EP70 From Pro Motocross to Real Estate: Gavin Faith's Unconventional Path to Success

[00:00:00] I would say I'm just kind of addicted into investing and buying these properties. And obviously, I still do the real estate stuff too. I like doing both of it. The rental properties, I'd say, is my long-term future. That's my retirement plan. I invest fully in real estate. I've never had a real job. I don't have 401k, stuff like that. Yeah, I could invest on my own, but that's my long-term goal.

[00:00:22] From cornfields to high-rises, office to industrial, houses to hotels, and every other asset class in real estate, we cover the people, the projects, and the profit. Welcome to the Investing in Iowa Show. This show is for go-doers, action-takers, and business owners. It's for people like you who are sick of Uncle Sam taking a huge bite of your apple. If you're looking to get ahead of what's taking place in Iowa, learn who is doing what and how you can get in on the action.

[00:00:52] You're in the right place. Hosted by Neil Timmins, an Iowa native who has been involved in over $300 million in real estate right here in Iowa. Recording in studio from West Des Moines. Here's your host, Neil Timmins. I've got Gavin Faith here on the show. Gavin, welcome. Hey, how's it going? I'm glad you're here. Say, for the audience's sake, who are you? Where are you from? What do you do?

[00:01:15] Gavin Faith. I'm originally from Port Dodge, Iowa. I am a realtor. I'm an investor, ex-professional motocross racer, actually. It's a little bit unique. But yeah, just kind of do anything I can. I dabbled in quite a few other things with renting, flipping, anything real estate related, pretty much. First motocross. All right. You and I know each other. We've connected outside of this podcast. I think you've got one of the more interesting backstories I've ever heard.

[00:01:41] Take me back to how in the world you landed in that space from the beginning. It's a pretty wild story, especially coming from Iowa. It's not a huge motocross area. We have snow on the ground six months of the year or whatever. My dad was into dirt bikes. He rode when he was younger. Obviously, he wanted his son to ride. I got a dirt bike when I was little. Went off, did local races just for fun. Through middle school and up through high school, I always get better and better.

[00:02:09] Starting to win stuff locally. Try a couple of regional races here and there. I was okay. It wasn't the best, but my curve was pretty good on learning and accelerating through that. So yeah, graduated high school and didn't really know what I wanted to do. I thought maybe be an electrician or something like that. Maybe go to college. Didn't really have any plans to do anything. Obviously, I loved racing dirt bikes. Every kid growing up wants to be a professional athlete. I was like, well, let's give it a shot.

[00:02:38] So I packed up all my things. I graduated a quarter of the way through my senior year early. And so the fall of, I think it was 2009, I packed everything up, moved to a training facility in South Georgia, actually. It's one of the best training facilities in the world. There's kids all from the world there. Brazil, Australia, Europe, all over. Went down there. It was a pretty good investment. It's like going to college. I think it was like $18,000 a year to be down there. Parents helped me out initially with that. I was pretty good. I had some potential.

[00:03:08] And yeah, just trained my butt off. Lived at this facility. Had a gym on site. Just everything you do. You're a lift. Yeah, literally. I lived in a camper for four years or so. Even when I turned pro, I still live in a camper. But yeah, on the site, we had our gym there. We had multiple tracks, supercross track, motocross track. We had gym trainers. We had on-track trainers. We had a part shop there. Basically, I went to town to get groceries. The rest of it lived there. Worked on my bike there. Had a little shed to basically do everything.

[00:03:36] It was a busy schedule. And you had to devote your life to it like anything. If you want to be good at it and be successful, especially on the professional athlete side of things, you really have to go all in to make that work. How long have you been in school there for? How long is that last? However long you want it to. It's a training facility. It's a training facility. You can always learn new stuff. And really, it's maintaining and just pushing the very, very edge of... Obviously, you need to be fast to do anything.

[00:04:05] And then, obviously, endurance is huge in motocross, believe it or not. You're wrestling around a 230-pound motorcycle for 30 minutes or whatever. It's fighting G-forces and stuff. It takes a ton of strength and endurance, which wasn't necessarily my strength. But I ended up making it work on more of a shorter race-type deal, indoor stuff. And yeah, so turned pro in 2011. I got an opportunity to ride for factory Honda in Australia, actually, as my debut. Actually, I'm still friends with him today.

[00:04:34] I ended up riding for them for seven years. But he was over at Millsap's training facility. It was the name of the training facility. And he saw me ride one day. We were all training. I knew he was coming over there. We were riding supercrossing. Here he comes. So I had to show what I had, basically. And he never really heard of me. I did okay in amateurs. I had Honda support in amateurs as well, too. You know, top five, top three nationally. Decent, but you had to be very, very tip-top to get a factory ride in America.

[00:05:02] Went there and, yeah, started my career in Australia. And like I said, I was there for seven years. Not consistently. Go there for two months. Do their supercross series. And I would come back to America. Race in Germany. You know, Munich. I was king of Munich one year. King of Dortmund another year. Won a car over there, which is kind of cool. Kind of cool story. So I'd just go there on the weekend. Race. They have the bikes there. I would bring my suspension and maybe your handlebars or whatever. And then the third leg of my season would be to race in America.

[00:05:31] American Supercross. Later transitioned to American Arena Cross. Supercross, for those of you that don't know, is racing in a football stadium. Basically, they haul thousands of pounds of dirt in and are hundreds of truckloads of dirt and build a supercross track there. It's a very, very dangerous sport. So that's one part of racing I don't really miss. It's whether training day to day. You don't know if you're leaving the track in an ambulance that day or not. You know, depending. And it's all mechanical, too. There's thousands apart on your bike.

[00:05:59] So one of them fails and at the wrong spot on the track, you're flying 70 foot in the air. And, you know, it could be damaged. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Some guys are, you know, I was just like call it luck. Some of it's luck and unluck, especially when you are doing a motorsport when things can break, you know, especially with that year, you know, a car race and your car breaks. You know, there's not as much consequences where that you're flying through the air. If you're hitting whoop sections, if you if your bike shuts off at the wrong point in time, that's always kind of in the back of your mind.

[00:06:28] Like you can't you got to block that stuff out. But anytime you deal with that, that's one thing that was stressful. And or if you mess up, you know, it's stuff can end very quickly, hit the ground very hard. And yeah, I got a lot of that eventually end up, you know, ruining my career with a major back injury. But yeah, I have a lot of plates and screws and stuff along the way. So it's incredible. Is there money? I don't know enough about the sport. Yeah. Money. Yeah.

[00:06:52] So the very top level millions of dollars, you know, the top guys right now winning everything and the supercross level or, you know, they're probably not making 10 million, but, you know, north of five million dollars a year. We don't have public salaries and stuff like that. So nobody really knows unless you're in on things. But but then it drops off pretty quickly, though. So, you know, if you're the top guy, you're making over five million a year. So if you're the 20th place guy in a main event, you're out of a van, barely making enough money to go to the next round.

[00:07:22] So it kind of drops off. Yeah, steep, a steep curve. I was racing in Australia. I could do pretty well for a couple of months. I was there. Depending if you it's all performance based, too. That's was another part of the stressful part for me. Anyways, I was never a high salary guy. I wasn't quite to level where I was getting a lot of money in salary. So, you know, if you win a race awesome, you can make five to ten thousand dollars in a weekend winning and keep your ride to if you start doing bad, you don't if you're not on the top on the podium on top three, you're not making much money at the level I was.

[00:07:51] And then you lose your ride basically, too. So it's always every weekend you show up, you needed to do good to make money and your independent contractor, too. No one's it's you and the bike. So it's it's all up to you to to make it or break it. So it's definitely stressful in that part, but super, super rewarding. So that's one thing that where a lot of professional athletes in general, I feel like struggle with retirement because it's hard to especially with racing. And adrenaline's through the roof and to get that fulfillment. Other ways, it can be tricky. But I'm addicted to the adrenaline.

[00:08:20] Yeah, I think everybody does. Yeah, it's insane. Like they're sitting on the starting line. Just start your bike even before you start your bike up. Just, you know, you're in a stadium packed full of people. You're about to race and you got 20 other guys next to you that are all going to one corner and only one guy's coming out to lead, you know, and you got jump bikes jumping next to you. We wear heart rate monitors when we ride just to just to track everything. You know, you're my heart is 145 to 150.

[00:08:49] Just sitting, sitting on the starting line, not even start your bike yet. Yeah. Yeah. It was through and it was scary too. But like I said, the rewarding part, you know, once you finish it, especially if you did well, you know, so. Post post retirement. How do you get your fix? Yeah. How do you actually navigate that? Because I can imagine there is there's a lull, not quite the same. Yeah, it's tough. I still ride a little bit, which is fun. Like I said, I had a pretty bad back injury, so it does bother me pretty much daily. And then riding does a little bit.

[00:09:17] But so it's definitely a little bit higher risk if I would hit the ground again. So that's not ideal. But just trying to be the best at what you're doing, kind of, you know, whether like now I do real estate. I'm a realtor. I still or I do construction, just learning and trying to be the best at what you can be. I mean, the adrenaline, you can't really replace it, really. But with riding and stuff, it helps. It definitely helps get that fixed. But that's what a lot of athletes struggle with, you know, once you're done, especially if you're at a high level. And that's all you knew for the first time around 25 years of my life.

[00:09:46] I had one goal, one mission, and then it all stops like that, you know, so it's a little bit tricky to pivot. I was pretty smart along the way. As soon as I started making money, you know, with the real estate stuff, with investing, I always wanted to have an exit plan, kind of, because I knew it wasn't going to last forever. What the level I was at, I was at a good level, but not the type to where I'm making $5 million a year level, you know? So yeah, so that's kind of how I got into real estate. Hey, Iowa investors.

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[00:10:42] They just share in the income, appreciation, and tax benefits. These opportunities aren't for everyone. They are for qualified, accredited investors only. If you want to learn more, please visit LegacyImpactInvestors.com to apply. Yeah, so how did you get in? Tell me about that first property, and then maybe, you know, what was the timeline, or did it overlap? Yeah, so back when I first started making money, obviously, I was still living in a camper.

[00:11:08] And even, you know, my big fear was I'm making money per weekend racing a dirt bike. I'm not really high salary. If I get hurt for one year, I make $0 that year. I'm actually spending money with a training facility. You know, you still have equipment. You got to pay just all the normal life stuff. So, you know, I didn't want to buy a house, get hurt one year, not be able to make the mortgage, foreclose on my house. That was one of my biggest fears. So I had a buddy down at the training facility where he started kind of buying places in

[00:11:37] Panama City area, condos, renting them out. I was like, man, that sounds kind of interesting. I'd like to do something like that. So I was talking with my dad about it. And, you know, he's like, instead of that, why don't we just, you know, buy some places back home in Fort Dodge? Um, you can get, you can buy five or six properties for the price. You can buy one down there, you know, and then, you know, we can buy foreclosures. It's around, say what year would that have been? Around 2012. I started to turn professional. I started making a little bit of money and then I started buying properties.

[00:12:04] So I actually owned four rental properties with my dad before I even owned a home because I wanted to make sure, you know, worst case scenario, I was cash flowing enough to be able to pay mortgage on a home. So, um, and actually kind of got, he was a hog farmer. I think he may have had one rental property. It was an old house he bought back. But so I kind of helped transform him into doing real estate as well too. Cause he's like, we'll buy it together. You know, he'd help me find the properties and buy them while I was out racing.

[00:12:30] My season was from August to May or so. So summertime, I'd come back to Iowa instead of just hanging out and stuff. I'd be working on properties with him, fixing them up. We'd buy foreclosures, fix them up, then rent them out was our main thing. We didn't really flip. I wanted the monthly income from that. So, uh, it was kind of cool story. Then, you know, I kind of got, he was big on hog farming is super risky, you know, obviously I mean, real estate markets risky as well too, but hog farming, if you're, you know, yeah, yeah, for sure.

[00:12:59] And if the market goes South and you know, he ended up losing his butt one year and kind of had to bail out of that and kind of, kind of, this is a lot safer. The way I looked at it on paper is, you know, as long as it's cash flowing, somebody is always going to need a property as long as you fix them up nice, have a decent property place. You know, you're going to beat out all the bad properties, say, you know, times got tough or whatever. So really the risk wasn't really that concerning. You know, when you first dive into anything slightly risky, you're always, you know, because of what you don't know. Yeah.

[00:13:29] You don't know. So, but looking at that, that way, I mean, you're, people are always going to need a place to live. Um, so, you know, rent market could go up or down, but we were buying houses in Fort Dodge there for 20 to 30,000. Um, so, and we're putting, you know, sweat equity into them also, um, that, that helped getting into them, right. The cashflowed really well. So, uh, help build quickly that way. Did that, uh, for how long before you ended up? So my first year was full year was 2012.

[00:13:59] Let's see. My last year is 2018. So about six years I raced for. So, um, did okay. You know, I'd say probably my best year racing. I made around 200 to 250 roughly, you know, not retirement type money, enough money. You know, I could have let live super comfortably and bought nice things. I was, for some reason, I think the biggest fear was afraid of a real job kind of, you know, once I was done racing. So I'm like, if I get enough rental properties to make, you know, by the time I've done racing

[00:14:27] after these six years, which I didn't know the end was six years, but, um, if I can earn us, you know, 50 grand a year, you know, I don't have to depend on a, on a quote unquote real job. Um, yeah. So, um, or hourly job or stuff like that. So, um, you know, I'm looking back, I'm, I'm motivated enough where I'm not afraid to work, but at the time I just was afraid of a real job. I think it's what it kind of comes down to a little bit there. A lot of us in this business, not afraid to work, just afraid to work for somebody else. Yeah, exactly.

[00:14:56] So, and I didn't know, recognize that at the time, you know, at first I was afraid to lose a house. Um, you know, cause my, my job was so risky and not sure you never knew when the next paycheck was coming, you know, you could go one weekend and make $0 or make 10 grand or 16 grand is was one of the biggest weekends I've had. So, but yeah, so that's kind of how I got into buying properties in Fort Dodge. So you retired, uh, professionally in 2018. How many properties did you have at that time? I don't know for sure.

[00:15:25] I don't know if I call it quite retiring, but it got injured and quit. You know, some people look at retiring differently, but I never, I knew I was probably never going to retire from racing dirt bikes, but, um, uh, I probably had, I want to say between 15 to maybe 20 or so roughly. And, uh, now we have, I think just around 30. So, and I got a couple of my own as well too. Um, and then my dad has another 10 or so on his own.

[00:15:53] So like I said, we bought them right and we put them on 10 year notes. So yeah. Yeah. Very aggressive. Yeah. It's a man. What I hear you saying is you, you are very heavily focused on cashflow. You're not, you're, you're going to want to put yourself in a financial position where you never have to work. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. You know, that's, there's later on, you know, when I first was getting into real estate investing, I was just looking strictly at cashflow, you know, uh, later on, even just recently kind of realizing different markets, you can focus more on appreciation.

[00:16:22] You know, you got most of the time that if you're looking at a higher appreciating property, it's probably not going to cashflow like a property in Fort Dodge. You can cashflow really well, but you know, it's not going to appreciate at the same rate as a place in a prime area down here in Des Moines is going to, you know, um, early on it's just, we were just strictly cashflow. And, you know, if we were getting, having 40 grand in a property total and getting $800 a month rent. So yeah, it was, it was, we were doing really well in the cashflow on site at the beginning. So how do you manage properties today?

[00:16:51] So I moved to Des Moines about, let's see, two years ago or a year and a half ago or so. So, um, before that me and my dad would manage them. Uh, he manages most of them. He, he was a huge help in all that, especially when I was racing, he has managed them. So even now he, he managed most. So if, you know, I, I run back once or twice a week, if I needed to, if I go back for a full week, go back for a full week, um, just try to split my time a little bit. We kind of pride ourselves on, you know, I'm not saying there's a right way or wrong way

[00:17:18] to do rental properties, but we like fixing them up before people move into them. You know, if there's, you see a galvanized pipe that's not leaking now, but it looks like it could be in the future or whatever. We like going in and fixing all the plumbing or having it fixed or whatever, whatever, you know, making sure everything's ready to go when people move in. Cause it, it kind of sucks when you have to go in, when people are living in there and it's a mess or you're making a mess and people are living there. So it's not as much maintenance doing it that way.

[00:17:46] In my opinion, whether you just buy a house, throw somebody in there, you know, they're going to call you 10 times on different stuff. And especially when you're at the property working on it, you can notice a lot of like, as you're working on it, like, Hey, this furnace is acting up or Hey, this pipe is leaking here or whatever, you know, you, you eliminate a lot of phone calls you get, I think, especially when you buy a new property. Sure. Um, in that sense. So yeah, we try to, we spend a lot of money reinvesting our properties, you know, keeping them up. And you know, if the outside's getting rough, we'll stick some money in the outside.

[00:18:16] And a lot of people think, you know, renting out properties, it's get rich quick kind of deal. But if you keep a property up, especially if you're hiring a lot of stuff done, man, it eats into your, your income. Even if you do have a cashflow indecent, you know, if you got to side it or put a roof on it, or, you know, if you're paying a lot of people to do the flooring or whatever, man, it eats into your, your profits big time. That's what I think a lot of people struggle. I think we'd struggle big time if we weren't doing a lot of the work ourselves.

[00:18:42] You know, that's one thing maybe to a default, you know, especially now I'm, I'm working on two properties here in Des Moines. I'm flipping right now and I'm kind of a cheap ass in a way and, uh, don't really hire much done can do. I do everything on my own for the most part. I don't really mess with the HVAC stuff as much, but everything else, you know, I went to the university of YouTube, actually got my degree there. So, um, learned a lot of stuff there is on the construction sites. I never went to a con or construction school or anything.

[00:19:10] And I have buddies in different trades and stuff that I can call in and they'll help out. But, but yeah, we do a lot of manual labor ourselves and you, you can make the properties make a lot more sense when you put more sweat equity into them. Yeah. If you're willing to put the sweat equity into it and, uh, maybe account for it differently than somebody else. Yeah. Probably easier compared to the advantage as it relates then to buying the property when you got to go in and bid. Yep. Yep.

[00:19:40] And getting stuff done faster, you know, depending on what my strategy is moving forward. I got two properties right now and one's kind of sitting there for a little bit, but yeah, it's kind of to default in a, in a way, you know, some stuff is smarter to just get, have, Hey, get it higher done that way. Um, you know, not sitting on it for longer. It costs you every month that you're paying interest on it, you know? So, um, but yeah, probably to default a little bit, but I'm trying to mold into, uh, not be quite such a, so cheap on some things and just do it, do it myself. So at some point you became a realtor.

[00:20:09] What year is that? Yep. Um, it was about, I think at the end of 2022. So, um, I was, you know, buying all these properties and fixing them up and I was like, might as well be a realtor while, while I'm doing this. Um, ended up doing that and, um, working for a place in Fort Dodge and then, um, ended up moving to Des Moines. Better opportunity. You know, you're selling $300,000 to $500,000 homes where Fort Dodge you're selling, you know, $50,000 homes to 200.

[00:20:38] I mean the range roughly, obviously there's nice properties in Fort Dodge and there's bad properties in Des Moines too, or vice versa. But the average is different. Yeah. So, um, I actually, I work for Tammy Hecker with Greenland Homes as a new construction listing agent there for them. So, and I, I do buy, sell, work with investors as well too. So, um, you know, I feel like I have a good upper hand on, you know, looking at properties and, you know, spot stuff. I work on everything in the home. You know, I can spot out stuff and, uh, what's wrong with it.

[00:21:07] Not necessarily, obviously new construction. You know, they have everything perfect anyways, but as far as investors side with things like that and knowing how much work it is and stuff. So I, I kind of, um, not the, I shouldn't say I'm a good ruler, but the sense I'm not really very salesy. So, you know, if I see something in a property that's like, man, that's, that's a lot of work. Cause I know, cause I've done that, you know, I'm not going to be like, oh, but the home's super nice in this area. Cause I'm like that right there, it's a lot of work, you know? So I've kind of talked to people out of buying houses a little bit, but you know, I'm, I'm

[00:21:36] an honest guy and I want to be straightforward. I don't want to have somebody buy a property. Like you didn't tell us about this, you know, ceiling falling in or whatever, you know? But, um, but yeah, so I, I, I enjoy the real estate side, you know, it's, there's obviously you can make good money in it and it's not as labor intense on my back. So that's, that's a plus, but, um, yeah, I've enjoyed it so far and help people find homes and yeah, it's been good. If you're a house flipper, execute the birth strategy or do double closings and are in

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[00:22:34] How did racing and racing professional, how did that prepare you for what you do today? Usually, you know, um, investing and then operating all your investments. Sounds like that's the lion's share of your time. And then also being a realtor. With racing dirt bikes, work ethic is, is insane value. You, you learn with racing anybody that's good at racing dirt bikes. That's, that's so much work for not much return. You know, you're invested in yourself pretty much. So yes, it's fun. Learned how a lot of pain stuff.

[00:23:04] I don't know if the pain is really treated or prepared you for the future, but you know, like I was saying before, riding dirt bikes is tremendously physical as far as physically demanding is, you know, obviously you got soccer and a couple of super gnarly sports. Um, you know, our, our heart rates are 200 beats per minute for 30 minutes. And, you know, you're using tons amount of energy and you got to train your butt off and be disciplined and on track stuff.

[00:23:31] You're constantly learning and taking risks, trying to, you know, improve your time, hit corners better, hit jumps faster, all that stuff. So, and then on the back end of it, you gotta, I got a train. So we were working on our own dirt bikes, figuring that stuff out mechanically wise can be a little bit scary because obviously if you mess something up, it teaches you to be kind of OCD too. Cause you know, if I'm working on my own bike, if something messes up, I'm getting injured. So it teaches you basically, you know, a lot of dirt bike riders are OCD because they,

[00:23:59] everything's gotta be perfect because it was such a high risk if it wasn't, you know? So, um, and then obviously the gym on top of that training to, to get fit more fit. And yeah, just like I said, I think there's work, work ethic is, is one of the biggest things. So, you know, it seems to me like then the, in addition of what you just said, the outcome is performance based. Exactly. Yeah. Just like being a real estate investor, just like being an agent. Yep. Yeah, exactly. It's a very cutthroat too. Like you have a bad weekend, you know, the team's not happy at you. None of your sponsors are happy.

[00:24:29] Like it's more than what people see on TV. Like it's just, you know, guys out there having fun. It's, it's a serious business and it's very stressful. And like I said, you're running your own business too. Um, you know, you can, if you cheat yourself on a training day or you're eating bad, um, you're just going to pay for it on Saturdays. You're not going to, you know, perform as well. You're not going to be as fit. You're not going to, you know, you might not win the race or, um, yeah, it's, it's definitely,

[00:24:54] you know, tough that way as far as, as, uh, you know, you can't, you learn to not cheat yourself too. So you, you pay for it right there. What are you most excited about 2025? Um, no, I just, you know, I would say I'm just kind of addicted into investing and buying these properties and, and obviously I still do the real estate stuff too. Like I like doing both of it, you know, you know, the rental properties I would say is my long-term future. That's my retirement plan. I invest fully in real estate. I don't, I've never had a real job.

[00:25:23] I don't have 401k, stuff like that. Yeah. I could invest my, on my own, but so that's, you know, my long-term goal is, is to, you know, get as many properties as I can and, and, you know, be, you know, wealthy one day, you know, so, um, just constantly trying to find deals on, on houses and, you know, fixing them up. And obviously the real estate stuff as well too. I like doing that side of things and trying to keep growing there. So the past couple of years I've increased quite a bit on my sales on, on real estate.

[00:25:50] So keep growing there and just trying to manage everything between the rental properties and real estate and, uh, flipping properties. I definitely stay pretty busy, but, uh, definitely like to focus on, um, you know, my real estate stuff. Somebody calls, answer, you know, nice place that that is a priority that a lot of other stuff can wait. Um, you know, and then obviously rental properties, you're trying to get the next, you know, place fixed up for the next person to get in as well too. What attracted you to the flipping side of the business? Just, just big paydays so that can be redeployed back into rentals?

[00:26:20] Uh, I guess it started more so with getting higher cash return on, on rental properties. I never, we didn't really, when we're fixing up all these properties throughout the years, we've maybe flipped a couple, but two or three maybe. Um, but mainly it's just getting higher return, buying the property, right? Fixing it up nice to where, you know, we would live in any of our rental properties, you know? So that's one thing we pride ourselves on is like, I would, I would live in it in any single one pretty much, you know? So, so basically just adding value that way through sweat equity.

[00:26:49] And then, you know, if property fits a flip a little bit better, if you still can get to deal on a property, but it's a higher end property, that's not going to cashflow as much, then we'd maybe flip them. Um, a couple of deals I'm working on now. Like I, I want to rent as much as I can. I don't care about cash now. I care more about, you know, if they can get into cashflow and building a monthly income and then appreciation and then someday owning the property and, and being able to, you know, cashflow it really well. And yeah, like I said, I kind of maybe should diversify a little bit.

[00:27:17] I kind of got all my eggs in the real estate basket, which I'm, I'm happy with. I don't, real estate obviously isn't going anywhere, you know, so I'm not too worried about it. So it's, uh, yeah, it's, it's been, been good. Ready for the final three questions. Yep. If you had one piece of advice for your 20 year old self, what would it be? I don't know. I'm, I'm bad at these types of questions. Um, I mean, I just say they only get harder. I'd have to say buying more properties when I could, you know, I was very nervous getting

[00:27:43] into it at first and, and, uh, making sure that they cash. Basically everybody looks back 10 years ago and says they should have bought more real estate, you know? So yeah, exactly. Exactly. Um, but I'm grateful for how much I bought when I did, you know, you know, so you got to look at it both ways a little bit that way. Um, but yeah, no, I was, I wouldn't regret much. Like it's, it had to live a pretty good life, especially my younger ages. It was like racing a dirt bike for a living was, was pretty awesome.

[00:28:12] You know, you had the injuries sucked really bad, but, uh, you know, I spent seven days in ICU and Australia hospital by myself. You know, that's probably one of my worst injuries and that wasn't the one that took me out, but, uh, but yeah, so that obviously pros and cons with everything, but that's what made it so rewarding on the other side. So, but yeah, I just say, you know, buy, buy more, more properties. Two books that changed your life. Well, you're not going to like this answer, but I'm not really a reader. I'm the YouTuber. All right. So university of YouTube, remember, uh, not really much on the read.

[00:28:42] I do watch my, uh, fiance is not too pumped with it, but, um, I watched like building shows when I get home from work. Like I work on house all day, come home and watch like building shows, like learning more stuff on YouTube, which is better than, I guess, watching Netflix or something that you're not really learning off of. So I, uh, yeah, I learned a lot of stuff off, off YouTube. Surprise. Yeah. All right. If you were cast away on an Island for one year, you're going to only get three pieces of data about your rental business each, every month. What three things must you know every month to know how your rental business is going?

[00:29:12] Well, it's nice having a partner, my dad, he helps me out a lot. So he can, uh, he manages a lot of it, but, um, yeah. It's the rental businesses, you know, can run itself obviously pretty well. Most all of our renters are good at getting rent on time. You know, we're super fair and honest with, with them. And, um, obviously we've had people tear places up, but it's, it's relative when you do it the correct way and find the right people, it's relatively hands off and not a ton of, of hassle.

[00:29:40] Um, rental business kind of, I guess, just making sure everybody pays on time or, or, you know, rents in for the month, I guess. Um, probably not the right answer that you want. I'm curious as to how you handle, um, repairs and maintenance requests or your portfolio in Fort Dodge, given that you live here. Like I said, my dad handles with most of tenants. If it's something small, he can handle it. Uh, if it's something, you know, I, I run up there as from my house to get to Fort Dodge is like an hour and 10 minutes.

[00:30:09] Um, we get a lot of sewers. My dad, I make fun of him. He loves digging into the sewers. You know, we were older home, cast iron pipes, roots get in the, the sewer, cast iron drain pipes. But yeah, I'll run back and do this, knock a sewer out with him. You know, we've done roofs. We need to do a roof, you know, run back three or four days or whatever, help out with that. Any small stuff, like I said, he pretty much handles, but I, I'm an hour and 10 minutes and like the nice thing with the, being a realtor and doing my own deals is I'm not stuck

[00:30:35] at a job until five o'clock at night where I can't, if it's something we need to run up there right away, then I can just run up there whenever pretty much. Yeah, this has been a great conversation. I've asked you lots of questions. What's one question I did not ask that I should have asked? I don't know. You did, did pretty good with the questions. I'm trying to think. You did pretty good. Um, like I said, hopefully I didn't get too much into the motocross stuff. That was, that was good touching on that. Yeah. And unique background. Yeah. Yeah. So like I said, it's, it was one changer for the world. It's very unique.

[00:31:03] And, but yeah, I feel like you nailed the questions pretty, pretty well. So there's nothing really I had on my mind that you didn't, didn't hit. For people who want to find you, follow you, connect with you, where can they go? What should they do? Uh, yeah, I'm on, um, on, um, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, just search Gavin Faith. It's pretty, pretty unique name. So you can go find me there pretty easy. Another thing that, um, I was going to mention too, is the, with the investing side, which I said, my fiance is not pumped on it, but I worked the two year, no capital gains on primary

[00:31:32] residence. It's been working that for, for quite a few years now, which is, you know, beneficial when doing flips and stuff, you moving in a flip and after two years, you don't pay capital gain tax. So now I'm young and get by with it. Obviously we're getting married soon. So that might continue, might not to continue. So we'll see, we'll see on that. So yeah, I don't, I'm not sure. We'll see, especially if down the road, you start having kids and stuff, it makes it a little bit more challenging, but if you're not paying tax, it can make a little bit extra revenue. It's, it's worth it.

[00:32:01] It's the largest single expense for Americans in their entirety of a lifetime. Realistically, you can move in two or three days out of the year. So it's not really much, that much to ask for, but there's a lot of stuff that goes along with it. Um, but yeah, that's one, uh, came to mind that a question, I guess didn't really necessarily get to, but, uh, but yeah, find me on, uh, Instagram or TikTok. And if you've got any questions, I'm always on my open book.

[00:32:27] So, uh, anybody has any questions for me on anything, really just call my direct cell phone. If you want, you can find it on any of those Instagram pages. And yeah, like I said, I'm easy going and, and like to help people out as well, too. If you're looking at getting an investing and, you know, I don't consider myself a genius investor, but you know, I feel like I have a decent amount of knowledge to, to be able to help somebody out just getting started for sure. Cool. Well, thanks for the show notes, everybody. Gavin, I appreciate you. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. It's been awesome. Thanks for listening.

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