He flies planes he's getting into boats now we're lucky enough to be shooting today's episode on his newest toy a yacht he talked about obviously managing millions of dollars our largest deal currently on the books is 10 million after the crash or recession of 0809 we were looking for something more tangible we flipped a few hundred properties over several years there anybody that's done flips knows it's a lot of work it's time consuming there's a lot of headache there's risk if a guy is selling a house for a million dollars and he needs to sell it by next Friday.
So you can go in with us and say I can pay you 800,000 next Friday close the deal 100% no contingencies and you saved yourself $200,000 you started the private lending after the great financial crisis prices came down 80% in some areas are you keeping your pulse on like the macro area are there things that you're like worried about that you're looking at that you would maybe pull back yes you announced we're doing the Only Agents by ASG Luxury Realty.
Christine: Welcome back to another episode of ASG's Only Agents podcast where we have fake sponsors real guests and real talk I don't think Ryan realized our podcast is called Only Agents until just now as always I'm with the S to my A in ASG Alan Schonbrun who's the financial brains and Braun and he'd think he'd like to think beauty behind ASG but I think we all know better than that we'll see we'll see by the GHKCU peptide today we are joined by a Tampa born and bred native just like Alan and I he cut his teeth in real estate out of the Great Recession in 2008 2009 before pivoting and starting his current company RPM Realty Investments he is a legend at Camp Tampa you'll never see him miss a class he's a local philanthropist a business backer a restaurant investor a deadly card player he's a car enthusiast he doesn't just collect cars he also drives them a
nd races them he flies planes he's getting into boats.
Now we're lucky enough to be shooting today's episode on his newest toy a yacht but docked right here at American Social flies planes but we just learned that he doesn't drive boats he has a captain correct yeah how to draw a line somewhere he's got a delegate.
Yeah at some point and at the peak of his success in all of his businesses and his philanthropy he left it all to spend 80 hours straight working at the Taco Bell and Kennedy Boulevard Ryan McGuinness welcome to today's podcast it's probably the best welcome I've ever had what I want to know is obviously Irish McGuinness yes I mean I have an Irish brother-in-law his last name is McDonald what he would give for his last name to be McGuinness Ryan Patrick to so Ryan Patrick McGuinness that's like if my last name was like McCallan Alan McCallan or Stefan what would your my Irish name no just like what would you like to do like I like Scotch so Alan McCallan I like what you like cigars Cuban cigars no I like honestly I'm just putting on a spot.
Yeah I like spending time with my family I like Alvarez all right being with my wife and my boys that's honestly my favorite pastime and hobby usually we have sponsors for these and so I guess this one even though Ryan hasn't agreed but he's gonna rename his boat Excess Liquidity so Excess Liquidity since we are filming from his yachts sorry don't want to call it a boat no yeah yeah Excess Liquidity is is gonna be the sponsor all right I like it we're welcome to the podcast man thanks thanks for having me we are gonna get into that talk about story by the way at some point I'm ready I want to open book we should just get it to you guys yeah I don't know what do you have you want something before that no I mean we can hop into it right away.
I mean tell that is probably one of the funniest stories but also I feel like embodies like who you are as a person not just as a businessman but also as like a human being so like tell us how that how that happened cuz I know it started as like a funny joke but it turned out to be like a really amazing thing yeah it's been a couple years now so I don't remember the exact specifics but yeah we I was challenged that I couldn't go work at Taco Bell KFC for I think it was a minimum of 80 hours had to complete it in a month and I just rolled up there I applied I walked to work every day and.
You know they had me clean in Toilet's day one I was ready to go promoted to drive through day two work your way up to the drive through absolutely yeah what did you find the most difficult part of working fast food a lot of the people don't make the best decisions they make they let little things bother them a lot I mean and you can you were kind of kidding before but you can take a lot of things that you learn in that job and apply it to any skill set or any job and if you don't have them at Taco Bell you'll never have them to advance your career right.
So all jokes aside you can you can learn a lot from that and people just you know didn't have the people skills to communicate and problem-solve and you know maybe a problem there is not having beans on your burrito or something like that but if you can't figure out that you're never gonna figure out how to run a company yeah yeah kind of reminds me of the undercover boss show yeah exactly that's what they thought I was in a couple weeks into it yeah did you have any friends that came by just to eat and saw you.
But didn't realize that absolutely any worse than friends is investors imagine you have a couple million dollars with me you think your money is safe and sound to the driver you come to the drive-through and I take your order you don't recognize my voice and then you see me I'm like it's fine I'll talk to you later it's fine check your text message exactly yeah it's fine like Excess Liquidity my ass so we got through it everybody's money safe I got through the I got through the bet yeah that's amazing I'm sure there's a lot like you said all jokes aside some really rewarding things that you got out of it obviously.
Yeah eating some some I still keep in touch with some of the co-workers I can see ASG doing this where it's like we'll have a sales sales competition between Stefan and I yeah and then the loser has to has to do something that's a good idea that'd be fun well.
Yeah you talked about obviously managing millions of dollars in and business before we get into you know what your day-to-day is now at RPM I know I talked about it briefly in the open.
But you're born in bread you're born and raised in Tampa right I was born in New York actually when you're yeah I came down when I was like four years old so all right so basically right before kindergarten I've been here you know forever we're in New York Long Island which part Oyster Bay Huntington Garden City okay but yeah since you're since you're four years old.
So Tampa native there how'd you kind of get into the real estate space to begin with originally a friend got about 2009 I had always been involved more with options equity stock market related after the crash or recession of 08 09 we were looking for something more tangible and a friend was like hey you should start investing money with us flipping properties so that was my start in real estate we flipped a few hundred properties over several years there well anybody that's done flips knows it's a lot of work it's time consuming there's a lot of headache there's risk.
So I kind of looked for another way to be invested into real estate and that's when I transitioned into lending and then about the last decade pretty much focused on lending and for those of listeners that don't exactly know what hard money or private lending is first of all is there a difference between being a private lender or hard money lender like the term hard money lender I like it I think it's fine and then what it what is private lending versus the typical way that usually people get mortgages when they buy a home sure so.
You know a conventional lender would be your everyday lender or broker right full qualifying tax returns income verification debt to income minimum credit all those things come into play mostly with private lending asset base lending hard money lending every different firm or program has different criteria us specifically we're a true asset base lender most people you say that they're full of shit right they're still pulling your credit they're still looking at debt to income they're still looking at things it might not be the major thing they're looking at but they're still looking at it we do not pull credit at all I am not aware of any other legitimate lender or lender that's actually gonna give you money that's not gonna pull credit.
But we are truly an asset base lender so all we're looking at is the value of that property and then we lend up to a certain threshold for single family homes is up to 70% of the current value.
You know of that property that's it that's our underwriting we don't care what you make we don't care what your credit score is we don't care your debt to income is all those things all those factors with us specifically are out the window you're truly not looking at the borrower at all it's just the asset yes are you collateralizing on the asset or is like someone comes to you and says look I have 25 Bitcoin or I have this much in my money market do you take that in consideration do you ever not really know unless I can physically hold the asset or put a first lean mortgage position on it.
Yeah and sometimes we get creative and do second leans but 99% of our deals are first lean mortgages and that's it so you want to make sure obviously yeah if worst case scenario happens that loan defaults you can't restructure it and you've got to take that asset back sure we'll work with our borrowers right if if we're truly lending on average 56% LTV is our portfolio but say it's max 70 even if our borrower gets in a jam you know we can generally work with them to get an exit for them we don't want the property we don't want the headache of the property you want to see success for our borrowers we want them to come back to us we want them to have success in real estate.
So we'll work with them every way we can and that's a difference between us when you call us you are dealing with the direct underwriter I'm the one sending the wire I'm the one looking at the deal you can't call your broker and say hey man wire me $100,000 today that's not their money they don't have any control it's not probably their boss's money it's not their manager's money you know when they're dealing with institutional money or bank money their handcuff they're regulated they may love your deal and want to do it but at the end of the day they don't have that decision-making with us you call me I'm gonna answer I'm gonna get right back to you I'm not gonna get right back to you I'm gonna answer and then we're gonna underwrite your deal in an hour or so and fully approve that deal an hour something that would take a bank 30 days 45 days 60 days.
So with us in particular you're dealing with the true decision-makers and even other private or hard-money lenders you're generally not gonna have that I think when some people think about hard money-lending private private lending they're a little bit scared away because they're like oh man they're it could be maybe predatory that what percent am I gonna have to pay.
So sure I guess like how do you figure out interest rates are you doing like prime plus one so we're always the same we're 1% a month you know we're 12% annualized yes you can go into a bank and wait 30 days you can get a rate five six seven eight nine percent depending on what it is SBA is even higher so we are you know we're not the cheapest but also take into consideration value if a guy is selling a house for a million dollars and you go and say hey I can and he needs to sell it by next Friday you can't do that through a bank.
So you can go in with us and say I can pay you 800,000 next Friday close the deal 100% no contingencies and you saved yourself $200,000 so maybe it's gonna cost you an extra 20,000 30,000 over the life of that loan.
But you just had an opportunity to save $200,000 on a property that you would never be able to have that opportunity through conventional lending have you noticed an uptake as rates like traditional like prime rates with the traditional or conventional loan product have increased that you guys are actually getting more like inbound business because that just because it's a little bit more you know people aren't rate shopping us people are using us because of the power to close fast and through an issue yeah exactly a quick close so when rates were two and three and four percent people we were always 12 we were we were not lower than people would be like man that's a big spread.
So I agree with you in theory but again it's minimal they're all two year balloon products but a lot of times it's a short-term bridge we have no prepayment penalty ever so maybe somebody's using us and then a refi conventional in 30 days right that guy that you couldn't get for 800,000 close with us put it in with your bank then and then refi out so what is it really costing you at that point right right.
Yeah I guess their motivation is different it's not they're really not sure we're not we're not the 30 year fixed long-term guys it's not what we're geared for that's not what you would use us for and that's not what our product is what's the typical amount that you lend I do you guys have like a bread and butter that you know like you don't want to go over a certain amount or less a thing you know like 50,000 sure a lot of private lenders are limited to their capital right maybe they're working with several hundred thousands or small millions of dollars we're not we're very.
Well capitalized our largest deal currently on the books is 10 million usually what you just said under 50,000 it doesn't make sense for the borrower and I'm very clear to them like hey you have doc prep by the attorney things like that's nation fees yeah it's gonna eat up a lot of your thing you know but they want it we'll do it but the largest one we have currently is 10 million the average not because we say it's the average just because you know we're about 50% LTV and average house is about 800,000 we're right around four or 500,000 is our average loan size I mean are you keeping.
You know you started the private lending after the great financial crisis sure so you know you didn't have to work through the destruction of what was you know there was a lot of people in that industry that got wiped out yeah because you know you could have had a you could have been conservative then 40% loan to value rate still probably would have been in trouble because prices came down 80% in some areas sure.
I mean are you kind of keeping your pulse on like the macro area are there things that you're like worried about that you're looking at that you would maybe pull back the LTV or I mean we're always very conservative I think at our levels we'll still okay because that big decrease you were talking was like Miami Beach condo like just like total fluff BS right so we're not really lending on those valuations we're lending on real valuations not some fake appraisal that no job loans that we're going on exactly so we're going to keep it conservative also we're all short duration right.
So the likelihood of a house going from a million to 300,000 within several months is very very very unlikely if that's the case that probably means stock markets taking a 50% haircut which is real loss all your rental portfolio is 50% so I wouldn't want it we've never lost money in a deal but if all of a sudden I lent 550,000 a million dollar house and it's worth 520 and I lost 30 grand the world ended I'm in a good situation compared to everything else that it is just because something goes under par doesn't mean that borrower is not going to pay right they still want their house they still want to do their deals.
So when you are underwriting deals what is I mean obviously that each each deals gonna be a little bit different each assets a little bit different but what are like the biggest red flags or things that you're looking for that might say you know what we're not gonna we're not gonna write this one you know we just lend on true value we don't lend on ARV right so somebody will come in and say hey I'm buying this house for 500 I'm gonna put 200 it's gonna worth a million yeah some lenders lend on that million they're gonna get smoked and they are getting smoked we're gonna say.
Well we're gonna lend on 500 we're gonna lend you up to 70% of that so you know we're at 350,000 we always feel safe in that position we don't lend on rehab right so a lot of companies are gonna lend on rehab they take the rehab money they go to the hard rock doesn't work out for them you know that now what happens.
Right so it there's a scenarios that we don't and get ourselves lending on there on the on the borrower speculation correct just like we don't rely on their credit we don't rely on them to perform right I know you talked about you kind of cut your teeth flipping houses I mean I didn't realize the scale and scope but I mean I would assume there was a lot of things that you kind of you took from that experience into this business now that you're in today yeah well it gave you a lot of the knowledge in the background right if you're fresh and you're a lender you don't know what it's like flipping a house you don't know what can go wrong you don't know what to look for all the headaches that that may happen so I took that skill set and implemented it into the lending space where do you see I know Alan kind of touched on it already.
But given where the market is right now and you know Tampa and the real estate market in Tampa better than anybody where do you kind of see the market in in your space in private lending kind of going in the next two to three years yeah.
So I think private lending people are seeing a lot of value to it it's becoming a lot more popular you did get an influx of fake private lenders that's really just institutional money has become more competitive not really because at the end of the day you think you're getting a private lender and by the time you go through they still don't close or they still start requiring all this different credit underwriting that we wouldn't anyways so I think people are getting tricked by that or those companies that were lending 90% in rehab they're already exiting the market they've lost billions of dollars millions of dollars of their investor money their Wall Street money and they're they're taking.
You know hike already so I don't think so I think for what we do and how we manage everything I don't think the real is competition well you I think standalone in the private lending space right now in Tampa there's maybe one or two other people that have been institutions maybe the OG in the in the private lending space you know he was probably doing it before he started in the 90s so he was able to survive 07 he was always very conservative right so yeah same thing so like his average LTV was extremely yeah his was between like.
I mean 30 to 50% was a sweet spot I think now they're probably right around 50% yeah yeah a lot of similar characteristics yeah and there you know we we have the capital of a huge company but we don't have a huge overhead so if we do a couple deals a week that's more than enough for us right I don't have a staff of 50 and all this crazy stuff where a lot of these companies have so much overhead where if they have a okay month they're shot if I don't do deals for a month it doesn't bother me at all that's never happened I've never not done a deal in a week.
But it's not a it's not gonna be a financial burden to the company if it happens are you seeing any uptick in defaults or anything no our borrowers are so good and they have so much skin in the game that there's always a resolution where you're gonna see a default is when you lend 90% or 100% or even 80% 80% in the soft market you know that that that comes down very quickly and people will just say alright here's the house and you know walk away from it yeah but when somebody's putting down 40% real cash not some fake imaginary like that's real skin in the game you want either like real money or at least a lot of sweat equity just so you know that they're tied to it exactly yeah.
So if you have scenarios where it looks like they're approaching you know the balloon or the loan periods ending will you instead of obviously defaulting you'll kind of restructure are we rework yeah so we don't put a default first of all we are two-year balloon okay other private lenders or a one-year balloon potentially six month balloon and they lead you they lead their borrow in there and then they hit him with another set of fees you know so they think they're a cheaper lender and there's another set of fees that they can't get out of the project in time we're two-year balloon.
So we're not putting that stress on them in the event that they have that we're not putting them in default as long as their payment history is fine we'll renew them another year or two okay so we really really really work with our borrowers.
So worst case scenario they end up having to default are you then are you prepared to take over the property and then you know yeah I mean us as a lender if we if you know we have about a hundred and five million in active deals right now I was gonna ask you say we'll capitalize yeah how much what does that what does that mean it's so right now we have a hundred and five million in active what I was gonna say if at fifty five percent value quick math is like two hundred million roughly of real values of all my borrowers said hey I'm not paying you anymore my 105 just went to 200 million.
So that's an exciting day for me yeah a lot of work a lot of headache but I'd rather or not do that I rather than all just exit it successfully but all of our money is private so it's just about a hundred private people and some of them are very wealthy and could invest tens of more millions of dollars.
So there's really not a deal that we've ever gotten that we were not able to fund we have plenty of capital on the sidelines for that do you put a cap or a limit on any individual investor as far as the amount they they may want to give to you know as long as the LTVs are there we have we have guys that are you know 10 20 million with us on it from a borrowing standpoint the.
So the current deal the largest that you mentioned earlier that $10 million deal what how is that deal structured or what is what is the loan on that is that just like there's two two recent large ones I think one is 10 million one is 8 million the 10 million one is a property a beautiful property in I think Palm Beach if you saw the house oh wow you'd say this is everybody's dream home he's tearing that house down and using this state to build another crazy crazy house right isn't Palm Beach are yeah the new dream home in Palm Beach for the next 10 years.
Yeah it's gonna be about a 25 million dollar house in the end okay so he's having liquidity event in his business he knows he's gonna have that within you know six months to a year or two years access liquidity exactly and he wanted to he didn't want to have to wait for that liquidity event to do that so he came in and bought that old house cash the estate lot cash I think he bought it for four million dollars is tearing it down cash so now we're funding the first 10 million dollars of that after.
So it's it's gonna be a construction project ongoing the other one was a local boutique hotel and same thing he had about seven million of his own cash a bank kept dragging him along dragging him along for maybe six months and saying that they were gonna give him the rest of the capital to put the build up so think about how much that's costing him right to be to have a hotel dead for six months or a year yeah he had a contract with a very big hotel company that he needs to you know abide by I'm.
Sure and has deadlines on that we came in and cashed him out two million to start but up to eight million to finish the bill so those are two really good examples of great bars but complex deals that bank just couldn't wrap their head around it but in the beginning we started each one with one or two million dollars we're like 12 to 20% LTV like who wouldn't want that deal yeah bank wants to know well how many how many hotel rooms do you think you're gonna rent and what are you gonna do and that's that's what they're focused over complicated.
Because they're just the scale that correct so highly regulated and they've got so many you know hoops that they've got to jump through on the underwriting side obviously yeah yeah that's interesting though.
Because I think a lot of people that if they know about the private lending space they think oh immediately it's a distressed borrower or it's like a simple like no we have some of the investor bridge loan but you guys are doing like really complex loans with some really hot some hiding a worth sophisticated individuals that are doing that are needing for business purposes too sometimes we have extremely wealthy borrowers some of our borrowers are also lenders right when they need liquidity they come to us we give them the loan when they sell that property off and they're sitting on two three million dollars we put their money to work so it can be a two-way street right.
Yeah obviously this is not all that you do and that it's not all that you're passionate about you have your fun passions as well.
Yeah cars being one of them here I saw somewhere that you have roughly 35 cars and I don't know if that number is still accurate but at what point did you realize that you might have a problem is that a problem I don't think that's a problem the numbers accurate yeah that's true is it still 35 about that yeah.
So what was the birth of your collection like what started you in this like was your father a collector yeah back in the day me my dad used to go to a lot of car shows I was always in the classic cars and growing up and just continued continuing that and got into more luxury or sports cars race cars those types of vehicles over the years but built a beautiful warehouse for them also have a unit at Motor Enclave and I'm an investor in the Motor Enclave as well which is like a private track with car condos really really cool facility if you guys haven't been out there you need to go check it out.
Yeah they have a event warehouse where event space where people have everything from weddings to full-blown concerts black coffee was there I think in November there's there's really really neat events they just inked a deal with hard rock so now it's the hard rock speedway at Motor Enclave and then I High Society Motor Club is a business where we've rent out some of the cars not in a Toro sense but like a private sense but people's wedding driveaways or movie sets there's a the classic cars exactly so the rent them we provide the driver we all we do all that stuff.
So commercials all that stuff how are those people finding you are you is this just word-of-mouth yeah through our Instagram High Society Motor Club word-of-mouth we we are in with a lot of the photographers and you know directors and things around here's they know if they they need an old vintage car I can already see our team behind behind the cameras getting ideas on getting some cars now into one of our videos next one we'll shoot it from a car so you have many cars you either have them at Motor Enclave or you said you have warehouse that you built yes how do you decide which ones are staying in in at your house and first of all how big is your garage at your personal home that the house can fit 68 cars okay and then so these are going to be the ones that you're driving most often.
Yeah I have like two daily drivers that I drive and then I try to swap out the classics so they all get you know get you drive all of the cars I try to yeah.
Yeah I try if you had to only keep three cars which which are which are the three that you're that you're keeping maybe maybe you can push it to five of them or is it like your children is it kind of like it's kind of like your children.
But I guess you can kill us I just picked up a Rolls Phantom which is really sweet so I would probably keep that classics wise one of my first that the longest car I have was a 61 Lincoln I still have that I'll probably keep that I have a really nice 77 Porsche Turbo that's like super mint and original.
So those those will probably survive if you're driving to Camp or Barry's what are you taking it depends on the day winners a lot better than summer because most of these cars don't have AC if they do they suck so.
Yeah this time of year is really nice when it's like July usually the other ones the classic stay in the garage more I was I was snooping on your Instagram and I saw that you have a 1947 Lincoln convertible yeah so happens to be the same year that my father was was born on Davis Islands but what is the story behind this 1947 yes same year as my dad actually to heat that that one if you would have gone to five cars that one would have made the cut it was right on the cusp I bought that from a local guy years ago it's a really really cool car I went to think about like that car 70 almost 80 years ago now yeah driving down Bayshore Boulevard like that car was just awesome.
Right so it's it's fun to drive for sure do you have any cars that you regret buying that you're like that no really haven't you would think with all those cars like I would have a bad experience to get like a lemon honestly knock on wood they've all been pretty good I have that's awesome and then I have friends that are big watch collectors but a lot of them are like constantly like refreshing they're buying and selling and are you doing that with cars are you more buying and not selling so I think the intent is I find really good deals on cars I buy them and then I was thinking about selling them one day and then fast forward 10 years later that's how you have 35 cars.
But I'm actually gonna list some on Bring a Trailer my thing was like if I don't drive them like every other month or two you're doing so that sell that model so I don't know if you're familiar with Bring a Trailer but it's a really awesome car marketplace auction house and I just engage with them to potentially sell off maybe 5 or 10 I do the same thing with my clothes at home you know if I've gone a season or two without wearing a t-shirt I get rid of it yeah same thing we do that with with my youngest he's got a whole car collection too they're tiny but we do the same thing we'll cycle is out.
Yeah he loves them though are you racing at Motor Enclave I am so what yeah which one of the cars we take out to the track.
And so it's called a Radical it's an open-wheel car looks like a smaller version of like an F1 car so a lot of fun insanely fast insanely the physics of it in the turns like if I took you guys out turn one you're gonna be like he's we're dying 100% because you take in turn one even if it's only like 70 80 90 it just feels so fast because a normal street car even an exotic like a Lamborghini Ferrari whatever McLaren the physics can't do that right it's like a downforce car so it's not anything that you've ever felt in any car that you've ever been in unless you've been in a true race car with slicks and brakes and all that that's crazy yeah it's like F1 car basically you're taking out on the track yeah that's insane yeah you are collecting anything else in terms of.
You know nice asset classes you obviously have the cars are you into collecting watches wine and is there anything else that's kind of like a passion of yours I have a nice wine wall at the house.
But nothing nothing super crazy what's your what's your wine palette I was surprised you didn't snoop on that yeah I didn't I thought you're gonna mention when you said the 47 I thought it was gonna be a bottle of wine I used to have a nice connection at Silver Oak we got a couple six liter bottles okay I'm waiting to open those who knows when we'll do that should probably do it soon but then watches yeah I have a pretty decent watch collection but not not as crazy as some other guys I know but yeah definitely okay have some I mean so you're not just obviously active with your hobbies.
But you do a lot in the Tampa community too I know like just knowing you like one of your big passions is keeping money in Tampa in the Tampa Bay market obviously through the business but I mean you also do a lot in the community as well right.
I mean you're constantly actively doing some charity things and giving back to Tampa in any way you can I know we've done a few things at Where Love Grows right a couple of those events yeah great great organization really good for that she's nuts she's like she's heart and soul and she's the sweetest though she's kids and doing all that yeah yeah I mean is there anything else that you.
You know are passionate about giving back to the Tampa community some in 13 Ugly Men so you know they do a few huge parties every year and have different sponsors we have the Derby party coming up May 2nd Saturday so I don't know if you guys have ever been out to that but it's fun I can get you guys some tickets for that it's a blast over at the St. Pete Pier yeah that sounds great I did one of the Halloween 13 yeah that's your two main events their hallways are yeah and Derby the Halloween ones these just start.
So late I'm old I'm like you know can it start at 6 p.m. yeah I'm with you on that but I'll make a suggestion for this year Derby one that sounds like yeah it's like three to nine yeah can stay up that's doable yeah yeah day drinking and then and then we'll pop the six six liter Silver Oak I'll bring some Old World wine we're good.
Yeah we got a day planned nice that's a good day and then you also mentioned I think earlier that you're also investing you've invested in Meat Market how did that even did you get approached for that or yeah so I used to have a restaurant when I was way younger it's a tough business right yeah so I didn't really love investing in restaurants but somebody brought it to me it's probably seven was it seven years ago now I'd say so I'm a small investor they're nothing crazy it's obviously been wildly successful right I wish I would have.
Yeah it's insane put 10x and but and it's a fun it's a fun place it's fun to be an investor and part owner there right yeah we're just there on Friday yeah I think I was there I was there Sunday so yesterday but that's fun also in Ford's garage another local more you know fast casual car themed place but yeah there's been a lot of local businesses that I I invest in over the years try to try to keep putting the money back into the area yeah when you're looking at an investment.
You know what are the things that you focus on are you looking more like when you're looking at Meat Market or you're like trying to do research on the other meat markets that have existed or is it more like I'm investing in the people behind it is it you know yeah they had they had some success before prior it wasn't large enough for me to really be too involved in it it was more of a I think it will work out it'll be fun socially you know the it wasn't gonna make or break me either way and obviously it's beat in every aspect that there is.
But to be honest now I really don't do much outside of the RPM realty gambit because they just take up time and money and a lot of the times the success is not what it's supposed to be where when I invested my own company you know we have a 15-year track record I know exactly what I'm gonna get out I know exactly what the return is gonna be minimum with potential upside so that's really where I'm focusing all my capital now.
To that point to we go back to business really quick how how are you and I don't know if we got into it but like how are you finding you were investors or how are they finding you.
Yeah really just word-of-mouth we started small and as the company grew and grew and grew now we have about 250 active loans like I said around 105 107 103 it varies but it's always increasing so when you have a 15-year success record of delivering a high yield return people tell their friend people to I mean yeah exactly and this is not something the harder part of the equation is finding the bars right so the capital is not the limitation so we really don't fight too hard to expand our capital network it kind of sells itself we're always looking for more borrowers.
But yeah people can contact me they're gonna get it get a high yield return delivered every month and we have 15 years and hundreds and hundreds and that you know hundreds of thousands but thousands of deals to show success on that that's a good point because I've always wanted the same thing because yeah I figure once you get to a certain level of success raising the capital is probably pretty easy but yeah how do you how do you find the borrowers because again word-of- mouth is what crazy enough is we don't advertise oh well when we come in and save somebody's deal like if they're supposed to close on a Friday and they get the news Thursday that their banks had their file for 60 days and they're not gonna close and they're supposed to get this deal and we come in and a day the borrowers telling everybody the brokers telling everybody the agents telling everybody the lawyers the title company.
So you got five six ten people that are gonna tell everybody about that you do that for 15 years straight yeah and you have a lot of praise in the community for it right so just by doing what we do with the product sells itself could I go spend a bunch of money on advertising and build more business probably but at what return at what piece of mind I like dealing within my network when somebody refers me a deal it's usually a better borrower a better quality everything right if I go and put at 1-800 number out there I'm getting who knows who trying to do.
You know whatever scheme to a broad lender that they don't care about so it's a lot better if we know them personally we tried advertising for a hot second and then there's just a waste of time yeah we don't want quantity we want quality that's what we got yeah we do a ton on the marketing side obviously for for brand awareness and things like that but as far as like yeah paid advertising or placement yeah we just we'd rather have it come from our sphere or the referral network I do podcasts with you guys this is this is our advertising right here Joe Rogan who is all we need that's it yeah only agent put that on the on the on the headline for the next episode so you've clearly built a ton even wildly successful Ryan.
So what in the next five ten years when you're looking out what does success look like for you and in the equation of success does that involve a wife and kids or what's going on so yeah sure so success I think the projects that take a lot of time and headache I've wound those down over the you know it's taken a few years to get out of things where I was doing construction or things like that where I took these projects on to yeah it was for business purposes but maybe help a friend go outside of my what I should have done and they've just became.
You know complete nightmares those are ending so now it's really time to focus on more fun stuff right relax a little bit let the business hence the free role exactly let the business free role I still like taking all the calls of the potential bars and analyzing those deals and and just enjoying the fruits of the labor in a sense right having those no wife or kids on the on the horizon not yet anyway.
So you're married to the game right now I'm married to the game that's it and you got babies like this thing that's it yeah I love it but is that is that something that's like you know something you're wanting we'll see we'll see where life takes me no no no rush I love that you're getting that you're present this is the new this is the new this could be a new innovation is Only Agents podcast should we have him lay down and talk about other like deepest darkest fears we're gonna pull up his inch profile no hands no hands don't know he's open so we're gonna pull up his riot profile sorry no not on the apps.
So talking about the toys to you really quick I mean what obviously we're on this beautiful yacht out here what was the inspiration and getting this thing and.
Yeah what are your plans for for this just personal enjoyment and you and your friends I'm assuming you'll probably take some clients out here too exactly yeah it's it's fun you know being docked right behind Lower Deck and American Social is great I ran into I used to have a yacht but a little bit smaller than this and I sold to a friend and business associate and I ran into him and I said hey man we should we should get something together and he's like wow that's interesting timing is I just I just saw this and I'm like hmm let me try to work the deal and we negotiated it for a little while we got what we felt is a very fair deal on it.
Now we're partners and it's it's been great we've had it a couple months first weekend was out at St. Pete Grand Prix we had a right track side for that no but when it looked like we were gonna be able to close in time my buddy is like hey maybe you should do this so I contacted the owner because we had slips in the past and everything just kind of fell in place and worked out but it's really good for you know definitely client events having fun hopefully you know the Bolts can win the Stanley Cup we'll have we'll have the players on here to have a little championship parade and.
You know maybe we'll get toss it to Brady again I don't know let's see but yeah it's just enjoying it and and having fun with the toys now yeah this thing is sick.
Yeah you want to get into some rap we always like to wrap the episode with some rapid fire questions now you want to kick it off sure the best car you've ever driven I like the Phantom I just got okay yeah yeah the novelty of it you know new the newest the best yeah it's clean.
Yeah most underrated car brand or car maker I'll go with Radical the race most people don't even know what it is I want to see one and you really holy shit this is crazy I've seen a picture of it and it looks like what's the cartoon from back it no it's a Speed Racer whatever you know it like it looks like that car you might be thinking of the Shelby Daytona maybe okay maybe you can because it's like open air though right yeah so maybe it was it what do you know what color it was was a white and red or was it gray it was white and red and that's the Shelby Daytona.
Okay that's different all right we'll get you in the Radical see you don't know what it is yeah but they're not they're not even have a small version of it you know you're smoking every exotic it's not even funny you're ripping past Lambo's Ferrari's McLaren whatever and you're like a third of the price and probably a wow a fifth or tenth of the maintenance that's crazy yeah that's a true track car though yeah yeah you're not driving it around I mean Motor Enclave brought one outside Meat Market as kind of like a funny thing one day but they're not street legal you can make him street legal but more than that is you're gonna smash your bumper on the littlest car you know littlest.
Yeah influx of the road they're really really low what about your favorite Tampa neighborhood I know you live in Davis Islands so maybe let's say you can't pick Davis Islands before that I lived in Hyde Park for two years and I loved it I think Davis Island is more family oriented it's nice that you could be on the water.
But for a younger adult that wants to get out Hyde Park is amazing all right go to a restaurant that's not Meat Market are there some new restaurants that you're that you've tried that you really like in the Tampa or St. Pete area I think I mean it's still popular.
But in my opinion it's underrated is Olivia yeah they really they're really solid if I'm going for a steak and it's not going to be at Meat Market Council Oak and the casinos of fun night Bern's is obviously an amazing experience I think it's great food I don't think it's the best food just the experience yeah the experience the wine cellar drinking stuff from 1862 like I did on Friday night yeah exactly the selection that you can get there I mean you know obviously it's like it's insane especially for money when I first started going I was getting stuff from the late 1700s.
Now let's all you know you're not making it anymore drinking something that was around in the Civil War you're like you're drinking history and that's the way I look at it I mean I think you played some Abe Lincoln you know tunes I did yeah I did nice.
Yeah I love it what is your favorite go-to bottle of wine that's under $100 the Austin Hope I think was was pretty good yeah and that's definitely less less than a hundred it's a good bottle all right one and if you had to make one investment in only one today what would that investment be in mortgage private mortgages RPM realty 100% I'm pissed I didn't do that 20 years ago he's done this before.
Yeah me too actually and then on the flip side what's one thing that you've invested in that you would never invest in again or you'd be hesitant how much time we have left I used to invest in a lot of like tech startups some are still kicking around maybe they'll be successful one day I haven't seen any money yet but all that money that I either lost or tied up for five ten years the compounding interest effect on that you know if you put it if you put a hundred thousand in at 12% which our notes are 12% over 30 years I realize it's a long time horizon that it turns into three point two million dollars.
So if you could guarantee yourself you know you have a kid right and you put a hundred thousand in the fund trust fund for them over when they're 30 they're gonna you can guarantee them three point two million dollars like who wouldn't want that investment yeah with the tech startups it's you know that you take a flyer one if one hits great but I'm still fail I'm waiting on the one yeah those stats though right yeah stay disciplined and stay with what you know yeah it makes sense stay with RPM, stay with RPM. It should be called Excess Liquidity. yeah name change spending well.
Yeah thank you man we really appreciate you coming on probably the best and honestly you have plenty of time for your camp class Pilates that was the goal by the way for everyone listening and watching I'm coming for you at 12 o'clock make sure Ryan was very specific he has a noon camp class and I said listen guys we need to be there at 930 get this shot sequence set up on the on the yacht so he can get out and get in time that's what you can do for you yeah I don't know we're just thinking about the clients clients are first and foremost.
Yeah let's get an ASG plug what can we do what are you gonna do for them that they haven't had before I mean any anyone that's looking to buy residential or commercial or sell in in the real estate space in the Tampa area that is what a she does we work with great partners like you when we need to with some of our developers and builder clients because we specialize in new construction in a lot of spaces in the single family and multifamily world so.
I mean that's that's what we do let's give a shout out to Serenity Title to yeah and of course it's a it's a one-stop shop so I'm also a partner in Serenity Title with the amazing principal over there Chris is Amy and the entire team so when you work with ASG and we're able to have serenity serve as the title an escrow company on the transaction you're getting my eyes and the entire Serenity Title team's eyes on that transaction from pre-contract under contract all the way through close and beyond and that's I think one of the other things that makes us really unique.
Because a lot of times you're working with a real real a real set agent they're usually a solo you're not getting a team I mean we have a team of six people now that are backing you and working for you in the transaction then once that goes under contract a lot of times the agents handing it off to someone and then they don't know what's happening behind the scenes with title they don't know what's happening but behind the scenes with lending yeah you know with us we're able to have line of sight and the ability to help kind of control those uncontrollable elements once it does go under contract with title lending escrow and all those things.
So step and go that's the ASG difference yeah I can't talk about my other business because of compliance issues with day trading so all I do is ASG yeah all right Ryan wink wink yeah right well thank you guys I appreciate it had a blast thank you man yeah it was great.