First Deal Episode with Gary Von Bortel and John Bilinski

Story of how they closed on a 48-unit-property in Syracuse, New York with Gary Van Bortel and John Bilinski.

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Gary Van Bortel
Gary is a managing member of Roc Capital Group with 19 years of multifamily investing experience. John and Gary independently began investing in Residential Multifamily Real Estate 20 years ago by purchasing single and multifamily homes.  After both learning of apartment syndication in 2019, they met at a local REIA meeting in Rochester, New York.  They partnered up with the purpose of acquiring Commercial Multifamily properties together.  They immediately started their first local Meetup group called the “Upstate Commercial Apartment Investors Group” which is focused on discussing and acquiring larger multifamily properties.  Started in Rochester, the group has since expanded into the Buffalo and Syracuse markets.John and Gary closed their first 48-unit property in early 2020 just prior to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Email gary@roccapitalgroup.com
Visit his website https://roccapitalgroup.com/index.html

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John Bilinski
John is a managing member of Roc Capital Group with 10+ years multifamily investing experience. John and Gary independently began investing in Residential Multifamily Real Estate 20 years ago by purchasing single and multifamily homes.  After both learning of apartment syndication in 2019, they met at a local REIA meeting in Rochester, New York.  They partnered up with the purpose of acquiring Commercial Multifamily properties together.  They immediately started their first local Meetup group called the “Upstate Commercial Apartment Investors Group” which is focused on discussing and acquiring larger multifamily properties.  Started in Rochester, the group has since expanded into the Buffalo and Syracuse markets. John and Gary closed their first 48-unit property in early 2020 just prior to the Covid-19 pandemic. 
Email john@roccapitalgroup.com
Visit his website https://roccapitalgroup.com/index.html

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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 629 units worth $36 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 give an aspiring investor that's six to 12 months away from their first deal?

Gary Von Bortel: 0:05

I would say, as far as you know, raising capital and meeting investors, you know, or partnering up, you know, get that done, you know, as soon as possible. You know, don't don't wait. The last thing you want to do when you're getting ready to close out a property is to be worrying about whether or not you've got the money in place. And the you know, the earlier the better, establish those relationships, and partner up.

Brian Briscoe: 0:37

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. Welcome to the diary of an apartment investor podcast. I'm your host, Brian Briscoe with porlex capital. Very excited for today's show. It's another one of our first deal episodes. We have two people on the line that I've known for quite a while while we got john belinsky. And Gary Ben bortle, they recently closed on a 48 unit property in Syracuse, New York. And we're going to talk all about that today. So Gary, john, welcome to the show. Thanks, Brian.

Gary Von Bortel: 1:24

Hey, Brian, how you doing today? Doing great How you guys doing? Very good. Awesome. So let's, let's

Brian Briscoe: 1:31

start talking about you guys. And a little bit about your background. You know, Gary, why don't you go first?

Gary Von Bortel: 1:36

Sure. So I started investing in multifamily. 22 years ago, started house hacking, bought my first duplex sold that one, actually, I didn't sell it, I kept that one and moved into another one. And so I accumulated up to 21 units that was all self managed. And that was the beginning of my foray into apartment investing, you know, met up with my partner, john here, and we started investing in larger commercial apartment buildings about a year and a half ago. All right,

Brian Briscoe: 2:06

and john, john, do you want to add to that, tell us a little about yourself, too. Yeah,

John Billinski: 2:11

I got into single family homes, about nine years ago, kind of fell into it, at a property kind of came to me, that was a really good deal. And I decided to try it out. So when we go and buy to me to buy and multiple more single family homes over the next couple of years, which I learned quickly, that was a hard road to go down, and I need to do something bigger and better. And this led me into looking into apartment complexes.

Brian Briscoe: 2:33

Nice. Nice. So what was the allure for you guys to go into apartment complexes?

Gary Von Bortel: 2:39

Well, I can start off with that, you know, it all started by hearing about the you know, the syndication model, and I realized, you know, I still have a W two job, you know, it was difficult to scale, continuing to buy duplexes and you know, still working a regular job as far as taking care of them yourself. So after hearing about syndication, and learning about large, you know, larger apartment buildings now to acquire them, I was instantly hooked. So I wanted to get involved in that. And that's where I, you know, john, and I met to our local Ria group, we both had basically learned about the same type of information through, you know, an educational series, and we started looking into it.

Brian Briscoe: 3:26

Now, you say, you you met through the local Ria group? I mean, was it? You know, how did the relationship develop? What was it an instant, hey, let's start looking for stuff together to take time to develop.

Gary Von Bortel: 3:38

You know, so the local Ria group, the real estate, you know, group that is local, in our area, john and I were both members, actually, we didn't know each other at the onset. After coming back from a seminar that I kind of got, you know, very excited about, I came back and started, you know, you know, talking to the members of the group, and telling them that what I was doing, and john was also doing the exact same thing on a parallel track. He was about, you know, few months behind where I was, as far as maybe education series. And when he heard me talk about it, he came up and approached me after one of the meetings, the Christmas party meeting, actually, and it was like, hey, let's, let's get together and talk more about this. And, you know, we decided to partner up

Brian Briscoe: 4:25

Nice, nice. Now you mentioned, you know, education series, you know, you guys do a formal education series.

Gary Von Bortel: 4:31

It was a mentorship program. Yeah, it was a mentorship program that you're learning about it, I traveled way to a conference, and, you know, signed up, you know, actually took a few months of coming back and realizing that it was a lot to undertake. And, you know, my wife and I started looking at apartment buildings together and made a couple offers, but realize that I needed someone that also had the same knowledge and And, you know, was Kappelman, you know, my skills and that's where I met john and we, we actually do complement each other quite well as far as our skills.

Brian Briscoe: 5:10

Yeah, yeah and something I like to discuss on this is just the importance of education and the importance of men and mentors. How would you guys say that the mentorship program helped you guys out

Gary Von Bortel: 5:22

from my perspective, given the knowledge first, for the education to understand the thing of the animal that you're looking at getting a point where you kind of go comfortable with like, a recipe that hey, this is what someone else has done. Here's how he did it, here's all the stuffs they used and then you bring it home and that's what you have to work with is a blueprint was pretty mind bending for me like okay, like this is actually an actual thing. But then working with a mentor and having the ability to call them and you know, have once a week have a call with them where you can't go over these different details or questions or concerns can help alleviate the stress because you know, there's always like, here's how you dig into this one thing and you go do it and then there's like more questions that come out of it because you're like, is this something new and then you're like, Alright, well, if you don't have a mentor you don't want to go back to that's already done it they can go Oh, here's what we do now or here's what that means. And then it also reassures that you're still okay you're not like a blank wall and you got to turn around and start over again you know, you're not you keep going through you're fine. So I think the mentoring was really good with kind of helping you work through the parts and pieces that you knew and then help fill in the gaps of information that maybe you're lacking. So major part of, you know, been successful with this. Yeah, yeah,

Brian Briscoe: 6:32

I agree. And you know, incidentally, for the listeners, I met Jon and Gary through the mentorship program that I was a student we were all students at the same time. That's where that's where we met and how we've known each other for you know, two to three. It's been three years already. Yeah, yeah, it has. It has been so cool. Yeah, it's been a long time so well, that said one question I'd like to ask everybody there's a lot of questions I'd like to ask everybody but one in specific you know talks about you know, your why or the reason why you're working towards this this multifamily you know, investment career and I'm not not looking at new benefits of multifamily, but kind of like your, your big, deep seated, burning, why, you know, why? What's your motivation for investing in apartments?

Gary Von Bortel: 7:20

Yeah, I'll take it for, for me, it's financial freedom, you know, learned early on it, you know, passive income was phenomenal. It says it's passive income, I do a lot of, you know, all the management and the leasing and everything myself, but when you're sleeping, you're, you know, you're still making money. And it real estate has been absolutely wonderful as far as growing my personal wealth. And that's what I see is a good way to get on this, this financial freedom, right, the ability to the one day, you know, walk away from my w two job, and, and do this full time, you know, is my goal. And I can see that happening, you know, very soon.

Brian Briscoe: 7:59

Yeah, nice. And, john, how about you?

John Billinski: 8:02

Well, obviously, it's similar in a lot of ways the freedom is really what drives I think most of us be able to go from, you know, your eight to eight to four, nine to five jobs, and find a path that gives you much more freedom, better choices, and hopefully, you know, more money to work with in life in general. So you can take care of things. We're all thinking up an age, like retirement is whatever it uses, but healthcare is always an issue that you were really concerned about. So being able to afford those things without having the stress of, you know, counting every penny you have having that kind of wealth that you kind of live your life the way you want to kind of do what you want, when you want kind of a lifestyle that I want to have. And I'm kind of working towards.

Brian Briscoe: 8:43

Yeah, and I always go back to a Forrest Gump quote, you know, with him sitting on that the bus bench, you know, waiting and talking about money being just one less thing, you know, it's one less thing to worry about. And I appreciate what you said, you know, health care, you know, health care is getting more and more expensive, you know, people want financial freedom, they want to retire. But you know, more and more that health care bill is going to be a larger and larger part and soak up more and more resources as people age. So good points in you know, financial freedom is where it's at, for for most people, you know, so that's it. I mean, we already talked a little bit about how you guys came together, you met the local Ria, you're both in, you know, a mentorship program. And once you guys realize that sort of working together, let's talk a little bit about this specific deal. You know, so, first of all, how did you find it?

John Billinski: 9:32

So this actually came through a broker. It was a large portfolio, and we purchased one of the properties portfolio was, was actually quite large, much larger than police for first deal we could have taken down. It was, you know, I think eight different properties, you know, pretty good size. This was kind of one of the smaller ones. It's a 48 unit, and I john and i put an offer in on it knowing that the broker said they're hoping to sell To one individual and sure enough, that's what happened is that the one individual did come along and, and purchase the entire portfolio. However, he really wasn't that interested in this unit, he wanted something 100 plus units. So the broker called us up and said, You guys expressed interest put an offer in, you know, this guy here is got an accepted offer on the whole package, you know, give him a call, he might be interested in working with you guys or selling it to you. So that's exactly what happened. So, you know, you always got to realize that it offered, you know, you might submit it, you might not get the deal, but it might come back around, and that's exactly what happened to us. Yeah, this guy, that individual that purchased the portfolio did, we did contact him we met with him, we kind of worked out a, you know, a pretty fair price for the property. And as soon as he closed as soon as we were able to we close behind him and took the property. So that's kind of how we got it.

Brian Briscoe: 10:54

Yeah, that's, that's, that's that's a good way to do it. You know, when when large portfolios go off, you know, sometimes groups want, you know, three out of five or, you know, four out of five, but, you know, what did they do with the one they don't want it the sellers insist, and I think I've seen a couple of cases like this, where people have been able to, you know, work out a double close or worked out, you know, some something so that, you know, the seller gets exactly what they want, and the buyer gets exactly what they want to so glad you guys were able to work that in and get that taken care of. And I think you're absolutely right, I've heard a lot of people talk about getting deals on the rebound, so to speak, you know, offer goes in isn't initially accepted and then later on, hey, you know, you guys put an offer on this, you know, six months ago Are you still interested and a lot of people get deals like that. So tell us a little bit more specifically about the deal, what you guys liked about it and what your business plan was going in?

John Billinski: 11:50

Well, one thing we liked about it is it was kind of in our backyard, we live in Rochester and it's in Syracuse and it's probably about an hour hour and a half drive for a show it's it was close so that we can go put our hands on that was bigger both me and Gary we wanted to have something that we can actually go see touch feel you know really have our ability to kind of work on it if we needed to. And that was the first thing was kind of attractive, the size was 40 units which at the time to us was large enough you know at first you know, you don't know what's been what the big, big enough properties but for us, that was plenty big enough for us. So we'd like that it wasn't too massive. And it had a lot of good characters older building, a lot of lot of woodwork in the building that was still existing hardwood floors a while and neglected had a lot of potential for upside and we saw that right away we saw that rents were low and the units just needed to go back through and do some work and make them better and that's also was in an area that had very likability with the younger professionals. And it had a nice draw with a lot of reasons it's an Irish neighborhood a lot a lot of Irish pubs around stuff like that, that made it very attractive but this property just was rundown and neglected for many years. So I think those things gave us you know, a lot of reasons to like it it gave us possibilities of doing what we wanted to do get where he wanted and doing a lot of the work as much as we could overseen that ourselves so we can actually take it to a properly

Brian Briscoe: 13:21

Alright, so So follow on question on that. What was what was the negotiated purchase price and, and out of that, how much capital Do you guys need to raise? Yeah, we

Gary Von Bortel: 13:31

started out at I think was one point 8 million. And we ended up raising an extra million dollars. On top of that, as john mentioned, it was a evaluated property. it you know, it's got great bones, it's an older building brick construction, very, very solid. It's just, you know, the units needed to be gone through. And this is what we've been doing. So we we raised a million dollars, which I think was, you know, a pretty good milestone for us. We pushed hard to get that we, you know, established relationships. How we did that is we formed a meetup group. And we now have a presence in both Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse, I'd say we meet regularly, and we discuss, you know, everything that we do and how we do it and how you syndicate and all the components of it, we got our investors really excited about it. So when we did find the deal, you know, we had folks that were already you know, knew us and don't happen with us and you know, it helped out a lot. So we ended up finding, I think a couple of issues that we had to resolve through due diligence where we were able to renegotiate a little bit on the price. So that's something that we really prefer to do but there was some issues that that as we explained this, this the person that we bought the property from no experience with the property, he didn't know anything about it. So you know It's kind of legitimate you know it was like well hey you know the roof needs a little bit of work we you know I understand she didn't realize that and so it was no big deal and I think the final price ended up was at 1.8 5 million I believe is where we ended up

Brian Briscoe: 15:15

so 1.5 million purchase price you raised a million what was it What was the renovation budget out of that million?

Gary Von Bortel: 15:21

So budget was pretty much about what were we at about 600,000 on that john I think we needed called for the down payment and the rest of it was renovation so we had already pre planned that John's excellent in that aspect we planned out what needed to be done you know as always, you know flooring lighting and then you know we raised money for renovation of several of the units so it was some just some you know, updating that needed to be done and we you know, had that budget in place and very important you don't want to close and then end up not having any working capital so we did have that and we're about farther along than what we had planned in this amount of time. I think we're up to 2627 units now that we've gone through and you know, we're we're able to, you know, raise rents above what we had originally projected and the renovations are coming out really really nice. So we're very pleased

Brian Briscoe: 16:18

Awesome. Awesome. Now going going back to the the capital raise you raised $2 million. You talked about the the meetups you guys establishes, you know, part of you know your your capital raising plan. Were there any big hitches in in the capital raising piece,

Gary Von Bortel: 16:33

I actually I think more us stressing out about raising the capital revenue we talked to. It's interesting, Gary brought about our meetup and all that we're able to meet a lot of people that we knew from previous but also new people that were part of our meetup that because we educate them on what we're doing, they were ready. I mean, it was funny who they were like, are we have a deal, we got to raise this capital, I would say more cases than not it really fell into place for us where we the money was able to be raised in a short time. You know, we have you know, of course, a lot of people I think what really was our stumbling block that everybody runs into his everything. Yes, yes, yes, I'm gonna invest in you. But we have to actually get to the point where we got it officially done where we knew that they had money on the line, you know, where we had it in the bank more or less. So we, we took the time to set up a date and a local Panera Bread, we just picked the Panera Bread. And we basically set up every half an hour where each investor that we're going to bust those myths came down sat with us, and we got the either doing it during that kind of a talk, you know, we sat down, figured it out was very pointed about it, and then worked through the crowd that we had, and pretty much by the time we're done, we had the cash we needed plus it looking back, it fell into place at the time, it felt very stressful, very scary, very unsure. But I think because of the whole meetup and really them seeing the property from pictures to the problems we had to the due diligence we did, they kind of made them fully aware of our deal. And it made it very kind of simplistic at that point. And I think they would refer

Brian Briscoe: 18:04

to the story too. I mean, you know, they they're, they're walking through the year, you're walking them through the process the whole time is educational, and, you know, they're part of the story. And one thing also impressive is, you know, I think in this this age of you know, zooming technology that, you know, these were sounds like mostly face to face people, you know, people that you know, well that invested with you, you know, and not the you know, I got one phone call, so I can call it a 506 b type investors.

Gary Von Bortel: 18:34

Yeah, all of our investors are, you know, within, you know, 20 minutes drive, so it was, you know, very nice because they're all they're all close to us. And, you know, we did a lot of work to try to, you know, we put together a marketing package, we put together a little YouTube video, we put together you know, little business cards, but just a link to all the information. So it was easy for people to go home and, you know, digest the information at their own on their own time if they wanted to. And, you know, just by being open about everything. And, you know, we actually took two of the investors that we weren't taking anybody that wanted to, but we took a couple of them out to the property to see it beforehand. They wanted to walk through, you know, being evaluated, we were like, I don't know if we really want to do that. But yeah, we were open book. Yeah, we did. And they were actually very, very positive about it, you know, as, as far as seeing the units that we were able to show them and the work that needed to be done, you know, it helped, you know, it really helped to instill confidence and that, you know, we were, you know, an open book basically and, you know, all cards on the table as far as what we needed to do to the building and you know, how we were going to deliver.

Brian Briscoe: 19:39

Your last point made me smile, you know, a lot of the value add properties or value add because they don't look pretty, you know, upfront, you know, they, they need a lot of work, you know, and we had one of our LPs, one of our passive investors who is driving through the city of the property that he invested in And stop, took a picture texted me and he's like, wow, this place looks kind of like yeah, we bought it we were putting a million million and a half into this property to fix it up it doesn't look pretty now just wait two years it will you know type stuff but yeah that that comment made me smile, you know, it's a value add you know, and a lot of the value ads are rough around the edges when you buy them. So, you know, may not be the best. Best for the the marketing packages, you know. So you find you find that one angle, right, you find the one angle where they look really really sharp. But so I love how you guys did that I love I love the way you guys raised the money you're very curated relationships with people who've been showing up to your meetups. And and now you got to presidents in three cities. So you know, hopefully you can you can you know, 3x the amount of money that you can raise easily on on the next couple of deals. But so we talked about finding the deal raising the capital, we talked a little bit about, you know, do due diligence. Were there any big hitches you know, with the closing?

Gary Von Bortel: 21:06

Yes. I want to start. I'll take the easy one and gentle, gentle take. So we closed it, you know, we we, this is all around the Christmas time, the holiday season time, right. So, of course, you know, the banks go on holiday, and it's tough to get off of anybody. So it was kind of a nail biter, because you're under a certain timeframe to get the closing done. And the the bank hadn't even dispatched the appraisal company. And we were, you know, you know, very short time from closing. And they were telling us, you know, they needed to fly somebody out from California, and it was gonna cost us X amount of money. And so, you know, we won that battle, it's like, well, this is not new guys, we're just appraisers in the area, just, you know, use one. But we did make the closing but doing this around the holiday season, I would try to avoid next time,

Brian Briscoe: 22:03

add extra time in Yes, closings around holiday seasons, capital raises around holiday seasons. You know, it's it's difficult. So I think that's some good advice. If you know, I mean, if you can project your closing look at the contract date, and you know, the closings and you know, end of December. So you can get a couple extra weeks. I mean, that's that's I think smart. Smart Money would say that.

Gary Von Bortel: 22:25

We were very fortunate we were working directly with a seller. And he was a very gracious individual, you know, we'd work with him in a heartbeat. In fact, we reached out to him, he has other properties. Because the due diligence did take longer, and we offered to pay to have it extended and you know, he was like you guys are doing great, fantastic. I'm not gonna ask you for anything extra, just get it closed, and we'll be fine. So perfect. That helps a lot.

Brian Briscoe: 22:51

All right, so that was the low hanging fruit. JOHN, you got the difficult part?

John Billinski: 22:55

Well, let me get because what Barry was referring to about extending our due diligence, out to that point, we sat down with this or twice to renegotiate the price. Because a couple issues that came up prior. So when we went to like, Hey, we need to extend out our due diligence. You know, obviously it means Hey, we found a problem. And you know, I'm sure he's taking off, the guys are going to come back for money, right. And at that point, what we were finding and like we had an extended was raised the end of our time, we were walking through the hallways and I realized that the carpet was there was carpet on all the hallways. It was one area that had no carpet, and we're going to read stairwell. And I just happened to catch that they were these Roger Federer and now put the tile that's considered like an asbestos tile, you could tell by the size, and the look of them and I go Gary, I go family as best as I go, this could be a big problem. So this was like I would say two days three days prior to us, like our final days of doing our due diligence. And that was the call we had had with him going Listen, we just found something and we're not sure about we gotta have somebody check this out. Because if it is, then we got to think about those costs. And you know, we're talking two buildings with four floors each. A lot of extra money, right? So him saying like Gary said, He's very gracious. And he says, guys, if you need a week, or two or three, do what you need to do. We want to make sure that you're comfortable with what you're doing, you know, unbelievable, this guy was just so gracious with us. And lo and behold, it was an asbestos issue. We did come up with a plan of how to deal with it in that time period. And then we did go back and ask him for a little bit of compensation on it because we knew it was going to be a big cost. And he worked with us about a lot a little bit. Now he knew point. I mean, we even basically said to us, listen, guys, you come back for anything else at this point. It's dead. But he leaves he goes, you guys would beat me into the ground. I have that. I've already given this away. So long story short, it works. Now we figured out the problems we were able to put in our plan. And we knew that was one of the first things we're going to attack, which would take care of all that. So there was other things that came up. But that was a big, obviously thing that we couldn't see. And it just kind of floored us. And, and I remember Gary me having a conversation. It was like, one more of these deals in our deal. Like we're probably through this process. At this point, we had six big events that were like, do we keep moving forward? Do we stop right here it is just one more. And we will always talk about I said, you know, as long as we can keep moving forward, let's move forward until we can see, we'll figure it out. And if we could figure it out, we keep moving forward. And that's what we did. And I think that was really what kept this deal going for us. Because I think there's many times most people want to look at it. Now it's enough. There's too many signs saying it's a bad deal. You know,

Brian Briscoe: 25:46

now I'm gonna go back to what we were talking about earlier, how did your mentors help in the process?

John Billinski: 25:51

Well, I think part of it too, was that I just said about pushing forward, you know, they basically don't want to talk to my mentor, he was basically saying, well, it's not like you're going to, you know, not be able to turn around anymore, you can keep going forward. So just keep moving until he can. And I think that mentality to know that don't be so afraid long as you're not, you know, stuck in a spot that you can't get out of, you might as well keep making a deal. And then you never know where it's gonna bring you. But you're better off keep pushing, and then hopefully makes it makes it work. And it did. So that was my one thing I got through medic was probably one of the bigger things.

Brian Briscoe: 26:25

Nice, nice, Gary, anything to add?

John Billinski: 26:28

Well, there was one more thing to kind of hit us. And that was COVID. We closed at the end of February. And then the world flipped upside down. And as john was stating, you know, due to the asbestos issues, we had remediate that. And that meant displacing tenants. Which is pretty tough thing to do, when everything was the way it was. So but we, we got through that. So it was just one more thing at the end of the pile to pile on for us. But yeah, it's all worked out wonderfully. All right, we were able to abate, you know, what we needed to do, and it's all been done in the hallways are looking fantastic. All right,

Brian Briscoe: 27:03

awesome. So let's talk I mean, you you briefly brushed into it. But the next thing up on the list was talking about the first steps after closing and talking about how the after closing process went, and basically where you guys are right now.

John Billinski: 27:17

Sure. So, you know, after the closing, we got into renovation work, basically, you know, we we had our property manager, you know, start, you know, doing what they needed to do, as far as collecting rents and getting their, you know, everything in order on their part. We started hiring contractors, we're still doing that today working with contractors to get you know, these units as they become vacant, you know, renovated, and you know, it's fortunate that the property is, you know, is close enough to us, we do go out there quite often to make sure that the work is being done, you know, the way that we need it to be done, and just we're trying to increase the, you know, the quality of tenants that we have in there, and we've done a fantastic job doing that. So that's, you know, just getting getting it up and running and executing our business plan.

Brian Briscoe: 28:05

Nice. Nice. I think earlier 2028 out of 48 is what you have renovated already.

John Billinski: 28:10

Yeah, I think that's about where we're at right now. We have not had a lost track but you know, we're we're getting there

Brian Briscoe: 28:15

over halfway. So that's that's a good sign. That's a really good sign. All right, so what's what's next for the two of you?

John Billinski: 28:21

Well, we're we're really working with our meetup groups, because we know that it's been a base that we want to work from. But we've been we are in fact, we came out last night looking at two properties. in Buffalo last Tuesday, we're looking at a couple properties out in Syracuse are affected already, we're going to look for more problems, we're avidly looking trying to find the next deal. Ideally, we'd like to find deals in Syracuse because we'd like to use ability of one property and the second property and we haven't worked together with contractors, property management, all that kind of maximize that for us. But we're not going to say no to a deal that might be in another city. Because we're, we need to have, you know, two or three deals, you know, going at a time and right now after COVID kind of, we've kind of flushed through COVID got a property where needs to be now we're back on the horse running hard and try to make sure we can keep this going forward at this point. All right. All right. Awesome. All right. So

Brian Briscoe: 29:13

I want Next question. I want both of you guys to take a stab at it. You know, what advice would you give an aspiring investor that's six to 12 months away from their first deal,

Gary Von Bortel: 29:22

I would say as far as you know, raising capital and meeting investors, you know, or partnering up you know, get that done, you know, as soon as possible. You know, don't don't wait the last thing you want to do when you're getting ready to close out a xcy is to be worrying about whether or not you've got the money in place. And the you know, the earlier the better establish those relationships, and partner up, you know, it's I think it's been a true key to my success here is working with someone else. It's a lot of work, you know, everything from working from the bank, to the closing to doing the quality to due diligence, and then everything after that, so It certainly helps.

Brian Briscoe: 30:01

Yeah. JOHN, same question for you.

John Billinski: 30:05

Well, I always tell everybody, the first thing that supports is get the education. finding somebody that has a good program that you can get behind network network network, because your friends are your best asset, especially when you have questions, concerns, or if you need to find partners. And then try to find a model it's gonna work for you. And like myself, me and Gary Vee, are meetups is kind of our model. I can see like yourself, Brian, you know, with you guys having a podcast and having a presence. It's kind of probably a part of your model that helps bring in new people, family and friends are great. But not everybody has the ability to do that. So you got to kind of think that through but a lot of investors out there you just got to find your way to them so that you can afford to buy these properties. Yeah.

Brian Briscoe: 30:50

Awesome. Awesome. You know, great, great advice, you know, and this has been a really, really fun episode. So last question, how can listeners learn more about YouTube?

John Billinski: 31:00

Well, you can reach you know myself, Gary, at my email address is Gary at Rock Capital Group calm. Okay, so our oc cpip al group comm and our website is rack Capital Group comm where you can learn more about us see, you know what we're involved in. And that's probably the best way to reach out to us.

Brian Briscoe: 31:23

Easy, easy, and we'll we'll have a link to your email and link to the website in the show notes. So anybody who's listening, if you're listening, you want to reach out to them, check out the show notes, and it's all going to be there. JOHN, anything to add?

John Billinski: 31:36

guys just a good kind of take me a giant rock Capital Group. So let's see. Here we go.

Brian Briscoe: 31:41

Super simple. First name at Rock capital group.com. And it's very simple. I mean, very, very simple. First names to you know, john and Gary, it's not not gonna be hard for people to dispel that one. But that said, thanks very much for coming on the show today. I really appreciate your guys's time.

John Billinski: 32:00

Thanks, Brian. It was fun. Brian, thank you again. Appreciate it.

Brian Briscoe: 32:09

Thank you for listening to the divergent 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 on our show, visit our website at four oaks capital comm slash podcast or email us directly. If you're still listening, you obviously like the show. So pull out your phone, app, subscribe, and leave us a five star rating on your favorite podcast app. And we'll see you again next week.