What is going on investor Thrive nation this is the payneless wholesaling podcast where I bring in experts in the real estate industry to tell us how they got to where they’re at right now. And so you can avoid the pitfalls, the pain of investing and trying to figure things out on your own. That’s why I got Noel on here today. He’s done many deals, Noel, tell us a little bit about yourself and your experience in real estate, you can quick wrap up and we’ll dive a little bit deeper into it
real fast real fast born in Philadelphia, I’m a former pro athlete, former scientists and term full time real estate investor by being laid off during the great recession. And so I’ve acquired now $7 million worth of real estate personally that I own and then as a GP, I’m over 15 million
Wow, right man, you’re looking pretty jacked over there or do you still do work out and do it?
You know, at a young 42 years old I still work out every day 5am You know, I get started 5am
On what do you do? Like what is the workout look like?
It depends man So some days I’m doing yoga Other days I’m in the pool, open water swims. I’m a big boy Thai jujitsu guy, bro. Let’s go do some CrossFit and you know so yeah, I love to stay active and I think you know, Jujitsu was really my thing because it makes you think it’s a conceptual thinking and when you’re in real estate the do deal sometimes especially if the climate right now you need to be able to think why you’re being a chokehold. That’s really how it was. I was one of those people with you seen that, you know, Silicon Valley Bank or first republic, I had my money with first republic and just got bought out by JP Morgan, and I was doing reifies with them. So imagine being in a chokehold like you don’t know where your money’s going, you don’t know what you’re going to do what you’re building and I was like, All right, you gotta relax and flow so I love you just makes you think and not have to panic when you go through this type of, you know, economic environment right now.
Me and you’re one of the same. I’m into jujitsu. I freaking love it, bro. It’s like my favorite. I wake up I always just do it. Yeah, bro. 530 I’m just rolling, bro. cranking on people getting cranked on this just are you gear? No, Gi. No, Gi. I don’t do Gi.
I didn’t give you both. But I normally I’ll do this because I want to stop the scratches.
Yeah, yeah. So I wear the rash guard and all that. But I just went to a black belt ceremony. I’m not a black belt. I’ve just been doing it for a little bit. But I went to a ceremony on Saturday. And it was fun because I got to see like the guy get the black belt. We roll with them. Have you been doing it for a while?
Yeah, I’ve been I got introduced to jiu jitsu and Muay Thai around 2012 13. And, yeah, I’m a high strung person. So Jiu Jitsu, you know, it doesn’t matter how big you’re stronger Are you have to it’s technique and flows like human chess. And so you get a flow like water. So it really helps me relax. Because not brute strength of you know, getting somebody to do that, you know, sometimes you can do impose your will, you’re shooting but, but most of the time, it’s, you know, technique, finesse, you know, kind of predict where someone’s going to go. So I love that about it.
And what are you uh, Are you certain belt level? Yeah, bro. So cool. Yeah. So when I I wrestled all throughout high school and a little bit in college. So I had that background. And then I got into jujitsu about like, two years ago. And when I first started, I was like, going balls to the wall, like just trying to crank on people. And just like, they were just like, you know, using their momentum. Just moving me kuzushi and I was like, what’s going on? Now? Two years later, I’m like, barely even trying, bro. Like, I’ve just like, when people It feels like I don’t even have to work that hard to be real. It’s amazing. It’s fun. So yep, yep. Yeah, that’s definitely that’s cool about the yoga just curious.
Do you do hot yoga other hot yoga on Sundays? Because normally that’s like my active recovery day. So hot yoga there but I actually got into the yoga because I wanted to get more flexible you know, I I’m not a big stretching guy. So I like I said I do a lot of activity and my yet I need to incorporate this. So I kind of relate that to where real estate kind of like continue education, like what books are you reading? Who are you learning from? I use LinkedIn as like my, my personal, like Rolodex of investors. Like if I see an investor, like and I’m like, Oh, he’s doing something that that I would like to do. Or, for example, this morning, I was on a call and the guy was doing a crowd fund. And I was like, you know, I’ve never done a crowd fund, how to set it up and I say, Listen, let me get some free labor. I just want to shadow how you’re putting together how you’re doing your distributions. I just want to learn how this is coming together. He’s buying like 120 900 995 units. All through like St. Louis, and they’re gonna crowdfunded. And I was like, I want to learn. So you know, and I met that guy through through LinkedIn, you know, and you know, and most people are willing to share as long as you’re respectful of their time, you know, you come in letting them know what your need is what you can provide. And you know, that time I’ve never had an issue with someone telling me like scram off or, Hey, give me $50,000, you know, for for more time,
I never had that, like, you know, so. Yeah. And do you have a podcast as well? By the way?
No, no, I don’t have a podcast now.
Yeah, and that’s one thing just I found is like, usually having a podcast enables you to bring other people as well to, like, share their wealth and knowledge as well. So it sounds like you do it. I kind of use the platform of the podcast to bring people on that I want to learn from. So that’s cool, man, I love it. I wanted to ask you about your being an athlete. What did you do as an athlete,
I was a track and field. So I was 2008 games, Beijing, I did end up going to the 2008 Beijing Games, but as a guide runner, so it’s a good story about this as well, like I was talking about this for years of training, and it was over in 10 seconds. Oh, man, you know, and it’s over and 10 seconds, and I’m like, Shit, I trade off. Actually, it’s probably longer than that. But you’re really kind of gearing going. But it’s not like, Alright, what do you do now? And then I was United States Olympic Committee had reached out and say, Hey, would you like the guy to run for somebody that’s blind. And so we’re tethered together, I’m his mirror image. And when I say that’s one of the most fulfilling things that I’ve ever done in my life, besides, you know, teaching people now, just because I got to let him live out his dream, and, you know, I try to call I really correlate that now to, you know, what I do for folks. And I always give like, free education, and I’m always giving out like, my templates underwriting, I just want to help people, you know, achieve their goals, you know, and I always tell people to be very granular on your goals. You know, most people say like, what do you want to be like, I want a million dollars? Like, really? Is that just kind of arbitrary number? Or have you broken down? What do you need for your financial independence and financial viability, and then financial freedom, which are totally different things, you know, and once you actually set that out, and actually set a course on that, you’d like, Well, damn, I can vacation where like, how many times I want to vacation per year, drive the car want to drive if I’m just very granular and organized on what I what my number is, and then I can know what how many properties I need to acquire?
Did you have after sports, or did sports help you learn that skill set of setting goals, sports helped me
you know, set the goals and sports also was with failure, you know, learning how to lose, I encourage everybody, you know, I I’m not a participation trophy, or ribbon guy, I was actually really hard. I’m not, I’m hard on my nephew, my nephew, stay with me for the summer. You know, he’s 15. And you know, I teach him about real estate, and he has his first summer job and how is money, but you need to learn how to fail to succeed, you know, you need to like, because in this game, you take losses, you shouldn’t be taking the same losses over and over again, that means that’s the problem in your, in your, your core systems, or your methodologies or your processes. If you have the same mistakes happening, but there’s going to be loss is inevitable. It’s like Murphy’s Law, there’s going to be some if you’re especially if you’re doing enough volume, and you’re doing enough things like there’s certain things that you can’t predict, you know, whether it’s being laid off, whether it’s being COVID whether it’s being in banks going under, you know, you got you’re gonna take some losses, you know, in this game right now, and it’s how you, you push through, you know, and I always say like, my first property took me almost, almost 28 months, I went door to door knocking, you know, this is, you know, door to door knocking on folks doors, asking, you know, for property, you know, back then real estate was less sexy, because this is 2009 I’m talking about. So, market just crashed, it’s not real estate wasn’t as sexy as it is right now, where you had, you know, most people were running for the hills, you know, and I’m up here reading reading up on it, and I’m going door to door, you know, asking people, you know, can I buy your house? All right, I learned a lesson and that too, was empathy. You know, because I was fine, put ease through shift cells, which are tax foreclosure. And what I learned is like, no, no man or woman wants to lose their house because they couldn’t pay their taxes or their, their, you know, their mortgage. You know, it was a it was a it was a rough time around that 2009 And a lot of people were getting laid off during that recession, and I learned a lot of empathy and I learned again to help people first so you know, it’s not being some of your house you know, or you know, they want to take it, but I help you Yeah. First, how can we partner number second, you can either sell it to me or we just the part as you know, mutual acquaintances because I never talked business at the door. I would have Buy them out to like coffee or lunch, you know? At least you’re getting something out of that. And then if not all right, you know, but I said my piece and try to help.
Yeah, that’s amazing. I came from the door to door industry before real estate I knock doors for six years for satellite TV had some teams like grew up. So I know what you’re talking about man door door, it’s a grind.
It’s a it’s an unmanned, I have some stories, hoses getting hurt. Some people putting pistols out on me dogs, my dog, it is rough. And I was probably going on a bad day because I was going on Sundays. But I I targeted Sundays. And most people are, you know, home during the afternoons or on Sundays or post church if they did that. So I target Sundays that I felt like that was still the high volume chance that someone would be home. And so that’s why that’s also the time where people don’t want to they want to be bothered. Resource versus reward situation.
So I’m curious about you’re talking about failure is the way to success, right? You you learn from your mistakes. So what would you say for the people who like don’t want to fail, like they want to learn everything before they take action, they want to watch videos, they want to like learn stuff before they even do anything, because that happens a lot.
Yeah, I call it analysis by paralysis. You know, you gotta you gotta shoot your shot, man, like, you can’t hold the ball and be on the sidelines. You know, if you want to play safe, you got to get in the bubble, you will have a safe, mundane life. But if you want a life of you know, adventure and excitement, there’s going to be some risk in that, you know, you have to it Tony Robbins has a quote, but it’s actually from Eleanor Roosevelt is that if you want to take the island, you burn the boats, you know, he uses that a lot. But as Eleanor Roosevelt’s quote, whatever, but so, you know, you have to, you have to put it out there. Yeah.
And I think there’s a quote that I like, it’s like, if something can’t change, it can’t progress, right? Like, if you’re gonna get into something that’s like, stagnant, or you can’t improve, like, you might as well not spend your time on it, right? Because in business, you’re always changing this, the ever changing game on this,
it’s always and you want the ball at the end, you know, it’s, you know, winners win. And I like to make key decisions, you know, so I, like, I took that as I do, like that little bit of pressure on me to perform. I always say like, every, every day is like game seven for me. And I try to approach it that way, all the time. Because you get comfortable, you know, I’ve been you know, full time investing, and particularly financially free since 2015 16. And you get comfortable. And when you want to challenge yourself out of your comfort level. That’s where you’re trying to go to a different peak. And that’s where I’m trying to get to a different tax bracket. I’m trying to buy something different and it is very challenging. And I love that shit. Give me high me the curse, but I love it. I love it. I’m definitely getting beat up right now in the you know, I’m doing well on commercial real estate, but I’m getting locked up. You know, I want some rounds. But you know, I would say they’re winning the fight right now, you know, but it’s not.
Well did. I think it’s amazing, because like you said, you’ve reached a point where like, we talk at least I hear a lot of people like, hey, once I retire, I’ll be good. But like, look, then what what do you have to strive for? Right? What do you got to live for? So it’s really cool to see someone like you or it’s like, Hey, man, I’ve kind of gotten to a point where you could say, Hey, I’m good. But every day is game seven, because that’s how I keep going and keep having fun and keep striving and that’s a good place to be I don’t think you ever want to be like I said, if you’re not changing, you’re not progressing, right? You always gotta be improving. So that’s so cool. So for the listeners that are tuning in, I think we talked and they’ve got a lot of good value so far, but for if they’re in a job right now, if they got a W two, and they want to get into real estate, can you give them just like one key advice one thing that they can implement after listening this that they can do
or want it’s not one thing but I take I take this topic very seriously like I’m everybody’s on social media, I see Instagram, people bashing people for WTS and I’m just like, go go somewhere with that. Your job, technically is your first partner, you know that as your first partner you know, as you go acquiring a property. You know, if I was a W two person, I would be looking to say guess what we’re what type of property what I would like, if it’s me, I’m saying I can qualify for NACA NACA loan, which is like under 5%. Down, you go to quads, or FHA loan where you can go up the quads and I’m, I’m leveraging my my w two to actually qualify for this and move in, acquire it, put the money rinse and repeat again, you know, there’s some companies like I was allowed when I was at GSK, I was allowed to borrow from my 401k already and place it into real estate deals. And so I was doing that Well, then another option for w two people self directed IRAs, you know, you’re not technically you’re not, you don’t have to put your money into the company’s 401k. You know, I will say if they’re matching, go ahead, but if they’re matching, you should know, when are you vested. Because if you’re not, if you’re switching jobs every two to three years, but they’re saying you need to be there more than 36 months to actually get that best that you’d be bested, and you’re you’re switching jobs to yours to climb up the ladder, then I will put my money in there, I’ll put it in a self directed IRA, and I’m investing in real estate in my self directed IRA. At least I have power and knowing where it’s where it’s going.
Yeah, I think a lot of people like you’re saying they poopoo or they talk bad about WTO is when WTO is are bad that like you said, they’re your first partner, they can get you a lot of deals. So I just think maybe it’s a lot of people’s are told, like, hey, get rid of that job and get in real estate. Hey, many people do both.
They leverage both and do it for you. Like I always tell people remember, there’s a lot of great marketers out there. But you know, you need to follow people are actually doing real estate and operate in real estate because they’re great marketers. I see it all the time. Like man, that’s, that’s amazing. Now operate in real estate. You know,
I love it. Well, I know I’ve had a great time chat with you how if my listeners you know, as they’ve been listening for, like, Man, I really want to learn more from this guy. I want to dive in deeper what he’s got to say, how can they reach you? What can you do for them? So you know, they can reach out and learn more?
Yeah, I’m available at no, well, no el at Crown capital. corp.com. That’s my email address. If you’re on Instagram, my instagram handle is the Christian sex symbol. So yes, there is a little irony around it. I love it. Because I don’t take life too serious. That symbol is my handle on Instagram, where you got like,
we got pictures of the shirt off, and they’re
all real estate stuff. But I you know, it’s a parody because I was born and raised Catholic. So always. I have a sense of humor. So that’s funny. I like it. Yes. All rules the stuff on there.
So Christian sex symbol, and then you got the crown. You got your email, and those who have tried to reach out? Yep. Correct. Well, pleasure having the honor man, I’ve learned a lot I’ve given and I can tell I can feel your energy that like you’re excited every day. Even though sometimes you take the licks, you’re like, hey, let’s freakin keep going. But one last thing I had to ask when you said four years of training over and 10 seconds, what did you mean by over and 10 seconds?
It was 100 meters. So I was 100 meter runner. And, you know, that year, you know, I think the slowest time to make it was like 1005 You know, so I didn’t run fast enough. So I was still in 10 seconds, but it was over.
So you were referring in the fact that like to get to the PERT certain age you wanted to go to you didn’t qualify? Is that what you’re saying? What man that is?
That’s a real quick and that my dad and my stepmom was like, Well, what are you gonna do now? You didn’t make the list? What are you gonna do now? That’s how I ended up in GSK. And let someone else’s fears impede your mindset. And I was the last time I let somebody do that because I let their fears that they were putting on me impact what I was going to do. I was 26 years old. I still was young. I still had the trial for the 2000s phone games, but it was your own fair a for like me and a love for me that they were like you need to go work. You know, use your degree whatever. Because, you know, I have a degree in biology and a master’s in biomedical engineering. You need to go do it. Don’t let nobody’s fear impact what you want to do. You know, that’s, if I can leave you with anything. Please don’t.
It’s a good way to end and man, thank you so much. Reach out to Noel. You want to learn more peace out everybody
