[00:02:27] Patrick Donley: Definitely. Yeah. Looking forward to it. 

[00:02:30] Nick Hill: I guess quick introductions of myself. My name is Nick Hill, mortgage agent real estate investor, and lucky enough to be the co-host of Canada’s largest real estate and investing podcast co-hosted with none other than Dan Foch.

[00:02:44] Dan Foch: Yeah, my name’s Daniel Foch. I’m a real estate broker by trade investor as well, and I guess I’ve sort of fallen into a bit of an analyst role in the Canadian real estate market especially mostly because realtors are the ones with access to most of the data in the Canadian market. And so just try really trying to tell the story of what’s happening to the real estate investment space, as well as sort of the housing economy, and this has been a popular topic in the US as well as the housing market is a big component of inflation, a big component of challenges that we’re seeing in Wealth Divide. So likely to be a continuing economic conversation over the next several years. 

[00:03:20] Nick Hill: Yeah. Love it. So, we get the honor of actually interviewing Patrick for the first time today, honor and a privilege. And don’t worry folks, we’ve got some really tough questions for him.

[00:03:32] Nick Hill: Some hard-hitting gotcha type questions. I’m just kidding. Patrick, we have No softball, so no softball. 

Patrick Donley: I love it.

[00:03:38] Nick Hill: Without further ado, should we, should we dive in here, fellas? 

[00:03:43] Patrick Donley: Yeah, let’s dive in. I’m ready. 

[00:03:45] Dan Foch: Yeah, let’s do it. 

[00:03:46] Nick Hill: Great. Okay. My first question, Patrick, let’s take it all the way back to the beginning and I mean, before you even had your first investment, what was your inspiration like?

[00:03:58] Nick Hill: Why real estate investing? What drew you into the industry? What experiences? Take us back there.

[00:04:05] Patrick Donley: So my dad, I’ll simply say is my hero. And we, I grew up in a real estate family. He’s got a super interesting story. He grew up Irish Catholic, seven kids. He was the oldest son of seven. And you know, they struggled.

[00:04:22] Patrick Donley: They were dirt poor. He had cousins that were always like the father was a doctor. And I think there was always that kind of rich versus poor kind of divide. And honestly, it, you know, he wanted to change. And he actually, he was not a student. He dropped out of college, dropped out of Ohio State, I think, struggled for several years, like just trying to find his niche.

[00:04:44] Patrick Donley: And he actually ended up, he had a job as a, it’s kind of funny, he had a job as a jockstrap salesman selling ace bandages and literally selling jock straps. You know, pharmaceutical rep kind of job. Eddie’s fun, you know, he is funny. He is got this joke that he supported half the world with the job, you know, he was just like a funny guy.

[00:05:02] Patrick Donley: And he was making I think about $7,000 a year at the time. And this was like early 70s I would say. Yeah, around 1970. And he met up with a guy in Toledo, Ohio who was building homes and he just met him at a party and like they started talking. You know, one thing led to another and they decided to partner and do a deal together.

[00:05:25] Patrick Donley: They, they did a spec home and it, they ended up, he ended up making more on that first house that they sold after the split is basically, he made as much as his salary selling jock straps. Right. You know, he got the fever. He, he knew he wanted to do something entrepreneurial, but he wasn’t sure what, and you know, he did really well on his first, this first house.

[00:05:46] Patrick Donley: They did a few more in toledo. At the time, my mom was a nurse, so he started this home building business and they lived off of her salary as a nurse. And they, they had saved a bunch of money too, relative to, you know, 1970 terms. They had a, a decent amount of savings and he started this company and they, he had two kids, myself and my middle brother.

[00:06:09] Patrick Donley: So, you know, it took some balls, I would say, to like, start this company with two young kids and a wife. And tried to make a go. And I think his first year in a, as an actual business, they made about $270. Was not yeah, a great first year. So, long story short, he ended up moving to Columbus, starting building just spec homes here and there, buying lots and, and building homes, and just trying to learn the business.

[00:06:35] Patrick Donley: You know, he, he had learned it to some degree with this guy that he had met at this. And his brothers, he had three younger brothers. They all saw how he was doing. They saw that he was, you know, really doing well. And over time, all three of them joined the family business. So it was called Donley Brothers Homes, and they just got this machine going.

[00:06:54] Patrick Donley: There were four brothers who were, you know, really tough, hardworking guys. And I would say at their peak, they were doing a hundred homes a year probably. So I just grew up in, in that kind of environment, you know, of, of just being pretty. Yeah, they, and they literally just got this machine going. They, my dad’s brother, my uncle Dick is his name.

[00:07:16] Patrick Donley: He passed away a few years ago, but he had kind of like, he was the hard driver who always wanted to push and push and expand and do more, and they did offices and condominiums and, and all kinds of stuff. They did a community swimming pool. They were just like doing primarily single-family homes and land development.

[00:07:35] Patrick Donley: and just honestly just learning as they went along. You know, it was not like they had a playbook at all. There were no podcasts. There were no there. We, they did not have like the benefits of what we have. There’s so much information out there today that it’s like ridiculous. They didn’t have that advantage, you know?

[00:07:51] Patrick Donley: They literally were just kind of, Trying to learn as they went along and, and just work hard. And, and it worked out. They got lucky. They, in many ways, but they picked the right spot in an area of Columbus that was like having massive growth at the time and just really took off. And so, you know, as a kid I just was very interested in business and entrepreneurial things.

[00:08:12] Patrick Donley: I was interested in, I had a fifth-grade teacher talk about the stock market and I just kind of fell in love with the stock market in fifth grade. Started buying stocks through my dad, you know, like doing a custodial account. And better or for worse, I doubled my first investment. It was probably a bad thing to happen to a kid, and it was like 300 bucks.

[00:08:31] Patrick Donley: I turned it into 600 bucks on my first stock investment. That’s the expectation. A little high. Yeah, it was a pretty high expectation, right? It definitely gave me this fever and I remember just as a kid, like playing, there was this video game called Barr. The whole idea was like you started with $72,000 of capital and the goal was to become a millionaire.

[00:08:52] Patrick Donley: And it was, I spent hours playing this game, and you could invest in all different kinds of things from commodities to real estate, to equities, to bonds. Like each month you would get your, like what your portfolio balance was and. It was super cool just to, my brother and I would do this, try to see who could become a millionaire faster.

[00:09:10] Patrick Donley: And you know, growing up I just, I, you know, whatever typical, like small little businesses had, you know, mowed grass in the neighborhood. I had a chocolate chip cookie business. I’d go to auctions. And So you got the taste right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. I just kind of, I don’t know. I don’t, I think there’s a lot to be said for being surrounded by it.

[00:09:27] Patrick Donley: My dad and his brothers did a, a neighborhood that they all, we all lived in the same neighborhood. Every Friday night, I remember we’d get pizza all together and that’s all they would talk about was business and what was going on. And you know, I remember like my uncles talking about passive income at a very young age.

[00:09:45] Patrick Donley: So I had a really fortunate upbringing in, in many ways, and a great model I would say like, Both my dad and my uncles were just like great models to be around, and I, I don’t know that I realized it as, at the time, but definitely looking back, like I realized how fortunate I was to just have them have my dad as a father and, and my uncles around me.

[00:10:07] Patrick Donley: And you know, every summer as I got older, I started at 14 working for the home building business, just picking up trash, sweeping houses, like literally just hard menial labor. I loved it like I loved getting gritty and dirty, and the smell of sawdust, and at the end of the day you could see what you had accomplished and it was super satisfying.

[00:10:29] Patrick Donley: Yeah, I loved it. So that, that’s a little bit of my inspiration was like just a family background in real estate and, and really just growing up around it and being around it from a very young age. Love it 

[00:10:41] Dan Foch: for me. It’s interesting cause I came from a real estate background as well. You know, my family’s been in the business for most of my life and, you know, maybe I did the coattails thing or the cop out thing where I kind of took the easy route.

[00:10:51] Dan Foch: Right. But it doesn’t sound like you did that so much per se, where you probably had a pretty clear trajectory to get into an exceptionally large and substantial business in, in the real estate space and development and, and building of homes yet, you know, now, A office investor and you sort of have a really cool trajectory of the asset classes from start to finish of how you got there.

[00:11:12] Dan Foch: So I’d really love to hear sort of like what were your first investments and how did you get from the trajectory of like your very first small residential investment or from even from sweeping the floors on construction sites to now investing in office buildings in, you know, major metro area.

[00:11:26] Patrick Donley: Yeah, it’s a good question.

[00:11:30] Patrick Donley: And I, I did have that kind of like, I could have gone into the family business and I decided at a young age not to , you know, I remember I was 16 or 17 and I remember just seeing my dad and uncles in this huge argument. I, you know, I thought they were actually going to like, like, have a fight or something.

[00:11:47] Patrick Donley: And I just, I remember like making the conscious decision that I didn’t want to like do that, you know, I didn’t want anything to threaten my relationship with my dad or my brothers or uncles or anything like that. I was like, I can figure this out on my own. Maybe it was a little bit of arrogance at the time, but I just was like, I want to see what I can do on my own.

[00:12:05] Patrick Donley: And for better or worse, that’s the path I took. I ended up studying finance at Miami of Ohio, right out of college. Worked at an investment bank. I did a management training program at a bank and then got worked at their investment bank. And honestly, like I looked around, I got, it was basically my dream job at the time, what I thought was my dream job.

[00:12:24] Patrick Donley: And I was looking around like at the 45 year old guys that I was supposed to aspire to and not something I wanted. This was not the environment that I wanted to be in. Ended up at the time, I didn’t know what else to do though. I kind of like had this one single trajectory path of like, you go to, you go to college, you work a couple years at a bank, you go get your MBA and then come and join the family business.

[00:12:50] Patrick Donley: When I got in into this investment banking program, I had like the things you were supposed to want, but yet it, it was not fulfilling to me at. It kind of like made me reevaluate everything, right? And so at the time I really pushed back against a lot of things, like how I, how I grew up and kind of really started into this whole exploration of like, I did a ton of reading and just like really I wanted to like figure out a true path for myself and my own life and not following like a predefined cookie cutter kind of life that I felt was like kind of laid out.

[00:13:23] Patrick Donley: So it started a path of just like doing, you know, I left this investment bank and I just ended up doing a ton of different stuff. I started a food truck. I actually like worked outside of the very investment bank that I used to work at selling, you know, selling food second. So it was like pretty, you know, pretty dramatic alternative events.

[00:13:45] Patrick Donley: But I loved it, you know, like I loved the freedom of it. I loved the creativity. Gave me time, like, and that’s what I realized is like what I most wanted was to be wealthy in time. And so this food truck allowed me to do that. You know, I worked from like, whatever, 10 to 2 every day. Then I had the day to myself to like, do whatever, you know, go golfing or go rock climbing, or go on a bike ride or read whatever.

[00:14:08] Patrick Donley: And so I, I just ended up doing a lot of different things. I rode my bike across America from California back to Ohio for a fund. I’m amazing built. I was really into Thoreau, Henry David Thoreau at the time. I built like a little Henry David Thoro cabin. I ended up leading bike trips for a company in California.

[00:14:27] Patrick Donley: Love it, California. Like in wine country and leading really high end bike trips in, you know, wine country in Napa Valley, Northern California, Martha’s Vineyard ended up living a couple years in Vietnam. I just did, I tried to do a ton of adventures and I was fortunate my dad was doing a condominium project right when I was in at this investment bank.

[00:14:48] Patrick Donley: And my first, to answer your question, Dan, was like the first investment was, Condominium that I bought, I, you know, I was super fortunate. He sold it to me at cost and it was like a little two bedroom, 1,400 square foot condominium. And I rented it out to this lady and her husband, and this was in 1993, long, I’m kind of dating myself, but this was 1993 and I still have the same lady living in this condo that I bought in 2023.

[00:15:20] Patrick Donley: So she’s paid for the pl. I hope she, I hope she doesn’t listen to this, but she’s paid for the place several times over and, she’s been great taking way better care of it than I probably ever would have and treats it like her own place. And yeah, so that, that was the first investment. 

[00:15:35] Dan Foch: I imagine with rent controls.

[00:15:36] Dan Foch: She’s probably not too unhappy with the rent controls, I imagine if she’s been there since 93.

 [00:15:39] Patrick Donley: Yeah, I, that’s the thing. I mean, she’s been a great tenant. I’m way, way below market rate. And, and that’s fine with me. Like I, I, you know, I’ll bump her a little bit here and there, but in general I’m just happy to have her and you know, it’s been a great investment for me.

[00:15:57] Patrick Donley: And like I said, she’s paid for it a couple times, probably by now. And yeah. So, and we can get into this later, but I. Generally would give deals to people who are great tenants. Like I’m happy taking a little cut in rent if as long as they’re going to like be great tenants, pay on time and take care of the place.

[00:16:14] Patrick Donley: That was my first in investment in. Yeah, tenants are the best asset for sure. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So I take care of her and we’ve got a great relationship and it’s been good. 

[00:16:25] Nick Hill: Yeah, I mean, we, say that all the time in the podcast, right? The real estate is a relationship based business and, essentially your clients are, are likely your tenants if, if you’re a more traditional residential landlord.

[00:16:38] Nick Hill: So really great story so far, Patrick. What I’m hearing, which I think is great for the audience to hear and understand. You haven’t been in real estate since your early 20s or whatever. You’ve kind of, you’ve taken a very untraditional path. It has not been a linear journey for you, but you’re still killing it right now.

[00:16:59] Nick Hill: And I think that’s something that a lot of people, whether you’re in America or Canada, that need to remember is you know, there’s, there’s such a FOMO mentality. I need to get in now. You know, I’m going to miss all these good deals. They’re all going to slip away. Well, no, there are deals to be found in any market.

[00:17:13] Nick Hill: It’s never too late to. You know, you’re going back to having your why, which is, which is time, which I think is probably one of the most common reasons that people get into real estate investing is to gain wealth but to use that wealth to gain time. I want to keep things going. Move on to the next question here.

[00:17:33] Nick Hill: You’ve talked about finding your first deal, which was a great story, but I want to know how you found your second deal, your 3rd deal, your 10th deal. How are you finding deals now? What strategies are you implementing to, you know, get your next duplex, your next fix and flip, or your next apartment building? Walk us through that.

[00:17:51] Patrick Donley: Yeah, so the second deal happened. I was living in Vietnam. I had come back from Vietnam and, and frankly, like the reverse culture shock was really difficult. You know, I, I adjusted to moving to Vietnam. I was there a little over two years, but coming back was really tough and I ended up doing, my brother, my youngest brother and I bought a lot and ended up doing a spec.

[00:18:16] Patrick Donley: And again, fortunate, I was like, I’m going to take advantage of the opportunities that I have. And at the time, you know, my dad was doing a bunch of homes. I used one, we used one of his blueprints, we used his subs. It was. Fairly straightforward and, we did really well on it. You know, we made, I think we each, we made about $32,000 on this flip and we split it.

[00:18:37] Patrick Donley: So it was a great little taste. It was a fun project for the two of us to do together. But then going from there, I was older at the time and I ended up finding a little neighborhood outside of Columbus, Ohio, which is like the last neighborhood to, have been fixed up. It, was like a gentrifying area.

[00:18:56] Patrick Donley: It was really run down. I don’t know if you guys have ever seen Hillbilly Elegy or know that book or movie, but it’s, this neighborhood is super Appalachian, so it is. It’s really rough. 

[00:19:08] Dan Foch: Amazing. One of my favorite books actually. 

[00:19:10] Patrick Donley: Is that right? Yeah. It’s a great book. I listen to it on Audible, but yeah.

[00:19:14] Patrick Donley: Yeah. Exceptional book for sure. Yeah. I love it too. This little neighborhood was exactly Hillbilly Elegy, literally, and so very Appalachian type people had probably had five or six generations of basically people that had migrated from Kentucky up to Ohio, and the neighborhood was just totally in decline.

[00:19:36] Patrick Donley: My first homes I was buying for like 10, 12, $14,000. And these were rough, but like the bones and everything were super solid. A hundred year old homes that were, you know, great foundation, great. You know, when two by fours were really two by fours, like. Really great framing. And so I just identified this little neighborhood and decided to just focus a hundred percent on that neighborhood and do what I could in it.

[00:20:01] Patrick Donley: And at the time there wasn’t a lot of people buying down there. It was like kind of a, a, a market that was like viewed as whatever, you know, like it, it just was not viewed very favorably just because of the client, you know, the tenants that are down there and the type of people that are down there. And it was really rough and gritty, but I loved it.

[00:20:18] Patrick Donley: That’s the place I want to. It’s literally like minutes from downtown, and so I, it’s just a matter of time. I thought my thinking was like, it’s just a matter of time before this neighborhood turns. People realize like, these homes can be fixed up, and that was the strategy I decided upon. So I bought my first one.

[00:20:34] Patrick Donley: It was a short sale in 2014, and I bought it for $24,000, did a renovation. Of it, you know, it was completely trash. There was like crack heads that had been limine in it, so it was rough. Classic. Yeah, exactly. And, but those are the kinds of things I like to buy, you know, like stuff that nobody else wants to touch.

[00:20:55] Patrick Donley: They walk in and they’re like, Ooh, you know, this is, this is horrible. I got a buddy who, [00:21:00] who’s like, it smells like money. You know’s, like it smells like. Money. When you look into a place like that, it smells like, no, no, that’s urine. But yeah, no, that’s a cat. Yeah, , right? That’s what I started buying was homes like that, renovating them, getting tenants in, and it, it’s worked out really well.

[00:21:18] Patrick Donley: Like I. Tried to hire local people, like whatever the people that had lived in Franklin, it’s called Franklinton, that had lived down there for years and years. A lot of them have like a ton of skills, but a lot of them also have like drug and alcohol issues and things like that. And so that was difficult.

[00:21:33] Patrick Donley: But yeah, I just was doing renovations and then doing a mix of at once the renovation was finished doing either a rental or selling it depending on, you know, my needs for capital. 

[00:21:46] Dan Foch: Yeah. So how did your strategy evolve over time? Like you, you know, it sounds like you were doing a little bit of, it’s kind of like your fix and flip, but then you’d stabilize them, rent them out.

[00:21:53] Dan Foch: Were you kind of starting to do, try and take some equity out of these properties, refinance them and grow a portfolio? And did your strategy cha, like how did it change over time? How did it evolve over time and sort of how. Progress into what you’re doing now, which is like a shift over into a different asset class and an interesting asset class to be doing, heading out of the Global Pandemic.

[00:22:14] Dan Foch: So I’d really like to learn about kind of how you ended up to where you are today.

[00:22:16] Patrick Donley: So, yeah, like I said, I was just buying stuff for 10, 12, $14,000, fixing them up, putting tenants in. In a lot of cases I would do like a renovation that would be to the point where like, what, what I would do if I were to like sell it to a first time home buyer, it was like, this is going to be a rental.

[00:22:36] Patrick Donley: So I would do a nice renovation, but definitely not crazy on the renovation. With a thought that in three to five years of after renting it, basically, I’ve gotten most of my capital back, from rent, in most cases. And then at that point I would do a second renovation, which was like a really nice one with the intent to sell them.

[00:22:57] Patrick Donley: And so that’s what I did in a lot of cases. One project that was kind of interesting, I bought a four-unit apartment that had been, had caught on fire. The fire department came in like, you know, hose the whole thing down when you walked in. Two of the units were lived in by hoarders and I saw these and I was like, I’m buying this thing, so I bought it for $10,000.

[00:23:19] Patrick Donley: We went through seven massive dumpsters, like just to gut this thing and took it down to the studs. I love that. 

[00:23:26] Dan Foch: Your instinct is, I’m buying this thing. 

[00:23:29] Patrick Donley: Yeah. Right. Yeah. And you know, again, it was like most people would like just be like, hell no, I’m not touching that thing. You know, it needed to rebuild due, a portion needed to be rebuilt due to the fire.

[00:23:40] Patrick Donley: But yeah, it was probably the biggest project that I had done just in terms of the amount of. And in each case, like I view each project almost like, what can I learn from this? Like I really just want to learn as much as I do. You know, develop as a renovator, like learn what I can, like the processes and the systems and how to get more efficient at it.

[00:24:01] Patrick Donley: And so by taking on this, like really bombed out, you know, four-unit building, I was just like, I don’t know how this is going to turn out, but my basis is only $10,000. I, I can’t go. Too, too bad, you know, so that, that’s kind of like a TIP, the investor’s podcast, like, you know, we’re into value investing in Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger.

[00:24:22] Patrick Donley: And so that was always a thing of mine is like a mar having a margin of safety buying re below replacement cost in, in all cases. Like what would this building cost to, to re, you know, like build and it’s sure as hell is more than $10,000. I didn’t do like a ton of, like, I’ve got a finance background, but it’s like back of the napkin and math.

[00:24:43] Patrick Donley: Honestly, nothing, nothing crazy, but yeah, I did a hundred percent renovation on it. Yeah, we always, 

[00:24:48] Nick Hill: I was going to say, we, we always say if it doesn’t make sense on, on a napkin, it’s not going to make 

[00:24:51] Patrick Donley: sense in Excel. Yeah, exactly right. And I don’t think you need Excel, honestly. I mean, maybe in some cases, but for what I was doing, definitely not.

[00:24:59] Patrick Donley: And I heard you Nick say on one of the episodes I listened to yesterday, that you need to have multiple exit strategies, like when you go into a project. And that’s, that’s how I viewed things as well. Like I was like, well, I’ll renovate these things. I will try to rent. But at the time when I was renting them, like the, the rent that I was asking was way higher than anything, you know, that had, that was in the area, so that didn’t work.

[00:25:23] Patrick Donley: And I was like, well, I’ll the next option was like, I’m I’ll maybe I’ll try to sell it like as it a package that didn’t work. So I ended up doing a condo conversion, so, I turned all four apartments. Into individual condominiums and sold off, you know, four different condominiums. And it worked. That worked great.

[00:25:43] Patrick Donley: Like it, it was super profitable. You know, it was a really, a good project and a fun project. You know, I felt, I feel really proud of like the taking a really crappy, crappy eyesore of a building and then turning it into something really nice that people want to live in and buy and, and that kind of thing.

[00:26:01] Patrick Donley: It’s pretty reward. Yeah, no. 

[00:26:04] Nick Hill: I couldn’t agree more. And I think that’s, you know, one of the, the core principles that we try to abide by as well is, is, you know, we’re not just in real estate to get wealthy. It’s actually doing something good. And, you know, going back to what you said about value investing, one of my favorite real, real estate quotes ever is I don’t buy real estate because I think the value is going to go up.

[00:26:25] Nick Hill: I buy real estate because I can make the value go up. And that’s from. Real estate Trend on Twitter. An amazing follow. I want to dive into the project you just finished telling us a story about, maybe use that as a springboard to talk more about kind of fix and flips because you had mentioned, you know, you’d like to keep more in your portfolio, but.

[00:26:48] Nick Hill: Starting out it, you know, you needed capital to get to the next deal and maybe some of them you couldn’t refinance because you didn’t hit the mortgage requirements or whatever it may be. Let’s talk about fix and flips because I think, you know, they’ve been so romanticized on HGTV and then, and all these shows that, that we all watch and everyone thinks a fix and flip is so easy.

[00:27:08] Nick Hill: Well, you get in, you paint everything white and you get out and you know, you make 50, 60 grand whatever. Fix and flips, in my opinion, can actually. A very, very risky investment strategy, if not done correctly. So from your point of view, Patrick, a man that’s done several of these successfully, what do you think some of the major pros and cons are and what’s like, you know, the strategy around a good fix and flip?

[00:27:33] Nick Hill: Walk us through it. 

[00:27:35] Patrick Donley: Yeah, I mean, to your point, Nick, like it is definitely not a sexy business, you know, like the, like shown on tv. Absolutely. It’s not it and it is, it’s a job, honestly. Like it is a grind and you know, you gotta have the mindset like this is going to be difficult. It’s not an easy thing.

[00:27:51] Patrick Donley: I mean, maybe some renovations can be easy, like if it’s just you’re just putting lipstick on something. But that’s not the renovations I was doing in general. I was taking them down to the studs and doing a complete rebuild. You know, that’s a long, laborious, tedious process and there’s a lot that goes into it.

[00:28:09] Patrick Donley: I mean, the pros is, like you said, you can force a lot of appreciation by doing this. I found I was lucky. I found a great neighborhood that was rapidly appreciating in value. And I was able to get in at a time where I could buy stuff. You know, the, the stuff I was buying for 10, 12, $14,000 is now, they’re a hundred thousand dollars to buy right now.

[00:28:29] Patrick Donley: Like the that neighborhood has gone nuts. And it’s a, it’s one of the reasons why I’ve transitioned out of there, like the numbers just started. Not to make sense to me. You know, it just was hard for me to get my head wrapped around the fact that there are homes that are selling for half a million dollars in a crack neighborhood.

[00:28:46] Patrick Donley: you know, it’s like really hard for me to get my head wrapped around, but, but it’s happening and people are, are paying for it, you know, and so, The cons is like, I would say, it’s just, it’s, it’s the grind and, and it can be risky. Like if you don’t know your numbers and you don’t have a margin of safety, you can get, and you’re taking on leverage, which I, I didn’t take on a lot of leverage ever.

[00:29:07] Patrick Donley: I did do a refinance, Dan, that you asked about, and pulled some equity out of the rentals that I had to do more. Fix and flips and, but the, the key factor is like, not to get over leveraged. I mean, I think there’s a lot of people that are out there right now that have gotten over leveraged, particularly if you’ve got an adjustable rate mortgage like you’re in tough shape potentially.

[00:29:29] Patrick Donley: You know, if you’re, you’ve. You know, had an adjustable rate mortgage at 2% and now it’s like, you know, triple or, whatever, you know, more than triple it’s, that’s a tough spot to be in. But yeah, it’s a good business I think, I think for a lot of early investors, it’s a great way to learn real estate.

[00:29:45] Patrick Donley: Like you need to know the nuts and bolts of real estate, you know, from the ground up. Ideally, like you can farm that out probably to somebody else, but personally I wanted to really know it and know how a house is. And so I think that’s one of the advantages is once you know how to build a house, like you can add value to a lot of different things.

[00:30:05] Patrick Donley: It doesn’t have to be residential. And that’s, you know, I’m, I’m segueing to commercial right now, and it’s the same, same kind of processes. It’s, it’s just on a commercial office building. Great explanation there. 

[00:30:18] Dan Foch: Yeah, makes a lot of sense. In regards to actually, like, so let’s maybe pivot a little bit to the actual management of the asset.

[00:30:23] Dan Foch: So because you mentioned, you know, we kind of went through Okay. Renovating positioning of the asset, figuring out how to maximize the value, create as much value as we can. And now, you know, you’re between having experience with multi-family assets, but also now making the segue into commercial assets.

[00:30:39] Dan Foch: Where do you see the differences? But also, you know, what kind of. Strategies can you employ for, for listeners, but also what do you do yourself to manage your rental properties successfully, and what strategies you use to attract and retain tenants? Does that sort of start with a full scope kind of marketing strategy where you’re really even building the property to attract the right, the certain type of tenant?

[00:31:02] Dan Foch: Can you just give us a kind of rundown on your strategy? 

[00:31:05] Patrick Donley: Yeah, absolutely. So I was in this neighborhood every single day, you know, grinding it out, rebuilding these homes. And people obviously like they’re watching what’s going on. The first one that I did was directly across the street from a church that actually had a program that they would take women that were coming out of prison.

[00:31:25] Patrick Donley: You know, and that’s a tough spot to be in. You’re coming into the prison and what are your opportunities? So this church would put them through a two-year program where they would give, you know, get them housing, make them get a job, make them go to AA or whatever. If they had drug or alcohol issues, make them go to church.

[00:31:42] Patrick Donley: Like really gave them a sense of community and a sense of belonging and gave him a second chance. Right? And so I became good friends with the pastor. And after the two-year graduation, the pastor would often kind of vet tenants, potential tenants for me. So they would, they would have to go find their own housing after two years.

[00:32:00] Patrick Donley: And since I was in the neighborhood, she would often, like I said, vet women that had done really well, who would be good tenants, or that she thought would be good tenants. And so in several cases, I would then rent to women. In one case, you know, I’d been in prison for 20 years for murder, frankly, like, and most people wouldn’t give somebody like that a chance.

[00:32:22] Patrick Donley: This lady was amazing. Similar to my very first tenant who’s lived in this condominium I own forever. Same kind of deal. Older lady, if you met her, you’d be, she’s like your grandma, you know? Just a really sweet, kind lady who took amazing care of the place. And what I found was like I treated her really well with respect and I think like she wasn’t used to.

[00:32:44] Patrick Donley: As a result, like, it, it just paid off. You know, like she valued the opportunity to live in, in a very nice home and, you know, took great care of it. And I, I just tried to like, take good care of my tenants in general. I was below market [00:33:00] rate a little bit, but I w I wasn’t doing it to like maximize my cash flow.

[00:33:05] Patrick Donley: You know, I, I’m, I like cash flow, don’t get me wrong, but like I also. If I can, I want to try to do some good in the world, you know, through fixing up these places and running them to people that need a, need a chance. Yeah. 

[00:33:18] Dan Foch: I think we talk a lot about that on our show, which is like, you know, real estate’s very much a relationship business and, you know, managing the relationship with the tenant.

[00:33:26] Dan Foch: Like a lot of people want to say, oh, real estate’s passive income. I mean, I don’t even know if anything is passive income, like maybe Bitcoin mining or something crazy like that, right? Dividend investing, but still, like, you gotta, I don’t know, nothing’s passive, right? I would say, you know, it’s less passive and maybe more of a side hustle, and you have to factor in that, you know, you’re, you’re providing a service to a customer and the customer is a tenant in, in that case.

[00:33:47] Dan Foch: And so you, you know, you’ve really figured out how to make it probably more passive by making sure that, the relationship aspect of that business is good. That’s probably like the core principle of good property management. I would totally agree with you there. Sorry Nick, I know I cut you off there, so jump in.

[00:34:01] Dan Foch: I think you had another question here.

[00:34:02] Nick Hill: Yeah, I look, I wanted to, I know we’re kind of jumping all over the place here, but we’ve got a lot to talk about, and I want to get as much out of you as, as we can while we have you here, Patrick. So you have got a, obviously a great story. You, you’re crushing it in real estate right now.

[00:34:16] Nick Hill: But I want to talk about your experience with the podcast so far, because you are lucky enough to be the co-host of the Real Estate 101 Podcast, Dan. And. Our similarly lucky guys where we get to have a podcast and put it out twice a week. But ours is really data driven, so unfortunately Dan and I usually just talk to each other, which I’m surprised we haven’t gotten sick of each other yet.

[00:34:40] Nick Hill: You on the other hand, are lucky enough to have guests on and now when, when you know, Dan and I had another podcast before this kind of lived in relative obscurity, but we did have guests on weekly there. And I can say that every single one of those guests that we had on hesitant to a friend, a contact, someone that I can pick up the phone and they will take my call whenever.

[00:34:59] Nick Hill: Tell us about some of the great experiences you’ve had with, with guests, obviously present, company excluded, and then maybe some of the things that you’re seeing. They come up time and time again. Some things that you’ve heard different investors in different asset classes and the similarities in what they’re saying, whether it’s investing principles or just some fundamentals of real estate.

[00:35:18] Nick Hill: Any, any major takeaways from there?

[00:35:19] Patrick Donley: Yeah, so first off, I mean, it’s been an amazing experience for me to get the chance to talk to guys like you, to talk to, like reach out on real estate Twitter and invite people on the show. And I love to learn, like I literally just could learn all day long. And listen to podcasts, read books, and so to get paid for it and interview people that are super smart, doing super interesting things, like, it’s a huge blessing.

[00:35:45] Patrick Donley: I’m really thankful to TIP for the opportunity. And so it’s been super cool and I love it. I’ve never done a podcast prior to this and it’s, as you guys know, it’s like a learning process for sure and getting comfortable with it. But it’s been a lot of fun. In terms of like the guests that I’ve had on and some of the commonality.

[00:36:04] Patrick Donley: I mean, just what comes to mind is the importance of finding your niche. I  think initially, like it’s important to have a general, obviously understanding of, real estate and how, how things work. But, in a lot of cases, the guests, that I’ve brought on have really found their niche and honed in on that and.

[00:36:23] Patrick Donley: Don’t deviate and don’t have a, you know, I get prey because of the, the role that I’m in interviewing a lot of different people. I’m kind of prone to the shiny object syndrome of like, oh, self storage is cool, or, oh, you know, Airbnb is interesting. Or, you know, the different things that we all get exposed to.

[00:36:40] Patrick Donley: It’s like, You can’t do that. You’ve really gotta focus and decide what your niche is going to be and drill down on that shiny object 

[00:36:48] Dan Foch: syndrome. Yeah, it sounds like a very type A, kind of a DHD personality that’s exceptionally popular, I think, in the real estate space.

[00:36:56] Patrick Donley: Yes, definitely.

[00:36:57] Patrick Donley: Definitely. Very characteristic of Nick and I for [00:37:00] sure. Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, I just think of some of the guests that I’ve had on Sean Sweeney, who’s really popular on real estate. Twitter got a pretty great following. He’s got an awesome story. He was considering law school, decided not to go to law school, red, Rich Dad Poor Dad, like a lot of different people.

[00:37:18] Patrick Donley: And you know, it influenced and changed his life in many ways. He decided he wanted to get into real estate and took a job as a receptionist. Right. And one of the themes I see with a lot of guesses, like early on in their careers, they’re willing to do whatever it takes simply to learn to be around great people who are doing what they want to.

[00:37:39] Patrick Donley: And humbling themselves and saying, I’ll get coffee, I’ll get, I’ll make copies. I don’t care what, you know. In his case, he told a funny story where he told a project manager that he knew how to new Excel and he had no clue how to do Excel, but he’s like, I’ll figure it out. And he went home and tried to teach himself Excel.

[00:37:56] Patrick Donley: And I think you gotta have that kind of willingness to [00:38:00] humble yourself and, and take the jobs. Just that allow you the opportunity to learn. And from that, if you’re doing good work, like it’s going to get recognized. If you’ve got the grit and persistence, like a lot of these different people do, you know, they end up having careers that are amazing.

[00:38:16] Patrick Donley: Now he’s like, you know, a developer in Minneapolis doing incredible projects that, you know, for me, I’m just like, I need to think sometimes I’m like, I need to think bigger. Yeah. It’s it’s just interesting to see what people do, you know, and he’s got a very normal, regular story, and that’s the that’s what I’ve learned is all of these people are just regular, normal people who have just found their niche and run.

[00:38:38] Patrick Donley: Yeah. That’s great. 

[00:38:39] Dan Foch: Yeah. And I think, you know, to use that also and touch on this shiny object syndrome that you mentioned, is there any like specific trends that you’re seeing in the real estate space or you know, that you’ve picked up from listening to people on the show that you. Want to pursue or, and how do you kind of stay on, on top of like what’s happening in the space?

[00:38:56] Dan Foch: In the space data-wise or like what the new opportunities are? And then kind of on top of that, like has it really prompted you to try and pursue different asset classes? I know you mentioned a couple of other ones, Airbnb, self-storage, et cetera. Where are you at on that?

[00:39:09] Patrick Donley: Yeah. So in, in terms of just kind of following trends, I, I would not say that I’m as data driven as, as you guys are.

[00:39:17] Patrick Donley: I definitely value data and it’s super important, but I kind of have my antenna up on Real estate Twitter, I would say is like my primary means of just, you know, if you curate the right people, you can get an incredible real estate education on Real estate Twitters. And I think for any young person who is trying to learn, I would start there and follow the people that Moses Kagan is a guy, Sean Sweeney.

[00:39:43] Patrick Donley: Like follow who they follow. Chris Powers is another guy. The Fort podcast is awesome. There’s so many people doing amazing things and giving, they really have this like abundance mentality of sharing their playbook. And so the playbooks are out there. You just have to find what a attracts you.

[00:39:59] Patrick Donley: And like I said, just take some steps, take some baby steps, and. In terms of shiny object syndrome, I definitely am guilty of that. I try to stay focused. My wife and I haven’t really gotten into this, but, she bought an office building and she’s a mental health therapist. She’s got 23 offices and it’s kind of like Salon Lofts is a company that rents out space to hairdressers.

[00:40:22] Patrick Donley: We’re doing the same kind of idea, but we’re renting out space individual offices to mental health. And so, you know, we thought that maybe when Covid hit, the pandemic hit like it was really going to kill the business model. What we found was like, people want to be face-to-face with a therapist. They don’t want to be, they don’t want to, I mean, this is cool what we’re doing and, and be able to zoom and, and do video calls, but for a therapist client relationship, they want to be face-to-face and.

[00:40:50] Patrick Donley: She didn’t really have much of a downturn at all in terms of, there was a couple people that struggled to pay rent, but she, you know, worked, we worked with them and so she ended up having a waiting list basically of people that, and I want to take a step back. She created a community and so as a therapist, It’s really hard, you know, it’s very individual and solitary and it can get lonely, right?

[00:41:12] Patrick Donley: And so she’s tried to do a really good job of creating the community. She does this thing every week or every, not every week, every couple of weeks called Shrink Tank. It’s not Shark Tank, but like Shrink Tank where they all get together and just like talk best practices or problems that they’re having with the client.

[00:41:29] Patrick Donley: And, she’s, so she’s done a really fantastic job of just building community with therapists and they want to be a part of that, right? And. She’s got a waiting list and we’re like, we got married in September, and, and she, you know, we were like, let’s, maybe let’s do another one. We’ve got many people that are, would do another office and so just kind of an on a lark.

[00:41:48] Patrick Donley: I honestly didn’t think this would pan out. We found an office literally about 60 seconds from my house. In Columbus and it’s just kind of unique, I live in an area called German Village, where all the buildings are brick and it’s so, it’s like all the roads are brick. It’s like really kind of a quaint little, almost European feel kind of neighborhood.

[00:42:07] Patrick Donley: And this office building was two brick homes at one point. Side by side. They connected the lot and at one point just created this entire commercial office building and it was run by this somewhat dubious doctor did like pain manage. And so he was just churning through clients like a hundred a day, handing out prescriptions, basically just a pill popper kind of guy.

[00:42:30] Patrick Donley: The idea, the Drug Enforcement Agency, raided him last summer, shut him down, and took his medical license away. And so, you know, this office has been sitting vacant for about a year, and so I found it on LoopNet. And a lot of people say you can’t find anything good on LoopNet. I mean, I disagree with that.

[00:42:48] Patrick Donley: There are things on. And we got lucky. I mean, we, we, this guy was in a bad spot and was forced, you know, they took his medical license away. He had to sell this office. And we put a low ball offer in and, you know, negotiated. But we ended up getting it at a really great price. And now we’re in the middle of a renovation.

[00:43:06] Patrick Donley: And it’s a fun project, like it’s super creative, really interesting people that want to move in as therapists, we love to work with them and figure out what they want and just create something that, you know, a place where they want to work and see their clients.

[00:43:21] Nick Hill: I think the work that you and your wife are doing is fascinating and, again,, it really shows that you can get so creative, in real estate.

[00:43:29] Nick Hill: I want to touch on something that’s come up a few times, but we haven’t done a deep dive on it and that’s exit strategies. Going back to the original question about fix and flips or any type of investment, to be honest, especially if you are pitching it to a JV partner or anything like that, you know, we always like to have those three.

[00:43:49] Nick Hill: Good, better, best, you know, best case to worst case scenario, exit strategies, and have those modeled out. Now that can be on an individual. Asset by asset basis, but it can also mean what is your grandiose exit strategy, as you know, are you selling the whole portfolio and moving to a beach anytime soon? I know that you are in the middle of a reverse 1031 exchange right now.

[00:44:15] Nick Hill: Why don’t you tell us a little bit about that, what you’re trying to accomplish there, and then how has it been working with your wife? because I know that real estate investing, Dan and I both have very patient girlfriends, so shout out Steph and Nicole that, you know, not everyone can understand the difficulties and the challenges that constantly arise in real estate investing, even when things are going really well.

[00:44:37] Nick Hill: So tell us about the 1031 maybe your general exit strategy and then love to hear what it’s been like working with your spouse. 

[00:44:44] Patrick Donley: Absolutely. Yeah. So the, in terms of the strategy, so what I’ve been doing is taking most of my investments in Franklin, in this gentrifying neighborhood that I’ve been working on the last, since 2014, and selling off, you know, piece by piece, house by house, that portfolio.

[00:45:01] Patrick Donley: And so in right now I’m selling, it’s kind of unique. There’s two houses that I’m, I’ve, I’ve sold, I’m in the middle of selling. And so a reverse 1031 is when you, you buy, A property first, and then the relinquished properties is what they’re called. The relinquished properties are the houses that I own in this gentrifying neighborhood that I have a 180 days to sell.

[00:45:22] Patrick Donley: So I’m in the middle of that. One of the houses was in great shape, when the tenant left, that was an issue. It was like, well, how do you deal with tenants? Like in terms of, I’m going to sell these things, so is it better to get the tenant, leave the tenants or get them out of there and do a renovation of them?

[00:45:38] Patrick Donley: And so I decided to get the tenants. And which was very difficult because again, like I developed friendship basically. And this is not a good thing. In some cases, like it, I developed almost a friendship with them. And so to ask them to leave their home is like, was super difficult, really hard thing to do. It worked out very fortuitously in, in both cases.

[00:45:57] Patrick Donley: One lady, her father died in like, she inherited a home. The other lady found a, a little rental that was one street over. So it was amazing, kind of like it worked out well for all of us. So I asked the tenants to leave and so I’m in the middle of renovating, it’s two properties, but one of the properties has three houses on it.

[00:46:17] Patrick Donley: So it’s got a main house and then like two mother-in-law suites on two lots, basically. And so basically all three of those need to get renovated, plus this fourth home. So I’m in the middle of that, which is, it’s a lot, you know, we’re, I, I’ve got a hundred, I’ve got till May 31st to get these. and we’ll see how it goes.

[00:46:36] Patrick Donley: You know it, I don’t know if you guys have ever, well you don’t have 1031s I don’t think in Canada, do you? No, we don’t. We’re jealous. It’s unfortunate cause 

[00:46:43] Dan Foch: We don’t have any of the fun stuff in Canada. 

[00:46:45] Patrick Donley: Yeah, no, it’s an amazing thing, you know, and so, yeah, but it, it puts a little pressure on and I think it’ll be fine.

[00:46:52] Patrick Donley: But yeah, I, I’m spending time marketing these homes and selling them and, you know, I enjoy the selling aspect. Like, I know the houses really well. I really enjoy like meeting. Potential buyers and, and showing them like, I like that. I love the sales and marketing process probably more so than the actual renovations, which can, like I said, can be a grind.

[00:47:12] Patrick Donley: But yeah. And so we have bought this building together. And to your point, Nick, it’s challenging at times. I’m not going to lie. Like you’ve gotta have a really solid relationship with your partner if you’re going to, with any partner, like, you know, it’s diffcult. and especially, you know, if you’re married or a girlfriend, whatever.

[00:47:32] Patrick Donley: In my case, we’ve got a great relationship. We’ve been together for seven years now and, you know, just really trust each other implicitly. But we’ve butted heads, you know, like along the way. It’s like you gotta kind of each have your own lane and stay in it. And so like, she kind of lets me handle the renovations and then she’s really great with dealing with, the therapists who are our clients in figuring out what they want and kind of like the final design touches of the, of the offices.

[00:47:58] Patrick Donley: Not of the offices, because they’re responsible for that, but like, You know, the waiting rooms and the bathrooms and the, just the art on the wall and that stuff. Like I turn that completely over to her and I’m like, have at it. You know? So we’ve done well in finding our respective roles and, you know, we’re definitely learning as we go along and we’d like to continue to do more of these.

[00:48:17] Patrick Donley: I think there’s a definite niche and I think there’s a lot of. You know, office spaces got crushed in many cases. You know, like, I’m not sure what Canada’s been like, but I gotta imagine like, same thing in the US office space has just really gotten hurt and there’s going to be more and more opportunities to do what we’re doing, like to pick up deals at a really good price.

[00:48:39] Patrick Donley: Because in a lot of cases, like, you know, people are working from home and they’re not wanting to be in an office. 

[00:48:44] Dan Foch: Yeah, I think you know, in the, in the US space, you guys just hit for the first time 50 over 50% average office occupancy, so that’s 50% of pre covid. I think Castle puts out a, a really cool index on that.

[00:48:57] Dan Foch: We only monitor one market, which is Toronto, sort of d you know, I mean, in America you guys would call it probably downtown Canada. But, You know, big city by, by all means, I think it’s bigger than Chicago now, but we’re at about 48%. Sorry, 42%. So lagging for sure. I think the big difference is, you know, in the US much stronger capital market systems that where owners don’t depend as much, you know they’re more capitalistic.

[00:49:19] Dan Foch: Whereas in Canada, we have a big problem to solve because of a lot of pensions. Big real estate assets in, in Canada, and so a lot of these bigger office towers, like you’re seeing some defaults happening in LA in San Francisco. You know, bro, even notable landlords like Brookfield, one of Brookfield’s funds out there has defaulted.

[00:49:36] Dan Foch: There’s a couple of other ones I think it’s going to take some time to unwind, but I would agree with you and much the way I feel about the entire real estate scope right now. This is going to create once-in-a-lifetime real estate investment opportunities for the millennial generation. And so that is what excites me about the whole thing.

[00:49:52] Dan Foch: Should we maybe jump over to the rapid fire round here? Do you want to do that? 

[00:49:56] Patrick Donley: Yeah, let’s do that. Yeah. I think that would be great. Yeah. So what’s the most impactful book that you’ve ever read? So I’m a huge reader. I’m, I’ve like, been reading since I was a kid and there’s so many, I mean, it kind of depends again, like on the area that you’re talking about, but like in terms of real estate, there’s.

[00:50:18] Patrick Donley: You know, there, there’s so many, I hate to say Rich Dad Poor Dad, but the cash flow book that he put out was really important one for me. I think the concepts of Rich Dad Poor Dad are great. The second book was called Cash Flow, which is really good, which just gets into the concept of how you’d generate cash flow for yourself and create a life of, you know, more freedom and having time.

[00:50:39] Patrick Donley: Wealth, like we talked about. You know, we are Warren Buffett guys and I think the shareholder letters of Warren Buffett are an amazing, it’s not strict, you know, certainly not real estate, but they, the shareholder letters of, Warren Buffett are an incredible read. Just to have like great business understanding, like from an amazing, basically, you know, the Mozart of investing is how, you know, like what I would say I would encourage anyone to read those.

[00:51:03] Patrick Donley: There’s a book, actually a guy I’m trying to get on the show. It’s called Confessions of a Real Estate Entrepreneur, which I don’t know if you guys are familiar with. It’s a really good book written by this real estate attorney lawyer who’s done a ton of different things and you know, he goes through just stories of different deals that he’s seen and participated in.

[00:51:22] Patrick Donley: It’s, it’s a great book to realize, like just how vast and how creative real estate can be, you know, and I would recommend people to check that out. Yeah. So I those would be a handful. And you know, there’s obviously other ones like in fiction. You know, personal development kind of stuff that have also had an impact, but we’re going to stick to real estate.

[00:51:42] Patrick Donley: I don’t recommend reading any books. Just listen to podcasts. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I mean,  it’s that’s another, I recommend that as well. And I honestly, like, I’ve really gotten into Audible, like I listen to most things now. I don’t do a lot of reading lately it seems. And so, yeah, listening to podcasts, listen to Audible, it’s pretty amazing.

[00:52:00] Patrick Donley: Like just to turn your car into a learning university as you drive around. Like I just don’t even listen to music anymore, honestly. Yeah, same. 

[00:52:10] Nick Hill: Okay, next, next quick one here. What is your best investment?

[00:52:13] Patrick Donley: Best investment? So I’m hesitant to say this, but like I mentioned this condominium conversion that I did, and I took the proceeds from the sale of those four units and bought a bunch of Bitcoin and it was like in the $7,000 – $8,000 range.

[00:52:33] Patrick Donley: That’s actually kind of how I ended up at TIP. I was a big fan of Preston Pysch who has a show called Bitcoin Fundamentals and you know, got into learning about primarily Bitcoin in 2017 and went down the rabbit hole. I’m really into like sound money and understanding the monetary system. It’s like a sea that we’re swimming in and nobody questions like, what is money?

[00:52:56] Patrick Donley: I think it’s an important question to ask, like what is money? What gives it at value? And he was very formative in my learning. So a shout out to Preston and Bitcoin fundamentals. But yeah, that was my best investment. I bought, I kind of went all in at a low price, relatively, and wrote it up to, whatever its high was, 68, 60, 9,000.

[00:53:18] Patrick Donley: I’ve ridden it all the way back down, which is super painful. The last year has been very painful. But, you know, I continue to just kind of dollar cost average and just build my, my bitcoin stack. So that’s probably been the best one, frankly. 

[00:53:35] Dan Foch: I guess the last one is what what controversial opinion do you have that goes against conventional wisdom 

[00:53:41] Patrick Donley: Controversial. Opinion that goes against conventional wisdom. I would say my Bitcoin premise, like I don’t think in Real estate Twitter, most people on bi in real estate Twitter have a pretty dim view of Bitcoin. I think for most people that have done like a serious deep dive into really understanding it. Like 10, 20 hours.

[00:54:00] Patrick Donley: There’s, if you put that time into, with an open mind to understand it, I don’t think you’re going to have like the cynical views that I see in Real estate Twitter about it. I think there’s a lot of people like that have seen, and it does piss you off. Like when you see people making a ton of money on buying Bitcoin at a low price and like you missed out on that, that is a, you know, whatever we all have.

[00:54:20] Patrick Donley: Agreed and envy and jealousy. And so that’s one that I just would, would say is somewhat controversial is my strong belief in high conviction in Bitcoin. 

[00:54:31] Nick Hill: Yeah, I’d, I’d agree. Real estate Twitter is a wealth of knowledge, but they, they can be mean on there sometimes as well. 

[00:54:37] Patrick Donley: Oh yeah.

[00:54:37] Patrick Donley: Maybe that’s just Twitter in general. That’s Twitter and general, right? Yeah. 

[00:54:41] Nick Hill: Okay, so I think we’re getting to the end here, Patrick, but you know, obviously want to thank you so much for having us on your show to interview you. What’s definitely been very insightful and, and I’ve learned a lot about you and more about real estate in general.

[00:54:55] Nick Hill: But I did want to see if you had any kind of last words, final thoughts, words of encouragement for our listeners, primarily those that are early on in their investing careers. So, any words of advice before we get out of here? 

[00:55:10] Patrick Donley: Yeah, so first off, Nick and Dan, I really appreciate you having me on asking the questions or having, you know, doing this together, organizing this.

[00:55:17] Patrick Donley: This has been a lot of fun and I appreciate your time as well. So, but in terms of like, whatever, something I would say to guys early in their career, and I actually love talking to guys that are early and interested in hungry about real estate. I would say just like you’ve got to become a perpetual learner.

[00:55:33] Patrick Donley: You’ve gotta be like continually learning. and you know , there’s absolutely no excuse not to like, really become an expert in whatever you choose to, and you’ve just gotta put the time in. You’ve gotta listen to the podcasts, you gotta find the right people, you gotta do the reading, you gotta do the work, and then you, you can’t stay in learning mode.

[00:55:52] Patrick Donley: I think too many people stay in learning mode, and I think I probably have been guilty of this off and on throughout my career where I just, if I just get more knowledge and more information, then I’ll be ready. It doesn’t work that way. Like you just have to get in. You’re never going to be a hundred percent ready.

[00:56:08] Patrick Donley: You, you’re going to learn more by doing your first deal than you will doing reading thousands of hours of books. Like you just have to get started. And that’s what I would encourage anyone to do. Like Real estate is an amazing opportunity and like there’s always going to be opportunities. And like we said, you just find your niche and run with it.

[00:56:25] Patrick Donley: You’re, you’re going to do well if you’ve got the right. Obviously you’ve gotta work hard. You’ve gotta be intelligent about it. But there’s a lot of potential for a lot of young people to make a nice life for themselves through real estate. 

[00:56:36] Nick Hill: Love it. Totally. Very well said. We’re on your show, but the listeners, if they wanted to get in touch with you, where can they find you?

[00:56:44] Nick Hill: What are your socials? How do people get ahold of you or work with? 

[00:56:48] Patrick Donley: Yeah, so I’m on real estate Twitter, as we talked about a lot. So that’s probably the best way. Like if you DM me, I’ll definitely respond also through the Investor’s podcast, you can reach out to me there. I’ve got my email, patrickdonley@theinvestorspodcast.com.

[00:57:03] Patrick Donley: I’ll respond to anybody, anybody who wants to reach out, I’m happy to talk, share what I can. So those are the two best ways is Twitter and by email. So thank you guys, I really appreciate it. This was a lot of fun and looking forward to this coming. 

[00:57:16] Nick Hill: Yeah. Thanks Patrick. 

[00:57:18] Patrick Donley: Okay folks, that’s all I had for today’s episode.

[00:57:21] Patrick Donley: I hope you enjoyed the show and I’ll see you back here real soon. 

[00:57:24] Outro: Thank you for listening to TIP. Make sure to subscribe to We Study Billionaires by The Investor’s Podcast Network. Every Wednesday, we teach you about Bitcoin, and every Saturday, we study billionaires and the financial markets. To access our show notes, transcripts, or courses, go to theinvestorspodcast.com.

[00:57:45] Outro: This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any decision consult a professional, this show is copyrighted by The Investor’s Podcast Network. Written permission must be granted before syndication or rebroadcasting.