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Haydynn Fike - Your Network is Your Net Worth · REL Freedom Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: I have three core pillars: connection, education, and experience.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so in all of my events, I'm focused on how do I create amazing next level connections, uh, bringing in really qualified speakers to educate people uh and providing an experience that that others just don't.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm very careful with the venues that I choose.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: I always choose top-tier venues.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: I spent, I think I spent over$40,000 last year on venues.
• 0:25
  Mike Swenson: Welcome to the Real Freedom Show.
• 0:27
  Mike Swenson: We inspire you to pursue your passion to gain time and financial freedom through opportunities in real estate.
• 0:32
  Mike Swenson: I'm your host, Mike Swenson.
• 0:33
  Mike Swenson: Let's get some real freedom together.
• 0:54
  Mike Swenson: I'm your host, Mike Swenson.
• 0:56
  Mike Swenson: If you want to get started on your real estate journey, check out our website freedom through realestate.com.
• 1:02
  Mike Swenson: It's where we put all of our content, all of our interviews with a goal to inspire you with a story that you connect with, something that's gonna make you take action and draw you closer to your goals.
• 1:11
  Mike Swenson: And so that's why we're here and that's what we aim to do.
• 1:14
  Mike Swenson: So excited today.
• 1:15
  Mike Swenson: We're gonna talk about networking, connecting with other people.
• 1:19
  Mike Swenson: And so we've got Hayden Feich here.
• 1:20
  Mike Swenson: He is the co-founder of Acadia Capital as well as the Art of Connecting podcast.
• 1:25
  Mike Swenson: You have some some real estate experience, flipping, storage facilities, as well as your big fund, which is really your primary focus.
• 1:32
  Mike Swenson: And so excited to talk about was as with most people, you dabble in a lot of different things inside of real estate.
• 1:37
  Mike Swenson: And as you build connections and make connections with others, it it blossoms into other directions.
• 1:42
  Mike Swenson: And so, only 25 years old, you've you've accomplished a lot already, and so we're excited to hear about what you have going on.
• 1:47
  Mike Swenson: Welcome to the show.
• 1:48
  Mike Swenson: Thanks so much, Mike.
• 1:49
  Mike Swenson: It's such a pleasure to be here today.
• 1:50
  Mike Swenson: So take us back to the beginning and share with us a little bit about your background and what got you inside of the real estate space and kind of the networking space.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: So my name's Hayden Feich.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I live in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and grown up here in Tennessee my entire life.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um uh Mike told me this show is only 25-30 minutes, so I'm gonna try to keep it very high level.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: But uh I grew up here in Tennessee.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: My parents are uh my mom's a teacher, my dad is a sheet metal mechanic, so grew up in a very humble household um in the Great Recession.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: I was uh eight, nine, and ten-year-old uh when all that funness was happening.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: So I got to kind of live through that as a child and see um, hey, the you know, we can't turn the heat up past 62 because the electric bill is gonna kill us.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: So uh I grew up in a home where uh I had to work for what I wanted, and my parents homeschooled me for my entire almost my entire school career.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: And um always said, if you want something, you've got to figure out how to buy it.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so um, as a kid, I I was always in the entrepreneurial spirit, started flipping phone cases when I was probably 12 or 13 years old.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh in high school, flipped cars.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, college did nothing but school because it's impossible to do anything other than that if you want to get good grades, and then graduated and started flipping houses.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, so uh it's been a fun journey through learning about real estate.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I joined uh one of the most pivotal moments in my life, which is how we got connected, was when I joined Action Academy.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I was uh a senior in college and working at a big corporate uh company here in Chattanooga, thought I had a big future there and uh got into Action Academy and Brian Lubin and several of the coaches with Action Academy really stretched my mind to say, hey, you can do bigger and better things.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: And when that job came to an end, I was like, okay, well, I'm not gonna ever do that again.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna have that job again and uh went all in on real estate.
• 3:47
  Mike Swenson: Kind of similar, similar story for me.
• 3:49
  Mike Swenson: My parents were W-2 employees, and and so it took a while for me to change my brain to think outside of like that's just what you're supposed to do, to now where you know you're entrepreneurial and you're doing a lot of different things and um stretch in different ways, but you're more in control of your destiny.
• 4:05
  Mike Swenson: And so, you know, it took a lot of kind of thinking and changing my beliefs and and that about how that actually is better than the kind of the safe, stable upbringing that sounds like you were kind of a part of as well.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I was stable.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm using air quotes for those that are listening in audio.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: My dad didn't work for two years.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, he's in the construction industry, and uh he couldn't get a job to save his life in the Great Recession.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: And um it's tough when your stable income becomes uh something that just disappears overnight.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's very possible to happen.
• 4:37
  Mike Swenson: So you joined joined networking group coming out of college to talk about those those first next couple steps for you.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so when I got let go from my big corporate job, I thought was gonna be my everything.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um I I I live in Chattanooga, Tassie as I mentioned, and and Chattanooga is very much a real estate town.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, everyone who drives a Range Rover or has a Rolex here is in real estate.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: There's there's no not say there's no economy, there's a there's a pretty decent economy here, but uh everyone who has freedom in life in Chattanooga is in real estate, basically.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: And as I started going to different networking events, I was like, man, all the people that seem to live the kind of life that I would like to live one day are in real estate.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so I just uh started seeking mentors, figuring out anybody who is in real estate, figuring out how I could serve them, what value I could bring to them.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: And through doing that, uh I ended up meeting my business partner Dan.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we bought a storage facility together, uh, and then ended up co-founding our private lending fund, which is my main focus today, which is scaling that company to$30 million.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: So um, yeah, it's like a super connected version, but I just realized if I wanted to get to where I wanted to go, that real estate was probably my best uh vehicle to do that.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: I like it.
• 5:54
  Mike Swenson: Networking, so you were seeking mentors and that.
• 5:58
  Mike Swenson: I I I know, and obviously you've got some specifics and in terms of networking to share with people, but it seems for a lot of people kind of this unclear path.
• 6:07
  Mike Swenson: It's like, okay, I know I need to meet people, I know I need to talk to people.
• 6:11
  Mike Swenson: Kind of how did that work and how strategic were you in finding Dan?
• 6:16
  Mike Swenson: Because I know for a lot of people too, it's like, oh, I'd love to have a business partner, you know, kind of the yin to my yang and that sort of thing.
• 6:22
  Mike Swenson: And so finding that person sounds like it came pretty quick for you, but how specific were you or strategic were you in meeting those people?
• 6:29
  Mike Swenson: Or was it just, hey, this Dan's a great guy, sounds like he's on a great path.
• 6:32
  Mike Swenson: I'm along for the ride, let's go.
• 6:34
  Mike Swenson: You know, curious to hear kind of how that happened and the intentionality behind it.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it took about a year, I think, for for me to really do anything.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there's there's a learning period in real estate where when you're first coming in, you're like a wee little bit, you know, you're like a little baby.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: You're just in your little crib, goo gooing guying, like writing down what is ARV in your notebook, um, and trying to figure out all the terminology of of this industry because it's like it's it's its own language, right?
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like, and the higher up you get, the more it is.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's um I'm working on a 157,000 square foot warehouse deal right now.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: And um uh there's a L A, letter of no action, uh, which I learned about.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: I had no idea what it was, and I read the letter, it's a letter from the state saying, hey, because you paid us this money and did this thing, you don't have to do any more environmental remediation.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know what that was.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: I, you know, I never would have known until I dove into it.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but there's so many things to learn.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so I just started going to as many real estate networking events as I could.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and Dan, uh he's lovingly known in our uh in our area as Dan the Hard Moneyman.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh he worked with Longhorn Investments, which was one of the is one of the largest hard money lenders in uh Tennessee, and they're they're a huge fund out of Texas, and um he was their number one sales rep.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so he funded almost every person's deal in Chattanooga at one point when when Longhorn's really chugging.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: And uh so I was like, man, everybody wants to talk to this guy.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: I want to talk to him.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: And he had to get back to Knoxville because he had a closing coming up, and so he was like, Hey, I've got to get back to Knoxville, I'm sorry, I I've gotta run.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Well, I'm actually going to Knoxville tonight because I would go to any networking event that was in real estate within two hours of me.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I had gotten invited to this event, I saw it, and he was like, Well, I'll be at that meetup too.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: Let's catch up there.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then within a few months of meeting Dan, uh, I got challenged by Brian.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: I had just bought my first house and I was like, I want to buy three more houses.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: And uh Brian back then it was, you know, you know the Zoom call, and Brian is there every time and coaching everybody.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: And uh he was like, Hey, you know everything you need to know to get a 24-unit apartment complex.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: Go and buy some multifamily because multifamily was all the rage back then.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, okay, I'm gonna be a multifamily investor.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I saw Dan again at another meetup, and I told him I was like, hey, I want to buy multifamily, and he was like, Well, hey, I make a lot of money and uh I need some tax write-offs because I'm paying$400,000 to the IRS this year if I don't get some more real estate.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so find me a multifamily complex and I'll give you ownership and I'll put the cash up and uh I'll take all the write-offs.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, okay.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: And this is 2021-ish, and so nothing was working.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: I probably found 10, 15 off-market multifamilies.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: Dan lovingly uh spent hours on Zoom calls to go over financials and documents and rent rolls, and nothing was working.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: And um he ended up finding the storage facility, and his partner that he was going to operate it with in Chattanooga, because it's here in Chattanooga, backed out.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: He lives about an hour and a half away.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: And he was like, I'll give you 10% ownership of this for you to manage it, and I'll put all the cash in.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and I was like, All right, deal, I'll do it.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so um, we acquired that 74-unit storage facility together uh and the rental property that goes with it.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: So long-winded story, as I've warned you, I I get into um it was intentional.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like I was going to those events to meet people, but I didn't wasn't going in necessarily like, oh, I I I need to find my partner for this specific thing in the beginning.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: And then once I got specific about what I wanted to do, then I was able to have much better conversations when I would tell people I'm working on buying a 24-unit apartment complex.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, oh, cool.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I have alignments in that area where you know maybe I can provide the financing or I'm looking to invest in something like that.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: As soon as I started changing what I told people I was doing, all of a sudden it started to become reality.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: And even if it wasn't the apartment complex, it became you know storage facility.
• 10:47
  Mike Swenson: I think that's an important part for people to hear, you know, as as we keep our podcasts open-ended and talking about things, and and for people listening that might say, Hey, I want to get into real estate, I don't know what I want to do, or I don't know what I should do.
• 11:00
  Mike Swenson: It it's kind of like you, right?
• 11:02
  Mike Swenson: You start with having some conversations, talking with some people, you start to get a little bit of clarity.
• 11:07
  Mike Swenson: And I I do think part of it is you kind of see what doors open as you go, and realizing you may have had a great beginning relationship, or you maybe did one deal with Dan and then realized, hey, I hate that, I want to go do something else, right?
• 11:22
  Mike Swenson: But I think sometimes I think sometimes people feel like I have to have the perfect path from now over the next 30 years figured out before I take step one.
• 11:33
  Mike Swenson: And for you, your relationship with Dan happened to work out into something great and it's continuing, but it's okay to go take a step, get some experience in something, and realize I don't like it, I'm gonna go move and try something else too.
• 11:46
  Mike Swenson: And and so I think that's for people, you know, it's helpful to understand like, yeah, step one doesn't have to equal step 50, but I can't get to step 50 unless I take step one.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: And your point is perfect.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, Dan and I's relationship has become incredibly profitable for both of us.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know, our company did over$60,000 last month in origination fees.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I I never would have imagined I was would be doing that at 25.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: And we're just getting started.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: That's the amazing thing.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, we've paid out over$180,000 to our investors in interest.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we're coming up on two years old, and we started raising capital in January of last year.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: And we've already paid out over$180,000 to our investors.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's crazy.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I just I never would have envisioned that.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: I I didn't go into in the beginning, like, oh, I'm gonna be uh a private lender and I'm gonna grow a large fund.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: I that wasn't in the cards, but through building the relationships, and you mentioned I I don't like the storage.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm doing it like I'm about to offload the management, and you know, rates have gone up, uh more storage has been built.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like that thing basically breaks even now, even though we bought it at what in 2021 was a good deal.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: Now it's not a good deal, so it's like uh that project was I've poured over two years of time into it, and I don't even like it's gonna take many more years for us to get a return on that for inflation to to chip away at that that balance that we have on that property, seller finance.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um but it led me to my business partnership, which has been incredible, and we have huge vision, huge goal.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: Me and Dan just talked for two hours today on some things we're working on, some some exciting things that we're bringing to our company.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: And it is unbelievable what can come out of putting yourself out there and just having a big dream and a big goal.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: You never know where it's gonna lead you to.
• 13:43
  Mike Swenson: And I think too, understanding for people that, yeah, if a deal doesn't work out, it's a it's a learning expense and an education expense.
• 13:51
  Mike Swenson: Because I could go get an MBA, I could go get a doctorate, whatever that might be, and spend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in real estate.
• 13:58
  Mike Swenson: Yeah, you're gonna go through some hiccups and some things that you're not necessarily paying for it like you would in school, but you are paying for it in missed opportunities, bad returns, but it's gonna make you sharper and better for the next thing to come along so that you can recognize a better opportunity or see a landmine that you hadn't seen before that now you know because of your past experience.
• 14:20
  Mike Swenson: And so it is making you sharper and better, even though you might be losing money or not making what you thought on those types of deals.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: 100%.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: I I always say uh every time you lose money, you you got a learning opportunity.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I don't get upset when I lose money.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I've lost lots of money, uh, and and that's just a transparent thing.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: If anyone ever tells you they haven't lost money, they haven't been doing it long enough.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, I've um I've never uh I I haven't lost uh I haven't been negative on a flip, but I've lost money.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I say that because I had a flip where a contractor stole$15,000 from me.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: I still made$30,000 in profit, but if I was diligent, I would have made$45,000.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: So I look at it as I lost$15, you know?
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I learned a lot out of that though.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: Like I learned that I don't really want to want to flip houses myself anymore.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: I want to fund the flip and and help people who really are passionate about this and have their own crews and and have done this and are experienced it.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: I want to help them get funded on their flip.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to be the don't want to be the person swinging the hammer.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: So uh every single loss is a lesson, and it's kind of a cliche song, I think that there's a song about that, but it's so true.
• 15:32
  Mike Swenson: So talk us through you've got Dan the hard money man, and you've got Hayden, who now just is fresh off of buying this storage facility, you're doing it together.
• 15:42
  Mike Swenson: How does that go from there into okay, now you're forming this this fund together, um, and you you've got a legitimate business going uh on the lending side?
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's a great question, Mike.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: So um Dan and I were at lunch one day, and uh he was, as I mentioned, he was working with a large fund out of Texas, and uh they they took on a lot of Wall Street Capital.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: So when you take on Wall Street Capital, it's a hard money lending company, there's boxes around everything.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: And and you can only fund a deal if it fits in the box.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: If it's at all, even an inch outside of the box, it's not fundable.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: And that was happening uh to Dan, and over 30% of his income went away in a very short period of time.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and and that is uh that's a hit, you know, when you're used to making 30% more and then your income's going away because and you're having to tell your clients, oh, I I'm sorry, I know this deal makes sense.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: I've been doing this, he's been doing it for 11 years now.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: I've been doing this for 10, 11 years.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: I know this deal should work, but my company is saying no.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a tough pill to swallow.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so we were at lunch talking about that.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, I want to start my own fund.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm tired of this.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: I I want to be in control of the deals, I know what I'm doing at this point.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I was like, Well, why don't we start it together?
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: And um I made a whole pitch about the value that I could bring him in this new company.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it was was there from the very beginning.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and we formed, we it took about six months for us to, once we had our business license to get our fund set up, going back and forth with an attorney.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, it was a pretty substantial investment there to get your funds set up financially to be able to legally raise capital.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and yeah, six months later, we were off to the races to raise capital.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: And um we we were stuck at about$800,000 in fund size for a while.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: And as a fund that's not very big, you know, that's we could do like three or four loans with that.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: And um we just kept our heads down.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: I I basically tried I kept Dan in it for a long time, kept him from quitting because he was so tempted to go back to what he was doing.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because we're making, you're making, you're not making a lot of money when you're you're deploying$800,000, you know, as we especially was used to making a lot more.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: And um we stayed in it and we uh we we landed several more investors and and are now uh approaching close to five million in our fund.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: And um we pivoted to do also a direct lending model for when our fund is fully deployed.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: We have a whole marketplace uh of investors that we can list our loans that are available.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: Someone can directly fund that loan and they get the the lion's share of the interest, and we service that loan for them so they don't have to think about it, and you get a monthly check every single month, and then you're in the first position on that property.
• 18:34
  Mike Swenson: Yeah, that's awesome.
• 18:35
  Mike Swenson: Talk about being because you're what 25 years old now, right?
• 18:39
  Mike Swenson: Yes, um 25, 26 October, raising capital in you know huge chunks.
• 18:45
  Mike Swenson: How is that process go for somebody yourself in your shoes?
• 18:49
  Mike Swenson: You're you're still building your experience, and obviously you've been very successful at that, positioning yourself to earn the trust of people for them to give you their money.
• 18:57
  Mike Swenson: That's a big deal.
• 18:58
  Mike Swenson: Obviously, I'm sure Dan plays a good portion in it in his experience and what he's accomplished, but um, you're still doing a ton of work trying to raise that raise that money.
• 19:06
  Mike Swenson: So talk about that being somebody who's younger, less experienced, and yet producing awesome results.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so so the you mentioned the the T-word in there.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: There's three reasons why someone will invest with you.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's no like and trust.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: If they know you, they like you, they trust you.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: And and if anyone's been listening to this podcast for a while, I'm sure it's been said over and over.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so I I started several events uh in Chattanooga to grow in my trust uh of people.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: And um, now my my focus, uh, if you've ever read The Science of Scaling by Ben Hardy, this is a book that I just recently read, and it really made me think about how I'm doing everything and how I'm going about my capital raise.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: Everything that I'm focused on right now is one-to-many.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: So instead of doing one-to-one exactly like we're doing right now, this is a one-to-many conversation.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: So we get to have an awesome conversation, and then people can listen into it and and learn and gain from it.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so um doing a hosting real estate meetups, I have a real estate meetup in Chattanooga now in Nashville as well.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then uh I started an entrepreneur uh business ownership uh dinner that I started hosting.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so all of these things really helped me become a um uh uh involved person in my community and meet probably at this point, uh maybe like 500, well, really this more than that.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: We've over 800 in unique individuals that have attended my meetup.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and and so over a thousand people that I've gotten to host in events, and it's been really successful in um helping my reputation around town and and just in all of those events, I try my best to provide as much value as possible.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, I don't make a boatload of money in those.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's all about how do I provide value to people so that they want to do business with me.
• 20:58
  Mike Swenson: When you're doing those networking events, how much of it is just coordinating the space and the place and that, how much of it is maybe trying to like jumpstart conversations or you had mentioned add value.
• 21:09
  Mike Swenson: Is it just, hey, I know if I get these people in a room together, the value is gonna come, or how much of it is you driving it through guest speakers and you know that sort of thing to try to pull people in from starting from scratch to where you're at today.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: To me, it's a whole journey.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's not just about, oh, hey, we're gonna go to the bar and um talk with each other and there'll be 10 real estate investors there.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's how I came up.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, that's how I started.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: But what I found was more effective was uh I have three core pillars connection, education, and experience.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so in all of my events, I'm focused on how do I create amazing next level connections, uh, bringing in really qualified speakers to educate people uh and providing an experience that that others just don't.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm very careful with the venues that I choose.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: I always choose top tier venues.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: I spent, I think I spent over 40,000.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Last year on venues.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so I always am trying to to just take uh the to to the next level.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: I grew up working at Chick-fil-A, and and the the big saying at Chick-fil-A was go the second mile, which is a biblical reference, which I also love the fact that it's a biblical reference.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: But how do I go the second mile?
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know, in in Roman times, if a soldier asked you to carry his pack uh and he's on a mule, you would carry his pack a mile by law.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: And uh the Bible talks about the man who went the second mile, that he didn't have to go and stay with that soldier, but he walked another mile holding his pack.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what I aim to do in all of my events and really all my businesses.
• 22:41
  Mike Swenson: Are you looking to get started or scale in real estate investing but don't know your next step?
• 22:46
  Mike Swenson: Are you overwhelmed thinking about finding deals, analyzing deals, doing due diligence, and managing properties on top of it?
• 22:52
  Mike Swenson: Go ahead and push the easy button and invest with us.
• 22:56
  Mike Swenson: Real estate investing is what we do full time.
• 22:58
  Mike Swenson: We've done dozens of deals with hundreds of doors.
• 23:00
  Mike Swenson: We have the knowledge and experience to hand pick the best deals that most investors can't find.
• 23:05
  Mike Swenson: We've at large off-market deals all the time where you can hopefully find returns and economies of scale that you just can't find on your own.
• 23:12
  Mike Swenson: The best thing is it's 100% passive to you for less capital than you put down trying to acquire a property on your own.
• 23:18
  Mike Swenson: Don't let this year go by where you don't make the leap, add to your portfolio, or you just sit in analysis by paralysis.
• 23:26
  Mike Swenson: To find out more, visit freedom throughrealestate.com and click on invest.
• 23:30
  Mike Swenson: You can book a call and learn more there.
• 23:32
  Mike Swenson: So get to scaling your portfolio now with us by your side.
• 23:36
  Mike Swenson: That's freedomthroughrealestate.com and click on invest.
• 23:40
  Mike Swenson: Acadia Capital, we talked about kind of starting that.
• 23:42
  Mike Swenson: Talk about what the fund is, kind of the details of it, what you're focusing on, um, and how investors benefit being a part of it.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so we are a 506C uh fund.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: So just like any uh real estate syndication would be, but we're actually open-ended.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: So um there's no expiration point of the fund.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: And uh so we raise capital from investors uh and we pay them out a preferred return for them to uh invest with us.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: And then we go and lend that capital out to clients who are going to borrow the money to do fix and flip properties.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um we focus in Tennessee and North Georgia primarily.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: And um, yeah, so we lend out the money at 12 to 13 percent, gives us a great spread to be able to give our investors um, you know, double digit returns without having to lift a finger.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: And um we're able to do that by um we we give almost all we give all the interest to our fund and we make our money on origination fees.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: So um we we give everything to the fund, we don't take any interest payments, uh, and it's worked out really well so far.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: Our investors have been really happy.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um and the beautiful part about all of it, my favorite part about all of it, is the fund holds the first position lien on every property that we lend on.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: We don't do anything other than first position, where just like the bank, if you stop paying, they're gonna come and take your house, right?
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: We have the same luxury.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: So if someone stops paying us, um, we have an asset that's at least got 30% of equity in it.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: Usually it's 40 to 50 percent equity in the loans that we do.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and unlike banks, we're not afraid of real estate.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: Dan's flipped over 250 units, and we're not afraid if uh we ended up in the unfortunate case of having to take back a property, which um have never had to do that, thank the Lord.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: But uh, if we did have to do it, we're not scared, you know, because it's I know how to I know how to get my hands dirty if I need to.
• 25:37
  Mike Swenson: So walk through kind of that process of of vetting people out, making sure because obviously, yeah, if if something goes wrong that's gonna eat into your profit, you know, for somebody kind of listening that's not super familiar, okay.
• 25:49
  Mike Swenson: If I'm lending out my money at 12 to 13 percent and I'm paying my investors bet at back at 10%, that makes sense.
• 25:55
  Mike Swenson: But kind of walk through that process of finding the right deals and making sure you're being a good steward of that money for your investors.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: So it's that's that's our number one focus is uh I gotta be able to sleep at night.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: I need to make sure that my investors' capital is safe because people are trusting me, right?
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so um we have uh uh we have a very unique software stack uh that gives us the ability to be able to streamline everything that we're doing and have it all live in one place.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um so we use a software stack called Lender and and it's it's built out so everything lives in one place.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so it has um tools built into it that utilizes AI to underwrite every single document.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: It'll look over everything, it'll double check everything for us.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: We're checking everything with our eyes.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: Then we use the the um AI eyes to have a double check on everything.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then we also use uh one of the largest hard money private money lending uh real estate attorney practices called Jurasi.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: And uh they make our doc sets, it's a 107-page doc set for a loan that basically covers anything you could ever imagine and more.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um and and then the beautiful part about if we did have a default, right, where someone's we have to take back a property.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um we can we have a a strategy we can use called a deed in lieu.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and private lending is just one of the most amazing businesses I've ever encountered.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: It gets me really excited.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but basically what that means is I can I can give the the borrower document and say, hey, we'll forgive your debt if you assign us the deed of the property.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um and like like I mentioned, we're we're at 70% loan to value max on these properties.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: So we can go and inspect the property and say, hey, this has been done, the house is worth this, our loan on it is 40% less than what it's worth.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: They can sign the deed and loo.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: We don't have to do it go through a foreclosure.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: We take possession of the house, the fund takes possession of the house.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um and then we could either go and dispo that to another person that's a trusted borrower of ours.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: So we can bring them the deal and say, hey, this is what uh a real estate owned and REO that we have in our books, and then we could go and do the loan again uh and and get it loaned back out with a good borrower, or we can just listen on the market, you know, and and sell the property that way.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's kind of crazy.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: On a default, uh, there's potential for you to actually make money rather than lose money.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's not not always gonna be the case.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: You might break even or you might might lose five, ten thousand dollars, uh, you know, if things really go bad.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but on a on a four million dollar fund, if we lost ten thousand dollars, it's uh you know, even at four million, it's it's a small rounding error uh in the long run.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: And and we have a hundred percent deployment right now, earning twelve to thirteen percent for the fund.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: So uh it's it's uh counterbalance as well with that.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: So we try our best to lower the risk as much as possible for our investors uh because sleep, sleep, uh, you know, when you hit your uh uh Bill Allen calls it pillow time.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: I I love my pillow time.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: Whenever I hit the pillow, I want to be able to go to sleep and not not be stressing about am I doing something wrong here?
• 29:11
  Mike Swenson: Now you mentioned about uh continuing to grow your fund um bigger and bigger.
• 29:14
  Mike Swenson: I think you'd mentioned 30 million.
• 29:16
  Mike Swenson: So what does 30 million look like?
• 29:18
  Mike Swenson: Is it within the same territory?
• 29:20
  Mike Swenson: Are you looking to expand to other areas?
• 29:22
  Mike Swenson: How is that gonna work to hit that goal?
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: So uh Dan, as I mentioned, been in this for for over 10 years when when you started Acadia with me.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so we have an immense uh pipeline of investors that that we can fund.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: Our terms are actually very competitive uh in our markets that we're in.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: And our experience allows us to be able to move quicker than most other lenders because I can look at a deal right away and say, this is not gonna work, or this is probably gonna work.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so borrow our our clients love us.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we we have earned a great reputation already.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so as soon as we get capital, uh we we had a three million dollar capital injection within a month, and we had it deployed within a month.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um and all our portfolio loan to value is 51%.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: So all in like super low loan to value.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so right now we have the pipeline to be able to deploy all of that capital in our markets that we're already in.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: So we lend, uh if you look at the map, we lend in like Nashville, anywhere up to like Knoxville, Severeville area.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: So we we cover the the southeastern part, middle and south southeastern part of the state.
• 30:37
  Mike Swenson: Awesome.
• 30:37
  Mike Swenson: Well, excited to hear what you've done.
• 30:39
  Mike Swenson: You know, cool that you you know came from a kid recently out of high school and all of a sudden into real estate and and you know, the level of depth that you have, it's it's cool to see.
• 30:47
  Mike Swenson: So excited to see where you guys continue to go.
• 30:50
  Mike Swenson: If people want to reach out to you, learn from you, how can they do that?
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the best way to reach out to me is uh on Instagram.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: So at Hayden, H A Y D Y N N Connects, C-O-N-N-E-C-T-S.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um give me a follow there and shoot me a DM.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love to chat with you on that platform.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then uh if you have any questions about Acadia or you have a load you want us to look at, or uh you just want to learn about private lending, we're gonna be starting up some education webinars to be just to teach people how to do this um to learn about our industry.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: We're we're really excited about the industry.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um so you can email me at Hayden H A Y D Y N N at Acadia Loans.com.
• 31:27
  Mike Swenson: Thank you so much, Hayden, for coming on and sharing.
• 31:29
  Mike Swenson: Excited to see what you've done and excited to see we're gonna continue to go.
• 31:32
  Mike Swenson: Mike, thanks so much for having me on the show, and I'm excited to see the same for you, brother.