The Cashflow Power of Mortgage Note Investing

Mike Pine: [00:00:00]  Today, Kevin and I are excited to introduce to you Adam and Emily. They have a company called A&E Investments, and they've been in multifamily for a while, but they've pivoted to a whole new kind of investment that I found fascinating. But first, let's just get a little introduction to who is Adam Roberts and Emily Cortright.

Thanks for being here guys.

Emily Cortright: Thank you, Mike. And thanks, Kevin. We are honored to be here today. 

My name's Emily Cortright. This is my husband, Adam Roberts, and we are both engineers by trade. We were living the corporate world- moving around the country, chasing job titles, until one day, the company that we were at sold off the entire business,

and so, we took the opportunity to make a big change. We had happened to go to a real estate investing seminar within the past six months or so, of that time, and the light bulbs went off on how real estate investing can provide financial growth and security for our future. We were living in California at the time.

[00:01:00] We tried to buy real estate there. The numbers didn't work, and after the company announced that we were being sold, we decided to move to Texas- around 2013- it was when properties were very affordable. I quit my corporate job at that point. Adam kept a W2 paycheck coming in, and I started our real estate investing business.

We focused on single family flips and rentals for 5 years, exclusively did about 25 flips, self-managed 11 rentals. And then, we realized that being a landlord wasn't as glamorous as we thought it was going to be, so we switched to multifamily seven years ago, and really, it brought us from the landlord level to the business owner level. 

We have amassed about $250 million in multifamily assets.

We've sold off 2 of those properties, still own 6 of them, and that was our primary business until the market shifted again, and we found that [00:02:00] a lot of our investments that we've made passively, and both as active multifamily investors, the cashflow significantly changed about a year and a half ago.

Adam Roberts: Yeah. At which point we dove into a whole another world of investing- buying mortgage notes, which is totally different, but it's been a lot of fun, great journey.

Mike Pine: That's fascinating, and even brilliant. So, one of the two main components that are making multifamily not a great cash flowing asset right now, is interest rates. They're a bit high for buyers and insurance rates, and I'm glad to see you didn't start your own insurance company yet, but now, you're on the other side of it, where that interest- you're turning that into income for you and for your investors, right?

Adam Roberts: Correct. And being a multifamily real estate owner and operator, you really come to understand that the lender is really in complete control. It doesn't matter what it's about- property inspections, escrow accounts, interest rate caps, insurance [00:03:00] policies... you just get the sense that, 'Wow, I own this property.

All the risk is on my shoulders, but I'm not in control. The bank is.' -- So, 'Yes,' to your point, Mike- jump over to the other side of the fence and be in more control... have less risk.

Kevin Schneider: Could you explain note investing just from a high level? Because that's probably a new concept for a lot of listeners. We're very familiar, and Mike and I have done several podcasts over syndication, multifamily investing, but this seems like a whole other animal, a whole different kind of risk tolerance. 

So, can you break down what a note investment is?

Emily Cortright: Absolutely. One of the analogies I like to use is that when we bought our personal house, and when most people buy a house, within a few months, they get a letter from the lender saying your loan has been sold. And instead of paying this servicing company, now you have to pay this servicing company.

So, from the homeowner standpoint, that is all that they see. But behind the scenes, the lender sold the mortgage to another lender. And what most [00:04:00] people don't know, what I didn't know before a year and a half ago, is that the company buying the mortgage can be normal people like you and me. 

And we found that out. We decided to join a note investing group that provided education, coaching, mentoring, and inventory- so deal flow- and that group has taught us how to underwrite all the due diligence, how to buy, how to sell, how to manage all the things that you need to know to be a note investor,

and we took advantage of that education and jumped right in. 

Adam Roberts: Yeah, and at the end of the day, you're, essentially, just becoming the bank. The homeowner borrower goes from paying their other bank to paying you, on a monthly basis.

Kevin Schneider: Very cool take. And I've also been on that receiving end- just buying a house, and not but two months later, I'm like, 'Who's Flagstar Bank? Why?? Who are these people? Now, I've got to create another login..' --and all this [00:05:00] kind of stuff. I had no clue what was going on.

So, I had to call my broker, and the original lender... who I knew... and he's like, 'Yeah, he got sold.' -- and all behind the scenes. I'm sure they did all their due diligence, and then I gave it the letter.

Adam Roberts: That's right. And that usually leads into the next question, which is why would they do that? bank- they're in the business of loans. Why would they just sell it? 

It's truly amazing to see just the balance sheet strategy, whether it's a bank or a private investor, so it's a very, I will say, liquid market... very active, very liquid.

The real estate market, Mike, to your point- multifamily in particular- it's been like a ghost town.

I think, 20 transactions in Dallas, Fort Worth, last year, down from, like, 300 the year before, whereas the mortgage note market inventory, very liquid, very active.

Mike Pine: Why do most mortgage brokers do that? I've been surprised how quickly.. Last two mortgages, within a month of closing, I got that letter from a new lender. Are they just trying to earn money on the closing [00:06:00] fees and then get out? Is that their whole business model?

Adam Roberts: I'd generally say, 'Yes,' if it happens that quick. They put a lot more emphasis on the PNL side-- to your point- the fees- the origination fees, and the placement of money than they do on the longterm hold. And then, on the other side of the coin, I see a lot of lenders will wait several years,

and this also applies to, say, home flippers- people who will flip a house and sell on a note. They will want to recapitalize their balance sheet- maybe sell the note to me, and now, they've got money in their bank account to go do that again

Mike Pine: Is that what y'all did when you were doing flipping? Did you do any seller financing at all?

Adam Roberts: That was not a primary portion of our business. I mean, we knew that that was a strategy, and we knew that note investing was a thing- we just didn't really take it on full bore until right now. 

Emily Cortright: We did actually just turn our last rental property into a note because we sold it with owner financing, and we are now cash flowing [00:07:00] $600 more per month by being the lender, than we were by being the landlord. And we don't have to deal with maintenance, insurance, taxes, anything like that.

Kevin Schneider: I've heard from multiple people in the multifamily space, single family space that being a landlord is not really passive. They call it 'passive income'... it is far from, it is far from.

Adam Roberts: It's very active, very active on your stress level.

Kevin Schneider: Yes, your brain, your stress... but the IRS- you're still going to get passive income treatment. 

So, even if you have losses in this, it really is an active rental management of these properties. More than likely, these losses are passive. 

So, you get the two-edged sword of- Hey, I'm actively managing this rental property, but I'm not getting the tax benefits because it's all passive losses. Yeah, that's a hard pill.

Mike Pine: Can you guys explain to me the actual economics of what you just said? So, you had a property, you were renting it, and then you turned around and sold it, and now, you're just the note [00:08:00] carrier. You've got $600 more in cash flow. How does that work?

Emily Cortright: So, it's actually a function of today's market where rents are lower than the total payment if you were going to buy the house. So, that house would have rented for $1,900, and that would have been my rental income minus taxes, minus insurance, minus this, minus that. When I sell it on owner financing, one owner financing typically sells at a little bit of a premium because these borrowers can't necessarily get traditional financing, and I'm getting 10% interest.

And so, the owner financing rates are usually between 10% to 12%. 

And so, when you stack those- the selling at a premium and a 10% interest- instead of $1,900, the P and I payment is $2,500, and the borrower has to take over the taxes and the insurance at that point.

Mike Pine: Wow. That's just interesting and fascinating. Now, I'm even more interested in this note [00:09:00] investing. 

Adam Roberts: And then, just another piece of economics- let's say, you had this rental property for many years, and maybe you have a significant amount of equity. If you sell it outright, then 

you have a gain tax burden. If you sell it on an owner finance note, you have an installment sale, where you're taxed on the down payment but you didn't really take a gain, other than your monthly interest income. 

Kevin Schneider: So, the tax benefits are on that back end

Adam Roberts: There you go.

Kevin Schneider: Because whenever you own real estate- yeah, we could do cost segregation- which we've talked about- you can do depreciation.. If you're actively managing in a real estate professional, then yes, we get active losses,  As the property's in operation. But when you own a note, you're collecting that principal balance- which isn't taxable- but the interest income is.. But then, on the backend, whenever that is sold or completed, I guess there's no cap gain on the backend.

Adam Roberts: Correct.

Kevin Schneider: Very cool.

Mike Pine: So, I guess, regardless of whether interest rates keep going up or if they come down, like we keep hearing it's going to happen but [00:10:00] hasn't yet... you're still making money.

Emily Cortright: Yep. And one of the other things that I hear landlords talk about when they say, 'I don't want to sell because I'm going to lose my opportunity for appreciation over the next 5 years.' --With my owner finance note that we've originated on our rental property,

I gave up my appreciation, but I'm going to make almost $100,000 in interest over the next 5 years.

And so, you compare- do I think this house is going to increase another $100,000? Or am I willing to just take the $100,000 in interest, and call it a day?

Kevin Schneider: In these deals, how many have you come across where they've defaulted on you? 

Adam Roberts: We haven't had anybody default yet. Now granted, we've been in this business for maybe a year and a half, so that day will come, I'm sure. No, we try to follow a pretty structured due diligence process, which looks at the borrower, the home, the asset and the title,

just to make sure we're set up for success. Granted, everybody has life surprises that [00:11:00] come up, but to date, it's been clean. 

Emily Cortright: And so, we've purchased 25 mortgage notes in the past year and a half, and actually, to the opposite, two of them have already sold off, and paid off. It's one of those aspects of the industry where you don't know when the note is going to pay off.

It has 25 years left, but they could sell their house tomorrow, or less likely, they could refinance tomorrow, and so, we've actually had some really good surprises where a title company emails us like, 'Oh, we're scheduled to close in two weeks. We need the lender payoff statement.'

-- It's like, 'Great! We're getting our payoff.'

Mike Pine: --Which could be good or bad if you're into it for a long-term hold on great interest rates. Now they're paying it off, I guess that could be disappointing, but it just gives you more capital to go buy more, right? Is that what y'all do? 

Adam Roberts: And generally speaking, these notes are purchased with a discount to the unpaid balance. Let's use the rent house example that we sold the rent house on a note. That note today has a balance of $180,000. If I were to go to market [00:12:00] to sell the note and recapitalize myself, I probably could only sell it for $160,000.

Just a time value of money math equation. And so, on the note investor side, if the borrower pays it off, then they get to realize their discount. They only paid $160,000, but the borrower pays $180,000 to pay the note off.

Emily Cortright: And the discount goes up as the interest rate, that the note was originated at, goes down. So, if somebody did an owner-financed note at 3%, then the investor who's going to buy that note is going to get a much bigger discount because the payment back to them needs to feel a lot higher than 3%.

Mike Pine: What are those in this kind of market? And then, we'll ask you to explain the different kinds of note markets, or I guess, tiers. But what is the common ROI or whatever... you call it an ROI? Or APR? Or yield? 

Yield.

Okay. What's the common yield today- may 29th, [00:13:00] 2024?

Adam Roberts: For the active note investor, for someone who's actually going out, pounding the pavement, looking for notes, it's going to be between 12% and 14% yield. And then, for the passive investor- someone, say, in my multifamily world, who comes to me, and says, 'Hey, I would just love to work with you and partner on a note.'

--The passive investor usually makes anywhere from 6% to 7% yield.

Mike Pine: So, generally, we have people like you on this podcast looking for trying to expose great tax-advantaged investments. I know we're the CPAs, but what are some of the tax advantages you guys see in investing in notes versus directly in real estate?

Emily Cortright: Well, one that Adam mentioned that we've personally experienced is selling our rental property owner financing. That's really been the biggest one that will hit our tax return in 2023. And we sold the house for $225,000, probably would have gotten taxed on the entire gain if we'd sold it outright. 

Adam Roberts: Yeah, we bought it for $70,000 many years [00:14:00] ago, so we had a huge tax burden sitting there.

Emily Cortright: And our CPA ran the numbers and we're going to be taxed on, I believe, under $20,000 because we got a down payment and we got some interest payments this year, but that is a huge saving that I didn't have to go do a 1031 exchange. I didn't have to worry about taking a large capital gain for this year.

We'll just get small incremental taxes on the interest income throughout the life of the loan.

Mike Pine: And on the payments you receive, there's principal and interest. The interest is only taxable to you. The principal is just right back in your pocket.

Adam Roberts & Emily Cortright: That's correct. 

Emily Cortright: Then, the second way- a lot of people invest in notes through their retirement accounts because interest income is a little difficult to avoid taxes on with cash investments. And so, a lot of people with Roth IRAs or

Self-Directed Retirement Accounts 

 will invest in note in one way or another, because that interest income they can [00:15:00] avoid, or defer the taxes on that interest.

So, we do it both ways. We invest with both cash and through a Self-Directed Retirement Account.

Kevin Schneider: How do y'all pull these investments together? So, a little logistics on your funds- do y'all raise money saying, 'Hey, we're going to raise money and buy 30 notes, 40 notes, 50 notes.' 

-- You want to write those notes yourself, and then, you deploy your raised capital from there? How do y'all operate and structure this?

Adam Roberts: We've elected here early on to take a more boutique, one on one model where we will source the note, do all the due diligence, line up the closing, and then, send that note out to our investor pool for consideration to see if anybody is interested in the economics of that investment. So, haven't done a fund yet.

It's something we talk about continuously, because unlike real estate, to your point, Kevin- notes, they underwrite pretty easily. Everything's right there, it's very organized, not a lot of hidden unknowns, and the return is [00:16:00] generally... I won't say guaranteed... but it's, like, a known number.

But we've just been doing one on one right now with each investor.

Mike Pine: And the investors, do they invest in equity in a partnership with you, or is it a promissory note, back and forth? How are they invested with you?

Emily Cortright: It's more so a promissory note structure where we promise to pay them most or all of that monthly payment, that principal and interest payment, coming in. The passive investors don't have any equity ownership in the note, so they're not sharing in the discount if we buy a note at a discount. They are simply getting monthly cash flow for their investment, and there's a set amortization schedule.

It's very black and white.

Mike Pine: And predictable. 

You're not predicting quarterly operating distributions from an apartment complex that may or may not come.

Adam Roberts: Yeah, that's been interesting a couple of years. 

Kevin Schneider: Yeah, that's great how you can predict your returns just by the amortization schedule. It's very unique. I've never really even thought [00:17:00] about the ins and outs of note purchasing. Mike and I have been on the receiving end of that as the borrower, but

it's really cool that if interest rates go up, y'all just lean into that business.. when interest rates go down, you can pivot and go right back into real estate. So, you're technically in real estate on both sides of the coin, right? It's just the economics of interest rates are driving where you're pushing that arm of your business.

Is that kind of how y'all tackle it?

Adam Roberts: 100%. 

Emily Cortright: Absolutely. And we had this big revelation about a year and a half ago when we looked at our balance sheet and almost all of our investments were equity growth, real estate assets, and we had no solid cashflowing assets- cashflow that was just going to come in, no matter what.

So, we made a conscious effort when we learned about notes to diversify our portfolio. So, to your point, Kevin- yes, we will absolutely stay in real estate, but notes is, now, about a little over 20% of our portfolio [00:18:00] that just cash flows consistently.

Adam Roberts: Yeah, the other thing too, that interesting market dynamic when interest rates go up, especially, and stay up as long as they have, there's a whole pool of homebuyers out there that, now, can't qualify for a traditional home mortgage. But these are good people- these are self-employed business owners, people who have the financial credentials, in my opinion, to own a home and make a payment.

But for a Wells Fargo or a Bank of America, they just don't have the right W2, or maybe something's not right about their credentials. And that's been a driving force too- as interest rates go up, and stay up, those people, hardworking individuals, need a place to live the American dream,

and someone like myself, a private investor, is willing to loan them a home mortgage. 

Mike Pine: Yeah. 

Let's talk about the risk from the investor's perspective. So, like we've seen in multifamily, some pretty sad [00:19:00] downturns, and divestitures, and sales, where people got none of their principal back. They just had to get out, or they got very little of their investment back because the debt was high, equity values went down,

purchasing costs went up for the new buyer, and people are just trying to get out of their note. Investors don't get anything. 

Are your notes that you buy first lien notes? Real

estate backed? Qualified non-recourse debt? So, in the worst case scenario, someone stops paying, they lose their job, or they pass away, and there's no one to take it over. You guys aren't stuck with nothing, and, generally, there's no other debt on that property except what's owed by you, so you own the property at that point. I know that's not where you want to be. That's not the goal here, but if that happens... 

I'll knock on wood then it never does... but assuming y'all continue to grow, sometime, that's going to happen. How's the economics and the actual logistics of that going to work out? What are you going to have to do to return the money to your capital or your investors?[00:20:00] 

Adam Roberts: Yeah, it really starts at the very beginning when we're doing our due diligence, similar to what a bank would do for any of the four of us. They would send out an appraiser to go and ensure that the home's value is commiserate with the loan risk. 

It's okay- this note has $100,000 balance. It's on sale for a discount at $80,000 and the home is worth $175,000. That's a good deal right there. That is a lot of buffer for things to go wrong between my $80,000 and the $175,000. There was a note that we actually turned down a couple months ago in Central Texas where the unpaid balance was, I think, $75,000, the note was on sale for $55,000, and the home, it appraised for around $80.,000.

Meaning there's the borrower had $5,000 of equity. Not only does the borrower not have a whole lot of skin in the game, but there's just not a lot of buffer. Anybody who's owned a home knows that a [00:21:00] $10,000 surprise can come up pretty quickly. So, yeah, it really starts with what's called the investment to value ratio.

What is my investment versus what is the first position lien- usually a home- what is it worth? So that someday, if I have to- to your point, Mike- get the asset back, will I be able to exit it with a profit? Or get out with my money back?

Emily Cortright: And so, your question about what happens if the borrower stops, or has hardship paying- there's really three different options.

The lender can step in and offer a modification. We might say you can't pay $800 a month... how about we go down to $600 or $650? And at that point, the lender is always going to win in the end because you're going to extend that loan term another 10 years, or you're going to add a balloon payment to the end of the loan. So, loan modification is one option. Kind of a cash for keys situation, similar to landlords-

Let's just call it a day. Here's some moving costs, get out, and you deed me over the [00:22:00] house- a cash for keys. And then, a third option would be the foreclosure path, which is not the point of buying a performing paying mortgage, but it is something that we make sure we're protected with our due diligence.

I have my real estate license with a national brokerage, so I could call up a colleague that I don't know, in another state, city... and say, 'Hey, I need you to list this house for me, as is. Let's just sell it investor special.' Those are really the three different options if something were to happen, but like Adam said, our due diligence- we're really making sure that we have that buffer and that cushion between what we paid, and what the house is worth.

Mike Pine: So, the downside is significantly hedged- hedged more so than just about any other type of investment I can think of right now, if you

underwrite it well, right? And I assume, in your underwriting, you're doing stress tests or worst case scenarios. Let's say the market drops 30%. Are we still going to get our return of capital? 

Can you walk us through a [00:23:00] little deeper in the technicalities of your underwriting, how you figure those out?

Adam Roberts: Yeah. I would say, after looking at the math equation on the investment to value ratio, we then look at the location. Kevin, you made the point earlier about real estate investor versus note investor. It's hard to separate yourself as a real estate investor, knowing full well that the microeconomics of a location really does impact the value of everybody's investment, including the homeowners.

So, there's been quite a few notes where we say, 'Okay, the math equation checks out, the numbers look good. Is this thing located a half hour from a major city... three hours...?' --There's been homes that have looked great, have great numbers, the bar has been paying on time for 10 years, and it's, like, in the middle of nowhere.

If we had to take over the home, how do you know it's going to be worth $200,000? No one's bought a home in this neighborhood in four years. 

Kevin Schneider: No comp.

Adam Roberts: Yeah, exactly! 

You start to peel the onion back, and location, I think, is the one we go to next, and we say, 'Okay, I'm cool being an hour from Houston, but [00:24:00] three and a half

between Houston and San Angelo... I don't know.' Like I said before, there's so much inventory out there to choose from. There's just better stuff location-wise. I would say, from their title encumbrances, not every note has a perfectly squeaky-clean title. There's things that, sometimes, make their way onto title reports, which we pull, as part of the due diligence process.

Federal tax- people who owe federal tax back payments, tends to be one. Really the only thing on that perspective from a risk on the title, is tax liens and utility liens. Those are definitely liens that could supersede the lender, so those have to be cleaned up absolutely before anybody makes an investment And then, from there, we look at the borrower.

Now, a lot of folks who get into note investing, will say, 'Okay, let's take a look at the credit report. Let's pull a due diligence on the borrower.' --Actually, what a lot of people who've been doing this a long, long time will tell you- payment history tends to [00:25:00] be a better indicator of a borrower's propensity to pay than their current credit report. So, we won't pull any credit reports, or do any of that type of due diligence on a borrower, if the note has more than a year or two worth of payment history. Now, we have funded closings where there is no payment history- the borrower is a complete unknown entity.

In that case, yes, you go through a full underwriting package, with a credit report, and all sorts of stuff. So, yeah, I would say the asset, the home, the title, and the borrower- that's where we peel the onion back, and really look for reasons why the investment's not the right investment before we pull the trigger.

Kevin Schneider: we do filter out states that we know we won't buy in- that the foreclosure process takes too long, like California, New York, New Jersey... there's a couple others.

Emily Cortright: Going back to Kevin's question, we focus on location a lot- specifically, lender-friendly states, [00:26:00] foreclosure-friendly states... because that is what's protecting our investment. We want states where it takes eight months, or less, to foreclose, not two years. We do filter out very quickly-

we'll get a list of notes- California, gone. There might be 10 of them in California- we're not looking at any of them. So, that makes it a little bit easier in terms of just not wasting time on underwriting locations or states that you're not going to buy in.

Kevin Schneider: 

Is there any state tax implications? Because you're just dealing with the balance sheet. You'll have assets all over the country, right? What about if you buy a note in Oklahoma? Is that giving you nexus in that state? Is your CPA filing state tax returns in Oklahoma for that note?

Are you sourcing interest income to Oklahoma? Or is it really going to where you are originating the note, or where you guys are? 

Adam Roberts: That's a great question because we've only bought Texas notes up until last year, so we will experience that for the first time on this return coming up. 

Mike Pine: Yeah, the answer is state specific.

Some states [00:27:00] say if you've got a customer paying you from that state,

then you've got nexus there. There are others- like Texas is very friendly on that role. They say, 'Unless the bank is located in that state, unless you're licensed, or have a facility in Texas, I don't care if a Texas mortgage holder's paying you interest in New York. It's not taxable in Texas.' 

--Then again, in California and New York and Pennsylvania and Ohio, you've got nexus there, and you better file income tax returns.

Adam Roberts & Emily Cortright: Interesting. 

Emily Cortright: What adds another layer to it is that there are third party loan servicers between us the borrower. The borrower pays the loan servicer their whole payment, principal, interest, taxes, and insurance. The loan servicer divvies it all up. And then, we get paid from the loan servicer who's located in Texas or Idaho.

Not necessarily where the homeowner is living. 

Adam Roberts: Or where we are at, yeah.

Mike Pine: 

So, while you're holding these mortgages, you're invested in these.

You are the mortgage owner. I see all the statements from my [00:28:00] mortgages. At least once a year, if not twice a year, for the ones that we're still paying with escrow, we get escrow reassessments, or re estimates.

They increase, they lower it. Sometimes they refund some escrow. That sounds like an administrative nightmare to handle, especially if you're having dozens of notes like you guys have. How do y'all deal with that?

Adam Roberts: The servicer deals with it. It's totally hands-off. We'll direct them if they have any questions, or if they have something they need our input on, but right now, they are way smarter than we are when it comes to that kind of stuff. 

Emily Cortright: Yeah. The beauty about the note investing industry is that the lender does not have to do any of that work. 

There's a third party loan servicer in between us and the borrowers. The loan servicer collects the payment. They handle all the taxes and insurance, amortization schedules, and they just forward us the principal and interest every month. And sometimes, we pay that, and it's around, I'll say, $20 - $30 a month per loan per note, [00:29:00] and sometimes, the lender pays that, but sometimes, it's written into the note that the borrower pays it.

So, there, we have probably about 5 or 6 out of 25 notes where the borrower is paying the loan servicing fee.

Mike Pine: That's a nice investment. Curious about how much is that fee? Is it a percentage? Is it a fixed cost no matter how big the loan is? 

Emily Cortright: Yep. Fixed cost, typically ranging between $20 and $50 a month, depending on how high touch you want them to be. So, if the person's late one day, do they get a phone call, do they get an email? Or if they're late for 30 days, do they get an email or a phone call? So, depending on the level of touch to the borrower, it's as affordable as $20 a month up to $50 a month.

Mike Pine: And they do all the collections, all the work, they bring in the money, and they just send you a check?

Emily Cortright: Yes. They ACH us. We're getting ACHs every few days from the loan servicing companies. 

Mike Pine: That's the kind of passive income mailbox money I want to [00:30:00] find.

Kevin Schneider: Yeah. That is very cool guys. Well, thank y'all for being here, and just expanding our mindset of what real estate investing, or even getting in the real estate space could look like. If anyone listening is interested and want to contact Adam and Emily, you can go to https://www.aeinvest.net/ On their website, they'll have information about their multifamily projects, their note investing and they'll have a 'Contact Us' there, so you can contact them directly. I even think I saw Emily's calendar directly on the webpage, so you can book time one on one with her, it looks like, and ask them questions, if you're interested. Any closing thoughts from you guys?

Adam Roberts: I think the essence of what we've gone through the past couple years has just been a journey of diversification. We learned the hard way, saw our cash flow go away a few years ago through multifamily, but then, pivoted, and found something that's really working for us.

 To your point, Kevin- if someone reaches out to us on the website and just wants to talk about what we're doing, we really harp on that because that was a huge learning experience for us. So, I think it's something good to walk away [00:31:00] with.

Emily Cortright: And my biggest takeaway is that before I read The Banker's Code, before I learned about notes, I just had no idea as, what I thought was a seasoned real estate investor with 10 years experience- surely I know all of the tricks of the trade- but notes has come out as just an amazing opportunity. It may not be where we put 100% of our portfolio, but like Adam said, the diversification is really powerful.

Mike Pine: Wow. thank you very much for being here, Adam and Emily. This was great and we hope to be able to have you again someday.

Adam Roberts: Yeah. No, we appreciate it, Mike, Kevin. Really honored to be invited on and really enjoyed the conversation. So, thank you. 

Emily Cortright: Thank you both.