Episode #31: Building Net Worth and Water Ice Authority with Keyon Whiting

[00:00:00] You need to be able to, like I said, mention before dream and imagine yourself in these positions. Doing the things that you're doing, and typically, I feel like a physical file is a mental.

[00:00:12] So along with old, I thought I was a million dollar business man and high school and graduate with honors. And along with old, I'm here with your podcast talking about a lot of it. I'm talking about, like, I'm like, my, my, this is in real estate.

[00:00:31] Right? So it works. Yes. It works. That's the imagination to think of it and then the hard work to get you there. Welcome to the podcast dedicated to real estate insurance and everything in between.

[00:00:49] Join us as we take you along our own brokerage building journeys with additional wisdom from our network of business experts. Welcome to Bricks and Risk. Welcome to another episode of Bricks and Risk. I'm Tim Gardy. And I'm Sean Mooney. M-O-O-N-E. Right? If you're on Instagram, look them up.

[00:01:19] It's a pretty funny account. There's really nothing on it. Not for that. So today we're talking to one of my friends, Keon Whiting, how you doing today, Ke. I'm on the amazing. Thank you for having me. Uh-huh. Thank you for coming here, man. We appreciate it.

[00:01:32] So a little bit about Keon. He's an associate broker and investor as well as an entrepreneur. He's been licensed in real estate for about 10 years. Specializes in commercial sales and leasing as well as residential sales.

[00:01:46] He focuses mostly on investor clients as he's an experience investor himself, which we're going to get into today. Uh-Kerley has a seven figure rental portfolio, which is super impressive.

[00:02:00] So I want to chat about that. And your true focus is really the client and their needs, which is awesome. So born and raised in Philadelphia. Yeah. Went to cut down university and in accounting major. Get all that right? Yeah, all right. Yeah. Cool. So let's dive in.

[00:02:18] So we know you're an agent. Yes. Yes. And we know you help people buy sell, invest, and you're an investor yourself. What's up for me? And having a rental portfolio as you do, you're more in the business of acquiring properties and holding them. What's definitely? Most definitely.

[00:02:37] So how did you get into that? Like what brought you into real estate investing? So senior year in college, taking the basic county, super hard class, super me teacher. I'll professor. We all had one in the other. Yeah.

[00:02:54] So after the pressing day of accounting, came in, watched me in the� in New York. Nice. You know Ryan Sarhan is on the screen. You know he's like, you know, original douchebag. Right, right. And the early days. And there was a... We actually interviewed him. Yeah? Yeah.

[00:03:14] He did to someone that. Yeah, yeah. And I was like, that is so me. Yeah. Okay. Well, well, well, well. This guy is douchebag re-order. Yeah. Reminds me of me? Yeah. He was meant to douchebag wear. He was like, you know, rude and I read it. Yeah.

[00:03:36] He was just telling people to truth. Yeah. Hey, your budget is just too low. We were shopping alone for a long time. You need to make a decision to deny getting what you're going to... You're not going to get what you're expecting. Yeah. What is budget?

[00:03:47] And I thought that was like, hey, I wouldn't mind telling people the truth about real estate. Yeah. It makes for good TV. It makes for great TV, right? But it does make its smoother. You're right. Yes.

[00:04:00] You know, just being straight up straight up straight up straight to the point and up front and honest with their client about their expectations and what they're actually going to get with their budget. Yeah. All right. Getting the most bang for your book.

[00:04:10] So watching that, I was like, hey, And then after that, the commission check comes at the bottom. Like he made 400,000 dollars. You bust out your calculator. Like what person? Yeah. I'm like 10 deals a year. I'm like, hey, you know,

[00:04:25] I'm not the target in accounting job for 45 to $50,000 out of school for a whole year. And I'm like, that's just not for me. Yeah. That's going to real estate. Got my license while I lost the...

[00:04:37] Well, starting to get my license around my last semester college and then after that it was off to the reasons. Yeah. So you get your license. You know, you're seeing, you know, the shows that we watch with million dollar listing, you know, there's L.A. There's New York.

[00:04:51] There's a bunch of others. And so, but you're getting an accounting degree. Right. So when you're going through, you know, again, business is business. You're going to learn all sorts of different things. So you're getting your accounting degree. Most people getting an accounting degree from a good school.

[00:05:05] They're like, okay, where am I going to go work? And you're like, ah, I'm going to go be an entrepreneur. What's that for me? Like what? So why before the end of college, you're going to go on the interviews and stuff to meet with accounting firms,

[00:05:17] and maybe you returned off by there. You just already knew I just want to go hustle like do my own thing, grind and build something. So before that, I would always have jobs on a college. Going somewhere, I was working three jobs and some...

[00:05:29] And the foreign college, I was about to add a club. I was working at the dining hall. And I would come back on the weekends and do like security at, like in financial fields for different to ask any people out? No, no, no.

[00:05:42] I was on the field once. I was on the field. So you got good clean security, you're not in the stands. I just scored people out. I looked out. Yeah, looked out. That was like big show. Was it big show? It was a big show. Bouncer security gore.

[00:05:55] Yeah, so whenever I made a job, I typically always rush like the management level. Yeah. So it's just like, I'm tired of working for people. I think I was smarter. I didn't... all the people I'm working for. Okay. So I'm from my money, my mouth.

[00:06:09] Then come out money with my mouth-is. Here we got a day and it worked out. So yeah. Here's what I see in your future, ready? Right. Million dollar listing filled out you. Whoa, no. That'll be pretty sweet. You got that, not that.

[00:06:25] I'm kind of phasing out the sell side. We still do it right now, but once I get to 20 units, you know, just kind of falls all that in. Yeah, and we were talking about that recently that you've been doing it 10 years.

[00:06:38] Again, this is one of those industries as you've heard us talk about before the people who listen and watch that. I mean, five years or less, almost 90% of people are going to get in and get out. Yeah.

[00:06:50] And you and I know, I mean, I've been doing this 15 years. You've been doing it 10. Right. It's easy to burn out. Oh my gosh. You could have the best clients in the world. Yeah. It's just... it's a tough industry. It's constant ups and downs.

[00:07:03] You never know where your next deal is coming from. As much as people say they do, they don't. And then you get a deal in a fall soon. You're just like, all right, now what? Like it's tough. So yeah.

[00:07:13] So talk about, you know, another thing I wanted to talk to you about today because this came up when we recently saw each other is you recently bought a franchise of redus. Yes, we just waterized. Yeah, we just waterized. We just waterized. We just waterized.

[00:07:27] What do I see? You know, let's go back here. Let's go back here because, Real estate, you're in it. And now you're talking about like getting out of it, not getting out of it, but like blowing it down. So we're going to sell us part of it. Right.

[00:07:40] Getting more into the investment part of it, like the one multi family conversions. That's kind of where the real money is made. So slowing down on your day-to-day real estate, Yeah, run around biologists. Real estate agent being a real. Being a realtor.

[00:07:56] And focusing more of your time on investments for yourself, for company, for others. For myself. Thinking about, you know, maybe going for others, starting a group. Yeah. And buying a portfolio and running a managing that portfolio. It's still kind of up in the air now.

[00:08:14] I have enough residual income to retire technically. Yeah. But now it's just like, uh, I want how big can I take this thing? Right. Because I never thought I would be even here on a podcast, talking about my 10 year career, my investments, and things like that.

[00:08:31] So, uh, and is it, is it, I guess the question I want to ask is, is it because you enjoy that more? You see that just a financial benefits of spending your time there. Like, how's that pulling your attention? And why are you choosing to go that route?

[00:08:48] Or maybe just the day-to-day real estate agent, just, you know, will I been dealing this great? Yeah. Right. You know, but sometimes you have untapped potential that you don't know about yet. Yeah. And it's kind of more about chasing that untapped potential

[00:09:05] that, you know, I want to pick up my life and, you know, hey, I helped hundreds of buyers buy homes, right? And in fact, they're, uh, generation, uh, their generation, right? Yeah. With, uh, home ownership. But now it's just like, well,

[00:09:20] can I do a big building and leave, like, a legacy here, or my name on the, like, what a platform to building? Yeah. So it's place. We're writing apartments, or something like that. So, you know, I want to do some big things. So it's a broader view.

[00:09:35] It's a grand review that you've seen for yourself. Yeah. I think, um, you know, as we get older, we forget to dream sometimes, right? When you, when, you know, you get 30 plus, uh, life's, sorry, scared of 40 plus. You know, life's our creeper behind, right?

[00:09:54] And, you know, you kind of get into this pessimistic mindset. But, um, and you forget to dream. You forget to, say I could do, I could do things like this. We're recalibrate. Like, we're so into the day and the day and the day and the day.

[00:10:08] And in the grind and the grind and the grind. It's like, you're absolutely right. Is that you forget, like, like, how I started, right? Like, I had this dream of like, I want to do this. So I want to do that. And then it's like, all right, you,

[00:10:20] I'm running the tree kids later. Yeah. You're like, uh, yeah. But lost yourself. Not that you lost yourself. It's like, part of your identity, right? Like, part of that what got me here is like, Vaughan. Okay. So I think, I think you're right. I think it's, it's,

[00:10:36] You almost owe it to yourself. Yeah. Right. To like, what can I accomplish? Right. Set some bigger goals. Right. And try to hit them or maximize it. And I think that, I think that's just an awesome way to go about it. Yeah.

[00:10:53] And sometimes you have an identity crisis last year, right? Yeah. I became a network millionaire. It was, did anything like kind of cause that was at that moment that you realize that and you're like, whoa. Well, what happened was I thought it would be like a rat video.

[00:11:06] Right. Right. We can make that happen. Hey, line, it's not. We can make that happen. We can make that happen. Yeah. We're recording that right after this. So put it in the net. You know, you came a network from millionaire.

[00:11:19] And I'm thinking like, hey, you know, it's a done deal. The rap. This is what I always wanted and then you hit your goal. And you're 32. 32. Yeah. And the rest of congratulations. Thank you. And you're like, oh, this is not what I expected.

[00:11:34] You know, this is, you know, it's not driving nice cars and fast women. Right? Right. Hey, you're like, maybe here and there. No, it's like, hey, I have to handle responsibilities. Yes. And you know, I have employees now. Hey, I have properties with tenants in them.

[00:11:55] And I have to upkeep those properties now. Hey, we're doing 30 to 50 transactions a year. Hey, I got to make sure that these my clients are buying proper housing and there were firm clients and with all the marketing for that. You all marketing for that.

[00:12:12] You know, got management financing. So a lot of moving parts that you have to grasp. So that's what's kind of where I did. Shef came from like, hey, this is a full on-of-full on business man. And I got to have fun with it. Right?

[00:12:29] And grasp things that I think are unattainable. That's the only way to fill a life when you're a business man. So that's new. I didn't do anything I assumed and then I'm working towards. All right. So let's go back a little bit to we were talking about readas.

[00:12:46] Right. I'm big read as fan. Hey, so if I go to read as my daughter loves it, she's like the small vanilla Custer with the rainbow sprinkles, that's the way she rolls. Right. I'm a peanut buttermilk shake dude. Hey, people are probably like, what?

[00:12:58] And I'm like, yo, right at the awesome. Okay. So tell me about your your hustling and real estate. You better believe it. So I'm going to ask him his favorite flavor. You just went through your whole family's menu. You know what I'll do? I'll let you ask him.

[00:13:15] Yeah. What's your favorite flavor? It depends with day to week it is. You have a guy. You have a guy. You a water ice guy, you a water ice guy or a you an ice cream custard dude.

[00:13:28] I get a I get a I get a Mr. You know. Okay. Ren apple Mr. is my. Yeah. That's all this all. And that's nice. That's my lunch. All right. So now we know. Yeah, we know. Yeah. You can move on. Yeah. All right. So water read us.

[00:13:48] Yeah. So franchise system and it already exists. You didn't build one from scratch with one of those already are someone was selling it. Yes. You went in with a partner. Yes. Talk about that a little bit. Well, one why did you choose a partner?

[00:13:59] Like why did that make sense. So funny story. So I was in the I was in my first multi family conversion, which is turning a single family to a doplex. I fully do if you. I was at a networking event for jumpstart German town. Yeah. Okay program.

[00:14:11] But not a no program and Weinstein. Can Weinstein. Yep. They hooked no inventory and the wind of mentors they hooked net with on nine readers. Oh, what? So all in filly all in filly. Older gentleman.

[00:14:25] You know he's winding down and he's up with you through the process of the film department. It's the one not a, you know, brings opportunity to me. This is like good business and whatnot. And I'm like okay cool. I'm in the middle of, you know,

[00:14:40] I may not have to transaction and going a re-adverting converting single families to deflects. Converting single families. You feel free which is not easy. So, you know, I'm like, okay cool back burner thing. Yeah. And I have an extra 40,000. I'm on it.

[00:14:56] You know, then cleaning all the stuff up on one. One like college friends, sort of house two. He calls me up. He's like, he on. I'm looking for a laundry mat. All right. Look at this laundry mat. You know, nothing, nothing comes from it. Right.

[00:15:12] So he's like, he, I have any other business opportunities to give me a call. You're like, what do your thoughts on? What do you write? Not yet. Yeah. I'm just like, I'm like, yeah. Okay, I got you, you know, we'll get around to it.

[00:15:26] We'll get around to it. We'll get around to it. And then we'll get over that. Yeah. Okay. You know, we'll get over that. Hi. One more time. I need some of this. I need some. You saw some good dollar. Yeah, yeah. Let's, let's, let's, let's, let's, let's go.

[00:15:43] Yeah. Hey, listen, I'm sitting on this. We just do. You want to come in with me. Let's make some happen. It was like, it was that quick. It was that quick. being a solo agent and being self-employed by yourself and depending on yourself

[00:15:59] is great. But when you have a partner, you know, you could really do some great things. So he came in. He did like a lot of the calculations for everything. I think he's an investment banker. He says, if I could do, I might not, not, not, not.

[00:16:19] I'm not buying nothing at a transit value. We're going to get it below a transit value just in case, you know, some history of the world. Yeah, yeah. It's be bound to slow us down. You got to get rid of it.

[00:16:29] I get rid of it. No machine. So he's like, my partners are really sweet hard guy, right? He's like, let's just give him asking price now. We need this for all right. We need 400,000 dollars below price. I know. Hey, we got it. And I'm a man.

[00:16:48] I'm in his asset all the way through and he really kind of opened my eyes up to more partnerships with the right people. So yeah. Very cool. Yeah.

[00:16:57] So it's about about a year. It's about a year in July. Yes. Yeah. And how do you like it so far? How do you like?

[00:17:03] Well, first of all, the food service industry, you know, we're not experts on that. Obviously, I mean, you are now, but like for yourself. Well, I did use to cook for an entire friend. Like we've talked about before. So I do us a year. Yes.

[00:17:18] So being in that industry, type margins and read is for people who don't know, read is is a seasonal business. That's not open all year because who the hell is going to eat, you know, our listener. Rice and January December. Really? Yeah. There's people out there.

[00:17:34] Our listeners in Albuquerque don't know what that is. That's very true. And El Paso. El Paso. El Paso. People don't know. He'll do the great out there now, Paso. Yeah. That's how it could not. Yeah. It's a full year business. Yeah. Yeah. Most definitely.

[00:17:47] Nice. All right. So like you've been in the food service industry and you're managing employees. How do you like that part? Managing employees. It's again, you're just self developing so much. I'm going to have a lot of work.

[00:18:03] So managing employees, I'm a cool, I might have an earlier off of Shark Tank. Yeah. You can't make it your fire. My business partner. He's like, give him a chance. Kevin, I'll raise my boy by the way. So I hear you on that.

[00:18:17] Yeah. You'll have a chance. Give him, you know. Oh, they're dog was sick. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Stuff like that. So I had to want to find the whole staff. Wow. Yeah. Bring in the whole new staff in there. So I was in there. Everyone. Everyone. So.

[00:18:30] I'm going to have a lot of work for you. A few of the kids will end up coming back. Oh, you missed her unwonderful. Yeah. So no big big big for a job's back. And since then, you know, we increased revenues. I want to say about 30 percent.

[00:18:45] Wow. Actually, a couple new streams like Door Dash or we eat scrub hub. Is that like do a lot of people use? Oh, good. Really? How do you transfer it? You got to put in like a special cooler or something like that?

[00:18:58] No, just send it. So it's close to nothing. You're picking up a lot of things. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, I was doing this thing great so far with that. I'm getting back to the food service industry.

[00:19:10] It's really a cut-through business. Number one reason I went into the business was the menu small. So anytime again to a restaurant business, you need to have a precise menu. Yeah. It's like very simple and very simple and deviate too much. Because spoilage would really kill the business.

[00:19:28] Right. So I had like a big menu where, you know, we had pieces, cheeses, everything. I wouldn't have gotten into it. But since I'm only serving, you know, what are I using? Cluster to Brussels. There's not a lot of ways. The profit margins. Great. Yeah. For me.

[00:19:45] How long did it take you to get in? Just rewind. Like when you were working with that mentor. Right. How much worked did you put in to kind of vet the business and like, because you're talking about,

[00:19:57] oh, I wouldn't get into business if it was, you know, personal food or stuff like that. Right. Like how much homework were you doing? It seemed like you're doing a lot. Like you kind of like get dialed into exactly what you wanted.

[00:20:10] Right. And this kind of fit them all. Well, first of all, when they're going into business, that's all entrepreneurs. You need to have a mold first. Right. So that's about one.

[00:20:22] Like with real estate, right? I had five different schemes of income with less of cells with the actual rental properties and other five different schemes of income. Before any, before I invest in any business, the business had to have multiple

[00:20:36] schemes of income. Yeah. Okay. So for the read is for an example, we have the front door cells. Yeah. We have the door dash with the weeds, we have the grab hub and then we also have catering.

[00:20:46] Yep. So we've done, we've done that before we did that. My daughter's first birthday party. Right. That's right. So I'm not getting into any business that doesn't have multiple schemes of income or garlic. And that's just because why I just wanted just it could kill the business.

[00:21:00] One killer business. Yeah. Yeah. He got had your bet. Right. To got to have a seat. A margin of safety. Okay. Motu-shings of income asset margin of safety. Yeah. Safety, the brand name again, margin of safety.

[00:21:16] People are going to come to it because they know the brand anymore product. Also, again, the small menu, mail a lot of sense and then a little spoilage.

[00:21:26] And how did you know this? If you if you didn't have exposure to restaurants or you know food service or any of that like you know, so I have a habit of well, I have a good habit or good tenants. You're hanging around older people.

[00:21:40] Yeah. So they're typically the wisest. Yep. So you're one buff it, you know, he just kind of has strategy where five business below a little transit value also have a a margin of safety. So it's just kind of those things that I think that's fundamental. Yeah. Fundamental opportunities.

[00:22:01] So yeah, I'm not going to say that. So yeah, I'm not going to say that. And then I take the same approach with real estate as well. So my portfolio, you know, only by properties that are about 80,000 unless I have a little more

[00:22:12] more more second given to me. The mortgage is typically around four three to four three to five hundred dollars. Okay. Yeah. And that price range. So at worst, come to worse, the market tanks. I know like we went a three-bedroom one back from house out where 700 hours. Exactly.

[00:22:29] Worst case scenario. And you're still getting a good return. I'm only paying four five hundred. Exactly. So you're applying those that same kind of business strategy all across the board. Yeah. And I'm not moving from that strategy unless, not moving from that strategy. Yeah.

[00:22:47] You got to have this a plan. You got to have this a plan. You got to have this a plan. You got to have some flexibility with investing. But I'm not really like a multi-level marketing business. I'm not touching it. All right.

[00:23:03] I don't have time for all this stuff. Hey everyone, this is Tim. Your favorite bricks and wrists co-hosts. But don't tell Sean. I hope you're enjoying this episode. And I'll get right back to it in a moment. Our audience grows through word of mouth.

[00:23:17] So if you would please take a moment of your time and give us a review on the platform you're on, that would be fantastic. Please also help spread the B&R word by sharing your favorite episode with a friend. We greatly appreciate your time and trust.

[00:23:32] Now back to the show. So I got a really good one next. And this one, I told you it came from my brother Ryan. So very wise. Older man. Very wise older guy. He was listened to the podcast and he was like, This is a good idea.

[00:23:51] I'm like, that's a great idea. So one thing we like to ask now is that being a business obviously. It's not a kick walk. It's anything. There's usually more failures than there are successes. So we call them struggles.

[00:24:03] So basically, one of your biggest struggles you've said in business has been raising capital. Because it sounds like everything you've done. You've earned your money. Yes. You put in your own capital and you leverage your rest with a good financial mortgage lending contact. Yes.

[00:24:17] So why has raising capital from outside investors in tough for you? Like what have been your struggles with that? So obviously you have some stuff, some self reservations about it. But I don't like borrowing money from people. I like only people and anything. Two young, young, only 32.

[00:24:38] You know, what kind of experiences are stated in mind by the way? Age is a state of mind. Well, it's track record. People look at that. It's like, 32. I just feel a bunch of money. Yeah. I think young black milk and kind of please.

[00:24:52] Because like this guy, Jane Morrison. You know, that was a terrible thing. He did, you know, with that. It's also really safe on it, whatever. It kind of gives everyone like a bad reputation or bad image. Yeah. When when you see something like that happens. Yeah.

[00:25:09] It's like, you know, be careful. Like careful people have been burned on. And people will shy away from those types of opportunities. Yeah. So yeah. What can you do about that, right?

[00:25:19] So, and then for you, so raising capital has happened more in the way of like you want to kind of start a fund. If you do things or if you looked at deals and tried to raise capital, what's been your approach so far?

[00:25:32] So my approach so far has been household, really safe, cells. You know, save the money and invest it. And then if I lose my, I lose the money. Right. As a addition, as a addition, you got to put your client. You're put your client above all else.

[00:25:47] And I don't think that I'm. I don't want to take on the stress kind of take on the stress of using up your old money, just yet just in case if you even $100,000 in a go to zero, I'll make sure you just $100,000 back.

[00:26:01] But I need to have enough residual schemes to income to cover that $100,000 just in case. You know, so yeah. We're just getting with the right people that can afford losing $100,000. Yeah. But yeah.

[00:26:15] I'll still kind of sick like man, you know, you and I'll give you an example from personal experience. Right. So we've done two big development projects. Now, one was a turn key.

[00:26:28] We knew the person selling a building and it was already like 90% least and we had to raise capital. And you know what I mean? We were just talking about this before we're not. I'm big on my network as a shan as are you. Right.

[00:26:40] So when we bought this building, we're like, okay, we need to raise $600,000. All right. It's a lot of money. Yeah. But we're like, how are we supposed to leverage this building as an asset? We got a ready-willing enable seller. Right. We want to buy.

[00:26:56] We got a good team. We can manage it. We can improve it. We can lease it. Like we have all the pieces in place to make this as valuable in assets it could be. The only thing we didn't have was the capital.

[00:27:08] So we looked at like, well, where would we go? Would we do just like a general thing where we put it out there and like you throw in $1000.

[00:27:15] You know, and just you get a couple hundred people to give your money or do we go to our most trusted connections and just say, hey, have you ever thought about putting some money into real estate?

[00:27:28] And the people that we asked, we already kind of had an idea that they were interested in that. We're like, okay, the minimum is 50,000. We're looking for a hundred. So hopefully we get like six investors, maybe seven. And that's how we get this building.

[00:27:40] Oh, I think we got about seven or eight. I think that's what it was. All friends and family, like people we know. And that thing's been performing great. But yeah, to your point, I think the fear of taking someone else's money and you're not completely sure

[00:27:56] as to whether you will be able to return it is tough. Also one thing with raising capital, setting expectations. One of the biggest questions we guys like, what's your plan with this thing? But it's wonderful that you want 600 grand and that the numbers look great.

[00:28:11] What are you going to do with it? Right. Right. And most of the time we're just like, it's a 10 year hold. I can do anything else with it not looking to sell it.

[00:28:19] You know, if we can leverage it even further, if the value goes up, the rents go up, we can pull capital out of it or turn it back to you guys.

[00:28:27] So now you're getting your cash back but you still own this thing and you're still getting a return. So that's kind of how we did it. And not to say there's not one right way or one wrong way, but us never doing anything like that.

[00:28:42] By going with our most trusted connections, our most trusted relationships and just saying, are you interested in investing in real estate? Prove to be a really good strategy. Also what worked for us is that we already had a deal.

[00:28:55] So are you having a deal and knowing that this is a tangible thing that people can look at? They could go drive by it. Right. You know, you want to see numbers? Here you go.

[00:29:04] So those kind of things I feel like help with raising capital, meaning as long as they can see exactly what you're doing, they can look at the building that can drive to the area and makes people feel more comfortable because I know people have done syndication. Right.

[00:29:18] So people have they put 5,000, 50,000, 100,000 into a real estate fund or a re or something like that in different areas of the country. You know, people are, we're investing in the Carolina as we're investing in our console, I'm investing in Texas and that's cool.

[00:29:35] You can't really go drive by it. You know, and you really don't know, sometimes the funds they don't even have the assets yet. Right. They're just like, now we need to raise the money to go buy the asset and then once we have

[00:29:46] the asset, we'll let you know. And that's another way to do it. There's plenty of ways to do it. But I think the reason that came up is like knowing that you are where you are and

[00:29:57] you're interested in doing this, you know, maybe some advice would be like, go out, see if you can find an asset through the people you already work with you work with investors just like you found the readest. Right. Same it. You know good people jump start germillation.

[00:30:12] You go to someone there like, I hate chance you got any multifamily buildings or buildings that could be converted to multifamily that you either want to sell yourself or someone else and usually I mean, I hate to say it like if they're a little bit older

[00:30:25] and they might be looking to wind down. That's a great way to be like, okay, you know, I know plenty of people in my never same thing. They just had someone they knew and they just said, yeah, I'll sell that to you or talk

[00:30:38] to this guy or this girl. They want to sell something. I mean, that's how we got. I think when this episode air, you're going to get 10 phone calls. People are going to want to live with you. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:30:51] Well, see my strategy again is my rental profile is in North Philadelphia. Yeah. Okay. My ROI is 20% plus. Okay. But again, if you are, so the money paying $300 a month. Right. $359. It's a conservative balance. Yeah. Return. It's a great return. But now I'm not returning. Yeah.

[00:31:12] Now I'm losing. I've got almost my properties before. Hold it. Hold it. Like I'm where I'm probably on the apple street for 73,000 dollars and don't just, you know, you had to have like a main knowledge with that worth in order to franchise requirements. They even be considered. Yeah.

[00:31:29] So that's really cool. Yeah. My portfolio. I think you have to have a, what else we ate alone collateral. Okay. Hey, 73,000 dollars for the house 2001. Now it's worth 165. See, my method doesn't even, I wasn't even. He was back during the year. Yeah. That's a good solution. Yup.

[00:31:49] Of my property. Yeah, that's a good solution. This is a cash flow. Yeah. And that's kind of my method. Just looking at cash flow. I was you're in a accountant. Yeah. I'm a place in part. Yeah.

[00:31:59] They have a place of pretty big part and, you know, that really helped my business as well because it's a little fork. Cool. It was like six times the other. Yeah. Yeah. Just a little fork. You can take off. You just have a question about the readers.

[00:32:12] When you bought the readers, did you also buy the building? Or was it just the business? So it's like, it's a lease. So it was a one critical business mistake that I made. I should have worked a building with it. Yup. And was that an option upfront?

[00:32:27] It wasn't option upfront. It wasn't option upfront but it didn't make sense. Yeah. It still doesn't make sense now. But now that I like over a 10 year term of the lease. Yup. You know, it makes a lot more sense because it's like,

[00:32:43] I'm like, you're given this guy money anyway. I would have to do what don't actually $50,000. Yeah. You know, here's what I would say. Do the deal now before that guy sells it to someone else. Now you're, or, well, here's another question.

[00:32:55] Do you know if the owner owns it outright or if the owner has a mortgage? We already went through all that and, Pete is a mortgage involved in the work. So, you know, it was just,

[00:33:09] I think it was, I made a brilliant purchase with the actual business of it. But I didn't factor in the real estate, which was a critical mistake. Hey, you know what's, I thought I was on the board to build a building with in 10 years just paying rent payment.

[00:33:25] Yeah. Right. Well, you know, and then another suggestion would be, you talk to the owner and be like, could we do a lease to own? Maybe I pay you a little bit more rent right now, but some of that's going to go into a pot

[00:33:37] because when I buy this thing in five years from you, like, I want that pot of money to go toward myself. Like, we talked about that. We needed like, you know, six figures of front. Oh, wow. Yeah. So, we could admit it.

[00:33:51] It was just like, no, I could do a lot with, like, I'd do a lot with $100,000. Yeah. Size just given it to you for this. It'll probably, you know, it'll either work out the way. It's a poet like, you're either long enough to know like,

[00:34:05] how I put a lot of value in this location. Yeah. I mean, technically because it's like a franchise could you only move within a certain, I'm going to use it with two of a certain distance and more importantly, what commercial real estate to is,

[00:34:16] we're going to look at the highest and best use of the building. Yeah. Highs and best use for the building. I am in is a, so read us, you know, that's not the square footage. You just too small for any other notable.

[00:34:29] So something's going to have to get. Yeah, that's something to have to get. That's, that's crazy. That's it. Hey, you know what? It's every time you say what it could have showed us, it's time to look back and learn. Yeah. And then plan.

[00:34:44] I'm planning, I'm planning better because we're a child by no location, hopefully for it into year. Nice. So I'm glad to be in a profit margin is, you know, one plus for set. Maybe we'll, maybe we'll sling some. What are I supposed to say? Hey, feel free.

[00:34:57] Really, really, really. We're always trying to diversify. That's good stuff. All right. So go back to real estate a little bit. So you're in a associate broker. Yes, which meant you had to, so for people who don't know

[00:35:09] in Pennsylvania, you can be a salesperson or you can be a broker. In your salesperson, it's really just go through your basic classes. You do all the hours. You study for your task, you pass your test. Boom, you're in real estate.

[00:35:20] You can help people buy sell, rent, invest residential industrial commercial, whatever you want to do in Pennsylvania. And then the next level up is your broker's license. So you can be a broker of record like for your own company.

[00:35:34] And you're the one in charge and the one who's liable. What do you mean associate broker, like you are, which means you have what I like to call the masters in real estate. Yeah. But you work for another broker of record. Yeah.

[00:35:48] So what made you want to get your broker's license in real estate? I just want to be an expert in my field. Yeah, really. Just you wanted that master's degree. You needed that master's degree. And just for certain,

[00:36:02] our yo accounts just easier when you're going to a listing presentation. Yep. It just made, you know, I want to be a master of my craft. I don't want to be a part-time guy where I don't know what's going on or this and that.

[00:36:19] And then you get into a lot more financial equations and things of that nature and a deeper dive into real estate. So, you know, real estate is my foundation to my network. So I need to know everything about it.

[00:36:32] It sounds like you're in everything that you do that you're always just trying to maximize opportunity. You're trying to like get the most out of it. Yeah. Right? And so doing that extra step to become a broker,

[00:36:47] I mean, it sounds to me like you're just starting here and you just see it as like, step by step by step, step to go up to go up to go up. I'm very competitive. Nice. And now he's trying to push the limit.

[00:37:01] I want to push the limit on. Were you an athlete? Yeah. Was it athlete but didn't do nothing with it? I was always working. Was your work. Basketball. Okay. Nice. So that we got in the ring with boxing but basketball,

[00:37:15] you know, I don't feel like he could've been great. You know, I was always working. I mean, as a teenager just just working. That's awesome. Yeah. I love it. One question we ask is, you know, what do you love most about you doing? You said helping people.

[00:37:30] That was awesome. Talk about that a little bit. I mean, real estate is definitely an industry where people are like, I'm gonna get rich. I'm gonna make all those money. It's like, I mean, yes, you can.

[00:37:39] But the real passion in real estate in my opinion as well as yours is really just helping people get to where they want to go or they're buying, selling, renting. It's like everyone's got to go somewhere. Sometimes it's a life event, you know, they're, someone died.

[00:37:54] They're getting divorced and about to have first kid. They're about to have their 10th kid. You know, they're getting married. There's all sorts of reasons. So why does that drive you? Well, I'm from North Philadelphia. And I'm going to talk ages in North Philadelphia. Why not 132, 334, and 344. Okay.

[00:38:12] So I feel like those are underserved communities. I would agree. Obviously. And, you know, when you get into the real estate, right? Every one I want to sell a million dollars. Right? But the honest opinion about that is they're just not enough demand for you sell million

[00:38:31] dollars or enough supply for you sell million dollars. And if you're a rookie, no one's in a company. Right. Maybe they're million dollars. You're not getting it. Hey, you're gonna take a picture on your iPhone of this house. No. I saw the, if you used an iPhone.

[00:38:44] Every iPhone. You saw that. Oh, yeah. So, you know, most people don't even know that, you know, for a million dollars, typically doing anywhere from $1,000 to $3,000 from marketing on top of that. Yeah. Exactly. It's all sorts of different marketing. All types of marketing. Just a ton of videography,

[00:39:01] pornography print, Matterports, everything. So I had one million dollars now saying, No, never again. Yeah. I didn't sell it. One of those spend like $2500 out of my pocket. And it just didn't make sense. So it's like with the readers, too. Like I get a profit off the readers,

[00:39:17] but I didn't. I also try to hire black and brown kids to work. That's awesome. Okay. So I get a emotional pay off as well. Yeah. And it's the same thing we're going to say. I, you know, I services. I did pay very well. Silly's houses.

[00:39:33] But then today, you know, I helped the first time home. You were helping the people that you want to help. Yeah. Purchase the problem. And this is where you grew up. Yeah. This is your area. Yeah. Probably no ton of people. Um, believe it or not.

[00:39:45] Most of my clients are. I don't know. There's like New Yorkers. Well, investors. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Things like that. Sure. And more importantly, I love helping like a first time investor. Buy a great property. Why shouldn't fix it up? Yeah. Then why shouldn't make some money.

[00:40:03] Then why shouldn't sell it to make that huge profit. And then you come back to me and it keep doing it all the work. I think like let's do another one. Let's do another one. And yeah. That's right.

[00:40:12] And you might find this with read is too, because I think that what you're doing for kids in the neighborhood that you're in is I almost guaranteed that the way you're developing these kids, what giving them the responsibility.

[00:40:30] I can imagine at some point down the road they're going to come back to and say, hey, Kian, you know, you gave me this opportunity to tell them. Yeah. And do it. And there's a lot of value in stuff like that. Most definitely, I think, inspiration. Yeah.

[00:40:46] And just trying to mentor these kids. Yeah, man. I had some pretty great mentors growing up. And sometimes you just need to see it. I feel like people don't see it enough where hey, I can say. They need to touch it. It's got to be a luxury.

[00:40:58] It's got to be a luxury. I'm going to be like, hey, this black eye, I almost bought read is almost as read. That's pretty cool. I like to do that one. You know, this system works.

[00:41:07] You know, so that's, you know, that's kind of, that emotional payoff that I'm getting here. Very cool. 100% I love that. All right. So here's a question we ask people which I know Sean loves. You and I fun guy, your drug guy. Say that one more time?

[00:41:24] Are you an iPhone guy? I do. Oh, man. I have both. Whoa. Oh, oh. Yeah. I'm expecting that. I mean, this may be another hour of discussion now. What are the important stuff on his mind? Why does he just why do you have two in my question?

[00:41:41] Why have one of each? All right. So I like the note series, okay. Which is phenomenal. But I feel like with having use, it goes down a drain. Super fast. Okay. I phone. I have an eye Mac. Yeah. It's just easier just transferring pictures and everything.

[00:42:01] It's easy being the operative work. Yeah. Face time for the iPhone is great. My iPhone's for business and then I personally fall in as an Android. Very cool. I love it. Nice. That's the both worlds. Awesome man.

[00:42:15] And then the last thing is to quote you gave us, which I thought was awesome. So never be a product of your environment but be a product of your imagination. Yeah. Talk about that. Why does that drive you? Um, that was an high school man.

[00:42:27] We went the William pin high school on Broadway Masters. We had a last graduate in class. And you know, you don't have enough again positive role models. And you know, I always had like an ego. You know, always thought I could do big things. Yeah.

[00:42:45] And I know you are. And you know, I feel like your ego comes from your imagination. Like hey, I could do this, this and this. To make that happen. I can make that happen. And long be hold.

[00:42:58] You know, because you're not going to see it in an environment. I come from, you know, being a successful businessman. Right. Managing properties and stuff like that. Not as common. This is not common at all. Um, even from an educational standpoint. Right.

[00:43:13] So you need to be able to, like I said mentioned before, dream and imagine yourself in these positions. Um, doing the things that you're doing. And typically, I feel like the physical follows the mental. Yeah. So um, you know, long be hold.

[00:43:27] I thought I was a million dollar business man and yeah. And uh, in high school and uh, graduate with honors and um, Long behold, I'm here on your podcast. Yeah. I'm about to love it. Talk about, uh, I can believe you're still working. My, my business is realistic.

[00:43:44] Right. So it works. Yes. It works. That's the imagination to think of it. And then the hard work to like get you there. Yeah. Yeah. It's all that was kind of auto whirling when you achieve these things. And it builds self confidence and builds faith more. Yep.

[00:44:02] When you're, when you actually achieve anything. Right. So before the first go was just to sell a house. Then I was like, I did it. I still, I sell 10 houses. Yeah. I sell 30 right. Okay. Let's go.

[00:44:16] We go real estate broker and well, um, I think I've done my classes in like six months from my real estate broker's license. That's a test of first time. Um, but you know, I felt my real estate exam four times for the sales person.

[00:44:29] So so you learned you learned from that studied up for the broker's testing. Believe it or not, you know, I was on a crappy properties on a crack house is a North Philadelphia. And you know, they have messed up titles, people and died.

[00:44:41] And and long with whole, that was really just a and feel education. So when the broker exam came around, I knew everything. You don't have to know all this stuff. And stuff is about title. Oh, I see the scene of it.

[00:44:53] Oh my, the scene at all so um, you know, I wouldn't change anything right now. Things are awesome. That's a great story to go life. So far. Yes. Good life. Love it, man. All right. So before we shut it down, Kion.

[00:45:08] Why don't you tell everyone out there where they can learn more about you and how to connect? Uh, you follow my Instagram, Kion. Why do you, uh, Katie, why do I want WHI, T.I.N.G. On Instagram, if I'm only 10, uh, Facebook as well.

[00:45:21] Um, I'm all over the internet. So I'm not hard to find you. Yeah, get the Vemmo wallet out for when you're raising capital. It can just send it over. Just send it over. Just send it over. It's amazing. We got the Vemmo. Yeah, we got the PayPal cash.

[00:45:37] Got everything you need. We got everything you need. I don't know what to hear the good news a couple months from now about your first deal. Yeah, how you bought some something major. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That would be cool.

[00:45:50] Yeah, I think that would be cool. Awesome. You got it. Yeah, I put it together because I feel like the lot of legal back stuff in the back right and I get to get it set up with as well like general partners. It's a part nurse.

[00:45:59] The sun's like always happy to sit down. Kind of tell you, you know, the steps that we took and it would be helpful. All right. Let's do it. Let's do it, man. So that's the next up. All right. Well, that's all we have for this one folks.

[00:46:10] So thank you for tuning in again to another episode of Bricks and Risk. See you soon. Thank you for joining us on another episode of Bricks and Risk. Our goal is that you walk away with one or two valuable nuggets and we greatly appreciate

[00:46:26] you sharing your time with us today. You can find all B&R episodes on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, and anywhere else you get your podcast content. Until next time, keep learning and keep growing.