Why This Australian Invests in the US with Reed Goossens | 438

In 2012, Reed quit his job in Australia and moved halfway across the globe to the US to change his life, and to chase a dream.

With limited funds, no investing experience, and no credit, Reed went from purchasing a small duplex to growing his own real estate investing firm, Wildhorn Capital. Reed now syndicates large multi-million dollar deals across the US. He has also achieved financial freedom and has taken control of life.

Want to learn how he did it? Tune in now as Chris Miles interviews Reed Goossens or visit his websites below.

www.wildhorncap.com

www.reedgoossens.com

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Chris Miles (00:00):
Hello, my fellow Ripplers! This is Chris Miles, your Cash Flow Expert and Anti-Financial Advisor. Hey, I want to welcome out for a wonderful show. That’s for you and about you. Those of you that work so freaking hard for your money, and you’re ready for your money. Start working harder for you. Now, you want that freedom. You want that cash flow that prosperity today, not 30 or 40 gazillion years from now, but right now, right? So you have the life that you love, doing what you love, being with those that you love. And like I say, here right here in the sign of right back here, it’s live your life now, not tomorrow, right? It’s all about having that prosperity and freedom today. But on top of that, it’s more than just your own comfort and convenience. It’s about you being a Rippler by creating a ripple effect through the lives of others, for those around you, as well as your family, creating a legacy that lasts well beyond you.

Chris Miles (00:54):
And so guys, I’m excited to have you guys here so that I can create my ripple effect for you. And trust me, it’s such a pleasure. I got the best coolest listeners ever, even though I know my guest here might disagree. Definitely you guys are awesome. As a quick reminder, just check out our website, WWW.MONEYRIPPLES.COM We’ve got the free eBook Beyond Rice and Beans. You can download for free. Also, if you haven’t done. So subscribe to our YouTube channel, go ahead and check that out as well as you haven’t subscribed this podcast show do so as well. All right today. So I’ve got a special guest here that I met actually from another podcast show. So I don’t know if you guys ever followed the show, Investing in the U S but great show to follow. So on my show today, I’ve got, especial guests Reed Goossens here,

Chris Miles (01:36):
Now Reed is a real estate investor. He is a best selling author, entrepreneur, podcast host. Like I mentioned, everything. Reed in 2012 actually quit his job in Australia and moved halfway across the globe to here the U S to change his life and chase a dream. Now he had limited funds, no investing experience and no credit. Yet. He went from purchasing a small duplex to grow his own real estate investing firm, which is called Wild Horn Capital. He now syndicates large multimillion dollar deals across U S and he’s also chief financial freedom is taking control of his life. And as I mentioned, he’s a podcast host of this show that investing in the U S so Reed, welcome to our show!

Reed Goossens (02:15):
Chris, thanks for having me, man.

Chris Miles (02:16):
Absolutely. So I really want to bring you on, because I want you to get rid of the crappy excuses that Americans make, right?

Chris Miles (02:25):
And I’m sure you’ve heard it too, because you have your own investments syndication, and things like that. And you have people invest in and you probably hear different stories, but why here? Like why did you come to U S?

Reed Goossens (02:36):
Yeah, good well, two things. It was the chasing of two different loves. One love was for New York City. And the other love was for a girl that’s now my wife. So that was the two original reasons.

Chris Miles (02:46):
That’s a big motivation.

Reed Goossens (02:48):
Exactly. and for me, mate, it was , if you were watching the clock, I actually came through the United States back in 2009. And I backed pack through New York and I fell in love with the city. And

Reed Goossens (03:00):
The whole impetus of moving to the United States was at the time I’d met this incredible girl who was American named Erica, and she’s now my wife. And she moved out to Australia for a period of time. And then at the end of 2011, I said, look, screw it. Let’s go live in New York City. And really for me, moving to the United States was just to be an expat and live and work in a new city and not be a tourist and try and be a local for a couple of years and then move back to Australia. But obviously things took a different path for the good, and I’m sure we’ll get into that here in a minute.

Chris Miles (03:28):
Yeah, let’s just go with that. Like what led you down this path? Cause I mean, most people just say, great, I’m going to work here and then go back. But what kept you here?

Reed Goossens (03:37):
Yeah. And look, before coming to the United States, I’d spent some time abroad in London and in South of France working, just having an incredible couple of years backpacking and, working as a structural engineer. That’s what my background is. And that was in 2008, 2009. I returned back to Australia in 2010. And you know, I’m sitting in my cubicle a couple of years out of uni had a couple of years of commercial experience under my belt as an engineer, but just really feeling like, you know, I had more to give, you know, how did, how can someone pay me to live my life and travel the world and surf all some waves and have a good time. Right? And that was really where I sort of said to myself, well, Hey, I can’t see myself sitting in this cubicle for the rest of 40 or 50 years of my life.

Reed Goossens (04:19):
Like, there’s gotta be more to life than this. And at the time I had no idea what the word entrepreneurship meant. What’s an entrepreneur is, and really, it’s just a glorified word for a small business owner. Right? And so when you first come fast forward a little, a couple of months, I picked up the book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad in early 2010. And that was the real story for me that really sparked the intuition with inside me to go and want to do more and be more. And that’s where I started to think about real estate. And for me, real estate was a natural path, being a structural engineer, rubbing shoulders with developers, building stuff across the globe. And I said, Hey, this is my path. And I started self-educating in Australia. And then, you know, fast forward a year and a half later to the end of 2011, I was going to do some property in Aussie, you know, flip fix and flipping, or lease at least options.

Reed Goossens (05:08):
But then I also really had a real desire and passion to move to the United States. And at that time, Erica and I were just starting to get our relationship off the ground. And she had come to Australia and studied her, master’s degree, and then the master’s degree finished and she had to return back to the United States. And I said, Hey, I’m going to come along with you. How’s about, we moved to New York City and give this thing a crack and just have a see what that’s like? And I rocked up without a job. And you know, cause as the intro says, no limited funds, not, I didn’t even know what a hell a credit score was. And that was a, that’s the start of coming to America.

Chris Miles (05:41):
So how did you even start investing in real estate, especially when you had no money or very limited money? Right? No credit, So to speak, right? I mean he had Australian credit, but not U S credit, which is two very different things.

Reed Goossens (05:51):
A hundred percent. Yeah. So for me, the big thing was it was the access to information here in the United States. I was blown away at the different and particularly being in New York City, right? Like it was the epicenter of fast talking loud Americans, you know, talking about the Lezlie investing lingo. And I think within two weeks being fresh off the boat, I had found some networking events to go to the, if you’ve never heard of this, it’s called The Rear Associations, The Real Estate Investment Associations. And they’re across every major MSA. And I was like, wow! This is incredible. Like so much incredible content for 20 or 30 bucks at the door. And it’s across the nation. Like we didn’t have that in Australia. And I was like, Oh my God! I wish I had this in Australia. So this whole like, wow! This is really incredible.

Reed Goossens (06:37):
Plus also realizing that I was surrounding myself with other people who were aspiring to be bigger and better and do more. It was also, you know, it was really inspiring to me to say, Hey, I can push my boundaries. You’ve already moved halfway across the world. You already got a job. You just moved in with this new girl and started living together. That was a challenge in itself. And from there it just kept pushing those boundaries. And I quickly realized as well that the barriers to entry in secondary and tertiary markets here in the United States was so much lower than the barriers to entry in Australia. And that’s exactly what rich dad poor dad talks about is cash flow. So with the, again, no credit and I had a bit of money saved up. And at this point I’d been sort of self-educating for about two and a half years now it’s middle of 2012.

Reed Goossens (07:20):
And I remember standing on the subway on the way to work with my nose stuck in a book reading about, you know, analyzing small cash flowing properties and say, look, man, I’ve got to get involved. I’ve just got to stop the learning. You’ve got analysis paralysis, let’s get and just go buy a little property and it’s your money. If something goes wrong, you know, it’s your money. You’re not, no one else to blame, but yourself. And I found these properties in upstate New York and Syracuse. And the reason I chose Syracuse was because I could get on a Greyhound bus and within four hours, I’d be up there or tour a few properties on a Saturday, get back on the bus and be home for a few beers with the boys on Saturday night and you know, all all in one day. And that was the start of it.

Reed Goossens (07:59):
Right. And again, my whole thing about moving to the United States and trying to live life as you put it in the beginning, like on your terms is that I don’t want, I fear regret and I would never want to wake up when I’m 70 or 80 years of age and go, geez! I wish I moved to America, you know, all those years ago. And so for me, it’s all the decisions I’ve kind of made to this point of really being , you know, assessing the risks that involved in the worst case scenario. And if you’re okay with those worst case scenario, we’ll move forward with the decision. Don’t stop. Don’t sit on the fence and have analysis paralysis and don’t do anything. And so for me, it was like I’d already moved here, motivated a huge commitment to move to United States, buying a little property in upstate New York with my own money was just, you know, that was easy. And the thing for me is I realized you don’t get to deal number 10 without doing that first deal. And that was so, so important to me in my growth. So yeah,

Chris Miles (08:51):
you know, you’re not alone. I know a lot of people listening right now run that analysis process. They’re probably, they’re actually not in just in analysis paralysis. They’re probably in podcast paralysis, right. Where they’ve listened to 10, 12 different shows, all talking about some of the same stuff you’re talking about here, but they just fear that first step. Cause they’re like, what if I do it wrong? What if I mess up? You know, what would you say to them having been in that position yourself? Like what really was the impetus to push you over the edge?

Reed Goossens (09:17):
I think at the end of the day, you have to be okay with betting on yourself because that’s what it boils down to. You’re taking a bet on yourself. And if you can’t bet on yourself, who the hell can you bet on? And that’s really the permission that you give yourself to say, I’m worthy enough to go out and take a bet on myself. Right? And so many people are afraid to open the door or to push that boundary. Cause they’re worried about what’s going to be on the other side because of the failures of what people might say,

Chris Miles (09:43):
Right.

Reed Goossens (09:43):
Get over that like you have to learn to get over that type of stuff. Or if you’re really stuck in it, sit with it for a period of time. Think, what is the worst case scenario right now for me, the moving to America, it didn’t work.

Reed Goossens (09:55):
I’d move back to Australia with my family and get another civil engineering job. That’s it? That’s the worst case scenario. Okay. Well at least I gave it a go, at least I’d live, but it was able to live in the United States and in New York for maybe six months. That was, that was it right by my first property. It was, I’d already done the work. I understood as much as I needed to understood. And I was going to go risk my own money in the worst case scenarios. I lose it all. Well, it’s my money. And I’m still, I’m not any worse off, I’ve got a job and I can still keep the bills paid. So for me, it’s all about assessing that sort of worst case scenario. And if you’re okay with it, take, go forward and don’t get me wrong. There’s been learning curves along the way.

Reed Goossens (10:29):
And there’s been bumps and bruises and, you know, scratch knees and all that sort of stuff. But it’s about knowing that you’re not going to get to where you want to go without taking action. Because as you said, there’s so many people that are listening to podcasts. That’s great. I listen to podcasts every single day, but I’m also constantly taking action every single day. Even the little, most incremental steps I’m pushing that boundary. And over an extended period of time, you’ll realize that boundary has grown a heck of a lot. And you’ve started to do so much more than what you ever thought was possible. And for me sitting here on this podcast, I never even dreamt of have achieve quote unquote, achieve what I’ve achieved today. When I first moved to this country, I was literally just coming here to be an expat. And, but what I got good at was betting on myself and stop worrying about what’s on the other side of each and every door and just go and start opening doors and seeing where that leads you to. And that’s all it is living in the moment. Obviously being educated and making the right decision or making educated decisions and, analyzing the risk and moving forward and stop sitting on the fence. So, yeah,

Chris Miles (11:30):
I love it. Now, after that, did you just go hog wild and start buying a bunch of properties or did you kind of sit with it for awhile and just kind of keep going?

Reed Goossens (11:38):
Well, no, for me it was well, deal number one got me to deal number two, which got me to deal number three, which I had a small little portfolio of properties. I realized I was getting to the end of my tether from a lending point of view. And it was through a couple of conversations with some very good friends of mine, in late 2013 that were, you know, I was boasting to them about the seven little houses or units I had, but still working full-time, like a dog, you know, not financially free. And, they were telling me well, man, I’ll just close on a 70 unit deal in Canada, which is where they’re from. And I my jaw was on the ground. I said, 70? How the hell did you do that? Told me about a mentor.

Reed Goossens (12:14):
They told me about, you know, other people’s money. They told me about seller carryback financing. And really the business model was all the same stuff that I was doing all my small triplexes and duplexes that were just doing it on a large scale multifamily project. And for me, that was really when I needed to go and say hi, again, re-betting on myself and saying, you are worth investing in yourself. Let’s go get a mentor, someone who can be your coach in your sounding board in order to launch you off into the stratosphere, you know, whatever that stratosphere looks like. So that was the next step in the evolution of where we’re going with that. Furthermore, I then said to myself, well, if I’ve gotta be in this country before, and the only reason I can’t stay in this country is because I needed a visa.

Reed Goossens (12:55):
And so I needed a job, right? But I was also in , I had the skill set, being a structural engineer to say, Hey, I could go work for a developer. If I’m going to have to be in the corporate world for the next four or five years, why not continue to learn from the best in the business whilst will grow my side hustle. And that’s exactly what I did in 2014 when I made the shift to LA , I just literally was pinging a bunch of developers and say, Hey, I’m a structural engineer. I don’t know. I’ve got skills that you will need. Someone reached out and said, yes, love to have you on board. And I ended up going building high end luxury multifamily housing in Long Beach, California, whilst building my side hustle whilst spilling my own podcast and all that sort of good stuff.

Reed Goossens (13:33):
But I was surrounded by real estate, 24 seven, and it became part of my DNA. And that was the most important thing that I wanted to get out of that, knowing that I wouldn’t be financially free within six months or even two months or even five years, you know, so for me, I only got to financial freedom, quote, unquote, be able to leave my day job when I got my green card. And that was in 2017, that’s nearly eight, seven years, eight years later after picking up the book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad. So it takes time. It wasn’t an overnight success. And again, success is relative because I’ve still got so much more, I want to achieve in the next decade, but I know the last decades have been pretty freaking awesome. So I’m gonna enjoy the ride.

Chris Miles (14:10):
Yeah. You know, I love that the theme that keeps coming out is you’re betting on yourself. Right? And I think if you’re thinking of any asset class, the bet on real estate, it’s a much easier one to bet on than like the stock market. You know, so people listening right now, I guarantee all of them to some level or another has probably bought a stock or a mutual fund or something, or, you know, put their money in a 401k or some retirement plan, which they have zero control over. They can do nothing about it. They’re seriously at the mercy of the market, but then they say, wow! I just don’t know about buying a real property that has real value. I mean, that seems risky to me. I’d rather buy something that has no real value to it, you know, and it’s kind of a weird

Chris Miles (14:52):
Backwards world that we live in. Right?

Reed Goossens (14:54):
Exactly.

Chris Miles (14:55):
So, well, let me ask you this one question here. I mean, why didn’t you, like, why haven’t you taken this and apply it back in Australia? You know, like why don’t you go into deals there? Yeah.

Reed Goossens (15:03):
So good question. And here’s the thing I will eventually, right? The skills that I’ve developed here in this country can be applied across the world. There’s real estate in every single country that human needs is food and shelter, right? The nuances between Australia and the United States, for those people who are taking, you know, taking notes at home back home, but is actually, you know, and I can talk a little bit about if you want, is the fact that the Australia and the U S excluding Alaska from a land mass point of view, just mainland America, mainland Australia, a give or take, America’s a little bigger, but in Australia, we can only inhabit about 18% of our land because the rest is just a desert, right? Here in America.

Reed Goossens (15:44):
You can inhabit North to South, to East, to West, you have 300 odd million people. We only have 25 million people in Australia, right? So when you have that limited land available to inhabit, it’s all constrained around the coasts. So it’s all a very high demand, low supply type of markets. So think of LA New York, San Francisco, that’s the Australian real estate market, and a lot of cash flow, but a lot of appreciation in the right circumstances then bring in the population aspect, right? You’ve got nearly 10 times the amount of population we have in Australia. And thus it also forms different lending opportunities. So we don’t have the Freddie and Fannie Mac, you know, agency debt, you know, for 30 year fixed low rate stuff in Australia, we only have maybe four or five major banks here in America. You probably got a couple of hundred different lending arms, with that lending.

Reed Goossens (16:38):
We won’t call it lack of sophistication. We’ll just call it different lending. We don’t have multifamily in Australia. So we have a build to sell model. We don’t have a build to rent model. So you wouldn’t find a 200 unit God install apartment in Australia. You might find a small six Plex, but we have really condos, big high rises are built. And because of the again, call it the lack of sophistication of funding that the banks say, well, hang on, we’re not going to fund this development until you, pre-sell 30% of the units off of the plan, which means it’s a condo market, right? It’s very similar to Canada. So they won’t go inside. Okay, you’re going to have an NOI on this entire, you know, 200 unit property. And thus, we can, we can determine the value and thus, we’ll end on that future value.

Reed Goossens (17:21):
They’re saying, no, no, no. We want to minimize the risk. You got to go. Pre-Sale 30, 40% off the plan. And that’s, that’s the market we’re in. So when I moved to America, you know, to see that one, you got this incredible financing, too. You’ve got these secondary and tertiary markets that have still have continued growth and moderate cap rates. And three, you have multifamily apartment buildings. I wouldn’t have achieved what I could have achieved here in America, in Australia in saying that I can still go buy hotels and commercial buildings and office space and use the benefits that I’ve learned here, which has made me a real, you know, sharpshooter to go. But, and I will eventually in the future go back. But right now, America is such a big GDP compared to Australia. You know I think the GDP of all of California and Texas two major states is more of that than all of Australia. So when you think about that, you know, it’s just, it’s on a different, you know, it’s, it’s a different league. So, apply my trade here. I eventually will move back cause I have family there in the future, but right now I’m really enjoying my journey here. And I guess that’s a little bit of the differences between Australia and the United States.

Chris Miles (18:28):
Yeah. You got some opportunity here. You might as well take advantage of it. Right? Exactly. Yeah. And I know from my experience to where I’ve had Australians or new Zealanders hiring me, same exact thing. They say, we can’t do any of this stuff where we are. And a lot of them are complaining about their three different mortgages on their same property. Right? And how they all have different firms. And they’re like, it’s so dumb. Like lending’s horrible. And you can’t make the cash flow that you need. They can’t really get financially free, easily. They’re using their system. Right? So, yeah

Reed Goossens (18:55):
Talk about a little bit negatively geared stuff. If you’ve ever talked about that on this show. And that’s just where you offset your annual income with the losses you’ve made in a rent real estate investment. And that’s sort of seems dumb to me.

Chris Miles (19:07):
Yeah, exactly. Awesome! Well, I know that you have your own investors that invest in your investments too, and things like that. Like if people want to follow you or get to know you better, I know you’ve got your show, Investing in the U S they can follow that podcast, but if they want to know more about you or even the investments you have, where can they go to find that?

Reed Goossens (19:25):
So if you want to know a bit more about the investments, head over to the business side, which is the wild horn capital, but it’s WWW.WILDHORNCAP.COM And you’ll be able to see our mission statements, our business side. And that’s for the investing side. If you want to more, the education side, you can head to WWW.REEDGOOSSENS.COM And that’s where the podcast and the books and the audio books and all that sort of good stuff is. And, you know, and for those people, you know, I’ll offer whoever coming through LA, whenever you get back on a plane, if you want, if you want to meet up and have a beer or talk shop, you can hit me up at info. That’s INFO@REEDGOOSSENS.COM And we can go make it happen.

Chris Miles (20:00):
Yeah, That’s right. I forgot to mention you do have a great some books that you have there. Right? Investing in the U S is one of them. And then was it 10,000 Miles to the American Dream? Is that what it was?

Reed Goossens (20:08):
Yeah. That’s it.

Chris Miles (20:10):
Aussie. And they were in audio book as well?

Reed Goossens (20:12):
So the first one is the second one is a 10,000 Miles is coming up soon. But both of them are all on Amazon and readily available online.

Chris Miles (20:19):
Awesome! That’s great. I love when they’re audio books, I don’t read books hardly anymore. Now, it’s just all audio book.

Reed Goossens (20:25):
Isn’t it, right?

Chris Miles (20:26):
Yeah. Love it. Well Reed, I appreciate you being on our show today. Such great, valuable perspective that you have and just like all around as you say, a good bloke, right?

Reed Goossens (20:36):
Well, thank you Chris, for having me on the show! It’s I think the parting words is, you know, my whole shtick is if, if an Aussie can do it, so can the average American, so I’m hope I’ve inspired a couple of your listeners to get off the fence and take some action.

Chris Miles (20:49):
Amen to that. And everybody you heard him like that’s the key is, be willing to invest in yourself and be willing to take action on that. Even if it’s just small, incremental steps, just do something to move forward. Don’t just be a listener of podcasts, but be a doer as well. So everyday I hope you make it a wonderful and prosperous week, take this to heart, apply it in your lives, make it, change your life so that your life can be a blessing in the lives of others too. You’ll make a great day, guys! We’ll see you later.