Before and in 2024, I suppressed personal traits that I find no longer undeniable. This year, being 25 in 2025, my goals revolve around my intentions to be unstoppable in achieving unthinkable milestones in my second year of real estate. Let these last sentences of this first paragraph conclude my gratitude for all those who have been part of my life going into 2025, inside and out of real estate, Boy Scouts, little league team sports, high school, and college. For whatever is to come in 2025 and beyond, I hope we all root for each other, in one way or another.
My sense of urgency to get started in real estate in 2023 connected me with my first mentor in residential real estate, Courtney Ferguson, which ultimately got me into the first brokerage I interviewed with, EXIT Realty Missoula, supervised and managed by my first broker, Kevin Bailey. I am incredibly grateful for the time I had with these two and the support system surrounding them that radiated over to reflect my success with EXIT.
This same sense of urgency unfolded my path to get started in commercial real estate. I’ve spent countless hours on YouTube in 2023 and 2024 watching a commercial broker-owner in Nashville, Tennessee (arguably similar market potential to Missoula), Tyler Cauble, and those he brings to his podcast to gauge the transition from residential to commercial real estate. Tyler emphasizes the importance of getting mentored by somebody with experience in the field you want to specialize in. I was blessed to have a local SAE Montana Beta Alumni, Jessie Eagen, who does exactly what I’d like to get into: syndication. He also has 32+ years of experience doing traditional commercial sales and hosting other investments.
“A syndication is an investment structure in which several investors pool their capital together and invest in projects much larger than they could [afford] individually” Thomas Hunter clearly explains in Raising Capital for Real Estate. This is ultimately how out-of-staters buy and develop significant estates outside of their likely fully developed region. Bozeman, Big Sky, and Yellowstone Club are prime examples of high-profile executed syndications. My urgency to get into commercial real estate reflects my value for the community and the greater good in that we need to preserve local character and significant pieces of Missoula through syndication to compete with out-of-state deep pockets.
Successful syndications provide extreme returns for investors and excessive amounts of residual cash-flow for decades to come if modeled and operated by yours truly. Granted I am still adjusting my syndication model through conversations with mentors. Still, it is ultimately structured to preserve rural communities (populations less than 500,000), recycle capital back into the community it tends to, establish small businesses (and entrepreneurs), contribute to local non-profits, and more. It is a syndication model that I believe Blackrock used to get started, if not better. It is a model I intend to launch in other rural communities I find safe and desirable for investor returns and where local officials lack private funding that is not backed by greedy individuals.
I am extremely curious to learn more about syndication and other fields that relate to it, such as commercial sales, development, management, fundraising/grant writing, land preservation, etc. Outside of my sales with Eagen Real Estate, I intend to carry out an LLC within this first month of 2025 to build momentum out of the gates. Attention to detail will be essential in registering this entity and fundraising, ensuring investors have all the information they need to decide whether or not their investment goals align with mine. My obsession for growth is contrary to what has been traditionally depicted in Bozeman or Whitefish, in that it should buy a local business to keep the name of the business and employees in it, and make it employee-owned, or create affordable housing that doesn't gentrify the neighborhood it is in nor sacrifice the equity of the estate for thy owner.
I want to stay in Montana, maybe start a family here, and exemplify my value for the community and the people through my career in real estate. This trajectory enlightens my destiny to start a real estate firm or corporation focusing on rural America that explores the synergy between for-profit and non-profit organizational efforts. Furthermore, this success should propel and prove me to be a worthy candidate for a political position at the local level, then federal levels of government. The political stuff is about 10-15 years from now, hopefully 10, but you can count on me making a presence in city community meetings starting this month.
I am incredibly blessed and accredit the organizations and people that got me this far, from the little league baseball and flag football teams, to my parents and little sister. To my patrols and leaders and those I lead in Boy Scouts, Troop 223, achieving the Eagle Scout rank. My friends of my family, and friends across the city immersing me in the ways of all cultures I have yet to discover. To my high school college counselor for introducing me to thirteen out-of-state colleges, but emphasizing The Grizzlies in Missoula. To all my teachers and professors who were gracious enough to let my consistent, maybe annoying, communication efforts during office hours or random times before and after class be a determining factor in letting me pass. To my brothers who welcomed me into SAE Montana Beta, especially the alumni who invested in relaunching the chapter into new beginnings for all part of, and the surrounding community who accepted us as thy neighbor.
God Bless.