How Nick Haraden went from single family rentals to multi-unit syndications

Nick Haraden and his wife started investing in real estate in early 2020. They quickly acquired multiple homes and hopped directly into a on a 24-unit apartment syndication, all while continuing to add to their single-family portfolio.  In this episode, Nick tells us about his journey, from starting out to where he is now.  Learn more about Nick's company on his website: www.hudsonhallproperties.com   --- Transcript   Before we jump into the episode, here's a quick disclaimer about our content. The Remote Real Estate Investor podcast is for informational purposes only, and is not intended as investment advice. The views, opinions and strategies of both the hosts and the guests are their own and should not be considered as guidance from Roofstock. Make sure to always run your own numbers, make your own independent decisions and seek investment advice from licensed professionals.   Michael: What's up everyone? Welcome to another episode of The Remote Real Estate Investor. I'm Michael Albaum and today I'm joined by an actual old high school buddy of mine, Nick Haraden. And Nick got his start investing in single family homes with Roofstock and is now grown to do some pretty incredible things that he's going to share with all of us today. So without further ado, let's jump into it.   Nick Haraden, man, thank you so much for taking the time and hanging out with me today. I really appreciate it.   Nick: Yeah, absolutely. I'm really happy to be here. I'm really excited.   Michael: I'm, dude me too. And for anyone that doesn't know, and I'm sure most people don't know, Nick and I are actually old buddies from high school. That went our own separate ways for about a decade and now are reconvening talking about real estate.   Nick: Yeah, it's pretty crazy. You know, it's quite a story. So happy to jump into it soon here.   Michael: Yeah, yeah. So So tell everyone cuz I know a little bit more about your background. I think most of our listeners do. So give everybody listening a little bit of idea of what it is that you're doing in real estate now, but also how you got your start?   Nick: Yeah. Well, I'll start kind of from not from the very beginning, but from, you know, a couple years ago,   Michael: I graduated Agora High School.   Nick: Yeah, well, Michael and I, we go back to high school, like Michael said, and super random, we got reconnected through Roofstock, which, you know, we saw we started, you know, our real estate journey about, you know, just right at the start of the pandemic, so two years ago almost and…   Michael: Perfect time to get into real estate.   Nick: Yeah, really. Yeah, it really was, we've grown, you know, so much, which is, you know, just, I'll get to that later. But, you know, my, my wife and I, Molly, you know, we have two kids, Hudson and Dakota, and we work and, you know, we, you know, my wife's a nurse, and you know, I work for Northrop Grumman, and I do contracts for them. And, you know, we didn't want to work our whole lives, right?   We wanted more time with our family, and, you know, everybody that we kind of knew growing up, and, you know, even my family, and everybody's always been in real estate, and, you know, never really clicked in my head, I was just like, Oh, I'm just gonna keep getting promoted, you know, just gonna keep on working harder and working more. And it's like, yeah, well, you know, I don't want to work more I want more time with with my family and travel and go to, you know, plays and sporting events with with my kids. And you know, so it kind of kind of started with that.   And we randomly Molly found Roofstock, through like a friend at work. And she's in there, like, Hey, have you ever looked at Roofstock? And we were like, No, we don't even know what that is, you know, like, well, you know, we bought a property on there. It's really great. They have like, a ton of listings, and you can look at different areas. And she's like, Hey, Nick, you know, we should look into this. I'm like, oh, yeah, this is this is awesome. Like, I could just slide through this and like, try to figure out like, what I like the different areas and like, you know, what the rent potential is and neighborhood ratings and everything like that. And I remember jumping on a call with first time, and we're like, oh, we're scheduling a call with someone to learn more about real estate. And that it's Michael.   It's like, I'm like, Oh, my God, this is Michael from high school. Like, I've no idea. She's like, Okay, I'm just like, do you understand this crazy?   Michael: Wht don’t you get it? It's wild.   Nick: Yeah, it's wild. And then, you know, then it clicked in her head, like, Oh, okay. Well, but you know, she doesn't know she didn't. She went to she grew up in San Luis Obispo, which I know,   Michael: Right, right, right.   Nick: Anyways, so, you know, randomly to how we got to like right now. But, you know, I looked through our notes the other day, like randomly, and it was from our first call, and it's like, you should look into bigger pockets. And I'm like, Oh, my God. We really were at day one. And, and then that's how I had to send you a note saying, Oh, my God, you wouldn't even believe like where we're at now.   Michael: I know it’s amazing.   Nick: Yeah, it really is crazy. But you know, I was telling you earlier, when we talked last week, I was like, you know, roofstock really made it so we can have our jump off point. I mean, we bought our first two properties on roofstock. And now we have six, six single family rentals. And we have a 24 unit apartment complex, which we syndicated and it's just crazy the steps that we took to get from that point to now. And you know, you were our first contact in that space.   Michael: For better for worse.   Nick: No, it really was for better, I mean, it's like, you know, you're like, This is your rent potential. This is your, you know, you're like explaining, you know, the every step, and it was like, the note the notes were just so funny, and then, you know, we expanded on that and, you know, really, really grew, you know, our business point, you know, I made my own spreadsheet, I, you know, found we, you know, we did a ton of research on different markets, and we use the Roofstock really to kind of get going, because we'd said, oh, yeah, you know, this is the neighborhood rating, this is why it's rated that way. You know, this is the class a little area.   So, you know, we use, like, a lot of people's data, essentially, to make better decisions for ourselves, you know, at one point we're looking at, where's the next Whole Foods going? You know, you know, we were researching all these different, like big companies saying, Oh, where are people moving? where are people going?   And we had, you know, access to some capital at the time from, you know, savings and, you know, different, you know, different vehicles or investing through stock markets that were able to diversify. So we were like saying, Well, do we want to do one one house and just do a big downpayment? Or do we want to spread it around? And at the time, we were like, Oh, we don't really know. But now it's like, yeah, well, you definitely want to, you know, get as many as you can.   So that's kind of like how we started, that's how that's how we ended, you know, today, and the kind of like, the basics of how we started. But, yeah, I mean, it really came down to, you know, finding Roofstock and kind of gone with it, which was, which was awesome. And we still recommend it to the day that people Hey, you want to buy your first property, go on Roofstock see what they got. Do some research that way, you know, just learn the areas and then and then get into more research, you know, but it's, it's, you know, it's so funny how it all kind of comes full circle. So   Michael: It really has, and I definitely remember that conversation too. And I was chatting with Molly and she goes, Oh, my husband's from Agora. And I said, Oh, cool. Where in Agora?. And like, Canaan, I was like, oh, cool, did you go to Agora High. Yeah, when you graduate 2008. I was like, Holy crap, me too! like, it's Michael Albaum I'm like, it's Nick Haraden! It's such a funny throwback.   But talk to me about what that mindset shift was from pre finding roofstock to post, you know, post knowing about rootstock and then to buying that first property. Because I think so many people have the tools, but never end up making the jump. So what allowed you to make that leap?   Nick: Yeah, I think, you know, so like, it's not rocket science, right? You just got to know, you got to know your numbers, you got to have you got to build a little bit of a network, you know, you got to, you got to reach out to people like I, the biggest thing for me was, yes, the mindset was, like, hey, we could do this, it's not that hard. A house isn't scary, you know, like, there's it you know, you have your inspection reports you have, you have all these contingencies that help you, you know, later on the road, you know, you can get more creative, but at the start, I mean, you have a lot of things that protect you.   So, the mindset is really just to get out of your comfort level. And for us, we were very comfortable, you know, we had, we had a, you know, W2 jobs, which I still have, and so she, you know, we're getting or, you know, pay stubs, and but it wasn't enough, you know, you we want to get to the point where we were stopped working, and we can have more time. So, the biggest mindset was saying, you know, let's, let's grow out of this mindset of just saying, you know, next paycheck next paycheck, and get into the fact of saying, you know, let's let's put our money to work and put it to work the best way possible, which we felt was was real estate, you know, the stock market, you have, which has been doing great, but you know, you can't really control it.   Real Estate, you can really control there's so many benefits, but taxes, you know, rental income, someone paying your mortgage leverage, I mean, is on unlimited things that you can do with with real estate, and there's so many outs. And to get to our first one, it was a little scary, because we didn't know we had we hadn't done it yet. But the second that we did the first one, it was like all downhill. I mean, we're just going okay, let's get the next one. Let's get the next one. But we did it in a smart way, you know, like we, you know, the first I think the first one we use the Roofstock calculator, which is great. I then kind of transformed it into something a little bit bigger on my own Excel sheet Excel sheet that could I really used to like dig into, you know, hey, take out you know, first month's rent for your your PM, you know, the different you know, all different types of things, depending on what the house you know, was and how much repairs or whatever it needed.   So the mindset was really just being prepared and being able to, like take that next step and not be too scared to do it. So, you know, we talked to people you know, I talk to people every day because I I'm always trying to help people I'm on these like Facebook boards and messengers and all this stuff saying, you know, people saying like, how did you get, you know, five, six properties in two years and apartment? Well, it just was taking that first step and knowing your numbers, you know, running your numbers, and then taking the time to learn your market and You know, we weren't spread out too too wide, you know, we really focused on, we're focused on St. Louis, Missouri is where all our properties are. Now, we did do like a ton of research on different markets, and I'm open to going to different markets. But now we know our market. And the second something comes up and like a good deal or, you know, we get off market deals. And you know, it just pays so much to just be in one market and be an expert in that that area.   So yes, to go on your first deal. Long story short, was just yeah, you got to just take the leap and have faith and the different processes that are built in for for someone buying a home, it's all you're all there to be protected. You know, you just got to you got to take that next step.   Michael: Yeah, not so good. And if you could think back, turn back the clock, two years to that first property, Nick and Molly, did you have a roadmap that led you to then syndicate apartments? Or were you just like, You know what, let's figure it out. Let's get this one done. And just figure it out as we go.   Michael: Yeah. No, syndications was not even close to my mind. I mean, syndications is brand new to us to be honest, like six months, and at the time, you know, there's so many different podcasts, you know, I listened to The Remote Real Estate Investor podcast, I listened to, you know, bigger pockets, a lot of these other ones that I found, and anytime syndications came up at the beginning, I was like, ah, you know, Skip, wait till the next one. Yeah, it's just like it was it was so complex to me, right, I'll just like, I'm just focused on single family right now. And then you kind of learn that, you know, the bigger the place, the more the more you have protections in place, you have more tenants paying your rent, you have built in vacancies, you have, you know, less roofs, less, HVACs, less front, you know, everything is kind of makes more sense as you grow, which we figured out down the road. And,   Michael: Of course,   Nick: You know, our first property, you know, we were just, you know, the second I remember, you know, sitting outside in my backyard saying, and we did like a little cheers for buying your first property, or, like, you know, this is for, at the time, we only had one kid, we're like, this is gonna be Hudson's either choice to go to college, or he can, you know, I have this property when he gets to that point. So we're, like, you know, this is for this is properties for him,essentially, you know, as we get the cash flow as we go, you know.   So it's, that's kind of how we started with that. And then we grew pretty fast. Because we, you know, I took the time to really just call so many different people in St. Louis, and we met so many awesome people right off the bat. I mean, the property management, property manager that we met was off of Roofstock is one of your guys recommendations. And he's been, they have been awesome, you know, we, the the first person we called was was him. And I went right to the, the guy that owns the company. And he was like, he took the time to talk to us for like, a half hour and without even without even meeting us, you know, like, never met us before anything, and just like, hey, this is what we're doing. You know, we probably asked like, the most basic questions, and he just had so much like, you know, he just gave us the time of day.   And then from that point, we talked to like insurance brokers, we talked to people that were on the ground there that we met through different people, different contractors, and we just like, you know, we learned the area so well, but it just came from just talking to people and picking up the phone and calling you know, it can't descend an email, you can't just send a text, you got to like, actually connect video chat with people as much as I could, to just get like that, that connection going a little bit more. And then from that point, we met a rockstar agent to move after Roofstock We acquired some properties on the MLS and some off off market stuff, but we really found an awesome agent who was able to just, you know, go into these different homes and do video calls with us. He's an investor as well.   So it was really the, you know, the perfect combo with that he's extremely busy, but oh, he's kind of gave us the time. Now, you know, I bought him a golf club. And, you know, like, we're, you know, I know his kids names. He's like, he wants to come out to you know, California and go play 18 holes. You know, and he he gets a ton of off market stuff and he and he brings it to us first he's like, you know, here I have a package which we funny stories I you know, he brought us the package or like 15 homes, which we were like this close to closing on, probably about six months ago.   Michael: Okay.   Nick: And at the last second, the the owners pulled out and there's three owners and they had to all agree and one didn't. But anyways, like the more people we met, the more like opportunities we have, or like off market deals and all this stuff and then to get the syndications finally now, so our newest and greatest baby Dakota, she was born in May and that's that's pretty much the time that we were like, hey, I need another mindset change is I need to I want to be able to grow to the point where you know, we don't have to put in you know, so much money to keep growing you know, we want to syndicate right so we want to raise Capital. We want to find these awesome deals we want to be very active in it on on general partner side. And it's like what can we do to get more creative? Right? We felt like we really had a handle on the single family stuff. I really wanted to get into multifamily, but I couldn't find any decent deals like it's just crazy everywhere for multifamily, you know, duplex, it tries quads. So we found a 24 unit.   And I met a awesome partner, my business partner, his name is Michael as well. And he's from San Diego. Great name a news gray at the time I met him right. We actually met on on Facebook randomly were part of the a couple of like syndication groups, I really want to learn like everything I could about it's like, bought a few books, Joe Fairless, his book, a couple raising capital books, we had never done it.   Michael: Did you go back and listen to all those syndication podcasts?   Nick: I did. Yeah. I went back to all of them. And I was like, oh my god, now I gotta go listen to him. But the thing is, like when when I find something I really want to do I just dive in. And it it really just went really fast. I mean, we start we did our on a website, we started talking to investors, we met our business partner, talk to syndication lawyers, attorneys like everything. And then we found the deal. I mean, we found us and we found an apartment complex that was just it made the most sense, because I already knew the market. It's in St. Louis, we already had people on the ground that we built over two years. And it has some awesome points to this to this apartment complex that I knew would be a great buy for St. Louis because it was very special. It had their own basements, I mean, stuff that you don't really see in a lot of apartments that if you live in St. Louis and Missouri, you know, people love their basements there for storage, extra extra sleeping space. That's not technically legal.   But you know, people use their stores for a lot of different things. And that's what their basement is for. But this this had it it was like the perfect property. And it we found the property so fast. We just we just had the run so hard. I mean, I was up till 2am most nights like cranking away while we have a newborn while Molly just like wants to kill me come down and help with the kids. I'm like, I'm trying I want to you know, try to do this work, kids, syndications. I'm like, trust me, this is gonna be good for us.   Michael: A couple years from now,   Nick: Yeah, I had to I had to treat her to like a nice massage after that. But we really just like dove in, and we raised our capital. And like we did a webinar, we talked to all these investors, we had like 40 people on the call or something. And we raised the capital and under, like, 30 minutes after the call, and people were like, on board, I had friends, family investors, because you know, a lot of people, they just don't they, they want to invest, but they don't know how right? I mean, that's the whole point of Roofstock and your pockets. Like there's so many people out there that just don't know how to do it. And sometimes you need that person that can be like, Hey, I have this awesome deal is a great return for you. Which you know, in apartment complexes, you get the pretty, pretty awesome returns.   And, you know, we had so many people that were like, okay, like, I trust you guys, you know, you guys are seeing like, you know, awesome people, people that already knew already knew that. But you know, it just, it just went from there. And then yeah, we closed on that syndication literally four weeks ago. So yeah, so that's, that's the long long story. Kind of a long story there. That kind of leads us to where we are today with that.   Michael: So and and so did your business partner Michael have any syndication experience?   Nick: Yeah, he did. Definitely more than I did, I was coming from you know, zero. But I was bringing all the contacts all the you know, people on the ground that contractors, the property manager, so he was bringing the business more of the business background so he had a few he went through a few like cycle not cycle the syndication but through, went through a few things with a couple operators that didn't end up closing on the deal. But he went out and like did due diligence and like underwrote a bunch of deals for a couple of different operators. So he had a lot of the background like this is how we do syndication. You know, we need to do a syndication lawyer, we need to, you know, we need to, you know, these are the steps to get the syndication done. And then I had the contacts in St. Louis, that was actually pretty much like a perfect marriage. In that sense.   You know, we we connected I reached out to him and saying, hey, you know, it looks like you know a lot about syndications. I'd love to actually learn more at the time. I was just trying to learn a little bit more about it. And he said, Yeah, well this is the deal where I'm currently working on I can send you the OM for I'm like, Okay, awesome. And then like literally a week later, It's just like stuck in my head. I'm like, oh my god, I could do this. Like, I know I can do it. I love real estate. I love working out issues. I love working out problems. I already know that my market so well, I just sent a message like, hey, if I can find something in St. Louis, like, can we team up? And let's see what we can do.   And he's like, yeah, absolutely. The person I'm working with isn't responding and all this stuff, right? So it was like, it's just our paths crossed at the perfect time, I was on paternity leave. So I was like, I have a little bit more time, but I still have a newborn. So like, kind of not really more time. But, you know, so luckily, it was our second kid and not our first. So you know, we went through the motions a little bit more.   So it just like we crossed paths at the perfect time. And we just it just went so fast. Like I said before, like over the course of literally like two months, we were in the process of like, flying out the St. Louis doing walkthroughs and are like, Oh my God, here we go.   Michael: Off to the races.   Nick: Off to the races. Man.   Michael: That's so cool. So for recommendations for people who are looking to get started syndicating, would you say that they should wait till they have some maternity leave it to take advantage of the opportunity?   Nick: Man, Yeah, it probably is. There's so much work involved is is you really, I mean, I don't think I'd be able to do it if I was working in the office, because right now I'm working remotely, I'm able to flex my time to where I can get more stuff done. I mean, I can, you know, I can do my work, you know, crunch my workout, get that done, and then jump on and do do real estate and fill in meetings as I go. And like my downtimes, I can jump on and do more real estate in this, like, when I'm in the office, I don't think that I could have that time. And I'd probably be still kind of stuck in the rat race.   And I think the pandemic has really, you know, showed us that, hey, first of all, you can work remotely, and you can still do a good job and do everything you want with your regular job and still have time to be with your family or, you know, start a business like we did. And you know, I'm doing better at my, my W2 job than I ever have. Because I know I need to get that done to do real estate.   Michael: Gotta eat your vegetables before you can have dessert.   Nick: Yeah, exactly. And, you know, our goal is to, you know, we want to we want to stop working, you know, stop stop with our W twos. And in the next you know, maybe three, four years, and just, you know, focus on real estate and focus on growing and doing stuff that, you know, I love real estate. So I want to focus on doing something I love and have more time, I know I could I could do this real estate, you know, work from from wherever and you know, make my own time for it. So that's pretty much the goal, the end goal, at least right is to have more time, not necessarily more money, but more time. But we want to get to a point where we do have, you know, the capital coming or the you know, the income coming in, but the goal is ever since the very beginning is to have more time. So that's that's what we're we're focused on.   Michael: Love it. So with that being the goal, what's next for you? And Michael and Molly?   Nick: You know, right now, the single families are just they're easy to get. You know, we get it we have a really good pipeline now in St. Louis. And people are, you know, people in the Midwest, think of California people as people that are make like strong offers, but don't don't capitalize it, right? They say oh, yeah, buy all these properties. And then, you know, it's just like kicking the tire down the road. So now that we've kind of made ourselves known in St. Louis, and the syndication world is very small. And, you know, brokers, you know, we're meeting with brokers meeting, you know, people that can bring us more deals, but they know now like, hey, you know, you have a portfolio here, you have a 24 unit apartment complex, we know that you can close on deals, you know, that really goes a long ways not to mention it goes a ton always with your lender, you know, we use local lender for for lending on the apartment building. But once you've kind of, you know, made yourself known out there, you can really get more access to better deals, more deals, and more qualified deals.   So the next what we want to do next, and I say like, you know, single families are easy to come by right now. It's because, you know, we get a handful of deals that are just, you know, off market stuff that people know like, hey, they can close and whatever days they have the capital for they know what they're doing. They have this track record. So you know, we were still buying single family homes.   Michael: Low hanging fruit   Nick: We Yeah, it's you know, we have a great return. I mean, we shoot for at least a minimum about $350 cash flow, pure cash flow and about an 18 to 20% return. And we're getting that in the markets that were that we're in. Now homes have gone up 35 40% in our market, which makes it tougher, but now we're not finding a ton of stuff on the MLS but like I said, you know, we're getting a lot of off market stuff. So it's hard to say no to the deal while we're waiting for another one, you know, the best time to buy real estate is yesterday, right? So, right. You know, we're trying to like, you know, build and build and still have the capital to get something along or something a little bit bigger.   But with syndications, the beauty of syndications, right is that you can really grow quickly because you have capital from investors that you know, really want a great return as well. So, we're, you know, we're in talks of, you know, talking to people that are pure capital raisers, KPs, which is people that can, like you know, have the bankroll essentially for bigger deals, because in syndications, you know, when you're a general partner, you have to have the, you know, you have to have the bankroll to support the loan. So eventually, you know, I don't have that bankroll.   You know, not a lot of people do. So there's people out there, it's actually quite interesting that just purely as their job is to, like, banker, all these properties. So it's quite interesting. So, you know, we're just learning, we're still learning more, you know, we're trying to get this deal off the ground as well, this first indication, you know, would you you know, we do the all the asset management behind it, everything.   So, you know, I think we're just really trying to make ourselves the best product that we can be as we move forward. We know we don't want to jump into something just to jump into, you know, single family stuff. Yes, we're trying to get stuff as they can. Because we know what a good deal is, we know our market really well. With syndications. It's a little bit different, you know, we don't want to just jump into a deal just for the fee that we're going to get, that's not our goal, right. So we want to actually get a great deal for investors. Not to mention a lot of them in this past deal. Were friends and family, you know, so, you know, we want to make sure we're getting their returns and that's the most important part in syndications is paying out your investors. So yeah, a lot, a lot more, a lot more, you know, a lot more work on the syndication side, a lot more stress, you know, constantly thinking about what's gonna go wrong next.   You know, there's always something you're like, I'm like, going through my mind like, Okay, what's, who's not going to pay next? What's gonna break next, you know, all this stuff. But, you know, we we underwrite really conservatively, and we make sure that we have the reserves, we make sure we have the capex account, kind of everything that goes into it. So that's kind of where we're going next. I mean, we're, you know, we briefly talked about short term rentals.   Another crazy story, we're using the same agent out in the Smokies…   Michael:   I rememver that conversation too, I am chatting with this agent, her their husbands and property managers, like, is it Jen, like, holy crap, it is.   Nick: Yeah, so, so the short term rental side not to get too sidetracked on that, but you know, we're, we want to get to the point, right, where we have enough monthly income coming in where we can kind of you know, break away from our job and short term rental right now, just popping in the Smokies is probably the best place in the whole world for short term rentals. I mean, it's just absolutely amazing. Molly did some did some studying in Tennessee, so she kind of grew up there a little bit gone to the smoky so we have some background in the Smokies. I've never actually personally been but yeah, we're trying to find a short term rental and Smokies you know, just, you know, to be diversified. For one, one thing, and also to just capitalize on this crazy Airbnb market right now. I mean, it's just absolutely exploding. There's so many benefits in the Smokies of the driving distance that we've talked about, you know, it's just, there's a lot of awesome things.   And, yeah, we want to get to that point where, like I said, we have that monthly income coming in, where we can start stepping away from other things and have more time. And, you know, we're, you know, underwriting there. And we really, you know, it's hard to get properties out there. So we want to make sure we do it the right way. So that's, that's kind of what we're, we're kind of focused on right now. That's so exciting.   Michael: So you have done a lot of things, you've got a lot more things on the horizon. What do you turn back? Kind of looking over your shoulder in a rearview mirror? What do you say to people who are just getting started? Who couldn't fathom doing any of the things that you're doing? I mean, what do you say to somebody who's trying to just get started?   Nick: I think that for someone that's just getting started, and we were actually helping a few people right now that are just getting started. One of them is you know, Molly's best friend,   Michael: Trying to put me out of a job at the Roofstock Academy man, take over my coaching role?   Nick: Honestly, she, she's finding properties on Roofstock, I said, look on Roofstock, because you can get so much done there. Like, you know, a lot of people you know, they, they need, you know, they need to learn all this stuff, like cash on cash returns, right, just like you taught us, right. And honestly, like, you know, you taught us a lot of that stuff and and, you know, sure, we probably would have learned it at some point, but you know, it really, you know, you're able to give us that info like right off the bat and then we can really analyze property the right way.   But you know, just telling people like, you know, make sure that you know your numbers, and then don't be scared to just jump in, you know, you have to be able to find a market. That makes sense. So, you know, we, we really do refer people on Roofstock quite a bit, because you guys have so much data on there, and it solves a lot of questions of, is this a good area? Well, you know, Roofstock gives you a pretty good idea. And then, you know, go on all these, you know, Zillow go on, you know, realtor.com, and you can see like, the crime rates, and you can see, you know, the, what the housing markets done there, how much is supposed to go up what the rent potential is, but also, you know, you need to call people, you know, you find your market and call a property manager and find out all the good and bad areas, you know, just like, you know, you got to put in some sweat equity in this deal, because you can't just find a deal. And then hopefully it makes it happen, real estate's active, right. So you got to as passive as people want it to be, you still got to be there, and you got to make sure you got to manage your property managers, I mean.   So, so first starting off, I think people need to be able to, one, be able to find your resources like Roofstock, or, you know, something that can help people kind of get going, and then have the time and the ability to say, Okay, this is a good deal, not a good deal on your numbers, and then find someone in your market and confirm those things. And then once you do that, you can try to find a good deal.   You know, I think that my background, so I, I recently started in hospitality for you know, right out of college, I was senior sales manager, I was sales managers that a lot of different hotels, I just wanted to keep on getting promoted in Santa Monica and I got a lot of customer service background, though. And then I transitioned to aerospace defense, very random, but I think   Michael: Those seem related.   Nick: Very different, right, right before you know, a couple of like, maybe six months before the pandemic, thankfully, because you know, hotels had a huge downturn during the pandemic. And then now I do contracts for, for for Northrop Grumman. So I do negotiating contracts on behalf of Northrop Grumman with the government. So I think all those things have helped me become a better landlord, because it's a people business, you know, you really have to put in your time with the people to make sure you have the best experience and best best returns possible. I mean, for all our tenants, we write them, you know, not not Christmas cards, but we send them you know, happy New Year cards with like a $20 gift card. Not necessarily saying like, Hey, call us, but just saying like, Hey, thanks for being you know, a great tenant. And, you know, we take care of our agent who's brought us a ton of deals like bottom, a golf club,   Michael: That's great,   Nick: You know, stuff, stuff like that, you know, I stay in contact with a lot of people that have helped us and just say, Thank you, you know, just talk to these people. And, you know, really put in the time to be more people oriented. And I think having my background of customer service that really got me to the point of where I've been able to make all these awesome connections and have the, you know, the network around me to say, like, hey, I can go out and check out your property for you, like, you know, don't worry about it, you know   We flew out to St. Louis, for our inspections for due diligence for this apartment complex. And like three of our property managers showed up to walk through every single unit with us, and we had a contractor come out that I've worked with, and it's like, these people would just came out at 8am on a Thursday with very little notice, and was like, I'm going to walk every apartment with you, I'm going to tell you the rent potential and all of it and it just, you know, they gave, they gave us so much. So much back, that was awesome. And it's just by building these, these relationships, you know, I, I don't treat it as like a transactional feature for all these people. I treat them as people. And   Michael: A novel concept.   Nick: And yeah, and it's, it's, it's interesting, because not everybody does think that way. But I think if you have that mentality of thinking, like, Hey, this is like people that are going to help you grow, you got to treat them, like like your family. And then you got you know, sometimes you got to treat them. Like it's more of like a business, of course. But to get going, you know, you need to make sure that, you know, hey, you're on the right track, you know, you're you're meeting these people, and they're going to help you out a lot more than you think. When you're first meeting them. So, you know, treat them well.   Michael: That's such a good point, Nick. And it's something that I try to tout too, and that relationships matter. This is not an individual or siloed business. And I love the example of those property managers and contractor coming out to meet you because you've you've poured in today. And so now it's coming back to you.   Nick: Yeah, yeah. Mike, my business partner, Michael is like, oh my gosh, this is crazy. I'm just like, Yeah, I mean, you know, this is what happens when you build good relationships. And he has his properties in Wisconsin, so he's not in St. Louis. So he he didn't have the same contacts, obviously. But I was like, Look, you know, I have some awesome people that I've met and I think we can do a great job and that was just you know, at one example,   Michael: So that is awesome, Nick. Well, dude, I'm gonna let you get out of here. But before I do if somebody is interested in investing with you in your syndication, learning more about you, what, what, where should they go? How can we get in touch with you?   Nick: Yeah, you can go or people can reach us a number of different ways. But the best ways to really just jump on our website, it's www.HudsonHallproperties.com. Or they can email email me at homes@HudsonHall properties.com. Either one of those works. And you know, there's a ton of, you know, information about syndications and real estate in general on our website, we really took the time to go through it. And people can get a lot more information just through that and then sign up to be on our message board essentially, like for, you know, different deals that are coming out or if they want to schedule a call, whatever it may be happy to jump on a call with anybody as well. So…   Michael: Right on, we'll do thank you so much for coming on and sharing your wisdom and past experience of this. Really appreciate you.   Nick: Yeah, thanks, Michael. Thanks for having me.   Michael: Of course. My pleasure, man. Talk to you soon.   Already, everybody. That was our episode, a big thank you to Nick for coming on the show. Definitely check out his website if you're interested in learning more about him and the syndications that he's working on. As always, if you liked the episode, feel free to leave us a rating or review. They are super helpful for us, and we look forward to seeing the next one. Happy investing