All right, so it looks like we're live So You guys check me out make sure the sounds working. We are using a new platform. So I am This is a new experience for me, but I like this platform StreamYard. It was actually recommended by one of my podcast guests so we definitely want to give thanks to that and We'll get through it. Some of my first podcast my first live sessions We didn't have sound. We didn't have video quality. So Like you said, thanks Denzel. Welcome Maria. Welcome Nikki, I know how to read your name now. So Thanks for joining us today. Marcia. Thank you for joining us today Sounds great so far. Excellent MJ, okay, I want to welcome a man Eli. Thank you Eli for coming today Sure, man, thanks for having me, you know So Eli actually We've been talking for oof. How far I'm gonna look at this email. This email that he sent me Bates back to 2019 right 2019 Year and a half into us knowing each other. Yeah, there you go. So but Eli has always been talking to me about commercial real estate and I've never I Mean, I've looked into it, but I've never gone past looking at it. So but before we get started Definitely everyone It's been a while since we've gone live and I just want to let folks know out there You know your screen keeps going green. I don't happen brother. Just FYI but For everyone out there watching Definitely let us know, you know, where you're from your industry that you're in Let us know that the industry and where you're from the city that you're in so that we can See and connect with other people use this as a session to where for example, if we were in an actual Live conference, it would be the equivalent of standing up and telling people a little bit about yourself Not a big blur. Hey, my name is Jeff. I'm in Chicago I'm in a construction space and for some of you we do have your names but for others. We don't have their names. So Welcome Bridget. Welcome Yvette. Welcome Denzel Candace welcome everyone out there and so today actually is It's a non-government contracting topic but To me it's related in a sense that there are all people out here that have skill sets of knowledge and have experiences that we don't have and Since I've always been very curious about commercial real estate and I've known Eli for several years that that he's heavily involved in Commercial real estate. In fact, he's invited me On some deals. He sent me emails and letting him know as he's progressing I decided rather than talk to him alone on my own and like a private zoom call that I would talk to him in public And then share it with all you guys. So I hope that everyone out here watching Appreciate that make sure again. You give us a thumbs up Hit the like button on it because that's how the social media gods take care of us And that's how we continue to spread the good word and also Eli Make sure, you know, you drop your information for folks to contact you afterwards. So some people got a run and So in case of those folks that are not available Afterwards Eli, just let me know what information you want me to drop in the chat and I will do so So sure. All right, and as always if you have any questions throughout feel free to drop the questions in there Welcome Johnny. Welcome Eric Harrison And we are actually Streaming both on Facebook and YouTube. So let's see how that goes So Eli introduce yourself brother tells about a little about yourself where you come from how did you get into this world and You know, let the folks know who you are and what you do and things like that. Sure. Sure. Thanks for the opportunity Eric to share with your crew My name is Eli LaSalle originally from New York. I Quick story. I you know, I was growing up I used to watch a lot of PBS because quite frankly, I didn't have we didn't have cable growing up and we used to watch a lot of war movies and you know airplanes having dogfights in the air dropping missiles that kind of stuff always fascinated me and so My dream ended up becoming I wanted to become an Air Force pilot Just like the documentaries that I was watching and so after high school, you know, I made a beeline the armed services office and I took the exam and Once you know, I finished the exam the recruiters they came over to me and they were saying hey You did really well. You know, you can select anything you want to do really in the military. What do you want to do? and I said I want to be an Air Force pilot and they looked at me and they said well, do you have 20 20 vision and I said no, I don't and they said well you can't be an Air Force pilot son and Man, I was just like that You know, my childhood dreams growing up was just shot down in sky like the aircraft pilot I wanted to be and so, you know, I was I was down And so I just took myself to college aimlessly in a way and in college I met a mentor and he recommended that I take that I read rich that poor dad Which I'm sure a lot of you have read and it was quite formative to my DNA that book was So much so that I ended up changing my major from liberal arts to finance and then I ended up doing real estate as a minor okay, and so I finished college and Side note taking real estate as a minor. They didn't teach me a bit about flipping houses or doing anything that was actually For my personal development. It was all on how to balance a real estate corporations books and that sort of thing So anyway, I started, you know, I was a realtor when I was still in college So I was really passionate about real estate and it was really becoming of me and so when I graduated I started submitting offers on on properties and You know, this was in New York early 2000s We were looking at duplexes for like $200,000. Wow, you know, and this is in Queens, too Not, you know, an upstate and so finally around 2007 I ended up we ended up buying Three plex and a city in an area known as Red Hook, which was at that time gentrifying It's you go off a few blocks from the area of the property that I purchased You have one of the nicest Clearest views of the Statue of Liberty is right there on the Brooklyn sort of on the coast Statue of Liberty is right there. And so great, right?  And so we were supposed to have lines of credit But because of the whole financial You know disaster that occurred when, you know, me and brothers and all those other companies were doing their nefarious dealings Bank that we were banking with they froze our credit lines So we couldn't take out a single penny and because of that, we couldn't finish the renovation They ended up just taking money from us and we were screwed. And so a few years later I ended up Filing for bankruptcy because that mortgage, you know was on my credit and it was a tough time for me You know, I was definitely down in the dumps and that lasted a while and then finally I just said, you know what? I was at that time I moved to Florida and I just let me just pick myself up and do something about this And I decided to learn the game real way versus just buying the property and sort of hoping that it would Appreciate over the course of time. And so I joined what's known as a real estate investment association if anyone is interested in and getting into the real estate business, I would Strongly recommend every city has at least a chapter or two And it was a great place to meet incredible networking. It was Amazing knowledge workshop seminars on a regular basis and I take advantage of all of that I just became sort of a, you know, a gym rat if you will when it came to the real estate business And shortly thereafter I met a partner from the real estate investment association We pooled together $195,000 when they're buying a 16 unit. It's crazy prices do and You know that one still in my portfolio is still going well and then shortly thereafter I just started buying, you know, more and more properties from four plexes. I did a few, you know, some flips during the teens and all the way up until now where I own about 207 doors We just closed on a 12 unit last Monday as a matter of fact In Volusia County, that's, you know, East Coast of Florida and You know, it's just at a point where because of the foundation that I've built Taking a lot of education a lot of courses. I have a wide Resource or tool belt to choose from so when a deal comes my way, you know I know exactly how to approach it and to buy All right, now you said a whole mouthful and that seven-minute spill I'm sure people have questions out there First and foremost, I want to start off with real estate investment association Everyone out there heard real estate investment association Just kind of put up on the screen Eli, how do we find our local real estate investment association first and foremost? Um Just Google Ria and your city From just your city because every major city's got one from Cincinnati to Everyone's got one. Okay. All right. So now What's what I like about your story is that you said that you went bankrupt if I bankruptcy, right? Right. And so, you know again It's interesting because so many people think that they're You know because of a felony because of bankruptcy because of their past history, right? That's an indication of their future success or lack thereof. And so how is it that? Even with a bankruptcy that you were able to buy property Wow, so, you know, first of all the reason I shared that story Eric was for that very same reason because folks think or tend to assume that because they have a hardship in their past and their immediate past They're unable to recover from it and that's you know, the opposite really holds true So at that time when I thought for the bankruptcy, I couldn't get a traditional loan So I missed out on a ton of deals that if I would have gotten a regular traditional loan from a regular bank I would have been able to finesse So without that, that's when you know, the real estate investment association taught me how to buy properties creatively so they call it and so I just took a bunch of different classes on Buying a property subject to the mortgage Buying a property with owner financing the mortgage buying properties at tax details Just a bunch of different methods to buy property and that's what you have to do You have to get a little creative in order to overcome that obstacle because you know You can't just sit there and wait seven years until it comes off your credit or four years That's in that by that time you've missed the entire the discounts Well, it's um, I love that because again, you didn't give up you didn't throw in a towel you didn't quit So the join the real estate investment Association is is that the place where? They gave you information on courses that you could take is that where you learned about the courses that you could take Correct. Correct. Now. Yeah, and nowadays, I mean in there, you know, maybe three four hour seminars They would have over the weekend Sometimes you would do trips to certain places to maybe the tax deed office to look at the records use that nature Well, it's real hands-on and for me. That's how I mean, I learned really well in that experiential way now And I love that how much just If you remember, I know it's probably was 10 years ago or it's seven years ago But how long ago was this that you start when the real estate investment corporation when he moved to Florida How long was that? Um, that was about 2011 Okay. All right, so 10 years ago. All right. So at that time, what what are the courses costs? Like what were the price ranges for the courses? So membership in mine was 150 and then covered 150 dollars dollars, okay for our year for a whole year the entire year and That's 365 not a calendar year 365 when you signed up and then you could most of the weekend programs were $20 $30 50 was a heck of a course, but it wasn't much and honestly every dollar was worth it $50 So what was their incentive if they're only charging $50 for a course I think it was they had several people sign up And okay, the people who who carried it out were just Enthusiasts who were that was like a little side hustle for them anyway, so they did well in volume So and it's usually the similar pricing throughout the country with the exceptions of of course, you know, New York Maybe Cali those places Might be more expensive.  Tell us about that deal man So this was yeah, this was after the first 16 unit that I purchased I ended up going taking the coaching class matter of fact the guy charges us $5,000 to learn how to buy property with seller financing at 0% interest okay, and that's a really important part because that's really the key part of the deal he used to always say You know, if I sold you if I sold you a house for a million dollars, would you be able to afford it? right, that's kind of like his is Beginning statement at the beginning of the class and everyone's like oh probably not and he said well if we created Terms such that it made the deal more affordable for example. It's a million dollars, but you pay $10 a month for the next 20 years and then you know some other continues comes in on the back end Then he asked the same question I think then you started to sort of open your mind and say okay Well, you have you can finagle some terms on the deal that are favorable to you buying the property then You might be able to afford that million dollar house and so that was a whole idea and this was a Strategy where you were pretty much just submitting contracts to realtors in order to find those motivated sellers That were willing that had a specific problem that you could solve But it's not always easy people aren't just you know standing outside of their homes Trying to wave you down saying hey come by my house instead. It's more like you have to look at So many properties on MLS, which is the multiple listing service real estate Submitting offers to realtors. I was I submitted over to almost 250 offers And I still have the receipts in my folders if you know, you want to see them and I don't wait He said he submitted 250 offers I Just want you guys to hear that. Yeah, he's submitted 250 offers.  What are you doing? I'm not working with you leave me alone and that happened I find in the realtor and realtors and investors have sometimes a contentious relationship So it's not always easy, but I mean that's the stuff you got to overcome on the road And finally I was online on realtor.com and I saw a foreplex that I liked Guy was still on it for 75,000 and I was like sweet So, you know, I submitted an offer and it wasn't traditional financing. It was I would give him a 10% down payment I would give him Payments every month for 10 years and then at the end of the 10th year It would be a balloon payment and so he counted back His only catching point was he wanted $20,000. That was his only thing He agreed to everything else. He didn't want he didn't charge any interest on this loan It was 10 years. My monthly payment was 350 dollars and it's four plex it's a four plex and You know, we closed we signed off without a line and that was sort of my crown jewel right there Hey, you gotta go slow man. You're going too fast Say it right so you found a guy had a four plex for sale for seventy five thousand, right and You offered to for him to finance it for you Correct. He was the bank and he was gonna be the bank to finance the deal that he was selling to you and then you were Going to give him 10% down Correct. He negotiated 20 grand damage, right, but originally you offered him 10% down Okay, which is 7,500 and then you were gonna pay some kind of interest Whatever, no, no, I never offered interest. No, you never offered interest Really, okay, so you don't offer interest Okay, so you said all right, I'm gonna give you 10% now you finance it and I'll pay you this much a month Correct, and then I'll have a balloon payment in five years and ten years. Oh Ten years, okay, even better. It's more manageable Sure and he said okay fine. Just give me 20,000 correct correct and Then the payment was 400 bucks. I did the inspection the roof was a little shaky So I said, you know instead of 400 a month. I'll give you 350 a month, right? You just wanted 20 grand. He was in a jam store and he needed to get out So I was there to help Man, I know I love that story You know, I love that and it because again, I even you know, my ignorant self thought you charge you offer them some interest Right, you I mean if his his motivation level Determined that he he didn't even I don't even know if he acknowledged it or if he cared about it at that time He just wanted it, but usually if it's a more advanced seller They'll ask for it. And so you obliged at that time if you start off low, of course Meet him somewhere in the middle. Wow, okay So now so that's that was your crown jewel deal which I love your crown jewel. I mean for that I think everyone should give us a thumbs up on That's it like but right there. All right, so now you that's the crown jewel deal. All right, so you're in this Class you take these courses these $50 courses $100 courses You went on to this one. I was a little bit more expensive was 5,000 but you did a you bought a four-unit building for 20 grand that You said still in portfolio. What is that building worth today? Um, it's worth about 270 to so you paid 75,000 and it's worth about 275. So you got 200,000 equity Correct. I mean, I did a good amount of work.  All right, so 150 135,000 Correct. I could a It's probably what do you all want it? I think we financed it every five and use some of the deals correct. So I can use that money for other deals All right, sweet. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and and in between I mean, I did courses on example tax deed investing or tax Investing, I think that's a great option For people who honestly when the county takes over the test is it pretty much eliminates all the other liens on the property? So When you get that if you buy the property at a tax liens at a tax detail then you pretty much own it free and clear usually for a discounted price and Examine that for a while.  All right, so now let's go back. Okay, so now you do that deal Right, and then you meet a partner in the real estate investment course and in the real estate investment association, right? We'll put that back on the screen just for people who missed it We're just joining us now. By the way, there's 48 people on give us make sure you give us a thumbs up Please like this video One of the first things that Eli mentioned was the after He came from New York moved to Florida. He joined a real estate investment association Took some courses that were 50 bucks a hundred bucks weekend courses two or three hour courses Then you said you met a partner now Most people are afraid of that word partner. So how did you? Like, you know, like be comfortable with this guy or girl. I don't know what it is first It's a gentleman and I met him all my partners I've met him at the real estate association So that tells you the quality of the bonds and the friendships relationships That you're right there and so he just we just kind of took to each other I think our energies were on the same vibes were in the same, you know, sort of wavelength if you will and Usually when you're at these seminars, I mean you're at them for quite some time You can see the same people and you end up, you know building relationships with people from them and so He and I just you know over the years got cool I think you always saw me as a viable partner for something he ended up inviting me to his wedding, you know I mean to his home for barbecues. I mean we became, you know, somewhat close and so finally Matter of fact we purchased I Found a deal from a wholesaler. It was a 38 unit deal up in South Georgia and You know, we were a little We weren't too sure if wholesalers were the route to go if they were Some of them have some unscrupulous ways that give all the investors a bad image, but you know, we went through with it and We ended up having like at that time. I was an employee had a job and I made fairly decent money and We ended up just you know pooling our money together. He and I and we bought the 38 unit deal together That one was quite the It was it was quite the renovation. It was 38 units at the time. I think 14 units were occupied Okay, there is you know, there was drug activity in there and not everybody wanted to pay rent And we hired a management company and it really helped us and we had a man of construction crew come in We did all we did all of the apartments. We renovated all the apartments. I had lived in the building for about two months Managing the renovation and I was in South Georgia. I mean it was to me, but you know after a while I got used to it it was all right and Yeah, we just got cool and from there we ended up Using that story of that particular project, which was a success We went back to the rear and we presented at what's called the deal of the month Okay, and at deal of the month, you know, these are the big audience people are really enamored by what you're doing and There was a couple of other people who reached out to us and say hey, we like what you guys are doing We want to you know in the way. We're loaded and we want to make you want to invest with the guys in the future And so we just put that in our black pockets and just continue to look for more deals for them to get into with us That's great. All right. Let's let's talk about one of the deals that you actually sent me now, I know it's been a few years, so Let's uh, let me put this question on screen first before we get into the deal M. Sway says can we use a 501 for program for commercial deals? 504 program. Can you can you expand on that some? I'm not not familiar with the file. Okay expand on the question All right, so let's let's talk about Okay, let's put this up on the screen and This is a something that you sent me Correct this deal that you were looking at Back in 2019 It was a nine million dollar deal Now did you end up buying this one? Yes, this is the one that we end up buying. Okay, so this one you bought and then This George time when you did not buy correct correct and it was actually from the same seller So we were trying to buy both Okay, however Due to that the price point it was one was eight and a half million and the other one was 4.9 and we just couldn't get to buy or raise the initial investment for both properties So we let the Georgetown go which is the small of the two. I think it was 70 units and The stable court is 129 units in Tallahassee and we ended up pulling the trigger on this one. All right So let's let's talk about this And it's funny. I don't actually have I have the email but I don't know how to share it yet But Eli actually sent me an email with this deal that he sent out In fact, hold on. I do have it You know, I'm gonna put the email just so I can give some context for folks out there Give me a second. Let me pull up this email Just so people can have context Okay, I don't see it on my screen Okay, looks like it's trying to look there it is. All right, there it is It was a little slow. All right, so actually so Eli sent me this email Back in 2019 and On here, he mentioned this Georgetown apartment deal six unit complex Tallahassee Two miles of floors to University half mile from Whole Foods asking prices five million our strike price is four point three million range We're submitting a lot of interest today goes to raise one point one million to cover down payment closing costs It's where you come in. He's attached an Excel 2018-2019 income statement a pro forma and some links with pictures and then he mentioned a second deal okay, and There it is. So that's the email that he sent out And so we'll show you the info sheets that he sent with that So why don't you talk to us about this email and how that works Eli while I pull up the info sheets? Sure, sure so the goal was to raise money for the down payment and You know we those few gentlemen that we met at the real estate investment Association They came in they were pretty liquid, but you know the goal at that point was one point one for the Doris town and it was two Point nine for the the other property and so We realized that with the money the capital that they had and what we had we just didn't we didn't we didn't come We were about 50% there and we just needed to raise another you know Million dollars or so and just we knew we couldn't raise enough to buy both so we let the George town go and we decided to set our focus on disabled courts and That one again, we raised I would say most of the money from the real estate investment Association However, it wasn't you know sort of a windfall of cash is coming of capital coming our way It was it was a lot of work. It was stressful Because you do put a large deposit down in order to Be able to go into contract for this property and we went into contract and we were still raising money throughout the contract And is it after 30 days your deposit becomes non-refundable you and you know We would lose a large significant amount of money if we weren't able to Call together those funds and so Finally, we ended up pulling together moneys and I have some of my Friends or associates that I know that are involved with it proud. I'm really proud about that and Yeah, finally, we just pulled the trigger and it closed in late 2019 after a lot of due diligence it's a hundred and twenty nine units a lot can go wrong during that time and You know, we were able to finesse The inspections the appraisals and all of that so when you whenever you buy a property you have to have a succinct Exit strategy and our exit strategy with this one really is just to enjoy some of the The appreciation that we'll experience here. I mean 3% of appreciation on 9 million dollar asset is a lot Higher than 3% appreciation on a $250,000 asset We are steadily repositioning the tenant base, which means, you know, we're doing renovations. We're trying to get Somewhat higher end tenants in there so we can just continue to For it to perform and be profitable. And so, yeah, this is still, you know, one in the portfolio You have a video there too. It kind of gives a little bit of a scale. Are you able to share the video? It's it's going it's lagging when I open up new windows So let's just talk about those this and then as questions I'll pull the video up on the next for sure And so that what you have there on the screen, that's the the model unit We ended up creating we just kind of gave it the the white cabinets The you know, why did the gray paint on the wall the gray floor is kind of the modern trendy look everyone goes for nowadays and Yeah, we had a point where with the construction crew they can do this renovation in their sleep And so they're just we're just going slow, you know unit by unit performing these renovations offering tenants Of course, we would, you know increase the rents Because in commercial property you you do want to increase your net operating income because the value of the property is based on How much income it brings in So we're constantly trying to either increase rents or increase income and and or decrease expenses either one Okay, but yeah, it's a tough one. It's not one that's easy to manage This is I mean we bought it in late 2019 and then the next year we had andemic and so luckily we're able to you know To handle all of our our debt obligations Profit hasn't you know been there as much as we'd like to but I think we're you know The hope is these moratoriums start to come to an end and we'll start to see some relief on that end and to perform the way we expected to Yeah, that's right. I'm thinking about that that did COVID happen the next year correct correct. Yeah Yeah, I've been thinking about that You know who put together all these numbers was that you was that your Team or who was that that put together these numbers? Yeah, my partner is the Numbers guru so he has a software where you just enter it in and it spits out this very you know immaculate looking summary Okay, and so, you know a lot of it is projections. We always project Conservatively just in case something goes wrong. We kind of anticipated that and if everything goes right and awesome That's just gravy on top Okay, okay And then You said okay, you had the partner and then you pulled in some other team members and reading your documents It mentioned an SEC attorney For a private placement of randomness of other things on here How did you find all these these wonderful smart people to surround yourself with? right, so the this It's it's called a syndication you raise money from a lot of different people and not everyone is going to have their name on the Mortgage that's that would be considered a security by the securities and exchange commission And so you need an SEC attorney to put this together We ended up just from our network at the real estate investment association Just having one sort of in our pocket or in our network and so we use them I mean it's a it's quite the expense, but obviously they're doing good work to keep us out of trouble and No, I like it I like it I love it I love it questions comments Feedback and then in regards to the 504 SBA program. I'm not familiar with I haven't used that program I haven't used SPA funding ever from what I understand it has something to do with nonprofits and And you know, I'm not sure if you have to be a nonprofit to to seek it out or to successfully So now with that said piggybacking on that person's question So, how do you fund your deal? So, you know, you're raising the down payment from investors How do you who actually does the traditional bank financing? Well, a lot of the properties we do for example the 38 unit deal because it was so much had so much vacancy And it needed so much renovation typically Traditional banks don't want to touch those okay even in credit unions They're little skittish on it. You have to go to funds Which are usually their hedge funds or just, you know, people who are flush with capital and they want to Put it to work. And so it's expensive money. It's this hard money in essence Right, it's high fees. You know, you're not getting 3% interest rate interest rates are 8 9 But it's also short-term money. And so typically when it comes to commercial, they're they're evaluating the deal Not so much us. I mean we also get evaluated But the deal is the most important and so if the numbers make sense, then you feel comfortable moving forward Nice. It's interesting. Someone taught me that I actually used to be part of real estate investment association Before I bought my first deals and I remember them saying the reason why people prefer commercial over residential is because you can't get The financing is depending on the deal not the person Whereas if you buy residential, you got to use your credit and that bankruptcy would count against you So then, you know, you couldn't ultimately if you didn't have the cash it's not big enough for other people to want to put their money up and Because your your personal situation is not sparkly clean in this particular time frame It would make it, you know, very difficult for you to find the deal. So that makes a lot of sense Interesting. Absolutely. And there's a saying that, you know, there's a good deal out there money will find it. I Believe it. Yeah, and this is, you know, one of those scenarios. I believe it. I believe it. All right Larry Smith, you said Larry says how can I find a proper apartment for sale in Georgia? Um, different ways.  They're sending out letters all the time. So for example, if say if you have a house and I'm sure you've gotten letters that say, hey, do you want to, you know, we buy houses cash or do you want to sell your house? So those are usually wholesalers that are sending out that mail and they're trying to get the motivated seller to sell to them at a Cheap number at a cheap price. And so what they'll do is they'll put a little bump in the price and then, you know Put on the marketplace to where investors like me have access to it And I mean you find those wholesalers through, you know, I mean I can send you, you know A couple of wholesalers who offer property in Georgia But they're out there. They're out there. Usually if you check out like biggerpockets.com They might have information on some sellers on some wholesalers rather And that sort of thing another way to find Apartments for for sale is if you want to do that perform that kind of marketing on your own So if you want to send that mail out on your own to Potentially motivated sellers or some people who own commercial property, which is what I do as well Then you just get the lists And you send mail to them and sometimes I'll sit here Literally handwriting, you know, 150 envelopes 200 envelopes to send out But I've gotten deals that way. So It can pay off Another where another place is facebook groups if you go on facebook Look in their groups and you'll see, you know investors of Georgia Or whatever county you usually have a group for those for those For those units for those areas and you're just going there and you just start to network in there as well and you'll find Hey, Eric, you never left us or did I leave you? I'm here you there Yeah, I am. All right. Yeah, something happened. It froze my sit am I in all right No, no, I love it. That's um, that's good stuff. So you So you bought the four unit then what was the next deal that you did? uh, about the 16 and about the four and then I flipped a bunch of properties from 14 to 17 Okay And then, you know, I accumulated some some good cash reserves from those flips Um with those flips though one thing I warn you about that they don't tell you in those tv shows is uncle sam He has his hand out And you got to make sure you hold back some of that profit you make to pay uncle sam because he's not your uncle for real for You know, I remember a buddy of mine in college. He did a uh He did some stock deals and he made like a hundred fifty thousand.  He said oh taxes on the profit he made from the deal that he sold Wow So he was he became he was in trouble actually afterwards Yeah, maybe a payment plan would help him but it is it gets real when that, you know, five, you know, four or five digit um tax bill comes in You can't afford it. So you can't afford it. Yeah, that's not that's not fun. That's not funny. Um, And in 2018 I purchased the uh the 38 unit Okay, um, then we purchased the 129 unit. Okay And uh, I've done a couple wholesale deals in between then just doing, you know, just again trying to Um, build up my cash reserves and we just purchased the 12 unit Uh in volusia county in florida Last week just clothed on it. Okay. All right Someone asked how does a person get it into? Uh commercial real estate This is what Eli suggested Look for your local. That's a good place to start for sure. That's a good place to start Now you have I mean youtube nowadays is a lot, you know, it's it's great resource type that into youtube There's a few great coaches out there one that I follow is peter harris um He is a wealth of knowledge. He actually wrote the book. Uh, how to buy Real estate for dummies how to invest in real estate for dummies And he's written books for donald trump in the whole nine yards. So he's a great resource There's all but there's all the people out there Um who who buy commercial real estate and we we talk about commercial real estate. It's not just department buildings Um, we're also talking about retail spaces. We're talking about malls or storage space storage facilities We're talking uh industrial which right now is really hot sector because of all the warehousing all the amazon warehouses and Other similar companies who need that type of space And to releasing it out We talk about land, you know, just about anything that's not Four units of residential and under is considered commercial Um, so I'd say, you know, definitely just just immerse yourself in that knowledge and and and yeah And then there because honestly just and I know eric you talk about this too and in the guv con community that um, you know, it takes the same amount of work to Execute on a 50 million dollar deal and it does on a five million dollar deal And we can extrapolate that to real estate as well. I mean the same amount I mean it might be a few more moving parts in commercial real estate, but the day the same fat the same Um, sort of factors come into play. It's you know, it's contract. It's it's um title. It's getting a loan It's due diligence. It's closing not in that order, but Yeah, no, it makes a lot of sense. It makes a lot of sense. Um One of the things that you and I when we were preparing Um, we had a conversation of the day We actually talked about airbnb and I told you I have an airbnb We had two of them and then you said your friend is doing airbnb successfully in florida as well Right, right and and so i'm in orlando and you figure in orlando This is the home of you know, disney and hotels are everywhere And so our airbnb is it's a competitive space, but The way he's approached it and the way he's winning is he's going on the high end route And oftentimes, you know folks who can afford three four hundred dollar price tag a night usually Um, you know, they'll they'll stay some time and they'll they'll be repeat customers and there is a market for it And so he has his airbnb rented over his average is 70 of the month his his units are rented Um, his expense ratio is about 30 so 30 of what he brings in he's keeping for himself And he's doing really well and one thing that he always tells me is that you know He's like despite all of these hotels and all of these airbnb as competitors You know, there's enough business out here There's enough there's enough visitors out here for us all to eat for us all to have business and for us all to see And uh, that's that's gonna be another space of mind that I go into fairly soon as well Yeah No, I'm not in the high end, but I can tell you that um, you know, my two airbnb's I have like 90 occupancy maybe 95, which means I probably should raise the price You know, right? So I gotta play with the number.  Um, and it's it's it's been amazing I mean, I just had someone move in Um, literally yesterday and they're staying for three months So, um I get people like and then this is in the middle of like this is that in the middle of florida Like there's small town But people come for projects people come that are working on the construction sites for months at a time These people are working and building a solar Factory facility out there in the woods. I guess there's land So they're there they're in town just to build working a solar Facility the next three months So stuff like that that we don't know even what's going on in and around our cities and towns Even in small town usa there's just There's like he said We we don't there's not enough hotel even where places like okay or land And you say well, there's so many hotels But there's so many people and then in a place like where I was at that small town There's not enough hotels Right So Like you said, if you increase the price, you know, you'll still get those those rentals, right? Sure. No, I mean the hotels are charging Yeah, I mean they're I'm charging half of what the hotels charge. So maybe I get 60 70 percent of there. I might Still keep my do you manage yours? Do you answer respond to the questions that come in? so, um I managed those but when I have my other rentals, I had a property manager that managed my all of my other rentals so when I had my Three plex two plexes and my single-family homes. It was all in one city I had a property manager that managed all of those units those doors got you so I never I never I don't even know the people's names. I don't know nothing Nothing Yeah, yeah, I'm hands off. I mean my tenants I'll go to the property and maybe I'm there to do a repair and they'll ask me who I am And I just tell them I'll never say that I'm the owner. I just say that I'm from property management office Right.  It's a balance at the end of the day. Yeah, and I and again, um You know and uh, and that one town I had um, it was 12 units. So it made sense um And and the actual the my property manager came to me Because when I bought this package, there was a little small store like a little convenience store that came with it And he ran that store so he actually wanted to keep running the store And um, so I was like, okay, that's fine. Well, Eli.  It's really like a little like a corner store type thing And so I didn't really care about the store Um, and so he said well, I'll I'll he goes. I'm from this town. I've lived here. I've worked here And so he goes, I'll manage all the properties for you collect the rents find the tenants if you don't charge me for the store okay, well That's fine. I mean so we actually bartered and it if like you said you negotiate, right? You don't it's helping if you don't get what you deserve you get what you negotiate Right. It's just true Everything is terms man. Everything is terms So it worked out and actually like you said, we're friends to this day and um, you know, we help each other in more ways and It's it's great, but I was actually able to sell off some units and keep some stuff And not have any debt on some other stuff. So it you know, it works. It worked out great for me Did you 1031 any of the profits or?  So, uh, I didn't yeah, it was just like it was I Would really decided to I want to focus more on government contracting is the truth Is I just like I want to double down on this and not have my brain in so many places and so scatter Trying to try and you know, and that was for me. And so for me, um, you know Where i'm headed with this is much greater than even having You know 12 unit portfolios. It just it wasn't it it did make any sense for me Yeah, I think you know having your your base is government contracting where you're bringing in that revenue And then parking your money in real estate where you Work harder for you than anywhere else Right, then I think that's that's the win-win right and that's why I have you on because I you know What I'd like to see people do ultimately is again Um, which I've seen like even with podcasters and and people who do courses and sell courses Everyone ends up parking their money in real estate Right Everyone was successful and again if it's trucking, uh, I got nikky on here.  Well, the people who stocks in crypto. That's my real estate And it's I listen. I like stocks. I like crypto as well. I would never knock those asset classes I just happen to be partial to real estate for a couple reasons. One is, um, you know, you have insurance The market tanks or whatever. I mean you you have insurance Um, or if you suffer some sort of calamity or storm or whatever insurance is there to help you Uh, we're we're as if emerald goes down, you know, you kind of screw Um to you can you you um you benefit from appreciation which usually isn't forecast It's just a cherry on top Three you benefit from forced appreciation and that's where you're actually fixing the property the apartment, for example And you can get higher rent Uh for those repairs or for those for that rehab. And so that also increases the price of the asset Um, and then four you also have depreciation, which is a tax strategy where you can Um use that depreciation number and offset it offset your income So you'll be taxed at a lower basis So, you know, those are all sort of benefits of real estate that stocks crypto don't have But um, you know, it's pros and cons Sure. I love it. Um, so let's answer some questions here My man chai hawaiian, what's the expectation with the future retail space? Uh, man, that's you know, 2019 retail is a place to go and then covid happened and it was the place to avoid You know, um, I remember in 2019 when you have the lights of jacy penny series those guys going out of business The focus the focus was shifting to you want to have experiential what they call experiential real estate Which was you know, maybe have a playground there or something else that would attract people that That an experience that you couldn't get from buying things online and people are going to go out and shop Anyway, might as well make it well worth their time And then covid hits and it's like well so much for the experiential real estate because you can't even be around each other within six feet of each other, so Um, I I think that it's it's got it's got a future people are always going to eat out People are always going to go shopping retail therapy that kind of thing Um, will it be as prevalent? Will the market shift? Sure. I don't think I mean obviously malls seem to be If you are not in a sort of a high-end top of tea or mall You know, you're you're you're struggling right now And um, I think that'll continue. Um, but I think that you know retail is evolving. For example, there's this new concept called Where they have all these restaurants like a food court and you go into these spaces and there's different types of restaurants eateries that are around and you can eat sort of in a general space So it's evolving. I believe I just think you have to think about it differently and um, you know, just be careful with it But you know, if you can think a little bit ahead Of the curve outside the box and I think retail, you know, it's still steady and as an owner One good thing about retail is that they have what's called triple net lease So for example, if I have starbucks as one of my tenants I'm starbucks is not only paying their lease rate, but they're paying water electricity. They're paying insurance They're paying to clean the grounds. They're paying everything. I just supply a box a building So they are benefits. You just have to right have good tenant base And um, you know, think outside the box All right. All right, nicky says do you mentor? whoo as of today, I I don't but um, you know, I think You know, eric wants to talk about doing something like that. So I'd be open to it All right. Good stuff. All right. Yes. Craig. You are late. What's going on mark? Welcome brother to the party um Let's see. Has anyone looked at the big box doors and turning them into indoor communities Yes, um, that's called repurposing repurposing real estate I think is the future. So a lot of those big seers big box doors came out, right? They're just going to sit there and oftentimes they're in communities that they're sort of a blight to the area and you know in order to repurpose that big box door into say um, I've seen people do it with apartments where they would bring in Um storage containers and have storage containers as like many Apartments, you know anywhere from four to 800 square feet. Um, put them on one side put restaurants on the other side I've seen people get really creative And all you need to do is just you know go on youtube and just write in you know repurposing real estate And you'll see a lot of the different ideas people are doing But um, yeah big boxes is struggling And uh, that'll continue All right. Are you able to purchase commercial estate in your company name or does it have to be personally guaranteed? I prefer you buy in a company in an llc You don't want to personally guarantee it because obviously, you know, it's a lot more liability Um, you're exposed not only yourself, but you know some of your other assets if they're not held and llc's as well so always, you know buy them in llc's or they even have land trust, which is a Another way of sort of hiding you know hiding your real estate from um from the public eye And that's that's really the way to go. I know people that do land trust Yeah, I've seen a lot of trust Yeah, all right. Um Is it true that commercial leases give the landlord the option to make the tenant pay the tax insurance and the cost of repairs Yes, those are again.  They'll pay your maintenance. They'll pay your lawn care They pay everything but usually those are tenants that have credit or have Sort of a national regional or national presence You you're not going to be able to get a barbershop or you know beauty salon to those kind of terms All right, uh like niki said make sure everyone hits the like button um And then my man johnny says i've been on beta sam real estate leasing. Have you done any of those opportunities before? You know, I was I was working that angle and um I have a challenge It depends on the actual Um agency that or the office that you work with so for example in florida I forget the agency that does it um They're based in atlanta. It escapes me now, but um in florida The agency wanted you to either own the property or for you to be or for the owner to put you in as a partner um I think I remember you even always got something like that jv. Yeah, and so that made it difficult for us because the Owner of the property. They didn't want to add us that only as a partner, you know for their Uh for their establishment and i'm still why um, and that was difficult however, I worked with the usda one time and I want to say quincy florida, which is uh west of tallahassee And there they wanted a space for their new offices And you know, they were willing to work with us even though we didn't own the property I was brokering it really for a monthly stipend if you will however The rate at which we were wanting to lease it at was too high for the usda. They didn't want to pay that much Okay, it was like 30 dollars All right Um Man says can we get more information about land trust? Sure land trust is um is really a way to shield your assets from the public eye So for example, if you do a search in the county records, uh for and you're trying to find information on me Let's say you slip and fall And you go to an attorney right an attorney says, okay We're gonna get this owner because he owes you money the insurance company only wants to pay so much And so you decide to come after me because I'm the owner of the llc Um, and then you see that owner of their assets or you're trying to find other assets that I own You could just do a search for my name Or anything of that nature, but if my assets are on the land trust, it's really difficult for you to Sort of pierce that land trust in order to get into it to find out that I own the land trust Now if you were to go, let's say to uh, you know to sue me and we go to court It's the long drawn out case and they end up subpoena doing a subpoena and trying to get that information Yes, they can pierce that sort of veil that you have protecting your land trust, but Um, with that exception, you know, you won't be able to find out who owns that land trust Um, as a matter of fact, I would say go into the county records and the property appraiser's office And and look through some of those land trusts and you just won't you won't find it Gotcha um Eli you okay me dropping your email in here Uh, sure. Absolutely. Okay. I mean I kind of put you on the spot, right? A little bit too late, right?  All right, what else? What else? Uh, hold on Yes, that commercial real estate is valued by the profitability and term of the leases So every time you responsibly raise a ranch you increase property value Correct, correct. And so in every property that we go to Um, we we prefer to buy what's known as value add deals and value adds just means that there is some room For you to increase rents. So for example, uh, the one that we purchased in uh in florida last week The rents there are about 600 to 625 for one bedrooms one baths This is actually a nice area. I will call it, you know the skill of you know a to to c or to d a being the nicest Um, it would be like a b like a b minus is you know, older community the infrastructure is a little more mature older you know more mature trees and things of that nature, but Those rents can go up to about a thousand dollars Maybe more depending on how nicely and how well we do those renovations so The price that we bought it at it was reflective of the rents that they were collecting And so if we raise a rent from 600 to a thousand dollars, which is almost, you know, that's over 50 percent increase Um, it never presents a really nice new like a new net operating income number That's a lot higher. That's over 50 higher than what we bought it at And so when we go back and try and sell it or refinance it and pull some equity out You know, we're gonna see a similar increase in the value of that problem How many years how many years was it? Uh, it's 12, so okay 12 years. Okay. I got you. And now how'd you find that deal? Um, again through a wholesaler a wholesaler sent us a text And we didn't we didn't think much of it and all of a sudden my my you know, my partner sends You know, he calls me. He's like, hey, man I think there might be some meat on this bone and I'm like sure so we reviewed it And I was like, I think there is some meat on this bone. I think there is a value here And so we literally that same day they had a showing it might have been 1 p.m At the time, um That we reached out to the wholesaler and the showing ended at 3 And it's about an hour 15 minutes away from me. So I hopped in my car I drove out there. I told him, hey, look, man, we'll be, you know, 20 minutes late But I'll be there sure enough. We walked through some of the apartments and I loved it It's nothing that really needs to be done except cosmetic work.  We're bringing it up to market value. So I'm not doing anything excessive Now when you do something like that, okay, and you say, hey, okay, there's something being on the bones Does everyone have to have money like do you have to have money to get in the deal? How does that work? Wow, great question because I mean, I don't see you don't want to hear talk about money Like I can't believe you got 48 people watching this and no one's like, look Like do I have to bring 50 g to the table? Do I have to bring 100 g to the table? Yeah, nobody's curious about money out there. Like, I mean, I'm just saying I want to know about the money So I got to write a check, you know, like, how does that work? And so we have you and I haven't even talked about this I know no one said no one's asked the question I'm sitting here racking my brain and no, I'm waiting. I'm waiting for someone in the audience to say, look How much money how much money? So you know, you got a 14 unit deal Do I have to put up 200,000? Do I have to put up a half a million? What like, what do I have to do to get into, you know So typically when we did, for example, we did the raise for the, uh, the hundred and twenty nine The hundred and twenty nine unit deal We had a minimum of a hundred thousand dollars So that allowed Correct each Okay And that allowed for was we don't we don't want to have too many investors because it becomes It's just more challenging Investors have personalities. I mean, it's a lot of money So you're fielding calls and concerns and things of that nature So you almost have to bet each other when we are in that position We don't want someone who can just be a pain and, you know, really, really just brings down everyone's energy So typically we do we don't always do a hundred thousand dollar minimums But because that was a large raise. Yeah, that's a million dollar raise Crabs it was two million dollar two million dollar raise. So oh two million. Okay. Yes We had a few folks that came in they were well funded Well capitalized and they brought in a lot more than a hundred thousand but that was the minimum Okay, however for this 12 unit deal Partner he's you know, he's campaign.  You found the deal you put everything right my my partner. Yeah, correct in that regard Yes, my partner did a lot of the due diligence. He found the deal I'm going to be doing a lot of the renovation or leading the efforts for the project managing the renovation making sure I managed the property manager as well And You know, make sure we get in the top rents and things of that nature. So it's a collected efforts where I'm still working But you know, he's I'm putting in sweat equity and that gentleman put in the equity equity I can't believe y'all don't First of all for the 47 people who stayed on to catch that I'm glad you stayed on for the people who missed it I'm sorry. You missed it. You had to run And and I'm glad that I asked a question because no one asked that question. He did not put up any money Right So I'm just saying He didn't put any money. By the way, Eli was interesting We're gonna talk like, you know, these people are not even on with us I have a guy like that now that says the same thing. He'll put up the money I just have to find a deal So, um, I've got someone like that now that I've met through the government contracting world Because of me doing government contracting and he Working together, you know doing business and doing, you know, we've done millions of dollars in government contracts So we have a relationship and so he's like, look Eric, you know, find us a deal I'll put up the money and we'll split up the deal and you know, um Just put something together put the numbers together and send it to me. So Um, I've got something like that now right now Awesome. Well, I mean if you need some help finding a deal, let me know I'll show you some stuff your way and you know, we could all partner on that There you go. Like Johnny said, sorry Eric. I was using your money. Yeah, I know y'all account my money Listen the whole point of the discussion, right is so that we can leverage You know, we're leveraging Eli's knowledge and his expertise You're leveraging my platform and then, you know, there's people to have capital and we're leveraging that and so we're just Again, I think uh, this collaboration is is definitely bigger Than what we've all probably taken advantage over the last two decades I mean, we've probably all been in a different place if we had done this, you know, 20 years ago So, um, but I'm glad we're having a conversation. I'm glad we're talking about it now Uh, let's see someone asks Is it easier now for black and brown people to purchase commercial real estate or is it still a barrier? I mean, I think I think he answers the question by his own examples But I'll let Eli take this one Right. I mean, I think I haven't I'm sure. I mean, I don't know. I can't say that there haven't been any barriers Because of that, but I mean, I just I've seen a lot more other barriers I mean, I had a bankruptcy to overcome So I was more worried about that more so than worrying about, you know, other barriers that I might not be able to prove So, you know to answer your question I went I hit that real estate investment association hardcore I would say 90 of the people in there, you know, don't look like me And at the end of the day, you know, some folks you'll vibe with you'll connect with and you can do deals with others You know, they'll they'll just never Um, accept you and that and it goes for, you know, any any race any Gender or whatever, right? So I wouldn't let that stop you I would if anything I would use it as encouragement Um as a bigger obstacle to overcome if that is something that you think you're you're facing but, um I think at the end of the day Deals or deals money the the the money the numbers are what talk the most when it comes to deals And that's what you want to focus on And also you don't need everyone, right? You don't need everyone To to do this, you know, um, you get your circle of people that you're working with and, uh, you know Maybe some of them can have are more likable and more trustworthy and and they could lend the credibility of you and the and the deals So, you know, that's just been my experiences is I don't I don't try to appeal appeal to everyone Um, I always I always like to say this and I know it's probably a bad joke, but um in truth 70 million people voted for donald trump, right and then seven million people voted for joe biden So you don't have to appeal to everyone. You just got to appeal to a group of people that helped you accomplish What you're trying to get accomplished? Someone says have you ever used equity waterfall your deals? um I haven't had anyone um When you're saying equity waterfall, I'm thinking you're talking about like the capital stack. So um the type of avenues I've used to to to raise money for a deal or to To represent my down payment. Um, I haven't I've just used capital from other investors and or for myself and investors and um, And that's how we carried we executed them. I didn't Leverage another property that I owned. I've had the opportunity to but I just never have Hope that answers your question Do you use a lot of real estate financial models from presenting the numbers to investors? Do you have to excel financial modeling skills? Yeah but um I I don't I know the the financial modeling Sort of charts and software you're you're you're talking about Really know because that's very technical And if they need to see a little bit more Insights then sure, I'll show them that but for example, if you were on earlier and and uh, Eric you saw Eric as he showed the summary of our deal Uh, it it's more informative as far as you know, a lot of the vision for the property The exit strategy we talk about the loan the the numbers um And I believe it was a spreadsheet like a simple Financial modeling spreadsheet that they took kind of screenshot that put it onto the summary and we use that um But it's not too you don't want to get too intense because not all the investors aren't As savvy as you might be You know, they may know, you know basics and you want to keep it at their level Sure. All right, we're gonna do uh Two more questions and we're gonna sign off and be respectful of everyone's time today If you have not already hit the like button, please hit the like button Whether you're watching on youtube or facebook hit the like button Please that will help us be able to provide you with more content like this also Again, um, if you like this kind of content leave us leave a comment to the show notes feedback I put Eli's information in here and whatever additional information that he provides to me I will also make that available to everyone as well who's listening So two more questions This one from one shot says what if I get a transactional loan? What would that work for commercial properties? Uh from my understanding of a transactional loan, those are more like really short term from what I've From when I've tried to use them. It was about maybe 48 hours Maybe a week long or something just to buy something and then Uh, maybe do a quick um a double close or something to that extent Um, if that's what you're referring to I I I never have tried that so I I don't know, you know, I don't want to give you a wrong answer on that I've done I've wholesale properties where You know, I've done. Um, not a double close, but I've assigned the contract So I didn't need a loan Um, you know, if you did a double close, you might have needed a transaction alone But I've never used it for a commercial Nice nice And then since uh, I don't see more questions up there. Um Do you consider yourself exceptional? Oh man, whatever. That's loaded.  So I'm gonna say yes on that one.   This is a possibility and it's real And and I know it's real and I've been around you and you know, we've met and it's um So I know it's real but go ahead. You were gonna say something Yeah, no, I mean, you know, I I say yes to that question I mean, I don't mean to come off as cocky or anything like that But that's just the way that I I train myself to think But I mean, this is something that anybody can do I mean, I was a C student in college and you know, I've had all kinds of struggles on top of that I got a whole list but uh, for the sake of time, I'm not gonna do that But it's just persistence persistence resilience, you know, not taking no getting shot down and You know, just getting over it quick and continuing to go. That's really that's really my flow right there And uh, I'm kind of like one of those I work hard guys. You cannot work me kind of guys And uh, that's how that's what's working And again for all the people keep asking what how do you get started the real estate investment association? Is uh, where elie first started out look for your local real estate investment association There in every city am I correct elie? Every major city has one look for the real estate investment association Is a great place. He said that at the time he paid $150 a year to join Annually, which is 365 calendar days and then they offer courses that you can take ranging from 50 bucks a couple hundred bucks And then uh, you took one that was I think you said 5,000 Correct for a mentor right for a mentor though. That was for actual mentorship. So again But that $5,000 that you paid for the mentorship got your four unit building with seller financing That has now increased over 200,000 dollars in value. So 5,000 turns into 200,000. I think it's you did pretty good Correct, correct Facebook groups is another place to go you can again search facebook groups in your locality and you know your county your city And as you see groups and as you see, you know people local that are doing deals are experts That can help as well YouTube's got a ton of great information. Like I said earlier, peter harris is a great place for commercial real estate investing knowledge. He's a Middle-aged brother. He's actually really good And it's a lot of content out there Peter Harris for commercial real estate investing All right, I'm going to leave them with that All right, so Peter Harris for commercial real estate investing Uh, it's another great place to go to as a resource. So again, hey, listen. Thank you so much for watching Eli, um, don't get lost. We'll keep in contact. We're like two hours away Thank you guys my man Kwame You know Always trying to share with people the knowledge always trying to spread the good word out here Uh, give people options. Let them know what's possible, right? You know, because again, you might make money over in this other space and you say look, I got a couple dollars I want to play with and you know, um now you have a resource to turn to so Hey, look forward to uh, if you want to hear more topics like this, let us know send me any emails Send us leave us a comment. Um, definitely willing to open up to discussing Other things, especially things that I'm interested in. So this is this is a great call Uh, great information. Great questions. Thank you. Thank you, Eli as always And everyone have a great night. We'll talk to you soon. Thanks guys. Thanks for the opportunity, Eric. Appreciate you Always a pleasure


Okay, this is a piece from June 15, on track to make production in late September, a day after Burns and Rodriguez resigned in battle truck companies, enough funding to operate through May 2022. There will be no disruptions to our day-to-day operations. This is interesting. Rich Smith said the company needs more experienced leadership, and while Lordstown didn't say the investigation led to Burns and Rodriguez's resignations, he indicated the findings contributed, at least in part, to their abrupt departures. It was a little bit above. Now, he said we needed more seasoned leadership, and I just want to say here that, you know, Burns and Old Steve Burns here, Burns and Rodriguez started a car company in ten months and got a car off the ground in ten months. Lucid's been trying to get a car off the ground for 12 years, I think. So these guys are, they've had quite an accomplishment here. People are diminishing it, but it's just breathtaking how far they've come in so little time. Like what it took Lucid a year, they did in one month.  Also, I would say in the last, you can look at my previous videos, you can see where he received shares, got shares from the company that totaled about 26%. He's the single largest shareholder. Those were gift shares that were gifted to him to keep him on board. So this is all very mysterious. Now, the CFO also pretty much kept him in the money and got all this done and did all right now. He had some problems getting the report out last month. I think that had to do with them doing strategy there. But anyway, I think he may be a sacrificial lamb. And I think in many ways Burns is also a sacrificial lamb to get the target off their back, which is, you know, it is what it is. I will say in protest, I did diminish my position just ever so slightly single digits percentage because of Burns leaving because I am a fan of Burns and studied him. Anyway, this is interesting. Needs more experience leadership, which is, you know, what does that mean? You know, the findings contributed. They didn't didn't lead to their departure. So, you know, what did? And I'll just talk about those findings. Okay.  Here's the thing. You can read through the Lordstown report and the third party investigator. They found everything Hindenburg said was totally false. Okay, everything. And the one thing that they brought out was that a number of orders were given to a company that they felt could not afford to buy the trucks. Well, listen, here's the thing. You know, you have the distribution under a curve, right? That's a lousy curve. Here's the median. Here's a left tail. Here's a right tail. This is not not going to not going to buy. This is buy, right? Okay, this is the median. Most of the people on this side are going to buy. The tail is definitely going to buy starts diminishing and most of the people here probably aren't going to buy and the tail is definitely not going to buy. Anyway, this is a normal distribution under a curve. You know, yeah, you're going to have cases in any data set that fall on the left tail. You know, how many standard deviations and all that? I forget my math, but the point is that's number one. Number two, this is a new technology. New technology never been an electric pickup truck before. Never been an electric fleet pickup truck before. Nobody ever tried to sell an electric fleet truck before. Who's to say who cannot pay or will not pay or will pay? What are they basing that on? Okay, I went through a lot of this stuff for some previous videos and there was one case in particular where there was a couple of guys that were going to start a leasing company and they were a startup and they were going to start a leasing company and they put in orders for a number of trucks and they said, well, it was kind of a letterhead business, but you know, a lot of these leasing companies, they never take physical ownership of the trucks. But the point is, so these guys, you know, these young guys are doing a startup, whatever, young girls, and they're going to order these trucks and they're going to get these orders from these fleets and they're going to be the middle man and they're going to take ownership or and lease them to the fleet so they can get the tax deduction for the expense and then they're going to depreciate them, right? And at the end of an auction month. All right, so they get the orders, comes time to do the deals, they go to the bank to go, here's the orders we got, here's the receivables we got based on these orders, you know, loan us some money based on these receivables, it's done all the time. So anyway, I'm a little more lenient on the whole orders thing. I don't think Steve Burns and he even mentioned himself, and I tried to look up some statistics on this, it can be difficult actually to break out fleet pickup trucks in and of themselves, although I may not have known what I was doing exactly, but because it's just kind of lumped together with these big trucks and so forth. But the other thing is, there are no stats on electric pickup trails, sales, absolutely none. So I would love to know what they based that judgment on. Anyway, the point is, and they pay people for leads, I went over that in another video, that's, you know, that's like paying a headhunter to find your new CEO, of course you're going to pay people to do searches for customers. Anyway, in my opinion. Anyway, that's all I got to say here. Let me see if I can get some more information on this. Okay, Lordstown Motors stops work on electric van to focus on pickup truck. I believe the EV startup said it was accelerating the development of the van in March. They were putting together the hard metal forms for the stamping in the conference column. They said that was part of the expense was running this up. Now here's the thing, Lordstown Motors has stopped work to aim all at the vehicle. I believe that the the starter previously announced the March of accelerating work on the van. But since then, see he burns and Rodriguez resigning after blah, blah, blah. The thing is, this, and I'm going to go through this on another video link video segment, but Burns has previously built a high talk RV to with 350 miles of range. First mass produced all electric RV. Here's the thing that will have to wait. Burns wanted to diversify the product line with this camper and he had entered into it. We'll go over this in a second, a partnership with Leotis and Leotis told him he could sell every camper that they made. And when I, when they say making a camper based on my personal experience, personal research, so forth on this, you can, you have to do your own duty. They're building a van. They're building a shell. They might put a special electrical system in it. That shell is then going to go to a third party and be fitted out as a camper. Okay. So what they're building is a van that's going to be turned into a camper, but they had entered into a joint partnership with joint venture with Leotis to build this thing. And they were also going to build at a later date, you know, these trailers like an air stream trailer. Well, you know, they have propane tanks on them. When you park them in a remote area, use the propane to power the stove and the heat or whatever. Burns wanted to build a battery pack and control system that would be put into the frame of these trailers that were going to be towed so that they would be powered by electricity. Okay. Rather than propane. And these were both, but I just want to say pickup truck. I did a video on this as well. Pickup trucks are pickup truck buyers or RV buyers.  It was a Ford Ranger, I believe. I'm not sure. It was a one ton truck. I think it was a 250. I'm not sure. Again, I'm not sure about anything anymore after the last video. Anyway, the point is, you know what it was called? It was called a camper special. Because Ford knows this. That was back in the day they were making camper specials. Okay. This is a big market. And it's a big market for pickup trucks. And they were going to sell the endurance pickup trucks. Camping World has locations in all 50 states. And they were going to use it to show them for the truck. And they were going to sell the truck there. And also this, they were pushing ahead on this camper van, which also would have delivery van things. Now here's the thing. They, let's say the CFO and Burns got this together and they were doing all this and they started doing this. And everything was hunky dory with the cat. And this is one of the scenarios I'm coming up with. Maybe you guys can tell me a better scenario in the comments. I don't know. Anyway, they were all hunky dory. They had the truck on track for production. And they were doing this van. They got the stamping presses together for it. They were going to and everything was working out. And then Hindenburg hit. And what Hindenburg did was it knocked the stock price down with this phony report. But that limited them in saving money. Or I'm sorry, issuing stock because, you know, they would only raise so much money issuing the stock at a lower price and so forth. But the point is, the thing that I think did them in, Burns and the CFO was, they had to bring the frame shop in house. Most of the auto manufacturers, according to my limited research and some comments also from some engineering people that commented on some videos I had made. It's a very exacting thing to build a frame for a vehicle. Most of the big auto manufacturers farm out their frame development. They don't do it in house. What happened with Burns, he said, and kind of mumbled under his voice when he was talking about this. Two of the suppliers they were working with dropped out. And the third one, jacked the price up through the roof that would, you know, just ruin their economics.  If they're working for Ford, these frame developers, okay. And Sandy Burns did a thing about this, about how car OEMs lean on these suppliers. You know, Ford is going to go to them, you want to sell two billion frames to us next year, whatever the number is, then you don't sell them to Lordstown. And then on the third one, they said, well, you know what, you raise the price. This is me. Okay. But I think this is realistically what could have happened. But anyway, bringing the frame shop in house seems to be the straw that broke the candles back with the budget. And then the Hindenburg report, which was a totally separate matter. I mean, I think they were totally on track. The Hindenburg report was just a distraction, really. But then they were in a position of raising money. Okay. And then dealing with all this SEC stuff and the rest of it. Who knows, maybe the SEC will find something. I don't think there's very much there. But anyway, this, that will have to wait while the startup focuses on surviving. We do have a prototype van completed. Ah, blah, blah, okay. So, but okay, later in December, but at this point, we are currently focused only on the endurance. President Rich Schmidt said during automotive event. Now the head of engineering and Schmidt both have made statements in other articles that I've read on this, but they are definitely not doing a camper. They are definitely not working with Camping World. Schmidt also said that a collaboration with RV company is on hold. Okay. Which is supposed to involve service centers that would support the van. Okay. They, here's one scenario. Okay. That's our goal for the next to make sure we hit our production charts and forward. Okay. The point is, they have aced out Camping World. And, you know, it makes me wonder if this, because, you know, I said in a previous video that Camping World was in a position to give them some financial support. I am wondering if Burns was going to announce some kind of financial deal over Lordstown Week. This is just a scenario. Put it out there. You guys tell me what you think in the comments. He was going to announce, because Leotis was supposed to be at Lordstown Week. Obviously, he is going to be there now. But anyway, the point is they were going to announce some type of financial deal, maybe during the Lordstown Week. And there was a revolt by the staff.  It was weird. It seems like maybe a mutiny. Schmidt and the head of engineering, both of those guys are arm in arm on this, along with the board member, the woman that is taking over, along with the COO that is taking over in the interim. So, they are all a lockstep on this. So, it looks like they turned on this whole idea of involving Camping World in the company for whatever reason.  And I think, you know, Leotis was going to give them some, perhaps some money. I don't know this. And they were going to do a public offering. But, you know, this would have given them more, a couple other income streams, you know, the van. And they could have sold the truck and the van. The van would have been through Camping World. And also they could sell the pickup truck through Camping World. It all seemed to make sense to me. As I said, RV owners or pickup truck owners, maybe they thought it would damage the brand. Maybe they just thought it wasn't feasible in the face of everything. Not being able to raise, maybe they didn't feel they could raise the money or maybe they got the word from whoever. But I think definitely this is an issue that took part of this. And the point is, the whole thing with Camping World, it's a big part of this. No one's coming out and saying it. But I have to get the juice. Anybody got any insight information out there? Let's have some comments. Let's find out what's going on. Anyway, that's my take on it. Okay, here's a piece from Green Car Reports on the Camping World Leotis CEO, their partnership. Anyway, Lordstown Endurance Electric Pickup Truck will spawn an electric RV project with Camping World. Okay. Anyway, announced a business relationship. Some of them call it a venture, a joint venture, you know, it's hard to say. Anyway, the point is, here's called a partnership includes initially plans to provide an integrated lift on for travel trailers that would eliminate the need for noisy standalone generators. And also Camping World was going to be a service and collision network for the endurance. And so you could see they were getting pretty integrated there. This is a big press event they had. I covered this in some of my other videos. There are two of them there. And anyway, the point is, that's what was going on. And this is what they are stopping. And you can see here's a Winnebago. Ooh, there we go. And then let's see here. We can get the, there's the endurance. So anyway, there's a Winnebago. I guess that's, and there's Leotis. And that's the Camping World CEO. And there's the endurance. Anyway, I've done another video on this. I suspect that Camping World might come in with some money for them or something else. But anyway, the point is, this I think is the wedge that drove Burns out. And I think that the CFO was, you know, sacrificial lamb. Anyway, I don't know, perhaps he and Burns were in on this together and they joined forces. This is what it seems like to me. Anyway, I don't know. I'm just trying to use some deductive reasoning here. Tell me what you think in the comments. But anyway, that's that. Okay, here's a little bit more background on Lordstown. This is a really recent article here. And I just wanted to point out a couple of things. Lord explains it has a lot of real orders too. And this is from June 16 21 at 8am. Talking about Steve Schmitt's orders, you know, we have enough for 21 and 22 we have 400k, they say 400k 500k left in cash. This is their estimate. 15 20,000 units, we can guess there must be at least 15,000 of those are for for firm orders. I don't know what that is. I remember when they first started, they said they had 30k firmer for firm orders, firm orders. Okay, so I don't know, maybe they're, you know, who knows what the SEC breathed down their neck. And again, this has never been built. This has never been sold. There's never been an electric pickup truck. Nobody knows. Nobody knows. Okay, the price is going to go up. And after a tax credit, it's going to be 47 50. Now it says here, go with the Ford f 150 lightning for 39 nine, which is 40k, which is less, you know, 70 $7500 less, or the cyber truck for 39 nine. Okay, these are not not the same vehicles. I'll just point out two things. Takes 10 hours to charge an f 150 on a on a 220 line. Okay, forever, you run this battery out during the work day, you're finished. Okay. And the cyber truck, this is the one motor thing, cyber truck, not not not all will drive. And this also is not real all four wheel drive as the endurance has. And also these two trucks, again, I'm going to bring this up. Neither one of them has a solid rear axle. I do not believe they can handle any real work situation without a solid rear axle. They got a suburban. It's essentially the same suspension they have in a suburban. Okay. I don't know. Anyway, they got 250 miles of range on the endurance 109 kilowatt battery. Here's the thing. AC charging 11 kilowatt onboard charge of 10 hours. Okay, AC DC fast charging 30 90 minutes. Okay. And towing capacity 7500 pounds. But the point is the real difference here is the battery efficiency and the curb weight, which is going to relate to wear and tear the Ford truck is very heavy. And also the charging times are better on the endurance. And I'm sure there's a lot of you out there that are better experts than me on the charging thing. I'm again, can't be bothered with those with the minutiae. All right. Anyway, I just wanted to bring that up. Okay. In a lot of my article videos, I talk about the risk profile, not risk management in accounting sense necessarily, but I'm talking about the personality of the person. I think that I did a little recruiting back in the day. Anyway, I think matching the risk profile of the candidate to the risk profile of the company is critical for the success of that person's career and for the success of that company anyway. And so I found the 16 personalities. I'm going to see if I could find a better example. But this is planning the risk by personality type. Okay. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you tend to take risks without thinking about the consequences. Probably not the best question to ask for our purposes here. But I just wanted to show you give you an idea of what I was talking about. I'm going to see if I can find a better example than this. Executives in a plain tone here are what? 30% of executives are high risk profile. Entrepreneurs almost 60%. Okay. These are rough percentages. My lines aren't that good. The point is Burns and Leotis, the head of Camping World, they have an entrepreneurial band. They have a much higher risk profile. They're shoot the moon, get out over your skis, crash and burn, make it to the moon or crash and burn kind of guys. The people that have taken over now, Schmidt, the head of engineering, I'm sorry, I forgot his name. I haven't looked in the background of the board member, but she's involved in fleet management. Anyway, I would categorize these guys more as more of the executive class, more conservative, definitely a lower risk profile. When you talk about Schmidt and the head of engineering, definitely less risk profile. And I don't want to be anti-feminists here or anti-women, but women tend to have a lower risk profile than men. It's just their personality types, I feel. I think that's borne out by research too. But the point is, what you've had here at Lord's Time is you've had a shift from the entrepreneurial spirit to a more conservative spirit. I'm just going to go out on a limb here. I'm going to say I think Burns and Leotis were going to do the dog and pony show and shoot the moon. I don't know. That's one scenario that could have been happening. And they were going to go for funding and do the whole enchilada. And the board, I think some of the top executives might have revolted against this. And this is my soap opera version. And gone to the board and the board decided these guys were out over their skis and they wanted to put the kibosh on the whole thing before Lord's Time. Anyway, so you've got lower risk now. Let me see. I wrote this down. Fortunes can favor the bold. I'll just tell you, I did a story and also, now they have this government advanced manufacturing techniques loan coming up that they're trying to get as well. And they might be doing housekeeping for that as well by pushing Burns out and the CFO and focusing the efforts and so forth. Now the thing is, and bringing in a professional manager, I just want to say I did a video on Abterra or it's actually a Terra is supposed to be pronounced, which is the three-wheeled vehicle, which I am a fan of, three-wheeled electric vehicle. Sandy Monroe is on board with that. But anyway, the point is the first iteration of Abterra was going for this loan as well. And Ford got billions in this. And this was under the Obama administration. Ford got billions. Tesla got half a billion. Okay. So Abterra was basing their whole emphasis on getting this loan, which Lord's Time may also be doing. And what they did was they brought in, you know, a professional manager from a CEO, executive from the auto industry. They forced out the founders. Again, and now here is the key we're going to watch for in Lord's Time. And this may have already happened. What happened to Abterra is they deviated from the vision of the founders. And they switched the course of the company to developing a four-wheeled vehicle. They felt that that would put them in better stead to get this loan. And basically, they did not go bankrupt. They liquidated. Okay. As you know, I've seen some YouTubers saying Lord's Time is going to go bankrupt. Lord's Time can't go bankrupt. It doesn't have any debt. Okay. Anyway, the point is Abterra followed the same. Now, you know, the question is, was Burns the one changing the role of the company? Or, and they're bringing it back to the original thought? Or I don't know. I think with a more varied income streams and better capacity utilization at the plant, you know, taking the competition to other sectors and not just in the pickup truck sector, you weigh that against, you know, the company going broke or whatever. So what do you do?  I don't know. You know, it is what it is. Steve Burns was a target of, you know, Jim Kramer and his ill. I don't know why there isn't a counterpoint to Jim Kramer. Why doesn't Jim Kramer, why isn't, why aren't his statements challenged? Why don't they have a counterpoint on that program? Why don't we say, Jim, I don't agree with you. Blah, blah, blah. No one ever counters anything he says. And you've got to realize that's NBC. Ford, for example, spends $2 billion on advertising. You get my drift. Anyway, I just wanted to go over this whole risk profile thing because I think I'm personally interested in it. But it just goes, you show you what the shift was. Okay. So you're going from some, from high risk, high risk tolerance, senior management to moderate risk or low risk senior management. So, you know, at what stage is this company? Does it, does it need a high risk manager? Or is it at the point now where they can take it down to a moderate risk manager? It's 10 months old. I don't know. Of course, it's been doing one year per month in development. Maybe we could say it's 10 years old. I don't know. Anyway, we are de-risking. And again, this is an accounting term. I'm not talking about accounting, although the CFO might have gone because he didn't report this risk too clearly to the board as well. But anyway, the point is they're de-risking and well, they're, they're going conserving, conserving cash and so forth. I think, like I said, Steve Burns wanted to shoot the moon and go for it all. And the board said we're not going to do that. You know, perhaps this is one scenario. We're going to go conservative. We're going to go for this loan. This is our best bet right now. We got 250 million or more on the line. And again, APTERRA did the same thing or ATERRA did the same thing, did not get the loan. Okay. Makes perfect sense for this company to get the loan. Will it? I don't know. In the last go around, they favored Ford. Ford's developing electric vehicles. If Ford's in it for this loan, anyway, that's just my two cents on that. Okay. I just wanted to go down the rabbit hole a little bit here. I want to talk about Smedley Butler. Has anyone ever heard of Smedley Butler? Smedley Butler was the, is one of the most decorated soldiers in American history. I think he won the Medal of Honor twice. He's fought in all kinds of wars. He fought in World War I. During the 30s, he was approached by a group of Wall Street bankers and prominent businessmen with a plot to overthrow the country. And I'm just going to give you a summary here. We'll go over some details in a minute. Anyway, they came to him. They said, you know, and he was well known as a standup guy and a war hero. And he fought for soldiers, pensions, and other things. And he was a really good, good dude.  And that was a lot of money back then to, or they wanted him to use his stature to organize a group of half a million veterans. And they wanted to oust FDR. And because they were, they were POed because FDR wanted to go off the gold standard. And because he was giving things to the poor people and giving people jobs, you know, and this is true. And this is all a true story. I advise you all to research this. And what Smedley did was he went along with them. And then until he got evidence and he brought someone with him, there's a whole story behind this. Then he went to Congress. And there were congressional hearings about this whole thing. And at the time, and up until recently, really, this, this was all considered a laughing stock. It was all made up and everything. As it says in this article in the 20th, in the recent century or so, secret files have come out that said this was all true. And the thing is, there is a number of Fortune 50, Fortune 100 companies behind this plot. There were many major Wall Street banks behind this plot. Basically, the same players that are, I feel behind a lot of this static that Lordstown Motors. So I'm just saying, if you don't think that Wall Street and corporate America can get behind an issue and throw their way to run, you're sadly mistaken. I've done a lot. You know, I was interested in this story years ago, and I found a lot of information at that time. And it was very easy to find the list of the companies that were involved and the individuals that were involved in this. I tried to find some for this piece last couple of days. I don't know where they went. It's almost as if they've been scrubbed from the internet. And I don't know if there's been, you know, lawsuits or cease and desist or what. Anyway, I will just go through this real quick 34 claim, blah, blah, blah, plot to overthrow President Franklin Roosevelt in favor of a fascist government. And that was in 34. They want to use Smedley Butler, most decorated hero of his time. I suspect the names like Grayson, God, I don't know who these people are, and Prescott Bush. I'm not going to mention that name too many times. And anyway, he was the eldest of a Quaker family. He joined the Marines when he was 16 years old. The Marines actually have a marching song. They sing to Smedley Butler, an ode to Smedley Butler. He was a soldier in the Boxer Rebellion when multiple medals of honor. Okay, here he is right here. Here's Smedley, a real stand up guy, and a good dude all around, a real hero, real patriot. Anyway, here's the business fly. Butler was approached by Bob Doyle. McGuire, a Bond salesman, and Doyle, members of the American Legion, blah, blah, blah. And they approached him with a million dollars to raise a half million man army. Prescott Bush, one of the men implicated. I'm not going to say that name again. Here's some talk about that. Part of from the gold standard and other concerns about FDR's policies, particularly his plan to provide subsidization and jobs for the poor. Okay, here's one of the one of the names mentioned here, an heir to the singer sowing fortune. And the only only way to save the country from FDR was a coup, military state run by former servicemen. And they gave Smedley Butler financing and an army of half a million men and financial backing from an assortment of rich businessmen. Okay, McGuire told friends, he believed the fascist state, this is the witness that Smedley brought to the meeting, one of the meetings. A fascist state was the only answer to America, and that Smedley was the ideal leader. You can organize one million men overnight. Okay, here's one of the guys that was involved, a partner with J.P. Morgan. Okay, quickly becoming known as the White House Coup and Wall Street Push, I don't know what that word is, I'm sorry. Those implicated ranging from the DuPont family to Prescott, I keep saying that name, laughed off Butler's claims and he was routinely laughed off as they blew this off as a big joke and it was all a figment. Okay, evidence of the validity of Butler's testimony was not released until the 21st century when the committee's papers were published in the public domain. No one was ever prosecuted in connection to the plot. But anyway, the point is, the reason I'm bringing this up is, you guys can do your own research and find out, I'm not going to put it on here, I don't want to deal with it. But anyway, these names are in the public domain and they say I can't find them, but find a copy of this report. Look and see what companies were involved, what Wall Street banks were involved. Now, what's the point of all this? You know, go down to rabbit hole. All I'm saying is, people want to get together that are in these power structures and they want to put pressure on a company or a person or a politician. If you don't think they can do it, they can do it. And in the case of Lordstown Motors, it's a threat to Ford, a major threat to Ford. And you know, that's a company that spends two billion dollars a year on an advertiser. So think about that.  Hey, this is MXUX. I hope you guys like going down to rabbit hole with me. Of course, there's the normal explanation of S&C investigation, short southern report, and mismanagement at the executive level. Anyway, give me your thoughts below. I think there might be a little bit of truth in this video. I want to apologize for last video, had some incorrect information in there. Anyway, I hope you guys like the video. Really curious of what your thoughts are. They're being a bit mysterious about everything. Maybe there's some S&C investigation we don't know about who knows. Anyway, this is just my channel too. Thanks for watching.