Let’s Talk About Active and Passive Investing
“You want to start to create relationships with people, because it’s not just a bunch of buildings that they’re trying to connect with. They want to connect with you as a human being and as a sponsor and as a friend that can help them get to the places that they want to go.”
Welcome to the Next Level American Dream Podcast. We have an inspiring guest for you today, but first please make sure you have subscribed, if you haven't already. We also love getting your feedback through likes, comments, ratings, and reviews. Today, Sean has a conversation with Ruben Greth. Ruben is the host of the Capital Raiser Show and a current multifamily investor. Today he walks us through some of his best advice on capital raising and what passive investors should be aware of when looking to invest. We hope you learn some amazing investing strategies on both sides of the table for active and passive investors. If you found any value from today's episode, then please share it with a friend and help us grow.
Key Topics
Tell us about your background
How did you go from a degree in Chemistry & Spanish to capital raising?
When it comes to capital raising what are the biggest mistakes people tend to make? What would you recommend doing instead?
What should an investor look for in a person they are investing money with?
What does the American Dream mean to you?
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Abigail Thomson 00:01
Welcome to the Next Level American Dream podcast brought to you by Thomson Multifamily Group. Your hosts, Abigail and Sean will discuss how you can take your American dream to the next level through real estate investing, business practices, and personal development. Join us as we share our experiences as a father daughter duo who are trying to accomplish their goal of financial freedom. We hope you learn more about how to define and achieve your American dream. Here's another episode of next level American Dream.
Abigail Thomson 00:33
Welcome to the Next Level American Dream podcast. We have an inspiring guest for you today. But first, please make sure you have subscribed if you have not already. We also love getting your feedback, likes, comments, ratings and reviews. Today Shawn has a conversation with Ruben Gretch. Ruben is the host of the capital raiser show and a current multifamily investor. Today he walks us through some of his best advice on capital raising and what passive investors should be aware of when looking to invest. We hope you learned some amazing investing strategies on both sides of the table for active and passive investors. If you found any value from today's episode, then please share it with a friend and help us grow. For more information on our sponsor, visit thomsonmultifamilygroup.com to start taking your American dream to the next level through passive investing.
Abigail Thomson 01:25
Hi Ruben Welcome to next American Dream. Thanks for coming on the show how you doing?
Ruben Greth 01:29
I'm doing fantastic Sean honored to be here. Man. Thank you so much for inviting me to your show.
Sean Thomson 01:33
Good good. We we've never met actually face to face. I know. Now zoom is considered face to face. We have a lot of mutual friends. And I've been excited about getting you on the show. This is a topic that I don't talk to enough people about capital raising. And it's a very important issue for not only the syndicators but also the investors that are investing in real estate syndications. But let's start with kind of some of your background where you come from and then kind of what you have going on today.
Ruben Greth 01:59
Yeah, so before I go into the background, I will say that the acquiring and of getting capital and the acquiring of real estate are two distinct businesses, you know, so we'll kind of let the that as a leave that as a forefront. My background, I started in 2008 or so in the multifamily buying frenzy of the Phoenix crash. And what I was doing was raising capital for small multifamily. So I started in the four Plex space, there was a dude that came in from out of town from San Diego with the bankruptcy. And he was taking down a four Plex, like every other week. And I couldn't understand who is doing it because I have a finance background. I used to be a mortgage guy for Wells Fargo, and I'm like, How are you taking down these properties? I know you're not financing them. And he explained to me that he was raising capital, he did not have a marketing background. And I was like, Hey, dude, man, can I just follow you around, take some videos of you just so you can explain, you know the difference between assets and liabilities and say the concepts of Rich Dad Poor Dad kind of talked about, we were talking about generational wealth, and this transfer of wealth that was happening during the crash, where people that bought during the very bottom, were going to acquire a great deal of wealth. So we talked about this stuff on our show quite a bit, or not our show but our our platform, which was a YouTube channel called Phoenix real estate investors, we shared how we would find property, how we would negotiate a better price and what they were being offered for on the market, we would cherry pick them we'd go drive properties, we would basically just look to see if there was no copper wires yanked if the air conditioner was in place, and if so we would take these things down, put renters in them and then cashflow astronomically, because we were renting them I believe it like 500 or $600 a unit. And we were buying them at $20,000 a unit or less. So he was like, Dude, you just raise $600,000 from these YouTube videos over the period of the last 12 months. Why don't you focus on this while I micromanage and build this acquisitions kind of portfolio of these four plexes. And I did so I was going to write a book, I was going to get a CD program and email drip campaign. And we even hired a producer to come in from out of town to help us kind of create a video mini pilot that was pre pilot to TV show that we were going to try and pitch to a&e and a couple other networks. Because everybody was talking about fixing and flipping and there was nobody talking about creating generational wealth through the acquisitions of cash flowing assets. And we're like, oh, we can kind of get that niche. So I spent all of this marketing money on getting these producers in town and then my partner started not showing up because he was so busy micromanaging contractors and was unwilling to delegate to To other people, which is a major misstep. But we started fighting because I was losing marketing dollars on the fact that he wasn't showing up. And then I ended up selling all of the four plexes and 12 unit kind of properties that we had, because I needed to survive. And I really wish that I would have kept those properties because I'd be, you know, Next Level millionaire status. Right now, if I did all of those properties that we bought at 20,000 a unit are worth, you know, probably between 100 and $130,000, a unit today. So, when I split up with him, I ended up back in corporate America and can't be really behind a desk. It's just not for me. So one day I quit my corporate America job, went down into Mexico, and then ended up meeting my wife who inspired me to get back into real estate, I came back to the United States, and didn't know exactly how to crew to basically get started. Again, I didn't have my own track record. And I didn't believe in my own skill set. But I created this plan to buy a bunch of four plexes, I'd buy one, and then multiply my portfolio every couple of years until I had multiplied it five times for a total of 32 for plexes 128 units. And I was like, I'll be done. If I create this. And I presented this plan to somebody at the local real estate investors Association. They're like, huh, 128 units. I can see how that would help you. Why don't you just go buy them all right now. And I was like, wait, what? I'm like, wait, I have zero units. I can't go from zero to 128. And they're like, yes, you can. It's this process called syndication. And so I started nurturing myself and educating myself on what syndication is and how it works, found a local mom and pop heavy lift multifamily syndicator and interview them and say, hey, you know, like, how do you put this thing together? Tell me about your team. Who do I need to have on my team to make this thing successful? And they're like, Well, what do you care? I'm like, Well, I used to raise capital for multifamily. And they're like, wait, what? You raised a bunch of money on YouTube, we need somebody like that we need capital raise, you know, for our team join us instead of going and paying a guru to teach you this business just joined us. Yeah. And so I did. And I had read a book by Joe Fairless, called the best ever apartment syndication book where he talks about on the raising capital side, that in order to do so you need to start an interview based thought leadership platform. And I'm like, Okay, I'll go do that. You know, I used to do YouTube, that was my platform, I'll start a podcast. If I'm going to start a podcast, I might as well do one on capital raising, because that's what I've been hired to do for this company. And I in the process, I interviewed a bunch of capital raisers learned what their strategies were met a bunch of sponsors that were really good at acquisitions, and then started contemplating how do I put these sponsors and capital raisers together, and make money and I was interviewing attorneys as well. And they all told me the same thing. They're like, if you want to put these capital raisers and the sponsors together, you need to go and start your own fund. So we had some dilemmas with that particular company that I was in while I had that podcast, which was because we scaled from the single family space and moved into the multifamily space, we kind of thought as a team that if we had a good enough deal, the money would come. In fact, we had experience using this particular strategy, hey, the deal is so good, you know, the money will come. And what we didn't realize at the time was that when you move into the world of syndication, it's not like that you have to educate, nurture, and really tell people, how you do business and see if there's an alignment of interest, get them to know like and trust you and be on multiple platforms, and have all these systems and tools and marketing, and email, automations and CRMs, and investment portals, and all these things in place before somebody will invest with you. And some of those things, particularly the rebranding and Avatar creation were things that were just very challenging for me to get implemented into our business, and I got frustrated. And it was like, Okay, so the attorneys told me to launch my fund. I quit, and I went and went off to go launch my own fund, but that has its own inherent problems. Right? Right. You have no track record, it's gonna cost like $15,000 to create your own security. And then people are gonna be like, Well, how many of these funds have you done, and I'm gonna be like, Zig, you know, you can mitigate some of that by saying, Oh, I've met all these sponsors, we're gonna invest in this sponsors deal. He's got a 20 year track record. And that kind of helps. But somebody that I had interviewed on my show was like, hey, instead of launching your own fund, I've already launched like three or four funds. I'm good at raising capital. What I don't have is the automations and systems and branding and national exposure. Come join me we'll take our funds in our company, and we'll do something special. We'll go and create an impact in the world and help people do multifamily syndication and invest as limited partners and or bring capital raisers into our funds, make them part owners of our funds. And then we'll go and take down all these properties from the sponsors that both of us have met. And this is where I find myself today, as a fund manager, you know, within, I think this whole thing started like two and a half years ago. So I went from having zero units, to raising a million dollars to taking down 90 And then another 100, and then leaving that company. And then now we are in the development arena. And we also raise capital for other people. And this week, I'm actually flying out to Lexington to go look at a portfolio of 437 units that we will also raise capital for, and this particular group that has this deal under contract that we're going to be doing the due diligence on, we've already raised 2 million from them in the past. So we have a relationship with them. And it's going to be exciting to see, you know how far we can take this business. We'd like to scale from these $2 million capital races, to really like $10 million capital races, you know, and I'm praying from a place of gratitude that with our infrastructure and the things that we have in place that will grow there over the next couple of years.
Sean Thomson 11:16
Wow.
Ruben Greth 11:19
I told you, we had to cram all this stuff in and like just a few minutes, right. So yeah,
Sean Thomson 11:23
I'm still absorbing all that information. So let's I want to get to because you're working with helping other people do capital raising as well, right.
Ruben Greth 11:32
And some regards. I mean, I have a show that's designed to help people scale their own business for sure.
Sean Thomson 11:38
So what are you seeing? Let's start with let's start with the bad and we'll move into the good stuff. What are you seeing people out there that are trying to do this business that are trying to raise capital? What are you seeing some of the things they're they they think they should be doing, but they're really mistakes in the business? And they and they probably shouldn't be doing? What are some of the things you see people making those mistakes doing?
Ruben Greth 11:59
Well, on the acquisition side, if you're good at underwriting, you look at a deal, you see that it pencils, it makes sense. Perhaps it even offers a greater return at the end of the day, then some of your competing sponsors out there in the multifamily syndication space, and you're thinking to yourself, hey, this is a great return, let me take this to the investors. And then because it's a greater return, we should be able to theoretically raise capital, and then what they're finding and what we found previously is that you know, doing heavy lift properties, the overwhelming response from investors, limited partners that I've surveyed is they want the same thing. They want big deals in big markets that are cash flow, and from day one. And what my team was offering was little deals in little markets that were cash flowing in month 18. So we were trying to bring something that we thought penciled to an audience that didn't want what we had. So that's the first part is like you want to go and speak to your investors, find out what that what it is that they want, and then offer what they want to them. Or if you want to really do what your model is, and you believe that you have power in that specific niche, in this case, heavy value add or heavy lift multifamily, you have to go and build a database of people that resonate with this particular business model. And that takes time. So you have to choose one of those two paths, either bring the investors what they want, or spend the time nurturing and educating people with what it is that you do to make sure that you're in alignment with their goals and interview a lot of people. So that's one thing. The other thing, you know, if we're talking about a marketing perspective, what a lot of people do is they don't focus on the emotional needs of the investor. So you see people's websites and their webinar presentations. And it's a lot of buildings and hypotheticals and market analysis and return structures and how you're going to get paid and when you're going to get communicated with and nobody is tapping into the emotional needs of the investors. Because the investors never going to want to invest into a building because they love buildings, they're going to invest in a building because it gets them something right. And that could be financial freedom. It could be spending time on a beach, it could be walking away from your W two, walking away from your business, the ability to put your daughter in college, it could be all kinds of things. But if you're not talking about those things, and making the investor the hero of the story, if you're like, Hey, I'm the hero, come invest with me. We're gonna give you financial freedom, people will start disconnecting immediately. And when you turn it around and say, Hey, you're the hero. We're going to be the guide. We're going to help you conquer your villain which may be you know, you need to tax shelter. You're Your income that you get from your W two or your business, or you know, you don't have cash flow, or you don't have the ability to walk away or take care and spend time with your kids or parents, and you know, go and retire or do something fun, or whatever it is, God's calling is for you. We basically take them, cut, give them and challenge them to confront their villain, you know, along this story, long story, brand script, right, where there's a hero, a guide, we're the guides, we take the hero, we have them face their challenge, which is lack of financial freedom, we offer them a solution, and then we challenge them to confront their villain. And then at the end of the day, we take them to a place that equals success, in this case, the creation of financial freedom, generational wealth, and cash flow and all the other amazing things that come with multifamily. So that's one thing that another large group of syndicators in this sea of syndicators are not doing effectively. They're just like, beating you up and trying to shove down returns down your throat, and really not focused on like, how can you really help these people solve their problems, right, so that's kind of one area of focus. The other thing that they do is, you know, from an operator perspective, if you're looking to acquire limited partners, or other people to bring money into your business, you're kind of approaching them in some cases, from Hey, you know, like, I'm, I wanted to attract engineers, and tech space guys, and doctors and lawyers, and CPAs, and business professionals. And, like, what happens is, if you don't have a really dialed in Avatar, you're kind of messaging this broad spectrum and promoting this financial freedom. And people can't connect with it. Because the message is so spread out, it's not dialed in, where you know exactly who your investor avatar is. And once you know, like, Hey, this is where they live, this is, who they're married to, this is their kids names, this is what they do, this is where they hang out, this is what they look for. This is what they know about real estate, when you have that mind of the person that you're trying to help you can create messaging designed for that person. And then people will see the messaging, that's very clear. And they'll be like, Oh, I resonate with that, maybe I'm not that avatar, but I can definitely understand how that person wants to create financial freedom. And obviously, these guys brand is so wholesome, or so whatever it is that you decide to go, that I decided to choose that brand, because I trust that they're going to be, you know, intelligent and savvy with with my investment. And, you know, that's how you start to create relationships with people, because it's not just a bunch of buildings that they're trying to connect with. They want to connect with you as a human being. And as a sponsor, and as a friend that can help them get to the places that they want to go. A lot of people don't really focus on that either.
Sean Thomson 18:02
Yeah, and that's, that's one of the things that I found in our businesses. You know, real estate's kind of a complex business, it's, you know, Wall Street has made it so simple for people to give them their money, they just make it well, you and as your money we give you returns or whatever. And, you know, we keep it forever. And it's really, you don't have to think a lot about buying a mutual fund. Right. There's diversification built in all this sort of, like, trigger points are the keywords are there for someone to go and invest? With real estate, it's a fairly complex business, if you if you tried to learn everything you need to know about real estate before you invest in an LPS position on a syndication, it would take you years, you know, so the people that you're trusting with your investment have to know all that information. And you have to you have to feel comfortable with them enough to give them your money, right. So that's, that's one of the first hurdles you have to overcome with people is that, hey, look, I understand what I'm this, I understand this complex business that I'm in. And you know, you have to have confidence in me, because I'm your number one risk in your investment, right? I'm the the guy running the business. And that overcoming that hurdle, I think is the most important part. And that's kind of what you were saying is identifying what they're looking for in this relationship and being able to provide that or let them know that you can provide that either one. And I think that's really kind of the first step to making a successful investor investor operator relationship is overcoming what their needs are. And can you provide that and is it something that that's part of your business plan, really? And is that relationship going to work on both sides? Right?
Ruben Greth 19:37
Yeah, the thing is, is that people are walking around blindly not knowing that they can invest in real estate or that they have to take the single family route. You know, what Wall Street kind of has on syndicators is they have a lot of financial advisors and people that are selling products and advertising and doing commercials. When it comes to private placement. Nobody He knows what a private placement is because they've never heard of it. So like us as sponsor operators, capital raisers. Our job is like do these podcasts, do social media advertising, and really start educating nurturing the public, that they can avoid this crazy roller coaster that is the Wall Street, you know, ride and all of the volatility associated with it by learning, the fact that they can invest into these institutional grade multifamily or other commercial real estate assets. And the only way that they can do that is by meeting somebody because these fund managers and syndicators are not hanging out on every street corner. And there's no advertising done by TV to promote these things. But syndication, and the private money space really is a huge part of the United States economy. Because pretty much every building in your city, wherever that is, downtown was most likely syndicated. And syndication can refer to the raising and placing of private capital within team structures for a variety of things. You can syndicate baseball teams, movies, oil and gas hotels, casinos, high rise buildings, in a variety of other businesses. And people don't realize that they have access to this, because this is something that's been exclusive to the very rich people only. And now we're starting to explain. And we have this mission imperative moral intents to help people understand that they do have access to these things. But you know, the first step is to educate, nurture them, to get them to understand that what they're currently doing typically is not going to create generational wealth, because investing in a 401k, unless you're really good and sophisticated at stocks trading, or Bitcoin or cryptocurrency, the best solution for you is to place your money with somebody that can handle all of the operations of these institutional grade investments for you, where you don't have to deal with toilets, tenants, termites, installing baseboards, rather, you go and find and educate yourself on this space. And then if you can find somebody that you know, like and trust, you place their money with them while you're doing your W two. So it's not a headache for you. And then those two groups, the operator and the money partner come together and create a great deal of success. And that's something that a lot of people don't know exists for them.
Sean Thomson 22:33
Right? Yeah, I talk to people all the time, they're almost almost exclusively, the people I talked to, they would love to invest in real estate. And a lot of them either don't do it, or they start with buying their own properties in the single family space. And it's it's such a hassle to buy even a single family house and try and create a rental property. I mean, that takes a lot of work. It's a lot of hassle. And there's there's issues with that. And almost everybody I talked to that they when you explain this syndication model to them. They're initially they're apprehensive, they're like, Well, that can't be true, right?
Ruben Greth 23:06
It's too good to be true. This doesn't exist, how come? I've never heard of it?
Sean Thomson 23:10
I've never heard of this. It sounds it sounds too good to be true. It's like, well, you could just give me your $200,000 that you were gonna use to put in someone put into go buy this rental property, and I'm probably going to make you at least the same or more money, yes, you're still going to get the depreciation, you're going to get all the benefits, but you don't have to deal with anything. I'm going to take care of it right? And you tell them this stuff, and they're just like, wait a minute,
Ruben Greth 23:32
it takes takes time to get them to know like and trust you believe that they're not getting, you know, gypped or hoodwinked or, you know, scandal because people it's particularly for the capital raising space. People are like, very leery of that your way you're a capital raiser, you basically want to take my money and manage it, right? Like that's messed up, like, Who do you think you are to do that, and then takes a while to get them to understand your business model and your industry before they can really have the confidence to invest. And that's a process that takes a great deal of time. So there's people like us that spend that time nurturing people and educating them, regardless of if they ever do business with us. Because this is a vehicle that creates wealth, that is not generally available to most American people and not taught about particularly not in college. And so, you know, we come from a abundance perspective and just share like, when somebody wants to invest with us, I'm okay. You know, have you looked at this other sponsor? You know, go interview 10 people before you make a decision to invest with any of them, like, go understand what you're getting into. This is a process that takes time and when they hear you offer that invitation and even provide your competitors are like, wow, okay, this person, I'm starting to gain trust.
Sean Thomson 24:57
Yeah, and it's such a simple it's such a simple business to And it's like I said a moment ago, it sounds too good to be true. And it's, I think part of the problem that we have as syndicators or capital raisers is that all the regulations sort of surrounding what we do, it makes it very difficult for us to convey or, or discuss, you know, kind of the real results, or the actual application of the investments and things like that with people on, you know, just on an open,
Ruben Greth 25:23
there's definitely a lot of tricks that I've learned in that you have
Sean Thomson 25:26
to kind of, you have to kind of manipulate or massage the discussions that you have with people, what you can do
Ruben Greth 25:33
is talk about your track record and business model, okay, this is what I've done in the past, these are the returns that I've created in the past, I'm not seeking your investment capital, but this is what we plan on doing in the future. And this is why we think we can do it based off of our previous track record, you can talk about that all day long. And that's a very easy conversation. As long as you're not coming from a place of let me sell you, you know, let me get you to invest with me. It's more of like, Hey, this is what people in my industry are doing. And this is why they're having success. And then people kind of from my perspective, I don't sell, I let people find out about us. And then if they like us, they self select, right. It's never like, hey, I need your $50,000 for my deal. Because I'm desperate. It's always like, Hey, this is what we just doubled somebody's money on this last deal in 26 months, we expect reasonably to do similar types of returns in the future. And this is why, and that is not what attorneys refer to as conditioning the market. Because you're not promising anybody into returns, you're not talking about any deals, that could be potentially securities, right? Because every time that we do one of these big multifamily deals, we have to create a company, and that company is treated as a security. And you can't advertise unless you do a specific exemption. And if you don't do the advertising exemption, you're only allowed to talk to people that you have a previous existing relationship with. And these are some of the hurdles that us as capital racers, we have to navigate very carefully, right, so that we don't get ourselves in trouble, because there's a lot of regulations that we have to follow in order to participate with private money partners in our deals. So stuff to think about, right, for sure.
Sean Thomson 27:22
One, I think that so for me, especially I you know, I think that kind of makes it, it makes it hard for me to just have those conversations with people. You know, because timing is an issue. If I'm if I'm still raising on a deal, I can't, I can't actually just say, hey, you know, like with Wall Street, Wall Street, just kind of they, like you said they're on TV, they're everywhere, right. And they I think Wall Street kind of just makes it easy for people to understand the business model. And for us, I could make it easy to understand our business model. But I can't say any of these things. Because I didn't show with the SEC, right? So the way we have to go about it makes it so difficult to convey to people. I mean, we were still a win, like you said those two fundamental concepts, you can talk about those things, and we're still able to convey a message. But it'd be really nice to kind of be able to just sit down with someone and say, here's exactly what we're doing. And, you know, sometimes you just can't do that. Because it's you know, you're it's bad timing on your offering or whatever it is. But Ruben, let's talk about now. And so we've kind of talked about the the syndicator side of things. Let's talk about the investor side of things. What What should an investor if they're interested in being a real estate investor? And they're kind of interested in this multifamily? Like you said, institutional level multifamily syndication model? What should they be looking for, to to invest? And what sort of process would you recommend they go through to kind of get started?
Ruben Greth 28:39
Start listening to podcasts, start reading some books on the topic? Review a bunch of different groups don't choose the very first one. You know, what I would think is the best question to ask a person after assuming that you've vetted them and kind of understand how they do business and what their business looks like. Is you want to find out how many if you can have their investors how many of the sponsors, investors do repeat business with them. And what you're going to find is that over the last 567 years, most syndicators have made money. So when when a person doesn't reinvest with a syndicator, it's not typically because they didn't make money occasionally that can happen for sure. But for the most part, everybody's been on fire. So the reason that they would leave a syndicator and go with somebody else, is because their investor experience sucked. They didn't get communicated with they were freaking out because their $50,000 nest egg that they work really hard to get is now sitting with some operator that's never communicating with them. And if they want to find out what's going on with a property, there's no point horrible for them to access and see what's going on. There's no email communication, if you want to talk to them, they're not available, they're not answering the phone, or they're putting you off or saying, hey, everything's going great with a deal. We'll talk to you in six months when the deal closes. And that's just not satisfactory. So the people that really are having success with customer retention or investor retention, or people getting to reinvest with them, are the guys that have the best communication. They're not necessarily even always the best syndicators. The best syndicators, at least in terms of total profit return, may not be the best overall experience for investors, if they're not communicating effectively, with their database of people that are in the deal, you know, their partners. So my recommendation to any limited partner, before you get into, especially if you've never done it, is you want to start surveying and talking to other people that have already done it? And then ask them, hey, in the past, when you invested with somebody, do you think that you would reinvest with them? And if not, why, and if you are going to invest with a different sponsor, why and start asking questions? What is it that you liked about this indicator? What is it that sucked about this indicator? Why are you attracted to another person to put your in place your money within that future? What have you heard, get some social proof from other people and their investors? And if here's, here's the tricky part is because these things are referred to as private placements. They are really private deals. And some operators may be like, Well, I'm not giving you access to my investors, what if you take them off, or I'm not going to let you interview the people that have done business with me, or, you know, like, they have the right to do that, because it is private. And people don't necessarily want all their financial business all over the internet, and being provided to people that your investors may not even know personally. So it's kind of challenging, but absolutely necessary to start picking and probing and finding however, way you can, other investors that have done it. And you know, some of the social proof that you may find on a syndicators website, like, hey, this person had a great experience are this is their testimony, you know, they display that stuff all over their website, because it gives them the credibility. And you know, like one, one other thing is, you may want to even ask a sponsor, because sponsors typically are making enough money where they are also limited partners, in other people's deals, you may want to ask a sponsor, hey, if of all the people that you've worked with in the past, who would you re invest with? And they will tell you, hey, you know, I had the greatest experience with XYZ syndicator. And then that tells you right there who you should probably start talking to as well.
Sean Thomson 33:08
Yeah, that's I think, fundamentally, that's, that's excellent advice. And I think fundamentally, one of the things that people are looking for in this space is different than Wall Street, because you can send, you can send your money to Wall Street, it's kind of anonymous, right just kind of clicks along. I think people coming to this syndication space, they want a more high touch experience, right? They want to have a more connected experience with their money on the line, for sure. Well, they just want to be more connected to what they're investing. And I think that's a very, I think that's a very important issue for most people, because, you know, you can make money in the stock market today, it's, you know, fine, and it's kind of anonymous, and it just sits there. But I think people are taking money out of the stock market to have a greater connection with what they're doing and a greater control over what's happening. And if you're not communicating that, that business plan, and what's the actions you're taking, and you know, how the financials are operating, and things like that, with your investors, I think you they're missing, they're missing something that they desire.
Ruben Greth 34:04
That's a huge point that you just made, I think a lot of people want to when they're investing not only make money for themselves, but actually make an impact in the world, right? And a lot of operators kind of add that component to their business. They're like, Hey, we're not just good at what we do, but we're actually doing good in the world. You know, we're like, helping this nonprofit charity or, you know, we're making it so that these guys they're not just tenants that pay us but they're actually residents that were giving a higher quality of life because they're living in properties that are better than the the neighboring properties or competitive properties. And that is something that you have direct control over by adding technology and dog parks and amenities and all these things and even community aspects that you know, like some slumlord is not going to have or some just regular Mom and Pop owner may not have so you are creating an impact as a limited partner by partnering with people that have that focus, right. So not only are you changing people's lives, providing them with a great home, but you're also impacting the economy by giving contractors jobs, property managers, jobs, real estate agents, jobs, insurance agents, jobs, and this thing that you do that's helping you and give you all these tax benefits and cash flow is actually making a huge impact in our country. So think about that before you invest. It's not just what is in it for me and my family. While that is a huge part, you're also having a 10x multiplier effect on the economy in the world, when you do these types of things.
Sean Thomson 35:45
Yeah, and I think that's important for people. I think that's, that's what I think people want to be more connected to their money and what they're investing in. And I think that's a big component from at least that's the way I look at it. For our investors, I think they want to know where their impact is happening. So that's, that's a big part of our communications. So Reuben, I, I've only got you for a little bit of time. So I know I got to get you off for your phone call here. But the last question I have, and I asked everybody, this is the name of the podcast, his next little American dream. So I ask everybody kind of what is the American Dream for you.
Ruben Greth 36:17
So I went down to Playa Del Carmen and lived down there in paradise where I had white sand beaches on one side with turquoise waters. And on the other side of the freeway, there was these things called the Nautilus which were like freshwater caves where you could go diving and I had tacos really cheap and very inexpensive brand. And like all this culture and theme parks, and I thought that I was living in paradise. And what I realized is that when I was there, I was not fulfilled, because I was not having an impact on the world. So the ideal American life is for you to get these things, whatever your dreams may be spending time with your family, but in conjunction with all of your dreams, and the accomplishment of them and working towards that is some level of contribution that you're giving to the world. Like it's not just about having pleasure, but actually being fulfilled as a human being because you are contributing on some level to the world. For me, the progress towards a worthy ideal of making a contribution is the ideal life. It's not necessarily like a bunch of riches and just kind of sitting on the beach drinking mai Tai's with no impact that you're creating. It's like you want to create these riches. And then have an impact, whether that's like you doing active real estate investing, or you know, creating some money, and then giving it or helping whatever charity of cause is your choice. You know, in my case, that would be animal cruelty and other people's it's like, let's help people adopt other people may want to end world hunger or educate people on the fact that carbs and sugars are killing them or other people, maybe anti cancer research and that type of stuff. But you can't really participate in helping the world in that way. Unless you're rich or working with people. So the rights and progress towards becoming rich is, you know, what I would consider, you know, and helping the world a worthy ideal, you know, in my opinion.
Sean Thomson 38:22
Yeah, that's, that's awesome. So how can people reach out to you and get more information about what you have going on, maybe check out the podcast, that kind of thing.
Ruben Greth 38:31
capitalresearchshow.com is my podcast website, you can find this on all the different platforms. I'd like to communicate with people via LinkedIn. And if you're interested in seeing how we market or just check out our opportunities for your own self interest to see if there may be some synergy between what we do and what you want to create. Check out our website at legacyacquisitions.com.
Sean Thomson 38:53
Awesome. Well, thanks, everyone. I really appreciate you coming on show. Hopefully we can have you back to dive deeper into some of these things. It's been fun for some work down the road.
Ruben Greth 39:01
And great meeting you shot man. Thank you. It's been an honor to be on your show. Hopefully added some value.
Sean Thomson 39:06
Great to me. Yeah, you definitely did. I really appreciate it.
Ruben Greth 39:09
All right, my friends peace. I'll talk to you soon.
Abigail Thomson 39:12
Thanks for joining us for another episode of Next Level American dream. If you would like to learn more about what we talked about today. Want to contact the team directly or interested in passively investing and being a part of our deal room? Head over to our website at www.thomsonmultifamilygroup.com. Before you go please leave a review your comments help us create more episodes for you to enjoy.