In this video, we delve into the fascinating world of multifamily real estate and unveil the secrets behind managing 200 rental units at the age of 21.
In this eye-opening discussion, we’ll explore unconventional strategies that go beyond the norm, highlighting the unique approaches that only 1% of investors dare to undertake.
Join us as we share invaluable insights, actionable tips, and the personal journey of a young investor who defied the odds and achieved remarkable success in the competitive realm of real estate.
Whether you’re an aspiring investor or a seasoned pro, this video is packed with wisdom that can reshape your perspective on multifamily real estate and propel your ventures to new heights.
Don’t miss out on the opportunity to learn and be inspired – hit play now!
Transcript:
Chris Bounds 00:00
These are big communities. I mean, five, I mean, there’s roughly 200 unit communities. How at the age of 21, are you assembling the team because I’ll preface this, a lot of people say, hey, multifamily is the same as single family. And I really disagree with that. In general mechanics yet, I guess it’s the same, but it’s not like as multifamily. There’s a lot of components that come into play, you’re buying a business. And that business is worth only what the business is produces income, or NOI single family is different because it has intrinsic value to owner occupants, not just investment purposes. So that requires certain various specialized team members, whether it’s the actual operators, property managers, the asset managers, the KPS, you get drill ending team and you get your due diligence team, and then you get your acquisitions team and all that. So to get in these deals, how did how did you approach that?
Jeffrey Donis 00:54
Yeah, it’s great question. So obviously, for us, in me being young, I had a lot of limiting beliefs that I really had to overcome. That was the first hurdle that we had to jump. And the way that we did that was first and foremost, educating ourselves. So I read the best ever apartment syndication book by Joe Fairless. That’s really what’s at the foundation of what we now know. And then that book, let us know that we needed to find a mentor. So once we learned that we started looking into, you know, multifamily, different mentorships and mastermind groups that we could join, we came across a few. And eventually you joined one, it was a lot less expensive than the one that we ended up joining.
The first one was, again, on top of the best ever book, it really helped us learn a lot about the ins and outs of syndication. And then after that, we joined one little bit more expensive, but what we were paying for was really a network versus the knowledge which you can really find most, not everything, but most of it for free. This was more specialized. And at the end of the day, it brought the network. So the multifamily group that we joined was called Think multifamily. I’m not sure if I’m sure that Chris, but cool. So it comes with a partner that you can partner with Mark Kenny, he’s our key on our deals.
And then in the group, it’s an ecosystem, really, I like to consider it a family, where I have partners who can help with earnest money, they’re helping find deals, they can help raise capital, sign on loans, if I need that. But typically, Mark just does that. On top of that all. My Mark has a lot of experience. So when I’m speaking with partners, Mark is someone I can leverage when it comes to that. So obviously, I’m young, but Mark has a lot of experience. So they’re not only investing with me, but they’re partnering and investing with Mark yet.
Chris Bounds 02:35
So in my weekly newsletter, this week I talked about proximity is power. And you are the average of the five people you hang around to hang around with the moats that Stephen Covey quote, and, or is this Covey? Jim Rohn, Jim Rohn. And then Tony Robbins talks about proximity is power. But a lot of people like think like, Well, how do I get close to in your case, Mark Kenny, or Grant Cardone, or whatever. And really, like, you’re probably not gonna be sitting, like, you’re gonna be able to call him up and sit, sit down and coffee a couple times a week. But what you can do is go to networking events, you can go to masterminds, I mean, you’re gonna pay for those. But there’s networking events, there’s audio, podcasts and sound like you listen to those audio books, reading books. And there’s so many ways that you can get proximity get in that proximity of people of influence, who are or have done, what you’re looking to do and are where you are trying to go. And you get that proximity. And then that’s really where things really start to grow. And you’re also limiting beliefs, like the limiting beliefs that you start to realize that it’s just a, it’s just BS, like it is what it is. It’s a limiting belief. It doesn’t have to be true.
Jeffrey Donis 03:47
Yeah, when we first got started, we would go to these events. And we hadn’t done any deals. And I would be in circles and just networking with people, and I wouldn’t be overhearing their conversations. I’d be a part of it. But I didn’t have much to input at that time. But I would just listen to their problems. They were raising millions of dollars, they were you submitting offers on properties worth 10s to $20 million. And all of these things, and I guess the conversations they were having, I was immersed in. And slowly I started asking questions.
And I would look around and see all these people. And at first you started to get this and I had this impostor syndrome. And I think, to the to certain extent, I still do, but you start to just realize that these are just normal people that just like, you know what you’re trying to do, they’ve worked hard to get there. So you start to think, Okay, well, they can do it. And I think this is where a little bit of my own naivete kicks in. Because like, I can do it too.
And that’s what really led to us just overcoming limiting beliefs, and saying, You know what, there’s nothing really that ought to take anything away from them, but they kind of inspire me to be able to see if they can do it, I can do it. So eventually, we just decided to go after our own deals, just like the lead sponsors in our groups where instead of just co sponsoring for example, things like that, really were things that I was able to sort of Believe Oh my own after spending time with people that were actually doing it. Yeah,
Chris Bounds 05:04
I love it. Um, I mean, imposter syndrome. When you’re growing. I think a lot of us go through that. And you know, I’ve had it. I remember, I don’t recall having it. In college when I started flipping houses, because I took a little weekend, we can boot camp has had a bike pre foreclosures. So here I am 21 years old, I’m like knocking on doors to people who are grown adults. Like, I mean, these are folks that are 40s 50s, maybe 60s, and they’re losing their home and I’m like, 21 years old, I have no job and what credit I have is on a credit card that I just got in the mail. And I’m like, saying I’m gonna buy their house, like how they’re gonna trust me. But I jokingly saying I was dumb enough.
And really, by jokingly saying dumb enough, I was humble enough to believe what my mentor taught me. I just did it. You just take massive action, and especially the massive action usually, like you don’t have time to worry about like the imposter syndrome, or all the limiting beliefs. You just like, doo doo doo doo doo. And then, like, learn to just keep doing more loans. Just after three months of knocking on doors. I got my first deal. And it was it was so exciting. And that brought a whole new sense of belief like, whoa, whoa, whoa, like, this really works. I’m 21 years old, don’t have a job. I’m still in college, and I just bought a house. Like, that’s pretty cool. Yeah,
Jeffrey Donis 06:34
would you say it got harder for you to sort of keep that mindset, because like in regards to taking massive action without necessarily overthinking it,
Chris Bounds 06:42
it can, um, I’ll say this, a sales order. So I didn’t take a job afterwards. Business Partner at the time, we went separate ways. And I ended up becoming a manager and an inside sales company. And in experience personally, but also more so from observation. So once I became a manager, I was able to observe and I was a manager of new sales agents. So new agents, they’d get trained, they’d come on my floor, join my team, and they’d usually stay with me anywhere from one to three years. And but I was able to observe what happened, and usually the new agents would outperform the veterans. And the reason is the veterans are they come in, they come in saying, in a call suck today, the leads suck today, no one’s buying today. I’m just backlogged the customer service, yada, yada, yada. I’m like, Dude.
So I would tell the new agents, I would like, keep that mindset as a hungry motivated sales agent, the longer you can keep that and if you can keep your your mindset in that zone, you’ll do well, the moment you feel privileged, to where you just are privileged to get deals and you don’t have to work for it. That’s when it’s gonna become harder. So you’ll always get especially in sales, which real estate’s department sales, and actually most of your life is sales in some form. You’re gonna go through iterations of that, and versions of that. It’s just an even Grant Cardone talks about like, in his book, like, some days, he didn’t feel motivated, but what does he do? Like he gets after it anyway? Yeah, Robbins talks about it like he gives himself I think what he says like, it’s like a 15 seconds or 30 seconds. He gives himself a little bit of time, feel down about something a little frustrated about something, and then boom, snaps back out of it, get in zone go after it.
Jeffrey Donis 08:39
That’s awesome. Yeah. I mean, like, I think I’ve obviously been in business as long as you have. But I’ve, it’s like ebbs and flows. And I’d like it to just I’m interested to see if that’s something that ever goes away, or is it something that you tried to stay conscious of? So I appreciate you sharing?
Chris Bounds 08:55
I really would imagine if you talk to Elon Musk and Zuckerberg and like Ray Dalio, pretty much anyone there. I would imagine their success over a long timeframe really comes down to their ability to refocus when things get troubled. So whenever they they have bad news or downtimes, whatever, it just sucks for a couple minutes, but they just get right back after it and they’re able to do that. And not everyone has the natural ability to do that as quickly as a maybe Tony Robbins, but it can be learned. And especially if you surround yourself with the right people, which that’s really the important part of that proximity that being around successful people. Because they’ll put you in check. Like you start making excuses. They were like, man, shut the heck up, like get out there and do it. So I’ve been a baby