Are We There Yet? Jeffrey Peterson's Guide to Wealth
This is the EWN Podcast Network.
Cathy:Welcome to Late Boomers, our podcast guide to creating your third act with style, power, and impact. Hi. I'm Cathy Worthington.
Merry:And I'm Merry Elkins. Join us as we bring you conversations with successful entrepreneurs, entertainers, and people with vision who are making a difference in the world.
Cathy:Everyone has a story, and we'll take you along for the ride on each interview, recounting the journey our guests have taken to get where they are, inspiring you to create your own path to success. Let's get started.
Cathy:Hi. I'm Cathy Worthington. Welcome to Lake Boomers. I'm here with my cohost, Mary Elkins, and we are pleased to introduce you to today's exciting guest, baby boomer, real estate entrepreneur, and author Jeffrey Peterson.
Merry:As the principal of Peterson Properties in North Carolina, Jeff has acquired and managed commercial real estate centers, single family homes, condominiums, and so much more. Plus, he's devoted to, community service, and he's completed, if I can say that word right, competed in eight Boston marathons and is the author of are we there yet? A Memoir About Grit, Determination, and Perseverance. Welcome, Jeff.
Jeff Peterson:Thank you for that nice welcome. I I really was looking forward to coming today and speaking to both of you. I kind of I've not done a a podcast before where you had two people firing questions at you. So feel like I'm a little bit outnumbered, but I'm gonna I'm gonna try to hold my own. So We'll be gentle.
Cathy:We'll we'll try to be nice. Okay. Please talk please talk to us about your journey, your memoir, are we there yet, and how you found your path to building a real estate empire.
Jeff Peterson:I can do that in an elevator speech. No. Really? Okay. Go bot.
Jeff Peterson:So Oh. No. No. Are you kidding?
Merry:I know.
Jeff Peterson:Things could be. Okay. So mine, of course, like most people in the entrepreneurial field, is not a straight journey. It kind of meanders around, and when you get towards the end and you feel like you're somewhat successful, people will come to you like you, and they'll say, Well, how did you get where you are? Then you'll say, You know, actually, I don't know.
Jeff Peterson:Let me recreate this. So that was kind of the idea for the book. I started having a lot of younger people especially, were asking me for advice on how to invest, how to get started in real estate and small business. And it got to the point where I thought about it, and even with my own children as well, I thought it would be a good idea to just put some of it down and try to create a memoir. It's not a biography, but it is a journey of how I started out and how I continued in my journey.
Cathy:Super. Super. And and then from there, how you found the path to building a real estate empire, please.
Jeff Peterson:Yeah. My my first my first venture, I started business when I on my 20 birthday, actually. Wow. It was a small upholstery shop, and I I started it reupholstery. Yeah.
Jeff Peterson:I started it out of a front bedroom of a two bedroom house, and that's how I got started. A small bedroom house that I was renting at the time, but I always wanted my own house. And a year or so later, I found a house, a small house, and managed to talk the owner into selling it to me, Although I did not have a dime, and there's no financing. This is back in nineteen eighty, eighty one, somewhere around there, where interest rates were over 20%. You couldn't you couldn't get financing, and you couldn't afford it if you could.
Jeff Peterson:So I managed to talk him into selling me that house. They had lived in it, him and his wife, for years and years. And I read this book called How to Buy Real Estate with Little or Nothing Down. And I'm trying to think of the author, anyway, it's a very common book. But I took that to heart, and I went to this gentleman, and I talked to us blue in the face, and finally, he decided to do it.
Jeff Peterson:He liked my approach, he liked what I was doing, and there was a small you know, garage out back that I could upholstery out of, so that's how I started. That was my first property.
Merry:Well, that that's an interesting path. Yeah. Yeah.
Jeff Peterson:When I say small when I say very small, I started small, extremely small.
Merry:Well, why is buying real estate the most important thing we can do for long term success?
Jeff Peterson:Well, now you're gonna get me out of soapbox. Okay.
Merry:So No elevator pitch on this.
Jeff Peterson:No. No. When you when you do real estate, you'll see a lot of people will say, you know, it's passive income, and you can flip, and you can do there's so many different ways to do real estate. But the reality is it takes a long time, and it's it's a discipline. So you have to be disciplined in it.
Jeff Peterson:But over time, it is the best way to create wealth. Because when you first buy that property, your renters are gonna be paying your mortgage. You're gonna be they're gonna be paying down your mortgage. They're gonna be making all your payments. Now you're gonna appreciate value, and you're gonna get the added benefit of depreciation.
Jeff Peterson:So there's and there's more benefits than that as well. Of course, you get some cash flow if you've if you've done it right. But it takes a long time to do this. And the big fallacy is that when you start this, you think you're going be able to quit your job or that's all you're going be doing, but that's not really that's not really the best way, and it's probably the hardest path to do that because your cash flow is probably not going to support a lifestyle because that is not the number one way to increase your wealth. The number one way to increase your wealth is through your appreciation, and that takes time.
Cathy:Interesting. Oh, yeah. Obviously. Yeah. But why should everybody start their own business, and what do you believe is the first step to take?
Jeff Peterson:Well, starting your own business. So if you work for a company and you work you work for you work for someone else, you're a w two employee. Correct?
Merry:Mhmm.
Jeff Peterson:And when you're a w two employee, the difference between a w two employee and a small business owner is that the w two employee will make a thousand dollars, they'll pay all their taxes, and whatever's left over, they pay their bills. Where a small business owner, what he will do is he will make a thousand dollars, He will pay all of his bills, and whatever's left over, he pays his taxes. That is a paradigm shift in in how you think about how how you create wealth and and how you how you sustain. So it is imperative that eventually you become your own become your own boss. The long term is the real estate, but owning a business is is very good.
Merry:That's that's and and if you have employees, they go before taxes too, don't they?
Jeff Peterson:That's correct.
Merry:That's correct. So often, when you're first starting a business, you make less than the w two employee. But
Jeff Peterson:When I first started my business when I first first couple years I had a business, I I actually started having employees. They could go get a credit card. I could not. I couldn't even qualify to get a credit card because I was self employed. So it's the same thing when you go in for a home loan.
Jeff Peterson:When you go in for a home loan, if you're a small business person, the mortgage lenders do not like you. Would much rather work with a W-two employee because it's so much simpler for them. But it's very hard when you're self employed because you know that it's not guaranteed.
Merry:Mhmm.
Cathy:Yeah. Because sometimes when you're self employed, you may have saved up plenty of money for the down payment, but then Kaiser's went through this with some relatives. You have to then justify where did that money come from.
Jeff Peterson:That's right.
Cathy:And they don't like to believe
Cathy:you because you don't have
Cathy:a paycheck coming every two weeks. They don't believe you, like, where'd you get the money? And then if somebody gave you some money, they have to send a letter. It has to all be shown, the paper trail. So I guess they're worried you're laundering money or something.
Cathy:Have you found that
Jeff Peterson:to be true? I haven't I have not done a private mortgage, not private mortgage, but a regular residential mortgage in years. Now it's all commercial because commercial people understand business, so it's much simpler. The process is much more simple. But if you're doing a residential mortgage, believe me, they don't like people like me.
Jeff Peterson:They never will. It's it's just not Yeah. Not easy. Yeah.
Merry:Well, you give us some advice on the most suitable real estate investment that we can buy based on our own personalities or skills or needs? I everybody's needs are different. Right?
Jeff Peterson:Everybody's needs are different. You're right. So most people start off with residential because it's it's easier to get started that way. It doesn't take as much capital. What they'll do and many times, what they'll do is they will they'll buy a property, they'll move into it, and they'll hold it for a couple of years, and then they'll rinse and repeat.
Jeff Peterson:So they'll keep that property and rent it out, and then go buy another home mortgage. So they get better interest rates, and they don't have to put as much money down. So it works out very well to begin with. But you can't you can't do that for very many properties. You run out.
Jeff Peterson:So you have to go into other properties.
Cathy:It depends on the market you're in because if you're in Los Angeles, that's not a very viable scenario because you're gonna pay so much for the house, and then you maybe can't rent it enough to have any positive flash cash flow.
Merry:That's true.
Cathy:It's in Yes. Mortgage.
Jeff Peterson:With me, if I could just get a little bit of cash flow, I was happy with it because I knew it was more about the appreciation. And I had my business or businesses. So that was where I was generating my cash flow. But for the long term appreciation, the long term wealth, you have to put that money somewhere, and the best way to to me to put it is into real estate.
Merry:Well, just and add on to the last question of the different personalities and how you would advise different types of personality on what to buy.
Jeff Peterson:It's that's that's a loaded question. I'll I'll give you one example, though. If you were a if if you've got an interior design background, you have a very good eye for location and value, Maybe you go into the the Airbnb short term market rentals, much better cash flow, appreciates well, and it's hands on. So if you have that mentality where you can actually manage your own properties week to week instead of just long term, there is much more benefit to that. But you have to have the right personality for that.
Merry:Yes. You do. Yeah.
Cathy:And you also will. And also it matters what you're doing. It matters a lot the area that you're buying in because Airbnbs are getting booted out of so many, areas. Like, there's an HOA. You can't be in there, and, you know, a lot of HOAs have come down hard on them because people don't want the renters coming in and out.
Cathy:How do people how do people figure that out? Do they have to have a lawyer on each deal?
Jeff Peterson:I think you need to look at that before you buy the property, of course. So myself, personally, we do a lot of short term rentals. And I say Airbnb, but that's for me, that's a generic term because we do Airbnb, Vrbo, and then we do direct rentals, which is our own website. And we do all vacations, so we're doing everything at the beach, and it's very localized. So for me, the best is to be right on the beach, no further back from second row.
Jeff Peterson:And we do them all there together.
Cathy:East Coast beaches?
Jeff Peterson:Yes. East Coast. North Carolina.
Cathy:Uh-huh. Oh, yeah. And is there a strategy to the way you learn to speak to bankers and investors to achieve your financial goals?
Jeff Peterson:Yeah. That's that's the hard part. So to me scoop. Alright. Let me I'll I'll give you this.
Jeff Peterson:So to me, the number one thing that you can do with your bankers, well, the number one thing to begin with, is to get to know them today. So don't wait until you're actually looking at a property or you know you're just gonna just say you're gonna get into the property business, and you're already you know, you're already in a business or you already obviously, you have some wherewithal or you wouldn't even be starting. So you need to know that you need to know your banker in advance. So you need online banking is very big right now. Right?
Jeff Peterson:So everybody's doing everything online. But the reality is when you're dealing with in a community, you should be going into your local bank, into your branch, talking to the bank manager, talking to the bank president. So when you eventually go to them and approach them, they already know who you are. They see you out in the community. So you wanna go to those community events.
Jeff Peterson:You wanna go to join your local civic organization, go to chamber meetings and things of that nature so that they know who you are. And it makes it it's just one little step when they go, they're comfortable with you. And if they're comfortable with you, you're you've just created a huge or or eliminated a huge obstacle.
Merry:Is there another kind of strategy you you would use?
Jeff Peterson:Well, that's one strategy. Talking with bankers is always it's always difficult. I mean, I would show them finances in advance. I would talk to them and say, this is what I'm looking looking for. What do you need to see from me?
Jeff Peterson:What do I need to do? Next year, I want to start buying some some vacation rentals, or I wanna buy a commercial property. What am I going to need to do to prepare myself for that in advance? And they'll kind of give you an idea. So you need to know the market.
Jeff Peterson:You need to be able to talk the language. So talking the language is no more than literally becoming financially literate. And when you're financially literate, then when you go into the bank, they already know that you know what you're talking about. But if you don't talk the language, they'll dismiss you right out of the gate. So you have to already know kind of what they're looking for and, you know, that you they need to know debt to income ratios.
Jeff Peterson:You need to know all of that stuff that they're gonna ask you. Not that you have to have it all. You just need to know what they're looking for and why they're looking for certain things.
Cathy:And what books would you recommend that people read to update them their financial literacy? Something
Jeff Peterson:only book
Merry:that I would something.
Jeff Peterson:The only book that I would recommend is mine. Oh. I was just joking.
Merry:Smart man. Very smart man. You
Cathy:did say yours a memoir, not a how So
Jeff Peterson:Yeah. It does have some it does have some nice tips in there, but it's more of a a lot of it's a rah rah, kind of like, okay, you can do this too. But there are some nice tips in there. As far as other books, there's so many good ones out there in the market. I liked following some different podcasters as well that I think some are more entertaining than than others.
Jeff Peterson:And they may not be giving the best, best advice, but they're pretty entertaining. And you can pick up bits and pieces. You know, to me, I'll read a book, and I might pick one little idea out of it, out of 200 pages. I was like, wow, that's really interesting. That's worth the price of it.
Jeff Peterson:That's worth the price of admission. And sometimes I can't remember exactly where it came from, but I do like that. I like the way that works. I'll give you this one piece. Oh, go ahead.
Jeff Peterson:I'm sorry.
Merry:Oh, good. No. No. Go ahead. Go ahead.
Jeff Peterson:Oh, I was gonna backtrack just a little bit because you were asking me about beginners. You kinda said beginning in real estate, but also this goes to beginning in business. So I already said the best thing to me is eventually work yourself into your own business. Right? But the first thing you have to do when you actually get ready to make that leap is to borrow every dime you can borrow.
Jeff Peterson:So borrow it before you before you quit that job. Borrow everything you can borrow. And when I say borrow, I mean go get your home equity line, tap it, and get as much as you can. Get your credit cards. Borrow as much as as you can because the minute that you quit that job, you're gonna be dead to the banks for several years.
Jeff Peterson:You're not gonna you're not gonna be able to borrow anything or do anything. So I had a friend of mine, and he he was a a GM at a very popular sports store, big chain, very successful, and he wanted to do a food truck. And I was like, Oh, man, are you kidding? You really want do a food truck? He said, Yeah, I'm sick of it.
Jeff Peterson:I just want to that's what I want to do. I said, Okay. Well, he goes, What would you tell me to do? So I told him that. And I forgot that I told him that, but I told him, said, Look, borrow all the money you can because you're going be dead.
Jeff Peterson:I was kind of trying to scare him a little bit, but I said, no, seriously, borrow. You know, you got a lot of equity in your house? Borrow against it right now because you're not gonna be able to do anything. And two years later, we had a conversation, and he said, You know what? Out of all the advice I got from all of my different friends and all the people that I know, he goes, Yours is the one that actually just saved me.
Jeff Peterson:He goes, Absolutely saved me. He goes, I couldn't do anything. He goes, But I did do that, and it worked. So that's what I'm
Merry:heard that. I've never heard that before. That's wonderful advice. How long does it take before the bank lets you borrow after that?
Jeff Peterson:Well, so you have to have most banks will tell you this. You're gonna need two years of tax returns. But that's two years of good tax returns. So maybe the first year is not so good. Right?
Jeff Peterson:Maybe first couple years aren't so good. Now you're looking at four years. But you're going to have to have a couple of good years of tax returns, and it's going to have to be moving in a positive direction. So that's why you need to do all you can before you quit your job. And with that being said, I wouldn't be really quick to quit my job either.
Jeff Peterson:Would work twice as hard until you finally cannot do your new your new career and keep the job, or you can't do a good job working for the person you're working for.
Merry:Oh. Is there
Jeff Peterson:That's true.
Merry:Yeah. To to pivot a bit, is there a trend in real estate now such as building apartments and condos over retail stores?
Jeff Peterson:Yes. I'm doing that right now. So it's that trend, I think, is more city driven. So I'm building now in Holly Springs, and we're just about done with it. But I remember doing that, we were going to put in apartments, and they said, We will not approve this unless you put in retail underneath it, because they want the live, work, play model.
Jeff Peterson:And it actually I mean, it's a great model, how much retail, how many apartments. Therein lies the problem, because banks, again so they've got different appetites. Some of the banks, they want apartments. Other banks, they just want commercial. But there aren't many banks that want both of them together.
Jeff Peterson:So when you're looking for your financing, that makes it it just it opens up a whole new realm of issues. So so that makes it hard.
Cathy:Tell you what, it's a huge trend in Los Angeles right now. Those buildings are everywhere. They're above Target, and they're above Trader Joe's. Sometimes it's not a lot. It's an anchor store.
Cathy:It's one store and lots of apartments. That's what I'm seeing all over LA now, but it's different where you are.
Jeff Peterson:Yeah. It's it's coming. We're we're doing a lot of that, but it's it's not quite as dense. So you don't have as much of that, but but you do have a lot of that neighborhood kind of so it's gonna be neighborhood shops and apartments over overhead. Mhmm.
Jeff Peterson:It just it just creates more difficulties when you're trying to get the project the project financed. Yeah. Yeah. Then I'm assuming
Cathy:I'm assuming these are all rentals.
Jeff Peterson:Yes. Yeah. When you're doing most of those would be rentals.
Merry:Are they? Not condos? No. Yeah. They're not.
Cathy:Well, how has the real estate market for shopping malls and office buildings changed since COVID?
Jeff Peterson:Now that is not my expertise.
Cathy:Oh, okay.
Jeff Peterson:So I know that you know, I have a shopping center in Eastern North Carolina, and during COVID, we did a lot of you know, worked with a lot of the tenants trying to keep them in there. You know, we we forgave rent. We didn't really forgive rent. We we kicked it back, kicked it down the road, but we managed not to lose any of the tenants. So that was that was very good.
Jeff Peterson:Great. But it was difficult for everybody. And the banks actually worked with us as well, because they would come and say, hey, look, if you need a forbearance, we can kick this back three months. You want six months? We'll kick it back six months.
Jeff Peterson:So everybody kind of just was a lot more lenient. And I I think you had to do that because otherwise, it would have been a house of cards. Everybody would have been collapsing.
Cathy:Mhmm. Yes. You're right.
Merry:Yeah. So I know that you've run-in eight Boston Marathons. So tell us about some of the sports that you love because I know you do more than run. And, also, I'd love to know what it would was like to run-in eight Boston marathons.
Jeff Peterson:Every one of them every one of them sucked. Can I say that? Yeah.
Merry:Love it. I
Jeff Peterson:can tell you some stories. So so the first one I ever ran, it was I just ran a for me, now I'm just an age grouper. Right? But I ran a phenomenal race. It it was just fantastic.
Jeff Peterson:The very next year, this is a 02/2014, I ran it again. I was like, hold on. Get my note. Get my I'm getting my years mixed up. This is 02/2012.
Jeff Peterson:So the next year, I ran it again, and it was 90 degrees out. It was so hot. They were asking people to defer to the following year, and they refund your money, or they'd just kick it to the next year. And I was in great shape, and I was like, I'm just going to run at the same speed I ran last year. I'm not going to kill myself, but I'm going to run it again the same way.
Jeff Peterson:Well, 90 degrees running does not get along well with me. Right? So I I ran. Tried to run at the same speed, but mile by mile six six, I still had 20 to go. I was I was actually seeing stars and me I mean, I was I was terrible.
Jeff Peterson:So it took me two hours longer to run that race. It was Boston was my fastest race and my slowest race that I've ever run-in my life. It was just terrible. So I've had some of those stories like that where to me and I've run a lot of races, not just running races, but also, you know, Ironman and and Spartans and things like that. But I always say you can have a great race or you can have a great story.
Jeff Peterson:The great races, I forget about. I forget about them two weeks later. Nobody wants to hear about them. But the great stories, like where you did something maybe you did something wrong or something happened, those are the ones that are amusing. They're the ones that, like, you'll never forget them either.
Jeff Peterson:I mean, so so it's
Merry:Always. And were you were
Cathy:in with the the violent year when all the bad
Jeff Peterson:stuff 02/2013.
Merry:02/2013,
Jeff Peterson:I was. I was. Oh, you And I'd I'd already crossed the finish line when when the bomb went off, and I didn't know it was a bomb. Actually, I'd gone down the side street to try to hear myself on the phone to tell the person I was with where I was, and it's so loud on on Boylton Avenue that you can't hear yourself think. So I was trying to trying to talk on the phone, and I heard I heard something go off.
Jeff Peterson:I thought it was a transformer, or I thought it was something in the air force, or just you just didn't think bomb. Then I heard it a second time, and I was like, oh, wait a minute. And I I can't tell you how many tens of thousands of people were on Boylston right when the bomb went off. And if they had, you know, if they had done something a little bit different, it would have been so much worse. I mean, they just they actually bungled it, the people that set the bomb.
Jeff Peterson:But I got back to the room, and I was I was hurt for that race. I was hurt during the race. I I probably shouldn't have run it, but I did. But by the time I made it back to the room and turned on the TV, which was only twenty, thirty minutes, You turn on the TV, and all you saw was smoke and debris on the street, and there's not a soul to be seen. Not a soul to be seen.
Jeff Peterson:It
Merry:was Mhmm.
Jeff Peterson:It was a very, very emotional, very emotional time for everybody.
Cathy:So you had just run past that area?
Jeff Peterson:Yes. I had just run past it.
Merry:Very I
Cathy:had another recently.
Jeff Peterson:Yes. I had another friend that was running as well, and they ran they were in between the two bombs. So one went off here, one went off one went off there near the finish line, and they were running right in between them. And so it just ran right through it. Was pretty chaotic.
Jeff Peterson:Yeah. Yeah.
Cathy:Wow. Really terrifying. Well, let's let's tell us how the discipline of sports can carry over to the discipline needed to create and run successful businesses. Is there a correlation there?
Jeff Peterson:I think there is. I think and actually, it's it's a good correlation. For me, it's it's distance races. You know, I've done some a lot of shorter stuff too, but not just distance running, but ultra running, not just marathons, but even in the longer So for me, the discipline that it takes to train is the same discipline that it takes to run your business or run your real estate. You have to you're in it for the long haul.
Jeff Peterson:So when you're thinking about, just for instance, for a marathon, you're looking at sixteen to twenty weeks of training. Well, that's that's almost every day. And you have a plan, and that's what you're doing. If you're really going to try to run it and run well, you actually have a plan. But it's the same thing with business.
Jeff Peterson:And you can't just like, well, I just don't I'm not in the mood. I'm not motivated today. Well, if you're not motivated today, it's gonna you're gonna pay. You're gonna pay when it when it comes out. It's the same thing with business.
Jeff Peterson:So you can't just do it when you're motivated. You have to be disciplined. I mean, to me, discipline when you're disciplined, you work on those days when you're not motivated. You work all the time. So you don't feel like doing that work.
Jeff Peterson:You don't feel like making those calls. You don't feel like researching this property, or you don't feel like going and talking to, a club or you just don't feel like it. But that's discipline. And when you're motivated, then you take it to the next level. That's when your breakthroughs come through.
Jeff Peterson:But if you only work when you're motivated, you're just gonna miss so much. So I think it's true of competition the same way it's true in business. And that's just always the way I've kind of thought about that.
Merry:Yeah. It Well, I
Cathy:guess people sit around and wait for motivation to hit them on the head. Yes. And that that's not gonna happen.
Jeff Peterson:No. Not gonna happen. We've all guilty of that. I mean, I've been guilty of that myself. But, overall, I know that when you do the work, when you're not in the mood, you actually feel better for having
Merry:it Right?
Jeff Peterson:Absolutely. And there's nobody cheering for you. Nobody knows that you're doing it. Nobody knows that you're up at 10:00 at night or up at five in the morning doing the stuff that that just doesn't seem to pay off, but it does. And you have to do that.
Jeff Peterson:So if you if you think your job is nine to five and you're gonna run your own business or run your own real estate and the real estate is gonna be passive, you probably should stay in that w two mentality. So the only way you can work for yourself really is you have to have that drive. I mean, it's not the smartest person. It's the person with the drive. That's better get it done.
Merry:Mhmm. That's brilliant. Thank you. I have a question that's a little sidelined here, but, looking back at your career, is there one thing you might have done differently?
Jeff Peterson:Oh, now we now we can go on forever.
Cathy:Oh, really?
Jeff Peterson:Good. No. I don't I don't you know, you can you can always look I look at mistakes that I've made in business, mistakes that I've made in real estate. I used to joke, I say I'd you know, I say, what kind of real estate do you buy? I said, I buy the the good, the bad, and the, What the hell was I thinking when I bought that?
Jeff Peterson:That's true. And I have done that. I've done that so many times. And after a while, you do have to trust your instincts. So sometimes it just doesn't I have to go back and analyze what I've done.
Jeff Peterson:And so sometimes I'll go back and I'll go like, well, what was I thinking? What was my thought process? Was something in the early stages that that that really messed me up. And one thing that I learned was sometimes I'll get excited about a deal, and I'll I'll work on how I can figure out how to get that deal. And I'll never go back to the basis of should I do that deal.
Jeff Peterson:So just because you're able to do a deal doesn't mean you should. So my biggest mistake would probably be doing it's not the ones you miss. It's the ones that you did that maybe you should have just said, you know what? I should just pass on that.
Merry:They they make good stories.
Jeff Peterson:They make great yes. They make great I do have some great stories. You have property stories. Yes. They do.
Jeff Peterson:They do they do make good stories.
Merry:Yeah. But Well, you zero
Cathy:in on can can you zero in on something that you could have done differently that maybe is a lesson to somebody else?
Jeff Peterson:Well, let me think of one I could zero in on. There was a there was a property at the beach, and this is one I didn't do. Okay? So it was a property down at the beach, it was the south end of the island, and it was advertised as and the details are a little blurry now, like like they like they become. But, basically, it was advertised as four lots and two buildings.
Jeff Peterson:And so I go down there and look at it, and I thought it was gonna be a really great deal because I'm like, four lots, these we these are worth this. And I was like, well, this is really this is really attractive. And so I was gonna do it. I started doing the due diligence, and then coming to find out the four lots included the building. So the building sat on the lots.
Jeff Peterson:It wasn't plus the buildings. It was totally totally together. So it wasn't nearly as attractive to me. And there was more to it than that. It had some docks out on the water, but it was all kind of dilapidated, looked bad.
Jeff Peterson:So I passed on it. And I was annoyed at the broker that had told me about it because I said, this is not you didn't market this the right way. It wasn't it wasn't presented like it should have been presented. So I walked away. Six months later, I'm driving on the road, and I literally the light bulb goes off.
Jeff Peterson:I pull over alongside the road. I call up the broker. I said, is that property still available? He said, no, it's gone. I was like, I can't believe it.
Jeff Peterson:What I discounted was the the value was not really in the lots in the building. The value was in those docks on the water. And since they were not in great shape, I didn't really look at those, but waterfront dockage is like gold on the water. And I totally just I was so upset about the buildings and the lots. I didn't look any further at that.
Jeff Peterson:So that's one to this day. I just kind of go like, I can't believe I let that go away. And side note to that, the person that bought it, those docks are in such bad shape they tore them down and were going to rebuild. But then CAMA, which is the coastal area management, wouldn't let them put it back. They could have repaired them, and that had been fine.
Jeff Peterson:They could have replaced them one post at a time, but they didn't do that. They tore it down, which it was it was the right way to do it if they were allowed, but they weren't allowed, so they lost out on that as well.
Cathy:But Oh, dear.
Jeff Peterson:But that's one I do regret.
Cathy:Catastrophe.
Merry:Yeah. Yeah. Well,
Cathy:what what would you like our boomers and our others in our audience to have as a takeaway today?
Jeff Peterson:I think the takeaway would be that you really need to stay at this a long time. I know you can watch the gurus on social media, and sometimes I'll look at that, you know, Facebook and Instagram, and I'm like, wow. This guy's 28 years old, and he's got a thousand doors. But that's not always what it seems. You have to know that you have to be in it for the long haul, and you have to follow the basic fundamentals of real estate and of business as well.
Jeff Peterson:You just but there's no there's no quick fix on any of it.
Merry:Oh, good advice for for life.
Jeff Peterson:Yeah. That's true. That is true. That's true. But we would know we're well, me anyway is a little bit older.
Jeff Peterson:But Yeah. Sometimes sometimes I follow that advice, and sometimes I don't, but I do know it. You know? So
Cathy:Yeah. It's true. Yeah.
Merry:Yeah. Well, at least you know it. Thank you, Jeff. It's great. Great advice throughout.
Merry:Thank you. Our guest today in late boomers has been Jeffrey Peterson, real estate entrepreneur and principal of Peterson properties, author of the memoir, are we there there yet, which will give you a lot of pointers on real estate as well as the life and his journey. And he's also a sportsman. You can drop Peter a line via his website, petersonproperties.co, and it's peters0nproperties. Thank you.
Cathy:Thank you for listening to our Late Boomers Podcast and subscribing to our Late Boomers Podcast channel on YouTube. Listen in next week when you'll meet another exciting guest, Tom Fox, a compliance expert with a large podcast network who will tell us about taking your business to the next level with a podcast. Hey, Mary and I need that one. Can listen to late boomers on any podcast platform and we do appreciate you. Please follow us on Instagram at I am Kathy Worthington and at I am Mary Alkinson at late boomers.
Cathy:Thanks again to Jeff Peterson.
Jeff Peterson:Thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed talking with both of you. Thank you. Too. Thank you.
Cathy:Thank you for joining us on late boomers, the podcast that is your guide to creating a third act with style, power, and impact. Please visit our website and get in touch with us at lateboomers.biz. If you would like to listen to or download other episodes of late boomers, go to ewnpodcastnetwork.com.
Merry:This podcast is also available on Spotify, Apple Podcast, and most other major podcast sites. We hope you make use of the wisdom you've gained here and that you enjoy a successful third act with your own style, power, and impact.
