Todd Nepola of Current Capital Management joins Slocomb Reed on the Best Ever Show. In this episode, Todd discusses buying and managing warehouse, retail, and industrial real estate. He also discusses retail property management, why you should treat every property like you’ll own it forever, and why Amazon isn’t killing retail.
Todd Nepola | Real Estate Background
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- President of Current Capital Management Inc
- Based in: Hollywood, Florida
- Say hi to him at:
- Best Ever Book: Keeping it Real on Commercial Real Estate by Todd Nepola
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Transcript
Slocomb Reed (00:42.896)
Best ever listeners. Welcome to the best real estate investing advice ever show. I'm Slocum Reed. And today we are joined by Todd and the polo. Todd is joining us from Hollywood, Florida, just a few miles north of Miami. His company is current capital management. They are an owner operator of over 3 million square feet of retail and industrial commercial real estate throughout Florida. They also do third party management. Todd, can you tell us a little bit more about your background and what you're currently focused on?
Todd (01:17.934)
Yeah, thanks for having me on the show first off, Slok. Appreciate that. So, we've been in real estate management and buying properties since June of 1998. I bought my first property as an investor and from there I fell in love with real estate and started buying year after year and in 1998 I started TN Property Management to manage my own portfolio and then started taking on assignments third party as well and then in 2002 we changed the name from TN Prop to Current Capital and from that point forward we've been basically just buying retail centers industrial properties for the last 25 years. We own them, we operate them.
We generally like to buy properties that are a little older, say from the 80s and 90s, and reposition them, renovate them, re-tenant them. And then we refinance them and keep them. We don't sell anything. I still own that first property to this day.
Slocomb Reed (02:04.184)
And that's all in Florida.
Todd (02:06.503)
Only in the state of Florida, never left Florida.
Slocomb Reed (02:09.62)
Gotcha.
Cool. What started in 98. So you've seen a few market cycles now as the entire, has it always from the beginning been retail and industrial?
Todd (02:25.526)
Yes, so my first property, like I said, was kind of a fluke. I didn't know what I was looking for, and I found a warehouse, and that's how I got into industrial. And back then in the 1990s, this was 98, you know, nobody really wanted to buy a warehouse. That was like the ugly stepchild of real estate investing. So I was able to buy a lot of warehouse, but coincidentally now in the last three and a half years, we've been able to buy around seven, 800,000 square feet of retail properties, and one building with 10,000 feet of industrial.
So we've pivoted more to retail because Amazon made retail was gonna be dead and nobody wanted retail. So we were able to acquire a lot of that and very little warehouse. So we're pretty balanced, probably around 70% of our portfolio is retail now.
Slocomb Reed (03:07.52)
Todd, let me put a different spin on what I just heard you say. And then I want to hear your response. You've pivoted into retail because nobody wants retail. Demand is low. So why are you pivoting into an asset class that Amazon is killing right now?
Todd (03:25.942)
Well, now the story is starting to change. So let's see how much retail I could buy going forward. But that theory that Amazon was gonna wipe out retail, I didn't necessarily believe it. We are very social creatures as humans, so we do like to go out and buy things. The kind of shopping centers we own, it has your chiropractor, it has your dentist, it has your pediatrist, it has your dollar general, it has your smaller grocery stores. You can't take that stuff away and bring it all online.
We have a lot of restaurants and let's face it, people like to go out and eat and drink so you can't do everything online. So we have certainly noticed the shift from big box spaces, you know, 40, 50,000 square feet, which we don't really specialize in, pivoting down to smaller. But you know, I in my lifetime don't think you're going to see the dentist becoming an online business. So we feel pretty secure in that line of assets.
Slocomb Reed (04:15.548)
Is there, are there certain segments within retail that you're focused on right now? Uh, you didn't mention big box. Of course. Uh, you did mention a dental office. Does it small strip centers? What are you guys buying?
Todd (04:28.674)
Primarily smaller strip centers, our typical property is between 50 and 100,000 square feet. We have some larger, we have some smaller, of course. But we're looking for either the grocery or the dollar store kind of anchor center. We're not the big box guy. I've never really liked that stuff. So we don't have Hobby Lobby and Beals and Burlington Coat Factories. Those spaces are too big for us. So our typical space is an anchor of 10, 15, 20,000 feet and then lots of 5,000 footers and 2,000s and thousands and lots of your smaller tenants.
Slocomb Reed (05:01.352)
Yeah, no one wants Amazon to groom their dog. So, so I get where you're coming from there, Todd.
Given your experience and your longevity in real estate investing, especially being that you've been effectively in the same asset classes for multiple market cycles now, a couple of questions here. First, it sounds like you made the decision from the onset to get into third party management.
And is that a third party management specific to retail industrial?
Todd (05:49.048)
Yes.
Slocomb Reed (05:50.18)
Why is it that you decided to get into third party management?
Todd (05:56.278)
What kind of happened on accident, I was full-time managing my own portfolio properties and I had one person helping me and then people would come to me and say, how come your space is full and mine's not? And I'd say, well, because I'm out here every single day doing what I have to do to get my spaces filled, meeting with my tenants and it was a full-time job for me versus an investor who just owned the property and you know, maybe they were a dentist and they had a business to run.
So they asked me to work for them, manage the properties and truthfully I knew very little bit about property management for others. I just handled their properties as if they were my own and it was relationship based and that's been our motto ever since that we manage your properties as if they're our own and I'm with all my clients I share all my books and records if they want to see my spend on theirs like I spend on mine and we built up a really great network of in clients for that as well which has helped us tremendously so instead of having ten hair salons we may have 50 hair salons, so if one goes out of business and one leaves, we have that marketing power of synergies to go to all of them and ask for referrals or see if anybody wants to expand. So it's multiplied our tenant base exponentially.
Slocomb Reed (07:10.228)
How much of the portfolio you have under management do you also own right now, Todd?
Todd (07:16.022)
Right now we own about 50% of it, maybe a little more than 50 is my personal properties. Another 50% is third party management.
Slocomb Reed (07:23.284)
Gotcha. Yeah. So I do. I'm doing something similar. I, uh, certainly was not, uh, I didn't buy my first property in 1998 when I turned 12, but, uh, I, I have made the decision. I'm an apartment investor primarily in Cincinnati, Ohio. Also, you know, residential single family duplexes, things like that, but primarily, uh, residential multifamily and commercial multifamily here.
And I do third party management for a couple of reasons. One of them is, like you said, I was not only working in it full time, but also developing the expertise that a lot of other, um, people like dentists lacked in the operation of their, of their apartment complexes. Uh, the other thing that it has done for me right now, about one third of my full whole management portfolio is my own properties.
It's increasing my revenue as a manager and increasing the size of the portfolio has allowed me to scale or bring in house a lot more talent that I would otherwise have to go to third party, especially with contractors. It's a very different conversation that I'm having with contractors now and the speed and quality of the work that I can get done is much higher and much faster now.
Because when it comes to, you know, people who can turn apartments, the conversation is not how much will you charge me for this apartment and how soon can you do it? It is, uh, I'm looking to pay hourly, but I'm looking to guarantee full time hours for as long as we have a good working relationship. Um, you're going to have to go where I tell you when I tell you and do what I tell you to do, but you're never going to need another client again, because I'm going to keep, I'm going to keep you and your family fed based on me, what I'm willing to pay you hourly.
You're going to, you're going to be able to be comfortable just working for me. So I made the, made a similar decision, uh, Todd, and it's, um, it hasn't gotten to the scale where it's a serious. Boon to my personal income or profits doing it third party, but, uh, having a, an HVAC technician on.
Slocomb Reed (09:41.316)
Staff as an employee having effectively, depending on the moment, a handful of 10 99s who are all reporting to me full time, as opposed to having to go out to contractors to get bids to get apartments turned has been a huge, a huge game changer.
Uh, I I'm about to transition the conversation, Todd, and I don't know if this is going to get left in the podcast. Um, is that a Hartzell propeller back in the back corner of your office?
Todd (10:13.938)
It's actually a propeller from a plane. I'm not sure of the brand, but that was my father's propeller from his first plane.
Slocomb Reed (10:20.336)
Oh, nice. It looks like a Hartzell propeller. Hartzell, um, built those in Pickwell, Ohio. I lived there for a couple of years growing up and my, my grandfather was, uh, was big in aviation back then. So I just, I just had to ask when I saw it there. Nice. That's awesome.
Todd (10:34.726)
I was like, that's first plane. I think it was his first and last. It was long before my brother and I were born. Once he had kids, he used to stop flying.
Slocomb Reed (10:43.316)
Gotcha.
Todd, I know this isn't going to be relevant to the vast majority of our listeners, but painting in broad strokes here, what advice do you have for me as an owner operator who is also engaged in third party management for other investors?
Todd (11:11.018)
Advice in what aspect? In management or owning properties?
Slocomb Reed (11:15.032)
And in, thank you for asking for the clarification. My question didn't make much sense. Uh, being that I started as an owner operator and I was treating everything like I owned it because I did, um, taking on third party management clients. In the asset class in the market where I already have significant expertise.
What advice do you have for me with regards to, not necessarily the way I manage those properties, but the way that I handle my relationships, my working relationships with landlords for whom I manage third party.
Todd (11:57.774)
The best advice I could give you is don't be afraid to give them the bad news. In any business, people are too afraid to tell their client, their boss, anyone the bad news, but there's nothing your investors who own these properties haven't thought about happening. So if you know about a problem that's getting worse and you fail to tell them because you're trying to resolve it on your own and it's getting worse and worse, it's the worst thing you could do. They could accept it, they understand it, they know the risk that they got involved in. So I always think the best thing to do is pick up the phone and give them the bad news right away and just get it over with.
Slocomb Reed (12:29.488)
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I have caught myself making that mistake in the past and I'm much more proactive now. It's only been a couple of years that I've done third party management, but I'm much more proactive now. I'm also much more...
Selective, I'm much pickier about who I will take on as a client. You started with people that you already knew and already had a relationship with. I did the same thing.
I'd like to transition the conversation here, Todd. Uh, it is we're recording towards the end of the, of Q1 2024. And we're in a very different place in the market cycle than we were 18 or 24 months ago, the vast majority of, uh, commercial real estate investors, much less the ones who do podcasts started investing in real estate after the great recession, myself included. So this is quite possibly the first recession that I'm experiencing and the vast majority of our listeners are experiencing as real estate investors.
I want to ask for general advice about how to handle the market of the moment, Todd. But first, are there any other times in your investing career since 98 that this feels a lot like? Are you sensing that this is very similar to any time in the past when you were active in uh, in retail and industrial real estate.
Todd (14:16.762)
It's a great question. You know, I have been in this now for, like I said, nearly 30 years already. So I kind of came on the tail end of the savings and loans crisis from the 80s and the late 80s. And when the government was selling properties in the early 90s is how I took part. And I bought a bank foreclosure in 1998. It was still that kind of market. So I've been through everything from wars and viruses and recessions. And you know, what you come to learn is that as long as you're not over leveraged and as long as you're working really tightly with your clients, your tenants, you'll make it through.
Even if you are having problems, the best thing to do is to go to the bank right away and have those conversations upfront. And banks don't want your real estate and they don't want a bad loan, so they'll work with you. But again, like I said earlier about your clients, don't avoid the hard conversations. With that said, if your apartment's paying $2,000 a month in rent, you better get ready to accept $1,700, $1,800, or $1,600 as long as you keep it full.
So you gotta get creative on a lot of rents if that's what you gotta do, because you don't want the vacancies. But ultimately I don't foresee some huge crash coming. I just think we're gonna bounce around for a little while. I don't think this is a tsunami effect like we had in 08, 09 when all the banks were failing. And I mean, there was a lot of fraud in the marketplace then which doesn't exist now. So I think we'll be okay. I think it's gonna be more of a slowdown. But where I agree with you is, a lot of people got into this real estate market post 2010 and they've never seen a bad day, and they're about to see some bad days, and some people won't survive, that's the truth.
Slocomb Reed (15:56.532)
There's a grit or a tenacity to your answer there that I consider myself a long-term hold investor. Buy and never sell. I have sold some properties, Todd, but the majority of them I don't have any interest in selling anytime soon. And I tend to take more of what Simon Sinek would call an infinite game approach to the operation of my portfolio.
I see a lot of people, especially who are focused on a value add business plan, who only intend to own the real estate that they buy for about five years, make their profit, get out and move on. I see a lack of that same tenacity that you're referencing where you just do what it takes to, um, to, to take care of the properties and, and continue through difficult times.
Todd (16:51.521)
It's true I've never been a fan of the value-add flip. That's kind of like passing it down when I buy properties I'm looking at them as my timelines forever I also do sell properties from time to time very rarely but when I buy them, I'm thinking I'll hold this and give it to my kids.
Slocomb Reed (17:10.032)
And treating it like your kids are going to inherit it is also very important as well. That's also what helps it sell for top dollar if that's the decision that you make, is the decisions that you made along the way, treating it like it was going to be in your portfolio for forever. Makes sense that you say you don't see a major crash coming.
Are there any particular lessons that you have learned along the way that you feel are particularly prescient right now?
Todd (17:51.554)
Great question, yeah. There's actually one that I've been preaching a lot lately to people, because a lot of newer investors who've just gotten into real estate call me and they reach out to me, and they're very concerned, specifically because they're on social media and they're seeing guys tell them that it's gonna be a wipeout, you know, skull and crossbones, the market's gonna crash, this will be the biggest transfer of real estate, everyone's gonna go broke, and they're getting scared. And the truth is, nobody knows what's really gonna happen. I don't know, they don't know, Jerome Powell doesn't really know.
But what we do know is anyone out there preaching this, who is also in the real estate business, because some of these guys like, you know, I own apartments, but the world's coming to an end, then why are they not selling those apartments? So these people are trying to create fear to sell you a product to save you. And the truth is, none of that stuff usually comes true. Even in the worst markets, I mean, you can go back to the fear of COVID. Even I thought when COVID hit, we're in big trouble, but Florida reopened quickly, the government came in with trillions of dollars and...
The market took off across the whole United States. Certainly South Florida did better than a lot of places, but you can't even dream about buying anything here, anything for remotely the price you could have bought in January of 2020. So who would have thought COVID would have done that and interest rates going to 3%. When the market crashed in 2008, Bear Stearns went under and Lehman Brothers went under and everybody thought it was the end of the world then, banks will never lend. That happened in like April of 2009.
I would say by 2010, we were rolling again down here in South Florida. Las Vegas was another example. I mean, that place took off after that too. So the fear people anticipate usually is not as bad as they think, and the storm usually isn't gonna last as long. You do have to brace yourself and hold on, but don't get caught up in all that fear and all the stuff you see on social media. Just play your game and focus on your stuff. If you have good tenants you're not over leveraged, you'll be fine.
Slocomb Reed (20:03.1)
What, what trends have you been seeing specific to industrial real estate in, in the markets where you are in Florida?
Todd (20:13.966)
The trend I'm seeing is bad for my game. I'm really seeing a lot of people buy properties that make no absolute sense whatsoever financially speaking and they're buying them with the plan of rents will keep going up, interest rates will eventually come down and these will be great. So I've seen a ridiculous amount of class B and C warehouse, not talking about the great stuff, selling at two, three, four caps with that mindset. I can't buy properties like that. I'm not going to buy properties like that. So I'm getting kind of wiped out of the game a little bit there.
But you're seeing people that are so aggressive to buy right now, they're buying deals, they're paying more than the debt service. So it just makes no sense. But they're getting very aggressive.
Slocomb Reed (20:55.962)
Why do you think that is?
Todd (20:58.55)
You know, I think a lot of people resent or regret that they didn't buy more real estate before this big run up. And you know, in my 30 years nearly of investing, what happened in about a 24 month span of a price has skyrocketed. People seem to think that's going to continue forward and this is a slowdown that it'll take off like that. And it won't unless there's some dramatic effect like the government pumping another few trillion dollars into the economy and rates going back to 3%, which neither one's probably going to happen.
But I think people say, you know,Bob bought that property for two million, it's worth six, I should have bought more, so I don't really care because I know that property that's two million now will be worth four million in a couple of years, even if I'm an idiot, and they're wrong. There's no reason to make it go up that high. Everything worked perfectly for two years, so they're chasing after that dream of what was. And the good news to that is I think a lot of those people will get frustrated and dump those properties in about four, five, six years when they're not making any money, so there'll be big opportunity for real investors, but you have a lot of people that were not in the real estate arena getting in now and they just overpay.
Todd (22:01.366)
I mean look, the same thing could be said. We saw what happened with cars, cars that never should have had premiums, had ridiculous premiums, because everybody had to have one. You saw watches skyrocket, people paying triple the price for a Rolex, they had to have it. All those premiums are gone. Real estate's lagging behind it, but it's gonna have its day too there. Pfft.
Slocomb Reed (22:32.984)
Are you seeing a lot of, um, are you seeing a lot of owner operators? Owner occupant is not the term you all use in industrial, but are you seeing a lot of people who are buying the business, the buildings to put their businesses in as opposed to, um, purely just investor buyers and operators, business operators, looking to rent.
Todd (23:00.622)
I'm seeing a lot of operators and owners that would like to buy properties to put their business in, but they can't make financial sense of it. Those people are more business savvy and they're just not buying. And there's so many of them right now, they just would love to buy, they can't. And I'm talking more of the mom and pop class, I'm not talking about Amazon, of course, they could build anything they want, but I'm saying your typical plumbing supply company or printing company, they can't buy property, just makes no sense. So they'd like to, but they're not able to get it.
Slocomb Reed (23:32.24)
Is that because of the still compressing cap rates that you're seeing that they can't afford it?
Todd (23:38.454)
It's probably a few things. I mean, yeah, the cap rate is problem number one. The availability is two. The interest rates going, you know, look, I have properties that I bought in 2020 and 21 that my interest rates is still in the 3% range. And on top of that, the prices have gotten so high here. I mean, warehouses that was selling, say, for 75 or $100 a foot in 2020, you can't buy them for less than $300 a foot right now. So it makes no sense. So the only real buyers of this product are people who think they're going to have that value in three, four years. They could sit by and wait.
Slocomb Reed (24:28.128)
Todd, one last point of conversation before we transition towards the end of the episode. I'm in Cincinnati, Ohio, fairly solidly Midwestern market in a lot of ways. There is growth here, but we have very Midwestern trends as a real estate market and Florida is very different.
Florida has been much more of a high growth market for a while. Now there are several markets within Florida. The state of Florida has been much more high growth than the Midwest. And one of the things, one of the themes that I've seen, the trends that I've seen among Florida investors and people who are excited about investing in Florida markets is that the, the growth that is happening there means that you don't, you don't necessarily buy for the day one or year one financials.
You're buying for what that neighborhood, that metro area, that exit off the interstate is going to look like five to 10 years from now. That's very different from the mindset that we have in the Midwest for several reasons. We're not seeing the growth that a Tampa or a Miami is seeing certainly in most of the Midwest.
Um, but we're, when you buy in the Midwest, day one cash flow is still available and we still have cap rates for things like apartments and industrial and retail that allow for a day one cashflow cap rates that are higher than interest rates even right now are still available in some places, uh, in some metro areas here. So we, um,
There's as a podcast interviewer, I'm supposed to have a question at the end of this, I don't really have one. It's really just an observation that, um, that Florida investors, not necessarily Utah, but the people who you're talking about still buying two and four caps on 7% interest rate loans, there's, there's a mindset there that is just very different from what I'm accustomed to and necessarily what I'm comfortable with. I've seen rent growth. I've seen appreciation within my portfolio here in Cincinnati over the last 10 years. Not as much rent growth or appreciation necessarily as most Florida markets have seen, but I've also had cashflow, uh, not necessarily day one because I tend to buy more distressed assets, but my turnarounds are very quick.
Let me turn this into a question. What are your expectations? First of all is what I'm saying resonating with you and your experience of the people who are buying aggressively in Florida right now, that it's not about what it's going to do in 2024. It's about what it's going to do in 2029. And, and also what is your take on that for the markets where you invest in Florida?
Todd (27:35.062)
Yeah, you're very right about South Florida and specifically South Florida because as you get further north that does change drastically. I myself am the same. When I buy properties I'm concerned with where it's going to be five, ten years down the road. I don't really care where it is today per se. So I am looking at that. However, I'm not going to buy a bad deal today. Unless there's a reason why.
What Florida also has that a lot of places don't have it, I'm sure Cincinnati, Ohio doesn't have it, I shouldn't be sure, but I'm pretty sure, is we have so many foreigners that come to South Florida, whether they're from different countries or other states, and they all want to own a piece of Florida. So, especially South Florida, you have South Americans from Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia, now we have a lot of Asians coming here. We have Germans, Russians, you name it. And the ones who come are all the rich ones. Who else is leaving their countries to travel abroad and buy condos?
So when they come here and they have a beautiful $3 million condo on the beach, they also want to put $5-10 million to work. They'll pay much higher prices just for the stability of owning an asset in the U.S. than most U.S. investors will pay. Those people aren't looking to move their money to the middle of the country. They want it near where they're going to be vacationing, and they're ultra wealthy so they could spend more money. And they don't actually need a return. They just want to own the asset. Some of them buying cash.
That sounds a lot more like primary residences than retail real estate though, am I wrong?
Todd (29:03.894)
You know, there's a lot of investors, and I know a bunch of them too, that really they don't really care. They're happy to buy retail. They like to, they love the triple net deals. They'll go buy the Starbucks deals, the Walgreens deals. They don't care if it's a four cap, they'll buy it cash. And that's good for them. They just want to move the money out of their country.
And I think they also want to go home and tell their friends that they own $10 million worth of properties in South Florida, whether it be a Starbucks or whatever it is. I think they like the piece of knowing that.
Slocomb Reed (29:37.884)
So you're fairly bullish then on South Florida markets and the growth that they will continue to experience. Not only the intra-American population growth, people moving to Florida from places like Ohio and Kentucky, but also because of the way that South Florida attracts international investment.
Todd (29:59.51)
Like you said, this is March of 2024. It's 75 degrees outside. There's not a cloud in the sky. I was at the beach over the weekend. We have no state taxes. We have a very pro-business government. So when you put all that, we're the hub to so many places for airfare. You know, so we have direct flights to Europe, all over the world, South America. I'm very, very bullish on South Florida. And I don't just mean Miami. I mean, you could go up to say Port St. Lucie, River Yard Beach, a hundred miles north of here and come down.
This whole market is super fast expanding. And I don't really see that changing anytime soon.
Slocomb Reed (30:35.68)
That makes a lot of sense. Todd, are you ready for the best ever lightning round? What is the best ever book you recently read?
Todd (30:44.686)
Answer that with two because I knew that question was coming. The first one of course is mine, Keeping It Real on Commercial Real Estate, where I wrote a book and I give all proceeds to charity. But to be fair, the best book I read recently is called The Psychology of Money. And this was a gift given to me from a psychologist who I met, not from my own therapy, who came to me because he wanted to invest in real estate. And I said, what a clever book. And he knows I'm a big reader. And what I loved about this book and why I recommend it is...
We all are out there and your people in your podcast and all the people who invest with you or me, they all ultimately wanna make money. And this reminds us about why do we wanna make money? Is money gonna make you happier? What are you ultimately gonna do with money? So it's a great book on teaching you really the values behind what is really that piece of paper with a dead president.
Slocomb Reed (31:32.488)
Yeah, Psychology of Money, Morgan Housel. It's been a few years since I read it, but that's definitely a good one. And we will link to wherever it is that you want us to promote your book as well. Todd, what is your best ever way to give back?
Todd (31:52.578)
Well, actually the way I give back is things like writing the book, mentoring people. I started doing a lot of stuff on social media, helping people and reaching back. I've always felt bad that I wasn't getting my hands dirty and all I would do is write big checks to foundations. But by working with younger people or people new in real estate, I don't charge anything.
I don't have a program, but it's really been great to teach people real estate and work with them and get them involved because I always said if you buy one piece of real estate at 25 or 35 or even 45, and you screw everything else up in the rest of your life but that one property, you'll be okay when you need to retire. You just need one. So that's what I'm pushing people to do is to buy a property. Not necessarily for me, I'm not a broker, but they need to buy a property.
Slocomb Reed (32:35.177)
You have a breadth of experience and a length of experience in retail and industrial in Florida.
Speaking recently, what is one of the bigger, bigger mistakes that you've made with one of the properties that you own and manage? And what is the best ever lesson? Our lessons, our listeners can take from that.
Todd (33:06.37)
Biggest mistake I've made in a property recently, I would actually say the biggest mistakes I've made is not buying deals and getting too aggressive with pricing and losing out on a lot of properties that now I wish I bought. As far as management, I don't have any huge mistakes that I can look to other than to say that if a deal's this close, don't let your ego get in the way. Sometimes you gotta pay a little more because it's worth it in the end.
So I would say the biggest mistake I made is missing a lot of opportunities that I wish I would have bought right now.
Slocomb Reed (33:46.844)
What about a mistake specific to properties you already own?
Todd (33:54.098)
I guess the biggest mistake I would say in that is maybe really verifying some tenants' financials when they do build-outs. Like, we've had tenants come in and start work and run out of money and then it becomes a headache. So, in the commercial side, you know, it's not like moving into an apartment where they bring their couch and sofa and bed. In the commercial side, they're coming in and they might be building out a restaurant that requires $500,000. So, really verifying they had enough money and enough to backstop because he might show me he has $500,000 in the bank, but he may also need to live off that money and it dwindles
So we've certainly had situations in the last couple years where people would run out of money and that's never a good day. That's probably one of the bigger mistakes you make in management, verifying the truth tenant.
Slocomb Reed (34:40.74)
On that note, Todd, what is your best ever advice?
Todd (34:44.822)
My best ever advice is people should get invested in real estate. In my opinion, I'm not a financial advisor, but there's really no better asset class in the world. And either go at your own and buy a small property, something you feel comfortable. Get involved with some people with talents such as, you know, Slocum and his group of you know, and be a limited partner. Go online and you could buy publicly traded companies. You could buy REITs, but get yourself involved in commercial real estate. There's nothing better than either being a direct owner or being an LP, of course, but, certainly get yourself involved in real estate. It's going to give you not get rich quick, get rich slow money, but you'll stay rich. So invest in real estate.
Slocomb Reed (35:24.672)
Awesome. Last question, where can people get in touch with you?
Todd (35:28.242)
You can find me anytime you want Instagram. I have like a daily post that my team puts out on Life According to Todd. You can find me my website, ToddNapola.com, where you can find my book again. Like I said, I wrote a great book all about ways to invest in real estate. And again, all proceeds go to charity. And then if you want to reach out to me, you can certainly call me. My office is 954-966-8181. And if you have any real estate questions, I'm happy to answer them anytime I can.
Slocomb Reed (35:58.016)
Those links are in the show notes as well. Todd, thank you. Best ever listeners, thank you as well for tuning in. If you've gained value from this episode, please do subscribe to our show. Leave us a five star review and share this episode with a friend you know we can add value to through our conversation today. Thank you and have a best ever day.
