The Truth About Passive Real Estate Investing, Sponsor Trust, and Get-Rich-Slow Wealth

Nathan Jameson (00:00)
Business has a battle mindset for sure. And there’s a lot of people in business today who weren’t around in 2008. And God bless them. They’ve had some apparent success here. But if I’m an investor right now, I don’t think there’s ever been a more exciting time to be an investor, because there’s a lot of options available.

But there’s also the scariest time because there’s many of those options are just not good options. And I’m going to go back to that relationship. I don’t know how you make an investment in someone without some measure of real relationship. I want everybody who invests with us to be able to put their hand on my shoulder and likewise my hand on their shoulder.

Quentin (02:16)
Hello everyone, welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I am your host Q Edmonds and I’m here today with another guest that we get to learn and glean experience from. If you know me, you’ve been following me, you understand.

That what really excites me is that we all can literally be doing the same thing, but we’re different people. So we bring different aspects to whatever we are involved in because we bring it ourselves and we’re all different, right? And so I love the fact that we get to learn from each other’s experience, each other’s journey. And today is no different. And so I’m excited that we get to learn from Mr. Nathan Jameson Mr. Nathan, how you doing today,

Nathan Jameson (02:56)
I’m well. Thanks, Quentin Appreciate you having me on.

Quentin (02:59)
Absolutely, man. Well, 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 that you’re in. And then people love to know where you are geographically. So if you can tell them where you are, they love knowing that as well. So what you’re up to, origin story, and where you are. Nathan, you have the floor.

Nathan Jameson (03:20)
Great. I would say broadly, I’ve been housing focused for more than 25 years since I began my career in home building in the early 2000s. And then I helped a privately owned home builder navigate the Great Recession, becoming one the largest privately owned home builders in the country through the Great Recession and having tremendous success. And I started my current firm, Arx Capital about 10 years ago, again, focused on housing, only more affordable housing.

We started buying manufactured housing, mobile home parks, as many people call them, throughout the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. And as we continued to prove out the concept and the operation was developed, and we felt like we had developed enough excellence there to invite other people to invest with us, then we began to offer people the chance to invest alongside my family in our funds that are mobile home park related.

I live outside Philadelphia in the western suburbs and I’ve been here almost 25 years as well. Love here, grew up in the Carolinas but you know the truth is Quentin I’m a Sixers, Flyers, Eagles, Phillies fan. So hopefully it doesn’t rub you the wrong way.

Quentin (04:36)
Not at all. I love your GM. He’s one of the best. Yeah, I love him.

Nathan Jameson (04:40)
I wish you could

be GM for all four teams.

Quentin (04:44)
Listen,

yes, if he could, then all 14 is probably doing as equally as well as Philadelphia. I mean, it’s the Eagles, yeah. So yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. But no, no, I love it, man. Thank you. Thank you for, you know, taking us through the journey, kind of telling us where you are, kind of how you got there. I’m going do a brief summary because I love asking, making a statement, asking the question. And so, you know,

Nathan Jameson (04:53)
Hahaha

Quentin (05:59)
housing focused for 25 years. You helped a builder kind of navigate the great recession. And now, you became focused on housing and you have developed an excellence, man. And because you developed an excellence, proving your systems, you kind of invited other people along and you you built what you have now and it’s kind of just built out of excellence. And so I love that. I love when people share their journey.

because I often make a statement where I say destiny has no wasted moments, right? Meaning that if we go follow our blueprint, we can just see the momentum building. And sometimes, you you gave the blurb, it was very quick, right? But you know, you ain’t get to where you are like that. It’s just, it’s been moment after moment after moment, man. And so Mr. Nathan, I would love to know, sir, throughout the journey, man, what has the journey taught you about yourself? Has it taught you?

You plan, has it taught you resilience? Has it changed the way, you know, your innovative mind works? Like, what is the journey taught you about yourself?

Nathan Jameson (07:03)
Well, you talk in my language, you’re quite now. I think often about about the story we’re living in. And, know, I think one of the things I’ve learned is I’m not the hero of this story. Somebody else is writing this story. So I believe God’s the hero of the story and I get to play a role in it. You know, yeah, so, you know, so that that, you know,

Quentin (07:13)
Hoo!

Well, come on, you definitely talking to my language now. Yes, please continue. Please continue, yeah.

Nathan Jameson (07:27)
Every day, you know, we turn a page and then there’s seasons where we turn chapters and you know, you’re right It was a quick blur, but it made it sound like ⁓ look at Nathan He’s you know, it was it was a straight line from point a to point B But that that line curved and sometimes it went backwards and sometimes it way down and sometimes it was at a mountaintop ⁓ And that’s the honest truth and you know, we often miss that in today’s sound bite era ⁓ But the reality is it and certainly more time than we have to go in here ⁓

You know, the fact that I’ve learned the reality that I live in that I’m not the hero of the story, I think gives me a humility. when we approach, our investments, when I approach speaking to investors about whether we’re a good fit for them. And when we hire and coach up the people who work on our team, you know, I want to have that perspective for, for everyone, that we’re, there’s a bigger purpose in all this. Hopefully we’re becoming more, who we were intended to be.

as part of that process. And if I’m blessed to be a part of somebody else’s process, then I give thanks to God for that.

Quentin (08:30)
Amen to that brother. Amen to that. Listen, I take my brotherhood with other men very seriously. So one of my favorite Proverbs that I quote, I believe it’s Proverbs 17, 17, it says, friend is born for time of adversity. No, a brother is born for time of adversity and a friend love it at all times. Right? And so because of my training, because of my gifting, God has called me to just archive information well.

Nathan Jameson (08:43)
No.

Quentin (08:58)
And so just today I was talking to some of my brothers and I had to recall to them kind of like the path that God had laid for them. Right. And it is not like a, you know, a got you moment, but it’s like really just like kind of how like the old Testament, how people did, they built a memorial to remind them what happened at this particular time. Like, this is what happened here. That way when you get to where you go, don’t forget where you came from. And so I love building memorials with my brothers.

Nathan Jameson (09:18)
Yeah, that’s right.

Hmm.

Quentin (09:28)
to remind

them like, it’s the same God that was the same yesterday, he’s the same now. And I love how you said, you ain’t the hero in this story. Y’all, we’re not the hero. We make our plans, but the Lord determined the outcome. And so I love the fact that during your reflection, you’re able to say, hey, I’m not the hero here. I’m intentional. I’m gonna work like everything depend on me, but I’m gonna pray like everything depend on God. And so.

Nathan Jameson (09:41)
Yeah, that’s right.

Hmm.

Quentin (09:54)
I just love that reflection, I really do. And thank you for answering that question with so much reflection. I appreciate it. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So what’s next for the business, sir? Like, what are your goals next? What are you looking to solve or scale next?

Nathan Jameson (09:59)
Sure, yeah, it’s a great question.

Yeah, so I think there’s a group that I’ve been connected to for a number of years here and they’ve been very creative and innovative in terms of how they do. In fact, it’s a Christian ministry, how they do it. But they’ve got a saying, say, we want to crawl before we walk, before we run. I really, in the age of like, let me pull up AI and give it a prompt. like we move from like sitting on the couch with the remote to sprinting.

And I don’t know about you, but I’ll tear at Achilles if I do that. what we want to do, and I think what we’ve been doing, is we’ve been trying things with, frankly, my personal capital, proving them out, refining them. And when they’re ready, then we offer them to what’s a growing network of investors who want to invest with someone who’s working out the kinks with their own capital and then continuing to invest alongside them.

So what that’s looked like for us is it started with figuring out manufactured housing, doing some land development with entitlement for, we sell lots to national builders. And then as we perfected, perfected is the wrong word, as we proved that we had enough excellence to deserve other people’s capital, then we began to add assets to that. So today, and this is all, I am getting to where we’re going here.

Today we’re managing about $175 million worth of real estate assets as a firm. And we are launching our third fund. And that third fund will continue our strong and centered focus on manufactured housing because we just don’t make enough attainable housing in the country, and particularly on the coast, is primarily where we operate. And then we’re including ⁓ RV parks.

When I say that, some people go like, know, they picture like Clark Griswold, you know, driving across the country, headed to Wally World. ⁓ You know, that’s a reference to National Lampoon’s vacation for those younger people listening to this. ⁓ You know, you were right there with me, Quentin. You were with me.

Quentin (12:53)
But good explanation for the audience though. We don’t want to

assume everybody knows what’s going on. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Nathan Jameson (12:58)
You know, we

want we want RV parks as housing, you know, I look at because of my real estate background I start with like what is this piece of property? What’s its highest and best use in an RV park has roads it has water sewer Electric gas maybe it has some amenities that’s housing Depending upon how people want to use it and for many people in the country an RV park is a second home It’s a it’s not a lake or it’s at a mountain. It’s in a resort area where there are many and every weekend

from Memorial Day to Labor Day, they go there and their friends go there, their family goes there. And we like that because we think it’s more resilient through volatile economy and ups and downs of the economy. And people are gonna continue to invest there where they may not be as likely to drive across the country and need a spot to stay for the night in a recession. And then the third thing we’re adding to that is self-storage and again, value add self-storage. So where can we buy self-storage units that

often are owned by mom and pops. think that’s a theme there is we’re really good at buying from a kind of a family-owned business, if you will. Many of them are retiring. We can give them a fair price. We can execute on the promises that we’re making to them. And then we can turn that asset into something that we hold for the long term or we sell to an institutional owner for good value for our investors.

Quentin (14:22)
I love everything you’re talking about. Definitely when you got to the end, just people on the edge of retirement or even had retired, just giving them a place where they know everything is going to, they’re going to settle well. You know, I love that. And I love, when you talk, man, I love some of the wordings that you use. One, you talked about, you know, excellence. I actually love that word, know, doing things in excellence. But I don’t want to shy away from that word that you use about perfecting.

You know, and I’m going to be honest with you, as you was talking, I looked up the word perfecting, right? And it means making the process of making something complete. And I do believe that you are, you are perfecting your process, man. And I always tell people there’s a difference between a self-confident leader and a self-aware leader. A self-confident leader, they know who they are. They know their strengths, they know their weaknesses, but they implement it at the detriment of everybody else.

Meaning I know I’m strong and I will steamroll you because this, know what I’m doing. And even when I’m weak, I’ll never admit that. I’ll just say, Hey, you need to do something better. But a self aware leader, there’s someone that know who they are, but is that the compliment of everybody around them? It says, Hey, you know, I know this is my strengths. I’m going to compliment yours very well. And where I’m weak, I’m going to allow you to be strong so you can compliment my weakness so that we can move this thing forward together. And so when I hear your languaging,

Nathan Jameson (15:24)
Hmm.

Quentin (15:47)
the way that you pause sometimes like, okay, do I want to use that word or not? Unless you know that you’re software leader, man. And I appreciate you showing up as someone that’s self aware, man. I appreciate that. really do. I appreciate that. I really appreciate that. I really do. ⁓ I really appreciate it. More than you know. ⁓ man, I could go on a whole other tangent because I’m learning more about Wells and the depth that

Nathan Jameson (15:50)
Yeah

You’re deep well, Quentin. Man. Woo!

Hmm.

Quentin (16:16)
that takes to get

Nathan Jameson (16:17)
Yeah.

Quentin (16:19)
to the well. And so that’s a whole nother. I appreciate you saying that. That was a reflection moment for me. So I appreciate that. No, seriously, really, really do. I’m going to love asking you this question, Mr. Nathan, because the way you’re positioning yourself is to help people, to partner with people, to make sure you’re taking people’s investments, but make sure you’re doing well by it. So I’m love asking you this question.

Nathan Jameson (16:24)
Yeah. Good. good. Good.

Quentin (16:44)
When you hear the word relationship, what comes to mind to you, Mr. Nathan

Nathan Jameson (17:31)
Yeah, I probably tend to think in in pictures, you know, pictures, you know, somebody putting their hand on somebody else’s shoulder, you know, I think we often, yeah, I don’t know, like, you know, this this thing here, you know, we can see we think this is a relationship. And, and there’s not real relationship there. You can you can check in on you know, I could see that my son’s at the beach, you know, high school graduation, what he’s doing with his friends and stuff. But relationship is, you know, being in the presence of my son and

Quentin (17:46)
Yeah, yeah.

Nathan Jameson (18:01)
put my hand on his shoulder. that’s the more intimate relationship. We have relationships like with our investors. we have investors. I think we’re going through a transaction, our second fund, which we opened about 30 months ago. We intend to kind of keep these open for an extended period of time and harvest the investment over time. But we just, we had an incredible result for our investors. And so we’re selling these properties and it was a really hard decision.

You know, like people gave us money to ⁓ buy properties, which we did, and we’re approving the properties. And they didn’t expect to get the money back for five, seven, eight years. And, you know, we’re going to give them, you know, incredible returns in like 30 months. And the truth is, I wasn’t really sure what to do. It was a decision of refinance and, you know, get refinancing capital proceeds from a bank and send them

some of their money back or sell and send them even more. And there was a big gap between how much we can get in refinancing, how much we were getting in a sale. And as a result, I just said, let me call a few of our investors. And we’re really fortunate. I feel fortunate for myself, for our team that we’ve got investors who were CEOs and CFOs and entrepreneurs who’ve started businesses and had big exits. you know what?

They know more than I do about some things. And I was looking for perspective on how to think about this. ultimately after a few calls, I was able to decide based on feedback and perspective that we were gonna move forward. But that was like a recent thing and it made me thankful that I can pick up the phone anytime and talk to one of those investors. And we talk about the journey here.

Quentin (19:28)
Yeah, wow.

Nathan Jameson (19:51)
someone is further down, know, they’re four more chapters ahead of us or they’re nearing the end of their book. Like I want to hear from them so that I know how to live my life right now.

Quentin (19:57)
Yeah.

Yeah. ⁓ man. It’s funny that you said how you talked about in pictures, because that’s how when people talk, I think in pictures, man. That’s what I do. And so it’s so beautiful. I’ve never heard no one. And I asked this question, that question about relationships, every podcast, because I always want to hear people’s perspective. But I’ve never heard to quite the putting a hand on somebody’s shoulder. And that instantly

Nathan Jameson (20:09)
Hmm.

Yeah, sure.

Quentin (20:26)
It put me in a mind frame and y’all forgive me, but hopefully it’s not too macabre, but this the, this way it put me, brother to brother kind of in battle, right? Like, and we were moving forward and we were deciding on strategies, but where we going to go, making sure we’re not stepping on landmines, things that’s going to blow us up, making sure, you know, we, got the right coordinates, like all these different things. But also with the hand on the shoulder,

Nathan Jameson (20:36)
Hmm. Yeah.

Quentin (20:54)
you’re so close. And again, y’all, not trying to be too macabre, but if the brother gets injured and starts to bleed, you’re so close that the blood gets on you too. And to me, that symbolizes a relationship because in business, things get messy sometimes. And if you really care about relationships, sometimes you’re so close that the mess gets on you too. And you say, listen, I’m not going to abandon you. We’re here together. Let’s figure this thing out.

Nathan Jameson (21:00)
Hmm.

Quentin (21:22)
And that’s why, and so when you say hand on the shoulder about relationship, that’s what my picture kind of went to, man. And so I love that, man. I love how you that hand on the shoulder.

Nathan Jameson (21:27)
Yeah.

Yeah, I’ll agree with that. I don’t think it’s too macabre.

Business has a battle mindset for sure. And there’s a lot of people in business today who weren’t around in 2008. And God bless them. They’ve had some apparent success here. But if I’m an investor right now, I don’t think there’s ever been a more exciting time to be an investor, because there’s a lot of options available.

But there’s also the scariest time because there’s many of those options are just not good options. And I’m going to go back to that relationship. I don’t know how you make an investment in someone without some measure of real relationship. I want everybody who invests with us to be able to put their hand on my shoulder and likewise my hand on their shoulder.

If it’s too far removed, I just don’t know how.

you really know who that person is. Because let’s be honest, Quentin, you want truth? There are people who are asking other people to invest with them, who write their documents, their legal investment documents, in a way that makes it legal for them to take your money and not give it back. And it’s shocking. It shocks the conscience to think about it. And there are smaller groups doing that. And there are big groups doing that. And it really has become kind of a

Okay, so caveat emptor. Latin means buyer beware. And it’s really critical that investors, you know, I don’t want somebody to send me a check, right? If somebody hears this podcast, do not send me a check. Like let’s build relationship. Then we decide, maybe you want to send me a check. Maybe I don’t want you to be an investor. ⁓ That’s how we want to work.

Quentin (22:56)
Woo!

Woo!

Man. And so this is going, I stand by what I’m about to say. For some people it’s going to be hard to believe because it’s just based on what you just said. There’s people that’s making money and it looks from the outside, they trap you in, they’re going to make sure, you know, they get paid either way. But I honestly believe in my heart, Mr. Nathan, that the foundation of any sustainable business is servitude. It’s when you are looking to

Nathan Jameson (23:41)
Hmm.

Quentin (23:43)
As you say, build real relationships. I believe those are the businesses that weathers the storm. And you know, some businesses, they may grow real fast. They may get, you know, make money real quick, but some of them are not sustainable. It go, it comes crumbling down. And once you take a quicker peek at the infrastructure, it starts to crumble. And so, one of the best things I heard, and some people don’t like it, but when they say get rich, slow, grow slow, like maybe so sometimes your foundation is.

Sometimes it’s just the best way to go,

Nathan Jameson (24:15)
You know, I was looking at this yesterday since you’re quoting Bible verses, I’m gonna go to Proverbs 13, 11. All right, this is the new living translation. Wealth from get rich quick schemes quickly disappears. Wealth from hard work grows over time. That should be our company verse right there.

Quentin (24:20)
more.

I got goosebumps. We can’t make this stuff up, man.

I’m sorry, y’all, that was a moment. I’m normally doing that. I’m not normally doing stuff like that. That was, I mean, that’s what I call the, that’s the mic drop moment, Listen, Mr. Nathan, you know, so I am going to ask you this, because I would be remiss if I didn’t. I feel kind of led to ask, is there any topic that I have not brought up that you would like to talk about?

Nathan Jameson (24:46)
⁓ yeah.

Quentin (25:00)
Is there any other words of inspiration, education, motivation? Like maybe you came in with like this certain thought on your mind that you wanted our viewers to know. I kind of just want to make space that way if there is a message that you want to land, I want to make sure that you landed.

Nathan Jameson (25:17)
You know, honestly, think what I just want to say in this moment is I just want to honor you, I do a lot of these. And I think it’s rare to find someone who has such a sincere desire to know the person on the other side and is transparent about the communication in advance. And I just love the risk you’ve taken.

Quentin (25:25)
He’s the one with this man.

Nathan Jameson (25:43)
to do this, to put yourself out there and to be who you are unabashedly. And I just, I think that’s all I got.

Quentin (25:49)
So I will speak more to that off air because if I try to speak to that, I’m going be a mess. I’m going to be a mess. I’ll speak more to that off air. But thank you. Thank you. Honestly, I appreciate that. And I try to say that without any hubris or arrogance. That was really water to my soul, man. So thank you. I appreciate that. Mr. Nathan, sir, if someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, collaborate with you.

Nathan Jameson (25:57)
Hahaha!

You’re welcome.

Quentin (26:19)
Learn more about what you’re doing. How can a person reach out to you, sir?

Nathan Jameson (26:23)
The best way is to send me an email. It’s Nathan, N-A-T-H-A-N [email protected]. And ARX is A-R-X. And so you remember it’s Latin for fortress because the Lord is my fortress. reach out, like let’s have a conversation. Let’s build a relationship. And it doesn’t have to be about investing. We want to learn from one another. And if it ends up becoming an investment, great. But if we can be helpful as you go through, as your listeners go through a process of

figuring out where they’re gonna invest and the kind of work they’re gonna do. We wanna be here as a resource.

Quentin (26:54)
Well, let me sincerely say three things to you. One, thank you for your time. I truly believe time is our most precious commodity. so it’s, I value you showing up today. Yes, you know, this is a podcast. We know how it works, but you still didn’t have to be here today, but you chose to be here today. So thank you for your time. Secondly, man, thank you for your story, sir. Thank you for the gift of your vulnerability, the gift of your integrity.

you know, when I’m talking to someone like you, I say Jesus taught in parables and that my way of trying to emphasize the weight that it is to share our story, to share our allegories, like to share the parts of our lives that maybe people can’t see to bring those to the front to say, Hey, you know, I want you to learn from this. I believe, you know, Jesus designed his speech that way. And I believe it’s okay for us to tell our stories.

Nathan Jameson (27:28)
Hmm.

Quentin (27:50)
because they plant seeds and we never know when the seed is going to take root and grow, but it will. And it may be two years from now, five years from now. So I believe you planted seeds that can literally correct somebody’s life. And not only that, give them life, know, lead them to life, lead them to the way. And so when we had these types of conversations, maybe, you know, that little planting may lead them to the way. And I know you know what I’m talking about. And so,

Nathan Jameson (28:17)
That’s right.

Quentin (28:19)
And lastly, sir, thank you for your mindset, for the way you think and bringing that mindset to this platform. I greatly appreciate you coming on today.

Nathan Jameson (28:28)
Thanks for having me, Quentin. It was a privilege.

Quentin (28:31)
Absolutely. So listen, y’all heard Mr. Nathan. Listen, his information is in the show notes. Please get in contact with him. Definitely make sure you’re subscribed here, because I promise you, we’re going to continue to bring up amazing people just like Mr. Nathan. So sir, I say thank you again. And everyone else, y’all have a fantastic day.