Be The Bank

002 - Who Is Richard Thornton

January 25, 2023 Justin Bogard Season 5 Episode 2
Be The Bank
002 - Who Is Richard Thornton
Show Notes Transcript

Be The Bank S5 Ep2 - Who is Richard Thornton

On episode 2 of season 5, Justin Bogard and Richard Thornton discuss Richard's professional path!

Key Takeaways:

  1. Vietnam is one of the top coffee bean exporters
  2. Richard professional career
  3. Real Estate Funds

Resources and links discussed

About the Host

Justin Bogard – Note Investor specializing in performing Residential Real Estate Debt. He finds deals and acquires them for his own portfolio as well as educates investors while walking them through the process of owning a Real Estate Note!

Connect with the Host:

Narrator:

Interest in real estate. How about wealth? Well, they go hand in hand. And here you'll learn all about it. Welcome to Be the Bank, a podcast where we discuss and debate the topics centered around real estate investing. Your host, Justin Bogart, shares insights into investing in real estate to create real wealth and passive income for you and your family. He'll share stories of real estate investments done right, walk you through the process of owning a real estate note, and most importantly, educate you so you can be the bank, your bank. This is be the Bank brought to you by Bright Path Notes. Now here's your host, Justin.

Justin Bogard:

Welcome back to another fun and exciting episode for season five, episode number two of the Be the Bank podcast. I'm Justin Bogart, and today we are going to have Mr. Richard Thornton back on today, my business partner. Um, and we will be discussing, kind of having an interview about Richard, kind of get to know who Richard is, kind of his journey and his professional career and how he, he ended up, um, in, in my circle in my network, and how we are joining forces and going forward today. So stay tuned. You're gonna like this Richard, if they gave it out an award for the most, uh, podcast, um, blunders

Richard Thornton:

Bloopers for,

Justin Bogard:

For an episode, I think I would take the cake for the episode number two.<laugh>.

Richard Thornton:

Yeah, how are you? I was gonna say good. I'm good, thanks. I was gonna say, I, I like your new apartment. The view out the window there is fantastic.

Justin Bogard:

We are mobile investors and we are just all over the world traveling. That's that's right. Speaking of all over the world, um, this is an early morning recording for me and this is a late evening recording for you because you are actually 12 hours ahead of me, according to our time zone differences. So where are you today?

Richard Thornton:

I am in Dlot, Vietnam as we speak, uh, which is about 5,000 feet up in the hills in the coffee region of Vietnam, central Vietnam.

Justin Bogard:

Did you say the coffee region?

Richard Thornton:

Yeah. Uh, Vietnam most people don't noticed is the number two producer of coffee in the world. Um, they didn't grow any of it before the French, um, had their, uh, colonizing period here, but the French brought, um, coffee and they found that the climate was quite conducive to growing it. And so now they, um, it's one of their biggest cash crops

Justin Bogard:

Really. Okay. I did not know that as well. I'm sure a lot of our audience didn't know that. Maybe they did know that. And I'm just the one person that doesn't know about

Richard Thornton:

It. I doubt it. I mean, I didn't know it before we first, this is our, this is our second time here and we will probably come back, um, throughout ages. You know, we've been to Thailand and Cambodia and all around. Um, but we enj enjoy this part of the world.

Justin Bogard:

That's awesome. So I want to kind of learn a little bit about, about you. Uh, obviously we've been friends and business partners for a few years now, and I, I know, I know you, but I don't really know your past as well. And this was a good opportunity for me to kind of get into Richard's kind of professional journey to how he kind of ended up where he is today with, with, with us and, uh, how we joined forces and created a company called American Note Buyers, who's a a and B funds company.

Richard Thornton:

Mm-hmm.

Justin Bogard:

<affirmative>. And so I assume you went to a college somewhere and you graduated and you kind of started your professional journey there. Like what is that about? Right. Or did you skip Skip school cuz you were so smart and you went straight into being, you know,

Richard Thornton:

Oh, I wish the

Justin Bogard:

Guru.

Richard Thornton:

Yeah. No, I, I was one of those, uh, overeducated people that, um, kind of didn't know what he wanted to do and got a master's degree in urban planning and then decided that I didn't wanna be an urban planner, but I really did like real estate finance. And so I went back, got another master's degree from another university, um, and Washington DC uh, in finance and actually started out working for a large syndicator at the time, um, and was running numbers and doing analysis for different deals that we were doing. And, um, that's how I got my, my start in real estate.

Justin Bogard:

Okay. So you got two different master's degree, one for urban planning and one for real estate finance, is that correct?

Richard Thornton:

Correct.

Justin Bogard:

Okay. I had a little bit of a issue on my audio on my side, so I wasn't sure if it was the same on yours. This is what's cool about having the, uh, year halfway across the world from me, and we're still able to record and communicate the, uh, you know, the internet. It's pretty, pretty neat. So

Richard Thornton:

Yeah, I, I found that the connections are pretty amazing. I think I've mentioned to you that, uh, throughout Asia anyway, and I know this is not so much the case in Europe, but Europe is, uh, more developed. Um, they never had the hard wire, uh, systems for telephones and things like that that we had in the US mm-hmm.<affirmative>. So they said, uh, this, that, and that's known as a legacy system. So they just said, well, let's skip it and let's just go to antennas and uh, go to cell phones and high speed wireless so you can be 25 miles out in the jungle and still have five bars on your phone.

Justin Bogard:

That's pretty cool. And

Richard Thornton:

<laugh>. Exactly. And so we have ha been in some pretty amazing places and been able to, um, get very decent internet.

Justin Bogard:

That's awesome.

Richard Thornton:

Mm-hmm.<affirmative>.

Justin Bogard:

So what did you do after you worked for the Syndicator and how, how long did you worked for the syndicator?

Richard Thornton:

Oh, I worked for the syndicate for a couple years and the syndication market started to fold after that. Um,

Justin Bogard:

Gimme a timeline. When, when was this, I don't mean to date you too much, but I kind of curious as to know when, what timeline this

Richard Thornton:

Is. Yeah, I have old and I've got got, I've got gray hair, so that's fine.<laugh>. Um, yeah, no, so that was a, actually what was coming upon us at that point was 1986. Now, for most of you who don't know it, there was something called the 1986 Tax Act. Mm-hmm.<affirmative> and Congress in its infinite wisdom, um, had allowed all sorts of, uh, accelerated depreciation and things like at up to that point to where it actually skewed the numbers on deals so badly that people were investing and they were getting such a savings in taxes, um, that they were basically had no investment after five years. Wow. So Congress said, wait, um, this is way too much. Um, and they changed the whole tax law. Now, what that did was that caused a huge debacle in the market. Okay. Um, it caused, caused the savings and loan crisis. Uh, it meant that a lot of people went under, a lot of companies went under because they all were suffering what's called phantom income, where they had to declare all of those write-offs as income. And guess what? They didn't have the money to pay up. So it was, um, a huge disaster. And so at that time, um, the associate, one of the associates that I was working with and myself said, well, banking industry's going sideways, syndications going sideways. Um, let's start our own lending company. Okay. Uh, so it took us over a year to get qualified, but we call, got, uh, licenses for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and FHA loans. And I don't mean small residential, I mean, um, large commercial. So the smallest loan we would do would be 10 million mm-hmm.<affirmative>, and it was mostly on large apartment complexes, a hundred units up. And we started lending on that. The good news was is that most of the REITs like equity residential and what's now known as Avalon Bay, and some of the other ones were also just starting up. Okay. And they didn't have, they weren't, uh, didn't have credit ratings at that time. So now, um, those groups are big enough. They go to Wall Street, they've flow with their own debt and there's no big deal, but they couldn't do that then. So they had to turn to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to do deals. So we did a lot of large deals. I did portfolios of deals that ranged anywhere from 150 to 460 million at a time. Wow. Uh, one of my biggest clients had over 45,000 apartments nationwide, and we financed most of his portfolio as a private individual. Wow.<laugh>. Um, so yeah. So by the time we sold the company, um, uh, we actually had over an$8 billion portfolio. Now, the banks hadn't wanted to get into that business to start with. Yeah. But, um, when we, as a boutique company and some of our competitors started, started to have portfolios that were north of 5 billion, they started to take notice because we were larger than a lot of the savings and loans at that time.

Justin Bogard:

Okay.

Richard Thornton:

So, um, they all get scooped up and anywhere from about 1995 to 2000, uh, they started to get scooped up and we sold out, um, our company in, uh, 2000.

Justin Bogard:

That was right when the.com bubble was happening,

Richard Thornton:

Wasn't it? Right when the.com bubble, um, uh, burst. I was very fortunate when I had a, um, a, uh, non-compete for over a year. So they had to pay me when they Oh, wow. Worked or not. Yeah.<laugh><laugh>. So it was very, I was very nice. Um, but I went off and, and did some, uh, some of my own syndications at the time and actually, uh, turned to some of my clients and started buying, um, senior facilities. So we'd go to, uh, sunrise Senior Living or one of these larger groups, we'd buy a building for say, 20 million. I would arrange an F H J loan for 15, I would raise 5 million, uh, with various partners. Uh, and we'd hold onto it for 10 years or something like that. That was the projected, um, hold period. And we weren't part of the business. We just did a triple that lease to them because, um, actually most, uh, seniors facilities have a 30 to 40% profit margin. Okay. And so it's really not worth it for them to own the real estate. This is like, you know, most companies, oh, I don't own cars. They lease'em. Well, why? Because they can deduct the lease payments. Yeah. Um, and they don't have to deal with the, the ongoing maintenance. So, um, we would do triple net leases, and I did a bunch of those deals and this a little thing called the recession, came along after that and, um, pretty much wiped out that market.

Justin Bogard:

I have a question. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. So these senior, uh, facilities, how, how big are they? Are you talking like a single family residence with, with, you know, multiple rooms available? Or are we talking like an actual, like a building, um, like, you know, like a couple story building or a big, big, big commercial space?

Richard Thornton:

Well, we paid 20 to 25 million for each one of these.

Justin Bogard:

So it wasn't at home.

Richard Thornton:

So that wasn't at home. No.<laugh>, what you're speaking to is what's called a board and care facility. Yeah. And those could be quite profitable, but no, these ranged anywhere from, I'd say probably 95 units to a couple hundred units, depending on whether they were skilled nursing facility, private pay, Medicare pay mm-hmm.<affirmative> assisted living or whatever.

Justin Bogard:

Where geographically, where were you guys mostly?

Richard Thornton:

Um, kinda all over. We had, uh, one facility in Hawaii, Copeland, California. I actually just sold my last one last year. Uh, my last interest, um, and it was in, um, Illinois. Uh, we had three or four of'em scattered around the, the Midwest. Um, so there was a big, I won't go into the details, but there was a, a lot of, uh, churches, the Lutheran church, the Baptist church, and they started their own nonprofit assisted living facilities. Okay. And the, the model that they had did not work. Um, they had to redo that. So we ended up buying a lot of those facilities and redoing them.

Justin Bogard:

Ok.

Richard Thornton:

Um, and it worked out. It was kind of a win-win for, for everybody.

Justin Bogard:

Nice. All right. So then what happened after the, um, the liquidation of your, um, lending company? Sure.

Richard Thornton:

Yeah. And the various assets.

Justin Bogard:

And the various assets. Yeah. Um, so what did that,

Richard Thornton:

So, um, so then I actually started, uh, making private loans, hard money loans, whatever you wanna call mm-hmm.<affirmative>, because a lot of people were doing flips. And so I had a small fund. I had about 4 million, um, that I was managing for people putting into various deals. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, um, I got out of that a little bit too early. Okay. I was kind of sub, kind of didn't want to get out of it. Uh, I'm sorry, I did want to get out of it. Right. I gotner I got nervous with the risk is what is to be truthful about it.

Justin Bogard:

Where were we at this timeline?

Richard Thornton:

Uh, at this point we're about 2014 or something like that. 2012.

Justin Bogard:

So you were lending from early two thousands all the way up to 14. This is what we're talking about this time. Prime,

Richard Thornton:

Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. Okay. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. Right. And so, um, well, yeah. So I, so I was doing my, my syndications, um, until, actually until about 2010, just right before the recession start, 2209. 2 0 10. Okay. Um, whatever. And so then I had the, the, um, other fund for about four years, four or five years. Um, and, uh, I got nervous and said, look, I'm handing other people's money here. I'd rather do stuff with my own money. Okay. And started doing my own flips. Okay. And so I did a, did a bunch of flips throughout California, mostly the, the, um, bay area. And as part of that and my hard money lending, I found out about notes.

Justin Bogard:

Okay. So when you were doing flips, were they, um, were you pretty much going to auctions and buying your properties there? How were you, how were you doing your inventory compared to other flippers at that time?

Richard Thornton:

I never bought anything at auction. Okay. I never still happened to this date. I was fortunate enough there was enough, um, property that was, uh, had nods, donuts defaults on and things like that, that various realtors knew about. And they just fed me product and I hit the, hit the market just at the right time. I was making huge profits on it. This was before a lot of the, um, weekend flippers and got into it and there was all, you know, all the shows and things like that. Right. Um, but I did a fair number of those and, um, got into, uh, investing in notes and actually thought that investing in notes was, uh, a little bit safer. Uh, cuz at one point the market, the flip market in California actually paused.

Justin Bogard:

Yeah.

Richard Thornton:

And I had nine, uh, nine, uh, houses going at once. I had a 30,000 wow month, uh, debt service, and I got a little bit nervous for a

Justin Bogard:

While. Yeah.<laugh>. Yeah. That's a lot of flips. I've, I've managed a few at a time before in my mm-hmm.<affirmative> my previous life. And it was a lot to handle, especially when you're trying to gc everything. I'm not sure if Yeah. You were trying to GC all of them or just you had other cons. I had a

Richard Thornton:

Cons. Yeah. Yeah. I had a construction partner, so I was a money guy. Good. And my, my, my construction, I mean, I know a fair amount of my construction, but not to the level that is necessary for that type of thing. So,

Justin Bogard:

So that, but

Richard Thornton:

The number, the numbers got too big. Yeah. You know, in California, um, when I got started, I could buy something for 300,000, uh, put a hundred thousand into it and sell it, sell it for six or$7,000. 600,000<laugh>. Yeah, exactly. Sorry. Um, by the time I got out of it, um, I was lucky if I could buy something for, uh, five or 600,000 Wow. And, and put 150 into it and make less of a margin. So yeah. If I had wanted to go into the Central Valley or someplace like that, I could have stayed in the game. But that's a two hour drive. Yeah. I mean, yeah.

Justin Bogard:

Yeah. I think that was around the time when, um, flippers started to get squeezed a lot more mm-hmm.<affirmative>, and I think it's continu continually been a squeeze ever since that, uh, 14, 15, 16 timeframe, uh, ever so slight. I think it's been more aggressive lately the last couple years as far as to squeeze on their profit margins, which is why I don't see a lot of flippers compared to when I was getting into it in 1516 as it is today.

Richard Thornton:

And that's one of the reasons I'm really excited about the product that we're offering, uh, different wholesalers, um, for their notes because, uh, if we can, um, help them, uh, increase their profits Yeah. Uh, and create good notes out of that, that's that's a good day's business for both, both parties.

Justin Bogard:

Yeah. It's, uh, it's a different way for'em to think. Right. They have to kind of think outside the box and, and the ones that do a lot of transactions, they know about seller financing. They know how to sell a house on terms, they're not unfamiliar with it, but what they're not familiar with is being compliant. Right. And making the note as secure for them and the borrower, whereas they can and compliant. And so, so that's one of the, one of the missions that we have now is going across to different states and hitting different, uh, real estate clubs and groups and kind of educating some of the, the wholesalers and getting them to know the right path to go down because if they wanted to sell this paper in the future to somebody like us, um, they're doing it in the best way that they can to make the most money that they can, uh, to be profitable because we aspire anyone to be the bank. Right. We're not just trying to gobble up everything that we can. We, we want others to benefit from learning how to create wealth. So,

Richard Thornton:

Yeah. And in this case, um, I think, uh, you know, I haven't talked about this, uh, yet, but, um, I'm talking right now to a developer, um, land buyer in Texas mm-hmm.<affirmative>, who for the last five years has been no doing nothing but buying land Parcelling out and, and selling it off. Um, and he said he's probably got upward of 50 notes Wow. That he could, he could eventually sell us. He would be perfectly happy with, um, if we can't get him out completely mm-hmm.<affirmative>, uh, taking back seconds on those, he'll pick back seconds probably at 12% and create a, a wonderful little annuity for himself. Yeah. And, um, be able to go on and have enough money to go out and, and do another deal. So, um, that's a pretty good product.

Justin Bogard:

Yeah. So we have a first lien mm-hmm.<affirmative>, and we have second lien, and then borrower has a down payment. So we got three things that make up the purchase price there just for the, our listening audience here. And so that first lien, if it's sold, obviously the bulk of that wholesaler's money is gonna be returned to them in the form of the first lien getting paid by a note seller, like a note a buyer like us, and also that down payment. So they do collect a lot of money and then they get that future cash flow as well with that second, cuz that second is happening at the same time. It's not like it's a, um, a stack second to where it has to wait till the first matures and then the second kicks in. Right. So that's what we're talking about is it's a simultaneous payment that the borrower is making on the first and the second mortgage. For those of you that haven't experienced that or been a part of that, that's what we're talking about.

Richard Thornton:

Right. And so, um, I started doing as, you know, as, as you did also, uh, doing notes, um mm-hmm.<affirmative> by myself, uh, under my own banner of American Art Capital. Um, and that's going, has gone, gone fine. And, uh, actually I'm still picking up deals as you are through Bright Path, although we're both sort of winding those down for the, the a and B funds, which we're now, now working on mm-hmm.<affirmative>. Um, but we've got a lot of good presence there. And I think, um, one thing that, uh, I didn't quite realize, I mean, I, I was working with a lot of other people when we had my mortgage company. I mean, at one one point we had over over 70 employees. Um, I'd never wanna go back to that again.<laugh>. Cause managing 70 people is just way, way, uh, too, too much.

Justin Bogard:

It's like managing, uh, nine flips at the same time. Right?

Richard Thornton:

Yeah. Yeah. But one thing I would, one thing I would offer, you're right, very much so one thing I would offer to different people who are, uh, note investors, if they wanna be in the game full-time, get somebody to work with. Yeah. I mean, I've thoroughly enjoyed and, and do enjoy working with you. I think our skillsets manage or, uh, uh, match very well. I'm much more of the big picture marketing guy, and you're very much more the operational purpose person. Both are extremely necessary. And, um, I think you can get more done, a whole lot more done, um, as is evidence for the, uh, what we're doing now. I mean, what was our total count this last year for, uh, number transactions? We did Justin,

Justin Bogard:

Um, for 2022. We were, we were close to just 50, I think. And we were only mm-hmm.<affirmative> in it together for about 75% of the year. Right. We, we had done on, we had done many transactions very quickly.

Richard Thornton:

Yeah. And I did probably 10 myself. I don't know, for American, no capital. I don't know how many you you did, but I mean, we are busy and, and we're both very busy right now as we're setting up the, the new fund. I think it's gonna be very competitive what, what we're offering for returns. Um, and, you know, we're very willing to talk to people about that if they'd ever like to know anything more about it. But it's a, it's a good time to set up a fund given where we are in the market right now.

Justin Bogard:

Yeah. I think we've discovered, and we kind of touched on this a little bit earlier, about the squeeze for the flippers and the wholesalers has been, uh, ever so prominent these past, past two years with the way real estate shortages have, have been, have, have been across the country and different markets, and some are better than others. So we find that we have these, these journeymen flippers and these journeymen wholesalers that are staying true to what they want to do in their craft. Right. And still do that sort of standard real estate investing. And then we have some of these other people that want to be in real estate investing, but they just don't have the time, they don't have the skill, they don't have the patience to actually set up a business to run, to be that flipper, to be the wholesaler. And their next option is, you know, to be a passive investor and purchasing mortgage notes for their own portfolio, or even p being part of a fund is definitely a strong option. And it's an option that more people are turned onto in this current markets. Um, most of us are busy professionals. Right. We have a current career, we have a family, and time outside of those two things is very minimal. And so it's hard to put in, you know, as you put it so eloquently, the weekend Warriors or the weekend flippers, you know, they, th those people are very few far in between right now. It's either you're full-time or you're not.

Richard Thornton:

Right. Right. And I, and I think it's somewhat the same for note investors. I mean, a lot of people want to get into it, wanna do their own deals, um, but they don't realize, uh, the amount of time it takes. And so I'm actually finding a number of the, um, people that have, that I've sold whole notes to mm-hmm.<affirmative> are coming back to me now and saying, gee, Richard, um, send me information on your fund. I'd just like to do that and just be completely passive. Yeah. Um, not that their notes are taking a long time, but they just want, they weren't done for you. They really don't want to, to put up with a, the day to day. So we're good with

Justin Bogard:

That. That is the, the, um, I wanna say the, uh, the mission for most people right now is done for you. It's not that we're lazy, it's just that we just don't have, we don't have enough time in the day. We can't stretch a day more than 24 hours. Right. It is finite. It's just 24 hours. So that's what they have to discover is like, how can I still make money? I understand I won't make as much money as I am as if I'm active, but I would, my time is more valuable than that extra, uh, difference between what I could make and what I do make being passive. Meaning if they can make, you know, a, a 10 or 20% ROI on an on investment being very active versus making six to 8% being very passive, it's like that difference in making the money versus the time that they get back, you know, there's several thousands of hours during the year, um Right. Makes all the difference in the world.

Richard Thornton:

Yeah. And as actually we've talked about, um, if you go to, uh, probably both of our websites, um, the, we have what's called the 10 year model mm-hmm.<affirmative>. Um, and, uh, if you do what we prescribe, uh, in that period, um, and take the proceeds from your notes, don't spend them Yeah. Uh, on anything else, and actually buy another note, uh, you can more than double your money, your investment money in a 10 year period. Well, for those of you who are young enough out there, you know, in your thirties or your forties or something like that, uh, that's quite attractive. Yeah. Um, you can't say that about, um, a lot of investments that are completely, uh, passive.

Justin Bogard:

Right. Exactly. So our new website, for those of you that want to check it out, it's A and b funds.com, just go to www or just type in a and b funds.com in your URL browser of your choice, whether it's Google, Chrome, Firefox, um, safari, I don't even know what the other ones are now.<laugh>. So that's the only three that I know it's off of my head, but I'm sure there's plenty out there. Mm-hmm.<affirmative> and check it out, read through it mm-hmm.<affirmative> and ask those questions about it. We're happy to, to provide any sort of feedback that you're looking for. And, uh, if, if you're, if you want to do different types of investments, feel free to pick our brain as well. We are a complete open book about, uh, what we've done, what we've experienced, and then what we have to offer too. If we can help at all, we'd be glad to do it.

Richard Thornton:

Right now, I should probably close the loop, but we, we, uh, tick teased people and told them that I was in Vietnam. We didn't tell'em what I'm doing here. I mean, it's not like I link here all time or

Justin Bogard:

That's true<laugh>. Right. You'd pick up and laugh you like, uh, Vietnam this month. Uh, that's right. Go next month.

Richard Thornton:

Right. Well, this is a bit of an experiment. I mean, we're, this is a, a a five week, uh, sojo and uh, these last two weeks we have been staying in Airbnbs. We're in one now and, and, uh, we're in another one last week in different cities. And, uh, we're testing out what it's like to work remotely. I mean, people say, oh gee, the business can be done from just about anywhere mm-hmm.<affirmative>, and I'm testing that, that out. Um, and it's working. I I should say you have to adjust your hours. It, Justin has been flex have to be flexible with me in terms of, uh, uh, when to do things and when to have phone calls and things like that. Yeah. But, um, it's actually working pretty well.

Justin Bogard:

It is, it kind of forces our communication to be less phone calls and more, um, descriptive, you know, messages as far as whether they're text messages or emails or using our Microsoft teams, teams programs to get the point across. And I think sometimes it cuts down on some of the, we wouldn't call'em the, the chatty Kathy chatter, you know mm-hmm.<affirmative> that we may, that we may have when we get on the phone, because then we can kind of get back to our, to our, our ways of kind of getting off track pretty quickly. Uh, so that's, that's one positive to it, that the negative to it. The drawback is, you know, there is a large time zone difference. Um Right. Which also works to our advantage because we can be open 24 hours a day because when I am nighttime here and sleeping, you're full awake and daytime for you. So it's almost like it's a 24 hour operation when you have that 12 hour time. So you can look at it a couple different ways.

Richard Thornton:

Yeah. I mean, there are some times when you have to put up with some things like, I think you did last night and you were getting some texts from me at 11 o'clock at night.<laugh>, go ahead. Saying Richard Enough already.<laugh><laugh>. But you know, I mean, let's look at this way. We, we got a, a website launch. We've, you know, got quite a few systems set up. We're, uh, setting up our buy side website right now mm-hmm.<affirmative>, um, we'll probably have it done in the next two weeks. And, um, I think as of, uh, February 1st, we will be full bore raising money. Uh, we actually have more deals to do right now that we, um, than we have money. So, um, uh, please send money. Anybody<laugh>, just send us money. We don't, we'll figure out

Justin Bogard:

Details later.

Richard Thornton:

<laugh>, just send money, you know,

Justin Bogard:

Totally joking boxes.

Richard Thornton:

We're totally two boxes, two boxes. Anything you want, you know, so.

Justin Bogard:

Totally joking. This is not serious. That's

Richard Thornton:

Right.<laugh>.

Justin Bogard:

We do things the right way,

Richard Thornton:

<laugh>. That's right. That's

Justin Bogard:

Right. All right, Richard. Well, thanks a lot for helping me out with this podcast, episode number two today of season five of the Beta Bank podcast. And it is brought to you by American Note Buyers, our new company, which is an a and B Funds company. And I will see you, you'll be back home in good old Petaluma in, uh, one of our offices in Petaluma in a couple weeks. Uh, so enjoy the rest of your time in Vietnam and any other countries or cities that you're visiting. And, uh, feel free to do that FaceTime like you talked about earlier when we were offline. Uh, so I can see the kind of the, the, the street life out there in Vietnam. So I'm Justin Bogart and partner Richard Thorntons. Don't forget to check out a n b funds.com, our website and get more information about what we're doing together. Until next time, see you guys.

Speaker 4:

Bye.

Narrator:

Thanks for listening to Be The Bank. We hope you learn something from today's show. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and review us. Plus check out our Bright Path Notes channel on YouTube and follow us on Facebook and Twitter at Be the Bank and on Instagram at Be the Bank podcast, be The Bank is sponsored by Bright Path Notes. Thanks again for listening.