November 21, 2024 • 42 mins
In this episode of Inside The Deal Room, Gabe Bowling talks with TJ Miller, a 23-year-old member of The Deal Room community who is already making big moves in real estate. Starting in a small town in Indiana, TJ moved to San Diego for college and worked for free to learn the real estate business. Now, he manages 160 units, solves problems for property owners, and is building his skills for future development and investing.
TJ shares how he used mentorship and hard work to grow quickly, the challenges of property management (including dealing with snakes and gas leaks), and how he stays focused on his long-term goals. His story is a great example of how starting young and staying consistent can lead to success.
Links:
Website: thedealroom.io
Circle Community: thedealroomcommunity.com
Schedule a Call: Book Now
Connect with TJ (IG): @TJ_Miller
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Alright, what is going on everybody?
(00:06):
Welcome back to another episode of Inside the Deal Room.
Today we have an incredible guest speaker, TJ Miller, actually inside the Deal Room community,
made it all the way out from California and here in person in our Tampa, Florida office.
TJ, welcome in.
Thanks for having me out.
Appreciate it.
Awesome man.
So jumping right in, I want to start with you're super young, you're 23 and I know you a little
(00:28):
bit on your story and how you kind of broke into the real estate industry.
That's one of the most common things that people struggle with, like having to get really
creative and all the ways that you actually got into it.
We'll spend a lot of time there.
I want to catch everybody up to speed with who is TJ Miller today?
What have you done in real estate?
And then we're going to back it all the way up to how did you actually get into it?
(00:52):
So why don't you just start by introducing yourself?
Who is TJ Miller and what are you working on?
Yeah, so I grew up in the suburbs of Indianapolis, Indiana, small town called Avon, moved out
to San Diego for college four years ago, just graduated this past May from San Diego State
and right now I'm a property manager.
So I'm not someone who's built a large portfolio and is super experienced, but I'm more in
(01:16):
the beginner stages of my journey, started out doing development for a few years throughout
college and then now on the property management side and learning the multi-family game.
You're a very humble man.
Most 23 year olds are still probably in school or still going out partying over the weekends,
wasting a bunch of time and you put in the work over the last couple of years and you
(01:37):
still say I'm in the beginning stages because you probably look at it like most real estate
people.
It's like a 50 year career and you're still in the first couple of years.
So thank you for doing that.
You're in property management right now.
I want to start with what at what point did you get into real estate?
Because the creativity of you saying I'm going to get out of my little small town, I'm going
(01:59):
to get super uncomfortable and move all the way out to a place that I don't know, probably
don't know too many people.
That is honestly one of the big reasons I wanted you to come here because it's so, most
people aren't willing to make that sacrifice.
Like they see the payoff over here, financial freedom, creating incredible life through real
estate and what it has to offer, but they don't see most of the time the price that you have
(02:22):
to pay.
So that's where I want to kind of open it up.
Walk us through what actually happened and then let's dig a little bit deeper.
So growing up I was always like more of a public markets investing stocks and options trading
kind of guy.
That was my interest.
It wasn't until like senior year of high school that I reached out to somebody who lived in
San Diego who was crushing it as a real estate agent and said, hey, I'd love to work for
(02:46):
you for free, learn what this game is like.
And then he said, of course, yeah, for sure.
I was making cold calls for him using Canva to make his Instagram post, just doing small
tasks to learn it.
And then once I actually came out to San Diego the next year for college, then he took me
under his wing a little bit more and I was able to connect with the companies he was
working with and that got my foot in the door.
Walk me through the thought process because it's not like most people, whenever they're
(03:11):
like wanting to go and work for somebody, the first thing is like, okay, how much am
I going to get paid?
Or like, what do I have to do and how much do I get out of it?
What in the world happens in your head where it's like, hey, I want to come work for you
for free?
That's been a big theme of my life and probably the main takeaway of this episode is just
being willing to work for free.
(03:33):
Like you say, to talk about serving the table until you can sit at the table, you have to
be underpaid and overworked for a long time until you're overpaid and underworked.
That's what you said at last event.
And so that theme started really around seventh or eighth grade.
I watched a, you remember Gary V, Gary Vaynerchuk.
He was like just getting into his prime, posting a lot of content, building an audience.
And I saw one of his videos when I was like in middle school or early high school and
(03:56):
I never heard anybody speak in such a motivational way.
And he was just telling middle schoolers, high schoolers, you can do anything you want.
You got to sacrifice for a long time.
And you know, that message really spoke with me.
I was like, okay, why don't I do what Gary is telling me to do?
I'm going to find a bunch of people that are doing interesting things and message them
about working for free.
(04:16):
I did that at a solar energy company, worked for them, digital marketing agency, did that
for a few months, some other alternative clean energy companies in Indianapolis.
And then finally the real estate company.
That was kind of a theme.
I worked for free in several jobs before I realized real estate could be the right path.
It was the vehicle for you.
That's awesome.
(04:37):
I think that's really important for people to pick up because oftentimes they don't,
the experience that you get from going and working for these companies is actually worth
in so much more valuable than the paycheck that you could have gotten.
I think that's what most people don't want to realize.
What kind of household did you grow up in?
Just so people can understand.
Like from, I really like to dig deep because everybody's going to be, you know, some people
(05:01):
resonate to you because they grew up in a similar household.
They went through very similar things.
And then I'll say something about the Gary Vee comment because it's very similar.
Got it.
Okay.
Yeah.
So I didn't, like it wasn't like a rough childhood.
It was like three meals a day, family vacations, comfortable life in Indiana.
There was no time that I was like embarrassed about, you know, money or anything like that.
(05:23):
It was more of like, it's not that there was discomfort and I was trying to get away from
a bad situation.
It was more of I've seen people in my life that have been comfortable and they've been
in a job that they don't like because it's stable and it helps with kids or with family.
And so I was afraid that if I'm going to work a job for 40 years, for 40 hours a week, you
(05:43):
know, 52 weeks a year, that's 80,000 hours over 80,000 hours.
And I thought there's no way I'm going to work $80,000 in my career doing something
I don't like.
So I need to find something where I can control my income, do something I love.
And that's when I kind of, you know, went down that route.
I didn't know if it was going to be real estate or business or investing in stocks.
I just knew I had to find a way to make it.
(06:05):
Yeah.
And the only action I think is what most people fail to see and fail to do most of the time.
And you pretty much made the decisions like I don't want this like if you could go down
this, like you already know the end outcome, go to school, get a degree, get your job,
probably complain like 90% of the time while you're working there, but it pays the bills
(06:26):
and then maybe have a 401k at the end.
You said I want to do something different with my life and get uncomfortable.
So how do you, what's your entry point into real estate for yourself?
You start working for this guy for free.
And then this is, I think as you're going into college, what's the transition there
from?
(06:49):
Where do you live?
Indianapolis?
Yeah, Indianapolis.
Okay.
Indianapolis all the way out to San Diego because that's a completely different environment,
different people, different lifestyle, different weather, all of it.
Oh my gosh.
Yeah.
It was a big shift.
I knew that Indiana can be rough because you got a longer winter and it's dark and it's
cold.
And so I kind of knew I wanted to get somewhere like San Diego where it's 70 degrees year
(07:12):
round and it's pretty good for your mental health to live in an environment like that.
And so I looked at a lot of West Coast schools, Arizona State, San Diego State, UCLA, those
type of places.
San Diego State was my favorite.
I ended up going there.
So a full timeline, senior year of high school, I knew I wanted to go to San Diego State.
So I started sending Instagram DMs to a bunch of current students at San Diego State.
(07:33):
Hey, let me learn from you.
I'd like to do this.
Most don't respond.
They don't answer.
Some say no because they're like, I've never heard of this.
I don't know what this kid's trying to say or what he wants.
The one guy that said yes and took a chance on me, him opening that door made a huge
difference in my life.
So then freshman year of college, I'm out in San Diego.
I'm working for him.
I didn't have a car.
(07:54):
Sophomore year, I had a car on campus.
So then I could work for him and go to his office.
So then that was when I got more of a full time into the real estate space.
Started as a sales rep at the small development company.
Did not do well at all at that.
I was really, really bad at sales.
And I switched to a sales admin role.
(08:14):
So instead of being client facing and trying to close deals, which I was bad at, I was
basically an administrative assistant for our two top performers.
What happened there is when I was there helping them, their numbers started to improve.
The company took notice that I succeeded in a sales admin role and they promoted me to
a sales manager role.
And then I did well with the sales team managing about seven or so reps and then they moved
(08:35):
me to a project coordinator role.
So it was more not just with the sales team, but overseeing more of the process.
So it was kind of like not just thinking, oh, I'm bad at sales and real estate.
I shouldn't pursue it.
It's like, well, maybe I'm not good being customer facing right now, but how about I
learned to be the behind the scenes operations guy and that's how I can provide value.
And that actually provides so much.
(08:56):
It's insane because the way that you just spoke about what you do and the clarity that
you had and like the growth of the company and being involved in that, it all started
with, hey, I want to work for free.
I'm not looking for a paycheck immediately.
I'm just looking for growth and the experience of being a part of an organization like that.
I think that actually provides like from an employee, I'm trying to hire a bunch of people
(09:16):
for our firm.
I'm like, dude, that screams hungry.
I want to grow.
I understand that I don't need to be paid today.
I just want to have the opportunity, get in, prove it, be underpaid and overworked.
And then at some point you're overpaid or underworked and overpaid.
That's awesome.
You mentioned something about Gary V. When Alicia and I were 20, it's probably very
(09:38):
similar because what year did you graduate?
Just high school.
Yeah.
High school, that was like 2020.
2020.
So I graduated in 16.
It was the same thing.
The Gary middle class household grew up with the school, get good grades, play sports,
don't get in too much trouble, C's get degrees, that was my thing.
(09:59):
And just live your life, get a job and then eventually die.
We get together and we're like, hey, we want to create this incredible life.
Gary V says, be willing to give up your 20s to live an incredible life after 30.
And that was kind of our thing.
We were like, all right, we're young.
We don't have too much experience.
We don't have any value.
Let's just go work for free because we're living with the parents.
So that's what led Marcus Milchap, which led the grants, which led the he, blah, blah,
(10:22):
blah, blah.
So I see so many similarities.
Now let's get more up to date to current.
What's been active real estate portfolio?
What's been your main thing over the last couple of years in real estate?
Yeah.
So as of right now, this is November 2024 and we're recording this.
I don't have any units.
(10:43):
So I'm not somebody with a portfolio right now.
The focus has been providing value to the people with units.
So at the development company, I was helping people build these small units.
They call them ADUs or accessory dwelling units, California, Seattle, some other cities.
And so I was helping them throughout the whole process of that.
How do you plan what you want to build, design it, go through permits, construction, and
(11:06):
then what are we going to do with it, property management afterwards?
But they were only doing small units.
They weren't willing to build multifamily or to build two units plus.
So I felt like I maxed out my growth at that company.
I left and I joined the current company that I'm at and we're doing the larger development
projects.
So it's more about how do you build two units or six units?
(11:27):
Our biggest project is going to be a 32 unit four story building that we're on permits for
right now.
So it's like, how do I learn from these big developers?
Since what I want to do is have a cashflow portfolio.
Also do the development game because that's so big in San Diego and it just feels good
to see a building that it was your idea, you helped design it and that thing exists and
people live there because you were able to move the people around.
(11:49):
The creative outlet.
Yeah.
Most of the time people like that.
And so right now it's like I manage at the company that I'm at 160 units roughly for
about 58 different owners.
And so I'm still serving the table, finding ways to, yeah, it's a lot of units.
There's a lot of emails, a lot of headaches.
That's right.
Yeah.
And it's mainly student housing.
Yeah.
Which is very management intensive.
(12:12):
And so that's the sector of the business, the niche that I focus on, the student housing.
Although it is stressful, you learn twice as fast.
Yeah.
Twice as many headaches.
Yeah.
That's where I was just going to like, okay, so one of the most big reasons we're trying
to pull people from the inside of the community that most times on podcasts like, all right,
you've been in the business for 30 years, you own $700 million.
(12:34):
What was it like back then at like in 1982 getting a deal and getting loaned?
Absolutely different from what it is today.
And so I think what a lot of people won't see with you, like whenever you start doing
deals and it goes fast because you've been paying with your own time and being part of
other people's organization, very similar to what I did at Grant's office.
(12:55):
I worked there for three years, raised $100 million.
It was a lot of fun, got the institutional experience.
And then we've been able to break off and go from zero to 50 million in 32 months that
a lot of people like, oh my goodness, that's really, really, really quick.
In 32 months, but they didn't see the previous four years, one year at Marcus, three years
at Grant's.
You have a very similar trajectory.
(13:16):
So walk me through what does the TJ Miller look like in 25 and 26?
Is it continue to only focus on projects inside of the company that you're working at and
getting the experience?
Or have you started taking the steps to take on these projects either by yourself or running
it with, you know, you're the GP running point on the team?
(13:36):
So when we talked like a month ago, we talked about my short-term goals and my long-term
goals, and you let me know all that stuff in the middle, you're probably going to pivot
and make changes along the way.
The long-term might stay the same, but the way to get there is going to change.
And yes, the way to get there has constantly changed.
I thought that the way for me to build a portfolio was to do it in my backyard with development
(13:57):
deals, since that's what I'm, you know, day-to-day learning and that's what I know the most about.
But what I've seen recently, these development deals in San Diego are very cash-intensive
and they carry a lot of risk.
So it's not to say it shouldn't be done or that's not the right way to do it.
It's just for me, I think I would rather build a cash flow portfolio first and have a cash
(14:17):
flow portfolio that can cover the bleed or the holding costs on these development projects.
I mean, the one I told you about four stories, 32 units, that was about $2 million just for
a 10,000 square foot piece of land, small piece of land, and then you're going to spend
a million just on permits and city fees.
So you're at $3 million, $2 million in land plus $1 million permits and fees, and then
(14:40):
another $6 million for construction costs and all of that.
So you're at $9 million.
And if you're all in for $9 million and it's worth $14 or $15, yes, that's a big score.
But you're bleeding a lot every month where you're doing construction and you're servicing
the debt.
Although, eventually, I'll be doing stuff like that, I would rather do kind of deals
that Morgan's doing right now where it's like it's just a heavy cash flow deal.
(15:03):
You do a refinance and then you can move those profits to other ones.
Yeah, yeah.
Welcome to San Diego Real Estate.
Those numbers on 32 units is complete.
It's like 150 units here and this is expensive in Florida.
Portfolio builder.
It's a common sense thing.
Development plays have their place in every portfolio because the returns are worth it
in a lot of cases, but you want to have at least the foundation of assets that pay the
(15:27):
income that you know you can service the debt.
So it's a very smart move.
So what are your goals for 2025?
We're going in November, December, pretty much end of year, very little activity.
A lot of the times you want to set up the goals in Q4 for next year.
What are you thinking for 2026?
(15:47):
Where's your focus?
What is the main thing you're focusing on?
Thinking in property management, you have a really unique opportunity to practice being
an operator without owning real estate.
So what I can do is I can, you know, in a market where, you know, 5% cap rates are a
thing, every dollar that you save an owner on their expenses is $20 in added value, which
(16:11):
doesn't sound like much.
But when you save an owner $10, $100, $1,000 a month, a week, a quarter, a year, it really
starts to add up.
So if I can learn, you know, I'm working with a plumber and they tell me it's $6,000 for
a new water heater and I know a guy that does it for $3,000 or less.
Or if I'm able to save these owners money and know what things cost, how to solve problems,
(16:32):
then when it's time for me to be an operator on my own projects or an asset manager overseeing
a property manager, I'm going to be even more prepared.
So there are really three things I'm focused on for next year.
The first is be a better operator by being locked in on the property management stuff
and learning lessons from every maintenance request, every person that wants to lease
a unit, everything like that.
(16:54):
And the second would be multifamily education.
So watching the past recordings of the calls, networking with people in the group like Morgan
and, you know, Josh and other people like that and learning from them on their experience
and then being able to increase active income so that I can put money into these deals.
With the property management, it works well because you have the stability of a salary
(17:15):
plus you make leasing commissions when you get units rented out.
Plus as a licensed agent, you can get your wholesale fees or your regular agent fees
from representing people.
So there are three ways for active income plus the multifamily education plus the nine
to five teaches me how I can be an asset manager.
But everything is integrated under one.
That's the awesome part there.
(17:36):
Very cool.
Thank you for sharing.
How important has, because I see a common trend in your life, it's always been, and
it's not like I know every single thing about your life.
But hey, I wanted to change my life.
So I immediately started reaching out to people and see how I could provide value with them
for free.
And then even like the company that you're in today, it's still, you're trying to grow,
(17:57):
grow, grow.
Most people are just like, what do I have to do to get my paycheck?
And then like, I'll do it.
It's not, let me grow the company.
Let me figure out how I can take on more responsibility.
Have you always been working on your mindset or did you just come out of the womb like
super highly motivated?
Yeah.
And then like, what's been your life?
What's been that thing?
Cause most people don't have that.
So it really started with the Gary V. Steffen middle school is when I first got on that
(18:20):
path.
Yeah.
But I didn't really have like entrepreneurs around me.
Like my parents work W2 jobs and have a comfortable lifestyle.
But in Indiana, I never saw anybody making $150,000 a year.
And then I came out to San Diego and I saw people making a million dollars a year.
I was like, I had no clue how it's possible.
It was like completely surprised.
(18:40):
Like I didn't even know the math behind how many deals you have to close, how many things
you have to build to make a million.
And so it got me thinking bigger about how big opportunities are in San Diego.
So changing environments helped.
And then mindset stuff is just like all the content you consume and what you tell yourself.
So it's like, if you're on Instagram reels and it's a bunch of just nonsense that's doing
nothing for you, it's not going to help you.
(19:03):
But if it's like Alex Ramosy and Chris Williamson and you're just constantly all day hearing
podcasts and content from people that are doing the right things, then that reinforces
it for you.
And for me, it's like the biggest thing is like you hear the stuff that they say and
then when you're in a tough situation, you have kind of their like mantras like Ramosy
says this is what hard feels like.
(19:24):
So it's a tough day at property management and I'm up late writing leases or assigning
maintenance requests and it feels like it's really not moving the company forward.
I just remind myself like, did I think it would be easy to grow a portfolio?
No, of course not.
Oh, well, this is what hard feels like that kind of thing.
Having those content creators that I consume, it just give me messages that I repeat to
(19:44):
myself when it's hard.
What are some of the biggest golden that because I'm really trying to figure out how we can
stand out as a podcast here.
And I can see you have a lot of experience and probably a lot of horror stories about
the business that you're in because naturally people want to go and raise capital.
They want to do everything other than the hard work.
What are some of the biggest either metrics that you're tracking, KPIs that you look at,
(20:08):
golden nuggets that you can pull out on the property management side that might benefit
anybody here that could be either thinking the same thing like, hey, I want to jump in
the property management or I'm an owner and I should be doing this on my portfolio.
I'm not doing it now.
So as a property manager, you really have two clients that you're serving.
You have the owner and you're trying to keep expenses low, vacancy low, income high by
(20:29):
giving them high rents.
And you have the tenant trying to do high tenant satisfaction, make sure the unit's not
in horrible condition and that they're able to live in a good place.
And so you're really serving both of them.
So on the maintenance side, you want maintenance requests handled as quickly as possible.
And then on the maintenance side for the owner, you want them solved at a good price.
So it's like, you know, we have a gas leak at a property that we are dealing with this
(20:51):
weekend.
And there was a big time plumber that was trying to charge us $6,300 to replace the
water heater.
And he said, I'm going to afford you prices, I know, to replace a water heater because
he didn't think it would work.
And then we have just a handyman who's able to do it for $3,000.
So instead of being like, okay, it's a reputable company.
We want to go with them.
We want to spend all this money.
(21:11):
If I can save the owner $3,300 on one water heater and, you know, that happens multiple
times through year at multiple properties, then that's really going to help the value
of his property and his cash flow.
So maintenance costs, keeping them low and then maintenance being handled quickly for
the tenants.
And then on the leasing side, just getting top of market rents, knowing what your rents
(21:31):
are in the area, you know, with the student housing, we're locked in on a very small radius
right by San Diego State University campus.
And so we manage like 92 units in that neighborhood.
And so I know a four bed on this street will rent for different than a four bed, a four
minute walk away.
Knowing the market, being able to charge the top of market rents and then using sales
skills to create urgency or scarcity or whatever it is so that your rents can be higher than
(21:55):
the others in the area.
Yeah, man, I just, the way that you're answering these questions, you can tell that it's not
like I've been at a company for six months and I just learned how like the basic foundation
is.
You can tell that you've been like in the weeds on it and you have no idea how valuable
that will be whenever it comes time to actually start doing the GP deals.
And you're like, because in these deals, so many people, it's like a puzzle.
(22:19):
Like it literally is a puzzle of here's a KP that can sign on debt, here's the equity
that can be raised and then who in the world actually can operate a deal?
Like the KP network liquidity and raising capital is, I don't want to say easy to solve
for, but it's simple.
Like it's just a couple of people way.
The hardest thing to find is the asset management slash operator.
(22:40):
And I just hope you know internally what you've done over the last couple of years is going
to not only increase the time that it takes to get into a deal, but I think pay off and
much greater dividends than you could ever think.
Great.
And I hope you know that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's what I'm worried about with doing say an Indianapolis multi-family deal.
How do I get a property manager that actually cares?
(23:01):
And they know that $1,000 a month in rents versus 1,100 doesn't sound like a big difference,
but it's going to make a big difference or overspending on maintenance seems like a small
thing, but it's really going to affect my NOI.
That kind of thing is going to be big when picking a manager.
You want to know the answer?
How?
Yeah.
Bring them into the ownership.
Okay.
(23:22):
So here's an example.
Noah Sanders, he found the deal in Ocala, 28 units, brought it to us, closed on it.
We raised all the money and it's awesome.
He's got construction experience.
He's kicking ass on it.
So I can say it after 60 days, really, really, really doing well.
And we have the option, we could say, hey, Noah, you're too busy.
(23:43):
We need to go out and buy more properties.
You shouldn't be at the property every day and making sure it goes really well.
And we could just use a contractor.
Let's just pay somebody to do it.
That's their job.
They would charge more money and do it in a not as quick period of time and not be ownership.
Noah put in some money of his own into the deal, found the deal, and he's a GP in it.
(24:05):
I gave him a significant portion of it because I want people to own a real piece of the deal
and pick up a real $200 grand or $300 grand.
It's not a couple thousand bucks.
He's there at the property Monday through Friday.
And we've done in the first 60 days what probably would have taken six months.
We've done all three roofs.
(24:26):
We've painted all seven buildings.
We've done landscaping.
We've done signage.
We've done cleanup for trees.
And we renovated four units all in the first 60 days.
Why?
Because he's an owner and he's going to show up.
He's going to make damn sure that the property goes well because guess what?
He's trying to build a big real estate portfolio and what?
At the very beginning, like me personally, I'm going through this, we'll have a couple
(24:48):
of exits in 25.
So we'll have track record.
That's the most important thing if you want to do deals, like over and over and over and
over.
So the first couple have to be home runs.
If you and you're not going to have any problem understanding this because you've already
been doing it your entire life, which is giving up what you think is owed upfront, serving
the table until you have the seat at it.
No one doesn't care about making it.
(25:10):
He'll make money on the deal.
But what he cares more about is having the track record will be in and out of this thing
in 18 to 24 months, having the track record to then go out and leverage.
Hey, we just bought this deal two years ago.
We just exited, we hit 20 or 30.
That's what we're targeting.
We'll see what it is when we come back.
But think about how powerful that is.
(25:30):
Hey, we just did this deal.
We went full cycle and the net returns were 22.
I'm doing it again.
It's a proven track record.
You have to get people in ownership.
That's what, so Steve Schwarzman, mine, I'll give you, like you need to read what it takes.
If you haven't already, here's a little golden nugget.
If you're obsessed with success, you have to be cut.
(25:53):
For you, as Gary V, multiple mentors that are Alex Ramozy, that you're like, okay, I'm
going to look at what he does.
I'm going to look at everything he's done.
So your watch time is probably pretty up there.
Very similar to me.
I'd done Barry Sternlick for Starwood Capital.
I knew every single thing from 82 when he got into the business all the way up to today.
(26:14):
Steve Schwarzman, same thing.
Every single video on YouTube, Stanford, Yale, Harvard Business School, they all have YouTube
channels and they all post these lectures.
They're like eight years old.
Some of them are in 1997.
Some of them are in 2005.
And you see them grow over the last 30 years.
(26:35):
I would highly recommend watching that.
Like highly recommend.
Read his book and go watch every single YouTube video possible.
And you will see the level of scale that this game is operating at.
All right.
So let's get towards deals.
I want to, it deals, but with the everyday person that's listening to this podcast in
(26:56):
mind, you're three years in.
I know it doesn't seem like you're in because you don't own all the, you know, the big portfolio,
but you're already three years in.
You've put in the work.
And at almost any given point, you could go out and you could start running deals and
be a GP.
Like on a 12-year-old deal, you can do a 12-year-old to that.
Just saying, I'm very confident in it.
(27:17):
And you're 23.
Think about the 20 to 25 to 30-year-old.
Maybe they're in a similar position.
They are either in real estate as a property manager, realtor, wholesaler, flipper, or maybe
they want to jump in the real estate.
What would be your best advice because you're going through all of the same hurdles and you're
(27:37):
in the exact same environment?
Trump just got elected.
We're going into a new year.
Interest rates going down.
What would you say is like the best pathway to get in, but also sustainable like long-term?
Yeah.
So I can't speak on how to grow a portfolio if I haven't done it, but I can speak on kind
(27:58):
of like my thoughts and what I've done and that kind of thing.
So for me, the way that I think about it is, okay, you need to learn how to do it.
So you could join the deal room.
You can watch YouTube videos.
You can do all these things to learn how these deals actually operate and how you can get
in them.
And you can find a way to generate active income so that you have some of your own money to
put into deals.
(28:18):
Yep.
Talked about property management is great because you have salary, leasing commissions,
and agent commissions.
There are all kinds of other ways out there and people at the event and in your community
make active income in all kinds of different ways.
So I really lock in on your education, joining the deal room if you're not already in it
and learning that way because that gives you real insight into how each of these deals
(28:38):
operate from underwriting them, submitting an LOI, doing the value add after it's accepted,
the operations type stuff, and then having an active income channel, probably a sales
role because that's the way that you really have the untapped or like unlimited type commission
earning potential.
Those would probably be the two ways to get ready and then kind of building relationships
(29:01):
with people so that you can go into that first deal.
So it's like Josh and Morgan doing a deal together and they met together in the community
and now they're going to do that deal in Texas together.
So it's like finding people around you, not necessarily trying to raise a bunch of money
when you're brand new because things would go wrong.
You could lose your friends' money, your family's money.
I think it's better off to just be more of like a LP in a deal, but you're still doing
(29:26):
some stuff to try to help move it forward, contribute money first, learn from the operator
and then when you're ready, you'll know that it's time to do your own deal.
You mentioned all three of them.
The fourth one that you forgot to mention is what both of us did, which is work at another
company, get the salary, get the paycheck, maybe a bonus at the end of the year, but
the learning is like you're learning from an organization that's actively doing it right
(29:50):
this second and you get paid to learn.
It's just less time because you need to be there for at least a couple of years before
you can jump off.
It's a pretty good difference between like you're working for someone for free and you're
like running their Instagram or you're making calls and then you get paid to do the exact
same thing and you're still learning just as much, if not more, because you're contributing
more time for it and you're getting paid for it.
So it's just totally different.
(30:10):
Yeah.
Well, people don't love to talk about it because it's like not the sexy thing to do, but like
if I got, it'd be really, really tough.
I never thought about this, but like if Steve Schwarzman called me right now and said,
hey Gabe, I need you to stop what you're doing, put the deal room on pause for a couple of
years and come help me build this big ass thing at that Blackstone.
It'd be really tough for me to like say no to that because of the value that you would
(30:35):
get from going and being a part of something as big as that.
Because most of the time, you actually can hit all your financial goals, create the life
that you want and grow, like feel like you have ownership as an entrepreneur inside of
somebody else's company.
And sometimes it's actually easier to do that if the company's vision is big enough and
you're aligned with the person that's at the realm.
(30:58):
That was very similar set up where I was at grants.
Like I was in early enough, I wasn't in too early or else I'd still be there.
But you know, that company was so large that any goal that I had make 200 grand a year,
like that was achieved within somebody else's company.
I don't think many people accept that because like I want to have my own hours and stuff.
It is nice.
(31:18):
That's the time you end up working more and making less.
I think Steve Ballmer is like the seventh richest person in America or the world or
something like that.
And he didn't start Microsoft, but he was just a key member on the early team and now
he owns the Clippers and everything like that.
Like being an entrepreneur, I think is super underrated because you know, I think I'm a
way better number two than number one.
(31:39):
And so you got to have the self-awareness to stay instead of starting my own thing and
doing that.
Maybe I need to just be a number two, play the support staff role.
And like when I was a sales admin, I was not good as the sales rep trying to close myself.
But when I was the sales admin, the numbers went up for those reps.
So it's like understanding what you're good at, whether it's organization or closing or
(31:59):
things like that.
I think you can carve out a pretty big role in a growing company if you can provide value
as an entrepreneur.
Yeah.
And then, and therefore you grow the company, you grow as well internally, both physically,
professionally and financially.
All right, so let's end it with something that I mentioned to you before the podcast.
I did the bigger pockets interview back in 20, like two, maybe a year ago, maybe two
(32:24):
years ago, when we were at 10 million at 25, we're at 27 at 50 million today.
So we've grown a decent amount.
And it's always good for me to go back and say, what was like, let me earmark that year,
25 years old.
This is, I was super naive, super confident, like delusionally confident myself.
And I could see that, but it's allowed me to say, okay, look at how much we've grown
(32:47):
since this podcast that we've done.
What is something that either you want to leave here in front of the listeners or even
for yourself?
You're 23, you've done a significant amount over the last five years or so.
And I think that you have an incredible potential.
I think your mindset is what people really should be paying attention to because you're
(33:08):
on such a different trajectory than most 23 year olds.
And you could mess up and fail for the next five years and still be way in a much better
spot than most people.
So what is something that you'd like to leave behind either to somebody else or yourself
to come visit back on in a year or five years from now?
So I think there are a few stages in an entrepreneur's journey or a young professional's journey.
(33:31):
At first, you don't know what you should do and you know you want to make money or you
know you want to do something for your family, but you're not sure how.
First, you need to find that vehicle and figure out what it is, whether it's real estate,
stocks, e-commerce, whatever.
And then the harder part is being willing to stick with the boring work for a long period
of time.
So I've written a bunch of leases and over the next year, I'm going to write a bunch
(33:54):
more leases.
I've assigned a bunch of maintenance requests and for the next year, I'm going to assign
a lot more.
And it's not fun to write leases and assign maintenance requests, but every maintenance
request I handle, I learn a little bit more about how to solve these problems a little
bit quicker or a little bit cheaper, things like that.
Eventually, for me, it'll be the point where I am doing more delegating.
(34:17):
So we hire two new leasing agents and then they're doing more of the sales stuff, which
has helped me a lot by having them out in the field trying to close on things.
Eventually, more delegation, but for now, for this next year, it's going to be a lot more
of just doing the boring work, even if I don't like it because I know it just gets me better
over time.
And then when it is time to start delegating, I'm going to be able to train them so much
(34:37):
better because I've done it for longer.
I understand how it works.
Very cool.
Awesome.
Well, with that being said, ladies and gentlemen, TJ, seriously, thank you so much for coming
out to Tampa, Florida.
Let's see.
Let's see where we're at in a year from now, two years from now, three years from now.
I think you have an incredible amount of potential.
And the head that you have on your shoulders, I hope everybody that's listening can take
(35:00):
something away.
You're completely different than what most people are wanting or willing to accept.
And I think the seeds that you're planting today will sprout in a year or two or three
years from now.
And at that point, it become inevitable.
You're already planted the seeds, so I can't wait to see how much you grow and I can't
wait to see your success, man.
(35:20):
All right.
So why don't you tell us a little bit about horror stories because that's what everybody
associates property management with.
The headaches, termites, toilets, all the fun stuff.
What are some of the craziest stories you could give us?
There have been a lot of times where I've had to go out to a property to deal with some
untraditional things.
(35:40):
This morning, we had a snake in the house and I've never seen that before.
And so we had to handle that.
We've had sewage water coming up through the shower.
How?
It was so much that...
You didn't even told the snake.
Got a curiosity.
You got to find the space in the crawl space where they're getting in.
Patch the crawl space, send pest control.
Patch the point in the house where they can get in.
It's a simple fix, but when it's your first time dealing with it, there's no playbook,
(36:02):
a lot of this property management stuff.
We have gas leaks where it's like you got to go under the house and replace $7,000 worth
of pipes and make all these changes to the property.
And a lot of times what can be tough is you're the person who has to make the decision, so
it's not like you can ask somebody else, how would you solve this?
What should we do?
(36:22):
And sometimes people aren't available, so you just have to problem solve yourself.
And you know, tenants' health are at risk, the owner's property is at risk, you need
to find a way to solve it quickly and be able to problem solve.
But out of all the ones, probably the most unexpected was it was like a Friday or a Saturday
night at 11, I have a work phone that I usually have on Do Not Disturb, but I got a call through
(36:43):
it and it was a no-caller ID.
I'm not sure how they got passed the Do Not Disturb, so I declined it.
And they called back again, I was like, this must be serious, let's see what's going on.
And I answer it and it was the police.
And so the police told me they think someone's trespassing at a property and I need to come
out.
And so I called the tenants, asked if they were home, they weren't, but the lights were
on inside their unit.
So I was like, okay, somebody must be there.
(37:04):
I gave the police permission to enter.
They said due to the Fifth Amendment or something, they couldn't go inside.
I had to be there to open it up for them.
So I drove out to the property, I had my camera and I was recording, and I opened the door
and they'd go in with their guns drawn doing a full sweep of the house.
Really nobody was there, they just left a light on or something like that, complete
false alarm.
(37:25):
But as a property manager, you have to be ready, 11 PM, 1 AM, if there's an emergency,
you're the person that handles it.
You don't call a maintenance guy because they're asleep, you're the person that goes out there
and picks it.
Yeah.
Well, thank you.
I thank you on the behalf of whatever owner owning that property.
That's insane.
Thank you for sharing that.
Tida, now let's move into mentorship.
(37:46):
Because I think it's come naturally to your like, okay, I need help, I'll work for free.
So it's like, you either pay with time or money.
In that case, if you don't have a note, you only have time to pay with.
At some point, you started getting some money and you continue to keep investing into education,
people, and mentorship.
Can you walk us through what mentorship has done for you?
And then, you know, you're in the deal room community.
(38:09):
You know, what's been the experience?
I don't want to be that guy that screams it and pouts it, but a lot of people need to
know and they need to hear it from somebody that's not the person that founded it.
Yeah.
I've joined free communities.
I've joined paid communities.
The first one I joined was actually Chris Luna's, the development one in San Diego.
So for him, for the past year, I've been learning the San Diego development blueprint.
(38:30):
And so we do calls on Tuesday and Wednesday.
On Tuesday, I lead one where we underwrite deals.
On Wednesday, Chris leads one where he does more like an education type of type of call.
And then I didn't join the dealer room until probably like a month or two months ago.
So it's fairly recent for me.
You have the free course, which you put out and a ton of people sign up for, but like
8% probably watch like nobody actually gets to.
(38:53):
Yeah, very few people get.
And then there's the paid course where you have way more information.
I mean, the free course is still a deep dive into this stuff, but the paid course is a
lot more value on going into all of these different deals.
And so watching all of the beginner info on the paid course and then now I'm starting
to do the deal reviews and stuff like that.
And then the networking is a big part of it as well.
(39:15):
I found that it's super easy to get very good, not easy, but it only takes a year or less
of hard work to get very good at underwriting.
But it does you no good to be a master underwriter and never submit offers.
On deals, you're not going to grow a portfolio by being an underwriting expert.
So you take what you've learned about underwriting and you network with people in the deal room
(39:39):
community or any community that you're in.
And that's how you actually find the people that are going to invest with you as the limited
partners, the people that are going to operate or sign on the loans as the general partners
or key partners with you.
And then you can meet other people in that community.
What's a good property manager in the area?
That kind of thing.
Because for me to do a deal in Indianapolis, it makes sense because I know agents in that
(40:01):
area and all the network around that area.
But if I find a good deal in Iowa or Texas, there's no way for me to do it unless I reach
out to the deal room or other people and they match me with those people that can help.
So would you say that it's probably going to help you get to your end goal faster or
slower with mentorship?
Way faster.
So it's like, I know how to operate a San Diego property management deal, but I don't
(40:26):
know how to operate as far as submitting LOIs on out of state deals and getting insurance
bids and doing the renovations.
But Morgan knows how to do that.
So it would be great for me to save up money from my property management job, put $50,000
or $100,000 into a deal with Morgan.
And then he can show me the groundwork of how he's actually doing the value add, whether
(40:48):
it's with Morgan, just as an example, or anybody else in the community that has done it more
than me.
Yeah, man, awesome.
Thank you so much for touching on it.
I always think a lot of people think everybody online that has a community just sells courses
and sits on the beach and does nothing, and they're scamming people.
And it's like, if you were just in the inside, you actually want to do deals and you go through
(41:10):
the training and you have the access to people.
I could give you education for free.
I could give you the underwriting model.
I could give you the tutorials.
You could go out to CREXU, you could find a home run deal.
You would be like a master wizard at underwriting it.
But then you start to get very uncomfortable when the underwriting is done and you're like,
huh.
And then you're like, how do I actually move forward?
(41:33):
That's where people really comes in.
So thank you for touching on that.
All right, so thank you so much, TJ, for coming.
Hopefully everybody enjoyed it.
Where can people find you and connect with you, TJ?
Because I think a lot of people, especially that listen to this, are going to resonate
with you and probably be inspired or maybe even feel a little bit bad.
Maybe they're 40 or 50 and they're like, holy cow, what was I doing at 23?
(41:55):
So where can people connect with you?
Best place to reach out is on Instagram.
So that's TJ, underscore Miller on Instagram.
You can shoot me a follow, send me a DM and we can talk.
Awesome.
So with that being said, thank you everybody for tuning in to another episode.
We will see you on the next one.
Alright, what is going on everybody?
(00:06):
Welcome back to another episode of Inside the Deal Room.
Today we have an incredible guest speaker, TJ Miller, actually inside the Deal Room community,
made it all the way out from California and here in person in our Tampa, Florida office.
TJ, welcome in.
Thanks for having me out.
Appreciate it.
Awesome man.
So jumping right in, I want to start with you're super young, you're 23 and I know you a little
(00:28):
bit on your story and how you kind of broke into the real estate industry.
That's one of the most common things that people struggle with, like having to get really
creative and all the ways that you actually got into it.
We'll spend a lot of time there.
I want to catch everybody up to speed with who is TJ Miller today?
What have you done in real estate?
And then we're going to back it all the way up to how did you actually get into it?
(00:52):
So why don't you just start by introducing yourself?
Who is TJ Miller and what are you working on?
Yeah, so I grew up in the suburbs of Indianapolis, Indiana, small town called Avon, moved out
to San Diego for college four years ago, just graduated this past May from San Diego State
and right now I'm a property manager.
So I'm not someone who's built a large portfolio and is super experienced, but I'm more in
(01:16):
the beginner stages of my journey, started out doing development for a few years throughout
college and then now on the property management side and learning the multi-family game.
You're a very humble man.
Most 23 year olds are still probably in school or still going out partying over the weekends,
wasting a bunch of time and you put in the work over the last couple of years and you
(01:37):
still say I'm in the beginning stages because you probably look at it like most real estate
people.
It's like a 50 year career and you're still in the first couple of years.
So thank you for doing that.
You're in property management right now.
I want to start with what at what point did you get into real estate?
Because the creativity of you saying I'm going to get out of my little small town, I'm going
(01:59):
to get super uncomfortable and move all the way out to a place that I don't know, probably
don't know too many people.
That is honestly one of the big reasons I wanted you to come here because it's so, most
people aren't willing to make that sacrifice.
Like they see the payoff over here, financial freedom, creating incredible life through real
estate and what it has to offer, but they don't see most of the time the price that you have
(02:22):
to pay.
So that's where I want to kind of open it up.
Walk us through what actually happened and then let's dig a little bit deeper.
So growing up I was always like more of a public markets investing stocks and options trading
kind of guy.
That was my interest.
It wasn't until like senior year of high school that I reached out to somebody who lived in
San Diego who was crushing it as a real estate agent and said, hey, I'd love to work for
(02:46):
you for free, learn what this game is like.
And then he said, of course, yeah, for sure.
I was making cold calls for him using Canva to make his Instagram post, just doing small
tasks to learn it.
And then once I actually came out to San Diego the next year for college, then he took me
under his wing a little bit more and I was able to connect with the companies he was
working with and that got my foot in the door.
Walk me through the thought process because it's not like most people, whenever they're
(03:11):
like wanting to go and work for somebody, the first thing is like, okay, how much am
I going to get paid?
Or like, what do I have to do and how much do I get out of it?
What in the world happens in your head where it's like, hey, I want to come work for you
for free?
That's been a big theme of my life and probably the main takeaway of this episode is just
being willing to work for free.
(03:33):
Like you say, to talk about serving the table until you can sit at the table, you have to
be underpaid and overworked for a long time until you're overpaid and underworked.
That's what you said at last event.
And so that theme started really around seventh or eighth grade.
I watched a, you remember Gary V, Gary Vaynerchuk.
He was like just getting into his prime, posting a lot of content, building an audience.
And I saw one of his videos when I was like in middle school or early high school and
(03:56):
I never heard anybody speak in such a motivational way.
And he was just telling middle schoolers, high schoolers, you can do anything you want.
You got to sacrifice for a long time.
And you know, that message really spoke with me.
I was like, okay, why don't I do what Gary is telling me to do?
I'm going to find a bunch of people that are doing interesting things and message them
about working for free.
(04:16):
I did that at a solar energy company, worked for them, digital marketing agency, did that
for a few months, some other alternative clean energy companies in Indianapolis.
And then finally the real estate company.
That was kind of a theme.
I worked for free in several jobs before I realized real estate could be the right path.
It was the vehicle for you.
That's awesome.
(04:37):
I think that's really important for people to pick up because oftentimes they don't,
the experience that you get from going and working for these companies is actually worth
in so much more valuable than the paycheck that you could have gotten.
I think that's what most people don't want to realize.
What kind of household did you grow up in?
Just so people can understand.
Like from, I really like to dig deep because everybody's going to be, you know, some people
(05:01):
resonate to you because they grew up in a similar household.
They went through very similar things.
And then I'll say something about the Gary Vee comment because it's very similar.
Got it.
Okay.
Yeah.
So I didn't, like it wasn't like a rough childhood.
It was like three meals a day, family vacations, comfortable life in Indiana.
There was no time that I was like embarrassed about, you know, money or anything like that.
(05:23):
It was more of like, it's not that there was discomfort and I was trying to get away from
a bad situation.
It was more of I've seen people in my life that have been comfortable and they've been
in a job that they don't like because it's stable and it helps with kids or with family.
And so I was afraid that if I'm going to work a job for 40 years, for 40 hours a week, you
(05:43):
know, 52 weeks a year, that's 80,000 hours over 80,000 hours.
And I thought there's no way I'm going to work $80,000 in my career doing something
I don't like.
So I need to find something where I can control my income, do something I love.
And that's when I kind of, you know, went down that route.
I didn't know if it was going to be real estate or business or investing in stocks.
I just knew I had to find a way to make it.
(06:05):
Yeah.
And the only action I think is what most people fail to see and fail to do most of the time.
And you pretty much made the decisions like I don't want this like if you could go down
this, like you already know the end outcome, go to school, get a degree, get your job,
probably complain like 90% of the time while you're working there, but it pays the bills
(06:26):
and then maybe have a 401k at the end.
You said I want to do something different with my life and get uncomfortable.
So how do you, what's your entry point into real estate for yourself?
You start working for this guy for free.
And then this is, I think as you're going into college, what's the transition there
from?
(06:49):
Where do you live?
Indianapolis?
Yeah, Indianapolis.
Okay.
Indianapolis all the way out to San Diego because that's a completely different environment,
different people, different lifestyle, different weather, all of it.
Oh my gosh.
Yeah.
It was a big shift.
I knew that Indiana can be rough because you got a longer winter and it's dark and it's
cold.
And so I kind of knew I wanted to get somewhere like San Diego where it's 70 degrees year
(07:12):
round and it's pretty good for your mental health to live in an environment like that.
And so I looked at a lot of West Coast schools, Arizona State, San Diego State, UCLA, those
type of places.
San Diego State was my favorite.
I ended up going there.
So a full timeline, senior year of high school, I knew I wanted to go to San Diego State.
So I started sending Instagram DMs to a bunch of current students at San Diego State.
(07:33):
Hey, let me learn from you.
I'd like to do this.
Most don't respond.
They don't answer.
Some say no because they're like, I've never heard of this.
I don't know what this kid's trying to say or what he wants.
The one guy that said yes and took a chance on me, him opening that door made a huge
difference in my life.
So then freshman year of college, I'm out in San Diego.
I'm working for him.
I didn't have a car.
(07:54):
Sophomore year, I had a car on campus.
So then I could work for him and go to his office.
So then that was when I got more of a full time into the real estate space.
Started as a sales rep at the small development company.
Did not do well at all at that.
I was really, really bad at sales.
And I switched to a sales admin role.
(08:14):
So instead of being client facing and trying to close deals, which I was bad at, I was
basically an administrative assistant for our two top performers.
What happened there is when I was there helping them, their numbers started to improve.
The company took notice that I succeeded in a sales admin role and they promoted me to
a sales manager role.
And then I did well with the sales team managing about seven or so reps and then they moved
(08:35):
me to a project coordinator role.
So it was more not just with the sales team, but overseeing more of the process.
So it was kind of like not just thinking, oh, I'm bad at sales and real estate.
I shouldn't pursue it.
It's like, well, maybe I'm not good being customer facing right now, but how about I
learned to be the behind the scenes operations guy and that's how I can provide value.
And that actually provides so much.
(08:56):
It's insane because the way that you just spoke about what you do and the clarity that
you had and like the growth of the company and being involved in that, it all started
with, hey, I want to work for free.
I'm not looking for a paycheck immediately.
I'm just looking for growth and the experience of being a part of an organization like that.
I think that actually provides like from an employee, I'm trying to hire a bunch of people
(09:16):
for our firm.
I'm like, dude, that screams hungry.
I want to grow.
I understand that I don't need to be paid today.
I just want to have the opportunity, get in, prove it, be underpaid and overworked.
And then at some point you're overpaid or underworked and overpaid.
That's awesome.
You mentioned something about Gary V. When Alicia and I were 20, it's probably very
(09:38):
similar because what year did you graduate?
Just high school.
Yeah.
High school, that was like 2020.
2020.
So I graduated in 16.
It was the same thing.
The Gary middle class household grew up with the school, get good grades, play sports,
don't get in too much trouble, C's get degrees, that was my thing.
(09:59):
And just live your life, get a job and then eventually die.
We get together and we're like, hey, we want to create this incredible life.
Gary V says, be willing to give up your 20s to live an incredible life after 30.
And that was kind of our thing.
We were like, all right, we're young.
We don't have too much experience.
We don't have any value.
Let's just go work for free because we're living with the parents.
So that's what led Marcus Milchap, which led the grants, which led the he, blah, blah,
(10:22):
blah, blah.
So I see so many similarities.
Now let's get more up to date to current.
What's been active real estate portfolio?
What's been your main thing over the last couple of years in real estate?
Yeah.
So as of right now, this is November 2024 and we're recording this.
I don't have any units.
(10:43):
So I'm not somebody with a portfolio right now.
The focus has been providing value to the people with units.
So at the development company, I was helping people build these small units.
They call them ADUs or accessory dwelling units, California, Seattle, some other cities.
And so I was helping them throughout the whole process of that.
How do you plan what you want to build, design it, go through permits, construction, and
(11:06):
then what are we going to do with it, property management afterwards?
But they were only doing small units.
They weren't willing to build multifamily or to build two units plus.
So I felt like I maxed out my growth at that company.
I left and I joined the current company that I'm at and we're doing the larger development
projects.
So it's more about how do you build two units or six units?
(11:27):
Our biggest project is going to be a 32 unit four story building that we're on permits for
right now.
So it's like, how do I learn from these big developers?
Since what I want to do is have a cashflow portfolio.
Also do the development game because that's so big in San Diego and it just feels good
to see a building that it was your idea, you helped design it and that thing exists and
people live there because you were able to move the people around.
(11:49):
The creative outlet.
Yeah.
Most of the time people like that.
And so right now it's like I manage at the company that I'm at 160 units roughly for
about 58 different owners.
And so I'm still serving the table, finding ways to, yeah, it's a lot of units.
There's a lot of emails, a lot of headaches.
That's right.
Yeah.
And it's mainly student housing.
Yeah.
Which is very management intensive.
(12:12):
And so that's the sector of the business, the niche that I focus on, the student housing.
Although it is stressful, you learn twice as fast.
Yeah.
Twice as many headaches.
Yeah.
That's where I was just going to like, okay, so one of the most big reasons we're trying
to pull people from the inside of the community that most times on podcasts like, all right,
you've been in the business for 30 years, you own $700 million.
(12:34):
What was it like back then at like in 1982 getting a deal and getting loaned?
Absolutely different from what it is today.
And so I think what a lot of people won't see with you, like whenever you start doing
deals and it goes fast because you've been paying with your own time and being part of
other people's organization, very similar to what I did at Grant's office.
(12:55):
I worked there for three years, raised $100 million.
It was a lot of fun, got the institutional experience.
And then we've been able to break off and go from zero to 50 million in 32 months that
a lot of people like, oh my goodness, that's really, really, really quick.
In 32 months, but they didn't see the previous four years, one year at Marcus, three years
at Grant's.
You have a very similar trajectory.
(13:16):
So walk me through what does the TJ Miller look like in 25 and 26?
Is it continue to only focus on projects inside of the company that you're working at and
getting the experience?
Or have you started taking the steps to take on these projects either by yourself or running
it with, you know, you're the GP running point on the team?
(13:36):
So when we talked like a month ago, we talked about my short-term goals and my long-term
goals, and you let me know all that stuff in the middle, you're probably going to pivot
and make changes along the way.
The long-term might stay the same, but the way to get there is going to change.
And yes, the way to get there has constantly changed.
I thought that the way for me to build a portfolio was to do it in my backyard with development
(13:57):
deals, since that's what I'm, you know, day-to-day learning and that's what I know the most about.
But what I've seen recently, these development deals in San Diego are very cash-intensive
and they carry a lot of risk.
So it's not to say it shouldn't be done or that's not the right way to do it.
It's just for me, I think I would rather build a cash flow portfolio first and have a cash
(14:17):
flow portfolio that can cover the bleed or the holding costs on these development projects.
I mean, the one I told you about four stories, 32 units, that was about $2 million just for
a 10,000 square foot piece of land, small piece of land, and then you're going to spend
a million just on permits and city fees.
So you're at $3 million, $2 million in land plus $1 million permits and fees, and then
(14:40):
another $6 million for construction costs and all of that.
So you're at $9 million.
And if you're all in for $9 million and it's worth $14 or $15, yes, that's a big score.
But you're bleeding a lot every month where you're doing construction and you're servicing
the debt.
Although, eventually, I'll be doing stuff like that, I would rather do kind of deals
that Morgan's doing right now where it's like it's just a heavy cash flow deal.
(15:03):
You do a refinance and then you can move those profits to other ones.
Yeah, yeah.
Welcome to San Diego Real Estate.
Those numbers on 32 units is complete.
It's like 150 units here and this is expensive in Florida.
Portfolio builder.
It's a common sense thing.
Development plays have their place in every portfolio because the returns are worth it
in a lot of cases, but you want to have at least the foundation of assets that pay the
(15:27):
income that you know you can service the debt.
So it's a very smart move.
So what are your goals for 2025?
We're going in November, December, pretty much end of year, very little activity.
A lot of the times you want to set up the goals in Q4 for next year.
What are you thinking for 2026?
(15:47):
Where's your focus?
What is the main thing you're focusing on?
Thinking in property management, you have a really unique opportunity to practice being
an operator without owning real estate.
So what I can do is I can, you know, in a market where, you know, 5% cap rates are a
thing, every dollar that you save an owner on their expenses is $20 in added value, which
(16:11):
doesn't sound like much.
But when you save an owner $10, $100, $1,000 a month, a week, a quarter, a year, it really
starts to add up.
So if I can learn, you know, I'm working with a plumber and they tell me it's $6,000 for
a new water heater and I know a guy that does it for $3,000 or less.
Or if I'm able to save these owners money and know what things cost, how to solve problems,
(16:32):
then when it's time for me to be an operator on my own projects or an asset manager overseeing
a property manager, I'm going to be even more prepared.
So there are really three things I'm focused on for next year.
The first is be a better operator by being locked in on the property management stuff
and learning lessons from every maintenance request, every person that wants to lease
a unit, everything like that.
(16:54):
And the second would be multifamily education.
So watching the past recordings of the calls, networking with people in the group like Morgan
and, you know, Josh and other people like that and learning from them on their experience
and then being able to increase active income so that I can put money into these deals.
With the property management, it works well because you have the stability of a salary
(17:15):
plus you make leasing commissions when you get units rented out.
Plus as a licensed agent, you can get your wholesale fees or your regular agent fees
from representing people.
So there are three ways for active income plus the multifamily education plus the nine
to five teaches me how I can be an asset manager.
But everything is integrated under one.
That's the awesome part there.
(17:36):
Very cool.
Thank you for sharing.
How important has, because I see a common trend in your life, it's always been, and
it's not like I know every single thing about your life.
But hey, I wanted to change my life.
So I immediately started reaching out to people and see how I could provide value with them
for free.
And then even like the company that you're in today, it's still, you're trying to grow,
(17:57):
grow, grow.
Most people are just like, what do I have to do to get my paycheck?
And then like, I'll do it.
It's not, let me grow the company.
Let me figure out how I can take on more responsibility.
Have you always been working on your mindset or did you just come out of the womb like
super highly motivated?
Yeah.
And then like, what's been your life?
What's been that thing?
Cause most people don't have that.
So it really started with the Gary V. Steffen middle school is when I first got on that
(18:20):
path.
Yeah.
But I didn't really have like entrepreneurs around me.
Like my parents work W2 jobs and have a comfortable lifestyle.
But in Indiana, I never saw anybody making $150,000 a year.
And then I came out to San Diego and I saw people making a million dollars a year.
I was like, I had no clue how it's possible.
It was like completely surprised.
(18:40):
Like I didn't even know the math behind how many deals you have to close, how many things
you have to build to make a million.
And so it got me thinking bigger about how big opportunities are in San Diego.
So changing environments helped.
And then mindset stuff is just like all the content you consume and what you tell yourself.
So it's like, if you're on Instagram reels and it's a bunch of just nonsense that's doing
nothing for you, it's not going to help you.
(19:03):
But if it's like Alex Ramosy and Chris Williamson and you're just constantly all day hearing
podcasts and content from people that are doing the right things, then that reinforces
it for you.
And for me, it's like the biggest thing is like you hear the stuff that they say and
then when you're in a tough situation, you have kind of their like mantras like Ramosy
says this is what hard feels like.
(19:24):
So it's a tough day at property management and I'm up late writing leases or assigning
maintenance requests and it feels like it's really not moving the company forward.
I just remind myself like, did I think it would be easy to grow a portfolio?
No, of course not.
Oh, well, this is what hard feels like that kind of thing.
Having those content creators that I consume, it just give me messages that I repeat to
(19:44):
myself when it's hard.
What are some of the biggest golden that because I'm really trying to figure out how we can
stand out as a podcast here.
And I can see you have a lot of experience and probably a lot of horror stories about
the business that you're in because naturally people want to go and raise capital.
They want to do everything other than the hard work.
What are some of the biggest either metrics that you're tracking, KPIs that you look at,
(20:08):
golden nuggets that you can pull out on the property management side that might benefit
anybody here that could be either thinking the same thing like, hey, I want to jump in
the property management or I'm an owner and I should be doing this on my portfolio.
I'm not doing it now.
So as a property manager, you really have two clients that you're serving.
You have the owner and you're trying to keep expenses low, vacancy low, income high by
(20:29):
giving them high rents.
And you have the tenant trying to do high tenant satisfaction, make sure the unit's not
in horrible condition and that they're able to live in a good place.
And so you're really serving both of them.
So on the maintenance side, you want maintenance requests handled as quickly as possible.
And then on the maintenance side for the owner, you want them solved at a good price.
So it's like, you know, we have a gas leak at a property that we are dealing with this
(20:51):
weekend.
And there was a big time plumber that was trying to charge us $6,300 to replace the
water heater.
And he said, I'm going to afford you prices, I know, to replace a water heater because
he didn't think it would work.
And then we have just a handyman who's able to do it for $3,000.
So instead of being like, okay, it's a reputable company.
We want to go with them.
We want to spend all this money.
(21:11):
If I can save the owner $3,300 on one water heater and, you know, that happens multiple
times through year at multiple properties, then that's really going to help the value
of his property and his cash flow.
So maintenance costs, keeping them low and then maintenance being handled quickly for
the tenants.
And then on the leasing side, just getting top of market rents, knowing what your rents
(21:31):
are in the area, you know, with the student housing, we're locked in on a very small radius
right by San Diego State University campus.
And so we manage like 92 units in that neighborhood.
And so I know a four bed on this street will rent for different than a four bed, a four
minute walk away.
Knowing the market, being able to charge the top of market rents and then using sales
skills to create urgency or scarcity or whatever it is so that your rents can be higher than
(21:55):
the others in the area.
Yeah, man, I just, the way that you're answering these questions, you can tell that it's not
like I've been at a company for six months and I just learned how like the basic foundation
is.
You can tell that you've been like in the weeds on it and you have no idea how valuable
that will be whenever it comes time to actually start doing the GP deals.
And you're like, because in these deals, so many people, it's like a puzzle.
(22:19):
Like it literally is a puzzle of here's a KP that can sign on debt, here's the equity
that can be raised and then who in the world actually can operate a deal?
Like the KP network liquidity and raising capital is, I don't want to say easy to solve
for, but it's simple.
Like it's just a couple of people way.
The hardest thing to find is the asset management slash operator.
(22:40):
And I just hope you know internally what you've done over the last couple of years is going
to not only increase the time that it takes to get into a deal, but I think pay off and
much greater dividends than you could ever think.
Great.
And I hope you know that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's what I'm worried about with doing say an Indianapolis multi-family deal.
How do I get a property manager that actually cares?
(23:01):
And they know that $1,000 a month in rents versus 1,100 doesn't sound like a big difference,
but it's going to make a big difference or overspending on maintenance seems like a small
thing, but it's really going to affect my NOI.
That kind of thing is going to be big when picking a manager.
You want to know the answer?
How?
Yeah.
Bring them into the ownership.
Okay.
(23:22):
So here's an example.
Noah Sanders, he found the deal in Ocala, 28 units, brought it to us, closed on it.
We raised all the money and it's awesome.
He's got construction experience.
He's kicking ass on it.
So I can say it after 60 days, really, really, really doing well.
And we have the option, we could say, hey, Noah, you're too busy.
(23:43):
We need to go out and buy more properties.
You shouldn't be at the property every day and making sure it goes really well.
And we could just use a contractor.
Let's just pay somebody to do it.
That's their job.
They would charge more money and do it in a not as quick period of time and not be ownership.
Noah put in some money of his own into the deal, found the deal, and he's a GP in it.
(24:05):
I gave him a significant portion of it because I want people to own a real piece of the deal
and pick up a real $200 grand or $300 grand.
It's not a couple thousand bucks.
He's there at the property Monday through Friday.
And we've done in the first 60 days what probably would have taken six months.
We've done all three roofs.
(24:26):
We've painted all seven buildings.
We've done landscaping.
We've done signage.
We've done cleanup for trees.
And we renovated four units all in the first 60 days.
Why?
Because he's an owner and he's going to show up.
He's going to make damn sure that the property goes well because guess what?
He's trying to build a big real estate portfolio and what?
At the very beginning, like me personally, I'm going through this, we'll have a couple
(24:48):
of exits in 25.
So we'll have track record.
That's the most important thing if you want to do deals, like over and over and over and
over.
So the first couple have to be home runs.
If you and you're not going to have any problem understanding this because you've already
been doing it your entire life, which is giving up what you think is owed upfront, serving
the table until you have the seat at it.
No one doesn't care about making it.
(25:10):
He'll make money on the deal.
But what he cares more about is having the track record will be in and out of this thing
in 18 to 24 months, having the track record to then go out and leverage.
Hey, we just bought this deal two years ago.
We just exited, we hit 20 or 30.
That's what we're targeting.
We'll see what it is when we come back.
But think about how powerful that is.
(25:30):
Hey, we just did this deal.
We went full cycle and the net returns were 22.
I'm doing it again.
It's a proven track record.
You have to get people in ownership.
That's what, so Steve Schwarzman, mine, I'll give you, like you need to read what it takes.
If you haven't already, here's a little golden nugget.
If you're obsessed with success, you have to be cut.
(25:53):
For you, as Gary V, multiple mentors that are Alex Ramozy, that you're like, okay, I'm
going to look at what he does.
I'm going to look at everything he's done.
So your watch time is probably pretty up there.
Very similar to me.
I'd done Barry Sternlick for Starwood Capital.
I knew every single thing from 82 when he got into the business all the way up to today.
(26:14):
Steve Schwarzman, same thing.
Every single video on YouTube, Stanford, Yale, Harvard Business School, they all have YouTube
channels and they all post these lectures.
They're like eight years old.
Some of them are in 1997.
Some of them are in 2005.
And you see them grow over the last 30 years.
(26:35):
I would highly recommend watching that.
Like highly recommend.
Read his book and go watch every single YouTube video possible.
And you will see the level of scale that this game is operating at.
All right.
So let's get towards deals.
I want to, it deals, but with the everyday person that's listening to this podcast in
(26:56):
mind, you're three years in.
I know it doesn't seem like you're in because you don't own all the, you know, the big portfolio,
but you're already three years in.
You've put in the work.
And at almost any given point, you could go out and you could start running deals and
be a GP.
Like on a 12-year-old deal, you can do a 12-year-old to that.
Just saying, I'm very confident in it.
(27:17):
And you're 23.
Think about the 20 to 25 to 30-year-old.
Maybe they're in a similar position.
They are either in real estate as a property manager, realtor, wholesaler, flipper, or maybe
they want to jump in the real estate.
What would be your best advice because you're going through all of the same hurdles and you're
(27:37):
in the exact same environment?
Trump just got elected.
We're going into a new year.
Interest rates going down.
What would you say is like the best pathway to get in, but also sustainable like long-term?
Yeah.
So I can't speak on how to grow a portfolio if I haven't done it, but I can speak on kind
(27:58):
of like my thoughts and what I've done and that kind of thing.
So for me, the way that I think about it is, okay, you need to learn how to do it.
So you could join the deal room.
You can watch YouTube videos.
You can do all these things to learn how these deals actually operate and how you can get
in them.
And you can find a way to generate active income so that you have some of your own money to
put into deals.
(28:18):
Yep.
Talked about property management is great because you have salary, leasing commissions,
and agent commissions.
There are all kinds of other ways out there and people at the event and in your community
make active income in all kinds of different ways.
So I really lock in on your education, joining the deal room if you're not already in it
and learning that way because that gives you real insight into how each of these deals
(28:38):
operate from underwriting them, submitting an LOI, doing the value add after it's accepted,
the operations type stuff, and then having an active income channel, probably a sales
role because that's the way that you really have the untapped or like unlimited type commission
earning potential.
Those would probably be the two ways to get ready and then kind of building relationships
(29:01):
with people so that you can go into that first deal.
So it's like Josh and Morgan doing a deal together and they met together in the community
and now they're going to do that deal in Texas together.
So it's like finding people around you, not necessarily trying to raise a bunch of money
when you're brand new because things would go wrong.
You could lose your friends' money, your family's money.
I think it's better off to just be more of like a LP in a deal, but you're still doing
(29:26):
some stuff to try to help move it forward, contribute money first, learn from the operator
and then when you're ready, you'll know that it's time to do your own deal.
You mentioned all three of them.
The fourth one that you forgot to mention is what both of us did, which is work at another
company, get the salary, get the paycheck, maybe a bonus at the end of the year, but
the learning is like you're learning from an organization that's actively doing it right
(29:50):
this second and you get paid to learn.
It's just less time because you need to be there for at least a couple of years before
you can jump off.
It's a pretty good difference between like you're working for someone for free and you're
like running their Instagram or you're making calls and then you get paid to do the exact
same thing and you're still learning just as much, if not more, because you're contributing
more time for it and you're getting paid for it.
So it's just totally different.
(30:10):
Yeah.
Well, people don't love to talk about it because it's like not the sexy thing to do, but like
if I got, it'd be really, really tough.
I never thought about this, but like if Steve Schwarzman called me right now and said,
hey Gabe, I need you to stop what you're doing, put the deal room on pause for a couple of
years and come help me build this big ass thing at that Blackstone.
It'd be really tough for me to like say no to that because of the value that you would
(30:35):
get from going and being a part of something as big as that.
Because most of the time, you actually can hit all your financial goals, create the life
that you want and grow, like feel like you have ownership as an entrepreneur inside of
somebody else's company.
And sometimes it's actually easier to do that if the company's vision is big enough and
you're aligned with the person that's at the realm.
(30:58):
That was very similar set up where I was at grants.
Like I was in early enough, I wasn't in too early or else I'd still be there.
But you know, that company was so large that any goal that I had make 200 grand a year,
like that was achieved within somebody else's company.
I don't think many people accept that because like I want to have my own hours and stuff.
It is nice.
(31:18):
That's the time you end up working more and making less.
I think Steve Ballmer is like the seventh richest person in America or the world or
something like that.
And he didn't start Microsoft, but he was just a key member on the early team and now
he owns the Clippers and everything like that.
Like being an entrepreneur, I think is super underrated because you know, I think I'm a
way better number two than number one.
(31:39):
And so you got to have the self-awareness to stay instead of starting my own thing and
doing that.
Maybe I need to just be a number two, play the support staff role.
And like when I was a sales admin, I was not good as the sales rep trying to close myself.
But when I was the sales admin, the numbers went up for those reps.
So it's like understanding what you're good at, whether it's organization or closing or
(31:59):
things like that.
I think you can carve out a pretty big role in a growing company if you can provide value
as an entrepreneur.
Yeah.
And then, and therefore you grow the company, you grow as well internally, both physically,
professionally and financially.
All right, so let's end it with something that I mentioned to you before the podcast.
I did the bigger pockets interview back in 20, like two, maybe a year ago, maybe two
(32:24):
years ago, when we were at 10 million at 25, we're at 27 at 50 million today.
So we've grown a decent amount.
And it's always good for me to go back and say, what was like, let me earmark that year,
25 years old.
This is, I was super naive, super confident, like delusionally confident myself.
And I could see that, but it's allowed me to say, okay, look at how much we've grown
(32:47):
since this podcast that we've done.
What is something that either you want to leave here in front of the listeners or even
for yourself?
You're 23, you've done a significant amount over the last five years or so.
And I think that you have an incredible potential.
I think your mindset is what people really should be paying attention to because you're
(33:08):
on such a different trajectory than most 23 year olds.
And you could mess up and fail for the next five years and still be way in a much better
spot than most people.
So what is something that you'd like to leave behind either to somebody else or yourself
to come visit back on in a year or five years from now?
So I think there are a few stages in an entrepreneur's journey or a young professional's journey.
(33:31):
At first, you don't know what you should do and you know you want to make money or you
know you want to do something for your family, but you're not sure how.
First, you need to find that vehicle and figure out what it is, whether it's real estate,
stocks, e-commerce, whatever.
And then the harder part is being willing to stick with the boring work for a long period
of time.
So I've written a bunch of leases and over the next year, I'm going to write a bunch
(33:54):
more leases.
I've assigned a bunch of maintenance requests and for the next year, I'm going to assign
a lot more.
And it's not fun to write leases and assign maintenance requests, but every maintenance
request I handle, I learn a little bit more about how to solve these problems a little
bit quicker or a little bit cheaper, things like that.
Eventually, for me, it'll be the point where I am doing more delegating.
(34:17):
So we hire two new leasing agents and then they're doing more of the sales stuff, which
has helped me a lot by having them out in the field trying to close on things.
Eventually, more delegation, but for now, for this next year, it's going to be a lot more
of just doing the boring work, even if I don't like it because I know it just gets me better
over time.
And then when it is time to start delegating, I'm going to be able to train them so much
(34:37):
better because I've done it for longer.
I understand how it works.
Very cool.
Awesome.
Well, with that being said, ladies and gentlemen, TJ, seriously, thank you so much for coming
out to Tampa, Florida.
Let's see.
Let's see where we're at in a year from now, two years from now, three years from now.
I think you have an incredible amount of potential.
And the head that you have on your shoulders, I hope everybody that's listening can take
(35:00):
something away.
You're completely different than what most people are wanting or willing to accept.
And I think the seeds that you're planting today will sprout in a year or two or three
years from now.
And at that point, it become inevitable.
You're already planted the seeds, so I can't wait to see how much you grow and I can't
wait to see your success, man.
(35:20):
All right.
So why don't you tell us a little bit about horror stories because that's what everybody
associates property management with.
The headaches, termites, toilets, all the fun stuff.
What are some of the craziest stories you could give us?
There have been a lot of times where I've had to go out to a property to deal with some
untraditional things.
(35:40):
This morning, we had a snake in the house and I've never seen that before.
And so we had to handle that.
We've had sewage water coming up through the shower.
How?
It was so much that...
You didn't even told the snake.
Got a curiosity.
You got to find the space in the crawl space where they're getting in.
Patch the crawl space, send pest control.
Patch the point in the house where they can get in.
It's a simple fix, but when it's your first time dealing with it, there's no playbook,
(36:02):
a lot of this property management stuff.
We have gas leaks where it's like you got to go under the house and replace $7,000 worth
of pipes and make all these changes to the property.
And a lot of times what can be tough is you're the person who has to make the decision, so
it's not like you can ask somebody else, how would you solve this?
What should we do?
(36:22):
And sometimes people aren't available, so you just have to problem solve yourself.
And you know, tenants' health are at risk, the owner's property is at risk, you need
to find a way to solve it quickly and be able to problem solve.
But out of all the ones, probably the most unexpected was it was like a Friday or a Saturday
night at 11, I have a work phone that I usually have on Do Not Disturb, but I got a call through
(36:43):
it and it was a no-caller ID.
I'm not sure how they got passed the Do Not Disturb, so I declined it.
And they called back again, I was like, this must be serious, let's see what's going on.
And I answer it and it was the police.
And so the police told me they think someone's trespassing at a property and I need to come
out.
And so I called the tenants, asked if they were home, they weren't, but the lights were
on inside their unit.
So I was like, okay, somebody must be there.
(37:04):
I gave the police permission to enter.
They said due to the Fifth Amendment or something, they couldn't go inside.
I had to be there to open it up for them.
So I drove out to the property, I had my camera and I was recording, and I opened the door
and they'd go in with their guns drawn doing a full sweep of the house.
Really nobody was there, they just left a light on or something like that, complete
false alarm.
(37:25):
But as a property manager, you have to be ready, 11 PM, 1 AM, if there's an emergency,
you're the person that handles it.
You don't call a maintenance guy because they're asleep, you're the person that goes out there
and picks it.
Yeah.
Well, thank you.
I thank you on the behalf of whatever owner owning that property.
That's insane.
Thank you for sharing that.
Tida, now let's move into mentorship.
(37:46):
Because I think it's come naturally to your like, okay, I need help, I'll work for free.
So it's like, you either pay with time or money.
In that case, if you don't have a note, you only have time to pay with.
At some point, you started getting some money and you continue to keep investing into education,
people, and mentorship.
Can you walk us through what mentorship has done for you?
And then, you know, you're in the deal room community.
(38:09):
You know, what's been the experience?
I don't want to be that guy that screams it and pouts it, but a lot of people need to
know and they need to hear it from somebody that's not the person that founded it.
Yeah.
I've joined free communities.
I've joined paid communities.
The first one I joined was actually Chris Luna's, the development one in San Diego.
So for him, for the past year, I've been learning the San Diego development blueprint.
(38:30):
And so we do calls on Tuesday and Wednesday.
On Tuesday, I lead one where we underwrite deals.
On Wednesday, Chris leads one where he does more like an education type of type of call.
And then I didn't join the dealer room until probably like a month or two months ago.
So it's fairly recent for me.
You have the free course, which you put out and a ton of people sign up for, but like
8% probably watch like nobody actually gets to.
(38:53):
Yeah, very few people get.
And then there's the paid course where you have way more information.
I mean, the free course is still a deep dive into this stuff, but the paid course is a
lot more value on going into all of these different deals.
And so watching all of the beginner info on the paid course and then now I'm starting
to do the deal reviews and stuff like that.
And then the networking is a big part of it as well.
(39:15):
I found that it's super easy to get very good, not easy, but it only takes a year or less
of hard work to get very good at underwriting.
But it does you no good to be a master underwriter and never submit offers.
On deals, you're not going to grow a portfolio by being an underwriting expert.
So you take what you've learned about underwriting and you network with people in the deal room
(39:39):
community or any community that you're in.
And that's how you actually find the people that are going to invest with you as the limited
partners, the people that are going to operate or sign on the loans as the general partners
or key partners with you.
And then you can meet other people in that community.
What's a good property manager in the area?
That kind of thing.
Because for me to do a deal in Indianapolis, it makes sense because I know agents in that
(40:01):
area and all the network around that area.
But if I find a good deal in Iowa or Texas, there's no way for me to do it unless I reach
out to the deal room or other people and they match me with those people that can help.
So would you say that it's probably going to help you get to your end goal faster or
slower with mentorship?
Way faster.
So it's like, I know how to operate a San Diego property management deal, but I don't
(40:26):
know how to operate as far as submitting LOIs on out of state deals and getting insurance
bids and doing the renovations.
But Morgan knows how to do that.
So it would be great for me to save up money from my property management job, put $50,000
or $100,000 into a deal with Morgan.
And then he can show me the groundwork of how he's actually doing the value add, whether
(40:48):
it's with Morgan, just as an example, or anybody else in the community that has done it more
than me.
Yeah, man, awesome.
Thank you so much for touching on it.
I always think a lot of people think everybody online that has a community just sells courses
and sits on the beach and does nothing, and they're scamming people.
And it's like, if you were just in the inside, you actually want to do deals and you go through
(41:10):
the training and you have the access to people.
I could give you education for free.
I could give you the underwriting model.
I could give you the tutorials.
You could go out to CREXU, you could find a home run deal.
You would be like a master wizard at underwriting it.
But then you start to get very uncomfortable when the underwriting is done and you're like,
huh.
And then you're like, how do I actually move forward?
(41:33):
That's where people really comes in.
So thank you for touching on that.
All right, so thank you so much, TJ, for coming.
Hopefully everybody enjoyed it.
Where can people find you and connect with you, TJ?
Because I think a lot of people, especially that listen to this, are going to resonate
with you and probably be inspired or maybe even feel a little bit bad.
Maybe they're 40 or 50 and they're like, holy cow, what was I doing at 23?
(41:55):
So where can people connect with you?
Best place to reach out is on Instagram.
So that's TJ, underscore Miller on Instagram.
You can shoot me a follow, send me a DM and we can talk.
Awesome.
So with that being said, thank you everybody for tuning in to another episode.
We will see you on the next one.
Popular Podcasts
Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club
Welcome to Bookmarked by Reese’s Book Club — the podcast where great stories, bold women, and irresistible conversations collide! Hosted by award-winning journalist Danielle Robay, each week new episodes balance thoughtful literary insight with the fervor of buzzy book trends, pop culture and more. Bookmarked brings together celebrities, tastemakers, influencers and authors from Reese's Book Club and beyond to share stories that transcend the page. Pull up a chair. You’re not just listening — you’re part of the conversation.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com