Alfonso Salemi: Welcome back, REITE Club Nation, to another episode of the REITE Club podcast. I'm Alfonzo Salemi. I am here with my amazing co-host Sarah Larbi. So we get right into that with Scott. He's a lawyer out there with Royal Legal Solutions and yeah, he's helped a lot of people. He talks the REITE club language, knowing what you gotta do.
Sarah Larbi: He's also retired from essentially or became financially wealthy using real estate himself. And once he's accomplished that he decided to share what he's been able to do and help others do the same, which I think is really cool. So check them out. Royal Legal Solutions, Scott Smith.
I think that's a really interesting discussion that we had because US investing is very different from Canadian investing. And so there's a few things that we went through when it comes to the legal structure and all that good stuff that's quite different.
It's important as a Canadian to know ahead of time. How you want to structure your investments as you don't wanna be double taxed and you wanna be able to ensure that you protect yourself because as we talk about, there's a lot of litigation in comparison to Canada and you get sued a lot faster and more easily in the US and people are just like, they're like, I don't know.
It's just a different world out there. So you definitely need to protect yourself even more. But there's some great opportunities and Scott definitely talks about that and talks about how he's been able to help some of his clients as well successfully create that goal and that wealth building for them and their families.
Alfonso Salemi: Absolutely. A lot of the stuff that he talks about definitely translates and makes it over the border, right? There's things that are just global and that, you know, whether it's investing in the US or a different city that's not close to you here in Canada. A lot of amazing good ideas and tips and mindset and even a little bit of some insight of what cities potentially are good opportunities in the US.
Sarah Larbi: Absolutely.
Alfonso Salemi: Yeah really awesome chat. Hey guys, if you do like the podcast, if you are enjoying it, share it with a friend, number one, number two, rate and review. It helps us get out to an even larger audience. And if you think it is helpful, we think it's helpful, amazing information. We're doing our best rate and reviewing it. And yeah, this podcast is gonna be amazing. You guys are gonna love it. Let's get right to it.
Sarah Larbi: Let's do it.
Alfonso Salemi: Hey, and welcome to the REITE Club Podcast, along with me, Alfonso Salemi and Sarah Larbi. And today we have Scott Smith on the podcast today. Welcome. Thank you so much for joining us, Scott.
Scott Smith: Yeah, it's really great to be here. Love doing the podcast and just an open book of information, so happy to share as deep, as shallow, everything real estate investment related that you guys can throw at it.
Alfonso Salemi: Yeah. And just before we started recording, you were letting us know that you're making the trek from Las Vegas to Utah and you were moving around from Austin during some changes going on with Covid. So thanks so much for being able to join us. Why don't you let our listeners know who you are, what you do, and I dunno, we always say a 30,000 foot level, but yeah, if you were shaking our hand, meet in one of the REITE Club Nation, let us know a little bit about yourself.
Scott Smith: Yeah. Okay. So my name is Scott Royal Smith. I'm the owner of Royal Legal Solutions, which is a one-stop shop for real estate investors throughout the United States, as well as Canadian investors looking to and buy real estate inside of the United States. And what I've done over the last six years based on my own real estate experience when I got started I bought my first property when I was in law school, and then I was working as a litigation attorney suing insurance companies and the whole time buying real estate.
I accomplished it. Own financial freedom doing real estate. And now I get to help other people scale to their financial freedom using the same vehicles I did. So it's really like a homegrown approach and I built the company Royal Legal Solutions to help other people do it. So we're a team of about 30 people, paralegals, tax professionals and other returnees.
All we do every day is sit down with people and start, looking at charting out, like what's the path forward to financial freedom? How does real estate help you get there? What's the asset protection, tax planning and estate planning that you need to put in place to get people from A to Z?
It's my life's work. I find that it's incredibly rewarding and powerful to give people a clear path of what are the best purposes. That they need to put in place what we've seen, work for over 2000 investor clients that we have all over the country in the world.
Sarah Larbi: Very cool. So you took your success and then you've created, it sounds like a team of experts to work with investors that are looking to follow your footsteps or scale their portfolio and to get that freedom as well in the end. That's really cool. So when was it from the time that you started investing in real estate to the time that you were able to say, I've done it, I've scaled enough that I'm now financially free. Like what did that timeline look like?
Scott Smith: Yeah, so mine was a little bit different. It only took me four years to be able to actually go from what I, where I was at, starting out from law school to actually accomplish my own financial freedom into it. And that had a lot to do with just getting really lucky.
I think I got really lucky with buying commercial properties that had active business in them for $10,000. And so then rehabbing the business and the building was able to generate a ton of capital. And then because I was an attorney, right? I was really savvy into thinking like, okay, what are the angles that people are playing here?
By using 1031 exchanges and looking at how I can scale into better financing to quickly acquire. Many properties are single family homes, then eventually going into apartment complexes, notes and land. I was able to get there really fast. It was a 90 hour week, but I was able to get there.
What I realized is that for the average person though they can't do what I did. But one of the things that I have found to be really successful with people. That there are predictable ways that people can emulate parts of it, and to do it in a systematic, predictable way that, you know, no matter how much money you have or the amount of time that you have, there's a way to build.
That's the part that's really fun for me is developing resources and materials and coming onto shows like yours to talk about, okay, how can we take those best practices and actually chunk 'em down? So that way, like the average person can say, Hey, great, I can't get there in four years, but I can get there in 10.
Sarah Larbi: Absolutely. And we'll definitely get into that. We also like to see how you've been able to do it. So it sounds like you've been able to do it in a lot of different strategies. So multi-family and commercial and notes. And I will say, our listeners being Canadian real estate investors are probably wondering what a 10 31 exchange is because we don't have that ability, unfortunately, to have the same types of tax benefits. But, when a Canadian investor reaches out to you, like what are some of the things that they should be aware of, looking at potentially investing in the US.
Scott Smith: Yeah, so really great point, right? So let's talk about that a little bit. Is because, so my path and journey forward was because I was so steeped inside of the industry that it allowed me to have access to deals that probably the average person would never have access to, right? And that has to do a lot with your market and your marketing.
If you are able to commit yourself into the right market and marketing, you're gonna find deals that nobody else is really getting, and that becomes your strategic advantage, right? But for the average person, they really can't do that much, right? So what we typically look at is say, great, find out what your risk tolerance is gonna be for like, what type of assets you like, what type of things that you feel comfortable with, the right amount of complexity for you that you think you can really handle.
That's number one. And that's your income creation. Then the second thing you have to look at is like, how much money does the government steal from you, from taxes? And then it's great, we need to prioritize around that piece of it next. And then at the very end of it, after you look at your deal, the amount of taxes you pay, the expenses that you run, That leaves you with your net income. So for Canadian investors, it comes really important on two critical pieces.
One, when you're investing inside the United States, you have to understand that you, the US, is a very litigious country, so you need proper asset protection in place. So that way, if anything, if the worst case scenario happens, right? Hopefully the insurance companies pick it up. Because you're going to have insurance on any of these properties.
What a lot of people don't know is that you can't really depend on insurance. Insurance companies. You hope that they do it, but you can't depend on 'em. Because in the US there's unlimited liability and litigation, which means that people can sue you for as much money as they want to. So what you do is you put in asset protection principles, right?
You use Canadian investors, that's typically using a limited partner. Structure, which does two things for you, and make sure that if you're ever sued here in the US for any of the business dealings that you're doing, you only lose one asset at most. And hopefully none at all. But, and that's only if the insurance company doesn't protect you.
Hopefully the insurance company protects you. We know there's about a 10% chance that they won't, and if they don't protect you, you'll have a very limited downside risk. So that's number one that you have to have as asset protection. Number two, the limited partnership structure as a Canadian investor is best because it also keeps you from having to pay corporate tax rates.
If you use LLC structure, C-Corp, S-Corp, etc., Canada actually makes you pay a corporate tax, even if it's just you as a solo individual because their tax laws are a little bit different than the way they shake out here. So the biggest thing that we see from Canadian investors is that you establish a domestic US based limited partnership structure in the state, wherever you're gonna buy the asset, and then you purchase the asset and you hold it inside of that limited partnership structure.
Alfonso Salemi: Wow. Okay, so I heard you say y'all. So where's that original, where's that original accent from?
Scott Smith: Yeah, so I'm originally from Austin, Texas. That's actually where the HQ of Oil Legal Solutions is located. It is in Austin, Texas. I happen to be out in southern Utah right now cause at some point when you have your company and you have your investments and you have a great, A lot of great things going on in life, you have to start saying am I getting enough time outside?
Am I having enough fun? And that's why I was like, you know what? I need to be in southern Utah outside of Zion National Park, because that's where it looks like people are having the most fun I've ever seen. But y'all stick with me wherever I go.
Alfonso Salemi: Awesome. From Austin, Texas. And you know what, and through other American podcasts and information like you. That's probably a hotspot of buying real estate, an area that's been growing definitely for the last three years. Let's just work it back a little bit. We're, let's say Sarah and I are going to find a property in Austin, Texas, right? Whether it's, three units, five units, 10 units, right? Let's work it back. So we're coming to you and saying, Hey, now we have to set up, so we're gonna call it like Alfonso Corp in Austin, Texas to buy this. Is that kind of the structure that way there? Or do we need to?
Scott Smith: To gotta be really particular here cause this is where it actually gets into the legalese, right? Corporations in the United States are actually really specific types of legal entities. And if you are a Canadian and then you buy inside of a corporation or technically everything that has a separate entity status like an S corporation, C corporation, limited liability companies, all those are technically considered types of corporations for Canadian taxation.
On the Canada side of things, if you were gonna come to Austin and buy a property, I'd say no. No. You don't want a corporation, but you wanna set off as something called a limited partnership. And underneath Canadian law, a limited partnership is treated as if it's just you as the individual that is purchasing the property.
The advantage is on the US side of it, we're gonna treat it just like an LC in terms of liability protection, right? And for financing purposes. So as a Canadian investor, you get all the asset protection and the financing and all the benefits that you have as an LLC by using a limited partnership. Some of the internal paperwork is a little bit different, but that's it. And then that's what you would purchase all of your property through.
Sarah Larbi: Got it. That makes sense. And then what about like, when it comes to financing and when it comes to get, setting up the insurance? It sounds like you've got a team in place, from a Canadian wanting to invest in and build a portfolio in the US. What does that look like?
Because, I know you guys have some, much different ways to finance versus us where it's an investment property. It's usually 20% down in Canada as an example, unless you're living in it. And then when it comes to insurance usually it's pretty straightforward, but I'm sure there's lots of differences. So what do you see on your end when cans are looking to invest from financing and insurance?
Scott Smith: Yeah, so one of the things is that I can really depend from state to state and sometimes even city to city. What are the types of relationships you're gonna need to be able to make that deal work right? This was actually a really big problem that we ran into when we started trying to go national with Royal Legal and International because they said holy smokes, really we're experts at asset protection, estate planning, tax, and all of the infrastructure side, but we get a lot of questions that are like this, right?
Which is actually really heavy on the investor side. I wanna make a deal happen. And so for a long time I tried to resist actually commenting on anything that had to do with how to make a deal happen because the complexities got so big there. What we found is that people really need help, right?
They really need help and they really wanna come to one person that can help guide them through the process from A to Z. So what we did is we started something that we call a family office. So it's $97 a month. We bring people into that network of all of our like information, all of our coaching, everything that has to do with any support like on these issues.
Like who are your preferred vendors? That you have relationships with that you know are quality people. Some people want to have relationships with people that can actually place them into assets to say do you know somebody that can just regularly spit out, one to four unit properties that I can just give 'me money?
I know predictably, how is that gonna cash flow for me so I don't even have to buy stuff turnkey. So we developed a bit of a community for that because the question is and it takes, it actually takes internal, like some of our internal teams on a case by case basis to help vet out like, what exactly are you trying to achieve?
Who are the right people that we know inside of our network? And then we do a really small monthly membership like that to be able to afford to pay those team members, to maintain those relationships and facilitate that process.
Alfonso Salemi: Yeah, I love that. It's basically creating a whole platform and guiding them through those steps, right? Because again, I've never invested in the US Sarah, I'm pretty sure you haven't, it's always been an idea or looked at and, certain areas are really much more attractive and the dollar, even with exchange, goes a lot further.
Right then we start bringing in some strategic financing or creative financing. You know what areas, it's a big country. There's 330 million US citizens. It's a huge land mass. What areas are you focusing on or are you seeing a lot of business in terms of that, that you think are maybe the hot market or places that are should, we should invest in now?
Scott Smith: Yeah, so this could actually even be different by the time this podcast airs, right? Because we're shooting this here, in November, and it might air sometime in April. And so we'll see, how that actually works out, right? So by the time anybody actually hears us, the whole market could be drastically different from where opportunity is, right?
I would say if somebody was listening in on this, like some super secret spy way into it, they would probably, like to hear about okay, how I'm really hot, like on the, the Midwest right now of what's going on, like inside of the rust. I really like a lot of stuff that's coming through in Florida.
Like Tennessee has been really like, had some really interesting deals come through as well as San Antonio and Texas. And those are typically the areas where I'm seeing people buy like those, $90,000 to $150,000 properties and that can actually scale into those pretty.
For single family homes, $350,000 to $400,000 for the four unit things. And I keep talking like one to four units because on the US side of things, that's where you get really great financing. You get personal financing instead of commercial financing.
Usually for your typical investors, that's where they're gonna start, right? But I would always be looking. If you're listening to this and it's, in April or after, sometime later, there's just a couple of key things that you want to say on top of, on the US side of what makes a good deal look like.
One of the things I'm looking at is what median income looks like, for that area. I want that to be above $40,000 to say Hey, it's at least at this level of threshold of economic stability. For that area I'm looking for job stability as well. So like lots of governmental things.
I am really investing in governments around governments or universities. And really just watching my macroeconomic trends around what my supply and demand curves look like? So if I have a lot of people moving into a city over time, I'm not so price sensitive because I know the demand will actually push prices up over time and say, great, I know that's how those macroeconomic things are gonna work.
Just to reel us back for a second, this is exactly what happened in Austin, right? So four or five years ago in Austin, everybody was like, there's no way I'd buy a property in Austin right now and pay $200 a square foot, because prior it was $150 a square foot, right? They're like, there's no way.
This is insane pricing, right? But the demand to move to Austin by major corporations and the tech industry was so strong that now pricing in Austin just, a few years later is over $400 a square foot. So it's really important, I think, to look at the data trends that are gonna be your macro indicators. More so than like the historics of what we think the proper pricing should be?
Sarah Larbi: Yeah, that's a great point. Those are important fundamentals, right? And, potentially where if this, there's universities nearby as well, if they're increasing their student population. And just, and I don't know if you've got a list of all the different things you check and you verify per city.
Because even in the states, I think even almost even more so than Canada, you could be in one town that's 10 minutes or 15 minutes and this is what I hear. Tell me if I'm wrong, but it's completely different versus, here there's still some differences, but I don't ever think it's as drastic as like you go to the other side of the train tracks and it's like a D area versus maybe a B area on the other side. And just like really understanding those streets even more like it is still important to do it here, but I think you guys just have a different level of those contrasts in a lot of places in the US.
Scott Smith: Yeah. And that's why like with a lot of our Canadian investors that come in, what they really are going into like turnkey providers, right? That says, Hey, this, this looks like a property or like a section of properties that are in an area. Oh, I would just say like just in general, turnkey providers are really good. If you can't ever fly out to a place because anytime I'm getting into a new area, typically I'll actually fly out and go visit it, walk the neighborhood.
I usually think going for long bike rides or walks are actually really good cause you actually get a different feel than driving through it. Just cause you spend maybe a little more time. I don't really know why that works, but Robert Kiosaki did the same thing when he was really hot into real estate.
Turnkey providers are really great, right? Because what they've done is said. They said, oh, my business model is built upon the cornerstone of being able to tell people that I have a real asset, right? That's gonna perform in this kind of way. So then it takes all the guesswork off of it.
So how do you think that's gonna perform? Because of the nature of the arrangement that you're going into. So if anybody is investing in Canada, I say great. Either partner with somebody here that's local and amazing. That'd be like option one. And option two would be, I would think, go to a turnkey provider.
But investing. Especially here in the States, in an area that you've never seen, that you don't know anything about, and you're doing it all on your own, you can do it. I've seen some people it's also the highest risk way to invest.
Sarah Larbi: Yeah. There's definitely pros and cons and there's also turnkey companies that do a lot better than the others. Though, like doing your due diligence and your research on these turnkey companies are gonna be really important. There is a downside, right? They take a lot of the profit off the top. So you're probably looking at more cash flow, mortgage pay down over time.
Maybe not so much of the appreciation that's been forced if you're not the one doing the renos from the start. But there are turnkey companies that have really bad reputations out there. So like just, figure out which ones have the good ones and which ones are the ones that you wanna partner with because it could go bad pretty quick.
Scott Smith: Yeah, that's right. And so that's why I think I really like the leverage that we bring, but a lot of other companies are like ours, right? We'll aggregate into people. We have relationships that are over years and I think another step up in quality than what you would get from a referral from like a buddy that's used by a turnkey company. Cause if you can find companies that are like mine and there's a number of 'em out there, right?
They should have relationships with people that are like, Hey, over the course of years, like I know these people are quality, right? With what they do. And that's what you really want to target is like that level of professional relationship to be able to actually have real.
Alfonso Salemi: The other thing I just want to underscore is that you can't just wash your hands guys. You have to, people gotta, you gotta do your own research and work in keeping different people accountable for different things. When we say turnkey, there's certain levels that, like Scott said and I want to go back to it because, those macro indicators, that's the researcher control.
Us as investors have to go and look at certain areas, compare and contrast, and have ideas. And then really when you are talking to the turnkey or that investor really asking them the right questions and satisfying your own predictions. Cause if it sounds too good to be true sometimes, hey it just might, right? Let's go back to those macro indicators. You said 'em really quickly, but let's, so that the audience can have a good listen to them. That when you're looking into a new market.
Scott Smith: Yeah. So you gotta think about what makes sense, like what makes sense for what would determine a price for real estate, right? So one is gonna be like you, what's your stability in the market, right? For people like needing that type of residence, right? So when you think about that, you're gonna think about do people have jobs here? That's why I like governments, big corporations, those kind things. So those can usually be a little bit more stable than universities, right?
They're more stable in saying those people don't have jobs. The economy goes through ups and downs, those kinds of people have jobs and we're looking forward to it. What more do I know about those people? I know that they're typically on some side of a certain income range, right?
I'm gonna say, great, I can find out what my income is. Some research of the needs that we're buying properties in. So I know, and then I can also look at what the government is like. All of the local governments and agencies will typically have economic data that they push out about like how many people are moving into the town, what the taxes are that are collected, etc.
That comes through. So from its government agencies that you're actually gonna be able to pull a lot of the data that's gonna be really high. Economic data on that end, right? A lot of people tend to think about how much crime is in the area, right? On the US side of things, I'm not sure how it works in Canada, but almost invariably in the US crime follows job stability and economic depression, right?
As long as wages are high enough and that we have, and good job stability, crime. Won't be a factor for you. So I don't even pay attention to criminal reports, really, because I don't think that they're actually like the best source of information that we really have over a long term.
That's like another reason why I like to go to an area, because, if you can feel it if this place feels sketchy, even if there's pain, it's ah, something's not right here, it's good to just go ahead and spend some time there.
Sarah Larbi: Absolutely. That's why like sometimes we hear of $20,000 houses. There's probably a reason why they're $20,000 houses for the most part. And you definitely don't wanna be buying something where you're gonna put a tenant in there and never get paid or have super high vacancies or, have. Drunk dealers in the house, definitely do your due diligence. It's always good to have, like you said, feet on the street. Walk us through if I wanted to buy in the US and I wanted you to come up with a plan and a strategy, like what are some of the things that you would go through with me?
Scott Smith: Typically let's say that you are like, first time person you say, Hey Scott, I'm looking to get into real estate. I'm in Canada. I wanna invest in the United States. I don't really like, know, like what to do, how can you help me do that? Or, so the first thing we do is we say great enrollment into our family office membership.
We're gonna go through and we're gonna map out like what's your one sheet, which is like your path to financial income where we break down. From your one sheet of what are the numbers that you need to hit to be able to accomplish your financial freedom? From there, then we work backwards to say, great, how much money do you have and what's the ROI that you actually need on that money to be able to hit what those targets look like?
That will then inform us on what's the appropriate asset class that you should be focusing on. Because different asset classes have different advantages and disadvantages depending upon what are your underlying fundamentals of your financials. So I said, great, actually it looks like single family homes are what's gonna be best for you right after we go through and we do that analysis.
From that point, then we would start looking and say how are we gonna acquire the single family homes? Are you gonna try to find them yourself? Are you gonna be working with like partners through people that you found like on bigger pockets.com. We have a ton of clients that come from websites. As a, what number of other websites do you need, like introductions to people inside of our community that are also buying properties.
Maybe you wanna partner with somebody that's an existing RLS client because we have about 2000 investors inside of our community to do that. Or are you looking to get like a turnkey investor? You wanna do something on your own, but you wanna work with a professional that can actually just pair you with the asset that they already have ready and has like a historical precedence of how well that asset performs.
That has a lot to do. What do you see as your vision moving forward? So once we decide what are gonna look like and we make the appropriate connections that you need to be able to acquire the assets in the right way, then we'll start looking at, great, now let's set up the appropriate legal structures to acquire the assets.
Here's the introductions to the financing institutions that are gonna be able to help blend. On those assets for you and any of the appropriate tax consultation or estate planning consultation that may be necessary or not necessary depending upon where you live, if you're a Canadian resident or if you might actually need a cross border accountant to be able to help eyes you on what are the more complex issues that might pertain if you're like a business owner or you have, family issues or something like that, that are on the Canadian side or US side that we need to.
Alfonso Salemi: Yeah. I love that. Sounds like you've done it a few times. It sounds very natural. And the good thing is too, if you have those, that experience. With different things and typically it's tough to say everybody's different, but you're asking the right questions, right?
Figuring out those things first, and then guiding in that right direction in terms of how much do you need, how much, what do you want to achieve out of this? You need to understand those goals before starting getting involved because it all sounds all great, invest in the US but why are you doing it? And figure out the plane.
Scott Smith: The why's are actually so incredibly important, right? And in fact I have clients that are executives at Snapchat and major tech companies, right? That comes to me that I'll coach, and they sign up. They pay exorbitant amounts of money to get one-on-one coaching with me, which I tell them that they shouldn't pay for, but they decide they wanna pay for it anyway.
One of the reasons why I think this is precisely because of this. Which is, unless we have a very precise, clear path of what exactly we need to achieve, all we're doing is grabbing goals and strategies from the universe or other people we hear about and saying, I think I should hit that.
That's actually a very ineffective path forward, right? So one of the ways that this actually played out here with me recently as I was sitting down with one of my coaching clients, and I said what kind of return on investment do you. He made a, he made over 1.2 million last year working for Snapchat.
I was like what's the ROI that we actually need to achieve, like on the assets? Because he said, I wanna invest in apartment complexes and he said I wanna do 22% return on my apartment complex investments. And I was like great. How did you decide that needed to be your target investment number?
Like why is that? Did you actually do the analysis of looking at your full capital stack? What's my terminal return on portfolio? What? And then what's my target return over time to be able to back into that, the fact that I wanna retire within four years. Did you do all that?
Nope. I say, how did you pick 22%? And so we went there, we did all the work and it took us like about two sessions to actually get all of the real numbers onto the sheet. And it turned out that all I needed to make was like a 13% return, which was very doable. Much more doable than 22%, right? With much lower risks.
If we didn't go through that process, what would've happened is he would've sat there trying to swing for home runs. Doing much riskier stuff than he needed to do. And because we did the planning, because we got the why's right, because we actually went through and did the hard work of actually.
Seeing what looks like and actually doing all of that, then we're actually able to create a real path forward. And I tell you guys all this and this is such a, it's such a necessary piece of what we do is doing this type of analysis with people, but it's so often that it's just like washing my hands, right?
Like, how does that all work? And then the real magic is acquiring the assets, legal structures and all of that, right? Which is actually at the core part of what our business is. But I really wanted the importance of doing this because you think as a normal investor out there that like all of the other guys that are rich and high powered full.
Got it all figured out. And I'll tell you, they don't know anything. Like he's doing it. You know they're doing part of it. But they're winning despite the fact that they're not doing it right. It's not because they're doing it right.
Sarah Larbi: And they probably have a lot to start with anyways, right? So even if they don't make the 13% or the 22%, they make 5% on a lot more money to start with. It probably looks decent, but I definitely agree with you, like planning, strategizing and figuring out that piece first before going ahead and buying stuff. I think it is gonna be really important that you plan properly based on you, like you said, what your needs are and what your whys.
Scott Smith: It's how you win before you start. And that's one thing I didn't realize until maybe even the last year or two that the guys that were the smartest guys that I could find actually already knew they were gonna win before they started doing anything. And I was like, how in the world is that possible?
That's when I started getting a lot more serious about these other tools. It's because when you could actually break down what the full map looked like from start to finish, you already knew what the outcomes were gonna be before you ever started. There was no risk in business anymore. There's no risk in investing anymore, right?
Like all of that gets taken off the table because you have high levels of clarity about what you're trying to achieve. You have the right people to go do it with you, and you can see that every part of the process is already figured out. So then all there is left is execution.
Alfonso Salemi: Scott you're talking the REITE club language, man. You got there's such a correlation with what you do and with what we do at the REITE club, it's really fantastic. And for all those investors out there. The next time somebody says to you, no, I need 22%.
That's a great why. Really break it down. Why? And I think because we hear, oh, we should be getting this or that person getting that kind of return is, but really testing it against your own, why you need it and how you're gonna go about doing it. We could talk for hours about this, but I think we're just about ready for the lightning round and yeah. Why don't we get to the lightning round questions. So Sarah, I'll let you start.
Sarah Larbi: All right, sounds good. Scott, we're gonna ask you questions. You're gonna give us the first answer that comes to mind in about a ten second response. Are you ready?
Scott Smith: Cool.
Sarah Larbi: All right. Question number one. What is the best advice you have ever received from another investor or at a networking event?
Scott Smith: Just slow down and think through it.
Alfonso Salemi: Nice. Alright. Question number two of the lightning round. What is your favorite resource for real estate investing? And that could be a book, a training, a person, an event.
Scott Smith: Really bigger pockets.com is absolutely my favorite place. It's where I'm actually still learning strategies from other investors and real time about what's happening inside of markets, what are the new things that people are doing. I love it.
Sarah Larbi: All right. Awesome. Next question, number three. What is the one attribute that has made you most successful?
Scott Smith: The ability to fail and not care, and just keep moving forward.
Alfonso Salemi: I love that it is the best one. What is it? The road to success. Is paid with, paved with failures, right?
Scott Smith: Yeah. They'll call it failing forward. Something like that too. The reality is it's not about failure being important. It's the fact that if you don't care, if you fail, that you're like, I did all the right things and if it fails. If I work. Actually, most things in life are outside of my control.
I'm just gonna do the best I can with what I got. It's a tricky place to be able to get yourself into, cause it sounds a little like Jedi mind tricking, but it's incredibly important if you're on the path of saying I wanna grow massively. You have to be able to embrace that.
Alfonso Salemi: Nice. Alright, to wrap up the lightning round, what are you doing on a typical Sunday morning?
Scott Smith: Mountain biking. Yeah, I just bought like a nali fugitive, and I've been over here with some world mountain trails out in southern Utah. If anybody's ever been around this area and wants to check out Zion National Park go shred some world-class mountain biking, go do some cane earing, do something like that and you're out here, just gimme a shout. But yeah, man. Nothing better on the weekends and being outside and recharging in nature.
Sarah Larbi: Sounds amazing. And I'm sure it's warmer where you are than here in Canada right now.
Scott Smith: Oh yeah. I would say I'm in shorts and a polo right now walking around.
Sarah Larbi: Little jealous. I won't lie. Scott, where can our listeners, the REITE club nation, reach out if they want to connect with you.
Scott Smith: Yeah. Best thing to do is just go to royallegalsolutions.com and then click on the tab at the top of the page that says Take a quiz. What that quiz is basically it gives us all of your basic information that we would need to know, like what kinds of information are gonna be most helpful for you at the stage of your journey that you're at now.
I very much believe in trying to help people with as much content information as I can totally for free, and that we only charge for being able to. Do stuff for people. So if you go to royallegalsolutions.com and you take the click the button at the very top that says Take a quiz and then fill that out, we'll be able to start that process with pairing you with all of our best content, all of our best strategies, and just see if we're the right fit, to be able to actually help you implement.
Alfonso Salemi: That's awesome. And Scott, thank you so much for your time today. It's been an amazing chat. Amazing information. Any last words that you'd like to share with the REITE club nation?
Scott Smith: Yeah. One thing I'd like to share with you guys is that it's never the right time. It's never the right time, and the most important thing is to go ahead and take action anyway, even though it's not the right time.
This applies to your investing, it applies to starting that diet. It applies to going into a go do exercise. It applies to everything in your life. Nothing is ever perfect. It's never the right time. The most important thing to do is to say, what are the little things that I can do that get me just slightly farther down the path of where do I wanna go from where I'm at today? So just focus on taking those small actions and you're gonna be successful at whatever else you're doing. If you just do that.
Sarah Larbi: Great advice, Scott. Thank you so much for being on the show and it was a pleasure talking to you.
Scott Smith: Excellent. Likewise. Thanks guys.
Sarah Larbi: I always like Alfonso when we talk to investors from just like different countries all together and just to really understand how things work from a different perspective. If we wanted to invest in those countries. The US is close. It's something that a lot of Canadians and I think a lot of the REITE club nations are thinking about. So I thought it was a great conversation, Scott. It sounds like an amazing team and just the ability to set somebody up fairly easily to get hit the ground running essentially. But what are your thoughts? What are your takeaways?
Alfonso Salemi: Yeah. One thing that Scott said was, it's so true and something that, you know from Jag as a business, a REITE club, as a business, our own lives, treat our own lives as a business, but like a predictable way to build, right? There's gonna be times in your life you're just gonna have to go nuts, right?
And go crazy. And Sarah, you are having those like, whatever, 23 and a half hour days, right? And there's parts of your life where you have to pull and you gotta be kind. Those ebbs and flows throughout, but that predictable way of doing it, steady and long term and not just, it's gonna happen over one night.
Scott had an incredible four years. That's like a term of US president, hopefully by the time this airs, we know who it is at this time. That'd be a terrible joke. But again, it happens differently for everyone and getting into that and learning that research, but that predictable way of taking it and knowing why. You need 10% or 20% or 30% return on your money knowing why. That was a cool thing for me as well too.
Sarah Larbi: Awesome. REITE Club Nation, if you enjoy this, don't forget, leave a rating review on the podcast. And don't forget, we also have monthly events. Check out thereiteclub.com and check out our calendar, but also check out the awesome new platform that we have. We're gonna be adding so many things every single week, register that's free, and send us a message on there. Until next time, Alfonso, what do we say?
Alfonso Salemi: Come grow with us.
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