Are you a retired military professional? Here’s how you can start investing in real estate. Sam Wilson welcomes Noel Walton, the co-founder of The Joint Chiefs of Real Estate. Noel shares with Sam how he and other retired military veterans created a team to help other veterans start investing without the hassle of being a landlord. The key to real estate investing is broker relationships. You need to establish the network, tell everybody what you do, and be ready to educate. Then start putting offers out on deals. Want more tips? This episode’s for you. Tune in!
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How Retired Military Professionals Can Start Building Wealth Through Real Estate With Noel Walton
Noel Walton, he’s an Army veteran and a Cofounder of the Joint Chiefs of Real Estate. They are a group of military veteran apartment syndicators. They buy in taxes in Ohio thus far. Noel, welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me, Sam.
Pleasure is mine. Same three questions I ask every guest who comes to the show. Could you very quickly tell us, where did you start, where are you now, and how did you get there?
I started out on active duty in the Military using my VA loan. There are a lot of military members who do and buy a house, live in it for a couple of years, go somewhere else, rent it out. I did that for a couple of duty stations, made some extra cap, and one out in Hawaii. It was a nice duty station. I went to Alabama, not quite as nice, but cheap homes. We got in there. I started doing some fix-and-flips, doing some rehabs. My wife and I at the time, going at it and making a little extra here and there. That’s where it started.
The next was discovering that we couldn’t scale the single-family side of things and we had two daughters and now they’re 5 and 2. It takes up a lot of our time. That made us refocus on what’s our why. “How do we scale? How do we do this and give our girls the time that they need as well?” That took me to the multifamily side of things. I got into that full aboard in January of 2020.
Soon after, through my networking, I met a couple of other military guys who were also getting into the space as well. We cofounded what’s now known as the Joint Chiefs of Real Estate. We call ourselves JCORE and came about that name because each of us represents a different branch of the military. We’ve got Army, Navy, Marines and a previously Air Force, now a Space Force as well.
I would’ve expected all of you to have been from the same branch of the military. Walk us through that journey. How did each of you from various branches connect and then say, “Let’s do something?”
It’s a unique story. It’s pretty awesome. As soon as I started getting into networking and all, I got on online, Facebook groups, and there are a lot of people to connect with. I said, “I’m at Fort Hood. Who else is around this area investing in multifamily?” A buddy of mine, Myles Spetsios, Air Force Captain at the time. I was an Army Captain. We met up for coffee and started talking, “What are you doing? What are your goals?” We’re on pretty much the same path, same goals and vision.
Refocus on your why and how.
I was like, “Let’s stay in touch and underwrite a couple deals around the area and put some offers out there, and see what happens. No long-term commitment. Let’s try it out.” That’s how it was born. Shortly after, we met other partners, Tom Groves and James May. Tom is a 26-year-veteran of the Navy, Master Chief retired out of the Navy. James was a former Marine, now foreign service. They bring some wild and awesome skills to this team. We all complement each other well. That’s how we came together. We’re putting offers out on deals. We closed our third deal, so continuing to grow and have big plans for ’22.
Congrats. That’s a lot of fun hearing you the organic way that came together. Is there somewhere in this journey where you guys said, “We need another team member or another team member could do X to help us grow?” What were some of those pain points and then how did when it was time to loop somebody else in?
We came together pretty quickly. I knew Tom early on as we both had gone through the same educational mentorship program together. This was right at the start of COVID. He and I were both parts of a Zoom accountability group, every morning at [5:00] AM Central time. I was on this lockdown during COVID and, every morning that’s where I was at, right there on Zoom. We were talking. We already had a rapport with each other.
It wasn’t until a little bit later that it all started coming together when Myles and I had been talking through some deals, putting in a couple of LOIs out, getting rejected, but we’re getting experience. We’re talking to brokers and all of that. James was part of the same program, but being Foreign Service, he was in Israel at the time. Being from Dallas originally, he saw through online postings that I was in the same group with him. He was like, “You’re in Texas. I’m from Texas. Let’s on a call.”
Funny things like that, like real random, we connected and it was like, “You want to come to join Myles and I’ll introduce you to him. Let’s get on a call.” That’s where it started. It was like, “We’ve got Tom here. He’s a Navy. Let’s bring him in.” Once we got the four, we’re like, “That’s probably enough. Let’s go with this.”
How have you guys split up duties? That’s one of the questions that so many people struggle with is how to split things up without stepping on each other’s toes.
That’s something that we worked through a lot in the first few months. A lot of it took getting into our first and second deals, even our third deal, dialing that in. We knew that Myles is great at underwriting, the spreadsheets, and the numbers, Electrical Engineering Degree, Cyber Operations guy. That’s him. He’s got that in. I’ve always been the relationship guy. I can underwrite, but that’s not what gets me pumped. I love getting out networking, meeting people, talking to brokers and all that.
We found there is overlap and that’s a good thing, because it’s not that everybody has the same superpowers, we all vary, but we find out who is the strongest. We had several meetings where we would run a team-building exercise where we would assess each other. “Here’s what you’re good at. Here’s what you’re bad at.” We were brutally honest with each other. That helped us bond together, but also gave us a clear picture and helped each of us understand things that we may not have known about it ourselves, or see more clearly because we’re getting that outside perspective.
That helped us a lot in developing our standard operating procedure or the tasks and where we fit in. We do have primary and alternate positions for each role in the team too. Somebody is out on a trip somewhere. We’re on Slack. We can stay up with each other on there, but if somebody doesn’t have the time, for instance, due to my time difference here and where I’m at now in Austria, if something comes up, that’s short notice one of the other guys will be an alternate to whatever that tasking is. That’s what it came down to. Put that out on paper and codify that and say, “You’re lead on this. You’re secondary on this.” Go down the list and we’re able to divide it up that way.
That was my next question across multiple time zones because you’re in Austria. How many of your partners then live stateside or around the world?
The three are all Eastern time zone now. I’m staying up until midnight for a team meeting, [6:00] PM for them.
That’s coordinating one of those, but if your next was in Israel and the next person was in Japan or somewhere else, it’s like, “This gets confusing.” How are you guys finding the right time that everybody can get together and have a meaningful conversation? This brings me to my next question. How are you guys finding assets?
Our primary source is brokers. We’re going after broker relationships. We have done mailers in the past, early 2020, a lot of what we did and in addition to local smaller asset brokers, some of those twenty units or less. Our first deal was a sixteen-unit joint venture, but we knew we wanted to go bigger faster. We did jump into a 172 units syndication immediately after that, quite a jump. That was due to a broker relationship.
Being brutally honest with each other helps people bond together.
The follow-up with that broker because our first offer didn’t get looked at and found out the other one fell through and there we were. That’s a huge part of it, but like I said, for what we want to look at the larger properties. We want to go 100 units and up, depending on the market. The broker relationships are ideal and those are key. It’s going to be harder to find those larger properties through mailers. It’s not going to be a mom-and-pop, owned 200-unit property. You’re going to be good for mailers with up to 50, maybe 60 units in most cases, but we knew we wanted to go big. That’s always been our goal go big or go home. That’s it.
How did you do your capital raise on the 172-unit? That’s a big jump out of the gate. I’m assuming you syndicated that.
We did syndicate that. We syndicate as 506(b). There was no easy answer to that one. We worked our butts off. We did bring in some private equity, that was able to cover some of that, but the largest portion of that was our team, our primary sponsor, we had a small team that was also general partners with us. We all worked their butts off. Hitting the phones, the emails and setting up calls.
We had webinars going a couple of times a week, trying to get as many people in front of this as we could like, “You need to check this out.” It was stressful. There are a lot of lessons learned from that. We call it a seminar. We had some bumps and bruises along the way, but we got it to closing and we’re doing good things with it. We’re super excited.
What were some of the lessons learned along the way on that first raise?
Looking back, ideally, you want to be raising capital long before you get on a contract on a deal. It’s a no-brainer now. One of those things we’re like, “We think we can raise this. Let’s go.” Sometimes you got to send it. Use references like, “Jumping out the door.” I’m a skydiver, that’s my mentality. Like, “I did my gear check. Doors opened. Let’s go.” Through all of that, we’ve not only learned a lot, but we have grown our investor base to continue to do that and continue to get our name out there. It’s about establishing credibility and establishing that track record.
I was talking to somebody, they said they think their first raise was about $500,000. They were doing coach AB raise with someone else and then their second raise was like $7 million. Sometimes you got to go and get it done. I’m like, “That’s courageous,” but as you said, you should be raising either before the deal or between deals wherever you are.
Always be raising capital. That’s one of the big things, start early, always be raising, always be establishing the network, telling everybody what you do, and be ready to educate in simple terms. Sit down and say, “Here’s what I do.” Don’t make it complicated. Give them the basic structure. “Here’s what types of returns our investors have seen or similar partners of ours have done,” things like that.
Starting off too, we didn’t have a huge track record. A lot of people like, “How many deals have you done?” I had to learn, “It’s not about you as an individual. It’s about the team. It’s about your sponsor and your team, and all of the experience that comes together in that team.” That was one of the things we quickly learned to leverage is the strength of the team and our primary sponsor, twenty years in the business, millions of dollars under management. We are privileged to be a part of that. It’s not just, “My, first second syndication.” It’s all about how you display that and pitch the team.
You want to be very transparent, but at the same time, in that transparency, you can leverage the experience and success of the people that are part of your team, because they help guide the deal on the ship. If their names are on it, they don’t want it to go down either. That’s a key early on when you’re scaling is to find team members that have more experience than you that you can add to the partnership. I’ve enjoyed this great conversation. Thanks for telling us how you guys have used your team and built your team to scale quickly. I look forward to seeing what you guys do. You said you retire, is that right?
We’re looking at two more weeks left in the army. I’m already getting ready for that. Burn out the rest of that leave. I have been full-time for a month. I will be taking that leap.
Congratulations. I appreciate you coming. Final four questions. What is one tool or resource you find you can’t live without?
A shared calendar. I missed several of them, but for our team, Slack has been maintaining multiple conversational channels and keeping them organized, it has been big and having the shared calendar, and Calendly is another one. That’s awesome. Keeps everybody’s calendar available. Send the link to someone. They can choose the time. It saves so much time. Those are being great. You can go into all kinds of different tools for different purposes. SyndicationPro, if you’re doing syndication, you shouldn’t be doing it without something like that.
Question two, if you could help our audience avoid one mistake in real estate, what would it be and how we can avoid it?
Your most costly mistakes are going to be due diligence. That’s where you identify anything that could be a potential issue, that could cost you money down the road. Knowing what you’re looking for and being thorough with it. Know what you’re doing and bring a good team. A tip for that, what we did on our largest one was having the property management company that we put in place, they had their own unit teams that go through. Each individual unit interiors they’d go through those and within three to five minutes, per unit. They would have this comprehensive list of everything that needed to be done in those units.
Establish the network, tell everybody what you do, and be ready to educate.
In addition to that, they had the tools. It would have taken us forever, it’s 172 units. They went through 172 in two and a half days. It’s insane. Cover the interiors at the same time, they’re bringing out their trusted GCs and contractors for electric, plumbing, you name it. They are walking the property the first day and getting everything assessed of the high-ticket items. Leverage experienced teams to help you out that will help you save time and money.
When it comes to investing in the world, what’s one thing you’re doing now to make the world a better place?
Our team being all military veterans, we have a special place in our hearts for other veterans. Everybody knows the issues of veteran homelessness, suicide and PTSD, being able to make a difference in that space help veterans out to help save veterans from suicide, help house veterans in the homelessness issue. We’re partnering with some other team, Active Duty Passive Income. We’re friends with them as well.
We’re working toward being able to partner with them to help provide home a tiny home for veterans as well. We’re still getting to the point where we’re dialing in the specific methods of how we’re going to go about it, but ultimately that’s our big picture goal is saving lives, providing homes and better lives for veterans.
If our audience wants to get in touch with you or learn more about you, what is the best way to do that?
You can look me up on Facebook or LinkedIn. Those are quick and easy. You can email me Noel@JCOREInvestments.com. We got our website, JCOREInvestments.com. I encourage everybody to check that out, we’ve got some great educational materials on there, a free passive investor guide and some good stuff there. You can set up a call if you’re ever interested in, find out our investor club, find out about what deals we have coming up this coming 2022 and work some good stuff in the pipeline. If that’s something that interests you and if our team is a good fit, we’d love to partner and get to meet you.
Noel, thank you for your time. I do appreciate it.
Thank you.
Important Links:
- Joint Chiefs of Real Estate
- Slack
- Calendly
- SyndicationPro
- Active Duty Passive Income
- Facebook – Noel Walton
- LinkedIn – Noel Walton
- Noel@JCOREInvestments.com
- https://www.Facebook.com/jcoreinvestments/
- https://www.LinkedIn.com/company/jcore-investments/
About Noel Walton
Noel Walton is an Army Helicopter Pilot, an active and passive investor in over 300 doors and is the co-founder of ‘The Joint Chiefs of Real Estate, a team of Apartment Syndicators who are also Military Veterans- each from a different branch of the military. He and his team invest in Texas and Ohio and are committed to the goal of saving struggling Veterans from homelessness and suicide.
