Mindset for Success with Gino Barbaro

Mike: Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the show. We’ve been doing the FlipNerd podcast a little bit infrequently, by the way, uh, by the time you’re seeing this, we’re actually coming up on our 10 year anniversary of the flip nerd podcast. I’m excited to have my buddy Gino here today, um, literally 10 years and over 1500 episodes we’ve done under the flip nerd brand over the past 10 years. When I started this podcast, by the way, there were six. Real estate investing podcast. I was the sixth, uh, real estate investing podcast. And now there’s probably 6, 000. Uh, and so a lot of them are good friends of mine, including, uh, Gino. Well, but excited to have you guys here. Um, and excited to talk about transitioning from a single family investing into multifamily. We’re going to talk a lot about is now the right time to invest that a lot of people are running away, scared. We have a different opinion on all of that, which probably doesn’t surprise you. Welcome to real estate investing secrets. We’re all looking for freedom and the opportunity to live better, more fulfilling lives, but most of us were trained our entire lives to work for someone else to chase their dreams. How can we use real estate investing as a vehicle to achieve financial freedom? My life is dedicated to answering your real estate investing questions and helping you build an investing business That allows you to change your life And the world around you and to enable you to turn your dreams of financial freedom into a reality.

Mike: My name is Mike Hambright from FlipNerd.com and your questions get answered here on the real estate investing secrets show. Gino, welcome to the show, buddy.

Gino: How are you? Mike, 10 years. And I remember when you came out. I remember going on your website. I was sitting in the library up in New York. I was still doing my side hustle it was 2014. I was trying to get on your show and I’m like, man, I can’t get on Mike Hambright, I can’t get on his show. He didn’t know me 10 years ago, but everyone listening, that’s a testament. It doesn’t happen overnight. 10 years goes by so quickly. So if you start buying real estate today, can you imagine how many units or how much net worth you will be able to accumulate in the next 10 years, you just need to have the commitment and the discipline to do it. So congratulations for 10 years, brother.

Mike: Thank you. Yeah. I know, uh, without stealing our thunder, I know that’s one of the things we’re going to talk about. I say this phrase all the time. You got to play the long game. And, uh, we’re going to, I want to kind of jump into, well, first I want you to introduce yourself a little bit, but I do want to talk about the, uh, the idea of playing the long game because that is how you make money in real estate, not the quick transactions and you can make money that way, but the real wealth is made over the longterm. But let’s come back to that. Who’s Gino Barbaro?

Gino: Well, Gino Barbaro was the transaction guy. Transactions pay the bills and equity makes you rich. And I’ll give you a real quick 30 second overview. I had a restaurant business for over 20 years. That’s what I did when I got out of college. It was a family business.I loved it until I didn’t love it. I had made all the mistakes in real estate. When I met Jake in 2009, I couldn’t fix and flip. I already had a job, so I was lucky in that respect and I had immigrant parents that taught me the power of multiple units. I had the restaurant. My mom had her three apartments upstairs. She’s getting paid every month from those apartments when it snows at the end of the week, I ain’t getting paid. She’s doing something right. And I’m not, and that always left an impression on me. And when I met Jake in 2009, we formed a really great relationship. We really had our goals and our visions and what you said that long term ism, the responsibility, the not get there It is no shiny object. We decided multifamily. I had gone into other ventures. I said, Jake, you’re you’re the pharmaceutical rep. You’re driving around. I’m the pizza guy. We can do multifamily part time until we have enough units where we can scale out. So in 2011, Jake moves down to Tennessee, Didn’t know where Knoxville was back then I’m not going to lie to you. I’m in New York. I’m like, Knoxville. What’s Knoxville? Is it in the United States? He gets down there. I whip out the loop that, and I’m like, dude, there’s some deals here. Let’s get together. It took us 18 months to find the first deal. Cause we didn’t know what the hell we were doing. We were just scaring off all the brokers. We didn’t have credibility, but one broker took a chance on us. And after 18 months, we closed our first 25 unit deal. Three months later, we closed the 36 unit deal. And six months after that, we got 136 unit deal. And for us back then, everyone’s going to say, well, the prices back then were cheap. Well, the prices back then were cheap because the economy sucked. Rents for one bedroom were 300. That same property we bought back in 2013. We still own it. The rents are over 1, 100. So don’t tell me that back then was the right time. It’s always the right time if you are ready for it and if you’re educated, education times action equals results and the last thing I’ll say is I am the father of six kids from ages 24 to nine. So don’t tell me you don’t have the time to do this. Because if I can

Mike: find one of your multifamily properties, is that right?

Gino: Yeah. Well, I’ve got units all over the place. I’m thinking long term, like I’m getting my, my housing situated here as well, too.

Mike: This is a reality when I started in oh eight and, um, in hindsight, like if you knew what, you know, now what I, you know, that was what, 15, 16 years ago. And just like you around started around the same time. There’s so many things I would have done differently back then. I would have just been more bold of course that’s hindsight, right? The question is. Is, are we going to be saying that 15 years from now about today? Right. And I don’t, we can have a whole nother show about this. I won’t go down this path. The fact is the dollar is going to continue to be destroyed. There’s no going back. There’s no putting that toothpaste back in the tube and so that’s going to continue to cause inflation. And so even though it’s a trying time now, rates are up and there’s all sorts of weird stuff going on in the economy. I just don’t see prices going down much. Like at the end of the day, the dollar is going to continue to be destroyed. And it things rents are going to go up. The price of food’s going to go up. Everything’s going to go up. Yes. It’s going to cause a lot of strife in this country, but all these people still need a place to live, which is still going to create opportunity for folks like us at the end of the day.

Gino: We interviewed Dr. Peter Littman on our show about a year ago, uh, really smart economist. He’s a guru. He’s actually invest in real estate and is a really smart dude. And what he said to me changed my outlook on, on real estate. He said, buy real estate in 10 year increments, you’re going to have two really good years. Two really bad years and six years so, so when you have more of a time length time period, you’re really taking the risk off the table. And I think that’s what we’ve done. The deal back in 2013, we’re just lucky. The market was cycling up, but we bought it right. We’re managing it right. And we’re financing it right. And if anybody here is going to think that rents right now are 1, 100 a month, 10 years from now are going to be at 1, 100 a month. You’re sorely mistaken. It’s a basic human need. It’s food, clothing and apartments and talking about demographics, there are more people renting than buying renting is actually cheaper. It’s easier. So I think to us, the apartment space is only going to get more valuable as time goes on.

Mike: Yeah and I think, uh, you know, at the end of the day, no, there’s all different classes of, of, uh, of multifamily, right? And so my guess is you believe that what you just said more so about the B and C class properties than the A class properties, right? But I think, um. In most markets, um, you know, affordable housing is a challenge and the reality is, is multifamily is generally more affordable. Like, people want more space, but at some point, you have to ask the question. Can you afford more space? And if you can’t, you know, you’re going to go, you’re going to have to go kind of downstream if you will. That’s just more budget conscious. And so, um, Let’s talk about kind of buying right in this market, because I think a lot of folks are on the sidelines. Uh, we have done, we did a really big deal here last month, 50 million purchase. Uh, but we’re doing things different, right? We’re like assuming cheaper debt or we’re getting the seller to finance part of it and do a carry back. And you just have to get more creative, whether it’s single family or multifamily. Let’s talk about buying a multifamily right in this market.

Gino: The first thing that you need, in my opinion. To have a deal in real estate is you need a motivated seller, whether you’re buying something from a single family person or a multifamily, if you don’t have to sell, then you’re not going to sell. And over the last couple of years, there was no motivation to sell because your property keeps going up in value. You have nowhere to put your money and it’s pretty safe. It’s pretty, you know, the, the, the economy’s okay. We’re not having any wars. Well, fast forward to today, interest rates are high. People are afraid. Wars are going on. There’s a lot of stuff happening to the economy that’s unsure. We’re having more motivated sellers. The problem right now is that debt, the cost of capital is gone up. So pricing has had to come down. And you’ve said a couple of really important things in there. People are assuming loans, loan assumptions are back on the table. Years ago, they would have laughed that you had a loan assumption because they just 3 percent debt. That’s really cheap. Why are you going to assume a loan? Get your own loan, but loan assumptions. You also said seller carry back. I mean, seller financing is back on the table boys, as they say in the Lord of the rings, we are our very first deal. We had 10 percent seller financing. We got our first deal this year in January, we had closed in 132 units. It was an eight and a half million dollar purchase. We had a 450, 000 seller finance note that is really huge and it’s going to continue because what happens is when debt becomes more difficult, we have to become more creative, whether it’s seller financing, whether it’s loan assumptions, whether it, Hey, unfortunately you may have to bring more, more money to the deal as a down payment, but that’s okay because when rates come back down, you can refinance that money out. But let’s always focus on the motor motivated motivation of the seller and how we solving that seller’s problem. Mike.

Mike: And the seller has to be willing to get a little more creative to write that the markets just changed. Right. So at the end of the day, and you know, I think, um, one of the things that I, that I think, like on the multifamily side, when you’re buying a property for eight, 10, 50 million, right, the sellers are a little more savvy, like it’s on the single family side. And, and, you know, the single family side is, What I’ve done for 15 years. I also do multifamily stuff now too, obviously, but, um, it’s very emotional. These are like emotional decisions, right? On the multifamily side, it’s way more cut and dry. It’s just, it just is what it is. These are business decisions ultimately. Right. And so it’s a little bit easier to negotiate with sellers because they just want a deal structure that works for them. They, they may be unreasonable, but if, if they are unreasonable, it’s just a matter of time before they have to get more reasonable or not sell.

Gino: Mike, you made a great point there in the single family, single family home side, you say there’s more emotions. It’s unfortunate because everybody listening to this single family homes is a business, extract the emotion out of it and start to implement systems in the business. And the same with multifamily. Fortunately for us, the three deals that we’ve bought, 130 units. A hundred units in July. And we’re closing on 96 units in December. They’re all mom, mom and pops. They don’t know the value of their properties. They haven’t raised rental rates. The one we bought in January rents were at 700 for a two’s and for twos and threes. We’re at 1200 right now. Cause we knew cause we own the property next door. So don’t think in multifamily it is cut and dry, but there’s still a lot of unsophisticated sellers in there. You just need to know the value of the property. You need to know how to buy it right. Then obviously pull the repositioning through because it is a business. A lot of people want to just raise capital and they want to have the child. And they want to go and have another child. Well, the child that you have now needs to be tended to needs to be taken care of. And once you take care of that child, you grow the NOI. You’re able to extract that value out of it through a refinance or through a sale. Always think of your exit strategy when you’re buying a deal, but understand that it’s a business and those People, you know, the guys who are doing, you know, single family homes out there that are really crushing it. They’re not looking at onesies and Tuesdays. They’ve got systems. They’re looking at it as a business and how can I continue to develop my systems? And how do I not be the, I’m a guy I’m gonna do this and I’m gonna do that, but I’m going to get people to help me. It’s the same thing in multifamily.

Mike: It’s interesting. I, I made a, uh, this is what’s going on. This is what I see, right? And I have a lot of people that I are in my circles and stuff in the real estate space. And I saw the same thing that happened in 2008. Now, the difference, the difference in 2008 and 2009 is I was, I was new. So I wasn’t looking like inward and like what’s going on. I was just like hustling, but now looking in hindsight, like reflecting on what I saw then, um, and what I see now is there are, and this is, you know, this is, uh, I’m saying this to hopefully motivate people. There was a ton of people that were, that we had more, we had more competition in the good market. And it’s because it was easy and everybody could do it. When something’s easy, everybody will do it. When it gets hard, there’s a bunch of people that leave, right? But the reality is, is if you have the, the right mindset for success, There is always a way in this business and, uh, the time is right, right now for people that, you know, you have to become a better operator. You have to get more principled. You have to create systems and processes like Gino mentioned. And, uh, there, there’s opportunity everywhere. I mean, I just talked to Gino about how I’ve bitten off more than I can chew. There’s opportunity everywhere right now. Part of it is because a lot of people ran away and one thing that I’ll say, uh, that if you follow me on social media, I’ve been talking, I say things like this all the time is that, um, a lot of people that have left the industry or pulled back and they’re going to sit on the sidelines. They often try to go get into something else that’s easy, but there is nothing that is easy now that will never get hard.Like everything gets hard. So don’t run away when things get hard, just double down on getting better at the end of the day.

Gino: Well, let’s talk about real quick for 30 seconds. Why things got easy when the fed has a policy of lower 0 percent interest rates, there’s a lot of speculation. Private equity came into real estate, family offices came into it and they bid it up. Now you talked about the a assets. We don’t like a assets only because we’re trying to create some wealth. A assets are awesome when you’re trying to preserve it. So understand your goals. I’m not going to buy an a asset brand new build, unless I’m getting it for an amazing price, which I probably won’t. So I’m not going to look at that space. I’m trying to create wealth, not really preserve it. But when you have that kind of environment, there’s euphoria. Once the euphoria pulls back, and this is what we’re seeing right now, operators aren’t making their distributions. There’s even capital calls going on. So what’s going on is Gino’s investors not getting paid on the deal he has right now, Gino can’t raise for the next deal. I’m just making an example. I don’t raise money, but that’s what is happening. So there’s, like you said, there’s less demand. There are less operators and people who can bid on these assets, the less money, the less bidding that’s going on, the more supply. It’s just going to drop pricing. Just give it some time, get into the space, start making those connections right now. And you know what? It’s great. Cause brokers are calling you back two years ago. They didn’t need Mike and Gino. Cause they could have just put a deal anywhere and it would have sold. Now they’ve got to do work. Now they’re actually calling us back. They’re texting us. They’re emailing us. They’re cold calling us. What was the last time you got, I see open house signs all over the place here. That’s a good thing. It’s not a bad thing, but we’re thinking contrarianly where people are hitting the exits and they’re a little bit afraid. Don’t be afraid, take a look around and assess the opportunities. There’s always problems in any part of the market cycle. Seek the opportunities that lie in this part of the market cycle.

Mike: That’s great. So I think, um, people tend to be more transactional on the single family side. I mean, there’s obviously people with portfolios, the multifamily side, you, you always have to have at least a five year vision, if not more right. I mean, it’s, it tends to be more of a long term focus, but whether it’s single family or multifamily, that’s where the wealth is really built. So let’s talk about, uh, you know, a lot of my audiences is on the single family side and a lot of folks are very transactional and they, they hear all the hype about making the quick buck and stuff like that, which is, is not me spreading that and there is an opportunity to make a quick buck on the single family side. Let’s talk about having this long term focus. Now, guys like you and I have been around long enough to where we know, like, especially me, because I flipped hundreds of houses and I kept some as rentals. But in hindsight, I wish I kept them all as rentals because we probably wouldn’t be here right now, you know, we’d have to run into each other on the beach or something.

Mike: But, you know, that that’s what hindsight allows is like. You start to play a different game or want to play a different game. And I I’m here to tell everybody, and I know you agree with this is that the money is made, the real wealth is made over a long period of time, partly because inflation is inevitable, partly.

Mike: Right. And so let’s just talk about that mindset of shifting from worrying about paying the bills today and creating long term wealth.

Gino: It doesn’t take that long. I mean, it’s 10 years or six years or seven years, a long time. It’s just that we’re not trained and, and you know, how we, I guess how we developed as humans, we always want that instant gratification, that quick hit.

Gino: I just want to create a concept for the listeners right now. We have a concept called the conveyor belt, just picture an imaginary conveyor belt in front of you and think of it as a five year, you know, conveyor belt on year one, you buy an asset. Year two, you buy another asset. So within the first two years, you have assets on here.

Gino: You want these assets to matriculate and to continue to create value. And in real estate, you don’t make money when you buy real estate. You make money when you sell real estate. Let me say that again. Everyone says you make money on the buy. You can make money on the buy cause you’re buying it right. And you’re getting some cashflow.

Gino: But if it just sits there and there’s equity, you’re not really making any money. You need to extract that equity. And what you do with this conveyor belt, you want to continue to put deals in the conveyor belt. And what Mike should have done with those single family rentals that he sold, he should have sold them, pulled the equity out and bought a 10 unit.

Gino: And then maybe pull that equity out and bought a 30 unit. It’s not so much that. The transactions, you just want to crystallize that equity at a certain point. And if you have a refinance, it’s a basic loan to yourself. So you’re not paying taxes on that loan. When we did our first, very first refinance, we refinanced at 164, 000.

Gino: Do you know how many freaking pizzas I need to make to net 160? I have to work. Over a year to do that. And we did that on one refinance net. I just pulled that money out and we put it into our third deal. That’s exactly what I did. And you continued along the velocity of money. You want to velocitize that money.

Gino: What happens with single families and fix and flips number one, they kill the goose, but number two, it’s not what you make. It’s what you keep and you’re paying taxes on that money. Whereas in what I ended up doing is I bought this property for 600, 000 back in 2013. I still own it today. There it’s worth over two and a half million dollars.

Gino: This one property, it’s 25 units. There’s 500, 000 of debt on that property. I’ve already refinanced out double what I put into it and every month. It’s paying me between eight and 10, 000 a month in cashflow. And on top of that, I’ve gotten the cost segregation benefits over, you know, the last five or six years.

Gino: So if you, if you put that all together, you don’t have to do 3, 000 units a year. If you can do one to two good deals per year, at the end of three or four years, you’ve stacked your conveyor belt with six or seven assets that are doing really well, and that’s why it takes a couple of years, three or four years, because Begin to crystallize and you’ll be able to pull that equity out and please reinvest it into the business.

Gino: It took me five years to leave my restaurant because I’m like, I need to continue to reinvest the capital, reinvest the capital. Because at this, at that point we’d read, we had refinanced probably about 8 million out of the portfolio. I just put that money back into buying my next deal. And to date, we’ve done over 25 million in refinances.

Gino: Um, I don’t drive a Lambo. I don’t have 17 houses. The money just keeps going to buy more assets, keep buying more assets. And that’s how you create true wealth by paying less taxes, by owning these assets, by being able to force depreciation with the market. And with solid management and with having assets that yield a dividend, I’m getting cashflow every month.

Gino: So you have the best of both worlds. So think of that conveyor belt. Next time you put a deal on there, be happy. You’ve got a deal. Let’s work that deal. Keep it on there. And you stack another one and then just try to think of it at five years. You’re crystallizing that equity and turn that equity into

cashflow.

Mike: Yeah, that’s great. I think there’s a couple of things that you talked about there that are that I like is like, whatever you think you want, whether it’s a Lambo or something else. I mean, people do that. Right. But at the end of the day, in my experience, there are things that I want, like, when I get to this level, I’m going to buy this. And I got to that level. And I was like, why would I waste my money on that? I want to put it back into the business. Right. So what’s really cool is when you can afford those, when you get to a point where you can afford those toys, You just don’t want them because you understand plowing that back into the business. And, and, and by the way, you know, not sacrificing your quality of life because you can still do a lot of great things. You just don’t have to waste it on, um, things that probably are, you know, not worth the money or time or whatever. You just, you just need a brother, you need a brother in law with a Lambo or, or a boat or whatever. Right. So you can just like, Hey, let me drive this for an hour. You’re like, okay, I got it out of my system.

Gino: Mike, can I mention, can I just mention one thing real quick? And I think we talked about this before air. Uh, what you’re really referring to is, is your psychology of money. It’s your relationship with money and understanding your neurochemicals in your brain, you don’t want the Lambo, you don’t want the boat, you want the feeling that that thing gives you. And when you’re younger, you get the hit. That’s why social media is so addicting. You get on there, you want the likes and you want that instant gratification. There’s serotonin because all of a sudden you’ve got the Lambo. You feel really good. You feel important. You know, you’ve got the dopamine hit, you’ve got the oxytocin going on. You have all these neurochemicals understanding the relationship with money. I was just fortunate that my mom made me a saver. That was my default. I was able to save all the money that I made, but conversely, I didn’t really enjoy it. So it’s, it’s a pro and a con. So read the book, the psychology of money by Morgan Housel, because you need to understand the relationship that you have with money. And if your relationship is one where. Mine was scarcity. I couldn’t even enjoy what I was making. So it was easy for me to create wealth. But if you’re the one out there who likes the instant gratification and likes to renew most recent toy, just sit down, Google neurochemistry, see what happens in your brain. Cause really what you’re trying to do is you’re trying to elicit a feeling. And when the, when the lamb was over, well, what’s the next thing, a vacation when that’s over, then it’s a laptop and you go down that rabbit hole. And the feeling that I like is now that I can afford these things. It’s a better feeling. I can afford them and not want them then have to buy them to make myself feel better. I hope that makes sense.

Mike: Yeah, for sure. Let’s talk a little bit about, you mentioned a few things are like the, you know, just, uh, social media and the way that things make you feel. Cause I think one thing that, that hurts a lot of people and it is, it could inspire you too, but there’s a good and a bad side is. Trying to build something or get started in real estate or get to the next level or whatever, based on what, what you’ve seen other people do. Right. At the end of the day, I think a lot of people get hung up on trying to be like somebody else instead of their own goals. And what happens is, and by the way, the being like somebody else, we just see the good side of their life. Right. I mean, yeah, this guy’s got a Lambo, but. His relationship with his family has fallen apart. Nobody wants that, but that’s not getting posted on social media. Right? So let’s talk about this, this idea of really focusing on what’s important to you and your goals for you and, or your family, and not worrying about being like somebody else necessarily. Cause it’s bad in this industry. Right.

Gino: I had a podcast with Brad Lee about six months ago, and he introduced a word to me. Allodoxophobia. I said, Brad, I have no idea what the hell that means. He basically said, it’s the fear of what other people think about you. And I was asking him about social media. My, you know, my hair doesn’t look good. The lighting is not good. I may sound stupid. Don’t worry about what other people think or whatever, or the people feel about you because that will hold you back. And listen, we’re all, we’re all a testament to that. But that’s one of those things. Don’t keep up with the Joneses because you’re not the Joneses. You’re Mike and I’m Gino. We all have different journeys. We all have different paths. We all have different starting points. I mean, Mike may be a trust fund baby. Who’s got 17 million bucks in the bank. I’m starting from scratch. So how can I compete with Mike and why would I want to compete with Mike? Cause Mike’s got different goals and different gifts and different talents that I do. I think we need to get crystal clear on what we want. When I was at the restaurant, I could tell you what I didn’t want. I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t, I hated it. But when you say, Gino, what do you want? I really wasn’t clear on that. What I ultimately wanted was to have a great business with employees, to be able to create some type of financial freedoms for myself, to have that autonomy that Morgan Housel talks about. In the psychology of money, that autonomy is what people, I think, strive for, because that, that’s part of happiness. When I can be on a podcast with Mike at 2:00 PM on a Wednesday, I have the chance to say yes or no. The more optionality they have, the, that gives me the freedom to do what I want. That’s what we’re trying to accomplish through, you know, becoming financially free through real estate, through creating the wealth and when you get the wealth, you think you’re going to quit and go on a beach or go on a yacht, you’ve worked so hard. You finally gotten good at something. You enjoy what you’re doing. You’re not going to give it up. You’re going to be like might and bite off more things and do more stuff. Cause you’re like, wow, this is really a game. I’m not chasing money. I’m chasing opportunity. I’m chasing freedom. I’m chasing fun. And then if I get become real good at it, the money’s going to follow. The money is just the result. That’s what I’ve learned over the last seven or eight years. I wish somebody had tapped me on the shoulder and really told me that.

Gino: I mean, I would have been like, damn, I’m chasing the wrong thing. I’m not chasing value. I’m not chasing opportunity. I’m chasing these dollar bills. And that was for me, the epiphany. And as far as social media goes. It’s a hard one for me because we all look at it. Use social media to see what other people are doing.

Gino: Mirror what they’re doing. See where, how their, how their videos are done, how they look, how they’re posting their videos, what content they’re doing, use that. But use your own voice, become transparent, become your authentic self. And don’t worry how you feel because it’s scary, but it’s okay. If you come from an authentic place and you truly try to provide value, when it’s purpose.

Gino: Over popularity and you have purpose, you will ultimately become popular, but you need to be like Mike and being there for years. Mike wasn’t an overnight sensation. He just told me that he’s been doing it for 10 years. So if you do a few videos and you crap out, it’s okay. Give yourself some time, lean into your purpose, lean into your, why you will get better.

Gino: And over time you will become ultimately more popular. Yeah,

Mike: you can’t fail if you play the long game at anything, real estate, podcasts, whatever. Right. You just, because you, you, you fail, but failure is not final. Right. If you’re not willing to quit, um, then ultimately you’re not a failure, right? You just have to keep going.

Mike: And I think it’s, it’s a problem with a lot of people these days because, because of that immediate gratification. And I, you know, I kind of make this joke of like every day it’s Christmas at my house because of Amazon. Cause I just get that immediate gratification. You too . I can have an idea and order something like right now, and, and I’m, I’m in a large enough market to where some stuff comes the same day or like I wake up in the morning and it’s already there.

Mike: It’s crazy, right? Mm-Hmm, . But that’s the problem is, is some people want to do that in other areas of their life and it, and you, you, you can’t, you just can’t have that. You have to go through the failures and the trials and, and the heartache and the sleepless nights and all that to get to some, to some point.

Mike: And then the reality is. You’re so much stronger of an entrepreneur and a person from being through those things that, you know, like success kind of falls in your lap. Right. It’s like, must be, must be nice that you succeed. Like somebody has told me before, it’s like, it seems like everything you touch turns to gold.

Mike: And I was like, uh, yeah, it’s easy for it to look that way, but I promise you that is not the case. Like you, you haven’t seen all the piles of shit that I’ve touched either. Right. Or had, or turned into our, uh, so.

Gino: Mike, let me ask you, let me ask you a question. Was it when you were growing for me, I was fortunate that I had a partner, Jake, and I didn’t do this on myself because I was, I was on a call with him last night.

Gino: I was bitching and moaning about a problem I had because being an entrepreneur, it’s lonely. And sometimes like, who are you talking to? Your wife, she, she, she can’t relate to me making a big mistake and going, I mean, like. I think partnerships are so important or so invaluable in having that. What is your experience with that?

Gino: Does that help you when you’re having a tough time, when you’re going through a rough patch and you can’t see things

Mike: clearly? Yeah, for sure. I think, uh, obviously I run one of the largest masterminds in the country for professional real estate investors. Almost everything I do now, uh, from a few years back forward, like I don’t have any.

Mike: Businesses, all the multifamily syndication, the big deals I’ve done over the past five years, which is probably about 10 or 12 deals. Like everything I do now is some sort of collaboration or partnership because I’ve gotten to the point now to where honestly, I get a little comfortable if it’s just me, or I get a little complacent and it fuels me to have a partner because one, we lift each other up.

Mike: Uh, we bounce ideas off each other and make them better. And the reality is just more fun. Business is just more fun doing it with people. Now you need to pick the right partner. Um, uh, but you know, I think. Doing things together with other people is great. And as is, you know, one of the things I wanted to mention, you said a moment ago about, I wish somebody had tapped me on the shoulder and told me something is I know that you and I are both big believers in coaching, coaching, like we are coaches and we help people, but also I’m not afraid to hire.

Mike: Coaches or advisors or spend money on knowledge or whatever it is now, because you want to be smart about it. But if I can get somewhere in a fraction of the time, it would take me to go learn all those lessons myself and possibly give up in the process. Like I’m game for it. It’s just a business decision for me at this point.

Mike: So what are your thoughts on, on, uh, the power of kind of, and the importance of

Gino: coaching? Let me give everybody an analogy here. When you’re going into a forest, do you want the map before you go into the forest, or do you want to go into the forest? And get the map. When I started before Jake, I was called life before Jake.

Gino: I didn’t have a process. I didn’t have a map. So I was buying deals. I was in single family. I did a little multifamily. I did a mobile home park. I was all over the place. I didn’t have the buy, right? The manager at the finance, right? In 2008, when I read T Harbecker’s book, the secrets of the millionaire mind, everything changed for me.

Gino: It was the long termism. It was the fruits of your roots. And all of a sudden I realized, man, Investing in my education was an investment. It wasn’t an expense. And I think early on I have to pay for education. Well, when we go to college, kids are paying 70 grand a year to go to a crappy school, to paying 300 grand to get a degree, to go get a job.

Gino: We can’t spend 20 or 30 grand for a mastermind or for a program that’s going to teach us one technique that may make us a half a million dollars. That, that, that’s the twisted part. You have to understand the abundance mindset. The fact that If you invest in your education, you will constantly have that.

Gino: And not even that the people that you surround yourself within these communities is invaluable because if I need something, or I want to, and I want to podcast a Kim Kiyosaki, I can reach out to Matt Andrews and say, Hey, Matt, can you get Kim on my pockets? For an example, I would never be able to have that opportunity, but investing in his program and investing in his group, I’ve met so many amazing people.

Gino: So if you’re out there saying to yourself, I don’t need this, I can do this by myself. It’s going to take you a lot longer. You’re going to make a lot more mistakes and you’re going to be really, really frustrated at the end of the day.

Mike: Yeah, it’s, it is short sighted and I think it’s, it’s hard and real estate investing because a lot of us are kind of what I’ll call a frugal value based or just flat out cheap, right?

Mike: We want to buy stuff cheap. I want cheap contractors. Where can I get the cheapest tile in town? Like, you know, we tend to have that in us. Uh, and I gave a present. I’ve given a couple of presentations here lately to some of my groups about. You know, where you don’t want to cheap out on is investing in yourself, because for most of us, that is the best investment you’ve ever made.

Mike: Anything you invest in yourself comes back 10, 20, 100 fold, right? And, and in your team, honestly, and I’ve been, you know, I’ve hired people before that were the wrong people, but they were kind of, they didn’t expect a lot or whatever. And those are the results you get. And, you know, we just hired somebody that I paid.

Mike: I don’t know. And I’m not even going to say the number I

Gino: made a lot of money, right?

Mike: I hired somebody, uh, that just accepted an offer yesterday at one of my companies that literally is salary, just a salary, not including all the bonuses is 10 X. What my first salary out of college was at my job. Uh, and this, but it’s a high level executive that we expect to take us to the next level.

Mike: And so I think you just, it’s not all about paying the most, but it’s about really hiring really good talent. Um, Whether it’s on your team or a coach. Right. Uh, just to kind of get you to the next level or people that you outsource things to, like just pay for better quality stuff, because in this business, the fringe is where you make your money at.

Mike: It’s like everybody, you know, you don’t, you don’t have to be 10 times better than Gino to be successful. But if you can find a way to be 5 percent better or do things just a little bit better here and there it’s the returns are just exponential. And that’s not just like anywhere, right? That’s a great point.

Mike: Well, Gino. Hey. Great spending time with you, buddy. It really good to see you. I saw you here recently and I was on your, you guys podcast a couple of years back. Uh, glad I could finally get you here,

Gino: Mike. It’s been a great journey. I mean, think about where you were in 2013. Uh, you launched your podcast.

Gino: You’re still doing single families. You’re flipping the education started because flip nerd is 1 of the 1st, 1 of the 1st websites that came up, it was really a cool name and I’m like, I wish I was doing single family homes, but from there, transitioning to. Owning multiple businesses, you’re doing syndications and multifamily.

Gino: I mean, it’s been a great journey. So for those of you out there, you may say 10 years is such a long time. We overestimate what we can do in one year. We underestimate what we can do in five years, make it a three year plan, make it a one year plan, start chunking it down, start with the end in mind. Where do you want to be in 10 years?

Gino: And then reverse engineer that to where you are today and start taking the steps to get there.

Mike: Yep. And no, you’re going to, it’s not a straight line, right? You’re going to fail and be all over the place and you’re going to pivot and change your mind. And that’s fine. You just have to keep moving forward.

Gino: Right? Yes. I agree. Thanks for having me on Mike. I

Mike: appreciate it. You know, Hey, if folks want to connect with you, you guys have amazing content that you put out. You’ve got a lot of great information. Where, where, where should they go?

Gino: Just go to Jake and Gino. com. You’ll see the podcast on there. If you want to, you know, learn real estate right behind me, you’ll see how to, and multifamily we’ve got a YouTube channel, we’ve got Instagram.

Gino: We’ve got a Facebook page. So just go to Jake and Gino. com. Awesome. We’ll

Mike: add a link down below in the show notes and everybody hope you got some great value, uh, from today. Really appreciate you following me along with this journey for the next 10 years. I actually do have a couple of other podcasts. We do a lot of stuff under the investor fuel podcast brand as well.

Mike: Now, uh, where I interview members of my mastermind, uh, which are a lot of experts. So that’s a great knowledge over there to check that one out if you haven’t already, but Gino, thanks again. Great to see you, buddy. Looking forward to hanging out more in the, in the year ahead, I guess we’re kind of coming up on new year here.

Mike: Thanks,

Gino: Mike. Appreciate it, brother.

Mike: Everybody. Thanks again. See you on the next show. Thanks for listening to today’s show. There are three ways I can help you start or grow your real estate investing business. If you’re a new investor in just getting started, the FlipNerd investor coaching program is the most effective program in America.

Mike: I’ve been coaching and mentoring new real estate investors for 10 years. And my students have literally purchased thousands and thousands of properties. Many of them started with little to no experience at all. Our program is a paint by numbers program where we tell you exactly what to do week by week to make sure that you don’t get distracted on your way to results.

Mike: We show you how to build a real business, not just create another job for yourself. New memberships are limited. You can learn more and apply or schedule a call with me and my team at flipnerd. com slash coaching. If you’re an experienced investor doing a minimum of 10 deals a year, up to 500 deals a year or more, or have a multi million dollar real estate portfolio already, You should check out our powerful investor fuel, real estate investor mastermind over a hundred of the nation’s leading real estate investors are members and it’s not uncommon for our members.

Mike: To two to five X their business, just from getting around other members that investor fuel at investor fuel. Each of us are business advisors to one another’s businesses, but we don’t stop at business. We focus heavily on becoming better people and living fuller lives. If you’re looking. For fuel for your business or fuel for your life, please check out Investorfuel.com. Applications and interviews are required as most investors are not a fit for our community. Please learn more at InvestorFuel.com. If you’re not ready for coaching or masterminds but eager to start learning more about investing, please join our private Facebook group by visiting FlipNerd.com/Facebook.

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