Aileen: [00:00:00] Thank you, everyone for joining today’s episode of the, How Did They Do It? Real Estate podcast. We are your hosts, Seyla and Aileen, and today our guest is John Fortes. John Fortes is the co-founder of Community First Investment Group where they acquired over 100 units.  He is also the founder of The Fortes Company where he has helped families invest in over $70M in multifamily apartments to secure financial security through real estate passive opportunities in multifamily syndications.  Additionally, he is the host of The Passive Investor podcast. Welcome to the show, John, how are you doing?

John: [00:00:29] I’m doing good. Thank you for having me. And before we continue, can the audience to do a favor for you guys? It’s if you haven’t rated or reviewed this podcast already, please do it. It means it means the world to podcasters, and I know they would appreciate it.

Aileen: [00:00:45] Thank you so much.  We really appreciate that John.

John: [00:00:47] No, no worries. I’m excited to be here. I can’t wait to dive into the conversation.

Aileen: [00:00:52] Sounds great. So before we get started, can you just tell the listener, starting off a little bit more about your background and how did you get started in real estate?

John: [00:00:59] Awesome.

I have a background in I.T, so I I’ve been doing that for about 12 years now on a consultant basis. And I realized one day by looking at my 401k that it wasn’t going to meet my projections to retire when I wanted to retire. So I started to learn and try to figure out the stock market. I sat down with a financial group and they were real honest with me.  They said, look, build your foundation first and pay all your debts and all of that. And I went, like, I went back to the job board and I did all of that as I was paying off my debt and everything. And I started learning about real estate. Well, actually I was learning about real estate a little bit because I was purchasing my house.

And then when we purchased, we started doing some renovations. And then, you know, when the appraisal comes, you, you say. Oh, I just forced appreciated by renovating my basement or my siding or updating my siding or updating my kitchen. So my bathrooms and all of that. So the house value, just kind of just skyrocketed because of the way we purchased the house on a foreclosure.

So from there we literally said, all right, let’s, let’s start focusing on some real estate. I purchased one single family investment. Just one. And the significance of that is everything I did after that was multifamily. While I was, while I had that single family under contract, I turned to my wife. I said, this is the last single family, wherever we’re going to do.  The reason of why is I didn’t want to do about 30 of those, 40 of those 50 of those to retire, whatever my number was.

And it cash flows well, I wanted to do the BRRRR philosophy, which is buy rehab, uh, rent and refinance, right?, and then repeat, but I never did that strategy because of the fact that I bought a turn key. I feel I realized when I was purchasing that, that I’m a safe investor. I like singles and doubles and I want something that’s going to provide me cashflow.

And I like a little bit of a bump on the exit. So I’m not looking for a home run or grand slam or whatever you want to call it. I know that if I buy for cash, if I buy, buy, buy what my criteria at a singles and doubles rate, the triples and home runs will come naturally, just off of the way I evaluate opportunities.

And if they, if they happened, it just kind of be a home run. Great. I’m cool. But if they’re a single, um, that’s perfectly in my wheelhouse. So that’s kinda where I was. I realized that the stock market was not something that I could traditionally follow, like anybody else to understand that and for me was similar to how we understand.

Invest in with the syndications and stuff. And what that, what I mean by that is if I know who the CEO is for Coca-Cola I understand that either his track record is going to be good or bad, and the market will tell you that. And people will say, Oh, Coca-Cola is a point and no CEO. And then the stock market, the stock price goes down.

You know that the market doesn’t favor him, but if it goes up, you know, that the market is like, Oh, he he’s known to turnaround companies. They’ll do this and blah, blah, blah, whatever. So when you’re going to invest in syndications, you got to vet the sponsor as well. So understanding the sponsor and their track record is vital to the asset and your investment.

So it kind of, that’s kind of where I went and how I came and stumbled upon all of that as I started. And all of that happened. I started taking off with real estate just to wrap this up about two years ago, when I made that first investment single family. And now we are where we are with the multi-families.

Seyla: [00:04:54] Awesome. One of the questions I have for you is you did a investment on a single family, and then you jump into a multifamily apartment. What steps did you take in order to make that leap?

John: [00:05:08] Oh, that’s a great question. I purchased education. I went in, I know real estate enough, but I didn’t know what the barriers of entry were to purchase multi-family and when I say multifamily, I’m not speaking about three to five units, three to four units. I believe anything, five or six units or more is now considered commercial real estate in some markets. So I wanted 10 units, 12 units, a hundred units. That’s what I wanted. I don’t want the traditional way you’re driving around and you see a bunch of three, three units, two units, duplexes, or whatever you want to call it triplexes.

And I know I wanted the bigger one, so I needed to know and understand the barriers and entry. So I got some education. I networked like crazy. So my first 62 unit multifamily transaction came about by way of JV partnerships. The way I go about relationships now is, I won’t JV or partner with anybody unless I truly know them.

And sometimes that could take up to a year and that’s important to me. Because you need to know who you’re basically marrying for the next five years, 10 years, however long you’re going to keep the asset. But with that said is, the education and understanding and one thing that really, really worked for me was I answered or replied.

I shouldn’t say answered. I replied back to a ton of questions with all these private multifamily groups. I’m a part of a ton of them. I’m not as active as I used to be, but as far as when I used to be on them. If someone asked a question, I would repeat, I would reply back and say, well, this is what I heard on a podcast.

This is what I heard. This is what I heard. This is what I read. And now my answers started to change as to this is what we’re doing. This is what we’re doing. This is what we’re doing. And it was funny to see that shift because of all the time that I was taking and here’s the, here’s another thing too, is I wasn’t scared to be wrong because if you asked the question and I came up and I said, Oh, this is what I heard. And then someone would say, well, that’s not the right way to do it, but I’m right or wrong. That’s fine. Either way, guess what? The person that says I’m wrong, it’s going to probably most likely give the correct answer.

And I was going to learn on the fly right there. So that was the reason why, if not, like not being scared of just being able to put the wrong answer out there, but at the same time. And I just wanted to know the answer. So I know that, if I answered with the notification settings at that time, I would, I got the ding and said, Oh, I guess that’s not the right way to do it. So it’s fine. It’s fine to fall on your face and get up and learn and understand the process. But if there are certain things that you want to keep track of to keeping track of maybe even rehab. Have a spreadsheet where you have tabs where rehab, and you can just log roofing. This is what  and, you know, just categorize it and just so you have a quick guide to follow or look up when you, when you’re first starting out, just kind of like plugging in everything you’re learning and what you understand and what you don’t understand, what you want to get answers to ask the question. If you ask questions, you’ll find the people that are willing to answer them.

As far as that. Yeah. And I know that there’s other programs too, out there like mentorships and all that I’ve looked into them, but through the connections I’ve made, I found it that as long as I value to them, there’ll be a value to me as far as when I reach out to ask a question. So I’ve naturally found some mentors as a, as I’ve come, and grown into the space with people that have done it at a higher level that I, you know, I aspire to be. It’s just fun to have those conversations. And when they’re willing to take you on the, their wing, it’s just, you know, it’s kind of gratifying because of all the work you’ve put in, in the past.

Aileen: [00:09:11] No, that’s great. Especially when you’re surrounding yourself with the people who are already doing it, you’re definitely learning and you’re pulling from their experiences and applying it to yourself and great job on taking the time to educate yourself. So,

John: [00:09:23] I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s pretty cool. I mean, there’s other ways to do it.

There’s no right or wrong way to do it whether you pay for it or you, you just stumble upon it or you just kind of network like crazy because I have the. I have that personality to speak to anybody, my wife or my wife will tell you, she take me anywhere and she knows I’ll be comfortable because she, she knows how to talk to a wall or whatever, right? So it’s just one of those things where I really truly love people and I want to know about them. So I’ll have a conversation just to find out, you know, what are they doing for a living? What are they, what are they up to? I’m just curious, my curiosity for what people do and for a living, it’s just kinda just like, I mean, in their lives to how they think, how they are, you know, what are they, what are their passions and stuff like that.

I mean, I know that’s off topic for real estate right now, but it’s just my natural curiosity. So I ask a lot of questions by nature.

Aileen: [00:10:21] So for the 62 unit deal that you did, you said you joined ventured with how many partners was on that deal?

John: [00:10:28] Yeah, that’s a great question. We had like seven partners on it still to this day too.

It’s a, it’s a project that what’s funny is for first multifamily investment. I wouldn’t advise anybody to do. It’s a heavy rehab and all our partners, a lot of us had a lot of passive investing experience. Prior to this. So it’s not a lot of active investing experience. We were all getting the same education and we bought, learned a lot on the fly on this opportunity.

And I’m truly grateful for that because of the simple fact that the, the barriers and situations and struggles and. And issues and contractors, and like you name it, we’ve done it. Uh, I’m talking about like anything from mass accident. Go ahead. Boom. Tenants are left to a contractor issues. It’s just kinda you name it. We’ve done it. Repair issues where we had to replace the decks and then the contractor did the entrance on one side when it was supposed to be on other side. So like just, just name it and we’ve done it. Water leaks. We’ve got it. I can’t tell you anything about the roof, the roof had been fine, but the gutters we got gutters. Yeah. It’s been like name it and we got it, man. And except for those two that I just mentioned, but yeah, it’s been a battle, a bear. But it’s going to be worth it because of where we purchased that

Seyla: [00:11:48] from the time that you decided to jump into the multifamily investing from a single family, how long did it take you to find this 62 units and to find your JV partners and to actually closing the deal?

John: [00:12:00] So that’s a great question. From the time I’ve finished my single family. About six months later, five to six months later in, uh, five to six months later, after that, we thought it, six months later, we purchased 62. So as soon as I got into the community, I was asking a lot of questions. So I networked with a bunch of people.

So I had some relationships built and we partnered with those people, six, six, seven people on the opportunity to be able to take down the 62 unit. Five to six months later, we have syndicated off first 41 unit that was at first indication. And that was so fun to me. I mean, I say that was so fun to me because I, at that time, everything, I was taking games with syndication, syndication, syndications.

So that deal was presented to us by one of the partners in the old and the 62 units. And the lender came back and said, you can’t JV this, you’re going to have to syndicate this to get lending. So you had no choice the syndicated and he had no idea what the syndication process was like. So we got pulled into that deal just because we understood the syndication process.

But then, did you speak to the attorney? Did you set this up? Did you set that up? When we’re <<unaudible>> ? We have a capital raise. All right, great. Let’s go. So on the call with the syndication attorney, she was asking questions. I pretty much answered all of them proficiently, most, most of the questions, it was just kind of funny how that happened, but yeah, we, we closed that.

We had the capital raise prior to the PPM docs being sent out. It was, I can speak on it now. It was a great, great investment because we’ve exited 18 months later. So I mean, 15 months later, 15 months later after holding it, we exited we’ve gone full cycle on it. We got a 1.5 multiplier on it. And the reason why we exited on it, when you got a projected plan of, you know, say double the income or whatever of the investor’s returns, and you can get half of that already.

And 15 months of holding it. It doesn’t make sense to hold it for another four years to get another 50% when you’ve already made a good return on the investors in that opportunity. So we decided to move ahead. And if we kept it, just, just understand that we’re cash flowing at a 9% return. And that was just such a good investment where we’re, we didn’t do a lot of renovations because the plan, even though the plan was we’re renovating, as we go, as tenants became, as leases became expired, we were renovating as they were vacant.

There was a lot of them that were re-leasing. So we were getting a bump of NOI, just, you know, a small bump, whether it’s a $10 bump on something that isn’t up to market status. I mean, that’s fine. That’s all you want. And in end of the day, if you’re re-leasing for something a little bit better, but if we work on that, on the assets that we did on the units that we did renovate, those ones kick back to market value. And that was what really boosted the NOI for us. And we’re able to drive those 9% returns.

Seyla: [00:15:22] Wow. That was really awesome. I mean, are able to provide a return to the investor of 9% and was able to exit within 15 months where, you know, like 1.5 equity multiples and 50% returned quickly, you know, that that’s really impressive.

So throughout your first multifamily deal or syndication. What has been the most challenges that you have faced during that time?

John: [00:15:46] Yeah, the biggest challenge was the 62 unit, that one’s been so, like I said, it’s been a challenge. We’ve, we’ve dealt with contractor issues where contractors saying one thing, and we’re saying another thing, and we’ve had issues with unit leaks and water leaks and finding those.

And it’s just kinda, it’s been. It’s such an experience that at the, at the same time, like, for instance, I told you I wouldn’t let anyone, I wouldn’t advise anyone to purchase something like this, unless they have some good experienced team members on their team to, to do it. Would I be able to do it again?

Yeah, absolutely. I know what to look for and go ahead. And that’s what it’s taught me, but is it something that I want to do? Let’s say perfect world. It’s probably, I would probably do like to do probably maybe one every two years, something like this in a perfect world, but in a situation where I am, I like singles and doubles.

I just want the easy value add component to it where maybe it’s just, you know, unit turned by unit turn. If we’re buying a hundred units. And we know we got to just renovate 25. I like those types of assets. I like it all depends on what I’m looking at. And it’s more about the business plan than anything, because at the same time, that’s what I’m looking for.

But like you said, what’s been something, I mean, your question that you asked, what’s been something that I’ve been. That I’ve learned. That’s been something crazy. It’s just this whole 62 unit has been such an experience, such a learning experience, that great learning experience. I wouldn’t want to put investors in this type of opportunity, but it allowed me to understand and re refine my criteria, my investment criteria

Seyla: [00:17:34] After then, what was the inspiration for you to create The Fortes company? Is that before you actually started the first multi-families or right after?

John: [00:17:44] Yeah, that’s a great, that’s a great question. So I have a podcast and what happened was I associated the podcast with The Fortes company because I work with private investors doing the podcast and through the, through The Fortes company, my other firms, those are my JV firms.

And those are one we’re going ahead and start JV. And, but through The Fortes companies, what I do my syndications from, so it’s kind of like my business models and why I have different structure, but yeah, that was the motivation for us to keep it separate where I can raise capital from private investors that are looking to invest in real estate, but don’t have the time, but also, if opportunities came about when my other firms where, Hey, you know, Seyla, you had an opportunity and you came over and said, Hey, John, we want to partner. And maybe we can partner together without using private capital and just kind of JV and to other, other opportunities together. So yeah, it was just kind of like two different businesses.

That basically compliment each other.

Seyla: [00:18:50] Thank you for explaining that. So how do you help investors determine which multi-families Syndications or funds best suits their needs?

John: [00:18:59] Well, that’s a great, that’s a great question. Well, I don’t determine it to be honest, they determine it. So if they’re willing to invest, they already understand that our criteria aligns with their criteria. So I’m not force-feeding anybody, anything but anything I do present in front of an investor. So envision this envision, the investor reaching out to me or being referred to me by one of the one other investor. And when we have a conversation, they understand that the criteria for assets we purchase are singles and doubles.

And we go through that criteria where it’s a value add proposition where the business plan is just, uh, renovating units as they turn where cash flow or purchasing where adequate debt, I mean, were adequate reserves, making sure we have enough reserves there and longterm debt. So that’s our goal with one of the three things that we look to purchase assets with, but also we’re looking at multifamily in particular market. So the merging markets. What are the, what is, what is, is it a tertiary market? We’re not looking at tertiary so much. We like strong markets where it’s economy like economically supported by the jobs and the other opportunities that are there, but also a great living space away from crime.

We’re looking at everything that basically you hear everybody else kind of say, but what separates us is. We’re looking for something that’s gonna appreciate cashflow. The tenants are going to pay down the loans. We’re passing through the tax benefits through the cost segregation and an investment that’s going to hedge against inflation.

One of my models is beating inflation 1% of the time and that’s the, that’s the way I look at my investments in my model, where is it going to helped me beat inflation? Yeah. I don’t want to keep my capital in the bank where it’s going to be eaten away by inflation because of the simple fact that I’m not investing it.

So doesn’t necessarily mean I jump into every investment, but my criteria is a light value add where the investment has to have a great business plan. And I know how to overlook the business plan as far as if I’m looking at a passive investment or if I’m looking at some, some sort of a opportunity that we’re going to go take down.

So, yeah, I like the best of both worlds. And, you know, each, each plan offers some sponsors offer preferred return, some don’t. And there’s a big conversation right now about preferred returns right now that I like kind of being, I don’t care about it. It depends on who you are as invested investor, where for instance, you have to know your criteria, but also you have to be flexible with your criteria.

Now there’s people that are invest with preferred returns only. And some people that are be like, all right, I understand, um, invest where there’ll be in the middle, where they won’t invest, or they will, they will or won’t. And then there’s no, I don’t invest with preferred returns. And there’s reasons for that.

And you have to understand where you are in your investment journey, because if you can understand your criteria and refine it as you go, because your criteria is always going to move, your criteria is always going to be flat. Your criteria should be flexible as an investor. If you can refine it and tweak it, and you better, you’ll have a better understanding of what investments you will invest in as opposed to what you want as a limited partner.

So helping investors come like basically walk that journey and come across that bridge. I don’t determine what investments they invest in. I help them bridge that gap, but also they understand that my opportunities as singles in doubles. So I don’t do ground up construction. And I’m sorry, this is a little bit long-winded but this is something I don’t do.

I don’t do ground up construction. I don’t do self storage. I don’t do mobile home parks. Will I ever?, I don’t know, but right now I focus on value add multifamily.

Seyla: [00:23:14] One of the most challenging things about raising capital is to make a good relationship with the investors. How have you been able to make a meaningful relationship with your investors?

John: [00:23:26] Great question, I personally speak to every investor that comes across on The Fortes Company. I don’t have to be best friends with you, but also I enjoy working with people that I have common interests in where, you know, I love basketball and some people know that about me and if they like basketball, they’ll come and talk to me about basketball and then we’ll form a relationship about that.

I find common ground. I don’t force it if I’m, you know, if someone likes cricket and I don’t know a thing or two about cricket, I’m not going to go and learn cricket just to have a conversation. You know, it’s not, it’s not my character. It’s just, you know, I don’t understand that maybe they could teach me eventually, but I don’t know if I, even if I care to know at that time, but you know, it’s not, you know, you have what you like and you naturally gravitate towards people that like what you like, it’s just weird. It’s a weird energy. It’s not a weird answer, but it’s a good energy flow that I like to, you know, protect where I’m not forcing myself to come out, come out of pocket because of, you know, someone’s status  or someone like something or whatever that I have to go relearn something just to be in the cool club or whatever you want to call it.

But forming the relationship, constant communication. It’s just, uh, getting to know them, but also understand that when they are vetting operators like myself, where we’re vetting investors like them, we want to understand and know that this investment would be the best opportunities we provide are pretty much something that they would be interested in as well.

And I’ll give you an idea. Say someone comes to you and they say, Hey man, I’ve saved 50 grand. And it’s all I got. And you know, you’re probably going to be like, look, I don’t want to take your last 50 grand. You won’t take it because you’re a good person. And you feel like, you know, if you, if being a steward of capital, not that you’re looking to lose capital, you’re not going to make a return on it.

You don’t want to put that investor in that situation. Tell them to go away and, you know, save a few more and have a nice investment emergency emergency account to make sure that they’re protected in case anything happens so that they don’t have to come back to you and say, Hey, Seyla, you know that 50 I saved.

Yeah, something happened. I need it back. But it’s already tied into that investment because it’s not a liquid investment, the investment is not liquid. So you want to save them from that and you want to understand that you want to have those types of conversations. And I know sometimes conversations about money is sometimes uncomfortable for people.

So what is your relationship with money? Like how, how you view investments, have you viewed, have you thought about alternative investments? It’s just little conversations like that to help kind of have those conversations with people that are, maybe have a tight grip on their finances that look at alternative investment or private investment as, you know, a scam or something like that.

It’s not a scam. People privately invest all the time. They reach out to JC firms and it’s another way that high net worth individuals make returns. I, with private firms, you gotta be ready and open to have those conversations, but also as a private firm, you gotta be ready, and open to be communicated with private investors.

Seyla: [00:26:56] So, you already invested in single family and then transition to multi-families and helping the busy professionals, you know, like investing in real estate. What’s next for you?

John: [00:27:06] Oh, that’s a great question. Creating a bond where it’s, for instance, you asked me already, how do I match investors with the opportunities?

As long as you know, our criteria is, which is the value add cash flowing. And I named the five ways investors get paid earlier. I’m creating a fund that allows us to, for instance, private investors can invest in the fund and you know what our criteria is. And we’re going to go ahead and take down those types of investments.

And that’s going to provide diversification for investors. For instance, Seyla, if you’re investing in syndication, you’re probably looking at one, two, three deals every quarter, deciding if you’re going to invest, 5,000, $250,000 into one opportunity. All right, great. That’s fine. If you like being hands on.

That’s awesome. But a fund, for instance, I look at over a hundred investments in the course of a quarter, every quarter, I’m looking at over a hundred investments and then weeding out which ones I like aside from the ones I don’t like. So being able to leverage a firm that has a fund to invest in opportunities that meet your criteria already. But the fund is providing diversification where maybe you go ahead and you put 250 in the fund. You can go ahead and say, all right, cool. The fund is doing the work for us with leveraging the professionals from that manage the fund. And they’re going ahead and put in the capital of work and opportunities that meet this type of criteria.

And it provides a little bit of more clarity and provides the investor a little bit more time where now they’re just keeping track of the fund through the private investor portal, the private investor portal and the use of a communications and newsletters and updates of how the fund is producing. So. If I knew about that when I first started, I probably wouldn’t have went in and been in active, invest on the active side of multifamily.

I would have loved to be a passive investor and just put all my capital into those types of funds. But I didn’t know about those growing and not growing up, but like a few years ago. So. I’ll be creating one of those that’s next for the company. And I think that’s a better way for investors to be a little bit more hands-off and understand that the value of time of, Hey, I rather be spending it with my family or advancing my career in the workspace or whatever they value or doing more on their hobbies, whatever they value.

They want to place that time. Instead of sitting down a webinar after webinar, a couple of times a month reviewing opportunities to invest in, unless that’s your cup of tea and you like it, go ahead by all means. But the fund allows you to take that. If you have 500,000 to invest, allows you to take a big chunk, like 400,000, throw it in the fund, and now you’re completely diversified.

And I think that’s a better alternative than having to sit through maybe five opportunities/a month deciding which one you want to invest in which market you want to invest in, as opposed to a firm that’s leveraging their expertise to parse through hundreds of quarter. I’d rather take my odds with the firm and kind of with myself, especially if I’m busy and trying to create a life and, and live with my family and be happy and all that.

I don’t want to take the time to do that. So that’s, that’s where we’re going.

Seyla: [00:30:35] That makes sense. So now I’m going to transition to the four final closing questions.

Are you ready?

John: [00:30:41] Absolutely. I’m ready.

Seyla: [00:30:43] How has real estate investing impacted your life?

John: [00:30:46] Man? It’s been, it’s been awesome. And it’s such a great question because it’s more about what’s happened since I’ve real estate invested. So friends and family ask questions. I’m kind of looked at as you know, Hey, you have a real estate question. Go ask John hay. Oh man, I’m not, I’m a local broker, man. Come on. What’s going on? So it’s kind of funny how I’m looked at, what my friends and family creating a business create, it’s allowed me to become an entrepreneur. It’s allowed me to spend more time with my family. It’s allowed me to literally just focus full-time on investing and it’s really allowed me the time and flexibility to go ahead and pursue other activities. As some people might know, I’m a basketball referee as well, to be flexible with your time.

That is availability is the most important aspect of that position to be able to go ahead and, you know, obviously be right on the court as well as you are making calls, but I enjoy being on the basketball court. So basketball referee and is, is something that has been, you know, one of the contributing, one of the benefits of being able to invest real estate because of my time, my value of time and where I can go ahead and have my flexibility and, and be at certain games and, and be with my family more too.

So yeah, that’s the benefits.

Seyla: [00:32:10] what is one thing that you know now about real estate that you wish you knew when you first started?

John: [00:32:16] Man? I wish I started earlier because I know that’s I wish I knew my criteria earlier and invested earlier. So, and you don’t, sometimes you don’t know your criteria until you get into something because you think you might like, you know, I might like doing a rehab, right? on a single family. Let’s flip this house and then you’re like, Oh my gosh, it’s a time suck or whatever. And you just feel like I don’t ever want to do this again. So now you want to go ahead and. How do I make it easier? And by maybe it’s turnkey or something like that, maybe it’s invest in passively or whatever it is.

I think that’s, that’s what I I’ve learned, where I wish I knew my criteria earlier and invested.

Seyla: [00:32:59] What is one thing that sets the successful people apart in the real estate investing business ?

John: [00:33:05] Systems and processes. So having something to help, what your systems and this technology, like I said, I have it background, so I am always looking for cost-effective systems.  And it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t necessarily mean the cheapest I invested heavily and an expensive CRM, but other pieces that I know that I don’t need because the CRM needed. So if it makes sense, I’m going to make the investment in it. Instead of buying something that’s or purchasing something that’s cheap, cheap, cheap.

And then next thing you know, I have to go and purchase a bunch of other things because the CRM cousin can’t do, doesn’t have the flexibility to do, you know, set, share through social media or whatever else. I like to have everything under one umbrella, as much as possible. Someone wants a multifamily, one roof, many doors instead of five roofs and five doors.

If that makes sense.

Seyla: [00:34:07] Yep. That makes sense. What tools or techniques have you used to improve the efficiency of your business or personal life?

John: [00:34:14] Oh yeah, that’s awesome. So I meditate every morning on my personal life by journal every morning. Before this call, I did my meditation, my journal, we, we, we kicked this off really early.

I love it. Also PR processes and tools. I have an investor portal for my investors. I wanted them to be safe and sharing documents back and forth. It’s it’s behind password protected with security and all of that. So, um, investor portal was heavy. It was, it was a necessary purchase for me and my investors.

And a, like I said, the CRM tool that I purchased it’s, it’s, it’s been very, uh, you know, above my expectations because of the fact that nag have something to manage communication with. And I’m always accessible to investors as well. So always trying to make sure that my investors are, if they have questions, I’m trying to be on top of it as much as possible.

And whether I have the answer right there on the spot or not get them to answer.

Seyla: [00:35:15] John. Thank you so much for coming on to the show today and sharing all your knowledge and lesson learned with our listeners about investing in real estate. We’ll we appreciate that. So if our listeners wanted to find out more about you and your company, where can they go?

John: [00:35:29] Uh, thank you for having me on, and again, if you haven’t rated review this podcast, go and do it. So you can, you can find me at johnfortes.com. I have a podcast that I host passive investor show.com. We strictly give the passive investing audio experience on that. And we have a great tool for passive investors.

Even if you’re a real estate investors, you know, if you’re tracking your returns, how do you do it? I remember when I was passive investing. And then when I am passive investing, I needed something to track my investments. How do I do that? Projected returns.com. We have a calculator that compares your predicted returns versus your actual returns.

It compares investments and affirms your market. So this helps with your passive investing criteria, which we talked about earlier. It allows you to compare a sponsors. If you’re investing with sponsors. And you can track up the five investments. So there’s visual charts and graphs and projected returns that come, or it’s a free download.

And, you know, that’s, that’s another way to get in contact with me over there too.

Seyla: [00:36:31] Awesome, John, thank you again for being on the show. We appreciate your time.

John: [00:36:36] I appreciate you. Thank you for having me on.