ATE-Maintaining Quality Residents with Eng Taing and Claudia Becerril Clas

A discussion about learning to distinguish business deals from your desires and how to deal with occupancy problems in the current market with Eng Taing and Claudia Becerril Clas.

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Eng Taing
Eng the CEO & Founder of Touzi Capital (pronounced Toe-Zee) and is an experienced real estate investor with $150M assets under management. Eng is an economist by training, from the Wharton School of Business. He also has experience leading data science and analytics at Apple, Capital One and AT&T. He's the classic immigrant story, born in a refugee camp in Thailand escaping the Khmer Rouge and finding success in data & math in America. Eng focuses on high cash flow investments and providing passive income to investors by acquiring and optimizing multifamily apartment buildings, senior living communities, & bitcoin mining operations.
Visit his website https://www.touzicapital.com/

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Claudia Becerril Clas
I am an army veteran after serving in the Army for seven years. I am currently in Germany where my husband is stationed before retiring from the Army. My focus while in Germany is long distance real estate investing in our home of record which is Illinois. My background is in the medical field and I started learning about real estate about a year ago while stationed with my husband at Ft Bliss. I have read books, watched youtube videos, listened to podcasts and joined multiple real estate virtual meetings since learning the benefits of real estate. We have one SFH in Chicago IL that is currently rented out and we would like to add more doors to our portfolio. I took a six week real estate course in Dec 2020 and since then have been actively looking for a small multifamily property. I was under contract for a two unit property that did not work out followed by a three unit property that we walked away from and most recently were under contract for a 6 unit property that did not work out. I am now back to the drawing board and grateful for the learning experience I have had thus far.
Connect with her on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/claudiabecerrilclas/
Or email her clascapitalinvesting@gmail.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 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

Eng's on the line right here. What do you want to ask?

Claudia Becerril Clas: 0:02

How do you handle like dealing with like problem tenants?

Eng Taing: 0:05

I think if you see problem tennants you really want to make sure you find the root cause tenant a lot of times the root cause is because you had so many discounts on your rent. When you discount rent and you're desperate for tenants and you take anybody, don't lower your standards, retention starts at acquisition retain good tenants, it's you'd save that leasing fee save that turnover time that they can see the marketing fees NASA when you're chasing this optimization chasing this, I need someone to move into I'm gonna give somebody two months rent free. That's unfortunate, but then potentially, they might not be the greatest tenant to continue the renters.

Brian Briscoe: 0:55

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 Four Oaks capital, very excited for today's show, we've got two amazing people on the line with us. We've got someone who's an expert in this industry Eng Taing and someone who's up and coming, Claudia Becerril Clas. And first of all, we're gonna bring on ng and just for anybody listening, we're gonna put their bios in the show notes. So check those out if you have a second. But that said, Eng Welcome to the show.

Eng Taing: 1:44

Thanks for having me, Brian. Appreciate, appreciate you.

Brian Briscoe: 1:48

And this is always a lot of fun all we get to meet new people and learn more about other ways of doing things. So that's it. Go ahead. And, you know, lead us off by telling us about yourself.

Eng Taing: 2:01

Happy to first meet new people is one of the funnest parts of this. I actually think this industry is have been in many industries. One of the friendliest is lots of people want to help each other out. It's not like a zero sum game. There's so much opportunity out there. Yeah. So partnerships is key. And just you never know, small road, right. So my background, I have been a real estate investor for 12 years. But I want to go a little bit back into personally Yeah, I was born in a refugee camp in Thailand. My parents are Cambodian. And that was a very dark time in history. It was a timber rouge and genocide there. And I remember, we're not I don't know, but my parents told me if times were essentially, we were hit hiding in the jungle and invade the soldiers, I was lucky enough to be a refugee in America, come here, I was three, I'm lucky enough to be good have grown up in America lucky enough to grown up poor, growing up and hungry. And lucky to have all those situations and not really feel like I was any of those things. And there were my parents worked 20 477 days a week, like any in most immigrants, parents, especially when they don't have any education. You know, that was sort of my upbringing. And it gave me a really strong hunger and desire to have economic security. You don't have economic security you want to pursue it. I was lucky enough to ask to be very good at math and very good at data and data patterns. And so like anyone in my shoes, I was day trading and playing poker, and got into Wharton and for agonised investment banking, that helped shape sort of my mathematical understanding of finding patterns and leveraging data to make informed economic decisions. And so I those two things in terms of the hunger, the background, and my bill T's helped me propel myself into financial freedom. And financial freedom for me has always been about having enough to provide for your family, to secure their security and to have the freedom to do whatever you want. And when I was out, I'll go to my projects and receive stuff but when I first got my first apartment building, I was aged 23 got lucky unlucky because it's fashion crisis. I helped caused it sorry. Book 4 billion loss and subprime acids. Yeah, because I find for a reason. The net effect of that was I it turned me off from really investing that much in stock market. I Didn't like volatility I like sort of the the positivity as they get the regular nest, calmness of monthly checks in the comments of tenants. But multi tracks, also prices went down by two thirds, good buying up changes and eight to nine.

Brian Briscoe: 5:19

Stick was on sale. So yeah, that's great. I should have I should have been more. Yeah, and I say the same thing. You know, I bought as much as I could, which is one condo. And that was, you know, just down the road from where you're at right now. But it was I, if I were able to go back to that time, I would have bought up as much as I could. But

Eng Taing: 5:37

yeah, I actually bought three properties before I bought my first house to this certify. Yeah, I always say that. Try to make sure you can have your passive income streams before, you know, focus a lot on yourself, because I think that helped build the engine faster. But one of things that really helped me was his passive income, getting $1,000 a month around there. And having that freedom to make better or least voter decisions. After the financial crisis, allow my cohorts and friends rent to MBA, I went to the Peace Corps. I was at peace corps in palghat, Georgia making $200 a month, which didn't include housing, you have to get my own housing and it's tough as college I had my parents say, Hey, I'm gonna go to this boyfriend country. They think I was not saying we're gonna I was making a lot nothing. And what are you doing? They just be sassy, the same frustrations they've had. And I wouldn't work when reasons. I was lucky to meet my wife there. But also lucky to have an income stream that I say to us I didn't use I'm a very prodigious saver, but to just have that security, and going forward during my corporate career, where I switch jobs I made moves, career rice, I was lost different industries. I always saw real estate as sort of my side hustle my thing that I really loved. But that gave me better decision making. I could go to my boss and ask for that raise. I could make a counteroffer, I couldn't make better decisions because I wasn't afraid of getting fired or losing a job. That was my entire income stream. Having just a little baselayer gave me a lot more confidence to make boated status. That's how I was able to 5x my compensation in 10 rafter you know, going out peace. I want to highlight that too, because that's part of the motivation that I've always had. That is financial freedom to do whatever you want, and you can make dumb decisions and recover from them. You can make this but you can you have the ability to make those decisions. And yeah, I think for me, that background of being hungry, trying to help my family out and achieving that. And then now less corporate job was at Apple, I lead lead data science on Siri. So if you're using Siri, it's not working very well. Why have you worked anymore? Sorry, Sonny.

Brian Briscoe: 8:19

Alright, alright, so so you cause the financial crisis and all series problems are your fault, too. So got it. I know who to call now. Great.

Eng Taing: 8:28

But in between, I worked at private equity and gaming, and I launched Apple Music and the bunch of different things. So

Brian Briscoe: 8:37

yeah. Yeah, I was gonna say a lot, a lot, a lot of really cool things there. I mean, I can't imagine what it would be like being born in a war torn area. You know, I did. I didn't do Peace Corps I did. I served a mission for my church, which is very similar, except we don't get paid to do it, you know, is really the only difference. But I spent two years in South America and I think I came back with that appreciation of the US that you had as well, where, you know, you said you were very fortunate to grow up here. I didn't realize how fortunate I was until I was about 20 years old. And I left for two years and came back but agree wholeheartedly, you know, definitely we're we're fortunate to be here and incidentally, you mentioned your your math ability I got two degrees in math, I kind of chuckled when you said that because we were working on you know algorithms to be video poker You know, when when we were in grad school, but you know, never never had enough money to really make it work out because of the minimum bets you know, but you know, theoretically we could have be video poker and made millions But anyway, long story short, but so yeah, so good. Good. Eng, and I appreciate what you said about the security for income as well. You know, if you have that extra stream of income, it gives you more options. You know, I think you mentioned specifically if you're tied to one job, and you're so worried and you're clean And you're worried about losing it, you don't have a lot of options, you're not going to be bold, like you said, you're not going to be able to go in and ask for that raise or the new position or promotion that you're looking for. So that the extra income streams bring options, which, you know, I think is what everybody wants is they want options. But that said, you talked a lot about the reason you're doing it. But if I if I could get you just to narrow in on that one subject, you know, what is your big burning?

Eng Taing: 10:26

My big burning why, right, has always been my family. And now that I'm running towards the capital, I feel like it's sort of a family business where I feel like my investors, my family, I have text messages of them, giving me very grateful language and saying, you know, I'm very thankful. And honestly, I love that I love saying distributions, I love doing all this stuff, but I spot my parents a house, I was able to give my family love great things that they can afford. And that's for me, I've never really needed that much material wealth that never had, so I'd never needed it. I know I can live off $20 a month probably won't be as helpful now since. But it's something that I always wanted. And then when I had kids, I just had a second kid. I have a seven month old, almost eight. Yeah, I think it's gives me a lot of drive. And I think that's a big thing. I had this period of time where I first got some success. And my parents got into the middle class. And I kind of last minute reason, right? A little bit, it was so hungry to like, get them out of poverty. Then I met my wife, my feet, my feet, right. And I gave me a lot of reasons that I had my first kid, every one of these moments actually sort of drove me to be more ambitious to do more to strive for more.

Brian Briscoe: 11:50

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think I've seen the same thing. As my family grows, that there's more emphasis on being more and more, I mean, successful not not for the personal accolades, but what it does for your family and for your kids, you know, the opportunities you can provide them that, you know, you didn't grow up with, I grew up with, you know, plenty that you didn't mean I say this all the time, I thought I was poor. You know, growing up, you know, you you had the opposite life where you really worked for and you didn't realize it, but you know, I kind of wish I could go back and you know, erase those feelings that I had, because I wasn't, but end of the day, I think family is very, very tied to a lot of people's, you know, wise and get do do more for the people you love is amazing.

Eng Taing: 12:33

Yeah, and I really liked the fact that for me, it's always been a feeling of gratefulness. And when you're grateful for what you have when you're grateful for you that really, like jealous or envious of when you don't have, especially since you never experienced that, like, I don't know what Yeah, having a regular Thanksgiving dinner looks like for a long time. I when I first experience it is cool. That Yeah, I think I tried to do that. It's hard now where my kids I have like, much bigger house have avocado trees, the same mountains. And they're gonna be very spoiling and I don't know how to not do it.

Brian Briscoe: 13:13

Yeah, it's it's hard. It's hard, you know, but yeah, that's, that's one of the parenting, you know, things is try and try not to try to give your kids more than what you had without actually spoiling them. And my, my oldest daughter edits this podcast. So you know, I'm not gonna call any of my kids super spoiled right now, because, you know, they'll get an angry phone call from her later. But that said she wouldn't she wouldn't do that. No way. Anyway, so let's talk a little bit about you know, one of the deals you guys have done, can you tell us a little bit about one of your projects?

Eng Taing: 13:44

Yeah, I would love to go into my first project which is emblematic of sort of next five and I was doing these see every other year and mind you I was working 4050 an hour or more hours at same time, I bought a triplex in the LA area. It was kind of rundown, bought for$126,000 I believe, and put like$35,000 cash down I was lucky enough to make some money out of smoking and even though my portfolio went down I have to add to my I, I renovated it I remember very clearly I was at better I was doing this living in DC as well. I was at DC this time buying into la my dad my parents were in LA so in my first many apartment buildings, real estate and all my receipt now it's actually it's it's not local to me. And that's actually been a very great learning experience to try to understand process. Yeah, because if everything goes local, I would just buy locally and I always live somewhere in expensive various with buying real estate is probably not the best economic decision to do sir. So you know, so for me, I flew there you know, doing some training Guess you just paint to the cabinets really learned that white is very easy, Navajo white and yeah, get see spruce up, got three tenets, it has some turnover the time but one thing I did was get a really strong stream of income right away, then create more value from the multifamily or three years deployed. So talk to us all the time where you tend to get force appreciation and did a refinance. Within a year I think it was like eight to nine months. God basically all my mind back from what I paid for. And it was hooked. Did it again next year. Did it again next year.

Brian Briscoe: 15:43

Did you keep on doing like the three plexes? Or did you start scaling up from there?

Eng Taing: 15:48

I hit three Plex. Four Plex, three Plex, four Plex, single family four Plex. So it didn't really scale up from there. I feel sorry. For all I knew I didn't know what bird was and just barely what I did.

Brian Briscoe: 15:59

I mean, you can say that you invented bird. I mean, go Go ahead. I mean, that's it right. Got me I house hacked a couple of places before I knew what the term of house hack meant. But yeah, sometimes you just figure it out.

Eng Taing: 16:10

Yeah, I think you just figure it out. And then if, if you see sort of just put on a spreadsheet that it's right there, like I saw, I could put this much money in to make this much money. That's better than a lot of my other options. And what I try to tell everybody now I talked to I have team calls all the time, and investors or people in general, know your options. Know how luck, optimizer capital, that's finance one on one. That's what investing is to try to move money around low yielding things, maybe a bank account, or your home mortgage that you're, you're underleveraged and you could get 3% and move it to something where to get more. Now, of course, you have to have the confidence to get the higher you have the 10 12% yield, which I think back then was easy was like 20% year on the money. When my time was worth more, and I realized that when I needed to scale when I was going to mortgage limit caps. Right. Yeah. And I think you know, when you do residential loans is very different in commercial loans. Ceci used to do commercials. And I think it was like four years ago, I started scaling up to bigger properties. I actually started to invest with other I was very busy at the time having a job and first kid help me. Try I was an LP investment to other folks. And one thing I tried to do was learn from them. So I tried to be an informed investor and understand what their process be very annoying, nagging. But let's fortunate to get a few folks who are receptive to it.

Brian Briscoe: 18:22

Yeah, awesome. Awesome. I appreciate that a lot. I think he dropped, you know, a gigantic Golden Nugget right there. It's you said when I realized my time was worth more, you know, and I think that's what, you know, a lot of people don't realize, or they don't, maybe they don't value their own time enough. But when you realize your time is worth more, it changes everything, you know. But, you know, there, you spend a lot less time down in the minutiae, and a lot more time, you know, that in different aspects of life, but I really appreciate that. So one question and then last question for you before we bring clarity on what's next for you.

Eng Taing: 18:58

So we've had a loss. Yes. And anyone doing this for the last five years is pi x. So the Mark has been very good. So I can't claim assessment we did. We paid our suspicions. 10 COVID. To those fortunate to be in great economic areas. We're, we're about to close on hundreds four units, Atlanta, we got a few other partners in the pipeline closing past 1000 units now. And I've also pivoted slightly into senior living. Senior Living is a very strong asset where I love to cashflow dramatically, what I tried to do with my investment business is buy for cash flow, have some kind of moat around our cash flow so that it's not as easy to get in. So that's where I kind of avoid where Claudia is buying because it's a lot more people. But that's, you know, we need to have that as many that's where you have to go. I usually stay within the juicy medium five to 25 million above 50 million year. facing these big institutional funds that have low cost of capital, they can overpay you. And I've been over bid by 510 million dollars and like, I was already making money on this. Now they'd like to gain it, because they did the cost cap are so much cheaper. And then finally, you know, we're growing. And I've strayed a little bit to other forms of investing, you have some debt products, as well as Bitcoin mining is a big part of our portfolio now and doing data centers to support that. Pretty good, cool stuff.

Brian Briscoe: 20:31

Nice. Nice. So some fascinating, fascinating. Well, that said, we're gonna shift gears and bring Claudia on the lines of FOIA. Welcome. Thank you for having me. I'm so happy to be here. And thank you for the opportunity. Yeah, no problem. So start off, same way, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Claudia Becerril Clas: 20:48

So I'm currently in Germany, my husband station, he's an active duty army stationed in Germany. So we're here for until he retires in two years. So in the process of, actually, when we were, he got orders to come to Germany, this when I separated from the army, when I finished my contract, I was served for seven years, me and when, you know, with the transition, it just kind of worked out really well, where I was gonna, you know, trying to figure out what I was going to do when I was gonna come in and come with him. And it's just real estate started to be a very, you know, real possibility. And I wasn't gonna work out, we have two small children, four and six year old kids. And so we did say that I was going to stay home, kids. And at that point, I started thinking of what was I going to do with my time, and I started looking into real estate, and reading about real estate, listening to bigger pockets, and just like, being very intrigued by the possibilities, my background is in medicine, I'm a family medicine physician. So you know, I've been training for the past, like four weeks, you know, I was working for the military was heavily training, you know, in medicine, and then I, you know, I was working and sold real estate, I've always heard the benefits of real estate, but it never really was something that I thought, you know, I would be doing, and then when the opportunity came, and I started learning more about it, I just, he was so appealing the entrepreneurship aspect of it, you know, the the opportunities, that multiple opportunities with real estate, but I really got interested in it. And the more reading I did, the more research I did is learning that it could be done long, like I can do long distance investing from my overseas. And so I just done, I read David Greene's book, long distance real estate investing, that was like, such an eye opener and such a, you know, like, breakthrough for me, like, this is doable. And so I really, we moved during the pandemic, we got to Germany, you know, we settle down. And then I took a real estate course just to teach you about the basics, you know, some criteria and what, you know, investing and learning more about investing, learning how to build my team, how to approach it. And so, starting January 1, because I was like January, you know, 2021, I'm going to start actively, like looking and putting offers in, and I did, I started but with this market, you know, it's been a crazy market. And so we put several offers in, I had to walk away from two other properties. And finally, now we're under contract for a three unit property. And we're actually closing next week. So that's been a real estate journey. Andwe're here.

Brian Briscoe: 23:32

Yeah, that's, that's super, super exciting, you know, and it was, I was about three years away from my retirement date, when I started putting a lot of effort into it. And something else that he said that I related to his military retirement, you get a pension, and I was able to look at that pension as the same security as he was looking at that, you know, $1,000 a month. And that gave me a little more license to get more bolt. No, I think prior to when that military salary was like, the only income for our family. I didn't want to mess that up, you know, but once once I get towards the end, and I see the light at the end of the tunnel. And I mean, your husband's gonna have that same pension as I have, you know, but that that gave me just enough confidence to be able to, to go bolts go big, you know, and knowing knowing that I had that to fall back on and, you know, come hell or high water, you know, once I hit my 20 year mark, which, incidentally, when this by the time this airs, I'll be fully retired. But that close, I'm that close, but anyway, knowing knowing that, you know, I had that little safety blanket really, really helped me out a lot too. But so so Claudia, what's what's your big burning? Why?

Claudia Becerril Clas: 24:40

For me, like, it was mentioned before my family, my children, so we have a four and six year old, it, you know, I want to be able to have that freedom, financial freedom to be able to, like attend their events, be there for them as they grow. I don't want to be tied to like a job that's going to be you know, very demanding and intense and, and I think in that No real estate offers that opportunity to be able to have more flexibility, and be able to, like, do more with it, right. So be able to, if I do medicine part time, then I can do real estate part time and be able to just be able to build a legacy with real estate in that enterpreneurship spirit of real estate, I love that about it, the networking, the, you know, the possibilities, that diversity within real estate, so many opportunities within real estate, and like, we have a single family home, you know, we're on the other country for a three unit property. And, you know, we want to keep on growing and just, I'm learning so much, and it's just so inspiring to see people like ng in what you've done, It's so inspiring. So thank you, or, you know, doing this and, you know, being open to, to answering my questions.

Brian Briscoe: 25:50

Well, I mean, without further ado, then, you know, since we've got hang on a line right here, what do you want to ask?

Claudia Becerril Clas: 25:56

So, um, I loved your journey, I think, you know, you have so many obstacles, and it's, you've overcome so much. It's amazing. So I commend you for that, you know, and I feel like as far as obstacles, you know, going through real estate is there, there are benefits to it. But there are also the things that happen within real estate, like unexpected, or you have to walk away from a deal. And so like for you, how did you feel when you have to walk away from a deal after you invested time? effort, you know, like, even money, right? You spend for money on the inspection, spend money on, you know, different things? How do you cope with, like, the emotions afterwards, when something doesn't work out? And you have to walk away?

Eng Taing: 26:36

That's a great question. And I, I felt that a lot more personally, in my first few deals when I was doing this myself, you know, I think when you're putting so much effort, right, you're the birthing a baby, you're building a business. And so it's all very similar feeling. And when you're going to close, you sign a contract, you get that 10 it's like, an amazing miracle feeling. But when it falls apart, and when it falls apart when it's not, because of you, because financing because of it's because of financing or because of you know, the sellers because of unforeseen, you know, things you found out about, I've had a deal where I carry I fell through because I had I had something an issue with my credit that I didn't know about, and I dissolved the rafter, but it's prevented me from getting that, that you know, that build and the seller said I gotta move out. Even though I spent like a lot of time and I were looking at looking into this, there was a triplex as well. I regret it because like markets going up a lot that ties I got that as like, biting when you go for me, and I love your story too. For me, when you really go into sort of a business, the risky investing, not just real estate investing too, you know, to provide you some passive income, you actually go to this process of you want deals to follow through, if it's justified. And so you put it, it's more or less jail, to try to make you go into it, thinking that most of these are going to go through right. In fact, if you go one for one and everything, then like, maybe you're not putting that wide of a net on things. So I make offers on five things every week and negotiate out things I have been doing this for quite a while, you know, the first iPhone is always very expensive to build prototypes, very expensive. The mainland iPhone, very cheap, it's very good to use. And so when you get better at these things, and I love that you're going to do more of this, if you have the mindset of that I'm going to do more of this, that this isn't my only deal. You have this abundance mindset that I taught us all time, when you don't think of as like my idea, like, I'm gonna do more, I have the capacity to do more than you think shift your mindset definitely needed, that I learned a lot from that deal falling through. I learned a lot of not doing that again, or maybe that fell through for good reason. You know, the market, you might be on a top Yeah. in some markets, and now in San Diego feels like it. So you never know, I think you learn from all these things and you get better you apply rule of thumb is when you make decisions, you make faster decisions, and you can do more decisions and so that you can narrow down to that that gem.

Brian Briscoe: 29:34

Yeah, and I'll just add in maybe maybe it's the analytical math side of me, but you're just trying not to get emotionally attached to deals and on your first couple. It's extremely hard not to get emotionally attached. I mean, even with my you know, hardest stone, you know, just try and try to get these deals to work. You're just you get so excited about things but really you just got to happen you have to step back and realize, you know, am I getting emotionally attached to this? Or am I making a business decision, you got to try to make that business decision, we had an early deal fall through. And once again, not our fault property we got under contract was at a 90% occupancy, when we got under contract we started, we put the fly in, it was a 90% occupancy. And we were trying to get a Freddie Mac loan, which requires 90% occupancy for 90 days. And between the loai and the end of the due diligence period, the occupancy fell to 75%. And it was a 40 unit. You know, they lost six tenants in 45 days, you know, but it took us out of the deal. And, you know, it, it felt terrible, because, you know, it's it's always nice to float, you want that next deal, and you want the reputation of always closing, but at the same time 90% to 75% of big deal. If we walked away, and it was I mean, end of the day was a business decision. That's what we kept on coming back to. It's a business decision.

Claudia Becerril Clas: 31:04

And my other question is, when working on a deal, and you know that the tenants will potentially be a problem like going going into a deal? How do you handle like dealing with like problem tenants? Or do you have like confidence in cash for keys or negotiating with them or fixing them?

Eng Taing: 31:22

Yeah. Great question. And if you live in California investing, and you play faces all the time, which is why I don't invest in California more, but I used to, and I have lots of experience with this specifically. You know, in California, when you buying a triplex, for example, or any thing, it's actually potentially more valuable when you don't have a tenant and is actually interesting, right? Like, do you want to tenant you want to take the cash flow? Do you want no tenant? I think when you have no tenant, you can have a clean slate. When you buying, for example, when I was living in San Cisco, that area, you know, houses that have no 10 investment houses and no tenant that rent for five to 10% more, because you had to pay $50,000 worth today's rate $50,000 to just get a tenant out, because there's lots of restrictions with evictions. And that's, I think one of the things that we do now is, I think, first when you're buying properties, especially apartment buildings a scale, you want a certain occupancy to get rent. And I think if you see palm tenant, you really want to make sure you have that final group call tenant. A lot of times the root cause is because you had so many discounts on your rent. When you discount rent, and you're desperate for tenants, and you take anybody, don't lower your standards, retention starts at acquisition, you really retain good tenants, it's you'd save that leasing fee, you save that turnover time that they can see the temp, one month begins two months, whatever it is the marketing fees, NASA. But if you how do you do that you have to keep your standards up for for tenants, and you build performance over time in your mind and how you do it. But yeah, when you're chasing just occupancy and chasing, just need someone to move into I'm going to give somebody two months rent free. And they're the kind of person who needs that and the economic conditions warranted and you know, that's unfortunate, but then potentially, you know, there might not be the greatest tenant to continue the renters, especially if you want to raise the rents.

Brian Briscoe: 33:37

Yeah, I agree. I mean, he had a hit a couple note things, you know, square on the head, you know, first of all, it's, it's where you invest, you know, bring that back, he says he doesn't invest in California because of the restrictions. I we lean towards landlord friendly states, you know, and we make No, I mean, no excuses for doing it. We go to landlord friendly states, you know, or at least neutral states. So that, you know, at least the deck is stacked in your favor. And we have them cash for keys right now with the eviction moratorium, you know, there, there's gray areas where you can still evict and you know, as of late I think was last night, the CDC re extended one more time the eviction moratorium, you know, we have been able to go out to certain tenants who haven't paid, you know, for several months, do cash for keys, you know, and if some tenants were amenable to it, I mean, I think a lot of the tenants see the writing on the wall. And what a lot of a lot of people realize is they're racking up a lot of debt and that debts gonna follow them once the eviction moratoriums over most of the landlord's, most the property management's and owners are going to send those people to collections and it's going to eventually bite them, it's eventually going to hit their credit reports and everything else. And so I think that the cash for keys does work with the people who are reasonable and realize that eventually it's going to catch up to them and helping them to see that kind of helps too. But having had Pretty much laid it out, you know, you you take care of that when you put a tenant in, you know, and if you find the right tenant, you don't have to worry about that on the backside now, inheriting tenants, you know, that's that's a different story. screening, I think. Yeah, absolutely.

Claudia Becerril Clas: 35:18

My last question is about, you know, when you approach like approaching upgrades for remodels and a new property that you're updating, do you have a software that you use to estimate the repair costs or any advice on that?

Eng Taing: 35:33

So my recommendation is be every time you walk the property, bringing a contractor, do you give them that incentive, and then divvy up the cost of cement and duck spring one bring several to have lots of lots to come from. So that's Yeah, and just keep those notes in your mind of understanding what the repair costs in that area? What and then you can get a good average. Yeah, I think knowing basically going with intention that you're going to do it before you do it gives you all the potential hopefully gives you other data points to make decision to do it. By investing wherever it is to remodel make decision to do I want to change the carpet to vinyl floors, you want to be placed in these cabinets, do we want to put exterior renovations and all these things are just an noi to it. It's just return ROI to it. Right? It's ultimately the business. It's all these investments, tiny investments. And I really recommend to also put yourself out of it from emotional person, Susan. I think in some areas, I think it makes sense to really put yourself into it and think I'm going to buy this and I want this to be a nice place and my tastes very good. And when and maybe that's in areas that have strong appreciation. I joined on that investor appreciated invest for cash flow, investor cash flow, I'm NSA wanting to live there that wouldn't at this point in my life, I don't know. You can think of it like, hey, what I want to live here is if you start putting that lens into it, you will over pay your overbuilding over maintenance. Wow.

Brian Briscoe: 37:07

Yeah, yeah. And I think what he said, there's absolutely key, you know, when you walk a property, bring a contractor, you know, and offer to pay them for their time, too. I mean, it's, it's, it's part of the risk capital that you put in, but you know, bring it bring a contract or offered a payment hourly fee to walk the property with you, you know, and that way, they're incentivized in a lot of ways they could, I mean, if you purchase the property, they can get a job. But the other thing is just, you know, we would talk with a lot of people coming up front, you know, we, me, and one of my partners, were both in mentorship programs, you know, my other partners had informal mentors, but mentors, nonetheless. And we would also talk with people who are doing the same thing in the same areas, you know, hey, what does it cost for flooring in this area? What does it cost for? So we did a lot of a lot of both. Were we just talking to other people, hey, do you think 6000 a door would buy us X, Y, and Z, and listening to what the responses were, but really, at the end of the day, the contractors are going to have the best information because they're the ones that are going to be doing the work. Anyway, that said, we're about out of time here. So one last question for both of you. And you get to go first, how can listeners learn more about you?

Eng Taing: 38:16

please go to my website, tozi capital. Do you see I capital comm sign up, I, I love to do monthly educational webinars, these are all things that I sort of approach everything as a I am very self interested in learning how to not pay taxes legally, and how to use first appreciation and how to do invest in this and that, or how to get an sp lock loan from your equity. All these things I try to provide. I'm starting this website financial freedom decoded. Live now. But yeah, so I'd love to chat. If you don't invest. And I think educate yourself. Learning is one of most applicants.

Brian Briscoe: 39:01

Awesome. And we'll put a link to the website in the show notes. So if you're interested in anything, he has to offer the show notes up and you tap the link. Claudia, same question for you.

Claudia Becerril Clas: 39:11

Oh, I'm in LinkedIn, Claudia, visceral class, B, EC e r i l. CLS and LinkedIn information. I don't have a website right now. And my email is class, capital investing@gmail.com.

Brian Briscoe: 39:28

All right, we'll put links to your LinkedIn profile, enter your email address in the show notes as well, so people can contact you. And incidentally, you know, we didn't have a website until right around the time we closed on our first you know, big property. So you're not having a website is not necessarily good or bad, but took us a while to get that up to but anyway, thank you so much. The two of you for coming on the show today. I think this was a great conversation. You know, I learned a lot. I hope you guys had a good time too. Thank you very much. Thank you for listening to the diary of an apartment investor p dcast today brought to you b four oaks capital. If you'd l ke to know more about how to inv st in apartment buildings or w nt to be a guest on our show, visit our website at four oaks c pital comm slash podcast or em il us directly. If you're still listening, you obviously liked the show. So pull ou your phone, tap, subscribe, and leave us a five star rating o your favorite podcast app. And we'll see you again next