Another wonder couple in real estate, Sergio & Corinn Altomare join us on Elevate Your Equity Podcast. Sergio partnered with his wife Corinn to start Hearthfire Holdings, a boutique real estate investment, and property management company. In this program, we discussed the importance of growing your businesses and wealth together as a couple and a family from both positive and negative experiences. More interesting topics include:
• The experiences about working with your spouse in real estate and switching hats
• The time when you all took a negative experience and turned it into a positive experience.
• The things learned about yourselves by working together as husband and wife power couple
More about Sergio and Corinn, in just eight short years, Hearthfire Holdings has built a portfolio of more than $50M in assets under management and syndicated over $12M in assets, returning more than $2M in profit and 25 percent IRR to investors. Property types have spanned small multi-family, commercial, retail, and self-storage properties. Sergio has also flipped houses and rehabbed properties and multi-family developments.
The easiest way to connect with them is by checking out their websites, investwithsergio.com and investwithcorinn.com. Connect with them also on their social media channels.
Thanks a bunch, Sergio and Corinn for coming on the show!
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
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
Another wonder couple in real estate, Sergio & Corinn Altomare join us on Elevate Your Equity Podcast. Sergio partnered with his wife Corinn to start Hearthfire Holdings, a boutique real estate investment, and property management company. In this program, we discussed the importance of growing your businesses and wealth together as a couple and a family from both positive and negative experiences. More interesting topics include:
• The experiences about working with your spouse in real estate and switching hats
• The time when you all took a negative experience and turned it into a positive experience.
• The things learned about yourselves by working together as husband and wife power couple
More about Sergio and Corinn, in just eight short years, Hearthfire Holdings has built a portfolio of more than $50M in assets under management and syndicated over $12M in assets, returning more than $2M in profit and 25 percent IRR to investors. Property types have spanned small multi-family, commercial, retail, and self-storage properties. Sergio has also flipped houses and rehabbed properties and multi-family developments.
The easiest way to connect with them is by checking out their websites, investwithsergio.com and investwithcorinn.com. Connect with them also on their social media channels.
Thanks a bunch, Sergio and Corinn for coming on the show!
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
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
Welcome to the Elevate Your Equity podcast where we, as married busy professionals, leverage real estate investing to unlock the three plus one degrees of freedom, health, location, time and financial. Today we have a power couple in the house. We've got Sergio and Corinn Altomare there. It's great to have you guys here. How are you today?
Sergio Altomare:Doing great.
Derek Clifford:Awesome, awesome. So for those of you who do not know Sergio and Corinn, you guys are in for a treat here. After transitioning into real estate as a side business and 2012 Sergio partner with his wife, Corinn to start Hearthfire holdings, a boutique real estate investment and property management company. And in just eight short years, Hearthfire Holdings has built a portfolio of more than 50 million in assets under management, and syndicated over 12 million as well, returning more than 2 million in profit and 25% IRR to investors very impressive. property types have spanned from small multifamily commercial retail and self storage properties. Sergio has also flipped houses and rehab properties and multifamily developments. And also what's not in your bio here is I know that both of you guys have a corporate background, is that correct? All right, cool. Well, what I want to start with today was how you guys got to where you are, because you both have amassed quite a portfolio working together. And so maybe you guys can tell us a story about how you got there.
Sergio Altomare:Yeah, it started it really started with I had a false start in real estate back in 2007. You know, I was living at home, decided to buy a duplex, live in one unit house hack and run out the other unit. And that kind of thing that that went to hell was a long story why that was a poorly executed plan met Corinne in 2012. We were both working for the federal reserve at the time, she was buying her first multifamily property, doing exactly the same thing, except this one was actually going to be successful, all except the part of moving into the unit that she was going to live in. So along the way we moved in together. You know, she bought the property. You know, during our dating, we were spending nights and weekends, renovating, painting, doing all kinds of stuff at the building my tech background, her just, you know, know how of getting things done. Next thing you know, we're managing a property. following year we bought another property. And then after that we had access to more properties than we knew what to do with them. We started syndicating her dad was instrumental in teaching us the concept of syndication and we poured ourselves into books and bigger pockets. And then from there, we started managing other properties. Her parents brought a portfolio over to us we started managing all kinds of things grew that portfolio about 100 and some units. We're actually transitioning away from that business. Now. We transitioned into self storage back in 2018. As we expected a market downturn we wanted to get into larger apartment buildings. That was we found that, you know, for the underwriting that we were doing, the numbers didn't make sense. I always say that I don't know how some multifamily investors make sense these days, either. But anyway, we transitioned into self storage and bought our first property in 2019. And then we kind of read who not how started, you know, recognizing that it was only just the two of us. And we needed some help and support. And, you know, then from there, we just now we have 13 properties, a few under contract, over 50 million and assets and we're looking to evolve again. Along the way, we obviously quit the day job she quit in 2016 I quit in 2017 our little girl was born the same year. So I just say the rest is history.
Derek Clifford:Wow. Awesome. So 2017 must have been a very interesting year for you guys. It sounds like there's a lot of stuff going on back then.
Corinn Altomare:I don't think I remember any of it. It was just a matter of getting through.
Sergio Altomare:You hear from people that kids change things and you're always like, Oh yeah, sure. Okay. You'll be a little sleep deprived but no, it's it's the just the recognition that responsibility that comes with it and, and everything else not to mention the sleep deprivation especially for her. So it was definitely it was a monumental year in a lot of ways. Certainly trying but we made it through.
Derek Clifford:Yeah, of course, I think that's the only the only thing that you can do when you have all that kind of stuff going on. It's just hard to tread water with all that. Now I wanted to ask you guys to is, you know, where did you guys get your spark for real estate investing and it sounds like, you know, Korean, your, your, your family, it was in your family for a little bit but I want to back up and understand where the commercial real estate passion came from, because most people start with single family homes, or maybe like, you know, partnering up with some other individuals or maybe both of that. But did yours come from your family? Or how did the interest in commercial real estate start?
Corinn Altomare:Really from a risk mitigation standpoint, in a single family home, you have one tenant if they move out, or if anything goes wrong, you're sunk, right? So making the first jump at least into the triplex made more sense because as an owner, as an owner, occupant buyer, all I needed was one other tenant to carry my expenses. And then what we experienced as we scaled our small multifamily portfolio, is that it just made more sense to have as many doors under one roof as possible. So and add on to that the much more simpler management model that self storage has, and you have really a true winner there. For me at least, since I was spending much more time in the in the trenches in the day to day. As far as my start, I my previous career was in the arts. And so for me, real estate investing in general was purely a vehicle for which, for me to have lifestyle flexibility and not be chained to my w two job, if and when I made the choice that I didn't want to continue showing up to my cubicle every day. So that was the foundational driver for me. And then once I got into it, and once we started building our business, the daily fun of there always been a new challenge to figure out and design an answer to is what hooked me and of course, my my teammate and being able to work with this quality human being every day.
Derek Clifford:Of course, of course. And that's a that's a good way to rack up some points there too. So I like that. That's great. Let me let me ask you, though, did you both have a moment in time where you realize that real estate was right for you? Like, was there anything that clicked early on? If you can remember that moment in time? Because I know, you know, we talked about scaling and why it worked. But I'm looking for the emotional part of like, oh, this is the solution that I'm looking for. Do you guys remember that moment at all?
Sergio Altomare:I don't know, I think it's it was less about a an emotional connection. And we're both results oriented, meaning that you hit a hammer, you see the nail go in type of thing, right. And so you can see the results. So when when we bought the first property, we were naturally drawn to let's paint it, let's do this, let's do that. And then from there, it was the next thing, right and the next property and so there was a continuous start this get this done. And quite honestly, that's that's our Mo now is every acquisition is a new start stop. We're both project managers by trade, Corinne was an IT project manager. I did that for a lot of years. So that was I think that was a natural progression for us. We didn't know anything about quote unquote, starting a business or it necessarily being about real estate. I think ultimately, I'm a numbers guy when we started to underwriting and put numbers on spreadsheets and started to figure out how to model and forecast things. That's, that got excited to be exciting, because you could start to see that there was a passive, you know, component to it. I mean, the one thing that we did right from the start was every property we bought, I we use tools to underwrite it and did it properly. I see people regularly that just pull up a spreadsheet, jot down some income, some expense numbers, and they think that's it. But if you model it out, it's like no, that's there's so much to it, there's, you know, you've got a model to understand where the equity appreciation is, what happens if this expense hat, you know, you get a hot water heater that blows up what happens the revenue, so I wasn't infatuated by the numbers. She had a good vision of, you know, what it looks like to get it done. You know, what the, the, you know, placing tenants providing a quality home, so there was a good, I think it was a good partnership from that perspective as well.
Derek Clifford:Yeah, I think that that's pretty accurate there. I can tell right now that you guys have a lot of synergies there. And that's kind of where I want to pivot to right now before we jump into what I really want to talk about later on. But can you tell us a little bit about what it's like to work with your spouse in the space, obviously, you know, Sophie and I do that as well. But you know, is there I imagine there's a lot of hats switching going on. There's a lot of times you're like, Okay, I'm acting as a as a partner, and then I'm acting as a spouse, and then I'm acting as a friend. Maybe, can you guys give us a little overview of how you guys treat that? Or what happens when you guys do your run your business and personal lives this way?
Sergio Altomare:I want to hear your answer.
Corinn Altomare:I would, I would say that we are still actively figuring it out. Right? We've been we have been running our business together now for 10 years. And it has our roles and how we work together, have shifted throughout various phases during that time as we've gone through different life stages. And as our business has evolved, and grown, and as the core components of our team, and different business lines have have shifted. So I would say in the early days, it was both of us doing all the things all the time. And now, particularly within the past three years as things have really grown so exponentially. I mean, we went from one storage facility in 2019, to acquiring 10 in 2021. And we're probably on track for seven this year. So particularly within the past three years, we've been experimenting a lot amidst all of that growth. And we've tried a couple different things. And what we, including each of us running independently in our own swim lane, if you will, right him very much as the visionary. And me trying to find the right seat, you know, I'm not I'm not the finance. See, we were played in the operations seat I've played in the business development seat. Also, if any of your listeners are familiar with rocket fuel, and Eos, the integrator seat, and what we keep coming back to is that we work best together as wild as that sounds right? You would expect perhaps a lot of, I don't know, I don't know what you might expect. But we truly do at the end of the day work best when we're closer when we're more involved or more connected at the hip. So maybe, you know, at the end of the day, we're truce co CEOs or CO visionaries. Because we have been working together our entire relationship we started dating, I mean, we started dating what April or May of 2012. And I closed on the triplex in September, I mean, we have truly been. And that's that's when we started building out our business together. We bought a building, built a business, bought another building and then decided to get married. So we we have known nothing other than being deeply entrenched in all of the day to day.
Sergio Altomare:Yeah, I mean, that's that's a you don't stop them. Think about it, right? So we were kind of like just kicking ass and taking names and even to this day, and it has cycled, right. I mean, anybody who's started or run a business can tell you that what works at one level doesn't work at another level. And so it's it is evolutionary. And we keep coming back to I mean, there's there's a lots of, as one might expect, you know, differences, arguments, what have you. But really, at the end of the day, it really comes down to work together, understand what needs to be done, and then come up with a plan. I mean, for me, she's a really strong, I get a lot more confidence by validating ideas, and she gets a lot of confidence by executing on what some of these ideas are. And that's been that's really been what it's what it keeps coming back to, and it's pretty cool.
Derek Clifford:I really like your answer, especially, you know, Korean, when you started out, you're like, it's an evolving thing. And I think that that's always going to be the case, right? You're always learning about each other, and the business and yourself.
Sergio Altomare:And that's gotta be true for relationships, right? Yeah. Yeah, you don't, you're not the same person. If, if you're like any of us that's interested in personal growth and development. You can't, you can't grow without change, right. And as you grow and change, it's imperative that the person next to you grow and change along with you. So we are both driven by personal growth and our relationship growth and everything that we stands for. So it has to be evolutionary if not a meme you end up as a couple and one is in going in one direction and one is another and then we're just this there's...
Derek Clifford:You know that that snap, yeah, that's not a good direction to go is when you have these separating paths, right? And yeah, that's what I was gonna say is that you have all these dynamics happening at the same time. And it makes sense to me, because you guys have a personal relationship, you have a business, you have growth, you have yourselves going on. And all of those things have to be in balance. So it's no wonder to me that you guys are spending so much time together, which is really, you know, that makes a lot of sense, especially through the quantum leaps that you guys have been making in the last five years, even, you know, five years ago was 2017. So it's just really incredible, you know, what you can achieve in five years? And any event, I wanted to move on here, and I wanted to talk more about the mindset piece of this right? Can you guys tell us a time, you know, where you took a negative experience? and turned it into a positive one
Sergio Altomare:This morning?
Derek Clifford:Well, that's really fresh, I'll take it.
Sergio Altomare:No. Anybody that's an anybody that's in real estate or property management and tenant relations, or even owner relations can can tell you war stories. And it's really, to me, it's always asking two questions, right? My background, is it so so root cause analysis is what that's that's part of our DNA. And it's always asking, Why did something happen? pro or con? Right? Good or bad? Why? And then how did it happen? Right? And for me, that's like, anytime we have a, you know, I don't know, you can pick a situation when it came to our first few hires, for our first storage facility. Okay, what, you know, the person didn't work out, Well, why didn't they work out? Right? Is it because of X, Y, or Z and you keep trying and testing ideas? And then you end up fight figuring out, okay, why perhaps it was because they weren't trained properly, or we didn't give the right expectation? It's just okay, then the question is, how do we address that? And that is just, that's just ongoing. Right? I mean, that is that that's really in a lot of it is human behavior analysis, right. So understanding who we are our relationship, who we are individually is continuously saying, Okay, why do I feel this way? Why do I think that way? So? To me, that's, that's the two questions. I don't know if you have any specifics. instances, but it's been there's there's we keep talking about the book, we're going to write on a lot of the crap that we've experienced.
Corinn Altomare:So we something that we started planning a number of months ago was our first ever live event. But and so we had it set up for this summer. And as I was going through the marketing and all of that for it, realized that the why I had low registration. And so it's like, why am I why? And I forgot to ask one fundamental question of my core attendee list, because we initially were planning this for our investors, as you know, thank you for being with us. It's been 10 years, we want to throw a big party, we wanted to also include you coming out to see the storage facilities and getting to meet some other some other members of our team. I failed to ask if our investors would be interested in joining us for a party, and or have the time during this very busy summer season, when everybody is really catching up from years of COVID lock downs, as well as getting kids back to school because the date was like right before, I guess, the beginning of school season, which with a five year old, I'm just now starting to realize is important because she's starting school school for her first time ever, coming up here soon. So realizing that and speaking with and getting a hold of as I was asking these why questions and reaching out to my core list and be like, Hey, are we going to see you? If not, why? That's where I'm at. Remember to ask the question why? And just realizing that, yes, people were very much interested in. But I needed to find a better time and really give folks much more advanced notice, right, so that people could plan days off from work. I've been in my own business for 10 years, the idea of having to submit for days off from work and negotiate that with management. I've been out of that world for too long. And so there were just certain questions. So I would say that that was a negative experience as far as having to postpone the original scheduled date we're we're going to be having it in the in the near future. But the overall positive of that was being able to work through not only some of my fear about just proactively reaching out to folks and be like, hey, we want to throw a party. I want to see you and your family there. What's going to work for you How can I make this the most easily assessable for you, as well as other folks that we want to do business with in the future, right. And so for me, it was a big learning lesson of working through some of my more deeply entrenched introvert tendencies and just getting more comfortable with actively reaching out to folks and having those conversations, as well as also, in the course of postponing the event and sending out those announcements. That actually spurred a number of people saying, oh, man, I was in the middle of trying to negotiate getting off. And I had made these arrangements with the dog sitter and I had booked my refundable train ticket to be there. And so now I hear from folks that they were making plans to be there. And so what the positive also from that is getting that reinforcement of folks that did actively reach out and were like, Hey, I saw your notice, I really wanted to be there, let me know when the next one is going to be because now those are my core people, as I look to reschedule and get the new dates fixed, that's going to be my first list of folks that I reached out to and be like, Hey, these are the dates that we're looking at, does that work for you? Great, because we want it to be a fantastic and personal, really intimate experience for us to really connect with these key folks in our life.
Derek Clifford:Yeah, thank you for the example that really painted a lot of color on the image for me of what you guys were talking about. And I can totally understand that now. So thank you for that. And, and I have to also add to the fact that you've already gone through the mechanics of booking the venue, you know, getting the logistics all planned out, imagine how much easier it's going to be the second time around, because you're going to know what it's going to take in advance to already get that done. So, you know, the second go round is always easier. And I think that that's going to benefit you guys greatly. And thank you for sharing that very personal experience, we really appreciate that.
Corinn Altomare:All the lenders are great to work with. And this is also super leveraging who not how like I now have a much better idea of a couple more, who's that I'm going to need on my team for version two.
Derek Clifford:Excellent, excellent. Yeah. So a similar question to this is, you know, it's as far as taking lessons learned, right, we touched on this a little bit, you just said that there's some lessons learned there? Do you to have any sort of process around, you know, these things that come up throughout the day? And throughout the course of your business lifecycle? Right? Do you have a way of capturing these lessons learned? Like, it could be as something as simple as YouTube doing a deep debrief every week? Or maybe doing the one sheet every month? Or, you know, how do you because this is a selfish question for me, like, because I have a lot of lessons learned happening, I'd want to know what your processes for being able to actually take the, you know, mistakes, and the good things that happened and extract the gems so that you can carry them forever.
Sergio Altomare:Yeah, I would say the biggest thing that we have is transparency and communication. I mean, we talk a lot and I mean, this is every night. It's it's inevitable, right? Because we don't sit there and watch TV and not that we don't have a life. But I mean, we communicate a lot. And, and it again, it goes back to the why and how so there's a lot of you know, the IT world we call it post mortems. Right. You had a crash, you had something that happened, you get together and say what happened? And what do we do about it? Right? So for our business in our company, we're doing a lot of post mortems right. Every time we have an acquisition, we close on a deal we get together with the entire team, what worked really well. What didn't How do we fix it? Right? So we've we've focused a lot on processes, even within our own personal life. We focus a lot on that, right? And even just as recently as this past week, it's like okay, well, how do we make sure that we get out of the door on time? Okay, why don't we let's have a mutually agreed upon 745 Eight o'clock, we are out the door? So I'm not asking Are you ready? You're ready, that kind of thing. And we do that regularly. So I don't think that there's a you don't necessarily need to over engineer it. You just have to communicate and communicate expectations, communicate, what is the desired outcome and really be in a mode of how to improve and grow. And I think that that, you know, you get a big belly. Well, why did I get a big belly? And how do I fix it? Right? So it's a continuous, I mean, it plays along the same lines of what we were talking about earlier. It's just a continuous process of asking the right questions and the right questions are really, really important because if it's, you know, we have a disagreement you know, it's that's its conflict resolution type of thing and we we practice on ourselves and each other, but that works when it comes to parenting. It works. You know, coming to friends family, you know, relationships in general. It's, it's to me that's the most important part is The transparency and communication.
Corinn Altomare:The one sheet is a fantastic tool. So hopefully you talk about that when with your audience on previous shows and whatnot. And we'll be having our first family board meeting later this evening, reducing some of that structure with, with Stella. So we'll see how we'll see how our five year old does with a family board meeting.
Derek Clifford:If I was a five year old, and if I was your kid, I would be very excited for that.
Corinn Altomare:Book to go nuts on a whiteboard, she she's gained. So,
Derek Clifford:Of course, now, Sergio, when you were talking that one analogy that came to mind that I have to share with the audience, is that a plane going from Seattle to Miami, is only on course 2% of the time, but yet it gets there 100% of the time. And the reason is these little course corrections, right? Like you have a gust of wind that pushes you off course, and you just gotta Correct, right. And for many reasons, you have all these different course corrections. And these conversations is what I like into that, right? You guys are always talking, making these course corrections. And as long as you're aligned in your vision, you're gonna get from Seattle, to Miami safely, almost every single person almost all the time. And so I just wanted to paint that picture. Hopefully, that's accurate for what you guys are trying to...
Sergio Altomare:You know what it is. And when it comes to, you know, looking at it from a big picture, macro level, right? So you always we always ask and a lot of people in our in our world always asks like, what are you working towards? What's your purpose? What's enough? And and where we are at now is we're still growing, right? Growing as individuals or growing as a couple. And, you know, you don't you don't like you don't look at a guy like, I don't know, Tiger Woods or Tom Brady, they don't say, Hey, I'm going to be good enough when I do this, right. It's, it's you get to that level, and now you establish a nother level. And so for us, it's, it's, it's all about, you know, continuous growth and self improvement, not that you don't perfect the life, right. But you can continuously you're either growing or dying, right? There's no kind of in between. And that that's, that's the mode that we operate from.
Derek Clifford:Yeah, I love that. Thank you guys for sharing. I wanted to continue here, going down this personal development dynamic as husband and wife as well. What have you guys learned in working with each other? What have you learned about yourselves? individually?
Sergio Altomare:Oh, man, that's true. Well, for me, I can tell you that what I've learned is, the biggest thing is, is what I know, or assume or think is true, needs to be tested regularly. Right? It's anybody that's worked with people and not just talking about Corinne and I but our entire team, it's, it's the ask for something and getting the results that you're looking for. So for me, it's been a matter of recognizing that what goes on in my head doesn't necessarily come out of my mouth, or the expectations are different. So I'm constantly asking, How can I set clear expectations when it comes to our business, but also myself? Right? What is it that I'm given any given thing? What am I trying to achieve? I recently had an epiphany where I jacked up my finger pretty good doing some plumbing work, and that's a whole nother story, but, but I asked,
Derek Clifford:I was gonna say, why are you doing some, why are you doing plumbing work?
Sergio Altomare:So yeah, so So there's always right, there's the whole you know, see something that needs to be done and get it done in some cases, I don't have plumbing I don't have patience so I'm like I just the hell with it, I'll do it myself type of thing. But then I then then I realized through bringing other contractors do different things, that it's not that I need to do it I want to see it done. Right. And so for me, it's about setting expectations of what is the end goal the end goal is to complete XYZ project for whatever reason, but doesn't necessarily mean that I have to do it, you know, I deal with it the whole contractor thing and you mean everybody knows that that that whole game that needs to be played but I learned that about myself is that I and I'm still getting better at it is setting realistic expectations and, and a time horizon that doesn't just meet my needs. But it's actually realistic for the people that actually have to do it and whatnot. Right?
Derek Clifford:What about you, Corinn? And I appreciate that. That's, that's awesome. And what about you, Corinn?
Corinn Altomare:I would say, the incredible capacity that is within each of us human beings, when we set our minds, right, and allow the rest of the noise to disappear when we're in the right role and have the right mental focus on what we're truly best at doing or most interested in doing. And letting everything else fall away, what we're able to accomplish and who we are able to be. And I don't think that's, that's not specific to me or Serge, I think that's within each of us. Every single one of us and there is so much noise in our current world that that is the opportunity to, to refuse to let other things control your mind and your body and your heart. And instead, understand that you have that you have limitless potential within you if you take the right approach to it.
Derek Clifford:That's beautiful. Thank you guys for sharing the very personal notes there. And I can relate with both of those things. And I think any listener out there can take the wisdom that you guys have just given us and run with that. And so I want to just thank you for for sharing that very personal.
Sergio Altomare:The plumber and the poet.
Derek Clifford:I love it. I love it. Okay, guys, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna, because we're getting towards the end of the show, and I still want to ask you just a few specific industry related questions, because you guys are experts in the space. Right? And so we'll go ahead and do that. Well, maybe maybe this is a midway question. Before we get to our final one. Do you guys find that scaling up where you are right now, what's the challenge and if you do, what advice you have for people who are just starting out, and maybe for those who are on their way, or somewhere in between.
Sergio Altomare:The way that I would best equate it to our experience. And it's in just about every book that you read on business. And you know, whether it's scaling up, it's, it's whatever, it's about scale. And when it's the two of us, and there are any number, there's a whole lot of roles, it's everything from it to HR, to accounting, whatever, when it's the two of us involved, we can each take a big chunk of that, and run with our respective lanes and the handoffs are pretty easy, because you're handing it off, you know, you're within yourself or at most to a partner next to it to next to me, as we've hit different levels of growth, especially where it required. And bringing in more people resources, is where what we thought was a process was not a process, because it's how I did it independently. And now that system or that process either needs to be defined, right, and even when it does get defined, and then you add more people to it, you find that it needs to be further refined, or it's just broken. So to me, the biggest thing that that we've discovered is with every level of growth, even if you have a system or process, it will be strained, it will break. And it's not a fundamental problem necessarily with the business, you just have to continuously evolve and grow. And most people that start a business, if you've read e myth that you're you're a technician and you, you basically give yourself a job, it really comes down to you get to a certain point, and you don't recognize that you need different systems or processes. People get frustrated when it comes to the people management. They say To hell with this, I'm going to go back to being small, it's just going to be me. And that's it. And they shrink. And so we've kind of looked at it and keep asking again, the the why and how and it keeps coming down to with every new wrinkle with every level of growth comes and evolution what doesn't what would work before is not going to work in the future. And we have to continuously grow, evolve, read different books, listen to you know, coaching has been instrumental for us. For the people that have been there done that if you've never experienced that you don't know what success looks like. And that is that's really important. So for me, it's it's, it's really, especially when it comes to people, the more people you add, the more things break down, the more you have to change and continuously fix it for the next level.
Derek Clifford:You know, as far as scaling up goes, what advice do you have for people who are just starting out or starting to scale or looking to scale are already on their way?
Corinn Altomare:Yeah, so my super simple answer to that, versus his', there are 1000 And then one ways to scale up and be successful and grow a business you can you can do every single thing, right like shiny object syndrome to the max. The one thing that I would recommend if anyone is looking for a recommendation is to be really crystal clear on where work is lightest for you. Where are you most love being where you're happiest inhabiting this world and where you really just feel like you're you are absolutely in the right place, and find people that are everything else. And I'm not saying partner with the first person that comes along, absolutely. Do massive due diligence and make sure you've got all of the paper protection that you need, should God forbid something go wrong. But I think we have acknowledged to one another that if we had outsourced isn't the right word. But if we had acknowledged the need for bringing in a strong partner sooner, our journey would have been even further along at this point.
Derek Clifford:Yeah, I love this answer. I love both of your guys's answers, because it has to deal with knowing who you are as an individual. That's the root of it right? Is if you know who you are and what you need, then that's all that you really, that's all that you need. In order to scale you just have to act on that too. There's, there's a process there a feedback loop, because everyone's evolving all the time and changing. But I think the more you know yourself, the more you'll be able to either get people out there to do it or have the perspective like you said, Sergio, you're either growing or you're dying. And so I love your guys's answers. So my last question before we head into the Rapid Round here is real estate industry related. And I know that it's quarter three of 2022 right now as of this recording, so I'm not asking for you guys to give a crystal ball or anything. But I'd like to see, you know, from your guys's perspective as Lindt as industry leaders, what do you guys seeing in the commercial real estate space? Maybe you can comment from the self storage perspective or whatever you feel comfortable answering. I just want to get your guys's insight as to what you're seeing right now.
Sergio Altomare:Yeah, I think it's been interesting, right? Because I mean, obviously working for the Federal Reserve I, for 22 years, I always I followed and studied the economy. And we look at it both from a micro trend macro trend. What's interesting is that there's been a lot of talk of really bad downturns or a bad downturn coming. And recessions obviously happen as part of a normal cycle. We've had, obviously inflation supply chain strain and all that that's impacted. Real Estate in general, not as much in self storage. And but the interest rates have gone up but mostly impacting residential real estate and commercial real estate. We haven't seen a huge spike and an interest rates. I mean, as of today, we're probably hovering around 5% interest. That's not that far off, it doesn't make a big dent in the numbers. You know, we are in a technical recession, we are seeing signs of inflation, at least topping out the rate of growth. I personally think, you know, we talk to brokers, we talk to lenders regularly, nobody has panic, the buyers and sellers are a little bit farther apart. In some asset class, I can't speak for multifamily. But in self storage, we talk to brokers regularly, some big brokers and they're not seeing that they've got a tremendous number of deals falling apart some of the larger deals that have, you know, swap rates and interest rate sensitivity are being retreated a little bit in terms of crystal ball type of stuff, we're learning to do go where the market is, and respond to where the market is not trying to predict the market. And where it'll be a year from now, I don't know. But we're not seeing any signs of the wheels falling off or, or deterioration when it comes to the business of self storage. So you know, it's obviously sharpen the pencil. Our underwriting is tighter, we're doing a lot more sensitivity analysis, risk analysis, but overall, we're not seeing that it's going to come crashing down at least at least not now. Two months ago, three months ago, in fact, that last storage conference, there were talks that about this time of the year in August or so that we're going to see a huge market slowdown and we're not seeing that so yeah, I don't know if that's, you know, that's kind of the roundabout way to say we're not panicking.
Corinn Altomare:The only thing I would say is that at the end of the day, we cannot directly impact the economy at large, right. But what we can control is our own individual economy and our own households and our business, obviously. So rather than letting too much of the fear mongering, or the other are all of the experts, mess up our heads too much right, taken up enough, enough wisdom and insights to be aware of what's going on, and then otherwise maintain, hold true to our principles and our fundamentals that at the end of the day, we know we are confident in and that allow us to sleep well at night and just continuing on our path.
Derek Clifford:Yeah, that's great. We're very well said both of you guys some words of advice that everyone should take to heart. And one thing that I want to add to that before we move on to our Rapid Round here is that, you know, a lot of the deals that maybe you've mentioned, been falling apart, it's not a terrible amount of them. It's not like every single one of them has been falling apart. And there is retraining happening, I've been seeing that, but it's becoming more and more of like an even playing field, right, the sellers expectations are still pretty high. But it's starting to come down. And Case in point with the deal that we're under in contract right now on, we had to build in a interest rate risk premium. So if the rate goes up, if the you know, 10 year Treasury goes up by, you know, 10 basis points, then we're asking for $1,000 per door price reduction as a seller credit on the back end. And we're transparent with that with our lenders so that the lender can say, Okay, well, then, you know, that reduces the loan amount. And that's okay with us, because we want to hold our DSCR levels, very healthy. So we're doing we're doing all these things. So all I'm saying is that, if you listeners are out there, and whether you're in the single family space, or you're in the retail space, or industrial or commercial or self storage, anything right? There is always a way to make something happen. And if the deal is good enough, and it's a win win situation for both the buyer and the seller, it's going to happen. And I think over the long term, you know, the maximum is, the longer you hold real estate, the better it is, with some exceptions. But generally, if you can hold on to anything through recession, and have good fundamentals, like what you guys were talking about, both on the household and on the business, then you should be able to hold and pick your exit whenever you want to. So just want to underscore that point there about both what you guys are saying so hopefully that makes sense.
Sergio Altomare:Yeah, no, that's, that's perfect.
Derek Clifford:Well, cool, guys, we could be going on and talking about this stuff for hours. And but I know that you're very busy individuals. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna move to the Rapid Round part of the show, which is five questions that we ask every one of our guests, and they're meant to be answered in 30 seconds or less and there for each of you. So if you guys are ready, we're just going to rapidly ask them to you if you're ready. Okay, who's first? First together, we're both both together. All right, question number one, what book has had the biggest impact on you? And why? Outside of Rich Dad Poor Dad or the Bible?
Corinn Altomare:Or me, Atlas Shrugged and why? Because whatever your take on Ayn Rand's philosophy, she elevates human potential to above our day to day.
Derek Clifford:Thank you for sharing it.
Sergio Altomare:Faster than normal. That gave me a way to look at what otherwise is considered add. And me being a visionary gave me a little bit more clarity in life.
Derek Clifford:Great. I for sure thought that Who Not How was coming, but I love both of those books. I haven't read either of them, but they are going on my Amazon list right now.
Corinn Altomare:I'm gonna check in with you in a month.
Derek Clifford:Accountability. And number two, if people wanted to emulate your success, what would you say is the first actionable thing that they could do to follow in your footsteps according to each of you?
Sergio Altomare:I would say be disciplined in understanding your your trade and your craft. We from the start, we were very disciplined and underwriting our strategies are clearly defined. We didn't do anything half assed.
Corinn Altomare:My own be, don't be afraid to start jumping. Get started. Try it out, adjust as you go.
Derek Clifford:And those two ideas right there, listeners, that's all you need. Love it. Thank you guys. Number three, what is one tool process or hack in the last three to six months that you've employed has helped you save time and or efforts and that can be on the personal or on the business side?
Sergio Altomare:For me, it would be instead of creating to do lists as it relates to individual tasks, roll it up to strategic objectives. So instead of you know it being a make the bed it is, you know, clean up the house type of thing. And really, for me at my level, it's really big picture type of stuff. So I don't have this overwhelming long run on list. That would be my day.
Corinn Altomare:I've been developing my daily meditation practice. I'm not a daily yet, but I'm about probably five out of seven. And sometimes it's just three minutes. So my one thing, the one tool is doing that, because in the process of stopping and meditating and doing less, at the end of that session, I realized what I actually need to be working on.
Derek Clifford:Beautiful. And let me ask both of you for that. Because this is a tool based question. Are you guys using anything like, you know, Asana? Or, you know, for you?
Corinn Altomare:I use Insight Timer. Yeah, yeah.
Sergio Altomare:And I also use Insight Timer. For me. It's a combination of Google Tasks and reclaim.ai.
Derek Clifford:Very cool. Love it. I need to ask you about that later on. Number four, question number four. If the people that you know had to describe you each with one word, what word do you think that would be?
Sergio Altomare:For me, probably driven.
Derek Clifford:I can see that.
Corinn Altomare:I'm struggling with this one. I'm sorry.
Sergio Altomare:Smart.
Derek Clifford:I would say that that's fairly accurate. Unless you wanted to add something to that.
Corinn Altomare:I don't have anything with this one. I'm sorry. I'm gonna have to take a pass.
Derek Clifford:There you go. It's smart and smart. It is. It's in the books. Number five. What small thing? Do most people not know about you?
Sergio Altomare:Small thing I would? I mean, is it a small thing that I graduated college as an adult in 2013?
Derek Clifford:That's cool.
Sergio Altomare:Yeah.
Derek Clifford:I like that. That's pretty unique.
Corinn Altomare:Sorry, the question is, what's what small thing do people not know about me? Well, if I share it here, then they will. So that's kind of defeating the problem.
Derek Clifford:No, right. So you got to like dial it back. Maybe you give them half the truth or something.
Corinn Altomare:So I, I spent some summer times abroad in in Europe backpacking and did that whole hostel and sleeping on the trains overnight kind of thing. And it was a wonderful experience. I made it out alive and I'm really glad.
Derek Clifford:That's awesome. So cool. Well, Sergio Corrine, thank you guys so much for coming on the show. I hope you had as much fun as I did. This was a blast. I really enjoyed it.
Sergio Altomare:Ya know? So believe it or not this the first podcast that we're together.
Derek Clifford:So you're kidding. Well, you guys are natural. So that's really great. But, you know, before we go, why don't you tell the listeners either one of you how they can find out more about what you have going on. And you know what you have available if you have any gifts for them?
Sergio Altomare:Yeah, the easiest thing is invest with sergio.com I think there's an invest with Corinne as well, SEO r i, n n.com. That is the gateway to all of our social, you know, LinkedIn or website and all of that and, and connect with us on LinkedIn. We're very accessible. We're very active, whether it be the investor community Caray, also an author. And the only woman in the room was she co authored a book with a number of wonderful women, for me, been active in bigger pockets, 545 episodes, so I think, but anyway, that's it.
Derek Clifford:All right.
Corinn Altomare:Nothing else to add there.
Derek Clifford:Very cool. Thank you guys so much for coming on the show. And for you listeners out there who have listened to all the way to this point in the podcast, we want to thank you guys for that. And please, wherever you're listening or watching this, please like, subscribe, comment, thumbs up, or just interact with us in any way you can on the social media pages. Because if we do that we're able to appease those algorithm gods, and then they're able to expose us to more and more individuals and then we can have excellent people more and more excellent people like Sergio and Corinn here on the show. So thank you, dear listeners and also bring Sergio thank you once again for your
Sergio Altomare:time. Absolutely. Thank you. All right.
Derek Clifford:This is Derek. We'll see you next week. I'm signing off for the day. Take care.