Diary of an Apartment Investor

ATE-Overcoming Limiting Beliefs with Jason Yarusi and Sassy Taylor

• Brian Briscoe, Jason Yarusi, Sassy Taylor • Episode 99

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Learn more about overcoming your limiting beliefs,  whether to do a syndication versus a joint venture, and how to build you team with Jason Yarusi and aspiring investor Sassy Taylor.

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For more educational content, visit our website at www.diaryofanapartmentinvestor.com
Interested in investing with Four Oaks Capital?  First step is to schedule a call with us. 

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Jason Yarusi
Jason Yarusi is founder of Yarusi Holdings with his wife Pili. They have over $75M in AUM across over 850 Multifamily Units. He is an avid runner and workout enthusiast. Hosts The Multifamily Live Podcast and The Jason and Pili Project. Wakes up daily at 4:32am. Is an Aspiring Ukulele Player. And most importantly Father to three amazing kids and husband.

Visit his website https://www.yarusiholdings.com/website
Or follow him on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/jasonyarusi/?hl=en 


Originally aired on February 23, 2021

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Sasha (Sassy) Taylor
Fixing up bank-owned properties, and then started wholesaling single family properties in the Philadelphia area. She’s now transitioning to multifamily. I'm a single mom of 3 kids looking to build generational wealth for my family and show other women, especially black women, that they can do it too.
Visit her website https://thelegacyheritage.com/
or email info@thelegacyheritage.com 

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Your host, Brian Briscoe, is a co-founder and principal in the real estate investing firm Four Oaks Capital.  He and his team currently have 485 units worth $21 million in assets under management and are continuing to grow.  He will retire as a Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Marine Corps in 2021. Learn more about him and the Four Oaks team at www.fouroakscapital.com  or contact him at brianbriscoe@fouroakscapital.com - be sure to let him know where you found him.

Connect with him on LinkedIn or Facebook.

Brian Briscoe:

We got Jason on the line here. What do you want to ask him?

Sassy Taylor:

When you first started out your journey in real estate investing? What were some of your self doubting beliefs? And how did you overcome it?

Jason Yarusi:

Anyone who says they don't have doubts and fears will be lying right there. There's always the fear of the unknown, right? That's usually the biggest part. The key is making it real and making it actionable always starts with that first step. So creating those first steps make it doable and approachable and attainable dream. So understanding what is that first step I need? Because then that first step led you to that second step, right? And so those limiting beliefs appear right when you can make it actionable. Then it's just that part of just okay, the more I know the less of fear.

Brian Briscoe:

Welcome to the diary of an apartment investor podcast with your host Brian Briscoe. In this podcast we bring some of the top professionals in the apartment investment field to discuss various aspects of the apartment investing journey with the sole purpose of educating listeners to make wise investment decisions. The Diary of an apartment investor podcast is sponsored by four oaks capital bringing you high yield returns through apartment complex investing. This is journal entry number 99. And one of our Ask the Expert episodes. Today we bring an experienced investor Jason, Yarusi and aspiring investor Sassy Taylor, you're listening to learn more about overcoming your limiting beliefs, what to do a syndication versus a joint venture, and how to build your team. And now the show. Welcome to the diary of an apartment investor podcast. I'm your host, Brian Briscoe with Four Oaks capital and very excited for today's show. It's another one of our Ask the Expert episodes, we've got two amazing people on the line here with us a man with a ton of experience in this business, Jason Yarusi, and a motivated aspiring investor Sassy Taylor. So first, let's introduce you to Jason. He's the founder of UC holdings with his wife pili. And they have $75 million in assets under management across 150 multifamily units. He's an avid runner, workout enthusiast, he hosts the multifamily Live podcast, and the Jason NPV project. He wakes up daily at

4:

32am, when I'm going to ask you about that. So get ready. He's an aspiring ukulele player, pronouncing it in the Hawaiian way. And most importantly, a father to three amazing kids and a husband. So that said, Jason, welcome to the show.

Jason Yarusi:

Thank you. When you say ukulele better than I do, my wife will be massively proud. And I have a long way to go with these bear claws I have. But we're getting there for sure. Yeah.

Brian Briscoe:

So I'm active duty military. And I remember one deployment, I was trying to figure out, you know how to play the guitar. And I ended up buying a huge ukulele Sorry, I still say ukulele a lot too. But I ended up buying one of those because it's a lot smaller. It's portable. Yeah. And those things are fun. I gotta tell you, they're fun. I mean, once once you get past the stigma of you know, a big grown man playing this little tiny instrument. There are a lot of fun. But so so one thing like that, I was going to ask you Why 432? Why not? 430 or 429?

Jason Yarusi:

You know, you want to set the narrative, right? Because Because 430 can seem paradigm, it could just go and passed right in that part. But I typically just say 4321 Get up. And that just happens. 4321 go. And I've done that now, routinely. And it just sets my days. One of the parts I do for my morning is alarm goes off for 32 you know that the killer is never hit the snooze alarm right there. There's no reason to have it just for three to one up your head. It's memorable and you do it. And you get up and you just get going.

Brian Briscoe:

Yeah, nice. Nice. I like it. I had somebody I think this is how Elrod I heard him speak. Once he was talking about that snooze button. He's like, if people hate waking up so much, why do they keep on hitting the snooze button and doing it over and over and over again, I think that's the that's the the best, best explanation I've ever heard of that one, just

Jason Yarusi:

you know, we all set up those lofty goals. And we don't we don't create a practice to take that first step because most times we see those goals as something we want. But there's no substance to it. And so it doesn't mean a lot to us. So and whether we get up at 430 or or eight o'clock when we should be getting up at seven, you know, it doesn't mean enough so we'll think we're gonna do it just like New Year's resolutions and we'll put it there because there's no nothing underlying like, Okay, what would 70 do for me? Like how great my life be if I get this extra hour back? What can I accomplish? It's just like, God, I think it would be good to wake up at seven. But then that's when it's easy to hit that snooze alarm.

Brian Briscoe:

Yeah, yeah. Nice. So 4321 go good. I might do a

5:

43am every morning then. And we'll we'll see about that. Yeah, yeah. Put the alarm clock back a little bit. Not gonna do a 54321 go.

Jason Yarusi:

There you go. It's fantastic.

Brian Briscoe:

Yeah, nice. Nice. So I assume you've got a morning routine. Go and want to step us through that real quick.

Jason Yarusi:

Sure. So honestly, it 4321 get up I drink a large glass of water. First thing I do. Go make a coffee. And then I meditate and spend time meditating. I'll do some affirmations. Some brain games on my on my phone, and then I'll go run. And I run every day. I've been doing that for a couple years now, typically five to six miles I did about 2500 miles around there last year. So I put some good trade out there to run. But that just sets it, it's a good place for me to get my mind, right. And it's just one of those things where just like getting up, it's that you do two things that not every day is going to be perfect. And then it makes other things easier to accomplish. And you also get your wins out of the day, right. So just like anything else out there, if you set the narrative this you do, you know, you can prepare yourself for today. And you'll have things come up that aren't ideal, right, but you've already created wins. And even though they're small things, right, like I don't know, drinking a glass of water in the morning to be small. But like, over time, the routine of just having that that habit that's pushing the right direction, it creates that incremental improvement that you can constantly build on. And I find with even my own goals, sometimes we get pushed off our goals because we our mind hasn't been there, right? So like, I don't know, pick anything, right? I want to climb Mount Everest, well, I've never done it. So we think about the top of Mount Everest and you get scared even try or you get fallen on the part. But if the if the idea is like creating those little wins, okay with that little win, okay, you know, look at a guy who's done this consistently. And always one look at the type of gear I may need. Look at the ideal time in a year to do that you start creating these wins, it makes it more accomplishable. And that's where a lot with our morning routine builds things into creates momentum.

Brian Briscoe:

I mean, obviously start start the morning, right and you get those wins. Like you say it up there, you just got a little bit of momentum stacked up and going. So absolutely, yeah, I love it. I love it. So let's talk a little bit more about your your background, can you tell us a little bit more about you and kind of lead us up to the point to where you decided to actively pursue apartments? Sure.

Jason Yarusi:

So actually lived I grew up in New Jersey, then moved to New York City lived about 13 years in New York City. My wife and I met in 2013, we actually didn't get together as a couple till about 2010. And from that point, we were in a lot of different spaces. I had opened some restaurants open some opened and sold a brewery and done a number of different things in that part. When we got together currently after that Hurricane Sandy happened when that happened in 2012 2011. Right there right at the tail end. My father has a niche business, where he's lifted and moved homes for decades now about 40 plus years. So we decided that we were going to go out there and help dad my brother was working for me came out there to to New Jersey, and we helped my dad for a couple years really just keep up with just a massive demands on projects. And so he was doing 1213 a year and then we jumped up to 300 350 a year, it was just a very pushing time, you know, but the goal was, I wasn't in the business, love my dad, you know, great business, it just wasn't the desire to do that. So we're really psyched to help dad, get them get them really pushed forward to business. But we knew there was always going to be another narrative, right? And so we we took, which we thought was the next logical step, right? So pili was pregnant with our first child. And we were like, okay, we want to find ways to do real estate to get our time back. And so what we thought was the logical steps, you got a realtor license, and I we started flipping homes, right, so we went from really busy in construction, you know, 30 active projects easily at a time to now having a whole nother side activity that created created chaos, right in that same fun. And so we did that we were actually doing pretty good. But it just was it was fine a narrative we were getting further away from it, it took us to 2015 pod actually met a friend who was buying some rentals out of state, putting together a team, get them fixed up getting them rented and then all of a sudden, like having that process, they were starting to receive checks. We said, well, that's pretty cool. Why don't we do like two, three and four units. So we started looking at that. And again, process worked great. We're like, Okay, cool. checks are showing up. But to scale that it just seemed like anarchy, right? So we're gonna scale these duplexes around around the city. It just seemed like madness. So we said, well, what else is there? And I came upon apartment investing, right? It was something that you see the apartment building, but you never thought about the process that you could do that. But it just clicked. I was like, well, that's economies of scale. It's better than two threes and fours because you can treat it you know, I went from the biggest outdoor restaurant in New York City, I went to the part I just saw the scalability with it right? It's like the same day if you have a 20 seat restaurant to 200 seat, same process right? Now, what's the building, I can get more kinds of scale, I get better, you know, better discounts on product, all those other points. You see what a restaurant The same thing happens with being able to hire staff more efficiently, having a routine that can push the lever so we sold the small properties with all into large multifamily and really dove into a few markets and set our sights on Louisville, Kentucky. And in 2017. We bought our first building, which was a 94 unit right there in Louisville, Kentucky was May of 2017. So that pretty much brings us to where and why we got started.

Brian Briscoe:

Yeah. So let me let me ask you a question. I think a lot of people take a similar route where they start in Real Estate in general, you know, single family small multifamily. What was the biggest challenge you had going from your small multi families to? I think that 94 unit, right? was the biggest challenge there?

Jason Yarusi:

That's a great question, you know, when it comes down to is that you got to you got to make sure that you put you put pieces in place, and it's not knowing that you don't know. And that's sometimes a plus and a minus, right. And so the best thing to do is put someone on your side who can be a mentor or a partner like so we had some other people that were already doing it successfully, because it's not so much the steps, right, you need to find a building need to secure a loan need to find capital to do it need to, you know, of course, put together a team to run the property. Okay, sure. Pretty, pretty basic. Everybody gets that concept. But it's those little in between steps that come up that that maybe you haven't heard about it, maybe something with the SEC where it could derail you, because you can't you don't know how to google it to find the answer. But when you have that person that's right there and you text them and within three minutes, you're back on track and not losing those weeks, that just like we see with the momentum, those are things that push forward on your momentum. So it does become that mental state, right. So you can do what you want. You can't do everything, but you can do what you want, as long as you start preparing your mind. So when we decided, Okay, we're gonna go large, it was just understanding in our mind, like making our mind understand it. This makes sense because of this, right? And where you hear the the narrative a lot is that, you know, I'll start safe with a with a six unit. But But if you have that same thought, Well, what makes us sick safer than a 20, what makes a 20 safer than a 50. What makes a 50 safer to 100, you know, and you can keep that narrative running, and it's not so much you you find safety and that's why loans borrowers are more attractive, you can move the lever with with larger product for a number of different reasons if you can manage it correctly. But I had a conversation yesterday where someone was like, No, I'm gonna think about multifamily. You know, going into like 20 units, should I just buy a single family first, and it was like, What does your mind need that or like? Because it seems like if you want to 20 units, what's what's the business philosophy for the single family, it's not like, you're not going to get like a like a social card for it, or there's not going to be anything that's going to help you like, if that's what your mind needs, that's to say, Okay, I can get into the game to do this. Sure. But in the same part, you know, if you want to run a marathon, starting to, you know, swim across a lake is not going to really be something either, you know, and so where's the parallel? And what do you need to get yourself across that mental hurdle?

Brian Briscoe:

Yeah, I like that. You say, Well, if that's what your mind needs to do, and I appreciate how you put that, because when I decided to do multifamily, I was looking at the six units, you know, I toward a six unit I toward an eight unit I toward a 10 unit, you know, things in that size, because that's what my mind thought that I could do next, you know, I was into single family. And, you know, I couldn't see the big picture, I didn't realize you could just jump in to the larger multifamily. And, you know, it wasn't until I was around a bunch of other people who done it, that, you know, I caught on to that idea. Yeah, so fortunately, I didn't spend any time in the, you know, six to 20 range and jumped into larger stuff first, but

Jason Yarusi:

there you go.

Brian Briscoe:

Yeah. So let's let's do this. Let's, let's talk about your your big burning, why you've talked, I mean, you've you've you've brushed upon it, you know, throughout what you've said already, but if you could distill it down, what's your big burning wife, or this

Jason Yarusi:

could be a cop out with family, right? So I have three little kids, six, four, and two culina used to work the restaurant space in the bar space in New York City, right? In New, you go to work at 10 a night and come home at 8am. Right? And so it's a whole different lifestyle, a different narrative, and you want to find a time where you can control your time, right? You want to set up the narrative that, okay, I can dictate how my day goes. And and everyone else can do that, too. It's just that choices if that's important to you, and no and and there's times we're just choosing that, okay. I'd rather spend a time like we started homeschooling when we just moved to Tennessee, where I can go out there and play my kids and just help them focus on anything, right? We had them. No, I said, Hey, they have some little savings we made for him, I said, Hey, we're gonna buy this apartment building, you want to put this little money in there because they we take them around, you know, some of the buildings were in different spots. And we just say, Hey, listen, that building, we make it a better place for people to live, and then just say, Well, what do you mean, I just we talked to him about like, Well, you know, sometimes the building doesn't look good, it doesn't feel good. And there's people living there. And we try and make it happier place to live. And during call. That's great. And so now they'll they'll see that building and like, oh, we're making that better, you know, and they'd so now they're putting a little part in it, but they can see it that instead of being the other way of like, having to think about it from like a real estate or investment side. And that's what it comes back to. And even our entire approach is that if we make the place a better community, it of course makes tenants happier, which of course, creates more returns, which of course makes us happier investors, right? Yeah. So

Brian Briscoe:

if you can win across the board, what else do you need to do? I mean, happier. Tenants will renew their leases more frequently. Yeah. which saves you Money, they'll pay a little bit more happily pay a little bit more to live there, and it's win win win. And it's not a cop out. I mean, my, my big burning y has a lot to do with my family and you know, sassy and I have talked a couple times prior to recording but these were they the light goes on, and they actually start understanding the reasons behind it. But

Jason Yarusi:

what's fantastic.

Brian Briscoe:

Yeah, so that said, give us an idea of you know, one of the projects you guys have done or or an overview of, of your your philosophy if you would, please.

Jason Yarusi:

Sure. You want to talk about the 94 unit that we have first one, let's do it. Alright, cool. We said it was in Louisville, Kentucky 94 unit. It was actually off market. We found it through a property management relationship. We put in an offer. I think they wanted 3.2. We offered 2.3. And so we're actually I'm sorry, we were at 2.1. If I yeah. And so but we told the broker we told him we pass along the narrative like this is why we're at this pricing. Right? It was a it was the father passed away was in his 90s the kids had owned it who were their 60s and 50s. They weren't living there. Nice building, but they just weren't taking care of it. Right. They were just letting it happen. Because it wasn't their focus. Nobody was in real estate. And they countered back at a really nice 3.2 million. So we said we got zero. And they said oh, that's fantastic. So he said thank you. We said appreciate it. We went away. But so happened. I was probably late, maybe early, late 2016. Right? I'm forgetting or early 2017. Whatever is the case, now they've been late 2016. A couple months went by property still there hanging out, hadn't hadn't sold hadn't traded. Maybe they had talked to some other people. But probably everybody else was coming in at that price point that that made sense. And it gets forgotten. Right. But time changes everything. So we went back. And I think we raised our price. 50,000 so we were at 2,150,000 at the time. And within maybe two three hours. We got a counter back at two six. Right, so

Brian Briscoe:

600 came off. They moved quite a bit that time.

Jason Yarusi:

Yep, move quite a bit. And you said okay, so we went through a few louder negotiations we got to the end, we just said listen guys, we don't live here in the Oval, you know, we're buying this with investors and we send them over like a snapshot of our analysis like we're not trying to kill you but but we can't go any more of them this price of two, three, we love to do it. And a day later they came back and agreed. So took that to close. That was fantastic. It was really nice building the area is even trending today. It was like 97 or 90% 98% occupancy in the area just like you know we never marketed across that property just driving on tenants and they had like seven or eight tenants that are units that were ready to rent and they're the leasing person just was watching I actually remember when we went to do the tour she was watching Dog the Bounty Hunter and she just didn't want to talk to it so I was like oh no no wonder right so got in day one did a lot of things improving the landscape they had like four maintenance guys that were running all over town fixing their single family homes that they that the kids also owned and being employed by this this property so it was running up the really just payroll like cut that back the leasing office was like a it was majority one bedrooms and some two bedrooms the leasing office was a two bedroom so we actually made that into just a one room so the office right there with the bathroom and then put in quote unquote another one bedroom out of that so we got another unit out of that we they had two laundry rooms and there's like 300 units in this area. These were the only laundry rooms we opened them up to other tenants but neither are more functional so we put them both back in line put a cable contract in there that gave us more revenue generation we did really like a water savings program across the entire property which cut down our water bill between repairing leaks and change our toilets and faucets cut our water bill by like 300,000 and at the time it made us I think about 300 k on unvalued just off the current cap probably at one point I think we did about 60 units or so across the board were returned but in terms of 13 months in we're able to refi the money bring a ton out for investors and we thought we were just gonna hold it long term you know long story short get back to early 2020 area got so aggressive because there was a there was an owner there who had owned property forever. He was really limiting what we could do in the area because when you have the largest property you kind of control the narrative right so he had like something like it was like 280 units he goes and sells the property and the new buyers came in started doing all kinds of premium units doing everything else to push forward on the area starting in a ton of path of progress that was nowhere seen back in 2017 and said Man, this is an ideal time to to look so we actually sold that and I started looking into December sold that in January and I six we didn't market it six months six offers without without a marketing right there. Really just crushed returns for investors. So we were did really, really well for investors. They were psyched and really happy with that full progress and move to move the light out of them into another project.

Brian Briscoe:

Nice Nice to hit a home run like that on your first deal, you know, just just something like that the producers as well. And I mean, refinance out after a year and returning a lot of capital is, is is not a small feat. You know,

Jason Yarusi:

I'll tell ya, that's part of the narrative for investors, not every deal is happens like this. Yeah, we had a lot of things that we did, we had a great business plan. But you know, the path of progress in area, we didn't we didn't model for that even for the premium units, right. So we didn't set capital, like, okay, we're gonna do all these units in the future of premium, right. So there was never, we were getting 150 really 125 $150 rent bumps just easily without doing anything, just just a simple, you know, paint carpet boom, just because of how far they were under market. But there was if I had put in, you know, granite in the area at the time, it would have drawn more money than for mica, it was just it was just what it was. Yeah. But it's really pushed forward, which was great, you know, but it just it made sense to look at it there. Because you constantly have to keep your head on the swivel, right? Because we didn't even even for the refinance That was unexpected, because we never even gameplan for that, you know, so we so we typically will just underwrite, make sure to deal works, and not banking, the refi because it's not always available, you know, it's not always the right time. So having that and then being able to do on the back end, it just it makes complete sense.

Brian Briscoe:

Yeah. And we typically don't build refinances into our game plans, just because you never know what the interest rates are going to be like, you never know what valuations are going to be like, where cap rates are going to be. Yeah, so that's one thing we try to do is keep the refinance out of our initial pro forma. And if it works without a refinance, it's gonna work.

Jason Yarusi:

Yeah, I agree. It works even better once you options, right. And you want to be in control of multiple options. And because they gives you the ability to have a plan, but when things change that are not foreseen, you're able to go with a good plan that's going to mimic, you know, where you need to pivot to.

Brian Briscoe:

Absolutely, absolutely. All right. So next question for you What's next for you?

Jason Yarusi:

I'm going to play the ukulele at a family gathering we haven't been back to see we usually go to cpls family and my wife's family about twice a year in Hawaii, we haven't been back in over a year now because of everything with COVID. So by the time we get back, I'll do that I want to run a 200 mile race, I've only run 100 miles so far, that that's not a big agenda. So that will be good. And then we're going to do a development play now that we moved to Tennessee. So one of the four projects we're gonna continue to push forward with, with multifamily, just in our wheelhouse. So we're going to focus on one development play that we definitely want to do now that we're here in Tennessee.

Brian Briscoe:

Nice. Nice. I understand you got a conference coming up, too, right?

Jason Yarusi:

We do. Oh, so multifamily live event. Thank you very much. Yeah, that comes up in June, I think June 10 11th, and 12th. That's gonna be virtual and have a ton of fun. We're working with some friends that put on dynamic conferences. They work with a team that has just done great jobs. We're really excited for that. But if you go over to multifamily live event.com. You can find all the details there. And that would be fantastic. We'd love to chat about multifamily talk about what we do and how you should do it, too.

Brian Briscoe:

Yeah, do me a favor, you know, after the show, send me the link to that. And I'd love to put that in the show notes for anybody who's who's interested.

Jason Yarusi:

Thank you. Yeah, great.

Brian Briscoe:

So let's, let's bring sassy on. You know, sassy has, you know, experience in real estate picking up banked on properties. She went from there to wholesaling single family properties all in the Philadelphia area. She's now transitioning to multifamily. She's also a single mother of three kids looking to build generational wealth for her family, and show other women especially black women, that they can do it too. So that said, sassy. Welcome to the show.

Sassy Taylor:

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Brian Briscoe:

Yeah, no problem. This is it's always fun. You know, we talked several times prior to and it's it's always, it's always fun having somebody a little more familiar on the on the other end of the line on this, this thing. So let's do this. Let's talk about you tell us a little bit about your background and your history and what got you into apartments.

Sassy Taylor:

So my main background was in the medical field, I started out in the medical field for years. And at one point, I was a pre med major student, I was a nursing student. And at some point, I realized I just didn't want to be in the medical field anymore. I was always told that you're good at it. So that's where you should just be. And I realized that I wanted more out of life. So I started learning more about real estate, and real estate investing. And I think I wanted to get more into that because I wanted to have more freedom. My kids are older. So you know, my oldest is 22. My son is 18 and my youngest is 15. So they're not babies anymore. But now at this stage in my life. I'm 41 so now I just want to live my life and just travel and do whatever I want to do. That's why I got into you know, real estate investing because I really wanted to build generational wealth, and then show other women that they can do the same thing too, especially in multifamily. I think I was first intrigued by multifamily. I was at an event for single family and the guy that made a comment. He said, You know I'm tired of going into rooms where I'm only seeing old boy Then sitting around the table, and he said, I want to see more women. And he said, I want to see more women of color. And he said, it's not an industry where it's dominated by women, and something and what he said really sparked. So from there, I was like, man, I need to go into multifamily. But even then I didn't jump right into it. I think I was a little fearful of it. And you know, I didn't know too many people who did it. So you know, they say, when the student is ready, the teacher appears. So I just started, you know, investigating more and researching more. And I realized I was like, This is what I want to do it, especially with the fact that you can drive the property value just by raising the noi when I found that out. I was like, Oh, I'm so

Brian Briscoe:

forced appreciation is amazing. It absolutely, yeah. So well, cool. Cool. So what's, what's your big burning? Why? I mean, you talked about it a little bit, you talked about the travel and everything else. But if you could just put it in one, one set a couple sentences, you know, what's that big burning? Why for you,

Sassy Taylor:

really, for my kids, I think, because, you know, being a single mom, your children have seen that my children have seen me struggle in so many different ways. And, you know, your children become like your, they're like my little cheerleaders, even though they're not little anymore, but they're always be my babies, but they are your your cheerleaders, and I want to be able to create a different life for them. So I didn't know about real estate investing. Growing up, there was no one in my family who really did that, except for my grandma, who, you know, she owned properties, but it wasn't talked about, it wasn't something that was like, oh, investing, this is a thing, you can actually do this. And you could actually make money and make passive income from it. And that wasn't talked about in my family. So I want to be able to change that for you know, grandkids, my future grandkids, I don't have any yet. But for my future grandkids before they come, I want to be able to have a legacy and leave a legacy behind and then show other people how they can do the same thing as well.

Brian Briscoe:

Yeah, yeah. That's awesome. That's awesome. Incidentally, you know, I still view my my kids is little sometimes my oldest is 21. And incidentally, she's gonna hear this because she's our podcast editor to so. But yeah, it's it's hard as a parent sometimes to look at your kids and realize they're adults, you know, and yeah, the little cheerleaders. I love it. But yeah. All right. Well, here comes my favorite part of the entire show. sassy. We got Jason on the line here. What do you want to ask him?

Sassy Taylor:

Hi, Jason. One of the questions I wanted to ask, I could probably ask you a ton of questions, because I'm very inquisitive. But um, when you first started out your journey in real estate investing, what were some of your self doubting beliefs? And or did you have any at all? And if you did, how did you overcome that?

Jason Yarusi:

Sure. So first off, you definitely talk to my wife, she's Hawaiian. And she says the same thing. She's got to help other women. Right, right. And women of color do this, because for a part here, there's definitely not a woman enough women in the space. So absolutely. Keep doing what you're doing great work. Anyone who says they don't have doubts and fears will be lying. Right? There's always the fear of the unknown, right? That's usually the biggest part. But the key is making it real and making it actionable. Right. So you have your big goals, right? So So really, the set up, you know, created the life not only for your kids and your grandkids, your great grandkids everywhere down to help women, right? So fantastic goals. What is that first step that needs to be done? Because when you can do that, just like running these long races, just like doing these other parts, it's not the end, right? The adventure is everything you're going to do. But it always starts with that first step. So what is that first step you need to do today? Is it to you know, learn more about commercial real estate? Is it to go get yourself in a bigger room where more people are doing this? So you can understand that people like you each and every day are doing this? Is it to set the narrative on the market? What is that first step? Let's say it's the market. Okay? How was that next first step to the market, right. And so creating those first steps make it doable, and approachable and attainable. And just like we talked a little bit on New Year's Eve resolutions, they're so lofty, but there's no basis to it. Right? So I want to lose 50 pounds, what does that mean to you? Right? So what is that thing that's going to happen if I do that? Like, there's no big like, it's like the Instagram thing? It must it's probably gonna look better if I have a mansion or a million dollars. Well, if you do is like perfect. Like, why does that mean anything to you? And it typically it doesn't, right? Because it's not not yours. It's someone else's dream. So understanding what is that first step I need? Because then that first step led you to that second step, right? And so those limiting beliefs appear, right? Okay. I had put together some money for like restaurants but never thought about from syndication. So how do I talk to people from that part, when it's our first one, you know, how do we make sure we're right in the market? How do we go out there and qualify these loans? These are all doubts because we you don't know it. But when you can make it actionable, then it's just that part of just okay, the more I know, the less of fear.

Sassy Taylor:

That's awesome. Thank you. Thank you. I think when you're new, you're First starting, you assume that when you see people who are experienced you, you forget that they had to start from somewhere, too. So, you know, you look at, you know, people like yourself and Brian now and it's like, oh, you know, they seem so confident they know what they're doing. But in the beginning, that probably wasn't the case at all. So

Jason Yarusi:

fantastic point. Remember, everybody started anywhere, like even if you're gonna talk to a broker at some day, it was their first day, right? And, and I always like to think of it is that there's either people one step ahead of me or one step behind me, right? So I could be one step to be Elan Musk, or I'd be one step to being homeless, right, just based on my choices, right. And we're not that far apart. But an affluent, like, the gaps aren't that big. But if we set the stage, we're setting the barriers mentally, where people are both stances right? So we could make a lot of bad decisions and put ourselves in a scenario right, just by by our daily decisions, but it's the daily decisions that get us there. Right. So how, how you're taking on the activity, right, so I'm going to buy a multifamily. You hear that a lot, then that's a great statement. But the doers are the ones that take that first step, right, that first step allows you to really just build it and build it and build it and, and not not get lost on just buying the multifamily for the steps to do because it's going to be a repeatable process, you're not taking by one you're gonna buy, you're gonna buy a ton of them.

Brian Briscoe:

I'm gonna connect some dots here. I mean, we talked about Jason's morning routine and creating momentum. It's the same thing with multifamily. You know, you start doing those little things, and you start creating momentum, and you get the ball rolling, you know, and that really works. And, incidentally, you know, my first broker call ever I wish I had that recorded, so I could go back and just, it would be comical. It would be absolutely comical, you know how that went. But yeah, I said, Everybody started brand new. And I mean, I wasn't born with, you know, multifamily properties around me. So

Sassy Taylor:

that's good. Thank you. Um, I guess my next question would be starting out as a newbie, how do you first begin to build your team? So I've heard several different investors have different takes on how they build their team? How do you start out when you really don't know anybody yet?

Jason Yarusi:

You know, a ton of people, though. And so like, I just i'd stopped that right there, you know, a ton of people here and you're on the call today, you know, you're on the call today, you know, talking to Brian, you know, like, you've had the conversation with Brian, you like, So? What are you good at? What do you want to do? And it combined, because you might be good at some stuff, but only a couple of you like doing right? So? So on that part? And then, you know, time, knowledge, credit money, right. And so so those are typically the four buckets, some we have some we don't at all points, right. And so, okay, what do you have? What do you need? Right? So then those are the partners, that does that partner have an alignment of interest, right? So you start getting into multifamily forums, start talking to more women that there's women's groups, you know, taking down a bunch of friends as a woman collective just took down a large property together, as you know, woman syndication, there, those groups they'll get in? So the women, multifamily groups or just multifamily groups in general, would you work? Can you provide value to someone to help somebody else and now you can become part of a good team? So building it back now, what is one of the questions that's potentially tough? I'm sure Brian hears it, like, how can I help you? Right? Well, I don't I don't know. I don't know what you do, you know. And so like, if someone came to me and was like, Hey, no, I'm great at lead generation, if I can bring a lead. Can we talk about, you know, you walk me through this deal? And they helped me and potentially partner? Yeah, sure. You know, but Okay, cool. But if but if I did, the question of like, them not knowing the role and me having to like assign them something, but I'm not sure what they're good at, then that puts me at a place not being able to help them where if you can come like, I'm really fluent with underwriting, I'd love to help you, you know, with all the deals coming across. So I can learn, you know, plus C, or in the same part, if you're really good at lead generation, or these other points, you partner with someone who's really good with due diligence or other points that maybe you're missing on. So just really targeting, what are you good at? What do you like doing? And then add those, okay, where is that space? And now, what are some areas that maybe you don't like dealing and potentially on your strengths, okay, those are probably the partners. And then making sure those partners you have an alignment of interest, right? If one wants to solely look at burned down buildings that want to be Shorthold just want to fix them and flip them, and you want to hold long term, you know, the narrative is not going to set, right. So making sure you have alignment of interest, and you have a mission that works together.

Brian Briscoe:

Now, I started in a big, you know, multifamily forum. And it was one of those where people could post questions about their their deals, and they could post their underwriting spreadsheets up there. And I've got two degrees in math. So spreadsheets and numbers were my thing. And I started, I didn't realize where this would leave, but I just started, you know, just looking at their underwriting and I figured I could probably learn something from this and maybe catch a couple of errors. And over the next several months of just helping other people out, it demonstrated to everybody in the group that I was really good at underwriting and that ended up leading me to the first partnership. So, you know, it's it's everything Jason said, you got to have that superpower that something that you're really good at, you got to be able to let other demonstrate to other people that you can do that. And if you can do both of those things and get yourself in front of more and more people, the partnerships will come.

Sassy Taylor:

That's awesome. Thank you. Thank you. That's good. Because you, it's funny how when you're new, you always say, I don't know anybody, but you do know people. And I'm an extrovert anyway. So I can talk to anybody, you can put me anywhere, and I'll be able to hold a conversation with somebody. So I think it's easier for people like myself, who don't mind, you know, walking up to people and saying, Hey, how are you doing and just kind of introducing yourself.

Jason Yarusi:

So you're you'll have a 20 times user ID because I like he always loves there are people you could put me in, just let me run in the morning and being in a closet working all day. And I'm cool, you know. And so from that point, you know, you just just start talking about what you're doing. And you'll find that alignment. Typically, if no one knows what you're doing, no one can no one you won't create those energies. But for you just this what I'm doing, right, so you know who else is doing this? Okay, let's talk and you'll never know where it comes from.

Sassy Taylor:

That's awesome. Question for you. We mentioned partnerships. What do you think are some of the pros and cons of syndication? syndicating deals versus joint venturing a deal?

Jason Yarusi:

Long Term business plan? Right? So what's what's your business plan? You know, and, and so what's your ultimate goal, right? And you take that goal, and you build it back to the steps, right? So if you're looking for, you know, capital influx bringing on Milan to larger properties, right, then you're going to potentially look at this syndication, if you're looking at different hold strategies, and maybe projects were smaller projects where you don't need to have so much bandwidth on capital, then you can do the joint venture, you know, and so typically, with syndications, you're able to buy larger properties and more scale rights as you continue to do projects with with more capital. And now part of your tip, we have an exit, maybe it's 357 years, where joint ventures, maybe you're like, I want to buy this eight Plex with a partner, and we're gonna own it forever, right? And then it's going to become my kids, my grandkids, you know, so what's the business plan? Right, at least right now, and then you start building back to plan to there. Okay,

Sassy Taylor:

awesome. Do you believe in finding the investors first? And then the deal? Because I did hear another very reputable and popular multifamily investing? Say that you find the deal? And then the investor? It's too late?

Jason Yarusi:

Right, absolutely. Great. So here's the thing. Imagine I have a deal, right? But I have no money. Now I need your money. And so it doesn't put me in a great spot, because I got to ask you for money. And then the same part two, you feel that you I'm asking for money, right? Where the other conversation comes down? Is it if you if you if you want to raise money with out ever asking for it, start having to talk with people now to explain to them about what what they're looking for, right? Because in that same narrative, I may have the best deal in the world, right? I think it's the best deal in the world, but the investor is not right for them. And so if I'm having that conversation, where I need money, I need the money, but the best deal in the world, we're in the same front, I could have the conversation before so the deal that we did the first deal, what we have already set up a pool of investors because for months, we were talking to investors explain to them what we're doing, why we're doing and what are they looking for? Because it is also a confused mind, we'll say no. So if you prefer stay, a lot of people haven't heard of apartment investing, if you now come to them, you're gonna tell them about apartment investing, and tell them about all these return structures you're doing? You're gonna tell them about, you know, syndication, or whatever is that narrative, then you're gonna ask them for money. They're gonna be like, Whoa, what just happened? And it's gonna be a hard conversation. But if you go the other way, and start talking to him to make sure that even as he was gonna write, why do they want to invest in multifamily? Like, what is it that it's maybe they're looking for cash flow? Maybe they're looking for depreciation, tax advantages, you know, you name it, right. But you portfolio diversification, but then you can have that conversation, say, Hey, is this something that can be interesting? They're like, yeah, like, and Okay, how much money would you look to? If we, when I find the deal, I'm gonna find, okay, maybe it's 50,000 25,000. Whatever is the case. But what that does is, if you find that great deals before the investors, well, you don't know if you can raise that money, nor do you know if you can get that loan, right. So but if you go the other way, and identify the type of property you want to go after, but didn't have a lot of conversations with investors and you say, I feel good, I could probably go raise a million dollars, well, then, you know, you probably go after maybe like a $3 million property. Okay, so now I can go to all the bankers and talk to them about potentially what I'm gonna look for here. And then I can see if I can qualify the loan, like maybe I need a partner for that, or I can write so now it's more real, and you're gonna have an easier time committing to the process because you're not going to go into more unknowns. I found this great property, but now I gotta raise money somehow. And then I got to make sure I can figure out how to get a loan. So you do everything upfront, then you can start rolling, right. And so you're always having conversation with investors. Because again, like, a great deal for us may not be great for the investor couldn't be right time, maybe they want a short term hold. Maybe they want to long longer hold, and we're doing you know, who knows, right? Maybe they just want to be in the stock market. But the more conversations you can have, you can figure out what they want, and how you can help them.

Brian Briscoe:

If I had to go back and do everything over again, I would have put more focus on capital raising upfront, my philosophy was I can find a deal I can underwrite, I can do all of those, you know, skill based type things, right. And my philosophy was, I'll just find a partner that can help me raise the money. But you know, what, when push comes to shove, you know, having those investors just like Jason was saying, you know, having the knowledge that I've got a million dollars, you know, soft committed already is, it's greatly going to help everything you do. But that said, we are almost out of time. So I got one question. I'm gonna ask each of you, Jason, you go first, how can our listeners learn more about you? Sure.

Jason Yarusi:

So we already talked about multifamily live event. Thank you so much for talking about that. Go over to university holdings calm or you can find me on Instagram at Jason yours. If you want to watch some running and workout stuffs we're always doing.

Brian Briscoe:

All right. Awesome. Sounds great and sassy. Same question for you. how can listeners learn more about you?

Sassy Taylor:

Um, so I do have my own website. It's www dot legacy heritage. com. The name of my company is called the legacy heritage group. I'm on email, I suck at social media. So I'm trying to get better at that. I am on LinkedIn. But I have to get better at that. So yeah, that is the best way to reach out to me or they can email me info at the legacy heritage.

Brian Briscoe:

com. All right, and we'll put that information in the show notes. So for anybody listening, if you want to contact sassy, just you know, tap show notes, scroll, and tap or email address, and takes you right there. All right. Well, thank you so much to both of you for coming on the show today. I really, really appreciate it. I learned a lot. I hope you guys learned a little bit too.

Sassy Taylor:

Yeah, this was great. Thank you so much, Jason and Brian. This was this was awesome.

Brian Briscoe:

And that's a wrap. Thank you for listening to the apartment investor podcast today brought to you by four oaks capital. If you'd like to know more about how to invest in apartment buildings, you want to be a guest in our show, visit our website at fouroakscapital.com/podcast or email us directly. If you're still listening, you obviously like the show. So pull out your phone, app, subscribe, and leave us a five star rating on your favorite podcast app. And we'll see you again next week.

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