GI126: 23 Years of Military Service to Over 500 Units with Colby Bowers

Colby Bowers is a wounded warrior; having served in the military for 23 years and now is a full-time real estate investor. Over the past 36 months he has acquired over 600 rental units and expanded his company into four states. As a wounded warrior, he has a passion for giving back to his community by helping homeless and struggling veterans and supporting first responders.

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Announcer:
Welcome to the Global Investors Podcast, a show that focuses on helping foreign investors enter the lucrative US real estate market. Host, Charles Carillo, combined decades of real estate investing experience with a professional background in international banking to interview experts in all areas of US real estate investing. Now here’s your host, Charles Carillo.

Charles:
Welcome to another episode of the Global Investors Podcast; I’m your host Charles Carillo. Today we have Colby Bowers. Colby is a wounded warrior; having served in the military for 23 years and now is a full-time real estate investor. Over the past 36 months he has acquired over 600 rental units and expanded his company into four states. As a wounded warrior, he has a passion for giving back to his community by helping homeless and struggling veterans and supporting first responders. So thank you so much for being on the show Colby.

Colby:
Oh, thanks Charles. It’s always a pleasure, so glad to be here and looking forward to this. Awesome.

Charles:
So give us a little background on yourself, both personally and professionally, and to getting involved in real estate investing.

Colby:
Yeah. Well, you know, like you mentioned you know, I, I was in the military for 23 years, so I, I was raised in south Florida and, you know, didn’t know what I wanted to do when I got graduated high school. So took a summer off and still didn’t know what I wanted to do. And so joined the military and I think I was pretty much destined to join. Anyway, my, my dad was in during Vietnam both grandparents Korea, world war II world war I all the way back to the civil war you know, had a so definitely a long military heritage. So ended up joining was only gonna join for four years you know, joined for, for the, the benefits and, and to get that college education. And yeah, 23 years later finally decided to to, to get out ended up loving it, got a lot of great experiences, a lot of great friends and really helped me develop into what I’m I’m doing now.

Colby:
And I actually cut my teeth in real estate while I was still active duty. So bought my first first residence in my main home back in 2001. And that was, it was right before nine 11 got to the unit I was with right after nine 11. We ended up being deployed a lot. So I probably did out of five years that I was actively deploying with that unit probably accumulation total of three years actually spent deployed. And, and the significance to that is I, I, instead of coming back and buying a brand new vehicle or, you know, wasting money, I ended up saving it up and bought my first rental unit. And yeah after six years in that unit, total, when I left there, I had six units and never looked back.

Charles:
Nice, nice. So you utilized your VA benefit when you’re getting the mortgages. So 0%, is that is that was the plan or was kind of like the VA kind of, not that it falls into your lap, but that’s a huge perk. You just wanted to utilize that and that’s what kind of got you into it, or did you see it from another far, another reason why you got into real estate investing?

Colby:
Yeah, no. So, you know, I, I’ve always kind of had that inter entrepreneurial mindset, you know, I, I knew, you know, once I got out of the military, you know, I kind of wanted to start my own business. I had no idea what that was gonna be, but, you know, kind of knew I wanted to be my boss. And, and really when I bought my first property, it was just for myself. I knew that, you know, I was going with, we were gonna be what they call high ops tempo. And this was even before nine 11. So I knew I was gonna be gone quite a bit. And I had been renting in my career up until then. And I knew with as much as I was gonna be gone, you know, why it didn’t make sense in my mind to pay rent for something when I’m gonna be gone, you know, potentially four to six months out of the year.

Colby:
Yeah. So I might as well buy something and at least it’ll appreciate, you know, and so that was my initial mindset. I didn’t have really much interest knowledge or anything into real estate. It wasn’t until I was 2001, it wasn’t until like end of 2003 first part of 2004, when I was like, wow, you know, look at the, the, what the, the, the housing pro housing’s doing it’s, it’s increasing, appreciating and took that leap and bought my first one. And, you know, that was probably my, my scariest scariest decision, you know, it was a lot of unknowns cause I was still, you know, like I said, active duty didn’t know how to do it. I was in my mid twenties and you know, all those units I bought, I was with the high ops temple. I was still self-managing cause I received bad, bad, well intentioned, but bad advice of, you know, don’t, you know, hire a property manager, you’re wasting 10%, you know, you’re throwing money away.

Colby:
So yeah, so I was, you know, had to added stress of being halfway around the world and still trying to, you know, manage, lease resident. I, when I left that, that that assignment, I knew I couldn’t, you know, I was, I was moving basically halfway across the, the country and knew that I wasn’t gonna be able to, to do it on a full time, regular basis. So I hired a property manager and, and was really kicking myself cause after the first month of having to make, I was like, wow, look at all this extra time. I don’t have this stress. Why didn’t I do this, you know, three years ago, four years ago when I got into this. So yeah. So now I’m a huge proponent of property management. I don’t manage anything myself. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> I hire the managers and I manage the managers now.

Charles:
Nice. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I wanna circle back to that once we kind of get through what your, what you guys are doing now, but what, what did you, you, you started flipping houses after this, after you came back or were you just the, and kind of what, how did you get into what you’re doing now, which is larger multifamily, I guess you long term investing.

Colby:
Yeah. You know, that’s a good question cuz you know, I, I knew I wanted to, you know, I had the bug, the real estate bug and I was like, wow. You know, I loved it because it was a, you know, it’s a tangible asset. It’s fairly know recession resistant. I survived the crash at oh eight mm-hmm <affirmative> and nine through diversity you know, love the tax advantages and you know, I can go out and actually touch what I own, you know, when I’m a partner in. And so that’s, I knew I wanted to stay into that and I knew I wanted to grow. I just didn’t know how so that’s I only stuck with what I knew and it wasn’t until actually around 2016, probably end of 2015, 2016, as I was getting ready to retire that I was like, you know what, I wanna get into the commercial.

Colby:
I know that’s where I want to get. And so I started listening to a bunch of podcasts reading blogs, you know, just a lot of self education. And that’s where I learned about, you know, syndication, joint ventures. And I was like, all right, cool. What’s this syndication thing, you know, I, I know the book answer and everyone’s like, oh, it’s so easy. But nobody back back then was like, well, how do you break it down? What does that look like? You know, nobody really talked about it. And so, you know, kind of fast forward and I attended my first conference real estate conference or bootcamp and I was hesitant, did a lot of research cause I’m like, all right, you know, what’s the upsell, you know, is it gonna be worth it? Is it, you know, really educational. So I just, I did some networking found a really good program and bit the bullet and spent like, you know, $200 on a ticket and then I had to fly.

Colby:
It was in another state. So I was at that point, I lived in Colorado where I’m still living, but this was in Chicago. So I was like, wow. So not only did I pay a ticket now I’m getting on a plane where car, all that expense. I’m like this better well work. It better be worth it. Right. You know, I was and it was the, you know, looking back, it was the best decision I made to get where I am today. So that bootcamp was very informative, very informational had limited upsell you know, and, and so it, the light bulb went off it, they actually peeled the, the curtain back and was like, this is a syndication. This is how you break it down. Hmm. And I was like, wow, okay. I don’t need a PhD to understand this and do this.

Colby:
It’s a lot of work. It is hard work. There’s nothing easy about anything in this, but I’m like, I can do this, you know, and that was my mindset. And so I just, you know, really dove in from there and found some min mentoring, networking, and yeah. You know, and went from, you know, having nothing and knowing nothing. I spent probably good six to almost 12 months of just really learning. Mm-Hmm, <affirmative>, didn’t dive into anything was just, you know, learning as much as I could calling brokers, underwriting deals, learning markets, figuring out, you know, trying to figure out where I went need to put my feet and invest. And then, you know, did my first deal as a limited partner and got to really peek behind the, the, the scenes. That was part of my thing. When I invested with this group I had built a network and I was like, Hey, I I’ll invest.

Colby:
But I want to kind of, I wanna see, you know, how do you do the due diligence? How do you set this up? The, the broker or investor relations, the mm-hmm <affirmative>, you know, and this was on a 300 plus unit portfolio mm-hmm <affirmative>. So it wasn’t small. And I was like, you know, went through the whole process. And I was like, wow, that’s, that’s not hard. You know, it’s just, you follow the checklist, you get the right components in mm-hmm <affirmative>. And, and so it was just, it was a great confidence builder and yeah. And so jumped in with both feet and here I am today, and I’m still saying yes, and figuring it out.

Charles:
<Laugh> yeah. It’s the first time I heard about someone gave me a book, it was Dean TRO, Berg’s bridges, a book it’s a whole new business in like, oh eight or something. And I just bought like probably my second multi-family property. And I was like, this sounds terrifying. Like the amount of stuff for syndication, I was like, not interested. I’m gonna do buy my little stuff little by little myself as I was doing. And obviously you get to a point where you run out of you know, money and all that kind of stuff that I happens with it, and you want to grow your business. So it’s it’s kinda the next step, but very interesting. Yeah. It’s from the onset it’s it’s, it’s very complicated of how you’re gonna structure everything, but it comes together and it’s a lot of work, like you said, but so what do you for your investment criteria now? I mean, you’re investing in mobile home parks, smaller multi-family larger multi Emily. So what do you guys look for and what is your strategy after you’ve acquired it?

Colby:
Yeah, so we look our criteria for the multifamily it’s different than our mobile home park. So I kind of covered both of them. So really I’m looking at 20 plus units on the multifamily. 1970 to 2010 is kind of where I’m really, I really focus. I’ll look at stuff on either side, depending on the market and, and the asset itself. And, and then on the mobile home park side, looking at pretty much 50 plus pads or more prefer tenant owned properties where I own the dirt and the infrastructure, they own the homes, they pay lot rent, decreases your operating expenses. We will look at, and I, and I do kind of like the tenant owned parks or excuse me, the park owned home. But as long as we pick it up for a price, a good price mm-hmm <affirmative>, and we can convert ’em to tenant owned. And so that’s, that’s kind of where we look to mobile home parks. And then, you know, we kind of look in the same similar MSA. So maybe with the multifamily, I’m more in depth into an MSA. A lot of the mobile homes seem to be kind of on the outskirts, at least in the markets we’re in mm-hmm <affirmative>. So at least I know the markets, I know property management resources and everything in there, so we’re just really just adding another asset class to the markets we’re currently in. Nice. Okay.

Charles:
So let’s talk about those markets because it’s Indiana, Arkansas, Florida, and there’s one other state, which I don’t know that you’re invested into. How did you pick those and like, what, what do, or, I mean, you don’t have to go through each state, but really what are you looking for when you are picking that MSA, right.

Colby:
Yeah. With these it’s, it was a combination of having some firsthand knowledge of those markets. So I either lived there, new people that lived there were stationed there. You know, so, or had, you know, spent some time or new folks that were, were intimately knowledgeable in those areas. And then also, you know, is, is market research. So not only having the intimate knowledge, but also going in and, you know, what’s the demographics, you know, what’s the population growth, how is it, you know, how, how has it done over the last 20 years, you know, unemployment, how did it do during the recession? Mm-Hmm <affirmative> you know, when we had the big downturn you know, so there’s a, there’s a whole lot of pieces into that. And, you know, I really look for smaller markets. So, you know, everyone’s like Arkansas, you know, Indiana, you know, Florida, everyone’s like, oh, cool, Florida, you must be like Orlando.

Colby:
No, I’m in Pensacola. You know, I’m in I’m in, I am in Indianapolis and around that MSA that’s probably my largest market, but I like smaller markets. I like with great demographics, but they fly under the radar of most other investors. So I don’t need to be in the sexy markets. I don’t care about Dallas, even in my backyard of Denver, I keep an eye on this, don’t get me wrong. If I find something and it makes sense, I will invest, but I’m putting most of my efforts into markets that I don’t have a lot of competition. And so that’s kind of what I’m doing is focusing on that. Cuz I am very, I consider myself very conservative. There’s people that are more conservative than my I am in my team. There’s some that are less, but you know, I like to be able to take my time, look at it and I don’t want to get into a bit anymore.

Colby:
And I refuse to, because one is that’s gonna get, you know, gets people in trouble where they overbid and they overpay and it may not affect me. But the bottom line is I’m still have to be a fiduciary for my investors. So, you know, that’s my mindset of looking into and you know, I don’t want bigger, big swings. I’m older. I’ve had enough stress in my military career being shot at blown up things of that nature. So I like steady, slow, steady climbs. I don’t like big swings. I don’t want a heart attack. I don’t like all that stress. So I’m, I like dull mundane markets that I can find good deals. Good, good. Buy it for good cap rate, do some great value. Add and offer good returns. Nice.

Charles:
And definitely landlord friendly states cuz Arkansas being probably the most landlord friendly state in the union, I believe. Right.

Colby:
One of the most, yes. Yeah. That’s awesome.

Charles:
So how are you, how you you’re, how are you sourcing deals? And like you’re, let’s say how have you sourced deals and how are you sourcing deals now with where we are in this like crazy marketplace? And I imagine even, I mean, I know a lot of people that are looking at Indianapolis and other areas that you’ve mentioned, even if they’re not as sexy as Tampa or Phoenix, but so I mean, how are you competing and with those markets and are you going, working with brokers? I imagine you’re working with brokers. Are you doing any other methods as well?

Colby:
Yeah. You know, what’s interesting. I haven’t bought a property from a broker in over months. Nice.

Charles:
Okay.

Colby:
So I, I still maintain the relationships, but, and they still, excuse me, they still send me stuff, but it’s not, I wouldn’t call them deals. They’re sending me properties to look at, but I haven’t seen a deal from a broker yet. And, and which is fine know there is a lot of money out there and there’s a lot investors that are coming in from outta state that, you know, they can pay cash for some of these properties and, and, and, and that’s great, you know, that fits their business model, whatever, you know, that’s, that’s not me and how I, we operate. So, you know, with the, when the pandemic first kicked off, you know, we were still getting a lot of deals or a lot of properties look at, but they were still pre COVID pricing. You know, a lot of the, the expectation of sellers and brokers still hadn’t caught up with the reality of the times.

Colby:
So we shifted and we started going direct to seller and really the, all my deals in the last 18 months. So I I’ve closed three this year or so far have one more in the books, all off market direct to seller. So either through we’ve had a lot of success through doing cold calls. So we hired a VA we’re pulling list. We’ve tweaked a cold call script. She calls, generates those warm leads. We follow up and get ’em to close. We’re working at implementing a mail key campaign now. Nice. To keep that top of mind to keep that going. And, and that’s you know, we’re finding out that a lot of sellers are especially a hundred units and below is where we’re seeing the most success. Yeah. It’s why I’m looking at 20 units and above. And we’re really tar target unit up to about 75 units. And then we’re finding more of the mom and pops where they don’t wanna deal with brokers. They don’t want the hassle, they just wanna, you know, they wanna sell it, they want, you know, sell it quick. And they just, they want a good price. And so, and we’re at able to, you know, work with them in a lot of aspects. And, and so that’s been how we, you know, that’s, that’s gotten us through so far.

Charles:
Yeah, yeah. The 20 unit and above, I mean that little niche there, it’s fantastic because with 20 units, it actually makes sense. You can really cut your management fees. If you from having, you know, five units or three to five, five units to 20 units, it’s quite a dramatic cut of your management fees. Maybe you’re going from nine or 10% down to 7%, right. 6%, whatever it might be. So you, you really getting a lot of it into kind of go from there. You’ve really gotta put up more units. So you’re getting the beginning of that decrease in fees. Then the other thing too, is that you’re just you’re not competing with buyers usually from outta state. Right. And that’s one thing like when we’re looking at stuff in Florida and everybody in their mother wants to invest here, and it’s something that you know, we have to put together like portfolios.

Charles:
I mean, you and I were on ideal two or three years ago, and it was a portfolio that we did in Tampa. It was the only way of getting that per unit price down. And you, but you have a lot of people that look at that and go, no, no, I want one property, one address, you know, all the kind of stuff that you’re told when you read any type of Google program or anything like that. And that’s what they push, which is definitely the best. I mean, if you can find 150 unit thing, that’s not overpriced by it. But the thing that was that where’s that broker really gonna send that they’re gonna send it to someone that’s closed 10 of those in the last two years and you know, can pay for it and has a different return requirement than probably you and your investors do. But let’s talk about funding deals. I mean, I think one of the best things about going direct to sell is that the ability maybe to put together some seller financing. And and then also, maybe before going on, tell me about your VA. Like, where’s your VA based if we’ll talk about this first, like where’s your VA based and how’d you find them and who trained them?

Colby:
Yeah. So our VA is based out of the Philippines found her through up work. Okay. so it was a great place. Got a great price. We she has cold calling experience in real estate. Okay. So the training train up period was, was very small. And so she had, we use mojo dialer as well. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> so for those that aren’t familiar and we loaded up and then she can basically hit buttons and it’s kinda like an auto dialer, so it helps make her a little bit more efficient. So instead of dialing individual numbers so, you know, we’ve had those in place. You had experience with that and we just, Hey, here’s our call script. Here’s what we want you to focus on. And then here’s our, our, our parameters. And so, and it’s worked out great. Like we don’t have her get a lot of information.

Colby:
It’s like, are they interested in selling verify, you know, if they’ll give a price, can we get, you know, verified number of units cuz a lot of these lists, you know, maybe off a little bit, you know? And then, you know, when are they looking to close and then so it’s just very men, maybe a five minute conversation and then she’ll just be like, Hey, one of the partners will call you directly. And then that’s when we’ll do is I’ll go on. And that’s when I’ll be like, say, you know, what are you gonna do with your proceeds? You know, why are you selling? You know, and then, and you’re right. You know, dealing with these smaller, it is more the mom and pop we’ve come across number of folks that wanna retire, you know, they’re older, their kids don’t want it have no interest in it, you know?

Colby:
And so I, Hey, have you thought about capital gain, you looking how to avoid this, you know, have you thought about, you know, carrying a note, you know, you own this thing, there there’s zero debt on it, you know, do you want a big cap? You know what we can, you know, offer we’re willing, you know, what, what creates that win-win situation mm-hmm <affirmative> so, and we had a, we found a 72 unit. We never, we didn’t go to close. They kind of backed out a little bit just due to, to family squabbling on their end, but they were gonna do it was a 8% payment is all they wanted up front. They were gonna carry a 25 year fixed rate note and for hold it for 25 years, they just wanted. And they at like we, we didn’t really lock down the, the interest rate, but it was gonna be around that three to 4% interest rate.

Colby:
I was like, well, crap that’s, you know? Yeah, that’s good. You know, I mean, I’ll take that all day long and I was like, let’s go, you know, I’ll, I’ll do this. And you know, and, and that deal’s not dead, you know, we’re still following up still making calls and as soon as they get their family the partners are all of family members. As soon as they get that worked out, you know, we should still be able to pick this property up. But yeah, so there’s all sorts of, of, of opportunity. You know, with that we’re doing depending on the deal we’re, we’ve done JVs, you know, joint ventures is bringing on a couple folks with some money especially on these smaller properties to doing some indication. So it’s, it’s just depends on the property, the returns, what the business plan is the market, you know, so we, we, we basically, we look at each, each deal independently and then it’s one where it makes the most sense. Yeah. The

Charles:
Other thing too, I just wanna say about the seller financing, which I think most people look into it that are newer investors. And I like, oh, this is fantastic. I can get in less than 25%. Right. Or I don’t have any money I can get in with zero, which I don’t know, think’s a thing right now. But the thing too is that you can avoid a lot of the fees and limitations in working with a bank. So, you know, when you’re dealing with a bank directly, even if you do get it funded, I mean, just the prepayment penalty fees, loan. And if they do, if you have a 10 year term, I mean, you’re talking, you know, the step down 5, 5, 4, 4 3 3 2 2 1 1. And I mean, you’re paying anywhere between one and 5% of a prepayment penalty fee on that loan when you’re refinancing or paying it off.

Charles:
And that’s something that you can, obviously, you’re gonna word this. It’s gonna be probably your attorney. That’s the one that’s drafting it. So you can kind of put in what you like, but it’s, there’s a, a ton of junk fees let’s say are eliminated. So it really, it’s a true 8% you’re putting down, you know what I mean? It’s not like I’m putting 25% down, but now I’ve got three to 4% of, of bank junk fees. Let’s be, I’m so many, you know, I gotta pay the person I’m talking to on the phone. I gotta pay the investment committee and you know, the bank, you know, your paying points here, your buying points, your all this kinda stuff that goes on with when you’re dealing with the bank. So it’s, that’s a whole nother thing. I just wanna bring up that yes, the down payment sounds fantastic.

Charles:
And that rate sounds fantastic because I’ve gone to appeal before like last year we were going back and we’re still acronym that we made contact with last year. And it was like we went and offered five on the, and they were like, oh, that’s a little low and stuff. And it, it doesn’t matter. I mean, if you have the prepay penalty, you can get in there for less than that, typical down payment is right. And it stays off your credit as well. So now it doesn’t mark against you as being another debt that you have. So there’s so many different pros with so or financing, but what, when, when when they’ve been warmed up from your VA, what are you doing to track them? How is that? Is it already in a CRM? Are you putting it into a CRM from say, I guess it’s like a Google sheet you might give to your dialer. How are you, what kinda system you place to follow up?

Colby:
No, that, yeah. So right now we’re we’re, and we’re looking at tweaking this and make it a little bit more streamlined <affirmative>. So within mojo, when we load up the list, it’s basically, it’s like an Excel spreadsheet, so she’s able to go in and take notes. And so, yeah, we know who’s, who’s hard knows, you know, maybes non-contact things of that nature, so we can track. And then what we’ll do is we’ll take that and I’ll actually stream it down, even smaller, put it into another Excel spreadsheet just to keep track, okay, Hey, I contacted on this date, you know, left a voicemail or email, whatever the case, you know, add my notes, what we’re looking at doing and looking at doing this, cuz I just brought on and, and brought in my own RM through HubSpot is incorporating that into HubSpot. So I can have a more, you know, so I can get the automatic reminders, Hey, it’s been a week, go ahead and call them back or whatever, you know, whatever the, the stipulation is

Charles:
Interesting. Okay. Yeah. We use a podium for our, when we actually have contact with someone we’ll put in the podium and it’ll email you, whoever the contact is on that. And you can then log in or you whatever, go to it and just pop in, Hey, when’s the next time I wanna talk to this person? So it’s something, you know, whatever, three, six months, then you can always mark how you had contact with him or you didn’t, you know, so cause there’s some people that email, you never hear back from them, some of them need texts and they’re back to you in five minutes. So it just depends on people have their own specific medium that they like to converse in. And you kind of have to just follow that. So what, what you were talking before about managing your deals, you have all third party management, so are the smaller ones you’re and you’re handling more of the asset manage are the smaller ones more time intensive.

Charles:
And are you strategically kind of buying these properties? So if you buy a 20 unit, are you now focusing more on that area to try to get a little bit more scale? Or what is your strategy there? Because I, I feel that it’s much more work buying the smaller properties, but like you said, you can, you can get a much lower price. I know in Florida pre COVID, I at a broker here that was telling me unit complex is a hundred plus units, we’re selling at a 4% premium versus one that was so it’s like crazy. You buy one from 90 versus one, that’s 110 and you might be paying 4% more just because of so many people syndicators that want to buy these properties and will pay more from cuz they want the ease of just buying one property. So it’s something that you can do it if done correctly. I just wanna see what your strategy is there with the smaller properties.

Colby:
Yeah. I’m I, you know, I look, you know definitely economies of scale. So, you know, I’ll start out, you know, and, and I’ll pay more for property management for my first property because it it’s a standalone, even for 20 units, you know, I’m gonna get a little bit of a discount, but you know, if, if I could find a PM that would give me seven, 8% on 20 unit, I’d be happy. You know, I’m I’m I got, ’em negotiate down in nine, you know for, for initial versus 10 in some of these markets, but yeah, you know, then we, we will concentrate. We can find them in that same local. I have no problem owning, you know, five 20 units. There’s a hundred units right there. Yeah. And guess what, now I can potentially hire onsite manager to take care of those, which is gonna decrease my, my expenses.

Colby:
You know, I’m gonna have some payroll, but you know, instead of paying eight, nine, whatever percent, now I can manage the manager directly or I can still have property management per do it, but I’m only gonna pay, you know, one or 2%. Yeah. so yeah, so definitely looking at that, that scalability. And so I don’t, you know, you’re always looking at your operating expenses, but I also take in mind is when I’m first into a market and getting my foot in there, I don’t, I don’t try to get the best deal I can with property management. Yeah. You know, I try to get a good deal. I try to get ’em down a little bit, but I’m trying to build that relationship of going, Hey, all right. Do a good job for me. I’m gonna pay you well for this. And guess what, you’re gonna be my go-to name one is I have a hundred units. Then you’re gonna take care of me a little bit more you. Cause I’m taking care of them as well. Yeah.

Charles:
It’s great. I kinda like the idea. It’s, it’s a starting point. It’s one thing, but I kind of want talk to them about where we’re scaling at, you know, where’s the gross, where’s the units that, and you know, they’re like, oh, you know, it’s 35 units or whatever it might be. So now, you know, okay, now I’ve gotta get this 20 to 40 units as soon as possible. And I can like decrease it. And then that’s a whole, now you’ve just got yourself into a competitive advantage against other people because now you’re paying 7% and somebody else coming in is paying nine, 10%. So now your management is 30%, 20% less right across the board. And that’s a fantastic place to be. Not that you wanna overpay, but you can now go in and maybe sharpen your pencil a little bit more than someone else because of that infrastructure and that scalability that you have in place, which is a, which is the best place to be in. Yeah.

Colby:
So, and then, you know, and it also works on the backside, you know, when you go to, to

Charles:
Yeah. A hundred units now not 20, exactly.

Colby:
A hundred unit port for fol. Now you’re in that, oh, I can charge that 4% premium. There you go. You know, so yeah. So that’s, it’s yes, scalability and, and, and thinking of that, it definitely has this

Charles:
Advantages. Now the thing with that, which is people are like, oh, well it’s on different properties. Well, I mean, if it’s in, within a mile or two or something of an area inside the nay neighborhood, it’s different. If it’s in like, you know 20 miles away or something, then it’s kind of, doesn’t really work. But if you’re close in there, I mean, that’s, that’s where you can get that benefit. I mean, that’s where you can start you know, it’s fantastic. Yeah. That’s the best way of doing it, I think is where you’re gonna have the best the best returns, because that’s additional return on it for doing nothing. Right. Because there was no, you didn’t add any more value. There are per se on a NOI line, you’re just adding more value just because someone can come in now and their cost can be a little less and it’s easier for them to manage because you’re just talking to one management company, whether it’s, if they had a hundred units all over and they might be talking to several, so, right. So what are mistakes? You see real estate investors make,

Colby:
Oh, you know, and I’ve suffered from it too. I think we all have, I think the two biggest one is basically analysis paralysis <laugh> especially on that first deal. And then basically because of that and really what its down is, is inaction. So fear. So probably the biggest thing is overcoming that fear, because if you have, if you’re, if you’re fearful of, of making mistakes, then that’s where you get analysis paralysis, you start getting, you know, buyers remorse or, you know, you start second guessing. So yeah, it’s my, and that would be going back is, is so that’s the biggest mistake and I’ll go back and anyone I talk to is like, you know, what, fail early fail often. And that’s, if I could go back, I wish I could fail SU sooner than I did because, you know, I I’d be a lot further cuz I learned more from my failures than I have from the successes. And you know, now that I’ll, you know, so and you get those failures out way and I’m not saying like make a big one, if you can make a lot of small failures and mistakes, especially at the beginning you know, it’s, you’re gonna do, you’re gonna make less mistakes and you’re gonna have more confidence. You know, as you get into those bigger deals and

Charles:
Stuff. Nice. Okay. What do you think are the main factors that have contributed to your success?

Colby:
Yeah. Man, that’s a good question. You know, I, it’s funny, I get kind of asked that quite a bit. I boil it down to it. It’s my, why, why am I in this? Why am I doing what I’m doing? I also, I think it’s my willingness to say yes and then figure it out. <Laugh>, you know, that fear. So they abundant mindset. So, you know, when I’m looking at a market, I don’t have competitors in my markets. I don’t have, you know, other investors. I look at them as future partners, right. Just because we’re, we’re, we’re maybe on, on sides of this, this property compete, but now I have a new contact and Hey, we have similarities in criteria and stuff. We’re looking at this property, you know, Hey, let’s talk, let’s maybe partner up on one, you know? So so keeping that mindset and then I think another one was more of an intangible, but I think my experiences in the military you know, being teamwork, you know, we’re all constantly in the military, you’re, you’re taken outta your comfort zone and you on a deployment, you may deploy with people you don’t even know, but yet you’re expected in a short amount of time is to Conal as a team. So I think that is helpful because we know that commercial real estate in particular, it’s a team sport. Yeah. So

Charles:
Interesting. Those are fantastic. And as we’re wrapping up here, tell us about your 5 0 1 [inaudible] [inaudible] the paper crane foundation.

Colby:
Yeah. No, thank you for bringing that up. Yeah, so good is with my, why, you know, and a little bit more, you know, with the veteran pride investment group, you know, I donate 20% of my profits, my company’s profits back to first responder and veteran charities. And that wasn’t again, maybe I’m, I’m a little impatient, my type, a personality to some aspect wasn’t I, and helping as much as I wanted to. So my wife and I really, her idea was a start of nonprofit and it’s basically it’s research based. So when I was in, I was exposed to multiple blast during my, my deployments and ended up with a traumatic brain injury put on wounded warrior. And we were looking around and there’s a lot of non veteran nonprofits out there that are offering experience type retreats.

Colby:
And those are great, but you know, those are short lived. And so we wanted something to go, you know what I, cause I walked with a cane I had balance issues. I had memory loss I had, and, and I’m still dealing with those challenges, but it wasn’t until I got the proper help and what we were doing or found out when I was finally got the proper medical care is, you know, there’s, there’s, there’s a lot of research that’s, that’s lagging, you know, there could be more that could be done. So we came up with the paper crane foundation is basically is to promote and fund research for traumatic brain injury and post traumatic stress. And, you know, so we wanted to do more. So that’s how we, we landed on that. We’re getting ready to kick off this year is a five to seven year research project with a couple other nonprofits that dealing with brain injury.

Colby:
And what we’re doing is we’re actually in, in those re we’re working, we got good funding and stuff with those through grant, but we’re kicking it off as the end of this year with a trip to Mount Kilimanjaro. So I’m taking myself four other wounded warriors, actually taking a first responder local firefighter, and we’re gonna summit Mount Kija. And this is our kickoff. It’s gonna raise awareness. And really what we’re doing that awareness piece is everyone that’s going, we’ve suffered from a brain injury. And so what we want to do is, is show other veteran and first responders people out there that, you know, just cuz you have those injuries, those challenges doesn’t mean you still can’t go on and overcome them and still do great things. So, so that’s what we’re doing this year. We’re really excited about it and you know we’re just shy of our goal. So we still, so anyone out there wants to help us to get to Kilimanjaro this year. <Laugh> please come out. We’re looking for, we’re just, we’re right there at the edge. So we’re gonna get there. But yeah, so anyone who wants to help out please please come, come support us, please pass the word out. Yeah,

Charles:
For sure. I will put the links and into the, but let us know how your how our listeners can learn more about you and your business.

Colby:
Yeah, I am readily available. I probably make myself more, more available than I than I should. But again, it goes back to that abundance mindset. It’s all about networking, building a team building, you know, keeping, you know, keep moving for and helping out. So really the best way to get ahold of me is, is email me. So Colby.Bowers@veteranpride.org you can get ahold of me directly and then we’ll set up a call. I’ll talk to anybody. You can go check us out. My website, obviously veteran www.veteranpride.org. And then also on LinkedIn. So I try to post some blogs I’m behind, I’m behind. I’ve been busy, so I gotta get back up to posting some content, but yeah, anybody, you know, reach out, want to talk. Everyone wants to get started, want to invest in any of my markets you know, Def looking forward to meeting new people.

Charles:
Okay, awesome. Yeah. I’ll put the links to veteran pride and also the paper crane foundation. And I’ll put those into the show notes. So thank you so much for coming on today at Colby.

Colby:
Thanks for having me Charles. Good seeing you again.

Charles:
Hi guys! It’s Charles from the Global Investors Podcast. I hope you enjoyed the show. If you’re interested in get involved with real estate, but you don’t know where to begin, set up a free 30 minute strategy call with me at schedulecharles.com. That’s schedulecharles.com. Thank you.

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About Colby Bowers

Colby is a full-time real estate investor and co-founder of Veteran Pride Investment Group LLC. He has been investing in real estate since 2001 and has managed numerous fix and flips, a portfolio of single-family rentals as well as been a private note lender. Colby realized that for scalability and long-term wealth that multi-family real estate acquisitions are where he needed to be. In the last 36 months he has acquired over 600 rental units and expanded his company into four states. Colby has a passion for helping people to safely invest in real estate. He loves real estate because of the controllability of your inputs and outputs, risk aversion, and tax incentives. He also served 23 years of distinguished military service as a senior executive managing facilities and projects in multiple states, multi-million-dollar budgets, and hundreds of enlisted Air Force Members. As a wounded warrior, he has a passion for giving back to his community by helping homeless and struggling veterans and supporting first responders.

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