How Coach Dean Went From Analysis Paralysis to Scaling a Portfolio

For may investors, buying that first property is intimidating to the point that they let deals just pass them by. In this episode Roofstock Academy Coach, Dean West, shares the story of how he moved through that pain point to eventually quit his job to invest in real estate.  --- Transcript   Michael: Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of The Remote Real Estate Investor. I'm Michael Albaum and today I'm joined by my co host,   Tom: Tom Schneider.   Michael: And we have with us a very special guest today, Dean West. He's actually a Roofstock, Academy Coach and consultant with us. And he's gonna be talking to us today about his experience and journey getting started in real estate investing all the way up to what he's doing now as a coach. So let's get into it.   Awesome, Dean West. Welcome to the podcast, man. So happy to have you on.   Dean: It's a privilege Michael. Thanks so much for having me on your show.   Michael: Yeah, of course. So we wanted to give our listeners a little bit of insight into your background as an investor, and then ultimately becoming a rootstock Academy coach. So give everybody a little bit of background on who you are, and how you first got started investing in real estate.   Dean: Yeah, happy to do so. So it was the spring of 85 that I was born, and then from there,   Michael: and you've been at it ever since?   Dean: Yeah, exactly!   Tom: Spring of 85. Great time to be born. great time to be born,   Dean: Isn't it? So I was born in South Africa, I made my move over to America in 99. Since I've been in us, I've been all along California. So I've started in San Diego, then I was in Los Angeles for a bit. And then I spent about 14 years in San Francisco.   When I was in San Francisco, I spent the majority of my time so I was in a big four accounting firm working in the digital forensics e discovery space, which I loved. And I loved my colleagues and everything about it that at some point, I kind of got to this point in my career where I'm like, okay, I can either go for partnership, or I can kind of go this other path, which I've been had been slowly building over the past couple of years into real estate and I love Real Estate Guys Radio Podcast. And one of the things that I think Robert Helms always said was build a life that pays you to live it. So I've followed that ethos and quit my job and kind of pursue this full time.     Michael: Amazing. But so if we just rewind the clock back a little bit, not all the way to the spring 85. But when you first got started investing in real estate, what was your first soiree into real estate investing,   Dean: I started actually with my primary residence. So I purchased a home in San Francisco, I, like many other poor souls in San Francisco was hunting around with my wife for a few years or five years trying to buy a property. So I think I started in 2012 trying to buy a property and four years later, we finally found a home we've been making offers on these properties, but like everyone else, we were getting outbid and people were sending pretty pictures of their dog and family. In their little letter, though, we were kept getting outbid, and it was really quite frustrating.   So what I did like any logical person would do is I bet 25% over asking which wasn't enough by the way there was 16 offers on this property I was in the 16 I didn't know where I fell off my offer but I knew I wasn't the best one out there because I'd come back for another best and final offer so I raised it yet again to 30% over asking and I had after sending all my money I had the privilege of sending all my money to the seller and Yeah, got my first primary residence.   Michael: Awesome.   Tom: So in San Francisco big city is this like like a condo or a proper house or a townhouse and I'm curious having you know knowing San Francisco decently well yeah live it out like what area you were buying   Dean: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Bernal heights.   Tom: Oh, very cool.   Dean: To just south of the city that's like a 20 minute drive into the city perfect places really close to the city is kind of one of those places where you know for people who weren't quite ready to grow up and move all the way to the suburbs. It's kind of like Southern lights because that city feels close enough and I you know, I wasn't quite ready to make that leap and fly my minivan and suburban just yet. So there you go.   I went kind of halfway in between, I tend to think of myself as you know, decently by the numbers and you know, this place was you know, a bit out of my league but the reason I kind of made the jump was because I saw the potential it's a beautiful property two bedrooms at the top one bedroom below and that bedroom below had a separate entrance right of the street, it was almost like an in law unit. So that property itself about 1500 square feet, of which the bottom unit is about 400 square feet and there's a perfect space for an Airbnb play. So when I was making that offer I kind of had that in the back of my mind that hey, I can kind of Airbnb this out and you know at least help pay the mortgage a little bit so yeah, that's that was essentially my first I guess real estate deal. Was my primary residence house hacking.   Tom: Awesome. House hacking. Beautiful. Yeah. Did you ended up going at it from an Airbnb like a vacation rental or longer term stay curious of like, what how that kind of played out, you know, and were you immediately thinking Airbnb or were you thinking like kind of longer term rental?   Dean: No, no, I right off the bat. I was thinking Airbnb. My wife was not thinking that but I was. Little does she know I was very much thinking about having a Airbnb at the bottom there. And yeah, short term rental was what I was looking at. And the reason for that it made it made sense for what I was looking for in San Francisco and California in general, that you know, the landlord laws tend to not be as lenient towards landlord and so I didn't want On to any kind of, you know, squatters or anything that may impinge on that. So I was looking for short term play, it actually really worked out quite well. Because even in Bernal heights, which is a bit outside the city, it was still I was getting, you know, 70 85% occupancy in my unit, which was great. And I was able to very much supplement my mortgage. I think I actually kept on to a 4.96 star rating super host threes years in a row.   Michael: Yeah, humblebrag much.   Dean: Probably the achievement of my lifetime is keeping my rating up there. And that's because I went down there, I picked up every bloody hair I could find. And I hooked on the hospitality aspect of it. I loved the feeling of having guests and trying to give them a you know, a good time here from another country or from from some domestic travelers.   Michael: You're like a unicorn. It's like meeting somebody with an Uber five rating. like nobody has a perfect. That's pretty impressive. Nicely done.   Tom: You don't trust the five?   Michael: Yeah, it's true. It's like, well, what are you doing?   Dean: There's something going on there? No, it was actually I know, the two people that kind of dinged my rating one,   Michael: Let's go find them.   Dean: I know. I know. I tried that. I had no like, the one was the lady who was staying for two nights, and I made the egregious error of not refilling the K cup coffee pods.   Michael: How could you?   Dean: I know, I told her, I was like, please forgive me, like I'll do anyway, she, she dinged my reading right there. And then the second person that's good and what I did, but anyway, just just a few people.   Michael: Okay,   Tom: In preparing to house hack with an Airbnb? How did you kind of prepare yourself to be able to do that? Or you just kind of just use your intuition? And then second question on top of that, was it easier or more difficult than you thought it was going to be having a short term rental in your lower house?   Dean: To answer the second question first, It's actually easier. And the reason for that Tom is actually because I enjoyed it. And everything in life is a lot easier if you enjoy it. I mean, not everyone loves going down and dealing with guests, and you know, trying to make sure everything's perfect, I actually quite enjoyed that I really did enjoy that aspect of it. And sure, it was a lot of work. And I was sometimes in there myself kind of cleaning the toilets going down, and just getting everything cleaned. I finally outsource that. But in the beginning, it was all me.   And then your first question in terms of preparation. For the numbers standpoint, I think I was using it was I think the air DNA at the time, or one of those other websites, or even Airbnb itself in order to get a kind of a ballpark figure of what type of rent, short term rent I could potentially get from this unit. And it actually pretty spot on my my pro forma was somewhat accurate for this aspect. So yeah, in preparation, it worked out quite well.   Michael: Nice. And I mean, I'm like, Tom, I know San Francisco very well. It's a very expensive market, I think it was, at least last year, the most expensive market in the country, even more than Manhattan. So as a percentage basis, how much of your housing expense, were you able to offset by renting this out?   Dean: About half? Actually, wow, that's in terms of growth? So I'll use real numbers. Yes, I pulled in every month, about three to three and a half $1,000 a month, my mortgage was six and a half ish. And then my expenses itself, I was paying about $600 a month for the cleaning and the like refreshing everything and like, you know, buying some ad hoc things, repairs, that was roughly my number. So in terms of buying the property just for Airbnb, it made no sense. But if we were living at the top and kind of offsetting the mortgage, it made perfect sense.   Michael: Yeah, that's awesome. And you're the fact that you're a tax guy. And you come from one of the big four, you probably saw immediately the tax benefits that you'd be able to take advantage of as well.   Dean Yes, well, you think that actually, so I'll company that I used to work for the giant accounting firm, my focus was digital forensics e discovery. So I was dealing white collar crime. So I was doing a very niche type of work. But I learned very quickly about the tax benefits. That was one of the things I really loved about Airbnb play was that I was living there. And I got to do the third of my heating a third of my internet, sort of the waters or the sewer because it was split, kind of two bedrooms and one so 3111 so 1/3 of all our deal use or deal purpose items, I was able to pack the dock so there are a lot of tax benefits or you're living in your primary residence and having a short term rental as well.   Michael: Right now I want to move on to your first remote investment because you joined the Roofstock Academy as a member a couple years ago now and have since been off to the races with regard to investing remotely. So talk to us about what that first remote investment looked like.     Dean: Yeah, you happy to walk you through it. So after the Airbnb that was going on, I was like, Okay, this is awesome. I love I love this kind of stuff. And I was kind of hooked. I assumed living in San Francisco and like okay, well I guess real estate investing, you always have to buy you know where you live. So I was like, Okay, I the only place I could Potentially afford was maybe the outskirts of Sacramento that was like the closest I could find where I could somewhat afford another place.   But I actually remember distinctly sitting in the parking lots of Trader Joe's are sitting with my newborn, I think she was two months at a time when my wife was at the grocery store. And I was scrolling through Reddit of Martha time. And I saw a sneaky little advert for this little company called Roofstock. And I was like, what does this mean remotes real estate investing, you can do that remotely. And I was kind of From then on, I was like it kind of the light bulb went off. And from that day, I tried to consume as many podcasts as possible. Real Estate guys, bigger pockets, the remote real estate vest that wasn't around at the time, otherwise, I would have been on that as well as reading books kind of just trying to saturate myself with as much education as possible. So I think after a full year of learning, I finally pulled the trigger on a property in East Atlanta, and the purchase price was 128,000. But got it down to 123 800. Because of some roofing things. Yeah, that was my first remote real estate. And that's   Tom: What a jump, like, psychologically from, you know, being so close to right on top of your, you know, real estate investment with the house hacking to East Atlanta, like way out there. I mean,   Dean: Yeah.   Tom: Would you say that preparation, that kind of like that time that you spent, like made it that much easier? Or was it still kind of tricky or   Dean: No, it made it almost harder. And it's almost like, and I think Michael knows this from our discussions, it's almost like analysis paralysis. And I find this in a lot of our investors, students as well, people spend almost too much time researching. And I was one of those people that I spent so much time analyzing, and really going down to the nitty gritty that I got almost paralyzed with too much information.   And I think there is kind of a fine balance of, you know, learning the fundamentals, and knowing kind of the basics of how to, you know, how to analyze the markets. And you know, how to read a pro forma, how to understand at least the basics of reading a, an inspection report, and at least being able to know who to speak to, because, look, none of us know everything about real estate, but we know, enough, I think, to be able to point them to another person or in the direction that could potentially help them. I went way beyond beyond that. And I was over analyzing, I was really getting frustrated. So I definitely didn't think in a year and preparation to purchase the place. But I did. But anyway, I purchased my first property for 123 800. This is work well.   Michael: And did you use roofstock as a platform to purchase? Or did you connect with an agent out there? And he's in Atlanta? How did that process work?   Dean: My first property purchase was through roof stock actually bid on quite a few other places before but there were quite a few hungry investors out there kept up bidding me on these properties,   Michael: Probably a bunch of local San Franciscans.   Dean: That's right. I know. quicker than I am. But yeah, finally, this one, I was able to get and pull the trigger. And this was, I think, a few years back now. And before that, even that signed up for roofstock Academy, and I started going through the lesson plan. And I even actually made a little trip over to Indianapolis with the roofstock. Team, my wife and I had our three month old baby with us in Indianapolis touring every Friday from a neighbor down to the D neighborhoods. We got a very good, very good tour of old Indianapolis.   Michael: How great.   Tom: so kind of related as soon as the pandemic is completely under control, excited to start those tours again, those are great.   Dean: Yeah, I think they're absolutely fantastic. I really enjoyed my time with the team out there. And it's easy enough to analyze property remotely, because even the numbers make sense. But it's also nice to be on the ground. Not that you have to do this, but it's you know, it's nice to see kind of the areas as well.   Tom: Yeah. And talk to your tax professional, oftentimes, that is can be deductible in some form. But this is not tax advice.   Dean: Exactly right.   Michael: As you say, it's funny, Dean, because I have a very similar beginning story in that I spent two years doing research and self education and absorbing as much as I could and bigger pockets wasn't around rusak wasn't around. So I had to piece it together for myself and stumble around in the dark. I always joke. So I'm curious, because I know for me, but curious for you. What was that? You know, one or two things that were able to help you get over that hump of doing this remotely? Because you have that foundation of education, but you know, you did it locally. But what was it for you that allowed you to be able to do it remotely?   Dean; I actually don't have a good answer for that almost that I knew I was stuck. And I knew that I was over consuming education. And you always hear in the podcast as well that you know people have analysis paralysis, and I knew I had reached that point that look I can read another five books. It's not going to ultimate viewpoint. Let's kind of just pull the trigger. Let's do this. Let's see what happens. So that's really what it is. There's no like there wasn't like one epiphany. It was just more like I think I've done As much as I can to prepare myself, kind of let's go for it.   Not everything in real estate works off. And it's not a kind of a surefire thing, just like any investment life. But I'd like to tell the story as well of I think it was my second or third purchase, but the Airbnb thing worked out for me really well, the Roofstock. And then the second third piece was this property I bought in Indianapolis man, this thing, I bought it with a tenant inside. And then day one, I took it over that tenant decided to stop paying.   Michael: Welcome to the neighborhood.   Dean: Yeah, welcome to the neighborhood. Yeah, not gonna pay you anymore. So that was fun. That took a few months to get her out. But eventually I did, then my next tenant came in. And there were two trees that happened to fall in my backyard, off to some big storm and damaged the fence twice, to pay to cut up a tree, remove it, repair the fence, and then a couple months later, another tree fell down, cut up the tree again, remove it and then repair the fence. So I didn't quite take that tree felling and date repair into my pro forma, that that is something I want to keep for the future. And certainly not for my performance. But after that, I said, you know, that worked out. So well. Let's go buy four Plex.   So I spoke to old Michael Albaum. And I was like, Who is this guy, you know, who thinks he knows more than me, I've done all this real estate education. I've read all the books. I've listened to all the podcasts. And then I spoke to old Michael here and not to kind of build your ego here. But it was really very enlightening. What I mean by that is that, you know, these podcasts and these books, they're all like a one way street, right? You're getting information one way, you're not able to convey what you're trying to say and what you want and what you're thinking, and have that kind of advice kind of tailor made or custom made. So the coaching I received through roofstock biomark, Michael was very helpful to really point me in the right direction, and just be able to get some customized coaching advice.   Michael: That's really sweet. For those of you can't see I'm totally blushing right now, by the way,   Dean: I can see it.   Tom: I've been marinating on that question. Michael asked earlier about kind of jumping in and just like a couple of points that I'll make on, you know, kind of Crossing the Chasm and then buying, you know, a way that I like to think about it is, you know, when you do make that initial investment, like you're not putting, you know, next month's food money at risk, you know, you are only, you know, investing with what is available to invest, you know, that isn't, you know, like a hard requirement for living your day to day, and you prepare yourself you understand the risks on both sides. I think when buying any of these properties, kind of understanding what are the different things that can happen? Oftentimes, it can be difficult to know, but you know, you have a very good idea of the range. But when you make that investment, you know, you're not putting in money that you can't live without, if that makes sense.   Dean: Yeah, absolutely. Right. I think this is one of the lessons in podcast, it's kind of like talking about like, you can put money into stocks, but stocks go down to zero, whereas real estate, you've still got the land, you've got probably about this still worth something. Whereas your stocks or other type of investments, you could potentially lose it all. So yeah, that's kind of the differences there,   Michael: In worst case scenario too.   Tom: Every single cycle, like they're going to learn that much more, I'm sure after every single deal. It's like, you know, just kind of upping your level understanding,   Dean: Absolutely. Tree following repairs   Michael: To minor expenses in the pro forma,   Dean: Exactly.   Michael: I think, too is as you were mentioning, the value can go to zero in the stock market, in the housing market, you know, things go really south, you can just go move into that property, it still has inherent value. So there's always something that can be done. And, Tom, to piggyback off your point, I'm just going to throw in my own two cents for how making that leap is so doable. So because I come from the insurance industry, anyone who's talked to me for more than five minutes probably has heard that we always ask ourselves in the insurance of your what's the bet? And when it comes to making a decision, because we could spend hours upon hours and days and weeks making a decision? Yes, know, one way or the other. And so we have to ask ourselves, what's the bet?   And if the bet is a $5 million loss, which in the commercial property insurance world is not a big deal, which is blew my mind. They always told me no one's gonna bat an eye, you know, 5-10 million dollar decision. I was like, oh, okay, so that's a quick decision. We have to scale that back for us as individual investors on what a big decision looks like. But then if it's a $1 billion decision, what if something happened once we are, you know, we're gonna spend a lot more time and evaluation on that decision making process. And so same thing for real estate investing, you'll ask yourself, what's the bet?   And if you take a step back and break things down into a bite size, monthly dollar expense coming out of your pocket and say, Okay, if I don't have a tenant in here for three months, what does that look like making mortgage payments, making taxes, payments, making insurance payments, I'm not going to have property management because it's vacant, I'm probably not going to have much of repairs and maintenance because it's vacant, not gonna have much in terms of capex and vacant. So really breaking down what your dollar amount out of pocket cost is on a monthly basis makes it a much more approachable, I feel like concept. It was, for me, at least anyhow, versus spending 150,200 $300,000 on a property signing up for that much debt. I was like, that's really overwhelming. But when I said, Oh, it's 12 $100 a month or 200, dollars a month, whatever it is, that becomes so much more approachable, and it was easier to digest.   Dean: No, you're absolutely right. And also the just the other things that you can benefit from that other investing doesn't have as these those deductions, deferrals and depreciation that go on top of all the other kind of three wealth builders of appreciation, equity pay down and cash flow. So yeah, real estate investing, if you want to know what the founding fathers wanted you to do you look at the tax laws. They're written for real estate investors and business owners.   Michael: Yeah, that's so true.     Tom: So time commitment. So this is a common question for investors are looking to do this more passively. You have a really interesting portfolio of experience with Airbnb renter that you had with remote single family with remote duplex, how has that changed your time investment that you're spending on your real estate investing? How has that changed over time? And I guess, kind of any general commentary on time commitment?   Dean: Yeah. Right. Now, I've just moved over here. So most of my commitments been to getting my my personal affairs in order,   Tom: Dean is calling us from South Africa, by the way, if you didn't, yeah, the wonderful South African accent.   Dean: That's right, not to be confused with British Australian hours, which is fine, and that he has South Africa, I should back up a bit. So I had when I was working my corporate job. And you know, I was really thinking to myself, I always knew I was going to live somewhere else, or do something a bit different in my life. And it made sense for me to move to South Africa, because my whole family's here. And I just wanted to be able to get that experience during my lifetime living here. So this is actually one of the reasons two years ago, or three years ago, whatever it was, a few years back, I started looking at remote real estate investing. And that sole reason was because I wanted to find something I could do that I could do from South Africa, and bring in American dollars, because the American dollar goes very far here in South Africa. And I would highly recommend everyone come visit Cape Town, beautiful spot to be and y'all have to very far here.   So long story short time that I have, since I've moved to South Africa and quit my job, I've had a lot more time on my hands. And I actually haven't spending that much more time on my portfolio just because my property managers are managing them to a certain degree. But once the dust kind of settles here, and I've kind of found my footing here, I plan to invest a lot more of my time because I want to go back and and buy more properties. I want to, you know, look at making my real estate portfolio bit more efficient and finding ways to do that.   To answer your question. My time spent now has been more on finding efficiencies in my rentals versus trying to understand rental properties and how to how to manage them.   Michael: That makes it makes total sense.   Tom: Make sense. I'm curious, Dean, kind of a two part question. One is what is like a beer and a burger costs in South Africa and US dollars,   Dean: A beer and a burger. So the bureau costs about 40 or 30 grand and the burger costs another 15 or 20 grand? So it's 50 round, which is about $3.80.   Michael: Tom,   Tom: That's a winner   Michael: Team trip to South Africa.   Tom: Let's go. Yeah,   Dean: That's right. It's just the flight that's expensive to get out here. And it's a bit of a trek. So we diverged here, but I like to do that. If you look at the earth, if you look at California, if you were to tunnel down through the earth, you would end up about 400 miles off the coast of South Africa. So it's quite literally you can go east or west. And it's a it's about equidistance. From from San Francisco.   Michael: Wow.   Dean: Fun fact.   Michael: Very fun fact,   Tom: I talked to a good amount of foreign investors like looking in buying it as well. So do you have dual citizenship? Are you buying or did you buy it? Not as a US citizen? I'd love to learn about that kind of process. And yeah, learn about that.   Dean: Yeah, no, that's that's a great question. Because I know we do have investor students who are you aren't US citizens? No, I do. I've actually I've had triple citizenship. South Africa, America and England as well.   Tom: Very cool   Michael: Humble brags don’t stop. I'm telling you, man.   Dean: The man the man asked the question. Yeah.   Tom: Michael's getting sole citizenship with his golden visa aid adds some citizenship to my   Michael: Come on Tom step up.   Dean: It’s all the rage. all the rage.   Michael: All the cool kids are doing these days by that. Yeah, exactly.   Dean: Where's your Where's your second citizenship, Michael, Portugal trying to sell? That's right. You did spend about a bit of time over there, right.   Michael: Yeah, so I'll have my conditional application was approved. So now I need to go over there and do some paperwork and then it'll start by time clock for a five year permanent resident status non habitational resident so I can be anywhere in the EU for five years and then I can apply for my passport and ultimately citizenship.   Dean: Oh, that's great. Yeah. Well, the EU is a great place to get citizenship. I just lost that privilege because England decided to, to Brexit out of there, right? So I'm back. I was from 22 or 25 countries, whatever it is, I could live there. Now I'm down to one. In the UK, unfortunately, that's a separate discussion.   Michael: Yeah. So I was gonna say we could go on and on about that one. But so I'm curious. Now, again, because you've now left your corporate job, your W two, and also the states, what do your prospects look like for getting loans? Do you know?   Dean: So what I did was when I left California, I quit my job. I also sold my primary residence in San Francisco. So from a near term standpoint, I'm looking to buy cheaper properties with cash. But from a loan standpoint, I have been doing some research and don't quote me on this, I haven't fully wrapped my head around it or or done the research. But I know there are asset based loans, that you can do that a higher percentage that that's one way to get debt coverage is through asset base loans. There's also not that I would want to do this long term, but hard money lending and other other forms of being able to get loans outside of your traditional lending types.   Michael: Yep, I'm gonna say go look at commercial lenders are going to be great for that. And also private capital, we just did record a podcast with Lima One, their private capital lender that I think anyone who's doesn't fit into that standard box of having a W two for a couple of years or has been self employed for a couple years should definitely explore because the road does not stop. Once you leave the traditional world. There are other options out there. But like you said, you just have to be a little bit more creative in sourcing and funding those deals.   Tom: Or crossover the 10 mortgage.   Dean: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, the 10 mortgage, you have to go commercial. And that's one of the things about real estate is so fascinating to me and it keeps it so exciting is that creativity aspect of it is not just real estate isn't one just one trick pony. Don't just buy a single family home. And that said you can go with that you can go so many different directions. You can do short term, long term, you can do hard money, then you can do wholesaling fix and flips. You can do brrrr and multifamily commercial, you can buy a Starbucks, there's so much to add. Or you can buy a burger shack in South Africa. There's so much to it, that you can do it. It's never boring. I love it. Michael: Yeah. So Dean, I'm curious to know what's next for you What's on the horizon,   Dean: The near term, I'm looking in Indianapolis, Atlanta, um, I kind of two markets, my go to market. So I'm looking to buy another couple properties there with cash. And then my epic goal to use the Roofstock terminology is to do syndication, eventually, I'm gonna run out of cash soon. And when I do, I plan to use that as my kind of next step.   So what I'm hoping to do is find a small apartment building or even a small portfolio of single family homes and source the deal, get the property managers do the research, do all the backend stuff, and then bring investors on board to to purchase that way. That's kind of my on the horizon, what I'm thinking of working on now.   Michael: That's great, man, I know how diligent you are and how analytical you are and how well versed you are in doing that research. So I think it's well suited for you.   Dean: Yeah, it's something that excites me, I love going into the details and go into the nitty gritty and I probably spend too much time that I should like really digging into the weeds and not really finding out details and kind of trying to cover every single aspect or unknown and trying to make it as known as possible before pulling the trigger on those kind of deals.   Tom: Alright, Dean, we're gonna end this episode with a quick fire. So this is kind of like a they call it a Rorschach test where you like see something and you like say the first thing that comes to your head is going to be the audible version of a Rorschach test. So I'm gonna ask you a couple questions. It's an either or question. You got to pick one or the other. Are you ready for your quickfire?   Dean: I got, I am ready to go for them.   Tom: All right. consolidation or diversification?   Dean: Consolidation.   Tom: High property taxes or high income taxes?   Dean: High income taxes.   Tom: High rent growth, or low vacancy?   Dean: Low Vacancy.   Tom: Love it. Cash Flow or appreciation?   Dean: Ooh.   Michael: Stumped him.   Dean: Right in the middle Tom. That was the hard. Cash flow.   Tom: All right. We're halfway done in debt or equity?   Dean: Debt.   Tom: Single family or multifamily? Somethings might be changing!   Dean: Single family.   Tom: Alright, I like it. I like local or remote investing.   Dean: Remote.   Tom: Turnkey, or massive project.   Dean: Turn key.   Tom: Alright, final three. We're going to get off of real estate, the midnight oil or early bird worm?   Dean: Early bird All the way.   Tom: Nice. Nice. Text message or email?   Dean: Text message.   Tom: And the final question. Olive oil or butter?   Dean: Butter.   Michael: All right. All right, man. Nicely done.   Dean: I like that no one understands, like any of the context behind the reasoning. I chose any of those answers, but I'm going to stick to it.   Michael: Perfect.   Tom: Yeah, yeah, it's they were all right and wrong answers and you got them all right.   Michael: All right. You nailed it. We should have some like Who Wants to Be a Millionaire music player. When we when we asked the other backgrounds That's right. Yeah. Well, the This was awesome, man, thank you so much for hanging out with us really appreciate you coming on.   Tom: Yeah. And you said you had a final pearls of wisdom?   Dean: No, I just wanted to say that one of the things actually that really helped me out get towards pulling the trigger was an accountability partner. So I joined a mastermind group and you don't have to go as far as you know, doing a formal group like that. But having someone in your life to You can tell what you're doing and tell them your goals and what you're working towards. And having them hold you accountable is is life altering, it can really help you push you along the way. Because not only are you responsible to yourself and your internal thoughts, it's that person who is kind of going to push you along the way as well. So I think it's very helpful to have someone like that.   Michael: Accountabilibuddy.   Tom: Alright. Awesome. Thank you so much, Dean for jumping in.   Dean: Look forward to doing it again. It's been a privilege to be here. Thank you all.   Michael: Awesome.     Alrighty, everybody. That was our episode for today. A big thank you to Dean for coming on, and sharing his experience and journey with us looking forward to hearing more about his journey. And we're going to be having him back on talk about the differences and going from single family to multifamily and what that experience looks like. If you enjoyed the episode, please feel free to give us a rating or review. Wherever it is you listen, your podcasts are super helpful for us. And as always, if there's a topic that you want to hear more about, leave us a comment in the comment section, and we'll turn it into an episode. Thanks so much for listening. catch you on the next one on happy investing.   Tom: Happy investing.