Cracking the Code: How to Thrive in Syndications and Lending

Brett McCollum (00:00.979)
All right, guys, welcome back to the show. I’m your host, Brett McCollum, and I’m here today with Chris Robison. Today we’re going to be talking about syndications and lending. But before we do, guys, at Investor Fuel, we help real estate investors, service providers, and real estate entrepreneurs to 5x their businesses to allow them to build the businesses they’ve always wanted and live the lives they’ve always dreamed of. Without further ado, Chris, how are you,

Chris Robison (00:23.992)
Doing awesome. Thanks for having me on, Brett.

Brett McCollum (00:26.135)
Thanks for being here man. I got to know each other a little bit had a couple little tech issues at a time, but we’re making it you know so Before we get into all the things you know we got a lot to cover today But before we do can you do us a favor back up rewind tell us a little bit about yourself?

Chris Robison (00:41.678)
Yeah, so I grew up in a big family with lot of brothers and sisters. My dad was into real estate early on. I saw him fix up a house from kind of studs out and flip it. We lived there for a little bit time and see that wasn’t called flipping at the time. That wasn’t really the concept, but that’s what happened. And I always had a curiosity of real estate ever since that young age. And…

wanted to get involved, wanted to be part of it, thought that was gonna be a great way to build a future in life and build wealth and future for my family and so on. dabbled with my first kind of owner contract deal when I was 18 and started fixing the house up. It was way too big a project for me and my knowledge set then. So I gave back to them at a time, but did a bunch of stuff to it.

It was a good deal for both of us. And then really got active when I was 22 and bought a fourplex. And I started going from there, then got into private lending and doing residential mortgages and stayed in the real estate career ever since and continued to grow and expand. So now I’ve been doing stuff in that space for about 17 years.

Yeah, done a lot of different aspects of real estate, invested, raised money, put syndications together, and done a bunch of different asset classes. And it’s been fun to learn about it and experience and work with others as well.

Brett McCollum (02:06.913)
Yeah, very cool. You said you came from a big family. How big?

Chris Robison (02:11.848)
I have 11 brothers and sisters.

Brett McCollum (02:13.975)
Yeah, there you go. I love to hear people’s version of what a big family is, right? Yeah, that’s awesome. So where do you fit in to that? What number?

Chris Robison (02:15.512)
Yeah.

Chris Robison (02:24.592)
I’m number three, so I’ve got a lot of younger students as well.

Brett McCollum (02:26.493)
Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I have, we have in our, in our church, we have, they have 13. And I was like, man, that’s just, it’s crazy. And you look at it and like, that is a different kind of commitment. So we have four kids and everybody tells us like, you have such a big family. Like y’all don’t know. Like we have some, we know people that are like, you know, eight is kind of like, you know, I know a lot of people with eight.

Chris Robison (02:35.203)
Well.

Brett McCollum (02:55.991)
kind of thing that’s weird, you know, and like, it’s, and that’s huge to me, it’s to think about, I mean, to think about five even is like scary, you know what I mean? But like there’s, it’s a, yeah, it’s a lot, man, but very cool. how was, let me ask you this, cause like, obviously we’ll get into an obvious thing else too, but like growing up, you know, you’ve got, you know, seven, six, seven other, you know, younger siblings, you know, you got two older siblings. Did I get that number right? No, you got eight.

Chris Robison (02:56.184)
Yeah.

Chris Robison (03:05.278)
You

Chris Robison (03:25.409)
Nine younger, so the 12 of us total, yeah.

Brett McCollum (03:28.085)
Yeah, geez, I suck at math, dude. even basic math, Brett. All right. How does growing up in that kind of environment, is there a lot of self-made opportunity? Like, you have to figure things out for yourself a lot, I’m sure, right? Because obviously, mom and dad love us, but…

You know, you can’t dedicate 100 % of your time to all 12 kids at the same time. So how did, how did.

Chris Robison (03:58.638)
Yeah, and resources are thinner at the time. So, ever since I was 11, I was finding a little odd jobs to do in the neighborhood and make money and buying stuff that I wanted at a young age and same thing with my brothers. So that was just part of way of life. We didn’t feel bad about it. It was like, this is just how it is. Everyone’s got to contribute. You got a lot of people there. yeah, so definitely created some self-sufficiency kind of concepts and ideas.

Brett McCollum (04:14.997)
be resourceful. That’s right, yeah.

Chris Robison (04:28.362)
entrepreneurial stuff as well.

Brett McCollum (04:30.111)
Resourcefulness, that’s the key. I love that. Yeah, I mean, to be fair, think as your father too, we talked about that. And for my kids and teaching them, you are a part of this family. And being a part of this family means there’s responsibility. Mom and dad put the roof over your head and give food, but you have things you need to contribute to this family. And it sounds a little bit like that’s kind of what you guys, is that kind of…

a little bit what you guys had going on too.

Chris Robison (05:03.886)
Yeah, absolutely. You know, and I think there’s a lot of value in that. It gives you as a kid a purpose, an identity, and like, I’m worth some things, you know, kind of inner value as well. And so I think there’s a lot of positive with it.

Brett McCollum (05:17.627)
That’s Yeah, that’s actually, I’ve never, dude, that’s, I’m taking that one from you. That’s good. Like, that’s, so my son is very, and my daughter, my oldest two are very much entrepreneurial in their mind of like how they wanna, dad, I’m gonna start this business, dad, I’m gonna start this business, and they’re all kind of, you know, they’re kid businesses, you know, like how kids think and stuff, and I love that they’re starting to do that, and you know,

Chris Robison (05:41.165)
Yeah.

Brett McCollum (05:45.559)
I see that now that you said it like that, creates value within themselves, you know, of what they’re worth. And I challenge them too. I’m like, you know, my daughter likes to like make these like little rainbow loom bracelet things. Are you familiar with that at all? And she takes those and she makes them and they look really cool, you know? And then she goes out, we homeschool, we talked about that too. And they have these standing like group playground days where they’re going and doing stuff, you know?

Chris Robison (05:58.828)
Yeah.

Brett McCollum (06:12.669)
and she will take her stuff and sell the crap out of it to anybody that will listen to her. anyway, long story short, will come back and like, daddy, I sold this amount and this amount. And I asked her how much she’s making from it. And she goes, this. And I’m like, you should sell it for more. She goes, why would I do that? Because you’re worth more. And started trying to teach her that. And I’m glad you said that, man, because I didn’t even realize that that’s what we were doing is creating value. They see that now they’re worth more.

Chris Robison (06:16.502)
Nice. Yeah.

Brett McCollum (06:41.921)
That was good, So, all right, so you grew up, you know, kind of some exposure into, you know, the real estate. What made you at 18 say, I’m going to go for something in real estate? What was going on there?

Chris Robison (06:41.976)
Yeah.

Chris Robison (06:56.728)
Yeah, I think years leading up to that, I was into Rich Dad Poor Dad books and reading that. So I guess it was pretty young to start being with that. My family played a game, Cash Flow, that he created and just learning those concepts and seeing that I don’t want to struggle financially in life and a lot of different paths, you know, that people go down in careers can just be a lot of struggle financially trying to make ends meet.

Brett McCollum (07:02.423)
Mm-hmm.

Brett McCollum (07:09.409)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Robison (07:23.982)
going to live life you want to live. And so there’s got to be a way to do it differently. And so just was always aware of that from a from a young age, Yeah.

Brett McCollum (07:32.629)
Yeah, yeah, like the cat. So it’s funny you say that I have. We played at home like as well, but I have not heard anybody come on here yet and say, yeah, I started playing casual when I was a kid like wow dude, like nobody does like you know. From different from you know mastermind opportunities, things like that. We’ve talked a little bit like I’ve had the opportunity to meet both Robert and his wife. Well now they’re split, but in talking about why they created the cash flow game.

You know, did you know that? I don’t know if you knew this, they actually made the game before they wrote the book.

Chris Robison (08:07.301)
really? No, I did not know that.

Brett McCollum (08:08.438)
Yeah. And I was like, what? Because in their mind’s eye, was, this is the thing that people need to do every day that’s going to change their life. Because they’re playing something that’s going to create the synapses in their mind to connect. And then they wrote the book. But yeah, that’s so cool that you did that. Yeah, so at 18, did you flip it? Or what exactly did you do?

Chris Robison (08:35.342)
I did a bunch of work on it. So I was working a side job in construction or that was my full-time job, not side job. And then I was working on this house in the weekends and we did a bunch of stuff, demo and clean stuff out and get things going. But at that point it really needed permits for electrical and plumbing and a lot more. was more of a gutted shell. And so that was just, it was beyond what I had at the time.

knowledge and connections and resources to put it together. And I didn’t have a mentor to help me. And so I contacted the seller said, Hey, I can’t do anything else more here. It was the house was $10,000. It was a cheap little, you know, nothing house. I paid them, you know, monthly payments along the way while I was working on the project.

Brett McCollum (09:00.919)
How do you exit that?

Brett McCollum (09:10.935)
Yeah, all right, so at 18, that house that you had had, what was it that, did you flip it or what did you do there?

Chris Robison (09:22.722)
Yeah, so I bought the house on owner contract for $10,000 and was paying a hundred bucks a month towards paying it off. I was working full time in construction and thought I knew quite a bit and started doing some of the demo on the house. It was mostly a shell. It was a really old building and so got into putting it together and realizing it needs a lot more than what I, my skillset knowledge set had at the time. It needed plumbing and probably some structural stuff and.

And so I contacted the seller today. This isn’t, this isn’t working out for me. but Hey, I got a bunch of junk off the property and stuff cleaned up. So, you know, we went waste from that point.

Brett McCollum (09:58.839)
Yeah, how did you exit that one? What was the exit strategy there?

Chris Robison (10:07.214)
Nope, just gave it back. I it wasn’t, there wasn’t a profit on it. It was like, isn’t, it wasn’t a good fit, you know? And I think they sort of knew that, but from my age and such. And so that’s the way we structured the deal.

Brett McCollum (10:14.967)
was good education though, right? I mean, to some level, right? You learned a lot from it.

Chris Robison (10:24.938)
yeah, I learned a lot and was like, okay, next time I get into something, need to have just a bigger rounded plan there and probably a mentor would be helpful.

Brett McCollum (10:29.271)
Yeah, and at 18, here’s the thing is, like, looking back, I’m sure, I don’t know, I don’t wanna put words in your mouth or anything, but I know for me with mistakes that we’ve made in business, making them at 18 versus making them at almost 40 is two different things. At 18, it’s like, oh, dang, that sucks, I can do it again. And then at 40, you’re like, oh no, what’s gonna happen?

Chris Robison (10:58.22)
Right. I’ve got I got a family. I’ve got responsibilities. I’ve got, you know, mortgage to pay and all all the things that when you’re when you’re older when you’re 18, it’s like bouncing back. Let’s let’s try it again.

Brett McCollum (10:58.845)
My knife, flipping over here.

And then it’s like it happened for you back then. Yes, you had to give it back, but it taught you the lessons you needed so that you can keep moving forward. And clearly you did. So what happened next in the real estate path? What came next after that?

Chris Robison (11:23.566)
Yeah, I waited a few years. So when I was 22, at that time I had my residential mortgage license and I was with a group of investors that were buying houses at the foreclosure auction. So this was back in 2009 after kind of the 2008 crash and a lot of foreclosures going on. And so the class was, I worked with a couple of real estate agents, teach people how to buy a foreclosure at the auction.

So Tuesday nights we’d talk about kind of the nuts and bolts of what that looked like, risks and things and process of an auction. And then Thursday we’d go over the list of properties that were going to auction on Friday and try to analyze them and see which deals we thought were good and which ones we thought were risky based on title searches and stuff. And then Friday morning, be there at the auction, see the process. And so from that I networked with people and met people that were in the real estate business that…

Brett McCollum (12:13.953)
Yeah. Very cool. How long were you the kind of that auction path? Like how long did that run for?

Chris Robison (12:14.998)
had some money, other resources, but didn’t want to all the time and energy to do the projects and so created partnerships.

Chris Robison (12:29.39)
four or five years probably. I was there daily. Yeah, we did it for quite a while. And so then I found investors that said, hey, I want to, have money, but I don’t want to do projects, but I’ll lend. And so then I learned how to put those deals together. And so they would give me cashier’s checks in my name at the auction there, know, $500,000 or something as like a, as a kid. And

Brett McCollum (12:36.673)
Mmm.

Chris Robison (12:54.434)
And so I would make loans at the auction steps to people, know, people that we’d already pre-talked and looked at and knew the deal at a time. but yeah, that was a lot of fun. Back then I was like, do you just trust me with this, this money? Like you’re not going to go anywhere.

Brett McCollum (13:02.571)
Dude, for sure. Yeah, that’s not, I mean, at a young age, I mean, at any age, but man, that’s, that’s wild. you mentioned you said you made loans at the auction steps. What do mean by that?

Chris Robison (13:19.822)
So for closure auction, you’ve got to have cashier’s checks and buy a house with cash, you the day of. And so I had a handful of house flippers I worked with since they would bring maybe 20 % of the purchase price and I would bring the other 80 % with a different investor.

Brett McCollum (13:21.239)
Mm-hmm.

Brett McCollum (13:29.815)
I see what you’re, yeah, okay. You’re doing it at the steps with the flipper that was there. That’s pretty cool. Dude, I’ll be honest with you, I haven’t heard anybody do that yet. It’s always the flipper that was at the steps buying the property, right, in some way. That’s interesting. how did you, like when you were making these loans back then, what was it, this is back what, 2011-ish at this point, or when? was back in 9-

Chris Robison (13:41.912)
Yeah.

Chris Robison (13:50.52)
Right, yeah.

Brett McCollum (13:59.636)
So back at nine.

Chris Robison (14:02.446)
Nine, 2009, yeah, it was one of those. So 2008 is when I guess I got started into it and I was doing those classes and I was pre-qualifying people for other hard money lenders. And then, you know, after doing.

Brett McCollum (14:07.489)
just wasn’t a lot of hard money going back then. It was a more tangible now to access hard money. It’s everywhere you look, but back then, not a lot going on. How were you structuring your loans back then?

Chris Robison (14:15.672)
Yeah.

Chris Robison (14:29.484)
Yeah, so most of them, because the market was continuing going down, so we wanted to get people in and out quickly. So six months was our length of time. Ideally finding projects that needed carpet and paint and maybe a little bit of refresh in a bathroom or kitchen or something, but not major additions or those kind of projects that would take a lot longer.

Brett McCollum (14:44.577)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Robison (14:50.318)
And then you would look at the market and say, right now this, backend value of this house after fixed up, it’s worth 200. So in six months from now, it’s going to be worth 180. So we kind of underwrite compared to a 180 valuation. And so, okay, yeah, we’re okay to make a loan for 120,000 on this property or something. uh,

Brett McCollum (15:02.295)
So you were doing a 20 % haircut on the ARV up front.

Brett McCollum (15:08.321)
Yeah, that’s smart. Yeah. Usually I wait to this point to get into it, but I think it’s relevant to this part of the conversation. Do you see any, like right now, right? Like with markets shifting and changing. mean, it’s not changing. It’s already happened.

Chris Robison (15:10.956)
Yeah, 10 plus, you know, for short term there, yeah.

Brett McCollum (15:26.359)
Personally, and I’m out in Florida, you’re in the Northwest there. Here, specifically, the values aren’t dropping so much as they are just take days on market are just highest they’ve been since close to that 2008, nine, 10 period of time. Are you guys seeing anything like that now as far as how you underrate up there?

Chris Robison (15:28.717)
Yeah.

Chris Robison (15:58.818)
Yeah. So it seems like what I’m going to call kind of normal houses are still moving at kind of a regular pace, not like the super fast pace that it was a few years ago, but they seem pretty reasonable. But if you’ve got any house, it’s got some funkiness to it. Those take a lot longer. So we made a loan to a guy on a house. It was a mobile home with a stick build addition. And so that’s.

a funky kind of house type. from a bank lending standpoint, it’s a manufactured home still. So you have to follow those guidelines. It took him a long time to sell and he dropped the price lower than what he was thinking on it. Got out eventually, but so yeah, any of stuff that’s kind of unique, weird stuff, does especially moving extra slow.

Chris Robison (16:49.582)
From a bank lending standpoint, it’s still a mobile home or manufactured home. financing of buyers have to follow that. you know, kind of unique properties are definitely going slower and the market’s different than now than what it has been. It seems like people that they don’t need to move or they maybe want to downsize or do something, they’re not as in big of a hurry to do it right now. So I think that’ll change eventually, but it’ll take some time.

Brett McCollum (17:00.63)
Yeah, I mean, inventory, you know, at least in Florida, it’s rising, you know, in a lot, in some markets more than others even, you know, and it’s odd that the most, the state with the most growth, you know, the state’s plural rather than the most growth right now, also the state’s with the longest hold time on property too, you know, and it’s just, it’s a weird, it’s a weird season we’re in, man, and it’s hard to navigate.

Brett McCollum (17:31.544)
Yeah, yeah, and everybody you talk to, everybody I talk to, it’s like everybody says, it’s weird, it’s weird, it’s weird, but none of us can go, well, this is what’s gonna happen next, because we’ve all tried to anticipate it, and it’s always been something different. It’s just different, it’s a difficult feeling internally to have this, don’t know what to expect. What would you tell the person for like a best practices maybe kind of thing to…

Chris Robison (17:41.166)
Yeah, it is a little, it’s weird. It’s definitely felt the weirdest in my career of all the years that I’ve worked in. Yeah.

Brett McCollum (17:59.573)
you know, they’re sitting there and they’re, you know, struggling to know how to underwrite properly in a uncertain market. What would you give them? Like, because I heard you say like what you did back in the 2008 stretch, that sounds pretty fair to me as well. Like, well, plan for a 20 % haircut, you know, upfront. And then if it doesn’t meet that, then great, you came out further ahead. But what would you say to it?

Chris Robison (18:40.088)
Yeah, think right now my focus kind of viewpoint is cash flow. If something can cash flow, that’s what’s most important. And if you have a property that’s not doing what you want it to do and with in regards to value, focusing on that cash flow helps you weather the storm and make it to the next point where you good about selling it.

Brett McCollum (18:41.655)
Sure, that’s smart.

Yeah, that’s a good plan. Yeah, so tell me about more on the syndication side of things. Like know you’re focusing on that a lot right now as well. What does that look like for you guys today?

Chris Robison (19:12.718)
Yeah, so I’m love to work with great operators who’ve got a lot of experience and in a variety of asset classes. I work with a lot of investors. That’s really been my focus since, since like 2009 when I started is working with investors and showing them, you know, opportunities in the real estate investing space, whether it’s private lending for student positions or operational lending, it’s, you know, a syndication or partnership in owning real estate.

A lot of people want to figure out how to get in, they don’t want to do all the time commitment and learning of every aspect of it. And so a syndication can be great way to participate in real estate, create some cashflow streams. So if there’s a way you can diversify that and let’s say you’ve got a song to client of the day, he’s got a million bucks in a project. And so when that project turns over, he’s in a retirement stage of his life. And so his goal is cashflow. And so he doesn’t want to have it all in one spot though. And so the goals will put him in 10 different syndications.

Brett McCollum (19:43.735)
you

Brett McCollum (20:03.755)
Yeah, I like that a lot. Yeah, diversification is a big deal, especially in the retirement buckets for people is, you know, not like, how many people do we know that are, my gosh, people at retirement age right now, today, that are now having to wait because the stock market’s been funky and they’ve lost, you know, however much, you know, and that’s not disabled. Yeah, you know, now they’re like, I was gonna retire this year, but I guess I gotta wait, you know, kind of thing. And,

Chris Robison (20:09.744)
that have cash flow and create some diversity that way. know, different locations, cross country, different asset classes, different kind of return timeframes. Yeah.

Brett McCollum (20:32.791)
But I mean, to be fair, I know people in the syndication space that they were doing adjustable rate mortgages and they got them in 21 and 22 when they were super low rates and then they adjusted and now they’re at six, seven, 8 % and then taxes climbed, insurance climbed and interest rates climbed. And now they’re calling their…

Chris Robison (20:40.344)
Big chunk, yep.

Brett McCollum (21:01.249)
folks in there and they’re going, hey, you we were on a five year plan, but now we need to adjust it to a 10 year plan or something, you know? And it’s just, you know, it can happen anywhere if you’re not, you know, careful. That’s why I like diversifying things across multiple ways because even in real estate, we’ve got risk that we incur depending on how things go.

Chris Robison (21:40.815)
yep, there’s risks that sometimes come at you that you had no idea to plan for or think about and go, no, gosh, this changed on me. Like I had a line of credit on a property and my interest rate from 4 % to like 9.5%. I was like, oh my gosh, that’s a big switch pretty quick. for so many years, there wasn’t that kind of a interest rate risk. We just thought that the movements were pretty small and when they would go back up, it would be small again.

Brett McCollum (21:51.639)
Yeah, I think as the real estate investors, we understand that a little bit more, right? As far as like, we understand that the risk association involved with, but when we’re raising capital from people, a lot of times, I can sit across from you, Chris, and you being just a private lender of some kind, and hey, there’s risk associated with this, if that happens and something goes sideways, I get you’re mad, but will it hurt your family?

That’s how I’ve always done it. And they’ll go, no, we’re good. This is what we want to do. OK, there’s real risk here. And sometimes that person just at the end of the day doesn’t know. It still doesn’t process. And we’ve had losses in our business last year-ish. having to make some of those capital calls and do stuff that are the worst. It’s the worst conversation. Like, these deals.

didn’t work out the way we wanted them to, you know, and like, well, then how would you mean? What does that mean for me? And I’m like, that means that this deal didn’t work, you know, and that is a, you know, a lot of people like, it was a lot more happened a lot more in the you know, side of things, but I see a lot of people right now. I’ve talked to so many people right now this is happening to reoccurring, it just keeps happening. And navigating that right now, man, it’s been

for a lot, especially you guys in the syndication space, of like how do you guys navigate those waters and handle that? What are you guys doing during these last year and a half, two years?

Chris Robison (23:43.182)
Yeah, no, it’s, it’s been a lot more work. Um, I was talking to, uh, one investor of mine that’s, um, 80 plus years old. And, he was talking about, got in the real estate market in the early eighties and he’s like, I never worked so hard for so little money. Cause the interest rates at the time were 18, 19%. And it was just, you know, working, working, working, and just not getting a lot done. Um, that’s definitely how I feel right now. Never worked so hard for, for so little money, um, in the space and just trying to keep everything, uh, going and, and.

Brett McCollum (24:06.391)
Yeah, it’s hard man. And the reason I’m bringing that up, Chris, is not to, it’s not picking on anybody, it’s just to tell people like, this is tough sometimes, but listen to people like Chris that are like, hey, yeah, we’re weathering the storm too. We’re doing that. And here’s some strategies that we’re doing that are helping us, and that sort of thing. Because experience does not make you immune to the changes that are happening in our market today, in the world today.

Chris Robison (24:13.076)
moving you know going okay what’s how do we adjust the business model that we’re doing right now to to perform on our on our deals.

Brett McCollum (24:36.023)
but it does help you to pivot maybe a little bit faster and do something a little bit wiser maybe. Any tips you could share with people that are like kind of weathering some storms right now and how to maybe, even if it’s a mindset piece even Chris, like what are you guys doing?

Chris Robison (25:09.486)
Yeah, mindset’s huge. I mean, your perspective of how you look at something, if you’ve got, you can look at the same situation and be a little negative at it, or you can look at it say, what can I learn here? What can I change? So mindset, I think, is really important. But for me, it’s going, okay, how do I look at any kind of asset that we have that isn’t maximizing cashflow right now? What else can we do to bring cashflow in? And so that’s been our biggest pivot, because there’s been some stuff that I’ve…

wasn’t as worried about, know, in the past, because there was enough other stuff carrying cash flows of something that was wasn’t performing. all of it needs cash flow and we got to get all of it, you know, go in there and all of that’s going to help the cash flow is really what’s important.

in a time like this when things are just moving slower, you know, trying to put stuff on the market right now. We’ve got a few things in the market to see if we would bring in capital that way, but it just hasn’t been moving. And some stuff were priced considerably below a recent appraisal. And so I’m like, it’s not the time to take a haircut on stuff. It’s the time to…

Brett McCollum (26:07.415)
Yeah, that’s healthy perspective too, because I bet the people that went through the 08 crash, you know, thought the same thing of like, there’s no way I’m gonna get out of this. This is for, you know, I’m done. And can I tell you how many people that I know today that are multi, multi, multi, multi, multi millionaires, how many times over, that lost it all, bankrupt completely, shut down from 08 through like 11, 12, 13 even. You know, so it’s not forever.

Chris Robison (26:18.062)
Keep the castles going, keep it going for a little bit longer and in a few more years we’ll see it turn around. It won’t be forever even though it kind of feels gloomy at times.

Brett McCollum (26:35.903)
It’s not, it’s today, you know, yes, the season’s tough right now, but my perspective, Chris, and I think you kinda touched on a little bit too, is the mindset of it is, I get to do this. Not I have to go through this, I get to do this. Because it could have been somebody else, It could have been, it could have been anybody else. And it gets, it gets to be us. So something, you know, I’m like, God, what did you, you put this in my path because I am, for some reason, I get to do this.

And I know that on the other side of it, the lessons that’ll come out of it are gonna be for my good and not for my detriment. And that’s my perspective. Where do you guys fall into that?

Chris Robison (27:12.94)
Right? Yeah.

Brett McCollum (27:25.526)
Yeah.

Chris Robison (27:33.058)
Right.

Chris Robison (27:41.646)
Kind of on mindset here of.

Yeah, similar. It’s like I’m excited about real estate still the opportunities. I knew that in 2000, like 2021, I’m like, it’s, it’s, it’s going to eventually turn. Like it can’t continue at this speed. So knowing now what I knew, I would have done a few things differently. I would have made even a stronger cast cash position, which would have been great, but

But yeah, I think we’re going to do just fine. But I did see people in 2008 that kind of threw the towel in too early and they were just, they had cash flows coming in on the properties and they were doing just fine, but they were really discouraged by the significant decrease in value on the properties and thought, when’s it going to go back up? And so they cashed in on stuff and sold things at losses and were just kind of gloomy with it. they shouldn’t have, you they would have done a lot better if they would have just sat tight for a little bit longer.

Brett McCollum (28:16.385)
Sure.

Brett McCollum (28:20.451)
Yeah. Keep it cash flowing. Yeah, I agree, man. That’s really good. Chris, if people want to do, you know, connect with you in some way and, you know, get to know you more, like you’ve got a lot of wisdom to offer, both in the lending space, also in the syndication space. You’ve gone through and done tough things. You’re going through tough things and you’re still moving forward. You know, not blowing smoke up your skirt, Chris, but you’re a leader worth following, How can people relate to you, you know, connect to you? What does that look like?

Chris Robison (29:09.152)
Yeah. So a website, it’s empowerinvesting.net and connect with us that way. I write a regular email series and so they can hear different investing opportunities and ideas. I try to send them out five days a week. And then a little bit on Instagram and LinkedIn. And yeah, I love to connect with people and that are doing deals, one invest and see how I can help them and carry the dream forward.

Brett McCollum (29:13.131)
Yeah man, that’s great. And we’ll make sure we get all your information into the show notes for people to connect with. And guys, I strongly encourage you to do that. Like I said, Chris is a leader worth following. We both believe that…

Now is not the time to run away from real estate, running in, I believe real estate is the thing that we’re struggling with, but it’s also the way we’re getting through stuff too. And so keep going, get good people behind you, get the right people on your team, know, people like Chris, you know, and you guys will make it through it too. But man, Chris, this is great, man. I appreciate you doing the show with me today. Really appreciate you being here,

Yeah, dude. Great, guys. I appreciate you all as well for hanging out with us. And we will see each of you on the next episode. Take care, everybody.

Chris Robison (30:18.254)
Yeah, thanks for having me. Appreciate it.