Transforming Challenges into Wealth with Sharon Riddle

Despite facing numerous challenges, including navigating complex property markets and overcoming economic downturns, Sharon's resilience has been unwavering. 
She is a visionary entrepreneur with a career spanning over 30 years, offering innovative business solutions and has transitioned from single-family to multifamily real estate, now managing over 3,500 units in Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Florida, and Ohio.
Sharon’s leadership and expertise have transformed the lives of countless families through strategic property investments and is committed to empower others, particularly couples, to achieve financial freedom and generational wealth.
Get to know more about Sharon Riddle and how she achieved financial freedom through investments at www.excalibretexas.com 
To learn more about myself, Michael Esposito, and find out about public speaking workshops, coaching, and keynote speaking options, and - of course - to be inspired, visit www.michaelespositoinc.com
The Michael Esposito Show is hosted by Michael Esposito and produced by iHeartMedia Hudson Valley. Be sure to subscribe on iHeart Media, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, TuneIn, Google Play, YouTube, or the podcasting app of your choice.
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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(00:21):
Hello all, my entrepreneurs and business leaders, and welcome to
the Michael Esposito Show, where I interview titans of industry
in order to inform, educate, and inspire you to be great.
My guests today have provided business solutions in the area
of software upgrades and business processes and analysis, and has

(00:42):
conducted best business practice research for over thirty years. She
began investing in single family real estate in two thousand
and five and took on a leadership role managing all
facets of the business including property analysis, acquisition, rehab, property management,
and resale of properties. She started the transition to multifamily

(01:05):
real estate in twenty fifteen through an initial education and
investing passively in eighteen properties in Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Florida,
and Ohio, totaling over three thousand units to date in
twenty nineteen. As personal mentoring students of Brad Sumrock, since

(01:29):
twenty fifteen, her husband and her Dan co founded Excalibrate
Investments of Texas. Please welcome founding partner of Excalibrate Investments
of Texas, Sharon Riddle. Welcome.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
Thanks so much, Michael.

Speaker 3 (01:48):
I'm looking forward to being with you today and sharing
just a few things of my story and my journey
with your audience.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
Yeah, and you know, of course, you know Dan is
also part of your journey, and I'm sure will be
bringing him up so that everybody knows who he is.
I think that that's also very important. And part of
the background here too, is that a lot of the
things that you've done you didn't do alone. You did
it with him, and you co founded this company. And
that's wonderful. But we're really going to dive into your
story today, and I love the idea of going into

(02:18):
your childhood and digging up all of the entrepreneurs that
have played a role in your life from then and
then really set the foreground for who you are today
as an entrepreneur, as a leader, as an investor, as
someone who sees more in life than what is sometimes
shown to us.

Speaker 3 (02:39):
Certainly, well, I will tell you that's one of the
things that Dan and I have talked about because I
did have several entrepreneurs in my early childhood in my
background that he did not have, so in some ways,
the entrepreneurial mindset, he did take my lead somewhat in

(02:59):
that because I had seen it.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
I've watched it.

Speaker 3 (03:03):
My dad was an entrepreneur. He was in construction, he
had a back home business. I had two uncles who
were entrepreneurs. One had an automobile shop, and my cousin
also has that automobile shop, so he inherited that from
his dad, so two generations. And then I had another uncle,

(03:25):
my mother's fraternal twin brother, who was in the heating,
air conditioning business and plumbing and was a partner in
a business. But I will tell you my neighbor directly
across the street in our modest childhood neighborhood was the
one who in many ways impressed me, Leona Shepherd McDaniel,

(03:47):
only only toy store in Denton, Texas in the early
nineteen seventies. She, however, of all the entrepreneurs, was the
one who had multiple.

Speaker 2 (03:58):
Streams of income.

Speaker 3 (04:00):
She had a residual income from a grocery store that
her late husband. She was a widow had had partnered
with his brother, so she received She was kind of
the silent partner of that business. She was the active
solopreneurs in the toy store, and she also had some

(04:22):
real estate holdings in Florida, So she had some business
fraternity that she was part of and they traded tips
regarding some investments and some real estate investments and their
their land. Their lots became part of what Disney bought

(04:46):
to put epcom. Yeah, it's kind of wild. My neighbor
across the street, and she actually even took me on
a buying expedition for buying toys and small small sports
items because there weren't separate sports sports stores in Denton,

(05:08):
Texas at that time, so she kind of handled all
of that, and we went to lunch and she chatted,
and I felt she really planted some seeds in me,
not only that day but before, because she took an
interest in what I was doing and how I was
how I was conducting myself in life, and that meant
a great deal to me.

Speaker 1 (05:30):
That's so cool, I mean, such a We're definitely going
to talk a lot more about this, but such a
cool piece of history there. Knowing that she sold some
of her lots of land in order to build Epcot,
which is just really cool. With my family and I
we just visited Disneyland. I believe it's Disneyland down there,

(05:53):
right or is it disney World's down in Florida disney
World disney World. Yeah, we just visited there. So it's
kind of cool, Like I can see what that land
might look like because I know where Epcot is, right,
I've seen it, and that woman she owned that land,
So that's really really cool. One of the things that
I'm interested in here and when you're talking about all

(06:14):
of this, is the entrepreneurial mindset. You mentioned that early
on about you know, when you were speaking about your
dad and your uncles and Sharon and or excuse me, Leona,
in that there's this entrepreneurial mindset that was ingrained in you,
and I'm interested if you could expand on what that

(06:35):
means or what the how you define the entrepreneurial mindset?

Speaker 3 (06:40):
Well, how I define the entrepreneurial mindset is really some
what I saw on all these entrepreneurs are so is
some emotional resilience. You know, you really can't let a
lot of things throw you because in all of their
respective businesses, as in multifamily invested, there are seasons and cycles,

(07:03):
and you really have to be adaptive in the seasons
and cycles of the businesses and in business and the
economy itself. You have to be able to be adaptive
and pivot when you need to. And that's what I saw,
That's what I saw all of them do. I will

(07:24):
say that Leona Shepherd mcdamne McDaniel seemed to be more
adaptable than the three other entrepreneurs who were my family members.

Speaker 1 (07:36):
What about her did you see was adaptable? What's a
situation that you had seen?

Speaker 3 (07:42):
Well, you know, first of all, here she was. She
was a widow and she had decided to really start
this toy store before her before her husband passed away. Well,
she continued on. She had relatives and friends who said, oh,

(08:03):
do you want to go ahead and close this business
and just kind of cash out, But she said no,
she wanted to move forward on that and she felt
like she could manage her affairs, she could manage herself
financially as a widow, which she did. And she taught

(08:25):
me that, you know, pivots are important and that you
can manage the challenges that life does throw your way.
Because she was a widow at a relatively early age
in her life. I had only known her a little
bit later when I was saying fourth grade, so she

(08:49):
was an older woman by then, but she had been
widowed a little earlier, I mean earlier in her life
in her marriage, and she had an attitude of persevering.
And she also was independent, and she sought advice of

(09:11):
her friends in a business community. And I think that's
really really important, And that was one thing that I
didn't see from my family members. They were not part
of a community that helped mentor them and shape them
and held them accountable and that they could rely on

(09:32):
for good business information. They kind of operated in a
little silent you know, like well, they know their business.
And each one of these people, each one of these men,
were very competent technically in what they did. But Leona
Shepherd McDaniel took it to another layer, another level. She

(09:55):
decided that she needed to be competent in more and
just the running of her toy store.

Speaker 1 (10:04):
Yeah, I think you know, take it to another level
through this as you described it, fraternity, but you're also
part of a women's mastermind for investors in business, and
I think that we would call we have fraternities, and
as we see today more often is the masterminds. So

(10:25):
it sounds like she planted that seat as well in
you in seeking the advice and the help from others
that surround you. What is this mastermind that you're part of?
How does it serve you today?

Speaker 3 (10:36):
Well, I actually have a couple of masterminds, and I've
added a third organization on which is called the Network
of Outstanding Women. And one of my fellow masterminders back
from twenty nineteen kind of paved the way for me
to be included in Network of Outstanding Women. And I've

(10:59):
still got to finish out my story.

Speaker 2 (11:01):
Online on that one.

Speaker 3 (11:03):
But in Brad Sumrock's Mastermind the second year that he
started that it started back in twenty eighteen. Dan and
I came aboard in twenty nineteen, but we had fellow
investors that we invested with in the multifamily space.

Speaker 2 (11:21):
That referred us to Brad and.

Speaker 3 (11:25):
Said, hey, Brad, you know Dan and Sharon are part
of your personal mentoring community. We think that they can
add a lot to this mastermind. They are not general
partners yet, and you know, they saw the yet part,
but they are very savvy passive investors, and we think

(11:48):
that they can really give their voice to what passive
investors need. And that is really what Dan and I
have tried to do in that community from twenty nineteen
moving forward. And I think it's even critical, even more
critical now because you know, we've had all these interest

(12:10):
rate hikes, We've had a lot of challenges, and not
only have general partners, but passive investors, the limited partners
in the multifamily space have had to be even more
adaptive than when we started. And then regarding the Women's
Virtual Mastermind, it was the encouragement of a couple of

(12:34):
these friends of mine, these women who had me even
start posting on Instagram. I was like, oh, hey, I
don't know everything about that. They're like, just start, just start,
you'll get better at it, and then there would be
other people who help you get better. And so they
helped me just kind of get out of my head

(12:55):
a little bit and just take some action.

Speaker 1 (13:00):
Just starting is really the big step with most of
the things that we need to do in life. And
for you, you probably had to just start. In terms
of real estate investing. What were you doing Prior to that, well.

Speaker 3 (13:13):
Prior to real estate investing, I was in more of
a finance role, so really a different, different space for me.
You know, I was kind of a budgeting person. I
did technical projects, you know, as a senior business analyst
at one point in time. So really it was a

(13:34):
lot of financially driven tasks and jobs, but for other
organizations a not for profit wise, a governmental agency, a
public retailer, but it was not yet my own company,

(13:56):
and that's a whole another ball game.

Speaker 1 (14:00):
Yeah, well, it's your own company. So you probably learned
a lot of skills that you transitioned or transferred to
the business that you're currently in. Now when you're talking
about business exuing me budgeting and financial analysts and things
of that nature, how do you see the experience that
you had transferring over into the business that you have today.

Speaker 3 (14:21):
Well, Michael saw a lot of crossover skill because I
will tell you the first thing I'm going to ask
any of my people, my stage broker teams, or my
marketing team, how much is this going to cost? This
is just kind of where I've come from because always
questioning expenses, but always keeping an eye on cash flow.

(14:46):
And that was one thing that I certainly saw that
my neighbor, the owner, Shepherd McDaniel, was really stronggan and
so I think that was another thing that kind of
came from the past and kind of ingrained itself in
me is always manage the cash flow, know where your

(15:06):
cash position is. And it's so critical. It is really
so critical for entrepreneurs, but in multi family investing it
can really help. You have a really good conversation with
your general partners who are who are the sponsors of
a multifamily apartment project. You can talk their language. You

(15:29):
can talk their language because you're talking the language of finance.
Multifamily just has some of its own metrics, but it's
not that hard of a conversion, you know, talking about
those industry specific metrics. Once you have the language of

(15:49):
finance really under your belt. And I also have an MBA,
so that really kind of kind of sharpened that skill
set for me many many years ago.

Speaker 1 (16:00):
Yeah, that definitely helps. I'm interested in the idea of
crossover skills and transferable skills and how you work with
your team in terms of those. I'm sure many of
the people that come on are similar to you. They
had previous careers, they had previous jobs or roles or
functions that they had prior to becoming as you mentioned,
limited partners or partners with you. How do you help

(16:23):
them tap into some of those skills and bring them
into what you're doing today with them.

Speaker 3 (16:29):
Well, I will tell you an interesting story about how
we tour partners because I mean apartments. Because one of
my partners, that is my touring partner, is a micro
electronics engineer. So he's an electronic engineer. He's originally from Italy.
I know, it's kind of interesting. I am I'm female.

(16:54):
I've been more of a financial person, and so we
have an interesting dynamic when we go meet with brokers
and tour apartments because I am talking to the broker,
I'm having some conversations, finding kind of some things out
from the broker or the leasing agent, and Mariano is

(17:16):
taking a lot of pictures. You know, people expect that
because he's he's kind of the technical guy. But what
we have discovered is by having the free flowing conversation
going the entire tour, things are disclosed that we did
not know what's going to be disclosed. They're not It's

(17:39):
not enclosed in the any of the documents coming from
the broker, any of the data, any of the financials,
any of that. But there's always something that is disclosed
during those tours. But it's a matter of having the
conversation going and Mariano and I having our roles and

(18:03):
we're kind of sticking. We have kind of a script,
I'll be honest. We have kind of a script. And
we have other general partners that work with us too,
but we're the ones that go on the property initially
to kind of come up with the business plan.

Speaker 1 (18:16):
So you use his technical background to kind of distract
the person that's touring you in order for you to
be able to get as much information as possible that's
going to help you decide whether it's a good investment
or not.

Speaker 3 (18:30):
Well, it isn't totally distraction because I'm the one asking
the questions, see, and I'm asking technical questions, and they
don't necessarily expect me to be asking technical questions.

Speaker 1 (18:44):
Ah.

Speaker 3 (18:45):
Yeah, they expect Mariano to be asking technical questions. Because
let's say, on the last apartment that we looked at,
it was an Irving, Texas. It was you know, built
in nineteen seventy three, so it had a boiler. Well,
you know, I was the one asking the questions where
everything was. I said, oh, this is the nineteen seventy

(19:06):
three build. Uh, can you show us the boiler. The
broker didn't expect that we were already we'd already walked
past the area where the broke where the boiler was,
and he said, well, we've already kind of walked past.

Speaker 2 (19:19):
Do you want to see it?

Speaker 3 (19:20):
And Mariana and both yes, we do. We definitely want
to see that boiler. So, uh, it's just just some
things like that, and just I don't know what it is,
but even tenants will say things, or even leasing agents.

Speaker 2 (19:35):
You know, they's just.

Speaker 3 (19:36):
Always something crops up that people tell me during during
the tour. It's the most it's very it's a little uncanny,
and Mariano and I kind of laugh about it, but
you know, it's kind of a good thing going on.

Speaker 1 (19:52):
Yeah, that's pretty cool. It's a good way to get
as much information as you could possibly get. You know,
you're doing a lot of real estate investing and am
a part of ten X stages and one of the
things we talked about early on too before coming on
is your signature talk. And these are so important because

(20:13):
this is you know, what you're able to share with
an audience from a stage so that they can work
with you and share what you do and how you
do it and see if there's any people that are
curious on learning more. In yours, you talked about a
vision that you had in Mexico, and I would love

(20:34):
for you to share some of that with us, because
I think when we think about visualization, it's it's a
thought that is I visualize this, how do I make
it come true? And for you, you visualize something and actually
made it come true. So I think you know, manifesting
and visualizing. I believe in it as really important work

(20:54):
as people who want to grow and scale and and
do things in their lives. And I think when we
hear stories from people like yourself that actually visualized and
actually see it through and are able to make it happen,
it helps us with our visualizations in believing in them.
So I'd love for you to share that story with us.

Speaker 3 (21:13):
Well, I will say with my signature talk, and it
was the kind of the closing of the first portion
of the signature talk, I just thought about being on
my patio area in my casito. This was on a
Conrad property in Punta Demito, Mexico. We were right on

(21:34):
that point now an hour outside of Porta Vierta, and
in the horizon I could see the Pacific Ocean.

Speaker 2 (21:47):
I could see the boats.

Speaker 3 (21:49):
Where the fishermen were fishing to catch the fish of
the day, and it was calm, it was peaceful, and
in my heart, I just thought, Wow, I am truly
living my best life in this moment. This is a
feeling of contentment and joy that I would love for

(22:13):
my friends, for my family, for any investors in the
future to have to have these kinds of experiences over
and over and over again, because in the moment, I
felt I was living my very business life.

Speaker 1 (22:32):
Mmm, that's really really cool. How did you come about
putting together your signature talk?

Speaker 4 (22:39):
Well, first of all, we did go to beautiful Milwaukee,
and so we met with Pat Quinn and his coaches.

Speaker 3 (22:49):
You know, there were several coaches. They just broke every
piece of it apart and we literally rehearsed sections of it.
So I had I had some initial stories that I
had part of that, and another story that I had
within it was the story of a time in our

(23:12):
single family investing when I was going out day after
day and making offers on property. Well, those weren't accepted.
I was working with realtor Sue. We were making these
offers week after week. Those offers would come back all.

Speaker 2 (23:35):
Rejected, all rejected.

Speaker 3 (23:37):
I felt really so disappointed and I felt like I
was just at a really low point.

Speaker 2 (23:46):
However, because of.

Speaker 3 (23:48):
That, I had a pivot and it was it was
like a little a little whisper from the universe, Michael.
I got an email from another single family mentor inviting
me to guess what Brad zoom Rocks rat Race to retirement.

(24:11):
This is his entry point where he brings students in
to his personal mentoring community. And I had the promo code.
I got to go for free. Dan and I got
to go for free because we knew something. But I felt, wow,
I really need to do something different. And in that moment,
I'm not kidding you. It was probably a week later

(24:32):
I got that email, and.

Speaker 1 (24:36):
That's when you decided to join that course. Could you
tell us more about Brad suom Rock and his course
and what he does.

Speaker 3 (24:43):
Well, what Brad has is we started out in his
beginning level, which was Foundations. You just you learned, you
really learned some of the metrics in multi family investing,
and that was for passive investors. So you have modules
that he put together, so you would be learning elements

(25:05):
of multi family investing. You know, what are what are
some of the things you need to to know, how
do you how do you monitor things? How do you
measure things? And so that's what we learned. But before
the first year was over, we decided we were going
to up level and become personal mentoring students, so that

(25:29):
would give us a wider community. We could be on
the coach's corner. We were on a coach's corner just
last night talking about a very specific topic within multi
family investing. And it's always one of Brad's coaches who
leads that or more or more than one of Brad's coaches,
and so you get some additional interaction not only with

(25:53):
his community, but with his coaches, and that that is
a monthly situation. Well in nineteen that's when we join
the mastermind is the millionaire multi family Mastermind, and so
we got more direct exposure with Brad but also with

(26:14):
some of his mentoring community, some of his people within
Tony Robbins, some other people that he has known through
some other mastermind groups that he's part of.

Speaker 2 (26:29):
So that's kind of.

Speaker 3 (26:29):
What Brad has been doing ever since twenty nineteen. And
you you just kind of dig deeper. You form some
more solid bonds with people you know what they're doing.
They talk to you about what they're doing, and they
tell you what their goals are, what their challenges are.

(26:51):
It's an accountability group.

Speaker 1 (26:53):
It's an account What kind of advice do you have
for people that are looking are kind of dipping their
toes in real estate investing and you know, just thinking
about it, you know it's a different place to invest.
It has its own cycles, it has its own risks
involved are what are some of the coaching that you

(27:15):
share with people who are new to this industry.

Speaker 3 (27:20):
Well, one of the things that I tell people is
find a community. You know, there's no reason that you
need to learn things alone. You know, some people they
really like to read books or have the audio books.
But my philosophy has been why learn alone, because you know,

(27:40):
it's almost like a brain trust.

Speaker 2 (27:43):
You know, more.

Speaker 3 (27:44):
People who are like minded together have so much more
synergy than just one person learning all by themselves, because
you just you have that momentum you can learn faster
and other people have some challenges or uh some some
opportunities that you haven't seen yet, but it will be

(28:08):
on your radar because they've introduced you to that. I'm
a big I'm a big fan and actually I have
done that from single family moving forward to multifamily. I
have had multiple mentors, and I have pivoted in certain
times in my business cycle. And I've created more than

(28:28):
one business. I have more than one LLC that I've created. So, yeah,
I will say community and a mentor.

Speaker 1 (28:38):
Yeah, that the mentorship, I think is huge. What are
some of the other businesses that you've created, Well.

Speaker 3 (28:44):
They have all been uh, they've all been real estate related.
Interestingly enough, I had a couple that I was working with.
They were kind of almost side hustles, but they just
they just didn't they didn't have they didn't meet the
goals in the timeline that I had. So one of

(29:04):
the things as an entrepreneur, I think it's really important
to let some things go that just aren't working out
because there will be something else that does, and then
you can concentrate on what's working because you know, it
really isn't it really isn't failure if you keep trying,

(29:27):
it really isn't you because you're going to hit those
pockets of success over and over and over again.

Speaker 2 (29:34):
And you'll just you'll you'll see a pattern.

Speaker 3 (29:37):
And the pattern is, you know, kind of where you
move forward. That's your that's your journey, that's where you
set your goals.

Speaker 1 (29:45):
I like that. It isn't failure if you keep if
you keep moving forward. I love that, And I mean
that goes back to the emotional resilience that you described
earlier on is that, like you know, that's what emotional
resilience is. It's keep moving forward, keep pressing forward. We're
going to be met with some challenges, some failures, some setbacks.
I'm interested in some of those. In your experience with

(30:08):
what you do and in the businesses that you have.
Is what was one of your biggest challenges.

Speaker 3 (30:13):
Well, one of my biggest challenges started in single family
and it was one the story that I related to
you about realter sue and not getting those offers. Because
to really move us forward in the single family business,
we needed to have more homes. We became a landlord.

(30:34):
I self managed single family homes myself, and we needed
it was kind of like we needed a critical number.
We needed critical mass to really get us to our
family goals. And Dan has been paid very well in
his aerospace career, but you know there's a time period
where he kind of liked to retire him out, you know.

(30:56):
So we just weren't hitting the mass. So that's when
we decided we needed to pivot to multifamily. And what
I will say is within single family, continuing to move
forward and trying really got us to a point of
our first million. Our next three million really came within

(31:18):
the multifamily space. But it took us being adaptive and
understanding when to make a change. It was all real estate.
We just needed to move toward a more expansive form
of real estate where we could really really reap those

(31:41):
rewards and have those gains. We just needed to have
a higher, massive gains, higher dollar.

Speaker 1 (31:48):
Yeah. So many people see the big real estate people
like yourself on social media, pictures of grant cardone and
jets and all this other stuff, and of course think, hey,
I want to jump into this. I want to get
in a community, I want to get rich, I want
to be able to have my make my first million.
You know, you speak about it and get to my

(32:09):
next you know, get the multifamilies and get into three
million dollars. And I mean, of course it sounds enticing,
right and uh, and so many people want to do it.
I'm interested in the work that goes into making that
first million, and if you could share what the reality
of that is.

Speaker 3 (32:27):
Well within single family with the first million, there was
a lot of work involved in there because I was
screening tenants. I had handymen that I was working with,
and we had properties in Terrant County, Dallas County, and
one in Denton County. So you're talking about three counties

(32:50):
in Texas, Texas, big state. So you got You've got
a lot of miles you're covering, and you have to
get you have to find people who are not only competent,
but cost effective, so big thing with that, you really
have to But I was fortunate. I found people who

(33:12):
who could really make that work. I was tipped off
by one of my handymen. He said, you know, look
for your replacement. I you know, you're needing some other
handymen from some different counties. I would contact a church. Well,
I was a member of a church in Denton, So

(33:33):
I decided to contact one of those churches. This was
kind of like mine in another county. And guess where
I found my handyman. Where I found my handyman, I
got tipped off by another handyman to give me a strategy.
So I was always listening. I was always listening to
people who could make my life better real it was.

(33:56):
But I will also tell you the fact that my
dad had been in construction and I had uh master plumbers,
master electricians in my early family home.

Speaker 2 (34:13):
That wasn't a big deal to me.

Speaker 3 (34:14):
I mean, these people were not foreign to me. So
even though I was a woman, they did not really well,
they didn't really scare me. They felt familiar to me,
to be quite honest, and they always have. Tradesmen and
women have always felt very familiar, familiar to me because

(34:35):
of my early childhood construction brat home.

Speaker 1 (34:39):
Mmm. And in that so you were dealing with handyman,
you're dealing with plumbers and all sorts of different industry.
US insurance people, of course, Yeah, it's funny. I have
my my Dentin insurance Dentin.

Speaker 2 (34:54):
Yeah, I see it.

Speaker 1 (34:55):
Which is which is funny? Is dent is dent in
Texas spelled the same way No, it hasn't I at
the end, But I.

Speaker 3 (35:05):
Will tell you I've had some awesome insurance agents. They
really helped me, you know, in this in the single
family space and even with multifamily. Part of our offers, Uh,
we have to really gather a lot of information together.
And one of the insurance agents that I work with

(35:27):
for multifamily, I went to high school.

Speaker 2 (35:30):
With no joke.

Speaker 3 (35:34):
I email Jeff King been Raymi King. Yeah, because I
insurance it's critical. You know how critical it is, Michael,
And it's critical and multi family you it's it's a
lot of a lot of expense and you need to
be on spot. You can need that estimate to beat
on target, right.

Speaker 1 (35:54):
On the estimate. And also the coverage. You got to
have the right coverages because coverage is critical. You're making
a huge investment. I've had those conversations with investors where
you know, they're making this investment and they want to
cut every corner and they're saying, you know, we just
want actual cash value, and I'm going, you know, the
actual cash value versus the replacement value is hundreds of

(36:18):
thousands of dollars. If this building burdens down, you're not
getting your money that you put into it, and it's
it's so hard sometimes to help investors realize that. And
so I mean, it's it's really critical to have an
educated conversation to where people really understand what they need
and how they can afford it. And sometimes, I mean,

(36:40):
you could speak to this. If one of the expenses
is insurance and it is not providing the cash flow
the premium, then this might not be the right deal
for you. Right Like, when you look at your expenses,
if you're not getting the cash flow after expenses, it's
not how do we shave the expenses. The expenses are there.
And as you said, competency in your handyman and in

(37:03):
your service people. They have to be competent because if
you're getting if you're hiring people for less than competency,
you're going to get less than competent work, which is
going to lead to leaky roofs and busted pipes and
unfortunately the wrong policy and at the end of the
day you might have saved money. I had a insurance
mentor tell me this. There was a commercial in the

(37:25):
I want to say sixties for an oil filter replacement
in a vehicle, and the commercial used to say, pay
me now or pay me later. You know, either use
this filter, this proper filter, the right one. I think
it was fram Oil filters, it's the fram Oil filter,
or use this knockoff. You know you're going to get
the same thing, but you're either going to pay for

(37:46):
it now or you're going to pay for it later.
Which one do you want? And a lot of times,
and you could speak to this in real estate investing
is that if you're paying for it now and you're
paying the right premium numbers and everything right now, you're
going to get a nice investment later. If you're not
paying for it now, you're going to pay for it later.

Speaker 2 (38:03):
You really are.

Speaker 3 (38:05):
And the great thing with Jeff is that you know
he and his staff, you know they're going to know
if there have been any claims previous, and it's going
to impact you as a future as a future owner.

Speaker 1 (38:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (38:18):
So I've even.

Speaker 3 (38:19):
Had staff members, you know, from Raymi King who have
sent me the clips you know for the fires, you
know the ice I mean, yeah, it's in the paper.

Speaker 2 (38:28):
You know, they send you that stuff.

Speaker 1 (38:30):
Check it out? What do you buy?

Speaker 2 (38:32):
Check it out?

Speaker 3 (38:33):
You know you've got to be informed, and you know
in single family. I also had had a competent roofer.
You know, you get a lot of hail damage in Denton,
I mean and and then the other counties we were serving,
so I had to have a good roofer. And this
was also somebody I happened to go to school with.

(38:53):
He he and his brothers were roofers during the summer
to pay for their college expenses. Well, Alan Chamberlain wouldn't
trend into be roofing, just ended up making a business
of it, so kind of building it out.

Speaker 1 (39:07):
Mm.

Speaker 3 (39:08):
And so I've been fortunate to either have people who
have been who have been introduced to me or uh
other people refer those people with those characteristics to me,
or people that I actually have known, uh, that I
grew up with.

Speaker 1 (39:29):
Yeah, speak to us about that trusted community, because I'm
sure that in the as you as you're speaking about this,
uh in you know, the first half of your career
here of the single family, how important this network of
trusted people is.

Speaker 2 (39:46):
Uh, It's huge.

Speaker 3 (39:47):
And I will say that I look for that in
multifamily too. You know, I have other other people, uh
on our general partner team. They know peopleeople and you
know you you know who you can you know who
you can work with. There's always somebody who has an
idea of who you can work with. Or if you

(40:10):
have a question, you know I can ask. I can
ask Jeff, I can ask my insurance person, I can
ask a lot of people who We're going to make
sure you you get directed to somebody who's going to
serve you well because they have a relationship with you too, right,
And as you know, relationships are everything.

Speaker 1 (40:33):
That's that's right, that's I pretty much live my life
by the relationships I have and the network that I've
created through the different chambers and different organizations.

Speaker 4 (40:44):
That I have.

Speaker 1 (40:45):
You started your real estate journey in two thousand and five,
and I guess it was about ten years when you
transitioned into the multifamily. So when you when you went
into the multifamily, you obviously scaled a lot quicker or
quicker from what you just share. What what was it
about the single family versus the multifamily that helped you

(41:05):
scale faster?

Speaker 3 (41:08):
Well, for one thing, you know, it's you have more doors,
You've got more tenants, So it was it's, uh, you know,
it's really all about numbers, so you can the gains
are are larger. And also there's been a certain time
window when you have more tax advantage too. You know,

(41:32):
with a single family, had my carryover loss sometimes until
I sold the property. But multifamily is a whole different situation.
Regarding regarding depreciation.

Speaker 1 (41:49):
With multifamily, how does that work?

Speaker 2 (41:52):
Well, they called a bonus depreciation.

Speaker 3 (41:54):
And I don't want to get into the weeds too
much because it is going to be kind of phase down.
But technically, if you have a gain in one area
with a separate company like an LLC, you can have
an offset, so that way you're really meeting your tax

(42:15):
goals as well. Not only do I have investing goals,
and not only do I have general partner goals with
different LLCs, but I also have a tax goal.

Speaker 2 (42:28):
You know, I want to.

Speaker 3 (42:30):
Be able to be a charitable giver separately from paying taxes.

Speaker 2 (42:36):
You know, I want to be.

Speaker 3 (42:37):
Able to give to the organization and entities I want
to and not pay excessive tax because I mean, in
my mind, there are organizations I feel being very efficient
and doing very good work. And I will say, Michael,

(42:58):
I'll make this confession. I am a woman who.

Speaker 2 (43:01):
Likes some control.

Speaker 1 (43:02):
Yeah, you like you like your control. I love that
my control. Yeah, you know, a couple of things you mentioned.
It was just like, if you could just help our
audience understand the difference between partners, managing partners, general partners,
all of these different terms that you've kind of put
out there, if you could just help us understand the hierarchy,

(43:24):
I suppose.

Speaker 3 (43:25):
Okay, Well I will start with limited partners because that's
where I started and that.

Speaker 2 (43:32):
But those they use the the word.

Speaker 3 (43:36):
Passive investors also, you know, those are the partners who
come in and they contribute through a syndication, so there's
a group of them. They're contributing and they are making
sure that the apartment is funded, it can be acquired.

(43:58):
But as far as the day today management, they are
not involved in the day to day management. They receive
monthly reports, they see how things are going, and typically
they're paid either monthly or quarterly. They're paid a distribution
based on the performance of the apartment entity itself. So

(44:23):
that's really how that goes. With general partners, you are
involved in the day to day operation. Now there's always
with either one my preference. You have third party professional
property management. They're the people who have somebody on site
all the time, but the general partner have to make

(44:45):
sure that things are getting done in in coordination with
the business plan. How are we moving forward to improve
the asset, you know, the fight financial position of the asset,
not only the valuation in the end when you sell,

(45:07):
but also in between the day to day management.

Speaker 2 (45:11):
How well?

Speaker 3 (45:12):
How well are the rents being managed? How well are
the repairs being conducted? How well are you know, are
you having to evict some people? You know, what's going
on day today, you know, and that's kind of they
have the responsibility for that.

Speaker 1 (45:30):
And so are you your so is that clear? Yeah? Yeah? So?
As so in the position that you're in now, do
you serve as both sometimes as a general partner and
a limited partner. You may have investments in another property
that somebody else as a general partner in I do.

Speaker 3 (45:43):
Have investments in other properties and interesting then now I'll
share with you we are also creating another LLC and
my daughter is going to be a partner with us
in that LLC. So you can have multi generational wealth.
You can bring somebody on like our daughter is in

(46:05):
the consulting world, but she is also going to be
a partner in this latest LLC, So she we might
be investing in an apartment that you know, we're part
of a general partner team, or investing in an apartment
that we come in as our family together with that

(46:27):
LLC as a limited partner or a passive investor. So
we might be investing in somebody else's apartment that they're
they're in charge of the business plan, they're the general
partnership team.

Speaker 1 (46:40):
So but we know you like control, as you said,
I do like.

Speaker 3 (46:45):
My control, and I will call investors. I have been
known to do that, not only you know, after the
property has been acquired, but before. I mean, I'm okay
with viewing a webinar, but I will call those numbers
that appear on the webinar and ask a few questions.

(47:06):
And one of the questions that I will share with
your audience today, and I love to ask, is what
truly excites you about this property and its business plan.

Speaker 1 (47:21):
And what's the response you look for.

Speaker 3 (47:24):
Well, it's kind of an open ended question, I'll be
honest with you. You know, it's kind of like when
Marianna and I tour properties. You always have people tell
you things that you don't expect, and that's what I
like to hear because I want to hear how excited
people are about it.

Speaker 2 (47:40):
I want to hear.

Speaker 3 (47:41):
Specifically what they think is going to happen as a
result of this business plan and why they are so
excited about that pocket within that market, not only that property,
but that little sub market where that property exists.

Speaker 1 (48:01):
Yeah, and all. And with that question, you're really looking for,
are the enthusiastic about this property and or is this
just another investment? And I think based off of our
experience with business is that you know the person leading
the charge. If they're not enthusiastic about this, then this
is going to quickly get deflated before before it even

(48:22):
gets off the ground.

Speaker 3 (48:23):
So that.

Speaker 2 (48:25):
How are you going to have the momentum?

Speaker 1 (48:27):
Right, they're going to have.

Speaker 3 (48:28):
They're in charge of driving that momentum, So they need
to be excited about it in the in the very beginning.
And also what I find out not only what are
they excited about and the whole thing about the market
and the property itself, but they tell me specific numbers.
It's telling me numbers that do not appear on the webinar. Yeah,

(48:55):
So it is like an open ended question, and people
when you ask an open ended question. People tell you
a whole lot more than when you ask really specific questions.

Speaker 1 (49:04):
Yeah. Yeah, they'll be able to share more about that report,
and they want to because they want to maybe fluff
or be able to highlight certain things that maybe aren't
in the report in order to intrigue you and bring
you in. And now that may open the door for
more questions that you are searching for. You mentioned that

(49:25):
you also like to work with charitable organizations and different
charities in your area, and I noticed that you also
do some philanthropy in your area. I'm interested if you
could share some more about that with us.

Speaker 2 (49:37):
Certainly.

Speaker 3 (49:38):
Well. One of the charities that we got involved with
last year was Cheered the Love, So they are actually
an international charitable organization. I will say locally, we are
involved with our Daily Bread and they make sure that

(49:59):
those who are in need do receive meals. So they
serve the homeless, but they also serve some low income families.
So they're just a really critical part of Denton, Texas
that make sure that people are fed. And they also

(50:20):
have a larger facility now so they have some overnight
shelter capacity. They have a garden in the back they
have some people who do have dogs, and so they
have an area so you know, for dogs, and they
have some dog food and some things. They've really grown
over many many years. They started in a Presbyterian church

(50:40):
in Denton and they have just grown over the years
because the need has grown so exponentially. So I like that.
Dan really likes some charitable hospitals. He likes Scottish Rite
because it really helps families whose children have very specific

(51:05):
needs and then they can work with a team of
internationally known doctors and help children. So have a love
for children, and so those are Those are some of
the things. And then we have some other charities through
specifically through our church, so we do give to specific
ministries within our church in Denton, Texas. So those are

(51:28):
a few things, and it kind of grows every year
because when you're very blessed and you have so much abundance,
you just want to be generous.

Speaker 1 (51:42):
Yeah, that is that is a nice part about when
I read your story that I really enjoyed as seeing
that generosity come through in that you know, you work
really hard and you've built this investment business, this real
estate investment business, and not only in the charitable side,

(52:02):
that we're just talking about that we're talking about now,
but also in the mentoring side of taking people and
trying to help them show them the way of here's
my experience, here's how I did it, and here's how
you can do it, And that in itself is also
it's not charity work, but it's similar in the giving,
in the giving back to people and how rewarding that is.

(52:24):
And I know that you do some workshops in that,
and you also have a mastermind and you do many
many things in this in this area. As we start
kind of wrapping up here, where can people learn more
about what you're doing in that in that realm?

Speaker 3 (52:39):
Well, I will say they can't go to my website
and my company. The latest company that we've branded is
actually ex Caliber Investments of Texas. So and I'm going
to repeat this a couple of times. Www e x
c A l I b r E Texas t e

(53:00):
x A s dot com. So it's www. Dot e
x c A l I b R E T e
x I mean t e x.

Speaker 2 (53:11):
A s dot com.

Speaker 3 (53:13):
Dan had a thing kind of about the Artherian legend,
So that's the whole stye. Dan made that kind of
you know, he kind of he couldn't he couldn't spell
it the way he wanted to, but you know, we
had to alternate our spelling.

Speaker 2 (53:25):
But that's that's how that name came came about.

Speaker 3 (53:28):
So we we like to to kind of do some
some really not magical but really some pretty special things
in the multifamily space.

Speaker 2 (53:42):
That's what we like to do.

Speaker 3 (53:43):
And I will say too that I do enjoying having
one on one conversations and almost not a not a
a mentorship, but almost a mini mentor. You know, it's
kind of like in the moment mentally, because some times
you just really need to have those conversations. You want

(54:04):
people to have situations where they can have things easier
than maybe you did in the past moments.

Speaker 1 (54:15):
Yep. And they'll make their own mistakes, so it's nice
to learn from yours, right Well, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (54:22):
They might as well leverage my mistakes and just skip
right over.

Speaker 1 (54:26):
Yep. Yep.

Speaker 2 (54:26):
It may make some other.

Speaker 3 (54:27):
Mistakes, but you know, hey, let's avoid the let's avoid
some of them.

Speaker 1 (54:32):
One of your mantras that you live by that you
like is success is often achieved by those who don't
know that failure is inevitable. What a Oh my goodness,
what a powerful quote to kind of unpack here as
we're wrapping up here, could you share a little bit
about that quote and how you see it work in

(54:53):
your daily life.

Speaker 3 (54:55):
Well, that particular quote is a Coco Chanel quote.

Speaker 2 (55:00):
Ah, just let you know, she never gave up.

Speaker 3 (55:04):
She came from some humble beginnings, but you know, she
always she was a woman who pivoted a lot too.
She saw how things change, and she kind of changed
with the times and certainly with fashion trends. But if
you don't really think that, well, first of all, if

(55:28):
you don't really fear failure, if you just see it
as a challenge or a setback, it's only temporary. I
think that that can really give you a whole different
perspective because it has a short time lote. You know,

(55:48):
it's it's not the end of things. You could do
things different in the next moment or the next day.
You don't have to stay on that same path. You
can choose to take a different path.

Speaker 1 (56:04):
Yeah, and it doesn't define you. I really like that,
and I love that as a Coco Chanel quote, and
it really is powerful and something for all of our
entrepreneurs and business leaders to take that success is often
achieved by those who don't know that failure is inevitable.
I want to thank you so much for coming on today.
It's been very educational. We've learned a tremendous amount about

(56:26):
real estate investing and going after our dreams and businesses.
And I know that you're going to be enjoying your
time in Mexico very soon with your family and friends.

Speaker 3 (56:38):
Yes, I want to go back there, and I've been
there before and I want to do it again. I
want to tell you, Michael, I really truly appreciate the
opportunity of being with you today.

Speaker 1 (56:50):
Thank you for listening to The Michael Esposito Show. For
show notes, video clips, and more episodes, go to Michael
Esposito Inc. Dot com backslash podcast. Thank you again to
our sponsor dan ten Insurance Services, helping businesses get the
right insurance for all their insurance needs. Visit Denten dot
io to get a quote that's d n ten dot

(57:14):
io and remember when you buy an insurance policy from Denten,
you're giving back on a global scale. This episode was
produced by Uncle Mike at the iHeart Studios in Poughkeepsie
Special Thanks to Lara Rodrian for the opportunity and my
team at mike Lesposito Inc.