The ADHD Toolkit Behind Conner Kinney's Real Estate Success Story

You're listening to The Faster The Normal Podcast, where we know that having ADD or ADHD is a gift, not a curse. Each week, we interview people from all around the globe from every walk of life in every profession, from rock stars to CEOs, from teachers to politicians who have learned how to unlock the gifts of their ADD and ADHD diagnosis and used it to their personal and professional advantage, to build businesses, to become millionaires, or to simply better their lives. And now, here's the host of The Faster The Normal Podcast, the only man who squarrel, Peter Shankman. >> Hey everyone, welcome back to Fast The Normal, my name is Peter Shankman, it has been a hot second. I think it's been about three months, we took a few months off because we had a bunch of other stuff we had to do, and then I swear to God, it's almost like we have ADHD. And like 15 million other things happened, continents shifted, and the giants were playing pretty good for two games, and now it's almost baseball season again. So yeah, we're back, we're back, let's fast The Normal, and I am so happy to be back. If for no other reason than it's going to stop people from emailing me going, dude, did you stop the podcast because after a while it just gets old. Anyway, I am thrilled to have you back, I'm thrilled to have our guest, who's opening us up again for another season of Fast The Normal, Connor Kinney, who I believe is seven years old. How old are you? 22? >> 22. >> Okay, I'm going to go with seven. So he's 22 years old. Check this, he's a full-time real estate investor who's built a multi-seven figure real estate business with a core focus and acquiring and scaling long-term rental properties. At 22, I was trying to figure out a date. So that's pretty impressive. You are getting those rental properties primarily through seller-financed acquisitions. You're the founder of your own real estate company, Kinney Property Group, and currently it was a 37-unit rental portfolio with over 10 million in completed real estate transactions. That's, dude, for 22, that's, we need to be able to sign me 25, so anyway, great to have you. You grew up with a mass media HD. You were told it was a disadvantage. Instead of fighting it, you learned how to channel it and to focus, create it, creativity, and a size of action. So welcome to the show, buddy. >> Thanks for having me, Peter, good to be here. >> So 22 years old, you obviously did not walk into a, you didn't see your first property and say, you know what? I had a paper route. So I probably have more than enough money to finance that first property. So walk us, we'll talk about your HD later, walk us through how you started your company. >> Yeah, I started it, I actually bought my first property when I was 19 years old. And ultimately, real estate investing was pitched to me as you got to have all this money and all this experience. And I was like, man, my ADHD brain was like, well, how hard can it be? If I could just get the seller to finance me the property, how hard can it be? So let's just try to do this. So I just went all out and I was like, hey, if I fail, I'm 19 years old, who cares? So I ended up meeting with a bunch of sellers. I actually met with this one seller and we built a conversation and it ended up, we signed the purchase agreement on his truck at McDonald's in a parking lot. And that really was my first taste of, wow, I can make this happen. And I think having an ADHD brain has taught me that I probably should have said, hey, is this smart of me to be doing this? Is this probably the wisest choice that I'm taking on this debt to buy this property? And there's risk involved and I really don't know what I'm doing. But ultimately, I was like, well, how hard can it be? Let's just go straight to the fire and ultimately it's paid off huge for me. >> So those who don't understand this concept, people think a lot of people think, I mean, I understand this works. I've bought several properties. People think buying stuff requires money, right? You need money, you go in, you give someone money and they give you something. That's not what you're doing. So walk the audience through how you acquired your first property. >> Yes, what happens is basically the seller and it's typically paid off properties. They don't have any debt on the property or any mortgage that they owe. And they are going to basically finance me 90, 95 or 100% of the purchase price. So instead of a bank giving me 70 to 75% loan, they're going to give me a 95 or 100% loan. So then as a 19 year old kid, I can go buy this property. And I have there's no credentials you need. There's no experience. I mean, I was told several times, oh, you're too young to buy properties or this or that. But ultimately it was like, how hard can it be? And I learned about seller financing and it's just basically taking the seller, they're becoming the lender and they're financing you their property. >> So you're not paying them, they're basically giving you the property and saying, do what with it? Flip it? No, no, no. I'm paying them every month. >> Okay, so you're okay, they're basically your finance year, they're almost like it's basically a mortgage. >> Yeah, so they basically become the bank. And I guess the key is finding sellers that are okay with that as opposed to just saying here's cash in hand. >> Yeah, the key is finding those types of sellers, typically they're older kind of what I call retiring landlords. So there are people who have paid off properties. I just bought a 29 year to property just like this and it was a husband and a wife. They owned it for 30 plus years, they didn't want to sell it because if they'll sell it, they're going to incur a lot of capital gains taxes. And so if they sell their finance it to me, they're going to give monthly payments every month. They're going to get some interest on their money. I paid them, it's three and a quarter interest. So it's not that much, but they also get to defer a lot of their capital gains taxes as well, which is also a really big benefit to them for doing that. >> And then you turn around and renting those places out? >> Yep, yeah, it's rented out. And then they all cash flow as well. >> Nice work. Where are you doing this and where in the country? >> This is in Dallas, Fort Worth, Texas. >> Well, there's a lot of space in a level end, that makes it. >> Yeah, yeah. >> York is going to be hard. >> Looking at it up in New York City, thinking, not as easy. >> Yeah, not as easy here. Very cool. So tell us about growing up. So you were obviously, you did to fit into the traditional mold of kids, of normal kids. >> I've had ADHD since I was a kid, but I really did not understand what that meant. And it was really hard. I had a hard time in middle school and high school because I would be the kid making jokes in the back of the class and getting the class to laugh. And what I realized now is that was me creating dopamine for myself. I didn't, but what would happen is, I would say, Connor, go to the principal's office or Connor, get out of my room, you're distracting class and me distracting the class was actually me wanting to learn, which is seriously, are you like messing with me now and just reading from my book? >> No, I mean, literally what I wrote and fast and normal. >> Yeah, yeah, no, I mean, but that's what it is, yeah, yeah, I mean, that's what I felt. And so that was hard. >> And that's where it got to be pumped right now. That's really funny. >> No, no, no, I mean, that's exactly, I mean, I've read the book several times, I just again read the children's book, which is so funny, I love pictures. So I love your stuff and that's part of why, I mean, I was so intrigued by the book is I felt what you felt. I mean, literally I would get kicked out of class and I was like, what is going on here? I could never focus and ultimately, I just needed somebody to tell me, hey, you have a, you know, first call it faster than normal brain. You have a brain that's going to 10X speed it and it's not a disadvantage. It's a huge advantage. You just have to learn how to utilize it to your best credit cap. >> No question about it. So you manage to get through school, did you go to college? >> I didn't. No, I went to college for a semester then I dropped out because I was going full steam into real estate. >> Unreal. Are you looking at specific, so here's my thought, you know, from the ADHD perspective, there are numbers that you have to make work on every purchase you make, right? Are you doing that or do you have someone doing that for you? >> I do, I do all the numbers myself, but I have, you know, I have people and kind of other mentors of mine who I always have to verify everything to check because I am a full speed guy. Like, I will get, you know, I just bought a $4 million $29 unit deal. People are like, well, how the heck are you going to do that at $22, and I was like, well, how hard can it be? Let's just, let's see if I can do it. And I did it. >> I want to stop for a second and repeat what you just said. You bought a $4 million, a $29 unit placed for $4 million. It must be really nice to live in a state that's not New York every once in a while. >> Jesus Christ, $29 units for $4 million just, I have a headache now. >> All right, continue, please. >> Yeah, but I bought that deal and, you know, the numbers, I try to keep it as simple as possible. And so I don't do all these crazy analysis spreadsheets. I just have a cash flow goal. Each of my properties per unit have to cash flow at least $250 to $300 a door net of all expenses. So if I can hit that target, I know I'm good to go. I know how my, you know, I have a maintenance person here in Texas so I know how much they're going to charge me to help me with the maintenance. I do the management. I have a lot of softwares and systems in place that help me out. So I try to keep it as simple as possible and then I'll have some other people run through it kind of like mentors of mine who help just double check and verify everything. But it really is a simple business. And then ultimately, I just want to make sure I'm not skipping over anything because I move so quickly. And then, you know, it's funny, after I did the $4 million deal, I was like, okay, what's next? What are we doing now? What's next? So always turn in and always moving forward. And with that, that's one of the downsides is moving too fast. And so I have to make sure I have people in place to say, hey, Connor, just double check, you got this done. Just double check, you got this done. So, you know, I have a really good real estate attorney who helps me out. I have other real estate advisors who I hire who help me out as well. - Tell us about a screw up. I mean, I can't imagine everything has worked perfectly. - No, no, it hasn't. I mean, a big screw up was, I bought a deal and, you know, we did, I didn't realize that the property needed a lot of renovations to it. I didn't see the property before I bought it, which was a big mistake of mine. And it wasn't the biggest deal in the world, but I bought this deal seller financed. And I was like, oh, it's a great deal. You know, I'm building off momentum. And so I was like, okay, I'll just, I'll buy it. I have the money to do it. Let's do it. And I ended up looking at one of the units. And there was a person who probably should not have been living there who was dealing drugs. And it was so, it was not great. And so we had to get them out. I had to fully rehab that unit. And then we had to move on to the next unit. It was a duplex. So that was probably my biggest mistake. I just need to look at the properties before I buy them. It was kind of a rookie mistake. I just thought, hey, I've already bought a couple properties. I know what I'm doing, you know, whatever. I'll just figure it out as I go. And that was one of those things that I was moving too fast. And it kind of burned me out there. Now, thankfully we got it done. It does really well. I still own it today. It's a really good property. But that was one of the things where it was like, hey, you need to slow down just a little bit and make sure we're hitting all the targets. And it's tough to do that, right? Because, you know, you don't want to. You want to go 5,000 miles an hour? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And I think part of having systems and checklist to create some structure. So the ADHD gives you a lot of acceleration. But you have to make sure you have some systems and some steering in place to make sure you can stay in those kind of parameters. So talk to us about those. Do you have like, are there people who you use in the respect of like, OK, like, for instance, my finance guy who takes care of my retirement, make sure my kid goes to college, all that. If I come to him with a crazy idea, he's like, yeah, you have this little playground of money you're allowed to use. But the majority of your savings-- you're not allowed to touch that because you'll go find an alpaca farm somewhere, whatever. So do you tell me what kind of systems you put in place to sort of prevent yourself from going completely off the rails? Yeah, I have-- so on the property management side of things, I have a full management software that I use. And it's very black and white. So I don't have to make any ADHD. And again, you talked about this in your book as eliminating decisions. And so everything in the management business, there's a standard operating procedure, SOP. And I don't have to think about anything. If something comes up, I know, here it is. Here's the solution. Let's do it. Because sometimes I can get too emotional. And I'm like, well, I want to do this. And, oh, well, well, Genie's been there for 20 years. And I really like her, and I don't want to mess with that. So eliminating decisions. So that's-- I have a management software. So that's really important on the management side of things. On the financial side of things, I don't have any direct advisors. I just have notes to myself of what my goals are. And then what I need to do to hit those goals. So my brain moves really quickly. But I do stay pretty focused on my targets of, hey, I want to acquire X amount of properties. I want to grow my net worth by this much. I want to grow the business by this much. And so that has helped me. I haven't had any issues where I've gone off the rails too much and got burned out on an investment or anything like that. And those are kind of the two things I do. And then I have a routine as well. So waking up in the morning, going to the gym, physical exercises really important to me. I just went to the gym before you hopped on the call. So you're just fine. So that's good. And then to me, it just comes down as you talk about in the book, eliminating decisions. It's very important to me. Tell me about-- so a lot of high school kids, college kids listen to this podcast. They're sitting there going, OK, he obviously has some-- he got lucky or he had this-- no way could I do this, right? What do you tell him? Yeah, I mean, you can totally do it. You just have to be creative. And you have to first adopt the mindset of, I can't-- you have to say, how can I? Instead of saying, I can't do this. You have to say, how can I do this? So when I bought my first deal, people told me I was too young. You had to go to college to be successful. You have to do this. You have to have all this money. I didn't have-- I had $3,000 from working in an out burger when I first started. So I didn't have any money. I own everything myself. I've had no financial help or anything like that. So it's been creative. And my creativity was, hey, if I can get these sellers to finance me a majority of the purchase price, I can get them to cover that. And then I can either come up with the rest from my own proceeds or bring in a partner or somebody else to help on the finance-excited things. So I would just say, you have to get creative. And you have to understand, it's you versus you. And you need to understand that no one is going to come save you. No one's going to come help you out. You have to go find a way. And for us, ADHD folks are us crazy people. You have to understand how you can use that ADHD to help feel your fire. Just understand it's not a weakness. It's just unmanaged potential. And you got to understand you have to align it. And then you have to make sure you're going full fledged head. >> No, true. So you're at Conor Kinney everywhere in the world who websites ConorKinney.com. We'll link all that in the show notes. Dude, I mean, this is a really inspiring story. And I think that a lot of our listeners are going to listen to say, holy crap, this kid can do it. It's funny, I'm like, I'm looking at you. And I have a good friend of mine named Amy. She lives in Chicago, I've known her since college. One of the things she always did was she started buying-- she lives in Chicago and she started buying small like one family houses. And just same thing, buying one, renting them out, buying another, renting them out. And then she moved into like, I think five, six family homes, whatever. And she owns like a dozen of them. And I said, OK, so that makes all the money for you. Not, you know, what now? She's like, oh, I also like work at, I don't know, some department store or whatever, like why? She's like, this is like years ago. She's like, oh, well, give me health insurance. It's something to do during the day. I'm like, you know, it's hysterical because our brains, when everything is working and everything's on a system and everything works, the downside of that is holy crap, we have all this free time. That's going to get us in trouble. And that's the hard part right now is I got to keep going. You know, it's funny because people are like, well, are you going to retire? What are you going to do? And I'm like, oh, heck no, I mean, I'm bored. I'm so-- I get bored so easily. I can barely sit still in a 15 minute conversation. So I get bored so I always have something to do. I'm doing a half marathon this weekend. I mean, I just, you got to stay doing something. And I think that's part of the fun is getting to do those things. And I just, I can't, you got to always be doing something. - So I'll give you a piece of advice that I've started telling everyone younger than me because I wish I'd done it. I get my hip replaced sometime later this year because I've spent 25 years of doing triathlons and Iron Man and Marathons as a fat ass. And the result of that is a hip replacement. So I'll just tell you this, man, do those half marathons, do those marathons, but do have a stretching program. Every single morning, make sure you're stretching at least 20 minutes a day. You will thank me in 30 years. Mark my words. - Okay, good. Good. I made it. - It was great talking to you. Ben, come to New York. You and I'll figure out what we can do together next. - Hey, let's do a Peter. Thank you so much for having me on. It's so much fun. And seriously, thanks for just, I mean, really, when I read your book after I graduated high school, it really opened my mind to see other things and see that I was not, you know, just a burden. And ADHD was a huge advantage. I do really want to thank you for that. I mean, really, that book opened my eyes. I really appreciate it. - I love hearing that, man, your success story. So congratulations. Guys, as always, this is the fastest and normal. We are glad to be back. We have a bunch more interviews coming up. So we'll probably have episodes once a week coming back again and we'll go on those to the end of the year. I've got some really special news coming up and about four months or so. So stay tuned and I'll be talking about that pretty soon. I'm a sub-snack, I'm supposed to tell you people that because apparently if I don't tell you, you'll never know. And it is Peter Shankmanofficial.subsec.com. And I am going to be talking a lot about some pretty cool stuff that we're doing, both a faster and normal and for myself. So Peter Shankmanofficial.subsec.com. And we will see you guys next week with all new episode. Thank you for listening. Stay safe. Have a good one. (upbeat music) You've been listening to the Faster than Normal podcast. We're available on iTunes, Stitcher and Google Play. And of course, at www.Fasterthanormal.com. I'm your host, Peter Shankman. And you can find me at peterchankman.com and @PeterShankman on all of the socials. If you like what you've heard, why not head over to your favorite podcast platform of choice and leave us a review? The more people who leave positive reviews, the more the podcast is shown and the more people we can help understand that ADHD is a gift, not a curse. Opening closing themes were performed by Stephen Byram and the opening introduction was recorded by Bernie Wagon Blast. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next week. 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