Chapter V: "Seeing the Blue Skies" with Dan Haberkost

00:00:00
It. On this episode of the from Adversity to From Adversity to Abundance Podcast podcast, I had the chance to speak with Dan Haberkost of Front Range land. He's a land investor and real estate investor and getting into some different strategies in real estate. But he's 26 and I mean it just to think where I was at 26 and where he is at 26 as far as our real estate careers, I mean, he's just light years ahead of me. So super impressive.

00:00:39
He's very well spoken and it's a really good interview. I think you're going to get a lot out of it. We talk mostly about from an adversity standpoint, we talk mostly about overcoming the anxiety and worry associated with a scarcity mindset with regard to money. And there's a lot of discussion about money and financial freedom and where kind of the mindset that Dan came from from a family and hometown perspective versus where he is now. And they're just worlds apart.

00:01:23
And so maybe not as personal of an episode from a personal adversity standpoint, but extremely practical. Like I said, he's very well spoken. Inspiring story. He's been doing active real estate since he was 16. This guy is definitely not afraid of hard work.

00:01:44
He's a critical thinker, but an action taker at the same time. Very analytical and motivating and motivated. So I know you're going to like this one. Take a listen. Inspiring stories of real people overcoming incredible ods to live life to the fullest.

00:02:04
We are all guaranteed to face hardships. How will we handle the adversity? Join us to be moved by everyday people who have turned poverty into prosperity and weakness into wealth. Be inspired as these relatable heroes get vulnerable. And former counterintelligence investigator Jamie Bateman puts his interviewing skills to the test.

00:02:25
Restore your faith in humanity as you experience true Cinderella stories of average people turning surreal struggle and deep despair into booming businesses and financial fortune. Take ownership of the life you are destined to live and turn your adversity into From Adversity to Abundance Podcast.

00:02:47
Welcome everybody, to another episode of the from adversity to From Adversity to Abundance Podcast podcast. I am your host, Jamie Bateman, and I'm happy today to be joined by Dan Haberkost. Dan, how are you doing today? I'm great, Jamie. Thanks for having me.

00:03:01
Absolutely. Dan is in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and his company is Front Range Land, LLC. And I think we're going to get into all the different nuances and different asset classes and strategies that Dan has employed in real estate investing in particular. But since you know more about yourself than I do, Dan, why don't you take it away? Tell the listener who you are and what you're up to.

00:03:29
Sure. Sure. So Front Range land is the active business and what that involves. If you think about what someone refers to when they say a wholesaling company in the recent years, you're going direct to seller for houses or apartments. Well, I do the same, but for land.

00:03:45
And so really, I've built a marketing funnel, a marketing system that brings in dozens of leads for land at $30 to $0.50 on the dollar, and specifically infill, residential or commercial, but all infill lots. Some of them we build houses on, some of them all just flip for cash. Some of them all sell on notes, and some of them we assign. And I'm doing that in both Colorado and Florida. And that's the active business.

00:04:09
And then that feeds the passive investing and acquisition of more rental properties. It goes back to when I was a teenager, actually, I was managing a portfolio of rentals at 16, plus a farm for my boss as he would travel to Aruba. And I did that through high school. And then in college, I managed a landscaping company, working 45, 50 hours a week while going to school full time. And that was a lot.

00:04:35
But it was clear to me, hey, if I can manage that much work plus full time school, I can certainly start some sort of business. Grew up in a lower middle class, very rural part of Ohio, and didn't want to repeat the same sort of story that everyone else in my family had done. Working a crappy job, making next to nothing and just being controlled by money. Because if you don't have any money, then all your decisions are dictated by it, right? When you take vacation, what you buy, when you travel, when you see your family.

00:05:04
And so anyways, I started reading different books when I was about 20 years old, about stock investing businesses, and like everyone else, rich dad, poor dad, was the light bulb moment. Real estate was clearly the answer. And so, at 21, I was still in college. I bought a duplex, came out to visit my brother in Colorado, knew I didn't want to stay in Ohio and saw the mountains and actually saw the sun for the first time in my life. And so went home, quit my job, gave my duplex to a property manager, drove across the country and came out here, bought some more rentals, started the active business.

00:05:34
So today I'm 26 and still fairly young, but having ran other people's businesses, I feel like I've been doing this a long time. So I have the active business, which feeds the passive. Got it. 26. But you started in real estate at 16, right?

00:05:51
16 is when I was managing those rentals. Yeah. Okay. Got it. All right.

00:05:54
Yeah, that's ten years. That actually is a long time. Whether you're 26 or 56, that's pretty cool. You're definitely not afraid of hard work, sounds like.

00:06:08
All right, that's awesome. So let's dive into your backstory a little bit more. You touched on a little bit of it there, obviously, like we talked about a little bit before we hit record, our show is focused on overcoming adversity and getting to From Adversity to Abundance Podcast. And again, our listeners are very much aware that it's not snapping your fingers and you have no more problems, and life is perfect. But there's a lot that can be done to address the adversity that you are either given or you create yourself or that you end up having to face in life.

00:06:47
So pick it up where you'd like to, whether that's childhood or five years ago. But let's go back to kind of your first kind of major challenge in life, and let's talk about kind of how you navigated that well in the. Context of money and investing. I would say that goes back to when I was a teenager and, again, didn't have a lot of money, came from a very conservative background. And just from very early on, I remember worry, fear, anxiety, conflict.

00:07:18
When I think about money, those were the emotions and experiences we had. Right. My parents didn't have much money, and especially when I was young, I was the third out of four kids. And so when all four of us were in the house, it was especially tight. By the time I was in late high school, things were more stable.

00:07:32
But, yeah, I'll never forget. Actually, let's take it back even further. I was five or six years old. We were at the grocery store, and I wanted a sprite. And my mom goes, well, do you have money?

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I go, no. Well, then you can't have a sprite. And that was that. So there's a lot of thoughts I have here. But when I was 15, I started working at that tree farm.

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He didn't give me the rentals to manage until little 16, and I wanted to buy a car. And so that was my way of going and buying a car, and I was pretty frustrated and 15 year old me and bitter about that because all my friends just got cars bought for them. All my friends were going to have college paid for for them, and that wasn't the case for me. And so, in hindsight, years later, probably the biggest piece of advice, even if you feel like you are in a disadvantaged situation. Again, in hindsight, I certainly wasn't really in the larger context.

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But at 15, you don't have that perspective. If you feel like you're in any sort of disadvantaged situation, sitting there feeling bad for yourself, even if it's justified, isn't going to help you. And you've got to not take responsibility necessarily for the cause, but for changing know, it's like that book, that Hal Elrod book. I read that a long time ago and I don't really remember much about the miracle morning, but I do remember the story of him getting hit by a car and saying, well, no one's going to fix this for me. It's not my fault.

00:08:53
So I guess I have to take responsibility to change that. And that's really stuck with me. That's interesting. Just to cut you off briefly, I actually just listened to another. I've heard him on several podcasts, but I just listened to a podcast yesterday with Hal Elrod.

00:09:08
And is it Hal Elrod or Elrod? I forget. I think it's Elrod. Yeah. Anyway, when he was 23, he emailed like 25 people in his life and asked for very real feedback on how they viewed him.

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And not to get too off on a tangent, but the whole point was he was taking ownership of the legacy he was leaving and the life he was living. And that's a story for another day. But yeah, he's an inspirational person for sure. And his book the Miracle Morning is really good, but we'll do a follow up episode on that. Okay?

00:09:53
Yeah.

00:09:56
Okay. Where were we? Yeah. Well, anyways, so I'm kind of oscillating back and forth between teenage Dan's perspective and current day perspective, but that definitely made me bitter. And it wasn't until late college where I decided to grow up and deal with it and say, what can I make the best out of this?

00:10:15
And at that time, it was really clear to me that I had the skill set of someone much, much older. So in college, I was running that landscaping company. I was managing a dozen plus guys that were twice my age, a lot of them, and I was going to school full time. And I said, okay, I can do that. I can definitely build some sort of a business so I can cry about it or I can go do something with it.

00:10:34
And I chose the latter. So can you give us a little more context? Like, what did your parents do for a living? And what part of Ohio were you in? Yeah, my mom taught piano lessons and my dad was a pastor at a church.

00:10:49
Okay. And this was in. They were rolling in it. Yeah. Yes.

00:10:55
So for anyone that knows Ohio, this was about 50 minutes southwest of Cleveland, right on the border between Litchfield and Medina. Okay. Cornfields. Got it. Okay.

00:11:06
Yeah, no, I think that's awesome that just. You recognize that the fact is, money does matter. And I don't know how your family taught money skills or anything like that, but they didn't. They didn't. But I know it sounds like maybe you came from more of a scarcity mindset and not the From Adversity to Abundance Podcast mindset that rich dad, poor dad opened you up to.

00:11:35
But money is so important, and it sounds like you've come to that realization probably earlier than most people did. Anything to weigh in there. Yeah. So, first and foremost, yes. Especially my dad, huge warrior.

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The sky was always falling, the world was always ending, and the market was always crashing. Everything was going wrong all the time. And that has been extremely difficult to get out of that sort of thinking. I catch myself and I'll say, wait, no, that's your dad. That's not you.

00:12:05
That's ridiculous. So I still struggle with that to this day. And we can talk about some of the things that have gone wrong in business up to this point. You're going to get kicks in the teeth, I'll tell you that. And the second point, what you just said is so true, because it's not that money itself.

00:12:21
Money itself is just a concept, because bartering is difficult, but it enables all of the things that matter in life. So whether it be it, I live out here with my brother. I've seen my family. I'll see my parents six or seven times this year. He'll see them once.

00:12:35
Why? Because I have money. It doesn't really matter. I can trade that for things that matter. I can go travel, whatever I want.

00:12:41
So money is just a tool to trade for the things that actually matter. So when I hear people say, oh, what's more this and that and this are more important than money? Well, that's somewhat misleading, because money is the thing that enables all the things matter. Yeah, I love that. I equate money to.

00:12:58
It's like the Internet. Is it inherently good or bad? No, but it's extremely powerful. It can be very powerful. And it is.

00:13:08
It's just a tool, and it's how you want to use it. And I think to take the approach of money doesn't matter, or becoming a slave to that fear surrounding money that you're talking about is really not the right way to go. It's easy for me to sit here and judge your parents, or my parents, obviously, but I think too many people take that kind of cop out where it's like, no, money isn't something to strive for, and so therefore, I'm just going to go the easy route and not try to acquire more money. But what it can do is enable things. Like you just talked about, enable freedom really is what enable time freedom and location freedom like you were talking about.

00:13:58
When someone says money doesn't matter. That's very interesting. My first question would be, well, what does your week look like? When they tell me they get up, they go to work, I would respond, in most cases, it sounds like money dictates everything you do all day, every day. So that's interesting, because typically, if you don't have it, then money controls your life.

00:14:15
If you do have it, then you control your life. Sure. Yeah, that's really good. So what other obstacles or kind of themes that were difficult for you existed? In other words, anything not money related that you grew up with that was kind of challenging from either a human or a business perspective?

00:14:37
I would say the biggest thing that pertains to this conversation that I would want to get into would probably be just that intense, fear based scarcity mindset. Right? So they never figured out how to make money, so they're just super conservative with spending money and then never got to see their parents, my grandparents, their siblings. I'm talking about my parents. That's probably the biggest one that applies to this conversation because it's so hard.

00:15:04
In hindsight, I have cut myself so short by having been stingy about marketing dollars. Right. I have hiring people. I have made my own life so much harder because of this. So, yeah, that's been a huge one for me, and it still is.

00:15:20
To this day. I catch myself thinking very irrationally or worrying about things that I shouldn't worry about at all. So that's probably the biggest one. And for me, self awareness has helped the most. Right.

00:15:32
Trying to catch myself and say, hey, it's not you. That's just 20 years of hearing your dad. Right. Sure. That has helped me a lot there.

00:15:40
Okay, so take us from, say, 20 through 26. Just kind of bring us up to speed. How did you get out of that scarcity mindset, or attempt to, anyway, and then get to where you are today? What were some tools or tactics that got you where you are? Yeah, probably the two biggest things are just proceeding, taking action in spite of being afraid and the people you get around.

00:16:04
I'd say are the two biggest. So I bought that duplex in college and then moved out to Colorado, bought another house hack out here. And it was around that time that I realized, hey, the whole low and no money down thing sounds really great. It sells a lot of courses and books and podcasts, but at the end of the day, this is a cash intensive venture. You're going to have things go wrong.

00:16:23
If you don't have cash or someone partnered with you, who does, you're going to get yourself hurt. You're probably not going to last very long. So I started going to the real estate group that I now host out here, and I met a guy who had been investing in land, building houses, apartments, commercial strip centers, et cetera, for the last 40 years. So I would drive an hour south every weekend and go work with him, work for him, and just learn. And that was how land and development came into the picture originally.

00:16:53
Again, really consolidating a lot of information here. But through that, I eventually just started doing it myself, and that's where front range land came about, and that has allowed me to buy more properties. So, again, I just turned 26 now, and that's what the business is at this point. Front range land, feeding the investing. And I want to tell a story about that guy I just mentioned.

00:17:15
Yeah, go for it. Okay. All right. So when I met him, he seemed a little bit. His memory wasn't great.

00:17:21
And I don't know, there's something funky about this guy. But he showed me all these properties he was building. He showed me all his rentals, and he clearly had experience. Turns out he had gotten brain cancer when he was 14, so we're talking the 70s. He had had an operation his whole life.

00:17:36
He had been disabled. He can barely write his name, allegedly. Terrible memory. And he has gone out and built a massive business. Gone and done deals all over the country and the world.

00:17:45
He showed me an apartment he built in China, in spite of that. And at the time, when I met him, he'd gotten cancer again, this time in his neck. He could barely speak. I watched him go through treatment. I ended up taking him to treatments, go through radiation and chemo.

00:17:58
And in the midst of that, I don't think I ever heard him complain a single time. I'll never forget. It was at the end of 2019 when he was nearly dead from treatments. And I had a question. He's like, I'll meet you.

00:18:10
And I go, are you sure? He's like, no, I'll meet you anyways. I meet him. He barely walks in. I think we met at McDonald's or something in town.

00:18:17
He can barely talk. He can barely walk. And I'm just like, are you sure you want to talk? Should I take you home? And he's like, Dan, I've been dealing with this since I was 14 years old.

00:18:26
It's not going to take me out. I'll get better. And anyways, I have learned a lot from him because here's a guy who has a really legitimate reason to complain. Cancer at 14. Oh, my gosh.

00:18:40
He's fought with it on and off his whole life. Been disabled his whole life, and I have literally never heard this man complain. That's awesome. He went out regardless and built a business and has had a really cool. Life and he's still doing well.

00:18:54
That's awesome. I need to get him on the podcast. Yeah, we can talk later. But that's the type of story that is perfect for this show, to be honest. Because that's what I'm hoping for, is that people take away from this show that.

00:19:15
Not that you should never complain or not that your problems aren't real. Right. But here's an example of someone who dealt with real adversity, like legitimate, and is still dealing with it. It sounds like, but made the most of it. Right.

00:19:32
And so to me, that's inspirational. I'm not certainly happy that happened to him, but it makes the things I complain about kind of evaporating way. Yeah. When I catch myself complaining about anything, I always think about him because I've never really looked up to anyone, especially as a kid. He's probably the first person I've ever actually was impressed by or admired by, because that's incredible in my mind.

00:20:00
And how did you. You just met him through the real estate club and then kind of latched on and he kind of became a mentor to you. Is that just. Exactly, yes. Okay.

00:20:10
And also, the other thing I want to pull out is it sounds like you were adding value to him without specifically asking for something in return. Yeah. He actually stood up and said, hey, guys, I need help with such and such in my business. He lived an hour south of Colorado Springs, down in Pueblo west, so it was a bit of a drive. And of course, everyone gathered around him, got his number.

00:20:32
Me and one other person actually took him up on it. The other guy quit after like a week. And it was just very clear to me after a short time that he knew what I wanted to know. And so I just kept going. And eventually we just became friends and he invested in me and with me, and then I just do it on my own now.

00:20:48
That's awesome. I mean, you took action. You have persistence. Just so many things that if you'll do those few things, then all of a sudden, you're in the top 10% of performers, and that's great. Yeah.

00:21:03
And to expand on that. So when I said the people you're around influences so much. Right. Getting out of that mindset. And he has contributed to that a lot, spending time with him.

00:21:14
He's really taught me how to think very differently than how I grew up. Right. If I'll ask him if something is doable. So, backstory. When I met him, it was shortly after moving here, and I always talked about how my favorite part of Colorado is.

00:21:27
It's always sunny. We have bright blue skies all the time. And I love that because I grew up in Ohio, and you don't see the sun six months out. I mean, it's horrible. Don't ever go there.

00:21:35
But anyways, so if I would ever ask him if something was doable or can I do, he would always say, Dan, it's blue skies. It's blue skies. You can go do whatever you want. And so he would use that analogy. And so I think about that all the time, and that will stick with me for the rest of my life.

00:21:50
That's fantastic. That's really good. Awesome. Now, we'll get into your business at the end as well. But I know you said you have the passive and active, and they feed each other essentially, or at least the active feeds the passive.

00:22:04
But what does your team look like? What's the structure of your business look like? Yeah. So for Front Range land, for the active business, I have two acquisitions managers. They both do business in Florida and Colorado.

00:22:15
And I just have a network of different realtors, different title agents, a couple different contractors I use. So I've kept it really low maintenance. And for anyone, most often people, when they think of direct to seller businesses and real estate, they think of wholesaling residential houses, and that is way more time intensive. With land, the due diligence is much easier. You never have to meet anyone in person.

00:22:37
So one acquisitions manager can handle a lot of volume because it's very simple. You're not dealing with foundations and electrical and plumbing. It's just a flat piece of land. You double check your zoning, your topography, your size, and setbacks, and it's about. It's very easy.

00:22:53
So with two acquisitions managers, you can get a lot. It. Yeah. And you're also, if you're creating notes, you're not dealing with owner occupied issues like Dodfrank and CFPB and the issues that I deal with in our business. So, yeah, that's awesome.

00:23:09
All right, well, I'm going to fly through some questions, and then we'll get back to kind of where people can reach out to you.

00:23:19
What do people misunderstand about you? Oh, gosh. Misunderstand people. Meet me in the context of business. And especially moving to Colorado, the culture is very different.

00:23:31
So I grew up in. I would compare the stereotype of the New Jersey and New York sort of culture to being similar to Cleveland in that area where communication is very quick, very direct. I have had to change that dramatically moving out here because it's farm, I got to relax, talk slower, and I'm naturally just a driver. So in the context of business, most people think I'm boring and excessively practical. So that's probably the biggest thing.

00:23:56
Anyone who knows me in business probably does not think I'm very fun. But come snowboarding or climb a mountain, it's a very different side of me. You'll see it's all blue skies at that point.

00:24:09
You're 26. This doesn't really fit into the context right now, but it's just super impressive what you've done so far.

00:24:17
On the flip side of that, what would you say is one of your bigger failures thus far? That's a great question. I would say not living up to potential, having been way too scared, allowing that to affect me, and not being nearly far along as I could or should be, in my opinion. That's probably the biggest thing that comes to mind. That's good.

00:24:40
And what you learned from that is what. Yeah, well, remembering that's not me. That's just what I was raised on and very practically getting more granular in the context of business, spending more on marketing, not being afraid to, and I'm talking to myself right now and telling myself, go spend more money on marketing. That's probably the biggest thing. And good people.

00:25:04
Good people in marketing, I can definitely relate to those.

00:25:11
If you could have coffee with any historical figure, who would it be? They could be someone with us still today. Or not. Oh, man. Any historical figure.

00:25:23
If you drink coffee, that is. I do drink coffee. I'm just trying to think, who would. I want to talk to? I read a lot of history, but it's more big picture.

00:25:32
Doesn't have to be your favorite person, but just anybody you want to spend an hour with and pick their brain. Oh, man. I wasn't prepared for this question. It would probably, gosh, probably one of the greek philosophers, someone from a long time. I read one of my favorite ancient history books, thacidides.

00:25:53
I forget how you pronounce it. The history of the peloponnesian war. I love that book. I would go talk to him because, yeah, ancient history is very interesting and it reminds you how much or how little has changed. There you go.

00:26:06
I like it. If you were given $10 million tomorrow, what would you do with it besides marketing and hiring? Well, I would probably pay off a couple of rentals and have that at the base of the portfolio as just completely solid. Go buy like a Walgreens building. Something like that.

00:26:24
Right. A very low risk 30 year triple net that had the base. I would put that in a separate entity. I'd take the rest and go after far more. Probably not necessarily risky, but go after a far higher return with that.

00:26:38
Leverage that money and try and add a couple of zeros to that in the next couple of years while keeping the more stable. Sure. You see what I'm saying? Anchor tenant or whatever. What does your rental portfolio look like today, if you don't mind getting into.

00:26:54
Sure. Yeah. So I have 13 tenants between six properties. So that's a duplex and then five houses here. Two of those houses are rented by the room.

00:27:02
Two of those houses are traditional rentals. And then one of the houses is the one I live in with the abasement separated off as its own unit. And then putting tenants down there. Just. They have their own entrance and everything.

00:27:14
I'm just thinking of where I was at 26 and we don't need to get into that. It's all relative. No, it's awesome. I'm super impressed. Not that your goal was to impress me, but I can still be impressed.

00:27:29
Thank you. If you had to eat one meal for the rest of your life, what would it be? Oh, man. And calories still apply, I take it? Yes.

00:27:40
Okay. Probably eggs and toast. I love eggs. My breakfast, I eat every day is very. Yeah, eggs and toast.

00:27:47
Nice. All right. What's a challenge that you're facing right now in your business? Great question. Yeah, it goes back to what we've been talking about the whole time.

00:27:58
I want to scale, but I'm intimidated and I'm doing it. I'm sending out mail, but I'm intimidated by two things. Number one, markets with bigger numbers. Really just more zeros. Like, I'm moving into Cape Coral right now or working on it.

00:28:10
And a lot of those lots sell for two 3400 grand. And that's intimidating. So I'm working on that. And then, secondarily, I need to hire someone else, and I don't want to, but I need to. So there's that.

00:28:23
And then number three is, I've not leveled up my investing at all to match the active income, and I need to do that. I've got one of my best friends from when we were kids text me all the time. Have you gotten into commercial yet? Have you bought an office or strip center yet? I'm like, damn it, no.

00:28:42
Anyways, my buying houses does not make sense unless we're talking very nice houses. It does not. I need to be investing in larger assets, and I haven't done it yet. So that's number three. Those would be the three things.

00:28:54
Got you. Okay, that's good. I don't think single family homes are the worst place to put your money. No. Agreed.

00:29:03
Agreed. But again, who you're around matters a lot. Knowing and seeing what some of my friends are doing. Yeah. I look at my house.

00:29:12
Why the heck do I do this? Yeah. Makes sense. If you could do one occupation other than real estate or totally unrelated to what you're doing, what would it be? Physicist.

00:29:24
Physicist. Okay. Why? Math comes very naturally to me. I love science.

00:29:29
Numbers and physics are somewhere in biology. Both the sciences are really interesting. Got it. Yeah. I liked physics a lot, too.

00:29:37
That was fun. All right, what's a book or two that you'd recommend besides the one you already mentioned? Yeah, actually, you mentioned a couple already. Well, everyone talks about rich dad, poor dad, so that doesn't count. That's a cop out.

00:29:49
Sapiens is excellent. I've read that. That's the only book I've read three years in a row. And then deep simplicity is another one that I really, really like. That's the only book I read.

00:29:59
And then went to page one and read again. There are concepts in that that are so applicable just across the board. I love that book. And then anything written by Howard Marks. I like his memos, especially.

00:30:13
He's in the same world as Warren Buffett, so not necessarily in real estate, but he starts everything he writes with. Contrary to a lot of people, he says the future is unknowable. He doesn't try and predict the future specifically. Right. You can have an idea as to kind know.

00:30:28
Okay, interest rates are going up. That is going to price people out. But we don't know how extreme of an effect that has on the market. So anything he writes is excellent. His thinking is very rational, calm, and just, well, written on the market, what's going on and how to approach it.

00:30:43
So, yeah, anything he writes, it's really good. How about a movie? Any movies you'd recommend? Oh, I love the assassination of Jesse James. There will be blood.

00:30:56
All the Wes Anderson movies, I enjoy those. The Irishman, I like long, well done character studies. I hate action movies. I like more long, interesting. The Irishman's really good.

00:31:09
Yeah, that was good. Do you listen to any podcasts? Yeah, I still enjoy bigger pockets. David Green specifically. He and I probably think very much alike.

00:31:22
So I like listening to.

00:31:26
Just not out yet as of today. But one of the recent interviews I just did, we were talking about that she was on the bigger Pockets podcast, actually, but I've stopped listening and apparently I need to give it another shot. I'll be listening. They'll ask a super beginner question, but then he will give his perspective and thinking as somebody who is quite a bit ahead of me. And then I always find that to be valuable.

00:31:50
I mean, there are some that are just very beginner, but he tends to say things in there that make me come back. And then the other one I like, I like Kevin Buff's commercial podcast. And then I like, oh, gosh, the real deals. Elliot Smith, Tucker Merrihew, up in the Pacific Northwest, they're very practical and talk through their businesses in detail, and that's really useful. Nice.

00:32:15
I think Kevin Buffett, he did have at least two podcasts, right? I think he's. Yeah, I just know his general commercial one that's been around for quite a while. I can't think of the name. Yeah.

00:32:25
Awesome. All right, two more questions for you because I know you're a busy guy. How do you like to serve others? Well, right now at this point, I turned around. I host this real estate group now that I got a lot of value from when I moved out here, I'm doing the talk tonight, and from that there's a lot of people that just reach out to me and I try and help how I can.

00:32:48
So as of now, that's it. That's good. What's the talk on tonight? I'm going to talk through land, but more specifically, I'm going to pull the concept out of land that is applicable across the board. So we could get into that.

00:33:01
I would love to hit on that. Sure. Quickly. Go for it. Well, just the concept of an efficient market.

00:33:06
Right. So there was the efficient market hypothesis in the world of equities, I think it was in the 60s where the idea was, you have millions of rational investors looking at prices at all times. They're updating constantly, so prices reach intrinsic value. Now, we know people aren't rational. There are mispricings and discounts, but it is really, really hard to buy a stock at a discount.

00:33:27
In the world of real estate, I would liken single family and multifamily to stocks in that. Really difficult to buy at a discount. But wherever you can find inefficient markets, there is huge opportunity. So land is a great example of this. Not well understood, easily mispriced.

00:33:45
Lots of variables people don't understand. It's very easy to go buy land at $0.50 on the dollar. Another example right now, small businesses. Okay, I'm watching my girlfriend's parents. They've had a septic company that's been super profitable in Ohio for the last 30 years, and they might just have to shut it down because they don't know how to sell it.

00:34:03
Businesses like that get shut down and or sold at one or two, maybe three times cash flow all of the time. When if there was a well done system where the businesses were exposed to the masses and the numbers were clear and financing was clear, those would sell at much, much higher multiples. But they don't because the market is grossly inefficient. Think what Ray Croc did to McDonald's. Think what the hedge funds have done with storage units and mobile home parks in the last ten years.

00:34:31
That's the concept I want to drive home tonight because it's applicable to both assets and specific markets within assets. And that's how you find opportunity. Wow. I might have to drive up there, fly up there.

00:34:47
Wow.

00:34:50
It makes a lot of sense. It might be two or three meetings wrapped in one. Yeah, I want to talk about building, too, and I can't fit that in. So it'll just be land, and then. I'm going to go granular.

00:35:01
How to identify markets, and then big picture that concept. Nice. Now, do you ever write notes on the land that you keep? Yes. Seller, finance.

00:35:12
Okay, got you. I know I said two more questions, like, five questions ago, but just how it goes. No, we're fine. I got an hour blocked off.

00:35:22
What's one question you wish I'd asked, but I haven't asked? You know, great question. Because there's one story I wanted to tell. The whole point of this podcast is adversity. And the last slide, actually, from my talk tonight, I want to go through that with you.

00:35:35
And that is when you listen to me on a podcast or when you're listening to bigger pockets, we sound very well put together, very smart and planned and calculated in hindsight. And we always talk about things that go right. And I promise you that building a business is a lot like, imagine you're going up steps and you can't really see because you're in the clouds and someone's punching you in the face from both sides the whole way up. That's what building a business is like. We only sound smart and calculated in hindsight.

00:36:02
We're all uncertain as we move forward and things go wrong. So let me give you an example of that. So my primary market out here in Pueblo West, Colorado, for years had been my primary market. You had tens of thousands of subdivided lots with utilities in place. It had been neglected by people in Colorado as far as the business side, but as far as the end user, lots of people were moving there.

00:36:24
So I was down there having a field day and still am, to some degree. And so, flying home from Florida this January, I had already purchased six lots down there, three more under contract. Four of those six lots were under contract to sell, and I was going to profit between eleven and 14 per lot. And then also had a number of builds lined up for subsequent lots. And all at once, they shut down additional permits and water taps with no warning, nothing.

00:36:50
And it was the worst. It was a terrible day because I was flying home. I get to a layover in DC, I have to rush to my next flight. And you know how it is when you land and you get all the texts and calls you missed. Well, my phone just blows up.

00:37:01
And clearly something is very wrong. And I'm supposed to have those four closings in the next weeks. I'm expecting to make almost 50 grand and then also get all that capital back. And just like that, it all shuts down. So I'm sitting there thinking, holy crap, these might be completely useless.

00:37:18
They might not turn this back on. I didn't know. At that same time, I had a nightmare with a rental where a contractor screwed me as a new tenant was moving in. And to add to it, my accountant messed up. I thought I owed an additional 20 grand in taxes.

00:37:34
I owed 51. So I had to write that check that much. So within the course of a week, those three things happen. So it's just a massive kick in the teeth. And I smile now because it's like, at this point, I feel like I can handle anything, because that's just one example.

00:37:51
But when you sign up for starting a business, it's worth it, because at the end of the day, when I wake up, my priorities are my priorities. But you are going to get kicked in the teeth, I will tell you. Yeah. And I think that's really critical. You don't know how.

00:38:07
You don't know what it's going to look like. Right? But it has helped me, too, in times where this really sucks, whatever I'm going through. But it's like, wait, you knew things were going to come at you, so why are you surprised? Yeah.

00:38:24
What's the short version of how you got out of all that? Okay, well, the rental thing was just a day by day getting other contractors, paying more and handling it. The tax thing, I mean, I'm cautious. So I had the cash. It was just irritating.

00:38:35
The land thing. It worked out okay. It could have been a lot worse. It turned out, as time went on, we got some more information from the metro district. They made it clear, okay, we are going to open this back up.

00:38:46
There's going to be a limited amount of taps and at a higher price. So eventually I've been able to sell off all those lots. Didn't make nearly as much money as expected. I had a certain amount of builds I wanted to have in process. Thankfully, I had paid for a tap and gotten a permit for one the week before.

00:39:02
So that was grandfathered. But. So I am way behind on what I intended to accomplish down there. But I did. Thankfully, I didn't get stuck with all those.

00:39:10
I didn't lose all that money. And then I quickly pivoted into Florida. And now I'm doing business in a couple of markets in Florida. So, yeah, that sucked. But it's just like anything, man, you can cry about it, you can handle it.

00:39:22
So I immediately sent mailers out to a different market. Well, and I like how when you answered that, you compartmentalized them. I mean, you dealt with each problem kind of separately, one at a time. And that's how you can work through those things. What markets in Florida are you in?

00:39:38
Lehigh acres. I just sent out mailers to Labelle and then Cape Coral. I'm working on getting into. But, man, I will tell you, I was just down there. It just gives me an excuse to go down there.

00:39:51
And there are just subdivision after subdivision after subdivision. Probably on the east side. East side, too. But I've only explored the west, where lots were worth nothing ten years ago. They've gone up ten x in price.

00:40:04
There's a frenzy. I mean, there's so much money to be made down there. Oh, my gosh. Crazy. Yeah, I agree.

00:40:11
I don't think it's ending anytime soon. Maybe particular markets. But yeah, I have a couple rentals. One was a non performing loan that turned into a buy and hold. We rehabbed it from a distance in Jacksonville.

00:40:25
Nice. And now that's a cash flowing rental that I've got no money in. And then we did a build to rent in. Know, I just think Florida is still a great place to be from a real estate investment standpoint. Yeah, I wrote on my website, I just write little blurbs about what I'm working on.

00:40:48
Follow the herd, right? Yes, but that's the joke. Right? Because obviously you don't want to follow the herd of investors, but following the herd of end users in a market. So I'm selling the shovels.

00:40:59
That's why I think of it in the gold rust. I don't have buy and holds down there. If I want to buy and hold. Well, in Lehigh Acres, it's very easy to bring on new supply. So I would either want a huge discount or something to change where you couldn't bring on new supply so easily.

00:41:13
Right. So those are two different compartments. Where do I want to keep property versus where do I want to just go to make money? I like owning property in very liberal areas because if you operate correctly, everything they do just pushes up the prices and pushes out the competition. Great.

00:41:27
I remember when I moved to Colorado, I don't consider myself on either side of the coin. I'm in my own little world. I'm apolitical. But I saw liberalism coming in droves and I said, great. It's going to push up the prices of my properties.

00:41:38
Wonderful. So those are two different compartments where I go to just make money versus where I want to keep something. So in Pueblo West, 200 more taps left this year, approximately 400 next year, and they're done. So now I'm thinking of going and building and keeping some stuff down there. Got it.

00:41:54
Follow the herd is more of a population. That's where people are moving. Is that what you're getting? Yeah, that's what I meant. It's tongue in cheek because you don't want to follow the herd and investing.

00:42:03
But that's what I meant. If there's thousands of people moving there with money, that is a great place to go buy and sell land or build houses. Absolutely.

00:42:13
Awesome. Yeah. We can't know what, like you said, we don't know what the future holds as far as all market conditions or what the government's going to do. But real estate does give usually some kind of warning if you're paying attention and as you get older than 26, you've already got a ton of tools in your tool belt. I can't imagine when you're 36 how many you'll have.

00:42:39
And then it's like, I don't care what happens, I'll just pivot. You're going to thrive in any environment. Thank you. Yeah. Anything to add for our listeners?

00:42:52
Whatever it is you're trying to accomplish, if you haven't gotten started, what's the quickest way to get started and start participating without maxing out your credit cards or risking your house? That's something else, because people equate those two things. They think jumping into something without all the information is risky. Well, not if you go work for someone in that space or just send out a few mailers with income you can dispose of or with anything and everything. What is the quickest way to test your hypothesis in a low risk with high reward potential sort of means?

00:43:24
That's how I think about it. Because you won't really learn anything until you start iterating and participating in whatever it is you're trying to do. You got to take action, right. And you can't eliminate risk, meaning there's always going to be risk no matter if you take action or not. In fact, I think there's big risk in not taking action, but that doesn't mean throw caution to the wind.

00:43:50
I think you said it more eloquently, but I couldn't agree more. You got to get out there and make stuff happen, but don't be stupid about.

00:44:02
Yep, awesome. All right, Dan, this has been really good. We've covered a lot of ground. Can't wait to have you back. When you're 52, you've done so much and you're 26, it just blows my.

00:44:18
Mind, but never been able to sit still. You're clearly an action taker, but you're clearly analytical as well. You also kind of are paying attention to what you're doing and taking lessons from the adversity that you've been through and the successes you've had. You can tell that you don't just bury your head in the sand.

00:44:44
You got it going on as far as you're an action taker, but you're putting out a good vibe. So I think listeners are going to really benefit from this. And speaking of our listeners, where can they find you online? Yeah. Danhaberkost.com or Dan Haberkost, Facebook.

00:45:02
You'll see some business stuff and then lots of pictures of mountains in the ocean. Awesome. You going to stay there or you're going to move to Florida? Oh, no, I love Colorado and I need to find a beach in Florida. I can surf.

00:45:14
Then potentially I'll go spend part of the year in Florida. But no, snowboarding is my favorite thing in the world, hands down. Awesome. Well, Dan, thank you so much. Really appreciate it.

00:45:25
Thanks, Jamie. Absolutely. And to our listeners out there, thank you for spending your most valuable resource with us. And that's your time. Thanks, everyone.

00:45:32
Take care. Thanks so much for tuning in to this episode of the from Adversity to From Adversity to Abundance Podcast podcast. If you're enjoying the show, please feel free to rate, subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen to your podcasts that helps others find the show, and we greatly appreciate it. Thanks again for listening and we'll catch you in the next episode.