Full Transcript

Taylor   0:02  

What's going on guys? This is the passive wealth strategies podcast. Thank you for tuning in. I'm your host Taylor load. today our guest is Lucas Miller. Lucas is a real estate syndicator. He's here today to talk about overcoming fears. As a passive investor, he hosts a podcast on that exact topic. He talks to passive investors about strategies they use to overcome fears and really take their passive investing to the next level. He has some great pointers, tips, all that for the passive syndication investor out there on how you can kind of get over some of your fears and handle some of your fears.

I think these are great concepts. He has a very experienced background as a real estate investor and I think based on our conversation, he's got a really, really good head on his shoulder. He's very objective, analytical and very center, so I really enjoyed this conversation. We obviously talked before we recorded And after we recorded and thought Lucas is a great guy from what I could tell, so you're gonna enjoy this interview. I know I sure did. For those of you who don't know, I'm your host Taylor load. I am a real estate investor, real estate syndicator. I buy multifamily real estate with passive investors and I split the return. I love talking about real estate investing stocks and bonds, all that good stuff. I love making money and growing wealth passively. We recorded this in mid March on March 15.

The Ides of March. we are hoping that as this goes live in May, that everyone is doing well that the fears and realities that the illness of the Coronavirus has passed and everybody is doing well and the markets are healthy, but if they're not, there are great tips and pointers and mentality shifting pieces of advice in this interview. Got to keep your head on straight. There are some good things about keeping your head on straight in this state. discussion. So that without any further ado, here we go with Lucas Miller from banach capital. Lucas, thank you for joining us today.

Lucas Miller  2:08  

Great. I'm really excited to be here.

Taylor   2:10  

Thanks. happy to talk with you. Oh, no, it's my pleasure. you were talking here on Sunday. What is the date that the 15th of March the Ides of March, I just realized that the Fed just announced cutting rates to zero. It's crazy. It is the Ides of March, but we're not going to focus on that too much times will have changed by the time this goes live. Yeah, for everybody out there who doesn't know you, could you tell us about your background and what you do in real estate?

Lucas Miller  2:38  

Yeah, so my name is Lucas Miller and I run a company called banach capital. banach capital was founded a couple years ago and it was basically born out of an idea of how to mature my real estate investing. what I mean by that is basically, I was doing a lot of single family residential rentals, fix and flip.

You know a few other small things here and there, but it never really felt like a business to me never really felt professional. so when I started looking for ways how to systematize and create more of a business as opposed to a real estate investing side hustle, I found the idea of commercial real estate investing, basically, taking pools of money and putting them all together and buying big buildings that are run more like a business than just a residential property. so that really excited me and so that was what I decided I wanted to do.

Now, fast forward a couple years later, I've got, you know, several hundred multifamily units that I'm part of, and, you know, we're just trying to buy more.

Taylor   3:48  

Nice, nice and you live in the Denver area, but you're not investing in the Denver area, which I found very interesting. Which markets are you investing in?

Lucas Miller  4:00  

So, I did invest in Denver, that's where I had some of my other properties. But at one point, I figured that we were at the top of the market. believe it or not, that was like a couple years ago. so I sold off everything and kind of moved it all to commercial passive investments and some active stuff as well.

So now I'm focused mostly on the southeast area of the states and places like Alabama, Florida, Tennessee, you know, Georgia, places like that, where, you know, you've got this nice cost of living, but also nice areas to visit in. Good job growth, good population growth, all the metrics you want to see in a place where you're buying real estate. So

Taylor   4:48  

nice. That's great. you also host a podcast and I wanted to really get down to the lessons that you've learned from your podcast. So what's the name of your podcast? Tell us about what you talked about on the show and then Let's get into some of the lessons you've learned.

Lucas Miller  5:02  

Yeah, so I started. It's called fear free passive investing. the way I started it was, it was almost by accident because I started interviewing past new passive investors. only because I wanted to learn about that, I wanted to figure out how they got over their fear of passive investing and how I could be a better money raiser, essentially, I wanted to figure out what made them scared of things and how I could reverse engineer that and address that. so we've had several interviews with them with lots of really good insights.

But, you know, frankly, the number one fear that people have right now, especially probably right now, I haven't recorded one last couple days, but it's certainly market indications. People are worried that either the markets overheated, there's no good deals left. they're basically worried that we're at the top of the market and I share that concern for you.

I think a lot of real estate is overpriced. I think a lot of people are overpaying for things that probably aren't worth what they are right now in the long term. so just figuring out how we can address that is probably the number one show topic we've had several times. But also there's other really notable things like how to pick a deal sponsor, how to know the person you're investing with is trustworthy.

How can you figure out all this crazy nomenclature that surrounds commercial real estate investing, cash on cash return IRR, a IRR, thanks things like that. So yeah, we cover a lot of stuff and I put out a couple YouTube videos a week trying to under a YouTube channel the same way and it's basically learning by taking what I learned in the podcast and moving it over into video form so I can help people out that way too.

Taylor   6:55  

That's great that that really, you know, kind of gets at the heart of what our listeners are. Looking for that type of information? What can we, as passive investors, do when we are passively investing? How can we, you know, get over some of our fears?

And I think especially based on what we're recording right now, the market based fears are probably, you know, the most relevant to my mind, you know, at this time, I've got, you know, deals closing in the near future. I can understand why people would be a bit concerned about having anything other than cash right now. Because there's just a lot of uncertainty. So, you know, as far as getting over that uncertainty, at least from a market standpoint, what do you think has been important for, you know, for people to deal with and to learn and to really put their fears in perspective?

Lucas Miller  7:50  

Yeah, you know, I'd say I asked the question at the end of every episode, like if you had a friend who wanted to get started in passive investing But they just didn't know where to start. What would you tell them? And by far, the number one answer is education. So a lot of people said, the more they learned about this, the less they had, the less fears they had.

I truly believe that fear is one of those things, that isn't necessarily a bad thing. It just tells you, hey, there's something here that you don't know. so the more you can educate yourself, the more you can learn and download into your brain, the less fear you'll have.

so I kind of look at it that way from an active investor point of view as well. If I'm fearful of something like the market or where things are heading, it's just because I don't know enough and some things you can't know, right? Nobody knows where we're going to head over the next couple of weeks with the virus and with rate cuts in the economy. But frankly, there's people that are a lot smarter, that are a lot more confident because they have that education, whether they're right or not as is one thing but you know, I think education by far is is the The best way you can do, especially if you're brand new at this, and listening to podcasts like this, and, and just being a part of the education forums that we have available to us for free. I mean, that will take you a really long way.

Taylor   9:15  

That's great. That's great. I think, you know, we believe in the value of education here on this show so much that, you know, I asked every guest on the show, what is the best investment you've ever made? And I actually had to make the caveat that it can't be education, because I got that answer. So many times. That's a great, great answer, but we want to get, you know, a little deeper into it.

So that's fantastic. Then you also mentioned the thing where you said things that people don't know, like the terms mean cash on cash, return IRR, those are probably some of the most common terms out there and then they get more and more detailed as we go along. That goes back to education. On how those work as well, right? Mm hmm. Yeah.

Lucas Miller  10:05  

We have a meetup here in the local, and we were just talking about this last Saturday. It's getting more complicated too, because you have sponsors out there, who, and I won't name names, but some of them are switching things up.

They're no longer using cash on cash return. They're no longer using IRR. They're switching things to like average annual return, and just a general ROI.

I gotta be honest, I think that's such a bad idea. we went over that at the meetup as to why I thought that and some people disagreed. Some people didn't. The general idea was that it was to make it simpler for people to understand my argument that they were hiding something and they didn't. They just liked the average annual return because usually it's a much higher number.

But it, you know, you can make that decision for yourself as a person. As an investor, if you are educated, you can't do that if you're just going off with someone's word.

Taylor   11:05  

That's true. That's a good point. I mean, there, there's a lot out there. There's a lot that you can do, or someone can do with their underwriting. That looks like a fairly minor change in assumptions, but at the end of the day has a pretty marked impact on the return number that you're showing at the end of the day. So that's a great point. Yeah, absolutely.

Lucas Miller  11:29  

I love playing with those in my own underwriting, if I'm, you know, I think all active investors, whether they want to admit it or not like to go through and play like best case scenario and how good it could be. But you know, very few people I know that are doing it well actually publish those numbers. So

Taylor   11:49  

Well, yeah, I think, you know, as real estate investors, our first instinct shouldn't be to try to do deals rather they should be to try to talk ourselves. Out of doing whatever particular deal we're looking at, we have a hypothesis we have, here's would be my business plan, and then we have to basically try to prove ourselves wrong. see if all of those cases where we're wrong are, you know, reasonably possible? I think that's really what we should be aiming for.

Lucas Miller  12:18  

Yeah, yeah, I totally agree there. Yeah,

Taylor   12:22  

yeah. Okay. So you know, as people start, you know, get educated, that's a great first step. But, you know, how well how are you getting educated? There are obviously seminars out there, but some of those costs 1000 bucks to get into plus to travel and all that. That's a pretty major investment for somebody who's just looking to place 50 to $100,000. So are there any less expensive or more economical ways to get educated? You mentioned podcasts? Are there any books you recommend or webinar series or anything like that, that we can go after to get educated?

Lucas Miller  12:59  

Yeah. You know, that's part of the problem. Why why my passive investor interviews kind of turned into an actual podcast is, you know, I had a couple people just say, Hey, you know, this is good stuff. I wish I would have known this when I got started, especially some of the guests that I was interviewing.

So that's why I kind of started the podcasts, but I don't want to put myself out there as, you know, the resource for people to go and learn. I actually think one of the best resources that people can go and learn from, and this is kind of controversial, because, you know, I'm, I'm actually sacrificing some of my time but, you know, just interviewing the sponsor, the actual sponsor, having a list of questions and say, you know, who's willing to sit down and answer questions with me, even if they're stupid questions, or stupid in the eyes of of the past industry. So that should at least give you a list of things that you can go and research on your own.

From there, you can obviously go to bigger pockets although, you know if you're stuck on commercial real estate investing You don't want to invest in things like a fund of fix and flips or anything like that. It's just Curt, you know, commercial real estate investing, it's not always the biggest source of professional advice. I'd say there's a lot of people on there with a lot of noise that might distract you. So I tend to not recommend bigger pockets a lot.

But really, podcasts are a huge source of education ones like this one's like, you know, any other other real estate, commercial real estate investing, podcasts will really help you out. But the thing is just to whittle it down every single time and so I talked about this on one of my shows is it's so overwhelming when you first get started that you make a list of like one to 10 just listen to a podcast and write down 10 things you don't know whether it's internal rate of return, whether it's cash on cash return, whether it's ppm, any number of these things that you don't know, write down a list of 10 and just go research them and get up to speed on that. Then from there next episode you listen to do another 10 or five or whatever. that'll really get you going and get to a point where you can feel confident getting on the phone with someone and just asking more questions more in depth. Questions.

Taylor   15:16  

Yeah, that's a really interesting concept, really interesting idea. I think it's a great idea. Because we kind of have a tendency just as people do, we want to figure it out as soon as possible. learning, you know, what's up and down in commercial real estate is hard. There's a lot to learn. if we start out planning to take it piecemeal, and I think the 10 things is that that's a great strategy, an actual actionable strategy that people can implement to slowly learn everything they need to know. So that's a great plan.

Lucas Miller  15:53  

Yeah, and I think I'm sure you have the same way like you have investors that will not read it. thing that you put out, they don't care about people, they don't care about anything, they'll just wire money, which isn't it. It's honorable, frankly, from a sponsor standpoint that someone trusts you that much.

But I wouldn't do that myself. so you start to realize, like, Okay, what would I need to feel comfortable investing money in you, you don't know that, frankly, unless you have actually wired your own money. so you think, start to think like, Okay, what would I know, need to know, to feel comfortable and then work backwards from that. But at the same time, you have to be careful there from an active investor standpoint, that there will be people that will waste your time and just want free education all the time.

They will, they will abuse that relationship. So knowing when to say, okay, you know, make an investment or get off the pot. , you know, there are people that will take that leap and there are people that won't, and you just got to figure out how to weed those out as quickly as you can.

Taylor   16:57  

You know, I think it's a very great point that you make regarding someone you know, wasting your time not respecting your time is I've had that happen. , you know, I'm happy to either get on the phone or answer any question you have and give you the most straightforward answer I possibly can. The most recent occurrence to me is this person didn't invest, which is totally fine. I don't mind that at all. I don't expect you to invest just for you know, my having answered the questions.

But I was completely ignored. After I answered all those questions. Just give me a no man, that's totally fine at that. I'm not upset at all even a little bit. Thank you for your time. Yeah. But it is you really, you know, in this business on the active side, we really have to watch how others will use our time because you don't know you don't know until your time's gone. Really?

Lucas Miller  17:51  

No, that's fair and in a really easy way that I kind of break that ice because that can be really awkward to say hey, I I don't have time for you. But the way I've started phrasing it is, you know, I would love to sit down and have coffee with you. I would love to go over these hundred questions. However, out of respect for my current investors, I have a fiduciary responsibility to manage my time well, so that I can work on the deals that I already currently have going.

So can we start with just a phone call or something? And I think the idea of putting them into an already active investor's shoes like okay, this guy's not going to waste my time chasing every dollar he can get. He's actually trying to weed people out that are serious. I, you know, hopefully that's well received. If not, you know, I might be losing a whole bunch of money by saying that but you know, frankly, it's true like I you know, if I was an active investor and I knew all this guy did was just take investor calls all day and he didn't really care about the his current deals going. I'd be a little upset.

Taylor   18:59  

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it is you do have to walk a fine line. But I think most people, you know, particularly someone who say they've, you know, worked their whole career or whatever, and they've got a million dollars in relatively liquid assets, they want to invest. I think a lot of those people, really, they're savvy, they understand that you need to manage your time. You know,

Unknown Speaker  19:20  

My exos people aren't the problem.

Taylor   19:23  

Right? It's, it's folks that are on the newer end with less capital to invest that are trying to learn everything they can. that's all well and good, but sometimes you have to respect your own time. Mm hmm. Absolutely. Yeah. That kind of struck a nerve with me there, I suppose, based on some events, no, no, it's totally fine. I get it. But

Lucas Miller  19:44  

Now we I think everybody's done that you really don't know where to draw the line when you first get started. So I know I chased a lot of people down for a long time and actually one person came back which is shocking, but only after he had invested in several other deals, which was kind of shocking.

Like he had never done one when we talked, but then he had done it, several others, and finally came back. So that was kind of interesting. Yeah.

Taylor   20:12  

Yeah. Interesting. So you're also partnered with a former guest on the show and someone that I've invested with Mark Kenny from Think multifamily? And I don't I don't know if how you kind of got into the business mark as an educator in this space. I don't know if that's how you originally met up with him. Is that that the case?

Unknown Speaker  20:35  

Yeah.

Lucas Miller  20:37  

For the most part, yeah, I got started a little before that. With some I tried to do it on my own, basically, for a long time, quickly realized that really wasn't a good strategy and trying to do everything on your own really leaves you stretched very thin in this game. so when I met Mark, I was talking to him about that.

you know, he said, Well, You don't have to do everything on your own. That was kind of a lightbulb moment for me. That was a couple years ago. So yeah, big fan of Mark Kenny. He's, I owe a lot of, frankly, my net worth and my values to that man. So,

Taylor   21:14  

big fan. Good, good, good. I'm curious. You know, I wanted to ask, how did you know, select him I suppose or you know, that's kind of the way that had evolved. You know, why are there a lot of people out there who are educators in this space and are good people and everything so you know, not to single anybody out but for the most part, they're good people. Why did you consider, you know, continuing with him as opposed to any other educator in the space or had you considered that and you know, your whole process there?

Lucas Miller  21:47  

Yeah, that's a that's a long

Lucas Miller  21:52  

I will say that I'm not like I don't get paid by Mark or anything, but I do do a lot of things. He asked, I'm basically a reference for him for a lot of new students. Basically what I tell everyone is that if you want one-on -one coaching, and you want someone who is available 24 seven, basically, I don't mean that lightly. I've texted him sometimes it's very late at night very early in the morning and he has gotten back to me. Wow, the guy's always working. It's crazy.

But one on one coaching with someone who is, you know, ethically sound who is doing a ton of deals. I think last year we did 21 or 22 deals total as a group. That's, that's a lot of deals going down and yeah, really good deals, too. So that's, that's my pitch, I guess you could say.

So when I was looking for a mentor, frankly, I I was having trouble finding someone that would do one on one coaching that I didn't have to pay an exorbitant amount of money and someone who would allow allowed me to leverage their track record to get deals because that's the hardest part when you're first getting started, right is is leveraging that track record and getting brokers to take you seriously.

Mark's theory is like, the more the merrier. so he introduces you to his brokers. He lets you use the thick multifamily brand, which at this point is probably like pushing 9000 units, a lot of brokers to know us and our ability to close and now that's, you know, that's a huge part of getting deals these days. So

Taylor   23:35  

that's great. I mean, I agree. My experience has been that he's very responsive, as you know, as an investor, former investor and, you know, his deals, he does respond to emails very quickly and that, you know, that's a great thing. So, you know, my experience is very similar.

Lucas Miller  23:51  

Yeah, they might be one word emails, but you get a response very quickly, like, hey, that's funny. Like, Mark, here's a three paragraph guide. When I'm scared about this deal, or what I'm really excited about, or what I'm interested in, and he'll just say, Yep. Or, or move forward or go for it, or something like that, and you know, but he's got thousands of emails to respond to you. I wouldn't put it past him. So,

Taylor   24:18  

yeah, and, you know, my experience has been positive. you know, as Kevin said, in the office, why use a lot of words when a few words do the trick?

Unknown Speaker  24:28  

Yes, yes. That's awesome.

Lucas Miller  24:31  

That was a great reference.

Taylor   24:33  

Yeah. So okay, that's great. I mean, I want to kind of sum up what we've talked about so far, and getting into passive investing, overcoming those fears, the best way that you would recommend to kind of get started is to get educated.

When we're getting educated, a good action plan, a good step that's not going to cost you a lot of money is to say, listen to podcasts, like my show or your show or any of the others out there. Actively. Listen. Have a pad of paper, write down 10 things you don't know that you hear, and then go learn about those 10 things. then just keep repeating that process over and over and over again. Yeah, maybe once a day or something like that, and you're gonna learn Yeah,

Lucas Miller  25:15  

yeah, and I, you know, this is probably a little more advanced. But once you do have that, at least basic foundation, very basic foundation, I would encourage you to go to, you know, actual commercial real estate investing events.

I think they are incredibly powerful not because of the education you're going to get from the speakers, but because you're gonna introduce yourself to other passive investors or other active investors, frankly, too, but really getting that reference point from other passive investors on who they're using, to how their deals are going, what their returns were advertised and what they're actually achieving. So I think that is really powerful down the road, but like you were saying earlier, it does cost a little bit of money.

So I wouldn't do that right away. I'd get that foundation first. and I think that will yield incredible dividends. If you're just looking to pass, you know, probably two or $300,000 over the next three or four years, that's all you need, right in ability to just like pull the trigger to if you see something that fits your criteria, pull the trigger.

Unknown Speaker  26:25  

Mm hmm. Yeah, I think

Taylor   26:28  

probably one of my best experiences as a passive investor was in building a relationship with an indicator. Over time watching their deals, taking a couple, frankly, a couple of years to watch how they did deals, get to know them. then once a deal, I made the decision, maybe they had done a deal and I said, Okay, the next one, I almost don't care what it is, I'm going to invest it I'm going to look at it and you know, decide, but the odds are really, really good. They're going to have to screw up for me to not invest and then do come along. Review. Perfect, I'm invested No problem, but it takes time to build that.

Lucas Miller  27:03  

And that's, that's totally okay too. I have people that are on my email list that I have an intake form and one of them is like, I'm not interested in passively investing at all. I have a few people that have clicked that and they just when I walk, reach out and talk to them, they just say, Hey, I'm just I just want to see deals come across the table. so I take that as maybe they just want to look at deals for a little while and get comfortable. Either that or they're just, you know, trying to steal my secrets or something.

Lucas Miller  27:38  

I don't have secrets. So they're, they're gonna keep looking but

Lucas Miller  27:41  

yeah, so I think that's perfectly okay. One thing I say to almost every single passive investor I have, if there is a little bit of fear, it's just like, hey, there's always another deal right around the corner. You know, I'm shooting for four or five deals this year.

You have plenty of money. way if you're scared about this one just I don't want you in the deal because from an active site an active investor standpoint, you don't want those people in your deal because the second that something bad happens or something tumultuous happens like, I have people email me right now about this market stuff.

Frankly, what that tells me is they have buyer's remorse and they're going to make my life difficult for the next several years of this cycle. Because I chased them and I never want to chase money I want people to confidently Invest in me and for them to be able to do that I need to educate them well enough so that they feel comfortable but yeah, don't chase money because it's just gonna backfire on you.

Taylor   28:45  

Yeah, that's really that is really interesting. That reminds me of someone that is on my list who's a newer doctor and doesn't have the capital right now but wants to start getting involved. need to learn and everything and, you know, we had a conversation about a recent deal of mine. He said, Hey, I'm not ready. You know, like, that's, that's fine.

You know, I'm doing the deals Anyway, I'm gonna be here. No problem at all, you know, keep looking and you need to talk to other syndicators. I'm happy to refer you to other people. If you want to look at other deals, you know that we got to be focused on the long run. I like the way you said it about. You're gonna do four to five deals this year. There's always going to be another one coming.

Lucas Miller  29:28  

Yeah. I think what is really cool is I have some syndicators that are some passive investors that have said, Hey, I want to watch this deal mature. This one I'm passing on today. so, you know, I'll send them little updates here and there, not a lot. frankly, I probably should do a little more of that, but they're just like, I want to see how this deal works out. that's fine. That's perfectly understandable.

Taylor   29:52  

I think it's the right way to do it. I mean, if you want to get detailed financial sorry, you have to invest in the deal, but if you want to get updates about how things are Going then Yeah, no problem.

Lucas Miller  30:02  

Yeah, yeah. so I have no problem with that. But yeah, not getting detailed financials. But definitely. I'll give you a little update here and there.

Taylor   30:11  

Yeah, yeah. How are things going? Great. So right now we're going to take a quick break for our sponsor. All right, Lucas, I've got three questions. I asked every guest on the show. Are you ready? Let's do it. All right, first one. What is the best investment you've ever made? Other than your education? Yeah. So you want deal stuff, right? You know, whatever. What's the best investment you've ever made other than your education, man?

Lucas Miller  30:35  

So I guess the best investment I've ever made, and this is going to be almost contrarian. I

Lucas Miller  30:44  

probably shouldn't say this on it.

Lucas Miller  30:47  

But the best investments I made were actually my single family investments. I say that because I don't think they were a better asset. I think I just got lucky. pure luck. That's all it was. bought into Denver right before the huge run out. Yeah. frankly, like, I probably sold a little too early, but, you know, made, you know, good money on that, with nothing more than just luck. frankly, I thought it was me being a great investor. But now

Lucas Miller  31:19  

Now, I just got lucky. ,

Lucas Miller  31:23  

and though the one caveat with that is, I remember very vividly posting about my deal on bigger pockets, and it didn't meet the 1% rule. if you're not familiar with that, it's basically like, it should rent for 1% of what, what you're paying for it. back then, it just wasn't possible. It was like at point eight or something and tons of people were telling me I was going to lose money.

I was like, Alright, well at least I'll have cheaper rent for a few years and made like 200 grand on that deal. So that was You know, I just had a little bit of confidence. and I had a plan, right? Like it probably I probably wouldn't have bought it if I was looking at it through a lens of I want passive investing for the wealth for the rest of my life. I just wanted a cheap place to live. So

Taylor   32:17  

Well, I think there's a lot we can learn there. Right. yeah, you did time the market extremely well. But I think a lot of us are not on purpose, but it happened. I think the insightful thing that you're displaying here is that you're not mistaking that for being some kind of serious genius. You time the market. Well, and Okay, great. We're not going to pretend that we can time every market perfectly well in the future.

Lucas Miller  32:45  

Yeah, well, actually, if I would have had the confidence and the education to passively invest in a multifamily deal that money probably would have been tripled, as opposed to just like, not even double. So you know, take it with a grain of salt.

Taylor   33:02  

Well, and that that 1% rule thing is, you know, people get kind of dogmatic about it. But it's just a metric. You know, if you're making that 1% rule, then you're probably going to be okay. It's not, you're screwed if you're not making this 1%. Because if you're really going for that thumb, right, exactly, like all rules of thumb, and if you're really going for that, right now, as the market stands in most of the country, you're not going to do a single deal anywhere. Huh? Nope. Yeah. That's a bit of an old metric. It used to be 2%. Now it's 1%.

Unknown Speaker  33:33  

Yeah, maybe 2% rule. Yeah, I remember that.

Taylor   33:36  

Wow. That's crazy. So on the other side of that, we had to work the best investment on the other side of that coin. What is the worst investment you've ever made?

Lucas Miller  33:45  

Yeah, this one's a fun one to talk about.

Lucas Miller  33:49  

I've talked about this before, like on stage so I'm not giving anything away, but I was fixing flipping for a little while and To make a very long story short, I have been flipping condos in a 55 and older community. So not elderly people but 55 and older.

I made the mistake of choosing the wrong comps basically for my flips. Then when I went to make the initial purchase, I thought the purchase price was 175. I thought I could sell it for 280 based on Sif sales comps, and so I bought it did the flip. It was gorgeous. It was beautiful. But it just sat on the market. The biggest flaw I had in my strategy was I bought a condo on the second floor, and this particular building didn't have an elevator. so I had no way of getting an elderly person, stairs. so when people are buying their condos to basically die in which people At that point, you have got to have an elevator.

so that I lost probably about $50,000 on that deal. Yeah, it sucked. But, and I actually had a private investor on that deal and, but paid her off. She didn't lose any money. So, you know, I bet that bullet and that was a tough lesson to learn, but actually, it's probably a good thing, frankly, because now I'm very systematized in my multifamily due diligence, like, I try to leave no stone unturned, frankly, like it's not possible especially with this Coronavirus thing, like who could have seen that coming. But everything you can do in due diligence I do. I try to sow

Lucas Miller  35:47  

blessing and a curse, right?

Taylor   35:49  

Yeah, right. Well, you know, you learned a hard lesson, but the lesson is learned. So that's all you can do at this point. I won't forget it. So speaking of lessons Third question I ask every guest on the show is what is the most important lesson that you've learned in business and investing?

Lucas Miller  36:09  

This is a great question for someone who's probably just starting because, you know, I think the biggest lesson I learned was to seek help early and seeking help doesn't come in, you can take that advice one way or another either, if you get stuck, seek help. But for me, it was, like we were talking about earlier, I was trying to do this syndication thing all on my own.

But then I met Mark and it was like, Okay, I'm seeking help by getting a mentor, someone who's been there who's done it, who's done it several hundred times. You know, I'm just gonna, I'm just going to hire someone, you know, I'm going to outsource it. I'm going to use them to leverage. Let me tell you, it's like strapping rockets to your business. If you figure out a way to find someone who you can add value in some way to them, and they'll do the same to you and it's an equal partnership.

That's a no brainer to me. So that's why I kind of discourage people from being in bigger pockets all the time if you're interested in commercial stuff because everyone's like, Oh, don't pay for a mentor don't, you shouldn't ever have to pay for education and everything is free.

Well, it is free, but it's worth it too. Because, you know, frankly, no one's been in your position. So the biggest lesson I have is just seek help if you get stuck and if you feel like you're at a point where you can't grow or you're stuck just reach out to someone who has done it before who is smarter than us wealthier than you. You know,

Lucas Miller 37:39  

any number of things.

Taylor   37:40  

Nice nice I like that. Well Lucas, thank you for joining us today. Once again. folks want to get in touch with you. They want to learn more about you. Where can they find you?

Lucas Miller  37:50  

Yeah, my websites are a great way to reach out. It's bannockcapital.com or just Search fear free passive investing. That's the podcast and some YouTube videos too

Taylor   38:05  

Nice, nice. Great, thanks once again for joining us on here the Ides of March as we record it'll be May when this goes live, but hopefully everybody's doing well then when you're listening, and for everybody out there, thank you for tuning in.

If you're enjoying the show, please leave us a rating and review on Apple podcasts, very much appreciated. If you know anyone out there who could use a little bit more passive wealth in their lives, please share the show with them and bring them into the fold.

Once again, I hope everything's going well for you. I hope the market turmoil has subsided a bit, but if it's not, it's a great buying opportunity. Either way, there's always opportunity. Thanks for tuning in. Hope you have a great rest of your day and great week and we'll talk to you on the next episode.

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