In this episode, I talk with Matt Gardner.
Matt is a real estate investor who made $50,000,000 in sales working with real estate investors.
He closed 93 deals in 3rd year as an agent and 450+ doors in 3 years as an investor.
Matt was born and raised in Destin, Florida.
He shared his journey from being a pilot to cancer survivor to being a successful real estate investor.
He will discuss how he made $50 million in sales and the tips and tricks to succeed in real estate industry.
He will also answer questions from the audience related to real estate.
Find out more in this video. Don’t forget to subscribe!
Transcript:
Jamie Bounds 00:00
Hi, Matt, what’s up, Jamie, thanks so much for joining us. It’s always my pleasure to hear from you a little bit about Matt. He’s going to be talking about 50 million in sales just working with investors. So Matt is the founder of Team roar. He’s a veteran Air Force fighter pilot and cancer survivor. He has over 100 million in sales over the last three years 50 million just last year alone. And Matt’s investment portfolio consists of about 330 multifamily and RV park units. So and you’re in Florida, that’s where he is based. So but I know you invest all over various states, correct?
Matt Gardner 00:49
Yeah. And we’re just about to do a deal in Austin, actually. So.
Jamie Bounds 00:53
Okay, well, go ahead and take it away.
Matt Gardner 00:56
Sweet. Awesome. Well, thanks for having me, Jamie. Always, always good to see you and Chris, and everything. And I love how you guys are doing this consistently. So yeah, big picture. So 50 million in sales this past year working with investors. So so that’s kind of a highlight, what I’m going to focus on is for those those agents out there, or agent investors or investor agents, who were really trying to figure out how to kind of take their game up another level, like you said, this past year was it was a stellar year, we didn’t I personally did 93 Deal. 93 deals at around 50 million. And it was my third full year as an agent really my first year as a full time agent, because prior to that, it was it was a pilot, as of right now.
And just to clarify, last year, we bought 330 doors, but I had another 120. So or doors prior to that. So overall, now we have about 150 doors, under my belt as an investor. So definitely looking forward to the growth of 2022. And hopefully continuing that continuing to ride from there. So background on me, who am I? This is me, my, my big why is my family basically my wife, my four kids, that’s us on the beaches in Destin. So every year, we have a cell tradition where after we open presents on Christmas, we go down to the beach, and we make a little snowman, Sandman on the beach. And that was us this year, just loving life, basically, I really love and where we live, and it’s absolutely stellar.
They are definitely my true motivation for kind of the things I do and, and my big reason why so, you know, like, like everyone consistently says, definitely find your motivation, your passion, and the reason why you do what you do. Because it’s very tough to wake up and work. When you don’t have motivation, you got to have a reason to get out of bed in the morning. So further background on me, I was a fighter pilot. As far as my background, like you said, That’s me in the top left with my F 35, I flew F 35, and F teens. And while I was in the military, I took took away a few, quite a few lessons I learned one of the big ones was work ethic, though, as a fighter pilot in the military, you know, even in order to get to that level through the undergraduate pilot training, and then fighter pilot training.
It’s, it’s grueling, and you have to learn to be able to just put your head down and put your nose to the grindstone and just just work, you know, 14 1618 hour days, were not uncommon in that world. So the whole kind of grind mentality, which a lot of people poopoo I have definitely taught, I was taught that in that culture. And I think there’s definitely a time and a place for it. To kind of have that kind of work ethic to be able to outwork the people around you, I think was it Michael Jordan, he says, you know, he’s gonna be the one who knows, when he was Will Will Smith says he’s going to outwork anyone around him, which is true, right? If you’re willing to do the work, you’re gonna see the success out of it. And military as well, we traveled around the world was great.
We lived in England for three years, and I found a passion for travel. And that’s another reason that another things that really kind of gets me going and another motivation for me to kind of do the things that I do, traveling around Europe, and obviously, not much travel recently. Now I hate traveling with a mask. We’re down here in Florida, where we like to say we opted out of COVID. I say that jokingly. But you know, it’s it’s been nice to have a little bit more lax freedom down here compared to the rest of the country. One other thing that I really took away from my times in the military is really three attributes to a lot of fighter pilots in general. And they are the fact that they’re humble, they’re credible, and they’re approachable. If you hold those attributes throughout various aspects of your real estate career career in general, I think it’s just going to do well, you know, as a real estate investor, if I if I approach you know, other investors, and I’m trying to raise money for various deals I’m doing if I approach it humbly, credibly, and that I’m an approachable person that people are willing to work with me not not some arrogant dude.
I think you’ll see more success out of it. Same thing as a real estate agent. So those are three kinds of attributes. I definitely try to live by on a daily basis. So yeah, I flew I flew fighter pilots for about 11 years and after that, about three years ago, I got diagnosed with cancer out of the blue. I was at the time I was the one of the youngest pilots about to go to talk and training on the very newest fighter jet base and literally on the top of the world with my career as a young buck trying to try to make it happen. I was super excited. While I was out in Las Vegas, I just kind of got tired and felt a little bit funky so much of my doctor and we ended up finding that I had nine tumors in my chest so over the man over the next two weeks, had to get you know, heart surgery and then chemotherapy started and then here I am you A couple months later, in the middle of midst of chemotherapy with no hair, you know, so it’s one of those things of it was a terrible experience.
But what I learned out of it was there’s always a silver lining in every situation. So learning to deal with these unexpected situations, and always trying to find the positive in them is is definitely an attribute. That is pretty crucial when it comes to real estate investing or real estate sales, because there’s going to be constantly unexpected surprises. And you need to be able to roll with the punches, and figure out how you’re going to, you know, make lemons out of lemonade, make lemonade out of lemons, whatever. From there. The other thing I learned with whole cancer cancer situation was the need for a strong community. You know, when when you’re dealing with things, whether good, bad or indifferent, you want to make sure that you have that strong support network behind you, you know, to deal with something like cancer, you know, it’d be much more difficult if I was dealing with it by myself.
And so having my squadron around me having my network with my church and my other friends like it was it was a big deal to have them around. And it made that experience so much better. Because I had that you’ll see, as I talk now, with the rest of the stuff, I do that with the real estate side as well. So I’ve developed the real estate team, a nice, strong, tight knit community where we help each other out with my investments, you know, I have a lot of partnerships, all of my investments are through partnerships, because I find that even if you if you develop a partnership, right, the amount you lose by giving into the partnership should pale in comparison to the amount you gain as the partnership as a whole. And so that’s this, this sense of having a strong community is big for me, and it goes back to the fighter pilot days as well. You know, in the fighter pilot community, we have the squadrons where you know, you’re prepared to die for each other if needed for the for the common good.
And it’s not, it’s not a dire situation in real estate, luckily, but you know, having that same kind of mentality is pretty cute, pretty huge. And then obviously going through life event like that is you learn to appreciate things more, you know, whether it’s a small simple things or, again, appreciate the fact that you’re able to see the silver lining in crappy situations. So yeah, it’s been awesome. So yeah, anyways, family going into fighter pilot, and then I had cancer and then really that different transitioned me into real estate while I was doing chemotherapy at some of my fighter pilot buddies, who introduced me to Rich Dad, Poor Dad. And then I was also introduced to bigger pockets. And then from there, I just kind of just got hooked on it. So for me, like, now we’re gonna transition to you, okay, Dave, three years ago, I knew nothing about real estate, I had no indication that I even wanted to do real estate, I didn’t really know much about it to now doing 50 million in sales.
And so I’ll kind of walk you through the way I think is a pretty good building blocks to get there. So the first and foremost for me is education without a doubt. So the education aspect was crucial. So I went while I was doing chemotherapy at the hospital, I went from, you know, studying Russian and Chinese fighter pilot tactics and US American different tactics, techniques and procedures, to all of my time and effort went to focusing on real estate tactics and real estate knowledge. And so where should you focus your efforts as as a as either other newer invent as a newer agent, one of focusing on investors or as a, as an experienced agent who wants to kind of start to get into the investor mix, as you have to have that baseline knowledge as it as an investor agent. So you need to have knowledge and investing in sales in negotiating and mindset and personal development.
It’s not just one specific book, I say, agent in here, I say, jokingly, it’s like, you just need to be a good well rounded agent, basically. But also a good well rounded investor on education side, even if you don’t invest in mobile home parks, like you know, Brent Phillips does, I think you should have a pretty, at least a baseline knowledge of how they operate. From there, you’re going to the next bullet here is learning the lingo. Because as you learn the lingo, that’s going to help you actually interact with the investors more. But this is step one is again, getting that baseline education, which is crucial. There’s tons of sources out there for where you can, where you can gain this knowledge.
Books, obviously are huge. There’s a ton of books, podcasts out there are endless. Forums are online forums are great social media, blogs, YouTube has great content, there’s tons of sources out there for education. And what I’ll say for that aspect is, you know, it’s, it’s tough, it’s almost overwhelming when you say, Okay, I want to learn real estate, like, Okay, I want to be an investor agent, great. Like, how do you do that? What do you do, what I would recommend is find someone who’s, you know, two or three steps ahead of you. And just ask them, you know, ask them, Where should I focus, my energy, my effort, and if you don’t have someone, just pick something and start going with it, at least are taking action. But the ideal situation for you to efficiently gain your education is to be hanging on the coattails of someone who’s a few steps ahead of you.
And just, you know, ask them for advice. And you don’t need to reinvent the wheel in this space, which is great. The other aspect here is having a growth mindset when it comes to education. You know, you always want to be learning, you never want to be the agent who you call and you’re asking about something with a contract and they say, Well, honey, I’ve been doing this for 30 years, and I know I’ve seen it all and you’re like okay, well clearly that agent who says things like that they haven’t they have a scarcity mindset, right. They think they know everything in the game. And it’s really disheartening to hear people say that, you know, but if you have if you have the mentality of a growth mindset where you realize you’re never going to know everything and you’re always trying to Learn, it’s just going to benefit you for the long run and and hopefully keep you humble as well.
So you’re not gonna be that kind of arrogant agent. So anyway, so that’s the education piece, I think education is huge at the baseline where everything else is built upon, you can talk intelligently to investors to other agents. And and you have that you have the knowledge to back it up. So anyway, that’s the first part from here, you know, what I want to highlight on the right hand side is, is education transitioning into the next point, which is networking. So the networking aspect is going to how you’re going to grow. Next, you start with a baseline Education Foundation. And then from there, you want to start to utilize it by talking to people, you know, by getting yourself out there, realize that the networking side of the house, there is local and national kind of exposure that you can gain, whether it’s through online forums, like bigger pockets, or, or various Facebook groups, or there’s the local belly to belly meetups as well. And I highly encourage you to get involved in both. Don’t just be that one, one stop shop of like, Hey, I’m only involved in my local Sephora and only involved in this national stage, try to be involved in both to be that well rounded investor agent to help people around there.
Like I said, there’s local Ria, so local real estate investor associations, there’s local meetups you can do, there’s there’s regional and national seminars, you can attend for that more belly to belly interaction. And if you don’t have these things, start your own, you know, like what Chris and Jamie have done here. I think it’s fantastic, you know, having this whole invested agent concept. Now, while it’s not directly networking with each other it is it is a community that he’s developing, which is fantastic. You know, local meetups, I started my own local meetup. Even though there was already a pretty solid local meetup, I wanted to do mine just a little bit differently. So I put it in a different town. And I, you know, I had my own my own meetup that I started. And the moment you start being the start, the one who started the meetup, or the start the one who runs the meetup, or the Ria, or the seminar, the local seminar, or whatever it happens to be, you instantly gain credibility. So when I started my meetup, I didn’t, I didn’t have any investments. I didn’t, I maybe sold one house, you know, I have very limited experience. But I was putting myself out there in a position of authority.
And but really, it’s one more credibility indicator that your clients and investors are going to be able to lean on and want to look at look to you. So as the as the run as the person who runs the meetup, they’re going to give you deals, or they’re going to ask for your advice. And you’re gonna be able to gain momentum quicker that way. Also, as as a brand new agent, or as a brand new investor leaning on these meetups is great, because you gain secondhand experience. So you know, when you’re around people who smoke, you get secondhand smoke, right? But when you’re around investors who talk about their experiences, you gain secondhand experience. And so when I talk to people now, as an as a new agent, when I was talking to people, I didn’t have much experience with many deals, I could talk to people and say, Hey, here’s the knowledge I had, because I built I built the knowledge, then I could show it with a real world example that I’ve learned in the local meetup say, oh, yeah, you know, I have a friend of mine who’s she’s done a flip with the 1031 exchange, and whatever this is how they kind of coordinated it all. And so it’s, it’s nice to slowly kind of just not your experience, and don’t definitely don’t pretend that you’re, you’re, you’re the person in the stories. But it’s one more way to kind of leverage other people’s experience for your own benefit, which is great.
I will also encourage you, if you’re trying to be an investor agent, to try to find those niche networks as much as you can. On the top right here. This is this is a presentation that I did for ER a group of ER doctors up in Pennsylvania. And so, you know, I did a perspective of a fighter pilot on various things. It was a it was a cancer thing. And as well, as well as the the effects of like pulling G’s on your body, and like the physiological effects of that. But you better believe at the end of that I threw in some nuggets of real estate, right? So hey, I also guys, I’m a syndicator, I do this, Hey, I do sales. So if you’re looking to, you know, offset your income, through, you know, some tax savings down in Florida, here’s some short term rentals you might be able to invest in.
So always thrown those nuggets in the moment, you’re able to get into these groups of high net worth individuals, whether it’s, you know, some doctor collective that that you know, 20 3040 doctors that just meet regularly and talk about investments, or attorneys or pilots or whatever it happens to be for these various groups, try to try to be there your guy for that, try to be the guy for that group. You know what I mean? And it’s the moment you can do that, it can really be beneficial as more and more clients want to work with you as you add value to their life. The other thing to consider is the fact that strong relationships, breed more relationships. And so here’s an example that I did. This is Lily. So one month ago, I got a message on BiggerPockets from a client saying hey, you know, I want to start working. I’m looking for short term rental in Destin. You know, are you are you looking to take on many more clients basically. So this person, contact me about a month ago, and we’ve stayed in touch, I’ve sent him some some stuff and we’ve had some good conversations he came out and visited. While he was visiting in town. His friend was also in town. And so I met his friend. And then his friend, we got connected, I got his number. His friend also connected me with his friend.
So third show now three tiers deep from this first investor. And just yesterday, I locked up a contract with the third tier. So the friend of the friend, I locked up yesterday here for 1.1 million they were asking 1.2 And we locked this up literally yesterday. So you know focus focusing on relationships rather than transactions. You know, if I focused only on transactions with that first with that first person here who messaged me, and the fact that We did we haven’t gotten under contract yet and I only cared about the transaction, that kind of shortcut, I wouldn’t have this other one under contract now. So I focused on the relationship focused on adding value as much as I can. Because I know referrals, especially within the investor community, referrals go a massive way. And so you want to continue to continue to build that momentum up as much as you can.
So, just a small example of why networking and building strong relationships huge Alright, so like I said, at the end there, you know, adding value is really one of the massive contributing factors to success as a as an investor agent. So as an investor agent, we do not just open doors, right? We have to be proactive, we have to bring more to the table, you know, gone are the days of our value as an as agents are, Hey, you come meet me at come meet me at the brokerage. And I’m going to show you the big book of houses that are available for sale like that doesn’t exist anymore, right most public. It’s through Zillow and Trulia. And Redfin, they have 99% of the same information that we do as real estate agents when it comes to, you know, what’s available on the market. So our value has to lie in other places, right? We have to, we have to be as an investor agent, you have to go above and beyond without being asked. You know, like, for instance, focused farming is one example that through here where I had a client, she wanted a four bedroom townhouse in this specific townhouse community.
And so the reason I knew that’s what she wanted, as an agent, you want to figure out what the needs and the goals are your client, some clients are very, very specific in what they want. And she was very specific, it’s nice when they’re not specific, because I narrowed it down. I said, Okay, this is exactly what you want. Great. I’m gonna go above and beyond, there’s nothing on the market right now, I’m going to start calling every four bedroom townhouse in this community, to see if I can make something happen. And we were able to I found it found someone who was willing to sell, we made a deal happen off market, and it was fantastic. So that willingness to go above and beyond as an investor agent is definitely a crucial aspect of it, you know, I just had a conversation. This is Tuesday. So two days ago, this was a client who called me, he said, you know, this is the best best call I’ve had with an agent trying to look for short term rentals, you know, bind tries, soon, he has 20 to $30,000 Cash, he’s asking me for what are the best options to work with, you know, I mean, so it’s nice to see here, things like that, not to say like not to, like boast or brag, but that’s the type of thing you want to hear. Now, for me as an agent, when I hear things like that almost feel like oh, crap, like, I really need to live up to the fact that he thinks, you know, I’m, you know, better than the average agent, you know, so I really want to make sure I really live up to his expectations.
So it makes me almost anxious and nervous that I really want to continue to do more and more and more for this client. And, and investor agent was also a creative Asian. So as you go to these real estate investment associations and these meetups, you’re going to start to learn as many creative tech tips and techniques as you can to make deals happen. It’s also goes back to our baseline knowledge discussion, the more you read, the more podcasts you listen to, the more knowledge you’re going to have to to make deals happen basically. So, you know, owner financing seller carry backs off market deals, I just had one literally, we got under contract a month ago and we just closed yesterday on this deal. So this deal we closed yesterday, they were asking $810,000 We offered $670,000 I know it was it was valued way too high, we got under contract at 750. So we got under contract, you know $60,000 below list. So, so happy so happy so far. From there, I was prepping the listing agent and my buyer that this will definitely appraise look like without a doubt in my mind, this deal will appraise low so the entire time we’re preparing. So I told the listing agent, please prepare your seller for low appraisal. So we can just not have super drama, we can make this deal happen. under contract at 750.
We got the appraisal back about a week ago appraised at $634,000. So $116,000 short. Now for a normal agent who’s not thinking creatively, that’s probably a deal breaker. So what do I do? Number one, I initially go to the listing agent say, Hey, man, I’m looking for a price drop 634 Can you do it? He’s like, probably not, I’ll ask and obviously the seller said no, I’m not gonna drop the 634. That’s 116 grand. And so I talked to my buyer asked him how much he’s willing to come out of pocket over over the appraised value. He said $1,000 and stuff. Sweet. Sounds good. So we got it. I came back to the seller. I said, Okay, we can come out to you, we can come up to six or $42,000, which is still well short of the goal. And at that point, the listing agent had talked with the seller, and he said the bottom line for my seller 670, which oddly enough was our initial price. But he said 670 is the bottom line for my seller. I said okay, well, we’re still $20,000 off, my buyer doesn’t have the cash to cover that difference. And again, if you were normal agent in this situation, you’d be like, well, crap, man, I’ll send you the cancellation. We’ll try another day. Sorry, good luck, you know, but we don’t think that way is investor agents, we think creatively.
And so we had we come to we came to an agreement where the seller had a seller carry back seat, he covered that $20,000 Note via a promissory note between the seller and the buyer. We closed at $642,000. But he had an additional promissory note for the essentially a second mortgage that we’re going to take care of often down the road. So you know, thinking creatively, as much as you can to make deals happen. And you can only think creatively if you’re out there, learning through experience of others or having that baseline, that baseline knowledge which is crucial. So thinking about that is big. Also realistic. Well, we’re not lawyers, we’re not CPAs, we’re not investment advisors. At least I’m not you, you may be out there. So I can’t give tax advice or law advice or investment advice necessarily.
And they always give that caveat, I still want to have the baseline knowledge to add the value to give to my clients. You know, I had a client who wasn’t aware of the benefits of a cost segregation study on a short term rental, he bought a short term rental for roughly $2 million, he did a cost segregation study, because I gave him the advice that it may be a benefit benefit to him to do it, he bought this short term rental for $2 million 10%, down to $200,000 as a down payment via the cost segregation study, I think he was able to, to get a write off of around, I think it was like $600,000 in year one. So $600,000 in year one, which equated to him as a as like a 35%, tax bracket guy to roughly $200,000 in tax savings, you know, so essentially, he was able to save $200,000 in taxes and spend that same money that he would have given Uncle Sam, you know, he then put on a down payment on a house. And now he has a cash flowing asset, rather than paying Uncle Sam that money, you know, so like thinking creatively, knowing these different Tech Tip tips and techniques to help your clients out and adding value to them is huge. It’s absolutely huge.
You know, 1031 exchanges, Cost Segregation studies, partnership structures is a big one as well, you know, commonly like, should I buy under my own name, or should I have been buying an LLC, again, I’m not a lawyer, I’m not going to give you any advice, here’s what you know, here’s what I’ve heard, talk to a lawyer in, get some advice from them for, for that side of the house, as as an as an agent. A lot of my business is short term rentals. And so you better believe I have a pretty good network of cleaners and handyman and all various vendors that my clients need to self manage, when they when they purchase here, I want to get them set up for success success. So they can start to, you know, thrive. And hopefully, you know, that’ll bring either more deals with them or more more relationships with their friends, as they see success with their friends. So anyways, that’s one thing there. And the other thing is don’t sweat the small stuff. As an investor, one of your, as an investor agent, one of your big value ads is the fact that you have you can continue to see the big picture, right? Often, oftentimes, investors or they might lose the forest through the trees, right, they might get hung up on some little deal, especially before closing is which when people typically get pretty emotional.
So don’t sweat the small stuff and try to be you know, when I was a fighter pilot, I’d be overhead and Afghanistan, and people would be getting shot up down down below. But you had to be the cool calm collect voice when people say, you know, hey, we’re we have an engagement down here, that copy I’ll be there soon. Like, you want them to feel like you were that calm, cool collect guy in the sky ready to help them out. Same thing here as the as the as the agent, as they’re kind of feeling like they’re, they’re super stressed just be the calm calling person out there. You know, someone say a seller. This happened two weeks ago, we had a seller who took the washer and dryer when he left out of this investment property when he shouldn’t have in the contract. And the seller was not he was being irate about it. So I said, whatever, just keep it and the other agent, I would just put a new washer and dryer like I’m not gonna I’m not gonna lose a deal over like a washer and dryer. Like it’s silly, right? That’s a small thing that you shouldn’t, you shouldn’t lose sleep over.
Anyway, that’s an example for the for adding value there. The next thing is credibility through experience. So one of the best ways as an as an investor agent, if you want to work with investors, for them to trust you and to and to want to work with you is to have investments yourself, right? Be that investor and the agent. So try to take action and walk the walk. So you learn to talk to talk back through the education side. But now you’ve gotten to the point where you’re getting secondary experience. But now it’s time to start taking action and get your own experience. You know, you need to have the mentality of either you succeed, or you learn there’s no failing in this game, right? Like I’ve had, I’ve had flips my very first flip right? $250 of my own money is what I put into it. I use other people’s money and other people’s time to make it happen as a brand new novice green investor, that $250 Personally, I turned into $15,000 great ROI, loved it.
The next flip, I lost $30,000 You know, so like, I didn’t think of that as a failure, though. I learned I learned a massive amount of lessons from that second failure, right. And I learned that I’m going to take care of my investors and I investors in that second deal, but you better believe they didn’t lose any money. They got their money and their interest, but I’m the one who lost the money. So just having that mentality to get through the experiences you gain is going to be huge if of learning or succeeding. You know, I’ve only been doing this for three years. Just finished my third year basically, you know, I’ve been involved in wholesaling, flipping, short term rentals, long term rentals multifamily mobile home and RV parks that I’ve owned. And, you know, I’ve not been in the Self Storage space I’ve done syndications as a limited partner as a general partner, so you can definitely get involved here Now am I a full time flipper or wholesaler? No, I’ve realized I don’t like wholesaling. I don’t like flipping unless the profits and unless the profit margins massive and it’s worth my time and stress.
They’re a little bit too stressful for me. I love short term rentals. Long term rentals. Just don’t cut the cake for me for traditional single family long term rentals multifamily I love multifamily. That’s why I’m getting more into syndication. That’s why I have 450 plus units and another 110 units under contract right now. You know in the mobile home and RV parks like Brent and Brent Phillips was talking earlier I love I have a 60 unit RV park and it’s fantastic. The cash flow is truly an ATM it’s fantastic. So now as you as I gain this experience, obviously people We’re gonna it’s more every every investment you do is more of a more credibility, right more people wouldn’t want to talk to you and work with you because you have that net net wealth of knowledge that you can gain more quickly than you realize. And if you can’t, if you feel like you’re out of out of it, realize you can leverage other people’s money, other people’s time to grow your, your own credibility, your your own experiences, so don’t feel like you need to do it all on your own. I know Don cost early, you know, he’s a big proponent of using other people’s money to grow because you’re going to run out of money pretty quickly.
And that’s exactly the mentality I have, you have to you have to leverage other people to grow if you want to grow rapidly. So that’s, that’s my big takeaway from getting that experience to, to have the credibility for more investors to want to work with you as an agent. And lastly, you really just have to commit, you have to completely and fully and utterly commit last time for the last invested agents seminar we had, you know, I talked about lighting your real estate afterburner, which I equated to basically, when I’m in a fighter jet, and I’m about to take off, I don’t just put the I don’t put the power up, you know, halfway and be like, okay, cool, I hope we get I hope we take off by the end of the runway, if you have the mentality in your career, you’re not gonna you’re not gonna take off right, you need to light the wick put the put the put the throttle in full afterburner and just take off gives much thrust as you can now and take off out of there. Now realize what does that going to do to you, that’s going to temporarily imbalance your life, you’re gonna, you’re gonna have you’re gonna have the imbalance in your life, but just like a sprinter leans forward, you know, almost falling on his face before the race starts, you need to do the same thing in your career.
Now, yes, you need to prepare your loved ones and for the fact that, hey, for the next year, or two, or three, or four or five, like, hopefully not more than five years, you need to go full afterburner. You need to imbalance your life if you want, if you want this to really take off and let them know like, so what does that mean? Like, I’m going to change my lifestyle, I’m going to start eating more healthy and working out. If you’re not working out, you don’t, you’re not going to have the energy you need to work 1214 16 hour days, consistently focusing on real estate that’s required to really get this success, this instant success. You need to cut out the time sucks, for sure, without without a doubt, you need to cut up this time structural and you better believe early on for my first year or two in real estate, very little TV was watched, you know, before I would be a big binge watcher of TV. Now that I’m kind of at altitude or almost getting the altitude on Yeah, I watch TV a bunch while with my wife or binge watch a show here and there. But you need to get rid of the time sucks, you have to have to have to remove them. And then beyond that consistency, consistency is so massive, you know, you can’t go to the gym and get a six pack abs by just going and doing 200 Sit setups in one day, right, it’s gonna be consistently doing the workouts you needed required for a month, or two, or three, or four or a year or two or three or four to see those changes.
And then just realize the last point here is this is a huge momentum game. So just like when you’re building, you know, snowman, you’re pushing the ball to get the base for the snowman, you can push it, it’s easy to push it as the moment momentum goes. But the moment you stop and you have this massive amount of snow in front of it’s really hard to move that thing because the momentum is now stopped. And the same thing in this game. And as your momentum builds, you want to keep putting fuel on that fire and keep your career going. So do what you need to do to leverage other people’s time other people’s money hieratic, you need to delegate as needed to keep that momentum going. And build that team to see that success down the road. So you definitely definitely have to completely commit in this game to make it happen. So overall, like I said, I think you have to have the knowledge piece, you have to have the networking, you got to add value you and you have to you have to really completely commit in this in this game, if you really want to be a successful investor agent. Like I said, my third year, three years ago, I didn’t know anything about real estate. And this was my first full year I retired from the military and 2020. So 2021 was our first full year I was able to achieve about 50 million in sales. So super happy with that. I’m always here if you guys have any questions. I’m out of Destin, Florida. My contact info is up there, but happy to help however I can, guys.
Chris Bounds 28:50
Thanks so much, Matt. I mean, seeing your meteoric rises has been amazing, but I know that it’s really just a testament to your work ethic and your ability to solve problems for other people and give value first. So it’s it’s been amazing. You got a lot of love in the comments. Especially over the the YouTube side one David asked, because we have just a couple of minutes, but David asked, Where did you learn about RV parks and invest in RV parks.
Matt Gardner 29:21
So initially, actually, Brandon was one who even gave me the idea that it was it was intriguing. I went through a local real estate investment Association had a meet had a I had a focused group basically it was education of six months commercial education, basically, that I signed up for. So I paid three grand for six months. We met once once a month to just talk about commercial real estate. So it was multifamily real estate. It was RV parks, mobile home parks, so we kind of covered like a plethora of commercial real estate opportunities. And in that some of the guys who ran it, they owned some mobile homes in RV parks. And so that’s where I got my initial knowledge. There’s some great podcasts out there. mobile home I think it just called mobile home park investor podcast. There’s some good stuff there. There’s some really great BiggerPockets forums and the bigger pockets space as well. I don’t I’ve never, I haven’t actually read any specific books on mobile home park investing most of my knowledge has been through experience with other investors who have done it or podcasts or forums in that space. Yet a
Chris Bounds 30:17
lot of those little nit stuff. I don’t even know if there there probably are. I’m sure there I’m sure there. Has Brandon Turner written.
Matt Gardner 30:26
Well, he’s got his second book on commercial real estate soon be coming out shortly that part one, which was like smaller commercial, I think the second one’s going to talk about mobile home parks. So expect it. Cool, cool. And if not, you’ve gotten maybe you should write one so well.
Chris Bounds 30:39
Thank you. Thank you so so much. You’ve been a huge leader to your team and the agents and investors that you’ve worked with over the years. And I know a lot of people really appreciate your presentation here. So give it up for Matt in the chat fire. Hearts. Appreciate it. Thanks, Matt, and all Thanks, Greg. For sharing we’ll see you guys