$700 Million Tenured CRE Pro seeks to "Fastlane" existing biz

[elliotth27]

sure Dsal, fire away!

 

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[LightHouse]

It's been a few months Elliot, how are things? Did you start getting into bigger deals? Are you still acquiring and managing or are you developing as well?

 

[Get Right]

Why not franchise your "system" to other people/cities?

 

[T14]

Elliot, thanks for sharing your background with us. As a newbie in the REI world, it's all very inspiring.

I began rehabbing SFHs with my mentor this past year. We've done 3 in total together. I'm currently raising PM and will have my first house under contract by March 2014.

It looks like you've flipped a few properties from your initial post. I was wondering how you got into CREI, if you had done it from the start or transitioned from residential?

The guy who has taught me what I know said that after 20 or so flips, ill want to start looking into larger properties, commercial properties. At this point, even thinking about it is getting ahead of myself but I was wondering what an experienced investor such as yourself would say if asked how you would approach the transition from residential to commercial on such a large scale as you've shown.

Thanks again for sharing

T

 

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[elliotth27]

It's been a few months Elliot, how are things? Did you start getting into bigger deals? Are you still acquiring and managing or are you developing as well?

LightHouse, thanks for the inquiry.
Since my last post, much has occurred. I have continued to acquire properties. Total portfolio is now up to $60 Million in assets. Not bad for 24 months work, but so much more to do.

NEW DEVELOPMENT
I'm very focused on the development deal mentioned in my prior posts, and have made a lot of progress there: I've assembled 4 parcels of land, and successfully got them all rezoned including unanimous approval of 16 requested variances, allowing a 92-bed state-of-the-art assisted living community with a memory care wing -- no small task, especially since I did it all myself without hiring a zoning attorney. Additionally, I applied for, and successfully received, a bond inducement for up to $21.5M in tax exempt bonds from the local municipal development authority. I am scheduled to close on the land ($900k all cash) at the end of December, and have the full development team in place. It will be a $15M total project cost including the land purchase. I am trying now to sell the tax exempt bonds to a local bank which will financing the construction, instead of a public bond offering which is much more expensive. Concurrently, I am in the application process with a local bank for a construction loan, so have 2 financing tracks running simultaneously and will pick the best one. My plan is to focus all efforts on developing this new project as a prototype which I can replicate throughout the southeast region, initially, and the nation if success regionally. Along those lines, I am in discussions with one large pension fund as well as a healthcare REIT, in effort to secure a programmatic equity source for the current (and future) development projects. At the same time, I am raising cash from my existing client base for the current project.

OVERALL ORGANIZATION / PARENT COMPANY
I've made some major changes since I last posted, in personnel. Firstly, I fired two key employees in my management company: My Regional Director as well as one of my Executive Directors (on-site lead manager at one of my assisted living communities). I have replaced both of them. The new Regional is a 30 year veteran with executive level operations experience - so far she has been AMAZING. I was hesitant to do this b/c she cost me nearly double what I was paying her predecessor. However, I believe that it's much more costly to have a mediocre or lower level person in the long haul, so I took the plunge. It's really paying off - she has relieved me of essentially all property management / operational work. Of course I still have to approve major decisions, however she has created the budget and is overseeing operations for 2 local properties of mine, and so far really helping improve net operating income at both. The new Executive Director started out well, but is not seeming to be a great fit, so I am considering promoting another very capable 'shining star' in a lower position at that property, into the ED role. Additionally, in my parent/investment company, I have hired a Sr. VP of Acquisitions who is charged with finding, analyzing, and managing the process to acquire new properties. He is about 15 years my senior, with about $2 Billion in commercial real estate transactions under his belt - a great score !! He has been working well with my (more junior) acquisition manager, and tag teaming opportunities. This allows me to focus on the development project previously mentioned. When someone calls me with a purchase opportunity, I can now just turn it over to my Sr.VP who will vet the opportunity and, if appropriate, submit an offer.

MOVING FORWARD
I believe I am truly on the brink of taking the company to the next level, through gaining access to institutional capital. I believe the first institution will be the hardest to land, but if I can do it, and provide excellent returns to them, it should open the doors to others. When that occurs, I will be in a position to achieve the magnitude of doing fewer, but much larger, deals. I'm in talks with the pension fund now to allocate $20M to me in Y1, and if happy, to allocate $50M in Y2. They are slow moving dinosaurs so this will definitely take some time to nail down.

FAST LANE
I still do not feel that I have had any 'lightbulb' ideas on how to convert this to a true fastlane business. Ultimately, I will have to grow the company for a few more years and then potentially hire a new President/CEO to run everything, and I can remove myself from the business. I'm not sure how realistic this is, but I'm going to give it a shot. I have several other business ideas I would like to allocate time to, which can integrate well with my current business, so the idea of being able to slowly get toward 'autopilot' is very attractive. Several folks on this post have suggested that I either franchise or package up my system to sell to others. I'm just not convinced that is a plausible option, and I'll expand on that position in my next post. Still OPEN TO SUGGESTIONS AND IDEAS from anyone on this forum, especially if you have already accomplished this.

 

[Steve37]

Sounds like you're doing very well. From 0 - $60mm under management in 2 years is impressive and if you get institutional backing you'll be really off to the races. I look forward to reading further updates.

What is your plan for the assisted living facility? Are you going to own / manage it through your company or sell / lease it to a national provider?

 

[elliotth27]

Get Right, thanks for your question. You have not been the first to suggest this.
I just don't feel like my system is in any way different from any of the other investment firms out there. Target a property type, build a database of properties, find ownership info, contact owner, meet owner to see if interested in selling, submit offer, negotiate contract, due diligence, close. I think in theory the franchise model is a good one, but it relies on true systems which can be executed by any low-level workers who can read/follow directions. The skills needed to effectively find, analyze, and procure assets in commercial real estate are significant and can take many, many years to develop. It's for these reasons that I don't believe a franchise model would work, but if any readers of this post have different views, I'm all ears.

 

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[elliotth27]

T14,
Thanks for your post and question. It sounds like you are off to a good start, and having a mentor will be invaluable to you.
To answer your question directly, I never transitioned from residential to commercial b/c I began my real estate career in commercial. I never had an interest in residential, personally, although I have several friends who have done quite well in that space. The margins are good on residential flips (generally speaking) but the dollar amounts are small. So my reasoning was that I would need to be flipping hundreds upon hundreds of houses per year (scale) to achieve the dollar amount results I was after. It certainly can be done, but is a seriously man-power intensive undertaking. I have found that I can work about equally as hard on a $8 Million dollar commercial project as I have on a $300,000 house flip, and make significantly more net cash. I didn't have the passion for the residential model, which you seem to have, and therefore was unwilling to commit fully to building a scalable business surrounding SFH flips. I have one friend, perhaps the most successful of my friends involved in SFHs, and his model is to purchase large pools of undeveloped, foreclosed SFH lots (ie. unfinished subdivisions, etc.) from banks, at steep discounts. Then he has a home building company that will build new homes and sell them. This enables him to build and sell several hundred homes per year. That is the kind of scale you need. He brings in semi-institutional money (ie. family office, or private RE funds backed by institutions). This has become in recent years an asset class all it's own, with several REITs taking the same approach, even buying large pools of non-performing home loans, foreclosing on the houses, and renting them out. Again the key here is scale.
So in summary, since you are a self-proclaimed 'newbie' to RE investing, SFHs are a great start to learn the fundemental basics. Then you will need to decide to either scale up BIG TIME, or transition to commercial. The most effecting and least costly way that I know of to grow your skill level in commercial, is to become a commercial broker. It will give you a taste of the level of competitiveness of the industry, and allow you to learn the intimate details of transactions, as well as learn from your buyer's and seller's mistakes and successes, at essentially no dollar expense to you. However, it's a major investment of time. If you do this, and determine it's not for you, at least you haven't wasted lots of your own money, and potentially tarnished your credibility by losing investor's money as well. The other method would be to take incremental steps, i.e. SFH, then maybe a duplex or quadraplex, then move into 20+ unit apartment complexes, and ultimately into 150+ unit complexes. Multi-Family Residential (apartments) is more of a natural progression for someone with residential experience, than something like, say, retail centers or office/industrial. Hope that helps.

 

[elliotth27]

Steve37,
I own and manage my assisted living communities. I also own skilled nursing facilities, but master-lease them to operators on a triple net basis. For my new development, I have hired a 3rd party management company with deep experience in pre-marketing new communities prior to opening, and taking them from opening to stabilized occupancy. My management team does not have that experience, as I generally put them into existing communities that are already operating, which I've purchased. I will have my internal management team also working in the new community, under the leadership of the 3rd party company, so they can become trained in opening new communities and initial lease-up, so I can capture that business for my future developments.

 

[elliotth27]

I've read every single post made here and realize the true value lies within your knowledge/due dilligence process in finding deals. I believe you coined it perfectly as a 'system' and with all the years of experience you have (including the phenomenal 10%+ returns) you have something that is tried, tested and proven. Which leads me to ask why you haven't sought to license this to other developers even REITS for hefty upfront fees and backend royalties ?

I know you are specialist CRE company with interests only in assisted living but i'm sure other companies with a focus in warehouses, office blocks, apartment complexes and shopping malls would find your deal-sourcing process very lucrative. Those returns are pretty good to be honest.


I have to ask as the deals get bigger and you develop bigger projects will you look to become a public REIT ? That is afterall the fastlane exit strategy.

LTL,
Thanks for following the posts! In response to your question about licensing, see a recent reply I made to "Get Right."
And in response to your question about becoming a REIT, yes that is a potential possibility- to become either a public or private REIT, or to sell the company to one.

 

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[elliotth27]

Hard to believes it's been 3 years since I started this thread. Here's an update just in case anyone is still around!!

NEW DEVELOPMENT PROJECT
I was able to get my new development, a 92-bed, 3-story assisted living community funded and construction is 80% complete the 80k SF building, and already have it under agreement to sell to an institutional investment group in 1Q2017. There were several twists and turns to the story since my last post, including several failed attempts at financing. I was able to finally put it together and if anyone is interested I will share in more detail. There was so much learned through this process, I could probably write a small book on it.

Meanwhile, my original post here was seeking feedback from this forum community regarding how to 'Fastlane' a real estate investment business.
I've spent a lot of time thinking about this and here's where I'm at:
The real estate investment business, specifically purchasing property and making a profit from it, is simply not intrinsically Fastlane, period. (for several reasons I won't go into on this post).
However, there are several related businesses which have the potential to be Fastlane businesses. I had just such an idea, and since my last post, I raised $400k to create and launch an online resident referral service for the senior housing industry. It launched in May of this year, and in summary, is a subscription revenue model where communities subscribe and pay monthly in order to receive unlimited leads as well as CRM and video sales training content. It's beginning to gain traction and has brought in around $30k in gross revenue in the last 7 months since launch. Not a huge number, but growing, and remember this is recurring revenue (subscribers pay monthly), so opportunity to snowball.
When I began to see that this new company was producing lots of leads from more rural areas of my state, where very few if any senior housing options existed, I saw a demand (need) and therefore an opportunity, which led me to my second current focus:

Programmatic Real Estate Development: I'm working on a prototype of senior housing community which can be replicated in smaller markets where there are few affordable options. Preliminary design is underway for the building. In essence I can obtain less expensive land, and through some value engineering on the construction type, I believe I can bring lower cost product to the market and in turn offer more affordable rates, which there is a huge demand for in smaller towns.

OVERALL ORGANIZATION / PARENT COMPANY
So, I've changed course somewhat from my earlier discussions. Where in the past I was concentrating on building a staff to ID investment properties and acquire more assets to manage, I have actually gone the other way. I got rid of all of my parent company staff. why? b/c at the end of the day it was always me who was negotiating and making the deals....closing. I was unable to replicate what I had been doing through a 'system' that anyone could follow. I have far less overhead, and am less distracted by outlying opportunities which allows me to laser focus on investments where profit is probable rather than simply possible.

MOVING FORWARD
I'm continuing to leverage my experience in real estate, and remaining in a slow lane business of commercial development. However, concurrently I am pursuing opportunities associated to my particular niche which have the ability to be more digitally based and which meet all the needs to be a Fastlane type company. I'm getting there more slowly than I'd hoped for!!! That said, 2016 was my best year ever in regard to personal income, and while I still worked hard, I worked significantly less in 2016 than I have in any preceding year. This allowed me to do some really fun things like take my wife and kids sailing for a full month in the tropics, which you could NEVER do as a cubicle dweller (employee), and complete a 100-mile backpacking trip in Colorado. Freedom is what it's all about, and once you taste it there is no turning back!

Thanks for following my progress and apologies for my neglect of updating this thread. I had some great feedback originally when this was active and some very interesting conversations precipitated. Wishing everyone huge successes in 2017!

 

[Niptuck MD]

Great first post, I am also doing RE but on a much smaller scale. I just manage and complete rehabs in the ATL are.

There are about 6 guys that do RE on a pretty big scale on this site:

Runum
z*********
Cash Flow Depot
Hattterusguy
Rickson9
JScott

Those would be the guys to speak too as all 6 of those guys are firmly entrenched in the fastlane.

@Keithrtay

 

[ChrisKyle]

My question is what makes you feel that CRE development is a slow lane business? I have see countless acquisitions and liquidation events take place in the CRE industry that have made individuals tremendously wealthy.

I feel that it may take longer than maybe leveraging the internet to create a business, but the possibility still exists.

Would love to hear your thoughts on this view.

Thanks!

 

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[elliotth27]

My question is what makes you feel that CRE development is a slow lane business? I have see countless acquisitions and liquidation events take place in the CRE industry that have made individuals tremendously wealthy.

I feel that it may take longer than maybe leveraging the internet to create a business, but the possibility still exists.

Would love to hear your thoughts on this view.

Thanks!

Hi Chris and thanks for the question. Yes CRE is lucrative and you can absolutely become wealthy from it, but it's a 'get rich slow' model due to some intrinsic characteristics of the business. For instance, locating property, analyzing the investment opportunity, negotiating, due diligence inspections, financing, closing, rezoning, development, asset reposition, marketing, selling, etc. all take a VERY LONG TIME to accomplish. Also, The skills required can take several years to develop. It does not satisfy the "Commandment of Time". CRE is an INVESTMENT business. Remember, there are 3 Fastlane interstates: Internet, Innovation, and Intentional Iteration. Investment real estate, the act of investing money in real property in order to make a profit, falls under the Intentional Iteration interstate category. There are RELATED business that could be Innovative or Internet based (for example, crowdfunding websites for investment real estate, or selling specialized products or services used IN the real estate), but in the purest sense, investing in real property (not digital or intellectual property) for a profit can only fit in the intentional iteration category. Lots and lots of TIME must be invested, and the skills required (especially to produce those make-me-wealthy liquidation events you refer to) are quite advanced and require a high level of investment and financial sophistication (i.e. years of experience - slow).

SO, there are 4 main ways to make money in CRE:
1) Do lots and lots of smaller investment deals - SCALE (buying or developing, adding value, selling for profit).
2) Do fewer deals, but big ones! - MAGNITUDE (i.e. $10M minimum, more likely $20M-$50M)
3) Acquire enough properties where the management fees and/or cash flow exceed your living expenses (BTW this is NOT truly passive income as many would have you believe)
4) Broker properties for a fee (this is not really being a true entrepreneur unless you start your own brokerage company and focus on hiring, training, and deploying brokers - this can be done, but again without SPEED).

You can, and I have, do more than one of these at once, creating several streams of income. Remember, we are trying to create a Fastlane business, of which SPEED is very important. There is nothing speedy about CRE, period. I've been in the business exclusively for nearly 20 years, and yes I have made VERY good money doing it. BUT, you are only as good as your next deal, and it's a perpetual cycle of very hard word and significant risk. If you plan on being a TRUE entrepreneur, and putting skin in the game, I cannot emphasize enough that you will be taking significant financial risks. Compare that with the financial risks you take to put up a website and try to sell a product or service - there is simply no comparison. I realize some of my comments here are generalizations, and I'm sure there are plenty of exceptions or counterpoints to be offered, but I wanted to give you the most succinct answer I could for what is USUALLY the case. I welcome contrary perspectives from other industry veterans. This is my own personal opinion. I can go into so much more detail on the different property types, as well as examples of the 4 ways listed above, and pros and cons, but again wanted to be somewhat succinct.

One of the main take-aways I urge everyone to remember from TMF book is that we live in a time where so much wealth is being created through leveraging technology (relatively quickly!), and the Internet interstate proves over and over to be the best interstate from a pure risk-adjusted return perspective, as well as a way to separate your earnings from your time. So....it's up to US to figure out the need in any industry (CRE included) which can be filled through a fastlane business. This is why I've started other companies RELATED to my CRE business (as I've mentioned in prior posts), but that are more characteristic of the 'Fastlane' as described in the book. Hope some of this helps, or at leasts gets you thinking.

Chris you are correct that "the possibility still exists." I urge you to focus on PROBABILITY not POSSIBILITY.

 

[Kingsta]

I always found property too slow. If you buy one, it takes time for the value to increase. If you build one, it takes time to build. I love short and fast 3-6 months max before I get my money + more back.

Look at other ways of using your property expertise, commercial bridging comes to mind. Very quick and easy money if you know what you're doing with very little time investment.

 

[Chitown]

Freedom is what it's all about, and once you taste it there is no turning back!

@elliotth27

Right here! On point like a mickey-fickey! I remember the day I experienced the same...

April 2014

I was riding in my 2014 Suburban LTZ - black on black - in Anaheim, CA. WonderCon was in full swing and I had a bunch of chauffeured-driven vehicles ferrying passengers back and forth between Anaheim and L.A. I drove around thinking,
"The gross revenues from my vehicle that day, alone, were more than my two week earnings in the chauffeur job I was on leave from that week. Why the F*ck am I going back to that job?"

[I took the leave of absence in order to handle WonderCon-related transportation for a division of Warner Bros. Studios. I now handle their ComicCon San Diego/NYC transpo, as well.]

Within 5 minutes of my very pleasant thought I called my employer dispatcher and quit! I knew it was going to be a bit shaky for a few months as I built my clientele but I would have it no other way.

Freedom!

One of the happiest days of my life in the past 15 years!

Once you've tasted the delicious liquid of Freedom, you can't return to drinking plonk!

 

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[elliotth27]

Well my fellow freedom lovers, it's time to pen the last chapter on my development project, which was a concept when I started this thread in 2013, and has now been built and sold for $29M.
If you've followed this far you know there have been a number of obstacles and defeats along the way which could have stopped this endeavor in it's tracks. For those who haven't followed, please see older posts on this thread regarding the development of my latest assisted living community. I acquired the land, obtained zoning, obtained zoning variances, put together $19M of capital (4.5M equity, $14.5M construction loan), brought in an institutionally attractive operator, built the community, pre-leased 35 units, and sold the building to a publicly traded company in May 2017. After all is said and done, I have personally earned over $1.1M net income on this project, with about $35k of total out-of-pocket cash investment. It's been a long project, but ultimately successful.

After this experience, I still stand by my prior statement in that real estate investment/development cannot be fast-laned.
That does not mean it cannot be profitable - but profitable is distinctly different from the systematized approach to fastlane wealth-building. So what now?

I did launch my online senior housing resident referral website, which is slowly growing and now generating about $3k/mo gross income. The monthly expense for digital marketing and ad spend is still exceeds the income, so we are working hard on getting additional clients and should be hit break-even by the end of the year.

Additionally, while I slowing build the online business, I have just completed designing a new assisted living building which will cater to the smaller more rural areas and offer affordable assisted living, which is in very high demand. It seems I'm on the slowlane while trying to merge into the fastlane! Thankfully the slowlane, at least for me, involves less than 30hr/wk working, the financial stability to work when I please and take lots of fun vacations (50 days this summer alone), and time to think about new and exciting opportunities.

I've enjoyed having several private conversations with some readers of this thread; those who were just getting into commercial real estate, aspiring developers, or even real estate pro's who are just getting started or perhaps doing single family home investments. It's been great hearing everyone's suggestions, advice, and feedback, and I hope my advice to those of you who have replied or PM'd has been helpful. I've never participated in a forum prior to this, and I have to say this is a great group of folks. I know there are a lot of users who are 'seeking' to get somewhere financially -- this is a great spot for advice. I've even come across a few forum members who have had real success and have made some significant earnings - awesome!

My final bit of advice - If you genuinely gain joy and happiness pursuing real estate development, don't let the non-fast nature of it deter you. It's definitely a challenging, fulfilling, and profitable way to make real money. However, if you are laser focused on creating a fastlane business, and you have an interest in real estate, explore the creation of a type of company which is RELATED to real estate but that can fulfill all of the laws of fastlane businesses. There are innumerable services used by real estate professionals which could benefit from a fastlane-able business model - the money's out there - are we going to take it?!?
I know I'm in...... see you at the bank!

 

[Greg R]

@SteveO may be interested to chime in here.

 

[SteveO]

@SteveO may be interested to chime in here.

On a short vacay right now. Will respond later.

 

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[Bottomsouth]

I read most of the posts but not all. Based on what I read, I believe your leaving money on the table for yourself. Are you a fee developer?

 

[elliotth27]

I read most of the posts but not all. Based on what I read, I believe your leaving money on the table for yourself. Are you a fee developer?

No I am a syndicator. I make money on acquisitions, development, management, and sponsorship promote / disposition, as well as any profit from my own personal investment in each partnership.

 

[Bottomsouth]

No I am a syndicator. I make money on acquisitions, development, management, and sponsorship promote / disposition, as well as any profit from my own personal investment in each partnership.

Cool. Good job on leveraging over 65% for the construction loan. Don't see that down here.

 

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[ChrisKyle]

@SteveO Older thread but still interested to hear your take on this. Thanks!

 

[SteveO]

@Greg R , sorry it took me so long to respond to this. Thanks @ChrisKyle for linking me again.

This entire thread is confusing to me. @elliotth27 , you started this process at a fantastic time in the cycle. Your hands were in a lot of pots and you should have made a killing on this.

The inner workings of a business will never be clear from a few posts. It looks to me like you are very spread out. How can you be an expert and keep your hands on the pulse of all of these diverse processes.

Development can be lucrative. But it is mostly a grind. You have to get great deals on land and be efficient at the build. Real estate cycles really come into play here.

I have tried development with commercial. It was a small 10,000 sq ft medical office. Long process. Made money but it was a lot more work for the return compared to my rehab side.

Let me tell you why I like rehab. Replacement cost of a building means the cost to develop. I like to buy when buildings are way less than replacement cost and sell as they are approaching that number. The only real way to do this is to play the cycles though. Poorly maintained buildings in good areas can sell for low amounts during a downturn. Rental demand is weak and there are few buyers. So the prices drop significantly.

Once the building is modernized to a degree and the occupancy is stabilized, sell and repeat.

Syndicating will allow you to do this on a much larger scale.

Reading through this thread, I would expect that you made a few million in the last few years. Is this correct?

 

[elliotth27]

@Greg R , sorry it took me so long to respond to this. Thanks @ChrisKyle for linking me again.

This entire thread is confusing to me. @elliotth27 , you started this process at a fantastic time in the cycle. Your hands were in a lot of pots and you should have made a killing on this.

The inner workings of a business will never be clear from a few posts. It looks to me like you are very spread out. How can you be an expert and keep your hands on the pulse of all of these diverse processes.

Development can be lucrative. But it is mostly a grind. You have to get great deals on land and be efficient at the build. Real estate cycles really come into play here.

I have tried development with commercial. It was a small 10,000 sq ft medical office. Long process. Made money but it was a lot more work for the return compared to my rehab side.

Let me tell you why I like rehab. Replacement cost of a building means the cost to develop. I like to buy when buildings are way less than replacement cost and sell as they are approaching that number. The only real way to do this is to play the cycles though. Poorly maintained buildings in good areas can sell for low amounts during a downturn. Rental demand is weak and there are few buyers. So the prices drop significantly.

Once the building is modernized to a degree and the occupancy is stabilized, sell and repeat.

Syndicating will allow you to do this on a much larger scale.

Reading through this thread, I would expect that you made a few million in the last few years. Is this correct?

Yes SteveO you are correct. Sorry you found the post confusing, it was a genuine effort to see if anyone had insight into a fastlane version of a real estate business, and then sharing some experiences. The responses along with my experience led me to conclude that direct real estate investment for profit (regardless of method: syndication, development, rehab, flip, brokerage, etc) cannot be fastlane because it intrinsically lacks the characteristic of speed. SteveO it appears you agree, as you referenced profiting through physical rehab and playing the cycles - all of which requires significant amounts of time. Yes I have indeed made a few million in the last few years, and have gratefully built wealth over my 20yr CRE career, and there is nothing wrong w/ real estate as a pathway to building wealth, but it's traditional slowlane. It is not a fastlane business. I love that because that means there are opportunities for clever entrepreneurs to create profitable systems that improve the inefficiencies of that market. In a prior post on this thread I explored how certain businesses related to real estate could be excellent fastlane opportunities, and there are loads of possibilities there. I encourage all RE minded entrepreneurs to give that some thought if you're serious about starting a thoroughbred fastlane business. I appreciate everyone's contributions to this thread, thanks!

 

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[SteveO]

You have made millions in the past few years and don't feel that is fastlane? That is why I was confused. How much do you need to make to feel fastlane?

Dude, keep kicking a$$. You will get better and make more as you progress.

 

[elliotth27]

You have made millions in the past few years and don't feel that is fastlane? That is why I was confused. How much do you need to make to feel fastlane?

Dude, keep kicking a$$. You will get better and make more as you progress.

SteveO - it's taken me nearly 2 decades to develop the skills, relationships (investors, lenders, government), track record, and credibility which were all critical components to making millions in the past few years. That is why the business is not what I consider fastlane. I don't base it strictly on # of dollars earned. A few million to some might seem an unreachable fortune, and to others - a drop in the bucket - I guess it's all relative. The beauty of the Fastlane concept is in the system, not merely the eventual result. The focus of Fastlane is significantly compressing the timeline to achieve the desired results, and having a system that works for you. Thanks for your responses and the kind words.

 

[Elif]

How about networking w/ CPAs and attorneys to pitch sale/leaseback deals with existing businesses. Many of them are looking to raise cash and might be a win/win.

 

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