Insider Secrets Podcast Season 2, Episode 34

 Guest: Forrest Corral

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Guest Bio:

Forrest serves as Chief Investment Officer (CIO) for LTL Investments. In that capacity, he is responsible for investment strategy, including acquisitions and dispositions for the company. 

Forrest has enjoyed a 20-year+ career in real estate. During that time, he has served as Chief Investment Officer and Chief Financial Officer for both public and private companies. During his tenure, Forrest has successfully closed over 80 transactions; for investments and programs ranging from $10 million to well over $2 billion. He also effectively assembled more than $2 billion in structured financing.

Prior to joining LTL Investments, Forrest served as interim Chief Financial Officer for First Capital Real Estate, where he successfully oversaw a major up REIT transaction of 30 commercial real estate assets. Before First Capital, Forrest was Chief Financial Officer for Lyon Capital Ventures, where he acquired, renovated, developed and disposed of over 15,000 multi-family units. He also managed the entitlement and conversion of 3,000+ multi-family units to for-sale condos; which was valued in excess of $750M. In that capacity, Forrest also assisted in the financial reporting, both internally and externally, to partners and financial institutions on 100+ LLC/Partnerships/Trusts, etc.

https://youtu.be/VdG_kYwUxc4

SHOWNOTES

Key Takeaways

Communication is key in multifamily real estate, and learning industry-specific terminology is essential.

Setbacks are just setups for comebacks. Don’t let a failure stop you from moving forward.

Surrounding yourself with the right people can drastically impact your success.

It’s important to find your niche in the industry, focusing on what works best for you.

Multifamily real estate is a marathon; success doesn’t happen overnight.

Overcoming fear and self-doubt is crucial when taking the first step toward investing. 

Standout Quotes

“The only difference between a rich man and a poor man is what they choose to do with their time.” – Forrest Corral

“Success in multifamily is not a destination; it’s a journey, and it’s about constant learning and staying ahead of the curve.” – Mike Morawski

“Mentorship will save you years of pain and mistakes. Find someone who’s done it and trust their advice.” – Forrest Corral

“Setbacks are just setups for comebacks. Don’t let a failure stop you from moving forward.” – Forrest Corral

“The first deal is just as important as the last one because it sets the tone for your future.” – Mike Morawski

“The grind of this business isn’t easy, but it’s worth it if you’re committed.” – Forrest Corral

Episode Timeline

[0:00 – 2:30] Introduction to Forrest Corral and the focus of today’s episode on multifamily investing.

[2:31 – 6:00] Forrest’s background in real estate and how he got started in the industry.

[6:01 – 9:00] The role of time in building wealth and why it’s the most important resource for investors.

[9:01 – 13:00] Overcoming fear and self-doubt in real estate investing.

[13:01 – 16:00] Understanding market cycles and their importance in making successful investment decisions.

[16:01 – 20:00] The mindset shift required for long-term success in multifamily investing.

[20:01 – 23:30] The significance of mentorship and continuous education in the real estate journey.

[23:31 – End] Closing thoughts on taking actionable steps toward success and key takeaways from the episode.

Contact

LinkedIn: Forrest Corral

Company Website: LTL Investments

TRANSCRIPT

Kristen: [00:00:00] Welcome to this edition of Insider Secrets, the weekly podcast that turns real estate investing goals into reality. Each show, we interview guests who are seasoned real estate professionals actively closing and managing real estate deals. Mike is the founder of My Core Intentions and would like to help you make your real estate investing dreams a reality.

Mike coaches you to buy investment real estate, creating short term cashflow and long term wealth. Your host and real estate coach, Mike Mirowski has more than 30 years of real estate investing and property management experience. Here’s your host, Mike.

Mike Morawski: Hey, everybody, welcome back. Glad that you’re here. We’re doing things a little bit differently this week. We’re live on set. And we are gonna have Forrest in and talk a little bit about multifamily. And I’ll introduce him in a minute.

But first thing I want to talk about, I’ll usually start out by talking about a word, right? [00:01:00] And so the word today is communication. And it’s kind of funny because I just had a little conversation with Forrest about communication and how we get better at our skills over time. And, he said, oh, that’s just something I didn’t have in my club bag.

And I thought to myself, wow, that’s kind of interesting. We all have different tools, right? Or as he says, we all have different clubs in our bag. And what are in your bag? I think communication is really important. And communication comes across in a lot of different ways.

You could be raising capital from an investor. You gotta have good communication skills around that. You could be prospecting for raising capital. You gotta have great communication skills around that. You gotta know your elevator pitch. You got to have great communication skills around that or how about in the relationship with your wife or your spouse or significant other?

You’ve got to have great communication skills. And I think that we learn over time. I don’t believe that any of us are [00:02:00] just natural at it, but I do believe that it comes over time. So anyhow, welcome. If you’re here for the first time, I’m glad that you’re here. Thank the person that told you about us. Grab your coffee. Buckle up because you’re in for a hell of a ride this morning. That’s for sure.

If you’re watching us on social media, please subscribe to our YouTube channel and like us, love us on social media. We’re always bringing out great content, great information that’s going to help you grow your multifamily business and your investing business.

And I always talk about the one thing is that none of us grow professionally until we grow personally. So what are you doing to grow personally for yourself? So let me introduce my guest this morning. My guest is a good friend, longtime friend Forrest Corral. We’ve known each other for probably close to three decades, which is kind of interesting.

Forrest comes with a number of years of multifamily experience and knowledge. Everything around how to find a great deal, underwrite a great [00:03:00] deal and raise capital. And we’re going to talk about all that this morning or as much as we can get in, in the next 30 minutes or so. So Forrest, how are you?

Forrest Corral: I am doing fabulous. Thank you very much for having me.

Mike Morawski: Good to see you.

Forrest Corral: Likewise.

Mike Morawski: I know that we get to spend a lot of time together. We’ve spent a lot of time together over the years and I want to acknowledge you first of all by just saying, you’re not only one of my closest friends, but you’re my biggest mentor and probably my biggest cheerleader.

Forrest Corral: Well, I certainly wouldn’t as you know, I don’t say a lot of words. But, when I say them, I mean them. And, I think I learned that from my parents and my grandparents. And, when I say something, I generally mean it. And, I definitely always want to encourage you that you have it. And, I want to continue to be in the Michael Morawski business.

Mike Morawski: Yeah. Well, I appreciate that. So, I always start, and I’m going to catch you a little off guard, I’m sure, on this. But I always start by asking one question. In one word, what best [00:04:00] describes you personally and professionally? And you can’t use communication because I’ve already used that this morning.

Forrest Corral: Well, the first word that comes to me is committed. I worked for a billionaire, multi billionaire, 20, 30 years ago. And he tells a story it’s quite long, but the landing the plane on the story is if you’re committed, you’ll be successful. Doesn’t mean that you won’t fail from time to time.

Doesn’t mean that you won’t be perfect. Doesn’t mean you won’t hit the jump shot or hit the slap shot every single time in the goal, but it’s a law of large averages, if you keep on shooting, if you keep on swinging and you’re committed, you will be successful one day.

Mike Morawski: Yeah. I love that, committed. The multifamily business, I think people look at it from the outside and they say, man, I want to be in that business. I’d like to own apartments. But I don’t know that people really realize the capital that needs to be put in. And I don’t mean financial capital, but the human capital that needs to be put in [00:05:00] to do the business and especially grow the business at a high level.

Forrest Corral: Well, I love this business. It’s really the only thing, the only really business that I really know is multifamily investing. I’ve been doing it since college. I had a girlfriend when I was 17. I’ve told you this story several times, but for sake of the listeners, they lived at the beach. I did not.

I worked every day in the summer of sweating delivering furniture, and I go to this girlfriend’s house who lived on the sand here in Southern California, and we took out the mom’s new BMW when they weren’t home, and I remember driving down PCH, Pacific Coast Highway at the beach a very high rate of speed and at the top down. It was a great time to be on the road and thinking whatever the dad does, I’m going to do.

And so when the dad got home, I asked him, I said, Mr. Dooley, what do you do for a living? Cause he was always home, him and his family, they were always home and nice things. And he says, well, I’ll show you. So he [00:06:00] drives me around this beach community and he’s pointing out all the buildings that he built.

Well, I built this 20 unit. I built this 30 unit. I built these 40 units. And he said, you don’t need to go to college. And I just as a 17 year old, I looked at him with this odd face and cause I was going to college the next year. And he said, you don’t need to go, just buy a couple of books, just buy a couple of books on the subject and go to some seminars.

Oh, and my dad gave me a couple of bucks to start, which is always kind of the last rung on the step there. But I was just really confused by the whole topic, but years later I got married, I went to college, it was the accounting major, accounting firm, got into this business, it was a miracle, I worked on commercial real estate clients at Ernst & Young, and I had this great moment of clarity five, six years later after college that I would never own a million dollar home.

And then I remembered this story that Mr. Dooley said about being in commercial real estate and I bought a book and then I bought another book and then I bought a program and then I went to a [00:07:00] seminar or two and I just couldn’t stop.

And the words just leapt off the phase, the pages, this business isn’t difficult, but it is difficult. And if you just be committed, you will be successful at a particular time and point.

Mike Morawski: Yeah, absolutely. Well listen, as we get into this, why don’t you tell a little bit about your story and your background and where you’re at today in the business.

Forrest Corral: Yeah, that’s a great question. I grew up not too far from here, where the studio is on in East Los Angeles. And, I was the third or fourth generation here. In town, I was the first person to go to college and my family graduate college. I was the first person to leave the neighborhood.

When I was 17, I left the neighborhood, moved to the beach cause I love surfing and once you get the bug, you never want to leave the beach.

Mike Morawski: It’s like multifamily. Once you get the bug, you never want to leave it.

Forrest Corral: Pretty much. And that’s where I started and, a lot of times I sit and think about how smart I wasn’t. And I think a lot of this business is certainly being calculated, but you need to take [00:08:00] risks. And taking risk is walking out in front of the cash bus, basically. And sometimes you won’t always succeed, but you will learn.

And hopefully that you fail early. And you can fail late too, but you can’t be so catastrophic. Well, anyways. After I got married, after this moment of clarity for Mr. Dooley, I wanted a million dollar home. I bought these books. I put a plan together because I could add, subtract, multiply and divide, which is all you really need in this business.

And I just kept on asking people to invest in me. And, 99 people said No, but one person said, Yes. We bought half a dozen homes. And then I bought a couple of small multifamily assets. And then I 1031 exchange out of them. And then I got a CFO job or a financial analyst job at a publicly traded home builder.

And I always stayed in the space and it’s funny how the Lord works. And over a period of time, a couple of cycles, I learned this business and I have [00:09:00] acquired, renovated, refinanced, capitalized, recapitalized, disposed off in excess of approximately $4 billion worth of multifamily.

Mike Morawski: Say that number again, because I want the listeners to understand what you just said.

Forrest Corral: Yeah, basically I was some poor Mexican kid who went to a state college and ultimately got into this business by buying a couple of books. And over time, I have acquired, refinance, recapitalize, capitalize, sold, renovated, developed over $4 billion worth of multifamily. Or as I like to say at church, Oh, I’m in the apartment business.

Mike Morawski: Yeah, and that’s a great elevator pitch, right? I’m in the apartment business. I mean, a lot of times people say, Hey, how do I introduce myself to people? Well, I think that part of it is you have to get it in your mind that this is who I am and this is what I do. And I love your line that you say so often is when people say, Hey, why don’t you go do something else?

You go, I don’t know how to do anything else. And I [00:10:00] think that there’s something great to be said for that because you’re married to the business and you get really good at it. And the other thing you said that I thought was interesting was all you have to know how to do is add, multiply and subtract.

Forrest Corral: And divide. Like my son’s a computer science major at a big college. And he tells me about the work that he does and I’m like, that’s hard person stuff. This stuff that we do is not that difficult. There’s a finite amount of questions that you’re going to be asked about a specific subject property, whether it’s one unit, two unit, or 714 units, which I’ve acquired before.

Mike Morawski: It’s funny about that though is, today we use a nice underwriting tool, a model that you had a big hand in building and creating and continue to kind of redevelop for different types of models and strategy. I remember before I met you, before I had the access to that tool, doing these [00:11:00] numbers on legal pads.

And I was with a guy one time, we were coming back from looking at a deal, and three legal pads of rent growth, expense growth, and if we buy it at this price, and if we rent them at this price, and what the rehab would be, and going through everything, and I think that’s a great exercise that people should do before they get spoiled by being able to use an underwriting tool to look at deals.

Forrest Corral: I don’t entirely disagree. I mean, doing the long division, is what you’re semi suggesting, is how you get to understand short division. And by that, it’s a law of large averages. If you just keep on writing germane or salient facts about the case or about the subject property, you’re going to be in the shower and you’re going to be asking yourself, I wonder what this is. I wonder what that is.

I said earlier, you have to be committed. What I didn’t say is you also have to be obsessed. You only gave me one word. If you’re obsessed at anything, whether it’s working [00:12:00] out or this business, if you’re obsessed, you will be successful.

Mike Morawski: Yeah. So that’s interesting. I do some coaching and training and I find that the people that come in and they want the business, there’s two groups of people. There’s the ones that come in and they say, Hey, I want to do the business, but then there’s the ones that come in and say, no, I want to do the business.

And they’re, they’re the obsessed version. And those are the people that tend to, I want to say, rise to the top and really learn everything that needs to be done. And what’s interesting is there’s so many moving plates in the multifamily business. Everything from building relationships, locating deals, underwriting, due diligence, financing, raising capital. You can’t be good at everything, but you got to know everything.

Forrest Corral: Yeah. I have a friend, his name’s Peter Connell. He’s from North Carolina. He’s an engineer by trade, went to Virginia Tech. Boy, I would love to be this person [00:13:00] because he asks so many questions constantly, and he is a thousand times smarter than I am. Has done a thousand times less than I have done.

But nevertheless, I appreciate being with him because he helps me exercise my mind with the smallest of questions. And he’s since bought thousands and thousands of units himself and very successful. But, I’ve always enjoyed my conversations with him. I think also too, the other thing that I wanted to mention that came to my mind was, this business is kind of like, in World War II when the Americans were trying to get to Japan, they were island hopping.

And they didn’t have a bomber that had the range to get to their target, but they would acquire pieces of dirt to get closer to the objective or the target, and they would have to battle their way. And, for better or worse, this business is about island hopping and it’s island hopping information and relationships and doing things. And, the [00:14:00] next island is just get you closer to the big island.

Before the forward pass, they used to say three yards in a cloud of dust. And I think a lot of it’s a war of attrition and you just need to keep on pounding the rock. You need to hire a coach. You need to buy a book. You need to go out there and drive a property. You need to go out there, talk to a lender. You need to go out there and talk to the comps. It’s the totality of the circumstance and the writing it down. All of this stuff helps you to get to the next lily pad.

Mike Morawski: Yeah. I want to just circle back to this, writing it down for a minute, because I think that was the greatest exercise I ever did because it got me intimately involved with the deal. And, I’m going to tell you an hour and a half drive back to the office, three notepads later. I looked at the guy I was with and said the deal doesn’t work. Because I knew. Because you just kind of walk through it and I think that you have to ask a lot of questions. I say a lot on that what if guy.

What if rents don’t go up? What if rents go down? What if this company that we’re [00:15:00] banking on all these employees who are going to live here goes out of business? What if the markets change? And I think you have to ask a lot of what if questions in operations, in underwriting, in the due diligence, especially in the due diligence side when you’re trying to get to closing on a deal, to have a full understanding of how everything’s going to operate.

Forrest Corral: You do, but, I would add that you’re not going to have all the answers.

Mike Morawski: Never do, never do.

Forrest Corral: Never. And taking the risks, calculated risks. And there are topics within this topic that I would wave us off. Deal structure, capitalization, et cetera, et cetera. But you still need to take a risk and there are those people out there, I’m sure you’ve coached them that you tell them all you want, lead them to the water, but they’re still not going to drink. So you still have to pull the trigger. Why are they earnest money deposit? Go hard, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Mike Morawski: Yeah. A hundred percent. Something you said earlier about [00:16:00] got a couple books, read a couple books. I think a lot of people and I have found that the highest achievers in the business are people who have kind of got into the business that way. I think back to how I got in the business, which was probably a little bit longer journey than how you got there. I went to one of those half day seminars.

Robert Allen. I love Robert Allen to this day. I think he’s the grandfather of real estate investing, but he used to teach OPM, other people’s money. No money down, creative financing. And I go to this half day seminar. I start to get the bug. I’m like, so I sign up for the weekend event and I pay the money and at the time my wife’s like, are you kidding me?

That’s $2, 000, which today it’s like $10, 000. And I’m like, no, this is going to work. So I go to this weekend seminar and I am hooked. And I come home, long before cell phones. So I’m in the kitchen now looking through the newspaper, looking at houses for sale and dialing for dollars. And after [00:17:00] this weekend seminar, I wind up buying a four unit apartment building with a $1, 000 out of my pocket and the owner held the paper on the rest. I think we all get into the business through some type of education and belief in somebody else.

Forrest Corral: Yeah, I got into this business cause I was for lack of better words, I was pissed that I would never own a million dollar home living in Newport beach and being an accountant. I had a great job at what is now a big four accounting firm. I love that job. That was my dream job, but in the mid nineties, making $40, 000 a year, $45, 000 was not going to afford me the income to buy a million dollar home and living in Newport beach was probably one of the greatest moves that I did not calculated.

I just love to surf. But you see all the haves and the have nots. I grew up in the have nots here in East Los Angeles, but living in the location where there’s haves, it motivates you. I know you just bought a luxury [00:18:00] car. I constantly looking at real estate beyond what my current reach is.

For instance, I’m looking at hundreds of millions of dollars of assets right now. I looked at a portfolio about six months ago. It was about a billion two, it was 19 assets, something that I’ve done probably 10, 20 years ago when I was connected to a publicly traded home builder.

But for me as a loan, for me and a couple of friends, basically, we’ve acquired $10 billion worth of apartments. And anybody could do this business. That’s what I love. And how I got into it up in the circle back to that is I bought one of those late night real estate courses, it was a hundred bucks at the time. That was a hundred bucks, a lot of money.

I think we spent a hundred bucks at lunch today, but it’s still a lot of money. I just fell in love with this Carlton sheets late night program, how to buy homes with no money down. I am a strong advocate in never letting my wife drive because I’m the man of the phone, so to speak.

And there was this time when I got this program and I couldn’t put it down and we were driving [00:19:00] to Santa Barbara from Los Angeles, and I let her drive and I just kept on reading. I couldn’t put it down, highlighting it and boy, that’s how I got into this business. Not too dissimilar from you.

Mike Morawski: Yeah. So similar, and I think we have a lot of things in common. So I have to say this though, last week we were together and we were out with a good friend of ours. And you made a comment on the way to dinner that night, and your comment, like, set me back.

So, I know you’ve always been a big thinker. You’ve always thought outside the box. And, I have too. And I think that’s one of the things. But it’s interesting because I remember a time when you said, Oh, I’d like to own 10, 000 units, right? Well, you’re well beyond that today. But the comment you made the other day, and I want the listeners to listen to this because I think it goes to experience, time, and your ability to think big.

And I think the comment you made was, I want to own $100 [00:20:00] billion in real estate. And I have to tell you, it took me a couple of days after walking away from that conversation to get my arms around that number. Because that’s a big number. And I think a lot of the listeners are brand new getting in the business thinking, man, I’d like to own a 20 unit.

So if you’re talking to somebody who’s just getting in the business today and you’ve got this big vision of where the future is going to go for you and your group, how do you get a new investor to come into thinking bigger than a 20 unit?

Forrest Corral: Well, that hundred billion dollars is a total transactional volume over the next 10 years. And it supposes that I could raise, call it 250 to 500 million a quarter, US dollars. And that’s one of the base assumptions raising $250 million a quarter would get me to about 20 billion, and then double that would get me to 40. But you would transact along the way. You would sell, you would recap, you would up [00:21:00] read, you’d go public on some of the assets.

So that would count as another series of transactions. The real wealth happens when you buy and you hold, and you never sell. That’s what real wealth happens, and that’s where we’re at now is if you ever looked into the 10 31 opportunity of selling your asset, 10 31, deferring the taxes in perpetuity, your heirs get the assets on a stepped up basis. Most people don’t think like that.

But if you think beyond how much longer you’re going to live, how much you could possibly acquire, because what else are we going to do it. We just spend arguably 40 minutes at the LA athletic club having a good time eating lunch, but you can’t just sit around and eat lunch or golf or surf every single day, or you could. But for me, I know I’m just going to keep on working and Lord willing, I could be working for another 30, 40 years.

Mike Morawski: Well, I don’t see anywhere in scripture that says that we should retire.

Forrest Corral: I mean, [00:22:00] this was given to me by the Lord and it’s my talent now. I might not be perfect, but what else am I going to do? I love this business. It’s a hobby with a lot of zeros.

Mike Morawski: Yeah. So one of the comments you’ve made over the years, multiple times, is that the best money to be made is being a GP. Talk about that a little bit.

Forrest Corral: Well, most of us that have a couple of bucks, buy a book or go to seminars, work for somebody else and realize that the couple of bucks that we have isn’t enough to go out on your own and buy a hundred billion dollars worth of assets, let’s say.

It’s a semi hyperbole, but being a general partner said another way, you’re the sponsor or you’re the guy making all the directions on this asset. And one of the biggest things in real estate, real estate’s about control. And in order to be in control, you need to be the general partner or the sponsor or the promoter, the one that found the [00:23:00] asset and you’re assembling your team, whether that’s people lawyers, accountants, people that help you fundraise, people that help you manage or asset manage or do construction.

You’re the main decision maker. And so being part of the GP, if you’ve ever done the calculation, I know you have. You put in less money, and that money makes a much greater return relative to call it the limited partners if you do the math. And so, I don’t do a deal unless I’m part of this, the sponsorship group or a GP or actively involved.

Currently, I’m in about four or five partnerships rounding the corner to a couple others and they’re all a function of new equity that comes in. We just started another partnership.

Mike Morawski: Yeah. So partnerships are put together based on the equity.

Forrest Corral: Well, to me they are. To me they are because I have a base. I have three, four business partners who have all the expertise. I’m including myself. It doesn’t mean that they all come with me on every single trip or every single partnership. So the [00:24:00] greatest thing that you could have is access to capital because you’ll always find the subject matter experts.

Mike Morawski: Yeah. Absolutely. I want to talk about language for a minute. We kind of started this whole thing talking about communication and just kind of sitting here having a conversation. But I think language is really important, and understanding it. And I’m bringing this up because you said some things a few minutes ago where somebody new in the business might not get it.

So it’s like when I first went in the business, I thought it was an easy transition. I went from residential real estate into the apartment business thinking, Oh, I think I have 15 years of experience. This is going to be easy. But the first time somebody said cap rate and a wire yield maintenance, I was like, what?

So, I want people to understand that some of the things you said, like up read and recap and that these are things in terms that you’ll learn along the way and that you’ll get a handle on and you’ll understand what they mean. I had an investor ask me the other [00:25:00] day on the phone and we were talking about this on the way over.

Well, tell me about the waterfall. And I think if an investor asked a brand new GP or somebody who was just trying to put their first deal together, tell me about the waterfall, they may go, you mean Niagara Falls?

Forrest Corral: Right.

Mike Morawski: Or what? So I think that there’s an education process that the new investor has to go through. And I would invite people to go back, listen to this podcast again and just kind of get a grasp of the conversation because this is probably at a high level. One of the biggest conversations I’ve probably ever had on this show. I look at it like this, if you take a rubber band and you continually stretch a rubber band, it’ll never go back to its original elasticity, and it’s the same thing with our brain. The more we stretch our brain, the more it will never rebound and the more we have the ability to put in there.

Forrest Corral: You need to surround. I always say, and just like most of the things that I’ve ever learned, I plagiarize [00:26:00] everything or just repeat everything. You’re smart as the five people you hang out with the most.

So if you hang out with a bunch of losers, you’re going to probably be end up at the bottom of the scale. If you hang out with a bunch of overachievers, you might not be in totally overachieving with them, but at least they’ll lift you up and in word and deed. And, I learned this business not just by doing, but there was a point in time I had bought half a dozen homes.

I’d been in a couple of syndication, smaller apartments syndications. And then I got this job doing some due diligence for a publicly traded home builder that was only supposed to be three months that I ended up being there for seven, eight years. And acquired 20, 000 units along the way for them.

But the very first deal I did was a 20 plus story tower in Long Beach, California on the sand on Ocean Avenue. And we did that deal with Lehman brothers and, my mirror at Lehman brothers, another analyst went to Yale. His name was [00:27:00] Kobe Packard and Kobe, boy, I attribute such a lot of what I know the nomenclature to Kobe because Kobe took me to the ring through the ringer.

I’d send him the deal because we had an agreement with Lehman brothers that if we brought him a deal that fit within a box that they would take a look at it. So my mirror was Kobe Packard and Coburn Packard, and I sent him the first deal, this tower in Long Beach and he asked me 25 questions via email.

And I would say 24 of the 25 questions, I didn’t know what the hell Kobe was talking about. Cap rate, et cetera, et cetera. But I went to the subject matter expert, whether it’s the operations or the construction guy, whether it’s the debt guy, whoever it was to get an understanding of what those words meant.

Well, next deal that I sent Kobe. Oh, I knew he’d asked me all these questions. So I would prepare in advance to be prepared. So the next time maybe I got 10 questions from him and every deal [00:28:00] that I sent him the list of questions, there were still questions, but the questions that I didn’t get initially, or I didn’t understand, got less and less and less with the reps that I had with Kobe.

And that’s how I learned this business. And I was an accountant. I wasn’t even a good accountant. And I was just an average, barely average accountant, but I got into this business and it’s been a blessing and I can’t put it down because the Lord gave me this talent.

Mike Morawski: Yeah, that’s awesome. It’s kind of a last question here. What would you tell a brand new investor coming into the business, in today’s market environment? How to get started, what are the best practices, maybe call it to start to build your portfolio?

Forrest Corral: Boy, I would get a book. If you want to be in retail, there are books about how to buy retail, commercial real estate. Or if you want to be in apartments or buy single family homes. I would start with the How to buy Homes, One Home at a Time book, and then I would buy [00:29:00] the How to Buy Apartments book.

And there are several out there, so many good authors, you’re self included. But yeah, I would go buy a book and I would just get obsessed. If you really want to have real wealth in this business. See, there are two types of people in this world, I believe. There’s people that are in the Navy. They have to wear a uniform. They have to show up at work on a certain time. They have to do what they’re told, by and large.

They get so much vacation. That’s like being in the Navy. Like the actual Navy. What I do, what you do, what we all should aspire to be are pirates. Where we could do whatever we want, whenever we went, however we want.

So long as it’s not illegal, illicit or immoral, but that’s who people should aspire to be are pirates. And pirates buy books and they keep their day jobs. They buy books, they learn continuously, they get coaches. They surround [00:30:00] themselves with subject matter experts, and this doesn’t happen all overnight. It happens over time, but you need to be obsessed.

Mike Morawski: Yeah. And I always tell people, I say, remember, this is a marathon. It’s not a sprint. You didn’t just get in the business yesterday. You didn’t just graduate from Long Beach college last week. This is years in the making, just as I have three decades in the business. So, it takes time.

Forrest Corral: It’s a law of large averages that one of my business partners likes to say.

Mike Morawski: Yeah. The other comment that you always say, or the other quote that you always mentioned that I want to kind of close on is, there’s no geniuses in the business. There’s only market cycles. And I want people to understand market cycles and to understand where we’re at today because we’re coming out and we’re going to go into one of I think what history is going to prove to be one of the best market cycles the industry’s ever seen. And there’s going to be [00:31:00] many future years of robust times.

Forrest Corral: I think it was somebody on Wall Street that famously said that quote and I’ve just plagiarized it and packaged it up in this business and you don’t need to go to Harvard or Yale to understand this business. It surely doesn’t help.

Well, I’m sure it doesn’t hurt, but it certainly could inhibit your forward momentum. You just need to buy a book, get a coach and take the first step in this business. And you will become successful if you’re committed. If you’re obsessed, if you want to strive to be a pirate, this is what you do.

My dad always said, there was always somebody bigger and stronger and better than you, and vice versa. But you need to continue to put one foot in front of the other.

Mike Morawski: It’s all it is. It’s taking action, continuous action. Go back to quotes. I heard somebody say years ago, you have to master the repetitious boredom and build the reps.

Forrest Corral: Yeah. And lastly, that the whole market cycle thing, that’s upper division type of stuff, but it’s certainly [00:32:00] not. I think it’s Greg Mueller at University of Denver has got great books on market cycles. Harvard likes to say that cycles are generally about 16 years on the way up and then on the way down. But believe it or not, it feels to us, we always kind of live the upswing.

So we think it’s a less than that, but as you were semi alluded to, yeah, we’re coming out the four phases of the real estate cycle. We’re coming out of phases three and four here over the next quarter, a couple of quarters. The trophy period could be another year or two as interest rates normalize and how unemployment shakes out. But yeah, buying this business is a street by street business and you got to know it.

Mike Morawski: Yeah, absolutely. Well, listen, thanks for being here. Appreciate your friendship. I appreciate you spending time with me today and getting a little bit more intimate than normal. And I want listeners to understand that you’re not going to get to this place in the business until you get started and, and get obsessed.

Forrest Corral: I appreciate it. Thank you very [00:33:00] much.

Mike Morawski: Thank you. Hey, everybody. Thanks for being here this week. And, what a great episode. I had my good friend Forrest Corral on and, we just really had a good conversation about a bunch of different things, but the market is changing and I want you to be aware of that.

And if you’re somebody who is thinking of getting into multifamily business and maybe this conversation was a little bigger than you expected today. Well, you know what? You’re not going to be there today. You’re going to get there over time, but you have to get started. So if it’s having somebody in your corner, a mentor, a coach, go get it.

If it’s reading a book as Forrest indicated, go get it, read two or three books, but there’s a lot out there for you. You have to become a sponge and soak in the knowledge, and I hope that you do that. And I hope that how big we talk today and thinking how big is just kind of an inspiration for you.

Quick story. I remember when I got in the business or [00:34:00] decided to go in the apartment business, I kind of modeled a company out of Chicago that four high school teachers went out, bought a four unit. They raised a little bit of money for it. But today they own one of the largest REITs in the world.

They’re in 80 different countries in every asset class. Do you think that when they first got started and bought that first four unit, that that’s how they thought? I certainly didn’t think when I bought my first four unit, which we talked about earlier, that I’d be where I’m at today.

So, you gotta get started. Once you get started, take action, take a little bit more. Love that you’re here. If I can answer any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out. If you’re looking for coaching, support, mentorship, reach out. Let’s have a conversation.

If I’m not right for you, somebody else could be, but at least take some action today and some direction for yourself. Look forward to seeing you next week and everybody have a great week.

Kristen: Thank you, Mike, and thank you for joining us for another [00:35:00] great episode of Insider Secrets. As always, Insider Secrets is brought to you by My Core Intentions. Wherever you hang out on social media, you will find Mike and My Core Intentions. Please like and follow us to get the most up to date real estate investing trends.

Visit mycoreintentions.com where you can get expert coaching on all things real estate investing and property management. If you’re looking to become an expert, Mike’s coaching will help you scale your real estate investment business. We’re looking forward to having you back again next week for more Insider Secrets.