Welcome to The Gold Collar Investor Podcast with your host Pancham Gupta. This podcast is dedicated to helping the high paid professionals to break out of the Wall Street investments and create multiple income streams. Here’s your host Pancham Gupta.

Hi, this is Joe Fairless if you want to diversify out of Wall Street investments and listen to the gold collar investor podcast.

Pancham Gupta  

Welcome to the gold collar investor podcast. This is your host punch him really appreciate you for tuning in. today. My guest is Eric Nelson. He’s the founding principal of wild oak capital. He has been investing in real estate for over 10 years Eric and wild oak team provide investment opportunities through multifamily syndication. He is also a co-owner of a civil engineering firm, and annex range of skills suit the field of syndication and real estate on both technical level and client relations side. He’s also the host of the real estate mindset podcast where he discusses with industry leaders what it takes to be a successful investor based on continuous personal and professional growth. Eric, welcome to the show, man.

Eric Nelson  

Hey, man, thanks for having me, man. It’s my it’s my absolute honor. privilege to be here. Thank you.

Pancham Gupta  

Thank you for your time here. And before we get started, are you ready to fire up my listener break out of Wall Street investments?

Eric Nelson  

Yeah, of course. Let’s get this started.

Pancham Gupta  

So why don’t you start with about your background, and more importantly, the person behind that background?

Eric Nelson  

Cool. Yeah. So, you know, I grew up kind of middle-class parents, they were awesome, really blessed kind of childhood honestly grew up in Colorado. And like a lot of American kids, it was like my parents said, you know, get good grades, go to college, get a job. And so that’s more or less what I did, went to college. And basically, I was I excelled at math. So, I was like, I guess I’ll just be an engineer. I mean, honestly, even to this day, it’s never been a true passion of mine, per se, it was just like a path that I took, and continued and struggled through in college and finished and became an engineer. And, you know, I consider myself a good engineer. But you know, again, it wasn’t like ever my passion. So, when I do well, I now do mostly residential, I studied civil engineering. I did some water work over the years. So now most of my focus is structural work, which I still do, and I will probably continue to do for a long time because I really enjoy it. But again, it’s not really my passion. So, along the way, like even early on, so in college, my brother and I had this idea to buy a house rather than rent. And so, we found this house that had an empty basement. And we thought we could fix it up and you know, rent it out to our friends. And so that’s exactly what we did. We basically house academicism 2007. So, getting a loan is like ridiculously easy, but you know, strange timing with the market, right? So, I lucked out in one sense that I had no business getting a loan, but the bank loaned us the money. And we know we, we played our cards, right, we did everything right. And again, it was a little bit of luck and a little bit of kind of hard work. So that’s kind of our first house hack. And then after that, you know, a couple of years of fixing it up printing new friends, all that stuff, we did make a little bit of money in 2010, but not much, because obviously the market had shifted a lot. So started doing engineering. And then, you know, basically, I got to thinking this 401k thing is not, it’s not going very fast. One and two is like the amount of energy and time I’m putting into the amount that I’m getting from my retirement is not going to be to my goal, right? So, I don’t want to work till I’m 70. So, I started looking at other avenues and real estate really kind of stuck out to me. So, my wife and I ended up buying our personal residence, and then we saved up some money. So, we bought a second home, and we kept our first one as a rental. And it was kind of our kind of dipping our toe into owning a rental per se. And it worked out really well. And then from there, we basically were starting to look at creative financing. You know, we’re pretty much out of capital. And so, we looked at, we got a six- Plex deal. It’s a really cool story, through an owner finance deals kind of a relationship situation where I met the guy randomly walking my son, and just asked him if he’d be willing to sell and, you know, kind of walked that path that took a couple of weeks honestly of me talking with him. He’s an older gentleman, and I’d known done a little bit of homework. I’d known him to own the property outright. And so, I asked him if he’d finance it. He said yes. And then I asked if we could do a really low-down payment. And he’s like, I don’t really know what that means. But sure. You know, I was like, well, here’s what we can do and kind of gave them all the numbers. We sat down at a coffee shop, and I just sort of wrote it all out said here’s what you’re gonna get per month. We She was about the same amount of money he was getting in rent. And the property is under rented. So, I kind of saw the value there. And he saw the value of not having to be a landlord anymore. And so, it was kind of one of those cool things. But anyway, so we ended up with that six Plex. And again, we were kind of hit this roadblock where either we had to get really creative with financing, which is kind of hard to find, or I need to start partnering and doing larger deals. And so right now we offer multifamily syndications. And so, we buy larger apartment buildings and offer investment opportunities for people out there who, you know, maybe have some high net worth or some money, they don’t really know where to place. And so, we help them place that capital and give them a pretty good return. And in my opinion, is the best vehicle out there is your real estate. So, you know, I know we kind of are going to compare Wall Street a little bit. But I think that’s my kind of story and background. And there’s a lot of stuff in between. But hopefully that answers some of the questions.

Pancham Gupta  

Absolutely. And I have questions here my first question on that house act that you did in 2007. And they were giving out loans to anyone who has, you know, eyes and nose holes. So, you got that, and you did a house hack? How did that turn out? I’m sure when you got on it. It was probably before the market crash? That’s where you were able to get that loan?

Eric Nelson  

How did that turn out? Yeah, I mean, again, I think there was some luck in it, right? So I was, I was working a full-time internship more or less for an engineer at the time. And so, I had about two months of pretty good income. And that’s what the bank used basically was like a summer job. And they use two months of pay stubs, to show that I made decent money. And that’s how they gave us the loan. And then of course, I went back to school and immediately had zero income, but they didn’t necessarily know or necessarily care at the time. And I was fully transparent. But there again, yep, we trust you kind of thing. And so, it worked out really well. So, it was a six-bedroom house we bought it was three bedrooms. And then we added three more in that sort of unfinished basement. And so, it was kind of my first value add property in that sense, where it was a big learning curve, because we put in all the walls, all the plumbing, all the electrical, and it took way longer and way more money than I thought. And that was a learning lesson as well. But then we rented to our friends. And so, we had kind of this fun sort of college house that our friends were paying us rent, and we were living for free, my brother and me. And so, on one hand, it was great, because the rent was great. On the other hand, it was tough at times, because if we had a party, I was the one like, you know, trying to follow behind people and clean up messes and stuff like that, just because I had a little bit of pride of ownership. But ultimately, it was a great thing. And if a college student, or maybe someone who’s traded at college, can get into that house hack, I think it’s a great way to get in, you know, maybe even a duplex, right? You live on one side, and out the other. That’s an awesome way to get in if you’re looking to be active in real estate. Again, we offer passive stuff now. And that’s a pretty good vehicle to if you’re busier, or if you want to be a landlord that you can invest in these properties. And that’s a pretty cool vehicle as well.

Pancham Gupta  

Yeah, no, thanks. So, I always say that, you know, someone asked me just a pure coincidence that you feel that way. The way I feel too. Is that, like, what is the biggest regret that I have? Or if I were to start again, investing, what would I do differently? And I would say my answer is that as soon as I graduated college, not in college, but after I graduated, I’ve rented for I don’t know how long, I would have set, you know, so that’s awesome. So, the Did you feel any pain because of the values going down? Like were you underwater on your mortgage on that house? And did you eventually come out positive on that? And when did you sell that? Basically?

Eric Nelson  

Yeah. So, we were never underwater. We never missed a payment, either. We are just you know, there was a time where we had to kind of work really hard. So, I was working in a restaurant, putting myself through school and trying to finish this house. And it wasn’t like crazy, but I was definitely busier than most of my friends, especially in engineering school, you know, I just study late and just make it happen. But no, you’re never underwater per se, like, because we added some value, like we added those rooms, and we put some money into fixing up the house. If the stock market or if the kind of housing market all say hadn’t crashed in 2008, we would have made significantly more but I actually remember the numbers. This is crazy. I bought it for two or three, my brother and I bought it for two or three. And we sold for 245. And truthfully, you probably put 35 grand into it and maybe in a lot of sweat equity. So, it wasn’t like we got rich. I mean, the end is probably a $10,000 profit. We did live for free for about three years. And then so that was huge. Yeah. And I think the learning we gained from it was also enormous. So, and at the time I mean $10,000 Like a lot of money when I just graduated so I wouldn’t Same be a loss. And given what the market had done, it was a major win because I think it could have gone very differently. Right? Had we not added some value? Yeah, we could have easily been underwater. What’s crazy about that house is this is in Fort Collins, Colorado. So, it’s probably worth over 800. Now. So, if I would have had the, the ability to hang around for another 10 years, and we would have made a lot a lot of money. But that’s kind of how real estate goes, if you can hang on, if you’re a patient. That’s a really good example. It is kind of a get rich, slow game. But we learned a lot of lessons. And ultimately, yeah, we’re never really underwater, luckily. Got it.

Pancham Gupta  

Cool. So, switching gears you started now you do multifamily syndications, right, and you raise capital from private investors and give out returns and all that. So, a couple of questions. How did you get into that? And what are the markets that you’re focused in?

Eric Nelson  

Yeah, great question. You know, one roadblock I had like personally was and so my, my podcasts, you can see the sign if you’re watching this on video, but my podcast is called the real estate mindset. And I that’s because of personal things I’ve overcome. And so, I try and kind of get the word out. I was sort of wanting to do it all on my own meaning me and my wife, and it kind of took some help from coaches and friends to say, hey, man, you know, you’re gonna go a whole lot further a whole lot faster if you’re willing to partner with people. And that means partnering with partners to buy stuff. It also means partnering with investors. And so, it took some kind of hard looks in the mirror to say, you know what, actually, partnering is actually a good thing. It’s not necessarily a bad thing. And it can actually be great. And I’ve learned that over the years. So that was kind of one roadblock. But anyway, I had a friend who was doing syndications. And that’s actually really lucky, because I think most people, most Americans never really have the opportunity to hear about it. And that’s why I want to get the word out, you know, as syndications awesome way to get into real estate, you have to do anything, you know, you have to know and like and trust the operators, that’s kind of what I say. But beyond that, it’s basically like, play some capital on a deal that you like, do your due diligence. And then you kind of sit back and collect some returns. But how I got into it was basically watching my friend and learning more and more and more. And then really, it just basically became an interest. Like, I wonder what this says, you know, and I listened to endless podcasts and read a bunch of books. And that, you know, that’s honestly how I learned there’s lots of people who do like major programs and stuff, and then they’re really good, that can be expensive, but they’re good. I fortunately, never really had to because I had a friend and kind of a mentor who’s doing it. So, there was again, some good fortune involved.

Pancham Gupta  

Yeah, so you basically did you invest with him to,

Eric Nelson  

you know, oddly I never did. That’s it’s another path I took that was sort of rare. I was never a limited partner; I am now in all of my own deals. So, whenever we do a deal on best as well just have skin in the game. But I oddly was never a limited partner, I just I kind of just had the desire to steer the ship, I guess. So, I was I was just kind of jumped right into being a general partner. I did read a lot of books ask a lot of questions of limited partners, because you really want to be in the mind of a limited partner, as a general partner, because you want to understand what is an investor looking for? What’s the communication they want? What do they want to hear about? What do they want to know about? And so that’s what we focus on is being extremely transparent. And I think our communication is excellent. And by that I just mean, you know, we tell the good, the bad that lessons learned, every month, we give an update. And then we’re extremely available, you know, some investor calls us and has a question, we’re going to tell them like it is, right now, the markets kind of shifting as we know. So, this has been recorded in June of 22. And it’s kind of weird time because interest rates are going up. So, the market will kind of shift rapidly. And so, we also have to dance that game a little bit, you know, let’s figure out the best loan product and just have our kind of head straight.

Pancham Gupta  

Right? So, it’s interesting that your podcast is the real estate mindset. And I’m pretty big on mindset. So, for the listeners, and, you know, what are some of the things that you had personally overcome? I know, you alluded to it that you and your wife were not big into partnering or potentially looking at it negatively. But what are some of the things that you kind of overcame? From mindset point of view? And how? 

Eric Nelson  

Yeah, that’s an awesome question. I mean, okay, probably the major one was, was one I just spoke about was partnering. But beyond there was a lot of and there’s kind of like this imposter syndrome you have to overcome. So, when you just take a step from buying a quad, for example, you buy a four Plex, it’s super scary. I remember that six Plex, we paid a million dollars for it. And that’s actually a really good price for our market. But if you’re lying awake at night, like how can I possibly buy something that costs a million dollars, like what am I doing? And then as we got into syndication, it’s, it’s even more money, you know, five, six $7 million, and most of the money is investor money. And so, you have to kind of overcome this and imposter syndrome, where it’s like, yes, this is my first syndication, you know, when we close that one. And you just have to say, Yeah, we have mentors alongside us, which we did. And I think I’ve done a ton of research, I think I can do a good job, but I’ve never done it, you know. And so that’s a hurdle you have to overcome, to more or less convinced investors that you have, absolutely have their best interests in mind. And so that was a couple of things like partnering, and then probably just a limiting belief, meaning that I didn’t think I had what it took until I just had to, you know, you just kind of have to overcome that and be a little bit out of your comfort zone. So that’s another mindset thing is like, if you’re gonna grow, I think you kind of have to steadily push a little and be a little bit uncomfortable. If you’re, if you’re getting complacent or super comfortable. It’s time to go the next level, in my opinion. And so, if you, you know, if you’re a growth mindset, that’s probably a good place to be.

Pancham Gupta  

All right. All right. Cool. So, let’s talk about, you know, the markets that you’re investing in, is it local to you? Are you vertically integrated, meaning that you’re managing your own properties or using third party?

Eric Nelson  

Yeah, sorry, I forgot to answer that part of your first question. Well, so we invest mostly in Tulsa, Oklahoma, some in Texas, and then Little Rock, Arkansas is kind of our main focuses right now. And our manager in Tulsa is amazing. So, the answer, the vertically integration thing is no, we actually lean pretty heavily on a third-party manager for those. And part of it is because we’re in multiple markets, right? I think it’d be I know, there are people out there who can do it. But I think if you were really hyper focused on one market, that’d be a little bit easier to vertically integrate. And the answer to is a local is no, I mean, I live in Colorado. So, we invest in Tulsa, or in Oklahoma, Texas, and Arkansas. And so of course, those aren’t local to me. But I think that’s also smart, because the markets there make a lot of sense for investing in my market does not, you know, it’s kind of like a California style market where purchase prices are just super high, and cap rates are super low. And so, if you want to offer a return your investors, your kind of banking on appreciation, if you’re gonna buy in that type of market. And that’s not our model. So, we, we really love cash flow, we really love like a B class product where we can add some value. And so yeah, we purchase at a town and then we rely on third party managers.

Pancham Gupta  

Got it? So, are you more like a value add? Actually, you know, what I want to switch gears to when you got into this. So did you ever work W2 job after you got out of college.

Eric Nelson  

So, and I actually still do so I worked for a water company in Denver for a bit. And then I worked for like a civil company down here where I live now. And then this is a kind of a longer story in itself, my wife and I took a year off and we took a road trip and a small camper down to the bottom of South America. So, we just like traveled for a year on as little money as we could possibly spend. And then when we got back, my boss basically didn’t have a job for me. And so, I was semi ready to start my own business anyway. And so just kind of the extra push I needed. So, I just started a company, do an engineering here where I live, it’s a pretty small town. So, what I had to do was just kind of like, beg, borrow, and steal to get work, I’m gonna just kind of hit the streets and tell people what I was doing and, you know, talk to as many contractors as I could. And ultimately, I just did a high-quality job. And I think that that’s a good lesson is you know, some people say, Well, I’m cheaper than the other person. It’s like, well, yeah, that’s great. That’s nice to have, like the best price, but what’s the quality of the job. And so, I think that’s how we’ve gained success is just being, in my opinion, the best at what we do. And so, our company is it’s small, there’s only two of us, but we’ve done really well. And we continue to do well. And so, what I’m doing now, basically, I’m just scaling back time, I spend less time in engineering and more on real estate. But I still do it because I enjoy it. I really enjoy being plugged into my local community; I enjoy kind of solving problems like engineering brings up. And so, the answer the question is I have and still continue. It’s not W2 in a traditional sense, because I own the company, but it’s certainly a day job. And so that’s always a balance to with family.

Pancham Gupta  

Right. And when you came back from that trip to South America, and you found that they did have a, you know, a job was a devastating feeling for you or you’re like, Okay,

Eric Nelson  

well, it was interesting timing. Yeah, it was an interesting time, because we know how many kids that you know, so it’s just my wife and I, so I have to know, if we had kids, I would have felt a whole lot different. You know, you kind of have this, like, you have to provide for your family. But my wife and I were already used to living on nothing, you know, we’re living out of a car already. And so, when we came back, it wasn’t really devastating. It was almost in a weird way, like, satisfying because it was the push I needed. And I think it depends on your personality. You know, some people will be like, oh, gosh, my personality is like sweet. I got a challenge. You know, I’m just gonna step up to this and make it happen. And the other thing is like I probably could have just applied for several jobs. Didn’t potentially got one. But I wanted to actually start a company. And so that was sort of the push I needed. So, in a weird way, the time in my life was right. And it just kind of worked. So, yeah, I mean, again, sometimes you just have to have the right mindset and look at it in a positive light, not being offered a job back is like a gut punch. But in reality, it was kind of like the shove off a cliff that I needed. And I’m grateful for it to this day.

Pancham Gupta  

Right? That’s a great perspective, a lot of stories and a lot of people. And when we have a story like yours, either they got laid off, or something happened, and they had to let go, eventually, with the benefit of hindsight, you know, they said that was the best thing that has ever happened.

Eric Nelson  

Yeah, absolutely. The moment it can be very challenging. Yeah, it might

Pancham Gupta  

be very devastating. In your case, it wasn’t. But it’s really the best thing that ever happened to them. So now that you’re doing your deals, and you have this engineering company on the side, the markets that you’re doing the deals and you did this before that the shifting in the market environment. There are things that are happening. So how are you changing or coping? You’re changing strategy, given this changing environment? Are you sitting on the sidelines? Or are you still very active? If you are, how have you changed your strategy?

Eric Nelson  

Yeah, I think the major the biggest change is debt. So basically, shift gears completely if it was one year ago, or even seven months ago. If you look at the Freddie Fannie debt in multifamily, it was a large number, like 90% of transactions 80 to 90, something like that. We’re being done with agency debt. And most people are kind of staying away from local banks, because, you know, they could offer them I mean, Freddie and Fannie could offer three and a half, three and a quarter rate are insanely low. And banks were like four and a half or something. So, there’s a there’s a big Delta. What’s interesting is when the Fed changed rates, Freddie and Fannie reacted essentially immediately in local banks, at least in my experience, have acted slower. So as an example, Freddie and Fannie were over 6%. On our last deal, which is under contract right now. We found a local bank to lock in a four and a half. And so that was, that was cool. The other thing is like with that, we said, okay, well, we started going to terms a little deeper, I don’t go too far in the weeds here. But a local bank usually doesn’t offer a 30-year amortization. So, we say, okay, if you’re not for 25, let’s meet somewhere in the middle, what else can we negotiate on. And that’s what’s cool about a local bank, too, is there is some negotiation power. So usually, we’ll get some interest only period. And usually, we can get them to cover a large portion of the rehab money. So, in a traditional sense, say you’re buying a property $4 million, and a million dollars or rehab, you come up with a down payment, which more or less is a million bucks, so 25% of that $4 million purchase price. Plus, if you had a million dollars in rehab, you’d have to raise both of those from investor money, meaning he was raised $2 million to purchase that $4 million property, which is a huge number, right? And then you have to provide the returns on that. But if you have a local bank that will say, we’ll cover 80% of your rehab costs in a loan package, you have to come up with a down payment, meaning a million bucks, then you’d have to come up with any or just 20% of that, you know, rehab budget, which would be $200,000. So, in the same deal with a different debt structure, you go from raising $2 million to 1.2, and you’re still doing the same thing, then you also don’t have to pay on that extra debt that the bank will loan until you borrow it. So, let’s say you don’t fix any major fixes for a year, you’re not paying any interest on that. So, there’s just a cool way to like, you know, twist the numbers a little bit, get creative, have some negotiation with banks, to make the debt work, and then you can be really competitive in this highly competitive market. So, I think the shifts will come where sellers are going to have to realize, okay, well, we have to soften that cap rate a little bit to catch up to the higher interest rates. And so, we’re seeing some of that, but right now, we’re just really hyper focused on relationships with local banks, if we paid every month, you know, and oddly, go there in person and take them to lunch and say, Hey, we’re real people. This is our plan. The banks will begin to trust you more and more and more, and that’s what we’ve done. And so that’s our major shift is really in the in the debt package. Other than that, to answer your question, definitely not sitting on the sidelines. We’re seeing less people bid. So, you’re watching people sit on the sidelines. We’re not one of them. We think there’s still some deals to be had. We’re never going to back off our numbers. We have metrics that we want to give to our investors and we’re just going to stick to them. So, we underwrite a ton of deals. For everyone that we get under contract. That’s just part of doing business. So, you know our last one, I think we looked at probably 300 Maybe before we got it under contract that you know the next deal That’s a lot. It’s a lot of time. But it’s what you have to do to be the best operator.

Pancham Gupta  

Right? So, are you changing your guidance or offers, like deals that you may have offered? Let’s say $100 5 months ago, are you offering still 100? On your offering? Like, how below or different it is from? There? It was?

Eric Nelson  

 Yeah, I mean, again, I’m trying not to get too far in the weeds here. But I think I think one metric we look at exit cap, right? So, to answer your question, it completely depends on what debt we can get. But let’s say we’re gonna offer a million dollars to, let’s say, $100, to your point, we’re probably at the 90, $90 range now. So maybe not quite that, you know, eight or 10% off. But that can be a big, big number, you know, if it’s a $10 million deal, and you’re offering the seller $9 million, instead, it’s hard to be competitive. But ultimately, most good operators are kind of seeing the same thing. So, there’s going to be this sort of guidance where you’ll fall in line with other people. Of course, there’s people out there who don’t have the same metrics as you. So, and really big deal, especially like Dallas, for example, or Atlanta, maybe a lot of the bigger deals are being bought by people who don’t need to see that same return. So, like a family office, maybe where they’re okay with 4%. And they don’t have any investors, you know, something like that, or maybe like a pension fund or something where they’re cool with a three 4% kind of preferred return, and so they can pay more for it. So, we find a niche and a little bit smaller deal. And then we can be super competitive for those, you know, really, really big box, people aren’t looking at the same deal as us.

Pancham Gupta  

Right. Cool, man. So, my, my last question for you before we go on to the second part of the show. And the question is, do you have a morning routine that you follow? If so, what is it? And do you think that it contributes to your success?

Eric Nelson  

A bunch of I love this question. I asked my every guest the same thing. So, I’ve heard 70 Plus answers as well. So, the answer, the answer is yes. And yes. So, I have two kids, and they get up, you know, kind of like think unusual, they both get up somewhere like clockwork at 6:45. So I get up about an hour before them. And so, I kind of feel like if I’m up and moving around six, that’s, you know, really important time for me. So, I do a little bit of yoga, I do what I call gratitude, I write down three things I’m grateful for. And then you know, things shift a little bit as to what I do next. But lately, I’ve been practicing a little bit of Spanish, and just kind of get my head right for the day before they get up. And so those couple of things. Yes, absolutely contribute to my success. The other thing I do when I get to the office is I time block. So, I kind of write out more or less hour by hour what I plan to do that day and things do get thrown, of course, but I think it’s a good habit. Because if you don’t, then you’ll kind of just bounce all at least for me, you know, I tend to kind of be all over the place over say for nine to 10. I’m gonna do this from then to eleven, do this. And it might even be like, answer emails. And that’s a pretty broad statement. But it’s an important thing to least block the time. It’s a really good practice I put in place. So, you answer the question is Yeah, and it makes a huge difference in my opinion.

Pancham Gupta  

Great. Well, thank you, Eric, for answering that. We’ll be back after this message. If you want to know the top six reasons on why you should consider diversifying outside of the Wall Street, then you are in the right place. I have written a free report for you. It goes into not just the top six reasons why investing in stocks 401 KS may not be the sound strategy. But also, what are the alternatives. Get your free report today on thegoldcollarinvestor.com/download, I repeat thegoldcollarinvestor.com/download. So, Eric, let’s move on to the second part of the show, which I call taking the leap proud I asked these questions to every guest on my show. My first question for you is, when was the first time you invested outside of Wall Street? Was it that house tag that you did in Fort Collins, Colorado with your brother you said, right? Yeah, it

Eric Nelson  

is interesting. I mean, honestly, we didn’t know you’re doing. I mean, we were just like thinking, okay, let’s own instead of rent, and it’s about as far as it went. I mean, I didn’t put any math to it. We kind of knew our budget more or less because we thought that’s what the bank would loan on. And so yes, that was my first investment. And I told the story and turned out okay. But, you know, had I done it over again, like if I had the knowledge now, I maybe would do the same thing. And that’s always the case, right? You learn from your lessons, but yeah, that was the first one I did and made a little bit of money. So, I was overall extremely happy with the lessons learned and a little bit of money in my pocket

Pancham Gupta  

guide. So, my second question there is that did you have to overcome any fears to any part that you know? and people buy it so young usually don’t hear less.

Eric Nelson  

Yeah, I think I mean, I was super fearful just because it’s such a big deal. You know, like, I remember the mortgage is like, just over $1,000, something like that. And I had no money. I mean, it was weird I had, like, my dad almost was like, oh, my gosh, this is a little bit dangerous, because you don’t have a lot of money in your bank account. You’re a college kid, and you’re buying a house. But we knew we could rent it. You know, we knew we had friends who, who even said y’all rent the room before we even closed. So, I had this kind of safety net and a sense that like, we could make the mortgage work, even in a sort of bad situation. So, the fear to overcome was just knowing that it was possible, it was doable. And I think everyone just kind of has to take that leap. You know, like, the point of your question is, is taking the leap? Right?

Pancham Gupta  

Yeah, exactly. All right. My third question is, can you share with us one investment that did not go as expected?

Eric Nelson  

Sure. So, we bought a single-family house before that six month with my father and mother-in-law. And that was cool because they trusted us with their capital. And we bought like, kind of his old historic home, and I thought we would slowly fix it up. And so, what happened was, we had really good renters. And so, we just basically, never really put a lot of money into it just kind of floated along. And we just were kind of underfunded and didn’t have a ton of money to like pay people to do it. So, I ended up doing a lot of the work myself, which was fine. I just not really what I would do again, you know, like I wouldn’t have, I wouldn’t repeat that we ended up making some money on that deal as well. Sold it a little bit later. It’s just again, knowing what I know. Now, I probably wouldn’t, I wouldn’t buy an older home in my backyard, given what the market is. It was just what I knew. And luckily, they trusted us. And again, luckily, we made a lot of money, but I probably wouldn’t repeat that. And so, it’s not exactly you didn’t like to go against plan other than I spent a whole lot more of my time than I had originally anticipated, which is a valuable commodity.

Pancham Gupta  

Okay, cool, man. So, my last question for you is, what is one piece of advice would you give to people who are thinking of investing in Main Street that is outside of Wall Street?

Eric Nelson  

Yeah, I think if you’re if you’re even open to the idea, then you’re ahead of the game. I don’t want to bash Wall Street. It’s definitely not for me, I like real estate, because I know it’s so well. And I’m also like, a structural engineer. So, my mind is kind of this I like to buy real assets. You know, as we’re talking Bitcoin has been just plummeting for the last couple of weeks, you know, Wall Street has gotten crushed as well, that happens, it goes through cycles, so I can’t like to say, Oh, that’s a bad investment. Because over time, history has shown you’re probably gonna make money. But I like to have way more control over it, you know, and, and have the ability to see really the input. So, one thing I love about multifamily is you literally are improving a property, you’re making it a better place to live. You’re watching tenants smile, we do, like, you know, Christmas events, we do like back-to-school events, it’s people’s lives, right in front of you that you’re impacting in a really solid way. And, in my opinion, you tend to make way more money over time, again, historically, and so all the tax benefits you get, plus the generally speaking the returns you get, in my opinion, it’s a really good investment. So, my advice would be if you’re thinking about it, you know, do your homework, of course, but in my opinion is a better use for your money.

Pancham Gupta  

Thank you, Eric, for your time here. If someone wants to connect with you, how can they reach out?

Eric Nelson  

The best way is my website, wildoakcapital.com. My podcast is there as well. You can email me at Eric@wildoakcapital.com super responsive. So, if you’re listening, please feel free to reach out I’d love to chat about real estate, what we’re up to and you know, hear anything that you’re up to. So, I really appreciate you. Let me pitch that on here Pancham

Pancham Gupta  

that’s awesome. Thanks for your time. Yeah, thanks so much. Thank you for joining me today. I hope you got some value from today’s show. If you have any questions do not hesitate to reach out to me at p@thegoldcollarinvestor.com. That’s P as in Paul at the gold collar. investor.com This has Pancham signing off. Until next time, take care.

Thank you for listening to the gold collar investor podcast. If you love what you’ve heard and you want more of Pancham Gupta, visit us at www dot the gold collar investor.com And follow us on Facebook at the gold collar investor. The information on this podcast are opinions. As always, please consult your own financial team before investing