Shownotes
Key Takeaways
Cordell Capital's Business Model: Charlie Wessel runs Cordell Capital, a private equity firm based in Charleston, SC that manages around $160 million in assets, including approximately 3,000 doors of multifamily and office properties. They focus on specialized properties like medical offices and strategic locations like their recent lawyer's office building across from a courthouse. Evolution from Single Family to Commercial Properties: Charlie shared his journey from losing money in the stock market and managing single-family rentals to focusing on larger commercial properties. He explained how apartment complexes offer better economies of scale compared to single-family homes, particularly regarding maintenance costs and vacancy risks. New Debt Validation Fund Initiative: Cordell Capital has launched a debt validation fund specifically targeting veterans, active military, and first responders to help with credit card debt. The fund offers a 20% annual percentage rate to investors while helping people manage their debt through the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Investment Requirements: Their investments require a minimum of $50,000 and are limited to accredited investors (those with over $1 million net worth excluding personal residence, or income of $200,000/year single/$300,000/year joint). They aim to double investors' money within 5 years. Industry Growth Trends: Charlie sees significant growth potential in alternative investments and self-directed IRAs, noting that many people still don't know about self-directed IRA options. He believes this investment space will continue to grow as more people learn about alternatives to traditional investment vehicles. Interested listeners can contact Charlie Wessel via the Cordell Capital website at cordellcapital.com. For more information or to submit a question to be answered on a future episode, reach out at marketing@americanira.com. [embed]https://youtu.be/xDE3h59abeE[/embed]Transcripts
Welcome back to the IRA Cafe. My name is Jasmine Trocchia. I'm the head of the marketing department at American IRA. And today, we are joined by a very special guest. I've really enjoyed talking to this guy. It's Charlie Wessel from Cordell Capital. So we're so happy to have you on the podcast, Charlie. Hello.
Charlie Wessel [:Hey, Jasmine. How are you? And thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
Jasmine Trocchia [:Yeah. Fantastic. I enjoy you've been on, our investors roundtable a couple of times. That's our networking event. And you've also had webinars with us. So, tell us who you are and what you do. Maybe if someone is is a first time listener, introduce yourself.
Charlie Wessel [:Absolutely. So I'm Charlie Wessel, the, founder and principal of Cordell Capital. We're based out of Charleston, South Carolina, but our investors are all over the country, and some in Canada as well. Yes, we're like a private equity firm. We raise capital for, you know, real estate deals. We have one business type deal
Jasmine Trocchia [:of a fund
Charlie Wessel [:out there right now. But, yeah, we we raise capital from investors. We have a lot of self directed IRA, investors that invest with us, and we take care of them. So
Jasmine Trocchia [:Yeah. We do too. We take care of self directed IRA investors. That's what we do. So yay. Fantastic. Real a lot
Charlie Wessel [:of your self directed IRA investor. You know, people use your service to invest in our deals.
Jasmine Trocchia [:Oh, fantastic. So tell us a little bit about who you are as a person. What do you like to do for fun? How did you get started in this quartile capital stuff? Tell us a little bit about your history.
Charlie Wessel [:Absolutely. So I've been an entrepreneur
Jasmine Trocchia [:since I was in
Charlie Wessel [:my early twenties. And as you can see, that was a while ago. But yeah, it's, it's, mainly, dad of 3 kids. I have twin 11 year old girls and a 15 year old son. They're all heavily involved in sports. We have a softball practice tonight, basketball practice for the girls. They have both their practices today, and we have a basketball varsity basketball game for my son. Yeah.
Charlie Wessel [:All that and married 24 years to, you know, just the most awesome woman on the planet. So life's
Jasmine Trocchia [:Oh, that's fantastic.
Charlie Wessel [:Yeah. Mhmm. I play golf, I hunt, and shoot sport in clays a lot. Me and my son like to shoot sport in clays. And, yeah.
Jasmine Trocchia [:What kind of investing advice did you give your kids? Were you the kind of dad that's, like, listen, you get $20, you do this with $2, you do this with $10, and you get to do whatever you want with the $6. Were you that kind of dad, or do you just kinda let them make their own decisions like that?
Charlie Wessel [:No. You know, I really haven't been that kinda dad with my twins yet. I mean, they're 11. They get a very small, you know, they get a small allowance. And then, you know, as soon as the girls start batting their eyes, daddy buys them almost anything or more. But the boy, he has a landscaping business that he's had for the past year and a half, and he goes pretty well. Yep. We're actually, getting a a new zero turn mower for him here coming up soon to prepare for the summer the summer, grass cutting season.
Charlie Wessel [:So I'm excited about it. He's excited about it. It's pretty cool.
Jasmine Trocchia [:Fantastic. So you said that you've been investing since your twenties. What was some of your first investments?
Charlie Wessel [:Yeah, no, I, I've been investing since I was in my forties, but I've been an entrepreneur since I was in my twenties. But, yeah, you know, I invested a lot in the stock market, had a Scottrade account. My dad's always taking he had a self directed IRA before a self directed IRA was cool. Like, I remember back in high school or maybe just after where he had a self directed IRA, and none none of his buddies even knew what that was. So he was able to use his, you know, his knowledge of investing and kind of steer his own retirement path. And he did very well at it. He still does pretty well at it. And he manages all his own money.
Charlie Wessel [:He's all he always has. He's had a broker just because kinda gotta have one for, you know, to then move that money ever into his self directed IRA, but he's always managed his own money. I, on the other hand, have, like I said, I had a Scottrade account back in the day. It's almost day trading and, you know, lost a ton of money. And then I, yeah. So, you know, that's kinda what brought me into Cordele Capital is I've lost so much money in the stock market. I really have that Mhmm. You know, investing in properties, we bought, we had, you know, like 6 rental homes, but even that was such a pain in the butt.
Charlie Wessel [:And I was like, this kid, you hear about people getting wealthy in real estate. And I was like, I do not want to do it like this. Like, this is way too much work. This is hard. Even with a property manager, it was still difficult because they called me for everything. And, anyway, so, you know, somebody told me about, buying apartments, apartment buildings, because then you're doing it at scale. You have 1 rental house. Well, once that becomes vacant, you're at, you know, 100% unoccupied.
Charlie Wessel [:An apartment complex, you have a 150 units. One person moves out. I don't even have to know about it. You know? Because the property management company, they're gonna get that thing filled back up pretty quick. So same thing. You know? It's just the economy is a scale with, you know, HVAC systems, the roof. You know? We have one roof over, say, 8 to 16 houses in an apartment complex. You have one roof for Mhmm.
Charlie Wessel [:The house, a single family home. And, you know, if you had to replace the HVAC unit in a single family home or replace a roof in a single family home, you kind of just lost all of your profits for the next, probably 2 years.
Jasmine Trocchia [:Oh, wow.
Charlie Wessel [:It's just not the case in multifamily, which I keep talking about multifamily. That's kind of where we started. I mean, we haven't purchased a multifamily place in probably two and a half years. But, we've been looking more into the specialized office space. So I guess like, you know, our past few deals have been, medical office to really niche down. We don't want just a general office space. So we have, our last two deals have been medical office and now we're buying, an office building full of lawyers right across the street from a huge courthouse. I mean, it's, like, right across the street from it.
Charlie Wessel [:Yeah. It's it's a great
Jasmine Trocchia [:real estate for a lawyer's office.
Charlie Wessel [:Yeah.
Jasmine Trocchia [:So tell me about
Charlie Wessel [:building is historical. It's really neat. Yeah. Go ahead. I'm sorry.
Jasmine Trocchia [:Oh, no. You're good. I was just wondering, I think listeners would want to know what Cordell Capital is. So what it what kind of company is it? What kind of of of deal do you do you do with Cordele Capital?
Charlie Wessel [:It's a like I said before, it's like a private equity firm. Yeah. We raise capital from investors, and we go out and buy properties with it. I mean, we have, right around a 160,000,000 in in assets under management right now, and that's close to it's just over 3,000 doors of, of 3,000 doors of multifamily and some office. And, yeah, these are some of the deals that we've done here. Timberwall, Briar Court, 22100 Midtown, and we do them all across the country as well. I mean, some of these deals are in Georgia, we have some we have one here in South Carolina in the state that I'm in, one in, North Carolina, several in Texas, and we had one in Des Moines, Iowa that we, recently sold within the past year.
Jasmine Trocchia [:So how do you pick your deals or pick your properties? In the the lawyer's office across from a courthouse seems perfect, but how do you how do you find what your your investments are going to be? What your properties are?
Charlie Wessel [:We've been in this for quite some time now, and I built a big pool of really good relationships with people. So I'm I'm pretty good with, you know, making friends. We have we have a lot of friends of ours that find these deals around the country and they bring them to us and we underwrite them. And, you know, we partner together with a lot of people to, make these deals happen.
Jasmine Trocchia [:It sounds like you're very good at networking. So how do you find people to network with? What are some of your strategies?
Charlie Wessel [:It it's been in the past a lot of conferences. I mean, I went to a bunch of conferences every year, on this type of investing, you know, buying apartments, buying storage units, you know, there's even a short term rental fund that we did, that, you know, between me and my partners raised $36,000,000 for it. All for short term rentals. So, you know, there's a lot of opportunities out there to network, and we try to take advantage of them. Now I didn't go to a lot of conferences last year because I've been 4 to 5 conferences a year every year for, like, the past 6 years. And so last year I told, I was like, yeah, I'm staying local. So, you know, there's a lot of different meetup groups here in Charleston as well. Charleston's a pretty cool place to live.
Charlie Wessel [:So, you know, we like living here, living near the beach. We live on a golf course here. It's it's a lot of fun.
Jasmine Trocchia [:That's fantastic. I have not had a chance to get out to Charleston or the coast at all. So that would be a fun trip. So you had a couple of new, ventures that you wanted to talk about and make sure that we mentioned. I think one was the lawyer's office. What was the other new thing you have coming down the pipe for Cordele Capital?
Charlie Wessel [:Yeah. We have 2 new 2 deals out there right now. We actually just hired a new, investor relations guy last Friday. That's another pretty exciting thing. Takes a little bit more off my plate. So, yeah, I'm excited about it. But, one of the deals is a, it's a debt validation fund that we have out there,
Jasmine Trocchia [:and
Charlie Wessel [:we're really focused on veterans, active military and first responders, around the country to help them out with their credit card debt. And that is our minimum investment across the board is $50,000 on just about all deals that we do. They do have to be an accredited investor, which means they have over $1,000,000 of net worth, not including their personal home, or they make $200,000 a year filing single or $300,000 a year filing jointly and expect to keep that same rate moving forward. But, yeah, the debt validation fund, it pays out 20% annual percentage rate, which is really good, really good, really hard to find out there in any other investment. It's been very popular with our, with our investors. And we also have the lawyer's office. It's called the land title building. It's in, Birmingham, Alabama, and it's directly across the street from the Birmingham County Courthouse.
Charlie Wessel [:So it's a pretty cool deal as well. It's in an opportunity zone. So that helps out with the taxes. I'm not sure how that would work out with the self directed RA group. But, you know, that's that's for the, that's for you guys and the accountants to figure out. But, you know, we try to double everybody's money within 5 years. That's what we're looking to do, really.
Jasmine Trocchia [:Gotcha. Fantastic. Tell me a little bit more about the debt validation fund. You said you're targeting first responders, military. So how does that whole program work? If I so let's say I wanna invest my $50,000. I can't. I'm not an accredited investor, but let's pretend.
Charlie Wessel [:Right.
Jasmine Trocchia [:What is that fund target? I mean, that sounds like a really good cause. It is a good cause. And what it is is it's the,
Charlie Wessel [:Fair Credit Reporting Act. A lot of these, people collectors are not following the Fair Credit Reporting Act. So they're not you know, they're doing things that are basically deemed illegal by the federal government. And, it's happening a lot. So they're they're going after these people in some pretty nasty ways. And what it is is how how the investment works is there's a company that has lawyers and stuff, and they're buying these leads from a lead company or people that are anywhere from 10 to $40,000 in bet in, you know, not just in those categories, but we are giving a huge discount to people in those categories to go through this program. And they're basically for, like, a portion of that debt that they pay off over 2 years worth of payments. These guys are eliminating that debt off of their credit.
Charlie Wessel [:So, you know, at first it was to me, you know, it didn't sit right with me until I talked to the guys that had the business, and they're like, look. You know, these people are they're hurting. It's not that they're going out and buy big, expensive cars. You know, especially first responders and stuff like that. I mean, they they don't make that much money. Most of them have to have 2 jobs just to survive. Mhmm. So with the inflation and the economy and everything the way it's been, you know, a lot of this credit card debt is just to survive, just to live.
Charlie Wessel [:And so if we can help them out by getting them out of that credit card debt, I mean, I'm, yeah, I'm all in. I'm all for it. And we, you know, the margins are pretty big coming back to us. So that's why we're able to offer the 20% APR back to our investors. And it's all it's it's structured somewhat like a debt fund that we're lending to this company. We're putting UCC files on every every, you know, every time we lend to them, we we file it with the UCC. And it's so, yeah, I mean, it's I think it's a it's a good cause. It's helping out a lot of people, and it's making our investors a lot of money.
Jasmine Trocchia [:Oh, wow. Well, there you go. Win win for everybody. Sounds like all around.
Charlie Wessel [:For sure. Sure.
Jasmine Trocchia [:So what else what else should our listeners know about Cordell Capital? Anything else that we, we haven't covered yet that you'd like to to discuss?
Charlie Wessel [:Yeah. I mean, you know, we're always happy to jump on a call with you, you know, to discuss whatever. I mean, we have webinar recordings out there on all the deals that we've done. We'll be glad to send you, you know, an email that has all the deals that we've done, how where we stand with all of them, and and just to show you kind of our past performance. And yeah. It's I mean, you know, that's about it.
Jasmine Trocchia [:Easy as that. Easy as that.
Charlie Wessel [:It really is. So It really is.
Jasmine Trocchia [:Yeah. So what, you said that you were a business person before, a businessman before. So what sparked your passion for finance and investing? Like, your your your move to Cordele Capital, let's say.
Charlie Wessel [:Yeah. So I've always been a, general contractor here in Charleston. So, you know, we, you know, I just knew that there was a better way to make money than to give it to, forgive me for saying somebody's neighbor, like Edward Jones, you know, I mean, I can make more money, you know, without a doubt. And these types of investments, even though they have to be an accredited investor, a lot of people just don't have access to these kinds of opportunities. So it really helps. Yeah. I really got into it to help out my friends and family, show them these opportunities. And we just kind of turned it into a business from there.
Jasmine Trocchia [:Oh, wow. It seems like it just fell into your lap, but I know it took a lot of hard work to get where you are today.
Charlie Wessel [:It took
Jasmine Trocchia [:a lot of work. Yeah. Yeah. Make it sound like it's really easy. So looking ahead, what trends do you see coming down the pipe in the world of real estate investing, alternative investing, something that you see maybe in 2025 that is really gonna be helpful to this industry?
Charlie Wessel [:I mean, I see this being, you know, taking a lot more of the pie of investment, you know, of investors' money, you know, moving forward each year. I mean, this, this space grows like crazy every year. The more and more people that find out about it, the more and more people that find out about you guys and how you guys can help them with their IRA and self directed IRA and all that stuff. I mean, a lot of people still don't even know about a self directed IRA.
Jasmine Trocchia [:True. True.
Charlie Wessel [:You know, if we get the word out there, I mean, they can actually use that money to make a lot more money
Jasmine Trocchia [:than
Charlie Wessel [:they they are parking it at these large, you know, institutions with financial planners. That's, you know, I don't know. I just think that, this is a way better, you know, investment. So we're investing back in, you know, American brick and mortar here. It's, you know, investing in our people.
Jasmine Trocchia [:Yeah. You're absolutely right. Like, just knowing even what an IRA is. Not just that you can self direct your investment or that you can't just use, you know, contribute to your retirement account. You have to actually, like, put that money to work inside that fund. So awesome. Fantastic. So last but not least, maybe not least, but, if you could give your younger self, I asked this to my last podcast guest and I got a really interesting answer.
Jasmine Trocchia [:So if you haven't listened to that episode, you should go back and listen to the previous episode. If you could give your younger self one piece of financial advice, what would it be? I guess it kinda goes along with the question I asked you about your kids. So what would you tell your younger self?
Charlie Wessel [:Save more money and spend less. Like I said, I have too many hobbies. They're all following these, but yeah, I mean, it's, you know, yeah, save more money, really. I mean, you know, because I could put a lot more money to work
Jasmine Trocchia [:Mhmm.
Charlie Wessel [:Now that I know what I'm doing. You know? I mean, we've been doing this for 9 years now. So yeah.
Jasmine Trocchia [:Yeah. That's good advice. I can tell myself that now. Save more, spend less.
Charlie Wessel [:Yeah.
Jasmine Trocchia [:Well, thank you so much, Charlie. How can our listeners reach you? What's the best way to contact you if they have more questions?
Charlie Wessel [:They can go to cordell capital, cordellcapital.com. And, you know, there there's a spot to contact us there, and we'll reach out. It'll be either myself or Cam. Cam's our new guy. He's sharp. He's been in this business for a while too, and he knows what he's doing. So I'm looking forward to seeing what he and I can do together.
Jasmine Trocchia [:That is super exciting. Well, you can add to your team to somebody who is a carbon copy of you probably in a lot of ways. That's very helpful. I'm sure.
Charlie Wessel [:He is. He's just he's 28 and I'm 47. So he's 20 years younger than I. I'm a close.
Jasmine Trocchia [:A younger carbon copy.
Charlie Wessel [:Younger carbon copy. Yeah. Absolutely.
Jasmine Trocchia [:Exactly. Well, thank you so much, Charlie, for joining us. Is there anything I didn't touch on? Do you have a book or a podcast of your own? Anything you wanna plug real quick to our No.
Charlie Wessel [:Uh-uh. I really don't. I mean, we have a publication or a website that they can get. But, yeah, I've tried my hardest to stay away from me having my own podcast. I'm a I'm a guest on a lot of them.
Jasmine Trocchia [:But, yeah, I don't have my own. So but thank you so much, Chad. Again for sure.
Charlie Wessel [:Yeah. Absolutely. I'll do it anytime.
Jasmine Trocchia [:Fantastic. Awesome. Well, thank you so much. And if you have any other questions, you can reach me also at marketing at American IRA dot com. And, we'll see you next time, Charlie. Thanks for joining us.
Charlie Wessel [:Thank you, John.
Jasmine Trocchia [:Now it's time for the other segment of our podcast episode today. We're going to do the IRA Cafe Q and A, where I answer a question from one of our viewers or clients at American IRA. Today's question comes from Samantha. Samantha asks, what are your fees and how do you assess your fees at American IRA? Great question. And not to sound super salesy, but we do have some of the lowest fees in the entire industry. Our fees are not based on your asset. They are based, on which account type you select. And you can find more information about our fees at americaniraidot com.
Jasmine Trocchia [:At the very top, you'll see a selection for fees. Brings you to this page and talks everything that you ever wanted to know about our fees. And we have a flat rate fee. It's a yearly fee. It doesn't matter how many assets you hold or what kind of assets you hold. 4.50 a year gives you unlimited transactions. It's actually a super good deal if you plan on making multiple investments. So that would be my suggestion.
Jasmine Trocchia [:If you're making more than, 2 or 3 investments a year, you can save on those transaction fees. But if you have any other questions about fees, you can reach out to, marketing at American IRA dot com. If I can't answer your question, I'll send you to the right place. But that is also a wealth of information on our website at americaniraid.com. Thanks, Samantha. And if you'd like to submit a question for the podcast, you can email me at marketing@americanira.com.
