TV Star From "Flipping Boston" Talks About How to Manage Contractors | Dave Seymour

In this episode, Dalyn Hazell sits down with Dave Seymour to talk about flipping and specifically on managing contractors.

Dave Seymour was a firefighter for 16 years and is now a full-time real estate investor who also was on the A&E’s hit TV show “Flipping Boston”. Dave has done millions in real estate transactions and now manages a 100 million dollar fund investing in multi-family.

Key takeaways from this episode:

-Dave’s AHA moment in Real Estate.

-The three things you need to be successful in real estate investing

-How to be an excellent wholesaler

-The pitfalls in fix and flip and how to overcome it

-The variables in real estate and how to control it

-How to keep your contractors so you will not have to hire a new one on the next project

-How to deal with the contractors remotely and how to outline everything that needs to be done

-The market analysis

-Why real estate is the best way to invest your hard-earned money

-And a lot more incredible topics unpacked!

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Connect with Guest, Dave Seymour:

Website: www.freedomventure.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daveseymour343/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/daveseymour343/

Email: info@freedomventure.com

Connect with the Host, Dalyn Hazell:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dalyn.hazell/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dhazell24/

Email: dalyndhazell@gmail.com

Transcript

Introduction  0:00  

This is the real estate investing for Freedom podcast, where we bring on the experts to teach you the golden nuggets of real estate investing. So you can escape the rat race and start living life on your terms. Now, here's your host, Dalyn Hazell.

Dalyn Hazell  0:21  

Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the show at the time of recording. It's the new year. So I hope you've had a great holiday season and are ready to get back to it. And you've set your goals high for the new year. But in today's show, I sit down with Dave Seymour. And he is if you remember, the flipping Boston show back 10 or 15 years ago, he was the star of that show. And he's a real funny guy and has a lot of wisdom and knowledge to share about not just flipping but in this episode, we specifically talk about managing contractors. So there's a lot of good tidbits on this episode. If you are struggling in that area of real estate, it's been a tricky time for contractors' materials, finding help post COVID. And so this is Episode. For me, it came at a great time, and I took a lot of good things away from this one. But before all that, here's today's golden nugget of the day. Today's gold nugget is and this hits especially home for me is make sure your tenants winterize the home properly. So what I did before it got super cold out, and I live in Missouri, so it may not be super cold where you are maybe you live in Texas or Florida. But at least for us that live in the colder climates. During the winter, what I did is I sent out a notice to all my tenants and just said unplug or unscrew the hoses on the outside spigots,  make sure the house is heated up to 60 degrees, make sure to leave some dripping water in the faucet if you are going to be on vacation, so forth. So I think that's something that gets ignored a lot. And it can prevent a lot of future headaches and repairs,  pipes bursting. And if you just make that just alert the tenant that winter is upon us, and there are going to be these cold seasons. So what I do is send that sometime in,  December or November. And then a bit obvious, if you haven't done it yet this season, go ahead and do that, especially if you know a really chilly day coming up. But that'll prevent a lot of,  maintenance calls. Hopefully, of course, they don't have to do it, you say. But if it prevents one or two maintenance calls, I think it's worth it. So just an email, letting them know that that that would be my golden nugget of the day. So without further ado, here is my episode interview with Dave Seymour from flipping Boston, and we're talking all about how to manage contractors. Hope you enjoy it. Welcome to the show, Dave, how's it going?

Dave Seymour  2:54  

It's cold wow Dalyn how are you, Brother?

Dalyn Hazell  2:56  

Fantastic. I'm glad to have you on a lot of people who know you from the flipping Boston TV show. And obviously, the work you're doing now is more for sophisticated investors and raising capital and those sorts of things. So first, I like to always dive into When was your aha moment in real estate. We can talk about your background later. But when was the aha moment where the lights clicked on for you about real estate? 

Dave Seymour  3:21  

Yeah, that's a great question, man. You know what it was, it was the day I made my first real check in real estate and it was for $5,000 on a wholesale transaction. Now you got a picture of a dark, cold, rainy night, about 530 in Boston, right? of wholesale, the real estate deal. I stepped out of this, this office and I got a check in my hand and it's for $5,000. And I looked at the check, right? All misty and cold and moist. On an October evening. I looked at this checker for a moment I thought to myself, dear Lord, how many hours that I traded in my life for somebody else's money, right? How much time had I spent in my past to make a $5,000 income? And I quickly did a mathematical run through my head. And I figured out I probably spent literally on that one deal anywhere between maybe three hours, right? So I figured from that day forward, I was worth at least 15 $1,500 an hour, if not a little bit more. So this better is a quick show because I'm going to be sending you a bill for a couple of grand if you're not careful. But no seriously, that was it. Man. It was like real estate was a vehicle that could get me out of where I was. And more importantly, it could accelerate where I wanted to be so that was it. Man, that damn a five grand. I actually gave that check the name Dalyn and I call it a shut-up check. And it was the check that I showed to everybody who said I couldn't do this real estate gig. I showed him the check and I said shut up. Shut up check. There was a lady in the South. I was presenting at an event or something She said to me, said we don't call it a. We don't call it a shut-up check. We call it a bless your heart check. That's what we say we say Bless Your Heart. I said, but it basically means Shut up. Stop giving me your opinion. She said, Absolutely. It's just nicer. So if you're down south, it's a shut-up check. If you're in New York or Boston, it's an I can do this check. So yeah, that was it.

Dalyn Hazell  5:24  

That's a little more polite way to put it, I suppose.

Dave Seymour  5:27  

I'm not I'm not known for being polite. 

Dalyn Hazell  5:29  

Yeah. Well, that's it's so cool. But that's how a lot of people start they started wholesaling to get that first check. Generally, what I found out it takes a lot of time to get that first. And then it just snowballs from there. So did you kind of snowball from there? Or was it slow going for a while?

Dave Seymour  5:46  

Yeah, look, man, I ended up a student in a seminar. If you've ever listened to those radio commercials, though, you've been on social media. And this some clown or another is gonna be prancing around the country, trying to sell you 35, 40, $50,000 real estate investment training packages. And I was that guy who went and did that. So I came out of my classes, uneducated, but inspired, educated but motivated, I think, I think real education came on the street.  I was trading at that time, about 120 hours a week for somebody else. I had three full-time jobs. I was a firefighter and a paramedic, I work construction on my days off. And on my nights and weekends, I work retail security. I was an illiterate donkey is what I really, like put it, I didn't understand money I didn't I just didn't understand anything debt, credit cards, nothing. And I needed to make a dramatic change. And I know real estate was the vehicle. So I, if there's one thing about me in my DNA is if I set a goal and a target, I'm going to hit it, I'm going to hit it I will accomplish what I set out to accomplish. It's kind of like the firefighter mentality. So for me, I think I was on an accelerated course, if you will, just because of the way I personally operate it. And,  I started seeing results of my, my implementation of, of the basics.  I wasn't overly educated coming out of classes, but I knew the fundamentals, I knew how to analyze a deal pretty quickly. I knew what was a good deal, and what wasn't, I didn't squeeze deals. So I made a ton of offers man,  it's, it's these, these students who get stuck in analysis and never pull the trigger and make an offer. And then they wonder why it doesn't work, why it doesn't work, because you didn't do anything. I don't care what  I care about what you do. And I was a doer rather than an hour. So I probably started getting some results within I would say six to eight months of that first seminar experience that I had. And then it was just on like Donkey Kong because once you make that check, there's nobody on the face of the earth can tell you you can't do it. Right. You show them the bless your heart check or the Shut up check, depending on where you're coming from,  yeah, so that was my journey. It was,  it was almost vicious like I talked about business as being it's not polite. It's aggressive. And I guess I have the aggressive DNA sports background stuff like that firefight background puts me in a position to conquer rather than crumble, you know. So that was my journey.

Dalyn Hazell  8:26  

I mean, you hit her on the head there, and you have a great, great background. Now, I would say, there are three things you need to be successful. You need these three things, you need a coach like you had the seminar, desire, you had that fire in your belly to do something different. And then you need to action. So you had those three components and then you were hit the ground running? Was it the Can you draw it back to like that seminar that made you successful? I mean, would you? Would you recommend people go sign up for those radio shows?

Dave Seymour  8:56  

Look, man, it's, you know what I did that day I bought $27,000 worth of accountability is what I bought. Yeah. All right. To thine own self be true. Three o'clock in the morning is usually when we're the most honest with ourselves, right? Everything else is just bullshit. It really is. It's,  it's an external opinion, internal dialogue. It's the consistent running around inside your own brain and wanting more but doing less. So,  for me, I got $27,000 worth of accountability. I was blessed to share a stage a few years back up in Canada Tony Robbins was the main draw of 16,000 people and I'm up there  MC and I'm running around and sharing the good word. And I remember Robbins got up there and he said, massive passion, massive action, massive results, massive passion, action and results. And then when you reverse engineer that and dial it back into the simplicity, it's like there is no such thing as a self-made millionaire or millionaire. So it's a team effort, do what somebody else is doing is successful. Make sure that your coach and your mentor are doing what you want to do not just teaching you something that they read in a book, or they learn from somebody else. So I look for those people in the marketplace. And,  it's an interesting man, when I, when I think back and I look back at it, and I think about my career in a firehouse, it's the same thing, brother, you don't go running into a burning building on your own the first day that you put on your helmet and your boots, and you go, Oh, look at me, I'm all grown up. I'm a firefighter. No, you go to an academy, right? You get in shape. You learn fire science, you learn hazardous materials. And then they assign you to some crusty old fart who's been doing firefighting for 30 plus years, who won't let you die, right? You don't follow the cowards, who are just working for the fire department, rather than being firefighters, you work that downtown man among men, right? That's who you follow. And it's, it's the same thing in this business. There's a lot of talk as in real estate, there's a small amount of doers. And,  being around the doers, and the implementers are was absolutely a strategic decision I made very early on, and then found what value I had and bought it for them. And it's not money's everywhere. Money is not that impressive. Trust me. It's a ton of it in the market right now. So it was,  what did I have I have passion, commitment, I had a little construction background, I was a firefighter. I knew the local city. So I bought all of those skills to the marketplace and then learned how to monetize them. So yeah, it was, it was definitely those components, the way you described them was a huge factor in the success that I had, and continue to have.

Dalyn Hazell  11:48  

Yeah, when it comes to coaching and courses and things like that I prioritize, or I, IV more highly in those mastermind groups, those living communities where you can learn, it's not just a set of videos, they just release you to, it's a living community, and they're constantly releasing content, you're learning how to give back to the community there. So I would say to folks if they're interested in some coaching, maybe look for a mastermind group versus just a set of videos because content without reinforcement usually ends with no action, but content with reinforcement and a community around it generally pushes you to action. So that's awesome. Do you have any sales the word accountability?

Dave Seymour  12:26  

That's right, the word accountability brother, it's a dirty word. It's a dirty word. For some reason, it's okay to just put your hand out and receive. But in business and in entrepreneurship and real estate, it has to have accountability, it's got to have some taste to it. If it doesn't have any tea, forget it. Just keep on moving,  for sure.

Dalyn Hazell  12:47  

So you're a firefighter for several years. And so what made you I mean, obviously, we know, your wholesale check, did that lead you right into flipping and buying holds? Or did you do wholesale for a while and what was your

Dave Seymour  12:59  

I love people who always say, when I started out, I'm going to be a wholesaler, well, they're sold on this wholesaling concept, because it's sold to them as easy. And it's not to be an excellent wholesaler, you need to be a fantastic flipper. And what I mean by that is, if you don't understand your numbers, if you don't understand the cost of construction, soft costs, carrying cost of capital, insurance timelines,  if you're not working with any contingencies in your numbers, then you're a clown, right? You're a clown, you put a deal, you put numbers in front of a guy like me, and if the numbers aren't real, I'm going to laugh you off the stage, and you're not going to get a second shot to come back with an opportunity to do a deal again. So wholesaling in and of itself is the foundation for everything else. It's understanding all the numbers, the variables, the timelines, etc as I said, so,  I took that 5000 paid off some debt, rolled it into the next deal. And so the next deal then did my first buy, fix and flip deal. And,  then 2008 Nine, when I started, we have plenty of inventory man, we have plenty of properties that we could work with, because they were all abandoned, and they were taken by the banks. So,  I became known as one of the experts in the state of Massachusetts for distressed asset investing, partnered up with Martha COE police officer was the attorney general here at the time. And that just poured credibility and capital onto the process and work my way out helped my own portfolio of buy and hold properties. Love the idea of somebody else going to work and pay down my debt on my property little bit left over for me at the end of every month and I started to live that that dream if you were or that concept of money working for me instead of me working for money. And once that happened that then it's definitely an eye-opening experience for a blue-collar guy like me to have checks in the mail, right, which is really what we're looking for. Right? We're looking for residual income. passive income. And it just kept on rolling from there, man.

Dalyn Hazell  15:05  

Yeah, I love the idea of if you have 10 rentals, you have 10 people that are waking up each day going to work for you to chip away your equity and your cash flow. So it's, it's beautiful. Yeah. Talk about you know what? Because I'm sure a lot of people who are who follow you are those flippers because they learned about you from the flipping Boston reality TV show. So explain. I mean, beyond the veil beyond,  the facade of like, everything goes well, yeah. What are the pitfalls that somebody who's interested in fixing and flipping would come across? And how do you overcome those?

Dave Seymour  15:39  

Yeah, look, you can overcome everything. All right, I would be doing you and your listeners a disservice to say, you know that you can overcome everything you can't. So real estate investing is about controlling the variables. The variables that usually sink a deal are the I'll get upset some people but I don't care. Other realtors who oversell you the deal, they'll tell you that if you just do XYZ to the property, you can sell it for XYZ. And yet, they're never prepared to put their own money down on the deal, right. So one of the variables that I always had a massive amount of control around was my after repair value, I would walk a lot of assets early in my career. So I know exactly what the market was, what was selling what wasn't what finishes, I needed to put into these properties, I take my after repair value, and I dial it back, I'd be ultra-conservative, I'd walk away from 99 deals to do one. The other variable that's that can sink you in a heartbeat is a lack of construction knowledge and not having a good construction team around you. And that can be the hardest part. So maybe you vet and invest with your contractor. Maybe you incentivize them, right? You make it feel like it's their property as much as it is yours. It's one of the things that I did early in my career in it, and it helped, right, look, I made less, but I would much rather make a little of a lot than a lot of a little. That's important, right? And let everybody feel great about the project that they go into. Because at the end of the day, if that contractor doesn't see a paycheck on your property, he or she is going to go somewhere else I promise you. And fundamentally, it to really take the whole thing down to its base level. Nobody, nobody will care more about your property than you do. So never assume anything in a flip. Don't assume that you're going to get a hard money lender who feels good about you and your project. There are hot money lenders out there that work on what's called a loan to own program, where they'll put you so deep in a hole right out of the gate because all they want to do is take over the property from you anyway. Right. So be aware of the predators in the marketplace, both from a real estate broker standpoint, a contractor standpoint, a money standpoint, and then take some pride in the product that you put out there. Do it right, do it by the numbers, get yourself a really good reputation with the local cities and towns and municipalities with which you work. Because if you are not a friend with your city, if you try to cut a corner, if you try to be a clown, a donkey, they will very, very quickly know who you are, and they will make your life miserable. So it's not a hobby, okay? It's a business, treat it like a business and not like a hobby. If you want a hobby, go build some model planes or something. But if you want a real business, and grow some finances, then do it the right way. So it makes sense.

Dalyn Hazell  18:39  

Yeah, the point on the city is super important. I mean, they could shut you down at a moment's notice. So making sure you get the right permits, and you're following the guidelines, getting inspections, things like that. On the point, you made about having your team invested. I know, one of my colleagues told me, so he sets a deadline for the project. He said, Okay,  Joe, the contractor, what's a generous timeframe to put on this deal? And how much time do you need, but be generous? And so he gets that timeline. He says, Okay if you can do it a week sooner, I'll give you 10% more on top of the pie. If you are slow a week, I'll take away 10% off the contract, right? That's just a way that I've been able to hold my contractors accountable, like you said, right. What are some other ways to keep your team specifically maybe contractors invested in that project to do those repeat deals? Because we don't want to have to find a new contractor every three to four months?

Dave Seymour  19:32  

Yeah, great question. Look, man, pay them often pay them early, pay them on time, often early and on time. You've got to remember that that GC that contractor, at the end of every week, he's got a bunch of guys and girls with their handout. We want to get paid to feed their families and pay their bills. So if that chasing you for capital for work that's been done, then it's not good. Now, that being said, Don't ever, ever let them get ahead of you ever Right. If you let a GC get ahead of you, that's nothing but heartache and headache. Because at the end of the day, they're spending that money, with or without your permission. Be really concise with your contracts and your construction draws. The guy says, just send me the check that it'll be done on Friday. No, let's meet Friday, and I'll have a check with me. You'll want to bank check so that you know that is going to go through immediately, Joe? Yes, please, Dave, awesome job, I'll see you there. Oh, by the way, I'll be there at lunchtime to the guys like cheese pizza, a couple of cokes, or something with that workout, I'll buy him lunch. When I get there. I bought more favors with six cheese pizzas and a couple of liters of coke than I have with anything else. Never ever, ever, ever. Think of yourself as superior to that crew on site. I don't give a crap who you are. I don't care. I don't care if you've got $20 million in the bank. When you walk onto that job site, everybody is equal. You treat them fairly. You treat them with respect. And you and you appreciate what they do. Because at the end of the day, they're the guys that are making you the money. Right? So that's one of the lessons that I love man, it was in my DNA to be that way anyway because I came from a construction background. So I never forgot what it felt like to be demeaned in some way or another because I had to sweep up at the end of the day, you know? So, yeah, those are definitely ways to keep everybody concise on these projects.

Dalyn Hazell  21:25  

Yeah, absolutely. So I know what someone's gonna say out there is that well, what if you're doing this remotely? So did you have any experience in doing any of this remotely? And how to do that?

Dave Seymour  21:35  

Yeah, I've done a couple of deals remotely small, single-family properties. I've done them through investing through my own self retirement accounts. I did a couple of single-family projects in the Florida market when I was living up here in the Boston Market.  you do your due diligence, I worked with a company that had a model, if you will, for exactly that, being able to service remote investors so that the capital could go in.  I did a couple of them. One was good one wasn't,  today, I'm at such a different place in my business at the commercial side where I'm doing,  $24 million multifamily ground-up construction, that contractor relationship long-distance is a lot different. I mean, I've got bonded contractors, vetted contractors. These are national general contracting companies that come in,  that have 15% Oh, HMP on the line items. It's just a different world altogether. But it's due diligence, man, it's due diligence, don't send a check somewhere to somebody you've never met. And dear Lord, we've got we got zoom. Now you can send somebody out on a zoom call, right? You can really figure it out. You've got an inner compass inside every one of us to pay attention to your gut, right. But yeah, look, you can use systems automated with video. I want to see a video before I want to save the video after the windows have gone in. Right. Okay, the windows are in hit comes to check.  I want to see the kitchen cabinets on site. I want to see him being installed. Okay, good. Now pay for the kitchen cabinets. So that kind of process. We've got so much technology today to support it.  just create a system if it if there isn't one that you could just walk into, you know?

Dalyn Hazell  23:22  

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, one thing I'm struggling with right now. And maybe you can help and I'm sure other people have struggled with this is that when you start a job, right, so how do you get that initial scope of work going? How do you outline that and make sure that your contractors on say, pages, everything needs to be done? Are you doing a room-by-room scope of work? Are you doing an all-encompassing scope of work? What does that look like?

Dave Seymour  23:46  

Yeah, do it room by room, don't be lazy. Put the work in,  even if you're going to do it with a camera and a video to start off with? Do it room by room. Look, it's not easy, right? It's not easy to work remotely. as your business grows and your network grows, referrals are going to be key. And now you're in Wisconsin, and you want to do a deal in Fort Myers, Florida. Well, guess what you're gonna call me now because you got a relationship with a guy who's got teams on the ground in Fort Myers, Florida. But having a decent scope of work as a line item, scope of work room by room with plans is important. That's the work that we do as investors. Remember I said to you earlier, nobody gives a crap about your building more than you do. They'll cut corners, they'll make assumptions if you don't give them clear, detailed directions. So it's important to do that.

Dalyn Hazell  24:34  

Yeah, yeah. And so on the payment schedule, how when you were doing your flipping, how did you manage the payment did you do like a draw once this piece of work was done? Or, or how did that look like?

Dave Seymour  24:46  

 Yeah, do it on a construction draw just the same way a bank would meet, meet this benchmark. You get paid meets this bet meet this benchmark. You get paid and it was,  some of my deals earlier on as I was building teams, I might have eight to 10 10 Draw schedules Whoa. It's usually demolition, framing, rough electrical, rough plumbing inspections, insulation, inspection, board up inspection, final electrical final plumbing final build. And then once I've got my occupancy permits, that's when the final check will go out. So it's not complicated, but it's like I said, you don't let him get ahead.

Dalyn Hazell  25:26  

Yeah, yeah. And it's great from the contractor's point of view because they're not looking at this big job. Okay, I have to give them a number for all of this,  let's go room by room, piece by piece. And then he knows he's he or she knows they're getting paid throughout the process. And, yeah, because you're right,  for a contractor, their biggest expense is their labor, their weekly labor. And so if you don't take care of that, make sure that because really, when it contractors,  on to you about money, they're probably on to you just because they're getting pressure from their employees, hey, we got to get paid this week. So it's a constant battle for them. And I would hate to be in their shoes, because it is that constant battle, getting money here, going here. But it's what they need. And in so we're providing them work. And if we can be as upfront and honest as possible, and on time on time, like you said as possible, then we're going to get repeat business with an area. Yeah. So I want to shift gears in the last portion of our show and talk about kind of what you're doing now. And then maybe some market analysis, how about that?

Dave Seymour  26:27  

Market Analysis? Let me call my analysis team. What are we doing now? Look, man, we have this thing that kind of popped up out of nowhere, this, six-headed dragon called COVID. And,  it created quite a bit of chaos. And,  one person's chaos is another person's opportunity. And,  after the TV show, I've been very blessed to have it's funny, I make fun of the seminar world. But  I was, I've been teaching nationally for many, many years. And as a result of that, I got to know the very best people in markets all across the country. And when COVID hit, a real good friend of mine super experienced invest the gentleman by the name of Walton, a Vicky based in Fort Myers, Cape Coral area, Florida. We got on the phone, we had little qubits. And he's like,  I think there's an opportunity here with COVID. To really like I'm 55, he's 57. The next 20 years is that chance to either get it right or really get it wrong, right. So we're going out in style. And he said, let's parlay up or leverage off the TV show and the personality piece, you said, and then we'll put the infrastructure together to buy as many multifamily complexes as we can, which has been a real big part of Walther strategy for the past 25 years, either buying existing structures or building existing structures ground up for, for buying, buy and hold. So that's what we did, we put together a private placement memorandum, it's a 506, C reg D fund 100 million, and went out and went into the market, raised money, and started doing business. It was interesting when we initially entered the market cap rates were nowhere near where they are today. And for those of you who don't understand a cap rate, it's an expected return on investment on an acquisition. So if it's a six cap, at any market, it's anticipated to be a 6% return. We could buy properties at a six cap and work the asset, increase the income, and I'll be able to pay our investors targeted eight to 10% cash on cash returns, which is a lot better than you're getting in your savings account or even in the stock market. But then the compression of the cap right came in with all the free money, thank you press the button, and President Trump for that we appreciate it. I like my $333 Check coming every week, every month because I have children who much appreciate it. But anyway, the free money came into the marketplace. And for us being boutique and nimble, we were able to pivot over to ground-up construction because now I can hit those return numbers for my investors. So what we're doing right now is as I have on my whiteboard, $250 million with the real estate in the pipeline. We cut into it very soon on the 106 unit apartment complex that we're building. Simultaneously. We're building our headquarters in Fort Myers. It's an office complex, 16,500 square feet. And right behind that is approximately 600 Single Family built for rental homes in the Cape Coral and Fort Myers area. So what I do today is talk to investors and raise a ton of capital put that capital to work at targeted double-digit returns. And  I'm talking to debt partners and hard money lenders who write checks in the five to $10 million range. So that's always interesting because I ran a hard money lending business so when they stopped throwing all the junk fees at me, we get a little heated once in a while. Do you know what I mean? But that's where we're at today we're operating in a different sandbox from where I started 15 years ago, you know?

Dalyn Hazell  30:05  

Yeah, yeah, that's a much different sandbox. And we don't even have time to dig into how you got there. But I just wanted to ask one thing like, how do you convince people and maybe he's not convinced is not the right word. But since that's your primary role, now just raising money, and this applies to even just doing, fixing, and flipping, you need money for that. How do you? How do you persuade or convince somebody to bet that real estate is the best, if not one of the best ways to invest their hard-earned money? 

Dave Seymour  30:32  

Yeah, great question. And you already negated the question, because you said convince, I don't convince anybody about anything, man, I really don't. It's not about convincing. It's about just sharing people's choices. What does an accredited investor have for a choice today, they can give their money to the same old stockbroker who's going to put it in the same funds that they don't put their own money in, right, and get the same return, they can run the roller coaster of the stock market, or they can begin to educate themselves bring themselves up back that gradient into what's called AI alternative investments, which is where commercial real estate sets. And I just say to him, if you go and look at the top 1% of the world, they all have a substantial amount of real estate in their portfolio, whether you're looking at the Yale endowment, Harvard endowment, you're looking at their friend, Warren Buffet, Amazon is probably one of the largest real estate owners in the world today. They're doing something. And the question is, why don't you and nine times out of 10 people say, Well, I don't have the time to learn it, I don't have the capital to invest in it. And I never see the opportunities. Well, that's where we come in as an as an operator experienced operator, they can invest with us with as little as $100,000, they can do that through the self-directed retirement accounts, we always have a deal that they can put their capital in, we bring them up the education gradients, so they understand what they're doing. And then they don't have to go out and find all the deals manage the contractors manage the tenants manage. Now, if they do any of that, they're purely in a passive position. And they come in as what's known as LP capital, limited partner capital, that capital fills the gap between the bank's money and the money to put the deal together. And,  target returns can be quite substantial, quite substantial. I don't get out of bed for anything less than a 20% return on my money. And I don't understand why anybody else does. So that's kind of the concept I have. And at the end of the day, brother, it's real simple. Maybe this isn't for you. That's okay. Because if it's not for you, it's for 10 other people who are lined up.

Dalyn Hazell  32:41  

When do you think we'll get to the point where,  real estate marketing, in terms of raising capital for private real estate investments, we'll reach the awareness, as that the typical stockbroker just because you turn on a TV, you see commercials for Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, offshore companies like that, but you don't see Dave on TV talking about,  invest in my fund. So will there ever be that that point where it's, there's so much awareness for?

Dave Seymour  33:10  

Have you been in my boardroom lately? You've been hanging out in my boardroom young man, haven't you?

Dalyn Hazell  33:16  

Yes, yes. Is that where you're headed?

Dave Seymour  33:19  

We're about to pop, we're about to pop on that idea. Right now. We're bringing fun to the market, probably within the next three to four months. That allows TV and radio advertising for that pool of investors who have never seen this before. I've got some inroads with some of our Republican news channels, we'll just leave it at that. But national, right. And it's absolutely time that the word gets out, I talk about myself as being a blue-collar guy in a white-collar world. The language of finance, has, in my opinion, been intentionally confusing for way too frickin long, way too long. And I think I think the time has come that we need to clear it up. It's some clarity on it, share the message and in return, share it share the wealth, right? I'm not that guy who wants to fly around in a private jet and drive a Rolls Royce. I'm really not. I'm a steward of my investor's capital. getting that message out is absolutely part of our mission. So it's kind of interesting you say that, I don't know if I can ever give Merrill Lynch a run for his money. He's been playing this game a little bit longer than I have. But maybe my sons and my grandsons will start rattling the cages,  3040 50 years down the line from now. So we'll see.

Dalyn Hazell  34:34  

Yeah,  we could go a lot of ways with what that'll look like,  how you even go about advertising,  things you can and cannot say, but that is something that I thought about,  why why can't real estate investors have that exposure out there? Because that's, I do.

Dave Seymour  34:51  

Yep. It's just sec compliance. That's all. That's all it is. As soon as I put the 50,000 into a private placement memorandum and an act of filing with the government, I can then share You know what my business model is with potential investors? I can do it in a radio ad, I can do it in a commercial. Maybe you've heard the NC, NC, and REI commercials that have been out there. Hey, investors, are you looking for a 10% Return secured by real estate in your marketplace? Right? That's what they're doing. They spend anywhere between 202 150,000 a week in marketing spent. So if they're spending that kind of money, what are they bringing in? And capital? Right? Well, that's great. But once you got the capital, and it's no good, just sit and steal, it's got to go back out and go to work. So,  for us, it's having a solid, profitable pipeline to deploy that capital on. So that's where we focus in our time.

Dalyn Hazell  35:51  

Yeah, that's something we didn't even mention, when you have that amount of exposure and money coming in. You got to have the deal flow. Yeah, back up. And that could be that you do pretty burdensome, so Well, great. I also want to touch on give me a one-minute overview of Do you think we're in a bubble or a boom right now, as far as real estate prices and where we're at? I don't want to talk about the market analysis. You don't?

Dave Seymour  36:13  

Here's, here's the thing, man, I've been I've been waiting for this stupidity to end for about 18 months now. And it hasn't, right. If you ask me, Dave, do you want to do a single-family buy, fix and flip? My answer is an emphatic no, unless I'm still in the assets, right. This will change I think it will change quite rapidly. We're all watching the data days on market, right? The amount of inventory, we've only got three months when we should have six months. All of that's going on when the true fallout from COVID. Is is is revealed. I think we're going to see some pretty, pretty serious changes when the mortgage is no longer when the bank steps up and says, hey, it's time to pay back all your arrearage that you haven't been paying. The moratoriums are beginning to be lifted now on rents. So when all of this dust settles, and this money needs to be paid back, when the economic development capital at two times your 2019 returns, right? When a million-dollar loan goes to a business and the businesses, I can't do it, but I took the money. Well, that's going to create massive mergers and acquisitions opportunities for businesses. So look, is it tomorrow? No. Is it next year, maybe. But just realize everybody's a genius when real estate goes straight up. Its guys like myself and my team have been through two or three market cycles and being able to navigate through them is where you want to be focusing your attention. So I don't ever want to be doom and gloom I get I'm glad things are ticking along. But I don't play in stupidity. I'm a contrarian investor. When everybody's going left. I asked the question why, and then I look right, just to see what's going on over there. So that's, that's my take on it. Man. It can't keep on going the way it's going. Right?

Dalyn Hazell  38:09  

Yeah, yeah. I in for a lot of listeners to the show who are young like I am, and who are who have been kind of spoiled within the last few years,  you have to it's something I'm constantly thinking when I have,  a lot of success. I'm thinking well, how can I? How can I prepare for the worst here? Or,  beef up my reserves? or what have you, whatever your strategy is to mitigate? Sure. Well, Dave, this last very last portion of our show is called the triple threat. And we ask the same three questions to each guest, what's the actual resource or tool that has been the biggest game-changer in your business?

Dave Seymour  38:42  

Microsoft Teams has a communicative app, where we can upload documents staying consistent contact, it's just a, it's a really great internal CRM that we get to just talk with each other on so my C suite has one specific,  Team function, then there's one for my construction. There's one for me, my finance group has just been a really good tool for us to use.

Dalyn Hazell  39:11  

Well, I'm more of a Google person myself, so I will forget personally. 

Dave Seymour  39:17  

Okay Dude, I just do what my 27-year-old chief operations officer tells me to do trust me. 

Dalyn Hazell  39:22  

Yeah, there you go. What has been your biggest failure in the last year? And why do you think that happened?

Dave Seymour  39:29  

I think the biggest failure was running into the retail market thinking that it was easy to raise capital. Okay. It takes time, even with a nationally recognized brand, if you will, it still takes time to educate and bring the retail investor up the gradient. So for us, we spend more time with institutional investors and family offices than we do retail. But at the same time, the retail investor deserves a shake at this game as much as anybody else. So just perception,  what I felt was going to be one thing ended up being something else.

Dalyn Hazell  40:03  

And I like this last question. Our podcast is all about helping others achieve freedom with real estate investing, whether that's financial lifestyle or otherwise. So what does freedom mean to Dave?

Dave Seymour  40:14  

It's funny the name of our company is freedom venture investments. And his really what it is, it's the ability to do what you want to do, when you want to do it, where you want to do it with whoever you want to do it with. Right? I think that's the definition of freedom.  I look back in retrospect, and I think about the amount of time that I actually worked, right trading time for money. And I was doing that so that I can spend time with the people that I loved yet I was never with them. Because I was always working. There was such a challenge and internal challenge with that. So for me, Freedom is the ability to be present with my kids. I don't always get it right.  I've gotten an 11-year-old and a nine-year-old son and a 27-year-old son, he's all set. I don't have to worry about him. But the 11-year-old and a nine-year-old, still want Superman to be engaged with them. Do you know what I mean? There's always a day that will come when they'll realize I'm not Superman, but hopefully, they realize I'm a super dude. Do you know what I mean? So,  just being present with them. And also for my wife. I mean, Mary Beth, my wife is the rock that I get to stand on. So I can look cool. Do you know what I mean? Without that foundation, I'm nothing. So being there for them is freedom for me.

Dalyn Hazell  41:25  

Yeah, yeah. Well, where can listeners learn more about you and your company?

Dave Seymour  41:30  

Freedom venture.com Freedom venture.com You can learn about us there. Just google my name Dave Seymour, Spy, MO You are? We're old-school people who actually answer the phone here. 781-922-4418. If you're motivated, you'll find us. We've been able to solve the problem of passive returns in a risk-averse environment. And a lot of people are looking for that. And we've been able to solve that problem for many people. So if that's what you want, give us a shout.

Dalyn Hazell  42:05  

Perfect. Well, Dave, I think you have a great personality. You're funny. You've been on.  you've been on such a good run here. And I really appreciate you sharing your wisdom and knowledge with everybody. You seem very. You seem like you're an open book. I appreciate it. 

Dave Seymour  42:17  

Yeah, dude, for sure, for sure. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. 

Dalyn Hazell  42:21  

Take care.

Outro  42:23  

Thank you for listening to the real estate investing for Freedom podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe and leave us a review and tune in next week for the next episode.