Discover the Power of DST’s: Simplify Your Real Estate Investments Today

Dylan Silver (00:01.197)
Hey folks, welcome back to the show. I’m your host, Dylan Silver. And today on the show, we have attorney, Texas attorney, vice president of an insurance company, real estate investor with a goal of monetizing DST for clients, which we’ll learn about today in Bernie, Texas, Ray Johnson. welcome to the show.

Ray Johnson (00:25.432)
Thank you.

Dylan Silver (00:26.849)
It’s a pleasure to have you here on the show, Ray. And before we were hopping on here, we were just getting into DST. And DST. I said, what’s DST?

Ray Johnson (00:37.186)
Well, DST stands for the words Delaware Statutory Trust. And this is a subset of 1031 exchange options. And I don’t think I need to review the 1031 exchange criteria because your audience is probably very well aware of that. But in doing so, I was unaware and in my experience now of owning DSTs for a number of years,

Dylan Silver (00:57.251)
Sure.

Ray Johnson (01:06.454)
I find that financial advisors, accountants, attorneys, commercial real estate people, including people that are well-schooled and a lot of experience in the business, are unaware of what a DST is. And so…

Now that I have a few DSTs, I’m happy to tell you what the experience is and how that may be advantageous to somebody else that is in a situation where they want to stop managing the properties they have and sit back and play more pickleball.

Dylan Silver (01:51.467)
Yeah, Delaware Statutory Trust. Yeah, let’s dive in. I’ve never heard of this term before.

Ray Johnson (01:57.934)
The Delaware Statutory Trust, of course, was originated in Delaware. And a lot of corporate entities are there because they have a stable corporate legal background so that people can rely on that. so what it is is basically a statute under the state laws of Delaware that becomes a trust. And the IRS, 25, 30 years ago,

approve this as a subset of 1031 exchanges. And so typically, as everyone knows in a 1031 exchange, if you sell a piece of property for a million bucks, you got to go find a like kind property that’s more than that and give the money to a qualified intermediary. That then after you identify the property,

He transfers the money over there and you own the new property now worth $1.5 million and that saves the tax.

Dylan Silver (03:02.414)
Right.

Ray Johnson (03:04.181)
Save is the wrong word. Deferreds the tax is a better…

Dylan Silver (03:09.785)
You’ve gotta pay it at some point, yeah.

Ray Johnson (03:11.138)
description. Well, there is an exception to that and we’ll address that pretty soon. But it’s kind of a hard exception. And so the Delaware Statutory Trust, again, is a statute under state law where state law generally is the primary source of property law. And since that time, a number of other states have adopted

the same sort of law and it retains the name Delaware Statutory Trust even though it’s let’s say in the state of Wyoming I know for example that they have DSTs under their law. And what is a DST? Well, it’s simply another investment vehicle that qualifies for 1031 advantages.

Dylan Silver (04:05.401)
Hmm.

Ray Johnson (04:06.018)
But the DST itself has several advantages and I’m going to look at my notes here a minute to be more precise about it. Key benefit is number one, tax deferral. Let me give you a quick example. Let’s say that I bought a piece of property for $600,000 and 10 years ago and the first thing that happens is you designate a course

what the land is worth because that’s non-depreciable, correct? And so that means you’ve got $550,000 that you can depreciate over the schedule if the IRS allows you to do that. And if you have it for say 10 years and you fully depreciate out the $550,000 and then you sell the property that you bought for $600,000, you now sell it for a million, right? Because property inflates in value.

Dylan Silver (04:39.715)
Correct, yeah.

Dylan Silver (05:02.393)
Anything?

Ray Johnson (05:05.838)
Well, under normal circumstances, if you take that million dollars and depending upon your tax bracket and the law at the time, currently, probably let’s take 20%, that means that when you sell your million dollar property, you pay $200,000 to Uncle Sam and you get $800,000, correct? And if you’re using the theory that money makes money,

Dylan Silver (05:28.366)
Correct, yeah.

Ray Johnson (05:34.21)
You’d really have a million dollars working for you making money than 800,000. Is that correct? Exactly. So what happens in that particular thing is you want to do a 1031 exchange and have the million dollars begin operating for you to have income to come to you. so tax deferral then is the key thing that triggers that. And of course it

Dylan Silver (05:40.089)
That’s for sure.

Ray Johnson (06:03.438)
A Delaware statutory trust does that because it’s approved by the IRS. And DSTs are considered like kind property for 1031 exchange purposes. And this enables you to preserve your capital and grow it faster because you got another, in this case, $200,000 working for you. And because you can…

Dylan Silver (06:28.451)
Yeah.

Ray Johnson (06:31.906)
reinvest the full sale proceeds, correct? So there are other advantages of the DST. Number one, you can see all this gray hair. I don’t like chasing even my managers down and having them call me with this or that problem that always occurs with real estate. And I could go through a number of those, but I’ll be…

Dylan Silver (06:35.534)
Right.

Dylan Silver (06:56.802)
Yeah.

Ray Johnson (07:01.314)
parse on this particular thing, because I’ve seen a lot of problems over 30 years with real estate. so that’s the first thing that happens. You’re not managing it anymore. It’s in a trust. And what happens is you take your million dollars that you just had and you give it into the trust.

And other people do the same thing around. And my understanding is there’s over $80 billion in DSTs across the United States. And what happens is there are sponsors of these people, which we kind of think of as financial agents, but they are sponsor these. so then you can invest in these different trusts around.

Dylan Silver (07:43.853)
Mm-hmm.

Ray Johnson (07:53.094)
And there’s a big variety of property that can be there. Of course, what I had was apartments. so obviously I can invest in other apartments, but I also could split it up in mobile homes, storage units. That’s another good thing about DSTs. You can diversify into the minimum amount or the maximum amount, whatever the trust itself will allow you to do.

and one of the things that was interesting and, was you could also invest in oil producing properties because you can own the property and you’re not into the drilling side or the risky side of it. It is producing and you’re owning the property. Therefore it qualifies under the DST. And so you get good diversification opportunity with DSTs.

Dylan Silver (08:31.278)
Thank you.

Ray Johnson (08:50.582)
as well as no management, becomes passive ownership in the sense that, you don’t manage it, right? You don’t deal with tenants, maintenance or repairs or anything like that. the other thing is you have access through a DST of in institutional quality properties. It isn’t the one that maybe.

Dylan Silver (09:00.023)
Yeah.

Ray Johnson (09:19.702)
you look for because you know how to make that work, some rundown property somewhere that you gotta worry about. Because you’re pooling your fund and it probably buys a property, say worth 60 to $80 million. And you have your piece of that, along with the professional management that generally can work better than individual management ship.

Dylan Silver (09:24.355)
Sure. Yeah.

Ray Johnson (09:49.292)
I talked about the diversification that can go on there. There’s a whole list of these properties that sponsors put out there. Generally, there are a lot of things like Dollar Store and Walmart and even the federal government, you know, that own these properties and you invest in them and lease it to them.

Dylan Silver (10:09.849)
Yeah.

Ray Johnson (10:15.36)
And so there’s some good stability as well as a good choice on that.

Dylan Silver (10:20.257)
Now for folks who are looking into DSTs, how do you find a DST? Do you go and search online for DSTs? Can anybody make DSTs? And how does the process work for creating a DST?

Ray Johnson (10:36.856)
Well, for creating a DST, you have to have somebody called a sponsor. They sponsor this, which in probably our layman’s terms, they’re more like your broker or financial agent. They find these properties out there and that’s why they’re institutional quality. And they’re all over the internet. I can name five of them right off the top of my head.

Dylan Silver (10:48.823)
Okay.

Ray Johnson (11:05.003)
The one I deal with is called Perch investment in California. I like them because they’re very conservative and the most important thing is they vet their properties substantially well to see who the ownership is and how it may be used.

Dylan Silver (11:27.371)
Now, one of the differences I’m seeing between this and just say a syndication and the biggest benefit is you’re not paying taxes or you’re deferring your taxes. So if you sell your house, right, and you don’t want to be actively managing real estate any longer, or it’s a rental property, you don’t want to be actively managing, you can roll it into a perch or a DST. And then it’s kind of, you know, passive invest, it’s passive investing for you.

Ray Johnson (11:55.15)
Well, let me clarify one thing that you said here. First of all, sponsor that I deal with is called PERCH, Perch. There are others out there. In fact, one of them is called 1031 Exchange. And so there are innumerable people out there that handle these as sponsors. Like I say, the one I am is Perch. But you mentioned a house. A house is…

Dylan Silver (12:11.704)
You

Ray Johnson (12:24.43)
as your personal residence is specifically excluded from being eligible for 1031 exchange under the 1031 exchange rules. That doesn’t qualify. Now, if you bought a house, turned it into a rental, and I believe the rule is two years, then it can qualify for a 1031 exchange.

Dylan Silver (12:32.377)
Hmm.

Dylan Silver (12:51.009)
Now I’m imagining this might be a good strategy for people to use in conjunction, even if they’re very active in real estate. I’m thinking about how can investors utilize this in conjunction with what they’re already doing. Well, if you have multiple properties and you’re looking at multiple different avenues and what else to invest in and you’re selling them and you’ve got you’re coming up on that two year mark, you could go out and you could buy more properties, right?

But let’s say you don’t want to hire a bunch of property management and you’re comfortable with the number of units or doors that you’re currently at right now, rather than expand what you’re currently at, you may look into a DST as a way to kind of offload some of the focus time and attention away from managing these properties like you mentioned, right?

Ray Johnson (13:39.054)
That’s exactly what I did. I tired of it. I mean, I like it and it was fun, but you know, it just came down to wanting to do something else with time because it, even though the management, you know, you may have enough large, large enough properties that you can have full-time managers on them. There’s still problems that you have to work and deal with.

Dylan Silver (14:03.854)
Yeah.

Ray Johnson (14:06.924)
The other thing is that a DST is actually simplified estate planning because you can transfer these things to potential beneficiaries.

Dylan Silver (14:20.097)
Now how does that work? Is it a situation where upon the sale of the DST or the underlying asset that it transfers to the beneficiary or once you pass away then your heir automatically assumes the whatever the

Ray Johnson (14:41.314)
But instead of guessing, let me tell you, okay. Yeah. All right. So here’s what happens. And I’ve just done this. So I’ve got a few DSTs for personal and estate planning purposes. I just transferred the ownership tax free by I got a legal opinion on that high price legal opinion. I might tell you that. So all I’ve done is just send in the papers and say,

Dylan Silver (14:43.744)
Well, that would be better.

Ray Johnson (15:09.102)
It’s no longer in my name. I want it in the name of this entity and poof that’s done tax free. Now here’s the big advantage of something you mentioned. We say that a, uh, 10 31 defers taxes until eventually someday the government gets their money with one exception and, and

It’s like this. The government makes the rules, bless be the name of the government, because what they say is on death, it transfers at a stepped up basis. Do know what that means?

Dylan Silver (15:56.013)
now.

Ray Johnson (15:58.082)
Very key point. I don’t want to die to get it done, but I am going to die. And, and, everybody, you know, gets that adventure. And, so the truth of it is, is so it, if we go back to this property and here’s another description that needs to be talked about with DST. So let’s say I sold that property, put a million dollars into the DST, which was a trust that

went and bought $60 million worth of real estate, nice big complex in, which it did by the way, in Denton, Texas, in case you know where that is. There you go, you may be living in the apartment complex for all I know. But at any rate, so that property was purchased for $60 million and you can either invest in a property where it’s debt-free,

Dylan Silver (16:38.071)
I’m living in Denton.

Ray Johnson (16:56.122)
Or I prefer investing in a property of $60 million where they have borrowed $40 million and they’re paying off $20 million because what happens is in three to five years, generally they flip this property. And so not only have you had monthly income from that property, but let’s say they

flip that property in 10 years for $80 million. Well, there’s a $20 million gain right there and you get your portion of that on the flip. In addition to getting the $20 million gain, they’ve also paid down the $20 million loan, let’s say $5 million. So that’s a $25 million equity gain that you get to share in, in addition to the

monthly income. then the other advantage of that is I die. Well, this let’s say that million dollars is now worth 1.5 million dollars. When it goes to my heir, and I got a couple of them, the normally

If I were just to cash it out, I’d lose the 20 % again, which would be on $1.5 million, $300,000. But, blessed be the name of the government, because when I die, that property transfers with a stepped up basis, meaning at the value of the date of death.

is the basis now. So that means they get it tax free essentially.

Dylan Silver (18:52.761)
due to appreciation.

Ray Johnson (18:55.832)
due to appreciation and the fact that I was nice enough to die at the right time. And so they get that, they get the full $1.5 million. They don’t pay any tax on it. They get it tax free. That’s what step-by-step basis means.

Dylan Silver (19:01.272)
Now,

Dylan Silver (19:11.277)
Now, are they paying taxes at all? is some money getting transferred to the government and they’re just getting, or is it they’re not paying any taxes at all?

Ray Johnson (19:22.894)
There are not being any at all. If the stepped up basis is equal to, cause it’ll be equal to the value of it being sold, generally speaking. And now once they start getting income from it, you pay taxes on the income.

Dylan Silver (19:33.72)
Wow.

Dylan Silver (19:42.455)
Now this stepped up bass, is this specific to DSTs or is this in other verticals as well?

Ray Johnson (19:47.63)
It’s specific into estate planning in various ways and I’m not at this time prepared to detail all those, but it does apply to DSTs and 1031 exchanges.

Dylan Silver (20:00.791)
Wow, so… one-

Ray Johnson (20:01.998)
Now, here’s another nice thing about it. DSTs can offer limited liability. Have you ever been sued?

Dylan Silver (20:10.455)
Not yet.

Ray Johnson (20:12.302)
Well, you’re right, not yet. And so I’ve been around a few lawsuits, fact, co-counsel on one where it got $152 million judgment. Now there’s a difference between getting a judgment and collecting it, but still, know, somebody is liable for that. And generally speaking, people love to sue property owners. Why? Because they know there’s an asset there.

to collect from usually. And the advantage in DST is you don’t get personally sued, maybe your DST does, but that’s part of the cost of doing business. So you’re not personally liable, generally speaking, as to how the trust is set up, that’s the general way. you can have, that’s a real…

In today’s world, that’s an advantage that people often don’t think about.

Dylan Silver (21:17.495)
Now these DSTs are they created obviously you have to have the property itself but they’re created in conjunction with attorneys because it’s lot of legal to get these things set up I’m imagining.

Ray Johnson (21:29.294)
Well, I’m sure that they set it up originally. I wasn’t involved in how that is. The sponsors, you know, have that piece of property already available. Let’s take the Denton property, for example. That was, I don’t know, I’ve forgotten the numbers there, but you know, let’s say it was a $40 million property and

the DST bought the property and had a $10 million loan on it, let’s say. So, you know, it’s earning monthly income. So they send me a monthly check and that that tax like income, passive income. But then let’s say if they bought it for $40 million and they sell it for 60.

in five or eight years, because property is doing well up around the Dallas area in case you weren’t aware of that. You’re kind of aware of that, Then there’s again, let’s say during that 10-year period, they paid down just round numbers, $10 million. Well, then you not only if they sell it for

Dylan Silver (22:28.665)
So I’m here.

Yeah.

Ray Johnson (22:51.438)
60 million, I think in my example, you’ve got the $20 million gain that you share in, plus they paid down the 10 million, so you’re back to a gain of $30 million or doubling the money in addition to the monthly income you got. And that’s tax free if you want to roll it over into another DST. If you want to die, then it’s stepped up basis to your heirs.

Dylan Silver (23:04.781)
Right.

Dylan Silver (23:10.627)
Now-

Dylan Silver (23:15.842)
Now is there a-

Dylan Silver (23:20.653)
Now there any reason why someone, they’re looking at, let’s say we have a lot of investors on this show who buy commercial property, right? And we’re talking thousands of doors potentially. Is there any reason why someone, they’re looking at creating an entity which is gonna pool other people’s money together and invest, would not want to go with a DST? Is there maybe any disadvantages that you see to having a DST as an investment?

Ray Johnson (23:50.252)
Yes, there is. And that is that I find that DSTs with the loading of sponsors and financial agents and people being conservative on them, the return is lower. So I find, and I can pull those up, a ton of them up, a list of them. I won’t do it now, but I get them every day.

Dylan Silver (23:50.894)
vehicle.

Dylan Silver (24:06.082)
Gotcha.

Ray Johnson (24:19.806)
And generally speaking, you’re looking at five and a half to six and a half percent return. Now, I went with a higher risk return on the oil stuff. They were talking about 8%, which, but frankly, the last few years, the way oil’s been going, there have been months where they’re paying

22, 32 % interest. And that was a more speculative DSTs, but then keep in mind, I own the property, because that’s what it’s required. And so what they had to do is they had to go file my name in, I don’t know, 10 or 12, 15 counties up in the Permian Basin as an owner.

Dylan Silver (24:51.342)
Wow.

Dylan Silver (25:16.437)
Now in one of these deals, I’m imagining there’s, and correct me if I’m wrong, there’s multiple investors taking down these deals that are funding the DST. So that means there’s multiple owners on these deals, is that correct? And is there a standard size of DSTs or could it be a couple people or it could be hundreds of people?

Ray Johnson (25:28.333)
Yes.

Ray Johnson (25:38.094)
I’m not schooled on that part of it. I’m sure it doesn’t require like some limited partnership or something like that. There’s not a minimum or maximum. To my knowledge, there must be, there gotta be some guidelines there, but generally speaking, it’s aggregating everybody’s money into a trust. You know, I probably, and some of these larger properties, I probably am only a 1 % owner.

Dylan Silver (26:07.565)
What’s interesting about this area to me, you’re the first guest that I’ve had on the show who is a Texas attorney and real estate investor. So thank you for breaking the ice there with that. But also, the DST specifically is a relatively conservative way to stay involved in real estate, to be an owner of real estate in a hands-off way. And you talk about risk, There’s lower risk, maybe slightly lower return.

but lower risk than some syndications, which may have maybe a little bit of a higher risk, maybe a higher return. But for folks who want a lower risk way to stay involved in real estate, I mean, this is what’s better than that. And the tax benefits too are just, I’ve never even heard of anything with the tax benefits that are like this.

Ray Johnson (26:59.11)
And the other side of it that’s really interesting again is you don’t have to manage it. just, yeah, you, because it’s a trust, there can be different kinds of control given to the DST owners, the investors. but generally speaking, the sponsor manages the property and you don’t really aren’t making

Dylan Silver (27:04.547)
don’t have to manage it.

Dylan Silver (27:19.255)
Right.

Ray Johnson (27:27.52)
any decisions. Maybe, I think they have to consult you when they sell it.

Dylan Silver (27:31.949)
When they do sell it, is it a situation where you get some type of a timeline? Like, let’s say you’re buying it and they say, hey, we’re going to sell it in five years, or do you not know a timeline in many cases, or is it different?

Ray Johnson (27:46.126)
You don’t have a timeline and that is one of the downsides of DSTs is that they’re ill basically illiquid. I mean, they’re not like a stock like you go, I want to get a new boat. So I’m going to sell my DST. There’s not a market for that. And in fact, it’s one of the things that I’ve formed a company and I’ve got to develop it for because there’s $80 billion of money sitting out there.

Dylan Silver (27:53.24)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (27:59.203)
So you can’t do that.

Ray Johnson (28:15.34)
Now, there are two things in life, money makes money. And so there are institutions out there that I’m investigating and I’ve talked to that will lend against that as a security. Not a true security, to secure their interest. So you take…

Dylan Silver (28:34.552)
Hmm.

Ray Johnson (28:41.902)
The Denton property, you know, if there’s a million dollars in there The there’s no problem with an institution lending five hundred thousand dollars cash on that thing Because the property is worth a million dollars and growing but the big thing about it is it’s producing monthly income and enough to pay back a five hundred thousand dollar loan if I should default on it

Dylan Silver (29:03.757)
Yeah.

Ray Johnson (29:11.03)
And so it’s an attractive investment vehicle for, you know, I was in insurance companies and on the investment committee. And one of the things that we would look for are these kinds of financial instruments that would pay steady return year after year after year, because that gave some stability to our planning. And so

Dylan Silver (29:11.064)
Yeah.

Ray Johnson (29:38.094)
Uh, this is an ideal thing for insurance companies to invest in because monthly income, they’re going to get their money every month. Uh, and it’s an ideal thing for a DST owner to, uh, borrow money against because you borrow money at 6 % and you can put it out there taking some kind of risk at 12 % arbitrage. And, and, and so.

Dylan Silver (29:55.469)
to get some liquidity.

Yeah.

Dylan Silver (30:04.599)
Yeah, it’s huge. Huge.

Ray Johnson (30:07.662)
And there’s $80 billion there to invest and all you got to do is be able to organize how that goes now that that takes some work, which is why I haven’t gotten it done because basically you have to be able to analyze the trusts that are out there. But it’s like if you finance your car, do you have a car by the way, Dylan?

Dylan Silver (30:32.865)
I just sold, speaking of arbitrage and asset management, I just sold my 2018 Dodge Challenger because I said, man, this thing, I got it before I got into real estate. It’s not making me any money. It’s sitting there. It’s upside down negative equity. had to pay to sell it. talk about some bad investments you make at a young age, but I just sold my car.

Ray Johnson (30:53.264)
but that’s a wonderful lesson. Let me tell you something. You learn more out of something like that than making a killing sometimes. You’re gonna like my book, it’s called Irony. And it’s just going to press here and it talks about situations like that where you think it’s an unfortunate deal, but you know, if you can look at it in the right way, it turns out to be something that works for you like

Dylan Silver (31:02.161)
No

Ray Johnson (31:22.892)
You ain’t ever going to do that again.

Dylan Silver (31:27.124)
That’s for sure. Let me tell you what, Ray, Toyotas have been looking a lot nicer ever since I sold that car a week and a half ago. So that’s for sure. But we are coming up on time here, Ray. Where can folks go maybe to learn more about you mentioned a book or to reach out to you? Or how can folks maybe get a hold of you if they have questions?

Ray Johnson (31:49.453)
I suppose the best way would just send me an email. But the best way if they have further questions is get on the internet. It’s full of stuff about 1031 exchanges and DSTs. I’ve got them pulled up right now. And certainly, I mean, this is not a pitch for, I’d have to even look it up here, but.

There’s the people I deal with are really knowledgeable and I’ve really liked how they’ve done things and I don’t know I’m happy to they’re a they’re a commercial entity and it’s called perch and The thing I like about them is most of everything. I know I’ve learned from them they’ve been there’s a so I I suppose it

Dylan Silver (32:44.761)
And you can’t come on as well.

Ray Johnson (32:49.87)
It’s all right for me to tell you who that is, right?

Dylan Silver (32:52.557)
Yeah, perch.

Ray Johnson (32:54.562)
Purchase is the name of the company and the principal there who is very responsive and don’t hold it against him. He was an attorney. I think he did a lot of trial work in San Diego and, you know,

Trials can be fun, but they can also be hard.

Dylan Silver (33:16.405)
exhausting. Yeah, I’ve heard this from multiple attorneys that most attorneys don’t actually do the trial work and it’s very, very, very exhausting.

Ray Johnson (33:27.074)
Yeah, I’ve done a few, but at any rate, the, he is with perch P E R C H and his name is a hood Gersten. And, I think he would, he’s got a good staff there that, would answer probably any kind of questions. It’s a perch wealth doc.

They have offices in California and Florida and I don’t know where all.

Dylan Silver (34:06.753)
Ray, is there a release date or a rough time frame when the book is going to be released and people can go get the book?

Ray Johnson (34:14.542)
Oh well that’s a, it’s not on DSTs, that’s on irony. It’s about a way of…

Dylan Silver (34:18.809)
separate thing, but if they wanted to read your work over here.

Ray Johnson (34:23.214)
It’s going to be released. I’m not exactly sure when I’m talking with the publisher right now. It’s into the draft the cover stage and make it look fantastic, you know, and it’s not large. It’s probably 120 pages and but it will be available on Amazon, Google Books, Barnes and Noble. I can’t remember all the sites that they’re putting it on.

Dylan Silver (34:34.808)
Okay.

Ray Johnson (34:53.834)
cause I, I didn’t start out to sell books. but I, I saw, can see this stuff happening over and over and over again. And I got very entertained about it. So, I started writing about it and, I’ve done a couple other things like publications, but so I thought, well, I’ll just do this. So it’s memorialized and see if anybody else likes it.

Dylan Silver (34:57.378)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (35:22.251)
if some other people get the value out of it.

Ray Johnson (35:26.05)
Yeah, it won’t be out there probably for two or three months. But I thought it was good, not because I did it, but because I had a lot of good staff helping research. least I’m taking credit for it. Yeah.

Dylan Silver (35:29.74)
Okay.

Dylan Silver (35:37.721)
towards the end of the year, people can go get a copy of it. Yeah, that’s a… I also see the piano in the background. Are you a piano player? I grew up in a piano household. My mother was a piano teacher. Both my parents played, my grandparents played.

Ray Johnson (35:53.632)
Yeah, well, I’m not any good at it, but that one is just a keyboard. I have had some really good pianos. As a matter of fact, I remember reading in the Wall Street Journal, one of the pianos I had one time was considered one of the five top investments in material things. Well, they are named pianos like Steinway, Bersendorfer, and so…

Dylan Silver (36:12.547)
You’re kidding me.

Dylan Silver (36:17.912)
Yep.

Ray Johnson (36:23.383)
I remember seeing.

Dylan Silver (36:24.953)
So pianos appreciate in value maybe, or they don’t appreciate super fast.

Ray Johnson (36:29.582)
Well, the ones, the one that I tracked was probably like a $35,000 piano in 2005. And I was in Chicago and maybe this was the problem, but I went looking there because there was one of these high-end piano stores. So I went looking there and that same piano now was $72,000. Oh, yeah.

Dylan Silver (36:57.241)
That’s not bad. That’s not bad.

Ray Johnson (37:00.224)
I mean, sometime later. At any rate,

Yeah, wish I were good on the piano,

Dylan Silver (37:10.649)
It’s hard. It’s hard. Ray, I want to thank you for coming on the show here today. Congratulations really on all the success. mean, Legal Field Insurance Company, Real Estate Portfolio, now having some success with DSTs. thank you for educating myself and our audience about DSTs. Ray, thank you for coming on the show here today.

Ray Johnson (37:36.61)
Happy to do it, it’s fun.