June 17, 2025 • 43 mins
Episode Resources:
- Book: Invest Smart Spotting Red Flags in Real Estate Syndications by Gary Lipsky
- Email: chadackermanrealestate.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Chad Ackerman (00:00):
I'm a regular guy .
I was an HR person for cryingout loud.
That's about as normal as itgets.
But I want people to understandthat it doesn't take something
special.
Anybody can do this.
It takes due diligence.
It's called passive investingbut it takes activity to do it,
so we always called it.
You got to be an active passiveinvestor.
But I just want to get peopleover the hump of thinking it's
(00:22):
not for them.
They don't fit the criteria.
People over the hump ofthinking it's not for them.
Ed Mathews (00:26):
They don't fit the criteria.
So the big question is this howdo real estate investors who
don't have a ton of free time,don't have access to off-market
deals and didn't start life onthird base, how do we
conservatively grow our realestate business to support our
families, finally leave thecorporate rat race and build a
legacy?
That is the question, and thispodcast will give you the
(00:48):
answers.
I'm Ed Mathews and this is RealEstate Underground.
Greetings and salutations, realEstate Undergrounders.
It is Ed Mathews with RealEstate Underground.
Thank you so much for joiningus again today.
I really appreciate you makingus a part of your day.
And one favor to ask if you'regetting good information or
value out of these shows.
(01:09):
I would greatly appreciate ifyou follow us on the platform in
which you download yourpodcasts.
Leave us a comment if there's atopic you'd like us to talk
about.
I read every single one.
I swear I do.
And also, if you really aregetting a lot of value, tell a
friend.
It helps us grow.
So with that I am joined byChad Ackerman.
Chad is a Cincinnati Bearcatwhich I you know.
(01:31):
Most of the people I meet fromOhio are usually Buckeyes,
because there's more of them Idon't want to break your heart.
Chad Ackerman (01:36):
But paid money to go to Cincinnati.
But my heart belongs to theBuckeyes.
Ed Mathews (01:40):
That's okay.
That belongs to the Buckeyes aswell, that's okay, that's fine.
Chad Ackerman (01:42):
You see more Ohio State memorabilia back here
than Bearcat.
Ed Mathews (01:44):
Chad.
Welcome to the show andcongratulations on your national
championship.
Chad Ackerman (01:49):
Thank you you beat a national championship
team this year, so you got thatto brag about.
Ed Mathews (01:53):
Yeah.
Chad Ackerman (01:53):
I like to think my yelling accommodated for 2%
of the victories.
Ed Mathews (02:05):
Value in some small Somehow.
So welcome to the show.
So, Chad, you and I actuallyfollow someone very closely and
that is Brian Tracy, and I knowyou've got a ton of experience
in his works and his consultingfirm, Focal Point, and I also
know that you are a heavy dutyreal estate investor and one of
the things that was reallyexciting and intriguing about
your story and I'm going to makeyou tell it not me, but how you
are joining your very deep andbroad real estate experience
(02:27):
with your business training thatyou got from the Brian Tracy
world Welcome.
Why don't you tell us a littlebit about who you are and what
you do?
Chad Ackerman (02:34):
Yeah, absolutely.
So.
My journey started like a lotof people go through.
I was a career W2 guy.
I was in human resources, ofall things, so it wasn't like I
was in finance or something.
It is the number side of HR, ifyou will a lot of spreadsheet
work.
But I was chasing the W-2,filling out my 401k, doing all
the things we were taught to doas Gen Xers, and it hit that
(02:57):
point.
I actually changed jobs at onepoint in time and a gal that I
was working with dropped thelittle nugget on me of of she
was trying to come up withmultiple income streams and real
estate was one of the thingsshe was looking at.
I was like I used to be in realestate years ago.
I've always liked it.
I get it.
It makes sense.
I'm going to start studyingthis.
And I had windshield time that Istarted listening to.
(03:20):
Podcasts, turned into listeningto books and I got bit by the
bug and I was ready to go.
And the podcast turned intolistening to books and I got bit
by the bug and I was ready togo.
But there's a lot of shinyobjects to go through and so I
didn't act on anything for along period of time and studied
and ended up finding a localgroup to join and just learn
more, meet some people in thespace.
Went to a few of those meetingsand the last one I attended,
(03:41):
the founder of that group got upand talked about how he had
left his W-2 because he wasinvesting passively in real
estate and syndications, andthat was like the switch that
needed to flip for me that I methim afterwards found out we
lived in the same suburb ofColumbus, ohio, so we got
together for a beer and Ilearned more and within a couple
(04:04):
months I was writing a checkfor my first syndication deal.
I was ready to go and I got bitby it so bad that I was like the
only thing this takes iscapital.
Where do I have capital?
I've got it sitting in that401k and talking to some of my
mentors, they're like you'regoing to pay tax on that money
no matter when you take it out.
(04:24):
So you can almost scrub thatidea as being an issue.
You're really just confrontedwith the 10% penalty that you're
going to take.
I was 49, 50 at the time.
I'm like the next 15 years Ican make more than 10% on that
money, I feel like.
So I pulled the trigger on thatas well and liquidated the 401k
, moved it all into real estateand it got me to a point where I
(04:46):
was able to leave my W-2.
Along that timeframe.
We also started saying, hey, weshould start a meetup that's
focused on syndications,business as well, teach people
how to be limited partners andjust share experiences.
And we started a group calledLeft Field Investors and the
quick story on that one was ourfirst meeting was scheduled to
be March 18th of 2020.
(05:07):
The world shut down three daysbefore that.
Yeah, so we were a pandemic babybecause we wanted to be a local
meetup and just get 10 or 12 ofus around a table.
That put us on zoom, thatallowed us to invite people that
we knew that weren't local andas many people as we could get.
And it grew and grew to wherewe ended up with about 2000
people in our community when wewere said and done.
We didn't collect capital, weweren't capital raisers, we just
(05:28):
wanted to have a place forlittle peas to come and share
experiences.
But we tried to track what theyinvested with our group anyway
and we had over $50 millioninvested out of our community in
a year and a half timeframe.
Wow, it was a very engagedgroup it was, and we learned a
lot.
It was great and it went sowell that we ended up catching
(05:49):
the attention of BiggerPockets.
And last year we sold LeftfieldInvestors to BiggerPockets and
it's now branded asPassivePockets instead.
And we had a great time withthat.
It was a great journey.
It was good to see resourcesput to it that were bigger than
what we had.
So we sold it.
I'm still on as an advisorycommittee member helping advise
(06:10):
it along the way for the nextfew years.
But I wanted to go out and dosomething else.
I wasn't ready to be done.
I still wanted to be active inthis community, in this
environment, and that's when Iwent out and bought a franchise
with Brian Tracy's group FocalPoint.
I thought what a great blend totake coaching skills blended
with my experience and be ableto bring that back and give back
to the community that I wasjust with and try to introduce
(06:33):
people to it.
That was my biggest energy.
Out of Left Field Investors wasmeeting new people and inviting
them in to educate them on thisspace.
I want to continue to do thatbecause I really enjoy that side
of this.
Now here I am as a businesscoach setting up my own business
called CARE Chad Ackerman RealEstate to coach new aspiring
(06:53):
limited partners on what thisspace is about and how to
navigate it and get going, buildthe confidence to take action
and write that first check.
Ed Mathews (07:01):
Yeah, it's a hell of a journey.
I'll tell you Congratulations.
Chad Ackerman (07:04):
There is a book in the works as we talk about it
.
Ed Mathews (07:08):
So when that comes out, we'll have you back and
first off, I can't wait to readit, or probably listen to it,
and and the fact is that it'syou've done quite a bit in this
space and I always tell people Iliken it to reading a book,
right, and you may be a fewchapters ahead of me.
I may be a few chapters ahead ofsomebody else.
The beauty of that sharedexperience, whether it's through
(07:28):
a community or social media ora book, is you're boiling down
years and years and years of,frankly, some mistakes and a
whole bunch of successes andhopefully it's that way and not
the other way and boiling thatexperience down to something
that's digestible in a few daysworth of reading, and it's.
It's an amazing thing, becausewe'll talk about mentors a
(07:49):
little later in the show, butone of the one of the things
that being a mentor does is itwarms your soul, right.
I've had plenty of mentors outthere who have been very kind
and very generous, and I metsome of them through the local
RIA or other meetups.
They didn't want anything fromme, they just wanted to see me
succeed.
The only thing they asked of meis hey, when you figure it out,
(08:11):
teach other people and doneHappy to do it 100% Right.
Chad Ackerman (08:15):
No, that's exactly it.
I come from a family ofeducators.
Anyway, both my parents were,or half my relatives are that
it's just in my blood to go giveback and educate and teach to
fish rather than fishing forthem kind of thing.
So it just comes organically tome and it just seemed like a
good time, with all that we'vedone with left field, to go back
(08:36):
into that community andintroduce more people to it.
Ed Mathews (08:39):
That's my natural progression right.
So you are educating limitedpartners, and I find that very
in this world, because most ofthe people out there are
teaching people how to syndicate, how to flip houses, how to
actually be an operator on somelevel within this real estate
world, but there is no educationon how the heck do you take
(09:02):
50,000, $100,000, whatever thenumber is, hand it to somebody
that either you just met oryou've known for a long time and
be able to evaluate asyndication or a project and
then hopefully receive passiveincome over the next three, five
, seven years and get it back?
Chad Ackerman (09:20):
Yeah, a hundred percent.
I think the biggest thing thatalmost is a book of itself is
like a myth busters book aboutbeing an LP.
I think there's so manymisnomers about well, you've got
to be rich or no, this is forprivate equity or this is for
institutional.
No, this is.
I'm a regular guy.
I was an HR person.
For crying out loud, that'sabout as normal as it gets.
(09:42):
For crying out loud, that'sabout as normal as it gets.
I want people to understand thatit doesn't take something
special.
Anybody can do this.
It takes due diligence.
It's called passive investing,but it takes activity to do it.
So we always called it.
You got to be an active passiveinvestor.
But I just want to get peopleover the hump of thinking it's
not for them.
They don't fit the criteria.
(10:03):
Even that $25,000, $50,000check that it takes to get in.
There's ways to get around that.
There's companies likeTribeVest that we've worked with
for years where you could pullmoney together with friends or
family or something, and maybeyou're only putting $5,000 in
per deal instead of $25,000.
So I want to help people getover the hump.
Our name Left Field Investorscame from the fact that our
(10:24):
financial advisors and people weknew said oh, that syndication
stuff that's out in left field,you don't want to do that.
No, it needs to be a part ofthis and, to your point, it's
exactly why we started LeftField.
There wasn't enough educationout there.
We could Google it, we couldfind how to flip houses or we
could find how to become ageneral partner.
We couldn't find a lot to teachus how to be an LP and that's
(10:45):
why we started building LeftField the way we did.
I always thought a great legacyfor Left Field, or now maybe
for me and my own business, isif I could build content that
was taught in community college,in high school, in whatever
level.
Have content out there toeducate people at an early age.
I'm trying to do it with mykids.
My kids are 19 and 21 now.
(11:07):
I've got them in a tribe withme.
I invest with them together, Iwalk them through my due
diligence so they understand ata much earlier age than I
discover it and they can makebetter decisions down the road.
I don't think everybody shouldliquidate their 401k and jump in
like I did.
I think there's a diversityamount there.
Have your Wall Street.
We called it left field, centerfield, right field.
(11:28):
Right field was Wall Street,was the stock market.
We thought center field wasreally where you want to play,
where you've got some money onboth sides, so you got
diversification.
I just want to get out and meetthe common guy that's looking
for something else and let themknow hey, here's an avenue that
can go.
And then, if I can get them tothe conversation about tax
benefits of it, that seems toreally open up their eyes quite
(11:50):
a bit more too.
They get excited about that.
Ed Mathews (11:52):
Especially come April, they're writing a big
honking check.
Chad Ackerman (11:58):
And even more if we get some laws passed here
soon.
That might bring back 100%bonus depreciation as Christmas
comes early.
So that's my motivation.
Ed Mathews (12:04):
Excellent, and how do you go about it?
What's the way to deliver thistraining?
Is it workshops?
Is it meetup groups?
Like, how are you doing it?
Chad Ackerman (12:12):
yeah, no, my goal is I'm going to offer a free
webinar.
It's going to try to offer awebinar a month just to give
some tidbits, introduce peopleto some of it, give them a
little nugget or two, and thenoff of that I've got workshops
that I'm going to dig in alittle bit deeper around and
structuring it like aneducational one-on-one,
two-on-one, three-on-one kind ofcontent.
So, depending on the skilllevel if you're brand new,
versus if you've been doing thisfor a while and you want a
(12:34):
deeper dive I want to be able tooffer that kind of content for
anybody, and then I'm absolutelyhappy to do one-on-one coaching
.
If somebody needs thatinteraction or wants to really
hey, let's look at somethingtogether.
I'll definitely offer that kindof flexibility to them as well
just to see what I can do tohelp.
Ed Mathews (12:54):
Yeah, it's interesting, and I've talked
about this on previous shows aswell.
I regularly meet people whostop me at the local coffee shop
or the grocery store because Ilive in a small area, so we all
know what everybody does for aliving.
They're like oh man, I wish Iknew how to get into real estate
and do what you do.
And the question I always askis what's stopping you?
And the big three that Iusually find are yeah, I don't
know where the money is, I don'tknow how to find the deals, and
(13:15):
all three of those in my mind.
When I hear any of those three,I think, okay, you're afraid.
Chad Ackerman (13:21):
And it's a ton of responsibility.
Ed Mathews (13:23):
Of course you're afraid, but the way to get over
that and the way I got over ittook me three years to get the
courage to pull the trigger on adeal.
It sounds like it took you alittle bit of time as well.
Was education right and if youcan offer a process to say, okay
, ed Mathews, operator at Clarkstreet, is handing you Chad
Ackerman, a potential limitedpartner, a private placement
(13:46):
memorandum, evaluate that deal,see if Ed and his team know what
they're talking about or ifthey're just full of it, cause
there's a whole bunch of snakeoil in this part of the world as
well.
Absolutely, what is the processthat you'll take them through?
I know you'd said 101, 201, 301.
So that's high school topostgraduate studies.
Chad Ackerman (14:08):
There you go, phd yeah.
Ed Mathews (14:10):
What is?
How do you?
Two questions actually.
One, how do you decide, as apotential LP, which level is
right for me, and then how doyou help them with that?
And then, secondly, what is thekind of core focus of each of
those levels?
Chad Ackerman (14:25):
Yeah, Now what I want to do is offer up some
one-on-one discussions ifthey're interested, to get
started and feel out their skilllevel and recommend where it
might fit best for them to helpguide them on my material.
Would it be valuable to them?
But I always go back and startwith goals, Like I made a
mistake with my first investment.
(14:45):
I didn't know what I was tryingto do.
I got sucked into the shinyobject syndrome and I pulled the
trigger on a 17 story buildingin Cleveland that was going from
office to multifamily.
That just looked awesome 7Xkind of pro forma.
Just it was clicking on all theboxes that I was excited about.
(15:05):
I was really looking forcashflow because I wanted to
leave my W-2.
I wasn't even thinking aboutcashflow, I was chasing the
shiny object.
That was a terrible investmentto get into if I want cashflow,
Cause it didn't it.
Sadly it ended up going out.
He couldn't get theconstruction loans figured out
and ended up losing it becausehis bridge loan ran out of time.
(15:27):
So it ended up my worst casescenario.
But I shouldn't have been inthe first place because it
didn't align to my goals.
It wasn't going to cashflow foryears.
So it takes some time to spendenergy on that first step of
what's your strategy.
What are you really trying todo with this?
Because that filter is huge atthe top, where there are so many
things to do.
The more you can get thosegoals in place at the beginning,
(15:50):
then you can trim out a lot ofthat and it's a lot less
distracting so you can getfocused.
And then it is about duediligence and we'll talk about
how we say bet the jockey, notthe horse.
So it's spend time vetting theoperator before you look at
their deals, Understand who youcan know and trust.
And a way we say to build thatis to get into a community of
(16:11):
limited partners.
There's a few of them out there.
Passive Pockets is the one thatwe transpired into.
There are other ones out there.
Join multiple of them, becauseyou're just going to be able to
get that data.
I won't invest with an operatornow that I can't go into
Passive Pockets and say, hey,have you ever heard of Chad
Ackerman Real Estate before?
And if nobody replies, itdoesn't mean I'll never invest
(16:36):
with them, but it means, hey, Iwant to watch you for a year and
see what you're doing.
Uh, cause everybody I knownobody spoke up and said they
know you.
So I want to know somebody thatknows you before I'm going to
invest with you or I'm going towatch you for a period of time.
Ed Mathews (16:46):
Yeah, it's interesting because you know the
world like I liken it to buyinga car.
So we just bought my daughter acar and time was when I went to
go buy.
She's graduated from college,so I had kids.
Basically the same age.
And time was when I went to gobuy my first car.
I went in and they gave me theshiny brochure and I thought
about colors and options and allthis stuff and then I bought
(17:10):
basically what I got cajoledinto buying.
I'd like to say I did a goodjob negotiating it.
Maybe I didn't, but whateverthat was these days.
My wife found that car online.
We shopped the living daylightsout of it.
We had a Carfax report on itbecause it had six miles on it,
but it was a 2024.
I'm not sure, but yeah, my wifeis like a dog on a bone with
this stuff and by the time wewalked in we knew I don't want
(17:38):
the white one.
I want that VIN number.
I want that car and it's worththis and this is what I'll pay
for it.
Instead of a four hournegotiation, drive around, pick
a color, let me see if I canfind that one and all that it
was.
We want that one for thisnumber.
Okay, I can't do that number,but I can do this number.
Turns out there's anotherprogram.
We can do that number.
Fantastic, where do I sign?
(17:59):
45 minutes later, everythingwas done and they washed the car
and an hour after that we weregone.
We were there for 90 minutes.
Maybe it's a different world,different world, and I think
that the limited partner realestate world is very similar in
that, like you were saying, ifyou don't know a guy who knows
me or you or whatever, tap thebrakes, because the best and
(18:23):
most efficient way to evaluatesomebody is by following
somebody who's already done thatwork and succeeded.
Chad Ackerman (18:29):
Agreed, and I tell people all the time right
now there's no better time to bean LP than right now, because a
lot of those GPs that were newand didn't know what they were
doing, that were the risk thatwe didn't realize, have gotten
exposed because they didn'tstructure, they didn't know all
the lessons.
Yet you have a list of GPs thatmade it through the past
several years, fine.
(18:50):
If you have some that even dateback to 2008, all the better.
They've been through a coupleof financial crises and if
they've made it through it, thenthat makes me feel a lot better
about them.
Hopefully people that haveworked with them, and you can
get some direct contact fromthem too.
But all of that, I think, justfeeds into it, which, just like
I said, makes it easier to be anLP now, because five years ago
(19:11):
anybody could start up asyndication and they were doing
well.
I got burned.
I got caught on a couple ofthem that they didn't.
Everything flipped on them andthey weren't prepared for it,
and we didn't either.
I study deals a lot better thanI usedureen Miles, and it was a
4M real estate.
Ed Mathews (19:35):
I think, and the reason I mentioned it is because
it was resoundingly successful.
I knew people that knew Maureenreally well and those people I
trusted implicitly because theywere smarter than me and high
integrity type people andthey're like, if I'm putting my
money down, it's going to be onMo, and so I put a little chunk
(19:56):
of money in that and two, threeyears later it came back in 2X
and it was wonderful.
I'm pretty sure she retired,damn it.
I got lucky.
But the key that you mentionedearlier was really important for
that success, which was I knewa whole bunch of people that
knew her really well bunch ofpeople that knew her really well
(20:16):
.
Chad Ackerman (20:16):
It's too risky not to know people and it
doesn't mean we always get itright.
There have been tried and trueGPs that have been running for
years, really profitable, reallygood situations that have
turned up recently with gettingexposed that something wasn't
correct.
We all got burned, but you'reminimizing that risk by getting
in a community and gettingfeedback from people that have
been investing with them forsome time Absolutely.
(20:37):
The other thing we're justscratching the surface on is how
AI can assist with a lot ofthis LP work as well, To be
determined still.
There's constant stories andpodcasts about it these days,
but all of them say the samething it's not going to tell you
whether the deal's a go or nogo still it hasn't got to that
degree.
But can it help you do duediligence and you give it your
(20:58):
buy box and it tells you if it'sin or out.
That's great and to me, it'sunderstanding that criteria of
your buy box.
That takes the emotion out ofthis, so you can make a better
decision on this.
Yeah, it's red, light greenlight and get over the fear of
missing out, because there'sgoing to be another deal coming
around the corner.
So don't make one squeeze in toyour buy box.
Take the time, be patient.
(21:18):
Without a doubt, save yourselfa lot of headache if you do.
Ed Mathews (21:21):
And a whole lot.
Yeah, headache being heysignificant other, I lost
$50,000.
That's what and we'll figure itout.
Nobody wants thoseconversations Great way to get a
frying pan smacked over here,exactly and so you're going to
(21:42):
basically create this by thetime this show comes out.
This will all be live, whichI'm excited for.
I also think that it wouldbehoove general partners to go
through this process as well,because one of the things that
I'm always interested in is howpeople evaluate me.
Interested in is how peopleevaluate me.
One of the things that I like todo after an investment's made
is have lunch or buy a cup ofcoffee and ask them what did we
do right?
What can we do better?
What should we continue doing?
(22:03):
What should we stop doing?
And just help me and help ourteam get better right, and the
feedback we get is, most of it'speople, very nice, but I don't
want to hurt my feelings oranything like that, but every
once in a while I get somebodythat was a look.
This went really well until youor one of your people did this,
and then I caused me pause andthen I had to sit down with you
(22:23):
and figure that out and wefigured it out and we moved
forward.
I didn't have to go ask thosequestions.
It would be much better andmore transparency.
Okay, no problem, we candefinitely do that, and so it's.
I think that general partnerswould be blown away by how
people evaluate their properties, because I think there's I've
(22:47):
met so many of these GPs overthe years there's a whole lot of
confirmation bias floatingaround in the air, right.
Chad Ackerman (22:54):
A hundred percent .
Ed Mathews (22:55):
Yeah.
Chad Ackerman (22:55):
So I think it's funny you bring that up.
When we sold our company toBiggerPockets, I told one of my
partners.
I said you know what ourspinoff company out of this is,
somebody that goes and coachesGPs.
Because it said there's veryfew people that have had the
access to LPs that we've had,have had the access to LPs that
we've had and the blindtransparency that we had
(23:17):
unfiltered kind of feedback thatwe received.
I ran it past a couple of GPstoo and they were like we talked
to hundreds of GPs every week.
But so how honest do you thinkthey were with you versus how
honest they were with me?
I said you do it well, youprobably get 80% of it, but I
bet we get 10 or 20% that youdon't know or hear all the time.
That's probably valuable to youtoo.
(23:40):
So I haven't figured out how towork that out necessarily yet,
but we had the exact same idea.
I think there's value there tohelp GPs and, if nothing else,
every GP I've ever met has saidI like educated LPs so much
better than the non-educated one, cause they just know the
process.
I'm like that's what I want todo is help educate that LP so
they're better LP for you.
(24:01):
Part of my approach will be togo back to the GPs that I know
really well and say, hey, I'mdoing these courses.
Put this out to your people,see if any of them are
interested.
Ed Mathews (24:09):
But maybe on that list.
Absolutely.
I think there's value there forboth sides on that list.
Chad Ackerman (24:11):
Absolutely.
I think there's value there forboth sides.
That's always what it felt likewe played at left field was the
middleman role of trying tohelp GPs with what we could, but
educate LPs as well, so thatthey all got together and
there's enough place to space toplay in this space that we just
wanted to get people togetherand then make the most of it.
So I'm still trying to maximize.
Ed Mathews (24:35):
But of it.
So I'm still trying to maximize, but the education on both
sides is the really key.
All right, chad, I could talkfor days.
Chad Ackerman (24:39):
This is what tells me that I'm doing the
right thing, because I get intothese conversations all the time
.
Now I lean into my chair andI'm pumped up about it.
I'm glad you think so too.
Ed Mathews (24:49):
I wholeheartedly agree and I think it's something
that really needed.
I follow.
There's a community on Twitteron retweet that is just for LPs
and there's an attorney thatruns it.
I'm trying to remember his name.
I can't remember it.
I can see his face but it'sinvaluable, right, because
that's what he does is.
He represents limited partnersTo connect.
He's absolutely Andrew.
(25:09):
It starts with a C, but I can'tremember his last name.
The information shared isinvaluable and I wasn't there as
an LP, I was there as a fly onthe wall.
I just want to see what peoplecare about and what works for
them, what bothers them, whatstresses them out, what makes
them feel good, what providesvalue.
That's what I was looking for.
Chad Ackerman (25:28):
So it's an interesting community.
Yeah, I think there's so muchgreen space here that you can
make it as big as you want tomake it.
If I can start introducingpeople to the space and get them
excited about it, like I am, Icall that a victory.
Ed Mathews (25:43):
That's success for me.
Amen, yeah, all right, so let'stalk about victories, then
We'll get into the final five.
And so first one is all aboutgetting out of bed on Monday
morning.
Right, I'm curious.
You've obviously done very wellwith your real estate and the
sale of left field and nowyou're building care.
So clearly, people get to apoint in life where the mortgage
is getting paid, kids' collegeis all set, the cars are paid
(26:04):
off, right, no credit card debt,but you still get out of bed on
Monday morning.
And I'm curious in my the way Idefine that as purpose, right.
So I'm curious about yourpurpose.
What gets you out of bed onMonday morning?
Chad Ackerman (26:15):
Yeah, I honestly it's what we're doing right now.
It's these conversations ofjust talk real estate with
people, introduce them to thespace.
That's huge to me.
I could go work at Lowe's rightnow and I'd be just fine, but
would I be excited to get out ofbed to do that?
No, the fact I can still talkabout real estate with people
and introduce new people to it,it's still new enough.
That LP is still there's justfew enough of us that you can't
(26:38):
go talk to your neighbors, youcan't talk to your family
typically about this.
So I want to introduce peopleto it and help them find other
like-minded people that they canjust grow on, and so if I can
start and introduce people to it, that covers my purpose in a
heartbeat.
Ed Mathews (26:53):
Yeah, for sure.
That's interesting.
You get together with familyand everything.
Hey, how's your business?
Oh, it's good.
They have no idea, they reallydon't know, and it's fine.
I remember my youngest, who wasmuch smaller than saying
something about my dad hassomething to do with dirt.
I have no idea what it is.
Chad Ackerman (27:08):
I guess I actually thought I should run my
family through my material andsee what, if any, light bulbs go
on or not.
Oh, I'm sure that's what you'vebeen doing all this time,
exactly.
Ed Mathews (27:17):
So I'm always interested in mentors and the
folks that have given you adviceand help over the years.
What's the best advice you evergot and who gave it to you?
Chad Ackerman (27:26):
I think one of the ones that's been the most
important to me, and I heard itfrom a buddy and I've read it in
a couple books.
But it was you're the productof the five closest people that
you you're next to, and Iliterally had to not separate
myself, but I purposely wentlooking for five better people
(27:46):
to be around, if you will.
I knew where I wanted to go.
I talked to friends about itand they just didn't quite get
it either yet.
So I knew I wasn't going to getthe support I needed there,
that I went and sought outpeople that were like-minded,
that were to your point earlier,a few steps ahead of me, so
that I could learn off of them,and that just skyrocketed what I
(28:08):
did.
I really I fed off of them.
They had great information.
I probably asked them way toomany questions that burned them
out, but it was great and it wasa dichotomy of people that were
a couple steps ahead of me andpeople that were several steps
ahead of me.
I knew several steps was hardbecause it was pie in the sky
for me at the time.
It was too far away.
So I liked having that mix ofwhat are the next few steps
(28:31):
going to look like.
I like that mix of people tolean on and learn from.
Having that mixture reallyworked out well for me.
Ed Mathews (28:38):
Yeah, it does, because they see different types
of deals, right, exactly.
Somebody who's got a thousandplus units is seeing entirely
different deals.
The person that you're meetingat a local meetup who's got a
couple hundred units, exactly,and both have their challenges
and they're probably similar,but there's different stuff to
talk about yeah, yeah, and Iwant to meet both sides.
Chad Ackerman (28:58):
I want to meet that non-accredited.
I want to explain to them whatnon-accredited is and help them
understand.
Hey, you can grow in this spaceas a non-accredited person too,
and then you'll reach thatthreshold and the sky will open
up even further for you at thatpoint.
Ed Mathews (29:12):
So let's talk about.
We had alluded earlier aboutGPs falling, stepping on their
ties, as they say.
Over the course of the last fewyears it's been a rough hoe.
I was at a conference RaisedMasters down in Phoenix and the
theme was survive to 25.
And one speaker, tom Dilley,came in.
He goes 95% of the people inthis room right now won't be
here next year.
I was like oh really, I'll letyou know, I'll be back next year
(29:35):
, I'm going to be okay, so seeabout the rest.
But it's always interestingabout mistakes because I
actually think I fundamentallybelieve, actually, that we learn
so much more from the mistakeswe make than from our successes.
And here at my company that's ahuge thing.
No one gets in trouble formaking a mistake.
It's a matter of, okay, whatdid we do?
(29:57):
What were we thinking at themoment?
Was that the best decision wecould make with the information
we had?
What's the process we wentthrough and it just didn't work
out.
If we skip steps or something,then we fix it and don't do it
again.
But the fact that we're humanbeings nobody's perfect, right,
it's a constant process.
I'm a techie guy, so I'mprocess oriented.
Anyways, everything has achecklist and if the checklist
(30:19):
is wrong, then let's fix it.
I tell people all the time.
I'm like, hey, I don't need tobe right, we just need to get it
right.
So let's figure that out.
So I'm curious about a mistakethat you made in your
professional travels, thatdecision you'd like to have back
, and what'd you do to fix it?
Chad Ackerman (30:35):
Yeah, I'd go back to that original investment
again of pulling the trigger onsomething that I should not have
gone into because my criteriawas not set right.
Goal with my business is tohelp people find clarity first
around their goals that theyhave, build their confidence to
be able to go, then ultimatelytake that action.
(30:55):
I 100% agree.
Taking action is going to serveyou so much more than analyzing
to death you might get it wrong.
You don't want to get it wrongtoo often.
Obviously it's not our goalhere by any means.
But getting wrong hopefullyisn't the end of the world that
you can learn from it and thennot make similar mistakes the
next time.
But mine was definitely thatfirst investment and my lesson
(31:15):
learned was pause, take the timeto study what I really want out
of it and then use that as afilter to trim down all the
deals that I was getting in myinbox so that I could go find
the ones that really worked forme and what I was trying to do.
Ed Mathews (31:30):
Begin with the end in mind.
Right, you hit the target whenyou're aiming.
Chad Ackerman (31:34):
It's amazing.
The analogy I got was how fastdo you want to run in the dark
anyway?
Ed Mathews (31:39):
You run into that light pole that is sitting out
there somewhere, a random treeor something Okay.
So I'm also always interestedin leaders like you who are
obviously you're an educator,but I would I'm fairly confident
in assuming that you're alsosomebody who values education
yourself, and so I'm curiousabout how you take in
(31:59):
information.
And really what I'm driving atis what's the book on your
nightstand, physically orvirtually?
I'm curious what you're readingand who you're paying attention
to.
Chad Ackerman (32:07):
Yeah.
So because of where I am withthis business now, I've actually
gone back and trying to findmaterial of books that are out
there to introduce people tothis space.
So I've got a book by GaryLipsky here that's Invest Smart
Spotting Red Flags in RealEstate Syndications.
So I've gone back to try tofind some of that core material
that's out there for beginnersto help see that it reinforces
(32:30):
my message and my education thatI'm doing so I can provide
something more meaty.
I'm a data collector, so Idon't like to think I've got the
answers.
Let me ask, Ed, what would youtalk to a newbie about?
Let me make sure I've bakedthat in so that I can build the
best quality stuff that I can toshare with people.
Ed Mathews (32:47):
One of my favorite questions is what question am I
not asking that I should?
Chad Ackerman (32:49):
Yes, yeah, so that's where my logic is these
days.
Ed Mathews (32:52):
Yeah, it's Gary Lipsky.
Chad Ackerman (32:54):
L-I-P-S-K-Y.
He's with Today Capital Okay.
Ed Mathews (32:57):
All right, I'll make sure that we put that in the
link as well.
Cool, all right.
So the last one is success.
I kind of where you are in yourstation in life.
How are you defining successtoday?
Chad Ackerman (33:09):
Success today to me is twofold.
It's education related, butit's, first and foremost, trying
to teach my kids about this asmuch as I can, giving them as
much information that they canhave.
That feeds into them makingbetter decisions earlier on than
I did my son's 19.
He's passed on the college idea.
He was done with school.
He actually came to me when hewas 17, starting his senior year
(33:31):
, and said I think I want tobecome an electrician and I want
to flip houses.
Won't that help me be able toflip houses?
I'm like absolutely I love thisidea.
And he started into his job.
He filled out a Roth IRA lastyear, filled one up.
He's got one on par to go upthis year and he's saving money
like crazy.
And I'm like he's starting tolook at houses now and I'm like
(33:52):
great, let's talk about it.
What is a good investment foryou at your age and everything,
and what can we do together?
How can I help?
What can you get into?
So it's education around mykids.
They're the biggest thing to me.
They're the most importantthing.
Further education of thecommunity to introduce more
people to this space.
(34:12):
If I can introduce a person ayear, I hope it's a lot more
than that.
But that's success to me ofjust bringing people into the
fold, showing them there'ssomething more than Wall Street
and being stuck in the grind andburning out in a W-2 because
you got to work for thosedollars and everything like that
.
I had a buddy who was in hisearly forties, had a heart
attack and couldn't work for ayear.
There's my test case of exactlywhy I want my money working for
(34:36):
me, just in case because younever know what's going to
happen that I want thatinsurance of money working for
me rather than me working forthe money all the time.
Ed Mathews (34:45):
Absolutely, and your son is really smart.
I was just talking to somebodynot three days ago about if and
I let's just say I didn't takeadvantage of the college
educational opportunity that Iprobably could have.
Right, I had fun, but the thingis that if I had to look back
on now, if I were 17, I wouldgive a trade a very serious look
(35:07):
, especially because the returnon investment for college it's
debatable.
Right, you're going to spend.
There are colleges.
You and I are probably in asimilar station in that or a
similar point where you know atleast one of our kids were
looking at colleges.
There are schools out there.
My wife and I went to the samecollege where we met and that
school is, I want to say, 85 or$90,000 a year and the average
(35:33):
for a non-technical degreecoming out, the average income,
is like in the seventies.
So you're going to get more$500,000 in debt for a $70,000 a
year job.
What do you do?
What do we do?
Chad Ackerman (35:45):
Yeah, no, I was so proud of it, it was the most
mature thing I'd ever seen himdo to that point was to have
that thought and feel, thatstrategy, which I'm like hey,
I'm glad you're not going towaste my money in college and
burn through it, which he's 95%me, so I know how he's going to
act, but the fact that he cameup with it I was so proud.
Now he and his sister she's incollege, she's studying
(36:07):
architecture they have thislittle battle of who's going to
be happier, who's going to bemore successful.
So define success.
What does that mean exactly?
You got to find happy, but Ilove it.
Both of them are doing great.
I'm proud of both of them.
Ed Mathews (36:18):
Yeah, yeah, I'll tell you.
And the other thing I'll tellyou is that up until about my
early forties, the richest guy Iever met was a plumber.
Hand to God, his name was BillTempleton and he was a local
plumber who he would charge acertain amount of money for his
time and his guys, and a certainamount of it went into a little
savings, actually, and heshowed me, I would guess, a
(36:54):
small portion of his portfolio.
We went driving around and Iwas like that's $20 million
worth of real estate and just aregular guy worked hard for a
living.
That's it.
Chad Ackerman (37:03):
Yeah.
So to me that's the educationthat's missed is we're growing
up.
We were at least assuming we'resimilar age.
We were taught go to school,get a job, work there for 35
years, put your money in the401k.
Or, if they have a pension atthe time, great, get the pension
and work with it.
But as I studied wealthy peoplethis is a little hobby I went
through Real estate was in everyone of their portfolios and
(37:26):
whole life insurance programswere in a lot of those
portfolios and all these toolsthat nobody had ever explained
to me that I'm like that's whatI want to help people just
understand so they can maketheir own decisions around.
At least know, hey, you don'thave to be a multimillionaire to
get into this space.
You can do this as a regularW-2 and grow it like he did.
Do one at a time, take yourtime to save some money up, keep
(37:49):
it in the machine for a whileand it'll do well for you.
Ed Mathews (37:52):
Yeah, and it's not everything right.
I don't know about you, myfamily's assets.
We have a portion of our stuffin real estate and a portion in
the stock market and things, butmost of it's in the stock
market and I don't know aboutthat anymore.
Actually, I take that back, butthe fact is that it's not
everything right.
It's just a little piece ofyour, within your financial
journey that gives you,hopefully, outsized returns and
(38:15):
downside protection when theinflation bubble pops.
It's going down.
It's great.
It's cheaper for me to buy nowthis is fantastic.
Chad Ackerman (38:21):
But then, as I started getting older, I'm like
what if I need that money atsome point?
And it's in the down, andthat's where diversification
kicked in for me, or that desireto get to it, that's all it is.
And I'm like, yeah, let mehedge, just in case.
Ed Mathews (38:54):
I feel like real estate, more often than not, is
steady up versus the stockmarket.
That could be up, could be down, who knows.
Chad Ackerman (38:57):
Take your chance with riding the wave at the time
, and the reason I say that isit's not the net worth that sets
you free from UW2, it's thecashflow, and those are two
entirely different and educationaround that to understand that
of when you're talking about, oh, I want financial freedom, what
are you really talking about?
What does that mean to you?
Let's understand that so youunderstand.
I can explain it to you, maybemore so that you can make good
decisions then about what you'reinvesting in.
Ed Mathews (39:15):
Yeah, when I asked the question about success
almost to a person.
They talk about time freedom,right that's, I don't have to
ask anybody other than my wifeor significant other where I'm
going.
But the fact is that's beingable to live life on your terms
without having to ask permissionof anybody.
Chad Ackerman (39:32):
Yeah, I had reached that point where I was
still in my W-2.
They knew what was going on.
They knew I was short-term.
I never felt more empoweredLike they literally went through
.
I was at a big company, cardinalHealth and they started going
through a little bit of layoffsand a person in our department
got laid off and I went to myboss and my boss's boss and I
said, look, I'm short term, fireme, give me a packet, I'll take
(39:54):
the package and go anyway.
But there are people here thatneed a job or want their job
still.
I'm on my way out, so just takeme.
But I was in such a specializedjob focused on sales comp
they're like we can't,unfortunately, we need you here
still that I negotiated down.
I was working one day a weekfor a while, keeping full
benefits, just because theywanted to keep me on.
(40:14):
I'm like I'll stay for that fora while longer.
That's fine Financial freedomto me.
I wasn't totally free, but itput me in a spot where I had
that ability to negotiate things.
I'd never been able tonegotiate before.
Ed Mathews (40:25):
It's amazing.
That was a great feeling.
It's amazing how clear yourhead gets when you don't need
that gig.
It's not, oh my God.
I need that paycheck on Fridayor on the 15th and the first, in
order to pay the mortgage.
I want to try to help peopleget there.
Chad Ackerman (40:39):
Do what I can anyway to lead them down a path.
Ed Mathews (40:42):
I'm a fan, so good luck, and let me know how I can
help.
Chad Ackerman (41:04):
And with that let's talk about something
non-real estate related, andwith that let's talk about
something non-real me somehow.
So I'm trying to focus on that.
But golf's there Trying tochase the kids a little bit
still, or let them know I'mstill around anyway.
Those kind of things, thosekeep me busiest these days.
Ed Mathews (41:20):
Yeah, yeah.
If you play golf like I do, Ifind the water a lot.
Chad Ackerman (41:23):
Yeah, see, I combine two things in one.
Ed Mathews (41:25):
So, chad, if folks want to learn more about you
individually, or what's the bestway to do that, yeah, you can
find me on LinkedIn ChadAckerman on LinkedIn.
Chad Ackerman (41:33):
I also have my website up.
By the time this airs That'llbe ChadAckermanRealEstate.
com, so come find me there.
I'm happy to reach out, doone-on-ones with people that are
just curious.
See if I can help nudge them inthe direction, give them a
little confidence and get themon their way.
Love to be able to do that forpeople.
Ed Mathews (41:49):
Awesome, Chad.
It's been a pleasure.
Thank you, continued goodfortune.
Thank you for carving out timein your busy schedule to meet
with me and do this show.
Chad Ackerman (41:56):
Absolutely.
I really enjoyed it.
Thank you for the time.
I'm a regular guy .
I was an HR person for cryingout loud.
That's about as normal as itgets.
But I want people to understandthat it doesn't take something
special.
Anybody can do this.
It takes due diligence.
It's called passive investingbut it takes activity to do it,
so we always called it.
You got to be an active passiveinvestor.
But I just want to get peopleover the hump of thinking it's
(00:22):
not for them.
They don't fit the criteria.
People over the hump ofthinking it's not for them.
Ed Mathews (00:26):
They don't fit the criteria.
So the big question is this howdo real estate investors who
don't have a ton of free time,don't have access to off-market
deals and didn't start life onthird base, how do we
conservatively grow our realestate business to support our
families, finally leave thecorporate rat race and build a
legacy?
That is the question, and thispodcast will give you the
(00:48):
answers.
I'm Ed Mathews and this is RealEstate Underground.
Greetings and salutations, realEstate Undergrounders.
It is Ed Mathews with RealEstate Underground.
Thank you so much for joiningus again today.
I really appreciate you makingus a part of your day.
And one favor to ask if you'regetting good information or
value out of these shows.
(01:09):
I would greatly appreciate ifyou follow us on the platform in
which you download yourpodcasts.
Leave us a comment if there's atopic you'd like us to talk
about.
I read every single one.
I swear I do.
And also, if you really aregetting a lot of value, tell a
friend.
It helps us grow.
So with that I am joined byChad Ackerman.
Chad is a Cincinnati Bearcatwhich I you know.
(01:31):
Most of the people I meet fromOhio are usually Buckeyes,
because there's more of them Idon't want to break your heart.
Chad Ackerman (01:36):
But paid money to go to Cincinnati.
But my heart belongs to theBuckeyes.
Ed Mathews (01:40):
That's okay.
That belongs to the Buckeyes aswell, that's okay, that's fine.
Chad Ackerman (01:42):
You see more Ohio State memorabilia back here
than Bearcat.
Ed Mathews (01:44):
Chad.
Welcome to the show andcongratulations on your national
championship.
Chad Ackerman (01:49):
Thank you you beat a national championship
team this year, so you got thatto brag about.
Ed Mathews (01:53):
Yeah.
Chad Ackerman (01:53):
I like to think my yelling accommodated for 2%
of the victories.
Ed Mathews (02:05):
Value in some small Somehow.
So welcome to the show.
So, Chad, you and I actuallyfollow someone very closely and
that is Brian Tracy, and I knowyou've got a ton of experience
in his works and his consultingfirm, Focal Point, and I also
know that you are a heavy dutyreal estate investor and one of
the things that was reallyexciting and intriguing about
your story and I'm going to makeyou tell it not me, but how you
are joining your very deep andbroad real estate experience
(02:27):
with your business training thatyou got from the Brian Tracy
world Welcome.
Why don't you tell us a littlebit about who you are and what
you do?
Chad Ackerman (02:34):
Yeah, absolutely.
So.
My journey started like a lotof people go through.
I was a career W2 guy.
I was in human resources, ofall things, so it wasn't like I
was in finance or something.
It is the number side of HR, ifyou will a lot of spreadsheet
work.
But I was chasing the W-2,filling out my 401k, doing all
the things we were taught to doas Gen Xers, and it hit that
(02:57):
point.
I actually changed jobs at onepoint in time and a gal that I
was working with dropped thelittle nugget on me of of she
was trying to come up withmultiple income streams and real
estate was one of the thingsshe was looking at.
I was like I used to be in realestate years ago.
I've always liked it.
I get it.
It makes sense.
I'm going to start studyingthis.
And I had windshield time that Istarted listening to.
(03:20):
Podcasts, turned into listeningto books and I got bit by the
bug and I was ready to go.
And the podcast turned intolistening to books and I got bit
by the bug and I was ready togo.
But there's a lot of shinyobjects to go through and so I
didn't act on anything for along period of time and studied
and ended up finding a localgroup to join and just learn
more, meet some people in thespace.
Went to a few of those meetingsand the last one I attended,
(03:41):
the founder of that group got upand talked about how he had
left his W-2 because he wasinvesting passively in real
estate and syndications, andthat was like the switch that
needed to flip for me that I methim afterwards found out we
lived in the same suburb ofColumbus, ohio, so we got
together for a beer and Ilearned more and within a couple
(04:04):
months I was writing a checkfor my first syndication deal.
I was ready to go and I got bitby it so bad that I was like the
only thing this takes iscapital.
Where do I have capital?
I've got it sitting in that401k and talking to some of my
mentors, they're like you'regoing to pay tax on that money
no matter when you take it out.
(04:24):
So you can almost scrub thatidea as being an issue.
You're really just confrontedwith the 10% penalty that you're
going to take.
I was 49, 50 at the time.
I'm like the next 15 years Ican make more than 10% on that
money, I feel like.
So I pulled the trigger on thatas well and liquidated the 401k
, moved it all into real estateand it got me to a point where I
(04:46):
was able to leave my W-2.
Along that timeframe.
We also started saying, hey, weshould start a meetup that's
focused on syndications,business as well, teach people
how to be limited partners andjust share experiences.
And we started a group calledLeft Field Investors and the
quick story on that one was ourfirst meeting was scheduled to
be March 18th of 2020.
(05:07):
The world shut down three daysbefore that.
Yeah, so we were a pandemic babybecause we wanted to be a local
meetup and just get 10 or 12 ofus around a table.
That put us on zoom, thatallowed us to invite people that
we knew that weren't local andas many people as we could get.
And it grew and grew to wherewe ended up with about 2000
people in our community when wewere said and done.
We didn't collect capital, weweren't capital raisers, we just
(05:28):
wanted to have a place forlittle peas to come and share
experiences.
But we tried to track what theyinvested with our group anyway
and we had over $50 millioninvested out of our community in
a year and a half timeframe.
Wow, it was a very engagedgroup it was, and we learned a
lot.
It was great and it went sowell that we ended up catching
(05:49):
the attention of BiggerPockets.
And last year we sold LeftfieldInvestors to BiggerPockets and
it's now branded asPassivePockets instead.
And we had a great time withthat.
It was a great journey.
It was good to see resourcesput to it that were bigger than
what we had.
So we sold it.
I'm still on as an advisorycommittee member helping advise
(06:10):
it along the way for the nextfew years.
But I wanted to go out and dosomething else.
I wasn't ready to be done.
I still wanted to be active inthis community, in this
environment, and that's when Iwent out and bought a franchise
with Brian Tracy's group FocalPoint.
I thought what a great blend totake coaching skills blended
with my experience and be ableto bring that back and give back
to the community that I wasjust with and try to introduce
(06:33):
people to it.
That was my biggest energy.
Out of Left Field Investors wasmeeting new people and inviting
them in to educate them on thisspace.
I want to continue to do thatbecause I really enjoy that side
of this.
Now here I am as a businesscoach setting up my own business
called CARE Chad Ackerman RealEstate to coach new aspiring
(06:53):
limited partners on what thisspace is about and how to
navigate it and get going, buildthe confidence to take action
and write that first check.
Ed Mathews (07:01):
Yeah, it's a hell of a journey.
I'll tell you Congratulations.
Chad Ackerman (07:04):
There is a book in the works as we talk about it
.
Ed Mathews (07:08):
So when that comes out, we'll have you back and
first off, I can't wait to readit, or probably listen to it,
and and the fact is that it'syou've done quite a bit in this
space and I always tell people Iliken it to reading a book,
right, and you may be a fewchapters ahead of me.
I may be a few chapters ahead ofsomebody else.
The beauty of that sharedexperience, whether it's through
(07:28):
a community or social media ora book, is you're boiling down
years and years and years of,frankly, some mistakes and a
whole bunch of successes andhopefully it's that way and not
the other way and boiling thatexperience down to something
that's digestible in a few daysworth of reading, and it's.
It's an amazing thing, becausewe'll talk about mentors a
(07:49):
little later in the show, butone of the one of the things
that being a mentor does is itwarms your soul, right.
I've had plenty of mentors outthere who have been very kind
and very generous, and I metsome of them through the local
RIA or other meetups.
They didn't want anything fromme, they just wanted to see me
succeed.
The only thing they asked of meis hey, when you figure it out,
(08:11):
teach other people and doneHappy to do it 100% Right.
Chad Ackerman (08:15):
No, that's exactly it.
I come from a family ofeducators.
Anyway, both my parents were,or half my relatives are that
it's just in my blood to go giveback and educate and teach to
fish rather than fishing forthem kind of thing.
So it just comes organically tome and it just seemed like a
good time, with all that we'vedone with left field, to go back
(08:36):
into that community andintroduce more people to it.
Ed Mathews (08:39):
That's my natural progression right.
So you are educating limitedpartners, and I find that very
in this world, because most ofthe people out there are
teaching people how to syndicate, how to flip houses, how to
actually be an operator on somelevel within this real estate
world, but there is no educationon how the heck do you take
(09:02):
50,000, $100,000, whatever thenumber is, hand it to somebody
that either you just met oryou've known for a long time and
be able to evaluate asyndication or a project and
then hopefully receive passiveincome over the next three, five
, seven years and get it back?
Chad Ackerman (09:20):
Yeah, a hundred percent.
I think the biggest thing thatalmost is a book of itself is
like a myth busters book aboutbeing an LP.
I think there's so manymisnomers about well, you've got
to be rich or no, this is forprivate equity or this is for
institutional.
No, this is.
I'm a regular guy.
I was an HR person.
For crying out loud, that'sabout as normal as it gets.
(09:42):
For crying out loud, that'sabout as normal as it gets.
I want people to understand thatit doesn't take something
special.
Anybody can do this.
It takes due diligence.
It's called passive investing,but it takes activity to do it.
So we always called it.
You got to be an active passiveinvestor.
But I just want to get peopleover the hump of thinking it's
not for them.
They don't fit the criteria.
(10:03):
Even that $25,000, $50,000check that it takes to get in.
There's ways to get around that.
There's companies likeTribeVest that we've worked with
for years where you could pullmoney together with friends or
family or something, and maybeyou're only putting $5,000 in
per deal instead of $25,000.
So I want to help people getover the hump.
Our name Left Field Investorscame from the fact that our
(10:24):
financial advisors and people weknew said oh, that syndication
stuff that's out in left field,you don't want to do that.
No, it needs to be a part ofthis and, to your point, it's
exactly why we started LeftField.
There wasn't enough educationout there.
We could Google it, we couldfind how to flip houses or we
could find how to become ageneral partner.
We couldn't find a lot to teachus how to be an LP and that's
(10:45):
why we started building LeftField the way we did.
I always thought a great legacyfor Left Field, or now maybe
for me and my own business, isif I could build content that
was taught in community college,in high school, in whatever
level.
Have content out there toeducate people at an early age.
I'm trying to do it with mykids.
My kids are 19 and 21 now.
(11:07):
I've got them in a tribe withme.
I invest with them together, Iwalk them through my due
diligence so they understand ata much earlier age than I
discover it and they can makebetter decisions down the road.
I don't think everybody shouldliquidate their 401k and jump in
like I did.
I think there's a diversityamount there.
Have your Wall Street.
We called it left field, centerfield, right field.
(11:28):
Right field was Wall Street,was the stock market.
We thought center field wasreally where you want to play,
where you've got some money onboth sides, so you got
diversification.
I just want to get out and meetthe common guy that's looking
for something else and let themknow hey, here's an avenue that
can go.
And then, if I can get them tothe conversation about tax
benefits of it, that seems toreally open up their eyes quite
(11:50):
a bit more too.
They get excited about that.
Ed Mathews (11:52):
Especially come April, they're writing a big
honking check.
Chad Ackerman (11:58):
And even more if we get some laws passed here
soon.
That might bring back 100%bonus depreciation as Christmas
comes early.
So that's my motivation.
Ed Mathews (12:04):
Excellent, and how do you go about it?
What's the way to deliver thistraining?
Is it workshops?
Is it meetup groups?
Like, how are you doing it?
Chad Ackerman (12:12):
yeah, no, my goal is I'm going to offer a free
webinar.
It's going to try to offer awebinar a month just to give
some tidbits, introduce peopleto some of it, give them a
little nugget or two, and thenoff of that I've got workshops
that I'm going to dig in alittle bit deeper around and
structuring it like aneducational one-on-one,
two-on-one, three-on-one kind ofcontent.
So, depending on the skilllevel if you're brand new,
versus if you've been doing thisfor a while and you want a
(12:34):
deeper dive I want to be able tooffer that kind of content for
anybody, and then I'm absolutelyhappy to do one-on-one coaching
.
If somebody needs thatinteraction or wants to really
hey, let's look at somethingtogether.
I'll definitely offer that kindof flexibility to them as well
just to see what I can do tohelp.
Ed Mathews (12:54):
Yeah, it's interesting, and I've talked
about this on previous shows aswell.
I regularly meet people whostop me at the local coffee shop
or the grocery store because Ilive in a small area, so we all
know what everybody does for aliving.
They're like oh man, I wish Iknew how to get into real estate
and do what you do.
And the question I always askis what's stopping you?
And the big three that Iusually find are yeah, I don't
know where the money is, I don'tknow how to find the deals, and
(13:15):
all three of those in my mind.
When I hear any of those three,I think, okay, you're afraid.
Chad Ackerman (13:21):
And it's a ton of responsibility.
Ed Mathews (13:23):
Of course you're afraid, but the way to get over
that and the way I got over ittook me three years to get the
courage to pull the trigger on adeal.
It sounds like it took you alittle bit of time as well.
Was education right and if youcan offer a process to say, okay
, ed Mathews, operator at Clarkstreet, is handing you Chad
Ackerman, a potential limitedpartner, a private placement
(13:46):
memorandum, evaluate that deal,see if Ed and his team know what
they're talking about or ifthey're just full of it, cause
there's a whole bunch of snakeoil in this part of the world as
well.
Absolutely, what is the processthat you'll take them through?
I know you'd said 101, 201, 301.
So that's high school topostgraduate studies.
Chad Ackerman (14:08):
There you go, phd yeah.
Ed Mathews (14:10):
What is?
How do you?
Two questions actually.
One, how do you decide, as apotential LP, which level is
right for me, and then how doyou help them with that?
And then, secondly, what is thekind of core focus of each of
those levels?
Chad Ackerman (14:25):
Yeah, Now what I want to do is offer up some
one-on-one discussions ifthey're interested, to get
started and feel out their skilllevel and recommend where it
might fit best for them to helpguide them on my material.
Would it be valuable to them?
But I always go back and startwith goals, Like I made a
mistake with my first investment.
(14:45):
I didn't know what I was tryingto do.
I got sucked into the shinyobject syndrome and I pulled the
trigger on a 17 story buildingin Cleveland that was going from
office to multifamily.
That just looked awesome 7Xkind of pro forma.
Just it was clicking on all theboxes that I was excited about.
(15:05):
I was really looking forcashflow because I wanted to
leave my W-2.
I wasn't even thinking aboutcashflow, I was chasing the
shiny object.
That was a terrible investmentto get into if I want cashflow,
Cause it didn't it.
Sadly it ended up going out.
He couldn't get theconstruction loans figured out
and ended up losing it becausehis bridge loan ran out of time.
(15:27):
So it ended up my worst casescenario.
But I shouldn't have been inthe first place because it
didn't align to my goals.
It wasn't going to cashflow foryears.
So it takes some time to spendenergy on that first step of
what's your strategy.
What are you really trying todo with this?
Because that filter is huge atthe top, where there are so many
things to do.
The more you can get thosegoals in place at the beginning,
(15:50):
then you can trim out a lot ofthat and it's a lot less
distracting so you can getfocused.
And then it is about duediligence and we'll talk about
how we say bet the jockey, notthe horse.
So it's spend time vetting theoperator before you look at
their deals, Understand who youcan know and trust.
And a way we say to build thatis to get into a community of
(16:11):
limited partners.
There's a few of them out there.
Passive Pockets is the one thatwe transpired into.
There are other ones out there.
Join multiple of them, becauseyou're just going to be able to
get that data.
I won't invest with an operatornow that I can't go into
Passive Pockets and say, hey,have you ever heard of Chad
Ackerman Real Estate before?
And if nobody replies, itdoesn't mean I'll never invest
(16:36):
with them, but it means, hey, Iwant to watch you for a year and
see what you're doing.
Uh, cause everybody I knownobody spoke up and said they
know you.
So I want to know somebody thatknows you before I'm going to
invest with you or I'm going towatch you for a period of time.
Ed Mathews (16:46):
Yeah, it's interesting because you know the
world like I liken it to buyinga car.
So we just bought my daughter acar and time was when I went to
go buy.
She's graduated from college,so I had kids.
Basically the same age.
And time was when I went to gobuy my first car.
I went in and they gave me theshiny brochure and I thought
about colors and options and allthis stuff and then I bought
(17:10):
basically what I got cajoledinto buying.
I'd like to say I did a goodjob negotiating it.
Maybe I didn't, but whateverthat was these days.
My wife found that car online.
We shopped the living daylightsout of it.
We had a Carfax report on itbecause it had six miles on it,
but it was a 2024.
I'm not sure, but yeah, my wifeis like a dog on a bone with
this stuff and by the time wewalked in we knew I don't want
(17:38):
the white one.
I want that VIN number.
I want that car and it's worththis and this is what I'll pay
for it.
Instead of a four hournegotiation, drive around, pick
a color, let me see if I canfind that one and all that it
was.
We want that one for thisnumber.
Okay, I can't do that number,but I can do this number.
Turns out there's anotherprogram.
We can do that number.
Fantastic, where do I sign?
(17:59):
45 minutes later, everythingwas done and they washed the car
and an hour after that we weregone.
We were there for 90 minutes.
Maybe it's a different world,different world, and I think
that the limited partner realestate world is very similar in
that, like you were saying, ifyou don't know a guy who knows
me or you or whatever, tap thebrakes, because the best and
(18:23):
most efficient way to evaluatesomebody is by following
somebody who's already done thatwork and succeeded.
Chad Ackerman (18:29):
Agreed, and I tell people all the time right
now there's no better time to bean LP than right now, because a
lot of those GPs that were newand didn't know what they were
doing, that were the risk thatwe didn't realize, have gotten
exposed because they didn'tstructure, they didn't know all
the lessons.
Yet you have a list of GPs thatmade it through the past
several years, fine.
(18:50):
If you have some that even dateback to 2008, all the better.
They've been through a coupleof financial crises and if
they've made it through it, thenthat makes me feel a lot better
about them.
Hopefully people that haveworked with them, and you can
get some direct contact fromthem too.
But all of that, I think, justfeeds into it, which, just like
I said, makes it easier to be anLP now, because five years ago
(19:11):
anybody could start up asyndication and they were doing
well.
I got burned.
I got caught on a couple ofthem that they didn't.
Everything flipped on them andthey weren't prepared for it,
and we didn't either.
I study deals a lot better thanI usedureen Miles, and it was a
4M real estate.
Ed Mathews (19:35):
I think, and the reason I mentioned it is because
it was resoundingly successful.
I knew people that knew Maureenreally well and those people I
trusted implicitly because theywere smarter than me and high
integrity type people andthey're like, if I'm putting my
money down, it's going to be onMo, and so I put a little chunk
(19:56):
of money in that and two, threeyears later it came back in 2X
and it was wonderful.
I'm pretty sure she retired,damn it.
I got lucky.
But the key that you mentionedearlier was really important for
that success, which was I knewa whole bunch of people that
knew her really well bunch ofpeople that knew her really well
(20:16):
.
Chad Ackerman (20:16):
It's too risky not to know people and it
doesn't mean we always get itright.
There have been tried and trueGPs that have been running for
years, really profitable, reallygood situations that have
turned up recently with gettingexposed that something wasn't
correct.
We all got burned, but you'reminimizing that risk by getting
in a community and gettingfeedback from people that have
been investing with them forsome time Absolutely.
(20:37):
The other thing we're justscratching the surface on is how
AI can assist with a lot ofthis LP work as well, To be
determined still.
There's constant stories andpodcasts about it these days,
but all of them say the samething it's not going to tell you
whether the deal's a go or nogo still it hasn't got to that
degree.
But can it help you do duediligence and you give it your
(20:58):
buy box and it tells you if it'sin or out.
That's great and to me, it'sunderstanding that criteria of
your buy box.
That takes the emotion out ofthis, so you can make a better
decision on this.
Yeah, it's red, light greenlight and get over the fear of
missing out, because there'sgoing to be another deal coming
around the corner.
So don't make one squeeze in toyour buy box.
Take the time, be patient.
(21:18):
Without a doubt, save yourselfa lot of headache if you do.
Ed Mathews (21:21):
And a whole lot.
Yeah, headache being heysignificant other, I lost
$50,000.
That's what and we'll figure itout.
Nobody wants thoseconversations Great way to get a
frying pan smacked over here,exactly and so you're going to
(21:42):
basically create this by thetime this show comes out.
This will all be live, whichI'm excited for.
I also think that it wouldbehoove general partners to go
through this process as well,because one of the things that
I'm always interested in is howpeople evaluate me.
Interested in is how peopleevaluate me.
One of the things that I like todo after an investment's made
is have lunch or buy a cup ofcoffee and ask them what did we
do right?
What can we do better?
What should we continue doing?
(22:03):
What should we stop doing?
And just help me and help ourteam get better right, and the
feedback we get is, most of it'speople, very nice, but I don't
want to hurt my feelings oranything like that, but every
once in a while I get somebodythat was a look.
This went really well until youor one of your people did this,
and then I caused me pause andthen I had to sit down with you
(22:23):
and figure that out and wefigured it out and we moved
forward.
I didn't have to go ask thosequestions.
It would be much better andmore transparency.
Okay, no problem, we candefinitely do that, and so it's.
I think that general partnerswould be blown away by how
people evaluate their properties, because I think there's I've
(22:47):
met so many of these GPs overthe years there's a whole lot of
confirmation bias floatingaround in the air, right.
Chad Ackerman (22:54):
A hundred percent .
Ed Mathews (22:55):
Yeah.
Chad Ackerman (22:55):
So I think it's funny you bring that up.
When we sold our company toBiggerPockets, I told one of my
partners.
I said you know what ourspinoff company out of this is,
somebody that goes and coachesGPs.
Because it said there's veryfew people that have had the
access to LPs that we've had,have had the access to LPs that
we've had and the blindtransparency that we had
(23:17):
unfiltered kind of feedback thatwe received.
I ran it past a couple of GPstoo and they were like we talked
to hundreds of GPs every week.
But so how honest do you thinkthey were with you versus how
honest they were with me?
I said you do it well, youprobably get 80% of it, but I
bet we get 10 or 20% that youdon't know or hear all the time.
That's probably valuable to youtoo.
(23:40):
So I haven't figured out how towork that out necessarily yet,
but we had the exact same idea.
I think there's value there tohelp GPs and, if nothing else,
every GP I've ever met has saidI like educated LPs so much
better than the non-educated one, cause they just know the
process.
I'm like that's what I want todo is help educate that LP so
they're better LP for you.
(24:01):
Part of my approach will be togo back to the GPs that I know
really well and say, hey, I'mdoing these courses.
Put this out to your people,see if any of them are
interested.
Ed Mathews (24:09):
But maybe on that list.
Absolutely.
I think there's value there forboth sides on that list.
Chad Ackerman (24:11):
Absolutely.
I think there's value there forboth sides.
That's always what it felt likewe played at left field was the
middleman role of trying tohelp GPs with what we could, but
educate LPs as well, so thatthey all got together and
there's enough place to space toplay in this space that we just
wanted to get people togetherand then make the most of it.
So I'm still trying to maximize.
Ed Mathews (24:35):
But of it.
So I'm still trying to maximize, but the education on both
sides is the really key.
All right, chad, I could talkfor days.
Chad Ackerman (24:39):
This is what tells me that I'm doing the
right thing, because I get intothese conversations all the time
.
Now I lean into my chair andI'm pumped up about it.
I'm glad you think so too.
Ed Mathews (24:49):
I wholeheartedly agree and I think it's something
that really needed.
I follow.
There's a community on Twitteron retweet that is just for LPs
and there's an attorney thatruns it.
I'm trying to remember his name.
I can't remember it.
I can see his face but it'sinvaluable, right, because
that's what he does is.
He represents limited partnersTo connect.
He's absolutely Andrew.
(25:09):
It starts with a C, but I can'tremember his last name.
The information shared isinvaluable and I wasn't there as
an LP, I was there as a fly onthe wall.
I just want to see what peoplecare about and what works for
them, what bothers them, whatstresses them out, what makes
them feel good, what providesvalue.
That's what I was looking for.
Chad Ackerman (25:28):
So it's an interesting community.
Yeah, I think there's so muchgreen space here that you can
make it as big as you want tomake it.
If I can start introducingpeople to the space and get them
excited about it, like I am, Icall that a victory.
Ed Mathews (25:43):
That's success for me.
Amen, yeah, all right, so let'stalk about victories, then
We'll get into the final five.
And so first one is all aboutgetting out of bed on Monday
morning.
Right, I'm curious.
You've obviously done very wellwith your real estate and the
sale of left field and nowyou're building care.
So clearly, people get to apoint in life where the mortgage
is getting paid, kids' collegeis all set, the cars are paid
(26:04):
off, right, no credit card debt,but you still get out of bed on
Monday morning.
And I'm curious in my the way Idefine that as purpose, right.
So I'm curious about yourpurpose.
What gets you out of bed onMonday morning?
Chad Ackerman (26:15):
Yeah, I honestly it's what we're doing right now.
It's these conversations ofjust talk real estate with
people, introduce them to thespace.
That's huge to me.
I could go work at Lowe's rightnow and I'd be just fine, but
would I be excited to get out ofbed to do that?
No, the fact I can still talkabout real estate with people
and introduce new people to it,it's still new enough.
That LP is still there's justfew enough of us that you can't
(26:38):
go talk to your neighbors, youcan't talk to your family
typically about this.
So I want to introduce peopleto it and help them find other
like-minded people that they canjust grow on, and so if I can
start and introduce people to it, that covers my purpose in a
heartbeat.
Ed Mathews (26:53):
Yeah, for sure.
That's interesting.
You get together with familyand everything.
Hey, how's your business?
Oh, it's good.
They have no idea, they reallydon't know, and it's fine.
I remember my youngest, who wasmuch smaller than saying
something about my dad hassomething to do with dirt.
I have no idea what it is.
Chad Ackerman (27:08):
I guess I actually thought I should run my
family through my material andsee what, if any, light bulbs go
on or not.
Oh, I'm sure that's what you'vebeen doing all this time,
exactly.
Ed Mathews (27:17):
So I'm always interested in mentors and the
folks that have given you adviceand help over the years.
What's the best advice you evergot and who gave it to you?
Chad Ackerman (27:26):
I think one of the ones that's been the most
important to me, and I heard itfrom a buddy and I've read it in
a couple books.
But it was you're the productof the five closest people that
you you're next to, and Iliterally had to not separate
myself, but I purposely wentlooking for five better people
(27:46):
to be around, if you will.
I knew where I wanted to go.
I talked to friends about itand they just didn't quite get
it either yet.
So I knew I wasn't going to getthe support I needed there,
that I went and sought outpeople that were like-minded,
that were to your point earlier,a few steps ahead of me, so
that I could learn off of them,and that just skyrocketed what I
(28:08):
did.
I really I fed off of them.
They had great information.
I probably asked them way toomany questions that burned them
out, but it was great and it wasa dichotomy of people that were
a couple steps ahead of me andpeople that were several steps
ahead of me.
I knew several steps was hardbecause it was pie in the sky
for me at the time.
It was too far away.
So I liked having that mix ofwhat are the next few steps
(28:31):
going to look like.
I like that mix of people tolean on and learn from.
Having that mixture reallyworked out well for me.
Ed Mathews (28:38):
Yeah, it does, because they see different types
of deals, right, exactly.
Somebody who's got a thousandplus units is seeing entirely
different deals.
The person that you're meetingat a local meetup who's got a
couple hundred units, exactly,and both have their challenges
and they're probably similar,but there's different stuff to
talk about yeah, yeah, and Iwant to meet both sides.
Chad Ackerman (28:58):
I want to meet that non-accredited.
I want to explain to them whatnon-accredited is and help them
understand.
Hey, you can grow in this spaceas a non-accredited person too,
and then you'll reach thatthreshold and the sky will open
up even further for you at thatpoint.
Ed Mathews (29:12):
So let's talk about.
We had alluded earlier aboutGPs falling, stepping on their
ties, as they say.
Over the course of the last fewyears it's been a rough hoe.
I was at a conference RaisedMasters down in Phoenix and the
theme was survive to 25.
And one speaker, tom Dilley,came in.
He goes 95% of the people inthis room right now won't be
here next year.
I was like oh really, I'll letyou know, I'll be back next year
(29:35):
, I'm going to be okay, so seeabout the rest.
But it's always interestingabout mistakes because I
actually think I fundamentallybelieve, actually, that we learn
so much more from the mistakeswe make than from our successes.
And here at my company that's ahuge thing.
No one gets in trouble formaking a mistake.
It's a matter of, okay, whatdid we do?
(29:57):
What were we thinking at themoment?
Was that the best decision wecould make with the information
we had?
What's the process we wentthrough and it just didn't work
out.
If we skip steps or something,then we fix it and don't do it
again.
But the fact that we're humanbeings nobody's perfect, right,
it's a constant process.
I'm a techie guy, so I'mprocess oriented.
Anyways, everything has achecklist and if the checklist
(30:19):
is wrong, then let's fix it.
I tell people all the time.
I'm like, hey, I don't need tobe right, we just need to get it
right.
So let's figure that out.
So I'm curious about a mistakethat you made in your
professional travels, thatdecision you'd like to have back
, and what'd you do to fix it?
Chad Ackerman (30:35):
Yeah, I'd go back to that original investment
again of pulling the trigger onsomething that I should not have
gone into because my criteriawas not set right.
Goal with my business is tohelp people find clarity first
around their goals that theyhave, build their confidence to
be able to go, then ultimatelytake that action.
(30:55):
I 100% agree.
Taking action is going to serveyou so much more than analyzing
to death you might get it wrong.
You don't want to get it wrongtoo often.
Obviously it's not our goalhere by any means.
But getting wrong hopefullyisn't the end of the world that
you can learn from it and thennot make similar mistakes the
next time.
But mine was definitely thatfirst investment and my lesson
(31:15):
learned was pause, take the timeto study what I really want out
of it and then use that as afilter to trim down all the
deals that I was getting in myinbox so that I could go find
the ones that really worked forme and what I was trying to do.
Ed Mathews (31:30):
Begin with the end in mind.
Right, you hit the target whenyou're aiming.
Chad Ackerman (31:34):
It's amazing.
The analogy I got was how fastdo you want to run in the dark
anyway?
Ed Mathews (31:39):
You run into that light pole that is sitting out
there somewhere, a random treeor something Okay.
So I'm also always interestedin leaders like you who are
obviously you're an educator,but I would I'm fairly confident
in assuming that you're alsosomebody who values education
yourself, and so I'm curiousabout how you take in
(31:59):
information.
And really what I'm driving atis what's the book on your
nightstand, physically orvirtually?
I'm curious what you're readingand who you're paying attention
to.
Chad Ackerman (32:07):
Yeah.
So because of where I am withthis business now, I've actually
gone back and trying to findmaterial of books that are out
there to introduce people tothis space.
So I've got a book by GaryLipsky here that's Invest Smart
Spotting Red Flags in RealEstate Syndications.
So I've gone back to try tofind some of that core material
that's out there for beginnersto help see that it reinforces
(32:30):
my message and my education thatI'm doing so I can provide
something more meaty.
I'm a data collector, so Idon't like to think I've got the
answers.
Let me ask, Ed, what would youtalk to a newbie about?
Let me make sure I've bakedthat in so that I can build the
best quality stuff that I can toshare with people.
Ed Mathews (32:47):
One of my favorite questions is what question am I
not asking that I should?
Chad Ackerman (32:49):
Yes, yeah, so that's where my logic is these
days.
Ed Mathews (32:52):
Yeah, it's Gary Lipsky.
Chad Ackerman (32:54):
L-I-P-S-K-Y.
He's with Today Capital Okay.
Ed Mathews (32:57):
All right, I'll make sure that we put that in the
link as well.
Cool, all right.
So the last one is success.
I kind of where you are in yourstation in life.
How are you defining successtoday?
Chad Ackerman (33:09):
Success today to me is twofold.
It's education related, butit's, first and foremost, trying
to teach my kids about this asmuch as I can, giving them as
much information that they canhave.
That feeds into them makingbetter decisions earlier on than
I did my son's 19.
He's passed on the college idea.
He was done with school.
He actually came to me when hewas 17, starting his senior year
(33:31):
, and said I think I want tobecome an electrician and I want
to flip houses.
Won't that help me be able toflip houses?
I'm like absolutely I love thisidea.
And he started into his job.
He filled out a Roth IRA lastyear, filled one up.
He's got one on par to go upthis year and he's saving money
like crazy.
And I'm like he's starting tolook at houses now and I'm like
(33:52):
great, let's talk about it.
What is a good investment foryou at your age and everything,
and what can we do together?
How can I help?
What can you get into?
So it's education around mykids.
They're the biggest thing to me.
They're the most importantthing.
Further education of thecommunity to introduce more
people to this space.
(34:12):
If I can introduce a person ayear, I hope it's a lot more
than that.
But that's success to me ofjust bringing people into the
fold, showing them there'ssomething more than Wall Street
and being stuck in the grind andburning out in a W-2 because
you got to work for thosedollars and everything like that
.
I had a buddy who was in hisearly forties, had a heart
attack and couldn't work for ayear.
There's my test case of exactlywhy I want my money working for
(34:36):
me, just in case because younever know what's going to
happen that I want thatinsurance of money working for
me rather than me working forthe money all the time.
Ed Mathews (34:45):
Absolutely, and your son is really smart.
I was just talking to somebodynot three days ago about if and
I let's just say I didn't takeadvantage of the college
educational opportunity that Iprobably could have.
Right, I had fun, but the thingis that if I had to look back
on now, if I were 17, I wouldgive a trade a very serious look
(35:07):
, especially because the returnon investment for college it's
debatable.
Right, you're going to spend.
There are colleges.
You and I are probably in asimilar station in that or a
similar point where you know atleast one of our kids were
looking at colleges.
There are schools out there.
My wife and I went to the samecollege where we met and that
school is, I want to say, 85 or$90,000 a year and the average
(35:33):
for a non-technical degreecoming out, the average income,
is like in the seventies.
So you're going to get more$500,000 in debt for a $70,000 a
year job.
What do you do?
What do we do?
Chad Ackerman (35:45):
Yeah, no, I was so proud of it, it was the most
mature thing I'd ever seen himdo to that point was to have
that thought and feel, thatstrategy, which I'm like hey,
I'm glad you're not going towaste my money in college and
burn through it, which he's 95%me, so I know how he's going to
act, but the fact that he cameup with it I was so proud.
Now he and his sister she's incollege, she's studying
(36:07):
architecture they have thislittle battle of who's going to
be happier, who's going to bemore successful.
So define success.
What does that mean exactly?
You got to find happy, but Ilove it.
Both of them are doing great.
I'm proud of both of them.
Ed Mathews (36:18):
Yeah, yeah, I'll tell you.
And the other thing I'll tellyou is that up until about my
early forties, the richest guy Iever met was a plumber.
Hand to God, his name was BillTempleton and he was a local
plumber who he would charge acertain amount of money for his
time and his guys, and a certainamount of it went into a little
savings, actually, and heshowed me, I would guess, a
(36:54):
small portion of his portfolio.
We went driving around and Iwas like that's $20 million
worth of real estate and just aregular guy worked hard for a
living.
That's it.
Chad Ackerman (37:03):
Yeah.
So to me that's the educationthat's missed is we're growing
up.
We were at least assuming we'resimilar age.
We were taught go to school,get a job, work there for 35
years, put your money in the401k.
Or, if they have a pension atthe time, great, get the pension
and work with it.
But as I studied wealthy peoplethis is a little hobby I went
through Real estate was in everyone of their portfolios and
(37:26):
whole life insurance programswere in a lot of those
portfolios and all these toolsthat nobody had ever explained
to me that I'm like that's whatI want to help people just
understand so they can maketheir own decisions around.
At least know, hey, you don'thave to be a multimillionaire to
get into this space.
You can do this as a regularW-2 and grow it like he did.
Do one at a time, take yourtime to save some money up, keep
(37:49):
it in the machine for a whileand it'll do well for you.
Ed Mathews (37:52):
Yeah, and it's not everything right.
I don't know about you, myfamily's assets.
We have a portion of our stuffin real estate and a portion in
the stock market and things, butmost of it's in the stock
market and I don't know aboutthat anymore.
Actually, I take that back, butthe fact is that it's not
everything right.
It's just a little piece ofyour, within your financial
journey that gives you,hopefully, outsized returns and
(38:15):
downside protection when theinflation bubble pops.
It's going down.
It's great.
It's cheaper for me to buy nowthis is fantastic.
Chad Ackerman (38:21):
But then, as I started getting older, I'm like
what if I need that money atsome point?
And it's in the down, andthat's where diversification
kicked in for me, or that desireto get to it, that's all it is.
And I'm like, yeah, let mehedge, just in case.
Ed Mathews (38:54):
I feel like real estate, more often than not, is
steady up versus the stockmarket.
That could be up, could be down, who knows.
Chad Ackerman (38:57):
Take your chance with riding the wave at the time
, and the reason I say that isit's not the net worth that sets
you free from UW2, it's thecashflow, and those are two
entirely different and educationaround that to understand that
of when you're talking about, oh, I want financial freedom, what
are you really talking about?
What does that mean to you?
Let's understand that so youunderstand.
I can explain it to you, maybemore so that you can make good
decisions then about what you'reinvesting in.
Ed Mathews (39:15):
Yeah, when I asked the question about success
almost to a person.
They talk about time freedom,right that's, I don't have to
ask anybody other than my wifeor significant other where I'm
going.
But the fact is that's beingable to live life on your terms
without having to ask permissionof anybody.
Chad Ackerman (39:32):
Yeah, I had reached that point where I was
still in my W-2.
They knew what was going on.
They knew I was short-term.
I never felt more empoweredLike they literally went through
.
I was at a big company, cardinalHealth and they started going
through a little bit of layoffsand a person in our department
got laid off and I went to myboss and my boss's boss and I
said, look, I'm short term, fireme, give me a packet, I'll take
(39:54):
the package and go anyway.
But there are people here thatneed a job or want their job
still.
I'm on my way out, so just takeme.
But I was in such a specializedjob focused on sales comp
they're like we can't,unfortunately, we need you here
still that I negotiated down.
I was working one day a weekfor a while, keeping full
benefits, just because theywanted to keep me on.
(40:14):
I'm like I'll stay for that fora while longer.
That's fine Financial freedomto me.
I wasn't totally free, but itput me in a spot where I had
that ability to negotiate things.
I'd never been able tonegotiate before.
Ed Mathews (40:25):
It's amazing.
That was a great feeling.
It's amazing how clear yourhead gets when you don't need
that gig.
It's not, oh my God.
I need that paycheck on Fridayor on the 15th and the first, in
order to pay the mortgage.
I want to try to help peopleget there.
Chad Ackerman (40:39):
Do what I can anyway to lead them down a path.
Ed Mathews (40:42):
I'm a fan, so good luck, and let me know how I can
help.
Chad Ackerman (41:04):
And with that let's talk about something
non-real estate related, andwith that let's talk about
something non-real me somehow.
So I'm trying to focus on that.
But golf's there Trying tochase the kids a little bit
still, or let them know I'mstill around anyway.
Those kind of things, thosekeep me busiest these days.
Ed Mathews (41:20):
Yeah, yeah.
If you play golf like I do, Ifind the water a lot.
Chad Ackerman (41:23):
Yeah, see, I combine two things in one.
Ed Mathews (41:25):
So, chad, if folks want to learn more about you
individually, or what's the bestway to do that, yeah, you can
find me on LinkedIn ChadAckerman on LinkedIn.
Chad Ackerman (41:33):
I also have my website up.
By the time this airs That'llbe ChadAckermanRealEstate.
com, so come find me there.
I'm happy to reach out, doone-on-ones with people that are
just curious.
See if I can help nudge them inthe direction, give them a
little confidence and get themon their way.
Love to be able to do that forpeople.
Ed Mathews (41:49):
Awesome, Chad.
It's been a pleasure.
Thank you, continued goodfortune.
Thank you for carving out timein your busy schedule to meet
with me and do this show.
Chad Ackerman (41:56):
Absolutely.
I really enjoyed it.
Thank you for the time.
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