All right. Welcome, everybody, to a new installment of the MP Access Show. My name is David Wharton. I'm the editor in chief of Mortgage Point magazine and the five star Institute. We are talking today with Zach Lemaster, who is the founder and CEO of Sprint to Retirement. Welcome, Zach. Thanks for sitting with us again, David.

Thanks so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. Yeah. So we recently got a chance to talk a little bit for our our May issue of Mortgage Point and got a Q&A in there with you as we delved into some of this stuff. But, I wanted to take this chance to sit down with you and dive all that deeper into some of the stuff that you guys are doing at RTR and just what that system is that you put together.

So let's start with the origin story. I feel like that's a good place to start. I know you mentioned when we talked your background, you have a military background. You were in the Air Force and also have a medical training as an optometrist. And I think I'm saying that. Right. Yeah. That's right. So tell me a little bit about how you got from point A to point B.

How did you go from that background to what you're doing now? Yeah, probably I'm, I'm at point I don't know. And oh, there's been a lot of stops in the journey, but, you know, real estate investing, I guess is something that has been of interest to me for, for quite some time. As many aspiring investors do, I start out reading, reading the books, educating myself about just how to be a savvy investor.

I naturally gravitated towards real estate because it's a physical asset. I think one of the most influential authors for me early on was Robert Kiyosaki. Most people in the real estate industry know Rich dad, Poor dad. That's where it kind of began for me. But, I had traditionally, went to school as, I got my bachelors in science from University of Wyoming.

I got my, doctorate degree in Oregon. So did my wife were both optometrist by education. I was on scholarship with the Air Force. So I was a captain in the Air Force for, multiple years. And I started. That's where I started investing. And this is probably 14 or 15 years ago at this point. And that's where I fell in love with with real estate investing.

You in the first house that I bought, I used a VA loan, but no money down. I lived in a duplex. I rented out house, covered the entire mortgage. So I lived for free. I made an investment. And it really kind of the numbers clicked with me. And so then I began to continually invest. Every single year since then, I bought more and more real estate.

We started to invest out-of-state, where we found better deals, deals that adhered to our, our, our goals were we had better potential versus just investing locally, even though that's where we started. And that was really the birthplace of rent for rent retirement, which is, you know, the business we scaled and operate today, where we've been able to assist investors all across the country, regardless of your your experience level, regardless of your geographic location.

We've helped investors all across the country and the world invest strategically in the markets that have the best returns that adhere to their goals, and that really started from us, my wife and I, wanting to invest in those same markets and building systems and processes around that. It's a very long answer, David. So we love long answers. It's better than the one sentence answer you get sometimes.

So that's made it that. Yeah. Well, you talked a little bit about kind of your origin story. And I think this transitions nicely to having come from, a background that didn't necessarily point you straight towards this. What are some of the ways that rental retirement and you guys are helping make this whole investing journey more accessible for people who have maybe no knowledge or a little bit of knowledge?

How do you make that more accessible to people? So rental retirement, just to set a foundation here. Rental retirement is a turnkey investment marketplace. Turnkey is one of these buzzwords that we often hear, and it is kind of ill defined. So when what we mean when we say turnkey rental retirement is, we first identify a market that meets the fundamental criteria for an investment.

Properties set investors up for success. These are areas that have landlord friendly legislation, low taxes, areas that have population and economic growth, that have a diversity of industries. We specifically choose areas that are below the median house price point, which is roughly 400,000 plus or minus. Right now, we want to be in areas that are affordable, that have positive cash flow.

Obviously, we're we're investing in these areas for a reason. We want to be conscious of the returns. So what we do is we first identify the market. And once we find a market that fits these this fundamental criteria, we go in and we build our teams and systems in these areas to make a property accessible in, in, in this market to an investor where they can buy that property, where our team handles everything for them, for management, we have people in place to do the lending, the title, the insurance.

And so what we are a one stop shop for people to access the best deals across the country. Our motto at rental retirement is to make the best investments across the country accessible to everyone, and handle everything for them. Yeah, it doesn't mean it's completely hands off, but our goal is to, you know, scour the nation to find the best deals and then stand up.

Our teams to confidently allow people to invest in those, those areas strategically over time. And so we do that by, creating builder relationships in these areas. And, you know, fundamentally, building building an entire team around, around this process. So I wanted to first define what, what turnkey is, because a lot of people, don't don't know what that is.

Rental retirement specifically, though in the turnkey space, we do a lot more than just making those deals accessible to everyone. We help people build a strategy and a plan to ultimately accomplish their goals, and then match that with the right property and markets, because each individual has different goals, criteria, timeline, resources available, and each person's goals is individual to them.

And so real estate investing has made an impactful, difference on my life and my family's life, that we never thought was possible otherwise. And we're very passionate about sharing that with other people. But it's about first understanding what the in the investors goals and criteria is, and then matching that with the right market and helping them build a strategy and a plan to ultimately obtain, you know, financial independence or, or whatever their goals are within their timeline.

Well, I know when we talked before, you kind of circled out back a lot of times to making sure you're focused on the fundamentals of real estate investment. So looking at your own portfolio, I know you've you've done SFR, you've done a little bit with multifamily, I believe, and even some of some CRA stuff. So as you're looking across all those diverse classes on your own side, what are you looking for?

And I know you don't want to give away the secret sauce, but you know, what are the those fundamentals that you're looking for in a market or an asset class when you're trying to decide this is a good bet, this is not a good bet. There is no secret sauce to investing. I mean, it's just takes consistency. Not every deal you're going to buy is going to be a home run deal.

Don't expect that. Yeah. And you know, you will not make money on every deal. When people invest in real estate, they do it because, well, they do for multiple reasons. But I think the general common theme is that people feel that real estate investing is generally safe because it's a tangible asset. Real estate investing is one of the most oldest forms of investing because we're talking about residential real estate.

Because you're investing in housing, it's a human necessity. People always need a place to live. There's an extreme deficit of of housing, opportunities for people right now. And there is an extreme affordability crisis in the U.S so not to get off on too many tangents, but the secret sauce to investing to achieve success and wealth over time is to do it consistently and always and always improve.

But at the end of the day, if you want to be wealthy through real estate investing, it's buy good properties in good locations with good teams. That's that's all it is. We just help people along with that process. But there's a lot of, you know, details that we will look at. I mentioned a lot of what our market analysis was, right.

We want to be in areas that are, you know, growing for a reason. But ultimately we want to invest in areas where we have a need. It goes back to economic 1 to 1 supply and demand. You know, that's why we're active in the Sunbelt quite, quite a bit, because those are areas where, there's a huge deficit of housing.

The population is growing like South Carolina. 2013 was the fastest growing state. You know, Texas and Florida are constantly battling. I mean, the Sunbelt is growing in population. All the builders across the country cannot build enough houses to fulfill those housing demand. So those are the areas we want to be invested in where we can have positive cash flow.

We can keep the houses rented. As I mentioned, we want to be below the median house price point, which is roughly $400,000. Our key. We try to focus on that 250 to $300,000 range, because we know that that's an area where you have the largest demographics of tenants. You also have the largest demographic of retail buyers. Even if interest rates are still elevated, there's still high transactional volume within that price point.

So it's a very safe bet. These are not we're not investing in high end luxury homes that tend to have fluctuations and, you know, prices and things like that. So this is your bread and butter housing. We're investing in residential blue collar housing and providing a necessity to to a demographic that's in high need of it.

That's, that's how you set yourself up for success, is just investing in the fundamentals. And David, that works in any market cycle that it does not matter. You know, if you can when the market crashes, when it's booming, people still need a place to live. Yeah. And they're still going to pay rent and likely when there's turmoil in the retail market, guess what?

Less people are buying houses, there's more renters. So anyways, I could go on and on, but that's that's what's, that's the key to success is just investing in areas that need to have housing demand, good locations, good properties, good teams. I know you mentioned you geographical locations like the Sunbelt and stuff and looking for those those opportunities.

Are there any whether it's an asset class or or a location or anything. Is there anything that that has changed over, you know, the last five years where you saw an opportunity there that maybe you hadn't seen before, that you're like, oh, okay, let's let's take a chance on this. And it, it proved to be, worthwhile. We have really made the transition.

And this is largely in part because of our own experience, but also being conscious of market dynamics. And, and being opportunistic. I think it's always important, to be conscious of what's happening in the market. The United States is a very diverse, diverse country with a lot of different submarkets. And you got to pay attention to, you know, state legislation and even, you know, room on a microeconomic scale.

What's happening then in a metropolitan area, in the suburbs around those areas, like each one of those markets, can vary dramatically. What what we've been at. But to answer your question, well, we've been doing well, really transitioning to over the past 24 or 36 months is focusing on build to rent. This is new construction assets. And this is something that makes rental retirement very unique in the industry.

We're pioneers in this space, and we're doing things that no one else has done before, specifically around making, new construction assets that are traditionally acquired by institutional type of buyers and capital. We're making those same type of deal opportunities available to the individual investor. And that's huge. Because if you think about a, you know, an equity firm or Blackstone or REIT, you know, some a large institutional buyer that's coming in and buying hundreds of houses from, from builders, one they put these in funds and then the individual investor will never see those.

The retail buyer will never see those because now they're part of a fund and they keep being sold as funds. So it's really actually hindering the market because those houses are taken off the market permanently. For the average investor, retail buyer. And it but what, what the benefit is for the institutional buyers because they're buying in bulk, they get large discounts.

They get better buying opportunities, wholesale type of pricing, and they get a cherry pick the deals that fit their criteria across working with builders that build on a national scale, rental retirement is able to do the same thing for the individual investor. Because our community buying properties and volume, we're able to go to these national builders and negotiate wholesale type of pricing, working with their wholesale divisions, just like the institutional buyers are.

But we are able to pass those those wholesale type of pricing into the individual investor. And this can be significant. This could be up to 10 or 15% of the home price we have. You know, the investor gets the choice of taking a price reduction. They can get it that same amount of money as cash back. In closing, they can use that money to buy down the rates significantly.

I mean, I'm on a $300,000 house. A 10% incentive is $30,000. That could if you could take that as cash back, that could cover half of your down payment. We're working. So that's that's one thing we're doing. You know, being conscious of where the opportunity is. We like working with new construction in general because you have more predictability.

You have higher upside in terms of appreciation, both in rents and home prices. You have less maintenance. You have less capital expenditures versus compared to a home that's been rehabbed over time. So new construction is just more predictable. It attracts better tenant quality and offers more predictable returns. And the last thing I'll say is we have some really unique lending options.

We've been excited about, specifically around new construction. IT lenders feel, I think, safer, around new construction because it isn't. It's a new asset. You know, you're not going to have a big capital expenditure within the first likely ten years. Your builder warranty is on things, so they're willing to be a little bit more cavalier in their lending, which provides a better opportunity for investors.

But we have some lenders that will offer 5% down loans on multiple investment properties on new construction. So traditional things that you would not have access to another asset, classes. You can't go and buy a commercial, you know, multifamily or retail center with 5% down. That's that's ludicrous. But, you could do that on single family new construction homes.

It provides a whole new buying opportunity for, the individual investors. Again, another long answer for you, but those are some of the unique things that we're paying attention to based on, you know, market dynamics and providing a lot of opportunity to our investors because of that kind of keeping in the same general vicinity. You talked about a lot of these these new areas that you're kind of exploring and diving into, like BTR, just to give you a chance to brag on yourself.

What would you say are some of the things that really sets RTR apart from your competition, or anyone else that's trying to do the same sort of education and and connecting investors with opportunities? Well, I think as far as the deal structure goes, that that's the biggest thing that we just in just to review, we offer institutional grade, type of wholesale pricing on new construction assets that we are making available to the individual investor.

No one else in the industry does that. There is no competitor out there that offers that. We're the pioneers in the space. We've and that's that's years that's a decade of relationship building with these national builders. You can't walk into D.R. Horton and demand these type of things. You know, the right. This is truly relationship building and proof of concept over many years of building those relationships.

Same thing on the lending side. But I think what really sets aside or sets us apart from anyone else in the investing space is that we take a comprehensive approach to set our investors up for success based on their individual goals. We have an entire education component, as part of our company, the Rent Retirement Academy has helped hundreds of investors achieve their financial goals in a fraction of the time, they, they thought possible or they would have been able to accomplish on their own.

We've helped people build very large portfolios to provide, you know, significant passive income for them on a monthly basis, to retire early from their W-2 job, to retire a spouse, or to just simply diversify their portfolio depending on what their ultimate goals are. I think that's I think the deal structure that we talked about with the wholesale type of build opportunities, the educational components we make available to our investors, that coaching and one on mentoring, really sets us apart in the industry.

And the last thing that I'll mention is we just have a diversity of markets. We're not a lot of these, turnkey builders or rehab ers. They focus on 1 to 2 markets or geographies where, you know, if you're working with them, you're very limited in what the investing options are, David. So I mean, we work across 80 different markets across the country.

And so there's a very large diversity of where every quarter we're opening up a new market. We have a very large diversity of markets and investment opportunities that our investors get access to. So they're not just solely focused on, you know, 1 or 2 markets. We truly can match them with a market that is, best suited for their goals, where the best opportunity is.

Well, you talk about on your website, and I know before we we came in here, you were, telling us an offer or an example. You got another testimonial that came in. So is there a story of, somebody that you can think of, that whose life you really kind of helped transform that that comes to mind that you like to, to go back to as an example of here's, here's what this can do for you.

Oh, we have so many. And this is, this is truly what allows us to, you know, to to continue to thrive in our industry. Because this is this is the positive reinforcement for us, right? I mean, this is what makes it worth it. Yes, we're all in business for the sake of business, but having the impact for, you know, the impact on people's lives and to be able to accomplish their goals and do things that they never thought otherwise.

I mean, the real estate has done the same thing for my family. I have a health care background, I, I enjoy helping people see and improve their lives. And I still I still do that. We do that on a volunteer basis, but having an impact on people's financial lives is, is really impactful. That's that's a positive reinforcement for us.

We have had just in and we have hundreds and hundreds of reviews online. So I encourage people to just simply Google us and look at some of people's stories from them themselves. Yeah. But, we had a gal, Liz that, she's an academy member. Her first year investing, she was able to retire her husband from his business, as I think he was a roofer, but they bought like eight properties.

The for their first year. It allowed her to really, you know, create a lifestyle to spend more time with their family. They were very strategic around the tax incentives, and this is all things that they learned from the ranch retirement Academy. And they what what made me very proud and excited to share her story is that she took the concepts that she learned, and she applied them, and she applied them quickly and was able to accelerate it, accelerate her, her goals.

We have another couple just recently that, since we're just post-tax tax season. Yep. We're we're helping them review their, their tax, savings. And they saved over $200,000 in actual capital that they would otherwise paid. Uncle Sam, these are these are two doctors, a surgeon and a and a family practice doc. So they're high income earners.

They're fairly new real estate investors. But learning how to be strategic tax investors, using real estate to not only diversify their retirement account, provide additional income, but really for them, create a six figure tax savings through buying investment. Real estate was dramatic for them. So that was a huge success story. And I mean, those are those are bigger deals.

But I mean, we have lots of people that buy 1 or 2 properties, a year. And, you know, they're just on the path to success and they're really becoming familiar with real estate investing along the way, really getting into what I think the most impactful thing is when we see someone get into their first investment property, because that's a whole mind shift change.

There's some people that sit on the sidelines for years or possibly decades that are learning about investing, but they can never bring themselves to pull that, pull the trigger on that first deal. Right? So I like seeing people get their first deal done, because it sets off a light bulb and opens up the door of opportunity for them.

Well, you've mentioned a couple times your background, and we kind of started with this, but what do you think you've taken from your experience, both on the military side and on the medical side? How is that translated into how you operate as a business leader and as a leader within your organization? There's a lot of things, I think, that are relevant to running and operating a business.

These are, you know, kind of the cliche things, I guess, of managing people and, you know, systems and organization. But I will say at the end of the day, and this is true of health care, this is true of military. This is true business. Is that real? And this is absolutely true of real estate investing. Is this is a people centric business?

You know, if you you need to learn how to, to really be successful. I think in any business, working with people and truly being authentic and genuine is, is really important. There's a lot of salespeople out there, especially in the real estate space, that are just there to sell you something. I think people see right through that.

There's all the online gurus. People are so exhausted of that today, having something and and not just selling an educational course that is theoretical in nature and, you know, showcasing and there is no overnight success in real estate investing, but it also doesn't take a lifetime to build financial independence. It just takes a few short years of dedicated, intentional investing.

But if you can be authentic with people, I think that is really the foundation of building their confidence and trust. And I took that both from the military and certainly the bedside manner of of being a doctor and health care provider of, you know, being authentic and truly, truly there to help people. I've translated that into our real estate business.

And, and people see that and they appreciate that. Well, I know you've referenced the Academy a couple times, and education is clearly such an important part of what you do. Could you speak to that a little bit about why you're the does that really help, someone who's, who's curious and just kind of just kind of looking into this, does that education component really help take some of the, intimidation factor out of things?

And how else does that path kind of set people up for success? The number one thing that's prevents people from accomplishing their goals is fear. And the best way to overcome fear is through education and understanding. People are fearful of the unknown. They don't know they're fearful and of losing their money of investing in a market they have no idea about.

So our approach has always been and will always be. Let's provide you education and real estate investing is a lifelong journey. No one is here to invest in just one property and sail off into the sunset. I mean, it doesn't work that way. Real estate investing is a lifestyle. It's it's about, you know, building is about taking control of your financial future.

It's about understanding how to be a savvy investor. It's about creating a lifestyle that you we were not taught to growing up in the traditional educational system, not trying to rely on the government or a 401 K to retire. And it's about teaching our children, about legacy and about also how to think about money and how to invest it over time.

Education is power, if it's applied. And so that's that's really what the Academy is about, is empowering people to accomplish their goals through education in turnkey investing. It's in this is true certainly of rental retirement as well. It's it's easy to buy a property, arbitrarily because you have a sense of security around it being productive because someone's already done the work for you.

We've analyzed the market. Here's a silver platter of a great investment deal, right. Which you can do. But to truly be successful long term, you need to have the education with that. It's about understanding your goals, your criteria, about building a strategy and a plan because you're not just arbitrarily buying a property where someone else is doing all the work for you.

It's understanding what your plan is and then strategically buying assets based on those goals. And that's what sets us apart, and that's what allows people to be successful, long term with us. So that was the reason and the vision behind the academy. And it's just been a huge success, for our investors, allowing them to expedite their success and just be, you know, better investors, more savvy and sophisticated investors to truly understand what they're doing.

Well, obviously, the internet and the connected age we live in has kind of opened up opportunities for investing in other markets that maybe weren't there before, but I imagine that's still somewhat daunting to to go down that, that rabbit hole. If you haven't done that, do you think that what the, the cure for that is essentially that education component or what are some other ways that RTR can help address those fears and help people get more comfortable finding the markets that are where they have.

We're going to have the most success. Education is obviously key, but at the end of the day, it's it's action and true education comes through doing. I think you truly learn by actually doing so. The best way to learn a market is to invest in it. Now I understand that it may seem daunting on the front end, but, you know, here's the thing investing across the country is no different from investing in your own backyard.

You. I think people build up a false sense of security that I'm going to invest in my local market, because that's that's what I know. Yeah, I can drive by the property if I want to or I can. I can touch it. I know that what I see is real. But that also sets a lot of people up for failure because their local market may not be the best market for them.

If you're they're likely not especially getting started. They're not a professional contractor, a property manager, attorney, all these things. So, you know, I would encourage people to really take a step back and understand what their skill set is, what their risk level is, what what their goals are, and then choose a market based on that, because you need a team around you.

And building a team locally versus across the country is no different. You know, what we try to bring to to the table is value add a rental retirement. We already have the team established in all these different markets. But getting over that hurdle again, that first property, especially if it's your first out of state property, is really what opens up your mind to being receptive to diversifying.

Every successful investor that I've met and that has been mentored me, has owned a portfolio across multiple locations, not just one location. And that's really important for for success over time. And that was the key, David. That was the key. I didn't get too much into my backstory on this, but when I started investing, I did start local because again, same thing.

That's what I knew. Yeah, like I said, the first house I bought for to live in was a duplex. But the thing that really allowed us to retire, my wife and I had to retire from our career path in medicine early on, is the fact that we were receptive to investing out of state, because there were better markets out of state that offer better returns, better growth potential.

So I would encourage people to be part of being a sophisticated investor is investing in the markets that do offer the best returns and that best fit your goals, not the other way around. And focusing on trying to fit a square peg in a round hole of investing in your local market, because that's what you feel comfortable with.

So, at the end of the day, you learn by doing and, people get hooked. They invest in that first property in Florida, Texas, Alabama, Georgia, Carolinas, Missouri, Indiana, Ohio, wherever it is. And then they have a good experience with that. They maybe want to scale a little bit in that market, but then the next market is across the country and they feel comfortable doing that.

It's like clockwork because they have a system and a process to follow. One of the things we always encourage people to do is have a diversified portfolio, but also take advantage of economies of scale. So we have the saying like 3 to 5 properties in 3 to 5 markets. That gives you diversity, but also economies of scale. And each one of those markets.

So it's just developing that plan over time. Well last question. Is there anything that you've got on the horizon that's coming up for RDR that you want to plug anything you're excited about, any new developments or, or just final thoughts that you want to leave our viewers with? We have a lot of interesting things on the horizon.

I'm very excited to talk about. We're always looking at new markets that are opening up with new strategic opportunities. You know, the the U.S. is a very dynamic landscape for real estate, and there's some booming markets that are appreciating, at double digit numbers and happen over the past few years. So contrary to what you see on the news and markets that, you know, are stagnant or declining, there's definitely some markets that are booming.

It's just how do you find out where those opportunities are? So we're always opening up new markets. We have some new strategic partnerships that we're excited to bring to the forefront. We are looking at doing so some of our first conferences publicly, and getting, like minded investors that have been successful and are new aspiring investors in one room together and sharing some opportunities and providing more value to them.

So it's all about how can we better serve our constituents and our our investors? How can we identify where the best markets and opportunities are? And, you know, continue down the path of success and have a lot of fun doing it. That's awesome. Well, thank you again for being so generous with your time here. Over the last couple weeks, we've been talking to Zactly master of rent to retirement.

I believe that website is just rent to retirement.com, if I'm not mistaken. Rent till retirement.com. And we have a ton of educational information we put out there for absolutely no cost. We have our podcast YouTube channel. We're always doing market analytics. And of course, you know, our investment strategists are there to connect with you to answer any questions you have about, real estate investing.

So yeah, feel free to check out those resources. Perfect. You can also see more with Zach. In our interview in our May edition of Mortgage Point magazine in our real estate investment edition. Thank you so much for tuning in. Thank you, Zach, for your time. And we will see you again next time on the show. Thank you so much, folks.