BiggerPockets Podcast 098 with Allan Glass Transcript

Link to show: BP Podcast 098: Value-Add Investing and Doing $1 Billion in Real Estate Transactions with Allan Glass

Josh: This is the BiggerPockets Podcast Show 98.

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Josh: What’s going on everybody? I’m Josh Dorkin host of the BiggerPockets podcast here with my cohost Mr. Brandon Turner. What’s up Brandon?

Brandon: I’m just trying to throw you of by making some fun faces in the camera.

Josh: You’re killing me.

Brandon: I try. How are you doing?

Josh: I’m good, Happy Thanksgiving.

Brandon: Happy Thanksgiving.

Josh: Today is our Thanksgiving show 2014.

Brandon: What’s the vast majority of people listen to this is not listening on Thanksgiving but whatever. Deal with it.

Josh: Is it better to listen to you and I or to listen to the bickering that’s happening at the dinner table?

Brandon: That’s for sure, that’s true or the football game to go watch Dallas lose or something.

Josh: Yes I personally choose me so.

Brandon: There you go, good job.

Josh: Mom and dad if I’m not there, here’s where I am. Things are good we got pretty cool show for everybody today I’m definitely excited about it. Before we get into that I’m actually excited about a few other things over here at BiggerPockets. We’ve been adding some new folks and so definitely I want to give a shout out to all the new BiggerPockets family members who’ve joined up in the past few months. I’m thankful to everybody who had come out and joined our team and began working for us.

It’s been really exciting watching this company grow and so I’m just thankful to all of you. Actually to you in particular Brandon who last week celebrated 2 years working for us here at BiggerPockets. For all those people who think you are one of the Founders that’s just not true, stop spreading the lies. I’m very thankful to have you, you’re an amazing asset and all of our listeners and visitors should be thankful to have you here as well.

Brandon: Thank you. I am thankful for this job this is a good thing to be doing every week, I wouldn’t want to be doing anything else.

Josh: That’s awesome.

Brandon: Moving on.

Josh: Let’s move on and talk about our guest, our guest is a man named Allan Glass. Allan has been in real estate for quite a while, he’s been doing this for several decades now in the Southern California, Los Angeles area. Pretty much everything from commercial to residential flipping is pretty much done it all. And he has got just a ton of amazing insights and some advanced topics that we really haven’t covered before. And I’m super excited, this is a big focus on creating value out of real estate. And so if you don’t know what that means then I definitely, definitely recommend listening.

And even if you do know what it means this show may kind of, should give you a few things to think about. So I certainly recommend paying attention and that’s what I got. Brandon do you have anything you want to add?

Brandon: Do you want to do a quick tip?

Josh: Yes let’s do our quick tip.

Brandon: Today’s quick tip is go tell somebody today you are thankful for them, that’s it.

Josh: That’s really sweet you’re such a nice guy. It’s not true what they say about you.

Brandon: It’s not true my mom loves me. That’s the quick tip today and with that I think we just got a word from our sponsor before we get to the interview.

Josh: We do.

Brandon: And we’re going to play a recording that they made and pretty cool, here we go.

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Brandon: Good deal.

Josh: Awesome, cool. Alright guys well let’s get this thing going let’s bring on Allan. Allan welcome to the show man is great to have you here.

Allan: Thank you very much it’s a pleasure to be here.

Josh: I’m really looking forward to today’s show because a lot of the times we talk to you guys who are just getting started. Like last week we talked to Kyle who is just getting started. You got started a long time ago though not like in the 30s. I’m not calling you old I’m just saying.

Allan: Right out of the gate.

Brandon: You were doing real estate when I was still probably, I don’t know if diapers is right word but…

Josh: Thirty is all to Brandon so let’s…

Brandon: Let’s talk about your story, when did you get started and what kind of got you into real estate?

Allan: Tinker toys and Legos. Honestly, I started out in college as premed major and learned very quickly after, halfway through my first semester that 9 years of studying Biology, Chemistry and Physics just wasn’t for me. Went through a bit of an identity crisis and my grandfather had been in the business. And so I been around the trades since I was little kid and always enjoyed like I said, playing with Tinker toys and Legos and building things. So it was a natural progression for me to find the real estate side.

I thought at first I wanted to go into architecture but realized that it’s 5 years and all of the work that I had done my first semester would basically count for nothing. So I lucked into the business school and found a real estate finance degree and started out there.

Josh: Nice so you were at USC and ended up with a real estate finance degree correct?

Allan: Yes exactly and then from there it was all roses my freshman and sophomore year and by the time I graduated we were in the midst of the last great recession back in the early 90s. And everyone was dealing with foreclosures, losing properties trying to figure out what to do, a lot of people losing their job. As a lot of people would think that would be the worst time to graduate and try and find a job in real estate. I think actually it turned out to be one of the best times and a lucky turn for me.

Josh: That’s great. We haven’t actually talked to a lot of folks who have finance degrees in real estate so I’ll just take this chance ask you. Was that something that you found to give you a distinct manager at all? Or is that kind of a par for the course for getting into the commercial space?

Allan: No there are a lot of people that have varying degrees not everyone has a finance degree. And coming out of the gates you learn all the fancy formulas and ways to analyze real estate. And got a quick punch in the face on my very first, what I was hoping would be a big positive presentation with the top brokers in the company. And gave them financial management rates of return along with cap rates and yields and all that stuff.

And one of the senior guys looked at me and just said, what is this nonsense? Back to cap rates and internal rates of return and all the simple stuff that most everyone that’s at least on the finance side of real estate understands.

Josh: Would you then recommend, do you think it’s something worthwhile for young folks? I get emails by the way from people, from 16-year-olds, 17-year-olds, 18 year-olds who always ask me, what should I do? Should I focus on this in school or should I worry about it afterwards? So what would you say?

Allan: I think it’s definitely a positive and what I found again going back to the fact that I came out at real estate when everything was in the tank is it gives you a bit more of an arsenal to figure out what something is worth or how to add value to real estate. For me it was a tremendous advantage, it was a great time to come out in real estate. Again sort of contrary to what most people would think because you couldn’t lock into success. You really had to figure out what to do with piece of property that was vacant and boarded shut. Or was functionally obsolete and needed to turn into something else in order to add value and do transactions.

Brandon: I think that’s an interesting point about like when you get started in a market that’s climbing very rapidly, imagine getting started in 2005 in real estate. Everybody is a genius in a bull market.

Allan: Absolutely.

Brandon: So they do really well for three years and they go on a speaking tour around the country about, here’s how you make millions in real estate. I think it’s great it’s one of the things I hold is one of the, benefits. What’s the word? I got started late 2007, I learned from everything falling apart, that was my lesson and it sounds like you’re the same way. And I think a lot of investors that are still around today that have been doing this for a long time are like that.

Can I ask a little bit more like, when you got that first, you got out of college and got into real estate did you start buying your own properties at that point? What were you doing? Were you working for a larger company and helping analyze? What was your role then at the beginning?

Allan: My first job was with a company called Cushman & Wakefield which is one of the largest commercial brokerage firms in the United States. I ran their industrial market research department and was bored out of my mind.

Josh: What does that mean anyway, industrial?

Allan: I lasted I think it was 9 months but just to give you an example. The guy that trained me was the guy that had my job before me. And he said, well really this is a job that takes about two days a week to do. But if you just kind of slow yourself down no one will bother you and you can make it stretch out and last a week. So I knew I was going to look like an All-Star following that guy.

Josh: Nice, what’s his name?

Allan: No we’ll keep that one quiet. So the way I started was just really kind of trying to fill out those extra 3 days of work week and find out what other opportunities were there. Getting to know all the brokers, the senior guys, asking them what kind of deals they were working on. And trying to figure out the type of real estate that I wanted to get into. I actually ended up meeting one of the senior brokers that owned a bunch of shopping centers and of all places Arizona. And the problem he had is that he put a tenant in, pay commissions, pay for tenant improvements and then within a few months the tenant was out of business and he hadn’t even broken even on the cost get the tenant in there.

So the idea that I had was from actually one of the shopping centers around USC. A guy that would get involved with the entrepreneur program and mentor these guys were starting new businesses. Give them space as his investment and it sort of helped them move along or become more successful or give them a greater chance of succeeding out of the gate. So I got the opportunity of all things to pitch a restaurant to someone that was looking at restaurant space,

And I had been a busboy for a few months when I was 16 or 17 years old and that was pretty much the experience I had. But made the pitch anyway and the guy liked it and said okay well if you put together a business plan I’ll be your investor. Being as wise as most people are when they’re 21 I quit my job with no money and moved to Arizona.

Josh: You were going to be a restauranteur though correct?

Allan: Right exactly I had these great plans and sure enough I moved to Arizona, I lived in a fishing trailer and showered in the spigot outside the warehouse records. Broke my business plan, the guy put me off for several months until finally I couldn’t wait any longer and I just decided there’s no way I was going home with my tail between my legs. So I pulled out every credit card I could, learned how to collaborate by finding electricians that were willing to trade work for beer and food and got my restaurant up and running and that was really my first real estate deal. It was more of an entrepreneurial venture but it came out a real estate.

Josh: Your investor fell through, the guy never showed up.

Allan: The guy never showed up so we funded it ourselves, myself and my partner with like I said every credit card that we could coax the bank into giving us and all the trade that we can do.

Josh: I’d like to just like chat on that for just a second because I’ve had a couple conversations in the past few days with people who have been, come to me about investors who’ve talked to them and said, hey, they’ve expressed to me how excited they are that these investors said they want to get involved with them and they want to work with them. And I guess I just want to kind of put it out there to folks who may not know this.

Jessica somebody says that they’re interested in working with you doesn’t mean that they’re interested in working with you today. Or they may never really want to work with you they’re just, they may just be polite, they may be excited for the moment. But it happens a lot where you talk to somebody and they say, yeah listen that sounds great, that’s a project I’m really interested in and in the end it never happen.

I think there’s this expectation thing that I tend to hear from a lot of people how super excited they are about stuff and the money falls through and they’re lost. They don’t know what to do, their life is over because they put everything into this money coming. As somebody who’s been in the business as long as you have I’m sure you’ve seem this many, many times. And I guess I’d love to hear your take and maybe some encouraging words to folks who, don’t set your expectations too high. But what else would you say?

Allan: I agree with you, you come to someone with a good idea it’s a rare person that says, wow that sounds spectacular I’m not interested. But it if you are going to put all your eggs in one basket then it’s really kind of one you if it doesn’t work out. So I believe you should always have a backup plan. It kind of goes back to what I was saying about coming out as a finance major and understanding various ways to analyze real estate. If all you know is how to figure out a cap rate and that’s the only way that you can figure out value then you’re kind of limited in scope of what you can do.

But just like starting a business and finding capital if you know you’re looking for backup plans, if you’re looking for second, third equity investors, several lenders that might be interested or if that at fall through what’s an alternative way to finance something then you stand a better chance of success.

Josh: Yes for sure. Can you tell us really quickly about the restaurant what happened? How did it go? And then I want to move on to more of the traditional real estate.

Allan: Once we got it up and running I didn’t want to run a restaurant I just wanted to learn how to start a business. So about a year into it I moved back to Los Angeles and met back up with one of the top brokers that I actually had interned for when I was at USC. And he at the time was getting into REO real estate, this was still in the very early 90s. So REO was a fairly new thing especially on the commercial side of real estate. And what was different back in the early 90s is commercial brokerages in particular didn’t want to handle or deal with the junk which was what REO property was.

So since this guy had really focused his efforts on that they gave him the ultimatum you can stay and work on commercial real estate that we feel is appropriate for a company or you can leave. And he chose to leave and that happen to coincide right about the time that I was looking to come back and get into real estate. So the two of us left together and basically started a brokerage company on our own in downtown that focused on REO properties and in particular commercial REO properties.

Josh: Nice and how di that go? I know eventually you went to New York and you got a masters so maybe you could transition in there. And then we’re going to kind of probably just start beating you on the head with all sorts of commercial real estate questions.

Allan: Sure, yeas I mean fast-forward through the next four to eight years I moved out of brokerage and we were doing 50+ REO deals a month at one point as brokers. Until finally I got to a point where I had saved enough capital to buy my own property and started investing, rehabbing and selling.

And towards the end of the 90s I started to notice that the spreads, that our profits were starting to shrink as investors got a little more aggressive, the rehabbers got a little more aggressive in the way that they would price themselves into a deal. And that was typically basically pricing and appreciation assuming that the market was going to continue to go up.

Josh: It sounds a lot like what we see today, investors paying more and more.

Allan: Exactly and unfortunately that didn’t work out well, I mean I guess it worked out well but not as well as it could have. I sold everything that I owned investment wise in 2000 and cashed out to go get my Master’s degree in New York, Masters in real estate development. But over the course of the next three years if I’d held on to that property I would have seen a nice run out. But just my mind told me that it was starting to get too aggressive and that was time to price myself or move myself back out and stay conservative.

Then when I came back from Columbia I got back into renovating again, rehabbing properties just by accident. Bought a property in North Pasadena and started falling in love with all the historic districts. I don’t know if you guys are familiar with Pasadena where the Rose Parade is held every year. But, beautiful homes, craftsmen homes, Spanish-style homes that were built in the early 1910, 1920s era and started restoring those. And working on the brokerage side with larger developers in Los Angeles.

Focusing on downtown Los Angeles and the adaptive reuse ordinance and turning around old functionally obsolete office buildings into loft apartment buildings.

Josh: Let’s examine some of the stuff, first let’s talk about functional obsolescence for those people listening you may not know what that means. Can you can fill in a little bit?

Allan: Sure it’s when, originally a building is built for a specific purpose. An example might be a warehouse building and as time goes on several things can change. Either where it’s located is no longer suited for that type of use. Or just the actual building itself is no longer functionally able to handle warehousing the way that modern warehouse buildings would be. So you’re left with a building that has less or no value and you need to come up with a new idea on how to repurpose that building for something that would provide value.

Josh: Is that a complicated process? Do you have to work with the City I’m assuming to do a lot of that stuff, correct?

Allan: Yes, you need to know where it’s encouraged, you can’t just going to an industrial zone for example and decide that you’re going build housing. So you need to understand the appetite for that from the City’s planning side but you also need to sort of understand the way that consumers are going to view it. A lot of times you’ll go into a particular area and people just don’t want to live there or live there yet. So you’ve you got to watch both sides of that to really be successful at it.

Josh: What data do you look at to make those determinations? It seems like it’s almost as much of a bet like an appreciation play. It’s almost, similar to an appreciation bet, you’re kind of rolling the dice a little bit based on certain data. So what data are you actually analyzing for something like that?

Allan: I try and find the path of progress and I always talk about bookends. So when I’m looking at a particular market I look for two particular bookends or neighborhoods in areas that are already thriving. Whether they’re new and been turned down or they’re just traditionally strong areas. And then I watch how the markets sort of growing out from those centers and try and fill in in the middle of those bookends.

An example of that in Los Angeles would be downtown Los Angeles and the West side of Los Angeles. West side obviously is the where all the higher-end homes, where the beaches are downtown obviously is the old commercial center which is turned around quite a bit lately. So in between the freeway called the 10 freeway, Santa Monica Freeway that connects it and those neighborhoods in between over the course of last 20 or so years have fallen into disrepair, become less desirable. But as that 20-year period have sort of moved forward you can see that those neighborhoods edge out from those particular bookends and fill in and properties go up, property values go up.

Josh: I know we’re jumping around I’m sorry but brain is stimulated we got a lot going on here. I want to jump back really, really quickly to the Masters and ask you the same questions about that I asked you about the undergrad. Was your Masters well worth the time and energy spent getting it?

Allan: For me yes and really more so by the networking connections that I made, the people that I went to school. Less so about the book smarts or the lessons that I got sitting in class. My purpose for going across the country to New York is everything I had done for my education to all the deals I had done had been Southern California centric. And I wanted to know how do they do real estate in the East Coast and is it any different? The answer that is no, it’s not any different. Which I guess you get a lot of confidence from knowing that you can understand how to do things in different markets and in different areas.

Josh: The other thing I was going to ask, give me a broad picture for everybody listening. It sounds like you were rehabbing properties, you’ve done commercial deals of various sorts. What else have you done as an investor for yourself? Have you done buy-and-hold properties, multis, office? Give us the really quick synopsis of what you’ve accomplished and then we’re going to start really digging in on some of these things.

Allan: Sure, we’ve floated through different product types, property types. Really the focus in my practice is value-added or opportunity driven real estate. We’ve bought anything from boarded shut crack houses in south-central Los Angeles to small apartment buildings that we assembled together for larger development sites to small retail commercial properties around Los Angeles.

Brandon: What kind of comes to mind when you’re talking about that is, I’m residential only that’s all I focus on. But you seem to focus on a wider variety of things. Do you have any advice for me? Should I be looking at commercials as well, looking at whatever’s out there? The line between commercial and residential is usually pretty strict but with you it’s kind of blurred, why is that? Any thoughts on that?

Allan: The first bit of advice I give you is just a to understand that it’s not that different. So I know a lot of people get intimidated when they talk about the jump to commercial versus residential. And it really isn’t that different. It’s certainly not that much more difficult. It’s just I would say that there are a lot, not that the residential side doesn’t have very professional people working in it. But the expectation or at least in Southern California, I’m not doing this all over the country so I don’t know if it’s different there. But the level of expertise is typically a bit higher.

The process of figuring out what something is worth is pretty much the same if you’re going to hold it for income purposes. You’re figuring out what you can rent the property for, you’re figuring out what it would cost to renovate it and put a tenant in there and the calculations are the same to get from your gross income down to your net income.

Brandon: You use the term opportunity driven real estate value-add, it definitely makes sense in what you were talking about in terms of changing the purpose of a property. How else can somebody add value to real estate? And maybe again for some of the novices listening how does that increase or improve your portfolio? So commercials very different than residential right? It’s not based upon general comps, the valuations come out of something else right?

Allan: Just sticking to the residential side this type of market I think is a perfect example of where you add value and differentiate that from distressed. Everyone understands how to rescue a distressed property, somebody that’s upside down on their loan, something that’s bank owned, something that’s boarded shut and add value to it by making it pretty and selling it to a homeowner. But there are other ways to find opportunity and it becomes I think very important when you’re in a market like this where short sales and distressed properties are starting to diminish. To figure out other ways that you can make something more valuable by, one example is the one I just gave you about assembling the site together for a larger development site.

Example there is where they’re putting in mass transit in Los Angeles which is fairly new thing. And they have these light rail trains that are, one in particular that’s running from downtown Los Angeles to the beach in Santa Monica. So the city is encouraging more density around those train stops. And we were able to find a site that was underutilized a very big piece of land that only had, it was actually four different properties. One had a six unit, a two unit, a three unit and a four unit on it. And what we did is basically assembled the site together, bought one piece, got the other owners together and help them realize that we could essentially if they were interested in selling sell their property for double what it would be worth as one development site.

So that’s how we got to higher price and added value there. We ultimately sold the property to an affordable housing developer that’s going to build 72 units on the site for veterans and seniors.

Brandon: That’s great, very creative.

Allan: Another one, again City of Los Angeles has encouraging density come up with a new ordinance they call the small lot subdivision ordinance. And essentially what it does is allow you and commercial or multifamily zones to build multiple dwellings on one particular parcel number. And it’s sort of a compromise between building condos and building single-family homes. So you can build essentially a 600 ft.² footprint and sell it, be simple like you would a single-family home with no homeowners association.

So I bought a duplex on a very large piece of land that also had an alley locked piece of land behind it. And instead of just having two units on it we’re about to tear it down and build what will be about six small lot or townhouses.

Brandon: Nice again very, very creative. And it’s interesting hearing this stuff again because on the show at least we don’t talk about a lot of the stuff and I think we need to do a better job of doing so. It seems like as you kind of expand your knowledge base there’s obviously a lot more creative things that you can do than just simply slapping paint on a house. And it’s great to hear those different things. You’re still a commercial agent correct?

Allan: Yes.

Josh: Do you recommend that as a means for entering the business for people? Is that something that novice investors should do? Did you get a lot out of that in terms of your knowledge and doing deals? I know I’ve asked you again two questions on the Masters and the other stuff. A lot of people are always try to figure out how do I get into the business, how do I learn it? Is that a great way to go?

Allan: We do both commercial and residential on my brokerage practice but I encourage you to, you always want to add value to the transaction. And anything that you can bring to the table to add value is going to help you out whether you’re looking to buy on your own account or partner with somebody who has the money or someone who’s going to buy a piece of property and get a taste of it so you can then spring out and go on your own. For me it’s been tremendously important it’s how I learned to value property, it’s how I met most of my investors.

It gives me an opportunity to at times wholesale properties so if it’s something that I pass on for one reason or another. Because I have a brokerage practice and long-standing investment to our relationships with other buyers I can typically put something on a contract and find somebody that would be willing to take that over for me in short order.

Josh: It’s nice to see a lot of wholesalers brand-new just trying to get started with no money and nothing down. It’s nice to see an experienced guy you still wholesale deals if you can.

Allan: Absolutely and I tell you to me there’s a very big difference. There’s some guys out there that consider wholesaling just taking a look on the MLS and calling people up and saying, hey would you want to buy this? Again add value, you should always be bringing something to the table and if that’s just something as simple as being the guy who tied it up on the contract that’s worth something. I am a deal junkie so I like to do deals and if I’m not buying it myself, odds are I certainly know somebody at least in Los Angeles that would.

Brandon: That’s great. What is your typical, you do stuff that’s different than most of our guests have done, you’re doing a lot of stuff. So what does your typical day look like, a day in the life of Allan, what’s that like.

Josh: Well I wake up Brandon and I like to listen to Diana Ross records.

Allan: I’m trying to think of something that sounds very sexy and entertaining. But really it’s looking at deals, I think that’s really the job. If you’re going to be an entrepreneur that’s your job is rainmaking. So in real estate that means constantly looking at deals, constantly calling people that are looking at deals. To me that’s other brokers, wholesalers that I know are very active and are delivering deals. And the other investors that I know in town that are actively marketing.

And I do a lot of reading and it’s not just the nuts and bolts the real estate reading, I like to get into the social side of it. If you understand where people are going, what people are interested in it gives you again a leg up trying to figure out where the next spot to invest will be.

Josh: I read the other day that the average CEO reads 60 books a year, I thought that was incredible. It was like the top 500 Forbes whatever, 60 books a year on average it’s crazy. I don’t read anywhere close to that but that’s something to work towards. Very cool, very cool.

Brandon: I’ve got a question, you do all these different things, what excites you most? What in real estate gets your juices going?

Allan: I love solving problems and doing deals so when somebody comes to me and says I don’t know what to do with this. Or how do we make this work? That’s what gets me going and gets me excited and figuring out how to put a deal together with somebody that either doesn’t want to sell from the beginning or doesn’t really understand the value they have in an asset that they own and conveying that to them. Those are things that can get me excited.

Brandon: That’s not something that somebody who just jumped in and can do, that’s something that comes with a lot of time and experience.

Allan: I don’t know if that’s necessarily true. I mean certainly the more understanding you have of the nuts and bolts of real estate that the better you’re going to be at recognizing the immediate value that you can add to particular piece of real estate. If you know where people want to go out at night, which neighborhoods are turning around and becoming more attractive to a particular demographic. Or you saw cool building that somebody did or a new innovative way of using a piece of real estate and you’re able to convey that whether you’re an architect, a finance guy, a banker, a teacher or have worked in a restaurant I think those are, you can certainly recognize where to add value and be successful.

Brandon: That make sense.

Josh: No matter where you’re at, whether you’re just getting started or whether you’ve been doing this for 20 years there’s definitely room for value in most deals so that’s very cool. You talked about finding deals, you mentioned talking to the brokers, talking to wholesalers. Do you have any other good, are you finding things on the MLS, are you finding them on LoopNet, on CoStar? Where are you getting these deals from? Is it just the brokers and wholesalers?

Allan: Every day I am on the MLS, I’m on LoopNet and I’m on CoStar and I have different types of searches set up to return property to me. So I see anything new that comes on the market. But other than that it is reaching out to in Los Angeles you know it’s a pretty saturated market. So there no shortage of guys that, there are probably 200 that just focus on Venice Beach. There’s no shortage guys that will wholesale properties and as I said there’s just network investors that I’ve worked with very closely. Again sometimes will pass on a deal, they’ll put it on a contract and wholesale to me so that’s the way you do it, it’s building relationships.

Josh: Let’s look at last year, you’ve been doing it for, as Brandon says about 100 years. So we’ll focus on the last year because clearly you’re not going to remember anything from before that. His words not mine.

Brandon: I didn’t say that one, that one’s Josh said that one.

Josh: I’ve been starting to ask myself the same thing. So in the last year in the last 12 months what’s your favorite deal? What’s the one thing that really you loved that you tell everybody about and let’s talk a little bit about it?

Allan: My favorite one that just happened, we actually closed in February is the Lamb Assembly site that I’d mentioned earlier on. That took quite some time to put together and it was fun the way that we found it and figured out how to add the value. There was a lot of risk that was involved in putting that together. So to see it come to fruition especially, it lasted through the entire recession so to see it come out the other side fruitfully was a big positive for me.

Josh: How did you find it?

Allan: There was a listing broker that got the listing for the 3 unit and the 4 unit that was owned by one property owner. But didn’t really include the duplex that was right in the middle and he was marketing it as a development site. And my partners and I the time were, anticipation of the trains coming in the light rail, looking for sites that we could add value to around the transit stop. So this was a literally across the street from one of the stops on the extra line train. And when I drove to the property I realized that there was that big donut hole in the middle so I’m trying to figure out how is this a development site when you don’t own the piece in the middle?

So I called the broker and he said, I haven’t really approached the lady in the middle yet. I guess I could call her and see if she wants to sell. So immediately I drove over knocked on the door and the tenant gave me the owner’s phone number. I called her up and asked if she’d want to sell and she goes yeah, I’m actually surprised I thought the broker that’s selling the properties on each side of me would’ve reached out to me. So got lucky and wrote an offer and got it accepted and then approached the broker about possibly selling the two together. And he put me in contact with his principal and the guy said, I actually thought about taking it off the market because I’m not really sure what I want to do.

So he let that listing expire and as time wore on I kept in touch with him and got him involved and willing to basically come to the table with me as a principal and market our sites together. And then I figured, the guy that was on the other side of him was a six unit building and had frontage on an alley. So for a development site to have an additional street frontage or access point it gives you a lot more options on how you can lay out the site and get more units. So called the guy up and got him willing to sell and again I always start with the question, what do you think your properties worth?

And he felt it was worth somewhere around the $575/ $650 mark and I ended up getting him $1,250,000 for his property.

Brandon: He must have been very happy with you.

Allan: And that was simply because together as a development site it was worth more than it was individually.

Brandon: You’re like a packager when you’re doing that. You got to see the big picture and then you’re really trying to work with multiple parties to bring it together. But now you’re at the point you got all these properties so how does the developer come in and how do we finance that and how does that whole thing come together?

Allan: This was a market where it really was a transitioning area and the cost to develop a property and get market rate tenants really wasn’t there yet. So we figured that the best avenue to go was someone who did subsidize development, affordable housing, senior housing that sort of thing. So we found at the time the one and only developer in town that had done transit oriented development that was subsidized affordable housing and ended up getting into contract with them. Everything was going swimmingly at the time I had been invited we have neighborhood councils out here in Los Angeles which is basically group of residents for each particular neighborhood. They get together and talk about land-use issues and safety and sort of help give the council members the direction that they’d like to see the neighborhood go.

And having owned a bunch of property in this neighborhood and been invited to be on the land use committee all I heard was the neighboring Culver City which is a little more upscale and more expensive was starting to push into the neighborhood. And a lot of new development opportunities were coming in but nothing was geared towards affordable housing. So everyone was concerned about well what about us? We’re getting pushed out of our neighborhood. So I thought that they were going to be ecstatic when I came in with an affordable housing developer that was going to build 72 units of affordable housing and it didn’t quite work out that way.

They were appalled that we would come in and build a project in their neighborhood and bring people that were, whom they in their minds had created as that the ones that live in affordable housing to live amongst them in their neighborhood. So it ended up being a protracted education, I’m not going to say battle, but negotiation back and forth to get the support of the neighborhood. But we unfortunately didn’t know it at the time we were up against a financial collapse.

Brandon: The recession?

Allan: The recession and when 2007 hit it killed most all new development in Los Angeles and our project being one of them.

Josh: You owned the property at this point right? You actually?

Allan: Yes I owned one of the pieces, the Keystone piece they called it, it was right in the middle. So it was just a few years and luckily we bought it at a level that allowed it to cash flow. We held onto it, I managed relationships with the other owners, managed personalities in the neighborhood and we retooled. And as the market started to come back we found another opportunity with actually, the project manager for the initial developer had gone and started working at another company. And we kept in contact and ended up getting together one day and talking and they made an offer and basically started up again. And at this point the way that a lot of affordable housing developers get their funding is through redevelopment agencies or had been to redevelopment agencies in Los Angeles.

Governor Brown got rid of those so another stumbling block is that it became very difficult to finance these projects. So you had to have, particular directions you took, really niched directions in order to get funding sources. That’s when the idea of the opportunity to provide veterans’ housing came about and that’s how they ended up ultimately financing the project and get done.

Brandon: Did you say the Veterans like Administration, that’s who financed it? Or who ultimately ended up financing it.

Allan: The way that affordable housing works is you typically have a fairly large capital stack or stack of where you get your money to do the deals. So some of it comes from private equity, some of it comes from the housing department funds the city. Some of it may come from the State level, some of it may come from in this case a fund that’s set aside for transit-oriented development on the State level, And then the balance of what you need comes from specific groups or uses and this in particular was the Veterans’ Association that has money set aside for developments that will specifically go towards housing returning veterans.

Brandon: So your job again and I called you a bundler before you can grip everybody together again. On this type of thing it is very different than doing a flip or wholesale of residential property. There’s a lot of additional moving parts here, you’re doing all the work to bring all these parties together to basically lock some kind of thing in so that your little piece of property that little Keystone property that you own gets acquired and that’s kind of the end-all be-all. Did you end up owning a stake of the actual development project that came on top or no?

Allan: We decided to step aside and then when the opportunity came, we had pursued that and thought about that during the recession just to figure out another exit strategy. But when the affordable housing developer came in that ultimately ended up buying it, those are typically situations where you step out as a market rate developer and investor.

Brandon: So you did all this work just to really flip a little piece of property, it’s kind of the end-all be-all right?

Allan: Yes exactly.

Brandon: And so I don’t know if you’re able to, is there any way can you share those numbers what it look like?

Allan: Yes absolutely, we bought the property for, it was somewhere around $420,000 or $430,000 and ultimately sold it for $1,000,075.

Brandon: And that took how many years?

Allan: We closed escrow this year so 2014 and we bought it, was 2006. It was a long hold long-haul.

Josh: It cash flowed during that time you said.

Allan: Yes it covered the property and very different. I’m actually going through the process of getting a retail loan right now. It’s one of the first ones that I’ve done other than hard money or a private equity into deals. And I’m realizing how hard it is to get loans for the average consumer now. But very different back then it was you know, it was still at the point where as long as you had a pulse and knew which numbers are right on the form pretty much anybody could get a loan.

Brandon: That’s fascinating.

Josh: It’s pretty cool to think you had the vision to see that more could be done. Had you not your property, if you take appreciation what would that thing have been worth if you were just selling it based on land value or the value the property itself?

Allan: On its own not as a development site?

Josh: Yes.

Allan: During the throws of the recession we’d be lucky if we got $200,000 for it. Earlier this year on its own may be somewhere close to breakeven.

Brandon: So you having the wherewithal to see the big picture allow you to create all that value and that’s amazing.

Allan: And a lot of luck, it really is.

Josh: You had talked about land-use meetings and throughout you’ve talked about just kind of knowing the law, knowing what’s happening in the area. It seems to me that that’s something that giving you a distinct advantage. Maybe not over other sophisticated investors but probably over what a less sophisticated investor would be able to do particularly like a case like this one. Somebody without the foresight to see all the big picture what about the property with the intent of doing something, but not seeing how they could package it? They’re not going to get that much value out.

How much of your special advantage, what’s the word you use Brandon? Your secret sauce.

Brandon: Unfair advantage.

Josh: Your unfair advantage that you have going to land-use meetings, really understanding what city council’s doing and understanding what’s happening in these areas that you are focusing on?

Allan: I think that what’s difficult for a lot of people especially when they are just getting started in any I would imagine, business is that you focus on the nuts and bolts of whatever is specific to that industry. You read all the real estate books, how to flip this, how to flip that and you miss sometimes the bigger picture. So if there’s a secret sauce on my end it’s always trying to take a couple of steps back to really understand the bigger picture.

To understand how people are moving through the City, understand what’s not working right and the ideas of what people would like to see to fix it. That’s I guess the secret sauce.

Brandon: So you mentioned a private equity earlier raising money, part of the money for the development and for things you work on it comes from private equity. Can you talk a little bit what is that and how do you do that?

Allan: It’s anything other than debt money that’s not your own. So there are various ways you can do it and now actually those opportunities are much larger than they’ve been in the past. There’s a crowdfunding which a few websites that basically allow people that have small amounts of money to sort of pool it together with other people that have small amounts of money to put it into a bigger pile and do bigger projects that they otherwise wouldn’t have been able to get a piece of or be a part of.

Down to just finding accredited investors or essentially guys that have a certain level of net worth that are looking for places to put that money in order to earn a return.

Brandon: Do you have any good recommendations on how do we, or maybe how does a smaller guy somebody who is newer at this game, how do they attract that kind of financing, is it even possible?

Allan: Yes absolutely, money finds good deals and what they really want to know is people are going to be interested in your track record. But I think equally important is your organizational skills. And the fact that you show them or you demonstrate to them that you’re not doing this part-time, you’re not trying to turn a quick buck. That you didn’t just come out of one of the how to get rich quick seminars. But rather you’ve taken interest in really doing real estate and you’ve done your homework and you’ve put a plan together. If you go to people and say ok these are the types of deals that I’m going to go after, these are the types of returns that I’m going to target. And if I find something that fits these criteria I’m going to need money to help me get it done. If you come in and pitch an accredited investor that way and you find far more success than if you just wait until you have a deal and cross your fingers and say please come on this is a great deal, don’t let this pass.

Brandon: I want to drill on that a little bit more, when you pitch an investor. What does that even look like in your world? How serious do you take these things? Like you sit down, you have a meeting or is this like, hey let’s go to Starbucks and talk? How do you pitch an investor?

Allan: It’s different, there are some investors that they just want you to write down a few numbers on the back of a napkin and sign it. And those types of investors come with longer-term relationships and longer track records of success. And some of them are far more formal and they’ll want to see you put together a full projection of financials on where you expect the market to go support it with comps sometimes an appraisal.

They’re going to want to see other projects that you’ve done in the past that are similar to that so they know you know what you’re doing and exit strategy.

Brandon: So what do you show them, what do you give them? You could just make stuff up can’t you? Can’t you just say, hey I did this deal and that deal how do you prove to somebody that you’ve got a track record?

Allan: You prove to somebody that you have a track record by showing them what you’ve done. But short of a track record you show them that you have a plan and an understanding of what you’re going after. And you try not to deviate from that plan and you can have different plans that meet different criteria but you just got to be consistent in what you give somebody. You don’t go to someone and say, I’m buying something that, only properties in in these types of neighborhoods that I’m going to fix and then sell right away and we should get returns of X. And then a week later come to them and say, hey I’ve got this great apartment building that I’d like to buy-and-hold, do you want to invest?

That tells a guy wait a minute this guy doesn’t really know what he’s doing or what he wants to do. So you’ve got to stay focused, you got to come up with a plan and you’ve got be consistent.

Josh: How can a new investor compete with you? You seem like a pretty smart guy, how do I get in there and get a piece of action when there’s guys like you out there?

Allan: In Southern California there are plenty slices of the pie so there’s enough for everyone if you know where to find them. It’s not a market where you’re going to get up in the morning with your cup of coffee, go on the MLS and you’re going to see 80 new listings that are priced well below the market and be the only guy that’s chasing. But the way that say you compete is you find your niche whatever that may be. And in a market like Los Angeles that is compact and so large there can be, you can be very hyper niched and still have quite a bit of opportunity.

So the way you compete is you figure out what you love, what you’re willing to do when it doesn’t feel like work and you’re on your down time and really go after an investment strategy that suits that.

Josh: Before we move on to the Fire Round I’m just curious if you have any other last tidbits that you might want to share just, general knowledge or like craziest thing you’ve done anything like that?

Allan: I can share my mistakes or the mistakes that people make, I actually wrote these down. On the buy side I think the biggest mistake that people make is not knowing when to pass and especially if you’re value-added real estate or if you’re someone that likes to solve problems it’s sometimes hard to just figure out you know what no matter how you skin it this isn’t going to work and to move on to the next one.

Brandon: That’s hard.

Allan: On the rehab side of one of my early lessons is force-feeding not to force-feed.

Brandon: What do you mean?

Allan: It seems like a lot of new investors will figure out or think that they figured out what everybody else wants. And particularly someone that grew up or lives in one of the more expensive neighborhoods going into a more affordable neighborhood and thinking well I would never live without this or without that. And making sure that they spend the extra money to put it in only to find out that after they close escrow someone rips it out and put something completely different. The way that that have played out for me is that I’ve been again back in the 90s restoring historic homes in North Pasadena which was a higher price point than one of the other markets I’ve moved into but found this beautiful craftsman home.

So I took it upon myself to make sure that I got only the bright paint colors that you would use that were appropriate for that time, put in certain kitchens that I felt were appropriate for a craftsman home, landscaped it again the way I thought you should for craftsman home, sold the house. A month later came back, the entire outside landscaping was torn out, the house is painted a completely different color and the cabinets that I had put into the kitchen, this period-specific cabinets were torn out. They didn’t even have the courtesy of throwing it in the trash, it was sitting on the curb for the trash man to just come and pick up or if anyone else that was driving the neighborhood.

What you feel is appropriate isn’t always necessarily what the market feels appropriate so you got to be aware.

Josh: A lot of people especially newer rehabbers tend to over rehab as well not just get the style. Assume the style’s going to be what they want but they overdo it. It’s the same thing, don’t make that assumption, upgrade to the level that that property is at. Because otherwise you’re just wasting money that you don’t need to waste.

Allan: Another really big one on the selling side is forgetting to qualify your buyers. I’ve seen so many people make this mistake that in thinking that the highest price that comes in is automatically the best deal, let’s go to escrow with them. Only to find out 30 to 45 days later that that that buyer couldn’t perform. It’s extraordinarily important to qualify your buyer before you tie yourself to them in an escrow or in any type of contract to get yourself out.

Josh: So I guess the obvious follow-up question to that is how does one do that?

Allan: What we do, first step is that we have preferred lenders that we work with that I know will be very candid with me and won’t sugarcoat whether or not somebody is financially capable of closing the deal. And so I ask everyone to cross qualify with my preferred lenders, they don’t have to use them to get their loan. But at least then I know usually within a few hours or a quick credit reference whether or not this person can actually get themselves qualified.

Brandon: What price point are you capable to do that? Are we talking you buy a $300,000 house you’re going to make the buyers do that? Or are you talking only for multimillion dollar properties.

Allan: At any level it’s especially important that the more affordable levels are on the FHA level. You hope that the real estate professionals or the broker that buyers are working with have higher price points, will do their own qualifying. But it’s equally as important at that price point as well to make sure that if someone says they can spend $3 - $4 million on a property they have the financial wherewithal to do it.

Brandon: I think that’s great that’s really good. I’ve had my properties tied up several times and then they back out a month later. The most I ever do is, are they prequalified? Yes, okay. This is as far as I ever push it I never even look in.

Allan: Even on the investing side if you’re selling something to an investor or something pre-renovation understanding the difference on whether you’re getting into bed with a wholesaler or an investor, asking somebody what have you closed or how many deals have you closed in the last month or two months? What are the addresses? Checking on those addresses, not to say that going a contract with a wholesaler is a bad thing but you got to know what you’re getting into. And if you think you’re getting into a deal with an investor only to find out that someone’s trying to wholesale a deal it can be disappointing.

Brandon: Let’s kind of wrap things down here and move on to the…

It’s time for the Fire Round.

These questions come straight from the BiggerPockets forum and we’re going to fire them at you Allan. #1, what are your thoughts on short sales do you go after them or do you avoid them?

Allan: I’ve done about, my team and I about 350 short sales over the course of the last few years. So yes we go after them they’re great opportunities and again if you’re a problem solver they’re a great spot to be. But it takes a lot of work, it takes a lot of patience and it’s really two different transactions that you’re working on. One of selling the property the other’s figuring out a settlement with the bank. So they’re very involved, I would think that going forward from this point you’re probably going to see very few.

And even if people are still upside down on their properties banks are going to be less motivated to settle short versus carrying it out through foreclosure. Because odds are or at least the way the market’s moving right now property values are going up and not the other direction. Which is part of what helped push a bank towards a short sale decision.

Brandon: Allan how big is your team really quickly?

Allan: I am big on collaboration so a lot of the people that I work with are separate companies that we just have joint ventures with. My team and my company is set three people, someone that does accounting and I have a field person that goes out and looks at properties and that sort of thing and myself. But the group of people that I work with. I have attorneys, when we were doing a lot of short sales I had a team of three different people that all they did is call bank all day long from the moment they got in the office till the moment they left at the end of the day. Calling and negotiating making sure the files were moving forward.

Brandon: I think that’s an interesting point too about not having to higher everything single person to actually be a W-2 employee just to work with them. There’s a lot you can do just by hiring other companies.

Josh: Next question on the Fire Round is, with tight inventory how much of a discount can an investor expect to get?

Allan: I have no idea and the reason is for me I don’t really look at a discount because I rarely agree with the market value that someone brings to me when they when the show me a property. I look to hit a particular return and for me if I turn my rehab project around in about six months I look to hit an 8 to 10% return every six months. So anywhere from 16 to 20% return annually.

Brandon: What are the best ways to find investors to fund your deals?

Allan: Like equity partners?

Brandon: Sure, what’s the best way to find them?

Allan: I think to get deals done yourself and start or come up with a plan like we said if you don’t have a lot of deals under your belt. But short of that I go to investment club meetings sometimes they’re not as fruitful sometimes they are. If you can walk away with one business card it’s worthwhile to me that’s a worthwhile trip. I like to look at comps in the markets that I’m in and find out who it is that’s buying and renovating these properties call those investors get to know them.

Find out who their partners are who their hard money lenders are and really it’s getting to know your competition, getting to know what they’re doing and what successes they’re having. And asking them just straight out, who invests with you.

Josh: Last question, for someone new to rehabbing and no money to start where would you say is the best place for them to get the funding? Or should they even move on and try and rehab when they don’t have their own cash?

Allan: That’s a tough one to answer in general I would say that if you have a construction background the answer’s going to be a bit different than someone who doesn’t know how to wield the hammer. If you can bring the skill to the table, if you’re an architect and you can bring the design element to the table then you can go out there and find financial partners to partner with you. And that would be I think the smartest way to go out and put a team together. If you have the skill sets go out and find something that you feel you can add value to.

Again put together the financials on what it would take to get there and money will find good deals.

Josh: And what if you don’t, what if you have no skills like Brandon?

Allan: I think that you’re going to have to find a skill or bring your own money to the table. You can always learn, you can learn how to spot a deal you can learn how to put something under contract. That’s a skill that’s a value-add in itself. If you’ve locked yourself into a deal and nobody else can buy it out from under you. Like it said earlier that’s bringing something to the table that has value.

Brandon: I think we said that line in the book that we came out with recently was like, there may be such thing as no money down, but there’s nothing called no investment down. There’s always an investment of something whether it’s capital or creativity or experience or whatever.

Josh: I’ve got to ask this question I saw it in my notes and my notes tell me that you’ve done upwards of almost a billion dollars in transactions throughout your career, is that an accurate assessment?

Allan: That’s correct.

Josh: Holy smokes! What’s the biggest deal that you were a part of, I’m just curious what was it?

Allan: Dollar volume size you mean?

Josh: Volume size yes.

Allan: Office building downtown Los Angeles is $23 million.

Josh: And you were the broker on that?

Allan: Yes.

Josh: Right on, cool. Was that exciting being part of the deal of that size or same as everything else?

Allan: Yes actually it’s an empty building that used to be an office space and is now going to be housing with retail on the bottom. So again it’s functionally obsolete building or maybe not functionally obsolete but something that had a higher and better use if it was repurposed for something else. So a lot of fun.

Josh: Watching transformation of LA, I moved out there in 2000 and just seeing how it’s changed over the years and that means you out some of these projects it’s unbelievable. It’s happening across the country now but it’s a lot of fun to watch these things and knowing that we as real estate investors and commercial brokers are playing a role and in the changing face of our cities, I think it’s amazing.

Allan: It’s fun for me I love being a part of it whenever I get the opportunity to.

Brandon: Let’s move on to the world-famous…

Famous Four

These questions we ask everyone every week so let’s see what you got to say. #1, what is your favorite real estate related book?

Allan: I’m less about the books that are nuts and bolts real estate and more about stuff that’s bigger picture more about planning and understanding what moves. So my favorite book is very Los Angeles specific it’s called Reluctant Metropolis. And it’s written by a guy named William Fulton and it’s all about all the political aspects and other policy making that that’s happened over the course the years in Los Angeles to sort of create both the problems and all of the successes that have happened in the City.

Josh: What about your favorite business book?

Allan: My favorite business book I think it’s actually only about 80 pages long and it’s written by a guy named Bo Peabody who started a company called Tripod and it’s called Lucky or Smart. And he again started this company that was basically it allowed people to build websites back in the early 90s which was a very novel thing. Sold it to a company called Lycos and ended up being locked into his, instead of getting cash for the investment was a $50 million buyout. He got stock in Lycos and was forced to hold onto it for a certain number of years.

It went actually just the opposite, it ended up going up tenfold. He sold it just before the collapse of the Internet bubble because he wanted to buy a house and he didn’t understand stocks so he put it all in bonds. So the book is about as an entrepreneur recognizing the difference of when you’re lucky and when you’re smart.

Josh: Lycos was like, that was that was the Google of the day, I love that site. It was a little dog wasn’t it?

Allan: Yes I think you’re right I think that was the dog’s name was Lycos.

Josh: Cool, cool, sounds like an interesting book. Hobbies, what do you do for fun?

Allan: I’ve been surfing since I was a kid so I still do that when I get the opportunity to.

Josh: Where do you surf?

Allan: I grew up down in Orange County so my preferences are still Huntington Beach or if I can find the time to get down to Trestles which is closer to San Diego. I am trying my best to be consistent and find the time to get a pilot’s license which is something I wanted to do since I was in college. And kind of dorky but started beekeeping about a year ago.

Josh: That’s great my brother does that it’s kind of an interesting how he…

Allan: And foe a real estate guy watching bees and how they move around the hive and the things that they do it’s really fascinating.

Brandon: My next door neighbor has a bunch of, well my next door neighbor died yesterday but he had bees, he’s old he’s 98 or something like that. He has a ton of bees in his backyard so we get the benefits of the flowers in the garden. My wife has the best looking garden in our area because the bees. Let’s move on to my last question of the day. Allan what do you believe sets apart successful real estate investors from those who either give up, fail or never get started in the first place?

Allan: Tenacity is certainly something that is going to set you apart in that kind of place. And I guess the other thing is being dedicated to it. If you come out and again it’s so easy to spot the guys that went to the get rich quick seminar over the weekend calling you on Monday, Tuesday whether they’re calling you as a broker or calling you to pitch you a deal. There’s a difference, people can tell when you’re just trying to make a quick buck versus trying to really add value in real estate. So I think that that’s important is really understanding where you can add value to the transaction and really looking at it from that perspective rather than how quickly can I turn a buck.

Josh: That’s great. Well Allan before we let you go where can people find out more about you? I know you’ve got a website, do you want to share that with us and anything else you got?

Allan: Yes, my website is asgreinc.com or at allan [inaudible][1:12:21] realestateinc.com. And then of course I’m on all of the social media sites on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, BiggerPockets.

Josh: Awesome, we really, really do appreciate you taking the time and we thank you for all the fascinating insight. I think you definitely opened at least my eyes to a couple things and my head’s starting to spin which is a beautiful thing. Thanks for being on the show we do appreciate it and we will certainly see around.

Allan: Of course I had fun I appreciate you guys thank you very much.

Brandon: Thanks Allan.

Josh: Take care. That Allan glass on show 98 of the BiggerPockets podcast. You can check out the show notes at biggerpockets.com/show98. This was definitely a cool show Brandon we haven’t done a ton of commercial shows. And the ones we’ve done, I really like this one because again of that concept of driving value. And not just the concept of driving value but finding creative and clever ways of doing it.

And Allan’s story about you buying that lot and just kind of being really smart about what he did with it and increasing the value by multiples was phenomenal.

Brandon: What I like about it too is that strategy kind of shows the whole mentality of BiggerPockets and that there is no like recipe book on, this is exactly how you do a deal. But there is no book about how you put together a deal with like four different properties combine them together and bring in equity partners and bring in the VA…

Josh: I’m actually writing that book right now.

Brandon: So I thought it was great I thought it was excellent.

Josh: Awesome. If you guys want more like this keep listening if you haven’t listened to any of our previous shows definitely get out there and check them out. Or you could listen on iTunes on stitcher, we’re starting to upload our shows to sound cloud and we’re also putting the older episodes on YouTube. So we’re all over the place if you’re looking for different ways to check us out, there’s quite a few methods to do so. Beyond that just come join us on BiggerPockets, BiggerPockets is the place where investors hang out.

Guys like Allan who’ve done $1 billion in transactions spend time on BiggerPockets down to guys who are just getting started. So we definitely recommend you give it a hot if you haven’t already, get on and get started. Otherwise check us out on Facebook, Twitter, G+, LinkedIn, all the other various social networks. And keep paying attention, be good to your friends and family this Thanksgiving and thank you for spending your time with us.

And again I am thankful to all of you guys for being a part of our world and for being a part of BiggerPockets and the audience of our show. So thanks for listening and I will catch you next time. I’m Josh Dorkin signing off.

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