GI279: Oil and Gas Investing with Courtney Moeller

GI279: Oil and Gas Investing with Courtney Moeller

Courtney Moeller is a US Navy veteran, best-selling author, entrepreneur, and oil and gas expert. Courtney is originally from Midland, Texas, and has lived in the oil and gas sector. Most of her family is involved in oil and gas in one aspect or another, from petroleum engineering to well servicing, pipe, and water delivery, and drilling/rig moving. She has been involved in investing, exploring, and drilling over 75 wells throughout Texas and Wyoming. Beyond oil and gas, Courtney’s portfolio includes multi-family, self-storage, short-term rentals, and other unique real estate investments.

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Transcript:

Charles:
Welcome to another episode of the Global Investors Podcast; I’m your host, Charles Carillo. Today, we have Courtney Moeller. She is a US Navy veteran, best-selling author, entrepreneur, and oil and gas expert. Courtney is originally from Midland, Texas, and has lived in the oil and gas sector. Most of her family is involved in oil and gas in one aspect or another, from petroleum engineering to well servicing, pipe, and water delivery, and drilling/rig moving. She has been involved in investing, exploring, and drilling over 75 wells throughout Texas and Wyoming. Beyond oil and gas, Courtney’s portfolio includes multi-family, self-storage, short-term rentals, and other unique real estate investments. Thank you so much for being on the show!

Courtney:
Wow. That you say all that. That’s a a mouthful that Thank you so much for having me as a guest. I’m, I’m honored to be here.

Charles:
Yeah. I have to give your experience what it calls for. ’cause We have a lot of people on the show and, you know, that have just a few years or several years, or maybe even a decade of experience, but someone that’s grown up in an asset class, I think, you know, it requires a little bit more of a introduction to really applaud everything that you’ve been through in in the decades that you’ve been, you know, with oil and gas and your family has been

Courtney:
Absolutely. Well, it matters. I mean, when I was little, we lived in Abu Dhabi and Pakistan. My dad drilled in Jakarta. I mean, we were riding pump jacks on a Friday night back in my hometown. I mean, my brother, my uncle. I mean, we’ve just, this is what we’ve, what we’ve done. I, and I miss it. Sometimes. I miss being in West Texas. I really like the DFW area, but every now and then, I’m miss that smell, that sulfur smell you get and just seeing all the pump jacks, you know, out in the distance.

Charles:
So, before getting, becoming an entrepreneur and an oil and gas investor yourself, can you give us a little background of yourself, both personally and professionally, that kinda led you down this path to kind of continuing on what your family had started?

Courtney:
Yeah, that’s such a great question. You know, I’ve always been an entrepreneurial type person. I just, I had kind of a difficult time really kind of finding my niche and where I was gonna, you know, thrive. And I got here, you know, several years ago we, all of my investments were in oil and gas, which is really awesome. When oil is 80 or a hundred dollars a barrel, it really sucks when it’s like $20 a barrel or Sub-Zero. It, you know, it had a massive impact on our monthly income. And I just thought, you know, I’ve, I’ve gotta find a better way to do this. We need to be a little bit smarter. And so I started researching other asset classes and ultimately I was invited to speak on a panel with Robert Kiyosaki, which was a huge honor. I was sweating the whole time, but it went really great.

Courtney:
And that investment conference was where I learned about all these other alternative asset classes and how you can invest in them. And I thought, man, I’m a pretty smart girl. How have I never thought about pooling money together, you know, to buy assets? This is freaking brilliant. And so I thought I was going to syndicate multifamily or something like that. But then I actually figured out, you know, getting into the right types of oil and gas deals is very difficult and there’s not a lot of people offering it. You know, the tax benefits and everything are really great and it actually pairs very well with multifamily and other asset classes. So I thought, you know, I’m just gonna stay in my lane and figure out how to streamline this process and, and help people build wealth faster. And, and that’s how I got there. And it’s been really, really good. There’s been some ups and some downs through that. It hasn’t been all awesome. There’s a learning curves and everything else along the way, but it’s, it’s been amazing.

Charles:
So can you give us like a brief overview of what your firm does and really the types of investments, asset classes that you focus on and you allocate capital to?

Courtney:
Yeah, sure. Well, you know, my primary offering is oil and gas. That is my specialty. And when I say oil and gas, I’m talking about working interests in new wells that we are drilling. So there are so many different ways you can invest in oil and gas. You can own royalties or mineral rights. You can buy stock. There’s working interests. There’s a lot of different ways, but we focus on working interests because of the tax benefits. And our strategy is very simple. We find major operators, you know, billion dollar companies like EOG, Exxon continental Phillips, Anschutz Exploration, these companies that are out drilling in proven top areas. And so we just go in and acquire interests either where they’re about to drill or they already have drilled. And that’s about it. That’s, it’s pretty simple

Charles:
<Laugh>. When, when you’re saying that it’s something that we haven’t really discussed on the show, and what are some of the, ’cause I mean, one of the main draws that I see when people are talking oil and gas, it’s really the tax benefits. And obviously that’s one kind of thing with a lot of these alternative investments is they’re very tax efficient or they can be more so than traditional investing. Real estate definitely is one of those, but oil and gas has a different little spin to it. And can you explain some of those tax benefits associated with oil and gas investing?

Courtney:
Yep. Well, as they say, you should never let the tax tail wag the dog, but you know, a lot of my investors are high income, high net worth individuals, and they have major tax problems. Some of these guys are paying 2, 3, 4, $500,000 a year in taxes. And there are ways to minimize that. And oil and gas working interest is excellent because it can offset any type of income, active income, passive income capital gains without having to actively be involved, which is amazing. And so, like this last deal that we just closed out let’s say a hundred thousand dollars investment is gonna net you anywhere from 85 to 88% depreciation against your W2 income or wherever you need to offset that. And there was something special that was put into the tax code over 50 years ago to incentivize people to go out and explore and drill because we need oil for just about everything. It’s more than just gas and cars. And so that incentive has been there ever since. And I actually was listening to a CPA the other day and he said he did like a 30 year research and has never found a single audit or our tax filing that has ever been audited for taking advantage of that W2, you know, active income tax loss. So

Charles:
That’s one of the thing that’s really important because, and I want you to kinda break that down. It’s so people understand ’cause what you just said, because usually it’s a passive income loss because we see real estate as a passive investment. So it doesn’t come off your active income if you’re a high W2 earner. If you have some alternative assets, yes, you can take some losses off there, but off your ordinary income, maybe you wanna break that down a little bit because that’s a huge factor that’s different between real estate.

Courtney:
Yeah, yeah, no, and this is really good. And so, and let’s even break that down even a little further and look at how it actually impacts your active income. So you do come in and, and, and this is, it’s I think the only asset class that I know of that you can invest and you’re considered, you know, an active investor to offset those active losses without having to actively be involved. Huge benefit. So let’s say you make $500,000 a year, you invest a hundred thousand dollars and you get an 85% depreciation, that means you’re gonna get an a k one with an $85,000 loss on it. So you’re it, and it reduces against your income. That doesn’t mean you pay 85,000 less in taxes. It means your $500,000 is now reduced to 415,000. So you’ve just essentially reduced your taxable income. So, and that generally, depending on what tax bracket you are, translates into roughly about $30,000 that you are now not having to pay to the IRS.

Charles:
Yeah, it’s extremely powerful. One of the things that I’ve heard as well is when you are structuring these, before we get into actually the oil and gas business, just on the kind of still on that tax note and really kind of the accounting portion of it is when these have to be, how is the passive investor put in there? Are they put in, I’ve heard before, they’re putting as an active investor in their own name, so they can’t invest through an entity, and then you guys, like in the, in January, you change it into passive or something like this?

Courtney:
Yeah. So obviously you want to invest, you can invest as an LLC, let’s say you have an LLC that needs the tax benefits. So you want to invest in whatever name or entity you need those tax benefits for. And you come in as a general partner. And then what we do, so like we just closed off a deal a few weeks ago, all of my investors come in as general partners, and then January of next year we convert them to limited partners. And then and then after this first year, I do have some people that will convert that holding to a trust or that, you know, they’ll move it into a different entity after that first year.

Charles:
Yeah. That, that was something that I was not aware of. And that makes a lot more sense, whatever the entity is. So if you have like a, you know, a family trust or an LP or something like this that you have all your investments kind of flow into, you can just invest using that because if that’s where you’re getting all, like a lot of your earned income, so if you have like dividends or if you’re getting interest income or something like this you can now offset that. It doesn’t have to be in your own name. So that’s, that’s very powerful. I how I understood it before. And obviously most people are getting paid when they have jobs in their own name, I would imagine, right? So that’s probably why they suggested that.

Courtney:
Yeah, I would say probably 80% of my investors come in under their own personal names. And then probably the other 20% are trusts and things like that, that are needing to offset income, you know, from other, you know, investments and things from their trust.

Charles:
So you kind of touched on it a little bit earlier on, but you were talking about kind of your business plan and how we are drilling next to other wells that are successful. Can you explain a little bit more in depth kind of how this works? Where, what kind of research and due diligence goes on to really minimize that downside for your investors and maximize the ability of having a success highly successful drill?

Courtney:
Sure. Well, so in oil and gas, just like real estate, location and operator matter you and I, the reason I go in with major operators is because I know that if EOG is gonna spend $60 million drilling four wells, they have done a massive amount of research. They know what they’re going after, they’re very efficient with their processes, they’ve got the top of the line, you know, geologists, landmen equipment and everything. So if I’m going in with a major operator like that in a proven area, I don’t have to do quite as much due diligence. Like these last two deals that I did. We acquired the interest after the wells were drilled. So we already knew that they had hit commercially producible oil in all four wells. So probably one of the biggest risks you have when you’re drilling wells is are you gonna hit a dry hole?

Courtney:
And that can happen. And so I will never invest in a project that has less than four wells. The, the project we just did had four, you want multiple. That way, if you do have one well that ends up being a dry well, you’ve got multiple others that you can depend on to be producible. But you wanna drill in a proven area. If somebody calls and says, Hey, we’re gonna drill a well over here in Oregon, like, I don’t know any, any oil in Oregon. Like, I wanna be in top producing areas in the states that are, you know, top producing states with top producing companies.

Charles:
Nice. Yeah, that makes, that makes perfect sense. Do you have money sitting in the stock market and you’re, you’re worried about it, or worse, you have money sitting at the bank not keeping up with inflation? My name is Charles Carillo, founder and managing partner of Harborside Partners. And since 2006, I’ve been investing my money and my family’s money into income producing properties. These are real assets, real properties with real addresses that produce real cash flow. At Harborside Partners, we provide passive investors who love real estate with a turnkey investing solution. If you want to put your money to work in real estate but can’t find deals, don’t have the time to get funding. And the last thing that productive people want to do is manage real estate. We find the deals, we fund the deals, and we manage the tenants, the termites and the properties. Partner with us@investwithharborside.com. That’s invest with harborside.com. Go to invest with harborside.com. If you love real estate, you like the idea of passive income and believe that income producing properties will appreciate over time, go to invest with harborside.com. That’s invest with harborside.com. Is there a different I’ve heard before people thrown around horizontal versus vertical wells and stuff like this. I mean, how does that differ with what you do?

Courtney:
Yeah, no, and so you’re gonna have different types of wells in different areas. Some areas, you know, here in northern Texas, we have what they would consider, you know, shallow wells. The last couple of projects we just did were horizontal wells, which means we went down, I, I think our last, most of the wells are in November. These, it was a 12 well package. We went down about 11,000 feet, and then we went horizontally another 11,000 feet. So the entire length of those wells was about 22,000 feet. So we went, you know, two miles down and then two miles horizontally. So different areas have different types of production and there’s different formations in the ground. So you can have different pay zones. So you’ve got layers in the rock, in the ground. So some areas you might have a section where you can go in and start producing that area.

Courtney:
Then once you’ve produced everything out of that, you can move down to the next area. But they’re, they’re not all the same. So every area’s got different type of rock and mud and things in the ground, and then different types of formations. So this comes back to, you know, where, what kind of production are you seeing in that area? So one of the things that I do look at when I do have an opportunity hit my desk is, okay, who’s the operator? Who, who’s drilling it? What is their experience in that area? Because the ground in West Texas is different from the ground in Wyoming is different from the ground in Louisiana. And I want an operator that is familiar with the nuances of the type of rock and stuff in the ground in that area. So I take a look at that operator’s experience in that area, how many wells have they drilled in that area, and what is the offset production, which is the wells that are right around where we’re drilling, what does the production on those wells look like? So those are the, the handful of things that I take a look at.

Charles:
Yeah, like you were were saying earlier, if you’re drilling next to someone that’s just put $60 million into drilling, it’s like us and multifamily where I’m buying a property and you know, two blocks away they’ve just put in a Starbucks and you’re just like, okay, so you’ve done your due diligence on this, obviously, so we’re checking off that box. ’cause That’s, you know, there’s a lot more due diligence they’re doing then most indicators are doing on location. So that perfectly makes sense. You’re kind of following the smart money

Courtney:
Ab. Absolutely. Well, and I will tell you, there’s a lot of small oil and gas operators out there. I’m not gonna knock the small oil and gas operators, but the one thing that I love about being with the majors is they’re drilling, they don’t need our money. The, the number one question I always get asked is, you know, EOG is a multi-billion dollar company. Why do they need your $5 million to drill these wells? And the answer is, they don’t. They didn’t want my money, they didn’t ask for my money, but somebody else owned this 13% interest and I was able to acquire it from these other people. So essentially I have just found a way to backdoor my way into these major companies deals. And so they would much rather own a hundred percent of it, but we are able to acquire it and we own it. And they honor that. They have to,

Charles:
Once you pump the oil, kind of what the whole, what’s the process after that with you know, what happens after that? Where is it, do you sell it to, how does it get sold and how do you get compensated back on that?

Courtney:
Yep. So essentially, you know, EOG you know, pumps this oil out of the ground or an shoots or whoever the company is. They put it into, they have storage containers there and different wells are producing different amounts. You know, I know some people that are, have drilled smaller wells in, you know, north Texas and they’re producing, you know, five barrels a day. These wells that you know, we are working with, we’re producing anywhere from 500 to 1500 barrels of oil per day per well. And so they put contracts in with whoever they’re selling this to, they have those contracts in place before the oil ever even comes out of the ground. And so I don’t even have to worry about that. That gets locked in and handled from the operator side.

Charles:
That’s nice. That’s nice. I, my my father’s first indication that he invested into in the early eighties was oil wells in Colorado. And I think he got paid for like 30 plus years on them.

Courtney:
Yep. I have wells in my portfolio right now that were drilled back in the seventies. And so we love it because it’s, it’s monthly income. It fluctuates, you know, because of the price of oil, the price of oil impacts your income, and then, you know, how much are you gonna actually get out of the ground. So, and you know, every single year these wells deplete. But you know, some of the stuff that I’m getting paid on, I mean, I’m still making, you know, five figures a month from, you know, wells that were drilled, you know, over 20 years ago, which is amazing.

Charles:
That’s Yeah, true. Mailbox bunny there. True.

Courtney:
Well, and the great thing about oil production is you get, get something called a depletion allowance means that all income from these wells, all oil and gas that’s produced, you get a 15% depletion allowance, which means you only pay taxes on 85% of that income for the life of those wells, which is amazing.

Charles:
Yeah. You can really see how they’ve crafted the tax code to really incentivize people doing what they wanna do and what needs to be done. And that’s how important you know, oil and gas production is. One thing that I found, well, with any, in, with every investment class, I feel that there’s always pros and cons. I can tell you both of ’em, many of ’em for multifamily. And anybody that tells you that there’s no cons to their investment class you know, walk away, but

Courtney:
Run <laugh>, <laugh>.

Charles:
What do you see for some of the drawbacks? We’ve heard we have tax benefits, we have monthly distributions. What are some of the, you know, some drawbacks or or maybe some things that’s happened to you since it’s been, as you said, a rocky career going into this that might not be, you know, just some of the cons, I guess, of investing in oil and gas that you’ve seen?

Courtney:
Yeah, now obviously if we’re, if we’re going to go drill, there is no guarantee that we’re gonna hit oil. Nobody can guarantee that. Not even Exxon, not Texaco, nobody can guarantee that. Which is why I really like going and acquiring interest where we’ve already hit oil because now we’ve eliminated the biggest part of that risk. So from that point going forward, the next thing is what is the price of oil gonna do? Because the price of of oil impacts those monthly distributions. And then the second thing is you know, we have pretty good estimates of what these wells are gonna produce over their lifetime. But, you know, let’s say this last project we estimate each, each well is gonna produce about 800,000 barrels. We might have one that only produces 500,000. So I can’t guarantee that it’s gonna produce 800, but this is why you want multiple wells in a project, because you might have one that way outperforms.

Courtney:
You might have two average ones and then one that’s not so great. So, but the more wells you have in a deal, the better because then it minimizes that risk. And so and this is a, where I’ve lost money was going in with smaller operators. I have a company, I, I thought it was a good deal. I was really excited about it. They were smaller operators and a year and a half later, they’re still trying to get this well drilled. And I thought, this is the craziest thing I’ve ever heard of. Like my last deal. We drilled 12 wells in three weeks with this major operator. I mean, they just, they’ve got that process down, they get that equipment out there, they drill those wells, and then they freaking tear it down and move that rig over to the next well, and I mean, they drilled all 12 of them in less than a month.

Courtney:
It was crazy. It was amazing. But we don’t see a lot of the issues you see with these smaller companies. And plus the smaller companies don’t have the reserves and additional equipment and things they need to handle problems the way way that the major companies do. So you see a lot more with capital calls and things like that. So, you know, you, you have the risk of drilling a dry hole. You have the risk of, you know, the price of oil, you have the risk of how much oil, if you’ve hit oil, how much is actually in the ground. And then the other thing, the monthly cashflow is great, you know, typically on a hundred thousand dollars depending on where you’re investing and where you’re drilling and what the production levels are, I mean, can be anywhere from, you know, two to $8,000 a month in income monthly, which is amazing.

Courtney:
The, the monthly income is really nice. But I can’t get, you know, it might be $2,000 this month and then next month it might be $4,500. You know, it’s sometimes if they are having issues or you know, maybe if the price of oil is going down, they’ll kind of choke back those wells a little bit, you know, just to save that, you know, for wait for the price of oil to come back up. So it’s not like multifamily where I can say, oh, we have 300 doors, it’s this much for rent. We’re, you know, this much in vacancy. So this is roughly about what your monthly payments are gonna be. I mean, we can make estimates but it is going to fluctuate. The, the monthly payment is not consistent.

Charles:
Okay. That’s what, and what is that, that’s obviously on the production and obviously the the price of oil too. Price

Courtney:
Of oil, yeah, yeah, both.

Charles:
Yeah. So it can really, yeah, that’s, so yeah, like anything, I mean it’s vault, it’s even with, you can have signed contracts on those 300 units for leases maybe on 95% of ’em, and still be a little off with people with collections and stuff like that. So you know, nothing’s foolproof. I mean, that’s just kind of the risk you have to take and that’s why we’re being compensated with these returns. But

Courtney:
Well the great thing is you can never 100% lose your money. You, you are gonna get those tax benefits regardless. Now obviously nobody wants to lose money. So this is where operator and location, you know, once again, really, really matter. And where are they in the, you know, drilling process? Are they just about to get started? You know, what’s their experience and where are they at in that? ’cause All of those different factors matter. And then I always tell everybody, take a look at, you know, the economic forecast and what do you think oil’s gonna do over this next couple of years? Because like my deals that first couple of years is where we get a big part of our return. You know, what is it gonna do? And how do you feel about that? I’m always paying attention to Warren Buffet and, you know, these bigger, you know, financial institutions, you know, here a few months ago they were moving into oil and gas very heavily.

Courtney:
Well, to me that’s a really good indicator that, okay, I’m gonna start, you know, stockpiling and, you know, moving more into oil and gas as well. And, you know, we’ll move out of it, you know, at the right time. Obviously you can’t time the market. That’s really, really tough. But I love being in oil and gas ’cause it’s a really great compliment to real estate. You know, some of my real estate investments are struggling right now. But oil and gas is doing really strong. At some point in time, the multifamily will be super strong. Again, oil and gas will be struggling, which is why, you know, I will deploy capital into oil and gas because we can typically get our money back in, you know, 12 to 18 months. And then I take that and deploy it into, you know, real estate. So now in a relatively short timeframe, I’ve funded two different assets with the same capital. So that’s kind of how I do it.

Charles:
Yeah, no, that’s a great strategy. I mean, I imagine most people that are listening are most likely coming in interested if they are in being a passive investor. So what are some common mistakes you’ll see oil and gas investors, passive investors make when getting involved with this asset class?

Courtney:
Yep. So I have seen so much over this last few years. I, every single person I’ve ever come across, they’re, they’re all experts. They’re all oil and gas experts. They’ve been doing it for 40 years and, you know <laugh>, it’s, it’s kind of crazy. So the, you know, the first thing I do when I have a new deal, you know, hit my desk ’cause I have a lot of people that want me to, you know, partner with them on oil and gas deals or, you know, whatever is, I, it’s a very small, good old boy network. So the first thing I do is, you know, pick up the phone and start making phone calls, you know, what do you know about these people? And just kind of get a, get a pulse on that person or that group from other people in the industry that typically will tell me whether I wanna move forward or not without even looking at the deal.

Courtney:
Because everybody makes their deals sound great, you know, I mean, I am and I am definitely that person of everything is great until it’s not. ’cause I’m just a super positive, you know, optimistic person. I do, I am very honest about risks and everything else. And look, this is what you’ve gotta watch for because I feel like, you know, investors need to be educated and have a good grasp on what’s going on. But I have seen a lot of money and Ponzi schemes, you know, a lot of money stolen and a lot of Ponzi schemes in the oil and gas space. So it’s really, really, I, I have had that happen to myself as well which is unfortunate. It’s my school of hard knocks and it was a really, really expensive lesson. But I’m also really grateful and thankful for it too because it changed my personal strategies, my syndication strategies, and it’s, it’s made me who I am today, which I am very grateful for.

Charles:
So you talked slightly there about how you initially vet people in oil and gas but you’re in multiple asset classes with various partners. I mean, how do you vet your investment partners maybe beyond that first phone call and, you know, you, you’ve been through this on the wrong side of it before. What have you, what do you do now, whether it’s your own money passively or whether you’re actively gonna be, you know, co ging with this group? Yep.

Courtney:
And that’s such a great question and this is gonna sound really crazy. So my husband is an undercover, he’s part of a special undercover task force, and he is the most amazing judge of character on earth. And so the very first deal I ever did turned out to be a Ponzi scheme, which was crazy. And when my husband met that guy, he was like, Courtney, I am telling you that guy is a crook. You need to stay away from him. But he was tied in. It kind of reminds me of Bernie Madoff because he was tied in with all the big names and all the big people, and I just wanted to be a part of that, you know, and I, but I, I was new and I didn’t really know how to vet some things. And so I, anyway, I learned a lot through that.

Courtney:
But I thought, man, I will never not listen to my husband on this stuff ever again. So he’s kind of my final process. There’s a big, a lot of process I go through, but I make him sit down with these people ’cause I want his pulse on them. But, you know, I do background checks. I have him, you know, pull some background checks for me. We’ve got some friends in the FBI and things like that. And then, you know, I make those phone calls and you know, through being a syndicator and, you know, adding on, you know, my due diligence list, I’ve, I’ve unfortunately learned that a a lot of syndicators out there aren’t doing the due diligence that they should be doing. You know, they’re not verifying the things that they should be verifying. And through that process, I’ve learned a lot about a lot of people.

Courtney:
So, and, and even through this, you know, interest rate hikes that we’ve been seeing, I’ve been kind of sitting back and watching, you know, how are these different syndicators managing their investors? How are they handling these situations? And so I went from, I love everybody and I wanna invest in everything to okay, everybody’s on the blacklist until, you know, they prove to me that they should be on the, the thumbs up list. Because, you know, I, as typically, my stuff is primarily oil and gas. I’m looking for great places to send my investors to as well. And if I won’t put my money in it, I’m not gonna refer them to it either. So I’m in a couple of really big syndication groups with, you know, 300, 500 plus you know, syndicators that are raising money in different asset classes. But I have found a handful of people that I know have gone through some tough stuff. I’ve watched how they’ve handled it, I’ve watched how they have done things with their investors, and they’re definitely the kind of people that I wanna put my money with and that, you know, I wanna send my investors to as well. So, so a whole big kind of process to it. What does this look like and what is their transparency levels and, and things like that.

Charles:
What was if you remember, what was it that your husband found about that guy just in his personality that told him to tell you to watch out?

Courtney:
Yep. So he said one of the things there was, there was a few different things, and he’s just really good at just gauging personality anyway. But some things I don’t, some things I pick up on and some things I don’t, I don’t, to the extent that he does, I mean, this is what he does for a living. But he said, Courtney, I just sat there and watched him. He was right in the middle of a conversation with somebody and there was, I think it might have been Kiyosaki or somebody else that popped up and he totally, just the way that he did that person to run off and go be with this other person, there was a handful of things, but it was that along with, you know, a few other things and just the way that he acted. So I don’t know what all interesting, specifically, there was a couple things he brought up, but he ended up being right. We didn’t find out about it till two years later. But he, he was spot on and I was blown away.

Charles:
Yeah, that’s interesting. So as a, you know, you’re a capital allocator for oil and gas and other real estate investments. What have you done with your business? And you said you’re part of a, a mastermind group but what else that sets you apart from other capital allocators? Maybe how you build relationships with you, maybe your past investors or your coachs. But what else kind of sets you apart because there’s so many people out there raising for everything now under the sun using the syndication model?

Courtney:
You know, I, I think there’s a handful of things. You know, I, I am not interested in transactional relationships. You know, I want to build a relationship with my investors. We have so many calls, not just about my deals, but we’ll find other things and we’ll sit and chat about that and what we like about it, what we don’t like about it. I have, investors will send me other oil and gas deals and I’m like, okay, you need to check this out, check this out. You know, I want them to invest and be successful. I, I hosted a tax summit, advanced Tax Strategy Summit in March. You know, I try to bring the useful resources and tools that are gonna help them. And it was a free summit and we had really great you know, speakers on financial planning and roadmaps and tax benefits and asset protection and the whole nine yards from getting started and, you know, to where you finish up and, and how you can pass it on to your family tax free and things like that.

Courtney:
And I’m, I’m actually building a site right now that I’m super excited about it. It will be a, a free site to people, but we, I’ve partnered with a massive, you know, CPA firm where my investors can get tax questions answered. Some gentlemen from Intel are helping me build out some financial calculators and simulators, and we’re gonna offer background checks and SEC bad actor checks and all of these different tools, you know, due diligence and you know, syndicator track records and AI underwriting tools where people can really come in and, I mean, my deals will be there, but they can come in and do backgrounds on anybody or, you know, throw the information into you know, the AI simulator and have it, you know, spit out the information. But when you can get tax help and, you know, figure out how to unlock, you know, retirement funds for different investments, like, I just wanna provide all of these different tools for investors so that they can feel confident in what they’re doing.

Courtney:
And I, I’ve, I’ve done that on smaller scales in bits and pieces, and now we’re working on building it out really big. But it, it really is about helping each other out, you know, giving each other some guidance. Let’s talk about these deals. What should we be asking? What are we missing? Where, what’s the deal? What is the, what’s the syndicator like? And you know, it’s, and they all have my phone number. Every one of my investors has my private cell number and they can call me anytime. If I had one call me at one o’clock in the morning the other night, I would prefer the note. Not 1:00 AM phone calls, but it happens <laugh>.

Charles:
Yeah, that’s, that’s interesting. We’re seeing yeah, about all the different background checks, because I was talking to some of my partners today on a call and they were talking about how in a mentor group they are part of, from years back, they said how someone got, you know, someone was part of a fraud in there and just a simple background check would’ve found it. But I think people get really swayed, they become into these mentor groups, and I’ve heard it multiple times from many different groups, and it’s kinda really kept kind of quiet, right? But just because you’re in this group and people paid money to get in, this doesn’t mean that everybody’s on the up and up. And then you’ll have people that don’t know what they’re doing too, which is on the, it’s a whole nother conversation.

Courtney:
Well, I will tell you, that was one of my biggest lessons is just because somebody’s standing on a stage next to one of these big names doesn’t mean that they know what they’re doing. And, you know, I was at a big syndication conference, there’s probably a thousand people there, and I bet 850 of them were multi-family syndicators, and I bet you 800 of them had no business, you know, managing that. And it’s, it’s unfortunate you have all these groups, you know, just churning out multifamily syndicators, and they haven’t been through, you know, any real estate cycles. They ha it’s just, it’s, it’s unfortunate.

Charles:
Yeah. It’s one of the things I do some coaching for new multifamily investors and one of the things I’ve found is that I don’t take on new students that want to get in and raise money right away. And I’m like, Nope, you gotta do a deal yourself. Or it’s like, it’s just not how my program works, because it’s not right. You’re taking money. It’s a different thing if like, you know, you have somebody that you’re gonna partner with, like a family member that’s gonna do it, but it’s a different thing if you’re like taking it from friends and family or anybody and you’re investing in somebody, you have no idea what you’re doing. Well,

Courtney:
And when I got in there, I was like, holy, I was so overwhelmed with all of the different things that go into managing multifamily that I just thought, okay, I couldn’t even move forward. I had tons of people I could have raised capital with and whatever, but I just, I didn’t even know what I didn’t know, and I didn’t feel comfortable, you know, moving forward with that. And so I didn’t, and I thought, I’m just gonna stay in my lane. And, and that even, I mean, unfortunately there’s bad actors out there. I mean, you can do all the due diligence in the world and still come across, you know, something that ends up being a bad deal. But that’s where, you know, how, what kind of syn indicator are you with, you know, that stuff matters.

Charles:
Yeah, that’s for sure. So as we’re kinda wrapping up here, one last question I have before we get your contact information are, you know, what are some of the main factors contribute to your success over the years from being in the Navy to being an entrepreneur, to growing up in the industry of oil and gas to where you are now?

Courtney:
God, that’s such a good question, y’all. I’m really not that cool of a person. I just know really cool people that have put me in really cool positions, which has been amazing. You know, I, I think in everything that I’ve ever done, I give 150%. I don’t know how to half-ass anything. I give everything my all, and I, I do it because I love it. It brings me joy, like putting these oil and gas deals together and bringing people into this and then getting those texts like, holy cow, this freaking K one, I just got my taxes done. This is amazing. Or when they get that first distribution, it just, it, I’m so excited about that. Like it drives me to solve problems and figure out how to solve problems for people and then bring people together to do it. It just, it really brings me joy. So I think that is, it’s very motivating.

Charles:
Yeah, no, that’s a great one. When people get their first distribution, I’ll be like texting and emailing them consistently until they respond. Check your account, check your account. Can you tell me that you got this? Check your account. You know what I mean? And it’s just like a whole kind of weight off your shoulders and you’re like, oh, now it’s like proof of concept. It’s working. Everybody’s like, knows what’s going on and this is kind of how it works. Yes.

Courtney:
Well even like that last oil and gas deal, it was like, okay, I know we’ve hit oil. I know, you know, I know they’re in the process of, you know, bringing them online. I know they’re producing, but you know, until you get that first check and you start getting those distributions, it’s like, oh my gosh, what if something happens? Or, and you’re like, okay, nothing’s gonna happen. But, but until you get that first one and then you’re like, ah, okay, we got it. We got the production, it’s doing what we expected it to do. And it’s a good feeling.

Charles:
Yeah. And then nothing’s better for that passive investor until they, they check their phone or their email and they see they just got money in their account for doing, you know, at that point, nothing actively. And you’re like, okay, now this is, this is how it works. So, and it gives you a good feeling. But, so Courtney, how can our listeners learn more about you, your business and all your different various investments? Yeah,

Courtney:
Well so I have a site, it’s Courtney at Courtney, I’m sorry, it’s courtney moler.com. You can go there, you can schedule a call with me, book a call, you know, our, I’m sorry, check out all the different things I have going on. The platform we’re building is on there. And then I have an oil and gas report at oil and gas report.net where you can learn a little bit more about the IRS code that goes into the tax benefits and things like that.

Charles:
Courtney, well thank you so much for coming on today. I’ll put all those links into the show notes and looking forward to connecting with you here in the near future Face-to-face. Yes,

Courtney:
Thank you so much for having me. This was awesome.

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

Speaker 3:
Nothing in this episode should be considered specific, personal or professional advice. Any investment opportunities mentioned on this podcast are limited to accredited investors. Any investments will only be made with proper disclosure, subscription documentation, and are subject to all applicable laws. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial, or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own information is not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. The host is operating on behalf of syndication Superstars, LLC exclusively.

Links and Contact Information Mentioned In The Episode:

About Courtney Moeller

Courtney is a US Navy veteran, #1 best-selling author, entrepreneur, international speaker, and oil and gas expert! She proudly served five years in the United States Navy as an aviation electronics technician, including serving aboard the USS Nimitz CVN-68 in the Persian Gulf supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. She is originally from Midland, Texas, and has lived in the oil and gas sector. Most of her family is involved in oil and gas in one aspect or another, from petroleum engineering to well servicing, pipe, and water delivery, and drilling/rig moving. Courtney has been involved in investing, exploring, and drilling over 75 wells throughout Texas and Wyoming. Beyond oil and gas, Courtney’s portfolio includes multi-family, self-storage, short-term rentals, and various other types of unique real estate.

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