MI303: The Real Estate Playbook w/ Cliff Avril

21:54That'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.

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23:17To 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. Were you friends with DK at that point? Have you guys talked about your investments at all or anything like that? Or did you have anybody in the NFL that was like, hey, they're helping you out? There was a few guys like Ndamukong Suh. He was a teammate of mine in Detroit. He's big into real estate and he was somebody that I would converse with a lot.

23:57DK, no, I didn't meet him. I met him actually at a real estate conference, a real estate event. And come to find out, you know, he's into it. We had some mutual friends and then we've been cool ever since. You know, I just spoke to him recently, just talking about, you know, what he's thinking about doing now that he's retired, what I'm working on as well. And, you know, just to lab and talking about different strategies and different ideas. I wanted to hear about, you know, as an NFL player, there's people that just want your time, your money, your attention, all of that. How do you go about finding the people that you trust in whether it's real estate, investments, whatever it is?

24:29Talk to me a little bit about that, because you got to find people you trust. If you don't, it's rough. I think I have a little bit of a different and a unique situation in comparison to most other athletes. I give this example all the time. If you think of some of their smaller markets, the Detroit's, maybe not Detroit, but Jacksonville, the Cincinnati's, even Cleveland, the athletes probably are some of the top earners in those cities. In Seattle, we might not come top 2000 and I'm not even joking. You know what I mean? Like, you just got all these tech money out here, right? You have some of these different real estate companies.

25:02And so there's a lot of money flowing through the city. So for me, I have comfort in that because some of these guys don't need my money. I've literally had conversations where guys, they didn't necessarily laugh, but they chuckled like, oh, you made how much over your career? Like, oh, cool. We made that last year. So from an ego perspective, it could probably hurt your feelings. But for me, it's like, that's comforting because you don't need anything I have. So now I can actually pick your brain and you actually are giving me real information that's not biased. There's not a need behind it. There's no handout behind it.

25:32So that's comforting for me. And I'm big on networking. I'm big on meeting different individuals. And that's kind of how I've been able to build my, I guess, community of business folks that I could rely on for advice. So walk us through your first couple of investments that you did. You ended up renting to NFL players, didn't you? That's correct. That's correct. So the first real estate play that I've ever made was buying my mom a house. And then I'm like, oh, that's one of the best investments I made because going back and looking at it now, it's like it's doubled in value since then. But the actual investment that I bought was I bought the same year I got her, maybe three or four months after I got her, because I was very much into the whole real estate play was I bought a condo.

26:15And I was like, you know what? I know NFL players need places. I know what they need. So I bought a condo that was maybe 10 minutes away from the practice facility. I furnished it, washed and dry. All the players needed to do was come with their clothes and they're set. Because I know their schedule. I know what they need. So I bought that back in 2018 or maybe 2019. And it was cashflow and it's doing well because you're getting a premium on it. You're at nine-month rentals or even 12-month rentals. You're getting a premium because it's furnished. Then I'm like, you know what? This is good. Let me buy another one.

26:45I bought another condo, not too far from that, but same criteria, 10 minutes away from the facility, fully furnished. This one was a three-bed, two-bath, a little bit bigger just in case somebody had a family or whatever. Same thing, just printing money. I'm saying printing money essentially. I'm like, oh man, okay, now let's try to do this, but in another city now because my best friend is a general contract. I'm like, okay, I trust him. He was in my wedding. This is my best friend. So I'm going to try something in Chicago. This is my first time investing out of state, something a little far, but now I kind of have a structure of kind of what I want, a criteria of what I want, what I'm looking for.

27:21So I bought another condo out there and then bought another condo. So now I'm like, okay, these condos are great, but these HOAs are kind of killing me. They're killing the bottom line a little bit. So now I go from single to now I went about a triplex out there as well. And that was going well. We're renovating value add play, same kind of concept. Then I went big after that. I went and bought like a 58 unit from there. And we've kind of been buying bigger from there. So that's kind of been the trajectory. But you hear all these gurus, all these guys that are killing it in the game. They're like, man, just go big immediately.

27:51I'm a big believer in crawling before you walk. So I like the journey and the route that I've taken because I've gotten to learn through the process. But what I have learned is just as much energy as it takes to take care of a three unit, kind of the same usually goes into a 58 unit, right? But again, I like the way I went about it because you kind of get to learn the game with less money involved. So I like the way the journey I took, but I can understand why people say go big early before, leave the single family stuff alone and go big. I can see why they say it, but the route I took is it made more sense for me.

28:26To your point about walking before, kind of crawling for a while, I was listening to a podcast yesterday and the guy was kind of comparing real estate investing to getting a black belt in taekwondo or karate or brazilian jiu-jitsu whatever you start out as a white belt right and same in real estate you got to start off as a white belt work your way up to the black belt and that takes many years and you can accelerate that and go big you know eventually but i do think what you said is exactly right you got to crawl learn at when the stakes are low and then uh you know advance as you go so talk to me about that whatever earning your brown belt or whatever when you did that 58 unit.

29:00I mean, that's the big next step. What was that like for you? And where was that? So this one was in Huntsville, Alabama, actually, which is doing a really good job right now. So it's probably one of our best performing assets. But this opportunity actually presented itself from what I've realized with real estate real quick is real estate is the ultimate team sport. You can't do any of it by yourself. And football is a team sport. I think, and I implement a lot of the things that I learned in football to my business because Russell Wilson is a great friend of mine and he was a great, great, great quarterback.

29:33But Russell Wilson can't do any of it without a good running game or offensive lineman, right? Offensive lineman in front of him to protect him. Tom Brady, same exact thing. Drew Brees, same exact thing. So it's a team sport. Now, certain guys get the credit for it, but it's a team sport. And it's the same thing with real estate. You have to get out and network and kind of build your team, whether you're talking about brokers, lending brokers, whatever the case may be. And that's kind of what I was doing. I was emerging myself into that space and you start to meet different people. And one of my, he's a good friend of mine now, he's our lending broker.

30:04He's like, Hey, I have a lady that owns some property in Huntsville. She can't take the deal down by herself. Would you be down to partner up with her? I'm like, yeah, like send me a resume. But then also I want to kind of talk to her because partnerships are like a marriage. You know what I mean? Like you're locked in. So we communicated and then we had some really good conversation. We were aligned in kind of what we were looking to do. And I pulled the trigger with her. She already owned 120 units or so in the area. She already had the infrastructure. She had the team, she had the property manager.

30:34We wouldn't go see her properties and seeing how the management was going. And it just made sense. So that made that next jump a little bit easier for me because I was also partnering up with someone and I was able to pick their brain and their experience of owning bigger assets than what I was used to at the time. So it ended up working out really well. So I saw that interview that you did with her. Tell me her name again. Is it Nelia? Nelia. Yeah. So tell me some of the things that you learned from her. I mean, she'd been in the game for several years, it sounded like, and was in Seattle, had this project in Huntsville.

31:08Talk to me a little bit about what you learned from her. Nelia's awesome. I think the biggest thing is she actually taught me like having a team is important, but having structure is even more important, right? We have monthly calls. She's essentially like the asset manager, right? So we have monthly calls. She talks to the property manager probably weekly, if not every other week, because she has other assets as well. But I would say the biggest thing with her is making sure your structure for your company is correct, is on point. Make sure you have the meeting set up. Make sure your team understands what your expectations are.

31:44The property we bought, it was a big value add property. and watching her direct traffic. Obviously, I'm a part of those conversations and I'm telling her, hey, we should probably do it this way. It's a teamwork, right? She learned from me, but I'm more so learning from her and how she manages all of those different individuals, whether it's contractors, whether it's property managers, whatever it may be, the bankers, whatever it may be, just understanding how to navigate in that space. I think it's been huge for me because I've been able to implement that with all my other assets that I have as well.

32:14So talk to me a little bit about the partnership itself. Were you 50-50 partners and how did you divide up the work? I mean, it sounded like she was the one with the experience that knew how to do the value add. Were you primarily the financial backer or just talk a little bit about how the partnership works? No. So I don't care what kind of partnership it is. You're going to have to have some skin in the game when you're dealing with me. You're going to have to put some money into it too. And she was very much willing to do so. But what we ended up doing was we agreed to how much she would be able to put in and I would make up the difference or whatever the case might be.

32:48But then I gave her a little bit more equity because I knew she was going to be the asset manager. And she had to get us to the finish line of the refinance for that to actually kick in. So we put it basically like an NFL contract. Again, there's incentives to be able to get to the finish line, but also to own more of the asset. So that's kind of how we structured it. She became an asset manager. We gave her, I think I would say we gave her an extra 15 % that wouldn't kick it until we actually refiled and got the property stabilized. And it's been great. It's been great. And that structure, actually, I just learned it from, honestly, listening to podcasts.

33:20And it just made sense in that particular moment to be able to implement that. But she definitely has some skill in the game and then has a little bit more equity for her role as well. You mentioned the podcast, and I know you, when you work out, you listen to real estate podcasts. I'm just kind of curious who you listen to, what you like to listen to, what you've been into lately, anything that stands out. Oh man, it's funny. So I used to, I went from listening to music to listening to the podcast when I work out, but of course, you know, you start off with the bare pockets all there. They have so many different podcasts that you can listen to for beginners all the way through, you know, syndicators.

33:54I listened to actually Rod Khleif. I actually just went to one of his events last week. I think it was, I listened to, what's her name? I can't remember her first name, but the Cashflow podcast, there's quite a few of them. I mean, if we thumb through it, I can list them all, but it's quite a bit. And that's literally all I listen to every day, all day. I don't know what the hottest music is out right now. I don't know what the hottest movies that are rolling out because I seriously only listen to podcasts day in and day out to just learn. It's just a great opportunity to be able to learn from other people's experiences.

34:26And then at some point you just got to go implement it. Yeah, exactly. Are you on real estate Twitter? Do you follow any of the guys on real estate Twitter? There's a real estate Twitter? Well, I'm not really on Twitter, to be honest with you. I tell you what, check out real estate Twitter. It is a goldmine. I mean, absolute goldmine. And it's like a really super giving community. If you follow the right guys, like there's a handful of guys that you'll figure out who to follow, but I've been just really impressed with the real estate community on Twitter. So I am a part of a few different groups like on Facebook and different things like that to, you know, one, it helps with deal flow, but then also just again, to see how people are taking down deals in this environment right now too, right?

35:07So I'm a big, big believer in just immersing yourself into that community and just learning from people's experiences, you know, learning, like I said earlier, right? When I walked into the locker room, I looked for the veteran players in there because I wanted to learn from them and their experiences. It's no different with the real estate. One thing on real estate Twitter, now that I'm thinking of it, was I learned about cost segregation on real estate Twitter maybe last summer. So I've been doing deep dives into cost segregation. I had a guy on, Mitchell Baldridge is his name. He's got a company called Cost Seg Solutions.

35:40I think it's called. It's really interesting. He said in the interview that only like three to 5 % of real estate investors take advantage of cost segregation studies, which kind of blew my mind. But yeah, it is crazy. So I know that you're into it. Can you talk to me a little bit about your experience with it? Yes. Cost seg, I think is one of those things that it's a goldmine once you find out about it, right? Because especially if you're a real estate professional, I think there's so many ways to be able to use it. And I've had nothing but a great experience with it so far. I've done cost seg on every one of my properties to be able to roll all those essentially tax credits, write-offs, whatever you want to call it up front.

36:21And then, you know, you get to use those against any earned income or whatever else too. Right. So I'm big on it. I know they're kind of gradually kind of trying to phase it out right now, but hopefully, hopefully somebody gets in the office and kind of changes that, I guess. But yeah, no, I'm a big proponent of cost saving. I just think that if more people knew about it and understand it, because at the end of the day, I don't care what space you're in financially or occupation or profession. One of the biggest expenses you're going to have is going to be taxes. And I know, I feel like most people would like to mitigate that as much as possible.

36:54So if there's legal ways of doing it, you should probably do it. I mean, you should probably do it. I would rather get that extra tax money and deploy in the way that I feel needs be, whether it's because I do a lot of charity work as well. I would rather have that extra income to do the charity work that I want to do, right? Instead of giving it back to Uncle Sam or whatever the case may be. So I'm big on being able to try to save legally, of course, as much taxes as possible to be able to deploy and give back to the community as I see fit. Yeah, it's huge. It's something that I just did a study and I'm eager to keep doing more, but just so for our listeners that don't know, it allows you basically to kind of front end a lot of the depreciation expenses.

37:34So you take a ton of expense in the first year or so, you can do a hundred percent bonus depreciation. As you mentioned, they're phasing it out to like 80 % and 60%. I think right now it's at 80 % of - Yeah, for this year. Yeah. And I have seen whatever you talks about in the Senate or whatever, talks about getting it back to 100%. So we'll see, fingers crossed that that happens. I hope so. I think collectively, right? Because we have a housing issue in the country. There's not enough housing for everyone in America right now. So having little incentives like this allows people to get back into the development game, allows people to get back into one to get So like all of the assets that I own are value add assets.

38:16So I want to get into, I'm not saying in certain communities, but I want to get into certain pockets to be able to upgrade and add value to whatever property I purchased in. These different individuals and tenants love the property. And I also get a tax bill from that as well. Right. So I just think that's a need. That's a must for both parties, the people that are putting these projects together and also the tenants and everybody else, the housing issue that we have. I wanted to hear, have you explored opportunity zones at all? Have you been involved in any opportunity zones? I've looked into it, but I had to pull the trigger on any of them.

38:51I had the opportunity to invest in the opportunity zone fund, but I didn't pull the trigger on that either. But it's definitely interesting. There's so many ways to make money in real estate. You know what I mean? And what I realized, especially early on, because I was definitely the guy that was chasing every shiny eye. I had the shiny object syndrome. Oh, man, industrial, all men, multi-family, all men, single family. There's just so many ways to do it. And I just had to hunker down. I can't play quarterback in a defensive end at the same time. I need to focus on being great at this thing right now.

39:24I tell my wife all the time, you can't be great at multiple things at one time. You can be great at something and then move on to something else and be great at that, but you can't be great at all of them at the same time. There's not enough time to know. So I had to hunker down and say, I'm going to just do value add multifamily properties. And then once I get this kind of going, I'll start to look at other ways with the opportunity zones and learning the rules and regulations of that, which I'm sure I could do that with what I'm doing now. I just don't have the bandwidth to completely take on something like that right now.

39:57I hear what you're saying about the shiny object syndrome. I've got the same thing, like doing this podcast, I'm exposed to so many different people doing so many different strategies. And it's like, it's a real thing. It's a real danger. Oh, it is. It is. And then you just end up honestly, kind of going in circles a little bit and never really get good at what they say, a jack of all trades, a master of none or something like that. Like that's a real thing. And I just feel like you don't really get, you don't push your potential as much as you could if you just hunkered down and kind of just got great at one thing.

40:27Yeah. Focused on your niche. So right now it's multifamily value add. You're in Huntsville. Are you in other areas? I'm at Huntsville. I'm in Chicago and I'm in Seattle. And I know some people are in certain cities because some are tenant friendly, some are landlord friendly. Huntsville is very much landlord friendly. Chicago is tenant friendly. It's more of a tenant friendly type of city, but there's still opportunities, right? There's still opportunities. You just got to get creative a little bit, but those are the three markets that I'm in right now. And I'm looking to get more assets in the Southeast region for sure.

41:01What about Columbus? I heard Nealia, she mentioned Columbus, Ohio in your interview, I believe. She did. She did. So, you know, I like the Midwest. You know, it's funny because in 2020, when I was really getting things going, they're like, oh man, the Midwest is one of the markets you should probably stay away from. You know, they don't appreciate, they don't do this, they don't do that. But come to find out over the last three or four years, the Midwest, certain pockets, of course, whether you're talking about Chicago, you're talking about Columbus, Indianapolis, all those, they actually were the more stable regions in comparison to, you know, of course, everybody was down in Texas, everybody was down in Florida.

41:34Now things are kind of tapering off in those areas, but things continue to keep rising in the Midwest. So it's been interesting kind of watching kind of the progression of all these different regions. Cliff, I just wanted to ask a little bit about the projects with your wife. I know you guys have done some luxury spec homes in Seattle. Tell me about those. Tell me about your strategy, how you think about doing those projects, and then once the project is complete, what are you doing with the funds at that point? Yes. Working with the wife can be interesting nonetheless because you can't communicate with them like you would like to when it comes down to some of your other business partners.

42:11But I think after some trials and tribulations, I think it's all about having assignments, right? Knowing your position. I'm the defensive end. You're the DB. Like we do two different things, but we work together. Right. So once I kind of got that in perspective, you know, her role essentially is interior decorating her and my business partner's wife as well are both interior decorators. So they come in once we kind of get the process going, have the house drywall and all that good stuff. They kind of, you know, pick out the material for the floors, you know, and whatever other access that we might need.

42:45So that's kind of her role in the grand scheme of things. And then with the luxury homes, what we tend to do is obviously we flip them, we sell them. Most times or not, we try to pre-sell them, to be honest with you. Just it's always good to have a buyer already during the process because you don't have the stresses of trying to put it on the open market. Might take a little bit less, but that's OK because I rather, you know, I'm all about guaranteed money. Even when I played in the NFL, it's about guaranteed money. I didn't care how big the contract was. It was about how much money is guaranteed to come to me.

43:14And that's kind of how I approach this. And then once we get the proceeds, that's what we use to go buy multifamily properties. We go buy our distressed properties with those proceeds, and then we keep the principal there and try to flip it again with another house. And we tend to do that probably every 18 to 24 months. It's kind of our timeline as far as for being able to get a project going, flipping it, and looking for multifamily properties in the means on. 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.

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46:59That's theinvestorspodcast.com slash TIP-finance. All right, back to the show. And so the multifamily stuff is outside of Seattle, right? The distressed properties you're looking at, you mentioned Huntsville, Alabama. Are you finding anything else out there right now? Is there anything on your radar? So Huntsville, Alabama, I'm actually looking at a project right now out there that's a real big value add property. We're running through the numbers right now, but I love Huntsville market. It's one of the fastest growing markets in the country. A lot of jobs, a lot of occupations there as well. I like Chicago as well because I like the Midwest.

47:36Let me say that, but I like Chicago in particular because I have a team out there. I know the area, I know the market. I went to school not too far from there. Some of the rental things that you would typically try to shy away from out there is out there, but I like the market because I can add value and force appreciation. And then I'm looking, I love the Southeast region of the country, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama. I'm looking for some different assets there in particular, Jacksonville, Florida. I've been kind of looking and poking around there, but I think some opportunity will present themselves here in the next 12 to 18 months.

48:12And that's home originally, right? Jacksonville? Yes, yes, yes. I think it'd be pretty cool to own something back at home. I actually looked at trying to purchase the apartment complex that I grew up in actually a few years ago, but they wanted way too much for it. So I'm waiting to see when those numbers will come down, but I think it'd be really cool to own something at home. But also me starting my real estate business, and I mentioned this early on, is it's also about helping family and friends be able to invest in real estate for generational wealth. And I think something being close to home would help them understand the process a little bit more as well.

48:47So that's why another reason why I'm looking at Jackson. Is your mother, is she involved a little bit at all with the real estate stuff or do you want to get her and draw her in a little bit? She's my biggest investor. She's all in. She wished I would have started a little bit earlier because she just turned 65. So she's looking to her retirement plan outside of me, I guess. She wants to have some money put away. And she's always, hey, hey, let me know about the next project. I got a couple of dollars saved up, please let me know. I want to get some cash flow going and all that good stuff. So she's definitely involved from an investor standpoint.

49:20That's awesome. Are you looking at any other asset classes at all, like self-storage or industrial or anything like that? Does anything like that interest you at all? Are you going to stick to multifamily and like you said, stay in your lane? Exactly. That shiny object syndrome is real. When you first get started, I've looked at single family, multifamily. I've looked at self-storage, development, all those different things. And, you know, again, I go back to football. I can't be a great quarterback and a defensive end. It's either or. Like, you can't do both, right? And I'm a firm believer that you just can't be great at multiple things at once.

49:53I think you can be great at something and then move into another space and try to excel in that. But I don't think you can grow and be great at two things at the same time. So I try to stay focused with the multifamily value add. I'm still building up my criteria, but that's for sure the lane I want to be in. That's such a good point. I wanted to hear a little too about, do you have any NFL superstars that have gone on to a career in real estate that you admire, that you want to clone, that you want to copy their career at all? For sure. There's a couple in particular, Elvis Duerville. He was a heck of an athlete, heck of a defensive end, played, I don't know, 10, maybe 12 years in the NFL.

50:33And he's doing some big developments down there in Miami, South Florida. And I mean, he has a huge development, maybe like 300 or 400 units or something crazy like that going on out there. And he's been crushing it. He's doing his thing. And then a guy by the name of Terrace Murphy, he's actually kind of like a mentor to me. Terrace Murphy, he started off as a broker and he's built his company out to do, I want to say, well over a billion dollars in sales or something like that. Now, he's in the acquisition phases of his career and he's doing a lot, a lot of cool things. So I would say those two guys in particular are guys that I'm paying attention to.

51:07But I know quite a few other guys that are in the real estate space, but those two guys in particular are taking it to another level. Is that something you consider for yourself, like brokerage? Does that interest you at all, like the sales side of things or no? No, no. And I understand why that's the route he took because his career kind of ended a little early. We actually had the same career ending injury and that's how we kind of got connected or whatever. And I think he went in that phase. He went that route first because the capital piece of it, right? Being able to accumulate some capital to be able to go out and buy and hold some things.

51:41And that's where he's at now in his career. I think I could bypass that piece a little bit and just go right into being able to... I'm just big into just being able to own something and being able to get cash flow. I think wealth is cash flow. I don't think buying and flipping outside of taxes and all that other stuff. For me, buying and flipping isn't necessarily the game plan that I want to have. I think that's a great game plan once you get started to be able to accumulate and get some cash to be able to go buy some assets that you can hold on to. I wanted to switch gears a little bit here and talk about pickleball.

52:12I hear you're into pickleball. You've gotten into, did you buy a team? Tell me about your pickleball adventures. DC pickleball team, baby. I'm all in on pickleball, man. I play every morning, played this morning. I've got a group of us that play at five o 'clock every morning to get of cardio in. And I didn't start playing pickleball till this summer, actually, or this spring break during my kid's spring break. Guys, you know, we went to a resort and some guys that I knew were there and they're like, hey man, come play some pickleball. Needed something to do. I went out there, haven't stopped playing since.

52:46And I thoroughly enjoy it. And I like it so much that obviously I invested into a pickleball team. But one of the main reasons why I invested in the pickleball team was because I was playing this summer in Seattle. I was playing at a court in the middle of the day. It's probably like 12 o 'clock, one o 'clock. And I see about 20 high schoolers come there to play. I'm like, if the kids are playing at such an early age, it's true. It's a real thing to look into. And they come to find out my son has been playing for like two or three years as well at school. So I'm like, oh, it's a no brainer. If the kids are playing, this is the route I need to go in.

53:24So I thoroughly enjoy that sport. It's fun. So how does that work buying a team? Is it a doubles team? How does the whole thing work? I know Tom Brady has bought a team, LeBron has bought a team, Kevin Love, I think. We're all in the same league. So originally I was looking to try to find a franchise here in the Seattle market, but somebody already owned that. So for me, I actually partnered up with a group that already owned the team. They were already a part of the MLP and it's major pickleball league, NPL. So I just messed that up, but NPL. And I was fortunate enough to meet these guys. I started to kind of letting people know that I wanted to get into our ownership group.

54:03And these guys in particular, I've already known them, already had a relationship with them. So it only made sense. So it's myself, Odell Beckham, Katie Upton, I believe, and a couple of other big name individuals that are in it. And it's pretty cool. That's awesome. So what's your level? Like when you play, are you playing like three, five, four? I mean, are you like higher than that? I mean, I imagine. No, again, you know, you start seeing somebody, you go to some of these matches, right? You go, like I went to a tournament last year, right after, you know, I became a part owner and not last year, but this summer.

54:36And I thought I was getting good until I seen some of pros play. I think my doable rating is like a three, five. It's nothing too crazy just yet. But once you get to that four or five, you get to the fives, those guys are on a whole different level, you know, but I'm training and I definitely want to get above a four at some point, but I don't, I don't know if I'd practice enough to get to that level, but I, like I said, I thoroughly enjoy the sport. That's awesome. My co-host, Robert Leonard, who you originally spoke with, I think he's actually going to start a pickleball media company. So doing podcasts, doing a newsletter, doing events, stuff like that.

55:12So he should definitely do it. And what he does, please reach out to me and I'd love to just get on there and talk shop because you see some of these different athletes. Now they're making some real money too, but they just were signing guaranteed contracts and different things like that now. But to see the sport grow and to see some of these athletes and what they're able to do. And that ball's moving fast, man. It's a different pace. It's more fun than people think. I told some of my NFL guys, like, hey, man, playing pickleball now. They're looking at me like, what are you talking about? You're not playing basketball anymore?

55:43And then some of them, they get into it and then they fall in love as well. Yeah, it's addictive. It's a blast. My dad's 81 years old and he tries to play about three times a week. And my wife and I will play against my mom and him and they beat us. They play all the time and it's just a lot of touch and skill and there's a lot of strategy to it. patience oh man and that's why i try to tell like i'm thinking it's the new form of golf to be honest with you right you know how you can play golf till the end like pickleball somewhat of the same like you go out there and you see some of these these 60 year olds 65 year olds they will dominate you i mean like so it's it's uh i like it for that the longevity piece of it too wasn't pickleball was it founded around seattle like somewhere in that area right it yes bainbridge island it's uh like it's a you take a fairy to it but yes i mean come to find out some of these people have been playing pickleball for like the last 40 years you know i mean like i heard bill gates he's like yeah i've been playing pickleball since i was a kid what this is all new to us you know so it's huge out here it's huge out here that's good stuff i've seen franchises like it's we have one in columbus called pickle and chill and it's kind of like a top golf concept you know where it's pickleball but you got drinks food that kind of thing it's just entertainment in general.

56:58Do you have anything like that? Nothing out here. The group that I'm a part of, the investment group that I'm a part of, we are looking at franchising something very similar to that Pickle & Chill, but they're going to be popping up a little bit everywhere. I think that concept is going to be huge. Whether you just being able to go out, have some food, have a couple of drinks and still get out there and play. I think that there's going to be a lot of that going on. It's all about who market it the best to be able to take off like a Topgolf though. It's pretty cool. That's awesome. I loved hearing about the pickleball investment.

57:33So good luck with that. I hope it goes well. Me too. Me too. I'd admit, I typically don't do passion investments. You know what I mean? Because business is business at the end of the day. But I feel like although I love this sport I like it a lot. I do think there's room for it. It's going to boil down to how do you market it on TV? How do you watch it on TV? Once they figure that piece out, I think it takes off. Yeah. I mean, I know personally myself, I'll get on YouTube and just watch doubles. I love it. I did a tournament last Christmas and before the tournament, I just was watching hour after hour of YouTube pickleball stuff.

58:11You go down a rabbit hole. You go down a rabbit hole for YouTube, man. I wanted to hear too about your philanthropy stuff. You've got a family foundation. I know you're really involved with that and that's super important to you. Can you tell us about it? Tell us about just the mission of it and how much time you're devoting to it, some of the good stuff that you've been up to. Yeah. So we have the Cliff Averill Family Foundation. We actually just celebrated 10 years of some of the work that we've been doing. It's geared towards juvenile diabetes, but also the education system and health system in Haiti as well has been our mission.

58:45But we do a wide range of different things. And I'm just grateful, one, to do something like this last 10 years. But, you know, we host football camps in Jacksonville. We've host football camps in Haiti as well, have health fairs and different things like that. But the biggest thing we're doing right now with a big mission that we have right now is called the Cliffs Crew, which is 10 black and brown boys that I've been mentoring since they were in third grade. Now they're all in eighth and ninth grade. And it's all about exposing them to different professions that are just here in their backyard.

59:15But in general, unfortunately, you know, most black and brown kids in this country, they only see themselves as athletes because that's all we see kind of on TV. But I took them to like the Seahawks facility as an example. I took them to the Seahawks facility. And when you think of the Seahawks, you just think of the athletes. You just think of the guys on the field, but there's so many more occupations that are there in that building. You know, whether you talk about engineers, architects, you know, lawyers, chefs, doctors, the list is long, but you don't know that. And every one of those guys, when we won the Super Bowl, all of those guys got a Super Bowl ring too, because they play a big role in the success of that organization.

59:54But if you don't know that, you can't dream to be a part of that, right? You don't, if you don't know that you can't aspire to do these types of things. So I'm excited about that. And my goal is to take them all the way through college and hopefully, you know, go to their weddings when they get older or something like that. But it's been pretty cool being able to be a part of these kids' lives and try to, you know, again, expose them to different opportunities and different professions that they can become outside of being an athlete or entertainer. That's so awesome. So you've known these kids since they were in third grade and they're in eighth now?

1:00:24Yes, I've been with them since third grade. We meet every other week. During the summertime, we take trips. I just took them to D.C., Washington, D.C., this last summer for a week. And it was all about, again, being able to go to different organizations, lobbyists and different professions that are there in D.C. So just exposure. Went to the FBI, did a whole bunch of cool stuff. It was great. That is so awesome. And it's how many kids that you're involved with? Ten. Ten kids. Ten of them. That is so cool. That is a great idea. Thank you. No, it's been great. It's been great. Shouts out to my team, Jeanette Owusu, who runs my foundation.

1:01:00She does the day-to-day stuff while I try to build this real estate stuff out. Yeah, that's so great. Just that exposure is so important for anybody. There's so many things in the world that you can get involved in that if you don't know about. Oh, yeah, for sure. I want to hear what's next. 10 years down the line, if we were to talk, what are you going to be up to? I want to hear too your why. What is all this about for you? All right. I'll start off with my why, then I'll get to my 10-year plan. Well, the 10-year was pretty easy. I want to be retired, like actually be retired. But my why is, it's multiple things.

1:01:33My why is, I don't want to be a statistic, right? When it comes down to athletes and we all hear the stories and I think it's misconstrued a little bit, but at the end of the day, I still don't want to be a statistic. I want to be able to leave my kids something. I can't leave them the helmet. I can't leave them the pads, right? I want to leave them something that they can go out and continue to build and grow off of. And then along the same lines is, although I'm retired from one profession, I think it's extremely important for my kids to see me get up every single day and go to work. I don't want them to ever understand and believe that this just happens without putting me in work.

1:02:10Right. So I think it's extremely important for them to see me every day. Again, they see my routine. It's go work out. It's take them to school. And if they're off, they see me go to the office or be in my home office and working. My son goes to the projects, to my sites with me, taking them to Chicago to see some of the projects that we're working on here in the next couple of weeks. So I think it's extremely important, again, for them to see it, exposure, right? Seeing put work in and these are the results that you get. And then the last thing is, again, I want to retire and I want to be like, I want to have enough cash flow coming in to sustain my lifestyle.

1:02:45Again, I think cashflow is true wealth. Being able to have, I joke with these guys all time is like, I'd rather have a hundred thousand dollars coming in a month than have$5 million just sitting in the bank. See what I'm saying? That's true wealth to me. And that's what I would like to have. And I want to be in South Africa somewhere and that's still being generated. So that's my ultimate goal. That's my why. Those are my whys is I want to make sure, you know, the biggest thing is making sure my kids understand and see work being put in and seeing the results of. And you've got two sons, right?

1:03:19Xavier and Xander. Is that, did I get that right? Xavier Vanden. Yes. My two boys, 12 and my youngest turns eight here real soon. 12 and eight. And the oldest, you take him to the projects and see what you're up to. I think both of them. Taking both. Okay. Cause my oldest, he actually got to be a part of my career, you know, pretty much his entire life as far as for the NFL, right? Up until I retired. My youngest, he's like, dad, why do people know your name? Like, you're just dad to me, you know? So it's important for both of them because they both have two vantage points, different vantage points for both of them to see me doing real estate because honestly, the odds of them, I don't know if they want to play ball or not, but I understand the odds is very slim.

1:04:00But one thing I do know is this real estate thing, you can have a good startup platform to be able to scale and do some special stuff as well. So I think it's just extremely important for them to go to the projects, see what's going on, see how the numbers are ran. My oldest is starting to learn how performers work and different things like that as well. Awesome. So would your hope be for them to get into real estate or do you kind of leave it up to them to decide their own path in life? It's a tough role as a father, like how much to push and guide and let them follow their own North Star. I think the core principle of it all is to make sure you work for yourself.

1:04:37and create for yourself. Don't be dependent on anybody else. That's the core principle of what I want to show them and teach them. If they went into real estate, that would be great. But what I've realized is what your plans for your kids are and what the plans actually becoming is two different things. But I do want this to be an option for them. If this is the route they want to go in, I want this to be an option for them. But I'm not going to force it on them just like I'm not going to force football on them. I want to give them options. As a father, my job is to give them options and then they figure out what it is that they want to do in exposure.

1:05:08Right. So if they took, if one took over, that'd be cool. If they don't, you know, we'll sell it and hopefully they go create the next Amazon or something like that. I don't know. Yeah. Who knows? Right. So the, you said the 12 year old, does he hang out with any of the guys that you mentor, the Cliffs crew? Like, does he spend time with them? Both of them do. They both, yeah. When we go on these trips, they both go to them. Whenever I have my meetings, they both go to them. Cause there are certain things that I honestly, I talk to the Cliffs crew guys that sometimes I forget to even communicate with my kids sometimes.

1:05:36So I think it's important for them to be a part of all of that. But my 12-year-old is very much, he's more in it than say my youngest one, but they both are very much part of the Cliffs crew. That's awesome. So Cliff, this has been really great. Is there anything that we haven't touched on that you wanted to talk about at all today? Oh, no. I mean, I think we hit in there everything, man. I'm just grateful that I was able to join you, talk about a wide range of different things, talk everything outside of football, right? Most times tonight it's going to be football-based, but I appreciate you guys having me.

1:06:07I look forward to hopefully 10 years from not telling you how great us talking about this 10 years ago went and continue to keep building. So I appreciate it. And people can keep track of the journey as far as for the real estate stuff on TikTok. That's mostly all my real estate stuff and that's just at Cliff Averill. And then I'll post from time to time stuff on Instagram as well, which is again, at Cliff Averill. And if you get the chance, check out real estate Twitter. I think you'd love it. Yes. I have to check it out. I have to check it out. I definitely will, you know, just to see what everybody's talking about.

1:06:39I'm real estate. It's funny because the same approach I had with football, which allowed me to, I guess, have a little bit of success and I'm hoping it does the same is I'm real estate everything. I'm paying attention to different markets, trends, everything, just staying in the loop on everything. I think that's the only way to get better at this. Yeah. I mean, it's so, so much can carry over from football, all the practice and watching game film and all that can all, you know, carries over to real estate, whatever you do, like you can apply all those skills that, you know, you develop from whatever started and you started what high school, right?

1:07:12So you got a late start, but like it worked out great. It kind of worked out. So let's try to do it with real estate. Yeah, absolutely. Well, thanks Cliff. This has been awesome. Really appreciate your time. and best of luck with you. Thank you. Thank you guys for having me. I appreciate you guys. Okay, folks, that's all I had for today's episode. I hope you enjoyed the show and I'll see you back here real soon. Thank you for listening to TIP. Make sure to subscribe to We Study Billionaires by the Investors Podcast Network. Every Wednesday, we teach you about Bitcoin and every Saturday, we study billionaires and the financial markets.

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