The Invested Fathers
The Invested Fathers
IF 95 - Went from a Broken Leg to Building an Empire with Peter Shvetz
Peter Schvetz, entrepreneur and real estate investor, discusses his dynamic career journey with Kenny. Peter recounts his transition from a traditional banking career to real estate investments, culminating in the founding of his container company, Liberty Containers. He shares how his experience in banking laid the foundation for his real estate ventures, the ups and downs of flipping houses, and how a serious accident led to a reevaluation of his priorities. Peter also talks about the importance of efficiency, strong relationships, and sharing the difficulties of building a business while being present at home as a father and husband. The episode touches on personal highs, lows, and the strategies Peter uses to manage multiple businesses while fostering meaningful connections with family and community.
Peter Shvetz - LinkedIn
00:00 Introduction and Welcome
00:41 Peter's Early Career and Education
03:40 First Steps in Real Estate
06:55 Transition to Full-Time Real Estate
11:28 The Accident and Its Aftermath
16:22 Starting Liberty Containers
22:51 Expanding the Business
25:25 Discussing Family Dynamics and Support
25:57 Balancing Work and Family Life
29:42 Future Business Plans and Efficiency
31:19 Importance of People and Culture
35:18 Parenting Challenges and Rewards
38:46 Networking and Business Opportunities
41:16 Passive Investing and Financial Strategies
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I had a really bad work accident. Our finishing crew was one man short. And so me being the do it all guy that I am, I jumped on a, a Georgia buggy or a concrete buggy. the piece of equipment malfunction. And it was going in reverse rather fast, and I could not stop it. I was trying to hit the brake where my foot was, and, the little lever, just it would not stop. So before I could do anything, I found myself pinned between the machine that was in front of me. a concrete truck that had, really pierced through the back of my leg at that point. and so I was rushed to the hospital. A month after, was the worst, october 4th, our second son was born. so this was very much a, I was sitting in the wheelchair when he was born and I was very helpless.
Kenny:Peter, thank you for joining The Invested Fathers today. we're gonna be exploring, what you're up to today and your career journey. we've gone to college together. you're my friend. I enjoy seeing what you're posted on Facebook about the family and your wife and all the good stuff. And you've had a really, I don't know if I could call it a mountain top and valley journey. I'm thinking specifically of your health and just some scarce along the way. I know our audience will be, very interested to hear more about you. So welcome to the show, buddy.
Peter (2):thank you so much for having me, Kenny. Um, I'm honored. I'm humbled. I know this has been something that we have talked about. Hey, I wanna have you on, I wanna hear more about your story, and so it's cool that's finally taking place, right here together.
Kenny:Yeah, man. All right. Peter. To go outta the gates here. Give me, you're wearing the Liberty containers shirt right now. I remember when I was in Somerville, oh man. Three years ago, I think. maybe a little bit longer. Yeah, I think you were just starting this was something that I think you had just a few containers, and I know that's not all you do, so give our audience, a little bit about your business and what you're doing today.
Peter (2):Absolutely. we did have the opportunity to go to college together in, in Greenville at Bob Jones University. And so I do remember those days. That was quite a long time ago. got done there in May of 2010 and, Shortly after that went into the banking realm and I had a journey in banking that was probably unconventional, but if you remember in 2010, there was a lot of the tail end of the subprime stuff going out. And there was a lot of banks looking for employees. So I was one of those lucky few that came in on the tails of all the folks that exited the building with the subprime. So that was a huge piece of what I'm doing now in laying the foundation for knowledge of how to acquire properties, how the banks think through a lot of that. so I started, got my mortgage license, in 2010. A lot of companies were paying for that stuff, so they had people train how they wanted them to be trained to be up on the regulations and so forth at that time. I remember that summer, I was gonna be getting married the following January in 2011, to my high school sweetheart that we met each other at church, in high school. And, went to all four years there at Bob Jones together as well. So we got married as soon as she graduated in December, and I was working that six months or so, bought our first house and I remember waking up the next morning after buying that first house and being like, wow, this is mine. This is a house. This is so cool. I always have wanted to own a house and I'll never forget that, almost just fresh feeling of, of home ownership. And I assume that most folks as they own homes, feel that. And so I, I respect that, whether it's something I'm renting or whether it's something that someone's buying that they're gonna wake up with that same sort of feeling that goes on. banking career started fresh, newly married in 2011, and. I was working retail in the subprime, originating 13 to 18% home mortgages at that time to folks with distressed credit, but also that just couldn't get approved otherwise. learned a ton there. went I I. Was at that point where I'm like, I don't really know what I wanna do long term, if I wanna go back to school. So I did go back to school. I attended the professional MBA program at the Darla Moore School of Business, at the University of South Carolina. That was a two year program, and I was working 40 to 60 hours while I was doing that. and that, I learned a lot. It was more about connections than learning necessarily, but more than that even, it was mostly simulating this crazy lifestyle that I live now and just being into how do you juggle priorities? How do you keep the balls in the air? How do you prioritize what's actually important and what's not? And so I'm, grateful for that time. in early 2015, my wife and I had lived in our first house for approaching five years. we purchased our home that we live in now. it was a short sale and so I leveraged a lot of the knowledge that I had in the realm of. Finance and so forth to be able to negotiate that deal. We got the house, it was in pretty rough shape. had fun doing the renovation on that, and we converted that house that we had first bought to our first rental property. and then later that year had an opportunity because it was a town home, so a bunch of rows of houses. the other end of the building had a town home unit that went for sale and we ended up buying it for, similar to the price that I had bought the house five years before for, so it was a no-brainer and was able to get that as our second rental property. so we renovated that house. We moved into it, or the house we live in now. And kind of from there, I'll be honest, I had that bug of wow, I can do this. the renovation I had, I knew enough at that point to be dangerous and I was managing a couple different tenants at that point. While, I. Just finished up school, there the year before and, I was like, man, this is cool. This kind of doing things outside of what I viewed my corporate journey, so to speak, to look like. The
Kenny:corporate journey. So in your mind at that point, college marriage, homeowner now, what did that corporate journey look like in your mind?
Peter (2):Climbing the corporate ladder, becoming supervisory, go going, to a higher position within banking. That was where my mindset was with an MBA in finance at this point. And that was what the trail was my mind had me there I think while I had gone back to school and the journey that really God pushed me
Kenny:Yeah. Through, because you're still working, you're working 40 hours a week, you're doing school, you have this kind of plan in your mind. Yes. But it sounds like along the way. These rental properties are coming up, you're transitioning, you're maybe starting to see, hey, maybe there's like a little plan B here. Is that right?
Peter (2):Yeah, no, absolutely. Okay. Keep going. It and things were very much, things were very much not performance based, that was intro to I was getting promoted, but also seeing what the inner office politics and the, kind that corporate side of things that you never really learn about in the schoolhouse, so to speak.
Kenny:They don't teach
Peter (2):that? no. They don't Company. They might touch on it briefly, Yes, indeed. It's a very real thing, man. Yes, absolutely. at that point, I had, I said, let me, I have a little bit extra time. That was before kids, of course, and I said, let me go ahead. See if I can find a property to flip. And so I, I remember even in my dorm room at college, I was always looking at real estate and I did a lot of buying and selling of cars and things like that. But, I was more driven to jumping in at that particular point and trying to find something. I remember I bought a property with the intention to flip. In hindsight, I definitely should not have sold that property. I should have kept it and rented it. but it was a good learning experience. It was a light touch flip. that was the first one that I did, and I started doing more and more. I think I had probably done three or so between 2016 and really in like middle to end of 2017. 2017 was a year that I was very much searching. I had left, the job that I had supervisory. At Bank of America and I went into a completely different sales role as a mortgage originator for movement mortgage. And, was essentially compensated and the red carpet was rolled out to be able to go and meet people in our immediate community, mostly real estate agents, real estate investors, anybody that could potentially be a lead for mortgage. these folks did a great job at getting me out there. and that's who I am. I love being in front of folks and just hanging out, doing life, learning more about what they do and so forth. Did well within that industry. But really, again, relationships. Relationships, that's what that was about. And a couple years they were really spent digging into establishing more within those relationships. So in that, in 2017, I met a guy that very much, I was, I jived really well with. he had complimentary attributes to myself that I did not have. He had a contractor background. he'd been a contractor for 20 plus years. He was about 10 years older than me. I knew some things in the finance realm that, he wanted to learn. And obviously I had a lot to learn in the contracting realm. So there was a great relationship and, what eventually turned into a partnership for us, he was strong at what he did. I was strong at what I did and we started a partnership. in 2018. It became very obvious to me that it was not gonna be lending to what I was gonna do long term. I was spending majority of my time. like I, I remember my days looked like this. They was very similar to when I was. Trying to go to school full-time and work full-time. I would land in the office around four to four 30 in the morning. I would work on my mortgage applications for about three hours, and then I would go out to the field and check in to make sure that my crews were on site and that the jobs, the houses, the house flips were moving forward and that they had proper support that they needed and so forth. that was only so sustainable. It was very messy. There were a lot of storage units throughout town. There were a lot of, unfinished projects, a lot of worked weekends, a lot of work nights. I'm preaching to the choir I know with you and your audience here. but it was very obvious there that I couldn't do both. Yeah. And then once the end of that year came around and I looked at the finances, I said, I know which one is definitely gonna go. And it was the thing that was taking the majority of my time or the majority of my mental, energy I guess at that point to do that. so in. 2018, I decided to leave lending all together towards the end of that year. And, also during that year, our first son was born, our oldest son, harbor. he just turned seven this past weekend, so that was awesome, man. A fun milestone. It's hard to believe that it was that long ago because it really does not feel like it. so in 2019, the partner that I had at the time, and I flipped just over two dozen houses together, it was a whirlwind. It was, a learning experience. And we got to the end of that 2019 and we were just like, man, we do not wanna repeat that year. It was a great year financially, but we didn't wanna repeat that year from a stress and just competing priority standpoint. and so we did, and this was smart, we sat down and said, what can we do to improve efficiencies? What can we do to get our legs underneath us a little bit more? And we decided to, try to build. Basically a warehouse, to be able to run out of and have as our central operating center to send guys out from in the morning with supplies and so forth. And so we started to blaze that trail. as 2020 hit, February of 2020 actually, we ma packed up our families. We went to Orlando and we attended the largest, equipment auction, of the year that's put on by Richie Brothers. And so while we were at the auctions, it was a lot of fun. we sent our families to Disney, did all the things down there, and, we purchased some equipment that we were gonna be building and having our crews used to build our warehouses or warehouse rather. And so that was a fun trip. We got back from that was February of 2020, late February, 2020. And literally covid hit like a couple weeks after that. And it was weird, but also in the scheme of like exactly what we were trying to accomplish, it was like, this actually could be cool because, we're pulling our crews in. We stopped acquiring. We did have some holdings at that point, but, we said this actually could be cool. So we still had guys working. we were cautious of course, but we still had guys working and we were making some great progress on this. fast forward, of course the project took longer. It was not something that we were very efficient at.'cause we had not built warehouses before. there's a lot of learning going on. September 10th, 2020 was a terrible day. I had a really bad work accident. That morning our warehouse was completed and we were doing our final concrete pour. I think we had six to eight trucks of mud that we were pouring that morning. And our finishing crew was one man short. And so me being the do it all guy that I am, I jumped on a, a Georgia buggy or a concrete buggy. And, while in transit I had probably transported. 20 loads at that point of, of concrete from the truck to where the dump site was, the piece of equipment malfunction. And it was going in reverse rather fast, and I could not stop it. I was trying to hit the brake where my foot was, and, the little lever, just it would not stop. So before I could do anything, I found myself pinned between the machine that was in front of me. Fortunately, it was not full of concrete. That could have been a very different story at the time. and a concrete truck that had, really pierced through the back of my leg at that point. and so I was rushed to the hospital. I was immediately, Put into an exploratory type of surgery to figure out what the extent of the damage was. And from that particular point on, I started a journey that was, about a year and a half to two years medically. And then it was longer than that with all the workers' comp claims and insurance and everything that happened there. so from that particular point, the business partner that I had at the time, was very much, things were very different between us. I remember some conversations that I had even when I was in the. Bed basically at the hospital. yeah, I could just sense that there was just a different, the lack of closeness from that and from that point forward, he wanted out. it was very obvious he wanted out. And so we went, from that point forward, we went through this long journey, that finally ended in February of 22. and so I'm gonna take just a minute to talk about that journey and that couple years, because I, looking back on that this is healthy, to look back on and I get so caught up some days in a lot of what I'm doing today that I don't look back. So during that time, I strongly feel reflectively that this was God that was saying, you know what? You do need to lay out. I'm not gonna give you the ability to be able to go like you have been doing. And there needs to be more of a trust. Put on me and our relationship and, I, I want you to sit and examine things on what the next chapter's gonna look like. And so during that time, I can tell you I had never had anything like this happen. I remember my father, a month after, within that month was the worst, because I was very limited on mobility. I had a son at the house, so I'm, I'll mention this'cause this was critical, in September. 10th was my accident. October 4th, our second son was born. so this was very much a, I was sitting in the wheelchair when he was born and I was very helpless. There was a wife that was very patient with me and all of my craziness and family stepped up like never before. Friends, certain friends stepped up. but that certain chapter really revealed to me like, Hey, here are your friends. Here are the people who are gonna be for there for you when you're not doing everything for them. And it was really, I didn't have a choice, but just to sit back and be like, wow, thank you. I, I don't deserve any of this. I'm not sure why this happened, but that it was what it was. And um. lot of surgeries. I had six different leg surgeries that happened during that time. A lot of recovery, a lot of gearing up for surgeries and hearing different doctor's opinions and pt and just the stuff that just takes way longer than you think that it will to get through. so during that time, obviously the question was, so what are you gonna do? I was alive, right? I wasn't sure what the state of my mobility would be long term. Although the doctor said that it was something that I would be able to get through and once it became obvious that I was gonna be able to walk and be normal again, so to speak, then I started thinking like, Hey, do I wanna get back to this crazy real estate construction type of game? And, what was forefront top of mind was when you get back into this. Be more efficient at what you're doing. Try to create an ecosystem where more of the process is owned, managed under what I'm able to control and also be in, be, have the ability to offer something to the folks that I really loved being around and fostering relationships with when I was in the mortgage lending world. And so what that was, and what it turned out to be was, I. A buddy of mine that I had known for a few years, he was a firefighter and part-time, most firefighters have part-time jobs, and part-time he had a very successful, fencing and decking business. Did mostly did fencing. And, he was the guy with me the days that I would start my mortgage day at four o'clock in the morning. I would try to get over to Lowe's by 6, 6 30 some days if I would need to. He was the guy opening Lowe's with me at that time. we were just the contractor type guys talking out front and, he was in my ear and he said, man, have you ever thought about doing anything with dumpsters? And I said, oh my goodness, no. But I had remembered that dumpsters were always a pain point in my process when I was flipping a house, a couple times. Couple examples. Driveways were cracked and it was just, it was more capital that I had, it was more fight that I had to go and can you pay for this? And insurance claims, if we had to go that route. and then I just remember the lack of customer service. It was always an 800 number. It was always a, oh no, check our website here. And then the drivers would show up and have no clue what was going on. And I was just like, I had that ringing in the back of my mind. there, there is a need here, there, there is a lack of a quality service here that is demanded by folks in our industry that are high speed folks. They're big deadline people. They need something to turn when they need it to turn. They don't have time to wait on an 800 number or something. And I had those relationships with folks, a lot of them. anyway, that was in the back of my mind. So I spent. I don't know, maybe about two months. And I was like, ah, lemme just passively research this thing. I'm an all-in guy, so I did a lot of research and at the same time, my friend Adam was transferred to the Charleston area. His wife's in the Air Force, and he completely moved his family down there. So we came up with this idea that we would start this thing small. and I justified it where I said, Hey, this is an asset heavy business. I'll be able to have the write off here, and I can utilize this equipment in my business even if I can't sell a container, a dumpster room. we each started with, a trailer and eight containers that we pulled behind a Threequarter ton truck. And, the, I said earlier that February of 22 is when everything ended, with my business partner and I at the time. And so I. August, or that summer of 21 is when we bought all this and set up our respective LLCs. the arrangement we have is he owns the Charleston market. I own the Columbia market. And we since have another guy that runs, a market for Liberty containers in the Aiken area, liberty containers of the CSRA. and so we got going with that, a month later and I started thinking, I was like, man, I just ordered these dumpsters. I'm gonna have to park them somewhere. And so forth. A month later, I found a warehouse building that's a mile from my house, here in the imo, South Carolina area. And, I approached the lady that owned it. She had it listed about three different times. It had fallen out of contract. And I just said, this is. It never happened. Let me just go and let me talk to this lady just to see. And I went to her house, nice house in the lake, and I sat down with her and we had an instant connection. There was good trust. She was an older lady with a lot of time. And so I sat down with her and just told her my story. And, we outta that conversation pretty much came up. We worked out a deal for me to purchase the warehouse that we now have all of our, businesses headquartered out of and have multiple other tenants under this roof as well. and so I closed on that a month after that, was able to get all of my equipment delivered here. And, I spent that time, trying to till the soil a little bit in establishing a website and all that comes along with the new business with for Liberty containers here in Columbia. And then I also took that time to renovate this space, completely, to be our office area. And then there's a warehouse component in the back as well. The deal closed with, with my business, in February of 22.
Peter:And,
Peter (2):I got five properties as my cut of my holdings, our holdings there. I sold three of those with a lot of renovation. two of those were, properties that netted about 1.1 million. So there, there were bigger, larger projects. and then two of those I have, I've kept, I've renovated them, I've kept, and I continue to rent those, container company grew wildly. On the Liberty container side, and we continued to buy containers. I was able to find some used containers and, was running all of that myself. Up until that point, I was running the containers to the landfill. learning that business, getting to know my customers really well, and then also obviously continuing, these renovation projects on these properties and then others that I was able to purchase and work on. the law that changed, I think it was two years ago. Help me here in South Carolina with wholesaling. Do you remember that one is, okay, so there's a, law wholesaling
Kenny:has been up and down for, from what I hear from current wholesalers in regards to is it legal, is it not legal? what attorneys should you use to make this work? So gimme your scoop on what happened.
Peter (2):Yeah, so there was a law that came out. I think it was. Year and a half, two years ago, basically that said, you can't do it. Of course there's a lot of misinformation, as you said. and so I had a lot of friends that I had purchased homes from, that I had helped them with containers.'cause a lot of wholesalers were buying these things and oh man, if I can get all the junk out, and then put it on the market. And so there was a need for my services there. they were networking with me and I said, Hey, I think I can get these things closed. Or, some of them had them in their pipeline with a lot of hair and they would send'em to me and just be like, I wanna keep these people happy. I just need to pass'em onto someone that I know will treat them well. so I actually got a lot of leads during that particular time that I was able to, close in one fashion or another. so that was cool. And a lot of those, I were smaller properties. They were smaller deals. but they were pretty much right there in this area where I'm at, that I've turned into rentals. So that was. Definitely part of my story where growing and saying, no, I wanna hold some more real estate. as long as it's on a smaller side. So we've been very successful with that. I had a friend that approached me, early part of last year and he said, Hey, I bought this franchise Junk King. junk King is a full service junk removal franchise. They also do dumpster rentals. And, he said it just isn't a good fit for what I'm doing. He's a very high speed real estate guy here in our market. I respect him like crazy. And he just came to that point as sometimes we do as business owners and we just say, Hey, this doesn't integrate well. I just need it to, I don't wanna manage it anymore. we kinda went back and forth for about three, four months. And the thing that I. Understood was, I know dumpsters, I can sell dumpsters, but I'm, I don't have the bandwidth to take on anymore. So that was like that. I knew that there was something there, but I knew that I could not take on the full service junk removal and manage in that aspect. friend of mine who owns a parking lot business here in town, was a good fit for that. He already manages a lot of crews. and there was a great cross referral, cross lead opportunity to be able to acquire the Junk King franchise here in Columbia. we closed on that September of last year and we've been. Going on there for I guess five, six months now. And it has grown month over month tremendously. There's been some, like I said, great opportunities for, we focus on larger containers on my Liberty container side, and then there's a smaller, more homeowner friendly type of aspect to the junk King component, where folks can go online. They have the technology that they can leverage to book everything same day or next day. and so instead of referring a lot of that business out, which I was getting, investors saying I need containers, and then it was like, oh, and I also need someone to fill those containers too, so we're able to do the full service junk removal quoting. and then we also have dumpster solutions for those folks that do have crews and have things, built out at that particular
Kenny:point. Okay. Let me, that's what I'm up to. That's awesome, man. No, that's quite a full journey. Um, I'm trying to understand and you've given our audience. Sort of how you're wired in light of, you we're busy. and not necessarily negatively just, wanting to get up early, meet your friend, meet your coworker here at a, our partner at six o'clock in the morning at Lowe's. I have that background as well. We would just, I really, you start early, like why wait. and you've mentioned, I think where I want to go now is you mentioned the kids at home and, your son, your second son was born, while you were in the hospital, that low point, and you've been reborn in a way. you were down, I could see it in your face and you were describing the recovery time for these things. That wasn't just a, hey, put on a movie and in the movie everything's fine. it seemed like a lot. And that's not your normal thing is to sit and wait. I. So thank you for sharing all that. And I want to ask, as you are sitting here today and your kids are 7-year-old, seven years old, your first one harbor, and Charlie's for, the relationship at home, relationship with your wife, that's something that I feel like is something we don't talk a lot about in our circles. Everything we talked about business wise, I'd say is very common to share those things, networking and Hey, how's your, what's your workload? But, I'm, I want to create this culture through this audience of listeners of, hey, what have been the struggles, what have been the rewards? what excites you about being a dad or, investing in your family? So gimme some of the maybe highs and lows of I. Not necessarily from beginning to end of where you were, especially during those, those har harder values, but maybe even like today, like in light of what you're doing today, what's it like at home right now?
Peter (2):Yeah. first and foremost, I ha I have the absolute best wife and most supportive, person that is very patient as my best friend doing this thing called Life Next to me, and I'm incredibly thankful for her. the last few years have been incredibly turbulent. there's been other things that have happened that I didn't mention. Just family things, church things, other things completely outside of our control. But what the net take from all that has been is I've got someone next to me that is right there, supportive patient. And through those trials of life. we grow much stronger to each other, to God, to, those around us that are on that same mission. And so that first and foremost is everything. I think I heard Dave Ramsey the other day say, you protect your marriage, your relationship with kids work is third and above. All of that is gone. And so that, that resonates with me right there, where, in the house, I'm the type of guy that, I do like to keep folks happy. I got a lot of folks. I've got, I two personal assistants, 15 employees, four businesses. couple dozen tenants. And so that's a lot of demands placed on my time. When I'm in home and I'm trying to be present With my kids, with my wife. and so I'm not going to lie to you or the audience here, I struggle with that. That is very tough finding those priorities. No, there's not a way to find balance in this season, but it's so rewarding coming home, kids hugging you, daddy, you're home, wanting you to put a puzzle together with them, build a Lego set, whatever. so just those times are that much more special and there's so much more rewarding now I perceive than they would've been had I not gone through what I went through a few years ago.
Kenny:Yeah. I see this, through the people I bring on the show, there's always a sense of. Tug, tug of war a little bit on, I think the word balance, work life balance, I roll my eyes even when I say it. And I say that on the show a lot, but, I'm a believer of that. That's a myth. You're you're, you are who you are. It's, you're not stopping being a dad. You're not half dad, half worker. and so who you are as a father is who you are on the workplace. and if you're overly doing something, you know too much, there's maybe gonna be a correction that is painful to not necessarily get right back to the middle, but, make sure that you're taking care of your people. And I've known other business owners who I would maybe say the same thing is, Hey, I care a lot about my employees. these people are important to me. You meant, you, you rattled off, the relationships, kinda like your inner circle, maybe the next inner circle. And how it is a struggle. So maybe what I could ask to help know your mindset and also, we can look back and say, I've learned this, but the next few years, as you're growing this thing, you've mentioned success after success with the rentals and the liberty containers and just those relationships that are going well and businesses that are going well. What does the future look like? Maybe the next, like three, three years? Is there a hope to say I'm gonna maybe offload something or hire a team? what are some thoughts of the next maybe stage for you that you're excited about or are gearing toward?
Peter (2):sure. so business wise, and it's a similar point really, that we were at with the flipping company when we hit 2020, and it was just like, whoa, we've seen the volume of business we are able to fulfill. We have employees that are trained up and know what they're doing. How can we make this more efficient? Whether that's efficiency, better tools, maybe less bodies or more bodies, more tools, more volume, just looking at all of that. So there's a constant critique going on there. I'm like, within the last 48 hours, I've made some big decisions. we are going to be. Basically selling off all of our, trucks and containers for both businesses, and we're gonna be transitioning to one central platform, within the dumpster world. And on the franchise side, it's been a challenge getting the approvals there, but we are trending well there and they respect, the experience that I have locally and how I've networked and so forth. So I'm looking forward to, again, efficiencies. Yeah, so we'll have one, we'll have trucks that can run both businesses, same style of containers. Right now we're running, not necessarily a hodgepodge, but we're running systems that don't integrate with each other. And so if one truck goes down, we're waiting and we have to depend on other companies. And, that's not a way to build a business. So efficiencies, long story short is what we're chasing there. people, I can't say that loud enough. people. if you have the right people on your side that are doing what they say, And telling you legitimately upfront what they're capable of doing. that, that goes a long way as well. But you you figure out what that looks like and what it's not when you're interviewing folks and then whenever a performance happens. So having the right people and once you get the folks in, just loving on'em and that culture right there goes so, so far with folks and that's what we're about. I mentioned that we have a lot of businesses under this roof, and that is something that I'm humbled every time I come in here. Usually before the sun comes up every day, just to think through, man, I've got these folks that I get to do life with under this roof that are, dependent on the identity of their small business in this community that they built. And, we get to pass business back and forth and just be in this synergistic environment. And when I interview people anymore. I pitched that to them and I'm just like, you know what, do, what do you wanna do long term if it's punch a clock? we're not for you. we're looking for folks that do understand, like what we've built here and what God has given us is that synergy. And, we want you to springboard from that, whether you work for me or another guy in this building or whatever, we want it to be a good fit for you. But, I think just building that and, having, we've owned more of the process on the real estate side with the dumpsters now with the full service junk removal, getting the right people in the right seats and get, getting things as efficient as possible, if that answers your question.
Kenny:Yeah, that's, Like I said earlier, maybe even before we hit record, this message of efficiency, simplification, time. You mentioned the time element of your life and how important that time is, and that continues to be a message that I reteach myself. And doesn't matter what age you are, whether you're in your twenties or your eighties, we all have the same, I have 24 hours. You have 24 hours. And I feel like the people that are younger are feeling, you know what, I can work, sun up sundown, I can do whatever. I, I'm that invincible mindset. But as the kids come and the marriage maybe erodes something, you start really protecting your time more so in light of, the efficiency sake of, like you said, the partners you're taking on, how you wanna grow your business. You're not looking just to make a buck. You're looking for some relationships, some deep, Hey, we want to make this thing work so we don't have to reset this stuff. what's a big takeaway that you have, rather failed on recently or have seen like a huge success in the efficiency at home? I guess I'm just trying to ask, in light of time being so important, has there been rather again, a failure or a breakthrough of oh, I can do this, in, on the personal side of life and that gives me the returns that I'm looking for,
Peter (2):if that makes sense? Yeah. I think it's going to, revolve like my answer. There's gonna revolve around people and for a very long time, and I still fight this every day, I was the type of person that's I'm the one with this relationship. I'm the one that needs to fulfill, I'm the one that needs to be doing this work. And so as I've gotten people around me, especially, the. First assistant that I hired. Yes. she's very honest with me in saying, Hey, you shouldn't be doing this right now. or I please respect me when I say, she says that, yeah, please respect me when I say Wow. And and I do,'cause she's no, I can do that. I can have someone else do that. And so getting, that's very humbling to hear. But also reflectively usually after that interaction, I'm like, she's right. what, why have I been so proud to not give that up? Or, to pass that duty responsibility, relationship task even, off. And so that'll help a lot with efficiencies and it'll also help with the growth of those employees as well.
Peter:Yeah.
Peter (2):going to the house side of things. Yeah. really the same type of things apply. When you're parenting, when you have, our 7-year-old is very smart, very, he understands what's going on now a lot more. And so when you're like, all right buddy, that's your responsibility now, it's so cool watching that little enlightened mind like, okay, I got this. so it's been fun. see that across both.
Kenny:Yeah. I like to ask this question usually toward the end. Best part about being a dad right now. Recent story, recent, I don't know, fun, fun moment, memory, that you can reflect and just share a feel good moment with the audience, with me.
Peter (2):Yeah. It's gonna have to be the times we get to make memories, There's a lot of times just being honest that I'm there, but I'm not, just mentally I've got a lot kind of decompressing off coming off of a busy day. And, the times that, it even happened to me last night where I got home and my youngest is incredibly tired and he just came over and just gave me a hug and wouldn't let me go. And I just looked over at my wife and I was just like, wow, this is happening. This doesn't happen very often, but this is great. I'm gonna soak it in. And and then just the times that, we get to go off and with the birthday party we have for my son this past weekend and, just short little trips. We can't go for long anymore. just'cause of the ages of the kids and also all the responsibilities, but, just spending that time and the closeness there. Watching them face little fears and all that, overcome those fears is fun.
Kenny:What's, just to go a little further there, what's a fear not to put anyone in a bad light, but what are some of the things that you're experiencing right now that are, hurdles for your kids that you're helping them with?
Peter (2):so we took, our oldest middle of the week last week up to Great Wolf Lodge. Oh, yeah. And he has a big thing about fears, about heights with fears, with heights. Yes. And, so climbing stairs on up to a slide and doing things like once you get there, oh man, it's the best thing ever. But while you're sitting there with that tense, build up type feeling, oh, I'm not gonna do this. I'm ready to go back down, and just talking through Hey, I understand you're scared, and that kind of thing. So th those are more of the fears that go on there. even in the early ages that they're in seeing the Fears of. Peer pressure to a very small degree. I don't wanna see this person, So just talking through gives a great discipling opportunity, parenting opportunity to talk through relationships at a higher level. And you know how everybody has little fears like that. It's not just you and, how God gives us the strength to overcome those things and all that.
Kenny:So that's awesome, man. I, I've, I had on a guest last week, maybe two weeks ago, and he mentioned how the eight to 10 year mark sort of defines like, who this person's gonna be like at that point. they've rather experienced enough nature and nurture to say this is who this guy is. Of course he has to keep, if you're training your child in certain ways, you have to keep doing that. You don't just stop. and he has to decide for himself, certain things as well. But, just that importance of those formative years. and. I love the stories that you shared in that way of him, them seeing you. and, another huge lesson that I continue to again, teach myself is these kids, they are, the lessons are caught. They're not taught. So what they see is more, important than, what you say. And I love that story of your son, younger son just hugging you somewhat randomly. yeah. And that affinity there. Peter, thanks for your time today, man. Just wrapping up. I want to give, you the opportunity to, our listeners are in IMO or, it seems like you're very well networked in the area. give us how our listeners can keep up with you or follow you if there's things that you're putting out. what is the best way to keep track of what, Peter Schwetz is up to?
Peter (2):Sure. I, my wife does a lot of marketing and social media type stuff professionally, with her family restaurant here in Columbia called Maurice's Piggy Park. so if you're coming through Columbia, support the family restaurant. but that being said, she's much more up to tune than I am on the socials. so Facebook is really the best way to get me on that Facebook page. She has created a link tree for me where you can connect with any of my, business handles or links, websites, et cetera. So that would be a great way to connect with me. I do post a lot on there, as you mentioned earlier. I would say if anybody is just wanting to brainstorm, reach out, introduce themself. I would love to have a conversation. I'm a very approachable guy. what I've learned is any time spent brainstorming with someone over their business or just talking through where I bump my head at, it, I usually walk away. Learning something. So it's never a waste of time. I would love to start a conversation and of course if you're doing any business around the South Carolina area specifically, look up our container company, Liberty containers. we have an operator in Aiken, obviously, low country, Charleston area like we talked about. I'm in Columbia, and my team here. And then we are interviewing one candidate for the upstate area for Greenville right now. so we're, excited about that potential. expansion for the business there. junk King is a franchise, but we are all local owners to our own markets. so if we can help you out with any sort of junk removal type stuff or if you have any deals that you come across, from a, good rental property or good, wholesale, whatever the new term for wholesaling is now, let me know. and I have a lot of deals that come across my desk. I'll be honest with you. I've not purchased a lot of those deals, but I have pushed them along to folks that I know are looking in specific pockets of our markets. and so that could be beneficial for all involved and that's what I'm about for sure.
Kenny:one more question. I usually ask, and it depends on the walk of life, but. Passive investing. So one of the question, one of my goals as a capital raiser is I want to attract people who are too busy and are looking to, and they have maybe too much money or they're not necessarily too much in my, my, my opinion, but just they're investing in something already, but they're looking for better returns and they don't want to add another job. So it sounds like a lot of what you've done financially has actively invested in all these businesses. And why not? Because you're young and vibrant and have a lot of things that you wanna reverse the curse and just build. are you doing a lot of it passive investing right now or is it mainly like in and when you think like building wealth or building retirement or maybe even pa cash flow. Is it like buy another rental, buy put more money into the liberty or are you doing some other things outside? I like other audience members to know what are these dads I'm bringing on? Like how are they. Investing passively more or less. Sure. Are you doing any that?
Peter (2):Yeah. just to be honest with you, a lot of my personal worth in investing money is wrapped up in my real estate, as I got into this container world, especially being a brand new business Brand new guy with just an idea of something new. nobody would finance anything like that. So I had to put a lot of cash into buying this equipment. Yeah. That's changed now, which is fortunate. and so I'm able to more focus on that. But, to answer your question, I would say a lot of the relationships that have been a huge eye opener for me over the last four years have been with other private money lenders and folks that fit the bill to exactly what you just said. And those are folks that are. At a point in life, a lot of them really know and understand real estate. Some of them have been professionals in real estate for decades, and they just don't wanna be in the rat race. They just wanna be, they just wanna sit back. They want, they know that this is somebody capable, that is gonna pay them, that is going to, they know what they're doing. They're tried and true, they're networked well. They run into issues. They're gonna pick up the phone and call them, And, so building that trust with people that are in those shoes. And I can have reflective phone calls once a year with them, 20 times a year with them as much or as little as they want to be involved. And they know, I'm giving them a great return on what their investment is
Kenny:for the reason. Yeah. so you use your own money started out, you're still using private money lenders for your rentals, but maybe even also some business stuff as well, because you're just, it's almost like a transaction. Hey, give you this much, you gimme this much. I'm happy. Don't need to know. I don't need to be in the weeds of this stuff looking for a paycheck or looking for a, mailbox money.
Peter (2):Sure, yeah. Absolutely. And me specifically, I own all of my equipment outright, no liens for Liberty except for one truckload. Everything else is owned outright. Wow. Dude. We're fixing to sell everything and Yes. start with new. So there will be some more financing involved there. Yeah. But it'll be, in my opinion, it'll be smart financing. Yeah. We're trying to get ahead of the tariffs with a lot of our buy, nice to steal will be impacted. Yes. and just having awareness there, a lot of the private money that I've done has been to get into the deals, whether it's auction buys or whether it is, Properties that I've bought just through contacts and network. Yeah. And those are deals as they've gotta close fast, they don't want any hair, they don't want any whatever. They need to close fast. Yeah. So that's when I'll pick up the phone and say, Hey, guess what? remember that loan we just paid off? Let's go ahead and you wanna put it back to work? Boom.
Peter:Yeah.
Peter (2):and but what my long game with the rentals is I am packaging up 5, 6, 8 rentals at a time, and I'm getting those in commercial loans, and then I'm paying off my private money, and then I'm putting the private money back to work for flip projects and for, other buys like I just described.
Kenny:Yeah, man. it's, I have not built, a comp, a business like yours. Obviously Liberty's its own new beast for you, maybe even like the new number one. And rentals are now number two. I don't know. but it's really fascinating to know the equity, the value that you're building, especially with these things paid off that I would, I think you could probably borrow. Get a business loan from this business one day and then put that to work with rentals, payback, it's just it's just gonna keep growing. it's just that, that I think fun game, if you wanna call it that, like liquid versus not liquid assets that are, trapping your money but making you money. And until eventually it's okay, I've got a financial free status. I don't necessarily need to buy another, section of the upstate or whatever it is. and now you're just hunting for those, like, where's my best passive return on another a hundred thousand dollars or whatever. And having those probably money lenders. I know for me, like I've hesitated buying more properties because when I bought a lot of properties, I didn't have the crews in place. And then also, like if I get more debt from private money lenders and things are slow, I'm just losing money and interest. And there's been this like tension of, just stay at a certain size. and that's what forced me, not forced me, I would say. Turn my eyes towards syndication where these teams that are already operating at a scale that will, I will probably never be at. oops, sorry, my phone's ringing. they're already operating in the returns that they offer with me even being inside the deal are like triple what I've given my private money lenders anyway. I would just put a small seed in your head of and I don't know if we've talked about syndication too much, but you have got some great things actively going for you in regards to investing, especially with the borrowing of private money, lender money to do these move with rentals, flips, or, liberty. Have you, have, we talked about syndication. Have you done any syndication yet or know about that? No,
Peter (2):I don't. I don't believe we've talked about it. I don't think we've done any, any of that. No, I
Kenny:mean. And we don't necessarily need to do it right now because I know we're past time. But, it's really, when you build, when you buy like a 130 unit building or a develop a 200 unit, whatever, and you think these are massive plays and these are,$10 million,$20 million,$70 million, whatever, it gets a little bit like, okay, too much to even think about. But when you're with a team that's done it, like 10 times and it's Hey, you bring a check of 500,000 or a million dollars and you get these returns, or if you're a passive investor and you're just like, Hey, I just wanna put in a hundred. It is really cool to compare, at least for me, the returns I make, flipping the house to the passive investing of a syndication and scarily enough, they're like almost the same sometimes. obviously you shoot for, I don't know, 25 plus percent return on like a flip. I don't know what your numbers are, but, sometimes a 25, 30 or more percent. Return is what you get annually through some of these syndications. So I'll put a little bug in your ear on that and maybe one day we can explore more options there. But, thank you man. Anything else I can do for you?
Peter (2):No, man. I appreciate the opportunity. I look forward to seeing what you put together and, I've started listening to more of your stuff and so it's Oh, cool. it's fun to be like, oh, wow, I'm part of the crew now. Yeah.
Kenny:yeah, no, it, I'm, shoot every, it's like you're in the thick of thing. Like even the last four, eight hours you made this decision, like it's, you're making moves, you're making pivots, you're working hard, you're growing your team, you're. Doing everything you can at home. you got my support, man. If anything I can do for you to help at home or in business, let me know. let's just keep this relationship growing, buddy. thanks so much, man. Appreciate all you gave to the audience today. And, to my dad's out there, invest wisely. Thank you.
Peter:Thank you.