5 Summer Lessons Every Passive Real Estate Investor Needs to Know | Ep 76

James: Summer's here, the barbecues are hot, the pools are full in your money. Well, hopefully it's working harder than you are 'cause that's what we're talking about Summer on the Furlo Capital Real Estate Podcast, where we dive into the intricacies of passive real estate investing in this case, how it relates to summer 'cause.

Our mission is to equip people to invest wisely both properties and people even during the summer, so that together we can build wealth while improving housing. I'm James, and this is my wife, Jessi.

Jessi: All I can think right now is Ola and Summer. Yes. That was like playing through my head. That's fair. I was also thinking about our kids like.

Summertime starts when it hits like 75 degrees. Mm. There's this weird, they're so Oregonian. Yeah. They're just like,

James: oh my, I mean, 70 five's not bad. The,

Jessi: it's not bad, but like the first time in the spring is like, it's still a little breezy. Yeah, it doesn't stay that way for very long, but they, like every year they're like, the sun's out.

It's summertime. Can we fill up the pool? Can we go in the sprinkler? Can we have popsicles? I'm like, oh, I work.

James: See that. Ready? I like it. Not quite there yet. I like that's the. That is the attitude. But good news is we're in June, so we're all in. That's right. We're,

Jessi: it's fully summer now. Yeah. We have been established, established to

James: like's, time to have fun, but it's, it's

Jessi: been summer for a while in our house.

Yeah. Yeah,

James: yeah. That's fair. That's fair. Well, I want to talk about five lessons from summer that every passive real estate investor should take the heart that they need to know. Okay. Okay, so lesson number one, plan ahead. Pay later. Okay.

Jessi: Plan ahead. Pay later.

James: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So here's the summer, like, so the idea is you book the best campsites.

Mm-hmm. Or vacations, your homes, your flights, months in advance. Mm-hmm. Right? And you know, if you ever tried to, like to book a, like an Oregon campsite. Yeah. In June. Not happening right now it's trouble. Or you accidentally book a place that you think has a yurt but it doesn't, and then you show up without any camping equipment.

'cause you think you're in a yurt even though there's not one there. I won't do that. Hypothetically. Oh boy. Oh man. But yeah, no, instead you end up near dumpsters or something like that. Yeah. So like, so the investor parallel is the best deals are rarely available last minute. Mm. So you want to do your homework ahead of time to be ready to pull that trigger.

Mm-hmm. So that when it comes. You're ready to go. Yeah. So that's kind of, that's what that particular Totally

Jessi: makes sense.

James: Okay. Good. Good, good, good. Yeah. If you don't

Jessi: plan ahead, you're gonna miss the boat.

James: Right. So number two here is pack Smart travel light.

Jessi: Oh

James: yeah. So, you know, no one really wants to haul like 10 bags to the beach,

Jessi: right.

I mean, some people do, but, oh man, you don't want to, not

James: me. Not me. Right. And, and that's the thing, right? Passive investing. It lets you leave a bunch of the landlording baggage behind on this trip so that you can enjoy yourself. Yeah. Whatever it is that you're doing. Right? And I've had this happened multiple times now, which is nuts.

Like you and I are getting ready to go on a big trip, Uhhuh like international, get on a plane to go and I kid you not, it's like the day before I get some call, hey, some plumbing thing has exploded. Uhhuh, you need to come fix it. Like what is happening? It's like they know I'm getting ready to leave and just something comes up.

Yeah. And it's just, it's, it's crazy. And so it just happens. Right. So, but as a passive investor, you don't have to worry about that. Yeah. Not a, not an issue. And now that I have employees, I can actually go on vacation as well and not have to. Freak out over that stuff. Yeah, I remember that. Remember our, like, one of 'em, our parents were in town and I was like, come on, dad, come help me out.

Mm-hmm. And thankfully, he's actually like a plumbing expert, so it was really nice to have him around. Yeah. But, oh my word, it was nuts.

Jessi: That does seem to always happen.

James: Yeah. So again, focus you wanna simplify your investing, focus on the return, not the responsibility.

Jessi: Mm.

James: Okay. So that's my, that's my number two lesson there.

Number three. Let the pros run the show. Ooh. Ooh. I know you appreciate this. Good one. That's a good one. Summer camps, what do they have?

Jessi: Counselors.

James: Exactly. Resorts. They've got. Butler staff,

Jessi: massage therapists and, and

James: tours have

Jessi: goods.

James: Yeah, exactly. So you so maybe you can see this parallel. Passive investing is about trusting your sponsor or your operator, like myself, at, Furlo Capital something like that.

Like let the pros do their thing.

Jessi: Yeah. That, those were great analogies. Oh, thank you very much. They're designed to do this well. They've been trained and taught and practiced it

James: and they had to focus. Yep. Right. Yeah, exactly. Which again, it's just kind of a reminder, like you don't have to do everything to benefit from it, you just need to get the right team.

Mm-hmm. Which is very much related to number two in the sense of like Sure. Yeah. You know, like, don't try to carry it all on your own. Let him do it. Yeah.

Jessi: Like get a Sherpa. Get a Sherpa. Who

James: was I talking to? This is total aside, we were talking about climbing Everest. Ooh. And he was kind of like, I'm sure it would be cool.

He's like, but it just seems like the fun's been sucked out of it. 'cause a, everyone's got some sort of Sherpa thing going so they're not actually carrying their own gear. And they're just like, you're in a Congo line of people. Oh, yeah. Going up. And he's like, I don't know. It just kind of takes away the specialness of it, to which I'm like.

Still a big mountain, still pretty high up in the air there, like still a thing, but everybody does it. I hear what you're saying. It's less of a thing, but like

Jessi: Yeah,

James: it's, you're not the only one doing anything. If it used to be a 90% thing, it's, it's still like a 70% thing. Sure. Like it's still pretty cool.

Yeah. But I get it anyways. Yeah, I just think kids, our kids will be like, man, remember the days when it was just a Congo line? It was amazing. You know? Now everyone's riding like their own helicopters to the top. It's crazy.

Jessi: Something they gotta, they gotta lift to the top of Everest.

James: Dude, I could see that little elevator.

And then you come out with like 20 feet to go. Our kids will

Jessi: be gonna the moon. Apparently. That's the new thing.

James: I would do that. I'd go to the moon.

Jessi: To space?

James: No, I would go to the moon. I mean, I would probably do space too. I wouldn't touch the edge of, edge of space. That sounds like a weird ride. But I would, I would like if I could hang on the space station for a bit that would be cool.

That would be neat. I feel like that'd be cool. Yeah, that'd be cool. I we're having a conversation about like, so here's your question. Love to hear this in the comments, wherever that is. How much. Money would you pay to, let's say, just go to space for one, but like, like real space again, like hang out in the space station?

We'll say that. Okay. So here's the question. Leave a comment wherever you want. How much money would you be willing to pay to go visit the Space Station for, let's say a few days? Mm-hmm. Okay. I'm curious, what's your answer?

Jessi: $10,000 like popped into my head.

James: What? You'd only spend 10 grand to do that.

Jessi: I mean, man, yeah,

James: I'd spend 50 grand, no question. Holy moly. I would think, I mean, I would have to think long and hard at like 75 grand. It's so pricey. Yeah. I mean,

Jessi: it's

James: Space, space Station International. It's cool. Yeah. I mean, I don't have that kind of money to spend on it, so I'm not gonna do it.

But, you know, if I,

Jessi: I don't know. I, I kind of like Earth. It's warm.

James: Yeah. You go back to it and there's animals, it's not a problem. Yeah. All right. Anyways, I'm curious what your, what your answer is on that. All right. Number four lesson that summer can teach us about passive investing growth happens in the quiet seasons.

Ah, yes. So, you know, gardens grow and they kind of just go in the background, right? You don't stare at a tomato plant and be like, grow, right. You don't freak out over it. Right. You water it. You let it have some sun and then one day boom salsa. There you go. And, and honestly, real estate investing is very similar, right?

Where it builds wealth just really slow over time. It often, it feels invisible, but then like over time it just compounds. You're like, mm-hmm, whoa. I actually got a portfolio. I'm making some returns. Mm-hmm. Awesome. So real estate's very similar like that and it gets, again, it's the long game and, and that's how it works.

I actually think. Patience is probably one of the most underrated skills you can have when it comes to real estate investing. Hmm. Makes where people, that's where people get themselves into trouble. They try to force a deal. It's like they got money burning a hole in their pocket. So they buy something.

You're like, man, like you should have held out for a better deal. Mm-hmm. Or they're, they're trying to, to sell it or like, I don't know. Like they're trying to do stuff quick. Yeah. It's like, yeah. That's not how this works. It needs time to build, it's a slow moving asset. Yeah. I actually, I actually, it's mostly slow moving.

I've described it as like it moves in phases. There are times when it is really fast when you're in the middle of a transaction and, and like a few months afterwards. Mm-hmm. But outside of that, like, it's a slow moving glacier type of thing. Yeah. You just gotta be patient with it. And that's kind of summer, right?

Like you gotta take your time. Can't be in a rush. It's true. Just let, let your garden grow, let it, let its do its thing.

Jessi: Yep.

James: There you go. Number five, coming in here. Don't forget why you're doing this. I. Okay.

Jessi: Summertime.

James: Yeah, summertime. Right? Summertime. What's summertime for? What do you do?

Jessi: Hanging out.

Yeah. Eating burgers.

James: Having s'mores swimming, going on vacations. Yeah. Right. Lots of chill time. You're living life. Mm-hmm. You're enjoying it. And I think that's the same thing with investing, right? It's not, we're not roos, we're not trying to just gain as much money as possible. Yeah. Like we're doing it for our purpose.

So you gotta remember what your why is. For example, next week. I'm headed to Alaska for a week because one of my college friends said I would love to go to Alaska and experience it and do all the things. So I'm like, yeah, I'm in. Let's go. Yeah. And so we are, we're gonna go fishing. ATVing, hiking, probably some other stuff.

I don't know. It's gonna be light like 18 hours out of the day. That's but super fun. Right? And a lot of time to enjoy and that's part of it. And yeah, I'm gonna bring my laptop 'cause stuff always comes up, as we've already said. But there will be many stretches of time where I, I'm gonna be off grid and.

The cool part is rent's still gonna be coming in. Yeah. But, and that's the rent isn't, again, just to aggregate it as much as I can. It's to live life, to do fun stuff with it and to hang out with friends. Yeah. And to make a difference in the world. And so I'm, I'm excited for that.

Jessi: That's a good one.

James: There you go. Yeah. That's all I got.

Jessi: Remember your, remember your why.

James: Your why. Yeah. So I guess my question to you would be, are you giving. What am I gonna ask? Are you giving your money a chance to enjoy it? As well, like with you, right? So does that make sense? I don't know why I wrote that sentence.

No, that was weird. Are you giving your money a chance to enjoy it with you? What was I thinking? It's like I put two thoughts together there and didn't edit it. Are you giving? Hmm. Lemme try modifying this real quick on the fly here. 'Cause I was, 'cause my thought was like, it's not just a season, it's a mindset, was kinda where my head was going.

So yeah. Are you just giving your money a, a chance for you to enjoy it? There we go. That's the question. Just like we enjoy summer. Mm-hmm. And there's seasons for it, right. And then there are other seasons where it's like, hey, we're, we're getting after it. We're in the grind. Sure. We're working hard.

And there's times in the winter where it's like, yeah, we're just gonna hunker down, man. We're not doing anything right now. Mm-hmm. And, and I think we do go through those investing seasons and it's good to recognize the one that you're in and to enjoy it during that time. But we're in summer, so it's time to enjoy.

And have that mindset of enjoying the investments that we're, that we're doing. And if you are ready to start investing passively or you want to get, you know, get in line for the next deal that we're doing to enjoy the, the different adventures that we're going on,

Jessi: or to have an expert guide

James: you or to have an expert guide you Yes.

Like a tour guide. As a, as a. As a camp counselor. Oh, a camp counselor. Yeah, you can definitely check us out at furlo.com. We got all sorts of information there about like our ING thesis and our track record and, and things like that. It's really good. So let's see. I wrote something really cute, so until next time, keep your flip flops dry and your cash flow high.

Bye. Happy summer. Thanks for watching.