Ian Noble - Business Owner Turned RE Investor

We sit down with Ian Noble, founder of RunSteady Investments, to explore how he transitioned from owning a multi-location dry cleaning business in Austin, Texas, to building wealth through passive real estate investing. After 14 years leading a company with 14 locations and over 90 employees, Ian made a successful business exit in 2023 and turned his full attention to helping others invest passively in mobile home parks, private lending funds, and real estate syndications.

With over a decade of hands-on experience investing in Austin and Colorado real estate, Ian shares valuable insights into building a diversified portfolio of residential, commercial, and passive investments. He also discusses how everyday investors can leverage syndications, mobile home parks, and debt funds to create long-term financial freedom. If you're a seasoned investor or just getting started, this episode is packed with practical advice on passive income, real estate strategy, and scaling your portfolio with confidence.

In this episode, you will be able to:

• Understand how strategic partnerships accelerate both business and real estate growth.
• Learn how a small-business owner leveraged cash flow to build a sustainable property portfolio.
• Apply simple, no-nonsense deal analysis principles that eliminate overwhelm.
• Build confidence in evaluating opportunities based on cash flow fundamentals.
• Gain insight into transitioning from an active operator to a more passive, scalable investing model.

The key moments in this episode are:

00:00 – Leveraging partnerships for scale
02:18 – Ian’s background and entrepreneurial roots
05:32 – Using business income to fund real estate
08:38 – Cash-flow-first investing discipline
11:38 – Action over analysis paralysis
14:42 – Entering passive investing through partnerships
20:51 – Expanding into larger commercial asset classes
27:51 – Choosing time freedom over operational strain

Follow Ian 👇
https://runsteadyinvestments.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/iannoble1/
https://www.instagram.com/ian_invests/#
https://www.youtube.com/@RunSteadyInvestments

Real People. Real Life Stories. Real Wealth Building. REL (Real Estate Leveraged) Freedom: Founded By Mike Swenson

SUBSCRIBE IF YOU'RE LOOKING TO BUILD WEALTH THROUGH OPPORTUNITIES IN THE REAL ESTATE INDUSTRY
✅ http://relfreedom.tv

GET STARTED INVESTING TODAY AND ACCESS OUR DEAL LIST!
📈 http://investwithelite.com

PARTNER WITH US ON BIG DEALS!
💵 https://eliteadvantagepropertieshq.com

BUILD YOUR REAL ESTATE AGENT CAREER WORKING WITH INVESTORS
👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 http://eliteadvantageagent.com

LEARN ABOUT REL FREEDOM & HEAR MORE REAL LIFE STORIES
🎙️ http://www.relfreedom.com

FREEBIES: DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE FREEDOM FOUNDATION BLUEPRINT
💵 https://www.relfreedom.com/blueprint

LOOKING FOR A REAL ESTATE AGENT ANYWHERE IN THE US? FIND A TOP AGENT IN YOUR COMMUNITY
🏠 http://www.eliteagentreferral.com

JOIN OUR FACEBOOK COMMUNITY
👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 https://www.facebook.com/groups/relfreedom

SUBSCRIBE TO THE REL FREEDOM PODCAST
🎧 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rel-freedom-podcast/id1535281574
🎧 Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5idXp6c3Byb3V0LmNvbS8xNDA3NjIyLnJzcw==
🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5nXA5hLHbDzRwxypc2wLur

LET'S CONNECT
👉 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mswenson13
👉 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/getrelfreedom/
👉 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@relfreedom
🏠 Minnesota Real Estate: https://www.eliteadvantageteam.com

Let's go get some REL Freedom together!

Episode transcript here:

(0:00 - 0:39)
I wasn't a partner guy before, and then afterwards I was like, I need some wisdom here because there's no way this is going to take me forever on my own. But I think because I was, you know, I was young and even in business I didn't have partners. And looking back and, you know, what I wish could have happened differently, you know, I think I would have partnered with somebody had I continued in that business, partnered with someone that could bring, you know, be that extra person with me to make these decisions.

And I'll certainly do that the next go around. I think there's so much value in having partnerships. Welcome to the Real Freedom Show, where we inspire you to pursue your passion to gain time and financial freedom through opportunities in real estate.

(0:39 - 2:18)
I'm your host, Mike Swenson. Let's get some real freedom together. Hello, everybody.

Welcome to another episode of Real Freedom, Real Estate Leverage Freedom, where we highlight people building time and financial freedom through opportunities in real estate. I'm your host, Mike Swenson. If you want to get started on your real estate investing journey, check out our website, freedomthroughrealestate.com. Great spot for you to be able to learn, hear different people's stories, and really figure out their journey.

I just want to highlight great stories to inspire people to pursue whatever passion that might be within real estate. And as we learn over time, things change. And even though you're in real estate, you might move over to something different, or life happens, and you have to move over to something different.

But there's a ton of cool stuff happening in the real estate space. And that's why we exist is to highlight those awesome stories. So today, we've got Ian Noble here.

Ian is the founder of Run Steady Investments, has a background of owning a laundromat business for a long time, up to 14 locations, over 90 employees, and then transitioned to now being in real estate full time in the Austin market, as well as Colorado, work as a limited partner, general partner, really highlighting mobile home parks, self storage facilities, debt funds, and other stuff. So you've got a ton of experience on the real estate side. So excited to hear about your journey.

So Ian, thanks for coming on the show. Yeah, thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.

So just give us a little bit of a background, what you did prior to getting into real estate, and we'll go from there. Well, I'm in Austin, Texas, I grew up here, and I got into a family business. It was a dry cleaning, dry cleaning company.

(2:18 - 2:46)
Dry cleaning, sorry, I said laundromat. Yeah, dry cleaning, my bad. There's a laundromat component to it, but we were more catered to individual pieces and pressing the items.

But yeah, longstanding family business, got involved with that after going to college here and eventually bought it from my dad. He was burnt out from the business and had removed himself. And so I spent my last 14 years of my life in the dry cleaning business and owe a lot to it.

(2:46 - 8:37)
I love all things small business. It got me into real estate very quickly. And so my happy place is kind of the overlap of where those two meet.

So I would run my business and then everything extra went into real estate. And I started about, this was 2014 was my first rental. Started buying single family rentals each year, trying to get something, another rental, and then eventually migrated into some triple net commercial leases, which I'm still an active investor in.

I still do that as well as a personal investor, but yeah, I love all things real estate and small business. Talk a little bit for people that work W-2 jobs, the goal is to become an entrepreneur, start their own business. You've also got people who are maybe talking about buying or acquiring a business.

I know just listening to your backstory and hearing you on other past episodes that just because you have a small business and it's well-established doesn't mean it's a push the easy button and everything's simple and you just get to sit there and be Mr. Passive and let everything run itself. So real quick, just would love to kind of hear some of those experiences, being an entrepreneur and just the real life decision-making, problem solving, things like that, that you have to handle, that it's not all just passive and simple as sometimes people make it out to be. Yeah.

It's funny. A lot of people throw that passive word around, especially with business and in real estate, but on the business side, I don't believe that there is a world where you can be a very successful passive owner. I think that for some of the really successful people you may see online, maybe they have really large teams that they've set up, but if we're speaking specifically to you and you're in a W-2 and you're thinking, okay, I want to maybe get into business for myself, which I highly encourage, but you have to know if it's right thing for you.

You mentioned struggles and a lot of the struggles obviously is staffing, sales, advertising, you name it to where as before, if you're coming from a W-2 role to where your job is X and you perform on that and then you go home, I'm not to say that's easy either, but small business never stops. And so you have to really be ready to dive in, take the leap and invest in yourself because at the end of the day, if you have a no fail mentality, you can do it, but you just need to know that unlike a W-2, everyone else's success and their family depends on you. If you have employees, you are their, I don't want to say we're caretaker, you're the one that allows them to take care of their family and support their dreams.

So there's a lot more that goes into it than just, I want to buy this business. That being said, I highly encourage it. I think there's no better way to make a living and a very good living.

And I think a lot of people that get into real estate also have had some successes in the small business world to where they can use funds from that to then transition and start building their little real estate empire. So talk a little bit about getting into real estate. So you had mentioned wanting to take funds and buying single family properties.

Why did you want to make that transition into real estate or why did you want to get your feet wet into real estate to begin with? What was it going to accomplish for you? And then did you see at that time a path of like, oh yeah, I think I might do this more down the road or did it just evolve over time? I was in my early 20s when I first started to get involved with it. And I'd seen my dad. So I grew up and had the privilege of seeing his lifestyle.

And I think a lot of it came from having real estate. And so he specifically was in commercial triple net properties, usually single tenant operations. But I just saw that he didn't have to go to work that often.

And I wanted that too. And I knew as you read these books, read Rich Dad, Poor Dad, and you figure out like everyone who wants to start, I advise if you haven't read that book, go read it. And it just got started.

And one day I just, there wasn't honestly much thought to it. I always share this with people because sometimes it feels out of touch, but if you want to get involved and you want to do it yourself, like to learn the ropes, single family is a very good way to start. It's not going to cashflow much.

Don't quit your day job, but it will help you understand how the business works and you don't have to over complicate things. I'm not kidding to where the first couple of properties, it was no more underwriting than on a napkin maybe. What's my mortgage? What will rent be in this neighborhood? Don't overthink it and just get started because when you get stuck, then you're stuck on the sidelines.

And for every couple of years that go by, the window closes for you getting involved. And also you lost another couple of years of that tenant paying off your property. So do not over complicate stuff when you want to first get involved.

Start with your local market, something you can drive by and touch. And I think that'll help you get involved. It's interesting because I hear everybody talks about, oh, if I just owned this five years ago or 10 years ago.

And it's like, we always say that the two best times to plant a tree, 20 years ago and today. And so if you're not started yet, find a way to get started. And then to your point, talking about starting with your local market and starting with what you know, because I think sometimes too, yeah, we try to overthink it and we try to be so sophisticated right out of the gate.

But the reality is, is yeah, just find a way to get started and figure out what that looks like. For me, it was a property that I literally drove by on my way between work and home was my first flip property. Cause I figured, oh, I can just, you know, load up the tools in the back of the car, you know, stop by and do some work on the property and kept it simple.

And now that's changed. And that was, you know, 15 years ago, but you're, you're getting your feet wet and you're starting to flex that muscle. So when you bought your first property or two, you had mentioned really just kind of back of a napkin.

(8:38 - 11:38)
Did you have an idea of, would it even positively cashflow? Were you thinking at all about buying it from more of an appreciation perspective or even like a tax benefit? Was there a reason why other than you knew your dad did it, or kind of what were you hoping to gain from just getting started very nonchalantly and not sophisticated? Yeah. I'd say, so this is rewind to 2014. I had no idea about tax benefits.

I wish I would have. And it was, it was cashflow. I wasn't looking at it from an appreciation standpoint either.

And I, and I still do that today. I don't think that anybody should bank on appreciation. You don't know what, you know, will happen.

So focus on cashflow from day one. I'd listened to a lot of bigger pockets podcasts way back in the day. And I remember the message over and over.

It was like, if you can, you know, cashflow, 200 bucks, 300 bucks, go do it. And then go do it again. And so I never expected much because it wasn't, you know, it wasn't my, it was what I was trying to build up, but my income came from work and from my business.

And so that's why I say like, there's a good opportunity to overlap, whether you have your own business or you have a W-2 job, you know, keep that and keep stacking up these properties if you want to take the active route. And then you can eventually build something, you know, and again, you're not going to see this. You won't see the results of it for 10 years.

And then when 10 years gets there and then you think, man, I've got these properties that the tenant has either paid off or is close to it, or they're working, you know, I'm not putting into it anymore. Well, that's the goal at least. And, and so then you can really like step back and say, wow, I've built, this is the wealth component of what I, you know, I have the cash and the income from my main thing, but now here's where my, here's my wealth.

This is my, see you later. I'm going to step away someday ticket from what I've built up slowly over time. So when you were finding those properties, were these things that were on market, off market? How did you kind of decide what, what was a good deal at the time? MLS, just, it was on market.

I didn't have, I think I signed up with a realtor saying, I'm looking for this particular price point. I knew the areas already at the time. So again, I mentioned in the beginning, I live in Austin, Austin's market really skyrocketed from COVID.

But when I started, you know, with these properties, it was, it was a lot different back in the day. So the rules that may have applied back then, certainly you may not be able to attain those sorts of deals now, but again, you got to get started and don't overcomplicate it. There's all these, I see things online, like, you know, how you can wholesale houses, whether you want it, you can flip houses, you can be, you know, long-term rent, you can do short-term.

There's so many options to make money in the industry and to get involved. You just have to pick what fits your lifestyle. Like Mike, you mentioned flipping, right? Like flipping probably has the, if done right, the highest profit margin, you can, you can take away the most from that, but I don't know, do you still flip? Nope.

(11:38 - 11:58)
Probably got, got tired, right? Like it's, it's, it's a lot, there's a lot of stress that comes along with it. So yeah, to answer your question, MLS was my, you know, my ticket in. Well, and where I'm kind of going with that too, is how did you get your start? It was not super sophisticated with something on market that didn't really cashflow much.

(11:58 - 12:54)
And you didn't really have a big plan or future of what you want to be. Because I think a lot of times people feel like they've got to map out this 10 year plan and, you know, I'm going to do this and it's going to grow. And no, I think it's just get started, right? It doesn't have to be, I just know that I need to do this or want to do this and we'll figure out what the next step is, but I've just got to figure out a way to get started.

And that's kind of your story, right? It's not like you spent a lot of time going super in depth. It's, I just know I need to get a property and I find it on the MLS. And I'm still a big advocate here in Minnesota.

Like there's good deals to be had on the MLS because, you know, I feel like you've got people that have said, I want to sell, you have motivated sellers and there's less digging you have to do with off-market properties. You know, we've been through off-market properties and they're like, oh, we don't want the tenants to know we're trying to sell. And so if you look at it, you have to pretend you're doing an insurance inspection or things like that.

(12:55 - 13:20)
Yeah. And then you like find red flags and the owner doesn't really have the information. And so it's different too.

So I want people to know, like you don't have to go at it with this super intense plan. It's just go get started, figure out a way to get started or partner up with somebody else if you can't do it yourself, but it doesn't have to be sophisticated. And then obviously over time, what you've done has grown more sophisticated, but it didn't start that way.

(13:21 - 13:38)
No, not at all. And especially now's a good time. There's a lot of inventory out there.

And if a buyer, it's a good opportunity. If you want to, we're talking about single family specifically, go for it. People stand behind the excuse of high interest rates, but it won't last forever.

(13:39 - 14:03)
Act like it will. When you're doing your math and you pretend that it's going to stay this way so that you don't overthink or overestimate what you might earn from that property. But yeah, get started.

Nothing's holding you back. And it's easier than you think to get involved. And I know somebody listening to this too is going to be like, well, he's in Austin.

(14:03 - 14:41)
Austin is unique. It's a different market. My market's not like that.

So eliminate that thinking right away. You can find ways that are going to work in any market. Just because somebody happened to be in Austin, yes, they may have had some success, but you can find success in any market or a nearby market, right? Being in Austin now and you're right, there was an advantage for how it grew, but I don't like Austin as an investor right now.

It's so hard to cashflow a lot of cashflow negative properties. So I actually don't look, I don't seek out single family homes anymore, but I also don't actively look in Austin like I used to. Because you've learned, right? You've learned and got more sophisticated as you went.

(14:42 - 15:00)
Are you looking to get started or scale in real estate investing, but don't know your next step? Are you overwhelmed thinking about finding deals, analyzing deals, doing due diligence and managing properties on top of it? Go ahead and push the easy button and invest with us. Real estate investing is what we do full time. We've done dozens of deals with hundreds of doors.

(15:01 - 15:19)
We have the knowledge and experience to handpick the best deals that most investors can't find. We've got large off-market deals all the time where you can hopefully find returns and economies of scale that you just can't find on your own. The best thing is it's a hundred percent passive to you for less capital than you put down trying to acquire a property on your own.

(15:19 - 18:18)
Don't let this year go by where you don't make the leap, add to your portfolio, or you just sit in analysis by paralysis. To find out more, visit freedomthroughrealestate.com and click on invest. You can book a call and learn more there.

So get to scaling your portfolio now with us by your side. So let's kind of talk about that next phase. So talk about your transition from having your dry cleaning business, your decision to decide to sell and maybe get into real estate more focused.

How did that play out for you? So if you're in business, you can relate that it's emotionally taxing. And I wasn't an expert on like delegating time and working on the business. I was working in the business very much an employee of the business is what my day-to-day looked like.

And so what led me to get from just running the business and just trying to buy property here and there to where I'm at today is I figured out, number one, I think I'm ready to hang on my hat with that particular business. And it just so happened I got an email one day, a cold outreach that we want to buy your business. And so that kind of prompted the whole, okay, I'm going to have conversations with that guy.

Then I'm going to go get a broker and I try to figure out what's my business worth. I never sold a business before. And I also got, the business was offered on pretty quickly.

And then I thought, I don't want to jump to this because what if I'm selling myself short? It could be a good deal. And then if so, yeah, take it. But you could also be leaving money on the table.

And that's what you've worked for. That's why a lot of people are in business. And so long story short, after many conversations, I was able to work a deal with the original guy that had reached out, amazing buyer.

I couldn't have asked for a better transition. All of our key staff, it's now been two years and literally every key player is still there with him. So that's a testament of how it was passed along.

And afterwards, when I sold the business, that was my first step from thinking, okay, I need to figure out what am I going to do now? I wanted to go buy another business, honestly. I was ready to go. And then I had to take a step back and be like, look, I couldn't focus on my family.

I had the time yet. I was able to say, I'm going to go be with my kids all the time, but I didn't because work. My company pulled me in.

I was very much engulfed in the day to day. So real estate was kind of the answer. And I figured out like, okay, I sold the business and I needed to figure out where am I going to place this money and what should I do next? And real estate was that answer, but not the way I was doing it before.

The approach that I took this time was on the passive route. And for those of you listening that aren't quite sure about that, it's when somebody else runs the day to day, then you're just putting in your money and you're trusting. And it is very much a trust play.

(18:18 - 20:51)
You are trusting somebody to run a property efficiently and act in your best interest. And as a result, you don't get to make the day to day decisions, but you get to benefit from tax benefits, the depreciation, cashflow, and whatever is to come from the upside later on that property. So that's how it all got started.

There was someone in the industry that I had trusted and just followed for a while. They had an online presence and that was my very first investment as a passive investor. And then I kind of fell in love with it.

I was looking at it like, do I want to keep acquiring property myself each year and running it? Or do I want to focus my efforts here? And so since then it's been on more of larger projects, larger teams, because I know that there are many things that I was not good at or not the best at if I was doing it actively in myself. Number one, it's hard to acquire and build up your portfolio. It's difficult with money to get one asset at a time.

So this allows you to partner up. That was another thing that changed in my strategy, Mike, was I wasn't a partner guy before. And then afterwards I was like, I need some wisdom here because there's no way this is going to take me forever on my own.

But I think because I was young and even in business, I didn't have partners. And looking back and what I wish could have happened differently, I think I would have partnered with somebody had I continued in that business, partnered with someone that could be that extra person with me to make these decisions. And I'll certainly do that the next go around.

I think there's so much value in having partnerships. So that's what I look for now, just great people to invest with. And then eventually, we can talk about that later, but I transitioned into the business side of that because I liked it so much.

And I realized there's a huge gap between business owners that don't know what to do with all this excess cash that they may have from a successful business. And so that was the transition for me getting involved in my business and what I do today. It's interesting you mentioned about getting out of your own way because you talked about flipping earlier.

That's why I stopped with flipping is we had done a flip just a little bit post COVID. And I did construction in college, so I have enough skills to be dangerous. And at the same time, I was still working as an agent.

And so I remember post COVID, there was issues with supply chain and workers and that kind of stuff. So it was, hey, we're doing this flip, we need somebody to do this. And it's like, well, I can do it because I know how to do it.

(20:51 - 21:42)
And I think I can do it quicker myself. And what it ended up doing is just sucking me out of my real estate agent job into working on a flip. And as surprises came up and things came up, our potential proceeds kept going down and down.

And the end of the day, the kicker for us was the week we were going live, the furnace went out. And so we had to buy a new furnace. And that basically sucked up all the last remaining profit in the project.

And I had spent months away from my family. The property was just a few minutes away. So when I'd work on a Sunday, they'd pop by for lunch and say hi to me.

And then I look up and it's like, I'm doing this for my family. And instead, I sacrificed my family and I had nothing to show for it. And so that's how I got into multifamily is I said, I've got to do something where I can't get sucked into it because I love doing the work.

(21:43 - 22:28)
I feel like I could do it, but I've got to get out of my own way. And so now going to a multifamily apartment in a city further away from where I live, I literally can't go put on my tool belt and start working on renovating the property. And so it was that piece of, I had to put myself in a place to get out of my own way.

I'm so happy that you saw that. And you also mentioned the family component of it, because there are two ways to look at this. A lot of people say, well, sometimes she'll point this out.

She'll say, hey, you've said before that you do it for the family, but you do it for you also. And she's right. There's a pride component to being able to build and play the game, whether you're an entrepreneur or in real estate.

(22:29 - 23:46)
And it's always knowing that you are continuing to advance. But yeah, byproduct of what style investing or what work you choose is time and sacrifice with your family. So to your point, that was the aha moment when I was getting out of the business.

I didn't know how absent I was. Even though I was physically there, I wasn't mentally there with my family. And that's been the biggest change in my life since.

And to your point, if you invest in properties that aren't in your city, you're not running by there. And you're running it more like a business and less like a project, because you can't go fix a leaky toilet in Chattanooga, Tennessee when you don't live there. So that's the benefit of it.

So I'm glad you brought that up. So talk about on the limited partner side. So you had mentioned you found people that you knew and trusted in terms of placing your funds with them.

For those people that might be interested in being a limited partner, maybe talk through that process of vetting out or even learning about what opportunities are out there. You've spent more time on the mobile home park side and debt funds and things like that. But talk about choosing what asset class and what opportunities you might pursue in educating yourself and networking to make that happen.

(23:46 - 24:20)
Yeah. So if you want to get started as an LP, basically those are limited partners. You're the passive person putting in money to a deal.

And the best way to get started, number one, is get yourself comfortable with what you're investing into and identify with... You may not know what asset class you want to get involved with, because there is a lot. There's land, self-storage, multifamily apartments, mobile home parks, whatever it may be, figure out where your risk tolerance is. For example, land development generally has higher risk, higher reward.

(24:20 - 25:13)
You may make more at the end of that, but you're not going to have any cashflow for a while until that development sells. It may not sell as it should. Or on the flip side, you can have something that's very low risk that's going to cashflow day one.

That's more of what you consider stable. So A, find out what aligns with your risk tolerance. And then to your point, you have to really dive in.

It was the most difficult thing for me was I mentioned trust earlier. I was used to doing everything myself. And you can't trust anybody more than you can trust yourself.

And so you have to be able to figure out, am I that person? Am I a good fit for that style of investment? Because if you're knocking down someone's door, asking them how they're running it and constantly, it's not good enough. It's not the way I would do it. You're probably not a good passive investor.

(25:13 - 26:46)
Stick to yourself and be good at it. There's no problem with that. You need to ask the right questions though.

And that's the hardest thing. And still for people today, especially with new partnerships, that can be the most challenging thing is figuring out who you're going to work with. Because you've seen it in multifamily.

There are so many deals. There's so many properties out there and you'll look at it and you'll get this investment deck that shows all the returns and the pro formas. And a lot of it all starts to blend together.

And you really have to look at who is that individual that's running it? Are they going to step up to bat when something goes wrong? Do I trust this? Do I like them? I think you should like the people that you invest with too. Just because if you ever have a meeting with someone and they intimidate you, or you think, man, that's a high caliber guy. He must know what he's doing.

Maybe you should align yourself with somebody who you think, no, I'm actually, I can partner with that person, even though you're not doing the day to day. Because you want to be able to pick up the phone and know that something goes wrong. Because in real estate, something will go wrong eventually, especially as people have high aspirations.

And you have to know, is that person going to be there to pick up the phone and take an earful from whoever's calling them? I read a lot. I looked at, try to look at track records of people, try to ask them about their failures. Make sure they tell you failures.

(26:47 - 26:58)
I failed as an LP. I lost money before I got into the business. I met with somebody in person and I thought, okay, this is going to be great.

(26:59 - 27:51)
And just, you can never judge someone's character. And I lost, it's not official, but I will lose my entire investment. And these are like the painful lessons that as you're investing, that I never factor in that risk.

You look at all these underwriting models and then you think, okay, how is this going to work? And is this safe? But at the end of the day, real estate is a people business as well. And so long story short, make sure you're very comfortable with that person and that you feel like this is a good steward of my money. And don't invest until you're fully comfortable.

Don't get pressured into investing with someone that you're like, I don't know about that guy, but it seems like a cool opportunity. That is your gut telling you to not do it and you shouldn't. So talk a little bit about Run Steady Investments and what you're doing today.

(27:51 - 28:11)
Yeah. So as I transitioned, I learned a lot as a passive investor. I found out that this is a business that I want to build beyond just investing in stuff.

I want to help others because I wish somebody would have come to me 10 years ago and saying, you can do it a different way. You don't have to try to buy a property a year and add it to your plate. Your plate's already full.

(28:12 - 29:59)
And so when I started Run Steady, I tried to build a business for me and for what I wanted as an investor. So I talked about risk tolerance earlier. I'm a low risk guy.

I was fortunate to be able to sell my company and I didn't want to go gamble it away with something that I felt was high risk. So right now I essentially build a network of exclusive real estate deals where people can co-invest with me. I put all my own money into every deal and we find and I'll say leverage or use the experience of the day-to-day operators that are actually running the property management, dealing with tenants to where we are not doing it, they are.

And so I will pre-vet these individuals. We talk about partnerships and trust. I'll invest my own money with them first, make sure they're communicating properly.

And then if it comes to a point to where this is a good deal that I want to bring others in on, then the business component of that is I'll go out to the property, walk the property, poke holes in their underwriting, making sure are they being aggressive? Did they miss something? When you see somebody that's going to jump revenue by 20%, but drop expenses by 30%, maybe not. They might not be able to do that. And so my job is basically an extra layer of security.

But when I said I built it for me, it's like before anybody else can get involved, I have to be the one to do it and I have to be ready and comfortable making that investment because I'm the first investor in all those deals. So I think that there's an association of like, okay, if I'm willing to put up money and tell my wife and make this a good move for my family, I'm not going to bring it to anybody else until I genuinely believe that that's all set up. And I background check the people.