WS1525: Making an Impact through Real Estate | #Highlights

EPISODE 1525

[INTRODUCTION]

Whitney Sewell (WS): This is your Daily Real Estate Syndication Show and I’m your host, Whitney Sewell. Today we packed a number of shows together to give you some highlights. I know you’re gonna enjoy this show. Thank you for being with us today!

[INTERVIEW]

WS: Our guest is Conrad Madsen. Thanks for being on the show, Conrad.

Conrad Madsen (CM): Thanks for having me, Whitney, and I appreciate you inviting me to this forum here today. I’m looking forward to having some fun with you…

WS: Yeah, me as well. And a little about Conrad: Innovation, tenacity, and servanthood, are qualities that define Tom Landry, who was Conrad’s idol growing up. Those principles now permeate his company Paladin Partners as he drives forward building a one-of-a-kind give-back platform in Dallas commercial real estate. I look forward to hearing more about that and consistency, recognized by the Dallas business, or he’s consistently recognized by the Dallas Business Journal and the CEO Magazine as one of the heavy hitters’ power brokers in commercial real estate. Conrad specializes in tenant representation, project leasing land, and building sales, investment property sales, and corporate services consulting for clients. 

Conrad, welcome to the show, I’m grateful to have you on and you have a massive amount of experience in this industry, so looking forward to hearing about just your path to getting into commercial real estate, must dive into your focus right now.

CM: Sure. I know, I appreciate that. Before we get started, Whitney, I just would like to tell you, thank you for your service, first and foremost. To me, a lot of people take for granted the freedoms that this country has because of men like yourself who serve our country and thank you so much for your service to America, and that means a lot to me. And I love just networking and trying to help veterans in general, ’cause it’s a tough gig a lot of those guys go through, especially after they get back from serving our country, where you and I are so fortunate to live in.

WS: No doubt. Well, thank you for that very much, Conrad. And give us a little more about yourself and just show us that path into commercial real estate.

CM: Yeah, sure, so I’m a small-town guy. I did not grow up in what they would consider the big city here in Dallas, Texas. I actually grew up in deep South Texas, and a little bit of town called Mission, it’s right next to a bigger town called McAllen, which some folks have heard of… It’s five miles from the Mexican border. You know, growing up was a different life, I didn’t grow up with much, and most of my families were just farmers, that’s how they all immigrated there way back in the late 1800s and such, but how commercial real estate came to be, it’s an interesting path. And my grandmother actually sold real estate growing up, so I was kinda around her selling some homes and things of that nature.

My dad had a manufacturing business, and so I was kinda always inside of what she’d call a warehouse or a plant or what have you, as a kid, so I was kinda always amazed by real estate to a degree, but it was a long path to get there after college. Funny, I noticed that you also served in the police, had to believe for the state of Kentucky, if that’s correct.

WS: That’s right.

CM:  And what’s interesting is my degree is actually in criminal justice. It’s just so funny how a lot of people get in this business, they got finance backgrounds and all these other real estate concentrations, and here I am a criminal justice guy, and now I’m practicing real estate on a daily basis, I thought the FBI was gonna be my long-term career path. I had an internship with them in college, but then I got out of college and I realized, well, I didn’t speak a foreign language, I wasn’t a CPA or an attorney, so it was like, go get a real job and then come back if you wanna apply.

And so, long story short, I thought I’d go to law school. I ended up working for a law firm just kinda doing remedial stuff, filing documents at the courthouse to get a feel for that while I was studying for the LSAT. Met a guy, who was a recruiter, this is in the dot com era, and he was servicing a little company called Broadcast.com back in the day, that was Mark Cuban’s company that he sold to Yahoo for 4 billion dollars. So he’s placing all these people making a ton of money in a dot com era, and so I thought, Well, I’ll give recruiting a shot, so I did recruit for about three and a half years, enjoyed it.

I knew it wasn’t my long-term game, but it taught me some incredible phone skills, which as you know, Whitney being in real estate, you gotta talk… It’s a communication game, and so you gotta talk to people and recruiting taught me a ton about how to communicate with people by pulling the whole Tom Landry story into commercial real estate. Well, obviously, so I grew up in Tom Landry’s hometown, which is Mission Texas. A lot of people don’t know that. Obviously, Tom was the head coach of the Dallas Cowboys for 29 years. He had 20 straight winning seasons back in the day, but most importantly, Tom was known for his character and who he was as a man, and how he carried himself.

A lot of people talk about his wins and successes and Super Bowl titles and how he put the Dallas Cowboys on the map in the 70s, but really it’s… You talk to so many people that knew Tom and boy, and they all say the same thing. Never probably met a better man in my life. And that’s pretty powerful. And so, obviously, being a Tom Landry fan, I was a Roger Staubach fan right you know… Captain America was leaving America’s team back in the day in the late 70s when I was a small pop, and I saw what Roger did in commercial real estate.

Well, Rogers corporate headquarters was in the same building, or it shared a gym with the same apartment complex that I lived in, and long story short, I got to know some of the brokers by just being at the gym every day, and finally got the courage as one of the guys out for lunch and went up to their offices afterward, and I was just in awe ’cause I was like, Oh my God, I can’t believe like Roger is probably down the hall here, long story short, a couple of brokers gave me some time. A guy named Scott Collier and a gentleman by the name of Tom McCarthy. Tom really pointed me in the right direction. Staubach didn’t have any opportunities for me at the time, but he told me some different firms to call and I could use his name, and you fast forward 20 somewhat years later. And I’m actually… One of my best friends is Connor McCarthy, which is Tom’s son, and I didn’t know Tom or Connor from Adam 20 years ago. It’s funny how life works.

WS: It’s funny, our life works, and even now, different skills that you learn there have helped you obviously to go to the next thing, even if it seemed unrelated, just those skill sets through the phone conversations that you had as a recruiter, now moving into commercial real estate, were so useful, right? So commercial real estate now, you’ve been in commercial real estate for a number of years now, tell me a little bit about, I guess, speak to that individual who’s in that transition right now, maybe they are in the same shoes you were, or they have a different job somewhere but they’re looking at commercial real estate. Should they ask a few brokers to go out to lunch or something to ask questions… Who should they be speaking to ensure that’s the right path for them?

CM: Yeah, I think that’s the biggest thing about breaking into this commercial real estate industry is you kinda know, it’s not like you’re on job boards and there are just job postings everywhere. If you wanna get into commercial real estate, you gotta pick up, and I tell this to all the college graduates I speak to in front of all the time, I go, don’t send them, just email me a resume, if you wanna break into this business, right handwritten notes, pick up the phone, cold call the principles of these organizations and tell them that you’re interested in getting into commercial real estate, and if you talk to enough people and If you impress enough people, there will be an opportunity that arises for you.

From a brokerage perspective to asset management, to property, man, it really doesn’t matter really what asset or what specialty within commercial real estate, it’s more of just getting out there and networking, and as you know, it’s all about networking.

WS: No doubt about it. You know, is there a way though, that you could suggest that someone could stand out, ’cause there’s a lot of noise for opportunities in this space, there are a lot of people trying to have those phone calls or reaching out… I like where way you said though, even the handwritten notes, and don’t give up, right? I mean, keep calling. Keep calling, but is there any ways that you’ve seen people or maybe that you did that could help you to stand out above the noise?

CM: It’s all about standing out, as you know, the most successful brokers in this business, have one common trait, and its persistence. Right, there are no two ways around it. Anybody that’s successful in this business for the most part, unless they grew up with a silver spoon in their hand, fed deals, most of everybody is just persistent and Persistence wins, and so doing different things, like kids nowadays just will send emails.

They won’t pick up the phone so if you pick up the phone and leave messages and you leave me one or two or three messages, I know that you’re persistent, and because of that, I will definitely get you on my calendar and if I can’t help you, I will always point you in the right direction, because my old deal is, somebody gave me time 20 years ago, and I’ll give anybody time nowadays if they wanna break into this industry.

[INTERVIEW 2]

WS: Our guest, Anna Kelly. Thanks for being on the show, Anna.

Anna Kelly (AK): Thanks so much for having me. It’s my pleasure.

WS: It’s an honor to have you on the show. Anna I was just talking about, I think it was two years ago, we were speaking at an event together, and I just heard part of her amazing story then and said, Man, she’s gonna be a great test for the show one day, but she’s gonna do big things he even better than that. 

And she has, she has an amazing mission that I’m looking forward to hearing more about today and really just sharing with the listeners, I think it’s great to expose yourself a little bit to others that are pushing with a bigger mission than just financial success, but we’ll get into that, but she’s a full-time real estate investor, active ownership in 1,200 doors, you grew up in section eight housing and through real estate created financial freedom for herself and her family, there are multifamily syndication, she now focused on going beyond financial returns to creating meaningful impact in the lives of the people living in her communities, Anna, welcome to the show. I know you have such an impactful story and are just really the path to getting to where you’re at now. I’d love to hear some about that. 

I know that’s gonna affect the listeners and they are gonna learn a lot from you as young as you wanna go back, ’cause I know you have such an amazing story, I’d love for you to share a little bit that you know will impact the listeners and then let’s move up to how you’re making such a meaningful impact and probably more people now than you ever imagined through all your residents.

AK: Yeah, absolutely winning. I started out, my parents divorced when I was very young, and my earliest memory really, I was about six years old, and we left Pasadena, Texas right outside of Houston in the middle of the night, my mom was pregnant, me and my sister, and she was leaving an abusive marriage and violence and tears, and I just remember being up in the middle of the night driving back to San Antonio where she was from to start life over, and we slept on my grandparents’ couch and she eventually found a job as a leasing agent in an apartment complex. And so we moved into this section 8 apartment complex. My mom was a leasing agent, a single mom, and she worked also at night, she waitressed at night just to make ends me just to be able to provide for us as a single mom fleeing an abusive relationship. And growing up in Section 8 housing, it was tough, we’d lived in a nicer area, but we lived in the projects of the area, and so there were drugs, there was violence, fights that kind of things, and that’s all I really saw was that kind of lifestyle in poverty, and fend for yourself.

And my mom had this resilience to work two jobs and do whatever it took to make ends meet and provide for her kids, but it was a really hard lifestyle, and one of the things that I saw, because I did go to a good school, I saw other families who had a cohesive family unit, who had a mother and father who both worked and they seem to have it all right. 

So from the outside looking in, I thought the solution is I need to make sure I get a good job, get a degree, and can take care of myself and be independent so that I’m never dependent on a man to take care of me, if he ended up being abusive and of course, that’s not all I think about today, but it really framed me as a person to think about how can I get an education, beat the cycle of poverty, change what the outcome is gonna look like for me. And that really got me down the path of working hard, getting good grades, getting a degree, and I did that, I was very determined. I’m gonna do whatever it takes to get out of this.

And I landed myself after college, I worked full-time while I went to school full-time, graduated in three years, and came out and was offered a job for Bank of America to go through their private banking and financial advisory program and to advise their ultra-high-net-worth clients in their bank, and that was the first time in my young 20s that I really knew anything about money, and I’m like, I don’t know even how to budget my own checking account. And I’m gonna start talking to people about what to do with their money when they have it, but I’m so thankful that I had that because it really opened my eyes too.

There are a lot of people that know how to manage their money. And if I really want to do well, it’s not just about getting a good job and making good money, but I gotta figure out how to manage my money well and invest my money so that one day I really have this independence and be able to provide better for my own family to not ever have to end up in women’s, battered women’s shelters and relatives couches and things like that, so that’s kind of my beginning and how I got started into thinking about investing, but it was several years further before I started thinking about real estate.

WS: It’s interesting how upbringings like that affect everyone. All of us have stories or things that have happened to us, but such an experience at a young age can definitely just change the whole trajectory of where you’re headed. And for you, you became very determined, it’s interesting just to hear that.

I can relate somewhat, especially through military and law enforcement and just training like that, and it sounds like it was a very different story, but I can become very determined depending on it, what happens to us, and for you, man, you were very determined, you were very successful, you got into Bank of America, now you’re working with extremely high-net-worth individuals.

Tell us what are a couple of things is just interesting working with high net worth individuals from that capacity, a couple of things that you took from that that have helped you in the apartment syndication business,

AK: Yeah, so many things. ’cause that was just kind of the beginning. But what was really interesting, I remember I started out in private banking in the late 90s, and so I had this client back then, interest rates were high, and what kind of returns were in the stock market, and annuities and CDs were all pretty high. Much higher than what they are today. 

And I remember having a conversation with an older gentleman, and you have to realize I was like 23 years old and this young blond thing and this older man looking at me like, Honey, you got so much to learn, but I’ll listen to your spiel, and I told him about these returns we can make, I remember it was in the teens, but I don’t remember the number, but he laughed and he said, I make much more than that in my real estate investments, and I’m like real estate investments. I’ve never heard of real estate investments, I’ve gone through all this training and I can tell you about stocks bonds, mutual funds, annuities life insurance, etcetera, but nobody taught me about real estate.

So that kind of piqued my interest to think I need to learn more about this real estate thing, and about a year later, I realized I’m throwing away a lot of money on rent, and I thought I’m gonna not throw my money away on rent, I think I’m gonna buy a condo because I can live in it for free, or basically something that’s an investment, and then down the road, I’ll keep it as a rental property to bring in a little extra income ’cause he has rentals, so it just gave me that little bit of info and wait for a second, these are really wealthy people, don’t just invest in the retail things that I know about, but they also think outside the box and invest in real estate. 

So that was one thing. The other thing that I really took away that I think really helps me as an investor to get to where I am today as well as now as an operator and syndicator, is that I don’t just think about it. I need a building of a certain size or a certain number of units, or I’ve just gotta get any deal that my investors will like, I really think of all investments from an investment strategy standpoint, through our lifetimes, we go through phases of initially we need income, and so we’re in the business of wealth accumulation, cash flowing things, right? 

Then eventually we move to a place where we wanna focus on growth and we can take a little more risk, we can set some money aside, not necessarily the bucket of money that we need to live on a day-to-day, and then eventually we have to start really thinking about preserving and protecting what we’ve built.

So as an investor, learning those things through my training as well as working with people that were in each different phase of that financial trajectory of growing wealth and financial freedom has allowed me to really look at investments through the lens of do I really wanna do this deal, what are my personal financial goals, where am I in that trajectory of financial growth and where are my investors, and how can I marry the right opportunities to actually meet the financial goals that we’re trying to achieve? Rather than just buy a deal ’cause it has a good IRR, and I hope that there’s some upside. I think those were my main two takeaways.

[END OF INTERVIEW]

[OUTRO]

Whitney Sewell: Thank you for being with us again today. I hope that you have learned a lot from the show. Don’t forget to like and subscribe. I hope you’re telling your friends about Real Estate Syndication Show and how they can also build wealth in real estate. You can also go to LifeBridgeCapital.com and start investing today.

[END]