The Business Of Putting Investors First – An Interview With Agostino Pintus For The Bulletproof Cashflow Podcast

Talking about put. Put investors first. Right? So always do the right thing, you know? You know, if. If you know it's the right thing, that's going to put you on the right side of history, in my mind. But the other thing is partner with people with an abundance mentality. So if you have people that you're working with that have a scarcity mindset, that don't see the bigger picture and things growing, that's ultimately going to limit your growth. So if you want to be bulletproof and you want to build a bulletproof team, surround yourself with people that also have an abundance mindset, and you're just going to get stronger, your team's going to get stronger, your investment portfolio is going to get stronger, assuming you're doing everything else right as well.

Welcome to the Bulletproof Cash Flow Podcast. Let's get into the show. Hey, everyone, it's Agostino. There are many ways to entice investors to listen to your message. One solid way to do this is to put investors first by educating them about your deals and sharing opportunities on a consistent basis. Now, today's guest understands all this. He's been investing in and managing real estate for over 20 years now. While still a college student, he bought his first rental property, and then from there, he expanded into development, private lending, buying distressed debt, and of course, commercial real estate offices, and ultimately syndicating multifamily properties of his own. Now, as the founder and managing partner at Next Level Income, he and his team build syndication deals together. And they began syndicating deals back in 2016 and have since raised more than $15 million. And they've actively been involved in over $150 million of real estate acquisitions. Now with all that, like to welcome Chris Larson. So, Chris, thanks for coming on, man.

Augustino, thanks. It's awesome to be here today.

Yeah, I appreciate you coming on. I think it's going to be awesome. Now, guys, if you like what Chris has to say, you can reach him via his contact page@nextlevelincome.com. okay, Chris, go ahead and tell listeners a little bit more about how you got your start in the world of real estate at such a young age, too.

Yeah, so it's kind of crazy is I look at what's going on in the stock market right now, and I was day trading back in the late 90s when I was in college. So what happened was I, I had this passion for racing bicycles, and I have this intense personality where, you know, I like, I like to do things. I like to do Them kind of all out. So I was racing bicycles. Started when I was 14. I was in college, and all I wanted to do was race bikes. I was training or I was going to school to be an engineer, biomechanical engineer. But I knew two weeks in, I didn't want to be an engineer. I wanted to be a professional cyclist. Well, in between my freshman and sophomore year of college, my best friend, my training partner, my roommate Chris, died of a massive brain hemorrhage. And when I got back to school, I kind of didn't know what to do. The only thing I knew how to do was to train. So I just rode my bike and rode my bike and rode my bike, and I got really fast, I got really good. And a year later, I was winning all kinds of races. And I won my friend's second annual memorial race for the second time in a row. I won it the year before, and I was. I was flying, but I won the race. And I felt totally hollow when I came across the line. I went back to school. I was like, you know what? I'm just going to be a regular college student. I quit racing, and I made this pledge to myself that I was going to make the most out of every day, and I was going to live a life that not only honored the life I was given, but honored Chris's life. And I had this thirst for freedom, and I kind of. Which kind of came from racing, traveling all over the country at a young age. I was driving up and down the east coast, like, two weeks after I got my driver's license. So I still wanted to have freedom. And I knew in the real world, freedom came from financial independence. So I started day trading. I was. I was doing really well, but it was very stressful. So I was like, staying up at. I was like 3am in the morning, trying to figure out, you know, the market moves and what I had to trade the next day. And, you know, some days I'd lose. Like in college, I was losing, like, like thousands of dollars in a day. You know, some days I was making thousands of dollars, but it was very stressful. And I remember laying there at 3am one morning thinking, I don't want to do this 20 years from now. And now here we are 21 years later, and I'm thankful that I looked at some other options that were out there and came up on real estate. And the reason I like real estate is because it offers you leverage, control, and tremendous scalability. Tax benefits, all of those things. So I bought my first property when I was 21 and I grew my portfolio, and long story short, we're over 1500 units now, as you mentioned, through the syndication model and multifamily. And it gave me just a wonderful, wonderful opportunities in life. And after 18 years in the medical device industry, I was able to walk away from that and focus 100% on not only helping educate others, but provide them the opportunities that gave us the ability to achieve financial independence.

That's, that's awesome, man. Great story. Now, one of the key aspects for, for many people, especially starting out, and you did it at a very young age, is, is getting those first investors to really believe in you and know you and trust you. Right? Those are the key aspects.

Absolutely.

So, so when you first started out, it sounds like you did single families before, right? You're doing the whole single family thing where you.

Single family, Absolutely.

Yeah. So is that, is that using your own money or were you, were you raising it at that time?

Yeah, so we didn't, we didn't start raising money until about five years ago, but I had, I had little partnerships. Right. Like, that might be family. That might be. Actually, most of it was family. I didn't really, I really didn't like the idea of getting involved with partners at the time. But you're exactly right. Like, you need to work with people that know you, that, like you, that trust you. My stepfather one time said, you know, he's like, I always like working with you because I know you know what you're doing and you always pay me. So, you know, whether it's an investor that says, hey, I like working with you because you communicate, you know what you're doing and you're consistent and you guys are profitable, or it's a family member that says, look, I know you, I trust you, you communicate well, I know we can, we can do business. The same rules apply.

Yeah, yeah, that's, that's a key thing. But I also think, though, that because you're able to underwrite deals, you're able to demonstrate that you know how to select the right deal, get those investors to partner up with you, and then, of course, pay them back. Very important.

Absolutely.

That's, that's a key aspect. Right? So, so maybe talk a little bit more about that. So early on, of course, you're doing the whole single family thing. You're, you're, you're putting all that together. And then I think you said, what, five years ago, you started raising your own money. So what was that experience? Like, how did, how did you gu Guys make that decision to. To pivot to what you're doing now.

Yeah. So I guess I'll talk. I'll kind of take it a couple steps back here. So went from single family to investing in multifamily. And I. I started to figure out how to un. Like you were saying, underwrite deals who are good operators, you know, what are good markets, figure those things out. Why, like, why multifamily in the first place? I'm a demographics guy. You know, that's why I got into medical device. That's why I moved to the Southeast. That's why we now invest in multifamily. That's why we look at other things, like senior housing going forward, because I look at where the demographics are going to take us. So I learned all that. So if you're listening and you're an investor, you can always think like an operator. You can think, you know, at a higher level and make sure you understand what you're doing. So I learned it by doing it from an investor side. Then after doing that for two, three years, you know, with the prior experience that we had, my wife and I also did single family development. My wife's an architect, did venture capital. I also have a MBA in portfolio management and finance. Almost got a PhD. So with my former partner, who focused on operations, looking at how to underwrite a deal, communicating with investors, and going through that process, I just thought, okay, how would I want to be treated? Because after being an investor for a few years, what did I like, what did I not like? You do different things and then you talk to a lot of people. My former partner on the podcast was a millennial. So I said, hey, how do you guys interpret data? How do you guys, you know, you know, assimilate educational materials? He's like, hey, we listen to YouTube. I'm like, you listen to YouTube? So we started a YouTube channel so that, you know, we would cater to that. That demographic profile. So being in sales for 18 years, actually probably longer than that, if you kind of go back prior, you learn, people say, oh, being in sales is like, you can sell ice to an Eskimo. Well, no, no, no, no, no. That's not. That's not a good salesperson. A good salesperson listens. They understand their client and their needs, and then they see if they have a good product or solution to fit that need and if it provides value on both sides, they put those two together. That's a good salesperson.

Yeah, absolutely. 100%. I mean, understanding what they want, listening with curiosity. And then delivering something over that's going to help them out is absolutely key. And, and by the way, guys, it doesn't have to actually be in the same phone call or the same meeting. You don't have to, you don't have to present the deal every single time. That's, that's another key, key thing that many people forget.

You probably shouldn't. Yeah, you should. You know it. You know, the. When I trained sales reps in the medical device field, I'd always say if you bring up your product, that first conversation, I'm going to slap you upside the head. Metaphorically speaking. I said, you need to learn about the surgeon and their practice. You need to learn about the procedures that they perform. Once you have an understanding of that, what their goals are, what they're currently doing, then you can start talking about products and seeing if what you have is a good fit. If you don't understand that, then you don't know what. You don't know what to talk about. You don't know what they're interested in or if you have any value to provide. And then you're just wasting everybody's time. And that's not good.

Yeah, I mean, hey, listen, there's, there's people I meet all the time. Actually, one investor just met last week. He, he's at a multifamily conference. We're talking multifamily, and he's thinking about investing in self storage. And it's like. And no one, really, I didn't bring up any deals and bring up anything like that. We're just. I just want to find out what he wanted and of course, that probably wouldn't be a good fit. He's a self storage guy. He wants to do self storage. I don't do self storage. But you know what? I have people that do. I'll line you up with them. You can talk to them and see if you like them or not. Like, try to, try to be in the mode of service as opposed to always be trying to close everyone as soon as you talk to them. That's. That's the wrong way to do it. That is absolutely the wrong way to do it.

Absolutely agree 100%.

Yeah, yeah. So take us through any deals. So. So right now you are syndicating deals. What markets are you actively investing in these days?

Yeah. So no secret, still love the Southeast. So the Carolinas are a big focus for us. So markets like Raleigh, Charlotte. I was just looking at a Marcus and Millichap report this morning that was talking about the top markets in the country, they're going to be growing and I'm going to leave out a few. So if you're reading, if you read that and you say, hey, you left out my market, like, but Atlanta, you know, the Carolinas, some of the markets in Florida, like Orlando is where our latest acquisition is and a couple of the markets in Texas. So again, these aren't, these aren't big secrets, right? If you're in the Northeast, you're like, hey, maybe I should move to Florida because it's nicer down there and the tax rate's lower. If you're in California, you think maybe I should move to somewhere like Texas where, you know, the tax rates are lower, they're more business friendly climate. Actually just finished talking to somebody, they live in California, in Orange county, and he said to me, we're going to be here about two years and then we're looking at moving out because we want to be in a more business friendly state. So, you know, it's no secret that we're focused on these markets that are large, that are growing, that are friendly towards businesses. And we're gonna, you know, they may change over the next few years, but we're going to keep focusing on those right now.

And it wasn't always like this though, right? I mean, you just, I think with that shift you did a few years ago, that's when you shifted to really hardcore into multifamily, right?

Yeah. So with single family, it was more localized. I was buying and, you know, I was buying near where I wanted to invest. And then as I looked at the multifamily space, what I decided was, was going to take a more geographic approach. Agostino. So I said, okay, let me invest, let me go, you know, invest where the best markets are in the country. And that's the cool thing, as you know about multifamily, is that if you have the right team in place, you can buy and own anywhere. And it can work, you know, as long as, you know you should be there. But if it's a plane ride away, you can make it happen. Now, I still do invest locally in Asheville and some select. I don't do a lot of multifamily here, but we have Airbnb, we have small commercial office, so we do stuff in our local markets as well. But it's a little bit of a different flavor.

Yeah, yeah. Oh, absolutely. I mean, and that's, that's the thing though too. It's like when you're, when you are familiar with Your local market. I guess it gives you a cutting edge advantage too, especially if you know who the brokers are, who the, who the lenders are. All that and possibly gives you an upper hand on winning deals as well. Especially when other people are coming in from out of town. Right? I guess, absolutely. You know, that's, that part is huge. That part is absolutely huge.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, despite everything that's happened, you know, people are like, oh, zoom this and zoom that. It's the personal relationships still make a huge difference. We just. This, this deal in Orlando is an off market deal, for example, so a huge difference.

You said Orlando.

Orlando.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So you got that, that's an off market, off market deal, right?

Exactly. Yeah.

So is it, you already have it closed or is it under contract right now?

No, we're, we're raising right now, so I'm not sure when this, when this launches, but we'll be closing early may.

Okay. See, you're, you're able to talk a little bit about it then, right? I don't want, I don't want to put you on the spot on a deal you can't talk about.

No, happy. No, happy to talk about it. Yeah.

Yeah. So, all right, so I guess how, how did you first get that deal? Like, how, how did you, how did you get introduced to it?

Yeah, so same, you know, like we were just talking about my partner that has a relationship with the broker, knew that the owner needed to sell that property so he could cash out his equity partner or their, sorry, their equity partner, and said, hey, this, this group might be a good fit. They're looking for properties in this area. They can close on your timeline again. What, what do they want? What do the people want that you're working with? Whether it's an investor or, you know, you're looking at a seller. Like, how do you make their lives easier? Right. And it turned out that we were a good fit there. We thought that it was a good market. It was one that we were looking at. We got a fair deal on it. We feel that there's some additional value that we can create as we move into this, into this property. And it's, it's turning out to be. Everything's on track so far. So we're about halfway through the process, on way to closing now.

Awesome. Awesome. And then of course, what you also brought up here a second ago is that you are now raising money for these sorts of deals, right? So I'm guessing you're, you're obviously tapping your Your existing list of investors. Right. Are you also talking to new investors as well?

We are, yeah. So we shifted from 506B offerings to 506C last year. So if you're not familiar with that, there are different specifications that the SEC has for different offerings and different rules around those. So 506C is a little more cumbersome, but you can actually market these deals, which is nicer. We did 506bs for just under five years. And you get in this, you get kind of in this mindset, in this habit, and you create, you create close knit relationships. So that's kind of really still how I develop these relationships and I educate people on the way to do that. But yeah, we accept new investors on our website. You can click on the invest link and you can learn kind of how you can learn more about our opportunities that are out there.

Nice. So on the C, how are you handling that in terms of your funnel? So I'm guessing people go to the website, maybe they put their information in there. Are you reaching out to them? Are you talking to them? How, how, how does that look?

Yeah, so if you want, I can kind of walk back how we started and then like how it's kind of evolved.

Absolutely.

So back in 2015, it was picking up the phone and it's funny, like, I still go like this when I talk on the phone with my fingers. And you know, like the kids now, they just put their flat hand up next to their head because it's like a cell phone. So if you're young and you see me doing this and you're like, what is he doing? That's a telephone. That's what the telephone used to look like. Actually, quick true story, my four year old son, we were in a hotel and he picked the phone up and said, dad, what is this?

No, he didn't.

Yeah, it was five years ago. I was like, I was like, oh my, I was like, oh my goodness. He'd never seen like a telephone with the cord, you know, so he'd been in hotels. But I think that was, he had finally kind of come to realize. So I, I actually got it on video. I was like, you got to say that again because this is crazy. So anyway, I just picked up the phone, Augustino, and I started calling, you know, like the, the Rolodex. Right. Which is sitting next to the old wired phone. So I just, I started calling through my contact list, talking to people, you know, saying, augustino, hey, you know, I don't know if you knew this, but I've been in real estate for, you know, 15 years, and my partner and I are starting to work on these bigger deals, and we're looking for, you know, people to come in and invest alongside of us. Are you interested? And that's. That's how it started. And I started. I just had a little spreadsheet, and it said, you know, Dan is interested in. In talking in the future. And from that list came our first, you know, our first syndicate, our first LPs, our first limited partners in that syndication. And then after that, you know, the list kind of grew. And, you know, it took. It took a couple years, and not until I really wrote my book that I kind of have, like you mentioned, this funnel that I kind of set up. And that's where I came. Came up with putting investors first. So a lot of, you know, if you hear. If you heard me talk on other podcasts or you. You hang out, like, a lot of my views are shaped from just like you, from your past, right from racing bicycles and from all the time I spent in the medical device field and one of my mentors, one of my bosses in the past. This was. Oh, geez, 15 years ago. So, Todd, if you're listening, this was actually probably 16 years ago as of this recording. He told me, chris, if you put patients first, the money will always take care of itself. And I thought, that's perfect. You know, if you put investors first, everything else will take care of itself. So I said, okay, what do investors need? We started the podcast because I had people reaching out to me and saying, hey, Chris, I can't invest. Or I'd like to learn more about what you do, but I'm not comfortable doing it, or I'd like to invest. I don't have the money. How do I get there? And after writing the same email over and over again or having the same phone call, we started the podcast and the blog to help curate that information, that knowledge to share. And I thought, if I can help more people understand this, that's going to provide more value. So we started doing that. I ended up writing the book and published the book, actually, just a year ago. It got published just in time for Covid, and we just launched the audiobook as well. So if you want to get a free copy and you're listening, you can get that at the book link@nextlevelincome.com I'll even send it to you for free. And now if you reach out to me on LinkedIn or you go to the website, you get the Book. You can, you can read the book and learn all these lessons that I learned. You can listen to the, to the podcast or read my blog and learn all these lessons and kind of the secrets, like I just wrote one about how to find like the next top market in your town. I talk about geographic arbitrage on there. So all this stuff we give away and what happens is people that read that they, they reach out and determine whether or not what we do is a good fit for them and if they're interested in investing and ultimately, you know, those are investors that come into, quote unquote, the funnel that you mentioned and see if they're a good fit. And if they're a good fit and we provide value, then ultimately, you know, they can, they can partner with us on these deals and, and get benefits of the income and the appreciation and everything that we get out of the multifamily real estate. So, you know, it, it started with just those phone calls. And now unfortunately, I don't have enough time to talk to all these people, so I've had to develop new ways to communicate. And that's why being on shows like yours I enjoy so much, because you just, you can, you can help more people. And ultimately, if you help enough people, then everything else takes care of itself.

Yeah. And I think a big part of it is that you keep reiterating is putting investors first. You know, putting investors first, listening with intent, understanding what they're looking for and trying to serve their needs as opposed to serving your own. You know, and 100. We all, we're all looking to make money. That's, that's why we're here. You know, it's, that's why we're in the business. You know, we all, we all, we all want to build some personal wealth for ourselves, for our family. Of course there's all that. But at the same time, too, to your point, we're, we're sales folks. That's what we are. We're selling a deal. We're selling a deal to, and we're asking people to partner up with us on, on these assets. And they need to feel comfortable and understanding the deal, understanding you and your team and, and, and really want to, want to work with you because they're basically, you're basically going to be connected to this, to these investors for upwards of 10 years, depending how long your whole time is.

Yeah, absolutely. It's got to be, it's got to be a good fit. And you know, like you said, you don't, you never want to rush into something, you always want to make sure that they understand what's going on. I always say investors that don't ask me questions make me nervous. I like the. I like a lot of questions from investors because it shows they're engaged, they're interested, and they have a bigger understanding, as do I then, of that investor and their needs. And ultimately that's a stronger relationship.

Yeah. Well, you know what, though? There's a. There's a. Probably a whole other angle here that many people don't even think about, really, in that you want to get to know who these other people are, you want to know what they're about. Because the last thing you want to do is take on an investor that may be on the bubble. Maybe they got all kinds of problems in their life, or they're just high drama and all kinds of issues, and they send, you know, they, they invest 100k into your deal and they self a credit. They said they're fine, but in actuality they're not, or they're. They're unstable or whatever the case may be. Next thing you know, a year later. Yeah, you're slapped in a lawsuit. I got the SEC on you. Right. If you would have just dug in earlier and understood who you're dealing with, you could have avoided that.

Yeah, that's where you dig in. And then you say, hey, I think you should call Agostino instead.

No, don't send them my way. I don't need any of that.

No, no, I've actually, I have actually told investors, I don't think this is a good fit for you. And again, it's. You know, those same investors oftentimes come back when it is a good time or it is a good fit. Where they refer people, that's a better fit. So you always gotta, you know, again, I can't say enough. Like you said, if you put investors first, ultimately, you know, things are going to come around. And it takes time. I mean, like, like we talked about, it's been five years of building this and it. Sometimes you wonder, like, am I doing this the right way or not? Because it doesn't seem like it should be hard. But when people are entrusting you with their money, which is, as I always say, it's really. They've traded their life for that money. So, like, that's a big honor if somebody invests with you and you have to honor that.

Yeah. You know what, though, Chris? I think it's. There's a lot of, A lot of people out there that just Say, oh, if you find a deal, the money will come. And it's. Yeah, that's partially true. It takes work to really get people on board with your deals. That's, that's the thing. I mean, it's not as easy as most people out there make it out to be. I mean, there's still work that has to be done to get people excited about your deal.

Oh, absolutely. And I've seen, I've seen operators with good deals, they're not able to raise the money. It's, it, it really has to be kind of harmonious the way it all works. And it's, you know, you have to respect both sides. You have to find good deals, you have to operate them well. You have to have, you know, investors that you have good relationships with and, and keep them, you know, up to speed with everything, communicate. So all those things are very important. You can't do, you can't do one without the other. You have to respect every piece of that puzzle.

Yeah, absolutely right. Absolutely right. And now, now how is. You mentioned engineering before. Right, so now how does your, how has your engineering background really helped your investing strategy and what you're getting into and maybe even how you're raising money today?

Yeah, so I think, you know, I, I never became an engineer. I took the, the PE exam. I passed the PE exam, but I never actually went and practiced it. But what I learned is when you solve a problem as an engineer, you, you make assumptions and then you go through your problem solving process and then you solve for an answer. Well, if your assumptions are incorrect, your answer's probably not right. So whenever I work with an investor, one of the things I talk about is, hey, the assumptions went into this pro forma, but chances are this pro forma is wrong. So you have to walk through that process and work with investors so they understand that all these assumptions are coming from, you know, best case knowledge, best case information. But there may be challenges in figuring that out. And also there's, there's situations as you solve for these things. So I think through things with assumptions. I think through, you know, even everyday life when somebody says, you know, like, we're coming through Covid and you know, we say, hey, we should, we should wear two masks. And I said, well, I just asked myself, like, why what you assume that two masks are better than one, but is that actually the right assumption? And I was looking at an AI analysis where master designed to be worn one at a time, and then if you wear two, it blows out the sides. It's Actually worse than wearing one. Now, this is an AI driven model. Maybe somebody says, hey, Chris, you're wrong. But again, like that assumption, it sounds good on the face of it. But then I read this other thing that says, no, that's actually not true. It's a bad assumption. So first, assumptions, problem solving, and then numbers. Right? Like, I'm a numbers guy. I've done. I was on the math team when I was in high school, and I took way, way, way too many math classes. But when I got to business school, the statistics and economics and finance were a lot easier for me because I went through so much of that stuff. And that's helped me with underwriting because I can look and see. I just found an error in a spreadsheet yesterday because you look down and you're like, well, that doesn't make any sense. You know, why would that number be lower than this number? It should, you know, it shouldn't come out of sequence like that. So you just, you learn to see patterns in different things. Kind of like looking at the matrix. I'm a little weird as an engineer, so it definitely helps me on that side. It probably hurts me, makes it harder for investor relations and talking to people, because engineers aren't always the best communicators. I've definitely had to learn how to write, how to communicate better and, and work really hard at those sorts of things. But I think the, the math base and the thought process have really helped me. You know, when I look at these bigger deals, these multifamily deals with spreadsheets, they're like the size of the wall.

Oh, yeah, no, absolutely. Hey, listen, my background's engineering too, so I too had to learn how to sell and how to talk to people and all that stuff. So. Yeah, I know. I feel your pain, man. But like you said, though, too, I think that understanding the mathematics behind it, behind your underwriting or behind your, your processes, they are absolutely paramount to helping you build the business and grow it.

Absolutely.

That part is absolutely huge. Right?

Yeah.

Because one thing you said is underwriting, you know, and so now because of all that, because of everything you experienced in your past, especially when it comes to economics and demographics, it fits in there and all the mathematics that come with it. You know, how to model stuff, you know how to, how to find the right deals, and maybe even more importantly, that source fresh data to help you get those deals underwritten.

Exactly. Yep. And yeah, and also cross, like, you got to cross check. Right? So like on our team, there are multiple people looking at different Aspects, because sometimes there's blind spots, right. And you see something. So it's just, it's important that, you know, people that are in different roles are able to look at other parts of the project and see, you know, hey, is this, you know, okay, I'm looking at it from a different perspective. And that's why my perspective is different than your perspective. And, you know, it's important to understand who on your team is doing what, and also that you're different enough and complementary enough so that you can add value when you're, when you're kind of in that overlapping area.

Excellent, excellent. So speaking of underwriting, what sort of metrics are you guys using these days when you're looking at a deal and determine if you want to buy it or not?

Well, that's, that's a long list. Yeah. So really, you know, we're, we're focused on these big markets, right. So, I mean, just, you know, if we want to get really, really analytical, we can dive deep. But if you say, okay, you know, we're focused on markets that are, that are large and that are growing faster than the national average. Right. I think we should kind of focus on what market segments I believe are doing well and kind of what we've, what we focus on on a deal level. So right now, after the pandemic, I think you have to be careful with respect to like, are you buying a C plus deal or you buy an A minus deal? And what are the differences? So if you look at the vacancy rates in between these, you're seeing that workforce housing collections are high 80s, you're seeing that higher income that you go, like in more white collar areas. So workforce housing, Maybe you're at 40, $45,000 a year annual income in an area versus say $65,000 or maybe even as high as $90,000 for some of these properties we've acquired. Those properties have collections that are in the high 90s. So that's very important today. So you have to look at the average income, and then you also have to look at. Is that, what is that correlated with? It's probably correlated with the quality of job that they have. Right. So service area or service sector jobs are going to have a higher risk that are associated with them, and you have to be very careful of that. So as we get into a deal, when we're doing a rent roll analysis and we're looking at what jobs do our residents have, that's going to come to the top and we're going to, we're going to focus on that highly. But again, before that, we're going to look at the actual income of that area. So if you buy in a nice area, buy in a, you know, a city that's, you know, that's growing faster than the average city in the country. But really drill down and make sure you're buying in the right neighborhood with the right residents, because in times that are kind of tumultuous, like we're in, that's going to help increase the stability of the property.

Yeah, yeah. Love it. Love it. Now, if you had one piece of bulletproof advice to someone listening, you know, maybe they're debating getting in, maybe they're having issues with raising money. Could be anything. What bulletproof advice would you offer to them?

Yeah, again, we've talked about put. Put investors first. Right. So always do the right thing, you know. You know, if. If you know it's the right thing, that's going to put you on the right side of history in my mind. But the other thing is partner with people with an abundance mentality. So if you have people that you're working with that have a scarcity mindset, that don't see the bigger picture and things growing, that's ultimately going to limit your growth. So if you want to be bulletproof and you want to build a bulletproof team, surround yourself with people that also have an abundance mindset and you're just going to get stronger, your team's going to get stronger, your investment portfolio is going to get stronger, assuming you're doing everything else right as well.

Yeah. Love it. Love it. Because that's exactly what I do, too. It really works, guys. It really works. All right, guys, if you want to reach out to Chris, you can reach him via his website@next levelincome.com. he's also got that free download, too, so don't forget to check that out as well. Hope you got some insight on how to grow wealth through really building, building a great real estate portfolio and of course, putting your. Your investor first. That is what it takes to really get your deals done. Thanks for tuning in and I'll see you next episode. Take care. Hey, Augustino here and I would love to connect directly with you. Text the Word Books to 202-410-4202 to receive weekly book recommendations from me.