How Real Estate Success Starts With Choosing Your Character | Christion Sadler Interview

Christion Sadler (00:00)
man, that’s a great question because of course I breezed through that story, right? But there’s been lots of overcoming and challenges and I’ve lost everything multiple times along the way. And what it comes down to is you choose your character. Character is not something that you’re born with. And that’s the unfortunate thing that I think a lot of people look at is they decide that they took a personality test and that means that that’s who they are and they’re determined to be that way for the rest of their life.

Quentin (02:00)
Hello everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I am your host, Q Edmonds, and I am excited to be here today. I have another fantastic guest and I cannot wait for you all to learn what it is he does, glean from him, learn from him, take these nuggets and apply it to your life and to your business. 20 years of experience. This gentleman knows what he’s doing, proficient at what he does.

And so I’m so excited to introduce you all to Mr. Christion Sadler. Mr. Christion, how you doing today,

Christion Sadler (02:37)
I’m doing great, Quentin. Thanks for having me on.

Quentin (02:39)
Thank you

so much for being here. And listen, I’m the type I like to dive right in. So I would love for you to tell the people what’s your main focus these days. If you don’t mind, give us a little bit of an origin story, kind of how you got into the space where you are. We love the hero’s journey. And then tell them where you are in the world. People love to know where people are geographically. And so what you’re up to, your origin story, and where you are. Mr. Christion, you have the floor,

Christion Sadler (03:05)
All right, sounds good. I’m going to go in opposite order of what you just said. So born and raised right here in Salt Lake City, Utah area. Just absolutely love Utah. And you know, my origin story, I’m not going to go into all the details, but I grew up with not having a lot and I wanted more. And so I figured out pretty quickly, I was an observant young teenager, ⁓ paid attention that

Quentin (03:08)
Happy.

Christion Sadler (03:31)
If you want a lifestyle, you gotta own real estate. So I decided I was gonna be a real estate investor in my late teens. Went through a lot of programs that didn’t work to do that. Finally got some mentors here locally and was able to walk away from working for anybody else when I was 22 years old. And ever since then, I’ve been doing real estate at different capacities. I’ve flipped properties, I’ve done residential real estate, commercial real estate, multifamily real estate, land.

I mean, just about any asset class, I’ve touched it in some way, most likely. ⁓ And ⁓ after 17 years of being an independent real estate investor, I actually got my license as well and hosted television show here locally on ABC4 with my brokerage. And ⁓ all of that media experience, because in the past I’ve done podcasts and public speaking and all kinds of things, that pulled me into the…

current partnership with PreiShare where Michael Anderson, my co-founder, he sold his company with over a billion dollars in assets under management, thought he was going to retire ⁓ and then realized he doesn’t know how, as we put it. And ⁓ he started looking for a team that could put together solutions for the world of real estate syndication. that was outside of my realm of understanding at the time, but over the last five years, wow, I’ve learned a lot, you know.

a good amount of people in my Rolodex that have ⁓ either currently have or have owned over a billion dollars in assets.

So that’s just a different world that I wasn’t playing in before, didn’t really understand. And now I’ve, like I said, I’ve just become an expert, if you will, in the world of raising capital from private investors and realize that that is the lifeblood of American real estate. If you look at just about any high rise, if you look about

look at is just about any commercial property that you drive past. It was most likely funded through private capital in some form or fashion. ⁓ Even institutional capital oftentimes started as a private capital group that just happened to grow to the point where they became a large institution. So ⁓ it’s been a lot of fun. It’s been definitely a learning lesson. now we’re focused on still

from day one, we are advocating for the passive investor. That everyday individual, the person that has strived their whole life ⁓ to earn a certain amount of money and they’re looking to diversify and or grow that using real estate, but they don’t wanna become real estate experts, they just want to place capital in good deals. So we’re advocates for that segment of the population, which means we’ve gotta be allies to the real estate sponsors, the guys that are out there.

Quentin (06:40)
Mmm.

Christion Sadler (07:05)
doing the hard work of creating those opportunities and finding the deals and rehabbing those projects and turning them around and increasing occupancy and all the stuff that, quite frankly, people don’t realize how much real work and stress and everything else goes into it. So we play in those two different fields and we’re one of the few, I guess, companies or even people in the middle of that.

trying to align those interests, because oftentimes those interests had not been aligned in the past. And that comes from the experience of my co-founder, Michael Anderson. And so that’s where we’re at now. We’re helping people raise capital, and we’re helping people be smarter about where they place capital. And all in all, we believe that that will make the real estate industry better as

Quentin (07:55)
Thank you, sir. So well said. Thank you for taking us through the journey. Thank you for walking us through where you are now, even walking us through the mission, right? And I love it. I love everything that I heard. And I’m Mr. Christion, so I’m going to regurgitate some stuff back to you that you said to me, because I want to make a statement and ask you a question. So born and raised in Utah, listen, you said, I love Utah. It’s a beautiful place. Born and raised, didn’t have a lot growing up. You walked away.

from just regular jobs when you was 22. You like 20, you knew what you was doing. didn’t need commercial, land, residential, pretty much if we can name it, you did it. After 17 years, you got your license. ⁓ Entered into the partnership with, it’s PreIShare, is it PreIShare? PreIShare.

Christion Sadler (08:47)
Pre-I share, yeah, so it’s

an acronym, passive real estate investor share. That makes it easier for people when I state it out.

Quentin (08:53)
yeah.

Got you, PreIShare. Got it. Absolutely. ⁓ You got people in your rolodex that got access to over one billion assets, one billion in money, right? So I say all these different things because I often say destiny has no wasted moments, right? I mean, what we go through in life, we’re building momentum to the places where we are now.

And we borrow on a journey. we, it reinforces our mindset, our purpose, our why. So I would love to know, man, 22 years you walked away from a regular old job, you’ve been building momentum. What has the journey taught you about yourself? Has it taught you discipline, resilience? What has it taught you about you?

Christion Sadler (09:39)
man, that’s a great question because of course I breezed through that story, right? But there’s been lots of overcoming and challenges and I’ve lost everything multiple times along the way. And what it comes down to is you choose your character. Character is not something that you’re born with. And that’s the unfortunate thing that I think a lot of people look at is they decide that they took a personality test and that means that that’s who they are and they’re determined to be that way for the rest of their life.

The truth is,

unless you choose your character, it’s being chosen for you based on the outside influences that are coming into your life. And so I was lucky enough that when I got into real estate, I had mentors that ⁓ pushed me and basically forced me into personal development. So I started reading the right books. started going through the right programs, hiring mentors. In my 20s, I spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on mentorship. ⁓

And what that really taught me in many of the exercises, the most important exercises that I still look back to to this day and still need to go over at times is deciding who I’m going to be, choosing my character. And then what I learned about that, Quinton, is over that time, I was shown all of the ways that I am embodying that. And in cases where I wasn’t, it was a time to reflect, reset and move forward.

Quentin (11:42)
Thank you for that well thought out response, that reflective response. have nothing. When you say it, makes all the sense, but I’ve never put the words together the way you just did. You choose your character. One of my mentors told me when I was younger, he said, when you know who you are, you know what to do. And that has fortified me in everything that I do.

When I know who I am, I know what to say, hell yes to, hell no to, I know what direction I should go. But I love this, you choose your character. I’ve never quite thought about it like that, because you’re absolutely right. You choose the person you want to be. You choose the character that people know you for. One of my guests, was on, they said, everybody has a brand and it’s your character. Your character is your brand. And so I love the fact.

That’s so well synthesized that you choose your character. Thank you, man. That’s a line that I’ve written, that I’ve written down and I know I’ll be thinking on that and reflecting on that a lot. So thank you for that. man, just thank you for your journey, man. Thank you for developing the mindset that you have now. And I’ll talk more about that later, but, ⁓ man, I’m gonna, so what’s next for you? What’s the next real goal? Like, what are you looking to solve or scale next in PreIShare?

Christion Sadler (13:07)
Yeah, so there’s a few things that we’re doing. One of the ⁓ initiatives that we have right now is we’ve been helping raise capital for sponsors for the last two years, roughly. And now we have a group that’s actually helping people raise that capital with no money out of pocket. Now, we’re not broker dealers, we’re not getting in the middle of the deal. What we’ve always been is we act in the marketing capacity, but we have a group now that will help fund that upfront marketing for good sponsors with

quality projects in the right areas. So that’s exciting because that’s tying into something else that we’re building, which is a quantum analytic model using quantum computers and all kinds of stuff that’s way beyond my understanding. We just luckily have some geniuses on our team. So that’s one aspect that’s pushing forward. But then also we’ve designed an internal fund that we have just launched.

that is really the product that I have seen missing in the marketplace for passive investors. And it’s just a very straightforward, tried and true business plan. It’s one of the most simple business plans out there. It’s been done time and time again. In fact, if you go down to your local bank, they’re using the same strategy, it’s arbitrage, right? And so what we’re doing is first position lien, private money against real estate. So we can do ⁓ loans against commercial real estate, multifamily real estate, fix and flips.

⁓ And we can offer those returns to our passive investors where they are secured in that first lien position. I just, think that where we’re opening up a Reg A fund, which means we can allow anybody into our fund, whereas typically it’s kind of been reserved for the accredited investors. Most projects out there are, you know, a Reg D and unless you’re in the know early, you don’t get to…

to play in that game unless you fit into the role of being an accredited

And so we do have a Reg D fund that is just barely launched and we’re pushing forward to also have a sister fund, which is a Reg A fund. So the average everyday individual can earn double digit returns on their money secured by first position lien in real estate.

Quentin (16:06)
Man, again, so well said. Thank you for really laying out what you guys are doing on the breaking edge of technology, innovation. ⁓ man, I’m excited about what you guys are building. ⁓ This is phenomenal. Let me ask you this, because I know you have partners. And so I’m absolutely going to love asking you this question. When you hear the word relationship,

What rings true to you when you hear relationship? What does that word mean to you, Mr. Christion?

Christion Sadler (16:42)
Well, relationships, I’ve always said this from early, early days when I was speaking on stage, my relationships are my most valuable assets. And so when it comes down to it, I prioritize relationships over anything else. So if you put a million dollars in front of me or you put a relationship that can absolutely change my life, I know that that relationship is worth way more than that million dollars, so to speak.

And so I’m always gonna put relationships first and make sure that I just care about humans, know, all humans.

Quentin (17:17)
Oh man, just, love the way you have a way man of just kind of saying stuff that kind of gets in the heart of the matter. And I love it. Like you said, you’re always going to value relationships over the dollar. I mean, because that’s the priceless part, right? Because if you got the relationship is solid, it’s, mean, honestly, there’s no much, there’s no telling how much money y’all can make together.

And the think about the money could be just the short sighted end of it all, but the relationship could stand over years and years and sometimes even become intergenerational. But you can pass it down between family members and stuff. I love the way you think and the way you kind of synthesize things.

Christion Sadler (17:58)
Will and Quinton, just to emphasize that point, because it’s easy to say that, right? But if I look at the last five years, ⁓ now, when I met Mike, I had recently gotten my real estate license. I was hosting a television show here on ABC4. My traditional real estate career was taking off, full trajectory ahead. And ⁓ I sacrificed a lot of time there to focus on this startup. And this startup, quite frankly,

It’s not for the faint of heart, building a company and an industry, trying to change the mindset of how things have been done in an industry. And I’m still here five years later, having sacrificed probably millions of dollars in income that I would have earned if I just stayed doing what I was doing over in traditional real estate. ⁓ I’m doing it because of the relationships that I have, because I get to learn from a gentleman like Michael Anderson, my co-founder, who’s done over $7 billion worth of real estate.

because I have people on my team like Brennan and Nick, who, know, two guys that they also have sacrificed to just push and drive this company forward. We’ve got, if you notice behind me, this book right here, Little Red Hen, that was given to us by Michael Anderson when we first started the company, because not everybody has that same focus and drive. And it’s not that they’re bad people, but they may not stick around long enough.

to reap the rewards. And I’m just, it anchors to me and I keep it there for a reason because I’m working towards something much bigger. And what that has to do with is the relationships that I’m building and the people that I’m committed to.

Quentin (19:37)
You again, man, you got a way to synthesize the things. Because when we talk about relationship, I often bring up the word community. And I say community is common unity. It’s people in common unity that’s moving the mission forward. They see the vision, they see the mission. And unity is different from uniformity. Uniformity, everybody do the same thing all at one time. Unity is people doing different things, but with the common goal in mind.

So you have people that strong hair, maybe weak hair, but you bring it together. It works perfectly. And so you synthesize what you’re saying makes me really know that you guys have built a community because people see the mission. They see the goal and people bring in their expertise. They’re bringing their strengths to the goal because they know in the end everybody wins. And this is the thing about community. Healing happens in community because healing just means wholeness, but it’s mean

being made whole. So when the healing starts, you get whole financially, physically, mentally, emotionally. Like when everything is whole, everything thrives. And so it just seemed like y’all built an amazing culture and amazing community.

Christion Sadler (20:54)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And we continue to do that because we do believe that while interest have not necessarily always been a line between the passive investor and the sponsor, it’s not because those people don’t care about each other. It’s just oftentimes they can only see what’s in front of them and affecting them. So they’re only focused on their portion of it. And so that’s one of the reasons that we’ve also started to host events. So last year we hosted our capital raise forum where we brought people together at the local racetrack here and

and people from all over the country. And we’re doing it again. this time we’re renaming it the Private Investment Forum because it’s not just for those that are raising capital. We’re actually gonna have some specific VIP tickets that we’re gonna cover the cost for some of the passive investors that deserve to be in that room because we’ve built some really great tools to do your due diligence on sponsors and to analyze the projects that you’re getting into.

And without smart investors, it’s going to be difficult for the sponsors to prioritize doing the right thing every time. And so that community aspect of what you’re talking about is something we’re always looking to build. It’s the reason that we host our podcasts. It’s the reason that we’re making introductions. It’s reason we spent $200,000 building out a studio here in Murray, Utah and having a green room for hosting people.

is because it is about that community aspect. And when everybody’s moving together, like you’re saying, even though they might come from different ethnic backgrounds, different financial backgrounds, different goals and ambitions, the overall goal of improving the industry is what it’s all about.

Quentin (22:36)
You know, I hope people really are keying in on what you’re saying. I challenge anybody that’s watching, I challenge you walk outside and walk your community. What you’re going to see, you’re probably going to see gas stations, convenience stores, shopping centers, people doing different things that are making your community thrive. And so I just think it’s…

well played by you to make sure that inclusive, make sure people are inclusive, like, you know, really building this community where everybody can thrive. And so I love it, man. I love what you guys are doing. Listen, if someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, collaborate with you, learn more about what you’re doing, how can they get in contact with you,

Christion Sadler (23:28)
Yeah, I always tell them, just grab us on socials. That’s the easiest way to do it. I mean, if you spell my name correctly, which is just C-H-R-i-S-T-I-O-N and then Sadler with one D. So S-A-D-L-E-R. I’m really easy to find. And then PreIShare again, if I spell it out, it’s passive real estate investor share. So PreIShare, if you spell that correctly, you can find us online. We’re on all the social platforms and we’re easy to find. Give us a call.

you know, reach out to us, we’d love to connect.

Quentin (23:59)
Listen, ⁓ sir, let me say three things to you, man, sincerely. One, thank you for your time. Our time is our most precious commodity, right? So you can be doing anything with your time. Thank you for your time. Secondly, thank you for your story. Thank you for your authenticity. Thank you for your transparency. Just thank you for just being just real. ⁓ I believe stories have a way to really plant seeds in people’s soul. And we may never see the growth.

But three years later, five years later, 10 years later, sometimes that’s that little seed that they remember that literally can course correct somebody’s life. So man, thank you for coming on and telling your story. Lastly, thank you for your mindset, man. Thank you for the way you think and bringing that mindset to this platform. You have paid for your mindset sometimes in dollars, maybe in experience, maybe in life learning lessons. So thank you for that mindset and bringing it to this platform. I greatly appreciate you, sir.

Christion Sadler (24:59)
Yeah, I’m glad you had me on.

Quentin (25:00)
Yeah, absolutely. So listen, y’all heard Mr. Christion. Get the name right. Look at the spelling, right? His information is in there in the show notes. Get in contact with him. But definitely make sure you are subscribed here because I promise you we’re going to continue to bring up amazing people just like Mr. Christion. So, sir, I say thank you again. And everyone else, listen, you have a fantastic day.