Secrets From a $5 Billion Real Estate Mogul!

Welcome back to the Roots podcast. I'm Max Moore, joined by my co-host Tyler Lingal. And today we're going to be recapping [music] our conversation with Tad Miller, CEO and co-founder of Mill House. If you're not familiar with them, uh he I don't know owns like 6 [music] billion in development and real estate. Um huge player in the indie space. What did you learn from Tad? What did I learn from Tad? A lot. But what I learned is you might need to change some things. Yeah, I'm pretty much doing everything wrong. It feels like if I want to scale to reach a level, I just don't have the team like he does. Maybe I'm not the leader like he is. Uh because I can't be because there's no scale. I am a uh allstar playing in a league next to another all-star and you and I without us there is there's like not a team unfortunately. We need to we need to rebuild a little bit. What do you think that looks like? I think it just looks like continuing in the same direction we are. I mean, realistically, we're doing a lot of things right in our early stages. I'm sure he didn't have everything figured out, but the comparison [clears throat] that I'll make is I loved how much he was able to tone down life to learn from others and scale up. It's like he went and got a job with another developer before starting his own. Sometimes it's hard with how quickly we jumped off of somebody else's team to go start our own thing. It's like, should we have spent more time learning from them and like taking advantage of that space? That was kind of like where I thought. Yeah. I thought that the biggest kick in the butt was like he had that phrase, do your homework and like he has a pilot license. He's talking about his buddy who like tragically died cuz he didn't do enough homework and bought the wrong plane. Like a hot shot, not a good first pilot lane. So even from like pilot license to doing single family, doing commercial, he's all about do your homework. And the dude has done serious leg work to get to where he's at. And I agree. For me, it's like I'm handicapped. If I want to go do a 200 unit development, I I can't. I haven't done the homework and I'm doing all these other things, right, that are getting in the way. Same for you and and probably a lot of our listeners is you have things in the way that you need to maybe like push off, right, put the, you know, wipe the desk clean and decide what am I actually trying to do? Yeah, if it's development, which guys, we get it. Not everyone's going to be a Tad Miller that's listening to this podcast. If you want to be a Tad Miller and build generational wealth, you need to do Tad Miller things, right? Which means backwards planning. He went to architecture school. He did construction. He uh, you know, uh, mentored under, you know, really valuable mentors. Every step it's like he's like building this huge wave, right, that once it unlocks, it just swooshes everything. But it took forever to unlock. It wasn't overnight, right? And to buy the single family rental, even just that from simplicity, what I learned through him is like actually I just haven't done my homework in any lane. It's been 2 feet into the deep end, boom, no life preserver, just like sink or swim. And it is uh much easier when you jump into the deep end and you know how to tread water. And that's in essence what he was saying is don't go take a a huge swing without knowing how to work a hammer. I thought it's fascinating uh that he said it takes the same amount of work to do a 200 unit deal as it does a single family home. Yeah, that wasn't fun to hear. Yeah. What did you make of that? I don't I didn't make of it that what I'm doing is too small. What I made of it is that um a sense of scalability to what is actually required to build generational wealth. That kind of conundrum. What he's basically saying is you could own a 100 homes, but you don't have generational wealth. I know people who own a 100 homes that I would look at their portfolio and do math and say it's not really generational wealth, but I disagree with him. I think you have to own the single family home to be able to even know what to do in the 200. Yeah. Hindsight, right? Like what did he do? He I think buying the he single family home when he was 18. Yeah. A vital part of his story and for me that has been my homework, right? I don't I wouldn't know what I know today without and that's how I'm treating it. Right. We talk about this quad and that quad. I get it. We're not going to get rich off of quad. It's just doing that leg work. And I think that we are behind the scenes looking at how does Roots have a syndication to offer people an opportunity to have equity in a larger deal. That's something I think we're genuinely leading into. We're still doing our homework. I I I would agree. Not everyone's homework is going to be working under Milhouse in a cubicle. Sometimes it is doing the single family home, but just knowing this is not going to You have to have awareness. This is not going to produce uh generational wealth. He said that too. He said entrepreneurs too often try to climb the corporate ladder. So do you as an investor. You're sitting there with no deals and it's going to be hard to hear this, but it's not hard to buy a first home. put the phone down and go buy a house. Correct. It's not hard. It's very easy to break into real estate and that'll piss a lot of people off. Renters out there, you should not be renting. You should be homeowners. It's not hard. It is not hard to own homes. I was 19. Yeah. And I owned a home. He was 18. Bought a beaten up home, fixed it up himself. He said it was hard. It was hard but simple was what he said. Like it wasn't it wasn't there was not a lot of variables at play. It was a simple process. You buy it, you fix it up, and it's worth more. And you have full control over the entire process. That [clears throat] was a huge takeaway is like it's not that hard to get into single family. It is uh doing your homework to be able to scale. And it is having the right people in the right room and leading an army where you are actually buying in and not just like reading the headlines and showing up as an unprofessional. Yeah, I don't think he shows up to meetings as an unprofessional, which an unprofessional would not show up uh reading the like prep that his assistant gives him before walking in. He's reading it, doing his homework on why he's meeting with the people. He walked in here today and he knew what we were meeting about and we gave him prep before. He knew what questions were coming his way. Yeah. want to I want to underscore something you said for the listeners which was the reason why single family homes isn't going to make you rich is because the supply demand there's so many people doing it that the margin and value is gone because there's no barrier to entry whereas you do a complicated deal he's doing a deal right now in Boulder and he was like oh it's a it's a pain in the neck he's talking about city planning must be hard right but he's like it's it's trenched he said there's a moat so he's like do deals where there's a moat around and that's how that's how you get a million million dollar deal. You don't do the perfect burr on tuxedo park. Guess what? There's no moat. Everyone and their mom can do that. And that's what everyone and their mom did do. And there is no value really to gain in that unless we're talking about hundreds or thousands of dollars. We're not talking millions of dollars of generational wealth. Uh the one thing that I would have loved to get into is like how how much value does he play in material and financial wealth? I feel like there was some spiritual conversations that I wanted to get into that just another time and place because like we focus so heavily on this wealth $und00 million $500 million and I'm sure the dude he's a huge family guy he's like I could go silent for 6 months and nothing will happen which is his why right it wasn't flashy I mean he he had a pretty his wealth though that would be his response is his wealth is being able to own planes ride motorcycles and hang out with his family without being interrupted by clogged toilets and single families. But what I'm saying and what I'm advocating for is I think that's the launch pad to get you there. If you are an entrepreneurial spirited individual, if not, if you are a surgeon and you're watching this or a tech guy in California, be a tech guy in California and write a check and I'll go make you. I wish you could say that to every new client we have. Yeah. And everyone listening. That is the best thing we've ever said is like what are you actually trying to do? Are you trying to be an entrepreneur or the next Alex or Mosy? The next I talked to a guy yesterday, a kid yesterday on who wants to flip homes and normally I've only said it on this podcast 150 times. Don't flip homes with him. I said, I absolutely want you to flip homes and I want to help you do that and I want to steward the process. He lives in Indiana, a young guy. He's a contractor. He's got the brain to go do it and build a and he knows what he wants. Yes. So go after that. But these Yeah. You don't build wealth by W2 earners. You've decided what you're doing. You have three kids. You're not going to risk it all. You're not going to start a flipping business. You're just doing this to jack off and have fun. I have to say it again. I got I got my wrist slapped for saying jack off too much. That is the playing in the dick's hand again. That is the equivalent. No, listeners will appreciate this cuz I've been told I just was on intro call and another and a guy told me I'm in the messy middle cuz like I watched your podcast and you I'm convicted like I'm in the messy middle. I need to get out. How do I do this? Do I go forward and leverage and build and scale or do I go backwards and just delever Dave Ramsey style? And you have to know what what is going to make you sleep better at night. And if you have that itch under your skin of I want to do something incredible that no one's ever done, go do it. But don't expect to do it while you have your nineto-5 in your way. Don't expect to do it. Yeah. At all. [clears throat] Alex Mosie preaches that the 9 to5 is just a time to go get a paycheck and that there are hours outside within that you can go work. And I will strike that down and say no that those hours should be spent with your family and having life. bet on a horse or be an entrepreneur. Pick a lane, stick in it. Alex is optimizing to build more wealth financially. I don't know if he he's not optimizing to have a family and have four kids and a a beautiful farm. Maybe he is. Yes. If he switched if he switched what he's doing now. So maybe back out of it and say understand the people that you're idolizing and understand their motives and their motivation. It's the bigger lesson. Recap. Know where you're going. Know what you're trying to do. Backwards plan. Do your homework. Uh and uh understand that you're not going to get rich off single family homes. Don't think you are. If you want generational wealth, you need to leaprog, potentially sell them all. He said that was the best decision he's ever made. I was shocked. That's what he said. It was the best decision I've ever made, selling all my single family homes. Mind blown. And this has been another episode of the Roots Podcast. [music] Head over to rootsreality. co/events to come see us in person, shake our hands, and get connected. Make sure to like and subscribe. Peace.