Welcome to the Growth Podcast with Jesse Ray Featuring Joseph, a Real Estate Investment Expert

Jesse Ray: Joseph, back in 2018 you were just starting in real estate, right? Fill me in.

Joseph: Yes, so in 2018, I was just learning real estate, and I wasn't really going far though. In 2018 under the mentorship that I had at that time, it seemed like every time I showed to the office, the going thing would be we're about to hit the ground running. And then at a certain point, you start thinking, "Man, am I running on a treadmill or am I running in real life?"

Jesse Ray: Man, I hear that. But now, fast forward to 2024, you’ve acquired 500 plus units multi-family real estate but you don't actually have to be there in person and you don't even have to really run the operation, but you collect the cash flow, need of equity and ownership in all these assets, is that correct?

Joseph: Exactly, that’s correct.

Jesse Ray: Okay, fill me in just kind of like what exactly your company, your investment firm does real quick.

Joseph: Yes, so Apex Real Estate Investments is a privately held Equity investment company that raises money, it's a fund. We raise money and we utilize that money in order to acquire these buildings in landlord-friendly States. Just to name a few, I would say Texas, South Carolina, North Carolina, Alabama, Florida just to name a few places that we look to acquire properties in.

Jesse Ray: That’s amazing, man. And that’s just the intro ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Growth Podcast. I’m your host Jesse Ray, I’m here with my man Joseph. Joseph, I had to do some research man, and I'm like, I have a whole list. You're a former Marine, a TedX speaker, you write for Forbes, you got another article coming out tomorrow which we'll talk about, owner of Apex Investments like you just said which is a private Equity investment firm. Anything else I missed?

Joseph: Actually, that Forbes article doesn’t come out tomorrow, it's going to come out in a few weeks.

Jesse Ray: Okay, that’s the new one. But one came out yesterday?

Joseph: Yeah, you're always doing some big stuff man. I’m excited, let’s dive into your story. I want to know a little bit more about your background. I want to learn you know the journey of being a Marine. You have a great TedX talk about fear which just actually a kind of a random question did you have some fear doing the TedX talk? I mean public speaking, most people rather die than do public speaking.

Joseph: Actually, yes, I did which is why I even did it over fear because when I first heard that I was going to be doing a TedX, I was like "Man!" and I was like but I haven't spoken on stage in a long time and I still remember back when I was in network marketing back in 2016 when I tried to do like a course or something of that like a class basically to all these here um um people in my downline and stuff and I’m up there sweating just sweating like I'm standing in the Sahara, and couldn’t talk, mouth was all dry and ashy. So like yeah, I had fear, trust me, it was definitely uh, it reminded me of that but you did it man and it was great. I just literally finished watching it because I’m like I got to see this and actually tell people give them a little sneak peek into that because it was a great, you know I guess more of a metaphor, analogy, and a lesson in life.

Joseph: Yes, so uh going into that what sparked me to do that due to power of fear was the fact that when I was in the Marine Corps I was going to boot camp, I didn't know how to swim MH so so I literally had to figure it out by diving off the 10ft diving board into 16ft water and then you figure out how to swim to the other side so you can pass that and become a Marine that's just one of many fears that's one of many fears that we had to conquer um in order to become a Marine. That's crazy.

Jesse Ray: So former Marine, how do you go from Marine to now getting into real estate?

Joseph: So when I got out the Marine Corps what I ended up doing was going going into personal training and um so you know personal trainers a lot of times you don't you you look fit but you don't make that much money you have the body but you don't have the money to match so so you know I I was a personal trainer for a couple years but I was learning how to get more into the finance industry so I started going more towards uh what you would call uh life insurance policies and stuff figuring out real estate going went to a Robert Kiyosaki meeting uh learn business taxes so just different things trying to figure out what I really wanted to do and I landed on real estate.

Jesse Ray: Got it, and then from my understanding, you were uh what do you call it, a professional deal finder or?

Joseph: Yes, professional deal finder wholesaler. I like that, I call it professional deal finder because a lot of people say oh I hate wholesalers I'm like okay professional deal finder, did you tweet that?

Joseph: Did you come up with that yes I I I literally came up with that myself think of another way to do this oh professional deal finder I I haven't heard anybody else say it oh well I'm gonna start saying it now for I'm not a wholesaler but a lot of my friends are so I'm like hey tweak it a little bit I like that I'm gonna steal that from you but um okay so did you start out wholesaling or what even got you into wholesaling?

Joseph: Yes so yes I started off wholesaling but before that well actually I just lied I started off learning real estate from this guy and I was learning more about WS sub to seller finance so I really learned how to go find the deals to purchase but I didn't know how to sell the deals right I came across wholesaling while learning from him he wanted nothing to do with wholesaling so what I did was I went and worked for a company that taught me pretty much how to wholesale so after working for that company for a few months I set my own company up and started doing it myself so I can and I got 100% of the profits at that point and so from that what I did was just kept wholesaling my first check ever was $10,000 It's amazing And then I made 15,000 the next time and then I just kept doing that over and over again figuring out hey how do I just keep doing I created a system I figured out multiple ways of getting deals Beyond just the typical let me cold call somebody and get a deal so I figured out other ways to get deals as well and so I did that for a few years and and you know I really thought about it I was like but I don't own anything I said I don't sold how many properties and I own none okay let's pause there because I want to dive into that but you just like basically walked in the wholesaling and was like I got this figured out my friend he just had his first deal I think he made 500 bucks on the wholesale cuz he got his numbers all wrong oh wow so so obviously people started like I feel for that happened to me one time I have a story about that but there you go we have we have to share the story because I feel like people actually learn more from failures than really success but before we dive into that story what were some of the most like um beneficial or contributing factors to that early success and also I want to know because a lot of our community as growth house they're all about leaving that corporate job and a lot of them are trying to wholesale on the side to try to you know maybe replace his six-figure salary with wholesaling or you know maybe in the future what you're kind of doing with the private equity which we'll go we'll go into that so I guess my main question right now is what were like kind of the reasons why you think you were so successful so quickly in wholesaling for me what what caused me to be successful is just I had a Marine Corps mindset and I I use that same approach with every business right and that is coming in with the full intent of being 100% prepared and wanting to just conquer like I want to be the person that's the best at it and so I'm willing to do more learning more education um figuring out who I need to meet uh it's the same thing like like this is like even going back like Kobe Bryant what did he do with Michael Jordan he figure out who's the best how do I learn from the best do what the best do I get the same results as them that's the same approach that I take in really any business is I just started researching and so uh I that's how I got really good at wholesaling I used to watch Brent Daniels all of them yeah all these that's amazing so did you pay did you pay for mentorship CU I'm someone that's a big like like I preach yo if you want to like expedite your growth go learn like you just said from someone who's already doing it and what's the quicker way you usually pay for it through coaching or mentorship or masterminds is that something you did or you like hey I'm YouTube University all the way so I started YouTube University all the way right but year two I bought a course M yeah year two it was either year two or year three I bought a course and it was J Dam ju course Astro flipping yep and so they're they're Arizona guys so I know these guys they're Arizona guys me and him I did a podcast with Jal damj uh back in 21 and this was right before we uh right before um going to East Africa I found out he was Tanzanian oh no so yeah it's uh it's funny it's funny like he was telling me all about it it's great and it's a beautiful place by the way also yeah I want to that cuz you travel a lot too so yes so like um yeah I did pay for a course the Astro flipping course so you start making 10,000 $15,000 checks in wholesaling how long did it take you to make your first let's say you know six figures 100K through wholesaling I say like year really it was towards the end of year two beginning of year three year so year three I made more than year two and year one combined and that's because I implemented the Astro flipping along with the way that I learned which is cold calling cold text so I did cold calling cold text then talked to other wholesalers built my buyers list up sold their deals for them so it it all added up it was year three was a great year it sounds like it but at the same time you're making money you're realizing I don't have Equity or ownership in any of these houses so exactly that's when you continue that story from there because it's amazing yes so after doing that in year three I'm looking up I'm like okay I have cash but I have no property yeah and you know other people I'm looking at them they have cash flow they get to live very comfortably they're not concerned about next month's money so I'm like hold on they're doing something right I'm doing something wrong even though on paper it looks like oh well he's killing it I'm still doing something wrong and so what I did was uh I just started studying I read books and one of my favorite books was um is by J Paul Getty and then another one is by Navar robika and they both speak about ownership and equity and so that's why I started learning multifamily because I wanted nothing to do with owning single family houses right like because I realized I watched too many friends of mine and which one guy was making $7 a month off of his his single family rental property and I said that would not be me you can't even afford a a Netflix subscription nowadays with that with that kind of return that's fact so so I was I wasn't having it so that's why I started learning multifamily okay so you jumped straight into multifamily because the friends around you were like yeah this is not cash flowing enough it wasn't cash FL enough for them like they was trying to get me in on it so I can be like like them with the single family but I I I watch your actions versus what you say yeah you know so what so what happens next you're like all right I'm all in a multifamily yes I'm all in a multifamily I bought a course yeah yeah it goes back to that it's a pattern guys if you're listening anyone who's successful if you look back they had a mentor they bought a course they're investing in themselves so I love that yes so in the bound of course with Michael blank mhm definitely I recommend that course I just listen to his podcast he's great yeah it does it it's man like that that thing he's very technical I like that about him that's how I am not too many people know that about me I'm very technical I like to learn a specific way and so going through his course I learned everything about syndication but then I went to this uh uh conference this conference you know how they have like fire Summits and things wealth conferences I went to this conference and the one and one of these guys walked up to me and cuz he saw my arms they was out he's like man you got some big arms like you play play football something like that I was like no I was in the Marine corar so that was a conversation started come to find out this guy is a fund manager Equity partner with the group he provides Equity to the group that I was at their conference and then after the conference he end up having me come out to his house and showed me pretty much everything that he was doing all the paperwork all the details how the stuff was set up and uh we went from there I set up my first fund um this was back in 2022 you said that so nonchalant like I think when I think of setting up a fund I'm like man maybe you know five years down the road but you just like oh this guy just you know had lunch with them went over some paperwork I'm like yeah I'll set up a fun you just set up a fun like walk me through that like were you worried were you that's crazy did you uh ever take investment dollars before or was this the first time ever raising Capital so I had never really took investment dollars before at this level right the minimum investment is $100,000 plus also people invest their retirement accounts with me so it's a lot of stuff that goes into this here you know yeah now before when I was like 20 three I I kind of played around with the idea of no let me set up a fund and I was like let me uh raise money and see if people want to invest in Forex or crypto stuff or whatever you know I just kind of plan around with the idea and you know some people they wanted to give like $500 250 something like that but that that just didn't that didn't work out so well I am it wasn't the right fit you know so um but this right here made sense because okay I'm investing in something that is concrete people can go touch these buildings it's real assets if I'm telling you I put money into this her building I can you can fly out there and look at it walk through the office walk through the units see what the neighborhood is like it's much better walking through those first couple like months you set it up and then do you immediately like have a Target like hey um actually I'm curious do you find a deal first or do you raise Capital you raise money that that's the hardest part right the hardest part No Deal exactly like I need money I don't have a deal yet so you have to you have to this something I learned through Michael blank's course though was I learned that you can put together a ideal deal of what you're looking for a sample deal I didn't necessarily have to do that I was blessed to also become the equity partner to that group that was at their conference these people have 20 plus years of experience so they immediately had a deal for me to start raising for so it was a lot simpler for me okay so they had a deal for you oh so that you were just plug and play like here's the deal and so here set the fund up they already had a deal okay how much I need to raise let me start raising money and I pretty much became an equity partner in my first deal my first apartment deal within the first six to eight months of owning the fund and that's not normal sometimes it takes people two years to get their first deal three years yeah so who are your first couple investors how' you find them and then how much money do you have to raise for that first round I guess of the fund yeah so the first first round uh really just need I really just need to bring like half a million dollars to the deal um to be an equity partner on there uh so that that group though the First Investors going back the first investors was one somebody who was on my email list from back when I was wholesaler you had she was one of my connection yep so she was one of my First Investors and then also a guy who I had just Happ to met on a zoom call somewhere we're just talking just having a conversation we met introduced ourselves uh networking you know but then few weeks later he ends up investing with me when he found out what I did M and he owns he owns he's in real estate also but he owns like a whole mortgage company yeah so just I ran into people like that and the minimum was $100,000 yes and the minimum was $100,000 so imagine think people are uh giving me $100,000 to invest yeah I'm with 28 at that time yeah I'm still trying to figure it out you go yeah I'm so I'm 30 now yeah so 20 at that time and also just out there just looking for deals but I didn't know I didn't know the same stuff that I know now but they believed in me enough to invest with me that's amazing what do you think about you or about what you said you were able to you know get that trust so quickly so recently speaking with an investor something they told me is that they can tell that I truly care about my investors this isn't just something where I'm like doing it and I'm like oh I'm only doing this Ser so I can get all this here fancy stuff and all that like yeah I like to travel right but when in the US I'm not trying to be flashy in the US you can get robbed out here like I'd rather I go to a whole another country and hang out there yeah so what was your first deal can you kind of run through some of the numbers and how what that looked like what was your like return to the investors that I guess you promised or are you even allowed to promise or is it just like how work so how do you you're not what so first deal I'll just give you a structure of how it set up so the first deal 160 units Charleston South Carolina it's uh projected to do around 27 to 29% um annual over six years uh but also it has a downside performance protection hurdle of 10% meaning at the time of sale if something goes wrong with that property and it doesn't perform the way anticipated then what will happen is the operators over has to pay the investors a minimum of 10% annual return on investment before they take a profit so at the very least my investors will make 10% on that property is that verbiage pretty like common or is that not too Comm that's not coming that verbit is just for that particular deal and that particular group they they handled things that way I work with other groups they do preferred returns so all the the deal structure really the deal structure is different depending on who I work with like I have one uh right now that has a fixed interest rate of 2.95% interest only until 2030 and that loan doesn't mature to 2035 that is something like investors if they want to be a part of that this the time you want to be a part of that one because when we sell that in four years and that's it's gone at that point right right yeah so I recently was listening to a podcast and they're talking about syndication and the guy said basically if you're not at least the lp in the in the deal as a as a general partner if you're not at least also investing yourself as a LP in the deal then he would never look at that deal what's your thoughts on that I think that sometimes people I would I would say sometimes people get caught up in the wrong things I believe in being a LP in your deals yes but also not to the point where you oh well because you're not a LP in this deal I'm not going to invest because you don't you don't know their financial stuff right like they could have most of their money in another deal that they have so as a syndicator this is why I know about syndicators as syndicators your your it's very few syndicators that can just throw around millions of dollars think about it if someone's just getting started all he said in that breath when he said that was if you're new I want to invest with you yeah pretty much yes like if you makes sense if you didn't come in here with half a million already I don't want to work with you so that's why you got to be careful right like because I've seen where you can work with someone who's more experience and they just bum a deal you can work with someone who's not that experienced and they do really well right so so you because they're more hungry 100% 100% And they want to prove they want to prove this like people that hey you're G to work with me on the next deal because I perform for you so exactly you did your first um you did your first deal in about you said six to eight months yes and then to my first property uh in the first six to eight months and then what happens after that so after that uh you pretty much you wait for cash flow for that one yeah now fast forward though September September of last year 2023 got my second one because you know 2022 was kind of slow with getting deals and stuff people would stop looking so it's just so happened that I found an operator that is uh more open-minded so they use the sub2 method to acquire this Ser property interesting so I'm mostly look at single family homes um which obviously are changing my mind as we talk but um as far as sub two is that common that um multifamily and I guess syndications also leverage you know creative Finance honestly it was my first time hearing about that and when I saw it I was like I got to write a fors article about this so so that was the first one I wrote okay there we go plug from the fors article yep I was like how to navigate um I forget why I named it pretty much just how to navigate in a high interest rate Market to still acquire properties now if operators took advantage of that knowledge I don't know but I know the ones that I work with took advantage of that mhm I guess a question I have how how do you figure out what you know syndications to work with because I think we talked off camera but essentially you get a pick with syndications that you want to work with you pick the like you said in one of the podcasts the Michael Jordan the Kobe Bryant the LeBron James the syndicators you're like all right I'm creating my dream team I'm gonna let my investors invest with them exactly so yes how I picked that I look at certain markers one are they actually hungry do they want to be successful in this year I'm looking at their success track record already I'm looking at how they handle things how do they speak about things right I've come across some people the way they speak I'm probably not going to invest with them but then there's others who they specialize in certain things so I look for certain stuff do you specialize in the area if you know that one area like the back of your hand then you're not it's less likely you will make a mistake getting the property there so there's a group I work with they specialize specifically in Dallas Dallas Fort Worth area I haven't done I have not done anything with them just yet but but I am this year within the first quarter or second quarter of this year I'll be doing something with them now with this other group they specialize in 200 to 400 unit properties I'm like okay that gets my numbers up that gets the number of doors up a lot quicker working with that group and they they have a strong track record they've raised money in a fund before themselves they've raised a $100 million fund oh wow so just from a detail per oh and the backstory of the operator like just the back story she came from nothing poor and she built this here thing so those are the other things that I look at as well that makes sense because I've thought in like earlier this year like well I guess it's already 2024 so earlier last year uh I was like I think I want to do a fund for co-living homes since that's kind of my expertise and you get the cash flow way more than just a regular sequel family and so they said Jesse if you want to do that it's why you you got to really answer that question why you exactly youself for right and so that's why you know the tedex talk think about how many people want to invest with someone and they can tell somebody yeah the person who I invest my money with did the tedex or the person yeah he writes for he writes uh articles that gets published with fors he's a part of the Forbes Business Council and then they look up people oh what's the Forbes Business Council they look up oh very business people it just builds trust oh you need a million doll in Revenue to even be a part of this group oh or you successful or you need 500,000 funding minimum so those things all help out why you so it just further builds it up so we're all about like for our community all about being intentional and uh one of my friends came up with a quote where um nothing happens randomly when you live in intentionally and I love that and it sounds like you were very intentional about what kind of Publications you want to be a part of what kind of groups you want to be associated with and so for anyone else out there who's looking to kind of do something similar let's just you know real quick one off how did you get involved with tedex and then how did you get involved with Forbes and become you know a council member yes so tedex that if I'm being completely honest was sheer luck it was a blessing yeah a blessing from above because because a friend of mine she reached out to me from Facebook she's like how would you like to be a part of a tedex now you know already you you like sketch like Facebook tedex I don't speak in public what what's special about me so but I said yeah I said put me on the put me on the phone with the people I get on a zoom call the organizer I still have not seen her face at that point right I'm like this guy would be scale they're talking to me and they're like oh you'll be great for this here you'll be uh great this like it's gonna be x amount of money so you can learn how to like uh speak though you have to pay like a course basically on how to speak publicly uh on tedex brand okay the minute they ask for money I'm like something gota be this gotta be a scam so but anyway I said let me just test it out let me see this here I get on the calls I start learning I'm like hold on this is real I said I got a month to get ready I'm about to be speaking I I'm scared to death so anyway I start I started prepping though and I'm like all right so I'm prepped I get everything and yeah August 19th is when when it actually happened that I spoke on stage that's amazing and then what about Forbes and then Forbes shortly after that um I saw for's Business Council and I was like I wonder if I if I qualify to be a part of this here you know so I went I and I applied to it I you know showed them like Revenue all this stuff and and what what year was this were you doing revenue wholesaling or revenue from your fund for my fund okay so this is last year I got um pretty much invited to be a part of the forest Business Council so after that I I get invited I join it and I'm starting to write articles with them but when I got accepted I was like oh awesome and when they accepted me when they responded they said it was a no-brainer to uh to bring you on board we are thrilled to have you I was like it's a no-brainer and I asked him about that it's like yeah the tedx the revenue what you're doing it's a no-brainer I was like oh thank you that's amazing so talk to me about a little bit about the future and then I got some uh some quotes that you've said that I want to bring up from different podcasts which will be fun all right so next three to five years what is it looking like for Joseph and what's it looking like for Apex yes so Apex real estate is what it is right it's strictly for Real Estate right and that was the intent starting off but what I plan on doing is expanding this here doing more deals acquiring more buildings and getting 1 billion plus in assets under management for apartment buildings right that's the plan but I also have noticed that a lot of people love the beauty industry and it's a billion doll industry people like botox and those things women they love that stuff so next is to sit up a m spot I didn't see that one coming man okay so this is this is Brick and Mortar uh yeah yeah but for women who are there they have you know pretty much went through all these classes and stuff and they want to open their own mpire be the person that funds it make sure they have the training to run it and I get paid Equity so I'm not having to manage it myself ever but you just own all you sure you don't want to be an operator you don't want to be in there you know doing I'm not operating I'm not doing that I'm not doing that oh man I love it a lot of people they would not expect that but I was like there's there's a business there bro it's so funny that you mentioned that because um when I was doing corporate sales I was trying to do all these businesses on the side right and one of my businesses I started with a marketing agency I was a Facebook leads expert didn't even know Facebook leads I basically just outsourced everything and was the sales and operations behind it and I was trying to pick a niche and uh ended up looking around I'm like okay who makes a lot of money but maybe don't have the the marketing background or the business background I can go in there and help them and what I ended up landing on was medspot so for like a full year I was a Facebook leads expert for Med Spa I went to a a conference in Vegas right before Co shut everything down I was like yeah one of like probably four guys in the Thousand women just learning about Botox and all this other stuff so it is a very profitable industry I totally agree really cool people too now I'm not gonna put out there how I plan on acquiring these here but it's uh I would say this though yeah I got the idea really from um some guys the guys who got me started in really as a fund manager because they have a they have real estate funds right but they also own a chain of freestanding emergency rooms throughout Texas the Dallas Fort Worth area wow okay so you would never guess that but yeah like they so they own a medical facilities including the hospital so it just made so it just make sense I was like well I don't necessarily want to do that route I'm not about to be like Kobe Bryant Michael Jordan just a carbon copy so I need to figure out something different that I'll have on the side in M that's awesome so I'm just thought of this question right now if you are actually you have Equity never mind because I was going to say do you ever want to have like real estate yourself but at the end of the day you actually own percentage of this Equity so so you're not even probably ever going to look at like a single family house be like hey I want to also own some single family houses you're like I just want My Equity in within the group and it's probably more Diversified too yep within apartment buildings that's great if I if I ever wanted to diversify into single family I I mean it would be something like to pass down to kids I guess or maybe do some co- living houses with me we we can talk about that I mean yeah we can talk about that yeah all right question for you man I I heard this on the podcast I was cracking up if I need to bring my assault rifle to visit the house I I own I'm not buying in that area talk to me about investing in declass neighborhoods yes so that's not something I would do I feel like if I have to literally bring like my assault rifle pack it in the car just to come into the neighborhood I should not be investing in that area because it's putting me in a bad situation right I don't want to feel like I'm on a military y I gotta kick a door down everybody get on the god floor hey pay my rent like like I left that life in the past yes it's not pretty man it's not you don't want to see that side of me it's not pretty right I love it okay Joseph give us a Learning lesson that you've had in the past maybe since being you know a fund manager um I think that would be something that's really you know be beneficial to the audience because like I told you I think a lot of people learn from failures even more than people's success yes so early on as a fund manager I would say be choose the right kind of fund for you to start meaning know your friends and family right now this could come off a certain way but a good majority of our people don't come from friends and family that's very very wealthy that being said don't start a fund that's dependent on your friends and family to be successful yeah start one where you can Market freely to the masses the problem.

‍