J Darrin Gross
If you're willing, I'd like to ask you, Erik Oliver, what is the biggest risk?
Erik Oliver
Yeah, you know, for me, as you know, I didn't have any investment properties when I started doing cost segregation. And so by working with clients all the time, and seeing the value of owning real estate, I've started to get into real estate myself. And I think the biggest risk for me is, I went back and forth, do I need a property management group? Do I not? Do I manage these myself, you know, I actually live by my investment properties, I can don't step over what is the saying don't step over $1 to save a penny, you know what I mean? Let the experts do it. There's a reason that they're property management experts, there's a reason that your CPA should be filing your taxes, and you shouldn't be doing it yourself unless you know what you're doing. And so I think, the biggest risk for me that I've had to learn just that let the experts do it. And I see it all the time in my industry, where people do their own taxes. You know, I've seen people who make, you know, in the millions of dollars and have very sophisticated tax returns, and they're doing their own taxes on TurboTax. Because they don't want to pay a wealth advisor or a CPA who has the experience. And I'm like, what you're gonna pay that qualified CPA who understands real estate to do your taxes, you're gonna get back tenfold in the amount of deductions. And you know, the left the reduction in your tax liability. And so I think, if I can just share one thing, and that is surround yourself, you can't be an expert in everything, right? And so know where your faults are, and be humble enough to say, I'm not a tax expert, or I'm not a property management expert. I'll tell you just a quick story. I learned that the hard way. My very first investment property was actually when I lived in Virginia, I moved out of Virginia, I moved to New York. And I said, I don't want to sell my house. I'm going to just rent it in Virginia. And I'm going to do it myself. So I put an ad out there I met with some potential tenants, I found some they seem like the nicest people in the world. I didn't know I should do a background check. I didn't know that I should run their credit. There's my first gig, right? So Micah, they're nice. They sat down, they talked to my kids, we had a great conversation. They rent I rent the house to him, I moved to New York. And I never hear from him again, right? They paid their rent, the first two months. Great on time was perfect. But then the people that kicked them out of their old place started garnishing their paychecks. And that's when they stopped paying my rent. And had I done a background check. This all would have showed up but I didn't want to pay the 10% management fee. I'm like, I want that for me. And so surround yourself with I didn't know what I was doing. I thought I did but I didn't. And I should have been humble enough to say, Erik, you don't know what you're doing. And so humble yourself and say, what are you good at? And you'd be the expert in that. But we can't be experts in anything and in everything. And so surround yourself with people who are good property managers, good lenders, good CPAs good attorneys, good insurance agents, right? And let them be the experts and take their advice and be okay paying for that expertise, because you're going to come out ahead in the long run.