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Show Summary
In this conversation, Ryan Cadwell emphasizes the importance of nurturing relationships and self-management. He discusses how managing emotions and expectations can lead to better outcomes in personal and professional life. Additionally, he highlights the risks associated with misbeliefs and the necessity of maintaining discipline through consistent processes.
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Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
Ryan Cadwell, CPM (00:00)
Never buy wrong. If you buy wrong, only thing that fix that is more cash and time. ⁓ I always say if you don’t know who’s on the menu, it’s probably you. what I mean by that is a lot of new investors, including myself when I was a new investor, if you’re just playing flat out market rate and you don’t realize and you haven’t ran your numbers to know what your required return is, most likely, most likely in most markets, you’re overpaying.Kristen (02:09)
Welcome back to the Real Estate Post podcast. I’m Kristen and I’m here with Ryan Cadwell, who is the founder of Resolute RDM, which stands for Realty Development and Management. They have a lot going on under that umbrella, so I’m excited to get into it. Thanks for being here, Ryan.Ryan Cadwell, CPM (02:23)
Thank you, Kristen. Glad to be here.Kristen (02:26)
How about we go back to the beginning and just tell me about what got you into real estate, how you fell in love with the industry.Ryan Cadwell, CPM (02:33)
I got into it through my family. Actually from like the age 12, I was mowing grass at my dad’s apartment buildings and then that gravitated into, you know, changing toilets and he had some single units. So then I ended up doing some flip work. And then as I got older, ⁓ he and I started talking about possibly buying and ⁓ investing. ⁓And then that gravitated into us looking for property management. And then we just established our own. So we’ve been doing third party management and brokerage for 18 years. All the while doing investments at the same time. Then we got into flipping. We started doing flipping about 14, 15, got real heavy into 16 through 18.
⁓ And then we started doing ground up development 18 up until now. Yep. We’re doing that now
Kristen (03:37)
Amazing, yeah, you’ve kind of done a little bit of everything. And kind of where you’re at right now, I know that you have your hand in multifamily and then also commercial. I would love for you to talk about kind of the mix of that portfolio and the opportunities in each.Ryan Cadwell, CPM (03:53)
Sure. ⁓ I mean, the biggest opportunity I think that’s coming has a lot to do with debt. ⁓ How the debt is going to be reset, how recapitalization is going to go for interest rates when those come due. Some of them have already been extended. ⁓ So yeah, mean, there’s a lot of opportunity coming in that particular market. ⁓ In the multifamily market,I still feel like they’re a little bit, at least on the advertising side, they’re advertising some really, really low cap rates. And I really think that, I really think the real numbers are a little bit higher than what’s being marketed, which isn’t abnormal, but I think for them to kind of keep holding on to where they’re at is a little bit long in the tooth on that deal.
So, I mean, I think there’s opportunity there. The more, you just gotta let it get a little bit more painful. ⁓ Allow regulators to kind of push in. I mean, that’s the big question on the opportunity is
how is this administration’s regulation gonna go? ⁓ How are they gonna push stuff into the market, off the balance sheets of banks? I mean, all those questions are, those are opportunities and threats. ⁓
to our success as investors.
Kristen (06:07)
Definitely, absolutely. Well, I think it’s so impressive with Resolute how you guys cover development, you cover ⁓ property management, you have a lot going on. So kind of talk about the white space you saw in the industry and how you’ve been able to kind of vertically integrate with Resolute.Ryan Cadwell, CPM (06:26)
⁓ Once again, mean some that has to do with just being at it a long time and then having family involved So I get my wife involved She’s been involved from this beginning ⁓ When you start out no six through eight through the downturn and the recession ⁓ Yeah, I mean you just you’re doing whatever deals you can and then you know that blood sweat and tears turns into ⁓We’re lucky to have our daughter. Our daughter got involved when she was younger too. Kind of like me with mowing grass, only she was doing tenant turns. And then she gravitated, went to Ball State, got a property management degree. ⁓ And then she came over and helps run the PM side. ⁓ It helps having that much time and distance and specialty. ⁓
Kristen (07:03)
Wow.Ryan Cadwell, CPM (07:21)
with the people you’re working with. The vertical integration piece has just been a lot of tenacity, honestly. just, mean, none of it’s easy really. Just depends on what kind of hurdle you get each day. And then the opportunity. mean, yeah, 16 to 18 was a different form of opportunity for all markets. And then obviously what happened in 20, everybody kind of knows that.Kristen (07:29)
Great.Ryan Cadwell, CPM (07:51)
artificial inflated values now and all that.Kristen (07:55)
Yeah, and kind of going off of that, since you’ve seen so many ups and downs in the market, what are you seeing now? Are you optimistic about where we’re at and where you see it going?Ryan Cadwell, CPM (08:05)
I’m optimistic on opportunity. think at the same time, you know, there’s going to be some pain points. I mean, we’ve already experienced some of it. Some of the, some of the ground up development stuff we did ⁓ due to some of the delays on, on logistics and, and timing. ⁓ You know, we had to, we had to kind of take it in the teeth on a couple of deals and, and at the same time, knowing that that’s, that’s part of the market cycle. ⁓you ride it up and then you have to ride it down. You just hope you can get off the ride. Get off the ride at the top, close enough to the top and then hop back on ⁓ towards the bottom. So a lot of that’s just waiting. I mean, there’s a lot of money waiting. That’s why the bond market is so high. ⁓ There’s just a lot of cash that’s waiting to come back in and then how that’s going to settle. ⁓
you know, which particular asset types they’re going to go after. I mean, I’ve heard more about storage being, storage becoming more of an interesting topic, which that’s an, I mean, that was a popular item for a while. And then multifamily really took off during COVID. A lot of more syndicators went towards that product.
Kristen (09:26)
Absolutely. And you guys at Resolute, you actually, you help people, you give them guidance, you know, for their next act. Can you talk a little bit the guidance you give?Ryan Cadwell, CPM (09:34)
yeah. Yeah.Sure. mean, the biggest thing. So we revamped and in 18 years, I started to figure out kind of going through different cycles with different client bases. ⁓ I finally just decided, okay, what are we going to offer to our clients? That’s that drag or draws
draws the right clientele to us. And it, and out of that, it really became a
I got to dig down to what you want, why you want it, and then make sure that that’s actually what you want. ⁓ Because a lot of times, we’d get into some of these deals. We’d have owners buy things and they’d come to us and they’d say, hey, we need you to operate them. And that’s not always bad at the beginning. But sometimes when you don’t start out with a plan, you don’t have an actual business plan for the asset, the problem is you’re always reacting to stuff.
Kristen (10:49)
Right.Ryan Cadwell, CPM (11:11)
⁓ Instead of trying to shoot for targets, ⁓ trying to manage to a specific return, knowing, okay, the internal rate of return is going to be this amount at year four, year five, year seven. ⁓ And then, you know, if we get there early, if something like COVID happens and, you know, the market adjusts, well, did we hit our numbers quicker because the market helped us? ⁓If the market doesn’t help us, do we go longer? So a lot of it has to do with having those, having in-depth conversations, making sure that, you know, making sure that the numbers are right when you’re, when you’re doing the IRR calculations. Cause it’s not always the longer you go on, on, on any of that, the lower the IRR typically is. And then the real, the real returns actually less than that, depending on how you’re, how you’re applying your cash flows. So.
A lot of it just has to do with actual strategic planning around and then having the tough conversations. I we’ve I’ve had I’ve had some clients that come to us at the beginning and you know, they wanted Airbnbs and they wanted a house in Jamaica. They wanted some of those things. And the more we dove into it, ⁓ it was a fun idea that they liked a vacation in Jamaica or they they wanted an Airbnb that
They could, you know, fly to stay at and then rent the rest of the time. All that’s cool. But what, what if you don’t want, what if you don’t necessarily want to go to the same place, you know, for the next 10 years? ⁓ What if you could put the same cash into a different investment vehicle and what you really wanted was a return? ⁓ I mean, what, what if you joined a group and you
and you mitigated more risk, had more upside with lower risk. it’s walking through people those different things. mean, on our website, we have like a real estate spectrum and we try to help people understand there are ways to invest in real estate that it’s highly liquid. You can get restocks and you can get in and out of real estate quick. But if you’re the owner operator, got to… ⁓
You gotta depend on your own cash flow. And if your asset doesn’t do as well, if something happens, if ⁓ the market shifts like one of our place, the market shifted on that particular deal and we bled cash for a minute. ⁓ So it’s walking people through that.
Taking the rose colored glasses off and just saying it’s not always sexy. A lot of this is just get in the dirt and work. ⁓ And when I got into it, I had those glasses on. mean, ⁓ everybody does. You think there’s a lot of returns. And there’s a lot of people out there that teach that. ⁓ We’ve had some owners come to us and they…
Kristen (13:59)
thing.Ryan Cadwell, CPM (14:16)
They think of it like a stock and they’re just going to get dividends. And then we’re like, well, we need, you know, I need $12,000 to do this repair. And they don’t realize that that’s coming. They’re like, well, that’s my whole, you know, that’s my return for the quarter. And I’m like, well, that’s part of the deal. So it’s, it’s, having that conversation upfront, making sure we’re on the same page with them.and having a plan. I managing to a plan is so much easier. But a lot of times, a lot of times, especially younger investors, ⁓ they always put plans in place, you know, that they might have a pro forma, but did they actually business plan it out? You know, is the are there specific things we’re doing at specific milestones?
And then after we set it up, are you just walking away or are we having annual quarterly reviews?
on the progress, the trajectory, that kind of stuff.
Kristen (15:57)
I think that’s so important because I mean you’re right I think people say they want something but they don’t really take the extra step to figure outwhy they want it and what the goal actually is. And I do think a lot of people, you know, they see a friend do something that works. So they’re like, oh, let’s do that. So I think it’s so smart that you actually sit down with people and really customize what works for them, what actually works for their goals. I think that’s very needed for sure. I’d love for you to talk more about, cause I know that, you know, something you guys are really great at is being nimble and having a personal touch. It sounds like you really,
do work with people in tangent, like you really do work as a partner.
Ryan Cadwell, CPM (16:41)
Yeah, we try to. mean, if they’re the body, we try to be the arm and then they don’t necessarily have to. I mean, you get to use our experience and trying to have constant communication because everybody’s on a different. I mean, if you think of ourselves as a book, investors are in different chapters on different pages. Sometimes they’re in different books. We’re not always on the same book. So part of it’sPart of it’s about communicating, listening. Listening is huge. Listening and then verifying what you heard. ⁓ And then correcting, you know, having tough conversations beforehand if possible. ⁓ And exposing the whys. I mean, there’s a lot of people, a lot of our clients, you know, they bought…
this asset and I’m going to hold this until my kid goes to college and I’m going to sell it and all the money that comes out of it, I’m going to throw that at their school. Then three, four years you get into it, tenants been there the whole time and then they leave and then they have a big bill and then it’s a little bit more emotional for them. You got to take them back and say, remember why you have this?
This is about your kids’ education. Remember, this was your choice to do that. And bringing them back to that usually helps. It doesn’t always help. It doesn’t always help. it’s, yeah, I mean, that’s the goal.
Kristen (18:16)
Yeah, and being patient for the right deals too. I think a lot of people come into the industry wanting to have quick money, quick capital, quick deal. Can you talk more about that? How important it is to be really thoughtful, especially inRyan Cadwell, CPM (18:30)
Neverbuy wrong. If you buy wrong, only thing that fix that is more cash and time. ⁓ I always say if you don’t know who’s on the menu, it’s probably you. what I mean by that is a lot of new investors, including myself when I was a new investor, if you’re just playing flat out market rate and you don’t realize
and you haven’t ran your numbers to know what your required return is, most likely, most likely in most markets, you’re overpaying.
Because there’s investment value and then there’s market value. And depending on the property you’re buying, you know, if you got a user, you got owner, occupant or user, depending on which property type. But if you got there’s user pricing, so if a, you know, if a office
If an office building can be owned by a company, they might pay more than what an investor should who’s trying to get a specific return. Most of the time that’s true. Same is true in single family. You’re not going to pay what an owner occupant can pay because the debt pricing is completely different.
But if you’re not doing that and if you’re not maintaining that emotion and having a release for the emotion, like we offer a journal, it’s a real estate investment journal and it has tools and stuff in it. And then you write stuff down. I mean, just how are you feeling? Are you frustrated? I can’t find deals right now. Okay, we’ll circle back. How are you looking? Are certain brokers, do the brokers know what you want?
Kristen (20:00)
Yeah. ⁓Ryan Cadwell, CPM (20:15)
Are they looking in the wrong place? Are you in the wrong market? Or is it gift? mean, like one of the things I had to admit that was frustrated between 2023 and 2024, some of the deals I was putting together fell apart. This year, I’ve been grateful that they fell apart. I’ve thought I probably would have, you⁓ lost a lot more money had those deals actually panned out. I mean, there are things that happen that are frustrating and then in hindsight, you’re like, well, thank God. ⁓ So yeah, mean, it’s not having, sometimes not having a bad property is ⁓ better than having one that is just draining you dry and then you’re trying to get out and then, I mean, because essentially you just became somebody else’s opportunity.
Kristen (20:50)
Yeah.Absolutely. Well, I think you’ve given such great insight on the market and kind of strategy and stuff like that, especially for people entering the investing world. To kind of wrap it up, what would be a piece of advice that maybe you wish you learned earlier in your career that you can share with us?
Ryan Cadwell, CPM (21:29)
Work at your relationships and then work on yourself. Like I said earlier, manage the emotions, manage the expectations. very, very clear and honest with yourself. What’s the phrase?Nothing will hurt worse than something you thought was true that just wasn’t so. So if you think it’s true and it turns out not to be true, it’s usually going to cost you a lot of money and heartache. The best way to avoid that is it is having outlets, having things you do that help you discipline, discipline yourself, having processes that you don’t change or push aside.
I think that’s one of the biggest things is we get into a deal, we might get emotionally attached a little bit and we’ll be like, well, I could probably push this number up. Well, should you or should you just hold your, know, should you be okay walking away if that person won’t do it? So ⁓ yeah, just have resolve ⁓ and fortitude and know why you’re doing something and stick with it.
Kristen (22:53)
Amazing! Well, I think that’s such great advice. Tell everybody where to find you and where to find Resolute.Ryan Cadwell, CPM (23:00)
Yeah, so I’m on LinkedIn ⁓ and then Ryan Cadwell and then ⁓ ResoluteRDM.com. That’s where we got a whole list of different tools and stuff in our resources section at the bottom.Kristen (23:15)
Amazing. Well, I really encourage everyone to check out those resources and definitely check out Resolute. It seems like there’s a lot there that you can really help people strengthen their business and strengthen their strategy. So thank you for being here, Ryan. Yes, and thank you everybody for listening. Hope you got some inspiration for your business and learned a lot and we’ll see you back next time. Bye.Ryan Cadwell, CPM (23:28)
Thank you. Appreciate your time.
