WS1970 The Three Things You Need in Real Estate | Clint Harris

What are the three essential elements you need to succeed in real estate investing? In this enlightening episode of The Real Estate Syndication Show, guest host Jim Pfeifer had the pleasure of hosting Clint Harris, an expert in real estate investing and a key figure at Nomad Capital. Clint shared his journey from a 16-year career in medical sales to achieving financial independence through real estate investing. He emphasized the importance of not just financial freedom but also time and location independence, which together lead to what he calls "independence of purpose."

Remember These:

• Essential Components for Success: Time, experience, and money are crucial for success in real estate investing. Partnering with experienced individuals can compensate for a lack of experience.
• Advantages of Self-Storage Syndication: Converting old big box retail spaces into self-storage units offers the potential to buy properties below replacement cost and appraised value, leading to significant value appreciation through asset class conversion.
• Changing Demographics: Millennials are using self-storage facilities more frequently and in different ways than previous generations, driving demand in secondary and tertiary markets.

Listeners can connect with Clint Harris through email at booking@quotationsmedia.com or by visiting Nomad Capital's website, and they can also tune into the Truly Passive Income podcast for more insights.

Today’s guest host, Jim Pfeifer, is the Founder & CEO of Left Field Investors – a Community of like-minded individuals interested in creating financial freedom through passively investing in real assets that generate real cash flow. The Community works together to provide education, a network, and deal flow for its members. For more information, you can visit www.leftfieldinves or reach out to Jim via email at jim@leftfieldinvestors.com.

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Transcript

Clint Harris: The number one thing that you have to have for success in real estate investing is three things. It's time, it's experience, and it's money. And if you don't have experience, the only way to get experience is you have to have time to do the strategies and to get the experience, and you have to have money to do that. If you don't have all three of those components, your best option is to partner with somebody else who has what you don't.

Whitney Sewell: This is your daily real estate syndication show. I'm your host, Whitney Sewell. Thank you for listening to the show. My goal is for you to become a savvy investor by learning from some of the best operators and investors in the business. I'd like to hear from you. If you have questions that you'd like us to ask on the show, or if you have someone you'd like for me to interview, please let us know by emailing us at info at lifebridgecapital.com. Would you please leave us a written rating and review? I would be grateful. Do not hesitate to let me know how we can best serve you at Life Bridge Capital. And now for an amazing interview with my friend, Jim Pfeifer.

Jim Pfeifer: Welcome to your daily real estate syndication show. I'm your host, Jim Pfeifer from Left Field Investors. We're a community dedicated to educating limited partner investors and providing a network and access to deals. I'm sitting in today for Whitney Sewell, founder of LifeBridge Capital. Our guest today is Clinton Harris. He handles investor relations at Nomad Capital, where they buy old big box retailers and convert them to self-storage. He is also co-host of the Simply Passive Income podcast. Clint's mission is to inspire financial location and time independence for investors in this episode we talk about Clint's take on financial independence what he calls independence of purpose which is a fantastic way to understand what financial freedom can mean we also talked about the three things needed for success in real estate why asset class conversion is so effective at juicing the returns on an investment. And we finish the conversation by talking about the benefits of attending the upcoming Best Ever Conference. We hope you enjoy the show. Clint, welcome to the show. Let's start with who are you and how you get to where you are today.

Clint Harris: Thanks, Jim. A pleasure to be here today. So my name is Clint Harris. I'm in Wilmington, North Carolina. I had a 16-year career in medical sales implanting pacemakers and defibrillators. The entire time during that career, it's kind of a young man's game. You're on call working nights and weekends, and it kind of grinds you down. So I always knew that eventually, I wanted an off-ramp from that lifestyle. And so the way that I chose to do that was through real estate. So I started listening to… Back then, there was no podcast networking, or Facebook. I was renting DVDs and listening to CDs on tape from the library. and ended up buying a handful of single-family properties with very limited success, had a house hack that I thought I was a genius. I thought I'd invented something brand new that nobody's ever thought of in the history of the world. And then over time, it just became a very slow way to get ahead. So I made a move into small multifamily properties that we converted into Airbnbs. I took a promotion and my wife and I moved from South Carolina to Wilmington, North Carolina at the beach in 2017, which opened up the opportunity for a vacation spot, and tourism, started buying small multifamily properties, converting them to Airbnbs. That led to a property management company and eventually the aggressive pursuit of a more passive way to get ahead where I wasn't trading time for money. So I started investing in self-storage facilities and I left cardiology in 2022 just to live life as a full-time real estate

Jim Pfeifer: Awesome. Well, we, you know, we've, we've had these conversations before, but one of the things I like that you talk about is this independence of purpose. So can you tell me what, what is independence of purpose and how you get there? How do you achieve that through investing in real estate?

Clint Harris: Sure. So I figured out my version of what this is came from things that I did wrong. Originally, the nine single-family Burr properties that we built up were just a very, very slow way to get ahead. And there was no way I was going to hit any level of financial independence there. So when we converted to a strategy of buying nasty multifamily properties, converting them to Airbnbs, we were in the pursuit of cash flow and quote-unquote financial independence that everybody's looking for. The buzzword, right? The number one marketing term. And when we hit a level of replacing my sales income through real estate, I did it with the sole purpose of cash flow and quote-unquote financial independence. What it did not come with was time or location independence. These are highly active projects that most of the time people are coming in on the weekends or nights during the summertime. I was still basically on call. I had my phone on me dealing with messaging from the tenants and things like that. So I got to a level of financial freedom at the cost of time and location independence. And eventually, the only way out of that was we spent two years building out a property management company to kind of hire ourselves out and have someone else that could run that. But it was very laborious. And when we got to the end of that journey of kind of finishing up building that company, I realized that what we are all after, in my opinion, is something bigger than financial independence. The financial independence by itself, in my opinion, is shallow. And what we also need to be focusing on is that time and location independence. Because those things together, time, financial, and location independence can create what I call an independence of purpose. The independence of purpose is where you go where you want, when you want, and do what you want. You choose how you want to spend your life, whether it's with family or charity or hiking or fishing or building or whatever it may be. You're not just getting, you know, you can get location independence and work remotely all your life, but you're still dedicating a certain amount of time, and certain some form of that time is getting spent at a certain location. So to create all of that together, that's the only way to get what I call an independence of purpose. And that's that's the freedom to choose what you want the rest of your world to look like and kind of what legacy you want to leave.

Jim Pfeifer: Yeah I think that's just it's remarkable because you're right we all talk about financial freedom means different things to everybody but what we're trying to do is build well so that we have choices right so the independence of purpose is the choice you can live where you want you can spend your time how you want. you have enough money to be able to do these things and you have money coming in right so the next question would be you know you've talked about your journey you had single-family homes that were difficult i'm with you I did the same thing then you did some small multis I did that and didn't have success there either where you you did but how can an investor a new person maybe break into real estate investing without having this experience without having to go through what you did or I did let's just jump in

Clint Harris: and start making money and get to the independence of purpose how do you do that there are so many different directions you can go through in terms of investing in real estate i think the number one thing is to try to figure out what your goal is for yourself and work backwards from there. There's there's passive least resistance right you can jump into turnkey rentals and you're gonna make very little money but it's ready to go and you got peace of mind there The reality is like, how is that going to scale to a financial point where it affects your life and the amount of time that you get to spend with the people you love in a meaningful way? So in my mind, typically people start with real estate and I think there's value of kind of bootstrapping and doing all of it because you're learning lessons along the entire way. The fast version, in my opinion, is original people are looking at return on investment and then they're looking at cash on cash return. Throughout an investor's career, typically they get to the point where they start looking at, buy properties that are going up in value, they start looking at their return on equity, and how can they take that equity and level up to the next step. But eventually, throughout the lifecycle of the intelligent investors that I look up to, and that I have interviewed, most people who have had success with it over a long, meaningful lifetime, land on their return on time. What is the return that I'm getting based on the amount of time that I have to spend thinking about this investment strategy? So with that in mind, I pursued things aggressively that take the least amount of my time in terms of a passive approach to investing. And I'm willing to take a little bit less. But if it means that I'm only spending one or two hours every month or every quarter reviewing the checks coming in and the reports coming in, that's a fantastic return on time. Even if it's a little bit less than the return on investment than if I was actively flipping houses or something like that. So with that in mind, if you don't have the number one thing that you have to have for success in real estate investing is three things. It's time, it's experience, and it's money. And if you don't have experience, the only way to get experience is you have to have time to do the strategies and to get the experience and you have to have money to do that. If you don't have all three of those components, your best option is to partner with somebody else who has what you don't. Typically, the path of least resistance is to find an operator. You know that I operate in syndication. We're both passively invested in syndication. Syndication is just where a group of people take on a project larger than what one person could likely do on their own. You're pooling capital together from a group of investors that have money, partnering with someone that has time and experience, That's the path of least resistance to get started and be able to lean on somebody else's experience and be as involved as you want to be in terms of reading the reports and following the projects and the communications and everything else so I'm a firm believer. That is if you have the time. And you're willing to get the experience and you have some capital to get started and pick your strategy, pick your goals, and go for it. But keep in mind, it's usually not about this next project. It's about the one after that. And make sure you're giving yourself a pathway to scale. If you don't have time and therefore can't get the experience, your best option is partnering with someone else who has that and putting your capital to work.

Jim Pfeifer: And you said if you're going to do it the active route, right, which is where you have some time and you have some capital and you have some experience or you're going to get the experience, you got to think past the current project to the next one. Can, you expand on that a little bit? Why are you thinking already about the next one instead of the current one?

Clint Harris: Especially in say single families or small rental properties, small multifamily properties. You're coming up against some obstacles like debt to income ratio the amount that you can borrow or the amount of time that you have to operate a certain number of projects. So a lot of times people are so focused on the next one, the next project, that they're leveraging themselves to the hilt to get into that and not thinking about it limiting their purchasing power to go into the project after that. If you don't have a clear pathway as to how I'm going to add value to this project and then recapitalize either through a refinance or just slowly through the cash on cash return if it took you however many years to save up the amount of capital for the down payment on that project, how many years is it going to take for you to earn up enough to buy the project after that? And let's say it takes five years. OK, well, you're just assuming that the properties are not going to go up in value over the next five years and it's still going to cost the same amount five years from now to buy a similar property when you finally save that amount. You have to be thinking about the project after that and put yourself in a position to scale because if you work backward of you know what your net is on an individual property and it's going to take 30 of them to affect your life in a meaningful way, that means you get to spend more time with your kids or travel. you have to have a clear pathway there if you're just focused on the next one and then the one after that. The more likely scenario is that you're gonna get three four five deep before you run into some obstacles that are gonna stop your ability to scale and you're never gonna reach your objective that makes sense and now I want to jump into you know those of us without.

Jim Pfeifer: The experience but maybe in the time but maybe we have the money right now that we're talking about syndications because that's that's what that's what I do i don't have the experience I have the experience. I wasn't very good at it. And I don't have the time, but I have some capital. So let's talk about syndications, specifically self-storage because that's what you're going to do. We're going to dive into that in a minute. But what's the benefit to self-storage syndications versus other types of syndications, specifically like multifamily, which is the most common and that's kind of the gateway right everyone starts with multifamily and then like oh I've heard about this self-storage so talk about kind of the benefits of self-storage and maybe the difference between that and some of the other asset classes.

Clint Harris: Sure. So within self-storage, let's be honest, there's nothing inherently sexy about self-storage. You're renting someone a box of air. It's typically a climate-controlled metal box that they can put their stuff in there. And there's nothing that's that special about it. I think that the way that we have structured it, and I'll talk a little bit about the conversion strategies, I think creates a very unique situation and gives you more options in terms of an exit. But first, let's talk about what multifamily syndication is and what your money is. Like your money is a representation of your life energy, time that you spent away from the people you love doing things you probably didn't want to be doing to trade it to get that. So number one thing is you want to protect that because that's a representation of your life and you want to multiply that so that that money is getting up and going to work eventually when you don't want to one day. But with a multifamily apartment complex, a typical syndication deal is, we're going to pool money together, we're going to buy a deal, we're going to put granite countertops and stainless steel, we're going to increase the rents, the net operating income goes up, and maybe the value of the whole place goes up by 30 to 35%, which is great. For everybody to get a payday, you have to liquidate the asset. So you're fixing it up, you're making it nice, you're going to hold it for three, five, seven years, whatever it may be, and then you're going to sell the property typically, and everybody gets a payday, the investors get their return of capital plus some more, the operator gets some as well. That's great. At the end of the day, you're still trading time for money. If what is important to me is independence of purpose and getting away from trading time for money and having time and location independence, that model doesn't fit in with what my long-term goal is for my life. I'm more focused on things that have a little bit more of an evergreen approach that has long-term benefits. And so there's nothing necessarily about that that works well with self-storage if we're buying self-storage or building self-storage and we're fixing it up and then we're selling it. What we specifically focus on, and this is not so much an example of what we do, this is an example of some of the different options that you have in syndication and trying to choose something that fits in with what your goal is for your life. It doesn't have to be storage, it can be vineyards or ATMs or RV parks or whatever it may be. Our model is that we don't buy self-storage and we don't build self-storage. We specifically look for big box retail buildings like Kmart's grocery stores, warehouses, and old textile mills. We buy them for pennies on the dollar compared to the replacement cost because big-box retail is dead. There are very few people that want to buy a 95,000 square foot Kmart. Then we do the construction in-house and we convert that to a different asset class. You buy a multifamily project and you fix it up and you make it nice and you sell it. The formula that determines the value of a multifamily apartment complex is the same formula as when you buy it and when you sell it, you increase the value. When we buy something as a nasty old building that nobody else wants and we convert it to a different asset class, it converts the formula by which that asset is valued. Just when I bought a nasty quadplex with a bunch of chain smokers inside, got rid of the long-term tenants, and I converted that to a top-performing Airbnb, it three to four times the gross potential rental income. So same kind of thing. The reason I like that strategy is it forces the appreciation up and adds so much value that to get a payday for the investors and the operators, we don't have to sell the asset. We can do a refinance and pull out enough money to pay out all the investors and ourselves. Everybody stays in the deal. The investors stay in, the operators stay in. And after we all get a payday, we continue to let the asset cash flow move forward. And again, this is just a situation where I think it's important to not fall in love with an asset class and not be like, it's storage. Sometimes it has more to do with the structure or more to do with the operator and choosing someone that fits in with what your goals are, that you're taking that amount of money that you have, your store of life energy, and doing with something with that, that puts you closer towards what your long-term goal is for your family.

Jim Pfeifer: Right. And so talk about, you know, you mentioned you're buying these properties for pennies versus the replacement value. Can you explain what that means? The replacement value? And, you know, I assume you're getting these deals for fairly cheap because what else are you going to do with a big box store like a Walmart? Right. But just talk about why that works so efficiently and what the replacement cost process is.

Clint Harris: Typically, when we buy a building, the first Kmart that we bought, for instance, is in Reidsville, North Carolina. We bought the building and the parking lot and all that came with it for $1.5 million. On the insurance policy, the replacement cost, if we wanted to just go build that brick and mortar shell, is $6.5 million. Because that's what it would cost you to go build an 87,000 square foot Kmart, which is what that was. But it's been sitting there empty for 8, 10, 12 years. It's got great residential density in a 1, 3, 5, 7 mile radius, great vehicle count. At one point in time, it was probably the largest employer in that town. But nobody wants it. I mean, you said it. There's just very, very little appetite for that space. It's basically worth what someone's willing to pay for it. So we'll buy something at a fraction of the replacement cost. When we buy a building, you've got the replacement cost as to what it would cost you to build that building, and then you've got the appraised value. And we're typically buying for significantly less than the replacement cost, and usually $1 to $2 million less than the appraised value of the project. So the last project that we closed in Kernersville, North Carolina is an old warehouse, and it appraised for 1.9 million more than we paid for it. Now, that's not typical. It's usually probably close to a million. But the point is, this is a situation where you're making your money kind of like you flip a house. Like when you flip a house, you don't make your money when you sell it, and you don't make your money when you renovated it. You made your money when it smelled like dogs and cats and you bought it for dirt cheap, right? So we want the properties with the hobos living in it, with the nasty. It's got bats and it's got water leaks and it's got a hole in the roof that's been there for 10 years. That's what we want. We buy distressed big box retail buildings. The only reason we can do that is because we have in-house construction. We've got the vertical integration to turn that around. But if you and I, went to go build a self-storage facility right now from the ground up. It's going to cost us $110 to $120 a square foot for the construction, plus the cost of the land. With our last, last conversions we did were two K-Marts, three warehouses and a grocery store. When we're done with the Chamber of Commerce standing at the front door and we're cutting the yellow ribbon and we're opening up the doors, we're average $63.50 a square. So it's about half the cost of the construction, not including the land. That's what puts us in a situation where at stabilization, we're usually sitting around 30 to 35% LTV, which means we can refinance to 55 or 60% LTV. Make sure everybody gets a payday with the vast majority of that payday coming by way of refinance, which means we didn't sell anything. It's not a capital gain, which makes it a non-taxable event. So everybody can do the best we can to try to double everybody's money in five years or less, and then keep it and roll forward. That's what creates a nomad, right? That's that the independence of purpose comes from a property that gives you time, financial and location independence.

Jim Pfeifer: Why can you buy the property below appraised value? We're talking about a Kmart that no one wants. So how does the appraised value exceed the the market price? I guess that doesn't make sense to me.

Clint Harris: It's a great question. Honestly, the bank is always going to order a third party appraisal that is completely agnostic to what the purchase price is, right? So they're going to come in and look at it, even though the appraised value is going to be less than the replacement cost, just because the cost of construction is so high these days. They're still looking at the value of the land and what that is worth as a commercial resource, right? The fact that nobody wants it doesn't really come into play for them. It's obviously worth a lot more with a tenant in place, but our average is we're going to buy a building for a couple million. It usually is going to appraise for one, maybe 2 million more than that, which just gives us more credibility with the bank. That's one of the reasons the banks for us are always willing to give fixed rate debt. We don't ever use variable rate debt. And because part of that is like, The loan is secured by the building and the bank is looking in appraisal that shows the building is worth significantly more than we're paying for it. So we're able to get good fixed rate debt, typically 25 year M. And then when we go through the conversion, like we're buying a building for say 2 million, 2 to 3 million, we're going to spend 2 to 3 million on the conversion, somewhere in that range. So we're into the whole thing for 4 to 6 million. And the appraised value at stabilization is $13 to $17 million, depending on the net rentable market rates in that area. So it's just that huge value swing. can't come from buying self storage and fixing it up or buying an apartment complex and making it a nicer apartment complex. It has to come from an asset class conversion and you're changing the asset class. It changes the formula by which it's valued. You're increasing the value, you're stabilizing the property. And then that's the part where we are always thinking about the project after that and putting ourselves in a position to recapitalize, but not having to sell the asset. We can keep the asset, keep the investors in and continue to move forward.

Jim Pfeifer: And, you know, when you're doing a conversion, I mean, obviously we've all been to a grocery store. Most of us have been to a Kmart. Those are big, as you said, they're big and they're boxes, right? Now, when I go to a self-storage facility, I don't want to park at the front of the Kmart and then get a dolly and roll all my stuff to the back corner or wherever. So can you talk about how you convert them and how you make it user-friendly so maybe I can drive up to my storage unit? Because I think most storage units you can drive to your particular unit or get close to it. So can you talk a little bit about what the conversion looks like and how you kind of maximize the space because it was not built as you said it's a conversion it wasn't built for you know to optimize self-storage it was built to optimize shopping or groceries or you know k-marts there's quite a conundrum that you're bringing up here that we had to navigate the first k-mart that we we did

Clint Harris: We cut a giant hole in the front and the back, and we created a drive aisle where you drive straight through the building. And we had to put ventilation in from the exhaust and everything, and people could drive straight through the building. The reality was, and the idea is that you can price higher for drive-up units. Anytime, that's what people want. You can drive right up to the unit. The reality is a lot of people hadn't seen a drive-through Kmart storage facility before. So there was a certain level of education that had to happen with that. And what we saw is that people still ended up renting the farther away units. As long as there was a door close to the exterior, they were still renting the farther away units because they were less expensive. And then if you start looking at the amount of square footage that we got rid of to put that dry vial in, It was a great experiment it worked well it's a really cool beautiful facility that we still own but on the rest of them a lot of times it's more about pricing structure and we can navigate where people go what size units they get like we do a feasibility study that determines the demand for the market and what unit density mix we should have. And obviously the smaller units rent for more per square foot than the larger units do. The number one thing is making sure that you have navigable aisles, good lighting, and then plenty of doors that you can access from the outside of the property. The reality is that The consumers and self-storage are changing. It used to be that baby boomers were in a property once or twice a year for their Christmas decorations or whatever. The millennials are using it much differently. They're not buying houses, they're renting. And because they're renting, instead of renting a two-bedroom condo for $1,800 a month, they'll rent a smaller condo and then get a storage unit. But it has to be several things, safe, secure, well-lit, easy access, and it has to be climate controlled. because they're using it as an extension of the closet extension of the garage. So we have to make sure that people have easy access to get in and out, that it's safe, that it's well lit. But at the end of the day, a lot of times we can determine which units get rented out and when with a pricing structure.

Jim Pfeifer: That's super interesting that millennials are using it differently. So how do you come to that conclusion? Obviously you, you own a bunch of these, so you see it, but can you just talk more about that? Because that fascinates me, you know, I'm, I'm old, right? So if I had a self storage unit, I'd put all my crap in there, like you said, and I might visit it once every year or two. Um, so are they like storing their bikes in there when they want to go biking and then, you know, storing your winter clothes in the summer? Is that kind of, how they're doing it and why is it just younger people that have this attitude about self-storage?

Clint Harris: Nailed it. So let me throw some stats at you. The millennial generation now makes up the largest population segment that we have. Right before COVID happened, there was a population shift and millennials now make up 34% of the population. So my concern was like, are they using storage or is this a dying asset class? So when you dig into it and you pay for the data, the reality is that They're 34% of the population, but they're using 38% of storage. The number one reason is that the younger generation tragically are unable to afford housing the way the previous generation did. If you buy a house or you own a house, typically you're talking about a basement, a garage, an attic, right? Or maybe a shed in the backyard. When you're renting, you're paying based upon the square footage that you have. So instead of paying to rent an extra house, a house that has a garage or a house that has an extra bedroom, they're making lifestyle choices to rent a smaller place, a lot of times closer to a little bit of an urban area because they're more outgoing. And then they're using storage as an extension of the garage, extension of the closet. They don't have as much stuff as the previous generation did. but they still have lifestyle items. Like you mentioned, the mountain bike, the kayak, the winter clothes. I need to be able to get in there. And accessibility is a big thing too. Like 6 a.m. on a Saturday morning, I want to get in there and get my ski bibs, my jacket, and my snowboard and get out of town. and head to the mountains. So because of that, the traditional access of nine to five, five days a week and four hours on Saturday, that doesn't work. You have to have QR codes on the door, touchscreen, kiosks, easy access, the ability to rent a unit through your phone and get in and out because they're using it completely different. The younger generation is in there sometimes one or two times a week. At least two or three times a month versus like you mentioned Previous consumers maybe once or twice a year and we all know those storage facilities that somebody comes in rents a unit And nobody shows up for 10 years until the families. They're cleaning it out, right? It's but traditionally and you still have some of that but it's it's changing and it's changing pretty rapidly that's really interesting because that you you kind of partially answered, uh, my next question is and it's kind of like

Jim Pfeifer: Is self-storage overbuilt? And the reason I ask that is because, and you've answered part of it, because anytime I go and see a new apartment building going up, I see a self-storage facility right smack in the center of it. And so I guess the question is, how's the market in self-storage? Is there still room to grow because we see all these new facilities coming online? And how do you look at that?

Clint Harris: The cool thing about storage, one of the things is that what really matters is about a seven mile radius. That's about it. I care about residential density in a one, three, five, and seven mile radius, the population of a town and whether it's rising or falling, the percentage of people in a town that buy versus rent, make sure not too many people work at one company that can go out of town, out of business. Do we have a housing crisis in this country? Yeah, absolutely we do. And because of that, the prices are going up. And as the prices are going up in these urban cores, more and more people, especially young people, are being pushed out into the secondary and tertiary markets. So the smaller markets, these little towns across the southeast are booming. Outside of a Charlotte, you've got a Gastonia. which is having great growth which traditionally there wasn't much going on there or burlington or lexington or kernersville these cute little downtowns are experiencing these significant growth of people being pushed into those market. They're underserved for housing which means traditionally they're underserved for storage but somewhere in that little town. Is a big box retail building or an old warehouse that at one point was centrally located. And they were a number one employer for the area. They have great visibility and great traffic count. And if you are loading up a bunch of stuff and you're going to rent a storage unit, the farthest you want to go is about five to seven miles. Right. So that's what what our competition is. I care what that is. And if your cell storage facility is 12 miles away, it doesn't really affect me that much. Unless there's some major socioeconomic barrier that's pushing people in that direction, that doesn't really bother me that much. So the other thing is like, it's not necessarily for us always just a regular storage facility. Everybody knows where the old Kmart building was in Danville, Virginia. Everybody knows that building and it's been empty for 10, 12, 15 years. If you come into a market and you buy a 97,000 square foot building that's going to convert to around 75,000 of net rentable climate controlled self-storage, which is 700 or 750 units, everybody knows where that is and it makes it a little bit hard for the competition to come in and drop something right next to you. When they're going to be doing ground up construction, it might take them 18 to 24 months. With a conversion project, we're probably going to be open in 10 to 12 months. The building's already there. We're just building out the shell, replacing AC units, LED lights, putting the shell on the inside. So in terms of speed to market, the residential density that traditionally exists around those buildings, and then making sure you have increased demand for housing because of the residential density in that kind of seven mile radius, If it checks the boxes by the time anybody can come in and compete with us, we're going to be open and probably halfway full before anybody else can finish up their construction.

Jim Pfeifer: That's awesome. You know, um, I love these conversion type deals for the, for the reason you said it, right. You're taking one asset, turning it into something else, which juices the return. So, you know, motels to apartments, box stores to self storage. I just love it. So really appreciate this conversation. I do want to ask you one Additional question that wasn't really on the menu is I know you're going to the best ever conference and left field investors will be there as well. So I just wanted to ask you as a GP, which you are, and you're also an LP, what does a GP get out of going to that conference? And what does a limited partner get out of, out of that same conference? Cause I know you were there last year as well. That's where we met. I just want to kind of, cause we don't talk about conferences enough, what you get out of them and, and which ones to go to. So since we're going to best ever, I thought maybe we could just briefly chat about that.

Clint Harris: Yeah, so that's a great question. And that's the meeting that really changed my life in a meaningful way a couple of years ago. I went to the first meeting. This will be the third one that I'm going to this year. So the first one that I went to, there was a moment when I was standing there and I was like, holy smokes, I got to quit my job and get out of cardiology because there's some people doing some big and amazing things. I was just surrounded by some amazingly successful people that had just, a lot of them just impressed me with, character and humility and some people didn't, right? But at the end of the day, it's a room full of operators doing big things. And I think that the attitude and the willingness to share and the hunger to learn is very palpable. And I think it's a very, very powerful room and a powerful place to be. The only critique that I had is that I thought it was a little bit heavy on the operator side. It was more GPs than anything else. There certainly were investors there looking for people to partner with. But since meeting last year, I had an opportunity to attend you guys event. I think that the left field investor community is something really powerful, because especially as a group of investors, instead of me vetting an operator or a deal, like you said, I'm an LP, I'm part of that left field community as well, because there's 1000 eyes looking at everything and vetting things and the power of community is really important there. So, to me, I'm probably more excited about this best ever than any of the other two that I've been to. And my partners have been going to them since 2016, I believe. And I think we all have the same level of excitement because this seems like a really good marriage between a community of very intelligent investors. And I've had a chance to speak with over 100 left field investors over the last couple of months. They ask really good questions, partnered with a group of operators that are being held accountable and doing powerful things. So I think this is going to be a really, really good meetup that has the right balance between GPs and LPs. And like you said, I blur the lines. I invest with my own retirement funds into other people's operations. So I'm always looking and trying to get better. And then the opportunity to be with a room full of people that, as LPs, you know they're asking intelligent questions. They're highly educated, and they're asking questions that are going to keep you on your toes. And a lot of times people ask questions or dig into something you haven't thought of before. And that is inherently going to make everybody better. So I think it's a great community. And I encourage anyone, whether you're an operator or an LP, if you're an LP, I encourage you to join left field and to go to best ever. If you're an operator,

Jim Pfeifer: you're not at best ever you're missing out on what i think is the best conference of the year yeah i agree with that and and you know what i like going is all the operators are there right for a limited partner like me i get to meet you know whitney sewell and and and you know all these other operators and shake their hand face to face you know it makes a difference because we do so much virtually now But when you're in the room with someone you get to talk to him shake their hand meet him it just adds add something to it so thank you for for adding to that conversation and with that we're gonna close your this has been a fantastic conversation i love chatting with you about this kind of stuff if listeners are interested in learning more about what you do learning more about nomad mention your podcast what's the best way they can connect with you.

Clint Harris: Yeah, the best way is I'm always open for conversation. People can just email me directly, clint at nomadcapital.us. Or if you'd like to go to our website, nomadcapital.us, you can schedule a call there as well. I co-host the Truly Passive Income podcast along with my co-host, Neil Henderson, and happy to connect with people there. I've had you on that podcast. I look forward to having you again in the future. So that's the best way. I spend all day every day speaking with operators and investors, and I truly love it. And it's what I do all the time. So happy to connect with anybody that's interested.

Jim Pfeifer: Thank you for listening to The Real Estate Syndication Show. It has been a pleasure to be the guest host today. If you'd like more information about Leftfield Investors and how we educate limited partners, provide a network and give access to deal flow, please visit leftfieldinvestors.com or reach out to me directly at jim at leftfieldinvestors.com. I hope you learned a lot from the show today. Please don't forget to like and subscribe and share The Real Estate Syndication Show with your friends so they can also build wealth in real estate. You can also go to lifebridgecapital.com and start investing today.