Podcast 127. Using Teamwork to Close Large Deals with Ryan Webster and Warren Dresner

Average Joe Finances:
0:00

Hey, welcome back to the Average Joe Finances Podcast, everyone. I'm your host, Mike Cavaggioni and today's guests are Ryan Webster and Warren Dresner. So I'm really excited to talk to them. They're coming to us from Equity Yield Group and they're both gonna share their story, their background, and how they got to where they are today. Super excited to have this conversation. Gentlemen, thank you for joining me.

Warren Dresner:
0:21

Thanks for having us.

Ryan Webster:
0:22

Yeah, thank you.

Average Joe Finances:
0:23

Yeah, absolutely. Hey the first question I wanna ask you is the same question that I ask everybody that comes on this show, and we wanna know more about you. So if you could, share a little bit about yourselves, Share your story. How did you get started? How did you guys find Equity Yield Group? We wanna know.

Ryan Webster:
0:38

Yeah I'll, jump in here. So yeah, I'm a real estate professional and entrepreneur. And prior to make the transition into strictly real estate investment and in buy and hold, I owned and operated a construction development company here in the Midwest. A couple years ago was looking at I had built a successful company and looking back at I think same question a lot of people ask when they get into real estate investment is what's the best use of my time and decided I wanted spend more times with my kids before they grow up and don't wanna spend any time with me. So I looked at, okay, how can I maybe do business a little differently? And then this construction development side it's a lot of you build to sell and then you pay a capital gains. So I wanted to transition into something that generate a little more residual income. And also I didn't have such a big tax burden, so settled into the buy and hold rentals and then from that into larger scale multi-family and founded equity yield group with Warren.

Warren Dresner:
1:38

So my background's a little bit different to Ryan's. I'm from Australia originally. Lived in various places in Australia, in Europe, and the US. Spent a little over five years in total in the US Now. My background's in finance and insurance. So I've got a long 20 plus years experience in the corporate world. I first got involved in real estate mainly for the tax benefits and then slowly after time for some passive income. And I started in real estate. By buy and hold single family homes. Probably around 2018 I discovered this thing called multifamily and discovered syndications. And so actually started investing passively in, in real estate syndications. In multifamily. And then a couple of years into that, I started to get more actively involved looking to do deals myself. And that's around the time when I met Ryan and we formed the company.

Average Joe Finances:
2:29

Alright that's awesome. Awesome background for both of you guys. Fantastic. So you came here from Australia five years ago you said, and you were in the finance industry for 20 years. So you're using real estate as a tax haven for yourself, or at least that's where you started off at with the single family homes, and then you looked into getting into more passive income. That's awesome because that's what I'm doing right now. I'm a passive investor in a couple syndication deals. I'm retiring from the Navy next week or the week after next. And what I'm really excited about is that I can be a little more active now. This is really fun stuff, guys. I'm excited to have this conversation. And then Ryan, you were, you had a construction company, right? And same thing. Were you looking to get into real estate to figure out how to mitigate some taxes. I know you said you wanna be able to spend more time with family, but what were some other things that you were looking at? I guess the, was it more of the passive income aspect as well?

Ryan Webster:
3:19

Yeah, a little bit of both. Real estate as an asset made a lot of sense to me. It was a very natural transition since I was building real estate assets. But the ability to, generate ongoing income and cash flow was attractive and then the ability to not pay so much in taxes to keep more of the money that I earned.

Average Joe Finances:
3:35

Right on. Now did you also start in single family homes and then transition into multifamily or did you just start straight off in multifamily? Cause it sounded like you did.

Ryan Webster:
3:44

Yep. I went right into, multifamily.

Average Joe Finances:
3:46

That's awesome. So I haven't had too many people on the show that have gone straight into multifamily. It's usually they work themselves up and I hear so many people saying, Oh you can just go straight into multifamily. And a lot of people are like, How? That's gonna be my next question for you, Ryan. Is how, because, again, I did the same thing too. I worked my way up before I got into multifamily. So how did you just jump right in?

Ryan Webster:
4:06

Yeah, know a couple different things. I think the first obstacle for most people is really about mindset. And I had built a successful company. I understood the benefits of having scale of operations which kind of said I, I wanna skip over this, single family and jump into scale and have more efficiencies in the business as a whole. And the other contributing factor was the market I live in is not a big rental market. I knew I was gonna have to get outside of the place I live to invest in quality, multifamily and strong markets. And you have to have scale to operate at distance.

Average Joe Finances:
4:41

Okay. Yeah. Fantastic. Economy of scale is a huge thing for people to invest in multifamily real estate. It's when you look at the buildings that you have, if you have to go change out the roof, you're changing out one roof for 20 plus units versus if you have 20 homes and you're changing out 20 roofs, that could be very expensive. So that's huge. Okay. Awesome. So Warren, now for you, when you made that transition from single family to multifamily, how did that work? And now cuz was this all, since you've been in the US or during this five year span, you started investing in single family real estate then transitioned to multifamily? Or were you already investing in real estate when you were back in Australia?

Warren Dresner:
5:15

Yeah, I was already investing in real estate in Australia. In Australia, they don't really have the concept of multifamily. I don't know why exactly, but when the developers build these big communities, they tend to sell them off as condos. So this concept of multifamily is really powerful and it's a US concept. So I started in single families in Australia. When I got to the US my mindset was very much, I'm gonna buy single families in the us. Like I always saw on HG TV or some of those TV shows, people buying houses for $75,000, a hundred thousand dollars, which you is just unheard of in Australia. So I was really excited thinking there are gonna be great opportunities in single family in the US and there are, but what I discovered is that they're not where I live and I would have to get to know a whole other part of the country and have boots on the ground or build a team there. And that was difficult for me. When I discovered multifamily, it just made a lot of sense for all sorts of reasons, the scale like you talked about, but also just, I felt like it would be easier for me being someone new to the country without an existing network, without teams on the ground. I jumped into multifamily straight after that point.

Average Joe Finances:
6:19

Awesome. When you jumped into multifamily, that's actually when you met Ryan and you guys formed this company together. So if we could like just jump into what was that first deal like, especially with you coming from Australia and Ryan with you jumping straight into multifamily from your construction business, what was that like when, the two minds collided and you guys got into that first deal?

Warren Dresner:
6:41

I'll explain how I got into. When I started to be active in multifamily, when I made the decision, I wanna start finding my own deals, I joined a mentoring group. I, felt like I had two options. I could start small and build up, buy a fourplex and then an eight unit and 16 unit and grow that way. Or I could join one of these mentorship groups where they teach you how to underwrite, they build a network for you and go that way. And I chose that route and it was great for me. I thought the education piece was cool. The network was amazing. I wanted to surround myself with like-minded people who all wanted to grow in the same kind of way. So I joined that group and just started underwriting deals and talking to brokers. And probably doing that for three months, four months before I met Ryan. And Ryan was doing something similar. So we were both actually looking for deals in similar markets. We met each other, we came across each other and realized that we both had similar philosophies about what we were looking for. We both felt the same about what constitutes a good deal and what would be a bad deal. And so, just the relationship began organically, we started looking at a deal together. We didn't win it, but we enjoyed the process of working together. And then from that point on, whenever I saw a deal that looked good, I'd talk to Ryan about it and he would do the same. And slowly over time, we just started hunting for deals together.

Average Joe Finances:
7:58

Awesome. Ryan, you wanna add anything to that?

Ryan Webster:
7:59

No. I guess we can segue into our first deal here. Like Warren said it, really started very organically, had a good idea of, what made a good investment. And out of that came we shopped the market first. We look for markets with strong, fundamental, strong growth trends that are gonna support the growth of the business and the performance of the property. And then we dig into trying to find the, most quality property we can find in that submarket. And we really specialize in the late model product this a minus space nineties to mid two thousands that represents an affordability component to the luxury class A space, but it's still a new enough property that you don't have a pile up of deferred maintenance you have. Quality demographics for tenants in the area that's gonna allow you to build a well performing business in that property. So our first deal was in Sarasota, Florida. It was 148 units $26 million dollars. And we just refinanced that would've been two months ago and pulled out about five and a half million of equity out of that deal.

Average Joe Finances:
9:03

Awesome. Now, for this first deal, was this a joint venture or is it a syndication? Did you guys raise capital for this?

Ryan Webster:
9:09

A little bit of both. So we had some institutional capital and then we also raised the common equity behind that.

Average Joe Finances:
9:15

All right, fantastic. So you guys just repositioned, you said a year ago?

Ryan Webster:
9:19

Refinanced a couple months ago.

Average Joe Finances:
9:21

Okay. Couple months ago, and you pulled out 5 million in equity. Did you buy your investors out or are they still part of the deal?

Ryan Webster:
9:27

They're still part of the deal.

Average Joe Finances:
9:28

Awesome. Awesome. Right on. And then, so you were able to pull 5 million out, distribute that, make people very happy and, keep the deal moving and keeping it alive. And of course, obviously even with the refinance, it's still cash flowing. Yeah. Fantastic. So that, what a great first deal to start off. It sounds very intimidating when you look at it, right? A 26 million dollar acquisition. You guys were able to come together as a team and raise the capital and you already had some institutional capital. That's awesome. Now you guys both have the same fundamentals and you're looking for the same qualities in a property, right? When it comes to syncing up have you found that there was any particular things that worked out better for you guys that you see other partnerships that might need to work on more? I guess an example would be just like your, like the KPIs that you guys look. Different things like that. It was the two of you being able to sync up and making sure that you're on the same page. And actually not, just the two of you, but did you bring anybody else in to the team, especially for this first deal that may have had a differing opinion on certain things? What I guess what I'm really trying to get at is the whole team building aspect. How did you get everybody to come together to be one mind during the underwriting process? How you found the deal and, everything like that? Does that make sense? And I'm all over the place with that question.

Warren Dresner:
10:43

I guess one thing that comes to mind, like when you're asking that question is it's all about teamwork. And Ryan mentioned mindset at the beginning. When you go big you need the mindset to really believe that you can take down these big deals. And another big aspect is teamwork. To take down a 26 million dollar deal, it's not something that just the two of us could do on our own. We did bring in an institutional partner who brought $7 million of equity and, that was a relationship that we were building for months before we ever found the deal. We also had a much broader team. Our property management company that we developed a relationship with is a key partner in everything that we do. They not only manage the assets, but they helped us on the acquisition side as well. So every time we're looking at deals, we get their view and they help to underwrite it.. They give a lot of insight and on this deal, they were a key partner as well because they had certain insights about the market, about the property, and that was key to forming our view of the whole thing. And then we brought in other partners as well who helped us with other aspects of the deal, whether it's earn us money, raising capital, parts of the asset management, investor communication. So it's very much a team effort and it's all about building that team in order to take down the deal.

Average Joe Finances:
11:53

No, that's a great point. I guess where I was going with that as well is just the, actual process of building the team so how did you bring all these people together? So the two of you met right as you were both searching for deals, right? You were doing your mentorship program and looking and practicing underwriting deals and, things like that. And that's when you ran into Ryan and you guys formed this alliance, right? To form this this, business. Now, how did you go about finding the property management company and building these relationships with the other people that all made this deal come together?

Warren Dresner:
12:24

It's tricky because you have to do everything all at once. So from the very beginning we were out there looking for deals. At the same time, we were out there building relationships with institutional equity. We were building relationships with other syndicators who had an interest in Florida and had an interest in what we were doing. So by the time we found a deal, we already had a list of potential partners that we would bring into the deal. Same with the property management company. I know when I first started, I was talking to three or four property management companies, and Ryan would've been the same. And so we were constantly just building relationships with all sorts of team members. Over time, we started to gravitate more towards this property management company, and same with insurance brokers. That's another key team member. We have a relationship with an insurance broker and they were getting us quote, For insurance as we were underwriting deals. So the way we brought the team together was really just by focusing on building relationships right from the get go, Not waiting until we won the deal, and then figuring out who can we help to take this down. We've really gotta preempt the deal and start building relationships from the very beginning.

Average Joe Finances:
13:32

Awesome. I think that's what I was trying to pull outta you, that's great. Yeah, cuz you know that's, one of the key things that you said too, like it wasn't just building like a network, right? Cause people always tell Oh yeah building network. Networking. Networking. I talk about networking all the time too. But the other key component of building a network, Is not everyone in your network is somebody that you have a relationship with, right? So you have to build those relationships. You have to get closer with other people that you bring on your team, right? It's gotta be more than just, Oh, hey, I know a guy, right? There needs to be that, relationship aspect that you build up together. No that's, huge.

Warren Dresner:
14:04

And there are definite roles that you need on every team. So we need to find a deal. We need to have relationships with brokers to find a deal. We need a relationship with an insurance broker to help pricing the insurance, maybe a tax consultant to help understand the tax implications with a property management company. And then when you go and get a loan, you need people who can be a key partner on the loan and they need experience net worth liquidity. You need the ability to raise capital, you need to put down earnest money, put certain risk, capital at risk. So there are all these things, all these building blocks that need to come into place. And the whole concept of networking is about building the team and making sure every one of those roles is filled.

Average Joe Finances:
14:46

Yeah. That's huge. That's huge for sure. Now when you put the team together and now you got the deal, everything's going, you get to the closing table, right? You get the deal closed, boom, everything's done. Now how do you go about, now you have this $26 million asset, How do you go about managing it now to keep it on track to make sure that you're doing what's right by your investors, but also what's right by the the residents that live?

Ryan Webster:
15:13

Yeah. That's really when you know my opinion, where the real work starts. And back to modernize alignment in what we think makes a good investment and more importantly how we think a business should be operated. And we founded Equity Yield Group on kind of two principles. One I wish was providing investments that generated solid risk adjusted returns for our investors. And then clear transparent communication with investors. So once the deal's closed it's really about we have our business plan we've put together, and then we have our management team to run the day to day operations, the property. It's about checking on a weekly basis or daily basis, depending on what needs be, if, are you on track with that business plan and taking a look at. The key performance metrics day by day and, see is this on? Is this on or does this need to be moved? Or do we need to pivot here? And this one of the things I like about our business model is we do still operate in the value add space. So we're able to give something back to the community and back to the residents through improvements and renovations on the property, as well as generate returns for our investors.

Average Joe Finances:
16:25

No that's, great. And the first thing that I pointed out here, or that I wanna point out here that you said when I asked that question is when you get to the closing table, you said that's when the real work begin. That's huge cuz that shows your commitment to, hey, you didn't just get to the closing table and now walking away saying, Okay, our job's done we'll, let this kind of just run itself and run its course. No, you're constantly keeping track of what's going on, updating your investors. And as somebody who is a living in partner on a couple syndication deals I think that's one of the most important things you could do is just making sure you're keeping everybody updated and Proving that the, underwriting that you guys did to get to the closing table is what's really happening at this point. Especially with the way the market's shifting right now, you see a lot of people are just rushing to get to closing and it's not exactly playing out the way that they underwrote the deal. You're starting to see a lot of that right now, unfortunately. So the integrity of the team that's together, I think is super important. And it sounds like you guys are really good team of together when it comes to your integrity and, sticking with what works for you guys and, what works as as a general partner, right? So one of the topics that you guys want to talk about and that I wanna talk about as well, and we touched on it a little bit, is just the, building teams for successful syndications, right? So you talked about how you pieced everybody together and you talked about how you had to build a relationship to get there. Now, after you build these relationships and you find the deal that you want to do, how do you go about asking these people that you've built relationships with to say, Hey, we've got this deal coming up and we want you to be a part of it. How do you go about asking them to be a part of that deal?

Warren Dresner:
18:05

So one thing about the way we work is we, try and be as organized as possible. So it's always a little tricky. It's a chicken and egg thing because we need the, we need to win the deal in order to really start building that team properly. But we don't wanna wait until we win the deal because then we're already on the clock, and usually we've got 60 days to close these deals. So generally, even before we won it, when we feel like we're getting close, we'll start to have conversations with people. We'll start to share the underwriting and say, What do you think about this deal? We think we've got a good chance of winning it? Do you wanna be a part of it? And we'll start to build the team that way. So generally, by the time we've won the deal, we've pretty much got that team in place. We're confident we can raise all the equity. We're confident we can go and get the loan. And that way we can comfortably close the deal in the timeframe. So I think there've been a couple of instances where we've closed the deal well before that 60 day deadline. Close the deal early, which is great. Often we've got extensions in the contract, so we do have the ability to extend as a lot of syndicates do, but our preference is always let's not use the extension. Let's try and perform. Close the deal smoothly. So that, that's basically how we do it. We try and be as transparent as possible, share all the details of the deal, get on a Zoom call and talk through any questions that people have and then just start to recruit them into the team that way.

Average Joe Finances:
19:28

Okay. Yeah that's awesome. Again that words come up a couple times now, transparency and, how key that is, right? Cause you are not telling people what's going on, they're not gonna feel comfortable and they're not gonna give you their money. That's good to know that you guys are very good stewards of your investors money and making sure that you're doing it the right way. And pushing to try to get closed by that 60 day mark. That way, the people that are sending in their funds, they'll be able to start getting their distribution sooner rather than having to wait for these extensions to keep happening and things like that. So that's, good. That's really awesome. I guess one of the other things I wanna touch on though is like when you're piecing that team together, right? And you're saying, Hey, you're sharing some of the data of hey, here's what we're underwriting, this is what we're seeing, this is how we think this deal's gonna go down. And you're putting that together. Now, how are you keeping in touch with these folks? Do you have a CRM system that you guys use to keep track of who does what? Or do you have a mailing list that you guys mail out and say, Hey, This is what we have coming down the pipe and wanting to see who's interested in joining in on this with us.

Warren Dresner:
20:29

So we've got a CRM system, which includes mailing list, and we will let our investors know, or everyone that's on the investment list know that a deal is coming and communicate with them that way. We've also got a portal that we use Syndication Pro, which we use to manage the syndication. So all of the information would be uploaded there. Investors can go into the portal and read the details of their leisure. They can submit an investment request there. They can confirm that they're gonna be part of the deal, complete all the investment documentation. And then once the deal is live, that portal remains live and they can go in there and see the updates. They can see details of their distributions. So the portal is like a nice, neat solution to help manage the life of the deal.

Average Joe Finances:
21:14

Okay. Yeah. Fantastic. I'm asking you guys like basic stuff for you guys, but this is stuff I wanna get out to the audience because I've had several multi-family investors on this podcast before, and we've never gone into detail of how people put teams together and things like that. We've just talked about how they have all these awesome deals and, how they're doing 'em, right? I think this is super important information to get out to the listeners right now, especially if they're considering going into multifamily investing. And these are the kind of qualities you wanna see if you're gonna be a limited partner, these are the kind of qualities you wanna see in the general partners that you're gonna use. So exactly what Warren and Ryan are doing. So that's that's awesome stuff. I just wanna make sure I'm getting that out there for you guys. I appreciate that.

Warren Dresner:
21:53

It's valuable because I've invested in syndications as well as a limited partner, and the biggest frustration for me is when communication's poor or ad hoc or unorganized. So I think it's really, I know from experience, having been through some of these investments, I really value having good communication and having an operator who is organized and professional and has the systems in place to make sure that the communication's gonna stay that way through the life of the deal.

Average Joe Finances:
22:22

Yeah. And, these are the qualities I look for when I invest with the team too. So I invest with a couple different teams right now. They're all fantastic. I get my sometimes monthly updates from some of them quarterly updates from the other ones. And it's just great because they definitely keep me updated on what's going on. Every little thing, especially if they're setbacks or anything like that. I actually respect that more than trying to be like, Oh yeah, everything's great. Everything's fine. When we had the whole lumber shortage one of the, one of the investments I was in, they had an issue, right? We had to delay something about nine months. So that's huge that you're putting that out to your investors and they understand what's going on so they can have reasonable expectations of what to expect from you all. And it's not just be like, Oh, okay, I gave my money now, gimme my distributions right? There's more to it than that. You, need to know what's going on with the asset itself. So that's, huge. When other things happen, like cost X studies and everything like that. That's huge. Like you need to know that. You need to know what kind of loss you're gonna be able to claim that year on your K1.

Ryan Webster:
23:20

Yeah, absolutely. That's very big and it's a business and we put together a proforma and we go through underwriting and we do our best to project the future as accurately as we can. We don't have a crystal ball. There's always gonna be unforeseen circumstances, but you know what you wanna know is, One, that these circumstances are being communicated to you as an investor and a limited partner, and two, that you know, the sponsorship team and the management team is seeing these coming and, has a plan to address them and keep the asset on performance.

Average Joe Finances:
23:52

Yeah. Absolutely. So speaking of performance, right? So before you even get to all that, and I wanna rewind this back even further, right? So before you even go and find the deal, you have to figure out where your market's gonna be, right? So what are some of the things that you guys are looking for when you're selecting and qualifying target markets?

Ryan Webster:
24:12

First and foremost is, kind of population growth. You want to have some, demand pressure pushing on the housing market in an area that you're looking. And we saw a huge migration trend at the onset of Covid where people got on shackled from the desk. And we're forced to think about, Hey, you know what's my best life? And it's now the opportunity to go live that best life. And we saw a lot of people migrating to the southeast and, to the south. So we look for areas with Solid population growth. And then we look fors with barriers to entry for new supply. We don't want a lot of new apartments being built, flooding the market, which is gonna impact occupancy and rents. And then especially right now in this inflationary environment, looking very closely at income growth and the diversity of the job market in the area. And then taking that income as a ratio of rents and making sure that if we're renovating a property and pushing rents are, we pushing rents beyond that affordability threshold.

Average Joe Finances:
25:16

No, that's a great point. And that's, definitely something that everybody should be mindful of, right? Just because you're gonna take down an asset and be like, Oh yeah, I could raise the rent and, this is what it's gonna look like five years from now. Is it realistic to what the people there can afford? So that's huge. And that's definitely something that's great for you guys to take into consideration because not only are you doing a good service to your investors, but you're also taking care of your tenants and residents as well, right? You're making sure that you're keeping it affordable for them and you're providing a service. You're providing affordable housing for people to live in, so it's two birds, one stone, right? You're helping people invest their money and get themselves to a better point where they can maybe retire early or do whatever they want with that money. But you're also giving a better quality of life to some, people that are moving into your apartment buildings and being able to live in a good, safe environment while not having to worry about whether or not they can afford it or not. So that's, definitely huge. Now what are some of those markets that you guys are looking at? So now I know you said people are moving to the southeast and the South. So what kind of areas are you guys looking at for yourselves, personally right now for assets that you're taking down?

Ryan Webster:
26:28

Yeah, so we like to stick to the, periphery of the major markets across the, southeast and not really the, core of these major markets, but just on the outside because that represents a little more affordability. But yeah, across Florida looking at Tampa, Orlando, Jacksonville and some other minor markets down the, Gulf Coast.

Average Joe Finances:
26:51

Okay, Awesome. Right on. Yeah. There seems to be a huge migration down that way. As a matter of fact, my in-laws moved from New York down to Tampa not too long ago. So definitely see that happening. And there was something else that you mentioned that I thought that was pretty key as well is you said during this whole pandemic that people are realizing that they could unchain themselves from them, from their desks and do other things. So you've seen like this huge migration out of bigger cities and people moving more into the suburb and stuff cuz now a lot of people are able to telework for their job. I've even seen people that like have jobs in New York City, but they move to another state because they can telework and I can telework so I can live in Illinois if I want to or I can live in Texas if I want to. So things like that have been pretty huge.

Ryan Webster:
27:32

Yeah, absolutely. And the interesting thing we see with that is we do have some, residents that have moved down from New York. And although rents are growing a lot across major markets in Florida we have people coming from these even more expensive markets that still are earning incomes from New York and they're like, Wow these, rents were really affordable compared to what I'm used to where I come from.

Average Joe Finances:
27:52

And at the same time too, you guys also said that your focus is on A- properties. So you. You're looking at higher rent in general anyway, versus some of the C+ plus and B class properties. You're gonna have tenants that are ready and willing to pay that higher for the premium because you're gonna have the better amenities and things like that with the assets that you're purchasing. You said your first acquisition was $26 million. So I know a lot of syndicators that their first ones like 4 million. So you guys went pretty hard on that first one right away. So that's, pretty awesome. And, actually, so speaking of that as you're building up I know you closed out 2021 what was the number that you guys were at for the end of the year?

Ryan Webster:
28:32

665 units warren? End of 2021?

Warren Dresner:
28:36

Yeah. And the portfolio is now probably $200 million of assets.

Average Joe Finances:
28:41

Awesome. Yeah. And, when did you guys come together and actually start when you close or when did you close on that first deal? Cause that'll make it easier to.

Ryan Webster:
28:49

Yeah. The first deal was closed March of 2021.

Average Joe Finances:
28:52

Wow. Okay. So from March of 2021 to now, you're sitting at about 180 million of assets under management.

Ryan Webster:
29:00

Yep.

Average Joe Finances:
29:01

That's awesome. Well, done guys. Good job. Good job. And that goes to show that You hustled, right? You didn't just sit around and say, Okay, we closed the deal. We'll just relax a little bit. No, you moved right on and just kept going to find the next deal. And you kept hunting and you kept that going. That's really awesome guys. You just gotta keep moving and keep that motivation up.

Warren Dresner:
29:19

It sounds this is the whole overnight success thing. We actually started working on this at least 12 months before March 2021. So there was a lot of work and leading up to it probably from late 2019, I'd say. But yeah, the first deal closed in early 2021.

Average Joe Finances:
29:35

I bet. So I have some partners right now too, right? We actually get on a Zoom call monthly and we practice underwriting deals and going over numbers with each other. Because I'm retiring from the Navy, one of the other guys that's on the team is retiring from the Navy this year as well, and the other guy is getting out of the Navy. Next year. So we're just going through the motions right now and just putting our stuff together, putting our processes together and just like practicing right now so that when we're ready to hit the go button, we're gonna go and we're gonna go hard. And we have some different ideas of how we wanna do things a little bit differently. And the, markets that we wanna target just a little bit differently than what other people are doing, cuz we want to stand out a bit. I think that's huge. So I'm glad you pointed that out, that you guys started working on this stuff about 12 months prior to even getting your first deal. I think that's huge because for the people that are out there thinking about doing this and you're not sure you can certainly start underwriting deals now and practicing and, getting yourselves to the point. If you have partners or you wanna have partners, Get together, start brainstorming, start talking about this stuff. I know Warren, you said you were in that mentorship group, right? So join a group. Go to local meetups. Join a mastermind, right? Start learning this stuff. Start learning the processes. And, so when you go to actually put it in place yourself, you're gonna be a hundred percent committed because you know exactly what you're doing

Warren Dresner:
30:52

Absolutely.

Average Joe Finances:
30:53

All right. Awesome. Hey guys, this has been absolutely fantastic. I want to go ahead and transition this into something that we call the final round. I'm gonna ask you guys four questions that will really get you thinking a little bit and give the audience a better understanding of the two of you, your mentality and how you got to where you are today. So if you guys are ready, we'll get this party.

Warren Dresner:
31:14

Let's go.

Average Joe Finances:
31:15

All right, cool. Now I, would like for both of you to answer these questions as well, cause I, I know each one of you will probably have a unique answer. The first question is, what's the biggest mistake you've ever made?

Ryan Webster:
31:25

Yeah. Back into team building when I built my first business I was much, much, younger had a lot more energy and I just I ran at it, said I'm gonna build a business without a lot of prior thought into If I need to build this business to where I want it to go, what's it gonna take? And that I can't do this alone. So what kind of team do I, I need to put behind it? What are their roles, responsibilities gonna be? So, went out and kinda learned that lesson the hard way. But it was a great education. And through that process I learned how to build a team, how to manage a team effectively to generate the desired results.

Warren Dresner:
31:58

I think for me. Biggest mistake, I don't know if it's, I don't know if it's the biggest, but a big mistake would be, I think I waited too long to start thinking about passive income. I fell into the corporate world. I started working hard and had a salary and started earning more and more money. But it probably wasn't until my late thirties when I actually sat back and thought, Actually, if I ever wanted to leave this job, I've got zero income. Zero choice, zero alternatives. And so I think that's my biggest mistake. I should have started thinking about real estate and passive income in my twenties.

Average Joe Finances:
32:29

All right. Awesome. Both, fantastic answers. Ryan for you, when you learn these lessons that way, sometimes it could be the most expensive education you get, but at the same time, it's education that you get, right? It's something that you learn to make you better and make better decisions in the future. And then Warren, that's probably one of the answers I actually hear the most is a lot of people say, Oh, I wish I would've started sooner. And, that is the case for a lot of people. So that's why I hope that we get these messages out there to resonate, especially with the younger listeners, to say, Hey if you're in your early twenties and this is something you're thinking about, just jump. Don't run, don't walk, run. Awesome. Okay. Appreciate that guys. Next question I have is, what is something that you've learned that you wish you knew when you first started?

Warren Dresner:
33:13

I could go first on that one. So I think we've alluded to it, but this really is a team sport. A lot of people try and go it alone, and I definitely did as well, especially when I was looking to buy single family homes. But the sooner you can realize that it is a team sport, that networking is incredibly important and powerful because surrounding itself with other people who are doing this is gonna propel you forward. It's gonna let you go faster and further. So I'd say that's the biggest thing for me. Realize that networking is important and throw yourself into it.

Ryan Webster:
33:46

Yeah. I think for me, one of the things that it took a while to click and figured this out a lot Sooner things would've happened a lot faster at scale. But it is, it really starts with mindset. What you're capable of and where you can end up really starts with what you believe you can do.

Average Joe Finances:
34:00

Awesome, awesome. Both fantastic answers. And we, talked about that earlier too, the importance of networking and building these relationships and how huge that is. If you're listening to this and you're not sure where to start, go check out some Facebook groups. Go find a local meetup. You could find 'em on meetup.com or even on Facebook. There's so many different places where you could find these meetups. But go meet other like-minded people to yourself and they can help push you in the right direction. So awesome. And then mindset too is huge. Mindset is absolutely huge. You have to have that shift. Otherwise, if you keep thinking like an employee, you always will be an employee. So it's time for you to be your own boss, so I love that. All right. The next question is, do you have any tips or tricks that you would recommend to someone that is just getting started today?

Warren Dresner:
34:46

For me along the lines of I wish I had gotten started earlier, I'd say to someone really young who wants to get into this, start house hacking, look into house hacking. You can go buy something with three bedrooms, live in one of the bedrooms and rent out the other two, do some work to add value to the property. I think that's a great way of getting started.

Ryan Webster:
35:04

Yeah. And if you're just getting started and you have an idea of where you want to be and if you're looking to really scale something you know that work starts pretty early. The same journey that we went on was you need to understand what your team needs to look like. You need to start networking with people that can fill positions in that team, you need to have an investment strategy and idea of how and where you wanna invest. And do all that work front and be intentional about what you're doing. And then step into investing itself and building where you want to go from there.

Average Joe Finances:
35:38

Yeah, absolutely love that. Especially the word that you use there. Be intentional. Be intentional about what you're doing. And then Warren house hacking is huge. So many people sleep on that strategy, right? Because it's one of those things that you can essentially buy a property and live in it for free while somebody else is paying your mortgage and you've got a free place to stay while you're figuring out what to do with your life. So that's fantastic. And if not free, at least at a significantly reduced price. Awesome. All right. So for both of you now the final question is do you guys have a favorite business investing or real estate related book or podcast or both that you could share with us?

Ryan Webster:
36:15

I think the real gateway drug into real estate is the bigger pockets platform and podcast, and that, that's really where this mindset shift started with me and into getting into buy and hold and rentals for long term cash flow.

Warren Dresner:
36:29

I can go with the book. I agree on the podcast. I came in through bigger pockets as well. I think it is the gateway drug into real estate. I try and read widely. So there've been so many books over the years. One that's really stuck with me in the last year or so, it's been a book that was called it's by MJ DeMarco, and it's called the Rat Race Escape. So it's really about just building passive income. Finding a way to financial freedom. And it's written in a really nice way because they interweave a fictional story about a couple with some educational content. So I really enjoyed that one.

Average Joe Finances:
37:02

Awesome. Okay. So I, definitely wrote that one down. I didn't have to write down bigger pockets, cuz that was also my gateway drug as well. I'm an avid listener of that podcast. Absolutely love it. Really good stuff guys. I appreciate your answers on that. Okay that's it for the final round, but I do have one more extremely important question. Especially because of how much stuff we touched on, and we got into a little bit more of the nitty gritty of, how you guys build teams and put these plans together to purchase your assets. So there's people that are listening right now that are like, Hey, we wanna know more about Warren and Ryan and we wanna know more about their business equity yield group. So if you could share with us, do you guys have a website where people could find more information, social media, anything like that, that you could share with ustoday?

Warren Dresner:
37:47

Sure. The best way would be to head to our website, it's equityyieldgroup.com. On there you can see what we're up to, what we're about. You can click on the contact button and contact us directly or sign up to our investor list. That will be the absolute best way.

Average Joe Finances:
38:01

Fantastic. So that's where you can find 'em, guys. I'll make sure I have the links in the show notes to make it easier for you. So you can either just click it or copy and paste and go check out what Warren and Ryan are all about. And we know a little bit about what they're about just from this interview. And I greatly appreciate it. So guys, thank you so much for taking the time to come in on the show with me today and explaining what you guys do and sharing your story with all of us.

Warren Dresner:
38:26

Thanks, Mike. It's been good.

Ryan Webster:
38:27

Yeah, thanks for having us.

Average Joe Finances:
38:29

Awesome. Aloha from Hawaii.