73: Investment Coaches With Stacy Rossetti, Glenn & Amber Schworm

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This is Real Estate Investing Live from New York with James Nelson, the principal and head of Avis and Young's Tri State Investment Sales Group. In this program, you'll learn about the world of commercial real estate and find out why it's one of the largest investment opportunities in New York and around the world. Now here is your host, James Nelson.

Welcome to Real Estate Investing Live from New York. This is your host, James Nelson. I am principal and head of Tri State Investment Sales at Avis and Young and here to bring you episode 73. Thank you as always for joining. I appreciate it so much. It's wonderful to hear the comments, the ratings, your support when I'm talking to you all and you say, hey, you know, I love this one podcast that you did and I got so much out of it and I got, but I've already been getting a lot of rave reviews from that last interview we did with Jane Yorio on Investing for All. So if you haven't listened to that, definitely give that another listen. So today we've got something different for you all. We don't have just one guest. We actually have three guests. So with us we have Glenn and Amber Schwarm as well as Stacy Rossetti. Now, Glenn, Amber and Stacey were introduced to me by the good people at RentReady and they're a technology platform who helps landlords manage their portfolios online. But they also promote their podcasts. And we reached out to each other and we said, well, hey, let's, let's collaborate. And we've had some podcasters on the show before and I think it's a great way to share audiences and get to know other approaches and other methods and help you all become successful investors. And so starting with Glenn and Amber and you can find them at glenn and amber.com they their tagline is helping everyday people create wealth through real estate investing. They've been seen on NBC, Fox, cbn, ABC and hdtv. And we had a great laugh right off the bat because I said, you know, I've told people that this show is not about getting rich quick. It's not about flipping homes. We take a longer term approach here. We invest in more complex commercial real estate.

But they said, well look, we're not.

About getting rich quick either and we're not about everything is that we touch turns to gold. In fact, they talk a lot about the, the challenges and but I found their story very interesting. They flipped over 600 homes over the years for about $57 million in value. So I think they've got A really interesting approach and you all can hear about it and learn more. Then we have Stacy Rossetti. And Stacy began her investment career investing in storage, which I know a lot of you have expressed interest in learning about. If you haven't heard that podcast that I did with Adam Gordon, you should definitely give it a listen. But you can find information on stacy@staceyrosetti.com and she not only has invested in storage, but she teaches people how to get into the game with her Storage Nerds program. So it's a really interesting perspective for you all today of investors turned coaches and so looking forward to having that discussion with them. So we're going to have a brief word from our sponsor and we'll be right back. Thank you.

Hi, I'm Mark Rose, Global CEO of Avis and Young, the world's fastest growing real estate services firm. And we are proud supporters of Voice America. With over 5,000 professionals in 120 offices in 20 countries, Avis and Young delivers local expertise in partnership with global reach. Because we are principally owned, Avis and Young prioritizes client success over shareholder profits through our open architecture. Our firm's experts provide value added client centric investment, sales, leasing, advisory management and financing services to clients across the office, retail, industrial, multifamily and hospitality sectors. Our culture is the bedrock for collaboration that enables each assignment to benefit from the collective intelligence garnered from a company wide database partnership performance. Learn how we deliver different@avisonyoung.com to learn.

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You are listening to Real Estate Investing live from New York. To find out more about James Nelson or Avis and young, visit avisonyoung.com now back to our show.

Now it's time for Investor Spotlight. And with us today is Stacy Rossetti who is founder of Rea USA as well as Storage Nerds, and Glenn Schwarm, who is founder of Home Flipping Workshop, amongst other companies that we're going to be talking about today. We were introduced by the good people at Rent Ready and they have their own podcast. But we're going to talk about not only what they're doing on the investment side, but how they're helping other investors achieve success. So Stacy, I'd love to start with you. Maybe you could start by telling us what Storage. Well, Storage Nerds clearly does storage, but maybe you could tell us a little bit about maybe where and why and then maybe tell us a little bit about REI usa.

Okay, good. Thank you so much for letting me come on. Storage Nerds is actually my coaching program. So if you want to become a Storage Nerd. Then you join Storage Nerds and you learn how to invest in self storage. I've been investing in self storage now for quite a while and now I just teach people how to invest in self storage as well. And REI USA is an online education and networking platform for real estate investors. So think of it as like a community college for real estate investors. All you do is join for free and then you have access to all these investors across the country that want to teach you how to invest in real estate. And it's basically like, it's like a plethora of live webinars and you have a choice of all the different webinars that you want to watch throughout the month.

Perfect.

And Glenn, tell us a little bit about the home flipping workshop. And I know you've got this great site at Best or Pro, and you also do some consulting, so maybe talk about, you know, the various services that you offer and the type of investing you do as well.

So Amber and I, my wife, Amber Schwarm is here too. I don't know if you knew she was here today, but Amber and I are here today and we, we are full time real estate investors. So we do over 100 deals a year. Single family flips. We have a lot of rentals. We have an Airbnb business also about, about, I don't know, 40 or 50 rentals we have now. Single families. We've also got, we put on the home flipping workshop and I, I want to tell you what our background was first. There's so many people in the world today that claim they're experts, but we've done over 700 flips. So we kind of, you know, we're far from experts, but we think we know a little bit after doing 700.

So.

So at our home workshops, we teach people how to get started, whether they want to wholesale houses, whether they want to flip houses, whether they want to build a rental portfolio, whatever it might be. We go over that. It's a three day virtual workshop and it's pretty awesome. And we also, we also own the REI Marketplace, which REI Marketplace is similar. We have an online community that people join and they can come there and get educated, they can come and network other people. We have big sponsors like Home Depot and some other big national brands and like. Right, ready. That's actually where I met them. We've been doing that for over seven years and that's all now virtual also. So thanks to Covid, life has went virtual. So we are virtual too. So it's pretty good. Awesome.

And I know you're dialing in from Florida, watching your kids out on the field. So that's the thing I love about this business, is you can do it from anywhere. So really, all of you joining us, and Amber, sorry I missed you on the intro, but really happy to have. Well, so, Stacy, tell us a little bit more about your story. So you said that you do own several storage facilities. When did you start doing this? Maybe talk about maybe some of your first acquisitions and what your portfolio looks like today.

Sure, yeah. So I was also, back in the day, one of the crazy ones that did all those rehabs. And I was doing, I do like 15 rehabs at a time. But what happened is I got pregnant. And once I got pregnant, I started kind of freaking out, you know, like, I have all these, like, have all these rehabs going on, and I just like, you know, I have this baby now and I want to be able to focus on this baby. So what I did was just instead of doing rehabs, I stopped in 2016 doing rehabs and I started solely focusing on just looking for passive income. And my lifestyle is. My husband and I, our lifestyle essentially now is just like being able to travel, right? So just like they're out playing with their kids on the field, we want to just be able to travel six months out of the year. And so what we do now is we own just. We own storage facilities and we focus on really just acquiring properties. And we got into the business just because I got pregnant and I didn't want to be running around doing rehabs anymore. That's basically how it worked.

That makes sense. You know, it's family comes first. And you really, when you're thinking about investing, you have to think about what lifestyle you want. And there's obviously deals that require a lot of hands on intention. Whereas I know storage. There's a lot of great third party operators out there. Many of them are publicly traded that basically act as managing agents. And yeah, a lot of my clients love the diversification of storage because it's great. It seems to be pretty sticky where if someone moves their stuff in, they end up staying around for a while. So that's really great that you found your passion there. So, Glenn and Amber, I got a level with you guys. I started this show and the tagline of the show is I say this is not a home flipping show or how to get rich quick. Because what I do in New York City is I do investment sales. You know, we do deals anywhere from $20 million to $250 million. These are very complex, you know, multi tenanted deals. These are not the kind of things where a listener can learn about it at a, you know, a two or three day workshop. And you know, they also require a humongous amount of capital. So, you know, but I did, when I saw your background, I thought, well, you know, I shouldn't just say there's nothing to this home fl and maybe there's a way to do both. So I would be curious, would you say a lot of the people that you train or the people who get into the home flipping business, is this kind of their entree into real estate? Or is there a way that maybe a successful investor who may be doing some larger commercial deals could be flipping homes on the side? I'm just trying to figure out where it kind of. Is it a totally separate business? Could it be all one and the same? Because to be honest, when you mentioned terms like wholesaling, I don't really even understand what that is. So, you know, enlighten me a little bit.

You know, I think, I think it's really all of the above because certainly we have a lot of people that do come to our workshops that have no experience. But then there's also people that want to level up and learn how to scale their business and grow it into something really big. But our tagline is helping everyday people achieve wealth through real estate. And I think that's the great thing about flipping in particular is you don't have to have any sort of educational background. It doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman. It doesn't matter if you're young or old. Like you don't have to have any experience or capital or capital or large capital. Yeah, you just really have to have that drive to be successful and that desire to want to improve your life. And I do think that it's a very good entry into real estate for just the average person.

Let me jump, let me tagline, let me go along with what you said earlier because I we agree 100% when you said it's not some give rich quick thing. We start out our workshops day one morning like within the first 10 minutes when I'm introduced, I say, look it, if you came here for a get rich quick scheme, you got the wrong place. So keep on looking because this is not get rich quick. I throughout the whole workshop, I say, this is hard work, but it's worth it. What we do is hard work, but it's worth it. So I go, I must say that a Hundred times by Sunday night comes, you know, you look online for that workshop, We've got over 500 all five star reviews. You're like, yo, these are the most honest, transparent. I talk about deals I've lost money on. I talk about deals I've made good money on. And so we, we, we are not just someone that flips a house or two, right? We built it into a system. So we flip 100 houses a year and we don't flip it. Matter of fact, we're in Florida right now and our team is doing their deals. Right. So we've built, we built a business that we are really hands off in the day to day operations. We have a CEO that runs day to day and the people that we teach, yeah, they're definitely, like Amber said, they're just, they're, they're a lot of them. It's their entry point to real estate wholesaling. We won't dive in that rabbit hole. But basically that's when I find a deal and sell to another investor, make 5, 10, 20, $50,000 to just turn a piece of paper over. So it's a pretty slick deal. It doesn't require any money, any credit. And we do a lot of those every month. Usually a couple hundred thousand dollars a month worth of those.

Yeah. The rewarding part is like when you see how many lives are changing. Like, you know, we get, we get the feedback and we get these emails about how, you know, coming to the workshop and doing my first deal or being able to level up and scale their business. Like how that's actually changing a person's life. That used to be in the rat race, that used, you know, that started out, you know, just investing part time on the side of their current job. But then, you know, they, we get those phone calls and those emails that say, hey, I was able to retire early. Hey, I was able to quit my job today because real estate has given me the opportunity to have a different lifestyle.

And what it sounds like, what you do too. It's obviously there's a spot for everybody in real estate, you know, doing 20, 20 million to $250 million deals. That's not for the faint of heart. I mean, you've got it, you got to have some resource you got to have, you got to have some wherewithal, you got to have some connections. You know, that's, that's not for everyone just getting started for sure. But it's, I think that's, that's more the people that we appeal to, I think as ones that just want to come out there and make it make a big difference in their life, you.

Know, wow, you said so many, you both said so many great things there. And you know, we certainly have had guests on this show who've talked about transforming people's lives. We've had Philip Michael Michaels. We've also had Aisha Selden who talks about empowering people by giving them this vehicle to become self sustaining. So yeah, no, but it's really great to hear what you've done and really to scale it and create it into a business as opposed to just kind of a one off, haphazard approach. So Stacy, same question to you. I mean the people who come to you for help for consulting, are these people generally new to the business. Have they ever done anything with real estate? And I guess if someone listening their first acquisition, why would storage be a good choice for them?

Most of the people that I work with or I teach, they're trying to acquire somebody, Something that's like $2 million or less, right? And most of them, the thing is you have to have money in order to buy a storage facility. So the question is how much money can you put down, right? Or if you want to learn how to do something like syndicate, you can syndicate as well too. So. But most of the people, most of the people that I'm working with, this is their first storage facility. They've never really owned any type of property before outside of their own home. A few of them have been investors before, but very, very few of them have. And so I'm basically walking them step by step into how to get started in the commercial real estate side. So like you, they focus on the residential side on the same kind of concept, but it's really on the commercial side. Just the very baby steps, micro steps. How do I get started in self storage investing?

Perfect. It's obviously the allure of making quick money because the other thing is the investments that I sell these are long term holds. My clients hold these deals for an average of five to seven years. Glenn, Amber, I'm sure what you're talking about, especially if you just flip and paper, I mean that could happen in a matter of days. So it definitely sounds exciting for someone who wants to just jump in the game and start earning some profits. But I gotta ask both of you this question. I mean, you're dealing with a lot of first time investors and Glenn, I'm glad you said that you've lost money as well. I mean it is not guaranteed that you are going to make money.

No way.

And look, my experience is usually I don't hit a lot of singles or doubles. It's usually a grand slam or I completely strike out. And I've had several where I've lost all my money. And those actually are some, although painful to lose money, you learn a lot from them. So as much as there is this allure to get into the game and make money, I mean, Glenn, Amber, how do you kind of position people to go about this in a smart way so they don't get in under their head, over their head and lose money that they can't afford to lose?

So I'm glad you asked me. So here's why we're very different. Our tagline for our main, the main company is Vester Pro and that that puts on the home flipping workshops. What you'll see online is a home flipping workshop. But our tagline is a real estate of mind. Little play from being from New York. And also the fact that we know and we believe very strongly that what we do is 20% mechanics and 80% mental. So you've got to get over that. Just like when you're dealing with $20 million, some people are freaked out when they hear that term, like $200 million. They're all kinds of freak out, right? So mentally speaking, people get very overwhelmed.

They make a panic.

And so we work really strong with making sure that they're mentally strong. And that's a big part of it. We talk about, you know, their thoughts and what they have some very core. It's not a psychology class. We dial in. Even the, you know, people that come to the workshop, they stay. We usually hand pick a small group of people that will go forward with us.

So, Stacy, while we're waiting for them to dial back in, why don't I ask you the same question? How do you prepare investors on the risk reward? What do you tell them so they don't get in over their heads?

Well, we're very, very strict about who gets into our coaching program honestly. We have like a funnel that essentially asks them a whole bunch of questions. If they answer no to a couple of questions, they get put into like a different funnel and that takes them down like a whole nother track, which is like not getting them into the coaching program. So we're like in our marketing funnel, like my sales team, when they talk to people that want to get into our coaching program, essentially the way it works is they're only talking to the people actually fit into kind of the portfolio. Like the description of what we want to be in our storage. And the storage nerds. And the reason why is because essentially in commercial real estate, it takes money to buy. Really? Oh, you're muted. Sorry James, you're muted.

Let's break that out a little bit because you say, okay, maybe an entry level storage deal is $2 million. So let's say it's already leased up and let's say you can get three quarters of it financed. Okay, so we're talking about $500,000 equity check. So it's like a rule of thumb on how much money someone has to have access to to actually do that deal. Or is it, you know, hey, if you're going to GP this thing and you're going to have 50k into the deal, then you better make sure you got 20 friends who can back you up.

Exactly.

Tell them about what hand, because based on the answer to your question, I think you can apply that to any real estate deal. It's the same exact down payment. What do you need to get into the game based on that?

Yeah, so essentially you need to understand that concept. Exactly what you just said, you need to understand that concept. So like one of my students right now is buying like a $1.6 million facility and he has to put $300,000 down. Essentially there's 20% down or you know, more, you know. So what he did is he just like brought in like a couple of people that $150,000 each and they're loaning and they're basically partnering with him. It's a 25, 75 split and he'll get 25% and they'll get 75% and then the bank is just funding the rest. So that's kind of one of the ways that we do it. Another way is that, you know, I teach my students how to start funds. So for instance, like we have a reg D fund and so we'll teach this concept as well too. So we get into, we get into private lending, we get into how to find private lenders. We feel we get into like how to kind of put capital partners together for the down payments of these facilities. And then I get a bank to finance them or, or we get it, we get into also like starting a 560 rectifund and then getting out there and crowdfunding this money together. Now when you start getting into like bigger facilities, four or five, $6 million facilities or higher than what you would do is you would syndicate that out. Alright. So it really kind of depends on what, how much money you have, if you have, if you have $50,000 and you want to buy your own facility, then you would do one way. If you have a couple hundred thousand dollars, you would be able to afford, afford something else. If you know people that have money and you could put that money together, then you can afford this. And if you want to buy something huge, you can get out there and you can syndicate it. So really kind of it's just like, how much money can you come up with? That's really how it is.

That's fantastic. And I, I'm glad you mentioned it's not one size fits all. And I'm also glad that you mentioned crowdfunding and now some of the new opportunities to raise funds. And last week's podcast, we, we had my friend Jeanine Yorio. Come on. Who helped build out the Republic platform for real estate, where we launched a fund to go invest in distressed bulk condos. So if you haven't heard that episode, go back and listen to it because it's an area of the market that's growing like crazy. So Glenn and Amber dialed back in. I know we're having a little bit of technical difficulties, but Glenn, just pick up where you left off because the question was, you know, the allure here is a lot of profits, but how do you, you know, prepare your investors to make the right decisions where they don't get in over their heads?

So I talked about, I'm not sure what you guys heard, but I want to make sure I kind of covered again, bottom line is that, you know, we, our tagline is a real estate of mind and we believe strongly that 20% of mechanics and 80% is mental. It's true of anything in life. But you know, really, we buy low, we sell high. Right? That's really what, that's the, that's the bottom line mechanic. There's a lot of mechanics that go along in the middle of it, but we over complicate things because we make them into something in our mind. So we work really hard on that part of it. So to help people overcome the fear. Because if I, if I tell people, I said, listen, if I told you could buy a house for $5, invest $5 to renovate it and sell it and make a hundred thousand profit who do it. And every hand in the room goes up. I say, why would I add a few zeros on. Everybody get freaked out. Because money, everybody, all of a sudden, it becomes something that we tell ourselves, oh my God, I could lose everything. And you can lose, I'm very Open about that in our workshops. You can lose money. But then we dive into some very basic fundamentals. I'm almost boring. Like I have fun with it, but almost boring in our approach because I, we win, we win ball games as singles do. I hit every grand slam. Every once in a while I hit a grand slam, but I'm not swinging for the fences. We're trying to make 40, $50,000 profit. 40,000 profit, 75,000 profit. Just repeatedly, you know it. For a lot of people, making an extra 75 or 150 grand a year for doing one or two flips is a big deal. It's a life changing amount of money for some people. Now obviously if you're working with people that you know are worth $10 million, well, that's not a lot of money to them. They're looking for something different. But we help again, you help the average people be able to get ahead or you know, anybody that just wants to, to get ahead. And we give them those fundamental steps to say, listen, when the game with singles make smart decisions, we teach them how to buy it. Right. People don't realize that they make money in real estate when you buy it. I don't care what level, whether doing storage units, whether you're doing large, you know, facilities like you do, or they're doing houses like we do. We make our money, we buy, right. If we buy it right, we can exit it and make money. So, so people think they're gonna, they make money when they sell. Like. No, no, you realize your money when you sell, you make it when you buy. So we teach them our formula for we do. And I say sometimes it's going to make you upset because you're going to want, you're going to have the emotions that you want to buy a house because you're all excited, but you know, because you love the way it looks and you could make it look beautiful. But if you, if you ignore the basic fundamentals of the math, you'll lose. That goes true for any one of our businesses. No matter what you do, no matter what level you're at, the math is the math. And if you ignore that, you'll get burned. So we just try and keep them very, very grounded in their process.

Yeah, you know, I was taught very early on that there's only one thing you cannot change about an investment and that's where you bought it. So yeah, you gotta, you're getting the right buy. And look, I mean, adding a couple zeros, I mean, and I've got plenty of friends who are flipping homes out in the Hamptons and they're buying them for two and a half million bucks, and they're putting in a half million dollars and selling them for five. That being said, you know, look, I mean, timing is also a huge piece to success. So, you know, right now, everyone, because of this crazy pandemic, are spending more time, whether it's at their second home. And so the second home market's been booming. But I'm sure it's something that you probably tell people in your class that you got to make sure that you're not just kind of buying into the latest trend, and you got to look at a stable market where, you know, maybe even have a backup plan. I mean, I don't know if you ever look at these as, you know, a rental if you had to. But.

Yeah, I would like to say, too, just if I could, that we. Absolutely. So we preach, make, you know, listen when you. There's linear income and there's residual income. My whole life's about residual income. Just like with storage unit. Same exact thing, right? It's about having passive income. So we teach them, once you get up and rolling, use that extra money to invest in what you want to invest in is fine. With one of the two things that we're doing in the call or whatever it might be, you want to invest that in some type of a passive income vehicle. We choose single family, and we have smaller, a couple, two units, but we do that. And we also have a pretty thriving airbnb business, which is not vacation rentals, just. Just regular homes and neighborhoods. So, you know, we recommend that strongly. And because obviously, if you don't have passive income, then you're going to work the rest of your life, but you've got to build a passive income so you can eventually not have to work the rest of that income coming in. So we strongly preach that the whole way through. So it's not just about flipping. It's really about using. Using real estate to create a lifestyle. What it boils down to. So. And lifestyle comes about when you have residual income, not when you're always flipping.

That makes a lot of sense. All right, so, not that I'm the type to usually have the hardball questions, but I've got one for both of you that. And please don't take this in the wrong way, but, Stacy, you have this successful business where you've been buying storage. Why would you then pivot to consulting and helping other people do it? Why wouldn't you just grow your Portfolio and spend your time investing.

I'm the type of person that, I mean, I've been teaching people how to invest in real estate for almost 10 years now. And I started a little bit over 10 years ago. I'm the type of person when I figure out something that works and that makes my life better, I want to share it with the world. Alright? So that's just how I am. I'm just a giver. And you know, and I, you know, I'm just like, I'm sure it's just like them. I want to, I want to help other people be successful. And actually my mission in life and the mission for REI USA is affordable financial literacy. Right? So, you know, people, I feel like people just, they don't. They're not educated enough on how to be smart with their money, you know, and so that's just. My mission is to help as many people as I can be as smart as possible with their money that they can. And the way that I do that is by teaching people how to invest in real estate.

Good answer. Amber, same question for you.

So Amber stepped out of the car, but I am still here. So let me just, let me take that out if I could. So 30, 25 years ago, I learned you have to learn something about yourself, right? As you get older and as you mature through life, you learn about yourself. And I learned that I absolutely love to help other people, but I like to give them a vehicle. I don't want to just make them feel good about themselves, you know, like leave a motivational seminar and then have nothing to do. Like, you know, leave there and go. I feel so good. The next day, life hits them in the face. I'm like, okay, so my life does suck. So I love to combine helping people and also giving them a tool to be able to change their finances. Because finance is a huge part of our life, right? It really has a lot to do with a lot of people's happiness. So that's. I love to do it. I love to speak. I get inspired now. If you ask me, just like Stacey, when there's. There are times that almost every day now I'll get an email, a text from something saying, oh, my gosh, this worked. Or oh my gosh, I love this. This has been life changing. Those, those moments keep me going through the tough times because I have tough times like everybody else. Every one of us on this call, we're successful. We've had tough times, we still have tough times. But those for me are what inspire me. Like when someone Says, oh, my gosh, that's amazing. When I speak to a room full of people now, it's a room full of zoom people. But even still, I'm able to connect with that room. A couple hundred people at our workshops, I can look in their face when I give people hope. And there's just something powerful about hope, right? Watching my kids play sports, when the other team has hope, that's a scary thing because they could win, right? So hope is powerful. I want to give those people hope, and so I give them. I get them inspired for that. I help work on their mental side. But then I say, by the way, here's a vehicle to build the wealth up from the ground up. Because what you guys do is great, but you need some capital to get that started. I'm helping them get started in real estate so I can choose to do. To grow in real estate and do choose whatever they want to choose, but for God's sakes, get started, right? So that's what we do. And you, you mentioned also talking to Stacey. You said, we know. Why would you want to leave? What you're doing here's with me. I haven't left. We still flip over 100 houses a year and growing. Matter of fact, we're opening up our second market here. I think they'll be down here in Florida. We're open our second market. We have another brand going to go nationwide. So we're. That business is still growing. I'm not actively involved in it anymore because I built it right. I built it with the right people. I'm in love reading an awesome book right now called who Not How. It's about having the right people around you to grow your empire. And for me, I teach our students the same thing. It's not about. It's not always about who or what or how you do. It's about who you have around you. So if you can build a business that becomes residual because you live off the profits, right? And you can reinvest yourself and live off those profits and pay down your equity or pay down your. Your loans and whatnot, and build equity and build cash flow. Now I joke around my wife, we're moving to Florida, and we're actually leaving two houses up in our hometown. It was like, oh, you selling your house? I'm like, no, I'm kind of a house pack rat. I just keep hanging on to them. Why? Why get rid of them? They keep paying off. They make more money than I owe on them, you know, I mean, so I don't know, there's a lot, A lot of things. We live this life every day. So for me, it's very easy to teach you because I live it. I'm in the trenches every day.

That's awesome. Yeah, you're definitely teaching people to fish out there. And. And I feel the same way about this show. I mean, when I started it, it was really a passion project. It was. Because I didn't see any shows that were teaching how to invest in some of the larger transactions. But it's wonderful to hear. Especially some of the best feedback I get is from people just starting out. And look if I inspired them to do their first deal or maybe they reach out and connect with you and on their path. That's awesome. Because, look, if it's just about just keep trying to make investments for yourself and grow your empire, so to speak, I think there's a lot more to life. So it's really awesome that you all give back. Stacy, what do you do? Or has this happened where through your coaching network that you see great deal flow? I mean, have any of your students ever said, hey, you know, Stacy, this deal's a little big for me. How about we go do this together? And if so, has that led to joint ventures?

Yeah, so that's exactly why I started the fund too, as well, because I do want to join venture. I do want to work with others and my students. Also. The really great thing about my coaching program is my students are also partnering with. With each other. So it's not even just, you know, me, but it's like in the entire group, which is amazing, and I love to see that. But, you know, I just wanted to say too, like, you know, based off what you were asking, is like, everybody's got to start somewhere. So people are listening to your podcast and they're like, yeah, I want to do $250 million deals. And truth of the matter is, is that everybody's got to kind of start somewhere. And I think that's where we come into play, right? It's like, we're going to help these people kind of get off the ground. And the truth of the matter is I started also in self storage investing, like, you know, five years ago, and I had no idea what I was doing. And now I. We have a fund, we're growing, we're looking at bigger facilities. We're actually looking at syndicating and partnering with other people. So the truth of the matter is, is you smart, you start out, like, super, you know, small. You have no idea what you're doing. But as you grow, you know, just so you're, you're, you know, the newbies here know, it's like you got to start somewhere. And as you grow out and grow, you get educated and then you just kind of scale up and you move to, you move on to the next big thing.

So how would you, I guess going back to Glenn, you know, how would you advise? We've got thousands of listeners on this show and they might be trying to figure out what their first investment is going to be. So Glenn is usually, you know, hey, flipping a home is just a great way to get in the game. But do you, you know, what advice would you give someone looking to invest? Where, you know, what other avenues do you tell them to explore? Do you open up other investment ideas to them? How do you tell them to figure, start?

So I would say this. We're actually here in Florida and we are actually shopping for schools for my 16 year old daughter. So we went to two schools today, we have one tomorrow morning. And she said, dad, how do I know which one to pick? I said, trust your gut. So I tell you listeners the same exact thing. You got to decide what's been churning in your gut for a while, right? Do you. Home certainly are the most familiar because they're everyone, most people have one or everyone knows somebody who has one. So they're pretty common, right? Storage units, that's certainly something. People drive by and certainly say to me too, I drive by and go, maybe I should do storage someday, you know, so my brain goes that way. But I stay focused on what I'm doing right now. But I think everybody that's out there listening, you got to find works for you. If you say, listen, I got, I got some cash laying around and I wanted some syndication, just get with you. If they want to do stores, get with Stacia. They want to do single family, get with us. But go with what feels right to you. I mean, go with what, what feels right? What fits your, your comfort level, your risk tolerance level. You got to decide what that is for you. And once you figure those things out, then just pick one. But here's the deal. Once you pick one, kind of stick with it for a little while, right? Just stick with it. Because people say, well, I'm gonna do all three. Well, you're gonna fail at all three. You can never chase two rabbits. You focus on one, you got a much better chance of catching that sucker if you focus on, on multiple rabbits at once. So whatever you pick, stick to it. But just I would say, just like with my daughter, with school, just trust your gut, you know, do some investigation, See what feels right to you, see what mentorship feels right to you. Right. See what kind of leadership feels right to you. And I think you'll know. You'll know when you meet somebody, you'll know what's the right thing for you. And then once you pick it, stick with it.

That's awesome. Stacey, I'd ask you the same question, but maybe even broader. I mean, how would you tell someone to just go about starting altogether? I mean, what advice would you give someone who is even considering real estate? Where should they start?

Well, my personal opinion, they should start with REI usa, right? Because essentially we have all these investors across the country, and what they do is they just teach on a regular basis. So you become a member of REI usa, you can even try it out for free for a month. And then you come in and do. Just test the waters out and you say, okay, I want to learn about, like this. This we have subject to land lease options, owner financing. We've got small, multifamily, large, multifamily, pretty much every topic that you can imagine. We have somebody that's teaching on that topic. And then you can come in to REI USA and just be like, okay, I'm going to just try all this out. And I always tell that to everybody. Come in. It's like, why not just. Just, you know, for a month or two, just kind of educate yourself on all the platforms and then in the end go, you know what? I really am interested in tax liens, or I'm really interested in flipping. And then that way you can focus on, okay, that's the one thing. Just like, just like, just like he said, it's like, that's the one thing that I'm going to focus on, right? So I personally say, like, come check out REI usa, meet all these awesome investors across the country and hear what they have to say about all these different, different strategies, and then make a choice on what you truly want to invest and invest in for yourself.

I really like that answer to kind of explore, see what's out there first. You know, podcasts are another great way to see what's out there. I mean, so, you know, podcasts, it's a great way to kind of hear what people have to say. You know, go with someone that you feel comfortable with, that you can identify with. It makes sense. So, Glenn, I know we only have a couple more minutes here, so just. I only have one or two more questions left. Glenn, if you had to say, and I didn't get into kind of your background and what you were doing before real estate, so maybe it's something that's been with you throughout your entire life, but what would you say your key to success is?

You know, I was just thinking with Stacy was talking, people get analysis paralysis all the time, right? That's one major flaw about the information overload we have today. So we get information, people get analysis paralysis. They never take action. For me, I've always taken action. I think that's for me. I've been an entrepreneur since I was 19 years old. I'm 52 as I'm talking to you guys today. And so, you know, my whole life I've been an action taker. I think that's, you know, do I procrastinate sometimes? Sure. Do I, do I drop the ball? Do I fail? Yeah. But I take action and when I fail, I get right back up. Do I lick my wounds sometimes? When Covid hit, my businesses were literally shut down in New York. Like my, my, my home flipping workshop was literally a seminar based business at hotels. And I was shut down instantly by the governor and I lost $80,000 my marketing. I laid there licking my wounds. I didn't really lay there. I probably did licking my wounds thinking how am I going to go forward, right? And how many. And even my flipping business, all of a sudden I just shut my office down and my 10 employees had to work from home. Like, I don't know, I don't even know what to do here. But even though I was knocked right clear on my butt, eventually got back up and figured out how to turn my world virtual. And it's been a, it's been an absolute game changer for me. But if I wasn't an action taker, that wouldn't have happened, right? If I could lay there, a lot of people lay there and go, I can't do it. I don't know, I don't know. We'll stop whining and start taking charge your life and do it right. That's the only way you're gonna do it. And no one else gonna write you a check for your life. You have to go out there, make it happen for yourself. So while you're investing this stuff, just remember to don't have analysis process take action towards your goals. The only way you're gonna get there is take action. The three of us are on this call because we've taken action. And if other people want to get to those places in Life, you got to take action.

Love it. I'm a big Tony Robbins fan as well and he calls it massive action. You know, way like you got to be bold. So Stacy, same question. And again, apologize. We didn't with the amount of time you didn't get into your story before real estate, but anything that's fueled you through life that you could share with.

Well, just piggyback off. What he said is like taking, to me, taking action is actually implementing what you learn, right? Implementing what you learn. So it's like you can, like I said, you can get, you can join REI USA and you can see all these webinars and stuff. But the truth of the matter is, is if you actually don't implement what you learn, then nothing is ever going to happen. I'm the type of person, honestly, like I don't have time to be figuring it out. I'm going to hire somebody to tell me what to do and I'm going to do exactly what they tell me. Right. And that's how I've been my entire life because I just don't want to sit there and figure it all out. Alright, so if you, and that's one of the things that I always suggest is like if you're the type of person, if you notice that you're procrastinating, you just can't, you're like not figuring it out. Why not just hire somebody to tell you what to do so you know exactly what to do. And that's how I think I became so successful is I've had mentors and coaches my entire life that just tell me exactly what I should be focusing on.

The audience couldn't agree with that more as well. I'm a huge fan of coaching. We had Rod Santomosimo come on a couple weeks ago. His book entitled Knowing isn't Doing Stacy and Glenn, I'll send you a copy. I'd highly recommend it. He's, you know, having a mentor has been a huge part of my story as well. So just to take us out and Glenn, please thank Amber as well. But how do our listeners find you? Where should they check out what you're doing?

Stacy, Go ahead.

Okay. All right, so just all you have to do for me is just look up. Just go to stacyvirsetti.com all right? Everything that you need about me is all there. So if you're interested in checking out, learning how to invest in self storage or REI USA can go to Stacey Rossetti.com and find out all that information.

Great. Glenn, for you, for Amber and I, you just go to glen and amber.com. glen and Amber. Calm is two ends on Glen, but I think either way will get you there. But glen and amber.com and you'll have links to everything we do, including the home free workshop and everything else. And it's all all right there and you can get to know us, follow us, check out our podcast and love to have you see if you like us and if so, stick around.

That's awesome. I want to thank all of you for joining today. This has been a lot of fun. Super interesting you all. You know, we're in on one hand kind of parallel universes and worlds, but we've got so much in common. So it was just really cool to have you come on and share with our audience. I know they're going to get a ton out of it.

Awesome. Thanks for having us. I really appreciate it.

Yes, of course.

This is James Nelson, your host of Real Estate Investing live from from New York. If you haven't already, please make sure and connect with me. My handle is James Nelson NYC, either on Instagram, Twitter or LinkedIn. And hey, send me a message. What's on your mind? I'm here to help you become the best investor possible. So until next week, thank you. All right, awesome. You guys are clearly pros. I think that was good. And Glenn and Amber. Yeah, the audio came back fine. So. So Matt, can we just. We'll probably just cut out where it kind of got fuzzy on that question and just use that. And I. Unless if you guys, you know, think there was anything else to cover. I mean, I thought that was great. I mean, I think we can. Stacey's given me a thumbs up.

Yes. Thank you so much for letting us come hang out with you today.

Totally.

Stacy, you did great. Stacey, I want to tell you that you did great. I enjoyed listening to you.

Did you guys know each other before this or.

No. Never. Never met.

Never met. But he does come up on my Facebook feed.

Oh.

Cause I just assumed that you guys were part of this network. All right, well, cool. I'm glad I could connect all of us. Matt, we'll debut it, I think a week from this Tuesday. So if you don't mind and you want to, you know, what we do is help each other out. If you want to share it with your audience, you know, it's a great way to get in front of a lot of people. And so we'll give you the links and everything you need there and yeah.

Yeah, just send it to us. And I always. Any any podcast I'm in always email out to my, my list, yeah.

Everyone.

Once it's ready to go and everything with a promo picture, the links and all that.

So awesome.

Thank you. All right, thanks guys.

Thank you again everyone for your time. And yeah, if I can ever be helpful to your audience or whatever, you know, that's, that's what it's all about, right? I really liked your answers of just, you know, giving back. So thank you again everyone and yeah, especially Glenn, Amber, I appreciate you dialing in from the car in Florida. Hope you, I don't know you're looking at schools, but yeah, Florida is a pretty, you know, nice spot. It's a especially this time of year. So luck with you at the move.

Awesome. Thank you. Take care.

All right, take care everybody.

Bye.

A different approach to putting our Clients first Avis and Young's Tri State Investment Sales Group sells multifamily office retail development and specialty sales throughout the New York metro area. As experienced thought leaders in our industry, our 35 member group is available to help you make informed investment decisions by advising you on your current holdings or identifying new opportunities in the marketplace. Our one unified team is built on an industry unique platform which promotes unparalleled collaboration and teamwork. We share core values of hard work, integrity and expertise. We put our clients first, providing tailor made strategies to achieve superior results. Please Visit us at aytristateinvestmentsales.com and follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram amesnelsonnyc to learn more.

Thank you for tuning in this week to Real Estate Investing Live from New York. Please join your host, James Nelson for another program next Tuesday at 7pm in New York, 4pm Pacific Time on the Voice America Business Channel. All shows are rebroadcast on Wednesday mornings at 7:00am Eastern Time and 4:00am Pacific Time, as well as always on demand. We'll talk again next week.

Sam.