WS1904 47 Years of Experience Investing in Westside California | Highlights Larry Taylor

In this highlight episode, we feature Larry Taylor, a seasoned real estate investor with over 50 years of experience. Larry shared his journey in the real estate industry, starting from a young age when he developed a passion for it. He emphasized the importance of following your passion and being in the right place at the right time.

Larry's niche is the West side of Los Angeles, which he believes is the best location for real estate investment due to its high concentration of wealth, desirable weather, and limited supply of available land. He explained that properties in this area rarely come to market unless there is an event such as a death, divorce, or bankruptcy. Larry also highlighted the benefits of owning real estate in terms of tax advantages and the pride of ownership.

When it comes to his business model, Larry focuses on long-term investments and forming private equity real estate companies that own portfolios of properties. He discussed the advantages of leveraging properties and building relationships with lenders. He also shared his surprising experience with his non-levered private equity company, which received less interest from investors compared to the traditional levered company.

In terms of the current market conditions, Larry acknowledged the impact of rising interest rates and limited availability of debt. However, he mentioned that there are still opportunities to buy properties at a slight discount. He advised investors to never borrow more than they can afford to pay back and to develop strong relationships with banks.

Overall, Larry provided valuable insights into surviving market downturns and making successful real estate investments. He encouraged listeners to reach out to him and his team to learn more about their investment opportunities and long-term approach to real estate.


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Transcript

Whitney Sewell: This is your daily real estate syndication show. I'm your host, Whitney Sewell. Today, we've packed a number of shows together to give you some highlights. I know you're going to enjoy the show. Thank you for being with us today. Larry, welcome to the show. Honored to have you on, especially with your level of experience and just being a seasoned investor. I love talking to guys like yourself who have been in this business for a long time and are very passionate about it. And that just comes out from your bio and even our communication, you have a niche that you are very laser focused on and I'm excited to hear about it. So Larry, give us a little more about who you are, maybe your background, right? All these years in real estate and maybe even highlight as you go, a couple of things that were like aha moments, right? Or this thing really propelled you forward because of this or this other thing.

Larry Taylor: Okay, well, great. Listen, thank you so much for actually having me on the show. I appreciate that. I'm flattered at the invitation and I'm thrilled with the opportunity to share a little bit about what I know with your audience and hopefully they'll enjoy some of the information and some of my experiences. Hope to satisfy them in that regard.

Whitney Sewell: Yeah, for sure. Larry, give us a little bit about why real estate, why commercial or yeah. Why commercial real estate? Why did you start in real estate when you did?

Larry Taylor: Well, this is my 51st year as a principal owner of this real estate company. I'm 1600 years old, but that means I started when I was 18. I think that all of us humans are born with certain talents. whether it's music or whether it's writing or whether it's art, whether it's medicine. Every human has a certain calling. And I think from a very early age, I was interested in real estate. Just as a little boy when I was walking home from the first grade and I would stop at a construction site and look through the little viewing window as they were excavating the foundation. So I just think I follow the natural interest in real estate. I don't think it's unusual for people who are given the opportunity to follow their passion.

Whitney Sewell: It wasn't something that maybe your father instilled in you in any way or somebody else that mentored you or no, you just, yeah. I mean, most, most boys are intrigued by those big diggers, right? When you're, when you're little, that's so neat.

Larry Taylor: I was intrigued. I have fallen into that passion from day one. It just drew me to do that.

Whitney Sewell: What were, you know, some of the steps, I mean, at 18, right? I mean, that's, that's incredible that you were able to start then. And, you know, what did that look like to even get your first deal at that time or to get started with your own real estate business?

Larry Taylor: Well, at 18, I was a junior in college in Los Angeles. I was a student at the University of Southern California, and I was very interested in taking as many classes as I could. in the undergraduate school of business, anything to do with real estate. There was not a program per se for real estate. Real estate wasn't typically taught back in the early seventies, but there were classes like real estate finance, real estate appraisal, things like that. And so I took those classes and was very interested. and absorbing all that I could, even though I was an accounting major and a scholarship student. But I took these extra classes and I was very intrigued because in 1972, we were in a very interesting time period, a very high inflationary period. President Nixon was in office at the time. And he was seeking to control inflation by imposing wage and price level freezes. And a lot of people weren't alive at that time. Remember the history is that was that administration, Nixon administration's idea was to just freeze the prices of everything. You know, gasoline, rents, wages, real estate prices. I mean, everything was frozen. And so studying the history of rent control, I'm sorry, the history of price controls as it translated to real estate, while I'm taking real estate classes, it seemed like a very opportune time to be able to go into a market where prices can't go up because they're blocked by the government. And I had studied the history of controls and they usually fail. And when the controls came off, the prices went crazy, which they did. And I thought this is opportune time to go out and try to buy some real estate, which is what I did.

Whitney Sewell: Awesome. How did you, how did you close the first deal or so? Like, what did that, did you have some mentors? Did you find some people? What did that look like?

Larry Taylor: No, no, not at all. In 1973, not only were we in a period of high inflation, we were faced with the Arab-Israeli war and the oil embargo, which drove oil up from $2 a barrel to $10 a barrel, which was massively inflationary. This is coinciding with the wage and price level freeze and also coinciding with a landmark Supreme Court case called Wellington, the Bank of America, which basically was decided in favor of Wellington, which said no bank in the land can accelerate a loan based upon a due on sale provision. of merely because the property transferred. So you have this weird combination of things where you could buy real estate with an existing loan without telling the lender at a time where interest rates were actually moving up and rates were fixed at a lower number, which is very similar to the market today. So you can actually go buy a property, not qualify for a loan, and basically come up with the down payment. And so in my real estate appraisal clients, The final exam was based upon finding a property, appraising it, preparing an appraisal report, and submitting it, and that would be your final grade. I found a department building that I needed to analyze and appraise for that class, and it turned out to be such a good deal, I bought it.

Whitney Sewell: That's so cool. Wow. Good for you. Good for you. That's awesome. You know, I, I'd love to hear more about your 50 years of experience and, uh, but I want to dive in on, you know, your specialty and your focus because man, there's so much wisdom we could glean from you and no doubt about it. I tell you what, before we do, what is one or two things that have helped you to excel, you know, quickly? What, what are, you know, if you said, you know what, if I could tell my younger self to do this, these two things, or these are two things that really helped me, what would you, what would that be?

Larry Taylor: Well, number one. I'm very fortunate to be in an environment on the west side of Los Angeles, which I think is blessed with the best year-round weather in the country and also the highest concentration of wealth in the United States, if not the world. And this is not a bad place to have landed. So good fortune put me in the west side of Los Angeles, but I would say that It's all about luck and timing, really, when you get down to it, you know, following your passion and then being lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time and having timing on your side and the, you know, basically the willingness to take that risk. To actually not just think about it, not hear about it, but actually just do it. And that's kind of my motto, just do it. And ultimately I've stayed in the West side because the motto is buy the rest, forget, buy the best, forget the rest.

Whitney Sewell: I love that. Let's dive into that. You are very focused on the West side of LA, right? I mean, that's like your bread and butter, right? West side of LA.

Larry Taylor: That's it.

Whitney Sewell: To speak to that, like why invest in the West side of LA? Why be hyper-focused there?

Larry Taylor: Well, number one, as I said, it's the highest concentration of wealth in the United States, if not the world. We certainly have the highest concentration in the West Side region of Los Angeles consists of five separate cities, which a lot of people can't understand Los Angeles because it's a very, very broad region. We have, as I said earlier, the best year-round weather, the highest concentration of wealth, no available vacant land, which makes it impossible for a competitive product to be built. We have an incredible entertainment industry, which has been around since the 20s. It's only grown in popularity. We have tourism, which has constantly been a very important factor here in Los Angeles. west side community. We have the two largest ports in the United States, the most important ports that do the highest amount of traffic because we are the gateways of the Far East, our trading partners in Asia. We also have technology in the Silicon Valley, Silicon Beach, because the weather's better. And a lot of these technology firms have moved here. SpaceX is based here. And aerospace has long been the basis for the economy going back to the end of World War II all the way up through probably the late 70s into the early 80s. And we still have a fair amount of aerospace here in Los Angeles, although some has departed. But now with SpaceX having spawned all kinds of new aerospace companies and so many new tech startups, I mean, there's just no lack of continued demand and limited supply. So if you have continued demand and limited supply, real estate values can only go one way up.

Whitney Sewell: Yeah. I've heard people talk about it, like there's no more land there to get, right? What, how are you finding land or how are you finding properties? You know, I mean, obviously being there that long, being that focused there, you're definitely well connected there, know the market probably as well as anyone, but what does that look like to find property in a, such a competitive area like that?

Larry Taylor: Well, it is very competitive, but something that you said, which is long term, 50 years plus, certainly we are likely to be the first ones to get a call when something amazing becomes available. primarily because of our long history of performance and knowledge of the marketplace. But I like to say we know every spurring to the West side, but we really don't, but we know a lot about the own, a lot of realistic West side. But very few properties ever do come to market unless there's an event. Everything in the West side is driven because people aren't really focused on selling anything ever. If it's a death, if it's a divorce, if it's a bankruptcy, if it's an estate sale, if it's a partnership dispute, that's really what happens. I'd say that in the past years, I don't think there's any properties that we have purchased that haven't been the result of one of those types of events. And the average hold period for the Stellar is between 60 and 70 years. So what that means is any property that we're purchasing likely has been owned for an average of 60 to 70 years, which is the compelling Reason to own real estate and which is something that people don't really fully understand, which is you're lucky enough to own real estate. You never want to sell. And the only time that you do sell it has been somebody makes you a terrific offer and you can't refuse, which happens more often than not in this marketplace.

Whitney Sewell: I bet. And probably a lot of offers made that aren't, I mean, on properties that aren't for sale, right?

Larry Taylor: Rarely. Yeah, sure. We rarely list anything for sale. We just have an unsolicited offer on properties. So not unusual. But this is, this is a very dynamic market. very well understood for people who don't really, you know, live here or have experience here. But, you know, I just take back yesterday from three weeks in Europe. When people ask me where I live, I say, well, I live in Malibu, California. They go, oh, my God, Malibu. I have visions of Malibu. They have visited once. They show me pictures. If I told them I was from San Bernardino, they wouldn't know what I was talking about. You know, I mean, it's just kind of like, if I say I'm from Beverly Hills or, or, or West Hollywood or Santa Monica or Venice, California or Van Aden beach or things like these are world. Miss locations that people really, really pine for find a way to be at memories of visiting, even though Disneyland is an Anaheim, you know, the associated universal city, you know, you know, movie stars, Beverly Hills. I mean, it's just the cachet. It's, it's, it's one of the most desirable places, the most expensive places, the most popular places in the world, where people want to be. And it's, it's been in my 51 years, the supply has never been able to keep up with the demand. And it's almost impossible to develop anything here unless you buy something, tear it down and build something new, which is next to near impossible.

Whitney Sewell: Wow. Because of the expanse or because of just finding it something that even you would tear down.

Larry Taylor: Yeah, I'm just saying is there's there's regulations that preclude you from tearing down buildings, almost like, you know, I, you don't know, but I own property in Paris, in the, in the sixth and seventh arrondissement, and none of those buildings can ever be torn down. Period. So if you want to buy an apartment, you've got to buy an apartment in an older building and renovate it. And you can only buy it if somebody dies because no one ever sells anything. It's basically the new law in California does not allow any multifamily property that's ever been under rent control to be removed. So there's this piece of fundamentals that that are important when it comes to real estate valuation and real estate investment success, which is, you know, buy where there's no competition, buy where there's supply, but no, I mean, buy where there's limited supply and increasing demand and the best year round weather. So all of those things combined for us, for this company and for myself personally, we've never failed to make a profit.

Whitney Sewell: That's incredible. You know, one thing I thought of when you were talking through some of that, you know, is the government regulations, right? You know, and a lot of people say, well, I don't want to own property there. Obviously, you know, they think it's not landlord friendly, but I wondered your thoughts on that, you know, on how, you know, how that affects you, you know, as far as the government regulations on rental property there, just commercial real estate in general, like you said that, you know, they regulate and say, you can't tear anything down. What are some other things maybe that. You know, would be, you would consider it landlord friendly or not, or, you know, and how you get around those things.

Larry Taylor: Well, I wouldn't say that, you know, it depends on how you define landlord friendly. What's happened is once you get into a regulated industry, right. It requires a higher degree of operational operation. which starts to drive out a lot of individual owners that might've owned properties for a long period of time when there weren't such regulations, but just don't have the apparatus to be able to comply. And so, but you know, New York City, for example, became regulated with respect to apartments during World War II and remains a regulated city, but fortunes have been in multifamily in New York City since then. We here in the West side of Los Angeles started to see rent controls in 1978 and 1979. But in 1979, the average price for an apartment unit in Santa Monica was about $35,000. Today it's about $650,000. So I would say that regulations have not had any negative effect on valuation, but they have a tremendous It's a tremendous imposition on less sophisticated operators.

Whitney Sewell: I wanted you to be able to speak to the business model a little bit for the LPs or passive investors that are listening. I mean, you're, you were talking about, you know, the average properties held for 60 plus years. What does that look like? You know, say for your investors, as you all, you know, maybe you hold, you know, you never sell, right. I just. That's not always the business model, you know, in a lot of other places, but what does that look like for your LPs, you know, that model?

Larry Taylor: Well, there's, there's the fundamentally in, in the United States, real estate investments are, are basically primed by the federal government because it's a long-term investment because it's illiquid, right? The government provides incentives to real estate investors, unlike any other industry. And so the minute that you acquire a property, you're already being rewarded by the government because you're allowed to earn positive income without ever having to show taxable income. Because the depreciation amortization rules, which allow you to write off the value of your improvements over a period of time, basically allow you to shelter your income for an extended period of time. And that's the benefit. It's almost like investing in a tax-free bond, for example, where you earn the interest but you don't have to pay tax. Real estate investors benefit from the Dave A. O. Real Estate in the United States. It doesn't matter where he is, they get tax benefits. So the tax benefits are attractive. The outside risk is limited. The upside potential is there. The most liquid real estate that you could possibly own is only the best real estate in the best location because there's always going to be a buyer. So when we say real estate should be held long-term, yes, you go in always with a long-term goal in mind. But when you're in such a high demand area, there's always buyers looking to buy the real estate. And when the price is right and you can shelter the returns, then you're in the best possible position. Real estate investment is very sensitive to tax law. It's very sensitive to the supply. and availability of debt, and the cost of debt. So what we've seen is the cost of debt has gone dramatically, the availability of debt has become more limited. And these have what I call a dampening effect on real estate, a negative effect. So it was the sophisticated investors take advantage of that because any properties that come into market in this environment will come into market at a lower price, maybe not a lot lower, but it gives you opportunity, gives an investor an opportunity to add to the portfolio. So we form Portfolios, we don't syndicate individual properties anymore, although we started off as a syndicator many years ago. We form these private equity real estate companies that will own seven, maybe 10 properties within one entity. And all of these properties, as we're building the portfolio and as they're being acquired, they start to throw off a tremendous amount of losses. And these losses, which prior to 1986, used to be able to be applied against ordinary income. So if you earned $100,000 a year and you bought an apartment building that lost $200,000, non-actual loss of the tax losses, you could wipe out your earnings. Today, you can only use those losses against income that you earn from other real estate, essentially. So by forming these entities that basically start to acquire and build a portfolio, you're able to take all of those losses and utilize them when you have an exit. So when you have accumulated losses to obtain and pay no tax. And so our structure simply takes advantage of the changes in tax law and the ability to basically say to investors, there are very few opportunities to actually own any of this real estate. So by participating in one of our private equity real estate companies, whatever percentage, whatever amount you invest, you will own a percentage of the portfolio of rate croppers. So you won't have to try to figure out, you know, for a piece of paper, like a REIT or a fund or something like that, what do you own? You'll know what you own. And the thing about real estate is there's a certain thing called pride of ownership that I learned early on when I was very, very young. It's like you want to know that you own something that's really tangible and that's really great. And people really get a good feeling knowing that they own a percentage of something instead of a percentage of something that could become nothing, like a stock, which could start off being worth X. If you've been watching the market, you know, anybody that's in the equities market knows. In fact, anybody that's in the bond market knows that any bonds that they bought a few years ago are worth 50%, 30%, less depending upon the rate in the chart. So with real estate, the difference is that you actually have a tangible asset. Real estate is the greatest investment in the world. When it's good, it's really good. And when it's not good, it's really not good. For those that are sitting in their defined market, it's really not good. It presents a great buying opportunity. When it's really, really great, you're going to be inundated with people that want to buy your assets. And if you can sell without paying tax, It's the greatest gift in the world. So pretty amazing.

Whitney Sewell: Pretty amazing structure. Yes. I appreciate you walking through that. I just think it's a great reminder of just how that works. And even for our passive investors that listen, I just think, man, it's great reminder of the. Man, the benefits of owning real estate that most people either forget or discount, right? What you just walked through, I think it's so valuable. You mentioned, you know, obviously up and down markets. I think it's a good place to, to ask you, Larry, you know, your predictions, right? For the real estate market, the economy over the next six to 12 months and, and how that's affecting, you know, the decisions you all are making, buying, selling, you know, how, how you're operating because of what you believe may happen, you know, in the market.

Larry Taylor: Well, again, we haven't seen the pace of interest rate increases like this since 1980, 81 in the Volcker era. We were in business during that time period when the prime rate went from 9 to 21 and a half. And basically within six months, the entire economy was in recession. which is what Volcker, who was then a chairman of the Federal Reserve, wanted to break the back of inflation. We were in basically a recession until Ronald Reagan came into office and brought rates down about a year later and passed some very attractive real estate legislation, which kind of gave rise to bring the industry up. Real estate as an industry represents about 18% of GDP currently. And that is severely impacted right now by the cost of money, which has risen to extraordinary heights by comparison to what it has been for the last 20 years. So people could argue that, well, you know, rates used to be a lot higher. What are you complaining about? What's wrong with eight, eight, nine percent? A prime is eight, nine percent. What's wrong is that the real estate that you bought in the last 20 years was based on 3.5%. So for real estate that doesn't have any other avenues other than what kind of cash flow it can generate, because it's not in the prime or the private prime, those values are significantly impacted. And for the prime of the prime of the prime, you just have people that'll just write a check and pay cash if they want it. So they could care less if they, you know, interest rates are 5% or 4% or 10%. They'll just pay cash, but they'll be able to buy properties probably at a slight discount. But we're actively looking to buy a portfolio right now of super, super prime properties from the original developer, who's in his eighties and basically doesn't want to operate the properties anymore. And we went in there strong with an offer thinking that there would be nobody that could compete with us. And yeah, there's two other bidders in there. They're bidding it out right now. And I read shop in shock. That's just the market that we're in. They're fantastic properties, and there's a lot of cash out there. And the buyers, they don't really care whether they can get a loan or not because they've got the capital to do it, as we do. We can do the same thing, but we do believe that it's good to have a certain amount of leverage. And we also agree that it's enough. So two buckets right now, we have two private equity companies, one which is traditionally levered and one which is an alternative. So we're buying properties all in one private equity company and the other one we're using traditional leverage. Our typical leverage used to be sub 50% and closer to 30 to 35% because of the cost of money. But on our non-leverage, we're not gonna get returns to our investors over time because they're not levered, but we're removing that one-legged risk. which is maturity risk, right? But we're creating, you know, distributable cash flow because we're not paying lenders. So, and it's attractive, right? We could always, maybe down the road, lever it later if it makes sense. You know, when we started as syndicators, the average syndication term was 30 years because the average loan was 30 years. So no one ever thought much about a partnership term that was 30 years. So as the world evolved into funds that were five-year funds, seven-year funds, 10-year funds, it never did make sense to me, but it's an industry that has flourished. But how do you get a 30-year loan if your fund is going to mature in seven years? How do you tell an investor? For seven years, we're going to take your money. You're going to commit a certain amount of money. We're going to invest it. We're going to buy. We're going to operate. We're going to grow and lose. Date's certain. We're going to close. We're going to sell everything off. And you don't know where it's going to be like seven years early.

Whitney Sewell: I wonder your, your interests, your investors' interests, which is which fund has the greatest interest from your investors? Are you the one without debt or the one with debt?

Larry Taylor: Well, it's shocking. It's the first time we've done a non-levered private equity company, and we offer them as a, as a pair offering. And we believe that, you know, the minimum commitment is 250,000, which is paid in over a period of time. It's usually a four year period. So you commit upfront, you invest 20% upfront, and then we start to acquire real estate. I would have thought in this environment that the non-levered would be incredibly popular. In reality, the swing has been to the traditional lever.

Whitney Sewell: Interesting. I would have thought the other way too, right now.

Larry Taylor: I've been shocked. So what I do personally with my own family offices, I just allude to both because I believe that in the environmental world, it's not a bad idea to own unlevered real estate. Right. Because you're never going to get a knock on the door that says your loan is due.

Whitney Sewell: Yeah, I love that. I appreciate you sharing that because I've wondered that myself. We've debated about having a debt fund or, you know, a fund where we'd pay all cash as well for properties and thinking, man, the investor settlement may be a lot higher for that at the moment. That's interesting. What about, you know, Larry, you've been through obviously numerous market cycles and I just wondered, you know, what you would tell the listeners You know, it's been your success to survive numerous downturns, right? You know, when you're looking at a deal now, what are a couple of things or that you would tell the listeners say, Hey, you know what, to survive a downturn, it's going to happen. Right. But these are some things that have helped, you know, helped you.

Larry Taylor: Well, never borrow money that you can't repay.

Whitney Sewell: There you go.

Larry Taylor: Because the biggest threat to a bank is that you're going to pay them all. A lot of investors who are professionals in real estate don't understand the whole concept that banks make money by loaning you money. But they only loan you money because they expect that you're going to pay them back. OK. However, if it's not a promise where you say, I want to pay you back, they might say, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait So always never borrow more than you can afford to pay back. That is not something that most people follow in real estate because they believe when they're only borrowing 40% of value, what's the risk? We'll always be able to have a loan, but sure, there'll be another loan to take it out. Well, guess what, at 3.5% loan maturity today, and you have to finance the percent, you're gonna have to pay that loan down by about 50% or the bank's gonna take the property. So that's the risk. My belief is never borrow more than you can afford to pay back. Don't rely on getting a loan to pay off a loan when it matures. Always look for the longest maturity. Always look at the best terms and really, really develop a relationship with your lenders. Because if you have a relationship with your lenders, you're more likely to be able to get through the tough times because you're a customer. And if you treated them right, they will treat you right. And it's a very personal business. It doesn't matter if you're a multi-billion dollar borrower or just $100,000 borrower. It's a relationship. It's not loans. They expect that you're going to pay them back. That's why they do the underwriting. It's not just that they're going to foreclose their real estate and sell it. They want to know that you're going to pay the loan back. My advice, which is never borrow more than you can afford to pay back. That's key right now. And two, is have a relationship with the bank. I learned early on in my career, very fortunately, from the president of the major bank here in Los Angeles, who took me under his wing. I was probably in my early 20s, early to mid 20s, and he said, Tommy, So you need your banker to get to know you and you need to get to know your banker and let your banker have an understanding of who you are, what your family is all about, what your business is about, so that your bank can help you reach your goal. But a lot of people just don't understand. If you want to get along, you have to have money in the bank to get the law. If you don't put money in the bank, the bank's not going to loan you the money.

Whitney Sewell: Yeah.

Larry Taylor: So that's one piece of advice that I would give. The other piece is never bet on future potential. You have to buy real estate at the right time. It has to be worth more than you're paying for it on the day that you buy it. Because the world could go against you. I mean, so if you have it, always say, have it 40% cushion. If a property is worth, you know, buy it for $80 million. But if a property is worth $10 million and the market goes against you and you borrow at $6 million, you might lose a couple million dollars if you had to sell it. If you don't have to sell, and you bought the right real estate over time, it'll take care of itself. It's better to have a cushion on that. That's the art, not the science, Whitley.

Whitney Sewell: Larry, I'm grateful for your time, grateful for the time spent with us and the listeners and just the way you've given back to us as well and just gleaning from your years of experience. How can the listeners get in touch with you or learn more about you, Larry?

Larry Taylor: Well, listen, uh, my phone number is always available three, four, five, six, two, six, two, two, or our website is pretty informative. Um, my email address is ltayloratchristianla.com. Yeah. Yeah. We're easy to find. We have a great team. We have a great program. We've got these two real estate private equity companies that are open. We've already purchased some incredible real estate. Yes, it was a partition action. Yes, it was a partnership dispute. Yes, it was all those things, but it's a great time to be buying right now. It's very hard to find opportunities on the website all the time. But as they come up, we're buying them for less than we would have some time ago. So get in touch with us and participate with us for the long term. We already have third generation. with us. We started off many years ago with somebody who was 50, and they passed away at 80, and then we got their children who were in their 40s, and now we have her children's children. And we have some properties that we've owned for over 35 years that have been paid out. you know, many, many multiple times of what their original investment was, and just keep paying out like a slot machine and no reason to sell those properties because the tax effect would be great. And investors can transfer those assets to their beneficiaries at a 35% discount. Uh, so there's all kinds of estate planning that you can do when you own real estate in a structure like ours. So for all the above reasons, we have, you know, pretty, pretty good investor base, mostly referrals. But we do, we do have other sources as well. We're trying to actually grow our investor base because we have a whole new young team here that wants to see us grow from 500 to 5,000 investors. And I say, go for it.

Whitney Sewell: Thank you for being with us again today. I hope that you have learned a lot from the show. Don't forget to like and subscribe. I hope you're telling your friends about the Real Estate Syndication Show and how they can also build wealth in real estate. You can also go to lifebridgecapital.com and start investing today.