Wayne Courageous on Mastering the Game of Real Estate Growth
Feb 01, 2024
David McIlwaine
Unlock the vault to generational wealth as Wayne Courageous the III, managing principal of CREI Partners and real estate investment virtuoso, joins me, your host David McIlwaine, in a groundbreaking dialogue. With nearly two decades under his belt, Wayne shares a treasure trove of strategies for passive real estate investing that could be your blueprint to financial freedom. We dissect the lifecycle of lucrative investments, from spotting growth markets to the finesse required in scaling operations without losing the personal touch with investors. Wayne's mastery in navigating the challenges of capital raising — whether it's for his ventures in storage development or multifamily properties — is a crash course in investment agility and endurance.
Ever wonder how the great pyramids of real estate partnerships are built? The answer lies within the framework of investor control and the role of General Partners, a mystery Wayne demystifies with precision. He takes us behind the scenes of CREI Partners' capital-raising prowess, revealing how selective deal frequency and a commitment to investor education fortify the foundation of trust. Legal intricacies like the 506B and 506C offerings get unraveled as Wayne shares his experiences with consecutive investment opportunities, underlining the importance of keeping your legal ducks in a row amidst the real estate hustle.
Our conversation doesn't shy away from the chess moves behind investing in larger properties, with Wayne championing the operational efficiencies of 100+ unit multifamily establishments. Get insider tactics on how to withstand the onslaught of rising insurance and interest rates and still emerge with a portfolio that speaks volumes about your investment acumen. As we wrap up, Wayne imparts a philosophy that has been a guiding star in his journey from a Marine to a real estate magnate: the power of active engagement in property management. Educate yourself, get motivated, and step into the realm of real estate with confidence, all while picking up actionable wisdom from a seasoned pro like Wayne Courageous.
Unlock the vault to generational wealth as Wayne Courageous the III, managing principal of CREI Partners and real estate investment virtuoso, joins me, your host David McIlwaine, in a groundbreaking dialogue. With nearly two decades under his belt, Wayne shares a treasure trove of strategies for passive real estate investing that could be your blueprint to financial freedom. We dissect the lifecycle of lucrative investments, from spotting growth markets to the finesse required in scaling operations without losing the personal touch with investors. Wayne's mastery in navigating the challenges of capital raising — whether it's for his ventures in storage development or multifamily properties — is a crash course in investment agility and endurance.
Ever wonder how the great pyramids of real estate partnerships are built? The answer lies within the framework of investor control and the role of General Partners, a mystery Wayne demystifies with precision. He takes us behind the scenes of CREI Partners' capital-raising prowess, revealing how selective deal frequency and a commitment to investor education fortify the foundation of trust. Legal intricacies like the 506B and 506C offerings get unraveled as Wayne shares his experiences with consecutive investment opportunities, underlining the importance of keeping your legal ducks in a row amidst the real estate hustle.
Our conversation doesn't shy away from the chess moves behind investing in larger properties, with Wayne championing the operational efficiencies of 100+ unit multifamily establishments. Get insider tactics on how to withstand the onslaught of rising insurance and interest rates and still emerge with a portfolio that speaks volumes about your investment acumen. As we wrap up, Wayne imparts a philosophy that has been a guiding star in his journey from a Marine to a real estate magnate: the power of active engagement in property management. Educate yourself, get motivated, and step into the realm of real estate with confidence, all while picking up actionable wisdom from a seasoned pro like Wayne Courageous.
Hey everybody, david McElwain, with another episode of Break your Golden Handcuffs. Today, I'm really fascinated to talk with a friend of mine from a fellow mastermind group, wayne courageous the third. He's a managing principal of CREI Partners Real Estate Investments. He's got nearly 20 years of experience with a passion for empowering others to build generational wealth via passively investing in real estate. As a founder of CREI Partners, wayne leads a driven team in identifying markets prime for growth, leveraging analytics and local connections. They target properties showing strong fundamentals and upside potentials.
Speaker 1:
Wayne oversees the full investment life cycle, from raising capital to acquiring, enhancing and managing dynamic communities. The strategic approach delivers investors peace of mind through focused due diligence, transparent reporting and proactive management. With over $33 million in assets under management across the Sun Belt, crei Partners strives to enrich residents' lives while producing attractive returns. Wayne himself began investing as a Marine, buying his first rental property in 2003. Now he brings the same mission-driven mindset to CREI's work. His integrity, dedication and sharp investment acumen enable him to thrive in this people-first business. On Wayne's watch, investors can be confident their capital is deployed wisely, consisting, caring and responsive service, and communities prosper on a foundation of stewardship.
Speaker 1:
Allow Wayne to share his insights today. That's what we're going to do. A couple of things that aren't in his bio that I think are really fascinating. Wayne's got 16 years at a major commercial real estate firm operating and managing Class A office for institutional partners. He's also an ego scout, yay, so am I? I'm not sure if you want to. Yeah, I don't really talk about it much, but I actually worked for the Boy Scouts on a national level and I have a very dear friend, basin Houston, who just left as the chairman of the Boy Scouts of America, so I do support that organization in depth.
Speaker 2:
Anyway, wayne, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for having me. David, really excited to be here. It sounds like we're going to have a fun episode because we're going to be coaching through some areas.
Speaker 1:
For me, yeah, I am developing a coaching program right now and Wayne has graciously volunteered to be a little bit of a guinea pig on something. So when we were talking off market about his $33 million on assets, he was telling me about his currently doing. So, wayne, let's jump into it. What are you currently doing? That's challenging for CREI partners.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so back up. Thank you for having me on your show. Really love doing this. What we were talking about before the show, just to give our listeners some context, is, in this mastermind that we're part of raised masters, there's a lot of capital raisers, a lot of people that are looking to raise capital and be part of partnerships. Obviously, you can't just raise capital, so there's asset management stuff involved, right, but a big part of that is growing your funnel for investors to come in. And so when I had joined the program a couple of years ago I'm almost on year three now I was having to come to decide am I more of a capital raiser or am I an operator? Because my back 16 years at CREI was all operations, very hands-on, day-to-day management, working with clients, seeing the life cycle of the property from the beginning to the end, capital renovations, et cetera. And so that decision was hard, because you can scale a lot faster, more so in these fund-to-fund type models and such when you're not as much in the weeds. But ultimately I had to come to the decision and I made a decision that what I enjoy and what I'm good at is operations.
Speaker 2:
Obviously, I'm raising capital to close on deals, but I don't step away once the deal closed and, as I mentioned to you, my comfort level is day one of owning an asset, getting up to closing. It's between the legal docs and negotiations and inspections and raising the capital. There's a lot that has to happen, but my comfort zone is day one of closing. So it speeds up to your question what are our challenges? Well, typically, because we're so hands-on on deals, we typically only do two or three deals. We're not doing one every other month, et cetera. It's two or three deals a year, and it allows us time to close on an asset, work as much as possible to focus on the repositioning of that asset in a short amount of time Maybe it's three, four, five months and then, once that's stabilized, like and where it's proceeding, then we're on to our next deal, continuing the weekly asset management calls, but not as involved time-wise, which allows us to look for deals and close on other things.
Speaker 2:
What happened in 2023, though, is a lot of our well, we have two deals going on right now. We have an RV, boat and business storage development and Bryan College Station, and then we have a multifamily project under contract in Houston, so both of them just so happen to be working early in the year, but the time to raise capital and close on the deal is now in the last couple of months. So that's always. The struggle is when you have two deals. It's always hard, david, to raise capital for one deal, but when you have two deals it becomes even more challenging. And also the ability of how to find investors, et cetera, and bring people in and give them options. So, however you want to go with that, but that's sort of where we are now. We've got two deals and one is nearly funded. The RV, boat and business is nearly funded and the loan we're ready to close that, which is exciting. We'll start the development on it in the month of October.
Speaker 2:
And then the multifamily. There's a lot of headwinds going on in multifamily right now for many reasons. There's a lot of people staying on the sideline, not wanting to invest or just wanting to see how things iron out. For me, this is the time when the water is not as bloody, and I say that because in business and in real estate, finding the blue waters, finding the opportunities in the blue waters, are a lot sexier and better than all competing for the same meat in the red waters. So when I found this multifamily deal in Houston, it was an off market deal. It's $1 million less than the appraised value. It's a 2018 purchase price. It's less than the 2018 purchase price that the seller did. So there are all these things that were exciting me for it, and so if I would just stay on the sideline, those opportunities wouldn't come to me. Because I'm on the sideline and I'm waiting. We're taking the approach that we're not waiting. We're finding opportunities and being aggressive in any given market, but especially the market we're in today.
Speaker 1:
There's so much there to unpack. Yeah, I love it. So let's dive in a little bit to the Houston deal. We'll probably close before this is actually broadcast because I've got a little bit of a window in the Houston deals of 506B. So, as you shared with me and as all our listeners know, a 506B means you've got an existing substantive relationship with the sponsor and you can't come in in the middle of it and then buy something right away. So we're doing this from an educational purpose, not from a selling purpose. And you said to me off the air that you're having a little bit of challenge getting the raise underway and that it is creating some stress for you. And I think this is really interesting because, as an operator myself and as a capital raiser and as a business owner, we wear a lot of hats and when you were talking about whether you were an operator or a capital raiser, I was wondering to myself why is that an important distinction? And so I wonder do you know why it's an important distinction to know which you are?
Speaker 2:
I think it's important because there's two different mindsets and it's not right or wrong for each. But in growing the last 16 years in commercial real estate, which I'm now full time on my real estate investments, it was a great 16 years, built a great foundation. But when I started my company in 2019, we built it to a point where I just had to go all in on our real estate investments. But there came a point. I had one, had a mentor ask me one time do you want to be the president of the United States or do you want to be Ross Perot? A lot of people don't know Ross Perot, so change it for Bill. But the point is is do you want to be a billionaire or do you want to be a leader of the free world, right, or a leader in general? And my standpoint was more I wanted to be the president or a mayor or whatever. I didn't really wasn't as motivated on the money aspect. I enjoyed leading. I enjoyed the responsibilities of in my case, I was in property management, asset management Whereas Ross Perot or the Bill Gates of the World, those are very transactional based personalities in the sense that those are more broker type mindsets, right, and so early on in my career in commercial estate understanding.
Speaker 2:
Are you an operator or are you a capital raiser or are you a transactional person? That is a big distinction. There's no right or wrong, it's just personality type. So choosing to be an operator is important Because for me I'm going out to investors and I'm bringing in family, friend and other accredited, non-credit investor capital. I don't sleep well at night when my deals are suffering, but if I'm not in the weeds, how would I know if they're suffering or not? And if they're suffering, then and I don't have any control that's to me concerning for my investors and for me. So a lot to unpack there too. But yeah, it's absolutely important to know what your role and what your comfort level, what your experience is when getting into especially these larger commercial real estate.
Speaker 1:
What advantages do you see when you have clarity and clear definition around your role? What advantages do you see for yourself and your business?
Speaker 2:
Well, for us we differentiate ourselves and one of the things I try to push on podcast is there are a lot of people that are raising capital, joining general partners because they've got relationships with raising capital. They're also having to do other tasks and roles within the GP. They can't just raise capital and walk away. So there's still some of that. But at the end of the day, and what a lot of investors are seeing today in this market because when times were good, nobody was asking questions, so people were making money, cap rates were compressing, so the value of these properties. But now it's like and I say this rubber meets the road now because asset management and day-to-day operations for a general partner are key. So the question is for an investor who is going in with a GP is how much control or decision-making does that particular GP that I'm investing with even have on the deal? And if that person doesn't have much control or decision-making, who does and what's their experience?
Speaker 2:
So for us at CRI Partners it's more of a differentiation of what we're targeting. We're targeting two to three deals a year when we do raise capital and we push a lot of education, a lot of meetups et cetera, and people do heavily invest quickly because they know that there's not a whole lot of opportunities down the road. What the struggle is most recently is because we had the two transactions so we had going back to the coaching on it the RV and the boat. Our raise was like 2.3 million. We're close to 1.8 million right now. In the raise I've got a partner who's raising the rest, so I'm really not concerned there. But the challenge is when you go back to back deals like so on my multifamily, a lot of my investors invest on the RV boat, so now they're wanting to wait and see how that does before they reinvest.
Speaker 1:
So there's a couple of things in there, right? So it's a very common thing in the sales world that when you have a pond and in the pond there's only so many pieces of lily pad to eat off of, right. Love the analogy Absolutely. Well, you're a marine, so I got to keep it simple for you. Yeah.
Speaker 2:
Keep it simple, stupid right.
Speaker 1:
That's right, I got to kiss it, and so the question then becomes if you've eaten all the lily pads for the first opportunity, how do you open other waterways?
Speaker 2:
to get to more lily pads Well for me, we mentioned this was a 506B deal and for me it's important.
Speaker 2:
I enjoy doing a 506B at least one transaction a year and the reason is is because most people are doing 506C but they're only 506C offerings, only allowing accredited investors. The benefit of a 506C is that you can go out and publicly advertise on Facebook, linkedin and you you know we could if this podcast wasn't airing, you know, after the rave. So like you could post this today and whoever's listening can be like oh I like that deal man best we can raise your hand and say it sounds sexy as all get out.
Speaker 1:
I got to be in, I got to be in. I got to be in, yeah regardless of that relationship.
Speaker 2:
On the 506B, it's like for a sponsor like myself. It's like having one hand behind your back during a boxing fight, because it is it's it's a challenge to always raise capital right. But on a 506B it's even more challenging because you're not able to publicly advertise. You're working with your database and the people that are in.
Speaker 2:
I had to make that choice during this. Like am I going to do accredited investors or a 506B? I chose to make it a little bit more difficult for myself on this round because I hadn't had any opportunities for those people that wanted to get in but didn't have the accredited status. So I'm trying to give people access to real estate when, yes, it's harder on me but it's easier for them because they have the prior existing relationship and they're able to invest. So it's cool to have people that weren't able to invest in my RV boat storage because they were not accredited, analyze the multifamily, determine it's a good fit for them and invest in that way. So part of the challenges that you mentioned the lily pads is just simply, how are we structuring the deal to raise the deal, following the law? The challenge, really, that you're talking about is following the law.
Speaker 1:
Absolutely, and you're talking about the motivation of what your decision making was Right, and there's a bit of a I'm trying to think of the word for it underpinning or a discussion going on that says you can start as a 506B and convert to a 506C, and have you thought much about that? Do you have an opinion on that? I don't know. I've seen the attorney states legal. I've seen some attorney states not legal. In our world there's a lot of gray, yeah, and I'm just curious what do you think about all that?
Speaker 2:
You know, I'm not an attorney.
Speaker 1:
The attorneys that are out there, I am not either, by the way, the attorneys that are out there are talking about.
Speaker 2:
I've got to respect their knowledge and their experience. With even the attorneys and I've learned this too there are attorneys that just focus on real estate transactions. I've got an amazing attorney for that, but, grateful for me, he's not saying, hey, I'm an SEC attorney, so, like I go to another attorney who's more focused on SEC, so I've got to trust them. The problem that I have it's not really a problem. It's actually a good thing, as we close transactions pretty quickly. So my understanding is like with that 506B to 506C, you've got to wait 30 days in between the. My understanding is that there's a 30 day window and it may be longer again.
Speaker 1:
So I want to get the lily pad to flow from lily pad A to lily pad B. You got to close the dam and let it run for 30 days.
Speaker 2:
My understanding is there's a 30 day. Don't quote me on that, but it's a 30 day. With that said, regardless of the day's amount whatever that day amount is I would have already closed that transaction. So for us it's usually a 60 day transaction and the first 15 days is inspections. We're going through that and then we have a 45 day window. Sometimes I'll have an extension opportunity, but usually we and our partners it's part of the benefit that buyers have come to know with us is we can close and we can close on time. I could see the benefit in that if we did a bigger deal like last year. Last year I closed. It was a 506B, but that offering was $6 million and, holy cow, I had to get so creative and I'm so proud of that.
Speaker 2:
There's a lot of work in that, yeah, it was a lot of work and again you feel like on those larger deals and a 506B, it's one hand behind the back. It worked for those investors who weren't accredited, but it makes my job harder. So, yeah, I don't really, if I had to do it, I absolutely would do it. If my SEC attorney said it's legal, absolutely. I just haven't had the need to do it and the time limit your contract may not even allow you to have that extra 30 days, so that's where the-.
Speaker 1:
So let's go through a different route, then, because one of the things I've always learned in sales management is there's always at least two or three ways to get to the finish line. So if you can't open the lily pad into a different pond, how do you get the-? There's an old analogy that says would you rather have a million dollars or a penny a day? That doubles every day for 30 days, and you're shaking your head. So I've seen, you've heard this riddle before. Right, yeah, and which do you take?
Speaker 2:
The penny that doubles every day.
Speaker 1:
Because it's worth. I don't remember the exact number, but I think it's worth like five million or seven million dollars, right yeah. And on day 30, and on day 31, it's worth double that again. And so is there a way to talk through the compounding effect of the investors you do have, and how to talk about that value proposition within your offering?
Speaker 2:
So these two are unique and I love where you're going with. This is there's diversification, and so for us, when I first started out in 2019, it was heavily focused on multifamily investing, and I still love multifamily, I still invest and will still continue, and there are certain markets that I will continue to invest in multifamily Day to day. People need a place to live. It is there's you know, being in Texas, texas Triangle, there's tons of demand, a shortage of housing, et cetera. So I love multifamily.
Speaker 2:
But I also like this concept of multifamily communities too, and so you know we have a development in Lafayette build a rent community, think of it as horizontal multifamily 12 acres. We're building single family homes that we're treating. There's 98 single family homes, so we're gonna manage and treat as a traditional multifamily. So we expanded into that. It was pretty close to our multifamily base build a rent at this shift gear a little bit on the asset class. And then RV boat storage. And I didn't even think about RV boat storage until last year when my partner, stuart Heath, was like had an opportunity in Huntsville, alabama, and I got excited about it, david, because I was doing I have an RV or a travel trailer, so I get that. There's that demand they're going.
Speaker 2:
I have a boat, yeah, and so you know there's demand, right. And so having the three asset classes allows more lily pads right, because there's diversification. Not everybody wants to just invest in multifamily. They are open to build a rent or they're open to RV boat, so that also is allowed. I don't wanna get too diversified as CRI partners where we're doing office, retail, medical, I mean, if the deal works and there's a sponsor who's an expert at it that we're partnering with, sure, but part of that compounding is the ability to diversify within our group. The other thing too, though we talked about another option on how we raise this remaining capital. It's a team sport.
Speaker 2:
I was having a call with an investor earlier today. He said he started off, he's doing a bunch of single family, own single family. He mentioned, you know, his next steps would probably be a triplex or duplex triplex, and I was sharing with him. I was like you can do that for sure, but don't feel like you have to do that Because I didn't have, you know, most a lot of people. It's easier, it's funny, it's easier to close on 100 plus units than it is a 44 unit.
Speaker 1:
It is.
Speaker 1:
it's so much easier, and if you don't understand that as a listener right now, I think the answer here and I hate to jump in on you when I apologize for stepping on you, but when I think about it it goes back to vision. It's easier to execute a bigger vision than it is a smaller vision, and I can think about that time and time again in my life and I'm sure you're nodding your head that you can too, and I wonder why is it easier to close 100 than it is to close a 44?
Speaker 2:
Well on the practical side. So there's a mindset aspect, right, but there's also there's more money to be made for, more for the people. It's a lot more money. So, like 100 plus deals, one, it's more efficient to operate, right. So there's a rule of thumb one person for every 50 units. So if it's 100 units you'll have one person in, one person out. You still, on the 50 units, still have to have a maintenance and a you know part-time maintenance and part-time, so it's easier to make the numbers be more efficient at 100 plus. So more money for our investors, such you.
Speaker 2:
Also for 100 plus you get into different types of loan types. You're not in small balance, you're in the larger loans that have Fannie Freddie type structure. So the loan is a lot more attractive. It's also more attractive for investors and partners, like people that we meet in race masters. You know those people like the 100 plus because that's what they're investors.
Speaker 2:
It's more sexy saying you got 100 plus unit. You know it grows your portfolio dramatically. When you say you have 250 units, you only may own 1% of that 250 units because of your part in the GP, but still you're a general partner on that. So you know you're not in the same position as the other companies. It's part of its perception, but part of it is just the numbers and the efficiencies from the loan and operations of the property. It makes the numbers better. What helped us on this Houston deal is we own 101 units in that same sub market and so we are able to share management and payroll expenses between the maintenance and the manager from our property in the Galleria to that property. So it benefits both properties as we scale. So we'll continue looking for those opportunities.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, and we're kind of going in all kinds of different directions and we've got about eight minutes left. I try to keep these meetings to about half an hour because I think that the listener gets tired after that, so tell me if you're in the Galleria. One of the big negatives on Houston right now has been cost of insurance. How are you handling that challenge? Cause insurance seems to be climbing exponentially higher than rent rate and, as we all know, if we're trying to increase our NOI and our insurance goes up, which is our cost, and our rent rates still have to equal it, we're losing NOI in that theory.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, man, we only have eight minutes. I'll try to be quick. Just the executive summary. The executive summary is people that are saying that can't get rent increases because they didn't buy a true value add property. I'm getting 10% plus on my rent bumps because I bought a property that's rental in place. Rents were way below market. That's one. So even if my insurance is higher premium say 10, 15%, I'm still forcing revenue appreciation because I bought right and the rents of the property were well below market. So I wasn't at market. And yeah, then at that point it's hard to push rents. That's one.
Speaker 2:
Two you've got to have relationships with multiple insurance brokers and people. So my 44 unit, the insurance company previously they were spending at the price of like 80,000 a year. We negotiated sale price assuming that that 80,000 would keep, but then we went directly with a broker who has a relationship with this insurance group and we were able to get insurance down to $38,000. So our insurance is half of what the seller paid. So it's just you've got to broaden. Treat it like it's an open market. There is issues with insurance, but you've got to buy right. Hey, david, no matter what cycle you're in in real estate, take the information that's at hand. Interest rates are higher, so underwrite with higher interest rates. Insurance is higher. Underwrite with higher insurance. Adjust the purchase price to reflect that If it doesn't work. And if you can't make it work, then walk away.
Speaker 2:
There's other deals. There's a lot of blood coming up soon, as refinancing is not going to be able to happen because of DSCRs and there's a lot of people that have to sell For me. I'm bullish. I'm going in and being aggressive on pricing. Point and cake. We're purchasing a property less than the 2018 purchase price and $1 million less than Harris County Appraisal District. Sellers want to sell. If they're needing, they have to sell. They have to sell. There's no choice, or they go back. So you say, if insurance is going up, okay, we'll just adjust for insurance. Put 15% 20% annual increases on that one line item and make the numbers work. And if you submit an offer and they say, no, that's okay, two months from now they may come back to you and say, hey, wayne or David, hey, let's do the deal.
Speaker 1:
I love that answer. I think that you said so much in there that's so key to identify what a good operator knows and what a good operator thinks about. And they don't run from a challenge, they don't run from a problem. They force the problem's metrics into their analysis and then they decide go, no go, Crucial. So I have really enjoyed this conversation. Clearly you've got a very good thumb print, or thumb on the scale of what's happening in the Golden Triangle of Texas. Let me ask a couple of questions that I always ask my guests. Knowing what you know today, is there something you would do or what do you wish you knew 10 years ago that you know today?
Speaker 2:
I didn't even know passive investing in real estate was possible. I was in commercial real estate. I was dealing with the institutional buyers. I thought the people who owned these big buildings retail or multi-family, whatever the asset class were highly high net worth individuals or institutional groups that I was working with. I didn't really know that you could own. As a time I was a non-accredited investor, I didn't realize that I could pull money with other investors and buy assets. So I wish back then I was investing and it doesn't have to be that $500,000. I mean maybe even $25,000, because I couldn't have done a whole lot 10 years ago. I was having kids and with my wife and like it was a different time. But starting early compounding, even if it's $20,000, $10,000, maybe it's $5,000 over time that grows. So getting in early on the passive investing syndication, I didn't know about 10 years ago.
Speaker 1:
I love that answer because you know what I've known about it for a long time. But really the jobs act of 2012 changed it and the market didn't really change until 14 to become more common. And the internet has put fire on this market Absolutely, and it will continue to do so. And crowdfunding has put fire on the market and it will continue to do so, and the world's changed. So if that's a piece of advice you wish you had 10 years ago, what's a piece of advice that you followed that you wish you had ignored or would you say was one of the worst pieces you've received?
Speaker 2:
The worst advice? I don't know, I haven't. You know it sounds bad. I haven't had the worst advice. I've made decisions on the facts at hand, like at a high school. Two days at a high school I went in the Marine Corps. But I could have gone to college. I could have done other things, but I chose to do the Marine Corps.
Speaker 1:
You know not, I think that was okay because, if I remember correctly, you've got an MBA and a Masters in Econ and you're fairly educated.
Speaker 2:
Well, and that was over the. You know I got my undergrad while I was in and such. You know I always tell people don't join the Marine Corps for education, you know, and don't go in there not married. If you plan on having a wife, If the Marine Corps wanted you to have a wife, they would issue you one. You know there's we can go on site all that as well, and that's why I have nieces and nephews joining the Air Force and other groups, because I'm like you know Marine Corps is a special breed. So that's okay, we need the Marine Corps. But, man, I don't know if I can answer the question top of head. I'm sure I'll think of it. I think you just did.
Speaker 1:
Okay, if the Marine Corps wants you to have a wife, they will issue one.
Speaker 2:
Yes, I know that there's a side story for that one, but it's sort of sad. I'm sure We'll table it.
Speaker 1:
So then, wrapping up, is there a thought or an axiom or some sort of Call a cop quote that motivates you or moves you, that you reference day in and day out, you'd like to share yeah?
Speaker 2:
I mean I like one of the quotes is you know, don't expect what you don't inspect and it, you know there's nothing grand or sexy about it other than you know. For me, in the operations of what we do, you know we're having to look in, like this morning I had a property management call For our bill to rent and we use app folio for that particular deal. We're looking at the dashboard and we're going through the KPIs. We do that weekly on all of our assets and you just can't assume that your property manager you know are doing that, you know getting in every week, right, and so, yeah, I just live by that. It just part of it and that's what our passive investors like and trust with with us is that we're we are inspecting, we're going to the property.
Speaker 2:
I don't tell my managers all the time when I'm showing up. We should show up. One time I showed up to a property and realize they had literally walked out on the job that day and I was there like two hours. I called the regionals like Kate, you know she's not here and found out I was more worried, health wise, like she's okay, but I found out she just walked away. So the other day, asset managers and people that you're investing with have to be on it, and they got to be near their properties, and so with that, you know, we can go on about the stuff that people respect what you inspect.
Speaker 1:
And you said don't Rest, don't. What was your phrase?
Speaker 2:
it was something similar don't expect what you don't inspect.
Speaker 1:
I love it's the same kind of concept respect, expect all of it. Driven around the idea of inspection and you can know if something is going to go south 180 days before it does. If you don't know until the day before it's gone south, that it's going to go south. You're not inspecting it.
Speaker 2:
And part of the leadership, part of the fun of it that's why I enjoy being an operator is it's a big ship, but you can slowly turn it right. If you don't know it, because you're just being blind or just trusting that things are happening Like they should, then it's going to be too late. So that's, that's the benefit of what we're doing and what we're trying to do to differentiate ourselves.
Speaker 1:
Totally love that, wayne, so tell everybody if they want to learn more about Wayne and CRI partners. How do we get a hold of you? What? How do we track you down?
Speaker 2:
Alright. So CRI partners dot com, we do a lot of educational posts between our blogs. We've got a podcast. We also have a passive investor coaching program. You can join our investor club through CRI partners dot com. Reach. Reach out to us my emails, wayne, at CRI partners dot com, if you want to reach out to me directly, but I would really appreciate the time that you've allowed me to share my thoughts and coach me along the way, and the visual of Lily pads is what I'm going to be thinking as I Create and multiply more so I can get through these last races well, you've been listening to another episode of break your golden handcuffs and have a wonderful day.
