Olympic Sailor Buys a 10-Plex and Doubles Its Value in 4 Months

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0:00 Hello and welcome back to the Owner Meeting podcast. This is Christian, your channel host with my good buddy Phil
0:07 Toth. Phil is amazing. This is going to be a fantastic episode. I have actually learned a little bit about Phil before
0:12 starting this, but professional rugby player to competitive sailor. This guy
0:17 has done a little bit of everything. Yeah. Olympic sailor, incredible athlete, successful real
0:24 estate investor. He's uh just bought his first deal. We're going to talk about how that's gone down. If you guys know me at all, I am a sucker for brick
0:32 buildings. But this is a very, very unique individual and very excited to get to uh to learn a little bit of the
0:37 story here on how that deal went, how it's going, and the whole nine yards. Phil, question number one, you have, for
0:45 those watching on YouTube, uh, by the way, you can see the video of this, you have a crazy cool record player behind
0:50 you. What's the story behind that thing? Yeah. So, it's a 1948 Seabourg. Yeah,
0:56 it's I So, the story goes back a little bit. I inherited uh probably a thousand
1:02 48 RPM um uh records. Yeah, I inherited a whole bunch of uh records from my from
1:09 my dad and um had no way of playing them other than on just a regular record player, like a single one at a time. My
1:16 uncle-in-law had one of these. He actually has this same unit was owned by, this is where my brain just goes
1:22 blank. Um, Sinatra, Frank Sinatra. So, Frank Sinatra owned this same exact
1:28 unit. And the story goes that so my uncle has it and they figured out that it was actually owned by the Rat Pack
1:34 cuz down the bottom here, you can store records. And they pulled out these old record binders and all the library sort
1:42 of, you know, what song was on what record was all handwritten. and they got a um handwriting analysis and it was
1:50 like Bing Crosby and um Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. It's like it was the
1:56 whole Rat Pack. So the Rat Pack was sitting around at Sinatra's house listening to one of these units. So
2:04 these these originally came out of like department stores. That's why there's so many. They can just load up 200 units uh
2:10 sorry 200 records and it'll just play each one. that that auto takes it in and
2:15 out and it's all mechanical. So from 1948, it's totally mechanical. There's nothing, no computers, no processors,
2:24 nothing. It's purely solenoids and mechanical. How did this end up in your house? How did you end up with it? Well,
2:31 so I Yeah, like I was saying, I had all those records and I went over to my uncle's my wife's uncle um went over to
2:37 his house and he had one and we were listening to my dad's old records and I said, "Oh man, I'd love to have
2:42 something like this." And um so we I found one in California, had it shipped
2:48 out here, and we plugged it in and it started to spin up and went pop. And
2:53 then spent the next nine months figuring out where all the little circuitry and
2:58 things went that um all the solenoids and then just testing everything, getting it all fixed up and repaired and
3:04 got it working. And now it's sort of sits in my basement and I get to listen to my dad's old records. Oh, that's
3:10 mostly like 1920s and 1930s big band. Um, Dizzy Gillespie, that sort of thing.
3:16 It's Yeah, it's a lot of fun. My daughter comes down and we sort of sit and listen to records and she dances on the little floor here. Yeah, it's a lot
3:23 of fun. That is That is absolutely incredible. People are This is one of the fun things about real estate is everyone has a unique background. Yours
3:29 is a special flavor of unique. You went from pro rugby to Olympic
3:36 racing. I got to get I got to get the whole story here. My understanding is Olympic yacht racing. You're a huge person. I I know a lot of racing
3:43 vehicles. I don't know anything about boats, but usually I feel like it's usually smaller people who do this type
3:49 of events. You're a giant. How tall are you? I'm 250. I don't That's not what I imagine in boat racing. It's all
3:56 leverage. It makes sense. It definitely makes sense for me though in rugby. How did you get into rugby? Um yeah, just at
4:03 the just at I went to a university in Australia and u was just walking down
4:08 the hall and one of the one of the other guys on the team saw me and was like, "Oh, you're a big you're a big fella.
4:16 Come come come play for us." So I having never played um any sport at all, uh I
4:23 played a season of of volleyball in high school and that was it. Um showed up to the rugby field and thought, "Oh, this
4:30 looks like good fun. How do I How do I get invited back? Just pick the next biggest guy on the paddic and bow him
4:36 over as many times I could. I just always lined up with him and would tackle him as many times I could. And
4:42 the coach said, "Yep, come back tomorrow." And it was next day and the next day and the next day and eventually
4:48 I just got promoted up to the senior teams and then to some representative sides. Yeah. Got sort of paid my paid my
4:56 rent for a little while playing rugby and you know, I mean, it was wasn't much. Rugby over there is a bit like
5:01 baseball here. You have like double A, AAA, you have all the feeder series that go up to full professional. I was a
5:07 couple runs down from like, you know, Major League Baseball, but it was enough to cover my beer money and rent and, you
5:14 know, when you're 22, what what what else do you want? So then you make it from not an athlete to I'm huge and I
5:21 can play rugby and pay rent pay rent doing sports to Olympian. Where where
5:26 does that part come in? Yeah. So, actually I I injured my knee um funny enough playing rugby and I was down on
5:33 the beach in Australia doing doing some some um rehab and there was a guy that
5:40 had a sailboat sitting on the beach and we started chatting. I asked, "Hey, can I take it for sale?" "Yep, no problem."
5:46 And uh it turned out it was an Olympic class sailboat called a Finn and it's a oneman boat. And um when I found out it
5:53 was Olympics, I was like, "Oh, how hard can it be?
5:58 So I started looking up where I could buy a boat and turned out the US Olympic trials were in Newport Beach,
6:04 California, which is where nearby where I grew up. So I moved back, bought a boat and started training. And at that
6:10 Olympic trials, I met another Australian who was he had been to the games in 96
6:16 in Atlanta representing Australia in the same boat that I was sailing. So he and I teamed up and sailed a twoman boat for
6:22 Australia for London. And then after London, he became my coach and we trained for the Rio Olympics. And then
6:30 uh after the Rio Olympics, I retired from Olympic sailing. Now I just pro sale. So my my full-time job is sailing
6:37 for rich wealthy guys. And kind of like kind of like car racing where the guy driving the car isn't isn't the guy that
6:44 owns the team. That's kind of what I do in a nutshell. I I feel like the amount of times that you talk to people who are
6:49 like, "Oh, yeah, you know, I just decided I wanted to I wanted to start sailing, so I joined the Olympics." I feel like that's not like a normal
6:56 pathing to become an Olympian. No, I've I've got this thing where Yeah. I I
7:01 can't help myself, but okay, if I decide to do something, I want to be the best in the world at it. And I, you know,
7:09 with with rugby, I was like, okay, I went to a certain point, saw the writing was on the wall. I didn't start at an
7:15 early enough age. There was there was a guy that I was training with that um he was playing at the World Cup and he got
7:23 a concussion and the doctor said you've had I think it was like that was his seventh concussion. They say look if you
7:29 get one more you're going to be a vegetable. And he was in a position where he's 28 has no career other than
7:35 contact sports. Like his only job opportunity. He didn't make enough money to be able to retire for the rest of his
7:41 life. And I was like ah man I don't want to be in his shoes in a few years time. So, okay, time to course correct. And
7:47 yeah, that was when the opportunity to go sailing popped up. And sort of similar sort of thing, too. Okay, I've
7:53 run my course. I've I've got to a level where I'm comfortable like, okay, I've
7:59 achieve I've put everything in. I can and I've achieved, but it's not going to provide me I'm not going to be able to
8:04 retire. There's guys ahead of me that have been doing it for an additional 20 years and and they're still hanging off
8:10 the side of a star boat to make a living to put rent over their heads and they're in their 60s. Man, I do. Yeah, my body
8:16 is it caks and moans when I get up in the morning and it's I was going to say at 67
8:22 there's a lot of limb to uh to get injured. You you big guys don't don't
8:27 necessarily have the exact same durability as the uh the more compact competitors. Uh there's a certain point
8:34 where it just it just gets painful. Well, yeah, there's a difference. There's, you know, I've put I call it
8:40 it's hard city miles. It's not they're not friendly easy highway miles. These are city miles you're putting on your
8:45 chassis. It's you know, you you do a lot to rehab and recover, but I've seen the the end game now. I now know enough to
8:52 know how far there is to go in this game. And I Yeah, I don't want to be the guy that's in my mid60s still making a
8:59 living doing something physical. There's two things I want to isolate there. One, you said, "Hey, if you're going to do
9:04 something, you want to you want to try to be the best in the world at it." And you've paired that with you've analyzed
9:11 where is the end of the road for this for me. And that's helped you determine the things that you do. So, it's not
9:17 just I want to be the best, which I think is everyone. Best is such an ambiguous term, right? But you define
9:22 what what is the best in the world. And then you've done a good job selecting here are the things that I actually can
9:28 compete in and here's where I could be the best. You you've selected things doesn't mean you ever even become the best, but you've selected things that
9:35 make sense with your current position where you can compete at being the actual best. Yeah. There there's as I've
9:42 gotten older, you realize that with everything. I mean, everything whether it's rugby or sailing or life in general
9:48 or business or school, there's levels to everything. Mh. And there when you're
9:54 first starting out, it's impossible to know how much there is to know. And once
10:00 you get 10, 20 years into a field, you start to realize, oh crap, there's guys
10:05 that are ahead of me that I'll never catch up purely because even though I'm in the top 1% best in the world at this,
10:13 the guys that are in that 0.01%, there's two lifetimes of work to be done
10:19 to get to where they are. the point of dim there's just a point of diminishing returns where you just have to work so
10:24 much harder so much and and you you also have to sort of have a selfanalyzation
10:30 of like do I want to keep putting eggs into this basket? Do I want to keep paying in to get to is the payoff worth
10:36 it? And for me with sailing like I've been doing it professionally for 20 years and like yeah I can I can keep
10:43 doing it. It's an easy thing to do. I'm good at it. I enjoy it. It's fun. But
10:48 I'm now in the position where I realize that the payoff in the end is not is not
10:54 going to be what I I want you. And my my goals have changed in the last 20 years. 20 years ago, I was a young single guy
11:00 that didn't have a care in the world and rent and beer money was all I needed. Now that I've got a family and a
11:06 three-year-old, and you know, we have I want to retire my wife just like you. The sailing thing was taking up I'm I'm
11:11 gone 280 days a year when I was campaigning and training. So time at home is valuable. So, I need to redirect
11:18 and go in a different direction. That makes a ton of sense to me. And I promise we're going to tie this into real estate. By the way, everyone,
11:25 the background is just as important as where you're at today. I I love the things that you have been able to pull
11:31 off. The goals matter. And so, you're now aligning just like you have through your old career. You're now aligning objectives to goals. You eventually at
11:37 some point, for those who don't know, Phil's actually joined Multif Family Strategies. He's been someone I've had the privilege to mentor uh program for a
11:43 little bit time. You bought a 10plex in Pennsylvania. How long ago did you close on that now? Oh, it closed March 27th.
11:51 So, I've had realistically two months of operations. We closed at the end of March. It's now what early June. So,
11:58 yeah, two and a half months. Okay. So, you closed just a little bit ago. Uh tell us a little bit about that deal. It
12:04 was uh an older building brick, which is my I'm always a sucker for, but tell us
12:10 a little bit about the actual transaction. How did you find it? And uh what were the pieces of the deal as far
12:15 as Well, yeah. Uh so it actually ties in perfectly to our the lesson that you gave earlier today. Yeah, I've literally
12:22 called one broker. Um the and it worked out. Called the guy, he ended up, you
12:28 know, picked up first time. We chatted back and forth. He sort of connected me with the deal and ended up becoming a
12:34 really good personal friend. Like just one of the few brokers that I think it's just like are on it. They're worth their
12:41 weight and gold. Love it. Yeah. And clean, by the way, if you've been in the business a while, lot of terrible agents
12:47 out there. Agents, brokers, it gets difficult. I've dealt with enough brokers and agents from like the the
12:54 single family side. And when the diamond in the rough comes along, you kind of grab a hold of it. And this guy's become
13:00 Yeah. He's just become a good friend, too. So, but we hang out sort of outside of work, so to speak. Was the property
13:06 listed or was it someone you built a relationship with? It was It was listed. it was listed super high. Um, and
13:12 actually I'm going through that now with the same sellers on an additional 21 units that they have um that aren't
13:19 listed yet there. So, it's sort of hopefully going to make this happen off market. Oh, that'd be amazing. Yeah.
13:24 And, you know, like you teach, it's built the trust. I can I'm the most
13:31 likely buyer because I've positioned myself like, hey, I've done a transaction before. I know their
13:36 properties and their products and I've been able to show them like, hey, look, I can close. So, yeah, that's that's
13:42 kind of how we end up it just a standard close and standard transaction from there. Like there was some back and
13:48 forth, but yeah, definitely having a good broker definitely helped. I Well, first of all, I really appreciate that
13:53 this is the type of stuff that we love doing. It's putting together the relationships and it sounds like you work both sides of this. You have a
13:59 relationship with the broker and you have enough relationship with the sellers where you can get repeat transactions and you're working with
14:04 people who have a lot of stuff on now on the condition of the building. You're picking up this building. This was not a class A ready to go fully renovated
14:11 deal. No. No. This was uh Yeah, I think I've seen some slums and this was pretty
14:18 it wasn't the worst, but it by far and away it was it was pretty pretty slimy. Um their whole MMO was a bit odd. Yeah,
14:27 they renovated they bought the building that was in pretty rough shape in 2018.
14:33 They then renovated the interiors um and but left the exteriors from I
14:40 mean they're still original from like 1930 I think. Wow. I mean the the exterior is rough. They you know and
14:47 then when when it came time to do roofs and chimneys and all the sort of m they
14:52 were complete slum lords. They're they live down one lives in Florida, one lives in New York. So, they've never
14:58 even seen the building and everything, you know, they've got a they've got a handyman and the two and the two owners
15:04 and like they do everything by committee. So, nothing ever gets done, nothing ever gets decided. And it's just
15:09 it was manage it. This was definitely a management play, which are my favorite
15:14 flips, by the way, when you can when you can fix it by redoing the management. Being a better manager than the last person is not typically hard to do.
15:21 Yeah. Exactly. When I walk through it, I I'm fairly handy. I can My dad used to always say, "If you can't if you can't
15:27 be handsome, be handy." Fortunately for Phil, he pulled off both. So, for those listening, my wife
15:33 finds me very, very handy. So, yeah. So, just walking through the
15:39 property like, "Okay, can fix that, can fix that, can fix that, can fix that." And got a whole bunch of quotes and
15:44 estimates before we closed. Sort of had an idea of what it was going to take. you know, I just sort of was super
15:50 conservative with all of my estimations. And so now, right now, we've done we've
15:57 had it for two, yeah, I've had it two and a half months. We're six figures into the maintenance and repairs. Um,
16:03 two new roofs on, new sophets, gutters. We've renovated four units and we're repointing the brick and yeah, I've got
16:10 two more units. We're going to have fully gotten remodel, all new lighting, new bathrooms. Yeah, we're we're pretty
16:16 heavy into it, but it's going. The nice thing is it's going much faster than I was anticipating. I was anticipating sort of, you know, a a 12 month project
16:24 and I think we're going to have it done in four. Wow. That's fast. Fully optimized. Yeah. It took took one unit.
16:30 One of one of the units was again just poor management. Their section 8 um that
16:36 the tenant was the tenant was non-paying. So, they weren't paying their portion. So, they were just collecting section 8. And then the unit
16:43 failed inspection. So, they weren't even collecting that. So it was just somebody was living there but nobody was paying
16:48 the rent and that the owners didn't even know. So took them from what was
16:53 supposed to be 680 rent to now 1350. So
16:59 wow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So this building is already astronomically more. For those of you who aren't familiar with
17:05 commercial valuation, you're you're valued by your net operating income. You came in and basically in a very short period of time doubled the income here.
17:11 Yeah. Yeah. Pretty we're Yeah, we'll be close. We'll be pretty close. My valuation should go from 430 up to just
17:18 shy of 900. I'm gonna read this. I'm actually gonna read this right now because this is a this is a comment I got on a similar project I did. Um I was
17:24 just on the Bradley podcast pretty recently and I got this comment today and so I I want to get your opinion on
17:30 this. Let me see if I can uh let's see if I can pull it up here. Okay. Imagine being okay with being a parasite. They
17:37 say a whole bunch of things about God not respecting me and then basically I can't offer society anything of value. They still try to acquire homes and prey
17:43 on families. Phil, you came in and doubled everyone's rent. Why aren't you a terrible person? No, I'm not. I'm not
17:49 doubling anybody's rent. All of the legacy tenants are still at their current rent. They're seeing everything
17:56 being improved. I've got one tenant that is she's severely she has some severe
18:01 mental issues and the old landlords wanted to evict her and they were going to do so before I took ownership. And I
18:08 said, "No, let's, you know, just leave everybody in place. Let's let me primarily my reasoning behind it was I
18:15 wanted to be able to I wanted to be able to to screen who was going to be in there next. But at the same time too, I
18:22 also didn't want to chuck somebody out onto the street that may not have a whole lot of options. I looked at it as
18:28 if this was my mom or if this was my sister or somebody like that, how would I want them treated? I would have wanted
18:33 them treated with a little bit of grace and and um and understanding. So, I've been in talks with her case workers
18:40 about, hey, let's let's find her a better home to live in that's more assisted that has some more medical
18:47 options as far as like supervisory medical. I'm not sure. I mean, that's not my world, but yeah, some supervised
18:54 medical care that that she could live in a home and which is really what she needs. And we do the same thing in our
18:59 portfolio. I've worked with people who they have mental health issues. I work with their family members. I lined up
19:04 some family members, helped get them caught up on rent. We got them into a a care facility that they really needed. Like caring about people is really
19:11 important. Also, I want to point out, so you've done this through correcting occupancy and collection issues. You
19:16 haven't jacked everyone to rent yet. At some point, you've put six figures into the building. It's a safer campus.
19:23 There's better tenants. There's more going on. The building's getting repaired. They're not renting the same
19:29 building that they used to be renting. It is a new management. is new appliances, new interiors, exteriors, the whole nine yards. Yeah, we just put
19:35 in a laundry. We just fixed all the roofs, fixed all the interiors. Yeah, it everything's improved. The assumption is
19:42 at some point rent does climb up a little bit for the fact that they're now renting a much much much newer building,
19:48 right? Yep. Yep. Yeah. And my my goal is, you know, the current tenants when
19:54 their leases renew, I will speak to them and say, "Look, you've been if you've been paying on time, they're quiet,
20:00 they're clean, they're respectable, like, yeah, rent's going to have to go up a little bit, but I want to keep you
20:06 in place, so let's work out what works for both of us." Do you know what I find funny?
20:12 You can be like a uh you go Whole Foods and you have fresher food and it's more convenient and it's locally sourced and
20:20 all the all the stuff you want and guess what? It cost more cuz it's a better product. No one has a problem with it
20:26 and you need food to survive. Yeah. You do the same thing in housing. The exact same thing. You buy a property that's
20:33 your words not mine. Not the worst slum of all time but pretty slummy. Pretty slummy. You buy a slum and you make it
20:40 not a slum. Most people would say this is a good thing. You have made a better product. You now charge accordingly to
20:47 the tons of money that you have put into this thing a little bit more money for the improved product. Housing is the
20:54 only place I've ever seen where it's the same thing, right? You need food to live, you need housing to live. You do
21:00 it in housing, you're a parasite. And apparently, according to my Instagram, God hates you for fixing the building.
21:06 Yeah, like we get to the some of these buildings. Not everybody is not everybody's playing with a full deck.
21:11 You just got to realize it is unique to this industry though. If if you're listening to this for the first time,
21:16 and I'm assuming you're not listening to my podcast, if you uh if you hate landlords, but if you happen to be, I
21:23 want someone to come up with an argument for me of how this is any different than groceries. It's a it's a onetoone example. You need them to survive. You
21:30 pay for higher quality. The organic label costs more. And no one ever goes, I I went shopping for groceries though
21:37 should have been free. Those darn farmers are are ruining my like Why would you blame the farmer for the cost
21:42 of your food? I'm grateful that they made food. You're providing better housing. Get paid for that. I kind of
21:49 look at it as I'm I'm loaning them money. I'm loaning them money so they have a better place to live and they're
21:56 just paying me back over time. like I'm paying it upfront to improve your living conditions and then the deal is you just
22:03 pay me back that money over time. And you know what? Leases expire and if you would rather live in a slum, you can
22:09 find another slum in Pennsylvania. Yep. You guys have some old buildings in
22:14 Pennsylvania. I'm sure there's another slummy property they could move to. I just I just had a meeting today with um
22:21 there's a a lady that is section 8 in my building that she was the the victim of some abuse and she's been moved into our
22:28 building and um she's getting behind on her rent and so a a local charity came
22:34 and was looking to help her get caught back up and um stuff like that isn't
22:41 possible. They when I was interviewing with them I was speaking with them they said we've been into some pretty
22:47 some pretty slummy units and this is one of the nicest ones we've ever seen. And
22:53 it's like, okay, that made it worthwhile for me right there. Like that just knowing that I'm providing something that's better than where they would find
23:00 elsewhere. And I don't want them to leave. Yeah. I want them to stay. I want them to be comfortable. But, you know, I I'm not I'm not a charity. I don't have,
23:07 you know, and no one should feel guilty for not being a charity. Everyone works for money. This is a This is a job that
23:15 we take on, which is another comment I get all the time on YouTube, by the way. Go get a job. Provide for society. I'm
23:20 like, I provide I house almost a thousand people. Actually, I think we're over a thousand people. That That seems
23:28 like a pretty big job. I've spent gosh, how many over $10 million in renovation over the course of my career. People who
23:34 are complaining about this has never seen they've never seen $10 million in their life. And you don't get to do that if you run a business that loses money.
23:41 Yeah. You're the I think the the way I sort of say is you're talking to people
23:46 that are on the bottom rung. They're on the bottom rung of when I said there's
23:52 levels to everything. They're at the first step and they can't see the top step or they can't even see the step
23:58 that you're on. They're just they're so they're very low information limited
24:05 perspective observations. you have taken the time and dedicated your time and resources to
24:11 leveling up and you've gone past them to such a degree that they won't understand
24:18 until they go start to go down your path. At 6'7, Phil has a different vantage point than all of us.
24:24 So, the building, so you've won for a while. What has been the what has been the most difficult piece of this particular project? Just keeping cost
24:31 under control. I mean, there's just so much that you can fix. It's been having
24:36 enough. A lot of this comes from my sailing background of just the project management like sort of triaging. Okay,
24:43 we've got a budget. This is what we need to fix to get us to the next point where okay, maybe we need to take a breather
24:50 and then wait for funds to build back up or resources to build back up. But just
24:55 managing the project, being able to get the priority stuff done as quickly as
25:01 possible and then go on to the the nitty-gritty stuff, you know, that oh, it would be nice to have floor mats
25:07 here. Like, well, okay, I think you'd rather have toilets that flush, but okay. So, you can't you can't just give
25:13 into every request that they ask for. You've got to fix the big stuff first. Let's let's make sure the roofs don't leak. Let's make sure that the the
25:20 boiler isn't blowing inside the attic as opposed to venting to the outside. Ask
25:26 me how I know that one. That's a fun story. So, the previous
25:32 owners were again, they're a bit dodgy. They found some fly by night roofer off
25:39 Craigslist that did a halfway job and then they stiffed them for the remaining
25:45 down payment. So the roofer tiled over the boiler so the boiler would go up the
25:52 chimney. Well, they tiled over the chimney and like made the boiler exhaust
25:57 captive. So now when I went and inspected the building before purchasing, I saw steam coming out
26:02 between the bricks. Uhoh. Cuz the the chimney was capped, but the there had been the moisture had been blowing away
26:08 in there for so long that that it had eroded away all the mortar between the bricks. It found it way found it way through the mortar and away it goes.
26:15 Yeah. And guess what it did to the interiors of the building? Two of the two of the units on that side, the
26:20 ceilings had have completely caved in. So that those were big renos on that.
26:25 But we found that we went to took that to closing and said, "Okay, here's here's what this is going to cost.
26:31 Here's the credit you're going to give me." And, you know, they they squealled and squirmed a little bit, but we got
26:36 what we needed. And yeah, got it taken care of. That was fun. Lesson there. Uh, pay your contractors. Well, yeah, just
26:43 karma. Karma comes. But you karma's a It'll come back. You try and stiff somebody, they'll stiff you. And
26:50 it all rolls downhill. I ask this every time. I think one of the most valuable things about getting to run this
26:55 podcast, I get to learn from a lot of people the the most costly mistakes they made. Uh as much as making a bunch of money in real estate is fun, uh not
27:02 losing a bunch of mil real uh money along the way is is extremely important. What has been in the whole journey? And
27:08 you and this can go all the way back to to rugby if you wanted to. It could be this deal or it could just be in life.
27:13 But what's the highest stupid tax that you've had to pay to get to where you're one that I still very much struggle
27:19 with, which is, you know, your your net worth is your network. Or was it? No,
27:24 it's the other way around. Your network is your net worth. Yeah. I think I'm a bit like you. I'm not a uh go out and
27:30 party at the bar with all the boys at, you know, till 2 3:00 in the morning every night. Those days are behind me.
27:37 But even even in my sailing career, there's guys that I mean I that I'm hund time more technical, better, bigger,
27:45 faster, stronger. I mean, in every way, shape, and form, but they would get more jobs because they were drinking buddies
27:51 or they were partner, you know, buddy buddies with the right people. They just they had the social network. They were,
27:57 you know, they were friends with the right people and didn't have the skill set, but they were friends with the right people. And I just never bought
28:04 into that until now I'm starting to see, okay, this is you can really expand your
28:11 business much more quickly by having a bigger network. And I struggle I really
28:16 struggle with motivating myself to make that call, make the, you know, reach out
28:21 and risk sounding dumb or sounding stupid or not knowing the answer when
28:26 the answer is asked, when the question is asked. So yeah, it it's that's that's
28:32 definitely cost me the most over my my lifetime, I think, is just not having
28:38 people in my network that will provide more business. I need to change that for
28:44 real estate. I think that was the biggest that may have been I I've shared I've shared mine a few times with getting into hospitality, but I think
28:50 that was the most monetarily expensive mistake I made for me personally. But
28:55 that's a good point. I've shared the story a few times, but I I started in the nineto-ive, went to college, did the the career thing. I was building
29:02 relationships, but not in the direction that I wanted to go. So, I spent all this time where I had these clients who
29:08 had all the information that I needed to start my business. I wanted to own rentals. I was connected to people every
29:14 day, but I wasn't asking the right questions. And I wasn't doing anything social with any of these people. It was
29:19 just business. And my focus was how can I get these people to buy data from me? and how do I come into their business
29:25 and make their business better where they make many multiples of more money on the data that I provide them? That
29:32 that was the entire context of my universe was like you, I'm a bit obsessive. I want to be the best. So, in
29:38 the co-star group, I'm like, how do I have the best book of business with the best clients who have the highest value
29:45 who never quit? It never dawned on me until uh really until 2019, 2020 when
29:50 everything shut down where I was like, what am I doing? I'm not spending the time. I even have the network. I haven't
29:57 spent time building the relationships within the network that's right in front of me to go buy deals. And that's
30:03 something that you found here is sailing. My assumption is basically all of these people have money. That doesn't
30:10 sound like a I have a friend who uh whose son is in NASCAR and I I look at the pricing of
30:16 that racing. I can't imagine boating is dissimilar. No, it's Yeah. if you have to ask how much you can't afford that
30:23 kind of thing. Like we we went to there's we had a oh what was it a North
30:28 Americans or something in Newport Rhode Island which is like where old old money is where New York yach club is and
30:34 pulled into town and it was like at midnight on a Tuesday and I oh man I'm
30:39 really hungry I haven't eaten all day and the taxi guy said oh I'll take you over to here. What what what is open on
30:45 a Tuesday? It's like you this is the kind of town where if you have to if you have to work you can't afford to live
30:52 here. So everything's open. And it was just that's the mentality of the people you're surrounded by in the sailing
30:58 world is just these people that have so much money. This is they do they do the
31:03 thing that you want to do. They can just do it full-time because they're just
31:09 money is no object. They've been so successful in business that the one of
31:15 the big lessons I learned from them was they are in businesses where they're making money overnight while they sleep.
31:20 We're we'll do a race from like LA to Hawaii. There's a guy I raced with. He actually invented um he invented the
31:27 camera phone. So the very first text message the very first Yeah. The very
31:33 first photo text message ever sent was his son when he was born. No way. So, we
31:38 did a race from LA to Hawaii and he was on he doesn't sleep much. He sleeps like one or two hours a day and he just works
31:45 the rest of the time. So, he he would do his watch, he'd sail and then he would go down below and he'd hop on the
31:50 satellite phone and start working. And we got to the end of the race and his satphone bill was like 40 or 50 grand
31:58 for for a week. And I said, "What the what? Wow, what dude? You know, we need
32:03 to talk about this comes out of the sailing budget or how are we paying for this?" like here's this bill like it's
32:09 going to come out of the sailing budget otherwise he goes oh no problem he strokes a check not a problem and we got
32:14 to talking he's like well he made x that by working just by keeping his guys
32:20 going cuz he's outside racing and sailing and he's got people back in the office that are making him money it's
32:26 like okay you got to find a business where you can make money while you're away doing the things you want to do
32:32 vacation or time with family or what have It's like, okay, what is that? Real
32:37 estate's a pretty good one. All these guys, they make their money doing whatever. One guy I raced with, he was
32:44 started a movie studio. He did there, his company did like Twilight, Hurt Locker, all those, you know, those
32:49 Dancestep Revolution Mo movies back in like the early mid 2000s. Oh, basic. Oh, yeah. His company did all those. He said
32:57 they were the dumbest movies, but they made a ton of money. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I've heard Twilight did okay.
33:04 Twilight did all right. Yeah. But as soon as he sold his business, he immediately went into real estate. And
33:10 then the guy that I was just racing with, again, I have this resource of of knowledge that you just weren't tapping.
33:17 Another guy I say he has a a business. He founded a a family office. So he
33:23 takes family money and invested into, you know, sort of $50 million multif family real estate. Some commercial, but
33:30 mostly multif family. And like their smallest deals are like 50 million. And it's like, okay, I'm sitting on a boat
33:36 for hours on end with nothing to do while we're waiting to win for wind to build. I'm just going to start picking this guy's brain and learning what it
33:43 is. He's obviously the best in the world at what he does. Let me learn from him. I've got a captive audience, undivided
33:49 attention. There's nobody else within 100 yards of us. And okay, I can just pick his brain, ask him any question.
33:56 And like he opened up. So his kids aren't interested in that sort of stuff because they grew up around it. they
34:01 they're off doing their own thing. So all of a sudden he's got this vessel that he can pour all of his knowledge
34:06 into. And that kind of got me thinking and then that's when I found you know your course and your mentorship group
34:13 and that's sort of then given me the knowledge of being able to ask him more pointed questions and yeah it it's just
34:20 been it's been a very fast roller coaster ride from there. There we go. Shameless plug. If you join multi family
34:26 strategy, you'll be connected with Olympians and cajillionaires. But when you're But to be honest, you you don't
34:33 need that. You don't at all need that to be able to do it. No. And there's always someone that you know who knows someone
34:38 who's connected. Yeah. The the degrees of separation that everyone has. And this is a great illustration. This will be one of our ending points here. But
34:46 when I started, I didn't realize the connections that I had. I had clients who have a couple of them were
34:52 multi-billionaires. One of them is the largest developer of the Seattle skyline by hands down. Hands down. Billions of
34:58 dollars. Enter their house immediately. Rembrandt and all those collectible. I unbelievable wealth. As a W2 employee, I
35:05 was that was an immediate contact who I could text and I could text their family members who also ran the business. Like
35:13 that is that is right there. You have unbelievable connections that everyone this is not an abnormal thing. like like
35:19 hey I'm sailing also tons of billionaires it doesn't have to be sailing it doesn't have to be the Olympics it doesn't have to be working
35:25 for co-star but you are connected to people who have capital most people believe in making money in real estate
35:31 people get stuck on the money guys it's just framing the relationships that you
35:36 have in a way that moves everyone forward and I found a way to do that through multif family it's it's a
35:42 privilege to to see you apply it the way that you have you came in very much the same way I do and the same way that I've
35:48 taught to do it you just get around the people who have built the business you want to build and you build it yourself and we become very good at doing that.
35:54 Um but for those who've ever looked at multi family strategy that's that's what it's all about. It's a relational way to
36:00 learn real estate with an operator which I do want to this is not a testimonial
36:05 for my product by the way. Uh but Phil I do I I do just want just for the audience I I do want to ask you there's
36:12 a billion courses online. Most of them are scams. A lot of them are like $50,000 and they try to upsell you and
36:18 you never meet the actual coach. In multif family strategy, does it cost less than $10,000? Do you actually get
36:24 coached by me every single week? Do I ever kick you off to someone else? Is it an actual mentorship? I just want to
36:29 hear it from a mentee on the podcast officially. Yes, absolutely. I am am the type person I will research things to
36:36 death. And a lot of that is, you know, the analysis analysis paralysis. I it
36:43 took me probably a good 10 months to finally sort of commit to doing this
36:50 program to doing this mentorship. I looked at everything else out there and this was the only was like, "Okay, this
36:56 this is kind of a thing I think I can get my wrap my hands around and understand." It is one-on-one. Sorry,
37:02 not oneonone, but it it feels one-on-one in that your you're in front of us three times a
37:08 week. That was what really impressed me was like it's not just a once a week with somebody that is on the other side
37:14 of a screen on YouTube where you you're just typing questions. This is like open forum. You can ask the questions. You
37:20 can go you can really turn the nuts and bolts and get into the details. And like that's where that's where the money's
37:27 made is in the details. It's the small nuance. you can really get nuanced in
37:32 the mentorship because there's one you're a wealth of knowledge but you the one or two times we've had other guest
37:38 speakers even with Cody I really liked having Cody as well because he was just so good with the numbers and you know
37:46 you guys were fantastic it's really gotten it's accelerated and supercharged my path and that's as you get older you
37:54 start to realize like okay the only way to get up those levels is to just find
37:59 people that can help you get up those levels faster because time is the limited resource, not money. They make
38:06 more money. Nobody's making more time. Just like this podcast, that that is the goal. Let's be efficient with our time.
38:13 Everyone who joins, the only focus is buy a deal. There's no upcharge. There's no like, hey, I got a super $50,000
38:18 things. There's no other money-making scheme here. It's let's get build a big community of people who execute and buy deals and let's do it at a higher level
38:25 than anyone else. Let's do it faster than other people do it more efficiently. rip through the program,
38:31 then let's eliminate mistakes and learn from each other, which is the biggest piece of community. This is the thing I
38:37 did wrong when I started multif family strategy. We started with one-on- ones thinking that that is what the market
38:42 needed is you need more one-on-one mentorship. And while I'll always hop on a call with you or answer your text like
38:48 it's one-on-one's available, the forum is you learn with other people who are your peers at the same time. You learn
38:53 from each other's questions. You get to see each other's wins. Everyone moves forward faster.
38:59 I if I could go back in time, I never would have tried to teach people oneonone. Not because you can just get a
39:04 whole bunch of people in a room, but if you build a community, everyone moves forward faster. And Phil has Phil has
39:12 referenced other deals to other investors in our group. Phil's a fantastic member of the community. Uh,
39:17 did anyone ever buy that that triplex that you posted? No. No. So that I think
39:23 her financing fell through or she sort she sort of I don't want to say chickened out but yeah it just ended up
39:29 not being the right match. So I can't I can't force someone to buy a deal if anyone can
39:35 has a lead for you and it is a it is a sexy sexy deal if you want a smaller building. Is it still available? Is it
39:41 still out there? Yeah my so the guy that owns it is actually my he's my genral contractor handyman. He's He's become a
39:47 good buddy, too. I think he's going to end up It's such a good deal. He's I think I've convinced him to keep it.
39:54 He's going to refinance it and keep it. Okay. Well, if you guys uh if you guys find Phil, um convince him to to un sell
40:02 his contractor and keep it. I have I have one one last little story going back to your comment about the
40:07 one-on-one mentorship. It relates a lot back to what I experienced with sailing. Like you would see guys, there's a whole
40:14 group of us that would all race this Olympic circuit and you know, you'd have guys sort of in the top 20, top 15,
40:20 whatever. And then you'd see a group of guys that would go off, they get together, they'd all train together, they go off on their own over one
40:26 winner, and they just all train together. And all of a sudden, boom, all those top five guys are all in the top five. It's like, where did that come
40:33 from? those they just leapfrogged up several levels because they went off,
40:38 they worked together, they had coaching as a group and they all support each other and pushed each other. It's like
40:44 in sailing it's not like car racing where okay, you can go out by yourself, set a lap time, change things, fix on
40:51 things, work on the car, improve things, and then you go back out and test another lap because conditions change.
40:57 Everything's so different, waves, wind, whatnot. You have to work as a team. you have to have two next to each other. You
41:03 have two, three, four, five next to each other. So, you're just constantly pushing each other. And by working
41:09 together like that, it just you go up the level so much quicker. And I see
41:14 what you do with multif family strategy is much the same by having that group course. It's like I've become quite
41:21 friendly with um with Chris Jordan. We met up for beers in San Diego at San Diego Yach Club when I was so jealous. I
41:27 love Chris for the North Americans. I love he closed the deal the same month you did. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And as he and
41:33 I've sort of been anytime even in between calls, in between mentorship calls, like he'll call me and say, "Hey,
41:38 look at these numbers for me and I'll I'll look at them and I've sent him stuff that I'm looking at." And it's just a good checks and balance and it's
41:45 like, "Okay, we're yeah, we're both on sort of the bottom ladder rung, but we're helping each other get to the next
41:50 one." And yeah, he he's been a good sounding board. Like I saw the deal he presented on was it Tuesday? He showed
41:57 that to me about like a week or two ago. I like it. Well, the theory goes back to
42:02 like the the the Nike running thing where there no one I think it's a 4-minute mile. I'm not a I did track
42:08 when I was a jumper. I wasn't a uh I wasn't a runner. Quite frankly, I I don't know why I could jump far because
42:13 I'm I'm not all that fast. Wish I was wish you could run faster than I can. I had an old rugby coach. He goes, "You you're deceptively slow. You look like
42:20 you're hauling ass, but I'm looking at my stopwatch. You're not really moving that fast." But in running it was like
42:26 forever no one was breaking the four-minute mile. And then once once someone did it all of a sudden everyone
42:31 can do it. When you're in those environments when someone you you close the 10plex, Chris closes the sixplex, he
42:38 does his second deal. You when you're around this all the time, it becomes more real. I found there's a lot of
42:44 groups and this this is true of sports. This is true of real estate. This is true of business. When you are playing
42:49 your own game, your context is just you're in your own bubble and you're competing against yourself, which is can
42:56 be great. Sometimes you don't realize what's possible. So, you're stuck on something that there's really no reason
43:02 to be stuck on, but it feels like the biggest thing in the universe because your universe is you. When all of a
43:07 sudden the context changes, I've seen a lot of courses where people will talk about like, hey, um, it's a lot of
43:13 washed up investors, right? A lot of these are also taught by real estate investors who are like, I went bankrupt. Now I coach, don't do those. But they
43:23 they'll they'll coach on like, hey, this is a deal I did four years ago back when interest rates were 3%. And here's how
43:28 it worked. And that's what the program is. What I found by doing the community thing is not only you get to learn what deals that I'm doing, but you get to be
43:36 on the call for this is what Phil did and this is what Phil struggled with and you get to see, yeah, sometimes the deal
43:42 sometimes you miss something or sometimes the rena does cost more than you thought and you get to learn alongside that and you get to see Phil
43:49 push through that. A lot of those whatifs and I'm stuck on analysis. When you have other people and you have
43:55 bigger context, you go unbelievably further. This will help you in sports, will help you in business. This isn't
44:00 just real estate. It's not just our group, but this is the type of stuff I look to get into is get into a community of people who are doing what I want to
44:07 do in a way that resonates with me. And that's helped me find my properties, choose my markets, build my teams, build
44:13 my companies, even how I market my property management company. I was struggling for so long until I just
44:19 talked to some bigger property managers and I asked how they get clients and they said like two easy things that blew
44:24 my mind and all of a sudden my company blew up. It blew up positively like good good being a part of the bigger group.
44:30 It's I I think I've been a part of the group now for what, eight, nine, 10 months, something like that. But you're
44:36 seeing similar questions get asked repeatedly. It's like, okay, that's
44:42 that's something that a lot of people get hung up on. Okay, I really need to pay attention when that comes up in my
44:48 journey. Okay, this is I've seen this enough times. I've seen enough reps to
44:53 where now I know how to play that. That that's been for me. I'm not a naturally gifted athlete despite, you know, just
45:01 being an Olympian, professional rugby player. No. Well, it but it's it's due to I'm I'm just not naturally gifted. It
45:08 I have to go and work 10 times harder at it than the guy that is gifted. I've seen guys that are gifted. They can go
45:14 out and do a roll tack twice and have it. Takes me two or 30 hundred times.
45:19 But I just I just know that's how I operate. So, si same exact thing with
45:25 real estate is I I like being a part of the group even though I've gone and done the thing that you've taught. It's like,
45:31 okay, I'm not just going to turn my I don't want to turn, you know, turn that resource off and go, okay, I now know
45:37 what I'm doing. No, I I want to hear the basics over and over and over and over and over so that I get reinforced a
45:43 thousand times so I don't make the mistake. Love it. It's it's been hugely
45:49 beneficial even even having done it already. Well, if you follow these steps and if you happen to look at multif family strategy, you too can be 6'7 and
45:56 an Olympian. Eat your veggies. We'll put that guarantee on the site. It has been awesome. Awesome having you on. I'm so
46:03 excited about this deal, especially because it's my favorite thing. It's affordable housing and it's it's fixing
46:08 up slummy properties at the end of this. Yeah, you're going to make a lot of money bringing rent from like, you know,
46:14 6,000 to 13,000. You're going to make a lot of money on the deal, but more importantly, you're going to look back
46:19 at this and you're going to be proud of the project. And what usually I find happens is you're going to look at more
46:24 projects that also need some value ad. And you're like, "Hey, every time I fill these and I do I can't fix everything. I've improved my community." And if you
46:31 post any of this online, your community will hate you for it, but you'll still get to feel good about yourself. Uh that's what I've What What does Joe
46:38 Rogan say? Just don't read the comments. Yes. Yeah. Exactly. Don't Don't lurk post and ghost. Yeah. Unless you want to
46:44 have a whole lot of fun blasting them back online. I throw them on my story. I'm like this idiot. Uh no, but if if
46:52 you want to do something that's really rewarding, I I have found that this type of project, the the beat up building,
46:57 the mismanaged property, if you can come in, do something good for your community, and happen to make a ton of money doing it, uh you will feel very
47:04 very good about what you do. It it's a very very engaging business. It's a fun business. Uh I'm excited to see you take
47:11 off. I'm hoping that we get some great news on your 21 unit. But yeah. Yeah, that's still that's still in in its
47:16 infancy, but I'm hoping they they will uh it's a big ass. They want a big number and I'm hoping the only way I can
47:22 do it is if they sell or finance it to me. There's a lot of pieces to that puzzle still to figure out. Well, you're
47:28 I have a call with my broker later tonight. We'll we'll we'll know more tomorrow, hopefully. All right. Well, let me know if I need to weigh in. Uh
47:35 okay, guys. This is Phil. Phil, if anyone has any questions for you following this episode, is there a best way for them to reach you? No, I I'm not
47:41 really on social or anything like that, but um yeah, just Philip Toths sailing@yahoo.com. That's me. There you
47:47 go. Shoot him an email, follow his racing career. There's only so many Phil toss. So, look
47:53 for a very tall Phil online with a fantastic mustache and a soon to be a ton of rental properties and you'll find
48:00 the right guy. All right. Thank you very much, man. I appreciate the time. Absolutely. Thank you guys for listening. If you haven't yet, like,
48:06 subscribe, hit all those buttons that help grow this channel. I don't want to get this out to more people, but we want to share what works, what doesn't work.
48:11 And you know, if you if you're lacking time to do the owner meeting, just listen in here. I'll do it for you.
48:16 We'll see you guys on the next episode. See you.