10 Ways Real Estate Investing is Like Camping | Ep 29

James: Welcome to the Furlo Capital Real Estate Podcast, where we dive into the intricacies of passive real estate investing. And our mission is to equip people to invest wisely in both property and people so that together we can build our wealth while improving communities. I'm James and this is my wife, Jessi.

Jessi: I'm here. Yeah. I, you know, I'm getting pretty pumped about the Olympics. Yeah, I've been watching some like try, you know, the world championships trials, whatever people placing

James: for

Jessi: whatever reason, YouTube thinks I want to watch gymnastics and diving, which they're probably pretty right. You're right.

James: You do.

Jessi: That's what I like. I,

James: How about this? So I'm working on a project. Right now. And it's been involving trashing out entire house. I'm, I have almost completely filled a 30 yard dumpster. And as you can imagine, I've almost listened to all of my podcast. I've actually have fully caught up on all of my podcasts and I started a new audio book, really excited about it.

It's an audio book about Timothy Keller, but it's his biography, but today was the first time that I found out about the summer Olympics because I was listening to a podcast and they were talking about the news and I was like, Oh,

Jessi: so that's

James: how out of the news I am. Wow. No idea until earlier. Had you, had I not had that happen, you would have been like Olympics and I would have been like, really?

So I didn't even know where they're at. So it's in Paris. Okay. All right. Cool. Something to look forward to.

Jessi: Mm hmm.

James: Let's see. Is that the one where they do swimming? Which everyone gets into and I don't understand. Okay. It's

Jessi: swimming, track and field, gymnastics. Diving.

James: Okay. I don't know.

Jessi: There's probably a smattering of other things.

James: Yeah. I think the nice part about, like, those sports work well in today's, like, clickonomics, like gimme the shorts. Like, you can watch a full swimming race in, like, a minute. Yeah. Or two. It's a short one.

Jessi: Sure.

James: And whereas, as opposed to, like, hey, I'm gonna watch an entire basketball game or softball game. Oh, right.

Okay. Or something like that. So, like, those, the sports that go fast, and I put a lot of track and softball happen in the Olympics?

Jessi: I Yeah. Oh, yeah. What Olympics do those happen in? Summer or winter? I'm pretty sure. Oh, well. I mean, I don't know. I don't know. I just don't watch those ones, so.

James: Yeah. Sorry. Yeah, right?

And I think that's the majority of people, honestly. Because especially like us, we don't have a subscription, or heck, we don't even have time to watch it. So. I watch clips. So swimming. I did watch this. And track and field. My point is, those work well for clips on YouTube. Yeah, that's true. Because you can watch the entire thing in a few minutes.

It's true.

Jessi: Or like one particular event. Yes. You know, in seconds. So, but okay. Last thing, last thing, I know this isn't the topic because that was my perfect transition, but keep going so good. You can, you can move back. It might still be I watched this side by side of like the top hundred gymnasts in worlds and their vault, just their vault, like their top vault, all a hundred and it was all a hundred a row.

So it was like seconds for each one and it goes all the way through to the first. And it's so incredible to watch. Like, okay, this is the. Click girl who placed a hundredth all the way through. And then Simone Biles is number one, of course, but just the distinction between like watching that progression and the power and the speed.

And is it, is

James: it obvious or close?

Jessi: No, it, it's obvious. You can see the transition at about like seventh or eighth place.

James: Okay.

Jessi: There's this jump in like, Oh, you are a different caliber of athlete.

James: Oh, and

Jessi: then that top three is just like, this is ridiculous. And Simone Biles was like, Oh my gosh. She's like double the height of everybody who vaulted.

Yeah. Like, it's just like, this is incredible. I have no idea how anyone competes with that. Yeah. Anyways. I don't know. That's cool. It was pretty fascinating to watch because typically you watch just one. Gymnast. And then do they do

James: overlays or they just had like, how did you know that hers was twice as much?

Was it like the same angle for everything? It was like the

Jessi: same angle for everything. And so, and they had the gymnast and their name and their ranking. And yeah.

James: Okay. All right. Cause I know one of the YouTube channels that I love watching is John boy media, and he primarily focuses on baseball. And one of the things he'll do is he'll say, okay, the call that a strike.

But here's why the player was upset about it. He's been calling it a ball all game. And what he'll do is he'll actually overlay and semi transparent the video. So you can watch them all. They go, look, this one's a ball, this one's a strike. And he's like, they're right on top of each other. Yeah. Which honestly, when you think about real estate, it's something that's super helpful because you have all these different properties, all these different deals, and so it's really helpful to put them into the same structure so that you can actually compare all of them.

Jessi: Yeah.

James: Yeah. But that's not what I want to talk about. It would be fascinating. I want to try a different transition. That's all right. So we just came back from a camping trip or recently. Yeah. And and it just got me thinking there's a lot of similarities between camping and investing in real estate, whether actively or passively.

Jessi: All right. Yeah. Yeah. You are like the master at creating analogies. Yes. So I

James: have I have 10 and a half of them.

Jessi: 10 and a half

James: and a half is because I actually have like 2 stabs at one. Interesting. And so I'm like, I don't know which one's gonna feel better, we're gonna try it out. Okay. This is interesting.

Yeah, yeah. So, 10 ways in which camping is illustrative, is analogous, is parallel to passively investing in real estate. Okay. So next time you're camping or you're thinking about, okay, how does it work? What's the mindset? If you think about some of the similar mindsets of camping, you can go, okay, apply that towards real estate investing.

I like

Jessi: that. Yeah. Because, you know, most people have been camping at some point. Right. So they can grasp that idea.

James: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So exactly. All right. So number one. Here's how I think I want to try to structure it is I'm going to say what it is, what we do in camping, and then you'll kind of be like, okay, how is this similar for real estate?

Okay. And we may air launch that plan very quickly.

Jessi: We'll

James: see. Cause you take us out of left field. All right. So in camping. For this particular trip, we planned out our trip six months in advance and we considered during those six months all the necessary food and supplies and activities.

Jessi: Okay.

James: So similarly,

Jessi: yes, similarly, passive

James: real estate investing in real

Jessi: estate investing.

It's not like. a spur of the moment decision. There's some planning. Yeah. And some lead up. You gotta, and, and it's beneficial to kind of have everything lined out so that when it, when you go, when you're camping, when you're in the woods, like you, it's all figured out. You don't have to make a decision then.

So it's like if you're closing on a property, you want to make sure the paperwork is in order and funds are there and you know ahead of time what the deal entails and financing.

James: Similarly, once you decide to invest in real estate, unlike say the stock market, where you're just like, I'm going to open an account, I'm going to buy something that's funded in like three days done.

Similar to camping, there's often a lag. It's very rare that you're like, I want to do this. And then, Oh, boom, there's a deal tomorrow. It can happen, but oftentimes, yeah, it's a six to even 12 month lag time between, okay, I want to do it to when the sponsor finds a deal and you can invest in it.

Jessi: That makes sense.

Yeah. Yeah.

James: So can you maybe have

Jessi: your, your money like. Pledged or, what do you even call that? They're like, yeah, if you find a deal, I'll give you X amount. Committed is the

James: soft, soft commit is the term.

Jessi: But then there's that

James: preparation. Yeah, but then there's still like that, and in that time you're learning about the investment, what's going on, how am I actually going to transfer my funds, all that kind of stuff.

Jessi: Okay, that makes sense.

James: There you go. That's the first way.

Jessi: I like it. Right? It works. All right. Number 2

James: In camping, the journey to the campsite and the process of setting up are integral parts of the camping experience, not just the time spent at the site. So in real estate investing, I

Jessi: feel like that's very similar to the first one.

Yeah. Like the setup matters.

James: Well, so, okay. So the first one is there is a time delay. And you got to be okay with that. Right. That's a similarity in this one. It's saying, yeah, the setup is just as important as the investment.

Jessi: Okay. Yeah. So it's like, I mean, one of the things I did getting ready for camping is like, I pulled the bin out and I open it and we have this checklist and I make sure like, okay, do we have this in the bin?

Do we have this in the bin? Do we have this in the bin? Because it's like, yeah, you don't want to get to your campsite and be like, Ah. You don't have bug spray. There's mosquitoes everywhere. You know?

James: Yeah. Which is why I've got my 196 question vault that you can use to ask a sponsor before investing in the deal.

That is that equivalent of the journey down. You're going through all this stuff, making sure you're ready.

Jessi: Yeah.

James: Yeah. I

Jessi: like that. All

James: right. There you go. Number Number 3 It's going to be interesting. I got, I thought it was a good one. So camping often involves simplifying life, focusing on basic needs like shelter, food, and safety, leading to a deeper appreciation of these essentials.

Jessi: Okay.

James: So similarly when investing in real estate.

Jessi: All right. This might be totally off. The way I think about it is like similarly in real estate, You can boil a deal down to like, what are the basics of a deal? Does this make sense? You know, it's like, yeah, of course you could go way up here and do some huge, you know, apartment complex, bazillion dollar thing, or some super simple, you know, house flip super tiny and it's way less money, but it's like both of those have this like basics.

What are the essentials? Like, what is that? Food, water, shelter. Yeah. Like, necessity.

James: Yeah. In real

Jessi: estate.

James: Totally true. And I think I would build on top of it is figure out what are those 3 to 5 things that are important to you when evaluating a deal, because real estate can get overwhelming really, really quick because you're like, Oh my gosh, there's like, there's 10 things going on with the market itself.

And then you have the property condition and all the different pieces within a condition. Then you have the tenants. And, and the situation with tenants, both in terms of like, what's the market doing? What's the legal landscape? What's going to look like in the future? There's often a construction plan, there's financing, there's legal, there's like, there's so much stuff you can like, Oh my gosh, how do I process all that?

And that can become overwhelming. And so what I would say, and again, my 196 question vault helps kind of clarify, here are the things that are really important. And To figure out like, okay, what really is important to me? And some of the senior metrics, if you will is going to be what's your going, what's your measurement for this was a good return.

Is it an average annual return? Is it an IRR? Is it an earnings multiple? Those are kind of like your big three. And then you might have things like, well, is cashflow important to me? Is value growth important to me? There's like the massive one, in my opinion is, can I trust the sponsor? Like that's a huge one.

Boil it down to those types of things. The same way that you simplify it. If you, do you remember this when we first got started investing? I think this is just what I was thinking. I had a big spreadsheet and I had, I probably had like 20 different metrics. And what is it that you would tell me? Do you remember?

Jessi: I was like, does it make money today?

James: That was it.

Jessi: That's it. And even further than that, I was like, I don't even like, I get bogged down by the numbers. I overthink it. I was like, can you just make me a box that like, if it's red, I'm going to say no. If it's green, I'll say yes.

James: Yeah. And that was what we voted that too, which was, it was the monthly cash flow number, taxes and appreciation and depreciation.

That's all. That was it. A really good metric that you chose. That's why it's important to choose good ones. But yeah, that was how you guys started. Now today you're a little more like, okay, I could tell me more about it. But yeah, so there you go. That is number three. Cool. Got to simplify things down.

You can't try to take in everything. It's way too hard.

Jessi: Yeah.

James: Yeah. Especially as a passive investor, just figure out what's important.

Jessi: If you have a Prius,

James: stick to it.

Jessi: The band was really nice. What? When you're camping, you can't pack everything.

James: Yeah, yeah, fair enough. Uh, all right. Number, number four, the emotional investment in planning and experience a camping trip can lead to significant personal satisfaction and joy.

Jessi: Hmm.

James: So similarly,

Jessi: I think just replace. camping with real estate investing, you know, in so many aspects of real estate investing, you're, you're growing your money, which is like, yeah, okay, that's satisfying. I'm planning for the future. I'm not just, you know, waiting to figure things out or, you know, you're, you're doing something that's active and what's the, what's the word?

It's not preventative, but it's like you do, you're doing it ahead. You're anticipating this

James: need. Proactive?

Jessi: Yeah, proactive. You're being proactive and

James: Now, I would also say I mean, there's something about real estate that because it, that adds satisfaction because it is physical and tangible there are number nerds out there who do get a satisfaction out about watching their portfolio grow in the stock market, but it's something different about saying like, Yeah, we planned for this rehab and we did it and there's like this very tangible before and after.

after That's true. This place was not managed. Well, now it is managed. Well, it wasn't cash flowing. Now it is. Yeah. Like I think there's similar to camping where, yeah, there's this emotional investment in all the planning and doing it and then watching it come to fruition.

Jessi: Yeah.

James: Like one of the things you actually kept warning me about, because I was getting excited about our camping trip.

You're like, it's true. Got to be careful like that. Your expectations don't get too high because this isn't like how it used to be when you were a kid. And it's

Jessi: different people. It's a different place. But I

James: definitely had that moment where we were all around the campfire having dinner, hanging out. And I was like, yeah, this, that was all like, and it felt really good knowing that I'd played a critical role in making that happen.

Exactly. Yep. With some of the planning of it.

Jessi: Yeah. Yeah.

James: So

Jessi: I like that. Yeah,

James: of course you do. Number five, camping. Choosing a campsite involves assessing risks like weather, wildlife, terrain, how close to the toilet are here, how toilets the toilets are. Yeah. against the rewards of a grit location and experience.

Right. Because for example. You might say like, well, I want to be in the woods where there's no one around and there's some risks associated to that. Right. So there's this balance or for us, since we were doing family and we're like, we're trying to find a spot in the middle. It's like, okay, what works for everyone?

So choosing a campsite, like where to go involves assessing risks. Yeah. Similarly,

Jessi: similarly, location, location, location in real estate. A bunch of people talk about that. Like location matters, at least in assessing, like, is the market a viable market to be investing in? Is this going to be profitable? Like you don't want to just choose the first property.

That was the tenant

James: pool. What are the income to rent ratios, that kind of stuff.

Jessi: There's risks. Each area that you have to, is there a

James: big capital expenditure that needs to happen at the beginning or one that's going to happen in five years? One of the things that

Jessi: you were talking about, I don't even remember which property it was, but it was essentially, it was like, all right, like this property is out there, but the cost to get teams of people to do the work on the property is significantly more because they just weren't local,

James: right?

Jessi: They weren't there in that city.

James: Yeah. And

Jessi: so it was like, yeah, it was a great property, but the cost of rehabbing was, was. It's way too high. And.

James: Yeah. That was, yeah.

Jessi: You know, it was like, you gotta, you gotta weigh that out.

James: And I think camping's the same way. Like, yeah, you can go to a super popular campground, it's gonna have all the amenities.

KOAs, I think are great things like that, but you're also in the sense of like, well, I'm not really in nature. privacy.

Jessi: Yeah.

James: And trees and things like that. And and so yeah, it's just like, it's finding that balance in between them. And I think, so again, I think real estate is very similar to camping and that like, yeah, you're kind of assessing the risks.

What am I willing to deal with? You can even think in terms of camping time. How long are we going to go camping is the same as like, how long am I going to hold on this property? When our kids were younger. And you can make that argument like when you're just getting started investing, you may not be like, I'm holding this on for 30 years.

It might be more like, eh, let's hold it for a little bit and see where we're at. Yeah, I feel comfortable for like a couple years maybe. Yeah, yeah. That makes sense. Okay. I, I like this one. What are we on? Number six?

Jessi: Six.

James: Trusting family members to handle specific tasks like cooking or setting up tents.

ensures a smooth running of the trip. So in our situation, we had four families, we were there for four nights and each family took a night to provide dinner. And so one of the things that we had to do was trust that family members were actually going to show up and provide dinner. So similarly,

Jessi: similarly, when you're investing with other people, you, you've got to trust that they're going to do what they committed to.

And that they know how to do it. And

James: the best indicator of that would be how have they done? Have they, have they kept other promises leading up to this particular commitment?

Jessi: Yeah. Which I mean, in this particular case, like we haven't gone camping necessarily with these families before, but we've gone on trips before and, and I knew.

That they have done some of the things they've said, you know, I'll pack this and then they had it or I'll make dinner For everybody on this night and then they did, you know, so it's like okay I can trust I had a level of confidence in them. That was much higher Yeah, had I never done anything with them before?

James: Yes, and I would say similarly for investing in real estate if you get a partner with someone, like ideally they've done it before or some version close to it, and you can kind of assess how well they've done it.

Jessi: Yeah.

James: Can

Jessi: I build on that? Because I feel like, okay, this might be one of your other topics, but, but I'm like, there is a piece to that that made the camping so much easier because we partnered and I didn't have to make dinner all 4 nights.

Which was like, this is so much better.

James: Yeah.

Jessi: Because. I made it 1 night, but then the other 3 I could relax and I could share the load a little bit. And I feel like in real estate, that's the same way. If you're trying to do everything yourself, that's hard and you have to learn everything and it takes more time and you don't have all the funding.

But if you partner with some other people,

James: it allows you to be passive.

Jessi: Yeah. At least in some part of it, at some pieces of it. And you do have to trust. There's, there's more of a trust aspect there, but. It's better in the long run.

James: Yeah, no, that makes sense. Teamwork makes the dream work.

Jessi: Yeah.

James: Yeah. I love it.

Number seven, camping can be a time for personal reflection, growth, and developing new skills, such as like outdoor survival or teamwork or something like that. So investing in real estate.

Jessi: I'm sorry, I got stuck on the developing new skills and there was one, our son every night has to take a bathroom break, middle of the night.

Doesn't matter. If you have to use a tank, whatever.

James: That was

Jessi: a new skill to learn during camping. Like,

James: did he learn that skill or did we just, I was talking about like myself.

Jessi: Okay. We did that, but also there was one, there was the learning curve, like night one. Yeah. He wet everything. Night two. I was like, all right, we're going to get on this.

I'm going to, I'm going to make sure that he walks to where he needs to go. Like he doesn't have to go all the way to the bathroom. He just has to go to a tree. And I didn't fully think it through. I learned. So night three was great. But then that second one, he got up. Was gonna go and I had all my plans in order and then he didn't want to walk off of the tarp Because he didn't want to put his shoes on I was like he's gonna put his shoes on then he'll go Yeah, you don't want to put his shoes on you didn't want to walk off the tarp So he walked to the very edge and just went there.

I was like, well, at least it's not in the tent Yeah,

James: so it's an improvement No, that's fair. Yeah. Yeah. Learning

Jessi: new skills. You learn new things. There's personal reflection.

James: Yeah.

Jessi: And I in real estate. Yeah.

James: Yeah. I, that's nice. Yeah. So, and it's a little bit of a stretch, but I think with real estate, there's also that, that learning and growth period that comes in, whether that's learning to evaluate a sponsor, a deal itself, the market surrounding it.

And, and I think. And oftentimes you're putting yourself in a new environment and that you're not fully certain what it is that you're walking into. And so I think yeah, there's some learning there in both situations. And I do also appreciate, yeah, just learning periods of growth. And there are times of reflection.

I spend a lot of time just thinking about investments. How can I make this better? Things like that. All right. Here's number eight. I got two to try on you. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, there's number eight. I got two of them.

Jessi: Okay,

James: see how they feel Camping trips can create cherished family memories and traditions passed down through generations.

Mm

Jessi: hmm

James: Yeah, so similarly

Jessi: similarly in real estate if you Make certain investments that you buy and hold or you, depending on how you are funding things, if you have a trust or something like that, like those are definitely things you can pass down generation over generation. Anything you don't,

James: right?

Just that, that love and the knowledge of real estate investing. Yeah. Yeah.

Jessi: Yeah, the knowledge of it, it definitely spans generations. And I think the other thing too is, is, is, One of the things that we talk about is we're not just investing in real estate because you love it and it's amazing. It's like, we have kids, it's true, but we have kids and we're wanting to set them up for success in different ways.

You know, not just giving them everything on a silver platter, but saying like, okay, like let's think through and position them. In a place that in the future, like we could afford to pay for this or that or give them options for what they want to do, where they want to live, like things like that.

James: Totally.

Okay, 8B. 8B. Okay.

Jessi: That one was pretty good.

James: Redwoods, because we were in the Humboldt Redwood Forest. Yep. So, Redwoods grow slowly but steadily, reaching their towering heights over centuries. This slow growth requires patience but results in incredible strength and resilience. So I think that's very similar just in that, yeah, there's this long term component to it that can last generations.

Yeah. Which one do you like better? Which one do I, which one I'll go with? What's my official number eight?

Jessi: I like the first one, I think, a little bit better. Yeah, that's fair. Although both are really good.

James: Okay.

Jessi: All right, you

James: know Number nine. Oh,

Jessi: yeah

James: your camping experience

Whatever our camping experience was influenced by weather conditions Availability of fish in the river because we got to do some fishing.

Jessi: Mm hmm

James: and other environmental factors Whether it was like super hot or rainy things like that. Mm

Jessi: hmm

James: So similarly, so yeah, our experience is influenced by conditions, fish in the river, essentially things we don't have control over.

Yeah. Similarly, real estate. Similarly

Jessi: in real estate. I think your experience is influenced by, yeah, what's available, where it's available at what cost. Is it available?

James: Yeah. Yeah. You know, I think there's something I have to pivot to, which is similar to the risk piece, but it's more like you just, you're walking in unknowns.

Like we had never been to this campground before. Yeah. Like we didn't know, like we brought, for example, we brought a canopy to block the sun. We get there, there's trees everywhere and we go, Oh, I was like,

Jessi: Oh,

James: didn't

Jessi: really need that.

James: Don't need this. Then never left the car. Yeah.

Jessi: Yeah. Yeah.

James: And so I think there's things like that, that can influence it.

You could have something that was a really good investment and maybe the market turned down and you went, oh man, it's just like,

Jessi: yeah, you got rained out or whatever.

James: It's just one of those unknowns and you just got to know it walking into it. Camping is very similar. So you gotta, gotta be have a bit of a flexible mindset.

Okay. Or like, okay, we're going to prepare for this, you know, but we don't know. Or

Jessi: like, like another good example with, with the camping and real estate is like, I prepared meals and snacks that were flexible. So it was like, we could have this. For lunch right or if we got rained out or ran out of gas or whatever we could have that for dinner

James: Yeah,

Jessi: you know, so it was like there was enough flexibility that I gave options which is in real estate similar

James: huge It's like how we're gonna exit this.

Yeah. Yeah, you know because something

Jessi: might change Yeah, and or something unexpected might come up or if you're investing in a new market You have to learn what that market has and what's available and

James: all those sorts of things. So totally. All right. Number 10, which I'm pretty sure is going to be your favorite, but we'll see.

All right. This is it. Number 10, sharing meals and activities with my extended family created a sense of community and shared joy.

Jessi: Yeah, I really like that one.

James: I know so similarly

Jessi: similarly in real estate. It's it's exactly the same You know, it's like if you're doing that all on your own, that's good.

It's fine But when you're doing with someone else, it's a lot more fun. Yeah, you're getting a shared experience. You're helping one another I mean, that's the tagline that you use for this podcast every single time is like We are working together, you know, to improve like relationship, to improve communities, to improve housing.

Like it's a, it's a shared experience that we get to do together. It's not you and I like forging a path. Is

James: build wealth and improve communities together.

Jessi: Yeah. Yeah.

James: That's the whole idea behind it. Cause it's more fun to do it with people. That's something I'd like to figure out how to even pull my investor community together more.

I've kind of. Yeah. It's kind of been a one to many type of thing. I haven't had it turn into a mini mini thing. Interesting.

Jessi: That isn't, maybe that's another topic for a podcast is like, how do you create investor community or relationship?

James: Yeah, that's a good question. But anyways, that was it. So we went camping, it was a ton of fun.

I thoroughly enjoyed it. It met all the expectations I had. And like I said, I found a lot of ways in which camping is similar to investing in real estate. So my question. For you listeners is what do we miss? What other ways do you see camping as very similar to investing in real estate? Love to hear your thoughts just based on your experiences.

And and yeah, that would be great. And also if you enjoy this podcast, We would love it if you left a quick rating along with your comment anywhere that it is that you listened to this podcast. And if you are interested in investing with us and learning more about what that means, you can check us out at furlo.com and with that, thanks for listening and have a great day.