Building Bridges for Real Estate Investors with Rich Rice #881

Since diving into real estate in 2017, Rich has masterfully navigated through flipping, wholesaling, and house hacking.  Executing over 100 deals and building a diverse portfolio that spans short and long-term rentals, mobile homes, and note creation. 

His passion for community and knowledge-sharing propelled him to acquire IEREIC in 2021, providing a vibrant platform for investors to learn, grow, and succeed together. Rich doesn’t just preach investment strategies; he shares generously from the pages of his own journey, ensuring that every insight, lesson, and strategy he imparts is deeply rooted in real, lived experiences and tangible success.

In this episode:

• Real Estate Journey of Rich Rice
• His biggest influence on his Real Estate Journey
• Taking over a real estate investment club during COVID-19 pandemic
• Evolution of FIRE Center and IEREIC
• Goals and Visions for the FIRE Brand

The Norris Group originates and services loans in California and Florida under California DRE License 01219911, Florida Mortgage Lender License 1577, and NMLS License 1623669.  For more information on hard money lending, go www.thenorrisgroup.com and click the Hard Money tab.


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Transcript

Narrator: 0:01

Welcome to The Norris Group real estate podcast, a show committed to bringing you insights from thought leaders shaping the real estate industry. In each episode, we'll dive into conversations with industry experts and local insiders, all aimed at helping you thrive in an ever-changing real estate market. continuing the legacy that Bruce Norris created, sharing valuable knowledge, and empowering you on your real estate journey. Whether you're a seasoned pro or a newcomer, this is your go-to source for insider tips, market trends and success strategies. Here's your host, Craig Evans.

Craig Evans: 0:44

I want to welcome everybody today. We are very excited with our program today on The Norris Group Podcast. Today, I am honored to have Rich Rice. He is the President of Inland Empire Real Estate Investors Club. Since diving into real estate in 2017, Rich has masterfully navigated through flipping, wholesaling and house hacking. He's executed over 100 deals and building a diverse portfolio that spans short and long term rentals, mobile homes and note creation. His passion for community and knowledge sharing propelled him to acquire the Inland Empire Real Estate Investment Club in 2021, providing a vibrant platform for investors to learn, grow, and succeed together. Rich just doesn't preach investment strategy, he shares generously from the pages of his own journey, ensuring that every insight, lesson and strategy he imparts is deeply rooted in real, lived experiences and tangible success. Rich, man, I am so excited. You know, I got to meet you and your girlfriend this past weekend, and it is an honor to have you on the podcast, man, I really appreciate you being here.

Richard Rice: 2:00

Hey, absolutely thanks for having me. The event that I just met you at was amazing, and I'm excited for all the things that you and The Norris Group and your other ventures are getting into. And yeah, just really excited to be here on the show. Normally, I'm on the other end of this thing, like I said, so I'm excited to be the other side.

Craig Evans: 2:21

Listen, you know, one of the things that I like to do, especially when we were having, you know, a new guest on with us, is I like to try to get our audience to know a little more about you before we just dive into real estate and everything else. So if it's all right, I just want to dive into, you know, who is Rich Rice? How did you get to where you're at, right? So I guess the first thing is, tell us a little bit about yourself. Tell us where you're originally from.

Richard Rice: 2:44

All right, so I kind of, I grew up in Anaheim. I was originally it's funny, I was born in New Mexico, but, my parents left when I was three. I try not to claim it. I really wish they would have just had me here in California. But anyways, I lived here since I was three. I went to college in Phoenix to Arizona State, and I really kind of fell into real estate. Back in 2017 I got involved with my parents flipping homes, and then kind of went from there. But outside of real estate, you know, I like to bowl, I like to camp. I got an RV. We're taking an RV trip here pretty soon. My girlfriend's actually pregnant. We're due in October, so I'm going to be a dad here soon.

Craig Evans: 3:28

Congratulations.

Richard Rice: 3:29

Thank you. Thank you. So that's a big that's gonna be a big change, obviously. And, you know, I just, I'm a pretty easygoing guy. I like to have fun outside of real estate. I've always, even when I was in the corporate world, I just knew that I really, you know, I just felt like I was meant for something better, as far as, like, just, I wanted to climb the corporate ladder for so long, and when I started climbing it and dealing with corporate politics and stuff like that, I just realized that wasn't for me. And tried to, you know, I tried to find financial independence, financial freedom, stumbled along. Had to go back into the workforce. And then, you know, later on, it was just as miserable. And finally, just went into real estate at some point, and still chasing that, you know, chasing that goal, and trying to spread it to other people, you know, we really, you know, turned we started leaning into this FIRE Brand, financial independence, to real estate. We kind of made that the primary fo actually, recently, we made that the name of our event center over in Riverside. And now that is like the, the number one kind of overarching brand, Inland Empire, real estate clubs kind of falling under that. So we got a lot in the works. I'm excited for the future. I'm excited for right now. I just got done helping a neighbor on while putting together an option contract for a neighbor whose power got turned off. So I'm just trying to, you know, keep going. And and, you know, see what's, see what the future's gonna hold, so.

Craig Evans: 5:05

That's awesome. Well, listen, all right, so you said Anaheim, so I'm gonna be honest. I would be remiss. And also, I've got two daughters. I think you met one of them this past weekend, but you know, they would kill me if I didn't find out about thi, because, you know, we're from Florida. We, I mean, originally from but we've lived here for 20 years. So, you know, my kids, pretty much, all they've known is Florida. So, all right, I gotta ask, you know, you grew up in Anaheim, did you love or hate the Mouse, right? I mean.

Richard Rice: 5:31

I actually worked for the mouse at one point.

Craig Evans: 5:34

...the front door, really?

Richard Rice: 5:35

Yeah, it was my first well. So I worked through, high school. I worked at the at the at the high school theater. It was really, really nice, you know, very fully equipped theater that was nicer than probably most colleges in the area. And so I worked there doing rentals, and that's where I learned how to do, you know, lighting and sound. And I ended up doing all of that for the event center. Saved a lot of money. I don't know if saved a lot of time, my time, but it saved a lot of club, a lot of money, because those guys may bank, but I it's funny, I didn't want to go into that as a job, because it was, it was kind of like, you know, it was feast or famine. You know, it was, you do a job and a gig over, like, a week or a weekend or whatever, and you make really good money, and then you wouldn't have anything for a while. And so I didn't think that was for me. And, you know, here we are, 20 years later, and I'm and it's feast or famine on deals. So, yeah, you know, but anyways, I did work for my first job, my even though I had worked through high school, my first, like, real job, working for somebody else other than my school or my, you know, friends and family and stuff, was I worked for Disney, I worked for Disneyland. I was an outdoor vendor. I sold the churros and the pretzels and the it was all cash back then, there was no registers on those carts. So we did everything out of like our cash apron or cash drawer. I remember the most I did was like I was on the churro wagon in front of the Haunted Mansion on Fourth of July, and I sold$5,000 where the churros all in cash and had to deal out change and my fund at the end of the night was only off by like $100

Craig Evans: 7:21

Wow.

Richard Rice: 7:22

But yeah, I was, I only did it for like, four months, and then they cut everybody's hours at the end of the summer, and I ended up getting a really good job for, for James Hardie, which is where I did most of my sales career at I ended up working for them a lot longer, and so, but yeah, it was, it was a good experience working for Disney. I mean, they, you know, they have a world class organization, obviously. Yeah.

Craig Evans: 7:44

So, so in doing it, in doing a little research, I found out that you went to and correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is you went to an all boys Catholic school?

Richard Rice: 7:54

Yes, sir, Yep. Yeah.

Craig Evans: 7:56

So, from what I'm seeing on that, they're pretty much a powerhouse in some sports, right?

Richard Rice: 8:02

Yeah, yeah, they are. And I didn't, you know, I didn't particularly want to go to Servite when I was in grade school, that'S my parents wanted me to go. I was trying to get into, I think it was Troy tech, if I remember correctly. And I didn't get into Troy, but I got into Servite. And I had no idea that they were a powerhouse in sports, you know, my I, my dad was a, kind of a jock in high school, and I kind of he was and, and I guess he just didn't want that for me, because they pulled me out of sports when I was like, in, you know, fifth grade, and wanted me to focus on school. And so I, you know, kind of stopped paying attention sports, but I was still in sports, but I always still enjoyed it. I was still athletic, and so I ended up going out for the baseball team, and just as a walk on, you know, tried out for the baseball team. And didn't realize, until after I tried out, that Servite has a very good baseball program, and there were kids coming to Servite just to play baseball, and they're like, You really thought you were gonna walk on? I was like. I was like, Well, yeah, why not, you know, and my freshman English teacher was actually the varsity baseball coach, and he kind of gave me, I felt like, you know, he kind of like everybody else you know, every other freshman, you know, just kind of gave everybody crap, and after I tried out, yo, he was like, he never gave me crap ever again. You know, I think he was like, somewhat of respect that I was like, had the guts to try and do it, I guess, but I didn't even really know that I had it, so.

Craig Evans: 9:34

So you're in real estate, so I'm assuming that the baseball career did not go that well for you, then?

Richard Rice: 9:40

No, absolutely not. I definitely didn't make the team.

Craig Evans: 9:45

Well, so listen, you mentioned that. You mentioned later on that you had worked for James Hardie. Give me a little history on that. I mean, obviously, you know, you heard this weekend, we've got Trinity that does a. Lot of framing and shell construction, things like that. As one of our, one of our corporations, you know, we use Hardy products quite frequently. So tell me about your time at Hardie. Tell me what you did.

Richard Rice: 10:10

Yeah. So I, I started out as a, basically, my job was to convert people buying competitive products. So like wonderboard hard, for those of you that don't know, James Hardie makes a makes something called Hardy backer. It's a cement underlayment. You know, if you don't have, if you don't have cement, if you're not putting tile on cement, or, like, in a bathroom wall or something you want to use, you don't use drywall. Yeah, there's, there's other competitors out there. So I was basically my first job was just talking to contractors and getting them to buy James Hardie products instead of, you know, the other ones out there. And that was supposed to be a temporary position, and I ended up working them for eight years. And at one point, my territory went from I was doing, I had a from Santa Barbara all the way down to, like, where, like Beaumont, which was not as big as it is now, and then all the way out to El Paso. So I had different territories, and I really just was a factory rep for them for years. And mostly on the backer side, I didn't do a whole lot. On the siding side, they're actually known as a siding company, you know, but out here citing, excuse me, citing isn't as large as a business as it is in, like, the the Midwest and, you know, the storm areas and, you know, but it's definitely holds up. And I'm putting it, you know, it's funny, I worked for them for eight years. I never used, we used to get product for free, like, we get all the siding for free. And I didn't own 10 houses back then. And now, every time i i put Hardie on a house, I'm like, man, I wish I would have stockpiled this stuff or something so, but they ended up putting me through school. I'll always be grateful for that. You know, it didn't really end on a great note. You know, I had some new people, new managers come in. Didn't really see eye to eye with them. I put my foot down, they put their foot down harder. And the rest is history. So, you know, but it was, and it's funny, those people, you know, they all left the company within a year.

Craig Evans: 12:18

Yeah.

Richard Rice: 12:18

And yeah, I'd probably, at one point, I'd probably still be working for them if things had worked differently. But, you know, definitely was part of the path that put me here now. And I don't regret it, but I appreciate them paying for school that was a big that was big Lego.

Craig Evans: 12:33

So, well, so Alright, so you're, you're at JH, and you're working through your got a big sales story, this territory out of it, you know, you had to, "Mexican standoff". Who's going to do what? What took you from that into real estate investing? How did you kind of start making that shift?

Richard Rice: 12:54

You know, there was another few years before I finally made that shift. I took about a year off. I just went through some, did some hobbies. I tried to get into, like day trading and forex. And, you know, crypto wasn't really a thing, or it was very baby stages back then. And I was just because I had, you know, I had a decent savings, you know. So I had the ability to take some time off. I actually moved back to California for a little while. And long story short, here, I ended up going back to Arizona and got into the staffing industry, because I really, I've always been a very, you know, I have a very, pretty strong tech background. For somebody that didn't work in tech or go into tech. I've just always been a nerd. I was building computer. I used to go into school early, like in fourth grade fifth grade, to help the computer teacher, build computers. So I would actually ask, I'd want to go to school early as a fifth grader. That's how big of a nerd I was back then, and so, I understood it. You know, I'd always kind of, I built my own websites and computers, and I don't really like minor coding and stuff like that. So I combined the sales experience with kind of the technical know how, and I did very well in the staffing industry. I placed, like, senior level software engineers into contract roles where they were getting, you know, they get paid at a certain amount, and then I'd get a cut of what they made, basically on an hourly basis. And it was very lucrative, but it was, it was very it was a never ending grind. And I just realized again that I didn't I just not a I'm not the sales grind. I don't mind grinding and hobbies and things that interest me and real estate, because it kind of combines all those, all those things, but grinding for someone else to make somebody else a lot of money is not my gig, anymore. So to answer your question, sorry, I'm gonna do I said the short version, and it turned into the long run. I ended up, you know, my parents had been doing, they've done a few flips. They bought a few rentals, and they wanted to really go into they had recently left their jobs to focus on it full time, and they wanted to expand their business, but they didn't want to bring somebody in that they didn't know and kind of show them the whole gig. So I was at a crossroads, and ended up coming, moving back to California and going into business with them, and that was 2017 and just combined, you know, project management and sales and all my background with what they knew about real estate, and we just kind of hybridized our companies, and just went to work. And that was, like I said, seven years ago now, 100 and I don't know, 130 flips later, 30 or 40 wholesale, I don't know. I stopped counting, somewhere around there.

Craig Evans: 15:54

So you, you joined with your was it your mom and your stepdad? Is that correct? Am I understanding it correct?

Richard Rice: 16:00

Yep.

Craig Evans: 16:01

So, so you kind of took into into what you had done in the past. What, what did you see was the benefit that you brought to the table that they weren't doing at that time in their real estate in, in their real estate career, so to speak?

Richard Rice: 16:15

So, it's funny that it's good question. I originally came in to do the acquisitions side of it. And my stepdad was running all of the, you know, at the time. I mean, they were only doing like, one or two flips a year, and he was once we started ramping up and doing more, he was running the project, you know, the actual project management side of the flips. And he didn't like it, you know, he still doesn't like it. He was, you know, tearing his hair out, on, you know, like juggling, picking up material and contractors and picking out paint and, you know, all that stuff. And he just did. He just didn't really like it. And what he liked was talking to people. And, you know, I like people. But at that point, I was, I mean, I've been selling people for, for as a recruiter and a staffing person, you know, for years, I would dial the phone 300 times a day and talk to, you know, 100 people. And I was sick of talking to people, to be honest, like, I just wanted to, you know, so we switched. We switched. I took over the project management stuff on all the flips and and then he took over on acquisitions and talking to people. And ever since we made that switch, we just kept going. You know, one time we had think that most we ever had going, one year we did, like 11, single families and like, 16 mobile homes with that, that we flipped that year, and that was a great year, but when we, none of us wanted to work that hard, so we don't do that anymore.

Craig Evans: 17:53

How many do you see that you do a year now? Like, what's your average you'll do now?

Richard Rice: 17:58

Probably about 10. Like less than 10, you know, it depends. Some of them are more intense than other ones. I just did seven mobile homes in Paris all at once in about 10 weeks. And you know, that one's gonna we more had, like, a profit target, and if we hit that, you know, there were some years that we It took all year to hit that, and then some years we hit it in June, and we just kind of didn't work as hard the rest of the year, you know.

Craig Evans: 18:28

Sure.

Richard Rice: 18:28

So just kind of It depends. But right now, I mean, you know, this year I'll probably do less than 10.

Craig Evans: 18:36

Okay. So, do you guys have other staff involved? Are you use subcontractors on everything. Con, you know, contractors for everything. What do you how do you structure your stuff?

Richard Rice: 18:45

Yep, all contractors, different crews. And those crews, some of them have their own subs. Some of them, I run different, you know, different crews, different subs, through of my own. And then as far as staff it's really just, it's really just the three of us. We have a couple of I have a VA and then my girlfriend Caitlin definitely is a part of our side of the business too. As far as you know, acquisitions and helps where she can. And we have a couple other we have one more sister. They have one more system. We actually recently went our separate ways amicably, you know, we're still, we're still doing projects together, but instead of, like, doing it all under their companies, you know, I have my own now, and we, you know, we, we, it was a long time coming. It was just a it took a while to do.

Craig Evans: 19:43

So when you said you've gone several you're talking about your your mom and your stepdad, and you have kind of split ways, and you've created your own thing, now, correct?

Richard Rice: 19:51

Exactly, exactly, yeah, when I bought the when I bought the club originally, you know, three years ago now, that was I bought that separately from their stuff. Up until that time, you know, we've been flipping and doing everything under their companies. And then when I bought the club separately, it's like that kind of turned into its own thing. And then from there, it was just, you know, it was getting tougher and tougher to because they what they wanted to slow down. I wanted to keep going. You know, their their risk tolerance was different than mine. And we just, you know, and it's funny, like, I mean, within a month after splitting off, we did a deal together. So we're still all LinkedIn in. We're still talking about, we're right now we're working on this retiring landlord out in the high desert that has upwards of, like, 40 properties he wants to get rid of. And we're tag teaming that at the moment on...

Craig Evans: 20:44

Okay.

Richard Rice: 20:44

...on how to put that together, so.

Craig Evans: 20:47

So who do you think had the biggest influence on you, your your mom, or your stepdad? And from a real estate perspective?

Richard Rice: 20:54

From real estate wise, I think definitely my stepdad, he was, he was kind of the, he's definitely the lead on it. He was the one that convinced my mom to do it, you know, he was the one that was, I think, crazy enough to actually do it. And, you know, he was kind of, he went to a lot of those seminars, and, you know, he never bought into, like, those, like, $50,000 guru programs or anything like that, you know. But he definitely did the legwork on getting started and getting into it. And, you know, he was definitely, everybody else in the family, you know, thought he was crazy, you know, they don't, they don't think that anymore. So, for sure. Yeah, absolutely. That's my stepdad, Evan.

Craig Evans: 21:43

So, let's jump into, you know where you guys are at now, what you're doing now you bought the Inland Empire Real Estate Investment Club. Was it 20 or 21 I forget now?

Richard Rice: 21:56

2021 we officially did it. Yeah, I was running it for the year before that, but...

Craig Evans: 22:01

Gotcha. Gotcha. So walk me through what that process was for, what was the the desire to own the club, what, walk me through the process.

Richard Rice: 22:13

There was, it was kind of like, multifaceted, primarily, yeah, I was part of the club, you know, it's like 2018 so I've been there a couple years. I could tell that the guys who used to run it were kind of over it. That frustration had kind of spilled over and, you know, I knew that it was a great resource. I actually, you know, when I first bought my first rental, a week before Disneyland, they closed Disneyland on 2020, I actually closed the week after they closed Disneyland, you know, I was nervous. I didn't know what to do. I didn't it was the, it was my first rental that I was gonna be hanging on to. I didn't know if I should buy it or wait, or whatever. And I came to the club and, you know, Steve, the previous owner, and Andy Teasley. We were in a you know, group session, and they asked me about the house and I told them what the interest rate was. Well, I was actually nervous. I didn't want to say it, for some reason. They're like, is there a two in front of it? And I was like, buy the freaking house. And so there's a lot, you know, like the club has definitely helped me out way before I ever ran it. I didn't want to see it go away. And I also, at the same time, I had experience running groups and meetups and, you know, that kind of stuff. And I really thought that California, specifically, I've been a lot of the REIAs. And I just felt like, we, I've been a lot of the Rees all over the country also, and like, what they're doing in Ohio, you know, they got these massive REIAs with multiple meetings, and in Florida, where they're actually doing deals. And it's not just, you know, somebody speaking once a month. They're all doing deals, like, back and forth. I just thought that was great. I thought I was like, why not here? Like, I think we deserve that, you know, and definitely have the population and the interest and the and the real estate shops to get it done. So, you know, I just, I, like I said, I thought we could do it here, and I wanted to be a part of that and help build a platform to do that. So, that's what we set out to do. And we've a lot of it, we've done, and we're just getting better.

Craig Evans: 24:22

So, let me ask you, it's got me thinking you bought this in 2021, so you know, covid is going that had to be an interesting time to take over a club in a weird time of history. You know, what was it like when you first were you guys doing live events at all that kind of past?

Richard Rice: 24:45

We were all on Zoom at that point, we were doing what everyone else was doing, but just like, kind of right, the same, trying to make a meeting that worked live and put it in a Zoom. And, you know, one point we sat down, and we were just like. Like we're going to stop trying to do that, because it's not working, like it's not the same thing. And, you know, we started really cutting down the amount of time. We started doing multiple different meetings, as we felt like everybody's attention span was just, you know, gone, and people weren't going to sit on a Zoom meeting for four hours, you know, they did it first. And it was cool, like, you know, when we were all locked in. But after that, it was just like, wow, this is getting a little long. So we started cutting down our, you know, if we did have a speaker, we started cutting down the time, and we started doing multiple events. You know, we did like, shorter, more frequent events through covid. And you know, I took it over in 2020 like I said, we didn't finalize the purchase until 2021 and then it took about six months. We were back in person. We did our first in person major event at the Mission Inn in January of 2022 and I think we were the, as far as I know, we were the first, the first REIA to be back, you know, REIA style, organization, to be back in person, way ahead of most of them, there's still some that are doing Zoom now and haven't gone back in person and, you know, but things changed. Things definitely changed. Everything got way more expensive. I mean, we were, you know, by the time we decided so we were at the Mission Inn, and we gone back to the Mission Inn and it was costing, almost $8,000 per meeting to have it at the Mission Inn and we just, I just kind of looked at the books, and I was like, wow, you know, we could probably get our own place at this point, because we were doing that quarterly, and we were going to a couple other places monthly. And so that meeting was costing that, and another one was costing, you know, like, 1500 bucks a month, and we just looked at it. And so we started looking for a bigger space, and then we found our own warehouse, and kind of turned that into what was originally just a clubhouse for the club, and now it's morphed into something bigger. So we're calling it the FIRE Center now, and it's going to host multiple groups, not just the Inland Empire club. It's now going to be the host of five different groups. So it's definitely unlocked a lot of possibility, and we got a great future. So I'm excited for all that. Yeah, so that's all that answer your question.

Craig Evans: 27:39

Yeah, no, no, no, absolutely like I say. I'm just trying to get our audience to kind of learn and hear, like, how you walk through this path and then also now, you know, like, what stuff looking like going forward. So with your club, you know, what do you see? What's, what's your vision? You know you were, you were there this week, and you heard my vision for The Norris Group, tying in with our, all the organizations that I own, things like that. What is your vision for your club going forward? What does that look like?

Richard Rice: 28:09

Yeah, and I think Craig, I think we really, that's why I liked hearing what you had to say, you know, over the over the weekend, is that, you know, on the education side of The Norris Group and all that, I think we're very aligned, you know, I, we rebranded our parent company, you know, to FIRE, it stands for financial independence to real estate. And that really is the is the goal, that's the mission, to provide, you know, top tier education events and help our community of investors achieve financial independence through real estate and and I think that's a really people are kind of like, some people that, you know, run these groups and want that, they kind of look at me they're like,"Well, duh." Like, that's the whole thing, I mean. But I don't, I think it gets lost, honestly, I think it gets lost in a lot of these, REIAs, a lot of the organizations where people just end up giving themselves another job, whether that be flipping or wholesaling or, you know, running very management, intensive style rentals, you know, and that I love real estate, but the real estate's the goal. The Real Estate's the vehicle. Financial Independence is the goal. I got into this because I wanted freedom. I wanted to, you know. I didn't want to have to do deals and have to work and do all this stuff if I didn't want to, if I wanted to take three months off and hit the road, I wanted the freedom to do that. And I think that's what most people really want at the end of the day that get into this, but it just gets lost at some point. So I'm putting that front and center. The whole goal is to help people achieve financial independence through real estate. So that's the mission. That's what we're focused on. And while we talk about flipping and wholesaling a lot, you know, I'm part of the camp that's more buy and hold, you know?

Craig Evans: 30:01

Yeah, yeah. So, so, so, with FIRE, you're the new brand that you've got. Kind of walk me through the size of, where's that at? What's the goal on? Is there a size you're trying to grow that brand to? Are you looking to keep that as a local brand? Give me a little history on that.

Richard Rice: 30:21

You know, that's so the Inland Empire, everything was branded under, and like, you know, operating just under the Inland Empire, real estate club, you know, logo, I guess, or brand, I guess, I just felt like that kind of limited us to here. So we spun out, we did a meeting called exchangers. That's a deal making meeting where people trade stuff and money and cash and deals and all kinds of stuff that Andy and I started under irick, you know, years ago, and, you know, we recently pulled that out. It's now its own thing, and we called it SoCal exchangers. And we're focused on on SoCal as more of a region, instead of just the only empire. I think that's probably the limit. Somebody asked me, why don't you just call it like us exchangers, and go for the whole country. That'd be great. But I think that style of meeting that we've, you know, borrowed ideas from other events, we kind of made it our own. And that style that we do now is it can be too big. I think there's an upper limit of, you know, we comfortably have about 70 to 80 people attending. We usually have like 20 people in person, and like 40 people on Zoom, you know, if we could double that continuous we would have a we'd have a great, we already have a great meeting, but we'd have an even better meeting every single week, if we get attract, you know, double that regionally. And just have people that were doing deals here in Southern California, once they go beyond that. And you can't really verify stuff as easily, you know, we have people from all over the country coming out, and I've done deals. I did a Hypothecation with somebody in in Virginia. But I think I the meetings. It's best when it's more localized. And sure, you know, I think Southern California as a whole market in general, just as is a better focus, so.

Craig Evans: 32:14

So are is everything operating under FIRE then, or are the FIREbrand. Or have you do you still have the Inland Empire, real estate investment club brand out there? Or is everything switched to the FIRE brand now?

Richard Rice: 32:27

Nope, IEREICs still out there. The Inland Empire brands still out there. That one's still gonna focus on the Inland Empire in general. So we're sticking to our roots on that one. It's just almost like we created another parent company.

Craig Evans: 32:40

Okay.

Richard Rice: 32:40

We created, like, you know, what is Google's, you know, instead of just being all Google, it's not Meta, that's Facebook.

Craig Evans: 32:49

Yeah.

Richard Rice: 32:50

You know, basically just gave it a parent company that we're going to operate, not just IEREIC Inland Empire, but we're going to do SoCal exchangers. We're going to do a Crestline focused one, because I invest in the mountains a lot, and we're going to bring back, like a cash flow game night kind of thing, but under its own thing. So it's just, it's just focused. So, because what we notice is we doing all these different events and then, but we get a different crowd every event. There's a, die hard exchanger crowd that's not interested in the in the, you know, the The Wednesday night focus groups that we do, there's a die hard the people that like cash flow, playing cash flow all the time, but they don't really come to other stuff. So we're just gonna, like I said, rebrand some stuff. There's also what, and that's all gonna happen under the FIRE Center brand. So it's basically everything, everything's housed under the FIRE Center. So that's going to be the, the main brand going forward. And then the last group we're doing, which I'm it's just growing legs. It's, I mean, it's barely growing legs, but I'm really excited about it. It's the California Real Estate Investors Alliance. And it's because, because, under irick, the other thing too, on all of this, we had very specific are very, like, strict, like, no politics policy within IEREIC, we didn't really, I didn't want people to meetings to devolve into, you know, political debates and stuff like that. So we're going to make a group that's focused not on politics, but on policy. You know, there's a lot of us housing providers out there and other industry professionals that probably don't like the way things are going in Sacramento. We're gonna and so we're gonna put together something, you know, there's a committee of like our, four Assemblymen, just like, writing law out of nowhere. That's kind of affecting us a lot. And I sure we all agree that a lot of these policies that are coming down, that are meant to help renters are actually tying our hands behind her back from helping people a lot of times with the, you know, the security deposit changes, and now they're talking about getting rid of, you know. Pet rent, our pet deposits and fees and stuff like that. And that's a whole, I mean, I could go into that more, but so we're gonna put this group together, and we're basically just gonna put an open call out there, like, Hey, anybody you know? See what we got, see what our see our networks, like, see who knows who, and see what we can put together. And it might be something really cool, we can actually influence a policy, or it might not. I don't really know where it's going to go, but I'm excited to at least put the word out there, the call out there, and see what we can do, so.

Craig Evans: 35:34

That's awesome. So how does our audience connect with with you from from IEREIC, or either your new southern cup club. I mean, either one. How do they connect in that process?

Richard Rice: 35:45

The best way right now is to go to firecenterhq.com. Again, that's firecenterhq.com and you can sign up for updates, and as we put these calls out, as we launch these groups, as we do updates, you be on that email list and get out, get notifications. I'm pretty much like, with the Alliance thing, with the CalREIA thing, you know, I'm going to reach out to all the REIA captains, you know, you, you know people, people like us, the education groups, and just say, Hey, we're all going to meet here, probably at the FIRE Center, you know, on this date, you know, bring people that you know and that are serious, that want to be involved in. Let's put something together, you know.

Craig Evans: 36:27

So I'm understanding, you've got a big event coming up that's already out there. Tell our audience about that. How can they get that information and, you know, Joey was telling us you got a special discount you want to offer to people today?

Richard Rice: 36:42

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So John Schaub, part of having our own event center, was, was was nice is that we can do our, you know, we do a lot more events, have a lot speakers out. We don't have to fork so much money over to the hotels. So, which I know you guys are very familiar with. So, last year we had Pete Fortunato come out. Unfortunately, the Event Center wasn't ready at that point, so we had to do the hotel. But he's coming out again, and then not this weekend, but the following weekend. So the 22nd and 23rd of June, we have John Schaub coming out to do a private class at the FIRE Center. It's gonna be a two day event. And he's, if you don't know, John Schaub, is he wrote the book Building Wealth, one house at a time. It's a best selling book that he's, I think he's on his fourth edition of you know, a lot of those gurus and people that you've probably heard of probably learned from John at some point. He's been around a long time, and he's one of the masters of real estate, and he's gonna be out here for two days doing a full seminar on, basically, like, the, you know, beyond his book, you know. And like a really, like a full blueprint on how to build house, one house, or build wealth one house at a time, beyond the book. So he hasn't been out here like, five years. I think the last time he was out here, he was out here, he taught with someone else, he wasn't a solo class. So we're really honored. It's really special. He's gonna be out here. I've no idea if he's gonna come out again after this. I hope so. But you know, yeah, we're offering everybody listening out there. We're offering a discount to The Norris Group. It's $100 off the ticket. You can use code NORRIS, and you could buy that ticket at iereic.org/schaub24 again, that's iereic.org/schaub24 and use that code, NORRIS, you get$100 off. But also, we're doing a on Saturday, we're going to do like a networking banquet kind of thing for all the attendees to come meet each other. And as part of this, these seminars, isn't just the education part, it's a networking part.

Craig Evans: 38:48

That's right.

Richard Rice: 38:49

So, you know, it's, it's a lot of it, a lot of it's networking. So you get to meet, there's people coming down from, you know, nor calf up in San Diego, you know, the whole west coast, because, like I said, John doesn't come out here that often. So it's gonna be a special event. We got a lot event. We got, like, we only have about 20 tickets left, so if you want to go buy one fast.

Craig Evans: 39:08

That's awesome. Well, that's gonna be a great event. John's a great speaker, a lot of wealth of knowledge, and what John's done been around for a long time and been very successful in what he does. So that's fantastic, man. I'm excited for you guys hosting that event. Unfortunately, I won't be able to make it out, so otherwise, I would be on a plane and be out there. That's gonna be a great event, man, so listen, rich man, I am honored that you have taken time out to be with us today. I really appreciate your time and energies, man, I'm excited what you're doing there in the Inland Empire and the vision that you're casting trying to not just, you know, make money out of everything, but also, I mean, listen, we get up, we're doing this stuff because we want to make a living, right? We want to be successful. We want to have freedom in what we do. But I really love the passion that you bring to that about trying to help other people and what you're doing and help them be successful. So for everybody listening. I'm young, absolutely, absolutely, well, listen for everybody listening. I'm thank you for your time today. Don't forget, check us out next week. We've got some great stuff coming up again. I know Joey will have that going. But for everybody on, thanks so much Rich. Thank you for coming today, buddy.

Richard Rice: 40:15

No problem. Thanks for having me. And look forward to working together as well.

Narrator: 40:18

For more information on hard money loans, trust deed investing, and upcoming events with The Norris group. Check out thenorrisgroup.com. For more information on passive investing through the DBL Capital Real Estate Investment Fund, please visit dblapital.com.

Joey Romero: 40:38

The Norris group originates and services loans in California and Florida under California DRE license 01219911. Florida mortgage lender license 1577 and NMLS license 1623669. For more information on hard money lending go to thenorrisgroup.com and click the hard money tab.