Ambitious Assets: Exploring Smart Real Estate Investments with Andres Murillo

In this episode of Money Focused Podcast Andres Murillo founder of Ambition Real Estate, explores innovative real estate investments. Hear how Murillo turned into a successful real estate entrepreneur by focusing on real estate strategies that match his clients personal financial goals. We'll discuss practical topics like the benefits of Accessory Dwelling Units, the ins and outs of the short-term rental market, and the details of smart property deals across the country. We also dive into the evolving real estate scenes in Cleveland and Birmingham and introduce the Ambition Real Estate Club, which aims to create a community where learning and genuine connections thrive. This episode is packed with useful tips and insights for anyone looking to get into real estate or take their investments to the next level.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:24

Welcome back to the Money Focus Podcast. I'm your host, Moses Dementor, and in this episode, I'm excited to bring you Andres Murillo from Ambition Real Estate. Andres is renowned for his unique approach in guiding everyday investors to success across diverse markets in real estate. He's here to share his expertise and his experience, so let's dive into this episode to get some insight on his strategic approach. Let's go. First thing I want to ask you is you know to walk us through your career journey and, ultimately, how you know you started your business? Floor is yours.

Speaker 2: 1:03

Yeah, so I like to say that I've been in innovative real estate for about eight years now, and what that means is I've worked in a few different lanes and sectors, but ultimately all where innovation meets real estate right. And so I've worked for a number of prop tech companies, worked for a couple SaaS tech companies that were focused on the real estate industry, and all along the way, I've been picking up just basic skills and knowledge that have led me to the point of launching Ambition Real Estate, which is designed to be more of a full service investor platform, an opportunity to actually connect with investors and help folks to branch out and just be innovative. When it comes to investing in real estate, a lot of antiquated practices remain, and my job is to help people push beyond that and tap into what is out there moving forward. The first tech company that I would have worked for actually was really on the forefront of helping people to invest remotely. Our main mission there was to democratize real estate and to make it so that everyone can get access to a number of different real estate markets, so that's why I learned a lot about during that time.

Speaker 2: 2:17

We probably sold in a dozen different states, all while being based here in Southern California, but I was helping clients to kind of understand single family rentals is multifamily rentals and these other markets you know, from there moving over to more of like the brokerage and agent relation side of things where, you know, I worked for a company where we were providing a tech platform actually for landlords that they could screen their tenants and all that fun stuff. That exposed me a lot more to the other half of the industry, which is the brokerages, your agents, your MLS groups, your real estate associations. Really got to learn a lot about how the industry, how the sausage is made, basically on that industry level side, and then ultimately wrapped back around to helping out a firm that was focused on short-term rentals and delivering some opportunities to investors in that capacity, basically allowing them to buy in the short-term rentals and have those operated remotely and Ambition. Real Estate is kind of the culmination of all of that, where again, we're helping folks to find, analyze, acquire smart investments.

Speaker 2: 3:29

Regardless of geography, regardless of experience, I would say most of our investors, most of our clients, would say that they're not real estate investors. Right, you ask them what they would do for a living, most folks would tell you they're. You know they're doctors or police officers, they're attorneys. What have you? And our job is to make you know, build them a healthy real estate portfolio, and uh, that's what we're doing now nice thanks.

Speaker 1: 3:55

so you you don't have like a preference on the, the, the types, because you mentioned single family, multi-family, short-term rental. So it really kind of is a case-by-case basis, depending on the client and even potentially the geography 100%.

Speaker 2: 4:12

Yeah, so client drives everything that we do right and we try to keep clients' goals as our North Star right. And so we do have some folks that you know they're great candidates for short-term rentals because they're, you know, the tax benefits that they can try to squeeze out of the short-term rentals are just so much better. You know they're higher earning W-2 folks and so for them it's a great match right. For other folks that are maybe not quite in that space, you know they came into some money. They're just looking for, you know, a safe investment. You know they're just looking for a safe investment. They're not too worried about saving for taxes on those expensive W-2s.

Speaker 2: 4:49

Single family works. We have multifamily stuff that we offer. Most recently I'm in Southern California where ADUs are really the most popular thing happening right now. It's kind of again at that innovation stage in the industry where existing investors that already have properties whether it's a single family duplex, whatever if they have additional land it's much more cost-effective to drop an ADU or create an ADU on that land. Accessory dwelling unit to basically another home on that property Helps solve the housing crisis here by just giving us more density in Southern California, but on top of that, it helps investors generate much better returns than if they were to be investing on a brand new acquisition. So all of that goes into the mix, really, just again, depending on every client scenario, and then we help them to execute.

Speaker 1: 5:45

I was about to ask you what is the ADU, so you said additional dwelling unit.

Speaker 2: 5:51

Accessory dwelling unit they recall like mother-in-law suites or granny flats. It's almost yeah, it's just a smaller home on your home. Atlanta doesn't, probably not yet, but eventually we'll definitely have the density issues that we have in Southern California where we just have a lack of housing. I mean, the whole country is behind on housing, but here in Southern California it's even more traumatic than that. So basically the regulators opened up this opportunity to allow folks to drop a unit, build an additional home on their property. You can actually separate it and sell each property on their own. Basically turning them into condos Gives a lot of tons of equity again, just more housing and better cash flow. You know for a lot of investors that that are down here in Southern California, where typically there's none, it's not known for cash flow at all.

Speaker 2: 6:53

Right, yeah, that's not really what we get.

Speaker 1: 6:54

That's cool. Yeah, gotcha, gotcha, what. What unique challenges were presented to you when you, you know, start in a business like this? Because you know, like you say, you have individual needs for your clients and they're located across the country. So what have been some of the challenges that you've come across with starting your business.

Speaker 2: 7:14

Yeah, for us, honestly, the biggest challenge is I call it our shelf problem, in that it would be and everyone that works in real estate can relate I'm sure we don't have a product on the shelf. You know we have a lot of clients that we service, a lot of folks that would love, you know, to purchase something right away, and our job is really to go hunt for stuff because on the shelf we have no product, we have no property to sit in there ready to deliver. That's been our number one issue. You know, from when I first started in the industry, a lot of you know real estate tech companies had to kind of learn that. And then also still now, I mean, it's true, where I might have two or three clients looking for short-term rentals and I'm like, oh, this is perfect, if I just had one laying around, I could move it pretty quickly.

Speaker 2: 8:06

But really the secret sauce or the magic to what we do is we go out and we hunt, we find those opportunities right, oftentimes uncovering them where you wouldn't think it is right, like taking properties that are just for sale on probate, running them through a short-term rental analysis and figuring out hey, even though it's not marketed as a short-term rental, even though it's not an a short-term rental. Analysis and figuring out hey, even though it's not marketed as a short-term rental, even though it's not an existing short-term rental, this one would probably do well as a short-term rental, you know, and being able to present it to clients. But again, it's that discovery and that hunting that is really probably the number one challenge. Everybody would buy something if it was ready. Finding it and getting it ready is the challenge.

Speaker 1: 8:47

So, without giving away your secret sauce, what are some, some things that you can share, that you do to kind of help your clients with? You know, finding properties Like. What are some of your strategies that you implement within yourself and your team?

Speaker 2: 9:03

Absolutely so I'll give away the secrets of us. So we do, we do we employ different strategies in different markets, right and so down here in Southern California, you know you're not going to really get stuff on the MLS that makes a lot of sense. So we work with a lot of wholesalers and we, you know, network with wholesalers. I go to plenty of different networking events just to go ahead and find them and I connect with them and try to get their opportunities that they're discovering ASAP. We also just recently, this year, started doing some direct marketing in Southern California as well, kind of being our own wholesaler as well, kind of being our own wholesaler In other markets like wonderful Atlanta, georgia, dallas, fort Worth, you know, a few other spots kind of peppered in throughout there. It is a blend of some of that. But also the MLS does provide us, you know, with some decent opportunities. And so we work through the MLS. You know we have our areas that we tend to find things right, kind of like panning for gold. If I know that this river tends to be able to, you know, generate some gold, I might go back there, right, and so we kind of employ that strategy.

Speaker 2: 10:12

And then there are other markets where we had to get real creative and we work, I work with the Birmingham Land Bank in order to try to just, you know, uncover some opportunities directly through, you know, the city there, the county, sorry, the city of Birmingham in Alabama, in order to get some direct opportunities at a very low cost.

Speaker 2: 10:33

And so, really, it's all of that, and I would say 70% of all the properties that we moved in the past eight years have probably come from the MLS, which is shocking for a lot of folks that stay in bigger pockets. That's shocking, yeah. Then the folks that stay in the bigger pocket space and the folks that kind of hover around the internet real estate, just trends will tell that like that's a terrible strategy and the key is just again, applying good analysis, knowing you know where, where in Cleveland, are some of the more stable, you know neighborhoods where you can get pretty plannable returns, and then understanding what's a good deal in that area as well, and being able to have analyzed enough property so you could spot a good deal very quickly. All of that goes into it. Well, and being able to have analyzed enough property so you could spot a good deal very quickly, all of that goes into it.

Speaker 1: 11:53

Yeah, you, you definitely have to be great at analyzing bills and what I can say you know. I've been, you know, in the rental property game for some time now and a lot of the information that I had heard before I start actually going into the business myself didn't always add up. You know, unfortunately, you have to really learn how to analyze deals on your own, because you might be able to take bits and pieces from certain people or a book or whatever like that and figure it out. But you got to, you got to be comfortable with those returns yourself. You can't let anyone you can't let me, or you know, or Andres, tell you hey, you know, you should make a hundred dollars a month. Like that might not be enough for you.

Speaker 1: 12:39

Like I used to read that and that's the reason why, like, I live in Atlanta but I invest in Cleveland because I don't want to make a hundred dollars per unit. You know what I mean. That's just not enough for me, you know. So you have to be. You have to know what will get you out of bed. You have to know what a property can be like. You know how you can shine it up and look at the different opportunities. So from rental property investing. I know that, but I was going to ask you, when it comes to like Airbnb, what are some of like the metrics that you look at for a short term rental, because I've never done it before, but what are some of the things? Is this simply where, like, a property is located that you can charge high prices, like? What are some metrics that myself and people can understand?

Speaker 2: 13:26

to kind of help them with analyzing that some metrics that myself and the people can understand, to kind of help them with analyzing that. Yeah, so for us, short-term rentals and properties that go up on Airbnb, I'd say all the time we have this analyzed, but truly these are a little bit more of an art than science when it comes to analyzing right. I could give you know, I could give you a property in Cleveland. You could throw it into your Excel sheet. You could find 10 comps within. You know a few blocks that are three bed, two bath rentals. They're exact same. You know basic product on the rental market and you'll be within. You know $10 maybe of rent. You know by the time you actually get it rented out, you know up or down With short-term rentals.

Speaker 2: 14:12

There's a lot more experience that goes into it, right. I mean, just for the people, the tenants, right. Or for the people, the guests, that are staying there, there's a lot more qualitative than just quantitative things that are going on. So really it's about again understanding why we're doing it. So for the folks that are doing it for tax benefits, right, they're going to spend enough hours working on this to be a real estate professional designation and get to write off a lot of taxes. Well, we don't have to chase that highest cashflow, because why are we really doing this? We're really doing this for the taxes, right, and we just want something that's going to be consistent For the folks that are looking at it as more of a cashflow play.

Speaker 2: 14:57

Okay, well, where is our niche? Right. Where can we create a market within this market? Right, we know we want to be in. We can't be in Atlanta anymore, but you know you want to be in. We can't be in Atlanta anymore, but you know, you know you want to be. You know you want to be in LAJ right, you want to be in those. You know beautiful Georgia mountains up top.

Speaker 2: 15:29

Well, everybody on Airbnb. A one bed, one bath, like 500 square foot cabin in the LJ area right, it was just the only one bedroom and it was marketed very well. We marketed that client, picked a great property manager that we connected them with and they marketed it as like, hey, this is your honeymoon getaway, this is like your couple's retreat. It's just one bed, one bath, few square feet, plenty of hiking, all that fun stuff, and so that did really really well. In Southern California there's this great area called Temecula, with lots of vineyards, all that fun stuff.

Speaker 2: 16:04

Most of the Airbnbs don't have pools or things like that right. So when we found one for a client that had a pool, that was our niche. That was our kind of way to be able to win. So you're looking for that differentiator. Really, you want to be able to be similar enough. Shut the experiences Folks that are looking for that mountain escape. They're still going to get that mountain escape right, but different enough so that you're not competing amongst every other Airbnb all the time, competing for your specific market set, and so I think again, it's a little bit more art than science, but I would say the differentiating factor, what is that X factor for that property? From there there's plenty of resources to find comps and you could, I'm sure, find one or two other properties that are similar, but not the masses, right?

Speaker 1: 16:52

Yeah, and the way you describe that ADU opportunity out there, man, that that goes to other areas, I mean, maybe when you're building your ADU, you can keep that in mind when you're trying to have that differentiator for an Airbnb. Oh yeah, when you're trying to have that differentiator for an Airbnb, oh yeah, cause people want the, that experience for Airbnb more than well. Some people like me I want comfort, but you know, some people want to have something a little bit more unique, like it's. In particular, it is this Airbnb locally, probably about 15, 20 minutes from me, where they're forcing them to, you know, knock it down because it doesn't meet like compliance here. And it was like a tree house and they were saying like, yeah, it was like this thing is always rented out and it's like grown people wanting to live in a tree house, like what.

Speaker 2: 17:48

Yeah yeah, that's a crazy X factor. You know that's one way to stand out. And you got to also kind of understand the way Airbnb works, almost like you know, like I'm sure you've done plenty of research on SEO for Google, right, and I want to be able to rank on Google. Well, you want to have SEO for Airbnb. And what is Airbnb pushing Airbnb? You go to their website right now.

Speaker 2: 18:13

It wasn't always like this, but you have all the different experience boxes up at the top. I think tree houses is a thing that you can click and it'll filter for that. It can send a filter for I want a van life experience and so those types of things. You just got to know where you're playing. You're playing in an Airbnb's game. They want to promote those unique stays. How can I make my stay unique? I want to be able to be unique enough so that I can stand out, but, again, still give people the reason why they're going to that area. No one's going to go to LGA because they want to live in a you know, brand new construction. You know, you know, uh, you know siding. They want to be in a cabin, right, and uh, still be able to offer that, but be different enough so that you can stand out Well makes sense.

Speaker 1: 19:06

So I know you, you say you on the MLS a lot. So what trends are you finding in the areas that you, you know noted, like, for example, in Atlanta and Fort Worth, like what are some of the things that you're seeing in the last few years in this elevated you know interest rate environment? Is there any trends that you can point out for the audience that you've noticed?

Speaker 2: 19:31

Yeah, I would say we're definitely not at the full buy-in period of the cycle. You know we will eventually get to that seller buy-in where they 100% of the time understand that rates have changed and you know, even though they're looking at their sales comps and their listing agent, I'm sure is wonderful, but their expectations haven't necessarily changed on what they're going to be able to sell. And so you're seeing properties sit on the market because buyers are dealing with a new landscape and so just that kind of mismatch in buyers have to deal with this harsh reality Sellers are a little bit more hesitant to deal with. That right now leads to property sitting without a ton of change in motivation. We've offered on properties used to be if a property sat for 40 days, you could submit a really buyer-friendly offer and you'd get a response like this You're still getting sellers like no, we're not moving it for that much.

Speaker 2: 20:36

What has been created, what's been really interesting at an industry level? You have a lot of these companies and we're trying to do it as well. We have our first offer out for it right now, kind of more like a partnership model, right, where, hey, notice, your property has been sitting, the one offer that we have out right now has been sitting for like 280 days Not ultra distressed but definitely not move-in ready type property. Out here it's been sitting.

Speaker 2: 21:07

Other properties have been selling the opportunity to approach folks on a partnership level and say, hey, let's enter the partnership, I'll pay for the rehab, we'll be able to get this property rehab, We'll agree upon a price point for you I know that fully rehab. After my team gets to work on it, we'll be able to sell it for X, which is Y% more than what our contract price is with them. And that has been coming out a lot more. There's been a lot more opportunities. A lot of investors are working on that on an individual level. There are even some venture backed companies that are starting to get into that mix as well, and so I think that's going to be a really interesting opportunity for folks that don't have that you know, bell of the ball type property but are still expecting to get that most competitive offer. I think that's going to be a kind of a fallback solution for a lot of those folks.

Speaker 1: 22:06

Have you seen any or heard of more seller or like owner? Financing opportunities come out as a result of this, where you can get your price, but at my terms.

Speaker 2: 22:18

Sure, I've seen people have some good traction with that. I'll be honest, we have it. We gave it a solid like six month stretch there where we were pushing out a lot of owner finance offers. What you'll find is that now, so again, remembering what the other half of the equation is, in the real estate game the sell side a lot of selling agents you'll notice seller financing is an option. They'll throw that in the listing description and it's because they're having that conversation. They're having a hard time. Their product's getting stale, their property's sitting on the market. They don't get paid when they list the property. They get paid when the property closes, right, and so they're starting to understand that and I think those conversations are now going to be a little bit easier.

Speaker 2: 23:03

Moving forward, I really do think that it's something that us as a group will revisit, because I think listing agents are going to have that conversation for you as well. They're going to open that door and they're going to say, hey, just curious, right Out of curiosity, there's this stuff called owner financing for your situation, where you're looking for a stream of income. You guys are retiring whatever right Downsizing. I think this could be a great fit. I'm going to throw it out there on the listing description. If somebody reaches out, we can kind of get more into the terms. I think that that's going to be something that we see moving forward in a lot of these different areas where properties are sitting and listing agents are forced to be creative, and it's going to help us out on the buy side For sure.

Speaker 1: 23:46

Yeah, from an investor standpoint, yeah, definitely will help. You know some of the retail buyers may not like that, but you know I would love to buy like a department building. But seller finance, you know that's what I tried doing, that for about a good year, year and a half straight, but it was during the time period where interest rates were still low, you know. So I'm thinking about, you know, getting a mailing campaign going again now where people might have an appetite for it. So just curious, if you had heard it Sound like it didn't work for you personally. But you know, hopefully it doesn't look like rates are about to sharply drop anytime soon. It might come down over time, but that sharp drop is not going to happen.

Speaker 2: 24:36

Yeah. But you look at a market like Austin, right, and one thing to track where, if you're going to start a campaign, that would help out with your opportunity, look at a market like Austin where rents have kind of gone backwards, right, I mean, that's obviously unheard of in Atlanta. Atlanta, rents are on fire, wow. But you look at a market like Austin. Austin rents have kind of gone backwards, right.

Speaker 2: 24:58

Um, you think about it, you know kind of a single, you know not a super diverse economy, right. And um, you know there's been a bunch of. You know it's been very expensive for a long time and so for a lot of folks that just bad timing got in all of a sudden, their rent roll shrinking. They can't list the property for sale because nobody wants to get it for that cap rate. This is going to be a, this is going to be an opportunity and I think, I think again, it's something that so it'll be helpful, it'll be most effective once you start getting that sell side, those listing agents, to be the folks to have that first conversation, right, because now it's not the investor shark guy that's in there suggesting this thing and it's definitely going to screw you over, right, it's someone they already like, they already have some trust with, if they think it's a good idea, without the pressure of that outside shark, terrible person, they're going to be much more open to it.

Speaker 1: 25:59

Right, you know, I agree, because most of the times when you bring up owner financing, you know the agent is so quick to shoot it down, you know. So if they can get in the air to really talk them through it, then you know you might have an advocate for you and and again you can it can be a win-win. You know, unless you need the money right away, you know I think it could be very beneficial. You know you can truly say you can get your price. You want five hundred thousand? Ok, cool, but my terms, you know this rate, you know interest only or something like that. You can figure it out and be very creative. That's why, you know, the concept of owner financing was great, you know, for me, just need to find the right deal.

Speaker 2: 26:50

And on top of that sorry, but on top of that, if you think about the way the commission structures are changing right with this NARS right. So now you know, buy side and sell side are each kind of working for their own commission, which obviously is probably how it should have been from the jump, right, but that's how it's going to be working. Now that conversation is easier to have with that seller agent because they're only worried about really their portion. They don't have this other portion that's going out. You can talk to them, explain to them how their commission will fit into this whole structure. Right, and it's part of your closing costs as the investor to go ahead and pay for that agent's commission. Yeah, I mean, all these changes are absolutely helpful towards being able to create more of those owner finance opportunities.

Speaker 2: 27:34

And one I have a great mentor of mine in real estate and what he does for a lot of these conversations is he actually has their CPA. His CPA jump on a call with the sellers and go hey, like, let's talk about tax planning, you really want to. You know, get a million bucks right now in your bank account and for tax reasons, on that investment property that you have, that you know a mom selling because she's moving back to you, know she wants to go live in Bali or something crazy, right, like no, you don't want that. You know how can we plan this, you know, strategically, so that you can benefit tax-wise as well, and so that's, that's, that's powerful. We're talking about those conversations.

Speaker 1: 28:15

Yeah, that's true. That could be a whole episode in itself where people can understand yeah, cause that's a huge tax bill, when essentially you just want to live, you know, comfortably, and you just need a monthly payment every month to pay for your expenses and you know you're to be able to travel. You know you don't need a million in the bank where you know you'll pay 30, 40 percent of that. You just really need 15,000 a month. Maybe, I don't know, right, right.

Speaker 2: 28:42

Yeah, especially depending on the scenario you know. Yeah, it's a whole. That's like you said. That's a deep, that's a deep. Well, there, there's a lot of stuff going on.

Speaker 1: 28:50

Yeah, so talk to us about maybe a market that you've identified that's emerging, because you know, I wish I was a little wiser in the real estate game when I first moved to Atlanta because homes were dirt cheap, especially coming from New York. I missed that boat. You know completely when are some emerging markets that you have your eyes on that you'd be willing to share with the audience.

Speaker 2: 29:20

Yeah, so there's sort of two that I really think are great entry level. You know, lower I call it lower commitment. They're not lower risk markets, they're just price lower. Right, you're just committing less, you're just bringing down the tightrope. You're still walking a tightrope, right, but you're bringing the tightrope lower to the floor.

Speaker 2: 29:44

Cleveland, which is, I know where you're at it, and Birmingham, alabama, and Cleveland, honestly, is a market where, when I first got started, you know it was very easy for us to sell properties in Cleveland eight years ago Super, super low cost, solid rents On paper. You know we're selling properties over Zoom and over the phone, right. So on paper and in the spreadsheet it looked awesome. You couldn't miss. This thing was awesome. You're selling 15 caps, you know it was. I came to give it a term. I called it, trying to call it a blood money. You know it was just a difficult market to be in. There were a lot of like city regulations, a lot of, you know, weather stuff. I had a client that like they couldn't touch the property for two months after he closed because of just snow. It was just weird timing. So it was tough.

Speaker 2: 30:38

While it was easy to sell, sometimes the execution wasn't as straightforward as it could be, but what I've started to learn about the Cleveland market and a couple other pockets in Ohio like Akron. They're really making a concerted effort to revitalize their workforce, and I think the number one thing that you're looking at when you're talking about an emerging market is a changing workforce. Think about what Austin Texas was before tech got there. It was not a tech place. Tech gets there All of a sudden.

Speaker 2: 31:12

Sudden the workforce becomes much more diverse, there's a lot more jobs all around, and tech is starting to kind of see its way into Cleveland's and Akron's of the world, where you know those local governments are really making a push, trying to make it very friendly. They're making their city more commutable. You have a lot of like mixed use projects that you know that all industries love, right, and so I think those are two areas up north that have enough effort and momentum. In that space. It's still low cost enough and, to your point, if you just know which neighborhoods are going to be the front runners, which neighborhoods are going to lead the charge, yeah, some areas are just uninvestable as a singular investor.

Speaker 1: 31:58

Like you know, it would take a lot of government incentives and teams of investment teams to go in and do it. Because I mean you go to some areas in Cleveland, I mean it looks like a third world country, I mean it's completely like deserted, and you know you can't just say, oh yeah, I'm going to buy a home there and put a tenant in there, because it's not going to be a good tenant probably. And even if it is a good person, you know, look at your surroundings. I mean you're not ever going to be able to sell it. Never get another tenant. It's just horrible in some areas.

Speaker 2: 32:40

And so I think, yeah, well, you talked about something that we talk with investors about a lot is risk concentration, Because folks read stuff on the internet and they're like, oh, memphis, is this awesome market to go be investing in and look at all the investor activity and say, yeah, but is it BlackRock that? Has this really dispersed risk across thousands of investors that are part of their portfolio group, where they're literally buying 300 properties Okay, a hundred of these sucked, a hundred of these aren't working out, but there's still 200 other performers that are performing so well that these other ones are completely offset. If you're that investor going into those hyper risky environments, your risk is dispersed enough. Amazing For you and I, most of my clients, you're talking about very concentrated risks. You need your address to perform, because that's the address you're going to be getting this year maybe the six-month period but you're not buying 400 at a time. A lot of really positive momentum.

Speaker 2: 33:49

You have a couple tech headquarters there now. A lot of folks. It's two hours from Atlanta. A lot of folks during the pandemic, during work from home, moved over to Birmingham for the lower cost of living. It's an awesome city. It's as much as I do like Atlanta. Atlanta is awesome. It's, I think, probably my favorite city to go visit.

Speaker 2: 34:10

Birmingham is really, really cool. They have an awesome cultural scene, there's plenty of employers, and so that's another market where, again, the workforce is changing. It used to be Iron City, a bunch of iron workers, a bunch of iron factories. Now it's kind of changing. Now you got some more tech employees. You got all the shipping and distribution centers there. Now you got Kroger, where, like a mile and a half long facility right next door to Amazon that has their fourth warehouse. That's in Birmingham. Right there, that's a mile long or whatever. So you have really good, stable jobs. That's another market where you can get into for fairly low cost and have a lot of opportunity. Again, picking the right neighborhoods and picking the right locations, you have a great shot at getting some awesome growth, really sustainable tenants. Yeah, those are the two up and coming markets that I talk to investors about pretty much daily.

Speaker 1: 35:49

Tell us about your Ambition Real Estate Club. You know what's your mission with it and how people can get involved. Talk to us about that.

Speaker 2: 35:58

Yeah, so I started Ambition Real Estate Club earlier this year and basically it came from the. You know, I've gone to networking events my entire career, even before, a little bit before real estate, when I was working for a bank when I would go to a lot of, or Wells Fargo, when I would go to a lot of events. And all the real estate meetups are kind of the same man. You either get hyper sales pitch, you're just walking in for a sales pitch or nothing, or the event doesn't happen. And so what the vision of Ambition Real Estate Club was was to basically provide more of that true real estate club. Hey, let's just go and get a bunch of investors in a room together. I try to bring out someone to talk as far as like a just quick little educational event. You know, I'll have somebody come out who's an expert on ADUs, right Accessory Delegates, An expert to come out who's in their they'll go to person, you know, to talk about short-term rentals or something like that. Right, Quick, you know 20-minute presentation, Give us some knowledge so that we actually, you know, all leave a little bit smarter than we showed up. But then after that, you know, I didn't get no sales pitch with that and it's never me right, it's never me doing the presentation because I would, you know, turn it into a sales pitch, but it's folks that we trust in the network and then from there it's really just happy hour. It's hanging out, it's connecting with folks that are investing.

Speaker 2: 37:31

We live a lot more isolated now than ever, and it used to be. Hey, that's Bill and Ron. They buy rental houses and Bill and Ron would go get coffee twice a week or whatever in their neighborhood. That doesn't happen anymore. You could be living next door to somebody who owns just as much real estate as you do, or twice as much real estate as you do, and you might never know. So Ambition Real Estate Club is designed to be that place where folks get to connect with folks that are doing the same thing, share what's working, share what's going on, walk away with a few great contacts, a little bit of education. We try to host these at cool places as well. So, like right now, our go-to spot is a really awesome cigar lounge. It's out here in Pomona, California, so, again, it's really cool atmosphere and so it just kind of brings everybody's guard down, connects folks, and that's really the goal of Ambition Real Estate Club is just get investors to connect with each other. Find each other out here in the world.

Speaker 1: 38:29

And what are your future plans with Ambition Real Estate, your company as a whole?

Speaker 2: 38:33

Yeah, I think five years from now we get a lot more vertically integrated. I think I can deliver a lot more value for clients. Adding an escrow office it's an escrow office that only serves our clients. We can control that cost, we can control that timeline. Everything is within our control.

Speaker 2: 38:53

Having a property management division that can go out and we're not now referring you to property managers, which is what we do today and we actually vet property managers for clients and we work very diligently there but having a property management division where, hey, we're taking you from I want to own real estate to I'm receiving a check in the mail all within Ambition Real Estate's sort of vertically integrated company. This year the goal is to hire two or three agents as well, so to have more of these out there selling these properties and connecting more with investors, just to be more impactful across the board. And, yeah, I would say that's kind of the biggest takeaway is that vertical integration and making sure that we're helping clients every step along the way, just like we do right now, but give ourselves much more control in how that actually turns out.

Speaker 1: 39:44

Those would be two major benefits for your clients, especially property management, because it's tough to find a property manager it's very tough, so good thing that you guys are vetting them before presenting them to your clients. But if you were able to bring that in-house, that can help your business and also ease some of the hesitancy that someone might have working with the outside third-party manager. Because that's why I decided to do I actually manage my properties myself because I've had such I know I've had such a, you know horror stories with property management, so you know. So if you're able to bring that in and present that to your clients where it's truly like you said, they're investing and they get in the check, I mean that's, that's a win-win for sure.

Speaker 2: 40:41

Yeah, and I think for a lot of folks the property management challenge is just a disconnect.

Speaker 2: 40:47

You have a vision for how this property should perform, what's going to be taking place there, and I might vet four or five different property managers. Four of them maybe don't have that same vision. They're like, no, this isn't going to be. You know, we're not going to market this to students. This is, you know, workforce hour or whatever, right, and now the comps are off and they're renting it for 300 bucks less than kind of where we had projected it. So that disconnect is why, you know, we do the vetting and we help to try to bridge that gap, to reduce that disconnection and really make it cohesive. But, like you said, bringing that in-house, bringing the escrow services, so that during transactions we're not fighting with escrow offices, we're trying to figure out where documents are, you know, at the bottom of a pile of a bunch of other documents, having that in-house as well, all of that I think could deliver a lot of value in five years or hopefully a lot sooner, hopefully sooner.

Speaker 1: 41:43

Yeah, all right, so you know, close this out. What final thoughts do you have for advice that you can share with the audience, and also how can we reach you? You know, shout out your website, any social media. You know the floor is yours. Thank you so much.

Speaker 2: 42:02

Yeah, so ambitionrecom is where you'll find us. We're ambitionre on Instagram. That's kind of what we're using the most now. Ambitionre on TikTok we're going to be as active as Moses very soon. Here we're going to be as active, posting it as good maybe not quite as good right away, but we'll try to get there as you are on social media. Yeah, that's how you get ahold of us, ambitionrecom, and you'll have my email, all that fun stuff there.

Speaker 2: 42:27

Ultimately, what I think all real estate investors should know, and kind of what I hope every consultation first consultation ends with, is two things A, you have to find your sort of North Star why am I investing? And then also understand who you are and understand that maybe I'm not the biggest risk taker, maybe I am more of a risk taker. And whether the answer is one way or the other, maybe I really only like these short-term rentals because they're so aesthetic. It's kind of understanding that that's why I like it. Now, does that align well with my North Star? I want to build a real estate portfolio to pass on to my kids? Probably not. And understanding how those play off of each other.

Speaker 2: 43:17

If you have a great North Star, you can always keep it to forefront You're not going to buy a bad property, right, a property might have a rough start, might have a rough middle, but you're not going to get a bad property if you bought it. With your North star kind of as the focus, I'm building this portfolio for my heirs. I want to have something that I'm proud to pass on. Probably not going to buy that junker property that's in a bad neighborhood. That is just a headache for you and you're going to pass on a headache. No way, I'm not going to buy that right. And so that North Star is really important. And then understanding who you are as an investor, you know all of that is really helpful for informing me Whether you work with us, whether you are just hunting on Zillow on your own, whether you're working with a local agent, it doesn't matter. You need those two things in order to make sure you don't have a bad experience investing in real estate.

Speaker 1: 44:09

Yeah, I definitely agree, and I'll make sure to put your contact information in the show notes, your website and also, like you say, your Instagram. So, again, I just want to thank you again for joining the show. Yeah, yeah, thanks for having me.

Speaker 2: 44:24

I appreciate it a lot, thank you.

Speaker 1: 44:25

Thanks again, andres, for jumping on the show. Appreciate your time, great conversation. I could talk about real estate all day, so I appreciate you for jumping on. Also, for the audience, make sure to check out his website, ambitionre that's Ambition, and then REforRealEstatecom. Then also make sure to go to my website, mosesthementorcom, and go to YouTube and subscribe to Moses the Mentor so you can stay in tune with all the latest updates and episodes from me. So until next time, let's make sure to stay on top of your financial growth and success, and I really appreciate you, peace.