Billy Keels  00:00

Today's conversation is sponsored by first-generation Capital Partners. If you're an accredited investor, and you want to know about how we're helping other accredited investors keep more of their income, go to firstgencp.com, forward slash going long.

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00:12

We're a leader in creating a community which is very different than a neighbourhood, right, like a neighbourhood, you may or may not know any of your neighbours at all. Whereas a community there's interdependence, right? So there's heavy interaction and interdependence in a community and kind of a concept where everybody's functioning together, and everybody affects everybody else.

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00:38

You're listening to the going long podcast with Billy keels, the number one podcast for long distance real asset investing.

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Billy Keels  00:47

Welcome to the gold long podcast, we're back once again to continue to help to educate you so you feel much more comfortable as well as confident investing beyond your backyard. And I'm your host, Billy keels, and I am super excited for you to be able to listen to today's conversation. So let me just say right up front, thanks so much for continuing to share your screenshots or tagging us across social media, we're on LinkedIn, and you're sharing now on Instagram, it's really, really cool. We appreciate that so much. And also for those of you who are leaving your honest written reviews, as well as ratings, we really appreciate that, especially on the Apple podcast platform, as well as the Spotify platform. It's fantastic. And also, if you're looking to get some of the previous episodes, just go to first ncp.com forward slash podcasts. And you can find every single episode ever, first ncp.com, forward slash podcast, to check out every single episode, video, audio, the show notes, transcripts, everything, you can find it all there. So if you want to understand about how you can start in your own backyard and expand beyond your backyard in terms of being able to build a multifamily portfolio today is a conversation, you really are going to want to listen to taking local experience and expanding that to different locations. Today, we're going to talk to tape seamer. And when we have a conversation, you're really going to enjoy it. And we're gonna get to that just after this. Are you a busy high paid professional, someone that in the previous two years has earned $200,000 and is expected to earn $200,000 this year. Or maybe if you file jointly, previously, you've earned $300,000 The previous two years and you're also expected to do that this year. Or maybe if not, either individually or jointly, you have a million dollars in net worth not including your primary residence. If you meet any of these criteria, then you're someone that the IRS considers to be an accredited investor, that probably means you're someone like an enterprise software sales executive, you may be an executive in a major corporation, you may be a doctor, you may be a lawyer may be a high paid consultant, you may even work for a major sports franchise, the thing I know you have in common is that you continue to do the hard work like you're doing 100% of the work. And you're only bringing home 50% of the reward because you continue to get crushed by your income taxes. If you're tired of this situation and you're looking for a new solution, then go to first gen cp.com forward slash going along. When you get there, that's going to help you to start the journey so that you can begin to take back control of your taxes take control of your time. And then also that means you're going to be able to spend more of the time that you want with the people that you love the most. And that is the way that you're going to get the personal freedom that you're looking for. So if you're looking to take back control, go ahead and go to first ncp.com forward slash going long and see how we can help you today. So if you want to know how improving communities as well as expanding well being can lead to your long distance investing success, then guess what? Today's the conversation that you're going to want to listen to until the very last word you know why? Because today's guests listen to this not only studied in undergrad in the southeast of Ohio, there's a big reason I'm telling you that he also co owned his very first real estate company in late 2012. Today's focused on growing his multifamily communities in states like Ohio, Utah, Oklahoma, there may be even more than that. And I'd love for him to tell us about that. He's also the host of a super popular podcast, the apartment gurus, the apartment gurus podcast, and he's also the managing owner of Greenlight equity group. It gives me great pleasure to welcome to today's conversation Mr. Tate seamer Tate welcome the show, man.

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04:12

Billy that was an awesome intro. I appreciate it, man. It's an honour to be on your show. I as we were talking off camera I I've known you for a long time and and it's just an honour to get to contribute to your guests and your listener base. Yeah.

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Billy Keels  04:30

You got so much experience man and done so many things, especially in this long distance capacity. Absolutely love it. I know you're gonna add so much value to the community and we're glad you decided to to be here with us. So listen to you know that well, I think maybe we talked about this, but I like to ask everybody at least five questions you kind of get to in the beginning, you're gonna get well three in the end and then in the middle, you're gonna get a lot of questions. I just don't know what those are yet because it's going to be based on what you're answering. So I'd love for us to get into today's First question help the audience get to know more about you. So help us understand where is it that you actually call home in the US?

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05:07

Yeah, home now for me is Salt Lake City, Utah. I've been here since 1999. Last century, which is dating me a little bit I moved here. I'll tell you exactly how old I am. I moved here when I was 26. So you guys got to do the math on that one. But suffice to say a big, big birthday is coming up next year. So but yeah, I live in Salt Lake. I'm originally as you mentioned, I went to college in Ohio at Ohio University, rival of Miami University. And but I grew up in Cincinnati. So that's my original hometown. All right,

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Billy Keels  05:45

fantastic. So I'm calling the state of Utah home today. And it also helped us take what is the what's the most positive thing that's happened to you in the last 24 hours,

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05:54

dude, last night, I dragged myself to the gym and I'll tell you why that's so positive. I just enrolled in a as a fitness nutrition coaching programme, an online guy who happens to be local here in Utah, but does his whole programme online. And last night was the first time that I went to the gym in this programme, and I had been once with him, he was nice enough to meet me once and kind of walk me through some stuff. But last night was my first night on my own. And, dude, I don't know what it is about breaking the seal sometimes, but it was like everything I could do to get myself to go to that freaking gym last night. And, and, and I made it man, and I did it was almost a two hour workout. And, you know, I did I did all the things that were in in the workout, the prescribed workout, so and I enjoyed it. Like it's a funny thing. It's like I got so much resistance to putting on my clothes and getting in the car and going but once I'm there, I rock and roll. So it's it's kind of funny, man that's

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Billy Keels  07:11

really really awesome that that you number one decided that you wanted to do that. And that you that you did do it right. And not only did you did you went beast mode and did like two hours, man like that's like, wow, that's just that's so makes you stressed. I hope you stretched a lot after that.

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07:30

I did I did. I stretched I stretched a bunch did some yoga. But yeah know, it was a long workout. And it was I was basically just doing step by step everything that he had me doing out of an app actually on my phone. And so yeah, I'm not sore this morning, which is great. lol surprised.

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Billy Keels  07:52

Wait until tomorrow, wait until the district judge judge keeps you know, so. So very cool. So I appreciate you sharing that with us, Tate. And, you know, it makes me think about and a lot of the going long family, they already know this about me, right? I am someone who is a recovering perfectionist, I set the standard really, really high. And as a result, sometimes I do things that are a little bit over the top. Right. And I'll just admit that to you. And I try to do things like tell your entire backstory in a second and a half. Okay, like that's never it was never gonna happen, right. But you've done too many things like you've impacted too many lives. And so hopefully you'll forgive me for trying to do something so absurd, like tell your entire backstory in a second and a half. But more importantly, hopefully you will help me and you will tell your own backstory. In your own words, you are allowed to take a lot more than the second half, right because it's your story. So take as much time as you need. And if you could also help us along the way tape by sharing with us some of the major decisions that you made along the way. And then we'll see where you and I take the conversation from there.

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08:56

You betcha. Love to. Yeah. Great. Over to you man. All right, cool. Well, yeah, I mentioned that I'm originally from Cincinnati, moved to Utah in 99 to ski and has always been a childhood dream teenager dream of mine to ski in the Rocky Mountains. And so I picked the place that has the consistently the best snow and some really great big mountain terrain here in Utah ski at the Snowbird ski resort mostly and, and have fallen in love with this place. I spent a lot of time in the desert in southern Utah and a lot of time mountain biking and camping too. So but I'm originally a photographer by trade, and I started when I moved here I started in professional ski photography for a number about 10 years on and off. I did that and also did hundreds and hundreds of weddings, and hundreds and hundreds of family portraits and more formal portrait type work. And did this really started that in, in like, right around 2000. And that was really where I got a taste for me as an entrepreneur. Because I, the wedding and portrait work was was worth that I did under my own brand called Cloud Nine photography. And I had that company for really full time for 10 years. However, in 2006, I was at a friend's house and we were down in his basement. And I was talking to his roommate, who had just bought a triplex. And I said, you bought a triplex? Like, how do you people can buy triplex? It's like that. That's amazing. And I said, How'd you do? Like, How'd you learn how to do that? And, and he said, Well, I'm in this, I'm in this class, this course that I'm taking, it's a weekly meeting. And we basically learn how to invest in property. And so I joined this course, it was a real entry level, flipping and wholesaling type course for single family products. And I started, this was oh, six. And so I started flipping houses, myself, and my first house was like, 110 years old, it was a duplex, and one side was occupied, and I renovated the other side. And, and then sold it flipped it. And did I think I made $10,000 on that Billy, and that was like, I was in heaven. Like, that was the coolest thing in the world that I could increase my, my income by 10 grand by flipping a house. And so I did a number of flips on my own, I got my realtor licence and started helping other investors find places and and do them. And then the crash happen. And all of the funding that we were using to do this went away. And so it was gonna, I was looking at either like reinventing how I was doing real estate, in lieu of the crash. Luckily, I didn't own anything that I got real upside down on or anything like that. But yeah, at the time, I, I basically just decided that I would go back to photography for a while, because I really never hit a stride with single family flipping. And that's going to become a theme here as as the kind of the story goes, but my original boss in the photography world is my current business partner. Fast forward to right now, Carl York is his name and best friend and business partner. And we've been at it for 23 years in different capacities in business and, and in 2012. So we're fast forwarding now for about three, four years from the oh, 80907 crash. And so in 2012, or 2011, I guess, Carl came to me and said, Hey, did you know I've got some money, you've got some money. And I've got great GC skills, like, why don't we flip some houses again. And he was already in real estate he had even on some rentals and and he's as handy as anyone I've ever met, can can do just about anything, build anything. So my first reaction was like, dude, because I was pretty burnout to be honest with you after the first stretch. And my first reaction when he suggested that was like, There's no way I'm getting back into real estate like ever. And then I thought about it and I thought about just how much I enjoy working with him. And that was as much a reason as any anything that we started looking for flippable houses and, and buying them and flipping them and we did that real hard and heavy for the next six, seven years. We flipped million dollar houses by Salt Lake Country Club, we everything we did was in Utah. In our backyard, we know this market very, very well from me being a realtor and I'm I just gave up my realtor licence earlier in the year. I hadn't used it in a couple of years, but I officially gave it up. And anybody that thinks they need a real estate licence to do commercial real estate. You don't

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Billy Keels  15:00

Oh, by the way, we'll probably come back to that everybody. So I'm asking around that.

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15:04

Yeah. So, so basically about six, seven years into that venture. So this was like 2017. Going into 18, we branched out, we were real tired of single family. And one of the reasons was, we weren't doing it very well, we were, for some reason, we thought the best way to go about it was to use as much of our own money in lines of credit that we could round up and use our own time and resources to Gen Con contract each job ourselves. And that really put us in the weeds like all the time, every day, you're getting up going to a job site and solving problems. And, and I wasn't doing the part of the business that I thrive at, which is doing the deals and then running the business and networking and leading from the front. So we decided to get into some development projects. We did some land entitlement deals where we would buy single parcels of land and have them entitled for high density projects, and then we'd sell them off to developers. We did a number of those. And then we also decided to try our hand at building new ground up construction. We did some real high end million dollar luxury townhomes in downtown Salt Lake that we're in as far as the results, the economic results of that of those deals, were the worst deals we ever did. We was the only the only deals that we ever lost money on. And it was painful. And in the middle of doing those. And those took like two and a half years to build. That was one of the things that was painful about him was we you know, we had a builder hired and they just didn't do what they needed to do to for those jobs to be successful. So in the but in the middle of it. We had actually the same contact that brought us those townhome deals came to us and said, you know I've got this little 12 unit apartment community in South salt lake that that I've got it under contract and it's half vacant. The other half is month to month, they're not paying rents. And this is it. It needs everything like if it was 30 years deferred maintenance, and needed needed or TPO, membrane roof to mechanicals to Windows. I mean it really needed everything. And so he kind of sat down with us and share with us how, how he thought the deal should be done and how it how it could be financed. We actually used hard money to finance that purchase. And then we brought in a partner for the downpayment. So we did that deal with no money out of pocket. And it was our first foray into multifamily. Commercial multifamily, we had done duplexes, etc. But as far as five units and up, it was our first our first jam. And we did real well on that deal. We ended up we needed to recapitalize because of the Townhome. So we ended up selling it. I wish we had kept it because it would be worth probably twice now what it was when we sold it. And in 2018 I guess 2019 was when we actually sold it. But the Utah market has just spiked since then in the multifamily space. So. So that was really our aha moment. And that's actually the aha moment when we sat down with a deal and underwrote it, before we bought it. And we looked at this thing called income on the, on our spreadsheet, which was like, we never seen income.

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Billy Keels  19:01

Right, because you've been in the in the, in the flipping game.

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19:04

Yeah. And and let me let me tell you and let me make an argument here that I think flipping is a is a very speculative, more risky venture than buying and working with in value adding a commercial property because with commercial properties, the valuation process is very straightforward. It's based on the income of the property versus versus a single family where the value is based on an appraisers opinion, one person and you may or may not get that appraisal that you need when you when you go to sell a flip. So there's speculation in there that that you're going to get what you need to get at the end of the day with with flipping and that with when we when we saw this thing called income and revenue and cash flow on the spreadsheet. It was like Oh, What? What hole? Can you poke in this deal? Like, it pays for itself like, This is amazing. It was like, and it was, it was really the first time, it took us having a deal like shoved in our face to really see the magic of commercial multifamily.

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Billy Keels  20:19

So So here's the thing. So you, you get to this point where you see the the magic of the of the commercial multifamily, right. And I appreciate the way that you're telling the story, because it's not like of this bed of roses, like there are real issues that happen along the way. There are things that don't work. There are things that while you're learning, you're constantly learning, right, sometimes you're paying full price for for the learning opportunity. Sometimes you're paying, you know, if you are coached or mentored at a discount, right? Trusting that you enjoyed today's conversation. And you know, if you're tired of getting crushed by taxes, and you're looking for greater freedom, to be able to choose what you want to do when you want to do it, make sure that you go to first ncp.com forward slash going long, and see how we can help you today. Let's get back to the conversation. So you've gone to this understanding the the power or the magic of multiple commercial multifamily, as you stated, but then you've done something like very contrarian, and it goes to the basis and the kind of the whole thesis of this show, which is, you know, you and I talked about this. I've been living in Europe for over 20 years I've been I spent the last decade of my corporate career, investing from Europe, back in the United States, different types of assets. It's super concerning, because most people do their entire career, what you started doing, which is you're there in Utah, you've got a strong network, you had your Realtors licence, you did all this kind of stuff, and you invested where you were. Yeah, I mentioned earlier that you're also today, looking beyond your backyard. And that's not something that a lot of people would even consider much less do. So I would love for you to share the insight with me in the going on family, like what was the impetus for you to be able to feel comfortable and confident enough to say, You know what, we're actually going to go beyond where we live now we're gonna go geographically to different places.

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22:13

Yeah, so when when we did that deal and got into it, like the excitement level, for me hit the ceiling as far as like, my enthusiasm for the possibilities that this new space offered. So I dove in headfirst, I bought a couple of audiobooks that were very, very key. I'll just go ahead and mention one that not too many people know about called How to make big money in small apartments, which is Lance Edwards is the author's name. And that book is a great 30,000 foot view of the whole game of syndication. And so that was my first intro to the concept of syndication. Shortly thereafter, I started I was listening to podcasts to I was I all of a sudden I started going to our Utah real estate investor association meetings and learning strategies and, and the coaching programme, so I enrolled in a coaching mentorship. It's actually was a coaching mastermind with Corey Peterson, the big kahuna who's a nationally known author and syndicator, and speaker and just a great guy, and that that was a programme where he's in Phoenix and I'm in Salt Lake. So it's a quick two hour flight. And he would spend one on one day with me, where he basically nine to five, and his office just laid out his playbook for me and, you know, showed me everything and how he does the business, from acquisitions to capital raising to management. And he, in that coaching mastermind, I was surrounded by 15 other people that were doing the same thing that I was are trying to do the same thing that I was doing, and once and I really learned the whole game from him and got the confidence to do it from him because he was willing to even partner with us and be on our company profile kit, or what we call our credibility kit. And, and so he gave us an awful lot of confidence. And one of the things that was quickly obvious was that we were looking at, we were looking at models where we were cash flowing properties to a degree that we could pay a preferred return to investors to passive investors. And at that point, the Utah market had already appreciated so much that the pricing was such that At weak, we couldn't cash flow to that degree. So we started looking at estate. And, you know, as you know, Billy, in this space, so many investors invest in markets that they don't live in, right? You know, there's a lot of Bay Area investors that invest in Texas and Florida and Carolinas. And so you kind of find that out quickly that this isn't necessarily a local game anymore. So when we started considering where we were going to buy, we had about five cities on the radar San Antonio was one Albuquerque was one, those two have kind of dropped off. We don't we don't shop there anymore. Columbus was one. And Columbus made a lot of sense because of my familiarity with Ohio and my family that's still there and friends. And that went to Ohio State and still live there. And but it made a lot of sense on a metrics level and on on an employment basis level and on a growth level as well, and certainly on a pricing level. The other market that we really focused on and honed in on was the Oklahoma City Market. We also shop in Tulsa, we haven't bought in Tulsa yet, but they're great sister cities. same reasons. They're great job diversification. Lots and lots of class see value, add inventory. And the price is right, like, you know, to this day and 2022, we can still buy property in Oklahoma City that is, you know, in the 50 to 65,000, maybe even lower, slightly lower than that range per unit. And, you know, if you do the one for listeners, if you're at all familiar with the 1% rule, you know, to make a to make a $50,000 a unit deal work, you have to get at least $500 A unit Well, in Oklahoma City that you know, the average rents are in the sixes and sevens for a one bedroom. And so it's just a it's, it's a mathematically it's a great market for us. So we fast forward. In our progression, we did a little 20 unit out here in Utah, after that first 12 unit, that also did real well we cut our teeth on a heavy value add there, we were doing like $30,000 room renovations per unit. And, and then we got into the national scene and in 2021, so just at the beginning of last year, which is now you know what, a year and a half ago, almost, really, I guess going on almost two years ago, we bought our first properties. In Columbus, we bought a seven really simultaneously, we bought a 70 unit portfolio, class C value add, and we bought 192 unit, class C, it's actually up in Mansfield, Ohio, which is about an hour north of Columbus. And so those were our first two large scale purchase purchases, we syndicated both of those deals. So it was our first foray into raising capital on a in a syndication model. And we have since really, really laser focused on those two markets, Columbus and Oklahoma City. So we spent a lot of time there, we, you know, we go there physically a lot. We have, at this point, we've developed great property management relationships there, we have two different property managers in Columbus one for our class C and one for a class a property that we own. And same with Oklahoma City, we love our property manager there. And they're doing just a bang up job which is is is most of you listeners will know that property management piece, once you own a property is everything there they are where the rubber meets the road. And, and they're that way, you know, your business plan is either executed or not executed by the by your property manager under your supervision as an asset manager. So that's a part of the game that we've I think gotten pretty good at is, is the asset management. You know, we we currently on seven properties three in Oklahoma City and and four in Columbus. 595 doors total, roughly 58 million and, and assets under management so so like we don't really even look often at properties outside of those two markets. If anything, we'll maybe look in Tulsa. And we'll look in sometimes in Cincinnati, which is quite a it's quite different than Columbus, but there's some positives about Cincinnati as well. Besides the fact that I know it like the back In my hand and everything else, so that helps. And besides the fact that the Cincinnati Bengals play there, there's, there's there's other great things about it.

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Billy Keels  30:08

There's cool stuff. You know. And so I guess, a couple of different things that I think it's important for the, for the go along family to take away from what you just said, right is, it wasn't something that you did overnight, looking into other locations, it was a matter of having early successes, where you were recognising that you had not just the education, but you also have the support system to help you to understand what you would need to do to get into the new markets. It was hopefully clear to everyone that you studied the markets, because you even mentioned some of the markets that you're no longer or that you looked at, but you're not in I think one of them, you said was San Antonio, there was another one that you mentioned, I can't remember the name of that one. But But ultimately, you came down because of the metrics because of the things that not only you were educated on, but you have the support system around, this was what led you to start to place your bets, right your your quote, unquote, bets in markets like OKC, Oklahoma City, as well as, as well as Columbus, there's some others that are still on the peripheral. But there was a process to what you did. And basically it started out because you saw an early success, you have the education and you have the support system. And so it really goes back to one of the main main things that I like to share with the go along family, which is, you know, personally understand where it is that you want to go in terms of the benefit you're looking for, go to the location, which is what you did, you went to the locations that gave you the highest probability of getting the outcomes you were looking for. From there, it's into your point eight. And I can't emphasise this enough, it's about the team that you're building. Right. And one of the key members of the teams, especially when you are in a long distance investing perspective is the property management team. Do they understand that the clientele the resident, the tenant, one of the things that I hope the Golang family also took away from what you said is, you have in the same city, you have one property manager that is managing your a class property and you have another property management team that's managing your C Class property. If you didn't hear that, everyone, it's something that's absolutely key and critical. And just goes to the fact that you understand the client and make sure that the people that are managing that clientele on a day to day basis, also understand the clientele so so this is really awesome. And I'm glad that you helped us understand, you know, what gave you the impetus to go long distance. But there's also another thing that I would like to ask you before we get into the going long final three, which is just the whole the concept of really focusing on building community, because I know that that's something that you are really laser focused on. So maybe you could talk to us about how you got that laser laser focus on what it is that you're doing to actually continue to build community.

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32:41

You know, that's such a good question that nobody's ever asked me before I was in in college, I was an RA resident assistant in the dorms. And it was a blast, it was a riot. We had such a good time. I did it for two years and the Department of Residence Life at Ohio University, which is very, very focused and, and intentional about creating community and really hammers this into us as RAS that we're we're leaders and and creating a community which is very different than a neighbourhood right like a neighbourhood you may or may not know any of your neighbours at all, you may know your next door neighbours and that's it. Whereas a community, you there's interdependence, right? So there's there's there's heavy interaction and interdependence in a community and an idea kind of a concept where everybody's functioning together, and everybody affects everybody else. So so we, you know, we just do a couple things, we focus heavily on making sure our communities are very safe and clean and aesthetically pleasing. We typically do a fair amount of exterior capex, landscaping, painting exteriors roofs, and, and basically giving the community an overall sense of like, being taken care of right, like, like this is being cared for in a way that you can tell that people care about the well being of the residents, and their happiness. And so, so we do that, and then at at all of our properties, especially our Oklahoma City properties that we're probably best at this. We do. We do a lot of community building activities. So we'll have you know, I our property manager, they do they call it a Hot diggity dog party and they have like a hot dog bar where you can just create your own hot dogs and they do it they do a drawing every month for different days. Rent things, paying your rent early or on time, you get entered into a drawing. And that a lot of, you know Halloween events, costume parties, a lot of just think parties that are designed to an activities that are designed to get people out of their units and into each other's lives. And so I think from a, from a branding slash, you know, exterior, remodelling, remodelling, that capital is doing all of that stuff. From that perspective, and from our activity, set perspective, that's, those are really the two places that that we try to make a big difference in people's lives our, our company, we're very focused and committed to our residents and to our into our investors. Those are the two groups of people that we serve. And we we feel that if we're making all of our choices with their best, highest and best in mind, that we're gonna do real well as a company. So we're, I consider us a service company. We're, we're, we're we're very much and in the service of our residents and our investors.

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Billy Keels  36:26

Fantastic. So having that hyper focus on residents, as well as your investors in being able to do the things that you talked about to be able to move community, which, which creates something that is very special and very unique. So with that say, Listen, like I want to keep talking but like the thing is, we got to get to the going long, final three min, it's time for the Golang final three thing is okay, you already answered the question, because I never asked anybody unless you tell me you're ready. You're like, Yeah, let's do it. And then you're already ahead of the game. So let's do it. Let's do that. Okay, awesome. Awesome. So, the very first of the going long, final three, but it's our third question. Of course, you asked me to in the beginning, this really has to do with what we know that you, although you're a fellow Ohioan, which is always kind of fun to have to Buckeyes to hear, but you've now called Salt Lake City home. And now I'm calling Barcelona home or Barcelona as they like to say it here. So we started with you over there, I'd like to bring it back to this side of the pond now. Tate so help us understand what is your favourite European city that you've either visited? We're still on your bucket list to visit.

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37:28

You know, it's I love this question, because I just got my first believe it or not my first ever European trip in in the spring of this year. And it was amazing. It was amazing. Yeah. Growing up as a kid, we had a vacation home up on Lake Michigan. And so we went there every summer. We never travelled internationally. It's just kind of how it went. And then I got into work and career and but I have a I have a strong priority on travel now. Awesome. I'm spending a month in Mexico in November working remotely. So But dude, so one of the beautiful things about living in Salt Lake is we're a Delta hub. And so we have direct flights to Paris and Munich and Amsterdam. And so I flew direct to Amsterdam, spent four or five days there and then went to Paris, and then back to Amsterdam, and then to Greece for a little bit and then back to Amsterdam, and then came back. And let me tell you, Amsterdam just grabbed me, man. Like, there is something magical about that city. And and I can't really even put my finger on what it is. It's it's aesthetically it's just gorgeous. Every other every other road is water. It's a canal, right. Like, there's canals everywhere throughout the city. And they're beautiful. And there's beautiful boats. And

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Billy Keels  38:50

did you read one of the boats in the canal? Yeah,

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38:52

yeah, we went on a boat tour. It was so cold. Amsterdam gets cold man. But, but yeah, it was. I don't know the you know, we went to the Van Gogh Museum or van Hall, as they say. And I can't do it, but I'll try. That's

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Billy Keels  39:12

okay. That's a bonus points for trying man.

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39:17

The food was great. I just culturally speaking. I loved every bit of that. And awesome. Oh, I can't wait to get back. I would actually live there and work remotely. I could easily see doing that.

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Billy Keels  39:31

Amen. Anything and everything is possible nowadays. So right now so awesome. So Amsterdam. So we've got that question number two, here we go. Now this really has a lot to do take with the a lot of the successful people that I've been very fortunate to be able to come across and be able to recognise some patterns and just general things that I think most people know about successful people. I consider you to be someone who's also very successful you're you know, you're impacting lives, in different states around the globe now because you've got this amazing podcast and you're doing all of these cool things. And a lot of times when when I recognise successful people, and hopefully you'll agree with this as well, like, one of the things that sets really successful people apart from most people is that whenever they set their mind to doing something, accomplishing a goal, they go out. And as they accomplish this goal, they start to take action against that goal. And every single action that they take, they get things right, literally the first time, which allows them to go even faster, and even better in you know what to do so bad? I just kind of had a little joke. They're, like suffering for me. He's like, man, what just happened? What just happened? You know, of course, people don't they don't get it right the first time normally, like, really successful.

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40:50

I thought we were recording or something. I was like, Oh, what happened?

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Billy Keels  40:56

Just like, I just like, like, when it's all good, it's all good. It's all good. Here's the thing. Successful people. Normally, they don't get things right the first time, they probably make a lot more mistakes than most people probably like 20 to 50 times more mistakes than most people. That's right. But the reality is take every single time. This is no joke. The first part was kind of a joke, just because I like to have fun. Every single time that successful people have or make a relevant mistake or learning opportunity or call it whatever you want to call it, right? The thing that they're looking to happen didn't happen, especially when it's relevant every single time without fail, they stop. They learn from that mistake. And then they put different strategies, tactics and actions in place so that the same thing doesn't happen again. So I don't want you to talk about the mistake, because I know you've already mentioned things that have happened, I really want you to focus on what is the lesson that you learned from that mistake that you know that the going long family needs to hear today to minimise the probability of that same thing happening?

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41:53

Yeah, you know, what you what, to your point, what you described as the idea of failing forward. And I think that's what that process is, is when there is a mistake made and it causes suffering? Like you said, you take a minute, you, you sit back, you go, Okay, what happened here? What, what can we do differently moving forward to make sure this doesn't happen again? And and how can we even capitalise on this failure there? I mean, let failure isn't always failure at the end of the day. And I think that's one important thing to keep in mind is, sometimes it's those failures, or end up being the best thing that could happen to you. That said, just back to the the that, the importance of that property manager and also construction manager, if you're doing a value add, you're gonna have construction, and you're gonna have a GC or a builder come in and manage that for you, or the property manager themselves is going to manage it for you. Getting that piece right guys is so key. And so you literally can't do enough due diligence and vetting on those two pieces. We Real quick, I know, you said don't talk about the mistake, but we we made the mistake of of hiring a property manager in in Oklahoma City that really fell flat and, and really hurt us on a on a like business plan timeline level, and also cost us a lot of money. And I won't get into how and why that happened. But we did have a good referral for them. And we also had a little bit of a track record with their firm and that they have a brokerage as well. And we had bought a property from him. So we knew them. And we trusted them at the time. And we had no reason to think that they wouldn't do a great job on our properties. The one thing we did not do is we did not tour any of the properties they were managing. We should have both toured it with them. And we should have also Secret Shop those properties. We would have found out I think a lot there. So yeah, that those two pieces like that, due diligence, ask for references, go get your own references, Secret Shop, read reviews, do all the things that you can do to make sure that you're getting into a great property manager and a great construction manager.

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Billy Keels  44:30

Be diligent in doing your due diligence. So

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44:33

this is especially important, especially important when you're out of state. Everything level of trust, you're you're you're putting and those in those entities is huge. just huge.

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Billy Keels  44:45

Huge. So I appreciate you sharing that giving us that insight as well Tate and this brings us to question number three, which is really about helping us to feed our minds with knowledge. And just would love to know what is the one book that you would recommend to us

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44:57

today? Can I do too you can make a quick

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Billy Keels  45:02

nobody will ever go ahead.

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45:05

So on a slightly different direction than than what we've been talking about, and that even that the show's topic is on I, there's a book called The Untethered Soul that has been massive for me on a personal development level. And it's, arguably, it's a spiritual book, I guess. It's not based in any religion. But it's really about healing yourself from anything that any core wounds are anything that you need to, that you need to work out. And, in His Word, stealing freedom for your soul. So basically becoming a soul that is free of constraint and free of have, you have things like better just causing you hang ups in life, and going out and living a life that you love, and a life that feeds you and a life that feeds others. To me, that book is sacred texts, it's been life changing for me on a business level. The book vivid vision by Cameron, Harold H. E. rld, has been a huge influence on our company. We wrote our own vivid vision, which is a three year vision slash plan for the next three years of our company's life span. And and that is, that to me, is game changing work when you sit down and say, Okay, let's fast forward three years and look back at what we've done. And and look at it from that perspective, like how many doors do we on how much how many assets under how much in assets under management? And what kind of impact are we making on the on the world and on the community? What kind of culture do we have as a team? What kind of office do we wear, I mean, like all the details of your, of your company, kind of go into your vivid vision, it takes the place of your mission statement, your vision statement. And it's almost like those two things on steroids, really, it's like, ours is like a five or six six page document that I wrote, and, and again, just game changing stuff.

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Billy Keels  47:23

Very cool. Awesome. So Untethered Soul and vivid vision, you know, I'm gonna, we're gonna, for those of you that are listening, you're gonna get vivid vision as well. But I like the fact that you lead with something that has nothing to do with business at all. And I would like for that to go into the the Untethered Soul, because I really appreciate you sharing that first, right? Because that is the thing that makes a lot of impact, especially on a personal development perspective. So if you're listening, you get both. If you're, if you're gonna look at the link, you're gonna get an Untethered Soul. But yeah,

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47:53

that mindset piece is at 90% of this business.

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Billy Keels  47:57

Yeah, it's definitely huge. It's over the top. And that is the thing that, especially when you're doing things long distance, it is what really will allow you to either move forward, or sometimes will keep you in your neck in your tracks. So yeah, man, I'm thinking about you going from the beginning of these conversations like these things just go by so fast, and you're talking about 1999 Go from Cincinnati to Utah, Cincinnati, excuse me, Scott from Cincinnati, Utah. And as you're out there, you're recognising Hey, listen, there's a lot of beautiful stuff. He loves skiing, you're this amazing photographer, things are going well, you like it. And then both kind of as you're getting your licence and becoming a broker, an agent in your understanding of things that can happen. You then also recognise that there's somebody talking about owning a triplex, you're like, hang on a sec, how in the world is this possible? And so you get into the world of flipping and you realise that that's something that you'd like to do. And the economy turns down and although things had a downturn, it didn't really affect you, as it did so many other people, but you realise like, Hey, listen, this is, this is something that can happen. And then afterwards, you realise that, hey, listen, you had the opportunity to have this 12 unit apartment complex. And you saw this thing called income in the revenue was like, wow, this is different. This is interesting. And so from there, you took the right steps that you got more education, you got more accountability, you were able to take the early success that you had with that 12 unit apartment, unit 12 unit apartment complex, and you then were able to take it from there to realise like, Hey, listen, how can we expand on this? Education, accountability and recognising studying different locations, figuring out which locations made the most the most sense for you, not just in your own backyard, but places like Oklahoma City, places like Columbus, Ohio, and saying, Hey, listen, we're gonna double down here we're gonna get the right property managers, we're gonna make sure that we have the right team in sometimes you got to kiss a couple of frogs to get to the to the ultimate prince or princess that you're looking for. And then, you know, this also helped you get to a point where you are recognising the importance of business recognise the importance of mindset and self development and personal development. And I know that so many people are like, yeah, Billy just asked him that question, man. So here's the here's the thing, like I'm building all this up, because everybody in the go along family wants to find out, how can we find out more about you what it is that you're doing and what you're doing at Greenlight equity group,

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50:09

I appreciate that, Billy. Yeah, so invest with green light.com is a great place to go to the to, you can do a number of things there, you can book an appointment with me on my Calendly link. I love to visit with listeners, no strings attached, no sales, no, just brainstorming your business and, and sharing with you a little bit about, you know, how we do things and, and hopefully being of great value to us. So I have a 10 and a 20 minute time slot on my Calendly that you can book there. And then what you can also join our investor list there. So you can see about deals and offerings that we have coming out. So that's really the best way to reach me, I want to, I want to just double down on one thing that we didn't really, really touch on, which is the coach, the coaching mentorship programme that I did with Cory, Cory Peterson was absolutely foundational, it probably put us five years ahead of where we otherwise would have been. And so to me, the value of a coach or a mentor is massive. It's just you know, the right fit there, you know, the right personality fit the right experience, fit, everything else will elevate you, and help you avoid critical errors that maybe the coach has encountered or seen. And we'll make a five year timeline more like six months to a year. So, so heavily recommend looking into different coaching options, I happen to have a coaching programme myself. It's pretty new, called multifamily accelerator. And so you can email me through the website and find out more about that if you'd like.

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Billy Keels  52:11

All right, fantastic. We'll take Thank you very much and check them out invest with greenlight.com, you can find out more about what they're doing their deals their their deal portal, and also be able to talk to Tate more about the coaching programme that he's that he's starting up. So listen to it on, on behalf of the entire one long family just want to say thank you very much for deciding to invest your time with me with us and sharing your expertise. So thank you very much for that. Appreciate it.

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52:33

Oh, this was my pleasure. I wish we had another hour. I love talking four

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Billy Keels  52:37

or five man or five. So but yeah, time is time is what it is. So like I said, really appreciate it and just give me like 15 seconds, we'll wrap things up going on family, listen, take just left so much value for you. He talked about the great things that happened. He talked about the realities that can happen. And he's also giving you an opportunity to go check them out at his website. So I would suggest it take this conversation that we've had today. Listen to the conversation again, take some notes, and then share today's episode, share it with friends, share it with family, talk about the things that that tape went through, and how you can replicate some of the things how you can avoid some of the mistakes that he talked about as well so that you can go from theory to actual tactical, practical application. And so while you're doing that, I'll be here preparing for the next conversation. So until then go out and make it a great day and thank you very much trust that you enjoy today's conversation and once again today's conversation was sponsored by first generation Capital Partners if you're an accredited investor want to find out more about how we're helping accredited investors to gain their personal freedom even faster. Go to firstgencp.com forward slash going long.

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53:39

Right

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