Wayne Courreges III on The Real Estate Dads Podcast! Watch the full episode now!

All right, welcome to Real Estate Dads, the podcast about daddying and real estating and doing them both. Well, today I am super excited to introduce to you Wayne Courageous. Have you ever heard of an entrepreneur that is super risk averse, who does things the safe way, you know, afraid to take risks if you will, but then somehow figures out how to do it super smartly? I, I had never met that person until today when we brought Wayne on. So I'm super excited to share him with you. He literally has it all figured out and he does it all in seven hours a day, four days a week running this beast of a real estate private equity firm. So can't wait to go down this rabbit hole. We're about to go down with Wayne and expose to y' all exactly how he's doing it. So without further ado, Wayne, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me on. Well, congrats guys, on getting this podcast up and going. I know it sounds like middle April. You are going to launch hard on it. So.

Yeah, I mean, thanks. It's been great. And you know, I was out of here, out of the room. I know you first came on, but, you know, we try to keep it a little casual. You can do conversational just and discuss kind of whatever you want. We want to hear your story. But I guess, you know, we found that the podcast, the more relaxed we are, the better, I'll call it off the cuff responses people give, you know, in regards to, you know, anything, whether it's, you know, parenting or politics or, you know, the market, the market in general, or deals and, you know, they'll call it. That little more relaxed approach has been, I think, the way that we like doing it in general get, get a little more of the honest touch or honest, honest take on, you know, whatever it is that we're discussing, you know. So tell us first about the kids.

Yeah, So I have three kids. They are ages or, well, 12, 10 and nine. The 10 year old's about to turn 11 in June. One of them, Hunter, he's the 12 year old. He was born in Virginia, north Virginia area. And then both of my girls were born in Houston, so.

Veteran Marine Corps Corporal, 0307.

Yeah. What was your MOS there?

I was an 0411. So I was a MIMS clerk. There was like maybe one or two of us in each unit and ultimately we were like the desk jockeys, men's clerk, mems. So pretty much headquarters Marine Corps has a certain readiness equipment that every unit has to maintain. And so our Job was to make sure, like, when motor T or armory, whatever, had parts weren't or, you know, equipment that wasn't up to combat or whatever. We were working with supply the mechanics and then communicating with the officers so they can report up to headquarters Marine Corps. So, like, very few of us, nobody knew what we were doing. And like, when we were doing work parties, never had to do work parties. I was working with colonels and majors and master guns. Like, I was very blessed to have that job. It was pretty cush, but I also, like, made them look good and was really, you know, I worked really hard, don't get me wrong. But it was nice. Cause I wasn't like grouped up and like, raking dirt and.

Did you ever have to show up to formation in the morning?

Yeah, I did. Well, I was part of the S4 shop. Are you a Marine Corps?

Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay.

I was part of the S4, but I was always headquarters. So, like, I would never be out with the line companies doing that stuff.

You can go formation, bro. You showed up to the office casually in the morning. Come on now.

Yeah, you know, it seemed. Well, get this. I was with the air Wing the last two years. So not only that, but it's like, I had a really good, good job.

I worked in the S4 shop for the last six months. I was 033129 palms. And I had a sergeant major on my first deployment that when we got back from that, he became the sergeant major of the headquarters company on base. And he also coached the fight team, the base fighting team. And so I got back from my second tour and I walked into one his practices, and I was like, I want to, you know, fight with you. And he's like, well, let me see what you can do. And, you know, I rolled around with a couple of his guys, and he's like, all right, you can be on the team. And so then my first sergeant called me in his office the next day. You know, in like those last, like six months in the infantry, at least you get fapped out, right? They don't want you integrated in with, like, the guys that are about to go on another tour while you're just like, not giving a shit because you're not going back on another tour, right? So they send you out to the range to rake dirt or whatever, right? To make the targets pop up while people are training and like, just the worst jobs. And my first sergeant was like, hey, Sergeant Major Gletko want you up at headquarters town. You're going to go Go up there and like, there was no papers. They just sent me up there. And he was like, I don't care what you do. Go sit in the S4 shop and show up to practice on time. And then after like a hot two months at the S4 shop, the captain that was running the S4 shop kicked me out because I never did anything. Just didn't. I checked out. Yeah, yeah, I was checked out, dude. I was just there to show up to practice. And so then I got to go work with the religious guy, the priest, the chaplain, right. And then the chaplain was just like, ah, just check in with me in the morning. And so I know you're alive. And so that was, that was my experience in the, the. The S4, man. I've seen it.

I mean, a lot did happen behind this, but it was no grunt life. It was not like, I mean, I was with 1st Tank Battalion in 29 Palms. That was my first duty station.

Oh.

And we would be going out to the field and like, yeah, it was the field for everybody. Like, it, it was, but. But I was going to school at night and since I was working at that time for a major, he's like, I mean, pretty much a Humvee took me to class. Like we were out in the field and I was like, have class.

Wow.

You know, because I mean, at the end day, like, you know, I tried to help them look good in return. I got a lot of freedom when I was stationed. Okinawa, Japan. I don't know if you ever were stationed there, but like, they had red card, green card, yellow card. Well, I definitely know about red card, green card. But it was like, red card is you couldn't leave base. Yellow card was you could leave base, but you had to have a buddy. And green card is you can go off base, you don't need a buddy. And you got the green card if you hit a certain rank. I think the time was like a corporal. I was like a three year lance corporal because it was such a small MOS and nobody was leaving that MOS because just nobody left. But I got corporal, like sort of like the last, you know, six months or so. Anyway, I got my green card early. I was like PF or lance Corporal with the green card. Anyway, it was nice. I don't want to do it again ever. It was a good four years. And honestly, Trevor, like, when I got out, I thought about doing it doing reserves because I was like, man, I don't know if I really got the Marine Corps experience. Like, I was a Marine and we all rifleman and all that. But, you know, some of my friends who were boot camp. Two guys, boot camp. I mean, they went to Iraq, they went to Afghanistan, they went to Horn of Africa, and they convinced me not to. They're like, the Marine Corps needed you in a place you served. You're good. But I had a little.

That's true. You did way more than. Yeah, yeah. Most.

So if it wasn't for them, I probably would have signed at least extended my inactive reserves.

So.

Anyway, we'll simplify. Appreciate your service, you know.

Yeah, yeah.

We should talk Marine Corps Semper Fi.

Yeah, I know, right? We drag on with that. But we want to hear about your kids and what you're doing in real estate, man. So, you know, your dad ended up. Where are you at again?

So I'm in College Station. So think of the Texas triangle. Dallas, Austin, Houston. We're right in the middle. But I grew up, born and raised in Austin. And so a little bit background on us. So in the Marine Corps, My first rental property was actually in 29 palms. It was a one bed, one bath, like, stucco home. And we rented it to like a good buddy of mine who got married. He was actually one of my roommates. He got married, rented that house, and then I got stationed in Okinawa. And when I told him, hey, I'm leaving, he came back on base and we tried to sell it. Anyway, so my experience with the rental, that was my first rental home. I think it was like 19. It was like $80,000, whatever. But anyway, then when I got out of the Marine Corps a couple of weeks later, Lucas Group was a military officer recruiting program. I wasn't an officer, but I had my degree at the time. So they hooked me up with a hiring conference in Washington, D.C. and that's where I got with CBRE. So I was with CBRE for 16 years. And I mean, CBRE is, you know, maybe 115 Fortune company, you know, around.

Their biggest real estate brokerage partner manager in the.

In the world, probably. Absolutely fantastic organization. We can, you know, all great experiences. But I was there with 16 years. Washington, D.C. starting out Houston, went to Austin, went back to Houston. But in 2019, I was like having this come to Jesus with myself of like, hey, is this really what I want to be doing my entire career? I really enjoyed what I was doing, but I wanted to do the entrepreneur. I missed the entrepreneurial spirit and I was losing that. So after my mba, I got this like, drive to get back into entrepreneurship, get into real estate investing. And we started CREI Partners. We got into apartments first because I didn't compete with cbre. And then I also saw like during the cycles when things are good and bad and such with office, retail, industrial, I liked multifamily. It was, you know, more of a stable asset class, more of an asset class I could get behind. So that's what I did. 2019 and then speed up to 2023 was at a point where I still enjoying what I was doing, had great clients, everything was really fantastic there. I really genuinely mean that. But it was just a point where I was just doing too much with my real estate investing and the side job and not doing anything the way I felt like it needed to be done. So I turned in my notice. It was pretty scary, guys. Like, I, you know, I've got three kids and wife and I'll get to my kids shortly. But leaving that real estate W2 career that pays you well and been with me through all these different life cycles in life for 16 years, I took the, the plunge and went all in on my, my real estate investment company. So that's my, that's my real estate background. Trevor and Max. And then from a kid perspective, you know, my wife and I, this is 2024 that we're having this conversation. So we'll be married 15 years in October and we have three kids. Hunter who's 12, Lily who's 10, she's about to turn 11. And then we got Emma who's about to turn nine in a couple of weeks. So they're, they all go to, you know, school here in college station active in gymnastics and baseball and you know, just scouting. I mean, we're extremely busy parents so we're survival mode. One thing I'll say is last night I was at gymnastics and my kids are older, you know, my youngest is nine, you know, I'll say nine, you know, in two weeks. And I was looking all the parents with like the little kids and I'm like, man, they're just in another chapter in their life. I remember that chapter. It's survival mode, man. It's like survival. And I'm grateful I'm not in that mode anymore. Like, I love my children and I love that phase, but man, it's so much more fun now. And so, you know, I was just, it was just looking at the crying children and everybody, I was like, man, they're in a different, different chapter.

So yeah, there's some chaos to the, to the young kids. You know, Trevor and I are both on the young Kid side right now. So I've got a two year old and then I've got a baby due here in April and you know, and we're super excited. I love hearing about what you're saying right now is that in some ways, you know, my son, you know, he's at least at this point now where I don't feel like he's to going growing too much. Every day up till about 18 months he was growing so much. If I left the house for two days, had a work trip or whatever was, I feel like I came back and missed some, some like growth and I feel like finally he's at least slowed down a little bit. But we also are like, where's our baby? You know, our little boy is now, you know, turning into a toddler and we're looking forward to and also dreading that with baby number two, here's coming soon. And then we see parents who have kids that are at your age and we go, gosh, you know, we won't have any like little kids. But I love hearing you say no, it's great, it's great, you know, and that makes me, you know, happy to hear that because I hear about so many other stories of I guess, chaos. I've got one very great buddy and he's at this phase where both of his daughters are early teens and he's just kind of like, I just miss my little kids.

Probably goes back to survival mode at the age. Yeah, you know, you sort of have this where they want to please and stuff. But yeah, I mean, it's interesting because after the second child we knew we wanted a third. Right. But after the third, like both my wife Jennifer and I were like, no more kids. Right. And so we made that decision, you know, after the third and it's been, you know, it's nice. Ours is, you know, back to back. Sounds like yours is going to be pretty close back to back as well. You know, it sounds like a two year and a half year, but that's good because in my opinion everyone's gonna be a little different. Like when they start going to, you know, we start going on vacations, they sort of can interact and like my brother and I are five years apart. Like we're much closer now as adults and we were kids because my life in high school he was in middle school and when I was in middle school he was in elementary. Like we didn't, you know, other than, you know, the playful fights and stuff we did at the house, it wasn't, I see a much Closer bond than I had with my brother. With these kids being closer in age, they fight a lot, but they're, they're still have a different bond.

Yeah.

So closer in that gap.

Yeah. What about you, Trevor? So do you have any kids? Yeah, I got a one year old.

And a four year old.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, one and one and a half and.

Yeah, you are right in the thick of it. Yeah, you are.

Oh yeah, yeah. I mean I, I hear you. Like the four year old is blast. And not that the one year old isn't, but it's just, it's. I can have a conversation in English with my 4 year old. It's pretty cool, you know.

Well, I don't know, like the oldest one, Max, you might have this experience where the oldest one's used to all the attention. So like my Hunter, like he is used to all the attention. And so when I look back on videos and pictures of my middle child, Lily, Hunter's always in the picture. He's always trying to gather attention. Like we don't really have much videos of Lily just by herself without Hunter screaming in the background or trying to get attention. So it's just fun to have that first child and then by the time the third child comes and poor middle child, it's like the middle child's screwed. You know, you try to like, well.

In like the first, only the first child I think even behaves that way because every child after that never would never once in their, in their life were they the sole focus, you know, the sole point of attention for their parents.

Yeah. You know, and you hear that regarding the middle child is that the middle child is always the most brave, kind of outlandish. And that's because they're, you know, they grew up in a very different environment where the older one always had a lot of attention. But the second one is, you know, already has started out with divided time from the parents. Yeah, it's definitely, you know, and I think, you know, we're looking forward to it, the adventure of it, you know, I want more kids. Like we've got two luckily, boy, girl we could call it. We could just be like, hey, you know, we're okay, you know, we don't need to feel like we have to, you know, do anymore. But, but I've just enjoyed it so much that I, you know, I'd really like more. But I think we have to have those conversations, you know, after the second.

Comes out and we have, I mean the second one didn't. I mean we were in a Hyundai Sonata. It worked for two kids. Had the third kid, we got the Honda Odyssey. That chapter for us, that Odyssey was amazing. I mean, one quality car, but it fit everybody, and we didn't have to worry about the kids banging the doors, you know, next to the. The car. Next. And so Jen just got a new vehicle. And, you know, that chapter of the minivan is. Is also behind us, but it's. Man, keep enjoying it. Yeah. As long as you. You have that love to keep. What's amazing with children is you don't think, like, you can have more love for somebody. You feel like there's just, like, you have this love, but you can't think that there's just infinite more love, that every child comes. It just opens that up.

So, no, I love hearing that. And, you know, one thing that we've talked about on this podcast quite a bit is this what I'll really describe as the new barometer of affection for, you know, I mean, for me, I always just describe it as the turning point of once my kid came out. I have this view of before kids, where I now look at it, it was wildly lacking, but I never knew that during that period of time, and the kid comes out and it's like, oh, my God, I didn't know I could love something this much. And then, you know, and I'm looking forward to that with the other ones that come up too, but I just feel like there's such a difference. That, for me, was critically viewed after the kid came out. So I'm looking forward to that with number two.

Yeah.

So definitely. But, you know, Trevor does a fantastic job of taking his kids everywhere. And he and I were just out in the desert in California, not far from 29 palms for a work trip. And, you know, and Trevor brought his business partner and his wife and their two kids, their four kids altogether totaled. And, you know, and I was like, God, I gotta take notes on how to do this, you know? You know, and that's great. I was just like, this is just so great. I told my wife about it when I got back, and I was like, babe, we had like this big dinner. And, you know, the first thing she said, she said, well, didn't they get in late? Wasn't it like 8 o' clock when they got in and they went to dinner? And I was like, yeah. And it worked like everything was fine, like everything was okay.

And.

And then after dinner, my daughter almost drowned, but she didn't. Were you there for that, Max? I think you might have been. You know what you missed my daughter falling in your pool, huh?

This is terrifying me right now.

What.

What happened?

So she fell in your pool? I saw it. We were all outside, right? She was being watched. And so she falls in the pool. I didn't see it. I just heard it. And so we all look over. We're all standing right there, but I think you had gone to change into your pajamas. And so she falls in, her head pops up, and we make eye contact, and she's in the middle of the pool. And I was just like, swim to the side. And then she goes back under and, like, moves at the speed of a freaking snail to the edge. And, like, everyone rushes to the edge. I'm like, no, no, no, no. She's good. She's good. And I. And I went over, you know, I went over to meet her, like, in case, right? Like, if she stops swimming and starts to just float, you know, I'm going to go in and get her. But she made it all the way to the edge and grabbed it and, like, pulled her head up, and it was. It was a pretty freaking awesome dad moment for me, man. Like, because we put her through swim classes last. Last summer, and, you know, and one of the biggest things that she taught to pass the swim exam, she had to jump in the pool and then successfully turn back to the edge, period. That's it.

And how does she fall in?

I don't know. I didn't see it. I just heard it.

Well, good dad moment on her having that milestone of. Of swimming to the edge and the.

Swimming lessons is huge. As early. As early as you can do. Yeah, I'm 100%. We were at a party. Kid. Three, you know, you're in man or you're in zone defense, right? One, two kids you got. Man on man. Wife has one, you got the other zone defense on the other. And I wasn't even at this party, but was a church event. My wife took all three kids, and she was changing the younger ones, you know, Emma's diaper. And two of my older two kids, Hunter and Lily, jumped in the pool, and we actually had two guys jump in. Man. It's just like. Yeah, but I don't think we were as, like, Trevor, I think, you know, having your kids in early swim lessons, we. I don't think we were. We were that good doing that.

So it was my wife. It wasn't me. I can't take credit. It was her idea. And I was like, all right, go ahead.

I know it's good. And as far as, like, Taking your kids sore. I mean, yeah, if you have the ability, that's. That is amazing. I. I didn't have that ability. You know, I was dressing up, suit and tie, going to work, seeing clients for my W2 CBR. Probably you wouldn't have allowed that, though. Once a year, you could have your kids come to work. And so, you know, my wife stayed home for the first, you know, five years, and it was. It was a cut in income and stuff, but it was, like, the best sacrifice for us. I mean, we weren't living any lavish lifestyle. So we had the minivan, and when we bought our house, like, we had our master bedroom furniture, a couch, and the other three bedrooms. I just joked like, hey, we need kids so we can start filling up these rooms. And, you know, so it's a blessing if you're able to do that. And as they get older, if you're lucky and they're thinking real estate, I do try to take them to go look at properties and such. That's fun.

Yeah. Trevor is really good at this. I look forward to doing it when my kids are a little bit older.

Bring.

Taking the property so they can actually, you know, see it, see how the whole process works. What does it say about swim lessons?

I can't wait to give them underwriting homework.

You know, we had a.

We had a.

We interviewed one individual. He has his kids help with taxes. His daughter's 11. It's like, tax. She's, like, already doing taxes.

We're like, great.

Gotta learn early.

But I try to give my son the rich dad, poor dad book. Last summer, I was like, I'll pay you to read this over summer, man. He. He didn't touch it. But, you know, every summer I'll be. He's all into, like, collecting cards, like football cards and selling them. So his entrepreneurial spirit is through football cards, which is great.

You know, whatever teaches really does.

Yeah, just that entrepreneurial mindset of, you know, like, hey, because I'm like. To my mind, I'm like, buy more car. Every time he gets money, he's going to Cracker Barrel and buying cards and looking at Target and looking and buying cards. But he views it as an investment.

Now, is he tracking his cogs and revenue and bottom line on a spreadsheet? I don't know.

He's. He's not doing that. But he does have, like. He knows by memory of, like, what card is worth. What if. I'm like, hunter, if you put half that energy into your math class or, like, any of these other you know, challenging courses, like, you won't have any issues with grades. But he has, like, his attention to detail on those cards and treats them in great care. We're planning on going to the card show in June, and I think it's in Allen, Texas. And so he's preparing, I guess they have cards that you can get, like, certified and then make some more money. So, you know, what I'm telling him was like, hey, if you do some things around the house, I'll pay for that. You know, you got to earn money, you know, to get your cards rated or something, so you can get more money at the card show. But no, it's good. I mean, before that it was selling rocks. Like, we would go to Jelly Stone. Surely there's a Jellystone. This is actually a good dad segment here. So there's the KOA for like, going camping. Adults. There's KOAs everywhere if you have an RV. But the jelly Stone kid parks fantastic camping anyway, so there's rocks that they can buy and sort. So he would go back to our cul de sac when we lived there, and he would sell all these stones and rocks. He's got the entrepreneurial spirit. It'll be interesting to see what.

I worked with a guy years ago, he had two kids. The younger one bought his older brother's DS or something with like a couple games for like 35 turns around, goes on to ebay, sells it for like 140. Older brother is furious. But it was. It was just like, hey, he kid knew what was going on. Like, you know, was able to get this done. The older brother wasn't using it anymore. I was obsessed around.

Brother did it.

But, you know, I'm a big advocate of, you know, whatever methods get, you know, kids excited about, you know, reading, math, whatever those things are that get them to kind of sink their teeth into business, you know, or. Or learning. I'll really, really describe it as. Okay, so at cb, what were you doing there?

Yeah, so when I first started, I was assistant real estate manager. So we were on a portfolio about five properties. So typically, a lot of times the institutional clients, these larger clients that have properties all over the country or the world, they want the same reporting package, same standard operating procedures that's happening at one property they want at the other property. So what's nice about cbre, it's not a franchise. They, you know, it's sort of like this top to bottom systems in place, checks and balances, all that good stuff. So I started off working for a client in Washington D.C. and you know, started moving up the ladder. I for me getting into property management was not like my dream job. Like I was wanting to actually get on the development side or possibly brokerage. But at that time like 0708 they weren't. I wasn't really a big hiring path at that point. So I got in with property management and then over time just like really enjoyed operating and sort of being the mayor of the town of like these high rise buildings, you know, the property manager.

And this is 15 years ago. So this is prior to the birth of, of Hunter.

That's right, yeah. So I started. He was born in 09, 2009 and I joined CBRE June of 2007. So those probably about a couple years. Definitely a couple years, maybe a little less than that.

He's 12 though, right?

He's 12.

So he came out in 2012.

Oh yeah, you're right, 2012, you're right. So 2003 to 2007 I was in the Marine Corps. 2007 joined CBRE. 2009 comes up because Jen and I got married in 2009. That's what it is, 2009. So then we had a few years, 2012, Hunter was born in February, but yeah we were to Washington D.C. was promoted there as a real estate manager and then had an opportunity, I was 27 years old, had an opportunity to come to Houston to manage a high rise 52 story property downtown Houston, which was huge milestone for me. The managing director there, you know, took a risk. You know, I was pretty young but I had a lot of experience, leadership. They looked at that Marine Corps experience as like hands on leadership training, which, which you should. Anyways, I managed that property in Houston for a few years and then had another high rise property in Houston. So anyway, over time not only was I managing trophy class A assets, but I was growing into leadership roles within the market. So then I had other managers, senior managers who managed other properties rolling up. So then it became more of a director role, associate director role. You know, that's what I was doing. It was like so it was great, great career because I was able to touch every aspect of commercial real estate with brokerage. It's like you eat what you kill and no matter, like you could have killed it yesterday and great meat, great money, but that's not coming until you, you do your next right. And so the development stuff. So I liked the property management, asset management side because you sort of had the life cycle of the property. You were involved in all aspects of the property Especially if it was a new development. So I enjoyed that, that part of the career, and that's what I did.

And I guess when I was asking about the age of, Of Hunter, so. And you were doing the property management side all the way through for the whole time at cb.

That's right. Yep.

And then, so now on your, on your jump, you're like, hey, because this is big. I mean, you had a couple of, you know, I don't. Not adult kids, but, you know, kids that are at a, at a more expensive age than when they were young, I think. Is that, Is that accurate?

I mean, they're, they're more expensive today than they were.

Well, I, you know, I'm not meaning to paint too much of a picture on that, but I mean, like, this is big. Cbre.

It was big. I mean, it was, you know, we. I was making really good money, having a great team, a large team that, you know, my job at that point wasn't really to do in the weeds work. It was more to keep the herd in the right direction, taking care of the client. Right. But really how that started, guys, was I, I mean, 2019, I started CRI partners. And again, I told you the story, like, apartments was like my focus. It was not really my intent to like, completely leave the W2. I didn't do CRI partners to, like, get out of my day job. Like, I enjoyed my day job. It was fulfilling. It paid well, it provided the security. I'm very risk adverse. It just came to a point where it was hard to do my best for both because my portfolio was growing fast. And then my requirements with the client in Houston, which was my last assignment, is again, a little too much. So I call my wife, I get to the office. We have not planned on me leaving cbre. I call my wife from the parking lot. I'm like, jen, if I quit my job today and we lose everything because there's a huge risk, like, I have. What we're doing is very risky, and we can dive into that if you want. Will we still be good? Like, will we still, you know, we good? And she's like, yeah. I was like, okay, hung up. And I called my boss and she's driving an organizational meeting.

And this is 2023 or 2019.

This is last year. This is like July of last year. There was no planning. Like, there was no, like, I mean, we had enough savings.

Well, you know, even when, even when you and I talked about it previously, I mean, I remember this was the goal. And now I'm Liking hearing the story that how this was, you know, time at time that it occurred.

Yeah, it's over time it became the goal because it's like I can't. There's no way to do both and do it well. But when it was going to happen, it wasn't like that day was, that was the day. It was just the day that I just felt overwhelmed. Like, hey, this is the day. And so first I had to make sure the wife was good. She didn't have like weeks to plan for it. She didn't like, we didn't like sit down and like have a family meeting like, you know, we should have. I just did it and now I'm like living this entrepreneurial journey and I'm never going to like say I won't go back to my W2 because who knows what's going to happen. I mean ultimately I got to take care of my family. Right. But I'm like, you know, the uncomfortableness of not knowing like when your next income checks coming in, like big income check. I mean we get asset management fees, but nothing to support the lifestyle that you know, we have or what we did have. You know, we haven't seen a drop in our lifestyle from when I left the W2. So it's interesting. It's that uncomfortable to like you've got to find deals, you got to find opportunities. You know, when people are sitting on the sideline waiting, sort of like there are deals to be made and opportunities to be made and you're forced to do it because you have to do it. Like you're uncomfortable. And so I smile about that because it's just not what I'm used to. I'm used to the comfort of every two weeks. I got a great pay, I've got insurance and all that. This was last year, June of 2023 I think. July 1st was my first day as a full time entrepreneur. Wow.

And so were you growing a portfolio during your time at.

Yeah, so I started the company at 20, 2019. So we have right now we have about 38 million assets under management. And we primarily are the asset manager, control, main holder of the asset. So what we have are, you know, we have 245 units in Houston for apartments. We're developing a build a rent community in Lafayette, Louisiana. We have a storage facility in Huntsville, Alabama, A retail center in Huntsville, Alabama. And then we're developing an RV boat storage here in College Station. And I'm under contract. Well, we're about to be under contract on a multifamily in Houston, 128 units, and hopefully developing our next storage facility in Temple. So I say all that, guys, because, like, when I quit, I already had been busting my ass doing my day job and also growing. I didn't just completely leave and, you know, be like, oh, we're going to figure it out. Like this was happening simultaneously. And then I also knew, like, hey, we were about. We were under contract for another multifamily in Houston at the time I had the storage development. So all that was good. And so I knew that there would be income coming in. But now when I'm looking at another 12, 24 months, I'm closing the Houston deal. Well, hopefully get under contract, looking for partners right now to, you know, we're still early stage. It's a loan assumption, Fannie Mae loan assumption. And so we got to get that done. But for that, you know, I've got to risk $70,000 for earnest. And so there's just such a risk of like, hey, you know, I believe in the end game because I've been doing it, but there's still risk. And I will say, like, a lot of our net worth, you know, on paper, your net worth looks really good, but it's held up in real estate and real estate, you don't get that cash until transaction. And which is, you know, a couple weeks ago, I was talking to a coach that I have, and I was like, you know, I'm really looking forward to, like, having freedom of time. I really want freedom of time.

You were saying that?

Yeah, I was saying that was like, my. Why? Like, she was asking, like, why are you doing this? Like, I want freedom of time. Because that had always been my answer, guys, like, all these years has always been freedom of time. But then she's like, well, what would you do differently if you had the freedom of time? And I sat back and I was like, probably the same thing. Like, real estate is who I am. I will not change. I'm not coming from another industry. Like, this is who I am. And. But what I realized was, is I already had the freedom of time. I already left my W2. I can choose to, like, have this call or not have this call, go to bed, not go to bed during the day. So what I realized, I already have the freedom of time. What I'm continuing to look for is that financial security, right? And so that will happen over time. Real estate does not get rich quick. And what people had experienced over the last five years, that was not normal. You know, like a normal Cycle in real estate is that five to seven year, maybe up towards 10 years of growth or maybe even longer. But anyway it's, it was just some aha moments that I've got all the time in the world and I'm still doing what I love, which is owning and operating commercial real estate.

You got a lot of deals going, you got a lot of deals, you're managing. You're primarily the asset manager. How are you making time for family? What is the structure of your typical day like?

Yeah, so the typical day today is completely different than a year ago with my W2. So I take the kids now to school every morning, whereas before that didn't happen. So we leave the house around 7. I get them to school at 7:30. Their school starts at 8 most days. Not today since school is about to get out. I'll pick them up at 3:15. And so you know, I'm in the office by 8 my office, I'm in a Regis office. You know where I'm sitting today is I'm renting an office within the office space right through Regis and that's like five minutes away from the school. And so yeah, I'm working from 8 to 315 ish or 3 go pick them up. And then Fridays I usually just try to chill. I mean Mondays through Thursdays I'm like powering through and then Fridays like I have a few calls tomorrow. Chilling is different. Each one I'm not like completely chilling. But Friday is a pretty slow day on purpose. And so they're like tonight we've got baseball game last night I took the girls to gymnastics right after school. So I really try to stay balanced and involved. You know, when we go to Louisiana I, you know, try to take one of my girls or you know, my son has not shown interest in real estate. He just thinks it's very boring. So my middle child Lily, like she goes to Lafayette with me. We check on our development out there. That's fun. But yeah, they, they stay active. We try to be involved. I have energy to like lay down with them at night and like hear about their day, like start from the beginning and it's like that's their time to word vomit. You know, it's like every little detail and ultimately sometimes you're like okay, what's bedtime? You gotta go to bed. But you know, it's nice that I can actually sit down and listen. I mean that was not something I had prior only because I was doing like a two hour commute. And that's going to Sound crazy, but where we moved, we were living in the country and I was doing the two hour commute. Which, thinking back about it, I don't know how I was doing it. I mean, I did it, but I was scheduling all of my phone calls. Like, Max, you and I were on conversations when I was driving that two hours went quick because I was always working. And then when I got home, we had dinners, you know, got into bed. And then I've always been this way, guys, I don't know about y', all, but like, my wife and I will watch junk tv. Back in the day, it was like the Bachelor and you know, just now it's turned to like 90 Day Fiance. Like stuff that you really don't have to listen to. It's like background noise. And then I'll have my laptop up working sometimes. Well, a lot of times, you know, it's just who I am. But it's. Yeah, that's sort of the life of Wayne. Courageous 7 to 3 not work on or 8 to 3 not try to do as much on Fridays, you hit.

It on the head. I mean, you know. Well, I guess I got a couple questions. So you've got. Because I want to hear about the risk that you were kind of talking about, you know, because you, you said a couple of things. The biggest one was that you have achieved actually what you wanted, which was that you wanted the freedom to be able to do these things you wanted, which is what, you know, I think all of us are in the real estate industry really for. To be able to actually.

Well, I don't say.

I can't say everybody was a major part for me when I was on the W2 side. We were paid well as W2s, but, you know, it wasn't really what I wanted to do in regards to being able to be around my family, you know, was it? Which is really what, you know, I viewed as the most important thing. I mean, I was working, you know, crazy hours, you know, leaving. That is, I guess, a lot of risk that, you know, we definitely all assume. But for you, you were on the proper side and you said you're a risk averse person. So tell us about that.

Yeah, well, I think the risk of leaving a great team. I had a really good career with cbre. Like my boss never really, you know, she wasn't really on me about doing things right. She knew I could do with the job, had a good relationship with the client. I had a large staff, so nobody was feeling overworked. I was able to leave at 4 o', clock, get home by 6 to be with the family. Fridays I was able to work from home. So on paper, I was stupid probably to leave because I was, you know, making good money, had retirement, 401k, all that stacked up like we were, you know, on paper, everything was fine. But for me, I. 39. I just turned 39 and I felt like, if I'm going to do this, jump off this ladder that has been my rock for 16 years, this is the time to do it. I had started in 2019. I built the company on the side. I always like to say my 9 to 5 paid for my 5 to 9. So I built this company after hours, weekends to get it to a point where it was. And now it was like, okay, well, now I got to see how it really is if I'm all in full time. And oh, by the way, if it doesn't work out, I can always go back to what I was doing. And at that point I'll be 40 or 41, 42. I wouldn't be like completely, you know, out of touch with what was going on. And with my age, I felt like this was the time. So that was one component. And this is me trying to convince myself like this was the moment, right? And then I also had income because I knew I was buying a property in Houston, had it under contract. We closed on it in October of 23. And then I had a storage development that we were going and, and now developing. So I had projects ahead. So I was like, okay, that changes the game. So from that side, when I left the company, like, the risk was mitigated because I had already. It's not like I'm just jumping in and starting a new company. Like, it mitigated risk to a point where, okay, we had already have investors, we already had the successful investments, we already have investments that are ongoing. I have future investments in the pipeline. It's a good time. But where the risk continues to come is after that's all done, like that deal closed and then we've got storage development underway. Now it's sort of like, okay, looking at our financials over, you know, the next 12 months, we need to make sure that I'm able to like, offset income income. We continue to save, continue to invest for future investments. And so where the risk comes in, guys, is when that is happening, finding deals is already extremely hard. And finding deals that pencil and fit all the requirements and actually can get to closing is already a risk. Where people get in trouble is when they're making Decisions based on like, hey, I need this deal to close, and maybe not thinking as much forward outward to the passive investors. So we closed that deal in October. It's March almost April, and we haven't done a deal since. I've been negotiating this property in northwest Houston for about probably a month and a half. We've got a price that we're finally happy with. The loan assumption is a 3.82% loan interest rate. And then so the earnest is like $70,000. So now that's money out of savings that if I was a hoarder to that money and be like, I need this nest egg to survive, you know, another six months, but instead I'm investing that 70,000 into this. That's risk capital. And then I've got to raise 5.4 million to close. Right. Does that make sense? So there's a lot of risk of, like, there's still a lot of uncertainty and you have a lot of headwinds when there's a lot of, like, people out there saying, like, hey, don't go buy apartments. Max and Trevor, like, this is not the time to buy apartments. This is a horrible time. Wait, things are going to crash and like, then buy your apartments. And I'm like, my mind isn't thinking like that. I think this is the best time to buy. Because when people, when Max, you tell everybody and Trevor, when you go out there and you say, hey, now is the time to buy. Now everybody's out buying. And that's what we had, you know, a few years ago, where, you know, the sharks are eating the sharks and prices, valuations are going up and up. So we've got to find there's that balance of risk, filing good deals that hit the performance that can close, and that's where the risk is. I mean, we're Tuesday, we have a development meeting in Temple, Texas for our next storage development. You know, we can buy that land and, you know, go through the entitlement process, but who knows what the lender requirements are at this point to actually get the loan for new construction development. You know, so every real estate has its own nuances, risks that are involved, but that's where the entrepreneurial spirit, if you don't have that entrepreneurial spirit or that fire to get through in challenging times, this is not the business. You know, stay where you are and be a passive investor.

Yeah, I'm in agreement with you in regards to that. It is a good time to buy.

I am.

I think we have to risk, adjust our offers and make sure that we're, you know, bidding accordingly on these assets, not stretching. And I think that's a bit more of the rub that I think a lot of guys are dealing with. But yeah, no, I'm in, I'm in total agreement. You know, people talk about how, oh, it's, the market is potentially going to go down, is these certain risks and people Forget that in 2021 and 2022 it was hard to find anything to buy because you were having to waive your DDS and put down, you know, a hefty non refundable deposit. The problem with doing the business was just different. You know, now it's risk adjusting, finding deals. But before it wasn't like it was like the industry was easy and there were no problems or obstacles. It was like, there will always be obstacles.

Well, and even the property type of the age, I couldn't like for what I was getting and trying to underwrite and make numbers work. It was like 1970s deals, maybe 1960s. I didn't touch chiller properties or if it had like, you know, plumbing issues with cast iron or anything. But now I'm looking. I mean, this property, you know, hope to be on a contract in the next couple of weeks. I mean, this is a 1985 property in northwest Houston, like pitched roofs. All my other properties are flat roofs. 19, early 1970s, you know, late 1960s. So now this time of period I'm able to like get into a different bump in asset which is going to be better for our investors and you know, five to seven years when we, when we sell. So it's an exciting time. And honestly it's great because, you know, these brokers are hungry sellers, you know, they can't refinance because where the interest rate, if they bought in the last few years, it's hard for them to refinance because interest rates are up, people's loans are coming to expiration. So they either need to refinance or sell. I'm not one of those guys that I'm out there trying to take advantage of people who are suffering. I see a lot of people on LinkedIn who are like bad mouthing, like, oh, this deal didn't go well, this guy's not good general partner or like he was too risky with this stuff. Like some, like if you're like stealing money from one deal to the other or buying a deal that had nothing to do with the deal that was listed in the a partnership agreement, like that stuff is wrong. But for the most part, you know, I think we are all trying to do our best with the information that's given and doing the best for our investors. So anyway I'm bullish. We're buying and hopefully those people that bought in 0809 when, when the markets were tough, when everybody else was running, they did extremely well. And so I feel like this is, this is our shot to have that same opportunity. To your point, max buying right though having that you know, risk adjusted.

Yeah. No, the guys who were buying deals back in 2010, 11, 12, you know the cap rates were, they were like threes back then and people forget that is that there were only a few properties are available and as a result of that you had every buyer who had capital were compressing the cap rate down even further. But the, but even then the cap rate was based on a 30% decrease in NOI from the peak. So they knew that you know, in a couple years you would have this, you know, rebounding back and that's a bit of a different factor right now. You know some of the factors that go on in the market today for they're, you know, time will tell. You know a lot of people like to say they can crystal ball the market and really no one can. And you know, finding these right deals is the right thing. And I hear guys and they go, you know, there's always opportunity. They're all always, always opportunity.

The truth.

So there's always opportunity. There's always you know, new opportunities to do deals, to put things together and the guys who are the best at solving those problems and not cowering or packing up shop or you know, just saying hey, we're not going to wait, we're not going to buy until 2026. I mean okay, you cannot buy till 2026 and you'll have waited till you, you know, miss the opportunity and then you'd be competing with everyone. Once everyone jumps back in and arguing about how the numbers are so high and it's hard to find anything that pencils still. So it's you know those things just I don't think ever really end. But you know, but I want to hear a bit about some of these projects. So you've got these, so you've got mini storage, you've got boat storage, you've got a multi deal you're working on. So tell us about some of these deals.

Yeah, so I'll start with like the RV boats. We don't have any mini storage so we're focused on a niche asset class with storage. They're 20 by 50 size unit. They have a 14 foot by 14 foot high door and a walk. There's no offices, no toilets. Trash can like this is used for high end RVs, boats, toys and business inventory. And so one of my partners in Huntsville, Alabama brought this opportunity to me to help raise capital and ask help asset manage with him on that deal. Primarily I was looking at apartments that whole time, right? I had, I was like, I don't know if my investors are going to be very open to a different asset class. But I was like, you know me personally, we have a travel trailer, we go camping a lot. And I know that there are tons of class a motorhomes worth 200, 300, 500 million dollars plus and they can't park them in their HOA neighborhoods and they need a place to store them. And then these boats, you know, the height issue is you can't just park those in regular storage. Even if it's 30ft depth, the height of the door is only 10ft in a lot of these places. So when I was starting to dig in, I was like, sure, we'll come in. I looked at the numbers, I was thinking RV boat. I wasn't really thinking anything else. I mean that was primarily what I was thinking. I was like, okay, I can get behind this. Well, when we bought that property, we've stayed 100 occupied, we've cash flowed every quarter exceeded our perform, and we're just continuing to raise rents. Some people are leaving, we have a waiting list, people are backfilling. We're also going to be expanding the storage development in Huntsville, Alabama. Speed up to last year, March of 23, I went to the property to help change out leases and change out locks because we were just, you know, four or five months in. We need to change leases, we need to change locks. And I was trying to understand the customers, like why do they need 20 by 50,000 square foot space with a 14 foot high door and a 14 foot wide? Why would you need that space? Thinking most of it would be RV boats. Like RV boats were like 25% of our customers. Like, you know, so decent percentage. But time and time and time after again it was businesses, generators, H vac companies, disaster recovery. An ice company was in there. The guy who cleans out the trash cans, like you know, drives in the HOA neighborhoods, has a trailer, puts the trash can and cleans pressure, washes them. He stored his stuff there. So I was like, man, this is, this is a need in the business. Not only does it solve the RV boat, but it also solves the business Need. So, long story short, went to, came back home, found off market 4.8 acres, negotiated with the seller, bought that property in June of 23. We're in March, and we've got a lot of the groundwork, most of the groundwork done. And we're erecting the two buildings of the three, and we should be open in May with one of our buildings fully online. So I say all that because I'm just super bullish on this RV boat and business storage. We have people who store their collectible cars, hobby projects, the guys who want to just go in and just have a space to work on cars and such. You know, it's a great place for that. From a multifamily side, we have 200 unit properties and one 44 unit properties. I'll hit on one of the properties, the 44 unit. We were able to buy that one. It's a little small for what we typically do, but because we had 100 units nearby, there were efficiencies of scale, but that Property was about $1 million less than the tax price value. We also did a seller finance on that deal, fixed rate for five years. So when we talk about deals, there's no deals in any market. Like, that's baloney because, like, we found that deal, negotiated the heck out of it, got seller financing for five years, fixed rate at a million dollars less than the county appraised value in an incredible west Houston location. So, and that one we projected to have returns starting. We usually do return starting six months after close, so we can do our value add. But we distributed that first quarter and so every quarter, you know, we plan on continuing distribute. You buy, right? And, you know, do the renovations and such, but not in a way where, like, some buildings need to be ripped like band aid off. Like, it's just in such bad condition. You just need to go in and do a full plan quickly. But I'm liking these deals where it's just a slow band aid removal over two, three years. Just move the ship in the right direction.

You're making me want to invest with you.

Yeah, Up.

You know, you've got the most. You talk to so many real estate guys that are like, oh, we're going to do this, and they show up and they're wearing this flashy suit and they're going to do all these things and you've got the most. Like, this is what we're going to do. This is the business plan. It's. I'm risk averse. I don't want to do this. But then you just, you convey the most patient, confident like business plan where you're like this guy's got it all together. Yeah. No, anyway, but it's, it's, I just want to compliment.

It's just, it's just good. No, I, I appreciate it. And one of those things too, guys. It's like we're heavily involved, like we're only doing two or three deals a year. It just so happens two of my deals are probably going to happen at the same time because I've been finding land and negotiating this deal for several months to get to where we are. But we're not a company that's just going to be doing a deal a month. I'm looking definitely long term of like, you know, two to three deals a year. Not having this huge, huge company where I lose focus of our investors. I like the relationships. So that just, it is unique for us that I hope we can just continue, you know, on that path. So I appreciate you saying that.

And you're doing all of this seven hours a day, four days a week.

Yeah. Now I do have team members. It's a team sport. So we do third party manage. We don't do that. We're not vertically integrated. There's a couple reasons for that. One biggest is I think that arm length distance is important. Having that transparency and making sure you know, know that that's happening. The other thing is they have the scale, they've got the employees and such and they take heavy, heavy load off the day to day from me. So once a week we're on asset management calls. That's usually on Tuesdays. I've got back to back asset management calls. They start at 8:30 in the morning, they end at 2:30 in the afternoon. So Tuesdays are my asset management calls and they're weekly. Every property has a call every single week. It's not every other week, not once a month. It's every freaking week. And we're looking at KPIs every single week of, you know, seeing what we're going to be doing. That saves a lot of time, Trevor, because they're doing a lot of the day to day stuff but underwriting deals, acquiring deals. We've got, I've got a director of brand investor relations team member, we've got a director of investor education team member and then I have real estate services coordinator on our team who also assists. So we have team members now as well. But yeah, we're trying to. And guys, you're the same way. I know it. We are 247 real estate professionals. We don't just shut it down. Because that is not. I mean, when I say, like, hey, Friday's gonna be a, you know, slower day. It is a slower day, but I'm still thinking constantly about, you know, what we're doing, how are we gonna do it? You know, what am I gonna be doing next week, what conference is coming up? Because it's not a job. It's like, as I was talking about my coach, he was a mindset coach. She's like. Like, you're not trying to find more time because you would already be doing what you're doing because you. You enjoy. Enjoy real estate.

So you have a mindset coach. This is.

Well, I don't. I. It was like my one free hour. I'm so close to doing it. I was supposed to meet her today, and I had. I canceled it. But I do see there's huge value in it. I'm just one of those guys. Like, I'm not good at talking about my issues. You know, we all have issues. Right? And all this stuff. And so I'm like, I don't know if I'm willing to pay this much money yet for it. But, I mean, that one hour, I had that aha moment that, like, I didn't have time issues anymore. It was that financial security. So.

So, Wayne Courageous iii, let's hear about your upbringing, because you're a third. There's a. We got some lineage here. Let's hear about, you know, your upbringing that you have that you came from.

Yeah, so I'm known as Wayne Allen in the family. My dad is Wayne Jr. And then my grandfather, my late grandfather, he obviously Wayne the First. So did it proper? Yeah. So Courageous is our last name, but it's really Korege. It's French. They made it more American sounding at some point when they came over. Fun fact about our family. We have fought in every single war other than the World War II and Korean War. So we've had family members in every. In the service pretty much in every major war. And that goes back to the American Revolution, which I thought was pretty cool. We have a. Our genealogy is pretty rooted, which is. Which is fun. But, yeah, so, you know, my grandfather served, like, wait a minute, the War.

Of 1812, Spanish American War, Civil War.

According to my dad. Like, all the genealogy, you know, going back, you know, we have, like, Lieutenant Robert Rankin. He's a Confederate soldier who is buried in the Texas State Cemetery. And a lot of those battles, you know, we weren't probably in every single battle, but, you know, every major war that was going on, you know. And so my dad, like, he's retired and so he's all part of these, all these different little organizations because you have to show proof of records that your family and the lineage and big part of that. Like, I'm not Mormon lds, but a lot of my family members are lds, Mormon, and they're really big in the genealogy. And so a lot of that genealogy is rooted really far back. And, you know, the church is really big on that. And so a lot of the, A lot of that became easier for my dad to go, you know, route through. So. But he couldn't find anybody in the Korean War or surprisingly, World War I. So that, that was interesting. And again, I'm just taking it from facts from my dad, and I believe what he's telling me. And again, he's a member of all these different groups that you have to show that you're. You had lineage. Yeah.

I was going to say, looking at your, at your bio sheet, you've got a lot of. You're quite a community guy.

Oh, it's community.

I mean, you're, you're an active member of, you're an Eagle Scout. You're a member of the Rotary Club, you're a member of the Real Estate Council of Austin, Texas. You're a member of the Institute Real Estate management team. You get a lot on here.

Yeah, so there's a, there's a lot. I mean, Eagle Scout was, you know, I've got my son into scouting, and that was really the foundation of service and starting something and finishing something, which I think is important. That was one of the early things that my dad instilled in me was if you're going to start something, you know, finish it. The Eagle Scout rank was one, Taekwondo, getting a black belt. It wasn't like, I can kick everybody's butt that comes my way. It was like I could defend myself, but really it was like starting something and finishing something. You start a degree, you finish. Degree, you start, you finish. And it was those constant mindsets that really helped. And, and then I got into Rotary Club. When I got out of the Marine Corps, I was in Washington, D.C. joined the Rotary Club. But my Rotary Club experience happened my junior year in high school. I won't have to. We don't need to go through the whole story on that unless you want to. But that Rotary Club is really my service outlet. So in Brian. I'm a member of the Rotary Club here in Brian. And you Know, it's just a great, great organization with like minded people who want to, you know, help and serve the community. I do my best to be active. I think right now with younger kids it was hard to do that. Right. And as I mentioned that, like when I saw those kids in gymnastics last night and those parents, like they are all survival mode. They don't have time to, you know, unless they're an entrepreneur and have freedom of schedule and even then entrepreneurial, you know, a lot of them are grinding it out every day. So it's tough. But now that we're starting to get schedules freed up, it's good to get back involved in those clubs and give back. You know, I have an intern with Texas A and M. He's a junior there and one hour a week I, you know, spend time with him, mentoring him and commercial real estate. So that's my other way of giving back is, you know, focusing on a student in college who's looking to transition into this career path as well. That's great.

Those are great. I love hearing those stories.

So Wayne, do you do a lot of the analysis on your deals? Is that kind of like your main, one of your main. I get the vibe that that's kind of your main thing and if it is and it, you know, my next question is how are you raising capital?

So last year we raised over 5 million in capital. How we're raising that money is because we've had success in other. See that we're transparent. We communicate monthly. You send us a text, we respond back. You know, we have those personal conversations, the quarterly, you know, meeting, you know, we've been trying to get back to quarterly dinners and stuff. So there's Christmas presents that come every year. There's all, you know, there's like they're part of our community is one. So what I've noticed is those investors who invested early with us in 2019, you know, because of the trust in the relationship, their check sizes have gotten larger and larger. Another thing is we are primarily focusing more on 506C offerings. Where I was doing 506B and one office, I'll do a 506B. But it's harder for them to reinvest more capital in the next deal. Right. And because their, their net worth isn't at the accredited status. So we switched to like future deals being a 506c deal to help publicly advertise but also to have more repeat investors invest with us. So that was another aspect of it. It. And then again, we're Only doing maybe two or three deals a year. So, you know, I see a lot of these groups are doing like monthly, there's a new deal or they're capital raising for somebody else. Who. Those people have a lot of the asset manager, a lot of the control. And you know, that's, that's not us. Like, we're, we're happy to partner, but we want to be part of the weekly calls. We want to be part of that process. That's my fun. That's what I enjoy.

You know, which really everybody should. You know, when I hear about a lot of these guys who are raising capital for other people's deals, I generally.

I kind of have the, the thought.

Like, you know, they really should be.

You know, engaged, but they're a lot of times are not. And, you know, they're working other jobs or something, you know, else. I mean, it's like, you know, this is. We're full time focused down on it now. It wasn't that way my entire time. But, you know, there's no reason why I can't be on those calls and be part of those conversations. So as far as underwriting. Yes. So we are one, we're getting fortunate that the brokers are starting to send us good deals. For a while there, anytime a broker sent me a deal, I'm always wondering, like, why do they send it to me and not others?

How far down the list do they have to go? Yeah, yeah.

So I'm, I'm getting. I'm not at the top of the list, but I'm getting at the top. I'm getting there because we're doing successful closings. And they also see the transparency and the communication and the teamwork to get the deal. Like, we're good people. We want to do work with good people. And what we try to do is like, you know, the partners who have partnered together, like, we, we continue growing together in that way. So that's the piece. But yeah, I tend to underwrite. I try to Trevor send or try to do like a loomly video and try to teach somebody how to do it and maybe like outsource it to do like 70% and then I would do the other 30%. It doesn't work well. So I was just like, you know, it's something I just need to do for now. At some point I want to hire someone I don't have to train who's like already done it and understands it because there's a lot of art to it. It's not a black and White thing. And most people can't understand, like there's a gray area.

You're so correct. I, I have guys who asked me to teach them how to underwriter multifamily. And you know, and the reality is if they're not sitting right next to you, you know, because like, well, I did what you said, you know, it's like no, but there's also this other stuff and you realize that it's like it's not like an hour course or a two hour course. It's, it's, it's, it's years of learning issues of mitigants and writing a business plan for how NASA's supposed to work.

And if you're conservative on every front, you're never going to get a deal. And so in my mind I'm like, there are certain things we'll maybe be a little bit more aggressive on, but I have enough over here where I'm like, like unless everything did wrong, then I'm screwed. But at least I have enough levers of conservative that I can be a little aggressive on this part. Right. So it's sort of like there's just that balance and I just, I have not found someone who can do it from A to even M instead of A to Z. Just do A to M to get started so I can finish it up. So that's something that you know, I've done and you know, it's something I would like to outs, you know, not outsource but like hire my next employee down the road to be, you know, an acquisition analyst who can do that. But guys, the days of me like hiring people to train are behind me. I could do that while I was getting my full time salary because I had time on my hands. Now we're like in go mode. I'm grateful for the team we have in place. Like I said, I have three employees that are amazing. Any future hires, there's not a training. I don't have the time to train. It's like I need immediate impact to our company or it's not worth the investment. And that investment is me paying your salary that would have otherwise been in my pocket. And so that's that entrepreneurial like mindset of like, hey, if I'm going to be spending a salary, that salary is now no longer feeding my family. I need you to add impact to the, to the business immediately and hopefully grow the revenue income line item so we're offsetting, you know, that cost. So there's just a little different mentality on future hires. But you know, other than that intern I was talking about, like, he's totally, you know, green. But it's like that's, you know, if I can handle one person completely green who I can train and help start their career and, you know, sort of have that cycle of that one internal every year.

So, yeah, I don't want to. I mean, with the hiring. Hiring of people is always the hard one. In real estate, since there's a feast or famine industry, you know, a lot of these companies just batten down the hatches and lay off staff. You know, when the, when the markets get tight, you know, you see it over and over again, you know, on the, on the ownership side, you know, I see it a lot more.

I really do well, and it benefits us because, you know, in a down market, when those layoffs happen, we can, can get really great talent. So there's. There's always that flip side of like, hey, when the markets are bad and all, but it's also a good time for companies like ours to pick up. My biggest thing going back to the risk piece is I'm having a hard time convincing myself to add that extra person, like my mindset, like a mindset coach or someone be like, hey, do that so you have more time. But I also want to make sure I've got enough cushion to, you know, survive anything that may, you know, markets that, you know, happen in the future. I don't have the grant cardone mindset of 10x and live so tight that you don't have savings, you know, you don't have, you know, those things. Like, I, I love the mindset of, like, growth, but I also think it's important just to have, especially with kids, like, circling back to, you know, talking about kids, like that foundation of, you know, you got to have that foundation. Everything else.

You know, what I actually really like about what you're saying is that what I'm really hearing, though, is that your business is at a point that is providing the needs for you and that you have the capacity currently to manage that much business, which is enough. That's actually what I like hearing. Generally you hear it the other way, where people go, I don't have enough hours. I don't have enough. Enough staff to handle the. Or either. Either there's a. There's one size bigger than the other. They're like, I don't have enough. Enough business support my staff, or I don't have enough. There's this, this growth problem they're trying to figure out. And for you, it actually Sounds like you're in a position where you're like, no, this is good. I've got my Fridays, which are the lighter day. You're still thinking about real estate, but you got your kids in gymnastics, you got your, you know, your son who's in Scouts, and you're able to manage those two things and balance them well, which actually sounds pretty good. You know, that actually is where most people kind of want to find a place where they're able to. To interact in both. So that actually is. Sounds like you've got that figured out.

Out.

I mean, it took years of doing both. And so, like, those that are listening, like, it's not. It didn't just happen in 2019 when I was like, oh, I need a change, or I need to figure out, like, is this something I want to do? You know, there was this path of security to get to a point where I was like, okay, I can do this even. And then. But I also want to be real. Like, even though I can do this, I still have to push myself. Like, today I had lunch with a. A real estate landowner in College Station. And they do everything. You know, it's a very wealthy family. Office, not office, but it's like they're just wealthy family. They don't a lot of land. And I'm talking to them as a friend, but also like, hey, do you have 1031 money coming through? We have this opportunity in Houston, you know, do you have. What land are you willing to sell? Because they don't believe in putting anything on the market. That storage land that I bought off Highway 6 was through this family. It was off market direct to them. And we did create a financing too. I put $200,000 down on that land and did seller financing until I syndicated the entire project and got a lender who then paid it off. So I didn't have to pay that land off day one. Right. I put a sizable down payment, but it was creative financing to get to what I needed. But it's constant. You joining the development, economic development in the city of the area, getting to build the relationships, understanding as an entrepreneur, like, what are the needs of the community? Like, what are they. What are they going to approve? What are they not going to approve? Do they want affordable housing or do they want affordable housing to stay out of the city limits? Like, those are the things you gotta, you know, if you're going to be doing this. It's just that constant. And it's fun. Like, we enjoyed lunch and my wife, they, they own land behind Us, we have land and they have land, and they just so happen to own this land behind us. It's a small community. And she's like, did you tell them about the donkey? That's, like, kicking the crap out of the cows. And I'm like, no, man. Oh, Jen, we talked about real estate. Like, we didn't talk about the donkey or, like, anything else like that. Like, the conversation was fun because we're two real estate guys talking real estate. So I don't know how I got on that subject, but totally, it's constant. Like, you're finding creative ways and you're building relationships. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

I mean, it's.

You're.

You're nailing on the head. The. The beauty of this podcast is that we are able to connect with guys who understand it's the human part of the industry and that we're able to network, talk about deals. And, you know, because I love the service nature of this call, because we have these opportunities to give these kind of nuggets of wisdom and then also be able to really network with guys who are doing, like, now I know someone who's doing rv, boat and business storage in a couple different markets. I mean, and those are the things that, you know, I think are so great about this. So, yeah. So I'm just so glad we're able to get some of that knowledge. So, Wayne, this has been great. Wayne, how do people get in contact with you?

Yeah, so our website, www.creipartners.com. there's an opportunity to check our education platform and there's an Invest with us link, or they can email me@waynereipartners.com and.

We will have both of those pieces of contact information on our website therealestatedadspodcast.com where you can network with other dads via our Slack channel. You can get access to it there. And also, if you are a dad in the real estate industry and you have an amazing story that you think people would love to listen to and be valuable for our listeners, please reach out. There's a link there that we can get in contact. You can contact with us to be a guest. Wayne, thanks so much for sharing with us. We really appreciate it and we look forward to getting the updates on business and your growing family and just some really great opportunities here coming up in the future, which I'm sure that we'll get an update on here within the next 12 months.

Sounds good. Thanks, Max. Thanks, Trevor. Appreciate you having me on.