MMM Edition: Why trust allows you to cherry pick deals w/ Dave Ribardo

Tired of advice that treats real estate like a spreadsheet and ignores everything that actually breaks on a Tuesday night? We sit down with Dave RIbardo—Army infantry officer turned Lehigh Valley investor, broker, and pilot—who turned early missteps in a dead market into a 400-unit operating platform built on people, process, and responsiveness. From the infamous $1,000 squirrel removal to a water billing fiasco solved by local boots on the ground, Dave shows how property management, maintenance, and communication drive returns more than any pro forma.

We unpack why time freedom, not “passive income,” was the real target—and how that shaped decisions about market selection, team design, and growth. Dave explains the slow-burn approach to partnerships: test small deals, write operating agreements for disagreements, and hire for character before skill. He details the structure behind Neo Management’s next chapter toward 1,500 units, with specialized roles in leasing, maintenance, and accounts that keep vacancy low and owners informed. If you’re starting out, you’ll get a realistic timeline for stabilization, a blueprint for assembling the right agent–lender–PM–contractor chain, and the case for base hits over moonshots to avoid burnout.

There’s also a fresh take on lead generation: skip soul-crushing cold calls and embed your business inside communities you love. Dave’s aviation hobby led to investor clients and large-owner management deals because shared passions build trust faster than any script. You’ll leave with actionable steps to pick resilient markets, build a compact, high-trust team, and design a portfolio that pays you in options as much as it pays you in cash flow. If this conversation helped you rethink your playbook, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a quick review so more investors can find it.

VCap Real Estate Podcast

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Welcome to the VCAP Real Estate Podcast, where we talk about building physical empires. Learn from industry experts about all aspects of the business of real estate. You'll learn how to buy, renovate, manage, and sell deals by people who actually do it every day. People who build their fortunes doing it. I'm your host, Cole Farrell. Let's talk. We're going to have our guest, Dave Robardo. Thank you, Sarah. Appreciate you. Dave has built his own portfolio in the Lehigh Valley. He started Neo Management Group. He's a successful agent. He's a pilot. And many more things that I'll let him get into. So cool. Let's know where you want to dive in.

From Accidental Landlord To Lehigh Valley

Building Sales, Management, And Contracting

SPEAKER_01 1:00

Awesome. So just to introduce myself, a lot of familiar faces here. Good to see everybody. And looking forward to meeting the new folks. My background is grew up in Jersey, did eight years in the military. I was an infantry officer in the Army. And as I was bouncing around duty station to duty station, I bought my first house, turned into an accidental landlord when a year later they're like, You're going to Louisiana. I was like, great. I got to Louisiana. I'm like, wow, there's nothing to do here. So I got into real estate investing. And overall, built up my portfolio, got out. In 2017, moved here to the Lehigh Valley, as close to New Jersey as you can get without paying the taxes. And then I started working full-time. Had the goal of being an investor, and I got my license saying, hey, I'll have access to the MLS, I'll do my own deal, save agent costs there, it'll be great. And immediately got derailed when I found there was a huge vacuum for helping new buyers acquire investment properties in the Lehigh Valley and started connecting with tons of folks coming out of New York, New Jersey, moving here, trying to get their capital to work for them. So I started a sales team, which we'll talk a little bit more later about. That grew, became successful. Eventually we were bouncing around, sending referrals to every property management company. There's uh several of them here represented, all of which are fantastic. There's many of them that are not here, of which there's some extremely variable results. So out of that headache, uh we'll just say that's where our company, Neomanagement Group, got started. And so opened up an Allentown branch there. And uh we are currently managing about 400 units on that side of things. Uh sales team, right now, Sarah, raise your hand, say hi Sarah. Uh so she runs our sales team for us. Uh currently we were the uh number one uh sales team in the KW uh offices there last year, and uh currently ranked number one as far as number of investor buyer acquisitions in the Lehigh Valley out of not just KW, but like every real estate agent over the past three years. Uh so really fun journeys there. Uh then uh of course, if you guys already own one, you know the biggest hassle of a rental property is maintaining it. And so as the portfolio kept growing, our contractors got busier and busier. So eventually we started our contracting branch of the team. Uh so that's been a fun journey there. Uh lots of ups, quite a few downs. Uh there's no shortcuts to any place worth going. Uh so just learned a ton throughout that experience since uh currently uh take care of a lot of uh long care is our big focus over there. Uh so continuing through uh uh that I do have my own investment portfolio here. My partners Mike and Joe are with CRP Capital. Uh we buy and hold investments there. We've also done some private lending there. Hi, Santiago. Uh let me know if you need to borrow any money. Uh you've got access to our checkbook anytime. And uh so that's kind of what's taken me here today. Uh it's been a fun journey. And then uh Cole mentioned it briefly. I also am a pilot, and uh uh Tyler there, he doesn't believe it, but I I do fly planes from time to time. Uh so yeah, that's who I am.

Why Real Estate And Time Freedom

SPEAKER_00 4:19

I love it, I love it. So I want to dial back. You said when you moved here, you had the goal of being an investor. Why start? What was the intention?

SPEAKER_01 4:27

Well, um, you know, every everyone says the same things with this question. They're like, oh, I wanted passive income and I wanted financial freedom and this and that. But for me it was time. Uh so uh two things. I chose real estate because I was pissed off at the stock market because it would just randomly go up and down, and I had like, I was like, I didn't do anything to deserve this, and all of a sudden my money is like disappearing. So I hated that aspect of it. Um and I tried to get nerdy with the numbers, but like there's nothing you can do when the market's crashing, like you're just along for that roller coaster ride. Whereas in the real estate market, like, oh no, I have a property and it's not doing well. I can go ahead, buy some paint, slap it on the walls, trade my time. Now I've got a good asset there. Um, but ultimately the goal was to create a business in which case, here I am in the army, right? I hated the fact that I was missing holidays and you know, I'd have to go pick up some soldier who got a DUI at midnight on Thanksgiving. I'm like, no, I want to be sleeping or I want to be going on vacation with my family, not to Afghanistan. So uh made that switch and uh from that point on out have been able to pursue those things uh that ultimately, yeah, the real estate's the vehicle that provides the money, but it does so in a vehicle that allows me flexibility for time, structure, and really to control it as a uh way of shaping my own destiny there.

Early Failures And Bad Markets

SPEAKER_00 5:45

Love that, love that. So, quick question how many people here own at least one property? All right, very cool. So, most of us. So, as we're all growing and you were growing, what were the challenges that you ran into building your portfolio?

SPEAKER_01 5:58

Um I'm gonna say at this point, I would love to say that I've seen everything, uh, but specifically our two property managers over there. Have you guys seen everything? Or are you still finding new and interesting ways where our tenants never cease to amaze us with these things? Um, my first one, I was really excited because it was promised that it was gonna go great. And I handed the keys to a property manager. First tenant moved in, 30 days later didn't pay the rent, trashed the place, had to be evicted, and within 60 days of starting real estate investing, I was$6,000 in the hole. Um, so that wasn't good. And then I moved to rural Louisiana and I looked at these and I had not one but two agents look over each of my deals, and I'm like, this is gonna be fantastic. I'm gonna make 25% cash on cash returns here, starting year one, not even counting on like appreciation. It's gonna be such a good market. And I bought in rural Louisiana at Fort Polk, and the first thing the Army did was they said, Okay, great, Dave, you've closed on these properties. Now we're gonna take 10,000 soldiers from this base and send them to New York and cut the size in half. And so there was 5,000 vacancies that popped up simultaneously as I closed on this property, and guess what? That sucked. Uh so no, I'm sitting there, I'm renting a single family home for$425. I'm renting, you know, a nice three-bedroom place for$630 a month. I have not had a single rent increase since 2015 there, because the market is that flat and bottom. Um, so I bought in a terrible market, right? So when everyone's like, oh man, this market when it pops, guess what? It doesn't have to pop if you buy in the middle of nowhere. Uh so I've I've definitely gone through and learned those challenges. And it falls into just like the random things that happen with properties. If it can go wrong, it will sometime. And then the other half is just the team. And so if you surround yourself with people, right, the good people are gonna make that get taken care of for you. They'll they're gonna be problem solvers that fix it. And if you surround themselves with yourselves with the wrong people, right, then you're gonna have to spend the time fixing the team that you're working with.

SPEAKER_00 8:09

And there. So I feel like that's gonna intertwine to my next question, but if you had a biggest mistake in real estate, what would it be?

Biggest Misconception: It’s About People

SPEAKER_01 8:16

Hmm. Um, I'm gonna say that one there. Um one of them is a an assumption. Okay, so when I got started, I thought it was all about numbers. I was like, I'm gonna be this big nerdy Excel spreadsheet guy. I still am. Uh, but whereas I thought that was like where a real estate investor is gonna make their money by like analyzing a property and having data and things like that. Um, that was my biggest like misconception, is it's all about people, it's all about trust. And if you take care of people and you do the right thing and you build trust with them, they're gonna want to keep working with you. Right? And so when you're getting ready to sell you know your next uh property, you're like, hey, I've got this one, I'm finally gonna let go of that first duplex because it's paid down the loan so much I could sell it and turn it into a you know very nice four plus unit property. Are you gonna just go ahead and you know sell it to the masses? Are you gonna give first dibs, right? Or if you get multiple offers, do you go with the person, you're like, oh, like great, cool, Ted? Like, hey, you're sending an offer, I know you from the meetup. Like, let's go do this thing. So it's all based on that trust and uh whatnot.

SPEAKER_00 9:23

Definitely true, definitely true. What about you kind of answered it, but what about your biggest success in real estate then?

Partnerships That Work And Why

SPEAKER_01 9:31

Hmm. Let's see, what did I put on here? Um, I'm so for me, the biggest success I've had is the partnerships I've done. Um my background as an army infantry officer. Was anybody enlisted in the military here? All right. And so thank you guys for your service. All right. Um I think it's like mandatory, you have to say that. But right, so you guys did the work, okay, and what did officers do? No, we got awards, right? We just like take credit for it and get awards, right? So for me, that was my greatest success. It's like I come from a background of organizational leadership, instruction. Uh, I build a system and then I hand it to somebody to actually work within the system. So for me, the best thing I ever did was like was surrounding myself with some rock stars. So on the CRP capital side, Mike and Joe are the best partners I could have ever asked for. There's just such great trust. Um, Sarah's nodding, you know, she's the agent that works with them, but like we've had some crazy things happen within our portfolio, and they're just like, all right, whatever. Yeah, let's let's go do this thing. What what do we need from us? Nothing, okay, great. And uh, same thing. So uh simultaneously, you know, like I said, the other side of that, sometimes it doesn't work out.

SPEAKER_00 10:44

But the you know, in this case, the the biggest success is just those rock stars. I love that. So I want to get into team building in a minute. I don't want to go there yet, but you brought up partners, right? So partners can be hit or miss. A lot of people have partnership experience and it blows up in their face and it's a disaster. Some people have partnership experience and their business explodes. Okay. So where have you found success in that? What did you do, or what do you think others should do to make sure that that goes the right way and not the wrong way?

SPEAKER_01 11:14

I would say that you've got to treat a partnership with a healthy amount of respect. Okay. And so just like you're not, you know, you know anybody who's gotten married at a really young age to somebody that they just met? How'd that work out for them? It's dicey. Right? Uh I I would I would be willing to bet it had an unfavorable outcome. So, like for me, the best partnerships are something that grow organically over time. And so when we do this, a lot of people are really excited and have a ton of positive momentum with all of the energy around this, and a lot of optimism. And so when everybody is making money and hitting their goals, everyone's having a good time. And it doesn't matter what's in the operating agreement, and everything goes smoothly. And if that's what happens, then great. Uh however, four out of five businesses fail, four out of five partnerships fall apart. And so that's why I always refer to it as the LLC having an operating disagreement, because that operating agreement says, in writing, what will happen when the parties are no longer seeing on the same page? So whenever you're starting this partnership, take your time, get to know somebody, build it one little bit at a time, right? And then as you start to take steps forward, if it's working, reinforce it. If it's not working, pull the plug and don't look back. Because the longer that you try and make this thing happen, the longer you wait before you meet the person you're supposed to be partnered and working with.

The $1,000 Squirrel And Starting Neo

SPEAKER_00 12:52

I love that. As a personal anecdote, there is uh I was looking for a partner forever, I was getting overwhelmed, too much to do, it's crazy. And uh same thing, you gotta meet the right person, you gotta mesh with them, and it's really gotta be like you just kind of know in a way, and you test the waters, you start small, and with the guys that I worked with, we started super small, we did a couple little things, things went wrong, things stayed nice, and it works out. And so I just absolutely love what you said there.

SPEAKER_02 13:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:19

Um I want to go into a couple of different businesses that you got going on. So one, Neo. So you started with PM. Um you kind of touched on it, but tell me more like why you got into that and kind of what led that being synergistic to everything you're doing.

SPEAKER_01 13:34

The the short version of how I got into it is that there is a squirrel in one of my garages. And there was a property management company, and the property manager sent me a bill for$1,000 for a squirrel removal service. I'm like, what are you talking about? Like, this is insane. And he's like, Well, nope, we paid a wildlife specialist to come up from Philly and take the squirrel out of your garage. They put a one-way door in. They came up Friday at 10 o'clock at night when there was this emergency work order for a squirrel. And then they came back Sunday at 11 o'clock at night to remove the one-way door. So they charged overtime. And I'm like, it's$1,000. And they're like, no, it's two$500 ones. I'm like, if this is$1,000 to get a squirrel out of the garage. You could have just opened it and yelled at it and it would run out. Like, what is going on? And so simultaneously, uh, the uh property manager I was working over there, who'd done a great job, but was had her hands tied with a maintenance person who was not the most skilled at that position, still learning the ropes, uh, her boss didn't take care of her. Right? Her boss provided a work laptop that was not functional, and she was saying, Hey, it's been a few weeks. I can't do anything without a computer. Like, what do you want me to do? I need you to help me either buy me a replacement or get this fixed or whatever. But he wouldn't even pick up the phone for her. And so at that point in time, we sat there, we looked at each other in the eye, and I was like, Hey, you want to start a new property management company? She's like, How about we sit down at Perkins Diner tomorrow? We'll make this thing happen, and that was the rest was history. Um, so that's how I got into property management. And there's a lot of those stories. Like, nobody's like, I want this, it's a glorious thing, but it's kind of like a necessity. And of being a property manager is a thankless job. When it goes well, nobody cares, right? Everyone's like, good job investor, you bought this great asset, right? And the investor is all happy looking at their you know monthly paychecks, and then when things go wrong, who gets yelled at? And why is it Shelby? Right?

Vision: Scaling To 1,500 Managed Units

SPEAKER_00 15:33

So ultimately that's where uh where that started. I love that. Do you have a vision of where you want those to go? Is it kind of keep where they're at and just keep trucking along, or do you have any kind of special?

Training Rockstars And Role Fit

SPEAKER_01 15:43

Unfortunately, so I've made the decision to surround myself with rock stars that are real live in person, live in the Lehigh Valley, and that comes with a premium price. So I cannot stay at this level. Right now I've taken all the profits from these teams and invested them into my staff that I've surrounded myself with. So we're currently on a trajectory building up to a 1,500 unit portfolio for this next level of the vision. And then we'll take a pause, we'll settle in, we'll see how that feels, and then decide what comes next. So uh that's the current growth trajectory there. Uh we currently have it broken down where we've got sales manage and uh sales team over here, but under the management side, here's your leasing, here's your maintenance, and here's your accounts. And to have specialists that are real live, boots on the ground in the Lehigh Valley, go hands-on, like has been just so instrumental. Like we had a big issue uh up in Sladington the other day with a water bill where they said, Congratulations, you used$4,000 worth of water last quarter for this one apartment building. I'm like, what? And it turns out so I walked in there and uh it was myself and our account's guy, Daniel. We walked in there, and we've got a contractor and we got some guys in those yellow highlighter-colored construction t-shirts from the borough, and they were about to throw down in fisticuffs because it turns out there was actually nothing wrong with the water meter, but they weren't tracking that it reads off by a factor of 10. So our water bill is actually$400 for the quarter. And they just they installed 11 of those, and of those 11 water meters, the other 10 people nobody noticed. So yeah, good times. That is crazy. So that's we'll go ahead. Yeah, so that's why that's why I've surrounded myself with these people. Um, they've been doing a great job of that, and that's why we have to grow so that they can be compensated fairly.

SPEAKER_00 17:34

I love that. So before I ask my next question, I will say as a client of yours, one of the things I really like about your team with the management side specifically is if I have a problem, I call, they pick up immediately. If I call with whatever leasing, I have their phone or I text them right there. I love that. Just with any trade or anything it may be, you guys do an awesome job with that.

SPEAKER_01 17:52

Well, and and that just goes down to trust. So, regardless of like what your role is, the communication is the number one thing. If it's there, then people just want to be heard. And that makes all the difference. You know, it's very different because I had a pre-am uh company we were working with a couple years ago, and we had a tenant who pipe broke, water's flowing through the ceiling, and they call the emergency maintenance number, and it's like, thank you. Your work order is 4827-48642. Somebody will give you a call shortly, goodbye, and then it hangs up on them as like Yeah. There were some emotions there.

SPEAKER_00 18:28

I am sure. So, part of doing all these different things, right, requires building a team. For you to level up, for you to manage all these things, you have a team behind that. So, and like I said, your team is very successful. So, what leads to that? How do you train these people? How are you building this that leads to them being successful?

How New Investors Win Without Burning Out

SPEAKER_01 18:45

Well, uh, so one of the things about the army, right, is I looked at my experience and I had the pleasure of working with some special operations forces uh during deployment and uh in home station. And uh those guys are a very different breed of people. And one of their adages is that they cannot you cannot mass produce this, right? So here's a team of 10 people that have this huge chemistry, uh, great trust with each other, and just accomplish wonderful things, more than you know, saying 350 regular old infantry dudes going downrange would accomplish. And so for me, um, building this team has been a slow process, okay? You identify somebody as a potential talent, okay. And so we're also used to a job description, and then we say, Great, are you interested in this job? and you put somebody in, but it's very rarely like that. Um, so quite a few times we've found someone that is an absolute very successful person, they're intelligent, they're motivated, they're hard working, but people have different sets of personality characteristics. Okay, so for me, all right, I sat there as an agent in my formative years in this industry and I said, I kind of hate this, right? Um, so I was working, and though I was having financial success and by all metrics, having a good time uh according to Keller Williams standards, I personally was like, yo, I don't like this because people fall into different personality types. So what we're doing is we're we're looking for good people, all right? When we have somebody who just pops in is like, hey, I'm looking for a job. Great. What opportunity can our team create to put you to work? And the other thing is when we have a opportunity on our team, like we know what this role is. Okay, we figured it out, we've been doing this for a few years, we know exactly what it's gonna take to be successful, right? So now you're looking at it. Is this a role for a person who is task-oriented or are they people oriented? Right? Is this for somebody who wants a high-intensity work environment, or do they want to do something that's maybe a little more routine business routine, like so?

Niche Lead Gen: Aviation To Deals

SPEAKER_00 20:57

I love that. Um having helped a lot of clients launch their businesses and whether it's build their teams and themselves or just run their business as normal, um what have how have the most successful ones started? What do they do differently?

Fast Five And Final Takeaways

SPEAKER_01 21:13

Well, they don't fail. So that's the number one big thing, right? Easy. Um so that's the that's kind of a cop-out answer, but like if you take a look at the things that cause people to get in and like get out. So uh the ones that have we've helped over 50 investors get started, right? The ones that have not made it past that two-year mark, okay, um, they've all swung for the fences, they've set really lofty goals and said, I'm gonna be the best real estate investor. So like one of our clients was absolutely smart guy. He's an attorney. He bought five duplexes there in a matter of less than 12 months, okay. And so in doing this, we sat there and the property management company took all of these on and immediately started turning over tenants, putting money into the properties, working on these things through it. And at the end of uh year one, he largely had a very nicely performing 10-unit portfolio uh out of nowhere, which by all means, I mean, that's that's a very strong trajectory to launch with. And guess what? He hated every second of it because he was a litigation attorney, and every time something happened at his property, right, he was worried about how the tenants were going to sue him because that's what he does for a living. Okay, and so he didn't have time to build the confidence in things being okay. And there were so many of these emotional things that the stress built up over time. So, what I found is the most common trajectory for the ones that are successful is they find the right people to work with. Okay, they have a good agent, they have a good property manager, they have a good lender, okay, and a good home inspector if you're using one of those, or a good contractor if you're going that route. And any one of those links in the chain that is broken, the whole thing comes apart potentially. And then you set a reasonable goal. Okay, you're gonna start off with a single family home, maybe a duplex or something like that. That's low stress, okay? And you get a base hit, right? We're not trying to hit a home run, we're getting a base hit, get somebody on base, and then you learn your lessons. And just like me, right? I had two of them that were like maybe not so good, okay, with those Louisiana stuff in Georgia. And then when I came up here, I was able to apply those lessons. So if you just have a simple goal and you meet it, it feels good, it reinforces it, you build off of that. Uh so don't swing for the fences, get a good team, and just take one, get all the way through it, see if it's for you. If it is, go ahead and then start on the second one. Don't feel a need to just deploy a million dollars all at once.

SPEAKER_00 23:56

I love that. So you said two-year mark. Is that have you seen that be like a critical kind of mass point, or is it flow?

SPEAKER_01 24:04

That one, it depends on everybody. Okay. Um, generally speaking, uh, this point I'm pretty calibrated, and I can tell based on a few questions if you're the right fit for this or not. But that person on the other side is not necessarily going to admit whether it is or isn't. And so a lot of times they're gonna say the right things, we're gonna move ahead with the process, and sometimes people are like, yeah, this is it, this is for me. And you're like, woo! And it it if there's conflict at these steps in the process and you're constantly having to fight against things, yeah, that's a that's a red flag there. Um, but there's some people that have gotten in, and what you'll see with a just any property is the first couple of months there, you're stabilizing. Three months, you're just stopping the bleeding because nobody sells a property if it's the best thing in their portfolio. Exactly. Month six through twelve, right? You're letting that first um lease set turnover, and then at that point's where you're starting to see the real characteristics. So it's generally at that 12 to 24 months that within that deal, you're seeing if it really makes you happy or not.

SPEAKER_00 25:11

I love that. And I just feel like it's so important to emphasize like it's gonna be there's gonna be failure, right? There's it's undoubted. Whether you start and whatever you get into, it's gonna be brutal, and it's just a matter of keep progressing through that. And then once you get through that, you'll have the confidence to move back. So, or keep going, I should say. So I love that you hit on that. Um my last question, before we go into kind of final questions for you that are faster, dirt pilot, I know you enjoy this very much.

SPEAKER_01 25:36

Yeah. Why? Well, uh, so Mr. Ted over there, he's uh been my business coach for many, many uh years here. And so if you look at the traditional real estate agent stuff, like is anybody here thinking of becoming a real estate agent in the room? Right? So uh what you'll see here is that the traditional models are like, yeah, you gotta go dial in for dollars and you gotta go send out these mailers and all of this kind of stuff. And all of those things are based upon having 99 people say no to you for everyone that says yes. And that's terrible. It's soul crushing. Like I have no interest in that kind of stuff. And it's an absolutely valid business technique, but it is not something I can personally get along with. Uh so Ted was like, Dave, we're not gonna do any of that. Like, get out of that. Don't even try that. Stop following what everyone else in the industry does and just go to the airport and fly planes. I was like, what? I'm supposed to be a real estate agent, not a pilot. He's like, Yeah, just go fly planes, trust me. And I was like, all right, Mr. Miyagi over there. You'll he's like, just trust me. And so jump forward by that end of the first year. I had done transactions with five people from the airport. Because surprise, surprise, if you have enough money to buy an airplane, you got enough money to buy a house or buy an investment property there. And so that became something where uh that has given access to a particular class of people to uh bump elbows with some big commercial developers, you know. Hey, you got a 200 unit? What are you guys looking at for management? How's your company doing for that? You ever think of third-party management? Right, great. What's it look like when you can uh do those kinds of things? So it's been really great there. We just got another four unit uh from another management company, courtesy of Queen City Airport there. Um I spent two hours flying with a guy, never met him whatsoever, didn't even speak about real estate with him, but we go up, go flying, and I'm like, Yep, I'm a real estate agent by day, but I do this part-time. We spent two hours start to finish on an annual flight review, and by the end, he was like, Yeah, can you just send over the management contract? I'm like, you don't even want to like talk about this? He's like, No, like I trust you. You know, if uh you if you fly like this, I'm sure your company will do just fine. I was like, Wow.

SPEAKER_00 27:48

Wow, cool. That's awesome. And I think it's cool. It speaks to like figure out what you do that you're good at or that you just really enjoy and figure out a way to, I don't want to say capitalize on that, but cater towards it. Whether it's flying or whether it's um jujitsu or whether it's cars or whatever it is, there's people in those circles that, like you said, will go towards that. And so I think that's such a cool tip.

SPEAKER_01 28:11

Absolutely. Like the more that you are hanging out in a group of people that you have a common language with and something you're passionate about, all right, have that be a part of your identity. And then guess what? All right, um, congratulations. There's your clientele there. And you just become the real estate agent that takes care of the people in that car club. Or, you know, my neighbor, she was a bartender. And guess what? All of the clientele at Strange Brew just happened to buy houses with her as the real estate agent. Who would have thought? So, you know, great opportunity there.

SPEAKER_00 28:44

There you go. I love it. All right, last section here. We call it the Fast Five. It's gonna be the same questions we ask every guest. You can give us a long answer, short answer, whatever you do. But what separates top performing investors from the rest of the crowd? And you did kind of hit on this, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:59

Um I I'd say that the uh the top performing investors are backed by a top performing team. Okay, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 29:07

Daily habit that contributes to your success.

SPEAKER_01 29:10

I'm gonna say for me, it's running. Uh so for me that's something where uh it's my forcing function where it keeps me happy, keeps me healthy, and uh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:21

Love it. What advice would you give to yourself if you were starting again? If I was starting again, first of all, don't buy anything in Louisiana.

SPEAKER_01 29:30

That state's not going anywhere. Um but uh really it's uh it's something that you don't want to try and buy low, sell high. Okay? It's you want to go ahead and find something that's on that upward bandwagon, right? What if you bought Taylor Swift tickets just as soon as she started getting popular? What are they worth today, right?

SPEAKER_00 29:50

I love that. What is your favorite real estate business book podcast?

SPEAKER_01 29:56

Sorry, do you want to answer this one for me? Tim Ferris's four-hour work week. Everybody on the uh uh the team gets a copy of that book. Um so overall it's been something that uh I've I've greatly enjoyed. The fact that it's not so much the technical things in there, but just the idea of shifting your life from you know the things in your life being focused around work to, hey, you're gonna work, you're gonna pay the bills, but you're gonna do that as efficiently as possible so you can maximize the opportunity to live.

SPEAKER_00 30:30

I love that. I have it on my bookshelf, have not read it yet. I'll get there. Alright, last question. What's the biggest non-monetary benefit you've got from and gotten from investing?

SPEAKER_01 30:40

Uh for me, it's the freedom. Uh so by switching from where I was as a member of the corporate world into this real estate, uh, real estate's a vessel, it's a vehicle to turn it into whatever you want. You could turn it into this big corporate locked in experience. For me, we've taken a decentralized approach, right? My only job on the team is to make sure that Sarah and Lauren and Mike are taken care of. Okay, and they take care of their teams, and in doing so, now compared to my army days, I can be at every family thing. I can be going on vacations whenever I want. I can build that freedom, and it's just been fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 31:18

I love that. I absolutely love that. Well, thank you for being here so much. It was an awesome time doing this. So, round of applause for Dave. So thank you. Thank you, Cole. Appreciate it.