Real Estate Legacies with Chris Stokes, Co-Founder of Secure Living

In this episode, we will learn from Christopher Stokes, Co-Founder of Secured Living . Tap in to learn how he is empowering investors with an equitable real estate investment platform.

In this episode, you'll learn about his path into real estate, and share goals for the platform that will allow more investors to tap into real estate investments. 

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Checkout Secure Living: https://securelivingrei.com/

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Transcript

Sponsor: 0:29

This episode is brought to you in partnership with Ascentum, which is an award winning coaching practice that helps high performing professionals advance and achieve the promotions and pay they deserve. Ascend to powerful heights with Ascentum.

Kenny: 0:45

What's going on everybody? My name is Kenny Groom. I am your host of the Beyond Normal podcast. I'm excited to be here with you today. We have an incredible founder here in my home market of Charlotte. I'm glad to highlight some of the amazing founders that are just in my backyard. But without further ado, my guest today is Chris Christopher Stokes. He is the co founder of Secure living. And in a nutshell, you know, I'll let Chris break down what the company does, but just a quick little Excerpt on what the company does right now. They help real estate companies raise capital by enabling them to share sell shares of their projects to the general public. We know that real estate is a hot topic for a lot of folks right now plenty of investment opportunities. And so I'm glad to have Someone like Chris and You know, he'll share in a little bit how his team is growing and how they're helping to you know, enable Some of those investments for folks are looking to get in the real estate space, but without further ado, let me bring Chris To the stage right now. How's it going, Chris?

Chris: 1:57

Good man. Good. Can't complain. Thanks. Thanks for having me on.

Kenny: 2:01

Appreciate you taking time out of your day. There's plenty of things you could be doing like running your business but you know, I think it's really important for founders, no matter where they are in their journey to You know, shed a little bit of light, you know you know, give folks a peek behind the curtain into what they're doing. So without further ado, I want to get into the conversation with you tell folks you know, we like to lead our conversations off by telling folks a little bit about your story prior to you found the secure living. So give us an idea of what Chris was doing before you decided to go on this entrepreneur journey that you're on right now.

Chris: 2:41

Yeah. Yeah. So, so on paper I got a background in finance and economics. So that led me to work at Bank of America where I led the regulatory and compliance department and that right there in a nutshell, just helped me transition, to starting secure living now, secure living. It's a regulated funding portal with the SEC and FINRA. So similar to how other brokerage accounts and, and financial institutions are regulated, we're regulated by the same bodies. So my background helped me avoid a lot of the legal costs to help start secure living. And it's real estate based. I took on real estate that's 2019. Bought my first property from there. I just saw the benefits. Right. And one of the reasons my wife and I actually started the company, it was to really give back to community. Right. we had our family and friends that wanted to invest with us. And we had took them along for two years and we had did pretty well. We had, average, I analyzed rate of return of just shy of 20%. And we were like, how can we scale this? How can we bring more people involved? And when you think about reaching other people outside of your network. That's when things get, you know, tricky in terms of the rules and regulations. So we, we found that the, company to, you know deal with some of the rules and regulations that we were facing to expand with a state Across the U S

Kenny: 4:13

I appreciate that breakdown there. You, you went through a lot. I want to go back to, like you said When you first started your career, you got your degree and then you ended up working for one of the biggest banks in the world. Right. That that we all know as a household before, like before even, You know, getting into corporate America, like like tell us a little bit about your backstory there. Just trying to gain a little bit of an idea about did you have some of those thoughts about starting your business prior to, you know, us Being full fledged adults in this world? Right. Like, tell us a little bit about Life before even getting that degree. Like, what was it? Tell us a little bit about Chris.

Chris: 5:00

yeah. So you know I grew up a single household two younger siblings. And I spent a lot of time with my, my late uncle and my grandmother. And. You know, looking, looking at it. Then I thought, yeah, they just want a free labor, right? So they were actually real estate. investors. So back then they would buy you know, auctions. So the houses were run down and they will have us. So my grandmother had, seven grandsons, right? Have all of us over there. Painting and cleaning and all those things. And back then I was like, Oh, this is something to get us, you know, keep us out of trouble free labor. But look at it now that really exposed me to real estate and to say a compliment 20, 30 years ago in the South, right in Virginia was amazing. and from there I'm like real estate. You know, it's very, very attractive to me. And I, when I, you know, went to school, I learned more about it and how lucrative and how, you know, millionaires and billionaires built that wealth with real estate. So that just sparked my interest.

Kenny: 6:12

Got it. Got it. Like that's, you know, these types of pieces of someone's story, such as yours, Chris, you know, they often go overlooked by people. Right. And it's like, all right, why does somebody end up going down the career path or just the life journey? That, you know, we all go down as parents or excuse me, as adults, as parents, right. And you telling sharing that little piece there, like you said, like, this is probably something that was in you at an early age. They sparked some of that interest. And now here you are you've been in, you've been a part of. You know, different real estate ventures, even from an early age. Right. And so those are the things I think you know, people say, you know, specifically in the black community, like, you know, we don't necessarily have. People in our lives that may be Owned a house or were business owners, but you know, that's not necessarily always the case. There's, there's always been incredible black business owners, incredible black founders, people willing to take a chance on themselves. So I appreciate you sharing a little bit about, sharing a little bit about your story and how that's gotten you to the point where you are now. You mentioned earlier on as well. I don't know if folks caught it but your co founder. is your significant other which is, I don't think there's enough, I don't think there's enough people that have shared what that experience is like. So can you tell us what it is like Going into business with your wife?

Chris: 7:50

Yeah, I know it's, it's, it's very interesting, right? So she's, she's a boss at home and my boss at work. I like to joke around and say but at the start, when we started first started working on secure living back in 2021 late 2021, it was, it was challenging for us, right? So we had different financial backgrounds, different, degrees, right? So mine was finance and economics. Background regulatory compliance finance services and banking. Her background was business and administrative administration, and then focus on marketing. And she was in Medifaction, right? So two separate backgrounds. So we really didn't know each other's style when it comes, you know, to working. And I think what helped us early on is really delegating and picking ownership of certain tasks. Right. So I typically handle some of the client facing you know, building relationship with potential real estate investors that are looking for capital. She, you know, and then the operations and the regulatory side of the business, and she focused, focuses a lot on the marketing, things with the website, SEO. And building relationships with potential investors. That's looking to, you know, put their capital to work on different investment opportunities in our platform. Once we did that delegation now things are, you know smoother, you don't butt heads, you don't step on each other's toes and who's working on what and who's, who's reaching out to who. But once we also understood how each other worked, work together, it's all, all working as planned. Silence.

Kenny: 9:31

I like that man. I like to hear that, That I think that that's something, Like going into business. With family or in this case, like your, your significant other, but that's something that people may just steer away from cause there, there's always, there's, there's going to be some conflict and then like, how do you resolve it? But I think the great thing about seeing couples, you know, go down that path of being founders together is like you just said, like you both kind of, you, you, you both have the ability to figure out where the other one is good and let that other one. you know, let them thrive. I think that's, that's probably at the core of being in a committed relationship with somebody. And so I could definitely see, You know, how you can transition, you know, from just being married, successful family, nucleus family to owning some businesses together in the future that I'm looking forward to seeing more of that, But I think people gotta do exactly what you all did, which was get in there and figure it out have those uncomfortable conversations, You know, adjust accordingly, which we all do. Or what hope we hope that people do in their personal lives with the people that they love.

Chris: 10:57

And another thing that just really helped is we're like minded. So we were, you know, we have the same goals, same aspirations when it comes to comes to terms of the business and what we want to see and what we want to accomplish with our business. I

Kenny: 11:22

on, on, prior to you, you know, your experiences as a young, a young person, like with real estate. So I'm curious, like, like, how do you all, like for kids and things like that, do you see them being a part of this just naturally? Or do you? Do you think that you'll, like let them, let them find their own kind of passions? Like, how do you, how do, how do, you start thinking about some of those things you're doing now?

Chris: 11:52

mean, that's a great question. So we have a daughter that's, that's, you know, one and a half. So she, she hasn't really really experienced real estate to, to the extent that I did when I was younger, but our nephew who's about eight, right? So we. So we do, a lot of different strategies in real estate. So a lot goes to forced appreciation where we, you know, renovate distressed properties or also, fix and flips. So we have him come in and, and he has the tape, right? So we asked him to point out all the flaws and all the mistakes that he see in the house. Rule number one, that was a mistake because he put tape everywhere, a little, little mix or, you know paint on the floor or whatever. But that alone, you know, show that he really was thorough and he enjoyed it and we've take our family and some of our friends to all the properties that, we invest in just to see our vision. And then we also once it's listed or before it gets rented, we take them, through and they, okay. Are amazed at the transformation. So I think just having that exposure may spark some interest. And of course, you know we want our children and grandchildren to do you know what they're led to do Right. But if we could have some small influence in an investment vehicle that's known to build wealth, we would definitely continue to them towards that, especially when it comes to passive right now? like in our active, but when it moves the passive invest.

Kenny: 13:28

Got it Got it That made, that makes sense. Having your nephew go through some of those experiences, early on in life, you know, the hope is that, you know, when they get to a point where they have their own properties, like they can not have some of those, you know, bump on the head moments that you have being you know, an early Active real estate investor. So like, can you share like some of the, some of the The growing lessons that you have learned being in real estate. Like I can think back to my experience. I'll share just real quickly. Us buying our first property, noticing that things weren't necessarily in the shape that we thought they were when we first moved in. and so instantly from day one, you're having to fix. Fix shit pretty much. And then you don't expect that. So like, can you walk through some of like those experiences that you had that you're leveraging now that you, you're, you're looking to sink your teeth a little bit further in the real estate.

Chris: 14:36

Yeah, when it comes to I'm going to do separate experiences when it comes to our personal portfolio. We found out that we are not your traditional house flippers house flipping in general is not for us. And it's just too much. Requires too much, you know, work, too much time up front and too much managing, you know, contracting. We've seen the most success off our, our buy and hold portfolio. And they've seen the most growth, right. And we know over time, historically, you know, real estate has been seeing the growth three to 5 percent annually. And even on down, down markets that we see now, it's opportunity to, to buy it a little bit attractive price. So I, I, I think just finding you know, what you can and what you cannot do. I myself, you know, sometimes trying to do too much because I'm good at, you know, learning things you can be out YouTube these days. You can really know how to do a lot of things with the house, but you have to really figure out, Where's your time more valuable? So the key lesson that we've learned is, you know, one flipping houses after a third one, isn't a strategy that we my wife and I are, will stick with, we prefer, you know, buying holds and we've seen the most success of that and the most you know, stable cash flow and, and, and potential growth in our, in our network. And then as far as for secure living or funding portal platform, I think what we Learned from was this might be a sound a little negative, but we really know who your close family and friends are when it comes to getting their actual support. You know, as we built the business plan and as we shared ideas with them. We get good feedback. And then when it comes to, okay, we're launching, we need some additional support, whether it's, you know, sharing our content that we pushed just, you know, sharing with their network, what we're doing just sharing some of their, our investment opportunities that's, that's, that's on the platform that was literally non existent, right? So we went to, you know, a couple of family and friends. It's like, Hey, everybody doing best. Got the money. And then when the time comes and we have launched several deals, you know, nothing. So that was just the eye opener for us. We thought we had a, a greater backing or more supportive backing, until the time came and, you know, I just fell off. So

Kenny: 17:18

you, you're dropping gems, Chris. I appreciate it. The friends and family kind of even from like an an investment perspective or even just a support perspective, in our community in black communities in particular and definitely is a hot topic, right. Cause you may have that initial idea. Some of the people within your circle may push you to, to go and explore it, but when it's time to You know, pay up, right? That's where you need the rubber to meet the road. And a lot of times you won't necessarily, You know, get, you know, 10 people who told you to go for it to actually support with some dollars and you may have to actually look outside of your core network and, you know, just expand out. In my experience is what I found. And that's okay. I, I think, In particular I think That's why it's so interesting that For you and your wife to be co founding a business. Cause a lot of times people don't even, they go away from family, family businesses, like they don't even like look at it. Right? And so I think you, What you're doing with secure living, which I want to hop into right after this, I think it's, you're really going to be trying to prove some people wrong and specifically in the black community around building together. You know, with your nucleus family and the folks that, you know, you speak to every day, like there's ways to do it without you you all hating each other's guts at the end of the day, if I can be frank. And so I want to dig into secure living now tell us a little bit, around, I honestly, I gave, I gave like a high level view of it, but I want you to dig into it. I know you're, you're familiar with it. The regulations around the space in terms of investing. So I want folks to get a good idea of how they can leverage and tap into secure living as a potential investment opportunity.

Chris: 19:25

I'll start by highlighting one of the reasons why we saw this again. And so we wanted to make, investing actually attainable for the average person. Right? So what we do is, is, is being done today. But only, you know, the wealthy have access to it and what they turn, they coined the term non accredited investor. So we wanted to open that up to the average person. Right? So, anyone that does not have a network of a million dollars or does not make 200, 000 dollars a year. So we, you know, we work with real estate developers or investors, right? That's looking to. Diversify their capital stack. So whether it's traditional financing, harmony, lending, or want to raise equity, our platform allows them to raise equity from you know, people, it's anyone from the U. S. That's 18 or older. That can have 500 to invest. Right? So we have a lower minimum investment threshold in our competitors. and we just, we know that 97, 94 percent of the the U. S. Fits into this non accredited invest, you know, investor category. So open up the doors to real estate investing. And that was our primary, one of our primary objectives. And long term, you know, we want to be, you know, the Amazon of real estate where individuals can come on our platform and see deals spending all across the U. S. and they can pick and choose. build their own passive portfolio without the headaches, you know, late night calls to fix toilets or, scheduling calls with contractors and without that headache, they can sit back and you know, potentially watch their money grow.

Kenny: 21:16

I like that. As you were explaining it, I was thinking along the lines of, In real estate, I compare it to like some of the biggest tech brands we think of in the world. The thing that just came out, right. Is the the Apple vision pros that costs a couple thousand dollars. And for somebody looking at that, right. Saying, Hey, I can't, you know, I can't, everybody can't afford right to, to pay for these goggles. And if there's no real use case for you having it besides it, just looking to trying to look a certain way, but that doesn't necessarily mean you can't invest in Apple stock or something like that. Like you can't invest in some of these entities and reap some of those benefits. And I really like the point that you mentioned around for those who aren't necessarily ready to embark on a real estate journey where they're, they're, owning a property and they're, they've got to be super active. Right? You mentioned that word a couple of times. I think I think that's really important. You know, I, I know some people that you know, most recently they bought, they, they purchased their first home and they found out like owning a home is not for them. They don't want to put up with the maintenance. They don't want to do a lot of those things that come along with it. They don't want to pay insurance. They don't want to pay for taxes. They just want, they want to rent, right? And so they actually flipped around within like a year or two and sold their house. That's okay. Right. But they went through that process of knowing and real estate is just something it's a valuable thing to get into but finding out how you can get into it early on, which I think a platform like secure living does, I think that's, that's a really good learning opportunity for folks. Like you mentioned the lower threshold. I'll ask you to reiterate that as well, just so folks know a little bit more about how they, you know, the minimums and what they need to do to, to tap into the platform. But I really think that's, you know, that, that, that spot on that, that explanation you gave. And as you were talking through it, I was thinking about like, man, are you ready to own a home right now? But you know, you can still invest and reap some of the benefits of the real estate market, which is which is crazy, ridiculous. It's just a crazy way that people. And a significant portion of Americans are accumulating wealth, right? Not necessarily, an active resource that you tap into every single day for, for funds, but it's something that, for the most part is going to grow consistently over time, like you said, at three to 5%, those are, those are good numbers. So can you tell folks a little bit about a little bit, just maybe go back to the specifics around what they need to do, the minimums, the And the ways that they can register and get going with the platform.

Chris: 24:07

Yeah, very first thing, visit our website, so securelivingrei. com, securelivingrei. com and register for a free account. Shoot that same email to you to your mom, your brother, your sister, your family, everybody. Right? So we want to build a community and potential as the investors at a low threshold. So currently our minimum is 500. now? the more more potential investors we have on the platform that can that can be, you know, that can drop it could be 250 can be 100. right? so whatever we need to do to actually, you know, fund these real estate deals. And I think you mentioned a good point about, you know, Educating yourself. So the deals that we have on the platform, it's everything about the deal. Their financial structure, the use of funds. They have tons of documentation. So as you continue to invest in our platform, you will learn different strategies different ways, different you know, experience for the state developers or companies are structuring their deals by reading some of the material. And through our platform, you can also, you know, Basically communicate with them. You can, you know, comment on their page and have specific questions. So it's also, you're investing, you reap some potential benefits of that investment that you made, and you're also learning from the sponsor who's actually raising capital. So I think it's a good opportunity to expand And deepen their, their knowledge on real estate.

Kenny: 25:39

I love it. So you touched on something there in terms of actually engaging with, the individuals who are putting the, the, the potential investment property up there. So that makes it a two sided marketplace, right? You are actively looking for real estate investors that made people that have properties that they want people to invest in. Can you speak a little bit into like, how, how, how do, how do those folks, engage with the brand as well? Like, is it a similar process? Like, tell me a little bit about the folks who want to maybe potentially put a property on a secure living REI. com. Like what, what, does that look like?

Chris: 26:30

Yeah. So, so today we, we probably accept between seven and 10 percent sponsors on our platform because we go through a very, in depth check and review of the actual deals. Right. So we're dealing with you know, people's capital, right? So we want to ensure that we mitigate as much risk as possible, knowing that all investments have risks. Right. So we go through background checks, which checks for You know, criminal background, financial fraud, anti money laundering. We go through deal review. So we have people that sit on our board who, who worked at some of these large organizations That focused on, analyzing real estate deals. So we have deal review to help mitigate risks that covers market analysis. We look at the competency of the actual sponsors and their team. Is this out of, this strategy that they're trying to deploy, is it normal for them or something new? Right, so we look at a lot of different things. And they also, we bring them to us and they actually pitch their opportunity. As well with us and our board so we can have that those tough questions and feedback like a prime example, we were reviewing some some proposals and we as well as the investors know that. Property management can be anywhere from 8 to 12%. Well, and their projections that we're putting two to 5%, which we were like, Hey, this is extremely low. Well below, you know, a national averages. So we have those conversations, check out the numbers. We look at the economic growth that they're predicting. We just make sure we validate everything they put on the pitch deck or on the material that they share with us, you know, checks out

Kenny: 28:13

Got it. Got it And so there's a. There's definitely a thorough, a thorough background check. Like, you said I think that's really important for, for the folks who are potentially looking at putting their pool and their money in and investing in the platform to know that just giving your background and your co founders background. Y'all do this right in your day, you do this and you did this for your career. and now you're trying to make sure that you apply some of those rigorous, thorough, you know, just the thoroughness, the audits, the dot in your eyes and crossing your T's that you do for the bank is it definitely should cross over into this space as we get more folks that are open to, you know, just, you know, Investing in stuff that they haven't invested into in the past or even a lot of folks now, I think for a platform like this, they're probably going to be new to investing in some capacities, right? And so you got to make sure, you know, the stamp of approval is there from a regulatory standpoint.

Chris: 29:15

exactly. exactly.

Kenny: 29:17

what else? I don't, one thing I was curious about was the, You being in my home market of Charlotte, North Carolina, the Carolinas, everybody knows that's where I'm at. That that's a focus area now, but I guess like longer term kind of the vision for the company are there any areas that you're looking into expanding to now or is Carolina, the, go to market for now?

Chris: 29:51

So we actually just launched a another investment opportunity outside of the Carolinas, actually in Florida. So we've been focusing on, the southeast, but I think, you know, people have been hearing about us and we've been gaining more traction. So we, have Individuals from California, Michigan approach us when I list different, you know, this their project. So, we're still focusing on the Carolinas because that's where our network is. And we know we can, you know help explain what we do to our network. But as of late, the last two months we lost our new our new platform. More sponsors have been reaching out to us needing capital. So we've, we've soon will be have you know best opportunities not just in one region, but hopefully across the U. S. Which can help, you know potential investors diversify their, their passive portfolio.

Kenny: 30:52

I love to hear it. There's plenty of growth opportunities for folks. We all see the new developments. We all see the repurposing and refurbishing of old establishments on the, even on the, whether it's residential or commercial in terms of the business spaces as well. I can't remember if you told me this before on that residential commercial element, are there any, between investing in. Residential projects versus commercial. And is, is there, is commercial or business spaces, is that on the, is that a possible way for folks to invest within a secure living?

Chris: 31:36

Yeah. So we we're not biased. So we actually, We've, we've, we've worked with commercial residential mixed use. Someone approaches from Michigan that wants to build a manufacturing plant and bring their manufacturing business from, overseas to to state side. So we we're, we're, we're not biased. So anything, everything, you know, real estate that makes sense, that we feel and deem have a low risk. Tolerance, we will definitely advertise on our platform definitely.

Kenny: 32:20

it. I mean, I I'm, I'm all for it. You know, our conversations off air, we, we've talked a little bit about real, our real estate journeys. Glad to see somebody taking initiative like this. There's definitely. folks who, who are interested in a solution like this. Like you said folks should definitely sign up for the platform. Put that link back up again. But then tell somebody about it. And it's just so about awareness right now. I'm putting that opportunity in front of folks on analogy that, you know, I, from my time working in corporate America, when it comes to, marketing and media. Putting different opportunities in front of customers. You know, you look at the retailers, all the businesses that solicit us every day, whether it's email or mail, direct mail, which is the traditional way. Like it's not up to your mailman to look through the junk mail that you get, right? You're going to get pieces of junk mail that your mailman just. They don't understand why they're sending it to you, but you know, you may get that same piece 10 times, but it's that 10 time that intrigues you to, go online and buy something that you may or may not need. But that is your, that is your your opportunity. So you know, I say that just to say, you know, don't. necessarily limit somebody seeing a platform like this, make sure on that folks have awareness that solutions like this are out there so that they can give it a look themselves and make that, you know, make that decision on whether or not they want to invest in something like this. In closing, you know, I just want to thank you, Chris for, for you know, shedding light on what you're, you're building. It's amazing to see you and your co founder Amazing couple, you know, building this, this type of platform, leveraging your, your experience in real estate at a really young age. And putting that to work to build a business and you know, just leveraging all the things that you've done from a corporate perspective. And this new space to, build something for other folks to benefit from. You know, I'll leave it to you to, to, to once again, let folks know how they should, Interact with the brand, look at things to look out for. And then the last closing thought, I'll leave that to you as we look to on close out this great conversation.

Chris: 34:47

Yeah, thanks. I definitely think beyond normal for having me here, but really us. So in terms of my wife and circulate and be able to represent. We're looking for potential investors, potential sponsors. We want to, you know, build this community to help bring investment opportunities to help bring capital to those that may not have access to it. In terms of last Comment. So we have interesting pipeline coming up. So really stay tuned. So by registering an account, you'd be registered with our newsletter and we are, you know, send updates, educational material about wealth strategies and wealth building as well. So it's not just really focused. So it's really about generational wealth. So by registering an account, you get access, you know, to, to, to all those opportunities. So stay tuned. We have Interesting markets that we're looking at. California, Michigan and Atlanta coming up some really big deals from some known investment companies. So in the next, you know, hopefully next month or two, we have those bills on board and then we have more opportunities for you to invest and pick and choose. Thanks.

Kenny: 36:00

Appreciate that. Chris for those listening in, thanks for tuning in to another great episode of the beyond the podcast Peace.