The Conscious Investor

Ep503 Mastering High-Return Real Estate Investments with Alexander Donnalo

July 04, 2024 • Julie Holly

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Unlock the secrets to high-return real estate investments with Alex, a veteran commercial real estate investor specializing in mobile home parks, RV parks, and self-storage facilities. From his humble beginnings in high school construction jobs to mastering house flipping and wholesaling, Alex's journey is nothing short of inspiring. By 2018, he transitioned into commercial real estate, utilizing innovative syndication and funding strategies like seller financing and private lending to amass nearly 1,000 lots across multiple states. Discover how focusing on smaller deals under $2 million has yielded exceptional cash-on-cash returns and highly favorable terms for his investors.

Building trust and honesty in real estate partnerships is paramount. During our discussion with Alex, we explore essential questions to ask potential partners about their experience with challenging deals and their approach to managing obstacles like distributions and refinancing. Through personal stories, including a notably successful investment in West Texas, we highlight the importance of market research and calculated risks. We also dive into the significance of long-term relationship development, emphasizing how genuine interest and consistent communication can turn initial interest into enduring partnerships.

Navigate the complexities of real estate investment with lessons from both triumphs and setbacks. Alex shares a transformative story of turning an underutilized property into a thriving investment and recounts the hard-learned lessons from a failed mobile home park investment in Toledo, Ohio. We also delve into risk management strategies, focusing on non-negotiables like population criteria and utility infrastructure. Additionally, Alex underscores the necessity of hands-on inspections for private equity investments and the practicalities of managing properties remotely. By prioritizing thorough due diligence and leveraging strategic partnerships, real estate investors can minimize surprises and maximize returns.

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Episodes referenced in the introduction:



Speaker 1:

Hello Conscious Investor and welcome back. I'm your host, julie Hawley. For over four years, I've paired my background in real estate, investing, education and coaching to create powerful content for you each week. This podcast is where we take a holistic approach to investing by focusing on three ingredients to a life of personal freedom health, mindset and wealth. We'll talk about everything from passive investing through syndication and how to use your retirement accounts to boost your investing, to mineral balancing and gut brain health, and into topics that cultivate your inner strength and resilience so you can thrive regardless of any of life's current events. And yes, those are all episodes currently available and linked in the show notes below. Join me each Monday for a mindset episode and later in the week for an interview with expert investors and health professionals, so that you can experience your greatest health, strongest mindset and build the wisest wealth. Alex, welcome to the show.

Speaker 2:

Thank you so much for having me, Julie. I'm glad to be here.

Speaker 1:

I'm excited to have you here as well, and I'm super excited, and I think you are as well conscious investor For the entry question of the day what do you do and how did you get started?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so I'm a commercial real estate investor and operator. I specialize primarily in mobile home parks, rv parks and self-storage facilities. I was an entrepreneur at a pretty young age. I got into construction out of high school because I had worked for some other contractors and figured I could do what they were doing pretty easily. Just with learning some YouTube videos. I picked some stuff up pretty quickly. I started building some clientele, I got good at sales and customer service, but I't have like the skills in running and growing a business, um. So I you know, even though I built that up to making six figures, it was really stressful. I was working long nights and, um, and I started, you know, thinking about flipping houses and maybe that could be my uh know, my pathway. So I started flipping houses and realized that was a pretty similar model to running a construction company. I was doing all my own work, there was delayed profits, um, and so I heard about wholesaling as a ty lopez video. I saw ty lopez video and it just clicked. I was like like, oh, wholesaling, I could figure that out pretty quickly. And so I started going on Craigslist and Zillow, finding some deals in the Midwest that were pretty cheap and making little assignment fees and so over. You know I'd say I started doing my first deals in like 2015,. Just learning transactions and sales, figuring out what worked. Then I got into lease options, kind of got into the pace more be crowd and learning about subject to and how creative can I go with this and I just felt really, um, limited in single family. Just no matter how creative I got, I felt like the profits were small and single family. Whether we were wholesaling it, flipping it or holding it, there was really minimal profits or upside.

Speaker 2:

So I started in 2018 studying syndications and going the commercial route and it was between apartments and mobile home parks. So we kind of had marketing out for both deals and then a mobile home park presented itself and, honestly, we weren't really ready. We hadn't fully syndicated at that time or decided whether we wanted to do a fund or syndication. We didn't really have a track record. So we had to sort of bootstrap it and fund it the best we could. So we just structured seller finance and then for the down payment and capex, we brought in private lenders and you know we just gave them a fixed rate and a little bit of equity and they came in and held for two or three years during the seller finance period and that deal went on to be very profitable. And as we bought the next deal we kind of use that same model and then we refine it over the years. Then we realized maybe we don't need to do this whole like complicated syndication or fund route If we keep it simple, focus on these smaller deals.

Speaker 2:

You know, and our capital raises are under 500,000, you know, $500,000 in that branch, $300,500. We work with one partner. Two partners offer a unique product because they're not a limited partner, it's fixed interest. So basically our partners are private lenders with the benefit of high fixed interest and short project cycles two to three years and then they also get some equity for the depreciation and everything. And again, we've worked to refine that over the years and there's been thoughts of stepping into the you know syndications or well, do we go into bigger deals but at the end of the day, um, you know a lot of our cash flow goes to our private lenders. So we're, you know, a lot of our profits are coming from the acquisition fees and then the upside on the back end, right, so volumes really kind of our game. So we focus on smaller deals.

Speaker 2:

So over the years that became our model like um, you know we're not, we're not market specific. We just don't do flood zones, don't do tornado zones and we want to buy deals that are pumping out. You know we can get up to a 20 cash on cash year one so we can give those 15 returns to our, our lenders. Um, we negotiate really hard to get good seller finance terms pretty much every deal we've bought. We're up close to 1,000 lofts right now. Just to give you an idea on our portfolio size Up close to 1,000 lofts like $30 million in portfolio value and a typical property size is 30 to 40 lofts under $2 million. That's kind of our bread and butter.

Speaker 2:

And we structure really strong seller finance, usually four or five percent fixed interest, maybe 20 percent down. That helps us really offer um high interest to our lenders. And um, then we're typically refinancing on the back end with the scr. Um, excuse me, and like said, not market specific we, you know right now our portfolio is spread across the South. We're in Texas, we're in the Midwest, missouri, illinois, ohio, and then some in our local area, my local market, coeur d'Alene, north Idaho area. So that's kind of a high level overview what works. You know, I tried a lot of different pathways, a lot of different modalities, a lot of different vehicles and first venture into commercial.

Speaker 2:

You know, the profits were um night and day because we we got a 50k acquisition fee on that first deal and we held the asset. And it was like, okay, this is. You know, this is where it makes sense and it pencils long term like it's going to sustain all the debt payments. It was like, okay, this is where it makes sense and it pencils long-term, it's going to sustain all the debt payments. It was just hard to ever pencil anything for long-term growth and single family. So since 2019, I've been full-time focused on those three assets.

Speaker 1:

And we're finding the model learning every day, networking growing every day. So yeah, it's all relationships. It's amazing how much everything it's not just what we do in the real estate space, but I mean life the world turns through relationships. That's how things get done.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and just to speak to that, yeah, it's been a lot of the relationships I felt capital providers deal providers. It's been, um, you know, a lot of the relationships I felt capital providers deal providers. It's been through a lot of social media, online networking, and so when you're doing that, when you're when you're building relationships, raising capital online, you really have to even further build that trust and rapport, and it boils a lot down to, like systems and processes and you know so we've, we're constantly refining our diligence processes, our underwriting processes, because we've got to make it as presentable as possible, to be, you know, casting a wide net rather than just working with, like our local lenders, or hard money, or working one hard money, local lenders or hard money or working one hard money lender.

Speaker 2:

So when you're out raising capital and you're being in the public eye, yeah, it just requires you to be that much more thorough. And I think we got momentum pretty quickly. And you know mobile home parks they've been popular for a while, but in 2019, we just kind of got a name for ourselves as, like the mobile home park guys, we landed on some podcasts. People were starting to pull their money out of stock market and put it what are these mobile home parks all about? So we caught a lot of momentum and we've maintained those relationships over the years, very grateful. But yeah, it's like where would we be without relationships of any kind? My team too, and so grateful for my team can't speak highly enough for them. So shout out to them.

Speaker 1:

This is actually. This is a really unique opportunity to ask a few questions that I cannot. You and I both know that people have social media presences, but not everyone is like very unequivocally saying I am raising money off of my social media, is very unequivocally saying I am raising money off of my social media. And you and I both know that there are people out there that are totally posing and peacocking as like, come give me your money, I know how to do this, and they really don't and it's so terrifying. I'm like oh no, like don't collateral damage, please don't get involved. So, in your estimation, you know how, what are some ways that you know private investors can actually, you know, vet someone. Further, how can they see?

Speaker 2:

through the veneer over on the social platforms in your estimation? Yeah, I think that's a really good question. I think the best thing is, obviously we give out references. I think that's important to ask for references. Of course, we all know that only goes so far. Maybe they're cherry picking the best references or whatever the case may be. But what I do is I give a long list of references.

Speaker 2:

Over the years I've just I've just built that list as full as I can and I know there's a mixed, probably a mixed bag of of experiences. Right, there's been times maybe we had to extend the timeline or whatever that case is. But I know for me that I've always honored on those commitments. So what I try to do is I just, you know, I try to be honest and upfront out the gate. When they say you know, I think a good question about you know, can you give me an example of when something went wrong or a time when you were off on your projections and how you handled that, I think that's a good base. You know, blanket question as a private lender, and if someone's a private investor and if someone says, oh, there hasn't really been any issues, that's probably a major red flag. I like to be open up, Can we just?

Speaker 1:

pause and laugh Like oh, we've never experienced anything Like seriously.

Speaker 2:

A hundred percent. Yeah, it's like no, let's hear what your procedure is around when things go wrong and I think that's where we honor our investors and our lenders really well is we're honest about the fact that there's going to be unforeseen things, but what we do is we do everything we can possible to make it right. We also put personal guarantees on all our debt. That's sort of a unique added protective mechanism that we put on there. Not everyone does that, but for those who do, that's just that additional layer of saying that you believe in what you're doing and if it doesn't go right, that we're going to do everything we can to make it right, even if we have to go into our own pocket, and there's been times that's happened where we had to dip into our own pocket. So I'll tell lenders this out out front. I think that makes them feel really comfortable. He's honest about the time things went wrong. He's telling me how he handled it. Um, so I think you know that right there, just making sure there's no red flags of it sounding like things are always perfect right, because that's never the case.

Speaker 2:

Um, I think another one is just deal track record. Like a lot of guys don't? You know, a lot of lenders don't ask me this much, um, but for me, like, if I'm coming in and partnering on a deal, I just kind of I just asked, like, what were your last three deals? Like, can you tell me, you know, did you hit your exits? Were you on target with your projections? Um, do you have to stop distributions? These are kind of all blanket questions, sue, you can ask. And again, the key is not to know that they have a perfect track record, but that they're honest about it and how they handle it, you know demeanor is everything.

Speaker 1:

The concept of, I think, like perfect track record. That to me in and of itself is a red flag, because I mean you and I both know extraordinary investors and things happen like floods, tornadoes. They happen. Things happen that you can't Interest rates go through the roof. All of a sudden Things happen that are out of control.

Speaker 2:

Trends change yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, exactly yeah.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely so. Yeah, I think maybe that was a long-winded response. I think I gave some nuggets of questions you can ask Definitely, like what were the last three deals have you ever had to do stop distributions? How did you handle it? Were you ever off target or upside down on a refi or exit? Just some blanket things. You can kind of poke at common areas where likely there's been some things and you want to look for honesty. Yeah, it's so important common areas where likely.

Speaker 1:

There's been some things and you want to look for honesty, yeah, but it's, it's so important. I had some, some people that I mean like I'm always looking at different opportunities and it's like, ah, that looks really great and I want to, I want to develop. So I'm not afraid to say I want to develop this relationship further. I want to mature this relationship further before I place an investment. This relationship further, I want to mature this relationship further before I place an investment. Let me just like get to know you a little bit more. Before we partner up, let's get to know each other more.

Speaker 2:

And I will say probably 50% of the capital providers that come in on my deals. It was a long-term process where they came in. They're maybe interested or they've been watching my email distributions for a while and I say, you know, maybe one, two, three deals they almost pull the trigger and then we get to know each other. Through that process, like you said, you build a relationship, they build trust that you're not all about the sale, that you're here to make sure it's a win for them. And when it is a win, you know those people end up becoming long-term partners. And I'll say too, maybe, too, maybe, you know, maybe if someone is saying they haven't ran into major issues as an operator not necessarily lying, but they might just not be that experienced it might be another red flag that well, they haven't necessarily been around doing it long enough to run into those issues. So that's.

Speaker 1:

That's a fair point. So that leads to an interesting, interesting question which is like exactly what we're talking about. But I've I've been having fun with this question on podcast recording day and it was, like you know, the best and the worst deal, like I'd love to know, and if you were looking at it from a private investor side, of things you know like, what are some, what's like one of your best deals, what's one of your worst deals, where you're like oh, my word.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, okay, so the first one that comes to mind for best deal I would say is actually one that I bought in. It was in West Texas, and West Texas sort of the oil field part of Texas where a lot of investors are speculative, you know, that kind of cuts out maybe 50% of people who would say, you know, I just I don't invest in boom markets or whatever the case may be. We did a lot of market research before going into that market and it just the numbers were a no brainer because, you know, because of the demand, for you know, because of the workforce, workforce, their rates, rental rates are really high. So our mobile home lot rents were like 700, 800, when normally they're 300 or 400. Right, we had cabins, small studio cabins that were renting for a thousand a month and again, these are mostly oil oil workers. So there is that risk that you know that boom could go away. Well, the boom never went away. We bought the property. It was generating about 4 000 a month but it was very underutilized. Mom, pa, we bought it for 800 grand and we brought it up. For the past two, two, well, 18 months it's been doing 20 grand a month. We brought it from four grand a month to 20 grand a month. It just appraised at 1.6 million um, and this was just what's really impressive about such a short project cycle right, so 2x the value of a commercial deal is not that impressive, but to do it in 18 months it's pretty impressive. And we were just. You know, we saw the, the vacancies, we saw the ability to come in and increase the revenue and the cash flow without having to do a lot of heavy lifting, and we took on that risk. And in order to take on that risk, we had to give up more equity to get the investors to buy. And so the investors are right now, as we're in the process of selling and or refinancing. We're exerting both options. Right now, however, much equity we pull out of the proceeds will be north of half a million and investors are going to get a nice share of that after already getting 15%. So we all together took a collective risk and it paid in the end. I would say that was a great deal, just because, again, it was very little capex. It was all a matter of just increasing marketing and operations. There was RV sites. We've kept that full. As far as the worth deal, I would say that's a deal, probably.

Speaker 2:

I used to have a past business partner when I first started my business in 2019. So we had built up a portfolio together and then in 2021, we transitioned and I kept the company and he's rebranded under a separate company. But we had, right in the middle of that transition, bought a property in Toledo for two point eight million and this was another risky deal. We don't do risky deals for this reason anymore. We've tightened our criteria. But this was another deal where vacant occupancy was dropping the condition of these homes. It's a 120-lot mobile home park in Toledo, ohio. We bought it with recourse debt commercial institutional recourse debt so we had to bring in signers, we had to raise I think it was a million in capital that we brought in and we had you know it was a lofty business plan to try and increase the occupancy and the condition of the home. Well, when we parted ways, that was one of the assets he kept, so I got my equity sold out of that.

Speaker 2:

But come to find out that whole deal crumbled. The banks come after him. He defaulted on the payments, the investors, the, the banks coming after them for recourse. And it's not necessarily at the fault of of him. But it was bad timing with transition, you know, I left and so he was kind of running the team on his own, running that deal on his own, and it was one that needed all hands on deck. So I had my own kind of guilt about that and I'm always checking in just to see how it's going, what we can do to kind of salvage it. But that's sort of the first deal I've sort of been a part of where things really went south. What do you do at that point? It's literally appraised at less than the bank note now. So there's all kinds of issues and there's back interest and um, so I would say that's, you know, that's probably the worst deal right there. Um, not necessarily a part of it, but second hand, still part of it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, well, that actually really raises um, like awareness on the whole point of like what's the health of a team, and not that, not necessarily that you guys were unhealthy, but is this a team that's staying together, or is this partnership going to dissolve at some point, which is going to? Honestly, I've never thought of that, alex, and I I've. You're the second team that I know. That is parted ways, you know, in the middle of a deal and it happens.

Speaker 2:

And what's that statistic? Yeah, it's probably pretty high and, as we're talking about, I think that's a great question. Of course, do you have any partners? What's that partner relationship like? Because that's just the reality at the end of the day. You know, not all partnerships are going to work out and if they do, what sort of how's everyone protected in those situations?

Speaker 1:

you know what I mean.

Speaker 2:

And we had no, at the time we were pretty green, so there was really no dissolution plan, right, we had to figure it all out as we went and what investors were saying what you know, how are we paying this off? Well, he was very bullish in that project and said I'll just buy you out and I and um you know. So he kind of took on all that risk and unfortunately didn't go as planned. But, um, you know, that's where. Yeah, that's just another example of um unforeseen circumstances. You know things are going to happen.

Speaker 1:

So yeah, I think that's like the number one thing I've learned over the years is something is going to happen. In fact, as I'm talking with private investors, I say, hey, listen, at some point during this hold period, something is going to happen. That's the reality of it. Over the course of three to five years. Life happens and so we're. How are we all prepared for that? What does that look like? Yeah, it's so important.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely yeah, and you can only do. You know it's like the 80-20 rule that we all know. It is like you could, you know, and that's how we treat due diligence and everything Like if we try, if one risk factor eliminated a deal, then we'd never buy a deal. You know every deal has got some risk factors, whether it's the population's a little questionable or the you know. But there's things that are non-negotiables now which you know. For us, we just have certain non-negotiables that protect us from, from those specific things. There's a market criteria that we're specific about. We just we want to be in counties. The population of the town has to have at least 10 000 and the population of the county has to have at least, uh, 50 000 and that might sound small like, but when you're doing mobile home parks, you get in pretty rural markets where we bought parks with, you know, spice park thousand. Yeah, there's only a thousand people in this town, but it's close to a big town. Well, you know, things can happen and so protecting yourself that way.

Speaker 2:

Utility infrastructure we just don't do septic and well anymore. You know, not that I advise everyone not to, but at the volume we're doing, it's just a lot. It's a lot easier to eliminate all those risks you know dealing with well and septic, and so we focus on public utilities. And then occupancy 60 plus occupancy, because we don't do a lot of infill, we're not the operators that are bringing in homes and renovating lots of homes. We try to be creative, um, and how we increase the occupancy and we try to be realistic. You know, in our typical three-year project cycle we'll take a 60% occupied. Uh, asset season, the rent roll at 80% occupied and you know everyone wins um, but we're not trying to get it to 100% occupied necessarily. So, just being real, more realistic as you get you know you don't necessarily get better and underwriting all the time you just get more realistic.

Speaker 2:

You know how to um foreshadow things better and so, um, yeah, experience, experience does help, for sure, and I would say we're to a point now where, um, you know we can move a lot quicker on these deals. We also it's important to know we don't do off market um, I know a lot of people like off market. We used to target off market. I know a lot of people like off market. We used to target off market deals. We go directly to the MLS or to wholesalers. So again, networking relationships we're all about relationships, letting those deals come to us, and so that really helps with the volume thing we're doing. You know anywhere from 10 to 15 acquisitions a year. So I think that's important to know if there's any wholesalers, the brokers listening, reach out. We're always looking to mention once.

Speaker 1:

I'm already thinking of somebody that I am like. Oh, I need to give you an introduction to this person, Cause I think that that would be very synergetic for you.

Speaker 2:

And.

Speaker 1:

I want to double down also on that concept of rural areas. I used to be very much um. I like tertiary markets are fine, but I want to stay. I love the midwest and so it's like okay being, you know, strong cities in the midwest where it's just what I call vanilla. It's so boring, but there's like the level of risk is just. You can always add sprinkles. You can. You can add chocolate sauce Like vanilla is.

Speaker 1:

Vanilla can get dressed up, but at the end of the day it's going to be vanilla and it's going to be solid and consistent and I love that, um, but living up North of you, up in Bonner's ferry, I, I mean, I never lived. I grew up in California. Kids are born in Denver and living up here in this town. It's a county of 10,000, but the community is technically like 2,500. And then, just living here, I can see the strength of investing in small towns where people are going to go.

Speaker 2:

How do you use the population as a criteria? It's hard, like, obviously, that's a metric to look at. But then again I compare cordelaine, which only has a population of like 40, 000 or something, 50, 000, um, and relatively small, and so, um again, we and, like you said, with the vanilla, some of the best deals. I mean, to this day, if we look back over our track record, all the best deals have been in those vanilla markets for sure, and so we're always doubling down and I mean there seems to be a lot more mom-and-pop in those areas too and a lot more outside and even more deal flow. So it it works out.

Speaker 1:

And oftentimes less competition Everyone else is hungry. They want their rocky road.

Speaker 2:

Low hanging fruit. Yeah, and the smaller deals are low hanging fruit. Everyone complains about these smaller deals. The main concern is the exit. Well, I'm here to tell you we've exited just fine on the majority of our small deals. There's still people who want small deals and buyers, banks, still want to put that on them, so it's just. Yeah, it's a different model, but we've been able to prove that. Um, you can do it on a small scale. Large scale. We can also go into those larger core assets which, again, it's just harder to takes longer to close, longer to form dd, longer to raise capital, less conversion, smaller deals. Like by the time we go into contract, we've done half our DD, you know, and it's just, it's scalable, it's funny.

Speaker 1:

I'm getting ready to head out to the Midwest to do DD. I just got off the team today and it's like, okay, you know, book the flights, get ready, let's go. Came on.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Yeah, you're ahead of the curve. That's awesome.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so you're doing onsite TV.

Speaker 2:

I love it.

Speaker 1:

Oh my gosh Heck. Yeah, I mean you personally you personally.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yes, yes.

Speaker 1:

So so we'll go out there and um, it's just important. I think for me, since I primarily work with private you know, on site, laying eyes on it myself is really powerful and it checks a huge box for me. I want to know. It's a little bit the healthy control freak that says I want to see this myself, I want to walk it myself. I don't want somebody's secondhand opinion about it, because their opinion might not be my opinion and how they see it might not be how I see it. And if I'm bringing in a substantial amount of private equity, then I want to make sure I know what I'm standing behind and what I'm representing.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely yeah, and I've noticed that for myself because you know, most time we're dealing with pretty, pretty generic assets like self-storage and the mobile home parks. A lot of that, like my project manager, goes out. You know we have commercial inspector phase one, like all these things done for the most part. You know we do video walkthroughs. The investors feel pretty protected on those. But for, like, as I bought some local projects and then you know been had now hand up hands-on involvement like a motel I bought here in downtown quarter lane, we bought wolf lodge campground I I noticed the difference of me being on site. It's just that added layer of seeing things that other my project manager is not going to see. You know, um, that my site manager is not going to see, and so it's that my site manager is not going to see, and so it's a gift and a curse, because obviously I can't be everywhere at once and I think even at the level of DD that we did, it would be hard.

Speaker 2:

But now I've made it a point that we're doing quarterly travels, even to our current portfolio, going to check on our portfolio quarterly, so there's just less surprises when it comes appraisal time on the back end, because that's what we're noticing. That's one thing is that we're constantly getting better at is. You know, it's like full transparency. You go close on a deal, you're kind of ready for the next deal, and then operations takes over that last deal, and then you 80, 20 it well, that 20 matters when it comes time to refinance and get the appraisal. And then so it's kind of that shotgun approach. My team's like, hey, fix these issues last minute. Um, well, if we can be ahead of those by, like, having us on site, you know, quarterly, that's kind of what we're starting to plan out. And then that gives us a more clear idea on how to hone our market a little more. So it is a little more feasible to keep it at least within proximity of visiting quarterly side business.

Speaker 1:

Oh my gosh, I'm chuckling because that's a point of conversation. My husband wants to build out a smaller portfolio. He wants to invest in a different way than I invest in. That's great, and in that process we've created this criteria of okay, we have to have a market where we can transact repeatedly, it's not just one-off. We need proximity to an airport. So and then for for us, because we live in the inland pacific northwest, it's like okay, what's the fly time? You know what? Like maybe I want to go to um north carolina north carolina.

Speaker 1:

There's now a direct flight to north carolina like heck. Maybe I want the portfolio there just because I know I can get a direct flight.

Speaker 2:

You know, not a bad market.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and and it is I'm like we're developing right now, like my company's developing in the tri-cities area, so I'm like well, it's a great point.

Speaker 2:

I mean, for that's why people invested in atlanta. They loved atlanta because it was a direct hub. You know it, direct flights anywhere in the us. So obviously, from market analysis standpoint it checks a major box. It's something to consider. You know, us in Spokane, we can't get everywhere in a direct flight in the U? S and so, yeah, if it takes multiple, if it takes a layover to get somewhere, that's something to think about.

Speaker 2:

Um, and yeah, fortunately, like for us, we've always, you know, we've from the beginning we've been a remote team, so we've got team members all over and we've got. You know, my project management team travels Most of these. You know, most time we're just using third party vendors, local third party vendors, and once you build that team kind of in an area, then we like to be able to, you know, we can scale those contractors maybe up to 100 miles. Like we have parts that are maybe 100 miles apart from each other and we'll use the same contractors, maybe pay them a little more, but we at least get that economy of scale, not having to fight for buying new contractors and stuff. So if you think, if you go 100 miles in any way, that gives you a pretty good range of you know. You've got multiple properties in different states, even that are being managed by some contractors and stuff.

Speaker 1:

So yeah, yeah, oh. I hear you and I can even think of a path in the midwest where it's like you can just buy in this city, that city, that city and just like, fly in here, drive your way through, fly out over there.

Speaker 2:

You've got contractors like yeah yeah, you've got the whole, yeah, indianapolis up through and we, um, yeah, like I said, that's to this day one of our best markets, you know is has been the midwest, a lot of ohio, and then again you're you're fighting a little more with um not being private utilities. Once you go into some of those Midwest markets there's a lot more private utilities and again, I don't advise against it. But that's just one major, I guess, unforeseen thing that's really hard to budget for. If you've got 10 septics and three of them go out or they weren't properly inspected, you know that can just be a major on-the-fly issue. And now you've got, you know, violations on your hand and same with the well. You know we just dealt with that at one of our parks, another park in Texas where you know the reading on the well just came back. Uh, we had just closed on the property. The well was inspected, everything was fine. Then the first reading after we closed came back with contamination.

Speaker 2:

So, we're dealing with all these EPA issues and stuff now and it's just again.

Speaker 1:

It's just like. Why add that to the bag of risks? And so um vanilla is great, it is it is can we get some t-shirts and we'll make them available? Conscious investor. You vote on this.

Speaker 2:

Email me we buy vanilla, yeah I buy vanilla.

Speaker 1:

I like vanilla, assets like I love it.

Speaker 2:

We'll get vanilla ice on it too. Yeah, I love it. I absolutely love it.

Speaker 1:

We'll get vanilla ice on it too. Yeah, I love it, I absolutely love it. And gosh, Alex, this is awesome. I really appreciate your time Like it's. It's insightful and it's especially special, like just our proximity of, like, oh, somebody else in North Idaho and the panhandle it makes you know it's really exciting, Um yeah just connecting with other investors um you know, doing big projects and I love it yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2:

and just to build off that, you know, I've been kind of I've gotten comfortable just doing everything online.

Speaker 2:

You know, a lot of what I do is is remote and, um, you know, so now that I've started more recently getting plugged into the local community, yeah, it's really profound just the people that I'm meeting and how much that activity is going on, and you know, anthony and Sarah people that we both know and just and Eric and these events that are starting to go on, and so, yeah, I mean it just again shows the power of community and I love what you're doing, what you're about attaching, you know, purpose, purpose and mission behind it. And it's exciting and timely for me because I'm, I would say I'm really just in the beginning phases of that, like I've kind of just been in the building and growth phase, and now I'm at the part where it's like, hey, what am I doing all this for? And now I'm meeting all these people who are helping me get clarity around that and I'm getting opportunities to give back, and so it's really cool, amazing, um, yeah, just excited to see where these next couple years go it's.

Speaker 1:

It is exciting and and I know like just having my the conscious investor growth summit the last couple of years it's exposed me to so many more people in the area that are active investors, that are passive investors, that are just amazing human beings, even if they're not investing yet Sometimes you don't and Conscious Investor, I want you to hear this Wherever you are, there are extraordinary people and it's just a matter of raising your level of awareness and putting yourself out there and next thing, you know, you're like I'm surrounded by the most extraordinary people and they've been here the whole time.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, who really want to see you win. You know, I mean, of course there's, there's bad apples everywhere, but it's like the people who are going to these communities are people who are naturally growth minded, and it's like don't have to fight and to find people in a crowd that are aligned. You go to these events and the energy is there and so the passion's there. Um, yeah, it's. You know, I think that's the best, the best advice I could give, especially for me, because I'm one who likes to kind of isolate myself. And how much can I do without actually having to go out there and put myself out and socialize? Um, but the reality is like, whatever business, whatever venture, like you can't get there without people, team investors, clients. You know it's all about serving someone, right, and so, yeah, cool to be with people who see that that's's so awesome.

Speaker 1:

What's the best way? If the conscious investor is just jazzed or stoked, they're like, oh my gosh, I want to connect up with Alex and learn more about what he's investing in and what he's up to. Best way for them to connect with you.

Speaker 2:

I would say either my Instagram, Alex Donalo that's got all my links on there, it's to get to my website or my website is just alexdonalocom. That'll give you more information on on what we do so yeah, and thanks again for having us really honored and grateful to be in your proximity.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, likewise it's. It's amazing I'm so grateful and conscious of us are there is so much in this conversation that's really helpful, and it's interesting because we've had this mix of conversation where we're talking about a lot of active investing thinking, but through the passive investing lens at the same time, and so I know that this conversation supported you in taking that first or next step on your investing journey. Make sure you reach out, connect up with Alex and remember adventure belongs on the trail, not in your investing and not in your personal life. So if you need some support in either way, just make sure you head over to the official website. It's an affirmation. Remember I am a consciousinvestorcom and let's get connected up there. Until next time, cheers to your health, your mindset and your Thank you, you.

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Julie Holly

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