Books = Better Deals: Marine Vet Max Emory on Decision-Ready Financials for Investors

Max Emory (00:00)

the advisory component and the bookkeeping component. but yeah, usually those are totally separate. Like our firm time capital bookkeeping, all we do is bookkeeping. Like that is our specialty. That’s our focus. we don’t mix anything. ⁓

anything else in, you know, that kind of muddies the waters. And so I typically recommend people get individual people who specialize in their one thing and they’re a true expert in that one thing. so, ⁓ and so you’ll have kind of multiple different people on your team, as far as the financial side of your business and a fractional capacity. ⁓ I think that’s the, as long as all those people communicate with each other, like that’s the recipe for success.

Dylan Silver (02:10)

Hey folks, welcome back to the show. Today’s guest is a US Marine Corps veteran real estate investor and founder of Time Capital Bookkeeping, a firm dedicated to delivering decision-ready financials to house flippers, wholesalers, and investors so they can move fast, stay focused, and grow profits with confidence. His journey from military to building a seven-figure business is rooted in leadership service.

and simplifying the complex financial side of real estate. His mission is simple, better decisions, build wealth, and help others win. Please welcome Max Emory. Max, welcome to the show.

Max Emory (02:51)

Thanks so much, Dylan. I’m excited. Thanks for having me.

Dylan Silver (02:54)

It’s great to have you on here. were chatting a little bit before hopping on the show here. I know that you’re in the Carolinas. I was mentioning how much of a fan I am of the Carolinas. before we get into that, let’s back up a bit. I always ask guests at the top of the show, you know, how did you get into real estate?

Max Emory (03:14)

Yeah. ⁓ yeah. So I read, ⁓ rich dad, poor dad back in like early 2019, ⁓ which I’m, sure is a lot of the answers that you get, right. It probably starts with that book for most of us, but, but yeah, that book absolutely blew my mind. ⁓ I was actually in the Marine Corps. was deployed out to the Pacific and we were on a Navy naval vessel.

And I took two books with me and that was one of the books. And so it kind of, you know, opened my eyes to that side of the world. I had never heard the term like real estate investing or real estate investor, anything like that. didn’t know anyone who did anything like that. And so it was a total game changer. ⁓ But yeah, that’s basically how it started. And ⁓ about four months later, I closed on my first duplex. Once I once I got back to the States, I had been back here for a couple of months and closed on that first duplex from a distance.

Dylan Silver (04:05)

Wow. So that’ll be ⁓ proof of concept right there. So you’re seeing ⁓ real estate turn from theory into practice. Once you got that first duplex, was it like, OK, I’ve got a taste of how this is. This is the career that I want to be and I want to be involved in working with real estate investors. I want to be investor myself. Was it a progression? Walk me through the mentality.

Max Emory (04:29)

Yeah, yeah, it, definitely, yeah, it, I, I definitely got the bug after that for real estate investing. ⁓ yeah. So it was probably, let’s see, that was August of 2019. So I think it was December of 2019. I closed on the second duplex. And so I like, just wanted to, you know, kind of scale, scale, scale immediately. I was still in the Marine Corps. I still had probably, probably a couple of years left at, at that point. And so

My time was very limited. you know, I had, I could maybe squeeze out an hour a day kind of towards those efforts, ⁓ maybe a little bit more on the weekends, but that was pretty much it, you know, and it kind of varied week to week. so,

but the kind of, you know, kind of the passive income aspect of it really appealed to me because I was so ⁓

time crunched, guess. And then also, you know, the cashflow aspect and then the building wealth, long-term wealth aspect of it as well. But ⁓ yeah, I jumped into it pretty quickly and ⁓ I actually snagged David Green’s book, Long Distance Real Estate Investing, super good tactical book that kind of laid everything out that I needed to do right. So I was stationed in California.

Dylan Silver (06:20)

Mmm.

Max Emory (06:27)

I was purchasing properties actually in South Carolina and Columbia, South Carolina, which is where I went to college. And so, you know, got my core four, you know, the, realtor, the, you know, the, ⁓ the property manager and contractor and all that stuff got all those people into place. And, ⁓ it took a few rounds of kind of hiring and firing, you know, to, find the right team and get the right fit. But, but yeah, once I had them in place, I just basically continued to purchase duplexes and.

⁓ Long-term rentals, I was doing the BRRRR strategy, snagging properties off of the MLS. I didn’t really do direct to seller. just kind of just calmed MLS and ⁓ I did a little bit of off-market, but through…

the kind of like REI savvy agent that I was working with. So it wasn’t, you I wasn’t conducting direct to seller or anything like that. Cause I definitely did not have time for that. ⁓ So yeah, I’ll, yeah, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll cut it there and let you, let you jump back in. If you have questions about any of that.

Dylan Silver (07:16)

Right.

I

want to ask you about working with the savvy investor agent. think I’m an investor agent. I should say I’m a wholesaler agent, if you will, because my experience has been in assignable contracts. it’s interesting, and I’m sure you have this experience, Max. Most agents, would think, especially as an outsider looking in, you’d be like, well, they have to be knowledgeable in real estate investment. They’re a real estate agent.

Max Emory (07:38)

Awesome.

Mm-hmm.

Dylan Silver (07:56)

That’s

not the case. So I’m curious when you were searching for, well how do I find the ⁓ agent that I wanna work with? Did you immediately happen to connect with the investor agent that you were working with or did you have to kind of seek out, hey, where do I find someone who’s gonna help me with this type of niche?

Max Emory (08:16)

Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, after I read the rich dad poor dad book, like I, you know, I started Googling things naturally, right? That’s like the next natural step, but I quickly stumbled upon bigger pockets, which, ⁓

I’m assuming everybody who listens to the show knows bigger pockets. so started kind of nerding out in the forums and the podcasts and all that stuff. And so I actually found this agent in the forums. ⁓ I’m, can’t remember which forum, but, but yeah, he, was, he was in there. He was answering questions. He seemed very knowledgeable as far as the investing side of it. And so I just,

I DMed him on bigger pockets and then, you know, we had some phone calls and got together and yeah, I mean, we ended up working together and we purchased a lot of properties or purchased a lot of properties through him over the course of like two years. So I kind of, I kind of got lucky, you know, just I stumbled on him in the bigger pockets forums, basically. Yeah.

Dylan Silver (09:08)

That’s how it happens. I do want to pivot

here Max and ask you about the bookkeeping space. And before we dive into your business, I do want to ask you generally about bookkeeping in real estate. I think for folks like myself who may not be familiar with all of what that entails, can you give ⁓ me and our audience, know, a general description of what is the bookkeeping space like in real estate and is it different from firm to firm?

Max Emory (09:33)

Yeah, it’s so yeah, bookkeeping for real estate investors, it

It’s much more complex, I think, than probably most people and most investors think it is. If it’s done correctly, right. think the typical investor and I was in this boat as well in the beginning, you know, we really just think of kind of cash in cash out. And that’s like the extent of what we think of bookkeeping, right. But if your bookkeeping is done right, it’s, it’s a lot more than that. It’s very balance sheet heavy. There’s a

profit and loss component. There’s of course the cashflow component, right. Statement of cash flows. So, you know, that’s kind of the overall.

financial picture and then the thing that makes it, you know, the real estate investing to do with bookkeeping. ⁓

So unique though, is just all of the entities, right? Like the entity structures, all the different properties, because we, we have to account for things at the entity level for each individual entity, entity, know, and let’s say we have 10 entities or something. ⁓ and then each of those entities has a certain level of volume as far as properties go. And so we have to account for each and every, you know, single one of those properties. so, ⁓ yeah, it’s, it’s pretty intense on the bookkeeping side.

Dylan Silver (11:06)

Brain.

Max Emory (11:21)

⁓ if it’s done correctly and we’re keeping up with everything at each level that we should be keeping up with, which is really what you need if you want to be able to make decisions from.

from your financials, right? Once we compile the financials and so, ⁓ and then you kind of throw in creative finance, you throw in, you know, like the language of real estate investing, right? It’s so different than other industries. ⁓ it, gets pretty complex pretty quickly, which is if you’re a real estate investor, like you, and you want your, your bookkeeping and also the tax side and everything done correctly, you really need to get with someone who specializes in your industry.

Dylan Silver (11:39)

Yeah.

I want to ask you a granular question about where this intersects exactly with tax strategy. ⁓ Bookkeeping seems to be what you would need in order of course to have a successful tax strategy in general. Are most people that do bookkeeping also involved directly with tax strategy themselves or is that a different ⁓ niche entirely and it may be in many ways tangent to but in most cases bookkeepers are not tax strategists.

Max Emory (12:28)

Yeah, I would say that statement is accurate. Most bookkeepers are not tax filers and they’re also not tax advisors or tax strategists. So those are all kind of different people, you know, throw in the REI savvy fractional CFO too, like that’s a different person for, you know, cashflow management advisory and those sorts of things. so, ⁓ you know, I have met some tax firms that also offer

Dylan Silver (12:44)

Yeah.

Max Emory (12:54)

the advisory component and the bookkeeping component. but yeah, usually those are totally separate. Like our firm time capital bookkeeping, all we do is bookkeeping. Like that is our specialty. That’s our focus. we don’t mix anything. ⁓

anything else in, you know, that kind of muddies the waters. And so I typically recommend people get individual people who specialize in their one thing and they’re a true expert in that one thing. so, ⁓ and so you’ll have kind of multiple different people on your team, as far as the financial side of your business and a fractional capacity. ⁓ I think that’s the, as long as all those people communicate with each other, like that’s the recipe for success.

Dylan Silver (13:33)

I’m wondering, pivoting a bit here Max, if you had an aha moment when you were investing, because I had this recently where I was like, man, so I’m a real estate investor now and I need to be way more aware of all the different ways where I can understand the tax code and then also throughout the year I’m aware of how I’m allocating my assets so that

I’m not in a panic at the end of the year to try to get everything in a row. And I had this thought recently. was like, accountants, people who keep track of the books, it may not be the most alluring thing that you might see on TV or anything like this, but this is super important and I get why people are paid a premium. I need to be more knowledgeable about this. Did you have a moment like that that got you interested in the space at all?

Max Emory (14:33)

Yeah. Yeah. As far as the bookkeeping space. Yeah. It, really did because I, I started investing in real estate, you know, prior to starting time capital bookkeeping. And so I was doing it for a couple of years actually prior to, to, you know, starting to do bookkeeping for other investors. But yeah, it was really just, uh, you know, going to networking events and networking with a lot of other investors that were kind of at a similar level to, to where I was, or maybe even a little ahead.

and we would always just discuss.

kind of different issues that I identify that most of them kind of like rooted back to bookkeeping. It’s like if we could just get a little bit better handle on our numbers as investors, like I think a lot of these issues would solve themselves, you know, and we could, you know, now we have the financials to look at to be able to refine our buy box for future acquisitions, be able to manage our portfolios a little better, you know, lean into the things that

Dylan Silver (16:08)

Great.

Max Emory (16:12)

make more money than the other things that make less money. ⁓ Without those financials ⁓ that are accurate and up to date, we don’t really know what levers to pull as far as to grow or hit whatever goals that we’re going for. So yeah, it was really just kind of talking with other investors and hearing their needs. And that’s what prompted the idea for Time Capital Bookkeeping.

Dylan Silver (16:37)

I think it’s remarkable because it’s a niche that I think is in many ways not spoken to for what I mentioned earlier, which is this idea of like, when people are getting into real estate, they’re thinking about, want to do flips. I might want to do wholesale. I want to be an agent. But the books are so important and that scramble that I feel like I’m encountering myself now.

And that so many investors deal with especially younger investors, not just investors agents, right? Folks who are in some way involved in making money in the real estate space have this kind of okay. I have to it dawns in them. I got to get this in a row and Where do I turn to and oftentimes it’s people are thinking okay. Well, maybe I got to go to a Google search Maybe you got to go do this and you identified that max and you said okay. Well, there’s really

ripe for innovation, ripe for opportunity, I can put a different spin on this where instead of someone has to reach out to some brick and mortar or some people that they don’t really have rapport with, I’m an investor myself, I’ll keep the books and we’re gonna work really as a team. And my hat goes off to you for that because a lot of people would look at the space and they say, well, how can I innovate bookkeeping? But you’ve clearly done something ⁓ that is different.

Max Emory (17:59)

Yeah. Yeah. I, I appreciate that, man. Yeah. ⁓ yeah, I just, I noticed that there was a very real need for it and I didn’t really know how it was going to come to fruition, but, but yeah, I mean, I, I just kind of started, I, you know, I got certified and got all the, you know, education, everything I needed to do things that the right way, you know, and, and have everything be tax ready and decision ready and all that. And, ⁓ just kind of, kind of merge everything together in a nice way. But, ⁓ but yeah, I mean,

once I actually started putting myself out there as providing these services for real estate investors, that’s when it…

that’s when it kind of solidified like, yeah, like this is a very real need in the space, especially at this level of the space, like the non-corporate level of the space, you know. So people who can’t, you know, maybe can’t necessarily afford a full-time, you know, 60K a year or whatever bookkeeper just to do their books for their business. ⁓ You know, everyone who’s kind of lower, lower than that level. Like there’s a, there’s a very real need for, for our services. And even people at that level who maybe don’t want to pay somebody 60K

Dylan Silver (18:46)

Great.

Max Emory (19:07)

a year just to do their books. There’s a large market share there within the real estate investing community that really needs the service.

Dylan Silver (19:10)

Go ahead.

I want to mention something else as well. I’m on your website right now, timecapitalbcs.com. Phenomenal website. I can tell that a lot of effort went into this. The UI is great even too. And one of the things is when you think about bookkeeping, again, people aren’t thinking, know, okay, well, I’m going to do something necessarily new, innovative. How can I? I know this because I’m the host of the show. I’ve done,

Max Emory (19:26)

Hmm.

Dylan Silver (19:44)

more than 200 interviews, you’re the first person that’s come on and brought something new to the bookkeeping space across the country. So there may be other people that are doing what you’re doing, but as far as doing something different, also keeping it clearly up to date with what is drawing eyeballs. You’re on this show, you’ve got beautiful website. Again, my hat goes off to you. We are coming up on time here. Where can folks go if they’d like to reach out to you?

may like some feedback on what they’re doing or they may be interested in some bookkeeping services, right?

Max Emory (20:19)

Definitely man. Yeah. Yeah. Check out our website, timecapitalBCS.com. My wife, Sedona Emory actually made that website. She does websites. So, I’ll definitely let her know that, that you said that you, that you love the website, but, yeah, timecapitalBCS.com go there. There’s a button that says get quoted. You can hit that button. It’s a, like a two minute or less intake form. And then

⁓ then you’ll be able to book a call with myself. ⁓ But yeah, there, and then you can also find me on Facebook. That’s a great place to connect with me. Just Max Emory on Facebook. ⁓ know, friend me, connect, DM me there. ⁓ Yeah, and those are the two best ways.

Dylan Silver (21:00)

Max, thank you so much for coming on the show here today.