081: The Power of Real Estate Meetups for Investors with CJ Calio

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Just a straightforward and honest approach to real estate investing, Jonathan seeks to provide a free mentorship program you can take with you anywhere. Now, here's Jonathan. Welcome back to another week of Zen and the Art of Real Estate Investing with me, Jonathan Green. I have another great guest for you. I know I always say that, but I really believe it. In the meantime, if you could share the podcast with a friend this week. That's my only request. If you have other real estate investors in your sphere and they're not listing, send over the episode that you like the most, get them on board. I would really appreciate it. This week we have CJ Colio from WNN Properties. He's gonna talk to you about the power of real estate meetups and how that helped him get get started as well as a bunch of stuff about out of state investing. Let's go. This is episode 81 of Zen and the Art of Real Estate Investing with my guest, CJ Coleo. CJ is the co founder with his wife Jasmine of WNN Properties and a full time investor in residential and commercial real estate. He's raised millions of dollars to build a residential and commercial portfolio. Now he helps others do it too. Cj, welcome to the show.

Hey Jonathan, thanks for having me on the show.

Yeah, it's a pleasure to have you. I'm interested to get into your background and how you got here. Let's start where I always like to start. When do you remember the first time being even a little bit interested in real estate?

Oh gosh, that goes back to in the beginning of our story when I was still working at W2. My profession back then was a UPS driver.

Okay. How old were you when real estate just started to say, oh, this could be interesting?

Let's see, that was about almost a decade ago. So 28, 29.

Okay. Yeah. So. And what was the first thing that made real estate kind of pop up in your mind?

It was strange because it wasn't originally something that I wanted. It was my Wife. And as a UPS driver, I got to experience a lot of peak seasons during Christmas where we are the guys that down the street don the brown Santa suit, bring in all your Amazon goodies and Christmas gifts. And I actually liked my job up until that, that particular Christmas where we weren't prepared. We were slammed. We got so much packages, so many deliveries. I was frustrated for about five or six months because I didn't see my family for the entire period working seven days a week, 12 plus hours a day. And I wanted to quit. And that's when she planted that seed. Hey, real estate could be a thing.

Yeah. And I mean so this won't be a surprise to you, but this is probably the, I don't know, your episode 81 at least seven to ten stories where husbands have said, listen, it was my wife who was really saying like hey, we need to try this. And then as a family it turned into something. And what interested Jasmine into real estate at the time, was it about the money or the long term scale for the family? More opportunity to spend time together?

Yeah, that's a great question. For her it was solving the immediate problem that I didn't like my job and we want to change our lifestyle and, and we wanted something to replace it. And she found that the buy and hold strategy that we embody that cash flow, the streams of income can replace that W2 paycheck.

Yeah. Did you guys make a plan to say like okay, we'll, we'll embark on this journey but I can't get out of this UPS gig until we are replacing that income at least in some way.

She definitely set some parameters that I got to operate within. And originally our vision and goal was to just shave off five or 10 years from retirement, which at the time was another 30 plus years. So maybe get financial independence and retire early with a lowered pension if you want to call it. That was our original goal.

Yeah. And what, what changed along the way? To accelerate the process, I came on board.

It was simply me buying in and jumping on board with my greatest supporter, my wife.

Yeah. In the beginning though, I think you had said when we were in the pre caller, you were a little bit resistant to it in the beginning. What was it about you and when. Which is probably popular for maybe a lot of people listening who haven't made the jump that caused resistance. In the beginning.

Yeah, I've been asked that several times recently, so it's fresh in my mind. And the thing that comes to mind was the fact that I didn't want to look or appear stupid or new, that it was just a pride issue. And maybe it's a man thing where, hey, I'm the provider, I'm the breadwinner. I'm the one with the ideas. And I got to battle that in the early stages of investing because it was really my wife's idea. It was her journey, and I got to buy in and fall into more supportive role until I got experience where I could start to lead from there.

Yeah. And. But I mean, now it's something that you guys do together as a company at W and N. That must be really fulfilling knowing that you started with resistance.

Oh, it is. It is such a joy to be able to work alongside and support my wife. We have both found that we're like yin and yang. We support each other. And in her strengths, it's my weakness. In my weakness or in my strengths, it's her weakness. And we're complementary. So it's really beautiful that we can run alongside each other and have a common goal and vision and. And we've been successful ever since.

Yeah. And so when you were driving for ups, was that. Was that still in Hawaii?

Yes.

Yeah. Okay, so you grew up in Hawaii, correct?

Yes.

Yeah. Did you ever start investing in Hawaii or did you move off to the mainland before you guys started the journey?

Our journey started when we were still living in Hawaii. However, the cash flow strategy, the buy and hold strategy we bought into the numbers just didn't work for us. The price points were just too high. There was no real cash flow unless you had a lot of capital. So we actually started investing out in the Midwest from Hawaii. So we did long distance investing.

Yeah. We've had a couple other Hawaii investors on the. So Zasha Smith and Daniel Kong. So. And some they've of course left. They're still in Hawaii, but they're investing outside. How did you guys start to determine markets that might work from a cash basis or money basis and also something that you might be interested in while you were still in Hawaii?

Yeah, that's a great question. We just dove into more of REI real estate investing networks, and ask questions who's doing what we want to do, and start to pick their brain and see if they would be willing to open us up or connect us with people in their market, which we found originally people were investing in Indianapolis. It was a very popular market for Hawaii people. And that's where we started our first turnkey purchase.

Oh, awesome. Yeah. We just had David Lecho on not that long ago from DealMachine there in Indianapolis. So when you guys started though, did you start to do the connections that like I'm doing while we're doing this, you go to an area, you know, maybe you're on a site like Biggerpockets and you start finding people like, wait, I know that person, I've heard about them. And then you start connecting relationship to relationship.

Yeah, my wife did a lot of that upfront. I was more boots on the ground in Hawaii, just meeting and greeting successful investors who are willing to point me in the right direction.

Yeah. Have you found this is something that I always ask because I think it's interesting. I think your general listener, who's not that familiar, thinks that real estate investors are like too busy for them. But did you find that as you guys started to make connections that real estate investors as a whole were really open books in general? Like there's a lot of help out there, but you have to make the connections and then in the right way?

Yeah. And I'd add, as soon as I started to understand valuing their time and providing value, they were more than happy and willing to run alongside me, send me off with a task or two to accomplish, and then come back and report out. And we got to develop some really good relationships as I was growing in the newbie investor space.

Yeah, that's it exactly. It's bringing something to the table. I think too many people will ask seasoned investors like, hey, what should I do to become a real estate investor? And it's like that's too open ended and there's nothing coming our way. So it's not a great use of time. What were some things in the beginning was it just go for, you know, like you said, you're checking out properties, doing whatever they need so you can get some learning experience.

It was actually more of putting on meetups. So. Oh, the thing in Hawaii that we found is there was a lot of meetups down in the heart of, of Honolulu, the main part of the city. Right where it was a distance for a lot of investors to travel in Hawaii traffic, you're not going far in mileage, but you're spending a lot of time. So we, we created our own meetup out on the west side where we were living at the time. And it really served and supported other investors to come to our meetup. So the value we brought was a space where people could present deals, could share their wealth and knowledge, to grow their network, to make connections and partnerships in exchange for we would have conversations on the side, me and my wife being able to pick Everybody's br.

Yeah. Have you found that through your group, the amount of partnerships is really substantial? I mean, once people really connect, there's those opportunities because you get to, you know, monthly or weekly, however much you do them, spend time with people and get to get like a real one on one instead of through social media.

Yeah, exactly. And like, anything new, it started off small. There was only three of us. And I mean, it's still going to today, even though we're not in Hawaii, we pass it off to our team members and we're virtual. So we're actually bringing in people from all across the country in the world that wants to chime in. Every last Wednesday of the month is when we still hold it. And we've been running for seven years now.

Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, we run as well on Wednesdays. We do one in person a month, and now one back to Zoom. But during the pandemic, our Zoom meetups were the things that really helped people collaborate through that medium. And now it's really been, like, a great thing for people to see. Like, hey, there's someone who's just like me. Have you found that it really helps people get off the sidelines and into the game?

It can, as long as they take action with that next immediate step, which it really comes down to the specific investor in person in their season. Are they willing to go with the information they have? You know, a lot of them want more and more information. Sometimes disservices you because you start to ask questions that are far beyond what you need answered to take that next step.

Yeah, I think. I think with real estate investing meetups, there's always like a few, a small percentage who just will come to every meetup but will never do anything. Like, they kind of like the interactivity, but there's just something that they can't get the confidence it's just not going to happen. They just want to get the information.

Yeah. I think I've called it social comfort in our space, where you just get socially comfortable with the people and satisfied with where you're at, where you don't ever do anything, even though you say you want it. Your actions are showing otherwise.

Yeah. And I mean, sometimes that's a money thing. And people don't like to say, like, hey, I can't really make the investment now. And I think, like, that's like, you know, at least if they're being, you know, helpful, it's not like a loss for anybody there.

Yeah. And even if it's a money thing being open and transparent about it. You may find other avenues to do deals. There's people doing deals with no money.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I think creative finances, obviously it's become more widely known as pace and people like that have expanded it, but it's always been an option. My dad used to use seller financing and he didn't need to. It's a strategy that, that works for some, you know, sellers have. You find that when transitioning from Hawaii to the mainland that anything changed in terms of your, like how you were looking at investments. I know you, you were looking at Midwest first, but what was the first area that you actually ended up investing in?

Indianapolis.

Indianapolis, Yep.

So our first property was there, however, is the only property there. We, we actually changed markets twice before we found where we wanted to be at and, and really it was around creating that networking team that could take us to the finish line.

And the first property in Indianapolis, was that a buy and hold already or did it need work?

It was a turnkey straight up from a turnkey provider. Very reputable off of our Hawaii meetup group that would take tours up there. We just chose not to go and physically see it.

Yeah, yeah. I used to be really like anti turnkey and now I'm changing my tune on it because I really feel like with the way that prices fluctuated for renovations and how many new investors can fail trying to renovate stuff. That turnkey. It's okay. Even if the return's not gigantic. It's much safer than like if you were guys were trying to do like a full renovation in Indianapolis when you didn't know anything, that would have been a lot harder.

Absolutely.

Yeah. So where did you pivot to market wise after Indianapolis?

Kansas City and Florida were our two markets that we looked into next largely in part to. We had our, like you said, a hard time building a team. Everybody was already spoken for. The good guys were out, you know, and it wasn't something I was willing to go into more research on, just feeling that it was. It was more of a saturated and preoccupied turnkey company market.

Yeah, that's really important though. I mean, you really want to figure out like where you can get the best service as well. So if they're backed up and you're going to be 30th on the list, it's not, you know, not that attractive to be in that.

Yes.

So where in Florida did you guys start looking?

Jacksonville.

Okay. And how did you pick that market as a whole and Kansas City? Was it a numbers thing or a.

Provider'S Thing it fell in alignment to our vision and goals which and our strategy of buying holding cash flow and we. We fell into an opportunity where investor was motivated in offloading a portfolio of properties that they had because they were preoccupied with flipping. So they. They wanted to exit to cap, to capture their capital to go back into the next flip or bigger deals. And we were ready for to. To scale really. So we actually almost like turnkey bought into a team in Florida by just swiping up the portfolio.

Yeah. Do you know Alenis Camargo and Isaac in Jacksonville, Third Stone Properties?

It rings a bell and we are not growing there anymore. So it does sound familiar though.

They do they have an investment business and property management firm in Jacksonville. So I'm just curious. It's fun to connect the dots between an investors because you never know when you might need extra assistance in an area.

Absolutely.

Yeah. And so how did you end up coming to the mainland? Where do you guys live now and are you investing in that area at all?

Yeah, we moved to Reno, Nevada largely in part to more personal stuff. So like my newer purpose once I exited my job was to be able to support and care for my family and my grandparents and parents are alongside us now here in Reno, Nevada.

Awesome.

They needed the. My grandparents more so needed that assisted style living, senior living which back in Hawaii it. It's really expensive. Really expensive. So Nevada not only served our business because no state income tax and some of the perks of that and it was a location that they loved. They liked the Four Seasons and it was cost effective for me to move from Hawaii to here and still be able to operate.

Yeah, yeah, that's important. It seems like family's been a big driver because part of getting out of the kind of rat race job was to make sure that you had enough time with your family. Right?

Absolute. Absolutely.

Yeah. I mean in what ways does investing now, you know, long term now you have you know, 10 years in focused on it. How does it help you maximize that time and also because of course you're doing it, you know, with your wife.

Yeah, I get to choose. It's the freedom of choice. Like money was my initial thought to why I needed to invest. It really changed to time and understanding that time is the most valuable asset. And once I got that, you know, being very disciplined with the priorities and the tasks that would produce the most money freed up the most time for me. And I get to choose to work a day. Be on a podcast with you Jonathan, spend time with my grandparents, taking them down to the local casino or hanging out with my kids at the park just because. And I'm no longer tied to that. Trading time for money, what I had at ups.

Yeah, I wonder what you think of this though. I think like, after you figured it out, it makes sense and you have the freedom. But a lot of people, you know, are like, oh, I gotta leave my nine to five. And then they get into investing and they realize like, it's much harder because you actually don't have anyone telling you when you have to do stuff. So it could turn into a 24, 7 if you kind of don't figure out the processes. Did you guys struggle with that or was Jasmine just way ahead of the curve? I didn't lay it out for you.

I am so blessed. Those who know Jaz know that she is. She's very structured. She has systems and processes in place. She's very analytical in that sense. And I'm more of a promoter conversation networker. You know, I'm the opposite of that. And I struggled with it initially because it was, it was embedded in my, my mind. I was raised to, to think I gotta put in 40 hours or I'm not working hard. So it was more of a beat down on my myself for why didn't put 40 hours in into real estate. However, I did my task in a short amount of time. I'm complete. So I struggled with that for about six months until I sought out more mindset and leadership growth from mentors that would challenge me. Like, did you complete your utmost important task for the day? That's going to be the only thing you need to do. Nothing else matters. And if it's a yes, whether it took you five minutes or 15 hours, you're complete. It's not a measure off of time like it is in the workforce where you punch in. If you don't put in your eight, you don't get make your eight. I got to shift the thinking. It was a lot of mindset for me.

Yeah, I mean, that's perfect segue for this. I mean, I built this podcast because it's the mindful approach to real estate investing. And mindset's a big part of that. But like you said, a lot of it in the beginning was kind of like, you know, it's ego. But also we train ourselves as not. I work for the government for 10 years. I train myself to like, I wake up, I go to an office, I do what I have to do, and then I come home to my family like that. That kind of is almost easy to keep replicating. And then like you said, it's hard. You go out and you're like, well, I don't have a schedule today, so maybe I'll just like not get right to work. People, I think, struggle with that. What were the mindset shifts that really helped you get over it through mentors, you know, to finally really focus and make this work.

Yeah. A few things that come to mind was being challenged around where are my priorities lie? Because if I say to yes to one thing, I say no to everything else. So I used to think, well, I don't have enough time. Right. When I was working once I shifted to prioritizing my my goals and my tasks, I started to gain back the perceivable time. So I like to remind myself it's not the lack of time, it's the lack of priorities. What am I focusing in on? What am I saying yes to? Because if I say yes to this, it's no to everything else until it's complete. And I get to own that and be more committed to and discipline in my commitments.

Yeah, that's great. I think generally most people are saying yes to too much. Especially like high eye personalities who are people pleasers that can't say no to anything. But then how can you have time to accomplish anything?

Exactly. And saying it to yourself, to me was the biggest shift because I tend to lie to myself. Nobody can hold me accountable when it's up here in my head, you know, oh yeah, I can do that, I can do that, I can do that. And then I realized, oh crap, I said yes to 50 things today. How am I going to get that accomplished? And then I feel overwhelmed and I choose to do nothing.

Yeah.

Versus just focus on that one thing. What's the next step that I get to work on today?

Yeah. And that overwhelm reminds me it's a classic comparison to analysis paralysis that real estate investors get into. They're like shoveling all this data into themselves, but they never even looked at a property. Have you found that investors struggle with that? They're really good at data, but they're not doing a lot of in person activity which could be meetups. But of course you need to see properties even if you're not investing in the area.

Absolutely. Putting in the reps is what separates the ordinary from extraordinary. And what I like to share with the investors that I get to work with is more is lost by indecision than the wrong decision. So make a decisive decision and run with it. We like to talk about creating results because from results, you've now applied the head knowledge into actual hands and feel knowledge and you get to really sift through and debrief what worked, what didn't, and what am I going to do differently next?

Yeah, well, that's important clarification because it's just results. It doesn't always have to be positive results. Like you just, it's okay if you mess up. It's about what you do to fix it. And like I've always said, a lot of people are always so like, oh, I never want to have a bad deal. I mean, in your worst deal, if you have money down, you still get the money down back. Unless you made a gigantic blunder, which is pretty hard to do unless you're not paying attention to anything. But like, you know, sometimes you just take a softball and it's like not going to be the best one and you have to trade out. Have you had that happen where like, hey, this deal wasn't as great as I thought it was going to be, but at least I can turn it and turn it into something else, a different deal?

Yeah. And I've had deals where I've left in far more than what I would have if I just simply bought turnkey. And what the shift for me that really supported me in forward movement was redefining failure and, and calling it investment. It's an investment to my schools of real life example. It's the school of hard knocks. Right. I'm investing in. So how do I make a return on maybe I left in ten grand more than I should have. How do I take that 10 grand investment of the lesson learned and get a return on it over time? And that's how I see the debrief aspect of things. All right, the deal didn't work. Where can I improve on, Maybe I get to offer lower, maybe I get to renegotiate better. Maybe I get to choose my rehab or team members differently and start to come from an ownership standpoint where I now control the situation versus being victim to it. And then it's very easy to come from victim and say, hey, it's their fault. They didn't tell me they. You got to operate from ownership. Nobody makes you do anything in real estate. You get to own the fact you chose.

Yeah, I mean, you have to. But it's like you said, sometimes we do catch ourselves lying to ourselves, but it's how quick we realize, like, okay, that's really not true, that you can pivot and get back to it because the lying to yourself can Lose you a lot of money. You know, just keep throwing money into something to try to put band aids on it.

Yes, exactly.

Hey, it's Jonathan. This is just a brief interlude to talk to you about Dealmachine. Listen, I've used Dealmachine, and I was crushing it with my concerned citizen postcard on Dealmachine. You can look that video up on my YouTube and find out how I did it. It works. Dealmachine works. I've had David Lekko, the CEO, on the podcast. So if you want a free trial of DealMachine, the elite driving for dollars app, and I'm telling you it works if you use it correctly, you can go to my link at Bit ly Zendealmachine. Now, bitly is bit ly Zendealmachine. It's free, and you'll be up and running in two minutes, and then you can figure out if you want to keep it. Let's get back to the show. Yeah, so I. I know you guys have done a lot of bur strategy. Do you think that the bur strategy, like right now we're recording September 25, 2023. How do you feel about the bur strategy, at least in the areas that you're working now? Is it still as viable as it was a couple years ago?

Yes, it is. And like you were mentioning, pivoting is key. So a burr back when I first started was easily attainable to hit The. The perceivable 1% rule that you would shoot for in a turnkey. Right. 1% is basically $100,000. Property should rent for $1,000 in today's market. And Covid post Covid real estate, 1% almost disappeared because of the price points being so high and rent not being able to keep up. So what we chose to do is to pivot on our strategies on how we acquire or what we do through the brrrr. And one of the things that I was able to find that worked for us extremely well, especially during the COVID spike, was redefining the brrrr to more of a hybrid. What I mean by hybrid is you're rearranging ours. And what that looks like as an example for your listeners is I'm looking for distressed turnkey properties that are underperforming. So maybe we'll take an example. It market rents a thousand and it's rented for 750. The the owner is selling it because they may not have the capital available to increase the rehab or. Or evict the person. I can come in now and solve A problem and maybe keep the tenant in at Fair Market Rent or slightly bump it and defer the rehab down the road. So I'm replacing the rehab with the rent and just moving ours around. Got very creative where we were scooping up a lot of distressed turnkey owners that didn't want it anymore because maybe it wasn't their strategy. And we saw an opportunity there.

So I've been touting that, I've been calling it Reverse Spur for a couple of years because we found it in Philadelphia that there were properties that you could get where they were in, you know, okay shape, but the tenant was in place and the tenant was fine with the place. So you, like you said, you're saving all that rehab money and then it's buy rent, wait. The only thing is you need to leave your money in there longer. So it's really for people who can leave, let the money sit, marinate a little bit. But then look, one or two years, you know, it's going fine, it's not a huge money maker. But then they leave. You not only have the appreciation, then you do the rehab, you get a giant appraisal value, take all your money out and hopefully you can burr there, you know, get another one just from that major profit. I love it. I've been talking about that and I'm glad somebody else is on board with me. It really works though, because I think people think like everything has to fit a model. Hey, I heard this berm on, I'm just going to do it. But it doesn't make sense because a lot of people don't have the money to do that rehab right away. And tenants you can't get. All the properties don't just have aren't vacant. You know, getting tenants out in different states is a lot different. So sometimes you have to sit with them and you know, try to get them up a little, but just take it as like, hey, I'm saving on rehab.

Exactly.

Yeah. Great, great ideas. So at WNN now, what's the overall scope of the company? What are you guys looking to buy as a company and who are you helping buy? Properties.

Yeah, so we work with two, two different tiers in, in our mentorship program, we have a residential for those that are wanting to growing their portfolio or maybe feel that they're stuck at some level and need additional advice and guidance from somebody who's done more, added more. And we also have our commercial aspect because that's what we shifted to about five years ago into the commercial space. We like to use the Monopoly analogy, You know, the game is to buy, buy a set to add green houses because that's where the cash flow is. However, when you trade those green houses in for a red hotel, that's when you're banking. So we like to train people to build their residential, to then move into commercial and utilize. One of the strategies we utilize is the 1031 exchange. Basically defer your gains down the road and roll it into a larger asset.

Yeah, yeah. I think I grew up with a dad who was really just like a foreclosure investor. He just bought like all sorts of like random atrocities and some very, very good ones. But I never. He never. He wasn't into commercial. He would buy the buildings that his business were in. And at the time I wasn't thinking like, oh, cool, that's like mixed use or that's, you know, hybrid commercial or just regular commercial. And now I've started to think commercial way more. It's funny how the longer you're in it, the more you see the scale open up. Is that what also led you to commercial? It's like, well, the scale is just bigger here. There's less players in the game who can get up this high. It makes sense to find what's going on with the deals here.

Yes. And quite frankly, it was the fact that I, I assisted our growth in the residential to such a size that my wife felt overwhelmed of managing the teams. Right.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, having a large door count requires a lot of activity when it's residential because there's consistent turnover, there's consistent problems with, with tenants and, and issues with property that she wanted to put into something where she could be a little bit more distant from. And that's what we call in traditional commercial.

Yeah, that's a great point, though. I mean, take two people who have 100 doors and one person with 100 doors has 52 families. That's a whole different beast than having 100 unit complex that's. That's in one spot. That's a really, really good point. And that's why I think door counting is kind of irrelevant because those first hundred doors with 50 multi families is a disaster and will cost you way more to manage than 100 unit complex. Right?

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, Yeah. I love that I got to teach myself some of these lessons along the way also. Yeah. And so WNN stands for why not Now. How did you guys get to that? Because I really, I like the thought of that in my head.

Yeah. It goes back to when we were talking about the networking Jonathan, when you were saying, you know, there's people that attend that want to do something, they're always asking questions. And we found ourselves repeating the same question to these guys that were stuck. Why not now? Because they're like, oh, what if the market does this? What if rates go up? What, why not now? When's the best, best time to invest in real estate is now? When's the second best time? 20 years ago. You know, it's just, you get to start where you're at and just be open to opportunities. And your gaining of experience is far more valuable than trying to control something you can, like the market, like the interest rate, like everything else that people are using as a reason to not get into real estate today.

Yeah, that's another great point. I mean, now's a perfect example. You know, rates are high. I'll just wait till they come down. My first question always is, well, how long are you willing to wait and what evidence are you basing your weight on? Because it may not come down. So how about we just get to work and see what's out there? Right, yeah. Have the rates affected you guys or is it just another pivot strategy for you?

Yeah, it's a pivot strategy. So we do a lot of cash purchases and, you know, having. Understanding that we're not pressed to refinance or pull out the money, just knowing that the opportunity cost changes when you leave your money in the deal and own it free. And another thing we teach is you temper expectations on perceivable cash flow. When the rates were at 4%, your cash flowing a lot more than when it's at 9. So know your numbers. If you're okay with a smaller amount of cash flow, however positive refi. If you're not, hold it free and clear. Think of other ways that we can make it work. You know, it's just, it's massaging the brain into thinking, what are my opportunities that I have? And if I don't see any, where are they? And who do I get to meet?

Yeah, yeah, I agree with all that. I feel like the, the higher rates have affected house hackers the most because if you, like, you can't do an FHA house hack right now. It's just the PMI plus the, the rents. It's like, just not going to work out. Like you said, 1% rule is very hard to find.

Yeah.

Barring something like super. So, yeah, I think on the larger scale, it is just about managing your cash, you know, what you're doing with it and figuring out, you know, if the rate has a turnaround, maybe in a couple years, it comes down, you're going to get appreciation on that anyway, right? Yeah. Any markets that you're interested or that you guys are investigating for more investments.

Now, we have been dabbling in the Nevada market since we're here now. And it's more for commercial because it doesn't quite make sense for residential, knowing that there's a lot of California people moving over and there's a lot of development in our area. We're wanting to start that networking process and the team creation. And we have an expectation it's going to take several years before we find that solid team where we can start to break ground. And we're okay, missing the perceivable boat because I can't control what that looks like. I can control my networking. I can control the team members I'm creating relationships with. And we're going to do what we do in every market. Start small. I want to mitigate my risk with stuff that I don't know. But start.

Yeah. I think it's important to note, though, like, you've moved, you've been in Reno a while, but you haven't sunk in yet. And I think that's what people have to realize. You can't just, like, start investing in every market. It does take a lot of research. And. And that again, something you were saying before. I don't even watch the national news on real estate, and people are like, how do you do that? Like, that's your business. I'm like, well, that's. It's not real. It doesn't affect me. Everything is local to me. So if I'm investing in Green Bay, Wisconsin, I need to know everything about Green Bay, Wisconsin. It doesn't make any difference what's happening in California to Green Bay, Wisconsin. It's irrelevant. Have you found that each of those markets you really have to do a deep dive on to make sure that you're getting it? And then also so, you know, like, okay, we're not going to go to number two or number five, you know, in this market.

Yeah. Yeah. It's a large part to focusing on the micro. The macro is, you know, that's where all the. To me, I perceive a lot of fears drummed up from the macro because I feel like the world's going 100. And yet in Nevada, or at least in our Reno market, houses are still selling like hotcakes. It's still appreciate, you know, it's not what's happening in the other States. So you really, like you said, focus on the micro. What's happening in the area you're wanting to. And for me, I add that the team, the team gets to be supportive of it. If I don't have a team, I'm not pulling the trigger because I get to start with somebody on my team and I want to make sure I have a good relationship with them first before pulling the trigger. In a new market.

Yeah. So when you're talking about moving into commercial, are you only apartment buildings or are there other parts of commercial that you're interested in as well?

We move into more of a traditional commercial space. So we bought shopping malls, retail, office, medical, restaurant, government buildings. Like that's, that's kind of our, our forte. Because I see at least in our market, multi is just so hot where I can't calculate cash flow to make sense unless I'm 50 off their asking and people are still buying it near or at asking. And I'm curious to see how they make those numbers work. It doesn't work.

Everyone I knew is on, is on a break. So most people have been on the podcast, have been like, yeah, we're not really buying too much. It would have to be like a gift. Gift to us to go in on it.

Right.

But yeah, that definitely makes sense. But. And also that type of asset now that traditional kind of office that's depleted, I mean, that's probably the best asset in the game right now, cost wise because there's so much vacant space. Are you buying for redevelopment or are you just hoping that these type of things come back? Obviously, like, you know, strip malls are doing okay now again.

Yeah. So office, we, we found ourselves falling into a niche inadvertently when Covid happened and we were buying all these office spaces. We're buying spaces that are sub 10,000 square feet. Right. So a lot of the guys are downsizing into our space.

Great.

We found edge to the market in a. Without knowing that we were having the edge to the market by simply not having the capability yet to buy those massive office buildings.

Yeah. And I mean also those can be cut up even smaller also. That's what I like about commercial. It's like you can always reposition a space, you know, and adjust it. That's what a lot of people do with commercial. You end up making more spaces and, and you know, create. They can. People can create their own type of co working atmospheres if they want.

Yeah. And it's funny you mentioned Daniel Kong's in my, in my, in my group. And I just, I I was able to work him on a deal where, oh man, he bought up a good sized commercial, a multi space where a bunch of little offices and it's going to be a huge win for him. We're basically burying that, that, that commercial property. So his goal is to pull out all his money and it's looking like he's going to pull it all out and some.

Yeah, but I love the point that you made. Your 10 sub 10,000 is like really good. It's all manageable. You're not, you know, like you were saying before for, for your wife, like she didn't want more responsibility. These things are easily maintainable, especially if you're buying, you know, in similar areas. Yeah, commercial is definitely like the thing to look at right now. I think people are scared of offices, but I think with what you just said, strategy in terms of your square footage, the opportunity cost is there and then the potential is definitely there. Downsizing. Sure. Who wants the 50,000 square foot space? They're trying to get rid of it. They need to go somewhere.

Right? Yeah. It makes me think of Warren Buffett's quote, be fearful when everybody's greedy. Be greedy when everybody's fearful. So if everybody's fearful of office, I'm in. If everybody's greedy, I'm staying back. So just putting that, that edge.

Yeah. I mean for investors, it's almost funny when we hear, you know, oh look, I love when the national news comes out with something that, oh, it's a disaster, nobody should buy. I'm like, sounds like a great time for me. Working at it. Yeah. I mean, I live in New Jersey. The deals are really not good. I mean, so I'm very, very patient because I've been in it so long. But like, I definitely am like I'm ready to start doing deals again. I'm getting a little bored.

Getting that itch.

Yeah. Yeah. So what are you guys looking forward to in the future? How do you want to build and how do you want to be involving other investors to help them grow?

Yeah, it's just a continuation. I feel like I stepped into my true purpose of being able to educate, teach and help others to do what we did, to have what we have. And we've been working this mentorship program for about five years now. We have right now in our communities about 100 people in our residential space. Our commercial is a little bit smaller because not everybody's ready. Right. It takes time to amass the portfolio, but the vision is, is to, to get more from the residential into the Commercial and from the commercial to continue scaling because we're in deals right now that, okay, we're just touching the surface when we start to get bigger and better at the continuation of that 1031 play. Just larger and more capital moves you into larger and bigger deals which then creates larger and more beautiful cash flow. And that's our vision and futures to just help a lot more people get started.

Yeah. Are there any assets out there that you're interested in that you've never acquired?

Oh, I've been falling in love with a lot of these government buildings that I'm seeing in our market because it's just the 30 year lease, you know, like those, those 3050 year leases. And those are things that I'm, I'm striving for. They're just simply out of my price point at the moment.

Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, I mean I think that's, that's something I haven't heard. A lot of people are like, oh, I'm thinking mobile home parks, which doesn't sound good to me. Self storage sounds great to me. I haven't, I look at them a lot. I haven't pulled the trigger. But yeah, I, I like, I like buildings and also I like long leases. So this, this makes sense. You're getting something that almost has some type of historical context for a towns. So long term it could be something else, but it's a hub. And I think with commercial like one of the most important things is like finding hubs. I like Main street commercial. Like I think it's like, you know, the pandemic just decimated Main Street. So now it's like I like mixed use, I like seeing what's on Main street because you know, then you're, you're again like you're part of the community there. And government buildings always are.

Yes, exactly.

Yeah. So for new investors, if they were to ask you right now, hey, I'm trying to get into the market, you know, they, they hopefully bring a little bit more to the table like we were talking about before. But what's one piece of advice you could give them based on your experience now at this level that might help newer investors kind of get off the bench and get into the game.

Yeah. Really Starting with your why. Why real estate?

Why?

Why is this investment a focus of yours? Are you looking to solve a problem? Like for me, my story was around wanting to exit my job, replacing my income. So once I solidified my why is all of a sudden these strategies popped up that match it and they require much Effort because it was really easy to isolate what was in alignment to my why and what wasn't. And that, that right there gives you such confidence to move forward with this particular strategy, because working with new investors, I get the question all the time. Should I flip? Should I wholesale? Should I buy and hold? Should I syndicate? Should I? You go on this list like, well, what, what's your why? Are you wanting to just create extra money? Are you wanting to leave your job? Because there's two different, different spectrums right there in that one sentence or that, that the two questions. And when you got a clear why, all of a sudden the path opens.

Yeah, I really agree with that. I think there's a lot of people, you ask that question, what are your why? And they don't know. And you're like, well, you're, you're, you're, you're way out ahead. You know, you're at the end of the board. You need to be, you know, pull back to the beginning because, like, until you know your why, you're going to invest in the wrong asset. That's not going to suit it. It's not going to match up. And also something that I think is really important because you've done this all with your wife. You know, we've talked a lot about the relationships that go on in real estate. And even if you know your partner or spouse isn't like a partner in the business, it's definitely important that they're on board with your journey because it's your collective journey. If you are together, your finances are together. And I feel like that's so important. You know, has, that, has that helped your relationship as a whole to be so invested in this thing together?

100%. And it's actually one of our parameters on when you can get into our community or not. If you are married or have a significant other, they get to, at minimum, like you said, be on board with the journey. They don't necessarily have to run like my wife does with me.

Yeah.

And there's no, no investment worth a marriage or relationship. None. So if that's putting you at, at odds or at ends where you're, you're going to beef over it, it is not worth the penny you're going to make in return for. So. Yeah, yeah, it is, it is something that I love running with my partner and it's not necessarily going to need to look that way for you.

Yeah, yeah. I would never want to see someone, you know, dunking 25,000 into a mentorship and then going Home like, hey, just through you.

What?

You know, that's why the discussion. But I mean because the goal is always, like you said, it's about time, you know, you're going to get the time. Time creates freedom. That creates more opportunities for family in whatever configuration you want. Yeah. I think your journey is really interesting and it's nice to know that you've involved the whole family now. You know, of course with, with parents and everything along for the ride, which I think is, you know, with the pandemic, it's become much more common for people to have extended family around in the same houses. It can work for multifamily, you know, mother daughter houses. So that's an interesting dynamic that I think is changing the way people invest. Mother daughter houses are great just as a whole because it's like, oh look, I think of it for. Because I have, you know, two, a 21 and a 20 year old and it just works. So that's another strategy that I think people are looking at that also keeps families connected.

Yes.

Yeah. Awesome. Well, it was great speaking to you. I really liked your mindset. Perfect mindset fit for this because it's like you've really done the work and that's very obvious. And I think, don't you think that your work on your own mindset is something that's really helping you guys succeed because you're really focused on it.

Yeah. I mean, all right, another Warren Buffet quote. The best investment you can make is in yourself. And if you're not investing yourself, at minimum, how do you expect to achieve these goals that you can't even realize at the moment that you create it?

Yeah. Awesome, man. Where's the best place for people to get in touch with you? I know for the team and your guys properties. It's wnnproperties.com yes.

And you can follow us on Instagram @wn properties on there there's a few links if you found our. For you're curious to learn more about what we have to offer in our mentorship. We're giving away a free gift and if you don't want to go to social media, the website is whynotnowinrealestate.com yeah.

Okay. Yeah, that's it. Why not? Now in don't miss the N in realestate.com free gift from CJ and the team at WNN Properties. So go check that out. CJ, it's been a pleasure. I hope I get to meet you one of these days in the near future.

Thank you. Jonathan.

Yeah, man. Thanks so much. This has been episode 81 of Zen and the Art of Real Estate Investing with my guest CJ Colio of WNN Properties. We'll see you next week. I hope you enjoyed that episode of Zen and the Art of Real Estate Investing with me, Jonathan Green. And I just want to remind you, and this is always an uncomfortable part, I don't want you to think that I'm begging for you to like subscribe, follow, do whatever you have to do for the podcast. Leave a five star review. But if you like the podcast and you think it adds value in the real estate investing sphere, then just do me a personal favor. Like the podcast, follow it, share it when you can with your friends and be so kind as to write a five star review. If you believe it deserves a five star review up against what else is out there, I would really appreciate it and I hope you keep listening.