Build Bigger, Think Differently, and Create Your Own Opportunity with Ryan Herrera

[0:00] Welcome back to the REI agent. My guest today is Ryan Herrera, founder of Herrera Capital and multifamily investor based in Canada, who is focused on small multifamily and value add deals in high cost coastal markets. Ryan has built his investing practice in one of the most competitive capital intensive markets in the country where the underwriting disciplines required to make the numbers work is a different game entirely from that with what most operators face in secondary markets. He documents his deal flow and investing journey publicly on Instagram, being transparent and operator first perspective that resonates with growing audience and aspiring investors. Ryan, welcome to the REI agent podcast. Yes, sir. Matias, thank you so much. It’s a privilege to be here. Yeah, thanks. It’s an honor to have you. And I apologize to everybody. I do have a bit of a cold. So I’ve got a bit of a cold brain and a cold voice. But Ryan does not, it doesn’t sound like at least so we will lean on him. Yes, you can lean on me. Yes. No worries.

[1:02] Ryan, I did. I want to hear I did catch a reel about kind of your journey, which I thought was pretty fascinating. So we always start with, with, you know, your story of getting into real estate. So I would love to hear that story. Absolutely. Yeah. No, thanks so much. Well, it’s very interesting. I mean, I’m most people that is in development usually are, I’d say a little bit older. So I started pretty young, but because of the technology that we have social media, it accelerates things so fast. So it doesn’t need to take five, 10 years to get into, into development. And the reason why I love development so much is because that is the, the highest way to squeeze your time in real estate. I know I’m talking to a lot of realtors here, so I’m, I’m super excited, but yeah, my story is I was born in the Philippines, third world country, you know, we’re operating on island time. Everyone’s pretty just content with life. And I was, I was playing a lot of soccer. I was just hanging out, but then we moved to, to North America when I was 16 years old.

[2:10] And right away I understood I got to make money. So I got started in a painting business. So I was highly unemployable. I could not hold down a job, McDonald’s soccer referee dishwasher. That’s it. I had three jobs, could not hold them down. So right away I knocked on doors. I was knocking on doors from five till 9 PM as a painter, just looking for houses to paint. And a lot of people slammed the door in my face. They’re like, no way am I letting this kid, you know, paint my house. But surely I was, uh, 17, 18. Okay. And it was just you that was painting. Like you were just me. It was just me. Yeah. I opened up a sole proprietorship and that’s it. Heading the doors, knocking on 50 to 80 doors a day. Wow. Wow. Yeah.

[2:59] Yeah. Yeah. Did you get better at it? Uh, did some momentum come from there then? Yeah, I definitely did. Yeah. I definitely got better as time went on, but I started booking jobs. So I started painting decks, painting houses and the revenue was like 500 bucks, 2k, 3k, 1k, 25. So it ranged around those. And that’s how I got my start in entrepreneurship and kept doing that. And, you know, I don’t know if you have more questions, but there’s more to that, obviously. Yeah. No, that’s, that’s awesome. I think, you know, um, it is interesting to, to, yeah, to, to, to hear different people’s stories. I think oftentimes, um, there is, uh, a fire in immigrants, um, on their, like their, um, background, where they came from, all that kind of stuff that, that, um, and, and I don’t know if it’s necessarily, I don’t, I don’t know where it comes from necessarily. I don’t know if it’s, it’s partly from the motivation that it takes to, to go to a different country. It’s not easy to leave your home. Um, but I think also like in the United States, I wish I would assume is similar to Canada.

[4:05] Um, there are just, uh, there are a lot of opportunities and I think maybe, um, coming from an area where you may not have seen as much abundant opportunities. I don’t know if that’s true for you or not. Um, it is true. It is true. Yeah. Um, that, that it almost like, I could see a perspective of an immigrant, like, like, why are these locals like not fired up? You know what I mean? Like, uh, yeah. And that’s okay. I, I completely respect every, I, I, I don’t see success as just monetary. I think success is, you know, family and, and, um, just contentment. And so it’s, it’s completely fine, but I do agree. Um, perhaps I just, when I came here, I saw, wow, I can be an entrepreneur for, for nothing, just start out of nothing. And so, um, the start of big fire in me. And I mean, now it’s the company’s grown pretty fast. Um, but yeah. So when did you start hiring painters?

[5:07] Um, then along the way I started, I started hiring painters that were like twice my age and it was super awesome. Just so fun. I’d bring them McDonald’s and just food all the time. It’d be so fun. Um, and it got to a point where the margins were getting squeezed, lots of people coming into the games. I had to like lower my pricing. So that was getting a little tough. So I started to, uh, scale into, uh, other stuff, flooring drywall, because people were saying, Hey, you did such good work for the painting. Can you do my flooring? Can you do my, so I said, yes, yes, yes. And scaled that. I was doing maybe six figures revenue, nothing crazy. Um, through that, I got, I got super distracted and I actually got into, um, just a lot of, uh, mischievous, just a lot of time wasting activities. So did a lot of, a lot of drugs, a lot, a lot of stuff like that. And so that derailed my entire, uh, career for five, six years. So that was not good. So I was just partying and doing drugs. So that was my down, downfall.

[6:17] Oh man. Um, how, how, what got you out of it? Well, honestly, my faith and I mean, you know, I’m not trying to push religion at anyone, but like I discovered Christ and God and that completely just changed my life overnight. It was just insane. That’s a whole story. But I think just the humility to say, Hey, I am, I am not the King of myself. Um, there’s a higher power and I submitted to that and it just, I was on the stray and narrow. Um, but during that time period, super dark period, I was getting tired of, uh, my contract in business. So I started e-commerce, I started Amazon FBA, I started drop shipping, started all these things. And I saw some success, but I could not scale it to a point where it would grow because the competition online is so, I mean, anyone from India can just not sleep and just grind and steal your products and steal your ads and just, and so I was getting blindsided by competition. So my, my stores went down, but it was doing pretty good. A couple thousand a day in, uh, in sales, but couldn’t grow. So when I stopped doing the drugs and all the dumb stuff submitted, uh, to higher power, I said, okay, let’s go back to real estate. Cause that’s what,

[7:37] um, worked for me. So I got into wholesaling and my first deal ever, my first deal ever, I made 50 K. I split it with two other friends. Cause it was three of us. So 17 basically. Uh, and like three weeks I said, this is it. If I did this in painting, $17,000 profit would be like a 50 K job, you know, a 50 K revenue. So I’m like, forget all that. I’m going all into for wholesaling. And it was okay. Again, same thing, ups and downs. Sometimes I’d make three K sometimes I make 15. Sometimes I make 30, but it took a long time to make these deals close. Cause I was doing multifamily, multifamily and land, those two things. So, yeah. And so through that, I was getting really burnt out. I was like, I gotta do so many deals. This is, this can’t be it. I’m doing too much work.

[8:26] And so that’s when two and a half years ago now, um, I did my first development because I thought back to my first deal, the first deal where I made 50 K, it was a piece of land that I wholesaled to a developer. So I was thinking if the developer can pay me 50 K, I wonder how much he’s making. I found out he was making like three 50 on one deal. So that’s when I went all in to development. Mind you, I had no money and a lot of listeners here, you’re realtors. You guys are realtors. You are 90% ahead of the game because you have access to the portal. You have access to these off-market deals. You have access and you have the credibility as a realtor. So you can get these deals. Now, the biggest thing is always cash, right? You need a lot of money to get into development. True. But also there’s so many ways and I could talk about that, but, um, yeah. And now I scaled and I have a decent size portfolio. That’s awesome. Okay. So, um, yeah, tell us a little bit about how, um, one would, because I mean, I think that there’s, there’s a lot of limiting beliefs. I think that we get in our own ways, uh, so often, um, in, in everything. I mean, I think like a lot of people getting just

[9:35] into being an entrepreneur, being a kind of, I mean, an independent contractor is like technically what real estate agents are. Um, and you know, there’s, it can be really daunting, really scary to take that leap. And I think, um, you know, at the end of the day, when you do and you get past it, you can kind of start relying on yourself and realizing that, you know, I mean, you’ve just talked about having success and like three different, at least three different things. Um, and, and, and so like, my point is, is like, if you were to have made, worked your way up, um, in a, in a bank or whatever, or in some sort of like corporate, uh, life, um, that job could be, you could be downsized. You could be, that could be gone, you know, the next day. Um, and, and now like that could be really daunting, like sure you could maybe get another job, but, um, you have probably in you the confidence that you could, you could turn around and build a different kind of business if you really needed to push them to shove. And I think, you know, they’re the limiting beliefs that come, um, that when we put on ourselves, they, they, they, they’re just limiting.

[10:36] They’re not really, they’re not really based on a lot of truth. And all that to say is money and investing is often one of the things that people, uh, feel like they, they don’t have enough of, um, that they need, like only rich people can, uh, you know, buy real estate or whatever. Um, so, so tell us a little bit about that. Yeah, absolutely. I’m, I’m so glad that you brought limiting beliefs because that is the biggest thing I see people stopping themselves from being successful. Um, and I mean, there’s many facets to this, but at the end of the day, if you think you can’t do it because you need experience, well, how are you going to get experience if you don’t do it? Chicken and an egg thing.

[11:13] You think you need money? Well, how do you get money unless you develop? Because that’s how you make six figures in your bank profit off of one deal. I have one student where I consult people too on how to do this. I have one student, he joined my program 41 days ago and he just closed on a piece of land last week. And he’s looking at $350,000 profit in Houston, Texas, in the gated community, 350 off of one deal. And he’s blown away. I told him, Hey, if you do another one, that’s 700 in one year, if you, if you go ahead and do another one. So because USA is the best, in my opinion, best country in the world, um, the funding that you can get as an American is insurmountable. I mean, Hey, look, sure. You need good credit score, but that can be repaired.

[11:58] That can be fixed. But if you do have a good credit score, you can get access to 0% interest up to 300 K in personal or business credit. The funny thing is when they give you this money up to 300 K, guess what? You got to spend it on something. You got to invest it. You can’t don’t buy Ferrari. Don’t buy Rolexes because it’s a loan. So best thing is buy a piece of land, right? I always say how you find deals is look, start in your backyard. Where are neighborhoods where it’s gentrifying, meaning they’re tearing down old homes and they’re building new ones. That’s the one. So that’s it. You find these deals. You’re a realtor. You know, the CMAs, you can pull recently sold comps. You can see all these. And so that’s where you, that’s where you can develop. So how do you get access to financing, uh, personal or business line credit? I, my team can hook you guys up or you could find any funding person online. They can hook you up. Number two, you can raise money using social media. So I, because of the online stores that I had, I knew how to run, advertising. So what I did to start raising bigger money in the millions, I actually was running ads,

[13:08] Facebook and Instagram ads to video ads of me talking about the project. So raise money, um, that way. And I split it 50, 50, 60, 40 with an investor. So at the end of the day, there’s capital everywhere. It needs to go somewhere. Capital decays every year. It needs to go somewhere. It’s up to you to grab that and, uh, and grow it for them. So it’s true. I mean, really finding the opportunity is, um, is, is the bigger thing. Um, you know, like if you’re, if you don’t have the money, um, may you have maybe the time, maybe you have the motivation, the, uh, knowledge to, to, to find a really good opportunity to, uh, present to somebody who does have the money and doesn’t have the time. Um, you got it. So it, it, it’s definitely a lot of things are possible. Now I wanted to touch a little bit about the, the access to financing. I mean, like, um, I don’t know exactly the program you’re talking about, cause that sounds pretty great for a percent of financing, but, um, but they’re like, just for example, like I have family in Switzerland, um, and it, most of them don’t own, um, it’s a great country to live in. It’s great. Um, you know, very, they’re very wealthy country,

[14:18] very taken care of, but not a lot of people don’t own, um, real estate necessarily. And, um, if you do buy real estate, you’re probably looking at least 25% down and their prices are pretty high. Um, gotcha. And it’s hard to get started in that kind of, uh, environment here. Like, you know, you can buy a house for, uh, you know, 0% down. Um, and there’s all sorts of programs that are there to kind of help people get started. And it’s just a completely different environment. And, and, you know, if you’re a very young agent hustling, you know, you can start investing just where you live and keep it as a rental, um, to build up equity that you can use for different deals as well. But tell us about that, that, uh, that loan product that, um, yeah, would be 0% interest.

[15:04] Yeah, absolutely. Um, so there are multiple banks where if you open up, so the biggest thing is getting aged LLC. So there are many ways to get, I mean, selfish plug with my team, we can get you these aged LLC for like 2k, 3k. The reason why you need to get these L age, or maybe if you have one, uh, because the banks, the bigger players to get access to six figures of funding, they lend easier if they see that this LLC has been aged. If you just opened up a new one, you can still get intro, um, intro credit through chase. There’s many other, um, banks, credit unions as well. The thing is these credit unions, especially they need your business. They, they just want to lend you money to get you in the door. The thing about banks is they’re all commoditized. What was the difference between TD bank, uh, chase, uh, they’re, they’re all just money. And so the only way for them to differentiate each other is these intro, um, offers and they’re obviously different interest rates, but that’s the biggest thing for them. That’s their product. And so that is essentially how it works. If you get an age LLC, you can get access to 200 K. Now, of course, with a caveat,

[16:16] it does depend on the personal, um, history of the, of that person, right? So if you’ve got a 600 credit score, a little tight, but we could, we could help to fix that. We’re going to have to remove some inquiries, right. And get you on the, on the right track. Um, but the good news is it is fixable. I know people in jail fixing their, their, their credit score. And when they’re, when they’re out, when they come out there, they’re good to go. Um, so, but that’s, that’s essentially how it works. You’re leveraging your personal credit score, if not personal business, which is a LLC, you buy this LLC and then you leverage that to get these introductory, um, special promos of, of, of financing. Um, there’s lots of other financing too, where you don’t need any documents. It’s pretty amazing.

[17:01] So that’s how it works. If you have just absolute garbage, um, credit, you can always go the route of raising capital from others, which is insane. I run ads, messenger ads, and I wake up and I have an influx of people messaging me. These are especially for bigger projects. Um, because with the funding, you can only get up to like 300 K if you’re trying to raise a couple mill to do a 20 unit apartment, then you’re going to have to raise capital. Right. Um, so that’s kind of how it works. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. I think this is, uh, raising money, um, or, or being the money that goes into deals like this is something that, uh, you know, you’re not always presented with as options for, um, investing in real estate. Uh, and it can be really good, especially as a real estate professional.

[17:50] Um, in if as a real estate agent, you are designated as a real estate professional and that basically allows you to, um, offset your taxes more than, um, like a doctor couldn’t, if, if a doctor appreciated their property, um, they could, they could take that money, that depreciation off their passive income, but not off their active income, which is their, their real estate or their doctor practice. Uh, whereas a real estate agent can write off their mission as well. Um, so it can be like, if you’re a really, you know, high producing agent, um, this is where some of the magic can happen. Uh, and to give a really good example, a really clear example, uh, in a particular deal that I invested in as a, um, limited partner in a syndication, I’m the $50,000. Um, in the first year I was able to write off $66,000 off my taxes. Um, uh, and then the second year I got, you know, maybe like another 15 or something, but it was, it was, you know, at that point we’re like, it’s just, you know, icing on the cake. Um, and, and so of course that deal is also returning, um, a pretty good return. And depending

[19:01] on these deals, they can, you know, you might have an exit plan where you get more than your initial investment back. Uh, it might be an exit point where they refinance the money and, um, you are able to then, um, still have ownership in the, like the property. You have all your initial capital back, um, at plus the tax benefits, plus, uh, the dividends you’ve been being, have been being paid. And then you kind of still have ownership in it as long as, so it’s a, it’d be a pretty big win-win. It’s, it’s a free roll. And I, I don’t know if you’re a gambling man, but like when you win your money back and you’re playing with house money, it’s, it’s, it’s basically a free roll or it’s called an infinite return. And let me tell you about why development is actually the most insane thing ever. When you fix and flip a house, make 50 K takes six months. Okay, cool. If you buy a rental property, an existing one, you buy fourplex, your cashflow in 500 to a thousand bucks a month, whatever it is. Cool. With development, you get the best of both worlds and it’s brand new. Let me tell you why. When you develop something, you instantly create a big chunk of equity when it’s done. So

[20:10] usually it takes about a year. Let’s say you build a fourplex. Okay. And that’s usually what I build. I build between eight to 12 units. That’s my range. And now I’m looking at going bigger. I’m also developing a luxury house in Miami, Florida, but with multifamily, this is really cool because once it’s done, you could, or you will convert the construction loan into a term loan, a DSCR loan. It has to be converted. You cannot stay as a construction loan when the house is finished. So let’s say you built it for 1.5, let’s just say 1.5 for a fourplex. That’s the land, the soft cost, hard cost, and the interest cost, everything. 1.5. You will get an appraisal. Once it’s done, it’s worth, let’s say it’s worth two mil. Okay. You just create half a mil of equity. Okay, Ryan.

[20:54] So what, what does that mean? How does that benefit me? That half a mil of equity, you could pull that sucker out, not all of it, but most of it once it’s done because you were at 1.5 cost basis, 12 months later, it’s done. It’s worth two. The construction loan will convert into a DSCR loan off the value. So up to 80%, you can take it sometimes even up to 90%. I’ve seen it. Let’s say 80% of the new value. So if we do some quick math, if we do 2 million times 80%, that’s 1.6. Now, remember your cost was 1.5. So you pulled out all your initial capital from the 1.5 plus an extra 100K and you kept the building. So now people always ask me, okay, how much capital did you need to start that 1.5 mil project? I have lenders that’ll lend us up to 90%, sometimes even 95%, but let’s just say 90% loan to cost. So meaning off a 1.5 mil project, you only need 10%, which obviously we all know math what that is. That’s 150K. I just told you guys that you can get up to 200, 300K off of business line credit, or you could raise the capital, whatever you want to do. But you only need 150 to do a 1.5 mil

[22:09] cost, which is worth 2 mil. Once you refinance off the two, you get back 1.6. And remember, your 150 is inside this 1.5. So you get back your 150 plus another 100 because you’re getting 1.6 and it’s worth 2 mil and your cash flowing. And guess what? You’re going to roll your now 250, 250,000 into the next deal. That’s kind of how multifamily development can scale so fast. And that’s how I was able to scale super fast as well. That’s awesome. And just one extra little point there is when you refinance, most people probably know that, but once we refinance that money, that $100,000 is not taxable. Tax-free. Tax-free. Tax-free. And so that’s huge. Obviously, yeah, you can see how that snowballs. Smaller scale, doing the BRRRR method, when you’re flipping a house, you can then take all the capital out and do the same thing in theory. But the numbers get bigger, the more impressive that everything gets bigger when you go bigger, obviously. So it’s awesome. And so then are you typically doing a cost seg on these new construction properties and able to start accelerating the depreciation as well to get extra tax benefits?

[23:27] Yeah, absolutely. And to your point about, and the reason why I brought this up is because it’s the best of both worlds of a BRRRR or a flip because you get… And actually, another thing, a little hack, a little tip is in this 1.5 cost, what you can do, and what I always do now, is you can add in what’s called a developer fee inside this. So that depends on which lender you’re working with. Sometimes they’re a little stingy on how much they’ll give you. But most of the time, you can add 100K to the project. Depends on the size of the project, but for a 2 mil project, you can. So now your cost basis is 1.6. But what that means is the extra 100K is cost to the project, but that’s to you. You’re paying yourself as active. So you could build in another 100K.

[24:18] Now, when you pull out the capital, I guess it would kind of cancel out. But if there’s enough… It just depends what it actually appraises for, right? Exactly. If it’s appraised for more, you could pull out even more. So because… And the point with the developer fee is instead… And a lot of people say this, okay, if I develop, I wait till the end to get money. I can’t wait that long, Ryan. It’s too long. Okay. With the developer fee, you’re pulling that out every draw. So every time you call a draw, your 100K is segmented, batched off of these draws. So for example, you finish foundation. You call your bank, hey, I need 250K. I just finished foundation. In that 250, you have part of your 100K. So let’s say it’s 20K. So during the build, you’re making money as if you were flipping or burying. And that’s just one project.

[25:06] Yeah. You got to pace for your gas, pace for your food, pace for whatever. Yeah. No, obviously you’re not out there with the pouring the concrete, framing the properties up. How much work is it to like oversee? Yeah. I was just there today. So it’s really, really interesting. I took a video. This is… You can see if you could see. Yeah. Yeah. So that’s today, literally. And I think I have some videos here. Let’s see if I have a video. Yeah. I took a video of this video here. But anyways, to answer your question, because I love development so much, because when you do a fix and flip, you can hire a project manager for a flip. You can. But what happens when you ordered the wrong size of windows and you got to replace them? What happens if someone stole lumber from your site and you got to… The margins are really thin. So you get a little… You’re forced to put in some sweat equity because you want to protect… You don’t want to make 10K off a flip. You want to make sure you’re making at least 30, hopefully 50 to 80, right? Off a flip. With development, we’re making, like I mentioned to you, half a mil of equity. We are able to hire actual profession, people who

[26:19] post on their LinkedIn saying they have 20 years worth of GC or project management experience. So to answer your question, I rarely… I like going to sites just to take pictures, videos, post it on my website to improve my portfolio. But I don’t know any… I can’t tell you the difference between a two by four or two by six. I can’t tell you how they put on the piers or the piles for the foundation. I watched some YouTube videos on it to understand. It’s really cool. They go down to the rock bed, six feet down, especially in Miami, you have to have that. But at the end of the day, I let my experts, the team that I built take care of it. And so maybe, I don’t know, it could be as much as 10 hours a week. It could be as less as… If I’m traveling, zero hours a week, I just look at my WhatsApp because we all communicate via WhatsApp. And they just send me pictures and videos. So it’s not much work. I have the control whether what color to put.

[27:16] Should we do carpet or concrete or vinyl, that stuff? But I’m not too privy on the finishes. It’s all up to the market, right? So not much time, really. So it’s very passive. Development is very passive. Yeah, that’s awesome. How have the interest rates going up and them being high in general impacted the ability to cash flow these deals? I know that the BRRRR method is much harder now. I mean, the juice has to be a lot juicier. Yeah. No, great question. And that’s exactly why development is still king. Because if you’re doing a BRRRR or if you’re buying an existing building, you’re handcuffed to what you could rent it out for to ensure the interest rates are not going to give you a haircut and make sure you still DSER what? 1.1, 1.2, whatever lenders want. When you develop, you’re at the cost basis.

[28:13] So I’m at the cost basis of 1.5. If I were to buy what I built from someone like me, I’m buying it at 2 mil. So my interest rate is at the 2 mil. So at the end of the day, you don’t need to refinance fully at the 2 mil. You could refinance at 1.9, 1.8, et cetera. So to answer your question about interest rates, that’s exactly why I would still choose developing over buying existing. Because again, you’re able to manufacture it at the cost basis. So if interest rates go up, down, or the rents soften, or vacancy goes up, you built it at cost basis. So you’re protected with that half a mil equity. Yeah, sure. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, I mean, it’s really interesting. What markets have you been developing in? Yeah, so mainly Alberta, Canada. That’s how I got my start in for the past two, three years. And then expanding to Florida, Miami. Okay, cool. Awesome. I mean, this has been, I’m sure very eye opening. And I feel like people listening to this are going to feel a lot more like it’s possible to do something like this. But what other gold nuggets do you have for our listeners?

[29:23] Well, I mean, if you’re a real estate agent, you are already doing the activities that is needed to, if you want to excel, if you want to get started in real estate, I highly recommend skip, just skip the fix and flip. Don’t do it. If you’re going to buy rentals, just might as well build it, build your own rentals. Because we get reward for the things that are hard. It’s hard to develop. I’d rather buy existing. Well, there’s a reason why it’s hard and because of the juice. So you mentioned the juice needs to be worth the squeeze. That’s where development plays into it. And the beautiful thing about development is once you learn that skill, you could take that and do anything you want with that development skill. You could build a 20 unit apartment, you could build a strip mall, you could build a resort. And so I think it’s really important to hone that skill if you want to be long term in this game. But hey, I’ve seen people make it work with just buying existing and then doing the burr. Absolutely, you can do that. But just know you’re fighting with lots of other burr people. And so there’s a lot of competition in my opinion, maybe not. But development is definitely in

[30:32] the highest, the most difficult, difficult tier of real estate. So again, if you’re a real estate agent, you’re 90% there. You just have to, I think the missing piece is learning how to underwrite the deal. And that would be how much does it build to cost per square foot, cost per square foot build, understanding zoning, and land cost. If you add all that together, understanding the ARV, you’re good to go. And then you could easily raise capital because you’re a realtor or get the business funding as well. And you could scale. So I’d say development is the most scalable activity in real estate. Okay, love it. Love it. What about a favorite book, a fundamental one that you think everybody should read or just one that you’re currently enjoying? Yeah, I really like it’s kind of not really real estate, but Alex Ramosi. Have you heard of Alex Ramosi? Yeah, Alex Ramosi’s $100 million money models actually helps a lot in terms of negotiating deals with.

[31:32] So it’s really interesting. I’ll tell you the deal that I closed in Miami, Florida. So that deal is on the beach, 1.6 mil land. My build cost is 500 bucks a square feet. I’m building a 3,075 square foot house two story. When I sell it after a year and a half, it’ll be worth around 1600 square feet for the retail is crazy. And so the way I structure that deal, and I would attribute some of it to the book, but I was able to get my builder to put in cash in the deal. So he’s putting in 50k for the earnest deposit. So I’m not putting in any deposit. He’s putting it in. He’s putting up 100k for the soft cost, those blueprints, the structural soil test, engineering, architect, and the permits. So all that’s 100k. So he’s putting up 50k plus 100k. Now I also negotiated six months to close on the land, meaning I don’t have to pay up the down payment. You know how I did the math. You need 10% for the close deal. I don’t need to pay that until six months into the deal, which means I’m already finished my permits. And so I was able to six months to put up the 10%, which I have an investor for. So I’m putting no money. My builder’s putting in 50k for the earnest 100k for the soft cost.

[32:54] And so it was structured where quite literally I’m using none of my own money for this deal. And that’s because I understood the underwriting game. But also, yes, the book, $100 million money models, essentially just says, make sure it’s a win win for everyone. That’s kind of like the summary. It’s a win for my builder, because I’m giving him 15% ownership in the project 15%. And then my investors getting 50%. I’m getting the rest. So I’m not getting 100% of the profits, but I put in no money. So yeah, I love that book makes you helps you think differently. 50% of zero money is what I started use. What was the expected? What was the outcome here? Are you’re selling this? Yeah, it is a Yeah, it’s it’s a luxury. It’s my first luxury house. I’ve only built multifamily. And so I wanted to try out luxury. So it’s a sale, it’ll be five mil exit total cost is like 3.5. Okay, well, maybe 3.8. Yes, that’s awesome. Yeah, that’d be cool. So definitely, people could follow you on Instagram to to see that some of that journey and see how that goes. Or I know that you you share stuff on your social media, where else can people find you?

[34:13] Yeah, absolutely. I’ve got YouTube. I’ve got Instagram. That’s, that’s pretty much it. YouTube, Instagram. What’s what’s your handle there? Oh, yeah, it’s a official Ryan Herrera, H E R R E R A. And that’s Filipino with a little bit of Spanish, I guess. But I know we talked about that. Yeah, yeah. Well, Ryan, thank you so much for being on the podcast. Yeah. So I want to ask you, what’s what’s your long term goals? If you don’t mind me asking, I’d love to learn more about that. Yeah. Well, so definitely looking to continue to grow in various ways. So build up the passive income while I continue to do the real estate sales, which I enjoy. And ultimately chasing that, you know, freedom, that decision to choose what 16 hours a day I work to stay engaged to stay passionate to continue to, you know, travel, enjoy life, stay healthy, keep the family first and foremost. And yeah, be happy.

[35:20] That’s amazing. And you want to stay in your in your state there? Or are you looking to move? Yeah, it’s been a pretty good area for us. We do really enjoy it. Okay. Yeah. The weather’s good there. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we get seasons. So you know, that’s okay. Some people like that. Some people don’t. I think it’s nice to have a little bit of everything. But yeah, overall, I think it’s a really good spot for us. That’s amazing. And do you have a big family or three? Three kids? Yeah. Wow. Wow. That’s amazing. Congrats. That’s that’s beautiful. Yeah. So I mean, thank you. I really appreciate you and your time. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. All right. Yeah. Thanks again. Thanks so much for being on the show. Absolutely. Thank you, Matias. Thanks for listening to the REI agent. If you enjoyed this episode, hit subscribe to catch new shows every week. Visit REIAgent.com for more content.

[36:11] Until next time, keep building the life you want. All content in the show is not investment advice or mental health therapy. It is intended for entertainment purposes only.