Ep 6: Survival Phase Step Two: How to Design Your Life as a Value Driven Investor

You, as a “Value Driven Investor” must create your own path. This is the beauty and struggle of becoming a real estate investor. You have thousands of different ways you can go. But, the challenge, you must design your path.

In the last episode, we talked about the question you should be asking yourself first.

"Why Real Estate Investing?"

If you have not found a reason that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up... Keep digging

If you have found your WHY, then you are ready to move on to the next step of the Survival Phase.

Step #2: Of The Survival Phase = drafting your mind map or what we like to call "designing your life."

The two biggest questions you have to ask yourself is:

1. What is your ultimate goal?

2. How do you plan on reaching it?

That's what we are digging deep into on today's episode.

We are going to talk about Murph's ultimate goal, which was "mailbox money," and the path he chose to get there.

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In This Episode….

1:20 Tim's current challenge with clients that he loves, but are detailed to the point the project is 60 days behind

3:04 This is why Bob won't go into that direction

6:30 The personality difference between clients and how that can effect the rollout of your project.

7:00 Tim is testing spec homes vs. presold, and what he's finding out

9:07 Defining the survival phase, step #2

15:01 The importance of finding passion in real estate

15:51 Tim's ultimate goal when he was sitting in his parent's basement broke

18:08 What's even bigger than money

21:27 How to begin chasing that goal - and the steps you need to take

31:22 When Tim really started to love flipping -- and how he then found his niche

33:45 Why you don't want single family homes as rentals

34:00 The importance of having a foundation to fall back on if your big investments fail

Quotes

Full Transcript

• Tim Murphy (00:00):

  Today, we're back on the value driven investor. I'm super excited to be back today. And I'm really excited to start talking about the survival phase. Step number two with my buddy, Bob grand, but first off Bob, you know what, it's crazy because you know, you and I are both working on projects all the time. And I just wanted to tell you, man, I got this project with this with this couple and I love them. They're great people, but they're very, very detailed. And you know, you think you have everything figured out when your, you know, this is a new construction project. So we bought a property, we tore it down. And now we're building a $1.4 million house for these clients that I pre-sold it to. And it was awesome getting to know them and like having conversations with them and all the preparation and just how excited they were, because they're a young couple and they're like mid thirties.

  Tim Murphy (01:00):

  Nice. But then all of a sudden they got involved in the process and you can tell they are very, very detailed and they like to control the situation. And so my team and I were like, we thought we had everything figured out in the process, cause we've done this so many times. And we came to realize every single time, and this is what I love about real estate. And I think you're on the same page as me, Bob, you never have it all figured out. And every transaction is different because it's, we are 60 days behind because they're supposed to make selections on a certain timeline and they just could not do the selections. Our designer had everything figured out, but they wouldn't follow her, her her process. And literally it's been, you know, I still love these people. They're great people, but it's just like, they're the kind of people where like they don't follow the norm. They don't follow the process, I guess. Well, at the end of the day, Bob, they're probably a lot like us, huh?

  Robert Grand (02:05):

  Yeah. Probably a lot like us a little bit, get a little controlling in a lot of those avenues. It's funny that you say that that's that exact situation, those issues, right. There are a w is one of my biggest fear of why I don't really want to work for a retail client, you know, and you're doing that. And like it's an avenue we haven't stepped into while we've kind of a little bit stepped into it. Where Shelly, my wife, who's kind of the head of our design and project management on stuff. We had a client that wanted to go through, sell his house, go buy another value, add house. And we did that. Then he realized I'm a doctor. I don't have time to be able to fix this up. I'd rather just have it fixed up now. So she goes through the process with him to fix up his home and she's amazing at it and doing and crushing it. But just the conversations, just like that me I'm like, oh,

  Tim Murphy (02:56):

  Because I

  Robert Grand (02:57):

  Just want to be like, this is how it's going to go. I've got the plan here. It is. Here's the product, you know? And that's because I know how to do a house. I know how it looks good, but then you bring somebody in you, pre-sold it like you're doing, I mean, that takes a lot of patients, you know, and your guys just parked to kind of think about and work with it. And you know, thinking about that, like dealing like with that in the fire department where people want to control everything, because it's a very controlling group of people, a bunch of alpha male type, a type personalities. Right. And the number one thing I always have to sit down with people are like, that is, you know, why don't you trust me to trust the process and make sure it's, you know, handled the right way.

  Robert Grand (03:34):

  Are there, do you, do you have, you know, fears that I can't produce? You know, are you not, you know, a hundred percent confident in my abilities? I think maybe bringing some of that up. And I I've thought about this dude, because if we ever get into the phase of the business where you're at, which I think it might have to be a natural progression as you're doing projects, you're just going to get those people that want it. And then they're going to want to make some changes and stuff. Right. I mean, especially on those ultra high-end,

  Tim Murphy (03:59):

  Especially when you get to work for a million dollars and people are going to be buying it and they have the ability to make changes. They're going to want it the way they want.

  Robert Grand (04:06):

  Yeah. Have you ever had that conversation with them though?

  Tim Murphy (04:09):

  Yeah. Oh, definitely. I mean, you felt like at the end of the day, I, I try my best upfront to set the client up, to understand our process. And to, like you said, I mean, why don't you trust me? Well, the number one reason why people don't trust you is because number one, it's a $1.4 million investment on their, on this property or in this house. So that will add a lot of anxiety and people will want to have more control depending on what kind of person it is too. It's the personality thing. But the other thing that I've really realized is that you're just getting to know this person within a short period of time. So literally I had this house, we had a whole design, we pre-sold everything because we had a vision and we shared that vision with the world and it attracted somebody to us and they said, you know what?

  Tim Murphy (05:00):

  I love it, but I want to make my own tweaks to it. And we said, okay, great, understandable. That all happened within a short window of time. I mean, within 30, 45 days, we were ready to build a house for them. And then we had to move to the tweaks and the designer and all that stuff. Well, within 30, 45 days, how do you build trust with someone that's going to build you $1.4 million house. You're going to be a little skeptical. And I think, you know, some people are more trusting and some people are less trusting. And I would tell you what I found is a true entrepreneur. They understand the value of leveraging someone else's time and expertise. And so there'll be more trusting quicker. We're as someone who like our client, who is, I believe an accountant, he's going to be someone that's going to take a lot longer to trust because he is not someone that understands the value of utilizing other people's expertise and time, because he's used to just most everything and being a very controlling person.

  Tim Murphy (06:00):

  So that's part of the whole process is like you said, I would much rather build a spec home and just design it with my team and put it out to the market and have the market buy it like that. But the kicker is, there's a lot more risk and that's why I've been testing between spec homes and pre-sold, and I will tell you we've over the course of my time, we've done way more pre-sold than we've ever done. Or I mean, way more spec homes than we've ever done. Pre-Sold for exactly that reason. Because if I get somebody that I don't like, or I don't want to work with, or I think the team will get stressed out about it. I'm like you guys, it's just not worth it. Let's not do it. Right.

  Robert Grand (06:37):

  Right, right. Oh, that's interesting. So two things I was thinking about when you were saying that personality types, you know, that, I think that comes back to one of the things, what you just said, you have a calculator type personality type that wants to know every single little detail entrepreneurs, big picture thinkers tend to be like, oh yeah, I'm on this vision fall. Let's just make it happen. So that's probably one of the things, as soon as you said he was an accountant or whatever, I was like, oh yeah. That's how my brother is. Drives me crazy. Sometimes with the details. I'm like, let's just go dude. Like, like get in the car, let's go, you know? And he loves all those little details, but he's better at getting like things through like a city planning and stuff than I am. Right. You know?

  Robert Grand (07:18):

  And then, then I think the other thing, you know is clear expectations in the beginning, you know, what they can change and what they can't change, you know? And I'm sure you probably already had those, but I'm just thinking out loud for other people is setting those expectations in the beginning, understanding somebody's personality type because you have to conform to it. You know, when I was working heavy as a real estate agent, I just couldn't just walk in to somebody that's the calculator type, you know, and it's kind of that whole disc personality, that calculator type and just start being like, yeah, here's the house you want to buy this and that you have to understand, you know, they want to know all the details of the house. They're slower, they're methodical. They're thinking sometimes you talk less, you know? And then if I'm with somebody that's like my personality, the details don't matter. They just fall in love with the house. And you're like, yeah. And you're high five inside the house. And you're like, let's go write an offer and let's get this thing done. Don't worry about it. I got it.

  Tim Murphy (08:03):

  And they're like done, you know? So yeah, Bob, that's an awesome segue into this topic that we want to talk about today, which is survival phase step number two. And in step number two, it's really about understanding yourself. Number one, which, you know, last episode, we talked about the why, why do you want to do real estate and real estate investing? If you don't know that? And if you don't have fears on the back of your neck, popping up about why you want to get into real estate investing, then you know what this phase or this next step that we're about to talk about, talk to you about, you might not be ready for it because at the end of the day, I mean, step number two, and going into the value driven investor mindset right now today, you need to look in the mirror and you need to be willing to commit two full years to going down this road.

  Tim Murphy (08:55):

  Because if you're not willing to commit to four full years, odds are you probably aren't going to be successful. Because number one, it's going to be a challenge. And number two, it takes time to reach the pinnacle of success. Especially as an investor. Now, some people do it quicker than others. Bob grand is a classic example of that because he's been flying high in two years or less, but some other people, it takes longer. And it's all about your approach. Maybe you're the entrepreneur that's willing to take big risks or maybe you're the accountant. That's going to take a little bit longer because you want to dot all your I's and cross all your T's either way. You have to figure out the plan and you have to draft the mind map or what I like to call design your life around your personality and what's best for you.

  Tim Murphy (09:42):

  And today that's what I wanted to talk about is what, how do you design your mind map or design your life as a value driven investor? And when you're starting this journey, you have to start with big goals. You know, you have to visualize that path. What is the most important thing for you? And so I think visualization is a huge thing. We've talked about it in the past, on the podcast. And one of the best examples I have for visualization is, is a golfer. I mean, tiger woods, any pro golfer always talks about how they utilize visualization before they shoot a shot before their next tournament, how to swing the club visualization in the sport of golf is what I believe sets the pro golfers apart from someone like myself, because I'm not really good at visualizing golf shots, or I really don't even care about visualizing golf shot, but someone who's super passionate about golf and wants to make it to the PGA tour, they're visualizing everything they do. Because if you can connect your vision with your actual actions, it works miracles. I mean, Bob, you can attest to that, right? I mean, visualization in the real estate investing world, it really is one of the biggest keys. Wouldn't you agree?

  Robert Grand (11:03):

  100%, man. I mean, completely knowing where you want to go is the key and sitting down and figuring it out. You know, when I first started out as a real estate agent, you know, I was just, I wanted to get into real estate because I had to serve a purpose. Cause I, you know, it was injured, blah, blah, blah, my whole story. But as I grew into that profession started looking at like, well, where can I go? Where do I want to go? Where do I want to be in 10 years? How do I take that back to five years? How do I take it back to one year, one month, you know, or a quarter a month, a week, a day, you know, they put me on track for that. And that's kind of a thought process. I think that you have to break down and, and you have to set a set up, set a path at the end of you know, five years.

  Robert Grand (11:43):

  That's very scary. Right. And it's pretty amazing. I think, I don't remember who said it, but you know, maybe Napoleon hill or somebody like that. He said a lot of people under, you know, over estimate what they can do in one year, but the underestimate, what they can do inside of 10 years. I mean, when you think about you're on the plan for 10 years, and I tell people all the time, somebody will say, I want to get into real estate investing. I go, dude, that is awesome. I wouldn't do it any other way. I love it. You have to question yourself and ask yourself this, you know, are you willing to spend 10,000 hours to master, you know, that subject? And if you're not willing to answer yes to that, then maybe you should find something that you're willing to spend 10,000 hours to master.

  Robert Grand (12:24):

  They say, you know, a lot of things could take 10,000 hours of master, you know, learning to be a pianist, you know, 10,000 hours of mastery of playing every single day. I mean, that's a lot of hours that's years of playing, you know, it's like thinking about that. That's, it's kind of insane me. If you told me, Hey, we're going to go and we're going to learn to play the piano. I need 10,000 hours of your time. Probably like I got, I got stuff to do it. Ain't going to be involving 10,000 hours on a piano. So, you know, so that's like the thought process, right? Like, so you're saying commit two years of your life. That's a great start. And

  Tim Murphy (13:00):

  When I told when, and this is how I actually

  Robert Grand (13:03):

  Get out of doing other businesses is this happens all the time. You know, as an entrepreneur, early on, people want to like throw stuff at you. Let's go do this. Let's go do that. Oh, start this. Like you instantly think, yeah, I'm a real estate agent. Now I'm an investor. I should have a construction company. I should have this. I should have this and this and this and all these things and oh,

  Tim Murphy (13:19):

  What is that vitamin sales? I think I can do that

  Robert Grand (13:21):

  Too. You know? So it's like, yeah, when you sit there and think all these things that can divide your time out the most important thing is, you know, committing to mastery of one subject and having singular focus, but also just being willing to focus on it for such a long exterior send a period of time. And if, if

  Tim Murphy (13:39):

  You can ask her that leads us right into like the ultimate goal, right? So if you realize that, okay, I need to paint a vision of where I'm going. Then the next step is what is my ultimate goal. And so that's why I say a two year commitment, because if you're willing to make that two year commitment and that sacrifice, and then you are able to visualize your ultimate goal because you're not making a two year commitment to something that isn't going to benefit you. And then the third thing is, is if you're not able to find that passion in real estate, like what is it because what I can tell you, and I know Bob can attest and any person in the real estate world can attest. There's thousands of different formulas for being successful in real estate. I mean that literally thousands I've seen as a real estate agent, I've seen so many different agents do so many different business plans and be successful.

  Tim Murphy (14:30):

  I've seen real estate investors invest in so many different types of assets in so many different ways, through so many different financing. There's thousands of ways that you can be successful in real estate. So you have to have that vision. You have to create that ultimate goal. And then the next step is, you know, what is, what is the ultimate, Tim? What if you could look back and say 10 years, 20 years, or when you're 65, what is that ultimate goal? I would tell you, here's my ultimate call. When I was sitting there broke in my parents' basement and I was dreaming because visualization and dreaming, same thing. What were you dreaming about Murph? Well, what I was dreaming about is one thing sitting on a beach, getting what I call mailbox money. Why did I think that was so amazing? I thought that was so amazing because at that point in your life, if you're literally can sit on the beach for a month or two or however long you want, and you have checks coming to you and the door, boys walks up to the beach and says, Hey, Mr.

  Tim Murphy (15:33):

  Murphy, here's a check that we just received and you just get to grab that money and you get to move on and do what you want to do in life. Really isn't going to get any better than that. And the big thing for me too, even when I was at that age of 25 was not that it was about the money though. It was about if I could visually visualize myself in that spot, imagine the freedom I have the freedom to do whatever I want, whether it's sit on the beach, whether it's create a nonprofit, whether it's being part of my children's life, whatever it is, if I can sit on the beach and collect mailbox money, I have the freedom to do whatever I want. And that was what put the hairs on the back of my neck, to the roof, because that was like, wow, if I can do that.

  Tim Murphy (16:24):

  And, and Robert Kiyosaki, you know, I'm going to mention him a lot because that book is what put the hairs on my neck up was the vision of that. Like you real estate can do that for you. And so then the next thing that came to my mind and my ultimate goal is okay, so if that's what I want, how do I get there? The next answer to that was cashflow. You have to invest in real estate to get cashflow, not to just get cash, which wholesaling and flipping and all these different things. You're, you're accumulating cash, but you're not accumulating cash flow and cash flow is the magic key. That's the key to your freedom. Or for me, that's the key to laying on the beach, getting mailbox money. And so once I had that, I was like, okay, well then I have to go after cashflow.

  Tim Murphy (17:12):

  Well, then what's even bigger than that. Murph like what's even bigger than the money and the real estate. And for me, it was, it was the legacy I had. I have every day, I have a burning desire in me. And it's something that I'm chasing every day is to create something that I can help give back. And real estate also allows you to give back through mentoring through this podcast, through sharing your experience and through so many other ways that I was like, man, that's my ultimate goal is if I can sit on the beach, collect mailbox, money through cash flow. And at the same time when I'm done being on the beach, I can go back and I can impact people's lives in a positive way and leave a legacy like that. And if real estate can do all that for me, man, that's my ultimate goal. And that's why the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Let me ask you, let me ask you something wrong

  Robert Grand (18:14):

  With how long would you make it on that beat?

  Tim Murphy (18:16):

  About a week probably. Well, I did go to Florida and I laid on the beach for probably one hour and I was like, let's go.

  Robert Grand (18:25):

  I know. I always think too, like, oh, if I could have exactly that, you know, it's like you sit there and you think, you know, looking back, you know, first start out I needed money because you know, I, I, I had an injury. I want to get that all figured out and have a backup plan. Right. But once I really started kind of figuring it out and thinking like, what is a truly, you want, it's a lot of the same things for me. Our core business values are community relationship impact, you know, so that's what we want to achieve. You know, we want to build community, we want to build relationships so we can have an impact. The money becomes not such a big deal, right? Like the money we're working towards the money, but I actually truly, truly enjoy what I'm doing on a daily basis.

  Robert Grand (19:02):

  And that's where I think, you know, like, like it's, it's been the most beneficial for me, but to start, you have to have something like that to get just like you said, the hair on the back of your neck to stand up, you know, what, what is it some huge thing that really gets you excited, just like that. The thought of having nobody tell you what to do, having complete freedom from anything, being able to travel, do whatever you want, you know, all that stuff is, is awesome. And that's, that becomes a by-product I think of the success, the success that you can have quickly and real estate investing. I think probably when you think about it, you know, the return on investment, you know, for putting your time into real estate is probably greater than any other business that you could put it in.

  Robert Grand (19:44):

  I know, you know, when you look at like the commissions, you can make, even just as a real estate agent, that's, that's a phenomenal business model because at the end of the day, you could spend 50% of your commission, you know, on a product or marketing and everything like that. And still make a 50% profit. When a lot of restaurants, stores, and other businesses, they focus on just getting a profit of what, 10, 12, maybe 15%, 20% of their lucky. So when you think about that, you know, but that's still a job, you know? So it's always trying to figure out what's going to get you motivated to be able to transition that money to passive income, because that's ultimately at the end of the day, everybody is after freedom, I think.

  Tim Murphy (20:23):

  Yeah. And you know what, you're great at this man that transitions into the next thing I want to talk about in step two of the survival phase, which is how do you plan on reaching your goal? Okay, well, you, you have this vision now and you know what you're going after, which is your big why, and is your big vision to, to chase it's the big winning ticket or it's whatever want to call it. Cause everybody's got something different, but the hardest part is then saying, well, how am I going to get there? And so we have talked a little bit about the steps that I've used to get there. So I'm going to probably breeze through a couple of things that we talked about in past podcasts, like number one, which is education. So once I had this goal in my mind and the hairs in the back of my neck stood up, I realized that, you know what, well, I got to start with educating myself because I don't really know much about real estate because I just graduated from college as a computer programmer.

  Tim Murphy (21:20):

  So I just dove into the internet. I dove into books, I dove into Carleton sheets, which isn't even around anymore. I delve into anything. I get my hands on, which is what I still do today when I love something. And I just learned as much as I possibly could. But the best experience that I had was when my uncle showed up, which is again, another episode that we had in this podcast, the story I shared, but my uncle Jack showed up. And that was the key because that was the key that got my hands dirty. I got to get in there and I got to learn about the construction. I got to learn about so much. I got to ask questions. I had so many different resources I could to could leverage like, like roofers and plumbers and all these different people that I had to come in contact with because I was building this house and that I will tell you was the best education I had.

  Tim Murphy (22:10):

  So my first step was education. But then what was the second thing I had to start by becoming a real estate agent? So as I was building that house, I came to the conclusion just like Bob said, well, what about, how am I going to know more about real estate? If I don't immerse myself in real estate? And I made that commitment, why did I tell you guys, you need to make a commitment for two years, because that was the same commitment I made to myself. Was that Tim, if you're going to do this, if you're going to get real estate license, if you're going to educate yourself, then you have to make this commitment for at least two years, no matter what, even if that means that you're living with your parents, even if that means, and this is true, even if that means that my girlfriend at the time, who's now my wife, even if that means that I'm going to have to hold off on getting a house or getting married or getting whatever it was, my number one priority, because I knew how important it was to get started and to be committed.

  Tim Murphy (23:03):

  And and I think that came from being an athlete. And so I was that committed and luckily things happen fast. I got my real estate license was able to sell houses, a significant number of houses pretty quick. And then like Bob said, that's when I realized I didn't get into, I didn't even want to be a real estate salesperson. I wanted to be a real estate investor, right. In order to be immersed in real estate, selling real estate was the next thing to the next best thing to being a real estate investor. And so that's why I got my real estate license, but then I realized, man, you know what? I just know this guy, he bought a house for me and I just made 5, 10, 15, $20,000 because I have a fantastic relationship. I really didn't even spend that much money. And the return on that relationship was through the roof.

  Tim Murphy (23:54):

  And that's when I'm like, okay, this is a better part of my plan, which my plan was all about. Okay. Now that I've found a way to make money, which is selling real estate. Now my next goal was going to be, I have to be conservative and have enough residual income. So I can take that residual income and grow my opportunities or my investments, which was rental properties. So then the next thing I did was, and this was all timing and it was kind of fate because the market I got in at 2003, the market started crashing in about 2007, 2008. So I had just gotten my feet wet enough. I had been able to save just enough money where I could really dive in and take advantage of the opportunity of 2008, 2009 in the crash. And that was, it worked out perfectly for me because then what I did was I bought cash flowing assets because my uncle Jack, you guys know in past stories that I did buy cash, flowing assets as a partnership with him. But I didn't put money into it. It wasn't all mine, it was ours. And that was still a good plan, but that wasn't my ultimate plan. My ultimate plan was to own my own cashflowing real estate assets. So then I could take that cashflow and I could get closer and closer to my goal. And so, Bob, I mean, what were your steps? Was that your similar philosophy as far as how you saw them working out? I

  Robert Grand (25:21):

  Mean really just looking back, you know, like 2000, I mean, I was late into the game compared to you. I did my own S you know, and I purchased my first house, I guess back then in 2004, it would be considered how sacking, you know, moving in, cleaning it up, fixing up, selling it every two years to the point where I got this Mike screen cutting up this weird to the point where I got to be able to just cashflow get down the road, to build my own house and, and doing all that. And then, you know market crash. And I was kinda like, well, I guess I'm, I didn't quite understand the investment world. So I was out of the game until I saw the market recovering, like most people, right? Like the kind of the common investor, they just ride a market cycle and you kind of think you're an investor.

  Robert Grand (26:08):

  I wasn't an investor. At that time I was just kinda like a person doing some of that stuff. But then 2012, when I, when I, when I was injured and I realized I need to have a backup plan from the fire department and that got me on the real estate path, cause my family, you know, my mother is in real estate thinking about that. And then I knew I could make the money that I needed to make because I could see her doing it. So I knew I could do it and just keep progressing along. Did I think I would be back in the investment world I wanted to be, I just didn't have a clear understanding, you know, of how to get there and to do it again. Bob, do you

  Tim Murphy (26:44):

  Think that that played a role though in your ultimate vision that maybe real estate or exactly where you're going like real estate kind of maybe did it fit your vision and that's why you jumped into it or was it part of your vision? Like how does that play out with what your ultimate goal was?

  Robert Grand (27:00):

  I, I mean, just like you reading the Robert Kiyosaki book, you know, rich dad, poor dad understanding real estate has to play a part in your vision and, and I've loved it since I was a kid playing monopoly with my brother right down to watch my mom sell homes right down to cleaning up the homes with her. That's been part of my life, you know, and if I had to look back, I probably wouldn't do it in the fire service. If I would've known what I know now, I probably, I love helping people. But you know, 20 plus years in that service, it's very hard on your body, hard on you mentally. And I love real estate investing and I love waking up on the days that I'm not there, where I'm in complete control of my day, you know, and I'm out there doing it and focusing on investing and focusing on that.

  Robert Grand (27:40):

  And so that's my vision, you know, thinking about that aspect of controlling my life in that realm and how real estate investing can take it even further down that path, more and more right from single family, residential, you know, spec commercial all the way, you know, and, and understanding that is being part of it and a progression and people jump in at different areas and in their comfort levels of where they can go. And I'm on my path and I'm leapfrogging, you know, I would say down the path, I don't have to hit something for very long before. I know I can have the confidence to go to the next and

  Tim Murphy (28:14):

  Yeah, that's fantastic. Well, and that's a great segue into exactly what I want to talk about because there's a couple other phases in the path that I had created on the, how do you make it happen? So once I had single family, residential properties that I learned how to manage, so when I had those properties in Arizona, that was my first attempt at being a property manager. And I think I handled it pretty well. I mean, it went okay, but it wasn't great. It was my first attempt, right. But then when I owned now, I have four investment rental properties, single family rental properties, as I've owned those, I become more proficient at property management. I've put a team together for property management. I've understood so many different tax advantages around owning rental properties and single family properties. I've came up with different strategies around a tenant application, tenant screening, all these different things, which are perfect for the next level.

  Tim Murphy (29:12):

  And the next level is going to be once I found a way to take them out of money that I was making in real estate, but then even 10 exit more so that I could get bigger chunks of cash and go into bigger investments. Because again, in my ultimate goal, my ultimate goal was not to own a whole bunch of single family residential properties, because I thought about the economies of scale, which economies that scale an apartment is a classic example of economies of scale. And I talked to many different mentors along the way that urged me not to buy a hundred different single family, residential properties, but to buy a a hundred unit apartment building because of the economies of scale and that it actually over a hundred units in one building, it's actually way more cost effective and less risky. Now you have to wrap your mind around that thought, but if you can wrap your mind around that thought, it's true.

  Tim Murphy (30:03):

  And so what did I do? I was thinking to myself, okay, I'm doing really good in, in real estate, you know, sales, but that's not really what I wanted to do. It definitely didn't make the hairs on the back of my head go up because it's not what I love to do. For example, you know, we don't really care for having to service this particular client. What we really want is a little bit more control of our destiny, which is the value driven investor in real estate investing. So that's when I started experimenting with wholesaling and flipping and I came to really love flipping because I loved building something, creating something and transforming something. And so as I started in 2009 flipping houses, that's when it came, I can't got, came into infill development, which is, that's how I found my niche, which is how do I, 10 X the cash I can accumulate faster and then take that cash and put it into these bigger cash flowing assets, like apartment buildings or retail properties, which was my ultimate goal.

  Tim Murphy (31:11):

  Like my ultimate to achieve my ultimate goal. I knew I needed big cash flowing investments, like commercial buildings, apartment units, over 50 units, things like that, that can spit out a good amount of capital and that will pay me enough cashflow. So I can sit on the beach, collect the mailbox money and be free. And so, Bob, I mean, is that the goal that you're going after? Is it, is it similar? Do you have a different path or a different way that you want to get there? What is your ultimate goal? Because at once I have the apartment buildings, which I'm already investing in apartment buildings, I already invest in in retail buildings and I'm already getting great cashflow. I'm actually getting over $10,000 a month in cashflow and I'm able to sit on the beach cause I just went down to the beach for a couple of weeks. And like Bob said, how long can you last? I only lasted about an hour still. Cause I'm so excited to come back and do it again, but still it's wash, rinse repeat at this point. Like I figured it out and now it's just wash, rinse, repeat. Right,

  Robert Grand (32:16):

  Right. Yeah. You know you know, me originally, like I thought I was gonna own 10,000 single family homes. And that's kind of, I thought I was going to go down that until my brother and I got into property management and we managed, you know, 175 homes that were kind of a nightmarish of a year for us to be able to do, realizing that it was like you know, we came on the same path. I a lot, how you probably got there in 2009, we landed there, you know, last year where we thought, well, the market's great for single family homes, entry level homes, you know, and why keep them, you know, so they're great products to resell to get cash that cash and move it to another asset, you know? And so that's our number one goal is like, they're not keep to turn and burn every single, single family home, keep none of them as rentals, unless we want a nice Airbnb or something, but to keep transitioning that cash and to multifamily investments and keep transitioning it into, you know, other things, you know, storage units, things like that, that provide that passive income because nobody wants a thousand single family homes.

  Robert Grand (33:26):

  You should want maybe a couple and then you should focus on, you know, getting like the economies of scale, just like our 16 unit apartment complex. It's small, it's our first dabble in that arena. That we're rehabbing it. And there's all the challenges with that. Right. But when I call the city and I tell them, I won't from game when they are having a conversation with me on the phone, right. So it's just makes it so much easier when you're buying 16, you know, refrigerators, right. Cause you get the discounts and stuff like that. And you have people that will want to work for you and you pull people in. So that's kind of, our plan is always to turn and burn single family homes and get it to duplex, multiplex, you know, up to apartment complex storage, all that type of stuff.

  Tim Murphy (34:12):

  Yeah. And I nailed it on the head Grando because, you know, I own four single family rental properties, and I only really want four rental properties. And it's funny that you brought up the game of monopoly and that's why I decided four because of the game of monopoly. I think it's three get three or four houses and then buy a hotel. Well, I figured, you know, what, if I have three or four houses that I own free and clear and there's consistent cashflow, no matter what happens as I move up the ladder in retail in multifamily, whatever it might be. As I maybe P some people say increase my risk, I will always have a strong foundation that I can lean on. And that will be for single family, residential properties that I can sell like that, that I can rent out like that, that are free and clear.

  Tim Murphy (35:01):

  I don't need to worry about, you know, making payments on them because I can, I'm going to be able to afford it. So that was part of the reason I built that foundation, because you have to always think about your risk as you're moving up the risk level. What happens if your tower of cards falls over? Where is it? Where are you going to land? For me, I'm going to land on four, paid off single-family residential properties that I know how to handle in my sleep. That I've trained my wife, how to handle in her sleep. So that if I go, she's always has four solid assets. And really you guys that's about leveraging your, you know, cause as you move up the ladder, Robert Kiyosaki, I wa I listened to him the other day and he said, you know what? I have a friend that had $40 million and he lost it all.

  Tim Murphy (35:48):

  He lost it all. He lost everything he had because he took too big of risk and had no foundation of to, to fall back on. And so he literally went broke. And I would just tell you that in my plan, my plan doesn't yeah, it takes longer, but it takes longer because I feel like I'm building a stronger foundation so that as I get older, call it in my fifties, I'm going to be taking bigger risks, but I'm going to know that I always have a solid foundation. If something happens, I can fall back to so old. How are you laying that foundation for you, your family, your business, you know, you have a family business.

  Robert Grand (36:30):

  Yeah. Same thing. I mean, my brother and I are we're our, our goal is to structure. We have our, our Inc company that does the flipping. And then we transitioned that money to our holdings company, through assets and our number one goal. By the time we retire and say, we're going to retire, which we never will. We'll replace ourselves with people and let this business keep rolling. Right. And then we're going to keep them focused on us, just buying assets, you know? And that, that will be our goal. My wife and I, the same thing, you know, we don't do as much as we do here at the investment company, but we look for deals and stuff like that that we can add. And, you know, do you not with her because she's dialed in that arena and she can go and take that the assets from our other company too, and then have be set up for life.

  Robert Grand (37:16):

  And we have five kids between the two of us. So we want to make sure that they're, they all can have something. So that's why some single family homes are a great thing. Cause we want to be able to make sure each of our kids can get to a house because we can't get into the housing game. You know, if they can't get a start somewhere, they're going to effectively in our area, not ever be able to live here. We want them to be able to live here. So one of our goals is setting them up like that. And so, but again, it's, it truly just comes down to how many assets can you hold? And then can you keep leveling up those assets? Right? Like, like, do I want to keep my 16 unit, which is going to be a 17 unit apartment complex actually for 20 years, I want to keep it for a few years and I want to roll it into something bigger. I want a hundred units, you know, just like you said, but you know, for me, my comfort level rate is right there right now. And so it's, it's a growth that we have to go through and get through, you know, but,

  Tim Murphy (38:04):

  Well, I just want to come back. So, you know, the big thing that we talked about today on the survival phase, step number two is, you know, design your map. What's your mind map or what I like to call design your life. And so the two things you need to focus on when you're designing your life and as a value driven investor is what is your ultimate goal, which we went over and then number two, how do you plan on reaching your goal? And so obviously your ultimate goal is your vision, right? But then reaching your goal starts with education starts with like myself and Bob Gran becoming real estate agent and then creating residual income and then maybe investing in something smaller, like residential real estate as rental properties. And then trying to find a way to 10 X your cashflow. So you have even more residual income.

  Tim Murphy (38:55):

  So then you can invest in something bigger with bigger cashflow, like commercial real estate. And so after that, it's wash, rinse, repeat. Now, Bob and I will both tell you we've simplified this drastically. I mean, if you want to go in and get a real estate attorney involved in this plan, he will have like seven LLC is a holding company, a construction company, a tax advisor. There's a lot that goes into the simple plan. Yeah. But you guys, you know what, you have to start simple and then take one step every day in the right direction. So I'm excited that you guys were on the podcast. Bob, do you have anything else you want to add before we close it up?

  Robert Grand (39:37):

  I think just hearing from people that are interested in what, what, what their vision is, you know, like I, I want to hear what anybody's vision is. I mean, how can they do that? Like we have the Facebook group. I mean, that's going, so if you join our Facebook group, you can look at and tell us what your vision is and we'll respond back to you. And we'll talk to you. I want to know is your vision different than my vision? Is that ultimately at the end of the day, mailbox money, like Tim Murphy sitting on the beach, collecting it for the rest of your life. That's cool. How long do you think you'd be on that beach? You know, it was a great question to ask yourself because 20 year old Tim is probably different than 40 year old Tim, as to what he wants in his life and what he's creating his legacy. Same thing with me. If I were 20, I'd be thinking the same thing. How can I get mailbox money? Sit on the beach. Sounds perfect. You know that, but at least he had the thought process of having that vision of the life he wants. And so what's your vision? You know, just like

  Tim Murphy (40:23):

  Tim said changes all the time and also sodas the path, the path. I mean, I had a path in my mind when I was 25, but then let me tell you, I veered away and I took different turns and I cited in different things, but you know what? You got to start somewhere, right?

  Robert Grand (40:41):

  You gotta start somewhere, have a man. That is

  Tim Murphy (40:43):

  All right, man. Well, if you guys want to be a part of our community, you can visit value-driven investor.com and there you guys can jump into our community. We are going to Bob and I are going to put together our vision maps, if you want to call it that in our in the Facebook group so that people can grab them if they want. And so if you're interested in joining the community, you can go to value-driven investor.com, but otherwise we look forward to the next episode of the value driven investor podcast. And thanks for joining us. Thanks Bob. Hey, good being on today. Thanks everybody. Have a great day.

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