MI292: Real Estate Partnerships w/ Ashley Kehr & Tony J. Robinson

24:00That's why they built an investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can put together a multi-asset portfolio for the long haul. Stocks, bonds, options, crypto, it's all there. Plus, industry-leading yields on your cash with no fees or minimums. Switch to the platform built for those who take investing seriously. Go to public.com slash T-I-V-P and earn an uncapped 1 % bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com slash T-I-V-P. Paid for by public investing. Full disclosures in podcast description. Just like everybody else, there was a time when I was a beginner investor, and I have to say, investing is particularly filled with jargon that can just make it so difficult for new investors to understand what is going on.

24:44But it's never too late to get smarter about stock investing from the ground up. At The Investors Podcast Network, we've made a habit of studying the world's best investors. And now I'm distilling those learnings into a simple course for you or for anyone in your life who you might want to share the gift of knowledge with. With my How to Get Started with Stocks course, you can master the principles of excellent lifelong investing with valuable insights for both beginners and pros. The course covers 10 different sections, beginning with the basics of what a stock actually is and how the stock markets work, to strategies to optimize your retirement savings, how to pick great companies for the long-term, what to look for in ETFs, and how to monitor your investments, plus so much more.

25:23To begin getting smarter about investing, just visit theinvestorspodcast.com slash get started with stocks. That's theinvestorspodcast.com slash get started with stocks. And for a limited time, you can use code stocks15 for a 15 % discount at checkout. All right, back to the show. So Ashley, you mentioned that it's more about asking the right questions going into a partnership than it is like following a specific exact structure. So I want to touch on both of those things. Like let's say someone, I think this is very common, especially for people listening, people that are new in real estate, they might have someone that's bringing all the cash to a deal and they're going to do the majority of the work or all the work while the other person's pretty passive.

26:07I know there's not like a set rule here, but like how do you generally value and balance what each person is bringing in that case, like money versus time and effort? And then what are the types of questions that they should be asking to really figure that out? Yeah. I think the best way if somebody is putting in what we call it sweat equity, so they're going to be maybe doing the bookkeeping, they're going to be the property manager, they're going to be the project manager on the rehab, any of those things is, okay, how much would it cost for us to go and hire somebody to do that job? So then what you can actually do is for anyone that's kind of putting in work into the partnership, and it's not just putting in capital, is to have them write out like, okay, Ashley, you're getting paid$100 per month to do the bookkeeping.

26:52So that way, if Ashley ever stops doing the bookkeeping, there's$100 to go and actually pay a bookkeeper to do it. And it's not affecting that equity value. So we're still 50-50. But I'm paid$100 for the bookkeeping. And then our cash flows after that expense has been paid out with all the other expenses. So it's ever left. So that way, it's not, okay, we're going into this partnership 50-50. I'm going to do the property management. I'm going to do the bookkeeping. and then you're going to do maintenance. And then I decide one day, you know what, I don't want to do anything anymore. I'm not going to do the property management.

27:26We're going to hire a third-party property management company. You still have to do the maintenance. And then that's where it becomes all, that's not fair. You don't have to do anything and you're getting 50 % of the cash flow. So I think right there is putting dollar amounts and paying each other for your roles in the business. And also, as much as you want to DIY and how effective it can be doing things all by yourself or all on your own when you begin and not outsource everything, it's a great way to get started. You can learn all the roles and you're not spending a ton of your cash flow hiring other people.

28:02But as you grow and scale, you really do get burnt out on having to actually open the mail. You know, all the rent checks that come in, all the bills that go in, writing the checks, like you don't want to do that stuff anymore. And so I think really planning in your operating agreement, your partnership agreement of how to have a plan to outsource some of these roles and responsibilities can really help you figure out your equity position. How can someone overcome imposter syndrome? We see this in so many different areas, but I know people experience this when getting to real estate partnerships, especially if somebody is giving you their whole life savings like they did for you, Ashley.

28:45I'm sure you probably had some imposter syndrome. Tony, you might have experienced this as well. So how do you guys get over that? I still fight imposter syndrome today because it's like, as you become more successful, the circle of people that you hang out with becomes more successful. And the thing that you're measuring yourself against for that imposter syndrome starts to change as well. When I first started investing in real estate, I didn't really have any other friends that were investing in real estate. So when I got that first deal, I immediately became the smartest person in the room when it came to real estate investing.

29:19And I know Ashley always talks about living in Buffalo. She doesn't have a big network of folks in that area that were also investing in real estate. So I'm sure when she started doing it, she was that person in her circle. But now as you start to grow and develop and you meet other people. And we have friends that are buying, hey, I've got$800 million in assets under management. I've got this thing happening or this thing happening. You start to question like, man, am I really doing this the right way? It's so funny. This is such a timely question for me personally, because I just reread the book, The Gap and the Gain by Ben Hardy and Dan Sullivan.

29:51And it's an incredible book for anyone that's entrepreneurial, because I think a lot of folks struggle with this. But one of the things that asks you to do in that book is to whatever situation you currently find yourself in where you're feeling like you're less than or you're feeling like that imposter syndrome, rewind your life's tape 10 years and compare Tony 10 years ago to Tony today. And you'll be so impressed by the amount of ground that you covered. And if you're always comparing yourself to your past self, as opposed to some future ideal or someone else's definition of success, there will always be progress there because you're measuring backwards.

30:30So I think people get into that imposter syndrome when they start trying to measure externally versus measuring inside themselves. I find myself in rooms either I walk away feeling usually two different ways. So if it's a room of real estate investors or at a meetup or something to do with real estate, a conference, whatever it may be, I'll walk away and just be like, I actually do know quite a bit about real estate. Or I walk away like, I just learned so much about real estate. And I do prefer the latter where I am literally the least experienced person in the room. And I don't even know how to actually converse in conversation except, oh, yeah, uh-huh.

31:14I literally have no value to add because everything is such a high level that they're talking about. But those are the rooms you want to be in to soak up all that knowledge and learn everything. But I think also getting yourself in rooms where you're helping other people. And even if you don't have a single deal yet, if you listen to one real estate podcast, you have some knowledge of real estate and what it is. Attending local meetups, even going on the BiggerPockets forums and engaging with people. Even if it is just like congratulating them on their house hack they just posted about or something like that, you don't have to go in and answer questions, but just start engaging with people.

31:55And you'll really start to build these connections, which will also help you feel more confident that you are a real estate investor, that you're involved in this community. think of churches, cults. People love a sense of community. That is what everybody wants and thrives on most people. They want some kind of sense of community. So once you throw yourself into that real estate investing community online or in person, it will just help feed that nurture that you need. To Tony's point, I think it's something that almost never goes away. For me, it's not so much the skill of learning how to make it go away.

32:34It's more so just learning how to do it anyway. And that's one of the skills that I've been working on the most is not even just imposter syndrome, just anything I don't feel like doing. It's just learning the skill to just do it anyway. And that could be imposter syndrome. That could just be feeling lazy and not wanting... I know Tony, you bodybuild, not wanting to go to the gym, whatever the case is, just being able to do it anyway. And that's how I have just tried to get over imposter syndrome. I don't know if I can ever get rid of it altogether. It's just do it anyway. And that just sort of helps.

33:04Good. And I just want to add something to that, Robert, because this conversation that we're having with the three of us on this podcast right now, it wouldn't be happening if Tony four years ago now wasn't able to get past imposter syndrome. So before I became the co-host of the Bigger Pockets Real Estate Rookie Podcast, I had my own podcast called Your First Real Estate Investment. And it's still out there on the internet. If you guys want to go find it, it still exists. But I launched that podcast in the summer of 2019. I didn't get my first deal until October of 2019. So I launched this podcast about investing in real estate three or four months before I ever even closed on my first deal.

33:45Now, I wasn't trying to put this facade on or pretend to be this super expert real estate person. I started this podcast and said, Hey, my name is Tony J. Robinson. I want to be a real estate investor. So I'm going to go out and interview other real estate investors about their first deal. Come along on this journey with me. And I think that's what people miss is that you don't have to pretend to be someone else. All you have to do is accept your journey, share that journey with other people, and you'd be surprised how many people will resonate with that story. There's a saying that you just have to be one step ahead of the person that you're trying to help.

34:17You don't have to be a thousand steps ahead or even 10 steps ahead. You just have to be one step ahead. And this is probably a fake story, but I heard this somewhere. I don't know if you guys have heard this, but there was a guy that went into a college class and pretended to be the professor. And he taught the whole lecture. And he didn't know anything about the topic, but he read one page ahead of the students. And he could teach the previous page because he had already read it. So he taught that page. And then he was one page ahead and he could just continue to teach it. And it's how you get over this.

34:44You just realize like, hey, you don't have to be Brandon Turner. You don't have to be this big, successful real estate investor. You just have to be one step ahead. I just want to add, there's so many different aspects to real estate investing too. Tony and I at BP Con, we did a rookie meetup and someone said something about they don't have a deal, they're new, they don't know what experience they would bring. So we asked, what do you do for your W-2 job? And he said, I'm a project manager. So then we asked, how many people here would love for somebody to manage their rehab? And almost every single handle it up.

35:21So I think too, it's not only just looking at real estate investing and what your knowledge is of that, but what other skills and resources do you have around you that you could use and you can bring that to a partnership too. There's a lot of value add that you can bring. So let's talk about that. You guys have a checklist for 10 things that people should look for in real estate partners. Take us through each of those. There's certain ingredients that I think help make partnerships more successful. And Ash and I wanted to give folks something that was plug and play, I guess, as they're evaluating people, potential partners, to say, does this person work for me as a potential partner?

36:01So the first thing is communication skills. I think one of the fastest ways to derail, not just a real estate partnership, but any kind of partnership, is that one or both people lack good communication skills. And I don't mean communication skills in the sense of what we're doing right now, whether they're talking on a podcast or getting in front of a stage of people. I mean interpersonal communication skills, being able to clearly articulate themselves and having the confidence and the courage to have difficult conversations. What happens in some partnerships, and honestly, even in just some relationships, is that one partner starts to feel a certain way about the actions of the other person, and they don't have the courage or the confidence to bring that issue up.

36:42So what happens? This person starts to, these negative emotions start to build up. And before you know it, there's this feeling of resentment or anger or every single little thing this person does now becomes exponentially more annoying because now it's not even about that one instance. It's these days and weeks and months and years of built up tension that I haven't brought up to you. Being able to communicate when things are difficult, I think is one of the most important skills that you need to look for when you're evaluating someone as a potential partner. Yeah, in the book, we actually put together a partnership pyramid.

37:16And at the top of the pyramid, we put communication as the top piece of it. And then we did structure underneath and then goals kind of as the foundation. But the next piece that we find important is the financial component. So you want to make sure your financial stability along with your partner's financial stability is solid. So that's doing some kind of vetting on your partner and also being open to sharing what your finances are. So for example, and I want to be clear that this doesn't mean partner with someone that has money. This is make sure that they can manage the money they do have.

37:53So if you're partnering with someone and they can't even pay their credit card bill or they can't even manage their own money, but yet you're going to rely on them to manage your rehab project, manage the budget, whatever that may be. So I think getting a good sense that both partners are in a good financial position as if maybe each partner needs to have so many cash reserves. We talked about bad things that can happen with partners. And one of those is, oh my gosh, we need to replace the HVAC and our reserves won't cover that. Each partner needs to put in three grand. Well, partner B may not have that and say, you know what?

38:29I don't have it. I can't put it in. That's another big component of partnering with someone too. So third piece would be reliability. And this one I think is a little harder to kind of get a gauge on. But you just want to know, is this someone that I can count on? I think one of the best ways to get a sense of someone's character is to not necessarily pay attention to how they treat you, but how are they treating other people? When you observe them interacting or talking about other people, what is their energy? What is their dialogue? What are they saying? If every time you talk to that person, they're secretly saying negative things about other people behind that person's back.

39:09What do you think they're doing about you behind your back? If you see them taking shortcuts when they're doing other projects with other people, what do you think they're going to be doing when they're working with you? So look for these more nuanced, I think, signs to see, is this a person that I can count on? Because when you get into a partnership with someone, that's basically what you're doing. You're entering into a contract with one another to say, I trust you to do the things that you say you're going to do. You trust me to do the things that I say I'm going to do. And if either one of those pieces aren't working, the whole partnership starts to break down.

39:39The next component ties into that too is each partner having an understanding of the partnership and your actual contract, the partnership agreement, and having an understanding of what happens now, what happens in the future, or what happens if this happens. So being transparent with each other, going through the contract, making sure each person is clear on what the terms of your partnership agreement are. The next one is about project management. And again, this varies by the person depending on what skills you have and what your partner has. But it is a good thing to look for is that project management piece.

40:19And I asked you for that example earlier, the person at BPCon, where everyone wanted to be that person's partner because they had this skill set. But if you can have someone in your team, a partner who understands how to take this big, messy thing you're working on, it could be, hey, we're buying this Airbnb, or we're setting this Airbnb up, we're managing this rehab, we're doing this wholesale deal. All of real estate investing, all of business is just basically process and project management. So if you can have a partner that has those skills to take this sequence, then this sequence, and this sequence, and this sequence, and make sure each one is getting done at the right moment and passes off to the next sequence at the right time, that's an incredible skill for you to have and something that's important to look for.

40:57The next one is financial planning. This can do with just their own personal finances and also the finances of the business. So if you have a project up, are you both going to be able to budget and plan for what the rehab expenses are, what the holding costs are going to be, And also making sure, as I mentioned before, about having reserves in place if each partner needs to put money into the LLC or the joint venture, whatever that may be, if they need to bring money to the table. The next year are somewhat related, so I'll kind of clump them in as one, but it's someone who can manage the income and the expenses.

41:35One of the fastest ways to derail any type of real estate transaction is to not know your numbers. and ask me how I know, right? Because I've been there before where it's like, man, this flip was only supposed to cost this much. Why do we spend$25 ,000 more? So it's always been official to have one person on the team that can keep the checkbook in check, right? And they can say, hey, here's the budget for this project for whatever it is that we're working on. And here's how we're going to manage these expenses to make sure we don't exceed that. Or the flip side is true as well. For us in the short-term rental space, we have the ability to actively manage our income as well.

42:11Like, hey, are we pricing our property appropriately given the current market conditions? And some people come in and they price incredibly low and they leave a bunch of money on the table. So someone who can look at the financial picture of the partnership and say, how do we maximize income, reduce expenses is also important. We talked a lot about examples of roles and responsibilities. And one of those was property management. But besides property management, there's also asset management. And one of the key roles of asset management is doing market research. So having an understanding of the market that you are investing in and continuing that research and understanding of where you're investing.

42:51So one of those things can be looking at what are market rents, who's going to be the person that's going to be continuously monitoring that, things like that, and doing that research. some really good resources are Nightscout or even Bright Investors, a new platform that just came out where you can kind of keep tabs on everything you need to know for market research. But also that's where you want to stay in alignment with your partner. It's like, okay, at our quarterly meeting, is this still the right market for us and we need to continue in this? What changes or do we need to pivot or maybe going to a new market or changing strategy, something with the current market conditions?

43:29And the last one here, And this kind of puts a bow on everything we've just talked about, but you want a partner that has a complementary skill set to you. I would never partner with someone who's an exact replica of Tony. I don't need someone who's super analytical. I don't need someone that's the big visionary. If I'm partnering with someone, I need someone who's a good integrator. I need someone who can manage all the minutiae. I need someone who can allow me to focus on the areas where I'm uniquely qualified and where my strengths are best leveraged. So as you're looking for a partner, that one is incredibly important.

44:03Find someone that can fill in the pieces that you lack, that can be strong in the areas where you're weak, and someone that can balance you out in the best ways possible. Thanks for going through all of those. I wanted to ask what are some of the biggest mistakes people make when picking partners and then what they make, what the mistakes are that they make once they're actually in the partnership. But having gone through those 10 things, I think it's pretty clear, right? The mistakes people make when picking partners is you pick people that don't do these things. And then when you're actually in the partnership, you make mistakes by not doing these things.

44:33So you gave the inverse, the mistakes are essentially the inverse of everything that you just gave. Is that safe to assume? Yeah, I think so. And you kind of touched on this, but I think a big mistake that a lot of people make when they're getting into some of those first partnerships is they choose the partnership based on proximity. They say, hey, we're friends. I know you. I like you. I think we make great partners together. But they don't do that extra step of really assessing whether or not there's a skill fit there. And that's why you see a lot of partnerships that get derailed before they start because from the beginning, they weren't set up the right way.

45:11And the second mistake you see a lot of folks make when they're getting into partnerships is they don't have those difficult conversations upfront. And they wait for shit to hit the fan before they try and sit down and solve for those things. But if you can have those Like, hey, what happens, like Ashley said earlier, what happens if the property doesn't generate enough revenue? What are we going to do? You should have the answers to that question solved before you enter into that agreement. What happens if one of us wants to sell and the other person doesn't want to sell this real estate? You should have that answer before you get into that agreement.

45:42What are Tony's responsibilities? What are Ashley's responsibilities? And what happens if one of us doesn't hold up to those responsibilities? You should have that answer before you get into that partnership. So I think starting the partnership or choosing your partner based on proximity, and then failing to have those difficult conversations upfront are two mistakes that I think can really derail a partnership. Let's take a quick break and hear from today's sponsors. Hey, it's Sean O'Malley, just popping in with a quick message. If you like this podcast, well, I've got great news for you. We've got a handful of other shows for you to explore, from learning about Bitcoin to embracing a richer, wiser, happier lifestyle.

46:18Just go into your podcast app and type in We Study Billionaires to find our collection of shows. We Study Billionaires is our flagship podcast, and we've made a name for ourselves over the years by interviewing the best investors in the world, including Ray Dalio, Howard Marks, Joel Greenblatt, and many, many more. My colleagues Stig Brodersen, Clay Fink, Kyle Grieve, Preston Pysh, and William Green each hosts their own We Study Billionaires episodes and bring their own unique perspectives. A whole new world of insights awaits you. Just go ahead and type in We Study Billionaires and your podcast app and see what you've been missing out on.

46:54Seriously, go ahead. I promise you'll like what you find. Bonus points if you show your support for our work by clicking follow. If something piques your interest, just start listening. No hard feelings. I'll be waiting for you back here. Just like everybody else, there was a time when I was a beginner investor. And I have to say, investing is particularly filled with jargon that can just make it so difficult for new investors to understand what is going on. But it's never too late to get smarter about stock investing from the ground up. At The Investor's Podcast Network, we've made a habit of studying the world's best investors, and now I'm distilling those learnings into a simple course for you or for anyone in your life who you might want to share the gift of knowledge with.

47:31With my How to Get Started with Stocks course, you can master the principles of excellent lifelong investing with valuable insights for both beginners and pros. The course covers 10 different sections, beginning with the basics of what a stock actually is and how the stock markets work, to strategies to optimize your retirement savings, how to pick great companies for the long term, what to look for in ETFs, and how to monitor your investments, plus so much more. To begin getting smarter about investing, just visit theinvestorspodcast.com slash get started with stocks. That's theinvestorspodcast.com slash get started with stocks.

48:07And for a limited time, you can use code STOCKS15 for a 15 % discount at checkout. Not to be cliche, but building a market-beating portfolio really doesn't have to be a mystery, at least with the right tools. If you've listened to our podcast for a while, then you know we spend a lot of time learning from savvy investors. So why not use the same tools we do? With TIP Finance, you can. Screening for great companies, calculating intrinsic value, keeping up with legendary investors' portfolios, and more are all not just possible, but easy to do. TIP Finance was created by investors or investors. It's quite literally the tools we wanted to use ourselves when researching investments in a simple to use interface.

48:51You can get started by creating an account for free. Who knows? Maybe TIP Finance will help you find your next 100 to 1 investment. Between the screener and Legend Investment Portfolios to reference, I've gotten a ton of ideas from TIP Finance. What are you waiting for? Take the next step in your investment journey today with the right tools at your fingertips. Grab your device and type into your browser, theinvestorspodcast.com slash tip-finance to get started. That's theinvestorspodcast.com slash tip-finance. All right, back to the show. As part of your guys' book, you have sample paperwork that's almost like a template for somebody's first partnership.

49:34Are those the types of things that you're putting in that paperwork? All of those questions that you just answered basically, and all the things that you need to think through, all the situations that might happen. What are the most important parts of the paperwork? Yeah. So we did a joint venture agreement, and then we did an operating agreement for an LLC. So we gave those as samples. And of course, Tony did the joint venture. So it's specific to California, and mine is out of New York. So definitely get your own from your own attorney. this is just a starting point for you. But a lot of the 10 things that we went through, we also give that checklist of things to actually ask you and your partner.

50:13But a really, really big thing in any agreement that you're doing is not only putting in there what's happening right now, but putting in those exit strategies so that if something does come up. So in the book, we have a chapter that talks about different clauses that you may not think of, your attorney may not think of, kind of unique things that you can add in there. So for example, buy-sell. What happens if somebody wants to sell? Are you getting first right of refusal? Can they go out to the open market and all of a sudden, Robert's now my partner, Tony, sold his shares to him, his percentage.

50:53So a lot of things like that. Also, life insurance policies. What happens if Tony dies? I'm now automatically, according to as well, I'm now partners with his wife, Sarah. What if she wants nothing to do with the partnership and I want nothing to do with the partnership? What happens there? Or what if she does want to, but she's like, yeah, I want to keep Tony's share, but you know what? I'm not going to do any work. I'm not going to do anything, which would never be Sarah, by the way. But then I'm now stuck with Tony's wife as my partner, but I'm having to do all the work. So putting in a life insurance policy where the business actually pays the policy.

51:31Tony is the owner of the policy and I am the beneficiary of the policy. So if Tony were to die, I can take those funds and I can buy Sarah out and I can give her that money. And now she has this nice lump sum of cash. She doesn't have to worry about owning a business. And I now have full control of the business. So we'd go through different things like that. You know what's super funny, Ashley, is that Sarah and I literally just had a conversation maybe like two days ago. And she was like, if you died, I don't know if I'd want to keep running the business. I feel like I would just sell everything off.

52:05So Robert, if I end up under a bridge, just know that Sarah and Ashley conspired together so they could split that life insurance payout. I'll go to bat for you, Tony. She's waiting to get to your goal. What was your goal, Tony? A hundred million? A billion in real estate. A billion. Yeah. She's waiting till that point. You got some time. I got a little bit of time. I'll be your witness, Tony. I'll be there for you. So I found and met my real estate partner actually at the gym. And I didn't really set out to do that. But looking back, I'm actually glad that I did. And I personally think it could be a good place to meet partners, real estate or otherwise.

52:46What do you guys think are the best places to find real estate partners? So for me, all of my partners have been friends first, then business partners. So I spent a lot of time... My first partner, we grew up next door to each other. So we knew each other since we were two. We'd know each other for about 25 years before we actually invested together. But a big component of that was his dad was an investor. And I look at what your dad is doing. Why don't you do that? And he's like, yeah, why am I not doing that? And then my second partner was actually the boyfriend of one of my other friends. And he already had a rental property.

53:26And so we started talking real estate. It was about a year before we actually partnered on a deal. And then my third partner, we met on a boat. And he talked and complained about how much he hated his job. And so I was like, well, There's this thing called real estate investing. You could make me do. And so then he started working alongside with me and then eventually became my business partner. But so for me, I'm very, very picky and choosy as to who I partner with. And I really have to establish. I've definitely jumped into getting to know other people who want to partner. And I just haven't pulled the trigger with anyone else yet.

54:06I did partner with my brother and sister each on a deal, but that was different than having stranger partnership. Would you do it again? Family, getting into business with family, would you do it again? Yes. If I have full control of the deal. I took a slightly different approach from Ashley. I think we have 19 or 20 partners across our different properties. And two of those are family. One of them is Sarah's cousin, one of them is my first cousin. Everyone else were strangers, basically, before we did that partnership together. And they all came through the platform that we've built. They would reach out and say, hey, Tony, I've seen you on the podcast, on YouTube, wherever.

54:48I would love the opportunity to work with you. And that's kind of how those partnerships mostly started. We were, I think, picky to an extent of who we worked with as well. It wasn't like I'd find a deal and then I'd look for the first warm body and say, hey, let's do this together. There was a little bit of us getting to know each other. So there'd be a phone conversation, Zoom calls, a lot of email exchanges before. And as you start to talk to people, you start to get a sense of like, hey, will I enjoy working with this person? And there are several partnerships that we've had, or there are several people who wanted to partner with us who we ended up not working with because during that initial kind of vetting phase, we just kind of got not the right vibes from them.

55:28Ours were mostly strangers, but we did take the time to make sure that we got to know them. And that's part of the reason why we have so much in our joint venture agreement, because we don't personally know a lot of these folks. So we had to make sure that a lot of those things were dialed in upfront because we didn't know who these people were and if we could really trust them, if it wasn't written down. What are your guys' goals right now? Tony, you mentioned, I believe, a billion in real estate, but what are you guys working on? What are you working towards for both of you? What are your biggest goals right now?

55:58On the real estate side, yeah. My goal is to buy$1 billion worth of real estate in the next nine and a half years. So I set that goal at the beginning of this year. And the reason why that number is so big is because first, I have friends and mentors in my life that are marching towards that goal. You talked about Brandon Turner earlier. He's bought like$800 million worth of real estate in the last four years or something crazy like that. So I know that I'm seeing it. I know that it's a possibility. And the ideal situation is that once we get to that number that we start just selling off a bunch of those assets.

56:31And then I've got hopefully a couple hundred million bucks that I can just go sit down and lay on a beach in Costa Rica or Portugal for a while and relax. So the real estate side is a big one for us. Really focused on growing our coaching program. We launched that last year and we've been solely putting that together. And the amount of fulfillment that we've gotten by growing alpha hosts, our community has been light years beyond anything I could have imagined. Because when we're recording content in the podcast, when we're doing it for YouTube, it's one to many. And we hit record and I never get to see who's on the other side.

57:04But through that program, we've helped countless people get that first deal. And to see those messages pop over and over again, that's a dopamine hit, unlike anything I've ever experienced before. So I said, those are the two big goals for us. We've got some smaller things. I'm launching a property management company in the short-term space. We have our cleaning company. We're doing some more arbitrage. Those are some ancillary goals, but the big ones are the community that we're building and the billion dollars. Isn't that such a weird thing about podcasting? You just speak into the mic and it just goes into the void.

57:32And you never hear anything really. You get emails and DMs and stuff on social sometimes, but it just goes out into the void. There's nobody really talking back. That's always been the weirdest thing about podcasting to me. I think it's so weird that Apple, the biggest podcasting platform there is, hasn't tried to turn podcasting into more of a social network where people can interact on specific episodes and have comments and followers and that thing because - They just added that to Spotify. Did they really? A little bit. Yeah. I'm pretty sure you can comment on episodes now on Spotify. Okay.

58:06Yeah. Apple's behind the game, man. Not surprised. Ashley, so what's going on with you? What are your biggest goals right now? It's way more difficult than it is for me than Tony to think big picture. I struggle so much with seeing five years down the road. Seeing what I want a year from now, that is even a struggle for me. But what I want in one year from now is next summer, I want to live at a lake house. I've got to get a property under contract and get a lake house that I can afford and then also maybe rent out as a long-term rental over the winter months or something like that. But that's my personal goal right there.

58:44But also, it's an asset too. So having a lake house, waterfront property is only going up. So I might as well buy it now. But as far as business goes, I launched a property management company for my long-term rentals this year. And then we have 130 units right now, residential and commercial. It's just my units and then one other investor. and we're not taking on any clients. It's just our own rentals that we're doing. Sometimes I think owners are worse than tenants. Looking at myself as an owner, we're trying to work with a property management company. But so I'm just really dialing down the systems and processes.

59:25I've hired a couple of DAs and I'm just trying to get that to run as automatic as possible already. I have very little interaction. then right now my main focus is just defining those systems and processes even more and dialing down everything that's happening. But my goal is to just be really passive with that, but also stabilize my portfolio after it's been with a third-party property management company and just really maximize my cashflow on each property. And then of course, continuing to add some short-term rentals and some long-term rentals. awesome well i can't wait to check in with you both probably uh tony nine and a half years and then uh ashley i'll check in with you my parents have a camp it's not a lake house by any means it's actually just like a seasonal camp site in a campground but it's near the water basically on the water up where i live so next summer when i'm when i'm there i'll be thinking of you and i'll check in with you and hopefully hopefully you'll be doing the same as we wrap up today tell everybody where they can go to find you guys tony you mentioned your youtube ashley i know you got some social going on, tell people where they go to find your books, everything, where you want people to go to connect with you guys.

1:00:33Yeah. So you can find me on Instagram at wealthfromrentals. And you can also find us on the Real Estate Rookie podcast and our new book, Real Estate Partnerships at biggerpockets.com slash partnerships. And then I also have another book called Real Estate Rookie that you can find on Bigger Pockets, Amazon, or in Barnes & Noble. Cool. You guys can connect with me on Instagram. I'm at Tony J. Robinson. If you're on threads, I'm on threads, at Tony J. Robinson. Say I'm on Twitter. On YouTube... Actually, it's X, Tony, isn't it? X now? Oh, yeah. I guess it's X now. Yeah, if you're X-ing. But on YouTube, my wife and I are at The Real Estate Robinsons.

1:01:13We talk all things short-term until on that channel as well. And if you guys want to check out Alpha Host, just head over to therealessayerobinsons.com slash alpha host. And we'll love to help you guys build that business out as well. But If I can just end with one quick story, Robert, I'm so passionate about the book because partnerships have really, for both Ashley and I, changed the trajectory of our real estate business. Like most people, when I graduated from college, I got a job in the corporate world, climbed the corporate ladder, had a really healthy six-figure salary. And two days before Christmas in 2020, I ended up losing my job.

1:01:45So we go from this big salary down to zero in a two-minute conversation with the HR director at my job. And it was our ability to leverage partnerships quickly, efficiently, and effectively that allowed us to keep buying real estate. And when I lost my job, we had two active short-term rentals. By 12 months later, we were up to like 15. And the majority of those deals came from partnerships that we had formed with other people. So there's a tremendous amount of power in real estate partnerships when you do it the right way. And our hope is that the book can give you guys the roadmap and the framework to do it the right way.

1:02:20Awesome. Thank you both for joining me today. You took valuable time out of your day to join me. It was great to catch up with you both. I'm super pumped to hear that you guys are doing awesome things. I'm not surprised. I'll put all the links to your guys' resources in the show notes below for anybody that's interested in connecting with you guys. And until we talk again, thanks. All right, guys, that's all I had for this week's episode of Millennial Investing. I'll see you again next week. Thank you for listening to TIP. Make sure to subscribe to We Study Billionaires by the Investors Podcast Network.

1:02:53Every Wednesday, we teach you about Bitcoin and every Saturday, we study billionaires and the financial markets. To access our show notes, transcripts or courses, go to theinvestorspodcast.com. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any decision, consult a professional. This show is copyrighted by the Investors Podcast Network. Written permission must be granted before syndication or rebroadcasting.