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Avoiding The Common Mistakes Newbies Make In Multifamily With Taylor Loht

 

Newbies in real estate tend to make mistakes in a lot of things. Although mistakes are possible, we can still correct them. What could these mistakes be? In this episode, Moneeka Sawyer welcomes Taylor Loht, host of the Passive Wealth Strategy Show, to discuss the common mistakes in multifamily you should avoid to help you build wealth. Inaction is the most common mistake newbies commit, but when you take action and commit to the process, the result of your efforts can be fruitful. Cultivate discipline in your life and move forward as you build wealth. Want to learn more? Tune up the volume and tune in to this conversation now.

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Avoiding The Common Mistakes Newbies Make In Multifamily With Taylor Loht

Real Estate Investing For Women

I am so excited to welcome to the show Taylor Loht. I had the pleasure of meeting Taylor. I was on his show. He was such a pleasure to talk to so I wanted to share him with you ladies. Taylor is a multifamily and self-storage real estate investor. He has acquired, partnered on, or had a hand in over $150 million in commercial real estate. He hosts the Passive Wealth Strategy Show, which I was on, which helps listeners escape the Wall Street casino and build wealth on Main Street by investing in real estate while avoiding the common newbie pitfalls. Taylor, it is so good to see you again. Welcome to the show.

It’s great to see you as well. Thanks for having me.

Could you give us a high-level version of what brought you to real estate? Give us your story.

I’ve done a lot of thinking about this and trying to be more self-aware of what happened and occurred. In 2015, I had been investing in Wall Street’s stuff for a while and doing pretty well because I got lucky when I started making money and we were in the market. 2015 brought new things. The price of oil fell from $110 or $120 a barrel down to $40 something over the course of that year. It took with it a lot of the stock market. We had a lot of stagnation and that got me questioning. I was like, “Maybe this isn’t the right way to build wealth in the long run.”

At that same time, I so happened to read Rich Dad Poor Dad. All those things factored in together and joined together and got me thinking there’s got to be a better way to build wealth. I started learning about real estate and hit the ground running I suppose. I was going to go get MBA and decided not to do that after reading Rich Dad Poor Dad and started investing in real estate. That’s the quick version.

Your story is so similar to mine. I got my degree, thought about getting an MBA, and decided instead to take that money and invest in real estate.

It’s tough to look at the MBA and think between the salary that I’m not earning and the cost to get the MBA. It’s going to cost me $300,000 to $400,000 to do this and then I’m going to have a big pile of debt and a job I don’t think I want to make more money. That didn’t feel right. Robert Kiyosaki showed me that my misgivings about that were right and I had to go another direction.

How long have you been investing in real estate?

I started investing in 2016 as a passive investor with the goal of getting more active in the space, scaling and growing. For me, it’s a little bit of a hockey stick type of thing. I’m a very introverted type of person naturally. You mentioned getting your first degree. My first degree is in Chemical Engineering. I’m a nerd. I didn’t spend my teens and twenties getting out there and socializing. I had friends and stuff, but I wasn’t like a big man on campus.

I had to go learn how to meet people at real estate networking events. I had to learn how to do things like what we’re doing now, doing a show, and speaking to all your awesome readers because this is not the type of thing that I naturally gravitate toward, but to get to where I wanted to go in life, I had to learn how to do these things. I had to learn how to build a level of comfort and confidence doing these things. That took time, but that’s okay as long as you’re working and moving forward then there’s nothing wrong with that.

I’m with you.  What is the biggest newbie mistake real estate investors make? Where do they go wrong?

When we’re talking about people who are new, they say may start going to real estate networking events and trying to figure out what’s out there and all these kinds of things, the biggest mistake is not taking action. Parenthetically thinking that education equals action. Education is great. I’ve spent a lot of money on real estate education more than I ever thought I would, but you have to turn that education into action. This includes me at the beginning because you don’t know exactly what to do when you’re getting started, so you don’t know which direction to go. You’re getting pulled by shiny objects or can’t pick a path and stick to it.

You have to turn that education into action and commit to the process. Share on X

When new real estate investors want to get started, they don’t know where to start. Maybe they go to a networking event, or they hear about a course that’s going great. Maybe they buy it or don’t, but either way, if they buy it, they might not stick to that. That might not hold them down the road. They might go buy the next program and then eventually give up because it doesn’t work. They might try for a month and then they don’t get a deal for a month. It took me years to get my first deal of continually working at it and growing. It’s taking action and committing to the process. Stumbling and falling on your face sometimes is part of the process. It’s something that most of us deal with at the beginning.

It is interesting because one of the real big tenets of this show is to take action. What I shared with one of my guests is to take mindful action. For me, action is about doing something. Education is an action, but you do have to go to the next step. Also, don’t get analysis paralysis. Go to that next step, commit to a strategy, and move forward towards actions toward that strategy. It’s all action, but it’s a matter of not getting stuck in any particular action either because there are other things.

For instance, if you want to do no money-down strategies, you’re looking for lease options and calling distressed sellers. Don’t get so caught up in the phone calls that you don’t close any deals. That’s also getting stuck. What happens is people buy a course and they’re like, “I’m going to learn all of these scripts by heart.” You have to make phone calls. When someone says, “Yes,” you have to follow up. Don’t like freak out and say, “I’m not going to call them back.” There are baby steps in that process. It starts with education, but then you got to keep moving forward.

Speaking of being on the phone with people, you have to get to the point where somebody yells at you and calls you a jerk because you’re trying to do this deal with them, and for whatever reason, it’s going to happen. I got over it. I’ve been yelled out of the phone by people a few times whose property I’m trying to buy, but it gives me pause. I’m a sensitive guy, but you got to make the next calls and move on to the next one and whatever those hurdles are that we have to get over.

I’m never going to poo-poo education. You have to apply it. Maybe you learn about wholesaling and you’re like, “I don’t want to be a real estate wholesaler.” I don’t want to be a real estate wholesaler either. There’s nothing wrong with being a wholesaler, but if that’s not your path, no problem. Find the path that is right for you, commit to it, and move forward.

How do you overcome the key limiting beliefs of new investors?

Do you mean on an individual level like my own limiting beliefs?

Yes.

My opinion is that’s a daily practice. That’s something that we, as individuals, have to work on. I’m realizing that 2015 was a very pivotable year for me. I had that shift in my way that I built wealth, but also, I started training in Brazilian jiujitsu and I still do at the end of 2022. I became a vegetarian in 2015 and I’m still a vegetarian. I’m marrying a vegan in 2023. I’m stuck on that path too. I’m perfectly happy with it.

In this realm, you have to constantly be challenging yourself in taking that next step. If you’d asked me in 2015 when I was brand new at jiujitsu and didn’t know anything, “Are you going to stick with it? Are you going to get to purple belt level?” which I am now, I would’ve said, “I’m not so sure,” because I had those limiting beliefs in my mind. Now, if you asked me if I’m going to keep progressing, absolutely. As long as I don’t get injured and can keep going and training, I’m going to keep pushing forward, but it’s only because I’ve continued to press through all of those various beliefs.

Now, I work with a lot of passive investors. The first couple of phone calls for example that I had with passive investors scared me, but you have to do it. There’s always the first one, whatever it is, like the first offer that you make, the first property you get under contract or the first investor who wires you money. “I have $100,000 of this guy’s money and I have to put that money ahead of my own. That’s scary,” but that first one is what gets you going and starts the fire.

If you’re familiar with this thing going around called 75 Hard and I don’t know if your readers have heard of that, but it’s put out by this guy named Andy Frisella. It’s about cultivating discipline in your own life. There are a few things that you’re required to do every day for 75 days. You’re required to follow a diet. He doesn’t tell you what one to follow. He says, “You got to pick it and stick to it.” You have to exercise twice a day. One of those exercises or workouts has to be outside. You have to drink a gallon of water a day.

There are a few other things you have to do. You have to take a cold shower every day for five minutes. I don’t like cold showers. The rest of the stuff I can handle. I still hate the cold showers. You also can’t drink if you like alcohol. I like whiskey but I’m not drinking it because I’m sticking to the program. If you miss one thing, you got to start back again on day one.

You also have to take a picture of yourself shirtless every day for 75 days. Those pictures of me are never going to see the light of day. My fiancé doesn’t see them. They’re only for me. I tried this program and I made it probably 3 or 4 days. I’m not sure exactly what I missed. Maybe it was a culture shower or something else, but I had a limiting belief when I got started about whether I could accomplish it.

I’m not at the end of the program now. The jury is out. I haven’t completed it, but I’m significantly further than I got last time. I didn’t have this same level of limiting beliefs about whether I could stick to my diet or work out twice a day and one of them outside. It’s hard to fit this stuff into your schedule. That’s a lot of time. The cold showers stink, but I can get it done and just don’t enjoy it.

It comes down to putting one foot in front of the other. If and when you “fail,” or if you don’t meet your own expectations which are most of the time because you didn’t take the right actions. We knew it at the time like you have an email to respond to from somebody or a call from a potential seller and you’re putting off calling them back. You need to take that action. Even if this deal that you’re working on doesn’t go anywhere, you need to have that process in your mind that mentality or mindset of, “I’m going to take the action on whatever this thing is,” and it comes down to cultivating that in your life as much as you can.

I love your whole attitude about possible failure. I like to call it more like trial and error rather than failure because failure feels bad. A lot of people are like, “Try is such a weak word like I’m going to try.” I don’t mean it that way. What I do mean is we set a goal and if we are not able to get to the very end of that goal to reach it, examining along the way with this beginner’s mind or gamer’s mind maybe what was it that I did wrong, was not committed to, or didn’t do right? How can I get better at this? I love the fact that you brought in something so personal because that’s where we practice. In business, we feel like the stakes are so high and they’re not higher than personal development.

For personal development, the results are significantly more impactful in your life but they don’t feel as scary necessarily as in business. I love that you’re practicing this ability to create goals, pursue those goals, reexamine where the errors happened, and pursue them again. There’s no real failure. There’s just evolution and success. I love the way that you did that.

We then can take those skills and move them into our business practices. When we’re on the phone with somebody else or taking somebody else’s money, it’s scarier, but you’ve started to develop that skillset required for having that gamer’s mind. “What is this adventure going to bring? How can I become a better person? How can I do this better?” I love the approach that you explained. We’ve never had anybody talk about this deep personal goal setting journey the way you did.

I’m glad to share what I’ve learned. I’ll be honest. I don’t mean to put myself as somebody who is super disciplined all the time. I’ll give you an example. I got injured in jiujitsu. I broke a couple of ribs or maybe severely dislocated them. I had a pretty bad rib injury. If you get a rib injury, you can’t breathe, pick stuff up, and do jiujitsu. I ended up taking a few months off of not training. When you have a rib injury, you can’t do anything. You can’t lift weights.

Eventually, I started doing some jump rope outside and trying to keep my cardio going, but it was hard. I was sitting around and can’t do my favorite thing, which is exercise in any way. My diet and mindset slipped a bit. I put on a little bit of weight. It’s only 5 or 6 pounds and I got it off now. I see life as a process of learning and continuously developing, and then seeing we’ve stumbled and trying to get ourselves back on track, not all at once, but day by day. “What are the steps that I can take to get myself back on the path where I want to be with whatever our goals in life are?”

That’s how life needs to work in order to be fulfilled and consistently learn, grow, and recognize that we’re not always going to perform to our best expectations. Things are going to come up in life, but when we can recognize that and say, “I’m not performing as well as I can. How can I get myself back on track?” That’s what it takes to grow over the long term and build wealth but grow as a person as well, which is more important.

We can mitigate risk as much as we can, but there’s always risk involved in putting yourself out there. People say that public speaking is one of most people’s most feared activities. You’re more afraid of public speaking than you are of dying. Jerry Seinfeld has a good joke about this. You’d rather be the guy in the casket than the one giving the eulogy. That’s not something that I want to do.

When I was a kid growing up and I had to speak in front of the class, I hated it. I didn’t even get any joy out of that, but to get where I want to be, I have to learn how to work through that. Truthfully, I don’t enjoy it but it’s “easier.” It’s less mentally taxing when you can focus on providing value to the audience. My method when I have to do public speaking is to practice until I’m not worried about what I’m going to say and that’s focused on providing value to the audience. The process is getting over our fears progressively. However, it applies to our real estate investing. It’s just huge. Fear is a limiting belief. I’m dealing with them.

You mentioned that you’re an introvert and that you’ve had to develop skills to have that not be negative. I am an introvert too. Nobody ever believes me when I say that, but I’m not a very outgoing person. I was at a big real estate event down in Southern California and I realized there were so many missed opportunities there because I sat with my friends whom I wanted to connect with. That, to me, is what fills me up. It’s these real conversations with people that I care about and want to get to know more. I’m not the person that’s a good networker so there were so many missed opportunities.

However, it was the thing that made it even possible for me to be there because I decided I was going to meet 2 or 3 new people and the people that I was going there with I didn’t know them well so I could build those relationships deeper. I’m all about deep relationships. I am not the best networker and I do terrible in groups. If I’m in a room of a lot of people, I completely shrivel up. Those are characteristics of an introvert and it has never held me back. I’d love to hear your perspective on that because you’re the same way. We don’t hear a lot of that in this real estate world, right?

That’s true. We don’t hear people talking about it because, in many ways, people perceive it. This is maybe changing society, but people perceive introversion as being antisocial or generally less good at business or an investor because you don’t get energy out of networking with 50 people at a networking event. I don’t particularly enjoy that myself, but if you can focus on what you are good at and sometimes you have to do things that you don’t like to do. That’s true, at least for me.

Sometimes you got to get out there, network, and deal with it in your own way or whatever makes sense for you. For myself, if I am at a real estate networking event, particularly a big conference, after talking and trying to build connections with people, I have to step away for a little while and take 5, 10, 15 minutes, or however long to get myself back centered and trying to regain some energy whatever it is. I got to check out for a few minutes. Maybe I’ll take some time to digitize some business cards or be productive with that time checked away so that I can come back to the event with the energy that I need to have. I’m not going to be there forever. These events are typically 2 days or sometimes 3 days. I can deal with it for that long.

Sometimes you got to get out there, network, and deal with it in your own way or whatever makes sense for you. Share on X

My fiancé and I have known each other for a few years before we went on our first date. We met in jiujitsu. She started not too long after I did. We knew each other at the name level. That’s how I pretty much used to know everybody at jiujitsu. I’ve changed that over time as I’ve worked this muscle of building connections with people and I’ve seen that as a valuable muscle. It’s great to get to know people. Years ago, we went on our first date. She asked me out and we connected. We learned how much we have in common and get to know each other on a deeper level.

It went from there. We’re great and very happy, but at that point, we’d probably known each other for a few years where we’d seen each other 3 or 4 times a week for years, but my natural tendency is not to strike up conversations, especially with women at the gym. That’s not who I am. Again, she asked me out. I wasn’t asking about women at the gym. That’s my natural tendency. I’m not there to meet people. I’m there to exercise and get to know this sport. Now, I see the value in the real estate world when I’m there. That’s how I’ve built a lot of connections with many of my investors.

What I’m getting at is that we can succeed in real estate too. There’s more understanding of that and growth in the culture. There are more knowledge bases and strategies out there available to learn from. There are quite a few very good guides for introverted real estate investors to build connections at real estate networking events that are out there.

I’ve had one gentleman in particular on my show in the past that trains introverts on how to succeed in networking and sales with an angle into real estate investing. His name is Matthew Pollard. I got to recommend checking out his content. I’ve got a few of his books on my phone, but suffice it to say that it can be done for those of us who are introverts. We just have to use strategies that work for us in whatever our particular real estate investing niche is. You can find a way.

One of the things about creating a blissful real estate business is to build that business based on your strengths and who you are rather than trying to fight who you are and try to be something that you’re not and build a business on that because it’s not sustainable. We do grow, but you don’t want it to be so painful that it stops you.

I say frequently on this show, there are 1 million ways to make $1 million dollars in real estate and pick one that’s aligned with your strengths, and it’s not dependent on the things that you’re weak on. If I’m weak in networking, I don’t want to build a business that’s completely dependent on networking. It doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t grow that skill, I shouldn’t network, or I shouldn’t push myself, but I don’t want my business to be completely dependent on that until I build some confidence there.

Build a different business, at least to start, and it’s possible. There are so many ways to make money in real estate being an introvert. You don’t have to be what people perceive as what real estate success looks like. I love having this conversation because many of my readers must be introverts and think, “I can’t network,” but you can. It’ll be a skill that you need to develop, but you don’t have to start your business and be completely dependent on that. Pick something else. There are many different strategies.

I totally agree. We can do it. You need to find the route that works for you, build, and learn over time.

 

Taylor, could you tell everybody how they can reach you? I know you’ve got an awesome free gift.

My show, Passive Wealth Strategy Show which you’ve been on, and thank you for coming on, is where we teach our listeners how to escape the Wall Street casino and build wealth on Main Street by investing in real estate. We have new episodes every Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. We also have a free video course on red flags in Passive Real Estate Investing. I invest and do multifamily and self-storage syndications and actively raise money for these deals from passive investors.

I get a lot of questions from passive investors about good things to look for in a syndication. We made the video course of seven things that I’ve seen go wrong in many deals across the board. You spend enough time networking and getting to know people one-on-one in private non-recorded conversations, people will tell you so much. You ask them and let them run. They’ll tell you so much about what went wrong with their deals. When you spend several years in the business as I’ve had and hopefully many more, you start to see some trends and things that can go wrong. You can get that course at PassiveRealEstateCourse.com. It’s totally free. My company is NT Capital at NTCapitalGroup.com. You can look us up there as well.

I am intrigued by the idea of the red flags. You said that there are seven, could we do a deep dive for maybe 1 or 2 on what you’ve learned about them in EXTRA? Would that work for you?

That would be great.

We’ll do a deep dive into 1 or 2 red flags that you should be looking for when you’re looking at investing with a syndicator. I want to highlight that Taylor is a syndicator. He is looking for investors. If you like what he has to say, reach out to him regarding that also. Taylor, are you ready for our three rapid-fire questions?

Let’s go.

Give us one super tip for getting started in real estate investing.

Know your why. Why are you here? What are you committed to achieving? Not, “I want to go buy real estate. I want to go build cashflow.” Those are great and we’ll get there, but start with the deep reason you’re here. Is it that you want to create a retirement for yourself or fuel your own retirement? Is that you want to send your kids to college? Is that you want to be prepared as your parents get older and have the finances to make sure you can take care of them? Whatever it is for you or you want to travel more.

I’m not here to tell you what your goal should be, I’m here to tell you that you should know what it is because it’s going to help push you through tough times. When you get on the phone with somebody and they don’t want to talk to you telling you how much of a jerk you are, that why is going to help you make the next phone call.

What is one strategy for being successful as a real estate investor?

It comes down to every day. A lot of people talk about having morning practice in your life. It’s every day thinking about your goals. Honestly, one of the best tools that I got from a coach who I paid a lot of money to give me this tool, but this is a free thing you can find on YouTube. Go look up Earl Nightingale’s The Strangest Secret. It’s awesome. I listen to it all the time over and over again. It comes down to our lives and experiences. Our success is shaped by the thoughts in our heads.

Are we having positive thoughts? Are we having negative thoughts? If we always focus on the bad things, then we’re only going to notice the bad things and the negative. If we focus on the positive, the good things, the opportunity, and what we can go out and achieve, then we’re more likely going to go do it and achieve those things. I recommend looking that up and listening to it.

 

What is one daily practice that you do that you would say contributes to your personal success?

For several years, I’ve done intermittent fasting every day. I’ll be honest, it’s come and gone in my life as life gets in the way sometimes. Here and there, I fall off the track, whenever something happens. I’ve been sticking with 16/8, so that’s 16 hours I don’t eat anything, but I drink coffee and water and I only eat meals 8 hours a day. I’m not here to say that’s right for anybody else, but there’s something to it that helps me focus on my goals.

I did a phase where I was eating one meal a day after I get home from jiujitsu. I hadn’t eaten anything for 22 to 23 hours. I go do an hour of jiujitsu, get home, and be so hungry, but the first meal was so good. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend that. I’m not doing that right now, but thinking about that every day helps me eat healthily. As I said, I’m a vegetarian, but there’s a lot of crappy vegetarian food out there just because I’m a vegetarian doesn’t mean I only eat vegetables. I don’t all the time, but doing that every day helps me. Plus, I’m in my 30s. I’m getting older.

I also like listening to Tony Robbins. Somebody who’s healthy has 1 million goals. Somebody who’s unhealthy, sick, or has few months left to live, they have one goal. If we can focus on keeping ourselves healthy, we can keep going after those million goals. As I said, I’m in my 30s. My grandfather who I’m told I’m the spitting resemblance of and whom never got to meet died in his 50s. I’m thinking, “If I’m following his track, that means I’m over halfway done. I got to take care of myself.” I’m sticking with it, but that’s super important. It all starts with taking care of your body.

If we can focus on keeping ourselves healthy, we can keep going after those million goals. Share on X

I love that. Thank you for all that you’ve offered on this portion of the show, Taylor.

Thank you for having me.

Ladies, stay tuned. We’re going to be talking about passive investing red flags in EXTRA. If you are subscribed to EXTRA, stay tuned. If you’re not, go to RealEstateInvestingForWomenEXTRA.com and you can sign up there. For those of you that are leaving Taylor and I, thank you so much for joining us for this portion of the show. I look forward to seeing you next time and until then, remember, goals without action are dreams. Get out there, take action, and create the life your heart deeply desires. I’ll see you soon.

 

Important Links

• Passive Wealth Strategy Show
• Rich Dad Poor Dad
• 75 Hard
• Matthew Pollard – Past Episode of Passive Wealth Strategy Show
• PassiveRealEstateCourse.com
• NTCapitalGroup.com
• RealEstateInvestingForWomenEXTRA.com

 

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To listen to the EXTRA portion of this show go to RealEstateInvestingForWomenExtra.com

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