Catherine Bell - Renting Dirt

Okay.

So, ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank you for joining us and taking a little bit of time out of your day to join me with this most amazing lady. She is absolutely phenomenal. She has got the. Her, her excitement, her verve, her joy to verve is just amazing. She's been. She has an amazing story to tell. From absolutely nothing to an amazingly successful entrepreneur, primarily in the real estate space, but in other areas too. And I can probably say amazing too many times, but anyway, ladies and gentlemen, I present Catherine Bell of Titan Impact Group. Katherine, thank you so much for taking some time out of your, your busy day to talk to us and thank you. Tell us a little bit about what you're doing, how you're doing it and what's important to you.

I love it. So first of all, I'm super happy to be here. You're one of my favorite people. So this is exciting. And we have a slide deck. So can you let me share and then we'll jump in with all the fun things. I will let show people all the fun things.

Let's see this. What I want to do, I want to come on machine.

Pull.

Cooperate.

Oh, you did it.

There you go.

There we go. So, yes, super happy to be here. I remember the first time you and I met and it was out. It was actually here in Scottsdale and I don't know, we had so many amazing conversations. Yep.

It was there in Scottsdale, but at.

Night we had an amazing conversation on that island in the middle of that resort.

That's correct. That's the one.

I'm like, what was the name of it? I can't even remember the name of it. Doesn't matter. The amazing thing was our connections. You know, it's the whole like Phoenix.

Or something like that.

Something like that.

Yeah.

And it goes back to literally we were just talking about before, like jumping on here is masterminds and who we choose to spend our time with. Right. And it's that whole like you are the, the five people you spend the most time with, like mentally, emotionally, physically, financially, spiritually, like all the things. Right. And whenever we're around amazing like minded people and how we get to level up and go to the next level. That's why I love this conversation. That's why I love all the conversations I get to have with you is because I feel like you're just. For me, you're a huge encouragement to keep going for all the things that I do because it gets exhausting and sometimes it feels very lonely. So I just have to say that before we start anything now, why did you and I connect? So I've been an investor for over 30 years and I like to be the bank. And rent dirt, those are my things. And so I'm a five time international best selling author. And I talk about this and I talk about all the journey that I went on, James. You know, my journey of literally, you know, born to a teenage mother in northern Canada, in and out of more homes than you can count, went to 13 different schools and didn't learn to read until I was in the eighth grade. And I still struggle today to read. So. So I use lots of audio tools and stuff to help me through all that. But I got straight A's because I learned very quickly they didn't want you to think, they just wanted you to get the right answer. And so a huge part of what I love about investing is that we get to think and we get to structure deals in ways that may not have been done before. And like, that's the piece that I love. There's no cookie cutter way. It's like there's all these creative ways that we can make it happen. And so through my investment journey, or through my journey, why this is so important to me is that came to this country when I was 26 and married my late husband and came here with nothing. And he had a dream. That's all he had. So we took his dream, we turned into a multimillion dollar company. So I was a millionaire by the time I was 30. And then during that time, we adopted our twins because we discovered we couldn't have kids. And we adopted them out of the foster care system. And there were babies. Now they're 20 years old. My son's a US Marine, and my daughter's floating around being, you know, typical 20 year old. And we ended up selling our company in 2008, 2009, we had all our assets. And here's the thing I want everybody to understand. This is where, James, you and I see eye to eye. All of my investments were in a single asset class. It was multiple assets, but it was single asset class and it was single family homes. When the economy tanked in 2009, we lost everything. That whole class was literally was obliterated. And then my husband got super sick. And so that forced me to go back to work to provide for our family. So I was working 80 hours a week, burning the candle at both ends, taking care of my sick husband, taking care of my twins. I mean, it was insane. And I knew there's just no Humanly way possible I could keep going. So I knew the average millionaire had seven streams of passive income. Seven. And that those passive streams of income were the key to being able to deal with what I call the five Ds. Death, divorce, diagnosis, downsized and being dumped. And so I was on a mission to absolutely go and create these streams of income because I had just literally the whole been downsized diagnosis with my husband. Like I was dealing with multiple the five Ds. So I was like, okay, we gotta figure this out. So that's when I started doing buy and hold and discovered I didn't like tenants and toilets. And why share? This is because I want people to understand when you give yourself permission to go through each cycle and try all the different things, all of a sudden you're gonna really latch onto and understand what matters to you most and what asset class matters. Which is why we're coming to what we're talking about, which is renting dirt. So started out doing buy and hold, discovered I didn't like tenants and toilets, did some wholesaling. I ran a program called the Flipping Females and we partnered with women teaching them how to fix and flip. We flipped about 500 properties here in the Phoenix Valley. Then we did, I started my own hedge fund. We did vacation rentals. Turns out I don't like guests and toilets either. Then we did, I did some residential ground up developments, commercial ground up developments. And then in 2018, my husband died very tragically, leaving me a widow and a single mom. And that was the darkest time of my life. And what I had done at that point is I created 13 streams of passive income for my family. So it allowed me to take a year off and grieve and figure out what I was going to do next. And so that's where my company came from and my philosophy. So a couple of things is I realized that chasing money wasn't the answer. That every project that I went into from this point forward must leave every person, property and community better than we found them. That was really important to me. And also as a mom and a widow, I needed my, my investments to be so incredibly predictable and secure, right? So that, I mean, my kids were at stake, my home, everything was at stake. So what I learned was renting dirt and being the bank were two of the most secure positions to hold. So I was like, okay, let's figure this out. So that's where we are today. So with that we're going to dig into the whole renting the dirt thing. So a huge part of my journey came from having a mind shift, right? And understanding that. Again, James, like you and I meeting you being at the mastermind last week, all the masterminds you're a part of. It all has everything to do with here, right? Like, doesn't matter what goes on out here. This what goes on in between your ears will make you or break you. And so that's where you and I connect, doing all that personal development work and so continuing to do that personal development work. Because let's face it, nobody popped into this world, you know, knowing all this stuff. We had to learn it, we had to figure it out. And I don't know about you, James, but the people in my family don't exactly have healthy mindsets, right? So I had to go out and find other people who had healthier mindsets that were growing things and doing things and, you know, the way that I wanted to. And then the next is wealth strategy. This is really important in understanding that the again, financial literacy, where do we get it? It's not taught in schools. A lot of families don't talk about money, politics or religion. Are you kidding me? If we don't talk about it, how are we going to learn about it? Right? So again, being a part of masterminds and other groups and lots and lots, lots of, lots of books, my books talk about it too. Creating that wealth strategy is really important. And then building legacy. So it's not only making the money, but it's being able to keep it and then have it work harder for you than you worked for it, which is really important. So James, you and I get to be here and we get to be the guy for all of this. So how does this all come to be? You have a fascinating story inside of your family journey and all the things, how you were raised, you were raised on the opposite side of the spectrum in oil and gas and all the things and still having to learn all of this and figure all this out, right? Then there's me on the other side of the spectrum. I had to learn it out of necessity, you know, survival, all of that, and figure all the things out. But here we are together, you know, coming together to meet all the things and make it work and more importantly, to make it work for your investors, which I'm really excited about. So again, that's funny. It's not. Apparently that's what AI thinks I look like. So yeah, I talked about the different investments creating the 13 income streams. I am a five time international bestselling author and my company is Titan empower groups so titan is being the sentinels of the American dream. Again, whatever that looks like for people, protecting that impact is that we leave every person, property and community, by the way, found them. Then group allows for people to plug into the investments and create those passive streams of income, which is, you know what you're exactly what you're doing, James, which I love. And giving people, educating people on these opportunities and giving them the opportunity to literally create those revenue streams so that they're taken care of should any. When, when any of the 5Ds hit. Most families have 2 to 3 of the 5Ds hit in their lifetime. So we want to make sure that you have those, those multiple streams of passive income. So I shared my journey about, you know, the, the hustle phase, the realization and the transformation. And again, here's the thing why I really want everybody to understand. It's like by giving myself perm through all those different cycles of those different investments, I discovered the pieces I liked and didn't like, and then took those lessons and moved into the next investment, next and next and next, until I came up with my investment philosophy. So this isn't everybody's investment philosophy, just happens to be mine because of my journey. And in my book Complete Wealth, I actually take you through that journey so you can figure that out and figure out what your investment philosophy is. I call it conditions of satisfaction. So renting dirt. Why do I love to rent dirt? Oh, my goodness, this is the greatest thing. Okay, so I love real estate. I love real estate so much. I love figuring out, like, all the different amazing things that you can do with it, how you can structure it. There's so many different ways. And when I learned about mobile home parks, oh my goodness, that was amazing because I am responsible for everything below the dirt, so meaning the electricity, the water, the sewer, that's what I'm responsible for. The actual structure itself, I'm not responsible for that. They are responsible for that. And I like that because a couple of things it does is that it gives them home ownership, right and pride of ownership so that they have to take care of it. And if they choose not to, that's on them. That's not on me. But for the most part, in all of our parks, it really is pride of ownership. And at an affordable housing price, that works, because we all know affordable housing right now is a really big issue. So this really fills a beautiful gap between people not wanting to live in apartments, not quite having enough to have to own a home, but they can Own this as the stepping stone to be able to get there. It's a really beautiful thing. The other thing is that renting dirt is we do commercial triple net lease, medical office space. And so people are like, what's that? So what that means is rather than having the doctors be distracted and focused on real estate and building their portfolio, we take that on and do that for them. So we work with them and we go up and we. We find the building, we buy the building, we pay for all the tenant improvements, we manage the whole thing, we pay for the medical equipment, and then once it's done, we wrap the whole thing. A triple net lease. So what that means is, is that the responsible party is now the doctor is responsible for everything from the dirt up. Basically, we are no longer responsible for the building, equipment, anything like that. So it's just another way of renting dirt. But those are like 15 to 20 year. And what I love about that is now the medical practice, the revenue from that is actually paying for that lease, which is a really big deal. So again, a very. Another very cool way to be able to rent dirt. And of course, self storage is another one, RV parks as well. So there's lots of ways that we can creatively rent dirt. So let's just talk about mobile home parks for a sec. So we only own the land. We don't own any of the buildings themselves. It's a very low turnover rate. One of our parks has been at 100% occupant. 100? Yeah, 100% occupancy for over 10 years. Like, if anybody moves out within 24 hours, we have somebody else moving in. There's a standing waiting list because it's affordable housing, which is really important. The cash flow on it. These are cash machines. Oh my gosh, they're so awesome. So it's one of my favorite reasons for this, because let's face it, money is like oxygen. The more you have, the easier it is to breathe. And the more you have the easy can breathe, the bigger the difference in the world you can make. And I truly believe that if you can make the difference, you must, which is really amazing. So James has been a part of making a difference in one of my nonprofits in helping get the 120,000 adoptable children in the US foster care system adopted. Because if they're not adopted by their 18th birthday, they experience black trash bag day. So just know that for any of you who are investing with James, you by extension are a part of helping these children actually find homes before their 18th birthday, which is really big deal because if they experience black trash bag day, 70%. So it's homeless, drugs, prostitution, being trafficked. The statistics are that 70% of the homeless population came out of foster care. 60% of the people that are being trafficked came out of foster care. 87% of the people who are incarcerated have no fathers. So it comes down to having an actual family. So just know that everything like you're part of with James James is again through extension, helping find families for all these kids. So I just had to say that, James, because I love that about you, and jump back to this recession resistant. So again, like I explained, there's the, the apartments and then there's houses. But what do you do for the thing in between? Well, the mobile home parks is a really beautiful solution to be able to give them private ownership and have them have something that they're, you know, obviously stepping stone, working towards. And then of course I talked about the triple net lease, commercial medical office space and how that whole thing works. And here's what I love about this to understand as a business model is that most of the time for medical practitioners, if they're going to do this on their own, they have to come up with the capital, they have to find the building, buy it, all that, all the headache from that, and now they're distracted from actually running their medical practice, which isn't good for us. So we want them to stay focused. Because of the system that we have set up with this, we are able now to help them open up six to 10 locations a year rather than one every three to five years, because each one of those locations is being paid for from the revenue from that practice. So it's very good for the communities, it's good for the doctor, like it's good for everybody. So again, another very cool way to be a part of renting dirt and being the bank literally at the same time. Why do we love this? This is for really busy people. So we know that a lot of people, James, that you work with, they're really super busy. I mean, everybody's super busy. And when we understand, like here's the beautiful thing about all the people that you work with is that they know that your earned income is meant to buy assets that provide passive income. And your passive income pays for your lifestyle. So James, what you give people the opportunity to do by partnering with you to invest in parks or the medical offices or whatever, you're literally giving them that opportunity to have those multiple streams of income and have their Money work harder for them than they work for it. So that's the beautiful piece. And again, I talk about who, not how. It's one of my favorite books, right? And it's the, you know, rather than figuring out how do I invest, how do I figure this out, how do I. They get to come to you because you're the who that knows how to find the operators to be able to invest. It's beautiful. It's like the most beautiful system. I love it. So again, that, that's all about the, you know, again creating that generational wealth, creating the multiple streams of passive income so that it continues to grow and continues to make the, the difference that we're all here to make, right? And then it becomes probable, predictable and repeatable. We love that because we don't want to have to like, it's like this whole set it and forget it. So who's perfect for this? Again, these are all people who are like super, super busy. A lot of people in network marketing, again, they're really, really busy building their teams and their companies. Business owners, professionals, legacy builders, anybody that's truly looking to bring sales stability to their portfolio. And here's what I love about this is I want everybody to understand from my story that it's so imperative that you diversify into different asset classes. By doing that, you're bringing that beautiful stability to your portfolio when any of the 5Ds hit. This is a really, really important thing. So I want people to give themselves permission to make sure you diversify into different asset classes, not just same dang asset, because don't be dumb like me and lose it all. So the common concerns is, is this really passive? Yes, absolutely it is. Again, we found who knows how to run the parks or how to run the medical offices. You get to plug in and you get the benefit of that. I mean, how amazing is that? You know, it's again, just like anything else that we do. We go out there in the world that we pay for whatever these services are. We found who knows how we plug into it, we get the benefit. Investing is the exact same. Is this safe? Here's the thing I love about this is that again, it's recession resistant. Given our current economic climate, we are very. We need more affordable housing more than ever. So these mobile home parks are, they're paramount to our society in helping a segment of our population be able to get to the next step. And then who can you trust? Well, Iron Mountain, like here's the thing about James, right? I'm just Going to do a plug for you, James. And people may not know this. Is that the intense amount of research that you've done, the relationships that you've built, the due diligence you've done, you have had the time and the ability to go out there and find the operators and sorry, like me and like others that already know how to do this, you've done the due diligence on the team, on the deals, all the things that again, it's hundreds and hundreds of hours that you spent doing this that now somebody can come to you and say, James, what research have you done? Who you know, who we need to invest in? Of course they invest with you and then into the. Whatever the deal is. So that's. You're a who that knows how to go find the deals and the operators, which is really freaking cool. So, okay. Vision. Of course we love investing in real estate. The tax benefits are amazing.

Hello.

We don't need to pay the government more than what's necessary. So make sure that you're talking to your CPA about whatever investments that you're in and making sure that again, you have a tax planner, not just a tax preparer. They're two very different skill sets. Tax preparer is somebody, they're like history based, it's done. Tax planner is like almost like into future fortune telling. Like, here is the thing you need to focus on so that if your plan is this, this and this, here's how you can structure it this way so you can legally pay the least amount of tax as possible. It's how their whole government is set up, by the way, if people didn't know that. And then of course, freedom. Right, because again, it's that whole. When I created 13 streams of passive income for my family, it was for freedom. I didn't consider it was going to be because my husband died, but life happens. Or, you know, in this case, death. But it did give me the freedom to be able to grieve and all of that. And so for all of you having that freedom and then that your, your money is working harder for you than you're working for it. Right. Which allows you to go take those vacations. James, how many dang cruises have you been on?

I think somewhere over two dozen.

Right?

And I'm going on two more this year.

Of course you are. So that's all that. So you have the freedom to disconnect all over the world thanks to these cruise ships. Like you're living the dream. You're it. You're the guy you Know, so people should be listening to you and paying attention and then plugging in with you, which I love, because you have such a big heart to be that contribution. You are that for your investors and everybody else. So our philosophy is that it's. The principle is protected, the operators have been verified. James, you do all that. And then of course, the operators, a huge part of it is that emotional intelligence in how they're actually running the, the properties. And then of course, financial intelligence. Like everything, everything, everything is done, repeatable again and again and again. And it just works, right? And so because you've done all the due diligence, you know, obviously your investors can be able to see all that, which is pretty awesome. So the next steps, I would say would be for them to have a call with you, right? Set up a call, and then you can start educating them on what it is to invest in, to rent dirt, right? Be it through mobile home parks, medical office space, storage, whatever it is. You've done all the research and now people can get that information from you, which I really love. So what I love, again, going back to the mobile home parks is that, and even the medical office space is that there's zero tenant hassles. I mean, you know, there's some like, basic things that come up, but the things are going to be around sewer, water or electricity. Like, it really is so minimal. It's pretty awesome. And then of course, it's 100% ownership. But the most important thing is that your capital is working for you 24 7, which is really awesome. Again, working harder for you than you worked for it. So I just want to say thank you. I pretty much did all the talking.

Wind her up and turn her loose and she'll go, goes, she goes and goes and goes.

Right. So. So yeah, I don't know if you want to add anything to this. You know, you and I talked for like you and I have talked forever, which I love our conversations. So. And you and I have the same passion about renting dirt.

I think that Katherine, you've done an extraordinary job. The, the one thing you might want to, or my, my investors might want to know is that I have niched and niched down into the mobile home park space, which is one of the reasons you and I are together is because you, you are in that business and you are one of the, the top operators in that asset class. And you and about three or four others that I have identified are the best of the best. And I, I'm comfortable putting my money with you and Them and you have again and again. And that's, and that is why I'm not worried about asking investors to do the same thing. Yeah, And I've done a, you know, as you and I know, we've put together a very rigorous selection evaluation process for operators. They have to meet some very, very stringent requirements about, you know, the, the business that they run, how long they've been, they've been in business. You know, the, the, the things that they have, they have faced and overcome the problems they have faced and overcome. All of that is part of the selection process. And so other than that, the, you know, the, the mobile home, you know, other than just saying this, niching down and specializing right now in the mobile home space is where Iron Mountain Capital Group is. Not saying that we don't have the opportunity to go into the medical office building, self storage, that sort of thing. But my philosophy is become expert in one thing and get very, very good at it before you try to get too, too diversified.

Well, and what I love about that is you have already found the best of the best who are already specialized in it and very, very good at it. Right. And because you've done that now very quickly, your learning curve, like, rather than a slow, painful learning curve, you're like here because you found the best of the best and that's like, that's working smarter, not harder. And quite frankly, you know, that's what all of us need to learn from you. So thank you very much.

I appreciate that. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your time. Catherine, thank you for your time. Remind everybody that same time slot on Thursday. Oh, yeah, we'll be back with Catherine to answer your questions. So please email questions, post us, post our your questions either in the chat, email them to me. Chat, text them to me. We will be collecting the questions and answering those questions. Katherine will be answering those questions from her perspective, from her experience. And we look forward to answering all your questions. Thank you, Katherine.

And I just want to say, because they're going to see this on a recording and that maybe at a later date is that they can still reach out to you and get those questions answered at any time. Right. Like that's the other piece is like, I'm clear, people are going to see this for months and years down the road. It's all going to still be relevant.

Yeah.

So, yeah.

So the, the website is ironmountaincapitalgroup.com and my email address is james@jamesblakemore.com so reach out to me. Look forward to talking to each and every one of you. And I hope everybody has an amazing day. Goodbye for now.