Latest / The On The Rise Podcast / Real Estate With a Kingdom Mission
Transcript
- FDL Todd Bowen: Welcome to the On the Rise podcast, where we talk about time freedom, passive investing through real estate, finance, mindset, and how to integrate your faith into your work. Let's dive in. Quick disclaimer as always I'm not a CPA, I'm not an attorney or a financial advisor. This is not financial advice. I'm not telling you or anyone else what to do. The views and opinions expressed in these podcasts. Are provided for education and informational purposes only and are not necessarily the views of my employer. Welcome to the Faith Driven Leader Podcast. I'm your host, Nick Stromwell. Today we've got an amazing guest, Todd Bowen. Welcome to the show. Hey Nick, how are you doing? Doing well. Really excited to really connect with you. We've been friends now for several years. We were both a part of a commercial real estate mastermind community. focused on kingdom leaders using real estate as a way to extend God's kingdom. but we've become, you know, friends over the years and even done some some business together. So I'm really excited to, you know, jump into your story just just by way of, you know, your introduction or bio. you know, you're you're married to your beautiful wife, Katie. We both have a wife named Katie, which is pretty cool. And you've got two boys, tenth and seventh grade. They are into a lot of things. Football, tennis, basketball, volleyball, pickleball. You guys like to hunt and spend time outside. I think you've taken a recent epic trip in your motorhome to Yellowstone. So I'd want to hear more about that. And then your real estate portfolio is a diverse combination of long-term rentals, short-term rental, motor home rental, and then several passive investments in syndications. Do I have that about right? That sums it up. Yeah, I would say so. Yeah. Well tell tell us more about this epic Yellowstone trip. you recently came through Minnesota and I got to see this this motorhome but it was really cool. Yeah, surprise visit. No, that was great. we'd been wanting to do this trip for a long time and we just figured the boys were finally at a great age and something they would remember and we didn't want to just go out there and stay in one spot. So we looked into renting a motorhome and you can imagine how that went when I figured out how much that was gonna cost. My mind immediately went to well, what if we just buy a motorhome and we can do this awesome trip and then when we're not using it we can rent it out. So that might be another little side story, but the trip was absolutely phenomenal. Highly recommend it for anyone. coming from Michigan, it was it took us two and a half days to get out there. But there were so many stops along the way through the Badlands, Deadwood, South Dakota. We visited some friends in Sheridan, Wyoming, did a bunch of cool things with them, and then finally made it to Yellowstone for a couple days along with the millions of other people. But no it was just super cool to see out west and just to realize how much bigger the country is than than just where we live. we live in a beautiful place. we probably take it for granted, but just getting out there and seeing the mountains and the vastness makes you feel small and it's just kind of brings you back into the awe of of God's beauty. Yeah. Yeah. I've been a couple times out to Colorado and seen Yellowstone, and it's it it truly is breathtaking to experience it, and for your kids, you know, to experience that as well. Tell us more about like your journey into business and into real estate, where did you start off and how did you get started in real estate? So yeah, it started as I would say an itch that needed to be scratched. I was working a full-time job. I was a project manager at an engineering firm. And that naturally took me away from the family quite a bit. But you know, we were my wife and I were good stewards with our retirement and our 401ks. But there came a point where I just thought, I'm a little tired of just dumping money into this unknown place called the market and hoping that someday, you know, it might work out and and be good for us. I mean that's probably the common financial education that most people get. But to me I just had that internal desire for more. So our real estate really started with just that want to diversify our investments. And so I would say the year twenty sixteen was a year of just getting a master's education is what I call it through podcasting. So every bit of windshield time I had on the job was listening to podcasts, real estate podcasts, business podcasts, personal development podcasts, and just I guess I'm a researcher and sometimes to a fault paralysis of analysis. So I eventually got the courage up to call my financial advisor of of all people and asked him what he thought of real estate as a diversification tool. And he said, Todd, I love it. I own seventeen houses and they print money. And I was taken aback. Like you're supposed to be telling me to put money in the market, but here you are okay with real estate. So That was the catalyst I needed to be like, okay, this is a thing, you can do it. And so from there, it was twenty seventeen when we bought our first long term rental in our local market here. That that's when we got started. Okay. And after I I think your story is actually pretty common for a lot of listeners. they're faith driven leaders, maybe they're already exposed to some alternative assets, at least they're curious about it. After that first deal, what happened next? The very first deal, I was so hyped up at closing with my agent who is also a builder and an investor himself. So really great person to know. has helped me out tremendously. But at the closing, I asked the seller, Do you have any more properties for sale? And he kind of looked at me. My agent was like, What are doing? I'm like, Well I think I heard this on a podcast that, when you're with the seller, ask them if they have any more. So I did. And that blissful ignorance, I left there with a list of properties that the seller owned. And I think we left that closing and went and drove by all those properties and we picked the best one and talked about it. And we got back to that seller and made an offer. And that ended up being our second deal. It was a three unit. That's amazing. I don't think I knew that part of your story. That's really cool. Yeah. It I guess it never hurts to ask, right? And if you hear something when you learn on a podcast, like you're putting what you're learning into action right away. What what was driving kind of that that second, third, fourth, fifth property? What what was the why behind why you wanted to do it? Yeah. So initially back then it was I think after that first one. I felt that feeling of okay, you you are now a legitimate real estate investor. It was like almost that self-gratification. And then it was all about the unit count. how many units do you have? And then I remember we had five units, and that felt cool. And then gradually, not gradually, pretty quickly rather, we realized that. going from zero to five units in two months and inheriting five new tenants from a seller who didn't screen tenants well was a slap in the gut. And we I think we had three evictions out of those five tenants. So right away it was like, okay, this is gonna be some work. And then What this turned into through listening to more podcasts and hearing someone in another state that was working with local agencies, for us that quickly turned into, okay, if this guy can do this in another state, there has got to be a need for these agencies that have housing programs. And so I def I went right into researching that and right away found an agency that works with domestically abused women and children. and chronically homeless. And then that's when I had that aha moment of this is bigger than just a collection of units. This is bigger than just wanting to be a real estate investor and diversifying our retirement portfolio. This is about helping other people and specifically in our case focusing on helping a demographic that is less fortunate. or is just in certain circumstances that are different than ours. And you know, it it makes you f realize how blessed you are to have a home, have a family, have a job, that type of thing. So ever since twenty eighteen, we kind of made it our mission. And our business is called Trinity Investment Group. And and that's not by accident, the Trinity, you know, the Father, Son, Holy Spirit. We want that to shine. We want that to be heard for all the people that talk to us or email us. they're using that word, they're hearing it, they're saying it. And it brings up conversations sometimes. So yeah, ever since that point, we it became our mission to dive down this path of, what other organizations are out there, how can we help our our local community and make the most impact. That's honestly really inspiring. And I I remember when I first heard your story, actually I think it was on a podcast, it made me think, you know, a lot of people get into real estate because they want to diversify, they want those hard assets, they want the benefits that come with real estate investing. But here you're still getting those, but you're connecting, you know, your passion to serve people with with the very vehicle of the investment itself. How many people Have you been able to serve now? So at one point we were up to I think twenty-two units, and I would say maybe nineteen of those units were utilized by local organizations. And I mean we found out quickly there is much more need than there were investors willing to work with these types of programs because we quickly found out that another program worked with substance abuse folks and reentry. So people coming out of being incarcerated. So it's a it's a different crowd that we had to tread lightly with and put some key, you know, management and language in our leases just to protect the property and protect the asset. But then yeah, we also started working with an agency that works with mental health and homelessness and I think there's some others. there's another one that works with young adults that may have developmental disabilities. So the the hardest is plenty. The workers are few, if I could reference the Bible. And so we wanted to be one of the workers that was called to help this demographic out in our local area. that's amazing. Do you do you find that there's more demand in your in your area in Michigan for these types of opportunities? And do you do you have a vision to to continue to expand or when you think about five or ten years from now, what what do you imagine for Trinity Investment Group? Yeah, that is a great question. And it's one that we were really in growth mode when it started and then as a real estate investor you're like okay we've used up all of our own personal funds we've reached out to friends and families we've done the HELOC thing and then you add in the interest rates going up and the market getting hotter and here we are almost ten years later and it it feels like we've slowed down. But to your question in five or ten years we we do have some goals to work with more agencies in the local area. The demand is nonstop. And I ask that question a lot when I talk to the the operators in in these agencies. I'm always wondering, you know, do they have waiting lists? Do they still have a housing demand? And that's still number one on the list right now. So the demand is there. It's much harder now. And this isn't any surprise. I'm sure this is the way it is across the country. But it's harder to find the deals that pencil out and make sense without just breaking even or, losing money. And we're just, we're not at the point where we can go into negative cash flow. Cause, we work with nonprofit agencies and they're funded by private donors and grants. And so some of that is unknown year to year. Some of them have state funding. Some of them had federal funding. The ones that did have federal funding do not anymore. So there's been changes over the years and you know it's kind of a roller coaster ride. You never know, you know, what direction it's gonna go. But yeah, we would like to grow. we you kind of realize too that we're in a pretty small market with you know roughly thirty to forty thousand people. How many markets across my state, how many markets across the country? have these smaller markets and you just know that they have the need. So yeah, th the the big, hairy, audacious goals are to start looking into some of these other markets throughout the state or throughout the country and see if we can put the right people and components in place and see if we can, you know, extend our reach or this model to other places to help serve the need. Hey everyone, just a quick word before we jump back into this episode. I'm Zach, the CEO of Rise 48 Equity, and I want to take a moment to share a little bit about what we do and why we do it, because I think it's going to resonate with a lot of you who are listening to this series. At Rise 48, we're a real estate investment company, but the way that we think about our work goes beyond just improving properties and generating returns. We genuinely believe that when you invest in a community, you have a responsibility to invest in the people who live there too. That looks like hiring community managers who are present and engaged with residents. It looks like hosting Monthly events for our residents to build an actual community. It looks like our team showing up together to volunteer and partner with nonprofits in the areas where we operate. For those of us who are faith-driven, I think there's also a deeper question underneath every investment decision. And it's not just what's the return, it's what is my capital actually building? Those two things should and can coexist together. At Rise Ford, we built a model where strong returns and strong communities go hand in hand. If that's the kind of investment that you've been looking for, We'd love to connect with you and tell you about what we're building. You can learn more at rise48equity.com and we'll get you right back to the episode. That's really inspiring. Thanks for sharing. And just so our listeners can understand, at least from my understanding, there's a way to do long term rental, there's a way to do short term rental. Would this be considered a midterm rental or what would you call what the model is that you're doing? I think I would call it long term. most of our leases are a twelve month, if not longer. And we do like to have our leases between Trinity and the respective agency. But yeah, it almost operates as a midterm though, if you can picture an agency may have a need for a certain individual for a few months while they get back on their feet. And so they may place them in one of our units for three or four months. And if they are ready to move out or if they find a new place, the agency is able to move their clients in or out as they see fit. So within a year we could have multiple different tenants within the same unit in some given cases. That's great. So as a faith driven leader, how would you say your faith has shaped the way you're making decisions in the business? Yeah, especially the harder ones. The first thing that comes to mind is I think I was really convicted when we first started working with this demographic in the in the form of judgment and it. it doesn't make me proud to say that. It's just the truth that our human flesh may want to be judgmental and we just don't know the certain situations that people have been raised in or have gotten them themselves into, the choices they've made. So I think before I would have been more judgmental and thought, you know, these losers they don't deserve a place. they're coming out of jail, this doesn't this house doesn't have to be clean. It doesn't have to be up to par. But I had the fortune to I was fortunate enough to get to meet some of these folks and talk with them and hear their story and witness to them. And you just realize that they're really just one of us that made some bad choices or we're were brought up differently than we were. and found themselves in this situation and they they want the same things we want. They want a nice, clean, safe environment to live in, to sleep. Some of them are appreciative for just a bed. Some of them are appreciative for a kitchen. When you think of some of the places they've come from. I remember one time I was cleaning window these two guys came in that were super excited to move in. They were moving beds in and They asked who I was and I told I was the owner and they said, Why are you washing windows? I'm like, I'm doing the Lord's work. Work is worship, buddy. And they stopped and they looked at me. They're like, You believe in God? I'm like, Yeah. yeah, I'm a Christian. They were like, We are too. That's so awesome. Thank you. I and so I think we ended the day, by, high fiving and and meeting them and maybe even giving hugs. So it's just moral stories that you never know when you're gonna be able to, talk about the gospel, let someone know that, we all kinda want the same thing. So it's just fun. There's been a lot of good times over the years. Yeah, sweet. I c I can imagine with all the different groups that you're part of, have you ever had to show grace or flexibility in any of those types of relationships, either with partners regarding finances or deadlines or anything like that? Yeah, I was gonna take it a different direction, but Sure. Take it whatever way you so although this sounds, super great and everything goes well, there are still cases where we have to evict someone and it's those cases that the agency is not allowed to be the lease holder and the lease has to be in the client's name. And we happen to be going through one right now. And it's a super sad situation. There's children involved. CPS is involved. And it's the the county mental health department is involved. And so we've had to show a lot of grace to this person. We've had to and it's in a multi-unit, so there's other tenants that are being bothered by this by these issues. We've had to, talk with them about what's going on and how we are working with the agency. But the ultimate ending to this is we do have to remove this this tenant, unfortunately. So it it's not all every every single one is not a success story, I guess. It's tough. So with all of the different lessons you've learned over the years, we think Lesson a tenant or a property has ever taught you? I would say that innately me as a person am very trustworthy. And when you say that when I say I'm gonna do something, I I wouldn't say I was going to unless I meant that. And so a few years ago, we were talking with a new agency that we had reached out to. We kind of pitched them on our business model. They loved the idea. We were talking to the CEO of the company, of the organization, and he was like, Yeah, we are totally in. And so we showed him a property that we had been looking at that was on the market. And he said, Yep, absolutely, one hundred percent. This is this is a property that we want for our program. I'll bring it up in my next board meeting and we will you know talk after that. And so we purchased the property and waited to hear back from this CEO after the board meeting. And to our surprise, the board rejected the entire situation. So long story short, we trusted the word of the CEO. We purchased the home. We left holding a property that was for a specific agency that Essentially backed out. And so now we had to come up with plan B. So I think the lesson there was, you know, from that point on we couldn't operate with just just a word. We had to have something in writing, a lease sign, an LOI, something of that. Wow, yeah, it must have been hard. I think, you know, we try to set your plans based on the trust of, you know, a conversation with someone's word and it doesn't always go that way. And if there's bored and other people It's not always one decision maker. you've got a lot of different irons in the fire with these rentals, a short term rental, the mobile home rental, syndications. You know, you're also raising two boys. What's it like for your boys to see parents who are living out, you know, learn learning how to walk by faith, but also having some ambition to wanna do certain things? What's what's that like raising two young sons? Personally, I love it. there's an opportunity almost daily to have conversations with them about you know what I did today or who I talked to or during the summer months when they're not in school it's time to go mow lawns or it's time to go do some painting. And so I can grab them and get them to a property, have that car ride there to talk about entrepreneurial mindsets and the difference between assets and liabilities and why we why we do this, who we work for, who we work with, and it spurs good questions from them. And being 13 and 16, all they want to do is have fun, play, swim, dirt bike, hang out with friends. But I think it's a way to keep them grounded when they see, what we're doing and specifically the why behind what we're doing. And to speak to that a little more, they don't see only the good either. They were with me when I went to a property and this particular tenant was screaming profanities at me from the top of the stairs. And I just let her know that we were there to check on things. And then she threatened to throw hot grease on me. So My boys look at me like, Who who are you working with here? What what's going on? So again, that's a chance to explain who we work with, why we do it, why that person's there, maybe go into a little bit of the help that she's getting, that type of thing. So yeah, it's it's not traditional, but I I do enjoy the time I get to spend with them. That's amazing, yeah. so maybe speak to the Parents listening to this right now, if there was another parent thinking about real estate, who wanted to build for his for his family and not just chase returns, what would you want that that other dad or that other mom to know about the journey that you've been on over these last 10 years? Great question. Wow. I think I don't want to oversimplify it, but if you keep the main thing, the main thing, meaning, you know, your family first and the why behind. what you're doing needs to be so strong that it'll get you through the ups, the downs, the uncertainty. I would say there's not you know, unlike a W-2 job, there's less certainty in real estate investing. And persistence is gonna pay off. You know, there are the times in the beginning where, you know, rent would come in and you have, you know, a couple thousand dollars in the account and then expenses came in and you'd have to be adding money from your personal account just to keep the business account above zero. So very, very slow beginning, lots to learn in the beginning. But I do treat it like a snowball. And it's that snowball's not even on level ground though. In the beginning it's going uphill. So it's a lot of work. You have to push and push and push and push. So You I don't want to give unrealistic expectations. It's it's hard. But what is priceless for me and and this is my why, is I get to take my kids. Well, my kid, now I have one that's sixteen, so he drives himself, but I get to take him to school. I get to pick him up. I get to be at his four o'clock in the afternoon tennis match, you know, or You don't get to do that if you're at work until five. I get to help out coaching and be there for every practice. So the time freedom and being able to be more of a help around the house for my wife, that's the why. And so, I'm in the chapter of life where, I I've got teenagers and when you stop and think about it when when Katie and I talk about it, we're at oldest, we will have three more summers or Three more spring breaks. Actually, two more. So it's one of those humble moments where it's like, yeah, this is why w we do what we do. So Yeah, it's good. And it's when you put it in that perspective, you know, three more summers or or two more spring breaks, it makes you wanna, you know, milk every moment you have with your kids. And a big reason people do go into entrepreneurship is In general, building a business is they want that time freedom, which typically a successful business can can give it to you. And it's also easy to let the business kind of control your life. How how have you put guardrails around that so that you can be a present husband and a present father? Yeah, early on we decided that we weren't gonna be chasing the maintenance, you know, taking the phone calls for broken door handles and leaking toilets. And even earlier, right in the beginning, we actually had a management company manage all the tenants in the in the leasing. But now we we we just put systems in place, I guess, to where our agencies will contact our handyman directly. And our handyman has access to all of our properties and If something is suspicious, he'll reach out. But if it's a pretty common repair, then he just goes and does it. And I don't hear about it until the end of the month. So it's it's a system in place that allows us to, you know, sleep at night, not worry about that kind of thing, and not be, you know, tied to the phone or a slave to the maintenance, if you will. Now some of the management, that's trickier 'cause now we self manage. I would say it's slightly easier than working with agencies than it is with just your normal tenant. So we just try and keep that during regular business hours and the agencies prefer that. And so that works well for us. So yeah, that's how we put some guardrails around that. That's awesome. If you had one last thought to leave with our audience, just on lessons you've learned, nuggets of wisdom, people who are wanting to take that that next leap, so to speak, of of integrating their faith. into their work or would you leave with our audience? I would say first and foremost, pray about it. I would say if you have a spouse, make sure they are on board with it. Teamwork in this business is going to be your friend. If one is opposed to it and one would is all about it, I think that's gonna could cause some some strife. And I mean at the end of the day, I just think it's gonna take hard work and persistence. Again, I don't wanna I don't wanna glamorize it. We have a cool story. I mean we're almost ten years in, but you know, it it's it's not like we have a yacht and are on that all summer or winter. You know, we Yeah, I guess that's another one too. I would say maintain the current lifestyle that you have and don't let real estate a real estate asset or cash flow allow you to slip into a lifestyle creep. So you know live be below your means, get your kids involved. It's a great way to have conversations with them about the benefits of real estate. Yeah, it's great. Well thank you, you know, so much for sharing your story. If people want to learn more about you or Trinity, where's the best place for them to go? yeah, so they can reach out to us at I think it's Trinity Group, no, Trinity Investment Group and Instagram. And I think we also have a website called LoveYourLodging.com. And I think we're also on Instagram with that same name, Love Your Lodging. That's that's Katie's department. So but I mean anyone could could shoot me an email too and that's Trinity Group. 88 at gmail.com. Awesome. We'll include the links below. Thanks for your your time and blessings to you your family. Same to you, Nick. It's always a pleasure. Thank you for hanging out with us today and for listening to the On the Rise podcast. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Nothing said on this show should be considered financial advice. Before making any financial decisions, please consult with a professional. This show is copyrighted by the On the Rise podcast. Written permissions must be granted before syndication or rebroadcasting.