Capital raising is one of the most sustainable and powerful way in which our guests, Mike and Kristy Desrosiers are building wealth for them and the people around then. Despite having other businesses and corporate job to boot, they are crushing it in this space and making incredible moves in their local market by working with successful operators. On the show, we cover:
• Getting started in multifamily real estate
• Why it working with their spouses in active ventures are important
• Working together with your spouse and getting them on-board with vision
• Tools you use each day to make sure everything gets done
• Skills to transfer over from other business and W-2's
• Running with several partnerships and staying organized
Mike & Kristy have properties located in 4 states and with over $60 Million in asset under management. Both have been successful at capital raising and have extensive experience in multifamily syndication, asset management and acquisitions. Eight of the properties were acquired in the past 18 months during CoVid and while Mike was still running another business and Kristy with her W-2 job.
Learn more about Mike, Kristy and their business by visiting their website at growcaptoday.com and Kristy's book My Secret Blueprint. You can also connect with them on LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook.
If you enjoyed this content and are looking for more, you can continue to learn more about us in several different places for free!
If you'd like to have a FREE copy of our 7 Ways Commercial Real Estate Syndications Protect and Build Wealth, simply click the link below. We are here and vested in your long-term success! elevateequity.org/7waysEbook
Unlock 3+1 degrees of freedom (time, location, financial + health) with our 5-Point Blueprint! https://elevateequity.org/podcastgift
If you really enjoyed this content and are looking for more, you can continue to learn more about us in several different places for free!
If you'd like to have a FREE copy of our 7 Ways Commercial Real Estate Syndications Protect and Build Wealth, simply click the link below. We are here and vested in your long-term success! elevateequity.org/7waysEbook
Capital raising is one of the most sustainable and powerful way in which our guests, Mike and Kristy Desrosiers are building wealth for them and the people around then. Despite having other businesses and corporate job to boot, they are crushing it in this space and making incredible moves in their local market by working with successful operators. On the show, we cover:
• Getting started in multifamily real estate
• Why it working with their spouses in active ventures are important
• Working together with your spouse and getting them on-board with vision
• Tools you use each day to make sure everything gets done
• Skills to transfer over from other business and W-2's
• Running with several partnerships and staying organized
Mike & Kristy have properties located in 4 states and with over $60 Million in asset under management. Both have been successful at capital raising and have extensive experience in multifamily syndication, asset management and acquisitions. Eight of the properties were acquired in the past 18 months during CoVid and while Mike was still running another business and Kristy with her W-2 job.
Learn more about Mike, Kristy and their business by visiting their website at growcaptoday.com and Kristy's book My Secret Blueprint. You can also connect with them on LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook.
If you enjoyed this content and are looking for more, you can continue to learn more about us in several different places for free!
If you'd like to have a FREE copy of our 7 Ways Commercial Real Estate Syndications Protect and Build Wealth, simply click the link below. We are here and vested in your long-term success! elevateequity.org/7waysEbook
Unlock 3+1 degrees of freedom (time, location, financial + health) with our 5-Point Blueprint! https://elevateequity.org/podcastgift
If you really enjoyed this content and are looking for more, you can continue to learn more about us in several different places for free!
If you'd like to have a FREE copy of our 7 Ways Commercial Real Estate Syndications Protect and Build Wealth, simply click the link below. We are here and vested in your long-term success! elevateequity.org/7waysEbook
Hello, everyone and welcome to the Elevate your equity podcast where we as passive income investors with a special emphasis on married professional couples, deconstruct first class investors and entrepreneurs to achieve repeatable, long lasting and practical change toward a life of location, time and financial freedom. And today we've got a power couple, an absolute power couple on the call today. We have Mike and Christy de Rozier. How are you guys doing today? Great. Thank
Mike Desrosiers:you. Good. Thank you. We're happy to be here.
Derek Clifford:Yes. It's a pleasure to have you on and thank you for joining us today. So we'll go ahead and start like we always do with most of our guests and ask you guys how did you guys get involved in real estate investing? How'd you get fall down this this black hole that is investing in real estate? Yeah.
Mike Desrosiers:It is truly like a big vacuum. When you start getting started at it. Yeah, we so we've been involved in single family for quite some time. You know, I've been doing it all my life, had single family rentals and doing some single family flips. We got involved with some of the education that works particularly with our mentors. So we came through and several years back and just you know came to that you know that one free seminar right and then you start but it was just a natural draw for us as but it was like that vacuum just kind of sucking you in because, you know, we knew the power of single family and the power of rentals and you know, especially real estate being in California, we've seen, you know, incredible equity built from real estate over the years and to start hearing about the multifamily and getting into these large buildings like 100 units, which seems so impossible back then. But you know, there's a way to do that. And it just wasn't an immediate magnet for us. And so we immediately, you know, signed up for the next course and then kind of continued through that education and spent a good year just going through all the education, educating ourselves and being involved and, you know, as much as we could. Christy and I both did it together.
Derek Clifford:That's incredible. So did you guys have any natural affinity to this? Did you have any rental properties in the past or was this something that you just kind of fell into like searching for passive income and in getting coached up?
Mike Desrosiers:We yes, we've got yes, we've had multiple rentals, still do, you know, have rentals in California that we've managed, you know, over the time, and I've had that for quite some time. And when we first got into multifamily I actually ended up buying we bought a property down in Las Vegas. And I just you know at the very beginning kind of trying to learn because the whole concept of owning out of state was a little foreign to and you know, you try to figure it scratch your head on that like, Okay, I'm gonna buy this apartment building out of state and I'm gonna run it you know, from not even being there and it just doesn't sound right right. So I bought a small a small apartment building there in Vegas and actually self managed it just to kind of jump in and feel the pain so to speak, you know, right right away and see how how many problems is really going to be but if you're not really very well, that's good.
Derek Clifford:Yeah. Yeah, you know, I actually think that's a really important thing right there that I want to touch on is I love the attitude of you're like, Okay, I'm we're gonna give this a shot. And I know this is maybe painful, because I don't know what I don't know. Could you speak about that a little bit. You know, you have so many things going on, but I just love that attitude. And I want to explore that a little bit more.
Mike Desrosiers:Yeah, well, the attitude comes from you know, the old Howard Hughes story, you know, who who, you know, one of the wealthiest men in the world back in the day and and wanted to buy an airlines right and he took a job as a as a baggage checker at the airline loading bags into the airplane, because he wanted to feel the pain and see all the problems that were going on with the airlines before he went out and bought this, you know, billion dollar purchase or whatever it costs back then. And it was kind of the same thing. It's like a one before I really got into these large apartment buildings out of state. You know, I wanted to feel like I really wanted to see what the problems were going to be. And I know I wasn't planning on itself managing any of them but by jumping in and doing some self management, I'm going to feel even more pain right? And I'm going to get all that those you know, late night calls of a clogged toilet in the frigerator this broken and all this things which has not really happened too much. But you know a little bit yeah, but on a small building is manageable and on a large amount. It's obviously not but I wanted to see what that was all about. And just makes me feel a lot more confident going into a larger
Derek Clifford:property. Right, of course, especially when you're looking to take or accept investor funds, right? It gives you the extra confidence that you know exactly what's happening in these properties. And you understand the nuances of the property manager is going through and down at the asset management level, you understand it really well. So I think that's that's a very important thing. So I want to I want to pivot just a little bit real quick. And I wanted to ask you about YouTube working together in real estate. Did this happen organically? Or did you did you both have the idea to get involved in real estate or did you take the idea to your wife or maybe did Christy come to you? Let's talk about that a little bit on because I think we may have glossed over that a bit.
Mike Desrosiers:Well, I can start by you don't. I mean, honestly, Christie was the inspiration to make it happen. I mean, yeah, right. You know, right. You
Derek Clifford:look Oh, yeah. It's like my wife is a visionary. So
Mike Desrosiers:yeah, it was Chris and he got me down to that first class. You know, I'm kind of like him on about it. I don't know I don't know those things right. Because you know, I'm I'm a tough sell. I'm, I'm the guy that sits in the back row the timeshare presentation was arms crossed taken the entire time. There's nobody selling me it's not going to happen. And Christie's you know, a lot more like, you know, maybe we learned something. Let's go check this out. And we did and then even even going the next level it took some convincing for me, I didn't buy in that way because I am that guy with the arms crossed, you know, behind in the back of the room, but it was it certainly piqued a lot of interest. And you know, so yeah, and with conversation to Christie to help, you know, push me and you know, give me the confidence to, you know, or us to pursue it further. And continued and yeah, she's blocked me off the ledge several times. So.
Kristy Desrosiers:Yeah, and the power of Facebook. It was a Facebook ad that he saw initially and just you know, he has Mike is Mike is the visionary. He's an idea guy. When I first met him, I said, Man, you should sit in a room with no windows and a door and just have people come in constantly and you can just shoot him your ideas because he's all he's he actually has really great at, actually he has great ideas all the time. He's a visionary, he can see things and he's always on top of technology also. So he can fix anything in our house. He can do electrical he can. He's replaced the windows, the flooring. He's done so much. So to me, this was a no brainer. You know, segwaying into multifamily would just be so much easier. He's not physically doing the work, but he knows about the beginner. He has the background information and the knowledge. So to me, it was a no brainer for him to do that.
Sophie:And making Christie so prior to the spark and prior to you Christie, you kind of say hey, let's check this you know, seminar out uh, what were you guys ski share what you guys were doing? And also, can you share what transferable skills that you brought from the things that you were doing before into real estate investing and how you've been able to leverage each other's strengths.
Kristy Desrosiers:I'm still working a W two so I unfortunately don't do real estate full time that's in our future goals for sure. I've always been handy. I like doing things around the house and outside so if nothing really scares me, so I really enjoy learning all the time. I like to do some woodworking. So that is stuff that I like to do and Mike has done a lot more than I have just coming into this together. It was to me pretty natural, because I felt like we could do this really well together. And I think you know, when you have a spouse that doesn't like whatever the other spouse wants to do, it's really difficult for that person to Excel. So we're both a very good support system for each other.
Mike Desrosiers:Yeah, we've, we've been we're both on that same page and Christy has probably 1000 hours or more in HDTV fixin flip, you know, Joanna Gaines and we're in contract at a property in Waco and she's so excited to go or we purchased property. So excited to go there. But we are going there next month, but you know the the interest is there, right? She just loves watching that and the building process and all of that how that's all done. And I also need to Christie comes kind of more of the executive admin side of the world, right? That's kind of been her W two and so she has that kind of analytical side of getting things done and creating lists and systems and you know, and all of that. So that's been very helpful. She's currently you know, working on one of our properties right now and building some spreadsheets together to track all the, you know, the financial data from our original business plan to where it's actually happening now, as well as Justin rents and you know, making sure our rent comps are all on top of just kind of been working on that last few days Christy has and for me, I've been an entrepreneur all my life, multiple different businesses I've had an advertising marketing company for you know, 35 plus years for a long time as well as other businesses as well. But that comes from you know, the the marketing and advertising and some big part of it does transfer into multifamily because it's where where my strengths have come has been kind of more on the investor relations side and the capital raising side. And that kind of comes from that marketing, you know, side of things right? So, I feel very comfortable talking with people of all financial levels. And you know, I look at my conversations, I can look at it as an investor because I've also been an investor all my life and so, you know, the, it's very important to, you know, the way you talk to your investors to make them feel comfortable with you know, the way you approach you know, that you're always looking out for the investor money benefit and, and so forth.
Derek Clifford:Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more there and I think that that's very well said and I can see both sides of the equation here too, and I can see how, you know, it seems like Christy is more on the, on the the, I guess the the organization or the numbers and kind of like the back end and then Mike you're more front facing, wanting to work with the people and doing the marketing and, and building relationships, right. And what I wanted to talk about is how you guys fell into those roles. Because, you know, again, I think we glossed over it and maybe it's something that just did it get glossed over because you guys knew each other so well. But how did you guys like know that those were your roles that you needed to do? Because you know, usually when you start a real estate venture or when you start something up on the side, it's usually one person that's involved in taking over everything and doing everything at at one time. And then there's a moment in time in which you realize that you can't handle it all. Or you shouldn't be doing it. All right. And so can you talk a little bit about maybe, was there that transition in place? Or, you know, maybe talk a little bit about how you guys are able to break up your duties among each other Sure,
Kristy Desrosiers:he's still doing pretty much everything okay.
Mike Desrosiers:Okay. I'm not do everything guy but that's a little bit of control side of me. I just like it man. I want to feel that pain and I just you know, like after I figured out then I can think about divvying out duties. But I also being you know, self employed in a company for so long. I do have more time. And COVID kind of hit my company a little bit more. It's still in business but it is running kind of on autopilot. Am I am focused on real estate probably 95% But I have the time to be able to do that work. Christy is on a W two and does not have that flexibility. So she has to kind of dodge her day job a bit and I hope her boss isn't watching this in order to make things work.
Kristy Desrosiers:Yeah, my lunch hour slot works.
Mike Desrosiers:Yeah. Perfect, perfect time but we are we are figuring it out. Still. I mean, honestly, there's been a you know, there are a lot of moving parts in this multifamily as we know. Mm hmm. And you know, Christy Kai's, you know, tries to kind of jump in where she feels she can and wants to and and that's been very helpful. And, you know, also we partner up with some good, efficient, very efficient partners that have a lot of experience in different areas as well too. So that makes it much easier.
Derek Clifford:That's excellent.
Sophie:I love this. Yeah. And can you guys share a tough moment that you went through that you overcame, that you're proud of, to share with our listeners so that they can you know, learn from from nice power couple like you guys.
Kristy Desrosiers:Oh, I have one. Okay. So probably two or three months ago, Mike worked seven days a week. He is in his office seven days a week, he is making sure that the investors are getting the returns that they need and making sure that things are the i's are dotted the T's are crossed. And at one point he just said gosh, I I just I just don't know if all this is worth it. And I that's when something inside of me just said you know what, whenever somebody gets to this point, there is some really good stuff coming around the corner. And I just, I just just said you have to stay with it. Please don't get discouraged. I you know, we start taking our dogs for walks every afternoon. Now I make sure I get him out. At the end of my workday. We take the dogs for a walk, just to get him out. But I right after that. I noticed things starting getting starting to get better. But it was really tough because he puts in so much time and there is light at the end of the tunnel, but it's just you know, you have to have a partnership you have to have somebody to be there for you and say it's gonna work out you just have to stick in a little little bit longer.
Sophie:Oh, that's awesome. Chrissy Yes, thank you for sharing and Mike what was going on on your end? When you're in the office seven days a week and
Mike Desrosiers:what's keeping me in the office so long?
Sophie:Well, during that time that that Christy was sharing that sort of got you to the horse?
Mike Desrosiers:Yes, it's been it's been quite a ride and it's been it's been very good. I I'm not sure if we actually got the introduction at the beginning of this but we are at about 1000 units at this point as a general partner, and most of that has come over the last 15 months. You know, we've closed just in the last 12 months, probably you know six properties which is once every two months. That's kind of you know, incredible even say that it's it's kind of even hard to believe but yeah, that's been the that's been the good and the bad, right? It's really good. But you know, that's what causes so much work and you can't just let that happen without putting in the time and the effort. And there's been some you know, losses and we've some properties we didn't get or spent a lot of time all the way to the end and then pulled out and it's happened It Happened One particularly we've had properties where you know the negotiations been gotten really tough in the contract and we thought we were gonna lose it but don't say came through last minute or, or you know different things we you know, these days we we closed on a property in Fort Worth, Texas that you know, they wanted $100,000 hard down, they won, right. And, you know, we just work. It's a hard thing to do, right but and then there was time where we thought we're going to be walking away from it and losing that but we didn't. So just some definitely some challenges.
Derek Clifford:Yeah, I can I can feel that I understand the ups and downs that come with all of these things because it's like, you know, there's so many variables and even the whole economic situation right now is changing a lot as well. So that's something we have to also keep up with and keep in mind, especially when we have a fiduciary responsibility to our investors, right and to the people that are partnered with us. So I think that that's, that's really good and, and it makes me feel really good if I was investing with you that you're spending this much time thinking about all this and stressing out. So, you know, on behalf of your investors, which I don't know I just want to thank you but this is no people like you who've put the time in to do the due diligence and look at everything is what makes the world a better place. Because when you're efficiently allocating capital that's what elevates the energy of the entire world and so you know, we're doing all of our small part to to make that happen. So thank you. So now you know as as you mentioned to we did not read the intro and I didn't mean to do that but you guys have for you have $60 million dollars in assets across four states. And you've grown exponentially in the last 18 months, specifically through COVID. But what I want to touch on is because of this insane growth that you're going through, do you guys have any tools that you use to keep yourself on track with all of this? Like, is there anything that shows up in your routine maybe or any electronic tools that you use? Just trying to put it out there for someone who maybe wants to walk in your footsteps?
Mike Desrosiers:Yeah, for sure. Yeah, the systems in place was a struggle. I mean, when you're growing that fast, you know having to come up with all of these things because you know, you can your, your desktop can only handle so many sticky notes. Right? So when you get to about 1000 here and the screen is that big. No, yeah, no, that's that's not the way to run it. But I know we've so we use Active Campaign for all of our investors and communication with emails and newsletters and, you know, sending out communication on that. That's, that's been worked out pretty well. Google Docs of course, is just I mean, Google Sheets, Google Drive, is is good because we can collaborate with different partners on using different things. We've been using that on the financials, especially recently. And one, you know, one note I use quite a bit for you know, to put all the different projects in different tabs and be able to kind of keep organized with a battery. I'd like that. What else? So
Derek Clifford:Zoom, zoom is is like the the universal value adding piece of software that everyone cannot be without, but what about anything on the time side, like how do you manage your time to the both of you to keep all this going?
Mike Desrosiers:Your minds on mine's on my calendar, I'm using Calendly link obviously for setting appointments and so forth. But it's all posted up on my I use Outlook for all, you know, traditional calendar. And so that's kind of how I scheduler,
Kristy Desrosiers:the calendar link has been very successful for him. That works really well.
Derek Clifford:Yeah, yeah, calendar is good. And when you go about your days, maybe for the both of you is there like a set time in the day where you're focusing on just like asset management or the existing properties that you have. And then there's another part of the day that's focused on investors or, you know, outreach or calls, like basically, you know, do you have a segregation between working on the business and then working in the business? Is that is that there? Or how does that work for you guys?
Mike Desrosiers:Yeah, so well, it works around my own schedule. So another part, you know, I'm very active in the asset management of all of these properties. Right? And so, you know, it's, there's about 10 different properties in total, play seven different syndications, some of the you know, some of the syndications have multiple properties in them. But I get onto the asset management calls. So the property manager calls every week for every one of those properties. That takes up time. So then I'm that and that's not always my, you know, setting up the time, so I have to kind of work around that schedule. And then, of course, the general partner calls that we get on Zoom meetings for the general partners, or that those two items take up a lot of my time. So then I'm having to kind of carve out time in between or before after that, for investor calls. And for you know, I'm looking at new properties all the time, and I'm like, all that.
Derek Clifford:Got it. Very cool. So it sounds like for the most part you guys have repeating meetings that happen over time. But, you know, it's it's basically on an as needed basis, you have Calendly, where your time is bound with people that you talk to, but then, you know, you're filling in the spaces with the time that you have for what you do. Is there is there a way that you prioritize your tasks at all? How do you keep track of what you need to do? Do you use like a software or maybe a, your calendar or do you write stuff down to keep track of everything?
Mike Desrosiers:And the one note, which is a Microsoft, you know, part of Microsoft is, you know, I tend to use that but monday.com is another one that I'm starting to use are one of my other partners that has that is a very, you know, it's very robust for that type of thing keeps you on track of where you're at as far as accomplishing, you know, your needs.
Derek Clifford:Good. Okay, cool.
Sophie:I have one more question. So in addition to your walks, what are some other things that you guys have adopted to help balance relationship and work life?
Kristy Desrosiers:Oh, we try to go to the movies and we can we have a movie theater that has really nice lounge chairs, and you could bring food in and sometimes I brought a blanket and I just, you know, that's just like a nice little escape to go to. We have some we have a Harley and a BMW to go motorcycle rides. Just different things to get out. With nature for not with the dogs.
Derek Clifford:Very cool. All right. So right now you guys have mean Mike, you have a business, Christie, you're working a W two. Can you guys talk about the skills that you bring over from each of those to help you in your real estate venture?
Kristy Desrosiers:With my with my position? I help or put on events for our department. We have a small business unit that I work with, and I'm always putting on events so the organization skills really helped a lot. I I've worked a lot with Microsoft suite. So I have a lot of skills, you know, with Microsoft Office, and so I'm able to bring that over to the asset management side, the underwriting side. If I could, you know, do the construction, I would do it maybe in another career
Derek Clifford:Yeah. Maybe with a little bit of training. Yeah, maybe a little bit.
Kristy Desrosiers:But um, yeah, and I have a lot of people skills I did. I was in sales for eight years prior to going back into executive admin. So I love people I love talking with people. So down the road, we actually have a networking event that we Mike is like and two other partners have started and it's every month so that is another thing that we work on on Perham once a month.
Derek Clifford:Sorry, awesome. Very cool. And I think that's a natural fit now. What about you Mike?
Mike Desrosiers:Um, yeah, so well I've been an entrepreneur for like quite some time like said it's always been in the marketing advertising world. So you know, that's just about getting it done. And you know, tackling and taking on a task and you know, and making sure it gets done and that's where I probably got into the multifamily. I mean, I knew from day one when, when I started I'm going to finish it and I'm going to, you know, put in everything I've got to make it work and, and real in all every resource that I have in order to you know, to do that. So it's applied pretty well here. I really enjoy it actually. There's there's so many benefits in the multifamily that are really enjoy that I didn't really have and in the advertising world, you know, one is just, you know, the collaboration that goes on, right? You know, you have all these great partners that I'm able to do business with. And I've, you know, growing these terrific relationships have always partners that I like and trust and I, you know, oh, you know, we're all kind of in, in, in partners, these properties, but, you know, you're sharing all these different ideas. You know, you don't do that in the advertising world. You know, you can't call your competitor and say hey, what do you think about this idea, right? I mean, it'll be on the internet before. But in that in the multifamily world, you can say that all day long, right. You can share ideas, you can ask for ideas, you can ask for help. And everybody's able to everybody's kind of wanting to help each other I also love fortunate to be part of this, you know, like this already mentioned network, it's kind of coming through there. So I'm close to that organization. I'm a sponsor for that for their organization and for others. So student new students will come to me and you know, to sponsor a deal. They have this you know, kind of goes up on the Shark Tank is one of the sharks that they're one of their big events, which is kind of fun. But I really what I really love is being able to help others that are getting started in this business as well. And you know, we're all trying to climb up this ladder, right when when one leg at a time but it's nice to be able to have a hand down we're really be willing to grab somebody and bring them up or multiple people. So I've been fortunate to be able to do that with some new students. I take a lot of pride in that. A lot of fun.
Derek Clifford:Yeah, as you should because it's a very inspiring space. Whenever I explain to people about how multifamily real estate works and passive investing works. Among some of the answers I get is, wait, that's legal. That's what I get. And I didn't know you could do that. And this is super cool. Those are all those those types of responses when I get whenever I'm talking to people who are new to the space and I can see why you enjoy doing that, especially people that want to lean into it a little bit more and start potentially raising capital on their own and getting more active on the active side. Yeah. So I love that now. Before we leave this topic and head over to one more before we start to wrap up the show. I want to ask you, you know, if there are people that are looking to do what you guys are doing or to take some of the skills that they have from their full time work and transition it over into what you're doing. Do you have any advice for them on how to start doing that? Or, you know how to start with their what they want to do with what they've got?
Mike Desrosiers:Yeah, I mean, you just have to do it. I mean, it's, it's a hard it's a hard step, but probably just to look at it. Try not to look at it as a big overwhelming you know, giant mountain and just look at it as you know, you could you can focus on one on one on one lane, you know, or one skill that you might have, right if that skill is is raising capital or that skill is underwriting or that skill is asset management or that skill is just bringing together other people right and partners. And wherever you feel like you can really be good at you know, get focus on that, which is really usually what you like to do and what you already feel like you're confident about. And there are so many other people out there that want to partner up with people that have your skill, I don't care what it is right. And you know, they're the under the ones the the ones that are like absolutely loving underwriting, they love those numbers and the Excel spreadsheets and they can stay up all night looking at them. Typically, they're not necessarily the counselor is right and they just, they look at you as like, oh, I need your service. Oh my gosh, that would just be such a relief to have somebody right and the same with the capillaries a person and that's kind of me I'm not really I can underwrite and I can look and I work on Excel all the time that I am far from the guy who wants to sit in front of a spreadsheet until midnight every night, right? I did not want to do that at all. And so I find somebody that can do that really well. And that to me is like what a relief. It's the weight off my shoulders. And so it allows me to focus on what I do best. And then when I and then when I start really getting good at it, I get to even get better at it because now you're focusing even more especially when you're partnering up with people that are handling those other aspects. And so you then you just get you get better and better at in your lane, and you become more valuable. To other partners in groups. And that's what's happened to me. I have several couple different groups of partners that I work with three different ones, and I partner with them on properties and they bring me in just as fast as you know I reach out to them and say what's going on and because they know what I can do and I've proven to them that I can bring value to the team. And I know those those team members and I know what values they can bring. And you know same with crispy right so we have our lane that and that's an easier way to look at it I guess for me because if you look at that whole multifamily, you know, there's so many balls in the air right and elements that are needed and you got to be good at every one of them. Right? You can't be so so something and you know and but the it takes a team, you know takes a village right and so you really depend on your partners a lot to do what they do best, but it takes a lot of relief and pressure off of you.
Derek Clifford:Yeah, I love that answer. I think that what you said is dead on because you have to be good at everything right? If you're going to do this all yourself and that is it's exhausting. It takes too much time and there's quite frankly someone that may be able to do it better than you can or that you can even think to do it right. And so you never know until you build your network and start getting out there. So I think the things that you're doing with the networking group and getting involved with more people, that translates into more reach and when you have more reach it translates to more value and more value translates to more deals and more. More net worth for everyone. So I think that that's a really incredible thing. Yeah. So thank you for that. Now, last question I have and maybe maybe Sophie has another one but last question that I have before we'll head off to the Rapid Round is you guys have you just mentioned it, you have tons of partnerships, right? You're working with a bunch of different individuals on lots of different deals, especially in the last 18 months. Do you have any tips for keeping all of that together or keeping that keeping that whole thing you know organized and in place
Mike Desrosiers:Sorry, I was distracted our dog starting to we knew he was gonna start barking there. Were
Derek Clifford:no worries. The The question was how you deal with all these different partnerships involved with different people? Is there anything you need to do to keep it all straight? Like the relationships or you know how that feeds into what you do on your day to day?
Mike Desrosiers:Yeah, well, I'm very close to all of my partners, right. So I talked to them all the time. Fortunately, it's not it's not but I have a whole bunch. It's not like there. There's, you know, one team of two people that that I'm partners with with, you know, five, five or six properties at this point. So there are some different GPS that are in those properties, but they're kind of the core, you know, operators and then on the others are just some other operators that there's only like two others that but I'm on calls with them all the time. So you know, like, we are always collaborating and different, you know, current deals, future deals, and sometimes just, you know, the asset management of what's going on in the property or just keeping you know, close communication. And again, going back to what I said it's really about those, you know, doing business with people that you like, and you know, I have grown terrific partnerships with these people. And so as Christy she's been
Kristy Desrosiers:on vacation together
Mike Desrosiers:we did a Costa Rica trip this past year with six, six couples that were all you know, yeah, it's kind of a power mastermind is what it ended up to be. But we were invited to come along and with a couple of my partners and you know, big property, one of our property management managers, and you know, everybody in their significant others and it was a lot of fun.
Derek Clifford:How cool is that? I love that. So yeah, and what are your kinds of
Sophie:maybe united vision for three years, five years down the line?
Kristy Desrosiers:Or more properties? Yeah, we just have to work a W two. All Time. That's good.
Mike Desrosiers:That is that yeah, for Christie to get off out of a W two and on this full time. She's, you know, gravitating towards that now and getting better at that are closer to that. And yeah, it's just growing the portfolio and the business as long as everything is you know, continuing on the way it's going. It's it's growing fast doesn't have to grow as fast as it is. And I'm fully prepared for it to slow down.
Derek Clifford:I've gathered that way. That's awesome. So um, again, I said that was gonna be our last question. Maybe so if we had one but I want to ask one more thing too because Chrissy it seems like you recently wrote a book. Can you explain what that's what that's about?
Kristy Desrosiers:Yes. Thank you for saying that. Um, I have a book that I just recently published this past year. It's called My Secret blueprint. And when my I'll be very quick, but when my mom passed two days before my 13th birthday, and when I became an adult, I was pregnant. I had questions about, you know, my pregnancy and I didn't have a mom any longer and I was talking to my grandmother five years down the road. Fast forward five years when my daughter's five I was talking to my grandmother, and she and I had the exact same craving when we were pregnant, um, for our daughters, and I just thought that was so fascinating. And what a great little tidbit of information to know. And so I thought, well, if I have these questions, I'm sure that people do too. So I created a book. And it's a fill in the blanks book, and it's about, it's about you. It's about a person and I've structured it where it's from the beginning of your life until you retire. I even have a COVID chapter in there, like What things have you been doing since COVID? But I try to make each chapter very fun and interactive. So if you fill it out, and then you, your children read it, it is it is like your children or you're talking to your children. And so it's just been a passion of mine my whole life and I took me a year to update it. And I'm very proud of it. And it's been seven copies and I'm very happy about that.
Sophie:I love that I'm going to buy one right after this.
Derek Clifford:Yeah, and and I think, you know, after we hit the stop record button, if you guys can send the link so that I can put it in the show notes that would be great. So listeners can can get that as well. Thank you so
Kristy Desrosiers:much. I'm really very grateful that you brought that up. No problem,
Derek Clifford:no problem. I'm glad that we could do that. So let's go ahead and head into the rapid rounds. The final segment of the show and this is the the part of the show where we ask five people the same questions all everyone gets the same five. So hopefully you're ready for it and they're meant to be answered in about a 32nd response or less if possible. Okay. All right. So the question number one is what book has had the biggest impact on each of you? And why is that and we asked that it not be the Rich Dad Poor Dad or the Bible because
Mike Desrosiers:Yeah. Well, the answer would be Christy's book.
Derek Clifford:Yeah, there you go.
Mike Desrosiers:But yeah, I've been I've raised I mean, I've read a couple of books on the capital raising that I really, really enjoyed a kicking butt. The content has been been very knowledgeable for me, for sure, and I'm always reading something.
Derek Clifford:Okay, well, we'll just put a pause right now. We'll wait until wait till she comes back. Sounds good. No, no. I understand. That's all right. Sometimes these things happen.
Sophie:Yeah, that's, that's why I have an editor.
Mike Desrosiers:Now she's been a little sick. We've done she tests herself for COVID like three times now and it's all come in negative. She seems to have kind of the symptoms there. So
Derek Clifford:Oh, wow. Yeah, I
Sophie:think it's everyone. Yeah,
Mike Desrosiers:it's gone everywhere. I was looking at a graph just earlier today from that shows, like one of these graphs that shows the whole United States and you know, like it shows population growth and everything. And this was COVID growth. And it was a whole scale good. Starting from the beginning of COVID. All the way to now how everything kind of turns red and how much it's filled. And just this last month, it's like, got the whole country.
Derek Clifford:Oh, yeah, it's it's pretty crazy. Yeah, we were actually so I don't know if you noticed, but we're since we're traveling, and we're doing our Airbnb thing. We're actually looking to head to Japan.
Mike Desrosiers:In April, it's all about I'm so excited.
Derek Clifford:Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. And, and I don't know whether or not that border is going to be opened by then because it's April. And right now they've closed the border to foreigners until the end of February. And we're looking at the Omicron cases and they're like up and then starting to come straight back down. So we're hoping that the whole world can like kind of breathe a sigh of relief after Omicron I hope there's no more variants or anything like that, because, yeah, don't need we don't need another wave. That's is crazy. And crazy. Yeah. Oh, sure.
Mike Desrosiers:Hopefully Yeah. How is winter though, you know, after when the winter starts to be gone. It'll it should come way down. I hope
Derek Clifford:no noise no worries. I'm sorry. No, I
Sophie:don't even have to apologize. Are you feeling okay?
Kristy Desrosiers:Yes. Oh, I got a cough drop. I'm so sorry.
Derek Clifford:No, it's okay. We just like I said we just we put we put a cut in there so my editor will know to to pick it up right where we left off.
Sophie:If we need to edit I love like raw organic.
Derek Clifford:That's where some of the best stuff comes. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so
Mike Desrosiers:are Dogon there to us right here now.
Kristy Desrosiers:We see your dog. Oh my gosh, this is Apollo Risa. Adoption. Oh, he likes to watch TV.
Derek Clifford:Not not my face though. Apparently. So watching earlier, no, no, it's cool. So so for you guys. So let's go ahead and pick this up then. So we got Mike's answer for what book is had the biggest impact on you and why unless Mike you want to mention like a specific title of a book and then we can we can pick it up from there.
Mike Desrosiers:Yeah, I was just looking on the hands off investor. There's one that I that I really enjoyed.
Derek Clifford:That's a good one. That's a really good book. And why do you like that one?
Mike Desrosiers:Um, you know, just got me involved in the in, in on the investor side. I mean, again, I like to, I believe that's kind of where I've my, my strength is, is that when I talk to investors or even the other my partners they come from the investor side and I want to make sure everything is you know, you got really good communication with your investors. You're transparent with everything you tell them the good and the bad quickly and, you know, and that's just about building that rapport with them. Absolutely. Just what I would want.
Derek Clifford:Excellent, of course, and Christy, what about you?
Kristy Desrosiers:Ah, um, besides my book, I have not really had that much time for reading. When I'm, that you know, when I want to look up information about real estate, excuse me, I will get on YouTube. So YouTube is a huge source for me. I can look up books on YouTube, I can get the Cliff Notes. headway is a great app that you can get through a book in 15 minutes, cool. Anything that's related to real estate, and that's all I try to just tend to do. So sorry. No, specific book right now
Mike Desrosiers:but she's good at spreadsheets for sure. She's spreadsheets for four hours without
Derek Clifford:eating reading of books with information in Excel or
Mike Desrosiers:PowerPoint. She's created PowerPoints for some of our presentations. The slide decks as well. Very cool.
Derek Clifford:Number two. So yeah, go ahead.
Sophie:If people wanted to emulate your success, what's the first actionable thing that they could do to follow in your footsteps?
Mike Desrosiers:Oh, wow, great question. I mean, it starts with the education. That's one thing about this business. You can't fake it. Right? You can't you know, it's not like you can fake it to make it and you got to dive in and learn and you want to listen dial into podcasts like yours. And any education source that's out there. A lot of it is free between the YouTube videos and you know, the Zoom meetups and things with groups that are in this multifamily space and of course, all the podcasts that just offer a tremendous amount of knowledge and information. If you can just get a little nuggets out of each one, one little nugget out of each one. I mean, it's it adds up quickly and then you you do quickly start to really understand the process, because it's not rocket science, which is funny because at our last meetup, we had our rocket science guy who's a rocket scientist. And I said that to him and you know, we're talking about it's not rocket scientist. He goes, I'm a rocket scientist. It's kind of funny, but it's not you know, it's it's actually very calculated. It's the same it's kind of been the same for you know, 100 years really, I mean, there's different variants, variables now that really changes that but but the basic strategy is the same right and and how you make money on these multifamily properties and how you buy them and how you sell them and how you run them. And, and so yeah, but it's part of the education. Love it. Yeah.
Derek Clifford:Fantastic. All right. So for number three, what is one tool process or hack in the last three months that have helped you save time and or effort? One?
Mike Desrosiers:One, that was Christie suggestions, because that was actually one of the problems because of all these calls that I'm on the management calls. I don't I do have a lot more into these asset management calls with property managers kind of starting out I was really more just in the listening mode, but now I'm kind of more in the really interactive mode and so you know, I'm we're handwriting because, you know, the conversation goes fast. If I'm handwriting all this information, I just got pages of notes every place and so I was looking for something like that. And lynda.com is another source that I'm gravitating to, which is the next step from OneNote. But OneNote allows me to you know, put the notes in a in a, like a file system, kind of like a filing cabinet where you know, I can take for each property each property then has, you know, the files that go to that property and so it just keeps it organized.
Derek Clifford:Excellent. Okay, cool. All right. Number four.
Sophie:If people if the people you know, had to scribe you with one word, what would that be for each of you?
Kristy Desrosiers:Okay, hopefully llama people person, very caring.
Mike Desrosiers:Actually, yes, I absolutely agree to that. For me, would be and one word, I mean, I get it done, which is not one word, but I'm thinking the word to you know, that might describe that but persistent, you know, my guess. Definitely.
Derek Clifford:Yeah. Yeah, I could, I can tell. I can tell you're a man who likes to do due diligence or do on behalf of others. And so that it gets really Yeah, dependable is a really good word. I like that. Let's go on to Yes, yeah. All right. Number five last question that we have for you guys. What small thing do most people not know about you? And that's for each of you guys.
Kristy Desrosiers:Well, here we go back to my book, but most people don't know that I wrote a book. So I'm trying to get that out on social media now. Cool.
Mike Desrosiers:For me, maybe I ride motorcycles, then that's cool, very active and that have written all the way down the Baja on dirt bikes several times in my in my years, and been more into the street bikes these days, but I definitely love that passion. Like,
Derek Clifford:that's really cool. I've always wanted to try doing something like that, but Sophie's been giving me dirty looks because she thinks so right now I just, I just settled for E bikes and in do that, you know, as much
Mike Desrosiers:as I have a bike to those are a lot of fun. They're really cool.
Derek Clifford:They're very cool. Yeah. All right. Well, Christy, Mike, thank you guys so much for coming on the show. But before we let you guys go and and off to the rest of your day. Why don't you guys tell us a little bit more about how all of the listeners out there can find out more about what you guys do and what's in your world.
Mike Desrosiers:And start your website and your book.
Kristy Desrosiers:Thank you um, so my website is called my secret blueprint book.com and it has information on there we like to order and Mike is
Mike Desrosiers:and for me I have my website is grow cap today. Grow cap is in the grow grow your cap rate, grow cap grow cap today.com and my email or my actually contact me through that website. I'm also on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and you know, so please connect with me. I enjoy talking to people in this space, regardless whether you're a beginner or an experienced operator. I enjoy the relationships that get built out of it.
Derek Clifford:Excellent. Well, Christy and Mike thank you guys again for coming on the show and we love having you guys here. It was a great conversation. Lots of great takeaways for people who are looking to do exactly what you guys have done and build that side hustle into a main hustle and just a hustle in general saying and for you listeners, for you listeners out there. They've listened to all the way to the end. We want to thank you as well. And please wherever you're listening or watching this, please like subscribe, or interact with us, give us a thumbs up. Let us know how we're doing because we want to add more value by providing more incredible content with great people like Mike and Christie here. So and the more that you do that, the more that we are apt to get up there in with the algorithm gods and the algorithm Gods will push us up the chain so we get exposure to more people and it's just this beautiful cycle. So please do interact with us and let us know how we're doing. We want to hear from you as well. So once again, Mike and Christy, thank you so much for coming on the show. And this is Derek and this is Sophie we're signing off for the day. Take care everyone. Thank you.