Subscribe via:
Show Summary
In this episode of the Investor Fuel Podcast, host Leo Prada interviews Nick Perry, a successful entrepreneur in the real estate industry. Nick shares insights into his journey, including how he built a nationwide real estate business, created a private equity fund, and the importance of leveraging technology and relationships in business. He emphasizes the need for real estate investors to adapt to market changes and the role of AI in enhancing operational efficiency. Nick also discusses overcoming challenges and the significance of networking in achieving success.
Resources and Links from this show:
-
Listen to the Audio Version of this Episode
Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
Nick Perry (00:00)
I’m a firm believer that ⁓ we’ve got a few good years left to buy real estate before it becomes unaffordable, not only for the average American, but ⁓ just in general.institutions are continuing to pour in and buy single-family assets because they are holding them for long-term appreciation. Black Rock, Sage Street, these guys have done their homework. They’re not dummies. The reason they’re buying these assets up in tranches is for a reason. So ⁓ what you’re going to see is the United States is going to turn into a renter’s nation. It already is, right? The dream of home ownership is becoming unattainable for
the average American. So, you know, what is our job as real estate investors? It’s to be able to acquire as many assets as we can.
Leo Wehdeking (02:23)
everyone, welcome to Investor Fuel Podcast. I’m your host, Leo Prada, and today I am joined by someone I’ve been looking forward to chatting with, Nick, who’s been making serious moves in the real estate industry. Nick, glad to have you here, man. I think our listeners are going to take something away from how you’re approaching your investing business. So let’s dive in into the topic. ⁓ First of all,For people who may not be familiar with your world, can you give us a short version on what’s your main focus these days?
Nick Perry (03:01)
Yeah, 60,000 foot view. I’m a business owner. I am truly in the owner’s box where I’m not operating in the day to day of my business. I’ve been doing this business 11 years now. you know, fast forward what my business looks like today. We’ve got about 33, 35 people, lost count at this point. We’re growing to about 60 people by the end of this year. So in the next four months, we’ll double again. And,I don’t have much involvement. have a C-suite that handles all of the day-to-day operations and basically reports to me. So, you know, my involvement at this point is minimal. I’ve been able to buy all my time back, which has allowed me, you know, the freedom to ⁓ not only live a great lifestyle, but, you know, create other businesses and opportunities and, you know, take my career to the next level.
Leo Wehdeking (03:54)
All right, that’s very cool, man. Very cool. Now, can you tell us in what markets are you operating?Nick Perry (04:02)
Yeah, the United States of America.Leo Wehdeking (04:06)
So in all 50 states nationwide, okay, that’s cool. I love it.Nick Perry (04:06)
The one and only market.I’ve
done deals in all 50 states. Been nationwide since 2016 is when I shifted my business nationwide. I was one of the first people, I think I was the only person doing nationwide back then. since then it’s been something that we’ve helped coach and consult a lot of other real estate investors on how to make that transition to where they don’t have to be stuck in one market, buying expensive leads, fighting over the same deals.
They can go into the blue ocean of all these different cities and towns all over America where you’re the only buyer. There’s no competition. This is how we are able to do such big numbers. It’s not because we’re better on the phones. It’s not because we have better CRMs. It’s because we are in a blue ocean when most investors are fighting over those competitive deals in metro areas.
Leo Wehdeking (05:05)
Love it. Love it. Cool, man Nick something that really caught my attention about you. It’s ⁓ the way that you’ve been able to create your own ⁓ Private equity fund. Can you explain us how you did that?Nick Perry (05:23)
Yeah, well, I’ve been buying real estate since I started and this entire time we’ve continued to be self-funded. We’ve done over 2,500 transactions. We ⁓ take the best of those deals and we hold them as long-term rentals.I’m a firm believer that ⁓ we’ve got a few good years left to buy real estate before it becomes unaffordable, not only for the average American, but ⁓ just in general.
institutions are continuing to pour in and buy single-family assets because they are holding them for long-term appreciation. Black Rock, Sage Street, these guys have done their homework. They’re not dummies. The reason they’re buying these assets up in tranches is for a reason. So ⁓ what you’re going to see is the United States is going to turn into a renter’s nation. It already is, right? The dream of home ownership is becoming unattainable for
the average American. So, you know, what is our job as real estate investors? It’s to be able to acquire as many assets as we can.
Because when you fast forward 2035, 2045, right? What does the world look like with all the artificial intelligence and all of the different, you know, economic factors of, you know, asset prices increasing, the people that are going to win are the ones that own properties and the ones that own
businesses. You’re going to have two socio-economic classes in this new economy that we’re in, right? You’re going to have the have yachts and you’re going to have the have nots. So what side of history do you want to be on? If you want to be on the have yachts, you have to have actual asset ownership and business ownership. So, you know, at this point we’re continuing to acquire assets extremely quickly. You know, it’s all self-funded at this point. I’ve done very well.
But I know in order to create that wealth for my team, my family, and for the world around me and to create the largest impact, it’s time that we open up the ability for accredited investors to participate alongside with us in what we’re doing, which we’re buying great assets in great locations. We’re not buying junk properties. We’re buying good assets, good school districts.
Yeah, we’re also making a ton of money flipping property as well. So our, our business model is very simple. We go out, we market and we get deals and out of those deals, we decide what we want to do with them. Some of them we’re going to go ahead and ⁓ wholesale out to other investors. Some we’re going to go ahead and flip and some we’re going to go ahead and say, no, this is a great asset. We’re, we’re taking this one and one and we’re holding it.
Leo Wehdeking (08:39)
Okay.Nick Perry (09:03)
And so in order to fuel that, because we do have a finite amount of time, I’m convinced we’ve got about three to five good years. We’re gonna go ahead and like I said, we’re doubling the size of our team. We’re ⁓ bringing in accrediting investors who wanna participate alongside of what we’re doing. And ⁓ we’re just gonna continue to do what we’ve been doing the last 11 years, which is ⁓ buying quality assets to…Leo Wehdeking (09:14)
Okay.Nick Perry (09:33)
holding our portfolio and to lower our tax liability and allow them to just appreciate ⁓ as this asset bubble continues to go.Leo Wehdeking (10:19)
Yeah, man, actually what you’ve been doing, it’s not easy, you know, so you have to get yourself a lot of credit for what you have built in the past years. Okay. Now, I definitely want to ask you this, but what’s the recipe? What’s Nick’s recipe, you know, to keep your business running smoothly? Okay.What is it? What is it that you do? Because nobody is able to do what you’ve been doing for so many years. I don’t know, but I see you, and you’re talking about a private equity fund that you’ve been building for I don’t know how many years. You told me that more than 11 years, right? And ⁓ if I’m not wrong, you did it.
without actually going to college. Am I right?
Nick Perry (11:19)
Yeah, I didn’t even make it through high school. I dropped out when I was 15, went to work full time. I’ve still managed to get my diploma on online, but ⁓ no, school wasn’t for me. went, yeah, I didn’t grow up with a silver spoon in my mouth and my family, you know, I could barely make ends meet. So I realized, you know, in order to have anything in this life, you got to work for it. And so I started working when I was 14 years old and I’ve been working ever since.Leo Wehdeking (11:46)
Alright, alright man. Actually, that’s the kind of experience that some people don’t like to talk about, but very good Nick, very good, very good. Now, every operator I know has a moment where things got real, alright? Maybe a deal that went bad ⁓ or maybe a time that you had to pivot real fast. Do you mind sharing one of those moments?Nick Perry (12:10)
Yeah, I mean, that’s every day in entrepreneurship, right? You just get better at handling the punches as they go on. Like, and when you’re at this scale that I’m at right now, deals fall apart every fricking day, but I don’t even feel it because, you know, we’ve got great people and we’ve got, you know, enough deals in the pipeline to where it doesn’t ruin your life. But I remember in the early days, yeah, it was some, you have very trying times when you don’t have a huge pipeline of deals.Leo Wehdeking (12:15)
It is.Nick Perry (12:38)
And I can tell you I was not an overnight success. It took me 11 months and 104 face to face seller appointments before I got my first deal. And this was hardcore effort every single day and just getting told no, no, no, no, no. And so, you know, there’s been times in my career that I’ve had to persevere not only just getting my first deal, but, you know, into my career, you know, I’ve had major setbacks as well where, you know, I rememberI’ll tell you a personal story where I had a, know, I was dating a girl in Texas and in Texas, if you have a girl live with you for more than three days, they can claim common law marriage, which means you have to prove that you’re not married and it’s basically a divorce without being married. So I dated a girl for a few months. She moved in, she got mail there. So that was her thing that they showed to the lawyers and the judges and
Turned into a mess. Long story short, I’m probably the only first and last guest that you’ll ever meet that’s been divorced but never married. So I was at a point in my career where I was doing well in real estate. And I remember just blindsided me this whole situation and it ended up costing me a lot because I was so unfamiliar with the way the law worked. I had not been living in Texas very long, but this is a crazy old outdated law. They never changed and they use it against me.
Leo Wehdeking (13:35)
YouNick Perry (14:03)
So I try to fight it with every dollar that I had and long story short, ⁓ lost and ended up going from multiple six figures in the account at the time to basically nothing and having to start over, but I was able to do it because I just kept moving forward every single day. I think that’s the one thing in business is no matter howLeo Wehdeking (14:30)
Exactly.Nick Perry (14:31)
crazy life gets life’s going to throw us crazy situations. Hopefully not as crazy as what I just told you but like there is it’s all crazy situations but in the storms of life like that or whatever you’re going through, you just got to keep punching right even when I was getting you know my ass handed to me in that storm. I was still going out. was still making calls. I still locking up deals. I still building my business and that’s what carried me through.So no matter how hard it gets, you control the controllables and you continue to put your best foot forward every single day and do what you can and that’s what ends up getting you through. You just can’t stop.
Leo Wehdeking (15:54)
Exactly, you just need to do what you know how to do best. right? Yeah, that’s you know, that’s actually the kind of stuff that people don’t like to talk about enough and I think you know, and this is my personal opinion It’s what separates the folks who just dabble from the ones who stay in the game long term. Okay? ⁓ Now Nick, let me ask you this. ⁓ Where are you most focused on solving or scaling next?Nick Perry (16:21)
Yeah, I mean the way that the world is going is it’s, you know, we don’t live in, it’s not 2015 anymore folks. We live in a completely different era. So, you know, my business right now, we are thinking, you know, very much pressing into technology, you know, with all the new ⁓ artificial intelligence tools. If you’re a business owner listening to this, you should be thinking AI first.You should be looking at all your processes and how can I ⁓ utilize artificial intelligence to cut out mundane work, to eliminate ⁓ redundant task, save on labor, speed up efficiencies. All these tools are sitting out there and your competitors are starting to use them right now. And if you are not getting educated and starting to R &D these tools and starting to use them into your business,
you are going to be outdated and not able to compete point blank. So you got to realize the world is changing and it’s changing faster every single day at this point. So, you know, that’s one thing that I’m doing as a business owner is I’m leaning into technology, artificial intelligence to increase our operational efficiency.
Leo Wehdeking (17:22)
Exactly. Yeah.Yeah, actually that’s big. AI is moving really, really, really, really fast in all areas. Not only in real estate, it’s helping automate everything in all businesses. Yeah, yeah. It’s not like you said, we’re not in 2015 anymore. I remember back in the days where actually a new invention came up and you couldn’t like hold a grab to it like in…
Nick Perry (17:54)
disrupting every industry. Yeah.Leo Wehdeking (18:11)
three, four years, something like that. But now everything is going fast, everything. And especially when you already got a business full of trusted employees in place. Am I right? ⁓ Actually, AI right now, it depends on the move that you make with it. Because I believe that depending on how you play it,Nick Perry (18:17)
Mm-hmm.Leo Wehdeking (18:39)
It can create chaos at the beginning, but if you know how to play it right, it’s going to be very, very beneficial for both sides. ⁓ Consumer and also ⁓ businesses. ⁓Nick Perry (18:54)
Yeah, my recommendation,you as the business owner, figure out a who, not how. If you haven’t read the book, who, not how, it’s one of my favorite books of all time. But you don’t necessarily need to be the one that knows how the AI works, like exactly, and be the integrator of it. You just need to understand it enough to say, OK, I can see that this process in my business can be automated and then find who can go do that. Like there’s plenty of very talented people even on Upwork, right?
that you can say, hey, here’s a process in my business, create a loom video on it and say, I would like to automate this through AI. Here’s some ideas I have. Can you maybe do it? There’s plenty of talented people that can get this stuff done quickly. And you want to be careful, right? Cause you don’t want to disrupt your current business processes, but it’s, it’s something that you have to do right now or you’re going to be left behind. Yeah.
Leo Wehdeking (19:23)
Mm-hmm.Yeah, yeah,
exactly. Yeah, that’s why I said depending on how you play it, ⁓ things can go, you know, different sides. Okay, but definitely everybody, everybody, business owners and even, you know, personal, for personal things, you need to apply AI in everything right now. All right, now I know that a lot of people listening are either…
Nick Perry (20:08)
Mm-hmm.Leo Wehdeking (20:12)
earlier in their journey or they’re looking to level up. All right. And I think they will benefit hearing from someone like you, you know, what it is when it comes about building relationships. Okay. And growing your network. ⁓ Which one made the biggest difference for you?Nick Perry (20:34)
of relationships, 100%. Yes. And how do you build quality relationships? That’s the reason I’ve spent over a million dollars on my own education. It’s not because, you know, I’ve been a member of so many masterminds, you know, professional groups, and it’s not because of necessarily the information that I’ve gotten those groups. It’s because the relationships that I’ve gotten those groups. A lot of times it’sLeo Wehdeking (20:36)
100 % right.Nick Perry (21:03)
If you want to be around the highest quality people, you’re going to have to pay to be in the room somehow. You know that the kind of people that you want to be be around are in masterminds. They’re in professional groups there at the country club. They’re behind some sort of barrier of entry. You know if you’re going somewhere where everybody else can be, you’re not going to meet the highest quality people.Leo Wehdeking (21:20)
Exactly.Yeah, you’re not gonna meet them around the corner.
Nick Perry (21:28)
No.Leo Wehdeking (21:29)
Alright, alright. Yeah, actually relationships are everything in this space. I’m actually very happy that you mentioned that. ⁓ But yeah, yeah, obviously you need to go to the right places to find the right people, right?Nick Perry (21:43)
Absolutely, that’s been the key to my successes. Having great people in my corner. I’ve had a lot of great mentors that have poured into me and vice versa. And that’s the reason we continue to grow is the quality of those relationships.Leo Wehdeking (21:58)
Right, cool, cool man. Nick, before we wrap up, if someone wanted to reach out, connect with you, you know, maybe collaborate or learn more about what you’re doing, what’s the best way for them to reach out to you?Nick Perry (22:12)
Yeah, I mean multiple different ways. The ⁓ main way that we’re helping investors right now is through our seven and eight figure cartel program. We’ve coached over 950 other real estate investors at this point and one out of every four of them has self reported doing over seven figures of income. So our success rates through the roof and it’s you know, I have a professional organization of myself, seven and eight figure cartel. SoYou can check that out. If you want to connect with me personally, reach out to me on Instagram. Instagram, my handle is just Nick Perry, REI. I post on there all the time. Pretty approachable. Don’t feel like you can’t reach out to me if you need something. So I’d love to meet you and continue to grow my relationships as well.
Leo Wehdeking (23:06)
Perfect, perfect man. Well listen, I appreciate your time, your story and your perspective. We need more people in this space who are actually doing it the right way. And thanks again for being here. Now for those of you just tuning in, if you got value from this, make sure you’re subscribed. We got more conversations coming with operators just like Nick, who are out there building real businesses. We’ll see you on the next episode guys.
