From Military to Millionaire with David Pere – EP 231

The Fastest Way To Build A Six Or Even… Seven Figure Real Estate EMPIRE! 

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In my latest podcast interview, I’m speaking with David Pere. David is the founder of “From Military to Millionaire”, where his mission is to teach service members, veterans, and their families how to build wealth through real estate investing—so they can retire early and enjoy the freedoms they fought for!

During his first two enlistments, David realized he was wasting away his money on material possessions instead of investing it. So, in 2015, he decided to buy a duplex. He lived in one side, and rented the other side out to cover the mortgage payment. That decision changed his life forever!

While stationed in Hawaii, David went on to buy a 10-unit apartment in Missouri and was able to use bank-financing, seller-financing, and a home equity line of credit to purchase the property with less than 5% down—and great terms!

In today’s conversation, David and I chat about how he achieved financial freedom in 2021, and transitioned from active duty into the Marine Corps Reserve in order to devote his time to showing other service members and veterans how to achieve the same!

For current or former military, or those who are looking to invest and are starting from nothing, you’ll absolutely love this interview with David Pere!

Key Takeaways with David Pere

  • Find out why “buy and hold” is David’s preferred real estate strategy!
  • Whole-Tailing vs. Wholesaling. What’s the difference? 
  • How to house-hack your way into real estate investing. 
  • How David bought a 10-unit building with less than 5% down—and this was only his 2nd real estate deal!  
  • Using direct mailers to scale your real estate business—and how David landed 2 apartment buildings and a hotel with this strategy. 
  • Tactics for targeting landlords who are fed up with their property and just want to sell. 
  • Helping service members become military millionaires!
  • Why “I have no time” isn’t a good excuse not to succeed.
  • The 2 most important factors to look for when looking for a mentor/coach.

Josh Cantwell Tweetables

“The single best thing you can do to help yourself out in any endeavor is to surround yourself with the people who, A.) have similar goals to you and, B.) who've already achieved what you want.” – David Pere

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Josh Cantwell: So, hey, guys. Welcome back. Hey, it’s Josh with Accelerated Real Estate Investor, and I’m excited to be on the show with you today. Today, I have a special guest. His name is David Pere. David is actually active duty military and he’s actually been able to acquire over 100 doors and units of multifamily properties, a hotel, single-family rentals, while still being active military. He also owns equity in 150-unit syndication that he’s invested in on a passive basis. And especially for those of you guys that are former military, busy, don’t have a lot of free time, maybe not a lot of resources, this is a great interview for all of you. David’s passionate about helping investors, especially military, former and current, build wealth through real estate investing, entrepreneurship, and personal finance. He is one of the few people that I’ve met that’s built that big of a portfolio while being active duty military to the point where now he’s able to transition from active duty military into civilian life and already have enough passive income that he doesn’t need a regular W-2 job. I think that’s fantastic. You can find his website at FromMilitarytoMillionaire.com

 

And in this interview, we’re going to talk, number one, about David’s recent move from the military capital of the United States, San Diego to Central Missouri, and how he was able to build up 100 units in Central Missouri, investing virtually from San Diego. He’s also going to describe to you, number two, how he was able to acquire 40 units of multifamily apartment buildings using seller financing, which is his number one and favorite way to find deals. Also, how he was able to build up 100 units without any employees, just a property manager, and investing in Central Missouri from San Diego using direct mail strategies. Number four, we’ll also cover David’s favorite type of lead stacking, where he covers his specific lists that he likes to stack so he can get very motivated sellers when he sends out his direct mail and his favorite type of direct mail piece that he sends out to get small multi-family properties and single-family homes to add to his portfolio. So, for those of you that are current or former military or those of you that are looking to invest by just scratching together a few nickels starting from nothing, you’ll absolutely love this interview with David Pere. Here we go. 

 

[INTERVIEW]

 

Josh Cantwell: Hey, David. Listen, thank you so much for joining me today on Accelerated Real Estate Investor. I know you just moved, so thanks for carving out some time. 

 

David Pere: Absolutely, Josh. Thanks for having me on the show. 

 

Josh Cantwell: So, why don’t we jump in with tell our audience about the move. We were just kind of talking about it and get ready for the show. And tell us a little bit more about something that you’re excited that you’re currently working on. 

 

David Pere: Yeah. So, the move I am transitioning off active duty out of the Marine Corps, that this is the first podcast episode I’ve done in almost two months because I haven’t had a studio. So, I spent all week painting walls and these are sound blankets and everything. And you’re the first podcast where I’ve felt at least functional enough to not say, “Hey, I need to reschedule.” And so, yeah, here we are. So, the move, getting off active duty, going into the reserves, and transitioning to full-time real estate investor and entrepreneur, which is the buzzword that I’m starting to learn to hate because everybody it’s like, “Oh, I made a sock puppet and sold it on eBay. I’m an entrepreneur,” so I don’t know how much I identify that way anymore. But yeah, what’s new? Other than that, I guess the most recent new thing is I should be signing a contract on another single-family home today and I’m looking at two duplexes in a single-family house on Tuesday to potentially buy as a studio or as a portfolio. So, just cool that I’m back here and still able to keep rolling and buying real estate. 

 

Josh Cantwell: Nice. So, you have over 100 doors/units that you own and a hotel while being full-time in the military. So, tell me a little bit more about your kind of money making strategy. Like, what are you focused on doing today? Is it buying for income? Is it flipping multifamily? And why do you like to focus on that? 

 

David Pere: Yeah. I am traditionally a buy-and-hold real estate investor, so I absolutely prefer anything from one to I think the biggest at this point is 40 doors, the 40-unit being a hotel. I’m in a syndication on a 140-unit property as well but I’m such a small ownership percentage of that and I don’t really deal with operations. I don’t really count that in my portfolio because it’s not a super hands-on thing. So, as far as my portfolio or anything from 1 to 40 at this point, looking to grow that, traditionally buy-and-hold guy but I am doing a decent amount of wholesaling and wholetailing right now, which the only difference being that a wholetail actually you physically purchase the property and then list it on the MLS. So, I like that right now just because of how competitive the MLS is. So, I’m able to take a hoarder house and instead of flipping it straight to somebody who wants to flip the house as a wholesaler, I might take the hoarder house and just clean out all the trash and then take better pictures and list it. And then I can get 5,000 or 10,000 more than I would have wholesaling it to somebody who’s still going to flip it but just because it’s cleaned out, it’s a lot less scary. So, I mainly buy and hold but I’m doing a lot of off-market looking for off-market deals. And then the ones that I don’t buy, I just wholesale or buy and list. 

 

Josh Cantwell: Nice. I love it. I love the wholetail strategy, especially now, right? There’s usually about 3.5 million properties across the country on the MLS right now. There’s really 1.2 million. So, inventory is down 60% and they’re fighting over that stuff. I just listed a rental property on Wednesday for 124.9. I got an offer for 127 literally in two hours after it was listed and it was full price over market, well-qualified buyer, went under contract. My wife and I are excited. We only have a few single-family rental properties left. That’s one of them. And so, sayonara, right? In the MLS right now, putting stuff on the MLS, especially that wholetailing strategy. That’s fantastic. So, David, listen, you go back now. Let’s tell our audience a little bit more about your transition into real estate. You got in the military in 2008. You got into real estate investing in 2015 while still active duty in San Diego. San Diego, a beautiful market, by the way. Very competitive. But tell us about that. What happens in 2014, 2015 that even gets you interested in real estate while you’re still active duty? 

 

David Pere: Yeah. In 2015, somebody was trying to get me into Amway to sell the multilevel marketing, sell some sodas and some products. I wasn’t really buying it and he was like, “Well, you need to read this book,” and he handed me Rich Dad, Poor Dad. I remember telling him like, “I don’t really read. That’s just not my thing.” I guess I thought that was cool. I think back then it’s kind of a sad thing like now I think the opposite. Someone tells me they don’t read and then like, “Well, yeah, probably a loser.” So, anyway, so he was cool enough to hand me a disc like he pulled a CD out of his pocket and was like, “I know you drive a lot. Listen to it while you drive.” I was like, “Alright. Fine.” So, he called my bluff. Begrudgingly, I’ll listen to this book. And little did I know that was going to change my life. I tried to thank him for that but apparently, he ended up doing some really illegal stuff and I don’t really care to go to the jail and say thanks. But if he ever gets out of there, maybe I’ll say thanks. Anyway, yeah, so I bought a duplex about three months, four months later, lived in one house or one half. Rented the other house, house hacked it. That was right at the end of me being a recruiter here in Missouri. And so, I bought that house in Missouri, and then I got stationed in Hawaii for three years and it took me like another year-and-a-half to buy my next property. 

 

That ended up being a 10-unit. I was sending some letters out for duplexes and the guy was like, “Well, I don’t want to sell you a duplex but I’ll send you ten.” And like, “Oh, okay. Yeah, we’ll talk about it.” And that was a leap and I just slowly kept rolling with the rental properties. I ended up in San Diego for the last two years and throughout it all, I was like, “Well, I’m going to keep buying in Missouri because I already have a property manager. I already have some properties there. I already know the area. It’s landlord-friendly, so why not?” So, I just kind of got stuck there because that’s where I happened to be when I started. And, I mean, that’s basically it, right? Got started because when he handed me Rich Dad, Poor Dad cared enough to say, “Hey, moron, read the book and change your ways.” At the time, I had a negative net worth and I was totally happy blowing my money on booze, tattoos, cars. So, it’s been a nice change of pace. 

 

Josh Cantwell: Nice. So, which out of your assets do you think are the one maybe you’re most proud of that you said after buying this, you thought, “This real estate thing is really going to go for me. This is going to work. And I could see myself transitioning out of military life into civilian life and already having a big portfolio that’s going to support my income. And when I transition out of military life to civilian, I don’t need to go get a job,” right? Like, when did that light bulb go off for you that you thought, “I don’t need to go get a regular job. I can just transition into real estate full-time because I’m starting to create some passive income and some regular income, flipping some properties, having some rental income from real estate?” Like, what does the light bulb go off to say, “I don’t have to be like all the other military guys that just transition into civilian life and go get a regular job?”

 

David Pere: Yeah. So, I bought the first duplex and that was cool but it didn’t really sink in that real estate was like actually going to work until I moved out and was renting both sides, and then it was cash flowing. So, once I started seeing positive cash flow, I was like, “Okay. This is cool. Proof of concept. We’ll do this again.” One of the deals I’m most proud of is that 10-unit solely because it was like the biggest leap, like going from 10 to 40 is kind of scary but once you have a base cash flow and some experience, it’s not nearly as scary as like going from “I owned a house that I lived in” to the 10 units was a much bigger leap mentally. But also, I got 10% seller financing and 85% bank financing so I only put like 4.9% down on my property, which was awesome. And then I’ve pulled all of that back plus 60 something thousand, 70,000, and a refi and it still cash flows. So, I think that was probably like the coolest deal where it’s like I put $11,000 down on this. I’ve pulled over 80 out of it. It still cash flows over $1,000 a month. It’s just been great. But when it really start to hit home was right around like it was probably like 19 or 20 rental units about a year-and-a-half ago and I was like, “I’m really thinking about getting out of the military. I think I’m at a point where I might be able to survive like this might work.” And that was kind of the tipping point where is like, “All right. The numbers are kind of working. Like, I hadn’t replaced my income but my income was high enough that if I moved to Missouri, where the cost of living was lower, then I would probably be about break even. I’stackd be okay.” 

 

But I wasn’t at a point where I was going to be able to scale and grow. I was at a point where I’d be able to survive but I would have still had to get a job if I wanted to keep buying rentals or finding stuff with other people’s money. Yeah. So, and then I recently discovered or started getting more into direct mail. I’d done a little bit of it here and there where I’d hand write the letters and send them out to people, but not very strategically. I pulled some lists, pulled some data, but just nothing crazy. And then over the last year, I really started doing more like 2,000, 3,000, 5,000 mailers in a month or two, much more targeted lists, much more mass-market to lists. And over that then it was like, okay, now I’ve got this base $3,000, $4,000, or $5,000 a month in cash flow but I’m also bringing in 5, 10, 15. At one point I closed like four deals in a week and it was like $35,000 in profit. I was like, “Alright. I know this will help me survive. This piece that I have now, proof of concept like I can at least use this to basically wholesale a deal and then buy another one as a rental and keep scaling.” That was the light bulb moment. And I was like, “Okay. Cool. Yeah. This is the right decision. I’m going to get out of the military. I’ll be totally safe. I’ll be good.” 

 

And then like two or three months later, from those direct mailers, I was talking to a seller and he was like, “I’ve got a hotel and two apartment complexes. I’ll sell you a single-family house you sent me a letter for but I’d much rather sell you all of this so I can get out of the market and move to Florida and retire.” And we started talking and like nine or ten phone calls later, we sign a contract for it’s kind of a weird deal, actually, a really weird deal. We had been negotiating the hotel piece for a while because he couldn’t sell it outright just yet because of capital gains tax, because it kind of a long, weird, long back story. So, he was like, “I’ll lease option that to you until September but you can close the other one.” So, we signed a contract to close the two apartments, which was a 23-unit, a 15-unit, and then a single-family house so those 39 doors. And then the hotel on a Friday he’s like, “Hey, if you guys give me $100,000 Monday, it’s yours.” 

 

Josh Cantwell: Nice. 

 

David Pere: And so, we’re like, “Okay. But we want a two-week grace period for inspections and stuff before the $100,000 goes hard.” And so, we literally like on Friday, we signed something. On Monday, my partner handed him $100,000 check because he just refinanced the house and was like, “Okay. We’re hotel owners now.” And then that was when it was like, “Okay. Not only are we like I’m good, I can keep scaling, but like now I can, alright, yeah, this is the right decision. I’m good now. We’ll be alright.” 

 

Josh Cantwell: I love it. I love the fact that you’re just kind of doing your thing, right? You’re mailing. You’re doing direct mail. One deal. Kind of a lot of people say, “Oh, he’s lucky,” but other people would say, “Well, it’s just opportunity meeting hard work.” You put in the work. You did the direct mail. It was an opportunity that jumped into you. So, when all of a sudden you have like 40 units that’s dropped in your lap, hotels, apartment buildings, probably the biggest transaction you had done at that time, how does that feel? Like, I know what it’s like to buy a big complex. I’m always curious to see what other people say, “Well, my first big deal,” or, “My next big deal.” How did it feel when you’re like, “I’ve been doing single-family homes now so that just added 39 years to my portfolio?” 

 

David Pere: It was awesome and it’s really cool because I had been talking with some friends about potentially buying a business as opposed to just buy-and-hold rentals because being where we were in the pandemic, I was like, “There’s a lot of business owners who are offering to sell at a discount like this might be the time to jump into something with some employees and whatever.” So, the hotel scratched that itch too because we bought it with seven employees and at this point, I think only three of the originals are remaining. We’ve done some hiring and some firing, some turnover, and done a lot of stuff right away. So, it was a good experience for a lot of reasons. But to add your point about he got lucky or whatever, to do that, so three of us partnered, three of us each brought $100,000 into the closing for all of that. And in order for me to bring my $100,000, I refinanced the ten-unit, pulled $66,000, and sold the duplex to that. So, if I hadn’t been doing that, you kidding me, five years ago, my net worth was in the negatives. There’s no way I would have had $100,000 laying around to buy. This thing could have been staring me in the face and I would have been like, “Oh that’s cool. I hope someone else buys it.” 

 

Josh Cantwell: Yeah. Love it. Love it. What’s your favorite list to use? You said you’re sending out sometimes 2,000, 3,000, 5,000 pieces of postcards and mailers at a time. Is there a certain list that’s worked best for you? 

 

David Pere: I mean, the easy win is absentee homeowners with 70% equity or more. I’m really starting to dig down, though, to where every month or every quarter my county pulls like dangerous properties, which is all the people that have code violations or buildings that need to be torn down or they haven’t mowed their grass in a month and the city’s actually sent them notice. So, I’ll pull that list and I’ll add that to it. And then I’m stacking it so that I’ll see, “Hey, this person’s got a vacant property with 70% equity who they don’t live in the house. And by the way, the city’s told them they need to remove that shed or the city’s told them they haven’t mowed their grass in a month and a half.” Then it’s like, “Okay. Well, this person’s probably a really fed up, tired landlord.” And that’s what I’m trying to get a hold of. Right now, I’m trying to hit up like 60 to 80-year-old landlords who are just done. You know, they might have had a rough go with the pandemic or they’re just old and tired. 

 

Josh Cantwell: I love it. I love the multiple layers of motivation. Motivation stacking is a big part of being successful, especially in the smaller multifamily or the larger single-family type of deals and making sure that you’re not wasting your time with one layer of motivation. You can find someone who’s got four layers of motivation like you said, lots of equity, older, generally going to be a tired type of landlord, plus the code violations, dangerous property type of violations and they’re absentee, right? So, if it’s a landlord property that the money got beat up on or they have somebody with COVID that wasn’t paying the rent. Really, really, really good list there. That’s fantastic stuff. So, David, I know you also have a passion for helping other people, especially military guys build wealth through real estate, entrepreneurship, and personal finance. You know, tell us a little bit more about what you’re doing to kind of give back. I know the military life has been your life for a while. I know a lot of other guys in the military maybe don’t get that type of education. And you’ve kind of made it a personal mission to teach other people to be military millionaires like you are. Tell us a little more about where that passion comes from and tell our audience if they don’t understand what’s the transition for most people from military to civilian life. And why are military men so far behind financially and they don’t have this type of education that you’re trying to give these guys? 

 

David Pere: Yeah. I think the reason that most service members are behind is just because we kind of create this culture of it’s almost like, “Well, I might die soon,” or whatever so they just blow their money on. It’s like the ultimate like locker room alpha male like we call it The Gun Club but everybody and their mother is like, “Oh, yeah, I could buy a fast car or a motorcycle or a bunch of guns and tattoos. And you know what? I’m going to get paid. I don’t have to have any money because I live in a barracks and all my bills are paid by the Marine Corps. So, I can spend all my money on a tattoo.” 

 

Josh Cantwell: Yeah. And I’m going to die so might as well have tons of fun with it. 

 

David Pere: Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, that was exactly my mentality. I deployed to Afghanistan and got tax-free pay for seven, eight months. I came back and I had a truck, two tattoos, a Harley, and a sniper rifle to show for it, and no money left at all. And they were fun toys. So, there’s that aspect. The other aspect is just they’re young. They’re not out there looking for it, and there’s not a whole lot of resources there. So, like the Marine Corps or the military, in general, is good about they have the opportunities and they have the resources available for people but I wasn’t looking for that at 19 years old. You know, they’re not. So, it’s more of a, hey, instead of just having it available, you have to kind of find a way to get them to pay attention or get them to watch it. So, the whole reason for my platform, well, originally I was thinking about writing a book and knew that nobody would ever listen to me at all because nobody knew who I was. So, I was like, “Well, I’ll start by writing a blog and at least see if there’s some interest.” And then it kind of exploded. And so, now like literally the reason these walls are this dark is because these two walls are going to be built out to be a full studio so that I can go even deeper into the content hole. 

 

But, yeah, the whole platform is built around helping service members and veterans learn how to use their VA loan, how to use their thrift savings plan, what funds they should be in, what other benefits are available to them whether that’s discounts or just opportunities in the military to succeed. And it’s grown a lot because there’s a ton of opportunities. There’s this kind of mentality that service members don’t get paid a lot. And I’m sure on some level that’s true but the reality is most of them just don’t understand the benefits they receive and the value that they’re actually getting paid for that role. I made equivalent to like $115,000 in my last year in the Marine Corps, which is pretty solid. So, no complaints, but you got to know how to use it. So, the platform was built around helping people learn how to use their VA loan and learn how to build wealth with things like that. You know, if you’re going to move to a new city and you have the VA loan, you could live in an apartment and pay rent or maybe you could buy a duplex and start off with house acting. And now you’re paying less to live and building long-term wealth and you didn’t have to put any money down. I mean, that’s a huge win as long you’re buying right.

 

Josh Cantwell: Fantastic stuff. David, I’m curious. This might be kind of a personal question. I was hoping I don’t want to dig in too deep here. It seemed like and this is a little bit of a political question too but it seems like the military, depending on who is in office, you hear more in the news media about the military feeling not appreciated, and then the military feeling like super appreciated. You know, Donald Trump seemed to be very pro-military and supporting the military. I’m just curious, since you’re in it, how does it feel? How does it feel? Do you feel appreciated? 

 

David Pere: I definitely feel appreciated. Yeah. Without saying too much politically and without putting my views out there, you can definitely tell the flavor of the week and you can see where the budget goes. That being said, the commander in chief while being the commander in chief, it’s kind of like when people give the president credit or blame for the economy. It’s like, okay, yes, that person is the president of the United States but realistically, they’re not the only reason. Like, there’s a whole lot of cycles and things. If it’s good, they take the credit. If it’s bad, everybody blames them. But it’s like, eh. So, I think a lot of it also just kind of goes into like whatever the media wants to tell you. So, the media seems to like saying, “Oh, this is the case with this guy and yet this is the case with this guy.” But when I joined I was in training when President Obama was elected. And so, I served under President Obama, President Trump, and then now for the last year, President Biden. And you could tell there were some differences here and there but it’s more of a cyclical thing kind of based on where we are because we still had funding when everyone says, “Oh, President Obama cut all the…” We still had funding to do stuff. In fact, we had a ton of funding when I first joined and then it kind of dwindled down towards the end of Afghanistan. And then, yeah, President Trump gave us more funding for stuff but it’s not like a noticeable difference really in the military. It wasn’t like, “Oh, my goodness, now I have to go back to work.” You can kind of tell there’s a different feeling out there but nothing crazy.

 

Josh Cantwell: Got it. 

 

David Pere: Because the military probably one of my favorite things about it is that they do a really good job of keeping politics out of everything. And so, you can work in a room where there’s someone who voted red and someone who voted blue and someone who voted whatever other color, another color, and there are ten different ethnicities and 15 different you know, and nobody cares. 

 

Josh Cantwell: Got it. Yeah. I was curious to see actually from the madness in the middle of it on how it feels or feels different. So, it’s good to hear that you feel appreciated regardless. It’s funny that you said like the military, we keep politics out of the military but politics is good about pulling the military into politics. The opposite is pretty wild. David, so next question really is just around your start and any kind of challenges that you may have had. Being full-time whether it’s military, civilian life, having a job, what are some challenges that you experienced trying to do real estate while having a job? And what would you advise other people to either do or not do, avoid, or embrace in their journey? 

 

David Pere: I think the first challenge that most people come to and I certainly did, is capital. Most people don’t have money to start investing in real estate. I mean, there are some who do but the vast majority are not loaded, which is they’re looking to get into real estate to help build that. And so, I think that’s why house hacking is so valuable and something I’m such a huge fan of, especially if you’re young because you can get that primary residence loan, a VA loan, FHA loan, USDA loan, whatever, and you can pay under 5% down. Even conventional is only 5% down, which allows you to get in the door, and then now you’re mitigating your living expenses so you can save more money to invest in your education and invest. I think that’s the smartest thing ever for anybody getting started. So, I wish that I house hacked my first property. It was a duplex. I wish I’d been ballsy enough to do a fourplex because I could have bought the same thing for not much more down and I would be much better off right now had I made the leap to fourplex instead of just duplex. But that’s probably one of the big things. The other big issue for me was, as you might imagine, the military was time. I didn’t have a whole lot of it. 

 

So, I was waking up for the last three years. I’ve basically woken up at 4, 4:15 every morning and stayed up way later than I should, and sleep has kind of gone by the wayside but I think people benefit from setting a calendar, setting a schedule, and sticking to it. I mean, a lot of people just say they don’t have time to do this or they can’t figure out how to do that. The reality is if you just sit down every night and say, “What’s the one thing I could do tomorrow to help me move the needle on this, whether that’s evaluate?” Maybe it’s evaluating, analyzing 10 deals. Maybe it’s writing an offer. Maybe it’s networking with another investor, finding property management. I mean, just one thing. And if you just do that one thing, the first thing you do in the morning and then the next night you do the same thing. You write out another goal for the next day and you do one more thing and you just make it a point to do. I don’t know. It’s like people want to go play baseball in college. They make time to throw a baseball, although I don’t play baseball in college. So, there’s a lot of people out there who want to be a real estate investor, but they’re not willing to cut a half-hour out of their free time to turn off Maury or Jerry Springer or whatever people watch these days and analyze some deals. 

 

Josh Cantwell: Yeah. It was interesting. I had Barbara Corcoran on the podcast about two years ago and reminds me of her talking about she said forever her routine has been she gets in front of her desk the night before and she just looks at everything she’s got to do and she literally writes down like three things that she wants to get done the next day and she’ll work out or get some sort of exercise first thing in the morning when she wakes up and she’ll attack those three things before she does anything else. Those things could take her five minutes. It could take two hours. They could take all day but not until they’re done. So, she then open up her email, open up her cell phone, take other phone calls, take other meetings. And so, she’s really focused on for the last literally 30 years as an entrepreneur just three things a day and doing those first thing in the morning while you’re fresh, while you can think straight and before your day gets crazy. Kevin O’Leary said the same thing when he was on the podcast. Pick three things. And even if you’re a leader, even if you’re a CEO and you’re focused on employees, is helping your employees do the same thing, right? Just pass that down to them so that they’re not getting off and kind of winging it as soon as they wake up is that plan it out the night before, do three things or do one thing in your case and knock that out. That’s fantastic advice. 

 

David, is there any other advice looking back at the successes that you’ve had, the move that you’re making from military life to civilian life, from San Diego to Central Missouri, what advice would you give to your students, to our students, our members, our audience about your journey in real estate? What did you do well? What did you think you do differently? 

 

David Pere: I’d probably do a lot of things differently. I think the thing that really helped me out that I’m very good at is networking. And I think that the single biggest, best, most beneficial thing you can do to help yourself out in any endeavor is to surround yourself with the people who, A, have similar goals to you and, B, people who’ve already achieved what you want. Like there’s that at two levels, right? Because even buying a duplex, my first property, there were people who told me I shouldn’t do it or they were nervous for me or what if this doesn’t happen or what if that doesn’t happen? But none of them had done it. So, you find the person who’s done it and they’re like, “Yeah. Absolutely. Do it. Here, I’ll help you walk you through it.” And so, I think those two groups either surround yourself with people who are going the same direction as you like a mastermind group or a coaching platform or whatever so that you can have accountability towards those things but then also aligning yourself with somebody who’s already achieved. And I hate the whole run-around-look-for-a-mentor thing. I think if you want to find a good mentor, which you should, you either need to pay to play. You’re going to find a coach and you’re going to pay them for their time because if they’re that good, they don’t have time to hold your hand. Sorry. Or you’re going to need to bring value to them and not just like, “How do I bring value to you?” but like genuinely show up and say, “Hey, I’ll work for free,” or you need to really have a relationship with that person. 

 

The best mentors I’ve ever had were just people who I have a genuine relationship for or with who have done what I want to do on some level and then you’re able to just ask them, ask them questions here and there, and get basic things. At this point, I have mentors and coaches and it’s like I have, “Oh, I need to learn this one thing. Well, let me go ask this one person because I know they have the answer because I’ve built a big network.” But having people that have already achieved what you want to and listening to them and ignoring everyone else, because if they haven’t achieved what you want to do, who cares what their advice is? They haven’t done it. And then surrounding yourself with people who are trying to go the same direction so you guys can keep each other accountable and keep motivated because it’s going to be rough. It’s going to be bumpy. I had a roommate for the last year who also woke up at 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning. And when I didn’t wake up and I told him once, like, “Hey, if you don’t see me by this time of the morning, come kick my door down.” And sure enough, there was a day where he’s banging on my door and I’m like, “Oh, I don’t want to get out of bed. I drank too much last night,” whatever, but I got out of bed. So, surround yourself with people like that. 

 

Josh Cantwell: That’s fantastic stuff. So, David, let’s wrap up with what we call The Final Five. Are you ready for these? 

 

David Pere: Ready. 

 

Josh Cantwell: All right. What’s your favorite way to find deals? 

 

David Pere: Direct mail. 

 

Josh Cantwell: Favorite way to find capital for your deals? 

 

David Pere: I love me some private lenders but I am still a seller financing guy if possible. You know, you can get in and do some crazy terms and find some awesome deals that work out, if you can get that done. 

 

Josh Cantwell: Got it. Love it. What’s the favorite book you’ve ever read? Your own book, the one that you’ve written.

 

David Pere: Yeah. I did read my own book and that is the favorite one I’ve ever written. There’s so many books out there, and I want to just say something different, so I’m going to go with and I am going to blank on the name. No, I’m not. Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand, because it was a break from all the nonfiction stuff I’ve read. And it’s a super, super long book that like nobody reads so you can kind of be like, “Haha, I’ve read this 60-hour long audiobook,” but it’s a good book about capitalism. I really enjoyed it. And it’s old and it’s classic but I will listen to it again at some point. 

 

Josh Cantwell: What is it again? Tell me again. 

 

David Pere: Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. It’s like 76 hours. It’s like 1,100 pages, something like that but it’s a fictional book. It’s one of very few fictional books I’ve ever read and I really enjoyed it. 

 

Josh Cantwell: Nice. Love it. David, who do you think has been the mentor that you’ve had that’s had the biggest impact on your life? 

 

David Pere: Recently, Ryan Dossey, with the Create Cash Flow coaching. He’s who really got me dialed into finding my own deals. I use his direct mail approach and systems, and that has absolutely been the catalyst for me finding this hotel but really knowing that I was going to be okay outside of the military. And then prior to him, I’ve had so many throughout life. But he’s the most recent one that I can point to and say, yep, that guy right there has landed me at least $60,000 so far this year. 

 

Josh Cantwell: Nice. Love it. Yeah. I love having a direct and specific rate of return on that relationship and that investment. That’s fantastic stuff. Last question, David. As you know, we’re all busy. You’re busy with this military transition. You’re busy with your investments. Where do you go and what do you do to decompress and think and kind of look at the next phase of your life and your business? 

 

David Pere: Yeah. I haven’t found the location here in Missouri yet but when I was in San Diego, Oceanside, I took two or three thinking trips as Bill Gates kind of calls them. Bill Gates does, like every six months I think he takes like a seven-day thinking trip or a ten-day thinking trip where he just goes to some cabin like one or two-room cabin on a lake and just takes like three bags of books and no electronics. But I went to Idlewild, which is this tiny little town up in the mountains kind of between Palm Springs and L.A. And I would get like out this one bedroom, 1,900 area cabin with no TV, no Wi-Fi, no nothing up in the mountains. Close enough that I could walk into town but town is like one intersection with a couple of bars and a couple of restaurants. I take some books and I would just read and I’d go hike out up on the mountains. And for me, like being out in nature, hiking, that’s the place. So, trying to just take the phone away. Disconnect. I haven’t found the location here yet because there’s not any actual mountains around me. So, here it might end up being like a float trip with a camping site at the end or something like that but we’ll find it. I’m all about taking a day or two to just completely disconnect and enjoy nature. 

 

Josh Cantwell: Nice. I love it. That’s fantastic stuff. David, thanks for all your advice and all your wisdom today, and I appreciate carving out some time to join me. I know our audience is probably going to want to connect with you, especially those people that are in the service on your main website, FromMilitarytoMillionaire.com. Where else can our audience reach out to you and connect with you? 

 

David Pere: Yeah. I’m pretty much everywhere under the Military Millionaire handle at this point. The best way, if you want to physically talk to me, is to shoot me a message on Instagram @FromMilitarytoMillionaire. I answer almost everything there. 

 

Josh Cantwell: That sounds great. David, thanks so much for taking some time today to join us on Accelerated Real Estate Investor. 

 

David Pere: Absolutely, brother. Thanks for having me. 

 

Josh Cantwell: You bet. 

 

[CLOSING]

 

Josh Cantwell: Well, there you have it, guys, another episode of Accelerated Real Estate Investor. I had a great time interviewing David. Don’t forget to subscribe. Hit the subscribe button wherever you get your podcasts and videos so you never miss another episode. And if you feel so inclined, I always feel great when you guys leave us a five-star rating and review. Every time we get a new group of ratings, reviews, it fills me up with joy and happiness to know that I’m having an impact on you guys and having an impact on your life. Frankly, it just makes me feel good to get some new five-star reviews. So, we appreciate those. Thank you for joining me today on Accelerated Real Estate Investor. We’ll see you next time. Take care.

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