Welcome to the Purpose Driven Investor, where we build more than portfolios, we build communities. I'm your host, Robert Howell, a real estate investor and founder of Define Communities. Each week, we'll explore how purpose and profit connect through affordable housing, land home packages, and impact-driven investing. If you're a lender, land seller, or a partner who believes money should move with meaning, you're in the right place. Hey, everyone, welcome back to the Purpose Driven Investor Podcast. I'm your host, Robert Howell. And today's episode is a great fit for anyone thinking bigger than just their local market and more strategically about access, relationships and global opportunity. Our guest today is Gary Wilson from the Global Investor Agent team. Gary works closely with investors, helping them navigate opportunities across different markets while staying focused on alignment, strategy and execution, not just transactions. What I appreciate about Gary's perspective is that he sits at the intersections of investors, deals and markets, which gives him a unique vantage point on what's working, what's not and where the smart capital is actually flowing. Today, we're going to talk about Gary's journey, how he thinks about serving investors at a high level, what makes deals succeed across markets and how purpose and relationships play a role in long term Thanks, Robert. I really appreciate it. I'm glad to have you on my podcast and I'm grateful to be a guest on yours. And I, my aim is to give and serve your people the best I can. All right. Well, I'm, I'm excited to have you. I enjoyed being on your show and let's start first with your background and your, your entry into real estate. So take us back to the very beginning. Sure. Well, well, actually, it actually goes back to when I was a kid. My grandfather taught architecture at North Georgia University. And this was way back, you know, over 100 years ago. And I was always intrigued by houses. We were my mom and raised us on a, you know, bank teller salary. So we really want to live in the lap of luxury. I was wearing good wool clothes and things like that. But in the third grade, one of my best friends named Kevin McKinney, his dad was an architect. And they lived in this beautiful cantilever home that you had to walk or a deck to get to overlooking a lake with glass all the way around. Who else was cantilever? I thought this is just awesome. And I'm like, you know, and he said, well, my dad's an architect. I started drawing houses like the picture of the front of the house. And my grandfather saw me doing this one Christmas I was visiting. And he said, I'm going to show you how to do the floor plans using the scales and the symbols and all that. I was totally just immersed in it. My mom bought me a drawing kit that year for Christmas, the drawing board, the T-square, the whole nine yards, everything needed. So I literally have hundreds of house plans of design over the years. Fast forward, I applied to University, I'm sorry, Virginia Tech University, the School of Architecture. I didn't get in because when I went to high school, they weren't used to people going to colleges like that. It was all farm country. And the guy didn't tell me to apply for general studies. So they invited me down there, a really nice interview. I mean, they said, why didn't you just apply general studies? You'd have been in a flash, you know, with my, with my SAT scores and math background. And I said, I didn't know. And apparently my counselor didn't either. So anyways, long story short, This is crazy how God makes things work. So I go to Old Dominion University, study computer science because it was new and I never saw a computer before. And my freshman year college roommate's a guy named Socrates. We're still good friends today. His dad was a big investor in Richmond, Virginia. So when we graduated, we were going to go rent a house at the beach and live the life of two young bachelors making money. And his dad said, no, you're not. He actually told us, so don't be stupid. He said, you're going to buy a home big enough to rent out the other bedroom. So we did. We bought a four bedroom ranch in Virginia Beach, rented out two rooms. We each got our own room. And the two guys' rents almost covered our mortgage payments. So we assumed the guy's first mortgage. It was a veteran, a VA loan. Refinanced his second, right? And then we gave him a third note for the remaining equity. It was very creative. And, uh, and you know, I'll stop there, but that's really, that's what really got me into it. That sequence of events. And it's just, it's amazing how You know, that's awesome. So you, you could have written the first book We were, I guess we were the originals. I never heard of that term until about 10 years ago. And I thought, gee, that's what I did back in 1980, January of 86. Can you imagine that was 40 years ago? Are you thinking of this now, Robert? It was 40 years ago this month. In fact, January 20th, 1986. But I closed on that first house with stock. How about them apples? And you get the There you go. The anniversary podcast, right? That's it, man. Yeah. That's great. So tell us a bit about So what I do now is I run a national team called the global venture agent team. And it's very unique. for people who are in the business will appreciate this. Nothing goes in a team name. Every sale, every listing goes in the agent's names. So the Global Investor Agent Team, while I promote it all over, you know, podcast, blog, social media, we're all over the world. The agents on a team, we help them build their own brand and their model wherever they are. So we are in 38 states. We train them to work with investors because the reason I got my license That was 24 years ago this month, actually. So two anniversaries was because the agents weren't trained to help me. They were not trained in investing, analyzing deals and calculating cash flows and returns on investment. They just weren't. So I thought I need to get my license because then I'll be a better investor. Turns out it was a great way to make another stream of income because I started helping other investors invest and earning commissions on that. And then that gave me another, you know, I'm literally was doing 100 plus transactions a year because it was easy. I already knew the game and there were P clients. I get the client once and serve them three or four or five, six times in a year. That's how I did 110 transactions my first year, actually. But it was all systematized. My operations background with the U.S. Navy and in banking, taught me how to structure and organize systems. And most agents were not doing anything even close to that. They were just trying to get to the next transaction. Now, that was a paper everywhere. And here I am, operating like a machine. And that's really how it all started. So the team now, we train them to work with residential and commercial clients. We teach them all the formulas. We teach them how to invest, if we're crying out loud. And that's really what I'm doing now. So we're constantly being approached for people to help me show them how to build a similar team. And I happily do that because it certainly helped me. I didn't get around by myself. Lord knows, I definitely had help. So that's what I'm doing today. It's fulfilling. You know, Robert, a period like me in the early days, I wonder, why are these old guys teaching this stuff? Why don't they just keep doing what they're doing if they're making so much money? Well, I'm here to tell you it is a lot more fun I have zero stress, I have zero liability. It's all upside. My profit potential now is 85% on my team. You can't do that in traditional brokerage. The average profit margin is 10%. I can do that in a stock market. But here, because of the way it's built, it's 85% routinely, month after month. It's amazing. And almost no risk. That's amazing. Yeah. I love that. And so when you talk about the global investor agent team, what problem Well, the big challenge was, is I was traveling all around the country as a trainer for another big box groupers, literally teaching what's called the investor agent best practices class, teaching agents how to work with investors, all 50 States and three Canadian promises. And I studied every state I had to, to be able to teach there. And I'm working with agents who are working with investors. And we found out that 56% of the transactions, this is still a true statistic today. Like my first, the team first thing I had years ago was three states, Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, 111 agents. And I knew then half our transactions were out of state. So I recognize a need The clients wanted to invest in multiple states, whether they were from the US or Canada, but they had to always go out and find new agents. I thought, man, if I can follow the Marriott model, or I'm a Marriott member, I got the gold, platinum, elite, diamond, whatever thing they have in millions of points. But I knew when I went to a JW Marriott, it didn't matter if it was, you know, the beaches of California, the golf courses of Arizona, or wherever I was, It might look different, but the service was exactly the same. I knew what I was getting. And I knew if I could appeal to the investors to say, look, I don't care if you're investing in Indiana, Georgia, or Colorado, you work with my team, you're gonna get the same level of service no matter where you go. And we can serve you in the 38 states that make the most sense. I'm not knocking the other 12, it's just we're, you know, I'm a numbers guy. So I go where the people are and where the properties are and where the investors are. That was the need that was solved. And the other problem was the agents and other brokerages were not trained to work with investors. Now I'm letting all the gold out. So all these other brokers are going to say, I want to teach my people how to work with investors. Well, you just can't flip a switch and make that happen. It's who I am as a person. It's my alignment with the universe. That's what makes it different. And so I seek out people who are the same way, entrepreneurial business builders, those type of agents, not the open house knocking on the doors on Saturdays. And we don't do that stuff. You know, we're much more strategic, but so it's all the problem of having educated agents. And it's all the problem of investors having, knowing what they're getting, the tools, the strategies and the service, no matter where they invest. And it's, it's a golden formula. I mean, I don't mind varying. It's, it's, I I love that niche. That's that's great. And I think it's such a huge need because it's a it's a different clientele than than the traditional retail. Right. How do you how do you think the what's the biggest difference you see that that you address or that you see in the investor clients Yeah, it all comes down to education. So Investors we work with, we really don't do a lot of the no down, low down, no money down stuff. I mean, I used to do it, but it's a hard way to make a living. It's a hard way to invest. I mean, how many people are gonna accept those deals, right? It's usually people in distress. I prefer not to work that. I worked with really good properties and really sophisticated people. So the investors are typically more sophisticated. They have more education when it comes to analyzing properties and analyzing remodeling costs. And under analyzing the country and knowing where do they want to be, where should they invest now for the greatest returns on equity, but also the greatest increases in cash flow. Those are the people I want to work with. I can teach the others. We do actively do that. My agents have access to six training programs, including commercial, so they can learn and I can train them how to work with anybody at any level. So we do have special programs. I'll give an example. There's one called CAP. T-A-H-P, Certified Affordable Housing Provider. So a lot of my agents are members. There's a guy named Lou Brown who promotes that program and teaches it, and we work together a lot because it solves a need. There are people out there that can't afford what they want. We show them how to get there, and we take them through the process hand-in-hand. So we do serve the whole community, but for me personally, in the end, what we call the Level 5 or Level 6 agents, We're working with level five or level six investors. You know, people that have money, they understand money, they're great at managing money. You understand the fact that you want to get good properties in good areas. I know you can get the cheap stuff in cheap areas, but that's what you're going to get as results, right? What you put in, you get out. You get the right kind of properties in the right areas, you're going to get the right kind of results. But I like investors that understand that and are not going to be cheap and Yep. That's great. That's great. Um, what do you, what kind of trends are you seeing across the different markets right now? Well, a couple of things. A number one is when the pandemic hit, um, it surprised everybody, not just the pandemic, but what it did to the real estate industry. Um, because of all the free money floating around, you got the PPP program, the earnings retention credit program, you know, PPP is payment protection program. ERC's earnings retention, employee retention program. I mean, money, I know business owners that were getting hundreds of thousands of dollars in PPP money and ERC money, but they were doing quite well. I mean, they didn't need the money. But the way the government rolled those programs out during the Biden administration, there weren't a lot of controls on it. They didn't say only the needy get it. They just rolled it out. Not to mention the consumers that were getting all kinds of free money. So that money flowed into the marketplace, caused some massive inflation. I mean, inflation means increase in money supply. People are confused by that. They think inflation means prices go up. No, inflation means there's an increase in the money supply. They're flooding the market with money, which looks and feels good real at first, but it creates massive and massive price increases over time. So in any case, the prices of properties went through the roof. I mean, some of them doubled in some markets. And then because of the demand slowdown, right? The demand slowed down after the fact that interest rates went up, interest rates went up. to account for the inflation. They had to, they didn't have a choice. But you got rising prices, rising interest rate costs, knocks people out of our classic economics 101, supply and demand, right? I don't care what the government does, you can't mess around with mother nature and you can't mess around with supply and demand. It's a seesaw. It's a natural phenomenon. You can't manipulate it. You just have to react to it. So in any case, some of the outpourings or some of the outcomes are this. There's a lot of malls, traditional shopping malls around the country, the big giant ones, the one you walk inside and you could spend all day there. Some of them have bounced back, but very, very few. One of them is called Ross Park Mall in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. If you looked it up, they're doing great. But you look at the Sarasota Mall in Sarasota, Florida, I mean, they're putting dog shelters in their storage facilities inside the mall and it's half empty. You know, U-Haul storage and stuff like that. But some of them are now finally starting to be repurposed in more meaningful purposeful ways, like senior living, right? Also, office buildings that now people recognize, you know what? I'm one of the first people that got rid of offices in 2009, because I realized it's a huge waste of space. I told my agents, I said, I need you out there with the people, not in here in the cube. So in the EXP Realty, by the way, figured it out to get rid of all that stuff, the waste of money. And the clients, they could care less about the mahogany desk you have and the brass and the marble. I don't care about that stuff. What they care about is can you help them make money? or get a good deal on a house. And they want you to go to where they are to do that. So in any case, office space hit the market in droves. So some smart people are out there to figure it out. They could create what's called office condos where you rent out just a single individual room with somebody and the floor shares a bathroom. So now business people can rent a space and you can rent the space out just for certain hours in a day. You can take the morning hours And I can take the afternoon hours, you sort of thing. So often, and I do people that create an office space like that office condos, they put gymnasiums in the basement floor, they put dining rooms and kitchens in the first floor, and they put rooftop patios up above on the building on the top. those are doing quite well, okay? You gotta have parking and things like that. But that's just an example of what's happening with the commercial space. Now, everybody knows there's a lot of commercial notes that are coming due, the repricing, you know, the five-year repricing. Those rates are going up. Now, they're gonna go back down next year, but you gotta wait five years to get the new lower rate. And a lot of those people are gonna be selling their buildings, right? So just get ready for some opportunities here. I also believe that their residential market is going to improve because we are getting a new Fed chairman, that guy's terms up, and the new Fed chairman, you can rest assured, is probably gonna lower rates. And so you're gonna see a lot more activity on the residential side too. Unfortunately, it means prices will go up again, but payments will go down. So that's what I'm anticipating. Don't quote me on it. Don't shoot me if I'm wrong. It's just what I believe is going to happen based Yeah. That's great. It sounds positive. Um, so I think there's some good, good stuff coming in the future. You, you talked and touched a little bit on purpose there. Um, so let's, let's move into that and talk about purpose and trust and, and relationships. Um, talk about how do you, how do you build trust with investors over time Yeah, I gotta tell you, it starts with education. In fact, our, our motto on the team is four things, success, is a result of three variables. The first one is the right education. You've got to have the right education, folks, to be a good investor. And if you're a smart agent, if you're an investor agent, there's a certification. And I know it because I'm the only one that offers it. I teach it. Be a certified investor agent. Join the team if you want, because that way you work with other people doing the same thing across the country in your network. but teach your people how to invest. For all the investors listening, you need to demand that from your agents, okay? Don't just pick somebody that's your neighbor's nephew because they got your license. That's not a good team member. You need a team member that knows what they're doing, just like a contractor that knows what they're doing, a lender knows what they're doing. You need an agent that is a certified investor agent, okay? Preferably on the global investor agent team. Then you follow that with the right information. So the cool thing about the right education It leads to and shows you how to use the right information. Right. And the third thing is the right action. So the right education with the right information leads to the right action, which number four gives you the right results. So everybody out there that's servicing an investor. You've got to take it seriously, build that model out separate from your retail model. Your owner-occupants is a separate motivation, separate mindset, totally different. Investors, if you don't have that, if you don't have unique models for each of those markets, you're trying to serve them with one model, somebody is going to suffer and it's probably going to be you and your clients, by the way. So your investors out there listening, this is what I'm saying. I know there's lots of programs out there you can spend. I mean, I know some of them charge over$100,000. I'm not gonna knock them. You know what, they might be good, I don't know, but I don't think you have to spend that kind of money. Find yourself an agent that's gonna earn a commission off the property you buy for a few thousand dollars that you don't even pay. As a result, you get the education from us. Everything from flipping homes, buying rentals, managing rentals, wholesaling and commercial, right? Do it the right way. The learning you learn by doing in this business Get the right education, get the right aid, the right information, get the right agent, take the right action and learn. Start small, start small, start with a duplex, start with a flip. I know people starting off with 90-unit buildings. God bless them. There's a lot of risk to take on your first move because there's things you just don't know. So the trust comes from Teaching and being taught. That's where everybody can name teachers that they love today because they trusted them because in high school, they didn't just teach them how to read and write. They taught them how to be mature, professional members of society, right? That's what you want. You should expect it from yourself. You should expect it from the people who are You talked a bit about the experience and building trust through experience. What's Oh, my gosh. One of them is to be patient. I've seen so many times, Robert, and I'm guilty of it myself, too. I had success early on because I was very disciplined. I put myself in a funnel and only made decisions inside the funnel of education information. But then I started getting too cocky. I thought, I'm really good because I flipped three homes. I got 30 rental units and I got it all figured out. Then I started to get too aggressive too fast. So I want you to think of this as a campfire. When you build a campfire in your backyard or you're camping, whatever, you don't start off lighting the big logs. That's not going to work. You're going to create a lot of smoke. You start off lighting the little twigs and the little leaves and stuff like that. Then you add a bigger twig and a little teeny branch and a bigger branch. You're starting small and growing big. You want to learn small, learn on a small scale, and grow big after that. Step by step by step. Eliminating errors and mistakes that rookies often make, like me, growing too fast. At one time, I had 17 projects going on at the same time. That is just, nobody, you can't do that. A bunch. It's really difficult. Here's what'll happen. Contractors are gonna call you and say, you know what, Garrett, we opened up the wall, they put in that new piping, guess what? You got all this knob and tube, you gotta replace all that now too. And I just kept saying yes, yes, yes, yes, all day long. When the smog cleared and all the dust had settled, I think I broke even on those because I kept saying yes, new countertops, new cabinetry, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Instead of working on four projects, which is doable in various stages, where you can go and visit the properties, every single day. Go in the morning, go in the afternoon, go at night. Go when the contractors aren't there so you can make your own assessment. And by the way, don't pay contractors on Fridays. Only pay contractors on Mondays. You heard it from me. I swear by it, I promise you, your contractors will always show up on Monday and they'll always finish the job on a Friday and do a good job because they want to get paid on Monday. So in any case, those are some of the lessons I learned big ones and little ones about the contractors and we'll make sure your contractors are licensed. And for certain things like electrical and plumbing, they should be bonded as well. Okay. Love it. Love it. A lot of good, uh, advice in that. And, um, I think that I love the pay contractors on Monday. Uh, it's not something I've thought about, but yeah, you're going to make them finish strong in the week and then, um, and Perfect. So let's, um, let's go through a lightning round, uh, to conclude here. I think we've had a great conversation and always love the lightning round section of this. Cause, um, you hear real quick on a, Hey, what's, what's, what's on your mind. Um, and we'll start with, we've got five questions here. We'll start with what's the best Oh, my gosh. Well, probably the one of the most recent ones was, I used to be in the big box brokerages, the franchise models, they're on the ropes. They know what everybody, everybody that knows anything about business knows that they're on the ropes. That's why they're buying and merging with each other, trying to limit operations and buy time. So the organizational model is the best model out there. EFP was the first one to do it in 2009. And then about six years ago, others started copying it, LPT, RealEpic, They're not knocking any of them. They're just, they're smart. They're copying the thing that works. So here's the big difference. In a franchise model, you're basically promoting the franchise itself. You're promoting RE-MAX and Cold War Banker and Structure 21. It's their model. It's not your model. It's their model. If you're entrepreneurial and you're a business builder at heart, you've got to go with an organizational model that gives you the operations platform that you then stand upon to conduct business and grow, not just in your local market, And I've got agents in 38 states. I'm not licensed in 38 states, I'm licensed in one state. But because the way the model is structured legally, I can operate in all 38 states by virtue of the fact that I have agents licensed in those states, reporting to those brokers of record. That's too technical for this subject, but I just wanna tell you, that decision, hands down, in my 40 years of business, is the best decision I ever made. I made, in my first two years here, Justin Rêveenue Share, sharing company dollar, I made 26 times more Justin Rêveenue Share than I did the prior eight years of the big box company I was at that had what they call profit share. See, profit share is net profit. At the end, gross revenue share is gross revenue coming in on the front end before expenses were paid. Huge difference. In our line, the line we're in, we're the number one line in the entire company. Everybody knows it once they get in. So I suggest to you agents out there, do your research and choose wisely. Don't pick your neighbor's nephew or your high school buddy. That's not a business decision. Make a business decision like I did. And now I've got, you know, again, 120 some odd people in 38 states and life's pretty good. I'm happy. I've never been so fulfilled in my life because I'm doing what I love. I love to teach. I Yeah. Sorry. I know that's not a lightning fast answer, but that's all Ooh. When it comes to bringing people in, whether they're tenants, renting your apartments or people working for you on a team, you need to take your time. You need to be very selective, right? Your edge to only attract the people that you want to be connected with. attract people in your wording, you know, entrepreneurial, business builders, you know, this, you know, work ethic, this, things like that, and screen them thoroughly. It's an old saying, trust but verify. Trust what they say, but verify it. Check out, you know, references, look at their work history, be very thorough, because you want a higher flow. And if you ever do make a mistake, fire fast. That's the second mistake I made was trying to be too nice to people, giving them too many chances, that will ruin your culture. It'll harm your team. It'll harm your business. And if you don't take seriously, this is what I just told you, one Well, I've got a lot of them, but one of them is every morning I wake up about 5am. I say my prayers. I do quiet silent prayer, which is meditation after that. Then I exercise, and I have my vision board right in front of me when I exercise. So I'm exercising my body and my mind, and then I don't turn on the phone or the computer or anything that has to do with the rest of the world. So after I've done all of that and eaten breakfast and cleaned up, then when I start, I'm ready to rock and roll. I mean, I mean, Fifth gear, the train has left the station, and sometimes people have a hard time keeping up. But you know what? I want to run with the runners. Life is too short to crawl with the crawlers. You want to run with the runners. But that daily habit, that routine, I've been doing that since my 20s. And my metabolic age is literally half of my chronological age because of those habits, eating well, sleeping well, and exercising my mind and my body and my spirit consistently daily. in one house jail. That's the best avenue ever. That's great. Love that. All right. One, one principle you Um, it really has to be honor and integrity. So I'm going to show you this real quickly. I'm going to talk to you. I suppose you're not going to be able to see that. They call that my wall of honor, beauty, honor, country. These are the guys that serve a country going back three different generations. I mean, we're talking people that have won, Medals of Honor, you know, Army Air Crosses, Silver Crosses. There's a pilot up there. He busts these smoky stover shoes. We got a book written about him in a movie. He was an ace. You know, those people, they work too, but they work sleeping on the ground and people shooting at them. Bombs going off. And they still got the job done. And they came out of the service and lived a really good life. They made this country. For you and I, I didn't have to serve because of what they did. So the thing about them is consistent, the honor part, the middle part, duty, honor, country, honors in the middle, because it's the anchor, right? And everybody should operate with honor in everything you do. You know, there was a time in my life where I would take shortcuts to grow. And you're going to regret that if you do that, I promise you, it's going to come back and haunt you. Live with honor, work with honor, treat other people with honor, right? I can't emphasize that enough, right? That's great, Gary. And I think you've offered a lot of great advice. I think it's a perfect one to conclude on. And I appreciate you joining us today. How can people reach out to Well, I'll tell you what, I'm easily accessible. If people just go to globalinvestoragent.com, you'll see on there, you can check out the agents. You can see everything we do. You can't go internally to what the team members see. But you can read about me, listen to me talk. You can get a link to set up a call with me there. And you'll actually have a call with me, the real me, not a clone or anything like that, or an AI robot. It's actually me. Reach out to me, guys. You can come to Monday Night Live Clash on that website. Up at the top, there's a rolling banner. When you see Monday Night Live, click on it. Register for Clash. It's open to the public. I teach every Monday at 7 p.m. Eastern, OK? But that you can come to class and down below at the bottom, you set up a call with me. Just be prepared because the calls I take seriously. I'm on the call to help you solve a problem or answer a question. So be prepared to work and take notes. Those are the two best Yeah, perfect. Well, hey, Gary, appreciate again having you here on the show and thank you for joining. I know you're a busy guy and appreciate you spending a few minutes with us today and look forward to having the audience listen and reach out and have conversations with you. So Appreciate the opportunity and God bless all your followers too. And Thank you. Thanks for listening to The Purpose Driven Investor. If today's episode sparked an idea or inspired you to make an impact, connect with me at howellandsons.com. Join our community of purpose-driven investors who are helping families find stable homes while building real returns. Because when