke and I was able to kind of start making some purchases.

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And finally, Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss a single one of our upcoming episodes. That is interesting, not an unusual story.

Right.

The initial forays into really any kind of endeavor are certainly going to be some of the most challenging. And oftentimes, I think we get to a point where we're putting time, effort, energy, and money into endeavors such as this, and nothing materializes. And it's easy to quit, and you could have quit before that phone call came in, and what a difference that would have made. What helped you to stay in there until that first phone call came through?

Well, so unlike, you know, 20 years before, I just started surrounding myself with other investors who was a little bit beyond where I was, where I was at the point, and investors who was actually the same point as well. And so just their encouragement of seeing how they spent the first 4 or 5 months marketing and nothing came about, and then eventually, you know, something started to happen. And so I kind of had that roadmap of people around me who kind of went the same direction and kind of saw the successes that they were having. And so I just kept on telling myself, give it a couple more months, give it a couple more months, and eventually it happened. So, you know, I was as shocked as anyone about it, but It eventually happened, so that was a great thing.

Yeah. So it eventually started coming together with the plan that you had put in place there, and with the results, you started developing your financial well-being. And so when did you make that shift from the single-family world to, uh, LP or limited partner investing in commercial real estate?

Yeah, so 2023, I think towards the end of, um, 2022, I just kind of realized I kind of wanted to scale up. But once again, I looked at my life and I kind of, you know, put it against what I defined maybe 2 years before. And even though I was working for myself, you know, I had a couple of my own properties doing construction and things of that nature and starting to get some monthly cash Things still were not aligning to what I had envisioned. I was working a lot more than I thought I wanted to work. You know, it's like I was back in my 9-to-5 job, but I was working even more. And so that's not what I wanted. And so I just kind of figured I need to start doing some more passive investing. And alongside just kind of going larger, getting to larger multifamily properties on the GP side as well. And so I realized that was the route I wanted to go. And so towards the end of 2022, I just kind of completely stopped all operations in the single-family and small multifamily side. That also gave me the chance to kind of stabilize the properties, but also realize that there were some things that I needed to work on with my mindset to kind of allow me to make that jump. And I just feel like if I hadn't kind of spent those months just diving into the education, meeting more people in the space, I just think my mindset would have limited me to make that jump into larger multifamily properties.

Yeah, and I hear this story a lot, and, you know, HGTV, you know, glamorizes that single-family mindset that you can go in and buy these properties at a discount and you can go in and you can completely renovate them and a shack turns into this little mansion and it's a real, a real glamorous thing that HGTV does to that. And so a lot of people fall into that trap and I think waste a whole lot of time, effort, and energy that they could have been putting towards their investments in commercial real estate and had been scaling the development of their wealth years before they ultimately did so. So you just instantaneously, or well, I guess it wasn't instantaneously, but you came to a decision and you stopped all single-family efforts, spent some time contemplating and focusing upon the commercial real estate environment, and then— You jumped into it. A lot of people don't do that. They go, I'm going to go into commercial real estate, and they keep holding on to what they've been doing in single-family and keep dragging their feet. How did you manage to go, I'm through with this, I know commercial real estate is scalable, I know that it really can develop that lifestyle of I can be the LP. I can also join in on the GP if I want to, but I can do it on my time and my efforts, how I want to do that. And I can have so much more control over that whole process than I could through single-family. So how did you make that, that leap in that transition?

Yeah, well, first of all, I just realized I was already busy with the single-family properties. I didn't have the bandwidth. I didn't have the bandwidth to kind of slide into another type of asset. And so I knew there was a lot of education that I needed to learn, and I just knew that I couldn't do both at the same time. I had a VA on the single-family side, and even just watching over the VA, making sure that she was doing what she should be doing, that just kind of added a lot more to the plate as well. And so I had that going, I had stabilized the portfolio, and I just couldn't, I just couldn't take on both of them at the same time. So, you know, I didn't have the bandwidth, to be honest. And even if I did have the bandwidth, I don't think I would have done it. It was just extremely, extremely time-consuming. And I mean, I'm grateful for doing that because, you know, purchasing properties undervalued, fixing them up, and then renting them out, I was able to put line of credits on each of those investment properties. And so those line of credits is what's allowing me to invest in these larger multifamily properties. And so I'm thankful for that, that I went down the single-family route. I just realized that it wasn't allowing me to get to where I was trying to get to quite like the multifamily would— multifamily properties would.

So we are talking today with Corey Golden, and he is with Invest with Golden. And you can find Corey at investwithgolden.com. So Corey, tell us about your business and your firm and what it is that you have to offer our viewers and listeners.

Yeah, so the business name is Golden Investments, and so the website is investwithgolden.com. And so it's essentially we invest in larger multifamily properties using the syndication strategy. Essentially, when a group of investors kind of pool their money together and just basically buy properties which they most likely wouldn't be able to purchase by themselves. We also do some JV and some smaller multifamily deals as well in the 5 to 15 unit range. But so our whole thing is about, and for myself as well, is to kind of try to buy back my time. And so that's what I'm using the multifamily passive investing side for. And I've also been a GP doing the same thing as well. We are bringing in investors looking for properties in the Southeast, Tennessee and Kentucky. And so investors can kind of invest with us. The whole thing is they can, you know, get some returns that match what they're looking for. Well, we have the returns, and if it matches what they're looking for, it's kind of a way for them to kind of buy back their time, essentially. And so we just believe that, you know, you buy back your time, you get some freedom, whatever reach your— whatever, like, they can reach your financial goals. You can kind of get through with investing with us, buy back some time, spend more time with your family, take that vacation, whatever you would like to do. And so that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to grow together. We're trying to reach our financial goals. We realized the great thing about multifamily investing is you can do it as a community. You don't have to try to get there alone. You can bring people together and kind of reach your financial goals and kind of define what your what you want your life to look like and go after it that direction.

Well, Corey, you have made the decision to, to move from Nashville to Portugal, and you are essentially running most of your business from Portugal. So how are you managing to do that?

Yeah, so essentially, when I— before I made the transition from single-family to multifamily, I took some time to kind of map out what that would look like. And so I did the same thing when I realized I wanted to relocate to Portugal. I created some systems and some processes. I have a partner, he's back in Nashville. He's checking out the markets. He has expertise in the markets. He's an asset manager, has a lot of experience in asset management. And so whenever we kind of get something on the hook that looks like it might work out, he'll drive over there, walk the property, do the due diligence. And so it's through systems and processes and having someone that's trustworthy that's back in the markets that we're operating in is the reason why I was fortunate enough to be able to come across these.

Well, Corey, we thank you so much for being with us today, and thank you for sharing your life story with us. It's been informative and enjoyable, so thank you so much.

No, thanks for having me.

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