Episode Transcript
Introducer [00:00:02]:
Welcome to The Untold Stories of Real Estate Investing, hosted by Wayne Courageous II, a place where active and passive investors come to hear the good, bad, and ugly of real estate investing. Our guests consist of experienced operators and investors who want others to succeed by sharing their stories. If you're looking to syndicate deals or grow your wealth passively in real estate, you've come to the right show. It's now time to sit back, take mental notes, and enjoy our next episode of The Untold Stories of Real Estate Investing.
Wayne Courreges III [00:00:38]:
Welcome to the untold stories of real estate investing. This is your host, Wayne Courageous. Today I'm excited to have William Hollis. Hollis is the principal of 24 Capital Group, a real estate private equity firm based in Connecticut that specializes in helping real estate professionals take back their time and own their futures by investing passively in cash flow and real estate deals. Hollis'passion for real estate began when he was a kid watching his family's landlord collect rents. As he got older, he became an expert in creating opportunities and finding deals, and is committed to staying at the forefront of the latest technologies. Hollis is also dedicated to sharing his knowledge and expertise with others, regularly speaking at real estate conferences across the country. After growing 24 Capital Group's asset portfolio to over 80 properties in 2022, hollis is excited to tackle new opportunities and to continue making a positive impact on the real estate community. Welcome, Hollis, to our show.
William Quinton Hollis [00:01:30]:
Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.
Wayne Courreges III [00:01:33]:
So obviously, I read the template you sent, but there's a lot more to you, and I'm super excited to get to know you and share your knowledge, obviously, with our listeners. But tell us more about yourself, how'd you get in real estate investing, and anything else you want to share before we get going.
William Quinton Hollis [00:01:50]:
Yeah, for know, I love telling this story because just like you, I put a little tidbit in the bio about my landlord collecting rents when I was a kid. But that really was what gave me the bug to begin with, was I grew up in Hollis, Queens, just like my name, and my landlord's name was Mr. Carter. Mr. Carter came around every first of the month in the 90s, stuffing hundreds of dollars into his wallet. By the end of the day, collecting all the rent in the neighborhood. The wallet wouldn't even fold. It was so thick with $100 bills. And I remember sitting one day, like six or seven, eight years old, looking at Mr. Carter, thinking, I need to figure out how to do what Mr. Carter is doing. I don't know how he's doing it, but he seems to have it figured out. So that's kind of what gave me the real estate bug. But to be totally honest, growing up in that community and not necessarily having the financial education and mentors necessary, for a long time, I thought that investing in real estate was something that'd just be totally out of reach for me. Growing up in New York, real estate was expensive way before the COVID pop, right? So it really just seemed like something unattainable until a buddy of mine took me to a real estate conference that was near where I live now in Connecticut. And we learned all about how to wholesale real estate, which is basically being a deal finder, kind of getting scrappy. And so that's how I got started going out, finding deals for other investors. And after a while, I just realized, man, I just created another job for myself. It's not quite what Mr. Carter was doing. Right? So I started to try to figure out how to purchase some of the real estate myself and came back to the same problem. Real estate was still expensive in the Northeast, but I realized when I started looking at larger deals that the numbers started to make a little more sense when you bring partners on. And so I kind of became educated in that, and that led to me starting my firm, 24 Capital Group.
Wayne Courreges III [00:03:38]:
So how many years have you been doing this, investing in real estate?
William Quinton Hollis [00:03:44]:
So the beginning of that wholesaling journey was maybe about six years ago, and I did that for two or three years, and then last year, I switched over fully to the private equity side, helping other people invest in the real estate deals.
Wayne Courreges III [00:04:00]:
Nice. So let's talk about wholesaling. We haven't really talked about that much on our show, so I'm actually really interested in that. And what was your experience with that? What was sort of like your daily grind? Because I'm sure very transactional because you're finding deals and trying to find those investors. So different types of work in real estate, one is very transactional, which I would assume wholesaling was for you.
William Quinton Hollis [00:04:27]:
Yeah, really transactional. If you don't like talking to strangers, it's probably not the business for you. So really, it was a lot of cold calling, going out, seeing properties, negotiating contracts. I think it's a great entry point into the world of real estate because you don't necessarily need to put a lot of capital into it to get started. I mean, you could, but you don't have to, and I didn't. And you can do most of the things yourself. You kind of make your calls, get your lists, make your calls, go see the properties. You start to learn, really how to analyze deals. And that's really helped me a lot in giving me the background of really how to underwrite deals. I mean, underwriting and multifamily. And at the portfolio level, it's a little bit different, but most of it are the same. You have your expenses you got to look for. You got to check the value of the comparable properties in the area, what's sold, what's the going rate for this, what's that going to cost. So wholesaling is what taught me that. But it's a grind. It's a grind because as soon as you stop making those phone calls, the deals stop coming and the money stops coming. So it's a different world for sure.
Wayne Courreges III [00:05:40]:
So in wholesaling, was this mostly in single family?
William Quinton Hollis [00:05:44]:
Yes, single family and small multi.
Wayne Courreges III [00:05:46]:
And how did you find those list?
William Quinton Hollis [00:05:49]:
Great question. So there's a few different methods you can use. One, you can go on your county tax assessor's website and basically pull a list of everyone who's delinquent on their taxes. So when you're wholesaling deals, your biggest point of leverage is the distress of the seller. Right. So somebody who has to sell their property for whatever reason, they have a very tight time frame. They don't have time to go to a Realtor, put it on MLS, wait for somebody with an FHA loan to close in 45, 60 days. They want to close fast. Right. So basically you have to go find those people. People who are going to be foreclosed on, people who have tax liens, people who need to move for work is a great one. And another little secret nugget that I started doing toward the end was just going to the Realtors, because usually when people, even if they're in a time crunch and they need to sell their property quickly, they still call a Realtor first. Right? That's the way you think to sell your home. But at the end of the day, not everyone is really in a good position to sell their house with a Realtor on the open market. I mean, the Realtor is going to want you to fix up the house. They're going to want to bring people through your house. Not everybody's comfortable with that. So when you go to a Realtor and you say, hey, I have the ability to execute on these deals, I can bring buyers to these deals or I can buy the deals myself, the Realtors can be an excellent little secret resource for wholesale deals.
Wayne Courreges III [00:07:14]:
Yeah, no, I think that's a great strategy for sure. Because I know a lot of people, like you said, they don't want to have the whole marketing process of people coming in their mean. Especially with in our household having three awful we went to Arkansas on a camping trip and we cleaned our house really good before we put our last house on the market. And so we stayed away for that week. Luckily it went under contract that week. But yeah, if you're living in it and you've got pets and other things, that Realtor strategy is huge. The relationships, anything in real estate across all assets, the relationships is key. Now seems like finding your list, that's all hard work. Are there programs or softwares that are outside of the appraisal and tax filing? I mean, I'm sure now everything's monetized and I'm sure six years ago when you were doing it to today, a lot has changed. Those that may be getting into it today. Is there a software you're aware of that just makes that even easier?
William Quinton Hollis [00:08:14]:
100%. So there's a great software. It actually came out around the time that I got started called PropStream, and I could put a link to that in the show notes. But it's a great software. It actually pulls all sorts of different lists from bank foreclosures to tax foreclosures to high equity landlords. So it'll pull a list of people who have owned a property for 20 years. They're in the bottom third of their mortgage and they have a ton of equity, but maybe they're older. And you can also filter for non owner occupied. Right? So this is a landlord who's had this property for a long time, has a ton of equity, and he's probably a little bit older. Maybe he's looking to retire. That's somebody you can give a call and maybe he's not thinking about selling the property, but make him an offer and you never know.
Wayne Courreges III [00:09:02]:
Yeah, it's huge. We did that. On the multifamily side, we always try to find in real estate investing, we call it like red waters and blue waters. Red waters where all the sharks are going after the same meat. A lot of times the brokers, when a deal is on the market, everybody's maybe a year ago, even more likely to go after it. Now things gotten a little but but you're finding through that sweat equity Hollis. You're finding that blue water where there's more opportunities by going direct. Like the guy who may not think about selling, but hey, you called him and now at least starts that conversation. And then it builds the timing too, because maybe in a year or so they start thinking about it and then they can save potentially on the commission fee, which makes it a little more enticing for people like yourself. So it's relationships and then hard work, grit and very transactional. So two more questions on that before we switch gears. What type of money is made and how is it made when you do your wholesaling great question.
William Quinton Hollis [00:10:06]:
So in wholesaling, you make what's called an assignment fee, right? Because I didn't have my real estate license, real estate agents license. So you're not able to collect a commission on any real estate transaction without a license anywhere in the country. But you can make what's called an assignment fee. The assignment fee happens where I come to Wayne. I say, hey, Wayne, I'll buy your house. You say, Great, give me 100,000 for it. I said. All right. Cool. I'll give you 100,000. We sign purchase and sale agreement, standard agreement for $100,000. That gives me the legal right to your property. No one else can come and buy your property because I have the papers on it, right? So from that, I go and find a real estate investor and say, hey, I've got this fantastic deal. Wayne's going to sell me this property. You give me 110,000 or 105,000 or whatever number I can negotiate and I earn that spread as an assignment fee at closing from the end buyer. So really you make your money on your ability to negotiate good purchase prices with the sellers, which is why the distressed sellers are the way to go because you have higher leverage as a buyer from that standpoint.
Wayne Courreges III [00:11:21]:
Yeah, I always say I'm very selfish on these podcasts because I ask these questions because I really don't know. That is incredible and the listeners out there listen but I'm like that makes sense. It puts it more aggressive for you to find the distressed deals at the best price and then find those investors. So that was really my last because I mentioned there were two more questions. So the last question on wholesaling is where do you find these buyers, these investors?
William Quinton Hollis [00:11:49]:
Yeah, great question. So Facebook is a fantastic place for mean, everybody knows there's millions of groups on Facebook now for everything that you could imagine and there are tons of local or local to each market. There are many real estate investor groups. So that was one way we did it. We just go on there and say, hey, I've got a deal. The other way we did it was just building relationships in the first place. Like you mentioned before, if you call someone out of the blue and ask, hey, are you interested in selling this property? Maybe they're not interested in selling, but that starts the conversation. It also could start a conversation of them buying property because maybe they're not looking to retire, maybe they're looking to expand. And you say, hey, I'm not interested in selling. And the next phrase out of my mouth is, well, are you interested in buying? If the answer is yes, where do you want to buy? What are you looking for? Right, so now I know you get 15 or 20 of those types of guys and it gives you a really good criteria of what types of properties, where to focus your own marketing efforts as the wholesaler. That way when you get a deal, you know you'll have somebody who'll be interested in buying it.
Wayne Courreges III [00:12:50]:
That makes sense, especially if you're having to put your own capital up first. A lot of risk capital that was started out about six years ago. So what happened with the transition? Or how did the transition go to more of the short term rental that you're doing now?
William Quinton Hollis [00:13:10]:
Sure, well, there was a few bumps in the road in between there for sure.
Wayne Courreges III [00:13:14]:
Okay, feel free to share those if you want.
William Quinton Hollis [00:13:19]:
I went away for a couple of weeks, I believe it was, and I just had this thought in my mind, because the whole time I still had a w two job I still do now. I'm a software engineer. And this thought just came to my mind that I'm not making any money in my wholesale business right now because I'm on vacation. So I said, Man, I need to figure out that's when I said I have to figure out how to actually buy some of these properties. So I did. I went in, started learning to underwrite Multifamily. Like I said, I realized that the bigger deals just make more sense. Getting two families and three families, it's fine, but it's a tough road. You got to get a lot of those right. So looking at the big deals, I learned how to analyze them, bought some courses, got some spreadsheets, got a couple of mentors and really got into it. Started submitting offers on properties, which was great. I was getting out there, talking to brokers, building the relationships. I actually got some deals under contracts. Got a lot of no's, a lot of no's, but got some deals under contract. And right around that time, COVID happened right around that time. So I had some single family deals. I was looking at one of those deals the seller couldn't move because of COVID so that deal got canceled. A couple of offers that I had submitted that were about to get accepted also kind of fell through. Some of them fizzled out, like I just couldn't reach the person anymore. So I had to kind of lick my rooms. I was a little bit disappointed. I felt like I was about to accomplish something. I was a little bit disappointed, but it was good. Kind of took a step back and started looking at different markets. And of course things kind of just skyrocketed. The market took off, went through the roof. And to be honest, I got a little bit uncomfortable with where multifamily was headed. I started making offers on properties again, and I was getting outbid, but by ridiculous amounts, like just unbelievable deals that were happening. And it made me feel dumb. I was like, I was thinking, Man.
Wayne Courreges III [00:15:29]:
I must do yeah, no, you were doing what you should have been doing. That's awesome.
William Quinton Hollis [00:15:37]:
I started looking at alternative asset classes. I met an operator who was in the short term rental space already. He had a lot of success on his own, and he kind of came to me with this idea that he had already started to implement of putting together a portfolio of short term rentals. And I really like the asset class because I'm a customer, I'm a buyer. My wife and I, we traveled. We used to travel a lot before we had our son. We used to travel a lot and we always stayed in short airbnbs. VRBOs, my group of friends, we go rent lake houses and things like that all the time. So it was an asset class. I felt like I really understood well. And when I looked at what Techvestor is, the group that I partnered with, when I looked at what Techvestor was doing, I was like, man, these are the exact properties that I pay a premium for to stay at with my friends and with my family. So I saw that they were doing it well and decided to hop on board with them.
Wayne Courreges III [00:16:36]:
Yeah, once you start having kids, family and such, the idea of going to a hotel isn't as exciting, especially when they're really young, because you're worried that you're going to wake up the people next to you. So having that freedom in the house, short term, VRBO, et cetera, that's huge. I want to go back a little bit because I think one thing you had mentioned that you're doing W two, et cetera. And I think that's fantastic because during that time when you were looking at multifamily and stuff, you weren't having to be aggressive to buy the deals, to make some money. You were already covered financially through your W Two. And for anybody starting, I mean, that's huge. Having that safety net and that job that you're going in and grinding every day but spending time after hours, that's absolutely the right way of doing it. So kudos to you on that because I think know, it allows you to step you know, people are putting a million dollar offers on top of what I thought was I mean, it was crazy, at least in Texas, I'm sure all over. And you did scratch your head and Be is getting a little aggressive. I like that too, that you switched gears. You're like, hey, multifamily maybe getting a little too more aggressive. So you went to something that you were comfortable with and that, you know, and I think that's something that's huge too for listeners is buy in markets and buy in investments that you know, and that's why a lot of people do apartments because we all have lived in an apartment at some point in our life, right? So no, those are two things I picked up when you were going through that, of how you got into Single Family Rentals. One thing with Single Family Rentals, though, and I'm noticing because I'm starting, I my wife's from Montana and every time we go to Montana I'm always oh, how do we get up here in the summer? I don't want to be there during the winter, I want to be in Texas during the winter, there in the summer. But I'm noticing that a lot of I don't know if it's just because COVID a lot of people bought in Montana and now they're having to go back to work or everybody just had this idea of these short term rental ideas of like, hey, I'll just rent it out and be fine. But it seems like I'm noticing that those type homes are sitting longer. And then I had a call with an investor and a good friend earlier this week. It just so happened to be she owns Single Family Rentals, short term Rentals in I believe, Tennessee. And she's noticing that the people that had money during would were her customers, like the people that wanted to do a day drive or whatever to go to. But now those same people are all traveling overseas because it's like the COVID Now you can go overseas. So now it's bringing in residents or not residents, but tenants or vacationers, whatever you want to call them that aren't the most ideal. So I guess my question to you on that is, are you seeing a trend where the vacancy on short term rentals are higher? How are you all adjusting to that and really trying to keep up with the competition since so many other homes are listed as a short term rental and it was a lot there. No, it just so happens to be like, I talked to her and I'm like, she seemed like she was not as excited about owning short term rentals, I should say.
William Quinton Hollis [00:20:15]:
Yeah, there's definitely a lot more inventory out there than there was pre COVID. I think to your point, people kind of got the bug, right? A lot of people were just sitting around watching Netflix HGTV, and it was like, oh wow, let me go out and do this right. And there is obvious seasonality in each know to your point, like Montana. No one's I can't think of any reason to be in Montana necessarily during the winter. I don't know. Is there skiing in Montana?
Wayne Courreges III [00:20:46]:
Maybe a lot of beautiful skiing.
William Quinton Hollis [00:20:48]:
Yeah, tickle for same. And here's the nugget, here's the kicker. There's only competition if you have competitors. So Alex from Oz talks about this idea of commoditization where we'll go to the grocery store. We're only willing to pay $3 for a carton of milk because that's how much milk costs. There's nothing special about this milk. Maybe we'll pay more if it's organic. Okay. Maybe we'll pay more if it's, I don't know, farm fresh, grass fed cows or whatever people are doing now. Right, okay. But there's a ceiling. Like, this is milk. At the end of the day, I'm not going to pay $25 for one carton of milk. Just not going to happen. But when you create something that is so valuable to people, right, you have an experience behind it. You've gone beyond kind of transitioning back to airbnb. You've gone beyond just offering someone a place to stay. I'm offering you a vacation in your vacation. The homes that we've created are so incredible, and I'm not taking credit for any of this because I'm not on the design team or the acquisitions team or any of that stuff. I just get to sit over here and reap the benefits and talk about it on podcast. For example, we have properties that have a pool, a Jacuzzi, a mini golf course, a little beach built into the property, an outdoor tiki bar, a gaming wind side with arcade games, pool tables, ping.
Wayne Courreges III [00:22:25]:
Sounds above my budget. That sounds amazing, though.
William Quinton Hollis [00:22:31]:
You're right, they're incredible. But the point being, there's not a lot of competition at that level.
Wayne Courreges III [00:22:38]:
Okay.
William Quinton Hollis [00:22:38]:
You know what I mean? So for us, Occupancy has actually stayed pretty even because there's a bunch of different analysis tools. You can go look at revenues for different markets for airbnb. And when you're in below the 75th percentile of revenue ton of competition. And that's when you become commoditized and you're in a race to the bottom who can charge the least for their carton of milk? Yes, but when you're in the top nintieth percentile of revenue, it's because your product is so good, people will pay almost anything for it.
Wayne Courreges III [00:23:12]:
I wish I was ready to transition our conversation into Niching and Ten Xing. We're not there yet because I really want to learn more about short term rentals. All right, so for those that are getting or thinking about doing short term rentals, maybe the home that they're living in or looking to go buy, like myself a home and maybe renting it out, what are some things, some lessons learned that you have experienced in finding? Maybe not those high end tiered niche properties, but other properties that are a lot more attainable for the average person to go do it without pulling money from other people. What are some lessons learned that you've seen and any advice that you would give them to protect their property from people that could vandalize and cause issues?
William Quinton Hollis [00:24:14]:
Yeah, sure. So something we're doing right now, outside of that portfolio we're building. Kind of a more personal I do have a partner in that venture as well, but it's a much smaller like you said, we're not really pooling huge sums of money together. These are one off properties. A few things we're doing is really drilling in on your market analysis. Right. Understand where you're going to put your property, because to the point you made earlier, some locations are going to attract certain types of guests. And other locations are going to attract other types of guests. Right. And just know that some people will destroy your property and other people won't destroy your property. And then on top of that, even if you don't need to get the most extravagant property to rise above the commoditization, it's really all about the level of design effort you're going to put into it, the types of amenities you're going to bring into your property. And actually, it's funny. I just had a post about this, and I have, like, a top four amenity list that I've seen from the experience with the portfolio that's really made us stand out. And these are not insane things. I'm not telling you to go build an in ground pool in your property, but maybe adding a game. Add things that will attract families to your property or even groups of friends to your property. That way you can charge a premium and you're getting people who are less likely to destroy your stuff. If you're in the bottom tier, you're going to get people at the bottom tier.
Wayne Courreges III [00:25:50]:
Absolutely. How do you all manage those assets? Are you working with a local property management company that would manage your traditional single family rental or are there specialized management companies that do the short term rental management?
William Quinton Hollis [00:26:08]:
Great question. So to my knowledge, there are specialized short term rental companies. In fact, a buddy of mine, one of my partners, owns a company like that where they do manage short term rentals. But this is what I tell everyone to do and this is something I preach, and it's kind of my entire investment thesis is built upon this fact. Go out and partner with others. So of the short term rentals that I'm partnered on, there are none in Connecticut that I can just go drive to and patch the hole in the wall myself. I've partnered with people in those markets who are boots on the ground at the portfolio level. The same thing in all those markets. We have boots on the ground, we have partnerships with people. And there's a difference between a partnership and just hiring somebody. Because when you hire somebody, we all know how that goes, right? It's hard to find good help at the end of the day at all levels in the professional world and in all asset classes. But when you partner with somebody and they have skin in the game, so to speak, their income is based on the performance of their property, then now you're getting a different level of service, you're getting a different level of assistance, a different level of commitment. So when it comes to managing a know, obviously not everybody lives in a market that's favorable for short term rentals. Maybe you live in Montana and it's like, man, this don't want to be here in the winter, right? So you buy a short term rental in, you know, in the Carolinas or something like that. Find a partner in that market. It's okay, you can share some of the income. It'll be better for you in the end. Find a partner in that market who can bring you that expertise.
Wayne Courreges III [00:27:41]:
Yeah, that's huge. So talk to me about the group that you're more partnering with. You mentioned it was tech.
William Quinton Hollis [00:27:49]:
Tech vestors. Yes.
Wayne Courreges III [00:27:50]:
Tech vestors. So talk to me about tech vestors. How are people that are listening and we're not closing the podcast yet. I know it's sort of a question, sort of prep for that, but what is Tech vestors doing? What's your involvement and how are you bringing value, et cetera, to your investors through them?
William Quinton Hollis [00:28:07]:
Yeah, sure. So my fund partnered with Techvestors on their short term rental fund. One. Fund two is live now. So my fund is an investor in the Techvestor fund. So we partnered with them on those properties. You can find them at Gotechvestor on Instagram. Techvestor.com is the website. But their team, what attracted me to that group is that their team. Is phenomenal. Everybody in the C suite on that team, you could call it, each of those operators had a very successful short term rental portfolio in their own, you know, some of them were in Arizona, some of them down in Florida, but they had their own portfolio that was already successful. So they understood very was what was going to be required, what type of team was going to be required in order to make it successful on a large scale. And with that, they were able to create a fully vertically integrated short term rental company, operations company. So from acquisitions to construction, to cleaning, to dispositions, to financials, accounting, legal, all of that we have in house at Techvestors. So that one, it hedges against costs. Two, with so much more buy in from everybody, I mean, there's just an endless number of benefits that come from being vertically integrated and that's what they were able to bring to the table. So when I saw that opportunity, I was really excited to bring that to my investors and have them take advantage of that.
Wayne Courreges III [00:29:37]:
Well, the other thing too, for your investors as well. It's like somewhere like a syndication multifamily or other syndication is you're reducing the risk, diversifying the risks for them. Because instead of them, the investor going out and buying maybe that single family or short term rental themselves and having to put a larger down payment and then have to have the headache of what my friend was telling me about in her Tennessee properties. Instead it sounds like they're investing into a fund. That fund is investing into a much larger organized platform and deliverability because it's vertically integrated. So I think that's so what are you seeing from a return standpoint consistent with Tech vestors and just your fund? And what's the minimum investment?
William Quinton Hollis [00:30:26]:
So fund one is closed, so minimum investment is you can't get in at.
Wayne Courreges III [00:30:32]:
This point shows there was demand, right?
William Quinton Hollis [00:30:35]:
Yeah, fund two is open. I'm not involved in fund two. My fund was in fund one. Our minimum investment on that was 25,000, I believe, and the pro forma was two X equity multiple over three to five year period. And the fund is performing very well. The last projections that we sorry, the last report that we, the quarterly report had us well above the pro forma numbers based on where we're supposed to be at. Because the thing with the asset class like this, or really anytime you're doing like a value add right there's, that ramp up period where you have to kind of get things live, but we started distributing two quarters ahead of time.
Wayne Courreges III [00:31:28]:
That's awesome.
William Quinton Hollis [00:31:29]:
So the team is absolutely phenomenal good.
Wayne Courreges III [00:31:33]:
Well, and you mentioned that 25,000 entry level that is very doable for many people who may not be able to go again, want to or can get into a short term rental on their own. And so pulling money, it seems like a much and obviously it's a very passive way of doing it, especially if you've got other career or family ambitions, et cetera.
William Quinton Hollis [00:31:57]:
All right, absolutely.
Wayne Courreges III [00:31:59]:
Switching gears, we've got about five minutes left here and I want to really touch base because you got really excited before the show to talk about how niching finding a niche can help Ten X your game. So tell us all about what's on your mind about Ten X, and I'm very interested in hearing about it.
William Quinton Hollis [00:32:20]:
Yes, absolutely. So the fact of the matter is and this really kind of applies to anything in life, but the fact of the matter is, especially in real estate, it's something I learned in wholesaling, there are so many steps required to get a deal done right. Just think about at a high level. I need to find a property, need to find some money. I need to get the deal closed, which means I need to find debt. I got to find an attorney. All of these things. And we haven't even really closed the deal yet, and we already have five steps in the process. And trying to do it by yourself is really difficult to scale at the end of the day, right. You need a team that's going to help you. And the fact of the matter is, when you're getting started, depending on what your financial circumstance is, you may not have the money to just go out and kind of hire people and pay the premium required to just kind of construct your team that way. But what you can do is skill yourself up, become a master at any of those steps in the process, and there are other people who will come looking for you, right? So if you're on the wholesale side, for example, you become an expert deal finder, and now the buyers, the investors come looking for you. Hey, Hollis, you got a deal. You got a deal because they know you're an expert deal finder. Ten X that become an expert at finding two family deals under $200,000 in this zip code. If you're the person who gets all of those deals and that's all you're focused on, you're so laser focused, you will see a much greater result than if you said, hey, I'm looking for any type of property anywhere in the state. I'll go anywhere, I'll do anything. You're going to really struggle, and especially if you're trying to do multiple things. And so that's kind of what's helped me on the equity side as well. For a while, I was trying to go out and still find the deal, still build a broker relationship, still go find the debt, still find the equity, still do all of these other things. Now, I help real estate professionals invest passively in real estate. That's all I do. This is one thing I do. And the result has really ten x. So that's why I'm so excited about it, because you don't have to be a jack of all trades. Go deep, not wide, and you'll see a much better result.
Wayne Courreges III [00:34:51]:
Yeah. So on your niche, finding passive investment opportunities for passive investors, they're trusting you that you're doing the grunt work of analyzing, finding sponsors, et cetera. So talked about how obviously that niche is sort of in your passion and what you enjoy doing. So if you're going to niche into something and niche into something that you have passion about, if you have no passion for talking to people, investor relations and capital raising may not be it right. But underwriting may be more your thing.
William Quinton Hollis [00:35:24]:
Exactly.
Wayne Courreges III [00:35:24]:
Talked about how your niche and sort of how you're separating yourself to best serve your investors.
William Quinton Hollis [00:35:31]:
Yeah. And really it goes back to your point. I love talking to people. My wife may hate that about me. I'm the type of person, we sit down at a bar, I'm talking to the guy next to me. You better believe I'm striking up a conversation. So it's something that I do, I think, a little bit differently from a lot of other operators that I hear. I really love the relations side of investor relations. I talk to all of my investors. I don't even have an online portal where you can just go sign up and invest in a deal without talking to me first. I want to know who you are and because I want to make sure that our values align. And the reason for that is I grew up with little to no money, like lights get cut off every other month type of type of situation. So I value when people trust me with their money. And the fact of the matter is, even though this is real estate and to all of us in the business, we're like, oh, this is so secure, we're good. The fact of the matter is things happen. Everything could go terribly wrong and go straight down the toilet. Who do you want to be the person standing next to you in that situation? Is it somebody who you have no real relationship with? Maybe your values don't align, maybe you don't really know much about them? Or is it somebody know we've built some rapport, we have somewhat of a friendship at least, and the deal is going terribly. And I can call you and say, hey, Wayne, this is not what you want to hear, but things are not going well and here's how we're going to try to fix it. Obviously it's an uncomfortable conversation regardless, but I'd rather have the uncomfortable conversation with a friend than a stranger at the end of the day.
Wayne Courreges III [00:37:09]:
Yeah, well said. And when people are getting into this industry, finding what you can bring to the table, because you're not going to be able to bring the experience, you're not going to be able to bring maybe all the net worth or all the liquidity or maybe you don't have all the time to do asset management or underwriting, et cetera. But there's so much that you can do to become part of a team and niche, like you're saying, and become that person that becomes an expert at it. Right. And people need that. People want that to scale because it makes it easier for them to close deals. So, man, we talked about a lot today from Wholesaling. And really what I got out of a Wholesaling conversation is it's a bunch of grit, hard work relationships and just going after it. And when you're on vacation, you're not getting paid. That's a big piece. And we didn't even talk about Wholesaling before the Conversation podcast. Right. And then we talked a lot about the short term rentals and then sort of going into the reducing risk by joining partnerships.
William Quinton Hollis [00:38:17]:
That's it. And that's what I love about, is reducing the risk. There's so many benefits to partnering, whether it's at the syndication level or even just like you and a buddy getting together to make something happen. There's so many benefits to it.
Wayne Courreges III [00:38:33]:
Absolutely. So I always ask this last question, and then we would love to hear how people can reach out to you. So this last question is, what is your proudest moment in real estate investing? And then again, just share how people can reach out to you.
William Quinton Hollis [00:38:46]:
Sure. I remember the first time someone agreed to invest in a deal with me. That moment, the moment I saw on my phone the wire was sent. That's probably my proudest moment. There have been a ton of them. I think I've accomplished a lot of things, but that's one that I tend to play over in my mind a lot. And it wasn't like somebody sent me a million bucks or anything. It was a small investment, but just that I had enough integrity and was bringing enough value and had garnered the respect of someone enough that they were willing to invest in me. I mean, anytime you invest in a deal, you're investing in the people operating it as well, right?
Wayne Courreges III [00:39:31]:
Absolutely.
William Quinton Hollis [00:39:32]:
That was a very proud moment for me, and I still think about to this day and then for people to get in touch with me. I'm on instagram at Rei Hollis. Follow me. DM me. I answer all of my DMs myself. I'd love to have a conversation with you on LinkedIn as well at Rei Hollis, but Instagram is where I'm most active.
Wayne Courreges III [00:39:52]:
Perfect. Well, Hollis, so much information on this. Really appreciate your time and getting to know you and hope to see you at a conference. You said you were at Race Fest earlier this year. I was there as well. We were talking before the show, so we didn't catch each other. But next year, in February, I think it's in Phoenix.
William Quinton Hollis [00:40:07]:
Yeah, I think so.
Wayne Courreges III [00:40:08]:
I want to go. I mean, I've gone two years in a row and there's so much value. 100% such great people. All right, well, thank you so much, Hollis. You have a great day. And listeners, if you're into short term rentals or want to talk wholesaling, reach out to Hollis. Have a good day.
William Quinton Hollis [00:40:24]:
Bye, guys.
Introducer [00:40:26]:
That's all for this episode. We hope you subscribe, share and leave a review of the show. For more information about passively investing in multifamily apartments, check out Wayne's free ebook by going to creipartners.com forward slash ebook. Also, follow us on Facebook by searching CREI partners. This was the untold stories of real estate investing person.
