From Zero to Property Hero: Build Your Dream Real Estate Business

Brett McCollum (00:00.523)
All right, guys, welcome back to the show. I’m your host, Brett McCollum. I’m here today with Matt Faircloth. Today we’re going to be talking about building a real estate business. 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, Matt, how are you?

@TheMattFaircloth (00:24.302)
I’m living the life of my dreams.

Brett McCollum (00:27.415)
Okay, man, how many people can say that? That’s awesome, man. That’s great.

@TheMattFaircloth (00:32.428)
Anybody that wants to man, it’s not like, you gotta make lots of money and then you can live the life of your dreams or whatever. I’ve learned in my life, Brett, you know.

just chosen to surround myself in gratitude and that gratitude has come in and helped me out in the lows and kind of been the wind in my sails that got me to the highs that validated the gratitude and everything like that. So I try and spend the most of my time being as grateful as I can and I find that that helps me manifest more things that I can be grateful for.

Brett McCollum (01:01.157)
Yeah.

Brett McCollum (01:07.045)
Love that. Yeah, super cool. Can you do us a favor? I know, like, dude, he’s hitting it already. And I definitely want it. We’re going to get into all of this. Before we do, can you do me a favor, rewind a bit, give us some context, some history. Who’s Matt Faircloth?

@TheMattFaircloth (01:09.08)
So there, let’s just get deep man, let’s do it.

@TheMattFaircloth (01:16.908)
Yeah.

@TheMattFaircloth (01:23.48)
Well, I am, let’s see, who’s metaphorical?

Jeez, where do we go? I grew up in Baltimore, Maryland and went to Virginia Tech for all the reasons that my dad’s friends told me, hey, you’re good at math and science. You should be an engineer. And I wanted to explore the world a little bit and get away from home a little bit. Not that Baltimore’s not a great place, but I wanted to just get out. So I went to Virginia Tech and I studied engineering and I graduated. And then I was like, no, I don’t want to be an engineer because an engineer is someone that’s way more,

Brett McCollum (01:54.917)
Mmm.

@TheMattFaircloth (01:57.67)
me or introverted than I am and they’re more on a desk and staring at numbers and spreadsheets and all that jazz, which I could do, but that doesn’t really feed my soul. People do. I needed to be with people. I took a job as a traveling salesman.

Brett McCollum (02:08.293)
Yeah.

@TheMattFaircloth (02:14.604)
You know, going around North Carolina, I did well with a company called Ingersoll Rand. And I got good at sales. I got good at selling stuff that my degree allowed me to sell, which is high-end technical product that, you know, had five and even six figure price tags on it. And that was fun. But I felt a calling pulling me north from North Carolina. And that had to do briefly that I’m adopted. And I began the journey to find my birth mother. And I did.

and she lived in Pennsylvania. I’m sorry, she lived in Jersey, Pennsylvania comes into it. She lived in Jersey and the parents I grew up with lived in Baltimore and I’m like, need to be in the Northeast so I can build a deeper relationship with this birth mother that I had found that lived in South Jersey.

And also with my, you know, I get back to see my mom and dad in Baltimore more than a couple of times a year, which is how often I was seeing them living in North Carolina. So I moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. And that’s, you know, half an hour from my birth mother, built a deeper relationship with her. Hour and a half from my mom and dad, you know, just rekindled my relationship with them and all as well. Buddy my Virginia from Virginia Tech introduces me to his sister that lived in Philadelphia, who then introduced me to

girl that she grew up with named Liz Randazzi who is now Liz Verkloth as of 20 years and I married Liz Randazzi. When we first started dating she put this little purple book that maybe a few of your guests have talked about called Rich Dad Poor Dad. The Purple Bible. I’ve never heard it called that. I love that. The Purple Bible. She put that in my hand Rich Dad Poor Dad and it made me realize you know what there’s more to me than this traveling sales

Brett McCollum (03:39.503)
comment.

Brett McCollum (03:46.389)
Purple Bible.

@TheMattFaircloth (04:01.84)
rep and I want to live a bigger life. want to make an impact, make a difference in the world. I just want to be a bigger me and I knew that I was only going to be so big of a me working for Ingersoll Rand, Solider Compressors, great company, but it was more of me than that. When Liz Randazzi, now Liz Fairclough and I got married, I quit my day job at Ingersoll Rand. She got herself a job and she was

was our primary income earner for the Faircloth household for many, years while I built the DeRosa Group, our company. And that was, we got married in 05 and that was 20 years ago. So there we go.

Brett McCollum (04:39.237)
Okay

Brett McCollum (04:45.551)
Wow. Dude. All right. I’m gonna take a breath. Okay, let’s do it. All right, so let’s back up. So you are going to Virginia Tech. I am not a Hokie, but you know, to each their own. To each their own. I’m a gator. I live in Gainesville, Florida, by the way. I am a… Yeah, I have, you know.

@TheMattFaircloth (05:01.23)
Forgive you.

@TheMattFaircloth (05:05.678)
Florida Gator? man. You guys have actually made it to the promised land. Virginia Tech has flirted with the promised land a few times with national championships, national titles and stuff like that. I remember one year when Florida Gators won the football national title and the basketball national title in the same year. was like, you know, is it like one of those like Chinese New Year calendars? Like you guys were like the year of the rabbit or something like that, that year? I don’t know.

Brett McCollum (05:13.743)
Dude.

Brett McCollum (05:22.115)
the same year.

Brett McCollum (05:30.821)
The problem with that was though here locally like living here. It was amazing is the Teebo years It was all this time and everything was like, oh my gosh living here was the greatest Also is also kind of weird because I was 2008 9 and so what was going on in the world at that point, you know So it’s kind of this weird but but like it was awesome to live here and then we haven’t done anything since Until this year until this year

@TheMattFaircloth (05:38.712)
Roll it.

Yeah.

@TheMattFaircloth (05:48.003)
Yeah.

@TheMattFaircloth (05:57.166)
heck of a silver lining though wasn’t it for all the weirdness going on in the world and I don’t know Florida has not won anything since then

Brett McCollum (06:00.791)
Yeah.

Well, until this year, we won the national basketball national title just a few weeks ago. That was the job.

@TheMattFaircloth (06:06.926)
That was the drought that, yeah. But I mean, there’s teams like Virginia Tech that have never won the national title. We’ve been there, you know?

Brett McCollum (06:12.997)
Yeah, mean, but to taste the victory, you know, like this is title town, you know, and then all of a sudden, know. I guess it’s perspective, right?

@TheMattFaircloth (06:22.898)
years for another national title or whatever it was, know, or not even, you know. Yeah, so I don’t cry too much for you guys, but it is nice to have a team that’s well-funded and has a great sports program and all that. lot of pride. But it’s okay. You want to have a mutual hatred of Florida State. That’s okay. Sorry, Florida State listeners, Florida State fans. You know, I’m sure you’ve got love.

Brett McCollum (06:32.421)
It is a fun time. It’s a great place to live.

Brett McCollum (06:42.721)
yes, dude, can’t, you guys, yeah, we’re,

Brett McCollum (06:49.601)
I’m not, I know it’s okay. We didn’t have to apologize to them. They know, they know how bad they are. It’s okay. all right, let’s move on for again, just too much trouble here. So, you, you have some, some really like life. What a, I love how you let off with gratefulness and I can see from the way you just described things, what, how and why that got there. So naturally for you, maybe I bet there’s days where, you know, you had to put the work into have that grateful, you have to choose to be great by the way, guys.

@TheMattFaircloth (06:54.414)
You

@TheMattFaircloth (07:11.694)
Thank you.

Brett McCollum (07:19.495)
And I think, Matt, you will agree with this. Gratefulness is not an emotion. It’s a choice that you make. Yeah. Yeah.

@TheMattFaircloth (07:24.366)
Yes, 100%. It’s it’s so is happiness.

All positive energy are choices. They are not results. That’s what I have found in my life. don’t get me wrong, Brett, man, I’ve had some pretty, pretty crappy days, man. I’ve had days where I was very sad, very depressed, very in the dumps. And then I reminded myself, hey, man, it’s just a choice to just pull myself out. I’m going to figure my way through this. I’m probably not going to live in a cardboard box on the corner. I’m likely not going to have my entire thing that I’ve built collapse around me.

Brett McCollum (07:40.111)
Sure.

@TheMattFaircloth (07:58.592)
delayed on success sometimes, but I have faith in me. I am a person of faith, period. So I have faith in God that along with him, with him as my partner, all things are possible. And so I think that with all those things combined, I have a certain foundation of confidence that it’s going to work out eventually if I give it enough time, even in my darkest times. So that’s kind of one of the foundations I stand on.

Brett McCollum (08:14.095)
Hunter.

Brett McCollum (08:28.995)
Yeah, you and I both, and there’s nothing off limits on my show because I get to say what I want. So fundamentally speaking, the fruits of the spirit are love, joy, kindness, good, right? But joy and peace are fruits of us. They’re not emotions. These are things that we have within us.

@TheMattFaircloth (08:33.421)
Okay.

That’s your show, right?

@TheMattFaircloth (08:52.718)
Mm-hmm.

Brett McCollum (08:52.805)
And you know what? Yeah, days are hard sometimes. Life is hard sometimes. It is. But we get we have something already built. It’s a god. It’s godly given. These are it’s not in the fruit of the spirit are not one or the other. They’re all we have them. So that’s my that’s my fundamental belief system to Matt is by the way.

@TheMattFaircloth (09:01.826)
Yeah.

@TheMattFaircloth (09:09.838)
And I’ve had it all happen too, Bretman. I’ve, you know, had…

Everything from unexpected losses happen in my family, you know, loved ones. I’ve had three quarters of a million dollars stolen from me, you know, through a Ponzi scheme of other people’s money, not my money, other people’s money, partly my money, but a lot of other people’s money too. And so I’ve had it all happen and I found that with enough time and enough effort and also bottom line above all else, not giving up and not losing faith through me.

Brett McCollum (09:41.837)
love it. Yeah.

@TheMattFaircloth (09:43.712)
and through God, right? Like kind of keeping all that in the forefront. Things do eventually work out. Sometimes there’s some injection of time and thought and prayer and all that stuff to keep things oriented towards the North Star, so to speak. But they do work out. The three quarters of a million bucks, I worked it out. And I was able to turn a profit. I got the money back and then some.

Brett McCollum (10:05.913)
Mmm.

Brett McCollum (10:09.763)
Yeah, that’s incredible.

@TheMattFaircloth (10:11.446)
And if you believe in higher power, you understand that when people pass away, like my dad did, right? And that was a dark day for me, but I learned that there’s another place that he went that’s even better than this one, and I’ll see him again, and those things, right? And so as much as it hurt to lose him, I know he’s still there. I didn’t lose him. He just transitioned.

Brett McCollum (10:26.126)
Yeah.

Brett McCollum (10:30.573)
No doubt.

Yeah. Well, and you know this too, that’s biblical too, right? There’s a time for mourning and weeping and scriptural. Like there’s a time for it. That’s not wrong. It’s yeah. So, man, I wanted to ask you this though, because something when you said it, it really stuck out. You go through and I’m kind of skipping ahead a little bit because I do really want to get into the real estate component of our show. No, I don’t want to, I don’t want to, I don’t want to like.

@TheMattFaircloth (10:40.332)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

@TheMattFaircloth (10:53.646)
Hey brother, it’s your show man. I’ll skip all around the block man. Wherever you want to go man.

Brett McCollum (11:02.029)
nullify your story at because it’s so powerful. Question, how old were you when you met your birth mom for the first time?

@TheMattFaircloth (11:11.854)
Oh, it’s been a while. I’m 49 now and I was 22, 23, somewhere in there. I think it’s 22. Yeah.

Brett McCollum (11:18.661)
That’s… Yeah.

@TheMattFaircloth (11:23.022)
or yeah, I was fresh out of college. So 22, 23 in that realm. And you wanna talk about the difficulty in meeting someone that you’ve never met before. That’s in essence a family member, right? It was a journey, and it took a lot of courage for me at the time and I wasn’t something I was sure I could do. So I did it.

Brett McCollum (11:25.804)
Okay.

Brett McCollum (11:34.351)
that.

Brett McCollum (11:41.387)
A lot of courage, man. Yeah.

Brett McCollum (11:46.157)
Yeah, because I mean, and at that age, I mean, we’re still trying to figure out who we want to be when we grow up, still trying to mature and, you know, grow into men. And we’re still boys at that point, I still believe, you know, and even though, by the way, my wife and I, our anniversary Saturday, we’re closing in on you, Matt. We’ve been married 16 years this Saturday, but I got married at 22, by the way. So, yeah, so.

@TheMattFaircloth (12:06.399)
Congratulations.

Okay, you gotta really get an early start.

Brett McCollum (12:12.087)
Yeah, I an early start, but I can look back at that age and go, I was still a kid, you know, and.

@TheMattFaircloth (12:17.006)
My little nephew who’s 18 years old met somebody that was 25 and he was like, she was like, I’m an adult, I’m 25. And he goes, you’re not an adult, you’re a junior adult.

You know, like, because it’s, you like, he’s like, you’re not a senior adult until you turn 30. And I was, I heard him say it I’m like, he’s so right. You know, like legally you’re an adult at 18 or 21, whatever number you want to put on it. But there’s a lot of figuring out you got to do in life. I look back to the knucklehead things I did in my twenties, um, and that, and the juvenile things that I did in figuring life out. Um, did I really find my passion and get my wind until I was 30? Um, and that’s what’s great.

Brett McCollum (12:31.428)
Yeah.

Brett McCollum (12:38.659)
Hey, Rom.

Brett McCollum (12:53.637)
That’s it.

Brett McCollum (12:58.713)
Yeah.

@TheMattFaircloth (13:00.56)
I’ve heard Gary Vaynerchuk say this, is that like, that’s why we have time to discover life. It’s okay to spend our 20s in discovery, in figuring out what, you know, jazzes us up, what makes us feel great, what we like doing, what we don’t like doing. And I think that, I feel like we’re supposed to spend some of our 20s in discovery, and you’re lucky enough to have found, you know, someone to marry in your 20s, and to, you know, find a career direction and whatnot. But I think that 20s are still assembly mode.

Brett McCollum (13:29.061)
Oh, I had no idea what I was doing until after 30, no doubt.

@TheMattFaircloth (13:31.31)
Yeah, yeah, right. So that too, right. Yes, it’s just one of those things. And you got to figure it out on your own. And unfortunately, I’ve met people that are bit lost, they haven’t quite figured things out by the time they turn 30. And you hope and pray that they will at some point. But I’ve met lost 45 year olds, I’ve met 45 year old children that are still acting like kids. They didn’t have that grow up moment, you know, and everything like that, that you’re supposed to in your early 30s. Yeah.

Brett McCollum (13:49.817)
No doubt.

Brett McCollum (13:54.117)
I was going to ask you though on the courage side of that, know, as you’re at that, still you’re young, you’re still, you know, becoming a man and you’re figuring and then this emotional, like atomic bomb is dropped into the equation of meeting for the first time. You know, this is, you know,

@TheMattFaircloth (14:16.621)
We’re doing an atomic bomb though, Brett. Let me just tell you a little bit more. And this is for anybody listening. It’s funny, man. I’m just such an open book, brother. I didn’t know getting on your show you and I were going go deep on the adoption thing, right? So, but hey, let’s do it.

Brett McCollum (14:24.824)
I love it.

I didn’t intend to either by the way, just so you know, I was like, oh.

@TheMattFaircloth (14:30.914)
It just came up. Like, shit. All right, let’s go there. Right? So anyway, I my parents in my youth told me about being adopted I’m talking like I remember when they told me, you know, they used to have this they call them gotcha parties now But back then it was just a party on my birthday and then also another party on the day that they got me I was born on October the 4th and they had a party for me on December the 17th and they would celebrate that day to December the 17th remember being in a

Brett McCollum (14:33.507)
Yeah.

Brett McCollum (14:40.068)
Okay.

Brett McCollum (14:59.034)
Wow.

@TheMattFaircloth (15:00.848)
foster home. I was in a foster home for two months. My name was Timothy at first in the foster home. call me Timothy, right? So the but my parents got me. Okay, we want to give him his own name. And of course, Matthew biblical gift from God, right? And that because that’s the word kids. So they named me Matthew and all that. that’s being adopted has been something that’s been a part of me since I was, you know, since I can remember Brett. And so it was funny.

Brett McCollum (15:15.641)
Yeah, my brother’s name.

@TheMattFaircloth (15:30.72)
is I got teased about it when I was a kid. I’m adopted and I’m like, I…

It was never a painful thing. It was like them making fun of me for wearing a black shirt or just wearing a red shirt or whatever it was. It’s just a part of me. It never was a painful experience. It also something I was curious about growing up. My parents did tell me this, they said, you want go back and find your birth mother, you’re going to need to begin that journey when you turn 18. So I did. They also were like, this is your journey, so you also need to pay for it.

Brett McCollum (15:44.005)
Mm.

@TheMattFaircloth (16:04.238)
Right? Not that I don’t want you to do it. And my birth mother and my dad when he was alive and my mother who’s still alive are all friends. We’ve been on vacation together. was a, she became, her and her two daughters became absorbed into my family. that they became extended family, you know, and all that. So it was a positive thing. It was never like a bomb or anything like that. It was more of a curiosity and a calling that I had.

Brett McCollum (16:04.333)
Mmm.

Brett McCollum (16:14.298)
Wow.

Brett McCollum (16:20.099)
one.

Brett McCollum (16:25.093)
That’s incredible.

@TheMattFaircloth (16:30.592)
in my youth and I acknowledge that the adoption story is not always that way and I feel blessed. Maybe that’s why I’m such an optimist is because I’ve had some real good luck from the men upstairs in the way that those cards have played out for me.

Brett McCollum (16:31.353)
Yeah.

Brett McCollum (16:47.565)
Yeah, that’s so good. Yeah, and I maybe put poor choice of verbiage there and more like the like just going back and like that. It’s.

@TheMattFaircloth (16:53.292)
No, no, because it’s not, right? It’s not. Because it is a bomb for people sometimes. I know people, I had a cousin who was 13 years old and his parents at 13 years old told this kid he was adopted.

You you imagine. mean, that’s the worst age, first of all, to throw any major curveball at a kid is at 13 years old, they’re already a jerk, right? So like they’re already way high on the jerk spectrum. And so to drop a big curveball like that on a 13 year old, good night, So, but anyway, I’ve seen it, I’ve seen the adoption story go way wrong.

Brett McCollum (17:12.737)
dude, no doubt. Yeah.

Brett McCollum (17:24.771)
That’s new. Yeah.

@TheMattFaircloth (17:30.83)
And I’m blessed that it went right for me. I’ll tell you, like a pain I have, my birth father denied contact when they found him and he denied contact. And so I still don’t know that man. I’ve had to accept that. I had to accept his wishes. So it’s okay. you didn’t want. All right, all good.

Brett McCollum (17:31.524)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Brett McCollum (17:39.193)
Yeah.

Brett McCollum (17:42.799)
Dang. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

man, yeah, just was something I don’t know why, because maybe some of you, well, honestly, somebody listening to this, Matt might just have some connection point to that that goes, you know what, like, that sticks with them, you know, I don’t know why we’re talking about it, I, you know, just kind of how it goes sometimes in conversation, but.

@TheMattFaircloth (17:52.846)
from there.

@TheMattFaircloth (18:02.35)
I hope it does.

@TheMattFaircloth (18:06.99)
You can leave it back. You’re also investing at some point if you want, brother. We can keep living here, whatever you want to do.

Brett McCollum (18:09.507)
We are doing it right now, actually. That’s funny. I’m literally turning it back there. So, all right, fast forward. You’re out of the travel sales world and you jump into real estate. Walk me through some of the first days, the early days of the DeRosa Group. What was that like back then and what were you doing?

@TheMattFaircloth (18:15.886)
Yeah.

@TheMattFaircloth (18:19.278)
Yeah. Yeah.

@TheMattFaircloth (18:27.508)
Well, investment was when I was working for Ingersoll Rand, I had landed this huge commission check, huge at the time. It was life changing money for like a 26, 27 year old knucklehead. I had sold a lot of compressed air equipment to Minute Maid Orange Juice because they were redoing one of their factories in New Jersey. I think it was 10K at the time. I was like, you know what? This is life changing money.

I’m gonna put it in a savings account. So I put in my savings account and forgot about it because like I just I Need to I’m not sure what I should do with this and I feel like this could make a major impact on me So I’m gonna just put this in savings and I did and it lived there for over a year until Liz Randazzi put the little purple book in my hand and then at the time the landlord that owned the house that I was living in with a couple of my buddies told us they were putting the house on the market for sale and I was

Brett McCollum (19:15.055)
Mm.

@TheMattFaircloth (19:27.332)
Maybe I’ll try and buy the house and I did but somebody outbid me and so the realtor that was selling the house for this landlord took me under his wing and said hey Sorry, I didn’t make this deal, but let me help you find something else and and also by the way You got to get out because the new the new buyer that’s buying this house wants to live here, too It does not want tenants and so you go and so I left I moved out And he found a home for me that I bought With that 10k as my down money not even all of it. I laid $4,500 down

Brett McCollum (19:42.831)
Bye bye.

@TheMattFaircloth (19:57.184)
and I bought a single family home, three bedroom, bath for 150 grand. And my two knucklehead friends that were living in that rental moved in with me. And each of those guys were paying me $500 a month and my mortgage was 940 bucks a month, Brett. And so before you knew it, I was like, oh, wait a minute. I got this good job at Ingersoll Rand and these two guys are paying my mortgage for me and I’m making 60 bucks too and I’m living here for free. So it was a great arrangement and I took

Brett McCollum (20:10.373)
There you go.

Brett McCollum (20:15.737)
I guess.

@TheMattFaircloth (20:27.208)
My paycheck from Iger Sahl ran and I started slinging it at my bad debt. I paid down 10 grand worth of credit cards, paid off my student loans, and got myself bad debt free while Liz and I were dating living in this house. And that was my first investment. Then her and I were off to the races from there. The Kool-Aid was fully in my tummy from there. And I said, okay, I’m in. Well, state investing is my future. I saw what it had done for me financially in that. So Liz and I bought a duplex in Philly and then moved to New Jersey for her.

Brett McCollum (20:38.871)
Learn.

@TheMattFaircloth (20:57.008)
job and bought other investments at that point. then DeRosa, those were the early, early, early, early days of DeRosa from there. And then we slowly grew into further and larger, more complex residential deals, got through the crazy downturn of 2008, 2009, because we got married in 2005. So we enjoyed the day day, 05, 06, 07, and then the bottom fell out of the world in 2008, 09. And we got through that and, you know,

Brett McCollum (21:05.018)
Sure.

Brett McCollum (21:17.263)
Yep.

@TheMattFaircloth (21:26.928)
Rebuild our company from there.

Brett McCollum (21:28.579)
Wow. Today, what are you guys working on today? What does it look like?

@TheMattFaircloth (21:33.998)
We’ve gotten way more complex as a company and that’s where like business building, I was doing it all at the time. From 2005 through 2011, 12, 13-ish, I was the one showing the apartments. I was the one that found the deals. I was the one that found the money. I was the one that called tenants when they had not paid their rent. I did it all. We were mom and rock. Was that? All of it.

Brett McCollum (21:57.615)
You’re the chief bottle washer. You’re the chief bottle washer. You did have it. You did. yeah.

@TheMattFaircloth (22:02.798)
I washed the bottles and put on my suit to go to bank meetings and all the stuff, right? I did it all. My wife and I cleaned out apartments on our own. I repainted apartments. I’m not very handy, so I couldn’t do like toilet clogs and that kind of jazz, but Liz and I turned our share of apartments and whatnot in the early stages. And we figured out, Brett, that there were things I was great at and there were things that I, to be frank, should not be doing. And the more that I focused on

Brett McCollum (22:08.825)
Yeah.

@TheMattFaircloth (22:32.792)
I was great at and for me that was finding opportunities and finding money to to manifest those opportunities I had more contractors steal for me that I could that I could think of I had tenants tell me I have one tenant Brett tell me that he couldn’t pay his rent because you know got a flat tire he one time the tenant another tenant told me that he had mailed the rent in but the stamp had fallen off of the envelope

Brett McCollum (22:38.522)
Yeah.

@TheMattFaircloth (23:01.038)
and the mailman brought it back home a day later, brought it back to him. And I bought it. I believed him, right? I mean, yeah, I didn’t really believe him, but I was like, okay, that’s why you just sent me the rent again. I’m just too nice. And so I needed to hire people that were not nice to help me, you know, to deal with contractors, to deal with tenants and whatnot. And I needed to keep being nice to investors and finding deals and be the charming optimist that I am and all those things. Because I could find people that were way more pragmatic to,

Brett McCollum (23:15.972)
Yeah.

@TheMattFaircloth (23:30.992)
me drive the business. It is when I brought in those folks that we started to flourish and grow and I was able to focus on raising capital and that allowed me to double up, triple up, and quadruple up the size of our portfolio, the complexity of our portfolio, the amount of dollars we were bringing in into the company. And so we scraped and clawed up to buy like a 10 unit apartment building.

and we’ve rehabbed it and repainted it and did the whole thing. And I just focused on finding that deal and raising the money for it. And then we bought an 18 unit. Then we decided to stretch and we bought a 49 unit. And then that’s really when multifamily housing became our one and only asset class. Dorosa was involved in a lot of things at the time. We were a fix and flip company. I’ve probably flipped three or four dozen houses. I’ve done some wholesales. I’ve done a little bit of this, a little bit of that.

Brett McCollum (24:02.105)
Yeah.

@TheMattFaircloth (24:21.518)
Liz and I were dabbling until we started putting a team around us to help us really manage long-term rentals, buy and execute plans around long-term rentals. You know, that’s, went from 30 units to when we integrated that plan to a company that now sits on well over 2,000 units.

Brett McCollum (24:28.815)
Yeah.

Brett McCollum (24:42.265)
Wow.

@TheMattFaircloth (24:42.414)
of multi-family communities and residences of people. So that’s something I’m very proud of. But I got there by focusing on my greatness and leaning into just that and finding people that were great at other stuff that I was terrible at.

Brett McCollum (24:47.791)
Yeah.

Brett McCollum (24:58.469)
I like that a lot. and that’s true of God knows how many entrepreneurs, right? Like we, like I said, you become the chief bottle washer. You do all the things. You wear all the hats, you do everything. But you’re not really doing the thing you do well enough to move the needle because you’re having to do all the other stuff. Yeah, I get it.

@TheMattFaircloth (25:12.45)
Yeah, I’ll say, Brett, like, that if somebody listening, and I’m saying this with love, but I’m gonna say it with a little bit of tough love, right? If you are not at, if you’re not where you wanna be in life, right? Until you look yourself in the mirror and figure out why you are standing in your own way, how are you contributing to you not being where you wanna be yet in life.

Until you do that and look stuff in the mirror, you’re going to remain not where you want to be. When you’re willing to take extreme ownership and point at yourself and say, I’m in my way.

Because I’m doing things I shouldn’t be doing or because I don’t believe in myself because my self-confidence isn’t there Whatever it is. You are installing roadblocks. They’re preventing you from being where you want to be Until you identify those things you will remain at that point not where you want to be And I had to look at myself and I did some training did a lot of prayer about it You know joined some very extreme authentic organizations Did a lot of personal training read a ton of books did a lot of experience

weekend retreats out in the woods or on campfires with you know with men talking about like the challenges of life and stuff like that and I sharpened my saw and became a better person and that enabled me to live a bigger life.

Brett McCollum (26:27.908)
Yeah.

Yeah. You know, I heard you say to something that kind of brings some full circle nature to the conversation as well is we’re talking about growing up, you know, in our twenties and discovering life and trying to figure out what we want to be when we grow up and go through that. then something happens at 30 ish, you know, and you started to be. Don’t you think that’s true in business, too, that you you started the business and you’re trying to figure out who you want to be when it grew up. You made some mistakes, you had some bumps is experiential. You’re trying things and then you finally grow up.

you learn. I think there’s a lot of symmetry to those two things and at least that’s what it sounds like from the way you were describing it.

@TheMattFaircloth (27:09.934)
I feel like you go through all these trials and tribulations and butt your head up against the wall and spirit energy, God is kind of sitting there waiting until you say, I’ve had enough. I’m waiting for a new way to do this. And then when you’re willing to throw your hands up and surrender and say, okay, I’m really willing to look at myself and submit myself to God and say, okay, I can’t do this by myself. Can’t do this alone. I need help.

Brett McCollum (27:30.061)
No.

@TheMattFaircloth (27:38.732)
That’s when really things change. In some ways in life, you almost have to hit rock bottom at some point. And we all do. We all have those rock bottom moments, whether they be big or small. And we realize that the energy that has gotten me to this point in life is not gonna get me where I wanna go. And you gotta have that rock bottom moment of clarity, so to speak. when you do, that’s when things can change if you choose to let them.

Brett McCollum (28:04.409)
Yeah, you know, had a coach that said to us one time, said, rock bottom is a firm foundation. That was good, man.

@TheMattFaircloth (28:11.448)
Yeah.

It’s hard to go much deeper than that. I’ve met people that hit rock bottom and then started digging. You can, just so you know. The way you do that is if you don’t point yourself and say, I put myself here. I’m willing to get myself out of this. That’s the extreme accountability you need to do. If you’re willing to do that, then you can climb out and bust through those glass ceilings that you think are impossible to get through. If I had told myself that I’d be at this point in my life doing what I’m doing now and blessed with what I’m blessed with, being a public

Brett McCollum (28:19.791)
Yeah.

Brett McCollum (28:26.852)
Yeah.

@TheMattFaircloth (28:43.504)
to author and all those things. said, way, But, you know, and I still got more to grow and to do. I’m still, you know, not like not where I want to be, but there’s more in me in that. But I’m doing that with partnership, you know, and with people and with higher power and with all the energy that I need to get that I have to get where I want to be.

Brett McCollum (28:49.337)
Yeah. Yeah.

Brett McCollum (28:57.935)
Mm-hmm.

Brett McCollum (29:04.067)
Yeah, well I think that’s too, it’s like as with new seasons of growth come new opportunities but also new, I’m a believer in this by the way, reaching different things, God gives you more, like he gives you what you’re good steward of, right? So he will give you more as you become a better steward of that. And sometimes if you don’t steward the thing well,

The only way for you to learn is for God to take it away. And so, and seeing where that is, and I love hearing you say, not that I’m not grateful for my growth, saying it sounds to me more like…

I have more that God’s put inside of me to do to impact the world even more. know, and I just it’s incredible, man. I love your whole story, everything you share. I wish we could have probably dove a little deeper because like what you’ve built a business out of over the years is phenomenal. Is there another way people can reach out to you to learn more?

@TheMattFaircloth (29:50.158)
Mm-hmm.

@TheMattFaircloth (30:05.749)
Thank you.

@TheMattFaircloth (30:09.43)
sure yeah there’s a lot that people can do you just go to derosagroup.com D-E-R-O-S-A that’s our website derosagroup.com if you want to learn to do what we have done.

there are a free, there’s a lot of free tools, free capital F free, because I believe in giving things away and you know, do unto others and all those things, right? So go on my website, derosagroup.com. If you want to learn from us, there’s a lot of free ways you can do that on our website. If you want to, we obviously have equity investments for accredited and if we build a relationship with you’re not accredited, you gotta build a relationship with us first to stay in compliance with the SEC, but either way, accredited,

accredited. You can learn more about what we have to offer for investors at our website as well, is again, derosagroup.com.

Brett McCollum (30:58.533)
Yeah, and guys, I mean, if you couldn’t tell from the half hour we just spent here with Matt today, you’d be silly not to do that. Check that out. Matt, we’re going to put that in genets for you,

@TheMattFaircloth (31:07.916)
Yeah. And I’ll come back on and you and I can, we’ll do like the business breakdown. I’ll come up with a, I’ll maybe you and I can do like a, do you get to a hundred or North units for somebody that’s looking to build a portfolio or something like that. Because I didn’t go into this thing, looking to build 2000. I was like, let me, you know, double up, let me double my portfolio, you know? And I just kept that as my moniker and it kept working, you know? So, so I think,

Brett McCollum (31:19.737)
Yeah. Yeah.

Brett McCollum (31:27.983)
Sure.

@TheMattFaircloth (31:35.758)
I think that that’s a good way to look at it. 2000 was never the goal. It’s just kind of where we’re at right now.

Brett McCollum (31:42.403)
Yeah, and and who like that’s thing is if you are like you you submit your life before the Lord and Whatever direction it goes, you know, like if you if you operate into mission like it It’s the the blessing on the other side is is it’s kind of anyway and you’re proofing the pudding

@TheMattFaircloth (31:57.07)
Yeah, good stuff. Well, it’s been a joy being here with you, Brett. Happy to come back on again soon if you’d like, if you’re happy to have me.

Brett McCollum (32:06.447)
No, and we loved having you as well. And to you guys as well for hanging out and spending your time with us, we appreciate you. And we’ll see you guys as well in the next episode. Take care, everybody.