Matt Aitchison on Syndications and Boutique Hotels

Matt Aitchison is a successful real estate investor, hotelier, and podcast host who has built a diverse portfolio of commercial real estate assets, including apartments, laundromats, retail strip centers, medical plazas, and boutique hotels. Despite facing numerous challenges and setbacks throughout his life, Matt's determination and commitment to personal growth have led him to achieve significant success in the world of real estate investing.

With a passion for creative financing and leveraging other people's money, Matt has flipped and wholesaled hundreds of houses, and has consulted with various investment groups and hedge funds. Currently, Matt's primary focus is on building wealth through commercial real estate assets and pioneering new experiential and immersive hospitality innovations in his hotels and other hospitality assets.

www.mattaitchison.com

Get commercial real estate coaching, courses, and community to jumpstart your investment journey over at CRE Central: www.crecentral.com

Key Takeaways:

• Transitioning from residential to commercial real estate investing takes time, patience, and the right mindset. It's not an overnight process.

• Raising other people's capital can be a great way to get started in commercial real estate, but you need to be very diligent in your underwriting and risk mitigation.

• Getting into boutique hotels can be challenging, with issues like labor shortages and operational complexities. Focusing on larger hospitality assets with more economies of scale can be beneficial.

• Building brand loyalty and creating unique experiences for guests are important in the hospitality business.

About Your Host:

Tyler Cauble, Founder & President of The Cauble Group, is a commercial real estate broker and investor based in East Nashville. He’s the best selling author of Open for Business: The Insider’s Guide to Leasing Commercial Real Estate and has focused his career on serving commercial real estate investors.

Episode Transcript:

0:00

Are you looking to take the next step toward investing in commercial real estate but don't know where to go? Series central offers a comprehensive education and coaching platform designed to help you get started. Our online courses cover a wide range of topics from the fundamentals to advanced strategies, ensuring you have the knowledge and skills needed to thrive in this competitive industry. As a member, you'll gain access to our exclusive online community and monthly group coaching calls, providing you with valuable networking opportunities and personalized guidance from experienced professionals. Whether you're a beginner or looking to take your career to the next level, Siri Central has the resources you need. Visit www dot cre central.com to learn more. Welcome back to the commercial real estate investor podcast excited to be diving into this conversation today with the one and only Matty a man he said he's a buddy of mine out on the West Coast and we met Gosh back in Whistler Canada in like 2017 ethic. And, you know back then I think you were still flipping houses. He's flipped hundreds of houses got into commercial real estate started syndicating deals and got into boutique hotels. So it's gonna be a great conversation today talking about transitioning out of residential real estate, how he started syndications, how he got into boutique hotels and kind of what's next, Matt? That is a very brief introduction of your Walgett illustrious life. Tell us kind of how you got here. What's

1:26

up, brother? It's good to be here. Yeah, man, I mean, like, like most people, right? I, I was drawn to real estate for the obvious reasons of freedom, flexibility, being your own boss, you know, but it checks a really big box for me, which was wealth building. I wanted to be in an industry that allowed me to build wealth and not just collect to collect a paycheck. And I graduated from UC Santa Barbara had this expensive piece of paper in my hand that was interviewing for like 3040 $50,000 year jobs and like, yeah, this, this, this ain't gonna cut it. And this was back in 2010, when foreclosures post financial crisis were pretty, you know, prevalent here in Northern California specifically. And I remember going on Craigslist, seeing an ad real estate mentor seeks real estate mentee. And that ultimately is what led me to my first real estate mentor, that I interned for free for about 12 months working for that individual. And this person that year, I think we that helped them flip maybe 110 Plus houses that year. And I saw the $0 that were coming into my bank account, and I was doing all the work and I saw all of the 5060 $70,000 checks that were going into his bank account. Basically, utilizing all of the things that I was doing, I was like, Man, I can do this for myself, I know I can figure this piece out. But obviously I was you know, 21 living at home broke, you know, no real experience under my belt outside of just working for this guy. But one of the quotes that I've always lived by is be dumb enough to believe in yourself and smart enough to take action on your goals. And so I was like, You know what, I'm gonna I'm gonna flip my first house, which after tacking up all kinds of, you know, bandit signs in neighborhoods and getting all the you know, the calls of, you know, quit wasting my time this and that, it led me to my first flip, which was actually a cat lady house, bought this house in Sacramento, flipped it using 100% of somebody else's money. And that was kind of the big lightbulb moment for me that real estate investing this path was going to be, you know, where I invested a lot of my time, energy and resources going forward. And so that led me to build a real estate team, it led to really learning that I was not looking to stay on the retail side of the real estate industry. At the same time, I was starting to flip more houses and you know, build up kind of some momentum on that front. And over the course of you know, the next five, six years, I'd flipped, you know, a pretty significant amount of phones, couple 100 houses and then decided, man, I'm only as good as my last flip, I need to figure out how to start taking some of these profits and actually buying into holding assets. And so that led me to buy my first rental and my second then started going into like more of the duplexes and quads. But when you start running the math on those, right you and I've had this conversation before it was like man clipping $200 A door is really not going to get me where I want to be at. And the timeframe I want to be there by so what is and that's ultimately what led me over to the world of commercial real estate. So I bought my first retail strip center, using 100% of other people's money and kind of creative financing. That's always kind of been my world. And that led to that my first medical office building and then back around the time when you and I met in 2017 is when I bought my first boutique hotel up in Lake Tahoe which then led to my second my third. And really I got into this world of hospitality learning that it has all the benefits of traditional commercial real estate I sets. But there was this kind of hospitality component that I fell in love with that I can't take my daughters and my family to go, you know, enjoy and have fun in the neighborhood liquor store that you know, I own a shopping center or, you know, the the nail salon, but I can definitely take my girls up to the hotels, and the amount of memories and experiences, you know that hospitality assets create for the property owner, in addition to the cost segues in addition to the cash flow, the appreciation, right, all of the obvious benefits that we get in commercial real estate, it really kind of opened my eyes up to this world of hospitality that I fell in love with and actually packaged up and sold my hotel portfolio last year. So that was kind of a big deal for me. And something that was very exciting. I still have retail strip centers, medical office buildings is some of my core kind of boring commercial real estate assets. And, you know, working on some different hospitality projects right now in the interim of, you know, finding that next hospitality asset that I'm looking to go after, but as you know, we all know, interesting markets right now with where, you know, the Fed is that where interest rates are at, or the cost of construction and labor. And, you know, just the overall economics from a macro perspective are, are hard to make deals pencil right now, at least from where I like to see them pencil at. So just kind of patiently waiting for that next big, you know, hospitality asset and project while, you know, still taking down some other commercial real estate assets in the meantime,

6:30

I love it, man. I mean, we've got a lot to unpack there. So So first, you know, a lot of my audience and and the majority of my students in the serie accelerator program, they're all transitioning out of residential and into commercial. So can you kind of walk us through, you know, one, what was your mentality when you were at that point? And how did you pull it off? Like, what was the what was the moment where you're like, you know, what, I'm done with this, I'm moving into commercial, here's how I'm going to do it. For

6:59

me, so I'd said kind of on the Big Vision guy, you know, it's never an issue with action for most of people like us, right? We were action takers. That's not the problem. It's are we taking the right action. And so for me, I really had kind of taken the time as I started getting into the numbers, because I'm a big believer that whatever it is that you desire, there's always a perfect business or investment model that is paired with that vision. And it's really just a math equation that we got to break down and get clear on and so I had told myself, that, you know, I wanted to unlock $500,000 a year in passive income. And when I started looking at, you know, my single family portfolio, and some of the stuff that I had accumulated, I was like, Yeah, this, this is, this is gonna take me a long time to get there. And my goal was, I want to do that, you know, when I made this decision, I want to do that in a decade. So then I just kind of started reverse engineering, okay, well, if I want to get there in 10 years, and let's just say I'm gonna be able to buy one asset a year, that allows me to move the needle forward on that goal, I need to buy one asset a year, that nets me $50,000 a year, and I need to do that for 10 years straight. So what world of real estate investing? Can I do that in and I realized very quickly, this ain't going to be single family, right? This is going to be on the commercial side of the street. And so I'd always kind of felt like that was going to be a part of my journey anyways. But that really made it crystal clear for me that I need to make a plan. And I need to execute on that plan immediately if I want to get there in the timeframe that I want to get there. And so then it kind of led to Okay, well, what commercial real estate assets at what price points and what markets, what asset classes actually, you know, have the financials and the economics that align with that $50,000 A year net after all of my, you know, operating expenses and debt service are paid off. And so that kind of led me into the world of learning more about commercial real estate learning about certain markets. I've been pretty market agnostic, pretty deal agnostic in the beginning, just going, I'll go where the opportunities are at. I'm an opportunist. But that being said, then that really led me to getting more clear on okay, what kind of relationships do I need to build up? How much capital am I going to need to bridge the gap on Who am I going to, you know, need to align with in order to connect the dots on these goals. And that's really what kind of led to a lot of those initial kind of discussions in the sky going, I need to start figuring out a plan of how I'm going to execute in the dirt on this. And that took some time to write like, you don't just like decide, okay, I'm going to be a commercial real estate investor. And here's my first deal, it falls in my lap and I knock it out of the park and now I'm off and running. You know, it took some time. Fortunately, you know, I, I call it this one number, sleepless night numbers, like what kind of cash reserves do you need to have on hand to be able to sleep well at night, that gives you permission to go and kind of take this risk, right? So it's almost like having two plates spinning at the same time of like, Hey, I'm still trading time for money over here and I need to make sure I've got enough cash flow coming in to sustain my lifestyle or my business. As pay the bills for my family, and what's the reserve number I need to have on deck over there, that gives me permission to now start allocating more energy and time and resources towards this plan, because that's going to take some time too. And I always tell people at least 12 months, you know, give yourself enough runway, at least in my community. And you know, a lot of the real estate investors and coaching clients that I have, it takes anywhere from nine to 12 months to find that first deal, I think you and I were talking about this not that long ago, like people think, all right, I made the decision, I'm going to be a successful real estate investor now, and all of a sudden, right that they're gonna see cash flow coming in, and deals you know, with millions of dollars and commas and zeros tied to them that are going to benefit them. And the reality of that is, it takes time to understand the industry, right, like I just look at as like a board game, the first time I sat down to play in chess or monopoly, you don't know the highest level of strategy and the best ways to execute and winning that game, right, so you got to get in the game first, then you got to understand the players that you're playing with, then you got to understand the strategies that go into achieving the goals that you want to achieve with winning that game. And that takes some time, right, the more repetition you get, things will start to slow down, dots will start to connect language will start to make more sense, right relationships will start to fall in place. But that takes some time. So just being realistic about what that transition time needs to look like, gives you a little bit more permission to stay consistent in the activities that will lead to those things coming to fruition because that's where most people get burnt out. You know, they have this unrealistic mindset mentality around the decision to actually seen some real results and feeling that momentum, and they burn out before they actually get to that stage. So I think that's something that's really, really important that I know, you and I have talked about this a lot with, you know, having the right strategy, but most importantly, you got to have the right mindset, and you got to have the right, you know, habits and disciplines and the grit to push through those times that, you know, most people just can't get over the hurdle. And and that's where you see a lot of people fizzle out in commercial real estate.

12:03

I think that's such a great point. I mean, the the monopoly, I mean, obviously, monopoly is a aspect of what you're talking about. Because when you first start playing Monopoly, you have no idea what you're doing. You just buy whatever you land on, right? Because you're like, hey, I landed here, I'm going to buy it. That's just like, when you're first starting out in commercial real estate, you're like, I found a good deal. Let's just buy it. But the more that you learn about the game, commercial real estate, the more strategic that you get, the more deals you actually start turning away, because there's going to be a better opportunity that comes. And when you start to realize the power of compounding a better deal. Those those good deals actually start to hold you back pretty significantly.

12:43

Yeah, one of my early mentors told me that sometimes it's better to do no deal than a mediocre or bad deal. But when you're itching to get in the game, right, it's, it's tough not to, you know, I look at it, metaphorically, I'm a sports guy, I love sports, right. So when I think about, like, stepping into the batter's box, you know, and you're really trying to get on base, you're really trying to put some points up on the board, you know, you have to be so specific and careful about what your Buy Box or what your swing box criteria looks like. And you swing at, you know, just a few pitches that are outside of that, you know, that could be catastrophic for some people. And especially when you're first getting going, you know, you really need to make sure that that first one is going to be a stepping stone that sets you up for success going forward. Because most people, unfortunately, they swing at the wrong pitches, they get in, they strike out, and then they never want to step foot back into the batter's box. And that's ultimately what prevents a lot of people from going, hey, you know what, I had a decent deal or a good deal that you know, getting a single or a double, those are still good things at the end of the day, because you know, those stack up, you're gonna put points up on the board. But if you strike out the first few times you get in the batter's box, it's really hard to overcome that when you're talking about commercial real estate. It's not as forgiving as single family is. Couldn't

14:07

agree more. You just got to get that first one done. And mine was a single, you know, it was a 6000 square foot to tenant $575,000 building. Would I buy it again today? Probably not. There's no chance yet. But man, was that a great first step into the business because it was a lower risk entree into the world of commercial real estate. Alright, talk to us about your first deal. You talked about raising other people's money to buy these deals. If that is something that anybody could take advantage of. I raised other people's capital to go buy deals, I think it's a great way of doing it because one, there's only so much money in the world that I've ever going to make. Right and if I'm only relying on my money, I'm gonna get trapped and not be gonna be able to buy more deals. And you've got investors on the other side that want to make more money on their money. So talk to us about raising money on that first deal why you decided to do it what that process was like

14:58

yeah, for Me, you know, I've always been of the mindset, especially when you're first starting out, it's better to own a slice of a watermelon than 100% of nothing. So I'd much rather find somebody who's got some capital, but maybe they don't have as much time I've got the energy, I've got the grit, I've got the hustle, right? I'll be the racehorse that runs around the track, and I'll let your money jockey up on me, and we'll all win together, right? So that was kind of the mindset, the mentality of going in there. Now, when I was first, you know, getting going on my commercial real estate deal I kind of had just carried over the mentality of because of the all the flips that I've done, I think I've maybe used my own money. And like, two or three of them, most of them has always been, you know, a private money, first, a private money, second funding 100% of the deal, and making sure that the economics of the deal made sense to protect and, you know, provide those returns for everybody, and still be able to make and hit and achieve my investment goals in the process. So when my first retail strip center came along, it was a million dollar price point. It was something that I got the seller to carry back a first on, I had to go and raise the kind of the downpayment plus the cap x funds in a second position, which you know, over the course of doing hundreds of you know, flip deals, I had kind of built up that Rolodex built up that trust that reputation of you know, always making my investors hold, providing great returns, providing a good investor experience. And so that reputation over time started to compound and build up like you said earlier. And when it came to, you know, transitioning over to the commercial real estate arena, even though I was new, I knew what investors wanted to see, I knew what risks I needed to mitigate in order to protect their investment returns. And I knew that I needed to create a good plan and a good team to go out and be able to execute on that, because it's one thing, I see so many new investors that love to, you know, engineer something on a spreadsheet and make it look all sexy and sound good. But at the end of the day, the difference between that spreadsheet and the work, and the team that is required to go and actualize that in real life. There's a big difference there. And I've said this to a lot of people over especially over the course of the last few years, we've seen a lot of syndicators that had the ability to raise money, but they didn't necessarily execute on the game plan or mitigate the necessary risks along the way to protect their investors in a scenario like we've seen over the last 18 months. And there's a lot of people that are experiencing and feeling pain because of that. And so I think that's something that's so important to also remember, is just because you can raise money on a deal, doesn't mean you should do it. Now let's talk about when you should raise money. Well, when you think you've got a good enough deal, that in my opinion, when you pro forma your assumptions based on conservative and or potentially worst case, numbers or scenarios, versus the blue sky best case situation and scenario that we saw most people model into their assumptions when syndicating and pooling funds over the last few years, then you can feel a lot more comfortable going out and saying hey, this deal still stands on its own merit, even with these really conservative assumptions. Here's how I'm mitigating your risk. Here's the team that we have in place. Here's the business plan that's tied with it right, we always put together a great deck that shows exactly what that business plan looks like. And then from there, right, it's big boy, big girl investing, we understand the risks that are associated with it, we believe in the team, you're my horse that I want to jockey up on, let's run around this track together and everybody gets to win and participate in that upside. And that's what that first deal looked like. For me, it wasn't a big syndication, it was just, I was able to get a seller to carry back, I was able to go and raise about 250 I think 300 ish to in that second seller position. And after I was able to stabilize that asset, inflate the value, right, increase the NOI and compress the cap rate, when it made sense, I was able to recap that deal, get that investors money back out, get those sellers whole again. And now I had just a traditional, you know, 20 year end bank loan at a relatively reasonable rate when I when I did that. So that's what that looked like. But again, if those things or those economics don't line up, that timing doesn't line up. And you know, the the market or the economic shift in a way that don't allow you to do those things. That's where you see people get caught with their pants down and get in big trouble. And that's ultimately what we're seeing and probably going to continue to see over the course of the next 12 to 24 months as a lot of these, you know, loans and structures are maturing in a way that the economics didn't have those assumptions built in when you know people bought these deals or raised that money. And that's where we're seeing a lot of turbulence in the market right now, which as we both will agree is a great time and creates a lot of opportunity for people that are doing those things in a very diligent way.

19:56

I couldn't agree more. I mean, these are the better times ABS because you get a lot of people, you get the what I like to call the dumb money out of the market. Because these are the people that don't understand commercial real estate, they just watch the headlines. So, you know, two years ago, they saw Oh, commercial real estate is taken off great, I've got a lot of money, I'm going to start buying commercial real estate. Well, that guy can afford to have zero cashflow, which means he's willing to pay more for a property than what actually makes sense. And that's also the kind of person that when they read the headlines and say, Hey, commercial, real estate is crashing, they sell it and they walk away, like I'm not touching this. Which means that if you know what you're doing, there's going to be a good opportunity and talking about your underwriting. We underwrote our hotel, which we just broke ground on last week, we underwrote it at the same price, that I'm super conservative, same price as the Sleep Inn down the street, nine, brand new boutique hotel, same price as an old sleeping. So yeah, I know, worst case scenario, if we have to go with a cop that's, you know, five blocks away. That's what we're gonna get, ya know, we think that we're gonna get twice that, but you don't want to base your assumptions on that. So anyway, it's always better to be conservative talking about hotels, tell us how'd you get into boutique hotels? And tell us about your exit?

21:16

Yeah, so it you know, it's funny, I've I've always been kind of, like I said, you know, somewhat deal agnostic market agnostic, if there's a great opportunity, I'm going to find a way to make it happen, right, because that's where I think, you know, my, my, my dollars invested my time spent have the highest ROI. And so this one, you know, you and I've talked a lot about the power of a personal brand online social media, this was brought to me through a pastor of a church that had been following me on social media, one of his congregation members bought this boutique lodge up in Lake Tahoe, for the church to be able to use for retreats, they essentially, you know, cut corners on construction, they, you know, weigh underestimated the amount of time and energy that was going to go into, you know, getting this thing up and running. And just the fact that when you're buying a hotel, you're not buying real estate asset that you can turn into a passive income vehicle. This is a full fledged operating business, it's a living breathing organism 24/7 365, you've got people and customers, in addition to staff operating out of that asset. And so they didn't really understand that, nor did I mind you in the very beginning, I was like, Yeah, I'll buy this hotel, this is a great deal, right, I thought it was a great deal and a great market that had a lot of great upside. And so when I purchased this, this property, I got baptized man I got, I really had no idea how hard it was going to be, I'd always been of the mindset of, I can take an underperforming asset in terms of its condition, and its operations. And that was one of our strengths that we had built up over the last, you know, 1213 years of my real estate investing journey. So I felt like I could do that same thing here. But again, it was a completely new board game, that I ultimately didn't understand all the rules to that game and the strategies of winning that game at the highest level. And so when I got into that space, there were a lot of bumps, a lot of bruises, a lot of challenges. That being said, we work the kinks out. And I'm fortunately I'm surrounded by people on my team that are way smarter, faster and stronger than I am. So putting them in a position to do what their strengths and skills were allowed me to do what mine was, which was to create vision, create a plan, and collectively hold everybody accountable to achieving that. But it took the first year was was brutal. And it took a lot of it took a lot of grit to not want to give up on on this. I mean, there were many times where I was like, I think I should sell this for a loss. I think I should get out for this. And it was really a point in time where I said, I'm either going to commit to this space for the next five years. And I'm going to build some scale behind this so we can get some real economies of scale, we can get some real ROI on our failures on our lessons learned on the you know, the strategies and infrastructure we built out and put into place and that's ultimately what led to bind my second bind my third and then you know, I Tahoe was very, very fortunate to experience the growth that had experienced post COVID where a lot of work from home. You know, from the Bay Area from Las Vegas from Reno we have a lot of drivable economies within you know, close proximity to Lake Tahoe so when people weren't taking their vacation over to Europe or going to Hawaii, they were driving two to six hours to come to a beautiful Lake Tahoe because it was a leisure market. Sun sand snow year round. We have Traffic, we have leisure and hospitality and recreation. And those are the things that I really learned were a part of my hospitality by box criteria is, I want those things happening year round, because we can create programming around those things, we can create marketing, we can create brand loyalty around those things. And so when I'd really kind of reaped a lot of the benefits of that season, post COVID, I started to see I'm a big data guy, I like to track the data, it's, you know, one of the best ways to create a crystal ball for you know, investors to at least think we know where the puck is heading towards. And we can skate there, much quicker than maybe the average, you know, retail or traditional investor, a person who doesn't pay attention, a lot of those things during the data was shown that things were slowing down plateaued a little bit. So could I have captured more upside, probably long term, but I also knew that I wanted to get into much larger hospitality assets instead of kind of the smaller Mom and Pop boutique lodges. So I, you know, had some opportunities, after getting some valuations on those those properties, I think it was a total about 20 million in assets, a little little shy of that. And that gave me the ability to essentially cash out. And I was very happy to do so I redeployed a lot of that into some other commercial assets that, you know, that I bought. And at the same time, through cost segregation, was able to, you know, save a significant amount of, you know, tax savings on that side and still have some dry powder to redeploy, and maybe reenter the market. And, you know, this kind of recovery expansion phase all over again, because I felt like we were entering a little bit of the, you know, kind of hyper hyper supply in this market. And things were really starting to, you know, slow a little bit. So that's what that looked like. And it was something exciting. Lots of lessons learned again, now, it's kind of redeploying, you know, that experience, those are the lessons that we learned and that capital into new assets that essentially I'm going to try and do it all over again.

26:57

Yeah. Jorge is saying, hi, good. Tyler. Great story, Matt. Patients are great words to live by. Couldn't agree more. I mean, he's talking about, you know, that was earlier when we were talking about making sure you're just finding the right deal. So on this on this Tahoe deal, I mean, you know, you said you're taking some key lessons with you into the next projects you're going to be doing. Talk to us about, you know, what were your your biggest takeaways from doing these boutique hotels? And what advice would you give to somebody else that wants to start their own? Yeah.

27:30

biggest challenges that we ran into, for sure, we're, you know, in a, in a market like Lake Tahoe as year round as it is housing affordability up there is a really big challenge. And if your employees cannot afford to live in that market, the labor pool was already a very challenging aspect of investing and operating a business out of that market. So that was something that was very, it was it was a challenge, very, very consistent challenge that we had to deal with. So just looking at the demographics, in terms of population growth, affordability, who are you hiring, where they are, they commuting in all the time, I mean, during you know, the winter months, if they live, you know, 30 minutes outside of town, but we get a 10 foot, you know, snowfall, and I can't get my housekeepers into turnover rooms and to, you know, do those things, right? Those are big operational challenges. So just really thinking about, you know, the operations of the business, the day to day, customer service was such a big one, we really got heavy in integrating in technology, there's so many assets that are outdated, operationally, they're run, you know, with a very old school mindset. And the beauty of Prop tech now is, there's a significant amount of efficiencies that you can create not only from an optics standpoint, and lowering your operating expenses, but from a customer experience perspective, and how the customer now expects their experience to go right. So making everything touch list, having world class customer service, creating a lot of different programming options is something that, you know, in the smaller ones, you don't get those economies of scale, and it can be a lot more challenging. So really, key count became something that was, you know, pretty much any asset going forward, I want to be anywhere from like, 70 to 80 keys or more. Because what I've learned in the process is, you know, while heads and beds are great, the more programming you can integrate in at scale into your hospitality assets. Some of those programmings can app two 3x What you can make from an f&b perspective or from other programming perspectives, that your you know, beds and heads just can't do, right. So those are some of the things that you know, get in those economies of scale, I think is really important, the more you can get under one roof, the better and then just build on that brand loyalty, right? direct to the consumer not having to go through the OTAs and rely on the Expedia is and the Airbnbs and you know the, you know, the hotels.com As of the world, they're taking anywhere from 15 to 1819 20%, just to give you one of those customers, so right, if you can build up that customer loyalty, get them in directly through your website versus, you know, having a payout that's saving 15 to 20%, right there, that's drop into your bottom line. So just things along those lines, right, that you learn, going through the process that maybe you wouldn't know otherwise. And then just, you know, going back to that idea of people are willing to pay for experiences right now, especially younger travelers. And so if you can find ways to create some really cool experiences, right, not just within your own footprint envelope of your property, and you know, where you're, you're located at, but thinking about what is around you, and how do you build potential alliances with whether it's other businesses or other tour companies or just leveraging the beauty and the nature that may be in your particular market. Those are things that you know, people are willing to pay for, just to do something different. You know, most people don't want to go stay at a Hilton or a Hyatt anymore, that has the same old vanilla options, the same old branded decor, they want something to eclectic, new, exciting, different. And that's where, you know, really unique Hoteliers and hospitality minds can thrive. I've seen so many people do really cool stuff with a wellness package, and they've got thermal cycle, you know, and they converted an old garage. And now it's got, you know, a hot tub and a red light therapy and a sauna and a crystal rock wall and a cold plunge, people will just come to stay at it for that let alone all the other cool stuff you might be able to work in on your design and some of the other things right so just thinking outside the box in hospitality I think there's a big ROI and upside and really the creativity and the possibilities are endless on that front.

31:52

I love it man. What a wonderful conversation man. So many takeaways. If anybody in the audience wants to follow you see what you're doing? What is the best way for them to find you and also plug your podcast?

32:04

Yeah, Millionaire Mind cast obviously has been you know, top 100 Tuner podcasts for the last man that's 10 years running now, which is all wealth building real estate investing, you know, mindset stuff like that. That's Millionaire Mind cast.com They can check that out. You know, my, my, my main focus is you know, my my real estate investment community and, you know, building my wealth through commercial real estate, so that's why it's investor collective.com Or just, you know, hit me up on social media. My handle is official Matt da ma TT ya on pretty much all platforms. Awesome,

32:37

man. Thanks for joining us appreciate you all for tuning in. And we will see y'all in the next one. Are you looking to take the next step toward investing in commercial real estate but don't know where to go? Series central offers a comprehensive education and coaching platform designed to help you get started. Our online courses cover a wide range of topics from the fundamentals to advanced strategies, ensuring you have the knowledge and skills needed to thrive in this competitive industry. As a member, you'll gain access to our exclusive online community and monthly group coaching calls, providing you with valuable networking opportunities and personalized guidance from experienced professionals. Whether you're a beginner or looking to take your career to the next level. Cre Central has the resources you need. Visit www dot cre central.com To learn more