EP 657 - Wrestling With Real Estate With Entertainer Turned Investor, Barri Griffiths

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This is the no Closer show where you get the latest developments in distressed note investing and learn the secrets of how you can control millions of dollars worth of property for panties on the dollar. Get educated and entertained by someone who has closed thousands of deals and lives to support you in achieving the same. Now, here's your host CEO of We Close Nodes, Scott Carson.

Hello, this is Barry Griffiths from Wrestling with Real Estate. And today I'm so excited to be on Scott Kassen show the no Closers Show. Today we're going to be talking about how to have a plan B and why a plan B is important. I found out the hard way, don't be like me. Be smarter. Listen to this show and learn how to have a plan B. And this is amazing. Scott is the man and I'm going to choke slam you if you don't listen.

Good morning, good afternoon and good evening everybody. Welcome to this episode of the no Closure Show. As always, Scott Clarson. Excited to be here with the day and I'm really jacked up. I'm all hyped up, baby. For our special guest today on the no Closure Show. Now you may have seen him, you may recognize him. Not only is he massively good looking, he's just a beast. He's got a huge passion for real estate. But you may not recognize it now. You may see him recognize him from a different type of Monday night show that he's appeared on in the past. And being a bit of a celebrity out there, this guy likes to take real estate from the top road or from the turnbuckle. He's previous, you may have seen him on the Wrestling with Real estate podcast and YouTube channel. But this guy got his start in the ring, in the wrestling ring, ladies and gentlemen. He wrestled the likes of John Cena. Been on Monday Night Raw before and I'm really honored to have our buddy Barry Griffiths join us here on the Note Closure show today. What's going on, Barry? How you doing, man?

What's up, Scott? My goodness, that was quite the intro, man. I'm blushing over here. I don't know what to say. That's a lot to live up to, man. I don't know if I can. There's a lot of pressure.

So people probably think, okay, how the heck did you go from wrestling into real estate? And so I've got some questions, but I guarantee that's the first kind of burning question our listeners desire there. Let's talk a little bit about how you got to be in a real estate because most people Think oh, on Monday night, Ron wrestler John Cena. That's got to be some big stuff. That's celebrity status, right, baby?

Yeah. Well, I think that's the biggest misconception. Start off with people think because you're on TV that you're making millions. Don't get me wrong. I wasn't hurting for money and I wasn't poor by any stretch of the imagination. But early on in your career like that, and depending where you are on the show as well, you're not making millions. You're making good money, but you're not definitely not making millions. So I was wrestling on tv, as you mentioned, did some cool stuff. Pay per views, John Cena, Randy Orton, Kane, those kind of people, wrestled those kind of people. I made some okay money, but that didn't last for long. It lasted maybe four years. And I was really focused on wrestling. That's all I kind of knew, right. I didn't have a degree in anything. I didn't have like a backup arm. I'm from the UK over here in the US so in 2014, when WWE didn't renew my contract and I did not see it coming, I was like, oh, okay, this is an interesting situation. I can pick up dumbbells and I can pick up people, but what else can I do, right? And I'm trying to figure it out. There was bigger problem than that. So, yes, my career comes to not come to an end, but my dream had kind of come to an end and I just bought a house. So this was In April of 2014, January of 2014, guess who went and bought a $430,000 home?

Mr. Mason Ryan. Right?

Mason Ryan went and bought $434,000 home that had a massive mortgage, or it was massive for me. It was 2550amonth at the time. So, you know, was quite a burden, right? Because I went from making good money six figures to now making nothing and trying to figure out where do I go from here, what do I like? I'm 32 or 33, however old I was at the time, what do I go from here? So first thing I had to figure out was this monthly mortgage payment and I just bought the house. So if I bought it in January and this is April, I'm going to sell it. If I sell, I sell at a loss. Plus I love the house. Pure emotional buy. Like, I like the layout, like the colors of the wall, like the kitchen, like the neighborhood, like all the stuff that doesn't really add value to the property. So but.

But it's got a lot of that intangible excitement. It's a nice looking house. Vegas was going through a hu. Huge boom.

This was in Tampa. This was in Tampa.

Oh, Tampa.

Oh, my God.

Tampa was still going. Really going through a huge boom. Okay, Tampa. Now it makes sense. Okay, I was in Vegas, but no, that's Tampa. Wow. Yeah, definitely. Yeah.

But really, the house wasn't necessarily a good investment. Even I could have bought so many things back then. That would have been an amazing investment. But it was like in a little bit of an area out of the way and blah, blah, blah. Anyway, all the. Anyway, so I got this huge monthly mortgage payment. I can't sell the house because I loved it because I've lost my job and my dream kind of. I can't sell the house because it was like, mentally it was too much. I could have sold it and made a bit of a loss and just cut my losses and be like, all right, get out of here. But I just couldn't bring myself to do that. So I went down the rabbit hole of finding a tenant. How do you find a tenant? How do you screen a tenant? All this kind of stuff, how to be a landlord, all this stuff when I was trying to find a tenant. So I eventually found a tenant, put a tenant in there. I think that what started me down that rabbit hole of researching and I came across real estate was like, well, you can invest in real estate and you can like have a side gig, you know, because also I think I was looking for a plan B at the time because I didn't have a plan B. Right. I was going to still wrestle and be in entertainment, but I needed something else that went side by side to that. Real estate was a great thing for me to find to do that, because you can kind of do both. I feel like depending, you know, you can do anything in real estate, right? But I found a way to kind of do both. Kept going through that, kept going through that and fell in love, really with real estate and had a passion for it and eventually got three single family homes and then sold them all and focusing on multifamily now.

So I want to bring up a little bit of that mindset because I think such a parallel to so many people are struggling with right now. You know, they've had that job where they've been laid off or their industry has been shut down, Especially in Florida or in Vegas where you're at. You think about all the hospitality and the tourism people up there owning houses and stuff like that. Now they're basically without a plan. I've heard you talk about on other podcasts about how your plan A, B and C was all the same thing to win the heavyweight championship in wrestling, Right?

Yeah. Yeah.

And a lot of people have that. But when dreams kind of knocked away, how long, thinking back, did you kind of struggle with trying to figure out your direction? Was it six months?

Is it a year?

Was it a month? Now, I. Have you answered that question before I ask the next one?

Okay. Yeah. So honestly, I don't know. Because honestly, it was a bit of a. It wasn't the greatest time in my life, if I'm completely honest. Because. No, because I worked so hard to be a wrestler. And the other thing was I identified as a wrestler. Talking about a mindset thing, right? Mindset shift. I identified as a wrestler. Everybody knew back home, everyone calls me Barry the Wrestler. You know what I mean? Talk about identity, you know? So then I was like, wait, I'm not going to be a wrestler now maybe anymore. And I got to figure out this whole financial situation. So it took me a while and it's probably took me. I knew immediately that I needed, within about two or three weeks that I needed to rent out the place. So I kind of moved forward with that slowly in a mental fog. But kind of within a month or two, I had the place rented out and moved somewhere else. But it took me a little while longer to really let the cobwebs clear and kind of realize, wait a minute, I have this place rented. Real estate like this can work. I researched the bigger pockets and rich dad, poor dad, that kind of took a while. Now, I think the parallel is interesting, like you said, about what people are going through now, because I think, like me, I think people have a W2 job and they thought that was the guaranteed income for the next 30, 40 years, and then they can retire and then they're fine and they go off and drink cocktails in the Dominican Republic. Like we like to do. Like we like to do. But I think this year has been a real awakening for a lot of people. Right. Unfortunately, right. In that this job that I thought that was guaranteed, right. In whatever they're in. Right. I thought it was going to work for the next 30 years isn't guaranteed. It's something like the pandemic can come along. And I think. I don't know if there's been more real estate investing than ever, but there should be or people open to that. Right. Because it's just a plan B. Right. Like we talked about I was in entertainment, right? I talk about susceptible industry to get hit by anything, right? The entertainment industry. But it doesn't matter what you're in. You could be in a corporate job, right, climbing that double two ladder, trying to get to 59 and a half so you can access your 401k and your IRA, right, just to get to that point. But I think it's definitely been an awakening for people to realize, like, wait, I'm not that secure, where is my life heading, right? And I think real estate is such a good complement to someone who has that awakening, right? Because it can be whatever you want it to be. We can talk about this, right? I invest in multifamily, invest in notes. But both of those can be something that you do on the side. It doesn't need to be, hey, I'm spending 70, 80 hours a week doing real estate, managing tenants, blah blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? You can do it on the side and it can be something that you can start with very little to almost no investment right out of pocket of your own money. You need someone's money, it just doesn't need to be your own. Yeah, that's such a great point. And I think there is so many powers and just to go one step when this happened, obviously I worked for Cirque du soleil now, so March 9th, we haven't done a show since March 9th and God knows when we're going to go back to work. But as opposed to the first time it happened with wrestling, where I was panicking, oh my God, what's going to happen? What am I going to do? This time I had a real calmness and a little bit of excitement actually that I could focus on real estate a little bit more and that I could really pursue real estate a little bit more. So that's what real estate can give you. It doesn't need to be your main hobby or your main course job or whatever you focus, but it can be something you do on the side. Now if you decide to go full time and a great. But it can be something on the side that can give you that freedom and that, I don't know, not having to worry about it. Right, yeah, peace of mind comes to mind. Exactly. It's exactly that. Peace of mind. If you have a few pieces of real estate or you've invested in. So not. So you've done whatever you've invested in some syndications, whatever it may be, you have that income coming on and you understand real estate. And I think that's also huge as well as people having that realization, okay, I can do it. So say someone loses their job, they're like, okay, I have real estate and I can go for that. I can go to work in real estate and make more money and invest more money, do that. That's something that's always going to be there, right? Real estate is not going anywhere. Right? Let's be honest. Technology is changing, but real estate is always going to be there.

You know, I love that. And you bring that up there. Most people, we deal with so many people that want to eventually leave their job, you know, leave their job because they want to do something, they want to have a different lifestyle. We talked about, you know, and I've talked before about how we enjoy hanging out in the Dominican or drinking pina coladas or margaritas or whatever you're drinking down there, just run something. Right? But I want to ask you, do you think when you went through that, the trial and tribulation a few years back and figured things out, do you think that your work ethic and I want to throw this back out there because I've heard you mentioned before somewhere that Your family owns 100 plus year construction company. They were doing horse wheels or also the undertaker. You worked as an undertaker for a little while. Not the wrestler, the undertaker. But do you think that work ethic and going from that helped you kind of sport like, okay, I need to probably love the family, probably want to go back to construction history. Is that about right?

Yeah, I was involved in the construction. So my granddad built a triplex when I was a kid and then my dad and his brother built triplex and I was around that. I was always around it. I worked as a carpenter for a while, but I was, I always say this, the worst carpenter in the history of carpentry. Like the worst. I couldn't sorcerer it. I could barely hit a nail in. I was just terrible because I had no interest. I just ended in it because at the time I didn't know what else to do. And I went, you know, you don't know what to do, okay, go work for your dad, you know. And like you feel like I felt like I had to family business has been helped so I had that interest in it. And I still enjoy the construction side of stuff but anything else doing, I enjoy how it looks once it's finished and I enjoy going on side and seeing, okay, fix this, we're going to do that. But in terms of myself, I don't like, but I always had and I think real estate for me as well. I'm a simple guy, right? There's complexity, real estate, but essentially it's pretty simple, right? Residential rental, real estate. Buy a building, rent it out, you get that money and then, boom, you make the cash flow. Right? That's the most simplistic way of looking at it, but it's not hard to describe. It's not stocks, where you've got to understand the future values and what the stock is doing now. And I looked into that and it blew my brains out. I was just like, I have no idea what this, but I can understand real estate now. I'm not saying it's that simple, but it's. The concept is. And I love the concept. So definitely that played a part in it. I think that's a good point. That I didn't really realize until recently that I think being around it all my life, I think I have that interest in it now. I don't want to get my hands dirty, but I want to be involved in it. So, yeah, I think that definitely played as well. There was a work ethic as well. So your question was worth it. Yeah, there was a work ethic, I think that was involved. But again, real estate is really cool because you can work as much or as little as you want. Right. Success is somewhat going to reflect that, but at the same time. So if this is a podcast, I'm holding up my phone. There's so much you can do from your phone, right? So it's amazing. It's literally you can run your business from your phone almost, and it's just amazing. So there was a work ethic, but I think I'm kind of lazy too. That's why I like real estate, because I want to create that financial freedom where I have property managers and people running stuff.

Well, I think there's a lot of similarities. You're flexing a different muscle now versus getting versus dumbbells and lifting people. You're flexing a different muscle. I want to kind of take us back there because you're like, okay, I'm stressed out. I'm worried about where I'm at. Okay, I got this immediate kind of albatross taken care of. You know, I got a rent on place. Okay, pretty cool. They're covering most of my mortgage or all my mortgage for the most part. Let's talk about the transitional investor. What were some of the things that actions you take to start finding information or educating yourself as an investor and those next steps for you?

Yeah, and it took a while for me to go from renting that out to actually buying my first property simply because I was an independent wrestler at the time, doing like a little bit of acting gigs and like all this kind of stuff. But I was like a self employed guy. Just one month I would make good money, then the next month I would make zero. Like you know, and it was all over the place. So investing was. And what I understood about investing at the time was that you needed a bank loan 20% down. You know, just even though I understood real estate investing, I didn't knew the concept at that time. I still didn't fully understand what was the options there. So it took a few years for me to get. I eventually got a job with Cirque du Soleil which is pretty crazy. I moved out to Vegas. So now I've got a W2 job where I'm going to guaranteed money, six figures plus. Also I have that behind me right before. Like I didn't want to buy investment property and not have a guaranteed job that you know I was going to be making that money like wrestling. Like I said, I've got to make the mortgage pay more month and I don't make a penny. Well that's stressful. So I didn't want to get in that situation. So I moved to Vegas. I actually rented when I first got here. I wish I bought. I moved here in December of 15. I wish I'd have bought back then. I would have made a kick. You know, you live and you learn, right? But anyway, I rented but I knew I wanted to invest. I knew I wanted to invest, but I just at the time, I guess was a little scared to pull the trigger maybe a little bit. And also didn't know how long I was moving to Vegas. This new job, this new career, I didn't know how long it was going to last, but it was Biggerpockets without a doubt that I got hooked on. Biggerpockets is the new Rich Dad Poor dad almost. I feel like it's the younger generation's rich dad poor Dad. I read Rich Dad Poor dad too. And that was also my head exploding moment. And I was like, wait. A liability and an asset are different and one pays you money and one cost you money. It was like, wow. It was just like the light bulb went off massively. So I was just diving into any podcast I could find on real estate really. And back then there wasn't as many as there are now. Bigger Pockets was the main one. I was just listening to it every day on the way into work. I was in work, like, just thinking about how do I buy a property? How many properties do I need? And I figured 40 property. And I remember being at certain parts of the show and there's a part I'm really high up, like, I don't know, seven high up, hanging there, waiting to do my bit in the show. And I'm hanging. I remember so many times being in that spot thinking, I need 40 properties. So I make this much. This is how much I spend. How can I spend less? Okay, how much does my wife make? Okay. And this is our average short median home price. Just thinking about if I buy because I wanted 10 years was my goal. 40 properties, that's four properties a year. 3 20% down on one owner occupied property. Right. That's how I was thinking. I didn't understand anything, but that's how I was thinking. So I was trying to figure out roughly how much I needed. And I remember being up there and I was just like not thinking about what maybe should have been thinking about what I was doing. That's the thing.

I'm thinking, like, I was so consumed.

I was so consumed by. I was so obsessed with it. I was just so in love with this idea of that you could create this financial freedom. And not just financial freedom, but like a lot of good wealth for yourself and create a lifestyle for yourself. And I was just remember just being. I was thinking about it all the time. Listening to podcasts on the way home from work, like, just like obsessed with it. Reading anything. I can't talk. Going to meet up. Any meetup I could go. Going to meet up anyone who would shut up long enough to let me talk about it. I talk about it. You know, I just really fell in love and I'm still in love massively to this day with real estate.

Yeah, that's a beautiful thing. I mean, that's total immersion as best you can. I mean, those out there, they're looking to it.

That's.

I totally get. You're listening to podcasts, you're educating, turn your commute into a classroom and then in your spare hours you're attending networking events or events in Vegas. Some of the best, some of the largest real estate investment clubs in the country out there. That's some really good one. Jason Burke's got a big one out there and a few others out there that are friends with and spoken out there a couple times too. So that's awesome. Now, were you looking to invest? I know I've heard the story here before, so I'm kind of. I'M tossing a softball here. You're investing in Vegas. You're like, it's kind of expenses there a little bit. Where did you look to invest and kind of what was that transition from? Because I know you bought some stuff outside of your zip code there. And let's talk about that a little bit, huh?

Yeah, yeah. So essentially, so just to give it, get everyone up to date. So I was thinking I need 40 single family properties, 10 years, right? And I was like, all right, 10 years is an acceptable level. I was 36 or something at the time. So I can be like 45, 46 and retired or whatever. 10 year time horizon, right? Well, through going to meetups and talking to people on bigger pockets and stuff, I met this guy and I was having coffee with him and it's funny because you remember certain things, right? I met tons of other people, couldn't remember the conversation, but I remember exactly where he was sitting, where I was when I told him what my goal was, right? To buy 40 single family homes. And he told me like, hey, why don't you just buy an apartment complex? And I was like, wait, can you explain that a little bit more? And he explained, obviously you can get to one, buy one property and get to $40 and do there in one deal. Now obviously you need the money and it's not quite that easy, but like that concept makes sense to me. Then I understood all the other things about you can increase the value if you increase the rent, lower the expenses, you have a lot more insulated to vacancies if you have a bigger property, blah blah, blah, blah, blah, blah blah, right? All that good stuff. So I then got hooked on multifamily, then dove into other podcasts about that was hooked, was hooked, was hooked. And at this time I had three single family homes that two in Vegas and one in Tampa. And I decided, well, these have gone up a good amount in value. I want to be multifamily, let me sell. So I slowly sold all three of those and had that cash and I was looking in Vegas for multifamily. At the time I thought Vegas was expensive. Now looking back, I wish you to bought everything I looked at. It's probably doubled, if not tripled and that's in the next last three or four years. I wish I'd have bought everything I looked at that time or anything I could afford. But anyway, I didn't like Vegas's boom or bus town, right? It always has been, I think it always will be unless there's a lot of change. Here. But Vegas is so dependent on tourism, like leisure and tourism. It's like 27% of the job base here, I think. Right. So it just tells you everything there. So I think I didn't like that. So I was looking at different markets to invest and I like the Midwest. I always heard the Midwest, good cash flow, stable, blah, blah, blah. Well, in the meantime, I'd hired a coach. Joe Phyllis was my mentor because I knew I didn't know anything. When I was looking at the properties in Vegas. I got close on a 20 unit one time. I was like, wait, wait, wait, let me back up here. I don't idea what I'm doing. I literally have no clue what I'm doing. I've read and I'm trying to research, but I have no idea what I'm doing. Let me back up and try and get a coach and figure stuff out. So I found the Midwest and he said, I like the area. He said, hey, why don't you look at cincinnat at Cincinnati? Like there's a bit of job growth there, population growth. It's not massive, it's not, you know, Atlanta, it's not Arizona, it's not Texas. But there is population growth, there's job growth, there's good job diversity. They're very landlord friendly. There's a lot of people renting there. The percentage of renters there is pretty high. And there's a lot of the smaller multifamily stuff as well. 20 to 30, 40 units and a little bit under as well. So there's a lot of that stuff as well. So it just made sense to me. And when I went there, I liked the city, so I ended up investing there. Now I think maybe what you're asking is how was I able to do that from Vegas and investing there was. I built a team. And you don't think I'm repeating anything that's mind blowing to anyone here, but you build a team, right? And that's the easy answer. But how do you build a team, I guess is a question from there. Some people might have. And for me, I started with one person, I think David Green in his book Long Distance Real Estate Investing. Start, start with one guy, find one good guy. You can't just start a mediocre or crappy guy, right? Find one really good guy and get that. Connect with me. That was a broker. I met a broker from Akas and Millichap and he connected me with the other team members and I just, I vetted him, but I still vetted them. Now that team does so much for me, and I'm able to be in Las Vegas on my phone or on Zoom talking to Scott Carson about how I did it. And, you know, they do everything for me now. I still go there every now and again, but probably haven't been there in three or four months. And we're doing extensive renovations so people can send videos, pictures. You have other people that go and check up on them, you know, and there's a whole bunch of stuff. So essentially, it's not scary. I was a little scared stuff. But I knew I needed to do it as well because Vegas market didn't make sense.

So.

And I say if I did it, anyone could do it. I literally. I'm like. I was a wrestler. Come on. If I can do it, yeah, you can do it. You're all smarter than me. There's no doubts about it.

Your first foray, was it a six unit? If I remember, I heard somewhere, yeah.

It'S a six unit. Yeah. I wanted something a lot bigger, but it needed a lot of work. Like, all the units were wrecked, to be honest with you. They all needed. Maybe not down to the studs, but needed a lot of new kitchen, new bathroom, new flooring, paint reconfiguration on some of them. I put washers and dryers into all of the units because that area can kind of support that. So I've done five of the six. I've got one left to go that the guy's gonna be moving out at the end of the month, finishing that one and then turning, hopefully fixing that up, and then hole six will be rented. And I've taken rents from low five hundreds to an average of, I think average about 1200.

Nice.

That's a pretty good value add, you know, And I've spent. I spent a good amount of money, but just to give people an idea of numbers, I bought it for 300. I'm going to end up putting maybe about 100 in. And I'm hoping it's going to be worth 650, 700 maybe, once it's all done. So then 1031 that into 40 or 50 units from there. That's the plan. And maybe do something similar, maybe not quite as much. Such a heavy value add. But, you know, that's the beauty of multifamily. I think you can keep 1031 into something bigger and bigger and keep growing like that.

So that's hopefully the case if Biden keeps 1031.

Yeah, I maybe need to hurry up with that and get this Done pretty quickly before he takes or maybe into.

A deferred sales trust for a period of time too, which can save you from having to go find a property immediately. And I'm gonna put you in touch with a buddy of mine who does a lot of that for apartment investors out there. So 1031 is a deferred sales trust and that allows for you to do some creative things with it as well. But that's. You're buying there, buying the Midwest. Now you finance that self finance, you get a loan or private money or you did a syndication. What was kind of the financing process behind it?

That was an issue too. The financing wasn't just as easy because for one, I don't live there. Right. So a lot of these. And it doesn't qualify because it was such a small loan. It was a 300 grand purchase. It doesn't qualify for Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Right. Even the small balance loan, you need to be over a million dollar loan to qualify for that. So I didn't qualify for any of that agency debt. So trying to find and local credit unions or local banks, they want you to have a footprint. They want you to either live there, have a property there. So that was challenging. So I was calling around. In the end I got in touch with US bank and because there's a US bank here in Vegas, they were able to use that as I opened an account there is that I had a footprint there and they were willing to loan. So they're the ones that gave me a loan. They gave me 80% LTV. So 20% down. So which wasn't bad for my first property. It was a small property. I think that helped me. Now If I bought $2 million property for my first one, maybe they would have wanted 70% LTV. Right. They would have changed that a little bit. I got a 4.4% interest rate, which wasn't bad at the time. Think start of the year. This was January of 2020. And also no prepayment penalty, which was huge because I knew I wanted to turn the property around and sell it or do a 1031, which is still selling it. Essentially. I knew that I didn't want a prepayment penalty because that can really hurt you. Right. For people who don't know prepayment penalty is what the bank put on it or yield maintenance so that they still make their money. Right. They still want to make their profit on that loan. Because if you turn around and sell it pretty quickly, they don't get that chance to make that money. But there was no prepayment bounty on this. So I was like, all right, this is brilliant. It fits my business model of looking to turn around and sell it pretty quickly. So that was good. And thinking back, I didn't get any of the rehab costs, which I wish I took it out of my own money. That was fine. I had that money and it was a safe bet. So I wasn't over leveraging in any way. But at the same time I could have probably got 70, 75% loan to costs and could have saved so much of the money and used that money to be invested somewhere else. Now I'm going to turn around and use that money. The problem is with that money now kind of is stuck in that deal. Right. So with a 1031, I'm going to be a little bit rushed. So it's not like I have that freedom. Without money to do as I please, it's going to be. Have to be used for something else, which is fine, but I would have rather have leveraged.

Yeah, I think, I mean that's a nice thing is leverage. But 4% interest rates, not bad either though too. If you went and used other people money, the interest rate would probably been a little bit higher on that, on the private route versus so there's always pros and cons to each thing, you know what I mean? So let's talk about the future. Are you still looking to buy more in the Midwest and in Ohio and the Cincinnati area? And what are you doing a little bit differently about the funding side? You're still looking for bank financing or are you looking more on the OPM side of things?

Yeah, so there's a. So as I've developed and kind of I guess matured as an investor and realized as well that bigger is better, I'm definitely looking for my own personal portfolio in Cincinnati. So I'm looking at 20 to 50 for myself either as a joint venture by myself, because I like the idea of having that little portfolio for myself that brings in the cash flow. But also I've been focusing a lot more on syndications. And so I've got partners, I've got three partners now. We're four of us in a team and we're looking at bigger deals. We're looking at. We recently made an offer on a 66 unit and a 64 units. And these were in Columbia, South Carolina.

Nice place.

The reason we changed Mac is I like the Carolinas, good market. You know, there's a lot of jobs, a lot of stuff heading that way. But also one of the team members is a very strong team. He has a good amount of experience. He worked for a commercial investor for 15 years. Now he's doing his own syndications. So he's part of his team and he has a good connection with the brokers there. He understands the Mac. He lives in the market himself. So when we put the team together, we were trying to decide on the market. It just made sense to look there. So that's why we built it. So looking at some deals for myself, but mainly been focusing on the syndication route and trying to take down deals. And obviously with syndication, you bring in other people's money and have them involved in the deal. So some passive investors. So, yeah, really focused on that and trying to ramp that up here. See, I'd like to do two syndications in 2021. We'll see how Covid helps us with that. Or not. But that's the goal for sure.

Now, are you solely focused on multifamily? Are you still looking at single family deals in different markets too, or not?

Yeah, a little bit. So I'm trying to stop myself. I've got. Definitely got the shiny objects in here. Massive.

Hey, you know today's actual National Squirrel Day, right? Squirrel day Squirrel.

That fits in perfectly. I know, but I fight that. But definitely trying to keep my focus on multifamily. But I like the idea of Airbnb as well. Just a little bit of a different model. I have a couple of property managers who specialize in Airbnb, so I'm trying to utilize them and trying to leverage them. And I've also got some agents that I've connected with, so I'm going to use them. And the cool thing is, I don't know if you're familiar with this. There's a 10% vacation home loan that you can get, so you only have to put 10% down. So if it's 200 grand home, you only have 20 grand down to buy that. So it's not. I'm not putting up a lot of capital either for that. So the idea with that is I'd like to buy one in Florida, because that's where I'd like to move back to, I think. And then another one not too far from where my property is in Cincinnati. So just use those. It's a great cash flow play. Very little effort on my part. Just find a deal, analyze it, have the property manager run it, do everything for me. They set up everything for you. Just have that little bit of a diversification as well, I'm looking here in Vegas to buy a home for myself. I like that. Owner occupied financing. Right. Get in with 5% down, living it for a year and then do it again. And then in five years time you have a small portfolio. That was pretty easy. It's a low hanging fruit again, I feel like that's why I like about it. But definitely I'm trying to keep, I'm trying anyway. But no, I definitely am keeping my focus on multifamily. Just doing these little bits on the side that doesn't take up too much mind space, I guess, you know.

And you gotta take advantage of the opportunities out there too. I mean, I think Vegas is gonna get cheap as things kind of start to fizzle out. I mean it's been one of the hardest hit markets, unemployment wise and stuff like that too. And people can't pay or aren't working, they can't pay their mortgage. It's gonna lead to an increase in foreclosures in that neck of the woods compared to some other areas. What part of Florida are you looking around? Tampa again as well?

Yeah, for an Airbnb, I'd like St. Pete, Clearwater, something not too far from the beach. That way it'd be just, I don't know, I'd have some private ownership or something like that. It'd be cool to own something like that. And I think if you buy it right there, you can definitely make some good money as well. And long term, just owning something by the beach there, you can't imagine it's going to go down in value, you know what I mean?

Well, and that's the beautiful thing about Florida. It's got so much stuff on the west coast. I mean Indian Rocks beach has been a great area. Clearwater, that whole area of Tampa, Bradenton, all that neck of the woods, they do really well. And we've got a couple buddies that are doing that here in Texas on the Gulf coast. Part rentals, apartments, but also they leave a couple of their units in their multifamily available for Airbnb. And it was a smart play that they did because it's kind of, it led to people that they had vacant short term rentals as people were recovering, getting out of Houston, want to go someplace with their family, a little bigger spot, away from other people so they can kind of enjoy it a little bit versus being holed up in a smaller place downtown, you know, for the most part, yeah.

Yeah. And the cool thing is my wife has a family there. So if we want to go There. We can just go stay there. I don't have to feel like I have to go be in with my in laws, you know what I mean? Like sharing bathrooms.

Nothing wrong with having dinner, but you want that alone time from mom or mother in law and father in law, don't you?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. So. So definitely. I love the beach as well. So that's definitely one of my goals, is to be like, you know, we love the Dominican Republic, but I'd love to have a house like. Like ideally right on the beach. You wake up in the morning, go drink your coffee and then just walk out to the water or something. That would be. That's one of my dreams for sure.

Now, I want to ask you a question. I'm a preface. When you were a young kid getting started or starting to. I think you came from a pretty small town, Is that correct?

200 people? Yeah, 200 people.

That's. That's not even a town. That's like a village, you know what I mean? In a lot of cases. Did you have like the posters on the walls? Who was your favorite wrestler as a kid?

Yeah, well, the Hulk Hogan, I would say was my favorite wrestler as a kid, but wasn't a huge wrestling fan. Just like, just quite simply because growing up we had four TV channels growing up. That's all we had. It wasn't like we were poor, it was just the norm. That's what everybody had growing up.

Exactly.

Yeah, that's what everybody had growing up. And they didn't show wrestling on tv, so I barely knew. I kind of knew about it. People had tapes here and there, but you couldn't really watch it the same level, you know, So I didn't really grow up. And I really only got into it when I started trying to find what I was going to do in my life where I was like looking for something in my life and I just found wrestling because I was big and kind of athletic and I saw people on TV that kind of looked like me and kind of acted like me. I was like, okay, I think I could do something like that. That's where my real interest peaked. And I then fell in love with it, of course, and fell in love with what I was doing. But yeah, I was a Hulk Hogan fan growing up for sure. Definitely. Definitely.

Now the question I have, the reason I asked a Hulk Hogan fan and probably all of us kids, we have posters or other things on the wall, whether it's wrestling or football or. And I used to have Troy Aikman and Emmett Smith. From the Dallas Cowboys on my wall along with Cindy Crawford. Who doesn't like Cindy Crawford? You know what I mean? But you think about it as we get older and we start visualizing things. I know that your guy is probably very goal oriented and have things. What's on your proverbial poster wall now? You have anybody that you love looking towards me. I know you've talked about Jerf. Joe's a great guy. We've had him on the podcast before and vice versa. Been on his. But what's on your wall now as an adult kid? Because I don't think we ever grow up. You know what I mean?

That's a good question. Who do I look up to essentially right outside of Scott Carson.

I know I'm way down the low belt. Okay, all right, come on now. But yeah, who's anybody that you really like to follow or really look up to right now? It doesn't have to be a famous name. It could be somebody.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. God, that is such a good question. There is, but I can't think off the top of my head. In the real estate world there's definitely people, but I'm sorry, I can't think for now. I'm a huge soccer fan. A huge soccer fan.

Big soccer fan.

Yeah. Liverpool, definitely. All the Liverpool players. But they're doing, aren't they?

Liverpool, I think is what in the top two or three right now.

But the last four or five games they've lost and they've been terrible. So I'm all mad and angry about that right now.

You know, that's one thing Covid with Amazon I've been watching. I like those reality sports shows and I've learned a lot about soccer because Austin is actually. We're about to get the Columbus, the Columbus Cruise moving to Austin. We're going to be Austin Football Club here. So I've been to spend time watching the Amazon special, you know, Cotton Home Spurs.

Okay. Yeah.

More about Liverpool and then all that other good stuff out there. So it's very interesting. I'm actually pretty excited about it. But I want to come back to this as well too. Any of your colleagues or ex colleagues or friends from wrestling reached out to you or if you reached out to them in a right away they've looked at, you know, what you're doing now and taking any interest into being in real estate as well with you?

No, I speak to a few of them and they know what I'm doing. I think it's early on as I grow and develop I think there will be. And I want to build a little bit of a track record before I kind of reach out. Because wrestlers are very suspicious of other wrestlers from being in the business. Like it's a little bit of a cutthroat business. It's just how it is. Right. Even though you're all working on a team, you're essentially looking out for yourself all the time because nobody else is. You're paying your own bills. Right. Nobody else is paying your bills for you. So you've always got to take care of yourself. So the rest of us are a little bit suspicious of other wrestlers, to be honest with you. So I think it'll take time to build that trust. And that's Right. Broker before he trusts me.

That makes a lot of sense. I mean a lot. And we see that in different areas of real estate too. You know, like wholesalers are very cutthroat business for wholesaling. And a lot of times in different parts of the country too that you have. Realtors are very cutthroat or commercial guys can be cutthroat too. It all depends on fine. Like you said, find that good person and good people are usually surrounded by good people, right? Yeah.

Yeah, for sure. Like people hanging out with people that are similar to themselves. Right. There's no doubt about like that. Right. So if someone in that team is a little sneaky and whatnot, you might ask questions about the other members of the team. Right. Because we gravitate to people similar to ourselves. Right. Or that have similar beliefs and have similar values. I think.

Yeah, that's totally the truth. I think we like to surround ourselves with like minded people and going from there. Similar mindset. So what I love about the real estate industry for the most part is usually it's people that are in it for a long run have a whole better developed mindset. They've got a clear picture what they're wanting to do. They're usually investing in their themselves and finding that, I don't know, better mindset or getting rid of the. I think we build a little thicker skin because we're used to having good things. Maybe not always go the right way for us in a lot of ways. You know what I mean?

Yeah. I think the mindset thing is like I had somewhat of the mindset stuff before but nothing like what I've been working on now since being in real estate. That's been a huge thing in real estate for me. Even if I didn't make another dollar in real estate. That mindset component of understanding more about myself and how I work. And like just the mindset actually exists that there is this thing called a mindset, right? That the way we think about the way we talk about stuff, the way we talk to ourselves, the way we frame stuff, all this stuff is. I love that stuff. It's mind blowing to me. And it's just crazy to me that that exists because I didn't really understand. I had goals and visions, but that was just from. I don't know, it wasn't even. Nobody told me. It was just what I had. Right. It was just what I had. And I had ambition and some other components already. But once I realized about that mindset stuff, I really like just fell in love with that. I was just so fascinated by that. I think it's just so interesting because. Because you can change everything by mindset, right? Literally everything. You can change it with mindset. It's just nuts. Literally nuts. This conversation can be changed by the mindset, right? Oh, is that a good conversation or a bad conversation? Well, if I say it's a good conversation, it was a good conversation. That's how you think about it. It's just nuts. Absolutely nuts.

I love that. Now your wife, she's involved in your real estate business as well, or she keeps it separate or how's that kind of thing? Yeah, yeah.

She's an agent here in Vegas. She just got a license last year. She's a flight attendant as well. She still has that, but because we have a son and she was able to take some time off, Covid, she hasn't had to work, I don't know, maybe two years now, but we still have the flight benefits, so that's really nice.

Well, that comes a nice one. You gotta jump on a plane, go check out a new market though too, doesn't it?

Yeah, yeah. It just makes traveling places a lot easier. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, apart from being standby in terms of cost, it's easy. It's a pain the backside to be flying standby sometimes, but. Yeah, but she's an agent here in Vegas and recently as well, because I'm all crazy about real estate, right. I'm all about it and talk about it, think about it all day long. I think I've managed to persuade her to try and house hack in Florida because she wants to move back to Florida. That's where her family is. Why didn't you start not house hacking, doing the Burr method, the brrr method in there. So I think I've got her on board with that. She's like researching that now, really looking into it. Like if that's what we're going to move back to, why don't you start trying to build a small portfolio of single family homes there? You know, she's like, I have no money. Or like there's this thing called the burr, believe it or not. So look into it. So hopefully she's going to do that. And she's an agent here now in Las Vegas as well.

So.

So it's a bit of a crazy market here right now, you know, it.

Totally is a crazy market, man. By your opinion, and you may not know this, how would you say, how far back is Vegas as far as stuff being open or still being closed compared to where it was? Would you say it's like 20%, 30, 50? Where would you say based on what, you know, in the market, it's got.

A while to go, I think. I think, you know, it's going to take vaccine being wildly distributed. International travel is the big thing for Vegas. Massively international travel. There's still people coming here to Vegas, but they're not people spending a lot of money, you know what I mean? They're people flying in on a cheap flight from Atlanta or Florida or wherever, right? They're coming somewhere on a cheap flight because flights are cheap right now. They're getting a cheap hotel, they're coming here and they're not going to all the restaurants. They're not looking to spend every penny they have, right? They're just coming here because they can just about afford it. They're enjoying a little bit of gambling and then they're leaving. And then the people from California, there's a lot of people from California that come here for the weekends and stuff. But those people aren't spending either. You know, you come in for the car for a weekend, you're not going crazy, right? You know, putting stuff on the credit card or, you know, gambling like crazy, going to the shows or whatever because you can come back next week or next month or whatever. So that international travel is really what's hurting Vegas. I think once that comes back, I think that's the game changer. Now when will that be? I don't know because also we're not in control that here in the U.S. right? It depends what they. How they vaccinate in other countries, how they feel about it. Like talking about mindset, right? That's huge mindset stuff, right? How are people comfortable traveling? Do people want to travel? Are they going to be cooped up and desperate? Travel and go Somewhere and have a great time. I don't know. So just to give you an example, in our show, we won't be back anytime before July with Cirque du Soleil. I don't think. And my show is probably going to be closer to the end of the year, I think. So it just gives you an idea. The show is Cirque du Soleil shows called Ka Ka. It's at the MGM grand with the big moving stage.

Yeah.

You've seen that show?

Yeah, I've seen it three times. Absolutely love it. It's such a unique show and it's everywhere. It's like a 3, 60 degree kind of show with people in the audience and hang coming down from above. It's actually my favorite Cirque du Soleil, so it's nice.

Oh, you had to say that. But thank you.

I don't have to say anything. I'm coughing enough.

But yeah, going back to the Vegas thing, it's interesting because like you said, the economy is being hit so hard. I don't know what unemployment is now here. I think it's still about 10%. I think maybe it's around 12%. The national average is what, 6? So we nearly still have double the national average even if it's 10. Right. Still way higher. And it's still very high numbers. But home prices here are still skyrocketing. It's just nuts. Like my wife tells me story all the time, if it's houses decently priced, you're going to get cash offers at list price or above. So anyone else that you've got to come in way above that. And it's just how is this sustainable is my question. Right. With unemployment like that. Right. And it's definitely a story of America as well. It's the haves and the haves not right. You know, there's people that the gap is getting wider I think.

Right?

The wealth gap as anyone talks about. But the lower end people, they can't afford so they're renting. So the rental market is on fire here now. It's just, I don't know, it might continue. You never know. I don't want everyone to say anything because who knows what could happen, right? But logically and logic thinking doesn't always apply to the economy and everything else like that. Is that logically, how can this continue? Right. I think last year was it 11% appreciation like year over year that home prices went up and this year started off with a bank. How is that sustainable? I don't know. Low interest rate Keep dropping low interest rates. I don't know.

Well, and that's the thing with Biden, right? As we record this, he just extend the foreclosure and eviction moratorium out there through the end of March. And the things that I track is the hardest hit price point in just about every market, if they have it, is that sub $200,000 value asset. And if it's a house below 200, that's usually or 100 in some cases, like the Midwest. And we talk about price disparity between Vegas or Tampa versus Cincinnati or Columbus or Austin. I mean, we don't see that much stuff here. If it is, it's a shack. But I think that's one of the big things you talk about things flying off shelves. You have a lot of California people getting the heck out of Dodge, Dodge in Vegas, Phoenix. That's why those markets are on fire, because people are overpaying, because they. They've got. It's cheaper for what they're buying. They see the bigger bang for the buck than what they're paying for in California. You know what I mean?

So there's a lot of California people coming here. For sure.

You can keep them. Texas leads the nation. California. Vegas I think is second. Arizona is third. So you feel free to keep them over there. That's totally fine. Yeah.

Mostly things they don't bring the legislation.

And they talk communist state of California. Exactly. There's another talk for another day, but you and I could talk. We got to get together in another episode later on. But, Barry, what's the best way for our listeners to follow you, to see what you're up to and connect with you to find out more about what you're working on, Maybe even pitch in and be an investor or two for you?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, thank you for having me on the show, man. It's always a good time talking to you, man. It's very easy to talk to you and a lot of fun and I always enjoy that. So thanks for having me on. But yeah, if people want to reach out, I have my own podcast. Really? Daily shows, as crazy as that seems, and it is crazy. But. But I love it. I love talking to people and I love, love doing the show. So I have a daily podcast called the WWRE Podcast, which stands for Wrestling with Real Estate Podcast. But the best place is if you go to wrestlingwithrealestate.com all the podcasts, my YouTube, some free stuff on there if you guys want to know more about multifamily. And if you Guys want to reach out and jump on a call with me or anything, Just talk about anything whatsoever. Real estate related. We can talk about wrestling as well if you want, but there's going to be a link in that page as well, so. Wrestlingwithrealestate.com awesome.

We'll have the links in the show notes below as well. Well, whether you're listening to this or watching it. But Barry, man, thanks so much for coming on, man. Thanks for having me on your show a while back as well too. It's a pleasure to meet you. It's amazing. We reached out and talked to each other on Instagram to begin with. I love what you were doing. I was like, hey, yeah, I gotta have you on mine. Let's do a swap. And it's been a great conversation, man. And then look forward to hanging with you. We got to get together at some point. Whether I come to Vegas or you're out in Florida. Because we spend a lot of time out in Florida. If you ever come to Austin, you got to give me a holler, man. All right, Right.

Or even better, Dominican Republic.

You know what? I think we get a bunch of our buddies, figure out a resort there, fly to the Dominican on site COVID test, come on to make sure we're all good, we fly back in. But that'd be a lot of fun a bunch of us having out there, right?

Yeah. If anyone wants to be part of a mastermind in the Dominican Republic, reach out to us.

All right, everybody, that's going to wrap it up for this episode of the Note Closure Show. One of the biggest things I think you want to take in mind there is, look, we all have a plan A. We all have goals of what we want to accomplish and achieve in lives. And you know what we plan. Got man plans and God laughs a lot of time. And it's always good to have that plan something different than we're doing. I think Barry shared a great insight and how we all go through that kind of licking our wounds as we get kicked in the teeth or kicked in the wavos. But if you want to accomplish something, there's enough people out there finding a good team, finding people that you can network, surround yourself with, whether it's local or in a new market. The beautiful thing about 2021, hey, it's a new age and you're just a phone call, an email, or one degree away from, from somebody in a different market helping you out and find some amazing deals. So go out there. Whether it's in traditional real estate notes whatever it might be. Go out, take some action, work toward your goals. You know, success doesn't happen overnight, but if you keep at it and keep at it and keep at it, you'll be very surprised where you are just a short period of time. So go out, take some action, buddy, and we'll see you all at the top, everybody. Bye.