Bob and I are somewhat alike. We both came from humble beginnings and eventually found our passion in the real estate industry. We both started venturing in the apartment business 10 years ago. Just like me, Bob also lived a very simple life. Coming from Indiana, his father was a steel mill worker for 35 years. His wife, a daughter of a coal miner, is from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Bob always wanted to become a teacher, so he got a degree in education at Ball State University behind David Letterman. He took the path of teaching for a couple of years and eventually decided that he wanted to be in business.
Bob became a salesperson. Back in the days, he sold computers when they first came out. Then he shifted into selling copiers for a long time. With this, he learned how to sale and learned how to talk with people and create business where there was none. He was lucky to have been able to work with great sales managers and companies and learned a great deal from this experience. But sooner or later the realization of wanting something more came, and he got tired working for a company.
He started venturing into buying single homes and leased them. He would buy the home, renovate it and put somebody there. He learned various techniques of buying real estate. Come 2007, things gradually started to change for him. He realized that he needed to start selling his single-family homes because, particularly in Florida where he worked, prices have gone up so high and were crashing so fast. He got out of almost all of his single-family homes.
He lost his net worth and his income. The problem is, it was already a long time ago that he quit his job because he was working in real estate full time. His wife had left her full-time job, too. They both had great jobs at the time but then they decided that we can’t do single family homes. They really needed to reinvent themselves.
He started looking for apartments out in Daytona Beach, in Orlando, in different parts of Central Florida that might possibly have 30 to 80 units. While searching, he realized that from single homes that needed at least $40,000, to buy apartments, he need to raise that amount into $800,000 up to $1 million! “You need money to buy real estate. It was really hard and we weren’t really sure which way we wanted to turn and what we wanted to do, I knew nothing about apartments, of course I only knew of single family homes because that’s what my real estate education provided me and that’s what I was doing. But we really needed money.” Bob recalled.
They didn’t have any resources, no jobs, couldn’t go to their parents.He held on to his acquired skills and education, and he applied what he learned into his own words and spiels and created an elevator pitch.
By creating that track talk, he was able to go out and talk to people. On the first 90 days he had over $1 million of signed accredited investor forms and he did this with zero knowledge about apartments! He got the hang of it and after a while it became easier as he slowly built his track record.
Coming from a point where it was necessary to evolve and step-up because of external factors, we learned how to handle different forms of real estate. He explored the commercial real estate business, developed his own computer software product for underwriting apartments and for all kinds of commercial real estates. Recently they also developed an internet-based subscription software called Commercial Underwriter. Indeed, from very simple and humble beginnings, Bob has already come a long way and still continues to be successful in his field.
From Bob Bowman’s story, one ultimate and universal moral lesson that we always pick up is, in real estate or whatever business you want be in, if you want to really realize your dreams and your full potential, you must learn how to raise money. If you can’t raise money, then you will never reach your full potential.
In transitioning between single to multi-family apartments, when you look at the money, we have to be willing to be a good sharer and share equally because it’s a different mindset as opposed to when you did everything yourself, you made all the money yourself. From a business perspective, it makes good sense to have somebody to share in the risk with you, to share ideas because sometimes, things are tough. You have decisions to make and it’s always good to have somebody that you can talk to that understands that investment and understands the dynamics of the people in the investment.
Another universal moral in this field is to find a partner. We always here this again and again, to emphasize its relevance to the industry. Choose your partner wisely because it doesn’t matter how much money they have, but if the chemistry is not good, or the other person’s not willing to work as hard as you, or there’s not a good complement there, your investment is going to struggle and could potentially fold, and that’s not what you want
According to Bob, it is a priority to get yourself educated, take action, and become a really good underwriter. Surround yourself by like-minded people that are interested in what you’re doing because when you’re getting started, there’s plenty of people that will doubt you, and pull you down. Think of yourself as a student, not a guru. Someone who’s hungry for more knowledge, information and experience. Sooner than you expected, people who also want to move together forward on the same path, don’t hesitate to teach people below you. Pull them up.
Know your numbers, know your investment, and create your model. “Continue to educate yourself through programs similar to what you offer, Corey, then you’ll be successful, you’ll eventually be successful.” Bob said.
