EP 156: Million Dollar Real Estate Partnerships with John Casmon

Multifamily real estate entrepreneur and marketing maven, John Casmon, shares invaluable insights into the world of real estate investing, discussing his journey from corporate marketing to managing multifamily properties, and offering practical advice on finding and evaluating deals, building strong partnerships, and the importance of market research. 

He also delves into common pitfalls and how to avoid them, providing listeners with a roadmap to success in real estate. Don't miss this episode to learn how you can start or scale your real estate investing journey!

Key takeaways to listen to:

• Emphasizing the importance of building strong, trust-based partnerships.
• Highlighting the significance of thorough market research before investing.
• Discussing strategies for finding and evaluating lucrative real estate deals.
• Offering practical advice on transitioning from a corporate career to real estate investing.
• Sharing tips on avoiding common pitfalls in real estate investments.

About John Casmon

John Casmon is a distinguished real estate entrepreneur and multifamily syndicator who has successfully partnered with busy professionals to invest in over $100 million worth of apartments. With a robust background in corporate marketing, John has managed campaigns for renowned brands such as General Motors, Nike, and Coors Light before transitioning to full-time real estate investing.

John is the host of the acclaimed Multifamily Insights podcast (formerly known as Target Market Insights), where he shares valuable insights and strategies for multifamily investors. He is also the co-creator of the Midwest Real Estate Networking Summit, a premier event for real estate professionals.

In addition to his podcasting and event hosting, John offers consulting services to active multifamily investors, aiding them in starting or scaling their investment businesses. His expertise includes finding prime investment areas, attracting investors, raising capital, and developing a strong personal brand.

John's passion for real estate and his commitment to helping others achieve financial freedom make him a sought-after speaker and consultant in the multifamily investment community.

Connect with John Casmon:

• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-casmon-7942454/
• Twitter - https://twitter.com/jcasmon
• Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/jcasmon
• Website - https://www.casmoncapital.com/

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Transcript

[00:00:00] John Casmon: Investor sentiment has shifted. Many folks will tell you that it was quote unquote easy to raise capital in recent memory. I don't like to say that because I think it discredits the approach to raising capital. Certainly you may get yeses little quicker than in the past, but I don't like to use the word easy.

[00:00:19] John Casmon: I don't like to use the word hard either. So the truth of the matter is maybe it didn't take as much effort in the past. It's going to take more effort now, which means you need to have more conversations with people. You need to educate people more. You need to let them know. Why now is a good time to invest, even though everything you read in the news.

[00:00:34] John Casmon: It says it's not a good time to invest. 

[00:00:36] Intro: If you're a real estate agent earning 200, 000 a year and you want to grow your passive income, this show is for you. Learn secrets other agents use and hear from experts in our field who will guide you on your journey to investing in assets like apartment communities so you can take your commissions and turn them into cashflow.

[00:00:56] Intro: Here's your host, Randall. Let's dive in. 

[00:00:59] Randal McLeaird: All right. Welcome back. [00:01:00] Today's guest is Jon Casmon. He is It's a multifamily operator, capital raiser, syndicator, buying properties in the Midwest and in the U. S. In multiple markets, we have a great conversation. He is well spoken, easy to converse with, and his way of explaining concepts is incredible.

[00:01:17] Randal McLeaird: And we talked about this just a minute ago off air as well. So you're going to get a lot of the show. Some of the things we talked about one, our capital raising, how he went from buying a two, then a three. Up to partnering and raising capital for 192 unit deal in very short time. And the three C's of raising capital that you will need if you're going out and you're starting a syndication business.

[00:01:36] Randal McLeaird: Then we talk about his deal flow and how he again, bought that 192 unit and what it looked like to go through that process by another portfolio of 390 and just multifamily in general, the market right now, what it's looking like and what they're working on in the future. So If you're getting something out of the show, please go on and rate and review.

[00:01:53] Randal McLeaird: Helps us a lot to bring guests just like John on. And let's jump into the conversation. Here we go. Hey, John, welcome to the show. It's great to have you on [00:02:00] today. I'm excited to talk to you about what you're working on and, and kind of the trajectory that you've had in your real estate career. So why don't you just go ahead and give us a quick background, you know, how you got from your profession into your real estate career.

[00:02:12] Randal McLeaird: Yeah, we're 

[00:02:12] John Casmon: excited to be here and share a little bit more information, right? So to give your audience a little background on me, my name is John Casmon. I am a Cincinnati resident, but I'm born and raised in Cleveland. So I'm a Clevelander proud, Ohioan. I am an investor who has accumulated 125 million worth of apartments with other investors.

[00:02:31] John Casmon: And today we syndicate. We partner with other investors, busy professionals, and pull our money together to buy larger apartments. The way I got into this was actually at a background in marketing. So I was in corporate America doing advertising and marketing. I did that for about 15 years. And I work for a couple different companies and unfortunately, or I guess, fortunately, depending on how you want to look at it.

[00:02:51] John Casmon: I work for companies that also went into bankruptcy. So picture having your W 2 job, you're nine to five. You've got this income you can rely on, but that [00:03:00] company. And it goes into bankruptcy. And these are not small companies. One was General Motors. So huge corporation, very public situation. And I was right in the middle of it.

[00:03:09] John Casmon: Fast forward. I realized that I wanted to invest in real estate to give me a little more flexibility, started investing in smaller multi family, but a two unit building or a duplex. So I was a guy who just had, you know, a two unit building started buying a little bit more, but a three unit, but an eight unit building.

[00:03:25] John Casmon: And then the company I was working for at that time also went into bankruptcy. So, at that point, I realized What I was doing was on the right path, but the specific strategy wasn't enough to kind of insulate myself from these outside pressures. So I needed to make a change and ultimately learn more about apartment syndication and started working with other investors.

[00:03:46] Randal McLeaird: So what year was that when you made that shift that you were buying the two unit?

[00:03:53] Randal McLeaird: Yeah, that was around the end of 2015, early 2016, good time to start apartment buying. So, so [00:04:00] you, you transitioned from the two units, like, what was that trajectory like? Cause I'm, I'm again, kind of curious, I know that you have a mentor, Joe Fairless, right? And did you start that mentorship right when you were trying to get your legs running in the, in the syndication world, or did you, It's something else.

[00:04:16] Randal McLeaird: Like, how did that work out? 

[00:04:17] John Casmon: Yeah, it's a great question. So, you know, it's interesting because in some ways I didn't feel like I needed a mentor starting out and because I really didn't know where I was going, right. I had this plan at this vision. I'm a heart go after kind of guy, right? So I was reading books and attending meetups and reading blogs and stuff like that.

[00:04:37] John Casmon: And I bought that 2 unit building without a mentor coach or anything like that. I bought that 3 unit building without that. And what started to happen is, okay, I'm having some wins. I'm having success right around the time that 2nd company went into bankruptcy. I bought an 8 unit building. And my wife and I, we would save our money by these properties.

[00:04:54] John Casmon: So we bought this 8 unit building. It's a commercial building, first commercial property. I wanted some experience [00:05:00] managing the manager. But we're not running this like a true business, right? Like, we've got P& L. I'm trying to make sure everything is running smoothly. And the company I went for went bankrupt.

[00:05:09] John Casmon: And I just, you know, wrote a six figure check. And not to mention, we just had our second child. So I'm sitting there and we got, you know, we're, we're equity rich on paper, right? But the truth is I was super concerned about the cashflow and how long we could go while this company thing got situated. And as I worked through that, I realized, well, what I'm doing, it works, but not if I'm only relying on the amount of money I've saved.

[00:05:37] John Casmon: I've got to find a different way. And that's what made me really consider working with other people, right? So OPM, other people's money. And I kind of randomly met Joe. And what really opened me up was that summer I attended one of those like TV guru boot camp type things. And these guys are getting super excited about joining their program and we got all the systems and processes and [00:06:00] I was like, yeah, this is great.

[00:06:01] John Casmon: Oh yeah. Cool. One, two, three, crush it. Right. So we're all super excited to crowd. Right. And energy's high. And, um, you know, by the end of that first day, you know, they start pitching kind of their program and my wife and I are talking about it. We go home that night and should we do it? What do you think? I don't know.

[00:06:18] John Casmon: It's a big investment. And the second day we're there and the tone shifts and it goes from a positive, energetic, Motivational experience to kind of a hard sales pitch. And there was one thing in particular where the guy got on stage and says, and if you don't have the money for the program, call your credit card company tonight and ask them to increase your limit.

[00:06:43] John Casmon: I was like, what? 

[00:06:44] Randal McLeaird: Yeah, 

[00:06:45] John Casmon: that's gotta be some of the worst advice I've ever heard. Right. So at that point, my wife, I looked at her like this ain't for us. Let's get out of here. And we skipped the third night and what we ended up doing. And by this point we had our oldest child. So we had to hire a babysitter to watch our kid while we were at this conference, right?

[00:06:58] John Casmon: So the third day, we're like, [00:07:00] well, we already have a sitter. We know we want to commit to real estate instead of going to what we know is going to be the hardest of the pitches. Why don't we just go to the library? We spent all day at the library. And the point was, we were trying to really leverage all the resources available to us.

[00:07:14] John Casmon: You know, I got really active on BiggerPockets, read some books, but by being active on BiggerPockets, I started to make more and more connections. And one thing that happened was. My wife is from Cincinnati and we were living in Chicago at the time. So I reached out to people in Cincinnati to say, Hey, I'm looking to connect with local investors.

[00:07:33] John Casmon: About three or four people tagged. Joe fearless, and this is before he was the guy that we all kind of know now and I'm like, all right Let me reach out to this guy and I reach out to him and he responds and says hey man. Yeah, great I'm happy to you know, sit down have lunch and he's like by the way I got this podcast and I'd love to have you on I'm like what like and I go look this guy up Let me know, you know dog little podcast like and then I look and he's had Robert Kiyosaki on there and Barbara Corker I'm like, oh, okay.

[00:07:59] John Casmon: This [00:08:00] looks like a pretty legit podcast. I don't know He wants to talk to me like I only have I got three properties, right? I got 13 units total, but I'm like, all right, but I'm like, but you're still gonna have lunch with me, right? And he's like, yeah, sure. It's something like, all right, so I do the podcast.

[00:08:11] John Casmon: I go to Cincinnati. We have lunch. He tells me of this coaching program and we just, we hit it off. We have a great conversation. He's an advertising guy. I was in advertising. He talked to me about how he was able to raise a million dollars for his first deal and how he's helping other people. And I thought about that guru conference thing I went to, that seminar.

[00:08:29] John Casmon: I was like, well, we thought long and hard about writing a 35, 000 check. And, you know, this was a fraction of that. And this is the guy I had a real connection with and had done it. And I was like, let's do that. So that's really how that started was I hired a mentor because, again, in that situation, Well, now.

[00:08:48] John Casmon: My situation had changed where raising capital or working with other people almost became more of a necessity for survival than just a luxury. [00:09:00] But then also I had gone through the process of really considering my options. Looking at, you know, free or low cost resources around me and they only took me so far.

[00:09:10] John Casmon: And the biggest thing is this, if you're going to raise money or work with other people, most good natured individuals are going to have a little bit of trepidation around that, right? Because we're scared to lose somebody else's money. There's always a fear of losing money. You may also have a fear that maybe people don't want to invest with you.

[00:09:26] John Casmon: So those are definitely the two things that gave me pause or hesitation about So when I found this guy who had done that and could help me learn how to do it, I thought it was very powerful. So that's ultimately why I ended up moving 

[00:09:40] Randal McLeaird: forward with my mentorship. Love that story, honestly. So one, you went out and you started buying.

[00:09:47] Randal McLeaird: You weren't afraid to just go and do it. And now you had a job while you're doing it. So that may help. But um, I talked to so many people and they just will spend money on a course or spend money on something instead of taking that [00:10:00] 35, 000 and buying a property. I mean, literally that's a down payment on a property depending on the price of the property.

[00:10:05] Randal McLeaird: So that's awesome. And then you sought out free or Relatively inexpensive options to grow your knowledge base. So again, I love that story. Curious then you mentioned the fear of raising capital or, you know, not knowing how, so. Through the course or through your experience, anyone who's looking to start raising capital now, what are some of the tips that you have to overcome that fear or strategies on how to pitch, you know, those types of things in order to get better at it and overcome the fear of having that conversation with people?

[00:10:35] John Casmon: That's a great question, right? How do you overcome the fear of pitching someone else to raise capital for a deal? The very first thing is this. Um, And I tell people all the time, there's really three C's to raising capital. First C is going to be confidence. Confidence comes from preparation. You got to put in the work.

[00:10:53] John Casmon: You got to know your stuff. You've got to surround yourself with the right people. You may not have experience necessarily, but [00:11:00] the confidence has to come from putting in the work, right? Are you underwriting deals? Do you understand your markets? Do you know how to navigate the landscape? You got to put in the work so that confidence cannot be faked.

[00:11:11] John Casmon: It can't be fake hubris. You It has to be authentic, right? Based on the knowledge and the work you've put in. The second C is credibility. What in your background gives you confidence that you can execute? You know, what wins can you point to professionally in real estate? And if you don't have a long track record, who else on your team can you highlight?

[00:11:29] John Casmon: Property managers, partners, mentors, coaches. Those are the people you need to build that credibility. You should not be out there pitching a deal if you don't have a credible team that can go out there and execute. Especially if they don't have a track record or resume to demonstrate they have the capability and have demonstrated that capability of executing.

[00:11:48] John Casmon: Again, if it's your first deal, That's fine. But you need to surround yourself with other people who have more experience. Again, this is where a mentor coach or partners are really, really important. And the 3rd is going to be connections, right? Who are the [00:12:00] people you're talking to? You don't have folks who have the money to invest right now or the relationships you have to expand your network.

[00:12:06] John Casmon: So. Understanding how to expand your network is absolutely key. So those three things are what I would focus on, right? Building your confidence from putting in the work, making sure you're studying the right things and learning, growing your credibility, if not from relying on your own experience, both professionally and within real estate by expanding your team and having the right people there.

[00:12:25] John Casmon: And then third, growing your network or growing your database of potential investors. 

[00:12:29] Randal McLeaird: Love it. All right. So we're going to break those down then again. Didn't know where we were going to take this, but let's take it here. So on the confident side for you, you had already purchased two, a three and an eight.

[00:12:39] Randal McLeaird: And now you're at this step up. You're trying to go bigger, presumably because you're buying something. So tell me what was the first asset that you went after? And where were you in the, in the spectrum? Right? Because so many people I talked to. Like me, it's like, I just, I want to control like most of the process.

[00:12:57] Randal McLeaird: Right. I want to be the operator and capital raisers that [00:13:00] they're my people. And I, you know, they know that I'm the one that run it in the show. So, but there are people in our industry who just want to raise capital. People who just want to operate. So where do you live in that spectrum? And if we're going to talk about your first deal, which I want to, where did you live in that spectrum at that time?

[00:13:15] Randal McLeaird: Yeah. Great question. Right. I love 

[00:13:16] John Casmon: the context you put around that question. So let me set this up here. I think the very first thing is to understand that. This is a team sport and that's what you're alluding to, right? This is a team sport. You don't go out there and buy a large commercial real estate by yourself.

[00:13:30] John Casmon: You got to have people around you. So the first commercial that I did was that eight unit, which was just me and my wife, our capital. We ran it. We hired a third party management company. My intention was to continue to scale like that and just raise a little bit of money. Maybe buy a 12 unit or a 20 unit and raise half of the proceeds.

[00:13:48] John Casmon: And we would bring half of the proceeds. That was the vision. What I learned quickly was. It was much harder to find a 12 or 20 unit where I'm splitting the profits with someone else where the number still [00:14:00] made sense. On an eight unit where it's all my money, I get all the profits. Okay. We could find deals where the numbers made since there, but also keep in mind that the market's starting to heat up.

[00:14:09] John Casmon: So those prices started going up in the way I was evaluating these deals. I put almost all of the focus on Castro and very little, if any one appreciation. So as prices went up, these deals just simply didn't work. So as I was looking, I think I spent like eight months looking for a deal. Couldn't find anything.

[00:14:27] John Casmon: And the beautiful thing about a partner syndication is. The next deal I did, I ended up partnering with another group and another operator. And I met this operator through my mentor. He had an event and we went to this event. My wife actually connected with one of the guys. We had dinner with them and fast forward, I'm launching my podcast.

[00:14:47] John Casmon: He's talking about a deal he's doing. And I'm like, that sounds amazing, man. I've been over here searching for the last, you know, almost three quarters of a year trying to find a deal and I can't find one a pencil. And as we start chatting, I realized it's a great [00:15:00] market that he's in. I like a lot of what he's doing.

[00:15:02] John Casmon: We've got a great rapport and I say, well, listen, man, if I can't find anything and you need help, let me know, because I'd really like to help some of my investors. The first deal I did was a, or that first commercial deal was eight unit. The very next one was 192 units. So we did a 192 unit deal in San Antonio, Texas, uh, with guys we met at a conference, right where you're located, right?

[00:15:22] John Casmon: Yeah, that's my hometown, 

[00:15:23] Randal McLeaird: alright. 

[00:15:23] John Casmon: We did that deal with them, and the beautiful thing was, we were not the leads, and it gave me comfort to kind of attach myself to someone who was a little further along than I, we were, Had a little bit more experience. They were local in that market. So we could kind of learn and continue to grow from them.

[00:15:39] John Casmon: And then moving forward, we actually started doing deals where we were the lead, and that's one thing I think is really important for people is to have some fluidity to how you grow and scale. If you feel like I got to be the guy, well, it's going to take you a little bit longer and you have a little bit more patience and the challenge for me.

[00:15:58] John Casmon: And I was okay with that. But [00:16:00] when things really started to shift from my perspective is when I was talking to some of these investors who, again, I didn't think would want to invest, or I was concerned about upfront. Well, when I had those initial conversations, I got a much better feedback than I was anticipating, but then they came back to me after six months of no deal and said, John, where are these deals you were telling me about?

[00:16:19] John Casmon: When are you going to bring me something? Right. And I realized, man, I don't have a product. I've told these people I could help them. I can help them get cashflow and appreciation and tax benefits and diversify their portfolio. And they wanted these things yet. I wasn't bringing that product. Right. And they still have that problem, whether I found a deal or not.

[00:16:40] John Casmon: And particularly, I had a family member who had a six figure tax bill problem, and he was like, dude, like, I need this, man, if you got me sold, and if it's not you, I'm gonna have to find somebody else. And I wanted him to be with me, going back to your point about, you know, maybe control, I would rather take that on for myself, because I know that I'm gonna do more due diligence, [00:17:00] I'm gonna work a little bit harder.

[00:17:01] John Casmon: It's not that I can't trust these other people, but if I'm the person who introduced this to you I also want to be the person who helps you learn how to do it the right way. And, um, I took that as a kick in the tail to say It doesn't have to be your way or the highway, John. You just have to figure out a way that you can live with that helps the people you're trying to help.

[00:17:18] John Casmon: And that gave me the flexibility to do that. And I think it gave me the license to trust and partner with other folks. And then I could focus a little bit of my time more on vetting those individuals. I was still looking for deals. I wasn't stopping that. I wanted to be an operator. I wanted to lead deals.

[00:17:34] John Casmon: But it wasn't about me. It was about serving the people I was trying to help. 

[00:17:38] Randal McLeaird: Yeah. Solid, like good explanation. It's a, one of those things again, walking through that. So questions around one, I mean, I'm it's in San Antonio. This is a what? 2015, 2016 timeframe, 2016 or 17. I've got 

[00:17:53] John Casmon: to double check the numbers, 

[00:17:55] Randal McLeaird: man.

[00:17:55] Randal McLeaird: But yeah, tell me who's the operator. 

[00:17:57] John Casmon: Yeah. Yeah. It's a wild horn capital. Uh, my [00:18:00] man, uh, Andrew Campbell, we did that deal with him back, uh, that we did two deals with those guys. So we did two deals. We did that one and we did, uh, they had a 388 unit portfolio that we partnered with them on as well. San Antonio.

[00:18:11] John Casmon: Awesome. Both in San Antonio. Yup. 

[00:18:12] Randal McLeaird: Okay. 

[00:18:13] John Casmon: You still own those or you guys? No, we sold, we went full cycle on those. Did great on, uh, we did an amazingly great on the first one. Did good on the second, on the portfolio play. But not as strong as the first one. Yeah. 

[00:18:24] Randal McLeaird: I mean, again, like I said, great time to be buying multifamily.

[00:18:28] Randal McLeaird: Oh, yeah. You guys got on the market the right time. Okay. So that was your first deal. Again, the confidence. So you were going out, talking to your investor base well in advance of having an actual deal in hand. You were underwriting deals and you were, I guess, learning through that whole process. So the credibility came in when you partnered up with the Wildhorn guys and they had deal flow.

[00:18:48] Randal McLeaird: And so then you had this deal. And so then the connections again, how did you grow your network or did you not need to grow your network? Do you have any tips around that? So if somebody's, again, getting in, they're like, I really want to raise capital [00:19:00] and, you know, co GP a deal. But yet their network isn't multi millionaires, right?

[00:19:05] Randal McLeaird: How would somebody go about that? Well, 

[00:19:06] John Casmon: I think you want to follow a proven system, right? So one of the first things is like, don't just go out there haphazardly and connect. I meet people all the time who want to raise money from doctors just to use an example. I like, Oh, I want to raise money from doctors and have no connection to doctors.

[00:19:21] John Casmon: It's like, well, why would these individuals want to invest with you? And they haven't thought through that part, right? It's like, okay, I want to work with high net worth investors. Do you run in those circles? Like, why would you think these people would want to invest with you? So I think the very first thing is really understanding, like, who are you uniquely positioned to help?

[00:19:39] John Casmon: Where can you add value? Who do you understand kind of intuitively? And then when it comes to expand your network, follow a system, follow a proven system. I have one client who. They come from the medical field, so that's their background. They're in the medical field. So what we help them do is really set up a process where it's the same system for most of our investors, but [00:20:00] they set up a process for them to engage and connect and expand their network.

[00:20:05] John Casmon: I'll give you a tactical thing. So it's not just so high level. So one simple thing is to create what we call a thought leadership platform. So I launched my podcast. Some people do meetups, some people do a blog post, but you want to create something where you're able to connect with these individuals, share what you're doing, and really strengthen that relationship.

[00:20:27] John Casmon: So that's really key. There's some nuances of how to do it the right way to be effective so you're not just spinning your wheels. But if you can create yourself as a thought leader. And focus on truly helping the people you're trying to serve. That helps you expand your 

[00:20:42] Randal McLeaird: network for sure. Yeah. Good advice to that point.

[00:20:46] Randal McLeaird: So you launched a podcast and do you have outside meetups and other things that you run that kind of bolt on to just build more of a following either on the podcast or some other thing? It sounded like you said one of your clients. So do you have a coaching program or [00:21:00] something that you do? 

[00:21:00] John Casmon: Yeah. So from, um, working with Joe, one of the things that I found is that.

[00:21:05] John Casmon: As I was out there doing these things, the podcast, I do have a meetup that is in Chicago. So I still run that kind of show about four times a year for that meetup. And then I was doing a conference as well, ended up launching a conference, the Midwest real estate networking summit. But from that, I was having a lot of conversations with people who wanted to do what I was doing.

[00:21:25] John Casmon: And at first, I would refer them to my mentor and as his availability became less and less and his prices changed pretty dramatically, he just became less and less accessible for them. So, in some conversations with other people, I realized I was already mentoring people. I just didn't have a real program about it.

[00:21:46] John Casmon: So I ended up launching my own coaching program. And one of the things that really set me off is I kept thinking back to that guru presentation, right? There's a person out there who is. Looking for the information they want to grow. They want to scale and you want to make [00:22:00] sure they're in the right hands and you know, they're different groups.

[00:22:04] John Casmon: You got to pick your flavor. You know, like, you might have a vibe of one. Like, that's fine. That's completely fine. But you want to work with people who are active in the space. They're currently doing deals are currently looking. They can give you real time feedback. They understand the advances that have happened in technology.

[00:22:20] John Casmon: They're having real time conversations with brokers. What you don't want to do is buy into someone's vision or program that is already outdated, right? Somebody who's teaching you how they did stuff in 1987. That crap probably don't work no more. I mean, the cap rates are still cap rates, right? In a while, still in a while.

[00:22:39] John Casmon: But if you're out there trying to buy apartments based on the way a guy did it in the 90s or 2000s pre COVID, right? The nuances of it is just not there. It just doesn't work. So you really need to be current, but then also you want to have the partnerships and the networks and the community around it too.

[00:22:58] John Casmon: So that's really what launched it for me was [00:23:00] just starting to build a community, realizing the impact we were having on people. And that helped us, you know, launch our own coaching program. But to your point, yeah, we do. We have our meetup. We have our podcast. We do the conference. And then on top of that, with our mastermind, We have our community.

[00:23:15] John Casmon: We actually just had an event last night where we did a live deal review. So we try to create opportunities to share information network. We do our wins live deal reviews and create partnership opportunities because that was so critical for me to get started. Right? If you think back. One, having that mentor, my mentor hosting kind of his event, me connecting with this group at that event, you know, breaking bread, grabbing dinner, fast forward to me launching my podcast, talking to this individual, we ended up partnering on this deal.

[00:23:45] John Casmon: And then from that experience, I ended up launching kind of my own deals as an operator. And now today we, we kind of do both. So we have deals that we lead, but then deals where we will kind of, uh, focus more on, on capital, do some other things as well. One of the main things we were doing is bringing [00:24:00] capital to those opportunities.

[00:24:02] Randal McLeaird: Yeah, that is a perfect segue because that's the next bullet point I've got in here. I'm like, okay, so deal since your first one, that 192 unit, and you said you did another one, was the other portfolio play right after that and you were still co GP on that? 

[00:24:15] John Casmon: Yeah, that was definitely a GP opportunity. That was probably about a year after that one, I think.

[00:24:21] John Casmon: So I think we did that one about a year later, they brought that opportunity. Shortly after that, we bought a 28 unit as a JV deal with a one investor. We've done like a dozen partnership deals since then. So we've done, um, got an 81 unit down in Florence, Kentucky, 104 units in Louisville that we're a lead operator team on, and then a couple other deals where we are, you know, general partners.

[00:24:44] Randal McLeaird: Yeah. Okay. That's what I was going to ask the markets that you're in. So yeah, I guess walk us through then. So on the 28 unit, was that the first one you were the lead on since your eight unit that you purchased? 

[00:24:55] John Casmon: Yeah, it was, it was. So that was the first one we took the lead on, uh, that was a deal in [00:25:00] Cincinnati and like I said, we, the raise on that one was, was a little smaller.

[00:25:04] John Casmon: So we had one JV investor come on board. We put up some capital. They put up the majority of the capital and then we kind of ran that opportunity and you know, we sold that for two and a half times what we bought it for. Uh, but just, was that last year? Maybe it's 2022, but, uh, we just sold that one. Um, so, you know, we're able to, to cash that one out and move on to the next opportunity.

[00:25:26] Randal McLeaird: Yeah. Awesome. Okay. So let's talk about deal flow again. You got into the market, it's ramping up, it's getting hot. It's getting hot 2021, 22, roll around. Everything's exploding in prices. Now what's happening. What does the portfolio look like? And are you guys. Executing deals now, or are you biding your time waiting for deals?

[00:25:44] Randal McLeaird: Like, what does that look like? 

[00:25:45] John Casmon: Yeah. So philosophically two things have happened, right? So for us, we've been investing in this space for eight years, as far as the larger commercial stuff for six of those eight years, we've been told that the crash is coming. [00:26:00] The doom is coming, right? We talked to experts in the industry.

[00:26:03] John Casmon: I remember in particular. It was 2018 very well known person had a chance to talk to him at a conference and I was talking about the eight unit we owned and you're like, you need to get out of it now. Like, oh, it's about to be bad. It's about to be a bloodbath. So we kind of panicked like, well, this person clearly knows what they're doing, right?

[00:26:21] John Casmon: Like we need to get out of here. Right. Mark just shot straight up from there. Right. So did you sell? I think that for we sold that one, but it was a multitude of reasons. But that feedback was kind of, yeah, the icing on the cake there. Um, one of the main reasons we sold was we wanted to be liquid to start scaling up.

[00:26:40] John Casmon: So we actually use some of the funds for that to buy the 28 unit. But the point I'm making here is that. You have to ignore the chatter about where the market is. Prices have been heating up for literally a decade, right? So if you're waiting for that dip, even now where by all accounts, this is it, right, we're supposed to see this dip [00:27:00] now, right?

[00:27:00] John Casmon: We're seeing rent actually decline in some markets. Well, in my markets, we're not necessarily seeing it to that extent, but nonetheless. My point is we haven't always on strategy where we're constantly looking for deals and opportunities. We want to be mindful of the long term approach and we're not trying to time the market.

[00:27:18] John Casmon: I think people get caught up because they're buying properties and they want to flip them in 24 to 36 months. And if you're doing that, you have to time the market. You've got to be right. We take more of a longer term approach. We want to sell in maybe a five to seven year timeframe. But if we have to hold it a little bit longer, we can make that work.

[00:27:36] John Casmon: And I think that's really the difference from a timing standpoint. Our current portfolio, we have five properties and we actually are investing final on another opportunity I'm supposed to hear by the end of this week. So we should hear that one and that was a larger property in the Columbus market. So we're definitely active right now looking for deals and opportunities and submitting offers and otherwise, and I'm a firm believer that there are going to be some [00:28:00] great opportunities over the next 12 to 24 months.

[00:28:03] John Casmon: So we plan on doubling down on our efforts and making sure that we're well positioned to take advantage of it, recognizing that, you know, some folks are going to have to sell properties or decide that they want to step out of the market. But when you have that, I want to call it fear, but when you have less demand and less competition based on the economic environment.

[00:28:22] John Casmon: That's where you're gonna get opportunities. So for us, it's the time to double down and be more aggressive with our actions, not with our numbers, but with our actions as opposed to playing it super cautious with our actions and trying to sit on the sidelines. 

[00:28:35] Randal McLeaird: Yeah, I agree. So then, so are you guys building up and you're having the conversations and saying, Hey, you know, be ready.

[00:28:42] Randal McLeaird: Be ready. Capital sitting on the sidelines, be ready. We're, we're going to find a deal or have you set up some sort of a fund vehicle where you can park their capital and have it ready to deploy, like which way? 

[00:28:52] John Casmon: Yeah. So our approach is we do it, you know, in a syndication style and there's certainly advantages for doing a fund.

[00:28:58] John Casmon: I mean, what you're referring to is basically you create a [00:29:00] fund, you raise the money, and then you can, it's already there ready to deploy into a deal. We still do it deal by deal. You know, we find a property, we like it. We reach out to our investor database, raise the capital that way. One of the reasons I like that approach.

[00:29:13] John Casmon: Approach still is. It doesn't put pressure on us to put that capital to work. I think sometimes when you raise the money and it's sitting in the account, you feel obligated to put it to work right away. And I think it almost incentivizes people to make a deal work as opposed to kind of stand true to their approach in their process.

[00:29:35] John Casmon: So that's one of the things that we try to stick to. Again, if we get to the point where the deal flow is so tremendous, and we really do need to have that advantage of being able to move faster, that's certainly something to consider. But at this point, we don't think it's a need at this very moment.

[00:29:51] Randal McLeaird: Yeah. Yeah. Got it. Yeah. I just didn't know what you meant by you're staying ready with your actions. So. 

[00:29:56] John Casmon: Yeah, but let's talk about that real quick, right? So when we stay ready, there are a couple things, right? [00:30:00] One is actually analyzing deals, talking to brokers, like having your pipeline or your system set up.

[00:30:05] John Casmon: And in the past, I mean, we would look at a deal and you'd be millions of dollars off from where we think there's value and where the broker thinks there's value. That gap has shrunk. Brokers are now calling us. Brokers didn't call before, right? They sent out a deal. You better reply and get your offer in.

[00:30:21] John Casmon: Or whatever. Right now they're calling us. Hey man, did you have a chance to look at this one? Right? Like, I'm like, man, you got my number. Like I've been trying to call you three years, right? So now that chase has shifted, right? It's almost like the pretty girl in high school. Right? So that's changed. Right?

[00:30:36] John Casmon: So now they're calling us to reach now. So that's part of what I mean by being ready is actually having the ability to look at these deals, these opportunities and underwrite them. The second part of that is making sure you're talking to investors. Investor sentiment has shifted. Many folks will tell you that it was quote unquote easy to raise capital in recent memory.

[00:30:55] John Casmon: I don't like to say that because I think it discredits the approach to raising [00:31:00] capital. Certainly, you may get yeses a little quicker than, uh, in the past, but I don't like to use the word easy. I don't like to use the word hard either. So, the truth of the matter is, maybe it didn't take as much effort in the past.

[00:31:12] John Casmon: It's going to take more effort now, which means you need to have more conversations with people. You need to educate people more. You need to let them know. Why now is a good time to invest, even though everything you read in the news says it's not a good time to invest, right? So that's what I mean by being prepared is having some of these conversations, making sure you're dealing with these investor objections early so that when those opportunities arise, They're ready to invest and not asking you 20 questions because they saw on, you know, the cable news network that the market was going to crash.

[00:31:44] Randal McLeaird: Yeah, for sure. Let's shift just a little bit deal flow and acquisitions that you guys have made maybe in recent history, right? 21, 22, 23. Have you had any issues with them with the increase? Did you do anything on short term, you [00:32:00] know, bridge debt type stuff? And if you had any challenges, how did you guys deal with them?

[00:32:05] Randal McLeaird: So recent 

[00:32:06] John Casmon: deal flow, do we have any challenges particularly pertaining to the debt? So we try to stick to our fundamentals on deals and there's a, only a handful of ways that deal can go bad. And you know, the interest rates certainly are hitting a lot of people right now. We have, I think three deals.

[00:32:24] John Casmon: Yeah. That have floating rate debt on all three deals. We had cap rates or I should say rate caps on them. And on top of that, we had a very clear strategy of why we felt that floating rate debt was still right for those projects. All of our deals, none of them are. In jeopardy of, you know, losing any value or, or doing a capital calls or anything like that.

[00:32:50] John Casmon: We had one deal we actually refinanced late last year because we felt like the next 12 to again, 24 months, while there's going to be great opportunities, it's also going to be rocky when it [00:33:00] comes to valuations. So we didn't want to be refinancing that deal during that timeframe. So we actually refinanced that one early because we had already created a ton of value.

[00:33:09] John Casmon: So that one we refinanced. There's another deal we bought for 18 million. It's already worth around 24, 25 billion dollars. We're either going to refinance that next summer or kind of, you know, hold it and look to maybe exit in about a year or two. So those deals are doing great. Our other deals we actually bought was fixed debt.

[00:33:28] John Casmon: Um, we've got one project with a 3. 21 percent interest rate that's locked in for another nine years. I don't have to do anything on that. So that deal is doing really, really well. And I think it comes down to make sure you understand why you do what you do. It kind of goes back to that confidence. You can't just blindly follow someone else.

[00:33:47] John Casmon: And this goes back to being on a journey to mastery when you have the right people around you, you have to develop a criteria and a strategy that fits you in every [00:34:00] aspect of how you are going to invest that is based on the market that's based on the asset class that's based on your investor demand or sentiment.

[00:34:10] John Casmon: It's based on your operational skills, your team members. You have to take all of those things into consideration on how you want to invest. I'm in the Midwest primarily. So we're in Cincinnati, Louisville, Columbus, our, our core markets. We love Indianapolis as well, but we don't own anything in Indianapolis right now.

[00:34:28] John Casmon: And then we do have an investment in Charlotte. We do have one in the Atlanta, Georgia markets, but in my Midwest markets, they just don't grow as fast as maybe those coastal markets or the small States. There are pros and cons to that. Our highs are not as high, but our lows are not as low. We have a lot of stability in our growth.

[00:34:47] John Casmon: So while some markets are now experiencing rent decline, we're still seeing rent growth. As a matter of fact, I was just looking at a data point for a Louisville project. The sub market we're in still has a 3. 7 percent vacancy [00:35:00] rate and it's still growing at about 4 or 5 percent annually as far as rent goes.

[00:35:04] John Casmon: So real estate is very local, but you also have to have a plan that matches that because I'm not going to expect rents to shoot up or appreciation to shoot up crazy. I can't buy based on a three and a half cap exit rate, right? We're going to buy it for cashflow. First and foremost, we want to make sure the property is cash flowing, but we also want to be in an area that does see strong demand.

[00:35:27] John Casmon: And I think sometimes people have this misnomer that all Midwest markets are only great for cashflow. Well, if you're in Gary, Indiana, yeah, sure. Right. Cause you're not going to buy that and then sell it at a four cap in the future. But we're still in those growth markets, markets where there's strong demand and there's a great blend of cashflow and appreciation, not to mention ease of doing business in the markets where we're focused on as well.

[00:35:48] John Casmon: So if you understand that strategy and you put it together, I think you can do really well. And I think we've been, we have actually felt vindicated that. Our strategy does work and [00:36:00] is really conservative, and it shows that none of our deals are in trouble at this point. We're cashing on pretty much all the deals outside the ones that we're still stabilizing.

[00:36:09] John Casmon: So we feel really good with that strategy, and I think it empowers us to say, Now's the time to be a bit more aggressive because we've already taken the punch from the market, right? If the economy softens, well, everyone's underwriting more conservatively now. So we're going to be in a good spot. Cause that's how we were underwriting a year or two ago as well.

[00:36:27] John Casmon: So we missed out on a lot of opportunities because we were not assuming some of the growth that maybe some of our, our counterparts were expecting. So I feel pretty good about it. And I think our portfolio is in a really good position based on that. 

[00:36:39] Randal McLeaird: Yeah, that's good to hear because, again, with the increased cost of capital, the rates going up.

[00:36:44] Randal McLeaird: Insurance going up, all the horror stories that you hear, right? The fact that you guys haven't done a capital call on those bridge debt deals is incredible. I want to touch on that just a little bit, because it really is. So many people are struggling with it. I hear it. And the groups that I'm in here in San Antonio and guys that have bought things in the last like three years, [00:37:00] two years specifically, but when you were going into those deals, Were you buying them with such a low basis that you knew no matter what if it went up you guys were going to be in a good spot because it's going to appraise.

[00:37:10] Randal McLeaird: Because some guys, I'll tell you an example. On a deal that I'm on in Atlanta, the assumption was, you know, We're going to go in, we're going to rehab this building, we're going to increase the rents, all these things are going to happen, and then rates went up, they were unable to get the draws from the lender because they were holding on to that, holding on to that capital, so we couldn't get the rehab done, and so then the deal just kind of stagnated, couldn't get the tenants in, couldn't increase the rents, couldn't do anything.

[00:37:34] Randal McLeaird: And so again, how do you avoid that? Or how did you guys go into that? It's a big question for a specific deal. So 

[00:37:40] John Casmon: it's a phenomenal question. And, um, to help the audience, I want to give a broader answer than I'll drill down if that's okay. So I mentioned kind of earlier that there are really only a handful of ways commercial multifamily deals go bad.

[00:37:54] John Casmon: One of them is negative cashflow, right? So negative cashflow is one. The second [00:38:00] is. Having kind of major expenses that were not anticipated. Right? So you didn't plan on rules. You didn't plan on whatever cap ex items and you don't have the capital to do it. And then the 3rd is going to be having that loan called at an inopportune time.

[00:38:14] John Casmon: So what you're talking about. It's number one with a little bit of a combination of number three, right? Because you have a three year bridge debt term, you know that it's got to be a certain valuation by at the end of year two or year three. Um, you're trying to push the NOI there. And the property is not there because the capital you thought you were going to have to do renovations, you had to save to pay for this higher interest rate.

[00:38:38] John Casmon: So let me back up. So when you've got those three things, well, now as an investor, our job is to say, well, how do I mitigate these three risks individually and collectively, right? So on one cash flow, if you focus on, you know, Properties that cashflow. That's the very first thing, right? If it's not cash flowing now, what do we need to do to get it to cashflow?

[00:38:55] John Casmon: What if I'm wrong? What if my timeframe is off? What if my renovation budget is [00:39:00] 50 percent higher than we underwrote? You have to have a plan for that. Like that, some of that's going to happen when you're betting on an operator, you're betting that they've processed some of this and have a plan B, a plan C and plan D in mind.

[00:39:11] John Casmon: So that's the first thing, just cashflow. How do we make sure this thing is cashflow? When you get to be, you know, and you think about those costs, all right, well, you got to have reserves. What's your CapEx budget? What do you have in reserves? Your insurance policy, make sure you have proper coverage there.

[00:39:23] John Casmon: Those are the three things that are going to help protect you across from those expenses that you're not anticipating. I would almost lump in the interest rate in there, right? Having that interest rate cap, having, again, whether it be interest rate reserves. Set to decide if you know you're going into bridge debt, depending on when you did this, if interest rates are already starting to move when you did this, like you should have known that you should have planned for that.

[00:39:42] John Casmon: Those were funds you should have set aside. Right? And then in the third bucket, and maybe you didn't know, so I don't want to say should, but that was information and something that, you know, You could have maybe figured out, you know, some people got completely blindsided and didn't plan for it if you bought something and say 2021 and like, [00:40:00] that makes more sense.

[00:40:01] John Casmon: But the third one there on the loan, that's where everyone's getting caught up, right? So they're asking for extensions now because the loans come in due, the value is not where it needs to be, demand is not there, not to mention, maybe they assume that. They would refinance with a 75 percent LTV and the bank's like, no, we'll give you 65 or 60, right?

[00:40:21] John Casmon: So there's a large gap and people are having to do cash in refinances, bringing money to the table to reach that LTV that the lender is looking for. And they're doing capital calls or having to figure out where they're getting those funds from. Maybe it's a private equity investor. So how do we avoid it was the question you originally asked, right?

[00:40:41] John Casmon: Part of it, when I'm looking at Dylan opportunity is I'm trying to understand the way those three different options. Again, most of my stuff we focus on stabilized cashflow. If we are going to do a bridge debt, I want to understand, do we have a rate cap? Do we have reserves? And then for me, this is a personal thing.

[00:40:57] John Casmon: I would only do bridge debt. If we feel we're [00:41:00] creating a significant amount of value. And we need to do it. I mean, the reality is you need to create that value. Like if you're doing a bridge debt, you're essentially banking on being able to create enough value in the future to offset the additional amount of risk by having a loan that could be doing two or three years.

[00:41:17] John Casmon: So you have to find a way to execute on that. You're right. There are a number of people who.

[00:41:27] John Casmon: And that's a recipe for disaster when you're taken away from that budget. So we didn't have that. That was something that we did. I would tell you every project we have, even with bridge debt, there's kind of a, a caveat to why we were okay with it. Okay. So there's one where the interiors were already done and the work we were doing was to the exterior zoning.

[00:41:45] John Casmon: We raised the capital. It was all exterior work. It was all kind of curb appeal type things. And we felt like there was a big rip bump we could get by, you know, Just operations, you know, driving operation is better. So that one felt pretty comfortable. The other one where we did bridge debt, we are [00:42:00] pushing rents.

[00:42:00] John Casmon: We thought we could push them 300 bucks when we bought it. We're actually pushing rents about 700 bucks or 800 bucks. So market is that It's here. It's Florence. It's on the other side of Cincinnati. Great. And those are townhomes. So we bought it. We knew there was good upside. I mean, I had no idea it was going to be this much upside, right?

[00:42:20] John Casmon: Yeah, but we felt comfortable because we were seeing, okay, there's strong demand here. Let's push this. Let's get this done. We're okay being in this environment because we know we're creating enough value. Based on what we're seeing so far and then on the last one, it's a little bit different because it has an affordable housing component to it.

[00:42:38] John Casmon: So, that was a little bit different on our exit options, but we feel pretty comfortable there as well. So, I would just say, if you're going to do bridge, I mean, there's a very realistic scenario that you at least have to explore to say, what if we're not able to get the, where it needs to be when it's time to refinance.

[00:42:55] John Casmon: Like, if you don't have a plan in place for that scenario, then [00:43:00] I would be concerned. I would be very, very, and it may be, Hey, we're going to raise X amount of dollars to get the, you know, you can't drive the NOI any further at that point, but maybe it's to get the LTV here so that we can lower our payment or get this kind of loan.

[00:43:15] John Casmon: And if you communicate that up front, investors won't be upset if you tell them, Hey, Here are all the possible outcomes. Here's how we're going to address this. Here's how we're going to do this. People just want to be clearly communicated to, right? There are big companies that are losing money or not performing well in the stock market, but they're trusting us as operators to kind of understand this space and simply saying, we didn't know it was going to have potentious rates.

[00:43:36] John Casmon: That's not going to make people feel good, right? It may be true. But that's not going to make somebody comfortable and excited to work with you in the future. So it's not to say we were lucky or I hope I don't come across like I'm implying we're smarter than other people or anything like that. It's not.

[00:43:50] John Casmon: We just have kind of my principles on how do we protect money first and foremost that has helped me, you know, protect and save money and partially because I've lost my [00:44:00] money on passive deals with other people before. So I've learned like, all right, you know what? If I follow these values or these core sentiments, that really alleviates a lot of risk from my standpoint, it's not to say we won't do deals that, that have some components of that, but then I'm going to drill down a little bit deeper on how do we mitigate that risk?

[00:44:18] Randal McLeaird: Yeah, for sure. Love it. Look, we'll wrap it up with this on the market, what you're seeing right now and kind of what you guys are doing on deals that you are syndicating. You said you have one that's in the LOI. You think you're best and final. Is that what you said? 

[00:44:31] John Casmon: Yeah, we just had the best and final interview.

[00:44:34] John Casmon: So we're, we're fairly confident we're going to win this one. My partners have actually transacted with the seller before. So we feel pretty confident on that, but it's, you know, we'll see. 

[00:44:44] Randal McLeaird: Sure, sure. All right. But assuming you get it, what are you guys, are you doing 506B? Are you doing accredited only? Like what type of raises are you doing?

[00:44:52] Randal McLeaird: And then what does that look like? If you can talk about it on the investor return profile? Yeah, 

[00:44:56] John Casmon: I can't go too deep on this particular one, but I would say, [00:45:00] Yeah, in general, we look at every deal and we kind of make a decision of what's best for the deal. So is this a 506B deal, a 506C deal? We did a C deal on our Louisville project, partially because we felt it was very attractive.

[00:45:15] John Casmon: It was a newer construction project. It looked great in pictures like the, it was a lower, I should say it had a higher floor, right? It was already performing okay. We didn't have to go and renovate really. It was more of an operational play. All we did was add backsplashes, right? Like we did, I didn't do anything else to it.

[00:45:31] John Casmon: Oh, well, that's not true. We did backsplashes. And we added a dog park. So those are the two things we did as quote unquote value. At it was really more operational. We bought it directly from the developer, but I felt that played well for someone who maybe we didn't have a deeper relationship with for them to see it, understand a play and say, Oh, that makes sense.

[00:45:49] John Casmon: Right. 

[00:45:49] Randal McLeaird: Yeah. 

[00:45:50] John Casmon: When you're going with a little bit more work or deeper value at, then I think that people need to be maybe a little bit more comfortable with you and the plan. You want to cast maybe a little bit [00:46:00] wider net. So on those deals. And not just that, but I'll say to always want to help people who were kind of the position I was when that last company went bankrupt.

[00:46:09] John Casmon: And some of these people are not accredited just yet, but they know real estate can help them grow and scale and you'd hate for them to enter a deal. Not know what they're doing because they have zero experience, right? How can they be confident or credible with no experience? Right? So if we're kind of their conduit to real estate investing, well, they can learn while they earn.

[00:46:28] John Casmon: And we always want to have some options available for those people in our network. So we try to make sure we do have some five or six speed deals as well. On this particular deal that we're talking about, we'll see what that. Final thing looks like we are looking at some private equity, kind of do a bit of a staggered or, you know, different capital stack, but typically on our deals, we'll do a 70 30 split with maybe a 7 percent pref, 70 percent of the profits going to LPs, 30 percent going to GPs or the passive investors.

[00:46:56] Randal McLeaird: Yeah, 

[00:46:56] John Casmon: we'll do that on the last two. We did [00:47:00] actually, we did a 10 and 50, so we did a 10 percent pref. So higher prof. But a 50 50 split on the profits after that 10 prep, and that was very well received. I like that structure. It's harder. To find deals where that makes sense, particularly where you can get enough cashflow to be able to justify that.

[00:47:17] John Casmon: But I like making sure that we align our interests with our investors. So they know that we're going to get the bulk of our profits after we deliver for them. That's something that we believe in. I know some people don't like a pref. I don't like a pref when it stresses a deal, but I do like a pref when it kind of gives us an incentive, if that makes sense, sometimes people, you know, They add a pref where it really hurts to deal in almost makes it harder for that operator to get any profits.

[00:47:47] John Casmon: Those are deals that we would, you know, I would see more risk because now you've got somebody who. If a deal is not performing to a certain level, they may not make any money. 

[00:47:55] Randal McLeaird: Incentives are not aligned. 

[00:47:57] John Casmon: Yeah. If you're working on a deal as an operator and you know, [00:48:00] you're not going to make any money. I mean, how hard are you really going to work?

[00:48:03] John Casmon: And I'm not saying they won't work hard, but I'm saying it's a little different if you're not making money. Like you'd probably be more inclined to say, let's just sell this thing. Like I'm not going to make any money anyway. So as an investor, you want to make sure that that operator has some skin in the game, and I think too often people hear that and they, they assume it's, Oh, they put money into it.

[00:48:21] John Casmon: I want to make sure they got more than that, you know, that they've got some reputational risk involved, that they have an incentive to make sure they deliver for me as an investor, and that they're doing this professionally. They're building a company and this is what they plan on doing. I don't want someone who has one foot back in corporate America if this doesn't work.

[00:48:40] John Casmon: Right. I want someone who is committed to this space, making these deals profitable, who has invested time, energy and money, building a personal brand, building a reputation. Those are the people I want to bank on because they've demonstrated a level of competency as well as commitment to ensure that my investment is successful.

[00:48:59] Randal McLeaird: Love it. Burn [00:49:00] the boats. Do it, John. It's awesome. Catching up very well spoken and the way you describe every part of what you're working on and what you're doing. It's very helpful and easy to understand what you're working on. So I really appreciate it. Thanks for jumping on, sharing your information, your knowledge, talking about your business, what you guys are doing.

[00:49:16] Randal McLeaird: Your contact info is going to be the show notes. Anybody looking to invest. John Kasman Capital, reach out to him. I appreciate it. Thank you for having me on Randall. Great conversation today. Great catching up. Did you know that 80 percent of the agents we speak with got into real estate in order to gain passive income so they could obtain financial freedom and become work optional?

[00:49:35] Randal McLeaird: If you want to stay up to date, the best way is to make sure you're subscribed. So if you haven't done that, go ahead and do it now. We'll catch you on the next episode.