How to Grow A Portfolio By Asking Better Questions - with Joe Massey

We share a practical playbook for turning current owners into lifelong investors by leading with goals, not fees. Joe Massey breaks down the four returns of real estate, smart loan options, and simple systems that let teams scale outreach and education.

• centering client conversations on life goals and timelines
• using the four returns: cash flow, tax benefits, appreciation, debt reduction
• hosting a one-hour class to attract investors and build authority
• creating anonymized client case studies for proof and clarity
• delegating database calls to book goal reviews at scale
• analyzing deals daily with a standard spreadsheet
• comparing conventional loans with DSCR and cash-out options
• pacing portfolio growth realistically around down payment limits
• tapping idle equity to add doors with measured risk
• resources for training, scripts, and investor education

to reach Joe Massey visit https://loansbyjoemassey.com 

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Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

Tony Cline 0:00

Welcome to the Property Management Success Podcast, where we interview leaders in the industry to uncover the secrets to profitability, efficiency, and achieving true freedom, whether it's your time, money, or lifestyle. I'm your host, Tony Klein, and I'm here to help you build a wildly successful property management business. Let's get to it. Welcome back to another episode of the Property Management Success Podcast. Today I'm really excited to bring on a longtime friend of mine, Joe Massey, with Senergy1 Lending. He's here to share a little bit about the real estate space on the investment and lending side. Joe, it's such a great pleasure to have you on with us today.

SPEAKER_00 0:39

Tony, thanks so much for having me, man. As you know, I've been a big fan of you, big fan of your company. Now I'm a big fan of your podcast. I'm just really honored to be here and grateful for the invitation and you're making the time. Thank you.

Tony Cline 0:51

Yeah, absolutely. So you and I have known each other for quite a while. We've spent some time on the trails together. We as a matter of fact, when I was doing the four by four by 48, which is uh four miles every four hours for 48 hours, I put out a live just saying, man, I could use a pizza. And I think you drove up from, I don't know, an hour away probably to bring me the pizza. So uh appreciate that. But we've gone we go way back. We do. And we've been operating in the in the real estate space here in Denver, and you have become one of the people that I lean on when it's time to educate our clients, our landlord clients, on the options that they have in real estate. And I think a lot of property management companies miss big opportunities for educating their clients on what their options are when they're looking to buy, looking to sell, looking to expand their portfolios. And in property management, all property management companies are the same until we're different, until we create some differentiator. And you have developed some great skills that help property management companies differentiate themselves from everybody else in the marketplace by helping them communicate and share information and find opportunities for their clients. And so I want to just start, let's let's give a little bit of your history just so people know who they're talking to. So, how did you get into the investment space? And uh, so take us back way back, and then we'll we'll hit a little bit of that and then we'll kind of fast forward a little bit.

Joe’s Path Into Lending

SPEAKER_00 2:30

Yeah, yeah. So I'll start at the beginning. I I went to Colorado School of Mines and graduated in 2001 with a degree in economics and business, and uh had worked as an intern at several different mortgage companies and didn't really know what I wanted to do, but uh called my database of folks that I had worked for at the internships and pretty quickly was able to get a job at a mortgage company and started, you know, doing financial analysis, um, some light commercial underwriting and just learning and turned to the origination point in 2004. Um, so that was in 2002. I started, had a couple years of analysis, learning how to structure deals, working with multiple mentors who taught me how to put transactions together, how to review a portfolio, how to review tax returns. And then became a loan originator in 2004 and met one of my mentors named Charles Roberts in 2010. And uh, you know him really well, Tony. And he really helped me up my game in working with investors. He worked with 50, 70, sometimes 100 investors per year, helping them acquire properties. And I learned from him on how to analyze transactions, how to analyze a portfolio, how to analyze a particular deal, whether it was a deal you're buying or a deal you're selling or a deal you already have. Um and that's something I want to talk about is analyzing those deals that you already have. And, you know, what I do now is I still work full-time in originating mortgages. And a big part of my business is talking with my past clients and reviewing their portfolio. What properties do you have? What do you think you want to get rid of? Which house is causing you the most problems? Should we sell it and buy something new? And I get a ton of business and a ton of interaction from just calling the folks I've worked with in the past and say, hey, let's look at it. And 50% of the time, Mr. Client, you're in great shape. Don't change anything. 50% of the time, Mr. Client, you're in great shape, but you can change one, two, or three and be in even better shape. So that's a big part of what I do. And it's it's a lot of fun to look at properties and look at portfolios with folks.

Credibility And Production Stats

Tony Cline 4:45

Okay, so we we talked a little bit about where you were, how you got started. We talked about now. I don't want, I don't want to brush over this because I think it's super impressive. I would like to share a little bit with the people some of your stats of what you've done, what you've accomplished, because I think there are a lot of, it's just like real estate agents or property managers or lenders. Everybody knows one or two, it seems like, or, or 10, you know. And so one of the things that I want to make sure that people understand when you're when you're sharing with us today is what does make you different and what does make you an authority in this space. And and I don't think you would bring this up if I didn't drag it out of you. So I want to give the listeners an opportunity to get to know you, but let's talk a little bit about your production volume and in your stats.

SPEAKER_00 5:36

A little bit. Yeah.

Tony Cline 5:37

Just quick. And then we can move on. So it's not too uncomfortable. But I want to want you to share that.

SPEAKER_00 5:41

Uh yeah, just about two months ago, I crossed over uh$900 million that I've done in loan production over the course of my career. So a target for me has always been doing a billion dollars of production. Now that's not per year, right? But that's over my entire career, I've done more than$900 million of loans. Um, personally, have closed more than 2,500 transactions. And teammates that that report up to me, we've closed more than uh 7,000 transactions. So I have seen a lot of transactions, and those are the ones that closed. And as you know, it takes three that you have to look at to close one. So I've looked at probably more than 10,000, maybe 15,000 transactions over my career. One of my favorite conversations that I have with folks is they call me and say, Oh, I have this really unique situation, right? Whether it's their income or whether it's their self-employed or whether it's the property. And I love hearing that because you know what? It's probably not unique. It's unique to you, Mr. Klein, and we're going to respect that and give you the time and attention, but I'll bet we've seen it before, and I'll bet we've actually solved that problem before, which is uh is something that I rely heavily on, is my experience of uh, and I'll ask my processor sometimes. I'm like, Don, we did a reverse 1031 exchange like three years ago. It was in Boulder. What was that guy's name? And she was like, Oh, yeah, it was Mr. Johnson. I'm like, that's right, because we have the same thing, and now I gotta go back and reference that. So just about every type of you know, residential investment transaction, we have seen it and figured out a way to solve the problem.

Why Goals Beat Transactions

Tony Cline 7:16

Okay, so so we know you know what you're talking about, you're legit. So now, so now let's help us, let's help our listeners who are interested in working with their investor clients. Some of my listeners are doing just property management, and some of them are doing property management and then also brokerage. And so there's some synergy there. But for the ones that are trying to grow their portfolio, let's just start with I know that you have done classes where you have gone in to help real estate agents figure out how to generate more business by focusing or having messaging around investment properties or or attracting investment owners. And we talk a lot about the reticular activating system on this podcast. And basically, in a nutshell, for somebody that hasn't heard an episode where we've talked about that, it is there, your your brain receives about 11 million bits of information per second, but your conscious mind can only process 40 to 50 of those. So not 40 to 50,000, 40 to 50. So if you were to close your open your eyes, close your eyes, and and then try to describe the room you're in, you're gonna cap out at around 40 or 50 things. But yet there's reality going on all around us. But it's just like when you buy a car, the moment you drive it off the lot, you recognize all the other models of that car driving past you on your way home. And it's because that car has become important to you. It's made it through your reticular activating system. And so what we want to do is when we're talking messaging to the investors, what makes us different? How can we stand aside or apart from all the other property management companies that might be helping them or all the other real estate agents that might be trying to help them generate new business? And so I know you're really good at helping people figure out a way to work through that particular activating system and say something that's important that is like this guy or this gal, they know what my pain points are and they know what's important to me. So, what are some of those ideas that we might give to people who are trying to help these investors identify properties or I know there you've done different classes? So let's just talk a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_00 9:40

Yeah. So my favorite thing to do with every client or referral partner is to talk about their goals. And so let's just say you're you're a client and I call you. I could call you and say, Hey, Tony, you own 123 Main Street. It's at a rate of, you know, 7%. You should refinance. Give me a call. Or I could call you and say, hey, Tony, I wanted to check in on your properties that you own that we've worked on together. I'd like to talk about your goals for these properties. Are you wanting to acquire more? Are you wanting to retire soon? Are you wanting to pay these off? How are your kids? Do you need to send them to high school or to college? Do you need to send them to private school? Let's talk about your goals as a person and then see how I can help align the properties and the mortgages, because that's my experience. How can I align this piece with your goals? And I think a lot of people miss that connection of talking about goals. What we want to talk about is what's important to us and what we're an expert at: transactions, property management, property management fees, maintenance, you know, this eviction, that eviction, whatever it might be. Take a step back. Think about, and those are important things, of course. But if we want to really connect and do more business with that client, find out what's important to them. Why do they own this investment property? Did I buy it 10 years ago because I had a newborn and I want to sell it in eight years because I want to have the cash to send my child to college? Maybe we need to talk about that goal and see if this property is still aligning with that goal. So that's that would be the number one tip I would give is have the goal conversation of, hey, Tony, I've been your property manager for five years. I love you, you're great. I owe you an apology. I've never asked you about your goals for long term with your portfolio and with our business partnership. What's a goal? Why are you doing this? I know you work with me because you love me, great, and I appreciate that, but why do you own rental properties? Why do you want to buy another one? What are you looking to get out of this other than just cash flow, right? There's there's something you want for that cash flow. Uh so I think the goal conversation is something that is is really missed a lot in property management, in real estate, and in mortgage.

Tony Cline 12:00

So I'm gonna come back to the what other things we could do in addition to this goal conversation. But you mentioned something that investors are looking for cash flow, but we know that that's only some of the investors. What are some of the other areas that people invest in properties for as an investor?

SPEAKER_00 12:21

Yeah. Um, so I really see the the four things, right? Cash flow, tax benefits, appreciation, and debt reduction. Appreciation is, of course, speculative, but cash flow is also speculative because the the tenant might move out. You might have a vacancy. So I try and really talk with folks about hey, is your goal to break even on this? And we hope it's gonna go up in value, and then we're gonna sell it, and that's where we're gonna profit. Or is our goal to get cash flow and apply that cash flow back towards the principal and pay that down? So then this property will be free and clear in 15 or 18 years. So I see a lot of folks focusing on today's cash flow, but my most experienced, uh not my most experienced, my most successful investors are focusing on cash flow five years down the road. Can we give up cash flow today in order to set up my future self in a better situation? And that again comes back to the goal conversation.

Tony Cline 13:23

Okay, so this is this is looking at how to expand business with people already in our sphere, people we're already working with, having those conversations with people in our portfolio. But I know you also have done some classes and gone in. I think we had you, I time flies, I don't remember how long ago. Yeah, we had you come into a NARPAM state conference or that we were putting on for the Colorado conference, and you did a presentation where we talked about how to do a presentation where you are showing somebody how to purchase X number of properties in order to retire. And I think that's really beneficial for growing an audience, for bringing people into your sphere. And if you don't mind, I'd like to kind of talk a little bit about how somebody could structure putting something like that together, whether it's the full details of the course or just what you got out of it or what because it it was really impactful. We got a lot of really good positive feedback around that when you came out and spoke, because we're always looking, you're welcome. We're always looking for ways to provide value, again, to make it so that we're different, because a lot of times property management companies get stuck in the first conversation people have when they call is you know, what do you charge? What are your fees? And it's like, well, yeah, but what are your goals? What do you have? What's your property? Let's let's talk more about that before I can tell you what our programs are and which program might be the best fit. So, yeah. So, how if we were going to use the financial piece to grow our portfolios to attract new people into our programs, how do you see we would go about doing that?

Classes That Attract Investors

SPEAKER_00 15:11

Yeah, I would think two ways. Number one, the class you're referencing, which is one of my favorites, it's a one-hour class and it's titled How to Help Your Clients Build a Portfolio of 10 Properties. And we start with a client that owns nothing and we go through a real world example. It's actually a client that I had. We go through a real world example where four years later, he owns a primary residence and nine rental properties. And this is not a guy that made, you know, a million dollars a year. He was an average, you know, W-2 wage earner, had an average 401k, average salary. And I think the power of that class is we forget that you don't have to buy 10 properties, 100 properties. You can buy one, one a year. One a year will make a massive impact over your lifespan. And so I think to directly answer your question, number one, if I were a property manager, I would put on that class and I would invite my existing database. I would say, hey, we want to teach you this is a value add to all of our clients. We want to show you how you can build a portfolio of 10 rental properties. And just because this one person did it in four years, that was pretty fast. But maybe for you, it's going to be 10 years or maybe even 15 years. But let us show you how to do that. So that would be number one, because I do really enjoy the one-to-many approach of let me present to a lot of folks and then have one-on-one conversations afterwards. The other thing that I would do is I would reach out, and this is very powerful if it comes from the owner of the company or the main director of the company, but I would reach out to every single person that you manage for and say, I just wanted to check in on your goals and see if it might make sense for you to buy one or two more properties, or if it might make sense for us to restructure anything in your portfolio to make sure we're hitting your goals. Um, and I think if you asked your all of your clients that, you would be amazed at the response. If you said, I just wanted to review your goals and see if there's anything I can do to help you meet them. If you called a hundred clients, I'll bet you you would have 75 appointments with those folks. And you'd be amazed how many people want to buy one more property or two, but don't necessarily know how. Even though they're already in your portfolio, they're you're managing two or three, four properties. We automatically assume they're experts. And maybe they are, but they still want guidance. I mean, some of my best clients own 25 properties and they call me every three months. Hey, Joe, what are you seeing in the market? Let's review together because I think I want to buy one more. Those are some of my favorite conversations. And I think a lot of owners and agents miss that opportunity of calling the people you're already working with.

Tony Cline 17:58

What I love about that is we talk a lot about customer acquisition cost and how much would you pay for a new client. And what's interesting is if you take this approach, you're actually being paid to get a new client. Because of course there's work involved and there's lost opportunity costs, and all of these things you have to calculate in. So it's not free. But if if you do have brokerage services in-house or you partner with a broker that can do that transaction, you take a referral fee, and then that comes back to you to manage, then you're getting paid to grow your own portfolio. And growth right now is a big topic. And I don't know that it was ever not a big topic. Everybody likes to talk about how am I going to grow my portfolio. But I think that's a genius way to go about doing it because instead of me saying I'd be willing to pay$750 or$1,000 to attract a new client, I might be getting paid$10,000,$15,000 to close a new deal to get that new client. Yeah.

Case Studies That Build Authority

SPEAKER_00 19:05

I I think we forget that, all right, we've got a portfolio of let's just make up a number. We have a hundred clients and they own an average of two homes apiece. And maybe that's a bad example, but we have 200 properties we're managing for a hundred people. Well, we could go out and find another hundred people to get us all one property, and now we'd have another hundred properties. Or could we talk to the hundred people we already have and see which ones of them want to buy another property? We don't have to increase that number of a hundred, but we could get another 50 doors, maybe, if 50 of those people wanted to buy one more property. And I think that gives you some economies of scale because now I don't have another hundred or another 50 new clients. I've got the same group of owners. That's going to make it a little bit easier for me to manage two or three properties for this one person versus managing three properties for these three people.

Tony Cline 20:00

What I like about that approach too is that if you're doing that, uh, you know, a lot of the people that we manage properties for, they don't live in the same town. So they're remote. So if you did an event like this where we're putting on a class, where we're teaching people how to do this, buy one property a year or how to build a portfolio of 10, and we're inviting our existing clients, I I would guess that we've got a better percentage of those people showing up because we don't have to prove our value. We're we're already somebody that is an expert in their sphere. So some of those show up, but we also then invite other people that are in the marketplace to that online event. And now there's a lot more people in there, it looks like it's active. And I heard this a long time ago, and it was people don't speak because they're experts, they're perceived as experts because they speak. And what I mean by that is if you put on an event, you're automatically elevated and perceived as knowing what you're talking about. Now you still have to be able to come through and fulfill that, but it allows you to attract people in and it postures it differently where you're bringing an opportunity to them to help them grow versus you're trying to sell them something and gain their business.

SPEAKER_00 21:20

Yeah, I think you're exactly right. Having that um credibility that, hey, you're the person on stage, it adds automatic credibility. No, you got to be smart, you have to be well spoken, you got to know what you're talking about. But being in front of a group of 10, 20, 50, 100 people, that automatically adds credibility. For sure.

Delegate Outreach To Scale

Tony Cline 21:39

Okay, let's dig into the nuts and bolts of it a little bit. So if we said we were going to put on this class and we were gonna show people, because a lot of the people that are listening to this, they may be really good property managers, but to have that vision of okay, that sounds really exciting to add, if I could have even 10 clients. Clients that we're going to add one property a year. That's 10 new doors that I'm not going out spending money to get, and I can still do my organic growth. So even at that small scale, it sounds really good. How do I go about actually? Because it's one thing to say, I can show you how to do it, but but to actually be able to show them how to do it. So what do you teach or what do you go through in in that class?

SPEAKER_00 22:22

Yeah. So it's uh it's a real world case study. What I would probably recommend, I guess two things. Number one, you can go watch that class. I can give you the link. It's on my website, loansbyjoMassey.com, and and then we can share that link with in the show notes. Um, you could go watch that class and and then customize that for your area. But more powerful than that would be look at one of your most successful clients, who's the person that has 10 doors or 15 doors, and say, hey, can I use you as a case study? Could I interview you and use your information, remove your name, remove your property address, but use you as a case study for how you started and how you've become really successful. Could I craft a case study around you, Mr. Client, and then present that to other people to show them, hey, here's a success, here's how we did it right here in my market in, I don't know, St. Louis or wherever it might be. Um, would you be open to that? And I think if you called your most successful clients and asked them that, number one, they would probably feel super empowered and super grateful that you recognize they're doing well. And I'll bet you they would be happy to participate in that. Again, with privacy, take out their name, take out their address. But you'd be amazed how that will make your clients feel really good. And then when you can share that with other clients and say, this is not something I got from a book. This didn't come from rich dad, poor dad. This is, you know, client A that has worked with us for seven years. Let me show you what they did and how we can customize the same track for you. That's what I would recommend is those real-world case studies from your existing portfolio. And we all have them, right? We all have those VIP clients that we talk to on a regular basis that have done really well. And if you called and said, hey, I'd really like to make a case study out of you, I'll bet you they'd be thrilled.

Analyze Deals And Find Mentors

Tony Cline 25:55

I like that because you are coming into the picture where they've already got some success and you're able to craft that as part of your story, and you're sharing this is a client I'm working with, and you're not being deceptive, but you also don't have to say, I was there from step one, because these are the types of clients I work with now. And again, we can compress time by finding somebody that's already done that, leverage their story, and now start helping other people with their step one or step five or whatever. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's really good. Let's uh do you have anything else to add on how to attract new business for realtors or for property managers by taking that in investor angle before I kind of shift topics here?

SPEAKER_00 26:46

The only other thing I would add, because the most common thought that I have when I talk to high-level business leaders, yeah, Joe, this sounds great. I don't have time to call the database. Totally understand. Hire a newer person or a newer person that's already in your office, give them the list and say, I just want you to call and check in and drop my name and say, hey, Tony, this is Bob. I work for Joe Massey here at XYZ Property Management. I wanted to see if I could schedule a 10-minute phone call with you and Joe Massey to just review your goals, see how it's going, and see if we can help you achieve your goals any faster. If you you train the right person to do that and they drop your name, that gives you two benefits. Number one, you're setting the appointment to chat with an existing client. Number two, it teaches your new person how to use your name, how to sound good on the phone. And number three, it makes the client feel listened to that you want to engage with them. So I think that's a big thing. We've we feel like it has to be us and we don't have time. If you train a new person to do it and they use your name, the client still feels loved and admired that your team took the time to reach out. Um, so that would be the last thing I would add is it doesn't have to be you because a lot of us get in the way of get in our own way and say, I don't have time. Have a newer person do it. You'd be amazed even with the impact on that.

Tony Cline 28:12

That's a great ad. In in our business and in our coaching business, I talk a lot about, and this is sort of the my theme for 2026, I think, because I've probably said it on every podcast that's been released so far this year. But you know, there's$10 an hour work,$100 an hour work, and$1,000 an hour work. And it doesn't mean that any of the is unimportant, but what it does mean as the entrepreneur, as the owner of the business, we should not be doing that$10 an hour work. We should not even be doing the$100 an hour work, which is, you know, business development and some of those things. If we can have somebody that can do that, where we're then focusing on that thousand dollar an hour work, which is having those high-level goal type conversations, figuring out what their vision is, where they want to take their investment portfolio, and then bringing in other members of your team to fulfill that. It doesn't mean they're gonna get lesser service. It just means we're creating experts on the team that will deliver different pieces of the service. And I'm gonna make sure I can keep my head up out of the weeds to make sure that I'm directing where we're going with precision. And I can't do that if I'm down in the weeds, you know, typing or making cold calls or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 29:22

Yeah. Yep. So I think a team member would be huge on that. And that's that's something I'm doing right next door. I've got a newer guy calling my database to check in with my clients. And you know what? I've had fantastic conversations with clients this week. Um, and it's been a lot of fun. And I think we forget, right? We've we get so bogged down, we forget how much we actually enjoy that client interaction. And having somebody set that appointment for you, and then you spend spend 15 minutes with the client on Zoom, boy, it's such a great connection and it reinvigorates you. So I would really encourage folks to find a way to reach out to your existing clientele.

Core Loan Options For Investors

Tony Cline 29:59

That's great. Okay, I want to switch topics just a little bit because I want to help people who look at this and say that's a great opportunity, but I don't really know, you know, some of my clients that I work with and some of the listeners that own property management companies, some of them are seasoned investors. So they get the ins and outs of the different loan programs and what's available for investors. But some of them are just getting started, or some of them have been in the business and just never really leveraged getting into real estate and buying their own investment properties. So I want to give them a head start to sound intelligent as they start having some of these conversations. So, what are some of the programs or what are some of the things you see that investors can take advantage of in the marketplace? Because we know that there are different programs for investors or different rates or different things than a primary homeowner. And so, what are some of the things you see that would allow somebody to talk to an investor to be able to talk intelligently before they can connect them with somebody like you that can really go through the whole here's what we've got available?

SPEAKER_00 31:12

I would give you a couple of things. Number one, you're welcome to use my website. I know this is not supposed to be a commercial for me, but I do have a lot of investor classes that are recorded, how to buy your first investment property, how to build a portfolio, how many properties do you need to retire? Again, we'll give you that link in the show notes. I think that is, I'm biased, of course, but I think that's a good base level that you can start using, learning some of the terminology. We have an investment property spreadsheet. One of the big things I tell folks is learn how to analyze properties. Um, whether it's my spreadsheet or another spreadsheet that you use, analyze 10 properties a day. Go to the MLS, plug in 10 properties a day, and start figuring out what's good, what's not good. Then find the three best. Go out there and drive around and look at them. And what you're gonna see is the ones that have the best cash flow maybe are in this area. The ones that have the worst cash flow are maybe in this area, the ones that we think are gonna experience more appreciation, or maybe in this area. And just start doing it and just experiencing and seeing some of the trends and some of the patterns. So that would be number one is I would learn to analyze properties. Um, and again, we have some resources for that. But also find a mentor at a local real estate investor meetup and say, hey man, I'd love to buy you a cup of coffee or buy you lunch and tell me how you analyze properties. I think that is a lost art, is finding a mentor or finding somebody that has done it before. And that is something that has helped me a lot is having mentors. And I think we forget that if we were to go to a real estate investor club where there's really successful people, we get a little bit afraid to go up to the person and say, Hey, I'd love to learn how to analyze properties because we we feel like an imposter, right? But you know what I know? When you talk to that guy, they're like, Man, I would love to talk about it. Just like me and you. You know, I told you before we started, I could talk about real estate all day long. If I had a newer guy come up to me and say, Joe, can you teach me how to analyze properties? Absolutely, man. Let me pull up my laptop. Let's do it right here. Let me show you how to do it. You click on this, you look at that. And it it invigorates us. And so I think a newer property manager or newer agent that that hasn't done that yet, I think you'd be really surprised if you asked a highly experienced person to teach you some stuff. I'll bet you they'd be really excited about it.

Tony Cline 33:41

Yeah. So so leaning into a mentor, getting on the website. And as a matter of fact, I I we have a lot of people that listen to this as they drive from property to property or as they're driving into the office. So I know we're gonna put the link in the show notes so it's easy for them to access it. And you didn't ask me to do this, and and you didn't know I was going to, but let's go ahead and why don't you give them the actual website of where they can go so that they can at least hear it as they're driving around.

SPEAKER_00 34:10

Yeah, it's just loans by joemassey.com. So loansplural by joe massey.com. And up at the top, there's a link for Education Center. All of my classes are recorded. Um, you know, you can there there's no sign in or capture of your email address or anything. You can click right on it, watch the recording, get the PowerPoint notes, and call me. I mean, I I love talking about this stuff. So please feel free to use that as a resource. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for that.

Growth Pace And Financing Limits

Tony Cline 34:39

Yeah. Let's let's go back then to the different programs that you're seeing. And I know uh I don't know if this is specific to what you're seeing. The Denver market is uh, I won't say unique because every every market in the country is unique in some sense, but yet it's all universal, it's all lending. But the it's hard to get properties to cash flow if you're buying with low down and just Denver, the prices have gone crazy here over the last seven, eight years. And so uh but the but I have listeners, we have listeners through all across the country, Canada. We're actually in 70 countries now, I think. So not that we're gonna talk about how they can do loans in those countries, but we've got different markets listening in. So I I don't want to assume that just because our market is tough, I've I've got clients in Kentucky and Mississippi and other areas where it is a better investment market or different market. So, what are some of the things you see that people can use to start building their investment portfolio?

Tapping Equity To Accelerate

SPEAKER_00 35:46

Yeah. So I'll start with the basics. Number one, just a regular conventional 30-year fixed. This is my favorite investment loan program. And everybody is always asking me for creative financing, all this. And I just say, hey, let's just start with the basics. How about an investment property with only 15% down? That's something that we can do. Doesn't work great in Denver for exactly the reasons you mentioned. Property values have run up faster than rents. So if you were to do that, you're probably gonna have negative cash flow. But here's something that I'll help clients with. Why don't we buy you could buy one property with 30% down and it's gonna cash flow? Or you could buy three properties with 15% down. It's not gonna cash flow right now, but now I have three properties appreciating versus only one property appreciating. Now I'm not saying that's right or wrong for everybody, but we should review that. So, number one, um, especially if you're getting started, I might look for lower down programs, which we have. Again, conventional, you can do with as little as 15% down. If you're looking for stronger cash flow, particularly in Denver, you might have to put 30 or 35% down. Not that that's a requirement of the loan, but that's how the math works to have sufficient uh low enough payment to get positive cash flow. Um, other things, um, look at what you have in your existing portfolio. Do you have a lot of tied up equity? Um, so this is a big one where I'll talk to folks. They have$300,000,$400,000 of equity in a property. And yeah, they're killing it on cash flow. It's making$1,000 a month,$1,500 a month. But they'll call me and they'll say, Joe, we we have a ton of equity and it's not doing anything for us. Can we take some cash out? Sure. Let's take$200,000 cash out. So now instead of this cash flowing$1,500 a month, maybe it only cash flows$500 a month, but we have$200,000. Let's go buy another property, right? Or let's go buy two or three more properties. Kind of comes back to the goal conversation. Do you need to get to a certain number of properties or what are your long-term goals? But that's another program that we have. We can you can take cash out of the property with a new first mortgage refinance, home equity line of credit. That's something that we specialize in. We do a lot of those for investors. The third one that a lot of folks talk about is a DSCR loan. This is basically an investment loan focused solely on the cash flow of the property. And the way to think about it is let's say you rent the property for$2,000 a month. Your new payment is gonna be$1,999. As long as your rent is greater than the payment, we can get you approved for that new loan, assuming you have down payment and good credit, right? But we're not looking at your tax returns, we're not looking at your paycheck stubs, your W-2s. Now there's a trade-off. It has a slightly higher interest rate. So a lot of times folks will call me and they're like, hey, Joe, I want to get a DSCR loan because they've seen it on TikTok or Instagram or wherever. It's a popular place to advertise those types of loans. And I have the same conversation all the time. Great. Tell me a little bit about your goals. Maybe a DSCR loan is right for you. We do those. But first, let's talk about what you want to do. Let's talk about how much money you make. Let's talk about how much you want to put down. Let's talk about what you want to buy. Let's talk about the rents. Let's start with reviewing at least a conventional loan because that's going to have a lower rate, lower payment. If you can qualify for that, that works just as well as a DSCR loan, except it has a lower rate. Now, maybe we go through that, you don't have sufficient income, you don't have sufficient down payment, and we need to do a DSCR loan, that's okay. But let's start with the basics and then work through to figure out do we need something more exotic, if you will, like a DSCR loan. So I so I start with the same structure with every client. Let's look at every single loan option and figure out which one is best.

Tony Cline 39:46

So if somebody came to you and said, regardless of the whether it's the conventional loan or some other creative financing, and somebody came to you and said, I'm really jazzed about growing my portfolio. I want to grow two properties this year or five properties this year, or I know that at some point there's some limits that the the lenders start looking at. What are some of the realistic goals that somebody could have in how fast they could grow a portfolio?

SPEAKER_00 40:16

So the limit that you actually generally run into is you run out of down payment money. So I've met a lot of clients, they're like, Joe, I want to build a portfolio of 10 properties and I want to do it by the end of the year. Okay, cool. How much money do you have to put down? I have$100,000. Okay. You're gonna run out of money before you get to 10 properties. So we need to have more of a realistic conversation of, hey, maybe we're gonna buy two this year, then we're gonna save up another another$100,000 and buy two the next year, and then save up another$100,000 and buy three. Um, as far as limits, we can help you with a conventional loan with up to 10 finance properties. Then we have uh alternative financing where we can help you with uh greater than 10 properties. I think my largest client has a portfolio of, I feel like it's 26 financed properties. Um, and so we have a lot of different routes to help on that. But what I really focus with, um, especially newer investors, is hey, how many do you have now? Let's just get the next one or two or three. When we get to a limit of, hey, we can't do more than 10, that's okay. I know how to get you over that limit and we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. But the biggest limit that I see is people run out of down payment money. And so I think you kind of need to work backwards of, okay, I want this many properties at this price. I want to put 20% down. Well, how much money do you need for that? If you have that much money, sure, you can buy all of those right now. Or maybe we need to stair step and buy one or two this year, one or two next year. And Tony, you know this. Buying one property or two properties a year, that's a big job. If if you think, hey, I want to buy 10 properties this year, that's gonna be a lot more work than you think. Um, and I take a very measured approach. My goal, I want to buy one property a year. And I've been doing that for a long time, and it works great for me. And guess what? It doesn't stress me out. Yeah.

Resources, Contact, And AI Teaser

Tony Cline 42:11

Yeah. Um, you said something earlier about going and talking to your existing clients. And if they've been a client for a long time, they most likely in many markets have quite a bit of appreciation and debt pay down. And so they do have equity sitting there. And it's sometimes, as you had mentioned, yeah, they're enjoying a little bit more cash flow, but that money is really costing them when it's sitting there. You're getting cash flow every month, but the lost opportunity that you have to take some of that cash out and invest into something else, and I know in general, you don't buy a property hoping that you're going to get appreciation, and that's if you don't, then you're screwed. But in general, real estate appreciates over time. And so to have your one property sitting there with a whole bunch of equity, if your goal is to make sure you have a safe, secure nest egg and you're getting close to retirement age and things like that, maybe that changes what I'm about to say. But if you can take some of that equity out and buy two more properties that are going to appreciate, you've created this accelerator and this hockey stick of the value. And the faster things appreciate, the more equity you gain, the more equity you have, the more you can cash out to buy more properties. So obviously you have to be careful. And I wouldn't want anybody to go out and do this based on this one conversation where they're just like, okay, I'm going to cash out and buy a bunch of properties. Obviously, talk to somebody that's an expert that you're having conversations with about their specific situation. But it it seems like that's a great message for property managers to go and add value, even if the client says, No, I'm okay, you've presented them information that that proves you're looking out for their best interest. And if they say yes, now you're doing business, you're you're selling properties and managing more properties at the same time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:11

And I think you're spot on. And I think we forget that, right? We forget, hey, I spoke to my client three years ago. He was really happy. We put in the tenant, they renew every year, they pay the rent. It's my greatest low maintenance property that I'm managing. Bob, the client, Bob the owner, he loves me. But you know what? Let's call Bob. Hey, man, everything's going great on your property. Did you know that the value has gone up a hundred thousand dollars? Should we review that? And Bob might say, Nope, I love that we have a ton of equity. I'm really happy. Okay, cool. I love you, Bob. If there's anybody else that I can help or manage for, please have them give me a call. But what if Bob says, wow, I had no idea the value had gone up that much? Are there some other options that we should look at? And then it opens the door, right? Nothing bad comes from calling that client and saying, let's have a five-minute review. Do you know what your value is? Because the the, I think we forget, you and I, Tony, we look at this every day, right? We know I could ask you about your rental properties. You can tell me it's this price, this much rent, the lease is up on this day. Like the tenant always complains about the dishwasher doesn't work, right? Like you can tell me exactly. But most of our clients don't do that. Most of our clients are raising their children, going to work, taking their kids to school. It's not at the forefront of their mind. And if we can call and just check in with them, holy cow, they they love us even more. And I think we forget because it's at the forefront of our mind, we think it's at the forefront of their mind. You're like, oh, they know the value of their home, they don't want to hear from us. They don't think about Yeah.

Tony Cline 45:45

Yeah. Dead on. Uh all right. This has been a lot of fun, Joe. And and I know you and I could go on talking for hours. We spent on the time or spent time on the trail. We've spent time hanging out. Um we had a friend that recently had a birthday and did a volunteer instead of going out and partying for his 40th birthday. He uh he decided to help out at a uh a young person's shelter and uh help young people get off the streets. And we both took different shifts working that with him. So I enjoy spending time with you, and I could do that for another couple of hours with just like that passing. Thank you. But uh I want to make sure as we wrap up here that I give you a chance to cover anything that we didn't cover that you think would be important, and then I want to make sure that we give people because you have such a wealth of knowledge. If there's somebody out there that wants to pick your brain or connect with you, I want to make sure that we get the contact information in the podcast here. Of course, we'll put it in the show notes, but I want to make sure that we can get uh get you an opportunity to share anything that we skipped over or missed.

Closing And Listener CTA

SPEAKER_00 46:53

Yeah, thank you. My contact info, Joe Massey. I'm with Synergy One Lending. Uh, my website is just loansbyjo massey.com. You can email me. My uh email is my first initial last name, jmassy at s1l.com. And you can call me. A lot of people say, I don't give out my phone number, I don't give out this. I give out my phone number to everybody. 303-809-7769. Um, would love it if you wanted to follow me on LinkedIn or Facebook. It's uh at JMasseylending. I love talking about this stuff. You know, my core focus is in Colorado, but I'm also licensed in several other states. So wherever you're located, would love to chat with you about reviewing your portfolio, reviewing your clients' portfolio, giving you some tools on how you can review portfolios with your clients. I love talking about real estate. You want to learn how to analyze properties? Check out our property analysis spreadsheet. Works in every market. And we did not get to talk about it. So I'm hoping that this can be my bait that you'll invite me back again. I wrote a book recently, Tony, and it is called How Real Estate Agents Can Succeed Using AI. And AI is such a big topic. I think there's a lot of things for property managers and real estate agents alike that you can actually do really, really simple things with AI. It does not have to be this overwhelming topic, but really simple things that'll improve your efficiencies and your day-to-day workflow. So uh that's what I'll leave you with. I hope that'll be a little uh teaser that I'll get invited back and we can talk about that sometime in the future.

Tony Cline 48:23

Absolutely. That'd be great. Yeah, AI right now is, I mean, it's a buzzword everywhere. And uh and I remember back when we had the dot com boom and bust, you know, a lot of software would promote it's powered by the internet or it's you know, it's web enabled. And now people don't talk about that because, well, of course, every app is powered by the internet or or web enabled. And I I feel like we're in that same spot here with AI where people need to become familiar with it. They lean learn, they need to learn how to take advantage of it, and and those that do are going to get a boost in productivity and getting ahead in the marketplace. But at some point, people are gonna stop saying it's AI enabled, and it's just going to be that's the way it is. And so automatic. Automatic. So the faster you can get up to speed with that, the better advantage you're gonna have in the marketplace and achieving your goals. So I love that topic. We will absolutely have you back on to dig into that. Thank you. And uh what's the name of that book one more time?

SPEAKER_00 49:28

Uh, you can find it on Amazon. It is uh, I have a copy of it here. How real estate agents can succeed with AI. You can find it on Amazon. It's uh I think it's$6.99, which is the lowest price they would let me do. Uh so I think I make a whopping 14 cents every time we sell one. But it's on it's on Amazon Print, Kindle, and audiobook. It's got real-world applicable strategies. Actually, we have a great, great chapter on role playing. So everything we just talked about about calling your database, if you're nervous, I can show you how to practice with AI and get over those nerves.

Tony Cline 50:00

Perfect. Definitely coming back another time. But for this, let's wrap it up. Joe, thanks so much for for being on. Uh true friend and uh just uh a mountain of wisdom. And we're excited to have you on and looking forward to having you on again.

SPEAKER_00 50:17

Yeah, thanks for having me, Tony. I'm a huge fan of you, as you know, huge fan of the podcast, and uh anything I can do, you call me anytime. And with that, we'll wrap it up.

Tony Cline 50:27

Thanks again. Thanks for tuning in to the Property Management Success Podcast. We'll be back with another value packed episode to help you level up your property management game. If you've got something valuable out of today's episode, please share it with a friend or colleague. And don't forget to subscribe and leave a review so you never miss out on future insights and strategies and tactics. Until next time, here's your success.