Investment Opportunities: High Yield Cash Flowing Real Estate

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Eric Neely is a truck driver and Acquisition Manager Customer Relations of Febros Captial Eric who has been in the real estate industry for over 20 years He started to learn more about investing and networking with other professionals in the finance world and created his own podcast The Wealthy Trucker in 2017 Recently he partnered up with another real estate professional and invested in a smaller apartment complex Eric Neely handles broker relations and even speaks directly with asset sellers He also maintains relations with bankers and our investors As a highly educated and experienced entrepreneur Eric brings specific skills to the table and always asks the right questions when evaluating a possible asset Highlights 00 00 – 05 48 How to Succeed as an Investment Professional Eric Neely is a real estate professional who focuses on developing private placements in apartment complexes He is also the host of the Wealthy Trucker podcast and has invested in larger apartment complexes He recommends networking to build trust before attempting any deals 05 48 – 11 39 Full-Time Truck Driver Becomes Property Manager Eric shares his experience in scaling a real estate business including their first deal and subsequent deals He recommends avoiding relying on myths about real estate and instead of learning as much as possible from personal experience he added the importance of regular communication with property management companies as well as taking care of finances and distributions 11 40 – 17 45 Closing Segment For Eric it learning the importance of screening tenants and learning the importance of being personable and talking to people while taking care of them should be priority as its not only making money for yourself but also impacting lives Final words Reach out to Eric See links below Tweetable Quotes Cause we don t allow people to just come sit on the property so we re impacting more than just the people who live there we re impacted the community And then beyond that you re impacting people who are looking for passive investment opportunities – Eric Neely —————————————————————————– Connect with Nick Neely visit their website at FebrosCapital com Or listen to his podcast The Wealthy Trucker Podcast with Eric Neely Connect with me Facebook LinkedIn Like subscribe and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts Spotify Google Podcasts or whatever platform you listen on Thank you for tuning in Email me sam brickeninvestmentgroup com Want to read the full show notes of the episode Check it out below 00 00 00 Eric Neely the fact that we self manage that it really ironed into my head how you may be creating an investment vehicle for somebody You may be trying to make money yourself but you re also impacting people s lives that live in your Eric Neely is a real estate professional focused on developing private placements in apartment complexes So the everyday professional has an opportunity to invest in high yield cashflowing real estate And he s also host of the wealthy trucker podcast And if I m not mistaken Eric you re calling me from the road today on interstate 00 00 43 Sam Wilson I think it s i70 there in Kansas Welcome Welcome to the 00 00 48 Eric Neely Thank you Sam It s a pleasure to be here and yet that s correct I m sitting on the side of the highway right now in my office behind the windshield 00 00 56 Sam Wilson Yeah I have to say this I give you props for having fairly good audio for a guy sitting in a semi-truck 00 01 01 Sam Wilson That s pretty good I ve had people sitting in their own home offices with poor audio so that that sounds good I appreciate it 00 01 08 Eric Neely Nope no problem Well I I have a lot of experience of listening to podcasts And also like you said I run my own podcasts So audio is something that I had a little bit of time to research because I knew it was pretty important 00 01 21 Eric Neely So the headset I bought was specifically so that I could do what we re doing right now Oh man That s 00 01 26 Sam Wilson fantastic I love it There s three questions I ask every guest who comes on the show in 90 seconds or less Can you tell me where did you start Where are you now And how did you get 00 01 35 Eric Neely Sure Well I started honestly it probably driving a truck I ve been a trucker for 20 years almost 00 01 41 Eric Neely And really didn t take investing seriously at all Honestly I had a 401k and I always put money But I just ignored it pretended like it wasn t even there that way It wouldn t never be tempted So I didn t even know how well it performed So that s where I was And as I was driving trucks I spending all this time out on the highway 00 02 04 Eric Neely I started thinking about how am I going to get out of trucking Eventually I can t do this forever It s beaten up my body And I don t know What I need to do to prepare for retirement So ended up starting to educate myself through podcasts and ran across the infamous BiggerPockets podcast and thought well maybe I can start flipping houses something like that 00 02 27 Eric Neely And just ultimately the more I learned about it the more I realized man I m already working 60 70 hours a week out here on the road There s no way I can flip houses and do it consistently And I also have a close friend of mine who s in the finance world So I started talking to him about this multi-family syndication thing that I d heard about and said what do you think about that 00 02 49 Eric Neely And he he said man I ve got clients that that I do their taxes and this is exactly what I already understand this I m like well what do you think about us Getting into partnership and doing something like this And he goes let s do it Let s make it happen So I said well I m going to spend the next couple of years learning how to do it while I m out here on the road 00 03 05 Eric Neely Use the highway education tool So podcasts audio books and started networking We created our own meetup a few years ago that I host in our local community in Wichita Kansas And and then I started the podcast the wealthy trucker and The sky s the limit and wherever the Lord will take us is where we ll go 00 03 27 Eric Neely And so now today I own my I joint ventured into a apartment complex a couple of years ago I J I ve invested passively into larger apartment complexes and we are in the process of closing a larger syndication So If you take the education you get and apply it you can go anywhere 00 03 51 Eric Neely And I still worked full time driving a truck So it s still sitting in a truck right now 00 03 55 Sam Wilson man That s a lot of moving pieces and you ve done what I think a lot of people Are unwilling to put themselves out there and do right I mean you started a podcast you started a meetup 00 04 06 Sam Wilson You those are obviously thought leadership platforms but also just kind of built a brand and a following around what it is that you re doing I think that s really cool because then that takes a little bit of courage Did you do that at the same time that you already had deals going 00 04 19 Sam Wilson Or was that something you had first What would you recommend to somebody in your shoes 00 04 23 Eric Neely You ve got us You ve got to tell people what you re doing and it s challenging to do it when you haven t done a deal yet And that s where I mean I guess if I look back on what I did and how I could maybe do it different the one thing I regret is not starting the podcast as soon as I did 00 04 39 Eric Neely I mean I get more reach with the podcasts I talked to more people because of it and again Your name out there so that people know what you re doing And that s ultimately what it boils down to People have to know what you re doing This is very much a people business If people don t know what you re doing they re not going to invest with youth 00 04 54 Eric Neely They don t know who you are They don t know They don t know I can trust you That s the common thing you hear So they don t know like and trust you Why would they invest with you I don t know how many times I ve heard people say well if you have a deal the money will come I think Not really true because if people don t know who you are if they don t trust you why would they invest with you 00 05 13 Eric Neely I don t care how good your deal is So that s kind of how it is but that s how my mindset works Anyway if I could do it different I would have started the podcast sooner We did do the meetup pretty early but and Wichita Kansas Anyway it s a smaller community don t know how many people we have there around less than a million 00 05 32 Eric Neely And so the reach there was not as great as it might be in a bigger metropolitan area So my meetup ranges anywhere from 10 to 20 people on average per month it s a small amount of people It still gets me there but The more people you can reach the more people that you re talking to the better off you re going to 00 05 48 Sam Wilson be 00 05 48 Sam Wilson Right Tell me about your deals You said can you rewind that a little bit for me I know you said what you guys have bought so far Can you give us the S the summary on what you guys own currently 00 05 59 Eric Neely Sure We bought our first one like I said it was a JV deal It was really between me and my business partner 00 06 05 Eric Neely I was telling you about that Does the finance and then one of them Primary capital partner He put more most of the money into the deal between the three of us We bought that we self-manage it And really that s because that third partner that I m talking about he is retired and he wanted something to do 00 06 25 Eric Neely And he s been in business most of his life So anyway long story short it s been it was an amazing learning Curve buying that property and self-managing it because you really learn what you re going to ultimately end up hiring a third party to do Right And that in itself was worth quite a bit 00 06 45 Eric Neely So learning the importance of screening tenants and learning the importance of being personable and talking to people and taking care of them I mean the fact that we self manage that it really ironed into my head how you may be creating an investment vehicle for somebody You may be trying to make money yourself but you re also impacting people s lives that live in your property 00 07 10 Eric Neely And if you don t think about that I think you re not really seeing the full picture And if you re just being ingredient and wanting to make money then I mean you can do it but that s not what this is all about in my mind So Self-managing it really drove that home for me that Hey this is somebody s home 00 07 27 Eric Neely They re living in my property I need to treat it like that and take care of them correctly And so if I m going to hire a third party now I ve got a whole new set of criteria and standards that I m going to hold this third party property management company to and if they re not taking care of the people out the way I wanted to take care of the people then that I have no business dealing with them any longer 00 07 49 Eric Neely So it s very valuable 00 07 51 Sam Wilson Absolutely valuable And that s a that s an education I think like you said that everybody probably needs even if you learn it on a smaller property just to get your head wrapped around what you re going to expect from your property management company on a larger on a larger scale 00 08 07 Sam Wilson Tell me about the biggest deal you guys have done in the syndication space And tell me the kind of the things that you learned in raising capital for that and bringing investors on board and I m gonna keep throwing questions at you all at once And then maybe tell me about the conversation you have with investors as it pertains 00 08 24 Sam Wilson I m sure you get asked Hey wait you re still a full-time truck driver How are you going to take care of this asset 00 08 29 Eric Neely Right It s it was a 66 unit in our local market Wichita The reason I stuck to which doll was because I needed something in my backyard that I could still have eyes on regularly because I work full time 00 08 42 Eric Neely So that s been one of the discussions with people that well listen I m going to be there on a very regular basis My communication with my property management company is very regular and ultimately they re the ones managing the asset anyway So and then when it comes down to doing distributions and taking care of the finances well my business partner has his own accounting company so that all gets handled through there 00 09 07 Eric Neely So Anyway that s been some of the conversation on that as far as how I m going to take care of it as a full-time driver And then beyond that like it was a 66 unit complex It was about a 2 million raise and I did the capital raising through The platforms of talking to people on the wealthy jerker podcast or going on other people s podcasts 00 09 30 Eric Neely Once again back to just talking about it all the time and then met quite a few people through the meetup that we do in town I d go talk at the other real estate meetup in town even though it s mostly single family people there there s still people looking for passive investment opportunities and they ve got the mindset of investors 00 09 47 Eric Neely So I d go talk at their meet ups And really just getting out and talking talking talking that s that s That was the that was the key element of raising capital And then oh I don t know I mean there s a lot of different things You do I built a website which I did myself I sometimes I think I should have just hired somebody 00 10 07 Eric Neely It would have gone faster and looked better but ultimately I did build it myself and in managing a CRM That s something that I went through a few different iterations before accounting started figuring out all right this is the way I need to do it And just trial by error 00 10 24 Sam Wilson I like it though I mean that s what it takes 00 10 26 Sam Wilson I think that s what a lot of people especially as they re coming in new to this space they want to hit the home run out of the gate They want it to be they want it to be fast They want it to be now And it s and this is a slow A slow growth process And I think that oftentimes gets overlooked and underappreciated because we re we live in a society that once once it done we want it done 00 10 47 Sam Wilson Now we want it done And this is a this is not an overnight success business So I think I think you ve set the bar appropriately for what it takes Building a meetup building a podcast building a website talking about your deals to everybody you know it s a moving train but once it gets started it s hard to slow down 00 11 04 Sam Wilson Tell me was there bad advice that you have received along the way in the scaling process where you re like yeah that was that just didn t work out the way that I was told 00 11 13 Eric Neely I think I kind of mentioned it earlier but I think the idea that if you have a deal the money will come I think that s bad advice I don t think people should lean on that 00 11 23 Eric Neely I just think that s going to inevitably happen The reason that it kind of does happen is because if you re actively pursuing a deal and trying to make things happen you should be out talking to people and networking and to make it happen And the more you talk about it the more that people will want to invest with you 00 11 43 Eric Neely And inevitably you ll start finding the money but to say that it s just going to come almost as if you don t have to put any effort into it That s bad advice 00 11 53 Sam Wilson Was there good advice that someone gave you along the way that was a pivotal Hey this is something you should think about or was there a mentor that gave you something that said Hey man this is here s a good piece of advice that comes to top of mine 00 12 05 Eric Neely It s all about your mindset I mean the knowledge required to run a syndication or buy a property is It s not a heck of a lot more than what you need to just buy a single family house I mean there is more I m not going to lie but it s not overly accessible that Anybody couldn t just go out and get the education 00 12 25 Eric Neely Like I said I got most of my education listening to podcasts and reading audio books I didn t get it all there We did end up hiring a mentor that helped us really refine the underwriting process which is pretty important If you re going to be able to give somebody a perspective on what kind of return you re going to give them 00 12 42 Eric Neely But that that was really the only thing I paid for this as far as knowledge is concerned So Really The best advice is just you got to get your mind in the right place If you look at a hundred thousand dollar house and think oh I can easily afford that but Julie get a million dollar apartment complex 00 12 59 Eric Neely It s like there was no way I could do that Well honestly man it s only one more time And there s no reason you can t do a 10 million property as your first one as long as that what you set your mind on and you re focused on it and you don t tell yourself you can t do it So yeah our first indication was a 2 million raise 00 13 19 Sam Wilson Yeah That s a strong raise out of the gate 00 13 22 Sam Wilson Absolutely strong raise that s fantastic Tell me if you were to fast forward five years from now what do you want your business in life to look like 00 13 30 Eric Neely I want to be able to hit the road when I want to as opposed to when the company tells me I have to So that would be an ideal situation 00 13 38 Eric Neely I love driving I really do I can see the mountains every other day cause I m on my way to Denver right now And It I would like to be in a situation where I can go hop in a truck and do it just because I want to do it I enjoy real estate I really do I love touring properties figuring out the problems and how I can make them better 00 13 59 Eric Neely So I would imagine five years from now I ll be doing a lot of that and just solving problems I mean the beyond that got five kids So five years from now I want to be spending as much time as I can with my kids even though some of them are already be out of the house that s fine I can still spend a lot of time with them 00 14 19 Eric Neely and then just volunteering more at church really is one of my big goals of volunteering the high school ministry now And I d like to be able to do more there than what I m able to do right now 00 14 30 Sam Wilson Got it man That s great I love that future thinking and did not just thinking in terms of business but also personally where you want to land with that 00 14 39 Sam Wilson And I guess this is maybe the last question here I ll have for you before we sign off But when you think about the word impact can you define that word for me And then tell me what type of impact do you want to have on other people 00 14 51 Eric Neely Oh impact I mean you re changing lives when you re impacting somebody 00 14 56 Eric Neely I think about that 24 unit property we bought we impacted the lives of 24 people when we bought it because it was a beat down run down class C almost class D property And now even though it s still in a class C area it s almost a B minus a at this point because of what we ve done to turn it around and not just from an aesthetic standpoint but we got rid of a lot of bad people and almost well really everybody in there now is a great individual even though they re lower income they re a great individual 00 15 35 Eric Neely So the impact that we had I mean I don t personally see it in the entire community but I m sure I know it s happening Cause cause we don t allow people to just come sit on the property so we re impacting more than just the people who live there we re impacted the community 00 15 53 Eric Neely And then beyond that you re impacting people who are looking for passive investment opportunities You re giving people the opportunity to finally start making mailbox money in an asset that is so proven that it s one of the safest investment vehicles in the world real estate so the impact is vast right in this business 00 16 16 Eric Neely I love it I love it It s what I enjoy 00 16 19 Sam Wilson Yeah we can clearly tell that Eric I certainly appreciate you taking the time to break down today What it takes to grow a syndication business even when working full time For those that say it can t be done you can clearly prove that they re wrong You ve done it from the road 00 16 32 Sam Wilson Mostly you ve done it fairly rapidly and with precision I think I think that s it And you re clearly what your definition of the word impact you re impacting the people And lives around you both on the investor side and on the tenant side So kudos to you for making it happen and doing what it takes to get it done 00 16 49 Sam Wilson If our listeners want to get in touch with you and learn more about you what is the best way to do that 00 16 53 Eric Neely Well you can schedule a call with me if you go to my website it s capital com And then also if you listen to podcasts or you re on YouTube look up the wealthy trucker and the ability to connect with people on there as well 00 17 08 Eric Neely And 00 17 08 Sam Wilson that s FEBROS capital spelled F E B R O S Capital Febroscapital com We ll make sure we put that also in the show notes Eric thank you again for coming on the show Certainly appreciate it 00 17 20 Eric Neely Sam It was fun I appreciate it Click here to visit this podcast episode