Gabriel Hamel is a Real Estate Investor who’s passion for Real Estate, Business, and Financial Freedom has helped him to amass a Multi-Million dollar Real Estate Portfolio consisting of Single Family Homes, Multi-Family Apartments, Commercial Real Estate, and Mobile Home Parks. From humble beginnings, a book on Real Estate, and a strong desire for financial freedom, Gabriel set out to find creative ways to start purchasing income producing investment Real Estate. Gabriel is a strong advocate of financial literacy through self education.
Time-Freedom, Family, Health, Wealth, and Happiness are most important to Gabriel. He focuses his time and energy learning, living and growing in these areas. Gabriel has a beautiful wife and two amazing son’s with lots of energy who keep them busy with various activities. Gabriel strongly believes that being Healthy, Wealthy, and Happy are choices and with the right knowledge and more importantly, effective action can all be greatly achieved.
Key Takeaways:
- Growing up lower-middle class
- Rich Dad Poor Dad
- Being Deployed to Kuwait & Iraq
- Starting your financial free journey with not much support
- Seller Financing Unicorns do exist!
- Don’t convince sellers to seller finance – they have to want to do it without you!
- Know your market and build relationships.
- Value-add opportunities in Mobile Home Parks
- Financial Literacy is a HUGE opportunity
- GoBundance Mastermind
- The power of relationships are undervalued
- Cash Flow first, appreciation 2nd.
Connect with Gabriel:
Episode Affiliate:
Links mentioned in this episode:
- HamelInvestments.com
- Real Estate Investing for The W2 Employee Facebook Group
- Join the W2 Capitalist Mastermind
- w2capitalist.com/Resources
Raw Transcript
[00:00:16] You are a W2 capitalist. You are addressing the gap between your successful fulfilling W2 job and to building wealth for your family through real estate investing. You are ready to earn invest. Repeat. Welcome to the W2 Capitalist podcast. Now let’s get to work. Here is your host, Jay Helm. Hey, what’s up for everybody?
[00:00:44] My name is Jay Helms, I’m the founder of this movement and podcast known as a W2 Capitalist. Today, I have extremely special guest Gabriel Hamil. My saying that, right, Gabriel? That’s right. I always want to make sure I’m getting guest names correctly. A person should ask you that. All fair. So it didn’t sound like such a jackass right now. But anyway, you got it and you got it. Gabriel was a real estate investor who’s passionate for real estate, business and financial freedom. He has helped to amass a multimillion dollar real estate portfolio. Congratulations.
[00:01:14] Consisting of single family, multi-family apartments, commercial real estate and mobile home part time freedom. You’re a strong advocate for financial literacy through self education. I want to make sure we dive into that. But I want to finish reading your bio. Here is time. Freedom, family health, wealth and happiness are most important to you. You focus on time and energy, learning, living and growing in these areas. Gabriel has a beautiful wife and two amazing sons with lots of energy to keep them busy at various activities. Gabriel strongly believes that being healthy, wealthy and happy are choices, and within that right, knowledge and more importantly, effective action can be greatly achieved.
[00:01:57] So speaking of that, I’m going to use your words, beautiful wife. You guys have this picture on social media where you’re like laying on your back and she’s up in the air, on the beach or something like that. How long did you’ll have to practice before you’re able to know that?
[00:02:15] You know what? We actually didn’t practice it, so we did after the wedding. My wife wanted to do a trashed the dress type thing where I’m like, yeah, we went down to the ocean and kind of play in the water.
[00:02:27] And the photographer took some pictures and he just said, Hey, I had this couple that did this. You guys think you can do it? And we said, of course we can do. Let’s do it. And we tried it and he snapped some good pictures.
[00:02:39] And so it is amazing. That’s how that came to be. You also like your professional dancers or maybe just it looks it looks awesome, you know. And so I appreciate it. She says a lot about you and your wife to be.
[00:02:52] We want to do that on your wedding day, too. So that’s cool. That’s really cool. So we were chatting just a little bit before I hit the record button about how long you’ve been investing in real estate.
[00:03:02] And when you came home or when you were in the military or the military, you went through a W-2 world or we started getting a little bit payroll list.
[00:03:11] We sure we capture all these.
[00:03:12] So walk me through your W-2 experience leading up to your real estate investing, which you’ve been doing now for for 15 years. I see that right.
[00:03:23] It’s about that about my first house in 2005.
[00:03:27] So, yeah, really my first experience with work, if we went way back was I had a paper out it from 12 to 16 because my parents, you know, we grew up lower middle class and they had, you know, they were working parents. And there were often things that I wanted and they said, hey, we just can’t afford it. And so I worked every morning delivering papers from 12 to 16. I joined the Army National Guard at 17, my senior year of high school. And I was doing just like the commercials one weekend a month, two weeks, two weeks a year. I always knew, of course, that there was a possibility of being deployed. But the Oregon National Guard, I was in an infantry unit. They hadn’t been deployed since World War Two. And so, yeah, 2002, I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad and just had a huge impact on my life. I I knew that college, the academia route, you know, even a high paying job was not was really not my route. And so after I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad, probably around 2002 and shortly after that deal in three, I got deployed to Kuwait and Iraq for a year.
[00:04:31] And so oftentimes just thought about the lessons in that book and thought, hey, when I come back, I’m going to start investing in real estate and that. And that was my plan. A lot of my friends and fellow soldiers kind of laughed at the idea that you could become financially free through real estate, especially without a college degree or any kind of background or any money to start. And when I came back, bought my first house in 2005, bought my second house in 2006, and I opened up a small nutrition store which eventually had to shut down. And so when I shut the store down, I worked a bunch of odd man jobs just out of necessity and eventually landed a minimum wage job in a high school in the special education class. And I quickly realized, even though my heart went out to those kids, that was not my passion. And I really, really got serious about having to replace that income and wanting to replace that income as quickly as possible with a more passive flow. And in this case, it was with some seller financing real estate.
[00:05:34] Yeah, so. And I want to dive into that because seller finance real estate is like a unicorn for me. So I want to know your speakers because I struggle with that tremendously. But back up quick. Thank you for your service. You signed up to do a job that I was not willing to do. So thank you for that. The the other thing I wanted to make sure is you talked about being around people and telling them that, hey, I want to be financially free and invest in real estate and very much like. There are several versions of my circle ago. People were laughing, saying, no, this is crazy, man. Don’t do it. You don’t lose your butt. You know, all this stuff is up. I wonder how many of those people you hang around today for if they see you in a different light. Right. So you’re like I told you so. Or trying to help them, maybe educate them a little bit. And then the other thing is, you mentioned your you bought your first house in 2005, your second house in 2006, which we all know now ‘scuse me. All now know that was a near the heart of the market ripe for that cycle. Yeah, same thing, man. I call it my fault. Start one single family house in 2006. I wanted to stop renovating, flipping it like live in flip, but ended up holding onto it for about six years as a rental after that.
[00:06:56] So yeah. Yeah, I still have my first couple houses and so yeah, I know I gave a kind of amount mouthful there at the beginning and so we can, we can unpack that a little bit.
[00:07:06] Yeah. When I when I got deployed, you know, a lot of the people that I was on the deployment with. I’m still, still in touch with.
[00:07:12] And it’s neat because a lot of them had been around from the beginning and some of them are investing in real estate and have reached out and are currently investing real estate themselves. And so that’s been that’s neat to see. I’m I’m definitely not much of a hey, I told you so, guy, but it is it isn’t it is enjoyable to see people start to take that leap and you know. Yeah. And two thousand five. Yeah. It was at the height of the market but I bought. So I went to the bank and they gave me a no money down loan. So this is the Sub-Prime. I have no job, no income, but they gave me a loan and so I did the same thing in 2006 and I thought to myself, hey, this is easy. I can just go to once a year, once a year, they’re gonna give me a no money down loan. And I can just do this once a year and in a few years I’ll have a decent portfolio. And, you know, by 2008 I had three homes, too, with no money down 1 to 5 percent down. And when I went back to the bank in 2008, they said, hey, wait a minute, you actually need a downpayment. You need some income. In fact, they wanted me to have 30 percent now. And I was so spoiled with that. No money down and 5 percent down. I thought I don’t have 30 percent down and I would have to to work a lot of jobs and a lot of hours to build up enough down payments to do this every single year. And so I just knew there had to be a better way. And so I had remembered briefly reading something about seller financing. So I got in line and just started searching and researching about seller financing. And I found there’s just so much creativity and so much flexibility in the terms. And so that’s really what my focus was. And that’s that’s how I bought my my fourth property. That’s how I bought my most recent property just recently.
[00:08:53] So awesome. So those same tactics that worked a decade ago were still working today.
[00:08:58] Absolute. Absolutely. And most the people that say you can’t do seller financing anymore, they just don’t believe they can or they haven’t done it or they haven’t tried it. There is a reason you can still do it. And it’s because sellers who understand the advantage of selling in that in that way want to continue to sell that way.
[00:09:16] Yeah, I think my problem is I’m not dedicated to it enough. I’m not. I’m probably just as lazy as everybody else when it comes to art. I want to own it. Find the easy stuff, especially with having a W2 and having three kids now. I mean, you know, time is of the essence. I don’t have a whole lot of time to track these things down, but that’s that’s my scapegoat anyway. But give me some tactics that you use that open the doors for seller financing, because a lot of the sellers that I talk to, although it’s very minimal, I’m sure, and maybe that’s my problem, maybe I’m not doing enough volume, but they’re just not interested. Right. Maybe I haven’t unveiled it.
[00:10:01] You know, their pain point. Big enough. Maybe I haven’t said the right things. I was talking to Jake and Gino.
[00:10:09] If you’re familiar with those guys this morning and they were they were laughing at me, talking about how I walked in and just kind of vomited on the crowd when I needed to come in and say, hey, you know, give them bits and pieces before you just come in and just and and I have been told that I’m pretty direct. So I wonder if it’s my delivery or I’m just not doing enough volume when you’re give me give me some insight. The guy who’s warning, too, for whatever reason, I just want to be able to check off, hey, I’ve done a seller financing deal.
[00:10:40] Yeah, absolutely. And so I think the biggest thing and it took me a few deals to realize this.
[00:10:46] And the question that I get asked more than almost anything else is how do I convince or talk a seller into carrying financing? And what I’ve realized over the years, especially after those first couple of deals reflecting back, is I have never, ever had to convince a seller to carry financing and. The sellers that have been willing to carry financing are sellers that already want to they already understand the advantage of them being the bank. And so early on I thought to myself, oh my gosh, the seller financing is amazing. It’s a true win win. It’s great for the seller. It’s great for me as the buyer. I need to go educate the world and all these sellers on why they should carry financing. And then I reflected and realize, you know, everyone has carried financing. I’ve never had to talk them into it. They already wanted to do it. So what if I just positioned myself and put myself in front of enough sellers that want to carry finance?
[00:11:38] And so rather than try to educate or re-educate a large group of people, I focused my time on building relationships and meeting sellers that were in a position and already wanted to carry the financing. And that way, the conversation was a lot more almost all around structure of the deal itself, rather than trying to educate them on what seller financing was. So I’d say that’s the biggest piece is just get in front of enough sellers that already understand that.
[00:12:04] It’s an amazing tip. So you’re not actually trying to sell them on the idea. You’re just trying to find the ones that already know about the idea and want to move forward. Right. Once you find that person because obviously they want to be comfortable with you. Right. Because essentially, they’re coming to they’re becoming the bank. They’re in a situation. How do you build that trust relationship? Is it just time? Is it experience? And for people who don’t have either one? How do you how do you get over that hurdle? Right.
[00:12:36] Yet, you know, now it’s a little of both. It’s the experience, you know, and obviously starting out. If you don’t have the experience, it’s that catch twenty run.
[00:12:45] And for me, it was I was scouring Craigslist just typing in keywords like seller financing, owner financing, owner terms. And I just started having conversations with people. And what I found is a lot of these sellers, these weren’t sellers that wanted to hire an agent. So these were a lot of for sale by owner properties. And so calling them up and then getting face time with them, you know, sitting down with them, meeting them and really just having that face time. And it became a lot more human to human, you know, person to person. Rather than write an offer on a piece of paper that my agent presents to their agent and their agent presents to them, which feels very transactional. Yes. Being able to sit down with them, you know. You know, for lunch or at their house was a lot more human. And I think naturally that created and really creates this environment of of trust. And then as as you go, you build up a good track record. And a lot of these sellers have multiple properties they want to sell you. And then, of course, you can kind of leverage these past transactions and future deals and say, hey, look, I’ve purchased properties in this way before. I have a good track record. Here are some references. And that’s been a way to kind of build it past the beginning as well.
[00:13:58] Yeah, that is that the catch 22. Right. So that’s interesting. Hey, real quick. Kind of skipped over this part. But you live in Eugene, Oregon, correct? Do you invest just in in Oregon as well or do you or you other places?
[00:14:14] Yeah, all my properties other than one are with our in Oregon. So most of my properties are within I’d say 15 minutes for me.
[00:14:22] But then I have several properties about 30 minutes and an hour south as well. And then I have one property in Pennsylvania.
[00:14:30] And that is kind of kind of a lot of story. We don’t go to your place what you said. There’s gotta be a story behind it. So let’s dive into that. And so want to.
[00:14:43] It’s not it’s not that great of a story. And I get asked that all the time. I always get asked, hey, do you only invest in Oregon or all your Oregon?
[00:14:49] It’s like you tell that one. You know, it was just a timing thing. I I I do know almost no turns. It’s the only turn to tech property. I did. Yeah. I met a guy at a conference and he had a house and it was a cash flowing market. I had money at the time. It just it just made sense at the time. And I’ll probably never do that type of deal again. I’m not opposed to investing out of state. I think it’s about building a strong team there. And where where I live locally, I really know the market. And more important, a submarket. So I’m really comfortable here with the market itself, but also just naturally building relationships in a network where I live. And that’s that’s where my focus is currently.
[00:15:33] Yes. And you don’t self-manage now. Right. You’ve got a team that manages those for you. Add a third, third party property management, correct? No, I’m with you on the loan business stuff. You’ve got you’ve got to be able to establish yourself. What we’ve been doing here recently is leaning on some relationships we have of people who are in those areas and know that market starting. But I’m with you. If I’m buying something, just me, it’s gonna be right here. And for no other reason. I mean, I’ve sold a we had a duplex. We owned for three years. Never stepped foot into it. We saw it this year. Never stepped foot into it, ever. Even when we’re buying it. I’m a home inspector. Go over. I didn’t go into the property. There was just one of those quirky things. But I never drove. I mean, I rarely drove by it. I don’t know. Is one of those things where it was if I had the luxury to do it, if I wanted to I mean, literally, it was five minutes from my house, but I just never did.
[00:16:32] So that kind of won me up to think, OK, I can do this long distance as long as I have those team members in place, which is the actual proof.
[00:16:40] And there’s and there’s no one right way.
[00:16:42] There’s I’ve met people that have been really successful in their backyard, and I’ve met people that only invest out of state and they’ve done really well. And so it’s just it’s finding what works well for you and for me in this case. It’s really just building a network around my local market and know very, very comfortable there and also the ability to grow within my market as well.
[00:17:04] Very cool. What’s your portfolio like today? You know, you kind of do a little bit of everything. But what what is the makeup of it today?
[00:17:11] Yeah. Right now, I currently hold a little over one hundred and seventy units and it’s a mix. I have two mobile home parks. Those are my most recent purchases. And then it’s kind of a mix of single families. So I started with smaller multi-family twos and threes and fourth and sixes. I have some apartment complex and some some mixed use commercial where it’s ground-floor commercial and apartments up top. And so right now my focus is value and multifamily and more specifically, mobile home parks. I think there’s an opportunity there. A I really enjoy looking at and analyzing those deals.
[00:17:48] What is that? So two things. Are these all properties that you own personally? Do you have partners invested in the deal as well or. And so second follow up is what is attractive, attractive for you, for mobile home parks?
[00:18:05] Sure. I don’t have partners on the mobile home parks. I do have some partners on a couple of the smaller medium size apartments. And with the attraction to the mobile home parks, I’ve always been a value investor as far as looking for properties that are poorly managed under rented and have deferred maintenance. Those are kind of my three my three things. I want that upside potential. I always structure the financing to make it make the property cash flow the way it currently sits. So I’m never relying on appreciation and ever relying on increased cash flow. That’s just kind of a bonus. But with with mobile home parks, it fits that criteria. There’s a lot of parks that are poorly managed under rented and deferred maintenance. And so that value add opportunity. For instance, on the first mobile home park I purchased. Rents have not been increased in four and a half years. And even with a small increase, it’s still below market. Utilities had not been built back, which spread out over 40 some units. There’s not a lot for the tenants, but it’s a lot for me. And so building those building that back, improving the improving that the park, it creates it creates a situation where you’re adding value to the tenants and you’re also adding monetary value to the park itself for for future growth.
[00:19:24] So one of the things that you or it was in your bio, right, is that we bring back health, healthy, being healthy, wealthy and happy or choices having money. Have you ever met somebody that would didn’t want to be happy by choice? Explain or just explain that to me, sir.
[00:19:47] Sure. Yeah. It’s a bad way to ask that question. No, I thought you were going to ask something something different. I thought you were gonna ask if I met anyone that hasn’t agreed. And I have you know, I think it comes to it’s a mindset thing.
[00:20:03] You know, I think that it is a choice to choose how we live our life. And yes, there are outside circumstances and we are all born into something that we don’t have control over. But I do believe that we are and have the ability to decide how our present state is and what our life is like going into the into the future. And so I think happiness. Yes. Is is a choice. I think being healthy is a choice. Taking actions every day to be healthy and improve health. And same with being wealthy. There’s a lot of people that will say, you know, so-and-so is is lucky. But they go and they go, and what do they get in their life and they aren’t wealthy because of luck, it’s typically because they put in the work. And that’s the same thing with being healthy. It’s the same thing with being happy. They’ve spent a lot of time learning and studying and being in those in those states. And so, yeah, I absolutely think those are those are choices. And I have had people people argue with me especially I’m happy on the happy part. Yes. Which I always find interesting. But I do think it’s a choice.
[00:21:11] Yeah, I would imagine those people have not consumed Jacko willing extreme ownership, but or maybe they disagree with it all wholeheartedly. Because you’re shaking your head like you consume that when you’ve heard that one half. Yes. So that was a big slap in the face for me. You know, and it was one of those things. And it’s one it is one of the things where I look at somebody and I can say, OK, that guy has a victim mentality. Right. And we were all we all have those people around us. But it’s easier to point out, though. But if you look in the mirror, like maybe, just maybe, I’m a little bit of that, too. But that book really opened my eyes to think. I think it’s him, Jarkko, that says everything that happens to you is because of you. Right. So I’m like. That, again, mindset. It just clicked for me. OK. I’m if I’m going to take credit for everything, I’ve got to take responsibility for the bad stuff, too.
[00:22:08] Right. Yeah. And and it’s you know, it’s up to us to choose how we react to a situation. You I can’t control how others act, but we can definitely control how we react to a situation.
[00:22:18] You know, someone someone hits your car, you can get all pissed off and cut you off in traffic. You get all pissed off. They’ve already done it. It’s already, you know, not saying it’s always easy, but it’s still our, you know, our responsibility to choose how we react to the situation.
[00:22:34] Yeah. And funny you mention that I went to Lowe’s earlier. And for whatever reason, these two people were just walking down the middle of the oh, I’m trying to find a parking spot. And I just I was being a smart ass and I just stopped, you know, and I’m like, you guys could have moved over. But you’re right. It was just one of those things where it already happened. What? Just let it go. They were you know, they were being considerate. But I was also being rude. So it’s one of those things, too, as I used to beat myself up over that stuff pretty bad because I wanted to be perfect. Right. I had this perfectionism syndrome. And I finally learned that progress is greater than perfection. Right. As long as you’re making yourself a better version of yourself than you were yesterday, you did a good thing.
[00:23:19] So I couldn’t agree more. And I think we both have kids. And so that’s an often reminder that we’re not anywhere near perfect.
[00:23:26] Yeah. Yeah. No, it is another. You said you’ve got two boys. So when you get that little girl then. You’ll really start to pay attention all the way down to have done it, too.
[00:23:41] As I’ve made that official, I guess you’re right.
[00:23:46] They’re always watching me. And you never. It’s always amazing how they’ll pick things up way. You think they’re not paying attention? You think they’re consumed by whatever i-Pad or cartoon that’s on. And then you hear them repeating what you just like. Yeah. It’s not it’s not good. There’s also. So financial literacy is a big thing that you want to talk about. Let’s let’s delve into that a little bit, because I agree with you. I think financial literacy is a big problem in the US and part of that is leading not just that piece, but part of that is leading us to you’re more likely going to homeschool our kids, at least for the first several years. But talk to me about why you think that’s such a big problem and how how do we as parents battle that? Right.
[00:24:35] Yeah. I think I think the biggest problem is it’s just finance and financial literacy. It’s just it’s not taught in schools at all. And so for me, I think the reason that rich dad, poor dad just resonated with me so much is it’s. It’s something that content in there was something that I desired and didn’t even realize I was seeking after it was something. School was just not my environment. And for some people, it is they learn well in that environment. And for me, I felt like there was something more something that it just wasn’t giving me. I didn’t have this natural attraction to to being in school and going and getting a job and working for the rest of my life. I I was in school for the wrestling and for the social aspect. Yeah. And, you know, and that’s and that’s why I was there. And so when I read Rich Dad for dad, it really did change my life to go, wow, there. OK.
[00:25:29] There’s something else. This makes sense to take finances into my own hands, to not rely on a job, to not rely on some other company to take care of me. So it was very empowering to know, hey, there is another way. And it’s a way that creates more freedom in your life, you’re not a slave to a job. You’re not a slave, just somebody else. And so I don’t expect the school system to change anytime soon or to teach that. I think that a lot of that’s going to come from people. People like you doing these podcasts and the books and people out there on on social media showing. And there’s another there’s another way. And so I think a lot of that learning is going to come from home. I don’t expect the school system to teach my kids about financial freedom.
[00:26:19] I don’t expect them to teach them about the happiness. I know there’s some things that they can learn in school that are amazing. And I think a lot of it’s going to be at home and in the environment that we as parents put them in.
[00:26:32] You’re. How old are your kids? They’re nine. Eleven. OK. So you’re already teaching them financial literacy. What are you and what are you using to teach them?
[00:26:41] Yeah, they we have a open dialogue. They know the difference between an asset and a liability. And I want in elevens. Absolutely. Here we go. Driving for dollars.
[00:26:51] And we point out properties. We talk about, you know, what’s not just assets and liabilities, that what appreciation means, how to structure that a structure, a real estate deal. We played Monopoly over the weekend with some guys that I’m in a mastermind with, and my son partnered up with another guy. I’ve never seen on Monopoly. We got around the board and, you know, bought a hotel before the rest of us could could, you know, get around the board.
[00:27:19] No, wait a minute. They partnered up. I don’t know if that’s in the rules, though, right?
[00:27:23] I’ve never seen it. I’ve never seen it. The rest of us and the rest of us, you know, weren’t in a good spot like five minutes in.
[00:27:31] One of them had two properties. One had one. They decided that instead of selling them to each other, they would go in on a partnership. The other one to buy a hotel and they would split the profits.
[00:27:41] You know, that kid’s going somewhere.
[00:27:45] Think about it. It’s not in the rules, but it’s not. Not in the rules. Right. So they could go either way.
[00:27:51] That’s incredible. You mentioned the mastermind. Tell me a little bit about that, because I hosted the mastermind to capitalist mastermind. It’s a virtual. I mean, we have weekly meetings just like this. But tell me tell me what you’re involved in.
[00:28:08] Yeah. I joined the mastermind about a year ago called Go Abundance. And yeah, if were there with it, the host, the Bigger Pockets brand and David GREENE there. They’re part of the they go abundance tribe. And what attracted me to it is they had talked about it when I looked it up. Their tagline was A tribe of healthy, wealthy, generous men choosing to live epic lives. And I thought, yes, this is what I’m looking for. Because some of these mastermind, you know, there are very surface or only financial driven. And this was a group of men that, you know, they wanted to improve in all different areas of their life. And so this last year has been an amazing year meeting so many amazing people. And, you know, every event, it’s a room of extremely successful people without the ego. You know, it’s everybody is there willing to be vulnerable, willing to grow, willing to learn. And they’re all looking to improve and share their knowledge. And so it’s been a really it’s been a really neat year to be a part of something like that.
[00:29:06] That was extremely cool. Yeah, I’ve I’ve I’m familiar with them. I’m trying to think this is gonna sound bad. I don’t know if they will ever listen to. But one of the guys who helped found the Go Abundance movement, you wrote a book article, probably Pat Hyland or as it happened. He’s on my list of folks I want to have on the podcast. So I should remember his name written.
[00:29:35] And David Osborne is David OSBI. Pat Haven were the two guys that started Gobind.
[00:29:41] I didn’t realize David Osborne was part of that. He is awesome. OK. Well, look. So what are your plans? You know, we’re recording this a couple weeks before Thanksgiving. Twenty nineteen is essentially a closed for us. I kind of take the rest of the year and focus on, OK. Because we’re gonna do vacation, but not vacation.
[00:30:02] But you know, see family, we don’t live close to our relatives or anything like that. So we’ll take some time to travel and kind of decompress and, you know, a lot of time to focus on what we want to do for twenty, twenty, twenty, nineteen.
[00:30:15] We did the same thing, although I went into twenty nineteen thinking we’re just going to focus on the degree to Tantalus brand. We’re not going to buy anything, we’re not going to sell anything. And here we sold off half of our portfolio and started less than three hundred and thirty units or something like that. So needless to say we didn’t stick to our plan. But it’s still a good exercise for us to go through.
[00:30:38] What do you do? Anything like that? And what are your plans or you’re thinking about 20 to. What you guys are all accomplished?
[00:30:45] Yeah, I definitely I definitely set different goals and such and I plan on buying buying more property this year before the end of twenty nineteen. If if the opportunity is there. And so you know, it used to be that I used make offers. I used to make offers on Thanksgiving strategically and on Christmas Day strategically. I’m a little pickier and what I’m buying these days are a little bit different than what I was buying then. Back then it was it was single family fixtures. And I’d make I’d make offers on those days and and did well there. So, yeah, I’m going to continue to buy. I think it’s always a good time if you to buy. If you buy. Right. And so I am just continually working to expand my network and meet people. I think that relationships is really undervalued and there’s a lot of value in just knowing people and letting people know what you’re looking for and building those relationships.
[00:31:41] You know, some of those might just become friendships. Some of those might be business opportunities in the future. But I think that relationships are so important.
[00:31:49] I completely agree with you out. If I look back at every deal that I’ve closed is because of a relationship. There was a lot of shit with the brokers which ship with a partner, with a banker realtor. It’s all about that. I think you’re right. I think there there is some power. The power of relationships is is truly undervalued. And I try to part of my weekly to do list is to help build those relationships. So that’s that’s awesome to hear you say that. What do you think the you know, there’s a lot of. We’ve been on a good run, as you can say, with the good. There’s a lot of skepticism out there about where it’s headed, what’s going to what’s going to happen. You know, my crystal balls told me one thing. What do you think we’re doing, especially with the next year being an election year? Maybe that doesn’t even come into play for you. But when do you think we’re headed or what do. What do you think toward the markets headed?
[00:32:47] Sure, sure. I don’t care if the market goes up or down or sideways or nay, any direction. So I’ve always stuck to the principle of cash flow first. And so even in two thousand five, six, seven one, that was a peak market idea. Homes below value. I made sure they cash flowed. I never relied on appreciation. I look at appreciation second, and yes, appreciation can definitely build wealth. But I’ve never relied on that. So it’s cash flow first. So when I buy a property, whether it’s my first one or my most recent one and everything in between, it’s cash flow first and that keeps things pretty darn recession-proof. I don’t care if my property is go up and down in value on paper as long as they cover the mortgage and I’m cash flow positive.
[00:33:33] Yeah. And I’m with you there, too. Here is the super conservative side of me was I don’t want to have any vacancies in these. So, you know, I kind of. I’m correlating and probably not directly, but I correlate. A downturn of the market also means a downturn in the economy so people might lose their jobs. I don’t think it’s gonna be as bad as it was in 0 7 or a couple of years. Do you correlate those two or do you do a lot?
[00:34:04] Do you buy in an asset class that you feel like you’re more recession proof than anything? No.
[00:34:12] Yeah. With the mobile home parks, I feel like they’re very recession proof.
[00:34:15] You’re not going to find many places that you can rent something less than a mobile home pad. Right. So for that reason, mobile home parks are quite recession-proof. But even in two thousand eight, nine, ten, eleven, even after the you know, the downturn in the Sub-Prime and people are losing jobs and their houses were going back to the bank, I never had more vacancy because of it. In fact, a lot of the buyer pool shrunk and so those buyers were actually coming. Renters, tenants. So I never beat tenants. I never saw increased vacancy or even decrease rents because of the economy. I did watch people walk away from their homes who didn’t need to because on paper it showed that the property was worth less. You really didn’t need to. And so, you know, I held tight, continued to buy and those properties continued to cash flow.
[00:35:08] Yeah. Yeah. You know, kind of sitting back. I’m with you. I don’t focus on appreciation. It’s nice at the end of the day, but it’s cash flow is the most important for us, too. I’m sitting back, though. I have trouble finding deals that cash flow because of how expensive everything is. I’ve owned a couple of mobile homes. I actually still have one in my portfolio now. It’s just one of those things where I don’t I don’t know for whatever reason, I’m just not. I’m just not turned on by it. I guess that makes sense, but. Sure. And I think I’m getting emotionally tied to the oh no, not looking at the numbers, which is a no. Right. That’s that’s also less incredible. Well, look, I know we’re pushing up on time. Super positive guy Gabriel, dude. And I’m and I’m going to say this and I don’t mean it in an odd way. I know you’re married. I’m married. You have an amazing smile. Yes. I’ve actually been looking at smiled director candidate, trying to get them to sponsor the podcast. OK. And do some SWAPO services to get this gaff and got my teeth fixed.
[00:36:18] But we’ll see. My wife’s gonna kill me when she hears that. Yeah.
[00:36:23] Maybe it’s party of Brad. Just keep it. You know, is it a little mean? I don’t know. I don’t know. I think Michael Straight hand has that covered. And he’s good, you know. Well, I appreciate it, man. I appreciate the kind words. Yeah.
[00:36:35] Yeah, it’s definitely helps. Helps. I don’t know. I notice things like that because my bothers me. So it’s probably fair to do something about it before I get any more awkward on it. How are you? How can people find out more about you and what’s the best way for them to connect with you?
[00:36:55] Yeah, I’m most active on Instagram and you can find me. Gabriel Hammill or Gabriel R. Hamill. And I also Facebook Gabriel Hamill and also Hamill Investments.
[00:37:05] Dot com is my Web site and there’s some information there to get in touch with me.
[00:37:09] Perfect. I’ll make sure. I will link to all of those in the show notes. Awesome, man. I appreciate your time.
[00:37:15] Well, absolutely. Absolutely. Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it, buddy. See you. All right.