Jim Sheils: Build To Rent & Prioritizing Your Family

LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE ON:

Jim has done a lot with his time in real estate, literally going coast to coast. He started with his first property in California for 152k to now living in Florida having completed over 2,000 rehabs and focusing on the Build To Rent niche building Single Family Homes, Duplexes, and Quads throughout Florida through his company Southern Impression Homes. His real estate accomplishments are great, however, what he's most excited about is his company, 18 Summers, that he founded with his wife, providing family education services to entrepreneurs and professionals seeking to strengthen their family relationships while succeeding in business. He also authored "The Family Board Meeting" which is a #1 Wall Street Journal Best Seller.

In this episode hosted by Mike Swenson, we discussed:

• How Jim started to fix up houses and resell them to first-time homebuyers and then hold them as rentals
• The ins and outs of Jim build to rent business and how their numbers look for potential investors
• Using the build to rent model to find quality over quantity
• How it is important for Jim to not only build a new home in the right area but manage it in the right way
• Jim 18 Summers program he started with his wife and why you should not miss the 18 summers with your family before they graduate

Timestamps:

0:00 - Intro To Jim's Career
2:03 - How The Build To Rent Company Was Born
5:18 - Going From Existing Property To New Construction Affordably
6:34 - Construction And Rental Cost
12:09 - Vacant Open Lots And Development-Type Projects
14:18 - Matching Up The Investment Opportunities With The Projects
18:32 - In-House Property Management
20:51 - Managing A Real Estate Business As An Entrepreneur
24:29 - The 18 Summers
28:09 - Involvement

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https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimsheils/ 
https://www.18summers.com/ 
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/18-summers-podcast-for-parents/id1517106300

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Minnesota Real Estate

Read the full transcript here:

Mike Swenson
Welcome to The REL 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
All right. Welcome, everybody to another episode of The REL Freedom Podcast. We talk about building time and financial freedom through opportunities in real estate. And today's guest truly is a great example for that. And one of the things that we maybe don't talk enough about on our show is how real estate can fund your life, how real estate can really help you get what you want in life. And we know that there's a lot of parents on this that listen to this podcast. And so our guest today Jim shields is going to share a lot about how real estate has helped fund everything else, how it's built everything else. And so not only is he great in the real estate space, but he's also great in the the dad space building a life space as well. And so a little bit about him before we jump in Jim's a real estate expert with extensive knowledge and build to rent which we haven't talked too much about. So excited to dig deeper in there. A partner at Southern depression homes, a company that specialises in building rental portfolios in Florida's high growth markets for individual investors and institutional buyers. In addition, Jim is the co founder and co owner of 18 summers along with his wife, Jamie, which provides Family Education Services to entrepreneurs and professionals seeking to strengthen their family relationships while succeeding in business. And also author of The Family board meeting. The third edition just came out number one, Wall Street Journal best seller, so congrats on that, and also the passive income playbook. So we've got a lot of stuff to talk about Jim. So welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for having me,

Jim Sheils
Mike. Good to be here.

Mike Swenson
Go ahead and just get started. Share a little bit about the background. Obviously, we'll dig into the builder and stuff at the beginning. And then we can chat more about kind of the family dad stuff later. But walk us through your career.

Jim Sheils
Yeah, I started 24 years ago in California. Actually, I remember my first property a three family house putting the offer 252,000 And hyperventilating in the kitchen of my rental property and like what the hell am I doing? I don't have $152,000 Wow. And that was the start of getting into real estate full time, I just cut line with my job and really went all in and started to fix up houses and resell them to first time homebuyers and then started to hold them as rentals. And then saw the fundamental shifting California didn't have the best landlord laws or tax laws. So looked at Florida and came here on about 2004 2005 survived the meltdown and and bulk foreclosures became our business buying, fixing and holding, renovated foreclosures, also working with investors to help them build portfolios. And that went really well. Until about 2014. The market here in Northeast Florida became very hot, there was a lot of people wanting to get in and find fixer uppers. And my now building partner and I who were investor friends said, what if we could build our own investment properties for us and our investors instead of just stick to only the the old fixer uppers. And that's where the build to rent model for us was born. And so nine years later, you know, we've built over 2000 properties. You know, we have over 850 active investors in our company, which creates about 44 million in recurring revenue every year, and about 700 million under Asset Management right now. So that created about 165 million for equity for our investors. So not all came to the build to rent. So it was an evolution of just a need. And today we're in about 14 different markets in Florida. And we build in high growth areas, you know that have population growth, economic growth, good affordability indexes, healthy supply and demand and some draw some desirability. And we stick to the residentials simple properties have single families, duplexes, and quads. And it's been a great model to take away a lot of the headaches that I used to find in fixing up older properties that I'm sure we'll talk about today. And that's what I spend a lot of my time doing along with spending time with my family and our education company for families.

Mike Swenson
Well and as a real estate agent myself who helps work with investors. You know, a lot of times been in the Minneapolis St. Paul market. I hear our investors say, you know, we'd really love to have properties that are 1965 or newer, and I say that's fantastic. The reality is is Minneapolis and St. Paul, most of the multifamily housing stock was built in the early 1900s. And so you've got properties where it's 100 125 years old, and along with that comes a lot of maintenance, a lot of stuff that's outdated. Now once we get out into the suburbs or we get into some of the other larger communities around Minnesota, we can find stuff that's newer, yeah, talk through that balance of being able to do it affordably I know that's the concern for a lot of people is it's like, Hey, I'd love to build something new. But at the same time, how do we do it in a way that it hits the numbers that we want to hit?

Jim Sheils
Yeah, it's, it is a tough learning curve to start, because you're going from an existing property to new construction and new construction has a good amount of more steps to it, you know, getting the land approved, and the permits approved. And, you know, going ground up, one of the keys that we've been able to hit it a level now, which we couldn't at the beginning of Mike is, is we do a good Volume and Volume has privileged so for we now self build, so we're our own builder, we're able to get better deals, not a vat of national building companies, but pretty dang close for our pricing on materials and sub contracting. So one of the keys to us was, was having either, if you're just starting out with this, a really good builder, contractor, you can trust, you know, and then the goal would be to get to a capacity where you're doing on your own and you're able to get those, you know, better access to materials and labour. So that's been absolutely, you know, key for us.

Mike Swenson
So how does that work out with the numbers just kind of rough numbers sharing what that would look like in terms of, you know, your construction costs, and then the rental costs and what that would look like for a potential investor?

Jim Sheils
Yeah, so we look at properties now between about 240,000 800,000. So that's 240,000, for a starter, single family home, new construction all the way up to 800,000. For a quadruplex, which is four units under one roof, of course. So our numbers, you know, we offer, one of the things we're always trying to do, Mike is, is fix the issues, right. So that's how our builder rent company was born, we didn't nuking the old construction, like you said, you can do great in them. And I own old properties. But I know after three years, even if I've renovated, there's going to be higher maintenance and repairs normally higher turnover on the new construction, we haven't seen that. So that's a really important difference of why we do what we do. We also figured out financing, so we have the in house financing for our people. So that's one of the most important things I think that we offer to solve the issues. So with the in house financing, that helps the return on investment, because if we're locking people in at 4.75, opposed to 7%. Well, that can get us to the numbers. So even on the new construction in nicer areas, you know, we're getting a five to seven cap, you know, in our cash flow is you know, ranging from, you know, normally 6% to 10% cash on cash return. So, again, we're we're at that stable, productive level of what we're trying to get for, and one of the most important things. When I went into it, I'm sure you heard people talked about the 1% rule. I used to get the 1% rule on fixer uppers in more marginal areas. We found after comparing 2000 foreclosures fixed up to 2000 new construction in better areas. The overall longevity growth and performance is much better. So what you sacrifice and cashflow in the beginning, is rewarded in less headaches. And just in the growth in a few short years, we've seen a much better standard of growth with the rental on these new constructions than we did with our own properties.

Mike Swenson
Yeah, you bring up a good point in terms of tenants wanting to stay there longer because it is new. And so you find I would say maybe some hidden costs or some things that you plug into a calculator to kind of come up with your utopian ideal situation, you're not going to have to have as much of the capex expenses, not as much of the property management expenses, because ideally, you're not going to have that toilet needs to get fixed or something like that, that pops up because it's new man, it should last a little bit longer. So is that something that you communicate with your clients and share these things and help them tweak their budget or financial calculations a little bit to understand that how this build to rent is so much different than somebody buying a 1900 duplex?

Jim Sheils
Yeah, yeah, it's a different model. And so we actually designed some people who go to JJ playbook.com is my wife and I, we wrote about our journey into real estate, you know, with the old fixer uppers going to build a rent, how did we get to over $40,000 a month in passive income and big component that is the build to rent model. And there's reasons we've gone from, you know, I hung up my rehab shoes eight years ago, and why did we do that? You know, how is it helping clients so that's a great starting point that they can look up. But the bottom line is, is what we tried to teach on is what you just hit on, you know, the first three to five years of owning a property like you know, this is just a very Pinnacle time to get it off on the right foot. Because if you're getting in at a good momentum had good fundamentals, as you own property for longer for me, it's become easier as long as it's well managed and in good areas, you know, and you have a real wind at your back. But those first few years are super important. And what I've seen a lot of new investors get swallowed up on is they get into a tough area with deferred maintenance. And when they do that, it's just this avalanche of maintenance, repairs, turnover, turn costs, and they just throw in the white flag. And what I found is it's called my brother in law when people say, what advice would you give to your brother in law, and again, I caveat this, I really liked my brother in law. So So you want to get this a brother in law you really like I always say it sounds really cool in the things that I've done over 1000 rehabs and on hundreds of properties. But if I went back, Mike, I would own less of better quality with less leverage. That's, that's just because 108 hit, we all felt the pain. And I'm one of the Lucky's who was heavily invested in Florida and California that survived, because I saw a lot of people go bankrupt. And what I've found, it's not about the number of properties you have, it's about the quality of the properties you have and how they perform. And sitting here today, you know, compared to 10 years ago, I have a lot less properties than I used to own numbers wise, but I have way more equity and way more cash flow than I ever have. And that's been the big lesson with the build to rent. There's not the it's a little bit higher buy in. But I'm now looking for quality over quantity. You know, I'm not as concerned about getting into the hundreds of properties, because what I found is when I had that amount, if they're losing the money every month because of the things I just said turnover and unexpected maintenance, repairs, deferred maintenance coming due. It's not as exciting as you might think. In fact, it's quite painful.

Mike Swenson
Now for the build to rent properties. Are you doing kind of one off on vacant open lots? Are you doing more development type projects? Or how are you deciding what to move forward with?

Jim Sheils
Yeah, that's a great question. And we do both. So I was taught that old school mentality when you're buying a rental, it's great to go where there's a mixture of homeownership and renters, right, it's normally a better stability, better resale ability. So we buy infill lots, so we'll go to an established neighbourhood, and whatever market we're in Jacksonville, Palm Coast, Southwest Florida, and we'll buy lots in a good established neighbourhood. So now those neighbourhoods have a great mixture of percentages of homeowners to renters on those really well. Now what we'll also do since we're we do have a whole land division now our team has grown holy cow to 170 people, and we have a whole land division. So we buy bigger tracts of land. And that lands we'll develop much so one, one project, we did one of our larger ones called Panther Creek, it's in West Jacksonville, different golf course, took a few years to get it. It was developed into 1000 Lots. And we sold about 850 of the lots to national home builders, we work with some national home builders that buy lots office because we're always buying land and they like finished lots when we sold them 850 of the lots. So they're gonna put their nice houses up for owner owner occupied and then we kept scattered throughout 150 Lots for ourselves to build our build. So we normally if we're going to buy a bigger development like that, we will we will sell some of the lats to national homebuilders. So they're building well around us with owner occupied and then we fill in. Now some of the stuff that we do for quad communities. You know, we'll build, you know, a 15 building quad community, you know, sometimes it'll be a family office, or we'll offer some of that to individual investor, sometimes a institutional buyer will come in, but those will be all investor owned, if that makes sense. You know, if you're going to be in a quadra, Quadra quad community, it's going to be all investors.

Mike Swenson
So the investors, how do you kind of match up the investment opportunity with the project that you've got for people that are interested?

Jim Sheils
Yeah, well, we we've had a growing sales Partnership Programme for quite a while now. You know, what I learned was when I first was doing the bulk foreclosures in 2008 2009, here, a lot of people want to be in Florida. And then since I had contacts out on the West Coast since I've been there, you know, it seemed like west of the Mississippi and more expensive areas. There were a lot of real estate groups and brokerages that if someone could be on the ground in Florida, they had investors that wanted to buy there. So we continue to build I mean, that's something you know, you might say, gosh, we love Florida, we have investors so we do partnership agreements with lots of different brokers and realtors through our programmes. So what we'll do is they get referred are to us through our sales partners. And then our our property consultant team just goes through what are you looking for? What do you have to invest? What are your goals, and then we'll kind of play matchmaker to our markets and our prices. You know, a lot of people might say great with where you're at and how you're wanting to grow over the next two years, you might want to start with just a single family home, or a quad or, or quad in a single family home, it depends on the people's what they're looking to do, and their overall goals, but we try to match that to the portfolios that we've built. And again, we've we have a great track record. And case studies have many portfolios we've built for, for how to vary owners, that's great. I

Mike Swenson
tell my investors to that I work with, you know, my goal is to be the matchmaker. And it's really understanding their needs, their preferences, their timelines to and finding properties that fit when they're, they're looking to, you know, maybe get out or they want to hold it for a long time. So yeah, being as large as you guys are, you have lots of opportunity. And it's just finding that right fit.

Jim Sheils
Yeah, the right fit and the right service. Again, it's been a it's been an experiment since the beginning, when we first started doing this with foreclosures, investors said, Hey, can you give me a foreclosure? And they'd say, Okay, well, here it is. We can, can you fix it? Great, we can fix it. Okay, well, you know, you're in need alone, right? Yeah. Well, who do you use? Okay, and insurance? Who do you use management? Who do you use? And so we just basically built up our own team, because we knew there was always gonna be the question of, well, who do you use for financing? So we always have a list of preferred financing people, you know, who do you use for management? Well, we have our own management company now. You know, so we try to answer all those questions that we know are coming so that they don't have to ever guess, where the next solution comes from, if that makes sense.

Mike Swenson
And I'm assuming you find with the people that are investing with you, and this is the same thing that I tell my folks is, if you do a good job with the investment, they're just going to want to continue to invest. And so you build that good relationship. And that's where I think a lot of times I hear people asking about, you know, I'm looking for money, or I'm looking for finances, or I'm looking for capital from people. And it's you have to understand, you're trying to build a long term relationship with them. Because if I'm doing a good job stewarding your money, you're gonna want to continue to invest with me. And so for you, hey, if I put my money with you, you do a great job with it, you're probably going to have first dibs on the next money that I have available. Right.

Jim Sheils
And that's the goal, our most successful clients, I'd say, you know, yes, we work with the larger family offices or institutions, but our individual investors, that's where I really enjoy. And we have, like I said, closing in on 1000 of them. They the most successful ones, normally, by between three to eight properties, it becomes a solid little performing soldier of a portfolio, they don't have to spend a lot of time on, but they see that for the longevity, you know, it's in good condition, good area, you know, rent and equity have grown really well. And at a conservative approach, we think it will continue to, and that's what we want. So if you do a bad job on the first one or two properties, you're not going to get that most successful clients have three to eight properties, there's no way. So we look really wide range on that, like, we don't ever look at a client as one property, even if that's all they can afford. Because we know we want to get so many to that best performance level of 3d properties.

Mike Swenson
Now, do you also do in house property management? Or do you have vendors that you work with and refer to or

Jim Sheils
we do property management, it's we actually made it a requirement for a long time, because that first experiment we did back in 2014, you know, we let people self manage in a small 28th House development we did and they didn't screen they were out of area, and you get a few bad tenants and that small of a new area, it can be pretty painful. So what we actually did as we were acquired, I mean, manage, because we were actually in management before we were in building. And then I, my now building partner, him and his father and a good property management company, they manage my personal portfolio. And that's how all of this kind of was incepted. And so what we take management very seriously. So we usually requirement for the first two years now we're more loose on that. But the good thing is, we have a retention of like 98% on past the two years. So we do like to fill in that piece of gap because most of the people we're working with and I'm sure you are like they're they have a successful business or a busy professional with a successful practice or service and they want to be involved in real estate, but they don't really want to get their hands dirty. They don't want to be bothered with the calls. They're not wanting to be problem solving and all the time we're spending a lot of time so. So management is absolutely key. You know, if you don't even buy a property at 50 cents on the dollar, if you don't have management in place, you can still lose money. And so that is one of our most important Woods pieces, I think is being able to not only build a new home in the right area, but manage it the right way.

Mike Swenson
So can you talk a little bit as an entrepreneur running a business in real estate? And obviously, you've been in a long time the markets changed. Things have ebbed and flowed. I'm curious to know, how much of your path so if you kind of set out and said, Here's what I'm looking to do, here's my goals. How much of it was going with the flow as the market changed? How much of it with was you kind of intentionally changed? I'm just curious to hear as an as an entrepreneur and a successful business owner, you know, you obviously started in California. And now here you are in Florida, and what you're doing is much different than maybe what you intended. How did that kind of ebb and flow as the market changed as life changed? And that sort of thing? And how did you react to that?

Jim Sheils
I think you have to be brutally honest, Mike, you have to be brutally honest. And take inventory. None of us want to stop and take inventory of things we've done right or things we've done wrong. But that was that was part of my progression, or my evolution was was constantly reassessing what we're working on. Because one thing that might have been great for me 15 years ago is not great for the market. Now. One thing I did get very clear on which I'm sure I don't have to tell anyone listening this, the media is an awful, awful guidance for real estate investing. It's just It is terrible. You know, I remember in 2005 2006, when it just was screwy, it was all the numbers, people paying above appraised value, no cash flow at all, all negative and you know, the media say in double digit appreciation, no end in sight get in our, your you're never going to get in? Well, we all know what happened. Oh, 708 it's very painful time for all of us holding properties. And you know, 2009, there were incredible deals. And in that same media was saying the real estate's data, it's never coming back, you know, and they tell this story. So there's so you know, you want to almost be contrarian to media. And the problem with the media too. I mean, there's lots of things wrong with them. But is they talk in a very general term, where you know, you and I were joking before we got on this call, like, Oh, how's the weather up in Minneapolis, what's going on in Florida, you and I don't average the weather for you today and me today and determine how we're going to dress, if that makes sense. And when you're talking about the National Housing average, it is very similar to the National Weather average, you know, that if you combine Minneapolis with with St. Augustine and New York State and Seattle, that doesn't really tell you how to dress for the day. And what I've learned is real estate is very localised. So wherever you're investing, you have to look at the statistics and the number for that area. Because, you know, contrary, I knew areas in Oh 809 that were doing great. You know, there were some markets that they didn't feel anything, you know, when I was going through pain, and then vice versa. So you really have to look at the individual market and the fundamentals there. And don't don't worry about what the media saying or what the general numbers they're giving, you know, dig in on your particular fundamentals for the area one invest, and that's what you should pay attention to. That's been a huge lesson for me to keep sanity and also to get the best results and you can't be afraid, Mike to burn your ships. You know, I think that's the whole Napoleon Hill thing. You know, it was pretty scary. I mean, to hang up those rehab shoes. I mean, I only knew one way to make money, Mike, and that was to find a fixer upper, fix it up and rent it or sell it. That's it. That was my whole niche to wealth. And to say, I'm not doing that anymore, who I mean I'm cold and out in the wind. But that evolution it more than tripled my worth and allow me to spend more time with my family which is extremely important to me

Mike Swenson
glad that you brought that up talk about 18 summers how this has opened up doors for you and your family and your life to be able to enjoy it. I know you also have a place in Costa Rica and you're very intentional about your time with your kids and also having board meetings with your with your children to talk about that.

Jim Sheils
Yeah, you know, Mike, there's so much good information out there for guys like you and I of how to build a successful real estate investment company. To be a top performing real nerd to run a business. There's not a lot out there for investors and entrepreneurs to succeed at home. A there's just not a lot of info on and you know you can look at or at least not designed where you don't have to be a family psychologist or therapist to understand what they're telling you to do. And look both of those have a great meaning and purpose to them. But sometimes, you just need to simplify the sciences and give people an easy playbook to follow. And I was determined to do that for myself. You know, I have five children now ranging from two to 20. So, you know, I'm busy, and I don't want to miss that time. And a mentor of mine told me years ago, do it do those first 18 summers, right? You only got 18 summers with them, they're still gonna be your kids after that my kids are grown now is you know, and, and, and they keep coming back because they did those first 18. Right. But let me tell you, there's nothing like those first 18 summers, he's like you can't you can't buy those back. Anyone that's telling you to put your head down for the next five to 10 years and get back to your family like after that. And they'll understand it's a horrible, horrible recipe for disaster. And and I want to see deposits of quality time along the way memory making along the way simple rhythms that keep you grounded and home so you don't feel like a stranger or a part time disciplinarian or even just an ATM machine that shows up once in a while. That's a terrible thing. You know, and and I didn't want to live like that. And so I was really intentional about setting some rhythms in my life and share that I shared that into a book that I didn't even feel comfortable sharing. And all of a sudden it got a following I was doing talks. And now rerelease we're a number one bestseller on the Wall Street Journal list, which it sounds weird to even say, Mike, because I thought this is just too simplistic. This is, is no one's gonna find this important in the business world, this emphasis is on family. And and very, very happily, I was wrong. So our whole mission with 18 Summers is we want you to be successful in business and at home. And there's some simple effective ways to do that. And that's what our, our book talks about. That's what you know, our talks retreats and workshops talk about is, let's enjoy it along the way. Because I've worked with 1000s of families now and some of the most painful regrets that I watch. And these are people with huge balance sheets, that would give it all back probably for a second shot. So knowing we don't get second shot, let's do it first, right the first time.

Mike Swenson
Yeah, and as a dad who has so I've got three boys 11, nine and five, right in the middle of it. And, you know, every every night this week, outside of Saturdays, we've got kids activities, and playoff baseball tonight for my nine year old and I get to be an assistant coach, which was something that even this year, I decided to step up and to coach, I'm a very competitive person. And so I always told my wife, I have a hard time agreeing to coach because I feel like it's going to suck the worst out of me sometimes, you know, being able to hold your tongue or being able to be positive, and I've just found it to be a blast get to high five, the kids, I'm usually the first base coach, you know, to high five. And when they get to first, it's been great and means I have to cut off at work a little bit early on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And that's okay. So I will say it's it's difficult managing my schedule to be able to have that time to take that extra time at practices and things like that. But it has been really rewarding to do that. I love to hear that. Well,

Jim Sheils
look, Mike, one of the easiest, offensive and defensive and I'm not gonna say easy, one of the most simple it's not easy, but it's simple. And that's that's the involvement, the principal involvement. Involvement is such an offence in the defence of the issues that our kids deal with today, and marriages. And so involvement is key. And you're doing that, obviously with the activities. The second thing that I'll say to help with that involvement is to also weave in the one to one principle, and the tech fasting principle. And that's something I talk big about in my books is, you know, if people hear nothing else today, it's just to hear this one thing, get one on one with each member of your family on a consistent schedule with your wife for date night, which we talk about and so many people overlook the power of that and how it can be set up to really foster and facilitate a deeper marriage deeper love in so many people just don't do it. And then even one on one time with each of those kids because I don't need to tell you all three of those lively boys come from the same spot but they're very different. And they liked that attention and Mike man it is it's the best way you can describe it when I get one on one with my kids and I set these one on one dates and and we'll get into the tech fast in a minute. But my phone's on invited. No one's getting me no one. It's just us. No one else is invited. It's like that scene in the first Spider Man member Tobey Maguire when the big bullies come in to punch his lights out and and he just that he sees the punch so slowly come in his awareness is just so evolved there. If that's what you almost things just slow down. And you have this complete awareness that you're there with someone in great importance in your life. And that's where individual individuality He starts to come out and you can see it. That's where gifts and talents and deeper conversations that we want our kids to have with us, instead of their friends or the internet's have the chance come out and you have a chance to have fun on their terms. So one on one is absolutely key like, in the way to not kill it, is you got to turn your phone's off, I don't need to tell this, I'm so glad we have technology. I'm not anti tech, how could we be having this great conversation today. But you got to have times of complete and total unavailability to really show priority to the people most important in your life. And that one text that one phone call that one useless Facebook thread, you know, if you tried to put that in between the two of you, and you're supposed to be in focus time, well, you just ruin the moment, you just prove that they're less important, and you're not fully there, you're now involved in something else somewhere else. And that could be the death of a relationship. So you know, involvement is key, which you already there. And I encourage every person just from my own experiences, I get pretty raw in my own family life. And my book is if you will put the one to one principle on intermittent tech fasting into your life, which means you're not giving up tech, just like intermittent fasting, you're just choosing to only eat between this window and this window, do these same break periods for tech, and you're gonna see a deeper connection. And in a stronger bond, because way too many people, investors, especially real estate, investors might have said to me, I feel like a stranger in my own home. And that's heartbreaking. That's wrenching. And it doesn't have to be that way. With some simple principles and rhythms put into place, it can be all that you want it to be and more not perfect. It's not about perfection. But you can bridge your imperfections and really enjoy the life a lot more.

Mike Swenson
So talk about you know, some of the the opportunities or the travels or you know, having your your place in Costa Rica, that you've been able to do as a result of, you know, your passion for your family and wanting to spend time with them mixed with your success and your real estate business.

Jim Sheils
Yeah, I mean, the first time I went to Costa Rica, 24 years ago, before I knew my wife, I went and said, I'm getting married here someday. And sure enough, we did. And we started to go down. And then in the pandemic, we went down and spent six weeks there because I could work from wherever and I said, it's time and so we bought the home and we spent a few months out of the year there working and playing from there. And we just loved the set one of our core values Mike as adventure, we love adventure, we're more into experiences and things and real estate investing my my passive income and businesses from it have allowed me to do that, you know, my parents, my goal is to have a legendary family life. And all that means is all the things I dreamed of as doing as a kid because we had no money I get to do still. And my dad passed away two years ago, anything he dreamed of donating get to do I want to fulfil for him. And so I can see I'm doing that I've gotten to go back to Ireland and visit our roots, you know, my family roots that are still there. We've gotten to go our big thing for us a big value for us as service and contribution. We've gotten to go build houses in Mexico, we've gotten to help support orphanages in Guatemala, all these things, we've taken six week RV adventures into the Nova Scotia Canadian eastern region. And you know, that mixture of adventure and service and contribution. There's no way I could have ever done that without my portfolio without my real estate. It funded all of that. And it so it opened up these things where I didn't have to be glued behind the desk like so many of my friends or family. I wanted to be different. I wanted to live different and real estate's made all the difference. That's awesome.

Mike Swenson
And I yeah, there's there's so much more that we could chat about. I just love your mix of doing well at business life, and then putting priority on family life and with your spouse as well. I know there's so many people out there that do it as a sacrifice. And I remember a flip that we've done. I've shared this a few times. You know about two years ago, we did a flip with the other agents on my team. I had done some flips in the past, but not with three kids at the same time. You know, as before we had kids and my wife was getting your master's degree and I had a little bit more time to do that stuff. And I still remember spending time some nights and some weekends away working on the house and thinking this is the reason why I'm doing this as for my family, and I rationalised that. And then I realised once we got done with the flip how much pressure and stress my wife had, as a result of me being gone nights and weekends working on it. And so I'm thinking like, this doesn't line up. Like I feel like I have to sacrifice something to get what I want financially, but I realised that I sacrifice the wrong thing. You know, I sacrifice. I wanted more time with my family. But to do that I actually gave up more time with my family. And so then that helped me kind of course correct and realise, okay, what I want to do in the future with my real estate investments is not going to be something that takes me away from my family. And so that was a life lesson for me

Jim Sheils
on that simple distinction by So that's what I was talking about before taking inventory. So I would never, if I was still, you know, just finding fixer uppers every every week and doing that model could never be doing the adventures that I'm doing, I wouldn't have the same financial gains either. So actually, by getting clear on that, you know, taking that inventory like you did, same thing I was able to, it makes you start to think that's a great thing. We have that entrepreneurial spirit and insight. And if we allow ourselves to say this isn't working, how could it be done differently, then that's when the creativity starts to open up, that's when we can start to do you know, the business by design to fit the lifestyle. I know, people say, Oh, that's impossible. Like if someone told me five years ago, you're going to be able to live in Costa Rica, three, four months out of the year and run an even bigger business, I would have said, You're insane. I would have said you're absolutely crazy. I remember getting to go down for for a week, week and a half and being like, oh, man, I mean, there's no way I can be here longer. So but I think like you said, taking that inventory Mike and saying, Okay, this way doesn't work. How can it work? And also, you know, I'm sure, what I've learned is, I'm now a partner in a business, which serves me really well, because I'm able to stick to my core, most high level talents, you know, my my unique abilities, that's all that I work in. And I'm doing better now. And I'm not, it's not in my own business. Now. I'm a partner in SI homes, which serves me really well and serves them really well. So there's always different ways to skin the cat. And I think if you're not willing to evolve, and course correct, like you just said, then then you're not going to get what you're really wanting. And for you right there. It sounds like it was more time with your family.

Mike Swenson
Right? Yeah. Awesome. Well, Jim, thanks so much for coming on. For people that want to learn more about you or more about what you're doing, how can they do so? Yeah, if you want

Jim Sheils
to learn more about our passive income playbook and build a rent, just go to JJ playbook.com. You'll get to learn all about us our principles, why we do what we do, how we achieve what we achieved, and how the build to rent model really works, and is helping so many people. And if you're interested in our more family education, go to 18 summers.com our books available Barnes and Nobles, Amazon anywhere you want.

Mike Swenson
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on. Jim. I just appreciate all that you have to share. And definitely go go to those websites. check those things out support, Jim. But then also to take the wisdom that you've learned in your time in real estate and time with your family and apply it because yeah, you have a lot of great stuff to offer. So thanks so much for coming on.

Jim Sheils
Thanks for having me, Mike.