21 Oct Shannon Robnett: Using Blockchain Technologies To Bring Liquidity To Real Estate Investing

There’s a lot of things you can do to make money. Real estate is probably the most tax-advantaged way to do that. Matthew Sullivan sits down for a conversation with Shannon Robnett about cash flow and using blockchain technologies to bring liquidity to real estate investing. Shannon has been in the real estate industry for over 40 years. He has been involved from start to finish on over $250MM in construction projects covering the gamut from multi-family, professional office buildings to City halls, fire and police stations, schools, industrial and mini storage. He discusses his proven model and the results in considerable passive income streams for syndicate partners. He emphasizes that you’ve got multiple options for projects on the marketplace. Learn about those and listen to this episode!

—

Watch the episode here:

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST HERE:

Shannon Robnett: Using Blockchain Technologies To Bring Liquidity To Real Estate Investing

Shannon Robnett, can I please wholeheartedly, with open arms, welcome you to the show? Another exciting episode.

I’m glad to be here.

Why do you say that? We’ve only just begun. I will see how you feel in a few minutes. You’re a bit of a real estate chap. Is that a fair way of describing what you do? Real estate is a good way of not losing money.

It can be if done properly.

You’re leading up to something here.

There’s a lot of things that you can do to not lose money. There’s a lot of things you can do to make money. There are a lot of things you can do to make tax advantage money. Real estate is probably the most tax-advantaged way to make money.

If you look through LinkedIn, every second or third person is a real estate investor or developer. Funny enough, when I moved over here, one of the first things I did was trying to throw myself into real estate. I do have a little bit of experience about how difficult it is to get it right. You’ve got some decades of experience.

Matthew, I look like I just started.

I was going to say how it is that possible? Clearly, either you’re doing something correct, right and incredible or the filters on Zoom are working well.

The thing is, I grew up in a real estate family. I’m a fourth-generation realtor and a second-generation builder-developer. We didn’t call it indentured servants during the weekend but that’s where I worked. I worked on the job sites. I saw my mom doing open houses. I saw my dad building the houses, industrial buildings and all I’ve ever done is real estate. As I’ve seen that progression, I’ve learned that it’s everybody’s favorite topic to love or hate depending on the economic cycle that we’re in. Now we have a lot of people who are back in the startup phase of their real estate careers.

These are a lot of times the same kind of people that got into the career in 2006 and 2007 before the global meltdown, decided it was too hard and got out of it. Here’s a funny statistic, only about 80% of realtors don’t do a transaction. Only 80% go through the licensing process, get their license and never buy or sell a home for someone else, let alone themselves. The number is astronomically higher of those that are in the real estate business of being a realtor that own more than one property. It’s almost 96% of realtors do not own more than other than their primary home in the real estate game.

Land development is a lot less risky than buying a finished apartment complex.

That’s testament to how difficult this business is because, on the surface, it looks easy, doesn’t it? Everyone is an expert in real estate because we all live in houses and our houses go up every year without fail, don’t they? We do nothing to do that. Therefore, on paper, one can be worth quite a lot of money because of the equity in your home. That gives you this full sense of security that you are a real estate expert. Real estate is such a large vertical and we’ll talk about vertical real estate. Tell me more about the area that you focus on.

Speaking of startups, we are in development. We look at the piece of ground when it’s just a bare field. In the last development we’re doing, we’re putting 190 units in where there was a horse pasture. We looked at the demographic, the neighborhoods, the schools, the crime rate and the need for housing. We looked at all of those things, selected this particular piece, took it through all of the entitlement processes. Matthew, before you ask, I had to explain this to my children too. Entitlement on land is not the same as what they grew up with.

That doesn’t mean that they get it after you’ve built it.

It’s very different. Land entitlement means that it’s worth a lot more when you’re done with it. Whereas entitlement with children usually means they’re worth less. That’s a topic for a different day. You’ve got all the disclosures. Are they current on their shots and what grades do they get? Do they clean the room? There are too many questions to ask.

You have to give guarantees as well.

If I wanted to give a guarantee, I just raised it myself. We do the entitlement process and then we begin to fundraise for that. We involve partners with us that want to be involved in a limited partnership. We take care of constructing that all the way through the vertical buildings and then we operate those buildings as the landlord, as the property management company. We continue to do that so that everybody’s getting a passive income without having to go to work every day. That’s where we start from the ground up and wind up with a finished product and a passive investment when we’re done.

Do you get different investors in at different stages? The risk profile of land development is different from the risk profile of a seasoned performing multifamily apartment complex.

We do. The reason that we do that is not only so much for the land development being whether or not it’s risky, we can discuss that because land development is a lot less risky than buying a finished apartment complex. What it is it’s what people want. Some people are looking for cashflow. Some people want to go to the mailbox every day. They want to get their money out of the mailbox. They want to know that they got money coming in every month. There are other people that want to grow their money that they’re looking at it and say, “$100,000 is not enough to retire on. I need $1 million. I need that to grow before it brings me cashflow.”

Understanding who your two different investors are, understanding that type is huge in getting the right development or the right investment opportunity in front of them. Somebody that’s looking for cashflow is not interested in a ground of development because there is no cashflow until the tenants show up. That could be ten months. It could be 2.5, 3 years in some cases with larger developments. Making sure that you’ve paired the right person with the right investment is key. The first thing you want it to start with.

When we started this conversation, you mentioned that investors are coming in pretty much late in what you perceive as the cycle. We’ve seen some astronomical growth. I was reading one of the core logic reports. Something like 18% year-on-year growth in some areas, which is off the charts. As a real estate developer, you have your finger on the pulse in terms of land prices and you’re focused in the Boise, Idaho area. What whisperings or what writing do you see on the wall for the short and medium-term?

There are a couple of things that happened in the past. In 2008 when the global meltdown happened, builders stopped building. New construction ground to a halt. During the following half a dozen years, we created a deficit of about seven million residential units necessary to house the United States population properly. In fact, I saw an article that we have the highest number of under 30 living with their parents of any time in history, including right after World War II.

We have over 54% of the single, under 30 years old still living with their parents. Here we are, we have a housing shortage. We’re 7 million to 9 million units short and that doesn’t take into account what COVID has done in the fact that people have left San Francisco and they’re not coming back. New York is down on the population.

Much to the distress of the incumbent population in Idaho. Everyone’s moved to Idaho, it seems.

Here’s another fun fact, Matthew. In California, 1.8 million people pay 48% of that state tax.

That is another interesting factor because if you look at the mobility of these populations, COVID acted as a catalyst. A lot of people that were sitting on the sidelines primarily in California because it has a very large population, those people began to move. Do you see that as an ongoing factor in those people moving out of these states where house price appreciation has been so high that their dollars now are worth a lot more in other states?

Yeah. We’ve seen a 75% increase in housing prices here in Idaho. We’ve almost doubled the cost of a home but the reality is it’s still fairly affordable as far as the national average. The other thing that it does is it provides a quality of life. Often, people ask me, “Why Boise?” My answer is very simple. You must not have ever been there because when you come here and you see what it is, there’s no question that this is a great place to live.

When we see that people are starting new businesses all the time, they’re coming out of California, they sold their overpriced house, they got $2 million. They come up here, they buy a $600,000 house, which is a very nice 2,500, 2,800 square foot brand new home and they start a business. They get into that business that they always wanted to do, whether it was crafting or window tinting or whatever they have that opportunity. We see a lot of startups coming out of that indoor area. Now we see a lot of incubator space for more jobs, more businesses and we need more people to fill those jobs so it creates this cycle that now we’re looking more attractive because our wages are now climbing also.

Understanding who your two different investors are is huge in getting the right development or investment opportunity in front of them.

From your perspective, you find the site, you entitle the land, you build the properties, you then said that you manage them. Do you sell them on at that point and then recycle that capital or are you looking to grow a large portfolio to compete with some of these smaller institutions and hedge funds?

One of the things that we found is that one of the problems with real estate is the lack of liquidity. You get involved in real estate and there’s not a whole lot you can do with it. We’ve started another startup on that, which is a blockchain technology company that now allows you to turn your real estate holdings into a blockchain, which allows for the transfer of the asset, independent of the general partner, the syndicator. As a lot of people relate blockchain to cryptocurrency, which it can be, it has about as much correlation to cryptocurrency as the paper things in your wallet being worth a damn. The reality is blockchain is a technology that conveys information and spreads it over a wide network so that it’s public information. In that, we’re able to tokenize or divide the shares that we would normally divide on paper. We’re able to put that into a digital format so that everybody can see that.

What that allows to happen is after a period of 366 days, the lockout period put on by the SEC, now you, Matthew, are able to trade some of your securities, some of your tokens for cash. You can now ride through that upcycle of the development, take some of your cash, recycle that back to yourself while we hold that asset long-term. It opens up the envelope and it allows other people to come in. When it’s stabilized, the returns won’t be quite as good. You’re going to pay a higher price for that share of that property but you’re going to know we’re in the cashflow portion of that cycle. Now you’re going to have that security of knowing that, “I might’ve paid $110 for it instead of $100 but I know I’ve got cashflow every month and I don’t have to worry about, are they going to get this finished and is the price of lumber going to go through the roof and are they’re going to go bankrupt.”

This is another very interesting topic because this is my vertical equity. Is that a relatively new approach that you’re taking?

It is and it isn’t. CrowdStreet, Yieldstreet, all of those have been around for a while that create the crowdfunding sites. We took that approach but we decentralized it because we didn’t want it to be locked in. One of the things that are difficult with syndications is liquidity. Even with CrowdStreet, you’re not in control of how long you’re in the deal. The general partner is who has brought the deal to CrowdStreet so when they want to exit, they do and you can’t move before then or until then.

This allows you to put yourself in control then the other part of what my vertical equity is, “Is it’s going to be a platform where other syndicators are going to put their properties?” Now, Matthew, you’ve been involved in a deal that John put on there and now it’s time. You want to sell some of that out and you want to get involved in other development. You can trade in-between assets on the site so it becomes, let’s call it the NASDAQ for real estate in a tokenized format. It allows for the digital tracking of all of the ownership from person to person to person through the simplicity of blockchain.

Presumably, each property or development will have its own set of tokens relating to it. You’ve got one token that represents a share in the LP or the LLC, whatever you want to set up. You’re creating a structure offered under Regulation D, presumably. You’re just working with accredited investors at this stage.

That’s not entirely true. We’re working through the process to become a Reg A+ so that we can work with anyone. Currently, we also offer a 506(c), which is for accredited only but we also have a 506(b) platform on there as well so that people that are unaccredited can also participate. One of the things that we see here is that there’s a real discrepancy between the startup investor and the sophisticated investor and finally, the accredited investor. Our goal of this platform is to disrupt that. Blockchain technology is designed to disrupt. We are here to disrupt the investors that can be involved.

Over the near term, in the next six months, you’ll see two things happen. One, we’ll be offering $500 buy-ins so that people can get involved for a $500 increment. The other thing we’re going to do is we’re going to do a tenant-facing side to this that will allow tenants to invest and buy tokens in the real estate that they are tenants in. They can sit there and create their own savings account and own part of the apartment complex of 190 or 300 units and begin to grow their wealth while they have the simplicity of just being a tenant.

This is fascinating but there are a number of companies that are working in a similar space to you. My experience is that normally they start out as technology companies, where they might have some background in securities or technology. The biggest issue that all of these platforms and companies like Lofty AI and a few other companies have is a supply of product inventory. It is the biggest challenge. In other words, how do you scale this? Your approach is different because you’re coming at it primarily from the real estate side and you’re then adding technology on top of that, which then makes your current processes more efficient. What’s your view of the other market participants who are trying to create these other types of exchanges?

There are a couple of differences that I see. One is the people that are coming from the tech platform, from the tech experience, they understand technology very well but field operations are foreign to them. What they get done doing with an underwriting model is completely making it unbuildable. For lack of a better analogy, it’s like getting Republicans and Democrats in a room and trying to have a civil conversation. It’s just not going to happen. The reality is when we approach people, we’re coming at the syndicator and the developer. We’re not as concerned about the technology because we’ve got a group of guys in a dark room that we throw pizzas through the slot every now and again. They’re building the technology, they build what we tell them and they know what we want.

In that, we’re building the platform that we have the connection with the real people that understand real deals that bring real underwriting to it so that when you get it to the platform, we already know it’s going to work. These guys have proven track records and they know what they’re doing and we know they know what they’re doing. At the end of the day, we’re not asking the question of, “Can a contractor build it?” A contractor can build it. “Can a tech guy sell it?” That’s where we’ve created that interaction and made it work better.

I suppose the other biggest challenge is creating liquidity and transactions in a secondary marketplace because theoretically, your shares in an LP or an LLC are tradable, even if they’re non-tokenized after the lockout period. It’s finding willing buyers. How do you see that developing? Is that going to be a major challenge for you creating a marketplace where there is an activity so someone who wants to sell has a willing buyer on the other side of the trade?

Somebody that’s looking for cash flow is not interested in a ground of development because there is no cash flow until the tenants show up.

That’s going to be the simplicity of all. I’ll name a couple of platforms that have done very well doing that. eBay, Uber, these platforms, all they did was find somebody with a car or find somebody with a bunch of junk in the garage that wanted to get rid of it and gave them a platform. Now, the reality of putting the information on the platform, putting it out there, you’re going to see a lot of people interested in doing that, including syndicators. Syndicators go through a cycle. They have a life cycle on the project of 3 to 7 years and then they’re going to sell the project because it’s time to redo the carpet and the paint, put new deck chairs by the pool.

This allows for liquidity to come into the transaction from outside investors just based on price increase that doesn’t include the bank. You’re going to be able to do a refi by offering equity for sale that is climbed for all of the investors. The other side that we’ve done with that, this is the difficult part about what you mentioned, Matthew, with the paper transaction is first, you’ve got to go find the guy that wants to buy your position. You’ve got to sell him that position and you’ve got to get approval from the general partner. When the distributions are made, the general partner has to go find the guy you sold it to.

The beauty of the technology is the blockchain filters that are like a Plinko machine. You put your distributions in the top and it follows the blockchain down and goes to the bottom level and makes the distribution at that level. You can now make a transaction happen tonight. Distributions are tomorrow. I don’t have to be alerted to that because as the distribution goes out, it follows the chain and gets the distribution to the right person, not to the person that had it prior. It makes it liquid and leaves the developer or the GP completely in the dark, which is where we prefer to stay.

That’s very valid because the whole point of technology is to make something easier or better that is happening now. Your use of technology is where you’ve got willing buyers as people that want to invest in more real estate properties but are not part of the syndicates. They don’t want to be locked in for a number of years. They don’t want those big-ticket investment prices. It’s interesting when you talk about Reg A+ because that opens up the doors to non-accredited investors and the shares are immediately tradable. In other words, you don’t have that twelve-month lock-in period.

You have people that want to buy now or there are people that want to buy $150 or $250 a month in real estate. They want to set it and forget it. How do you do that other than put it in your bank account, wait for 2 or 3 years and then go make the purchase? This allows people to do those kinds of things. It opens the door for everyone to participate in real estate without having to be a big wig or have a million-dollar portfolio or even a $50,000 minimum like a lot of these require.

People like CrowdStreet was one of the very early adopters of the JOBS Act and crowdfunding. They’d been around for several years. They’ve transacted at least $1 billion dollars.

It was just over $2 billion but lots.

There are some real legs there. Do you think that this is a natural progression? Is blockchain that important to make this happen? Do you think that’s the technology that has allowed all of this free movement and liquidity to happen?

The reality is you’ve got your ATS, Asset Transfer Agent, that is keeping track of everything. They’re keeping track of the cap table and they’ve got all this stuff. That used to be a very arduous process because it was a sounding board back and forth. I would say, “Matthew, it’s the 29th of the month. We’re getting ready to make distributions. We’ve had these changes. Please update the cap table.”

You would go in and manually input it then we get a new deal back and then we put the distribution in. That all happens seamlessly in the blink of an eye and it’s done on your mobile phone. You can go in and trade. That cap table is updated immediately. Nobody needs to be notified. I stick the money in the top end and it comes down and it follows the chain out. The reality is blockchain takes everybody’s hands off of it and locks it in and makes it a smart contract, too so that everybody can see what the contract is. Everybody can see what’s going to happen over the next 3 to 5 to 7 to 10 years because it’s all written and chained.

You’re able to turn an illiquid asset, which is real estate, which is these large developments into tiny fractions. Do you see that there is another $2 billion potentially awaiting for investment platform?

There’s another $20 billion. When you talk about there are seven million houses in America, one of the biggest gaps between developers and the constructed product is cash. When you can break down the door and the barrier to cash by putting it on a platform where people can find it and they can be found, you do a lot of things. It’s not that eBay is that successful at selling skateboards but you happen to want a skateboard and you happen to know that if I go to eBay, I’ll likely find one.

Putting that platform together where people can come to it from both sides of the equation and soon we’ll also be tenant facing on this is going to change the game and a lot of things because people will be able to now not only see the benefit of being involved in real estate investment but it takes a lot of the trepidation out of it when that you can re-liquefy fairly quickly.

The biggest difference with the existing crowdfunding platforms because all of the real estate crowdfunding platforms offer the ability to buy into a project but you don’t have control and there’s no immediate exit strategy. You have to wait until the project or the general partner or the managing member, depending on how it’s structured, decides that the project has come to an end. You’re now firmly dealing with the securities world. On one side, we have real estate and all of the regulatory requirements around that and all of the challenges to make sure you got the yield but because now you’re trading in securities, you’re now firmly in the security as well. What learnings or challenges have you faced? Learning to struggle, those are two very different universes.

One of the things that I learned early on, to steal a thought process from Henry Ford, I didn’t know and I still don’t know everything there is to know about the securities world but I have some great attorneys that do. It’s important to always surround yourself with people that know how and what you’re needing to do to keep ahead of that. What I’ve done is the company that builds our technology has a former SEC attorney with them. We have a good SEC attorney. In fact, it was great watching these two guys meet for the first time. It was like they were both speaking the same language and nobody else in the room could understand this. That’s when I knew, “We have the right combination here because the last thing I want to do, Matthew, is to wear orange.”

I’m not going to look good in orange. I’m 5’9”. Prison is not for me. To stay out of that, you hire some of the best and the brightest to make sure that you’re not even close to that line where you could get into trouble. Where we’ve landed with these guys is to make sure that we’re putting together a platform that’s responsible, ethical, well-researched and well-funded so that we’re not running into the dark. The SEC, when they come in, they don’t ask and don’t act nicely. They close things down. They seize assets. They do all kinds of things because there are some serious offenses when you’re dealing with other people’s money.

We’ve made sure that we’re staying above board on all that. We’ve got great legal counsel. They’re tied in tight. They’re working on every step of the way, both from the forward-facing side and the SEC-facing side so that we’re making sure that we’re all in compliance. We have KYC that’s integrated into the platform. You can’t even see what’s going on, on the platform until you’ve told us who you are and what you’re doing.

That is great because this is exactly what is needed to move securities and trading onto the blockchain and to go to the next stage. This is like crowdfunding version 3 or 4 where you’ve got liquidity, trading and people are comfortable going onto platforms knowing that they are buying what they think they’re buying. I suppose for you, the ability to tap into retail investment capital means that you’ve probably got lower expectations in terms of return profile. You’ve got a bit more leeway in terms of what you have to pay the investors. Also, you’re tapping into new sources of capital, which means that you then got the ability to build more projects. It can be a virtual circle.

One of the other things that we are looking to do is we’re looking to reach out to other syndicators to bring them to the platform. One of the things that have been difficult for syndicators that are wanting to get started that have done their first deal, maybe it’s a small deal, it’s a 20-unit or 30-unit deal and they’re just trying to scale their business. Some of the costs to syndicate can be prohibited. A Reg A+ starts at $75,000 and usually winds up somewhere closer to $1.50. That’s not something everybody’s got laying around.

Wealth transfer is real hard assets.

The reality is as we move forward, we’re opening doors for other people to join the platform. When they do then we have the doors open for other investors to join the platform and that retail cycle, I believe, will begin to break up the monopolies that you see. What are you going to do with your retirement account? You’ve got a couple of choices but none of them are any good because, by the time you get done paying all the fees, there’s not much left. You can put it in the stock market. That’s another place where Robinhood will help you out especially if you buy GameStop.

That didn’t work so well but those are the kinds of options that are available to people. When you can provide an ethical option that allows people, through education, to become involved with a blockchain technology platform, get with vetted syndicators. They know what they’re doing, have repeated track records and can be counted on to bring it through. Even when it’s not great returns, it’s still done. Those are the things that you want. Now you’re opening that up to the general public. I believe it will be the next wave and you’re making that tradable so you’ve got multiple options of projects on the marketplace.

We’ve seen success in crowdfunding that is far greater than anyone ever anticipated when the platforms sprung up. Is this the thing that you are most focused on? Is this the future of Shannon Robnett Industries?

It is. One of the things that we’ve learned is that building isn’t as fun as it used to be. With scarcity here, from paint to flooring, the cabinetry, granite countertops, everything has gone scarce but the reality is the demand is very strong. I love developing and getting projects ready to go. I’m not keen on building them. This allows me to focus on what I love and allow other people to become the builders, the syndicators and bring a platform together that opens the doors and the flood gates to a lot of people to become investors in real estate.

Also, you can leverage all of those years and decades and generations of experience to be able to vet properly.

Weeks. We don’t need to go into decades. It’s not that long.

That’s a big difference, isn’t it? Having a platform that provides access to deals is one thing. I suppose part of the obligation that you may face is turning people away. Do you see your platform as being an open platform like CrowdStreet or being a vetted platform where you only accept maybe 1 in 10 deals?

The biggest thing that we’re going to be doing is we’re going to put guardians at the gate because we’re not interested in bringing every deal to the table. While we do want to be profitable and make money, we believe that opening this up to a lot of people will allow us to vet the right producers, the right people that have got the experience that can bring quality and repetition. Real estate can have its ups and downs. As we know, 2008 wasn’t great but if you held onto it, you’re in great shape now. Everybody looks at it from a different angle but the reality is if you’ve got a vetted sponsor, you’ve got somebody that’s financially stable, you’ve got somebody that’s got a repeated track record and you vetted that and you bring that to the platform, you’re going to have a recipe for success.

That’s the big differentiator. It must be that the ability to make sure that at least some type of third-party view or approach has been made. There are a lot of projects that could quite easily be put up on a platform that doesn’t exist and you only find out afterward when it’s too late. The blockchain technology part of it doesn’t help at that stage.

Money that goes into the wind goes into the wind whether it’s on blockchain or paper. That’s where the SEC is trying to stop that from happening but the problem is there’s not a vetting process of the syndicator prior to the issuance of the APM. That’s where we come in and we go, “These are real numbers. We’ve looked at the Cincinnati market. There’s not a 23% rent growth. These numbers aren’t going to work. These aren’t going to pencil.”

That’s the thing that has to separate you from the no doubt countless new market entrance who may have the technology and the regulatory side because you can buy in the regulatory side, the ATS platforms and the KYC. It is a whole new industry that we are at the beginning of. Would you agree that we’ve done the initial approach where we weren’t sure whether it’s going to go or no-go but it looks like it’s going to start moving now?

I agree with you there. We are in a place where it’s been vetted as an industry. It’s now in the 2nd and 3rd and 4th reiteration of that, where now you’re combining the additional things that we bring that make it a complete package. It’s not just a package that runs. We’re trying to make this whole package run autonomously. After we vetted the syndicator, after we’ve gone through the deal, the whole thing between the syndicator and the limited partners is all hands-off. Whereas other platforms, it all has to run through the platform. It’s all regulated and monitored by the platform. We’re taking that piece out and making it something that through the smart contracts that lock in the terms and the conditions and the paydays and all of those things, it’s now autonomous. The sale of the assets, the transfer, the trade, all of that just flows through there and should be seamless.

All that aside, Shannon, this preamble about real estate and blockchain. That was just a bit of chit-chat to pass the time so I can get to the Hooked On Startups Quickfire questionnaire.

Let’s do it.

Are you sure? Are you ready?

If that’s the preamble and the chit-chat, this next part is going to be excellent.

I like to set myself low standards and consistently fail to achieve them. Shannon, question number one, what is your favorite word?

Impossible.

Question number two, what is your least favorite word?

No.

Question three, what are you most excited about?

I’m excited about where we’re at in history. It’s a time in the market that has a lot of inflation in it. It has a lot of uncertainty in it and that’s where real money is made because when you have an understanding of what wealth transfer is. It’s not stocks, paper trades, phantom assets or owning shares of Google. It’s real hard assets. In the next 5 to 8 years, you’re going to see hard assets do phenomenally well, which is something I happen to know a few things about.

Question four, what turns you off?

The thought process is that everybody is an expert. I’m certainly not but I’ve sought out a lot of experts and I’ve found that even a lot of those that say that they’re experts aren’t. I love a good team and when everybody comes together but I hate it when somebody says, “I’m an expert and I can do it all.”

The definition of an expert is a drip under pressure. Question five, what sound or noise do you love?

The sound of an airplane engine. As a pilot, I love flying.

You didn’t mention anything about the fact that you’re a pilot.

I have a flight school. That was another startup that I did that was purely for financial or for tax purposes.

Are they plank wings or the eggbeater things?

No, they’re the regular airplanes. They’re not helicopters. What we do is we teach other people how to fly. We’ve got three aircraft currently, another one on its way. We use those for my investors who are looking for depreciation, a tax derivative.

How do you make a small fortune in aviation?

Start with a large one.

Even a lot of those that say they’re experts aren’t really.

The best way of converting money into noise.

That’s what we do with those.

We’re going to have to have a completely different session about that. Question number six, which is after five, as you can tell, I’m not wearing my glasses. What sound or noise do you hate?

I hate the sound of a crying baby.

I was going to say the sound of an engine that doesn’t quite catch.

Being at 10,000 feet and not hearing the sound of an engine.

Maintenance bills followed by gravitational attraction followed by paperwork. Question number seven, what is your favorite curse word?

Probably the F word. It has such an effect.

On every single one of my shows, I bore people by saying that I love that word more than any other word. Question number eight, what profession, other than yours, would you like to attempt?

I would love to be in the culinary field. I love to eat. That’s what everybody thinks. I love to eat so I should be a chef

We should have done three minutes on real estate, four minutes on the blockchain, the rest on cooking and flying. Question number nine, what profession would you not like to attempt?

Dentistry.

The final question. If heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the place?

Well done, good and faithful servant.

Shannon, it has been such a pleasure. My final question, before all of the other questions, how do people get in touch with you? How do they find out more about what you’re doing in real estate, how you’re bringing real estate to the blockchain? What’s the best way of contacting you?

You can reach me in 1 of 2 ways. ShannonRobnett.com or you can reach me at MyVerticalEquity.com. Those two ways will get in touch with me. I’m on all the social platforms, LinkedIn, Instagram, all that stuff.

Thanks so much for being on. It’s been a real pleasure, Shannon. I look forward to following your progress, staying in touch and watching you take over the world of tokenized real estate.

Thank you, Matthew.

Important Links:

• Shannon Robnett
• MyVerticalEquity.com
• LinkedIn – Shannon Robnett
• Instagram – Shannon Robnett
• Facebook – Shannon Robnett

 

About Shannon Robnett

Shannon has been in the real estate industry for over 40 years. He has been involved from start to finish on over $250MM in construction projects covering the gamut from multi-family,professional office buildings to City halls, fire and police stations, schools, industrial and mini storage. As a developer with over 25 years of personal and hands-on development and construction experience, few in this industry are more dedicated to delivering numerous passive income streams to their syndicate partners. Along with my knowledgeable and dedicated team, we at Shannon Robnett Industries (SRI) create a second-to-none investor experience.

For more than 35 years, Shannon Robnett Industries (SRI) has built a strong reputation as a leading commercial real estate investment group by investing in multi-family properties in the Treasure Valley. Our family of subsidiaries, including My Vertical Equity, Phoenix Commercial Construction, and Executive Management Services (EMS) Property Management, has grown to become a substantial earner in multi-family real estate syndication, investing in and around Boise, Idaho.

We assemble passive investors through our syndication to purchase land that we develop–through our subsidiaries –from the ground up. We maintain these properties before selling, typically achieving above market returns. Our investments consistently generate higher rates of return in less time than other types of property investment groups, through our proven model. This results in considerable passive income streams for our syndicate partners.