UNIN 22 | Invest In Yourself

Invest In Yourself: Building Up Your Fundamentals So You Can Find Success In Your Industry With Jason Matthews

  If you really want to succeed in your industry, you need to have a knack for learning. The ability to just constantly educate yourself. Read every book, do research, get mentors, or listen to podcasts. Do what you have to do so that you can succeed and don’t make mistakes. Strengthen your fundamentals and move up from there. Join Tim Herriage as he talks to real estate executive Jason Matthews about his journey into real estate development and construction. Discover how he did it by investing in himself. Learn how he put some of his sports philosophies into creating a successful business. And find out how Jason is helping ethnical minorities break into the real estate industry. Start educating yourself today! — Watch the episode here   Listen to the podcast here   Invest In Yourself: Building Up Your Fundamentals So You Can Find Success In Your Industry With Jason Matthews I’m here with my good friend, Jason Matthews. Jason, thank you for coming to town. Thanks for having me. I’m looking forward to it. One of my favorite guys. I don’t know about all that, but let’s start off. Why don’t you tell the audience a little bit about yourself. Jason Matthews, born and raised in Los Angeles, California, and played high school and college basketball. I used that life of basketball, that vehicle, to guide me through my business career. I’m now living in Tampa. Many years as a real estate investor. I’m married. I’m a dad of three, great kids. I’m happy to be here in Dallas, Texas with you. I’m glad you’re here. I like to start with what I call the Bottom-Line Up Front. Imagine someone’s reading, they’re excited, they have to stop to do something for 5 or 10 minutes, and they forget to go back to reading. Let’s try to find a way to tell them the most important things happening in the market now, your opinion about that, things you think they should be focused on, things they should be doing, and maybe some things they should be avoiding. The most solid advice I can give people at this point in time is to focus on their education. You have to dig deep into the fundamentals because the fundamentals will teach you how to make adjustments. In the real estate market that we’re dealing with right now, things, underwriting guidelines, and values are changing so rapidly. You got to drill down into the fundamentals and know how to make adjustments. Our approach has been to study what’s going on, relying on the knowledge that we’ve gained over the last 25-plus years, and make the right adjustments. We’ve done a great job so far of doing that. We also have an action plan with more rate hikes to come. We also have an action plan with looking at some different uses for our short-term rental portfolio that we have. That’s what it’s going to take to be successful and get through the next few years. I’ve invested in my education on a continuous basis. I’ve invested in a couple of courses that have helped me. I’m investing in some more excellent coaching. I’m in a phenomenal real estate mastermind group that has a lot of talent, knowledge, and experience. I came into the year 2020 expecting to have to make these adjustments, expecting to build our infrastructure a lot stronger with the growth of our portfolio. That’s what we’ve been able to do. It’s worked well for us. I got to meet you in the Boardroom Mastermind in Denver in June 2022. You were immediately one of those impressive human beings, not because you’re a short man because you’re rather tall, but because you were soft-spoken but intelligent. I like to have intellectual conversations at times. I want to go back to something you said in the bluff. You talked about education and a team. It seemed like you were leveraging other people’s knowledge. Going back to your time in sports, because we talked a lot about that when we first met, what is it about having a team specifically in times like this that helps you? To be a part of a team, to have a team, I was fortunate. My dad put me in team sports at four years old at tee-ball. My dad was my Little League coach for ten years. It’s a phenomenal experience. You have to be on time and prepared. It’s not all about you. You can’t win the game by yourself. My dad was big on sportsmanship. Knowing how to get along with your teammates and realizing that even if you’re right, it’s okay not to have to tell everybody that you’re right. That transferred into being a businessman. I’ve never liked the vertical management of our businesses and being an entrepreneur. I’ve always preferred to work in a team. Whether I agree with it or not, I value the input from others on our team because they have different perspectives. They live in different neighborhoods and cities. They’ve had different experiences, personal experiences, family experiences, and business experiences. I want to look at the whole global view of what’s going on out here. I believe that a major reason why I’ve been able to stay in this industry for many years through all the real estate cycles and ups and downs and things of that nature is that I am willing to listen and learn from a variety of different people. I’ll give you a good example. When I was younger in the business, if I had a major business decision to make, I would intentionally ask one of my mentors’ opinions. I would ask one of my colleagues’ opinions. The third person I would ask would be someone that’s not even in the real estate industry. That was my process. They gave me three different perspectives. I added my perspective and then I move forward with the decision. That was a practice

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UNIN 14 | Investment Insurance

Investment Insurance: Do’s and Don’ts For Your Real Estate Business With Corey Maxwell

  The market is about to shift, and you have to be ready. Investment insurance is one way to do that. In today’s episode, Tim Herriage chats with Corey Maxwell, Co-Managing Partner of Birmingham Insurance Group. With volatile market conditions, you must start thinking of ways to protect your business and assets. Corey is here to share his wisdom on how you can do just that. Plus, he gives valuable insights on what you should and shouldn’t be doing for your business to succeed. Don’t miss the golden nuggets from this episode, and tune in to get practical tips and mindset strategies that will position you for success. — Watch the episode here   Listen to the podcast here   Investment Insurance: Do’s and Don’ts For Your Real Estate Business With Corey Maxwell I have Corey Maxwell. Corey, welcome to the show. Thank you, Tim. I’m glad to be here. I’m so glad you’re here. I can’t wait to talk about fishing and college football but first, why don’t you tell our readers a little bit about yourself? I am one of the Cofounders and Managing Partners at Birmingham Insurance Group, BIG Insurance. We specialize in insurance for investors and property management companies. We take care of folks all across the country, 50 states. We’re also investors. We’re in the fight every day like everyone else is. We look forward to learning and growing along with everyone else here. Full disclosure, in December 2021, when we met, we entered into an agreement for me to sell REI Choice Insurance to you at BIG. You’re my partner, you and Jason Henderson as well. I like to get that out there. I wanted you to come here, Corey, because you and Jason are investors and have been involved in hard money and other businesses. We all operate the largest real estate investor-focused insurance agency in the nation. There are some others out there but I’m going to call us the largest. We’re the largest non-exclusive. Every episode, I start with the Bottom Line Up Front. Imagine when I was in the Marine Corps, I used to brief generals. They always said, “You don’t bury the lead. You have to lead with the bottom line up front.” If the general has to get up and leave the room or if there’s a mortar attack, you’ve got to get the most important thing. I’m going to give you two minutes to tell the readers the most important things that you see happening in the real estate market, industry and businesses and then some things that you think they should be doing and anything you think they should stay away from or not be doing. I appreciate the opportunity to share some ideas. In the marketplace, a lot is going on. Everybody’s paying attention to the midterm elections and inflation. Quite frankly, there are several things that I would recommend and focus on. First of all, being, “Don’t follow my path.” When it comes to achieving your goals, focus on your true self. Authenticity is key.   You can’t fake it but you can fake it until you make it. Be yourself. Go all in. Many people have too many opportunities. I’m one of them. Instead of getting analysis paralysis, find something that’s working and stick with it. Be committed. When I say be committed, be fully committed. Focus your attention, accomplish your goal and then you can move on to the next task or opportunity. I also made a note to remind myself, as well as everyone else, to find a mentor. Learning it on your works but it’s one of the reasons why franchises like McDonald’s, Chick-fil-A and others that are well known make it a whole lot more often than mom-and-pop shops. Find a mentor, somebody that can show you the loopholes, opportunities and shortcuts. It saves you a lot of time, heartache and energy. The two number one things I would focus on are tied for first. Be ready because the market is about to shift as inflation continues to hover at highs and the mortgage business has slowed down at a pace faster than any other time in the last several years. Foreclosures are about to start back over again and people are going to lose their businesses. Be ready, have your money in order and go get them. There’s a lot to unpack there. Let’s dive into that. I’ll throw the hard part out there first. You said, “Don’t be like me.” What are we referencing there? Everybody has wins and losses. If you are going to be successful, you have to be willing to try but more importantly, to fail because failure is where the best lessons come from if you’re paying attention and you are willing to learn from the process. What I recommend is don’t follow my path but more importantly, find a mentor, somebody who has already been down this road, is familiar with the bumps and the turns and who can tell you to brake, accelerate, hang a left and right. You and I both have been in the ditch at some point in our lives. The last thing we want to do is get back in that ditch because, in the best scenario, we’re going to have to winch ourselves out. At the worst, we’re going to smack a tree and game over. Many people that are successful attempt to pretend as if they were never unsuccessful. They forget the challenges that we all make it through. It’s not the challenges we encounter. It’s the challenges we make it through. It’s those challenges that make us good business people, parents and spouses. It was interesting you said, “Fail but pay attention.” That’s a powerful combination of words to me because often we fail but rarely do we pay attention to why we failed. Corey, talk a little bit about some of the things you see going on in the marketplace. It could

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