I asked them what their financial advisors were doing for them and it was very much a cookie cutter type of approach. It was putting you in a 6040 portfolio, financial advisors collected an asset manager fee of 1%. Mark goes down then, hey, you know, we just gotta write it out and Buy and hold. And I just really saw how poorly the financial services industry Was treating them and just how it's the complete opposite of really the medical community, when something is For the benefit of the greater good, that information is shared, versus what I was experiencing and I just no longer felt comfortable working in that industry anymore.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the real freedom show. We inspire you to pursue your passion to gain time and financial freedom through opportunities in real estate. I'm your host, mike Swenson. Let's get some real freedom together.
Speaker 2:Hello everybody, welcome to another episode of real freedom, real estate leverage freedom. We're talking about how people build time and financial Freedom through a different opportunities in real estate and how they can help other people do that as well, which is what we're going to talk about today. If you guys are interested in starting your financial journey, go to our website, freedom through real estate dot com, and get started and learn how you can start your financial freedom through real estate. But today's guest here we've got Rob Natali. He is the founder of North Square Capital, privately held real estate investment firm based out of Boston, massachusetts, and your goal is really to help medical professionals buy back their time, expand their wealth and redirect their funds from Wall Street to Main Street Through passive real estate opportunities, and you've got a wide variety of of how you do that. We're so excited, rob, to have you on the show and share your story.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thanks, mike. Thanks for having me on looking forward to it.
Speaker 2:Talk a little bit about your background and kind of how you got into real estate and why, and we'll go from there.
Speaker 1:Absolutely so. Historically, my background really was in the Wall Street world. I worked at a large asset management firm called Columbia Thread Needle Investments and I covered and worked with financial advisors really on a daily basis, based out of Pacific Northwest, and they had a wide range of assets they were under management. These FAs could be managing 20 million assets, all the way up to an excess of three billion dollars in assets almost like a mini family office, and what I really found and experienced was these teams that were managing billions and assets really were utilizing a lot of, a lot of strategies and techniques that a lot of sophisticated investors out there weren't being educated about, they didn't know about. Even if they did hear about them, they always thought it wasn't for them.
Speaker 1:And what I'm really speaking to specifically was real estate and real estate syndications.
Speaker 1:We're pooling assets together to get an acquire into a property that we wouldn't be able to afford in our own and after a while, like I was talking to my three family members in the medical field, our financial advisors were doing for them and it was very much a cookie cutter type of approach.
Speaker 1:It was. You know, we're putting you in a 60 40 portfolio. The financial advisors collected an asset under management fee of one percent, the market goes down. Then, hey, you know, we just got to ride it out and buy and hold and I just really saw how poorly the financial services industry was treating them and just how it's the complete opposite of really the medical community when it's something is for the benefit of the greater good, that information is shared versus what I was experiencing and I just no longer felt comfortable working in that industry anymore. So what I ended up doing was OK. I like this financial advisory aspect. I want to help and educate folks how they can really diversify that portfolio and truly build their wealth, buy back their time and expand it through passive real estate investing without the hassles of being a landlord, and that's what led me to start my company now almost two years ago.
Speaker 2:You know it's interesting hearing people that have focused on different niches within syndications. You know, whether it's medical professionals, tech professionals, that sort of thing, it's a job or an industry that a lot of people would aspire to be in, because they think they make a lot of money and like, oh, once I've achieved that, once I'm in the medical professional field. Now I've made it, I'm good, and what we find out is, yeah, they don't have the freedom of time, there's a lot of bureaucracy and issues they have to overcome and they're actually looking for freedom. They're looking for kind of a way out or to leverage maybe the high incomes that they have to be able to build that freedom. And a lot of them turn to real estate, which is awesome.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Even to add to that, like you're speaking about some of the really the headwinds and the challenges the medical community face and Adding to what you said, I mean dealing with insurance companies, I know, just becoming more and more of a stressful situation reimbursements, rv use changing, dealing with M&A's in the healthcare space now when that happens, contracts are getting renegotiated. So I mean physicians, dentists, nurses everyone goes into this field to help and serve others and now the current environment is so much other stuff, bureaucratic stuff, going on where it just makes it more of a challenge and add stress to the situation and at least real estate investing gives them.
Speaker 2:They can start to build up a nest egg or start to build up a little bit of opportunity where you have a little bit more freedom of choice, and how you spend your time in the medical Absolutely. Talk a little bit, then, about how you help people find great opportunities.
Speaker 1:So what I do is I am vetting out the opportunities and vetting out the groups that really bring those opportunities to me. So, for example, let's say it's a hundred plus unit apartment building. Before I want to talk with that group who's acquires those type of assets hundred plus unit apartment building I want to really do my due diligence on the group and on the team, where that includes, you know, doing criminal background checks, learning about their past experience of okay, when something that has gone wrong Something's always going to happen during a investment how did they handle it? What did they learn from it? Get a better understanding to conflict of interest, how they handle that within their company as well. Because I want to determine is this a group that I feel comfortable working with and if they're going to be good stewards of capital, not only for my clients money but my money as well, because I'm a real estate investor myself and then if that box is checked, then it's really okay.
Speaker 1:If a deal comes, an opportunity, specific opportunity comes. Vetting out that individual opportunity, looking through the underwriting, does their projected business plan, based on the area of where we are in the country, make sense? And, if I have the comments, after going through those two scenarios. Do I feel comfortable working with the group? Do I feel comfortable in the individual deal? What I then do is that I present that to my clients and say, hey, would you like to partner along myself and North Square Capital in this investment opportunity? We all go in together as limited partners. Again, we experience the cash flow, the appreciation and the tax benefits that comes with real estate investing and we're relying on the general partners to execute the business plan, and that's what we do at a very high level.
Speaker 2:So what types of opportunities then? You'd mention 100 unit plus apartments, and I know the answer to this, but for our listeners sake, like yeah, where are you looking and what types of opportunities maybe would be those strong ones that you put in front of people?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so the three right now that the major focus is is one talked about as a multifamily and apartment buildings. A couple brief bullet points I'll list on each Folks. There's such a supply, demand and balance as far as single family homes, and the cost to buy into a home is extremely high. Mortgage rates are six and a quarter to seven percent, so the affordability isn't there, so people always need a place to live. Another component, another group that we just partnered with, is on the short term rental portfolio.
Speaker 1:So working with a group who is really institutionalizing a space that, as of right now, is extremely challenging to do Think about those who own an Airbnb out there or own a short term rental the work that's required not only from the turnover perspective, when you get new guests to come in to the property management upkeep, or if you have someone who unfortunately does some damage to your place. You got to fix that. This is a group that has brought everything together in house to bring this to marketplace. The name of the group is Tech Vester. They are the really the only ones that are mastering this, and the last is a real estate debt fund. So think of that as a high yield savings account on on hyperdrive Right now you can find a high yield savings account five, five and a quarter percent. This pays somewhere between eight, nine percent. It's got 90 day liquidity and it's all backed by real estate on the first position, meaning in case, if the borrower ever did default, the group you operate that I'm partnering with they can take control of that property.
Speaker 2:So those are the three asset classes multifamily short-term rental portfolio and then a real estate debt fund that we're focused on currently in the first half of the year, in the foreseeable future, that's great and it's such a great service because if I'm a medical professional I don't have time, like I might have the interest in real estate, like I know I want to invest, I might have a little bit of time, I might have a few connections to agents or brokers or people that do invest, but for you you're really doing all the heavy lifting of vetting out the people. Obviously people want to invest with people they know, like and trust and have built up a reputation and so you're doing a lot of that work for them and so they need to trust you and know that you're doing a good job of vetting these people out. But it saves them a ton of time and a ton of hassle to be able to kind of have pre-vetted out opportunities that they can just say here we go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no. And another way to think of it too, from an analogy perspective, is like a patient physician when you have a conversation, you go in to see a doctor, right, you go in. You might not you don't know what you don't know sometimes for those out there, right, there might be questions that you should be asking or things that you should be thinking of that you just don't because it's not in your peripheral. And it's kind of the same deal with Mike. Yourself and myself like being in this day to day as professionals, like doing that, vetting and asking the questions that we know to ask, to make sure that we're vetting out these opportunities properly to then present them to our prospective clients and our clients.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I know what you know. It's interesting, having worked with investors for a while now, is people have different preferences, they have different risk tolerances, and so they may feel more comfortable investing in something that's a better fit for what they're looking to get out of it. It also might matter to what type of money that they're putting in whether it's cash, whether it's self-directed IRA, whether it's home equity lines that they're pulling from, whatever that might be and so you get to kind of match the desired outcome with where they're comfortable putting their money and give them some options.
Speaker 1:Yep, exactly Whether cash flow is number one, if it's appreciation, it's liquidity, you're spot on.
Speaker 2:So if I was on the outside here and I was looking to invest into some of these larger opportunities, what advice would you give to people?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So the first thing is definitely get educated right. Number one. As far as listening to podcasts like yourself, mike, or reading different blogs or articles, I myself, which I'm happy to share with everybody I've created an educational e-book. It's called the Financial Rx Playbook how medical professionals win through passive real estate investing in. Really, what that covers and goes over is some of the current challenges that the medical community currently face and then also talks about the benefits and the risks that come along with this type of investing, because this type of investing isn't for everybody.
Speaker 1:So, to kind of go back to Mike, how would people maybe want to invest outside of getting educated? The first time I ever speak with somebody, we always have what I call a discovery slash, clarity call. And again, I want to use that physician-patient analogy where, as if I'm, we're just doing a little role reversal, where, let's say, I'm kind of acting as the physician and you're the patient, where I'm asking you questions about your financial background, your experience, what your goals are, the whole. And what I want to determine is hey, is this type investing right for you? If it is great, then we can keep you abreast of future opportunities, but then, if it's not, then let's talk about some different ways that we can help you in the financial aspect, in the investing world, kind of making our referral to somewhere else again using that medical analogy. So that's every time we get a first conversation with somebody it's always a discovery, clarity, call to discuss this to see if it's a good fit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and right fit is the right word, because you're not going to make somebody put money into something they don't want to do. You're just going to help, give them some good opportunities and let them make a good, educated decision.
Speaker 1:Correct. It's kind of I know when physicians they're going through their schooling and they take the Hippocratic Oath and right first, do no harm. So for me I've adopted something more. It's the financial. For me, the financial Hippocratic Oath is one is do not lose money. It is protecting my investors' money first and foremost, and obviously then helping it grow through real estate.
Speaker 2:And why would somebody consider doing a syndication or something large like this in another state that they don't know versus working with a local person that's flipping or something like that? Like talk a little bit about the economies of the scale with these large people, these larger investors, versus kind of the mom and pop opportunities.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So one of the benefits of going through, let's say, a larger investor, doing a syndication model, is the tax benefits piece and keeping more right, keeping more of what you earn.
Speaker 1:So one of the features when you're getting into this side of investing is everyone's familiar, I think, more or less with depreciation of real estate, straight line depreciation of 27 and a half years. Well, without getting too deep in the weeds on these commercial type properties you can utilize something called a cost segregation study and what happens is an engineer will go, you bring them in and they are hypothetically tearing down the property and breaking each individual bucket or component into a life span. So personal properties five to seven years, land improvements 15 years. Then you have your straight line. So what happens is you are speeding up essentially the lifespan of the overall building and what that means is you can take, you're increasing your upfront depreciation, you're taking out a paper loss, a higher paper loss, while you're investing. And why is that good is? You get a K1 every year that shows your ownership in the property. You can take those paper losses and offset them against some of your other passive gains that you might have with some of your other investments.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of great benefits. And then obviously the passive piece. Right, like I don't have to, I can't be involved in the decision making or any of that back end stuff. And so they get to be there and essentially just receive updates and know what's going on with the investment. But you're not going to get the clogged toilet call in the middle of the night. You're not going to get the. What do we do here strategically? Because that's all being handled by the people that are running and managing that asset.
Speaker 1:Correct, exactly. So go in as a limited partner. You are limited and that is to your point, mike. You're not dealing with, I say, the three T's like the trash, the tenants of the toilets, and dealing with the operations of executing the business plan. That is where you are relying on the professional expertise of the general partners to do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I always explain it like an assembly line of a real estate investment. Each person kind of has their own spot on the assembly line and the person giving the providing the capital is equally as important as the other folks. But they don't have to handle all the other stuff and the people that have the experience have managed multiple assets, maybe seen some up turns and down turns in the real estate cycle. They can handle that stuff and then you're utilizing your capital for it. So it really is kind of the best of a lot of worlds. What would maybe be some reasons that you've heard from folks of maybe why they're not choosing to invest in some of these deals?
Speaker 1:Sure, the biggest piece I've heard is the lack of liquidity. So these are E-liquid investments, so typical hold period is somewhere between three to five years. So if it's individuals who they maybe want to invest typical minimum investments somewhere around 50 to 100,000, but they like all the ideas and components of about three to five year timeframe is kind of it's too long for them to know that that definitely makes it not a good fit for them for this type of investing, as on the syndication real estate side. Now the debt fund is different. The debt fund is 90 day liquidity, which that's where it's the high yield savings on steroids component. The other piece is if individuals are, they want to be the pilot versus the passenger. I've encountered some individuals who were extremely, extremely type A, where they want to be in control of everything, they want to be doing things and they want to be the one running the show and if that's the case then being a passive investor obviously isn't going to be the best fit for them. Those are the two.
Speaker 2:For people that have been successful in the medical field. You're used to calling the shots or used to doing your own thing the way that you want to do it. For the most part. I mean, obviously you still have to answer to higher powers in the field. But I can see that. But I think two part of it is just recognizing I'm a pro in the medical field. I don't have to be a pro in the real estate field and yet I can trust them. We trust medical professionals with our bodies right. They come in and say, hey, I know what I'm doing, I can help you. In the same way, Hopefully, the real estate professionals can say I know what I'm doing, I can help you, and the medical professionals can kind of trust that and move forward. But yeah, it isn't a right fit. But you also don't get an opportunity to be a part of these big deals with $50,000 without being a part of a syndication like this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, you make a good point too, mike. It's kind of similar to if someone wants to go about and learning this on their own right, well suppose. Then, if you want to go and try to become as knowledgeable in, let's say, in the real estate world as you are as your current profession let's say right, as a physician, what if you spent that time on your current role? How much better could you potentially become as a physician and impact the lives of those? That versus trying to really become. That just comes down to the time aspect. Right, we're trying to. There's just not enough time.
Speaker 2:It's a challenge. So, yeah, you certainly have to trust people. So that's where the relationship building is really important, because if you have a great relationship with somebody, it's like oh, I know Rob's done a good job of vetting out these people, I can trust that. Well, then you do get the best of all worlds by being able to trust the work that you're doing. Talk a little bit about the future, maybe some opportunities or some things that you're looking to do as you continue to grow North Square Capital and help investors out.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So, as far as you know, in the future, as far as investment wise, yeah, like we just launched, we're raising in on a short-term rental portfolio that we're partnering with a group called Tech Vester, which we're really excited about. That's 50,000 minimum investment. We're looking at equity multiple of really 8% to 9% or, excuse me, that's an average cash flow, 8% to 9%. Equity multiple of 1.9%. And again, what I'm excited about is for all those who've stayed in Airbnb you know how many of you out there have stayed in Airbnb and the pictures weren't what they looked to be or just like the experience left a lot lacking right. This group is really brain and institutionalizing this. Like I said, and without getting too deep in the weeds, I can share more info. If anyone, please feel free to reach out to me. I'll share my contact info at the end. That I'm really jazzed up about.
Speaker 1:And the other again, opportunity that's going to launch in a couple of weeks is and this is, as of you know, end of February of 2024, a debt fund where it's individuals who just have money sitting in a savings or checkings account, you know, but they want to get some decent yield on that money. But if they need to get it out they can within, let's say, 90 days, average four to six weeks. That's the other opportunity we're having. So, like you asked before, mike, you know everyone's got different flavors and tastes of what they're looking to accomplish right Investing in real estate. That's what I'm looking to do is provide different opportunities within the real estate world. That's going to be a fit for whatever you're looking to accomplish.
Speaker 2:Now how does that work real quick on? You know you're taking part, you're you know if somebody's having a, let's just say, for extreme circumstances, like in a thousand unit, complex or whatever, like you're not bringing all the money for that deal, you're bringing a portion of that correct. So like your investors are bringing some sort of percentage of the total raise. So kind of talk about how that works. You partnering with other people to do these larger deals, yeah.
Speaker 1:So what we do, mike, is we create something called a fund of funds, okay, and what that means is I am creating a specific fund for a specific investment opportunity. So what happens is my prospective clients and I refer to them also as partners they will invest into my fund, okay, and then my fund. Then we'll go invest in that specific opportunity. Now, why we do that is a couple of really major reasons. One, from a compliance standpoint.
Speaker 1:Two, by us all pulling our assets together and coming in one fund, I'm able to negotiate with the general partners better return profiles for not only for myself but also for my clients, like, for example, with Tech Vester. If you invested directly through them, it's a 7% preferred return and then a waterfall structure of 70, 30, versus someone invests through my fund, then we go through, then it goes into Tech Vester. They get a 9% preferred return and an 80, 20 waterfall. And really the other bucket too, is by investing directly through, let's say, one of my fund. I have a very well established relationship with the general partners, or if I need to get in touch with them, I can get in touch with them very quickly, whether it be phone call, text, et cetera, and I am acting as the champion for all of us through these. So it's communication, it's investment returns are some of the major benefits why we really in the compliance piece, for why we're doing the fund to funds model.
Speaker 2:So they get the feel of a much larger footprint in the deal, based on the percentage of capital that they're investing into that deal. So they get to be a bigger player while still putting in a smaller portion Awesome, well, thank you so much, rob, for coming on and sharing and talking about your company. People that want to reach out to you. How can they do so?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so across a variety of different social media channels. I'm most active on Instagram, so it's my first name and last name it's Rob Natali, and then underscore. They can also find me at NorthSquareCapitalcom. Again, I am also on LinkedIn. Those are the major three, but for the most immediate you can just ping me right on Instagram Rob Natali, underscore, and they can also message me about that ebook I spoke to about earlier. Against the financial Rx playbook on medical professionals win through passive real estate investing Great.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you so much for coming on and sharing and excited to see how you're helping people in the medical professional space and invest the luck as you continue to grow.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Thanks a lot, Mike. Thank you.