RG 287 – What You Need to Know About Investing in Self-Storage with Sam Wilson

Meet Sam Wilson, the accidental real estate investor who is now syndicating niche commercial assets with highly stable returns. Join us for this episode as we talk about niche real estate assets, building a life outside of work, and giving back to the community.

Sam Wilson is an active and very versatile investor in various real estate assets, namely, retail, self-storage, multi-family apartments, RV parks, and much more. He also hosts the podcast How to Scale Commercial Real Estate, where he shares the most important commercial real estate strategies to maximize returns to both rookie and experienced investors. (Check out his episode with yours truly!)

Unlike many investors in the industry, Sam got into real estate by accident. He saw a foreclosure listing one day, bought the house, and the rest is history. Nine years later, Sam helps others maximize their investments in real estate, and hones his passion of creating a machine that allows him the best level of financial freedom possible.

In this interview, we go in-depth about self-storage assets, including rental rates, expense ratios, management requirements, and more. On the flip side, we delve a bit into building a life outside a business, and why chasing the dollar does not always lead to happiness.

Key Takeaways

• Having boots on the ground is one of the best ways to identify opportunities.

• There’s more to life than work; build a lifestyle around work.

• Money is just a tool, not a surefire path to happiness.

LINKS

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-to-scale-commercial-real-estate/id1539979234

https://www.linkedin.com/in/brickeninvestmentgroup/

Be Bold, Be Brave and Go Give Life a Crack!

Reed Goossens (00:00):

Good. Hey guys. Now, before we dive into today’s show, I want you to let you know that some of you may be aware that over the past eight years, I have built a substantial multifamily real estate portfolio here in the US worth over half a billion dollars. And in that time, my passive investors have received fantastic double-digit returns. And now you too can invest directly into my deals for as little as $50,000. So if you’re an interested investor, head over to [inaudible] dot com to find out more that’s Reedgoossens.com. Now back into the show,

Speaker 2 (00:39):

[inaudible]

Sam Wilson (00:41):

I think that’s one of the biggest things I’ve learned in real estate is really mindset, right? Like coming, uh, coming from not, you know, significant means you end up subtly though. My, my mom was really good with money. My dad still doesn’t, he’s not good with money. Cause he just didn’t anything about it. He never cared, but mom was great with money, but never really had that. Like, Hey, we can go beyond where we are that you can do. If you put your mind to it, you really can do anything. I mean, you say you can’t you’re right. You say you can. You’re probably right. Like, and, and now that to me has been a big mind shift in just understanding that yeah, you know what I can break out of maybe the cycle that, uh, I’ve been shown and do a lot more

Speaker 4 (01:34):

Welcome to investing in the US a podcast for real estate investors, business owners, and aspiring entrepreneurs looking to break into the US market join Reed As he interviews go-getters risk-takers and the best in the business about their journey towards financial freedom and the sheer joy of creating something from nothing

Reed Goossens (01:54):

Good day good day a ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to another cracking edition of investing in the US podcast from Los Angeles. I’m your host Reed Goossens good as always every with us on the show. Now I’m glad that you’ve all tuned into learn from my incredible guests and each and every one of them are the cream of the crop here in the United States. When it comes to real estate, investing, business, investing and entrepreneurship, each show, I try and tease out their incredible stories of how they have successfully created the businesses here in the US how they’ve created financial freedom, massive amounts of cashflow, and ultimately create extraordinary lives for themselves and their families. Life by design. As I like to say, hopefully these guests will inspire all of my cracking listeners, which are you guys to get off the couch and go and take massive amounts of action.

Reed Goossens (02:41):

If these guys can do it. So can you now, as you know, I’m all about sharing the knowledge with my loyal listeners, which is you guys. And there’s absolutely no BS on this show, just straight into the nuts and bolts. Now, if you do like this show, the easiest way to give back is to give us a review on iTunes. And you can follow me on Facebook and Twitter by searching at Reed Goossens. You can find the show, every podcast on iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher, and Google play, but you can also find these episodes up on my YouTube channel. So head over to Reed goossens.com, click on the video link, and it’ll take you to the video recordings of these podcasts. You can see my ugly mug, but the beautiful faces of my guests each and every week. All right, enough of me let’s get cracking and into today’s.

Speaker 2 (03:21):

[inaudible]

Reed Goossens (03:29):

Joining the show. I’ve the pleasure of speaking with Sam Wilson. Now, Sam is an active investor in many different real estate assets. He’s in self storage, he’s in park and he’s retail is in multi-family apartments are the parks and he’s in single family homes. He’s also the host of how to scale commercial real estate podcast, where he interviews real estate experts to give listeners the tips, tools, and tricks to scale their investment portfolio. And I had the pleasure of being on his show a couple of weeks back, but the thing that really makes Sam tick is he so passionate about building a machine that gives him time and money, freedom that whether it be a business or real estate, he doesn’t care too much about what the hustle is. As long as it builds his lifestyle for him and his family, I’m really pumped and excited to welcome him to the show, to share his incredible knowledge and he’s experienced. But enough of me let’s get him out of here, get ice and welcome to the show, Mate, how Hey doing raid.

Sam Wilson (04:19):

I’m doing great, man. Thanks so much for having me on the show. Oh my, my

Reed Goossens (04:22):

Pleasure. Where are you dialing in from today?

Sam Wilson (04:24):

Uh, Memphis, Tennessee, Memphis,

Reed Goossens (04:26):

Tennessee. How’s the weather over Memphis right now. You’re going to get cold over there

Sam Wilson (04:29):

And it’s, uh, it’s beautiful here today. The, uh, temperatures, like, I don’t know. Gosh, if the 55 degrees Fahrenheit and um, yeah, sunny man,

Reed Goossens (04:40):

The little wintry getting a little lug and the pumpkin spice lattes.

Sam Wilson (04:45):

Yeah. For those of you in, uh, Los angles. Yeah. That, uh, maybe that is a cold, but no, this is perfect. This is perfect weather for me.

Reed Goossens (04:54):

I’m brother. All right. I start the show with every question I ask all my guests. This is rewind the clock. And tell me how you made your first a dollar as a kid.

Sam Wilson (05:01):

Ooh, that’d probably been first grade, maybe second. And I figured out that and I’d saved some quarters. I had a, I got one of those chains like stackable chain machine. You say five tens and 25 cents at a time and I’d save quarters. I love quarters. I, I made it all the way to $15 doing who knows what, but I took that money and my brother wanted to sell you remember, um, jolly ranchers, the hard candy. But when I was a kid, they sold them these big, long plastic and probably YouTube, big, long sticks. Like I’m thinking could pull out eight teeth at once with a blank, just horrible piece. They don’t sell them anymore. But my brother figured out he had the hotspot to go sell them in his class, but didn’t have the money to buy them. And so I bought him, he sold them. We split the profits, love it. And so my first dollar ever made was being the banker. There’s something in the, on to this. So there’s, there’s how you did it. First grade hustle and candy to a second grade classmates,

Reed Goossens (06:07):

Two brothers get up to no good.

Sam Wilson (06:09):

They actually made us quit, which I’m like, if you’re going to, if you’re going to teach a kid, anything in elementary school, [inaudible] like, talk about, de-motivator like you shouldn’t be at this kid on the back going, Hey man, that’s really smart. You see them, you see a market need, you have, you have willing and willing buyers and willing sellers. Like you’re, you’re thinking here, buddy. Keep doing that instead. They’re like, no, you can’t sell to your classmates.

Reed Goossens (06:34):

I don’t know what you call the canteen. I think that we call it the tuck shop in Australia. And it was where you go, your mum give you some lunch change and you’d go buy yourself some lunch. And it’d always be the lolly line or the, you know, the candy line. And they’re probably like, they’re probably telling you stop it because they’re taking profits away from the school.

Sam Wilson (06:50):

I don’t know what it was, but, but I still look at that story. And I’m like, this is why I dislike education still. Like this just didn’t work.

Reed Goossens (06:59):

Awesome. I will look, I want to get into your story. You, you, you built a lot of stuff in the introduction I talk about, you know, just all the different asset class you’re involved in, but you didn’t start there. So walk us through how you grew into becoming a real estate entrepreneur and what you built today.

Sam Wilson (07:14):

Yeah. I mean, today, I’ll be honest. I’m not where I want to be. I mean, that’s just, I don’t know how many of us are, it’s a journey. Right? And, um, when you see the Helter Skelter array of things I’ve invested in, it’s probably because I didn’t ever have the patience to focus and that’s cost me quite a bit. That’s, that’s a downfall, you know, what is like, tell me what you’re doing and what does it cost you or what has it benefited you? Uh, you know, not having, and I say this all the time. Now I want to go an inch wide and a mile deep. Like I am focused right now on two asset classes. And that’s probably not as hyper-focused as I could be. Uh, but two asset classes then that’s it. Um, I have no real interest. I even had a phone call this morning with some legacy, um, legacy, uh, offers we’d made a couple of years ago in, in, in the parking industry.

Sam Wilson (08:02):

And, uh, somebody called back and like, Hey, you know, I know you made an offer a couple of years ago, wanted to circle back with you on this. And it said, look, guys, I’ll make an offer, but you’re not going to like it. Cause it’s gotta be at such a price that it makes all the sense in the world to me. So I’m going to make your offer and you’ll probably put it in the shredder cause I just, I really need to focus down. And if you make it really, really sweet, then I’ll probably find a way to make a pie on it and keep moving. But otherwise, like it’s just blinders. I got into real estate on accident. I always say it was the good Lord have mercy on an idiot. I called this story probably way too many times, but I was drinking coffee one morning and saw a foreclosure listing here in Tennessee.

Sam Wilson (08:40):

They used to post them on the attorneys’ websites. Actually, if you can believe that or not, you have various foreclosing attorneys. Uh, today it’s a deed of trust state here. And so these attorneys would be the ones listening to foreclosures that I happen to be their websites, all the opening beds, all the address. So it was two miles from me or a mile from me rather, we looked the house and I’m like, Hey, this is, this is purchasable. I asked my wife, Hey, do you mind if I buy a house today? She goes, no, two hours later we owned a house, made a pile of money on it. I just kept doing it. So nine years later, I’m still in real estate. That’s excellent. Yeah. So, uh, it’s been, of course the journey from that point forward has been like, everyone’s kind of, you know, iterative in nature, but that’s, I had no intention of being in real estate and here I am. And what was the

Reed Goossens (09:17):

Career before real estate?

Sam Wilson (09:19):

I owned it. I owned the flooring company. So my brother and I owned a flooring company up in Indianapolis. Um, it was access to successful flooring company. We made it through the oh eight crisis, which we went from having 30 employees to one, which was painful, man. I had to trade in my, my dress clothes and collard shirt for jeans and work boots again, uh, ground my way through that. And you also figure out and industries like that, like where the ceiling is, it’s pretty low, it’s pretty low, it’s got low ceilings. Uh, the other thing, you know, in that industry and nothing against, there’s a lot of really smart people in the flooring business. It takes. I mean, it’s probably the, one of the most expensive trades that go into the building of a home, which is really interesting, but it, uh, you know, the, the idea that you, the five people you surround yourself around is the sum of who you are and when you’re working in that environment, you’re, you know, you’re just not necessarily sharpening yourself with the people you surround yourself with. So that kind of just got old and I kind of hated it and we sold it and moved on.

Reed Goossens (10:20):

Interesting, interesting. And congratulations that you did sell it because coming, you know, coming out of any exits are pretty, pretty, pretty successful, right? Like you’ve started a company, you sold it, but I take the box.

Sam Wilson (10:33):

Yeah. I mean, I wasn’t rich, but, but we sold it and it was the most money I’d ever made on anything. And, um, and I was just glad to glad to be out and had money and time on my hands and wound up in real estate. Right.

Reed Goossens (10:46):

You mentioned two asset classes you’re in today. So not parking,

Sam Wilson (10:51):

Uh multi-family and storage. Yeah. And, and, and came in as a, you know, we’ve done some SVP stuff or SPV valley, special burgers vehicle stuff with some other, you know, major, um, folks in the storage industry, uh, as well as developing and I’m niching down inside of storage, even further into boat and RV storage, developing boat and RV storage and looking at other boat and RV storage facilities right now to acquire, uh, that, um, that has some runway in it. I think just based upon the current trends here, you know, obviously multi-family is very hot and I don’t care if anybody else wants to go out and get in a boat and RV stores knock yourself out. It’s a simple, it’s a simpler version of, um, I think even regular self storage, just in the sense that usually it’s one asset, uh, they’re very expensive and people don’t like, you know, getting those either taken away or Sheriff’s sale or, you know, locked off.

Sam Wilson (11:45):

I mean, people pay their notes on those and, you know, you’re getting a lot more per unit on a, on a rent rate, maybe not per square foot, but per unit you’re, you’re getting, you know, a premium to park, a one to $500,000 asset. You know, people are going to pay up to put that in a garage covered space. Um, so yeah, it’s just got some, it’s got some merit to it on that front too. Again, going back to the, working with the right clientele or work with the right people, people with those types of assets, you know, again, they’re going to pay and be probably a lot easier to deal with.

Reed Goossens (12:16):

I’m obviously quite well. I’ve got a big portfolio. Multi-family myself. I’ve not made the transition into another asset class. Like self storage would be very, you know, uh, complimentary. How do you go about just for the listeners out there with the sell storage stuff? How do you go about analyzing? Cause I know, you know, in the multi-family space, as you know, we’ve got, you know, every man and the dog needs a roof over their head, right. Everyone needs somewhere to live. You’ve got property management companies who make it a profession, just running these things. You know, you’ve got all these online widgets and I was just, I was actually literally just on a call with my regional manager, talking about the budgets and the marketing budget and the admin and office administration budgets and the RNM budget and all that sort of stuff. So what goes into what the difference is in your mind between the self storage world and from an, from a determining if it’s a good deal versus the multi-family obviously we know multifamily, you want to be in a good affluent area. You want to be surrounded by high, high income homes. Uh, you want your demographic to, you know, you want to shift the demographic to earn more, what are you doing on the self storage front? Like, you know, is it drive by cars or what, what, what sort of tips can you give the listeners? If they’re wanting to look into self storage to understand if it’s a good deal or not.

Sam Wilson (13:28):

I mean, you know, in the, uh, on the large we’ll call, it we’ll even broaden the scope a little bit and call it toy storage, right. If you’re going to the toy storage space, you can either be in a metropolitan or near a big city. Right. Cause I mean, most of these places can’t park their drive, their boats and their RVs and their driveway. Um, nor do most people want to, unless you live on a farm or somewhere that you have acreage, which again, you’re, you’re now no longer in the city. So that’s, that’s option one, as far as your clientele. And you’re going to find that really in any major city boat and RV storage or, you know, big toys, storage, things like that. Um, usually in the suburbs of course, um, where, again, people can’t, um, can’t park their stuff in their driveway.

Sam Wilson (14:08):

The other thing is, is near, especially here in the south is, I mean, I don’t know how many reservoirs and of course there’s reservoirs all over the country, but I feel like, I feel like the Southeast is just littered with reservoirs, uh, anywhere near a reservoir man to in front of the reservoir. Like you can be, there was a facility I was looking at last week between Memphis and a lake called Pickwick lake here in Tennessee. And, um, Pickwick. I mean it’s an hour and a half, two hours from Memphis and halfway between here and there they’re, you know, potential to, to buy and build and, or add or buy and then add on to a facility, a hundred percent leased up it’s out in the middle of the country, right. But it’s a, it’s a beautiful facility, boat and RV storage, but people traveling back and forth from the city to Pickwick, they don’t want to drag their boats back and forth.

Sam Wilson (14:50):

Right. They want to tell you, they want to take it only a certain distance park. It, put it somewhere. Nice know it’s secure behind a six, eight foot fence with barbed wire on top and secure access. And I mean, that makes all the sense in the world. So that’s, that’s where we’re building right now is, is near reservoirs. Um, where again, we’re demand, of course you gotta know what the demand is. So when you’re looking at you’re looking at things that I don’t do, like fishing groups and, you know, trolling and Facebook for, for what, what fishing groups are out there and how many members will shoot, man, there’s, you know, 40,000 members and just a fishing group on this reservoir alone, holy smokes. And then you see everybody in the area it’s completely packed. Uh, so that’s, um, another kind of just some of the ways we look at it and it’s a little bit, yeah, I’m sure that there, and I haven’t spent the money on this yet, yet. So anyway, I’m sure that there’s, you know, the feasibility studies and things like that, that you could really have done, but really knowing the area and just seeing what demand is and having boots on the ground that have a good feel for what’s going on is probably the easiest way to identify opportunity in that space. Sure,

Reed Goossens (15:48):

Sure. What what are you looking from an expense ratio point of view, the multifamily looking around 50%, what’s it? What’s it in a toy storage as you like,

Sam Wilson (15:57):

Maybe 30. Okay. Hello. You’re going to trade it. You’re going to trade at a higher cap rate to, you know, a 8% ish, depending on the age of the facility, maybe nine. Yeah. There’s I mean, there’s there’s room there. It’s going to trade at a higher cap rate. So on the buy side, it’s certainly better.

Reed Goossens (16:14):

Um, and what sort of, what sort of value add programs? I know I’ve spoken to a couple of self storage operators on this show. It’s all about the tech and the seamless, you know, coming in, getting your boat. I’m assuming the same thing. You don’t have to deal with people you’re going to go in and scan something off you go. Is that, is that part of

Sam Wilson (16:32):

Well? Yeah, for sure. And the other, the other big component is his size. Um, that, that bigger is better. Uh, truly because boats have grown in the size, uh, RVs have become, you know, just behemoths. I don’t know if you’ve paid attention to the, I mean, you’re going to ways in the RV land, you’re going to like class a 44 footers, and then you’re going to, you know, uh, you know, sprinter, sprinter vans that have been tricked out, or even those Mercedes they’d be, even make Mercedes sells one for like, I don’t know, a couple of hundred thousand bucks. That’s like real compact. I mean, you could put, you could put your shoe box in it and it’s like, got everything you need. Um, so you can go both ways with that, but the size of the units matter. So if you go to any facility and you ask them, Hey, I’m looking for a 14 foot high, 11 foot wide, uh, 40 foot deep space. Most of the time, they’re gonna say, yeah, we don’t have them. And so that’s, that’s what we’re building is, is just going all right. We’re, we’re building bigger facilities to handle the bigger toys that people have. Interesting.

Reed Goossens (17:30):

And this is what you’re saying is it’s all indoor storage, right? You’re not, it’s not just a fence around a horizontal asphalt parking lot. They park it wherever you want. Give me a hundred bucks a month.

Sam Wilson (17:40):

Oh man, those, those places, believe it or not, don’t really well, two, two, or plenty of them. You just like, how, why I don’t, I personally don’t understand it. Like why, why are you guys, you guys are going to park in a field basically, and pay a hundred bucks a month to do it. This is madness. So that just shows you there’s demand. Like if you can provide coverage storage, which will, you know, you can do one of two things. I mean, cause then you’ve got these giant fifth wheels, right? You’ve got these fifth wheels that, you know, people pull on these giant trucks and even then you might not even able to park those indoors. They’re so dang tall. Uh, and so then, you know, on those, you know, we’ll, we’ll build covered, pull through storage, but not necessarily in door. Uh, so there’s, there’s a really, um, yeah, lots of different ways. You can look at that. So,

Reed Goossens (18:26):

Oh God, the, the, the rental, right. Cause it’s always very interesting. You mentioned earliest prospect square foot. I, I just pulled a hundred bucks out. What are you? What’s the sort of good rental, right? For, uh, for boat these days, you know, and I assume it’s not air conditioned or is it conditioned?

Sam Wilson (18:40):

I mean, we’re not putting anything with, with condition space in it. I can’t imagine what that would run. I mean, that’s a lot of cubic feet, a lot of cubic feet. If you’re, I don’t wanna sound like an idiot on here cause I had to do the math and get it wrong. Uh, but even per space, that’s a lot let alone, you know, across an entire facility. So no, we are not doing, we are not doing climate controlled,

Reed Goossens (19:05):

But, but your average space for the, the average boat, we would go for one,

Sam Wilson (19:09):

It depends on the dental in the city and depends on, uh, you know, whether your city you’re a city or more, more rural, the more rural you rural. If I can say that word, I hate that word. The more rural you get the harder or the lower, of course the, the, the, the rate will be, but you’re talking to anywhere. I mean, 150 bucks, maybe 180 bucks average per month per space. If you build 200, 200 space, um, you know, facility, you’re talking 36,000 bucks a month, gross rent. Um, so yeah, no, that’s a, that’s probably average. I think the rates higher here in Memphis, but no, I’ve looked at some other facilities here and it’s higher. Uh, but of course it’s more accessible and it’s in town. You’re paying property taxes that are, you know, out of the, as well.

Reed Goossens (19:51):

And management wise, who you got running these things from from day to day, if anyone,

Sam Wilson (19:56):

No one. I mean, that’s it, that’s the, that’s why the expense ratio is low. I mean, you might have a lot guy that goes out and sprays for weeds and, and keeps the fence lines clear. But I mean, as far as, you know, and keeping it, keeping the place cleaned up, and I’ve talked to some other folks that, you know, they, especially, if they have rural rural facilities, they, they may even go so far as putting a mobile home out there at the corner lot and, uh, giving somebody free rent to wash the place and, you know, take care of it, uh, just to keep eyes and ears on it. But then we all split up security system and everything else. So, you know, I don’t, I don’t see a need that’s uh that’s uh that’s uh, that just sounds like more management to me. So, no, right now, nobody there’s, it’s just not needed.

Reed Goossens (20:34):

You mentioned that you is all brand new stuff you’re doing, or you’re retrofitting old, old properties to accommodate

Sam Wilson (20:40):

All brand new. And again, the idea is that you’re building, you’re building the size that, that people want. Because again, the, the project we have under underway right now is we’re building Everett. Everything that no one has,

Reed Goossens (20:55):

For those of you who are interested in staying up to date with all the latest happenings in my business, or to learn more about passively investing directly into my multi-family value, add deals than head over to [inaudible] dot com and sign up for my monthly newsletter, by signing up, you’ll automatically be notified about my new up-and-coming investment opportunities. You’ll be able to stay up to date with all the light is real estate news here in the United States, and much, much more so head over to Reed goossens.com and sign up today now back into the show, Right. That’s right. But then, and that’s, I didn’t even think about like, yeah, you’re right. You give it a big roll the door. You can impeach a big size to back that boat in, and hopefully the idiot who’s backing the name, doesn’t hit your columns and the whole thing comes down.

Sam Wilson (21:43):

Yeah. Right. Well, there is that. And I guess that’s what insurance is for, but yes. Right, right, right.

Reed Goossens (21:48):

So on the bill, what, what are you, what are you spending these days? I know with costs of construction going up and all that sort of stuff, is that starting to hit your bottom line?

Sam Wilson (21:55):

It well, yes and no. It depends on where we come back. I mean, the, the facility we’re on right now, we’re in the middle of grading and doing, doing some other, uh, other site work, uh, things, and we’ve not yet finalized on the, um, construction costs. And this will be actually our first ground up. So not to say, we’re building hundreds of these. This is our first ground up we’re doing right now. And it, gosh, I don’t know, we’re building 216 units there. How many of those are, are fully enclosed? 150 of those are fully enclosed. Yeah. So we’ll, we’ll use that as the number of know that there’s 66 pull through units. So 150 of those are fully enclosed and it’s going to run us soup to nuts. 1.8 million ish for all to 16, 150 and close in 66, pull through it’s the pull through again is basically just oversized

Reed Goossens (22:45):

The 12 deaths. That’s about 12,000 bucks, you know, on the 150, you know, not knowing that the other stuff is, is, is site work. It’s fencing. Yeah. So that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s good. That’s a good

Sam Wilson (22:58):

Number. It’s not bad at all. It’s

Reed Goossens (23:00):

To be back into your one 50, you said, what was it? You said 200 bucks, a unit times 12.

Sam Wilson (23:05):

Yeah. The one we’re building right now is gonna be more rural. So you’re, you’re probably looking at that one 50.

Reed Goossens (23:11):

So one 50 multiply by one 50, you know, then you get an 80% occupancy rate multiply by 12, and I’m not even doing the exterior C 216 grand just on the total rev multiplied by.

Sam Wilson (23:24):

That’s actually eerily close to what I’ve probably gotten an Excel spreadsheet.

Reed Goossens (23:29):

She’s looking at a hundred and $150,000. I’m just doing this for people listening at home. And you said at one point $150,000 on an NOI, a 1.8 mil. Yeah. You’re looking, that’s an 8.4 cap. Right.

Sam Wilson (23:42):

Very attractive,

Reed Goossens (23:43):

Very, very, very attractive. So, and then that’s before financing it and everything, and I’m doing very rough numbers here. Yeah. For those people who are listening, it’s just, it helps give an idea of, you know, it doesn’t have to be complicated. You know, I know in my spreadsheet, I’m, I’m grinding the, today that budget I’m grinding fricking property manager. Like, Hey, what the hell is that? That’s that advertising’s no, no, not there was $300 a month on SEO. No, I don’t want that. I want 150, you know, like I’m getting to that granular detail, but that’s awesome. That’s good. Thank you for sharing that with me. That’s a, that’s, that’s a very, so, so what’s the goal then? Are you trying to really blow this up? And, and you, you said you combined it with multi-family. So clearly this is your, your niche right now, but what, what’s the goal in the next five years for your company to build these things out?

Sam Wilson (24:26):

Great question. You know, this is the, this is the test run product. Right. See how it goes. See what I see, see, see, I I’m, I’m one of those people that I have to, I never enjoyed, again, going back to my dislike of school whenever like school, because I don’t learn by sitting, uh, I learned by doing, and so I can read a book all day, but I have to go do it. And then I understand it. Like, it’s, that’s the only way is if I can touch it and if I can go, okay, I did this now, let’s see how this performs. Um, and Hey, I might hate the asset class. Right. I might get a year in and be like, this sucks. I hate this asset class. Well, I’m not going to build more. Right. So, you know, I don’t know where that, where this leads again, you know, going back to kind of a lifestyle idea is that for me, I want to build, I want to build a lifestyle around my business and not as I don’t love to work, I don’t, well, you know, I’ve worked my whole life.

Sam Wilson (25:17):

I mean, we grew up really pretty poor, uh, which is why I learned to do the hustle early on. And it’s like, I’ve worked for a long, long time. And I, and it’s not that I’m opposed to it, but there’s more to life than work. And you know, the quality of life that you can lead is more important to me than maybe, you know, making the almighty dollar. Right. Uh, I love to have money. I love to, I love what money can do for me, but, you know, if I can achieve a certain lifestyle that may makes, you know, makes my family happy, meets our needs and allows us to collect experiences, not things I’m in, man, I’m in. And so where do I go with this business? You know, hard to say, I love, uh, I love raising capital. That’s probably something I really enjoy. I love talking to investors on the phone. I love crunching numbers. I love seeing things take off. I love doing deals and shaking hands. And I found myself in Houston on Monday looking at an opportunity, just, I mean, something completely out of real estate, but it was like, Hey, wait, here’s a, the fire sale on a certain, certain, uh, asset class. And I couldn’t, I couldn’t help, but go look at it. Cause it’s like, it’s a, actually a gym franchise.

Sam Wilson (26:22):

It’s a gym that I currently belong to have worked out for two and a half, three years. And I’ve always thought, gosh, it’d be fun to own this franchise. So it kind of, the stars may be lining up between having a, somebody. And again, it’s not something I’m doing to dedicating time to. So this goes back to an inch wide and a mile deep idea already have the people in place that would run it. I would finance it. And then I would basically to be a, you know, a light business coach for them maybe for 30, 45 minutes a week. And otherwise, you know, I’m completely,

Reed Goossens (26:52):

That’s interesting. And I don’t mean to interrupt you, but I just, I love, I love that. I love what real estate learning real estate and doing these things in those crunch, the numbers for the people on the, on the, on listening in, but then all these other opportunities come up and you’re applying the same metric. Okay. What’s the rev what’s expense ratio. What’s my equity in, you know, what am I making cashflow out of this boom, within a couple of steps, you can quickly figure that out.

Sam Wilson (27:16):

Right? Right. Yeah. I mean, I think on the, on this opportunity, we estimated that in year one at 100% return of capital, that’s like, okay, a hundred percent return to capital. And it’s, I mean, when you, you can’t, you could read, you could figure the returns, but if they’re just, they become silly at that point. Right.

Reed Goossens (27:33):

And it will say for the listeners, listening in owning a business is different Tony physical real estate, because it’s not a hard asset. And you know, the business goes away. The business goes away for sure. The way you can ensure people who own medical practices, medical office buildings, or certain medical medical practices, but they try to buy the building as well to have the tangible asset underneath. And you can do very similar play with a gym, a gym franchise, but that’s fricking ultimate. Um, but I do, I want to dig a little bit deeper into that, that lifestyle, you know, quality of life people, that’s what they’re getting into. And, and, um, I’ll put my hand up I’m I am guilty of being a workaholic and I got into this business and I, I hustled, you know, and, and I I’m, I’m only 35 and I do feel the burn. I didn’t feel the grind. And I kudos to you about trying to recalibrate to make sure you are with that major focus on quality of lifestyle, quality of experiences over the almighty dollar. It’s good to have money in the bank account, but it can’t come out a, your kids hate you or your, your, your, your marriage or your health sucks or whatever that might be. So talk to me a little bit about that.

Sam Wilson (28:38):

Yeah. I mean, yeah, I think you’ve said all of it. It’s like to what end, I mean, rewind your, where you round your brain a little bit and think like, okay, who were some really successful businessmen in the sixties? I don’t know. I’m sure there’s some people that made an impact on what I’m doing today, but I don’t know what your name is. And I don’t really care. And the same thing’s going to happen to the people in the 90 or the, or the 2080s for the 2020s. And he’d be like, Sam, who, who cares, man? Like, you know, my, my legacy is hopefully that, um, you know, I, I take care of my family. I take care of, you know, my kids, of course, they’re part of my family. I love my wife. Well, and I love the people around me. Well, and it’s like, you know, and if, and if you spend your days printing, sprinting away, doing stuff you hate or further freedom away, you know, just chasing money.

Sam Wilson (29:21):

I mean, money, money is just a tool, right. It’s just a, and, and in the end, if you don’t have a quality of life, uh, and I just, gosh, again, growing up, growing up without and seeing those width, and then, you know, being able now to cross compare that the other way around where it’s like, I don’t know, man, like quality of life and who I get to be with and how I spend that time with them. Gosh, I’d say there’s three, there’s a three legged stool that makes the, that leads to, um, leads to quality of life. That’s going to be your health is going to be your wealth. Um, what’s the third one, gosh, health, wealth, and, I can’t even remember it now. She does a great story. Wasn’t it?

Reed Goossens (30:02):

Well, I, I wanna, I want to preface it. Like I look at more pillars, cause a couple of pillars in life, it’s health is wealth. There’s, you know, spirituality or religion, you know, either one of that. Um, and then there’s also think forgetting whether, if there’s a fourth one, but it’s, it’s giving back contribution. That’s what, that was a full thing. And, and I, I interview so many people on this show that, that have the, the business, the one legged stool really strong, but the others aren’t as strong. And as we evolve and I’ve interviewed a lot of people in the show like yourself, who’ve realized that yeah, chasing the dollar, it’s not the be all end all you want it obviously create the freedom for yourself to do something bigger. So I know in the question time,

Sam Wilson (30:44):

Simon’s little time is the one, like you’re missing any of those three and you’re still doing stand up. Right, right. Or you got no time, but you got health and wealth while you’re dead. If you’ve got wealth and time, but your health sucks. Like I know people in that category, no DECA millionaires in that category. And it’s like, I wouldn’t trade. I wouldn’t trade seats with you. If the sweet Lord Jesus asked me himself. No, sir, thank you very much. I’m good. Like your health has gone lives over. So in time, time and health, but no money. I mean, who was it that said that, uh, the, the, you know, the people that said the money can’t buy you happiness don’t don’t know it or forgot what it feels like to be broke. So it’s like, yes, actually money can help on the happiness trail, but it’s not the end to happiness. So that’s the trifecta for me that I may be aiming for is health wealth of time. Right.

Reed Goossens (31:32):

Right. In your questionnaire for the show, you mentioned giving back and doing more. What are you doing now with you have this more time and well, what’s, what’s ticking, what’s making you tick, maybe not on a business front, but helping give back to the wider community or, or your family. What are you doing on that front?

Sam Wilson (31:48):

Sure. No, that’s great. That’s great. So, uh, my brother and sister-in-law actually run a, um, an urban, uh, urban, um, outreach in Indianapolis, which is really cool. They call it straight up and they just reach out to the urban youth there. And so, uh, a portion of our proceeds always go to that. Um, of course, out of my pocket, not out of investors’ proceeds, but you know, out of, out of the, uh, uh, general partner side, which is fun to see that go and grow, uh, in the heartaches and the struggles along that front. But that’s, that’s just a purely financial side of things. Um, that’s that I think is easier. Um, one of the things that’s been my wife and I can’t have kids. And so we foster and in February we had three foster kids show up. We call it the 30 minute family where at like eight o’clock at night, they’re like, Hey, we got three kids, five, three, and eight months can take them.

Sam Wilson (32:39):

So by nine o’clock we had three kids in the house and it, um, that’s cost me a lot this year. It’s probably been the hardest year of my life. No doubt. Oh gosh. I mean, you take kids from a trauma and abuse background. Um, you got a lot of stuff to deal with a lot, a lot of stuff. I mean, you need to deal with it today. I mean, I was talking to you, I’m the oldest a day. I was like, Hey buddy, I’m going to be gone next week. And I didn’t tell him I’m gone from Tuesday to Sunday. I just said, I’m gone Thursday. Cause we were just talking about Thursday. I’m like, oh yeah, I won’t be here on veteran’s day. And I just, you just see the shut down. You’re like, oh no crud, like, all right, we got some, we got some prep work to do before I leave for five days.

Sam Wilson (33:16):

And it’s just things like that, that, that, that take a lot of time. And then, you know, just again, trauma and abuse backgrounds, we didn’t sleep for seven months. So it, um, but that’s been, that’s super rewarding on the give back side. I mean, you see kids that have gone from again, you know, malnourished, which I just don’t understand here in this country, how you are malnourished, but they are, um, you know, all of a sudden gaining, gaining years of growth in a what’s it been nine months, literally years of growth. So that’s, uh, that’s just been astounding to watch what love and food and exercise and sleep. Yeah. I mean, cause they didn’t let me in the first seven months they just, I mean, somebody was screaming every two hours at night and so we just switch off, you know, my wife, we got, they got so bad at one point I had to go out and sleep in the RV. I see. She goes, you go sleep in the RV tonight. One of us gets tonight asleep. I’ll go sleep in the RV the next night. So we started just doing shifts and uh, yeah. So that’s a, that’s big on our heart is family, you know, the

Reed Goossens (34:15):

That’s a permanent, um, integration into the family.

Sam Wilson (34:19):

Not necessarily it could be it very well could be, uh, which we’re open to. Um, yeah, we don’t know it at this point. We don’t know it. Um, but that’s, that’s probably doubly hard, man, man, we are slaving away and we have no idea where this goes, but the kids order, which is, you know, it’s just, it’s just a very tough, tough thing, but that’s, that’s probably the biggest way. I, I couldn’t, yeah, couldn’t give back any more on that front than I, than I am at the moment, which is fun. Uh, just, just to see the rewards, but whew, it’s funny.

Reed Goossens (34:50):

Well, that’s, that’s thank you for, uh, unleashing that on us being vulnerable. That’s a, it’s an incredible, incredible thing you’re doing and I’m sure it’s not easy to do. So three, three kids, you know, as an instant family in 30 minutes. So

Sam Wilson (35:04):

Yeah, man, they’re like family, I was coming over and playing pickleball. My wife was like, Hey, uh, so I think there’s three kids come in and can you stop at the store? I’m like, so I’m walking through Kroger at eight o’clock at night, like asking anybody, Hey, what is an eight month old drink? Like what bottles should or like which nipples survive bottle flow rate. I don’t know, just throw stuff in the cart so I can get home. That’s just the way it goes.

Reed Goossens (35:31):

I want to thank you for sharing that with us. And um, at the end of every show, we like to dive into the lightning round. Are you ready to get into it? What is the daily habit you practice to keep on track towards your goals?

Sam Wilson (35:42):

90% of the time, I’ll say at 80, um, I have a morning routine, which I love. I love. And it’s been harder this year. Again, when you’re not sleeping you, um, when you’re catching sleep anywhere, you can things like morning routines go away because you’re losing your mind elsewhere. And there’s not really the energy to focus on these types of things. Um, but one of the things I’ve done for years and love it, it’s just my morning routine, which is part of a part how L rods miracle morning heard that before part my own creation part like, you know, goals and visions for the year and big goals organized by role and by, you know, month and by what I want to hit by this date. So I do a lot of that. I do a lot of, uh, you know, just, um, you know, w what’s it called?

Sam Wilson (36:27):

I’m not envisioning, but when you, when you look, when you, when you have like a vision for what the future to be, then I think about what that day looks like. I spent a lot of time walking through that day, like where it’s funny. Cause I have this certain house that I, that I live in and I do this certain same thing every day. My wife’s always sitting in the same spot, rigging a cup of coffee as I’m walking out the door with my snowboard to get in my certain truck. And literally I saw the house the other day, all of a sudden it came across my screen. Uh, some, some picture randomly and I’m like on the, on the internet, I’m like, wait, that’s the house. That’s the place. I know, I know I’ve been there. I’m like, that’s where I’m, I’m like, I want to be there someday. It was, it was just kind of weird. It’s actually really freaky. Cause like everything, the store step and everything was just right. And I’m like, that’s, that is the house. This is bizarre. Um,

Sam Wilson (37:13):

No, sir, I’m not there yet. It’s got a couple more zeros on it than maybe what, uh, the checkbook will swing at the moment. But yeah, that’s it. I mean, just looking at where I want to be and sat in my mind towards those things and that’s, and again, I know you’re wrapping up the show, but that’s, that’s, uh, I think that’s one of the biggest things I’ve learned in real estate is really mindset, right? Like coming, uh, coming from not, you know, significant means you end up subtly though. My, my mom was really good with money. My dad still doesn’t, he’s not good with money cause he just didn’t know anything about it. He never cared, but mom was great with money, but never really had that. Like, Hey, we can go beyond where we are that you can do. If you put your mind to it, you really can do anything. I mean, if you say you can’t you’re right. You say you can and you’re probably right. Like in, and now that to me has been a big mind shift, mind shift, um, in just understanding that yeah. You know what I can break out of maybe the cycle that, uh, I’ve been shown and do a lot more. So yeah. That’s uh, that’s how I stay on track.

Reed Goossens (38:14):

That’s awesome, man. That’s awesome. And thank you for, thank you for sharing that with us. I think, you know, for shadowing and unfortunately, but, but putting things into the universe and thinking about them and then do they come real or that you see it? It is a little freaky sometimes. So yeah, for sure, for sure. I suppose the question I’m going to is who’s the most influential person in your career.

Sam Wilson (38:31):

It’s a great question. There’s so many people to, to narrow one down, uh, there’s a guy named Bo willful and give a shout out to Bo he’s probably unknown and uh, our sphere. Um, but in the real estate realm, uh, very successful, very down to earth, very humble. Uh, somebody that I’ve accounted his personally mentored me when I was in my mid twenties, uh, spent a ton of time with Bo both personally and professionally. And um, yeah, one of those people that you don’t know how much money he has or doesn’t have because he’s just himself and it’s like, you know, he’s done great, done great things. So that’s, that’s somebody that I look up to and is just super humble and very, very wide. So yeah. Shout out.

Reed Goossens (39:14):

Oh, thanks Bo. Awesome question. Num ber three is what is the most influential tool in the business? And when I say tool, it could be a physical tool, like a phone or notebook, or it could be a piece of software that you can’t run your business without. What is it?

Sam Wilson (39:27):

Oh man, a phone. It’s absolutely the phone. I mean I’m old older school and um, yeah, I hate using computers. I use them because I need to, but if you give me the option to talk to an investor on the telephone or have a zoom call or set up, just give me the telephone. Let’s let’s, let’s just dial and talk. Like that’s it. And in there, I hope to work myself out of sitting in front of a computer at some point

Reed Goossens (39:53):

I do too. I didn’t say my question before in one sentence, what’s been the biggest failure in your career. What’d you learn from that failure?

Sam Wilson (39:59):

Uh, yeah. So when I sold that company and then I, then I had money and time on my hands. The biggest failure was I panicked. I mean, I panicked, I had no idea. I’m 30 years old. I have money in the bank. I have time on my hands. I don’t know where to live. I don’t know what my next career is. A, you know, looked at this, looked at that. I tried a half a dozen different things, just money and time away, like an idiot, just cause I was freaking out like, what am I going to do with my life? I’ve got to learn what I got to figure out what to make a living. And that goes back to the poor mentality where it’s like, you just gotta know where your next dollar is coming from. Which I really didn’t. It was fine.

Sam Wilson (40:34):

I had time had money. I would slow down dude, like I to go back and slap myself and just like, sit down, it’s be patient, just chill out. You’ll figure this out. Um, so yeah, that was, that was a failure in the sense that I did. I wasted a lot of money and I wasted a lot of time just, just screwing around, uh, doing dumb stuff versus going, wait if I, if I, again, pick a niche, go an inch wide and a mile deep and just methodically approach, whatever it is I’m doing, it would probably make a lot more sense. So that was 2013, 2012 and 2012, 2013 was probably the most painful, difficult year of my life. 2020 one’s most difficult. That was probably the most painful.

Reed Goossens (41:17):

Interesting, interesting. Well, yeah. Thank you for sharing that with us. I think it’s important too, to reflect on the youth in your brain to say you got a paddock and I love what you said about the, the, the poor man mentality. You don’t know where your next door’s coming from, but just take a breath and it will come. Yeah. So yeah. That’s it. Awesome. Awesome. Well, last question is where can people reach you to continue the conversation that to be in your sphere? Where do they go?

Sam Wilson (41:40):

Yeah, man, absolutely. One first thing I would do is follow me on LinkedIn. That’s probably the most, um, you know, play some, probably the most active you can find me there. Uh, look up Samuel Wilson, look up how to scale commercial real estate. You’ll find me on LinkedIn. Other thing is go to brick and investment group.com. That’s our website, uh, the free checklist, uh, go to, um, brick and investment group. That’s BRICKEN.Investment group.com forward slash checklist. I’ve got a great, great checklist on there. It’ll help you that a deal in 10 minutes. So if you get an opportunity coming across your desk, you’re like, I don’t know if this is for me, download the, download the checklist. It will really help you refine your criteria. So that’s a, that’s a really fantastic free resource, uh, on, on the website. And of course also listen to the podcast, how to scale commercial real estate.

Reed Goossens (42:23):

Awesome stuff might well, go on and thank you so much for jumping on the shutter. I just to reflect a little bit about what I took away from today’s show, I think, you know, your niche into the boat and RV space, going through those numbers just then really makes a lot of sense and kudos for you to graduate into the ground-up development space, because it is a harder space to get into, but you’re seeing opportunity where you see opportunity where others don’t. And I think that’s what makes a successful investor be curious about something to go off and then execute. So, so well done on that. I also think, you know, you’re keeping true to yourself, equality, quality of life being humble. You sound like a really humble guy down to earth, but making sure you’re pursuing the right things in life, not just chasing the dollar. I think that was really important to me. And then, you know, your vulnerability of sharing with, with the three kids, um, you know, from a trauma and abuse background coming into your life and how that’s changed you and your wife’s life up a little bit upside down a little bit in the last, the last 12 months. So, uh, particularly with, uh, with all this COVID nonsense going on. So, um, like did I leave anything out

Sam Wilson (43:18):

Now, man? Sounds great. Thank you for having me on read my,

Reed Goossens (43:21):

My pleasure. Well, enjoy the rest of your week and we’ll catch up very, very soon. Well, they have a great cracking episode with Samuel Wilson. Please remember to check over to his website and check out everything that’s going on over on there, download his free checklist to check out any deals that you might be looking at right now. I think that will really, really help. A lot of people check them out on LinkedIn, uh, Brickeninvestmentgroup.com and also you can Google his name who comes up everywhere. You know, you can Google him. He’s got an incredible podcast that I was also on. I want to thank you all for taking some time out day to tune in, to continue to grow your financial IQ, because that’s what we’re all about here on this show. We’re going to do this all again next week. So remember be bold, be brave and go give life.