Wins of 2024 | Cereus Real Estate, REPS, and Extreme Accountability

by The Darwinian Doctor

Today I reflect on my major wins of 2024, including the launch of Cereus Real Estate, achieving real estate professional status, and crushing my health and business goals.

This post may contain affiliate links.

Introduction

Date night
Date night

Every year around New Year’s day, I like to dedicate a date night with my wife to reviewing the prior year. We talk about our wins, losses, kids, and relationship. We also spend some time to review our goals and priorities for the coming year.

It’s not as dorky as it sounds. We get dressed up and go out to a nice dinner. And we don’t really start getting into it until we’ve had a few sips of a cocktail. (These days it’s usually a Manhatten or and Old Fashioned.)

We started doing this almost a decade ago, when I had a revelation that I wasn’t happy with the life trajectory that I saw laid out for myself as an employed surgeon in SoCal. As I started pointing my life towards a goal of financial freedom, I knew that I wanted my wife on board with the plan as well. Many conversations just like our date night laid the groundwork for that transition.

In today’s post, I’m going to outline a few of the wins of 2024 that I discussed over our delicious bourbon themed cocktails.

Building Cereus Real Estate

One of my headline wins for 2024 was the creation of Cereus Real Estate. This is the real estate investment group that I dreamt up in mid 2023. It built upon my years of experience in my own portfolio, as well as an intensive mentorship in real estate apartment investing and capital raising. It also came from my realization that most of my readers on the blog wanted to invest in real estate, but lacked the bandwidth to actively invest as I’ve done over the past decade.

My vision with Cereus Real Estate is to bring 10,000 healthcare professionals closer to financial freedom over the next 5-10 years via carefully selected passive real estate investment opportunities.

What started as a conversation with Jordan Frey, MD of the Prudent Plastic Surgeon led to a kickoff in January of 2024. As things quickly progressed, Jordan actually pulled back due to competing projects (no hard feelings), and I forged on by myself.

The investor list quickly grew to over 300 potential investors, which triggered the next phase: deal hunting. By the end of the first quarter, I had successfully vetted our first investment: the Hampton Meadows. This is a 360 unit apartment complex in Des Moines, Iowa, has a robust value-add plan projected to yield up to 20% annual returns over the 5 year deal lifespan.

The Hampton Meadows

Over the subsequent months, investors in Cereus Real Estate snapped up about 10% of the equity in the deal, eventually investing about $1.2 million altogether. I invested $50,000 of my own money into the deal as well, adding more large scale multifamily to my investment portfolio. As a stipulation of my involvement in the deal, I joined the management team, which allows me to keep a close eye on the deal progress.

The capital raise concluded at the end of the 2024, with the renovations and cashflow distributions both proceeding ahead of schedule!

With Cereus Real Estate up and running, I feel that I’m finally doing my part to move our nation’s healthcare workforce closer to a life of financial freedom and all the benefits that brings: less burnout, more autonomy, and more living!

Real Estate Professional Status

My second big win was successfully compartmentalizing my medical practice to about a quarter of the year.

About two years ago, I left full time employment as a urologic surgeon in SoCal. Between the real estate portfolio and running the Darwinian Doctor, I knew that something had to give. There just wasn’t enough time in the day to keep on growing my passion projects and also work full time.

So after my family moved to Memphis, I transitioned to locum tenens. As I learned the ups and downs of working as a traveling physician, I fine tuned my selection criteria and learned how to maximize my income while decreasing my time spent in medicine.

Read more:

And in 2024, I achieved it! I worked no more than 7 days a month in medicine, leaving the vast majority of my year available for real estate. In fact, my hours spent on my real estate portfolio greatly eclipsed my hours in medicine in 2024. In this way, I was able to finally achieve real estate professional status.

I haven’t filed taxes yet for the 2024 tax year, but when I do, I anticipate I’ll be looking at a significant tax savings as a result of my successful compartmentalization.

So in terms of time allocation and tax efficiency, 2024 was a big win for sure.

Health and Business Accountability

Last but not least of my wins of 2024 was finally getting some peer accountability.

Since moving to Memphis a couple of years ago, I’ve steadily gained weight, to the tune of about 15 pounds. My bloodwork reflected this change, with some abnormalities like hyperlipidemia and liver enzyme elevation. There are a host of reasons why this happened, but it’s mainly a combination of less physical activity, travel, and unhealthy dietary choices.

On the business front, I’ve made steady progress on multiple fronts, but now I want to take things to the next level. For example, I want to at least double the capital raising capability of Cereus Real Estate in 2025. I know a strong peer group is going to be essential for this, but I’ve been lacking this since we moved away from Los Angeles.

To solve both of these issues, I decided to join Gobundance in late 2024. Gobundance is a real estate focused peer networking group that’s net worth stratified and focuses on “pillars” like genuine contribution, extreme accountability, longevity, and passive income. It requires a fairly significant investment of time and money, but it’s already proving its worth: I’m lost about 10 pounds of weight and have new clarity on my businesses going into the new year.

In fact, I’m at a Gobundance conference in Utah as I write this! I’ll make sure to follow up with any major insights from the conference.

Conclusion

Now you have a glimpse into my wins and accomplishments of 2024. By reflecting on these wins, I’m able to set the bar high when thinking about the year to come. In 2025, I hope to continue to accelerate towards financial freedom and bring you all with me!

Remember — financial freedom isn’t a dream, it’s a decision. Let’s get there together.

Daniel Shin, MD

The Darwinian Doctor

How did you win last year? Let me know in the comments below!


Experience the financial benefits of real estate without dealing with the headache!


Want to support the blog?

You may also like

Subscribe
Notify of
guest
0 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Urologic Surgeon | Real Estate Investor | CEO

Urologic Surgeon | Real Estate Investor | CEO

About me

I’m Dr. Daniel Shin, a urologic surgeon and real estate investor on a mission to fast-track your financial freedom. I used to be $300,000 in debt and handcuffed to my job.  Now I’m living a life of freedom, purpose, and exponential growth. Ready to join me on this journey? Let’s go!

A Darwinian Disclaimer

Since everyone is different, it may not be appropriate to generalize my doctorly advice to your own situation. Please run all medical, life, and financial advice by your own physician or financial professionals before applying it to your own life! Consider all information for your entertainment only!

Images and Copyright

To the best of my knowledge, the images used in this blog are either taken by my own camera, free stock photos, or considered allowable usage under "Fair Use" law. Please let me know if you believe otherwise.

Affiliate Policy

Affiliate Policy
As you explore the site, you may notice links to goods or services. I may earn a commision if you use a link to purchase any of these. While this blog is really just a labor of love and a creative outlet, if I can "keep the lights on" with affiliate links, all the better. Rest assured any reviews you read here represent my unbiased opinions, and there is no added cost to you to utilize the links. Please go here to read my full Affiliate policy.

Evolution Holdings LLC
All rights reserved.

@2024 – All Right Reserved.

0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x