0:01 Hey, welcome to today's episode of the Hyperloop podcast. I'm your host Daniel Martinez. Today I have a special guest, Mr. Taylor Doolittle. We'll bring him on screen right now. How are you doing today? Taylor? 0:11 I'm doing great. Yeah, it's a warm 33 degree day here in Minnesota, which means the snow is starting to melt. Anything above freezing is a win for us. So 0:23 Minneapolis or what part of Minnesota? 0:25 So yep, Minneapolis, so a suburb of Minneapolis. But I do business kind of in and around the entire Twin Cities metro area. So 0:35 nice, nice. 30 to 33 degrees does not mean the snow is melting. I know that I just live in Chicago. And I'm like you had to get like 4045 degrees before the snow melt. Wasn't enough. 0:50 Yeah, it's it's been, it's been a pretty bummer of a winter. And we had a couple warm days, which means everyone gets really excited and very ambitious with wearing T shirts and 40 degree weather. So 1:11 I remember when I was younger, we used to drive in Chicago with my buddy my, my brother to freeze out. So it was right when power windows came into effect. And he would lock the windows so you can put them up or down. And then he put all the windows down and open the sunroof. And like a snowstorm. It was crazy. And he was 1:32 just driving in a snow globe. 1:35 That's what it felt like it was crazy. wasn't fun. Like I said, first chance I had the first opportunity. I had to leave the snow. I left it. Yeah. So tell us a little bit. How long have you been doing real estate in Minneapolis? And how did you start? 1:53 Yeah, so I have been a licensed real estate agent since August of 2017. So that means we're five and a half years in. I started as a real estate agent with my brother in law, we started a team the team was just he and I and I was kind of the experiment of the brother in law, the goofy brother in law, see if I can, if I had real estate chops and and fast forward five and a half years later, it's it's my brother in law, another business partner and myself lead a team of 15 agents total. So helping people buy and sell and invest in real estate mainly in the residential space, but also in the commercial space as well. 2:37 Awesome. Awesome. That's the real estate chops are definitely hit or miss. 2:44 Yeah, and I mean, that's that's to be said, really, for just entrepreneurship or starting any business. It's it's easy to kind of talk the talk, and it's easy to want to be an entrepreneur. But when you put someone when it's their turn to try it, you just don't know how they're going to do until it's their turn to take action. 3:06 Yeah, it's a it's definitely a struggle that people face early on. Man, you don't know. Man, I eat for three months. It's crazy. It's crazy. Business. Now traditional goes. I make fun of a lot of agents sometimes. But they they're really in the heat just like us, man. You got to you got to kill to eat some food sometimes, you know, so you've got to start producing. 3:30 Yeah, it's tough. And then real estate. Being a realtor is a little bit interesting. Because it's a it's a very easy license to get it's three weeks and a couple 100 bucks. So it tends to be an industry where there's a lot of people that are the people that job hop every year or two trying to find that easy way to to win big. So it seems like anybody that you meet has a friend or a cousin or an uncle or an aunt or just someone in their life that has their license. But it's an industry where 90% of the work is done by 10% of the agents. So that's pretty interesting. 4:14 That's crazy. It's definitely 100% True. It's definitely 1% sure if you're trying to be aspiring agent, try and be part of the 10% because 90% get left behind every year. So tell us a little about so you do single family commercial. Let's talk about like, Are you are you just doing the agent side or do to do to do a better stuff as well? Are you kind of a little bit of both or mix? 4:38 Yeah, sounds great question. Yeah. So I wear a couple different hats in my job so so my the first hat I wear is is helping people by selling invest in real estate. So as a realtor as an agent. And the second thing I do is I lead a team of agents that are getting up and running and are at various points in their career. They're the realest Take journey. And then I also invest in real estate where the idea is I help people buy and sell real estate to produce income, to then use that income to purchase real estate to build long term wealth. So the entire reason I got into real estate was with the long term vision of becoming a real estate investor. 5:21 Gregory, yeah, I'm on Twitter a lot. And there's a lot of like, Twitter synopsis, the most agents don't own real estate because it'd be making up money to close business. 5:31 Yeah, it's, it's interesting to me, I would think that I that more people that do real estate as a profession, would invest in real estate. But I don't know if it's something where maybe not producing enough income to purchase it. Because if you're not moving, if you're not occupying investment, real estate, it is a lot of money for a down payment. But also, I'm curious if it has to do with maybe real estate agents get a skewed vision of the horror stories of owning real estate, because maybe they're working with investors that are just tired or wanting to get out of the game. So maybe there's this This is, yeah, this view of all of the bad things that can happen. And so maybe that prevents people from jumping in as well. 6:19 Yeah. The, I think, I think one of the craziest things was real estate, real estate people, they get a lot of crazy stories. And I feel like there's I don't know about all businesses, like, I feel like when I had a nine to five job, I didn't have many crazy stories. It's kind of mundane job to work and kind of go home. And there was a few things that happened. And everyone saw somebody get hurt, or do something stupid and get fired. But like other than that, it was pretty, like mundane. And then you get into real estate and like, oh, did you hear about this? What? 6:53 Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's when you're walking in and out of houses in various different types of neighborhoods, and you're talking to people that own investment, real estate, I mean, the amount of people involved in this profession there's, there's gonna be some pretty interesting stories and interesting characters that you meet along the way. 7:13 I have a question for you about like in the cold weather. So I noticed a lot of things slow down in the winter, like nobody sells their house is that like, is that like a really the back factor or something, because like, people don't want to leave in the middle of the winter move. And upstairs, downstairs, does that affect 100% for colder climates, 7:32 that's definitely true to the Twin Cities, our real estate market really slows down during holiday season. So really Thanksgiving through usually in middle to end of January. So but as we get thick until like late fall, so October, November, things really start slowing down. And I think that's a, there's a couple different factors that play into that one, people just don't want to move during winter, unless they absolutely have to, because moving a bunch of boxes into a moving truck when it's negative 20 degrees just is not fun for anybody. Also, a lot of sellers, they might take pride of their landscaping, the way that their house looks in the summer. So they wanted to show really well. But then also in the more entry level price points. Most lease agreements in the Twin Cities start and end in the warmer season. So spring and summer. Because it's really hard to fill a lease in the late fall or in winter, because nobody wants to move then. So because of that most of the buyers are out during those warmer weather seasons and sellers know that that's when it's kind of hot time to sell. So usually the market really kicks off in like February after the last winter holiday in Minnesota, which is the Super Bowl. So that's usually February is when things start kicking back up in the real estate market here. 9:02 That's very, very interesting. So I'm, I don't really deal with stuff like that now. So I'm like, so I'm just curious myself because I don't even know like I said, that's that's it's intriguing to me. 9:13 But on the flip side of that if you're a buyer and you're you're flexible with your moving date and being a buyer in the winter, in Minnesota, you're gonna have less options, but way less competition. So it's a great time to be a buyer. The one downside is when you have your inspection when there's three feet of snow, you can't see the roof. You can't see really anything on the exterior and the ground is frozen. So if there's any leaky basement issues, you can't see it because everything all the moisture is frozen. So pros and cons, 9:47 pros and cons. Lots of things about for everybody working in the north. 9:53 But that's where that's where we escape is real estate agents as the market cools down a little bit. That's kind of time to really We focus on family and working on your business instead of or instead of working in your business systems and kind of catching up on things like that. And then also just kind of escaping the warmer climate maybe for a week here or there. 10:12 That's good. Yeah. We have vacation, vacations. godson. Yes. That's good, man. So let's do something a little bit commercial. What do you do on the commercial side? And what does it look like you doing like, office, industrial live and everything. 10:27 So more on the multifamily side of things, because anything that is five units or more in an apartment would be classified as commercial. So for me, it feels like the same thing, numbers are crunched the same way really is just, hey, an eight unit is the same as a four unit, it's just two of them smashed together, right? So and it's pretty common for people to kind of graduate from the Hey, I own duplexes to hit hey, I want to own more units under a single roof. So really, a lot in the multifamily space. And then some guys on my team play quite a bit in the retail space as well. So strip malls, triple net lease type stuff. 11:13 Yeah, we're getting into triple net leases right now. It's definitely interesting sector of the commercial side. But it's a, it's very intriguing what you can do on that side. 11:26 And it's great when it's great. And it's tough when it's tough. 11:30 So, I was talking to a commercial investor last weekend, and he was talking about how the triple nets, they're built in a long term lease which benefits the seller, but then it's higher to the triple, or the tenant at least. And he says that you really have to negotiate your triple net terms. Because this is what the portion investors told me and it blew my mind, because this is what they'll do is they'll try and they'll pay market rents now, dude, slow step increases that way, like in 10 years, if you're holding on that triple pet, you might be negative, if you have if you have debt on it. Yeah, it can really, really hurt you. And like, I know, a lot of people that leases that never heard that before. I'm like, what? 12:17 Yeah, the lease. I mean, whenever you're buying commercial real estate, in terms of kind of retail strip stuff, you can't really look at it in terms of you are you're Yes, you are purchasing a physical building. But really, you're buying leases you're buying you're, you're buying cash flow. So that's where when you purchase a property that has leases in place, you reading those leases really well, and seeing if there's built in increases, or if there's options for the tenant to either leave or increase their rent. And so that's where running the numbers is really, really important. And why it's even more important to have a mentor in that space that can look through stuff or real a real estate lawyer that has experience writing those leases, reading those leases, to look over things for you. Because it's great when you're like, oh, my gosh, I've got a tenant in here for seven years. But if you buy the place, and it's not in a good location, or other circumstances pop up, when that tenant moves out, you could be vacant for a year, or a year and a half. So every asset class that you go into, there's great benefit. And there's also risks. So it's just really just choosing what space you want to be in and what risk you're willing to, to mitigate. So 13:44 yeah, it's such an interesting aspect of the triple the triple net span, I learned a lot just talking to him. And it blew my mind. I thought it was like an easy, straightforward thing, though, the tenants are trying to screw you over, like everyone tries to screw everybody over at some point that nothing comes at face value anymore. 14:03 Yeah. Yeah. Being in the triple net space is you need more cash on hand, to hold on to assets, if you have vacancy for a long time, but then also, if you get a new tenant, and they want a space that previously was a barber shop, but they want to turn it into a retail space kind of historical rather than doing tenant improvements. And maybe you're crediting them a certain amount of dollars to build out the space differently. And it's really exciting. Really fun in a lot of ways very different though, from if you own a small apartment building. 14:42 Yeah, I had I had a deal. When I was in Georgia, it was a little strip mall center and those have built out sort of like, they had tenants that wanted to come in, but they're like, We want a certain build out. Yeah, make sure the firewalls are there and I'm like, Oh my God. Think about this one. It was it was just too much and like, it was vacant for a while where somebody came in and stripped off the copper. 15:10 Oh, that's so sad. Yeah, those are tough. It's tough when you when you're trying to revive a property that's been vandalized, or people have come come and do stuff, because you're spending money just to get it back to baseline, and then you're starting the work. Yeah, stuff. 15:25 Yeah, that's crazy. That's crazy. So, five years, it's a lot can happen in five years. I think it's a lot of it's just consistency and doing and doing, finding, finding what you love. So I think I think it's important for all that stuff is like, there's agents that do like tenant stuff, but like you might not like working with tenants. Like, that's the whole thing. And what I love about real estate as a whole is that there's so many like sub niches. Yeah, so many sub niches, you can focus on one thing and do defy the rest of your life. So tell us a little bit about what's what's your future plans? What are you trying to do in real estate in the next five years? I think now you have a, are you a broker as you just manage a team on the agent side? 16:09 Yeah, so we we have a team that is licensed underneath a local REMAX franchise. We like to focus on buying and selling real estate, and not necessarily the job of running a brokerage. So we have a great leadership team here that that takes on those responsibilities. As far as what future looks like is, at the end of the day, I don't want to be at five years old, putting out Open House signs, on a 90 degree day during the summer, eventually, being out of the role of being an active real estate agent, that day will come at the moment, I love my job, and I still have the energy to do it. But over the past couple of years, I've been able to implement systems into my business so so I can be more of a business owner, and not be that traditional story of being on the clock. 24/7 Yeah, working 100 hour weeks, which I definitely, that's definitely necessary in the first couple years to get the momentum moving. There's not really any way of skipping that if you want to build sustainable business quickly, you just got to put in the work. But I've had some great mentors in my life, that were great business owners that have challenged me and encouraged me and helped me implement consistency into my business. So I've been able to step out just a little bit. And through that, and through delegation actually provide a better experience for my clients. So we'll see how long I'm in the real estate agent game. For now, there's not really an end in sight. So continue to hone that craft continue to work to produce income, and really just building my real estate portfolio over time. And it's really easy right now with, with how many podcasts are out there. And you hear the stories of the 22 year old that built millions of dollars in real estate in 12 months with no money down, right. I don't really subscribe to that, like do it quicker, faster, younger, more risky. Because it seems like every year or two you hear those people not having a very good time because it turns out it wasn't sustainable, how they built it a lot of times. So for me, it's really just taking that marathon approach, not a sprint approach, making wise decisions over time, knowing that there's so much power in owning real estate over time. So continuing to underwrite deals as they come my way continue to meet people network prospect, meet sellers meet owners, and things like that. So that's really my vision for for the next five years, at least. And then also I just take so much joy out of helping the guys on my team that are in the earlier stages of their career, build up their businesses, because I've, I've seen how, how much of an impact real estate has made in my life, in the life of my family in such a positive way. And I just really want that for people that are on our real estate team to because what you can do in real estate and the income that can be produced you can just be such an impact player in your communities and your families and your church and your your in your circles. So it's been just absolutely life changing in such a good way. 19:44 What is your investing side look like? 19:47 So right now I have a portfolio of 15 doors. So I've got two duplexes, a single family rental and then a small 10 unit apartment building. And then I'm also invested as a limited partner and a couple of syndications in the triple net retail space. So I am diversified into those asset classes, without me being the full owner of those. And so and then now continuing to hunt multifamily that I can purchase just because I have a team set up for that I have awesome property managers, and then also looking in the retail space as well. What I found, though, is, in order to get something in the retail space, as far as our market goes, if you're in the Twin Cities, you need to be in a price point, that's over $2 million, in order to get something that's in good enough of a location that's going to attract tenants that feel like they are trustworthy, or that are going to be able to maintain a lease. And so it's really a cash game, when you're getting into bigger buildings like that. So I need to increase the value of the stuff I already own to be able to eventually sell those enrolled on proceeds into the purchase of those bigger assets, or just continue to prospect every asset class that I'm interested in and say yes to opportunities as the right opportunities pop up. 21:16 Yeah, I've never done anything. I've never been an LP or GP or nothing like that, like that. I mean, I like having the control. Being in control of a lot of things. So 21:28 yeah, I mean, pros and cons, right in whatever flavor of real estate you practice, whether it's the hate short term rentals, which have the ability to throw off a lot of cash, but it's about it's about the least passive thing that you can do, right? So it's, it's that teeter totter of a lot of a lot of hands on maybe more profit. And then on the other end of the scale is the just investing passively into syndications where you're not going to win as much if you own it outright, but it truly can be mailbox money, where you just sit back, don't have to worry about it. So the important thing there is to really trust your operators, your general partners, the guys that are running the show, which right now is is interesting, because the past couple of years with the real estate marking market, just everything going up, everything rising. I think it made a lot of people feel really smart, and really good at their job and feeling like they're great syndicators when, really it was just the market was just going crazy. And everything was going up. So I'll be curious to see over the next couple years as people bought properties with financing terms, expecting them to stay the way they were. And then debt coming to renewal. Now interest rates are where they're at. It'll be interesting to see what happens in that in those spaces. 22:57 And who's left standing? 22:59 Yes. Yeah, it makes me think of, I think it's a warren buffett quote, where it's like when the tide goes out, you find out who's been swimming naked. I think we're gonna find a lot of people are swimming naked. 23:13 Hate see it? But it's ebb and flow of everything. Yeah, well, that goes up and down. Real estate goes up and down, stocks go up and down. It is what it is, as hopefully you were prepared. Yes. This hopefully you're prepared. Are you doing anything with the education side? Are you just educating your team internally? 23:32 And when you say me doing the education side, what do you mean by that 23:37 you're doing any education at all, outwardly, 23:40 I'm not a ton. Most of the education that that I am leading is just with agents on my team, or people in my sphere, or people in my network, or clients of mine would be I love the education piece. I love empowering people. And I love teaching things that I'm really passionate about, which I absolutely love real estate if you haven't been able to tell already. So that's those are definitely opportunities that I would consider if they presented themselves. But that's what I love about the podcast spaces. This is a way for me to have a good conversation with you and and maybe there's just one small thing that I said that made somebody think a little bit of a different way that maybe changes the entire trajectory of their life potentially. So most of the education that I'm doing outwardly is probably in the in the podcast space like this. 24:36 Gotcha. Yeah, the podcast space is pretty dope man. I like it. I do it a lot and it's definitely has its benefits. For sure. What is it what is a quote that is yours or somebody else's that you resonate with? 24:53 A quote that the I've listened to or that that I constantly repeat in my head Edie over the past couple of years is, and this is not original, but it is anonymous, a lot, a lot of people might take credit for it. But entrepreneurship is living a couple years like most people won't. So you can live the rest of your life like most people can't. And that's just so true. In starting your own business, in whatever industry it is, if it's real estate, if it's any number, right? There's just so much work involved in getting any project up and running or any business up and running. But if you are willing to put in the time, and you're able to have the mental fortitude and the emotional fortitude to get through that, that hard part in the first year or two that were most people give up, if you're willing to get past that, then you end up reaping the benefits of all of that hard work that has been put in. And that's what I really try to preach to the newer guys on our team is if you commit to just two years of putting in the right action, then you're going to see the fruits of those labor, very shortly after that. So that's really a mantra that I've continued to live by, and continuing to grow. And even though my business is at a very healthy spot where it is self sustainable, and, and we're moving at a good pace, continuing to learn, continuing to put in the hard work, and just a different way than what it looked like when I was first getting up and running. 26:28 100% I will 100% back in on that one. It's a exponential growth happens after you put in the work for a long time consistently. And like it may it may get distraught or hurt or like it might hurt for a little bit when you get no results or little results for a long time. But something happens that you like if the gym you work that muscle for a while you're gonna get stronger. That's just the bottom line. 26:50 Yeah, and the more business owners that you talk to, in real estate or not in real estate, where it would be easy to glorify them or put them on a pedestal or think like, oh, my gosh, well, she had it made because she knew these people or it was easier for him because he was set up for success or, and then you hear their stories and you understand all of the work that they put in before you even knew who the heck they were right. And that's just been true for me time and time again, listening to people who I respect, who I see that they've built businesses that I admire. There's no getting around the work. They all put in the work. And so like we were talking about earlier real estate, it's hard to know who's going to put in the work and a lot of people you think you know how you're going to react until you're put in that position where it's now your turn to actually take the action? And we'll see we'll see who are the ones that actually step up to the plate? 27:57 Yeah, yeah, it's a definitely an interesting dynamic for everybody here that's wants to start early started, just keep to you to continue to put in the work show up every day. It's definitely hard for a long time. Just just push through it, push through the pain, push through the pain. 28:15 Yeah, what I tell my, the new people that join our real estate team, as I say, in months, one through three is easy. Because you have that new hire fire, you're pumped at something new, you're doing all of the building blocks to have your social media pages and your website set up and you're learning all this new stuff. And then once you get to month three, all of that stuff is done. And now you just got to do the work. And then months three through 12 are gonna be maybe the hardest part of your career. When you wake up on a Monday and you say I've got literally nothing on my calendar, I'm doing everything that they're telling me to do. And I'm not raking in the money. I'm not there's not clients just knocking down my door ready to work with me. But if you continue to push through that, that phase of just mental and emotional just toughness. You get two months 1213 1415 And the people that you met on month three and four Hey, now their lease is coming up and so they're starting to look so it really is the can you survive long enough and have the be mentally strong enough to get through that period of putting in the work and not seeing the results yet. 29:36 Thank you. Where can people find you online? I have your title of do it or do little real estate.com help people Ross people find it online. 29:46 Yeah, so I'm most active on Facebook. There's not many Taylor do littles out there. So if you just put my name into Facebook, you'll see my my headshot as my profile picture. I post a lot about real estate I also post a lot about my really, really cute two year old daughter, Rory, who's my best bud. And then I'm also on Instagram so Taylor dot Doolittle. And super super happy and willing if anybody listens to this and wants to ask a question or chat about anything, always happy to give away some time to help anybody where they're at always willing to help. 30:26 Well, I appreciate you coming on like I said, hopefully, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna help you get hopefully get more business in Minneapolis, Minnesota. So that's that's the goal. So hopefully everybody here for listening. Hopefully you learned something today, hopefully got some motivation and put in the put in the work and show up tomorrow. And hopefully, hopefully, after a certain period of time, it'll tell you when, but results will come. Thanks for coming out and Taylor. We appreciate you. We appreciate your time and hopefully, we get some deals off. Everybody here go like subscribe, share with a friend. Your friends and family share it, review it do all that stuff you know to subscribe, somewhere over there. Yeah, I'm gonna guys, we'll see you on the next episode. Thanks. Thank you