Real Estate Underground

The Ladder Against the Wrong Wall: Finding Purpose in Real Estate with Vincent Gethings

• Ed Mathews • Season 2 • Episode 161

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Vince Gethings:

You don't want to spend your whole life climbing a ladder and then you reach the top and realize it's leaning against the wrong wall.

Ed Mathews:

Greetings and salutations, Real Estate Undergrounders. It is Ed Mathews, again with the Real Estate Underground. Thank you so much for making us a part of your day. Hopefully you're enjoying your car ride or your run or wherever you are right now.

Ed Mathews:

Today I am joined by Vince Gethings. If you've met him at any of Jake and Gino's things, we were just trying to figure out if we met at the one I attended. Vince, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for your time today and it's good to see you. my friend.

Vince Gethings:

Thank you so much, Ed. I'm excited to be here.

Ed Mathews:

So for the folks that haven't met you, why don't you tell us a little bit about your background?

Vince Gethings:

Absolutely. The military is the biggest chunk of my adult life. I've been in the military since 18 years old. So 2006,. Started getting into real estate around 2013 using my VA home loan. Did what's called the house hack on using my VA home loan. So we did that and I was in a station in California at the time. So California, 2013.

Vince Gethings:

Got into my first real estate deal. Got the bug. We sold that house in 2016. I think I netted around 130,000, if I remember right and I was like, wow, this is way better than my military paycheck. Let's do more of this.

Vince Gethings:

At that point, 2016, I started buying a small multifamily Early education, pretty much bigger pockets. There was a couple books out there it was my knowledge base at the time. So I bought single families, duplexes, fourplexes, things like that. I had about 20 units from 2016 to 2018. And then at that point, I hit a ceiling. Pretty hard, as most investors do, they hit this plateau Once they run out of their initial capital, whether it's their nest egg or 401k accounts or whatever it is they're pulling money from, they deploy that and now they don't know how to get to the next. So I hit that very common plateau investors hit in their journey and I went, solved it through just more education Cause I was like I see these other guys doing deals, how are they doing it? Especially bigger ones. So that's when I went to the mentorship route. And 2018, I got into mentorship group, as you mentioned earlier.

Vince Gethings:

We very quickly caught on to multifamily, figured it out, got all the education I needed. 2019, we bought our first 52 units. So I went from four plexes six plexes so 52 units. So I went from four plexes, six plexes so 52 units. My first deal that was a joint venture with three people, so we didn't syndicate or anything. It was a joint venture. Three people other than myself, so four total. We spent the whole year of 2019 trying to figure out our systems, our processes, how the teams work and everything like that.

Vince Gethings:

I'm multifamily, building our business. And then 2020 rolled around and we were off to the races from there. Obviously, covid hit and gave us some good buying opportunities, really, but we were off to the races for 2020. So since 2020, I think as a team Tri-City Equity Group, my equity team we've done, I think, 18 deals. Seven or eight of those have gone full cycle. I think we hit a hundred million. I think right now we might be a little bit less down. Maybe 80 million right now in assets, but we have a couple LOIs out. We should be at 200, probably by the end of this year or early next year. Assets under management brings you up to speed a little bit on where we're at,

Ed Mathews:

yeah, and you're also a serial entrepreneur, right?

Ed Mathews:

So you own a flooring company. Obviously, you manage in-house as well, I think, right?

Vince Gethings:

Yes, we're working integrated.

Ed Mathews:

Can you tell me a little bit about that?

Vince Gethings:

Yeah, that was not something we had originally planned. So, for the property management company, 2022 hit and if anybody is listening to this, which a lot of people here are probably in the game at some level of real estate, the market turned and it's been on a slump since then as the cyclical nature of markets. 2022 hit and we were getting just destroyed by our third-party property managers. And it wasn't just poor performance. There was some negligence, there was some theft, there was some fraudulent stuff going on and it was just like, month after month, it's getting bombarded.

Vince Gethings:

We had some scale in my market. We went to the team at the I think it was the summer of 2022. I just remember I was like, hey, if there was a time, this is it. We have to take control, we have to wrestle our properties back. We owe it to ourselves, we owe it to our investors. It's going to suck the brain damage of taking our properties over and starting a property management company with only I think we had maybe 250 units knowing we're going to have a significant cash burn because we're going to have to hire the payroll and overhead of a property management company.

Vince Gethings:

But we did some math and it was like, hey, we'd rather have the cash burn now and scale our way out of it and continue to have the performance we're getting from the third party property managers and it wasn't just one, it was like three Back to back. We fired them and the next one came in and very similar, so it was out of necessity we're scaled out of it now. We just kept acquiring and wrapping them up so we have the payroll now to support itself and that was a good milestone to hit in a property management company. And now we're looking forward into the future, the next couple of years, and we're very happy that we made that decision because we are very, I guess, lethal when it comes to underwriting and executing our business plans because we have so much more control.

Ed Mathews:

Yeah, it's amazing. So we did the same thing and we did it at around 200 units. So, yeah, it's a little tight there for the first step, or maybe even longer. So what does that team look like? You said hiring people, so we went down the path of using handymen and third-party folks that we had worked with for years and trusted, but we didn't bring them in as full-time employees, and so I'm curious about what your team looked like and how did you scale it?

Vince Gethings:

when we started, we penciled out a president.

Vince Gethings:

We have Tri-City Equity Group and they have Black Sand Property Management Group separate entities. One of the people that was helping me a good friend of mine. I've known him for over 10 years. He was helping me as asset manager under my original Tri-City Equity Group. We moved him over and he became the president of the property management company that most of the GPs from Tri-City own. We own the same company but he's the president, so now we can divide and conquer. I'm the asset manager, he's the president of the property management company, checks and balances. So that was a really good decision there, the way we split that. And then under him we originally had two property managers that were floating between the properties. The original product was small we're talking 50, 60 unit properties so we could split two properties between a person and we're able to help with the payroll burden that way. And for maintenance we contracted out. We put them on as 1099. And then we gave them a per ticket work order fee. Maybe it was like $100 to answer a work order and then, depending on the triage of it, if it was a plumbing emergency, maybe it would go up to 250 or something like that and that's what we did until we had enough scale to hire W-2 employees, enough scale to hire W2 employees.

Vince Gethings:

And where we're at now is where the seats we are needing to fill and we're actively filling is. We want to bring in unit turns completely in-house. Right now we're one foot in, one foot out. We're still relying on contractors a lot for unit turns, more than I'd like. So we're going to have a At the next acquisition.

Vince Gethings:

We can afford a dedicated kind of roving unit turn team two guys, three guys that's all they do is bounce around the portfolio and just do unit turns. So we can afford that. I want to bring in landscaping in-house and I want to bring a marketing director in-house that just does all the marketing and I want to have a legitimate regional VP position. Right, because we got this one lady. She is absolutely fantastic and she's sitting as a regional, but not fully. She's still one foot in the trenches, one foot overseeing. So we want to be able to afford to pull her all the way back up to be a legitimate regional or that kind of VP position and get some support under her. So then the next acquisition we have planned payroll wise, should be able to fill most, if not all those.

Ed Mathews:

Right on. Wow, congratulations. That's one hell of a scaling job, and so how did you figure that out? Obviously, your military background probably led a lot of in terms of how to build the team and when to hire and when to move someone from doing to leadership.

Ed Mathews:

I'm curious where did you learn how to do that?

Vince Gethings:

No, there's no secrets to military. So the military definitely teaches you how to build, because me and my partners were all military, so I was a senior enlisted officer, my partner is a senior enlisted officer, or non-commissioned officer rather, and my other partner he was a retired chief foreign officer. For so we're all senior leadership type positions in our units, building teams, holding people accountable, figuring out org charts. It definitely helped. And then, on the civilian side, I think the best thing was Traction, gina Wickman, traction and Scaling Up by Vern Harnish.

Vince Gethings:

Those are probably the best books on just being able to get a grip on your business and organization. I don't there's no reinventing the wheel, they invented it. If you need help in this area, just read those books and execute on the best of your abilities on that. I know it's, when you read those, easy concepts to understand, incredibly hard to implement. You definitely need consistency and accountability with it, but that's the secret for that organizational structure. And then, as far as like the payroll, about what seats to fill, when that was more so during our quarterly meetings, we're looking at payroll. Do we have a bucket of payroll we can pull from? And like the 80-20 rule, we have 80,000. That 80,000 to go toward W2 payroll. Where are we going to get the best bang for our buck on that? And that's you know how we bring our people.

Ed Mathews:

So when you look at I'm just curious, because we're actually going through the same thing right now. We're only a few years behind you. So the question is when you're looking at bang for the buck, so to speak right, are you looking at it from a revenue generation perspective? Are you looking at it from an operational efficiency, like when you look at okay, we're going to hire and we need value here. What's the decision process that you and your partners are going through?

Vince Gethings:

Great question. The two things that I think we pulled from the most was I can't remember, it might've been profit first or simple numbers. Yeah, I think it's Simple Numbers by. I'm actually looking at Greg Crabtree Fantastic books, very small reads. I'm going to check that out. Yeah, it's a good one. So I think in that one, when we read that as a team, he talks about revenue per employee, like as far as KPI Right? So these people hit that one no-transcript up units. So that's how we're looking at it. You have all your KPIs as an asset manager and now you can look at it. Okay, all that's going to lead to economic vacancy. So how are we going to start knocking that out, that burn off and those are the ways that we thought about it of who to hire when,

Ed Mathews:

yeah, it makes a lot of sense.

Ed Mathews:

There's, as far as EOS goes, Gino Wickman. I'm a huge proponent of them and you're right, it's a pain in the neck to install, but do you use EOS as your operating system within your company, or did you just take some facets of it that worked for you?

Ed Mathews:

How did you think about that?

Vince Gethings:

We implemented it and then over the years of tailored back, just based off of laziness. So I would say if I were to grade us, I would probably say we're probably like a C minus on. We have all the things in place but we're not doing everything all the time. Like the score cards are not like getting those things, things. But we do have our level 10 meeting on every company, religiously, like without fail. We're doing our level 10 and kpis. We do the vtos every quarter and update those. So we do a lot of it, but it's just not as intense as that program is designed to be. So I think that's part that we can definitely improve on yeah those mentors are very expensive so

Ed Mathews:

They are, yes, using best practices.

Ed Mathews:

Nothing wrong with that if it's rigorous to implement that, and it's probably even more rigorous than your initial career in the military yeah, or at least as rigorous, right, yeah and okay and then. So you're at about how many units these days.

Vince Gethings:

I'm trying to think where we have. We have one under sale or selling in two weeks maybe like 800, 800 or something. Right now I think we've transacted around like 1400, but it's we always. So we got our conveyor belt right, so we always got stuff coming on, stuff going off. But I think ad center management is around a hundred, I think, units around 800.

Ed Mathews:

Okay, wow, congratulations. And so what's the grand plan? When are you? You're a young guy. When do you know you're done, if you ever are?

Vince Gethings:

I think I'll be done with certain aspects of this business Once I hit certain levels of either passive cashflow or net worth. I think me and my team are aligned on moving intentionally toward consistently higher quality, bigger assets. The bigger the asset is, the bigger the payroll bucket is, and we can just hire somebody to do that job for us. I think we're all consciously going toward longer term holds bigger, newer assets that we can just have a full on team doing everything. So we've got to work our way up there.

Ed Mathews:

Yeah, and let's briefly talk about your buy box, right, so you're talking about newer assets,

Vince Gethings:

Absolutely! Exciting too.

Ed Mathews:

, yes, so where did you start in terms of targets and where are you looking these days?

Vince Gethings:

Yeah. So this is actually pretty crazy. Every time I say this I'm like, wow, that really happened. So, for context, that first JV we did that was like 1.4 million, did that was like 1.4 million. The last deal we did was 29 million, and we're talking a span of five years. So it's pretty crazy.

Vince Gethings:

The analogy that we use is the conveyor belt theory. Right, so it's your five-year-long conveyor belt. Your job is to stack assets on the conveyor belt as it's going down the conveyor belt. You're building up equity, you've got the cash flow, you're getting the depreciation loan, pay down all the things that we do this game for. And then you have those capital events, sale of refinances and then the key is not to eat off that. Don't go by the course just yet. Just reinvest that, get that snowball going, the Warren Buffett snowball.

Vince Gethings:

And when we look back at our portfolio of how we executed this, the first deals we did, the first four, were all between 1.5 and 2.5 million. That was the first kind of run of the conveyor belt. The second turn we're talking now, 2021 to 2020, was like five to 6 million. So we sold all those traded with the $1 million properties but $5 million properties and those are all selling now and now the last couple of deals we've bought were 10 to 30 million In the buy box. We're going on now. We're not really looking at anything under 20 million right now. The exponential growth of that conveyor belt is pretty exciting to watch happen

Ed Mathews:

50 some odd units at 1.4,.

Ed Mathews:

That was probably a class C building a little bit.

Vince Gethings:

We didn't even start switching to nicer quality buildings until really, like 2023 is when we made the decision hey, we're going to go for higher quality product. Okay, but everything up to that point was C-class value add.

Ed Mathews:

Yeah, gotcha, and yeah, we are on the same path. That's so funny. I'm two years behind you. So, as far as the buildings now, what markets do you like?

Vince Gethings:

We're only in Dallas, fort Worth Metro Park. So that was a big decision we made in 2020. We scaled really fast by going wide, going a mile wide. We picked a lot of markets and we're going to go wherever the deals are. So we had deals in five, six different states. I was flying all over and then I became the bottleneck, because that's a lot of property managers to manage A lot of states. That's a lot of property managers to manage. There's a lot of states. That's a lot of stuff to manage in a lot of different areas. So we started dropping some plates and we became the bottleneck. At the end of 2022, we're like all right, what market do we like the best? What's the most best performing? What properties are the best performing? What has the best outlook for the next 10 years and for us and our goals and where we were in our lives? Dallas was the choice we picked with, so we started selling everything that wasn't here in Dallas and then I moved here.

Ed Mathews:

Smart, yeah, and if only for the efficiency of the property management company.

Vince Gethings:

But I was flying a lot, so I was like yeah, we just moved there.

Ed Mathews:

Yeah, and you require sleep right Every once in a while you got to shut those eyes, so it's a lot being on a plane all the time. Okay, and then the other question I'm curious about is with regard to the other businesses that you have the flooring business, the insulation business do they serve your property management company or are they client facing?

Vince Gethings:

Both, and it's actually interesting so the way that this came about. Most people think property management is just going vertically and bringing everything in the house. That's what we're doing now, but that wasn't the original idea. So the original reason that I got into the business side of the house home services was because when I was getting out of the military, I needed a W-2 job, because for anybody that's listening, that has some properties and they're trying to quit their W-2, that's fantastic.

Vince Gethings:

Once your cashflow reaches that takeover thing, you're going to have a huge problem when you go to get a loan for a car or a house and all you have is a bunch of passive income. The bank's going to destroy you and that's what happened to me was I was getting out of the military, I was trying to buy a house and I got denied and I was like I make way more to cover this and they're like two problems. One, you're leaving your W-2 that you've been in for 16 years and so we can't use that income and all your other income is passive income from real estate and our underwriting guidelines is to discount that or not accept it at all. So that is the double side of having that passive income for freedom is you still need to be credit worthy, and a lot of banks don't like passive income. They'll discount it if they accept it at all. So my solution for that was I'll just start a company and I'll give myself a W-2 from that company. Now that's what the installation company was for. It served a purpose to give myself a W-2. So if I want to go get a car loan, anything with credit, I could give them my pay stubs or my W-2 from being the owner of that franchise and that worked. That solved that problem.

Vince Gethings:

Going forward, that's when we started. So there's about a three or four year gap between the installation company and the flooring company. And then that's when we started looking at the efficiencies, and mainly I was. That company happened to fall on my lap and so we can do a whole show just on that. But we were already looking at those types of opportunities and the way I was looking at it was as an asset manager.

Vince Gethings:

I'm looking at the P&Ls all the time and I'm like, wow, these foreign guys are getting a lot of our money, but what can we do for that? So I was just going down the P&Ls trying to figure out what we can bring in house or what we can eliminate and just get control of. And that's where the home services really stuck out to me. They're really simple businesses. They're everywhere, not complicated to run, and then once you figure out one of them, a plumbing company is going to be 90% the same as a flooring company, as a HVAC company. It's like the same business cycle, just different tradesmen, maybe a different certification or whatever, but essentially the way the business runs marketing, cashflow cycle, that's all the same.

Ed Mathews:

Yep, a hundred percent. So, in terms of, there's a huge move in private equity, for instance, to buy boomer businesses that are just about to retire and are thinking about retiring and coming in and cashing them out and taking on the business. What's your thinking in terms of? I know you bought the insulation business. I think I heard you say it was a franchise. What is your thinking in terms of buying existing businesses versus starting your own and growing it organically?

Vince Gethings:

I probably wouldn't start a company organically. It's a lot of brain damage and it's been very popular. You have a lot of influencers and very smart people like Walker Deibel or Cody Sanchez. That's their thing, that's their wheelhouse. Very smart people Having done both real estate and running multiple small businesses. The real estate's way easier.

Vince Gethings:

So I don't want to romanticize that. Hey, real estate's dead. You got to buy these the silver wave and the boomer businesses and they're just out there for the taking. There is a ton of opportunity but it is way more work. You have employees, you have payroll, you have angry customers, you have all the things right. So all the things and all the stressors, it is significantly more than just buying a 40-unit, 50-unit, 100-unit property and find a property manager there and having to deal with that and the cashflow swings can give you a PTSD. In multifamily you run at 80% occupancy and it's like devastating right. Oh my God. This is terrible In a business. You can have a $50,000 swing. One week you make 200 grand, the next week you can make 50. You have to have the stomach to deal with it. I've done it and it still happened. It's still happening. It's not for the weak stomach. I definitely don't want to romanticize it, saying if you can figure this out, you can do that. It's significantly harder. It's more risk, a lot more reward If you can get the cash flow businesses right.

Vince Gethings:

For me, my experience is home services. I'll just talk about home services. If you can get that right, they are money printing machines. The biggest lessons is I would try to do with no debt at all or very little debt. Sba loan is probably the worst debt on my balance sheet of $50 million of debt. That one SBA loan is probably the worst terms I've ever gotten on anything. I would try to avoid that. I would try to either do pay cash seller financing, anything but the SBA. It's a good resource If you have nowhere else to turn. They will usually get it done, but it wouldn't be my first choice ever. Yeah, I do think there is an opportunity out there. They are right that there's the boomer thing out there, but it's retiring and those businesses are out there, but definitely not something to just get shiny object syndrome and hop into and take on a bunch of risks. Everything that goes into that.

Ed Mathews:

Yeah, and it's a lot right, yeah. So I wholeheartedly agree with you on the SBA thing too. Tread lightly, that is a loan of last resort. Yes, yeah, seller financing is usually better for the seller and it's usually better for you. Absolutely Right, all right. Hey, let's start to land this plane, let's get into the final five and you're a really successful guy. Congratulations again. When I meet people like you, one of the things that I've realized about all of us is the mortgage is getting paid. If you have a family, the kids' college funds are all funded. Your significant other has a nice new car. Every couple of years, paying the bills is not a big deal, but nevertheless you get out of bed on Monday morning and go to work with a whole lot of energy and passion. So what is? And obviously that boils down to purpose. I'm curious what gets you out of bed on Monday morning?

Ed Mathews:

What's your purpose?

Vince Gethings:

Wow. So that's usually the first thing. I think it's a balance between like legacy for my family and just making sure that they understand how to, because the money will come and go, the material stuff will come and go, but if they understand how to make money in this world, how to live a happy life in this world, what it actually takes to be successful in this world, and I can pass that on and they can pass that on and so on and have that in terms of generational wealth. In that way, rather than just the money and the trust, the principles, the values, the work ethic, I think is what gets me up. And then the other side of it is just trying to push to see what my true potential is, like full potential, rather of like, what can I actually do? Where's the breaking point? And I get there. Often You're like, oh, that was a little too far, let's tone it back a little bit.

Ed Mathews:

Look back on the last six, seven, eight years. Right, how many of those barriers did you bump up against, eventually push through. And now you look back and it's wow, I can't even believe that was a problem.

Vince Gethings:

Yeah, exactly, and a lot of things that you thought was just insurmountable. Just needed a little bit of patience, a little bit of time and a little bit of good decision-making and get through it and you grow through it. Growth on the other side, yeah.

Ed Mathews:

All right. Another thing that I'm always curious about is mentorship and the people that have had an impact on our lives and because I think that, especially in real estate, this is a team sport by and large, right, and it's a team sport in terms of the folks that work with and for you, but also the people that have helped you figure stuff out that really don't have a stake in your success other than the fact that they like and respect you, right. I'm curious about mentors in your life and, specifically, what's the best advice you ever got and who gave it to you.

Vince Gethings:

Absolutely.

Vince Gethings:

A lot of people hesitate so much on getting a coach, getting a mentor in any aspect of their life. And I'm telling you that every room I've been in with successful people, all the way from just you know they hit the 1 million mark, all the way up to billionaires they all have coaches, they all have multiple coaches to serve. Maybe it's a health coach, maybe it's a business coach, maybe it's a business coach, maybe it's a mindset coach, maybe it's a whatever. They all have coaches, they all have mentors. They all have a personal board of directors that they can go into and trust with their problems. And hey, I just need to bounce an idea off you about this business deal. You know, you don't even have to say anything, just ask questions. So help me pull through this idea. Most people don't have that and they don't look for that and for some reason they don't think it's necessary. I'm telling you, every successful person I know has not just one coach or mentor, but multiple for very specific things.

Vince Gethings:

I'm 36, been in the military, know how to work out, and I was just like, hey, I'm dropping some rungs on that ladder. And my wife said, hey, you should go get a personal trainer. And I never would have crossed my mind to go get a personal trainer to work out for somebody that's generally fit. That dude whooped my ass this week, the three sessions. I'm like I haven't felt that in years. So I was like, yep, she was right, just a little bit humble there and now it's boom, I got that box checked. Now I got a personal trainer and get my health back in check. Okay, as far as best advice very situational, I think one of the best advice, not from a personal one the first thing that came to mind and I'll go with that is Stephen Covey. His books are absolutely phenomenal.

Vince Gethings:

I went through the seven habits course very early in my career probably 24, 25, which is a pivotal time of me getting into real estate. You don't want to spend your whole life climbing a ladder and then you reach the top and realize it's leaning against the wrong wall. That is a quote from his book and he talks about it in his lectures. That really stuck with me of make sure you have an end in mind, make sure you have clarity on what you're pushing forward. You're sacrificing your youth for the time with your family, all this stuff that you're sacrificing for and working for make sure it's something that you actually want.

Vince Gethings:

His example is more corporate right, you don't want to spend your whole life climbing a ladder the corporate ladder and realizing you're miserable as a VP or whatever. That corner office thing as my vertical background as a corner office in New York, but that things as my vertical background as a corner office in New York, but that was a great example and that one stuck with me and that was planted that seed of the inception of maybe the military. Isn't this the 20 year career that I set out for? Maybe it isn't going to fulfill me like I thought it was originally.

Ed Mathews:

Yeah, it's interesting, I experienced that as well. I know a lot of friends and colleagues who have worked their butts off to get to that corner office. And then you get there and you're like, man, is this all there is really? This is what I've been doing for 25 years. Everyone drinks a lot.

Vince Gethings:

So when I became a senior so it's like your mid-management type, you mean, the guys that actually work for a living yeah, they're all drinking like so much and I'm like, wow, you guys just really just drink every day and they're generally not happy. So that was kind of like, is this really what I got to look forward for the next 10 to 15 years

Ed Mathews:

as far as you've had a lot of success in your career, obviously, but we all make mistakes, and I personally think mistakes are a good thing, because that's how we learn.

Ed Mathews:

I think we learn a lot more from our mistakes than our successes, and so I'm curious about a decision you'd love to have back and how did you handle it and what'd you do?

Vince Gethings:

If we were going to keep it for real estate,

Ed Mathews:

Whatever you want.

Vince Gethings:

A more recent one was we got retraded on loan terms from a lender right at the closing table and at the time, in my experience and kind of the emotional hey, we got to close in two days. They just re-traded us and it was what are we going to do? Kind of thing, and we ended up pushing through and closing the deal out of the scarcity mindset of I don't want to lose my earnest money because we failed to close. But they ended up retrading us on terms. This was two years ago and in hindsight, with my experience I have now I probably could take a deep breath, went back to the broker and seller, explained to him what happened and say, hey, I'll give you another 30, 40, 50 grand of earnest money for 30 more days. Let me figure this out. Let's pause the clock for a little bit and let me work on this lender that just pulled this move on us. At the time they were playing hardball and I just didn't know the nuances of the game like I know now. Actually, this was three years ago and, looking back, I probably could have got them to extend that contract with a little bit of hey, I'll put 50K hard, just give me 30 more days to figure this out.

Vince Gethings:

And we're feeling the effects of that retrade now. It's putting us in a position where the deal is not in jeopardy in any way. We have a good liquidity position, we have a good equity and everything that. But it's forcing us to either refinance or have our interest rate, because what happened is the interest rate is going to reprice the market. So we were locked at four and now it's going to re-rate, lock at seven. We didn't underwrite that right, so our cashflow is going to take a pretty big hit. We'll still be fine, the deal's not in jeopardy. But it's like we're trying to work through that now with the lender and try to get them to honor their original terms. But in hindsight that mistake is causing me a lot of time. Now that I'm dealing with it, we'll probably have to pay some fees for whatever.

Vince Gethings:

Looking back, I probably should have held my ground a little more, been a little bit more patient and less emotional and just bought more time to figure it out, rather than say, hey, we'll close and figure it out later. It's not slated, you're figuring it out. Yeah, now I'm figuring it out. So that was a more recent one that I could think of. But generally go a little bit slower in these deals and not just getting emotional what Jake called it to get their itis. We got to get the deal done.

Vince Gethings:

You don't want to lose your EMD or reputation or whatever with the broker. It's a ghost law and this is where partners really help. If you know you're the emotional one I'm generally not the emotional one but if you know that you have this fault or weakness about yourself, having partners to keep you grounded and say, hey, let's take a breath, let's take a pause, let's talk this through, and you have those people in your group that you can trust and just sounding board ideas. It's immeasurable how valuable that is. Have that group of people rather than you in a silo trying to figure all this stuff out on your own. There's a lot of moving parts and the bigger the deals get, the more those consequences sting and you make a mistake. But it's not a $10,000 mistake. It could be a $100,000, $200,000,. Make a mistake, but it's not a $10,000 mistake.

Ed Mathews:

right, that's really smart. All right, I'm also interested in how leaders like you take in information and how you grow. So talk to me about the book or however you take in information on your virtual or physical nightstand. Who are you reading these days and what are you paying attention to?

Vince Gethings:

On my nightstand I have the Bible and Atlas Shrugged. I've been reading this thing for like a decade. I don't know if you ever held that book, but it's like yeah sitting upstairs as we speak.

Vince Gethings:

So I'm going to finish it this year. So I'm trying to finish that one and then get into the Bible a little bit more than I used to. As far as technical information, as far as running businesses, it's usually Audible. I'll usually go get the Audible and if I like what I hear and it's not just a plop marketing piece, then I'll buy the hard copy and then I'll go through this in Audible and highlight with my highlighters and use them as like textbooks and reference books. So I always have my highlighters and I'm always highlighting and tabbing out if it's actually a useful book and that's usually what I do for kind of the more technical aspects and then I try to teach it back as fast as possible.

Vince Gethings:

That's one of the most powerful learning methods out there and retention is as soon as you get information. If you can have somebody even if it's your spouse or whatever try to explain to them what you just read, will make it stick. I forget the stat on this, but it's significantly higher retention and comprehension will make it stick. I forget the stat on this, but it's significantly higher retention and comprehension If you read something and immediately try to teach it back to somebody. It like swaps it over from like the left side of the right side or something like that, and it sure does the long-term. I don't know all the technical stuff on that, but I know that absolutely works.

Ed Mathews:

So is active reading, which is what you're talking about in terms of listening and reading along the way. I'm one of those guys too. I take them in the margins and underline stuff, and I use a highlighter as well. So the last thing I wanted to ask you about and then we'll get into the close of the show is about success. How do you define success in your life?

Vince Gethings:

I'm in a transitional period right now. Up to this point me today. It's going to be the ability to do what I want when I want, with whom I want, where I want. Right, it's 10 am on a Friday and I'm here speaking with you. Right, I'm not at some office somewhere, I have the location freedom. So I have some of these boxes I've already been able to check. We're going to France most of the month of August and I can work from there as long as I have Wi-Fi. So I have the location freedom. So we're checking off this idea of freedom that we have for our family.

Vince Gethings:

The next level of that transition is probably the ability to just happily say no to pretty much anything I want for any reason. It's thank you, but no, any business opportunity, anything that comes my way. I think that will be for me. Where I'm at now is a good next step is because right now it's's I have businesses and I have people relying on me. I have people that need me. I'm a leader to them. I have to serve them because they have families. So I can't just be like all right, guys, I'm out and I have 30 something, 40 employees, their families. So I am still, I have obligations and I am at the top of that (no-transcript).

Ed Mathews:

Awesome, it is a good goal. One of the things I did want to mention is the wheelbarrow profit, so you're now involved with that. Can you tell me a little bit more about that before we close out?

Vince Gethings:

Oh, absolutely. So. I actually acquired the company in January. So I was a member and I came back as a coach. So I've been coaching for them for five years and then in January I took over. So now the owner of it, jake and Gino, are still around, but I'm the one leading it and taking it to the next level. We're very excited about things that are coming and continue to carry that torch. We are biased here, but I think we are the best community out there. Our stats are unbelievable we have. Last time Gino gave me the numbers, there was like 80,000 units acquired from the community, over 5 billion in real estate acquired from the community. There's not another group out there that can really touch those numbers for success in the community.

Vince Gethings:

I am very grateful and very excited to see if the next chapter is a Wheelbarrow Prophet. Excellent Congratulations. Yeah, and then I did have a. I did put this here. So I have a book, the Wheelbarrow Prophet's Book. It's the original book by Jake and Gino. That kind of started it all. Anybody that wants to reach out I'm sure you'll have something in the show notes Reach out. I got digital copies of this. I'll send it to everybody listening that just wants to check it out, and I'm happy to do that.

Ed Mathews:

Yeah, so I did not go through the Jake and Gino training, but I have read that book and I had Gino actually on the show last year sometime and they have been incredibly generous. They've taught me a whole lot about what it means from a customer service perspective in terms of whole lot about what it means from a customer service perspective in terms of I remember Jake saying something along the lines of that they aspired to be the Chick-fil-A of. That's true and it's a standard I try to live up to as well here. Congratulations. It's a heck of a community. I know you went, and I did as well, at five and I'm pretty sure we shook hands. That's a heck of a community and if you want to learn more about it, first step is to read that book. I highly encourage everybody to take advantage of Vince's very generous offer. All right, man. So when not talking about real estate, you did talk about France, so we'll assume that's part of this.

Vince Gethings:

What do you like to do. Right now I got my kids into dirt bikes. We try to do that when we can. All my kids play travel soccer, so that pretty much consumes everything out to the very thin margins of the calendar. If anybody listening has ever played any kind of travel sport, or their kids have a commitment there. I am a private pilot and now that I'm in Texas I've been here for about a year, so I'm looking to possibly get back into that, get another plane and just cruise around in the sky. That's my happy place is somewhere around five 6,000 feet just cruising. Get back into that, hopefully here, maybe this summer, wow.

Ed Mathews:

That's great. And then if somebody wants to learn more about you or Tri-City or any of your other companies, what's the best way to do that?

Vince Gethings:

For me, I'm on all the social media so you can reach out to me, connect with me on social medias. I'm usually the only Vince Gethings or Vincent Gethings on all the channels. You can email me, vince@ willfulprofits. com If you want to learn anything more about that. Tricityequitygroup. com is our group, but if you want to see what we're doing down here in DFW as far as the acquisitions, excellent.

Ed Mathews:

Vince Gethings. Thank you so much for joining us today. We did go a little bit long, so by the time we get through the editing process, it's going to be a two-part, but it's time well spent and you are a wealth of information. Thank you very much.

Vince Gethings:

Thank you so much for having me.

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