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NWA Founders is a voice for Founders, Owners, and Builders driving growth in Northwest Arkansas, and is hosted by Cameron Clark and Nick Beyer.
'NWA Founders' is a voice for Founders, Owners, and Builders driving growth in Northwest Arkansas, hosted by Cameron Clark and Nick Beyer.
To recommend a guest or ask questions, reach out at nwafounders@gmail.com and follow us on YouTube and LinkedIn for video content.
[00:00:00] T.J. Lefler: That grunt work? It kind of defined me a little bit. Like right now, if I see a deal and I, it could be tomorrow, Saturday morning, it could be a Sunday afternoon, gonna go drive over there and just go peek at it.
Right now, you know how
[00:00:16] Nick Beyer: you balance returns for investors and having an impact in the community.
[00:00:20] T.J. Lefler: If it's 50 million or a hundred million, I'm okay with it. As long as we believe in the plan and we can execute on it.
[00:00:26] Cameron Clark: You could do this just totally by yourself. You have a team. Why'd you choose to do that?
[00:00:29] T.J. Lefler: It's a lot of work, but it's a lot of value.
[00:00:31] Cameron Clark: How do you know
[00:00:31] Nick Beyer: when it's time to exit?
[00:00:33] T.J. Lefler: Yeah, that's a good question.
[00:00:46] Cameron Clark: Tj, thanks for coming on this morning, man. Hey,
[00:00:48] T.J. Lefler: uh, no problem. Thanks for having me. Appreciate
[00:00:50] Cameron Clark: it. Yeah, TJ Loeffler, Loeffler Capital. So there's a lot of different real estate firms, brokerages, property managers, and [00:01:00] investment firms, which probably what you'd call your call yourself. Yeah. What's, what's different about Left Lower Capital compared to any other real estate business here in Northwest Arkansas?
[00:01:08] T.J. Lefler: Well, my background was, I was a, um, real estate agent broker for like 16 years, and you know, when you're a commercial broker, you can do everything. You, I mean, well, I was back up. Anybody can buy real estate. I mean, like, you don't have to have a degree to buy real estate. And so, you know, the commercial brokers were doing a little bit of everything.
They still are, which is totally fine. I just decided, uh, whatever, five or six years ago that I wanted to exclusively buy and sell my own property. Now I raise money for my deals. So I have like investors behind me, but I, um, just wanted to literally. Get a project and wrap my whole brain and everything around making that project better.
And I'm now an owner, not just helping somebody else buy and sell, but it's kind of on my shoulders to get [00:02:00] the loan and improve the property and lease it up and eventually one day sell it. Mm-hmm. So, so Loeffler Capital is really a group of, well, it's me leading it, but it's a group of us and then we have investors that we mainly acquire real estate and usually it's larger, like commercial properties, multiple buildings.
And we have kind of a, something we're gonna do to it, make it better, and, and then eventually sell it.
[00:02:24] Cameron Clark: Yeah. Uh, and why so I think what people, you know, understand too is like you, you could do this just totally by yourself, like why you're building a team, you have a team. Yes. Um. Why'd you choose to do that?
[00:02:36] T.J. Lefler: Well, when I first started, I, I honestly didn't want a team. I, I was, I was a part of another company, which I'm still a part of, but it, there were like almost a hundred employees. And so I kind, I kind of somewhat burnt out of like, I'm just going to, you know, do this on my own. And I quickly realized I can do that for like one or two projects.
Yeah. But my goal in the back of my head has always been to [00:03:00] scale. And I wanna be able, me being in this market for so long, I have so many friends and people that I talk to, I'm seeing a lot of activity. And so I wanna be able to, to acquire, you know, 20 properties or 10 properties, whatever it was. So I quickly realized I can't do that on my own.
Yeah. Like, and I need to like release, like the things I know I can, like trust with somebody else. So I'm now building a team to help me with all components that I can, like, that I feel like I can let go of.
[00:03:28] Cameron Clark: Yeah. Well, I wanna, I wanna talk about more of the future and kinda what's going, what's the current is.
But let's talk about. Where you from, how you grew up, how you got here, all all that, all that stuff. So, grew up in Searcy? Yes. Yeah,
[00:03:39] T.J. Lefler: yeah, yeah. I grew up in Searcy, um, graduated high school in oh, 2002. Yeah. And then went to school up here in Fayetteville. You know, that was always kind of the dream, uh, for, for me anyway.
[00:03:51] Cameron Clark: Did you work in real estate in high school at all, or was the in real estate?
[00:03:55] T.J. Lefler: Uh, I had an internship at, at First Security Bank, which is a great hometown bank. Okay. And, um, I was a waiter for a [00:04:00] while. I did some mo mowing, just things like that. Yeah. I mean, I did, I did work. Yeah. And, uh, I kind of had to work for, for gas money.
And so I worked kinda odds and ends jobs in college. I worked at Lindsay Real Estate. Okay. I interned and it was kind of a Okay. Kinda a hand me down job, uh, in my fraternity. You were able, I guess at a certain level there, they're allowed to get like an assistant. And so I worked for a sweet lady. I don't think she's there anymore, but she was the sales manager for the agents there.
[00:04:30] Cameron Clark: Okay.
[00:04:30] T.J. Lefler: And it was a good time to do homework, but also I learned a lot about kinda what they go through, like issues that they deal with. 'cause she was the sales manager. They have, they have a lot of agents. Uh, when I left there, I was probably a junior. And through that my real estate, I major, my degree also, I, I got my license in college.
I just kind of gravitated towards real estate. I, but I have always had a dream for sure of going to bigger [00:05:00] cities and honestly, that Lindsey building was really cool in Fayetteville, but at the time when it was getting built, but I just. I just wanted to be part of it. Yeah. I, I, that, that job was mainly houses.
But when I would go to New York City or I'd go to big cities, I just, you look at big buildings that obviously are cost a lot of money, but I just always thought, why can't I own that? Yeah. Like, I mean, I didn't, I for sure don't have the money to do that, but there's gotta be a way for any of us to be a part of that if we want to.
So that was always in the back of my head of wanting to do commercial real estate and trying to figure it out. And, and then in college after that, that Lindsay job, um, Sage Partners was started here and I was a senior in college and they had just started that company. I think there were four of 'em total.
Literally just started. But they hired me on as an intern.
[00:05:49] Cameron Clark: Okay.
[00:05:49] T.J. Lefler: Which I, I did this company and if you asked me to get an intern to year one, that would've been really hard. 'cause you're trying to grow your own business.
[00:05:56] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:05:56] T.J. Lefler: But they allowed me to be an intern and then, um, [00:06:00] Tommy Van Zand, who was one of the founders there, he told me to leave and go.
Do something cool. He was like, yo, you need to go do something fun. 'cause once you get into this, it's really hard to get out. 'cause you, you're just in these deals that don't happen overnight. Take a lot of time. Yeah. And so I didn't wanna do that. I've always kind of been like ready to get to that level quicker.
And so I just immediately started working right outta college for Sage.
[00:06:24] Cameron Clark: And what was the connection at Sage originally? Was it through Tommy was the,
[00:06:26] T.J. Lefler: so I was a Sigma Kai here in Fayetteville Uhhuh, and I actually was president of the fraternity. I lived in that house for three and a half years of college.
Oh gosh. Yeah. Um, and when I got done being president, the chapter advisor, he just, I guess he kind of takes the president under his wing a little bit and he was like, what do you wanna do? I'd kinda like to introduce you to a couple people. And he introduced me to Mark Saviors in Little Rock.
[00:06:50] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:06:50] T.J. Lefler: Who was still like a great mentor.
Well, Mark's son, Marshall was moving here at the time from Dallas. Marshall's a little bit older than me, but, so he had been outta school and been [00:07:00] working, I think in Dallas. And he moved back here and he and I met up and, and then Brian Shaw and Tommy, you know, they were all kind of starting stage at the same time that the chapter advisor introduced me.
And it just kind of worked out where we all got hooked up.
[00:07:13] Cameron Clark: Yeah. Wow. Yeah.
[00:07:15] T.J. Lefler: And that was, that's all I've done. I mean, literally since I graduated, I mean, I graduated college in 2006. And that I've only been at Sage until, you know, five years ago when I started this.
[00:07:27] Cameron Clark: Yeah. Talk about, I mean, for Yeah, may, maybe someone's thinking like, oh man, I'm, I wanna do something, but I'm, maybe I'm not ready yet.
Is, is that okay? Or like, you know, are you glad that you stayed there at the full 15 years? This is not like, I think Sage is a fantastic place. We interviewed Marshall Love, love Marshall. Yeah. But more on just a question about your personal journey, like, hey. Yeah. Is is, do you wish you would've started this earlier or is it,
[00:07:53] T.J. Lefler: uh, it's a good question.
I've thought about that. I'm sure you've had some of the same thoughts with your career too. Like I, I. I [00:08:00] don't regret any time there. Like, I love it. I love the people there. It, it's, I've, I mean, it's kinda been my life. Um, I have thought like if I started this 10 years ago, where would I be? Yeah. Now, only because when you buy real estate, you don't want me commercial real estate.
You don't buy in 30 days. Like, I mean, I'm like, next week I think we're buying three properties, but I have been working on those properties for seven months. Wow. And so starting that earlier, maybe you would acquire more or something, but I really don't have any regrets. Yeah. I think I've learned so much through the brokerage world.
Uh, you know, you, you don't make a salary. It's all, you eat what you kill or whatever, however that goes. Kill what you eat, eat what you kill, whatever. Um, but you know, the sky's the limit. And so that mentality has helped me tremendously from, from college when I graduated college to now. And so I don't, I don't regret.
I don't regret any of it, but I do think, and I do talk to a lot of people about making a jump from a salary job to maybe a half salary [00:09:00] plus bonus or all commissions or whatever. Yeah. And that jump is, is hard. Like the jump from a salary to maybe a commission only job is really hard. Mm-hmm. Because it's not guaranteed money.
But then beyond that, what we're doing here, I mean, we're not making commissions. Like you have to like invest your life into a project for one to three to five, 10 years before you sell it. Maybe that big pop is when you sell and you can make money throughout the process. But I would say it's even a bigger jump because you're not, you can't go out and make a commission in six months.
I mean, typically we think about a project three to five years minimum. Yeah. So it's just a bigger jump, but. I mean, if you really, I don't know, I just feel like you have one life, and if you're into it and like I think about this 24 7, I cannot not think about doing real estate or what's going on with our projects.
And if I'm wired that way, like I'm gonna make this work. You love it. I love it. Yeah. And so I'm gonna tell people if you feel that way and you love it, you should, you should do it.
[00:09:59] Nick Beyer: But talk [00:10:00] about from a development perspective, I mean there's, there, there are plenty of developers, but it also seems like there's not that many developers, the tools that you acquired as a broker, how pivotal, I mean, could you have just started your firm without having some of those tools?
[00:10:15] T.J. Lefler: Yeah, I think about that too. Like you, you can, that's the thing, like I said about real estate, is you don't have to have a degree to do real estate. So anybody with, as long as you fact get the money to buy something, you can do it. And that has happened a lot in the past where you think it's a good idea to buy something and then five years later you're like, wait a minute, I didn't realize all these expenses were coming in or, or whatever.
So I. In that, in that vein, I am glad I kind of went a little slower because there's not, there's not like a huge playbook for this. Like, you have to know all of the expenses in a deal. Yeah. And then you have to know if you're buying something that's 20 years old, that that, that roof for that heating air unit is probably at the end of its lifecycle.
And if you don't think about that stuff, uh, you buy it thinking you're gonna make [00:11:00] X and all of a sudden you have a $50,000 hiccup because you didn't plan on a new heating and air unit. So the tools, like at, at Sage me, I'm basically doing this work for other people, but I'm doing so many more transactions.
So I'm seeing the issues that they're, that, that those developers or those owners were dealing with. And I'm taking mental notes. Okay. Like, don't do that or do do this, or whatever it is. So yeah, I think that, I mean, being a broker as kind of a stair step I think was a really good move. Yeah. Yeah. To learn from other people.
[00:11:33] Cameron Clark: Yeah, talk about those first few years, Sage, those like, I feel like that was a really unique kind of exciting time. Yeah. Like the, yeah, I mean,
[00:11:42] T.J. Lefler: so Northwest Arkansas, you know, that's 2000, you know, 5, 6, 7, 8. Um, there was not, on the commercial side, we were commercial brokers, which there really weren't any commercial brokers.
I think Colliers was getting an office, but for the most part it was kind of Walmart Buddy Club. [00:12:00] They people were building residential looking buildings and putting offices in 'em because there just wasn't anything. Yeah. And so we came to market and I'm kinda learning from Tommy and Marshall and Brian of explaining what our role is in the market.
'cause there, there wasn't a role. And so we're trying to tell them, Hey, we're here, we're representing national credit tenants. Which some people didn't even know what that meant. They were just like, it's a tenant. It's a tenant. Well, there's a big difference in a Starbucks, Walgreens credit, or you know, my sandwich shop, which I could, I could shut the doors tomorrow.
But they can't do that without going bankrupt. Anyway, there's just a lot, there's a big learning curve of trying to convince these owners and tell 'em like you're bringing them value. Yeah. But then they need to, they need to pay you. Yeah. And so, um. It was more wild, wild westy. You know, we were, I remember for me, I kind of gravitated towards retail and actually I picked up Walmart as an, as a client one of my first years.
Uh, because they were doing dark stores. They would leave a store, build a bigger one.
[00:12:59] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:12:59] T.J. Lefler: But these were [00:13:00] all little towns in Arkansas. Well, all my college buddies were from little towns in Arkansas. Yeah. So when I interviewed with 'em, they were like, we're going to Camden, or we're going to Newport or whatever, like small towns.
And I kind of knew somebody who knew somebody there. Yeah. And I could make some connections. And so I got the job. Um, but I had like a book. I think it, I literally, it was this thick, two inches thick of A to Z retailers and my job was to cold call every single one of them. It'll say like, Hey, AAA Auto, we're in California, we're expanding to Oklahoma, Texas, and Missouri.
Well, I'd call 'em, try to find the real estate rep. And have you considered Northwest Arkansas? And of course, at the time a lot of people hadn't heard of. Arkansas or, yeah, or Northwest Arkansas. And so I got a ton of nos. I mean, it was probably. Over a thousand, if not 1500 calls. Yeah. And I'd actually made a handful of friends that I still have today through doing that.
And you know, I'd call 'em and say, Hey, if you're not here, do you [00:14:00] wanna be here? Can I help you find a spot? Hmm. Trying to represent them, or I would, they'd say, no, we don't need any help, but we are looking in Springdale and I would call one of my owner buddies in Springdale and try to match 'em up. And so I'm trying to add value.
So that, that was my first kinda gauntlet into like, uh, the national broker world. We had a lot, you know, like Marshall has a lot of office connections. He did then, and he had a, I mean, now I can't remember what the name of the software was, but it felt like Ms. Dos or something, like trying to log in all the tenant names Yeah.
That are here. But he, and we literally tracked every single office tenant that was here and then you would try to figure out when their lease would expire and, and then you try to go in and, you know, eventually help them through their corporate channels.
[00:14:47] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:14:47] T.J. Lefler: A lot of those people aren't here. They're, their main contact is in Chicago or New York or whatever.
Yeah. And you try to help them like, Hey, I know. And a lot of times you'd call them and they'd say, well, where's Arkansas? Oh, we do have an office there. Okay, well yeah. [00:15:00] We need 2000 feet here and there. And so we would try to help them. Yeah. So that was kind of our first, like that was my grunt work, I guess.
Yeah. And then the other grunts that I would do with those like Walmart buildings is I would have to get. At like three 30 or four in the morning, I rented a car. I would drive to El Dorado. I would go look at a building. I'd have lunch with the mayor if I could, or the chamber. I'd try to drive around, write down what tenants are.
Theres TJ Max, there is Dollar Tree there who's not there. And sometimes, I mean, I literally made deals doing that. Like I made one deal on a 40,000 foot lease in Mountain Home because the, um, it wasn't on the internet, it wasn't on LoopNet, it wasn't on CoStar. There was, it was like a hundred thousand foot building with 30,000 feet available.
So big building. Yeah. All they had was a little two by two sign in the front parking lot that said for lease. I would never have known unless I drove over there, called him, he was there. I went and met with him for an hour, went home and [00:16:00] we wrote a deal up and it worked for the tenant. Wow. So you kind of, I mean, I think that, I think there's still lessons in that and I, you know, like I encourage younger, uh, brokers to do those same sort of things because you learn so much about when you're on the road.
Kinda like when you're biking around here, when you're biking or walking versus driving, you notice a lot more real estate.
[00:16:19] Cameron Clark: Yeah,
[00:16:20] T.J. Lefler: I'm driving down there. I'm not gonna just look on the internet because the internet's not always right. There's new buildings and then you realize some of these towns, they don't, they actually don't put their properties on the internet, so, which is kinda like kind of crazy in a way because that's the easiest way to lease your space.
But for whatever reason they don't. So unless you go down there and start meeting with people and figuring out their buddy has a space available, you really don't know. Yeah. So I really like that grunt work. I mean, it kind of made, it kind of defined me a little bit. Like I just, I'm always wanting to do that.
Like right now, if I see a deal, and I, it could be tomorrow, Saturday morning, it could be a Sunday afternoon. If I hear [00:17:00] something or see something, I'm gonna go drive over there and just go peek at it right now. You know? And, um, I feel like that's a strength I've got. And talk
[00:17:06] Cameron Clark: about the importance of that.
Like, what's the importa, I mean, with like, software's pretty good now. I mean, you can mm-hmm. See the inside layout, you can Google, or, I mean, like, you can see the, the drive by on Google. I mean, you, you can see a lot like,
[00:17:22] T.J. Lefler: I think, um. I don't know. I just heard from a lot of people that I work with and mentor people.
I value their opinion in different parts of this business when they talk about how deals happened. Um, I remember Mark talking about a deal that he closed over between Christmas and New Year's. He was like, I think I did it because no one else wanted, was willing to do it.
[00:17:43] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:17:43] T.J. Lefler: And you have to be willing to kind of, you know, this, this is not an eight to five job.
This is a 24 7. You know, you can, it can can make you or break you. Like if you let it just take over your life, which I try not to, but I do think about it all the time. Um, and so. [00:18:00] I'm just available. Like if I see an opportunity and I think it's there almost time I'm gonna do something. Like, I'm not gonna let it ruin my family life.
Mm-hmm. But I'm gonna at least look, I mean, I, this is what I enjoy. Yeah. Like, it's like, you know, people have hobbies and I've got hobbies too, like health-wise, like running and biking and stuff. But like, I really like looking at property. Yeah. I think a lot of other people do too. But I, like, I can act on it.
Like, now that I know this is like my job, so if I see something on a weekend, I can actually act on it if I want to. Mm-hmm. So I just happen. I, I guess that's part of it is I enjoy it, but you have to kind of be willing to kind of go the di like whatever, whatever comes your way, you kind have to be able to take it and deal with it.
You can't just put it away and deal with it in a month. You can, but you may miss out on the opportunity.
[00:18:44] Cameron Clark: Yeah. Someone else could come in. Yeah. Yeah. Um, talk. So, so you kind of mentioned early years, like how things were shaped there. Maybe as the company was building is like a, and really like your personal journey and it like building like [00:19:00] your business here.
And you've mentioned a lot of like, just making different connections across the state and even like, maybe even across the country. 'cause I, I feel like people don't understand maybe as much here locally as like commercial real estate. It's global, but like really national, regional pull on. Mm-hmm. Like some of these national tenants that.
People are managing, repping and
[00:19:23] T.J. Lefler: Yeah, so as I grew in the real estate world, mainly, well, I've always done Arkansas, so I love northwest Arkansas. I love little, like, I love central Arkansas. Like I love the state. Mm-hmm. And I've just, because I'm from here, I've either been in central Arkansas or up here.
So what I took away from the first 10, 15 years of me is I have, I have clients or now investors or clients at the time from all over the country. But mainly, you know, we all know Northwest Arkansas had a story about 2008 through 10. It's consistently grown. It's only gotten bigger and bigger. And so every year I would get more and more people [00:20:00] either calling and wanting to meet, they're from all these other states and they wanna be here.
Yeah. So I just. Kind of was the Northwest Arkansas guy for investors. And one of my, I, one thing I did, which kind of led to what I'm doing now, is instead of kind of being the tenant, the tenant rep guy,
[00:20:17] Cameron Clark: yeah.
[00:20:17] T.J. Lefler: I'm more of the investor, the investor rep put a deal together. So so and so from California wants to be here.
I would meet 'em, tour 'em, and then I would like kind of know about a tenant looking and I would call them and I would say, Hey, I want you, I think you should buy this building. It's got a vacancy. But I think I got a buddy that could put a tenant in it. Yeah. So, and they, they loved me for that because they are not here and I'm adding all this value, which I later found out I should be doing that.
[00:20:49] Cameron Clark: Like, yeah.
[00:20:49] T.J. Lefler: And it's kind of what I'm doing now. It's like now I'm the one buying the property and putting the tenant in or something, but at the time I just kind of gravitated towards other people that are doing now what I do. [00:21:00] And so I was just helping plate, it's like, to me it's a puzzle and there's all these different pieces of a puzzle that you're trying to put together.
And there's, there's an investor, you gotta have money, you gotta have the property, you gotta have a tenant. You may have to have some like construction number, something like that. And you kind of put all that together and you've got a deal. And I wanna be part of that where I'm adding value to somebody that has one piece and needs the other piece.
[00:21:26] Nick Beyer: And what are your strength, like, what are your supernatural strengths in that, the five things you just listed out and as you've built your team? I mean, what are, what are some of the pieces that you're like, man, I, I need a little help on this.
[00:21:37] T.J. Lefler: Yeah, that's a good question. So I, I, I've done it all. I don't think I'm good at all of it.
Um, I think that's a big lesson. A lot of people can do all of it, but it's really hard to be good at, at all of it. It's hard to be good at building ground up. Also buying, also being the investor guy, also getting a loan. I'm a pretty good connector and I see a lot of opportunity. [00:22:00] So I think I'm, what I'm focused on now is.
Bringing in more opportunities to our office because I just, we've got these relationships for 20 years, I feel like I'm easy to deal with. And so we all kinda like, I'll get good calls. I'm like, what's going on? And I want, and the people that call me, I want them to be incentivized to call me. So like, I'm paying them maybe it's fees or brokerage fees or whatever it is, but I'm realizing I needed help with, you know, the nuts and bolts of like getting something built or, um, now, I mean, like some of these buildings we have have 20 to 40 tenants in the building, and so you've gotta renew leases, you've gotta make sure, I gotta, so I, I could do that a little bit, but then I'm gonna slack over here on looking for the next deal.
So for me, these deals were closing next week. I mean, they've been six, seven months in the making. As soon as they close, I'm already gotten more of the pipeline ready to close next, and so I, I'm focused on that. I'm focused on like the next [00:23:00] opportunities, and then now I'm honestly, I'm focused on, I'm focused on hiring good people to help with pretty much every other aspect of it
[00:23:08] Cameron Clark: and talk about, so for, I wanna kind of talk about the future, but like learning how to put the, as you're saying, like puzzle pieces together.
Let's get a story from like maybe one of the like Pinnacle Heights or something. Something like that. Like, hey, a deal that was like. There was a lot of layers to it as you were kind early on one deal that Yeah. You know, shaped what you're doing or,
[00:23:33] T.J. Lefler: yeah. Um, oh yeah. There's lots of those stories. I mean, pinnacle Heights is a great one 'cause it's a mixed use apartment complex and Pinnacle and, uh, Mrs.
Hunts was our partner, but there was a group out of Oklahoma City that we partnered up with, but that one, it came from Vegas, so, yeah. Well, you know, we go to that let retail convention every year, and of course the first couple years my wife was like, what are you doing in Vegas? Like, you're not,
[00:23:54] Cameron Clark: but that was the biggest real estate show in the country.
It is, yeah. Yeah,
[00:23:57] T.J. Lefler: yeah. And so, um, friend of a friend [00:24:00] met a group out of Oklahoma City who was there outside of the convention. They talk about what they do, we talk about what we do, and, and at that time it was like the mid, you know, 2015 16 area. Mm-hmm. You know, we had some land opportunities and really that my puzzle was putting everybody toge.
My piece was putting everybody together. Um, they were really good developers. That loan is a hud, a HUD loan, which is fixed for like 40 years, but it's really hard to get, takes a couple years. You have to spend a lot of money up front getting it approved. So they were really good at that part. Yep. And Mrs.
Hunt had some land and then Tom Allen was involved too, and we kind of all came together and used the land and the loan and then the project. And it took five, six years to get approved and built and open. But that was great. Um, another one, like we bought the built building in Bentonville, Bentonville Plaza.
Yeah. About a year ago from now. And that one, that was a sage deal. And I love sage, but I also have, we have four or five management companies that are [00:25:00] not Sage that work with us. Mm-hmm. And we like all those guys as well. And guys and girls. Um, it's just that this is a good example of them finding a deal that was off market and I'm able to put together the investors and the money, they're managing it and leasing it.
Mm-hmm. And we kind of did it all together. So I, when I started it was just me. I can't, there's no way I can do all of the management, all the leasing. And raise the money. Yeah. I mean, that's, that building was closer to $40 million. Like, it's, it's just a big, big bear. And so we all came together and our general partnership group is actually four people.
[00:25:37] Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm.
[00:25:38] T.J. Lefler: And we all have different strengths. We're all, like, one guy's doing mainly the build outs. One guy's doing legal work, we've got, um, Sage doing their part, and then I'm managing the investment group and we have calls every week about it and like, what'd you do? What'd you do? What'd you do? And we kind of bring it all, and I could take more of the deal, but I would rather spread it out and everybody do what they're good at.
Yeah. [00:26:00]
[00:26:00] Cameron Clark: Yeah. And, and so talk like you have a little, well, yeah. Let's, while we're on this deal, let's talk about this deal. But I want, I wanna talk about what kind of, what, what's led up led up to that deal though, too. Oh, okay. But like. So when you saw the, the office deal, like what was like, oh, hey, I can add some value here.
Like
[00:26:17] T.J. Lefler: Yeah. That one I, you know, um, and what I, what we own, so we have like, we have between 300 and 350 million of real estate right now that we, we control for our groups and we've sold some things and we, you know, we continue to buy, but we have everything. We have, uh, multi-family, we have apartments, we have office, we have retail centers.
We're buying Yeah, buying another retail center next week. We've done like 80 town homes, but, so, but it's all in Arkansas, so it's a little weird for me, like, why did I like that one building? I don't just do one thing. We, we, but I do do Arkansas. Mm-hmm. And so I just happen to know when someone calls me or shows me [00:27:00] something.
It, it is kind of gut feeling for me in, in our area up here. Yeah. Because I've only been up here in our area. Is getting bigger and bigger and bigger, but it's not that big. Yeah. So, so generally when somebody calls me and so-and-so building in Rogers, I can kind of look pretty quick and I'm either off it or I'm on it.
And this one we got, we got the call on this one and I knew about it. There's a lot of history to it. I knew it was a nice building, honestly, I hadn't been in it in years. And we went up there and, um, met with the owners at the time off market. They were dressed totally like their, they owned a lot of national office towers.
That's kind of their deal.
[00:27:40] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:27:41] T.J. Lefler: And they're very dressed up. And honestly I was kind of like this and, um, they were struggling with leasing it, but the building, they did a really good job on maintaining the building.
[00:27:51] Cameron Clark: Hmm.
[00:27:52] T.J. Lefler: And in my head, I just took from that meeting like, Hey, I'm. I'm Bentonville, like, I'm, I'm wanting to bring my [00:28:00] dog to the office.
I wanna wear a t-shirt. I wanna like hang out, not just, you know. So I think a lot of major cities, a lot of major cities, office buildings are struggling, but here there's a lot more work life balance. Mm-hmm. So you're biking to work for lunch, maybe you're going on a bike ride.
[00:28:18] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:28:18] T.J. Lefler: So you wanna be able to take a shower and get back to work.
Um, so I just thought I saw that building and we got a really, in my opinion, we got a good deal on it, but it was also half empty.
[00:28:28] Cameron Clark: Yep.
[00:28:29] T.J. Lefler: So our goal was, or our job was, yeah, you got a great deal, but you've gotta figure out how to fill this up. And so my idea and I, I mean, I just, I don't know, I just came up with the idea.
Of bring, let's bring as many amenities to this building as possible. Like when you're, you know, I was a broker show in office tenant spaces and you've got like 20 options in Bentonville and a lot of 'em are nice, but they're all, I mean, I guess in my head they're all somewhat the same different location, but like, hey, you got a conference room and a office and you've got some bathrooms and it's nice, [00:29:00] it's this close to Walmart.
It is this close to Walmart. But for me. I wanted to be able to say, well, hey, at my building, you can play pickleball, you can rent our golf simulator. You've got free coffee, uh, beer and wine in the afternoon. Um, you can bring your dog to the office. We've got e-bikes for free. And so when these, I know that there's these national brokers looking around and they have these surveys.
They're all kind of similar, but mine has 10 other reasons why you'd wanna choose us.
[00:29:28] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:29:28] T.J. Lefler: And so that's, that was what kind of came of it. And we just created a good partnership. We have investors, which for the most part are from Arkansas. There's a few outta staters, but a lot of 'em are from, from the state that believe in it also and believe in what we're doing.
We're a year in. I'd love to take y'all up there. Like it's, we've completely, we've spent close to 4 million on just upgrading it with cool amenities. Yeah. Making it, making it more Bentonville is kind of what we're thinking. Bloom. Bloom. We've renamed it bloom. Yep. And then the second floor, we have a 6,000 foot amenity [00:30:00] area, which has huddle room space, a hundred person meeting space, coffee bar.
We're gonna do beer and wine in the afternoon, you know, like a little bit. Yeah. Um, we built a new bike room indoor where, and then you can reserve e-bikes if you want. It's got a fitness center. It's got lockers, it's got showers. Uh, the building itself was very. Very functional for a vendor. Hmm. So like underground in that building, there's cages you can rent to store your product.
Oh, okay. Yeah. So you don't have to store your products in your office. You can pay a lot less to do that. We have, um, full-size docks whenever you're bringing in product, which a lot of office buildings don't have. So all that was already there, but we just are trying to build amenities to like it fun.
Yeah. Yeah. Make it fun. Yeah. 'cause you know, through COVID there was this huge work from home deal and it, it's still there, but a lot of companies are wanting to bring you back and I think we're helping you tell your employees, yeah, you gotta come back, but man, you can hang out here and work here, work in our office.
Yeah. You also can lease a little bit [00:31:00] less square footage from us because you can take your part of that amenity as well. Yeah. So you may not need three conference rooms because we have three over here. You can like use one of ours.
[00:31:08] Nick Beyer: Sure.
[00:31:08] T.J. Lefler: It's honestly just. An idea we had,
[00:31:11] Nick Beyer: so we're
[00:31:13] T.J. Lefler: hope it works out.
[00:31:14] Nick Beyer: And so, I mean, not a real estate guy, but like outside looking in, if you're just an outsider, you're like, well, the ledger's really cool.
There's some cool, yes. So like mm-hmm. When you're putting together that deal and thinking through that, that has to be one of the things you're thinking about your competition in that area. And so how, how did you process that?
[00:31:30] T.J. Lefler: We processed it by being cheaper than that. I mean, the Ledger is an incredible, incredible, like world class building and it has great amenities as well.
We wanna be similar, we have different amenities than they have, but we're on the same vein of like. Not just being stuck on your computer all day, like you can go work downstairs, you can get caught. Like one of our goals, like on the first floor, we're gonna have a restaurant on the first floor. It was a former restaurant and we're converting it back into another one.
But [00:32:00] you may want to go there for a little bit. You may want to go to the second floor for a little bit. So it's, it's similar, but you know, we, we bought a 25-year-old building. We didn't build ground up. Sure. That's a ground up. Really, really cool world class building. And we, our building is a class, a nice office, but it is 25 years old.
So we're basically updating it and, and our location's a little different like. A lot of things on that one building. Were coming into play, you know, eighth Street, the interchange wasn't open when we bought it. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And now it's open. You get, there's a direct shot from the interstate to that building.
The, um, $60 million park on I, and, um, a threat there. It's basically diagonal from us that's under construction now. It wasn't when we bought it and then the campus, uh, moved, which that was maybe a concern for some people, but we just know whatever's gonna come there, the, it's gonna be something cool. So, yeah.
Yeah. So all that stuff's kind of come after we, we bought and we're kind of. We like the location, but, but really I just want, when people are ing to want to go to the office, yeah. I [00:33:00] want 'em to go have fun and be there all day. And, and then, you know, we heard a lot of comments. We were in a contract, like, what did you, what do you not like?
We interviewed every tenant, almost every tenant, you know, the big comment, they wanted some food, but they want to hang out with other tenants too. They wanna like get to know each other in the building. Mm-hmm. So we're trying to, we actually hired a concierge person as well. Just another idea to encourage her, for her to go meet all the tenants and encourage events.
So like, yeah, we're gonna be able to do, everybody meet on the second floor, have an event, you can meet other tenants. And we think, and I, I mean this has kind of been one of my. Like deep things is when you introduce people together and you're like the one that does it, you're kind of in the deal. Yeah. So like you guys are buddies.
It's because of me. All of a sudden y'all come up with something to work on. We're all working on it. Yeah. And like I think at the o at that office, if there's some meeting things there that happen and they come up with like a new, you know, there's new ideas all the time up here, new idea, new company, whatever it is, I hope we're the reason that that happened.
Yeah. And then I hope they stay, create a new office in our building [00:34:00] because of
[00:34:00] Nick Beyer: that too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then talk about, I just, I think that is such a. Quintessential example of what a developer at its best does, right? Like a lot of people think about developers, they're just trying to make money for investors or whatever.
Mm-hmm. You're actually adding value and, and you could fill those spots, not with the golf simulator, with more office space or something. So just kind of talk about Yeah. What your, how you balance returns for investors and having an impact in the community.
[00:34:29] T.J. Lefler: Really what we talk, what we're talking about, the return should come.
So, for example, that building, and I'll get off that building, but that building is half empty. So if my plan works and everybody loves it and they, they're gonna lease our space and we should hopefully have a full building. That's the goal. Yeah. We, you know, another project we're doing in Fayetteville Midtown on, um, on Poplar and Greg, where like Fossil Cove is, that one was a bunch of older warehouse buildings and there was a lot of feed.
We didn't know what to do with that one. 'cause we, I, I saw [00:35:00] that as an opportunity to make it a cool. Retail restaurant destination, but there were a lot of comments in Fay, well, what's gonna happen? Is it all gonna be torn down? I wanted to say no, but we, our intent when we bought that whole thing was just to make that a really cool retail restaurant destination.
So we, we did buy it. We are putting a bunch of money into it. We're redoing every building, but it's to encourage new businesses and restaurants to go there. And so if the goal, if yes, we're gonna lose money on the front end, maybe by putting another million into it. But if we end up with six restaurants slash retail, all those are gonna feed off each other.
So if you're a retailer that's by yourself over here, or maybe like in a stagnant area, if you come to us, you may pay a little more rent, but you're next to all these other cool people. And so whenever you're going to. Eat at a certain restaurant or gonna go to Fossil Cove, or you're gonna go get whatever their, the retailer is selling, you're probably gonna [00:36:00] bounce over also.
So the hope is we put money into that. We gen we're gonna ask for more rent generally from those buildings than what they were getting, but they're gonna feed off each other. So if I'm talking to a tenant like, yeah, you gotta pay a little more rent, but you're next to all these other, your business should go up.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And now we've seen that before in some of our other projects where we like, like in Little Rock, we have a center in Riverdale that we bought. It's a really big, like 200,000 foot. It was, um, good location, lot of land, lot of building, but it was just tired. And so we went in and did new facade, new parking lot, new landscaping.
It was also kind of empty. So we, we've filled it up then we've done some out parcels and all that. But we did that stuff first. We did that before, you know, a lot of developers, I mean, well first of all, it's a lot of work. I mean, it's a lot of work to buy something and spend a year updating. So. If you're a silent investor or developer, it's kind of hard.
It's a full-time job. Like it's to be able to know how much money you're gonna spend, not overspend [00:37:00] getting three bids on every paint job, or where exactly are you gonna put the bikes or when we're doing the, the retail stuff, what color are you gonna paint this? And all that is just, it's a lot of, it's a lot.
So that was another reason why I'm doing what I'm doing, because I love doing it. And that's all we, it's all we do. But, but, but we've done that in Riverdale. We're doing it in Fayetteville now. We're doing the work first. Like we, things that are like, you know, like in my age and I'm like really driven right now to make all this stuff happen.
A lot of owners have owned property for 20, 30, 40 years. And I would totally get it. I don't wanna do this, I just wanna let the rents ride out. I would almost rather not charge. More rent. I would just rather not fix anything and let it, let it go. I'm, I'm pretty much the opposite. Like, I, I want to put money into a project in an effort to get more rent, but it all shows to drive business sales also.
Yeah. Most people want to go to a [00:38:00] newer, nice, trendier place to spend their money. They wanna feel safe, they wanna know. It's a cool new thing, especially up here. Mm-hmm. I mean, everybody's looking for the next coolest thing.
[00:38:08] Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm.
[00:38:08] T.J. Lefler: Yeah. So we're kind of the opposite. We wanna put more money into it on the front end to show everybody we are willing to do the work.
We're gonna be a good landlord, we're gonna ask for more rent because we're doing it, but you're gonna get a lot better product. Yeah. So that's how, that's how we operate.
[00:38:22] Nick Beyer: That's awesome. And then talk about being an investment firm. You have investors, I mean, if there's so many things to invest in right now.
Mm-hmm. Crypto, you know, precious metals. Yeah. Stock markets perform really well over the last,
[00:38:37] Cameron Clark: yeah.
[00:38:37] Nick Beyer: 10 years, five years, whatever. So when you look at whether it's your returns as a firm or just returns in commercial real estate in this area, like why? What's, what's the why?
[00:38:49] T.J. Lefler: Well, the why probably for investors, it's cool.
I think, I think over the last 10 years, you know, when we travel, we all go on like family vacations or whatever. I mean, I think we would, we've gone [00:39:00] from, where's Arkansas to, oh my gosh, I'm moving to Bentonville because I wanna be there so bad. Mm-hmm. Like, it's completely changed. We're all over the country now.
People are looking at our area and wanting to be in Fayetteville or Bentonville. So I think that's a good drive for investors. I'm honestly, it is all I know, so I'm not. You take me to anything else you just said and I really, I'm gonna trust somebody else that knows how to deal with the stock market or something.
It's like gambling to me. I just don't understand it. Yeah. But, um, I do understand real estate. I understand that taking a vacant building and making it, and me, us putting our time and effort into what I just said is adding a lot of value.
[00:39:43] Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm.
[00:39:43] T.J. Lefler: It's a lot of work, but it's a lot of value. Mm-hmm. I know it, I see it.
I feel good about it. Um, I can, I mean it, the loan amount, the, the price amount doesn't matter to me. Mm-hmm. Because I just know that if [00:40:00] we do that, if I believe in what we're doing and we're taking that project, going from A to B, that we've got a good shot at making it work. It's kind of like, I don't know, like a.
Not an educated guess, but like we have a little bit of info before we go into something. Yeah. Like when you buy, when I invest in stocks or something, you know, maybe I, I look at things that I use like an Apple iPhone, so I'll buy Apple. That's the only reason I do that. I don't understand it. But when I'm going into real estate and I'm looking at a building up here and you're looking at Warehouse, which we have a bunch of those warehouse buildings, there's not very many of 'em.
No. Mm-hmm. And, you know, our market came from, you know, I compare us to Little Rock a lot. Like Little Rock has more inventory. They were bigger before we were. Mm-hmm. So we have a lot more newer things coming, but a lot of the reason is we didn't have it in the first place. So when you're looking at buying something here, the pricing is higher because the inventory is lower.
[00:41:00] But, um, I, I just know when I go into a building, like you've got less inventory, there's, there's a lot of demand. So I can see that stuff. Have a little bit of background information that might give me an edge. Mm-hmm. Versus investing in Apple stock when I just, yeah. I mean, I don't know what's gonna happen with that company.
[00:41:18] Nick Beyer: How do you know when it's time to exit?
[00:41:22] T.J. Lefler: I generally, the way I look at it is we're keeping everything forever. This is kind of my mo is we're keeping everything forever. I do look and, you know, again, another strength is just being here and you're constantly talking to people and we're all swapping, you know, we swap information all the time.
Like you're swapping information on like what you're seeing in the market, and I'll have something and then I'll think I'll keep him forever. And all of a sudden our multifamily gets really hot and all of a sudden some component of that that I happen to have went from here to, to a hundred. [00:42:00] And then we look at sell it.
Otherwise, we just keep, and we have, you know, like I don't. You know, we don't, um, you know, we, I have, I have some investors, which I don't, I don't have like a fund or anything. It's just more like, um, kind of friends and family stuff. And honestly, a lot of deals now are just me, or just me and my partner Bradford.
Um, but we, um, we just look at, you know, the, the market and when something we, we tell, we tell everybody we're not ever selling, basically. That's what we do. And then if something kind of changes with the economy, we, we might jump on it.
[00:42:36] Cameron Clark: Hmm. And so, uh, I, I wanna get to like the company, NA now we were kind of like leading up in the story and, and that was great.
The talk about the very end of maybe like, leaving Sage, how you knew hey, because you were already kind of buying stuff. Buying stuff and realizing like, oh, this is what I wanna do. Yeah. Full time. This is like, this is what really, how'd, you know, like this was,
[00:42:59] T.J. Lefler: [00:43:00] I think I, about 10 years ago, I started having friends and investors say.
Either I'm, I wanna do real estate, but I don't know how. Or, Hey, why don't we just do this together? Like, I was helping people put these pieces of a puzzle together and they may say, why don't we just buy it together? Or something. So I did that on a few things. Um, one of the first ones was a retail center in, in Little Rock.
Mm-hmm. And I liked it, saw it. And it was a grocery anchored center, so I wanted to do it. And so I did it with a few people that said they wanted to do real estate. And I, we kind of partnered up and I ran it. I ended up doing like parking lots and lighting. I moved tenants around. Um, I put a couple better tenants in that needed to be there, cleaned up the buildings, and then three years later we sold it.
And I got a feel for like, Hey, this, like this, like this works. [00:44:00] Yeah. Like this. And, and I was doing ev I was doing a lot of it
[00:44:03] Cameron Clark: though. Mm-hmm.
[00:44:03] T.J. Lefler: So I realized like, I can't, I did that a few more times. And then, you know, we did some, we did some like houses also, which taking loans out, you know, that's a big deal.
Like, yeah. Like if you haven't taken a loan out, like people always wanna do, they talk about real estate and they wanna do it, but when you actually take a loan out, you sign your name to that loan. Like, I took that so seriously, like, I'm not gonna default on it. I'm gonna pay it. And I like, but I may have to like sell my house and move over, move it, move into it or whatever.
But you get through that a couple times and you realize, and also too, the investor money, like people, partners, money. I feel like it's like. That's paramount on my shoulders. Like they've trusted me mm-hmm. With what I told 'em I believed in, so I've gotta make this work. But once you go through that a few times, um, uh, then you, your tolerance gets bigger.
So you get like a, you know, like I've encouraged a lot of younger people that wanna do this, like buy a duplex, you know, live in half of [00:45:00] it, rent the other half, take a loan out. And people that I've talked to that have done it, typically within like nine months, you've leased both sides and then you go buy another one, and then you're like, okay, I can kind of kinda get this.
Mm-hmm. And it makes you feel better about doing the next deal. So after I did a com, a couple of these commercial deals, I realized it worked, it went well. I believed in myself more. I mean, that was like a, I think we ended up selling it for like closer to 8 million. That's kind of a big deal.
[00:45:27] Cameron Clark: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
[00:45:28] T.J. Lefler: And that was a lot of loan on your shoulders and money, but it all worked out and we were getting rent, we made good money. And so after I went through that, we did it again, then we did it. We've done it a number of times now. And so if it's 50 million or a hundred million, I, I'm okay with it as long as we believe in the plan and we can execute on it.
And so I say no to like so many things. I just can't, I do not wanna do a bad deal. Yeah. Um, but, but I'm comfortable with the bigger amount because we've gone through the process a number of times and [00:46:00] it's worked and, and so, um, anyway. Yeah, I mean, I think you have, I also think you have one life and you know, if this is something you wanna do, like you should go after it and give it a try.
And I've told my my wife before, like, we, I may fail and may go bankrupt. I don't know, but I'd rather do this and know that I tried versus always wondering like, should I have done that or something?
[00:46:21] Cameron Clark: Yeah. Yeah. Talk about the first few months on, on your own. Uh, did you know, like, was, was that scary at all or was like, Hey, I've kind of been doing this for a while.
Like, I feel I, I feel pretty good.
[00:46:35] T.J. Lefler: Um, you know, when you're, when you're a broker and you're starting and you're commercial, I was always told two years, which it was two years, like the first few years were really hard. Um, but I had already had this, you know, 16 year background and so wasn't, and also it was COVID, so there wasn't a lot going on.
Anyway, you're in your house and you're bored and. [00:47:00] I just kind of, between me already had been thinking about it, I had done it a number of times. I realized doing these deals, you, it, you know, if I'm gonna do all this stuff, I'm telling y'all like, like control the, the new facade and tear down a building and build a new one or whatever.
It's really hard to do that and then also be a broker to 20 deals. Yeah. You're trying to help them find their space and you want to be, have a fiduciary to them. And so I was doing that. I was doing this other thing for me more nights and weekends.
[00:47:27] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:47:27] T.J. Lefler: But I really liked it and I realized I can't keep doing all this.
Like I gotta make a choice. That was around that time. And so COVID happened too. The brokerage world slowed down a little bit and I kind of wanted to do this anyway. And so I just decided 2020 ish to jump out and do it. And I, um, I just kind of did it outta my house for a while. I just was still, you know, I had a few deals that we had already done.
I didn't have a lot coming in. I actually handed off, you know, 16 years of [00:48:00] brokerage deals, which is kind of hard 'cause you, you know, the, the goal or the, the benefit or the positive about like commissions is like, you know, most of your friends at 20, 22 years old are making nice salary jobs and you're making, I owe, I owed them money after like 18 months.
I didn't make any money. But you're, you go, you know, after you put your time in, after 4, 5, 6, 7 years, you get to where you're on a great trajectory and you have repeat business. You're known people are calling you, you don't wanna give that up, you know? Yeah. But I just, it was something in me. Um, I don't know, just the way I, I live with like a lot of prayer and my internal feelings of just like, this is the time.
Like, it's gonna be okay. So I gave up a ton of, a ton of like my normal commissions or whatever, or deals. In an effort to have the time to focus on buying the next handful of deals. Yeah. And I don't think, it wasn't as hard for me. I do think if it was, you know, 10 years ago, it would've been a lot harder.
[00:48:58] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:48:59] T.J. Lefler: But [00:49:00] I just knew, I just kind of knew it was gonna work out. I knew I'd done it a few times, and so I knew it would, it would work out. But I, I do think having that background as being a broker helped a bunch. Hmm.
[00:49:10] Cameron Clark: Yeah. Give us, so, uh, you total, you talked about Bloom. Give us like one more story about, about a deal, like over the last five years, like building, building the company up and wanna talk about like kind of what's, what, maybe what's on the horizon here next?
[00:49:23] T.J. Lefler: Yeah, so, so we own a little bit of everything. We, um, we have an opportunity zone office building in north of Rock, and we've put money into that and it's. It's going great. I think we're four years in on that, but I, I gravitate towards, um, finding an opportunity like value and an opportunity. I mean, you can go buy a brand new, um, whatever, uh, whatever, a gas station, 20 year lease.
You can buy a drug store, you can buy a fast food like a Taco Bell or something. Mm-hmm. Those were always there, but I gravitate towards buying buildings that I [00:50:00] see something I can do with it. Yeah. So we have apartments we bought over here next to campus and we, there were some tennis courts when we were buying them.
They were dilapidated. They were, they were not in use.
[00:50:10] Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm.
[00:50:10] T.J. Lefler: But it was on an acre. So we were able, we didn't factor that in the deal. That was essentially in quotations free land. Mm-hmm. And we added 42 units to it. And so those were, those are now market rate, um, fully leased. Right On the greenway. Yeah.
But that was something where we essentially had free land for that. So I try, I try to find something, I try to find something like that. And I'll say it's so much harder now than it was, you know, back in the, I don't know, back in the early 2000 10, 12, 15, that area. It was a little bit easier, but like I keep saying, or we all know, it's just northwest Arkansas's becoming so popular now with people from all over the country for so many reasons.
For mm-hmm. Uh, vacations, for real estate, for jobs, for just quality of life, everything. [00:51:00] That, it's harder now. Yeah. Um, you take, you take downtown Bentonville land, we're about to build eight like single family homes, Uhhuh, and try that out next to the momentary. The land. I mean that the land prices, you hear it from people that are from Bentonville.
Like I could have bought that for 20 grand. Yeah. And now that lot is $2 million. Yeah. Or something crazy. Um, so it's a lot harder to find what I'm talking about, but I love doing bigger things, having some sort of component to the deal. Um, and we do, we're, we're continuing to, we're buying two more retail centers right now.
And one of 'em we have, we created some out lots on it. Mm-hmm. And we have relationships with tenants and we've already got a couple like, offers from tenants to go there and, yeah. Um, and then the, I, I've got, you know, Bradford Gaines, he's our, my new partner over the last year. He's been here about a year now.
He's a ground up guy. Mm-hmm. And I just, I think I'm. What I'm excited about for next year is I've kinda realized I can let go of some [00:52:00] of this stuff. I just couldn't do it. At first, I just thought I had to do, I just, maybe I just couldn't trust anybody. I don't know what it was. You know, when you're, what's your deal?
Like? I, I dunno what it was. It was, it was me and mentally my, my problem. But. Uh, I've gotten to a point now where I think I've got my strength down of like seeing what, how, where the company needs to go and what we need to be buying and selling and, but I realized like we, the last town home deal we built was really hard.
And this like, dealing with the cities as hard, it's not necessarily them as much as it's my ignorance or me going to, I'm too busy a long, long time. Yeah, it's a lot of time. Yeah. It's a lot of time, lot of effort. And they, you know, these, these cities have a lot of, they're just dealing with a lot. Yeah.
They're dealing with an influx of, of all of us developers trying to do the next big thing. Um, there's more people moving here. There's not enough money for anything. And so they're getting hit with us trying to do this and this, but all of a sudden now, instead of it taking a week, it's taken two months to get something approved or done.
And
[00:52:58] Cameron Clark: Bradford's good at it.
[00:52:59] T.J. Lefler: He's good [00:53:00] at it. Yeah. He's really good at it. So, so he's doing that. And then, um, we've got a new project manager in here, like when I was. Handling. How do we, do we put incandescent, like the string light bulbs across this parking lot for fun? Or do we redo this parking lot or get me three landscape bids?
We've, we've, I've hired a guy in house to help with that. He's great in handling that. But when we started, we were all doing a little bit of everything. Yeah. So now I think, I'm realizing we can like have a little more help in here. I can let go and trust other people. Yeah. Which I'm really like now that kind of in my.
My age and how me, me growing up, like I want to do that. Like I want to empower other people to be part of these deals. I love when we can have a deal that works and we go, like, our dream is to take this older building or vacant building or whatever and turn it into what we want to turn it into.
[00:53:52] Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm.
[00:53:53] T.J. Lefler: I think having 10 people involved is great and I wanna do 10 of those, not one of those. Yeah. Mm-hmm. So I'm more than willing to [00:54:00] share and like hiring people to help us or working with other companies to do it, because there's always gonna be another deal for us.
[00:54:08] Cameron Clark: And talk about that. Who, like, so when you say hire other people, like what did, what does left for capital right now?
What's the,
[00:54:14] T.J. Lefler: what's on the horizon? We. You know, we, we need, I don't, I don't, it's still, I'm still, it's still like a work in progress. Mm-hmm. But like everything we do, we hire out leasing, we hire out property management, we hire out project management. Mm-hmm. Um, now that we, the more properties we accumulate, we have, I mean, 40 loans, I mean, there's always a loan being renewed or a new one that we need to quote out.
Mm-hmm. Or, or whatever. Mm-hmm. So I think that we could use help on all those fronts. Yeah. Now how I pay for that, I'm figuring it out. Yeah. Um, but, um, and I don't wanna lose focus of the fact that we have really good outside. Partnerships 'cause we do, yeah. We have really great outside brokerage [00:55:00] partnerships.
We have really good outside property management partnerships. We have different ones in Little Rock than we have up here. We have different ones for multifamily than we have for commercial. So I don't, I don't really wanna lose that, but I do think I gotta quit answering for every single, I mean, I, we probably have over 300 tenants.
I can't answer for every time a tenant has a light bulb out or they want a little request, but I wanna be really responsive to them.
[00:55:25] Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm. So
[00:55:25] T.J. Lefler: I would rather hire somebody to help answer those questions for me. Yeah. Or if we're, you know, when you're on a project, um, and you're in the middle of redoing it.
It could take two years or it could take one year. Mm-hmm. If you have somebody focused on it and working on it, you can have somebody go there every week to make sure everybody's doing what they say they're gonna
[00:55:45] Cameron Clark: do. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:55:46] T.J. Lefler: But after you get so many properties, you can't go to every, if I'm doing that only, I can't go do the loans, or I can't make the calls Sure.
For my partners, whatever. So I'm basically, as much as we can kind of hire out to somebody with all of those things [00:56:00] we're gonna do. Yeah.
[00:56:01] Cameron Clark: Yeah. Um, yeah. And I mean, and talk, so you closing on three deals next week, kind, what's, what's, what's next year maybe look like and how far out do you look? I mean, do you look five years down the road and is that,
[00:56:16] T.J. Lefler: um, I, I'm starting to change, you know, now that more people are here, I kind of feel like an obligation to, um.
To care for the company more than when it was just me. Yeah. So, yeah. Um, I have thoughts. I have thoughts 20 years out. You know, I don't, I think I'll be, unless I just totally goof it up, I think I'll be doing this forever.
[00:56:38] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:56:39] T.J. Lefler: I don't know that I'll retire, you know, fully ever. Um, so I do look out where I wanna be, what I wanna be doing and how to get there.
But we, I think we, if these go through, well, I think we'll bought nine properties this year. Um, I'm not a big goal guy. Like, you have to buy 10.
[00:56:57] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:56:58] T.J. Lefler: We just are [00:57:00] constantly, if it wasn't my hobby, you know, I maybe I'd care a little more, but I mean, we, we are doing it all the time. Yeah. So, uh, if we did, it wouldn't surprise me if we did more next year because of the help.
I'm turning down a lot of opportunities because I don't have time to look at 'em.
[00:57:15] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:57:15] T.J. Lefler: So I do kind of think we're gonna do more next year than we did this year, however. You know, you don't wanna buy a bad deal. Yeah. Because once you're in this deal, you, you're not out of that. You're in it. Yeah. Mm-hmm. So, I, I think we'll do more next year than this year.
I don't know what that'll be. Um, we always have deals that take 6, 7, 9 months a year to get done. So we have plenty of deals right now that we have under contract that are gonna close first, second quarter of next year, unless they get bumped to, to next Christmas again, like that is right now. Um, so, uh, I would just say we're on a growth.
My big focus is making sure everybody in here is taken care of and I take care of our, [00:58:00] our outside relationships like we're supposed to be. Mm-hmm. Because that's where all of our opportunities coming from. Yeah. And so I think if we're more responsive to the outside partners by hiring people in-house, I think it's just gonna lead us to more opportunities.
So we're definitely on a trajectory of. Um, more deals is better than one deal. Yeah. We're fine sharing the, well sharing, the sharing, sharing everything. Uh, as long as we all have a good understanding on the front end. I'm real big on setting expectations up with everybody involved on the front end.
Mm-hmm. And that way hopefully there's no issues later. Yeah. But we're after, we're after more. Yeah. We're not interested at this time in getting outside of the area or, or Arkansas, just because we just haven't had time to breathe. But if there's opportunity here, enough opportunity here for us right now.
I don't know. Why would I like this area? You're always betting on something in real estate, you know, and so we're betting on, you know, Walmart and Tyson and JB Hunt, and we're betting on the university and those are [00:59:00] pretty good bets. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And so, and we know the area and so why as long as we have enough to work on here, we're just gonna stay here.
[00:59:07] Cameron Clark: So what do you tell someone who's, you know, they're looking at starting something here? Why build a business in northwest Arkansas?
[00:59:17] T.J. Lefler: Well, I mean, there, there are so many reasons to be here. I think the, I mean there's, there's a, there's a political answer I guess like the, the employment base here. That the general people that are here are really good, highly educated workers.
And the cool thing that I always hear is they're so creative. There are, I don't know the stats 'cause that's not really my world, but the number of new companies that they're small creative companies. Kinda like us coming up with something cool to work on. Happens all the time here. So you coming up with a cool idea, people being creative and driven that that's here, but also when you're here, the work life balance, which is super [01:00:00] important to me, is totally here.
Yeah. I cannot believe when I go to some, we go to vacations, to vacation and now we hear more and more people saying they wanna, they've been here, they're coming here, they wanna move here. Mainly for the work-life balance. So I would, if you're gonna pop a new business off somewhere. Why wouldn't it be somewhere where everybody wants, like they want to be here.
They're not, they don't have to be here. And how many times have y'all heard people, a lot of mainly vendor people that have come here from somewhere else that, that didn't want to Yeah. Like that did not wanna be here. They had to put their time in for two years and they were rolling
[01:00:38] Cameron Clark: and they, and
[01:00:39] T.J. Lefler: they never leave.
Yeah. They, they're like, wait a minute, this is,
[01:00:42] Cameron Clark: yeah. Yeah.
[01:00:42] T.J. Lefler: I, this is, I mean, you almost don't wanna tell people about the area because you don't want it to become overwhelmed. But that happens all the time to us friends that we have that are not from here, that just they wouldn't leave. Yeah. Or once they're here, they're supposed to go back and they don't wanna go [01:01:00] back and they may have even left their job to get another job to stay here.
[01:01:02] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[01:01:03] T.J. Lefler: So I just, it's for me and what I do for a living and what matters to me doing, the one thing I've only done is I wanna have fun. I want it to be fun for me, otherwise I'm gonna get burnt out. I'm gonna get, who knows? Like, I'm just not, I'm not gonna wanna do it. I'm not, I don't know what I'm gonna do.
I'm gonna get lost, I'm gonna get gonna get depressed if I'm having fun. We're, we're, we're rolling. And you know, in real estate, every day is a new day. You never know what call you're gonna get. You never know what you're gonna find the next opportunity. Mm-hmm. And it's just a lot of fun.
[01:01:34] Cameron Clark: So, in, in that, talking about like what, you know, what you enjoy, what keeps you, um, going, but like how do you define success?
[01:01:47] T.J. Lefler: Uh, I'm sure there's another, you know, I wish I had like, uh, great wisdom answers for like a definition, but for me, I really care about, you know, making sure [01:02:00] everybody around me is, am I serving everybody around me, my kids, my wife. The people I work with, my clients and friends, which a lot of my clients are my friends.
Yeah. Are we doing good in all those boxes? And then am I doing good with myself? Like, am I, am I taking care of myself? I don't know that I'm ever gonna reach a level that I'm okay with. Like, I'm always wanting to go to the next level. I, I've just never been, if I can just reach X, I'm done. I don't, I'm never gonna stop.
I think this drives me to like, to live longer and like I said, to have fun. But if I can make sure I'm checking all these boxes, including your yourself, including myself, and I feel good about what I've done for myself and I feel good about what I've done for others, that's, you know, success for me at least right now.
[01:02:55] Cameron Clark: Hmm.
[01:02:57] T.J. Lefler: That's
[01:02:57] Nick Beyer: good. That's awesome. Well, one of the things we [01:03:00] do at the end of every episode is we kind of recap what we learn personally. And then I think, you know, the people who are listening, whether they're starting a business, own a business, building a business, working in a business, what they're gonna learn from you.
And every person we've interviewed is different, has different strengths, different gifts. But I think the first thing that really stood out and stood, stood out across like the whole interview is your confidence. And not in like a bad way. I think to do what you do, you have to be optimistic and you have to be confident.
Mm-hmm. And, uh, one of the, one of the things that really stuck out was how you said you have gut feelings and that'll, that'll lead into a couple of the other things. But like, when you see a property, when you, when you go to the property, when you hear about it, when you look it up, like you have a gut feeling and that confidence comes from experience.
You had 16 years, 15 years of experience before hopping in and doing what you're doing. But there's just a, a really cool component if you're building something like. You gotta have some gut feelings. You gotta have some convictions if it's gonna work long term. Yeah. And so I thought that was really cool.
And [01:04:00] just, you know, even when you talked about transitioning from Sage and starting your company, like you were confident in it.
[01:04:05] Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm.
[01:04:05] Nick Beyer: And I think there's a, a part of being cautious, but if you're an entrepreneur, if you're building something, if you're founding something, you have to have confidence.
Mm-hmm. You have to. Mm-hmm. And so I think that that really stuck out. I think the second thing that really stuck out was the word urgency. I wrote it down. Um, you, you talked about the weekends. You talked about, you know, uh, the story. I don't, was it Mark or Marshall? But in between Christmas and New Year's, like just this, this word urgency.
It doesn't matter if you're in real estate, if you're building a it, it doesn't matter what you're building. You have to be urgent. You have to do things urgently. If you're an entrepreneur, if you're building something, you should walk fast. You should talk fast. I mean, you should be, you should be doing it with urgency.
And that's not flippant. It's like, no. If, if you want to accomplish something, which you've done. Um, you have to do it with urgency. And so it's just cool hearing you, you hear about a deal you're going to drive over there, like yeah. That, that's the [01:05:00] type of urgency that I think people can learn from and I can learn from, Cameron can learn from.
And I think the last part in that, that was the thread through the whole interview, was the word opportunistic. Mm-hmm. Um, and I think even just ending it with like, that's your role in the company now, like your role is looking for opportunities and I think that's really cool. And that's for your clients, that's for your family, that's for your team who's in this building right now.
Mm-hmm. You're looking for opportunities and I think the really cool part is you're also looking for opportunities to enhance Northwest Arkansas, which is where we live. That's what this podcast is about, like, mm-hmm. We go to Bentonville and we're gonna drive past bloom. Mm-hmm. And like, how cool is that to go eat at that restaurant?
Knowing Yeah. What it was before and, and getting to experience that now, or what you're talking about on Poplar or what, what, whatever, like the, the things you're doing in the community, like they're, they're actually making an impact. People are enjoying them. Mm-hmm. And so this word opportunistic is, yeah.
It's just, it's cool [01:06:00] to learn from. So thank you for teaching us today. I think, you know, anyone who listens to this episode is gonna really benefit and those are some of the things that stand out, so
[01:06:10] T.J. Lefler: You bet. And thank you. Thanks, man. Yeah. Appreciate it. Yeah.
[01:06:14] Cameron Clark: Well, how do people learn about Loeffler Capital or, um, just more about what you're doing.
[01:06:19] T.J. Lefler: If you have a problem with one of our properties, don't worry about my, my phone number. I'm just kidding. Yeah. Um, no, we have a website, loeffler capital.com. Um, we're proud of what we do. We really try to make sure as best we can, which is not, I mean, you know, tenant situations can be hard, but we, we try our best to like, maintain really, really good relationships for the future repeat business.
Mm-hmm. So we have a website kinda shows some of our properties. Um, and, you know, if you have an opportunity for us, there's a way on there to send us some sort of opportunity. I am very, uh, opportunistic to me is fun. And so I think other people feel that way also. Uh, so if you have some sort of opportunity, you know, we're [01:07:00] on, we're on our, our website there, but I was gonna say one more thing, if that's okay.
Yeah. Like, I, I like, I'm feel really blessed to only do one thing since college. That's kind of rare. You know, I realize not everybody's that way, but when I'm, um, when I'm looking on the weekends and I'm looking, I do it because it's fun. And so, like if I was encouraging somebody to do whatever they're doing their business in their own, it doesn't have to be real estate like.
My wife and I and our family, we have a really good relationship with the work life balance. They understand if I've gotta go look at that on Saturday, but then I'm gonna make sure that I, you know, do something with them next, because that, that's what's extremely important to me. So I do do that all the time, and I think it's because I'd like it so much and it's kind of my hobby, but I really, really value the work life.
You know, we, we don't have an eight to five schedule, so we're, we may, you know, I'm up for taking a trip if you want to, but I may have to work a little bit while I'm there. So [01:08:00] we try to like balance out, there's a balance component to, to what we do also. But, um, but no, I just, I think the big opportunistic thing.
Is in us because we like, we really like doing it. Yeah.
[01:08:15] Cameron Clark: Love it.
[01:08:15] T.J. Lefler: Anyway, thanks guys. Appreciate it. Thanks, jj.
[01:08:17] Cameron Clark: Thank you for listening to this episode of NWA Founders where we sit down with founders, owners and builders driving growth here in northwest Arkansas. For recommendations are to connect with us, reach out at NW founders@gmail.com.
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