Build Partnerships, Scale, and Thought Leadership with John Casmon

John Casmon is a successful real estate investor who recently left corporate America to go full time in real estate. He has acquired millions of dollars in cash flowing value-add real estate, both on his own and through syndication with passive investors. Today we're discussing many of the insights he's learned over time as he's become an influential thought leader, with a prominent podcast and popular annual real estate networking event, the Midwest Real Estate Summit.

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Target Market Insights Podcast

Casmon Capital

Other Similar Episodes:

Scaling to 8,000 Units With Investors with Michael Becker

Why Cash Flowing Real Estate is Better than Development, with Andrew Schena

John Casmon's Bio:

John Casmon is a real estate entrepreneur, who has partnered with busy professionals to invest in close to $90 million worth of apartments.

John hosts the Target Market Insights podcast where he covers multifamily and marketing insights. In addition, he is the co-creator of the Midwest Real Estate Networking Summit, a no pitch event to connect like-minded investors.

With a background in marketing, he has overseen campaigns for General Motors, Nike and Coors Light amongst others. John was even recognized by Black Enterprise Magazine as one of the “Top Executives in Advertising and Marketing”.

Full Transcript

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

deal, people, invest, investors, helped, real estate, capital, market, multifamily, speakers, stage, started, question, event, passive investor, cincinnati, partner, real estate investor, big, investment

SPEAKERS

Taylor , John Casmon

 

Taylor 00:02

What's going on guys? This is passive wealth strategies for busy professionals. Thank you for tuning in. Today our guest is John Kasmin. JOHN is a real estate investor who recently left his full time position. as a marketer at a very high level. JOHN has been a successful marketer for some very major brands fortune 501 hundred companies. He started investing in real estate years ago, and like I said, has recently left his full time employment to be a full time real estate investor, so good for him. Today, we're going to talk about a lot of the lessons that he's learned along the way that enabled him to build that successful real estate business, leave his job and ultimately achieve that financial freedom that he'd been working so hard for john hosts the target market insights podcast, great show and where you can learn about marketing for real estate investors, how to select target markets where you're investing a lot of great Lessons from successful real estate investors. For those of you who do not know I'm your host Taylor load, I am a real estate investor real estate syndication and a busy professional just like you. I love talking about investing, helping others learn the important lessons they need to know to get started as investors, whether it's in real estate or stocks and bonds just to make that first investment and grow a portfolio and build wealth passively. Without any further ado, here we go with John Kasmin. Alright John, thank you for joining us today on passive wealth strategies.

 

John Casmon 01:35

Taylor, thank you for having me on.

 

Taylor 01:37

It's great to talk with you. I just saw you a month ago as of this recording at the Mid Atlantic summit, happy to catch up and hear all the great things that you've been up to. Can you tell our listeners a bit about your background and where you got to where you are today before we get into the topic?

 

John Casmon 01:53

Yeah, absolutely. So my background professionally is in marketing. So I've worked for marketing agencies. I've worked on the client side really helping brands and individuals understand how to better sell and better communicate their services and products to potential users. Right. So I've done that for about 15 years. And, you know, I started off working in Detroit and moved to Chicago and back to Detroit. And I worked for a large automotive firm at that time, and we happened to go into bankruptcy. And while we were sitting there in bankruptcy, it was something that was in my mind before, but during that time, I was really convinced that I needed to find a way to supplement my income where I wasn't solely reliant upon a W two job to make ends meet. Right. So I was very interested in real estate, that was the thing that kept jumping out to me as something that was a great avenue to go down the path. I moved to Chicago about a year later and started investing in real estate with two you know, building them bought a three unit building the following year. got the bug we did really well with those first two projects about an eight unit building flipped a couple projects. And I was doing really well. But the challenge was, we were investing all of our capital into these deals. And we realized that there were a lot of people asking us how to invest in real estate. And as we talked to them more and more about it, we realized they really didn't want to do it themselves. They just kind of wanted the benefits. So that kind of sparked our mind and say, listen, maybe there's an opportunity to partner with them, where they can bring some of the capital to the table, we find the deal, we operate deals, and we can grow from that perspective. And that kind of led us down the path of real estate syndications, ultimately.

 

Taylor 03:40

Okay, great. And we've talked about syndications on the show before so that's not going to be a new topic to most of our listeners. But if it is to people that are listening, we have a lot of shows on this recovering kind of the basic ideas, but you're partnering with passive investors to buy real estate is this super high level idea. And you and I know each other because we're both students. Joe fairless So how did that get into his coaching program? line up with pushing you along the path or furthering your progress?

 

John Casmon 04:10

Yeah, I had no intentions of one hiring Joe to become an indicator. So for me, it was one of those things where I came across some really because I was living in Chicago. I now live in Cincinnati. And I knew at some point in the near future, I would be moving to Cincinnati. And I was just looking to network with other people who are in this market. And I was on bigger pockets. And someone said, Oh, you should talk to this. This Joe fairless. guy. I said, cool. And I reached out to him and I say, Listen, I'm going to be in Cincinnati over the holidays. I'd love to grab lunch or something like that. If you've got some time, he said, cool. And we met up and he told me what he had worked on and at that moment he had did a pretty large deal is 155 unit deal or something like that and raised over a million dollars. So the deal, and he mentioned that he launched a coaching program to help other people learn how to work with investors. So at that time, you know, we had pretty much depleted our savings to invest in that eight unit deal, we had a couple of the projects that we were working on. So I had already started to think about working with investors. But I was a little concerned that I didn't know what I didn't know. And in working in talking to Joe, for me, it was like, Listen, if I can hire a mentor, who has the experience, who's raised capital from other investors, who has gone down that path and has, you know, gone, done this, it may make my life a lot easier, and it kind of forced me to not force but it will certainly motivate me to follow this thing that's kind of a thought in my head. And that really motivated me to take it from a thought an idea to action. Once you hire a mentor, it makes it a lot easier actually move forward and have someone lay out the steps and a plan and things like that. So I think mentorship and is a great way to move forward. If you are serious about growing your portfolio, if you've already decided that multifamily is the way to go, hiring a mentor who has been down that pathway is a phenomenal way to gain that experience and grow.

 

Taylor 06:16

I totally agree. I mean, obviously, you know, we're not going to turn this into an ad for Joe's coaching program. But, you know, it certainly helped both of us. But this is a fairly broad question, but you said you were worried about the fact that you don't know what you don't know. So the broad question is, so What didn't you know, what did you learn along the way? That You didn't know? You didn't know? What were some of those hidden landmines?

 

John Casmon 06:46

Well, I mean, so to give you some context, my first deal the reason I knew it was the right first deal was based on the location I looked at and I studied all the neighborhoods in Chicago to figure out the best place To invest. And out of 77, Chicago neighborhoods, there was only one that didn't lose any value from 2007 to 2011. And that was an area called North center. So I didn't know anything else about how to find the right markets to invest or anything like that. But I looked at that stat and I looked at Lincoln Park and Wicker Park and river north and all these other more popular neighborhoods. And I said, I don't know what's happening in this little neighborhood. But whatever's happening here, if they can maintain its value in the worst economic recession of my life, I'm pretty confident it will be okay for the near future. So that's where we kind of zeroed in on and we made our purchase. So as we expand it, I didn't come across more nuggets like that where there was a shiny, you know, arrow pointing to the market or the neighborhood to say this is the one I didn't come across that again, right. And as we started to explore the idea of work with other investors well guess what I need bigger returns, because a 10% return on a deal is great for just me by myself and my wife. But if I have to give five of that, or six or 7% of that to another investor, and I only get to three or 4%, is it really worth my time? My effort? No. So as I started going down that path, I knew, hey, we have to look for different deals, I need to look at different metrics. I don't know what the investors will accept. And I don't want to go out there with the mindset of, hey, here's the deal, that would have worked great for me that I absolutely would have done solo. But now that having an investor does it still make sense? So just looking at all those different things, knowing that I couldn't just go off of MLS or go broke relationships, and I would really need to scale in a different way. Not to mention to be honest with you, and this is probably something I think everyone needs to hear. I was scared. I was just scared to ask anyone to invest. I was scared to talk to my friends and family and ask them to trust their money with me. I was just petrified because I'm very confident in who I am. And I've had a lot of great success in corporate America and things like that. But at that time, I viewed it as if I was asking a favor, where I was asking someone to help me. And that really was a big limiting belief of mine. And it wasn't until I went through that process, where I realized that, hey, yes, you are asking people to and you're going to benefit from it. But you're not asking them for a favor, you're presenting an opportunity, because you have something of value for them. And when you understand what the value truly is, what the benefits are of investing. Now you can have a more honest and open and confident dialogue about what you're doing. When you can build credibility in what you've done, what you're doing, and you truly know how you're going to help people as opposed to only looking at how you benefit That will change your perspective. And it makes it a lot easier to approach investors. So I think the two things that I was really looking for were one, where to look and how to structure the deal, but then also how to build the confidence to be able to raise large sums of capital for the deals we're looking to do.

 

Taylor 10:16

Okay, so you mentioned the limiting belief of thinking that you're asking someone for a favor when you're really offering them a genuine investment opportunity where they can make money and and making that mindset shift. And what are the factors that you mentioned there? Being powerful and changing your mind about that was just the experience of having done it helped shift your mindset, but was there anything else that you did along the way? I don't know. Maybe a book you read? Was it working with Joe and talking with Joe about how he does it? Getting around people that are that that did it already? Or you know, because you have to get that initial experience somewhere, right? You can't just build experience. With experience because that first experience has to come from somewhere. So, you know, what were other factors in there other than just the experience that helped you get over that limiting belief?

 

John Casmon 11:12

Well, I mean, I think to your point, right, I think it's all it's easy to find the flaws and the weaknesses that we all have as individuals, right? Part of what you have to do is you have to focus on your strengths. So that's part of what I started to understand was, you know, when you look and you talk to people and you understand what they're doing, and what you do really well, you really have to step back and look at yourself almost as if you were, you know, applying for a job. And what I mean by that is, everyone, you know, they put their best selves for when you're applying for a job, right? Your resume is going to highlight all of your successes, all the things you've done, well, your accomplishments, all these different things. Now, certainly there are things that you didn't do well that you're not good at. And maybe you're you know, you have your challenges there. But you have to also think Think about yourself and talk to yourself. In that same way, you have to believe in yourself first before you can get anyone else to believe in you, because you teach the world how to treat you. So I think part of me was just stepping back a little bit, and not looking at this new industry in a way that scared me because of the unknown. But just recognizing the successes we've had, you know, coming into that I was one of the part of the team that turned around a brand and made it one of the fastest growing brands in America. You know, we've done hundred million dollar advertising campaigns. I was one of the youngest, actually was the youngest advertising manager, you know, in a large fortune 500 company. So we had a ton of actual successes that I can hang my hat on. I just didn't understand certain aspects of multifamily investing in analyzing deals and things like that. The one thing that really helped me though, was to truly take every single obstacle or limiting belief and attack it head on. So for me when it comes to, let's just say underwriting, guess what, I stepped back and said, I may not have the underwriting experience, but there are other people who do. Let me learn from them. And I reached out to those people and learned their processes. And, you know, I looked at things that not just my coach, but what other folks were doing in this space and the way they analyze deals, the way they looked at effective in common their expense ratios, and all those different things. And I learned from all of these individuals to the point where I felt that I gained enough experience and I gained enough knowledge where I felt very comfortable in the way we were doing that. And I kind of took every single obstacle in every single limiting belief. And I attacked it that way. didn't feel like I had the network to go out there and raise a large sum of capital. So part of that was starting to build the network, starting to engage people and starting to build relationships starting to be more open minded and more expressive in what we were doing. Telling people more About what we were doing. So just really attacking all of those things really started to change the landscape and the opportunities of what we could do and what we could become.

 

Taylor 14:11

Okay. And I don't think we I don't remember if we put this out there at the at the beginning of the show, but you have in the last few months, I don't know the exact timeline, but you have escaped the rat race, so to speak, you're, you're out of the job force, and you are full time investing in real estate concurrent with your move to Cincinnati. So, you know, that's just an example of these principles in action, as you've, you know, done enough deals to get to that point. So, you know, hats off to you. So I think this is all but this is all very important tackling limiting beliefs in any kind of real estate investing that we're doing. What were some other stumbling blocks that you ran into along the way. I mean, there's always examples of, you know, how do I think about the mix This Okay, I have to raise the money from the investors on the back end. But I'm also going to need probably a couple hundred grand in earnest money and legal fees and all those things and and maybe if your capitals all deployed, maybe you're not ready to invest all that money yourself. So putting the pieces in place, what does that all look like for you so you could go out and do your first syndication?

 

John Casmon 15:24

Yeah, I mean, that was that's exactly that's a great question, right? Because all those things The first time you try to do this, you don't even know what you don't know, right? You don't even understand how much you need for closing cost or due diligence expenses and all these different things. So one of the biggest things for us and this was really something that helped us gain a lot of traction was I spent a long time looking for my own deals, because that's what I thought I'd done my own deals. We found our own deals we financed and we executed we operate it we built our own portfolio of ourselves. So in the long run commercial space, very few people, and I can't name any. So I want to say no one, but I'm sure that there's someone but very few people do it by themselves. They all have folks around them who are helping, whether that's with underwriting, working with brokers, analyzing the deals, walking the properties, there's always a bunch of different roles and hats to be worn. And I highly doubt that anyone wears all those hats. So with that said, part of it is understanding that you're going to need other people. And you're going to need the relationships of other people to get in on some of these deals. So whether you're looking at capital and how much capital you have to invest versus how much you need to raise, there's certainly at a certain amount that you're going to need up front, but it doesn't have to be all you. It doesn't have to be all your capital. And on the first larger deal that we did. We actually partner with another operator where we were looking for deals for, I mean, probably a year because again, we're going from a deal that we would work great for us to a deal that works great for, you know us and investors deliver a double digit return. And you know, those are those deals are harder to find, especially since we're looking still at the smaller scale. We weren't looking at 100 plus units, we're looking at like 20 to 50 units deals. So to get into that larger deal range, the numbers get bigger, the margins get bigger, and it's a little bit easier to find deals that can pencil out. So we ended up partnering with that first deal. And we, you know, we did some market analysis, we did some market research, we helped with a lot of the marketing aspects, Investor Relations, bringing capital, multitude of different roles. And that made an easier transition, because we were able to gain experience being involved in a deal versus having to do every single aspect by ourselves. And I will say for any of your listeners, who are whether they're passive right now, or just interested in getting into multifamily, I tell them Everyone that that was a great way to get in. an even better way is to invest passively in a deal. Go from that, take your knowledge, take your real world experience and the actual credibility that you're going to earn from being a passive investor, leverage that now become a general partner in a deal. And then from there, you can transition to being a sponsor operator, if that's what you want to do. And the reason I say that is, when you are a passive investor or limited partner in a deal, you have skin in the game. And you also have real world experience. Certainly you don't have the experience to run the operation. But when you go talk to other investors, friends, family, people in your network, and you talk to them about what you're doing, it's going to be very credible, when you tell them that, hey, I've invested in this deal. Here's what I'm experiencing is something that you might have interest in. That's going to be a much more natural condition. Then simply approaching people saying, hey, I've got this deal under contract Do you want to invest? Right? So I think that is a very natural transaction. Not to mention, when you talk about experience, you invest 50 k 100 k into a deal. You can ask all the questions you want. You want to know how the due diligence process works, how this thing works, or whatever, why they made this decision why they picked this loan versus that loan, you now have skin in the game and you can ask these questions to the operator and gain real world experience. So I think that's a phenomenal way and a phenomenal strategy to get in. The one caveat to that is that you need to make sure you're clear with your intentions with the operator, because if you're going to ask a million questions, make sure the operator understands that you want to get an education with your investment. And you will be asking questions, so you both understand how the relationship is going to play out. You don't want to get the mute button for sure.

 

Taylor 19:57

I think that that last part is definitely very wise, uninformed advice. But I agree. I mean, I started as a passive investor in syndication. You know, once I had decided I wanted to go that route, started by meeting syndicators and looking at deals and just saying, All right, here's some, you know, money in my IRA, I'm going to invest it and, and something that I've observed just by doing my own deals, and then also continuing to passively invest is that a lot of the big syndicators without naming any names, a lot of them still passively invest in other people's deals for the reason, the reasons that you named in addition to them, you know, earning return on their investment, but it's also great relationship building, you get to learn a lot by going along the way, plus make a nice return, you know, hopefully on whatever deal you're investing in. So I definitely believe that advice that if you want to get active then start as a passive investor. Totally.

 

John Casmon 20:53

Yeah, yeah. No, it's a great way to get in and I just, I think part of it goes back to just dreaming lining the approach, right? If you want to get in, what's the easiest path? Well, that's the easiest path, you're going to gain real experience and it's a great way to get into it. It's not the only path for sure. I think hiring a mentor is another great way that you know, to get in and gain some experience. So there's multiple paths, you can also jump into it as well. If you've got the network and the relationships and the ability, then you don't need any of it, you can jump into it, there's going to be more risk if you don't have you know, the, the the support that you may need to understand everything that comes in that's involved in the various processes, but there's nothing to say you have to follow any one of these processes. We're just trying to mitigate risk and also streamline the process.

 

Taylor 21:46

If you've got the chutzpah, then you can go ahead and do it all yourself. One other thing I'd like to ask you before we move on to the second half of the show, is you know, we just like I said we just at the top of the show we just hung out at the Mid Atlantic, so And you were on stage a few times, it was a great event that I plan on returning to next year. But I'm curious, and I'm getting on stages more myself at other people's events, and I host my own event. How has the stage been valuable in your business? And and how have you prepared to be on stage to make it valuable in your business?

 

John Casmon 22:25

It's a good question. So, you know, I think there's two ways to look at that question, right. And I'll answer the question, but the first part is, what value can you provide? You know, when you go on a stage, when you have an audience of people who have come to learn to find the tips, tools and strategies to scale their portfolio, they're looking for answers and solutions. What typically happens is you hear people speak very high level, they'll speak about their own experience. And you won't necessarily get actionable nuggets that you can employ in your own business. So part of what I like to do is speak from a standpoint of whatever's happened to me or whatever I've experienced. That's an experience. What's more important for the audience? What does it mean to them? And how can they take that piece of information and use it to grow. So for anyone who may be interested in getting on stages and speaking, it is an absolute great way to build your credibility, to grow in front of an audience to connect with investors. I like to talk about attracting capital. And some people say raising capital. I like to say attracting capital and the big differences. What work are you doing? When you're raising capital, you're picking up the phone, you call people in your network, and you're you know, you're spending a lot of time in almost all of these salesmen, right? Because you're going out and you're picking up the phone, you're following up with everybody and you do all this stuff. When you attract capital like a magnet, what's happening is you're putting yourself out there that people are coming to you. They've seen you on stage, they've listened to your podcast, they've come to your events. They already know who you are. They follow you on social media. They're in your email newsletter. So they already know who you are, even if you don't know exactly who they are. So when you attract the capital, it makes it a lot easier to engage in that conversation, because you're allowing them to learn at their pace, and there's no pressure for them. So the stage is a great way to do that to get in front of a few hundred people. Yeah, there's certainly value in doing that. But I would say it's not just the stage, I think it's what you do on the stage and what you do with the stage. That really helps and then also who you're there with, right? So you know that stage in Philly, and I share the stage with some phenomenal All investors have some phenomenal speakers and just overall great people. So part of what I try to approach it with is to say, What can I do? What value can I bring that may be a little bit different than the other speakers, when I'm on stage with people who have 20 years experience or 1510 years experience, and I'm a little bit newer as an operator, then part of my value is connecting with the group who is at the early stages, and trying to get to that next level or, you know, kind of the conversation we're having here, someone who is taking very similar actions, but maybe hasn't crossed over that line to get up on stage or to build kind of the influence. It's really about influencing the influencers, you know, and that's really my key. if, if, you know, I talked about my marketing background, but that's one of the main things that I used to for a lot of big brains. And if you Think about it, Think about sponsorships, you know, why does Nike pay LeBron James? Whatever crazy amount of millions of dollars that they do? Why does Under Armour pay? Steph Curry that amount? Why do you know why companies hire celebrities and sponsors? It's because they want to convey that these individuals support the brand. And because they support the brand, you should support the brand. It's a very similar thing with any business. And it doesn't have to be a celebrity. We're talking about building up your credibility. And when you do that, part of what you do is you make sure that you are adding value and significant value to other people. And if you can influence those influencers, which is not easy, but if you can influence those influencers, then they can help bring you along with it. So I think for me, I've been really good at helping other people wherever I can. Creating stages. providing value for those individuals. And if you create enough value, real value, if you create enough real value for the people, that you will have opportunities where they will create value back for you.

 

27:11

Nice. I like that I think

 

Taylor 27:14

anybody out there that's listening that's been to real estate of events in the past or even just one real estate event, you probably noticed there is a difference between speakers and some of them, you know, it's it can be pretty high level, maybe it's not actionable, especially if you've been a few times, it's just like, all right, I've heard this before. Whereas a great speaker is going to, like you said, connect with you and give you create value, which is, you know, to be honest with you, I find to be kind of a buzzword, but in the buzz phrase, but in essence, it's true that they do create value for you in some way. But it takes knowledge of your audience to know what 's going to be valued valuable to them. And I think you did a great job of that. So you know, thank you Well done.

 

John Casmon 28:00

Well, let's appreciate that. Let's talk about the creating value, though, because I agree with the buzzword, right, you hear a lot of people say create value add value, you know that all the value add when you talk about apartments, right, right. And I think that the word value has been thrown around so much that in some regards, it's lost its context and its meaning. And in this case, what it means is, it's not based on what you think is valuable, right? It's doing what they think is valuable. So if I already know and again, we if you know something, then it's not valuable for me to tell you something you already know, even if the person next to you doesn't know it. So part of the value is going broad and deep, yet high level and that is a very tricky thing to do, to speak in a way where you can take a listener and no matter where they're at on their journey, and give them something that is tangible to them, that they can use to grow. So whether you have Never heard of syndication. Or you're somebody who's raising millions of dollars right now, the way to add value is to give you a nugget or something that you can actually implement. When we hang up, you know, and go put it in your business. And that's a very difficult thing to do to your point, you have to know your audience, you have to know what they're looking for. You have to be able to kind of balance that to say, Hey, I'm going to keep it high level. So folks understand what I'm saying, which is what most speakers do, but very few of them, bring it down to something tangible or actionable, where you get a real insight. I think insight is really important. You know, we're there's so much information we are drowning in information, but we are starving for insights.

 

Taylor 29:48

Nice. I like that the target market insights guy is telling us that where we need more insights, you're absolutely right about that. And I think without commenting too much on that event, but One of the great things that they did is they split it up so that there were a variety of rooms with different speakers that kind of rotated. And you could go to a, an evangelist speaker, whose topic you were interested in. So you already had kind of a better, more qualified audience than a general large single room conference, if that makes sense to me. So it was a good sized event, but you had people coming to listen to you exactly. They know, they knew what they were coming for. And, you know, I think that that helped that particular event bring more value to the speakers and to the attendees for sure.

 

John Casmon 30:43

Yeah, Dave's event is a no pitch event, you know, and we host our own event as well, the Midwest real estate networking summit, and Dave was actually very instrumental in helping us out in the early days of planning and sharing information and all those things. He's been a speaker at both of our events and what I love about The event is, it's a no pitch event. And the reason I say that and reason is so important is it truly is based on education, a lot of events you go to, you know, they are quite frankly, sale stage for whether it be a guru or whoever's there, right? And you go in, and if there's not really a clear agenda, and it's kind of one person speaking for, you know, eight hours, you know, you just really get this vibe that, hey, this isn't really about education. This is about, you know, loosening up the grips on my wallet. And when you go to an event that truly is based on education, you can relax, you can ask questions, you can network to your point, I can go talk to the speakers, you know, their speakers that I have great relationships with, who are on stage and I still ask them questions. Hey, how are you? What are you looking for? in today's market? How are you underwriting this? How are you doing that? And you get, you can exchange notes with them. And I think that's the beauty of going to At no pitch type of event, versus an event where whether it's do kind of a national organization or if it is through kind of a, you know, a one person show or, you know, I don't want to call it guru, but if you're going to something like that, you know, it's not necessarily rooted in you getting all the answers you need. It's in you getting excited enough to pull out your credit card and hand it over.

 

Taylor 32:26

Yeah, no, you're absolutely right about that. And you make a good point about the the speakers being accessible a day's event, you know, just the amount of time that I had FaceTime that I had with people that who are very, extremely prominent on on bigger pockets, for example, you know, huge thought leaders that are very accomplished real estate investors who you just walk up and say, Hi, Hey, how you doing? You know, my name is Taylor, whatever your name is, ask your question, and they're so friendly and it was great. I love that event. So I'll definitely be back next year. He did a great job with that.

 

John Casmon 33:00

Yeah, it's great a great event for sure.

 

Taylor 33:02

Yeah. So we're going to take a quick break for our sponsor. All right, John, I have three questions. Ask every guest on the show. Are you ready? I am ready. Let's do it. All right. Number one, what is the best investment you've ever made? Except for education? You can't say education. All right, real estate. Anything real estate or whatever makes sense. Other

 

John Casmon 33:25

than all right, all right, look, best investment I ever made. I hope this sounds true to my intent and not weird. My wife. I, you know, I could not tell you how important it is, for me at least, to have my wife in my corner, but as a partner and as a life partner, helping me with, you know, everything from the business to the family and being so supportive and we had deals that didn't work out. And at no point does she ever, you know, criticize anything like that she's always been very supportive and like ready to roll up the sleeves, let me and figure out a way to get it done. And I will say that I meet so many people who don't have that type of person in their corner. And I believe it's easy for you to take it for granted. Because you need a great partner, if you're going to have success in this because this is a lot of work. It takes a lot of energy, there's a lot of effort that you have to put in before you actually see a benefit. I mean, if you've analyzed 50 to 100 deals and didn't find one that pencils, you can start going crazy a little bit. So having someone who has your back and is patient and supportive is a really important thing. So I'll definitely say my wife.

 

Taylor 34:49

Awesome. I love that. You know, like you said earlier, partnerships are important whether you're executing deals and making them happen and setting them up and handing out roles and all those things. Things, are you just keeping your head on straight so you can go do the deals or everything in between. So that makes a lot of sense. On the other side of that, what is the worst investment you've ever made?

 

John Casmon 35:10

My first flip? My goodness, let me tell you about the terrible one. You know, here's the deal. I'm at a point where there's something to learn in everything that you do, right. So there are a lot of lessons in that flip a lot of lessons on partnership, our screening and vetting process of partners. But then also just not being afraid, you know, you asked me earlier about, you know, overcoming fears and limiting beliefs. think one of the things was I had no desire to flip. I only did it to generate more capital so I can invest in real estate or multifamily. And because of that, I really leaned heavily on someone else. And I let them kind of drive the car and let them make the decisions even when I kind of sense that they weren't making the right decisions. You know, I learned enough about flipping to know the basic rules of it, you know, the 70% rule and all that kind of stuff. And they weren't really abiding by some of that, and I watched what they were doing. But nonetheless, I got nervous and in conversations with them, I realized that things weren't going to work out. But it was kind of too far down the road at that point. And I will say my big takeaway is two things. One, definitely that people follow your gut instinct on them as a person, first and foremost, stick with the character, I don't care how accomplished you are and what you've done. I don't care. If I don't like you, I don't get the sense that I can trust you. We're not doing business together anymore. So I stick by that going for now. The second thing is, you can overcome anything, it may be hard, it may take way more effort than you want. You may lose money, but you can overcome it. So don't make decisions based on fear. Don't make decisions based on all I'm going to lose more money or but whatever. Do what you feel is the best thing to do. Don't let fear derail you from that decision.

 

Taylor 37:02

Nice. I love that. Last question, what is the most important lesson that you've learned in investing?

 

John Casmon 37:10

Oh, man, the most important lesson that I've learned is to really be honest with yourself, and with the deal and the people like we just talked about. So making sure that when you invest, you're investing in the people first and foremost, get the right people on the bus, figure the rest out later. But just work with really good people, trust the people, hire the best people, good people, no other good people. So really focusing on that. And that's going to leave you 50% of your problems, if not more, because even if you're a terrible underwriter, do you hire a great property manager? They're going to look at it and say, Hey, you missed some things in our market. This is what the norms are, we should expect this. So it's really surrounding yourself with the right people. So even if you're the weakest link, they're going to make you even stronger. So I would focus heavily on Finding the right people to do business with, and they're going to help elevate us and the deal and everything else that we execute.

 

Taylor 38:06

Well, man, I love that. JOHN, thank you for everything today. Where can people get in touch with you? The name of your podcast, the URL, all that good stuff?

 

John Casmon 38:15

promo, Tom. Yeah. No, thank you, Taylor. Listen, you can find me pretty much anywhere on social media on usually a@JCasmon on Instagram and Twitter. The podcast is called target market insights, we uncover the best places to invest, as well as give multifamily and marketing tips. And we have a special sample deal package available. So if any of your listeners want to check out a sample deal package, you'll also get on our mailing list, but you can see kind of how a deal comes together. So whether you're a passive investor and just want to check out the way different operators put things together, or you're an active investor and you're trying to figure out Hey, what should I put in a deal package, it's a great tool that you can leverage we're giving away for free. Talking about adding value. This is one of those things I struggle with, but I'm like, you know, let's just give it all. But we're giving that away for free on our website, you can just go to casmoncapital.com slash sample deal.

 

Taylor 39:06

Nice. That's actually a really great point. I get that question so frequently, for people who want to be syndicators vacation, can you send me a sample deal package and like, I mean, I have deal packages from past deals, but it's really know if I can send those to you if it's really going to fit what you need. So that's a great point. That's a, just like you said, adding a lot of value. So thanks for everything today. And thanks for joining us on the show.

 

John Casmon 39:30

Thanks for having me, too. It's always good to see you, man and take

 

Taylor 39:33

You too man. Thanks, everybody for tuning in. I had a great time on this one. I'm sure you did, too. If you're enjoying this show, please leave us a rating and review on iTunes a very big help. You know anyone that could use a little bit more passive wealth in their lives. Please share the show with them and bring them into our tribe. Once again. Thank you for tuning in. I hope you have a great day and a great rest of your week and we'll talk to you in the next episode. Bye bye.

 

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About the Host

Taylor on stage

Hi, I’m Taylor. To date I’ve acquired or partnered on over $250 Million in Commercial Real Estate Investments. I help busy professionals invest in multifamily and self storage real estate through my company NT Capital

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Real Listener Reviews

Extremely useful podcast
Extremely useful podcast
@thehappyrexan
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Short, impactful with excellent guests. If you have a full time W-2 job or business and are looking for ways to get involved in real estate on the side, this is for you.
Simple & effective information!
Simple & effective information!
@jjff0987
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This podcast is worth listening to for investors at all levels. The information is simplified for the high level investors but detailed enough to educate seasoned investors about nuances of the business. I recommend!
Awesome Podcast!!!
Awesome Podcast!!!
@Clarisse Gomez
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The host of Passive Wealth Strategies for Busy Professionals podcast highlights all aspects of real estate investing and more in this can’t miss podcast! The host and expert guests offer insightful advice and information that is helpful to anyone that listens!
Great podcast!
Great podcast!
@Owchy
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Love all the information and insights from Taylor and his guest. Fun and entertaining. Highly recommend.
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