Catch the second part of our conversation with Fernando Angelucci, where we dive deeper into self-storage strategies for maximizing profits in the self-storage market, including when to sell for the best return and how to leverage SBA loans with minimal capital. Plus, get a glimpse into Fernando’s nomadic lifestyle and how living with less has fueled his success. So tune in for actionable tips and a fresh perspective on business and life.

Key takeaways to listen for

• [03:00] Current opportunities in the self-storage market as occupancy rates stabilize and rent increases return
• [05:57] Fernando’s approach to strategic exit planning and determining the optimal time to sell a property
• [18:19] How to use SBA loans creatively to maximize leverage and minimize out-of-pocket expenses
• [22:49] Pro-storage opportunities that may offer high returns and strong tenant demand
• [38:19] Ways Fernando’s minimalist, travel-focused lifestyle enhances his personal life and drives business success

Resources mentioned in this episode

• [38:19] The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss | Kindle and Hardcover
• [38:19] Vagabonding by Rolf Potts | Kindle, Hardcover, and Paperback
• [40:27] At Home in the World by Tsh Oxenreider | Hardcover
• [39:49] Furnished Finder
• [44:43] Children's Dyslexia Centers of Cincinnati
• [45:22] Live Oak Bank

About Fernando Angelucci

Fernando is a real estate professional with extensive experience in building businesses, acquisitions, and underwriting of large, complex commercial real estate equity and debt transactions spanning various markets.  He has spent the last decade becoming one of the largest wholesalers in the Chicagoland area. He has successfully scaled his wholesaling business to a goliath and used the same skill sets and systems to establish and grow his self-storage portfolio.

Connect with Fernando

• Website: The Storage Stud
• Phone Number: 630-408-8090

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Mentioned in this episode:

Sponsored by Nomad Capital

Looking to invest in self-storage? Nomad Capital converts vacant big-box retail spaces across the Southeast into climate-controlled storage, with a target of 20% annual returns. Our fund combines low leverage and high depreciation for strong growth and valuable tax benefits. By buying properties at deep discounts, we often achieve break-even at just 40% occupancy. Join a proven model in a resilient asset class that continues to deliver, even in today’s market. Learn more at nomadcapital.us/tpi. Accredited investors only.

Fernando Angelucci: 00:00:42

With the SBA, they are very favorable when it comes to high leverage. They could be in a first. You could have a seller in the second position dropping the total DSCR, which is how they will scale their leverage.

There's ways to do SBA deals right now with zero to 5% out of your pocket.

Neil Henderson: 00:00:58

Welcome to Truly Passive income. I'm Neil Henderson.

Clint Harris: 00:01:00

And I'm Clint Harris.

Levi Hemingway: 00:01:01

And I'm Levi Hemingway.

Neil Henderson: 00:01:03

We're back with my good friend Fernando Ancelucci.

If this is part two of a two part episode, if you haven't already listened to the episode before, highly recommend you go back and listen to that one quick intro on Fernando. He's the CEO of self storage, syndicated equities. He's a seasoned real estate investor.

vesting in self storage since: 2018

What's your general sentiment on what we're seeing in the self storage market right now?

Fernando Angelucci: 00:01:45

Yeah, it's a super exciting time to be in self storage. So we are basically in the trough of the investment cycle for self storage.

We have seen this, you know, during COVID we had this artificial increase in occupancy and rent raises because, you know, people had to start working from home, the kids had to start going to school from home. So all of a sudden now you've just lost one to two bedrooms in your house, and those end up going to storage. All that is gone now.

So we have seen occupancy go from like a historic high 96% plus occupancy back to what is typically normal, which is around an 85% being considered a stabilized facility. Again, over the two main years of the pandemic, we saw over 80% year over year rent growth. That was insane. Right?

And so now we're seeing that being pulled back. The last 18 months has pulled back quite a bit, but the velocity at which it is pulled back has now reversed as of last quarter, two quarters ago.

So now were starting to see occupancies are starting to cusp back up. Were starting to see rent increases occurring across facilities, not only us, but the reits as well. So I think now is the time to get in.

Were still in air quotes, high interest rate environment. I think we may see some relief from that over the next two to three years.

So it's kind of like that old adage, you know, marry the house, but date the rate. Marry the self storage facility, but date the rate. I think now's the time to get in. And sellers have finally started coming to table.

They're more willing to participate in some type of creative structure, either seller finance or seller equity. And banks are less spooked from the fallout of Silicon Valley bank and signature bank going down and this scare of lack of liquidity in the market.

So I think now is a good time to ride that wave back up. I recently was at the Great Lakes SSA meeting, and there was this fantastic economist that came and spoke. Hes been doing it for like 60 years.

I forgot his name, but I'll get it for you later. And he said, right now the name of the game is survive until 25 and you'll be in heaven in 27. I like it.

Levi Hemingway: 00:04:11

Second part of that, we've heard the Survivor 25, but the heaven in 27. And then we also say to him.

Neil Henderson: 00:04:16

Get your ass kicked until 26.

Levi Hemingway: 00:04:19

No, I like, I like his batter. Yeah, we're stealing that.

Clint Harris: 00:04:23

So I like the fact that you mentioned something that was in the early part of this interview, which is in the previous episode. So I really hope everybody goes back and listen to that.

And I can't stop thinking about the way that you look at your deals and you think about the law of diminishing returns and letting that guide you deciding what's the next part of the business plan. I also love the way that you're having a macroeconomic view on not just, I tend to get stuck looking at the deal, right.

Focusing on this deal and where we are. And I think that there's real value in your mentality of, look, let's look at the deal, but let's look at where we're going.

Neil Henderson: 00:04:57

Right.

Clint Harris: 00:04:58

Where are we going to be? And, you know, good, bad or ugly, that's going to help dictate what I'm doing now.

And then obviously, you're looking at the law of diminishing returns.

It can not only be affected by where you are in the development cycle for that project, it can be affected by where you are in the cycle of what's happening with the financial market. And I think that it's a moving target there.

And you have to keep relearning what the highest and best use of this property is based upon what you think the market is doing. And you've got, we use the analogy of you can't change the wind, but you can adjust your sales, you're trying to navigate that.

So I love that mentality and I think it's really important to point that out.

I also think that each individual deal, you've talked about five different strategies, the new development, the expansion, the conversion, the operational turnaround, and also wholesaling deals. And each of those probably has a different analysis in terms of looking at that from the law of diminishing returns.

Specifically, I want to ask a selfish question about conversions. That's basically all that we do.

We've done everything in the past, but we're doing conversions and like we're looking at properties that we're all in on for like 4 million. And we just got an appraisal back that at CO, we've got a property that's going to be worth 11.3. At stabilization it's worth 13.4.

And it's going to take us two to two and a half years to stabilize this facility.

And so it's like when you're looking at that from the law of diminishing returns, what's the metric that you're using to decide like, okay, this is 11.3 at CO, I can sell this now understanding that in the current market, Im going to sell it at a discount versus its going to be worth 13.4 in the future, but its two and a half years there. And what could I do with that capital in the meantime if I redeployed it on a new curve?

So in that scenario, tell me how your brain is working and what are the metrics that youre using?

Fernando Angelucci: 00:06:50

Trey yeah, great question. So maybe about two years ago we decided to change our internal structure where now we are always ready to sell is kind of the broad term that we use.

But what goes into always being ready to sell? Well, the number one thing is where is the market going to be when we decide to sell?

So actually doing a very realistic analysis of, okay, so if we sell today, what are we actually going to get? Regardless of what the appraisal says, if we sell six months from now, what are we actually going to get?

If we sell 18 months from now, what are we going to actually get? And then you just run an internal rate of return calculation.

And anywhere where I see the IRR as the highest, that is the point where I'm going to sell, not necessarily wait until this thing is stabilized.

So, for example, you may realize that, hey, its not going to make sense to hold this asset, take on that lease up risk to maybe get $13 million at the end of this investment cycle.

And thats assuming everything stays the same as far as the assumptions that youre using today or when you underwrote or when that appraisal was given, right. God forbid, what happens if theres World War three? What happens if Taiwan gets invaded? Who knows, right?

Neil Henderson: 00:08:00

Or a massive competitor enters the market.

Fernando Angelucci: 00:08:03

Yeah. Or just a dumb competitor that enters the market and they don't do any supply index studies. This happened to one of our facilities.

We were already in a basically saturated market and somebody came in and plopped 120,000 sqft down like an idiot, which destroyed everything. Right. Not only for him but for everyone else in the market to get rid of. So the way I look at it is you got bird in the hand or two in the bush.

I'm always going to take the one in the hand because I know my unknowns here. The problem with the two in the bush is there's unknown unknowns. You don't even know what can happen that can affect that value.

I mean, this happened on another one of our deals. We had a deal, it was a small deal. When we bought it, the appraised value was sky high. But then all of a sudden interest rates went up 4%.

We're not going to be able to sell for that sky high as completed appraisal. Right. So I'd rather take money off the table.

And the biggest thing is being ready to sell at any moment, which truly means in your excel calculations you need to know what is the minimum that you are willing to take at any month in that investment period.

And that can be hard to underwrite sometimes, but we all have teams of brokers, we all have teams of appraisers that we know and we could just ask them, say hypothetically, I got a deal, 30% occupied.

We got co, who knows, six months ago today, what do you think this thing is going to be worth if, and this is the key word I give the vendors, if I wanted to fire, sell it in 30 days because every broker is going to give you some pie in the sky number because they think that it's a potential listing deal, right. So you got to say, hey, I got, I have to move it and I have to be under contract in 30 days. If I'm not under contract in 30 days, you're fired.

So what price do we need to go out so that this thing is 100% going to be under contract and 30 days. And now you have the lower bound, right? You always have the lower bound.

And then you can run that IRR calculation which is kind of like that diminishing return Laffer curve. And as soon as you see the RI start to dip again, that's your sale date.

Clint Harris: 00:09:58

We got a lot of homework to do.

Neil Henderson: 00:09:59

Yeah, no kidding. No, I mean like literally we're sitting here.

You know, we had a facility recently that it was not our, in our model to sell, but all of a sudden we had a bunch of off market offers coming in, really high offers, not official. There was a similar facility that sold for a really great price. And then suddenly brokers start coming around and telling you, oh, youll get this.

So we went out and first mistake we made was we told our investors we were listing it, which was not in our original business plan. Theres going to be a long term hold and then it hits the market. And one, the market had changed.

I mean, literally within three months the market had changed. And now then were looking at, yeah, we could have sold it. We couldve gotten a good return.

We couldve gotten our investors return and a little bit better in two years rather than five years down the road. But for us were like, yeah, but we think its going to be worth a lot more in another three years. Were like, no, were not going to do it.

But thats a great point. You dont think about that as the brokers that are going to come to you are going to pump sunshine up your ass, essentially.

Fernando Angelucci: 00:11:01

Yeah.

Levi Hemingway: 00:11:02

Personally, I think the biggest difference there is you're thinking about how am I going to redeploy this capital, right? How is this going to scale my business to the next level?

Fernando Angelucci: 00:11:10

Right.

Levi Hemingway: 00:11:10

Like I love your mindset of I don't want to sell to another Fernando, I want to sell to the bigger guys. I want to sell to the next level up. And if you're thinking about that, I mean, I think that's a good business owner. That's a good strategic mindset.

You know, we talked about traction in the first episode. That's about scaling.

It's about, you know, not that you have to grow the biggest business in the world and you've got to compete with public storage, but if you want to scale your business, if you have in, if you have goals, theres always going to be a next level to unlock there.

And so youre thinking of what Im getting from your mindset is its very much like, yeah, Im going to take some chips off the table, but Im always looking at what is the strategic move here? What is the strategic growth for the business? For my investors, for my life? You talked about traveling and truly having no boss.

Being a nomad, theres a plug there.

Fernando Angelucci: 00:11:56

Thats great. I love that.

Levi Hemingway: 00:11:58

Yeah. Shameless. No, I think thats the biggest difference personally is that mindset is, hey, Im not just going to sell a property and do nothing with it.

Im going to leverage it to the next great thing, Trey.

Fernando Angelucci: 00:12:08

Yeah.

And so theres another thing that id point out, which is someone told this to me a long time ago when I was still a young buck, and he said if someone is offering you a price for your property, that you would be unwilling to buy your own property at that price today. That means that youre a sell.

So when you guys got that offer, that off market offer on that one property, would you have bought your property at that price during that time? No. Then you should have sold.

Levi Hemingway: 00:12:34

Maybe we can still get them back. No, but I love that. I mean, that's a great point. That's a great, just quick, you know, got check moment in there and I love that.

It's just super valuable, especially for us, you know, active operators in the storage spaces. That's a great one.

Neil Henderson: 00:12:47

So I've got one more storage question then I want to get into the fun stuff about travel and living like nomade, part of the reason youve been able to be so successful.

d this is back in November of: 2020

You just figured out that what a numbers game it is to just constantly just reaching out to storage owners to get them on the phone to make contact.

And then you have to be very, very strategic and build a relationship with this person to then be the first person they think of when they decide to sell and also be having those conversations with them that where it makes sense for them to sell. Like, hey, I'm 60 now, I'd like to get out.

Maybe im not going to be able to sell this for top dollar, but maybe I can sell it to these people, do a seller finance where I get a good chunk of my money back and then now im totally out of the business but im still getting a cash flow from it. So you dont have to walk through your entire funnel. Go back and listen to that road to family freedom episode if you want to listen to that.

But talk to me about what that machine looks for you right now.

Fernando Angelucci: 00:14:12

Preston. Yeah, Preston, I think the important thing to have everybody realize is that real estate is not a real estate business.

Real estate is a marketing business. If you want to do real estate at scale, you need to run a marketing company.

That's just what it is and just how we were talking about strategy of marketing to raise capital from real estate investors using the Internet, you can use the same exact strategy for sellers as well. The only caveat is you can also, you know where these sellers are, so you can approach them in different areas as well.

Self storage association is really great. ISS SSA National Fantastic. When you join the SSA, depending on which ones you join, sometimes you get a list of all the other members in the SSA.

And instead of reaching out as trying to be a sales call, you can reach out and just say, hey, this is Fernando. I'm a fellow owner. We're in the SSA together.

I was wondering if I could buy some coffee or chat with you when you're at the SSA, or if you ever have a need for anything, you know, try to change the frame to being one of. Let me provide value for you first. Let me lead with contribution. Do you need a property manager, an insurance guy?

Have you ever thought about putting solar on your facility? What can I do to help out? Right. And the thing with storage is they don't typically transact as fast as some other asset classes.

And it's very rare to find storage in a situation where there is a seller that truly is motivated because of, you know, like, financial issues. That doesn't typically happen in our industry. Everyone says, well, if I don't sell it, I just. He collected the cash that's pumping out, right.

It's not a big deal. So you have to figure out what are the true motivations and you hit the nail right on the head, Neil.

You know, a lot of the guys and gals we talk to, I'm looking to retire. I just don't want to do this anymore. I want to travel. I want to live the rest of my life out.

But maybe I still like some of that cash flow to be coming in each month. So opening the door for some type of seller finance. So we have a pretty interesting campaign.

We have gotten rid of text message and email reach out just because of the TCPA. Laws are so strong now. And same thing with the scan spam act.

I don't want to have to pay out $100,000 of my marketing money in a lawsuit because I accidentally emailed or texted the wrong person. Cold calling has still been working really well. Direct mail, not as great for a cold reach, but really good for follow up.

Let's say we met at the SSA or we already talked on the phone. It's crazy how much just a small handwritten card can go as far as buying goodwill with someone and buying respect.

Our newest addition to our team, Ed Patterson. He is fantastic at this.

Anytime he talks to somebody on the phone and the seller spends time actually willing to answer questions, he just writes them. A handwritten card on a tiny little card, throws it in the mail. The responses we get from that is absolutely fantastic.

And then now, instead of just doing a completely blanket marketing campaign like we did before, that I talked about in the previous podcast, on the Road to Family freedom, we're getting a little bit more targeted now because, like you were mentioning Levi, you know, talking about where we want to go and specifically focusing on our exit strategies as opposed to just buying any deal just because the numbers look like a good deal, without thinking of how am I going to get rid of it to not another Fernando, but to someone that's got cheaper cost of capital. There's just a lot of deals that just don't make sense anymore. Right.

Buying anything under 50,000 a month in gross revenue, going to be really hard to move that to someone larger because someone larger is going to be paying for a third party manager.

That doesn't mean you can't make money off of those smaller deals, let's say via wholesale to someone that's just getting started out, that is going to sit behind the desk themselves. Right. Like I did, like me and Steven did for the first, even though we technically didn't have a desk, but, you know, we manage it ourselves.

t money. That could be like a: 3000

So, yeah, the focus, like I said before, is right now, we're focusing specifically on products, on stores that we can easily get financed either through local banks or now even better, through the Small Business Administration. The SBA has recently changed the rules that now they allow for syndications.

The vetting process of the money has been completely changed, I think is reduced down to 30 days now, which means if you raise the capital, let it sit in a bank account for 30 days, and then go out to the SBA, it's much easier to get those approved. And with the SBA, they are very favorable when it comes to high leverage.

And working with creative structures, they could be in a first, you could have a seller second in the second position, dropping the total DSCR, which is how they will scale their leverage. And then they'll even allow you to put a.

Have the seller contribute equity to the deal for your five to 10% down that you need if you're able to max the leverage. So there's ways to do SBA deals right now with zero to 5% out of your pocket.

So if you only have to raise 5%, imagine the IRR that you can give to your investors and the buffer behind that IRR. If anything happens that was not according to plan, that you can eat into the GP ownership to make sure that you're making your investors whole.

Those are the types of deals that were going after specifically are deals that are the easiest to finance and the easiest to raise equity for, which basically means it needs to have cash flow and it needs to have some type of component of value add, ideally expansion, where I can really push value in a three to five year period of time. Yes.

Levi Hemingway: 00:19:42

So we did SBA on one of our first projects as well. And like you said earlier, it's another tool in your tool belt, because there is caps on SBA, right? There's exposure limits.

And so I'm sure you're playing with those, using it as a tool to acquire, acquire, and then maybe refinancing out with some different debt to kind of open up that line of credit again.

Fernando Angelucci: 00:20:01

Well, actually.

So if you go via the 504 green route, and to qualify for the green loan, you need to be able to self generate at least 15% of the total power usage you do. If you do that, you are not capped on the number of green loans that you can have out at any given time.

Levi Hemingway: 00:20:19

So are you talking like solar?

Fernando Angelucci: 00:20:21

Yeah, we do a solar study.

I tell my guy, just to be safe, I just need an analysis that says I could put, you know, I can offset 20% just in case I don't hit the 15 rate, 20% of what I'm going to use, give me the system, and then boom, you can start stacking.

Levi Hemingway: 00:20:35

That is a nugget of wisdom right there for Nano. That's incredible. I can tell you. We're going to look into that.

Fernando Angelucci: 00:20:41

Hit up my girl at a live oak bank. And Mino, she's really good. She knows how to put these things together.

Neil Henderson: 00:20:46

Well, it's local.

Levi Hemingway: 00:20:47

Yeah. Live Oak bank is based in Wilmington, North Carolina.

So what we will see just some lunch, but I think that speaks volumes to the kind of value that you provide to everyone you talk to. And I think that's really cool and I think that's what this business is about. At the end of the day it's providing value.

I love what you said on the first episode that hey, I'm always available to overlook a deal. Check the underwriting, lend a balance sheet. You want to help people succeed and I think that just speaks volumes to your character.

Last storage question. Before we transition into travel, do you foresee your company getting into any other asset classes other than self storage?

Or is it double down on storage and keep riding the wave?

Fernando Angelucci: 00:21:28

This is a fantastic question. If you were to ask this six months ago I would have said no.

hat I call pro storage, these: 1000

It's got a small business. He needs a shop that has a little bit of electrical use, high bay doors, who can drive his truck in that type of stuff.

But with the proliferation of last mile shipping, specifically the Amazon rise over Covid Amazon. They have their main distribution warehouse somewhere in a large city. It's got whatever million plus square feet.

mile areas that are only like: 1000

The only way you can get that today is because of these little last mile locations that are scattered around their main shipping hubs in each of their msas.

And they have been coming in and doing what Amazon does, throwing their weight around and just paying overpaying so that they can secure what they need to grow their infrastructure. And thats pushing all of these small contractors out of those units.

So now what were seeing is in the past those type of units because they were so large your rent per square foot was really low. Youre getting maybe Max fifty cents per foot per month, $6 a year.

But all of a sudden over the last two years, three years with this whole roll up after Covid of these last mile shipping locations, youre seeing that not only if you get one of these things they will not stay vacant for more than a day, but you're also getting anywhere between one to $2 a foot for a month. That's great. Twelve to $24 a foot per year on these type of units.

For tenants that will stay literally until their business grows so large that they can buy their own warehouse. They won't leave.

And then, you know, they're paying whatever call $1,000 or $2,000 a month for this space, but they have literally hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment inside of these. They're never leaving. They won't leave until their business is large enough. That's one of the options would be kind of the brush storage.

Levi Hemingway: 00:23:43

We should connect after this podcast, unpack that a little bit more.

So still the idea of storage, but maybe some things, and I think that's a very interesting shift and very much along the lines of self storage, but maybe a reiteration of it in some ways. The man cave idea I know is a strategy that's popping up sort of the luxury units, but we can talk storage for a long time, transition now.

Neil Henderson: 00:24:04

Well, listen, this has been a fantastic conversation. I've been having a lot of fun.

We love talking about self storage, but let's talk about some stuff that maybe other people think is fun, which is travel and living like a nomad. Levi, I don't know if you know this.

and his wife Rachel, back in: 2008

And they sailed around the Mediterranean for three and a half years, had their 6th child in Israel in the first year. Right. And then ended up sailing across the Atlantic, eventually making landfall in Wilmington, North Carolina, which where they call home.

And so, you know, for us its a passion. Were not doing this just because we want to have big bank balance sheets. Were doing this because we want to live life to the fullest.

And one of the ways that we think you can do that is travel and income arbitrage, all that. So youve done that. Talk to us a little bit about that experience and well go from there.

Fernando Angelucci: 00:25:12

Yeah. So im a big fan of Tim Ferriss. His book the four hour workweek is kind of what got this small idea popping around in my head.

And for those that havent read the book, its basically how do you create a system for your business that allows you to basically work 4 hours a week? Thats I think, a little difficult for our business, but we could still strive to get close.

And then he did a forward for a book by Rolf Potts called vagabonding the forgotten art of long term world travel. And if you've never read it, I really recommend it. It is eye opening.

Basically, the premise of the book is most people, they wait until they're retired and when their body is broken down and they can no longer hike the Alhambra themselves to then go travel. And it's like, why do you want to go travel when the best years physically that you have are gone? That's crazy. Right, right.

And how there's ways that you can do this, taking basically mini retirements through time, or if you don't want to take a retirement, mini retirement, you can work while traveling.

So instead of me finishing the day here in Chicago and then going out and getting a deep dish pizza, I finish the day in Spain and then go out and go have some paella, you know, and that's still possible, especially in the day that we live in today, where basically we can run our entire business as long as you have an Internet connection. And even if you don't have an Internet connection, you can pay for these GPS Wifi devices that read off of cellular data.

So completely feasible and doable. The book itself, for those that are listening out there that think you need to have a big bank to do this, you don't.

The book itself is, most of the examples are people that are students or didn't have a job and they work on farms as they travel. And then another one that I always get from people is like, oh, I can't do that because I have kids.

Well, clearly from your guys example, that is an excuse. A lot of the examples in the books are also with people with children, small children.

And so I read this for the first time like seven years ago, and I fell in love with the book and then got kind of caught up with building the business and making excuses. And then when I was moving my office one day, like four or five years later, I found the book.

And I just said, fernando, you piece of shit, you promised yourself that you would do this. And here you are staring your own failure in the face. Like, what excuses do you have now?

And so from that second on, and this was right after we did the large portfolio sale, so I had some nomad capital to play with. So I said, you know what? I'm going to do it right now. If I don't do it now, I'm never going to do it.

So within a period of maybe two to three weeks, I gave away slash sold almost all of my possessions. I still have a bed. It's in my brother's house. I probably will never get it back, but everything I have fits in this backpack. Oh, you can't see it.

It's all black. This backpack and then this duffel bag behind me right now. And that's literally all of my possessions.

It's crazy as a self storage owner that I basically don't own anything, but that has given me the freedom to truly, literally walk into O'Hare at any time and say, you know what? Portugal sounds fun. Let's jump on a plane today and go. And that has been such an amazing journey for me because, a.

It has forced me to find the cracks in my business that required my physical presence in the United States. So it forced me to create a system around the business. So the business actually got better when I started traveling.

For example, what happens when you need to sign bank docs and get them notarized and you're in South America? How does one do that? You figure out real quick how to put systems in place to do that, right.

The second thing, it has given me such a appreciation for the United States.

It drives me crazy to hear so many people bitching about how bad our country is when those people have probably never traveled for more than, like, two weeks at a time. And when they did travel, they went to some resort that kept them away from the poverty of the rest of the world. I typically travel not like that.

I'm typically staying in hostels.

Sometimes I find people in the bar that let me stay on their couch, like, just to, like, be in the actual culture themselves and meet people that are true people, not just people that work at some five star resort. And that has given me such an appreciation for how amazing our country is. Like, truly the greatest country in the world.

If you are someone that is a go getter, like, we have all of the resources. Anyone can be successful if they want it. And it also makes you really humble, because then in the United States, we have a lot of xenophobia.

People are just afraid of people that are not like them or are not from the United States, which is a crazy thing to say, because everyone from the United States is not from the United States. We're all immigrants. If you go back at least five generations, most likely you're not one of the people that came on the Mayflower, so.

And even the Mayflower people were immigrants.

So it's giving me a really profound appreciation of other backgrounds and culture, which has translated into raising capital, because I meet people all over the world, I learn about their cultures, and then when I meet someone of that type of descent here in the United States, and they're an equity investor. Very quickly I could connect. I know what their culture is like, where they came from, what their values are.

So it just makes you a better, well rounded person.

And then it's just super fun to, you know, be able to see the world, see the things that you only hear about, you know, like, I climbed the Cristo in Rio de Janeiro, and I got to stare around and see, like, what it was like to be in Brazil.

I stayed in a favela, you know, I literally, on New Year's Eve, or the three days leading up to New Year's Eve in Rio, I stayed in a favela because there was no other place that was available. And, you know, everyone thinks that it's super dangerous.

And 99% of the people in the favela were like, amazing people that were just happened to be slightly poorer than the rest of the population. They needed a place to live, but they were hardworking people and it was super safe.

I mean, it's truly has been funny when people ask me like, hey, Fernando, how are you doing? And my standard answer is literally, I'm living the dream. I'm living my dream right now.

This is the whole purpose that I started in entrepreneurship when I was 19 years old was to get to this point.

Levi Hemingway: 00:31:21

I love everything about what you just said. I love the travel aspect. Neil told the story, but we spent almost four years traveling abroad. And I absolutely agree with everything you said.

I think it just changes for me, it just changed your perspective on the world. It changes your perspective on what's out there. And truly how grateful we are, how good we have it in this country. It's just eye opening.

And you're right.

You take these things into the business, you take in how you talk to investors, how you approach problems, how you solve problems, how you think about what is actually a problem or what is not really a problem. Its an America problem.

And so I truly think its, you know, not only is it fun and incredible to see the world, but I think it gives you a perspective that is valuable. I mean, it gives you, it just broadens your horizon of what you think is feasible and possible.

And yes, 99.9% of the world, in my opinion, is good people. People can get scared of traveling outside the US. You know, the story you told, and we were told the same thing.

housands, too. Yeah, this was: 2011

And so we get there, and because so many boats in Turkey, they register them in the US, you have to fly the flag of the country you're in and where the boats registered. So every single boat in Turkey was flying an american flag. You would have stood out if you weren't flying an american flag.

And so, you know, it's just so funny. We get off, you know, and just, that was the first thing we noticed.

But this idea is everyone said, oh, my gosh, if you go to Turkey, you got to be careful, and you got to do this. And the flag was just so funny because it's like, you know, looking around the marina and it's like, who's not an american here? You know? So that was.

Fernando Angelucci: 00:33:06

I got funny story for you. So one of the things that you learn in that vagabonding book is that fear sells.

And unfortunately, how media makes money is with advertisements and how they get advertising dollars, the amount of eyes that they have on their broadcasts, right? So anytime you see anything on, like, a generic media site, it's typically skewing towards fear mongering.

And here's an altar point from the United States.

So I'm traveling around some pretty rough areas in Central and South America, and every time I tell them I am from Chicago, automatic, their mouth drops to the floor, and they're like, it's just. You're living in Austin. Gunfights. Everyone is having gunfights on the streets.

Neil Henderson: 00:33:46

Like, I got your gunpowder behind you right now, Fernando.

Fernando Angelucci: 00:33:50

And so it just shows you, like, I feel extremely safe all the time in Chicago. And to hear someone in a favela being like, how do you live in Chicago? And how are you not just swiss cheese right now? I don't understand.

And that just goes to show you, like, everything that gets exported to other countries, not like, oh, look at this amazing puppy parade that Mexico City put on this weekend. It's like, oh, no. This year, cartel killed a thousand people in this one tiny location that no one ever goes to anyway. You know? So it's.

You gotta be very careful with media bias, because, truly, most of the world is very safe place to go. There are obviously some areas that you should not go at any given time. But again, it just feeds into that narrative.

And it sucks that as humans, we like to generalize things to the point where it not only do you generalize an entire country of, say, 200 million people, but then every person that comes out of that country, you also think falls under that same generalization. That's such a terrible thing.

If you ask anyone what is a typical american and what they describe is going to be nothing representative of you or anyone you know. But that's all they know because of the fear mongering that comes out of the media.

Neil Henderson: 00:35:02

Such a great point. I remind myself of this all the time. It's one of the reasons I stay off of the news. Then social media just makes it worse.

Because the incentive structure for social media, even legacy media, is engagement is what they're looking for. They're not looking to inform, they're looking to engage. And the best way for them to engage is to either scare you or make you angry.

And that's why the loudest, scariest, most divisive voices are the ones that rise to the top. And those of us who are just kind of like, okay, we're here, like, oh God, I don't want to speak up out of there and get my head ripped off.

And it is such a great point about our perception of the world.

I lived in San Francisco and for two years and I mean, of course that was too long ago, but everyone's perception of San Francisco is like, oh my God, you can't walk on the street without stepping in and human feces and needles and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And San Francisco, look, it's got some tough areas.

It's going through a tough time right now, but you talk to somebody who lives in San Francisco and I have friends who live there and they're like, what? We're fine. You know, I mean it's just great stuff. So I'm trying to think how to segue here.

Another book, another great book on this whole lifestyle at home in the world by Tish Oxenrider. Tsh. Tish Ochsenrider. And she talks about traveling with her family all around the world with young kids.

And I think it's important for people also to remember that travel is not nearly as expensive as you think it is. And when you guys lived on the sailboat, you lived on how much per month?

Levi Hemingway: 00:36:34

There was eight of us. These are the highlight numbers here. Eight people, 350 sqft for almost four years. So our family became very, very close in lots of ways.

But my dad is my business partner and we still work together. We've been working together for about eleven years, almost twelve years now.

And we could talk a whole bunch about just the struggles we went through, but we learned how to communicate with each other, which is pivotal in this business. We learned how to communicate.

You know, we communicate every day, obviously, but youre talking about deals and stuff, all the aspects of this business. And so, yeah, our family of eight, we lived on roughly about $1,200 a month in food, and you didnt have a car, no insurance.

It was just a very basic, very simple life that we were living. But we were living in Greece. We got to travel all around the Mediterranean. It was an incredible experience, but it wasn't expensive.

Fernando Angelucci: 00:37:23

I mean, that's about kind of what I'm at. My monthly burn rate when I'm abroad is about a third of what it is when I'm living in Chicago, but I'm living probably three or four times larger.

I mean, going out to eat two times a day, Uber, blacks everywhere, and it's still a third the cost. It's straight. I mean, that's one of the things about income arbitrage is, you know, the US, we earned really well, but we burn even better, right?

argentinian peso, it's almost: 1000

And then that's obviously just conversion rates. It's not purchasing power. Parity. It's still, the parity is amazing.

Levi Hemingway: 00:38:18

So you've obviously done a bunch of travel. What's like on the bucket list? If you had, you know, I'm sure you've got a few trips in mind. Is it, what's on the travel bucket list of.

These are the trips I want to do in the next several years.

Fernando Angelucci: 00:38:31

Yeah. So this year, end of September, I'm going to do Central and South America, hit all the countries I did not hit the last time.

I'm either going to do so in: 2025

I'll probably do either eastern Europe or Southeast Asia slash Australia. The nice thing about traveling a lot and staying in hostels, you end up making so many friends on the road.

So you should see my WhatsApp is just like blown up with the amount of friends I have. And it's always like, hey, I'm going here, I'm going there. I was like, I know someone from there. Like, can I come stay on your house?

That's on a vineyard in 4 hours inland of Sydney. And then my buddy Chris would be like yeah, come on down, you know.

Levi Hemingway: 00:39:11

So you're building your bench list of couches to sleep on. That's right. You got self storage coming in over here, you know, properties to and then you got couches to sleep on.

Fernando Angelucci: 00:39:21

Thats right.

Levi Hemingway: 00:39:21

I love it.

Neil Henderson: 00:39:22

So think about the last question. Lets tie this up. I got one more question then. Well tie it up okay.

Because we could go on for another hour but my actually, my social or marketing manager actually had this studio booked an hour ago and shes blowing me up.

Levi Hemingway: 00:39:36

Hey sorry.

Neil Henderson: 00:39:37

Yeah weve been having fun.

So first of all, first question is do you still have a home base in Chicago that youre keeping full time or are you just renting an Airbnb for three months?

Fernando Angelucci: 00:39:46

Yeah.

So no home base because then that would negate that income parity or that income arbitration because in Chicago I wanted a one bedroom apartment easily. It's $2,000 a month. Right.

And then if I'm not going to be using it again, I don't want the stress of having to deal with Airbnb and potentially things happening. So absolutely not gave away all my stuff when I'm here.

Typically my parents are abroad so I'll either stay at my parents house or I'll stay with my brother or ill go on. Theres a website called furnish finders. It was originally made for travel nurses. So its cheaper than Airbnb.

Its a little bit more expensive than lets say a year lease but its furnished. You can stay for six weeks to six months, whatever you need.

My whole thing is Im trying not to accumulate possessions and when you have a fixed location, all of a sudden you start filling the space that has been given to you. So no home base.

Levi Hemingway: 00:40:42

You are our true nomad. I hope you realize this. Hearing true Nomad through and through.

Fernando Angelucci: 00:40:48

That's right.

Levi Hemingway: 00:40:49

I'm just saying.

Neil Henderson: 00:40:50

Yeah we're going to, we're going to send you some swag.

Fernando Angelucci: 00:40:52

There you go.

Levi Hemingway: 00:40:53

Yeah absolutely.

Fernando Angelucci: 00:40:54

Yeah. Send me a new duffel bag. Mine just ripped on my last trip back from Austin last week so my zippers are totally messed up.

Neil Henderson: 00:41:02

So we chatted a little bit before we started today and you talked about some of the ways you like to get back. We also chatted on the previous episode about you're very giving of your time for self storage investors who want to understand how things work.

But how else do you like to give back outside of the self storage industry?

Fernando Angelucci: 00:41:20

Preston?

Levi Hemingway: 00:41:20

Yeah.

Fernando Angelucci: 00:41:20

I mean man, I am such a fortunate person. Its crazy, especially with the world travel, when you see how much less people have than we do.

It just doesnt make sense for me to hoard the things that I have because its not helping anybody. Right.

Preston so about five or six years ago, or I guess maybe seven years ago now, my banker asked me if I'd like to be a director for a nonprofit called the Neighborhood Boys and Girls Club.

So it helps kind of create after school programs, and it's a safe place to do studies and extracurriculars to kind of keep kids at risk youth off the streets. Right.

Anything having to do with education has a special place in my heart because I feel like education is one of the only ways that you can break cyclical poverty. Generational poverty is to get educated. And that doesn't mean you need to necessarily go to college and get a four year degree.

Maybe it's trade school, maybe it's learn how to be an entrepreneur, but some type of education. So that was a huge piece for me. I love working with neighborhood boys and girls club. Actually, our golf outing is coming up on September 23.

That's the only thing that's keeping me here after my brother's wedding. So after I probably will jump on a flight at O'Hare on the 24th after the golf fighting, or maybe the 25th, depending on how hungover I am.

And then last year, my construction manager, Eric Platt, very amazing guy. Really fortunate to have him on our team.

He lives in Ohio, and he became the president of the Cincinnati or the Children's dyslexia Center of Cincinnati. I remember a lot of C's in there. So he asked if I'd like to come on and be a director to help raise money for that as well.

And it aligns again with my passion of bringing education to those that are less fortunate or may have difficulties with that education.

So dyslexia, for those that don't know, it's a condition that makes it very difficult to absorb information, not necessarily just reading, but there's other issues with it as well, and that could set people back in their educational journey. So just join that as well. I happen to be a very good capital raiser.

And when I'm trying to raise capital for children as opposed to for some random self storage deal that doesn't really matter, it's actually a lot easier because then I could really guilt people and poke them and say, hey, hey, this is for the kids. Do you really need this $500 so much? Like, come on.

And so that has helped a lot and then getting to see the results of those capital raising efforts and seeing in neighborhood boys and girls club, we send a bunch of kids to school with scholarships every year. Dyslexia center, helping people get through their k through twelve. It's really amazing to see.

So those are kind of like the formal things I do when I'm traveling abroad. You know, in the United States, tipping culture is pretty messed up.

And either direction, either people don't get a living wage, but then also everyone, somebody gets you a latte, and then they ask you to put a 25% tip on. So when I'm abroad, I actually carry a lot of small bills, both in dollars and in local currency.

And anybody I see that is, you know, struggling, but is working, and Uber drivers and waiters and people on the street, especially South America, we've had a lot of, just like here, a lot of Venezuelans escaping that regime and trying to start anew in other countries. So just try to help out where I can. Obviously, that's. I guess I call it unofficial because you can't write it off, but it's still great to give back.

And then the biggest thing for me is where I think I could add a lot of values, like right here in between my ears. I love to read. I love educating myself on many topics and building businesses.

And if I can help somebody become a business owner or start their first venture, or point them in the direction where they can change their life through education or through entrepreneurship, I love to do that. So if every time you meet somebody, one of the very first questions they ask is, where are you from? And then what do you do?

So the what do you do part is when I can segue into being a business owner and how I love to help other people also achieve that goal. And if somebody wants my help, I always give them all my contact information.

Like I said on this podcast, I give out my cell phone number, so it makes it easier for them to contact me. And if I can, you know, kind of the whole give a man a fish versus teach a man to fish.

If I could teach you how to support your family through running a business, that's a lot better than me just giving you a $20 bill on the side of the street or something. Right?

Neil Henderson: 00:45:36

Well, listen, Fernando, this has been fantastic. I always enjoy connecting with you, my friend.

I know we're not Wilmington's not exotic as some of the locations you're going to, but we got to get you to come by and let's connect down here. You're welcome anytime my friend, I actually.

Fernando Angelucci: 00:45:52

May be out your direction here. Before I leave, I have a project in Charlotte that live Oak bank will be financing, so I'm going to have to fly out there.

And then afterwards, I actually was planning on going to Wilmington to take out my lender, Ann, for dinner. I assume she closes the deal. And if you're watching this, you better close it first or else you don't get dinner.

So I'd love to come by and say hello to you guys, but please reach out.

Levi Hemingway: 00:46:17

Let's connect. We have some hospitality that we have at the beach and we would love to put you up there and connect with.

Fernando Angelucci: 00:46:22

Awesome.

Neil Henderson: 00:46:23

Well, listen, let's wrap this up again. If you didn't hear on the last episode how to contact Fernando and you're just, just checking on this.

Fernando, if any of our people who've listened to you chat for the last hour want to reach out to you, what was the best way for them to do that all?

Fernando Angelucci: 00:46:37

-: 8090

Want to do something more passive, feel free to go to our website, sssex, and you can get a hold of us via email or schedule a call, whatever you want.

Neil Henderson: 00:46:59

Sounds great, man.

Levi Hemingway: 00:47:00

Thanks for having me as a guest.

Neil Henderson: 00:47:02

Not only not on the host, but I wanted to bring on. That may change.

Levi Hemingway: 00:47:06

Yeah, that's fun. This has been great. Fernando, it's been an absolute pleasure getting to hear your story.

You're on an awesome path and it's going to be really exciting to see where you go and what you do over the next couple of years. And I think it would be good people know good people. And who knows, maybe we'll be able to do a project together with you in some capacity someday.

But you're on a great path. Love to hear your heart behind the things that you're doing this for. And yeah, thank you, Neil, for letting me be a part of this fun time.

Neil Henderson: 00:47:34

Thanks, man.

Fernando Angelucci: 00:47:34

Thanks, guys.

Neil Henderson: 00:47:35

Thank you so much for listening and watching the truly passive income podcast.

If you liked the show, if you think it would be useful for someone else, the greatest compliment that you could give us would be to share the episode. Leave a comment down below or leave us an honest review. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to let us know down below.

And remember, with truly passive income comes freedom of time, place, and the freedom to pursue your higher purpose.

Fernando Angelucci: 00:48:12

Ha.