Remote Investing with Stacy Conkey

Foreign this is the Insider's Edge to Real Estate Investing with James Nelson, the principal and head of Avis & Young's Tri State investment Sales Group. In this program you'll learn game changing strategies to outperform the market. James will teach you how to source, execute and capitalize on the best real estate opportunities in New York and around the world. Now here's your host.

This podcast is for educational purposes only and should not be relied upon for investment decisions. The opinions expressed are those of the guests and not their companies. Listeners should not act upon the information without first seeking appropriate advice from an accountant, lawyer or other professional. Welcome to show number 174, the Insider's Edge to Real Estate Investing. This is your host, James Nelson. Welcome. Thank you for joining and okay, so this is the third week in a row that I'm telling you this, but if you haven't done so already, you have to go to james nelson.com it's not about me, it's about you. This site was designed for your success and it's going to teach you and give you resources to help you gain the advantage for the Insider's Edge to Real Estate Investing so you can gain the advantage to outperform the market. Now, while you're there, make sure and sign up for that newsletter. It's just once a month, but the point of the newsletter is to aggregate all this incredible content that we worked so hard to pull together to give you the advantage. So again, while you're there, you're going to get an overview of our recent podcasts. You're going to get links to articles that I've published at some places like Forbes, exclusive video series, and of course, show notes for the podcast episodes. So today we have another great guest in Stacy Conkey, and you're going to learn about remote real estate investing in this conversation, which always amazes me, the idea of buying properties sight unseen. So Stacy is going to talk about the importance of having the right boots on the ground. Now Stacy's a veteran real estate investor and co founder of Remote Multifamily Investing Academy, which provides coaching and support for those interested in real estate investing. And you're going to take away tips on on overcoming fear, which we agree is the number one thing that might be holding you back right now from jumping in. So we're going to talk to you about how to overcome that. And she describes how she got out of her comfort zone to become a public speaker and find properties that could generate cash flow. After going through training herself, she decided to create a solution that would help others who wanted to make connections and get started in real estate. You can gain insight in its setting metrics for remote real estate investing which includes looking at job growth, population trends. She also talks about the 1% rule and breaks down how do joint ventures work and she really encourages listeners to learn as they go and build on their past experiences to create a lasting portfolio. So you're going to want to make sure and go to jamesnelson.com again to go find the show notes and connect with Stacy. And I know you're going to get a lot out of this episode. So we're going to have a brief word from our sponsor and we'll get right back into our discussion with Stacy Conkey. 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 where 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. Okay, welcome everybody. Thrilled to have with us today Stacy Conkey who is co founder of the Remote Multifamily Investing Academy. Stacy, welcome. Thank you for joining.

Thanks for having me James.

And as I was telling you right before, this is our maiden voyage here where we are simultaneously live streaming this and thank you to Streamyard. We'll see if this how this works. So some of you might be seeing us right now on Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter. But of course then we'll have this recording and we'll have this available to you on our podcast the Insider's Edge to Real Estate Investing. So excited to be coming to you all now from Multimedia. So Stacy, welcome. Thank you again for joining us.

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

So Stacy, maybe for our audience, give us a little background on Remote Multifamily Investing Academy. Tell us a little bit about what that is and then let's go back and talk about your journey, how you got there.

Sure. Well, the Remote Multifamily Investing Academy, we started that about four years ago. It's myself and Jen who's not here today. But the reason we started the academy, we've been investing for 20 years. And when I was new as an investor, one of the things that I struggled so much with was the kind of the education that I received. It was so high level and I spent $40,000 on it. It's not like I was taking, you know, free YouTube videos, although YouTube wasn't around. You know, I spent a lot of money and I learned high level concepts. So I went to, when I went to implement him or implement him, there was missing so much and I struggled so much back then. I was like, this shouldn't be this difficult to figure out. Like all these steps, they could have told me these steps. If I ever figure this out, I'm gonna go back and teach. Because I've always been a natural teacher of whatever I learn, I want to teach it to someone. So that's, that's basically how the academy was born. You know, all the years later was we need to. The education just has to be better. People need a better guide to be able to invest because you can lose a lot of money if you make mistakes. So my goal is to empower all of the future investors, anyone that I can reach, to be empowered with the knowledge in the system to avoid mistakes and be able to succeed otherwise. Sometimes people quit too early and I didn't. And I'm grateful, but anybody could have looked at all the things that happened and understood if I had quit. I just don't want people to give up on their dreams. And so I'm. We're here just trying to make sure that everyone has a resource to get the kind of training and coaching that they need to be successful.

So, Stacy, I love the mission and giving back because so many of us just had to figure this out by doing it, and there really was no roadmap. So I think it's really great that you started this academy and wrote a book and that was so multifamily freedom hacking. And again, that was impetus for myself writing a book as well, was to say, look, you can't find it anywhere, so why don't you pull that together and share it? So how much of that came from your own personal investing story? And maybe you could tell us a little bit about that, how you started. Now, were you in real estate right out of school? Did you fall into it accidentally? Maybe talk about how you found real estate in the first place.

Sure. So I was, I was well on my way in my professional. I was 28 years old before I Even had heard of real estate investing. And I. My background is I worked at Arthur. I have a degree in accounting. I worked at Arthur Anderson. I went through the paces and got my CPA license. And then I was just working my way up the ladder in corporate America. I was a controller at a public company, so working my way to cfo. And the CEO of the company invited me to go to a Tony Robbins eventually. And because I had been. I was working on getting my mba, I joined Toastmasters because I was terrified of speaking. I was so scared. So I was trying to get over it. So I think he saw that I was trying to improve myself, and so he invited me to this Tony Robbins event in 2003. And the big thing that I got out of it was that I was on the wrong path, which was weird because I never. It didn't even occur to me, and I didn't ask that question. But, you know, Tony does things that. That make you really go inside. And I, I left there just knowing I was not on the right path, but it took me so long to get there. That was kind of a hard realization. And I didn't know what the right path was, only that I was on the wrong path. And so all I could do was look at Tony Robbins on stage and say, I meant to do that. But at that time, I was terrified of speaking, so that didn't make any sense to me. Anyways, my, my journey led me through just like, looking at different things. I ended up finding real estate investing and going to, you know what, reading Rich Dad, Poor dad, as many new investors do, and going to some investor clubs and just trying to get the lay of the land. And then I ended up at some seminar, and that's where I invested my education. And that was just the beginning of everything. And it was, it was a bumpy, bumpy road, particularly in the beginning.

So maybe you could tell us about maybe some of your early investments and what that was like, having to figure it out along the way.

Well, it's funny because, you know, when you're. Most people who are going into real estate investing, my experience, myself, everyone I know, my colleagues, all of my students are all overachievers. It is just. I've never seen a real estate investor that wasn't an overachiever. That goes for it. And as a general speak, as an overachiever, whatever you do, like for work or for a living, like you own it and you're used to being like, you know, completely like, understanding everything about what you do, like you're an expert at what you do. So then you go into a new thing, real estate investing. And suddenly even though you've been an expert for all these years in your area, you just, you don't know anything and you don't know how to connect dots. So in the very beginning when I was learning different strategies, I didn't understand how everything kind of fit together. So my, my very first deal ended up being a fix and flip property, but I had been looking for a rental property so I ended up with a fix and flip. And then my next couple of deals were duplexes that I had to fix up and then rent. But all of my deals were remote, they weren't where I lived. So I learned the skill of managing a team remotely. And eventually this, I didn't know this right away, but eventually putting systems in place, checks and balances. Because you know, they say trust but verify, but there's no trust, it's all verified. So I, you know, I bump my head on, well, everything early on as I was learning that. And then over time I would figure out what could I do to mitigate this risk. You know, I keep getting smacked in the face on this like what could I do differently that would, you know, give me information or give me a heads up or verify something before moving forward.

So it's interesting that you started with remote investing. I think a lot of our listeners and those who've really subscribed to the the book and our program here, they tend to look for starters in their own backyard or maybe it's an area they covered. So any reason why, and I think you're originally from San Diego, you're in Florida now. So is there any reason why you didn't start off in Florida in your own backyard, so to speak?

I tried to. I actually lived in Sacramento, California at the time. And when I started in real estate, one that, you know, it's California, prices are high. So no matter what you, you're going to need to have a lot of capital, which I didn't have any. So that was, that was a little bit of a mindset block for me. But on top of it, the market was very competitive and but the training that I took, everything said you need to invest locally within 50 miles. But then another one of the trainers in that company, I went to their live event and he was a Canadian investing in the US and he wasn't flying to the US to invest, he was investing remotely. And that just resonated with me because I had not been, I've been Trying to find a deal in my area, hadn't been able to find a deal. And when he said that, I was like, you know, I need to learn everything I can that this guy knows because my market isn't working. And I bet there's a lot of markets where the prices are lower, means the barrier of entry is lower and probably not so competitive. Midwest. And so that's really what guided me. So then I started learning everything I could do to do it remotely. And then every deal from then on, well, that was my first deal. Every deal has been remote. It's really weird for me to see one of my properties. I've seen a couple just because we happen to be in town. I've never seen the inside. I've seen like the outside of a couple of them. It feels weird to see it in person.

So are you. So you're buying these site unseen or do you have local partners? Are you coming in as the general partner, a limited partner? How are these investments taking place?

So the word site, it people get freaked out about that a lot. We say you buy it sight unseen. Yes and no. I do not see it. I don't put my eyes on it. But it's not unseen. We have our property managers, we have our building inspectors, we have our realtor broker. So we have multiple team members that are on the ground. It's not, it's not like people in my real estate company, it's professionals that are in that market, have been in that market that know the ins and out and they are, you know, they've been in their. It's part of my interview process. They've been in their field for a very long time. And the reality is what I see through my eyes, being not in that market, not understanding the nuances there, whatever I see through my eyes is just going to be filtered through whatever my beliefs, experience, whatever are. And it doesn't necessarily reflect reality. So I found that doing, doing things remotely, remotely really truly allows me to have zero emotion about it. And it truly just be a business transaction. And I've had several of my students who, they came because they were investing in their home market and their home market became too expensive, too competitive, and they couldn't get any more deals. And that's why they came to learn. And one of the feedback that I regularly get is it's so much easier to invest remotely because I. There's not, I don't see it. There's not the emotion. So it's easier to negotiate for a price reduction or let a Deal, go when it's not. When it's not right, because you're not sitting there and falling in love with it. It's more about what are the numbers, what's the information? And the data coming in from my professional team that's on the ground.

So that, that actually makes a lot of sense. Although you need to have the right people on the ground 100%. And you mentioned earlier trust but verify, right? Or with heavy emphasis on the verification. So when you're going into a new market, how do you know who's the right people, who's the right team? How do you really get those references to feel comfortable with your professionals?

If you think about one of the ways I explain this to people is let's say you're at home and your roof starts leaking and you're like, oh, shoot, you know, what am I going to do? We don't walk out on our porch and be like, hey, I need a roofer, right? So the reality is we're going to pull up our laptop and we're going to search for roofers and then we're going to call around and we're going to interview, get quotes, etc, and we'll make our choice whether we're physically there or not. It's the exact same process. And I think that because all of us grew up in a time where like if our parents were buying a house or even if we're buying a house, you go get in your realtor's car and you drive around from house to house and you go in it and you see it, you smell it, you love it and you, you know, you fall in love or you hate it, whatever. But that's the way that we learn about real estate. And so it's very natural to immediately carry that over to real estate investing. But that brings an emotional component to it. So anyway, I can get you off track. So the way that you find the right team members is you're on the phone or on Zoom and you're interviewing them and you go through a list of questions and then you're just comparing person by person by person. And then when you find the one that you think, okay, that's going to be my first choice, second choice, third choice, because sometimes things go bad or they weren't as good as they seem. And you need to be, you need to have bench strength, you need to be at least three deep in every area. But then we, you know, we contact their references and just vet that. We look on the Internet, is there any bad reviews? And do our best to do that. It's very rare that I have to fire a team member because I, I do a pretty in depth interview process. But when we have to, we do it quickly and we move on to the next one.

So how do you find these new markets and do the markets where you're investing? I mean, again, maybe you can give us some examples, but what do they have in common?

There's two things. There's two things we always look for, actually. I guess three things. The first one is, I call it the 1% rule. So the 1% rule, you know, for those who haven't heard of it before, is whatever the price of the property, prices of the properties are, the rents should be 1% a month. So for example, in San Diego, I'll just use a single family home as a, as an example. It's the simplest. Let's say I buy a single family home and it's going to be $700,000. The market rent is 3,000. So that is. So in order to fit the 1% rule, the rent would have to be 7,000. So San Diego is not a good cash flow market because the prices are so much higher than what the rents are that it's very, very difficult, if not impossible to get positive cash flow. So we look for markets where the prices of the properties and the rents are more in line between 1%. But we don't analyze deals that way. It's just a quick way to be able to eliminate markets, to say, okay, that is way far off, way far off, way far off. And then we narrow the field from there. There's two main metrics I'm looking at. One is the job growth in the area. We want to make sure that it's at least holding steady, if not growing. Growing is our preference. And the same with population. We don't want to be in areas where the population is declining or that the job growth is declining. Because either of those things, if job growth is declining, the population is going to end up declining and then you can longer and that's like our most expensive.

So I want to press you a little bit on that second piece of criteria. And you probably know where I'm going with this. But in the post Covid world and with hybrid work and jobs that are mobile, how do you get comfort with the actual job report numbers and knowing that there is. I get population because look, there could be. As long as people are moving there and if they're working remotely, fine, just as long as they're showing up. And renting your apartments. But how do you really get an accurate sense of what the job figures are in a given market?

You know, I don't think that there are so many people working remotely in a completely different area that it has that much of an impact and skews it. So that isn't our experience. So I recognize what you're saying, that there are some that aren't but a lot of remote jobs people are still living there because at one point they were driving to work. So they might not be driving to work, but unless they physically moved to a different state or a different area, they're still there. So I recognize I'm making some assumptions with that. That's the assumption that we've continued to go on from there just because I don't see everybody going remote and then moving away. I'm sure some people have, but fair enough.

It's something we're all trying. Yeah. Trying to figure out. But I like the 1% rule too, because. And I think when you probably. And if you looked at San Diego, my guess would be the majority of owners of single family homes are in fact single owner occupied, where it's just not an investor market. People. There's only so many homes on the market, People bid it up. And so there's really not. That investor dynamic is the same there.

It's like, it's very. It's because it's a very desirable area to own real estate. But if your goal. So for wealth preservation, I can see that. But if you're going for cash flow, which is what we are doing, it's just almost impossible. And especially, especially now with interest rates, it like, is impossible, but it's, it's very difficult to cash flow in a market where the values are just so high. Because more people want it, they're willing to bid it up, even multifamily.

Makes sense. Okay, so tell me a little bit about how you capitalize your deal. So maybe talk about joint ventures. Do you syndicate? How do you raise capital for your investments?

So both. So Jen and I are our sweet spot as far as the acquisitions that we. I'd say that we enjoy the most are apartment buildings that are somewhere between 15 and 50 units. That's. That's our sweet spot. Generally speaking, we can do those as joint ventures. So I'll bring in a couple of partners, bring in the capital, and we do the deal together. Now the reality is we're doing the majority of the work because they brought in the capital. But in a joint venture, everybody has to have some Kind of active role in the operation in order to make a profit to, to be considered a joint venture. So everybody would have some, some technical role. One person's role might be taking the meeting minutes and someone else might be interacting with the cpa, but they have to have some role. So generally with the smaller apartment buildings, we will do joint venture. When we go into the larger apartment buildings where we need a bigger raise and we haven't been syndicating for a very long time. I've been aware of it. It's just a complication factor and the expense of it has made me not excited about jumping in there. But we did do a syndication earlier this year where we raised 2.9 million. It was a $9.5 million purchase, seller financing. It was such a good deal. I was like, oh, okay, let's go ahead and do it. And it's been, it's been great. And going through that process, you know, I've known about syndication. I feel like I know a ton about it. I was just not willing to step too much into that world to do it myself. And, and now I see why. It's a lot of work. But you know, the reality is if we're going to get into, you know, bigger and bigger properties, that's going to be part of it. And now Jen and I have started a capital company so because, you know, we run our academy and for people who want to learn how to do real estate investing and they want to be coached and have their handheld and have us like look at their deals with them, they would go into the academy, but there's a lot of people that they're just too busy. Like they're C suite or just busy professionals, busy entrepreneurs where they've amassed some capital and they want to invest in real estate, they don't have the time to learn or they don't want to learn that it's usually a time. So our capital company allows people to basically invest with us and we go and invest in other deals. Either they're investing in our deals or we're investing in other deals that we vet that are on the larger side, on the syndication side and we become part of the, part of the gp.

Great. And are these accredited investors or are these private placements or are you doing larger offerings for non accredited as well?

No, so they're, they're generally accredited investors is who we typically interact with. The deal that we did earlier this year was a 506B. So we had both, we had both in there as we proceed forward and probably two thirds of the people were, were accredited. So we didn't have that many non accredited. But I think for what we're looking to do and the types of deals that we want to invest in, they're going to be 506C. So generally speaking, it would be accredited investors. And then those that are not accredited but they do want to invest, we'll probably just connect them with our students so our students can build a relationship with them because most likely they're going to be running their first couple of deals as a 506B until they develop enough of a Rolodex, you know, of accredited investors to do a 560.

Perfect. This is probably the point of the show where I say that we're not giving investment advice and consult your professionals. And actually my last guest, that we should have a disclaimer at the beginning of the show. So maybe we'll do that for the future. But in the interim, Stacy, just, just more for educational and reference for our listeners who might not understand what a 506B or C means. Again, not the legal definition, but just general big picture. What is the difference between the two?

Okay, so when I break it into two categories. So when people are doing real estate and they have to raise capital, they can either do it through a joint venture where everybody's active, or they can do it through a syndication. And a syndication is something where you have the operator, like the main person, and it's usually a team, a couple of people. They're going to be the ones who run the whole deal. Everybody else in the deal is a passive investor that they put their money in and that's all they have to do. And then they get, you know, they get a return over time. So that's, that's the first. That's the foundation within the syndication world. I mean, there's lots of complexities, but let's simplify it too. The two main exemptions that they use in syndication land is a 506B and a 506C. The 506B is also referred to as the friends and family exemption in syndication. So that's one where you don't have to have all accredited investors. You can have up to 35 sophisticated investors, which means they at least need to have enough knowledge to assess the risk of the deal and to make an informed decision. And if they don't, then they need to consult with their CPA or their financial planner or someone else who, who does in order to be allowed to invest in the deal. But with a 506B. One of the limitations is that you can only allow someone in who you have a pre existing relationship with. So that's, that's the 506B before you. Even when you put it under contract, that's the, that's the timeline. You have to know them already before that time. A 506 and oh, and the big thing with that one is you can't advertise, cannot do any advertising when you're doing 506B. But that's the more common one that people start with when they start syndicating because they can go to their friends and family and their network and get started. Because you know, people who are accredited investors are not usually going to right away put their money into a deal with someone who's brand new. But friends and family, that's, you know, that's just how you get started. A506C is a syndication where only accredited investors can invest in that deal. So anybody who's not accredited can't. So it really, so it limits your pool. Which means you need to be doing marketing and connecting with people a lot that are accredited in order to be able to raise the funds for that for the deal. But that particular exemption, 506, you can advertise. So that's the thing. You have to be accredited but you can advertise with the 506B. You have to know them already and you can't advertise. So it's just the normal path like joint venture. That's like that would be the path like when I'm talking to our students, joint venture is what I always suggest for the first handful of deals just so they can learn the business, learn real estate, learn what it is to own and operate rental property. And you know, from there they get credibility and experience and confidence and then they go into a bigger building and then a bigger building. And then at some point the building size and the price, it just, you can't do it through a joint venture anymore because it's, you can't raise enough capital with just a few people. And a joint venture can't. Everybody has to have an active role. So if you start getting more than like five people in a joint venture, you're kind of running the risk of the SEC looking at you and going I think it's a syndication that you're just calling a joint venture to get around things.

But anyway, that's really appreciate the explanation and your accounting chops are coming through so we appreciate. I'd love to get your Thoughts on where to start. And so for many thinking about, is it buying my own home, Is it buying an apartment? There's a lot of first time home buyer programs that are out there. Although, you know, if you listen to say a grant Cardone, he'll tell you, don't buy your own home. That's, that's a horrible investment. You know, rent and go start, start off right away in multifamily. So what do you say? And, and, and we do have, we do get some younger listeners on this show too, some in college now they're looking to make their first investment. So what would you say to that?

Well, for starters, I 100% agree. I did not know that when I was a new, when I was brand new in investing. But the reality is it is a terrible investment because you can't get any cash flow from it. But the thing is, buying a home, buying a personal residence is not an investment that is, that's more of an emotional thing so that you feel like you have security for your family, your children or whatever. But for year we only, the house, this house we own, but I only bought it a year and a half ago and for 2004 was the last time I bought a personal residence. And so I lived there for a few years. So every time, all the time in between where I was actively like investing, anytime I got money, I was not trying to buy a personal residence because it didn't pay me. I would get money and then I would put it into something that could provide cash flow. And then we got to, you know, we just got to a point where it's like, you know what, we don't want to, I don't know, it was more of an emotional thing. We have four kids, they're coming into their teen years, they're between 9 and 12 years old. And we just wanted to have the absolute stability and the control of it. But it was hard because I was like, oh man, we're gonna have to put this big chunk of capital and we're not going to be able to get any cash flow from it. So it was actually hard to do that. But so I don't, I don't recommend when people are getting started unless they have an emotional need to. I don't recommend putting your money into a house that you own. You can. But if you can take that same capital and put it into a duplex or a quad, a fourplex or a small apartment building and start building the equity and allowing cash flow to come in, you'll set yourself up so, well, to be able to buy a personal residence down the road, but also have a bunch of cash flow coming in already. It's like the, the golden, golden goose, the, the egg. Like you just your seed money can actually create more income, offset your expenses and just set you up so much better than a personal resident. So when someone's just getting started, I always say, yeah, go right into multifamily. You don't need to start with single family. Multifamily is, is a great way to go for cash flow. My next question to them is really, where are they comfortable starting? Some people are like, I want to go into apartments, which is five plus units. I want to go into apartments right away. I don't want to bother with the small stuff. And then other people say, well, I mean, let me get a couple of duplexes and like, understand, get the lay of the land. It's usually people like me who are really cautious and analytical will tend to like, let me, let me baby step it. But I don't say that there's one versus the other is right. It's just you start, start where you know you'll take action because no matter what, you'll learn, you'll do it, you'll learn and then you apply your learnings to your next deal, several deals.

So that's great advice. And I was looking at some of your materials and I think you talk about fear. That holds a lot of people back from making their investment. And this is a really common theme. And I think fear and lack of capital, frankly, is what probably keeps a lot of people back. And a big part about what we talk about on the show in my book is finding the right person, partner who has those capital relationships and the value you bring to the table is the opportunity. So I don't know if that resonates with you. I know you talked about fear holding people back. When you talk about that, how do you describe that? And then what would you say for someone to get over the hump?

Well, for starters, I always go back to my beginning days because I, and I will never forget that. I want to make sure I never forget it because it's what most people are facing. When I was new to investing and remember I had been, I got my cpa, I was an expert in my field. And so to not know things is so uncomfortable. And when you're an analytical person on top of it, it's like pure torture to not have all the answers before you act. And I can remember just the very early stages of investing like just even picking up the phone and talking to a realtor. I thought I was going to die of fear. I was nauseous. I thought I was going to throw up any second. All the blood would drain out of my face. I was terrified. I don't know what I was terrified of. It's not like they're going to reach through the phone and stab me. But I was so scared. And every single step I took, I would just have to, like, force myself to do it anyway. And then when you do it, you do it again and you're still uncomfortable, but you're less uncomfortable than last time. And then you do it again and again and again, and you start taking the reps, and then you get confidence because now you know it. You know it like you knew your career, and then you have confidence in that one step and it's time for the next step. Let's say it's time to analyze deals. You're going to feel all nauseous about it because you don't know what you're doing. It feels very uncomfortable. And then you'll do reps and reps and reps and get comfortable with that. And then it's making offers, and you're going to straight up throw up in the trash can when it's time to make your first offer, because that's absolutely terrifying. So the big thing that I, that I talk about with people is, look, you can understand the whole process of real estate investing, but don't get so hung up on the whole process. Like, understand it, but start with one step. You have one step at a time to overcome and master. And if you will, just keep taking that one step, it doesn't have to feel like this big overwhelming thing. And every time you'll be like, okay, that wasn't so bad, or, wow, that realtor was actually really nice. And, oh, wow, this deal. This deal actually makes sense. My, you know, 17th deal. I look at this, these numbers make sense. So if you're willing to just take the one step at a time, you're going to be afraid. You are going to be afraid and do it anyway. And the reason is that you have some. There's some reason you got into real estate investing, right? Nobody gets into doing real estate investing just because it seems like it's fun. It's usually because there's some big goal. I want to provide for my family. I want to bolster up my retirement. I want to create generational wealth. Whatever the reason is, there's some compelling future that you are trying to create. And you really have to embody that when you're new because it's scary to take those steps. But if you remember like that you, you want a different outcome, you want a different future for yourself and your family. So you're going to have to be brave and be afraid and take that step anyway. It's not, you know, no one's going to shoot you or kill you. You know, it's just phone calls. It's just analyzing deals and recognizing it. And just know, every single entrepreneur goes through this. It's a, it's a rite of passage. You have to be afraid and do it anyway. Fear does not go away. It's. I still, I still have fear when we move into the next level or next deals because I'm like, oh, I'm uncomfortable. This is, this is beyond anything I've done before. And now I'm scared. I've been here before. I'm here every single time. I, I move into a new realm and I just, I have to step one step at a time and do it anyway. And then it's behind me. I'm like, oh, that wasn't so hard. Now I have all this knowledge that I can, you know, build upon.

So, Stacy, you definitely could have fooled me that you were used to be shy and getting on the, the phone and here you are doing a podcast. We're live streaming. So obviously the thing is that every time you get outside your comfort zone, the next time it just gets that much easier. And I remember, you know, I've been doing this 25 years, not podcasting. Clearly, we didn't even have podcasts back then. But even starting off in the brokerage business and how nervous I was picking up the phone to that meeting. And I just, I felt like I was an imposter and so green. And look, for those of you listening, maybe some of you are listening right now, thinking that you want to start your podcast and say, you know what? I can never do that. I wouldn't be good at it. Look, the first couple, no, they're not going to be good, right? But we learn by doing. And the more you push yourself outside your comfort zone, I think that every time it gets that much easier. And it is, you know, whether you, you know, you subscribe to The Malcolm Gladwell 10,000 hour rule, you know, certainly that the reps help. So, Stacy, I'd like to talk now a little bit more about your conferences, the idea to bring people together, this investment community. So what was, I mean, you talked a little bit earlier about why you wrote the book and helping other people because you had to figure it out. There wasn't a resource that you felt really gave you the information you needed. So why start this whole multifamily academy? Why do these conferences? I'm sure it's a lot of work. What's the. What's your why? I guess is what I'm asking.

Well, I might. I'm gonna have to answer that by saying something that angers some people, but it's the truth. You know, I went, I got my education through a seminar company, and there's a seminar biz. There's a whole business of running seminars and charging and delivering education. And when I was, when I was new, I went, I went back and ended up training for that same company that I got my training with because I was like, my God, you guys really need to improve your training. This is. It was bad. And what I experienced there, it just, it, it bothered. It bothered me at my soul level. I felt like the leadership in that company that they didn't legitimately care at all about, the student, the human being who was trying to improve their life. It seemed like it was more about, let's make as much money as we can. And just check the box, okay, we sent you to that boot camp, that boot camp. We send you that binder, we give you that video. And the reality is that that, that is not. That is not a helpful situation. It just confuses people and then they do nothing and they spend all this money. So even back then I was like, there has to be a different way. And then, you know, now, fast forward 20 years. Jen and I started this about four years ago, the, the Remote Multifamily Investing Academy. And at the time, one of the things I was seeing out there was most of the commercial education people or companies out there, they always laid out syndication as a. As an answer to the big scary question of how am I going to fund my deals, right? Everybody has that fear unless they have a ton of capital. Everybody's like, well, how am I going to fund my deal? Or after I do my first two deals, how do I scale? I don't have the money. And so it seems like a very easy answer that's just now is, well, you just syndicate. The reality is when someone is just getting started, they're going to do their very first apartment building or their first multifamily. Adding syndication on top of the learning curve of just buying an apartment building and running it makes it almost impossible for them to succeed or actually get started. So because it was a lot of work to start the Academy, I had to be uncomfortable for year, for two years at every single step. But when Jen and I started it, what we said was, you know what, it's time to disrupt the multifamily education industry. It is time. Because the reality is people need to get across the finish line of that first deal. That is the most important thing that can happen for them. Because once they do that, they understand at a cellular level, because they did it, they understand what all the theory is and now how to do it. And it's a system, everything's a system. And then now that they've done it, they're like, okay, then they can replicate it so much easier. And I just, there's so many people that I've met that have, you know, put their 40 or $50,000 out to the, to a company who was going to teach them to syndicate at first and they, they've never ever done a single deal and it's been years. And so when we developed Academy, I'd say our business, our business model probably isn't the most profitable, but that wasn't part of the reason. It was we have to help people close deals. What does that take? It takes a really good education. Cool. I'm gifted in that area. I'm very gifted at teaching in an A to Z fashion. So cool. That will be handled. I recorded videos for everything that was one piece. The second piece is they're going to need to be coached during it. So things are going to come up when they're talking to realtors and the realtor asks them a question that they don't have to answer and then they're terrified and they're just going to stop. So we'd have weekly group coaching calls where everyone can come together. And you know, as a coach, I used to do those calls. Now I have coaches who do it. That investor that's asking that question, whether it's before they're in a deal or when they're in a deal or they're at the closing table and they're asking questions. All of the other people on Zoom that are maybe not as far along as them are learning also, or they might have closed deals, but they never had that situation come up before. That was a really unexpected. I'd always just done one on one trainings up until then. That was a really unexpected, huge benefit. And that's why we used to call it the mastermind, because it really was people would, would learn as much from each other. I Mean me coaching. And they're learning it all so that when they hit that they already know what to do. And then on top of it, we, I brought in there are friends of mine, investor friends of mine that I know are good at teaching because it's, you know, that is you can be good at doing and good at teaching, but not always the same. So I brought in some of my investor friends who I know have been investing for 15 plus years that I know could coach and just brought them in to make sure that we could have every student of ours have the opportunity for one on one coaching. And I feel like it's just what Jen and I created is what we didn't have when we were new and why we lost so much money on so many deals because there was no community. And so it was lonely, there was nobody to ask questions to. I, you know, definitely no one on one coach. And I just felt like, you know what if we can put it together like this and you have so much support, you're so supported and you're so lifted up on top of everyone's super positive, like great job, you made your first offer, like great job, you're first closing. You know, that makes it exciting to share and be a part of something. I don't know. That's why we planned together way we did. But it started with we need to disrupt the multifamily education industry. That's because it's not giving people what they need. And instead of syndication, we, we teach our students. Start with joint venture, start with a small apartment building that you could have two or three people join you and do that deal, learn it, then it's easier to grow.

Yeah, Stacy, I love that answer. Not just because you identified that need, but also the way you wanted to do it. And it was, you know, because you wanted to have that personal connection and not look at it. You know, it's just a P and L and another income stream. And look, I certainly, I don't talk about it much, but I will tell you, writing a book and everything that went into getting that out the door, certainly I was not in that for the money. You do this to be helpful and because you want to put out great content and even coming on the show today and sharing I think is an incredible testament to that. So I think when you do the right thing and again you put out great content, the rest will follow. Right? So it's really wonderful to hear what you and Jen have done. So with that and getting near the end of our time together would Love to talk about what kind of your key traits are for success. And you also coach several successful real estate investors. So maybe we'll start with your students. And out of the students who have risen to the top and have jumped right in, and we can talk about whether or not their investments are actually successful. But let's talk about the students who actually get it. They want it, and they've shown very quick growth. What would you say are the attributes to those people? What separates them? I guess we're talking really mindset.

Is 100% is mindset in addition to mindset. They're coachable. They're coachable. And they continue coming even though they've done a lot of deals. They'll continue coming because they can learn something, something else and something else and keep raising their level. So that, that's one thing I've observed is a huge difference maker. They continue to want to get better even after they've done several deals. And they, it just, it makes them rise very quickly. The other thing that we've seen just within our community, and I wasn't expecting because, you know, we're. We're almost four years in and I didn't exactly know what to expect with this because I'd never done group, like any kind of group thing before, is they give back. They give back within our community. So we have our, you know, everybody, our academy students and our more experienced students. There'll be someone who's new. Our more experienced students will give them advice, help them with contacts, just lift them up, encourage them. Like, hey, I was there too. It was, you know, it was only a year ago, and I felt that exact same way. You can do this. And, and hey, do you want me to get on the phone with you and call a realtor, or hey, you want me to jump on and do the calculator with you? So, like, there's this overriding sense of, you know, the thing is they paid for their education, so it's not like they owe anything to anyone. It's just, I think it's just the type of person that, that is attracted to, to our community. They. They want to learn and grow, but they want to have other people grow too. So instead of it being a competitive thing, which is historically what it usually is, everyone's competing. It's just not in our community. It's all like, collaborative and everybody wants everyone to win. And that's just, it's a huge difference. And that's why we hold the quarterly events, our wow. Con events, and up until recently, Those were just for the students. They're just for the students of the academy. So they could get together once a quarter in person. And they just, they're structured, we have content, we do a lot of tons of mindset stuff, but we really facilitate a lot of networking. And the connections, the deep connections that end up getting made there, they become lifelong friendships. So many business partnerships come out of it, joint ventures, because they had a chance to really connect. But we always do activities like we'll do a photo scavenger hunt or escape rooms, or we'll do different things that put people in a situation where you kind of see the real deal. When things aren't going easy, how do they respond and react so they have an opportunity to get to know each other at a deeper level and they just connect and everybody ends up moving up as a result. So the first time we did that, we were going to do it twice a year. And it was such an incredible experience that our students are like, is there any way you could do it like once a quarter? So we're like, okay, well. And so we started doing it and it's been, it's been the most amazing thing ever. And so this our last, our last event, we had five people that were invitation only come in that weren't in the academy to try to test that model. And it was great. So our next one, and then going forward, we've opened it up to the public. So it'll be a combination of our, our students, the public and yeah, it's just there. It's incredible. And you get to meet amazing people. You're there, you're there, you're gonna learn, you're gonna learn some stuff. But that's not the main objective. I always do some kind of advanced real estate topics there, but that's not the main thing. It's. It's about mindset, getting recharged, connecting with people who are on the same path as you. And yeah, it's just those events are incredible to be a part of.

That's wonderful to hear. And it made me think of two things. One is what you're really describing is an abundance mentality where. And you talk about, typically in business, when people are thinking about being in competition and trying to keep things for themselves as opposed to being open to collaboration and partnership. And so, you know, sometimes there's that fear, especially if you have that great investment opportunity. Well, I'm going to just keep this to myself. Right. But if you actually go out there and you talk to people about it, you'll be surprised that how much. First of all, there's plenty out there for everybody, right? And you'll also, I think, just get there so much faster and have fun while you're doing it. So, so the, and then the, the other thing, and this has really been throughout our show, is this is a business about the people, right? This is an in person business and it's those relationships and those connections. And this isn't just, you know, going to a room and collecting business cards. It's really making incredible relationships and understanding, especially when you put together a deal team, whether it's your attorney, whether it's your property manager, your broker, you know, having those relationships. So when you see an opportunity, you all can move on it quickly. So, Stacey, the name of the show is the Insider's Edge to Real Estate Investing. What does the insider's edge mean to you? And if you had to guess or say, what would be your insider's edge?

100% it is. If you want to get started in multifamily, start with smaller apartment buildings that you could do as joint ventures. You don't need to go big right away. I think people overestimate what they. Well, Tony Robbins said this, right. They overestimate what they could do in a year, but massively underestimate what they could do in five or 10 years. So be willing to go on the journey. It's not get rich quick if you can accept start small. You're going to learn more than you can fathom on that first deal and then you're going to go to the next level and then the next. So if you will stair step it, do a few joint ventures, then move into syndication, that is absolutely the insider's edge to success. It's the model that we've used. It's a model that we teach and we have so much success in our academy because that was the whole purpose of creating it was that people could close on deals. Not so we could educate people and check a box. Okay, we educated them. That's a complete failure in my mind.

Great.

Should be closing on deals if there's, if they're having success in your program anyway. That's, that's my take.

Well, Stacy, this has been awesome. Really appreciate your taking the time, sharing your story, all you're doing for your, you know, for the community and putting out all this great content. So the, the last thing I would ask is where can people find out about you and your program and connect with you?

Probably the best, the best place where we're the most Visible is we on Facebook. Jen and I have a Facebook group that's called Apartment Investing with Jen and Stacy. Pretty, pretty simple. So if you go there and search that, we have 27,000 people in our group, and we just. We do a lot of, like, free trainings and free resources, and we do a lot of nurturing of people there, you know, and some people will come there, and they're just there to get whatever's free. And that's cool. Like, I'm happy to help you with your journey. And some people are like, let me get to know you a little bit, because I do want to be trained, and I want to trust the person that's going to train me first. So we. We just serve our community a lot. And then out of that, there's some people that say, yeah, actually, I do want coaching. And they'll. They'll end up coming with us just because they've had a chance to get to know, like, and trust us. But we do all those. Those free things for our entire community, and we just want people to. To keep moving forward with their dream and not give up. So we give them a lot of resources so that they can. They can do that.

Wonderful. And, Stacey, one last question, because again, now that we're. We're streaming this and we're on video, I know I'm going to get asked the question, what is the deal with the records behind you? You've got a go. Is that a. A gold record? A plat. Are. Are you a singer, a songwriter as well, or do we.

Oh, my gosh. That be so scary. No, actually, when we started. When we started the coaching program, like, I know real estate really well, and I'm really good at teaching. I'm really good at coaching, but what I did not have any idea how to do was start a coaching business, and definitely not one online. I didn't even know what Zoom was when we started all of this. It was. Oh, my God, it was painful the last. The first two years. And so when I was getting started, I joined a mentorship. I paid $30,000 two years in a row, and I basically learned how to build a Facebook group to basically to let people get to know us and what we have to offer, and that's what allowed us to build our business. So those are just. Those are awards from. From that organization, and we. We keep them and we'll probably put something up eventually, something else. But it reminds me of the very beginning when it was so hard, but I'm so mission focused that even though I didn't understand zoom and I couldn't figure out where to click. And it was so frustrating. I was just like, oh, keep going. People need you. People need you to figure it out. Stop being a baby. Get out there and do it. Those are the reminders of the first two years where we just, it was such a struggle, but we did it. Now we have, you know, a much broader reach. We can help so many more people and have a bigger impact. So that's what, that's what it is.

Wonderful. Again, Stacy, this has been really incredible. Really appreciate your taking the time. And for all of you who are joining us today in our maiden voyage, again here, looking to stream as well. Hopefully this worked out well and it was of great value to you. And as always, we're here to help you gain the insider's edge to real estate advice investing so you can gain the advantage and outperform the market. And we so appreciate your spreading the word on this show and introducing others so they too can achieve success. So wishing you all the best. Until next week, thank you again for joining.

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