How To Take Your Income Through Investment Opportunities with Chris Larsen

Chris Larsen is the Founder and Managing Partner of Next Level Income, through which he helps investors become financially independent through education and investment opportunities. He has been investing and managing real estate for over 20 years. He has a degree in Biomechanical Engineering and MBA in Finance at Virginia Tech. He bought his first single-family rental at age 21.

Chris Larsen went on to basically start syndicating deals and has been involved in over $150 million in real estate acquisitions. He lives in the great state of North Carolina, with his wife and his two sons.

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Brett:

Our next guest is the Founder and Managing Partner of Next-Level Income, through which he helps investors become financially independent through education and investment opportunities. He has been investing and managing real estate for over 20 years. He has a Degree in Biomechanical Engineering and MBA in Finance at Virginia Tech. He bought his first single-family rental at age 21. He then went on to basically start syndicating deals and has been involved in over $150 million in real estate acquisitions. He lives in the great state of North Carolina, with his wife and his two sons, please welcome the show with me, Christopher Larsen. Hey, Chris, how are you doing today?

Chris:

I’m doing great. Great to see you again.

Brett:

Absolutely. You’re coming in loud and clear now. It looks like our travels from before are all gone away. So I’m excited for you to get to know you a little bit more on the show and our listeners to get to know a little bit more as well. So for those who are just getting to know you, would you tell us a little bit more about your story, and your background, and your current focus?

Chris:

Yeah, Brett. I appreciate you having me on. I know you mentioned a little bit here in the beginning about buying my first property at age 21. And when I was in college, I was racing bicycles. And you mentioned doing a Biomechanical Engineering Degree. I knew two weeks in that I didn’t want to be an Engineer, I want to race my bike. So I was like, I’ll get a degree, I’ll go race my bike for five years or so I’ll come back and figure out what I really want to do. Well, between my freshman and sophomore year of college, my best friend, my trading partner, my roommate passed away. And it kind of threw me on my heels. I raced for another year, I poured my heart and soul into it. And I was doing really well. But after a year of doing that, and being is the most successful I’ve been, I realized I wasn’t happy, I came back to school, I quit racing my bike. And now I’m not racing my bike. I don’t want to be an engineer. And I still wanted the sense of freedom that I had when I was riding my bike when I was traveling to races and doing that. And I started, I started being a normal college kid, but also start investing in the stock market. So this is the late 90s. It’s interesting that there’s a ton of parallels in my mind between what’s going on today. And what was going on back then? So as day trading, it’s making a ton of money. I was also a college kid, I was also losing money. And one night at 3 am, I was laying there thinking and it’s just like, it’s what I want to do. I’m 40 years old laying in bed like freaking out about what my portfolios doing and worrying. And I started reading about other investment options that were out there outside of the stock market and I came upon real estate, ended up buying my first property, I liked the fact that you could leverage so I for $3,000 a lesson that I bought my first party, you could have other people come in and pay off your debt, pay off your mortgage for you, you had cash flow, but you could also kind of control the purchase price and also the appreciation in some ways. So I managed a single-family portfolio for 15 years. But after doing that, and being in the medical device industry, at the same time, I decided it was just it was too much for too little reward ended up transitioning in 2013 to commercial real estate, mainly multifamily, and as you mentioned, ultimately started syndicating deals in 2016. And now our goal through Next-Level Income is to provide not only those opportunities through syndication but also education. So that’s why I love being on your show, Brett because you help educate investors and help people figure out ways to not only keep more of their money but ultimately let it continue to grow.

Brett:

Beautiful, amazing story, and so much to dive into here in a minute. Here’s a question for you to start. I believe we’ve all been given certain gifts, Chris, and these gifts are given to us to be a blessing and help to others. So I’m curious, maybe it’s one or two gifts you believe you were given and how does that help how you help people today?

Chris:

Yeah, I mean, my wife would say that my gift, my superpower is that I get calmer, the crazier things get. So I spent 18 years in the medical device industry actually the end of Q1 2021, I officially walked away from that to spend 100% of my time on Next-Level Income. But I really think the gift of being able to translate complex ideas whether it’s a medical device industry or financial situations, assimilate the information, then translate those two people in ways that they can ultimately do things with them. And again, I think I utilize that the or when I was working with neurosurgeons, brain surgeons, spine surgeons, saying, “here’s this technology, here’s how you can utilize it.” But also for investors,” here’s this space that a lot of people haven’t heard about.” They’ve been just investing in the typical stock-bond portfolios out there, they can have this type of investment class in commercial real estate that only the ultra-rich had access to 10, 20 years ago.

Brett:

Excellence the same cool under fire, staying calm, calm when the craziness gets going there. So let’s dive into those parallels. You mentioned day trading, things are high, we’re in the Robin Hood environment here. Right? We’re in the what’s the recent one, the Reddit, right? Where people are banding together to buy a stock. So give us your thoughts on where we are at right now and why more than ever, commercial real estate is your go-to choice for investing?

Chris:

Yeah, so I read a ton. If you look behind me, there’s only a handful of books back there. One of my favorites is The Secret Life of Real Estate and Banking. And I believe that the economy, real estate goes in cycles, real estate, specifically, and income these 18-year cycles. What’s interesting is the stock market parallels those cycles a lot as well. I think we’re getting into the latter part of the cycle in real estate. And I think we’re at this point where personally, I think the stock market is highly overvalued, there’s not a lot of value there. There’s a lot of froth, there’s a lot of speculation that’s going on. So I think this time if you look at where we are, if you look at the late 90s, it’s a good time to look at other asset classes and potentially diversify your portfolio. So no typical rebalancing and portfolio and by the way, I talked about, talk about all this talk about the history of my book, which you can get I know you had a website up there nextlevelincome.com, we have a book link on there, and I’ll do your audience, I’ll give it away for you. So if you’re listening, and you want to learn a little bit more about what I’m doing kind of specifics of anything I’m diving into just click on the book link, I’ll even send you a copy if you put your address on there. But I talk about how real estate in my book, I talk about how it can provide a buffer, it can provide increased returns, but also decreased volatility in your portfolio. And if you’re looking at the stock market right now, and you’ve done really well, I think it’s a great time to start looking at other alternatives that can help provide some stability going forward.

Brett:

Yeah, this thing, the simple thing is to sell high buy low. A cash flow that’s going to pay and what is the cash flow coming from people living in homes and apartments, I like mobile home parks. I like senior housing, I live multifamily value add. And so let’s talk about the North Carolina market and where you’re finding deals or even just talking about the recent deal you’ve done, what he liked about it, what it looked like to buy it to find it, and what you’re doing now to improve the property?

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