From Single-Family to Commercial: Matt Aitchison’s Journey

Mike Hambright (00:00.802)
Hey everybody, welcome back to the show. Today I’ve got an old friend, Matt Atchison is joining us here. was on the podcast a long time ago and I’ve been following you for years on social media and kind of following along a little bit. So it’d be great to catch up. But he transitioned from single family into commercial and does hotels and strip centers, shopping centers, all sorts of other things that we’re going to talk about today, making that transition from single family investing into commercial. So Matt, hey, great to see you again.

Matt Aitchison (00:26.846)
Mike, always good to catch up, brother.

Mike Hambright (00:29.026)
Yeah, it’s been a while.

Matt Aitchison (00:31.144)
It has. Yeah. know last time you and I were heavy in scaling, you know, flipping and the single family portfolio. It’s been awesome to see you not only scale, you know, the community and the value you’ve been bringing to, you know, the single family space for so long, but seeing you also continue yourself to evolve and expand and grow into, you know, big multifamily deals. It’s always fun just seeing people’s journey, you know, evolve over time. And when you get around great people that are, you know, constantly

Mike Hambright (00:57.058)
Yeah.

Matt Aitchison (01:01.057)
challenging and inspiring one another along the way it’s really fun to see what you know comes to fruition over time.

Mike Hambright (01:06.028)
Yeah, that’s how it works. And it’s interesting too, because we, a lot of people have this badge of honor of, you know, being a wholesaler or a fix and flipper or whatever. And the reality is, is I kind of say, you know, most of us are in the opportunity business. Like we’re looking for opportunities to create wealth and create more freedom in our lives. And, and I think you clearly before I did transitioned into more commercial type stuff, more, I do more apartments, but is you kind of realize that sometimes you’re limited by,

what you can do only by your imagination, like what’s possible, right? And so I know I made the transition, we have a nice single family portfolio and then somewhere along the lines I was like, man, how are we gonna 10X this, buying them one at a time? And it was like, okay, we just need to do bigger deals that have more zeros behind them. And I’m sure that that has something to do with why you made the transition as well. But tell us a little bit about your story.

Matt Aitchison (02:00.948)
Yeah, I I got into…

single-family real estate or just the real estate industry. Back in 2010, I graduated school, had this nice expensive piece of paper. I was interviewing at like $30,000, $40,000 a year jobs. I was like, I don’t know if that’s going to get me where I want to go. And so I was doing my kind of career hit list of all the things that I wanted. One of those boxes that I wanted to check off was to be able to build wealth, not just generate income. And so I just kept coming back to real estate. My mom was dragging me to real estate conferences. Both my parents, Corporate America, I was the first entrepreneur

and my family. And my mom was dragging me to these real estate investing seminars back in, you know, 2002 and 2003. I was in my teens. And that kind of laid dormant, but it did light a fire in me, you know, early on.

And so when I came back, going through those interviews, I wasn’t seeing anything that I liked, ended up finding an ad on Craigslist, if you can believe it. Real estate mentor seeks real estate mentee. Little did I know that means come do a lot of work for free in exchange of an education and hopefully some proximity to people that are doing what you want to do. So I worked for a guy for free for about 12 months. This was in 2010, post financial crisis, a lot of foreclosures in Northern California.

Mike Hambright (03:01.4)
Yeah.

Matt Aitchison (03:20.834)
He was buying a ton of houses off the courthouse steps. was project managing. I was dysponem. And just by being a part of that process, though, I started to build some confidence and things started to slow down for me. And I really started to believe that I can go and do this. So that led me to buy my first flip when I was 21. I netted $106,000. It was the cat lady house in the whole neighborhood. There was over 100 stray cats in that home. We found two dead raccoons in the house. That’s how much trash there was. It was wild.

Mike Hambright (03:49.565)
wow.

Matt Aitchison (03:50.706)
But that really was my light bulb moment of real estate investing is gonna be the path for me. And obviously that journey has evolved over time from wholesaling and flipping houses to, hey, I think I need to generate some passive income. So I started flipping less, flip two, hold one, flip two, hold one, and I started building a little single family portfolio. And then as time went on and you’re managing a lot of projects and doors and tenants, and I saw

much I was you know making per door which was I think like 220 a door something like that per month I was like man I’m gonna need to really grow this this portfolio to a pretty big scale if I’m gonna get to my passive income goals which was a half a million dollars a year in passive income so that really is what kind of

took me back to the drawing table and got me thinking about a better way, maybe a smarter, more efficient way of getting there. And that really led me into the world of commercial, which honestly, I had always somewhat been attracted to. I’d always wanted to own a big building in a downtown area or a restaurant that one of my favorite businesses operates out of. But it felt too complicated. It felt too expensive. And little did I know, it was a lot easier.

Mike Hambright (04:48.227)
Yeah.

Matt Aitchison (05:10.306)
than most people would make you think it is. And that’s, know, as you have the investor fuel community and you get to create spaces that amazing people come and collaborate and share and inspire and challenge one another, you know, getting in other spaces like that in the commercial world really allowed me to kind of take that leap. And I bought my first shopping center and then I bought my first medical office building, then I bought my first hotel and my second, my third. And, you know, you get to start playing the real life game.

of Monopoly, has been fun. And it’s been something that gives me the ability to really exercise my creativity in a lot of different ways that I really didn’t imagine. And the journey continues to evolve.

Mike Hambright (05:52.108)
Yeah, yeah, that’s awesome. You know, when you’re in single family, commercial or commercial type deals seem like this.

mysterious land that’s like, you just can’t figure it out. But the truth is, mean, even when I pivoted into large multifamily, you I just partnered with people that knew what they were doing. I mean, at the end of the day, like, I was like, I don’t need to go learn all this stuff on my own the same way that, you know, I’ve done a lot of coaching and stuff in single family. like, it’s not as hard as you think. So let me help you get over that mental block of, I mean, that’s the hardest part when you get started with any of these things is like.

Is it possible? And then when you surround yourself with people or your partner with people that are doing it, you’re like, well, of course it’s possible they’re doing it. And now I just need to learn some of the nuts and bolts, right?

Matt Aitchison (06:34.08)
1000%. I mean, one of the easiest ways I tell people to get into a deal and mitigate as much of your risk along the way is just find a great deal and just bring it to somebody else who’s experienced, has the capital, has the team, has the network, all of the missing things that you think are mental or physical hurdles that you can’t get over to get in. Just go find somebody that can immediately mitigate all of those concerns. Just take them off your plate. And you just focus on finding a great deal. And focus on being willing.

Mike Hambright (07:02.893)
Right.

Matt Aitchison (07:04.074)
to add as much value to that person as possible once you bring that great deal. My first mentor always told me is like, don’t worry about all the other stuff. Because just like commercial, right, feels daunting for some people. I remember the first time, you know, I was trying to figure out how to flip or engineer my first rental deal. And that felt daunting, right? So it’s, you know, it’s just sitting down to another game and learning the rules and learning the strategies and how do I play this. And by the fourth, fifth, sixth time you play that game, you understand.

Mike Hambright (07:22.38)
Right.

Matt Aitchison (07:33.906)
somewhat at a high level how to you know do it and not lose. One of the best ways to ensure that you win is to bring a great deal to somebody and let them you know kind of take the lead on it and you get to participate, tap into their network, their experience and at the same time I always say it’s better to own a slice of a watermelon than a hundred percent of nothing or a little raisin right and so you know that’s one of the easiest ways to get into the game is you find a great deal the money will follow. Don’t worry about that just go and figure out

Mike Hambright (07:56.085)
Yeah, yeah.

Matt Aitchison (08:03.86)
the mechanics of what a good deal looks like. So that’s really what I focused on in the beginning myself was what’s a great deal look like. I figured that out in the single family space. I can figure it out in commercial and that’s really what led me to my first deal.

Mike Hambright (08:19.096)
That’s awesome.

So I want to go back for a second. you said something interesting upfront that you went to work for somebody for free and I’ve had this conversation. I have a son that’s 17 and I think, you know, we talk about like where he’s going from here. Right. And I talk, I think about it with other people too, is there’s a lot of people that get into real estate and they want to get rich on their first deal. Right. They just like, I’m all in, I don’t want to split it with anybody or whatever. And then maybe they don’t even do a deal. Right. Cause they just are, they’re not willing.

to collaborate and I’ve kind of been using this I guess phrase or comment lately of like don’t try to get rich on your first deal try to learn right and not that you shouldn’t make money you should make money but I feel like the types of opportunities that are out there to partner with people and do a few deals and kind of learn because you learn the learning curve is very steep right like you learn really fast and a bunch of stuff that you thought was hard isn’t that hard it’s not like it’s like riding a bike like I don’t really ride a bike that often but if I got on one right now after years of

not writing one I’d have no problem because once you learn it’s you’ve got that information right but maybe share your thoughts obviously I know that you’re an advocate for that because everything we just said but talk about the mindset shift that people maybe need to make to say just collaborate with others partner with others on a few it’s almost like being an apprentice right it’s like learn the trade before you go out on your own so maybe share your thoughts on that

Matt Aitchison (09:44.286)
Yeah, I mean…

Especially in commercial, it’s a team sport. It really is. mean, yeah, there are the GPs and the sponsors of the deals. But again, a general partnership can be three or four people. It could be six people. mean, there’s so many different. That’s the beauty of commercial real estate is the way that you can really get so many different puzzle pieces to fit together to achieve a shared goal. It really is a team sport. And so the way I look at that is, you know,

Mike Hambright (09:48.716)
Yeah, yeah.

Matt Aitchison (10:15.392)
If I’m truly because I always tell people you know this is something that I have subscribed to this mindset from day one when I was 21 I said I’m gonna be somebody that thinks with a crock-pot mindset versus a microwave mindset because a lot of people come into the space with you know expectations that and I did too I was like after I got my first deal done I’m like man I’m gonna be riding in a private jet you know all over the country anytime I want I’m gonna be crazy rich and then the reality of

of life and challenges of being an entrepreneur, business owner, and investor sets in and you realize like, whoa, okay, this is a process. And if I’m truly committed to the outcome that I believe this process.

will lead me to, then I have to be committed to the timeline that this process requires. And when we talk about real estate investing as crazy as some of the best marketers would have you think, it’s a get rich quick industry. It’s a get rich slow industry that gives you the ability over time to create rivers of cash flow with some injections of piles of cash along the way. And so if you do that right,

you surround yourself with the right people, you learn at the highest level. Because my thing was I was never the fastest, smartest, or strongest guy. I don’t know about our listeners, right? But for me, I just knew that about myself. But what I did know is that I was good at building relationships. I was an extremely hard worker. I could stay humble along the way. And I could find the way to bring value to others. And with that recipe in my mind, I felt like that was going to give me the best chance to get around the smartest people who

who were faster, stronger, wiser than me in these particular categories that I was trying to succeed in. And so when it came to commercial real estate investing, that was my same mindset of going, I’m gonna be doing this for the next 30, 40, 50 years, because I truly am committed to this being a vehicle that I need to master and I’m gonna leverage to build wealth for me, to unlock the lifestyle I want, to make a difference in my community and other people’s lives, to pass this onto my kids hopefully,

Matt Aitchison (12:23.274)
one day and build some generational wealth. So if I truly am committed with that mindset, then one deal is going to be a drop in the bucket.

Therefore, what I should be doing on this one deal is trying to extract as much value, as many skills, as best of a network, build as much trust and reputation in the process, and parlay that into the next one. And then parlay all of those same things that are gonna compound into the third and the fourth. And so that was always my mindset of going, if you truly do believe that this is gonna be a long-term path and vehicle for you, then you’re not gonna try and make all your money.

on that one deal, you’re gonna think about the lifetime value of those relationships on who you’re gonna be doing that deal with. The lifetime value of the experience and the knowledge and the skills you’re gonna gain that you’re gonna use for the next 20, 30, 40 years. And so that’s what I always encourage people when they’re first coming in is going, you don’t need to hit a, if you hit a home run or a grand slam on your first one, which is possible by the way, it’s not common, but it’s possible,

Mike Hambright (13:28.236)
Right. Right.

Matt Aitchison (13:29.94)
Good for you, that’s amazing. But even if you came in and you only hit a single, that’s fine too. Because the more at bats you get…

the more you get to give yourself an opportunity to get up on base, many singles lead to putting points up on the board. So that’s where I think a lot of people get a little too excited about their first deal and feeling like they need to control it when really what you need to do is humble yourself and surround yourself with the people that are smarter, wiser, and stronger, and faster in all the areas that you’re not, and just take a back seat and be 100 % committed to being a student in that process.

learning and growing and you’ll see things that you’re gonna carry forward. You’re gonna probably see things that you’re gonna say, I’m gonna do that differently. But you wanna be in proximity and through that process of osmosis, give yourself the opportunity to actually grow as an investor. And oftentimes too many people cut out that chance or opportunity for themselves because they’re trying to control more of the deal or to keep it all for themselves. And hence that analogy. I’d much rather own a slice of a watermelon. Watermelon meaning the continuity of that relationship.

and the opportunities that are gonna come beyond that, that you’re gonna parlay your skills, your deals, the capital, other things into, versus just being like, I’m gonna control this whole thing, but then what’s next, right?

Mike Hambright (14:53.196)
The deals often fall apart, right? So it’s interesting, great stuff there, my friend. So one thing that I’ve experienced is when people get really lucky on their first deal, that ends up being a bad thing because you have to learn, right? You have to kind of overcome some obstacles. And if you start to think it’s easy, then it’s not easy. And you have a harder time coming back from an easy deal and then you get…

your butt whooped on the second one or the third one. know, it’s like it’s almost better to ease into it. mean, everybody wants to make a bunch of money and you would never say no, I don’t. I don’t want to get lucky on my first deal. But when you do just know that if somebody is telling you that you got lucky like, you know, be prepared that this next one’s not going to be as easy as that.

Matt Aitchison (15:35.774)
I’m still trying to find an easy deal, Mike. So when you find one, brother, you let me know. It’s like, you know, and that’s…

Mike Hambright (15:38.062)
Yeah, right.

Matt Aitchison (15:42.176)
We always say every real estate deal is an ordeal. There’s always stuff that comes up. There’s always curve balls, always challenges, always times that test you. There’s gonna be days where you’re, there’s certain days I leave the office and I’m like, why the hell am I a real estate investor? I am just stressing my, and then there are other days you’re like, man, I am so glad I’m a real estate investor. I can’t imagine doing any, and that’s with anything, right? A good friend of mine, Cody Sanchez, she always says, choose your hard. Being rich is hard, so is being poor.

Mike Hambright (15:49.976)
No doubt.

Mike Hambright (16:02.349)
Yeah.

Matt Aitchison (16:12.14)
multifamily deals can be hard, so can shopping centers. Doing single family flips can be hard, so can wholesales. You can choose your heart and understand that this industry, this space, it’s challenging. It’s not for the faint of heart. while the outcomes that many people see are what are sexy and what are attractive and what pull people into the space, one of the ways to make…

the unsexy life of being a real estate investor, more sexy is to do it with great people that can mitigate your risk, that can accelerate you getting better results, that can just be more fun being in the trenches, working and grinding and stressing with other people that you know can relate and are gonna be kind of, call relationships, the right relationships in real estate and just in life in general, I call them are my metaphorical bumpers to my bowling lane of life or bowling lane of business.

investing, they make sure that I don’t bowl gutter balls. I may not hit strikes and spares every single time, you know, I throw that ball down the lane, but I can guarantee that if I got the right people around me, they’ll make sure that I’m not putting zeros up on the board too. And so that’s really what’s important, you know, going back to the number one rule of investing, don’t lose money, rule number two, see rule number one, right? And some of the best ways that you can ensure you don’t lose money and just stay in the game, because that’s half the battle.

Mike Hambright (17:28.899)
Yeah

Matt Aitchison (17:35.034)
in real estate, right? Is just not getting knocked out of the game and having to start back at zero. If you can weather the storms that come with real estate, which we all know many of them are going to be out of your control. Maybe some of them are going to be self-created or in your control, but have to do with lack of experience or other things. You just want to make sure you’re not getting knocked out of the game, right? So like I just want to make sure I still have a seat at the table. And one of the best ways that you can do that, especially when you’re beginning is just one, have a mindset that, hey, this is a lifetime

value of an experience here. So I gotta think way beyond just this one deal and make sure that I’m negotiating way beyond just this one deal, that I’m showing humility way beyond just this one deal, right? So thinking about the timeline that you’re playing this game on and then too who you’re playing it with. Those are two really easy key things that we can be in control of that can significantly increase your probability of success as a real estate investor.

Mike Hambright (18:29.718)
Yeah, good stuff, man. So let’s talk about making that transition. So people are in single family and you’ve got the train is moving down the tracks, right? And you got to make this transition over to another set of tracks. So there’s probably no perfect way. There’s a lot of ways to do this, but let’s talk about how to make that transition. If you’re an active single family investor and you want to move over into commercial and I know one of the answers right now is partner with people that are carrying a lot of the weight because

you know you don’t have to do it all on your own we just talked about that but what are some other things that you need to think about when making that transition I mean and I want to get into asset classes a little bit too because we say commercial there’s a lot of different asset classes within commercial but just share your thoughts on like how maybe even show little about how you did it and how you would do it differently I guess

Matt Aitchison (19:08.724)
Yeah. Right.

Matt Aitchison (19:17.912)
Yeah, mean, commercial real estate is a much slower burn than, you know, single family real estate, the velocity at which things move are a lot slower. So thinking about that and keeping that in perspective as you’re making that transition, I was still flipping houses and making sure that I had, you know, some, some income rolling in vertically as well as passively, you know, before I really decided to be like, I’m all in on commercial real estate. So I think, you know, I call it my swan effect, sleep well at night. Like what is your swan

number that you need in terms of reserves, whether that’s for business accounts, your personal life account, that just gives you the ability to say, hey, if I didn’t do a deal for 12 months or for six months, however long you feel like you need that amount of runway and reserve capital, get that short up first. Because we all know the amount of mental real estate and calories that are burned when you’re stressing out financially, and that’s really going to prevent you from starting in a place of abundance and having a proper footing to leap into the space.

So get your swan number figured out first. Once you got that figured out, right, I always tell people there are so many different things. You know, we talk a lot about this in my mastermind is, you know, so many different things you feel like you need to focus on and learn and master before you can jump in and take that, you know, that first swing at the plate, right? And I always say the two easy things that…

you know, you really need to learn skill wise and commercial real estate is what is a good deal look like?

and how do you engineer that deal? How do you structure that deal? If you can do those things, if you can find a really great deal and figure out how to structure it, every other domino behind that, you can figure out. And those are the things that if you just focus on those two things first, that leads to looking at a lot of deals, right? Just getting repetition. Repetition is the mother of all success. Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hours of mastery. Just get in and get reps. I always kind of say it’s like,

Matt Aitchison (21:18.402)
you know, single family real estate.

you know, we’ll just call real estate investing, whether it’s single family or commercial as a chessboard metaphorically. The first time I sat down to the metaphorical chessboard of single family flipping, I was really confused. I had an idea of, hey, I buy here, I sell here and I make a profit in the middle, right? So that’s something that makes sense to me, but you don’t realize every strategy, every nuance that goes into flipping. By the 10th or 15th flip, I thought,

Mike Hambright (21:48.27)
Yeah.

Matt Aitchison (21:51.386)
lot more comfortable. Things were a lot slower to me. was connecting a lot more dots. I had more confidence. I had more relationships and resources, right? And it’s the same thing in commercial. You sitting down to the chessboard of commercial, just like the first time I sat down there, I’m like, okay, I think I understand how these pieces move on the board. And, you know, I understand the strategy a little bit, but by the time I played that game 50 times, I understood how to win the chess game in a much more strategic and qualified and risk-free

mitigated manner than I did the first time I sat down. think of this game as, you know, a chess board and you’re just learning new pieces. And the only way that you’re going to start getting comfortable of how this game of commercial works is by getting in the game. And that doesn’t mean you have to do a deal. That just means by getting into conversations, maybe you join a mastermind group or you join a Facebook group or you start listening to podcasts, you start looking at deals on Craxi or Loopnet or CoStar, and you just start

Mike Hambright (22:24.462)
Yeah, that’s awesome.

Matt Aitchison (22:51.122)
getting reps by getting in the trenches, rolling up your sleeves, looking at deals, know, asking questions, getting around other people that are doing these things, and the game is going to start to slow down for you a little bit. So those are some of the simple ways that are easy for people to kind of wrap their head around and go, okay, cool, I can set up searches on these platforms and start looking at deals that I think I might like. By the, you know, 10th deal, you’re probably not gonna know what a great deal is. You look at a thousand deals, I guarantee

you there’s gonna be outliers that stand out to you and as you go through that process and down those rabbit holes of learning if it is a deal or not a deal right you’re gonna start to put more tools on your tool belt you’re gonna start to feel more confident you’re gonna start to build out new relationships because you’re gonna be talking to a lot of different people and that’s the best way right is just to get in the ecosystem and start to understand what that board game you know landscape looks like and then you can start to figure out how to play it to the level of which you need to play it

to achieve the goals that you’re looking to achieve by whenever you want to achieve those by.

Mike Hambright (23:55.512)
Yeah, that’s awesome. That’s awesome. Let’s talk a little bit about asset classes. I know you invest in hotels, strip centers, I’m sure a few other things. I guess when you first made your, are there any mistakes that, I mean, I know you’ve made mistakes, we all make mistakes, but are there, is there any asset classes that you’ve jumped into that you’re like, okay, I’m never going to do another one of those. I don’t know why I ever thought I should do that. Or what’s kind of become over time more appealing to you than other, what types of commercial properties versus others?

Matt Aitchison (24:23.914)
Yeah, I I think I always tell people at the end of the day, what’s your goal when you want to accomplish it by?

And then, know, there’s going to be some kind of, so just to back up a little bit, my goal when I started thinking about why I started thinking about commercial real estate was like, man, I’m to need to have thousands of doors to hit the income goal that I wanted. My income goal was I wanted to get to half a million dollars in passive income over the next 10 years. And so for me, I was like, man, that’s going to be X amount of doors if I’m only clipping, you know, 220 a door. So that’s going to take me a long time because I can’t buy 50 to 100 houses a year.

or maybe I don’t want to do that. So then I started reverse engineering. Okay, well, if I just bought one commercial property that netted me 50k a year when all was said and done, it was a true net of 50k and I just bought one a year for the next decade, I can do that. That sounds reasonable to me. So then I started reverse engineering. Well, what asset classes align with that financial model, right? What asset classes are out there that have 50k left over when all is said and done that I

feel aligned with and then it started to narrow down of okay well all these asset classes do whether that was

you know, small boutique hotels, whether that was a shopping center, whether that was a mobile home park, storage facility. There’s so many different asset classes in commercial real estate, some that are highly management intensive, you know, the sober living homes, the senior care facilities, the hotels, those have operating businesses that are operating within that asset class.

Matt Aitchison (26:00.51)
Whereas, you know, the single tenant Starbucks drive through that is 100 % passive and I’ll never get a phone call from the tenant on that’s on the complete opposite end of the spectrum. And there’s many assets that fall in between. So really, you know, it all depends on how much time, how much energy, you know, what operating skills do you feel like you have or don’t have? That was the biggest thing that I learned, you know, in the process was going each one of these asset classes has an operating

underbelly that I need to understand as an owner and is it something that I’m gonna do and my team is gonna do? For example, the hotels we self-managed and operated and I built a hotel management operating company to do all of those things and it was insanely stressful, highly management intensive and very challenging but it also allowed us to control and protect and insulate the income and the value that was tied to the hotels. Whereas maybe a third-party hotel management company wouldn’t make

a lot of sense to do that because they don’t care as much. Maybe it does, right? So I think those are some of the things that you got to think about when it comes to all the different asset classes. I have two verticals in my portfolio. The hotels are my management intensive asset class.

That I now have a third party hotel management company that does it worldwide and we’ve partnered with them to you manage the hotel so that way I don’t have to be in operations anymore I can just be the visionary be a little bit more passive Deal engineer and structure things and then let them operate my medical office buildings

Mike Hambright (27:35.278)
So you did build an operating, you did build a management company and then decided to outsource it? Yeah.

Matt Aitchison (27:41.464)
I did, yeah. So I sold my hotel management company with three of my hotels that I packaged up in Lake Tahoe, and that went with the sale. My next hotel’s third party management company, because I said, I learned my lesson. I don’t want to do that anymore. I want to be more passive. I still love the asset class, but here’s a nuance of the asset class that I’m aware of now that I need to make sure I’ve got a partner for that. I’ve got a team that I can plug into that. I don’t have to do the things that I don’t want to do in real estate anymore.

Mike Hambright (27:46.856)
I see, okay. I see. Yeah, yeah.

Mike Hambright (27:54.882)
Yeah. Right, right.

Mike Hambright (28:06.029)
Yeah.

Mike Hambright (28:10.86)
Yeah, yeah, makes sense.

Matt Aitchison (28:11.538)
On the other side of the spectrum, I’ve got my medical office buildings, you know, and some of my shopping centers that are completely triple net. And so those are much more passive, much less management intensive and are maybe a little bit more aligned with that season of my life where I’m like, I just want my real estate to pay me and not bother me, right? So I think there’s the beauty of how you can structure real estate.

operations tied to whatever type of asset class it is and what it requires. The cool thing is, is there’s so many different ways to put these deals together and to structure them. And obviously there’s, you know, things that tie into your economic model and your operational model that you need to think about and, you know, understand. But those were some of the things that I thought about when I was coming into real estate and learned in the process that I wish I would have knew going in, because I probably would have approached things a little bit differently.

Mike Hambright (29:03.256)
Yeah, that’s awesome. So Matt, are there any, one last question for you, are there any asset classes that you see that are either being redefined or changing here over the next couple of years that are kind of, they’ve become more interesting than maybe they were in the past? I think there’s probably some that are maybe less interesting than they were in the past, given the economic climate, but who knows what’ll happen here after the election. But anything that seems more interesting now than it did in the past, because it’s kind of taken a pivot of some sort.

Matt Aitchison (29:31.912)
Yeah, I mean, I think you’ve got kind of your COVID darlings, which were multifamily and industrial. And, you know, I think those got a little too frothy and with the, you know, shift with the Fed and interest rates and some of the economic data that’s come out, you know, we’ve seen those really start to slow down, cap rates start to expand, demand’s really been curbed. So we’re seeing some leveling out in some of those, but I think those will still continue to be very bullish asset classes in the commercial space that

are for obvious reasons. Retail has done really, really well, and there’s still a very bullish outlook on retail. Particularly, I’m seeing institutional capital now start to look outside of just big box, you know, national anchored or grocery anchored shopping centers, and actually start to look at smaller neighborhood, you know, strip centers that we call neighborhood service centers. They’re more of your, your nail salons, your hair salons, your liquor stores.

your dog washing places that are needed, service businesses within the community, but maybe aren’t in your main commercial corridors. Institutional capital is bullish on some of those retail trends with occupancy being at all time highs and sales and obviously us being in the consumerist climate that we are as Americans. That probably is not gonna be slowing down anytime soon. And then I think ops

Opportunistic wise, we’re starting to see some of the pricing get to levels that are, you know, as depressed as office has become where

some of the redevelopment and repurposing of those assets may start to make financial and economic sense from a redevelopment standpoint. So we’re starting to see some big funds move capital there. And then to touch on the boutique hotel space, you know, with STRs really starting law-wise in certain counties or states, pretty restrictive. You know, that’s one reason why I got into hotels in the first place was, you know, I felt like

Matt Aitchison (31:39.956)
That’s one way I can mitigate risk. you’re telling me, know, city council can completely remove the permit of an asset that I financially underwrote for an STR and they can take that away from me. That’s a risk to my, my real estate assets. So looking at commercial boutique hotels, the zoning tied to those, the lack of restrictions around those, I felt very, you know, bullish on the fact that experiential hospitality is still going to be a very popular trend, you know, over the next few decades, especially

with people wanting more of the eclectic unique experiences versus the you know kind of run-of-the-mill boring historical experiences most hotels provide. We’re seeing big flags start to get a little bit creative and play in that world and try and bring it in but that was something that I still believe based on STR laws and a lot of things that are going on in the you short-term hospitality space that will be a trend that I think boutique hotels will continue to be a very desirable asset class for investors that still want to

in that space and kind of get outside of some of the concerns and worries people have when it comes to the licensing.

Mike Hambright (32:46.478)
That’s awesome. Yeah, and for the boutique hotels, what’s a typical kind of number of rooms that that would have? I’m sure it ranges, but what’s kind of the range that you operate in?

Matt Aitchison (32:54.794)
Boutique Hotels is generally considered 100 keys and under. It may or may not have some food and beverage component on site. It may have some event component on site. But really, mean, my first Boutique Hotel was 20 keys, and it had no restaurant, no food and beverage, no lobby. It was just a little roadside lodge that we made super cool and eclectic and automated check-ins and check-outs and concierge.

Mike Hambright (32:59.182)
Okay.

Matt Aitchison (33:24.798)
just right something that is an unflagged un-corporate you know managed asset that allows you to infuse your own personality your own you know systems your own brand within that you know hotel space.

Mike Hambright (33:43.594)
Awesome. So Matt, final words. If people want to make some words of wisdom here, if they want to make the transition to commercial, any kind of final words of wisdom that people should consider in their process.

Matt Aitchison (33:57.056)
I mean, if you’re already a real estate investor, I always tell people when people ask me, what made you think that you were gonna be successful as a real estate investor? And my answer to that always is, I’m just dumb enough to believe in myself and smart enough to take action on the things that I think are gonna make me successful. And so I wake up every day being dumb enough to bet on myself and smart enough to just keep taking action. And so if you really…

Mike Hambright (34:12.227)
Ha ha.

Matt Aitchison (34:23.448)
If that resonates with you, which it should for most investors, you’ve already bet on yourself when a lot of the monkey brain talk that comes in has probably tried to convince us otherwise, but we pass, you know, push through that. It’s the same thing in commercial. Just be dumb enough to believe in yourself and smart enough to take action on the things that you know you need to do to kind of give yourself the best chance to succeed in that space, whether it’s joining a mastermind, getting coaching, listening to podcasts, going to meetups, whatever it may be for you.

Just don’t lose that confidence and conviction that you’re capable of connecting the dots and figuring it out. You just need to get yourself in the space.

Mike Hambright (35:03.086)
Awesome, great advice. Matt, thanks for joining me today.

Matt Aitchison (35:06.048)
Appreciate it, Mike.

Mike Hambright (35:07.564)
And everybody have a great day. We’ll see you on the next show.