Deal Junkie Diaries: Michael Pouliot Talks Strategy for 2026 and Beyond

In this episode, Ed welcomes Michael Pouliot of Carbon Real Estate Investments, a vertically integrated private equity firm operating workforce housing apartments across the Southeast. 

Pouliot explains Carbon’s buy box: 100–300 unit, older vintage (1970s–1990s) properties in strong school districts and stable submarkets, targeting families and raising rents about 20% through substantial CapEx that prioritizes deferred maintenance alongside unit upgrades. 

They talk about navigating Sunbelt challenges like insurance and taxes by avoiding high-risk areas, staying conservative in underwriting, and emphasizing strong entry pricing. Pouliot shares a bullish view that the next 12–18 months are a strong buying window as the market works through distress, debt maturities, and oversupply absorption, with more constructive sentiment and capital expected around 2027–2028. 

He outlines Carbon’s strategy for 2026: keep buying with fixed-rate, low-leverage debt, hold long-term, and offer investor liquidity via recapitalizations rather than selling assets. 

The conversation also covers regional scaling for operational efficiency, selective adoption of AI tools (voice/chat agents, SOP knowledge bases, automation) to augment staff, and Pouliot's perspective on purpose, mentorship, lifestyle trade-offs versus Wall Street, and how he defines success. Pouliot closes by directing viewers to investwithcarbon.com for Carbon’s weekly newsletter and content.

00:00 Cycle Outlook 2027-2028

00:11 Show Intro and Mission

00:52 Welcome and Subscribe

01:42 Meet Carbon Real Estate

02:44 Insurance and Tax Headwinds

05:07 Buy Box and Resident Avatar

07:01 Why Stable Markets Win

08:34 Distress Deals and Assumable Debt

12:29 Oversupply and Absorption Math

14:58 Strategy for 2026

18:41 Vertical Integration and CapEx

20:32 Tech and AI in Property Ops

14:23 AI Ops Automation

23:28 Human Touch Investing

24:31 Real Estate Tech Lag

25:19 Deal Junkie Purpose

26:23 Paranoia Prevents Errors

28:26 Wall Street What Ifs

33:38 Learning Diet Books

35:56 Defining Success Seasons

38:19 Life Outside Real Estate

41:05 Where To Follow Carbon

This week's book: How Countries Go Broke by Ray Dalio

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Transcript

Michael Pouliot: 0:00

I think 27, 28 is where we'll start to see people become more constructive. More and more money will come in and we'll sort of be in the, you know the end of the first third of the cycle, I would say, you know, if that makes sense.

Ed Mathews: 0:13

If you're within three feet of me, we're probably talking about real estate, much to my family chagrin. But here's the thing, most people see 7% rates in freeze. I see opportunity. They're waiting for the perfect deal and well, I've vandalized thousands of them and perfect just doesn't exist. So I talk to operators across every asset class, flippers, multifamily, syndicators, note investors, and whatever else is working. No sales pitches allowed, just real lessons from people actually doing it. I'm Ed Matthews, and this is Real Estate Underground. Greetings and salutations real estate underground. It is Ed Mathews once again with the Real Estate Underground. Thank you so much for making us a part of your day. As always, keep those comments coming. It does help us figure out kinda where your heads are at and what types of assets you're interested in learning about. You know, historically we've been a multifamily show, but lately we've been bringing in some really. Interesting other assets asset classes that is. And so you know, keep that information coming. And, you know, I found out something that's very interesting. Just over 60% of the people that listen to our show. Don't actually subscribe. And so while you're sitting here, if you could think about it, if you could hit follow or subscribe depending on the platform I would be grateful.'cause it certainly helps us grow and help other people learn about this space as well. So with that Michael Polio is here, he is with. Carbon real estate investments and I am really excited. We were just very briefly talking about the 12 step program that each one of us went through as we left our corporate jobs. And so I think we've determined that Michael is probably. If he ever had to go back, he could probably do it. Me. I am unemployable. So what are you gonna do? Michael, welcome to the show.

Michael Pouliot: 2:07

Oh, thanks so much for having me. I'm looking forward to this conversation.

Speaker 2: 2:09

Likewise a pleasure. So, so for those folks who don't know much about Carbon, why don't you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you guys do for a living?

Michael Pouliot: 2:17

Sure. Yeah. So carbon I've got a partner, Cody Littlewood and myself, and we run Carbon Real Estate and we are a vertically integrated private equity real estate company. And we operate assets throughout the southeast, primarily workforce housing, apartment complexes, hundred to 300 units that sort of thing. And we're vertically integrated, so we run our own properties. We do our own construction contract services, manage them raise the capital, find the deals, the whole nine yards.

Speaker 2: 2:43

Right on. And, and so with that, you know, obviously it can be very challenging and, you know, these past few years in particular, especially with properties down in the, in the Sunbelt have been a bit challenging both from a well on the Texas side taxation and on the Florida, Georgia, Carolina side insurance. And so, you know, I'm curious about. The assets that you are currently managing and, and how are you managing that whole you know, big challenge?'cause I, you know, so far you know, I was hoping that it would start to ease up. I think it's starting to, but I'm curious how you've navigated that over the last few years.

Michael Pouliot: 3:23

Yeah. So, you know, I think buying real estate has a lot to do with entry price and valuation, and really trying to think about what your basis looks like and, and then how you finance it on top of that, you know? Right. So I think a lot of what you're talking about is, you know, ex operating expense growth. Some of that you can deal with in your initial projections. Sometimes you just can't project for, you know, an increased number of hurricanes. Right. So what we try to do is, you know, we're, we're not exposed to a lot of of to South Florida. You know, we try to mitigate that by just not looking in those areas. When we, when we look in Florida, we're looking at I four North over the panhandle and through the Space Coast. Okay. So we do have some coastal properties as defined by insurance, which would be a hundred miles through the coast. But nothing that is, you know, you can't see the ocean. For many of our properties. That's for sure. You didn't even

Speaker 2: 4:12

smell it for

Michael Pouliot: 4:12

God's sakes. Miles away. Are you kidding? Yeah. But the insurance, you know, the, the insurance folks a hundred miles is coastal from their perspective. So even if you're, you know, yeah. 30, 40, 50 miles away, that seems like an hour. You know, if you were in the middle of New Jersey, you'd be coastal to some extent. Right. Yeah, we, we try to manage it in that way and just try to be as conservative as we can as it relates to insurance and taxes, and just keep on top of some of these trends by talking to our insurance folks and our tax attorneys. And just have a really good understanding of what the taxing authority is gonna do, has done historically, you know. Sure. Who's, who's the man in charge, and then on the insurance side, there's a lot of like, there's a lot of noise, and then there's what's going on in the insurance market, the reinsurance market, and then you just sort of have to keep an eye on, on what's going on and do our, do our very best to be conservative.

Speaker 2: 4:58

Yeah. And I, I think the, the point you made at the beginning of that was probably one of the most important, which was you buy'em really well. Yeah. Yeah.

Michael Pouliot: 5:06

And,

Speaker 2: 5:07

and so I'm curious about your buy box. Mm-hmm. You mentioned 100 to 300 units but what are you looking for in particular? How do you, you know, how do you come across a property and go, Hmm, okay, this one smells like a deal.

Michael Pouliot: 5:22

Yeah. So obviously we have kind of two different stakeholders. We have our investors and we have our, our residents. And so when we think about residents, we're, we think, well, what is the ideal avatar for us to live in our communities? And we're looking for primarily families who are making somewhere in the median income area. You know, probably in our areas it's gonna be 50 to$80,000 incomes. There are renters by necessity, they're. Necessarily in today's market, you're gonna be able to afford to buy a property. At least in the areas that we're looking at. We're looking for very good schools and strong house values. So that typically a a a, a submarket that looks good to us would be if you use great schools.com, we wanna see eights, nines, and tens. Yeah. From district perspective, we wanna see 80 to a hundred thousand dollars income and a$300,000 house. And then we wanna be looking at assets that are typically older, seventies, eighties, nineties, vintage. With a buck to a buck 20 rents. And then we want to bring those up about 20%. So it, and, and that typically means that we're buying an asset that's at the very, very bottom, so far as rents per square foot, bringing it up to about the top third while increasing and improving the hard product to, you know, top 10% quality. For its, you know, comp set. So that's pretty much what we're looking for.'cause we want families,'cause they tend to stay longer, they tend to take better care of the property, they tend to pay. And so that means, you know, we're mostly looking for two and three bedroom unit, you know, properties, larger square footage, good amenities, good access to employment and commerce and, and all the other things I already mentioned.

Speaker 2: 6:50

So, you know, the usual suspects in terms of you know, the poverty levels are, are above norm or below norm, right? You know, employment rates are above national averages, things like that, right?

Michael Pouliot: 7:01

Yeah. Yeah. We don't necessarily need to be, you know, gangbusters on pop population growth or migration. Think. A lot of people have gotten burned there. Seeing, you know strong population, assuming that's gonna lead to price appreciation and then dealing with oversupply risk in some of these markets. And so we're, you know, I would be much happier with sort of a, I wanna see, you know, flat or better. I wanna see average in the US or better, but I don't necessarily need to be in the top 10% so far as growth in that specific submarket. I'm telling you that's too much a headline risk for us. We want to be in a little bit more of a steady Eddie area. I

Speaker 2: 7:34

couldn't agree with you more. I, I am a big fan of stable.

Michael Pouliot: 7:38

Yeah,

Speaker 2: 7:38

right. I mean, I live in the northeast, I live in Connecticut and similar market in that you know, our, our peaks and valleys are nowhere near as, as extreme as you know, say the folks you know elsewhere in the us when, you know, 2008 came around, yeah. I mean, it, it hurt, but we didn't see the, the cratering that. You know, on any level on residential or commercial properties that that office kind of took it in the teeth, but and still ha and still has yet to recover. But I think that's a universal issue. But the but generally stable is a good thing, right? Especially when you, you know, you tie it to a a diverse employee or employer. Base, right? Where, you know, no one owns more than 10, 15% of the entire employee base, you know, in terms of sectors, right?

Michael Pouliot: 8:30

Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Yeah, we're definitely looking for good diversification on that.

Speaker 2: 8:34

Yeah. Right on. So, so in terms of the market what are you seeing out there? It's you know, inventory is a challenge.

Michael Pouliot: 8:43

Yeah, yeah. You know, we're, we're not trying to buy 20 properties a year. We, we have been of the mind that now is the time to be a buyer when everyone else has been a little bit. I mean, people are buying property, but it is you know, on the margin harder and harder to raise capital, invest investor sentiment is I think you know weak or a little bearish, certainly compared to when things were very strong, or at least when prices were high, right? So it seems, you know, that's a normal investor behavior. You know, when prices are high. People think they'll go higher when prices are low, they, you know, think they'll go lower. But it's, it's typically the opposite. And so we believe that now in the last 12 months and the next 12 to 18 months will continue to be really strong times to buy assets in real estate in multifamily specifically. And I think that's proving out and, and, and in real estate. Especially a liquid off, you know, a liquid real estate. You're not, you know, this isn't a public reit. You know, we're just working through a lot of distress still. So, like, there's just assets that need to trade. They need to change hands. Equity groups have to take their, you know, their licks. Debt holders have to take their licks and we're just not quite. All the way there. In a lot of cases, some of the easier inventory has moved. But there are some tougher deals that have fallen well below their debt balances and they're, you know, they can't sell, the lender's not ready to take a haircut, no one wants to say anything about what things were worth. So I think we still have another 12 to 18 months to work through some of that inventory plus the oversupply in some of these other markets. So I'm looking, you know, 20 27, 20 28, I think that market's gonna start to move rapidly up. And, and we may see some. Tailwinds coming in in 26 from Federal Reserve and other, other macro factors. So I'm bullish. And I wanna buy. Bye bye bye.

Speaker 2: 10:23

No, I'm I, I am, I am far from bearish on this market. It's it, it's just the, I continue to still have the same conversation, so we buy in the northeast, right? Mm-hmm. Continue to have the same conversations around sellers, just haven't gotten their head around the fact that the world changed. Sure. And so a lot of it is, you know, it's the same conversation I'm sure you have. Hey, I am happy to pay your 2022. Price point if you give me 20, 22 terms. Sure. And'cause they don't exist in the banking space, so we gotta work that out between us. Sure, yeah. Yeah. And yeah.

Michael Pouliot: 10:59

Yes. So far as

Speaker 2: 11:00

some don't.

Michael Pouliot: 11:01

Yeah. On the, on the supply side. Yeah. If you're not a forced seller, you're probably not moving your property today. So no one's, I, I mean, I think there's some folks that we've been looking at deals that, you know, maybe they last traded in the mid 2000 tens. Yeah. And, you know, they're okay. They, they're gonna clear their basis and then some they'll do a, you know, well, on the exit.

Speaker 2: 11:19

Yeah.

Michael Pouliot: 11:19

But anyone who bought in 20, you know, 20. 2020, depends on when we were in the. In 2020, how optimistic that person was. But certainly 20 21, 20 22 vintage deals. You know, I haven't seen a single one of them that is trading today, that's trading above their basis. So they're all taking hits either on the equity and in some cases on the debt. And those are the stories. Those are the deals that we're looking at. So we're typically seeing if there's inventory, it's a story like that. A 20 21, 20 22 vintage or it's a 2015 vintage where they just wanna sell. It's been 10 years. When it's a 21 or 22, it's gonna be usually your debt maturity is a problem. You have a cap that you don't want to have to go back to your investors on. There's some sort of capital call potential. You can't refinance. You bought it a three and a half cap at the wrong time. And and then outside of that, we're, we're also looking for assumptions. So if we can, if we can get that three, three and a half percent rate that they got we love that. And we've been able to get a few deals done. Not as many as maybe we would like to get, but enough to feel like we're, we're getting exposure to this vintage of 2025. And and, and we wanna buy, you know another three or four assets next year as well.

Speaker 2: 12:28

Yeah. So I'm also curious about what you're seeing in your markets in terms of development coming online. You know, huge amount. Like I was looking in the Carolinas and I know that that was a place that was getting built up substantially. And I'm curious if you're seeing the similar things in your markets and, and how is. How's the adoption game playing out?

Michael Pouliot: 12:51

Yeah, so I generally I think that we're seeing peak deliveries have already passed us. And so we're really just dealing with absorption at this point, which is just math. And so we've got, you know, in the areas where there is oversupply, there is plenty of migration. So that that inventory is gonna get soap sopped up. It's maybe taken another 12 months to get there. Maybe 18 months. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 13:13

Yeah.

Michael Pouliot: 13:13

So it's now for folks that have a long-term horizon, 10 year horizon, they're willing to take it on the chin for a couple years and maybe not experience a lot of organic rent growth, but they can get in a great valuation. I'm seeing a lot of groups I talk to on the equity side say, Hey, I am not a buyer in. X city, you know, Huntsville or, you know Austin or, you know, whatever, doesn't matter. I won't keep you know, saying bad things about the bad good places. But you know, those are areas that have had great you know, demographic trends the last 10 years. They're oversupplied now. They've had weak rent growth over the last 12 months, but. Those are all backward looking you know, stats. So when I look forward, I still see strong migration trends that's going to lead to strong rent growth in the future. And a lot of builders are just not gonna be willing. They're licking their rooms. They're not necessarily willing to get the shovels in the ground again. And so supply is gonna be on the downside. So far as a risk, there's gonna be undersupply and occupancy's gonna go up and, and rents are gonna become more competitive in those areas now. We, I think. We're not really looking for those high beta plays. So I consider that to be kind of like a high beta play where there's a lot of volatility. So we're trying to stay in those secondary and tertiary markets, so not northern Atlanta, but maybe at, you know, Georgia X Atlanta. So like the coastal areas. You know, we might be looking at Augusta, Savannah those types of places. Where, where we think we can get better yield, better valuation, and maybe a little bit of a smoother ride. Yeah. While still getting exposure to the overall, you know, migration trends in the state.

Speaker 2: 14:42

Sure. Okay. Smart, smart. The old Walmart play Go where they ain't right.

Michael Pouliot: 14:46

Nah, there we go. Well, and with Walmart, I think go, go where Walmart is Probably not a bad idea either. Yeah,

Speaker 2: 14:51

probably not. Probably not. Yeah. Avoid where Starbucks is going and, and look at look at where Walmart's still playing along.

Michael Pouliot: 14:58

There you go.

Speaker 2: 14:58

So, so in terms of the, you know, market, the, the mantra. Even a year ago was survived to 25. Right. And 25 came and now we're, you know, closing in on, on Q4. I guess right now we're in Q4 and, see how far I am removed from corporate America. Sure. And so the you know, I'm curious about when you say 27, 28, and that's a long way off in terms of, you know, this business that moves at, you know, a pretty fast pace. So I, I'm curious about, you know, going into 26, what's the strategy, what's the plan?

Michael Pouliot: 16:06

Yeah, so I, I think 27, 28 is where we'll start to see people become more constructive. More and more money will come in and we'll sort of be in the, you know the end of the first third of the cycle, I would say, you know, if that makes sense. Okay. I think right now we're still very early stage. We're kind of like in that 2000 13, 14, 15 area where you can buy at a good price, but maybe equity's not ready to play yet. They're still feeling the last cycle. Yeah. And that's, especially, I think it's true across institutional and retail investors. Yeah. But so, so. Specifically to your question, 2026. We're continuing to be buyers of property. We're really not sellers of property. We're really looking to continue to buy and hold that property for as long as as possible. When investors want liquidity, we would recap them or offer them an opportunity to get out, but not necessarily get rid of the asset. So we're, you know, which is why we're so focused on location. We wanna be in really great locations. You know, like I had said earlier, so continuing to buy you know, three, four assets all fixed rate debt, low leverage type of deals, we bring our cash or CapEx in cash. We're typically doing some sort of physical improvement to the property. Given that we're o typically buying older properties, there's typically a, a good amount of deferred maintenance. It's typically about half of our CapEx schedule is. Plumbing, electrical, you know, roofing foundation erosion, landscaping, amenities the units are you know, then the other half. But right. But yeah, that's, that's typically like

Speaker 2: 17:31

shaker cabinets and countertops and all that good stuff. Right. But

Michael Pouliot: 17:34

yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, we're, that's definitely the, the playbook I think has, has, it can work. I think we found that as the, as obviously the, I guess the consumer sentiment changes. People don't necessarily always want to pay an extra$150 for, you know, nicer cabinets. Maybe that's a luxury they don't need. Maybe those older, you know, grainy, you know, wood cabinets are just fine. If they could save$3,000 a year. Versus, you know, their health insurance premiums are going up or their kids got, you know, all this expensive braces or whatever. So, you know, as, as the, as people have to pinch more pennies, we find that the tastes change. And so right now we're, we're, it's still active, depends on the market, but we're definitely seeing on average more people are looking for a little bit of just a nicer amenities nice area. They'll maybe take a little bit of a sacrifice on the. How you know, the, the, the, the brand new washer dryer for 75 bucks, you know, maybe that's not worth it in today's market, but that, that changes every 12 months. So that's, that's, that's the middle

Speaker 2: 18:33

market. Yeah. Clean and safe, right? Yeah, I mean, it's a cycle, right? You go through and you determine what the neighborhood and the market will bear, right? And what they're, what they're actually looking for. You know, it's the same, it's the same conversation I've been having with. You know, folks in, in this area, peers you know, in terms of, and it ranges from folks at rehab houses all the way through apartment investors. And that is, you gotta know your market and you gotta know what your, your avatar, you know, your perfect customer, what they, what they really care about. Mm-hmm.

Michael Pouliot: 19:09

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 19:10

Yeah. And, and so, you know, in terms of the, the, the properties themselves, you mentioned that you're, you're vertically integrated, so you're managing these properties you're doing the construction. And, but you know, geographically you're, you're fairly spread out, right? If, if, you know, if we're looking north of I four all the way to the handle it, you know, that's, that's not a short distance. So I'm curious about how you're managing that, you know, in terms of your team.

Michael Pouliot: 19:38

Yeah, so we try to have regional concentration and build scale in those areas. So you know, I think of the Birmingham or really Alabama more broadly as kind of one area. The the Panhandle is another, the Space Coast as another and then we have some assets in southern Georgia. And that kind of connects well with the, the Space Coast area. Sure. Not as much as looking at a map. Or if you're not looking at a map, you're like, oh, that seems like a far distance, but pretty darn close. You know, and so at least for the, from a regional from a regional manager perspective, we wanna make sure that a regional can get to any property within two to four hours. Right. Okay. In their area. So, and then, so we have that Georgia exposure, the Florida exposure, and then the Alabama exposure. We don't have any current assets in the Cal Carolinas, so that's not a concern, but that is really a. Big focus for us. We, you know, we really wanna make sure that we can get at least to about a thousand units, maybe a little bit less in each one of these areas. That allows our team to be most efficient. We can share resources, drive a lower operating expenses, and carry some of the extra staff that we want to have a, a floating pm a regional construction manager. When we have these additional resources beyond just the site teams something you can't necessarily always. Get if you are you know, using third party management we're able to resource our properties much better, especially with that scale.

Speaker 2: 20:59

Makes sense. Makes sense. So I'm curious about, you know, so former and actually current techie guy. Right. You know, I'm curious about how technology figures into, you know, I mean, you've, you come from a, a, an extremely mature technology background in terms of, you know, the banking industry and, and how they operate and how they use tech as a force multiplier. I'm curious how that experience. And this whole you know tsunami of artificial intelligence capabilities how that's affecting your business in terms of where you are today, but more importantly, kind of where you're planning on going down the road.

Michael Pouliot: 21:40

Yeah, sure. So we use a lot of different technology. I think, I think real estate and property management is still, there are a lot of tools out there, but I think larger apartment owners, you know, the adoption rate is not necessarily on the front end of the curve. We're not, we're not ready to be first necessarily on anything. And so we're happy to kind of yeah be, be last, if anything. So, so that being said, we do use some different types of AI depending on how you look at it. So we're using some tools for voice agents and chat based agents to help with leasing with r and m. Everything that we do is, you know, digital so far as rent payments and things like that. I don't think that's anything new, but I think that so far as if you think about the new AI. Stuff. We're talking about chat agents and voice-based agents to help facilitate or augment the existing staff. We're not seeing really opportunities to reduce staff. If anything, it just allows'em to focus more on maybe higher value sales based, you know, face-to-face, belly to belly sales versus having to follow up with rents or collections. Those things can be automated to a large extent, and then exceptions can be brought to humans. And so. Really think about our managers or our people on site as dealing with the things that only humans can deal with. And and that may just be like even walking around the property to see if there's any trash, right? We don't quite have a robot walking around yet. So,

Speaker 2: 23:01

not

Michael Pouliot: 23:01

yet. Not yet. It's available, right. We're just not it's not a CapEx expense we're willing to take on right now to

Speaker 2: 23:07

Right.

Michael Pouliot: 23:07

So so there's that. And then I guess internally as a company you know, we also are using certain, you know customized I guess they rag agents. So just chat based agents that integrate into our knowledge base as a company. So our leasing agent can pull SOPs or ask questions from a central ai and get answers to those questions, those checklists, those SOPs. And then we can also make sure that those checklists and those SOPs are being followed. And if they're not we can escalate those situations. Or if they're not being followed fast enough and things like that. You can get a lot more. A lot of the middle management metrics, dashboards, and things like that can be automated or using ai is a really good use of it right now.

Speaker 2: 23:48

Yeah, I'm seeing the same. I'm seeing the same trends. Yeah. I don't see people losing their jobs. I see people having to do the busy work less. Right. And so I, I'm always espousing tech as a, you know, force multiplier, right? And it's not a matter of, you know, from a, from a technology perspective, like in our own business, I mean, we, we use similar things, right? We're, we're using voice agents to, to follow up on leads and, and to catch phone calls that would normally go to voicemail. And, you know, automation in terms of how we communicate with residents and, and other potential people. But when an investor calls, that's me on the phone, that's not that's not our ai. Right. And not yet.

Michael Pouliot: 24:32

Not yet. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 24:33

I, I don't think ever if someone wants to trust you with a, you know, a check for a hundred thousand dollars or more, I think. They deserve to get me, or you sure?

Michael Pouliot: 24:42

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 24:42

Yeah. Fair enough. Yeah. They earned that. Yeah. And but you know, if somebody has a, a leaky pipe at two o'clock in the morning it's okay that an AI picks that up and es and knows what to do with it and escalate it. Right. You know, blood flood or fire, my phone rings anyway, so

Michael Pouliot: 24:59

Sure.

Speaker 2: 24:59

Like yours does. And so it's interesting, you know, how I, I agree that real estate is a late adopter would be a gross understatement in terms of the, the amount of, how quickly our peers embrace new technologies. Some do, but most of'em are, you know, like I, I still come across building owners that have a written ledger for their, their rental collections. Mm-hmm. To this day, in fact, within the last 30 days I was evaluating a property and I said, can you talk me, can you walk me through your last, you know, trailing 12 months? Hold out a book. Like, are you serious? And it's, but you know, it's interesting, so, all right. Hey, let's get into the final five and and then we will you know, we can talk about about your business and all that. So I'm always curious about purpose, right? And, and what I mean, how I define that. Is what gets you outta bed on Monday morning, right? I mean, at this point, you know, you and your partners and your investors, you own, you know, several thousand units and so. You know, you're doing pretty well, right? So it's not about money anymore, it's about something else. And I'm curious what that thing is that gets you outta bed on Monday and gets you, you know, driving to the office to slay those dragons.

Michael Pouliot: 26:20

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I guess, you know, I would say I'm kind of a deal junkie and so you know, that it's, I don't think it's ever really been about the money per se. I think the money is, yeah. Certainly how you keep score, but the but it was really just about you know, getting deals done and, and working through complex situations and problems. And that's with what's curious, you know, interesting. And what keeps me getting up every day. Yeah. You know, and, and coming to the office. And so yeah, I think I would say just I'm a deal junkie and I love to look at deals, talk about deals and work out problems, whatever those look like.

Speaker 2: 26:50

You, sir. Speaking my language. So I'm also interested in the mentors you've had along the way and, you know, given the disparity of your career, right? In terms of the types of businesses you've been in. I'm sure you've rubbed, rubbed elbows with a whole bunch of very impressive and different, you know. People from different perspectives, right? Mm-hmm. And so I'm curious about the best advice you've ever gotten and who gave it to you. Please say Jamie Diamond.

Michael Pouliot: 27:16

I was gonna, I was thinking yeah. Closely now about Jamie Diamond. But then I decided I wasn't gonna go against it. But now I've said that's, but yeah, no. So I'll, I'll take one though from, I don't know if it's the best advice that I've ever received, but it's, I think a pretty darn, a pretty darn good advice. I had a managing director when I was at JP Morgan. And she had come from the, and she was an insurance portfolio manager prior to coming over to JP Morgan and, we were on the fixed income desk, and I was managing portfolios for their private bank clients. Mostly in fixed income, mostly small endowments and foundations. And so you know, loss of principle, that's the biggest concern. Right? Right. They, they have funding and spending needs, so her advice was. You know you know, as an analyst or as someone in your early career, you should just have intense levels of paranoia around your work product. And you know, I didn't really appreciate that at the time, but it's really served me well right, to just make sure that, hey, just take another look at something before it goes out. You never want to be in a situation where you know, something goes in front of a client and there's an error. You know, at, at least in the group that we were in, in investment management, there was sort of a two strike rule, first strike where if a client saw an error in materials or in a presentation that you were responsible for, if it was your draft, that strike one. You'll definitely get a sit down you know, by yourself with your manager. Strike two. That's it. You're out, you know, like two behind the air. Thanks for playing. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. You'll never get hired there again. So so, you know, paranoia was good'cause you only had, you know, one, one extra strike before you were gonna get let go. So yeah.

Speaker 2: 28:47

Yeah. And you know, it, it, I would submit that was one strike.'cause who wants that sort of dam least hanging over their head, right?

Michael Pouliot: 28:53

Sure. Yeah, that's true. That's

Speaker 2: 28:54

true. Right. Okay, so speaking of mistakes you know, I think, I think we learn a lot from the, from our missteps and, you know, and so I'm, I think far more than from our successes, and so I'm curious about. You know, looking back on your career real estate or otherwise you know, what's a decision that you look back on and go, oh, I wish I had that one back. And what'd you do about it?

Michael Pouliot: 29:17

Hmm. My career? Yeah. So it's interesting. I don't know that I would say that it was that I would go back and change it, but I think one of the big It's okay. Decisions in my career was moving from, you know, a Wall Street, you know, kind of life and that train, you know,'cause that train was, I know that train was leading, you know, I know what that looked like. I knew what the income was gonna be. I knew what the hours were gonna be. Working as a portfolio manager in New York for JP Morgan at that time when I started my career, that was the dream. Right? That was the, that was the whole thing I was going for. Right. And that seemed really set. You know, I, maybe that's not the right, so that seemed very attractive at that time to go into, onto Wall Street. It was before the technology. I feel like then software engineering became the thing to do. But, you know, when I graduated in 2011 you know, it was, it was still, finance was still sort of the, one of the things to do still is. And yeah, it still is. So and, and at that time. You know, the decision was okay, either we're gonna move into New York and I'm going to, you know, I'm a and I'm gonna go into the office right at 7:00 AM for a morning meeting done at five o'clock, which is a pretty good schedule. And you know, get into that seven figures for income, but a lot of taxes and, you know, high. Burden of living or, or not. And so we decided on not, and I moved into financial consulting and started the real estate career and then yada, yada, yada. Here we are 10 years later and you know, we, we set, I set my own schedule. I work you know, I would say not necessarily. Only when I want. I think that's a little bit overstated. You know, I sometimes I have to work a day that maybe I don't necessarily wanna work. I have investors and a lot of stakeholders that have to, that are expecting me to perform. Right. But but yeah, there's a, you know, sort of a tale of two, two cities there. You could go either way. You know, if I. Still in Wall Street, you know, at this point I'd probably be, you know, with a very impressive title, doing very impressive things. But maybe maybe I wouldn't have as nice of a home life or maybe I wouldn't have as much flexibility or maybe I'd have less hair or, you know, I don't know. You know,

Speaker 2: 31:14

Casemaker, you know,

Michael Pouliot: 31:15

the whole thing. All sorts of things. Right. Right,

Speaker 2: 31:17

right.

Michael Pouliot: 31:17

So, so I think that there's, it's always interesting to look back and try to think about like, oh, you know, the what ifs, you know, what if I could on this path or not. But ultimately I'm really happy with, you know the lifestyle that we've been able to create that that's been afforded through real estate largely, and entrepreneurship.

Speaker 2: 31:32

You know, it's interesting. I was talking with a friend of mine and, and he was asking if I had, if I missed, you know, my old jobs. And, and I was like, you know, here's the thing with me. So I have two daughters 20 now 22, and 13 and 18, and I can't believe it. And you know, you only get 18 summers with those kids. Mm-hmm. And so, and you only get so much time with, you know, your significant other. Mm-hmm. And so it's it's, you know, that's the thing that this afforded me was, was the ability to, hey, if Maggie has a softball game or Katie has a swim meet or a teacher, parent teacher conference, I can be there and I don't have to get on the phone with somebody and ask permission. I just go, yeah. Which is a wonderful thing.

Michael Pouliot: 32:16

Yeah. I've got a. Oh, we have four children and they're all under 10. So and one, one of them is three months old, so God

Speaker 2: 32:23

bless.

Michael Pouliot: 32:24

You know, just, yeah, just being able to, yeah, do all the things that you described, but just on for much smaller people is all, is all true. And one of the reasons why it's, you know it's a blessing, you know, to have the flexibility, even if it means everything's on your shoulders. And, and maybe I'm working probably longer hours potentially than if I was in banking and there's never a. I can ever take a two week vacation where I you know, in, in banking you had to take two week vacations to for money laundering purposes. Like they wanted to make sure you weren't at least in, when you were touching the money, they would want you to leave for two weeks straight.'cause it was very hard to like keep a fraud going. If you were outta the office for two weeks and you couldn't log in, you couldn't use your, you know your phone. I don't think I've gone two weeks. Without working since that I left my last job.

Speaker 2: 33:08

No way.

Michael Pouliot: 33:09

And I could probably make it go down to four days, you know, I could, I could bring that two weeks down pretty, pretty differently. So but, but in, in return, if I wanna take off, you know, a Wednesday afternoon or a Friday or whatever, I can do that. I don't have to worry about calling in sick and my boss giving me flack about, oh, well, you know, that's your second sick day of the year, or something like that. Right. So. Now I haven't taken a sick day in like six years, but that's not there.

Speaker 2: 33:34

Sick day. What's that?

Michael Pouliot: 33:35

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 33:36

There's such thing.

Michael Pouliot: 33:37

Working home. Working home,

Speaker 2: 33:39

right. Yeah. I'll be working from my dining room table is what that means.

Michael Pouliot: 33:41

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2: 33:42

Yeah, I mean, I'm taking my daughter to her, she's a softball player and she's, she's got an official visit this weekend and so it's my job to drop her off. Friday at noon to go see the college and meet the coach and, you know, do what they're gonna do and can't wait. It's awesome. Good for her. Absolutely. But then she's terrified that I'm gonna come in. I was like, no, no, no, just, I'm just dropping you. This is your thing. But anyway so I'm also curious about how you take in information, how you sharpen the saw. And so you know, what is that book on your either virtual or, or physical nightstand and who are you paying attention to?

Michael Pouliot: 34:21

Yeah, so I would say I'm actually pulling up my Audible account right now'cause I think I do the same thought. It's cool to like look at this. So before I get into books, I would say you know, I listen to a lot of podcasts. I don't have a large, I don't have a long commute and sometimes I'm on my bike. Getting to work, so I can't really listen

Speaker 2: 34:36

yeah.

Michael Pouliot: 34:36

To anything a little dangerous. So, but I, I really like founders podcast. Yeah, that's a really big positive. And then everything that he mentions, then I can go read all these biographies. So a lot of founders that I, you know, discovered or, or maybe knew about them as being founders'cause I've heard of their companies and I've heard of that, but I didn't know a lot about their background. So I think that's a great a great podcast for folks that wanna learn more about, how to be successful as a founder or as a business person. Yeah. Maybe not necessarily as a, he, like a whole person, but certainly in their businesses make choices are very effective. Yeah. And then so far as books, I would say, if I was to look at the last, let's see. So Think and Grow Rich is right there. I definitely, you know, come back and to that one a lot. How Countries Go Broke. So that's a Ray Dalio book I thought. Elon Musk is one of the more recent biographies that I have read, why Nations Fail the price of inequality, history of the United States Capital in the 21st century, and then the Higgs boon and beyond. Just to get off topic, get off topic a little bit on that. And then yeah, so mostly in like history biography the House of Morgan is a one shoe dog. Another great one Phil Knight that's

Speaker 2: 35:43

acquired reading.

Michael Pouliot: 35:44

And then creature of from Jekyll Island something like you know, the Federal Reserve, there's the history of the Federal Reserves in there. The Go-Giver is a great one. Trump the art of the deal. Gotta know your enemy. Yep. Within 10 X Rule. And buffet, you know, just a lot of stuff like that. So history, biographies and then the odd business book, but a lot of the business books just repeat on that. The kind of like the, the Core 10 business books that we've all already read, so,

Speaker 2: 36:10

right.

Michael Pouliot: 36:11

It's very rare that there's like a new new piece of information in there.

Speaker 2: 36:14

Yeah. I, I, I feel the same. I, you know, I, I read some of these new books that are coming out and I'm like, I read this in the nineties, you know, I, yeah,

Michael Pouliot: 36:24

yeah,

Speaker 2: 36:24

yeah. Right. Okay. So I'm also curious about I success, right. And'cause people define their, their, that term very differently across the board. Mm-hmm. So I'm curious how you define success in your life. Mm-hmm.

Michael Pouliot: 36:41

Well, I think, you know, yeah, like, I think you had just mentioned, we all make choices and decisions about what we're gonna do and how we're gonna spend our time. So I think as long as I can live in alignment with whatever those decisions and goals are, and I can achieve those goals, then I'm doing what I, you know, then I, what I should be doing. And that changes all the time. So, sure. Every year every season is a little bit different. You know, right now I have a, you know, someone in the house, it sounds sleeping through the night. Actually several, some someones who aren't sleeping the night. So you know, I'm, I'm not getting probably the exercise in that I would like to, I, I've prior to having as many children as I have I would do a lot of endurance racing, triathlons. You know, I just don't have the extra 15 hours a week to train right now. You do not, it, not spelling. Now, if I have extra 15 hours, it's going to sleep right now, and I don't have it anyway. So but that'll change over the next few months. You know, the, that, you know. Kids will start to sleep and then I'll never go back to that again and never have an infant again. So you know, then I'll be able to swim and bike and run and fly around in a planes and do all the things I wanna do. Right now I'm limited by the choices that I've made, but I've made those choices willingly with my eyes open, and I love the choices that I've made. So, from my perspective, I'm living a, you know, a full life of success, even though I see all my friends, not all my friends, but a lot of people in my generation, maybe not having as many children, maybe have no children. Maybe they're flying around to the Maldives all the time. You know, because they don't have a lot of responsibilities. But, you know I've done a lot of traveling and, and it's always nice to come home, so, yeah.

Speaker 2: 38:08

Yeah. I have a, an, an uncle who he, he and his wife decided never not to have kids. So, and he and I have gotten to be very close over the last, you know, 50 something years. And he once asked me, he said, you know what you know, what kind of hobbies do you have? You know, he's, he's a boater. He, he, he restores classic Shelbys, you know, cars and, and I'm like, you see those two little girls running in the backyard? Those are my hobbies. That's all I do. Right? Yeah. I work, play with them. I sleep.

Michael Pouliot: 38:37

Yeah. It starts over again.

Speaker 2: 38:39

It starts and rinse and repeat, right? That's right. And you know, I'm not off the hook for another, at least four years, so get'em off the payroll and then we'll talk. Yeah. But yeah. So so when you're not talking, I have a feeling where we're gonna go with this, but when you're not talking about real estate, what do you like to do?

Michael Pouliot: 38:55

Yeah. So, yeah. Right. That's yeah. Short term. Long term. Short term. What I like to do is, yeah, if I, I'm either you know, with, with doing childcare responsibilities, right? Work responsibilities or personal hygiene of sleep, right. Would be like, right. Right. If I can get a good shower in, you know, I love that, you know, brush your teeth, that's a win. Right. That's do what I can do. Right, right. Just getting out the house in the morning with all the kids, their lunches, everyone gets to school on time. I'm already winning the day I'm up at five, you know, but that's not necessarily I've also, I was also up at five and four and three. Right. So but when I move away from this period, yeah. I, I do enjoy like, endurance racing and just like intense levels of. Intense amount of long exercise, especially swimming, I find really organizing and it's really great for, you know, creative thinking. So I always try to bring my even though I don't, you can't bring your phone into the pool, it's where I can write notes down. So there's always an opportunity in a swim. It's like, oh. I just thought of something great, but if I didn't write it down right, then by the end of the swim it's gone.

Speaker 2: 39:54

Right.

Michael Pouliot: 39:54

So and that's the case for, you know, if I'm running swimming, biking or, you know, hiking. And I live in Boulder, Colorado, so there's definitely a lot of opportunity for outdoorsy type things. Certainly that would be my main, main hobbies outside. And then I always try to make a priority to do a date with my wife every week. Even, you know, when we have young kids

Speaker 2: 40:12

well played. Yeah. It's, it's that's, that's really important.

Michael Pouliot: 40:16

Yeah, it wasn least prioritized but yeah, definitely relationship needs you know monitoring and, and watering and nurturing and if you can just. I know it doesn't sound as romantic, but if, if you can just schedule a, a weekly day date or a night date or once a week, just make it a priority, same time, same place. Even if it's just, you know, somewhere local, it's not a big deal restaurant. Just getting that hour or a couple hours is really important.

Speaker 2: 40:42

I'll tell you man, even

Michael Pouliot: 40:43

if you want, if that's important to you, right?

Speaker 2: 40:44

Right.

Michael Pouliot: 40:45

If not getting divorced and having a healthy relationship is important to you. Then, then, then

Speaker 2: 40:50

so be it. But yeah, I, I mean, even walking bleary-eyed into the local Applebee's is a good thing, right? It's just mm-hmm.

Michael Pouliot: 40:57

Absolutely.

Speaker 2: 40:57

Okay. Just to check in. Yeah. You know, it's interesting, a friend of mine who has three kids, not four had had told me years ago, my, so we, obviously we have our two, and, and he was asking if we were considering, you know, having a third, and, and I was like and he said, look, when you go from playing man to man to zone defense. It changes everything.'cause at some point, the oldest one figures out they have you outnumbered and then they scatter and your life changes. So I wish you luck. Yeah. And I'm sure it's wonderful and, you know, it's, it's gotta be, it's literally the best thing that as a father it's literally the best thing you'll ever do. But so I wish you well on that. So if people wanna learn more about you or carbon or anything else that you're doing, what's the best way to do that?

Michael Pouliot: 41:43

Thanks for asking. So we put out a newsletter every week. Just gives a kind of updates on what's going on in the market in commercial real estate, as well as anything else that's going on in our world as a company as well as any deals or opportunities we might have. So they can just go to invest with carbon.com and they'll go right there. They can sign up for their, the newsletter, and we have a, we have a podcast that we run daily as well as interview based and so. Lots of content and opportunity for free resources to learn more.

Speaker 2: 42:11

Excellent. Michael Polio, thank you so much for joining us. It was a pleasure talking with you and

Michael Pouliot: 42:16

continued success. Yeah, thank you. You as well. I appreciate you having me on.