Long Distance Investing

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Billy Keels a regular guy from Columbus Ohio started out as a corporate go-getter He was rejected twice and then did some great luck with commercial real estate investing Now Billy is living in Barcelona Spain and is a big proponent of passive investing In this episode Billy tells his incredible story of how he overcame obstacles to become successful in the Passive Investing world He explains how he had a problem and tried to look for a solution and ended up investing in real estate mobile home parks and commercial properties Billy also mentions the bonus depreciation rules and how they can use them to reduce taxes on their active income Finally Billy emphasized the importance of building relationships and gaining investor trust He tells the listener that technology has been helpful in this regard as it allows him to communicate with investors more easily Highlights 00 00 – 09 56 How to Passive Invest for Financial Freedom Who is Billy Keely Keels Billy talks about his mistakes in investing and how he learned about passive investing Investing away from home He then discusses how passive investing has helped him achieve his personal freedom goals He also mentioned that he would be able to tap into bonus depreciation rules and use losses against active income to redeploy money into other investments He is Currently investing passively in Energy sector 09 56 – 14 35 How to Raise Capital For Your Own Deals or Syndicate One of the things that Billy started to realize is that there s a mindset different among people in different types of rooms Living in Europe or other parts of the world doesn t mean your Tax free As an American you have to declare your worldwide income Making sure you have a team of professionals to advise you on how to able to do these things For those who want to invest in real estate there are other vehicles that can help them get to their destination such as investing in other businesses or using technology It s important to have a team around you to help with various aspects of your investment and also be available to invest yourself 20 55 – 22 00 Closing Segment Reach out to Billy Links Below Final Words Resources Mentioned For Accredited Investors ONLYfirstgencp com paylesstax Tweetable Quotes As you start to be in different types of rooms you start to realize that there s a different kind of mindset There are Different vehicles that I m comfortable with that help me get to the same destination And so a lot of times it s a matter of being exposed – Billy Keels —————————————————————————– Connect with Billy by visiting his website www firstgencp com Connect with me Facebook LinkedIn Like subscribe and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts Spotify Google Podcasts or whatever platform you listen on Thank you for tuning in Email me sam brickeninvestmentgroup com Want to read the full show notes of the episode Check it out below 00 00 00 Billy Keels Like it s really interesting cuz I ve been using zoom as a long distance investor for the last 10 years 00 00 04 Billy Keels As you start to build relationships Yes It s great that you can start with meeting someone on Maybe you re meet in a chat room or a Facebook group or whatever kind of group but eventually you wanna be able to take that conversation offline 00 00 14 Billy Keels I m a big believer If you wanna develop a relationship you have to be willing to put your money where your mouth is And so you can develop a relationship up until a certain point but then eventually you need to get on a plane and show other people that you are interested in Not only building relationships but also making investments 00 00 31 Sam Wilson Billy keels is just a regular guy from middle class family in Columbus Ohio where he grew up knowing nothing about investing Billy Welcome to 00 00 50 Billy Keels the show Sam Thanks so much man Really looking forward to it Love your energy love what you re doing and looking forward to the convers 00 00 56 Sam Wilson In 90 seconds or less 00 00 58 Sam Wilson Can you tell me sir Where did you start Where are you now And how did you get 00 01 01 Billy Keels there Yeah you already told where I started So originally from Columbus Ohio product of two two parents who really worked hard put a real real focus on education as a result I actually saw them suffer a lot really because they worked two jobs blue collar and they had a lot of different challenges like paying certain bills 00 01 18 Billy Keels I saw them at the end of the month like are we gonna pay this bill Are we gonna pay the other bill And so I grew up in that environ We by the time I was 12 we lived in like three different states eight or nine different houses But the focus was always on education So of course I m an a student 00 01 31 Billy Keels I really focused on the things that I was supposed to do and what I was told So went to college got two degrees although I did find out what rejection was cause I had my dream job I was rejected not once but twice I got my college degree and was ready to go there But at through that rejection what it helped me to do is I got a job that I never ever imagined rejected twice from Proctor and gamble that opened up a door for me where I had a job Sam where by the time I was 26 I d worked and traveled throughout 58 different countries which was amazing opened my mind to doing seeing different things 00 02 01 Billy Keels And what that did is kept me in a corporate career Although I left the Moved to Europe I was supposed to be on a one year sabbatical and that one year sabbatical interestingly enough I started in Paris France and that started 21 years ago So that one year sabbatical actually took me from Paris down to a town in the south called Montier 00 02 20 Billy Keels I went from there to Italy started up a sales team then went back to France and have been living in Barcelona Spain where I currently reside since July of 2000 And I was working as a students do I was in a corporate role for about 26 years And recently in December of 2021 no longer part of the corporate world 00 02 38 Billy Keels And now am focused on continuing to live the best life that I can through the challenges through dedicating a lot of time and energy to the The multinational Now I m focusing a lot of the time and energy on family enjoying time with my wife with my kids and also getting back to the us more frequently 00 02 52 Billy Keels So that s really in like probably 90 a little bit more than 90 seconds A little bit about the this guy from Columbus Ohio who s now residing in Barcelona Spain I 00 02 59 Sam Wilson love it I love it I think anytime someone becomes well traveled there s there It just it does open your mind to so many possibilities in the world 00 03 06 Sam Wilson You re like oh wait there s not everybody looks or acts like me You lose a lot of the prejudices that I think we re taught over the news and everything else It s like man there s great people the world 00 03 15 Billy Keels over So yeah That s and definitely focuses you to challenge the way that you think 00 03 19 Billy Keels At this point now Sam I ve loved it so much and I ve been challenged so many times about the way that I look At the world I ve now traveled to 86 different countries Wow And my next goal is to get to all seven continents So I just need to get down to Antarctica I guess that s if you talked in the us and in Europe they don t believe there s seven continents but that s a whole different conversation 00 03 36 Billy Keels We ll talk about that later in a hundred countries so that s those are the next two geographical challenges I ve put for myself That is really 00 03 43 Sam Wilson cool You ve spent a lot of time in the corporate world and I know you said you ve stepped out as of December 2021 That s really amazing 00 03 51 Sam Wilson You ve had your hands though in commercial real estate in a lot of different ways Can you give us kind of a breakdown on some of those different ways you ve been involved in commercial 00 03 59 Billy Keels real estate Yeah Sure Absolutely So and I guess the way that I got into real estate was because I got like I m an a student I mentioned before 00 04 05 Billy Keels So I did all the things I was told I was in the I was investing in my 401k IRA just maxed out the 401k rolled into IRA and did all that kind of stuff And 2000 happened 2008 happened I got hit twice My parents always told me Billy look if something happens once shame on them if it happens twice shame on you 00 04 20 Billy Keels I look to invest in real And initially I read a lot of the books the rich dad poor dads went down those rabbit holes and I saw of a lot of videos and as well Listen to a lot of podcasts And I thought I was gonna invest here in Barcelona Spain but through a number of different trials and tribulations and then some pretty good luck 00 04 38 Billy Keels I ended up investing in real estate initially back in the us and living in Barcelona Spain today I m a big fan and big proponent of long distance investing living in one place where you really wanna live and investing where it makes the most sense for you and your capital And so Doing this long distance I ve invested not only in small multi families own my own mobile home park 00 04 58 Billy Keels So very much an active investor made a lot of mistakes Sam especially like being long away and not having a network not necessarily having all the education early on but what I quickly found was someone because I was working as a as an executive and a software company enterprise software company 00 05 13 Billy Keels What I quickly realized because I wasn t surrounded by other people that talked about passive investing I found out that I could literally like invest two 300 000 with other people They would do all the work and I could keep doing my job Right And so then I found out about passive investing I started investing in developments like Marriott and Hilton branded hotels as well as different larger multi-family type of opportunities the two 300 types as well as ATM machines and even invested passively in in energy sector 00 05 42 Billy Keels So each time looking to solve different challenges that I was And each one of those different vehicles is helping me and my family get closer to our ultimate destination which is to have the personal freedom that we really want Do you feel 00 05 54 Sam Wilson like you ve achieved that personal freedom that you were looking for or setting out for you hit that goal yet 00 05 59 Billy Keels I m much further along today than I was before What I can tell you is that I don t have any desire nor need to go back to a corporate role at this point in time I feel like the work that I was doing for almost 10 years because I was working in a highly demanding corporate environment in the it software space as well as building my business 00 06 17 Billy Keels In the evenings in the really early mornings So that 10 years of work almost 10 years of work put us in a really good position meaning me and my family today to not really worry about going back to a corporate environment However there s still some things that I want to do with my family and things like that 00 06 31 Billy Keels So we re not exactly there yet but we re pretty darn close 00 06 34 Sam Wilson Right right You re not tied to the day to day grind anymore at least No not at all That s a great place certainly to be tell me about this energy sector syndication You mentioned that I don t even know what that means Can you tell me what in the world 00 06 46 Billy Keels is that 00 06 46 Billy Keels Yeah Yeah sure I mean and you know what and I one of the things and this is one of the things that I appreciate about what you do here Sam in terms of the education is it s not necessarily always about the Asset it s the benefits that the asset can provide you Right And so one of the things that I was looking for because someone who was a I was a high was a high paid I was an accredit investor 00 07 04 Billy Keels I was a first time accredit investor So I wasn t surrounded by a lot of other accredit investors growing up I didn t know even what it was It took me actually finding a bunch of groups online to go oh hang on a second Like probably six or seven years later I was like oh I could have been investing in these very unique kind of things I didn t even know 00 07 19 Billy Keels And so what I ve realized is each time I had a problem I was looking for a solution I got into real estate because real estate helped me get outta wall street It helped me to have much more control The business model was really pretty simple pay people paid their rent You had a bunch of expenses the insurance the taxes all that kind of stuff gave you your net operating income than you paid your mortgage 00 07 38 Billy Keels And you got to keep the rest That was simple Gave me much more control Then I was looking for more cash and that found out about the mobile home park and found out about passive investing and that was happening But I always had this issue where I was investing in lots of passive Income type of assets at the same time because I was a high paid professional and my wife was not someone who could actually have a special IRS designation 00 08 02 Billy Keels Neither of the two of us I still kept paying like 40 plus percent in taxes And I just thought to myself well hang on a second If there s a way for me to actually free up some of the capital that I m paying because of my W2 income then I could keep that income and redeploy it in more tax efficient type of vehicles 00 08 19 Billy Keels Real estate commercial real estate and the other types of things So that s really where this particular vehicle in the energy space has allowed me as a high pay professional to tap into some of the W2 income the taxes specifically the tax portion and be able to keep more of that money to then redeploy it into other things 00 08 40 Sam Wilson What does it mean You said to me if I said to you Hey Billy I wanna invest in the energy sector I don t even again where do I start What s the what are the nuts and bolts of it 00 08 49 Billy Keels Yeah So specifically what one of the things that we look at is it s specifically around carbon capture So there s equipment that is carbon capture equipment 00 08 56 Billy Keels And what that basically does It car it captures carbon it s then used in a process for energy companies to produce more oil and gas From there basically we re looking at the different types of tax codes I mean you can get into a lot of the nuts and bolts We actually have a guide that we can have people download and they can find out more about that 00 09 13 Billy Keels But basically what it is looking at having a working interest In a particular process from end to end as a result of that and purchasing pieces of equipment When you put a company together being able to leverage the bonus depreciation rules that currently And being able to take those losses against active income which is something that for a lot of highway journals who are not a have a particular real estate professional designation is one of the things that would allow you to be able to tap into that income 00 09 41 Billy Keels Once again as I mentioned to you before to then redeploy it into to other types of things So hopefully that makes it a little bit Clear in terms of what it is what process it s involved in And then if you wanna get into nuts and bolts it s probably best to download the guide Yeah 00 09 53 Sam Wilson Certainly here at the end of the show we ll make sure we cover cover where we can get that that s really cool I love that I think that s a lot of what people are hunting for especially high income earners and syndications in general It s is there a way to offset taxes such that we re not just getting hammered 00 10 06 Sam Wilson I mean 40 in taxes That s 00 10 08 Billy Keels brutal man Yeah Yeah And it was one of those things Sam like I was thinking about this and this is just one of the things that as you start to be in different types of rooms you start to realize that there s a different Kind of mindset And so looking to always solve the problem it s to your point sometimes it s a matter of saying Hey listen I want to invest in more real estate but I m kind of tapped out 00 10 27 Billy Keels Right So are there other vehicles that can help you to get you to the destination that you re looking for I mean I say it all the time Like I live In Barcelona Spain if I wanted to get to my hometown of Columbus Ohio I ve got a lot of different options right I know the destination but I could actually leave here Barcelona 00 10 41 Billy Keels I could get on a bicycle go to the bicycle to the train station I could go from the train station to the airport and I could go from the airport and take a nonstop Well I can go to Columbus but you know what I mean Right Could take a nonstop flight from Barcelona Columbus That s one option The other option is I could get here 00 10 55 Billy Keels I could get in my car I could drive to the airport or instead of going to the airport I go to the train station from the train station I take a train from here to LIS From Lisbon I get on a boat and I go from Lisbon to New York city And eventually I get to Columbus Ohio right Different vehicles that I m comfortable with that help me get to the same destination 00 11 12 Billy Keels And so a lot of times it s a matter of being exposed And that s one of the things I love that you do here is you re just giving more exposure to different vehicles that can actually help you get to your destination Tell 00 11 23 Sam Wilson me about the expat life I mean we re talking about taxes expat life I mean I ve got friends that live in Puerto Rico cuz they have a Hey man we live here cuz we think that they pay like a 4 federal income tax 00 11 33 Sam Wilson I mean it s something pretty pretty absurd But yeah Tell me just give us a breakdown the expat life especially as it pertains to I mean do you raise capital for your own 00 11 41 Billy Keels deals as I do Yes I do raise capital for my own deals or syndicate the entire deals together bring them together and either directly through funds et cetera 00 11 49 Billy Keels But one of the things like so yeah so so being able to do that I mean this is where it s really important Sam and I can t reiterate this enough To have a strong team Like it is very important to have a team because there are things that you just don t even know Like a lot of people would think Hey listen if you are living in Europe well some people ask me well do you have to pay taxes 00 12 10 Billy Keels Well of course you have to declare your taxes because especially if you re a US citizen you have that passport One of the things about the internal revenue services that you As an American citizen you have to declare your worldwide income And so when you do that you have to make sure that the team that is around you is advising you on how to be able to do those things 00 12 27 Billy Keels So and also I should probably said this before not giving anybody any tax advice not saying anything you and I you asked me a question I m just giving people an example Right And so that s one of the things that you need to be aware of when you re outside of the United States Make sure that you have a team around you of professionals that understands whether it s your business attorney and your SCC attorney your CFO have them around you so that they can understand 00 12 48 Billy Keels But specifically as it pertains to us citizens there is the obligation to to declare your taxes on worldwide income 00 12 55 Sam Wilson Right right that that was a question So yeah you re paying taxes in Europe You re paying taxes in the us that is something certainly to consider 00 13 02 Sam Wilson What s it been like raising money overseas for deals you re involved in the state side Why does or involved in state side Why does somebody come to Billy and say Hey Billy I wanna invest in you to project in the us How do you vet the projects How do you find them I know you mentioned team but give us kind of the 00 13 16 Sam Wilson Rundown Yeah sure 00 13 17 Billy Keels sure Love the question So one of the things that happens and I think a lot of people have realized this like people talk over zoom and people feel like zoom has only been around for two years Like it s really interesting cuz I ve been using zoom as a long distance investor for the last 10 years 00 13 30 Billy Keels Right Because As you start to build relationships Yes It s great that you can start with meeting someone on Maybe you re meet in a chat room or a Facebook group or whatever kind of group and you meet there but eventually you wanna be able to take that conversation offline maybe using one of Google meet or zoom or Skype or having those kinds of conversations is great but eventually 00 13 50 Billy Keels I m a big believer And if you wanna develop a relationship Sam you have to be willing to put your money where your mouth is And so you can develop a relationship up until a certain point but then eventually you need to get on a plane and show other people that you are interested in Not only building relationships but also making investments 00 14 06 Billy Keels And it s no different when it comes to being able to build a community Being able to gain investor trust et cetera et cetera it s being available so that people can get to know who you are being available through one-on-one chats or doing things like this so they can begin to like you and then eventually they re gonna need to trust you 00 14 22 Billy Keels It s I m not making up anything new This has all been around And so leveraging technology has been one way to be able to do that And then also I practice what I preach I am even just in a couple days I m getting ready to fly to the US I was doing that even when I was working in my corporate role whether it was to go to meet business partners that were managing a property in a certain city or was meeting with our S E C attorney or was meeting with our business attorney because you have to build the relationship and you have to be there 00 14 47 Billy Keels Our business is in the United States So today as I did for the previous 10 years it s about making sure that the business is here because one of the things that I love about real assets is They re working And as long as the team is there they re working for you 24 hours a day seven days a week So it doesn t really literally matter where you live in the world or where you reside or where you travel 00 15 07 Billy Keels That s One of the benefits I think is to have that geographic freedom as long as your team understands the benefit that you are working to provide for your investors then they know what they re doing They know the location where they re where they are operating And then they also know the specific assets that is creating the benefit that we re looking for 00 15 25 Billy Keels So hopefully that gives the answer but it s not anything that you don t know already or maybe you ve thought well okay well yeah you re overseas So maybe it s a little bit different but I feel like you you need to be able to put your money where your mouth is and develop the relationship in the way that it is supposed to be developed 00 15 40 Billy Keels And Yourself as well as your potential investors the opportunity to meet face to face Right 00 15 45 Sam Wilson And I think that s one the things you hit on cuz that s the question I think for a lot of people and obviously on this show we ve had people such as yourself that live overseas that do investing in the states 00 15 54 Sam Wilson And I always get a different answer each time but I haven t heard this one quite yet but now that you mention it even going to conferences this this last spring I m like Hey wait you live London Hey wait you live in I know where you live but yet the people are still coming in 00 16 06 Sam Wilson They re spending the time to come back and get that face to face time And I think that s absolutely critical Yep When I say strategic planning and tactical execution Is that part of your plan What does that mean to you Can you give us some kind of thoughts behind that when I say those words 00 16 20 Sam Wilson Yeah 00 16 20 Billy Keels sure And then that a lot of that reminds me the 26 years that I was working in a big large enterprise software companies Right Is you always have a strategic plan that is the north star That is where are you going To what is the vision What is the mission the vision the value that you have right 00 16 35 Billy Keels Because that The strategy that you need to be able to put together that is the direction in which you re going then act then afterwards it s the different tactics and actions that bolt them together though That is what are you doing on a quarterly monthly weekly daily almost hourly cadence to make sure that the activities that you re driving are moving you in the direct 00 16 59 Billy Keels Of the strategy that you have not only talked about but that you ve claimed and proclaimed in front of the world or in front of your investors So that when you say those words that What it makes me think about and it s very similar to what we are doing today in our company our comp our goal is to serve 200 accredited investors 00 17 16 Billy Keels and what we are doing are doing different strategy or tactics in actions very similar to you and I talking today or maybe I m out traveling to the us like I m gonna be doing in just a couple days or it could be making sure that our email list that we re continuously in contact and that there are different actions and tactics that are supporting the overall 00 17 36 Billy Keels I love it 00 17 37 Sam Wilson I love it I love breaking that down to a granular level where it s like Hey here s the plan And here s the actions we have to take And is what I m doing That question you asked is what I m doing supporting my strategic plan And if it s not well it s probably time to revamp what you re doing 00 17 51 Sam Wilson So exactly absolutely love it Billy Thank you for taking the time to come on the show today and share certainly have enjoyed it Love all the ways that you ve shared with us on everything from energy sector syndications to investing from overseas building teams Man you ve done a lot and I certainly appreciate you 00 18 07 Sam Wilson And the wisdom you ve shared with us today before I forget we did have that free download You wanna talk about on the energy sector investments Is there a good 00 18 14 Billy Keels place to find that Yeah sure absolutely You can You can find that at first gen cp com payless tax once again that s first gen cp com 00 18 24 Billy Keels Forward slash pay less tax I should have mentioned one thing earlier which is really important to to talk about as well that particular opportunity is for accredited investors only So it is a what we say a 5 0 6 C So it is for accredited investors only happy for people to be more informed but it is specifically for those individuals that meet the the accredited investor criteria 00 18 42 Sam Wilson Right Fantastic And I m assuming that s the best place to find you And if it s not what is the best place to get ahold of you Billy if our listeners wanna get in 00 18 47 Billy Keels touch Sure First gencp com is the place that is where you can go and find out more about us Like you said first gen com uh Payless tax is a place 00 18 56 Billy Keels If you wanna find out more about the energy sector and then also Sam I love connecting with people on LinkedIn as well So I would recommend that you connect with me there I think I m the only Billy keels in Barcelona Spain And if you could do me a favor and just let me know that you ve already 00 19 08 Billy Keels Sam and I having this conversation just makes our conversation even that much easier So and Sam I really appreciate the opportunity to share a bit of my story with you and your entire audience today Billy 00 19 17 Sam Wilson Thank you so much Enjoy the rest of your day You too Click here to visit this podcast episode