First Deal Episode with Tyler Caglia and Mike Van Groningen

First deal for Tyler and Mike was a 124 unit property in Lafayette, LA. Biggest key to their success was the power of their network and mentors.

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Originally aired on May 28, 2021
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Tyler Caglia and Mike Van Groningen
Tyler Caglia and Mike Van Groningen are co-founders and managing members of CVG Capital LLC. Based in central CA, they have many years of experience in the real estate and construction industries. Their career experience includes involvement in estimating, contract execution, and management of highly technical, accelerated construction contracts exceeding $150 million in value. After years of buying, rehabbing, managing, and selling smaller rentals both locally and out-of-state, they recently syndicated their first large multifamily property in Lafayette, Louisiana. The 124 unit class C property was purchased off-market for $6.5 million in March of 2021. Tyler and Mike are both the lead sponsors and asset managers of the deal, and they look forward to adding tremendous value to the property in the coming months. Check out their website https://www.cvgcapitalllc.com/
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Your host, Brian Briscoe, is a co-founder and principal in the real estate investing firm Four Oaks Capital.  He and his team currently have 485 units worth $21 million in assets under management and are continuing to grow.  He will retire as a Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Marine Corps in 2021. Learn more about him and the Four Oaks team at www.fouroakscapital.com  or contact him at brianbriscoe@fouroakscapital.com - be sure to let him know where you found him.

Connect with him on LinkedIn or Facebook.

Transcript

Brian Briscoe: 0:00

What advice would you guys give to an aspiring investor that's, you know, maybe six to 12 months behind where you guys are at right now.

Mike Van Groningen: 0:07

You got to find a mentor. If you're going into this without, you know, much of a real estate background, and even if you have one, finding somebody with multifamily experience that you can lean on, just having that coaching, we wouldn't be able to close the deal without it

Tyler Caglia: 0:20

by frankly, getting a mentor and getting a much more experienced partner. He's done a lot for us just you know, as far as helping us navigate everything right. You know, before you reach out to mentor I'd say just just do some research, read some books, go online. You know, listen to podcasts, you know what you're talking about when you do try to vet a mentor or a partner.

Brian Briscoe: 0:51

Welcome to the diary of an apartment investor podcast with your host Brian Briscoe. In this podcast we bring some of the top professionals in the apartment investment field to discuss various aspects of the apartment investing journey, with the sole purpose of educating listeners to make wise investment decisions. The Diary of an apartment investor podcast is sponsored by four oaks capital bringing you high yield returns through apartment complex investing. This is journal entry number 140. Today we speak with Tyler caviglia and Mike Fung grundlagen. Keep listening to hear the story of how they closed on 124 unit apartment building in Lafayette, Louisiana. It was a C class property they purchased for six and a half million dollars. And now this show. Welcome to the diamond apartment investor podcast. I'm your host Brian Briscoe with four oaks capital. Very excited for today's show. We've got two guys on the line with us. This is part of our first deal series episodes. And we have Tyler caviglia and Mike van graan. Again with us today who recently closed on 124 unit apartment complex. It was a Class C property $6.5 million purchase price. in Lafayette, Louisiana, they just recently closed at the date of recording 50 days ago on April 1. And by time you listen to this, it'll probably be about two months in the in the rearview mirror. But that said Tyler Mike, welcome to the show. Thanks, Brian. Yeah, thanks. Good to be here. Yeah, so very impressive. For first deal, I mean, $6.5 million property. But before we jump into the nuts and bolts on that one, let's let's learn a little bit more about you guys. Let's talk about you guys's background and history. And I know you guys have a lot of things in common. Give us an idea of where you got who you guys are, where you come from, and then we'll talk about the deal itself.

Unknown: 2:31

Yeah, sure. Yeah. So we're from sunny California. So we live in the Central Valley of California. We both have construction backgrounds. We're both project managers. And the same construction company here. based out of Fresno, California basically have the same likes love real estate. And I've always loved real estate, have invested in it on a small scale and single family, single family homes, both in California and out of state and just basically got the itch for multifamily investing last year. And so Tyler and I created CVG capital LLC, back in July, August of last year, and I've been working hard ever since.

Brian Briscoe: 3:11

All right now is is the name just the initials or is there? Is there is that actually mean something? Now it's just cagli and vagrant again. Oh, that's easy. CVG There we go. Makes sense. Now that you say it's but you know, sometimes a little slow put two together. But, you know, I've actually learned a lesson not to ask for you know, acronyms online because, you know, one guy, you know, had the F word in, you know, part of his acronym. And it was, you know, the official name of the company was, you know, six letters, LLC, or whatever. But anyway, I figured, you know, CV and G it shouldn't shouldn't have anything like that in there. So yeah, so you guys, you guys work together? Same construction company. And you know, you told me prior, same same college together. Were you at that same time?

Unknown: 3:53

No, no. So Tyler's several years younger than I am. And so I had already graduated by the time he got there.

Brian Briscoe: 3:59

Okay, so same college, you're working for the same company, you both have an interest in real estate and you decide to partner up and go slay the dragon, right? Yep. All right, nice. So let's talk about your guyses reason for doing this, you know, and I like to call it the big burning, why, you know, what's your motivation? What drives you? Essentially,

Unknown: 4:22

I would say for me, it's just, you know, my family trying to create a better life for my family and also following a passion of mine, just real estate in general and kind of that entrepreneurial spirit that I've got kind of burning inside of me, you know, have a great day job and I have no intention of leaving there. But I've also got this other side of me that wants to dabble in real estate and whatnot. So this is a great way to kind of do that, you know?

Brian Briscoe: 4:46

Yeah. And Mike How about you What's your what's your big burning? Why?

Unknown: 4:50

Yeah, same reason. Just want to build wealth and and, you know, not only set my family up for their future, but also help others as well. So be You know, a dream of mine one day to to grow this business large enough to just be able to help people on a large scale. So really looking forward to seeing what's what's in store. Yeah,

Brian Briscoe: 5:08

yeah, absolutely. And I mean, closing on something this big is your first deal. I mean, you got a lot of good things in store. I mean, that's, that's a big, big hump to get over, so to speak. Speaking of I mean, two guys working in construction, project management, you know, well suited for, for real estate investing in a lot of ways, but I'm sure there's some challenges in your road. What were some of the biggest challenges, you know, getting started not necessarily with with this deal, but just getting the ball rolling upfront?

Unknown: 5:36

Yeah, there's a lot to learn in the multifamily space. So we both own homes here in California. So we know what it's like to own a single family home and have rented out, you know, small rentals and things over several years and got a feel for it. But when you take on a multifamily property, it's completely different. You're buying a business, you're not just buying a piece of real estate. So it's just the underwriting that goes in, it's more than just looking at what the home value is on Zillow and knowing how much is worth and how much I could rent it for. There's so much more that goes into it. So we really had to sit down and educate ourselves on how this how this whole process works, both from coursing all the way through, you know, analysis, underwriting and then closing on the property as well. So it was it's, you've got a steep uphill battle, when you first start out brand new, not knowing anything, but luckily, with how much information is available out there today, whether it be online through books, podcasts is your own, there's really no excuse not to learn it, it just you gotta put the time in and really just open yourself up to learning a new, a whole new way of looking at real estate and a business.

Brian Briscoe: 6:42

Yeah, it's a whole new world. Yeah, I

Unknown: 6:44

just did just took a lot of time just studying, you know, a lot of late nights reading books, listening to podcasts, like Mike said, and it's it when you look at the task from you know, the very beginning, it seems quite daunting. And as you really start to dive into it going step by step, it gets much more realistic, I'd say to where we realized that this was a path that we were both well suited for. And, you know, could work out well for meeting our goals.

Brian Briscoe: 7:15

Yeah, you know, you're right, it can be intimidating. Once you learn everything that's involved. It's, it's definitely a lot more complicated than buying a single family home, and renting a single family home. There's, there's a lot of parallels in there. I'm sure you guys have seen it, you know, it's just taking a single family home and taking it to a different level, is what you're doing. But there there's a lot of extra things in there that you may not expect. And I feel the same way. You know, there's a lot of things I had to relearn. And I didn't expect as well. So let's let's talk a little bit about you know, the team. I know you guys were lead sponsors, I know you have some other people in the gap. Can you talk about, you know, how you guys met them? How you guys came together? And basically how you divided things up? Yeah, so

Unknown: 8:00

we, we joined the group think multifamily, for many reasons, but there's quite a few resources within the group that allowed us to kind of build the team pretty easily. Mike and I are asset managing the deal, found the deal. And we took it to closing, we also have, you know, key principals on the deal that are also you know, raising money and whatnot. So that's, that's primarily how we found this network was was through think multifamily and couldn't imagine doing it without a group like that. I mean, there's a lot of components, you know, as we all know, to each deal that you do and there's a lot of the SEC has a lot of rules that limit what you can do as well. So navigating that was is quite difficult, but a big multifamily made a lot easier than it then

Brian Briscoe: 8:52

you know, I'm a huge proponent of getting into groups like that, you know, finding people who are like minded finding a huge pool of eligible partners, you know, people who want to do the same thing you can that wants to do the same thing that you want to do and maybe bring slightly different skill sets because it does take a lot of skills. Mike anything to add to that? Yeah,

Unknown: 9:13

I'll just say that having the built in team inside the group was just amazing. I can't imagine going through this and and having to you know, create a letter of intent format from scratch in a day and all the things that go into it I can't imagine taking that on without without the built in team we had inside think multifamily whether it be the attorney, a mortgage broker, CPA just everybody you need on your team was already there and we're not required to necessarily use a particular person but having somebody that is used to how the group operates and how syndication works on work was so important.

Brian Briscoe: 9:49

So so not only this group have potential partners but you have all the support people for your your deals, you know, I found my support network going to big networking events, you know, went to these networking events. And every time I went, I might have my my little three by five card, I'm like, Okay, I need to find an SEC attorney, I need to find a CPA I need to find, you know, but nice to that group had everything right there for you. And the good ones do is you know, and that's the truth, the good ones do, they kind of anticipate what everybody needs, bring them all to the to the table for you. So let's do this. Let's talk about how you guys found this particular deal.

Unknown: 10:26

So we started I think in I want to say August of last year, just started reaching out to brokers over email, trying to connect over zoom as well. Our ability to travel sometimes is is you know, limited compared to people that do this full time. So we try to most of it when we do travel. So we just started reaching out to brokers, one tip I got was find the, the youngest looking guy on the website and reach out to him hoping that he's maybe more near to build up a base of potential buyers. So we did that. And we actually weren't looking in Louisiana. But the brokers that we were talking to were in Louisiana, and just so happened that we caught one of them at the right time and and said, Hey, I just had something fall out off market, if you guys want to take a look at it. And right away, it kind of met our minimum expectations by quite a bit actually initially. Then we did some negotiating with the seller and still ended up being you know, a pretty good deal. So we push forward with it. But uh, yeah, we a lot of people go and you know, they focus on specific markets or specific brokers, we moreso took the approach of let's cast a wide net, and more so try to build those relationships. And we've sort of told them, hey, we'll, we'll consider any deal you've got, you know, we're not limited by the market. But of course, if it's in a market that we're not interested in, we'll let you know, you know, yeah, but that's how we fell into this deal.

Brian Briscoe: 11:54

Nice. And a lot of deals come out of contract. I mean, a lot of a lot of people will scoop deals up on the rebound like you guys did. Did was the broker able to share information about the previous contract price or anything else like that?

Unknown: 12:08

They did? I don't I don't think we they shared a lot of information. I don't think we ever found out the exact price. I don't think we asked to tell you the truth. But that is a great broker great guys, we would absolutely do you know many more deals with them very honest people. And they they pretty much answered, you know, just about every question. Yes.

Brian Briscoe: 12:27

Good. Good. So So you find the deal from from the broker, you put the offer in, you get the offer accepted, you know, everything's good to go. And then next step for you guys, I'm assuming was was due diligence, right? What walk us through you guys's due diligence process and what came up there?

Unknown: 12:46

Yeah, so we bring out a team of, we hired a due diligence consulting service, they come out, they walk every unit, and they average about 40 to 50 photos of each unit, and created that database for us that we can look back on to help our underwriting. So we had a basically electronic database of all of the units and what work was required. whether or not there were premium units or you know, more classic units, it just basically gather as much information as we can, could. We also, you know, brought up a service out to scope, the plumbing lines, you know, that that sort of stuff, look at the roofs, all the big ticket items that you'd normally expect, that are not being being construction. Guys also, you know, met the team out there and did our own bit of investigating, you know, whether it be concrete walkways and maybe replaced asphalt removal and replacement trees. We've made all those decisions ourselves. We're the ones who have the lead sponsors were the ones underwriting the deal. We knew what a realistic budget for those things would be. So we put that that, you know, put that all together.

Brian Briscoe: 13:50

And so yeah, we have a team of probably, I don't know, five or six of us out there for several days. Yeah, nice. Nice. And any any big ticket items come up during the due diligence process that may have changed the game a little? Oh, yeah, yeah,

Unknown: 14:02

we've been being in early 70s property, we found the big corporate aluminum wire. So we happen to walk into a down unit that was pretty tore up and the sub panel cover was off. And I looked down and saw a bunch of silver wires right

Brian Briscoe: 14:15

smack down. Oh, wow. Yep.

Unknown: 14:17

I was like, Wait a second. Wait a second. And interestingly enough, we've asked a question I mean, that's not one of the first questions you want to ask is is aluminum wire because you have to remediate that. It's a big problem for for insurance companies and lenders. So I've had originally said that it was copper and so when we found aluminum it definitely caught us by surprise. We ended up doing spot checks and the entire property with utilized aluminum wire

Brian Briscoe: 14:40

so that the whole property had aluminum wire. Did they remediate any of it at all? Or was it just all straight aluminum to the pictures?

Unknown: 14:48

We only spot checked it, but every every building that we check in every unit had 100% aluminum without any other

Brian Briscoe: 14:55

creation? Yeah, I mean, if you if you spot check, and you're getting 100% it's very likely that That's, that's like that throughout the entire property. So I mean, aluminum wiring, it affects your insurance rates significantly, it affects lending as well. I mean, some lenders are going to use a whole different set of numbers. How did that affect your underwriting? And what do you guys what you guys do about it?

Unknown: 15:17

Yeah, so we we got a local electrician, electrical contractor involved, had them put a price together on what that would cost to go into each unit, and remediate that. And there's, there's different methods of doing it. But generally speaking, you have to add some elimite con wire nuts at each fixture at each outlet, switch with copper pigtails and came up with $1 amount to remediate the entire property and had to add that to our capex budget.

Brian Briscoe: 15:45

Okay. Interesting. Yeah. So so next question. I mean, obviously, it wasn't disclosed by the seller, did you go back to the seller? Do you go back to the broker and say, Hey, guys, you know, this, this kind of changes things? What happened there?

Unknown: 15:57

We did, we did definitely changed change our mood, we were really excited until we saw that, you know, while we're on site doing due diligence, so it took the wind out of our sails a bit. So once we gathered and gathered our emotions, we went back to the broker and they said, Well find out what it's going to cost. So we, we got the price from the electrical contractor went back to the broker, and was able to renegotiate a partial credit at closing for for the aluminum wire, the problem is, it doesn't add any value to the property, it doesn't increase. You know, so it's really just a dead cost that you have to do in order to keep your insurance costs in line and satisfy with the lenders requirements are.

Brian Briscoe: 16:35

Yeah, I mean, the the real ROI is just cutting the expenses. All it is, and you're right. I mean, no, nobody, no tenant in the world is going to walk in and say, I'll pay more for that one, because it has copper wire, it doesn't happen. But you know, there is the the line item on the expenses, you know, the the debts a little bit more favorable. So there is an ROI. It's just you know, it's not as exciting as you know, the other the other ways to boost your your noi after power outage number two, we're we're back on line here. So we're talking about the finding the deal talking about everything else. And the questions that I've now asked, I think three times is tell me about the capital raise, you know, how difficult was it to get to that $2.6 million? And you know, how did you and your team go about that?

Unknown: 17:25

It was it was a bit challenging. So luckily, we had just a great team that we built inside of the, you know, think multifamily groups were able to partner with several other like minded individuals, and just had a great partnership team. And as part of that a lot of them helped raise capital for for this as well. And so you know,$2.6 million, a lot of money, but it's really not a huge, huge deal inside of that big multifamily group. So there's a number of deals that have to raise much more capital than ours challenge that we we faced is Louisiana is just a new market to the group, there aren't any other existing assets they own there, and they haven't tried to raise capital for deals inside of Louisiana before as far as we know. So we did have a little bit of a challenge educating investors and get, you know, seeing filling them out and making sure they're comfortable with with the market. Love, the feedback we got was that it's a market that's historically been dependent upon oil and gas. That's not necessarily the case anymore. So a lot of times, you just had to point them back to different data points that showed, you know, the economic kind of outlook of what what Louisiana looks like. And again, just a new area for the group is always going to be challenging, but at the end of the day, we're able to complete the race and had enough funds to be able to close and we're looking forward to basically asset management are now working out our business plan.

Brian Briscoe: 18:50

Yeah. Right. You know, that's you bring up a good point. I mean, we in the four oaks as a company, you know, we have, you know, seasoned our investors, you know, we have told them numerous times that, you know, we are focusing on a certain area. So, if we, if we deviated from that, you know, so if we come out with a property from that area, you know, the investors, you know, they're not going to have that big road bump in the way it's just going to be like, Oh, yeah, they tell us, they're focusing in South Carolina, and they just sent me a property investment opportunity in South Carolina. Yeah, of course, makes sense. But if the investors aren't used to you guys here, aren't used to hearing the wonderful things about Lafayette, Louisiana, that could be you know, cause for pause for a lot of people and not completely understandable. But the other thing you said, you know, many hands make light work, you know, very, very old saying, I mean, my mother used to say it, tell it to me, but that's how I judge old if I heard it when I was a kid. It's an old saying, but you got to be able to leverage the partnerships you developed and think multifamily, and many people were able to go out and searching for capital. So let's look at the closing process. Were there any any other big challenges you guys you ran into trying to Get this over the finish line.

Unknown: 20:02

So lending was, you know, a little difficult in Lafayette, just in general, you know, took quite a while to get the, you know, the lenders underwriting kind of finalize, just due to it being it's really I mean, it's a smaller market, there's half a million people in the MSA. So it's not crazy small. But the seller we bought it from, I think owns five or six properties there. And there's not a crazy amount of comps, right, maybe eight or 10. And in the whole MSA, so just just dealing with limited data, I think was difficult for us, at first to make sure that this was a good deal. And we were confident it was when we move forward. And the lender kind of had to get over that same hump. And one, you know, one thing that made it easier for us is we really liked the market. You know, Mike and I did. And so, going back to capital raising a little bit, you know, we had to kind of convey everything we knew about the market to investors, that was questions, if they don't like the market, no worries, you know, but if you are interested, here's what we like about the deal. And you know that the market itself has really high occupancy, I think the average for our comps was like 97%. And we had a property less than a mile away that was managed by our selected property manager. We had really good data on that. And they were, you know, doing really well there. And getting above the pro forma rents that we were hoping to get. So that really helped us when the lender would ask questions, or when we had questions, you know, we could lean on that that property quite a bit since it was I mean, an exact comp, but I think it was slightly older. But that certainly helped us navigate that that issue.

Brian Briscoe: 21:44

Alright, so so lender, and this, this has happened to us once or twice before as well, where if there's not enough comps, or there's not a right, the right comps, obviously, the lender is going to take a very conservative approach. And it's either going to delay or they're going to come up with a number that's less than what you expect as far as proceeds. And sounds like this delay the process a little bit, you guys were able to get moving along.

Unknown: 22:08

Yeah, it delayed it. And but they also did cut proceeds. So we were scheduled to close and I believe it was like early March. And the lender had taken a while to perform their underwriting, we were under the assumption that I was taking a lot a little bit longer due to due to the limited data in the market. And so when they finally did come back, they said, Hey, you know, we just don't we don't feel comfortable the number that we were at before. What's interesting is the appraisal based on cap rate was even higher than what we're purchasing it for. But the appraisal based on comps, because of limited data was lower. And so they took the more conservative approach, like you said, cut proceeds, which delay the process, because then we have to go back and raise more capital. Yeah. So, you know, we finally worked things out. The lender got the got the final proceed amount that finished the raise, and we're able to close on April 1.

Brian Briscoe: 22:56

All right. Nice, nice.

Unknown: 22:57

It was nice. Having you know, everyone on the team was was motivated to get to the finish line. Right. So our investors were excited the lender was pushing for ways in there, we obviously wanted to close the deal. everyone on the team wanted to find a way to get there. And we did you know, relatively, you know, here,

Brian Briscoe: 23:16

here's something that a lot of, you know, first time syndicators don't realize, the lender gets paid to close, the brokers get paid to close, the attorneys get paid when everything closes, you know, so most of these people are commission and fee based. So, you know, if you guys don't get to closing, nobody gets paid. And that's that's something that's, that's really nice in the industry, I mean, lenders are going to be very conservative with because that's that's just how they do things. But end of the day, you know, the lender is going to want to move things forward, the broker is going to want to push things forward. And you know, hopefully the seller still wants to push things forward when things get delayed a little bit. Now is definitely on the delay. Did you guys have an extension built into the contract? Did you have to use the extension or capacity extension date?

Unknown: 24:05

Yeah, no, we had 30 days additional. So we pushed it pushed an extra month and plenty of time to close after we did the effort.

Brian Briscoe: 24:13

Yeah, no problem. And that's, that's why you build extensions into contracts. So good enough. So yeah, you guys closed on April 1, which, like I said, was, you know about, you know, seven weeks ago? Can you talk about the transition, and you know, where you guys have come from closing

Unknown: 24:28

with, with all the delays we had in closing it was it was a moving target. And so we had moved the closing date so many times that our property management company, just kind of put them in an unfair position, quite honestly. Yeah. And so finally nailed down April 1, after we nailed down three other days before that, but finally finally came up with April 1, and they got the team on site. And so in all this commotion of trying to close and raise and proceeds, we didn't necessarily set ourselves up for the smoothest transition. And so it took It took a property management company, you know, at least two to three weeks to just get in there and really get their feet underneath them. And so, so they didn't have a, you know, we weren't necessarily just rolling out the execution of our business plan on day one. Subsequently, we've had, you know, many meetings, we have weekly calls with them sometimes even more frequently, to discuss, you know, what our goals are, what our business plan is, and how to implement that. So we're well underway executing our business plan now, but it took it took a few weeks to even start that process.

Brian Briscoe: 25:29

Yeah, it's, it's

Unknown: 25:30

been great so far, and so far, really good. how it's performing.

Brian Briscoe: 25:34

Yeah, I think I think the the purchase on the first of the month, I don't know, I think that'd be difficult for property managers and tenants, I mean, because it's when rents Do you know, so you're probably gonna have a couple people who are paying the old property manager, a couple of people who are paying the new property manager, there's a lot of lot of stuff that goes on the first of the month, I mean, you guys close when you have to close. And that's, unfortunately, a side effect of it. But I don't know, I would assume property managers would rather probably rather close with with enough time to get the word out on a where the new managers, here's where the rents gonna get paid. But I'm sure between the two property managers, you know, the, the, the former and the new one, everything worked out well. Alright, so one question for each of you, I really like to ask this question just just to see where everyone's going. But what's next for you guys?

Unknown: 26:22

I'd say we've got, I mean, we want to close another deal. You know, if we can find a good one, obviously, the markets really competitive right now, probably crazier than most people I've ever seen. So we've got a couple of opportunities in the pipeline that we're betting right now. And if those don't work out, we'll keep looking. But uh, that's our main focus is finding our next deal. We have, you know, some investors that are really interested in, in getting in next one, and, and so we're ready to go, you know, our focus primarily, is, of course, asset managing the deal that that we have, and meeting the expectations that we set out originally for that, but, and Mike is kind of leading that charge, and I'm more so trying to, you know, find that next deal. So just talking to brokers, and, and, you know, hopefully going out to see some properties at some point, and hopefully, we can make something happen in the next couple months.

Brian Briscoe: 27:14

All right. Yeah. I mean, the law, the first deal is going to come into effect here. And I think once brokers realize that you guys can can raise some some large chunks change in purchase 124 units, I'm willing to bet the second one comes a lot quicker and easier than the first. All right, so what advice would you guys give to an aspiring investor, that's maybe six to 12 months behind where you guys are at right now.

Unknown: 27:40

One of the biggest things that I think we need to do and Tyler identified this early on, you got to find a mentor, if you're going into this without, you know, much of a real estate background. And even if you have one, finding somebody with multifamily experience that you can lean on, that has that reputation that that maybe they maybe they have a built in team much like you know what we have to think multifamily. Just having that coaching, we would have been able to close the deal without a tie, frankly. And we were also able to partner with our mentor. And so being able to market, you know, yourself as owning as a group owning, like 1000 units makes a difference. Yeah, and having having that experience, because a lot of brokers, a lot of sellers don't want to take a risk on just two dudes from California, you know, so finding somebody that you could partner with and use their reputation is going to be key. So that that's, that's probably my biggest word of advice is find a mentor, find a group.

Brian Briscoe: 28:35

I love it. And I agree wholeheartedly. I mean, the mentor is a game changer in this industry. All right, Tyler, same question for you, brother.

Unknown: 28:43

Yeah, I would absolutely back that up. You know, people that know, Mike and I personally, that were interested in the deal, I think they would have probably invested had we not partnered with anyone else, just because they know, you know, know, us know, we're capable up. But, you know, other investors that don't know us, it's hard to It's hard to explain to them what you know, what you are capable of, and for them to trust you with their money. Right? So getting a mentor and getting a much more experienced partner in the deal with smart Kenny, you know, went a long way. And he's, he's done a lot for us just you know, as far as helping us navigate everything, right. We've had a million questions about things. And, you know, before you reach out to mentor, I'd say just just do some research, read some books, go online, you know, listen to podcasts, you know, what you're talking about when you do try to vet, a mentor or a partner. Obviously, when you're partnering with someone, you know, even in something like this, you're you're committing to, you know, being in business with that person for the next five, six plus years, you know, depending on your syndication model, so, you really want to know what you're talking about when you try to find those partners. You don't want to just jump into it and expect them to, you know, coach you through the whole thing from Step, you know, the first step to the last right? You want to be knowledgeable. So that that absolutely is the best thing you can do. And in my opinion, you know, try to try to connect with people and partner with people that are more experienced than you and bring value to them as

Brian Briscoe: 30:15

well, you know, yeah, yeah, it's a two way street with partnerships, you know, you have to know what you're doing somewhat to bring value to the more experienced players. But yeah, I agree wholeheartedly. You know, mentors are important, and you got to hustle, you got to hustle to be part of the team as well and make yourself attractive as a partner. All right, so last question for each of you, how can listeners learn more about you?

Unknown: 30:38

Yeah, they can reach out to us at our website, that's CVG capital, LLC comm there's, you know, three L's there at the end, CVG capital, LLC, calm, and you can reach out to us we have our contact info, their email address, and even sign up if you're interested, you know, and being a potential investor that wants to take a look at some of our new offerings.

Brian Briscoe: 31:00

Right, and we're gonna put that in the show notes. CVG capital, LLC comm three L's for anybody and actually two C's in a row, I guess, is llc.com.in. Between it, but I will put that in the show notes, Tyler, anything to add or hit both at the same price.

Unknown: 31:18

Yet, you know, reach even if you've just got some questions, just curious what we're doing, you know, just reach out to us. We love talking real estate, and we'd love to connect or, or help someone that was in our use, you know, where we were six months ago, we'd love to, you know, help someone get to where we're at now.

Brian Briscoe: 31:35

Perfect. Right. And I appreciate you saying that, you know, somebody that I followed for a while and and said many times, you know, on this apartment investing journey, you know, you walk with one hand down helping the next guy up, but you're also going one hand up, you know, with somebody pulling you so very much a case of that here. Thank you too, for coming on the show. Appreciate your time and look forward to, you know, hearing great things from you.

Unknown: 32:02

For sure. Thanks, Brian. Thanks, Brian. Thanks for all you do with your podcast as well. It's great content on here.

Brian Briscoe: 32:07

Thank you. Appreciate that. Thank you for listening to the Durban apartment investor podcast today brought to you by four oaks capital. If you'd like to know more about how to invest in apartment buildings or want to be a guest in our show, visit our website at forex capital comm slash podcast or email us directly. If you're still listening, you obviously like the show. So pull out your phone, tap, subscribe, and leave us a five star rating on your favorite podcast app. And we'll see you again next week.