Aileen (00:01):

Welcome everyone to today’s episode of the, How Did They Do It Real Estate podcast. I’m your host, Aileen Prak. And today we have Logan Freeman as our guest Logan began live free investments in early 2018 and has a background in the corporate world. Real estate has always been his passion and it got kicked into full gear after completing his first live in flip in 2013. And today he has over 80 successful real estate transactions and $13 million completed for investors annually. So we’re going to get into a lot of great detail today. And so we’re very excited to have you on the show today, Logan, how are you doing?

Logan (00:32):

Doing great Eileen. I should probably update some of those numbers this year. The last three in relation to total volume, we just eclipsed a hundred million the last three years, which is a big milestone for me from not doing any real estate in 2017 to going from 2018, 19 and 20. And during a global pandemic being named a power broker here in Kansas city you know, helping out-of-state investors purchase property and building that team has been really, really awesome. So hitting that hundred million dollar Mark was, was huge. And now I’m on the quest and I’m calling this compression. I’m really excited about it. I posted about it a little bit. It’s my new idea. It’s my new obsession. Will I, if you will how do I take the last three years of production and, and create you know, the same level of achievement in one without working harder? Because if anybody knows me, they know I get up between three and three 30 every single morning. And so you know, I don’t necessarily think that I need to be working harder. I have to have bigger goals. I have to have better teams and better scalability. And so I’m super excited about that, but thank you for that great intro. I’m here to add as much value as I possibly can today, and I’m happy to be here and congratulations on your new addition to your family as well.

Aileen (02:00):

Thank you so much. We’re excited. It’s been an interesting journey trying to figure out and juggling the new schedule with the second baby, but we’re excited. That’s good. Thank you so much for taking the time to meet with us today. And I just love your energy and I’m just really excited to get started. So if you can start off by just sharing a little bit more about your background and how you got started in real estate that would be super awesome.

Logan (02:27):

Yeah, absolutely. I grew up in Jefferson city, Missouri, which is the capital of Missouri and I live in Kansas city now, but you know, I kind of grew up as this guy that was watching, you know, his mom you know, do things and sacrifice you know, her time to give us kids a better life. And, you know, we had kind of a challenging growing up. My father always battled drugs and alcohol addiction. And I actually lost my father, Oh 2014 of January. So I guess it’ll be seven years this upcoming January because of drugs and alcohol. But that being said, I watched my mom sacrifice, you know, hobbies, sacrifice, you know, free time to go work two full-time jobs, you know, she would work nights and then she’d get back home, sleep for eight hours and she’d be back at work.

Logan (03:17):

And then on the weekends she worked during the day. So it was crazy. So, you know, anyways, story short, when I was 14 years old, I was like, man, I got to go. I got to make some money. How do I do this? You know, I’m ready. I’m a big guy. Let’s, let’s get going. And you know, she’s like, you can’t work. You know, you have to wait. And I was like, wait for what? She’s like, you can’t drive you, you, you you’re, you’re freshmen, you can’t work. I’m like I can work. So I just continued to find somewhere that would allow me to work. I started bailing hay. I started going to floors and doing dishes at a catering business. And you know, what instilled in me was a work ethic and God blessed me to be a hardworking kid, but a pretty big size kid too, and somewhat athletic.

Logan (04:01):

So I identified as an athlete all the way up to college and had a very short stint in the NFL with the Oakland Raiders got out of the NFL, went back to school to finish my master’s program in realize when I was finishing up that master’s program, that graduate program that the real education starts now, whenever I graduated. And so if you guys can see the real education has started in my own library in my own mind. And during that period of time, I lost 120 pounds. I was working. Full-Time going to school full time. I turned my car into what I call the well Zig Ziegler calls it the classroom on wheels. So I was listening to podcasts and books and CDs and things like that. And when I got, you know, I got I graduated, that’s when I lost my father and I just had a big kind of identity crisis.

Logan (04:56):

So I had to really think about who I wanted to be as an individual. And I wanted to be a better man and a, and a better human and live out the best version of myself. And so I went on this big quest and the last seven years I’ve been on this quest of trying to be that best version of myself. And it’s a, you know, it’s a fleeting goal for sure. But you can work towards that. And so three years ago I was fired from, you know, what I call a safe, comfortable sales role and here in Kansas City. And when I got fired, I said, that’s it no more I am done. You know, I really think that there’s two types of people in the world. One that you know, is going to allow folks to kind of make their own their destiny for them.

Logan (05:39):

And the second group is, you know, they’re not really they’re not okay with, you know letting somebody else rule their lives and, and control their destiny per se. So they take control extreme ownership of their financial futures. And I had been reading all these books and said, man, it’s time. And so I started a sales consulting company, and I also started as a head of acquisitions for $50 million fund here in Kansas City. And at that time that’s when I was thrown into the fire of real estate head first I did you know, about 120 transactions in 10 months. It was crazy. It was wild. It was, it was a lot of fun made a lot of mistakes, but that’s kind of what gave me the foundation and the confidence in the relationships and the experience to then start buying multifamily. So that was a long introduction. I’m going to shut up now.

Aileen (06:33):

Thank you so much for that. First of all, I want to just say, I’m sorry for your loss about your father and it’s probably a tough time that you had to go through anytime we lose somebody. Yeah, absolutely. I appreciate that. And then, but definitely shout out to your mom, you know, for being able to raise, is it just you, or do you have other siblings as well?

Logan (06:54):

Three kids all three years apart. So I have two sisters, one older and one.

Aileen (07:00):

Yeah. So having her, you know, showing you that you and her, you and your siblings, the path of just trying really hard and just working in just pursuing everything and just being able to take care of your guys and, you know, trying to give you guys the best life as possible, you know, so great job to your mom and just want to give a huge kudos to her for being such a great impactful person.

Logan (07:20):

Yeah. She’s wonderful lady.

Aileen (07:22):

And so you also mentioned that you started your sales consulting firm after you, after you got fired from your job what kind of gave you the confidence to go ahead and do that and what kind of led to the sales job?

Logan (07:37):

Yeah, so, I mean, for me, I wasn’t sold on real estate being my only source of income. You know, I always had read about, you know, MJ DeMarco and, and you know, Robert Kiyosaki talking about diversification, multiple streams of income, you know, all of these things. I said, okay, well, you know, I’m being a hundred percent commission is you know, I mean, that’s a big leap. I’d like to, you know, I was newly married and I was like, well, maybe it’d be nice to see if I couldn’t, you know, build this sales consulting business as well. And you know, I have been reading sales books, my whole life compiling information, and I was like, no, there’s got to be someone that would pay me to come help their sales team implement CRM systems, help them on their pitches, all of these things.

Logan (08:25):

And lo and behold, I, I grabbed the Inc. 5,000 fastest growing companies list. I called, you know, about the first two or 3000, I think it was. And I got three new clients and, you know, whenever I got on the phone with the decision maker, they said, well, what do you do? And I said, well, whatever you need. And that was the wrong answer for that. And so I realized I was no longer a slave to a company. I was just a slave to my clients. And so that was the big mental shift of you need to be able to make money when the lights turn off and you need to be able to scale something. If it’s scalable only to the time that you have, there’s always going to be a you know, kind of a run rate that you’re going to hit up against.

Logan (09:09):

And so for me, six months in, I had been doing this successfully, helping people see our, you know, with CRM systems, training, salespeople, flying around the country, going to other people’s conferences and pitching their products you know, driving traffic to their conferences, helping them with conferences. I mean, you name it just crazy, just all kinds of stuff, but I’m also was doing 10 or 12 transactions or this fund a month. And my wife was like six months in. She was like, Oh man, like great job. Like, I’m really proud of you, but you need to focus right now. You’re shot gunning all over the place and you need to rifle in. And so when she said that, I was like, Hmm, she’s like you also completely, you know, all you do is talk about real estate and all you do is complain about the sales consultant.

Logan (09:57):

So why don’t you focus? And I was like, well, that’s probably a good thing to do. And so that’s when I dissolved the sales consulting firm finished up those projects and then went full on actually understanding a real estate syndication is when I was finishing up the fund for that for that sponsorship group, I sat down with them and I said, where did this money come from? And they used the word I had not heard before. And the word was syndication. And I was like, what is that? How do you spell that? What do you mean syndication? I, you know, cause I was just a transaction guy, you know, just out there hustling, doing the best I could, the best job I could do. And then, you know, you said syndication and that’s what turned my wheels on to the real estate guys, Brad Submerge Michael block, Joe Fairless, all of those guys started reading their books, flying around the country, being on their podcasts, doing all this stuff. And I said, this is what I’m going to do. And that’s what I’ve been working on for the last, you know, two and a half years or so.

Aileen (10:53):

Wow. That’s your wife seems like a very smart woman.

Logan (10:57):

She is very smart and strategic, even if she doesn’t give herself credit, but her, her number one talent from Strength Finders 2.0 is strategic. Mine is, you know, the only talent that I have is called bulldozer. And so it just, he just bulldoze through everything. I’m kidding. But you know, it is a lot different. Our strengths, I have become more strategic in my thinking. As I have been a business owner the last three years, but just getting started, man, I was just out of the gate just doing whatever I could to get some money in the door. And thankfully I did.

Aileen (11:33):

Yeah. That’s a great complimentary skillset. So you guys are able to build off each other. Excellent. So after you heard about the syndication model what did you do from there after you absorbed all this information, all this knowledge from all these great successful players in the industry, what did you do after that

Logan (11:50):

Started brokering multifamily transactions? So, you know, what I got to do with the fund was play with house money for 120 transactions. And I got to see the good, the bad, and the ugly what’s going to go wrong. What’s not going to go wrong? What’s going to work, how to negotiate, how to, how to write offers all of that, how to find deals. But I didn’t get to see it on the multifamily side. So I started brokering multi-family deals in the firm that I was at. I at the time was not set up for multifamily really. They had no experience in multifamily. And so after doing my first couple of multi-family transactions on the brokerage side there, I said, I got to move. You know, the broker was like, look syndications for the big boys. You have to compete with the big guys. You’re, you’re, and you’re not going to be able to do that.

Logan (12:35):

And I was like, okay, well, thank you very much. I’m going to hang my hat up here and move to the next one. Still have a good relationship with that, gentlemen. And he’s successful in his own. Right. But I knew what I wanted to do. So I moved my, my, my license over to a commercial multi-family brokerage. And I sat down with the principals and the owners of that company. I said, hey, you know, I’ve represented buyers in the transactions up to this point and I’m going to do the same thing on the commercial side. And they’re like, that’s not how it works here. You know, you don’t represent buyers, you represent sellers. I was like, no, I think there’s a niche. Let me see if I can exploit this niche. And you know, representing out-of-state buyers specifically with 10 31 exchanges.

Logan (13:17):

And they’re like, yeah. Okay, good luck. And I said, perfect. Well you know, 12 months later I was the top sales rep in the company. And now we have a whole what we’ve coined the buyer’s representation success system, and it’s all built out and it’s, it’s just churning stuff out all the time. So it worked because I listened to the marketplace, there was a need throughout that process. I started to buy some properties myself and I started doing some joint ventures first. I went through the joint venture process with some investors of me being, you know, the leasing agent, the broker the property manager, the construction manager, all of it just so I could get some experience toward, you know, to that. And then I went and did my first and second syndication learned a lot on those first two because they were on boutique hotels.

Logan (14:08):

So I didn’t start in the multi-family space. I syndicated to a bed and breakfast boutique hotels in Kansas City. So just think about that. Single family, home guy, little bit of a brokerage guy on the multi-family side, no experience in hospitality goes in and syndicates to you know, boutique bed and breakfast hotels. Like what the heck is this guy doing? You know but I got them done. And you know, if it wasn’t for the pandemic was, would be doing a beautifully right now, learned a lot on that and said, Hey I’m going to listen to the market. What is everybody talking about? And everybody was talking about sales, storage and multifamily. And so I said, okay, well multi-family is going to be my focus. And then I started going after my first multi-family deal. So kind of the progression was, you know, 39 units was our first deal.

Logan (14:56):

We did, we then did a 12 unit deal. We did a 26 unit deal, a 36 unit deal, 426 unit deal, another 12 unit deal. And now we’re doing 171 units and we have another 96 and a 900 unit self-storage facility under contract as well. So anyways, I have, I have been on all sides of it, and you know, single-family homes, boutique bed and breakfast hotels to large multifamily, to small multi-family. But our sweet spot now it definitely is value add multi-family in Kansas City. That’s our sweet spot. I’ll look at just about every deal, but I kind of have two verticals that I focus on. So that’s kind of how that transition.

Aileen (15:40):

Wow. That’s a lot that you’ve been able to accomplish in such a short amount of time.

Logan (15:45):

And Eileen. Now the goal is to do all of that in one year. So you know, I’ve got to do challenge ahead of me.

Aileen (15:52):

Yes, definitely. But you have a great jumping block to bounce off of and leap into leap into a really strong start of 2021.

Logan (16:02):

Yeah. Well, it starts now everybody thinking about, you know, 2021 doesn’t, I mean, it starts on January 1st, if you’re starting on January 1st, I’m two months ahead of you. So just know that, you know, you’ve got time right now. I mean, especially during the holidays to utilize sometimes, slow down a little bit, get a little margin. There’s been just a crazy year, but just get a little margin, think about what you want to do, try to set some goals and not just go set some habits and some processes up that you can stick to. You know, we both have two kids under two or around two and, and you know, you got to be really ruthless with your schedule. So anyways that was a transition. That’s the goal that I’m working towards now and pretty excited.

Aileen (16:48):

Yeah, absolutely. Great. Thank you so much for that advice. It’s really, we’ll take that into definitely use that advice a lot. And so you started off doing the brokerage and so how were the people who are the buyers coming over to you? Like how did they differentiate themselves? And how did you accept those buyers and offered them like the different deals and how are you, how are they able to build the relationships with you?

Logan (17:14):

Yeah, I mean, it was, it was a lot of communication back and forth. I utilized bigger pockets as a forum you know, trying to add value in there to, to find folks, but then I really carved out my niche was, you know, if somebody was selling a property in California, Denver, Florida, New York city, Boston that seems to be where all the 10 31 comes from. And mostly from the West coast over East coast seems to go South West coast seems to come east. I don’t know why that is, but that’s just the way it feels like. So, you know, I’ve, I’ve really niche myself in to say, Hey, if you do have a 10 31 exchange and you need a, you’re on a timeline now, right? 45 day timeline to identify properties, I have a full team, right? So I can acquire and source properties for you.

Logan (18:03):

I can help you with the financing. I can get you the debt financing that you need. I can help you with property management, construction, legal and accounting, if you, and these are just relationships that I have built and use on a regular basis. So that’s really, really, you know, interesting to somebody that doesn’t live here in Kansas city, for somebody in Kansas city, that’s already here that might have all those relationships. I’m not the right broker. So it really, it was just understanding who your investor avatar is and making sure that you work with those folks, because there’s a lot of, you know, you hear this word tire kickers. I still don’t know what that means like who is out there kicking tires. Like it just, I don’t know, I’ve never seen anybody just stand outside and kick a tire anyway. So I just legitimately don’t understand what that means, but this term that people are just kind of, you know, out there and wasting your time.

Logan (18:56):

Maybe that’s what it is. Maybe kicking tires is a wasting of your time. So, and it hurts probably too. So I tried to, and I don’t like calling people tire-kickers cause you know, I give people the benefit of the doubt. I think they’re generally good. And so but, I say too, like if you’re getting into the game and are looking for somebody to kind of like mentor you along the process, that’s not me. There’s a lot of coaching programs, a lot of books out there that have done it way better than me. If you need to get a transaction done and you have to, you have a timeline, I’m your guy. So just knowing who that investor avatar was, and then finding the people that fit that, where it was, you know, is what I’m really good at now. At the beginning I was just trying to work with everybody because, you know, my wife had just lost her job at that time. And I was like, I got to put some food on the table. We got a new baby and I don’t have, I don’t have any income, so I got to figure this out. So I was doing everything I could, but now it’s, it’s really highly focused.

Aileen (19:54):

Okay, great. And so when you first started with the 39 units, how did you find that deal and how do you finance it? And then how have you been able to find the deals after that and then being able to scale so quickly with all the processes and everything like that, how have you been able to handle all of those deals? Well,

Logan (20:16):

So the 39 units was listed. It was listed with a group that was out of Colorado that came in and bought a lot of properties in Kansas City, stabilize them and was flipping them well, this one was developed using low-income housing tax credits. So it had a land use restriction on it and the buyer had to be approved by the Missouri housing development committee. So Lytec Leura, MHDC, you know, a lot of it, you know, a lot of in there for the first transaction. But I have some partners that I have been building relationship with that had over 12 years of real estate operating experience and a big portion of that was in the low income housing space. And so the two guys that are now the company is FTW investments T and W in that realm have a lot of operating experience.

Logan (21:12):

And so I called Jesse up, you know, we had been looking at this deal for a while. I actually had a 10 31 exchange client make an offer on the property. And, and I got a call from Corey and Parker on a Sunday saying, Hey, we got, we won this deal. I was like, awesome. What was the deal? And they’re like, it was the Admiral apartments. I’m like, you guys, I was the other party like bidding against you. What are we doing here? I don’t know how we didn’t communicate about that, but like they beat me out and I said, well, if you can’t beat them, join them. And so I did. And you know, so we were able to get approved by the MHDC. We still own that property. We’re taking it out to refinance has done great, but you know, we put a local community bank on that project.

Logan (22:00):

And then also, you know, we had to raise about $775,000. And so I had been building an investor list up to that point you know, talking to a lot of people and, and making good connections, but we did a full syndication on that project. It would have been my third deal that was a full syndication in fifth kind of JB syndication deal. But I would say it was by far the most traditional first deal that I did. So we use local community bank, put a thing, 70% debt on it, and we raised the equity for the remaining piece of that.

Aileen (22:33):

Wow. And so from there, the 39 units and from the following units after that which one has been the biggest challenge?

Logan (22:42):

Well, I would say they’re all challenging. I would say this actually a small 26 unit deal that we did in April. So if you remember back what happened in March, there was a global health pandemic that kind of came out late March while we were under contract to buy this, this property. You know? And so the most challenging raise that we have done was about $700,000, but it was in the midst of COVID where the certainty gap was when the uncertainty gaps, sorry, was so big because nobody knew what was going on with commercial real estate, if people were going to pay and all of this stuff that, you know, I mean, nobody had any data to back that against. And so that was a very difficult one this year. You know, we bought 426 units. That was a, I don’t know, two and a half million dollar deal.

Logan (23:33):

Now we fast forward to a $22 million deal. That felt like it was, you know, a breeze compared to that one because of, you know, the certainty gap had been, you know, you know, the uncertainty gap went from so large to so small everybody’s certainty kind of went up the NHMRC national multifamily housing council, rich tracker was high. People were paying you’re in Kansas city, Kansas city had his top five in the country for your year, rent growth, all these good things. And folks I think, are getting tired of the uncertainty of the Wall Street. I mean, golly, today I saw it was over 30,000. That’s a pre pandemic levels. What is that? I just don’t get that. I’m now fundamentally, I understand why it is what it is, but that just doesn’t make sense to me how we’re above pre pandemic levels in a way.

Logan (24:23):

So that’s a long story. I think, so a lot of savvy investors are zigging while everybody else is zagging and saying, I think we need to pull out of this. It’s probably going way down here pretty soon. And let’s get into something that’s a little more intrinsically valued, meaning, you know, commercial real estate is not valued based off of what other people are willing to pay for. It necessarily, it has value outside of that because it’s paying you a dividend on a regular basis. And it has, you know, it has, it correlates positively with inflation. So the 426 units and this 171 units that we’re doing right now, it has been much easier just because, you know, we have the experience, they’re nicer assets. We don’t have the, the uncertainty gap that we did before. We have a track record. We’ve been cutting distribution checks. We have a team property managements lined up. All of those things, give investors a lot more confidence than maybe they had back in March with us.

Aileen (25:24):

So with the investor relations, have you noticed any of the change in communications that you had to tweak a little bit since COVID started to today?

Logan (25:36):

Absolutely. You got to know your data. You got to know your data. You have to answer the questions that, you know, people are going to ask you before. You know, they ask you them. So, I mean, everybody’s questions, how’s commercial real estate going to hold up, are people going to pay rents? Why is your asset going to perform? What’s your breakeven point, all of those types of questions, you got to know that, and you got to stay on top of, you know, macro-economic trends that are driving microeconomic decisions. Don’t forget that real estate is hyper-local. So what’s going on in your market? Aileen might be a lot different than what’s going on in mine. And then inside of Kansas City there’s pockets that are doing very well. And some that are not doing very well. So there’s even sub-markets of sub markets in a tertiary market like Kansas City.

Logan (26:26):

And so being a specialized you know, expert or a subject matter expert in that specific location in asset class has allowed us to position ourselves as thought leaders and not trying to go out into, you know, Dallas and Houston and Atlanta and California and somewhere else, Ohio, just Kansas city, just multifamily really. And in a lot of areas that we have a lot of experience in. So the investor relations piece has, has been more questions backed by more data. So complete at the theoretical level affective at the applied level, backed by empirical evidence, say that three times fast, right. You know, but that’s super important to be able to do, and you need to be able to communicate that in a clear, concise, and compelling way, and you, if you’re not going to be able to do that, you’re not going to last in this noisy world. You have to be able to get that message across very quickly.

Aileen (27:24):

Thank you. And so have you noticed that there has the investors are reinvesting more during COVID or are you getting new investors coming in? Or are they a little bit more hesitant?

Logan (27:39):

Yeah. You know, I would say we have steadily grown our investor base this year, a couple of reasons, one I’m focused on it. Right. But two is, you know, the messaging that you know, the world is changing and the COVID-19 crisis just exasperated kind of the uncertainty and volatility of the stock market. And you know, so that’s, that’s one thing too, right. Is that big piece. The second piece of the sec is making private placement, memorandums and private placements easier to invest in. They have expanded their definition of accredited investor. They have teased out that they will be allowed. They will be allowing finders to get paid for capital raising. They have made it easier for the everyday investor through solo 401ks, self-directed IRAs to get into the syndication. So which is rightfully so, if you look at the endowment model, I forget which one is the actual one that’s based on the commercial real estate, there’s the Yale Harvard, and one other model that, that tracks and one is 60 40, you know, stocks and bonds.

Logan (28:51):

The other one has a large allocation to commercial real estate, you know, in the stocks and bonds follows, you know, obviously the stock market while commercial real estate just kind of steadily goes in, you know, kind of goes up. And so I think that that’s a big talking point, understanding the value, income, depreciation, equity build up, appreciation, and the leverage. And then you have to talk about, you know, risk mitigation. And so, you know, what can go wrong and, and if it does, what are you going to do? And tell me about a time that it did go wrong. And so you have to have those stories kind of ready to go. If you don’t have those stories, I recommend pairing up with somebody that does have the experience to be able to talk through those, because nobody wants to take money that’s in the stock market right now and put it with a, you know, a syndicator or a sponsor or a developer that, you know, hasn’t had some trials or tribulations.

Logan (29:43):

So being able to speak to all of those points, I think is really important. I would say our, our, our, our really strong investor base that has been investing with us from day one, they don’t even look at the deals anymore. They just say, hey, is this fit my profile? If so, you know, we’re in, if not, you know, that’s fine too. We’ll be under the next one. But we have been building a lot of new relationships over the last six or eight months, because I think people are starting to realize that there’s a diversification of their portfolio that they need to be looking into. And, you know, history shows you that commercial real estate is a great place to be in.

Aileen (30:18):

Absolutely. Thank you so much. And so you’ve completed so many transactions this past year and, you know, you’re getting prepared for what’s coming up next. So what’s your next focus and what are you preparing for? And what’s next for you? Really?

Logan (30:33):

I mean, we’re hiring, which is a really proud thing for me to say during a global pandemic where a lot of people are getting laid off. We are hiring we made our first full-time hire earlier this year. We’ll make our second one this year as well in the next, you know, 45 days. And then we have two other positions that we’re going to be filling for. So what it looks like for me is understanding that in a business, as you are scaling, there’s $10 an hour jobs, there’s a hundred dollars an hour jobs, a thousand dollar an hour jobs, and then there’s $10,000 an hour jobs. And you got to figure out for your business where those 1000 and $10,000 jobs are. And if you can spend more time working on those and figuring out if you can hire or outsource the $10 and the a hundred dollar hour jobs that’s where you take it to the next level.

Logan (31:26):

So what I am really focused on is building a company culture, building the right team, and then making sure that the three principles, which are very, you know, successful high-achieving types, that we focus our time on the most profitable producing activities. And that’s not an easy thing to do when you are scaling from 39 to 700 units. You know, there’s a lot of things that have to be done on a regular basis. I wish I could just blow the doors off you know, the every syndicator or mentor guru coach that says, Hey, it’s, you know, you can get into a deal, no money. It’s not that hard. And, and all of that stuff, man. I mean, this is a, there, there is a lot that goes into this. I mean, I talked to an attorney every single week to make sure we’re setting stuff up correctly.

Logan (32:13):

You know, the software’s that we have, I mean, I got active campaign, syndication pros, zoom you know, I got all of LinkedIn premium. I mean, it’s like all of these things to have a successful business, then you have to realize too, you’re in the real estate business, but we’re also now in the marketing business, which he is crazy. And so you have two businesses really, as a principal, you know, being a real estate developer syndicator investor, if you want to get to scale, you have to be known, liked and trust. Hopefully you can be liked and trusted because you are a good person, but the ones that are going to set themselves apart are the ones that get known. And the only way you get known is by utilizing and accepting the fact that social media, digital marketing podcasting, LinkedIn, is where the next generation is going to be.

Logan (33:03):

Interacting. Business owners are millennials. Now, millennials are doing business in a different way. They’re interacting in a different way. They’re investing in a different way. No longer is the mantra of, you know, just work 40 years at the manufacturing business and take your 401k and go retire. They don’t believe that anymore. Millennials do not. So they’re looking for something different. They’re looking for more control. They’re looking for freedom of their time, and that’s what you want to talk about. That’s what you have to strike a chord with. And so that’s really, really important to understand and a big thing that I learned this year that Oh my gosh, I need to, I need to beef up my marketing game and understand marketing too. So, you know, I’ve been reading the likes of Gary Vaynerchuk, Perry, Marshall, Seth Godin you know, all of these, you know, successful marketers because I realized now it’s all about messaging and you got to back it up where you won’t last. And if you you’re just selling a bill of goods, you’re going to be gone anyways. But to get to the next level in this business, you have got to become an incredible communicator. And so that’s what I’m honing in on right now.

Aileen (34:19):

Well, thank you so much. That’s absolutely great advice and lessons and things that we can all improve on for this next, even now starting now.

Logan (34:28):

Yeah, absolutely.

Aileen (34:30):

So Logan how has real estate investing impacted your life so far?

Logan (34:34):

Well a few ways. I mean, I get to, I think the biggest way really is, you know, when I sat down and say, okay, well, what’s my next move. I can do whatever I want. I mean, now I’m not going to go start coding or anything like that. But and I’m probably not going to start a start-up. I’ve been in that world. But when I looked at real estate, I want it to be able to build wealth, build a business and generate income. Now, this is hard to do in a lot of different entrepreneurial ventures, because sometimes you might be just selling a product or a, you know, a service and that’s all fine and good. But those businesses cap, at some point, I’m trying to build something that continues on after me. So that was one thing is legacy.

Logan (35:18):

The second is I have a huge mission and goal to help my do my part of ending homelessness in Kansas City. And so I post a lot about the work that we’re doing with affordable housing the voucher programs, the non-profits, the housing authority, all of those different organizations, a regular basis, and try to figure out how to bridge that gap. I mean, just in Kansas City alone, there’s 11,000 families waiting for you know, affordable housing or voucher. That’s a big need. And everybody, there’s a lot of people that say, man, I got to stay away from section eight. Don’t do section eight. And I would ask you, what are your motives? Right. You know, we have properties that are fully section eight and, and underneath that kind of land use restriction and if you’re managing them the right way and you have right people managing them, there’s no difference in owning those than there is market rate.

Logan (36:10):

But when you start to take market rate people and try to help them manage section eight, that’s where the menses. So my goal is to blend my real estate experience, connections and opportunities with providing full affordable housing, giving them the services of getting off of the street and into some safe, affordable housing, so they can get their lives back on track. I watched what, what substance abuse can do to my father, even though he did have safe housing. I can’t imagine having some sort of mental or substance abuse disorder and also not having somewhere to live. It’s just there that you’re just have to solve for one of those first. And so if I can do my part with that, that’s the legacy that I want to leave here in Kansas City. So that’s how it’s impacted me is just, you know, fired me up with a big strong why every single day.

Aileen (37:04):

And what is one thing that you know now about real estate that you wish you knew when you first started?

Logan (37:08):

Yeah. I mean, you know, you got to find your sweet spot and don’t try to do it all because you’re going to get burnt out really quickly. And it probably won’t be very good at what you’re doing. So figure out within a real estate business or a transaction, the part that you can add the most value to, and that overlaps with your greatest strength and that’s where you’re going to have the most success, and don’t try to do it all yourself. That’s what I would tell myself.

Aileen (37:34):

And what is one thing that sets the successful people apart in real estate investing?

Logan (37:40):

Man, I would say that you have to just show up every single day and you know, people buy into people, not brands necessarily, and not a property they’re going to buy into you. So differentiate yourself, be different, be a thought leader, have something of interest to talk about show people that you’re disciplined, focused, intentional. You know, you, you know what you’re doing on a regular basis, your personal life is intact, right? It’s the old saying that you you’re, I can tell, you know, what type of person they are by how clean their houses, right. Something like that, like, or sorry, or their car, right? Like, you know, you go to an interview and you see that you know, the person you’re interviewing with is walking around your car. You know it’s the same thing in this real estate syndication business, give people access to your proverbial car, you know, show them your life because they’re going to buy into you first, and then they’ll going to start buying into your real estate deals.

Aileen (38:41):

And what tools or techniques have you used to improve the efficiency of your business or your personal life?

Logan (38:46):

Yeah, I mean, it has to be my morning routine. I mean, I posted a three or four Mondays ago, the six journals that I have used this year to guide my business. And the time that I have spent on those have been close to 522 hours, which translates into 22 days that I have sat at this desk before that sun has come up. And I have been writing, I’ve been reading something pre Gutenberg, which is when, you know, pre you know, the printing press was, was invented pre Gutenberg. Don’t look at social media or email before I get something good in my mind. And then also get something down on paper and think about what I want to do intentionally that day. I’ve got 22 days before my competition has woke up. I have been working, right? So it’s like that old Jocko Willink mentality is like, why does he keep doing what he’s doing? Because somewhere, some somebody in a cave is sitting there waiting for his buddies that are still in the Navy seals. You know, it’s just that same mentality. It’s like, if somebody is going to invest with you why, well, I’ll tell you why. And here’s why here’s five reasons. So my morning routine being intentional, staying focused and disciplined, and then showing that to people as definitely exploded our business this year.

Aileen (40:05):

Absolutely. Thank you so much for sharing Logan. And so if our listeners wanted to find out more about you, where can they go?

Logan (40:11):

Yeah, I’m very active on LinkedIn. So you can find me on LinkedIn, Logan Freeman. Our website is FTW investmentsllc.com. If you can’t remember that one live free investments.com. Those are both of my websites. I’m on LinkedIn a lot. But I’m pretty easy to reach out to.

Aileen (40:30):

Awesome. Thank you so much, really enjoyed having this conversation with you today and all the important lessons that you’ve shared and advices. So thank you so much, Logan.

Logan (40:39):

Well, thank you for having me on. I really appreciate it.