Jeff Peterson | Peterson Properties

Amplified CEO with Richard Stroupe: Jeff Peterson | Peterson Properties

 [00:00:00] Welcome to the Amplified CEO with VC and serial entrepreneur, Richard Stroupe. Today's guest is Jeff Peterson, principal owner of Peterson Properties, and a key figure shaping some of Topsail's most prominent commercial and residential real estate. Jeff owns over 25 vacation rentals on Topsail Island, the popular Surf City Line Bar Restaurant, Island Inn, and the brand new Peterson Station in Cary, North Carolina.

You know, we both share common interest in outdoor sports and activities. You ever had any, like, major, you know, issues or accidents doing mountain biking? 

Well, not mountain biking. Not, well, I've, I've, I think I hit one time really hard, but, um, running, of course, you're always either getting injured, getting over an injury, or, you know, that's i

It's one of the two. You're, you're, you're pretty close [00:01:00] to it all the time. Because I did a lot of running. So, in the running, you're always. It seems like you're in recovery or you're just worried about getting hurt. You know, it's supposed to be so good for you, but it's like, I don't know about that all the time.

So, yeah. Do you still run a lot? No, no. So I now have, you know, the last time I qualified for Boston, the marathon, it was the eighth, ninth time I was running it. And, um, but I had an issue with my knee and I was like, you know, I got to get this looked at. And so my buddy, He's an orthopedic surgeon, and he, um, so I go to see him, right?

He's also on my running team, right? I go to see him and he takes the x-rays. He goes, Jeff, he goes, um, you're done. I said, what do you mean? Because I thought I had a, uh, ACL or not an ACL, but a meniscus tear. 

Right. 

And I knew something else, but I thought that's what it was. He goes, no, you have that. He goes, but you've got bone on bone.

He goes, the inside of your knee is just. I said, I said, well, I saw you last year. You said I had [00:02:00] 10 more years. I mean, my knees were perfect. He goes, yeah, they are. They're great. I said, explain. He goes, yeah, it's kind of like a car with an uneven tread. So the inside is all worn out. I said, so it's not that great, is what you're saying, you know, but I was, I was devastated because he goes, he goes, look, uh, you know, we could talk about maybe if you want to do a 5k sometime in the future.

I was like, Okay, if you race, you can't just go jog a 5k. You have to train for it. And if you train for it, you're doing a lot of miles. So it doesn't, to me, that just didn't sound appealing at all. Now I can do anything but, so I can bike, I can swim, I can do all the other stuff, but any distance running, which I've run some, you know, five, six miles, the next day my knee's swelling up, and I'm like, this just is not.

Could they insert some kind of like padding or cartilage? They 

did do that. Um, but not really. It's, it's, [00:03:00] it doesn't really work. Not for long distance. Now I could do shorter stuff, but. 

Right. 

Anyway, that was a, a like, uh, because with me, you know, I did a lot of triathlon and triathlon, you know, swim, bike, run, right?

Yeah. 

I hated to swim. I tolerated the bike. I love the run. I mean, I could do it all, but I didn't enjoy a six-hour bike ride. I mean, just, you know, even with training with friends, it was like, this is just boring, boring. You know, so, so I didn't enjoy that as much. Now I, I got into doing a lot of, um, obstacle racing, like Spartan, stuff like that.

I loved that. That was fantastic. And I still like that. But the running part, you really have to train for, you know. Because each 

obstacle is about a mile apart, right? 

Well, no, not that far. Um, so the, the super, I think is eight or nine miles, nine, nine point something miles run. And there's 30 obstacles. So you do 30 obstacles, you know, you're doing several and it doesn't always even out.

So I liked it because my body type really [00:04:00] worked well for it because I was, the way I always looked at it, it's like, okay, I'm strong enough. to do the obstacles and I can compete with the CrossFit guys, but I'm as fast as the skinny guys. So I had the best of both. So I could do really well in those that just fit my, fit what I did very well.

Um, until it didn't, you know, but, but those could be any race. I don't care what you do. And you know, this cause you've, you've done competitions before, but any, any racing or any, any kind of sport will humble you. I mean, you're going to be humbled. I don't care. Like when I was, yeah. So at some point you're gonna be humbled to the running.

He had humbled every day. I mean, I'll do a marathon. And, and, um, back in the day when I was doing the marathons and I did a bunch of them, you'd sit there and you'd, you'd have somebody like, really? I mean, I hear people back behind me talking conversation and I'm just about to die, you know? So it can be very humbling.

Um, but it was fun. It was very, very, do 

you, do you take any [00:05:00] supplements daily? What's your daily regimen? 

Not really. I, I'll, I'll Supplements that kind of come and go are like, Oh, I should try that. Oh, I knew you do that. But I, I just never really get into doing those. 

Like, uh, amino acids or creatine. No.

Peptides. 

No, I know. Like my sons do all that weightlifting and I've done it before when I lift, when I go with them and we'll lift and stuff and I'll start doing that then, but I just never stick with that. I should, but no, it would be better if I did. Yeah. But you don't get this kind of body.

There's a lot going on, there's a lot going on. 

There, there's this guy we were talking about on the last podcast where he spends 3 million a year just to stay young. Like he's got this whole anti aging regimen where he takes all these supplements and vitamins and the specific diet. And, um, but, uh, you know, you get to a point where you could be in your [00:06:00] forties, fifties or sixties, And look, 10 to 15 years younger.

Feel younger just by taking 

care of yourself. Well, I do take care of myself. A lot of people don't believe that I'm 98. But other than that, yeah. I think I do pretty good. Yeah. I think you did all right. Yeah. So. No, I, I, it is hard because you, you have to take care of yourself more and more. You have to watch what you eat and watch what you do.

Yeah. And that's the hardest part with me, diet. You know, you can't, uh, the old saying, and I know you know this too, you can't exercise away a bad diet, you know, 70 percent or whatever the percentage is, but a huge part of what you do is your diet. Exactly. Not what you're doing exercise wise. Yeah. 

Unless you sit in a sauna for, you know, hours.

Yeah, I haven't done that and I don't do the ice bath either. Have you done that? Yes. I've Yeah, 

I'm a 

big fan. You know, I would be a fan. Jumping in the pool at six in the morning to do swim practice made me not a fan of doing that. I'm sure. That's not fun. [00:07:00] 

They could just go and jump in the ocean right now.

Yeah, 

yeah. All he needs is three or four minutes. Run back to your house. 

Yeah. You know, the dolphin dip. Did you ever do that? Yeah. I've been there. I was like, no, I just don't need it. Yeah. A couple 

of years ago, my daughter, she brought some friends down for New Year's and we all did the dolphin dip. I won the costume 

contest one year.

You did? 

Yeah. What did you dress 

up like? Uh, Macklemore. So big fur coat, uh, Oh yeah, yeah. The singer. Yeah. Otherwise, 

I'm shocked even who that is. 

Yeah. I didn't. Somebody else dressed me. I was like, yeah, okay. Pop it up. What is that? Pop and tops. Yeah, was. Yeah. Something like that. So, I mean, it was very stupid, but it was, you know, we all walked over there and, you know, we all dressed up.

Well, we used to dress up for it every year. Yeah. Because from the beach house, you just walk over to it. It's a quarter mile. 

Right. Right. Yeah. You're real close. Yeah. Yeah. So, other outdoor activities, do you exercise, you go to the gym, what's, what do you do? Um, [00:08:00] 

you know, I have a home gym, so I do a lot of that now.

I do go to the gym, just, I kind of go, either I'm going to the gym or I'm at the house and I go through stages, of course. But yeah, I try to do lifting 

more. Yeah, I think that's important. 

Yeah, I think you have to do that, you can't just, like when I was running and I ran with so many guys, And I was like, yeah, I don't want to be that guy, you know, because you'd see guys that were just, I mean, they could not do a pull up at nothing.

And I was like, no, you got to have some balance. You know, so that's what, that's, what's always impressed me when I see a big guy running, like if they can run, actually run, I was like, wow, that's, that takes something because, you know, when you're hauling that much weight, which guys that are really competitive.

I mean, I'm like considered a huge guy running like huge body weight, you know? So 

what do you, what do you weigh? Like 190, 200? 

No, I weigh like 180. 

Okay. 

Yeah. Yeah. But running, we're not running. I was around 170. 

Okay. Yeah. Cause I mean, usually the runners like long distance [00:09:00] are really skinny. 

Oh, they're like 140.

Yeah. 135, 140. So my brothers told me we used to run. He's bigger guy, right? So would run races and it was like an out and back kind of thing. He said, I could always tell it was you. When I saw you coming, he goes, I could see you from a distance because you were the biggest guy in the group that was running.

I was like, Oh, thank you for that. It was kind of a 

compliment, unless he's like, Oh, you're a badass guy. No, it was a compliment. It was a compliment. It's, you know, I said, that could be worse. Big boned guy. Big boned guy. 

Yeah. So no, the other night, you know, I like to go out in the water, I mean the water, and then of course hunting.

I like to hunt. Yeah. 

You just hunt deer or do you hunt other things? I just hunt deer. You ever think, thought about going out to Wyoming or Montana and taking down some of the You know, 

not really. You know A lot of my friends, they're all into that. They really want to do that. That's long range rifle hunting.

That's a hugely different, even rifle hunting for deer here [00:10:00] is not the same sport as bow hunting. I only bow hunt. That's all I do. So it's, you have to be up close and personal. You have to get them really close. Yeah. So when you're doing that, You come back, people say, you didn't get anything. Well, no, I, if I'd had a rifle, I could have, you know, shot everything.

But no, you have to be, you have to get them really close. So it's more 

skillful. Yeah. 

It's, there's a lot more to it. Yeah. Have you ever tried it? 

I took a bow class, like as a, you know, an elective in college. Archery. 

Yeah. 

Yeah. That was fun. I'm not a, I'm not a big hunter. 

Yeah. Yeah. I'm not good target hunting, not target hunting, target shooting.

Yeah. Like it's, my sons are way better at target shooting. They're just more disciplined. 

I like to fish. When my kids come down for the summer, we usually go 

fishing a lot. 

You know what I 

like to do? I love fishing, but I like to go clamming. Glam? Glam. Have you ever done that? Yeah. Oh, no, it's fun. You just pull up the boat and walk out and, you know, you have your beer and you just, you know, I, I mean, I love it.

It's like, it's like, uh, Easter egg hunting, the [00:11:00] same kind of thing, right? But now we're, we're, you know, I'm on the waterway, right? I can walk out, just walk right off the ramp and glam. 

Yeah. So you grew up in North Carolina. 

Yeah. 

Richlands. 

Richlands. Richlands. You know, I know you're not from Richlands. 

I said Richland.

That's right. . You pronounce it Richland. 

Richlands. Yes. 

It's kind of like top SUL. Top SAIL. Yeah. 

Right Top SUL is local. Top SAIL. You're not from there. Which is exact. Exactly. Opposite. Opposite. In Richlands. Yeah. 

Why do they pronounce it Richlands and not Richlands? I don't know. Somebody come up with it years ago.

Who knows? 

Yeah. 

We gonna call it Rich Lands . Yeah. I think that's what it was. 

Just to pronounce the A a little bit. 

Yeah, I remember, so my parents were not from Richlands, and you know, my dad was Connecticut, and you know, blue blood, and mom's Irish. And, uh, so we didn't have that southern drawl growing up, so even though we moved to rich lands very young, I remember going out and, [00:12:00] boy, you ain't from around here, are ya?

Uh, yes sir, actually I am. But you'd get, you'd get some of that. 

Yeah, what part of Connecticut is your dad from? 

Westport. 

Westport? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, well, my daughter goes to school up in Massachusetts. Okay, and then sometimes we go down to Mystic. Mm hmm. And you know the famous Mystic Pizza place. Yeah. Yeah, there's you know a beach not too far away I still have family up there.

Yeah 

in Woodbury, so my sister's a big horse person and they've got horse like they train horses and yeah Like a lot. 

Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's pretty, yeah. There's certain areas it's really pretty. Yeah. And there's certain areas it's not so pretty . Yeah, yeah, of course. Well, where they are, it really is. I mean, it's nice up 

there where they are.

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know that I wouldn't wanna live up there, so. 

No. So did anybody in your family growing up, were they entrepreneurs? They run their own businesses? 

Uh, you know, my dad did, uh, he had a small, you know, well he worked for other people [00:13:00] and then he tried several different things and he had a small upholstery shop.

But other than that, that's probably about it. 

And maybe you picked up some of his entrepreneurial spirit? Uh, I 

think so. I think so. Um, more of the can do or make it figured out. 

Yeah, I mean that generation you had to 

do something. 

I can remember my grandparents and my dad had multiple businesses. You know, I don't really think about it until you're like, Oh yeah, that's right, he ran this business, he did this business, they did this, they did that.

Growing up in a small community, I almost had to invent your, your way of life. That's true. That's good. So then you went to East Carolina. 

Went to ECU, did not graduate. Okay. 

How many years did you make it? Freshman? No, 

you know, I was there, um, well, freshman, I wasn't there because I was, by this time, my parents business was not doing very well.

And I learned how to upholster and I was their only upholster. So they, they had, If I went to school, they had to close up. So [00:14:00] I stayed, I agreed to stay for a year and, and worked in the business and, uh, worked for them and then worked nights. I, at nights, I worked, uh, restaurants and stuff. Try to make money cause I wasn't getting paid either, you know.

Right. Yeah. 

Keeping the family up. Yeah. Yeah. 

So that, there was some of that. And then, uh, the second year I did go to school and then I went for two years at ECU. And then, so I probably had I don't know, a semester and a half or so to graduate, and didn't, but 

What was the decision to drop out? 

Uh, got married.

Okay. Did you meet your wife there? No, 

no, hometown, hometown. Okay. I didn't say these are great decisions. These are just decisions you make when you're young, you know, it's 

all about the entrepreneurial pivot. Yeah. Oh, believe 

me, there's been a lot of pivoting. 

Yes. Your nickname might be Mr. Pivot. Yeah. 

Well, you know, it's funny because when people ask you like, well, how'd you start this?

Or what, how'd you do that? And what's your big plan? And I'm like, You back into it, like, well, here's the plan, and you have this big plan, [00:15:00] but they're really, most of the time, it's not a big plan, or if you had a plan early on, that isn't really how it evolved. 

Right. 

Like, you know, it evolved into something far different.

Like with me. I opened up my upholstery shop on my 21st birthday and, um, worked it out of the second bedroom of a house that I was renting. I traded my car to my dad for a sewing machine and that's how I started. 

So was this being a competitor against your family's? No, no, 

no. He had already gone out. He, they were, they were, they were closed up shop.

They were done. He was selling insurance. And so, um, What I had done was I basically, um, bought his equipment and traded a car to do it. And then, um, and that's how I started in the second bedroom of a house that we were renting. Okay. So it wasn't, it wasn't exactly a big master. So upholstery, what were you?

Well, so, so what it was, was, um, I was 21, I was working three different jobs before I started. Restaurants, going to [00:16:00] school, wife became pregnant, I was like, I can't make it, working three jobs in restaurants. So I knew I could make money at upholstery. I knew how to upholster. So I did that. My dad was not happy when I told him I was going to do that.

He was, he was furious actually, because he just thought it was a failing business. What 

year 

was this? It's like 1981. 

So your upholstery business, what were you, what were you making? 

Recovering. So reupholstering furniture. So you'd reupholster people's furniture. So to get business, I would have to go to interior design shops, furniture stores, try to do anything to get them to, like, use me to cover their clients furniture, right?

What, 21? You couldn't, you couldn't get a lot of people to Yeah, who's 

this kid? 

Yes, exactly. They're like, yeah, well, thank you. Well, you know, that kind of thing. And then eventually I'd be like, look If you don't like it, you don't have to pay me. You know, you'd say anything. Anything [00:17:00] to try to get the job.

And um, you'd, you started getting a little bit, but really it was, it was, it was a struggle. You just weren't getting that, any activity with that. So I remember, I actually had, like I was like, I have to put an ad in the paper. I've got to do something. I've got to do something to get some business right. So I was either putting an ad in the paper, or pay the light bill.

So I put the ad in the paper and got business and did it fast enough where I could pay the light bill. Because I remember I took, took the people's furniture, worked overnight, completed it, called them up to bring it out. And they were like, like super worried because, you know, how could you get it done that fast?

So they didn't think it was a good job just because I did it too fast. So then I had to convince them, well, it was good and they liked it. And But I kind of had to do it really fast because I picked up and delivered and I had to rent a van so I couldn't keep the van. I mean, we're talking, these are, you're talking shoestring.

This is about as [00:18:00] shoestring as you can get doing that. There wasn't like, you couldn't call up your parents for money because they didn't have anything, so. 

Was this in the Richlands area? No, this was in Greenville. 

Greenville. Greenville, yeah. Okay. Yeah. 

So the early years you were hustling trying to get some business.

Yeah, that was, that was early. That's the last job I ever had. I never worked after that, after the restaurant. Um, I did get a job teaching upholstery at night. at the community college. Um, that was supplement that, you know, my, my work, and that was nice that they hired me. But, um, it's funny stories related to that.

Yeah. 

So how did you pivot into real estate at that point? 

Um, I kept doing the upholstery. So I did that for several years. I bought a house. I, I read this book on how to buy real estate with little or no money down. And, uh, I, I can't think of the author. It doesn't come to mind right at this moment, but anyway, I read that book and I was always interested in real estate.

Just very interested. And, um, so I talked, uh, a man and his wife in Aden, outside of Greenville, into selling me their [00:19:00] house. I mean, they, they had it for sale, and I talked them into selling it and owner financing. And I, I had, believe me, if you'd have seen how creative I was trying to do that stuff, you'd have probably just laughed, but, but anyway, he, he liked me, and he went for it, and so we did it.

And I had a, out back, there was a little, uh, garage, separate garage, so I ran the upholstery out of that. That's how it started. 

Interesting. So what was the next venture? 

Well, the next thing I did was I, I started, I met somebody in Raleigh and so I started driving up to Raleigh and seeing this person up there.

Right. So I was like, as long as I'm here, I have to work. Mm-hmm. Like, I couldn't just not do anything. So I started drumming up business up there and I'd, I'd go up on Friday, pick up all the furniture, deliver it. and then bring it back. So I was actually doing a lot of work in the Raleigh area. 

Okay, 

still in the upholstery business.

In the upholstery business, in the upholstery business. Then I'm, so I finally made the switch and moved up to Cary. [00:20:00] Okay. So that's when I moved to Cary. That was 85. Okay. Yeah, 1985 is when I moved there. So I'd already been doing it five years and had established myself in Greenville, but there's much more.

Yeah, way more opportunity. Yeah. And then I started buying property. 

Did you pivot into real estate before starting some of these other businesses like the consignment stores? 

Oh, real estate was first. Yeah. Well, it's hard to say exactly. Like I said, it's not all linear. Yeah. So, um, what I did was I had the upholstery and you know, when you're upholstering, you're basically, if you don't upholster, you're not making money, right?

So you're either making money or you're not. Right. I knew that I needed to do something where I could make money without upholstery, without doing the physical labor myself. So the first thing was to sell the fabric. And I knew that, you know, I had fabric, but it was just too expensive. So the first real venture that I had was to open up a fabric store [00:21:00] in addition to the upholstery.

So that was a, and that was a struggle because fabric costs a lot of money because you're buying it wholesale. I'm not, I'm not, I'm buying from the manufacturers, from the big warehouses up in High Point. And it took a lot of inventory to do that. So that was a struggle to get that started. And basically I just had to work twice as hard because I'm paying for everything by doing my upholstery.

So the upholstery is what funded everything to begin with. It was one of those businesses that I had and I still, still have it, but he's kind of like, Oh, you do upholstery. You kind of felt like you're, you know, you're not, you're not a CPA. You're not working in the, in the corporate world. And I always felt a little bit like, Oh, geez, I'm just doing this, you know, but, but actually that's what funded everything.

That's how it all started. 

Okay. Interesting. So you got to a certain point where you had some, some excess cash and you said real estate's the next venture. 

Yeah. Well, I, I didn't have excess cash. I just knew, I just knew I'd keep [00:22:00] trying to buy real estate. 

Buying real estate with no money. Yes. Yes. So that's what 

I did.

That's what I was, that's what I was doing. You know, I started finding some of those, uh, at the time that you could get FHA properties and you could assume somebody else's loan and not qualify. So if I thought that I could cash flow it and it would make some money and I don't care if it may be 10, I would buy it.

I'd just buy whatever I could knowing that I was going to, it was going to appreciate in value. I was going to be able to depreciate it, right? And take the, take the tax advantages. So I knew all the advantages even back then of, of how to do real estate. But that's how it started. It was all townhomes and condos and little stuff like that.

What vicinity was this at? Was it in Raleigh? It was in Raleigh Carrie, yeah. All in Raleigh Carrie. Yeah, so that's how I started. That's how I started building. And, um, it's hard to remember the first property that a bigger property that actually bought, but that's, that's kind of how it started. 

So it's kind of a snowball effect.

Yeah. Started with townhouses and really more residential type. 

Or, you know, most people, that's where [00:23:00] most people start real estate. They start with the residential, you know, and, uh, it's the easiest to acquire less, less money than you kind of venture into commercial. Um, I just built townhomes. You know, the hardest part of real estate is convincing your lender, right?

Getting somebody to believe that you know what you're doing, 

right? 

And when you're a landlord, so you now you've got several years under your belt and you're a landlord and you have properties, then they, then they take you seriously. But if you go on the first time, they're not going to look at you too seriously.

Right. So did you have some lending partners to help you kind of get the real estate business? You did it all yourself. 

Yep. Never took a partner until. My last venture in Holly Springs. Okay. It's the first one ever. First and only one I've ever 

taken. How many, how many residential units did you kind of collect?

In the beginning 

there was several town homes, and then I built 31 town homes, and I kept half of those. Then I built some more, 16 more, and I kept those. Um, so I, I kind [00:24:00] of kept some, sold some, I kept as many as I could. Mm-hmm . But there again, your lenders wouldn't just let you keep everything Right. I was fortunate because they looked at me as a landlord and not just a builder.

If I'd been just a builder, they would not allow me to do that. They just said, no, you got to sell it. You got to sell it. 

When, when did you decide to become a developer or a builder? 

I didn't decide. It just kind of happened, you know? So builder as, as far as a builder, I'd worked with a couple of builders on some smaller projects when I did commercial And there are so many mistakes, so much money that it costs, extra costs, and I think you know a little bit of that, right?

Oh yeah. 

That I felt like, you know, I think that I could do this myself and I don't think I'll make 20 percent in mistakes. Even if I only make 10 percent in mistakes, not knowing what I'm doing, I still think I'll come out ahead. Right. So that's how, that's, that's The reasoning why I became, why I got my builder's license.

That was it. It was like, I was just doing this myself. 

Did you, [00:25:00] so you got your general contractor's license? Yeah. How hard was that to study and get? 

Um, I'm a good test taker. Um, I, I always tell people, I said, I have a builder's license. They say, Oh, you're a builder. I said, well, I'm a great test taker. I have a builder license, but there's guys out there that are far better builders.

They know much more about it or they don't have a builder's license, but they can't necessarily pass the test. I mean, you know, some people are just, you know, not good at written tests, right? Um, so it wasn't that hard. I mean, it was, it was difficult, but not, not that. So 

were you still running your upholstery business and doing the developing and acquiring properties at the same time?

It was for 20 years, probably more than 20 years. I upholstered. Like, and I had five or six upholsters working for me, and my goal was to out upholster every single one of them and still run my businesses. So that's, that's, you know, that was my competitive nature, always doing that. But yeah, [00:26:00] so that's kind of what, kind of what I did.

And, and eventually though, the hardest part for me, the hardest part was quitting upholstery, quitting doing it myself. Because even though I could make money at it, and I was good at it, it doesn't really make you money. It makes you bass boat money. It doesn't make you yacht money, right? Right. So that's, that was a difference, but the difference was making sure that I could just Okay I need to go to the office that's what I need to do And I don't I need to be back here cutting and sewing upholstery all day, you know.

I have 

to hire somebody to do that. Yes, exactly. So that's, that 

was it. But it's, it's very hard to, um, step away. 

Yeah. There's always this, this comment. Like it's, it's better to work on your business and not in your business. Yeah. So that's a good way of putting it. If you're working 8 10 hours a day in your business, you don't have any time to look externally.

Either on how to improve the operation or expand. 

I always say that, um, [00:27:00] I make more money driving in my truck up and down the highway than I do sitting at, sitting in the office. Because that's when your mind frees up 

and you 

start thinking of things and you're, you're, you expand. But when you're in the weeds, like I like being in the weeds a lot.

I like, you know, I like balancing the checkbooks. I like doing that. I like doing the accounting part. But I don't make money at it and it's not a good use of my time, right? It's just not, but I do it anyway. I do some of that. 

Yeah. You have to manage your time. Yeah. I think that's one of the key success factors is properly managing your time because if you get stuck doing more of the mundane type operations, then like you said, you don't have enough time to look, you know, acquire new businesses or new properties.

That's right. That's right. And it's, it's very hard to manage that part. I mean, I do it and, but I like thinking of new projects. I'm not a good manager. 

Like 

that's not my strength. My strength is not managing. I mean, I [00:28:00] would think that's probably my biggest weakness. It's managing where I like to, like, I get excited about a new project, but then once it's, once I figure it out, then I'm like, I'm on to something else.

I'm just like, okay, I'm done with this, you know, but then that project's still sitting there. You're like, okay, it's still got to be done. 

Yeah. Yeah. So would you say your strength is leading or like 

visioning? 

I think visioning. Visioning. Yeah. 

I have ideas. I'm an idea guy. What was that movie? Was it Night Shift where Henry Winkler and, uh, and he goes, I'm an idea man.

I'm an idea man. 

Yeah, 

well I have, what do you call it? The great ideas and then the not so great ideas. Right. On how to 

execute. 

Yeah, well, you know, some of the ideas you look at, people say, what kind of property do you buy? I say, uh, I buy the good, the bad, and the what the hell was I thinking? And if you, if you ever do anything in property, and if you say you do property, you're going to have some of that.

And if you say you've never, you've never made a mistake, I'll guarantee you've just [00:29:00] been paralyzed by analysis the whole time and never done anything, right? Of course. I mean, there's no way, I mean, You know, I've bought things and I'm like, what have I done? What did I do? Or I'll spend so much time figuring out how to do the deal.

I won't think enough on, should I do the deal? And I think that's the biggest learning part for anybody is, should you do the deal? Even if you can do it, should you do 

it? 

So that's, that's a, that's one I've tried to learn more and more. But 

do you have a group of advisors or people you trust to kind of balance some of these ideas off?

Um, You said the analysis process. I mean, that's a real thing. You know, people have a real issue with that. 

Not, you know, not really. I, you know, I'll bounce things off of friends sometimes, but most of them are not, they don't do quite what I do. It's hard finding the right type of person to bounce stuff off of.

You know, my kids have actually, you know, become very good at like, Dad, do we really want to get into this? I mean, seriously, you know, [00:30:00] so, so, um, more with them, I think than, than anybody, but, um, not a lot, not a whole lot. 

There's these peer groups for entrepreneurs. I think one of them is called Tiger 21. You pay a fee to join.

And one of the things they do is you have to do a portfolio defense. Where you pretty much tell everybody where everything you have, you know, this is what I have. This is what's invested in. And you have to defend your decision. Like, here's why I like it. And then all these guys will just throw poke holes at your strategy and try to get you to think outside of the box.

Yeah. I call that a banker.

But, but that's, that's actually pretty interesting. Yeah. Yeah. So have you done that? 

I went to one meeting and you know, when I discovered what the fee annual fee was, I'm like, wait, I'm paying you a fee for what? It was like, I, I've got a couple of bodies. I can do that now for free. Yeah. 

Yeah. Yeah. 

But yeah, I mean, I have a few people very similar to us where.

[00:31:00] They've built, sold businesses and we routinely run ideas past each other and say, what do you think of this idea? Here's an investment. And sometimes we co invest on things. Right, right. But it's good. It's good to have an opportunity and like, you know, Hey, what do you think about this? And you know, let's, let's throw some money in this together.

Right. 

Then we kind of share some of that due diligence and responsibility of ownership of like, Oh my God, what did I just 

do? That helps. I'm sure that helps. Although 

I didn't do this with a real estate here locally. I should have. I should have, uh, you know, involved more. 

I've had some really good things here in real estate.

And then I've had a couple of others that are just like, what in the world happened? But most of it overall, if you look at the whole portfolio, it's done very well, you know, and. I can always, if I look at my overall decision making process or, or what I've, what I've invested in, most of the stuff has turned out very well, obviously, because if it didn't, we wouldn't be sitting here, you know?

So, [00:32:00] but there's always those few that you think back on, you're like, where, what would I have done differently? What did I do? Where did, where was I thinking wrong? Right? And that's, I mean, if you're, you know, self analysis, you have to have that, right? So you have to go back and go like, okay, what, what did I do?

You know, what, how could I have done this better? What did I do wrong to begin with? Was it, was it ego? Was it the very first, you know, your very first impression? Did you just, were you wrong on that? And sometimes that's it. Sometimes it's right from the, right from the get go. You're like, yeah, Wow. I just, I missed it from the gate.

And it's a lot of times the same problem that private equity and venture capital experiences, right? They look at financials and they look at models and they look at projections and you know, the market and they start making assumptions. And they'll buy an asset and think, all right, you know what, figure that it's going to grow X, Y, Z, and we can, you know, have a three or four X on our return on capital and, you know, grow [00:33:00] the business or expand it and use it as a portfolio rollup methodology.

But sometimes being in the field, being on the frontline and talking to the people and understanding how the services or products made can give you a better feel of the future and how things are made or serviced versus, you know, From a financial statement. 

Your first point with that is the initial assumptions.

So if the initial assumption, the very first one, is skewed, or if it's wrong, then everything after that, just, like, go back to the very beginning and you're like, what was I thinking when I did that? Why did I make that assumption? Oh, because, oh no, I took this person's advice and let's go back and look at that person.

Right. 

Yes, let's go back and look at that person. Why was I listening to them? Yeah. So sometimes you just make that, The initial assumption and we do that, then you're going down a rabbit hole. 

Yeah. 

So I've seen that 

When, so when did you pivot into commercial real estate? So you were really heavy in residential [00:34:00] building and selling and trying to keep some of these, I assume you're cash flowing, renting some of these out.

Yeah. Yeah. 

So I pivoted very early in a commercial. Um. And it was, it's an interesting story. So I was doing fabric at the fabric business at a polster shop, and that was growing very quickly, but the fabric business and fabrics take up a lot of space. It just, and it was growing, growing, growing. I was growing out of the space.

Well, Cary's very expensive area for real estate. Even back then, even commercial, it's very hard. And I could feel that I was going to get squeezed out. of a location. And I was renting the space at the time. So, and this had been going on for a couple of years as I was building the business. And one day I'm driving by and on Chatham Street, I see this, and I'm saying dilapidated, I don't mean dilapidated, this is a piece of shit warehouse.

And, um, I was like, oh my gosh, I've been driving by this thing for five years, but this would be perfect. It's [00:35:00] huge. And so, And so I go in the warehouse and there's, of course, there's, it's just a field. There's no parking. There's no windows. There's, there's nothing. It, it's a continuation. It used to be an old cookie factory.

That's what it used to be. So the guy had it for sale and it'd been for sale forever. And I talked to him and I make the deal on the spot. I was like, I want this, I'm going to do the, you know, and I had, I just had these, all these ideas. And it was, uh, 20 some thousand feet and it was big and, you know, but it was raw, very raw, but I just knew that would be the future because it's right there.

And so I remember going home that, going home that evening and I was talking to my wife at the time and I was like, 

well, 

and I was just telling her all about it and how it could, you know, this is why we need to do it. And it would just go on and on and on. And after about an hour, she's like, well, I just have one question.

I said, what's that? She goes, Well, if it's such a good deal, then how come nobody else has done it? [00:36:00] Which, which actually is the standard response you get from everybody on every deal you've ever made, every bank, everything. Whereas my response was, because I'm the only dumbass in Cary, that's why. And I was furious.

And I, I put down the deposit the next day and it turned into a, um. I'm not going to say a nightmare, but it, it was very, very difficult to get done. The initial estimates was like 50, 000 to get it up and running. Oh, wow. It turned into 500 when it turned into 500, the same guy. Yeah. And I was like, how do you go from 50 to 500?

He's like, well, There weren't any lights and it was dark in here when I went in. You know, there again, I'm not in jail, so I managed to hold my temper, but I was furious. But then I was like, how do I do it? Cause I didn't have the money. I mean, now I'm sitting here with a piece of crap property that I can't, I can't occupy.

So, uh, I started doing all the work [00:37:00] myself. So my son, Mike, at the time, I think he was 15, 16. And he'd come up on the weekends and we're, I mean, cutting and song and we're doing everything, painting. We're doing it all ourselves because I couldn't borrow the money. No bank would loan me the money either. I mean, I went to every bank in town twice over until I was almost done.

Then they loaned me the money. And so we got it done, but we're sitting there. I remember this, this one story, so it was a cookie factory, right? So everything had to come out of it. And there was these, uh, three inch or two inch pipes, like the rows of three of them and they're asbestos filled and they're at the top of the building and they're filled with cookie grease that has been in there for ten years.

So I had scaffolding and the scaffolding go up 26 feet and you have the top of the scaffolding and we're taking a sawzall and cutting these into 10 foot sections to drop them because they had to be removed. They're filled with cookie grease and I mean the smell was so bad. You couldn't find anybody that would do that work [00:38:00] and I remember I remember thinking at the time, I'll never get the smell out of this place.

This is, I mean, it's, I really felt that I was like, now I had gotten in way over my head and it was going to be nothing. But we got it done. And to this day we laugh about it. I still have that property. That's where my office is. 

Is it? 

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So we, that's where the consignment store is now. Okay.

And then we do the upholstery in the back, and then we cut up the other spaces and we rent out all the other spaces going all the way down. 

Kind of like day offices, or? 

Uh, there's different businesses. There's a dog grooming, there's a um, electronics, there's a, Signs, sign shop. There's, um, training school, you know, like a gym kind of place.

Okay. 

But yeah, that's your very first commercial. 

That was the very first commercial. Yeah. Yeah. And we wound up doing a lot of it ourselves. I mean, we had so many, so many mistakes that were by the, like the contractors that were just, you know, Terrible, terrible mistakes. Right. You know, so, so [00:39:00] that's when I was, you know, and I was like, I really have to get involved.

I have to learn this. 

It's amazing how many mistakes are being made. Yeah. During commercial development. 

But now that property is ripe for redevelopment. It's downtown Cary. I mean, it sits on acreage and, you know, the real play on that was probably scraping it and going up vertical. I don't know if I'll do that or not.

I'm making, right now it makes very good money just as the rentals. 

What's always an option in the future? 

It's a great option. There's, it's probably the biggest piece downtown Cary right now. That's, that I say we could develop it. 

So from, from there, what? 

From there I went to, uh, then I started doing the townhomes.

I started to build some townhomes and um, and trailer parks. 

How many trailer parks? 

I wound up buying three, sold two of them. Had the one and that, that one trailer park that I've had for 25 years or so, uh, is now part of what's going to be Peterson Station, which is the high density, mixed use, mixed use So that's the, uh, development that we're building.

Okay. Yeah. 

So [00:40:00] Peterson Station's going to be built on the trailer park land? Yeah. 

Well, the trailer park was seven and a half acres. And I wound up buying eight of my neighbors, buying out eight of my neighbors over the last several years to compile 20 acres to do that project. 

Got it. You broke ground on that, right?

It's almost done. How many square feet is that? 

Well, there's 317 apartments and 47, 000 feet of retail. 

Have you got it pre leased or? 

Not pre leasing the residential yet, but starting pre lease on the commercial. Yeah, so we've already got a lot of that done. 

Yeah. You sold some equity to I did, yeah. For the development.

Right. This is the first, that was the first project that I ever took any kind of equity partners on. Um, and they're not really Equity partners per se, but it's more, um, equity and buyback at the end, that kind of thing. I'd never done that before. I had no experience with it. You know, at the end of the day, I think we raised maybe 3 million.

I stopped [00:41:00] raising money because I didn't need it. And you know, when COVID hits, everything hits, it's like, I don't want a bunch of money sitting there. So I wasn't raising money. I wasn't selling any more shares for a long time. So I still, right now. Thousand shares. I own 850 of them. Mm-hmm . I gifted, uh, probably 150 of 'em to family and the rest is shares of, you know, friends.

And 

how much percentage did you keep? 

85. 

85%? Yeah. So the developer developed the whole thing for, 

of the project. What I wound up doing at the very end was I'm sail, I'm ultimately sailing. The residential to a development partner. So they'll get the residential. 

As of 

right now, I still have it all. 

Okay.

They wound up buying all of that. From me. I'm keeping all of the retail of the retail. I still own 85% of that. Got it. Yeah. 

Okay. 

If that makes sense. 

That's a pretty good trade off. 

Yeah, 

yeah. 

Yeah. I got my money back a long time ago. 

Yeah. Yeah. And you're [00:42:00] set up for the future. 

Yeah. 

Yeah. Yeah. And is the, is the idea to cashflow that and start leveraging other type?

Yeah, 

I'll take that. Of course. I'll, I'll leverage it out because at the end of the day, the deal that I made with the other developer. is I have that debt free. So it's, you know, 47, you're looking, I mean, it's, it's a good chunk. Yeah, absolutely. And this is prime, prime retail, it's class A. Yeah. So you're not like it's, um, some of my other deals where you're, you know, B rate property, you know, kind of stuff.

Right. When did you So there are a couple of properties that you want to kind of the launch your ventures down to this area 

before COVID, but not long before COVID 

you started buying like beach houses. 

Yeah. So what happened with the beach was I I'd always had beach property at a beach house, a beach house before the one I have I the one I have now or the original one that I have.

I actually tore it down or moved it off and then rebuilt on that back in 07, it was 07 yeah. 

Here in Surf City or? In Surf City yeah, yeah [00:43:00] 

on South Shore Drive. Okay. I did that, and we used a management company, and back before COVID, I think the first property I bought was the Brass Pelican, yeah, so I bought that, and then behind the Brass Pelican there were some apartments, and I knew I wanted, I wanted to redo the brass and put a rooftop deck on there.

It's like, oh, do a rooftop. It's And you can look on the rooftop, you can look out over the ocean, which you still can. But there's small apartments that are in front of it, so you look over those, but if you look to the right or the left of those apartments, there's huge mega houses on either side. So I bought that defensively just so I could keep it low.

And so seven units that were there. I mean, when I tell you how bad this property was, it was so bad. I mean, he had, he had the place rented out, but there was no plumbing and down on the bottom floor and two of the [00:44:00] units, they had to go to somebody else's unit to use the bathroom. Oh my God. They're sleeping on mattresses.

It was just, you can't even imagine how bad it was. So I bought that, I renovated it, but again, this is one of those ones that I'm renovating it, and I'm thinking the whole time, I'm going, like, I'm just wrapping a ribbon on a turd. That's what I actually felt like. So we put more into the renovation than I did in the property.

But it turned out, like, really well. It's dollar for dollar, it's the best. Property that I have. Easy, easy, easy. So I started with that. When I saw how well that one was doing, I took over the management of my beach house from the rental company. We started doing it ourselves along with these apartments. So that's when we started Turtle Shell Properties.

And when I saw how, how much money we had left on the table using a traditional management company, We started looking for other opportunities. Okay, so 

is this when you started your management? 

Yes, management here. We always manage [00:45:00] our, we've always managed all of our own properties in Cary. Here we used a management company because it was just, it was a vacation rental.

We just didn't mess with it. Well, when I started coming here, I saw how much more there was here. So that's when I started doing it. But part of that too was because I started buying stuff because my project and Holly Springs, that big, big development got held up with COVID. So it just ground to a halt. I had cash, but I didn't have not enough cash to get that project going, but I'm sitting there and I had nothing to do.

So I started looking at opportunities down here. And that's what, that's when I really got started down here doing more and more down here. And it's turned out really well. Now it's just kind of snowballed, you know, we still have our stuff in Jacksonville. So still do that. And, uh, 

and what is remind me again, Jacksonville is a 

shopping center, 

shopping center, 

and that's where I have a salon as well.

So 

they're one of your vendors or customers or, 

um, 

or do you actually own 

[00:46:00] the, I own this line. Yeah. You own the salon. I run it. Yeah. Okay. I mean, it reminds me, but yeah. 

Yeah. So you, you have the real estate in Jacksonville. Raleigh, Cary, you have real estate here in Surf City, Topsail Island. You've got your salon, shopping mall in Jacksonville.

Yeah. Any other properties? And the residential, obviously. 

Well, there's some more commercial properties around here, but um, yeah. So, the salon is kind of an interesting story, because I was going to, when I was, when I was talking about doing Peterson Station, which is the, You know, the mixed use, I wanted a pre lease so I could get the lending from the bank.

So I had to show we had a bunch of interest and we had people. So I was going to put a salon in there because I knew that was a, you know, could be a very good venture, right? Everything ground to a halt, couldn't do anything. And, but I'd already like done the homework on the salon and I had 8, 000 feet vacant [00:47:00] at my shopping center in Jacksonville.

That has like 200 and some thousand feet. So, but I had 8, 000 vacant. There's one spot I was like, you know, why don't I just do the first one here? So we spent a lot of money doing it, got it up and going, so it's 40 individual spaces. So I have 40 different tenants in there. 

Wow. 

Each one of them pay weekly.

It's like they all have their own room, which is about the size of this room here. So everyone has their own business and it's hands off. So to me, you know, there's really not much to do. I maybe spend an hour or two hours a week on it, if that, if that. It's not bad. No, it's not bad. It just churns. It just churns.

So, so that turned out into a space that was making me virtually nothing. And now it's one of the best tenants because I charge myself and then I make it on the both sides, but yeah. 

Do you usually go in with a two, three year lease or what's the typical lease period? 

It depends where it is. [00:48:00] So Peterson Station, Holly Springs, those are all 10 year renewable rollover leases.

Minimum 10, all of them. And there's a lot of money that goes into that. So nobody's doing short term lease. Do you have 

to put tenant improvements? Like if you set up a restaurant. It's a, it's 

all negotiable and you give them an allowance, right? So there's an allowance and it depends on the strength of the tenant, but, and then if you have to put in more, you're charging them more.

So it's, it's all kind of works out in the negotiation part. Jackson was a whole different. So in New River, which is in Jacksonville, there's a lot of mom and pop businesses, so they're in their, uh, what I call gross lease. So triple net, your people like Dollar General, Planet Fitness, uh, you know, your call centers, those are all triple net.

They're paying their share of the common area maintenance tax and insurance. Well, the small mom and pops, they don't understand that concept. Right. They're like, my rent's 1, [00:49:00] 500, why do I have to pay your insurance? It's not my, you know, it's not my building, right? Yeah. So, those are a lot of, those are just gross leases.

Like, here's a simple concept, here's what you've got. Right. So, because it's an older center, that's the way that kind of runs. Like half of them are triple net, half of them are just gross leases. And they're, you're right, they're shorter leases, three to five years. 

Yeah, typically three to five. What's the square foot, like per square foot?

They're much less anywhere from 14 to $16 a foot. Okay. Where in Holly Springs? It's 35 plus plus tie cam. So it's actually 42. 

Isn't that amazing? Yeah. Just depend on the location. Yeah. The, the rent that you would charge, 

it's a lot less in Jacksonville, but again, that has probably been, that's been, I dunno, Mar uh, arguably my best property.

Mm-hmm . Like it's, you know, it's, it's not the best center, it's older. It's the original strip mall in, on the east coast. Wow. First one, yeah. Yeah. First one. Yeah, so back in the 50s, [00:50:00] that's when it was built. 

Is that an opportunity zone by chance? 

I think it is, yeah. I think you could, you could do some opportunity there.

Um, but it sits, I've got 220, 000 feet of retail there. And, you know, there's I mean, I could see the whole thing being scraped. I mean, it sits on 30 some acres. I mean, it's, it's definitely the opportunities right there. Cause it's downtown Jacksonville. 

Yeah. Yes. Well, there's a lot of tax incentives for opportunity zones.

Yes. But that property has, has been, uh, um, it's churned. I mean, it's churned. I mean, I've owned it for 20 some years now and I bought it in bits and pieces. So the previous owner had cut it all up. He used to own North Hills and, uh, Raleigh. And he took that property and bought it and cut it all up into, into parcels and sold off all the parcels.

He kept the last couple of parcels. Then I saw an ad in the News Observer, classified ad, [00:51:00] and saw that it was for sale, that piece. And I was like, Oh, wait a minute. I think I know where this is. Rode down there. I looked at it. He told me what the price was. I had not met him yet. And I finally met him in Raleigh.

He looked like he couldn't rub two nickels together. I swear, this guy was just Like he could, but he didn't look like that at all. I mean, and I had written out this super creative idea on how I'd buy the property and we'll do this, but he was selling it at such a cheap price. I couldn't figure out why he was selling it so cheap.

And it was only like 27 percent leased. And so I'm trying to do all these figures. I'm looking, I'm looking and finally I go see him and I write up this whole. He looks at it, he goes like, no, tosses the paper, he goes, you're going to give me 25, 000. I'm going to take that money today. It's non, non returnable.

You're going to close it in 30 days and you're going to make a lot of money. I looked at it, I said, I said, why are you selling it so cheap? He goes, I [00:52:00] always leave money on the table. He goes, I'm raising money for something else. He said, okay, I did it. And, uh, 30 days later, I couldn't, there was something I couldn't do.

I called him up. He's like, no, no, no, go talk to this guy over here. Go talk to that attorney. He goes, he'll get it done for you. So it was, you know, one of those deals that just, just kind of came about. Yeah. And he was, he was right at 27 percent occupancy. It made money. And so everything else was free, but he wouldn't spend a dime.

He would not spend a dime. So he didn't lease the space. Couldn't get anything filled up. Interesting. 

And you're about to build more apartments here in Surf City, right? 

Yeah. , we're working with plans are 95 percent done. I'm working on bidding it out right now, bidding out the contractors.

So 

walking through that process. So you've, you've got some land, you put together some engineering plans, blueprints. 

Yeah. This, somebody else had done, they backed out of the deal the last time the economy turned. Right. So they have this sitting here. They had built 84 units or 81 and [00:53:00] there's 60, 56 still left to build.

The economy turned, so they just let it sit. They already had everything done, pretty much, right? Well, the economy turns back. Now they're doing big stuff. They're doing three, four, 500 units in their Western part of the state. So they had no interest in doing 60 units. To me, that's a big deal. So, um, that's how it came about.

But of course we had to redo all the plans, had to redo everything, you know, cause it doesn't last. So, yeah, and we added four units. It was 56, now it's 60. I think that'll be a really good, uh, That'll be a good project. Just, just getting anything started, as you know, just takes, 

you 

know, people, as you know, people say, Oh my gosh, you're so lucky.

You just, well, no, I mean, I'm the one that's like laying in bed going like, how am I going to do this? How am I going to do this? Or why am I doing this? Why am I doing this? Yeah. Yeah. So that's the hard part. 

So when you have your plans, you send them out to bid. So you talk to multiple vendors, 

multiple [00:54:00] contractors.

You're basically your own GC 

at this point. Yeah. On this one though, I'll use a GC. 

Okay. 

Uh, you know, we have, we can do it, uh, but we don't have the vendors. We don't have the bandwidth really. And my experience now with doing the project in Holly Springs, you really turn that over to professional. Like if I'm doing single family, we're getting ready to start a single family on South shore drive.

We're doing that ourselves. But if you're doing something big, you need somebody that really, you know, as long as you had a, um, you know, a GMP contract and you know, you're not going to fall into those pitfalls. I think that's the way to go. 

So you send them out to bid, you get multiple bids from multiple vendors.

You 

do, you do that. And then you try to figure out where you can value engineer. It's not, it's not, that's not how it works. Right. Because obviously the bids come back and you're like, wait, what, you know? So, so you have to value engineer it because your architectural plans, you know, a lot of times they're, they're asking for the sun, the moon and stars.

And then you have to [00:55:00] say, wait a minute, I have to make money here too. This is not going to work with this. So we have to scale back if I'm doing single family on the ocean, I'm not scaling anything back. We just do it as best we can, and that's it. We know that, that the money will eventually make sense, right?

When you're doing apartments, it's a little bit different. Yeah. No, and I think you, you've ran into some of the same stuff when you're doing your uh, saltwaters. 

I sure have. Yeah. Yeah, with Loggerhead, Saltwater, and Saltwater Resort. Yeah. 

Loggerhead, I, I, I can forgive you on Loggerhead because you didn't know what you're doing.

But then you go to Saltwater, and I was like, wait a minute, you've already been down this road. What do they say? Fool me one time, shame on me, fool you twice, shame on you. Yeah. No, I don't blame you at all. Those are great, great properties. I drive by yours, I'm like, so nice. Yeah, 

I have mixed feelings about it.

I drive by Loggerhead, I'm like, oh man, I wish I wouldn't have sold it, you know, but I had to to fund, you know, Saltwater [00:56:00] resort expansion. 

I'm a reluctant seller, a very reluctant seller. And there's things that I've sold that I'm like, what did I sell that for? 

And 

then I have to go back and go like, wait a minute.

The reason why I sold it was because of this. There was, I didn't just do it because I felt like selling because you needed your cash to do this and there's no other way to, to finagle that. So yeah, I think sometimes you just have to. 

And of course, as a developer, you go through like, man, I could have done this much cheaper.

I was looking over the, the, all the costing of what it costs to build one project, then you look at the cost of building the next project. Oh my God. So much waste. 

On the Holly Springs project, I remember the first estimate came in from the con to the GC, who's a very well respected, very good, I'll start getting these pricing in, and I remember just going through the roof.

I couldn't believe, I mean, blowing everything out of the water, all the budgets. The ultimate contractor that's doing it is probably 20, 25 million [00:57:00] higher. 

Wow. 

Just in that time, how much pricing has gone up? Because you remember when you couldn't get materials and you couldn't, I mean, a lot of things have just gone up.

It's the same thing with beach property, right? I mean, I've passed on so many properties, like you've got to be kidding. And a year later I go like, What, what was I thinking? I should have just bought it. Right. But you know, hindsight, you can't, you can't go back, but so far. Right. 

No, I mean, just looking at the economy and the value of the dollar and the scarcity of resources and assets and labor land equipment, I mean, this, the best time to do it is now, I mean, we're going to this big argument with my family, they didn't want to do the saltwater expansion, they would want to wait.

Let's recoup some of the investment on the first one. But I was pretty insistent on like, you know what, if we're going to do it now as a time, like there's no better time. Now this is never going to get cheaper. No, 

never. I mean, you can go through a [00:58:00] six month cycle, a year, maybe, but it never gets cheaper.

It's always going to be more and it's just going to be harder and harder to do. So the longer you sit on it, the more expensive it's going to get. 

So what is your ultimate target? Like, what is your goal for as far as real estate? 

I have my mini goals. How much property I want to own, how much valuation I want to own, you know, that kind of stuff.

And I've, I've met or exceeded all those every step of the way. But, uh, exit plan, I don't have an exit plan. You know, I mean, basically, you know, I'm retired, which is kind of a joke. You're not retired. No, no. But, but, you know, what I mean is that if you work corporate, if you work for corporate, you're 40 years or 30 years, or whatever you are, you're waiting for the day that you can retire.

Right. But when you're self employed. You never really retire. You're, you're always going to be looking at the next thing or look at, you know, let me look at this as long as it's fun. And I enjoy doing it. I mean, there's days when I do not enjoy it at all. You know, same [00:59:00] as you, right. But there are other days when I find it usually rewarding.

Like now all of my kids are involved. And so I find a lot of, uh, joy. I guess he's saying that. Yeah. 

Yeah. I met an entrepreneur earlier this morning and we were talking about When, when you're involved in building and selling a company, it becomes part of your personality. It becomes your lifestyle. And when you have nothing to do, you kind of go through a depressed moment.

Like, you know, you have to have a purpose and a mission. And if, if you don't have a purpose or mission, then you become disoriented with reality and try to do stupid stuff and make mistakes. And, but I agree. You got to stay busy. You got to keep your mind occupied. And, and if you enjoy building and, you know, real estate and selling real estate and whatever, whatever it is, you know, I would, You know, strongly advocate just doing it.

Yeah, 

it's, it's, to me, if I just sold everything and went to [01:00:00] the beach. Here, but uh, you know, every once in a while you think about that, you're like, well, what's the point of that? What are you going to do? Nothing. Play golf? Right. Like, okay. Yeah. Really? No. I mean, it's more fun looking at something going like, oh my gosh, what could we do here?

Even a business, even different businesses are, you know, they can be hugely rewarding just thinking about how you can grow it and thinking about what you can do. I mean, you know, when my kids come with me and ideas, they're like, oh, I could do this at the store. I can do this. And it was like, Wow, that's a great idea.

That's, that's, that's really good. Yeah. Yeah. So that's what you, that's what you like, you like. I mean, to me, that's the reward for me is being able to pass it on, not the real estate. I don't, I mean, I'm not in love with any property, you know, at all. I don't care. Like I tell the kids all the time, I said, look, something happens to me.

I'm not in love with any of it. You just sell whatever you want. It's fine. I said, it's more about what it can bring you as far as opportunity, you know, and it just gives you opportunity to be able to do more [01:01:00] things. That's all, that's all that it does. 

Yeah. How important is family to you as far as involving family and your operations and your business?

You know, um, it's funny. It's very important now. I didn't, I never really thought my kids would be working with me. I never even thought about it. You just don't think about that kind of thing. You think, well, I'm going to send them to college. You know, I'm going to make sure that I can send them to college, make sure I can get them started in life and what they're, what they're going to do.

Right. But eventually through varying paths, you know, all of my kids work in the business or different areas of the business. Right. So, and I'm partners with them on some of it because I've started doing that and it makes it a lot better because then they got skin in the game and they're vested and they know, you know, like if we spend this, this comes right out of my pocket.

It's not just a paycheck. Right. Right. So. So I think that's very important. It's important for them to get that entrepreneurial kind of, you know, [01:02:00] um, feel. And, uh, yeah, I'm proud of them. I've got, I've got grandkids. So, you know, and, uh, it is funny cause, um, back a couple months ago, I got a phone call from, or actually it was a text from one of my, Jacob, who's my grandson, one of his friends, He said, I met you one time before, but I was wondering if me and a couple of my friends could call you up and talk to you.

They're freshmen, junior, and senior at ECU. And they're entrepreneurs, they're like, they had a business idea, they're dealing with real estate, so I was like, yeah, sure, okay. So they called me up and I get on a two hour conversation, like, uh, um, you know, conference call with them. And my grandson wasn't in that, he's younger, he's only 16, so, but they play soccer together, so they knew him.

And, um, so I was like, wow, I'm so impressed with these kids. I mean, it was just, it was fantastic. But I was like, [01:03:00] that came from my grandson, you know, so, uh, I don't know. It feels good when you do that. Yeah. Yeah. It's important. Yeah. And I felt smart for a little bit. 

Yeah. Yeah. And you mentioned legacy. I mean, I, I agree with you.

I think it's important to involve your family. And what I've done personally is kind of organize a family office where I've got You know, investments, real estate, and private equity, venture capital. You know, try to get your kids involved. You know, my kids really don't know a whole lot. They know some, but not everything.

And I'm kind of waiting for that time to kind of educate what this is, what it is. And this is how it works. Uh, but of course you want them to do their own thing too. Yeah. And share their own passions and explore, but then it's like, Oh yeah, by the way, you've got this other, I've 

had that conversation a couple times with a couple of the children, they'd be like, I'm just so busy right now, I'm like, you don't understand what I've got going on.

I said, yeah, [01:04:00] okay, well, let me tell you what I've got going, just so you know, just so you know, just so you know, like, okay, not only am I dealing with the stuff that you're handing me, but let's, let's go on to the other stuff. Right. Well, I didn't even know about that. I said, I forgot to tell you that, 

but, What ages of your kids did you start like really getting them involved in what you're doing?

All right. So Mike, actually when he was very young, you know, he actually physically helped me with a lot of it. And then of course he came in and I mean, I used to have those kids when they were little mowing the grass at the trailer park, collecting rent at the trailer parks. I mean, we're talking down and dirty.

I had some apartments in Raleigh that were, I'd say, very sketchy. I had them working there all the time. Like, I'd go there on a Monday, I'd be like, I thought you guys cleaned this place up? He goes, Dad, we did. We spent all weekend on it. It was like Rumpelstiltskin. Every weekend you'd go there, it's like, what are these people doing?

Eventually, eventually I sold that. [01:05:00] The kids, they finally said, Dad, really, we're not going to do this anymore. You've got to get rid of this. I mean, it's just terrible. I sold it. The new owner got shot within 30 days. It's just terrible. And literally, he didn't get killed, but he got shot. Well, he didn't know how to collect rent.

He collected on a, you know, Friday afternoon where everybody's all jacked up, you know. I said, you don't go collect rent on a Friday afternoon. Are you crazy? Um, but I had them doing all that. I mean, they, they talk about that today. They, they'll, they'll, Oh, you remember the time we went here? Remember the time that this happened?

Remember the time that, you know, um, So they get into that, but getting them involved in the business part, uh, so my daughter now is my partner and runs the consignment store. She started off after, you know, right after high school and she went to hair school and she didn't, she really didn't want to go to college and, and she was terrible.

I mean, she was [01:06:00] terrible. I was like, I want, I was like, I, I, we got to do something. I, I can't, I'm about ready to fire her. And then finally one day the light bulb goes off. 

Yeah. 

And ever since then, she's run the place. I mean, innovative, educates herself, self taught on all kinds of business concepts, everything.

Yeah. 

I'm like, Where'd that come from? How do you handle conflict? You ever had a conflict? Oh, no. No. I just pick them up. Yeah. You can say on one side, it's good to have family because you trust them to work in the business, but if you have a problem or a conflict at work, then you have to live with it at Thanksgiving, Christmas.

You 

know, I've had that question before and there really isn't that much conflict with family. There hasn't been anything where we couldn't just, all right, we're just going to do this. It's just. Just. You know, ultimately I just say, well, just do it and then, you know, or, or they'll have a better idea, you know, and, and I do like it [01:07:00] when the kids have a better solution than I have.

I mean, I like it when they don't come to me and they just say, well, the reason why I said, or I'll say to them, okay, explain your thought process. What were you thinking when you did that? Well, because of this, this, this, and that, like, oh, I actually, yeah, I didn't think about that. And that's a better, that's a better idea than I had.

So I like that when I actually, when they'll come at it and I know they thought it through, even if it's, even if it's not what I would have done, if the thought is there, right? So if they thought it through, I'm like, Hey, fantastic. Okay. You know, so then, you know, you have a brain, like, and that's, that's what you, The ultimate goal is to know your kids are actually thinking, you know, they're, you know, they're not going home and they clock out at five o'clock and they're home.

Like they're thinking of ways to grow the business or what we would do here. So that's good. They 

can think creatively and look for opportunity. Yeah. Do you have a su a succession plan? Have you thought about that? 

No. I figured when something happens [01:08:00] to me, the way I look at it, something happens to me, so then I'm done.

So you're not gonna put, come on, . Yeah, I'll still be dead. You know, so I've had, because um, I have had the kids ask before, you know, they're like, Hey, what happens if somebody has said, well. All right, let's think about this for a minute. Let's start with just remember I'll be dead. So there's that. Yeah, and I'll make a joke of it But um, there's not, you know, we have things set up in trust 

We 

have stuff like that, but there's not a true true succession plan I mean, I think everybody pretty much knows which way everything's gonna go where where things will go but That's a work in progress.

I know we've talked about, a little bit about that before. Absolutely. Joking aside. 

No, it's a common, common problem. 

Yeah. You 

know, 

I mean. Well, it is because most family businesses don't last. That's the second generation, right? That's exactly 

right. Yeah. Second generation usually [01:09:00] ruins it. Yeah. Third generation, if they're lucky.

Yeah. Can recover. 

Well, so ours, ours is a little bit different because it's all property and it's property that we own. We don't manage anybody else's project, property. So that is a direction that we've, we've been asked about multiple times by other property owners here. I don't want to do it, I don't want to do it, I don't want to do it.

Now, that is an opportunity for one of the kids, if they want to do that, they could do that and it's, you can make some good money doing it, I just have no interest in it myself. Like it's just too much of a, it's too much of a headache managing your own property, but if you're managing other people's property, you get it from both sides.

Yeah, of course. Yeah, so it's like, I don't, I don't want to do that. 

Yeah, it's not worth the 15, 20%. 

It's kind of like the trailer parks, when I was doing trailer parks. Yeah. I always say that's a young man's game. It's, it's higher. It can be highly lucrative, great cash business. It doesn't really appreciate.[01:10:00] 

You can't borrow against it very easily. You can't depreciate it because mobile homes are, you know, not, you can't do that. So, and. It's, you work, you have to work it. You gotta work all the time, right? Because you're always collecting. And it turns you into somebody you don't want to be. I mean, it does. Well, my grandmother just died.

Third one this month. I don't care. Pay me. But it turns you into that, right? It turns you mean. I don't want to deal with that. I always say that's a young man's Like, if you can get a trailer park, if you're 35 years old and you can get a trailer park or two, have at it, but you better have an exit because you just don't want to be that guy.

You just don't want to, you know, the lower income stuff, you just don't want to do it. Yeah. It's, it's stressful, very stressful. And you can't, with anything lower income like that, you know, if you're taking B rate, properties or C rate, you can't find management to manage it for you. So you're going to work it [01:11:00] yourself.

Yeah. No one, no one wants to touch it. No good company wants to tell 

you that. Well, especially if you're going to get shot at collection. Yeah, then there's that. So, if Friday afternoon's not a good day to collect, when is? 

Uh, Sunday morning. 

Sunday morning. 

Sunday morning. Okay. 

As you're going to church. 

As you're going to 

church.

By the way. 

Well, it's a funny story, which I forgot about this story. So, one of my sons goes there to collect the rent at this apartment one day, and the guy says, he goes, I have to go get it. I'll be right back. Okay. He comes back 30 minutes later, gives him the cash. 20 minutes after that, the police show up and arrest the guy.

He just robbed a store to get the rent. Yes! I was like, are you kidding? He goes, I didn't know what, I didn't know what happened. He goes, yes, that's what the guy did. I was like, Okay, yeah, we'll go buy something else. I mean, there's, there's so many [01:12:00] stories like that in some of that property when, um, I had one trailer park, um, where the people left and they didn't, they didn't pay and they skipped out.

And I go in there and the place was such a wreck. I mean, it was, it was, it was a wreck like, like you could not imagine somebody living there. 

Yeah. 

So I have a dump trailer, big dump trailer. We loaded it up with all the crap and it was crap. I mean, just, just mounds and mounds of clothes. I mean, it was like they're hoarding, but it was terrible.

Loaded it all up. We found out where they had moved to. I backed the trailer up to the front door and I dumped it at the front door. They couldn't get out the front door without climbing through the trash. And the guy was screaming at me. Saying, what are you doing? What are you doing? I said, we thought would help you move.

I saw a few things you left behind. 

Yeah, drove off. You know, you're [01:13:00] lucky you didn't get shot. Uh, 

we, we were armed. 

Yeah, 

but uh, that, but that's, that's me younger being a hothead. Like you shouldn't do that. Right. I would not recommend doing that. 

Not in today's time. 

Not today. Not even then. No, please don't do that.

What do you think of RV parks? Have you looked at those? 

You know, I haven't. A friend of mine owns one and I think he's doing very well with it. I think they're I mean, I think they do very well if you get the right location. Right. I mean, very low maintenance, very low, you know, not nearly as, as hard as like short term rentals, which is what we're doing a lot of down here.

Right. You know, I, I think it's a great thing to get into. 

I read a statistic, like there's more RVs than pads at RV parks. Like there's supply demand imbalance. 

Last couple of years, we bought some hunting property up in Pennsylvania where we hunt and it joins my. Best friend's property. We've been hunting there for 30 years.

Well, we were [01:14:00] going to build on that property, but then we found a property across the street that came with like 24 acres, a big horse barn, horse pastures, and a beautiful cabin. Like, like, it's like a lodge, but it goes for 20, 22 acres. And down below, like, look, we're not going to hunt this property. We just needed the house.

So that's what we're thinking about doing is putting little minicabins on there or something and said, look, let's go ahead and figure out how we make money on this property. So that's our next project, project that we're going to do. The fun project. Yeah. I call that a fun project. It's like, oh, that'd be fun.

But we've thought about RVs to your point. Yeah. Like. You know, because it's right there, Pennsylvania where it is, right by Cook's Forest, up there, you know, near Lake Erie, Clarion County, up in that area, um, great tourist attraction in the summer. Well, we're not hunting there in the summer. Right. So. 

They just got some snow there, right?

Yeah. Like a thick snow. Yeah. It gets cold. Oh, yeah. Yeah. For sure. Last year when I 

hunted in January there, Second season of bow season, I was hunting in the snow. Didn't see anything but [01:15:00] frostbite. Right. 

That's good. 

Yeah. It's, it's kind of what's next, right? What are you gonna do next? 

Right. 

I guess I'd ask that of you because you're doing, you're in Virginia, but you're migrating more and more here.

You're kind of like me in Cary. I spend. 85 percent or so of my time here now. So I'm basically here and I think I'm going to move my permanent residence here, like my voting, because I figure I can make more of a difference here than I can in Cary. Right. Um, I think we've talked about that before too. Oh yeah, for sure.

I took my house in Cary and, uh, cleaned it up a little bit and started Airbnb ing that when I'm not there. So, not just Airbnb, Vrbo and stuff. Yeah. 

How's that turned out? 

Great. I'm not there. I lock all my closets. I've got my sports cars locked in the garage. But I brought it all out, so there's the theater room, pool table, weight room.

I mean, people love it. Outside fire pit. And [01:16:00] I mean, it makes it where it pays for itself and then some, yeah. That's like, hey, why not? Yeah. It forces me to keep the place clean. There you go. Yeah. That's it. But I remember when I was talking about doing it, even the kids are like, what? You could, why not? Yeah.

Why not? You don't, you don't ever sell your real estate, do you? I, well, I try not to. We've, like, I have some, but not, you know, Like I have in the past, but I'm, like I said, I'm a reluctant seller. You know, when, uh, like the apartments in Raleigh, I think we, we'd all had our fill of those. There was no, you know, we tried fixing them up several times and you just get the same.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, and the trailer park, same thing. But you really, Like, I like where I am now, getting more Class A nice stuff. I think you're much better off. It's much easier. People take care of your stuff. Right. Um, it's, it's, it's much easier, but it's harder to get into. So to start with, you're [01:17:00] doing a lot of the Low rent stuff.

Right. Just to build up momentum and cash. Yeah, because you can, you can actually make that deal, but, but the bigger deals, the really nice deals, you're never going to get those. Right. They're harder to get. 

Absolutely. Yeah. Especially when you need leverage and. 

Yeah. Yeah. 

Debt to go after it. 

Well, that's real estate.

It's all leverage, right? Yeah, yeah. If you can't leverage it, you know you got a bad property. Yeah, kind of right. Yeah, about a couple of those. 

That's good. Well, I definitely look forward to seeing more development that you're having here in Surf City. And I was 

getting excited about it today. I was thinking about these different things.

I saw the, uh, I started to watch the stuff on the marina. Yeah. Surf City. That's a sore subject. You know, that's a very sore subject. Yeah. But we'll see how that goes. But I started thinking about some of that stuff. I was like, you know, I really want to expand what we're doing here. And I think we're, we've got the right game plan.[01:18:00] 

I think. 

Awesome. We'll definitely look forward to seeing the next adventures. Yeah, can't wait. Can't wait to see 

yours too. Well, 

I'm on hold for now, so. 

Well, everybody says that until they're not. Like, I'll find out you're not on hold six weeks after you stop being on hold. Yeah, right. Like, what happened?

Oh, well, I forgot. Did I tell you? No, you didn't tell me. Yeah, that's part of the strategy. Yeah, it's part of the strategy. Like, say, what's your strategy? Uh, I don't have one. Oh yeah, no, I have one, I'm just not sharing it. It's because I don't have one. Stuff just happens sometimes. Exactly. I mean, it's When you're an entrepreneur, you can pivot very quickly.

A lot of times, things you don't think you're gonna be interested in, you're interested in, you know, it's like, never thought about that. It's a great idea. You didn't have to. Yeah. Just to be ahead of the 

game. Yeah. Well, thanks again, bud. I enjoyed it. Yes, sir. I enjoyed it. Thank you.

Amplified CEO is produced [01:19:00] by Topsail Insider, edited by Jim Mendes-Pouget, and sponsored by Cape Fear Ventures. For more information about Amplified CEO, Richard Stroupe, or Cape Fear Ventures, please contact Christa at (910) 800-0111 or christa@topsailinsider.com.