Over 100 rentals starting from Broke and bad credit - Henry Washington

and he was like, so can you buy it in 30 days? And I was like, yeah, no idea how to do that, man. But I mean, that's literally— that's how the journey started, man.

Hello and welcome back to Multifamily Strategy. I'm Christian Osgood, joined today with a very special guest. I'm super excited to have him on the channel. Everyone, welcome Henry Washington. Henry, welcome to the channel.

What's up, buddy? Glad to be here, dude.

Super good to see you. One of our first podcasts ever when Cody and I first started was Cody's BP episode, which somehow got a million views even though he had COVID, and Henry was the co-host. So this just feels like we're going full circle. It feels good to have you here, integral part of our story. Uh, Henry, tell us a little bit about you. What does your portfolio look like? Where are you at in real estate? Tell us a little bit about you and your business.

Yeah, uh, you know, first, to piggyback on what you said, that episode I, I did, uh, with Cody was my first, like, official BP episode, like, actually working with BiggerPockets. So, uh, it was a, it was a pretty cool, pretty cool moment. And then all of a sudden, boom, get a million views. So, uh, it's, it's all thanks— it's all, it's all thanks to Cody's story, but I'm just going to take the credit and say everybody just wanted to see me host show. So, you know, I think we all know who the real star was. Oh man, yeah. So my real estate journey, man, it is, uh, it's been crazy. I bought my first house in 2017, uh, late in the year of 2017. Uh, it was a rental property, um, and, uh, it was a journey to get there. It felt like a journey. It was probably 90 days between when I bought that house and then when I actually learned what real estate investing was. So fairly quick turnaround in terms of like a normal time span to buy a property. But I don't know, man, it was— none of it was really planned like that. You know, I kind of— there was a— I call it a mix of positioning and luck. You know, when you're, when you're positioned accordingly, luck isn't luck. It's like you are in the position to be able to take care of opportunities that fall in your lap, right? Um, and we, we call that luck. Like, you could be, you could be the luckiest man on earth, you know, and, and an opportunity can fall in your lap, but if you're not positioned to be able to take care of that opportunity, right? If somebody, somebody walked up to you tomorrow and said, hey, I'm retiring out of my business and I want you to take over my million-dollar business and you don't have the capital or the experience or the knowledge or the understanding, then that opportunity means nothing to you, right? But if you've been positioning yourself by educating yourself and understanding what, what it takes, then all of a sudden an opportunity falls in your lap and it's, it's, uh, it's, it's a little bit of luck and positioning because you can capitalize on it. And so that's kind of how my journey was. Like, I started with learning about real estate investing 90 days before I bought my first deal. And I just, I started learning because I just didn't really feel like I had a choice. I had to do something financially different than I was doing. I was, I couldn't afford to be on the house that my wife, the note on the house that my wife and I were trying to buy. So I basically had to let her buy our house and then she had to let me live in it. Um, so that's kind of her. Yeah, it was, it was very kind of her because I financially couldn't be on the, on the note. Like, the bank called me and said, man, you're, you're going to ruin your wife's chances of homeownership because your credit is so bad and, and you're just pulling her down. And so that was kind of a big blow. And then we, like, as a fan, as a new married couple, wanted to do all these things, you know, like everybody else. We wanted to go on vacations and, you know, buy our dream house eventually and And, you know, I was just like, I can't afford to do any of those things, and she deserves those things. And so I need to figure out how to be a person who can provide her the life she deserves, or let her go find somebody who can do that for her. And so I, uh, uh, I had a panic attack. I mean, if we're being fully transparent, I had a legitimate panic attack at 3 in the morning about not being able to provide, and started Googling, how the heck do I make extra money. And that led me to BiggerPockets articles about real estate investing. And I started to learn that like just normal people did this. And I was like, well, if normal people can do this, I got to be able to figure it out. And so I told myself at 3 in the morning, you know, well, I prayed. So I told myself and God at 3 in the morning that I was going to figure out how to be a successful real estate investor. If all these other people could do it, I could do it. And, and like, I just felt like it was my way out because I don't know, man. I just felt comfortable with real estate as a business option. Like, every other business I heard of scared me to death, but like real estate, I didn't have any fear about it. So maybe that's just God giving me peace about it. And maybe it was just, you know, I was— I just had this blind level of comfort because I had none of the things that one would think you would need in order to be comfortable with the decision to buy real estate. Like, I had bad credit. I only had $1,000. Like, I had no money and bad credit. And I'm like, you know how I'm going to solve my life's problems? I'll buy real estate. Like, that— like, none of the things that would make you think that that was a smart decision at 3 in the morning. But, um, it's the decision that I made, and, uh, it changed my life. So I just started— literally, I started down a path of like, how do I learn? I woke my— like, my wife woke up with me in the morning, and I told her, I was like, I figured this out, we're going to be real estate investors. And she was like, all right, cool, whatever, like, that sounds great. So, you know, I started reading books. I read Rich Dad Poor Dad. Well, One of the keys is we read it together, and so it really helped us stay on the same page about like how to save our money and what we're going to do with those savings. So, uh, um, just we had those eye-opening moments that that book provides together. We read The Richest Man in Babylon together, um, and then, um, 90 days later, a buddy of mine— or 60 days later, a buddy of mine came to me and said, hey, I heard you're buying houses. And I hadn't bought a house yet, I just told people I did. And I was like, yeah, I'm buying houses. And he was like, oh sweet, I need to sell mine in 30 days. Like, it has to be gone in 30 days. I'll sell it to you at a really good deal. If I just need to sell it for $115,000, it's worth like $160,000. I don't care what it's worth. If I sell it for $116,000, I get every dime I need to go buy this other piece of property that he needed to buy for his church. And he was like, so can you buy it in 30 days? And I was like, yeah, no idea how to do that, man. But I mean, that's Literally, that's how the journey started, man. I just— I started researching and I started telling everybody that I was an investor. I'm just a firm believer in, like, in life you get what you give. Like, if you put out the things that you want, the things that you want to come to you. Like, if you— if you operate in an environment or, um, as if you are the thing you're trying to be then the things that those people have come to you. It's just, it's, it's the way of the universe, right? It's, it's— that's why your parents tell you be careful who you hang around with, because if you hang around with a bunch of losers, you end up doing a bunch of loser stuff, right? You hang out with a bunch of millionaires, you'll figure out how to become a millionaire. Like, it's, it's just— and so I just would put it out there that I was— I would tell people I was a real estate investor and that I was I had no idea how to do it, but that's what I told people when first deal came to me.

Well, you did the thing that most people get stuck on, at least what I see is people just forget to buy the first deal. When I got started on my journey, I would like, I went to college, I did a sales job to another sales job. I ended up at the CoStar Group and 4 years into being in real estate, I was like, oh shoot, I forgot the part where I buy real estate. That's why I got into everything in the first place. So I love that you like, you made the decision of like, I want to do this real estate thing. 90 days later, you have a property.

Yes. That's insane.

Not, not a lot of people do that. And I think if everyone just realized, like, if I want to be a real estate investor, I have to buy real estate. Yeah, that seems like it would be intuitive, but I feel like a lot of people forget the critical step of getting started and you just jump right on it.

Yeah.

I also love the piece, by the way, of like you and the wife made the decision together.

Yeah.

You pray about it together. That's exactly how it happened with my wife and I. We prayed about it. My wife's like, this is on the 38-plex. First deal I bought with my business partner Cody. It was like 5 minutes. My wife's like, this is what I want to do. I'm like, okay, we're personally guaranteeing it. So like we're staking our house on it. She's like, yeah, I'm cool with that. And it's like, away we go. She's like, I want to start the business more than I want to have this house. I was like, okay, then we're, then we're good. Let's go. But that piece that you mentioned is something that I think is really important. And for those who are married, having your spouse on board is everything. Was it really that simple for you? Like, you guys talked about it, you read the book, and she was just on board? Or was there more in the background getting prepped for that?

No, it was that simple, man. And a lot of it was, you know, I think that, you know, a baseline of trust has to be there in the first place for someone to just agree. And And so I'll speak to my personal situation because I don't, I don't know everybody else's situation. So for my personal situation, we had a baseline of trust as a couple. Um, we had a baseline of trust as like, I do the things that I say I'm gonna do, right? Um, for her, I always try to make sure that she is happy and good and taken care of, and I will sacrifice so that she has. And I think she sees that along the way. Where we didn't have trust was in my financial decisions up until that point. I just wasn't good with money. Um, I spent more money than I made. I had bad credit because of those situations when I get overspent, then I start spending on credit cards. And so like, financially, she had no reason to believe that, uh, that I was going to be successful. But in terms of like integrity as a human being and, and, and, and as somebody who always puts her first, the trust was there. So I think that's what made the, the choice easier for her is because she saw that I was doing this, uh, in service to her and, and not just because I wanted to get rich. It was more about like, I need to make sure that you're good. Like, that's my job, and so I'm gonna go do that.

Now, in the, in the process of providing for your family and, and focusing on them, uh, it does seem that you did fairly reasonable at the getting rich part. Uh, what does the portfolio look like today after, after years of focus. And I, I've seen you all over the place, obviously BiggerPockets because you've co-hosted and you're a huge piece of that. Uh, I love your podcast on the Better Life Podcast with Brandon Turner. That's still my favorite one with you. That, that one landed for me.

Thank you.

But what does the portfolio look like today for Henry Washington?

Yeah, man, I, uh, well, I have to do some math. This morning I signed, uh, This morning I signed a contract to purchase 2 single families— not signed a contract, sorry. This morning I signed the closing documents. So we bought 2 single-family homes this morning, brand new construction that we're keeping as rentals. And then in about 2 hours after you and I are done, I'm signing docs to close on 2 duplexes, a quadplex, a single-family home, and a lot that we're going to build a duplex on. So another 11 units. Um, so 13 units today and we closed on—

you've had a busier morning than I have.

Yeah. And then, uh, I've got about 100 and 116 already owned. So 116 plus whatever this 11 is. So whatever that number is, is where we're at.

There we go. Okay, so sitting around 127, dude. That's— that is fantastic. How many years has it been?

6 and a half, maybe 20, 2017.

So, and in your strategy, do you partner, or are all these just Henry Washington?

Um, most of them— well, the ones today are all just me. Um, uh, but I bought 16 units, maybe about a 16-unit package about 3 months ago that was a partnership. So in that one I brought in a money partner. He's, he's not active. He's, he wants to grow his portfolio. He's actually one of my students, so he wants to grow his portfolio and just didn't want to be active and had money. And I found a really good deal, and so I brought the deal and I brought the property management. I, uh, we've got great property management for a pretty, pretty low rate. And then, um, and then he brought the money, so we partnered 50/50 on that one. Um, and I'd say probably about I'd say probably about somewhere between 30 and 50 units. I'm in some sort of partnership on, and the rest I own.

There we go. See, that's incredible. And that's one thing people look at, unit count, which is a silly number. People are like, oh, you have over 200 units. I'm like, yeah, but I have partners on all of them, and Cody and I are 50/50. So if you adjust for the equities, Henry is definitely the bigger fish. I just want to, I just want to point that out. Unit count is just a number. How much you actually own is what you're after. And Henry's done a heck of a job.

How much do you actually own and are they making you actual money?

Yes, they are. They all have to cash flow on long-term fixed rate debt. That's the name of the game. If you can fix all your variables, buy things that make you money and then keep buying them. And that seemed to work for us.

Yeah.

Have you used seller financing or creative finance on any of your deals to get them closed?

I have seller financing. I've used Several times, um, uh, we got— we bought like a 3-house package on seller financing, um, about 4 years ago or so. And then I bought a duplex on seller financing. It's probably one of the best purchases I've made to date in terms of appreciation and what we ended up buying it for versus what it's probably worth, and then what it'll be worth because of the location it's at. And then, so I've purchased a few properties outright with seller financing, but I've done a lot more with seller financing in terms of coupling it with bank financing.

Ah, there we go.

Doing bank financing for the, you know, 80, 85, or 80%, and then having the seller carry back the 15 or 20%. So that's, that's actually how the deal I close on later this afternoon, we did 85% from a bank and then 10% seller carryback, um, and then 5% I'm bringing to the table.

Well, there we go. 5% is pretty manageable. That's, that's incredible. So you have a bank that'll do 85, so I'm assuming that you absolutely nailed this one on price.

Yeah, man, they're good deals in terms of like the rents that they bring in and the amount of work that'll have to go into it. Only one of the buildings that buying actually needs work right now. Uh, the rest of them are totally fine, and we probably won't do anything to them for a while. Um, but the rents cover, and the property actually cash flows even at the higher interest rates that we have right now.

So, so on your projects, are you doing a lot of value-add? Do you do a lot of your own reno? What does the actual lift look like on the type of things you buy? For example, Cody and I buy a ton of 1950s properties, so I do a boatload of CapEx when I pick up properties. That is, we do so much renovation. Uh, for the types of things that you tend to buy, what does it usually look like? Like, what is a standard deal for Henry Washington?

Uh, most of the time it's going to need some level of renovation. More recently I've been buying properties that don't need as much renovation. Um, just, I don't know, it's just the nature of the deal that's come across, right? So for, for me, uh, Christian, the goal is for me to buy value. And that value usually comes because of some sort of situation that the seller wants out of, right? And, and so I'm able to buy value. Sometimes that value is because of the amount of distress the property has, which means, yes, I'm gonna have to do a renovation. But sometimes that, sometimes that situation has nothing to do with the, the the condition of the property. And so in that case, we don't have to do a renovation. Like I said, I closed on two single-family homes, brand new construction, this morning. I bought those from the builder, so they obviously need no renovation. Only one of them's been lived in, and it's been lived in by the builder for a couple of months while he's building himself another house. So they're brand new. The, the, the distress or the situation I bought there was that he needs to dump them fast because he's got bigger projects going on. He's a developer, and so he's got to go— he's got to take the capital from these and go deploy it to a, a project that is more important and has more money on the line for him, right? And so that means he was willing to sell them at a bit of a discount to get out quick. Um, so I didn't have distress there, but most of the time there's some level of renovation that happens. Um, uh, but, but, you know, these aren't all gut rehabs. Sometimes, a lot of the times, man, it's— we're just, we're just remodeling in place, paint floors, um, and making sure the, that the, the long-term CapEx stuff is good, right? Other than that, it's nothing. It's not too crazy. I've done some gut rehabs, don't get me wrong, but that's not the— that's not the majority. Like, I would say the majority is cosmetic rehabs. And in the minority, we have some gut rehabs and we have some where we just buy them turnkey. But the majority is we got to put some paint floors and some pretty lights in it and add some value that way.

I've noticed almost every successful entrepreneur has the one thing that their team is just the absolute best at. So in all the projects that you do, what is that one thing that your team is the best in the world at?

I don't know, man. Mine's probably a bit different. You know, my goal with what I'm doing is not just to make money. Like, money comes with real estate. Like, you know, there's crappy real estate investors who make a bunch of money, and there's really good real estate investors that make a bunch of money. It's— it's— money comes at some point if you're, if you're doing this business. For me, it's about how do I do it in a way that takes care of the people who I'm dealing with. Um, you know, the saying we have in our, in our office and in our business is we don't always make the best business decision, but we will always make the best people decision. And if that people decision costs us money, we can live with that, because the goal for us is like, we're taking care of people, we're here solving problems. Right, like the reason I get good deals is because there are people struggling to get rid of these problem properties and they need help sometimes. But sometimes we'll come across people who we can help who we don't have to buy their property, right? And I think that's what separates me and my team from most real estate investors is because if I'm having a conversation with the seller and they're trying to sell their house to me at a discount and I can determine why they're doing that, and I can figure out how to help them solve that problem and not buy their house, I'm gonna do that and let them keep their house, right? I'm not going to just say, oh well, you want to sell it and you're going to sell it at a discount, so we're going to buy it. That's not what we do. So the long-winded answer is saying the thing that we're best at is Um, we're not out there trying to close every deal. Like, every seller appointment to us is not a deal we need to close. Every seller appointment to us is an opportunity to help somebody. And my team is the best at figuring out how to take care of that seller. And if that means we buy a house, that's great. And if it means we don't, that's good too, as long as that person is taken care of. Um, and so that's what I try to instill in my team. That's what I try to instill in my students. Um, that's the point of all this, Christian, is this, like, building wealth isn't for us. It's for, it's for us to be of service to other people. It's for us to take care of others. Every story you hear about a successful wealthy person who ended up losing all their money if you dig into that story, I think what you, what you find, the theme you see, is they weren't givers. They started— they just were so focused on how do I get more and not how do I give more. And I feel like, like, it's not like the wealth isn't for me. Like, I get to take advantage of it while I have it, but I feel like God is providing that for me so that I can take care of other people, so that I can teach other people how to do this, so that we can be good stewards. None of life is about ourselves. It's always about other people. And so Um, we do. We take care of people, and sometimes that means we buy their house, and sometimes it means we doesn't. But if it means we— man, I've— you know, we bought a guy's house who— I mean, we— a guy wanted us to buy his house, uh, because he was selling it because he needed to fix his car so he can go to work. He didn't want to lose his job because he lost his job, he couldn't take care of his family. He couldn't— he was like, I can lose the house, I can go get an apartment, but I can't lose my car because I gotta go to work. He didn't need to sell his house, he needed to fix his car, so he just fixed his car, right? Like, that's the right thing to do in that situation. So you keep going to work. We've got, uh, we had people where, um, we just paid their mortgage payment for a few months. They didn't want to sell their house, they just needed time. They were going to sell it so they didn't lose it and get some money, but what they really needed was time until some other money was coming in. And so we paid their mortgage for a couple of months to give them the time they needed to get caught up. Like, it's just things that people need sometimes that we can solve. And is it the financial business best decision to pay somebody's mortgage and not, not get a return on that investment? No, it's a terrible business decision, but it is the right people decision.

And I agree with you. I think what a lot of people— like, a lot of the problems we see where people lose everything is they get greedy and it's about them, and they end up making decisions that implode. So for your business, how has putting people first been a good business decision? You said it's not always the best business decision, but how has that helped you grow your business? What has that meant for your company?

It does a few things, man. A, it creates loyalty because people trust someone that puts other people first. So I feel like I have a great staff who wants to work for me in our company because we're not just about, you know, doing the biggest deals and making the most money, but we actually— when we tell our employees we care about them, they can believe it because they see how we care about complete strangers, right? Um, it's— I mean, I truly believe that's how I ended up on BiggerPockets. I didn't, I didn't get on BiggerPockets because I just asked them, hey, put me on BiggerPockets. I've got on BiggerPockets because anytime any of them ever needed anything and I could help, I helped. I didn't ask for anything in return. I tried to connect them to resources and things like that they might need if they were in my market. Some of those guys invest out here. And so I've just— I've always just tried to be of service and never ask for anything in return. And I believe that, you know, when an opportunity came up my name was thrown around because just try to be a good person. Um, uh, it's also helped my business from the perspective of, um, real estate is like— your reputation is, is everything. This is a— this is— it's a niche community, both online, but also real estate is very local, right? Like, your name is out there, and if you go around and you treat people wrong, then at some point that catches up to you within your community, and it'll be harder for you to find deals or harder for you to find quality partnerships or harder you find lending at sometimes because people go, oh man, I've, I've never worked with, with Henry, but man, I heard about who so-and-so worked with him and XYZ happened. And so they're cautious about those things, right? Everybody kind of knows everybody. It's such a local thing. Even if you live in a big city, real estate is pretty local. And if you're doing anything in any kind of volume, like, your name your name will mean something, and you want that to be positive. And for me, I just, I always want that, that to be positive. And so I believe that I've found great lending relationships, and I believe that I found great business partnerships, and, um, I've bought great deals because of it. Because it, you know, I, I know I've walked into people's houses and, and not bought their house but solved a problem for them, and they didn't sell me a deal, but they referred somebody to me when they found a friend or a family member in a similar situation, they gave them my number. And I've had countless phone calls where they say, hey, you helped my friend, you know, marry so-and-so. Um, we're looking to sell our house. Can you come and, and take a look? And so, uh, you know, there's just this ripple effect when you take care of people, this ripple effect of positivity. Said differently, there's a ripple effect with anything you do, right? And if I'm going to leave a ripple effect, if an action I'm going to take is going to leave ripples in a pond, I just really want those to be of positivity.

Ooh, I love that. I love that. And I think the takeaway here is when you are faithful with what you've been given, you're given more. And we've seen that happen in your business. We saw that happen with BiggerPockets. As you're given things, you just continue to give more to others, and then more comes in and it grows, and you actually have this community that's built. I love the business I love the story. I love the principles. Everyone, this is the, this is the highlight of this video right here. Be faithful with what you're given and be kind to others. Pretty simple.

Pretty simple. Money comes, man. Can I tell you a story of probably one of the coolest things that's ever happened to, to me in terms of like this ripple effect?

Absolutely.

So like, I consider this one of the, you know, one of the best things that I've been a part of, um, and it's a small thing, but like, I feel like it's my purpose and has nothing to do with making a single dollar. You know, I have, I have a, I have students, I have a community of students who we teach how to invest in real estate. But again, it's that people focus. And one of my students who did his first deal since joining our community, and now he's done several deals, and he told a story. He recently, uh, did some marketing for a deal, and the lady who got his direct mail called him and said that, you know, she gets lots of direct mail and she's not interested in selling. And he just kind of broke the ice with her and started chit-chatting with her and said, hey, you know, I totally understand if you don't want to sell, it's totally fine. She said, this is my house, this is all I got, I'm gonna I'm going to die in this house. Right? And so he said, I understand, and that's totally fine, but I'd just like to call you and check on you every once in a while. He just felt like she needed a friend. And so they became friends, and he would call her every so often and check on her. They ended up going to lunch several times and chit-chatting. And at one point, he asked her, he's like, I know you want to keep the house, Like, is it what, what, what happens when you're gone? Is this in the right entity? Is it going to go to your family? And she had no plan for that. It was going to go to probate. Like she didn't understand she needed to, to set up her estate to go to who she wanted it to go to. And so he went out and he connected her to his estate attorney and that estate attorney was able to set everything up. For her so that if and when she passed, the property would go to her daughter. It's the only wealth she had ever built. And, um, pretty suddenly, out of nowhere, she passed away, and that property is now remaining in her family and is not going to get stuck in probate or get sold at an auction. Or— and, uh, man, that's cool. That's cool that that, you know, you teach people how to do this the right way and it actually has ripple effects and ends up where you've got people all over the country who are not just doing this to make money but doing this to take care of people. And it's just good knowing that he made that connection with somebody who needed it and he made sure she got taken care of. He made no money on that property. He, he just did what he thought was the right thing. And that's what people should be trying to do. Money will come. Money will come.

When you go through learning real estate and you're building a portfolio and you have a lot of successes— you've had a ton of success— when you're learning, you pay something that we call the stupid tax, which is you just don't know what you don't know, and things cost more than you think they do. God knows we've had a lot. Our first deal, we structured our debt in a way that cost me an extra $300,000 more than it needed to. And thank the— thank thought it was a deal that we were, uh, that it made enough money to cover our stupid tax. But when you're doing this, there's some really expensive things that come up. Yeah. Throughout your career, what is the highest stupid tax Henry has had to pay while learning how to play the game?

Uh, gosh, I don't even know that I could put a number to it. What happened was, uh, I bought an 8-unit property pretty early on into my investing journey. I still own it, so. But this thing needed a big rehab. It had been neglected for years. It was part of the reason we were getting to buy it at such a good discount. And so I had to move pretty quickly on that deal. It was under contract, it went to close, and then the seller backed out. They couldn't agree on the amount of repairs they needed to do, yada yada yada. So It backed out, but it was such a good deal. We knew somebody was going to snap it up. So my agent was like, here's all the numbers. This is the price you got to come in at offer-wise. I think if you come in at this, we'll be able to lock it up. And so I rushed through the rehab numbers just based on the limited experience I had with a few single-family deals I'd done. I just kind of converted that over to a large-scale or larger, an 8-unit apartment building. I was like, all right, it cost me this much in a building single, and we'll just multiply that by a few, and then And so I came up with a rehab budget of $100,000 to renovate this entire 8-unit building that had been neglected for years. And, and you know this as much as I do, $100,000 might cover like 3 of those units, right? Maybe 4 if it's complete distress. On top of the fact that we closed on that property January 1, 2020, in March COVID hit. So all the contractors, everybody was at home, nobody wanted to work. And then by the time people did start working again, the cost of materials was through the roof, the cost of labor was through the roof. And so like that budget doubled on top of the fact that it was under-budgeted from the beginning. And so, um, the— my stupid tax was pretty high. Fortunately for us, property values also went through the roof during COVID And so I was able to actually refinance that property and leverage some of the equity, pull that cash out back onto a line of credit to use to actually do the rehab that was necessary. And so that hurts my cash flow now from a long-term perspective because— but this is such a good deal in such a good neighborhood. Like, I still have a ton of equity in it. Like, it's like you can throw a rock and hit the University of Arkansas and it's always rented. And then we were able to increase the values, but Man, buddy, buddy, buddy, buddy, had that property not gone up in value as it did, I would have had to find a way to come up with $100,000 some odd out of my own pocket to finish that renovation.

If it makes you feel any better, Cody and I did the same thing with a 38-unit building, and that was our first deal. And we did— it took us 2 refis. We had to do it in phases. We refi'd, fixed more of the building, refi'd again, and took the cash out and fixed it again. And now it cash flows., but we had to get out of a 4% interest-only debt product. It's like, oh, now we pay 6% full, uh, 30-year AM. It's like, oh wow, payments went from like $7,000 to like $14,000. Yeah, man, that's— I could use another $7,000 to cash flow. That's a bummer. Yeah, I, I feel you there. Do it on an 8-plex, not a 38-plex. Uh, learn. There's something to be said about doing a deal and doing a size that is manageable. I like that you went from single to 8. That is what a logical human would do.

Yeah.

2 to 38, probably not the path. Thank you, 2020 market for saving me.

Yeah. Saving my butt.

Yeah. Last question. Through all your experience, one piece of advice that you can leave us with for viewers. It could be people starting, it'd be people in the middle of their real estate career, but one piece of advice that you can leave everyone with?

Yeah, um, so we've talked a lot about taking care of people. Obviously that's important, but in terms of like tactical things people can do, like, you just have to— real estate, you have to realize that like real estate's crazy vast. You can do a million things and make money, and that is overwhelming when you're brand new. But there is one common denominator in real estate. It doesn't matter what strategy you use, if you don't buy a good deal, your strategy doesn't work. And so stop trying to figure out what strategy I'm going to use. Am I going to do singles? Am I going to do multis? Am I going to do it this way? Am I going to do it that way? What you need is to be able to find a deal, and you need that more than you need to be able to find money. If you find a good deal, the money comes. And so two things to focus on if you're brand new or if you're just struggling in your business: one is got to know what a good deal looks like in the market you're going to buy in. Every market's a little different. Real estate's very local. What's a good deal? If you say I want to buy properties at a, at a 30 to 40% discount, then what's those numbers typically look like in the, in the type of property you want to buy, right? You got to know what a good deal looks like in your market. Once you learn that, then you have to figure out what is one way that I can use to find said properties. There's a million ways to do it. I use direct mail and cold calling and I go off market. There's great ways to find on-market deals. You got to be strategic about it, but you can do it. You can do what Christian and Cody do and find off-market deals through mom-and-pop owners. There's a million— like, you can just Google this stuff. It's out there. It's free information. How to find great deals.

There's no right way, right? There's a million ways to play the game.

One, pick one that you can fund appropriately. And when I say fund, I don't always mean money. You must be able to fund it either appropriately with your dollars or with your time, but it will cost you one or both of those. So if you're saying, I want to do cold calling, but, uh, I'm sorry, let's say you say I want to do direct mail, but you don't have the money to fund it appropriately. Don't just say I'm going to spend $200 and send 50 postcards and see if direct mail works. It won't. You can just give Christian Osgood or me that $200 because you're just throwing it down the drain, right? You have to be able to fund that strategy appropriately and then have that funds for the, the length of time it's going to take for that to work. The stuff just doesn't work overnight, right? And that strategy that you pick needs to fit your personality, right? And the reason I say that is because, like, let's say I'm like, door knocking— everybody said door knocking works, it's amazing, I'm gonna go knock on 50 doors a day until I get a deal, I'm gonna force myself because that's what good powerful people would do. It's not in me, like, that's not my thing. Like, if I knock on a few doors and get yelled at, I'm not gonna want to do it anymore. Like, I won't do it in enough volume for it to work. I know myself enough. I can give myself all the frick-fracking, you know, Marine Corps speeches in the world about how I'm just going to power through and do things I don't like until I get results, but then I'm going to knock on 3 doors and quit. You got to know yourself enough. But I did know that, like, direct mail works because the people who are calling me, they want to call me. Whether they want to call me because they want to talk to me about a deal, they want to call me because they want to curse me out, at least they want to call me. And so, like, I'm cool with that strategy. Like, I can take those phone calls all day long, it won't bother me a bit. And so that strategy I know I can fund it appropriately, and I know it fits my personality. I'm not going to give up on it when it gets challenging. And so that's the thing that I would do— do that until it works. The magic, guys, is it all works. We don't— this is a proven industry. It didn't— it wasn't invented yesterday. It's not crypto. It's just not brand new. Like, we know it works. It worked before you were born. It'll work after you're gone. Nothing we do we made up. It's all been working. If you do it appropriately with the right amount of time, effort, and funds, it'll work.

Henry, if people want to learn more about you, they want to learn from you, where do people go?

Best place is Instagram. I'm @TheHenryWashington on Instagram, or you can go to my website, www.seeyouattheclosingtable.com, spelled out, S-E-E-Y-O-U-A-T, theclosingtable.com.

All right, well, I guess that from there, we'll see you at the closing table. Everyone, thank you for watching. Like, subscribe, hit all the buttons, and we'll see you guys on the next episode.