Nick Stageberg is the CEO of Black Swan Real Estate and an entrepreneur at heart. Before entering the real estate world, Nick enjoyed a highly successful career in enterprise software. His first startup grew from securing $13 million in venture capital to a $100 million private equity sale over nine years. He then helped the Mayo Clinic establish a software development startup, eventually leading 13 engineering teams within three years. Meanwhile, Nick and his wife Elaine built a real estate portfolio that evolved into Black Swan Real Estate. By leveraging innovative tools and management techniques from his tech background, Nick has given Black Swan a significant edge over traditional firms in the industry.
Here’s some of the topics we covered:
- Transitioning from a Career in Technology to Real Estate Investing 00:00
- Turning Bad Experiences into Positive Outcomes 3:36
- Insights from Warren Buffet on Investing in D Class Properties 10:25
- Using Real Estate Profits to Give Back to the Community 14:01
- Tips for Aspiring Investors Who Haven’t Taken the Plunge 29:49
- Finding a Mentor for Free 32:29
- The Benefits of Real Estate Investing Despite Having a High-Paying W2 Job 37:42
To find out more about partnering or investing in a multifamily deal: Text Partner to 72345 or email Partner@RodKhleif.com
Full Transcript Below
00:00:00:01 – 00:00:16:18
Rod
Welcome to another edition of Lifetime Cash Flow through Real Estate Investing. I’m Rod Cleef and I am thrilled you’re here. I know you’re going to get tremendous value from the gentleman I’m interviewing today. I met him at a conference and had dinner with him and his wife and a bunch of other people, and was very impressed with his operation.
00:00:16:20 – 00:00:24:10
Rod
his name is Nick Berg and he’s in about 1300 doors, but, his. I really want to dig into operations. welcome to the show, brother.
00:00:24:16 – 00:00:26:28
Nick
Thanks so much. It’s an honor, a privilege to be here with you.
00:00:26:28 – 00:00:45:13
Rod
Well, that’s kind of you to say that, please stay ahead of the boss for me. When you go back home, we’ll do, And, why don’t you just start by telling us a little bit of your background? I know you come from an MIT background, which is very common in this industry. And, and and frankly, a positive, in my view, because it ties together so many, so often.
00:00:45:13 – 00:00:47:15
Rod
But, yeah, give us a little backstory.
00:00:47:22 – 00:01:02:06
Nick
Absolutely. So I have a bachelor’s degree in ministry and a bachelor’s degree in computer science. So I’m kind of a man of faith, man of science, and had a very successful career in it. had a chance to get in the ground floor of one tech startup. We went from 13 million in venture capital to 100 million in private equity.
00:01:02:06 – 00:01:25:12
Nick
So over the course of nine years, and then had the privilege to do a software development startup for the Mayo Clinic, help them create a software development, consultancy, the entrepreneurship movement, where, big companies start, companies underneath their umbrella. We went from just a handful of people to 13 teams of engineers, about 73 engineers. I was leading over the course of three years, and we’re doing about a third of all new velopment for the enterprise.
00:01:25:12 – 00:01:44:09
Nick
So that was just a crazy trip. You know, over the course of 15 years, I felt like I had kind of conquered every mountain you could conquer in tech. And then along the way, you know, if you Google, what do you do to get financial freedom? What do you do to invest? Just real estate is what keeps coming back over and over again.
00:01:44:09 – 00:02:11:15
Nick
So along the way, like we bought one house one year and two houses the next year for house. so at that time we’re in Oklahoma City, and then we relocated to Rochester, Minnesota. And just buying, you know, kind of houses and small multifamily properties and stuff along the way and just kind of organically grew and and in June of 2019, I stepped back from my W-2 job and started doing the real estate thing full time.
00:02:11:15 – 00:02:28:17
Nick
That kind of became like the next startup. And eventually we started, you know, kind of serving investors through that journey. And then, now we have a, you know, private equity fund with, with a third of a billion in assets under management. So it’s been, a heck of a ride. And it helps, having gone through that journey a couple of times before in the, in the tech world.
00:02:28:19 – 00:02:46:13
Nick
But, it’s it’s definitely a helpful, helpful vantage point to have that that it background that my my wife Elaine, she’s my full partner in the business. She’s a physician trained at Mayo Clinic, just a brilliant woman. And she does a lot of, like our, our capital raising investor relations. the joke is she raises the money and I spend the money.
00:02:46:16 – 00:02:56:13
Nick
And so we both have, you know, a background of connecting with people, serving with people, but also kind of analytical. Right? So it’s it’s served us well in our in our real estate journey.
00:02:56:15 – 00:03:03:16
Rod
Yeah. Yeah. When I met you guys, she was, she was a force to be reckoned with. I remember, keep you on your toes.
00:03:03:17 – 00:03:04:02
Nick
Oh, yes.
00:03:04:02 – 00:03:31:14
Rod
So, so you’ve got about, what, 350 million in assets under management now? 1300 doors, and, you you owned some yourself. You also syndicate. okay. And I think, you know, we started having you talk about how you’ve taken some class D properties and turn them around. and, you look at it as part of your mission work.
00:03:31:16 – 00:03:48:07
Rod
and I’ll be candid, I’m going to be transparent with you. I just had a bad experience with an ex partner who hung his head on religion and was a just a. Yeah. And so I always tighten up a little bit when somebody says that. But the fact that you’ve got a degree in it takes it to another level, in my view.
00:03:48:07 – 00:04:08:06
Rod
But, I’m just being transparent. Absolutely. That always concerns me, you know? You know, the last couple of times I, I had I ran across someone that that talked religion, I, I, I, I got screwed. And so I’m, I’m a little gun shy, but, you know, I, I remember our conversation. I don’t remember if that came up or not, but, you know, I just throw that out there.
00:04:08:06 – 00:04:18:04
Rod
I don’t know if it’s relevant or not, but, But I don’t know if you had. You have you seen hypocrisy in that world where someone will talk about it and then really be a nefarious character?
00:04:18:04 – 00:04:41:28
Nick
Have you? So there’s fools and cheats everywhere in every walk of life and every faith. And, I don’t think there’s a correlation one way or another, but it definitely, definitely makes my hair stand up when I see a wolf in sheep’s clothing. There’s nothing more nor more despicable than that. Yeah, and it’s not something I typically wear on my sleeve, but definitely something that came up immediately in our conversation here.
00:04:42:00 – 00:05:03:26
Nick
And then also, when it comes to housing, you need to make sure that those two things don’t intersect because fair housing laws, you make sure you’re compliant with all those things. So, we’re definitely not chick fil A. we’re not a not a religious organization in any way shape or form. when I say mission, I speak more to when you have enough, when you have enough money, more money’s not going to get you up in the morning.
00:05:03:26 – 00:05:14:16
Nick
It has to be about so much more than that. And, so we look at, you know, what are ways that we can make money but also do good. So. So you mind if I share a story? No, no, please.
00:05:14:16 – 00:05:20:26
Rod
Please share your story. And and, you know, and I’ve got to shout out about something you told me a minute ago, but I’ll tell you a story first. Sure.
00:05:20:28 – 00:05:40:02
Nick
so, you know, we bought, this is like a, I would say a somewhat prototypical deal for us. Every deal is different. Here’s a couple deal. And, we bought a a class D apartment building in a historic area. It’s a 100 year old apartment building, and we bought that for about 62,000 unit. And, you know, next block over there’s million dollar single family homes.
00:05:40:02 – 00:06:00:06
Nick
And everybody has this dynamic in their marketing area. Absolutely. Yep. So so this is not like a unique thing or whatever. And the previous owner, I think maybe it carried on knocking it down one day or something like that. And I just, 26 doors in that particular building and in the basement units, always in a basement unit of one of these buildings.
00:06:00:06 – 00:06:16:28
Nick
There’s a unit where we couldn’t get into it before we bought it. They hadn’t paid rent in two years. This is during the pandemic, and theoretically, you couldn’t evict people for nonpayment of rent. And we bought the building. We go in there and, we do a, you know, just a safety inspection. We just give them notice and say, hey, we’re going to inspect the unit for any safety hazards.
00:06:17:00 – 00:06:38:05
Nick
And we we step, we step foot in the unit and we have to we have to step back and go get some PPE that was that bad. And you know, we went and got, you know, five gallon buckets. And we we filled up those buckets with drug paraphernalia and torches and just all, every manner of, of sadness and tragedy you could imagine and, you know, went to this woman and said, there is no judgment in our heart whatsoever for you.
00:06:38:06 – 00:06:59:21
Nick
You’re you’re a beautiful soul. But this does not happen on our watch. And so we’re going to be back tomorrow and the next day and the next day we’re going to do daily safety checks on this unit. And we will not stop until you’ve been served. And we support local, drug rehab programs and stuff. We just, you know, helped help one program, you know, upgrade their kitchen.
00:06:59:23 – 00:07:13:25
Nick
We know it’s a hard phone call to make. We can dial the phone. We can give you a ride, whatever it takes. you know, obviously, you can just leave, you know, like, if you don’t like us being here and you don’t want to, you know, get clean, like that’s your choice. You’re a free soul. and it took three visits.
00:07:13:28 – 00:07:32:13
Nick
Took three visits, and, she got help, and she’s in a much better place today, and, you know, so that that’s the mission, component right there. You know, just just last week, we had one tenant who was fatally inebriated and we, made a judgment call to to enter the unit, which can be a legally precarious thing sometimes.
00:07:32:15 – 00:07:33:12
Nick
And,
00:07:33:15 – 00:07:36:10
Rod
You know, though, I mean, how did you not enter the unit? How do you know they were drunk?
00:07:36:10 – 00:07:56:17
Nick
So, their parents had been in touch with us and said they were, in the hospital. And so that was like a little bit of a weird situation. So the unit was vacant, and, but the parents were covering the rent, which is a little bit of an unusual situation. And we do constant vacancy checks on our units.
00:07:56:17 – 00:08:14:07
Nick
And, anytime, you know, it’s vacant, we need to be inside that unit constantly. And then, we were notified that the tenant was back in and and great. And then, you know, my team was on site and just chatting with neighbors, and one of the neighbors had shared that they, you know, they heard like a thunk or something like that.
00:08:14:07 – 00:08:30:13
Nick
It was just a very like, you know, just a very in passing kind of comment. Right? It wasn’t, hey, I think there’s a problem. My team’s like, you know, someone’s in the hospital and, you know, something doesn’t seem right. And, you know, knock on the door and, you know, finally decide, you know, I think this does constitute an emergency, you know, right to enter.
00:08:30:16 – 00:08:33:27
Nick
and then there was that person, you know, laid out on the floor if if a few more hours had gone.
00:08:33:27 – 00:08:35:05
Rod
By, they would.
00:08:35:05 – 00:08:39:24
Nick
They would not still be with us. And, so that’s the mission piece right there.
00:08:39:26 – 00:08:40:13
Rod
No,
00:08:40:16 – 00:08:59:25
Nick
It’s how can we serve people? But here’s the thing. It turns out that doing the right thing is the profitable thing. It’s like that, that historic building where we, you know, turn someone’s life around. We bought it for 62 a unit. It’s worth, like, at least 125 a unit today. And when you solve the really hard problems, that’s when you create massive value.
00:08:59:28 – 00:09:09:10
Nick
And it’s not always possible. You can’t you can’t buy in a class D location. but, but when you solve a hard problem, you create massive value for everyone involved.
00:09:09:10 – 00:09:22:28
Rod
And you called that a class because I called you out when you told me this before we started recording, I’m like, you know, class D property. Are you out of your freaking mind? Because I’ve had class D properties, but but, And I said, you know, they’re a mistake. And we went back and forth a little bit on this.
00:09:22:28 – 00:09:41:28
Rod
Unless they’re in a better area. But you said so. That’s an A class B area. Yeah. There’s million dollar homes nearby, I’m guessing antebellum three story, eight hundreds. Yeah. That was an area like that in Denver that I could have bought whole blocks for 20 grand a pop, you know, house, houses for 20 grand to properties, 100 year old houses.
00:09:41:28 – 00:10:04:16
Rod
And they are million dollar places now. yeah. There was a place, I bought this, just to just to digress for a second, I bought a fourplex that was all three bedroom, two bath, 1500 square foot units, side by side, like a row, you know, two story with garages. And I paid 80 grand for all four in each one’s worth a million now.
00:10:04:18 – 00:10:22:12
Rod
yeah. Yeah. Crazy. And, you know, if you can buy in a gentrifying area, where, you know, the the, the coffee shops come in the, the eclectic art studios come in, you still got crime, you still got drugs. But you see, it’s move in that direction. It you have to have some cojones and you have to hang in there for a while.
00:10:22:12 – 00:10:23:26
Rod
But it can be a huge play.
00:10:24:00 – 00:10:53:18
Nick
So Warren Buffett defines the optimal profile for investment as something that has a steady, consistent, dependable return with a chance for a wild upside, which is a peculiar, like way to describe something like gold. it doesn’t really fit that classification. You know, crypto, it maybe has its world upside, but it’s not steady or consistent. And if you can buy in a gentrifying area, and if you can be the change it it fits that bill perfectly.
00:10:53:18 – 00:11:03:10
Nick
So if you can buy a class D property, bring it up to a C plus B minus something you can live with for the foreseeable future. that’s where we’re great fortunes.
00:11:03:13 – 00:11:04:06
Rod
The demographic.
00:11:04:06 – 00:11:05:04
Nick
Is 100%.
00:11:05:07 – 00:11:08:12
Rod
Got to change out the the drugs and the crime and all that because they’re in there.
00:11:08:12 – 00:11:27:23
Nick
And you got to. Absolutely. If you can buy the worst house on the block. Well it raises up the block you know. Or in our case we love to buy the entire block. So in in Rochester our core market Mayo Clinic is they just announced a $5 billion expansion of their campus that’s double the cost of like an Apple headquarters on Midwestern dollars.
00:11:27:23 – 00:11:57:03
Nick
That’s a crazy of some money. And it was known that they would be doing this sometime in the next 5 or 10 years. And in this general area. So we want we bought everything we could possibly buy. We just bought lotto tickets, you know, and as long as we knew we could get to, you know, a decent, you know, return profile in, you know, in the, in the, in the time being, and we ended up owning, about half of the city block and there’s, you know, $1 billion building on one side of the block and a $2 billion building on the other side of the block that’s going in.
00:11:57:05 – 00:12:08:27
Nick
And we paid about $10 million for that half a city block in between, just, you know, pennies on the dollar compared to to what’s coming there. now, a lot of that stuff needed some, some love. You know.
00:12:08:27 – 00:12:30:11
Rod
That’s a long term play. Yeah. You know, the you know, I know that you’re vertically integrated. Talk about that for a moment because that’s unusual that you’re as vertically integrated as you are. Which is why I wanted to talk about operations. You know, actually, before we do that, you definitely have a lot more elbow grease. And time commitment when you’re dealing with D-class assets.
00:12:30:11 – 00:12:33:20
Rod
I don’t care any way you shake it. I’ll argue that one tooth and nail with you because.
00:12:33:21 – 00:12:36:22
Nick
It’s 100% lot more work. Oh yeah, a lot more. 100 times more work.
00:12:36:23 – 00:13:01:26
Rod
You got more evictions, you got two troubled tenants, you’ve got 100 year old building. You know, you can have a lot more maintenance and so on and so forth. but but more in the, in just in the tenant profile in the collections. It’s just such a pain in the ass. So, but but if you’ve got, you know, I didn’t know Warren Buffett had that quote is a great quote which makes complete sense if you if you can buy something and survive for the possibility of what you just described.
00:13:01:26 – 00:13:04:01
Rod
That’s a that’s a very interesting play, 100%.
00:13:04:01 – 00:13:16:06
Nick
And the key thing for us is it starts out there, but within a year it needs to get to B minus C plus territory for it to make sense for us. And it’s not something we can shoulder. It just it would kill my team.
00:13:16:06 – 00:13:18:12
Rod
Yeah. No. So you’d you’d have burnout. Yeah.
00:13:18:13 – 00:13:18:28
Nick
Exactly.
00:13:18:28 – 00:13:26:08
Rod
You know. Yeah. Property manager burnout. Dealing with evacuations from the same people every freaking month and you know, and collections and crime and all that.
00:13:26:08 – 00:13:38:26
Nick
The we get the opposite. Our team, they walk the property today and they’re like, man, I remember when we bought this thing, it was it was it was rough just walking walking around. And today just look at this. And our team lights up. That’s when they walk those assets today.
00:13:38:28 – 00:13:52:25
Rod
Yeah that’s rewarding. You know I know you give you do 5% profit share. You said and I’m going to give you a shout out. you know you didn’t even bring it up when we talked about your mission. You give 5% of your proceeds to charity as well. It’s a beautiful, beautiful thing.
00:13:52:25 – 00:14:08:27
Nick
I built a school last year. Was one of the most fulfilling things I’ve ever done. Where, So we found an abandoned 40,000 square foot office building, and there’s a local, charter area. Yeah, in Rochester. And, and there’s lots of people involved. Right. Can’t take, you know. Right. I’m going to give all the credit to other people here.
00:14:09:04 – 00:14:24:09
Nick
But we helped, you know, get teachers and parents. They’re ripping up carpet and rolling paint and, and it actually just got permanent financing here a few months ago. So 5.1 million all in on the purchase, and it just appraised for $8.3 million. So we didn’t.
00:14:24:09 – 00:14:27:10
Rod
And you took it down or you were one of the jeeps in the deal or how that.
00:14:27:11 – 00:14:48:20
Nick
We helped them put it together. Okay. The cool thing is when you want to do something awesome, everybody helps. No one says no. Like this building was underwater. the owner was losing everything. The bank was taking a haircut. The broker waived their commission. There were two brokers involved. They gave their commission. Everybody just want at least some good will come of this loss.
00:14:48:20 – 00:15:05:21
Nick
And there’s. I mean, there’s office space everywhere in the country that’s in this situation right now. I thought it was going to be like a hard push of, you know, squeezing people and trying to get out. Now everybody just just wanted to help anyway they could. And, and then when all was said and done, this, this building is now worth so much more after the adaptive reuse.
00:15:05:23 – 00:15:21:00
Nick
And I can’t go out and stroke a check for $3 million to to a charity. Not today, not yet anyway. But we can we can pitch in with, a fair amount of capital and then our expertise to, to help put together a deal like that. To help. I mean, we’re meeting with the banker, you know, listing the different banks, private.
00:15:21:00 – 00:15:22:28
Rod
Private school, public school would you turn it into.
00:15:22:28 – 00:15:40:03
Nick
Yeah. So it’s, So so it was an existing charter school that was in the basement of a 70 year old church building. an amazing kind of. It’s International Baccalaureate curriculum school. Very, like, academically rigorous. it’s not it doesn’t have, like, a religious affiliation or anything like that. Just a really beautiful mission. You, They’re uniform.
00:15:40:03 – 00:16:04:09
Nick
Say gratitude is my attitude. you walk in, there’s this, like, 12ft tall mural that just says ambition. Like, our kids need that. Like that, whatever that is. That’s what our kids need. But, like, you can’t really have that in a creepy old church basement. That does. It doesn’t work. So we said, I would really love for you to have, like, a beautiful new building that’s, you know, 4 or 5 times what you’ve got now that is in a better location that has windows.
00:16:04:12 – 00:16:11:22
Nick
And, and we got them, you know, kind of, on a really sustainable path. I mean, that school is set for 50 years financially, so.
00:16:11:22 – 00:16:31:00
Rod
Wow. No kidding. I love that gratitude is our attitude. I literally just texted one of my, friends today that stressed out, and I said, you know, it’s impossible to feel fear or what we achievers call stress. As you’ve heard from the Tony environment. it’s impossible, by the way, he’s a Tony Robbins guy, too. He’s been a platinum partnership.
00:16:31:00 – 00:16:46:06
Rod
And all the events like I have, like. Oh, yeah, like I have. I was a pilot as well. And, but, so I texted, I said, it’s impossible to feel fear or what we achievers call stress if you’re in gratitude. I literally just sent that text to somebody this morning. Love it. Love it like, oh, that’s beautiful work, brother.
00:16:46:08 – 00:17:10:16
Rod
Okay, that was beautiful work. And I apologize for bringing up my negative experiences and the whole genre of doing the right thing. Yeah. so, you know, that’s that’s beautiful work. So now let’s talk about operations because I’m super impressed with how integrated you are. You know, when you hear integrated vertically integrated. Yeah. Maybe somebody’s got a construction company and a property management company.
00:17:10:16 – 00:17:17:25
Rod
Typically it’s just a property management company. But then some people also bring in the construction arm. But you’ve got what else have you got? You’ve got carpet cleaning. You’ve got all these other things.
00:17:17:25 – 00:17:33:13
Nick
Well we tried carpet cleaning that did not go so well. We do a lot of experiments, but in-house cleaning, in-house maintenance, in-house construction, lawn and snow. That’s a really tough one that very few people bring in house. The property management is the quarterback of the whole thing. We have a real estate sales team that, I don’t understand.
00:17:33:13 – 00:17:37:13
Rod
Why. Oh, so you’re you’re a broker as well? Oh, yes. Okay. So you’re you’re selling real estate.
00:17:37:13 – 00:17:55:27
Nick
Oh, yes. Yes. Every single one of our lease agreements has a clause that says you can terminate your lease for free during the high season. if we help you buy a home. That’s the first line. All of our rental advertisements helps us capture an incredible, demographic and incredible cohort. People, millennials today, they want the optionality that goes to.
00:17:55:27 – 00:18:16:04
Nick
So like, they they don’t necessarily buy houses that often, but they love the freedom, the feeling. So. Exactly. Yep. So, everything that we do is just like that where there’s an opportunity to create massive value. We’re not just saving costs, we save a huge amount of costs, but we’re creating additional value for, for the tenant, for the asset.
00:18:16:07 – 00:18:31:26
Nick
another example of that, you know, snow removal. So this is this is a monster to take on. We bought, you know, one ton trucks and plows, power broom, you know, you’re down in Florida, so you may not know what any of this is, but trying to clear sodas.
00:18:31:26 – 00:18:35:04
Rod
But I’ve never heard of it for snow. I’ve heard of it for for dirt.
00:18:35:04 – 00:18:37:12
Nick
You know, that’s the. That’s the Cadillac of snow removal.
00:18:37:12 – 00:18:38:15
Rod
So I’m like.
00:18:38:21 – 00:19:01:15
Nick
Oh, that’s right. So. So you buy a tractor, you buy a seven foot, like, full size tractor, and you hook up a power broom to it and you roll it down your sidewalk. And the bristles are so thorough that when you’re done, you don’t need to salt it. Well, that salt, it destroys your concrete. So if you’re throwing down salt, which is what a typical snow removal company does, you have to go, replace your concrete every 20 years.
00:19:01:15 – 00:19:05:24
Nick
It’s like a massive CapEx nightmare. And, the plow, something.
00:19:05:25 – 00:19:06:16
Rod
Goes right down the.
00:19:06:16 – 00:19:24:29
Nick
Sidewalk. Yeah. Yep. Down the streets, everything. It’s all heated. It’s got a sound system, like we’ve got best in class equipment for our team, and they’re able to clear snow so thoroughly that, again, you don’t even need to to salt every, every snowflake is gone. Exactly. and, you know, the tenants appreciate that they’ve got best in class snow removal.
00:19:24:29 – 00:19:42:17
Nick
So your, your quality standard is like up here, right? And you don’t have your vendors, running over water caps in your parking lot and your curbs. Just typically you spend thousands of dollars every year just cleaning up all the damage that your vendor’s done. And then typically you pay a retainer, so you’re paying whether they come or not.
00:19:42:18 – 00:19:54:00
Nick
You’re paying just for them to be on standby. Right. So this year was one of our least snowy years ever in in Minnesota history. So we actually had, 80% year over year cost savings. No, on snow removal.
00:19:54:01 – 00:19:54:06
Rod
You had.
00:19:54:06 – 00:19:55:06
Nick
It yourself and then you got.
00:19:55:06 – 00:19:57:06
Rod
Your CapEx cost of getting all the equipment and everything.
00:19:57:06 – 00:20:15:11
Nick
Well, that’s financed largely. So we’re able to meet our debt service there on the equipment. And we just paid some debt service for the equipment to largely sit idle. And my guys, they have other things they can do. They don’t they don’t just sit around twiddling their thumbs waiting for it to snow to fall. So then put a five cap or six cap on that, like that’s how much value we’ve added to those buildings.
00:20:15:11 – 00:20:39:24
Nick
I give out one property, one property. It’s a 15 acre townhome community, and we would have ordinarily spent $100,000 on our snow removal retainer. And yeah, oh yeah, it’s a huge property. Huge. I mean, sidewalks of 115 townhomes, 115 driveways, private streets, I mean, it would take a crew a very long time to go through that, you know, that that property.
00:20:39:26 – 00:20:58:20
Nick
And, you know, I think our our total cost was like 15 grand this year just is staggering savings now, it’s not easy. It’s not easy to go out and spend, you know, a third of $1 million on equipment that you then have to protect and maintain and service. And then the people that go with it, you have to have equipment operators, like very expensive guy licensed.
00:20:58:20 – 00:20:59:05
Nick
Yep, yep.
00:20:59:05 – 00:21:02:02
Rod
So did you take some of your maintenance guys and get them license? Is that what you did?
00:21:02:02 – 00:21:18:17
Nick
So, this is a great example. What we do, I like to rally around the passions of the people I lead. So we hire amazing people that are a good culture fit, asking, what’s your background? What do you love doing? What what can you bring to the table? And we hired a couple of guys who they had previously worked for a snow removal company.
00:21:18:20 – 00:21:34:18
Nick
it’s very it’s it’s very difficult work. You wake up at two in the morning and you might be working for 20 hours straight when you’re doing, you know, blizzard removal on a big portfolio. Yeah. So it takes a special person who knows their limits. They know when to stop. They know not to drive when they’re dangerous. it takes special people.
00:21:34:24 – 00:21:53:06
Nick
And I just said, okay, if you had a blank check to get all the equipment you needed to clear the snow in our portfolio, what would that look like? Now? These guys, they are not. They do not look like a private equity asset manager persona. These are these are beautiful souls. But they’ve got, you know, like, it looks like Duck Dynasty or something like that.
00:21:53:06 – 00:22:10:25
Nick
Yeah, yeah. But man, I love these guys. And they sat down with, like, a legal pad, just like you got there. And they sketched out a budget, a CapEx budget, a equipment budget. You know, how many person hours would be required. They sketched out routes, like they had a more thorough business plan than than most fund managers I know.
00:22:10:28 – 00:22:19:27
Nick
And that’s because they they’re passionate about it and they enjoy the work. They know that I’m putting a ton of trust into them, on their feedback. That’s actually they doing other.
00:22:19:27 – 00:22:27:07
Rod
Work, I guess. What I mean, I would think that’s because that’s not full time work that you cross collateralize them with something 100%. Yeah. Did you do that?
00:22:27:07 – 00:22:45:07
Nick
Oh, those guys do amazing work. And that’s the that’s the real pot of gold. The on the rainbow with vertical integration. Because now that we own that tractor platform, it’s a $100,000 investment to buy one of these, you know commercial agricultural grade tractors that can do. So now we have and we bought an excavator. While you’re excavator you know, an implement that’s only 15 grand.
00:22:45:09 – 00:23:02:08
Nick
And so we’re doing this heavy duty foundation repair project that obviously we have to go pay $50,000 to a foundation repair company that brings in their excavator, and we’re going to do it in a house for like 15 or 20, because we now we own an excavator for, you know, for a fraction of the cost. And the guys that can run the plows, they can run the excavator.
00:23:02:15 – 00:23:20:23
Nick
It’s not a path for everyone. it is it’s investment heavy. And you need to have a critical mass of assets in one area to do a lot of this stuff. You know, we’ve got 1000 doors in one area, but, you know, this is just one tiny example of what we do in every aspect of our business. We’re constantly asking ourselves, you know, like we own a matterport camera.
00:23:20:23 – 00:23:23:28
Nick
We own an aerial service, a matterport camera. What does.
00:23:23:28 – 00:23:24:22
Rod
That one of the.
00:23:24:24 – 00:23:36:00
Nick
so 3D. Yes, the robotic motorized. Most people, they pay, you know, 500 bucks or something like that for a matterport capture of their property. A matterport camera costs, I don’t know, 3 or $4000. Like that’s a more.
00:23:36:00 – 00:23:41:14
Rod
So someone can go in and walk different directions. Is that that’s that one of those cameras? Yeah.
00:23:41:14 – 00:24:01:04
Nick
You pick up the tripod, move it. It spins around. Right. so then so I’m saying like a more eminently achievable thing for most listeners here, go buy a matterport camera. So then it pays for itself after you do like ten Matterport shoots or whatever, and then you own the camera. So let’s say you have like a tough move out and you know, there’s going to be it’s going to be like contested in court.
00:24:01:06 – 00:24:19:00
Nick
the damages like the judge can’t believe there was $15,000 in damage. The unit. Well, we’re going to go into that. You know, we’re going to do a matterport tour of that unit, and we’re going to have, you know, 10,000 megapixel, 360 degree documentation of, yes, there were, you know, damages to the trim of every surface from dogs or whatever the damage is like.
00:24:19:00 – 00:24:37:22
Nick
That’s just not something you can do if you don’t have that vertical integration piece. So we’re able to create massive value in every step of the value chain. Everything that we do, we’re constantly asking ourselves, you know, how can we bring this in-house, not pay a vendor, to do this? We go through our expenses on, you know, you know, I want to buy a garbage truck, which is a licensing thing.
00:24:37:22 – 00:24:59:24
Nick
We’re working on getting license with the county because right now, garbage is our number one line item expense. other than, utilities, and I, I haven’t figured out how to make my own gas or electricity yet, so, Yep. I’m working on that. That’s. Yeah, the numbers are tough. but we could we could have a one year payback period on if we’re if we get the licensing to buy a garbage truck and haul out our own trash.
00:24:59:27 – 00:25:06:29
Rod
Yeah, and just haul it to the dump. Yep, yep. Interesting. Not not not pick up dumpsters, but haul haul people’s trash bags.
00:25:06:29 – 00:25:30:06
Nick
So. No, no, no. so the it’s a very flawed business model with, dumpster haul off for apartments and anyone listening that owns an apartment building. You feel me? you rent the dumpster from the the garbage company, which you’re. It’s just a it’s the worst rental you’re ever going to get for a for a property. And then they come and kind of pick up the trash.
00:25:30:06 – 00:25:51:28
Nick
Mostly when they say, and they pick up most of the trash and, and let’s say a tenant, for example, leaves a couch, they might, you know, add a surcharge for, for that couch and that surcharges, 99.9% profit for them if they pick it up at all. And my team spends a crazy amount of time managing our trash collection services, whereas if we have our own garbage truck and there’s a couch there and we have one of our own staff members, it’s all in the trash.
00:25:52:00 – 00:26:06:23
Nick
They’re going to go take a photo, put it into property management chat. We use Google Chat to communicate, hey, figure out what jackalope left this trash out. Go look at our security camera footage, and then they just throw it in the back of the truck, crunch it up and haul it off for for no additional costs, no additional cost.
00:26:06:25 – 00:26:23:29
Nick
So there’s this huge misalignment when you have most third party services like that and you hear that alignment bring in house lawn. Here’s what I told my guys. I want you to go do a 360 degree exterior property inspection of all of our properties every couple of weeks. And while you’re at it, if you could mow the lawn, that would be great.
00:26:24:01 – 00:26:42:26
Nick
So someone leaves a couch in their front yard at a townhome, and within hours they have a call from our property management staff of, hey, we saw there was a couch in the front yard. What’s going on with that? You should probably not have a long, a long couch. That’s not something that’s accepted in our community because our lawn guys are out there cruising around and they, you know, Snapple picture.
00:26:42:26 – 00:26:49:27
Nick
Here’s this unit number. They put in a property management chat. You are never going to get that asset. Overwatch with a third party vendor. It’s just it’s never going to happen.
00:26:49:27 – 00:27:09:14
Rod
That’s a great that’s a great idea. Yeah absolutely great idea. Love it absolutely love it. You know that’s not feasible for a lot of, you know operators that are that are spread out. But when you’re, when you’re in one geographic location, it’s a no brainer. Yeah. Why not carpet cleaning? I’m sorry, I did I’m sorry guys I’m sorry to go micro on this, but this fascinating because I used to own a carpet cleaning business is where the gold is.
00:27:09:15 – 00:27:13:05
Rod
The one of the stupid things that I did, but, But why not carpet cleaning?
00:27:13:08 – 00:27:30:21
Nick
I want anyone listening to this show to walk away with at least one action item, a specific thing they can do. So I love getting into the weeds. Let’s not talk about generalities. So we went. We spent 5 or $10,000 on carpet cleaning stuff on the equipment. The largest mobile carpet cleaning equipment you can get. So that truck may not truck it.
00:27:30:21 – 00:27:48:06
Nick
That’s the that’s the problem is we didn’t get the truck mounted. the truck mounted. That’s like a 50 $100,000 investment. Right? Right. It’s a huge investment. Then you have to maintain it. You have to all the chemicals that go with it and the licensing and your road weight and, and most of my facility staff, almost every single one of them is female.
00:27:48:09 – 00:28:12:14
Nick
And really, carpet cleaning, it turns out, is more like there’s a dude pushing around that. It’s a heavier. It’s a heavy. Yeah. So, we got like the largest piece of equipment that my facility staff could manage and is very time and efficient. So we ended up spending, you know, way too much time, shampooing carpets. You have to have the truck mounted equipment with some big dudes, but that’s all they’re doing all day, so they, like, know the equipment.
00:28:12:14 – 00:28:27:23
Nick
They can move fast. They’ve got all the here’s this stain. I know I’ve seen the scene before. I’m going to do this chemical in this chemical. And so that was something where and we fail all the time. We try to do an appliance company. It turns out appliance companies. It’s like the mafia literally. And oh no kidding. Yeah.
00:28:27:24 – 00:28:44:20
Nick
Oh, wow. So to try to get a license, to, to buy appliances is, like, you have to pay some bribe money, like, literally to get, you know, the, like, to even be allowed to have a conversation with the manufacturer. And, so that was another failed experiment because that’s one of our highest line items for appliance purchases.
00:28:44:23 – 00:28:54:22
Nick
And right now we buy them from Lowe’s, Home Depot, Costco. We do, you know, competitive bid every time we go buy 100 appliances. And it seems really inefficient. Well, it turns out, I mean, I was ready to open a store fronts to open a service department.
00:28:54:22 – 00:28:56:13
Rod
Just to be able to get to be able to buy them yourself.
00:28:56:13 – 00:28:56:27
Nick
Exactly.
00:28:56:28 – 00:29:00:11
Rod
Don’t sell any out of the storefront. Exactly. I’ve had the same thought many, many times.
00:29:00:11 – 00:29:11:14
Nick
But it’s very difficult. And, you have to go to the other person who already has that territory and say, hey, can you cut me in your territory? Good luck. Good luck with that conversation. That’s it. That’s a difficult conversation.
00:29:11:14 – 00:29:13:05
Rod
We talked about the brands give territories.
00:29:13:09 – 00:29:14:20
Nick
Exactly. Just like car dealerships.
00:29:14:27 – 00:29:36:00
Rod
Yeah. Okay. Okay. Well, sorry to go in the weeds so much, your guys, but this stuff fascinates me. Well, you know, Nick, as you know, you suffered through some of my podcast before you came here. You said just to get acclimated. I have a lot of aspiring multifamily investors. They’re in the rat race. They have a W2 job.
00:29:36:02 – 00:29:54:13
Rod
You know, they know they want more out of life. you know, maybe they’re caught up in analysis paralysis, fear, limiting beliefs, whatever it is. You know, all this stuff from the Tony Robbins environment. what suggestions would you have for someone that knows they need to do something, give them some motivation where you please.
00:29:54:13 – 00:30:14:10
Nick
So I’m going to I’m going to, you know, borrow some advice from from Tony Robbins. And Tony would tell you to go find a nine goler. That’s his, his, his polo stampede of stallions. So. So that’s someone who’s an expert at what they do. Someone who is an absolute rockstar of what they do and provide them with massive value.
00:30:14:16 – 00:30:32:03
Nick
Go. Fine. I’m going to say the second time, if you want to do anything in life, go find the person that’s just crushing it at that thing. Find out what their problem is, what needs you can meet, and provide them with insane more value than they could ever possibly expect. And, I’ll give you a very like, visceral example that.
00:30:32:03 – 00:31:00:26
Nick
So there’s this person in my life. His name is James. He’s a sharp young kid. And, and he heard that advice. And then, some like from me on a podcast or something, I think, reached out to me and just said, how can I provide you with massive value? And I’m like, I don’t know. You know, I had this kind of interesting conversation and, and so right before I flew out to Sarasota, here I went and did due diligence on an apartment building, and it’s, income restricted community outside of my core market.
00:31:00:26 – 00:31:14:19
Nick
And he lives kind of near this core market. So I called him and said, hey, I’m going to go do due diligence on this building. You want to come along? He’s like, hell yeah. You know, I’ll drive you like, you know, send me the financials. I’ll tell you what I think, did like, you know, six hours of groundwork in advance.
00:31:14:19 – 00:31:34:05
Nick
We walked the building. He’s like, here’s what I see. What? Nick? What do you see? You know, what are you looking for when we’re walking around here? And then we went to, a McDonald’s that was next door, and we sat and did underwriting until, like, midnight that night. And, I’m sure he got more benefit from spending, you know, half a day with me, like, walking a property, seeing how am I underwriting it?
00:31:34:05 – 00:31:51:02
Nick
How am I formulating my offer? then a person stuck in analysis paralysis, kind of, you know, just go out and do something. Ride shotgun. even if you just give someone a ride, like, I promise you that there is someone out there who is in the business that is driving their car around town and just offer.
00:31:51:09 – 00:32:06:16
Nick
Hey, would be okay with you if I just drove you around. took you to meetings. I could sit on your meetings, take notes for you, get your coffee with that. You don’t need to talk to me. I’m just going to listen. There is someone in your market, you know, pause this show and go call that person right now.
00:32:06:16 – 00:32:14:29
Nick
You know, someone that you can bring massive value to. And if you do that, everything you need is going to flow back to you. It’s just it’s just how the world works.
00:32:14:29 – 00:32:28:10
Rod
The way the world works, the way the universe works. Love it, love it. That’s a good one. That’s a good one. I get hit up all the time, though, as I’m sure you do. You know, for, say, can I come work for you for free and it’s just like, oh, I don’t know what I’d have you do.
00:32:28:10 – 00:32:29:15
Rod
And, you know,
00:32:29:17 – 00:32:45:12
Nick
But no, you have to bring the value you can’t, like, put it on them. Right? You know, hey, I see you’re doing this. Can I help you with this? You have to be very specific and deliberate and intentional about it. And if you do that, you’ll be extraordinarily successful. I, I recently learned to ski, and I went to the ski resort.
00:32:45:12 – 00:33:01:08
Nick
I’m 41 years old, for 40 years old. I’m almost 41 here in a few days. And I went to a ski resort and I said, you know, who’s your who’s your best ski instructor? And it’s this guy. Okay, can I get a day with this guy? And I talked to him and he says, we’re getting our gear and putting things together.
00:33:01:08 – 00:33:16:20
Nick
I’m asking about his life, and, hey, what are you struggling with? You know what? I know he’s having problems with his, you know, with his, significant other. And, you know, I don’t know, just the normal problems, and I, I just I just loved him and cared about him, like, sincerely. Hey, have you tried this? Have you thought about doing this?
00:33:16:22 – 00:33:28:04
Nick
you know, hey, here’s my cell number. You know, feel free to give me a call if there’s anything I can do to help you with that. And we finally get to the top of the mountain, and I spend the day with him, and I learn to ski on blue proficient after one day on the mountain. Because I’m dialed into this guy.
00:33:28:04 – 00:33:43:00
Nick
He’s dialed into me. He’s. Oh, no, Nick, don’t do that. You got to do this like he knows I’m going to take the feedback, because we’ve already had this conversation where the shoes on the other foot and I’m telling him, dude, like, just hammer me, like, tell me what I’m doing wrong, how I can do better. I’m not going to give up until I figure this out.
00:33:43:02 – 00:34:00:16
Nick
and I don’t want you to give up on me. And, you know, some people, it takes him a long time to learn how to ski. And, you know, again, to quote Tony Robbins, you can turn decades into days. You just find someone who’s a master at their craft, bring a massive value in that. Like, that’s just how God or the universe or people work is.
00:34:00:16 – 00:34:15:00
Nick
When you love other people and you care for other people and you take care of other people, people care about you and you like the things that you want, just come to you effortlessly in like, avalanches of abundance. And if that sounds like woo nonsense, I encourage you to just try it once.
00:34:15:00 – 00:34:35:16
Rod
There’s always a sign right there. Oh no, that’s not it. It’s downstairs. It says God’s will flows through me in avalanches of abundance. Amen. And those avalanches are, of course, money. But people and love and friendships and so on and so forth. So talk about in this journey of yours, because you started in single family, you went to multifamily.
00:34:35:17 – 00:34:42:05
Rod
You’re involved in at Pierce, other asset classes, schools. are you in any others besides that? No.
00:34:42:05 – 00:34:46:16
Nick
Just no. We’ve got a bunch of commercial just, because of the mixed use project.
00:34:46:19 – 00:34:48:23
Rod
What’s going on underneath some apartments?
00:34:48:27 – 00:34:56:25
Nick
Yeah. Yes. We’ve got, I don’t know, 20 retail units or whatever. We’ve got, you know, 50,000ft² of commercial or something like that.
00:34:56:25 – 00:35:05:19
Rod
Get you in this journey of yours. Talk about any moments that you had, any epiphanies where you’re like, okay, now I get it. I need to be doing this or whatever.
00:35:05:21 – 00:35:06:12
Nick
Oh man.
00:35:06:15 – 00:35:10:27
Rod
I mean, of course there’s numerous one. Oh yeah, talk about a doozy or two if you can think of. Absolutely.
00:35:10:29 – 00:35:36:03
Nick
So we’ve got a third of a billion assets under management. We just launched a fund a couple of months ago, raised $15 million in a day like that seems maybe unrelatable to certain listeners. In 2013, we bought a single family home. So this is hopefully, like hyper relatable. We bought our first, like, purposeful or, you know, class D, a class B remodel.
00:35:36:03 – 00:35:36:18
Nick
You know, the thing that.
00:35:36:23 – 00:35:37:21
Rod
2013, in.
00:35:37:21 – 00:35:55:28
Nick
2013, 11 years ago, 11 years ago, not that our first house, this is our first purposeful. We’re going to buy this through devalued. There is no BR wasn’t a word back then, but we this is the first time we did this Bismol, which is our business model to this day. It’s a BR business model. And this property was vacant for six years.
00:35:55:28 – 00:36:15:05
Nick
We paid $35,000 for it. Needed everything. My wife and I, we were on our hands and knees, laying ceramic tile and painting and doing as much as we possibly could ourselves. Sweat equity. We did about 17,000 in rehab, not including the value of our own times or 52,000. All in on this deal. And then we got an appraisal.
00:36:15:05 – 00:36:30:02
Nick
I don’t remember the exact appraisal is close to $100,000 when we got done, and then we got a loan, we got like 60 grand at closing. So we got all of our money back out, plus a little bit more. And I remember sitting in the parking lot of the bank and I felt like I just robbed the bank.
00:36:30:05 – 00:36:57:20
Nick
Yeah, I’m holding this check, this paper check. I insisted they give me a paper check. I didn’t want to wire. I wanted to hold that check in my hand for $60,000. I’m like, I know I’ve only got 52 grand in this thing, and I can go do another one and another one. It took us like six weeks to do the remodel and then and then another month through the refi and, I mean, at the time I was leading engineers in my day job with this, you know, high powered education and background and creating millions of dollars for investors and stuff.
00:36:57:27 – 00:37:21:13
Nick
But at the end of the day, I made like $50,000 in six weeks just doing this. It was almost insulting how simple it was compared to what I was doing by day. And I thought to myself, I need to dedicate the rest of my money earning life to getting as many of these checks as we possibly can. I’ll fast forward to 28 for you.
00:37:21:13 – 00:37:40:23
Rod
Move on. But before you move on, I don’t hold you. Don’t forget your thought where you were going to go, but you were killing it in the IT world. I mean, you had this, you were you were, doing this Mayo Clinic thing. I mean, big names, big money, big team. Must have been making big, big W-2 income.
00:37:40:25 – 00:37:43:00
Rod
Why do you even look at real estate?
00:37:43:02 – 00:37:49:00
Nick
So this is this is a little bit of a painful story, but,
00:37:49:02 – 00:37:50:19
Rod
And please don’t forget where you were going to go after.
00:37:50:20 – 00:38:07:18
Nick
No, not at all. Not at all. All right. So that that first house that I bought, in technology, there’s this, thing called proof of concept. So if you want to go do this, like big $10 million project, the worst thing you could ever do is go spend $10 million and launch the project. What you got to do is you got to go do a $10,000 project.
00:38:07:18 – 00:38:36:11
Nick
The smallest increment, the minimum viable product that you can get experience, get feedback. Okay, we don’t actually want to do this. We want to do this okay. We can do this. Then you do $100,000 project. Then you do $1 million project. And that $35,000 house was my proof of concept, my minimum viable product for this payday. That would one day come when that tech company sold, when that first tech company sold, and then six months before the sale, they terminated me and sees my stock options.
00:38:36:14 – 00:38:56:09
Nick
there’s no there’s no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Wow. And, that is super common in the industry. You know, you go watch the Social network Pirates of Silicon Valley like people get cut out all the time. And so you got screwed. Yeah. And I had PTSD. I was, like, reliving that day for six months in a nightmare.
00:38:56:12 – 00:39:10:07
Nick
And that house, you know, it was supposed to be this proof of concept for one day, going out and buying this vast, you know, fortune of real estate with the winnings from tech. And those winnings ever came, came to be. I thought that house was like a poke in the eye. For six months, I, I wanted to burn that house to the ground.
00:39:10:13 – 00:39:31:09
Nick
And then one day, a switch flipped and I realized, you know what? I spent nine years, nine of my prime working years. You get old fast in technology. I spent the nine best years I’ve got, and I have a nice salary but little more to show for it. I spent six weeks on this house and I’ve got $50,000 to show for it.
00:39:31:12 – 00:39:42:17
Nick
I know I can go do that again and again and again and again and in three years I was financially free. Now it was not an easy three years. My wife was in residency. Young kids.
00:39:42:22 – 00:39:44:09
Rod
Okay.
00:39:44:11 – 00:39:44:17
Nick
no.
00:39:44:17 – 00:39:48:16
Rod
Exaggeration, for a few years. That’s right. People want you live the rest of your life like most people can’t.
00:39:48:16 – 00:40:03:03
Nick
Amen. That’s exactly right. Anyone listening can go do what I did. And you might say, oh, the economy was easier then or it’s all different. You know, I went from Oklahoma buying houses for 35,000 to buying houses for 250,000. In Minnesota it was almost a ten spread. And I thought, oh my God, how am I gonna do this?
00:40:03:03 – 00:40:20:23
Nick
I found a way. You can always find a way. People are making money in real estate everywhere. My path is totally reproducible. It’s not easy. I was, I was working, so I’d go in early in a very demanding job, work from 6 a.m. until, you know, two in the afternoon. Then I clock out, clock into my real estate gig and I’d go look at houses.
00:40:20:23 – 00:40:40:26
Nick
I was swinging a hammer. I was managing contractors. I was at Home Depot, and I’d work until midnight, and then I’d go home, collapse and do it all over again. And my wife was working overnights in residency. She’s working 100 hours a week at the hospital, at the Mayo Clinic. That’s that’s a demanding job. Yeah. And so one of us was working 24 hours a day, seven days a week for a year in 2017.
00:40:40:26 – 00:40:52:17
Nick
2017 was an incredibly brutal year. But by 2019, we were financially free. We were we were financially free. So anyone could do a three year rent to get financial freedom.
00:40:52:20 – 00:41:02:05
Rod
No question. I’ve gotten numerous scores of warriors, my coaching students that have done it. so besides Tony Robbins, which is of course, is one of my big mentors. Did you have any other.
00:41:02:05 – 00:41:06:14
Nick
Mentors, that, that, that that’s that the other thing.
00:41:06:16 – 00:41:07:05
Rod
That’s right.
00:41:07:07 – 00:41:27:08
Nick
So fast forward to, 2018. So 2013, I got that first cash out refi check for $60,000. 2018 I got, a cash out refi and a whole bunch of our houses and the the cash out refi proceeds were just it was like $1,000,020. So and again, I insisted on a paper check at closing. I didn’t want to wire.
00:41:27:10 – 00:41:41:28
Nick
And I remember, like, flashing back to the sitting in that parking lot of the bank in, you know, was that, five years prior saying, I need to devote as much time as I can to getting more of these checks, and that’s a big deal. million dollars million dollar check.
00:41:41:28 – 00:41:43:02
Rod
That’s not a tax.
00:41:43:02 – 00:41:53:03
Nick
Free money to me. You know, if no one else from a refi, this is just pure winnings. Here’s my million dollar check. And the year after, that’s when I step back from my career.
00:41:53:09 – 00:42:11:27
Rod
So, yeah, you know, I, I did a, a reaction video to a Robert Kiyosaki, quote or a quote or interview where he got interviewed and said, you know, I don’t pay taxes because I borrow money, and what are we up to on that thing now? Million or over 2 million views on it? I got more freaking.
00:42:11:27 – 00:42:31:13
Rod
Hey, you’re the reason this country’s you’re not paying your taxes. And I’m like, I had to do a reaction video to the responses that I got saying, no, we were this country was set up to promote, you know, property ownership because people need a freaking place to live. And, and that’s why they give tax benefits. So it’s why Trump doesn’t pay taxes, why I don’t pay taxes.
00:42:31:13 – 00:42:38:06
Rod
You don’t pay taxes. None of us pay taxes in the real estate business because people need a place to freakin live. Anyway, I just did,
00:42:38:09 – 00:42:54:10
Nick
Food and shelter is what people need. That’s right. One of these days I’ll go grow some corn to get those subsidies. Like, this isn’t some loophole. We’re not being clever. Yeah, the IRS says here’s this huge subsidy. If you go provide affordable market rate housing to the people. And I’m doing exactly what the government asked me to do.
00:42:54:10 – 00:43:05:24
Rod
Yeah. And and when you refinance, you haven’t you haven’t you haven’t taken a profit. That’s right. Borrowing money. And so you’re not going to pay tax on that unless you sell. That’s right. And if you never sell you’ll never pay tax on.
00:43:05:25 – 00:43:06:09
Nick
We never sell.
00:43:06:10 – 00:43:26:09
Rod
That borrowed money of course. No. You know, I interviewed, my first interview was a billionaire named Albert Barras. You know, it’s my first number one interview. And I’ll tell you funny story. I, an hour in, I realized I forgot to hit record. I was mortified, but, but he told me something that that really stuck with me, and he said, I’m a real estate buyer, not a seller.
00:43:26:12 – 00:43:30:18
Rod
and I just love that quote. And and, Yeah.
00:43:30:20 – 00:43:47:00
Nick
what is the word monopoly mean, right? One seller. There’s an antonym of monopoly. It’s monopsony. That means one buyer. I would love to be a monopsony. I don’t want to. I don’t ever want to be a monopoly. I want to be a monopsony. So that’s a fun, fun word that very few people know.
00:43:47:06 – 00:44:10:11
Rod
Interesting. So if you suffered through some of my podcasts, you know, I do these own Your power clips, on a weekly basis, although I think I missed a week here, but, which is very unusual. I’m, I’m a little bit of a firestorm right now because I’m taking over a bunch of assets. but, you know, I believe 80 to 90% of of success in anything is your mindset.
00:44:10:11 – 00:44:10:29
Nick
Yeah, absolutely.
00:44:10:29 – 00:44:30:22
Rod
I know you do as well because you’re you’re in the from the Tony environment. Tell me, tell me, you know, you joined the Tony Robbins ecosystem like I did. what have you gotten out of that, out of that environment? Just curious, because I’d like listeners to hear the value not just of Tony, but just being in an environment like that.
00:44:30:24 – 00:44:47:23
Nick
Absolutely. So this is going to sound a little outlandish by credit, Tony, with about half of everything I have today, like I was doing pretty well before I encountered, you know, that kind of thought leadership ecosystem. And I’m in a bunch of different masterminds, and I had done technical kind of masterminds and stuff, and I’m I’m a spiritual person.
00:44:47:23 – 00:45:13:19
Nick
So like, I feel like I’m exposed to a lot of positive mindset type stuff. But Tony makes it very practical and actionable. So teaching you, techniques on how to how to change your state and how to curate your environment. And so just a just a perfect example of this, Tony, will challenge you to say your business if it’s if it’s less successful than you feel like it should be, it’s because you’re not.
00:45:13:19 – 00:45:28:03
Nick
Listen to your customers. You have these these platitudes that say, oh yes, the customer is always right, or the customer comes first. No, no, the customer is definitely not always right. And I believe your team should come first, not your customers. If you treat your team well, like your customers are going to get taken care of. But Tony will say, you tell yourself these.
00:45:28:03 – 00:45:44:17
Nick
You have these limiting beliefs of we can’t make money doing that, or that’s not the business that we got into or I don’t want to do that. Well, ask yourself some more empowering questions like who could I hire that would love to do that? And what would be the business model where I could generate a profit? I could profit handsomely from meeting this need.
00:45:44:17 – 00:46:11:26
Nick
The market. If you’re listen to this podcast, the market is screaming at you for value, like someone has told you that they want something from you and you’ve said no. So I challenge you to just go say yes. And I remember I walked out of my first Tony Robbins event, and I actually I actually made up a metaphor to to turn away investors more effectively because people would approach us all the time and say, hey, I saw this picture on social media, this house you’re renovating.
00:46:12:03 – 00:46:19:14
Nick
I’d really love to get involved. How can I get involved with that? And I said, you know, I’ve got a bunch of kids. I love raising my own kids, but I don’t I don’t want to open a daycare.
00:46:19:19 – 00:46:20:10
Rod
Right.
00:46:20:13 – 00:46:44:19
Nick
And Tony opened my eyes to the extraordinary selfishness of that perspective like, no, no, no, this financial freedom thing, this is just for me, not for you. Go, go help yourself. Like, how sad is that? For years I turn people away. So I walked out of my first Tony Robbins event and called the last three people that I said no to, and I called in and said, hey, I just listened to this maniac at the seminar, and and he said to just say, yeah.
00:46:44:19 – 00:46:56:00
Nick
So, you know, I told you, we’re not working with investors, but, I’m just going to say yes. And they’re like, okay, tell me where to wire the money. I’m like, no, no, no, I haven’t told you how it’s going to work yet. In fact, I don’t even really know how it’s going to work yet. I haven’t figured that part out.
00:46:56:03 – 00:47:09:22
Nick
I don’t care, just tell me where to send the money. That’s weird. I call the next person. Same call. Call the next person, same call. And that was really where, like the current chapter of our business was born in. Just saying yes to people that want.
00:47:09:22 – 00:47:10:21
Rod
To start a syndicating.
00:47:10:21 – 00:47:26:26
Nick
That’s right. Yep. And and so Tony, he has a good he does a good job of kind of pushing off the cliff of, of. Oh yeah. There’s this thing that, you know, you should do and you’re telling yourself you can’t do it. You shouldn’t do it. He says, just do it. And and here’s the motivation that you need to do it.
00:47:26:26 – 00:47:29:04
Nick
So, you know, I could.
00:47:29:06 – 00:47:30:05
Rod
Was that a up.
00:47:30:08 – 00:47:30:29
Nick
Yeah, that was a that.
00:47:30:29 – 00:47:32:04
Rod
Was my first.
00:47:32:06 – 00:47:32:26
Nick
You you.
00:47:32:29 – 00:47:46:21
Rod
Walk on fire the first night. By the way, guys, you know, I’m a huge Tony Robbins fan. I was on his, actually on his team for eight years. And, you know, if, if, you know, shout out to him if you have an opportunity to see him live. Just freaking do it. Trust me. So like me.
00:47:46:21 – 00:48:03:25
Rod
Okay. And you say, is it tribute to half of your success? I would say the same thing, not just in business relationships. Oh, yeah. you know, my health, business acumen. He has. He is. And I was at his business mastery course last year. and I’ve been to it eight times, so, you know, because you’re working on different parts of your business.
00:48:03:27 – 00:48:05:03
Rod
so it’s it’s something I.
00:48:05:03 – 00:48:24:17
Nick
Here’s here’s my hard clothes for Tony. Tony says I’m a Trojan horse. I give you what you want so that along the way, I can give you what you need. Oh, I like to that. And when I first met Tony, I’d left my day job, and I wasn’t really. I don’t know, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do next year or whatever.
00:48:24:19 – 00:48:46:26
Nick
And that’s when we came up with the 5% profit share. The 5% give back, our no fee model. Like we want to change communities for the better. That’s something that gets you up in the morning. And so Tony will teach you how to pursue fulfillment. and then like the achievement piece, it just comes effortlessly. Yeah. Like like it’s just there’s no grind when you’re doing something you love.
00:48:46:26 – 00:48:50:25
Nick
Because that’s exactly. Yeah. So that’s that’s,
00:48:50:27 – 00:49:11:29
Rod
That’s good. Yeah. I talk about that as well. The science of achievement versus the art of fulfillment and how fulfillment really is an art. You know, we’ve been taught in, in our society to achieve, achieve, achieve, to be happy. But I will tell you, if you’re giving back in any fashion, you’re happily achieving. I know it’s a play on words, but power moves to those who serve, which is why you’re so successful.
00:49:11:29 – 00:49:29:03
Rod
I’m why I’m blessed to be successful. And you know, because we serve, we we try to help. We try to make the world a better place. Well, Nick, this has been a real hoot by the way, guys, his, website is Meet Black Swan just like it sounds. Meet Black swan.com. And, I appreciate you coming on, bro.
00:49:29:03 – 00:49:30:26
Rod
That’s been a really fun conversation.
00:49:31:00 – 00:49:32:02
Nick
Thanks, rod. It’s been a pleasure.
00:49:32:02 – 00:49:32:28
Rod
Yeah. Likewise.
