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Show Summary
In this episode of the Real Estate Pros podcast, host Q Edmonds interviews Vince Gethings, a successful real estate investor who shares his journey from starting in real estate in 2013 to managing nearly 200 million in assets. Vince discusses his early experiences with house hacking, transitioning to multifamily investments, and the importance of focusing on the Dallas-Fort Worth market. He emphasizes the significance of building strong relationships within the industry and the challenges he faced along the way. Vince also shares his future goals and offers valuable advice for aspiring investors.
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Vince Gethings (00:00)
So just be, you know, just be conscious of that.And don’t let that stir up insecurities in yourself and limiting beliefs in yourself that like, they’re so far ahead that I can’t even start. that’s the first thing I want to say. And second thing is you can start. I literally a high school dropout, joined the Air Force with a GED in 2006 and now lead five, six companies with almost $200 million portfolio.
Quentin (02:04)
Hello everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I am your host Q Edmonds. Y’all know what I’m gonna say. I’m very excited to be here today. Always excited to be allowed, always excited to bring in guests so that you can get a chance to look at what they do, look at things from their perspective, their unique lens when it comes to doing business. And so today I have here with me Mr. Vincent GethingsAnd I’m excited to have more so that he can talk to you about what it is that he do within real estate, within the market space, with his expertise is. so Mr. Vincent, I’m excited to have you on. How you doing today,
Vince Gethings (02:41)
I’m doing great, thanks for having me.Quentin (02:43)
Good, good, man. Hey, listen, I want you to take us into your world, man. I want to see things through your perspective. And so if you don’t mind, I would love for you to just tell us what your main focus is these days. You want to give us a quick origin story about how you got started and what you do. love origin stories here. And of course, tell us what markets you’re operating in. But sir, the floor is yours,Vince Gethings (03:06)
All right. Thanks for having me on. yeah, quick origin story. My name is Vince Gethings and I started real estate investing in 2013. So I look young, but I’ve been in the game for quite a while. ⁓ I started by using my VA home loan. ⁓ At the time I was active duty Air Force and I didn’t really have a whole lot of cash to work with, but I did have my VA home loan. So what I did was I did what’s called the house hack. So I got into the game.by house hacking my VA home loan when I was stationed in California. And from 2013 to 2016, I built up equity, bought in a pretty decent area, and I sold that house in 2016 and took that chunk of money. And I was like, all right, now what am I gonna do with? I’m hooked on real estate, how do I get into more? So from 2016 and 2018, I was like, all right, I need to buy some rentals. I started doing…
reading the books, Bigger Pockets was big back then. So I spent a lot of time on those forums, reading those books, a couple other books to get into. How do I get into small multifamilies, duplexes, fourplexes, sixplexes? That’s all I knew at the time. So from 2016 to 2018, I bought 20 units. So at the time I was like, you know, I made it. Like this was my 10 year goal. I did it in 18 months and you know, I can retire now from the military.
having my 20 units plus my retirement and I’m set. But see what happens is you get that real estate bug and then you’re like, I need more doors. So I was like, all right, there’s another levels to this game. Cause I saw people buying bigger properties and people that were just like me. And a lot of people think apartment complexes and things like that commercial real estate. They got like, it’s just some.
You know, some suits somewhere and some Scott downtown sky rise working for some hedge fund that’s buying these, you know, these commercial buildings and most of them are not. It’s, it’s guys like me and you and, ⁓ you know, they just, they just know more about that side of the world. And so once I saw that, you know, there’s normal people, ⁓ just like me, they don’t seem smarter than me. They don’t seem more capable than me. They don’t seem like they work harder than me and they’re doing it. So I got to figure out how to get into that world.
So 2018 came around, really 2017, I started getting interested. 2018 was when I pulled the trigger. I ended up joining a mastermind community and education platform that taught me how to get into multifamily. So within six months of joining that community, and the community was called Wheelbill Profits. It was led by two guys named Jake and Gino, and they are the real deal, as real as it gets when it comes to multifamily. And 2018.
within six months of joining that program, I bought my first apartment complex. ⁓ was a 52 unit apartment complex, ⁓ in Michigan. And I was like off to the races and I was like, all right, now I’m a made a big time. I got a 52 unit. And then, ⁓ I ran out of, I ran out of capital. So it’s cause all the capital I had saved up. I, I, by that time I had used all the capital for my house flip. ⁓
Liquidated my retirement my savings everything to buy that that by the apartment complex. I’m like, alright So I got a little bit of cash flow coming in But how do you buy the next one and that’s when I realized I only had one tool in my tool belt ⁓ So I was like I need to go back to school here and and figure out how to fill my toolbox Or my tool belt with as many tools as possible. You know, we have seller financing joint ventures ⁓ Master lease options syndications, you know all the different
tools. I was like, I need to know how to do every single one of these at an expert level so I can, um, you know, get, take advantage of most opportunities. So that’s what I did from, um, you know, and we’re right around 2020. Uh, so from 2020 to now, you know, my company Tri-City Equity Group, kind of cracked that code and you know, we’re, up to just about 200 million in assets under management and, uh, somewhere I think we’re floating around maybe 900 units right now. So we, we,
transition to a lot of higher quality product. ⁓ And that’s kind of where we’re at now. And a lot of mistakes and bumps in the road in between the last five years, but we’re really honing in on our strategy, ⁓ which is we’re going a mile deep in one market, which is the Dallas Fort Worth market. And we’re only focusing on a higher quality product, which is for us would be B plus, A minus type.
Quentin (08:16)
ThankThank
Vince Gethings (08:33)
real estate in the Dallas Fort Worth market and 100 units are bigger is what we’re focusing on. That’s what fits our ⁓ company, our growth strategy and everything like that. Not saying that’s the best product out there, but that’s what works for us right now. And that’s what we’re going after.Quentin (08:52)
Love it, man. Love it. Thank you for the origin story. Thank you for taking us and walking us up into where you are now. And I love the strategy. You putting 10 toes down on strategy, looking at those A, B plus markets. Listen, I hear you, sir. I hear the success. And I like to say at this portion is like, always sometimes talk about the success, but there’s a journey to how we got to this success, right? There are times whendeals go sideways, times when you have to pivot fast. And for our listeners, I was wondering, are there any stories that you can tell us about the journey of how you got to success? Was there some times that you had to come up against adversity? Yeah.
Vince Gethings (09:30)
Man, ⁓ absolutely.Yeah, no, it’s been more than we got time. ⁓ I didn’t want to breeze over like, yeah, just got the Midas Touch and boom, I’m printing millions. It ain’t like that. There’s definitely a lot of learning lessons, but ⁓ I’ll hit a couple, but I’ll preface with the importance of having community ⁓ masterminds, coaching groups is because you can lean on them. And a lot of people in that group have made the mistakes that you’re about to make and they’re going to help you see around that corner.
Quentin (09:42)
Yeah.Yeah, yeah.
Vince Gethings (10:37)
And that’s what really ⁓ helped me and let me get through some of these tough spots. I found myself in is because I had that peer group and that mentorship group around me that was like, I did that three years ago and this is how I got out of it. So some of the examples I have and common mistakes I see newer investors make, especially when they get into commercial real estate is they start casting a really wide net ⁓ and they do that. They’re like, all right, well the grass isn’t,My backyard, there’s no deals in my backyard wherever I live, know, Cincinnati, Ohio or something, you know, pick a market. And for some reason, because they live there, they just think that the grass is greener somewhere else. So they start looking
places like Florida and the Carolinas and all these, I hear the same story every day. And the first thing I see is like, you know, hey, have you really exhausted your backyard? Because for you to get on a plane, go to Charlotte and go buy a property there,
⁓ One, you have a very big competitive disadvantage going into somebody else’s territory that there’s a ton of investors already there and you’re just some out of state person. ⁓ And the management struggle of like now you have to, every time you want to go see your property, you got to hop on a plane and see the whole thing and find contractors and trust them and try to manage a property through FaceTime with your contractors. It’s a lot more logistically difficult than people think.
Quentin (11:59)
Yeah.Vince Gethings (12:04)
And so the first thing I say is, ⁓ know, Hey, like the grass isn’t always greener, fully exhaust your backyard, like draw two, three hour radius around your house and every town that’s, know, over 40, 50,000 people go visit it and exhaust that first before you even think about going to another market. The next mistake I made was I was like, all right, well, I’m going to jump on a plane and I’m going to go everywhere. And then, and then the thought process was, well, if I’m going to jump on a plane and go one place, I can jump on a plane and go a bunch of places. And so we cast.a huge net and was like, I’m just going to get deals that wherever they make sense, I’m going to go do them. And what happens is you start getting a lot of deal flow and you start getting a lot of deals and you start thinking you’re having success. But ⁓ what ends up happening is you start scaling very quickly and then you start ⁓ burning yourself out and you get in spread too thin. At one point we were, ⁓ we scaled pretty quickly and we were in five different states.
So that’s five different property managers, know, dozens of contractors, five different states of laws and regulations and tax code and insurance policy, like all of these things, because I started getting spread too thin and I was the main asset manager. I was like, this is not sustainable for growth is being spread too thin. So after COVID and we’re talking timeline here, it’s 2022 going into 2023. After COVID we were looking like,
Quentin (13:22)
Yeah.Vince Gethings (13:30)
Hey, what markets are the best performing ones? And what ones do we see has the best potential for growth for us over the next 10 years? And we looked at all the markets we ran and we landed on the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. And we’re like, all right, this may not, there’s a lot of metrics where this is the best market, but right now this is the best market for us. Even though there might be other opportunities out there, cheaper properties, higher yield somewhere else, but for us, this is where we’re gonna plan our flag.Quentin (13:37)
ThankVince Gethings (13:59)
And we’re going to go vertically integrated here. So what that means is ⁓ we started selling off everything else that wasn’t Fort Worth or Dallas, Fort Worth rather. And we’ve started our own property management company and started bringing in ⁓ maintenance in house, management in house, leasing in house. Now we’re working on bringing contracting in house, marketing in house, know, all the, all the infrastructure to where we’re called a vertically integrated. And it’s a slower growth.Quentin (14:03)
Mm.Yes.
Vince Gethings (14:28)
but it’s steady and it’s more of a sure safer bet to have control of the whole process from cradle to grave of our growth. And ⁓ it’s a lot more sustainable where we’re not just being spread to them.Quentin (14:34)
ThankI love it, man. ⁓ That’s I hear you again. You saying 10 toes down and it’s down at fourth Fort Worth area. The slow growth. I love the aim. You seem like you guys got the target and you got the target in sight and seem like you’re nailing it. And so, you know, this may be a redundant question and hopefully it’s not. But would you say that that is the next real goal? Are there any other goals that you guys are seeking out?
as you scale, as you solve problems, is there anything else that’s on the target board?
Vince Gethings (15:56)
Yep. our company, so my company Tri-City Equity Group, that’s my main equity in Black Sand Property Management. ⁓ We’re shooting for a billion dollars ⁓ portfolio in the next 10 years. We’re about a fifth of the way there, roughly. And ⁓ we’re focused on that. And it’s just a good round number. It’s more of a vanity number than anything, but it gives the team something, one singular thing to focus on.because that size of a portfolio will solve a lot of problems for us and it’ll support a lot of families, our internal teams and things like that. ⁓ The way I look at it as far as growth is as the asset manager, this is a good tip too for other asset managers is you start every quarter I go down my P &Ls, my profit loss statements and I start looking at inefficiencies of
Things like hey, we’re paying this contractor too much over here We’re paying this kind of you spent way too much on this one line item over here But as you start to scale When you’re smaller, you don’t really have a choice because you don’t have the payroll to bring stuff in house But as you start scaling you like hey I got four properties that are each spending $2,000 on landscaping, know, I can hire a landscaper for under a grand a month, right? So that’s like kind of the thinking that as I start scaling now that we’re vertically integrated I can go down my PNL
Quentin (17:15)
Yeah.Vince Gethings (17:21)
And she’s like, all right, I spent, you know, $20,000 on a plumber this month. know, indie dad’s going up, you we’re going to bring plumbing in house. ⁓ So that is the exciting part of scaling is being able to bring more things in house and have a tighter control on the quality, speed, and ultimately the revenue that drops to the bottom line ⁓ because you have control over all the aspects. So that’s where I’m excited. ⁓as we scale.
Quentin (17:51)
Yeah, yeah. Listen, when I hear you talk, you you talk about, you know, hiring people, you talking about, you know, it’s obviously is the team, it’s just not you on your own, you know, because you’re saying we a lot. And so I want to talk about relationships a little bit and get your perspective on it. When it comes to building relationships and growing your network, what’s made the biggest difference for you?Vince Gethings (18:14)
⁓ Well, we have, you know, I’ll take that kind of two ways. So you have two different aspects. So there’s building relationships as in your core team. And then there’s kind of like building relationships as like maybe possibly investors and things like that. ⁓ I take a two different approaches on that. The team is where I see most people mess up because they’re too focused on trying to get investors. ⁓ You know, I any, I need cap. I need other people’s capital. I need capital raise. So they’re really focused on that.And they are way too lazy on who they’re actually letting at their table. And that’s where the deal goes south is because at some point you got to execute a business plan. And if the people at the table aren’t pulling their weight or doing what they’re supposed to do, doesn’t matter how much money you raise or it doesn’t matter how good the deal is on paper. ⁓ It’s going to fail. so, you know, I, start focusing, you know, especially when people come ask me about, you know, like a question like this, I’m like, focus on your, your team and make sure that the players
on the team are bringing equitable value to your core team. ⁓ And not just some people that you like playing golf with or pickleball. Now it’s the new thing. Or something like that. Or just some guys you like to hang out with. Or you met at a conference. Hey, I met Suzy and Jim at this conference last weekend and they’re wanted by multifamily. So we’re going to start a company together and they don’t know.
Quentin (19:24)
Yeah.Vince Gethings (19:41)
anything about them. They don’t know what their core values are. They don’t know what their work ethic is. They don’t know how they handle themselves under stress. ⁓ They don’t know their goals or vision, what their timeline is to accomplish their goals. And that’s where a lot of the teams fall apart. And I get a lot of people that will come to me and they get this honeymoon phase of, we’re going to be investors now. And I met this person, this person, we’re going to jump in and deal together. And they’re jumping in a bed with people that they just met two weeks ago.signing on loan documents together guaranteeing their net worth and then six months later they’re like, please help me, so and so stop showing up to the meetings and it’s all on me now because I have my guarantee on this loan. And so I try to prevent that. So the first part of question is, when I look for team members, they have to bring equitable value to the table. They have to be solving a problem. Either they’re finding deals, bringing money, they have liquidity that they can use to help.
Um, you know, get a deal to the finish line, like earnest money, inspections, things like that down payments. Um, they can help sign on debt, uh, be the guarantor or they can help manage the property. So they got to solve one of those seats, one of those five seats. And that’s if they’re, if they’re not solving one of those seats, like they, they just, Hey, we’ll, go play golf, but you’re not, you’re not getting out of deal with me. Um, cause then I end up dragging people along. Um, and there’s nothing bad about that. It’s just, you got to protect yourself and your sanity, you know,
Quentin (21:03)
youVince Gethings (21:08)
your future self six months from now, you’re pulling your hair out. Right. So there’s that. And then, you know, as far as investors, ⁓ there’s a lot of people out there that are much better than it, than me. will say, know, brag is that my team did raise like $30 million in the last 10 months. ⁓ And we do it all through, like we don’t use PE, we don’t use ⁓ family offices. don’t, you know, that’s all our network.Quentin (21:10)
Yes, sir.Vince Gethings (21:38)
I’m not an expert capital raiser. I will say that I think I tracked a lot of capital just by being authentic and passionate and ⁓ very informed about what my market is, what my business plan is, and I can speak confidently to how we’re going to execute. now I have a track record of so many deals that have gone full cycle, ⁓ but I don’t have a whole lot of scripts and thosethings that people do that, there’s a lot of courses out there for that stuff. But for me, I’m just, I be myself and I’m very passionate about multifamily and people can see the results I’ve had and that, ⁓ I started tracking capital that way.
Quentin (22:22)
Absolutely. Listen, man, this everything you said is spot on when I think about relationships. I’m glad you broke it down in two ways. We talked about the investor, but also talk about the core people around you. When you talk about building a team yourself, building the relationship around you. Like, I love it. I’m so glad you broke it down that way because relationships is everything within the space of real estate in the space of life. Just make sure you’re surrounded by like minded people. You know, they always say, you know, look at the five people around you, you know, so.I thank you for breaking that down. listen, man, if before we wrap, is there any kind of maybe other encouragement, advice, maybe inspiration that you wanted to give a word that you wanted to leave with people based on the experience of what you’ve been through and what you’ve built?
Vince Gethings (23:09)
Yeah. you know, a lot of people they get, I think there’s a lot of noise out there and I’m sure other, other guests have said this too. There’s a lot of noise out there. Social media just amplifies it and it makes the things that people are doing almost like unrealistic and unattainable, um, for them. And, and I’ll, and I’ll tell you kind of two things is one, most of the stuff you see on social media is fake. Like those Lambos are rented. Like, you know, you know what I mean? Like, uh,Quentin (23:35)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. ⁓Vince Gethings (23:38)
And there’s a lot of guys that are, and guys that are there, that’s their brand. A lot of social media has turned into that is their brand. they just think, you know, so don’t think that that is their real life. ⁓ For most of the people that you see, it’s just their marketing, right? That’s their marketing channel. They’re showcasing a thing to invoke interest ⁓ to, you for people to reach out for whatever they’re raising capital or trying to sell something.So just be, you know, just be conscious of that.
And don’t let that stir up insecurities in yourself and limiting beliefs in yourself that like, they’re so far ahead that I can’t even start. that’s the first thing I want to say. And second thing is you can start. I literally a high school dropout, joined the Air Force with a GED in 2006 and now lead five, six companies with almost $200 million portfolio.
And, you know, we’re just at 11 years in, in this game. ⁓ So you can really start from anywhere. You know, just got to, you know, shed those limiting beliefs and, you know, not let the noise of social media ⁓ kind of beat you down thinking that you can’t, you can’t do this.
Quentin (24:55)
Yeah, no, I mean, sir, I appreciate that. think that’s very valuable. I think that’s very encouraging, man. And so thank you for that. Listen, Mr. Vincent, before we wrap, if someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, collaborate with you, learn more about what you’re doing, what’s the best way for them to get in contact with you?Vince Gethings (25:13)
Yeah, thank you for that. If you want to see what kind of what I’m doing, you know, I got some free books and stuff like that I can, I can shoot you over as well but Vince at wheelbarrow profits.com. Just shoot me an email there. It’s my direct email. It’s not going to some admin box or anything like that. You know, shoot me an email saying you heard me on this podcast and I’ll send you some, some free books and a couple of templates on, on where to get started for multifamily.Quentin (25:41)
Absolutely. Well, there he is, Mr. Gathings. Sir, thank you so much, man. Thank you for your story. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your perspective. know our viewers got a lot, a ton of nuggets out of this conversation. So, sir, thank you so much for being here today.Vince Gethings (25:59)
Thank you.Quentin (26:00)
Absolutely. So listen, y’all heard Mr. Vincent, you got the value. Go ahead and subscribe. That way you do not miss out on the future guests and the content that we’re going to continue to give. We keep coming across amazing people and we just want to make sure that we can connect them with you. So just go ahead and subscribe. So Mr. Vincent, thank you again. And to everyone else, we’ll see you on the next time.
