The Keith Andrews Podcast

Building Wealth and Community with the Military Investor Network | Stuart Grazier E32

• Keith Andrews • Season 1 • Episode 32

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In this episode, Keith sits down with retired naval officer and real estate entrepreneur Stuart Grazier, founder of the Military Investor Network. Stuart shares how he went from flying helicopters and Boeing 737s to building a multimillion dollar real estate portfolio while still serving in the Navy.

He talks about his first land deal that doubled in value, the lessons learned from bad turnkey providers, and how those experiences shaped the honest values driven business he runs today. Stuart also explains why real estate is a team sport and how your network truly becomes your net worth.

The conversation explores how the Military Investor Network connects active duty members, reservists, and veterans who want to build wealth, grow in community, and do business with people they know, like, and trust.

If you are in the military or a veteran looking to get smarter with money and surround yourself with a supportive community of investors, this episode is for you.

Learn more and join the Military Investor Network here.

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Early on, I tried to do everything on my own. I tried to learn on my own, just do everything on my own, be a one man team. And I think in some cases that's okay, but I quickly learned along the journey that real estate is a team sport. And the more people that's in your network and the relationships that you build along that journey, honestly, the better off you're gonna be. Cause you never know like when you're gonna need. something or someone or a resource or someone in the network. And so, you know, about halfway through that journey, I realized that like, I need to surround myself with other like-minded individuals. oh you All right, everybody. Welcome back to the Keith Andrews podcast. Today, I have my good friend Stuart Grazier here. He is a retired naval officer and an incredible real estate entrepreneur. Stuart built an impressive portfolio and thriving community, helping other service members and veterans achieve financial freedom and build lasting wealth. He's the founder of the Military Investor Network and I'm actually a part of that community myself. So I've seen firsthand what this community offers and it's pretty amazing. I'm really excited to sit down with Stu. Let's do it. Happy Veterans Day. Yeah, dude, thanks. I appreciate it. Same to you. Yeah, we're actually going to be dropping this podcast tomorrow morning. So it's quite appropriate to what we're going to be talking about today. Yeah, dude, for sure, for sure. Oh, yeah, man. Thanks to all the veterans out there. Yeah, man, thank you. And I'm really happy to have you on the show. I'm excited about it. So first, to get started, let's introduce my audience to who you are. Let's maybe give a snapshot of your military story. What did you do? How long did you serve? And what was that transition like stepping into the civilian world? Yeah, man. Well, thank you for the opportunity to just come on your show and talk to all your guests. I really appreciate it. My name is Stu Grazier. I first I'm a lover of Jesus and I'm a family man. have a bride of 17 years. I have a daughter who's 10 and a son who is seven. And uh I served 20 years in the Navy. Right out of high school, I went to the Naval Academy, got recruited to play baseball there, played baseball D1 for a few years, and I got really hurt uh in an accident on the field and stopped playing. Thankfully, it didn't mess up my eyesight enough to where it impacted uh my service selection, and I ended up going pilot. flew helicopters for 10 years, primarily all out of San Diego. and then transitioned. The Navy calls it full-time support, FTS Army calls it AGR, Active Guard Reserve. I ended up going there at the halfway mark, 10 years, learned how to fly Boeing 737s, thinking I wanted to be an airline pilot afterwards. Realized halfway through, did not want to be an airline pilot afterwards. So I just continued my service, finished out kind of more on the staff roles, leadership roles, and finished here in Colorado as the XO of the Reserve Center. at Buckley Air Force Base in Denver and we just loved it here and decided to call it home. My dad's originally from the area and so yeah so now we live here and uh I primarily do real estate full-time now along the Navy journey. I was super interested I've always had like an entrepreneur heart oh and always learning new things trying new things. And yeah, along that path, I started learning about real estate. And I'd see somebody doing something. I go read a book on it, listen to podcasts on it, and then I would just go try it. Started in flight school. A buddy of mine was buying raw land in Alabama. And I was like, OK, I'll go do that. And so just went over to the other side of the line there, talked to a guy in Orange Beach, Alabama. He was a realtor. was showing me some lots. And I bought a $50,000 lot, put 10 % down, financed it, uh bought a raw piece of land and a new development. Having no idea what I was gonna do with it beyond just like that's what this other dude was doing. So that's kind of been my story in the real estate world. You know, go learn something, try it, figure it out. Sometimes I win, sometimes I fail. Back to that, you know, piece of land. A hurricane came through like six months after I bought it and like basically wiped out like most of that area. I was like, great, there goes the goes my investment. But you know after rebuilding you know people started to come back and the realtor reached out to me and I was like hey this piece of land that you have it's the last lot in the development and someone wants to buy it. I wasn't it wasn't even like on the market someone wants to buy it for $95,000 and I bought it for $50,000. So within like a year, nine months to a year, I basically doubled the investment and I was like, okay, this is pretty cool. I like real estate. So from there, I just started doing, trying new things and it's been a journey since and we can kind of get into more of the story afterwards. That's cool. the first real estate deal you ever did did not. Did you already own a home at that point though? I didn't know. was, I was just renting a house in Pensacola in flight school with some buddies, uh, which, know, lots of regrets in real estate after learning, but, um, I wish I would have bought a house in Pensacola, Florida and rent. m Imagine what that would be worth today. But you had a win. had a, uh, your first real estate investment land deal was a win. And then, and then what, what came next? Like, cause I know you've done a lot of different things when it comes to real estate. let's touch on what one actually like hooked you in where you're like, okay, this is my lane. Yeah, sure. So yeah, I mean, I kept on trying different things, right? So I took that profit. uh graduated from flight school, got stationed in San Diego, California. uh And I took the money from that land deal and uh put it into a house in San Diego. It was really expensive in San Diego, but you know, it was growing like crazy. uh And so a buddy of mine like kind of went went in 50 50 on a house uh in Pacific Beach, PB, you know, close to the beach. And it's funny to say this, but like, so young two young lieutenants, probably what 25 years old, we went in together on a house. It was $850,000 was the sale price, purchase price in 2005. Wow. Yeah. And that was back when they were just like handing loans out, right? Like, Hey, you're going to like, and the mortgage group was like, Hey, you're going to rent some rooms out, right? And this will be counted towards your income. We'll put that on there so we can qualify you. But that's what we did. We house hacked, so to speak. We rented out every single room and We even rented out like the basement garage area like a dude was like sleeping on a mattress in the garage. It was pretty hilarious. But I mean it basically paid our mortgage in more. You know we were actually making money on the house until you know 2008-9 came along and my partner decided to get stationed on the East Coast and then he ended up deciding to get out of the military altogether. But we kept it for quite a few years. We kept it until 2012 until we were at a place where like my partner just couldn't handle it anymore. So we ended up selling it through a short sale, which hurt. And again, you look at it now, it's like in the millions. Yeah. Yeah. So if we get a hold on to it, so lots of lessons learned there along the way. But yeah, I on trying new things. Interestingly enough, I ended up getting into private lending. uh as kind like my first like really niche understanding like private mortgages mortgage notes investing that and you know as my real estate attorney continued I I would just like save up money like live below our means go on deployment make a bunch of money and come back with a know with a stash of money and I was I was busy man like you know flying I was teaching instructing going on deployments and so I wasn't really like in the mindset of like flipping houses and doing that kind of stuff so I'm more like in like how could I put my money to work So I started doing my private lending, and I'd find a flipper who needed like 25 grand, 50 grand, and I'd just lend that money out and just kind of keep my money working for itself. And so, you know, kind of like that's not the normal like route for people to go, but that's kind of where I started. And I got into that lending world really, really early and learned a ton from it. and then, you know, later on in life, kind of got more into the house flipping when I had some more time on my hands. Okay, so if we fast forward to as far as your real estate journey goes, where are you today? Where am I today? So my college roommate and I started a real estate, basically a turnkey real estate company, Flipping Houses. Started that in 2018. Got really successful really quickly, really just through word of mouth. We got to a place where we were doing about 50 to 60 house flips a year, turning them all into rental properties. Now wait, hold on before were you in the military still when you started? Active military, yeah in a leadership position. I was the exo of the reserve center when we started that, yeah, and he was the commanding officer of a big cyber command for me. So both in like, you know, big leadership positions and yeah, we were flipping 50 houses a year. Wow. It was busy. was, and there's some lessons learned in that too, right? But yeah, it was busy uh and so yeah, we We did that all because really some failures like we bought some turnkey companies along the journey. They were terrible bad bad locations. know people said that they're in the company said they're in C plus or B minus neighborhoods. They were like in D you know any cash flow that you had throughout the year was wasted because you then had a turn in the house was in terrible condition. My business partner David he he caught the company like in a you know a really big lie like it. like they said that they were putting a house, you know, HVAC system in or a water heater, but they weren't there just pocketing the money. So all those lessons learned, those hard lessons turned us into really creating a company around our values, around being honest, which is, you know, a crazy thing in this world these days. Just being honest, right? And that alone kind of set us apart and we really grew quickly. So we were selling a bunch of turnkey rental properties along that journey. 2018 to 2021, we were just just you know, building, know, using private money for all of our deals, borrowing money, uh just doing deal after deal after deal and getting better along the way, learning and growing. uh And then that allowed us to pick up our own portfolio of rental properties. And then also allowed us, you know, other opportunities to like, you know, do some commercial syndications, build out a lending fund, really learn how to uh grow and scale private money, raise capital for, you know, for big bigger deals. And so, you know, the end of the day. Now we're in a place where we have a portfolio of about 24 single family houses and duplexes. We're general partners on two mobile home parks, a mixed use property. My wife and I separately have an RV park and we're winding down a five year term of a multimillion dollar private lending debt fund. And so we'll be closing that out. Wow. Yeah. Wow. So you definitely have quite the experience then. Um, and it sounds like you just did a lot of just, let me dive in and just see what happens and it either works or it doesn't. And you ran across crooked people along the way. And at what point did you, cause now you're, you're, you're kind of transitioning your whole mission in life. So let's talk about that specifically the military investor network and why you created it. man, know, early on, I tried to do everything on my own. I tried to learn on my own, just do everything on my own, be, you know, be a one man team. And I think in some cases that's okay. But I quickly learned along the journey that real estate is a team sport. And the more people that's in your network and the relationships that you build along that journey, honestly, the better off you're going to be because you never know when you're going to need something or someone or a resource or someone in the network. so, you know, about halfway through that journey, I realized that I need to surround myself with other like-minded individuals. You know, they say that your network is your net worth or you're the person that, like, know, surround yourself with like five people and like you know you're that's who you're gonna come so that's that's what I like started trying to do I started to inject myself into other groups growing you know paid lots of money for like high-level masterminds that were working with people doing great stuff and I just loved I love community and I found that one of my passions and one of my giftings you will that that guy created for me is it's just the idea that I love networking and I love connecting I love I get great joy out of like taking Keith and another guy just thinking like man you guys will be great together yeah don't know what's gonna come of it but you should meet yeah and he go and like sitting back and just watching what happens and I love that like I love like with with no intentions of like benefiting me at all I just really get a lot of joy of that and I realized that along the journey and so that's what I wanted to do I wanted to create Create a community and network where that can happen. You can bring smart people into a room. You can bring smart people that are doing really great things and throw out questions and ideas and connect people and just sit back and see what happens. So that's really what the Military Investor Network is all about. It's about community. It's about helping each other, educating, learning from each other, offering resources, offering connections, and honestly offering deals. much more fun to do business with people that you know, like and trust. And so if you can be in a community where like you get to know people, you help each other, offer resources, and then you end up like doing deals together, like it's super fun. So that's really what the Military Master Network is all about. I can tell you from firsthand experience being in the military investor network, I've already connected with a few people that have already made a difference in my own business and I've learned some things. And so I really love how you have gotten a text and said, Hey, you guys just talk to each other. And I can tell you like some great things have come out of it. Um, so I really do appreciate you and I really love what you're doing with the military investor network. I think it's so great. that we have a community, growing community of people that can just bounce different ideas off of each other. You have some people that have done it all. Some people that are just getting started. So imagine if you had this when you first got into real estate, like what different things would have you done? You would have made a lot of different choices, right? So it's, it's, it's absolutely, I absolutely love what you're doing. Um, so maybe you can share with us. I know it hasn't been, I mean, when did you start it? It was like what? Three months ago. Okay. Do you have any story you can share that's come out of that network already with our listeners? Like something that just like, wow. I yeah, there's already people doing business together. I threw something out in the group about, who are the private lenders out here in this group? And we had quite a few responses. That's beautiful. And I was up in Pennsylvania with my partner looking at some houses that were rehabbing. And we went to go look at a new one and I didn't have any of my own capital readily available because I have it all deployed right now. But I remember like a couple of guys had responded to like who's a private lender. And so I reached out to one of them and was like, we're going look at this house right now. You have some capital available. Would you be interested in being a private lender of ours if we make an offer on this deal? And he was like, yep, got it. Let's do it. And so like he committed. ah Just off of just like, you know, a relationship, right? Like he didn't see the deal. He didn't run the numbers. He didn't do anything. Like he just, he just knows me, right? He knows me. He likes me. He has trusted me. And just the relationship that we had built along the way, I reached out to him and was like, Hey man, looking for a capital partner. We're going to make an offer here. You know, would you be available to be my private lender? He's like, yep, got it. And so like, you know, you hear stories about that like that all the time, but that doesn't come. You know, you got to like put in some time. You got to build relationships and you got to like engage with each other and have conversations with each other. like, you know, he knows my family and he knows like my values and he knows who I am as a person. I would never like do anything to or I would do everything to get his capital back. And so there's like a relationship there and a trust factor. And so that's what I'm trying to do with this community is have people in there where they know, like know each other. Like I know your family. I know your kids names, right? I know your values. And it's so much more fun to do business and partnerships with that and so like, you know, that's really cool You know, I'm getting texts like of like, you know selfies of guys like they're in the same area that are like they're like connecting and meeting on their own That's really fun for me to see because I don't even like I only have to put the effort into like do that, right? Like they're like out there like connecting going and hanging out and like friendships form that way And so it's just really fun to kind of see that Yeah. I mean, you just, I was introduced to a builder here in Colorado Springs, um, through the military investor network. And, I already, like, we're already putting a deal together. Like he's supposed to be sending me something today. So it's pretty incredible, man. So I want to know, this, so is this open to just active duty veterans? Like what, who, who are the people that should join this group? Yeah, so it's the military investor network. So really the one requirement is you have had to have been in the military. You can be active military, you be reserves, you can be retired, you can have done your four years and gotten out. That's fine. But you basically just have to have essentially a DD-214 and or still be in it actively or in the reserves. And this isn't just real estate. One thing that I realized along my journey is there are so many other investment opportunities and niches and assets and classes, all kinds of different strategies that I know nothing about. And selfishly, like I want to learn about that stuff. And, I could go listen to a podcast or I could go read a book. But I think the best way to do it is just invite really smart people into a community, have them teach on it, have them become the subject matter expert. And again, I get to start to know them, like them and trust them. And that will be the person that I go to when I have questions about crypto or what stock to choose or what mutual fund or you know I'm looking at this oil and gas investment like what do you think right and so that you start to build this network of smart highly you know like just great people that are doing really cool things around the investment space in general so One, if you're a subject matter expert in any area of investments, investing, right? If you're a wealth manager, if you're a financial planner, if you're a real estate investor, if you invest in oil and gas, if you do day trading, come. Come be the subject matter expert in your field to help teach other military veterans about what you do. Because I guarantee you, one, you're gonna get smarter yourself because you have to go teach a class on it. And two, you're going to build a business and create more relationships because people are going to come to you. Right. So, you know, again, if you're an expert in those fields, we would love for you to join us. If you're not, and if you're just learning, come join because again, You get better by surrounding yourself with people that are doing the things that you want to do. really it's for any military investor veteran that's wanting to be better in their field, learn how to be smart with their money and put their money to work and just like make some friendships, right? You never know what's going to happen. Partnerships can be built. Businesses can be built. ah Or just like go hang out with cool people. Yeah, it's, an incredible opportunity. So if you're out there listening and you're active duty, you're a veteran, uh, maybe you're, you have a little niche that you're doing that you could share with other people. Um, this would be a great place for you. If you're somebody that's just starting out and you're really interested, you've been maybe just listening to bigger pockets podcasts or whatever. And you're interested in learning more. This is a great place for you to plug in and just take a look. How do people do that? Like what, where do they go? Yeah, so. Honestly, there's quite a few places that you can go. I think the easiest way is just to go to militaryinvestornetwork.com. It's just a one page website. You'll kind of see what it's about. There's a join now button and it will take you to the school platform. School is the online platform that we use to communicate with each other. You know, there's forum topics, there's discussions, there's ongoing discussions every single day. And then, know, Tuesdays we do a lunch and learn every Tuesday at 1130 Mountain Time over lunch. we get together. There's a sign up sheet so members can sign up and teach a class on what they're smart on. And then we do quarterly like uh Accountability calls where we come together join into small groups and then talk about what we need in our business Military investor network comm is a great place I also do a free monthly community call and that's for people outside of the community So I I typically will create an event on LinkedIn and make invites there it's normally the third Friday of every month, but that changes with holidays and stuff like that, but uh If you're interested in like just being invited to those you can always just hit that contact us button on the website militaryinvestornetwork.com. know, put in your name and email and I'll add you to. We have a calendar invite that we send out to everybody and you can come join us and just learn and connect and we have really cool conversations. mean, we've talked about, you know, building trusts. We've talked about, you know, flipping and we've talked about this month we're going to talk about like activating your subconscious mind. It's like, you know, really cool information and just it's just a learning opportunity connection network. think, I think not only is a learning opportunity, but it's also a place that if you have a question you can ask and, um, someone out there is going to give you a good answer. Like I get asked all the time, like, Hey, what's the best way I should structure my rental? Should it be under an LLC under a trust? Like all these different types of questions, you can come to this network and start out right. Instead of starting out wrong and figuring out the hard way. Yeah, there was there was so many mistakes I made along my journey and mistakes are great, right? You learn from them. They are better from them, but if I would have if I would have joined a group where people are 10 years ahead of me, five years ahead of me, even a couple years ahead of me, and they've already learned their mistakes and they can help you not make those same mistakes. That tiny little investment in your time and just a monthly little membership fee, dude, so worth it. So worth it. I've gained so much value from joining groups where people are just a little bit ahead of me, right? It's so good. Awesome. Well, hey, man, I really, really appreciate you sharing your journey with us and the Military Investor Network. I do have some final questions for you that I asked everyone. uh What is the best investment you've ever made? best investment I've ever made. Honestly, marrying my wife and just investing into that relationship. We've been married 17 years. Like I said, I'm an entrepreneur at heart. I always have like crazy ideas and she's the first person to always be supportive of me. Even when she's like nervous, scared, like worried, you know, she's the first one there to be my support unit. My cheerleader helps me like whatever, build websites, do podcasts, like all the things like she's the first one there so that's a huge investment you got to find a bride that will earn a spouse that will be there to support you on the journey. I agree. What about your worst investment or biggest lesson learned? biggest lesson learned. lots of lessons learned around partnerships and trust. I'm a really trustworthy type of guy. Like I am quick to trust somebody and not everyone has the same values that I do, right? And there are people that will take advantage of that. So there's been quite a few different partnerships along my journey where I put a lot of trust in them. Maybe it wasn't, you know, maybe I didn't do like the no kidding joint venture agreement, sign on the dotted line kind of thing because I thought he was or you know they were my friends right and it was a handshake kind of deal that came to bite me really bad uh and you know so I think that uh learning how to protect yourself a little bit more in partnerships in deals doing a little bit more due diligence you know I mentioned the turnkey uh company that I use that just went was not good like that was like a recommendation from somebody on bigger pockets I did like like 30 minutes of due diligence. You know, I didn't ask many questions. just like, I just, I'm an action taker. So just pulled the trigger and went, right? So there is some lessons learned on doing some due diligence, having some trust, but trust and back it up with like, no kidding, some documentation. So oh good lessons learned there. That is great advice. I've been there too. My wife always says you're too trusting and it's burnt me a few times where I just want to get something done so bad and I kind of like squint my eyes, you know, it's going to be okay. Big mistake. So great advice. Favorite book or quote that keeps you grounded. favorite book or quote. Let's see, man. I'm a huge reader. got tons and tons of books on the wall. Let's see, I'm just going to look for someone here. So this one right here is I have a whole box of them made for people by Justin Whitmiller early. had him on a podcast not too long ago. um We bought like uh a box of like 50 books and I hand these out all the time to people. It's all about how God made us to be in relationships, how God made us to be in community and no kidding, like have like deep meaningful conversations and friendships. You know, I have a really, really close friend, David, my business partner. We have offices next to each other, we hang out, we do life together, this is really really important to like have no kidding friendships and relationships and that starts with being in community. Yeah, and that's really what the Military Investor Network is about too. great. OK, one thing you wish every veteran understood about building wealth and opportunity after service. So I mentioned buying that house in San Diego. I did not buy that house with a VA loan. Didn't do it. I used my money that I made from our land deal ah and uh I didn't buy, I didn't use the VA loan until probably my third or fourth house that we had lived in. There just wasn't the education out there at the time or maybe there was, I just didn't seek it, right? I didn't find it. So I think, you know, just the VA loan in general, right? The VA loan, there's so many ways that you can use that thing. I've interviewed guys that are in the Military Investor Network. They did. Like they bought like a, almost like a fixer upper, but enough to where like be livable in it. Like the ugliest house in the neighborhood, but they use their VA loans and they put no money into it. They went and lived in it for two years, fixed it up. And then when they changed due to stations, they sold it, made a huge profit, all tax free. And they put very little or zero of their own money into it. You could go that way. You could use the VA loan, buy a house and rent out all the rooms to other service members, friends, right? Like I said, I wish I'd have done that in Pensacola. I wish I would have bought a house, used the VA loan, rent it out, all the rooms to and my buddies in flight school and like made money off of that, right? So there's so many ways that you can use the VA loan to take advantage of being in the military and being active duty. And it's never too late, like you can always start. great. Great advice to I really appreciate you man and everything you're doing. Um, and, uh, if guys, if you're listening out there, definitely go check out the military investor network. it will definitely be worth your while. Stu man. Thank you to all my listeners out there. Hope everyone has a beautiful day and God bless. m