Will Harvey

And to give an example one thing that I think is super, super important is just being able to hear the s- the story and the, you know, that, that first phone call with a borrower is just so crucial in my opinion. And that's when I try to extract so much information from them and just learn who they are, what makes them tick and just get a sense as to how they operate, their character.

Ed Mathews

Greetings and salutations real estate undergrounders. It is Ed Mathews with the Real Estate Underground. Thank you so much for joining us today and making us a part of your day. I'm really excited about having Will on the show Will Harvey from Harvey Capital mainly because we have a similar offer to the public. And I'm not gonna get in his way and talk about our stuff. But I am absolutely picking his brain, 'cause he's doing really well, and so are his investors. And I'm gonna figure out how he's doing it so that I can replicate it here at Clark Street up here in Connecticut. So it's the cool part about having smart people on your show that when you're not competitive you get to pick their brain. So Will Harvey welcome to the show. And selfishly, get ready, man, 'cause I'm about to pick your brain.

Will Harvey

I hope I can live up to that. I, I- Yeah, well- really appreciate you having me on, and I'm honored to be here.

Ed Mathews

Yeah. I, I always tell people that we're all, as real estate investors, we're all reading the same book. And sometimes I'm a chapter ahead of you, sometimes you're a chapter ahead of me. And in this case, you're a chapter or two ahead of me, so I'm looking forward to reading those- I don't

Will Harvey

know about that.

Ed Mathews

Yeah. So for those folks who haven't discovered you or your company, why don't we start with who you are and what you do?

Will Harvey

Yeah I'm Will, like you said. I I have a investment company called Harvey Capital, and right now my main focus is hard money lending. So I have a, a, a few funds that are dedicated to that. And then I also have a closed fund that I cut my teeth on a few years ago, and that's what got me into this. Hard money was a accidental thing. But in, in that fund our main focus is actually investing in real estate through the public markets. So that's a interesting thing that not a lot of people know exists, and I certainly didn't when I stumbled upon that. So that's our main focus. I, I started out I don't know if you wanted me to give my background or how- Yeah, I sure do how I got- I was- Okay

Ed Mathews

gonna ask you if you didn't offer, so fire away.

Will Harvey

All right, cool. So how I got there is I s- back in 2015 I started I got started in the mortgage business after I dropped out of college. I was playing football after a- and I had double hip surgery, so that was the- Whoa end of that. So came home, got started in the mortgage business. And just really- really caught the real estate bug fast. I, I understood pretty quickly how debt worked and how you can use it to, le- leverage a property acquisition and use, some of your own funds, and then the majority of the funds as, as, as debt to purchase a property. And it just kinda made sense to me. And so I bought my first house when I was making very little money. I think I had a $30,000 salary and this was around when I was just learning the mortgage business, and I was on the path to become a loan officer, but hadn't jumped out into sales yet. And I I started learning about the gui- the, Fannie, Freddie, FHA, all those guidelines. And I'm like, "Hey, I can do this. I can get my dad to co-sign. He can supply all of the income that I don't have, and and I can... To actually pay the mortgage, I can rent out this three-bedroom house. I can live in one room, and I can rent out the other two, and and it'll cover the mortgage, and it'll be great." And so I did that and, house hacked my first deal before I even knew that was a term. And and that's how I got started. That was back in 2016. And then fast-forward a little bit, I start I get kicked out of the nest and start originating loans and, it just... I didn't have a wife, didn't have kids at the time, so all I did was live, breathe, and sleep mortgages. And it accelerated pretty, pretty fast and I was making good money. But I was... it was W-2 money. I felt like a hamster on a wheel. And so I would generate cash, buy a house, generate cash, buy a house. I got to three and I was in a, in an expensive area, Northern Virginia I was running out of my own money, and at the same time, I realized that I just did not like being a landlord. Just the whole tenant- Yeah, it's not for everybody. Yeah, the whole tenant thing, and dealing with all the phone calls, and just all the nonsense that no one talks about when you first get into real estate. All they talk about is passive income and, all the wonderful- Yeah,

Ed Mathews

there's, there is nothing about... There's nothing passive about-

Will Harvey

No

Ed Mathews

operating your own out- your own properties.

Will Harvey

That's what I tell people- Yeah is there's no... If you have this dream that it's gonna be passive income, forget about it. The on- the only way you can truly have passive income is if you invest as a limited partner. Yeah. That's the only, only, only way. But you give up control and you g- there's, pros and cons. So anyways you know- I ha- had a few houses. I was not really excited. I was making great money with- in the mortgage business, but I felt like I had golden handcuffs on and and had no, no light at the end of the tunnel as far as a, a, a, an exit or a- Right Some kinda windfall. It was just, I was just a high-paid- Paycheck to pay, right? W-2 employee. Yeah. Yeah. I ended up leaving the business in 2019, and I started a house-flipping company with a partner. And what I was doing at the time... I know house flipping is not really... There's not really wealth in that either. It's also a high-paid, job, if you will. But what I was doing was I was taking the cash that I was generating from flipping houses, and I would invest it into a, a multifamily syndication. And because I was a full-time real estate investor, I would get all the bonus depreciation that would wipe out the gains that I was making from being a house flipper. Yeah. And it was a great way to, build wealth and legally not pay tax on that income. So did that for a while. Did a couple deals as a GP, a wedding venue, and a small hotel that I still own with partners But all the while, I just re- I just realized that I don't like being an operator. It took me a while to figure that out, but, I've had short-term rentals I've, done multifamily, I've had residential properties, I've done a bunch of house flips. I don't like being an operator, I realized. I really get excited about being on the finance side of things. That is what excites me, looking at P&Ls and balance sheets and, being in Excel and now Claude. But, That's what I love. That's what excites me. And so it took me a while to figure that out, and I think I had to go through buying houses and being a landlord and doing all that to get to that point. But in 2023, I started my first friends and family fund and raised about on- one and a half mil- a little over $1.5 million for that one, and, have a good chunk of that as my own money. But I started this fund, and we were gonna go out and invest a- in, in, different limited partnerships, multifamily deals. We did a couple. We did one... a couple built-to-rent multifamily deals a mobile home park. But when I first launched it I had an old coworker call me, and he... from when I was in the mortgage business, and he was like, "Hey, I got this this guy from another country. He makes great income. He has great assets. He's putting down 75% on this million-dollar home. He needs, a quarter million. He's willing to pay hard money prices. It'd be in first lien position." Before he got done saying all that, I was like, "I'm in. Yeah, we can do it." We had some spare cash in the fund, so that was my first hard money loan. It was totally accidental. And I caught the bug quick, and we started doing more and more of those. And eventually last year I started a dedicated fund m- more of a 506f- smaller fund. And, a, a few weeks ago we launched a 506(c) fund and feel like we have a really good process and formula and have everything really systematized, and now we're ready to, throw some gas on the fire, and you

Ed Mathews

can actually talk about it.

Will Harvey

And I can talk about it. That's right. How about that? That's

Ed Mathews

right. So without having-

Will Harvey

So yeah that's my background.

Ed Mathews

Awesome. Hey, congrats. Thank you. I totally get, I And I have many friends who have s- and my part- my business partner, Mike Myers, one of them, that, they've written, in, in Mike's case it's, I guess hundreds of millions of dollars, but he's a lot older than you are. And Mike, if you're listening, you are a lot older than he is. The the fact is that you start to write these loans and you realize, wow, these investors are doing pretty well. I get a little piece. They get a big piece of the deals that we're talking about. And then you go to the next level of not only am I getting, as an investor looking at it, I'm getting a bigger piece, but the person who's writing the check to m- that'll enables me to make all these deals happen- is also getting a, a very nice return as well. Yeah. And so being the mortgage broker, you're basically y- a little bit further down on the food chain. You start Bright people like you start to figure out I should be on the other side of the table," right?

Will Harvey

Yeah.

Ed Mathews

And-

Will Harvey

Yeah, exactly

Ed Mathews

the, the other

Will Harvey

thing- It just wasn't my company,

Ed Mathews

yeah. That's it, right? You spend- Yeah the first however many years of your career, in a lot of cases, making somebody else wealthy, and then you figure it out and- Yep you work on yourself. So-

Will Harvey

Yeah. Amen. That's

Ed Mathews

right so hats off to you. Thank you the, Y- and the debt fund thing is interesting. Like I said earlier in the show before we were really getting going, that we, we started a debt fund as well. And, the thing that was interesting to me was Samuel Brannan who was the first millionaire in the 1840s and 1850s during the California Gold Rush, and he wasn't the one digging for gold. He was the one selling s- s- sieves and shovels, right?

Will Harvey

I lo- I love- And- picks and shovel businesses Yep.

Ed Mathews

And that was the thing that was really interesting to me and Mike. And I'm curious, what, h- why did you start with a debt fund? You could have done syndications. You could have done anything given your abilities.

Will Harvey

Yeah. Yeah. I've been a part of syndications, both as a GP and an LP, and I think it just boils down to being, m- my, my temperament. I like being the lender. The There's It's a lot different when you're the lender as opposed to doing a deal as a, a- as an equity raise where you're borrowing money, but, you're raising money from investors as equity, and you're operating on the equity side of the table. It's just a lot different. Yeah. So when you're on the, on the debt side of it, you're We only do first lien position loans. We try to have a low o- you know, LTV related to the after repair value. And- Sure We feel pretty, pretty comfortable in, in, in that position. And there's no, There's less upside, of course. If the deal, if the borrower makes a million dollars, we get what we're contractually obligated to get. Yeah. No, no more. 10, 12,

Ed Mathews

whatever

Will Harvey

percent, right? Yeah. Yeah. No more, no less. And we're perfectly fine with that. And it works for us. It's, it annualizes out to, be a high, high teens return and that's great. That's enough to pay our investors. It's enough for us to make money and- Sure Everybody's happy. So that's why I just kinda the debt side of things. It seems like a lot less, uh just a more I don't know, I d- I've just gr- I've just gravitated towards liking credit, and some of the stuff I've done in the public markets have been more credit-focused as, as well. Yeah. And I think that there's a guy that I read a lot about. His name is oh, what's his name? Oaktree is his company's name. I can't think of the Howard Marks. Howard Marks is a very underrated investor, in my opinion. So everybody's heard of Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger and those guys. Howard Marks is a value guy just like Buffett, just like Munger. Yeah. But he just doesn't get the attention. And, I think a lot of it is that he just flies under the radar and, But he's more of a credit guy. He doesn't like equities. He sticks to, he sticks to debt and bonds. He

Ed Mathews

sticks to debt,

Will Harvey

Yeah. That's I ki- I have just gravitated towards the credit side, and I think it just fits my temperament a lot better than equity.

Ed Mathews

Yeah. And, it turns out flipping houses, also really hard, right? You gotta love it. And, I, I joke. I still flip houses. And yeah I've gone kind of full circle. I've gone from flipping houses to multifamily to large multifamily to investing in syndications and now debt fund. And, the reason being is that running, as you were saying earlier, running a, a rental property or flipping houses, it's really hard.

Will Harvey

Yes.

Ed Mathews

It's not for the weak of heart, so to speak.

Will Harvey

Nope. And, Yeah, co- contractors and just all the headaches- Humans that go along with that. Humans- Yeah, you gotta- permits, yeah.

Ed Mathews

Yeah, you gotta deal with human beings, and that is never a straight line, ever.

Will Harvey

Exactly. That's right. Yeah. And being on the lending side, you still have to deal with humans, but a lot less humans.

Ed Mathews

Yeah, but And they're the ones that have to make it go and pay the bills, right? Exactly. And I'm curious from your model perspective, how do you protect capital?

Will Harvey

Yeah. We have we have a few, we have a few different ways. Obviously, this is something that I've given a, a lot of thought. A few weeks ago, I really As I was creating this fund and the PPM docs and all that, I I sat down one evening and really put a ton of thought into, try- trying to go to first principles d- instead of reasoning by analogy and just looking at what everybody else does and what historically has been done in lending, t- as far as doc collection W-2s, tax returns, bank statements, all that stuff. It's like, what are the risks? I tried to sit down, and it was like, you know- So a little background. I'm a big Elon Musk fan. I think he's a just incr- incredible guy, regardless of what you think about him. A lot of people don't like his politics, but, whatever. He's a force of nature. And I-

Ed Mathews

He's taking the human race to Mars.

Will Harvey

Exactly. Enough said. So it's... Yeah, enough said. So I think e- everybody can learn something from him. So I I really like his approach and how he, looks at, l- looked at the cost of space travel and just saw that it's so expensive because there's all these intermediaries and, this company subcra- subcontracts this off to this company, and then they subcontract, and there's all these layers of, middle men that are, have, have profits built in, and it's just this insane this, this insane markup because of that. Industrial

Ed Mathews

complex, right?

Will Harvey

Yeah, ex- exactly. He just he took it to first principles and said, "Okay, what are the materials of a rocket? What are they made out of?" aluminum, what... I'm not smart enough to know, but he took all the- Stuff yeah, all the stuff-

Ed Mathews

Tiny stuff and stuff that goes, "Wow."

Will Harvey

Yeah. Exactly, and he looked at all that, and he's here's everything a rocket is made out of." "If we have all this and we put it together, that is the cost of the rocket." So he looked at the absolute lowest price that you could build a rocket for, which would be the, y- just buying the, the material and the parts. The raw material. And then he worked backwards from there and tried to figure out, how do we do this in-house so that we don't have to pay these knuckleheads a crazy sum of money to do some, some little job, and then multiply that by 1,000 'cause there's all kinds of components in a rocket. He just tried to figure out how to do that all in-house and reduce the cost, and then he figured out how to reuse the rockets, which is absolutely insane. Yeah. When you see those rockets landing on that thing, it is nuts. So anyway, I tried to apply that to, to, to lending, and I know it's not he's doing rockets and we're doing lending. It's a little bit different. But I just looked at it and it was like what are the risks? What are the main risks? And I identified seven. I don't have s- I don't have them in front of me but I basically identified seven risks and then looked at what are the crucial things that we need to do to mitigate each one of these risks as best as we can, there's always gonna be risks that come up that you don't even think of. So it's like what are the major ones and how do we eliminate them, and how do we... What- What are we, what documentation are we over-collecting, and then what are we under-collecting? Because I think that a lot of lenders over-document things that don't really matter. Belts and suspenders, right? And I Yep. Yeah. And I think- And that's

Ed Mathews

what it is.

Will Harvey

Yeah. I think that, you can over-document things that aren't really that important. And then I think you under-document things that are really important. And to give an example one thing that I think is super, super important is just being able to hear the s- the story and the, you know, that, that first phone call with a borrower is just so crucial in my opinion. And that's when I try to extract so much information from them and just learn who they are, what makes them tick and just get a sense as to how they operate, their character. I think that's so important. And we're using AI. We record phone calls. We, we plug all that stuff in and we try to, come up with intelligent decisions- Right based on that. But and we're collecting bank statements. We're doing all that stuff too, but, it's like we're really just trying to we're trying to identify the major issues, solve for those, and and, if we can do that, if we can be in l- low leverage situations, then we should have a pretty good chance of getting out okay if something goes south.

Ed Mathews

Yeah. Zero losses are reported is really impressive. And I'm curious about, And it's fairly unique in the business, right? And that's- Perfection is not attainable, right? It'll happen at some point where you'll have to become the flipper again, and that-

Will Harvey

Of

Ed Mathews

course that part's, that, that part's fun. It, bad for the investor, but it's fun to, to get back in and roll your sleeves up and get one done. The, the in terms of the, the investor and y- the relationship that you start to build, you said the first call is really important. I look at it like, like you're dating, right? You start to date, and then when you actually cut wire the funds, you're getting married, at least for a little while.

Will Harvey

Exactly.

Ed Mathews

And, I look at that both from a a flipper perspective, like the folks that we work with that our fund invests in, as well as the investors with whom we work, right? The st- when we become the stewards of their money. And I'm curious what your- Exactly thoughts are and, you mentioned how you evaluate y- the flippers. H- how do you do that with potential investors?

Will Harvey

Yeah. You mean... What, what do you mean by how

Ed Mathews

I- I got a half a million bucks I'm not doing anything with. I want to invest in your fund. I pick up the phone and call Will and say- Oh, yeah "Will, I want to wire you money, but first you and I are going to have a talk." What are you looking for in that conversation?

Will Harvey

Yeah. I want to make sure that their mindset is similar to mine. With the 506(c) fund, I want to make sure they're accredited, 'cause they have to be. Sure. So that, that's obviously im- important. If they have half a million dollars, chances are that they are. They're probably okay. But yeah, I obviously want to figure that out. But, beyond that, I want to figure out, what their mentality is. Are they gonna wanna put in the money and, regret it and want it back the next month? if that's the case, then I probably don't want their money to begin with. We have a, a one-year... Our, our- Lockup. Yeah, we do They're, yeah, they're one year n- Yeah one-year terms- Yeah 'cause we have to have time to put the money to work. But but even if if someone's gonna... If it just seems like based on what they say that they're fly by night and they're, they got shiny object syndrome and this is just the flavor of the month, then it's probably not someone that, we want to work with. I've always been a long-term a long-term investor and, I haven't chased trends or fads or anything like that. Yeah. I'm not really a crypto guy or anything like that. I like to work with investors that think the same way. And, most self-select. They s- see what's on my website and, the ones that- are chasing the crazy returns and the Bitcoin stuff- Yeah, it's not They're not gonna... They're gonna see my website and be like, "Ah, this guy's boring anyway," so they're, boring's

Ed Mathews

good. That's the thing, right? Yeah. And that and that is, I fundamentally believe the, the- The beauty of real estate, it's boring.

Will Harvey

Yep.

Ed Mathews

You buy something, you fix it up, you hold it for a period of time, you let inflation do its thing, and then you either refi it or you sell it or not. You pay it off- Yep and enjoy cash flow. Y- pick 'em, right?

Will Harvey

I saw this thing- it was this article recently, and it said, "To test whether you're onto something, go to a cocktail party and start talking about whatever it is. And if people's eyes start to glaze over and they start walking away from you, you know you're onto something."

Ed Mathews

Nailed it. Perfect. Exactly

Will Harvey

right.

Ed Mathews

Yeah. Yeah, it's the ol- it's the old Warren Buffett thing, right?

Will Harvey

Yep.

Ed Mathews

Go run in when people el- everybody else is running out, or whatever- Exactly the, what did I paraphrase? But yeah. No, that's it. Exactly right. Yeah, I want boring. I don't need to be excited. That's it. I'm, I got too many other things to be stressed out about. I'm a father of daughters. That's enough. Love it. And and be- between that and the other things I have going on in my life I don't need stress from from my real estate stuff. I want that to-

Will Harvey

Yep. Yep, exactly.

Ed Mathews

So when you are looking at potential deals... Now, you mentioned you had a, multiple funds, right? So the first fund was a 506, so that's typically friends and family. You've since graduated to a 506(c). By the way, well done. Your life got a lot easier when you did that. The the other- The

Will Harvey

attorney bill got bigger, though.

Ed Mathews

But it's worth it, man.

Will Harvey

I get it.

Ed Mathews

Yeah. Every penny, it's worth it. I'm telling you. Yeah. I've seen more than one, I, fortunately I haven't been one of them, but more than one situation where thank God they had good attorneys that helped them think through- All the possible scenarios and how to manage them ahead of time.

Will Harvey

Yeah.

Ed Mathews

Cause inevitably one of them happens and, you know- Yeah You gotta manage that, right? And- That's right really good attorneys have that, that level of experience and a knowledge base to be able to say, "Hey, you- You should

Will Harvey

think about this.

Ed Mathews

Yeah you should be thinking about A, B, and C."

Will Harvey

That's right.

Ed Mathews

And D is a worst case scenario. It, I guess it's... I'm an Irishman, right? So I think in terms of, Murphy's Law is a real thing.

Will Harvey

Yeah.

Ed Mathews

And so I plan on mushroom clouds on the horizon, and when they don't happen, I'm pleasantly surprised. It's- But I plan for them, right?

Will Harvey

It's the way to think.

Ed Mathews

Yeah. As you are looking for investors what is your... Like, how do you identify investors? And I mean this by flippers, not necessarily capital partners.

Will Harvey

Okay.

Ed Mathews

How are you identifying flippers to work with? D- you're hanging out your shingle. Are you going to RIAs and meetups? Are you doing social media? Like, how are you getting the word out?

Will Harvey

Yeah. I've done everything so far by, i, I did some Google Ads months ago, and then we just ran into the problem where we had too many deals, not enough money. So I turned those off and that was part of the impetus and why I, started the 506(c) fund. And we've been off to a good start with that, and I think that will alleviate that issue. Sure. But but yeah. The G- Google Ads is something I know very well. When I used to flip houses, that's pretty much how we got all of our leads. So Go- Google Ads is a... It's so complicated, but once you figure it out... And with AI today it can shorten the learning curve tremendously. Google Ads is great. Pe- a lot of people that we're trying to reach look on there on Goo- on Google The Google machine

Ed Mathews

is powerful, for sure.

Will Harvey

Yeah, de- definitely. I've gotten a lot of business, a lot of repeat business from meeting people at RIA meetings. RIA meetings, I w- I went to one last night and and it was a waste of time. I just didn't talk to anyone that... And I just get hot and cold on, on those- Yep 'cause it's like, man, this just... Sometimes I'll go to a meeting and I'll meet, five or six people and just have awesome connections and set up lunches with them. And it'll feel very fruitful and like things are gonna come and then loans come from it, and I'm like, man, this is... I can... There was one meeting I went to back in, I don't know, October or November of last year, and I think we picked up two or three borrowers. We've already done a few loans just from that one meeting. And, and then there's other ones where you just get nothing. It's just crickets. You don't really meet anyone that that Like I'll talk to- Yeah, it's not a good fit different lenders and, yeah. Or if it's not a good fit. A- and I just go back and forth on, on those. I'm like, "Man, how scalable is this?" And should I really just delete this and focus on, Google Ads and more- Yeah more paid sources, social media- mailers, that sort of thing. And that's where every time I go to a RIA and it's not good, I'm like, "All right, I'm gonna do this and just focus on- Okay, go it again paid sources." And then when I go to one and it's good, I'm like, "All right."

Ed Mathews

Yeah.

Will Harvey

I, I- Yeah

Ed Mathews

I'm

Will Harvey

truly blessed. What are your thoughts?

Ed Mathews

So I'm blessed in that we have here in Connecticut probably one of the best RIAs in the country. It's- Okay Top three, four, five largest RIAs in the country. And super active, well-run good good solid 150 plus people every, every month.

Will Harvey

Oh, nice

Ed Mathews

A lot of beginners, which, aren't really a fit, but but that's okay. You mentor them and some d- sometimes those baby investors turn into adolescent investors who turn into adult investors. And- Yeah They become customers two, three years down the road, and that's great. But every once in a while you meet, a hitter who's coming in the door and trying to figure it out. So I think RIAs are valuable, but it depends on where you live, right? That's a- Right that's a roll of the dice. I am a huge proponent of So I come out of the technology world for my professional career. So I'm a huge believer in Facebook and in Google Ads and and in, in particular artificial intelligence. It's, And actually that was one of the next questions I wanted to ask you before we get into the lightning round is I think AI has the ability to to manage, to identify and manage data so effectively and efficiently. And I'm not talking about using ChatGPT as a search engine. I'm talking way beyond that, right? I'm talking about, being able to go into a certain space within the internet be able to scrape that information, pull that information down, rationalize it make it useful, and then, utilize it in terms of either cold email or an outreach campaign of other sorts or something to drive social media campaigns. These days for us- I do a lot of social media, just outbound education, and that by itself seems to work really well.

Will Harvey

Really?

Ed Mathews

I think it's a I think people start to realize that, okay, I can learn something from these guys. They get, they actually care, right? There's, there's a character value there. And also that ex- we've got a pretty good network, right? If they come to us and, we can help them, great. If they come to us and we can't help them, pretty sure we know a guy that can. Yeah. There's that value too. I don't do a lot of advertising, not a lot of Google, not a lot of Facebook, although I have and it's worked. But social media for us has been so effective that we don't need to spend the money anymore.

Will Harvey

It's super encouraging to hear that, 'cause I literally have it written down look into social media, in particular Instagram and Facebook, 'cause it seems like you can do k- you can kill those two s- two birds with one stone. Yeah.

Ed Mathews

And TikTok being the third of that wheel.

Will Harvey

Yeah.

Ed Mathews

The, th- the, the There's a woman who comes from m- from my old stomping grounds. I don't know her very well. I've met her online a little bit, but her name's Sabrina Romanoff.

Will Harvey

Okay.

Ed Mathews

And she runs a, a, a platform called Blotato, B-L-O-T-A-T-O, that is a social media r- repurposing engine- Okay That is really valuable and would probably help you, and probably help the folks out there as well.

Will Harvey

I'm writing that

Ed Mathews

down. I'm curious about, you've mentioned AI in, in the context of your operations a couple of times during this interview. How are you using AI to run your business?

Will Harvey

Yeah, so I use it all the time. So I have it I have Claude Code sitting on my terminal on my computer, and that's really how I interface with it, through VS Code. Same. And it has access to, all my files and it's... or all the files I give it access to, and it's super, super interesting the way that, you know just what it can do, and it just seems like... I was using it a couple years ago to, to look at things and analyze stuff. I was using Gemini at the time and it was good then, but it is light years beyond where it even was a year ago. I mean- Six months it is just moving... Yeah, six months ago. It is moving so fast now and it's just getting more and more intelligent. And it seems like this year with Open Claw coming out and- and just it feels like it's gone exponential in terms of just what it's capable of doing. So how we're using it is I'm using it a, a ton. I had it redo our website. I- anytime I... Like, when you send me the, the links to the, to this podcast, I'm gonna go in, I have a skill built, and I'm just gonna copy and paste your email and I'm gonna say, "Add this to my website," and it knows exactly what to do. It's gonna transcribe the, if you put this on YouTube or however, it's gonna transcribe it. Yeah. It's gonna put some cut ups on my website. It's... We're gonna have a dedicated URL for that interview and, it's gonna, it's gonna create a thumbnail. It's gonna do all that stuff and I don't have to do a thing. I can go and have that operate in the background. So that, that's the, the simple side of things. Sure. Stuff to do with my website. How it's helping us in terms of underwriting and risk management, and all that kind of stuff is, when someone sends me... When I get off the phone, like I was saying if I have a conversation with someone, we get a lead, and it's the first time I've ever talked to them You know, I'll have a phone call. I use Plaud to record it. It's a little device on my phone. You can record in-person meetings, you can record phone calls. So I'll do that. And it'll generate a summary. And so that's a data point that we use. And then if they're looking at 123 Main Street and they have an Excel pro forma that they've done on it and they've pulled comps I'll just say, "Send me everything that you have on it. Shoot me an email, send me everything that you have. I wanna see your deal." a- and then I'll take that and I'll dump it in to Plaud, and I have a skill where it will look at all that. It will look at the conversation, it will look at, it'll look at their Excel pro forma. It will look at their comps. It'll look at any text that they put in the email. And and then it will go out and it will do web searches. It will look and see if the, there's any fraud stuff related to that person. It will look at their social media. I haven't implemented that, but I plan to. It will look at social media profiles to see, what are they posting about, is there anything goofy on there. It will look at it will, it'll look at the deal. It will look at, it'll do its own independent analysis. I use PropStream to come up with a lot of data and- Yeah It'll look at that and it'll basically spit out a a, a a brief for me to look at. And I always verify everything. But it basically compresses what used to take hours into, 10 minutes. It'll operate in the background, it'll put that together, and then I look at it, verify everything. And it just radically increases our throughput, and I'm able to get back to people so much faster and either tell them, "Hey, this, this deal doesn't work and here's why." Or, "Yeah this looks like it'll work. Let's move forward, and here's the docs that we need, and blah, blah, blah." and it just radically increa- increases our throughput and our ability to, get back to people and answer them really fast. It seems like The incumbent lenders are slow and, they just move like turtles. So- Sure It's low-hanging fruit. And we, if w- if we can come in and operate really fast and just try to just knock it out of the park as far as customer service and all of that then, I th- I think that we're gonna, I think we're gonna do okay. So-

Ed Mathews

Yeah. I'll tell you what, you're on the right track, man, 'cause it- as a flipper, and you know this having done what you did flippers care about speed. Yep. That's the deal, right? If I send you, if you're gonna do 80% of the acquisition cost and 100% of the rehab hypothetically, right? So that means I'm fronting cash to be able to y- you get the siding done and replace the windows and replace the roof and plumbing and electrical and HVAC and all the stuff that we have to do. And so if I'm writing a check to a contractor for, I don't know, five, 10, 15, 20 grand that's part of the business. That's fine. But you can't take two weeks to get me that money back.

Will Harvey

That's right.

Ed Mathews

The, the hard money lenders that I've worked with in the past y- Pinnacle Financial coming to mind immediately. I send them the receipts. They validate it and, 12 to 24 hours later- a wire hits my account, right? Thank... So that was the, the thing that we were always looking at is, okay, how can we use technology to make decisions on loans- Exactly service those loans and ultimately, keep the, the project moving because the other ramifica- the, the big ramification of slow pay is the projects get backed up. A project that should take 90 days takes 150 days because- Exactly You lose your window. Plumber comes in and does his, or the, the carpenter comes in and does his thing, does a frame out for you, and then the plumber's supposed to come in and do the, do the, do his runs. And if you can't pay the contractor if contractor A, and he's waiting on contractor B, and there's a lag-

Will Harvey

Yep. It's

Ed Mathews

just a domino effect then the plumber goes and does something else, and he'll be back in two weeks. Okay I just lost two weeks.

Will Harvey

Exactly. Can't afford it. And then that two weeks could slip into you, the market changing, and that's the worst case, 'cause now the ARV's gonna drop, and- Right I've had that happen on my own flip. My first flip- Yeah we over improved it, and we took forever, and redid the windows and all this crazy stuff that we shouldn't have done. And, we ended up, we bought it at a really good price, which is- Yeah always the, what I tell people is "As long as you buy it right, you'll be okay." You'll be okay. But, it was one of those things where we just realized that, you can over improve a property and speed is everything.. It's... And a- as a lender, I'll often get- get asked, "Do you guys have prepayment penalties?" And I'm like, "Absolutely not. We want you to pay this thing off as soon as you can." because of the points and all that, our annualized return is higher, when you pay it off sooner, that's

Ed Mathews

why we charge you points. Exactly. That's why.

Will Harvey

Yep. Exactly.

Ed Mathews

Yeah.

Will Harvey

Right on. That's right.

Ed Mathews

Let's move on to the lightning round. So one of the things that... Obviously you've done very well. I'm sure that you're well on your way to taking care of your personal mortgage and tuition for the kids and, all that other good stuff that's really important when you're a dad. They're

Will Harvey

only three. They're three and one, so I don't have to worry about that yet.

Ed Mathews

Let me tell you, man. I've got a 23-year-old and an 18-year-old. A, those kids are expensive, and they get- Yeah more expensive. They don't get cheaper. They get way more expensive. And B-

Will Harvey

That's what I hear

Ed Mathews

you are, you will blink, and they will both be 18 years old. Oh, I

Will Harvey

know. Everyone's telling me that.

Ed Mathews

I see my daughters, one of them's 5'10", the other one's, 5'6", and I was like, "Man, you were both 18 inches tall yesterday." It's

Will Harvey

crazy.

Ed Mathews

Yesterday.

Will Harvey

It's gotta be crazy to think about.

Ed Mathews

It's nuts. I, I'm- Yeah going to my youngest daughter's high school graduation in eight days. Can't believe it. Oh,

Will Harvey

man.

Ed Mathews

And I- That's

Will Harvey

scary

Ed Mathews

and my oldest daughter graduated from college two weeks ago. Can't-

Will Harvey

Wow.

Ed Mathews

It's... Really, she graduated in December, but w- she walked a couple of weeks ago. But, That's

Will Harvey

scary

Ed Mathews

It's awesome.

Will Harvey

Yeah.

Ed Mathews

It's the best thing you'll ever do, but it's, I just can't believe how fast it went.

Will Harvey

Yeah, that's what I hear.

Ed Mathews

So enjoy every minute. Scary. And get cracking- Yeah On the tuition and stuff. It's coming. But, nevertheless, I'm sure you've done very well with taking care of that. And nevertheless, you go to work on Monday morning. And for me, I look at that as purpose. And so I'm curious- What drives you? What's your purpose? What gets you out of bed?

Will Harvey

So I think that naturally I just am wired to do and build and create, and so I think that's part of it. I- I've always had a, just a kind of an insatiable curiosity, so I'm always trying to learn and, do things and take action. And so that's definitely part of it. But also I, I have a family, a loving family. They're a huge motivation. And and I'm a Christian. I'm a believer in Jesus, and my, my main ultimate focus is to, use wealth and the resources I've been blessed with to, to steward well and to go out and try to fund initiatives that will advance the gospel to unreached places of the world. So that's really, that's my driving, deep-rooted ultimate thing that drives me.

Ed Mathews

Awesome. And, you mentioned Christ, and I'm curious, I'm gonna, I'm gonna take him off the table for this next question 'cause it's too easy to answer it that way. What is the best advice you ever got, and who gave it to you?

Will Harvey

That's- That's why I did it. He took it off the table. Yeah. 'Cause he's, he gives a lot of good advice.

Ed Mathews

Can't And you can't use the Bible when we talk about the book.

Will Harvey

Yeah. I would say some big Buffett. I love- Yeah Warren Buffett. I think that he's just so willing to share his wisdom and he's the, in my opinion, the greatest investor to ever live. I agree. And and his There's so much, but I would say the biggest thing is hi- him talking about, price and value being two different things. And I think once you realize that and you understand that, when you're looking at a stock, you're just looking at the price. You need to look at the actual business. You need to go look at the P&Ls and the their bank statements. You need to look at their their filings that they do, their quarterly and annual filings. You need to understand the actual business. Forget the stock price. That's just the price, the price might be good or it might be too high. But- It's just marketing yes. And but you need to understand what's going on with that business and that will help you understand if the price is good and you should buy it if it's low, or if it's too high and you should wait or look elsewhere. So price and value are two different things. The price, and then to tie it back to real estate, like I was saying earlier, if you buy something right, if you buy it at a low enough, price, if you're getting a discount on something, y- you're y- that will alleviate, most of the risk in my opinion.

Ed Mathews

Couldn't agree more. So I'm also curious about, I, like I, I think we said we were probably before I hit record, I think you learn a lot, probably more from your mistakes than you do from your successes. So I'm curious about a decision that you made that you look back on now and think, "Man I would love to have that one back." And how did you manage your way through it?

Will Harvey

Yeah. So me and a couple partners bought a, this goofy short-term rental property that we planned to do, and we had a... I had a buy box. This is when I was flipping houses and, I sold my last short-term rental about six, seven months prior to this, and I was like, "I'm never buying another one again. They're a headache. I'm done with that." All I owned at that point was my primary residence, and I had my money invested in syndications as a limited partner. I was like, "This is great. I don't have to worry about any tenants. This is wonderful." and then, I get stir-crazy and bored and, just have shiny object syndrome, and we get this lead on a deal and, it's outside of the typical buy box, and it's this goofy property, and I talk myself into it, bring a couple partners in. And it was just a, it, it was just doomed from the start. And long story short, we ended up losing $70,000 on it and, it wasn't a fun thing. It was more the mental anguish of, I was the one r- I was the quarterback on it, and I was responsible. And it was just the mental anguish of trying to figure out how to... We made so many pivots on it and tried so many different... It was, th- that was the, that was worse than losing money. And the, the money was... It sucked, but it was more just the laying a- laying in bed thinking about it every night and, and what I'm gonna do with it next. And that was one I wish that I could have back. It's the... I just realized that you gotta be patient, and you gotta know what you're good at and what you're not good at. And I knew I was not a great operator, and I still moved forward with it and, it was just a foolish decision.

Ed Mathews

Yes. A, a former boss of mine used to say, "Too much brain damage." That's right. "I don't need the stress. Too much brain damage." And I was like, "Oh, okay. All right. We'll wave off, no problem." Yeah.

Will Harvey

Yeah. I had a guy say a similar. He would say return, "What's the return on brain damage?"

Ed Mathews

Ooh, I like that. I'm gonna borrow that.

Will Harvey

Yeah.

Ed Mathews

Yeah. So I'm curious about how you take in information. You've mentioned Warren Buffett and a couple of other big names, Elon and so on. What book is on your nightstand, virtual or otherwise and who's the author, who are you paying attention to?

Will Harvey

I have a few of them. I'm reading a book called Titan about about John D. Rockefeller. It's 700 pages and it's... It... There's boring... I- it probably could've been about half that if I'm being honest. But it's a good book. It's about John D., and he's obviously someone you can learn a ton from. And so that's a good book. I just read one called The Book of Elon. It's a newer book. It's about how Elon thinks and works and it's all his... Just a ton of stuff compiled from different interviews and things like that, that he's done. And so that's a phenomenal book. A- another thing I've been doing lately is I will print something, so I'm not a environmentalist by any stretch with my printing habits. But I will print something- You can recycle the paper. What's that?

Ed Mathews

You can recycle the paper.

Will Harvey

That's right. That's true. So I will print something, and I will save it for later before bed. That's when my mind starts to slow down and if I find something interesting, usually during the day I'm just, I have stuff I'm trying to do. And so I'll print it and table it for later. I'll have Claude go out and do a research report on it and put together, a PDF for me, and I will print it. And then I'll look at it later when I'm in a better state of mind to, absorb information and stew on stuff and really be thoughtful. And so that's something I've been doing and getting in the habit of lately that, wasn't really a thing before Claude. But it's it's pretty cool. Yeah, I've enjoyed doing that.

Ed Mathews

Yeah. So I'll give you another, another tidbit then. Please. So I do the exact... I used to do the exact same thing. I had a folder that was full of, "Ooh, that's a good article. That's a good article." And ev- eventually I'd get to all of them. Some... Actually, sometimes I didn't. But I use NotebookLM. And the... Basically what I'll do is I'll take a, a, a document or a book that I've been meaning to get to and haven't and dump it into NotebookLM. It will synthesize the key points. It'll do one of three things for me. It'll create a PowerPoint, so I can really quickly understand what, what's in the book. It'll create like a report, like a synopsis of here are the, 47 things you're gonna learn from this book.

Will Harvey

Okay.

Ed Mathews

My favorite is it'll create a podcast. Oh, that's cool. And so you can do a long form podcast, and what I'll do is I'll dump like a series of articles or a a, a book, like the way I read Hormozi's first, three books- I didn't re- I own the books. And I dumped the PDFs into NotebookLM, and I had him wa- I had them walk, I had the podcast walk me through book by book. And it's two people talking, totally, you know- That's amazing artificial intelligence artificial intelligence. And they'll talk about, th- this point that he makes, and here's why it's important, and here's what you gotta pay attention to, and da, and breaks it down, and I listen to it in the car.

Will Harvey

That is so cool.

Ed Mathews

And

Will Harvey

it's- I've never even thought of that

Ed Mathews

above and beyond listening to the, the Audible version of the book, which I've also done. But it- And you- it's a second, it's a-

Will Harvey

Yeah

Ed Mathews

it's a second way to kinda quickly understand, "Okay, what do I gotta know?"

Will Harvey

So how do you dump a book in there? I buy physical, I don't have a Kindle or anything. How do you, how would I do

Ed Mathews

that? You gotta buy the PDF. Oh, okay or there are websites that will convert or you can buy the PDF version of books- Ah,

Will Harvey

I get it

Ed Mathews

so you can actually download the PDF versions. But I if I'm buying it, if I'm pulling a PDF, I still buy the book.

Will Harvey

Yeah.

Ed Mathews

Just, it doesn't, I'm, I've been a- Yeah I've been an author- Or give credit to- and somebody- yeah, exactly. You can have my 14 bucks. That's no problem.

Will Harvey

Yeah, exactly.

Ed Mathews

The, the but the but there are sites where you can pull down full PDFs of these books. And but again, please buy the book anyway.

Will Harvey

Yeah.

Ed Mathews

And-

Will Harvey

So whatever's in PDF format, it will synthesize that?

Ed Mathews

Or EPUB or whatever. Yeah.

Will Harvey

Okay. That's so cool.

Ed Mathews

It's amazing.

Will Harvey

Yeah. That's such a good idea. And

Ed Mathews

it's accurate. It's not like it's hallucinating or making up, it- reads it actual. It goes line by line through the book, and then decides- I love that what's important to the story. It's amazing.

Will Harvey

Yeah. That is so cool

Ed Mathews

so let me ask you something. As far as, uh, success in your world, how do you define success in your life?

Will Harvey

That's a good question. I would say it's less... I'm a process, I'm a process guy. I like Nick Saban's philosophy about forget, I have his quote right here, "Outcomes are a distraction. Focus on the process." good outcome, bad outcome, just stick to the process and, if you do that long enough, you'll you'll... The outcomes will take care of themselves. Yeah. So I think for me, at the stage that I'm at right now with a wife and, a one-year-old and a three-year-old, it's really just being present with them. That's something that the, the work stuff just seems to come natural. I have a natural drive and just, I wake up early and I get to work, and I left to my own devices. That, that just comes natural. There's no, it, I just have endless energy, curiosity for that kind of stuff. So what I really have to be intentional about is disconnecting from that and trying to be, trying to be mentally present with my family when I'm supposed to be. I think that when I feel, when I feel I'm doing that and, I'm with my boys and I'm really in the living in the moment and I'm not elsewhere thinking about a deal or a this or a that, something to do with work, that's when I feel like, "All right, this is right where I'm meant to be right now." So I think that is what the stage I'm at right now in my life, that, that's what I, that's how I view success.

Ed Mathews

Yeah. And it's you're spot on, man. Like I said, fatherhood is literally the best thing you'll ever do. Yeah. Regardless of all your other accomplishments, those two guys are, will be... That's your apex. Yeah. So en- enjoy every minute of it. Yeah. I appreciate that. And, somebody had said something to me that really resonated, and I wish I'd heard it way sooner, so I'll tell you. You only get 18 summers with them.

Will Harvey

That's crazy to think about.

Ed Mathews

Yeah. This is my last summer with my little one, right? That's, yeah. So they go off and, they still love us and they come back and they wanna hang out, but not a lot. They'd rather go hang out with their friends.

Will Harvey

Yeah.

Ed Mathews

Mom and Dad aren't cool anymore.

Will Harvey

Oh, I... Yeah. I remember being that age. Yeah. And yeah, that's right.

Ed Mathews

Yeah. I love my parents. My kids love us, but,

Will Harvey

the- Yeah

Ed Mathews

given the, if given, left to their own devices, yeah, they wanna go to the beach. They don't wanna hang out with me.

Will Harvey

That's right. That's exactly right.

Ed Mathews

That's exactly right. Hey when not talking about- That's so good when not talking about real estate, what do you like, what else do you like to do?

Will Harvey

Man, i- it's really just work, real estate, and, my kids right now. It's, yeah, there's not a ton of, there's not a ton of idle time to do other stuff. I'm trying to think of-

Ed Mathews

You don't have to make something up. That's enough right there.

Will Harvey

Yeah. I can't really- It's a good list I can't really think of... Yeah, it's really just those two things.

Ed Mathews

Yeah. And that's, I think that's the way it's supposed to be.

Will Harvey

Yeah.

Ed Mathews

So how can people, if somebody wants to learn more about you or your business what's the best way to get in touch?

Will Harvey

They can go to my... They can look me up on LinkedIn connect with me there or just go to my website. It's harvey-capital.com. Or just shoot me an email, will@harvey-capital.com.

Ed Mathews

Awesome. Will Harvey, thank you so much for joining us today. Continued good fortune and good luck with the boys and your wife and let's stay in touch. I, I- I think I really enjoyed our conversation.

Will Harvey

I really appreciate it, Ed. This was an honor to be on your show.

Ed Mathews

Thank you.