Navigating The Note Space: Buying Distressed Debt With Scott Carson

On today's show, I'm excited to have Scott Carson, AKA the Note Guy from Austin, Texas. As you can see behind him, Scott's also the host of the popular Note Closer show and a nationally syndicated radio host with millions of listeners each month. He's also been an active real estate investor and entrepreneur since 2002 and he's been focused on notes distressed debt since 2008. He's been featured in Investors Business Daily, the Wall Street Journal. I could go on and on, but Scott, I'm going to let you take it over. Welcome to the show.

Hey Chris, I'm honored to be here today. Absolutely blessed to be on your show and I'm just here to serve your audience, your listeners out there that, you know, here to help anyone. I can.

We certainly bring a ton of value with your podcast. I know you just wrapped up your annual note camp, so tell us a little bit about that but also tell us about how you got to this point in your life and in your career.

Yeah, no problem. So I was a previous financial advisor back years ago, banker, financial advisor, got in the mortgage industry in 2004 and was doing bonkers of that, doing loans for investors in 30 states. I was traveling the country at all these big real estate investor expos. And so from 2004 to 2008 I really kind of had an apprenticeship not just on the mortgage side, but I had a couple really high end real estate investors that were doing creative financing, wraparound mortgages, owner financing, buying notes, selling notes. And for four years I really had a nice across the room apprenticeship with some people. So I got to to really kind of learn the distressed note space. And then when everything hit the fan in The Great Recession 2008, when the mortgage music stopped on a dime, I just kind of stepped over that and sold off my half of the mortgage company for a buck and started dialing for dollars to call bankers and started calling, you know, 50 to 100 phone calls a day and started getting lists of distressed debt, distressed mortgages on residential and commercial properties that I could cherry pick and buy and sell. And back then I was like a lot of investors. I had some fix and flips that were kind of anchors around my ankles for the most money dragged me down. So I got rid of those and like everybody else I walked away with a few scars but was able to kind of transition into the note space for distressed debt game. And that's all I've really done for the last, I guess you could say 12, 13 years is buying distressed mortgages and Done well with that. We started teaching other investors how to do this as a way to not only raise capital, but also we were just being bombarded with so much deals that we couldn't take down ourselves. So it was a great way to leverage our relationships, get more deals done, more eyes on assets, raising capital, making money and just absolutely done a great job. Bought over a half a billion dollars in distressed debt for our own portfolio, trained thousands of real estate investors. Yeah, we started an online note convention five years ago called Note Camp and we just celebrated the eighth time and just having a blast with it. We've had our ups and downs like any entrepreneur. You and I have talked about that in the past. Really kind of looking forward in a positive light of what's going on in the market and what you think we're going to see here in the next six to 12 months. One of the biggest things we've always tried to portray is trying to create win win scenarios. Not only win for us, but win for the banks, win for the borrowers and win for our investors. So that's kind of me in a nutshell, just kind of, that's all I focus on is that niche of debt we're buying directly from banks, usually mini bulk or in some bulk, you know, trades or even one offs. It just depends what comes across our desk. You know, we're starting to see a lot more phones ringing, a little bit more from some of our sources we haven't bought in a couple years. Seeing if we're still around and taking our temperature, engaging the water of what we're going to be looking to buy here in the next 90 days. Once the government figures out what the heck they're going to do and who they are and who they aren't going to bail out.

Yeah, it's interesting who's pulling the strings and making the decisions on that. Scott, in my book I talk a little bit about, you know, the areas of investment that I've been in. We've talked about it. I was buying pools of distressed debt with a partner back in 2012, right around the same time we started investing in multifamily and I really chose to focus on that. So tell us what you have seen in the evolution in the. Well now it's more than a decade from 2008 when you started and up until today we're kind of going almost full cycle and the economic cycle, how that's changed and what you expect here as we move through this. Whether you call it a pullback or a recession.

Yeah. So in 2008, 9 and 10 we were buying primarily commercial loans to start off with as the government was figuring out, states were shaking it out to figure out how long they were going to foreclose or they were going to be put any foreclosure moratoriums. I mean some states stopped foreclosures overnight. So we really made the bulk of our money buying actually apartment loans, apartment notes that were over encumbered. The borrowers or the investors that bought these properties with cash or private money with the idea that they were going to regentrify the asset and then cash out in three to five years. Unfortunately the market dropped. They had to either bring 20, 25% to the table or get foreclosed on. So we were able to stuff in some pretty good deals and some pretty steep discounts then. And then as the state started figuring out the foreclosure process and banks are getting then we started seeing a lot more residential properties either on individual basis or bulk basis. I foresee it kind of being that trend here. It's you know, with Fannie and Jenny and all the big Fannie and Freddie is looking at forbearance agreements for six months initially and then probably another secondary forbearance agreement. I think the most amount of opportunities are going to lie in the commercial note space and primarily not from the bigger banks or the biggest funds because they're going to be leveraged pretty well. They've got enough reserves to kind of tighten through. It's going to be who's hit the hardest is going to be your small non government insured companies or agencies, lenders, your mom pa Borrowers that are smaller. You know, I would say primarily the sub million dollar balance loans for the most part are going to be the ones the banks a want to get off their books the fastest. But also those are the borrowers that have really the least amount of assets to kind of ride the tide if their tenants aren't paying them or they're, you know, the companies haven't paid them in a while as well too depending on who they have and what kind of asset class they are, whether it's a strip ball or mixed use or industrial or well, let's just say the big box aspect of things is kind of coming, is dying relatively quickly.

I need to get some of the sound effects man. Is that that's what you need to take it to the next level and do syndication, syndicated radio, huh?

That's the biggest thing right now. And I think if you're a real estate investor wondering where the heck you're gonna fit into things these days. There's two valuable things that everybody can be doing. One, A, talking with your investors, raising capital. Because if enough people are furloughed or laid off, they're gonna have plenty of money that needs to get back into the market. And then B, start marketing. You know, whether it's an asset class you like, whether it is multifamily or self storage, start reaching out to those portfolio lenders. Start looking in your county records or your states to see who's closed on a deal relatively recently and just kind of start keeping track of that stuff as the market switches up and changes up here in the next six to 12 to 18 months.

That's super advice. And listen, I was listening to you. Like, I'm sure some of the audience, their eyes are like popping out and they're like, let's take a step back. So for people that say, yeah, I know I can buy a house, I could invest in an apartment, but they're saying, what do you mean you're buying a note? You're buying distressed debt. Who would want distressed debt? Tell the audience a little bit about, like, how you define that, Scott.

Yeah, great question, Kris. So a distressed debt, I mean, everybody's in the note space, everybody's in the mortgage space. Just you're on. Most of us are on the wrong side of the payment streams you're paying out versus getting it paid in. I mean, if you got a more.

Be the bank, right?

Yeah, exactly. It's good to be the bank. You want to be the bank. The biggest buildings out there, banks that understand arbitrage and leveraging other people's money to pay them a 1% and go out and lend it at 6 to 18%. I mean, it's ridiculous. Illegal stealing. Well, that's what I kind of consider buying distressed debt is we're buying these mortgages, whether it's a residential or commercial. 99% of them I'm buying primarily first liens. Okay, we're buying that debt and we're basically taking over that bank or that lenders kind of, I would say nightmare may not be Quite Friday the 13th, Friday Cougarich, but it's deals, I've got some hair on it where the borrower hasn't paid in at least six months or longer in some cases. I saw a deal where borrower hadn't paid in 12 years on a deal just recently and I was like, oh, that's a lot of red flags there. But the fact that they haven't paid In a while, the bank is usually the point or lending institutions at a point to sell that debt at a discount. Just give some rough numbers. So simple numbers borrow say 100 they haven't paid in six months. They may owe 106,000 on an asset that maybe is worth 90, 95 fair market value right now. We would come and evaluate that, probably pick that asset up somewhere around 50% of the lesser of value or unpaid balance upb. So we'd probably be in around 50 grand, you know, 47, $48,000. Now if that's interest rate, that mortgage say is at 6%. If we can get the borrower on the phone and start working with them and say listen, hey, what happened? What country western song did you go through? I know it's a sad time for a lot of people but you know, we got some opportunities that we can really make this thing work for you. Can you start making your payment on time? So if they can, yes. Oh, I can't make the six months, but I can start making the payments on time. Great. That's the first thing we get them start paying on time. Well, if they were at a 6% interest rate and we bought it at 50 cents on the dollar, we've seen about a 12% cash and cash return right there.

Okay, not bad.

We're gonna bring a little bit extra. The return goes up. And our whole goal to buy this debt is try to keep the borrowers and the houses and the properties if we can. Although we do end up foreclosing, going some sort of legal route about half the time. But if we bought it at 50 cents on the dollar and we can get them paying back on time for six or 12 months, we can now turn around and sell that note back on the secondary market to. There are some funds and banks out there that are looking for the re performing notes or investors that have IRAs looking for a decent return. Exactly. Sell it to them at 80, 85 cents on a dollar. So we got a year cash flow, a little bit on the front end and the difference between what we bought it at 50 and what we sold it at 80, 85, that's a pretty good cash on cash return for you, which always worked out that way. Out of 10 notes that we're buying, we're probably modifying or reinstate of some sort of borrower maintenance I guess you could say is the word. Around 40 to 60% of the time. Depends on what kind of due diligence and situation you're going to end up getting. The borrowers A lot of times to sign the property over to you and walk away. They just have grown tired of that about a quarter of the time. And the other quarter, 30% of the time is you're going to have to go the legal route of foreclosure, starting that process. And that might then turn into a reperformer or cash for keys deed and loom short payoff. You know, there's a whole, there's 10 different exit strategies we can do too. But like I said, we make the biggest bang for bucks by keeping people in our property. It's also nice on our end. We don't have more capital expenditures. We're not have to go in and repair the property, pay the legal fees to try to hire an attorney to foreclose. If we can get somebody paying back in some sort of fashion in 60 to 90 days, we consider that a win for us.

Yeah, no, I think that's the interesting thing about this space. When I started learning about it is the first option is you want to get the borrower to pay. And I think a lot of people learn about this space and they say, oh, you're just coming in, you want to take the property over, right. And you want to kick the person out and do that. And that's not true at all. That's the whole.

No, that's the biggest mistake I made. The biggest mistake I made my first two years was trying to foreclose because I came from the fix and flip side and I was looking at it as a property acquisition aspect. Don't get me wrong, I still use this as a property acquisitions will have been nyc but you have to think like a bank. You can't think like a fix and flipper. A landlord, an Airbnb. You know, that's the longer play, the faster play. And if you start number. We all know numbers don't lie. And I know you're a numbers guy when you start looking at velocity of capital and money coming in immediately versus it being a 6 to 12 month time frame to take the property back, getting it re performing where it's cash flow that comes in, not rent checks but zeros and ones. I always like when I get a wire on the 5th from my servicing company with the payments that route of things. So it's I love it. You can do this anywhere. And we buy in about 30 different states. You know, like I said, Austin's home. If I have to jump on a plane, I'm about two and a half hours from about 90% of the country. There Are so many vendors out there to go take a look at your properties and systems and servicers that can help provide services to make sure that you can do this from anywhere.

Yeah. So somebody's listening's kind of like, this sounds cool, I want to do this. And I mean, it's great. You've talked about, hey, you get a 12% cash on cash return. You buy a note. Let's talk about the other side. So you say, hey, you buy a property in, I don't know, pick a state, what's something that's kind of far away from you, and tell me a story about one that didn't work out that you had to take over.

Yep, I'll talk about I love or my hate for Chicago. Illinois. All right. I hate cooking. All right, now get me wrong, I love Chicago. Big Bulls fan. Go Cubbies. Go Blackhawks. I'm a sports fan. I love traveling there. But I hate buying debt in Chicago, primarily Cook County. It is a very corrupt area. Takes forever to foreclose. You know, you might get shot. I've been shot at a couple of times when I've been there in the south side looking at deals.

That's something else you gotta do.

I bought a portfolio of 10 notes in Chicago at 50% of the unpaid balance from a hard money lender. These are first liens. We thought we were picking these up at roughly 40 cents of the dollar. These two duplex, I mean duplexes, triplexes. We're pretty excited about it. Quarter million later lost in foreclosures and taxes and delays. It just takes forever to foreclose. And a lot of city, a lot of the government institutions, there's like duplicate, what do you call organizations that tax you the same way and it's just. So stay the heck out of Chicago. Unless you're local to Chicago. That would be the biggest thing. You know, Lake County, Dupage county, which are around. There are great places. Indiana is great. You know, Ohio, Michigan. I like the Rust Belt states. You can get a lot bang for your buck versus buying like one note in California. Get by a whole block in Columbus. Yep. So that's the thing is you really know your markets. Don't. I don't buy in New York, New Jersey, because it's usually about a two year time to foreclose. Each state has its own two years. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

That hurts.

It does. I mean in New York it's gonna cost you at least ten grand to foreclose an attorney and then you gotta hire an attorney to talk to an Attorney. To have an attorney.

Okay.

But like in Texas where we do everything fast, fast highways, fast foreclosures and fast executions. You know, Texas is a very popular space, but I don't buy much here because it is. The banks realize that it's very lender friendly. So I'm looking, like I said, in states that have like a six to nine months space to foreclose. I love Florida. God's waiting room, as I call it. Bought a lot there years ago. And as the market rebounded back, we kind of pulled out. We foresee seeing a lot of stuff there on the residential and commercial side, primarily commercial side first that we can dive into here in the next six months. But you know, the biggest thing I would tell people. Yes, get into it. Pick two or three states that have product talk to people that are doing this. You need to get educated because there are a lot of missteps. The biggest mistake I see from real estate investors that get into the note space is they treat it like a fix and flip business. So they're overvaluing assets off of the Mao, you know, 70% of ARV. Or they start counting their dollars to take the property back. And you always have to approach it from the note side. What if the borrower reinstates? What's this going to look like? Go from there. So that's important. Timing, vendors and then the marketing aspect of things. I mean, you're not going to go to the MLS to find notes. For the most part. This is where you find them. That's what I'm getting to my friend.

Just hang on.

Be patient there a little bit, Chris.

That was. I was my next question. I had to like sneak it in there. You're just rolling, man. I love it. You know, I'm gonna go get something to drink. You just keep.

Come back and just read the transcription later. All right. We go to banks, we go direct to banks. And we prefer your mid sized regional banks. You know, banks that have at least five branches and preferably two or more states. We don't call the one, the customer service number or the loss mitigation. We're calling. If anybody gets anything from this. Your larger institutions are gonna have a department called the special assets department or secondary marketing department.

I love how they're called special assets.

It's special. Sometimes you can be special ed after.

Dealing with special ed. My mom was a special ed teacher. They can't say that any. She said I was special, though. She said I was special.

They're great. The reason I love them is because they are patient and that's what I'm saying. Special asset managers, they're dealing with these banks headaches and it's their job to actually kind of move it off the bank's books. And they get bonus at the end of the year. So the, the third and fourth quarter are always the busiest. The first quarter is also really good every year. But contacting these bank asset managers, you want to be very specific. Hey, I'm looking for your non performing notes or your non performing loans. What do you have in your books they can take a look at? A lot of people approach us say, hey, I got this property that's been vacant, I want to try to buy the note on this. You can't really reverse engineer the property most of the time because a lot of times you're going to find that the top five banks, your bank of America, Chase, Citi, Wells Fargo, they're not gonna sell you an individual loan on a residential property. They might on a commercial property, but it's still gonna be difficult to do. So that's why we like the regional sized banks. You know, what do you have and getting a list of their loans on a regular quarterly basis that we can cherry pick. And once we've got a bank connection, they're usually sending stuff on a quarterly basis. So we don't have to do a lot of, you know, I don't do postcards or yell letters or door knockings or bandit signs anymore. Nothing wrong with investors that do that. But we're just further up the chain. It's a phone call, it's email and it's back and forth that way.

That's terrific. I mean it's just like our side of the business, you know, you build the relationships with the brokers, the owners, and all of a sudden you got the deal flow coming in. And it takes a while to get where you are though, Scott. You don't get there, you know, the first three months necessarily, but you, well.

You know, it's got a whole lot easier than it was a decade ago with the use of LinkedIn and some of the other websites that people can use like Lane. Guide.com is a great resource. There are bank rating agencies like Bauer Financial that tracks the bank's quarterly reports and then we get reports from them. Then that gives us kind of their default ratios or who's struggling under. Bauer Financial is a bank and credit union rating agency. So we, you know, not the five star banks, we look at the one stars and work our way up from there. But you never Know what you're gonna get? I mean, we get a listed, it may have one, it may have a thousand. And we make our money by taking over the bank. You know, nightmares or troubled children and then trying to work out a scenario. And yeah, about half our deals don't happen in the first 90 days. It comes with following up and working back and forth and just seeing what's going on with that asset.

Yeah, no, it's great. I mean, and you can, for people that are listening, your investors, you're like, ah, it's not really maybe the space I want to be in. Or you can also find good deals. You talk to these banks, you develop the relationships. We bought a deal out of foreclosure here, turned into our office space with, you know, six other tenants in a downtown. So, you know, sometimes you go after a note, you can find a good deal if you have your eyes open to another aspect of the business.

Yeah, and that's true. I mean, one of the things that we like to do is we look at the foreclosure lists and see what bank is foreclosing on a particular asset. And we'll use that to kind of backdoor into say, okay, I know you've got this high rise you're foreclosing on. What else do you have? Not just here locally, but in other states that we can take a look at. And that's, that's an easy way of using an address that they've already done most of the heavy lifting on in the foreclosure process. They may not sell you that. They might. But using those type of deals to find out the bigger lists and the bigger access of things like that. So yeah, foreclosure attorneys at different counties that are doing a lot of foreclosures for different banks, those are also great resources to reach out to, to kind of say, hey, who are you foreclosing on and who are you representing? Can I make an introduction? Still keep you involved on the legal side?

Yeah, I like it. So you find the deal. We talked about working the deal out once it's worked out. Sounds like it's cleaner. I mean, I know about this. Cleaner than having renters that you got to deal with. But what's the operation of owning a note?

Like that's a great question. You're gonna have servicing costs. You should, first and foremost, you should never self service your own loans. That's why you're talking more about that. Yeah, yeah. So when we're buying non performing notes, we have to try to make what's called RPC or right Party contact. So that's calling the borrowers, trying to get them back on the phone. Hey, what, Like I said, what happened? Let's get you started. Back up for it. Most people when you're dealing with consumer finance protection bureaus and stuff like that, there's specific things you can and cannot do to stay in compliance. So that's why it's a very heavily service oriented business with third party servicing companies. So I've got a company, massive management that's out of Reno that they'll call when my borrowers aren't paying. They'll start calling them four to five times a month trying to make the right party. They'll send out a door knocker when the bar calls in, they'll try to negotiate a loan mod or figure out what's going on, then contact me and say okay, here's what they want, what do you. Or I'll direct them. Hey, on these 20 assets this is what I would like to do. So there's some interaction back and forth. If they get re performing great and then it's a matter of just collecting the payments. And that's what you know, Madison does, they collect the payments and they disperse to us on a monthly basis or twice a month. They can disperse it. Yeah, they can disperse to our self directed IRA account too directly, but that's it. You have ongoing servicing costs. If it's a performing out, it's cheap, 20 to $25 a month. If it's non performing it might be, you know, 75 to 95 depending on all that they're doing. And then going that route, of course you got to double check on taxes, you got to double check insurance to make sure if an act of God happens that you're not left in the left out in the cold. And then you know, after 12 to 24 months you kind of got to look at it, well what are we doing? How's it performing? Do we want to keep it cash flow or does it make sense for us to sell it off now and profit and use that money now to double down, maybe take that profit from that note, sell and buy two assets versus one with that or go that different route. And then of course if you've got a foreclose, sometimes we've got troubled borrowers that you know will drag stuff out. A lot of real estate investors don't like bankruptcies. We actually prefer bankruptcy because now we've got an attorney that will talk to us. And bankruptcy usually falls into two categories. There's a chapter 13. Great. It's going to be really a five year loan mod. We look at if it's a chapter seven and basically it's a liquidation where we're going to end up finishing the foreclosure or taking it back. But when somebody files bankruptcy, it's literally the borrower sitting there and opening up the kimono and sharing everything on a pacer.gov report. So it's really easy to do diligence on bankruptcy loans and we love those actually.

So, yeah, yeah, to me, it's like the irs. You know, you hear bankruptcy as an investor and you're like, freak out. I need your sound. There we go. I was willing to wait for it. It's like, you know, my attorney, you know, he's like, you never talk to the irs and you know, like, I don't want to. And I like, I can't. I don't want to do anything with taxes. I don't want, you know, I don't want to ever get a letter from the irs. He's like, you don't have to be afraid of the irs. They're your partners. They want your tax dollars. And it's like, oh, okay. I kind of think of it the same way. So, Scott, no Closer show. Super successful. You've grown tremendously. Tell us a little bit about how you've done that, some of the secrets to your growth in that, and maybe some of your biggest or most entertaining guests that you've had on the show.

All right, well, we started doing Facebook Live videos back in 2016. I was actually at an event in Vegas and saw Shark Tank, Kevin Harrington get on there and just say, video, video, video. You gotta do video to be in the thing. So came back from there November 1, 2016. We started using Facebook Live after watching Gary Vee and a few others. And that was just kind of be our day in the line. Hey, what are we focused on today? And way to touch base with our audience on a daily basis. Didn't want to do a podcast. Actually kind of pushed away from it. But a buddy of mine who's a really good friend now kept onto it, said, you really need. You got some great content. A podcast would be great. And I was like, oh, no, I don't want to do all the work. I'm a one take guy. I don't care if I screw up or fumble my words. I just don't give a rat's ass like that. He's like, no, we can do it all for you. Like, okay, let's do it. So roll it out. We, I think I recorded episode 610 today, earlier today with a guy. We crank out about three to five episodes a week and we've got a couple spin off shows from that. You know, our online conventions turned into a podcast afterwards and then we do some training webinars every Monday night with our students as well. That's awesome. Different podcast called Night in America. So you know, I look at it, we've had, you know, I had Mark Victor Hansen on just a couple days ago that was really exciting to suit for the soul. Him and his wife Crystal are just awesome. And they've become friends.

Oh wow.

Quite a bit recently. And then one of the biggest things I thought was I reached out to Henry Paulson back when all this crap was hitting. Yes, the previous guy in charge of the Fed. I love this politely responsive. No, but here's an article. I was like, you know what? Because I would love to, but right now I'm over bombarded. I can't do that. So hopefully him at some point once we get through this. Or Warren Buffett or even Jimmy Buffett. I'd take a parrot head on here as a show, but for the most.

Part I bet a lot of people would rather listen to Jimmy Buffett than Warren Buffett. Oh yeah, I might go Warren, but you know, my, my stepdad would go Jimmy.

Yeah, exactly. You know, the thing I look at is the show is split up about half me teaching different segments, nuggets in the note space and the other half is I bring on vendors, investors, students of ours or other note investors out there and we talk case studies and then we mix in the occasional mindset. Entrepreneurship, marketing, our business tactic as well, really help people out there. So I'm honored you were a guest on our show recently. Comes out in just a couple week or two as well too if I remember correctly. It has been a big blast and thank God, I have to say for the podcast because with everything that hit the fan, we were already doing this online most of the time, so we didn't see too big a hiccup. But the most beautiful thing is the daily connection with people.

And I think that's so good.

Building relationships and connecting with people like you and others out there on an almost daily basis.

That's been fantastic. And same thing, I was like, I don't want to do a podcast. And you know, once you get into it and I mean again, the connections have been tremendous. The feedback that you hear, the people that whose lives are changed and you've been doing a lot longer than me. But yeah, it was great being on your show. You provide a ton of value. Also, like I mentioned at the beginning of the show, you just finished your note camp. You have several other, you call them boot camps throughout the year. But so if people are listening, they say, oh hey, hey Scott, I want to get in touch with you. I want to learn more about this business. Maybe I even want to learn how to do it or invest. What's the best way to get in touch with you?

It's easy, just go to our mothership website. We close notes.com we close notes.com we actually do close. We don't just educate, you go there. You can see our different podcasts that we have. Of course our different either our one day kind of cliff notes teaser workshop to all the way to our three day in depth nuts and bolts training called our note Buying for Dummies workshop. So we're just here to help if anybody's interested, your listeners are interested, they can actually grab a book that for free called how to buy real estate at 40% off. This is a 73 page book I put together kind of a, it's not a dumbed down thing but it's layman's talking. A lot of people talk about the notes space and so we talk over people's heads. Very simple book. You can download it for free. If you go to noteblueprint.com freebook you can download it and get it sent to you as well. If you want a hard copy, email me. I'll be glad to drop a hard copy in the mail to you just like you do Chris. I love communing with our listeners.

Awesome. Absolutely. So we are going to put in the show notes how to get that book from Scott. We'll also have in the show notes how to get our free book Next level income@nextlevelincome.com book and before we let you go Scott, something we ask every one of our guests if you could go back and give your 25 year old self advice just a couple years ago, what would it be?

Oof. Buy more. You know, I look back 25 years old, I was just graduating college, married and really thought more than what I actually knew. And I think I went through a bit of a financial hiccup back then, didn't take any training. We bought our first three kind of rent, first two investment properties and fell flat in her face because I thought I knew everything. And so the best thing I would tell you is learn as much as you can about a specific asset class. Network, find yourself a mentor or coach, somebody who's doing it and doing it well. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. You'll always learn more from jumping into the game and making mistakes than any type of book or video. But network, don't be afraid. And then one most important thing, like being successful is being coachable.

That's awesome, man. For our audience. Thank you so much, Scott. Ton of value. Check out Scott's podcast as well as resources. Get his free book. Get our free book and have an amazing day. Scott, thank you so much for being on our show today, Chris.

Thank you guys. Do Chris a favor to go on over and hit that subscribe and leave that five star review for Chris. He's doing an amazing job with his podcast and that's one of the biggest things that we love to see is hear the feedback from our listeners. If you don't do it on there, go to LinkedIn. Leave them a recommendation as well.

Or at least go to Scott's show and do the same.

You can do this. Hey, I'm on yours, man. I'm here to deliver for you, brother.

Awesome, man. Scott, it's always a blast talking to you.

Same here, brother.

Thanks so much. You too.