Nomad Capital: Repurposing Retail for Premier Storage
Description
Today's guest is Clint Harris.
Clint spent 16 years in medical sales, built a STR portfolio to replace that income, and a property management company. He made the jump to self storage conversion projects, and then syndication, and is now a General Partner with Nomad Capital, $120 million AUM.
Show summary:
In this episode, Clint Harris, a partner at Nomad Capital, shares his transition from medical sales to real estate investing, focusing on short-term rentals and self-storage conversions. He emphasizes financial independence and the value of time and location freedom. Clint discusses the slow but rewarding process of real estate investing, the balance between active and passive roles, and the importance of aligning strategies with personal goals. He also speaks on the power of partnerships and leveraging others' strengths.
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Intro (00:00:00 )
Clint's journey in real estate (00:01:05 )
Lessons from early real estate investing (00:03:16 )
Transition to self-storage projects (00:09:39 )
Balancing financial and time independence (00:13:07 )
Challenges of managing multiple ventures (00:18:52 )
Operating Partner and Manager Selection (00:19:09 )
Nomad Capital Partnership (00:20:05 )
Contact Information (00:21:02 )
Podcast Wrap-up and Call to Action (00:21:19 )
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Connect with Clint:
Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/clint-harris-543265139
FB: https://www.facebook.com/clint.harris.3150?mibextid=LQQJ4d
IG: https://www.instagram.com/clintstagram_nc/?utm_source=qr
Web: https://nomadcapital.us/
Connect with Sam:
I love helping others place money outside of traditional investments that both diversify a strategy and provide solid predictable returns.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HowtoscaleCRE/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samwilsonhowtoscalecre/
Email me → sam@brickeninvestmentgroup.com
SUBSCRIBE and LEAVE A RATING. Listen to How To Scale Commercial Real Estate Investing with Sam Wilson
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-to-scale-commercial-real-estate/id1539979234
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4m0NWYzSvznEIjRBFtCgEL?si=e10d8e039b99475f
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Want to read the full show notes of the episode? Check it out below:
Clint Harris (00:00:00 ) - Traditionally, we'll buy a building for a couple million bucks, put a couple million into it, and then stabilize. Value is usually between 13 to $17 million, which means we're sitting at around 30 to 35% loan to value when we are stabilized. So we can refi to 5,560%, pay our investors and ourselves when we do that, and we're paying people out by way of a refinance, it's a nontaxable event because it's not a capital gain. We didn't sell anything, so they're getting a nice return. We keep some money, keep the lights on here at Nomad, and then that gives us the ability to continue the scale.
Intro (00:00:32 ) - Welcome to the how to Scale commercial real Estate show. Whether you are an active or passive investor. We'll teach you how to scale your real estate investing business into something big.
Sam Wilson (00:00:45 ) - Glenn Harris has 16 years in medical sales. He has built a short term rental portfolio to replace his income. He has a property management company and now he's doing self-storage conversion projects and syndications. He's also a general partner now with Nomad Capital and has over $120 million in assets under management.
Sam Wilson (00:01:04 ) - Clint, welcome to the show.
Clint Harris (00:01:05 ) - Thank you. Sam, great to be here. Great to see you again.
Sam Wilson (00:01:08 ) - Absolutely. Always good to see you, Clint. There are three questions I ask every guest who comes on the show in 90s or less. Can you tell me where did you start? Where are you now and how did you get there?
Clint Harris (00:01:18 ) - I started building in a career in medical sales. That is a short. It's a young man's game that will grind you up in terms of nights, calls, uh, working weekends, heart problems. I was implanting pacemakers and defibrillators. That is not a Monday through Friday, 9 to 5 kind of job. So that's where I started. Because of that, I actively focused on looking to build an off ramp from that lifestyle to stop trading time for money. Uh, and that got me into single family rentals, where I discovered that it's a very slow way to get ahead. That got me into, uh, buying small multifamily properties and converting them to short term rentals.
Clint Harris (00:01:59 ) - And that taught me the value of multifamily and the value of asset class conversion that drastically increases the value of an asset, because you change the formula by which the asset is valued. And that led me to, again, a very active profile. It replaced my income. It gave me a level of financial freedom, but it did not give me time or location independence. So in the pursuit of time, location and financial independence, that led me to self-storage, which is where I am now, and general partner with Nomad Capital. We specifically focus on buying big box retail buildings like Kmart's, grocery stores and warehouses, and we convert them from one single big box into 6 or 700 class A climate controlled self-storage units. And it's taking those same lessons. It's it's one property that can be converted to a different asset, where you change the formula by which the value is created, and you create multiple tenants and putting them in place, you're buying for less than the replacement cost. Use vertical integration to leave as much value as you possibly can.
Clint Harris (00:02:55 ) - And that's what changed my life in a meaningful way. And I left Cardiology behind in in 2022 and, uh, full time nomad and real estate investor.
Sam Wilson (00:03:04 ) - Man, that's really cool. I love that you you've gone through several iterations of the business, and I guess in what and what year did you start investing in real estate? How long has that been?
Clint Harris (00:03:16 ) - I started investing in real estate. Let's say I bought my first property as a duplex when I was in my early 20s. I'm okay. I'm 41 now. I would tell you this. I started investing in real estate when I was probably 2324. It was the post 2008 crash era. So between 2010 and 2013, I think my wife and I bought nine single family properties, I believe, um, the reality was there's a big difference between investing in real estate and doing it correctly. I'll tell you, I did it wrong for at least ten years. It wasn't until, uh, I relocated to Wilmington, North Carolina. My wife and I took a promotion.
Clint Harris (00:03:56 ) - We moved to the beach, and I used a lot of road time to start listening to podcasts aggressively and educating. So I said, I've been doing real estate a long time. I've been doing real estate correctly, uh, since 2018. That was when we first got it right. And we started we unloaded some single family properties. We did some 1030 ones, and we started buying multifamily properties with bad long term tenants, converting them to Airbnbs. And that's really where it kind of took off. And the lesson I learned is, you know, you could have four condos at the beach with four mortgages, four sets of HOAs and four sets, utilities and break even. Or I could buy one quad plex, have one mortgage, one set of taxes and utilities, and net 80 grand a year. So the unit density in that lesson. So I think there's a big difference in investing and investing correctly. And I certainly was not doing it the right way for the first ten years or so.
Sam Wilson (00:04:46 ) - Well, yeah.
Sam Wilson (00:04:48 ) - And that I mean, that's kind of the thrust of the show is how to scale. Like it's it's one of those things where and you've made the, the, the progression. I think that so many investors make along the way, myself included, where it's like, oh, wait, like this, just this doesn't work at the single family level. Uh, what were some of the things, I guess, I mean, you because you developed a model, you said, okay, this model didn't work or isn't working the way we want it to. Like getting through those transitions is oftentimes tough. And or people can be accused of shiny object syndrome going, well, here's the next greatest and best thing. Like, how did you work your way through that without feeling like you're just chasing your own tail, trying to find the next iteration of what might work?
Clint Harris (00:05:27 ) - Well, I did, I think that's a really, really good question. If I'm trying to give you the most condensed life experience that I can that's going to offer the most value to you and your listeners, I would say this with single family rentals.
Clint Harris (00:05:38 ) - The lesson that I learned there is that if one property is 1 or 2 headaches a year, and then you multiply that by nine, it's it's a very slow way to get ahead. It does not scale very well. And ultimately like it's just not worth your time. The mistake that I made from there, not a mistake. As part of our journey moving into small multifamily properties. And we still own and we have 14 Airbnb properties and a property management company that manages another 80 listings. Which is why I keep talking to you about laundromats, because we got £40,000 of linens a month during the summer to deal with, um, the the issue when I made the jump from that first portfolio that we built and ultimately we took it apart and rebuilt it into something else, here's the important thing I think I was really focused on. The finances. And single families would just way too






















