Before we go too far into the details of syndications and specific deals, I want to give you more of an idea as to why I am investing in real estate, creating MBC, and writing this blog. I think understanding who I am and why I am here will help you put my advice in context.

While I have been involved in the tech industry since 1997, I started investing in real estate about a decade earlier – with a simple house hack on an up-and-down duplex while going to university, back before house-hacking was a thing (yes, I have been around a while, but I did start my real estate career early :)). Since then I have done a wide variety of deals, from single family rentals (SFRs), to small multi-family properties (3-5 units), to short term rentals. As I continued to invest in different deals and learnt more about Real Estate Investing (REI), I came to realize that REI would be my path to financial freedom. I could take the money I earned at my day job, invest it in real estate, and generate enough income to retire early – but only if I was able to scale. Unfortunately, scaling was a problem for me. I was the bottleneck. It took a long time to find a deal that worked for my numbers, and once I got the property, I had to manage the property manager (or in some cases the property directly) and make sure that the property performed – which meant that every property I added took time away from other things, including buying more properties. Worse, each deal provided relatively small return of capital after everything was said and done. The cash on cash returns and IRR were decent, but it was going to take more properties than I had time for in order to cover my expenses. I wasn’t ready to make this my full time job or hire people to help me so I was stuck with very slow growth and capital that I couldn’t effectively deploy.

When I discovered syndications in 2018, that equation changed completely. I could work with sponsors who already had deals lined up, and once I committed, there was no additional work on my end. This means I could scale as much as I wanted to, with the only limitation being how much capital I could bring to the table (not how much time I had). If I continue to invest at the rate I have been over the past few years, within the next 5 years I expect to have my passive income completely cover my expenses (without changing my lifestyle). At that point, how I spend my time becomes unburdened by the need to work for money – I can travel, volunteer, and spend time with my friends and family as much as I want. That income will also effectively last forever, since I am not drawing down the principle and the underlying assets and cash flow adjust with inflation, providing my family with a stable source of income even after I am gone. In other words, in less than 10 years, I will have fully bought back my time and can do what I want, for as long as I want, without having to worry that I or my family will run out of money. To me, that ability to earn a passive income indefinitely is the ultimate power of real estate investing, and syndications are the best mechanism I have found to leverage that power while still actively working at my job (where I get the income to grow my investments). That is why I am a Real Estate Investor focused on syndications.

I created MBC with two key goals:

• Share what I know about real estate investing and the power of syndications. My 30+ year history being a Real Estate Investor has given me the foundation to focus on my day job without having to stress about my finances. I have been through the 2001 tech crash, the 2008 great financial crisis, and now the ongoing layoffs in 2022/3. Having passive income means that I will be ok even if I don’t have a day job. A layoff would affect my ultimate timelines for financial freedom (since I will be spending that money instead of reinvesting it) and my lifestyle would take a hit, but I don’t need to worry about putting food on my plate or whether or not I can make my mortgage payment. That is a great feeling. Unfortunately, many of my coworkers and colleagues don’t have that same foundation in place. If they have investments, they are primarily in their 401(k)s, company stock, and the broader stock market. And of the people I know who are involved in real estate most are active investors – buying single family rentals or small multi-family units and running into the same problems I had when trying to scale up while still working full time. Through MBC, I want to share what I have learned through my real estate journey, and in particular why I am so excited about the power of syndications to generate passive income. It took me far too long to long to learn about syndications, and I have been active in the REI space for a very long time, so I want you to learn from my research and experience and get ahead faster by highlighting this powerful strategy for building passive income.
• Provide the opportunity to invest along side of me. I am still actively investing in syndications and will share some of those opportunities in the future. I love doing research, finding good sponsors, and evaluating deals. If the deals I invest in align with your goals, there are a number of benefits that we can get by joining forces. I definitely think of this as a win-win since this gives you the opportunity to leverage my contacts and experience while you are building your own streams of passive income. Of course, even if your goals don’t align with mine, I am hoping that you will become part of our community and share your experience as well. As a lifelong learner, there is always more to learn and I am hoping that you are willing to share your expertise as well.

Remember that living your best life requires Making Better Choices. Only you know what the best choices are for you, but I want to give you as much information as I can based on my experience so you can incorporate it into your decisions. You may chose a different path than the one I outline here, and that is fine – but at least knowing about the alternatives allows that to be a conscious choice.

If you have any questions about this post, please email them to me at terence@mbc-rei.com, I will reply to the questions that are straightforward and will turn the questions requiring more detailed answers into future blog posts.