This podcast episode is in partnership with Mission First Capital. This is not investment advice, please make sure to do your own research before investing in any opportunity. There are inherent risks with investing and everyone should do their own research before investing in any investment opportunity. When you think about saving for retirement when you are in the military, you might think the only investment opportunity you have available to you is the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP). And with the new retirement and the matching provided by the government, the TSP does have its advantages. But there are other opportunities to invest in and are worth considering as you work to diversify your portfoloi. And one such option is with veteran-owned Mission First Capital.
Mission First Capital is a real estate investment opportunity with a 100% veteran-owned company. In today's interview with Alex Breshears, investor relations, shares a little about why Mission First Capital was created and who it is for. The owners Phil Capron and Anthony Pinto both started investing in real estate and were able to see great returns. They wanted to make investing in real estate an option for more people without having to be a landlord. They specifically wanted to help military families.
Mission First Capital believes that what everyone needs to make better investment choices is time and by providing investment opportunities to people through Mission First Capital they are giving you more time. They do the research and you invest with them and then you see the returns.
The Mission First Capital Growth Fund was created to provide an alternative to the typical retirement style funds found in either the TSP (Thrift Savings Plan) or other options such as the stock market or 401k. The goal of the Capital Growth Fund is really meant to provide more of a nest egg. Investment opportunities start at $5,000. Each plan provides different terms of time commitment and expected returns.
The Mission First Capital Growth Fund gives investors 3 different options to choose from:
Here is a quick example to show you how your money could grow over time. Let's say you invest the minimum of $5,000 in 2021, which means in 2024 you can expect to receive $6,250 back. Now imagine if you invest $50,000, after 3 years you would put $62,500 in your pocket. If you invest $50,000 for 5 years you would put $75,000 in your pocket after those 5 years. If you invest $50,000 for 8 years, you would put $100,000 in your pocket after those 8 years.
If you were to compare the TSP fund returns over the past 20 years the average return is only at 6%. So as an example if you put in $50,000 into the TSP and $50,000 into the Mission First Capital Growth Fund in 2021 what would happen? Let's fast forward to 2029. With the TSP you would put only a total of $80,000 in your pocket. With the Mission First Capital Growth Fund in 8 years, you will have doubled your money and you are able to put $100,000 in your pocket. That's an average of $2,500 a year or $208 per month MORE that you are making on your investment than if you would have put that same money in the TSP.
Mission First Capital uses the number $50,000 as an example to show the type of returns you can get. Keep in mind the Mission First Capital Growth Fund allows an individual to invest as little as $5,000 to get started building their real estate investment portfolio. These examples are expected returns and not guaranteed returns for each fund.
Want to learn more about investing with Mission First Capital? Head over to their website today.
Check out the full transcript here.
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Amanda Huffman00:00
Welcome to Episode 110 of the Woman of the Military podcast. This episode is in partnership with Mission First Capital. And I'm talking to Alex Breshears. From Mission First Capital to talk about what type of investment opportunities they have and how they are working to help military families and the investment arena and how Mission First Capital was started, and why they do the work that they are doing today. I really hope you learn something from this episode, and can look at this as a new investment opportunity. I certainly learned a lot and I'm excited to share this interview with you. So let's get started. You're listening to season three of the Woman of the Military podcast Here you will find the real stories of female servicemembers. I'm Amanda Huffman, I am an Air Force veteran, military spouse and Mom, I created Women in the Military podcast in 2019, as a place to share the stories of female service members past and present, with the goal of finding the heart of the story, while uncovering the triumphs and challenges women face while serving in the military. If you want to be encouraged by the stories of military women and be inspired to change the world, keep tuned for this latest episode of Women on the Military. Welcome to the show, Alex. I'm excited to have you here.
Alex Breshears01:28
Thank you, Amanda, I'm really excited.
Amanda Huffman01:31
Let's start with who you are and what you do for Mission First Capital.
Alex Breshears01:36
Absolutely. My name is Alex Breshears. And I'm actually in charge of investor relations for Mission First Capital. So a lot of that position entails talking to people about it, answering questions about it, once they've actually invested, kind of keeping up with updates, newsletters, letting them know, you know, important developments with within the projects within the team. There's any changes, you know, we buy a new property, you know, something like that, those major announcements, I'm kind of the go to person for that part of the fund.
Amanda Huffman02:04
And you guys are veteran owned, and you're a military spouse, right?
Alex Breshears02:09
Absolutely. So our principal, our key principles, the one of them is a prior Navy. So he's a veteran now. The other one is still an active duty service member, he's stationed in Japan, he's a sub mariner officer in Japan right now. And then I'm a military spouse of 20 years. So all three of us are Navy background. So it's it's one of those things you kind of have to understand, you know, what you're marketing to and the people you want to work with. We all speak the same language. So it just worked out really nicely that all three of us kind of had the veteran perspective, the active duty perspective, and us and the family's perspective.
Amanda Huffman02:44
Yeah, it sounds like a great team. Alright, so let's get started with Why did you guys create Mission First Capital?
Alex Breshears 02:53
Oh, that's easy. So it basically boils down to the one thing, everybody wants more of time. And then I would say the second thing is money. You know, everybody's like, they always want more money. And like when realistically, what they want is more time and they think that having more money is going to get them more time. But when you're when you're actually kind of down in the trenches, so to speak, there's a lot to learn for investing, especially real estate investing. It's it's a whole other set of language and terminology and rules and different rules apply to commercial property apply to different states, different markets. And so if you have someone that's you know, an active duty service member, if they're getting ready to for deployment, they're getting ready to go downrange, they're getting ready to go to some schooling, some training, they're getting ready to go out drill, they don't have time to sit down and read a book, they don't have time to sit down, take notes on podcasts, you know, they may not have the time to do networking, although COVID is kind of made that a lot easier, because now everybody can kind of virtually network together. But it basically boils down to they just don't have the time. And so what ends up happening is the service members end up you know, that either they shoot for that, you know, 20 year mark so they can get their you know, 50% of their base pay. And they kind of bank on that being that's going to be their retirement is 50% of their base pay. And they they tend to just kind of everything else investing related is just kind of put on the backburner because they don't have time, you know, they're juggling families are juggling active duty service, trying to go and see family when they can, you know, squeeze that in there. So it's it's not tends to not be a priority. But in the long term, what they end up wanting is more time and the only way they can get that is really having more assets available to them, you know, whether they're cash flowing assets, whether they're long term assets, and that could sometimes make the decision to walk away before that 20 years, if they really have just decided they've had enough for their career has progressed to the point they want to transition out. It allows them a lot more options in the end. So we felt as a team that having that option available to other service members. Instead of just talking to a few people that we know putting together a fund opened the doors for a lot more service members to be able to invest In real estate that wanted that time, but didn't necessarily have all the time to do the research into investing in real estate investing, they just, they just don't have it. You know, they're they're too busy doing regular life, you know, to go ahead and take that second step. So like I mentioned, one of our key principles, Phil, he now does real estate full time, he's a veteran, this is what he does for a living. So his entire day, his entire life is devoted to real estate investing. So I mean, it's, it's really requires that kind of commitment to be done professionally.
Amanda Huffman05:28
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And thinking back of my career, and like, the stuff that we've invested in or done research, and I'm like, Oh, yeah, we didn't really have enough time to do like, all the research that we needed to do, and, or currently, or like, Tesla thing. Yeah. And so we've been doing a lot of research about Tesla, and there's so much it's like, you just keep digging in, there's so much to do. And so it makes sense that with real estate, it would be a similar thing, like you need someone who's an expert who's focusing on that particular field. So that's really interesting. So what does Mission First Capital hope to do to help the military community?
Alex Breshears06:07
In the long run it be able to offer them another option to invest in something like their Thrift Savings Plan (TSP), because a TSP, you know, just the traditional route tends to be you know, stocks, bonds, mutual funds, those types of things. And as we've seen, even just this year, and you know, during COVID, the stock market's just been this wild roller coaster. And if you're getting closer to retirement, or you want to have some sort of, you know, quote, unquote, guarantee that the funds that you've set aside for retirement are going to be there, it can be a little gut wrenching to watch the, you know, the stock market go up and down, or their TSP, just as one example of an investment account. So this offers military investors, their families an opportunity to invest in something outside the stock market. So if they feel like the stock market's a little overblown right now, or they're worried about, you know, maybe they're getting close to retirement, so they kind of want to cash out now, and you know, have that kind of long term stability. Like I said, this just offers another option to them other than the traditional stocks, bonds, and mutual funds, which is what traditional TSP accounts will only let an activity service members invest in.
Amanda Huffman07:10
And that makes a lot of sense. So we just mentioned tsp and you barely touched on it, but like, how does it compare, when you're doing like the numbers, if you're comparing this option, and the stock market, or the TSP?
Alex Breshears07:25
So generally, the TSP is going to be, you know, maybe 6% growth a year, you know, that's kind of on average. And again, you're riding that roller coaster up and down during that 6%. But over the long haul, about 6% a year, so something like this, when you're investing in the fund and our growth fund, for example, if you're invested for three years, you're actually getting the projected returns are 25%. So if you know you do 25%, divided by three, that's still going to be higher than your average 6%. And chances are, you're also not riding that roller coaster up and down, up and down, up and down. So it's going to be a nice steady, you know, growth up until you get your three year because you can invest for three years, five years or eight years, you know, depending on what your preferences are, what your intentions are, you're retired your required rate of return for your money that you have invested in allows, like I said, it really smooths out that kind of overall return. But it also allows for more significant returns. So for example, our eight year option, if you want to have money invested for eight years for a little bit longer term, you know, maybe you're at the 12 year point now, and you're thinking about getting out of that eight, and you know, the eight years, that one's actually our return goal, there is 100%, which means your money has doubled. So if you put in $10,000, now, in eight years, you're getting back $20,000, you know, and obviously, you can just keep doing the math. So there's not a lot of like stock options out there, you know, mutual funds, S&P 500, you know, over the eight years where they're like, yeah, you know, we're gonna shoot to have, you know, double your money in eight years. And it almost sounds like too good to be true. But when you really dive into what real estate is doing in this country, the you know, categories of real estate we're investing in, we're going to be investing heavily in the Hampton Roads area in Virginia. And that market is very, very heavily military friendly. We have a lot of federal jobs here. We have a lot of military jobs here and a lot of military installations, military families. So our renter base, for example, for investing in apartment complex is very strong, they have strong stable income, and I don't really know anybody, you know, that their rent has gone down in the last eight years, you know, and the bH rates alone just keep going up. They just came out, the new rates just came out a few days ago. So I mean, rent is just only going to keep increasing. So I mean, it's one of those things where once you get a hold of the asset, you're riding the appreciation, which is the increase in the value of the asset because we're also going to be doing improvements, physical improvements, lifestyle improvements for the tenants that are living there and join it. And then also, obviously, there's going to be commensurate rent increases with each year you know, little bit, little bit little bit to kind of stay within market rent for the area.
Amanda Huffman09:58
Now that sounds like a lot of potential. And the reassurance of being in a military area where you have that stability of pay. And that's exciting. So we talked about the good things. Are there any risks to investing in this program?
Alex Breshears10:14
Yes. I mean, I'm not gonna sit here and say it's absolutely risk free, you know, we're going to double your money and have a nice day. That's not how it works, it's still going to be investing. And it's primarily going to be investing in the real estate market. And given what's going on with COVID, nobody's got a crystal ball these days, it would be great. I think that crystal ball would be priceless, right about now. But you know, we can only we can only make the best decisions we have with the information available to us and then pivot so Exactly. Like what happens if you end up going downrange, you leave with a plan. And then once you get there, you're like, not crap, you know, this, this other thing happened. And we need to go to plan B, Plan C, plan D. So having that military background experience in our key principles, also offers that kind of mental training where it's like we went in with Plan A, but then we get in the middle of it not, you know, we get to switch tracks to do something else. And with their experience in real estate, you know, they have experienced doing that in real estate. And they've also been trained by the military on how to do that how to pivot and profit and no matter what the situation is, so there's going to be risks, you know, you're always going to have that economic risk, you know, if the entire economy crumbles, you know, if housing prices decrease, you know, we start having massive rent, moratoriums, or eviction moratoriums, or rent cancellation programs and all of these things. We're not seeing any of those kinds of thoughts in our market right now in our general Hampton Roads area. But you know, it again, it's crystal ball, we don't know. So the best we can do is say, okay, for we can conservatively underwrite any properties that we're looking to purchase to make sure that should there be some sort of correction, that the property will still be profitable, even in some level of correction. But like you mentioned, there's a big federal employment base here, there's a lot of military here that we are not really anticipating even if there is some sort of correction in the short term that this area is not going to be highly affected just this year alone. Since March, most of the property values on single family homes are up between seven and 10%. Just this year, I mean, just because there's such a demand for housing in this area.
Amanda Huffman12:11
Yeah, we have similar increases here. And I'm in Northern Virginia, from the research I've done, the whole country is that way, it seems overall, obviously, that's not that way, everywhere. So how much money if I'm thinking I would be interested? How much money do I have to invest?
Alex Breshears12:29
To get started, so our minimum investment is $5,000. So you can just get started with as little as $5,000, sometimes just a tax return, because tax return seasons coming up, and you can invest multiple times. So if you want to do $5,000, we ask that you do it once a quarter. So you could do $5,000 in the first quarter or $5,000 in the second quarter, you know, so it doesn't have to be this big lump sum payment. If you wanted to invest multiple times, we just asked you to do it once a quarter instead of because I had a couple people asking, oh, can I do it monthly? And like No, just Let's calm down? That's a lot of paperwork. Can we do it quarterly? quarterly. So we're looking to do it quarterly. And like I said, it's something where if you wanted to have you know, different pots of money and different timeframes. So if you wanted one set of capital that will be available in three years, maybe you have your oldest child going off to college in three years, you're like, Okay, I'll set it aside this pot of money for you know, the oldest kid, and then you have another pot that's going to be in the five year category, because you know, that's when the next one will be going off to college, and then eight years, because that's when you'll you guys will be transitioning from an active duty family to a veteran family, you know, whatever the needs are. So that's the other thing we like about this is it offers military members a lot of flexibility for, you know, investment that fits their life, because that's really what it's all about is making sure that the investment fits their life.
Amanda Huffman13:43
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I like the flexibility, especially when you're thinking about college that 358 year. So yeah, that sounds really good. So my next question is, can anyone invest in this fun? Or do you have to be an accredited Oh,
Alex Breshears13:58
It is open to everyone. It's a regA+ fund. So that's available and open to the public. So even someone that's not necessarily affiliated with the military. So if you have someone that's like a parent of someone that's in the military, or maybe you're a god, contractor, and you work with a bunch of military members, you're still eligible. So it's not limited in any capacity. As long as you're willing to invest in you want to, you know, be part of the mission, you're able to invest. So you don't have to be what's called an accredited investor. For any of your listeners that might be interested in looking into things like syndication, you know, purchasing multifamily property. A lot of the deals out there are for what's called accredited investors, which means you have to have over $200,000 in income for the last two years as an individual or $300,000 a year for combined for a married couple or a net worth over a million dollars without your primary residence. So that would be the classification for an accredited investor. If any of your listeners ever ever hear that phrase. So we do not require that anybody can go ahead and invest in the future.
Amanda Huffman15:00
Makes it more available to more people?
Alex Breshears15:04
Yes.
Amanda Huffman15:05
Especially when you're talking to a military audience where you're like, Ah,
Alex Breshears15:09
Yes. And that's partly why we decided to go with the fund route this way, because we wanted to have the opportunity for just the everyday service member to be able to invest in real estate, you know, everybody hears about how great it is to invest in real estate, not everybody's cut out to be a landlord. You know, some people will say, oh, I'll buy a home with my VA loan at my next duty station, and then I'll just rent it out, you know, after I go, you know, once I move on again, and like, even if you do that two, three times, you know, you have a house in California, you got another one in Florida, and another one in Virginia, that's three different property managers, three different properties, you got to file state property taxes in the whole nine yards, and it gets, it gets cumbersome very quickly. And again, you're not kind of guaranteed that monthly income, especially going on what's going on with COVID. You know, if your hot water heater breaks, and you're only making 100 bucks a month, you've just wiped out your profit for the entire year with one month's worth of a broken hot water heater. So there's lots of ways to invest in real estate. But I feel like the one that most military members reach for first because of the VA loan, is purchasing the property and then going out going out and renting it out. And realistically, that doesn't suit everybody strengths. It didn't actually didn't didn't suit my strengths. We did that ourselves when we found out how much we hated being a landlord. So I mean, this just like I said, mentioned, it just offers another way to invest in real estate without having to deal with you know, the tenants, the trash, the toilets, all the all the fun stuff nobody really likes to talk about.
Amanda Huffman16:32
Yeah, I was watching an investment. And he was like, how much money have I made in real estate and we're landlords, and he didn't talk about like things breaking. And I was like, your video is really deceptive. Because you're not including like, the crummy part that, especially because those things pop up. And you're like, ah, I didn't expect that to happen until it's really, it's not that much fun to be landlord. So if you invest in the fund, and you're you want to keep track and watch your money grow, are there ways that you can track your investment?
Alex Breshears17:08
Absolutely. So we actually have an investor portal that you'll sign into on our website. And again, that's up and available 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. So no matter where you are in the world, it's not like you got to wait and call between 9 and 5, you know, Eastern Time because that's when we're open. So you'll be able to log into your investor portal, you'll be able to see what potential distributions are coming, where you know how much you've invested, when you invest in any of your statements, your tax return, you know, information you'll need for your tax return, those statements will be uploaded to the account, all sorts of information will be right there at your fingertips and our investor portal.
Amanda Huffman17:43
That sounds really convenient, like everything you need, and you don't have to worry about you being open or especially because military, we're everywhere. And so that makes a lot of sense. So you can find all your your tax statements or any documentation you need in that location.
Alex Breshears17:59
Yes, you'll get what's called a K-1. So it's really similar to if you have a bank account, and they you get your 1099 at the end of the year because of interest that you've earned. It's a very similar statement for similar purposes just called a schedule K-1.
Amanda Huffman18:14
That sounds easy. Who either principal partners and managing partners of the fund and what is their experience in real estate. I know that you talked a little bit in the beginning about one of the owners like full time, but let's dive a little deeper.
Alex Breshears18:27
Sure. So our first key principle is going to be Phil Capron, so he's actually a retired Navy though he was actually a combatant craft crewmen, SWCC, it's a whole lot. He actually separated from the military from the Navy in 2012. But while he was still active duty, he was investing in real estate, and then it kind of just got the ball rolling, his interest was piqued. And he started to realize how much this could make a difference in his life. So he actually separated in 2012, he got his real estate license, he started selling real estate, he was investing himself. He did 30 plus flips in the Hampton Roads area. So he knows this market really, really well. And at that point, he's just like, you know, this is great for me, you know, but it's time to grow, it's time to be able to help other people grow. So he made the jump from single family fix and flips to doing multifamily. So apartment complexes for anybody that's not super familiar with the terminology. So he started working looking for these large apartment complexes. He's closed on a couple this year alone that are, you know, 100 units here, another 100 units. They are these larger apartment complexes where, you know, we're providing housing for multiple families, oftentimes, you know, people that be military families because they're in that price range for BHA to cover their rent and these apartments and then he goes in, we're renovating them, we're modernizing them. We're adding amenities for the residents that are staying there trying to attract other people improve the community, whether that's safety, security, lighting, you know, just adding amenities like playgrounds for the kids fencing in an area for dogs. Parks, things like that. And as he just kind of grew and saw what a change, just even if just this one community could make in the overall neighborhood, it would start to kind of filter outwards. And he thought, wow, this is just this is an amazing tool to be able to increase the area that he loves and Hampton Roads now, so he's been investing since 2010 are other key principles, Anthony Pinto, and he actually has property in multiple places. North Carolina, Kansas City, also here in Hampton Roads, he's invested in multifamily properties here in Hampton Roads and same same mentality, even though he's active duty, it's, it's basically another full time job trying to manage these properties. He has some single family properties, he has these multifamily properties, it's a whole other full time job on top of itself. So while he's active duty, you know, he's got key people in place that can kind of help, you know, shoulder the load of a lot of the work, but it's still very time consuming. But again, he's got that experience where he's taken on big multifamily projects and turn them around, whether that's managing a construction project, working with marketing to, you know, advertise these properties to make them profitable. So I mean, that's just really the team as a whole is that's what they're focused on is improving the community.
Amanda Huffman21:11
I really like that aspect of it, that it's not just like investing in real estate, but it's like investing in the communities that you're investing in the real estate. And so it kind of adds an extra layer of the mission and the giving back, which is something that veterans are known for, to give back to the community. And so that's, I think that's probably the most exciting part. I mean, the making money is exciting, but like giving back to the community and making an impact, not only helping the community, but helping the people who are renting out the different complexes. And I that's really exciting and really cool.
Alex Breshears21:47
Yeah, I mean, we're big on trying to create that win win win situation, you know, there is a nice sweet spot where you can invest in real estate, you can make a profit, but it's not necessarily to the detriment of other people, you are helping improve a community, you're making it safer, you're making it nicer, you're updating things, you're you're putting washers and dryers in their apartment, whereas before they had to, you know, haul laundry to the laundromat, for example. So it's those kind of little updates that really make a difference in people's day to day lives that we try to shoot for.
Amanda Huffman22:15
Yeah, that's really cool. I love that. That's great. So if you've been listened to this interview, and now you're like, I want to invest, what is the next step that you need to take?
Alex Breshears22:22
Absolutely. So it's super, super easy right now, all you have to do is go to our website, it's missionfirstcapital.co not com, Co. So you can go there, you can get some information about mission first capital, like I said, you can go and create an account, you can create an investor portal account, it doesn't obligate you to actually invest with the fund, but it does let you have access to things like the term sheet, some additional information about the fund. And it's really just, you know, name, phone number, email address, and just very, very basic information takes two minutes to go ahead and set up. We also have a Facebook page, we also have a Facebook community that we will start updating people, you know, on that Facebook community, we can do, you know, posts about the key principles. Maybe when we go do property tours, we can go and show that that community, that Facebook group, hey, you know, here's the next asset that we're looking to bring online. And here's what our plans are. So it's a really nice way for our investors, even though that they're passive, because they're investing in the fund, they're still able to literally see where their dollars are going, what's being, you know, put to work here, you know, what are we doing? So I would highly advocate, you know, checking out the Facebook group, and then checking out the investor portal because at least nothing else, it'll offer you an opportunity to keep getting updates.
Amanda Huffman23:39
Yeah. And I'll put links in the show notes in case you want to find those groups. And you don't forget, remember to dot CO and you're like, why isn't that
Alex Breshears23:49
happens to the best of us.
Amanda Huffman23:52
That'll make it easy. And I'm also going to put more information, a summary of what we talked about and a little bit more detail about mission first capital in the shownotes. So that if you want to learn more about them, you can read up the highlights that I gleaned from all my research and thank you so much for doing this interview. I think I think it's really cool you guys are doing and I'm really excited to see how you guys help the community and help the military community through investments.
Alex Breshears24:18
Absolutely. I do too. Honestly, I'm super excited about it.
Amanda Huffman24:27
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