Jarod Alexander: 1100 Units Through Syndication

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Jarod Alexander is the founder of Optimal Equity Group, where he brings vetted opportunities to investors to invest in. In total, Jarod has participated in 5 syndications totaling over 1,100 units throughout Arizona and Texas. In addition to this role, Jarod works in sales in the flooring industry, where he has won numerous awards for his salesmanship and dedication to customer satisfaction. Jarod shares his real estate investment journey beginning with single-family homes and what led him to look towards larger properties as a way to scale and accomplish his investing goals more quickly. His mission is to help people reach their full potential and live life to the fullest. Jarod is a family man who is happily married with 2 amazing kids currently living in Phoenix, AZ.

In this episode hosted by Mike Swenson, we discussed:

• How a Jarod got started in real estate investing through an out-of-state turnkey single-family property and the lessons he learned
• How Jarod discovered multi-family investing and learned about the benefits of apartments syndication
• How investing in multifamily can provide a steady stream of income even during economic downturns, making it a recession-resistant asset
• How Jarod looked to double his money in 18 months
• How Jarod grew his investing portfolio by participating in groups with others that are syndicating properties
• Building the know, like, and trust factor with potential investors, and focusing on how he can help them rather than just asking for their money
• Looking at the numbers and taking the emotion out investing

Timestamps:
0:00 - Intro To Jarod's Career
4:29 - The First House He Bought
8:21 - From 25k To 1100 Units
12:03 - Flipping Apartments
16:51 - Looking Cities To Investing In
25:05 - How To Raise Capital
32:29 - Education + Action = Results
36:11 - How To Find Jarod

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Minnesota Real Estate

Mike Swenson
Welcome to The Real freedom podcast where we inspire you to pursue your passion to gain time and financial freedom through opportunities in real estate. I'm your host, Mike Swenson. Let's get some real freedom together

Mike Swenson
Welcome everybody to another episode of The Real freedom podcast where we talk about building time and financial freedom through opportunities in real estate. And today we are going to talk about being able to do your your day job as well as kind of transition into real estate real estate syndications, raising money for syndications. And so today, we've got Jared Alexander here, Jared is the founder of optimal equity group, and was formed to help investors educate them on achieving strong returns. And you work on vetting opportunities for investors, doing capital raising for projects. In addition to that, you also are a limited partner investor in five different syndications, totaling 1100 units, and those are in Phoenix and Dallas. In addition to that, you work in sales, and you are with your family in the Phoenix area with your wife and two kids, we'll just go ahead and kick it over to you give you a chance to share a little bit about your background, getting into real estate, doing it on the side, you know, transitioning and how that process has worked for you. So welcome, Jared, we're so excited to have you.

Jarod
Hey, thanks, Mike. Thanks for having me excited to be here. I, as far as getting into real estate, you know, I was I kind of went back a little bit, you know, my I come from a family where my grandfather, I saw him retire at the age of 50 years old, and later learned that he bought the property, started a business but brought the surrounding property around that. And I ended up coming out here to Phoenix, Arizona at the age of 50. And just lived out the passive income, right. And so as a young kid that kind of got my eyes opened, you know, to the world of real estate, but you know, of course, I was going through school and still had that mindset, you know, I was working on you know, Alright, get a 401k get a job, put it in there, you know, retire at the age of 65. Right was not the mindset I had, and then I ended up reading that, that what they call that purple book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, which is not even a real estate book, right? But it's just it totally shifted my mindset and opened my eyes to again, this world of real estate pack passive income. And then, you know, eventually read that that book, the four quadrants, right, where you got this self employed or employed or self employed, business owner, and then investor right. And so of course, reading that I quickly wanted to be on that investor and business owner side of that. So anyways, fast forward, I'm originally from North Carolina, so moved out here to Phoenix about eight years ago, almost nine now and ended up meeting my wife had two kids. And, you know, I come from a flooring background, which is the company my grandfather started back in North Carolina. And you know, I kind of had an idea like, I'm just gonna maybe own a business owner Florida Business and kind of go that route. But once I got into real estate had a family, it's like, well, no, I want to create this passive income because I'm in flooring sales from my day job. And you know, when me I wouldn't in sales, I'm 100% Commission, right? So I get hurt, something happens, I want to take a vacation was nice, but I'm not making money, you know, if I'm out if I'm not working right, and going on appointments and doing sales. So, um, so yeah, the income, you know, just creating this, this passive income, which started in single family, I started going to some local as RIA groups. You know, they told me network, you know, I had a mentor in his space that, uh, I was kind of following his coattail actually still am. And, you know, he's got me do some at the local as RIA meetings, where they call Azeri here in Phoenix, and so started network.

Mike Swenson
That's I should just, I'll just quick add for those people that don't know. So it's our EIA Real Estate Investors Association. And so yeah, each state will have one. So finding your local chapter is really a great way to build some good connections.

Jarod
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And a lot of times they just put it so like AZ, you know, for Arizona is why they call it as reo. Yep. So yeah, thanks for clarifying that Mike. And, and again, you know, if you on that if you go on meetup.com right there you can find tonnes of different meetups, you know, Ria is definitely a big one that's a lot of people are familiar with, but a lot there's tonnes of them, you know, that you can go and get educated and, and learn how to, you know, start this process and network people who are, you know, network with people who aren't doing it. And so, we know so me and my wife, we actually we kind of were figuring out which way to go landed on single family. This was probably about three years ago, when the market was just really hot it was, you know, again, in Phoenix, it was hard to find something to pencil. So we started looking at estate. And the goal was to go out and buy about, you know, 50 or 60 houses, right to replace my w two income because, of course, the goal is time freedom, right, I want to buy back my time and be able to have the option to do you know, do what I like, and, and not have to go to work if I if I don't need to, or if I get hurt, you know, just just have that had those options. Right. And so anyways, we bought this out of state single family in Kansas City, Missouri, right. Never seen it never, you know, there was a from a turnkey. turnkey property company where they they sold us the property had a tenant already in there. And so all we had to do was, you know, get it under contract, complete everything. And then yeah, we were we were cashflow. And you know, from day one, really, until, you know, this was the 1920s house. So, first house I ever bought Mike, you know, I myself, you know, originally I'm house I'm living in now, you know, my wife had already had. So, anyways, so I'm negotiating all this stuff. I'm acting as the realtor, so to speak, and, you know, you know, it comes back on a 1920 inspection inspection report, right? So anyways, navigate and all this, and two weeks after we get that under contract, the sump pump breaks, and, you know, need to go and replace a sump pump. So, anyways, a lot of needless to say, a lot of learning opportunities along the way. But what that did is it got us over that threshold, you know, it just all right, you know, and once we got that under, you know, closed that deal closed, I wanted to just Alright, let's go out and buy 50 or 60. More, all right, let's keep this momentum going. Right. And, and so we started looking at options, and we put it put in a lot of offers, I was looking at some duplexes for plexes, you know, just things that we could, you know, just kind of keep, you know, accelerate in our path there. And nothing, just nothing was working out, you know, can be an over bid, you know, because, of course, the numbers got to make sense, you know, you want for those, I'm sure a lot of your listeners know this, but you want to take, you know, the income, the property is producing minus all the expenses, and what's left there is your cash flow, right? What's your really all about 150 $200? You know, a month, you know, where the market was in 2000 22,021 is what we were finding. I mean, sometimes you find that that deal a needle in the haystack, but for the most part, that was it. And so a lot of these times where people kept over, you know, you know, just coming out with these cash offers 20 $30,000 above asking, you know, it just didn't make sense. So, that led us to look at you know, the beautiful thing about real estate Mike is you you have so many different streams, you can go down, right. You know, we were talking about this before flip in, you know, multifamily and so that's And so once I kind of discovered multifamily, I ended up going to another meetup which was multifamily based here in Phoenix and started learning about apartments syndications benefits that and I learned that I can, you know, on that on this house I bought in Kansas City, Missouri, we probably put 20 Little over $20,000 down, you know, with some repairs and the downpayment and all that was about a $75,000 house. We got it. So you know, I can put my first investment I did. Apartment syndication, I could put $25,000 down, generate about close to the same amount of cash flow, maybe 100 bucks, you know, depending on how the deal is structured. And I'm literally done after I swear that money right now call about a sump pump, no call about the tenants, you know, properties that have the power going off or anything which we did get that call in the middle of the night too. But, uh, so anyways, that accelerated this path of, you know, going down apartment syndication, which a lot of people don't even know what that means, you know, and honestly, I did until I went to that local meetup that one day. And it's, it's just not, you know, what people talk about, like they do the stock market, right. I mean, and it's just a non diversified. You know, it's just the non. A lot of a lot of people don't talk about these alternative investments. You can, you can go down you know, so I hear stocks crypto, you know, bonds, Treasury, you know, and so, you know, once I learned about this, I'm like, Well, I gotta, I gotta let every you know, once I find something I believe in, I'm telling everybody, I'm shouting. I'm the guy that shouting it from the rooftops. And so anyways, that led me into creating my, my business now optimal equity group. So after, you know, fast forward, I invested in five more syndications. And, you know, and yeah, just recently created my business to help others achieve their financial goals and accelerate their retirement plans.

Mike Swenson
Yeah, well, and I think a key is, you know, like you said, there's, there's so many different things that you can invest in. And yeah, a lot of people tend to naturally think single family to start, then maybe move up into multifamily, and then maybe move up into larger properties. And with real estate syndications, you kind of get the best of both worlds, you can skip over, you can invest the same amount of money, skip over the the the late night toilet calls, you know, that sort of thing. Because yeah, if you don't have a property manager, you're you are the property manager, and in a syndication, because the way that it's set up, everybody has their role. And so you can put that amount of money. And for some people, it might feel like, it doesn't seem real, right? Because you're not like, looking at the property screen in the tenants making those late night calls. But you kind of get the benefit of the economies of scale. Because yeah, if you're investing in 100 unit property, and you've got a vacancy 99 People are still paying their rent that month. If you've got a single family home, and you've got a vacancy, 0% of the people are paying their rent that month. And so you get the economies of scale, you don't get the hassle of the late night toilet or late night power outage or you know, heat off something like that. And you still get the upside the financial upside of investing in, you know, a property that's going to have great returns.

Jarod
Yeah, absolutely. And I'm glad you touched on, you know, like the vacancy part, right? Because part of really, what drove me into real estate to begin with is this brick and mortar, right, I got a tangible asset, I can see touch feel right. And, you know, with multifamily, especially, you know, because single families, you know, I think it's great, honestly, I, you know, go where the markets going I made capitalise on some opportunities that may be coming up there. But, you know, if you got one tenant and that tenants not paying rent, well, you're not you're not getting any income that month, right. You know, so back to your point of, you know, I got 100 units, I got five people not paying rent, well, you know, I'm still 95% You know, or 9%, occupied, you know, I still I'm still getting paid, right, and I'm getting paid and so, but, but even to that point is, you know, recession resistant assets, right, is like the stock market and everything, you know, whenever I invest money into that one tweet, can tank a stock, right? It's, I mean, it's like money just floating in thin air.

Mike Swenson
You're you're not you're not sitting on the board of those companies helping to influence the decisions that are being made.

Jaord
Absolutely. Right. And so you know, what I went, you know, this is what makes me feel comfortable with putting my money because, you know, I honestly have a lot of my, my portfolio now invested in real estate, specifically, you know, these apartments syndications, and I got a recession resistant asset, people need a place to stay. So like in the economy, we're kind of in now and going a little deeper into like, the people can't afford rents, you know, and for a single family are can't afford the mortgage, well, they might have to sell their house and go live in an apartment. Right? Or, you know, and apartments I invest in are typically not tight, you know, Class A, you know, not saying those are bad, but for me, it's just workforce housing. Right. And so, you know, people people still need a roof over their head. And then I like also that it's not factored on what the comps in the neighbourhood, you know, the single family homes, right, I mean, apartment complexes are valued by their, you know, by the net, net, you know, the net operating expenses are the net operating income. And so they take, you know, again, just like, you know, the cash flow, right, you take all your expenses minus you know, your income, well, that's what you got left. And these companies are essentially flipping or the companies I partner with are primarily value add, which, you know, we can go down that road, but there, there's some different types of syndications apartments you can do new build new development, but the ones I focus on are value add. So just to sum that up, bro, that one sentence, it's flipping apartments, right, so they're just going in there creating, you know, upgrading the units, adding parking structures. Pretty much just increasing that the rents income they can get on a property, which forces that appreciation. And so that's yeah, that's a big reason why I'm a big fan.

Mike Swenson
Yeah. And just a quick touch on that point, like you mentioned for, for people out there, you know, if you're not in real estate, or you're maybe on the residential side or real estate, you know, when we go to value properties as realtors, right single family or kind of under four units, what we're doing is we're going in looking at comps, seeing what else is sold in the neighbourhood, and then saying, okay, is my building better or worse than these other comps. And that's how I'm determining my price. When you get into the commercial space. It's valued based on Yeah, it's, it's income expenses. And net income is really kind of what those key factors are. So if you find ways to increase income by updating units, bringing units up to market rent, that sort of thing, you find a way to decrease expenses, maybe you're looking at, you know, passing utility costs onto the tenants, that sort of thing, doing some sort of rubs is what it's called, or, you know, just finding a way to increase that net income, you're in control of the value of the property, not in a way that that you would be in kind of the under four units. Because if somebody sells a house for a really low price that affects your, you know, your comp value, when you're when you're looking at smaller units, but here you're in control of the value of your property. And that's why a lot of people love that commercial stuff as well, because like you said, you're in control of the value of that asset. And so the value add piece is so important. If we go in and we flip that apartment, increase the rents decrease our expenses, now that asset has a lot more value, and you can sell it, and you're not worried about what the building across the street sold for.

Jarod
Well, and to you know, piggybacking off that is, you know, now okay, you got this apartment complex and as you know, cashflow and property, but also you want to look at when you are investing in these types of deals as what market they're in, right? Um, you know, so like, for for me, you know, I'm, I'm primarily in Phoenix, and Texas area, so Dallas and Houston are kind of my main, my main focus right now. And they're just, they're just hot markets. I mean, you know, population growth, job growth, you know, just want to make sure you touch on the unemployment rate, you know, and then a lot of times to, you know, when you are looking so, okay, say you find an area well, even in Phoenix, you got south Phoenix, you know, we're the bad part of town, or you can do North Phoenix, where it's a little bit better part of town, so you definitely got to comp the area to or do your due diligence. But when you're looking, you know, so look at the big box players, right, like Target Starbucks McDonald's, right? They do their market research, whenever they're, you know, going out and figuring out where they want to build, you know, you know, have their business located. So those are good telltale signs as to okay, hey, I'm right next to target Walmart, you know, all this, you know, good business area here, where there's jobs for one, you know, it's driving in driving in people, typically located by highways or freeways or whatever market you're in.

Mike Swenson
I was gonna say I had, there's a business that I heard of in the past where literally, their strategy is, they put a building within like a quarter mile of a Starbucks because they know, like, based on what their their business was, getting that foot traffic into Starbucks is naturally going to lift their business, you know, and so funny that you just mentioned Starbucks like that, because yeah, that's that stuff's important. But yeah, in in terms of syndication, you guys really are looking at macro factors in the economy, because if you're purchasing, you know, 1000 plus unit buildings, this isn't just, you're really looking at, okay, what's the next 510 1520 years of this community going to look like? Not, Hey, can I sell you know, can I buy this property is going to be good enough for a couple of years, but you're really are looking at the macro factors of the city, the unemployment, the job growth, that kind of stuff to decide which communities you're going to invest in?

Jaord
Well, I'm to that point to you know, because these aren't like your typical flipping a house type of investment, right? You know, where you put some money in six months later, you pull your money back out after a sale, right? I mean, these are three to five year olds. So you want to you know, kinda look in the future there and kind of see where is this you know, where is this market going to be and, and really, you know, as a as an investor, you know, from an investor point of view as far as your dollars goes, just make sure hey, this is It's an illiquid investment, right? It's not like the stock market where it's more liquid, if I want to sell even if it's for a loss, I can pull my money back out, right. So, you know, typically, on average, these are $50,000, minimums, you know, that departure capital, and so you got to know, three to five years, you know, you might not get to see to see the return on capital, besides a lot of deals, you know, you may have cash flow, and depending on how it's structured, throughout, but the majority of that, you know, that capital isn't going to be returned until the deal sells.

Mike Swenson
And that is, I mean, I would say, I wouldn't say it's a strong negative. But that's something to think about, when you're placing your money in a syndication versus doing your flip as Yeah, you're in control of the terms, when it's your asset, hey, something came up, now's a good time to sell, let's go ahead and sell, you're kind of turning over that power to the people that are managing the asset. And that's where something like, you know, a self directed IRA would be a good opportunity to invest in because without that you're not, you don't, you're not going to see that cash back within five years anyhow. And so that's where something like that would be valuable, because hey, we invest our IRA money from a self directed IRA into it, five years, you sell it, you do a 1031 exchange, flipping into another building, another building another building, and then when you're ready to use those funds at retirement age, great, but you're not concerned about, hey, we want to go do this thing next year, we want to go buy a boat. So we need our money liquid to be able to go do that. That is something that with a syndication, you just don't have that same control and power over those decisions, like you would if it's your own property.

Jarod
Yeah, and I absolutely, and thanks for mentioning that too, about the, you know, self directed IRA, because that's actually how I did my first investment, you know, syndication, and as, you know, I did a took a third party company, what they call a custodian. And I, yeah, mess I did my first deal and that and, and, and, honestly, I mean, I don't really look at it as a negative at all, I mean, you know, you can see three to five years, you know, but, I mean, if I can just compound that, and once these deals goes full cycle, and it and who knows, depending on the market, I mean, like, I was seeing deals, you know, a year ago, going for 1418 months, you know, term, so, it just all depends on where the markets at, but you know, just say, three to five years, my, my money can keep compounding, and essentially, I'm doubling my money, you know, say every, say every five years, right? I mean, in 1015 years, once I start pulling this equity back in and I reinvest, you know, 200 turns into 400 400 turns into you know, 100 100 turns in and 1.6. I mean, those are, those are some exciting numbers, look at, you know, a lot down the road. And, and really, it's, it's not the get rich, quick scheme, right, you know, but it's, for me, it's solid investments, again, tangible assets that I can put my money in, let my money work for me. And again, I am producing cash flow, you know, throughout the whole period, too. So I like to invest in assets or syndications that are paying me monthly distributions. And then some of the, you know, definitely dependent on what did you find? I mean, some offer a lot better cash flow than others, right. And keep in mind, it depends on when they do the business, what the business plan is, but sometimes it doesn't, it takes a while to get to that cash flow once they start until they start renovating some units. So but no, absolutely. I mean, just the compounding effect is huge, you know?

Mike Swenson
Yeah. And I think, you know, one thing that's really important is buying into, you know, it's really executing a business plan, right. And so it could be, if you're looking at value add, like you said, flipping apartments, you might be, you know, flipping so many units at a time, there's going to be some vacancy there, it's going to be an expense to be able to pay for those renovations happening, then you're going to place tenants at new market rents. So yeah, it might take some time for that cash flow to build up kind of depending on the property, but so you're gonna want to see that and yeah, you're looking for, does this investment fit with what I want to do, but you're really putting your money into people, you know, is this somebody that I know, like and trust, and they're going to be able to execute on the strategy because you're saying, Here's what the property is at now, here's what the property is going to be in the future. Here's what we're going to do to get it there. And are you in, you know, are you in for that amount? And so you have to know that that person knows what they're doing, and you trust them to be able to get your money back?

Jarod
It's like it's kind of what that saying you're betting on the jockey, not the horse, right? Because anybody can go out and find a good deal, right? But how you manage that deal, really, asset management can make or break a deal. You know, you could turn a good deal bad pretty quick if you run it down and not taking care of your tenants and things repairs and things that need to get done and missed. You know, as mismanage So, yeah, absolutely. No, I can trust, that's for sure. Yeah.

Mike Swenson
So talk a little bit then quick about, you know, how you're helping to raise capital. So, you know, you've put your money to some deals yourself, you've talked a little bit about kind of the communities that you're focusing in and why, but kind of talk about that, that capital raising piece.

Jarod
Yeah, good question and expense, you know, so again, going back a year, I mean, this was, everybody was, you know, this was very attractive, right, you know, sandales turn 18 months, you could double your money. Now, you know, economy we're going into now, you know, and kind of that uncertainty, you know, as people are definitely a little bit, you know, reluctant, you know, it's a debit to put their money, and especially in these, these longer, you know, longer homes. And so, what, you know, like I said, from the get go my game, you know, I find something I believe in, I want to share it with everybody, you know, just kind of like in sales, I gotta believe in my product, right? You know, to be able to be successful selling it, right, because the goal is I really want to help other people grow and accelerate their retirement plan, you know, and, and just have a different mindset around, you don't have to be 65, to be able to just retire and do what you want, you know, you can create this income along the way. And, and create a lot of freedom, and it might not be in two years, but it could be in 510 15 years, right. And so anyway, so as far as how I'm going out and raising capital, of course, I'm talking to family and friends about this, right, you know, just telling everybody in my network, but I do go to networking events. You know, I'm part of a couple communities where, you know, part of this one community, it's where a lot of entrepreneurs are, so, um, you know, they're out there, most people own their own businesses, and they're trying to promote their stuff, and at the same time looking to place capital. So just, you know, letting them know, these non non alternative investments. And, and, yeah, BNI is a great, a great source, you know, to, to look for, you know, just possible investors. And, and, yeah, I mean, really, it's just talent, talk to everybody, you know, I mean, you hear about people talking about Uber, you get in, you know, create a conversation, you know, on the way to the airport or something and, believe it or not, a lot of Uber drivers are entrepreneurs, right? Um, you know, so, you know, he had conversations like that, and just really telling everybody you know, about what you're doing, you know, and I really think if you go at it with a heart of how can I help this person, right, then, you know, a lot of people see that, and, you know, again, you got to build that know, like, and trust factor, right, people aren't just going to hand you over $50,000, you know, you got to, I got to believe in you believe in what you're, you know, presenting to them. And also, of course, you know, show them the deal. And, you know, the returns on that.

Mike Swenson
Another thing, that's great, too, you had mentioned, you know, entrepreneurs and and they're building their own businesses, and finding, finding people that are a good fit for your investment. entrepreneurs, business owners are great people, because they want to spend their time growing their business, they don't want to spend their time learning about real estate, finding good properties and what to do. And so that's where it really creates a win win scenario, where they're looking for places to put their money, but they don't necessarily have the time or the capacity to go learn that and figure it out. And yet, they might have a lot of money. And so this is an opportunity where you can leverage people that are busy professionals, earning good incomes in their day jobs, to be able to place it into real estate and put it with professionals that do a good job managing real estate assets. And so that's creating a really good win win situation is finding those entrepreneurs, you know, established professionals that are like, Hey, I'm busy, I've, I've got my, my job is taken a lot of my time, maybe I've got family taken a lot of my time, I just want to know that my money is going to be a good solid investment. Please take it, I don't have to worry about doing the flip myself hiring the contractors playing GC and property manager, I can just put it there and know that it's going to grow like you said, you know, double in five years double in 18 months.

Jarod
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And, and to that point, you know, I remember this even go on and I always know I wanted to be and play an active role in real estate, you know, I just I have a passion for this, and I just I just love this, but, you know, even beginning you know, as far as like finding a single family, I mean, just taking the time to source through all these deals to find this, put an offer on this and, you know, and I mean, it took so much time to do that and I'm Like, once I heard of apartments, and I'm like, I can just spend two or three hours, you know, you know, have a conversation with the operator, look at the deal, make sure all my questions are answered, feel comfortable, and then bam, I'm sending the money. Right. And so to your point, I mean, people are busy, they don't want to take the time to do this, you know? So, yeah, it's, it's definitely a great opportunity to, to park some capital for sure.

Mike Swenson
The kind of the last thing that I wanted to poke on was actually something that you said really early on, which is, you know, your first property had some challenges, but you said, you wanted to get over the threshold. And I think that's what holds a lot of people up is this paralysis by analysis? I'm going to spend, you know, years learning about real estate, but I'm never going to get over the threshold and do something. And, you know, yeah, you, you probably would have done your second property and single family different than your first you would have asked different questions, you would have also gone into it with more knowledge, because you've done it before. And then you're, you're getting over the hump and getting over the threshold of placing your money in a syndication. And so I think for a lot of people's real estate is risky, just like other assets, but at the same time, you can't get to better until you start. So you've got to just get over the threshold get started. So yeah, if it's a single family, if it's a syndication, you can't just keep sitting on the sidelines, and you're gonna get better, you're going to ask better questions, even in syndication, if you decide to skip single family multifamily to begin with and just put your money in a syndication, that may be a fantastic one. Or you might find a different one, or something that fits your needs better the second time around, so you're gonna learn and grow. But you can't get to your second syndication and get till you get to your first and you've got to get in the game. And I think that's what hinders so many people as they're so scared or so risk averse to lose money or to have something bad happen. But like you said, you could invest your money and in a corporation and one one bad decision, one bad tweet, and that stock price falls by 30%. And now you've lost 30%. And so are you going to lose 30% In a real estate investment? That's, that's a lot harder to do. Because it's, it's tangible, you can put your hands on it. And yeah, you might have a bad tenant, but you can replace that tenant, you know, and so I think that's where sometimes people don't get in the game, just get over the hump, you gotta get it, you got to get into the game to get better at it.

Jarod
Yes, definitely. And you brought us a lot of great points there. One, it may remind him my favourite saying is education plus action equals results, right? And you because you do you have to educate yourself. And I honestly went through probably about a year, maybe a little under but you know, educating myself around this. And, you know, and it was scary. It was like, Oh, my gosh, what are we doing? You know, and it was like, exciting when I would get something under contract. And but it was scary. It's like, oh, my gosh, what do I do with this? Right? But you know, you'll learn along the way. And, you know, again, I learned more probably in the three weeks, you know, I was under contract on that single family home. Right, then I did probably in the past nine months, you know, trying to educate myself listening to podcasts and stuff like that, because, you know, yeah, I mean, all this stuff is great, but you don't really know until you until you get into it, right? And what I would say is, you know, like, if you are going out and you are at that stage where you're, you know, just looking at getting into game or buying that first single family is just looking at the numbers, the numbers don't lie, right? You know, in the somebody told me a lot and take the emotion out of it. Right? Which is honestly easier said than done. Because I don't care who you are. I mean, if you get something on a contract for your first time, your first investment, there's going to be emotion around it. But if you have a spreadsheet with all the numbers, saying all right, after all my expenses, everything that I have to fork into this property, and the rent, I'm gonna get on it, and my cash flow and right, and that's what matters. Okay? If I am, yes, let's put a con, you know, put an offer on the deal. You did under contract and see where you go, right. You may be able to negotiate a better price. You know, sometimes it's like getting in a fish on the hook. Right, get it on the hook, you might be able to work a little bit more to so anyways, yeah, that was huge for me. And, and yeah, I mean, it's gotten me to where I'm at today and honestly, now I'm, I need to upgrade my bio there but I'm in sick, you know, just invested in my six, you know, limited partner deal, you know, my six indication and, you know, just just still taking those, you know, taking those steps, right. It talks about the small wins, right? There's this book is going on, but the gap in the game, you know, and pretty much the summit, I was just looking at the winds right instead of not what I'm not doing stop looking at what I'm not doing and look at what I am doing. Right. And then, you know, in that book he talks about I write down three wins for the day, you know, three goals I want to achieve for tomorrow, right? So sometimes the thing, the gap, the stuff you didn't complete, okay, well, let's, let's put that on paper. And you know, we can complete that tomorrow or next week, or, you know, so

Mike Swenson
So for people that want to learn more about you, Jarod, and optimal equity group, how can they do so?

Speaker 2
You know, I think the best way is just to go to my website, which is www.optimalequitygroup.com. I have all my social media links. You can schedule a call. Of course, I'm on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn. So you can look me up there as well. But um, yeah, I'm always happy to have a conversation. I love talking about this stuff. My wife really likes it. I'm involved in, like these podcasts and, you know, networking events, so she doesn't have to hear it all the time.

Mike Swenson
Give me an outlet for your excitement, right? Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Yep. I have a wife that loves what I do and loves the fact that she doesn't have to deal with that, you know, so she's, you know, she's a therapist. Totally different industry. And she's like, You like real estate. Great. And I, you know, she's got confidentiality, so she can't talk about her job with me. But at the same point, yeah, it's, it's a great outlet. So I agree. Well, thank you so much, Jared, for coming on. For those of you listening. Yeah, if you want to learn more, go check out the website. But thank you so much for sharing your information and your story and hopes to inspire others that they can say, hey, I can I can do this too. And if syndication is something I want to pursue, here's kind of the steps of how I can do that. So thanks so much shared for coming on and sharing. Awesome, thanks.