BiggerPockets Podcast 051 with Mike Sherwood Transcript

Link to show: BP Podcast 051: Small Multifamily Properties, Working a Full Time Job, and Training Tenants with Mike Sherwood

Josh: This is the BiggerPockets podcast show 51.

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Josh: Hey, what’s going on everybody? This is Josh Dorkin, host of the BiggerPockets podcast, here with Brandon Turner with our first show of 2014. What’s up, Brandon? Happy New Year!

Brandon: Woohoo! Happy New Year to Josh, and everyone out there. How you guys doing?

Josh: Man, doing good, doing good. You know, 2014. Time for some big things to happen, know what I’m saying?

Brandon: There you go, there you go.

Josh: Well, listen, alright, so 2014 is off and running. We’re very excited about it, and with that let’s just get into this thing and start with our---

Josh & Brandon: Quick Tip.

Josh: 2014 Quick Tip, here it is; Today’s Quick Tip is to head over to the BiggerPockets new member introduction forum, and if you have not yet introduced yourself to the community I want you to do that. Yes, we’ve said this Quick Tip before, but I wanted to add one more thing to that; I want to let you know that it’s really important to share your goals with folks, and I think one of the cool things you can do with your introduction is let us know your goals for 2014 in that introduction. Of course, if you’ve already left an introduction in the past, come help the community; Go and greet three new people today, and welcome them to the forums. The more people you greet, the more people you connect with, the better your network is and the more opportunities you have. So, make it happen, go out there, and do it.

Brandon: There ya go.

Josh: So, there it is. There it is. With that, why don’t we get to the show? Of course, this is show #51 of the BiggerPockets podcast. You can check out the show notes at BiggerPockets.com/show51.

Today you guys as our guest we’ve got Mike Sherwood from the Buffalo, New York area. Mike’s an active member of our forum, and one of the co-authors of a new BiggerPockets community book that’s due out in the next couple weeks, but we’ll tell you more about that in the weeks to come. That said Mike is going to share some of the lessons he’s learned about partnering, getting started, investing while working a full-time job—a very popular topic—and a whole lot more. So, definitely pay close attention to this one. There’s also a ton of really, really awesome content so definitely listen up, and, of course, Mike’s a good guy, so with that why don’t we bring him in? Hey, Mike, welcome to the show, man, good to have ya!

Mike: Thanks, glad to be here guys. Appreciate it.

Brandon: Yeah, we appreciate you being here. Yeah, let’s do this.

Josh: We are, we are. So, thanks – by the way Michael told us up front that he’s listened to every single show of the BiggerPockets podcast and I think he said that he’s really enjoyed the transition from how terrible we were to how absolutely mediocre we are today.

Brandon: Yes.

Mike: That’s very true. That’s very true.

Brandon: Mike also told me yesterday that when we call him Michael it’s as if he’s in trouble so I told him that we would told him Michael whenever he’s in trouble, and we would call him Mike whenever he’s not.

Mike: Michael.

Josh: Alright, let’s kick this off. Alright, Mike, so what kind of investing do you do?

Mike: Mostly do buy and holds, multi-family buildings, and now we’re just starting to get into some flips and to do some property management.

Josh: Nice, and where are you? Where are you located?

Mike: I’m actually located in Buffalo, New York.

Josh: Buffalo, New York. Are you originally from there, or—

Mike: Nah, I’m from down-state Binghamton area. I don’t know if you know down-state, but—

Josh: Down-state would be up-state, you mean?

Mike: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, down-state, down-state.

Josh: No, really. The real New Yorkers, those of us who come from civilization look at those places as up-state, otherwise known as the Boonies, the country.

Mike: Yes, I am from the sticks.

Josh: Yes, that’s what I had been told.

Brandon: He’s a rural guy.

Josh: No, that’s awesome. Alright, obviously I’m from New York so I can give you grief. So, you’re from up-state, you’re now in Buffalo which might as well be Detroit.

Mike: Yeah, that’s—Josh, c’mon, you always beat us up.

Josh: Hey, you know, we had a couple episodes ago where I had my Mea Culpa, and all is well with me and Detroit now.

Brandon: Yeah, sure.

Josh: Alright, so you’re a buy and hold guy who’s starting to get into other stuff. Tell us how you got into it. Why’d you start with real estate?

Mike: We started in real estate back in 2006. Basically I bought a duplex and wanted to do kind of what Brandon always talked about. Hey, it’s always great to start with a duplex. You get to be a little bit of a landlord, and at the same time you get somebody to pay your mortgage for you, and pay all your bills for you. So, I kind of dabbled in that and I decided to keep going.

Josh: Nice, nice.

Brandon: Nice. So, what actually intrigued you to get into real estate in the first place? Was it just you read a book on it, or, I don’t know, some crazy Uncle told you to do it?

Mike: No, actually my grandparents got me into it. My grandparents owned a duplex, a top-down duplex, and they lived in it for years and I basically told my grandmother, I said, “hey, I want to make money while I sleep,” that’s essentially how I started.

Brandon: No, that’s awesome. My grandparents—

Josh: Oh, awesome!

Brandon: Oh, awesome. Take a shot. My grandparents did not invest in real estate, though, that’s alright. I learned from Josh Dorkin so there ya go.

Josh: I’m almost as old as your—

Brandon: Almost as old as my grandparents. I was going there, I was going to make that joke and you totally ruined it. Gaaah, alright.

Josh: Score one for Josh!

Brandon: Alright, so you still do multi-families primarily because you started with a duplex. I mean, is that your ultimate plan that you’re a multi-family investor, or is that just because that’s as far as you’ve got so far?

Mike: Mostly I want to build on multi-families, I want to continue to buy them. I just find that, especially in Buffalo, buying multi-families makes the most sense. Just because the numbers make the most sense when you think about the expenses, and the overhead it just makes the most sense to have. Now, to go to bigger stuff like the apartment buildings; down the road we might go that way, but I feel like there’s a lot more to that.

Brandon: Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, I’m a huge multi-family fan, I think everyone knows that by now. So, anyway, well, let’s talk about that first deal a little bit more, I want to dive in to because I love talking about first deals. So, your first one was a duplex, how did you actually get that? Like, what did you do for financing, and how did you even find the property?

Mike: I actually called a real estate agent, and basically just said I was looking for a duplex and I wanted something that was close to work, and I was able to. That was before the down-turn so the financing, and no-doc, you could do all the loans, it was very, very easy. The whole process took maybe less than 30 days. It was very quick, and then I basically just put 3% down on it so it was one of those FHA loans.

Josh: Oh, nice.

Brandon: Okay, cool.

Josh: So you did the FHA and you did it owner-occupied, you lived in half and you rented out the other half, yeah?

Mike: Yeah, that’s true. That’s true.

Josh: So, what was that like as somebody who suddenly as a tenant next door? Tell us about that experience.

Mike: Well, I learned very quickly not to allow them to knock on my door at all hours because literally that’s what they tried to do all the time.

Brandon: Yup. I’ve been there. How did you do that? How do you train your tenants to not not knock on your door? Come out with a shotgun? “Get off my porch!”

Mike: No, basically what I did is—actually the person that was living there was the daughter of the original owner, and he lived in New York City and he basically wanted to get rid of the property. So, she would constantly knock on the door, and what I decided to do was I told her, “hey, just call me. Call me if you have problems,” and then what happened is she would constantly call me instead of knocking on the door. So, what I did was I just said, “hey, if it’s important leave a voice mail,” cause a lot of times they’ll just constantly want to hound you.

Brandon: Yeah. I had a tenant call me once at like four in the morning, I might have said this on a way earlier show, but like four in the morning tenant calls me and says, “there’s water all over my kitchen, it’s going everywhere!” This is like my first rental property, my duplex—

Josh: Did you tell her to turn the sink off?

Brandon: I went run over there and the drain line underneath it had come undone. She knew that was the problem, but she wanted to do dishes at four in the morning. So, she wanted me to come over to fix her sink at four in the morning just so she could finish doing her dishes. So, I walked over and shut the water off, and walked straight out again, and I said, “I’ll be back in the morning”. That was the last time I’ve had to do a middle of the night call cause, yeah, you have to set those boundaries or else they will take advantage.

Josh: Yeah.

Mike: They will take advantage.

Josh: Alright, so tell us about the numbers on that first property. I know Buffalo, I give grief, but Buffalo’s a good market in terms of affordability. You know, economically, we’ll have another discussion. I’ll start transitioning from my Detroit-haters club to the Buffalo-haters club, but—

Mike: C’mon, Josh.

Josh: No, not going there, man, don’t goad me, talk about the numbers on the duplex.

Mike: Actually, I remember the numbers very clearly. The deal was actually listed at $58,000. I put in an offer of $49,000 and they countered, of course, and they came back at about, I think it was $52,000 or $53,000? And that’s about where we settled.

Josh: Was it on the market a long time?

Mike: Yes, it was on the market for about 2 years.

Brandon: Oh, wow.

Mike: Yeah, it needed a roof really bad.

Josh: Gotcha. So, you get this thing, and what kind of money did you have to put into it?

Mike: I found a guy that did a little bit of work on the side, and he was just trying to make a little extra money and he did my roof for $5,000 or $6,000 so it wasn’t that bad.

Josh: Gotcha, okay.

Brandon: And what did the other half rent out for?

Mike: The other half rented out for $555.

Brandon: Okay, so you were pretty much living for free then, right? I mean, except for the expenses when they come up I’m assuming?

Mike: Yes, yes.

Brandon: Okay, cool.

Josh: Well, that’s—there it is. I mean, I think that’s the end of the show. I mean, you know, ultimately I think people who don’t get into real estate for the purpose of getting crazy rich—I think a lot of people that we hear about are like, “well, you know, if I could just find a way to live for free, that would be the ultimate thing. I don’t want to have 25 properties, I just want to be able to get by, save some money, and live for free,” and that’s perfect if you can count all those expenses out, that’s fantastic. So, it’s a good start.

Mike: Yes, it’s a very good start.

Brandon: I think the whole FHA duplex thing, which I talk a lot about, it’s such a good foundation to build on because if you do it right you can live for free which then helps you save for future down payments for other properties, it helps train you on how to be a landlord. Learning those things like telling your tenant to call you every time there’s a problem, and not to knock on your door, things like that. I think that stuff is fabulous.

Josh: Yeah. So, is there anything beyond the, “hey, call me, and don’t bang on my door,” are there any other issues that have come up living next to your tenants that maybe you could tell the listeners, and ways that they can kind of better deal with them?

Mike: Yeah, actually, I have another story. There’s parking that’s actually out in the back, this property didn’t actually have a driveway so it was like a behind alley way parking so what actually happened is I get a call around two in the morning, it was snowy outside—

Josh: Wait, it was snowy? This is Buffalo, right? It doesn’t snow in Buffalo.

Mike: We had about 2 feet of snow. So, I get a call at two in the morning, i actually did answer it, and what had actually happened is she got stuck in the back area, the back drive way area, because the local town had not plowed that back area yet because they were plowing other areas. So, literally here I am at two in the morning helping her push her car out.

Brandon: That doesn’t seem to be a landlord responsibility, right?

Josh: No, no.

Mike: No, no, no. it’s not. So, after that I basically told her, because she did something very similar again, and I basically told her, “look, you got to do this on your own. You got to find somebody,” so, yeah, she wasn’t very happy with that, but—

Josh: Okay, so as a landlord you are not the, “help me because my cat ran away,” kind of person, correct? You kind of have to create a separation.

Mike: Yes, yes. You got to definitely create a separation from your tenants. Definitely.

Josh: Gotcha.

Brandon: Well, I think that all goes back to what I said earlier, training your tenants. I think people get offended by the term, tenants do anyway, because it sounds like you’re saying training your dog, but no, it’s like, you have to teach them how to be a good tenant so that it doesn’t over take your life. I think most landlords who fail they fail because of their own inadequacies at managing tenants. It’s not the tenant’s fault, I think the majority of the time it’s the landlord’s fault for not setting those rules and not training their tenants correctly.

Josh: Absolutely. I agree, and you know, we’ve got a post from a number of years ago, I think it was from Pete Gardini, and we’ll point to it in the show notes, which, by the way, can be found at BiggerPockets.com/show51, and it was all about training your tenants. I know we did actually have a bunch of people who did get pissed off by the term, but yeah, I mean, I think that’s exactly it. Up front if you can basically create, or establish, a set of guidelines, rules and regulations; Here’s the rules of the road, here’s what we do, here’s what we don’t do, and make it very, very clear, you’re going to save yourself a lot of trouble.

Mike: Yes, yeah, definitely.

Josh: Now do you have a crazy hardcore detailed lease that includes a lot of that stuff now, or how do you typically do your training Michael?

Mike: Mostly, I mean yeah, we do have a pretty good lease now that kind of outlines as far as when you should call, certain things—lockouts, you know, Charles, actually, my partner, he does most of the day-to-day handling of the tenants now and he’s very good at that. I mean, he’s been a manager at his company for a number of years so he’s very good at managing people so honestly I’m a people person as far as being friendly and being nice, but he’s more like being able to deal with the tough stuff because sometimes it gets frustrating. So, he’s very, very good at it.

Brandon: Yeah, yeah. You know, I think there’s a book out there called, oh what’s it called? Land lording on Auto-Pilot by Mark Butler, and it’s one of my favorite books on land lording, and I’ll link to it in the show notes, but one of the things he talks about in there is setting up your tenants with a, oh, what does he call it? I can’t remember…. A rent tack! So, when you actually sign a lease not only are you signing the lease, but he actually has a 30-page document that he goes through with his tenants and says, you know, basically training them. It’s a 30-page manual on how to be a good tenant, and he actually sits down with them and goes through every page of this thing. I kind of do a version of that now, I don’t go quite as hardcore with 30-pages of some kind of book, but essentially the idea is if you can just train them correctly you’ll be much better off later on.

Josh: I think that’s a great idea, and I think the key to that is, literally as you go through it, initialing, having your new tenants initialing every single page as you go through it and you want to provide them a copy with that packet with them signing it so that if they come back later and say, “oh, I didn’t know that,” well, you know, you signed it.

Brandon: Yeah. Even a page that said, “here’s an example of what an emergency is, here’s an example of what not an emergency is,” if you’re doing dishes at four in the morning that’s not an emergency. Just spelling those things out. I think a lot of tenants just don’t know, and they don’t care, and they don’t think about it so I think it’s a good idea.

Mike: It’s funny you say that because as far as emergencies; actually on my wife’s birthday I had a tenant call me at 12 AM and basically say, “there’s water. There’s water everywhere! There’s water all over the floor! There’s water in the basement,” so here I am freaking out and my wife, you know, she’s already getting ready for bed, and she’s like, “you got to go over there?” And I’m like, “yeah, I got to go over there,” so I get all the way over there and the tenant opens the door and looks at me surprised and she says, “well, what are you doing here??”

And I said, “well, you told me you had a big leak,” and she’s like, “oh, well I didn’t mean to disturb you,” and it was just very… ridiculous. Very ridiculous. She had done similar stuff like this a couple of times to my partner and so anyways. Actually what happened was there was a leak from the toilet in the actual unit that was leaking down—we had a guy in there a couple days before replacing the toilet in there because it needed to be replaced, and of course he did a terrible job of actually installing the toilet so there’s water running all over the place. I mean, that guy was a bad contractor, it was terrible. So, I called that guy up and I told him, I gave him a piece of my mind, but my wife was not happy about that at all.

Josh: But I could see that as an emergency. I mean, toilet water running into your unit from another unit sounds kind of emergency to me if I were a tenant.

Mike: Well, actually what was actually happening is it was running in from the bottom unit into the basement. It was actually leaking into the basement. It was an unfinished basement and literally it was a trickle.

Josh: Oh, okay.

Mike: I mean, she heard it through the wall and she’s like, “oh, I hear it,” and then she went in the basement and she couldn’t really see and she was like, “there’s water everywhere! There’s water everywhere!” And I went down there and there was like, no water. It was ridiculous.

Josh: So, it sounds like you’re self-managing all of your properties, is that correct?

Mike: That is correct. Yes, we do self-manage all of our properties.

Josh: Gotcha, and is there a reason for that versus hiring a manager, or what’s your take on that?

Mike: Well, what we actually decided when we originally formed the partnership, Charles and I, we decided that I would do a lot more of the fixing, he would do a lot more of the tenant management, and you know, we eventually decided we wanted to outsource all of the fixing. So, nowadays for the most part, we actually met somebody through BiggerPockets, a general contractor, and he’s been handling pretty much all of the maintenance on that side. So, pretty much all I handle is a lot of the turnover of the units, and help Charles out with some of the tenant management and then just big picture stuff. Kind of expanding our business.

Brandon: Cool.

Josh: Gotcha. Gotcha, gotcha. So, you’re finding your deals on MLS, is that right?

Mike: Yes, the MLS, pretty much exclusively. I actually just became a real estate agent, a licensed real estate agent, a couple months ago. Prior to that we had a person we were working with in the North Towns, as we call it, in Buffalo, and it actually took us awhile to educate her on what was a good deal. So, I always say I wish there were more real estate agents that understood what investors are looking for.

Brandon: Yeah, yeah. I probably don’t need to plug this, but I’m going to! You should check out my Ultimate Real Estate Agent’s Guide to Working with Investors cause if you’re a real estate agent, yeah, read it, and if you’re not a real estate agent give it to your real estate agent. Just email it and forward it to them.

Josh: Yeah.

Brandon: Because it will make your investing life much better. So, yeah, well cool. Oh, go ahead.

Mike: I was going to say absolutely! I mean, a lot of cases they just don’t understand the numbers that go along with that. They really don’t understand the numbers. They’ll send you a duplex and they’ll be selling for $150,000 and, you know, the rents are $500 a month and I can look at that and say, “yeah, that’s not even close, not even close”.

Brandon: Yeah, I agree. So, what made you want to get your license? I guess, we talk about that on the show a lot so why did you do it, and would you recommend other people do it?

Mike: Yes, I highly recommend it. I mean, just being able to get access to the MLS, it’s amazing. The information, the detail, I mean, I’m a big data junkie. My actual full-time job is I look at trend analysis and kind of look at the market so for me the MLS was a no-brainer.

Brandon: Yeah, and you have a full-time job then?

Mike: Yes, I do, yes. I actually work at a bank.

Josh: Oh, cool. What do you do at the bank?

Mike: I actually work in commercial banking. I actually deal a lot with the incentive process and sales process. I actually do a lot of programming for that.

Josh: Gotcha. Okay, so you’re another one of our working-a-full-time-job-while-investing-on-the-side guys?

Mike: Absolutely, yes.

Josh: Well, then how do you do your kind of maintenance issues—how did you, when you were working and your tenants were calling you in the middle of the day, how would you have handled that? Or how did you handle that?

Mike: Well, originally they were mostly calling Charles, and Charles also has a full-time job, so it was the same thing. We tried to split it in the beginning, but as we got bigger Charles was mostly handling it. Mostly because his work was okay with him at least taking calls, and a lot of cases, if it wasn’t an emergency, we would just deal with it after work.

Josh: Gotcha, okay. Got it, got it. Then in terms of being able to jump on potential deals, obviously because you’re working you don’t have to opportunity to plow through different new listings in the middle of the day, right?

Mike: That’s correct, yes.

Josh: So, for you, though, it seems like in that market, and correct me if I’m wrong, you’re probably dealing with more listings that are old than listings that are brand new hot and fresh.

Mike: Yes. During the time that we first started it was very much like that. In the last probably year or so it’s gotten—it’s been heating up. It’s gotten very, very competitive for multi-families in Buffalo.

Josh: So how can somebody who’s working a full-time job then have the ability to scour those deals during working hours and get to potentially even see them without taking time off of work?

Mike: Well, kind of what I recommend is partnering up or finding an agent that you can really work with that will really be able to find those properties and pre-screen them. I know when we first started out we had an agent that would basically go and look at a lot of these properties before she would send them to us, and once we kind of educated her and taught her eventually she knew exactly what to look for for us.

Brandon: Yeah, that’s good. Well, let’s maybe dive in a little bit more on that partnership thing because that, I think, is something that a lot of new investors hear a lot about, but it’s hard to actually know how do you get started? How do you find a partner? What is a good partner? All those things. So, let’s talk about, first of all, your experience with that. How did you find your partner?

Mike: I actually lucked out. I met my partner through a mutual friend, and I kind of brought the idea to him and I said, “hey, I’m doing this real estate stuff would you be interested in it?” And I started showing him the numbers, and basically educating him from the beginning to where we are now and he basically grabbed right on and we just went with it.

Brandon: Okay, cool, and how do you guys structure it? Are you 50/50, I’m assuming, or is it per-deal?

Mike: No, it’s 50/50. I mean, as my wife likes to appropriately call it, it’s like another marriage.

Josh: So you’ve got some kind of business LLC, or whatever it is, and he owns 50% and you own 50%? Is that pretty much it?

Mike: Yeah, for the most part that’s how most of our deals are structured.

Josh: Well, are you actually—which brings up a question, so are you doing one entity per deal, or are you—do you have one entity between you that you use for all the deals?

Mike: We have one deal that is a commercial property so that one we actually put into a partnership, and the rest of the deals it’s kind of just using more residential mortgages and we basically have some legal documents behind the scenes that kind of help out with that.

Josh: Gotcha, gotcha. Okay, so you found him, he’s a 50/50 partner, what does that mean? What are your roles? I know you eluded to it earlier, but if you could kind of clarify, like who brings the money in? Who does what?

Mike: Well, initially when we started we both brought in the same exact amount of money, and then as we’ve been growing Charles actually has access to an LMA, which is basically a line of credit against his stock account, and we’ve been using that and we’ve been basically paying that off as we’ve been expanding and growing our business.

Josh: Nice.

Brandon: So he tackles more of, you said earlier, he tackles more of the direct managing the tenants and things and you said you were more big picture, right?

Mike: Yes.

Brandon: What does that mean exactly?

Mike: Well, as far as systematizing our business we’re kind of trying to come up with better ways to do our business, do our books. I actually built a lot of models when I worked my previous job in the bank, and I want to make things more efficient and I’m all about that. A lot of stuff that was said in the E-Myth and some other books, that’s kind of what I’m thinking about. Also saying, “hey, how are we going to grow our business? We’re going to partner and network with other people and try to figure out how we can grow our business.

Brandon: Okay, and can you—do you have any good examples of things, you said systematizing your business, you know, E-Myth kind of things, what are some examples of what you guys are doing?

Mike: Well, actually what we’re doing is we’re using an application called RentTech, and what that actually will do—it does a lot of the accounting work, Charles does most of the accounting work, we do have a couple folks that help us out and pitch in with that, but on the actual system it has a lot of stuff that will actually post directly to Craigslist and it actually has a ticket, like a trouble ticket, system so tenants can actually put in entries into the system and it’ll send us an email that tells us, “hey, somebody’s reporting an issue”.

Brandon: Okay.

Josh: Gotcha, gotcha. Why did you choose those guys versus, say, an AppFolio or one of the other online property management platforms?

Mike: Well, when I talked to the customer support folks and sales team, I mean, it just felt like they had a better product and they were continually developing because actually what I was looking at was I was looking at the stuff on the website as far as how frequently they were making updates, and it seemed like their product was continually re-inventing itself so I kind of wanted to go with them. A lot of the other applications when you’re starting out they were very expensive then you just couldn’t afford it.

Josh: Gotcha, and we’ve got a link to a whole slew of online property management companies for those people listening if you’re looking for something like this RentTech, or any of the others, and we’ll link to those in the show notes. The link will be something like, “Online Property Management,” so check that out. So, alright, so what about, you know, you said modeling you had talked about. I get the systemization through these platforms, but what about modeling? What are you doing there?

Mike: A lot of what I was initially doing was I built very similar profitability models to what you guys have built with the buy and hold calculator. I actually remember the original investment calculator back in 2006 or before that you guys had that was actually on the site.

Josh: What?? There was one there?

Mike: Well, I swear there was. I swear there was.

Josh: There was something there.

Mike: So anyways. I basically worked with Charles and I was explaining the different principals of an investment and in the beginning what we were kind of confused on hey, you’d look at a property and the return would look good because you were financing it, and I really wanted to focus on telling investors that when you’re looking you can’t just look at how you’re financing it, you’ve got to look at the actual performance of the property. It’s extremely important.

Josh: I was going to say, yeah, you can make any property look good if you put 80% down, right?

Mike: Right, right.

Brandon: That’s a good tweetable topic there, Josh. Throw that one up on Twitter.

Josh: Well, it’s true. We had an old user on the site years ago, Mike O, some of the folks who’ve been around BiggerPockets a long time are probably familiar with him, and his big thing was he was a big 50% rule guy and he basically said, “you’ve got to run the numbers like it’s 100% financing which is essentially going to make the numbers the worst possible numbers and if the numbers work out with 100% then you know you’re in a good position,” so suddenly putting you 20%, or 10%, or 30% is icing on the cake.

Brandon: Yup, yeah. I do the same thing when I look at a value. I like to say I want $100 in cash full per unit per month minimum. I like to see more than that, but that’s my minimum, and that’s figured with 100% financing. So, you know, if I can get $100 per unit, $400 in a fourplex with $0 down, it’s probably a good deal for me. So, if I put 20% down it might be more than that. It might be $500 or $600, and that’s following the 50% rule. So, I’m a fan.

Josh: Yeah.

Mike: I would say that a lot of the deals that are here are actually more profitable than that. I usually look at a lot of the cap-rates.

Josh: What kind of deals are you getting there? I would presume you’re probably getting 2%-2.5% deals over there, is that about right?

Mike: Yeah, that’s about right. Actually one of our most profitable properties, it’s a four unit, it brings in maybe $600-$700 a month.

Brandon: Each unit, or you mean cash flow?

Mike: No, total. Cash flow after.

Brandon: Okay, cool. Now, I don’t know New York, how far away is this from New York City?

Josh: You might as well be in, like, California.

Brandon: Well, I know, but how long does it take to drive that?

Josh: Buffalo to New York? 6 hours.

Mike: 6 hours if you’re driving fast.

Josh: You can actually get to Canada just as quick.

Brandon: Okay, well, the reason I ask is cause you know how I always say within driving distance of any major city I firmly believe that there’s good places to invest within a couple hours. So, it’s not New York from there, but I’m sure there are a few places within a couple hours of New York City, but apparently Buffalo’s not a part of that.

Josh: I mean, Upper New York is kind of like its own world, man, it’s totally different. It really is. All my good red-state friends are hating me right now.

Brandon: Well, hey, going back to the partner thing, what do you think makes a good partner? How could somebody that’s listening to the show find a good partner to work with?

Mike: I think the most important thing in a partnership is being able to come to an agreement, and when you do have disagreements you’ve got to be able to constructively work them out without basically pushing each other’s buttons. Charles is a very easy going kind of guy, I’m a little bit more of an aggressive kind of guy so most of the time when we’re dealing with issues I tend to be the one that gets excited and he’s very cool, and collected, very collected, about stuff. So, I think just try to look out there, go through BiggerPockets, you know, just go to some of these real estate meet-ups as well, that’s where you can really find some of these partners.

Brandon: yeah, that’s a really good idea. I think people overlook that sometimes, maybe, on BiggerPockets, the idea that by engaging on the forums, and by asking questions and answering questions that people start to see you and then you may very well find your next partner, or lender, or whatever, just on the site just by being involved. You don’t have to be an expert, or a pro, just be involved, and you never know who’s going to end up working with you.

Josh: Happens all the time.

Mike: Absolutely. I totally agree with that. I’ve actually had quite a few people in the last few months have been contacting me just because I’ve been setting up the BiggerPockets meet-ups, kind of trying to bring people together to just talk about things. So, I’ve been having a lot of people, like new investors, that just wanna, you know, “hey, I wanna take you out for a cup of coffee, I just want to pick your brain,” I get that all the time. I probably get that once or twice a week, and I’ll just get a new person who’ll ask me and ping me from BiggerPockets so it’s great.

Josh: So are you, Michael, are you running the unofficial Buffalo meet-up, is that you?

Mike: Yeah, I guess I’m running it. I guess I would say that. I mean, I do have a lot of help from other people. I mean, I don’t like to take all the credit. At the same time we have a lot of new people that will come here to this meet-up, and guys like me we’ve been doing this for a little bit so we tend to be able to talk about, and dominate. So, at the same time I want these new investors to be able to step up, ask questions, or just bring something and be like, “hey, I want to talk about this topic,” and just ask questions. Be like, “hey, what do you guys think? I don’t know anything about this, teach me about this,” just to kind of grow, and be able to expand their capabilities.

Josh: Let’s talk about this a little bit because it’s kind of a semi-recent phenomenon. It’s something that we tried to instill years ago and it never really happened, but recently this year alone dozens and dozens of meet-ups have kind of popped up, Bigger Pockets meet-ups, have popped up around the country, and for me it’s awesome. I mean, that’s the coolest thing possible is to see our people organically setting up their own meet-ups and literally creating these kind of get-togethers with no, not necessarily no agenda, but there’s no sell-agenda, right? It’s not about pitching, it’s not about selling, it’s about people getting together, networking, educating each other, and hopefully doing deals and business together. So, I’d like to hear why you guys kicked this one off, and maybe how do you run the meeting?

Mike: Well, I think the main reason why I wanted to put it together is I wanted to kind of give back, and give the opportunity that I didn’t have because when I first started, I mean, yeah, I had BiggerPockets, but I didn’t know anybody locally and there weren’t people reaching out to me to try to help me. So, I kind of want to be there to help people to say, “hey, there’s this group, we can help you, and it’s not just me, it’s all these other people,” and to kind of be able to grow and help them as well. I think that’s important.

Brandon: Well, I was going to say, a couple weeks ago, maybe a month ago now, we re-did on BiggerPockets the meet page, which is BiggerPockets.com/meet, M-E-E-T not M-E-A-T as in your steak, and well, I was going to say is a good thing people can do is go on there and find all the people in your local area and send them a request and say, “hey, we’re thinking about getting together for a local meet-up, are you interested?” You know, we’re not talking about a complicated, you know, process here, this could be as simple as, “hey, you guys want to get together for a steak dinner, or coffee, or whatever?” So, I’m a huge fan.

Mike: Absolutely. Actually I’m looking to go to Toronto in the next couple of months, and while I’m up there I would love to, if there isn’t one, or if there is one, I would love to reach out to some of the folks up there and just say, “hey,” cause there are a lot of investors in Toronto that want to get involved, but they have capital, but they look in their market and there aren’t deals, or they need more money. So, Buffalo is a great place for them to look.

Brandon: Well, that’s just another benefit, too is by hosting these meet-ups, these kind of informal things is you kind of become seen as the connector and people could end up working with you and I think that’s great. So, yeah, when you do that Toronto hit me up, put it on the forums let everyone know. I’m also going to be in New York City here in, I think, January 14th, I think we’re going to try to have a little BP meet-up also. So, those of you in the New York City area keep an eye on the forum. Make sure you have a keyword alert set up for your local city so when people, like Michael, organize a—see, there you are in trouble Michael.

Josh: Michael.

Brandon: Michael. When people, like Mike, set up a meet-up and he writes, “hey, we’re going to have a meet-up in Buffalo,” if you have Buffalo set up as a keyword alert you’re going to get an email and you can jump into it.

Josh: Nice. So, tell us about the meetings themselves. I mean, there is no pitching, there’s none of that nonsense, so how are you running the meetings? What does a meeting look like? Is it just hanging out over drinks or food and just everybody kind of independently chatting amongst each other? Or is there any kind of structure?

Mike: There really isn’t any structure, and we more like to have it just, hey, we’ll come together, we’ll talk about different ideas, different investments, and just kind of have it very informal. We usually have it at a steak restaurant, or a bar that may have a big banquet facility, you know, a room that we can kind of get together and talk that’s a little bit quieter. We actually, most recently, had it at a Greek restaurant in this upper area and that was really nice.

Josh: Nice. Gyros.

Mike: Gyros. Yes, Gyros. So, I mean, that’s why we want to kind of do that to help people out, and not have an agenda because I feel like—actually not to say anything bad, but I went to a local meet-up with a real estate investment group and I felt like it was very pitchy and I don’t like that. I want something where there isn’t a hidden agenda.

Josh: Yeah, and I think that’s why these things are exploding. I think, unfortunately, a lot of the real estate clubs that are out there, I think regardless of the pitchy-ness I think there’s value in real estate clubs, but I think a lot of people have really grown tired, and hopefully BiggerPockets has played some role in instilling that you don’t have to put up with that, but I think people are getting tired of the pitchy-ness. The constant try-to-sell-me stuff, and the cool thing about these meet-ups is it’s just guys like you and me, and anyone else who doesn’t really care to have that who just wants to meet local folks and learn, and work together.

Brandon: Yeah.

Mike: Absolutely, absolutely.

Brandon: You know, one more benefit of the local meet-ups, just by meeting local investors you find local areas too. We had a meeting out in Portland a few months back, and one of the guys mentioned that he was investing like a half hour south of Portland. Now, Portland, for those of you who know, it’s very, very expensive. A house is very spend-y. We talked about with Tucker on episode 22 where he talked about he’s buying these houses for $400,000 or $500,000 and flipping them for $1,000,000 or more. I mean, these are expensive areas, but like a half hour from Portland there are these areas where you can buy a fourplex for $120,000, or less. So, these people that were from the Portland area had no idea you could buy them that cheap within a half hour drive. So, again, that’s just the benefit of meeting with local investors is people. You get ideas, and you get locations.

Josh: Yeah, and, you know, Brandon, you earlier talked about the keyword alerts, and as I sit here and I’m looking at Michael’s recent post I could see they all had Buffalo, a lot of them, had Buffalo or Rochester in them, and I’m assuming you probably have set up keyword alerts for things like Buffalo, Rochester, so when people on BiggerPockets are talking about things pertinent to you locally you can jump in and get involved and start to meet those local people.

Mike: Absolutely. Yes, that’s actually what I do, I always do that.

Josh: That’s awesome. Cool. So, let’s transition a little bit. You said you were transitioning from the buy and hold space into flipping, how did you come to that conclusion that you wanted to do that, and how on earth are you flipping houses while you’re working a full-time job?

Mike: Yeah, actually we decided we wanted to flip houses to be able to come up with cash infusions to be able to buy more multi-family properties because, as you know, when you do the flips you get large capital that comes back to you. So, that’s why we decided to do that.

Brandon: Gotcha.

Josh: Gotcha, and how’s that going? Have you flipped any yet, or are you still in the planning stages?

Mike: We’re actually in the process of finishing one up right now, we have it listed on the market. Hopefully we’ll be selling it in the next couple of weeks, and we’ll see how it goes, and then maybe we’ll do another one.

Brandon: Nice. Can you kind of walk us through the numbers on that?

Mike: Yeah, actually we bought the place for $89,000. It actually sat on the market for about six years.

Brandon: Whoa.

Josh: Wow. Wow. That’s insane! I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a property on the market for six years.

Brandon: Me either.

Mike: Yeah, it was, yeah. It was an REO. It had been sitting for a while. The person got foreclosed on and it has been sitting for a very, very long time on some bank’s books. So, I think, if I remember right, I think the value that they had out on the actually property was about $250,000.

Brandon: Holy cow. Crazy market we used to have. So, you bought it for, you said $89,000?

Mike: $89,000.

Brandon: What’d you end up putting into it?

Mike: We ended up putting in about $30,000 to $35,000 for it.

Brandon: And what are you hoping to sell it for?

Mike: About $179,000-$185,000 somewhere in that range.

Josh: Woo! That’s a nice flip.

Mike: Yeah, pretty good.

Josh: That’s awesome. So, I know I, well, let me jump back to my previous question on the full-time thing. I know both you and Charles are working. How do you run a flip while you’re working? It seems to me like something that’d be extremely challenging.

Mike: Yeah, actually we met David Niles through BiggerPockets and he’s a general contractor and he’s been doing this for a while. He actually was a general contractor in more of the residential field before and he kind of transitioned to doing flips and we met him through BP and we kind of put it together and here we are.

Brandon: That’s cool.

Josh: Wow. Awesome, and how has the experience been for you guys and how much have you enjoyed that versus the buy and hold and do you think you’re going to continue to do it for cash infusion, or you might even start doing it just because?

Mike: It makes money.

Josh: Yeah.

Mike: Yeah, actually we want to continue to do this, and we’ll see how it goes down the road. I forgot the question, I’m sorry.

Josh: That’s okay, I think you answered it.

Brandon: Yeah, that’s good. So, alright, last question on the flip then. I’m wondering how long did it take you, then, from beginning to end? Because this is your first flip, correct?

Mike: Yeah, this was our first flip. Originally we were thinking we were going to close in under a month and the bank, or whoever owned it, was sitting on it so it took us an extra probably 45 days on top of that. So, probably by the time we get done from start to finish it’s going to be about six to seven, maybe eight, months somewhere in that range just because of how long it’s taken.

Brandon: Okay, and I lied. I said that was the last question on the flip, now I have one more, how did you fund this one?

Mike: Through the LMA, that was the funding we had. We actually brought on Charles’ brother as a silent partner to help us with some of the funding on the deal and David actually did all the work, all the rehab, that is how we were able to continue to work full-time. Dave’s focus was basically on getting that thing done full-time.

Josh: Gotcha, that makes sense.

Brandon: Cool, cool.

Josh: Before we get to the next segment I just had one last question myself, and that’s, I guess, what would you say your—we all make mistakes throughout the process, and I think you had talked about not letting your tenants knock on your door at six in the morning, or whatever. What would you say your biggest mistake so far as an investor has been and what did you learn from that?

Mike: Yeah, actually, I would say our biggest mistake was we had some tenants in one of our first properties that Charles and I bought together and they basically were saying, “yeah, we’ll get you the rent, we’ll get you the rent, we’ll get you the rent,” and Charles and I were like, we were just starting out, we were like, “oh, yeah, that’s okay you’re a little late,” three months later they still hadn’t paid.

Josh: Whew.

Mike: Yeah, it was really, really bad, and they ended up—we ended up having to evict them and kick them out, and it was a very nasty process. They were not happy about it, obviously, but we were not happy about losing essentially about 3 to 5 months of profitability, and we’ve never done that ever since. I mean, that was a really bad idea.

Josh: Right on, and how do you screen? Just to kind of follow-up on that. What’s your process, or general process?

Mike: General process we kind of use the BiggerPockets Guide to Screening Tenants. We kind of look at the income, we focus on that, we focus on good references, stable job. We also do a background check. We just started pulling credit reports recently. You know, basically grouping all of that together that really helps us get a bigger picture about that tenant. See, the other thing I do is I look in their car.

Josh: You do the car thing, okay.

Mike: Yeah, I do the car thing. I look in their car. I’ve actually had tons of people who’ve said, they rate themselves a 5 for cleanliness, and I go and look in their car and there’s Burger King wrappers, and tissues, and I don’t think so.

Josh: Brandon he must’ve turned you down for your tenancy.

Brandon: He probably would turn me down. I actually—my car is actually perfectly clean cause my wife drives the car. It’s my truck that really has the problem. Packed to the brim with tools at all points, I don’t know, all the time. Anyway.

Josh: Nice. Cool. Alright, let’s move forward to the next segment of the show. Our—

It’s time for the Fire Round

Brandon: Alright, Fire Round, these questions all come from the BiggerPockets forums. Question number one I’m going to fire at you; knob and tube wiring. What do you do when you encounter that in a potential property?

Mike: I don’t buy it.

Brandon: Oh, really? You just flat you won’t?

Mike: Yeah. I just won’t buy it.

Josh: Really?

Brandon: Well, okay.

Mike: Believe it or not.

Josh: Brandon’s perplexed, he’s at a loss for words.

Brandon: No, I just didn’t expect a black and white answer. Usually it’s like, “well, maybe if it’s this or that,” I like black and white answers, but—

Mike: No, actually Dave does most of our inspections and usually when he sees knob and tube he’s like, “yeah, I don’t want to deal with that,” and the guy we have who does some electrical work doesn’t like to it so it ends up not being so good.

Brandon: I actually do buy properties with knob and tube because most of the properties out here have it, or a lot do. Most have been updated, but I’ll inspect it and make sure it’s working good, and clean and functional and I always hear it’s okay as long as you don’t disturb it and mess with it. I try to update it when I can, but anyway. That’s why I was a little bit like—

Josh: Don’t move into Brandon’s rentals, guys.

Mike: Yeah.

Brandon: It’s a lot more common than you’d think!

Josh: I half-renovate my knob and tube! Sometimes I’ll fix it and hopefully nothing ever happens so I have to.

Brandon: That’s the thing, you don’t need to fix it. The electrical, they say it’s functional. It works just fine as long as you don’t mess with it. It works. Kind of like asbestos siding, right? It’s okay, it’s functional.

Josh: Yeah, hey, I was riding my horse and carriage to work the other day, and I was thinking to myself… alright, next question! What would you recommend for a first rental property? Obviously yours was a duplex, but what would you recommend? A duplex or a single family house?

Mike: A duplex. I mean, if you’re in Buffalo definitely a duplex just because you can kind of find out whether you really want to be a landlord because you have to check to see if you’re going to want to be a landlord first because so many people get in this business, and they try to be a landlord and then they get to deep and they want to sell out, they want to get out.

Brandon: Yeah, okay. Next question; Tenants are asking me to pay for their negligence, like they busted a hole in the way, they clogged their sink, what do you do? At what point do you work on their stuff, and at what point don’t you?

Mike: I mean, if it’s like a hole in the wall I tell them we will do it, but we will charge you for it. That’s usually what we end up doing. We actually had a crazy, crazy plumbing issue just happen not too long ago with an eviction. So, I don’t want to get too deep into it because I know this is the Fire Round, but essentially what happened was the guy had some folks over and they clogged the toilet and they called me and they said, “hey, my toilet’s clogged can you come fix it?”

And Dave went over there and checked it out, and it was completely plugged because somebody flushed something down it, and actually in our lease it states that if you are negligent you’re responsible. So, the guy freaked out and I said, “you’re going to have to call a plumber,” and he said, “oh, I don’t have the money,” so basically he went to the basement and took a giant, and I can’t confirm this, but I’m pretty sure because I saw where they actually hit the pipe, they went to a cast iron pipe basically took a giant wrench and went dong! Just like that. It went dong right against it, and there was a giant—believe it or not I could actually send you the picture there’s literally, it looks like, you can see it, and I get a call from the guy and he says, “oh, I just want to let you know, there’s a leak in the basement, Mike”.

Brandon: Oh, man.

Mike: It was crazy! Dave was there. Dave saw it, the guy we met from BP, and he was just floored. He could not believe it.

Josh: Nice, that’s awesome. Now, hopefully you have your move-in/move-out inspection. You have photos of the place so you can obviously demonstrate that it did not look like this prior to the dong of the crescent wrench?

Mike: Correct, correct. Yes, that’s correct. I mean, we went and we tried to get a judgement, and we actually did get a judgement. Big problem is some of these tenants it’s hard to track some of them down.

Josh: And you can’t collect. Yup.

Mike: Yup.

Josh: Oh, well. That’s the price you pay, I guess.

Mike: It’s part of the game.

Josh: Yup. Alright, so I’ve inherited $150,000 and I have pretty bad credit, how should I invest?

Mike: I would say you should partner with somebody. Especially if you have the money, find somebody with good credit that can help you qualify for mortgages. Set up all your legal stuff, definitely consult your legal and accounting professionals because I can’t stress that enough, I think that’s very important. Set that up and use that capital and buy as many houses as you can. Don’t just buy one, buy as many as you can with $150,000, spread that out.

Brandon: Nice. I would want to add to that that I think a lot of that question would depend on why the bad credit? If it’s medical bills because it was a bad thing that’s different from somebody who’s just terrible at managing their money.

Josh: Yes.

Brandon: So, like, if someone was absolutely terrible at managing their money i would say don’t invest in real estate, stick that money in the bank and figure out how to clean up your life first and then invest in real estate, but that’s my addition to that.

Josh: Can you be nice to me, Brandon?

Brandon: Sorry, I didn’t mean to make fun of you. Alright, next question. A house you buy, you know a rental, and it’s covered in paneling, like the ugly brown stuff, do you paint it, replace it, or leave it for your rental property?

Mike: I guess it really depends on how bad it is. I mean, I have seen a lot of that in Buffalo. You get the brown paneling, it looks like wood, some of it’s not too bad. If it’s really bad I usually just paint it because removing it you do not know what’s behind there.

Brandon & Josh: Yup.

Mike: That’s the scary part. I feel like you open Pandora’s box when you do that.

Brandon: Yeah, I agree 100%.

Josh: Awesome. Alright, here’s a question that’s pretty appropriate for you. My water pipe’s just froze, what do I do?

Mike: Call a plumber.

Josh: There you go.

Brandon: I want to add a story to this real quick. So, last night my wife went to Starbucks to meet with some friends, and, you know, this was the big freeze that we had in western Washington we were, you know, super cold. I decided, just to be safe, I wanted to drive around and check on some of my vacant units, make sure there was no problems. So, I got over to one of my houses that was empty and I could hear it from when I got out of the car like thirty feet away. I heard just this gushing water, and so I ran over to it, looked under the house, just kind of popped my head under, and one of the, like, one inch water lines going in had completely blown up cause some—I didn’t do it, but somebody had put this plastic, cheap water line in there, anyway it just completely shattered, and I don’t know how long it had been like that. At least probably eight hours of just pumping out water. So, yeah, I got a little mess to take care of here in the future, but it’s empty so I’m not in a major hurry.

Josh: Nice. That’s awesome. So, I actually did want to ask you, and this is non-Fire Round—

Brandon: Josh, you’re wrecking things.

Josh: You know what? Whatever. It’s my show. My show!

Mike: It’s his show.

Josh: Alright, so you’re in Buffalo. You’re in one of the most miserable places on planet earth—

Mike: Hey.

Josh: So I’m just wondering the cold related issues. Are there any of those beyond just making sure the external pipes are shut off, sprinklers are drained, that kind of stuff?

Mike: Yeah, I think the biggest thing with that is just make sure you check on your heating units and make sure they’re all good. Surprisingly, knock on wood, so far we haven’t had anybody call and say, “hey, we got a leak,” or, “we’ve got heating issues,” so it’s been good.

Josh: What about snow removal? I used to have rentals in the Midwest and the law said if we went and shoveled the snow, but there was still a little bit of ice, and if the tenant, or anybody on the side walk slipped and fell you’re responsible, but if you left the snow, didn’t touch it, didn’t try to shovel it and somebody fell you’re good to go. Are there any kind of weird laws like that up there?

Mike: Yeah, I haven’t heard of that. We do actually have snow plow service, and snow removal and they do put down ice, or the stuff that will dissolve the ice, but yeah, I don’t think we have that up in Buffalo. It’s one of those crazy things that you would probably discover when it happens, and, knock on wood, I hope that never happens.

Brandon: Yeah.

Josh: For sure, for sure. Well, good stuff. Why don’t we start wrapping this up and get to the—

Famous Four

Brandon: Alright, well cool. What is your favorite real estate book?

Mike: I actually have two that I really like. Start Small, Profit Big in Real Estate by Jay P. DeCima.

Brandon: Ah, I have another book by that guy. Good book.

Mike: Yeah, and then the other one would be Building Wealth One House at a Time which is by John W. Schaub.

Brandon: That’s a good one, too. Alright, what about your favorite business book?

Josh: Ahem.

Brandon: Oh, did I just take your question, Josh?

Josh: Oh, whatever, just go ahead. Go ahead, do your thing.

Mike: Well, Josh isn’t going to like the answer so…

Josh: You know, it’s all schtick.

Brandon: Uh-huh, sure it is.

Josh: Okay, so the answer is Four-Hour Work Week. The next question is; what are your hobbies? The answer is; “spending time with my family,” the next question is; “what can investors do to elevate the bar?” The answer is; Oh, they just stick through it. End of interview, thanks guys for listening!

Brandon: No, I think Mike’s got some better answers here.

Josh: Let me re-ask that. Alright, Mike, what’s your favorite business book?

Mike: Four-Hour Work Week.

Brandon: Nice.

Josh: There you go. Good book.

Brandon: That is a good book. Page 27, alright what, Josh, why don’t you take the next question since I stole yours?

Josh: Well, whatever, I’m done with you. What are your, what do you do for fun, man?

Mike: Actually I was telling Brandon the other day, I actually play badminton.

Josh: Oh, nice.

Mike: Like actual badminton, not like backyard badminton.

Brandon: So, like a high school gym?

Josh: So, like competitive badminton?

Mike: Yeah, it’s competitive. It’s very, very competitive. You know, I travel for tournaments and stuff like that. My wife will go with me, and I have lots of friends that play.

Josh: So, I’ve got to tell you, one of the strange events I like watching in the summer Olympics is badminton. It’s crazy! Those, what are they called, the net things that you whack?

Brandon: Birdies?

Mike: Shuttlecock.

Brandon: Oh, shuttlecock, oh yeah.

Josh: Shuttlecock. What did you call it, Brandon, a birdie?

Brandon: Isn’t is a birdie? What’s a birdie?

Mike: Yeah, they call it a birdie.

Brandon: That’s what I thought! I remember that from high school. C’mon people, making fun of me.

Josh: Yeah, those things go fast, man, it’s a tough game.

Mike: Sometimes, yeah. Especially for me who’s a little bit of a bigger guy it’s tough cause most of the guys I end up losing to are these hundred-pound-soaking-wet guys that are six-foot three, and I just can’t compete with them. They’re machines.

Josh: Nice. I would love to watch you play one of these days.

Brandon: Next BP meet-up, there we go.

Josh: There ya have it.

Brandon: Final question; Mike, what do you believe sets apart the successful investors from those who just give up and fail?

Mike: I just think you need to be persistent and I think you need to continue to drive and be excited about it because if you kind of lose your enthusiasm for what you’re doing in real estate I feel like those are the people who kind of fizzle out. So, I think it’s important to stay passionate.

Brandon: Yeah, that is a good answer.

Josh: Yeah, that is a good answer, predictable, but it was a good answer.

Brandon: That’s not predictable.

Josh: Michael. Alright, awesome, awesome. Nah, I think that’s great. Well, listen, it’s been great having you on the show. We definitely, definitely appreciate it. I love hearing that you’re a part of running the local meet-up. That’s fantastic, and anyone listening hopefully they will reach out, and connect with you at that meet-up, and I guess last question is really how can people find out more information about you? Where can they connect with you?

Mike: You can find us on BiggerPockets, and we have a website as well that you can find in the show notes so—

Josh: What’s the link?

Mike: www.CandMRental.com

Josh: C-N-N?

Mike: C AND M. Charles and Mike.

Josh: Oh, I thought you worked for Ted Turner all of a sudden. Cool, alright, www.CandMRental.com, check it out, and, Mike, thanks so much man. We definitely appreciate the time.

Mike: Thanks guys, appreciate it.

Josh: Alright everybody that was Mike Sherwood on the BiggerPockets podcast show #51. Check it out on the show notes at BiggerPockets.com/show51. As you can tell Mike is quite the knowledgeable fella. He’s had some awesome experiences, and hopefully you’ve learned a thing or two. If you have, definitely jump onto iTunes and leave us a review, not only of this show, but pretty much all of the 50 preceding podcasts. That would be great leaving us some kind of rating and/or review. We appreciate it. Otherwise, of course, jump on the show notes and ask any questions you’ve got for Mike. Beyond that; listen we want to thank you guys, again, this is 2014’s first show. We’re super excited about the year to come.

Hopefully you guys are enthused and looking forward to jumping in on the community. Hop on the forums, get active on the blogs, on the BiggerPockets blog, do something and start meeting people, start networking and making things happen. Of course, as we always do, remind you to check us out on Facebook, Twitter, Google +, a great network, and LinkedIn, make sure to follow us on all those networks and otherwise we’ll see you on BiggerPockets. Thanks so much for listening. I’m Josh Dorkin signing off.

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