Covering the Bigger Pockets Conference

Hello, hello, hello. Welcome back to the podcast, the New and Experienced Investor Podcast. I'm one of your hosts, Alex Barnett. I'm the new guy.

And I'm Joe Holmes. I guess that makes me the old guy or the experienced guy. That's right.

That's right.

Yes.

We're going to find out just how much experience you had because you had an experience over this last weekend, this last week that we're going to talk All about.

So yes, I did.

I can't wait to hear about it.

I'm ready.

And I saw my whole feed was everybody that was there in my Instagram feed.

Was it? Yeah. Yeah.

It was a happening thing.

So yeah, I was at BPCon 2023 in Florida, in Orlando.

Well, what about the people that don't know what that means? Pick a pocket conference.

Conference, BPCon, BiggerPockets Conference 2023. It was in San Diego last year and in Orlando this year. And not to spoil it for you, but it'll be in Cancun next year.

And apparently you had a good time.

I had a good time. I want to dedicate this episode to Gideon, who is the founder of Pelago.

Oh, okay.

Brokerage that I work with, and, uh, Violet, who is the broker in, uh, Florida.

Excellent.

We hung out a lot.

Cool.

Had a great time, met a lot of people, did a lot of different things.

Yeah.

A lot of things out of my norm. A lot of things out of my norm.

And that's cool because you guys mostly are meeting on Zoom. It's sort of a, you know, A virtual brokerage.

Yeah.

So getting together in person, it brings a whole new layer to the relationship, I assume.

Absolutely.

Yeah. That's great.

You get to know people a lot better in person.

Yeah. That makes sense. Before we dive into that, I want to jump quickly to an event that we have coming up on October 30th. If you guys are here in Southern California, Orange County specifically. We, uh, Joe has a meetup that he's had for a while and we're taking it to a new location. We're gonna see what it feels like. Hangar 24. We have, um, a really cool, uh, speaker, uh, Sam. And, uh, he is an aerospace engineer turned real estate investor and he's doing something really cool where if you don't have the, you know, all the money to flip or get into properties. He's doing sort of like a fractional share, you know, thing where he's crowdfunding and then you get a piece of the profits. So that'll be, that'll be, uh, cool to hear about. So if you guys are in the area, it's a really good networking event, just like BiggerPockets. It's a mini BiggerPockets, I would say. And, um, come, come and join us. So you can either scan that QR code on there, or you can go to ocinvestormeetup.com, and that's going to take you to the meetup page. Then you can RSVP, and we'll see you there.

And it is outdoors.

Yep.

I normally have it indoors.

Yep.

But you convinced me outdoors.

It's a major concern.

And you said it was going to be really warm.

Yep.

Wasn't going to be cold.

Nope, not at all.

Okay.

It's going to be hot. We're going to be sweating.

So If it's not, you know who to blame.

Bring a jacket just in case, but you're not going to need it. You know, it's one of those things.

You're going to need it.

So, so yeah, it goes from 6 to 9. It'll be 9, but you know, I'm not going to bring a jacket just out of spite.

So the weather in Florida was absolutely gorgeous. I, I honestly, I felt like I was back at home.

Yeah.

It was that nice.

Where's home?

Here, California.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

I thought you were gonna— okay.

Here. Where else is home?

I was gonna be like Puerto Rico.

No. Okay.

No, home here. Dad's home.

Here.

Gotcha. Okay. Well, but with a little more humidity in the air or was it— it wasn't too bad?

No. Violet said that the northern part of Florida, there's less humidity than where she's at.

Gotcha.

And especially during the summer, she said she usually goes away to Europe.

Oh.

To avoid the humidity.

Fancy.

Yeah, I hope I'm not— it's okay for me to tell all the secrets that I learned.

Yeah, it's gonna be the Dish episode.

Yeah.

Loose lips, you know?

But yeah, walk us through it. No, it was perfect. It was, honestly, it was great. The plane ride was terrible. Left here, Orange County, at 8 in the morning, got delayed in Houston for another 4 hours.

Wow.

Because the pilot apparently had an injury on his leg.

Come on.

Had some stitches and the stitches started to come apart. So they had to get a new pilot. We were on the plane for, I'm gonna say half hour, and then they took us off the plane. And then 4 hours later, we get a new plane.

Oh my gosh.

And a new crew. Didn't get there, you know, 'cause of the time difference, they're 3 hours ahead. So didn't get there till midnight.

Dear God.

And, um, I don't normally take Ubers, but I decided to take an Uber. I didn't want to rent a car. We were going to a resort. It's like, what do I need a car for? So I didn't rent. So I took an Uber. I'm starving at 12 o'clock at night. And I asked the Uber guy, I go, hey, is it protocol if I— can I ask you if you can stop someplace? So I can get some food before we get there. And he said, boop, he stopped it. He says, where do you want to go? And I go, I don't know. This is, this is your country, not mine. So he took me to a place called Wawa.

Yeah.

And you actually know about Wawa?

Oh yeah.

I never heard about Wawa, but took me to Wawa, had some literally fast food, got back in the car and he took me to the hotel that I was staying at, that everybody was staying at the resort. Um, and then had a great time, gave him a really good tip.

There we go.

5-star rating.

He knew it.

You know, he knew I had to take care of him.

Yeah, you had to.

I had to take care of him.

Yeah. And if people don't know, really quick, Wawa is, uh, it's basically a convenience store. Yeah, but they're open late and you can get a hot meal. They have like a little digital, like, iPad. You can order like, you know, bagels and sandwiches. What'd you get? Like Burger, ketchup, that's it.

That's it. I'm easy. Burger, ketchup, and I actually had a vanilla shake.

Oh yeah, this is where the wild side of Joe starts coming out.

Yeah, don't go there.

He's like, he's like, I'm gonna have a vanilla shake at midnight. Yeah, just for the heck of it.

So get there, we were at the Marriott. Right next door, which is the Ritz-Carlton. So, you know, we were at a really nice place.

Yeah.

Everything's on your phone. I mean, the key was on the phone. I never checked into the front desk.

Whoa.

Either coming or going. Everything was— I mean, the key was on my phone. I just push a button and it opened the door.

Oh, that's cool.

It was. It was really cool. So I, you know, not that I didn't want to talk to anybody, but that was really convenient.

Yeah. Especially when you've been on the road for that long, you just want to get in there, shower, go to bed, boom.

Yeah. Good. Yeah.

And then the next day, is the conference starting or?

Next day, um, no, I always kind of go a day early because of things like this that can happen. The next day the conference starts, but it doesn't start till the evening.

Okay.

Um, but I get up in the morning, um, and I'm literally walking out of the elevator and, uh, Gideon, my boss, is there.

Oh, perfect.

And he goes, what are you doing here? Because I never told him that I was going.

Oh.

Yeah, so it was a big surprise. And what are you doing here? And I go, surprise, I came. So that, that was pretty cool. Yeah.

Did he invite you, or he said— I mean, everyone just knew it was happening, or— Yeah, no, uh, he was just like— did he tell you he was going?

Yeah, he told me he was going. He told me him and Violet were going because I went to San Diego last year. So He says, well, I'm just gonna go. And they had a table set up there.

Oh, cool.

For the exhibitors and stuff. And so, yeah, it actually worked out really good, you know, because they were at the table working and I was out, you know, just mingling and going to the classes and stuff.

Okay.

Yeah.

So they were working and you were going to the classes?

Yeah.

So that was okay.

Yeah.

Nice. Okay, so you get, you get there, you register, and they give you the, the breakdown of all the, the courses and classes?

Correct.

Which ones jumped out to you right off the bat as like, I need to go here?

I had signed up for the ones that I wanted.

Okay.

Before I got there.

Oh, nice.

Okay. So that, that was already done. And, and I'm sure they do that because they need to find out how many people are actually going to whichever session there is.

Okay.

Decide whether to have it in a smaller room, bigger room, or the Big room. The big boys' room.

Who's in the big boys' room? That's like the headliner.

The headliners. And, uh, actually Pace was in the big room.

And did he fill it up?

He filled it up.

Wow.

Yeah, he filled it up.

Okay.

He, he, he's, he's kind of like you.

He loves to talk. What?

Yeah, just, I mean, constantly just like blah blah blah blah blah. Loves the sound of his own voice? What about this? What about that? No, it's not that. It's he loves, uh, you know, Sub 2 and doing what he's doing and He likes money. He's got a lot of great information. He really does.

Yeah, yeah.

And, um, he, you know, he's willing to, to tell people about it and how to do it and stuff. And it was very interesting, super interesting.

How did he have a long line to get a picture with him?

Um, he, you know, he did 3 different venues, 3 different events, different times. He was gracious enough to wait around and take pictures with people. And, uh, I did it the basically the, the last time, the third time, and there was a line, you know. I had to wait probably a good 10 to 15 minutes to get a picture with him.

Nice.

Uh, he had a book signing as well. So yeah, it was good.

Very cool. What was his topic? Just general creative finance?

Sub 2. Sub 2.

Okay.

Yeah, just totally sub 2.

All right. Well, now the secret's out. So thanks a lot, Pace.

Yeah, got to. So too. Let's see, Monday, the first thing I went to was a breakout panel, How to Get Started in Commercial Investing.

Ooh.

And there was about 4 panelists there, and I won't necessarily bore you with the names, but I don't know that the title really fits what they were talking about. It's more, it's more like how to get started in commercial investing. It was more of This is what I've been doing.

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

It's like a case study thing.

You, and then you say, well, this is what I'm doing thing. It's, it's not, it's not like instructional.

Right.

It's, it's more of, uh, you know, hey, this is what I do and how I do it. Not how I do it, but this is what I do. Um, so I buy— you can do it too.

I buy office buildings.

Yeah.

I buy like whatever.

Yeah.

Apartment complexes.

Yeah.

So if you guys need help, let me know.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Um, then at 12 we broke for lunch and—

What was on the menu?

Complimentary lunch. Let me tell you, it was great food.

Ooh.

It was freshly— I could tell it was freshly prepared.

Okay.

Salad, sandwiches.

Nice.

Um, some drinks and stuff. Iced tea.

Oh.

Don't look at me like Loads of iced tea. Iced tea.

Gotcha. The Long Island iced teas?

No, just regular iced tea.

Okay.

Yeah. Then after that, well, actually, all 3 of us, Violet and Gideon and I, sat down for lunch. And then they're pretty big tables, so there's about 8, 9 people. And like normal, when you go to a conference like that, everybody introduces themselves. What do you do? How do you do it? And stuff like that. I'm very quiet, so I don't like to say anything.

Yeah, right. Joe got up on the table and was like, I'm doing a mini meetup right now.

Yeah. So I met some really interesting young people. And I would say young because I think the average age of a BP attendee, I wanna say is around 35.

Yeah.

Around there.

Makes sense.

You know, my— I'm going on a cruise Saturday.

Yep.

And I'm going on Princess. Not that you need to know that, but the reason I'm telling you this is the average age on a Princess ship is 70.

Ooh.

Yeah, so that's what I like.

Okay.

70, relaxing.

Yep.

No kids running around.

Everyone's cool.

Things like that.

No drama.

No drama. No drama. There, there was drama, but we will pass over the drama. The next thing is Personalizing Your Portfolio.

Oh, what does that mean?

Gosh, what is this? There's infinite ways to profit from real estate investing. And this was by Dave Meyer. And I've— he's pretty big in BiggerPockets. And I've heard him speak before, But he did such a fantastic job.

Okay.

He was a good speaker. He goes, yeah, he goes into, um, okay, you know, this is real estate. Find a niche. This is what you want to do. Do it. Um, personally himself, he works 20 hours a month. I believe he said that's good.

I like that.

And that he says, that's what I want to do. And that's all I'm going to do. And I keep track of the hours too. And if I get to, You know, 20 and 10 minutes, I'm done. You know, I mean, I'm kind of the opposite. I, I try to work as much as I can.

Yeah.

And I know you are too. You're constantly working.

I know, that's the problem.

Talking and all that.

Exactly.

But, you know, your wife is right here. She's a producer. So, you guys are together, which is good, you know.

But 20 hours a month sounds pretty nice.

20 hours a month. Yeah.

Okay.

Um, very good speaker and very informative.

How do you get to that point? Did he tell you?

And that's, yeah, that's another thing that he brought up. He says, you know, this is what I do and I don't really want to do anything else. I've, I've met my goal, which is to get a certain amount of money, um, you know, mailbox money every month. And that's it. I'm, I'm not going to go crazy. He says, that's just, I don't want to live my life going from, you know, one deal to the next, to the next, to the next. I, I, I've, You know, gotten to the point where I'm comfortable with what I have and I have a family life and he loves to travel and all that stuff. And, you know, I thought that was really great. I really did.

How does he do it though then? Did he tell you?

Uh, no, he just told us how— what he just told us what he did.

All right, I'll buy the book. That's fine. Yeah, it's all good.

Yeah, I think he does have a book. Yeah, pretty much all, all of them.

That's what it is.

You know, but they're not And they're not in your face selling you their book. They're just, hey, by the way, as far as my credentials go, I've written 4 books. They're in the bookstore if you'd like to buy them, but it's not like, go buy the book if you want to learn what I do.

Well, that's the new hard sell is the non-sell.

Really?

Yeah, you're like, hey, it's out there. Get it, don't, I don't care. All of them, they buy them all up.

Pace has actually sold out his books. I was gonna get one and it sold out.

And he's like, I might have some books out there, I don't know. Sold out.

It's— he sold out. Um, the last panel of the day I went to was how to eliminate your taxes legally.

Oh my God, I would have been in the front row.

Yeah, I've been to a lot of these and they pretty much tell you the same thing.

Every time, you know, if you have kids, you can write your kids off.

If you have a £6,000 car or more, you can write it off. You know, you can write it off 100% last year, and now you can write off 80%, you know, like right away. They talked about cost segregation and, you know, just things like that. Nothing—

I want the good stuff.

Yeah, nothing really earth-shaking. You know, it's like, do this.

Nothing involving an island?

No, nothing involving Mar-a-Lago or anything like that. Yeah, you know, Mar-a-Lago is worth $18 million, by the way. And yeah, I already sent an offer in, but I haven't heard back.

You know, so it's going down to Barron.

Yeah, so that was Monday, and then really ended around 4:00. Okay, and it was Literally party time after that.

Let everybody out of the doors. Oh my God.

It was, it was party time. It's open bar. In the lobby, it was open bar. It was hosted by, there was a lot of hard money lenders there and other lenders and, and they were just throwing money at people and food and little munchy things. And yeah.

That's where the real—

Even Florida Joe came out for that. Let me tell you.

That's where the real truth comes out.

I don't drink, but I have to admit I had a few drinks.

Yes.

Yeah. And we, the group, had a great time.

There we go.

An awesome time.

I love that.

Yeah.

Let's throw some pics up here. Maybe you can kind of explain. You didn't get a lot of pics, but you were enjoying yourself.

I'm not a pic guy. I don't take too many pics and those, the girls. Yeah. The tall girls. The tall girls were at last year's event in San Diego.

Okay.

They travel. They were at that after-party and I thought it was awesome and I go, hey, I gotta get some pictures with the tall girls. And so then I had Violet take some pictures of me with the tall girls. Yeah.

Flamingo.

I thought they were cool.

That is cool.

It is. And yeah, they're walking around and they're very friendly. Okay, you know, I asked politely, can I take a picture? Yeah, come over, you know, here, get in between us, take a picture.

They for sure were not drinking because I don't think that would be wise to get up on those stilts like that. Okay, yeah, um, do another one from like the party section.

That's the, that's the crowd. That's the 3 of us right there.

There we go. Yeah, okay, those are 3 amigos for the weekend.

3 amigos for the weekend. That's cool. All right, yeah, we had a great time.

And, and so did, did you get any tell on sort of the expansion of Pelago? Because I know, I know you guys are in a couple states right now. Then do we have a timeline?

Or—

because it'd be cool to integrate that with the app.

Yeah, um, he is expanding. I think he's in Texas now and a couple of states in the East. And honestly, um, Excuse me, I didn't know this, but Violet is getting her license, real estate broker's license, at several states around Florida.

Oh.

That he needs to have a broker there to get access to the MLS to get those feeds.

Cool.

And so she's been taking real estate exam courses for, I think she said about 6 months now, and she's got either 3 or 4 broker's licenses in different states.

Awesome.

So yeah, he's kind of tasked her with doing that.

That's cool.

And she's been studying a lot. And I mean, really pretty much real estate is real estate, except, you know, a little bit different laws in certain states. But most of the time, you know, it's all the same.

Yeah.

Yeah. But she has to go through the motions.

Sure.

Of taking the exam and, you know, spending a certain amount of time on each section. So stuff like that. So she's been doing a great job.

That's, that's really cool. Yeah, I could see that. I mean, once they get all 50 states, like, that's gonna be really easy to comp a property and do all the math and stuff.

So yeah. He's in Austin, Texas.

Okay.

Now as well.

Nice.

Oregon opened up a few months ago. Uh, so yeah, he's expanding a lot.

Love that.

Yeah.

Okay, so every night they have these like parties and it's like a circus?

Every night. Yeah, every night. Okay, every night there's a party.

Gotcha.

Every night.

Do you see the same people like stumbling around or—

Uh, no, not really. Yeah, there's, there's different people.

How many people are in attendance, you think? Do they tell you?

Oh, for the whole conference? There must have been 3,000 people there. Okay, cool.

Nice.

Must have been 3,000. And we were in a resort, so it's not like, you know, we could go anywhere. It's almost kind of like you're here. I mean, I didn't have a car. Violet had a car, but yeah, we didn't necessarily want to go out, but I did meet several guys that had actually gone out into town. And, you know, we're doing bar hopping and stuff. We're doing more of that stuff in San Diego last year, right, than, than we did in Orlando.

Oh yeah, it's plenty, it's plenty to do at the resort. And then you're going to be getting up early.

And it's, and, you know, honestly, it's pricing is almost hit like here. I do, you know, we'd have lunch and it was, you know, $20, $25 for a burger and fries.

Sweet Lord.

You know, but that's what we pay here as well. I mean, we just go down the street to Burger Lounge or whatever and it's $20, $25 per True. Burger and fries.

Right.

And a drink and the company of the, you know.

Yeah.

What do they call them, waitresses?

Oh, that's right.

Servers, servers, sorry. Yeah, servers, yeah. Service, yeah, service.

Okay, so you're staying out late, everyone's partying, and then you gotta get up early and do it all over again?

Well, not that early, but yeah.

Okay.

Let me look at my schedule here for the next day.

Gotcha.

So Tuesday.

Probably that, I'm guessing.

They do have, you know, they have networking in the morning.

Okay.

It starts at 7:30.

Nice.

And coffee, pastries, all that stuff. You know, we didn't get up that early.

Yeah.

I think we ended up eating breakfast around 10 or whatever.

Oh, okay.

You know, maybe 11.

7:10? Yeah. Wow.

Oh yeah. The next day around 10:15, Wealth, Without Cash: How to Creatively Finance Real Estate Deals.

I know who that is.

Yeah, yeah, and that was Pace.

Pace, early in the— oh, that's what they did.

Pace, we were— he was scheduled to do the small room, and, and there's no way it was going to hold all of us.

Wow.

He had to go to the big main room.

Yeah.

And he packed it.

At 10 in the morning?

At 10 in the morning, yes. And he's talking about, you know, his normal stuff that he does. Yeah. Uh, it was really a lot of explanation. What the heck is a sub-to? Wow. Because people, you know, don't know.

Yeah.

Especially the young ones that are just starting.

Yeah.

I don't know. So he did a lot of explanation and then he talked about deals and he talked about how to talk to people.

Oh, cool.

As well. So there's a little bit of education thrown in there.

That's nice as well. Wow.

Yeah.

Hopefully there are some agents there that are really soaking that part in, you know?

Yeah, I hope so. Yeah. But, uh, yeah, he was trying to educate. In fact, one part of the education process was, um, about 90 to 95% of agents have no clue what sub-2 is, right? And he says, you just have to tell them. You have to train them, right? You have to say, hey, You know, you don't, don't panic. You're gonna earn your commission, okay? But it's just a little bit different what we're trying to do and accomplish here. Give me a minute, let me explain it to you. So he kind of went into that a lot.

Nice.

You know?

Yeah. So yeah, we're seeing that everywhere.

Yeah.

I guess he's making it easier though by teaching everybody about it. They're like, oh, I've heard of that before.

So Lunch again. There's a lot of eating and a lot of drinking.

That's real estate, baby.

Lunch, a complimentary lunch. Yeah, that was good.

Sandwiches?

Uh, sandwiches.

Okay.

Yeah, good sandwiches and, and, um, desserts galore. Iced tea again.

Okay, they're good.

They're big on the iced tea.

Oh, I love that. Love that.

Um, and then the afternoon breakout session, 10 Secrets to Success in Multifamily Investing: How to Grow an Empire. Uh, another, another great speaker, um, Brian Murray. And what I liked about Brian and his talk was he, he, he basically, you know, kind of told you how he started and all that sort of stuff. And then he got to a point Where, um, I think he does have a book, but it— he got to a point where he said, you know, he's made lots of money, but he doesn't have like classes, you know. He doesn't, uh, necessarily live off the, the book that he wrote.

Right.

Um, he's, he's all about giving back.

Okay.

He gives back. That's what he does. He gives back. And I was like so impressed. Yeah, to hear somebody like that, you know, speak about just giving back.

Awesome.

Um, great talk. Yeah, awesome. Great. I mean, I'm looking at the photo that they have on there and it just doesn't look like the photo. He's got long hair.

Oh, he does?

Yeah, no, they got a really nice photo, uh, on here.

What, he's like a hippie guy?

He's like a hippie guy.

Oh, that's cool.

Yeah, he's like a hippie guy, you know, buying Just huge places and stuff.

What, like apartments?

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, he, he talked about buying an apartment where he was living at the time.

Wow.

And he knew everything about it. In fact, he knew that the people that were running it were stealing from the owners.

Ah.

You know, they'd order a bunch of stuff and they never, you know, intended to put it where it's supposed to go, and they put it on Craigslist and sell it.

Oh my gosh.

He said that was, that was the problem that the owner was having at the time and he couldn't make ends meet because he was just losing money left and right. And he, he offered him a, a price to buy that place. He bought it and basically turned it around.

Awesome.

Yeah, that's cool. So it was cool. Um, and then Tuesday evening keynote, uh, closing with Tarek and Heather. Oh, El Moussa, the new wife. And yeah, and they're obviously, they're here from Orange County.

Yeah.

Um, and the new wife. Okay. And so Tarek kind of told us his backstory, uh, which I pretty much knew all of it, but not really all of it.

What is it? What did he used to do?

Um, he was just a real estate agent, and he decided he wanted to start flipping and then he said, I think this would make a really good, you know, reality type TV show. So he wrote, just literally wrote to producers and said, hey, you know, this might be interesting.

Yeah.

You know, reach back out and he said it took him like a year or 2 and then finally somebody reached out and they did a pilot and they liked the pilot and You know, here we are.

Yeah.

Um, then he starts talking about, uh, how much money he's made and, you know, all that stuff.

What are we talking?

Uh, lots of money.

A couple hundred mil?

You know, he put, um, together a wholesale team, right?

Yeah, I think that's pretty new.

And they sell a lot of properties. Um, I was really surprised that last year I think he only said that he flipped around, I want to say 35, 40 properties, which is not a lot.

Yeah.

He said he did more, uh, business wholesaling properties.

Yeah.

Than the flipping. So fast forward, then he got married again. They have a baby, uh, now, uh, now he's kind of teaching her the flipping business and they're coming out with their own show.

Genius.

Yeah. Genius. Genius.

Well, how much? How much? Just give me a number.

What?

How much is he making? Or what did he drop?

Joe? I kind of lost it after that. It's like, come on.

Give me a number. Like $100 mil? $200 mil?

Like that much?

I don't know.

I mean, that's possible with the different— he sells courses too.

Yeah.

So yeah, I'm sure he's probably making $100 mil. Yeah, probably.

Okay. Yeah, I just want to know like where the ceiling is, you know?

It's pretty high. Yeah, it's pretty high.

Good to know.

It's pretty high.

Gotcha.

So, um, that ended early and everyone started drinking. 4 o'clock. Um, yeah, no, um, second night's a little more mellow. Yeah, no, it was because, um, That was the last night. And then we had the closing finale at Universal's Island of Adventure. And that started at 8:30.

Yes.

So you didn't want to go drunk to that, you know?

Yeah.

Well, maybe some people did. I don't know.

Yes, for sure people did. Yeah.

So our little group didn't go drunk because it was an open bar there.

Oh gosh.

Okay.

Yes.

But they waited till they got there before they started drinking again. Um, and then we went on rides and they convinced me to go on this terrible ride. I'm still— my head's still spinning.

Yeah, I would have never allowed that.

It was like, it was like getting into, you know, a Tesla and punching it, and then the car just doing cartwheels and different things. It was crazy. Honestly, it was, it was crazy.

You said you weren't gonna go to the theme park.

I, I wasn't gonna go, but Hey, I'm hanging with the crew.

That's true. You're like, let's do it.

So yeah, so we all went together.

It's a bonding moment.

Yeah. And then there was a couple more rides that I was convinced to go on. They tried to convince me to go on another one of the first rides that I went and I said, no, sorry. So I sat down and there was a guy next to me. He's about probably my age as well. He goes, um, you're sitting this one out? And I go, yeah. He goes, yeah, my son's up there, you know, I, I, I'm— I can't do that. I go, I hear you. Yeah, you know, I hear you.

I'm not a rides guy.

We became, uh, really good Facebook friends after that.

Okay.

You know, started bonding.

Cool.

Yeah, had a good time there. They were out there riding, doing their things out there. They put me on this, um, One ride which I thought was going to be very passive, it was, um, Harry Potter. Harry Potter, yes.

Yeah, it's big there.

Harry Potter. But it was, it was a ride that, um, it was like a virtual reality ride. And so you're going there and then all of a sudden you're like, you know, sideways and going down real quick. And yeah, you're not, but it's got the virtual reality stuff going on. It's like Crazy.

Yeah, cranes.

I felt just as sick on that ride that I did the first ride.

Yeah. You know? Oh yeah.

You got the Harry Potter running around with his broom.

Yeah.

That stuff.

I cannot picture you on that.

I know. And then, and then that, you know, the thing about that is, I don't know, I don't go to these places. I do not go to these places. And we were all commenting that We, we're literally walking on and getting on the ride.

Okay. But because they—

to get from the first part of going in to get to there, it would take you a good 2 hours.

Oh my God.

That's how many crevices in and out they had in there, different rooms. We go and walk into a room and then there's another room and there's a bunch of lines, you know, for people that are supposed to be there, but obviously not. Then we go to another room. And by the time we got to the actual ride, we'd have been probably through 5 or 6 rooms already.

In Harry Potter land specifically?

In all of them.

Oh.

In all of them. That's, you know, that's how they queue you up.

Yeah, right.

You know, and you think you go in and like, okay, the next thing is like the ride. No, they queue you up in there for like 2 hours.

Wow.

Yeah. Thank God we— they had rented the whole place out and it was just us in there.

And how much does that cost, you think, to rent out Universal Studios for the night?

I haven't got the bill yet.

Okay, well, let me know.

But I'll let you know, definitely.

Yeah. Wow, fun. Okay, what other movies are they promoting? Like, what are the other rides that they're like— like Jurassic Park?

Jurassic Park.

Okay. Yes. Was that one of the crazy ones?

Jurassic Park was crazy.

It was?

Yeah, it was.

The one over here, that's just like a little water ride. It's not that scary.

I know, this is Just this huge water ride.

Okay.

Yeah. And Gideon didn't want to get wet, but hey, we all went on it. Oh, you did? We all went on it. Did we get wet? Yeah, we got wet.

Wet them.

But it was fun. It was fun. And then they had the throw the basketball through the hoop and the water toys and stuff like that.

Nice.

You know, and then it's like, you can hear people going, I won, I won. And then, you know, they look up there to the person that's behind the booth and, what do I win? Nothing. It's just practice tonight. Yeah, you don't get the prize. You don't get no prizes. You know, all the prizes are back there and it's like, oh, wait a second, I won. What do I get? Nothing. You gotta pay to win. Yeah, they had ice cream, you know, the ice cream carts and the ladies are just like, here, you want this?

Okay, heck yeah.

Desserts, hot desserts.

They had hot chocolate.

you can put over the ice cream, millions of toppings. It was very, very nice. First class. Wow, first class.

Okay.

Yeah.

And then, yeah, you kind of already spoiled it, but then they had a thing on the TV that you sent me. 2024 BPCon. Yeah, Cancun.

Yeah, but that— we, we were there from 8, 8 or 8:30 till midnight. And then got back, and then the drinking started again.

When you got back?

Oh yeah.

I would not be able to hang.

Oh no.

Yeah, I'd be back in the room.

No, that's just like, yeah, I'm not sleepy. Yeah, let's have some more to drink.

Okay, I know those people. Yeah, I know those people.

Yeah, yeah.

Is she Irish?

No.

Oh, okay.

No, she was She's very nice. Very nice person. They both. I mean, they both are very nice. Very nice. But you know, she's she's I think thirty-four.

Okay. It's like yeah, that's what you do.

You know?

Yeah.

If somebody's giving you free drinks, you just take them.

Yeah, that's true.

There's nothing wrong with that.

No, it's fine. You're at BBCon.

Yeah. Yeah. Having a good time.

Having a good time. Hopefully remembering something.

No, I don't know. What was I supposed to remember?

No, no, you remembered, but do you think she remembered anything?

Oh yeah.

Okay, good.

Yeah, no, no, good, good. Okay, yeah, she's a good girl.

Okay, good. Yeah, well, that's awesome that the team got together. You're even closer, you know. You're gonna take on the world together now.

Yeah.

Wow. Yeah, and then next year Cancun.

Next year Cancun, but I think I'm the only one that's gonna go because, you know, they said they were not gonna go.

They're going, Joe. They're going.

You think so?

Yes, for sure.

I hope so.

Why did they say they're not gonna go?

I have to bring my California crew with me.

California cruise there?

Yeah. Okay.

The Caribbean's involved. I'm there.

Sounds good. Have you ever been to Cancun? Yes. Yes.

Yeah, one other time, and it was amazing.

Yeah, I went up to the top of the pyramid.

Oh, I didn't do that. Yeah, yeah, that's cool.

I want to do that. My wife was down at the bottom waving at me. It's like, yeah, I go, dude, don't you want to go up? You know, like, yeah, it's fine. No, I'll wave at you. Okay. Yeah, so I went up.

That's cool.

What else do you do on a pyramid?

Yeah, you go up and you walk up to the top and wave.

Yeah, people.

That's nice.

Have them take your picture.

There you go.

Yeah. Flying was terrible. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's a cattle car. Yeah, they stuff you in there like sardines. And I had a little child in the seat behind me pushing the seat.

It's a Greyhound bus in the air.

Yeah, and I forgot to bring my, you know, earmuffs and things, whatever you call them. And so I had to listen to that for 3 hours. It's like, oh. Are we done yet? Can we land? Can I get off? Yeah.

No, you had to sit on there for 4 more hours.

Well, that— yeah, it was 2 flights.

Oh, okay, so they weren't on that part where you were sitting on that? Okay, I was gonna say, like—

No, I got lucky. They got off and went someplace else, and I came back to the OC. Yeah, yeah, the weather was great. The weather's pretty much like it is here, California. It was awesome. Violet did say that if you go south, the humidity is pretty bad, you know.

Yeah, but the waters are blue.

The waters are blue. Yeah.

Was it by the beach at all?

No. No. Okay.

It's like—

No, it's in Orlando. So it's in the middle. Yeah.

Nice.

Yeah. Wow.

Well, it sounds like a blast.

I had a good time. I had a great time with, with my coworkers. Had a great time.

And are you going to be meeting up with anybody later that you met there? Staying in touch with people?

I gave my card out to several young entrepreneurs.

Nice.

And hopefully they'll reach out.

Yep.

You know, they're from different states, but yeah, I'll keep in contact with whoever reaches out.

Gotcha. Okay. And would you suggest it for You know, a newer investor to go to this event? Is it worthwhile, and you learn something and meet people?

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, you'll have a good time. Yeah. If you want to have a good time and learn about something real estate related, then yeah, I would highly recommend it.

Okay.

I would.

How do you compare San Diego to Florida?

San Diego, I had my son-in-law go with me, and. Another wholesaler that works in the office here. He was there, but we were mostly in different conferences and stuff like that. And then I stayed there at the hotel, but it was like literally an hour and a half drive to come back. So both of them came back home. So I was kind of with by myself.

Gotcha.

But I found another guy that I know really well. He was at the bar with the You know, 2 tall girls and stuff. And so I had somebody to hang around with, but I would say more, I enjoyed Florida a lot more than I did San Diego. And we were in a resort, so it was like there was nothing around us except alligators. In San Diego, you walk out and you're greeted by homeless people. Yeah. Like, oh gosh, tents and, you know, the typical stuff you see here.

Right.

in San Diego and in LA and all that stuff. So, okay, um, it was, it was a lot nicer atmosphere, although I did like going out in San Diego. And, um, we went to this like a steakhouse. It was sponsored by BP. It was called the Insider's Club. I'm an insider. Oh yeah, Insider Club. So, uh, they sponsored a little get-together again, drinks and some food and stuff at a steakhouse.

Nice.

Oh my God, that was a great steak. It was so good.

What cut do you get? You a sirloin guy or—

No, filet.

Filet.

Oh, filet.

Of course.

Go for the best.

God, why did I even—

Yeah, what? You shouldn't have asked. Go, go for the best. So yeah, comparing the two, I would say, I would say that, um, Orlando was awesome.

Wow. Yeah, that means Cancun's going to be even better if you're following the trajectory.

Yeah, could be.

Orlando, Cancun.

Okay, could be.

Gotcha. I just want to check in with the producer really quick. Do we have any questions?

Um, no questions, but speaking of Florida Joe, do you have a headline you guys could comment on?

Okay, there's a there's a headline. Yeah. So we have a headline apparently relating to Florida Joe. Florida man found guilty of murdering wife after she refused to go on home renovation TV show. Okay. Florida man accused of murdering wife after she refused to go on a home renovation show.

I can understand that. I can, I can understand that.

Wow, juicy real estate details.

I can understand.

Producing and it like popped up on my headlines. I was like, yeah, yeah, that's interesting. That's, that's the Florida version of Tarek that went left. You know, he went right and they went left. Yeah, he's like, I need to get on this show. Yeah, he's like, no, I don't want to.

And then No, and you know, he did say that a lot of his episodes are the dramas created, you know, because that's what people want.

Oh yeah, you have to be like, oh my God, the tile's not in, honey.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Or you're spending too much money, right?

That's usually what it is.

Yeah, he likes saying that. He used to say that to his first wife. Yeah, spending—

she's like, you gotta go for it.

Yeah, yeah, I know.

It's, it's really, it's the same thing over and over again. But it's like, it's pretty interesting because people love the before and the after. Yeah, put a little drama in there, you know. And then now there's like a million versions of that.

Yeah.

So how do we get ours? I don't know.

Did Pace start out flipping?

He was a contractor. Yeah. And then started flipping.

Yeah.

And then—

Yeah. And then he found subject-to.

Yeah.

You know, he found Found his calling.

He used to work for HomeVestors.

Oh, really?

Yeah. And then they— I don't know, they went into their own thing and he didn't like it, so he started his own thing and then got into the creative finance. Apparently his dad was in creative finance.

Really? Mhm.

Because he made— like, for whatever reason, he couldn't get a loan. He was like a W— or not a W-2 guy, so he couldn't get a loan. So he got all of his properties on seller finance. So that's how we got introduced to it.

Wow. Yeah. I mean, I— the first property I ever bought investing was basically a sub-2 deal. Back then we didn't call it that. We just assumed the loan and the banks didn't really care back then.

That—

I mean, that property I still own today. But, you know, this sub-2 is not anything new. It's just that he's done a great job at making it famous.

Yeah, and yeah, breaking it down to where people can understand it.

Yeah, but, um, awesome.

Well, thanks for the recap. Yeah, sounded like you had a lot of fun.

A lot of fun.

So I hope everyone has the FOMO just like me and we can all go to Cancun 2024. When do they usually release the tickets?

Um, I want to say about 6 months out.

Okay.

They start like February, March. Yeah, um, this year I was really surprised because even, even like 2 weeks out you could still get tickets, which is rare because I mean San Diego sold out quickly.

Maybe it was the size of the venue?

I don't know. And then, um, there's always those people that buy the tickets but they can't go, and so they You know, post on BiggerPockets, I have a couple of extra tickets if you'd like them. And obviously, if you're a real estate person, you know, you need to negotiate everything. So, you know, tickets could have been $950 each. And last year, when we went to San Diego, I got my son-in-law Ryan a ticket for $500. Yeah.

Yeah. There you go.

You know, if you don't ask, you don't get.

That's right. I'm gonna seller finance mine next year.

Oh, that's an idea.

Yeah, I'll give them $20 a month for the next like 5 years.

Wow, someone will go for it.

Wow, it's cash flow. Yeah, like, here's your first cash flowing asset.

It's better than losing it because they don't, you know, make any refunds or anything.

Yeah, so maybe we do $100 a month for like 9 months. $100 a month cash flow.

That'll work.

There you go. That'll be my goal for this year.

But you have to add an extra $100 there for profit.

That's true.

All right, that's true. You can't pay them back the $950 or whatever. You have to pay them back a little bit more.

Okay.

Yeah.

So I'll do— how about for the next year? So $1,200 for a $900 ticket if they finance it.

I'll do that for you.

Never mind. It's not working out.

Okay.

I was going to do it for the story, but everyone would be like, that's the worst deal ever.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's like a 30% return.

That's pretty good.

I'm good with that.

Yeah.

I'm good. All right.

Never mind. I'll just buy mine straight up.

Okay.

Okay. Wow. What a fun time. I feel like I was there.

So you could have been.

I know I could have invited you.

Yeah, invited both of you to go, but obviously you had better things to do.

Yeah, we're checking in on the flips. We were working, working, talking. Okay, talking to sellers.

That's good. I've trained you right then.

Yeah, I mean, I'm trying to get to this like 20-hour-a-month thing.

Yeah, good luck. Yeah, you're not that type.

I know.

You're not, you're not that type. This is your type.

Yeah.

Doing something, you know?

Yeah.

Talking.

Yeah.

Same thing today. You're like talking on the phone. I'm going, how long is he gonna talk to this person? You know, they're best friends now.

Yeah. That's how I get in.

Wow.

And then they trust me.

Yeah.

As they should, because I'm here to help.

Yeah. You had several calls I heard too. It was like, how much you want for your property? $1 million. Well, it says it's only worth $400,000. Where'd you get the million? That's what I want. You asked me. That's what I want.

That's right.

Yeah. Okay.

I approach it differently now, but yeah, that does happen.

Yeah.

We had a new caller in here today, which was nice.

You did?

He got a good foreclosure lead too.

He did?

Yeah.

Oh, I didn't hear that.

Yeah.

Wait, I missed that? Yeah.

Really? It's like his 5th call and this lady in Santa Ana is going through foreclosure and she wants She's doing the loan mod thing.

Is that the one he was speaking Spanish with?

No, it was after that.

Oh yeah. Wow. Seriously, that's like his first day. Yeah. I mean, the first time he's come in and actually sat down and started calling people because, you know, you were teaching him and stuff, right? That's awesome. I hope he gets the deal.

I know.

He—

we went through like— he pretty much got every seller. He got the guy that was like, you know, Is, is my house listed? Why you call me about it? So yeah, that guy, I heard that, got the Spanish caller, he got the people take me off your list, and then he got like a good lead. So I was like, all of them. Yeah, that's the whole thing, just keep doing that.

Yeah, yeah.

We—

Carlos, um, who also speaks Spanish, and I were listening to that Spanish call. He gets done, and then you're kind of telling him, you know, you should have done this and that. And Carlos goes, does Alex speak Spanish? And I go, No. He sticks his head out. Alex, do you speak Spanish? No. How are you giving him advice? Did you understand?

No. I could just tell.

You could just tell. Yeah, yeah, you could just tell.

Yeah, I could tell. I, I get the vibe of Spanish, if that's a thing.

Oh, okay, got it. Yeah, you're in California. Why don't you speak Spanish?

I blame my dad. He's half Mexican. He can't speak Spanish. His brother can speak fluent Spanish, so I had to bring my uncle to Mexico every time we went We had to bring the uncle.

Yeah.

And so my dad was just, I don't know. Oh, you know what it was? It was his parents didn't want him to speak Spanish. They were in Texas. Yeah. So they're like, you need to learn English.

And then, yes, it's not unusual.

And then, uh, his dad passed away, so we got a stepdad who was Cuban. And so he was like, bop, bop, bop, speak Spanish.

Yeah.

So then my, my uncle can speak Spanish. Like 2 out of the 5 kids can speak Spanish and the others are all whitewashed. So that's the story.

Okay.

And then you move to OC and then it's all, you know.

Yeah.

Well, I guess I need to learn it though. I do need to learn it. So Cancun 2024, we're learning Spanish.

Nice. Yeah. Yeah.

We'll do a video on it.

Going to Florida is Like being in the Caribbean.

Yeah.

Everybody there speaks Spanish.

Oh yeah.

Everybody.

That's what I think about.

And I started speaking Spanish to one of the servers and stuff, and Violet looks at me, she goes, that's a little rude. I go, what's rude? Well, you're kind of speaking to her in Spanish. I go, it's because she's Spanish. What? What's rude about that? You know, trying to be friendly in her language. Yeah.

I think that's derogatory.

Yeah. No, it wasn't. I was trying to be nice.

Oh, that's good, man. I wish I was there. All right. It's fine.

Okay. Let's move on.

Okay.

We're done.

Well, thank you guys so much for joining us in reliving Joe's adventure in a BiggerPockets conference. Like I said, I saw a ton of people posting about it. So, um, next year or next year, next week we'll be having, um, a guest again. So I'm going to announce that shortly. So if you guys can do us a favor, share this far and wide with all your friends, any new or experienced investors, and make sure to block out October 30th if you're in the Southern California Orange County area, Hangar 24, 6 to 9, uh, for the real estate networking meetup.

Bring a, bring a jacket.

Bring a jacket. You're not gonna need it, so wear shorts.

Bring a jacket.

Bring a jacket, but wear shorts and flip-flops.

Okay.

Then you'll be good.

Okay. Yeah.

But, uh, we'll see you guys next week.

See you later. If you want some more advice on real estate investing, reach out to us one-on-one.