Tyler Cauble: From Broker to Nashville Real Estate Mogul

In this latest episode of "The Gould Mine," Tyler Cauble, a seasoned commercial real estate investor, shares valuable insights from his sales background to his success in real estate investing and development. He highlights the effectiveness of traditional sales methods and modern digital platforms in sourcing deals. Tyler's primary focus is in boutique hotels and flexible commercial spaces, emphasizing hands-on management and local market investments.

He offers strategic advice for new investors, discussing the importance of understanding market dynamics and the potential of various real estate classes. Tyler also touches on high-return investment strategies and how to pick a strategy that's right for you. His experience provides a roadmap for anyone interested in the evolving landscape of commercial real estate investing.

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Transcript

•  What's up gold biters. In today's episode I have the privilege of interviewing Tyler Cauble. This guy is all over YouTube and he is a very Savvy commercial real estate. Investor owns over 2 million square feet in Nashville and Chattanooga Tennessee and in today's episode we cover a wide array of topics. We start off by talking about the types of commercial real estate classes that Tyler is bullish on in 2024 and Beyond we then switch into the opportunities that Tyler is currently seeing in the boutique Hotel sector and why he favors Boutique Hotel investing over investing in short-term rentals in Airbnb and finally for those investors who are just getting started in the real estate investing Journey. He goes into the strategies that you can use to accelerate your growth in the real estate investing game lots of gold nuggets in this one for both Savvy investors and newbie investors alike so without further Ado everyone. Let's welcome to the show Tyler Cobble Tyler welcome to the gold mine Danny excited to be here man thanks for having me yeah man you know I've been like. I said earlier is I've been following you for some time. Now on on YouTube. I respect the hustle that you're putting in there and you know when I see a guy like you obviously like you didn't like instantly know right that you were going to be in real estate. So what was that like aha moment for you like what was that impetus that kind of got you started and and Rowing in that in that direction yeah I mean I I dropped out of uh out of college right. After High School uh CU I got into into sales so yeah I did really well in sales. That summer made about $30,000 and when I was sitting in my freshman year of college taking courses. I'd already taken before. Uh. Just started daydreaming about how much money I could be making if I wasn't in school anymore. So you know that number was about $120,000 a year. So once I realized that I dropped out and I ended up getting a job offer from a boutique development firm here in town that I I had sold to in that previous job and uh started started off as the in-house leasing agent working on filling up their vacancies and office. Retail and Industrial assets that they owned and two years into it put together my first development deal and you know four and a half years into it left and started my own firm. So we've been Off to the Races ever since that's awesome man do you and I don't know how often you get this question on podcast. So. I'm I'm I'm hoping that I I kind of unearth. Some some new unexplored territory here do you feel like your sales. Background has helped you in your investing Journey no absolutely it has I mean look there's so many different paths into commercial real estate. I think that that's one of the beautiful things about it. It doesn't matter if you're an engineer an accountant an architect a contractor whatever there's a way for you to get into real estate and in real estate development but being in sales made it very easy for me because one you know starting off in The Brokerage front I went out and built relationships with investors developers. Business owners I saw how the process was handled start to finish from the leasing perspective which is very beneficial as a real estate investor. You want to know exactly how you're going to fill these spaces right and having that background in sales. I had no problem going out and knocking on doors talking to people conveying the message that I wanted to convey and so I think that's uh critical to have it's a skill set that really benefits you as a real estate investor in any capacity yeah. That's um I feel the same way and and given that you have that background. You also obviously had a a peak into the acquisition side right like how how could we go about like sourcing these deals so why don't we. Why don't we talk about how you're currently sourcing deals and and what you did at the beginning to Source them and have those methodologies evolved and changed over time yeah. So for the most part. It's still the same today you know I've got a brokerage team of Five Guys now that go out and they're not going to indoors and making cold calls and making those connections. So that's where a large amount of our deal flow comes from is through those efforts uh which is what I used to do when I was a broker and you know. The the only thing that's really changed is that you know since 20 2017. When I really got into Instagram. I started getting some deals through that platform and then in 2020 started the podcast and the YouTube channel and now I get probably more deals through YouTube than anything else which has been a very unexpected. But nice um. You know outcome there. So it's uh. It's just a lot of door- knocking and you know look you can find good deals on loopnet every now and then I mean everybody likes to talk trash about it. But there are good deals on there occasionally if you know how to look at things differently than what everybody else is looking at them for but uh yeah.
•  I mean it's you know. It's there's no secret to it right. Like that's the funny thing about sales in general and Commercial Real Estate. There's no you're not going to find some undiscovered method that somebody else hasn't already found. It's. It's you know blocking and tackling making the phone calls knocking on doors and building relationships yeah. It's it. It is ultimately a context Sport and that makes sense so you're primarily focused in on investing like right in your backyard yeah. So you're you're in Tennessee correct me if I'm wrong right and then you've also got. The majority of your portfolio. Tied up into um are tied up in that in that same area so what advantages do you think because there's some investors that kind to invest out of state and all that good stuff and myself included in that so what advantages do you see to to owning uh most of your your assets uh in your own backyard and and or is that just a coincidence like that that happen yeah. I mean we operate a little bit differently than most I mean I wanted to build businesses around what we're doing right. So I've got a commercial real estate. Brokerage. I've got a commercial property management company and I've got a development firm. So my team is actively Hands-On every deal that we do if you're not planning on doing that then yeah go invest wherever you want. But there's a lot of synergy that we get from being able to to pass it off from one team to the next throughout the entire process and you know I think On Any Given deal. We can make money in seven to 12 different ways. So I don't have to go do deal after deal after deal to just buy stuff to make money. We can continue to work on the same deal put more effort into it and be likely more profitable. So it's a win-win for us and our investors. Now you know. The the majority of my assets are within a 10-minute radius of my office and I've sold off a lot of the other stuff in Nashville that doesn't check that box. I just found that I didn't really want to go out of my way to drive past those assets which meant that I'm probably not going to put as much effort into them as some of the other things that we own. So we ended up selling those pretty much anything in East Nashville and Madison U which are both you know 10 to 15 minutes outside of downtown Nashville. Uh we're we'll keep those for the long term. If we can we own some Assets in Chattanooga as well. I really like that market yeah um and then I'm I'm a uh minority partner on a deal up in Milwaukee Wisconsin so you know we will certainly go across the country um but that one's that one's a little bit unique I'm more of an adviser to the general partnership on that deal gotcha okay cool selfish question here because I'm looking at a portfolio in Memphis. It's in this are you familiar with the Memphis Market at all. Unfortunately yeah okay uh oh. I'm looking at a a portfolio in the uh in the south wind area of Memphis. Uh thumbs up thumbs down uh I mean look I I stay very far away from Memphis Yeah it's a it's a really rough Market. It's it's got you know there's been political corruption there for 40 years which has ruined the city used to be way bigger and and way more prosperous than Nashville and that is completely reversed um. You know I I read a statistic. It's probably 5 years ago. So I don't know if. It's still true today but you know Tennessee is in like the top 10 states in the in the country in terms of crime. If you remove Memphis. It's in the bottom 10. So you know there's a lot of a lot of people that will come to you about Memphis. They'll say oh yeah but you could buy this at a 10 15 20% cap rate yeah and it sounds good but that you still have to go out and collect the rents right just because something seems like. It's a really good C rate doesn't mean it's actually going to be a viable deal yeah. So you know we we've tried to get into the Memphis Market. We would probably consider it for industrial assets. They have a very good Logistics Hub there because of FedEx but anything on the residential front. The multif family front office uh and and likely even most retail cases. We would stay away yeah that makes a lot of sense and and by the way you're not the first person that has echoed those same kind of like thoughts. So I I always like to hear hear from people that are in the in the thick of it. We had been kind of going back and forth on that thing for a while and we actually pulled out recently but now the opportunity to go back in has kind of come up. But uh I appreciate the Insight I really do um yeah. It could be titing because the prices are so low but you you know if you're going to do. It just make sure that you bake in the risk into the purchase price on the front end. Yeah. No makes makes a lot of sense it does make a lot of sense and I imagine that you know on the hotel side of things too. A one of the things we always think about is like hey how um what is the the the candidate pool. What is the like what is the the employee pool here in this area and then you know can we find good employees in this area and and and rely on them and so it is. It is one of those things where you're like kind of like judging each market based off of certain things you're not just looking at it on the hotel side from like hey like is. This just is cash flow good. Like is are we getting like is it a good asset. It's also like can we fill the business side of it you know and uh and that that that's it's hard you know it really is um because every Market presents its own challenges um so it's it's interesting anyway. Switching gears you talk a lot about I know that you're like invested in boutique hotels which I definitely want to talk about uh. But I also know that recently you've talked a lot about Flex space and and the fact that you're super bullish on it. So what is it about Flex space that has you bullish on it for uh for 2024 and Beyond. Yeah I mean I've I've been bullish on Flex space for five. Plus years. I mean you know even back when I was a broker I was telling developers. I mean if you can build any sort of flex space. You're going to fill it up yeah probably before we even deliver it and you know there. There's there's many reasons for that I mean one you know a lot of industrial developers have not been building that over the last 10 years they've been building distribution and warehousing and you know that's with the rise of e-commerce. Of course you know you could build a 10,000 foot. Warehouse you could build 100,000 feet which one are you going to do if there's a tenant signed up you're going to go with 100,000 ft. The other thing is a lot of flex spaces has historically been located adjacent to the urban core so downtown areas that you know aren't really as nice and now that we have this you know Urban revitalization. A lot of people are moving into downtown areas and so there is going to be a higher and better use for that existing Flex space why have a 10,000 foot. You know single story Flex building when you could do 20 stories of multif family so a lot of it's getting torn down but a lot of these Professional Services businesses still need space. They still have to go somewhere so there's a lot of demand and not a lot of inventory and that is a very good recipe for a strong investment for anyone who's sitting at home right now and is wondering what the heck is flex. Space can you elaborator define what Flex space means yeah. It's just a smaller warehouse space with some office in it right. So you may have 10 to 20% of the space being office the rest bang Warehouse. Typically they've got 14 to 16t ceilings in the warehouse. Uh with you know some rollup doors. You could drive trucks into it or unload and uh load up. You know packaged Goods or you know you know some sort of materials um. So think you know the local plumber right who's who may have a secretary in the office. They need a place to you know ship and receive and then they've got a bunch of storage right for all their supplies. But it could also you know you also release to pickle ball courts. You could release to podcast Studios. It could go to some sort of startup.
•  I mean there's so many uses for this space. That's why it's called Flex space flexible space. Yeah makes makes sense and actually like a lot of the um a lot of the CrossFit Gyms that I go to are technically FX spacer. The high high ceilings and everything so that's awesome what um what trends aside from Flex. Space tell what what trends are you seeing in in the commercial real estate sector right now like heading into 2024 and what what has you like excited yeah I mean this is nothing new but I love micro units doesn't matter if it's micro. Apartments micro retail micro office. You know those are all doing really well right now. I mean we did. A micro office deal in 2020 delivered it two months before the pandemic hit and we signed 17 leases uh through August and sold it in October. Despite everybody saying office was dead. It's just not it. It depends on what office sector you're at we converted a six Bay Car Wash into five micro restaurants at a bar. I had six leases signed two weeks after announcing it. We hadn't even started on the project yet so that's very popular. I like industrial outdoor storage you know Self Storage has been a big craze over the last couple years. In my opinion. It's getting a little overheated and prices don't make sense and Industrial outdoor storage is essentially a covered land playay. You buy the land you put a fence around it. You put some lights and security cameras up and a gate and you rent out parking spaces. You know I mean that that's about as easy as it gets. I mean I'm sitting in my office right. Now 28,000 foot three-story building. We've got more parking uh on this site than we actually need so. I just rented 17 spaces to a vehicle rental company. They're all Teslas really nice. Now. I'm getting paid you know $100 a spot um to park that here. So uh it's very easy and you know typically with those you want to buy in the path of growth and likely in industrial areas. You'll you'll easily pick up some tennis for that um. And I think you know I mean I'm staying away from multi family. I haven't uh enjoyed that market for the last five years. I don't understand why yeah people are paying the cap rates that they're paying doesn't make a lot of sense I'd be buying up hotels right now if you could get the financing. It's really really tough today. But there are very good market dynamics for hotels especially in areas like Nashville Austin Raleigh Charlotte Denver markets like that where people want to go um and then of course always your neighborhood commercial space right. It doesn't matter if it's office retail whatever anything that's situated within a neighborhood that's smaller maybe. It's a three tenant strip center. You know those those will always do strong because they're in the uh the neighborhoods with with within which these people live. So. It's all the conveniences that people want to stop in and use that's actually a really uh interesting Insight I hadn't really thought about like there's like they're so off the on right like everyone thinks like uh retail Center. They think like these like big Mass like Hotel like all these things but like yeah what about like the like the the mini Mark and like the dry cleaners and the whatever right. And it's this little thing that's interesting that you say that that um that those are good and and when you say that too like you're you're you're talking about specifically um buying those and then renting or like leasing out those those spaces correctly that that's what you're referring to that's right. I mean you know everybody has this perception that commercial real estate has to be something really big. I mean you know my my main office I mean this is our studio but my main office is 1,200 square F feet. It's a stand inone building right on a corner in East Nashville right. I've got a building down the street that's 2200 square feet single tenant retail building. You know I love little projects like that you can get them for under a million dollars and you could still get all of the benefits of commercial real estate. You can sign a year lease with a tant or a 10year lease and you know put it on a triple debt basis and not have to worry about finding the next tiet. For a while.
•  You mentioned hotels is one of the you know assuming you can secure the financing which by the way I would agree that that is definitely difficult in in in today's market. But let's explore that because I know that you've you've broken into the like Boutique Hotel sector. What are the opportunities that you see right now in the space. Let's elaborate on that a little bit further I mean I think just you know Unique Boutique Hotel experiences I don't think that flagged hotels is really the way to go. Even the the major corporations are trying to figure out how to make their hotels more Boutique so you know Marriott Hilton and some of these other brands are coming out with more of the boutique style hotels we acquiring other ones but uh you know I mean like in Nashville for for instance the the boutique hotels that are here. They're all vertical right. They're all in you know five six story plus towers and they're closer to downtown so our Boutique Hotel is sits on 2 and a half ACR 8 minutes outside of downtown Nashville and all the units are walkup units. So it's a very different experience. We're really leaning into the amount of land and we want to create a true Nashville experience a lot of these hotels you know to me don't make sense. I mean they they try and say that they're Nashville by putting a picture of Dolly on the wall and slapping up a guitar and saying you welcome to Nashville and you know yeah that's a part of Nashville. But I grew up here and that's not 100% of what the city is. So we're really trying to Mel. Like a Palm Spring meets Southern Hospitality Vibe with that boutique hotel and you know there's a lot of really cool things you can do with those just create a unique experience that that people want to you know stay at and um get really good at marketing yeah. That's that's interesting and by the way like that's always been my overall investment. Thesis with hotels is I think in the in the long term. The hotels that are really going to win out are the ones that can provide that unique experience to the to the to the guest because you know the the novelty is is what really drives uh the uh. The response in my opinion sounds like you share the same opinion which is great. It's it's cool to hear someone else. Like sharing that same sentiment I mean I don't get me wrong. I think that there's going to be like there's going to be a time and place for like your branded hotels and and um and I would say that right now like over the next 12 24 months. Like is a great time to buy uh branded stuff from institutional investors at a discount you know and there's there's lots of opportunities to do that right now and uh and that's definitely like what I'm focused on for the next 12 24 months. But I think the opportunity in the boutique sector isn't going away anytime. Soon. I think that this is like a decade long opportunity truly because the the average I don't know Tyler if you know the exact statistic like I saw this online the other day. So I don't know if you have like if you have any insight on this. But there's a a large amount of the boutique hotels like and by Boutique everyone we're talking about like non-branded hotels in the United States. Something like 60 70 or like something to like 60 70% are owned by Baby Boomers over the age of like 65 or something like that and so like the they're all. These are all people that are coming into retirement and they're uh and they're looking to exit right. And uh so I think that there's a lot of opportunity in that sector like over the next decade um to pick up these properties and and even you know. Maybe do a little bit of seller financing how did you finance at hotel. Tyler did you did you get creative with it or did. You did you uh get a traditional loan just to curious on how you did that we didn't get creative with it. We just paid cash for the land and we got a construction loan on it which was the easiest thing for us to do. But yeah I mean I agree. I mean look Airbnb has changed the way that people want to travel but now a lot of airbnbs. There. There's too many of them. They all look the exact same and they all have a crazy amount of hidden fees to them that nobody wants to pay and you know. Boutique hotels are a great alternative option to that um you know I was having a conversation with a buddy yesterday or two days ago talking about his Airbnb that he has in Florida and you know wondering what he could be doing to to Brand it or you know to increase occupancy. I was like man you gota you got to come up with a brand for it. Even if it's just a four bedroom Airbnb. You've got to come up with some sort of brand lean into a theme figure out who your. Target demographic is and cater as much as you can to them everybody else. That's not necessarily your. Target demographic might still book there but you're going to capture more of the market that is ideal the ideal consumer for you and you know. I went to a uh a presentation a few years back. It was one of the original guys at Airbnb who was the the hotelier that was there and you know he was talking about how when he would do boutique hotels in California he would go pick a magazine and he would base his Target demographic off the Target demographic of that magazine. So he did a a Surf hotel in California and and got a surf magazine and just flipped through it and was like okay what are all the things that this you know. Target demographic likes what do. They consume how do they think because those magazines they already have a lot of that demographic information and they're trying to cater exactly to that market. So I just thought that that way was it was such a brilliant approach um to figuring out who your Target demographic is um so don't reinvent the wheel you know. Somebody else is already out there. Doing it just figure out how you can kind of ride that wave is that uh chip Conley the guy that CH yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah really awesome awesome inspiring story for anyone that wants to get into hotels. You should you should Google that guy um really cool story yeah interesting so and by the way like the Airbnb I actually want to explore that a little bit further there seems to be like Airbnb fatigue right um for for lack of a better word and I do agree with you that you know boutique hotels kind of offer The Best of Both Worlds. It is the the novelty or the experience that you can get in Airbnb but with the reliability and the service right of and the lack of hidden fees in in hotels right so that it's really like the a marriage of like Best of Both Worlds. Prior to this hotel Tyler what kind of did you have any sort of like did you have other hotels or was this like the first one that you that you open and so we'll just start there. No this is the first one that we're going to open so we're we haven't finished construction. Yet we should be starting that in q1 nice okay cool by the way next time I'm in Nashville. I will uh hit you up because I would love to stay there um. But it's um so to piggyback off of that. The natural question that comes to my mind is awesome like how how are you going to fill the hotel like what are you going to do like what what are you doing to get heads and beds a b the back. You know the backend system because a lot of a lot of these guys. The reason that they go with. The brands is because they already provide you with the operating system right and and a lot of brand loyalty and so it's almost like a plug-and-play kind of situation so. I'm curious as to like what your strategy is around that both on the the marketing side of things and then like the the backend operating system side of things yeah. I mean we're handling all The Branding and a lot of the marketing ourselves. So I mean. It's easy stuff right. I mean that's basically what I do for a living already. So it's it's going to be a lot of you know videos photos getting it. You know articles written about it. Those kinds of fun things influencer marketing of course uh but then on the on the other side. I mean we we retained a a thirdparty property management company um Hotel Boutique Hotel manager. They they manage about. I don't know close to 80 or 90 boutique hotels across the country and so they've already got all the backend systems. I mean I didn't want to reinvent the wheel starting out on my first hotel and I mean you're you're right. It's a big concern moving into that. So we'll have it on Airbnb. We'll have it on all of the hotel websites. We'll have our own website and then we're going to start in. Once guests stay with us get them into our ecosystem to have them start booking direct okay. I see that's awesome and how many uh how many rooms 48 nice nice. That's dude that sounds awesome dude like I'm I'm like ground up. Bo hotel that's gonna be fun. It's gonna be fun yeah well. It's actually a a complete gut renovation. It's an old roadside Motel. The motel buildings were built in the 50s and 60s but there's an historic building directly in the middle that was built in 1856 and uh it was actually used as a hospital during the Civil War. So we're going to turn that into kind of our Bar Lounge you know retail hangout area. We'll have a pool outside and then uh just renovating all the rooms in place. That's awesome man. That's super cool yeah. I can't wait to come check it out um. I actually haven't been to Nashville in a while but I'd love to get out there because it's uh I mean. It's Nashville. Dude come on yeah fun much fun. It's so much fun. So go I want to go back actually to the multif family thing because I I've you're not the first person that I've talked to. First investor that I've talked to that's gotten a little bit of like that multi family. Uh fatigue if you will like did you ever invest in multif family or like was that something that you like never really touched no. I mean we built some ground up multif family at the development firm that I was with before I left uh. We did 144 unit apartment complex down in brenwood but no it's it's not something I've ever really been all that interested in I mean coming from a brokerage perspective. I I don't understand how the deals work. I mean not that I don't understand the actual mechanics of how you can make money on multif family. I just don't see how they make money today. Um you know if you look at multi family. Over the last 10 years the the model has been buy it rehab it. Raise. Rents flip it to the next guy and we're to four Cycles into that right. So every unit has been upgraded multiple times the buildings have been upgraded multiple times. Rents have been pushed to kind of where they can go. People were trying to squeeze yield with with the lowest cap rates you've seen in multif family and there's no value to be added.
•  So I have no interest in buying a 4% cap rate property and just sitting there and collecting you know whatever the difference between that and my debt is which is probably going to be negative. So yeah you know it. They don't make sense to me yeah. I mean I I agree it's uh. It's like some of these deals that I'm and by the way like I'm in California and you know being in Nashville. Now. I'm sure that the the cap rate compression is is pretty serious over there as well. But like when you look at the cap rats here. I'm oh my God like what is going on like how how does anyone like buy something at a two cap like that do like what are you doing you know it makes it makes no sense man. I mean I remember I was at a mastermind probably back in 2017 give or take yeah and ran into some guys that invest in multi family in LA and they were like even back. Then. They were buying things on a 2% cap rate and I I didn't understand how they made it work. I mean it's a uh you know they get in. There they they try and raise rents a little bit and hope the cap rates hold and then they flip it. In a few years it makes no sense well. The cap rates barely made sense before but now with the debt Market where it is right now. It's just like they don't like now. It's just like you're upside like you're you're bleeding money every single month. So how like how are you overcoming that like how are you you know overcome like the the current challenges that the debt Market's presenting we're just not buying. I mean we have a specific yield that we have to get on every deal that we do and if I can't get that yield I'm not buying it. I mean to me. It's. It's it's not worth. It right. I mean it's it's a lot of work. It's a lot of risk. There's a lot of debt and I have to answer to my investors and at the end of the day I'm not I'm not going to get out of bed to go to work for 6 to 8% returns. It's not worth it. You know investors might as well just invest in the stock market. You know we're aiming for 18 to 22% IRS with about a 20% annualized cash on cash and and if I can't hit that I'd rather just keep you know let everybody keep their cash and we'll wait until prices come down or debt comes down either one and or just wait for the right deal. You know something will pop up and uh we'll we'll jump on it. But I mean right. Now you know next year we're looking at industrial. I mean probably ground up Flex. We can hit those returns there uh doing some single family residential construction. You know. It's. It's not nearly as sexy as commercial real estate. But I mean I've built out a model to where we can make1 to $150,000 in profit per house. So why wouldn't we do that you know yeah that makes uh that makes sense so. Let's talk about those return. Those returns that you're talking about before 18 to 22% IR are you factoring in exit into that and um so are you factoring in exit into that and how long are your typical hold times because you did mention like hey. These there are some markets where we're going to hold forever so I'm assuming that there's some sort of like return of capital at some point as well. So what does that structure typically look like for you. And I know that every deal is different right but like generally yeah. I mean our our Target's five years. Uh pretty pretty average. Target you know we've had a couple of deals that we've sold that were under two years but that's that's very rare. It's not our plan um. You know five years is pretty good. Some of these could get pushed seven but in five years either we're selling or I'm going to refinance and buy everybody out it just depends on the asset. Some investors want to stay and you know roll the dice with me for as long as I want to and then some investors prefer to get that velocity of capital. They want their cash back so they can go put it into another deal and keep it rolling um so it. It just depends on the deal what are you because you've done like quite a few groundup developments for the ones that you're coming into the asset and it's you're either doing some sort of like value ad repositioning like whatever what strategies are you typically using to force that appreciation and get those uh you know get those rents up like what what strategies have you used in the past to to to add value to your your properties. Yeah I mean the easiest thing is to just renovate it and fill it up with tenants right because then you're going from buying at a price per square foot basis to selling on a cap rate basis so you know for example that micro office unit deal that we did um. I bought it on a per square foot basis. We paid $81. A square foot was $980,000. We put about $230,000 into it so let's call. It 1.2 million total signed 17 leases and we sold it for a million 650 and 16 months. So not a massive return but a pretty good return pretty quick um and that's that's the power of forcing appreciation through signing good leases yeah that um yeah because at that point right it's just a plug andplay. You did all the hard work right and then now someone's just coming in there and recognizing the uh the the the cash flow so Tyler your your YouTube channel Switching gears here. A little bit is awesome and there's some like there's a lot of yeah. There's a of course man like um you've built it. I'm curious. Like you know there's there's a few of us on YouTube and everything but like you yours stood out to me for a couple of reasons number one. I could tell that like you do do it you do invest either you or your team invests a lot of time into like the science aspect of it so like I know that you guys are like working hard to really do like Leverage. The the algorithm part of it to to get your content out. But the question always comes up for me is like hey like why like why do the content right like what what is the end goal and sounds like you're getting deal flow from it which was kind of like an unexpected right um return on that on that investment. But like I'm also is like what what inspired you to create it in the first place yeah so great question. I mean there's a couple different reasons one what I was first getting started in commercial real estate. Back in 2013. There were very few resources. There were a few books that I was able to find on Amazon. There were two podcasts one which had you know stopped recording so I ran through those episodes quick and zero YouTube videos right and then you know also starting out. I mean I was at a boutique development firm as a broker. Nobody else at any of the other brokerage firms wanted to take me under their wing right because I'm just competition and I'm not working for them. So you know I had to grind it out and learn everything and so I always thought you know man. It'd be so nice you know. As soon as I know anything to start you know teaching other people how to do this. So around 2016 2017 I started teaching at the Real Estate Investors of Nashville. You know and hosting these events on on how to invest in commercial real estate started blogging a lot and and you know kind of teaching people. How to do it really picked that up during the pandemic cuz I went from having you know 99% of my time out of office to 100% of time in office by myself with no deals going on. So I was writing. You know three to five blogs a week on how to invest in commercial real estate and that started taking off the traffic to my website skyrocketed and then I started thinking to myself. I mean these are basically scripts for YouTube videos so nobody else is doing it on YouTube. Let's just go do that and that's kind of how we got started um. You know during the pandemic with nothing else to do and you know here. We are I mean over 400 videos. Later. We're by far the most uh I guess. We have the most videos out there on YouTube.
•  I'm not the biggest commercial real estate Channel we're close the other guy's like 10. He's been on for 10 years. What longer than I have um so I mean it's fun I I just I enjoy teaching it. You know I'm talking to vanderbelt right now about coming into teaching a course on Commercial Real Estate with them which is pretty exciting but um yeah. It was more to just start kind of sharing the knowledge with other people that were trying to get started. Just like I had and then it became you know oh hey. We're we're getting some calls you know people want to invest with me. People want to use our brokerage um to to help them buy commercial real estate and you know we did a bunch of stuff on trip net investing well that open us up to you know handling transactions across the country. So we weren't limited to Nashville anymore and uh and also like selfishly it is the best way to learn I mean you know this having your own podcast. If you want to learn something get some big name on your show that you know you want to learn from. I mean you get to just ask them whatever questions you want and so you know I started thinking like what else can I do well. We started an investors's Roundtable uh live stream on YouTube that we do every two weeks. So I brought in three you know badass Real Estate Investors that I just wanted to spend an hour with every couple of weeks and ask questions. I was like well. We should just record that send it out. There did the same thing with Brokers. I've got three Brokers from across the the across North America. Really two of them are in Canada. Then we just trade you know War Stories and secrets. It's it's a lot of fun. So it's uh. It's a great way to learn yeah. I mean like especially on that last part. It's it's interesting because when you um I mean and obiously you've grown and led an organization. Now so what I what I told my my agents when I was growing in in uh and leading my my my real estate team. You know from just myself to like 35 agents. I I realized like in that growth when I was teaching all of my agents like that's when I learned the most you know and and being able to teach reinforces that knowledge so man that is a gold nugget right. There man um that is that is clutch and I think for anyone you know asking themselves well like I don't really have enough experience or anything to like you know start my Channel or whatever like you're never going to. It's never going to be enough experience just like FYI right because there's always going to be someone on YouTube that has more than you um so. I think the point is to to uh just get it out there and uh and eventually the the content will take take its own for over time but well awesome that and that and you know you have your own unique view. You have your own unique way of talking about things you know I mean I I am not a fan at all of build to rent communities and you know big firms like Black Rock and these other groups. Hedge funds private Equity firms going out and buying up hundreds if not thousands of single family homes. I talk about that all the time on my podcast and a lot of people resonate with that. So you know you have your own unique perspective that you can share and people will gravitate to it. So don't be afraid to share that 100% on that same topic. You know someone who's like getting into I not YouTube but just like real estate investing in general. Like we're both Fair like we're still fairly young dude like I I see when you like assuming that you graduated uh or like we in school. We were in school around the same time so like we're like early 30s yeah. So we're still yeah so yeah 32. So we're you look at this new wave of of kid. I don't know how these kids do it by the way like I get 18-year-olds sometimes coming to me. And I'm like dude like how do like what are you saying right now like you're talking at such a high level for someone who's new and they're watching this video and they're like a teen or like early 20s and they don't have that experience necessarily. What what advice would you give to someone who wants to kind of break break into the the commercial real estate investing game. I mean find an investor or developer that's doing exactly what you want to do and find a way to go work for them for free and be the guy that brings them coffee. You know whatever takes and and just be in that environment and learn from them you know I mean I I was I was fortunate enough to have a sales background. So it was a very easy shoe in for me to go into commercial real estate brokerage but because I was doing that at a boutique development firm I got to sit in on all the development meetings every week and learn how they put those deals together. And I don't know that I would be where I am today without that. It's it was very valuable and you know when I first got started too. I mean I was I was waiting tables on weekends and working in construction. You know doing anything I could to make money cuz. You don't make money your first few years in brokerage. It's it just doesn't happen and uh I made it work and so I I think that you know that's the best advice I could give is just find somebody and go shatter them as much as you possibly can because there's just a lot of Industry knowledge. There's a seep learning curve that you've got to overcome before you can really be effective and and start wanting to um. You know partner up with people or you know get paid to work with them and it's and it's tough in this industry because the train is so intense it takes a lot of somebody's time and we're all running 100 miles an hour. So it's it's really tough to slow down and you know bring an 18-year-old in and train them up on everything that you need them to do and just kind of let them run off and do their own thing so make it easy make it easy on the person. You want to go work with yeah. That's uh s and by the way like sometimes those things end up manifesting and or like turning into something way more than just uh that I had a girl that came to me kind of similar situation. She was like Hey I want to work for you like in turn. It's my summer and I have nothing better like I want to just like be around and then eventually like she went back to school. But we kept her on as like a part-time marketing contractor like she was she was awesome you know like it was. It was like a really um. It was a really awesome thing but like it started with her just like hitting me up and being like hey can I just like whatever like what do you need me to do right and I was like oh well. I talk to so and so and they'll tell you and she quickly became super valuable so what um mean. It's all about the relationships. It's all about relationships. I mean you know guys that I was. I was you know trying to kick down their door to just get four lease listings from you know five years ago are now partners with me on development deals and it's because I came in built. The relationship proved that I knew what I was doing that I brought value to the table and and over time learn more from them and you know. In some cases I I know more about different aspects of the business than they do so. So. They there's a valuable partnership there to be had with them. So it's uh. It's pretty cool to see kind of you know where it's it's come from. But that was over five years. Right. I mean I I feel like a lot of people today think that they're just going to get into this and they're going to immediately be worth 50% of a deal without bringing any money to the table or no experience or or you know any relationships and man I had I got 10% equity. In my first deal. I did all the work I went out and found it put it under contract pitched it to the you my partner. But he put up all the money he sighed on the debt and he said you're going to run this project and that's all I did for the next two years. I didn't make any money out of it. But I got 10% and it was the best experience I ever had and I would do those kinds of deals all day yeah 100 perc. That's um that's what what you just said right now is like everyone should be taking notes because if you're if you're looking to break into it like hey you find the deal you will get a piece of it right. Uh how much of it kind of depends on what you said to like how what what kind of Capital do you have and and what relationships do you have and experience but 10% on the first deal is is not bad. You know what Fe like what what are you seeing right now like future of commercial real estate.
•  Tyler I know that we kind of talked about it but like what trends do you foresee kind of coming up in like the next five years yeah. I mean look you know debts the biggest question mark right. Now we don't know where it's going to go. It seems like this week it's falling but you know next week. It could go back up who knows so. It's it's all a factor of debt and because at the end of the day it's a it's a you know debt cap rate. Arbitrage is really what commercial real estate is. So I think it depends on how the markets go but look commercial real estate's been around for hundreds if not thousands of years. It's always done well. It'll continue to do well. I don't really care what kind of technological innovations come forward. There's always going to be a need for some sort of commercial space so just make sure that you're buying in a good area and you're catering to strong credit tenants. I think that it doesn't matter which asset class you're at I I'm still I wouldn't say I'm quite bullish on office space right now. But I'm not bearish by any means I mean. I think that office space is going to do just fine. It's just changing and evolving. Everything else is changed look at how industrial has changed over the last 10 years look at how retail has changed over the last 10 years mult. If family. I mean look at all the amenities and the way that people are approaching those developments office hasn't changed since 1980. It needs to it's got to update and come you know modernized for the way that we work today. That's all that's happening. I uh could not agree more and just a piggyback on that thought on the on the Deb Market side. Vegas is really important because there is like there is no crystal ball that's telling us that we will for sure see lower rates in like the next five years. I mean I think we'd all like to see that but like there's no guarantee and so anyone that's like factoring in like a refinance in year three year. Four year five because rates are going to magically come down and like that your underwriting kind of depends on that or or the the the exit that you're that you're planning for is relying on that like that's a bad strategy. It's a really bad strategy because we don't know 100%. It is yeah. It's a really bad strategy. I mean hope hope is not an investment strategy. That's a that's a good one man that's a good one I P P backing off to that one. One of my uh really good friends. Alana had her on podcast a while ago. Uh she has she has another great one she's got. It's called real estate investing not real estate promises you know so same same kind of like yeah. Yeah hope is not investing strategy. I love it man well listen. I want to be respectful of your time uh so before we we wrap up here if the you know because I know that you've got some some some programs that you're that you're uh currently uh working on for for people that want to get into the space. So if people want to get in touch with you want to know more about uh how they could potentially work with you where could they find you online yeah. Just look me up on Instagram Tyler Cobble. It's it's commercial in Nashville but it should pop up if you just search my name um you know if you want to get a bunch of free education on Commercial Real Estate go to YouTube. It's also at Toler Cobble and if you want to check out the courses we've got uh a crash course on Investing For Beginners. I've got the complete guide to investing in commercial real estate which is a really in-depth course. Some one-on-one coaching and we're looking at kind of building out a commercial real estate and doing a whole bunch of courses so those will be coming out. Soon uh. You can find those at Tyler cob.com. That's awesome man and all of those links by the way will be in the podcast description below.
•  So uh go check those out everyone and and uh and give Tyler a shoot Tyler a follow well Tyler I want to thank for your time. In this has been awesome uh some really cool Synergy. Here I'm looking forward to going out to Nashville and and hopefully meeting you in person here pretty soon but in typical Gold Mine fashion. Let's leave the the uh. The listeners today with one final gold nugget just get out there and do it. There's no magic to it. I love that man just do it just do it all right that's it feel like that's like a Nike like swoosh drop drop the swosh in there just do it baby hey. Tyler man thank you so much for your time and and it was great having you on lots of knowledge dropped on this one so uh appreciate your time brother. Thank you Daddy appreciate you having me on man all right man.