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In 2012, Reed Goossens quit his job in Australia and moved halfway across the globe to the US to change his life, and to chase a dream. With limited funds, no investing experience, and no credit, Reed went from purchasing a small duplex to growing his own real estate investing firm, RSN Property Group. Reed now syndicates large multi-million dollar deals across the U.S.
He has now achieved financial freedom and taken control of his life. Reed is also the host of the successful podcast, Investing in the U.S., wherein he invites other distinguished real estate investors and entrepreneurs to speak with him about their success and help guide other investors who want to successfully invest in the U.S.
He shares his story about how he went from working for other companies to leveraging opportunities that led him to passive investing. He describes his journey saying “it’s okay if you take small steps as long as you’re moving forward The entrepreneur shares his insights on the state of entrepreneurship and how he’s expanding nationally. He also talks about what markets are important for him, as well as some strategies that have helped him sustain it. You’ll learn more from this session than you could imagine – listen closely because there are tons of take aways!
In This Episode
- Reed’s background, family & moving to the States.
- His vision and what drove him to multifamily.
- Where is RSN today?
- The current market and the strategies to remain an active investor.
- One practice that yielded the biggest results for Reed.
Hey everyone and welcome to today’s show on Wealth Strategy Secrets. Today we’re joined by Reed Goossens. In 2012, Reed quit his job in Australia and moved halfway across the globe to the U.S. to change his life and chase a dream. With limited funds, no investing experience, and no credit, Reed went from purchasing a small duplex to growing his own real estate investing firm, RSN Property Group. Reed now syndicates large multi-million dollar deals across the U.S. He has achieved financial freedom and taken control of his life. Reed is also the host of the Investing in the U.S. podcast, where he invites other distinguished real estate investors and entrepreneurs to speak with him about their success and help guide other investors who want to successfully invest in the U.S. Reed is also a best-selling author with two books now on Amazon: “Investing in the U.S.: The Ultimate Guide to U.S. Real Estate” and “Ten Thousand Miles to the American Dream.”
Reed, my friend, welcome to the show.
Dave, how you going, mate? It’s good to be here.
Yeah, very good to see you, man. So I guess first, let’s kick things off. Your wife is pregnant?
Yes, that’s going well. Literally just as I was coming, I was racing home, quickly grabbed a coffee because we just went to her whatever the… I’m as my first kid, I’m getting dragged along to all these appointments. She has to take a bunch of sugar to test if diabetic or something, you know, in the pregnancy. Learning a lot. The baby’s due here in September, and we’re recording this at the end of June. A little nervous, to say the least. But also, at 36, it’s the right age to start having kids. So yeah.
Yeah, no, that’s awesome. Congrats. Just one thing you know, I have triplets.
Oh wow.
As tough as it gets. Also, make sure when you do the ultrasound, make sure you check and see if there’s more than one in there.
They joked in the beginning and were like, “Don’t joke, don’t joke. We just want one.” My hat’s off to you—triplets, that would have been an insane couple of years there.
It still is insane. They’re 21 now, but I’m telling you, man, it’s still insane. And the money factor only grows for their needs.
Sure, sure, I could imagine.
But yeah, Reed, for the folks who aren’t familiar with you, let’s talk a little bit more about your background. Super interesting background. You were in Australia, different industry and everything. Then you saw the opportunity, wanted to chase a dream. Tell us how it all started for you.
Yeah, look, I’m sure most people have heard the story by now. If they haven’t, great—hello to those people. My story is that I moved to the United States to chase a girl, really. My wife, who’s now pregnant, and I met back in 2008 while backpacking around Europe. I came through the United States, backpacked through New York, and came to Los Angeles where she’s from. I just fell in love with the place and knew I needed to live here as an expat at some point in the future.
I went back to Australia, we kept in touch, and then she mentioned she had her master’s degree in Australia. We started dating, and she finished her master’s degree in 2011. By that point, I had already been bitten by the real estate bug. My background is in engineering, specifically civil and structural engineering. I was working full-time in my mid-20s and had this itch to go live in New York City and be an expat. The thing that drove me to make that decision was the fear of regret. I didn’t want to wake up when I was 60 or 70 years old and wish I had moved to the United States.
My goal was just to move, find a job, live for a couple of years, and move back. But when I got here, I realized how the barriers to entry in the U.S. market, particularly in secondary and tertiary markets, were much lower than in Australia. I started buying really cheap properties—$38,000 to $39,000 triplexes. Within 12 months of moving here, I bought my first property, and it slowly snowballed from there. I built a company called Wildland Capital, then stepped away from that to start Venture 2.0.
There’s been a lot of growth along the way, and I’m sure there are many stories I can share with your listeners about how I’ve grown the portfolio to over $650 million of assets under management. I’ve done that by my own bootstraps—not to boost myself up, but to inspire others. If an Australian can move halfway across the world and give it a crack, so can they. It’s about getting off the fence, and hopefully, I can share some stories to ignite the fuel within and encourage them to take action.
Yeah, for sure. Just to let everyone know, a lot of our investors have invested with you and our team in the past on one of the assets in Austin, which has been performing super well. So, we’re looking forward to more as well. But tell us, as you got into the real estate game and saw those opportunities, you must have had a vision for yourself around creating wealth. There must have been something driving you at that point.
Yeah, look, even all the way back to when I first met Erica and moved abroad in 2008. I actually moved to London to work on the 2012 Olympic Games as a structural engineer. While backpacking around Europe, I already had the feeling that I wanted to be my own boss, but I didn’t know what that looked like until I picked up the book “Rich Dad Poor Dad” after returning to Australia in 2009.
When I moved to the U.S., there was still this passion to do something more with my life. I’m sure many of your listeners, busy W-2 employees, feel like small cogs in a large machine working for big corporations. I just wanted more. It was really about trying to get my money to work for me in the best way possible, but I didn’t know what that meant back then.
“Rich Dad Poor Dad” introduced me to the concepts of being an employee, business owner, and investor, and these different quadrants resonated with me. But while the book presented a vision, it didn’t outline how to achieve it—it was more like, “Here’s this vision, good luck!” When I moved to the U.S., I saw little opportunities and started comparing them to where I was from. I realized I could buy a triplex for $38,000, and I could afford that, so why not give it a go?
The worst-case scenario was that it was my money, and I’d get started. That was the beginning. I knew I wanted more and had more to give in life. I needed to figure out how someone could essentially give me a check to live my life, go surfing, and travel the world. This ultimately turned into real estate, passive investing, active investing, and that’s what led me here today.
Yeah, it’s really a great point, Reed. I had a similar journey. I was in the Marine Corps, and when I got out, I had absolutely no idea about investing. All we learn is what we’re taught by our parents, Wall Street, and conventional wisdom. For me, the most valuable lesson from “Rich Dad Poor Dad” was that it taught me how money works. The cash flow quadrant was key to understanding that you need to be a business owner and investor to maximize tax efficiency.
But there was no how-to guide to get into the game—it was all very conceptual. I think it created this huge flood of people wanting to get into real estate. In fact, you might even know this guy; I bought some of his series in the early 2000s. His real estate investing series featured an Australian named Dolph de Roos. I don’t know if you know him.
Yeah, I’ve heard the name but don’t know him personally.
He had a sub-series under “Rich Dad” that talked about investing, but it was focused on single-family homes, fix-and-flips, and that type of thing. How were you able to translate that into multi-family? How did this grow into multi-family and an even bigger picture for you?
How can I use my money to buy the largest property I could, which at the time was a triplex? It was always about getting multiple doors because I saw the scale there. Coupled with my experience in the working world as a structural engineer building things and rubbing shoulders with developers, I realized I was already semi-involved in the industry. Reading “Rich Dad Poor Dad” made me see the opportunities around me. I couldn’t just leave my day job straight away, but I could use this job as a stepping stone to learn more and absorb more.
When I moved to the United States, I had a structural engineering job, but I eventually got sick of engineering. The firm I was working for was working with a developer in Los Angeles, so I reached out to them and said, “Hey, I still need my visa to live here. I want to be surrounded by real estate 24/7. Can I work for you?” They said yes because I had a skill set they didn’t have. I became their owner’s rep and worked in the belly of the beast for three or four years, combined with what I was doing on the side. I was surrounded by real estate 24/7.
For those listening, figure out what skill you have that can help you pivot and get a job that allows you to learn the business you want to be in. This applies to anything, not just real estate. That was a critical step for me because it cemented the path I was going to be on for the rest of my life. I took the leap, said goodbye to engineering, and transitioned into a job that continued to build my skills as I became an entrepreneur and started my own business.
Yeah, absolutely. That’s a really key point you make. It’s all about leverage. In real estate, we’re trying to get the bank’s money or other people’s money to accelerate our returns. But when you think about what you did, you got leverage by working for another company to get industry experience and resources to jumpstart your own business. A lot of people don’t always think about it that way when they start businesses, but there are many opportunities. Whether you’re creating a side hustle or envisioning a business, there are things you can do today—like putting aside capital for that business or increasing your education. That’s where it all starts.
Yep, using a skill set you might have already developed that can be useful for someone else to plug a hole in their business and, again, in an industry that you may want to be in. Approaching them and saying, “Hey, I’ve got the skill set you may not have. Can I be that plug for that hole in your business right now to learn and be a stepping stone?” Because I think the big thing, Dave, is that we always want to jump to step 12. We don’t ever want to take the small steps. One of the things, looking back, is that it’s okay to take those small steps as long as you’re moving the needle forward.
It may be incremental, and that can start as simply as going to a local meet-up event. A big step for me was transitioning out of engineering into working for a big developer. I knew in the back of my mind that I wasn’t able to quit my job and just be a real estate entrepreneur earning all this money—that’s the goal in step 15. But I needed incremental steps between now and then to help me mentally keep moving forward and stay hungry to get to where I am today.
Yeah. So, tell us about RSN today. What market are you focused on? What are some of the differentiators? What are you currently working on?
You’ve obviously been involved in some of our deals at my former company, Wildhorn—fantastic group of guys over there. Central Texas was where the nucleus started. Back in 2014, when I started RSN, it was just about trying to find more moderate cap rates. I live in LA, which is like Australia—very low cash flow, high appreciation, low cap rates. So, back in the day, I was looking for more affordable markets with lower barriers to entry. I found Central Texas, built portfolios with Wildhorn, and now I’ve branched out with RSN.
Central Texas was where I cut my teeth. Today, I’m about to close on a deal in Phoenix, Arizona. I’ve done deals in Gainesville, Georgia, and Greenville, South Carolina. The new goal for RSN moving forward is to build out scale within certain MSAs. But I also think offering geographical diversification to investors is important. During COVID, we realized that if you’re willing to get on a plane, you can cover a lot of markets and employ key people within those markets to stay relevant and keep deals coming forward, particularly in the multi-family space.
Not only does it help build scale in the market, but it also opens up other potential markets. The next five to ten years for RSN will focus on expanding more nationally with a sustainable growth approach. I don’t have a goal to get to 100 employees; I want to stay sustainable, doing four to five deals a year and growing to 10, 15, or 20 assets in the portfolio. But it all started from what I built in Central Texas—systems, management skills, employing the best property managers, and ensuring the best GCs. That comes from my background in structural engineering and being involved in ground-up development. It’s about implementing the right way in certain markets.
Yeah, sure. How about your buy box? What criteria are you looking for? What asset classes are you focusing on?
Yeah, look, typical middle-of-the-road value-add. I know a lot of people are steering away from older vintage stuff, cramming into ’90s and newer. I get it; it’s better built, newer build, less headache. But I have this thesis that these older assets aren’t going anywhere. I live in a house built in 1912. When I renovated, I had to do the roof, flooring, electrical, HVAC. With my structural engineering background, I see older vintage assets and think, “We don’t have an affordability issue in Class A; we have it in blue-collar.” The average household income of $50,000 backs into assets built in the ’70s and ’80s.
There are more unknowns with those assets, but doing this for a long time, I have better knowledge of HVAC systems, roofing systems, window systems, and the real risks. I know what I need to do to make a 1970s-built asset more like a newer build—replace the roof, HVAC systems, windows—and make it last another 30 or 40 years. It provides housing to those who need it in the $1,000 to $1,500 range. Hitting two birds with one stone is my thesis across multiple markets. There is an affordability issue with inflation and everything else happening now. Building ground-up is fantastic, but it only pencils when you have $2,000 rents. Not everyone can afford that, so I’m focusing on workforce affordable housing.
Yeah. We’ve seen a lot of results with operators who are executing on the business plan and are tight on operations to really force that value into the property. With your background, we’ve seen you do that before, and that’s where the value is being made.
And look, we can’t ignore the fact that cap rates have compressed since you and I started investing together. It’s helped valuation. When buying new deals, those margins become slimmer. You really have to have your systems in place and employ the right team. You need to execute correctly because you can make money when you buy, but you lose it through bad management. That includes not just property management but bad asset management or construction management. All these different facets play into rolling out a good product so your investors make money.
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Love it. I love it as much as I can be. I have been right; you know, I won’t say that I’m at a certain size of growth within both Wildhorn and RSN where I will do property management, but maybe they won’t. I’ve interviewed people on my show, like Keith Wasserman from Gelt, who have over two billion dollars in assets across the country and still don’t have in-house property management. But where I can have in-house vertical integration—construction management, asset management—I do.
We also supply all our products—flooring, granite, cabinets—from Asia. We bulk buy to reduce renovation costs, and I can supply those supplies across the country because I’ve figured out the supply chain within the U.S. and work with certain material brokers to get my product across the country. There are certain elements of the business that I can touch and make my own to help attract other investors. It’s just a different way of rolling out the same business plan.
To be frank, a lot of operators out there do what I do. I’m not claiming that I’m the best; I’m claiming I’m one of them. I’ve got a certain viewpoint on operations and theses within my business, and that’s who I am. In general, I do like to try and be as vertically integrated as I can be. But there’s also knowing what your highest and best use is. That goes back to looking at geographical diversification across a few key markets. It means I need to maybe not focus on property management right now but focus on hiring the right head of acquisitions or head of asset management to work directly for RSN, so we have that geographical coverage in certain markets.
Yeah, are you still seeing any supply chain issues right now in this current market?
Oh, we all are, right? Everyone from Home Depot to the big guys. I think there was a report 18 months ago that Home Depot bought their own ship to get supplies in quicker. I am, but it’s more on the management side now. We’ve got a deal under contract in Phoenix that’s not scheduled to close until early July. I’ve already had my material supplier in there measuring everything. He’s already got the orders off to Asia, so we’ll have our product landed.
It has blown out the product timelines for landing in the U.S., so we brought that person in earlier to shorten the timeline to get it landed here. In general, I think the supply chain will slowly start to open up because there’s so much demand and inflation is high right now. I think there will be some give at some point.
Yeah, so Reed, also tell us, what are your thoughts in terms of the current debt markets and really trying to find good deals right now? Do you think we’re in for this for the rest of the year? Are we going to be able to find any deals that pencil?
Look, I think it’s been a big shock to the system. There’s been a bit of a blow across the bow. We’ve been so used to sub-four interest rates, floating rate debt, up to 80% leverage, and so on. But in the last quarter, if you’re listening in June, the last six months since the beginning of the year, we’ve seen interest rates take a complete about-face.
Personally, if you’ve been active in a market, you’re going to see two things: buyers are going to dry up, which means there will be more opportunities for you to pick up potential deals. If you’ve been knocking on the door in certain markets, keep knocking. Yes, interest rates have moved, and you need to account for that in your underwriting, but you’re just reacting in real time. Because there’s now less competition, you should be able to pick up some better-priced stuff. I would not say sit on the sidelines. Continue to be prudent with your investing thesis in your chosen market, continue to underwrite deals because you want real-time data. I bet you’ll start to see more deal flow come your way because you’re hanging around the hoop in a chosen market.
Yeah, and I like the points you made when we were in the green room earlier, talking about a deal you already had in the works and how you’ve been able to go back, what, two times now and actually renegotiate?
Renegotiate, yeah. Look, it’s awesome, but it’s also, you know, the old saying—you don’t want to be that bad buyer that renegotiates, but it’s just like, hey, the market’s shifted in less than three months. This is something like force majeure; I can’t control that. Your asset is now worth less. I want to pay less for it. You have two options: either we blow this deal up and you take it back to market, where you might get even less for it in six months than what I’m willing to pay now, or you give me the price reduction, and we’ll close and move on with it.
I was talking to the broker the other day, and I was a little bit nervous to call him. He said, “Dude, everyone across the board is retrading right now.” Those old days of making sure you’re respecting the broker still apply, and I do respect the broker and seller. But in real time, you have to react to what’s happening with the markets. Keep being active in every market.
It’s interesting; I interviewed someone the other day whose thesis I agree with. I can’t ever time a market, whether it’s going up, down, or in between. But as long as I’m prudent with my investment thesis and deploying amounts of cash, some years will crush it, others not as much. Over a 20-year horizon, if you’re thinking big picture, your investments are just going to go up and to the right. There will be blips in the market every now and then. I think this will be a blip. You just have to stick to your guns, keep working, keep underwriting, and keep sticking around the hoop. You will find deals that start to work for sure.
Yeah, 100% agree. I mean, I think we’re all trained, really, by Wall Street to be reactionary to all this sensational news. Markets move, and we’ve got to react; we have to do something. But time and time again, that’s where investors lose, right? They’re preying on that emotion. Unless you’re a day trader and can actually make money when the markets go sideways or down, not just up, everyone’s waiting for a peak to go up. If you look at multi-family and the fundamentals you’re talking about, you look at a 20-year horizon. Talk to any family office or ultra-high net worth individual, and they’re thinking in 30-year time horizons.
And the other thing here, Dave, and I completely agree with you, is that we should be investing more right now. Think about it: if your money’s sitting on the sidelines, waiting for something, it’s losing value. I heard someone in the surf the other day say, “Oh man, the thing’s gonna crash.” I don’t know if it’s gonna crash; it might soften. But the thing is, if you have a million dollars sitting in the bank and wait a year, that money is now worth eight percent less. Call it nine hundred and twenty thousand dollars. Wait another year, and it’s worth even less.
So even if you invested that million dollars today and held an asset for three years, and it didn’t make you any money, it was still an inflationary hedge. You still have a million dollars at the end of three or five years. That’s why it’s important to continue being active in a market like today because of all this inflation. That’s why people invest in multi-family.
Yeah, for sure. The fundamentals are just so strong, and the economics of supply and demand are solid. Easily for the next decade, we just can’t catch up to it.
Yeah, I don’t even want to get into global economics. You spoke about supply chains. Increasing interest rates are one thing; they stop consumers and help the supply chain catch back up. But you can’t just turn the supplies on around the world with interest rates. That goes for fuel, wood, goods, and services.
Right. Reed, from a personal development perspective, I know you’re a personal development junkie. Tell us, what’s the one practice that’s yielded the biggest results for you?
Recently, it’s a little woo-woo, but it is meditation. It’s really taking quiet time in the morning. I lay on my floor in my living room, I focus on my breath, and it just helps me get my mind… because I’m a high-functioning, Type A kind of person. I’m up in the middle of the night, having an idea or thinking about something. I’m sure a lot of your listeners are, but it helps quiet the chatter down so I can focus on being the best leader, entrepreneur, husband, father, son, all the rest of it. It is in and around meditation. I think that’s been such a practice. I’m not the Dalai Lama or the most enlightened person, but it helps me quiet that mental chatter and approach my day with more intention.
100% agree with you. I think of meditation as literally one of the top three, top five skill sets to have in life. The human brain is conditioned to be looking for all these different sensory inputs, different ideas, and everything. It’s like a snow globe. You shake up that snow globe, and that’s your brain all the time with all of these things going on. But when you just let that snow globe rest, you can start to see things clearly. You get those insights, and you can start to have more intention with your day and your actions. I actually meditate sometimes even twice a day. I absolutely love it. I’m big into biohacking as well. Meditation is like a form of yoga nidra or some type of technique where you’re trying to still your mind and body. By doing that, you can increase the neuroplasticity in your brain, which you can actually see happening. It’s powerful how you can work through decision-making and critical problem-solving more effectively the more you practice.
Reed: It helps with things like dementia in the future as well. It’s an incredible practice. If people aren’t listening, you should be doing it.
Try it, just try it. It’s 12 minutes a day, it’s free. Most people always say they try it but then they go, “I just can’t sit still.” Yes, and that’s the point.
That’s the push-up, right? That’s the mental push-up. You’ve got to train yourself just to sit still. I will say to that point, I meet a lot of people who say the same thing. “It’s not for me, I can’t.” I openly say that I’m not the Dalai Lama; I’m not trying to be the most enlightened spiritual person in the world. It’s just trying to get into a habit of doing it to create calmness around it. I’m not saying it’s drastically changed my life, but I do notice if I don’t meditate in the morning, my day is off. I can’t put my finger on it, but it’s the meditation, so it’s having some effect. Give it six months, I tell everyone. Do it every day and see what happens.
Yeah, 12 minutes is all you need. It’s super powerful. From a wealth perspective, if you could give listeners one piece of advice on how they could accelerate their personal wealth journeys, what would that be?
I think the piece of advice, and I’ll credit this to my dad, I don’t know if he got this saying from someone else, but he always told me a fool and their money are easily parted. Don’t be a fool when it comes to your money. Educate yourself about financial IQ. We spoke about Rich Dad, Poor Dad earlier. People listening to this podcast are probably invested in learning more about increasing that financial IQ. There are so many ways to make wealth in this world, and I didn’t realize that until I started down this path of growing my financial IQ. I was back in Australia just last two weeks for my sister’s wedding. The things I’ve learned here and now, you can see growing in Australia. Self-storage is blowing up in Australia. Until I started looking for it, now I can see it everywhere. There are opportunities to create wealth not just in real estate but in creating and buying businesses, understanding a P&L. How do you grow that P&L? How do you grow the revenue? How do you reduce expenses? That is creating wealth in many facets of the different ways that you can invest. It all starts with not being a fool and investing time in that education.
Yeah, absolutely. Robert Kiyosaki, one of his quotes was that your financial IQ is directly proportional to your net worth. That’s right on target, Reed. Thanks so much for coming on the show today. It’s really been a pleasure. I’m glad we’ve had the chance for the audience to get to know you and learn more about what you’re doing at RSN. If people would like to learn more about you and what you’re doing at RSN, what’s the best way to connect?
Reed: The easiest way from the education side is to go to my personal website, which is reedgoossens.com, that’s r-e-e-d-g-o-o-s-s-e-n-s.com. That’s a personal website, podcast, books, all the good stuff on there. On the business side, it’s rsnpropertygroup.com. If you’re ever coming through Los Angeles and you want to hit up, go for a drink, or even take you surfing to teach you how to surf, hit me up at [email protected]. Give me a bit of a heads up and we’ll make it happen.
Awesome. We’ll make sure we get a link in the show notes to that. Thanks again for coming on today, Reed.
My pleasure.