BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 455: Mixtapes to Millions in Real Estate with DJ Envy and Cesar Pina

Episode Date: March 28, 2021

You’ve probably heard of The Breakfast Club, the morning radio show in over 90 markets that covers everything from hip hop culture, to celebrity gossip, to politics and more. If you've listened, you may recognize DJ Envy’s voice. He’s here today with his partner Cesar Pina, to talk real estate, seminars, and business. DJ Envy grew up in Queens, New York, and was neighbors with a successful DJ. After he heard how much money DJs were making in the city, he decided to start DJ-ing himself, and began releasing mixtapes. As his success grew, he started working for a radio station and landed a morning show, which later became known as The Breakfast Club. After buying his first house and later selling it due to a long commute, Envy walked away with around $80,000. He was hooked, and knew that real estate was a long-term way for him to build his wealth and create success for him and his family. He started out buying a house every year and selling it a year later, then bought some homes in Detroit for $15,000 that sold for over $260,000! Envy wanted to get more into real estate, so he was introduced to Cesar. Cesar was serving time in prison when he first learnt about real estate investing. Once he was released, he decided to jump in. He bought single family homes, then small multifamily homes, then went on to commercial buildings. Now, heowns more than 1,600 units and flips anywhere from 60 to 80 houses per year! His new book, Flipping Keys, comes out later this month. Cesar and Envy became an unstoppable duo, and now they're teaching others how they too can buy rentals and flip houses. They see this as a way to serve their community and let those who may be unaware of real estate investing have a chance at success and financial freedom. In This Episode We Cover: How DJ Envy started buying and flipping homes  Buying homes under market value to make high profits Why house hacking is the best way to get started in real estate Buying in Detroit during the early days of the recession  How to use other people’s money (OPM) to fund your deals Why most real estate seminars take more than they give to attendees And So Much More! Links from the Show BiggerPockets Podcast BiggerPockets book store Brandon's Instagram David's Instagram Grant Cardone on Multifamily Investing and Why You Should Never Buy a House! Click here to check the full show notes: https://www.biggerpockets.com/show455 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey there. We at Bigger Pockets wanted to share a quick update about this episode. As of November 2023, Caesar Pena has accusations that have been brought against him for wire fraud. We reached out to him for comment but did not receive a response. Bigger Pockets vets all their guests, but occasionally guests may still find themselves in hot water or legal troubles. This whole incident is a reminder that no industry is immune to criminal behavior and Bigger Pockets will continue to stress to our audience that they do their own due diligence, especially when investing with other people. In Bigger Pockets, Podcast episode 850, we cover five red flags to look for when investing with someone else, like in a syndication or a partnership. I'd recommend you check out that episode to learn more about

what to look for in operators to avoid potentially being taken advantage of yourself. This is the Bigger Pockets Podcast show 455. I got to be able to say, you know what, I was able to teach a community how to invest in properties. We were able to teach somebody that had no clue and gave them inspiration. And the best feeling is when you, hear somebody's mom hit us to say, hey, my son was 22. He was an F-Up, and now he's into real estate because he came to your seminar. Or a kid that had no clue and was rented for 20 years and be like, I don't want to be like my mom. Can you teach me? And that's what we're doing. You're listening to Bigger Pockets Radio, simplifying real estate for investors large and small.

If you're here looking to learn about real estate investing, without all the hype, you're in the right place. Stay tuned and be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from BiggerPockets.com. Your home for real estate investing online. What's going on, everyone, it's Brandon Turner, host of the Bigger Pockets podcast here with my co-host, Mr. David. I'm so envious of you Green. What's up, man? How you doing? What's up, Brandon? Thanks for that. I'm doing great, man. So our guest today is DJ Envy, who you may know from the super huge following famous show, a morning radio show called The Breakfast Club. They're syndicated like over 100 stations. They're one the biggest radio shows in the entire world. And then Caesar, which is his like his real estate guy.

And their stories are so powerful and amazing and good. And so you're going to hear all about that today about both of them. Envy talks about one of his deals he bought it. It was like 12 million bought it for like half that much. And now it's gone back up to like almost where the original price was. I mean, just millions of dollars of growth there. In fact, one of the gentlemen actually learned how to invest while in prison. You're going to hear that story. Crazy. a good story. So I think you guys are going to like this episode today. Before we get to that, let's get to today's quick tip. Today's quick tip is simple. We talk about this in the show a little bit today, but it's one thing to build wealth for yourself. That's great. You and your family and

generational wealth, that's amazing. But I want to encourage everyone to just think, how can I pay this forward to more people? How can I let more people know about the power of real estate? Whether it's, I talk about it, whether you're meant to someday write a book or someday you're going to go and start a podcast, whether you're going to just post on your Facebook, real estate stuff, whatever it is, how can you give back to those people that are out there that are thirsty? I'll say a true story. I wasn't spoken at a local high school out here, a local high school back, I don't know, three months ago, four months ago. And I actually thought it was kind of like, I didn't do that good of a job. It was weird because of COVID and I'm wearing my mask.

I couldn't read any of the kids because everyone's wearing a mask, right? And I just kind of felt like overall, like I kind of like didn't reach anybody at all whatsoever. Like they just couldn't care less about real estate. Anyway, so yesterday I'm in the parking lot, actually a target. My wife's inside Target, grabbing something. And this kid knocks on my window. And I rolled on the window, he's like, dude, you're the guy that spoke of my school. And I was like, yeah, that's me. He's like, I bought a bunch of your books and I've been listening to your podcast and following Instagram. And like, I'm going to do real estate. I can't wait to get in it. And he was like super excited. And I was like, that's cool. Right. And it's like one life, right? But like, that's just

my longer than a quick tip message for everyone today is you never know whose little life you can impact. So talk about real estate. Talk about what you're doing. We see from our guests today that the desire to help people led to a huge business that I'm sure helps them in many ways, makes them better investors or is that income gets deals coming their way. I'm sure that deals come their way through the funnel that they created with the intention of just we want to help people. So in a capitalistic environment, you are definitely benefited by helping more people. I think that that's something to keep in mind. Time to get into the show. Long enough introduction here. Let's bring in our guest today, DJ Envy, and Caesar Pena.

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All right. Envy and Thither. Welcome to the show, guys. Thanks for having us, man. How are you guys doing? Thanks for having us. It's an honor to have you guys, really. It's amazing. So let's jump into your story a little bit. We'll start with you, Envy. By the way, Envy, the best way to call you envy, not DJ envy? No, envy's fine. Okay, all right, we're going to go with envy. Tell us about yourself a little bit. How do you get, how do people know you? Let's start there. How do people know you? I'm a kid from Queens, Queens, New York. And I'm just like any other kid growing up. I was, you know, didn't have a lot, but didn't need a lot. My neighbor at the time was a DJ. know what he did. All I knew is he drove fancy cars and had nice jewelry. So one day when I was

waiting for the school bus, I stopped his car and I was like, you know, what do you do? And at the time, it was a Honda Accord. Now, when I was growing up, a Honda Accord was everything. Like, that's what you lived for. And he had a Honda Accord and I asked what he did. And he told me to come by his house after school. So after school, I came to his house and I thought he was going to be selling drugs, something illegal. And he told me he was a DJ. And at the time, it was, I didn't know who he was. He told me his DJ name, and his name was DJ Clue. And at the time, people didn't know who Clue was because all he used was the question mark symbol on all this mixtapes because he was playing all these people's records and didn't want anybody to know his face. And I was bootlegging his tape

in high school, like selling it. And I didn't know. And he kind of introduced me into DJ and told me what to get and what to do. And the rest was history. Now, I read something that you're a mixed tape DJ. What does a mixtape DJ do? So before Spotify and Apple Music and SoundCloud and list, there was nowhere to get mixes. So you would have to buy it from bootleggers, African bootleggers, mom and pop stores or even record stores where DJs would make their own mixes, me, clue, drama, DJs like that. And that's how we would sell. And we would sell thousands and thousands and thousands of copies of mixtapes. And we would sell more than a lot of the artists that came out. Because now if an artist comes out, instead of just getting one single, you get

his best single on my mixtape. Then you would get DMX's best single. on my mixtape. And then Jay-Z's best single on my mixtape. So we were selling so many units and that was considered a mixtape. That's awesome. So how did you go from that to, you know, the host of the Breakfast Club now, one of the guys on there and like, where did that transition come from? So I was on Hot 97 at first and I was just a mixer. And I wanted more. I wanted to do more. I wanted to just be more than a mixer. So I asked and they teach me how to become a host. And they said, sure. So at first, and I was trying to talk proper high. This is Sean. And I, you know, and it was like, nah, just be yourself and, you know, do things that you would do. And that's what I pretty much did.

And I did Hot 97 for about eight years. And I did mornings and I wanted more. And they didn't have more. They couldn't offer me more. So at the time, Power 105 was the station I'm at now. It was kind of like a sinking ship. It was the second station. Nobody was really messing with it. And they made me an offer, made me a deal. So I went over there. I started doing afternoons and everything was good. But they needed a morning show. So they asked me what I do a morning show. I said, hell no. They offered me some money. I said, hell no. They offered me some more money.

And I said, yes. And it was supposed to be my morning show at first, but I didn't want a morning show because I was like, if it doesn't work, where do I go after this? So we came up with an idea to create a collective. We brought it on Charlemagne. We brought on Angelie and we came up with all these different names, Illuminati in the morning, the big three, and all these different things. And somebody came up with the idea of Breakfast Club and it stuck.

And 10 years later, we still here. I love it. And you guys are like syndicated around, what, over 100 stations now or something like that? Yeah, over 100 stations now and overseas, the military stations. And it's great. It's a blessing. So the same three people that you founded it with have been the same that you've had the entire time. Hasn't changed.

10 years, we made it into the Radio Hall of Fame last year. No, hasn't changed. The same three members and we're still rocking. All right. So who's DJ Shrimp? DJ Shrimp is my name. I was, in high school, I was five, two. I'm six foot now, but I was five, two in high school.

So when I started DJing, it was me and my friend at the time. I was DJ Shrimp. He was DJ Mono. And together we were envy production. So the high school that we went to, we always used to say people envied us. So we would call envy. We weren't making no money. So he told me one day, look, I don't want to do this no more.

I'm into girls. You do this. So I just kept doing it and kept doing it. And every time I would bring a tape, it would say envy on it because it was both of us. So the African bootleggers who would sell it was like, you've got the new envy? Oh, Envy's here. And it just stuck. Thank God.

Or you'd be calling me DJ Shrimp right now. Exactly. One more story, David and I have to pull out of you today, you know, before we jump over to ask Caesar and we're getting to real estate a little bit. I heard you got a gun pulled on you from somebody famous at one point. Tell us about that. Yeah, Nas. And Nas hates when I tell the story.

But Naz pulled out a gun on me. This is when I first started doing mixtapes. I used to carry my mixtapes in my book bag and bring them. went to different stores and mom and pop stores. And I see Nas. One day, Nas was by Jamaica Avenue where you would go buy your shoes, your sneakers, your clothes, your mixtapes. And he had, I remember a white GS, Alexis GS, and he had a girl with him.

And I see him, I'm like, that's Nas. Now, being from Queens, Nas is everybody's idol. So I'm running up to him, Nas, I've got something for you. I got something. So I'm reaching in my bag to get a mixtape. And by the time I pull a mixtape out, he has a gun on me. And what you got for me? What you got?

I'm like, whoa. Well, this is a mixtape. I swear this is only mixtape. And then he took the mixtape and was like, you know, don't play like that, man. You know, these streets are real and he got his car and gone to go. Does he remember that? Have you talked to him about it since? Every time I talk to him about it, the story comes up and he hates when I tell the story.

He was like, it was 20 years ago. I'm a different guy. I'm like, yeah, but I'm still traumatized, you know? Now I've never gone up to anybody, be like, I got something for you. I go out with my hands up. I have something for you. Like, I don't know. So he does remember that too then.

He does remember it. Absolutely. Yeah, that's awesome. All right. So let's jump over, Caesar. How did you get connected with Envy here? A friend of mine's, his name is Nitha Grit. He owns the label where Fetty Wap is signed to. He's the one to discover Fettie Wap in Patterson, I'm from Patterson.

And he did the introduction between me and MVee. And you do a lot of real estate stuff, right? I think you're pretty hot and heavy in that. I've been doing real estate now for about 15 years. And me and Mb, you've been doing real estate seminars. since we met about two years ago, two and a half years ago. To be honest with you, it was never in my cars to be a public speaker. I met envy, you know, he told me that I had a great story,

and I would aspire a lot of people, and we started doing seminars. Yeah, so let's hear about the last story. Where'd you come from? How'd you get into this real estate game? You know, I'm a street guy. I'm self-educated, so I ended up, you know, doing a lot of things I wasn't supposed to when I was younger. I ended up in prison.

before I came out, I met a guy in there and he told me about real estate. I came home. I got into real estate since then. And I've been doing it for 15 years. I started with the smaller properties, you know, your two, three, four family homes. Then I was in that space for a while. Back in 2008, you know, when everybody was running away from real estate, right? That's when I, that's when I jumped in.

And I started with the smaller properties, flipping properties, smaller rental properties. got into commercial properties, then kept on going, kept on going. Now we have about 1,600 rental units in the U.S., and we flip about 50 to 80 single family homes a year. And now we're also developing bigger buildings, a 50 unit, a 60 unit, an 80 unit, and 100 unit. That's awesome. We are in New Jersey, Atlanta, Florida, and Chicago. And Detroit. Yeah, that's awesome.

So, and you got a new book, flipping keys, right? I want to make sure we plug that thing. There we go. Amazon, whatever books are sold. Very cool. You know, it's doing very well. Number one real estate book.

Number one, new best, new release. I think I was number one over the weekend to money and finance. A whole bunch of categories I didn't even know existed. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, I thought when I went out, I would check it out this morning and I thought, yeah, I had a number one bestseller.

I'm like, that's awesome. Yeah. crushing it there. So, Caesar, I have a question for you. When you first started in real estate investing, obviously there was a switch that got flipped and you took it to be really big. Do you remember if there was a pivotal point where something clicked or you realized, oh, this is the way I'm going to do it. And you went all in? Here, like I said, I'm self-educated. The guy that I met in prison, he ended up having to do another seven years. So I was only with him for maybe a year. So I came out and I started learning everything on my own. So when I first started, I didn't have any money.

money, right? So we had to sell our car. I pawned my wife's engagement ring, pulling our jewelry, everything, right, just to get that first deal done. So year one and two were probably the toughest because at that point, I will take all the money that I had, right, buy one property. So I sold that property or refinanced that property. I didn't have any more money to buy properties or to play with, right? So year two, this guy called me up and he's like, hey, you're doing it the wrong way. OPM, other people's money. And that's when I learned about private financing and hard money loans and how to leverage my money, right, which is one of the most important things in real estate is leveraging your money,

how to leverage so you could buy more. So after that happened, that's when I went from doing two to three deals a year to doing 20 to 30 deals a year. That's awesome. What kind of creative strategies have you focused on? I mean, like the hard money, have you done other things as well? You know, it all depends on the deal, but pretty much, you know, when I first started back in It was pretty much kind of like the bird method that everybody talks about. I was buying properties 60, 80,000, putting 30 or 40,000 into them, fixing them, renting them, refinancing, taking that money out, that new equity and buying more property. And I was in that space for about 10 years. But again, every real estate market changes. And we're not in that space anymore in the tri-state area. When I first started, I was buying properties, you know, anywhere between 40,000, you know, to 100,000. That doesn't exist right. The market's on fire.

Yeah. Right. So that was the space I was in back then. So just by learning how to stretch my money, buying more, way or less, by using prior financing, that's how I got ahead. All right. Let's jump back over to Envy and ask, where's your interest in real estate lie? I know you talk about real estate a lot. Where's your interest?

Where'd that come from, this idea of real estate investing and generational wealth in general? And then what does that look like today for you? What's your relation to real estate? Right. Well, Cesar has over 1,600, close to 1,700 doors. I have 134 doors. That's awesome still. I'm far behind them, far behind them.

You're just getting warmed up. Just getting warmed up, yeah. So what happened was when I bought my first house, I got my first check, and I'm from Queens, and I couldn't afford anything close to New York. I had to live in a hotel called West Milford. If you're not from New Jersey, this is where they tape Friday to 13th. It's Woodsy, lakes. That's what they pretty much taped it.

So what wound up happening was I would DJ at night and then have to drive home, and I would fall asleep. So I couldn't live there anymore. So I sold the property within four months. And I think in four months, I made $80,000 selling that property. And I was like, at the time, this was more than I was making a year. I'm like, this is great. So that's what I started doing. I didn't know anything about real estate. Like Caesar said, I was self-educated when it came to real estate. I had no clue. So I was doing it all wrong. I was actually buying a property, living in it, then selling it, and then I'd have to move everything to another property. But every year I was doing this, it was doing great. So one year, I bought two properties and the market fell. And I just remember having three mortgages and not that nobody wanted to buy the properties, but nobody could get mortgages and loans. So I was doing everything. I was doing bar mitzvids. I was doing, what's the Spanish 316? Kinsayana. Kinsietta. I was anything I could possibly do to make money. I was making money to buy these properties. And I wound up selling them finally. And I was like, you know what,

real estate is not for me. I don't like it. Angela Yee, who's a co-host, a coworker with me, at the breakfast club, she had a boyfriend in Detroit and was like, hey, envy there's these houses in Detroit that are going for like 10, 15,000. You really should look at it. They're downtown. It's not, you know, not far. So I bought three of them. I bought three of them. I didn't know what to do with them. And I just pretty much paid the taxes. I found a contract in Detroit and I started to use him. And that was a disaster. I remember going to one of the house and he had bathroom tile on the master bedroom wall. And I'm like, well, what is this? And he was like, well, that's my style. I'm like, I'm not paying you for your style, bro.

So I kind of closed her shop. And I didn't know what to do. So I just kept paying taxes. I just kept paying the taxes. And Nick DeGrit, who was the, you know, the person that Fetty Wap and signed to, who was like, I got a guy I want you to meet. He does real estate. And now at the time, everybody does real estate.

You know, you sell one house. You do real estate. So I kind of brushed it off. And then he was like, no, I really want you to meet this guy. So I went to his office, which was Caesar, me and my wife. And he was like, yeah, I have all these properties. And Patterson and this to any other. let me show you. I was like, I'll follow you and you drive. He was like, no, you have to get in my

car so I can show you. So my wife is standing behind him like, now, we don't know him. Now, we're not getting in this car. And I'm like, I'm like, I can follow. He's like, no, you have to get in my car. So I'm like, all right. So me and my wife get in this car and we start traveling. He starts showing us all the properties he has, what he owns, what he purchased, what he did, how he did it. And he was like, this is what I do. And I was like, you know, I want to help you. And I was like, you know, you started telling me a story and I was like we really should teach people how to do it. And we started looking at different, you know, seminars and webinars. And we would see that a lot of people that look like me were charging people like $10,000

to teach them how to do real estate and charging a $15,000 and $7,500 and $30,000. And, you know, I said to CISO, I was like, that's not right. I'd rather people take that $10,000, put it into a property and see it out. So we said, let's start doing it. And we really started doing seminars just to piss those people. off. Like, basically say F you know, like, you're not going to do that. And we only expected like 50 people at the seminar that we did. And the first one we did, it was like 1,500 people. The second one was like 2000, then 5,000, then 10,000. And then we just started traveling and really teaching people

how to do real estate. But not only that, we would bring everybody there. So we would bring credit repair. We would bring a hard money lender. We would bring a conventional lender. We would bring contractors. We would bring an attorney. We would bring, you know, all these people and explain to them what these people did. And then if they wanted to talk to the people, it wasn't like, aha, but if you want to talk to them, it's an additional five thousand. No, it wasn't that at all. If you want to talk to them, yes, go talk to them. That's their job. And we kind of made a name by doing that and really helping the community learn how to invest in real estate. And, you know, we have so many calls of people that just bought their first home or were renting for 20 years and

never knew that they can do it. And that's really how we got into it. And at the same, same time. I just kept buying real estate and buying real estate and we bought a school and we're turning that into a 70 unit building and we just kept going like that and that's, you know, in music, I don't have a fund. There is no retirement. It's not like I have a retirement fund. There is no retirement for if you look for artists, DJs, nothing like that. You have to figure it out on your own. So this was my retirement. The fact that I can have 130 units and that money comes in, comes in for the rest of my life, whether I say something crazy on your podcast or say something crazy on the radio. It doesn't matter because nobody knows the homes that I own and that money

continues to come in. So even when I'm gone, my kids can still get money. And I always encourage people to really look at real estate. I'm not just saying just keep it one thing in your portfolio, but that's something that continues to bring generational wealth and continues to bring wealth no matter what happens, no matter how nasty it is outside, no matter if I lose my job, no matter if I go to the club, it get drunk. It doesn't matter what I do because that money will continue to come in. That's so good. So it makes sense why you love real estate so much. I mean, like, we all love real estate. I'm also curious if we can expand. Why, like, what in your past or what, what about you makes you so fired up to teach other people? You know, because there's a lot of people out there who just love real estate. And then there's something that about some people. I mean, like me and David here and obviously you two that says, no, we want the rest of the world to know about this too. Like, you guys, like, what do you guys think? Like, what brought that in? For myself, the same people that look like me to be able to invest in real estate and to be able to own their own property. You know, C's in Spanish. I'm black. So when we go and we're bidding on homes, we never see nobody that looks like us. Yeah. And we always say why,

you know, or we go to areas where, whether it's Brooklyn, whether it's Harlem, whether it's Patterson, whether it's Detroit, whether it's Chicago, whether it's parts of Florida. And these are areas where we are from and we live, but you see it being gentrified. And, you know, we're seeing people that don't live in our neighborhoods, but are taking care of our neighborhoods better than us, buying our neighborhoods up, and then the value goes up where we're pushed out and forced out, because nine times out of 10, a lot of us are renting. So teaching us how to do it, you know, same way. You don't need $100,000 to put down, you know. There is something called an FHA where you can get a loan. There are grants that can help you out and really trying to teach out people how to do it.

I'm good. I'm successful. I have money. Cesar's good. He's successful. He has money. But, you know, what's your legacy going to be? I got to be able to say, you know what? I was able to teach a community how to invest in in properties. We were able to teach somebody that had no clue and gave him inspiration. And the best feeling is when you hear somebody's mom hit us to say, hey, my son was 22. He was an F-Up and now he's into real estate because he came to your seminar. Or, you know, a kid that had no clue and was rented for 20 years and be like, I don't want to be like my mom. Can you teach me? And that's what we're doing. You know, one of our biggest shows ever, I think it's actually probably our biggest show of all time.

Ashley Hamilton from Detroit, a single young black mother. who used her like tax return money every single year to buy a property and fix it up and then rent the thing out. And over the course of a decade, she was able to like get out, complete financial freedom off doing that. It's like, I love that. Yeah, it's so good. It's so, yeah, it's not taught that widely. And you're right. When I go to a, I go to an auction and there's 50 guys that look just like me. Like, you know, like the, and it's not as widely taught. Brandon, where are you finding wizard auctions. Wizard?

That's what you look like. Everyone looks like me, a Gandalf wizard? Yes. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Okay, maybe not exactly like me. I do have a unique look to it. But, all right, so where do you guys see yourself headed real estate? I don't want to spend this whole show talking about real estate, obviously, but like,

where do each of you guys see this headed in the future? What do you want to get to? You know, when I first thought, all I wanted was 20, 20 units. That's all I wanted. And then 20 turn 50, 50, 50 turn to 100. And now I'm at a point where, you know, I just want my kids and my family to be good. You know, I want to, as much as people hate Donald Trump or hate the Rockefellers or hate whatever, I respect the fact that when I drive in these different areas and cities, you see his name plastic or buildings he owns.

And I want that to be for myself. I want to see my name on buildings that I own. I want to make sure that my kids are, you know, the fact that somebody could come to their father and say, hey, I need a million dollar loan. I couldn't come to my dad and be like that. I need $100 loan. My dad, like, where you're going to go get a job? You know what I mean?

But, you know, I want to encourage my kids to do that. Like, my daughter, who started her first year at NYU, she made me happy because her major is real estate, you know? That's cool. Not too many schools offer that, though. I'm not going to lie. But she was able to find a school and she's able to learn from dad. She's able to learn from Uncle C's and she's able to take the necessary classes.

But that's what I'm really encouraging people to do. Like, there's worker bees out there and the people that are going to work for the rest of their lives, but I also want to really push people to invest and really to create that financial freedom. So you can do what you want to do. If you want to be in sanitation and you want to become a garbage man, that's fine. I want you to, but I want you also to make sure that if something ever happens, you have money coming in. Did you guys get that bug where the first time you took all this money that you earned and you invested it into something that made it bigger, that something switched where you just got like addicted to that? I just want to put all my money into this thing. Did you have a

similar experience. What makes me the happiest is just putting a deal together and seeing a deal close from beginning to end. So just that first deal that I did, that first property, and after that, man, it was just, you know, like an addiction, you know, I just kept on and on and on. When I first started, me and my wife talk about it all the time, I said I wanted to make $5,000 a month in rental income. That's where I wanted. And then it went from $5,000 to $10,000. And I say, you know what, let me, let me go to 20, then for 20, you know, to 50 to 100 and so on and so far. I don't want to show off, right? But, you know, it just keeps on.

Where real estate is really, there's so many different ways that you could go from, you know, residential properties, commercial properties, developer, you know, that there's really no retirement, right? And the thing about real estate, especially when it comes to rental income, which is the thing that we push the most is when you think about everything in, right, every single career, right? either if you're an athlete, an attorney, a doctor, you know, you're a cop, a fireman. Eventually, your career will end, right? So your income and your salary won't be the same. But if you have rental properties, rental income is forever. And it goes down to your kids. And every year you raise the rents.

So your cash flow grows every single year. And it's one of the only things that is, you know, you could be financially secure with. Is that like thinking of like a little oil wells, right? where like every property you buy is a little oil well. It's like pumping out oil from the ground. And you like, you put all this work and you buy the one and you buy the second and you buy the third. And everyone's now just pumping oil. When you die someday, your kids get all those oil wells.

And, you know, with current tax laws, like the kids get out of like a stepped up tax basis and don't have to pay any taxes on like all that. It's, which may change, but it's, it's just so. Well, that's why I was wondering if you guys had that vibe. Because I remember the first time that it clicked with me, I felt like money's coming in from rental. property or money's coming in from work. But it hits you different when you know you didn't go trade time for that money. There's this sense of I did all this work and I have this thing that will now just keep on paying that for me became the source of my addiction. I just wanted to get more and more of those because there wasn't a connection between me getting up, driving a work, punching a clock to get

that money. I already did a bunch of that work. Now it's just going to come in. And v. Was it similar for you or was it something else that was driving you to get into this? It was definitely that. It was knowing that my kids would be great. And I tell everybody all the time, between the first and the fifth, when those envelopes come, and it could be a small bill, a small house, a small house that I own, and it's $1,000. That $1,000 means more to me than my paycheck because I feel like I work even harder for that.

You know, like, today, they just gave me a bunch of envelopes. And you're like, wow, like, I didn't have to do anything. You know, I already did the work for it. And it comes in every first of the fifth. And, you know, even with me, I'm blessed enough. where for me, I don't need that money. So when that money comes in, it goes right back out to another. See, the envelope right there.

Yeah, there you go. Carroll Street is one of the properties I own. But when it comes in, it goes right back out to another property. You know, so for myself, it's what else can you do? And I'm Caesar's patient. Tell you a quick story. We bought a house. I bought a house.

The person that bought the house before me, it was $12.8 million, right? I was able to get it for $5.4. But the house was probably, when I say I probably lost all the hair on my head, if I have any hair left, I probably turned gray because I just, it was just stressful. And he was like, envy, we're going to get the house. Just be careful. Just be calm. And I'm like, no, this is just too. I just can't take this no more. And he was like, when you get the house, it'll all be worth it. And we just did it evaluate. What was it valued at today? Nine million. Nine million. It was five four for it. Yeah, when did you buy that? Bought it February 2020. Oh, wow.

That's a nice way to make some equity. That's incredible. And it does. What's funny about real estate, actually, you hit on a really important point here. It's just that like when you're in the midst of it, like you're dealing with the drama and the stress. And we've all been there. All four of us have been there, right? We're just like, I'm just going crazy and I want to pull my hair out.

And then like, you get through it and you're like, oh, it was all worth it. Right. It's like that with almost every business, right? it's worth it if you keep that perspective long term. But that's what I think, this is the good yin-yang and yang, because he's like that. Like he's even no matter what it is now, he'd be like, yeah, I'm probably, don't worry about it. Just call this guy. We'll talk about it tomorrow.

My wife's like, no, we have to know now. She's like, we'll take care of it. I'll call. And, you know, there's nothing that's going to drive as crazy or kill us, but it always works itself out. All right. So how do you guys as wives play into your current, like, you know, real estate? And I mean just real estate, just your business life in general.

role. So everything you do, like how involved are they? Like, what, what role have they played? I'm curious of just like their role in your life. Well, my wife is pretty much my partner. You know, she's involved in everything. She's actually, I'm more of the check writer. She's actually more hands on. Okay. It was up to her. She would probably be out there fixing properties herself because her dad's a plumber. Her brother's an electrician. So I'm more of the guy that wants to pay everybody to do the stuff. She actually wants to get her, her hands dirty. But she's 100% involved. She's been with me since the beginning. And everything we do, you know,

everything we have, we, you know, we both did together. My wife is my partner. Not as hands-on in real estate. We've been married 20 years this May, but she is my partner. She handles the bills. She handles the numbers. She handles the finances. I try to keep her away real estate because she has very expensive taste. And a lot of times she doesn't know the difference between a flip property and our real home.

Yep. Like she's trying to go get chandeliers for a flip property, but that's her. And I would say one thing about his wife. So, you know, when we, when we, when we, bid on properties and we have to, a lot of times we go look at the properties before we bid on them. And a lot of times, of course, the doors are closed. His wife is the one that breaks into the house inside the theater. He's going to run through the window. She's going to, you know, wiggle through the bars.

She's going to, McGiver or something to get the door open. That is his wife. You know, she is strictly that. And, you know, she gets things done. That's awesome. For decades, real estate has been a cornerstone of the world's largest portfolios. But it's also historically been sort of complex. time-consuming and expensive.

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of their real estate or their ambitions to get? out of the left that they have. You know, like, there's like, hey, you know, I was raised blue collar, when we want to stay blue collar forever. This is what we are. That's perfect because his wife didn't believe it first.

His wife told him to go get a job. You want to tell him? Yeah, she tells me the other time, you're a dreamer. You're just like your father. Go drive a cab. My dad had a couple of calves in New York, the yellow calves,

the medallions, which actually my dad wanted me to get into the cab business too. And I chose not to. And I think I didn't because I was destroyed, you know, Uber pretty much destroyed. Yeah, killed it. This is in New York City. And all of them were like, you're a dreamer, blah, blah, blah, get a job.

And I didn't listen to them. You know, people got to understand. Well, real estate is numbers. If the numbers make sense, the numbers make sense anywhere in the country, you know. And the most important thing, though, the reason that we are successful in real estate is because we buy undermarket value properties and add value to them, right? We're not talking about, we're not teaching our seminar, you know, buy properties at retail over retail, right? That's not what we're teaching. You make your money when you buy, right?

because that's when you get your good deal. So that's the most important thing is buying undermarket value. You hit on a really good point there as well, Caesar, that had you invested into the taxi industry, you'd be in some trouble right now. There's innovation in business that you can't foresee coming, but it's very hard to see something replacing real estate. And I think that's another reason why we're all, why we double down on it and really why we're okay getting rich slow. Because real estate often takes time. I mean, if you buy right, like you said, Caesar, it's safer and you can. get some equity, but you're usually not crushing it right off the bat like somebody who starts a startup and it takes off. It's just so much safer than every other investment. Now,

I'm sure you guys have people that are afraid that'll say, I don't want to invest in real estate. What if I lose my money? What if this happens? What are, what's some of the advice you guys give people as towards why you believe this is an asset class that is solid? Well, you have to understand something. When I first started, just to give you an example, right? Like you said, it takes time. Because there's no such thing as overnight success. Most people don't understand that, right? They think, oh, my God, I saw this guy on Instagram. He's successful from yesterday.

It doesn't work like that. I've been doing this for 15 years. But just to give an example, when I first started, my rents in Patterson, New Jersey, were $900 for a free bedroom apartment. Today, those rents are $2,000 to $25,000. Right? So imagine, you know, just by me, you know,

sticking to, you know, my vision and just buy more and more properties where I am today because over time with real estate, your values just keep on going. And especially with rental properties, right? My first love is rental properties. Yeah, I like flipping properties. But I think rental properties is really the key to long-term wealth just because over time, every year you raise the rents, right? In New Jersey, we could do 5% every year.

So when you do those numbers and you have 50, 100, 200 units at 5% every month. Once you raise that rent in January, that's a big. difference as far as cash flow, right? And then the other thing is, when you look at every single economy in the last, you know, any change in the economy in the last, you know, 10, 15, 20 years, rents never go backwards. They always go up. It doesn't exist when you see rents going backwards. It doesn't happen. You're exactly right. We saw that in 2010 when all the foreclosures were happening. Price is dropped and you would have expected rents would drop too. But what happened is all these people that lost their house needed somewhere to live and the people who didn't lose their

had the rentals. And so demand for rent actually went up. And when I look at real estate, I feel like there's one Achilles heel and the whole thing, one thing that can make it not work. And it's if you don't have a tenant because you got really one income source when you have a rental property. But we're seeing that that is, that just doesn't happen. Rents don't go down. They go up as inflation goes up, but your your cost stay the same. And I think, I mean, that's, once you see how that clicks, I feel like people, there's a sense of calmness and security that comes from investing in real estate that before you get in, you just can't really see that. You got all these what ifs going on in your head.

You guys find that's a problem for a lot of people you're teaching. Yeah, that's the main problem is the what ifs is, you know, somebody else get their credit right. They'll, you know, they'll find out how much they can actually get from a lender. They'll find a property, but they just don't want to pull the trigger, you know, and that's the main thing is getting people to pull the trigger. And, you know, we just try to encourage them, like, do it. You can do it. As long as you're getting the property for less than the value, as long as, and we tell a lot of people to do this.

especially the first time buyers, you know, buy a two family or three family, you know, live on one of the floors, rent out the top two. They pay your mortgage for free and you make a little bit. Then when you get comfortable, go and get the next property. And that's what we encourage people. So that way they're not scared because we tell people all the time, you buy this property and you have a tenant, you're probably going to, it's probably going to be way less than what you play in rent anyway.

So we don't tell people to make that chance. And most people do that. They start off with a two family or three family. They live on one floor, run out the other two, and then they get comfortable. They understand what it is. And then from there, they'll jump and do it again. And that's what we really feel good. But we definitely push people to really take that jumping to do it.

My very first house, like rental house was a duplex. It was two houses on one lot, right? I lived in one little houses in the back in the alley. Like, it was this crappy little one bedroom house. But I lived there for free. And like, I mean, we stole that property today. I'm actually going to sell it now shortly just because it's appreciated so much. But like, that got me into real estate.

Like, I didn't have to pay a mortgage anymore because that other unit paid my entire rent. And so then I moved on to another one, rented that out. Now I'm making $6, $700 a month in cash flow for years on that property. It was amazing. Coincidentally, this has nothing to do with the investment, but we found out later it was Kirk Cobain's like childhood home that it was like a baby home. He was only like a year old when he lived there. But anyway, that was random. Doesn't do me anything at all but a fun story to tell on podcast. But anyway, just kind of cool. So yeah, that was my very first thing. And I tell everyone the same thing. We call it house hacking, right? Live in one unit, rent the other ones out. So it's an amazing way

to get started. All right, a couple more questions, but we'll throw out you. First of all, let's go to this one. What's something that you each enjoy doing that you never get tired of? Like, what's something in your business that you're just like, this is my, I love this thing. I'm this, this guy. In the business? Sure. Yeah, in your business. I love looking at homes. I enjoy looking at homes. Homes and cars. That's my two things. So at night when I can't sleep, I'm looking at homes and cars. You know what I mean? When I'm on a plane, I'm looking at homes and cars. I'm buying, you know, home books and car books. Those are the two things that I really, really enjoy. So those, that's, that's what I do. And if I get an opportunity to look at a house, I love,

like, we go look at houses. It doesn't matter if it's the, the, the, the, shishiest house. If it has heroin needles all over the place, you know, we walked in the houses that had ish on every floor. One time, it was a guy, you know, sleeping in one of the properties we bought. Another time, there was a guy on the balcony. He had two chicks he was having, you know, he had like a whole. Like, these are the things that. that I really, really enjoy. So for me, it's looking at going to see these houses.

I love it. For me, I just love putting a deal together, man. It's just the art of the deal, you know, which is one of my favorite books of all time. But I just love putting a deal together, man, you know, for start to finish in getting the deal closed. And getting people in there, renting the property, a son of the property.

It's just like a high for me. Do you find Caesar that that's because you have a stronger creative side and you get to exercise it when you're putting all the pieces together? Well, just like my wife, me. I am a dreamer. So I actually, you know, could dream through anything, you know, and dream about it and how it's going to, you know, what the finished product will be. And I would say one thing that you said about what makes I call Caesar a genius. Like the other day, you know, we just purchased a home and we walk into the house. And the house is, it's a two family and you could

in the attic, a finished attic. So we walk in there and, you know, we're looking at the house and seeing the work that has to be done. And I see Caesar, you know, walking, just sitting in the corner, just looking and calculating. And he has the mind frame to be like, you know what? This is two floors, two bedrooms. I can only get this amount of money for that. I need to make it a three bedroom and was able to figure out, you know what, we're going to cut this wall, put a wall here, put a door here, make it three bedrooms, this, that, and you have up. And instead of getting, let's say, $1,800 a month of it, now we pull in $2,300 a month plus the addict. So he's able to figure that out. Like, that's, like, I would have had to go back and think about that. But for him,

always on his mind more and more, more, more and more. Hey, oh, there's a garage there. Oh, I can finish this garage and I can charge the money to park their cars in this garage. Like, he's that way of thinking. And I know I have to get to that. Like, that really impresses me about the way he thinks. You've accomplished quite a few great things in your life as well. And I want to, I want to get into learning a little bit about your mindset and how you did it. But we've acknowledged, you know, Caesar kind of has that creative ability. He could see a vision. What would you say that your skill is that you bring to the partnership? I would say creative and marketing. I went to school for business management and marketing.

And most people thought I would have went to school for communications. But I was already a DJ so I didn't need. Nobody could teach me out of DJ, you know. So for myself is putting the play together, you know. I just remember when I first met Caesar, CZZ didn't want to talk. He didn't want to speak. But I knew that Cesar was a star at his own right. You know, what does a star look like?

Nobody knows. But what he was talking and where he came from and the obstacles that he, you know, jumped over in hoops, like, oh, he could be a star. So my whole thing was, well, let's market this together. Let's market from the start to flip where now we have, you know, he has a book, you know, we have a TV show that we, you know, we're doing with 50 cent where it's going to be the first time where you see two dudes that look like us really teaching people how to make money in real estate where we're not putting on a suit. We're not putting on a tie in a bow tie and saying, hey, are you doing?

No, we're doing it the way that we do it because this is honestly how we do it and we do it the right way. So I would say for myself is the business side, the marketing side, and they're taking it from here and bringing it up there. Yeah. So what I see is that you are sort of driving opportunity. And then Caesar's taking that and figuring out like, well, what do I do with it? Like you're supplying the resources and then he's making them work. And this is, Brandon and I talk about this all the time when you're looking for a partner. You don't want to go find your friend and say, well, we like each other. So let's get into business. You're literally looking for a partner that has a skill set that you don't have.

There's a reason you don't have a Kobe Bryant and a Michael Jordan on the same team. You have a Kobe Bryant and a Shaquille O'Neal. They're complimenting each other. Same thing for a lot of athletes. And so I really like that you guys recognize that about each other and that you're both quick to say, here's where I'm not good. I think a lot of people are loath to acknowledge a skill that they don't have or an area of weakness.

Whereas successful people, they grab that right away. They're like, yeah, I can't shoot free throws. I don't want to be the person going to the free throw line. You handle that side of the business. I really commend you guys for that. Hey, I want to jump into your kind of business management of your life for a second here, navigating a little bit away from real estate. It's for both of you, but I'll start with NVA on this one.

You got a lot of things going on. You got a lot of business. You got the 50 cent thing, which is, that's awesome. I can't wait to hear more about that. But like you got, you know, the radio stuff. You got the real estate stuff. How do you manage your life? I mean, I know you have a business manager.

Is that right? You have somebody that like, I know, we were talking with. June, I think it was. Like, how does that, how does your life run? I'm just wondering, like, to be able to manage all that you have going on. If I like it, I go, I go hard. So everybody around me kind of does the same thing. They rarely sleep, like to go hard, but we enjoy it.

So for instance, June, who you just spoke to is somebody I know since I was in high school, whose school is an engineer and who left his job as an engineer to pretty much manage me, which I don't know how smart that was, but I mean, he's doing pretty good. But that's June. So June handles everything when it comes to music, whether it's DJing, shows, endorsements, albums, anything that comes with music, he pretty much handles all of that. Then I have an assistant, her name is Mercedes. She handles anything when it comes to anything outside of that. So for me, I have a water company.

It's called Positivity Water that's in city trends, Kroger's. It's in the Atlanta airport that does pretty good. We have a top pop, which is a soda, which was big growing up in New York, which I, I, I own a part of that. I have a podcast with me and my wife. It's called The Casey Crew, which we talk about everything that's, you name it. We have five kids. So it's merch.

It's YouTube. It's SoundCloud. It's appearances. It's the podcast. It's flyaways. It's traveling. I also have a car show. Now, I own 14 or 15 cars.

I own 15 cars. And we do these car shows every year. And, you know, people say, well, why do you have so many cars? Well, my dad always said, if you have a hobby, make it make money for you. If not, it'd be a distribution. And that's what my car shows do. So we have these car shows every year in Jersey. This year will be Jersey, Atlanta, Detroit, Dallas, and one of the market I can't think of in Atlantic City. And we do these car shows. And the car shows get about 10 to 15,000 people where people who see different

cars. But I don't make it about the celebrities. Because if I make it about the celebrities, sometimes I get the wrong crowd. I make it about the celebrity's cars. So I'll get Cardi B's car. I'll get 50 cents car, Michael Strahan's car, Dr. Oz's car, just different cars from different people. So you can come, you can bring your kids. And we do it like a fun day. So there's slides and rides for kids, but then adults can look at the cars, but then the women get their nails done and get a facial. So we do those type of things with the cars. I have a book that's coming out next year, May 22. I'm trying to think of all the businesses I own. I have a juice bar that I own with Angela Yee and Stiles P in Brooklyn. In Brooklyn,

that does pretty well. So, you know, I have hands in a little bit. everything and everybody has a job and everybody knows their job and even with the real estate if it wasn't for season he's able to help me guide and tell me oh you need to do this you need to make sure as in this LLC oh you need to call account on oh you just got a ticket for not cutting your grass you got to go pay that ticket like he's able to make sure that he gets it done and what we do is we you know board an office so that you know we're in the same space every day so we just bounce ideas off of each other all the time that's awesome yeah i was actually going to ask how you kind of manage your portfolio and I'll ask both of you guys this question is yeah how how does that

work maybe a caesar do you have property managers you guys have just all that in-house like what's that look like so right now I have probably about 30 employees okay I have about three project managers five property managers and a lot of contractors yeah and his brother is actually the property manager so his brother is the one that he's the number one property he's the number one probably I mean, he goes and picks up the rent and if there's all it broken or if anything, like, he takes care of all of that. But again, my problem is, too, that it's hard for me to, like, I have a big team. But certain parts of my life, especially now, I do need more help. But it's kind of hard for me to, like, let go.

So I still have that part of me, you know, where, like, M.B. has, you know, June. He has Mercedes. I need a Mercedes in June, right? but I'm so hands on that it's kind of, it's kind of tough for me, man, because pretty much at this point now, my whole, my number of prior is finding the deals,

right? Finding deals. But there's certain things that maybe I don't have to look at every single contract or I don't have to go to every single appraisal. I don't have to go for every single walk for like, I bought free bullies in Chicago in the last couple months. I actually flew out there and I did a walk through every single property when they could have just face time you'll send me a video.

But I'm so hands on that I need to touch everything, you know? And so I kind of do have that issue and I need to let go a little bit more. Dude, I'm right there with you. I spent the whole weekend remodeling my closet into a little playroom, sleeping room for my one-year-old. So I'm like, I could have hired this out.

But I feel like I had to get in there and get my hands dirty into it. So I'm right there with you. That's cool, man. All right, well, let's go. One more question kind of before we move on. I like to ask this question occasionally. If you look back,

what was the greatest day of your, and I'll say real estate investing life, but if you want to pivot that one to just business life in general. Like what day, what memory when you think back just makes you smile go, oh, yeah, that was a good day. I have two. One, when I bought this new house that I'm about to move in, I bought it. That one was a great one. And when I bought those properties in Detroit, not when I actually bought the properties,

but when I seen what they were worth a year later, I couldn't believe it. You know, we bought those properties for like 10 to 15,000 of property. and we sold them for about 260 to 290 each. No. Nothing. Or cut the grass. Dang. I invested in the wrong areas.

Yeah. That was like that was the fact that I got in early and was able to buy that. That was that. And the third one, it was the third one. I'm sorry. We just bought a school. The fact that we bought a school is just the fact that we walk into school and be like, yeah, we own this is like.

Like, crazy to me. Like, we bought a school, you know, that we're going to turn into units. I'm like, this is, it's just one of those things. Like, wow, never in a million years. To me, for me, it was, um, it was probably like year number seven or eight, right? There was a 30 unit building. And this was when I was getting into the bigger properties, right? Now, you know, I had a couple six unit buildings, eight, 10 unit buildings.

So this is my first big property that I'm getting. I'm looking at the numbers I see as a great deal. I'm getting the building for 1.8 million, right? I see the cash for already, and I'm like, you know what? This building is probably worth about four or four and a half. The reason that I got as so cheap was because there was four brothers that owned the building together. They were Italian. And each brother has six kids.

So once the brothers passed away, now you have 24, you know, errs, right? And they're all fighting with each other, whatever. They don't want to do. You know, they're fighting about everything. So I got a great deal. So I go to this bank, right? And we're about to close the deal. and they come in the room

and the guy's like, hey, did you stop doing what you were doing before? And I was like, what do you mean? He's like, yeah, you have a criminal record. And I was like, yeah, but I'm buying this building under my wife's name. It has nothing to do with me. And, you know, he brought that up, right? Which kind of bothered me, right?

I'm just looking at this guy and, yeah, you know, this guy, he's not a nice guy, right? So they already have given us a commitment at that point. So we close on the deal. They do the loan because at this point they can't really back back out the deal. Our taxes are great. We have assets, right? And at this point, they're like, do you really know what you're doing? I'm like, yeah, I know what I'm doing.

So a couple months later, I come back and I tell them I want to refinance now, this property, right? Well, give me a lot of credit. Give me $250,000 and I'm happy. You know, I put a couple hundred thousand into the building. The buildings make more money now. You know, I got different tenants. I'm turning everything around. So they tell me, no, you're moving too fast.

I'm like, what do you mean? You're moving too fast. You're buying properties too quickly. So a couple months later, I end up refinancing with a different bank. And at the closing table, I sent them a picture of the HUD and the check. So I ended up refinancing that property and pulling out $2 million. Ooh. That's a good day.

That's a real good day. One of like the highlights of my career just rubbing in those guys' faces. Yeah. You know, called me a criminal. And, you know, that was one of my biggest highlights. That's so good. Awesome, guys. All right.

Well, we got to get you guys out of here in just a minute. But let's go to the last segment of our show here. It's time for our Famous for All right, this is the Famous For the part of the show where we ask the same four questions to every guest every week and so this is really more like the famous eight today

because we got two of you here. So we'll toss it at each of you. First of all, let's go NB. We'll start with you. What's your, do you have a favorite or like an all-time favorite or impactful real estate book? Anything you've read in your past

that you're like, yeah, that real estate book changed my life. It's a new book. It's called flipping keys. It's a sort of a seat. Lisa. How to get into the real estate business. He didn't come from. He came from nothing. Absolutely. Lurt real estate in jail. How crazy is that? I think this is the best book out there right now. I love it. Cesar, what do you think? Anything other than that one? I hear it's phenomenal. To be honest with you, my old-time favorite book is actually the order of the deal by Donald Trump. I read that book in prison. I read the rich dad, poor dad and all those other books. But I just, I read the rich dad, poor dad, and all those other books. But I, I just, I just, I think that Darden the deal by Donald Trump, I think that's one of the greatest real estate books ever.

I've never read it. Is it worth reading? Yeah, it's definitely a good book. So there's a lot of, is there like creative strategies? Is that basically what the books focused on? You know, like I said, my old time high is putting a deal together. So that's definitely one of my favorite books. All right. What about your favorite business book? No, I don't think I have it. I think we're pretty much more self-educated than anything else. You know, we're just figuring out when it comes to you. I'll pivot and it might be, you might have nothing to say there either.

I'm curious. Do you have a favorite business personality mentor teacher or someone that you like to follow? Maybe you listen to on YouTube or something like that. Me personally, and this is just growing up from my environment, is Jay-Z. And the reason I say Jay-Z is because what he's been able to do with a lot of his businesses, you know, what Jay-Z does is he gets into a business. He brings the equity way up and sells it. He did it with Rockefeller.

He did it with, what was his clothing line called? Rockaware. He just did it with Asa Spade. He does it with a lot of his businesses. And that really inspires me because I see what he does. He buys it. He makes the world love it. And then he sells it and makes $500 million. But then he doesn't just walk away. He invest a lot of that money back into the communities, which I really love. Brandon often says the Mark Cuban quote that business is a sport. And what it's really getting down to is there are fundamentals, just like any sport that when you learn them, you can play it. And like that's a great example you're giving of what you guys do in real estate is the same principles that what Jay-Z is doing with businesses, you, when you learn those

fundamentals, you can apply them to whatever business you want to get into, which is awesome, because there's a million, there's billions of people that are in the world. They all have different personalities and different things they're interested in. But these principles work for everybody. So that's a great answer. Thank you for that. I'm not one to usually throw around Jay-Z quotes or anything like that. But like the one line, he, I know where he's going with this. Yeah, I'm not a businessman. I'm a business man. Yeah. That's so good. You said the one Jay-Z quotes. I know. That's the only one I know. Thank you for setting him up for that one line. Yes. That's why. All right. See, what about you?

Any online influencers or anybody that you follow? I like Grand Cardone. Yeah. You know, like I said, I'm about the units. You know, he has 10,000 units. And I like Gary, too. Both legit guys. Both been, I guess, have our podcast in the past. So good dudes. All right. Next question, David. Well, we haven't got Jay Z on our podcast. Is that weird? We have not got Jay Z yet on our podcast. We need Jay Z and 50 cent. Those are on my list now. That's my guy. If he's my guy. When that show comes out, if you want him to get some promotion for that show, I would love to have him on the show.

Yeah, that's absolutely great. And if not, we'll take DJ Shrimp, if you can get it. All right. What about some of you guys's hobbies? I would say my hobbies are my cars. I love cars. As a kid growing up in Queens, you know, I'm like any other kid. You know, you pointed a call and say, that's my car. You know, so now that I got a little older and I could afford them, I buy them, you know, from, I have a 1988 M3E30. I have, you know, 850, the old Ben, you know, old BMW with the lights that go up. I got SLR McLaren with the doors that go up. These are all kids. All cars are seen as a kid that I want it.

So I think my hobbies is cars and my kids, you know, I have five kids. So I'm pretty much an Uber driver when I leave here. Are you, do you view your cars as an investment at all or do you treat them as like, it's just fun? Or do you treat them as an investment? Both. So I purchase cars that will appreciate in value. The majority of all my cars appreciated value, whether it is my E30M3, which is the first M3 that they made, the first M series, I paid $15,000 for it. It's worth about $80,000 now, has $80,000 miles on it. My eight series paid about $20,000 is worth $50,000. I have a 918 spider. I paid about $1.1 for it. It's worth about $1.5. I just ordered a Ford GT. I paid about 500 for and it's worth about 1.1 now. So, yeah, so a lot of my cars are appreciating value. Some of them are just, I lease it and I just like them because I like them,

but the majority of them are they appreciate value. It's amazing. As far as me, I like toys. WWF, 80s wrestling or GI Joe's. He man. I wish you'd see his office. His office is behind us right here and he has nothing but wrestlers, Star Wars, Star Wars, G.I. Joe's all the same.

You literally. mean toys. I thought you meant like grown-up toys, like jet skis, cars. You know, especially the kid, you know, I'm 42, so I think back when we're growing up, toys will way better now. Thundercats? Oh, I love Thundercats. Voltron. Transformers. Any toy you can think about from the 80s and 90s, I collected all of. My kids come here and love it. They love the best toys. Are they like out of the box, like you could play with them? They're not like still wrapped up in the packaging. Oh, those are keep at home.

The investments, right? There's a lot of information going around right now from some pretty influential people about the inflation that's happening with the U.S. currency. And wealthy people are actually looking and investing into things outside of the dollar. So cryptocurrency is one we all know about, but baseball cards, action figures, comic books,

this type of stuff is, for the people listening that don't know, wealthy people are already getting into this because they're losing faith in the value of the dollar. It's crazy right now. that basketball card market and, you know, baseball card, I know guys with a lot of money and they're investing millions and millions and millions going up. And like, one of my friends told me the other day what he invested like $2,000 and he's up nine million. I'm looking at him. Baseball card? And now he's teaching me and I'm looking at him. He's right.

Gary V talks a lot about, you know, baseball guys. I thought he was, it was like a, it was a gimmick, it was like, you know, it's kind of a silly little thing. I didn't realize until recently that, like, that's a legit thing. Like, people are doing. this. He's official, bro. He's one of the big dogs right now. And I think Gary, he pushes the culture, too. You know, he's one of those guys that can say it and it'll go up in price. But he was on it early. He told me about it early. And I was like, Gary Vee, you're bugging. All right. Last question from me anyway. What do you think separates successful real estate investors from all those people who just never start. They never, you know, they never, they give up early. You know, like what,

what stops people from giving up? I think it's the drive. And I think that's in anything, you know, I tell everybody all the time, we all know a DJ, and this is not big of myself up, but we all know a DJ. We all grew up with a DJ. We all grew up with a DJ in high school, DJ in college,

but where are they now? Most of them are not DJ. Not because they weren't better than me because I'm not the best DJ out there, but I'm the one that's going to push the hardest. I'm the one that's not going to sleep. I'm the one that's going to outwork you. I'm the one that's going to continue to push no matter what.

I have that drive, you know, and that's what makes me better than all those other DJs. And I think that's the same. same thing with real estate. It's Caesar has that drive. I have that drive. Like when I come into the office, I tell everybody all the time, Caesar's on his phone so much. He's actually on auction.com. He's on hubs. He's on all these different websites looking for properties, looking for homes because this is his life and this is what his investment is. When I call him on the phone, he's like, envy meet me at this property

over here. Invie, meet me like it's real estate 24-7. And that's the reason why he's so successful in. It's that drive. It's that drive will take you out of being regular to being one of the greatest. That's a thing with a lot of people too, right? The other thing is that people think that anything that you do, right, I think in life there's no such thing as a perfect situation, right? You get into something and you have to build it up. And then eventually that situation, you make it into a perfect situation. But along the road, you got to bob and weave.

You know what I mean? There's going to be times like the thing, you know, a tenant's not going to pay the rent. Or you won't be able to do a closing and flip a property this week. You know, there was a snowstorm. nobody who comes to the closing table is going to be next week. So I think a lot of times people, you know, they get punched in the face and they don't know how to move around pretty much, but you got to understand nothing's ever perfect. You know, there is no such thing as the perfect deal, the perfect situation.

You make that deal perfect by putting in that work. All right, guys, this has been a great interview. Really appreciate it. You guys gave some incredibly insightful answers. Where can people find out more about you that wants some follow up? You can follow me at DJ NV. He's at flipping underscore NJ. And we do seminars all across the country.

So our next seminar is going to be March 14th in Atlanta where we actually teach people how to do it. You know, we don't charge thousands of dollars for it because that's not what we do it for. We actually do it because we want to give back to our community. We want to get to a spot where we can get a Home Depot or Lowe's a MasterCard or Discover to basically say, hey, we'll fund it, but less than community. So that's where we want to go. So our next one is at Atlanta. And during those seminars, we bring people. We bring credit repair.

We bring conventional lenders. We bring hard money lenders. We bring sometimes people from auction.com to explain how the system works and how you can do it. We show you pictures. We show you the huds. We show you everything so you can never be like, that's not true. No, we bring it and we break it down. We answer questions and we really get thorough with people because we want them to be able to invest.

We want to make sure that everybody's not renting. So our next one is March 14th. And we're doing one in New York in April or May as well. So that's what we are. but you can always follow us on Instagram. And remember, pick up Sears' new book, flipping keys. There we go. If you want to learn how to get in the industry with nothing,

so it's a great story, really great story. I'm picking it up today. Appreciate you guys. Thank you so much. If you ever want to do a Maui, you know, seminar, you know where to find me. I'm out here in Maui. We'll do a real estate seminar from the beach.

It'll be amazing. I'm not mad at that. I've been there before I stayed at four seasons. Oh, yeah. So nice. Yeah, he's like five minutes from, well, I probably shouldn't say that on the podcast. podcast. I'm like five minutes from that. I can see it from my, I can see it right now, but look up my window.

See it from my house. There you. Yeah, it's not bad. All right, guys, thank you so much. David, you want to get us out of here? Caesar, Envy. Thanks a lot, guys. This is David Green for Brandon. I'm not a businessman. I'm a businessman. Turner, signing off. You're listening to Bigger Pockets Radio, simplifying real estate for investors large and small. If you're here looking to learn about real estate investing, without all the hype, your a right place. Stay tuned and be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from BiggerPockets.com. Your home for real estate investing online. Thank you all for listening to the Bigger Pockets Real Estate podcast. Make sure you get all our new episodes by subscribing on YouTube,

Apple, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Our new episodes come out Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I'm the host and executive producer of the show, Dave Meyer. The show is produced by Ian K. Copywriting is by Calicoe Content and editing is by Exodus Media. If you'd like to learn more about real estate investing or to sign up for our free newsletter, please visit www.w.w.w.com. The content of this podcast is for informational purposes only.

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