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*****Thank you so much for listening to the Making Money in Multifamily Real Estate Show! This show covers everything to do with Multifamily Real Estate Investing to help you, the listener, become an expert in your real estate ventures. The host, Dave Morgia, brings on guests who are already experts in their respective fields to discuss what principles and practices they follow that have helped them achieve their success so far.
Paul's Background:
In this episode we cover:
Connect with Paul:
Connect with Dave:
Other ways to listen/watch:
Follow or Subscribe:
If you enjoyed this episode or like the show, please subscribe and leave a review! It is a huge help for just a little effort
*****Thank you so much for listening to the Making Money in Multifamily Real Estate Show! This show covers everything to do with Multifamily Real Estate Investing to help you, the listener, become an expert in your real estate ventures. The host, Dave Morgia, brings on guests who are already experts in their respective fields to discuss what principles and practices they follow that have helped them achieve their success so far.
Welcome to the Making Money in Multifamily Show, where we discuss everything to do with multifamily real estate investing. We believe it's the best way to gain financial freedom and build lasting wealth. This is where you'll find it the best information and practices to help you succeed in your real estate business, whether you're already experienced or just starting out. Here's your host, Dave Morgia.
Dave Morgia:Hello, listener and welcome to the show. I'm your host, Dave Morgia. And with me today is Paul Bardeau Paul, welcome to the show.
Paul Barbeau:Thanks for having me, Dave.
Dave Morgia:Yeah, I think this is gonna be a good one. Like we kind of hinted before we hit record here, you kind of got a mix of properties, I'm sure, it'll be exciting to see your background across all your different asset classes. But just for the listener, Paul is a multifamily and self storage investor. He is based in Nashville. He started about five years ago, and currently owns 96 apartments and 160 self storage units. Yeah, I'm just gonna kind of let you take them there, Paul, if you just want to pick that apart and give us a little bit more of your focus, and you know what your background is?
Paul Barbeau:Yeah, sure. So um, so right now I've got two apartment complexes that are about they're actually each 48 units and, and two towns in Kentucky, actually, which are about an hour from where I am here in Nashville. And I've got two self storage facilities in a small town in Tennessee. And so I kind of worked my way up to, to getting those from started out with a duplex about five years ago. And by bought, sold, traded, scrapped, saved, everything you can think of to get to, to where I am today. And
Dave Morgia:so yeah, I'm gonna make a half joke here. But what's the criteria for the multi to only buy 48 units? Or? Yeah, how did that come to be?
Paul Barbeau:Yeah, just just so happens. I think they, when developers build these things, they you know, they do them in fours. 1632, you see a lot of that 48. But anyways, yeah, just so happened that I got 240, eights. So lucky, lucky. 48, I guess.
Dave Morgia:And you mentioned kind of before we hit record a lot, a lot of your deals, you said you're more or less the lone wolf fund. So I guess, you know, you mean by that? What is your kind of involvement with or without a team, how you can run these deals named, just get into how you close a couple of these big ideas?
Paul Barbeau:Yeah, and so I guess it when I say lone wolf, so right now, I don't have any partners, but I definitely have a lot of team members that I that I use, which are, you know, important ones, that would be your bank, your property management company. You're my insurance company, my, you know, my attorneys and all that kind of stuff, that that goes into buying and managing these places. And then actually the my storage facility, but storage facilities there. Like I said, they're right across the street from each other, but I actually manage them on my own. And then the other The apartments are managed by a professional property management company. So yeah, even though I say I'm by myself, but um, but I definitely do have partners, and I've had a partner, a partner in the past on a multifamily deal. And it went well, the money partner, when I didn't have the funds to close it, found a good deal and made some phone calls made it happen. And so him and I partnered up and bought a 57 unit. And then other than that, yeah, I've had, you know, hard money lenders and all that kind of stuff that definitely helped me out to get to where I am.
Dave Morgia:So I guess the contrast between the first 248 and the 57 would be that capitalism partner, other than just bringing in someone who has a different skill set, was there anything kind of through that learning process that surprised you? Was there I'm sure, you know, there's some other kind of skills that the partner brought to the table to close the deal. But when you kind of learn about dealing with someone at the partnership level, because like you said, there's a whole team under you always right, you got the pm group, you can't literally run that many units by yourself darn near impossible. But what about like relationships in that partnership level? Kind of? Were more of a contrast that you maybe thought going into that?
Paul Barbeau:Yeah, so you definitely your partners need to be people that you know, like and trust and even so it was actually him, his money, him and his wife's money and So, you know, it was, it was, it was their money, right. And so I was responsible for taking care of it. And actually, this, my partner was actually a seasoned real estate investor, he had not broken into large multifamily before, at the time I owned a 32 unit. And, and so I kind of brought my skills and my comfort of, hey, I already own 32 units, I mean, you can come together with your money, my, I guess expertise, if you will, of owning a multifamily property, you know, that's bigger than a duplex or something like that, to, to run it and, and so he don't single family homes and duplexes and that kind of thing, raw land on some development stuff. But um, and so he basically trusted me to do that. And he had the money, I had the skills, I actually found the deal. And the deal also came with a bank, which was the owner that wanted to finance the, if we brought 20% down payment, the owner was going to be was going to finance the 80% for us. And so basically, I found those two things. And I said, Hey, all I need is a partner with capital. And it was it was a big leap for me to, you know, be responsible for that kind of thing. And so, you know, anybody that's looking to syndicate or have a joint venture, you know, raise capital, they, you know, I'm sure they get the same things have gone through their head, oh, yeah, hey, we don't want to buy a crappy deal. You know, to, then you're going to lose money. And be, you know, you want to be able to, to live with your partners for the, for the duration of the deal. So I'd say that's, you know, what you need to look for when you go out and find partners.
Dave Morgia:Yeah, well, that was kind of one of my thoughts was, sounds like you had a couple trips around the block where you got braided deal and done exactly your way, because you had kind of no one else telling you the way to run it, and not another kind of voice in your head or kind of partner with input. So did that change on that next deal? And if so, like, how much did you have to change the way you operate the property, just to make sure that everything was kind of peachy keen, and everybody's happy and all the deal?
Paul Barbeau:Right. So I would say, Scott said, look through our expenses monthly and say, and we would go through them together, you know, at the end of the month, and say, hey, you know, it looks like we're spending a lot here, what can we do, or, Hey, we're doing a lot like, third party, we're hiring a lot of third party contractors, maybe we want our, a good maintenance person to do X, Y, and Z to save us money. And so that was that was a lot of the you know, the conversations we would have about that stuff, and just really, really making sure that the money wasn't going to waste. And But anyway, he he pretty much trusted me and my judgment on a lot of things. And you know, when a, our this deal, in particular, it was a 57 unit deal. And it was definitely a value add play, the rents were below market by about, I don't know, $150 a door. And so we would go in and when someone would move out, we go in and put a new flooring, paint everything, put new light fixtures, and get the you know, get the rents up, make the place nicer. And so we just had to figure out how to do that efficiently and economically. To meet our goals, you know?
Dave Morgia:Yeah. And so since the business plan involves, I guess you want some level of trying to return capital from a partner was was the business plan different because of that, because of a deal where you maybe ran it solely yourself? You might be okay with a lack of cash flow cup first couple years or these types of things. So was there a different kind of call to action on this deal that you had to make sure you're aware of you otherwise didn't have to kind of answer to?
Paul Barbeau:Well, yeah, it was it was. It was a call to action and then also kind of a wake up call because we him and I didn't know how much we were going to spend on the property to begin with. And so we did negatively cashflow for about a year, year and a few months while we were just taking all the money and putting it into the apartment and At the time, we didn't know how we didn't know that we were going to be able to exit it what we did what we did for and we made really good money on it. But it was it was nerve wracking at the time because we're like, oh, man, we're spending all this money. And I was still new to the multifamily game too. And one of the things I did learn on that, on that journey was, and then going forward, I do want to syndicate deals, again, get joint venture partners, whatever, but is making sure you have enough money a that you borrowed from the bank, or be that you raised from investors to, to make those repairs to get to where you want to get the property or where you want it to be. That makes sense. So you're not in a crunch? And let's say you had 10 partners, and you were like, Oh, crap, the bank accounts looking a little low. Go to these 10 people in there going well, no, there's you know, that's not what you said, you didn't say, we're going to put more money into here, you know, after after the initial capital raise. So
Dave Morgia:yeah, I guess the cardinal sin, I say, right, is to use a cash flow down instead of CapEx dollars on improvements, right. So you're scheduling to use the cash flow dials, you're probably not using the right bucket. Which, if you're on your own deal, like you've done a couple of those where it's mostly just you, you have to respond to you can, you can get away with that it's your own risk tolerance, no one to tell you now, but one year using like you talking about either a partner or syndicating which, where you have many limited paths and partners in a deal that you pretty much are advertising, you know, you're going to expect some level of cash flow to come back. There's a lot of risk Patel's there to pretty much say you better raise for first, right? Yeah. So just curious to hear your takes.
Paul Barbeau:Yeah, and it also depends on some people say, Well, how much money can you make with apartments? How much cash flow can I have with this, this type of property or this much downpayment or whatever, and it's, it's gonna really highly depend on your loan, a, and then in the B, what kind of property it is. So I like to buy the C Class value add properties, if you bought an A class, you know, you only have to go in there and vacuum the carpets and touch up paint, every time someone moves out, you're going to cash flow well, and you're not going to need the extra dollars. But and then also some people get, you know, interest only loans and all that stuff for periods of time. And that's definitely going to help your cash flow versus, you know, fully amortizing loan where you're paying the interest in the principle from day one, you know, either make sure that you're, you're prepared to make those payments.
Dave Morgia:Yeah, I mean, my partner, we're looking at some old deals that transacted and when I say old, I mean, I think it was 2018 and 19 deals and a couple of mark our markets, just deals that have pretty much came back to market with how hot it is, are going up for sale. Yeah, looking at the original loans, and even back then it's crazy to see some of the IO terms and stuff you saw for some of the kind of bigger assets it's interesting to see how people will take in that IO term into their cash flow and then kind of almost move the risk tolerance on their deals. It's really interesting. But um, one of the things that struck me that you were just talking about was really the budget on these units and how it kind of walked away from you not instantly walked away, but maybe you were expecting more positive cash flow obviously, you're more likely I'm assuming you plan the cash flow you're Warren and that property what did you learn from that? What was the kind of you know, economical learnings as far as what to budget for these improvements? And what do you kind of target now when you talk about injecting capital into a unit and when you want to return that kind of money based on the rent bumps and all those things?
Paul Barbeau:Yeah, so I guess on stuff I'm the stuff that I've dealt with thus far has been mostly interior improvements. The exteriors have been, have been good. I did have one one of my 48 units that I put all new windows and doors and did some landscaping outside and, and I knew what that was going to cost pre closing but as far as the the interiors, you know, I usually budget about $4,000 or a little less for and these, these are two bedrooms are about, I don't know, eight or 900 square feet, one bedrooms will be like six or 700 square feet. And so you flooring, paint light fixtures, maybe you're gonna refinish some countertops, maybe you're gonna refinish some tubs, paint cabinets, Yeah, three or $4,000, a unit should get you there. And so you know, if you multiply that by, you know, 50 units, you better have 150 to $200,000. Ready to go. And then, as far as return on investment, for myself, I don't really have a good, like metric, like, oh, I want to make a, you know, X percent return. But I'm, what am I like, in my mind, I want this, I want it when I buy a property, I want it to in 12 to 18 months, I want to be able to refinance it, pull my capital out, and put that down on another property that size basically. So I wanted to make a baby, if you will, every 12 to 18 months, where I can, like I said, refinance my initial capital out, and you know, the capital that used for improvements, and and go buy another one like that. So the the burr method by rehab, rent refinance. And that's kind of my goal.
Dave Morgia:And you say you kind of haven't really got into syndication, at least, you know, repetitively yet, with that vision tied into syndication, is that something you would see your investor base 1030, wanting it into the next property or whatever, buddy, kind of just exit with a refinance, and then go into the next one? If they choose to? How would you kind of manage that if you're to kind of go down that path? Or say everything works out? You get to get the 100%? Back out? You know, what was the next steps there?
Paul Barbeau:Yeah, I guess that would really just depend on on my investors, you know, if they said, Hey, we want to hold this thing forever, and have it have it cash flow, which is probably unlikely somebody is going to want to pay, I want to go do something else with this money. So, you know, I would project like a five to seven year hold. And then if we got an offer on the property, that was absolutely spectacular, it was gonna make a home run, make everybody a bunch of money, you know, and you're to kind of talk to everybody and they're okay with selling it, then. Yeah, we'll sell. But yeah, if it's, let's say it's a five or seven year hold, probably refinance 18 months in to two years. And then and then go from there.
Dave Morgia:Yeah, obviously, the year to refinance will lower a lot of risk regardless, right? Even if you can get you know, 60 to 70% of the capital back, your basis will be completely lowered. And you can kind of sleep better at night as an investor in the deal, knowing that at least most of your capital is kind of returned home. I'm
Paul Barbeau:sure Yeah. Yeah. They're gonna be happy. Hopefully.
Dave Morgia:Yeah. On the on the next exit, whether it's another refinance or sale, what have you. Yeah, yeah. Getting into the operations again. So I guess to get there, right, if your goal is to go 100% On refinance, and pull all the original invested capital, while that has to involve, you know, pretty, pretty serious value add not just like you said, with a class, not just like, you know, kind of paint and bump brands up from, you know, $1,000 to 1050, because that's not going to get you there. Right. So I mentioned that was about four grand to get that done for the units that you look at now and see class on what does that kind of get you on the rental side of things to be able to kind of get you that exit that you're looking for.
Paul Barbeau:So that, uh, like that, that 57 unit, I was talking about my partner and I, so that got us the rents from it was about 150 bucks. Across the board. I think we took it from I don't quote me on this, but the the gross income on the property was it I think it was like 350 Gross potential income. So pretend like everything's full, and you collect all the rents from like, $350,000 to like 400, and some change, maybe like $420,000 or something like that. And so, you know, you get that and then divided by your divided by your market cap rate. And, you know, you've created at least several $100,000 worth of value on that property. And for that one, that one, for example. We bought it for 2.5 million, put about probably like $150,000 into it, and then sold it for 4,000,002 years later. So that was a good, good little lick for us. And and the market had also changed some like cap rates have been compressing I've seen in that market especially. So we had a little bit of a little bit of tailwind along with the improvements that we made, but it was definitely you know, once you make the improvements, get the rents up to the mark Rate, even if you don't have a market change, or even if the market cools, and the cap rates go up, which means, you know, next investors not gonna pay as much per, you know, dollar made. You know, that mitigates some risk. Because let's say even if the rents went down some from what you were getting, you know, you're still able to pay your mortgage, and you're still able to cash flow.
Dave Morgia:Yeah, and you mentioned Canada's market we're in well, I guess we'll backtrack sounds like from napkin math, it's about sounded like about a 20%. Bump in noi. And then plus, like kind of a cap rate compression probably puts you right at where those numbers are. It sounds like a, you know, obviously, time in the market really well, on that exit, I think, in my opinion. So knowing that going into, you know, the next round of deals where you're still targeting C class, where you're still targeting the value add, and maybe the cap rate, I mean, I don't know, if we all knew and we could make a bet we'd be we'd be millionaires tomorrow, right? But yeah, what is kind of your thought on how you're going to hedge against maybe, you know, inflation going the opposite way, cap rates going the opposite way as follows.
Paul Barbeau:Yeah, and so that's definitely on my mind. You know, I just I just bought, so I traded that my portion of that 57 unit into into one of my 48 units, and then I traded another deal, which basically just bought 1031 it into another one is what I mean, when I say traded, but And so yeah, one of them I put a about things like 45% down on it. And so, you know, in the past, I would always try to make my dollar stretch, you know, 20% down, that kind of thing. So this one, I can definitely sleep better at night, knowing that I have a large, larger percentage down. So if something happens in that asset lost value, then you know, I'm still, you know, I'm still in a good position, yeah, I lost my capital, but I won't be in a position where I can't pay off the bank note. And then, another thing I'm looking at is, so far, I haven't used any, like non recourse agency debt. And I want to do that on my, on one of my one of those properties that I bought in March, I'm looking at mid next year, trying to get some agency debt, which you know, it's got, which means great terms, lower interest rate than, you know, your local banks or traditional banks, a lower interest rate, you can lock in the terms for longer, I think up to you know, 10 or 15 years sometimes. And then non recourse, which you probably know what that means. But for the listener, you know, that's if that property fails to perform, then you basically hand the keys over to the bank, and they cannot come after your personal assets. So if we have a big, crazy downturn crash, you know, I would lose my equity in the deal. But I wouldn't lose my, my other personal assets. So that's a huge deal. And that's why I'm looking into that. Not that I plan on it failing, but nobody plans to fail. But that does, that does help mitigate a lot of risks to have the right type of loan in place for that.
Dave Morgia:Yeah, and yeah, they said, you know, no plans, but down the plan plan to fail, right. The only the only caveat with the nonrecourse is obviously people tout those bad boy carve outs are, which are, you know, essentially saying, as long as Paul, you behave and try your best to run the property and are skimming money off the books and all these terrible, terrible things, which I think, you know, that's an entirely different conversation to have. But oh, you're not doing that. They can't come after you. So yeah, some some benefits there. And kind of going back to the I O, one of the bigger things on this recourse and more institutional debt is is kind of just the terms that you'll get, like you said, you'll get lower interest rates, but you can get IO for the first three plus years. It's going to help your cash flow while you have the kind of pain of doing the capex. So I guess right before the PMI comes in, you can at least still cashflow a little bit while you're injecting money in the property, which is a huge benefit, obviously, especially when you have captured investors to raise capital for venture capital.
Paul Barbeau:Yeah, I was talking to a banker the other day and he said yes, it's a Freddie Mac small balance loan was what he thought would be a good fit. And he said yeah, you get two years of interest only. Just automatically if you if you get that loan, two years of interest only so all right party on.
Dave Morgia:Certainly makes it nice. The tough thing is, you know some people will go in with that, knowing that and then turn around and want to do the business plan before the two years of IO is up, and hopefully you do some type of soft exit or full exit. And we plan for that and underwrite for that, it can get tricky. So I would always suggest, you know, talking to the listener here, just make sure you're writing a business plan to not rely on that I always just kind of like a, you know, a plus in the back of your mind. It can be very, you know, your business plan go slower, go sideways, when that comes not going to be answered paying a little bit more.
Paul Barbeau:Right, right.
Dave Morgia:So Paul, I guess, like, what else? In this space, you mentioned, you're kind of starting to look to raise capital and look at some different types of loans. So is the focus to kind of partner more? Is it to do more of your own deals? What is the next couple quarters?
Paul Barbeau:So right now, I need to put some more my own money to work I will. I'm actually selling my self storage facilities. Just actually got a working through a purchase and sale agreement right now. And then I'll need to try to put that money to work exchange it for either self more so or other self storage? Or are more apartments just kind of depend on what's what comes up. And, and then yeah, I think I really would like to, I think my purpose and basically put my skills to work for other people is going to be to raise money and help other people make money and retire, you know.
Dave Morgia:You kind of you're kind of flirting into my five key questions here, which usually envelopes or on envelopes, kind of an entirely different schedule, maybe we'll just kind of dig at them, and I'll pick it apart even more. But as long as you're ready, I'd like to dig into these.
Paul Barbeau:Sure, go for it.
Dave Morgia:So the first one here, if you could only pick one trait that explains your success? What is that tray on?
Paul Barbeau:One trait? I think for me, that would be just showing up? And what do I mean by that? It's like, you know, basically, you need to show up to meetings, and you need to meet people, you need to answer your phone when people call, like, get educated, go to conferences, be places when you say you're going to be that kind of thing. I mean, I'm not the I'm not the smartest person in the world. And I'm not the most like extroverted and so I know that in this business, you need to meet people to to succeed, you need to meet brokers, you need to meet property managers, you need to meet partners, you need to meet other people in the business that you can just talk to about what you're doing and learn from. And, and one of my biggest things has just been literally just to show up and be present, and, and learn. And then take action, of course.
Dave Morgia:But that's the thing, right? That consistent action and more or less doing what you say you're gonna do and putting the reps in, on whatever your focus is on. It doesn't have to just be multifamily acquisitions, but whatever it is, you know, that's, that's what's gonna get you there if you can kind of talk a big game, but put in the reps as they go on. And just like, for instance, like we met at a conference semi recently. Yep, big, big movements like that. Like, that's not like the craziest thing in the world to do. But just repeatedly putting yourself in an environment like that. Yeah, it's an interaction, just like That's right. So it's just kind of getting out there.
Paul Barbeau:Yeah, even if you take baby steps that the baby is of baby steps. Once a day, or once a week, if you get up if you wake up and read a little something, do something positive. Yeah, eventually it's gonna it's gonna contribute to your success. But just because it has to.
Dave Morgia:Yeah, absolutely. And it's almost like that. What is it that 1% compounded every day is like 23 times original or whatever, some crazy numbers just like the little little additions, improvements. You'll get there for sure.
Paul Barbeau:Yeah, it's very, very true.
Dave Morgia:And then Paul, what is the most uncharacteristic thing you have done in your business? And why did you do it?
Paul Barbeau:So I guess, when I was when I was first starting out, and we really didn't even get to this in the show, but I I was working a full time job. I was a construction manager, Deputy job. I made decent money. But I was really really was I was educated myself. I bought a duplex that there was a rental I bought a house that I was living in and I decided to quit My job and try to make it happen. And so I was lit with literally no plan no no further deals in the mix. So and I don't recommend doing that. But because it was there were some tough times there. sold the house, I was living in Seoul, my duplex moved in with my parents, which is very humbling when you're I mean, I'm sure there's older people out there that it would suck worse for but I was 27 years old at the time, I moved in with my parents for about a year and just did everything I could to make, make it happen and try to be successful in this business. So there was a series of steps that I had to take to basically get my first big deal which was somewhat duplex single family house 32 units. So I worked and worked and and luckily knock on wood a made it work. And I made a grew my business a lot faster than I ever would have thought and a lot faster than I ever would have if I would have still had my job because when I quit, when I quit my quit my job, I had a little bit of knowledge, a little bit of expertise, but not much. But literally just that almost a year of doing nothing but focusing on learning, trying to find deals, networking, making relationships, and that all ended up paying off in a big way for me. And I'm so thankful for that.
Dave Morgia:I'm going to say my questions, because this next one might kind of blend in to this one. So I'll just ask him to name a time where you felt like you weren't going to end up successful. How do you overcome that fear? So pretty much sure ties right
Paul Barbeau:back to that? Yes, yeah, that was actually the time that and I'm not gonna lie, I went through some dark times back then I actually thought that I was gonna have to go back to work. Get another job. And so you know, during the day, I would, I would send like, handwritten letters to I thought it was gonna be a house flippers, what I thought I was gonna do, I bought this house in Nashville, I did a little bit of work to it, sold it, made decent money on it. And I thought, well, that was easy. I'll do that again. And then I never found another house that that was going to work for me. But anyway, so I was writing, I was writing letters trying to find homes, you know, Hey, you want to buy your house, and I just I was really, really hitting a wall really was down on myself, like, oh, you know, never gonna make this work. I feel like a failure. I'm sitting at home all day, every day. Nobody really understands what I'm doing. It's kind of like, Oh, you want to be in you want to be in real estate, but they haven't seen me do anything. And, you know, months and months and months and months, just looks like I'm just sitting around. And so I really got down on myself during that time. But you know, even you know, I was thinking I wasn't going to succeed. And of course, everyone around me, you know, thought the same thing. And then I started applying for jobs. didn't get any interviews. But then I started actually working construction for my cousin. And I have a master's degree. You know, here I am, you know, I used to make good money, I had this great job and live in a nice place and then all sudden, I'm working a, you know, $15 an hour construction job. So yeah, that was rough times. But like I said, all that stuff that I was doing during that time, paid off.
Dave Morgia:Anytime Well, anytime the results don't necessarily line up with kind of the repetitions we're putting in. It can kind of be that like battle, right? It's like, you know, I'm doing the things like I know I'm supposed to be doing to get this done. It's just like not happening yet. It can be very, very tough, especially when you say if you kind of got to take a couple steps back to have that leapfrog forward. So yeah. Awesome that you're able to get through that.
Paul Barbeau:Yeah, it's like if you go to the you know, go into the gym for oh, I've been going to the gym for two months and um, I haven't lost any weight. And then but it actually turns out that you gained muscle in that time and you actually did lose body fat but you didn't you know, you just feel like it's not working I want to quit so yeah, anybody now you
Dave Morgia:got all this muscle that's gonna burn the calories to burn the fat off laying around so you're actually better off yeah,
Paul Barbeau:yeah, absolutely. So anybody that's out there that's that feels like they're struggling. You know, you'll get there. Just just keep pushing, keep keep learning, keep taking action, and you'll get there.
Dave Morgia:Yeah, absolutely. And then pretty much flip to that one. Paul, can you name a time where something in your business went perfectly? And what did you do to make that a reality?
Paul Barbeau:Yeah, I guess nothing ever goes perfectly. But um, but yeah, that that deal I was talking about with the with the partner. I feel like that's one of my, one of my biggest accomplishments was, you know, I'd never raised money before, I had never, you know, been involved with a property that large before. And like I said, we had our we had our struggles and our scratching our head moments thinking, How are we ever going to make money on this thing? Like, you know, but it turned out, really well make good money for my investors make good money for myself? And yeah, so I'm proud of that. Yeah.
Dave Morgia:And it'd been your first kind of foray into that partnership slash raising capital. That's, that's kind of a big one. Right? It's easy. Like I mentioned, it's easy to kind of just do your own deal. And you don't have anyone to answer to to make it make an account on the one that needs to count. It's good. So congratulations there. Yeah. Thank you. And the last one here, what have you been focusing on lately to improve yourself or your business?
Paul Barbeau:Yeah, so I kind of, I guess everybody did during COVID Get away from going to the meetups, kind of, you know, because we, you know, we were meeting and there weren't conferences, and there weren't anything like that. And so just like, lately, I've been focused on getting back connected, a getting reconnected with people that I've known in the past. And be, hey, I'm still out here, like, you know, my brokers and just other investors in the area. And like I said, you know, we met at that conference networking event a few weeks ago. And so my focus now is just getting, yeah, getting back out there getting visible. doing podcasts, and yeah, getting back into it, because that's, you know, that's how you grow is. And I thought, you know, during, during COVID, and even after that, when I was, you know, more comfortable just staying at home, you know, watching Netflix or whatever, then I'm, you know, I'm doing okay, I don't really need to meet anybody new, but it does. It does help to, you know, drag myself out there. And I know, it's, it helps me just to, you know, be out doing stuff and learning and growing. And then and I know, it'll help my business to.
Dave Morgia:Yeah, it can be it can be, at least for me getting back into the in person stuff, because I'm in New York City. So it's a little slow process up here, for sure. But the process of getting back in shaking hands in person has been maybe more tiring. I remember, maybe it's just because I don't remember as well. But it's a little tiring. But at the same time, very exhilarating. Because you just have so many great people you're meeting and so many ideas just kind of running through your head of what other people are doing. So it's it's just a good time, kind of like we had at that conference. Yeah, it's really exciting to get back out there, kind of like you're saying, so glad you're glad you're doing the same. Yeah, me and Paul, just really appreciate the time getting into kind of your background of deals. And just picking your brain at what you're looking to do on the kind of, I guess next iteration of your investment thesis, you know, the next couple of years here really interesting to see how you're going to approach that sounds like the first kind of deal through that process is going really well. So things gone really well. So congratulations there. Just before we sign off, you want to let Blizzard know how they get into today, if they want to partner get in touch and kind of just pick your brain and anything like that. Sure. So
Paul Barbeau:you can you can find me on LinkedIn. You can find me on Facebook, Paul Barbeau. Surely you'll have my name on the show notes and stuff. So yeah, hit me up, shoot me a shoot me a message. I'll be glad to link up. Answer questions, network, whatever. Thanks again so much. Appreciate it. Thanks, Dave.
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