The Most Dwanderful Real Estate Podcast Ever!

Joel Friedland's Journey Through Trials and Triumphs in Industrial Spaces

• Dwan Bent-Twyford/Joel Freedland • Season 5 • Episode 377

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Raise your glasses with us, as we toast to the triumphs and trials in the tapestry of real estate! In a heartfelt conversation with the industrial real estate virtuoso Joel Friedland, we uncover the rugged beauty of tenant-occupied properties and the astonishing resilience of industrial spaces. As we venture through Joel's portfolio of 19 buildings, you'll find a treasure trove of insights into the adaptability of these structures, ranging from postal depots to athletic facilities, and the surprising fact that a mere quarter are owner-occupied.

Life, much like real estate, is a cascade of choices, some monumental, others seemingly minute, yet all impactful. I share my own tale of conservative investing, a path less trodden that shuns high leverage for the steadiness of all-cash deals, drawing from the wisdom carved out of personal hardships and economic downturns. This candid segment peels back the layers of building a legacy in real estate, one that stands firm in the face of market whirlwinds, and the resilience required to rise from the ashes of past mistakes.

Wrapping up this season's first episode, we meander through the revitalization of a small town, reminiscent of the charm found in "Virgin River," where community spirit flourishes and local politics beckon. With each property acquisition, I weave my vision into the fabric of the town, crafting a legacy beyond buildings, fostering festivals, and kindling the flames of local engagement. So, join us on this journey, and be inspired to sow the seeds of transformation in your own corner of the world through mindful investments and decisions that resonate with the heart.

Thanks again for listening. Don't forget to subscribe, share, and leave a FIVE-STAR review.

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Make it a Dwanderful Day!

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Hey everybody, welcome to the most Dwanderful real estate podcast ever. I am so excited that you are here with me in season five. Can you believe it? It's been five years since we've been going, so we have so much to celebrate and so much to be thankful for. I'm so excited for all my guests that are in my season five. One of them is the gentleman I'm interviewing today. So I just appreciate all of you. I always ask for likes, subscriptions, reviews, five stars, of course. Keep following, keep making the Dwanderful universe get bigger and bigger, because you're just really doing a great job helping me build my little slice of the pie. So this is the most Dwan-der-ful real estate podcast ever. My name is Dwan Bent Twyford, I'm your host, I'm America's most sought after real estate investor, and our motto at Dwan-derful is people before profits. So if that resonates with you, you're at the right place at the right time. I'm your girl and today we have Joel Friedland, and he is our wicked smart guy today. So how are you, Mr Joel?

Joel Friedland:

I am doing great Friedland.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Friedland, you said Friedman again Did I say that?

Joel Friedland:

I said Friedland, yeah no.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Friedland. I even wrote it down in two syllables Do you edit or do you?

Joel Friedland:

No, we're just rolling.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

We are rolling Freed Land, I think I just said that with my southern twang.

Joel Friedland:

Okay.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

That's what it was F-R-I-E-D-L-A-N-D. So first I want to welcome you to the show. I-e-d-l-a-n-d.

Joel Friedland:

So first.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I want to welcome you to the show.

Joel Friedland:

Yes.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

And we like to start off. We have a toast, so you have something there that you're drinking. Oh, what do you have? Coffee, oh, I have cranberry juice. So cheers. Cheers Guys, grab a drink. I might throw a little I love iced coffee.

Joel Friedland:

I drink iced coffee all day long.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Oh my God, If I drank coffee all day long, I feel like my heart would stop. Everybody, just take a stretch and get ready and listen to what Joel Friedland and I have to talk about. The topic we're talking about today is really I'm super excited to talk about it because I've never talked about this topic in my whole entire five years. So you are the first, like the superstar, the first one to open up this topic. But what I like to do first is have you just tell us in a quick summary who you are, what you do, how we get a hold of you in your own words, and then we'll go back and find out how you came to be.

Joel Friedland:

Sure. So I am an industrial real estate specialist. That's all I do. I don't do anything but industrial manufacturing buildings and warehouse buildings. So we have a company that has 19 industrial buildings that are all leased. We have some great tenants and we have some not so great tenants. We've got the US Postal Service, we have AT&T, we've got Instacart and then we've got a little company that started doing testing for COVID, and when COVID became less of a health crisis over the past year they weren't so busy and they got in financial trouble and they haven't paid rent in a few months. But industrial buildings are occupied by many kinds of companies, including laboratories that would fall into the category of industrial. I started in 1981 working for a family that owned 84 industrial buildings?

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I'm going to ask you those questions. Hang on, hang on. I'm going to ask you those questions. Tell us how we got a hold of you.

Joel Friedland:

Okay, brit Properties B-R-I-T with one T properties. com.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Okay, that's easy and you have. Are you on?

Joel Friedland:

all the socials. Instagram, facebook. Yeah, I have nothing to do with that. My people in the office do all that.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I am just mostly available telephone calls and emails do you know your handles on like instagram and facebook? Nope, okay, so y'all j-o-e-l friedman, f-r-i-e-d, l-a-n-d. You'll just look him up or you'll go to britproperties. com and you will find him I'd have to call.

Joel Friedland:

I'd have to call my son to figure out all the other social media.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

It's okay, you know I actually was not too much on social media, but the last couple of years I've done it quite a bit and I'm really enjoying it. I I find myself sitting down at night and I'm like I'm like that person looking through TikTok video and I was like I just spent two hours, I don't know. I enjoy it, I think it's fun. Okay, so now two things we're going to talk about is that you talk about trauma mistakes that people have made in their investing, and also I have not interviewed anyone that does industrial real estate. So I love that because I mean anything can be in like a, anything can be in an industrial building.

Joel Friedland:

Sure, Including, say, sports uses, sometimes gymnastics companies. They need high ceilings, which is what we have. So industrial buildings have badminton we just signed a lease with a badminton company all kinds of indoor soccer, you name it, yeah. And industrial and manufacturing and distribution and HVAC companies. You know anyone who stores something in a warehouse?

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Yeah, because I think a lot of people just assume if a company is in like a big warehouse, they own the building.

Joel Friedland:

But they don't like anybody else. They do. Yeah, three quarters of the buildings are occupied by tenants. Only 25% are owned by the occupants, plus or minus only 25% are owned by the occupants, plus or minus.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Yeah, we just got in our little plethora of buildings we have over in Clinton, iowa. There was one that has three buildings that are side-by-side, attached with a storage unit and a parking lot, so it's five parcels, but the middle one they used to work on, I think, like really big, like semis and big trucks like that, because the ceiling is crazy high and the people that left it there's all these cranes and all these things and that come down from the ceiling, I think, to lift engines and things and they left all of it there. They just left everything that's like and it's bad.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

That means you have to clean it out I know I was like, oh my god, look at all this. We need to have an auction here. There's so much stuff in this building, but it's like a big, giant building. I would have thought the people owned it, and maybe they did, and that's how we ended up with it or rented it. But everyone's like, oh, I want to rent your building. It's like really.

Joel Friedland:

I would think you just just buy one for something like that. But yeah, they can be really pricey, I imagine. Well, most companies make money in their business and not so much on the real estate. The only people that own real estate are wealthy people, because they have so much money that they say, well, rather than renting, since I have so much money, I'm going to buy my own building and rent it to myself. But usually companies don't own the building. It's owned by the family that owns the business, and then they make money by owning the real estate.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Yeah, and you said you have post offices and you have Instacart in one of your buildings.

Joel Friedland:

I do. The post office and Instacart are in the same building and they compete for parking. The biggest problem we have is parking.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Yeah, yeah, I would imagine a couple of the buildings that we bought are on a main and it's Clinton Isle. Like everyone that listens knows, I'm rehabbing this whole town, but a couple of the buildings are right on the main drag and there's only like two parking spaces in front of the building. There's none in the back.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

It's like so they have to go down, to like the block away where there's a big parking lot. But if people are like, oh, I have to walk two blocks, it's too far, it's like, oh my God, just go for the walk, I know.

Joel Friedland:

That's why I only like to buy buildings where the parking is right in front.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Yes, yes, I was like, oh, people want mine. They'll just walk a block, it's no big deal, but you'd be surprised how many people are like it's not a lot of walk.

Joel Friedland:

It's like, really, the store is as big as that parking lot. You're going to walk the whole store, yeah, especially when it's raining or snowing, nobody wants to walk. That ruins your business if you're in retail or if you have an office. But in industrial they have to come to work because they make stuff in the back. So the employees have to come, and if it's raining or snowing they have to come in, doesn't matter.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

They have to come in anyway, that doesn't matter. Yeah, that's true, though. I love that. So I do want to jump over, if it's okay, because we talked for a few minutes right before we got on today about the trauma and the mistake thing. So I would like you to touch more on that, because I really have not interviewed anyone for that. I've interviewed people that help people through, you know, traumas childhood traumas, divorces and etc. But I have also seen many people myself personally like, oh, I bought a house, or I rehabbed a house, or I bought a building, or someone ripped me off, or it didn't work out, I lost my life savings and they just quit. They're like I'm done forever. I say, well, don't be done forever, like you can recuperate from that.

Joel Friedland:

Well, okay. So sometimes yes and sometimes no. As far as as making a bad deal, especially in real estate, there's no such thing as somebody who's done a lot of deals that's never had a bad experience. There are bad experiences. There's risk. Whenever there's risk, something can go wrong, and sometimes many things go wrong.

Joel Friedland:

And I've had situations where it's been devastatingly bad and I have investors. I'm a syndicator, so I have a couple hundred investors and it's very public. When you have a bad deal and you've got 50 or a hundred investors with you who each put in 50 or a hundred thousand dollars, and now you have to tell them what's happening. You can't hide it. If it's your own deal or you've got one investor, nobody needs to know, but when you're a syndicator, you have to. By what are known as the securities laws, the SEC, the Securities and Exchange Commission, requires that you disclose your track record to people who might want to invest. So I've had a very difficult eight days. The last eight days for me have been maybe the toughest eight days I've had in five years, because, yep, yep, and I'll tell you why it's been reliving trauma and I'll tell you what happened. You why it's been reliving trauma and I'll tell you what happened.

Joel Friedland:

Over the last 35 years, I bought about 100 buildings with investors, and in 2008, I had about 50 buildings with hundreds of investors, and when the global financial crisis started in 2008 and 2009,. The global financial crisis started in 2008 and 2009,. Some of our buildings had some financial problems, such as tenants that went out of business or tenants that moved out, and then the buildings were vacant and we couldn't fill them up because nobody was moving, because companies were just, you know, they were white knuckling it just to stay in business. Nobody was looking to spend the money to move to a new building. So I've had this really difficult thing in the back of my mind, which is I have to disclose my losses to people.

Joel Friedland:

But how do you do it? So my lawyer, who's in Philadelphia, said you need to give people a list of your deals. So I put together a list and the list said I've had 99 deals and I listed how many were really great deals and how many were good deals and how many were okay deals, and then the last line was how many deals where we lost money and, by the way, lost some or all of our money on a deal which can happen. So I had this little chart and the investors who I know say oh yeah, it's really terrible that you lost money on those deals 10 out of a hundred deals. We've lost money. And a very large investor came to me a couple of weeks ago and he said I want to see the nature of your losses, I want to see what you lost money on and why. And I had to make a decision as to whether I was going to come up with a list of every deal that I've ever done and explain the good ones and the bad ones, and I decided to do it.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Okay.

Joel Friedland:

So it was tough, man. It was really hard, because the good ones are easy Good one 20% return, Good one 17% return, Good one 14% return. But then there were the losses.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Yeah, and.

Joel Friedland:

I had to explain them, because that's the requirement If somebody says I want to see what happened and I have to explain what went wrong. And when I went through those things back in 08, through the aftermath of the crisis, which was all the way really through 2016, struggling to keep buildings from going back to a lender, just really working hard, really working hard to make it right. So for the last eight days I've had to relive the specifics of all those terrible things that happened and I made a list of what went wrong and then I explained it in a paragraph. Here's what went wrong and it's really interesting. It's like I don't know if you're familiar with the 12 steps of recovery for people who have addictions.

Joel Friedland:

I don't know as well, but I'm familiar with it really admitting that there's a problem, admitting that you're a gambler or you're an alcoholic or a drug addict or a food addict or a sex addict or whatever you might be.

Joel Friedland:

And step one is writing up all the things that brought you to a 12-step program to try to recover. And more or less my list was 10 things that brought me to the place that I was, where I felt that some of my deals were too risky and, by the way, risk sometimes goes with the word bet or goes with the word gamble stumble. So I had to sort of admit to myself that I took more risk than I might have when I was younger and had these deals that went bad. And then just I said to my wife I'm just so depressed, I'm looking at all these things that happened 15 years ago. But it's coming back because I'm making the list, you know, and it was really really hard, it was really difficult, but I finished it. I finished it last night, oh yeah, and yeah, yeah, hang on, it's in my garbage, can hang on one yeah, no, and thank you for sharing something like a personal story like that.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I don't think a lot of people like to share like personal, and I know people certainly don't like to share their mistakes. But I'm all about telling people all the things I've done wrong. I was like, listen, let me tell you all the things not to do.

Joel Friedland:

Yeah, I want to show you this.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I appreciate you coming on the call like after you just finished that list and maybe me and my crowd we can cheer you up.

Joel Friedland:

I want to show you something. This is my list. I want to show you something. This is my list and you can see that the returns on the top ones 27, 62%, 50. These were ones where we flipped deals and made a lot of money, but look at the bottom Loss incurred during the GFC, the global financial crisis. So I have pages and pages of the good deals and the bad deals and I had to relive all these bad deals and it was so hard, it was so difficult. Yeah, so you're my first person I'm talking to after coming out of my deep hole of reliving trauma, and I'm so glad to see you because we're talking positive things. But people need to know that when you take a risk, you can lose, and when you lose, it's okay to mourn your loss and to feel bad about it.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

It is.

Joel Friedland:

Yeah.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

It is.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I mean it's like with business or like with marriage. Like Bill's my third husband, so I didn't expect to get divorced the first two times. But when I did, I was like wow, that was so unexpected and not in my life goal. I was going to be married one time and you know. But now we just had our 22nd anniversary and I told him at this point, after being my third husband, I said listen, we're going to go till death. Do us part and don't make me call in that clause early, because I'm not getting divorced and I got a back on 10 acres. Man, don't make me call that in.

Joel Friedland:

But people.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I think don't think that about business, Because you're right, I've had a few houses that I've lost money and they were just one of them was just super embarrassing. It's like, oh my God, I don't even know how it was that stupid to do that. And then everyone knows and people will talk and then you're like, oh, what do people think about me? And you're exposed to the public and you do have to mourn that. I think people don't give enough credit to like the grieving process of yeah well.

Joel Friedland:

so I wrote a little paragraph at the beginning of the list and it says of the hundred deals, 10 lost money. And it says these outcomes taught us painful but valuable lessons. And we've responded by concentrating on solely buying and managing the kind of buildings that did work and avoiding the ones that had common things that didn't work. And you know what I do. That's really different than anybody. I do all cash deals with no mortgages most of the time, because the one thing that the deals had in common that we lost money on is they had 65 to 80% loan to value debt.

Joel Friedland:

And I would say, of the 4,000 syndicators who have portfolios of over $50 million worth of property I've done a little study, I think it's 4,000 of us I'm probably the only one who does no debt deals and a lot of people think I'm an idiot. They say well, you make money in real estate because of the leverage. And my answer is you know what? I learned some lessons from a lot of leverage, and my investors and I are risk averse. And there are people who are like that who say you know what? I'd rather make a 12% return with no debt than try to shoot for a 20% return with debt where I can incur a loss if things go bad. And right now a lot of people are struggling because they had floating rate debt and they're going to lose the properties and give them back to the lender or sell for a loss. I'm not in that position, luckily, because my deals have no debt.

Joel Friedland:

But boy, this trauma of looking at the ones that were trouble. It's like enough to scare the crap out of you from doing more risky deals. And you can do more risky deals for a different reason than I can. Industrial buildings are large and they're freestanding and they're single tenant and they're either 100 percent vacant or 100 percent leased. So in my world it almost forces me, if I don't want to take risk, to avoid the debt, the debt. But you can do it, because if you buy a half a million dollar retail building or an apartment building or a home or whatever, you can put debt on it, because if one deal goes bad, you can cover the payments. But on a deal like mine, where it's a $10 million property, I can't cover that. If it goes bad, the bank's going to want to get paid. Banks have no sense of humor.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

No, they do not. They do not understand and I don't want to hear your excuses.

Joel Friedland:

Right.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Go tell that to somebody else. When's the payment coming in? Yeah, I really appreciate you sharing your heart with me. Honestly, you have no idea like how much that touches me and I just don't think that. You know it's true Like there's always some risk in anything but in real estate especially. You know it's true Like there's always some risk in anything but in real estate especially. You know, one of the things I preach to my students is I say buy all your rentals and pay cash for them, so if there's ever a giant crash in the market, you don't lose all your stuff in one big swoop. And everybody else that teaches is like leverage your rentals, use that money to buy more stuff and buy more stuff is like leverage your rentals, use that money to buy more stuff and buy more stuff and buy my yeah. But if you keep buying more stuff and then, like covid, some giant thing comes along, you lose all of your shit in one big giant shot.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

So I I am that person that constantly preaches pay like, if you want to wholesale, wholesale four or five deals and then pay cash for a rental or cash for a building, pay cash for stuff so you don't ever get stuck. And I've been, and that's because in the beginning I lost some rentals and it was like, oh well, that wasn't very smart, I haven't all myself leveraged up to the eyeballs, and so I learned, you know, and now it's like I try not to have debt on anything. If I, if I can and if I do, it's very. But I'm totally against mortgaging everything to borrow more money to buy more stuff.

Joel Friedland:

Yeah, a lot of people do it and a lot of people have become very rich doing it, because, if you're doing it during a period of time when everything's going up, there have been years, many years, since 2009, where if you had a pulse and you bought real estate, you made money.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

And you just had to fog the mirror like and they gave you a loan.

Joel Friedland:

The mirror test.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I remember the mirror test days. It's like you could just get anything from anyone, like, oh, can you breathe? You fog the mirror, it's yours. And then people you know, then the big crash came and I mean I know people that lost hundreds of millions, 50, 100 million dollars, people that owned you know three or four hundred rentals and just like got completely wiped out. It's like, oh, my God, yeah.

Joel Friedland:

How is that?

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

possible.

Joel Friedland:

Yeah, I nearly got wiped out. I worked tooth and nail after 2008 to keep from getting wiped out and I was able to keep all 50 of our buildings. I kept for multiple years after that happened, although I had to finally give up on a bunch of them where we had to sell them for less than we would have gotten had we waited until now. They're probably today were double what we sold them for in 2012. And if I just had the staying power, we would have done great. But when you're under pressure to pay the bank and pay the taxes and the insurance and the maintenance and the utilities, it makes it very difficult if a bunch of bad ones happen all at once. And that's what's happening to people today with these damn floating rates where they didn't realize that 4% interest rates on loans wasn't normal. It was abnormal. Normal is probably 7% loans. You look back on the average for the last 50 years, there were just 11 years, 12 years where it was that low and when I got in the business, interest rates were 10%.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I remember.

Joel Friedland:

Yeah.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I remember, I remember when they were high, and then it's like there were those little 2% loans there for a minute it's like, oh, buy as much stuff as you can, it's just so cheap.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

So when someone goes through like that, like you just wrote all the things out and you had, you know, 100 properties. There's 90 good, there's 10 bad, and you worked yourself through that. What is the next step that someone would take to be like okay, I went through it Just like you showed us, these are my deals, here's my thing I still want to say in business. I still want to keep moving forward, Like what is your next step going to be?

Joel Friedland:

Well, I think it's to get to know yourself better. It's, I think it take. It took for me it took counseling and meditation and doing a lot of group work and journal writing and talking to my wife and talking to my family and friends and talking it through and figuring out whether I have the stomach to even go through any kind of downturn or loss again. And then, if the answer is yes, what's your line in the sand that makes you feel safe and that makes you feel like you're using good judgment? I think that good judgment or common sense is extremely uncommon. Most people do things.

Joel Friedland:

I think it is too.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I think it is too when you say it that way, I think it is too. I think it is too when you say it that way.

Joel Friedland:

Yeah, most people make decisions based on their emotions and not so much on their intellect, and there's a balance. It needs to. I think the most important decisions in your life have to be intellect, and then you can certainly do a trip to Florida, like what you and I do, and head down and say, hey, we're going to Florida, we're doing it. That's not a life-changing decision. If it was a mistake, it's not. How can it even be a mistake? It's usually the right thing. Small decisions that are impulsive are okay, but the thing is, impulsive decisions can kill you. They can really kill you. They literally. It's a serious thing and it's whatever decision that somebody makes that is against their physical or mental health and their future and their family's well-being it's very easy to make those decisions on the fly and not realize it.

Joel Friedland:

It's very easy to make those decisions on the fly and not realize it, and so my main focus really is to make really good decisions. And I have a tool you want to hear my tool. It's the word W-A-I-T, which stands for why am I talking? You know, because sometimes we say things and we say, uh-oh, I just put my foot in my mouth. Why did I say that Sometimes the better part of judgment is to listen and be quiet? So W-A-I-T. Why am I talking? I use that a lot with my wife and my kids.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Because once you say something, you can't unsay it. No, you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube, it's already out there. That's a good one. Why am I taught, when you know people like we're supposed to wait? And I mean, I feel like for me, like I want to wait, I always want to pray about things like I want to. You know, I'm I used to be really insanely destructively impulsive, and now I'm older and wiser and it's like, okay, now I'm just gonna wait, I'm gonna just think about I used to be really insanely destructively impulsive and now I'm older and wiser and it's like, okay, now I'm just going to wait, I'm going to just think about something I'm going to, you know, but like that, like, oh, let's go to Florida, yeah, I don't need to think about that, let's go. How fast can we get to the airport? But yeah, I think, why am I talking is a really good thing for people in all the areas of your life. Another way to interpret WAIT.

Joel Friedland:

I journal a few times a week and I journal on things that I'm struggling with, that are major decisions where I want to make a good decision. Wait also stands for in journaling what am I thinking Like really thinking through, what is it that exactly I'm trying to accomplish, and is it helpful or is it hurtful and am I hurting somebody or myself or am I going down the wrong path? So what am I thinking is really important too. So the W-A-I-T is really important too, and that's that. So the WAIT is a tool for me for those two avenues. And getting back to what do you do to restart after a loss? I think it's study what you did wrong and try not to do it again.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Yeah, I mean, that's how you know. Like I said, bill Bill's my third husband. So on the first, I look back on what I do wrong. Well, I married one after I knew him for three weeks. I married one after he moved in with me. After the second date I was like, okay, maybe like a little, a little too quick, maybe this time I'll just like date and kind of wait, you know, test the waters, and then now, 20 years later, not being so impulsive ended up being a good thing for me. In that arena there's a lot of luck involved in making decisions too.

Joel Friedland:

You know circumstances can go against you. That aren't your fault.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Yeah.

Joel Friedland:

You can really get. You can really get screwed up from things that happen, illnesses that happen to you or your family members. You can't. You can't prevent most of those. Yeah, I had a partner who was 48 and he got a form of blood cancer and he died at 48. That's not about anybody's decision. He didn't make any bad decisions. He just got unlucky. And sometimes in marriage you get in with someone you know who's an abuser and you didn't know it. They were charming and you got married and boom, they're verbally or physically abusive and you didn't see it coming.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

You can't know that that was husband number one for me. It's like it didn't take me long to realize like, oh man, I really really got myself up in the hot water right now. I shouldn't have done that.

Joel Friedland:

So, yeah, my mother's a therapist, my daughter's a therapist, my dad was a psychologist, so psychology and counseling is our family business. So we talk about those kinds of things a lot and impulsive decision-making is a very dangerous thing. It can be very fun because you get a dopamine hit. Oh yeah, you ever watch that guy, andrew Huberman. He's got four million people watch his podcast about how people think he's a professor at Stanford. You know, dopamine makes you feel good when you're depressed or feeling crappy. Doing something impulsive that's really fun takes away the crappy feeling.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Yes.

Joel Friedland:

I have a friend who went out and bought three new cars. He's very wealthy. But I called him the other day. I said how are you? Oh, I said I bought a McLaren and I bought an Aston Martin and I bought a Maserati. And I said why did you do that? He says I was in too good of a mood. I said, hmm.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

But did they help him feel better or not?

Joel Friedland:

No, he regrets it. He's got lots of regret. He was telling me the other day. He says I wasn't thinking clearly, I just felt like I needed to go buy stuff. Impulsively, I bought these things. I said, well, the lucky thing is you can sell them.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Yeah you can, you can. When you drive a car off the lot, it's worth like so much less the minute it holds into your drive. I mean point A to point B. A lot of the value goes down.

Joel Friedland:

He says, by the way? He says, by the way, I also bought a Corvette, a 1967 Corvette, and I said, holy crap, so you really bought four cars. He said yeah. I said, well, I want to ask you something. Tell me about the Corvette. He says let me show it to you.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Oh, that feels like a fun decision, that one.

Joel Friedland:

Well, he bought four cars in a matter of about three weeks, impulsively, probably spent $800,000 on them. That's crazy. He can afford them, but those were impulsive decisions and he does regret them. And now his wife's mad at him, His son's mad at him Like Dad, why'd you do that? Yeah, he said I was feeling really good yeah, no, I get it.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I, I do definitely get it. So I like the fact that you, um, and you know honestly, I, I mean I, you know, I certainly not to minimize your feelings but if you did a hundred deals and ten percent there was a loss of money or something you know. For the for the win, 90% was great, like in life. If we went at 90% of everything that we touch our finger to, I think that's way high on the chart of success.

Joel Friedland:

In school. That's an A-.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Yeah.

Joel Friedland:

Right, it's not even a B, it's still an A. So yeah, but you know, you and I agree on this, I'm sure of it that entrepreneurs are risk takers and sometimes what, what made them so successful, was being impulsive.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Yes.

Joel Friedland:

And and sometimes they're afraid to stop being impulsive because they think that's, that's the X factor ingredient that made them so successful, and they're afraid to become more calm and more thoughtful. But that's why entrepreneurs who grow their companies to be very big hire professional managers, because professional managers are not impulsive, they're data driven. And what we make the mistake as entrepreneurs is we keep building and building and building and building somewhat impulsively, and a mistake can happen and it can topple the entire empire.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Yeah, no, it can. It, can I do believe that too. I mean, I feel like for anyone to own a business or buy a building or anything like that, to own a business or buy a building or anything like that, you have to have some level of risk. You have to have a higher risk factor than the person that works at a factory for 30 years and gets their paycheck and their retirement. You obviously have to have a higher risk factor, otherwise we would all be entrepreneurs.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

But I think at some point as an entrepreneur you do have to. And I think that's about like a decade ago I was kind of like you know you do have to. And I think that's about like a decade ago I was kind of like you know, we've done this, we built this, we own all this. Like does it stop or do you level off, or do you you know? And then we started buying those towns in Clinton, Iowa. It's like let's just work on this town. Let's spend like five years and let's work on this town and kind of see where do we want to go, you know, next after we do that. So we're sort of like we're in a building working, but like kind of whole, like let's just work on this town for a while. We're both 65. This will be a fun project till we're 70, and then we'll see.

Joel Friedland:

Yeah, and you know what you've got on. That. That, I have to say, is probably the most important thing, is you've got to laser focus on one thing. Yeah, when you laser focus on one thing, you're likely to be successful, and when you are all over the place, you're likely not do things that will take you down because you're all over the place. There's an old saying I'd rather do one thing 10,000 times to be successful than do 10,000 things once, and you know who that really applies to Doctors. If you need surgery, if you have kidney cancer as an example, my mother had kidney cancer and two months ago ago she got diagnosed. Who do you pick to do the surgery? You pick the kidney surgery doctor that's 40 or older, who's done about 500 of them a year. For the last 10 years he's done 5,000 kidney surgeries For the last 10 years he's done 5,000 kidney surgeries.

Joel Friedland:

Yeah, that's who you trust. You trust someone with a laser focus, and they're going to be the ones who are sought after. So, in my case, I do nothing but industrial, nothing but Chicago area, because it's a giant industrial market where money can be made and where the cap rates, by the way, are much better than on the East Coast and the West Coast, where cap rates are in the sixes and in Chicago it's about eight, which is really important. But it's a laser focus, with a laser focus on avoiding debt. And so you know, I do one thing I'm like the kidney guy, and you are too by doing Clinton. One thing I'm like the kidney guy, and you are too by doing Clinton your commitment is to Clinton to do lots of things in one place.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

That is, that is genius. Yep, that's it. So we we have 26 parcels altogether and the only reason we ended up with that is it's a, it's a. By the way, I'm sorry to hear about your mom.

Joel Friedland:

She's okay.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Oh, that's so good. I and I agree with that. I just had a hip replacement a couple months ago and in the first search and I saw kind of just like a lot of joints I was like no, I'm 65 years old.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I need like a full hip. I want a person that lives and dies on hips. You know, and that's who I got. It's like actually the number guy. Someone referred me to him and somehow someone else canceled. I got a spot earlier and I was like done and he's like oh yeah, I do like 250 a year minimum. I was like that's my guy and he's like 50.

Joel Friedland:

That's the way to go.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

That's my guy. He's done. He can do these in his sleep Cause. I could not agree more. I don't want the person that's all over the map like I don't want anybody testing anything on me. It's like I'm no testing is going on over here. No, like I'm not taking you don't want to be.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I'm not taking any shots. I'm not taking anything. If you're testing the waters, I am not your girl, um, but but in, in our little town it's a little, it's uh, so it's a fairly big town itself. I should know how many people are in the town, but I don't often. But the downtown is like three blocks this way and three blocks it's a little nine block area and it's right on the river and they're doing like this city re-beautification and we're like, oh, you know, built from there, we go there to visit family. And I was like this little day and I used to always keep saying, like the last decade, this little town just needs some love. And then we made a phone call. We saw a building for sale. Then we bought a building. It was like, oh, we're in this little downtown partnership. We bought another building, another building.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Then we started to realize, anytime they want to do like a music festival or they want to do anything, everybody's got to vote. You own to do like a music festival or you want to do anything, everybody's got to vote. You own a building, you get a vote. So we're like, hey, let's do christmas in july and they go. We tried that eight years ago. It didn't work and they voted us down.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I was like, okay, let's do, uh, winter festival. Oh, we tried that, you know, six years ago. It didn't work and I kept getting voted down. I'm like listen, I watch hallmark movies all day. I know, when there's Winterfest, februaryfest, marchfest, st Patrick's Day, like everything needs to have an event. That's how you get people to come back to an old downtown. So finally I go to the girl that's in charge and said listen, how much property do I need to own to control the vote? She's like well, you need this many more, which is how we ended up with 26. It's like okay, now when we vote, we're like, yes, we're in and everyone's like all right because we've have you?

Joel Friedland:

have you watched the tv show virgin river? No, I haven't oh, you got to watch it. It's about a little town, uh, allegedly in california, near eureka, and it's about a little town allegedly in California, near Eureka, and it's about a little town. There's a little country, doctor, and there's a little. There's a bar where everybody goes to have their drinks and their meals and it's beautiful scenery. It's one of my favorite shows that I've ever seen. It reminds me of your Clinton story.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I have to watch it.

Joel Friedland:

They have lots of festivals where they put things together and people. You'll love this. You'll love if you, if you've got cable, go watch Virgin River. You'll get addicted. It is so good.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I will. That sounds like what we're doing. So after a while it's like, okay, well, listen, I can't move forward at the pace I want to move at, with everybody voting me down on stuff all the time. So we're like we'll just buy more control the vote and then we'll just take over. Oh, that's great. So I was like, well, how high is our risk factor? Well, it's 26 parcels high at this point. So but you just, maybe you'll become the mayor. That's what I always tell Bill you can become the mayor, you should be the mayor.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I don't want to be the mayor. I'm like, oh my God, it'd be so much fun just for like a year or two. Just be the mayor.

Joel Friedland:

Like that'd be so fun. That's what happened in Virgin River. The country doctor is married to the mayor.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

See, there you go so it's the same thing. So he could be the mayor and I'm like I don't know, he might get mad if we're like, hey, you know what we're gonna run.

Joel Friedland:

But yeah, don't do that, don't do that I don't want to.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I don't want to, I don't want to make him mad, but yeah, I don't think too much paperwork, but it'd be fun, just for like a year, to say, hey, here's my town. And oh, by the way, I'm the mayor. I said maybe they'll give us a key to the city. So I don't know, I don't know, okay. So I want to ask a couple more questions. But the next one is what is the biggest goal that you have right now in front of you, joel, your biggest goal, and how can we at DeWonderful, how can we help you reach that goal?

Joel Friedland:

Sure, we like to buy three or four buildings a year. Our average building is about $3 or $4 million. So we because we do all cash deals primarily we are looking to find some new investors in addition to the existing. We have about 70 regular investors who go into almost all of our deals and I'm hoping to add a few investors every couple months that we don't know, because if we do buy four buildings, let's say for 3 million each, it's $12 million, and if people are putting in 25, 50, $100,000, it takes a lot of people to fill up each one with the investor group. So that's the main goal and the secondary, but maybe even more important, is we go door-to-door, knocking on doors of industrial buildings to ask the companies inside, to ask the owners of the companies if they would consider selling. That's how we find our deals.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

That's a good idea.

Joel Friedland:

Yeah.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

That is a good idea, and you never know. We did the same thing. We asked some people like hey, are you interested in selling that building? Because that would fit into our block? And they were like, yeah, we'll sell it to you. It's like oh, sometimes I get staff, let's do it, let's do it yeah let's go. I love it. Okay, so we're going to switch to complete topics here. Tell me your favorite band of all time Earth.

Joel Friedland:

Wind Fire.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Oh, I like Earth, wind, fire. That's a good band.

Joel Friedland:

They're the great group for dancing at weddings.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Yeah, yes, yeah, we saw them. Yeah, bill just reminded me we saw that. Yeah, bill just reminded me, we saw them. We were up in DC and they were at some amphitheater on the water and we went and I was like, and I went with some friends and I was like, oh, we're going to a concert. And a few minutes later I was like, okay, I know all this music and I didn't realize it was at Earth Wind, fire. I was like, oh my God, and it was so great, yeah, they're great, and what's your favorite?

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

food.

Joel Friedland:

Well, I have this restaurant called Ron of Japan where they have teppanyaki. They have these guys who are playing with the food on the table. You know, on the grill right in front of you, fried rice, steak, chicken lobster Fantastic, chicken lobster fantastic. Except then when we leave, you know they have that, they put the grease on and they put the big fire up and all that.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

You walk out of there and you smell like grease. You do. The next time Bill and I are in Chicago, we're going to have some Japanese food and listen to some earth, wind and fire.

Joel Friedland:

There you go.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

There you go.

Joel Friedland:

I'll go with you, I'll go with you.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

We'll come with you. Well, we'll come out. We'll hang out for a night. Okay, so one more time, just tell everyone how to get ahold of you.

Joel Friedland:

Brit properties B-R-I-T with one T britpropertiescom.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Okay, britpropertiescom. Joel Friedman, f-r-i-e-d. I talk really fast F-R-I-E-D-L-A-N-D. Freedland. I have to say I talk so fast. I did say it right in the beginning. I think I just talked so fast. It's like people were like, what did she say? And again, guys, you can hit me up at dwonderfulcom. So I took dwonderful and I made a new word, so dwonderfulcom and I'm the same on TikTok, instagram, facebook, youtube, everything at DwanDerful.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

And I always ask you to do me a favor. If you had fun today, if you learned, if you listened, if you just, you know, joel really like seriously shared his heart with us today, which was I appreciate that so much about you for doing that. It's really awesome. Uh, I just want you to subscribe and, uh, hit the little button so you are notified every time a new show comes up. If you want to watch this, because I mean, like, look how fun we are, they need to see us and watch us and not just listen. So if you want to watch us, you go over to my YouTube channel and it's in the show notes Wonderful Real Estate and watch the show today. Joel's awesome. You know, I'm always awesome and we're fun to watch.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

So, some people I always encourage people because you know, for me personally, joel, I've had to just sit down and watch people do a podcast because I like to watch and I see people interact and I know people like they listen when they're running and jogging and they're doing whatever. But if I'm exercising or doing things like that, I do everything in silence, like I think and I get in my head and I do everything. I drive in silence and it's and everyone's like you know, you drove a four-hour drive and you listen to me. Me, I was like no, I just rode in silence. I'm just I'm thinking.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I got stuff going on. I'm thinking through it. That's how I process all my stuff, and so when I want to watch shows, I like to sit down and watch them on YouTube, because I like to see the people and see the face of the person, that I'm hearing their voice. I like to match the face with the voice. So if you want to see us, we're on the YouTube and also on my website, dwanefulcom. If you opt in over there, I've got a couple free gifts for you, so stay involved. Okay, last thing of the day, joel, last thing, I want you to give us a parting word of wisdom, but only a single word, one actual word.

Joel Friedland:

Mentorship.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Okay, mentorship, so that is our word of the week. All my wonderful people know that is our word of the week. What does mentorship mean to you?

Joel Friedland:

To me, it's people who already know things who can tell you what they've learned, so that you can learn through their experience vicariously and know a lot of things from a conversation, rather than going and making some big mistakes because you didn't get taught by somebody who knew better and could have warned you.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I could not agree more. I tell every person I meet you're going to learn everything in real estate by mentors and mistakes, and mentors are cheaper, Exactly, and probably better for your well-being, because your mentor will help you ideally avoid all the mistakes that we all make and we all make.

Joel Friedland:

That's a great way to look at it Exactly.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Yeah, I'm always telling people like listen, don't reinvent the wheel. The real estate wheel is there, it's already invented. There are people doing it successfully. You don't need to make a new wheel. Just find someone that you like their wheel and you know and work with them. That's all like we don't need to reinvent stuff. It's already there and I feel like you'd be great guiding people through the industrial side of things. I want to see some of your buildings. They sound great yeah, they're really.

Joel Friedland:

they're mostly smaller buildings, like between 10,000 square feet and 30,000 square feet, and when you walk inside you have no idea from the outside what they're doing in there. It's fascinating what they're manufacturing, what they're assembling. It's an amazing thing to see what they do inside.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Well, when we go to Clinton, if we fly, we always fly to Chicago, so it's not out of the way for me to come and see you for a day and we'll go out.

Joel Friedland:

Come see us. Yeah, we have one building that's one minute from O'Hare Airport.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Fun, okay. Well, I'm there, it's a date, I'm with my husband and we'll hang out. All right, everyone I know you loved today, next week, same bat time, same bat channel. And remember that the truth is in the red letters. All right, everybody. Ciao, welcome to season five. We'll talk to you in a few days.