When the uniform comes off, who is left underneath?
Shelon Hutchinson, or Hutch the Marine Investor, gives us the challenge that we still have a duty to build wealth for our families and create futures. That’s just what Hutch is doing by creating strategic relationships (and building “core-petitors”) that build wealth and opportunities, not only for him and his family but for the future of his investors.
In this powerful episode, find out how Hutch builds into people and into his vision to scale in multifamily and build generational wealth.
[00:01] – [05:06] From Serving America to Owning a Part of It
- Hutch’s journey from a slave plantation in Jamaica to immigrating to the US
- The idea of “owning a part of America”
- How Hutch balanced being an active marine and building H Squared Capital
[05:07] – [08:45] Building Partnerships to Fuel Success in Business
- Hutch defines his view on success and how it ties into realizing your potential
- From having ‘competitors’ to building ‘core-petitors’
- How Hutch and his co-founder work in tandem to close deals
[08:46] – [12:59] What’s in a Name
- Hutch reveals the core idea behind his nickname and why it’s important
- How to translate core values from the Marines to the real estate world
- Tying what you do to a something bigger than yourself
[13:00] – [14:38] Own Nothing but Control Everything
- How Hutch is working to build generational wealth
- Exploring the concept of owning nothing yet controlling everything
[14:39] – [15:49] Closing Segment
- Reach out to Hutch!
- Links Below
Tweetable Quotes
“You get to create, you get to impact your family’s future and also the future of the investors that you bring on in the investment world.” – Shelon Hutchinson
“This uniform comes off or the uniform comes off and yet still you remain. And your responsibility and your obligation and your duty [is] to continuously provide for your family and also improve the trajectory of your family bloodline.” – Shelon Hutchinson
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Connect with Hutch on LinkedIn for passive commercial real estate investment opportunities! Visit hsquaredcapital.com and start owning a bit of America.
Connect with me:
I love helping others place money outside of traditional investments that both diversify a strategy and provide solid predictable returns.
Like, subscribe, and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or whatever platform you listen on. Thank you for tuning in!
Email me → sam@brickeninvestmentgroup.com
Want to read the full show notes of the episode? Check it out below:
Hutch [0:00]
We look to build solid relationships ‘with,’ you know. So we bring the piece in where we bring some seed capital to where we invest our own money, due diligence capital as well. My partner, Dr. Jones, he’s really really good with numbers, because he does a lot of research. So he assists our company with underwriting. I focus on building relationships, and we bring all this stuff together.
Intro [0:20]
Welcome to the How to scale commercial real estate show. Whether you are an active or passive investor, we’ll teach you how to scale your real estate investing business into something big.
Sam Wilson [0:32]
Hutch the Marine investor is a master Gunnery Sergeant E9 in the United States Marine Corps. He’s still on active duty, though he focuses on building his real estate portfolio by co-sponsoring the acquisition of multifamily property. Hutch, welcome to the show.
Hutch [0:46]
Oh, man, thank you so much for having me, my brother.
Sam Wilson [0:49]
Pleasure’s mine! Three questions I asked every guest who comes on the show? Where did you start? Where are you now? How did you get there? But you gotta tell me in less than 90 seconds.
Hutch [0:57]
Ooh, man. I don’t know if I can do that. My stuff goes really deep, man. So look, in 90 seconds. This is who Hutch the Marine Investor is. This whole thing, man, this whole thing that we have going on started on what used to be a slave plantation on the island of Jamaica. I spent the early year of my life walking into school with bare feet. Then I came to immigrate to America in 1998. Shortly after that out to join the Marine Corps, traveled the world, but I’ve not been to Africa yet. I’m super excited to go to Africa one day. Might need to go there on a vacation. Right? You know, so I was fortunate when I came to America, my dad kind of got me thinking about owning more, owning some or more of America through real estate, you know, so I got a seed planted in my head real early on when I came to America. So the paradigm was single-family space. But it was not until 2019 That it transitioned to the multifamily space and just focused on growing right now.
Sam Wilson [1:45]
Wow, that’s fantastic. So in 2019, you’d had enough of single-family? Correct. Do you still own a single-family portfolio?
Hutch [1:54]
Just two right now. One in Cali, one in Florida.
Sam Wilson [1:57]
Gotcha. So you’ve divested of those assets. And now you’re going long in the multifamily space? How have you been able to do that? Being active in the Marine Corps and probably getting deployed at least a few times?
Hutch [2:10]
Yeah. So one thing if you know anything about the Marine Corps, is that Marine Corps expect and appreciate nothing less than 100% commitment, right, and effort. You know, so I learned a quote, not too long ago by Arnold Schwarzenegger, right? A lady asked him a question like, “Where do you find time to work out? my busy schedule is XY and Z.” And he asked the lady, “Do you sleep?” And the lady said, “Yes.” And he said, “Sleep faster.” Right so, H Squared Capital, we started off at a masterminding, my partner, Dr. Jones and I, we started off masterminding and at 4 am in the morning, you know. So wake up, and we will make notes, we were working on content, podcast recording, or just creating the business in general. Right. And, we worked on it also late at night, you know, because my partner, Dr. Jones, he has a GS 14, he does Auditory Research for the Army out in Fort Rucker, Alabama. So E2 have a large commitment throughout the day, you know, so I’m focused more in the morning. But we have promoted ourselves to a point where we can create more flexibility in the days to where our lunch hours can actually be lunch hours. And we can take some time to make investor calls, property managers, so on and so forth.
Sam Wilson [3:15]
That’s awesome. Now, you’re co-sponsoring or you have gone out and started to buy deals on your own?
Hutch [3:20]
Yes. So we did our first lead sponsor back in the last quarter of 2021, which is a small 26 unit we purchased in Augusta, Georgia. Right? We do have a team that was syndicated but Heath and I are one of the lead sponsors and that deal.
Sam Wilson [3:35]
That’s awesome. Very, very cool. What do your marine buddies think about what you do?
Hutch [3:40]
Man, the absolute they’re fascinated with it. No, so there is a split, right? Because in the Marine Corps, anything that does not have to do with winning a country’s war, right? And making a Marine is our second nation, right. So needless to say, there’s a portion of it, there’s a portion of my peers, that frown on it, right. Because they see it as a distraction. But when you wake up at four in the morning, and when you’re working on the business after the kids go to sleep, then you are not really affecting the mission, right. But you get to create, you get to impact your family’s future and also the family – the future of the investors that you bring on with us in the investment world. But there’s a certain population in the Marine Corps that understands that at one point, this uniform comes off or the uniform comes off, right? And yet still you remain and your responsibility and your obligation and your duty are to continuously provide for your family and also improve the trajectory of your family bloodline, you know. So it’s mixing, depends on who you’re talking to. Right? So, you got to feel those conversations out to feel what will this conversation be about? Will it be an overall motivated conversation about a Marine Corps talking about, you know, just the polar and future projection of the Marine Corps, or do we talk about mindset? And do we mix the mindset in with our responsibility to the ones that care most about us, which is our family, you know. So the conversation is different and we have to choose who we had those conversations with.
Sam Wilson [5:07]
Yeah, that’s really well said. Tell me about – when I ask you when I say the word ‘success, ‘ what does that mean?
Hutch [5:14]
Oh, man. So I’ll tell you right now, Sam, we could say that success looks like XYZ. But what do we really know? I think if I should describe success right now, it would be based on my limited understanding of what’s possible, right? So, I gradually change what I believe success looks like? Well, one of the things that always remains constant is not getting to the end of my life, and, you know, meeting the person that I could have been, and not recognizing that individual, I would like to be it at the end of my life. And wherever we go heaven, hell, or to a next realm or next dimension, whatever the case may be, right, I would like to meet, you know, what I could be and I can identify with that guy. Be like, man, you look like me, in the spiritual form. Whatever it is. It could be a black, white, Asian, whatever the spiritual form looked like, right. I would like to be able to say, we have similar qualities and I’ve grown to what my expectation was. I believe that’s what success looked like. But for me, it continues to change while we’re in this realm.
Sam Wilson [6:15]
Oh, for sure. I think success is a constantly morphing term. But I was just curious what it sounds like for you. And I think the way – I like the way you’ve put that, when you meet your future self, you will want to know who you are then in such a way that you’re like, Oh, hey, I became – I met my potential. I think that’s maybe – does that sound like a fair synopsis of that?
Hutch [6:36]
Yeah, absolutely is. So it’s good to have somebody in your life to chase. But I think a lot of times we burden ourselves with looking at, we’re trying to be honest. I’m a firm believer that we can only be the best version of our current self. Right? So I’m also chasing that person as well. So my paradigm of what I can be continuously changed as well. So you know, that’s why we all set goals, right? Michael blanc talks about, you know, “Planning is going into the future, bring it to the present, and then doing something about it.” And if we continue chasing our future self, then success would always be improving, as we set bigger and better goals for ourselves.
Sam Wilson [7:15]
That’s awesome. I love that. Tell me how you guys are finding opportunity right now? I mean, the multifamily space is currently not known for its lack of competition.
Hutch [7:26]
Yeah. So it’s really cool that you bring up the word competition, because when we have the abundance mindset, right, and I know I saw you at The Best Ever Conference, we didn’t really get an opportunity to speak, but when we in an environment like that, we get people sharing this abundance of information, right? So what happened is that a lot of us were there to create better relationships, we see a lot of folks in this virtual world, but we get to get a firm handshake and look people square in the face and, you know, kind of get the feel of their character. So we get to realize that we are more ‘core-petitors’ than we are ‘competitors,’ you know. So at H Squared Capital, we look for more ‘core-petitors,’ folks who are actually, day in day out in the market, underwriting deals, underwriting markets, analyzing markets, and those are the folks. We look to build solid relationships ‘with,’ you know. So we bring the piece in where we bring some seed capital to where we invest our own money, due diligence capital as well. My partner, Dr. Jones, he’s really really good with numbers, because he does a lot of research. So he assists our company with underwriting. I focus on building relationships, and we bring all this stuff together. So we help to get the deal past closing. And then after closing, we manage our investor relations, you know. So that’s what we’re doing right now we focus on making good relationships with folks who’re underground in the market every day and building more core-petitors.
Sam Wilson [8:45]
I like the play on words there. Tell me about your nickname.
Hutch [8:49]
So, let me tell you earlier, it’s Shelon or ‘Hutch.’ So everything has to be memorable, I believe, you know, the ones who crave the most attention in marketing, I believe will come out on top, or actually, not necessarily come out on top – will stay top of mind. Right? I don’t believe Shelon is a memorable name, but Hutch the Marine Investor is, I believe, is a memorable name. Now look, the reason why I got to Hutch is that my wife built some awareness in my life a long, long time ago in our relationship. She asked me and you know, 20 years of marriage, I’ve never once called him up called her out of her name. We never once had a fight. We have had some solid moments, right? But we’ve had some really deep conversations that helped us to build a better understanding of who we are as spiritual beings. And in one of our conversations, really early in our relationship, she asked me this question she said, “Can you help me to understand why whenever you introduce yourself to a female, you introduce yourself as Shelon, but when you meet a guy, who’s real manly, I’m Hutch. You know, so she raised awareness and awareness is a foundation for changing or improving who you can be, right? So right then and there, I said, you know, really thank you for bringing that to my attention. I will go by Hutch from now on to eliminate any explanation going into the future. You know, so when I started investing, like yep, what can make the name Hutch a little more memorable? And that’s why I transitioned to Hutch the Marine Investor, because once a Marine, always a Marine. So I could be a former Marine, used to be Marine, used to be active duty, whatever the case may be, right. But I will always be Hutch the Marine Investor because once you go to boot camp and complete a successful completion of training, that is one thing no one can ever take away from you. I will always be a Marine, under whatever circumstances.
Sam Wilson [8:57]
What are the systems? What are the processes that you feel like, they’re kind of cross-discipline skills from the Marines to real estate investing?
Hutch [10:08]
Look, so there’s a couple of things, Sam, and one of the things I want to focus on is morale. So morale is a confidence and enthusiasm. You know, it’s also the discipline in a group, but not only in a group is about – it’s in yourself. And when you have the confidence by enthusiasm and discipline, right, that builds competence. And competence is something that as you know, Sam, investors are looking for. So I think morale, right. I mean, the confidence, enthusiasm, and discipline to build competence as a real estate investor, I believe, investors look to that, for people who they want to invest with. And I believe that directly transfers over from the morale that we have in the Marine Corps, right, from being a go-getter, never quits, to being successful on a mission. Right? I believe that’s a skill that’s transferred. But look, also, as a Marine, everyone needs a friend, a purpose, and an opportunity to belong to something greater than himself. And that’s why in the Marine Corps if you transfer from the army or any branch of service to the Marine Corps, you have to go through the Marine Corps Bootcamp. Right? That is by design, because of the way Marines are created. Because we accept nothing less than 100% commitment. You know, so everyone in the Marine Corps, we believe that we’re part of something greater than ourselves, you know, everyone needs a friend, a purpose, and some opportunity to belong to something greater than himself. And I believe we have impact investing in real estate syndication, right, like H Squared Capital, the way we give back to our community is that 10% of all our acquisition fee, goes to a nonprofit organization that benefits our veterans. I believe that a lot of folks can get behind that. So, a lot of these skills transferred over. And I can go down a rabbit hole of a lot more skills. And yes!
Sam Wilson [12:34]
That’s really, really cool. I love what you guys are doing. I love building in the ability to, you know, we’ve done that on all of our deals as well, where it’s, Hey, this is what we’re supporting. It doesn’t impact investor returns, because it comes out of the general partnership side. But as limited partners get involved, it’s like, hey, by investing with us, you can make a difference, you know, again, without it impacting your return. So I think that’s really, really cool. Tell me something along these lines: what’s something you’re curious about right now? Is there something economically? Is there something in the business? What’s something you’re curious about?
Hutch [13:10]
So a way – I wish we had a crystal ball to see what the future projection of the economy of the United States looks like? But one of the things that I’m absolutely curious about, Sam, is how do I create a family office to where when my grandkids graduate from whatever high level of education they choose to go to, whether it be high school, and they want to start a business, or they go to university and they want to start a business after that – I never want them to worry about how their education will be paid for. I never wanted to worry about where would they get the seed money to buy their first investment property or start their own business? And I believe a family office is a way to do that. So that’s one of the things that I have my curiosity in. And also how do I own nothing but control everything? Right? I’m super fascinated by that concept. And it’s the things that I’m pulling together a lot of information to actually execute in the very near future.
Sam Wilson [14:03]
Owb nothing but control everything. Can you elaborate on that?
Hutch [14:07]
So we hear a lot, a lot of folks that would have these got these trust funds, right? And they don’t really own it, but they get to benefit from it. Right, or a family office where it’s controlled by a trustee to navigate certain elements, one to tax advantages, right, and certain ways of getting it to transcend it several bloodlines? Right, and that’s kind of what I’m focused on. Look, I don’t have all the details yet. But as he said, that’s something that I’m super fascinated and curious about. How that really works and how can I incorporate that into the Hutchinson bloodline?
Sam Wilson [14:38]
I love it. Oh, nothing but control everything. That’s a brilliant model there. Hutch, thanks for coming on today. It’s been a blast. Last question for you. If listeners want to get in touch with you or learn more about you, what’s the best way to do that?
Hutch [14:49]
The best way to do that is to connect with me on LinkedIn at Hutch the Marine Investor on LinkedIn or you can shoot me an email at hutch@hsquaredcapital.com. We also got a website and a podcast. Our website is http://www.hsquaredcapital.com. And our podcast, The Multifamily Real Estate Experiment podcast. Heath and I, we interview 63 guests, and each topic dissects aspects of multifamily real estate that, whether you’re a passive investor or an active investor, will be of interest to you.
Sam Wilson [15:19]
Awesome. Hutch, thanks for your time today. I do appreciate it.
Hutch [15:22]
Thank you so much, my brother.
Sam Wilson [15:23]
Hey, thanks for listening to the How to Scale Commercial Real Estate podcast if you can do me a favor and subscribe and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google podcasts, whatever platform it is you use to listen if you can do that for us. That would be a fantastic help to the show. It helps us both attract new listeners as well as rank higher on those directories. So I appreciate you listening and thanks so much and hope to catch you on the next episode.
