It was 107 units in Louisville, Kentucky. I did it with a partner that I met at The WheelBarrow Profits Academy. His name is Eli, and I met him in Jacksonville at a live event. The deal was 106 units, but when we closed, we also found a downed unit, fully plumbed, and fully livable, but it was just being used for storage. That was a really quick value add right there, adding almost $12,000 in NOI (net operating income) just right off the bat. Also, they were overpaying their manager heavily. I believe he was a relative. They were giving him a little bit more pay than the market would say to. We ended up just cutting his pay and adding that unit on Day One, and it ended up being a very good deal. We’re hoping to refinance it this year.

Robert Leonard  06:00

Just so I have this right, one day, you’re a Division I student-athlete. The next day, you’re reading Rich Dad Poor Dad. And then the day after that, you bought a 107-unit apartment building for over $4 million. How were you able to do this? Walk us through how you went from reading Rich Dad Poor Dad to closing on a 107-unit property as your first deal.

Kyle Marcotte  06:20

It wasn’t that quick of a timeline. I wish that it was. That would make me seem a lot smarter than I actually am. But, yes, I was playing Division I soccer. At that level, it’s no longer a game it’s a job. You’re fighting for scholarship dollars. It’s quite expensive to go to UC, and without the scholarship money, most kids can’t go, so it was not a fun game anymore. It was a job. It was a little cutthroat. I started to realize that wasn’t for me, and also that school wasn’t necessary for me either.

After reading the book, I did take massive action. I joined the local meetups. I hustled hard just to do as much value as I could. I worked as part of the camera crew, checking people in, writing their names on name tags, and giving them. Eventually, I got my own little five-minute segment, which gave me a lot of credibility on-stage because when you’re 21, and you look as young as I do, it’s not easy to get people to take you seriously. But, if you are on-stage and holding a microphone, it immediately makes you more credible, somehow, in our brains. We associate that with some sort of power or status or credibility. That was one way that I added value and got closer to being able to potentially raise money for a deal as large as the one that I did. I was also scrounging together all the money that I had saved up from college jobs.

Also, joining the Jake & Gino group was huge. I have a funny story about how I made it to the live event in Jacksonville. I had to take a job, and the only place that was hiring in all of Davis, California was a senior living facility. There, I was an on-call service member, which means I work the 6 a.m. to noon shift. I basically had to wake up elderly people from 85 and up as mornings are rough for them. That was my job– getting them ready for their day, showering them, and things like that. That was the only job that was available for me to pay for the flight so that I could get to the live event.

At that live event, I  ended up meeting the partner that I did the 107-unit property deal on, and also the partner that I did the 12-unit deal within Atlanta, so for both deals that I did last year, I met my partners at that meeting. It’s a really blessed way to do it, but it definitely was not super clear cut and easy, and that required some finagling and some hard work for sure.

Robert Leonard  08:22

Talk to us a bit more about how you were able to raise that money. I know you said you partnered with someone, but what did that look like? How did you raise over $600,000 for that deal when you’re just 20 years old? What was that conversation like?

Kyle Marcotte  08:35

That conversation was definitely uncomfortable, especially never having done it before. I met the main investor that I raised capital from at the local meetup in Sacramento where I had worked my way up to getting a five-minute section. I did partner on the deal with the other person, but he was an asset manager so he wasn’t in charge of raising capital. That mainly fell on my shoulders, and I ended up meeting a guy named Lalo at a local meetup.

I didn’t expect to be able to raise more than $100,000, but he had faith in me, put up a decent amount of money, and brought in a friend named David, who brought in quite a bit of money as well. It ended up just being people taking a huge bet on me, and I’m forever grateful to them. The conversation was just me being completely transparent and honest, saying, “I’m 20. I really don’t know what I’m doing. I can promise that I’m going to try as hard as possible and work my face off. If I have to drive from Sacramento to Louisville to makes things right and recoup some of your money or fix a problem, I’ll do it.” They saw that work ethic over the months of getting to know me more.

I think if you can be honest, people will respect that honesty. If you say you don’t have all the answers because no one has all the answers, then everyone knows you’re a liar right there, and you mess that up. But I immediately say, “Hey, man, I will work really hard, harder than most people. I don’t know what I’m doing, but I will give it my best.” Also, everybody likes to see a young guy trying to make life a little bit better for him and his family. They just took a bet on me, and I’m super grateful and blessed for that.

Robert Leonard  10:01

I agree. I don’t go to a ton of meetups, currently, but the few that I have gone to, as I’m young myself, I’ve found that the older real estate investors there are happy to strike up conversations. Even though there are more successful real estate investors there, it seems like the older, more successful investors tend to migrate towards the younger investors. They want to teach them, help them, mentor them, and guide them, really, in any way they can. It’s a great thing about the real estate space.

Also, I think it’s awesome that you’re able to just be transparent and honest, and say, “Hey, look. I don’t know what I’m doing 100%, but I’m willing to learn. I’m going to put everything I have into this, and I’ll make it work.” I think that’s really great.

How can someone that’s listening to the show today who’s in a similar place to where you were, meaning they don’t have much money or real estate experience at all, but have listened to podcasts like this one and read books, get started with raising capital? What is the very first step?

Kyle Marcotte  10:56

I think the very first step is just to get yourself established in a community in some way. That can be done by getting into a local meetup. The process that I went through is one that I learned, I believe, from Neal Bawa. I heard it at a seminar.

Basically, at the first meetup, just go and introduce yourself to the host. Don’t concern yourself too much with introducing yourself to other people at the meetup, but make sure you introduce yourself to the host. Just say that you found the meetup, how you found it, and that you appreciate them putting it together.

The second time you go, bring someone that you know, like a friend, and introduce him to the meetup host, as well, and say, “Hey, I’m also bringing people to the group. I really like the group. Again, it gives a lot of value. Let me know if there’s any way I can help.”

Then, the third time, now you’ve added value slightly by bringing people to his meetup, you’ve complimented his meetup, and told them how you found it, so now, he understands how his marketing is working or not working. On that third meetup, you can also give him a clue as to how you can specifically add value to the meetup.

For me, it was, “Hey, I noticed that everyone checks in, and it’s hard to remember everyone’s names. We’re using a clipboard right now. Maybe we could use a computer? Maybe we could get some name tags? Something like that. I could set that up for you.” I offered to do that, and he said yes. Most people do. Once he says yes, you’re going to add that value, and slowly work yourself into being part of the meetup. Over time, maybe you’ll have a little five-minute segment as I did, and that starts to give you some credibility because now you’re not just some guy who blends in with the pack. It’s very difficult to raise money without someone knowing, liking, and trusting you, so building that trust in the community is huge. 

I’d also say that people tend to think that they need to find a deal first before raising money. I think this is a big misconception because if you are doing a 506(b) syndication, meaning you can’t raise capital from people whom you don’t have a pre-existing relationship with, then you can’t actually raise that capital if you already have a deal under contract. You can’t go and raise money from people you haven’t met yet. You have to have an already established relationship with them. So, you need to always be in the mode of telling people what you’re doing in real estate and telling them the kind of deals that you want to see.

I’ve even seen people put together pretty decent mock deals or use someone whom they know well, and whom they have permission to use their offering memorandum or offering bet or pitch deck, and saying, “Hey, I’m looking for deals very similar to this.” Give your criteria, like 50 units and up, in metros with this population and this much job growth, etc. Let them know exactly what you do, and if this is coming up soon, ask if they would be interested in it, and just get people warmed up so that you can say you have a pre-existing relationship with them when you do end up getting a deal under contract.

Robert Leonard  13:31

Also, it’s never really too early to build a mailing list. I know a lot of people recommend adding all those investors to a mailing list. Start sending out content to them. You don’t have to bombard them every day with the material, but just keep them warm and just let them know that you’re working behind the scenes to find deals so that they’re ready to go when you do find a deal.

Kyle Marcotte  13:49

That’s a great point. That’s actually what I do now. The less sophisticated version was the one that I just laid out. But yeah, now we have a whole MailChimp drip campaign and different levels of engagement. If that sounds intimidating and you have no experience with some sort of sales funnel or content marketing in any way, just literally going and talking to humans about what you want to do is step one. Then, as you said, once you get a base, it’d be great to put them in a mailing list and start to have content that you could send to them. That’d be great.

Robert Leonard  14:18

Why did you choose to go straight to apartment buildings, and such big apartment buildings at that? Why 107 units? Why didn’t you just start with a single-family home or even a duplex or triplex first?

Kyle Marcotte  14:31

If you got to see that from my lens, I was focused on freedom. I wasn’t necessarily focused on anything other than the concept of trying to control my time and be independent of my time. I started to realize that, through economies of scale, if you’re over 50 or 75 units of multifamily commercial, then you have the leftover income or scale to hire someone full-time. With that, I don’t have to be in Louisville, Kentucky, five or seven days out of the week running that 107-unit. If it was a 10-unit building, however a duplex, you’d bet that I’d be there at least, you know, once a month or once a week. That’s not really what I wanted. If I wanted that, I could have just stayed at UC Davis and grudge through medical school and got a W2 job and made decent money. But I’m really not in it for the money. It’s never been about that. If it was, then I would have just stayed trying to be a doctor as doctors are well-compensated. 

It was time. I wanted my free time back. I wanted time to spend with my family, and I saw that going bigger meant you’d have more free time, as counterintuitive as that is. As you get bigger, you’re actually able to hire the parts and the pieces around you to not have to be doing so much hands-on work. I guess you could say I’m super lazy, so I wanted to go big. It sounds super counterintuitive, but that’s the truth.

Robert Leonard  15:43

How did you know that you were even capable of handling such a big deal? At what point did you think, “I can do this.” ? 

Kyle Marcotte  15:50

That’s a great question. I don’t think I ever felt like I could do it. There are still a lot of times when I question if I can do it. We’re working on a 24-unit in Austin, Texas right now that I’m still nervous about. I’ve done a similar rate before, and I understand real estate even better now, but I think there’s always some fear. I think you just get slightly braver, but I don’t think the fear ever goes away. I also think that having some faith and understanding that if even if things don’t work out, you’re going to get a lesson from them and you’re going to grow and become stronger.

If I look back at my life, some of the worst things that have ever happened to me have ended up being some of the better things, in retrospect. I think that I don’t necessarily fear complete and total failure even though that was a possibility on a 107-unit deal. I just saw it as there wouldn’t be such a thing as a complete failure. There would be some sort of massive lesson from which I would become a much better and stronger and more versatile person for having even attempted to raise money. I figured I’ll learn from it, so why not just go for it? But yes, I definitely was scared, and I’m still scared today. If you’re not trying because you’re scared, and you think it’s going to go away when you get older as you’ll have more experience, you’re wrong. You’ll be scared then, too, so you just kind of got to jump off the cliff. You really do.

Robert Leonard  16:59

I think that’s so important. A lot of people listening to the show today are new investors. Either they haven’t done any deals at all or they’ve done just one or two, and so they’re nervous, they’re scared, they’re worried. That’s what’s holding them back in terms of actually getting started. So, hearing that you just need to plow through it, if you will, and it never really goes away, and you just have to learn how to succeed with it, I think that’s super important for everyone to learn in here.

Let’s talk about what you’ve done since that big deal. What did your first deal after that look like?

Kyle Marcotte  17:29

The next deal was a smaller one. It was a 12-unit in Atlanta. I got into that deal through a joint venture arrangement with a couple of other people in the group. It was set up very well by a guy named JP Albano who ushered me in, and said, like, “Hey, we can easily get you in this 12-unit deal.  I figured that’ll be another great learning experience, and right now, we’re working on a 24-unit in Austin, Texas. We’re under contract and just going back and forth with the seller and trying to figure out if we can get to closing.

Robert Leonard  17:56

What was your role in that 12-unit property?

Kyle Marcotte  17:59

Mainly, the marketing, and some investor relations and capital-raising. It’s kind of my niche, at the moment. I’m decent at marketing. I’ve built Quantum Capital’s website, which is the firm I’m working with now. We’re partnered in a three-way partnership. I’m also pretty good at the sales funnel, and also keeping up with investors, communicating with people, and just being honest and transparent with individuals. That’s kind of my strong suit. We have our partner, Nick, who is the asset manager, mainly. He’s more the numbers and details guy, and I’m learning quite a bit about those. I’d like to eventually master that. But yeah, right now, my focus is usually just investor relations and marketing.

Robert Leonard  18:34

When you go into a deal, let’s take that 12-unit, for example. What is your ownership? Or what does the ownership structure of that deal look like?

Kyle Marcotte  18:43

I think the 12-unit deal is not necessarily the best example because it was a JV with several people. It was a little bit diluted, but the 107-unit deal is a great example of the structure in syndication. It was a 70/30 split between the general partnership and the limited partnership. A limited partner is someone who doesn’t have any say in the operation of the building, but they are where the equity is coming from. They’re putting up the money, so to speak.

The GP is mainly running the deal. Sometimes, they do also co-invest, but they’re the people in charge of the operation. They say when to sell and when to refill, and things like that. The 70/30 split is in favor of the limited partners. Then, there’s an 8% preferred rate of return, which means that we don’t make money as a GP until the LPs made 8% on their money. After that, the split jumps to 70/30. But up until 8%, it’s a 100% split. Within the GP, if you want to break down the structure more, that 30% share is broken into an asset manager, investor relations, and KP. It does get a little bit stratified, and I’ll try to explain it without drawing it out. Basically, within that GP, investor relations typically gets somewhere around 20% to 30%. The asset manager gets somewhere around 30% to 50% of that GDP.

The remaining is being filled in by people who are putting up, as we call it in the industry, risk capital, which means the earnest money deposit and inspection costs, things that they won’t get back if the deal doesn’t close. It’s called risk capital because they are risking some upfront capital that they may not get back if the deal doesn’t go through, whereas the LPs will be getting their money back if we don’t go all the way through escrow. After all, we just get our funds back. But they won’t get the earnest money. Sometimes, if it goes hard. Then, we won’t get inspection costs back. We give them a little bit of extra portion because of that huge risk.

We also have someone called a KP, who will be the network guarantor of the loan because when you get a commercial loan for, say $5 million, you have to have a net worth of that amount. You can’t just be a 21-year old guy who has little net worth and avail of a $5 million loan. You have to partner with someone who has a balance sheet that can justify that size of the loan, so you also end up giving someone an extra percentage for doing that. Even though it is a non-recourse loan, if they have something that you need, that makes them valuable, and you have to compensate them for that.

Robert Leonard  20:57

For someone listening to the show right now who may not have all the money to do their deal, but have skills like yours or can raise money from other people or have a skill that they can bring to a team to help in other ways other than just capital, what should they be looking for in terms of a split? Maybe they won’t do a 100+ unit deal on their first one, but maybe they want to be a part of a team that does a 10-unit or a 20-unit deal, relatively small multi-family. What could they expect in terms of ownership structure?

Kyle Marcotte  21:30

It varies from deal to deal. Sometimes, we’ll do an 80/20 split. Other times, 70/30. I’ve seen even 50/50. It depends on how good the deal is if you can give investors a good return or a return that they’re interested in. Typically, in the industry right now, that’s somewhere around 15% IRR. That might not even be high by today’s standards, but I’d say anywhere over 12% is considered good, in today’s standards. We typically don’t do deals that are under 15%, but I’ve seen a lot of deals trading at 13% IRR and people besting them heavily. Whatever the split can get you that return for your LPs is typically the split on the deal.

Then, as far as within your GP structure, if you are doing syndication and you’re starting again, that’s going to be a total case by case. That depends on how good you are at negotiation. If you’re raising capital, don’t walk away with less than 10% of the GP. It also depends on how much capital you’re raising. You’re probably not going to get more than 30% of the GP, but you just got to negotiate with your partners. Also, negotiations are so individual. It just depends on who needs who and how you convey your value, etc. 

Robert Leonard  22:38

How about outside of a syndication structure? How about through a joint venture, like you said? I think that’s probably going to be more common for the audience than syndication, especially for their first couple of deals. How might that structure look like, if you’re not putting up the capital? What percentage might you be able to expect?

Kyle Marcotte  22:54

It depends on your role. Hypothetically, if you were running all of the deals, you’re literally just taking this person’s money and they’re relying on you to do every single aspect of the deal, I could say that you could get somewhere around 30% to 50% of the GP. I would say it would be fair if you’re doing all of the work. It depends, again, on how generous this partner is. You should get your spreadsheet out, see what return you can offer him and how much equity you can get, and pull those levers right.

If I give myself 70% equity, what’s this guy’s return going to look like? Is it going to be favorable? Is it even worth his time, and if it is, then maybe if you stick with 70%, you can get a little bit lucky? If the deal is a little bit thinner, and you end up down your 20% but now he’s still got his 15% IRR return, then he might be happy to do that deal. You could also go off on cash on cash return or whatever return metric you want like average annual return. IRR is typically the most accurate metric just because it factors in most things, including time. I think that as long as you’re pulling those levers and seeing if it is going to be worth this guy’s time, you can negotiate your equity accordingly. But yeah, you have to just factor that in.

Robert Leonard  23:56

Of all the people that reach out to me that listen to the show, the majority of them are in California, and they’re looking for ways to be able to invest. A lot of them say they have a hard time investing in California. And I’ve also heard a lot of people just don’t like investing there. Why are you a proponent of investing in California? How are you able to find undervalued cash-flowing properties in such expensive markets?

Kyle Marcotte  24:19

The cash-flowing aspect of that last statement is maybe not the truest thing in the world, but I could argue for the undervalued portion of the statement. So my partner, Mark, has been investing in LA for about 20 years. He has a sizable portfolio there. He and Nick have a couple of investments there, currently, that I’ve been overseeing a little bit and helping out with.

Basically, rent control scares the majority of people out of California, and that allows for some value to be extracted. Typically, when people are pessimistic, there’s always an opportunity for you to win. A lot of people who’ve owned buildings in LA for quite a while, before rent control was even enacted, have seen that law come up, and they’re taking it at face value, saying, “I don’t want to mess with that. I don’t understand it. It’s a little bit scary. I own this property. It’s doing okay. I bought it in the 80s or the 90s, and I’m just going to leave as they are. I’m not going to mess with the government. I don’t want them in my stuff, etc.”

You can find a lot of properties like that, that are renting at $1,200, while the market rents somewhere around $2,200. They just don’t want to mess with it, but they don’t realize that if you buy that person out, cash for keys, you can then raise the rent to the market. And since it’s on a three-cap, the added value is massive. If you add an NOI of $100,000 per year, in the first year, and you’re on a four cap, that’s $2.5 million of added value. With that, you see how the low cap rate benefits you in the sense of adding a lot of NOI boosts.

Getting into a deal on a low cap can be a bit painful at times, but if you see exactly where the landlord is currently, whether negligent or fearful to raise rent or lacking on understanding on how to or maybe there’s a management play. It can end up huge for you on the back end on a low cap rate market. For example, we do deals in the center of Downtown LA, like the Staples Center, which is an area that’s highly intrinsically valuable. People aren’t necessarily going to think that that area of the country isn’t valuable anytime soon because it’s the most populated place in the country. It’s geologically pretty cool as it’s near the beach. It’s the biggest city near the Staples Center. It has high foot traffic. So, we don’t anticipate the cap rates massively jumping to like a nine cap and destroying the deal. We also don’t predict the cap rates are going to get lower. Our reversion cap rates are always a little bit higher to be conservative, but the deal does work when you’re adding quite a bit of NOI and you’re on such a low cap rate, it adds a lot of value on the back end.

Robert Leonard  26:46

Let’s talk about Quantum Capital. You mentioned that a few minutes ago. How are you able to become the head of investor relations?

Kyle Marcotte  26:52

I met Nick through the Jake and Gino: WheelBarrow Profits group and developed a relationship with him. Nick and I have known each other for a really long time before partnering. We drove to Nashville from Austin, which is like a 15-hour drive there and back, so really got to know each other in that car ride. Even after that, we were still just feeling each other out and didn’t know if we wanted to be partners because being a partner is almost being married and real estate deals last like five years. You have to know the person well. Shortly after that, we ended up driving up to Denver from Austin. It was another about 15-hour drive both ways. I got to know him and his family, and we just kept networking, knowing, and feeling each other out slowly over time.

First, I was tasked with just doing website work. These things go slow. I think just being patient is so huge. Also, not rushing anything because if you have the short-term thinking of “Oh, I want to get a part of these guys. They’re doing some cool stuff in LA. I want to jump in here with them. I’m going to miss out,” You can get yourself in a hole.

Partnerships are key. I think that that’s a huge pivotal point in people’s careers where they make a huge mistake. I was fearful of doing that. I’d seen a lot of older mentors go through periods where they had made huge mistakes and they educated me about that. I wanted to feel this out and make sure that Nick was going to be, number one, honest and transparent. I think that those are the number one things. They can be skilled and that’s great, but it really comes down to how honest and how fair are they going to be with you as a person as they could be so skilled that they don’t need you that they might even find a way to get rid of you, maybe take your portion, etc. You definitely have to vet the person and they have to vet you, and you just have to be patient and not rush into things.

Robert Leonard  28:38

How important would you say that mentors have been for you on your journey?

Kyle Marcotte  28:42

I’d say that they’ve been pretty much everything. I don’t think I’d be anywhere close to where I am now if I hadn’t even joined the Jake and Gino group. The group has been massively impactful in my life, and Lalo, the guy who invested in the first deal, has been a huge mentor of mine. Even Eli, who’s only 27, has still been a massive mentor. Nick, Mark, –all of them. Honestly, I really wouldn’t be anywhere close.

I also think that there’s an art to getting a mentor. I think that it takes a lot of hard work and dedication. The simplest tip I can give is just asking the person to be your mentor. I think that people miss this step quite a bit. Until you just verbalize, “Hey, will you actually be my mentor?” The person is caught in a limbo where they want to help you but feel uncomfortable giving other people advice. Even I feel uncomfortable advising this podcast because– Who am I? Do you even want to hear from me? Etc. Those thoughts run through everyone’s mind regardless of how successful people are, and until you say, “Hey, man. I’m open to your advice, and I would love for you to give me advice,” Then, people will take that as a green light. But, until you openly say that, and are honest and vulnerable enough to say, “I don’t know what I’m doing, and I’d love your advice,” that’s when things can start happening, and you can start having real mentors.

Robert Leonard  29:51

What would you say to someone who’s struggling to find a mentor? You just gave some good practical steps on how somebody can find one, but I hear from a lot of people that they’re doing something similar, but they’re still struggling. Is there anything they can do, specifically, if they’re struggling to find a mentor to help push them over the ledge and find that mentor that they’re looking for?

Kyle Marcotte  30:11

I think that there are a lot of things you can do. They’re not all going to be fun nor great. It’s all about looking inward and seeing how you can improve yourself. If you are improving yourself, you end up running into people who are also improved. It’s a really weird phenomenon, and I can’t explain it another way than that.

I’d say that if you’re having any success going outside and looking in, you’re really putting in the work. If you’re going to meetups every single week and posting on social media and letting everyone know what you’re doing, and you’re still not finding any success, I’d say that maybe it’s time to step back, reflect, and see how you can improve. Maybe that will start to bring mentors out of the woodworks. You never really know.

If you do sit down and learn more about the industry, and maybe even improving yourself just outside the industry, like going to the gym more or reading more or waking up earlier and doing some morning routines. The Miracle Morning changed my life, personally. Just improving yourself quite a bit gets people to start to see a more complete person. They’re more drawn to you, maybe you’re more self-aware, and maybe you can say things with slightly different phrasing, and that gets you the mentor that you wouldn’t have gotten if you hadn’t done a little bit of inner work.

Robert Leonard  31:22

Let’s talk about that social media component. How do you leverage social media to build your brand or just help your real estate business, in general?

Kyle Marcotte  31:32

Social media, at first, was a big mountain that I didn’t want to climb. I was insecure and nervous to get on there. I resolved this coming year to just do a comment on one LinkedIn post every day, and that was how I was going to get in. I wasn’t going to post a mountain of stuff because I was too weirded out by posting my own opinions onto the ether of the internet, so I first started off posting comments on other people’s posts. I slowly got a little bit more and more confident and moved it up to one post a week, then two posts a week, and now, I post every day on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. I also post a story every day on Instagram and Facebook, just conveying what I’m doing in real estate and some thoughts I have. It’s really about volume, honestly.

If anyone here follows Gary Vee, I know that he’s a little bit of a polarizing figure, but he’s right in the aspect that it is just about the content volume, and people seeing your name and recognizing you because people don’t even remember that you posted until they’ve seen your name about 10 times on their feed over and over again throughout several weeks. Then, you become more apparent on social media. Just start small and start wherever you’re comfortable. I super wasn’t comfortable. Now, I post every day, and people tell me that I’m annoying. You can build up to that even if you are introverted, as I described myself as. You just have to really start at a small place, and then just pump as much volume as you can that you’re comfortable with.

Robert Leonard  32:52

It’s funny you say that because I was in the same situation before I started the podcast. I didn’t have any social media. I had one Facebook account. I had some close family that I was friends with, but that was it. I never posted on it. I never really did anything with it. I was a big fan of Gary Vee, but I didn’t have any reason to build a brand. Then, once I started the podcast and started to gain some traction, I realized that I needed to build up social media presence, a personal brand, the brand for the podcast, and even for my real estate business. Once I started my real estate business, I know I needed to show that I knew what I was talking about and that all these different things were going on. And that that would help me raise money for my business.

And so, I was in the same situation as you. I felt uncomfortable posting on social media. But once I got comfortable with that, some of the negative comments started coming in just from the podcast and social media, and just everything. That added a whole other dynamic to it. That was even harder. So, social media can be one of those things that’s tough. It’s weird to even talk about how just posting on social media can be tough, but when you’re doing it, you’ll know what it means. It can really be impactful. I’ve gotten multiple guests for the show through social media. They’ve been great. I’ve even gotten some mentors through social media, and even some great friends. I think it is a powerful platform, and it can be impactful for your real estate business. It’s something I would recommend that you look into.

Kyle, what is the number one piece of advice you’d give to someone listening to the show today that wants to get started into real estate, but just doesn’t have a lot of their own money to invest?

Kyle Marcotte  34:21

I would say, firstly, really get to know the lingo of real estate as it is a barrier of entry into the industry. I think that people have put that there, whether on purpose or not, but it is there. It’s a wall that you have to scale at the beginning. It took me about two and a half to three months to learn all of the lingo –what a cap rate is, what IRR is, and things like that. I didn’t go to meetups until like six months to eight months in because I wanted to be overly savvy, savvier than the majority of the people at the meetups that I’d go to. I did that to compensate for the fact that I was going to come in there young and that people were going to underestimate me. I wanted to hit them with a wow factor. “Oh, this kid does know what he’s talking about. He’s done market research. He really understands the industry as much as he probably could. I was only six months in, but I felt like I’d done a really good job educating myself.

Educate yourself to more than think you need to before you start going anywhere else to network with other people to really be savvy and confident with the material because no one’s really going to invest in you if you don’t have that confidence about you and the way that you speak.

Also, secondly, once you get over that hump, get involved in the local community of real estate. That would be the only way to start. Then, just take it from there.

Robert Leonard  35:36

For those interested in learning more about you, connecting with you, maybe checking out your social media to see the different types of content that you’re posting, where’s the best place for them to go?

Kyle Marcotte  35:46

I’m all over the place on the internet. My website’s kylemarcotte.com. I think that’s probably the best place to find me. You can sign up for my Freedom Club. I have a group, and we have some meetups that we attend. There’s a weekly newsletter and a monthly newsletter, as well. That’s a great group to be a part of. Also, I have my Instagram @kylemarcotte9. I also have LinkedIn and Facebook. I post on all of those pretty much every day, and the website’s a pretty cool place to get connected with a lot of other younger guys who are just interested in the freedom aspect and not the Ferrari group driving Enzos down the road or anything like that. It’s just about creating an asset that’s going to pay for our lifestyle so that we can hang out with our family and enjoy life to the fullest, and not necessarily be trying to flaunt anything, but just having a good time and being free. That’s the community I’m trying to construct around me. It’s a good group of guys, so if you want to join that, then go to kylemarcotte.com and join the Freedom Club.

Robert Leonard  36:38

As always, I’ll be sure to put links to the various topics that we’ve talked about throughout the show. I’ll put books related to those in the show notes, so you guys can go check that out and read up on them more if you’d like. I’ll also put links to all the different resources that Kyle just mentioned so you can go connect with him there.

Kyle, thanks so much for coming on the show. I really appreciate it.

Kyle Marcotte  36:57

Yeah, thanks for having me, man. It’s been a lot of fun!

Robert Leonard  36:59

All right, guys. That’s all I had for this week’s episode of Real Estate Investing. I’ll see you again next week.

Outro  37:06

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