In this episode of the REsimpli podcast, Sharad Mehta welcomes guest Ron Angel, a real estate investor and director of marketing at REI Junkies. Ron shares his journey into real estate, which began after his service in the US Army. He and his wife, who was also in the military, bought their first house in Fort Stewart, Georgia, intending to turn it into a rental property, a common practice among military personnel. The military community’s approach to homeownership and investment influenced Ron’s initial foray into real estate. After leaving the military, Ron pursued a tech career and gradually returned to real estate, motivated by the desire for a change during the COVID-19 pandemic. This led him to wholesale in Raleigh, North Carolina, and eventually to his current role with REI Junkies, where he focuses on the Pathway to Homeownership program, a model designed to help people who might not qualify for traditional bank loans to own homes through owner financing.
Ron elaborates on the Pathway to Homeownership program offered by REI Junkies, which aims to assist individuals who are unable to secure traditional financing due to various barriers such as credit issues or non-traditional income sources. The program involves purchasing properties, renovating them to a functional state, and then selling them under owner-financing terms to eligible buyers. This initiative not only helps people achieve homeownership but also aligns with Ron’s and the company’s mission of making a positive impact on the community and helping families build generational wealth. The program is carefully structured to ensure compliance with regulations such as the Dodd-Frank Act and includes mechanisms for reporting to credit bureaus to help buyers improve their credit scores over time, with the ultimate goal of refinancing into a traditional mortgage.
Ron shares his passion for outdoor activities and a transformative experience he had at a wilderness survival course in Utah, highlighting his love for adventure and self-discovery. The conversation then shifts back to professional aspirations, where Ron speaks about the ambitious goal of REI Junkies to facilitate homeownership for 500 families by the end of 2026 through their innovative program. The episode encapsulates Ron’s transition from military to real estate, his contribution to making homeownership accessible to more people, and his personal growth and interests outside of his professional life.
Topics discussed:
Connect with Ron:
Facebook (Ron): https://www.facebook.com/ron.angel.549
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/REIJunkies/
Website: reijunkies.com
Sharad Mehta 0:07
Hey guys, my name is Sharad. I am the host of the REsimpli podcast. I have the honour of having fallen angel on our podcast today. Really looking forward to it. Ron, how you doing, man?
Ron Angel 0:19
I’m doing great. Thanks for having me on. Yeah, absolutely.
Sharad Mehta 0:21
Man, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I know we had to reschedule on. So I apologise for that, but excited to have you. Yeah, let’s just get started. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Where you’re joining in from, what do you do? How did you get into real estate?
Ron Angel 0:37
Yeah, sounds good. So I live on Long Island, New York. And I do real estate in multiple markets. Currently, I’m flipping in North Carolina with a partner in Michigan with another partner. I’m doing a couple of projects in Florida with a third partner, primarily where I’m spending most of my time is working with REI junkies, as the director of marketing. And we’re really focusing on the pathway to homeownership programme there.
Sharad Mehta 1:02
I’d love to learn more about that. But before we do that, how did you get into real estate?
Ron Angel 1:07
Yeah, great question. So in my initial foray into real estate was right after I left the military, so I was in the US Army, and I got out back in 2006. And my wife is still in the military. And she got sent to Fort Stewart, Georgia, and we bought our first house there, kind of knowing that we would keep it as a rental. So in the military, because you’re moving around a lot, a lot of people will go from duty station to duty station and just buy a house. And then when they leave they they’ll leave it behind rented out, and then just do it again and do it again. So by the time you’re done with a 20 year career, you end up with about 20 houses, and it’s it kind of supplements or retirement. So I always knew about that strategy. And that was kind of the idea. When we bought that house, we were always planning to rent it out. So that that was the beginning.
Sharad Mehta 1:53
First of all, thank you so much for your service when?
Ron Angel 1:56
of course. Yep.
Sharad Mehta 1:58
So So you got started with that, you know, being in forces, and then you bought your first property, then, you know, how did you get from there to get to what you’re doing with audio junkies? No. Yeah,
Ron Angel 2:10
absolutely. So after I got out of the military, so we bought that house, and I went back to college to finish my degree. I did a master a bachelor’s in computer science. So I was a software engineer. And I went into the tech industry, about a year after we bought the first one, a year and a half, we bought another one. So we had two rental properties. And that was kind of it in as far as real estate for a while. And so I started my career in tech, my wife finished her service, and she went back to get another degree in nursing and she became a nurse. And we just went about our lives, you know, just kind of working our W two jobs. I was moving up in in the tech industry, I was you know, the whole corporate career promotions, all that kind of stuff. And I didn’t really do much more in real estate for a long time until it was COVID COVID changed a lot for us. I mean, at the time, I was working in the city in New York City. So living on Long Island, it’s about an hour and a half commute each way. And COVID You know, we had all the lockdowns, I started working from home, and got to spend a lot more time with the family and realise that, really, they’re the reason I’m doing all this. I mean, I always told myself that, but I got to experience that a lot more. And having spending a lot more time with the kids with them, you know, doing their schooling from home and I’m working from home, I realised that I wanted to make a change, I wanted to get out of my corporate career. And that’s what really, you know, kind of lit the flame and looking with me looking for a way to go into real estate full time, or at least to get out of my corporate job.
Sharad Mehta 3:47
And so it’s very, you know, relatively speaking, a very recent for you that you kind of just went full speed into I mean, full time into real estate. And you said you’re the marketing director at REI junkies. Yeah.
Ron Angel 4:01
So that that kind of evolved over time. So, you know, when I when I left my corporate career, I initially became a wholesaler. I was wholesaling in Raleigh, North Carolina, and while all of Wake County and so I did that for about a year and some change that was in 2002. All during COVID Right, so it was all virtual. I don’t think we were just about everything was still virtual. I think we were coming out of lockdowns by that point. The company I left I think we’re still everybody was still working virtually until maybe the middle of 2022. But at any rate, I did wholesaling virtually. So I started marketing with direct mail added cold calling. I did some SMS PPC, a lot, a lot of different things. And it was a it was a bit rocky right. It took me a few months to get my first deal. Took me about five months to close my first deal. It was a really nice one. But I ended up doing about 10 deals by the end of 2022. But then when the market shifted in September, if you recall, like interest rates were going up, my buyer pool dried up, I had to cancel a bunch of contracts. And I had to let some staff go. I grew a little bit too fast. I got way too fast, to be honest. And so I had to let some stuff go and kind of take a step back and retool and figure out what what was I going to do. And eventually, you know, through my mastermind, I was working with Vaughn, Bethel, he was one of my coaches. And he was actually I was in his coaching programme specifically, and he working with him and the other people in that group, I realised that I want to move kind of away from wholesaling, not kind of like I wanted to move away from wholesaling, and go into things like capital raising, and maybe multifamily. And so, Vaughn actually brought me on to do capital raising for him for Rei junkies, to help with bringing in private money for our pathway to homeownership programme, which I’d love to talk more about in detail. But that’s kind of how I got my start with REI junkies. Eventually, that role grew into a full director of marketing role. So I did kind of moved away from the day to day capital raising and more into marketing for direct to seller marketing, I run that entire operation, marketing for buyers, marketing for investors, the brand building all that stuff. So that’s, that’s my role there now. And also along the way, on my own business moving away from wholesaling, I moved towards, like a flipping kind of operation with a partnership model, where I’m the capital raiser money guy systems and processes, bookkeeping, all that stuff. And each of my partners is boots on the ground, you know, managing contractors managing the rehabs. And that’s basically where I find myself now. So
Sharad Mehta 6:53
that’s what you’re doing. And you said Michigan and North Carolina, yeah, a couple of flips going on. So you’re basically bringing the money, and then you have local boots on the ground doing the day to day. So
Ron Angel 7:02
exactly. So my partner is the boots on the ground and each of those partnerships, and so they’re doing the day to day,
Sharad Mehta 7:08
manage the split 5050? It depends. It depends on the deal. It depends on the partnership. Got it. Okay. And then. So for Rei junkies, you said you’re doing pathway to homeownership programme? You can Yeah,
Ron Angel 7:21
so, yeah, so sorry junkies is has a really unique model. We do. So we have an acquisitions company. So we do the direct to seller marketing, we do assignments, you know, double closes all that stuff, we also will close on some properties and put them in our rental portfolio. But the primary mission of the company is is our pathway to homeownership programme. So what we do is we we buy properties, fix them up, and then sell them on owner finance terms to end buyers. And this is the people that wouldn’t normally be able to qualify for a traditional bank loan, either because they don’t have established credit, or they have a blip in their credit, or they don’t have, you know, good w two income, but they run a cash business. So they’re able to afford the mortgage, but banks don’t want to work with them. And so those are our target and buyers. So the reason we call it the pathway to homeownership is because we’re serving as a bridge to allow them to purchase these properties and start building their, you know, their generational wealth. And over time, ideally, to be able to refi us out into a much better rate, and so that they can continue on that journey. And then we can go and do it again. So
Sharad Mehta 8:36
your initial acquisition process is the same, right? You’re doing same direct to seller marketing, your exit is a little bit different. And how many of those are you doing like per month per year?
Ron Angel 8:47
We I want to say we did 15 In the last six months or so. So far in the company, we’ve done about 2930. That’s our goal is to do fitness to do 500 By the end of 2026. But
Sharad Mehta 9:00
wow, that is amazing. So tell me a little bit more about that. Let’s say so you you do your regular direct to seller marketing, you find a property, then, I mean, these I’m guessing are single family houses that qualify for homeownership, correct? Correct.
Ron Angel 9:17
So we do a lot of marketing. So we have both inbound and outbound. So our outbound stuff is very targeted. We have driving for dollars. So we’re driving neighbourhoods that we know are going to fit the model. We’re taking pictures of properties that you know that need need a little bit of love, and we’re marketing to them both through direct mail cold calling and SMS. Now we also have some inbound stuff we have some ppl we’ve we’ve dabbled with Facebook ads. That hasn’t been super successful, but we’ve dabbled in that. We’re working on SEO. So for the inbound stuff, the stuff that fits our model great we close on it we’ll we’ll put it in our pathway to homeownership programme but the properties that don’t even win The outbound stuff, some of them just won’t work for the pathway to homeownership programme, we’ll end up assigning them. So we’ll get them under contract and then we market them to our end buyers to our cash buyers.
Sharad Mehta 10:10
So it’s your first exit choice, the pathway to homeownership. Yeah,
Ron Angel 10:16
we look at every single property through that lens. And if it fits that model, and we’re able to put it in the programme, that’s, that’s our preference. So
Sharad Mehta 10:24
just walk me through what a typical day looks like and what is a good property that qualifies for pathway to homeownership, homeownership, and what’s a property that would not be a good fit for that? Yeah, so
Ron Angel 10:36
a good fit would be like a typical three bedroom, one bath, or three bedroom, two bath, kind of a kind of a starter home, right? Purchase price around 100 115. Let’s say we don’t do extravagant rehabs, we’re not doing HGTV flips, we’re just making sure all the systems are working, making the home nice. And so rehabs are going to be anywhere from 15k Maybe to 3035 40. Okay, and then exit is around 250. So the 250 or so ARV, we’re, we’re trying to stay below 250. Because that’s where our end buyer pool that’s what they’re able to afford, what we’re trying to do is find properties that where the mortgage is going to be about what they would pay in rent, you know, not including taxes, and insurance.
Sharad Mehta 11:24
And how are you finding these buyers? Let’s say you have a property ready so you’re making these functional moving ready, you know, not high end finishes, but you know, making them clean, functional moving, ready? Then you go and how you have a pool of buyers that you
Ron Angel 11:41
we have a buyer pool? Yeah. So that’s part of what you know, my role is in the marketing department is bringing in buyers to build that buyer pool and really understanding what they’re looking for, where they’re looking for, what their price points are, what their monthly payments are, that they can afford. And all that stuff. We also try to get them pre qualified through our, one of our companies is we do underwriting and loan servicing. And so even as they’re in our buyer pool and waiting for a property that they like, we make sure that they’re going to be able to afford a home and and figure out what their monthly payment is that they can afford. So that we know what kind of properties to put in front of them when we do get a new property in the in the pathway to homeownership programme.
Sharad Mehta 12:25
And how are you finding these buyers? Like through Craigslist putting out some Craigslist and stuff? Yeah,
Ron Angel 12:30
I mean, organics organic posts in like Facebook groups, we do Facebook ads, so and it just like anytime, just like building up your cash buyer pool. Anytime you have a deal, you put it out there and you put it in front of people, a lot of times that’ll bring in new buyers. And so the same thing for the pathway to homeownership programme, we get a deal. You know, we finish the rehab, we start marketing it, we’re posting it in Facebook groups, we’re doing some some Facebook ads, organic posts, and then we have organic. So we have folks that are in the community that are going to events and networking and finding buyers that way.
Sharad Mehta 13:05
Okay, so let’s say if I’m one of your buyers, I come to you and I say I’m interested in this property, right. So you would of course make sure that my income is like two and a half or three times, you know what the payment would be? And what sort of loan Am I getting at that point?
Ron Angel 13:22
So at that point, it’s a 30 year fixed loan. A 30. year it’s an interest rate 30 year amortisation? Yeah. Okay,
Sharad Mehta 13:30
30 year amortisation, and then instead of balloon payment, or I could just No, no,
Ron Angel 13:37
you could, you could write it out. And so the the model for us, ideally, is not to put, because these loans are more expensive, necessarily, right, because we’re bringing
Unknown Speaker 13:46
in private interest rate right now.
Unknown Speaker 13:49
It can vary between recurrently 11 to 12%.
Sharad Mehta 13:52
Okay, for more than traditional convention, correct.
Ron Angel 13:56
And any look, even before interest rates started to skyrocket in 2022, we were charging 10%. So people were very happy to pay 10% because that was their only vehicle for being able to afford these homes. And ideally, what we want to do is, once people are in the programme, help them build up their credit. So we report to the credit reporting bureaus. So that builds up their credit, and that builds up that the history of making timely payments, so that they can eventually refi us out, we don’t want them to be in that 10 to 12% loan forever. Our target is to get them to refi us out within two to three years into a more traditional loan where they’re closer to you know, five, six sevens, eights, what whatever it is, the prevailing rates are then and then that brings us our money that brings us capital back so we can go and do it again. Our goal is to help as many families as we possibly can.
Sharad Mehta 14:48
And then you’re using private money on the back end.
Ron Angel 14:52
We are so we’re we’re purchasing the properties. A lot of times we’ll purchase the property with hard money and rehab it with her I’d money, then we’ll bring in a private money lender to refi the hard money lender out. And the hard money sorry, the private money lender stays in the deal, as we sell it to an owner, finance buyer, so we wrap the note, okay, and we sell it on contract for deed, so we’re holding on to title until the end buyer pays off the mortgage entirely.
Sharad Mehta 15:22
So for the private money lender, are they just making the difference in the Are they just making money on the interest rate? Or do they, you know,
Ron Angel 15:31
get well they get money on the interest rate? Yes. So, so basically, it’s, it’s passive income, right? It’s people that, you know, want somewhere to put their money that’s not in like a savings account or a CD, and make much, much better rates. They want that monthly cash flow there, you know, some people either use it as diversification from the stock market, or they they use it instead of the stock market, because it can be really rocky. And they just get in, we make monthly interest payments. And so people, you know, our investors tend to love that they’re just getting that mailbox money every single month, right? In their account
Sharad Mehta 16:05
ride sharing, how much are you paying you private money lenders, it’ll
Ron Angel 16:09
vary, it’ll vary based on, you know, the loan amount, and we negotiate individually with it with each lender. So we’ll pay a little bit higher interest rate, if you’re lending more, and for a longer duration, ideally, our our notes are three to five years, but some people are only willing to lend for 12 months, or 24. So
Sharad Mehta 16:31
let’s say if a private money lender comes in, you know, minimum, they, you guys would want them for one year. But then when, when you’re lending this money out to your borrower, to your buyer, you’re doing a 30 year fix, let’s say it takes that buyer five to seven years to get there, you know, to get for you guys to cash out what happens on their private money lender,
Ron Angel 16:56
we refer them out, we find another lender to bring in or we’ll use our own cash to get them out of the deal. Got it.
Sharad Mehta 17:03
Okay, that makes sense. And then, but your goal is to eventually like get the buyer to build up the credit to the three year so they can, you know, you guys crash out so and so
Ron Angel 17:15
that’s one exit strategy. The other exit strategy for the note is because we use a third party servicer, after about after 12 months that notice seasoned so now the note itself is marketable, and we can get anywhere between 95 to 100% of the face value, we can sell that note. And that refi is us and the private money lender out and we get the cash back to do it again. So that’s another exit strategy for the note itself.
Sharad Mehta 17:43
I’m curious, how did you guys get started in this? You know, why did this goal of doing 500 deals by the end of 2026 come from? Yeah,
Ron Angel 17:52
this is this goes to Vons origin story. So Vaughn Bethel is the CEO of the company, right? He’s the one that brought me in. He’s, he’s my coach. And he originally started as a wholesaler, he came from the fitness industry, he ran a successful gym, and, you know, gym and like fitness consulting, business and so on. He he wanted to move away from that. So he moved into real estate, became a wholesaler, and then decided to build out a company that you can put people around him, so he doesn’t have to be in the day to day forever. Right. Along the way, he realised that some of the deals that he was marketing that he was selling, people were asking, Will you finance will you finance and he realised that there was a lot of demand for owner finance. And that so that was kind of the the light bulb moment. And the thing with the, you know, the pathway to homeownership and, you know, kind of going bigger with that vision is Vaughn tried to find a way try to find a reason to get his team, really excited to get up in the morning, to go and, and do their jobs and to be to work, work really hard and to be successful. And that wasn’t just going to be like, let me get up today and make Vaughn a bunch of money. And so that was when he spent a lot of time figuring out what the the purpose cause and passion would be for that company. And that’s when he came up with the whole pathway to homeownership programme and the goal of 500. And that goal was originally by the end of 2030. So we’ve recently about six months ago, moved it up to we said, well, he Vaughn said, let’s let’s TEDx this thing, let’s do it by the end of 2026. So that gives us three years, we’re less than three years now we’re in February of 24. And then after we hit that 500 We can go for 5000 That’s
Sharad Mehta 19:37
amazing. Yeah, it’s not you know, bumping the goal up by like three or six months. It’s like you guys could get a half the time out of the goal pretty much
Ron Angel 19:46
basically, but what’s cool about that, but you know, I don’t know if you’ve ever read it and I haven’t but the book 10x is easier to just finish it. Yeah, I still need to read it. But the the main idea there is when you’re going To 10x, it really narrows the kind of narrows your options of what it would take to do those things. There’s a there’s a million different ways to to x your business, there’s probably only one or two ways to 10x. And so it really narrows your focus
Sharad Mehta 20:14
100% 100%. That’s in a practical scenario that a few run classes, but I would imagine you do, let’s say you get a deal under contract for 100 115. Right? It’s worth about 250, once you fix it up, and you’re going to do you know, sell it to a cash, I mean, 30 to a buyer with distressed credit. Let’s say if I’m a local investor in your market, and I come to you, and I say, hey, Ron, I like this deal. I’m gonna pay you 150. And you could make 50. Right now, how do you handle that situation?
Ron Angel 20:48
I mean, it’s case by case, but most likely, we’ll, we’ll take that, we’ll, we’ll sell it, take the 50. Because, you know, that’s always that’s going to replenish the coffers, we can pump that back into marketing, you know, that gets our employees paid a little bit faster. And and then we can go and do more. Right? So it’s always a case by case scenario, if but when you
Sharad Mehta 21:09
get a property under contract, are you even marketing it to your cash buyers? Or you’re like, hey, this is just a perfect property for pathway to homeownership. It’s not even handed out to a cash buyer.
Ron Angel 21:20
It really depends. It’s always case by case. So and we look at a bunch of different factors, one of the factors can be what is our current private money pipeline looking like, right? You know, and if if that pipeline is full, then we might say, well, this is going to be a pathway to homeownership property we’re not, we’re not even going to market it to cash buyers. If it’s not so full, what we’ve done sometimes is first market it for cash to see if a flipper or landlord wants it. And then if we don’t get any bites at the price that we need to like to make the spread that we want, we say, Okay, well, let’s close on it, we have an entity structure where we have a separate company for the pathway to homeownership, let’s create a finance company. So we’ll pay an assignment fee to the acquisition company that refills the coffers, it gets our acquisition agents paid, it puts money back into marketing, right, and then we’ll close on it and do the rehab and then market it on owner finance. So it’s always it’s always case by case, but you know, we have to be pretty nimble and in this business, because, you know, there’s a lot of stuff going on.
Sharad Mehta 22:32
So your acquisition team is getting paid on when you know, when you’re moving property from one entity to another, that’s when they get paid. It doesn’t matter, they get paid
Ron Angel 22:41
when property is close. We recently and I got to confirm with, you know, the, you know, our CEO, exactly what it looks like today, but I believe we recently switched it so that if we close on a property to take it to the pathway to homeownership, they have the potential of they have the ability to see additional upside from that not just the assignment fee that we pay internally for it. And so we’re looking for ways to when we’re able to recognise more revenue, we’re able to get them paid a little bit more as well. That
Sharad Mehta 23:12
makes sense. Yeah. And then, so your goal is to do 500 deals in like next, you know, two and a half, three years roughly
Ron Angel 23:22
Well, 500 pathway to homeownership deals, right. So we’re about ready to be really specific, that will probably look like about 1000 deals between now and the end of 2026 for that to happen, because a lot of these are assignments.
Sharad Mehta 23:33
Okay, so half of your deals would be pathway to homeownership. The other half would be traditional wholesaling.
Ron Angel 23:39
I’m just making up a number. I don’t know exactly what it’ll look like. And the way that we’re going to reach that 500 is probably not going to be all internally doing our own deals, right. Like there may be. I mean, I foresee the potential of bringing on partners that want to use the same model that are going to be aligned with the other wholesalers in other markets, potentially even in our market that are going to be aligned with our values, believe in our purpose, cause and passion and are doing it for the right reasons. Because there’s people that do the owner finance model, not the right way and not for the right reasons. You know, you hear about people saying, you know, there’s they sell properties on owner finance to people that can’t afford it. And they’re like, Okay, well, if they default, I’ll just take the property and do it again. So that’s not us. And we would want to make sure anyone we partner with is not gonna do that. But we have really nice infrastructure that we’re building. So we have a separate underwriting and loan servicing company. And that’s going to enable us to bring on partners that need, you know, an underwriting capability to make sure that they’re also Dodd Frank compliant. Anyone who’s doing this model that’s doing three or more properties per year is subjected to Dodd Frank. So you know, that we’re complying and we would encourage anyone else that’s doing it, that volume to be compliant and we have a way to do that. as well as we have the loan servicing company that we can help partners service their notes so that they can also eventually go and sell them eventually, if that, you know, as another exit strategy. So we’re building up the entire foundation to enable us to do this rapid scaling. And it’s probably not going to be all 500 directly by us. Attorney.
Sharad Mehta 25:20
What do you and what how many markets? Are you planning to do this? And,
Ron Angel 25:25
well, we want to go regional. Right now we’re just in the Upstate and Midlands and South Carolina, but we want to go regional first. So like North Carolina, Florida, Tennessee, what we’re thinking once were we really laid the foundation are able to drive this a little bit faster. And we’re thinking eventually of going national with it if it works.
Sharad Mehta 25:44
Yeah. Yeah, that makes it what do you see as your biggest challenge in getting to this goal,
Ron Angel 25:51
more private money, so more capital? Now, what we’re doing about that is, you know, we have some marketing initiatives right now to build up some new funnels, fill those funnels with private investors, and we’re also working on putting a fund together, so that we can pull money and be able to pre raise a lot of the capital, so that we can do more deals faster, right, we can jump on opportunities, and also give people a way to so private lender, you know, sometimes we get questions about well, what happens if something goes bad with this property, or that you know, the property they’re investing in, but in a fund the fund, we were debating exactly how to structure but effectively, the fund would be funding multiple properties, and therefore risk is spread across multiple deals. And that that gives you diversification and additional security there. And so we’re thinking that that fund once it’s established, and we’re probably maybe two to three months away from that will help us raise much more quickly.
Sharad Mehta 26:50
Once you have a fund established, and everybody’s getting the same interest rate, and then they can, you know, put their money in and take out as they vote.
Ron Angel 26:58
So the it won’t be the same interest rate necessarily, for everybody, the way we’ll probably structure it is based on the level of investment, they’ll get a different interest rate, right. So if you’re coming in with 50k, it’s this if you’re coming in with 100, it’s that if it’s 250 or more, it’s it’s something else. So Right. So we want to incentivize investors to bring more money. As far as how long they leave the money in there, there will be kind of a lockout period, and we’re debating on the exact duration of that will have an ability to, you know, pull money out, but probably with a penalty, right, because we we need the ability to make decisions about buying properties and selling them and know that the capital that we need to have will be there. Right. That’s the whole point of the fund in the first place. So we want to bring on investors that want to park their money for a good duration, and are going to be happy with these interest rates.
Sharad Mehta 27:53
Makes sense? Yeah. But you guys don’t see any challenge on the acquisition side? Like, actually,
Ron Angel 27:58
oh, come on challenges everywhere. acquisitions, dispositions, you know, the business? Sure. So it’s always a challenge, right? You know, what marketing channels working now, what was working yesterday? You know, we always need to drive more leads, it’s it’s a constant challenge. You
Sharad Mehta 28:14
know, but you know, I have to say, I love the mindset of Connect, I read the book, we’re doing the same thing. It’s, it’s so true, what you said that if you want to do x your business, there’s probably like, 100 different ways you can do that. Right? If you’re 10x your business, there’s probably one or two ways that you can actually get to 10x. And it just gets you so focused on what you need to do. That everything else is just purely a distraction. So yeah, absolutely. Good luck. Good luck on that, man. Thank you. That sounds very exciting. How motivated Do you feel as part of the company, like get up every day? You know? And then just trying to get to that goal of 500? Oh,
Ron Angel 28:53
extremely. It’s the reason I’m doing it, right. Like, I have two separate flipping businesses. And it’s not one or two deals, I have 12 projects in flight right now. Right? So, I mean, I kind of don’t need to do this director of marketing role. I’m doing it because of the purpose, cause and passion behind it and, and the mission. That’s
Sharad Mehta 29:15
amazing. That just goes to show what an amazing group of people that one has, you know, put together and Rei junkies, like you guys just want to do that just because you feel truly, deeply passionate about this goal.
Ron Angel 29:28
Absolutely. And the the the team, you know, the collaboration and the energy and the core values are aligned. It’s a really fun atmosphere working with the team as well. And so it’s a you know, and you know, people are making money, they’re able to feed their families. That’s that’s the whole point. If we weren’t doing that, then people wouldn’t stay. So, but it’s all those things together that helps us attract the right people and keep them long term.
Sharad Mehta 29:56
Absolutely, man. Yeah. When you have a goal that’s bigger than Any individual in the company, it just makes it so much more exciting. You know, it’s not about you. It’s just about the bigger mission bigger purpose that you have that you’re trying to get to. So on a percent. That’s fantastic, man. Cool, man. This has been great. Some moving on to our next segment. What do you do for fun? So you said you’re in Long Island, New York. So what do you do for fun over there?
Ron Angel 30:23
I like doing outdoor stuff. I like hiking. I like I’m interested in, like, survival skills. Last year I took I took a week out of my life to go on a wilderness survival course. We’re not in Utah. Yeah, it’s called the boulder outdoor survival school. So it’s out in the Utah mountains in like South Central Utah. middle of nowhere, minimal gear, no sleeping bag, no tent, you know, just just a wool blanket. And in a knife and some clothing and a compass, right? Very minimal stuff and just learn survival skills and no contact with the outside world couldn’t you know can’t bring your phone? Nothing. So couldn’t communicate with anyone on the outside. Oh, you
Sharad Mehta 31:07
couldn’t go live on Instagram with what would not go live on Instagram from the mountains. I
Ron Angel 31:11
wish I did bring a GoPro. So I took some photos and videos back, but
Sharad Mehta 31:16
it’s amazing how much
Ron Angel 31:18
fun? Yeah, it was brilliant. It was life changing. I mean, it was true survival situations. Like,
Sharad Mehta 31:24
how big was the group?
Ron Angel 31:25
It’s a small group. So this there were three instructors. So these are professional instructors that are highly, highly trained, and have been doing this for years. And then the group itself there were eight of us. So very small group, it was an amazing experience, amazing opportunity to get to know on a really deep level seven other humans without including the instructors, and really bond. And it was it was truly difficult. Like we we hiked up to, you know, close to 20 miles, some of the days, you know, up up steep mountains and hills and with little water, very little food. We didn’t eat the first 40 hours. So the severe calorie restriction, we got stuck with inclement weather, we got stuck in a in a thunderstorm at the top of a mountain. And we weren’t sure if we weren’t sure if someone’s going to get struck by lightning. It was it was really scary. But it was a it was a true It was like an opportunity to truly test yourself and see what you’re made of. And to really,
Sharad Mehta 32:33
yeah, yeah, you’re hunting your own food. We
Ron Angel 32:37
didn’t so they have other courses where you’re doing that where you’re they actually call it the hunter gatherer course. That’s the next one I want to do. I’m hoping to do that next year. But for that one, they supplied the food, but it was very minimal. It’s like maybe 800 calories a day. Oh,
Sharad Mehta 32:52
wow. Yeah, very little. Okay. I could probably I mean, I turned vegan four years ago. So I would just wondering if I could do it. So if it’s not, if I can bring my own food, it might be something I would want to look into. Especially something where I can be just totally disconnected from the world. I think that it’s just so important in this day and age.
Ron Angel 33:08
Yeah, it was amazing. I’ve never done anything remotely like that. I mean, I did some my time in the military. But it wasn’t so disconnected as this was.
Sharad Mehta 33:17
Yeah, obviously. I’d love to see some pictures, man. Yeah, I’ll reach out to you about that. I think so be Yeah, it sounds like a cool experience. All right, what’s the one book that has had the most impact in your life, it could be personal, it could be business, it could be one of each.
Ron Angel 33:33
That is hard to pick. So the book that I listened to that really kick started everything and got me on my path to go into real estate and become an entrepreneur was The Four Hour Workweek. So I listened to that towards the end of 2020. I think it was, and it really opened my eyes to you know, oh, man, like I could, I can start a business build some sort of business that gives me freedom of time and financial freedom. And my life can look completely different. And that’s what started my interest to learn more about real estate and got me thinking about leaving my career and doing that whole thing. So that would be the biggest for me the biggest catalyst for that.
Sharad Mehta 34:16
Yeah, that’s, that’s a great book, man. All right. Last question. If you could spend a day with anyone dead or alive. Who would you want to spend that David? And why
Ron Angel 34:28
man should prepare for this? Do you ask that all your guests the same question?
Ron Angel 34:31
Yeah, we do.
Ron Angel 34:32
I should. I should have watch her. Yeah,
Sharad Mehta 34:34
I mean, it’s it’s more fun to get these on the spot answers right? Well, I’m
Ron Angel 34:38
definitely on the spot. One day, one day was somebody that are alive. That is really tough. This would this might be I don’t know if it’s controversial. I know the dude is controversial, but I’ve been you know, listening to a lot of his his stuff lately, but that’s your Jordan Peterson but one of the clearest thinking most logical people I’ve ever met spiritual and I guess he can somewhat call himself religious. But just an amazing, I guess order debater clear thinker, and stands on his values and says what he believes in spite of, you know, whatever backlash would happen and spending a day with that guy would, I think? Yeah,
Sharad Mehta 35:26
I’ve seen some of his stuff when you do. Very clear minded. Yeah. Very clear minded. Yeah. Great answer, man. Cool, Ron, this has been fantastic there. So someone listening to the show, if they want to connect with you learn a little bit more about what you guys are doing. What’s the best way to do that?
Ron Angel 35:42
Absolutely. So for Rei junkies, we have a Facebook page, just search Rei junkies on Facebook, you can find us on rei junkies.com. For me personally, if you are interested in reaching out to me or you know, you want help getting into real estate or learning more about flipping, wholesaling, that kind of stuff. You can find me Ron angel on Facebook, I’m not so active on Instagram, so don’t bother. I won’t see your message for a month and a half. But you can find me on LinkedIn as well. And yeah, Facebook is probably the best way. And we’ll make that in the show notes. Yeah, yeah, man. I’m always I’m always looking for, you know, additional investors, private lenders, for me personally for my flips, as well. And then definitely anyone who wants to learn more about the pathway to homeownership programme, potentially investing with us or just learning more about the model and how we’re helping rejuvenate communities and peep helping people realise the dream of homeownership just reach out to us.
Sharad Mehta 36:34
Absolutely. Thank you so much. Sure. This has been really great. Thanks, man. Appreciate it.
