RG 121 – Striking the RIGHT Work, Life, Investing Balance as a Entrepreneur with Nathan Tabor
About Nathan
- Nathan grew up in Alabama
- Nathan used to wash houses for extra money
- Nathan was at his least happy when he was making the most money
Nuts and Bolts
Nathan has built a life of helping others and improving lives. Nathan founded and has operated more than 24 businesses since 1999, grossing over $150 million in sales. These businesses have covered the automotive industry, real estate, acquisitions, development, and strategic partnership facilitation. Nathan grew up near Huntsville Alabama and made his first dollar helping his father with odd jobs on the weekend, then at 15 he got a pressure washer and went house to house for $100 each. Nathan grew up ina small poor farming community with the mentality that if you want something you have to work and go get it yourself, so throughout college and grad school he did internships and summer work with networking. He ran for congress at 29, wrote a book and started a car lot before he got into real estate. In 2006 a guy came into the car lot talking about trying to get rid of an 18 unit deal so Nathan went to get financing and once that was secured he put down financing on a $400,000 deal. He renovated the property and flipped it making a $252,000 profit on his first deal.
During this first deal he lacked basic real estate knowledge; he knew how to run a business because of the car lot but didn’t know what a CAP rate was. As a result, he went on to buy a 12 unit deal a few months later and lost $150,000 over an 18 month period because he didn’t know about zoning. Nathan says that there are commonalities across all businesses whether it’s real estate or selling cars; he made the most mistakes when he was only chasing the money. This is because he would ignore if something was wrong and go along with it for the money. For example when going through the verification steps on a deal make sure to see the bank statements and don’t trust only the rent roll or tax return. When going through negotiations and there’s money missing from the rent rolls make the seller put that same amount into an escrow account so that the money comes through. If something is missing put together a report showing all the differences between expectation and reality and then make a suggestion of a solution so you don’t come across aggressively.
Nathan was the most unhappy when he was the most successful with all the money and belongings he could want, but his family was unhappy and he was overweight. Nathan recommends that you never work with someone who doesn’t respect family time and time away from work for self care. If they don’t respect the simple things then they won’t respect boundaries for the big things.
Top Tips:
- Most important habit – Keeping a running to-do list
- Most influential person – Wife
- Most important tool – Free app Anydo
