BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 509: Cars & Cashflow: Manny Khoshbin’s Story from Homeless to $1B
Episode Date: September 23, 2021If you scroll through Manny Khoshbin’s Instagram, you’ll see wealth, success, and a lot of very nice automobiles. You may look at his life and say “well, that must be nice”, but there is much ...more to Manny than Ferraris and private planes. A few decades ago, Manny was homeless, sleeping in a car with five other family members, simply trying to survive in America. Manny’s dad wanted to protect his son from entering the military in Iran, so two weeks before Manny’s birthday, the family packed up and left for the United States. They were homeless for a couple of months but slowly were able to find jobs and scrape together some money. Manny worked at a swap meet, a K-mart, a multi-level marketing company selling snacks, and other various jobs. As he was working he realized that the people driving the Porches, Lamborghinis, and Mercedes were all investing in real estate. After making money in his entrepreneurial endeavors, he bought his first commercial property. Now, two and a half decades later, Manny is sitting on a billion dollars worth of real estate. Oh, and did we mention he bought this all without syndicating? In This Episode We Cover: Manny’s “American Dream” story from immigrant to multimillionaire Why commercial real estate is such a profitable investment Value-add opportunities and flipping commercial real estate over the span of a few years Which real estate industries are on the downward trend (and which to invest in) The steps new real estate investors should take to make it big Why Manny’s luxury cars are an investment, not just toys And So Much More! Links from the Show: auction.com BPCON2021.COM Elon Musk Holly Burton Dave Ramsey SpaceX FedEx CVS KMart Amazon Target Books Mentioned in this Show: Trump: The Art of the Deal by Donal Trump Manny Khoshbin’s Contrarian Playbook by Manny Khoshbin Driven: The Never-Give-Up Roadmap to Massive Success by Manny Khoshbin Check the full show notes here: https://biggerpockets.com/show509 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcript
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This is the Bigger Pockets podcast show 509.
I tell people, it said, grind now so you can shine later, spending the fruits of your investments.
So, you know, believe it or not, that power of compounding, you know, taking that one first house I bought, flipped it, bought two more homes.
And then that first shopping center, I tend to everyone exchange the with your property into another one, office building, and then a high rise.
And then a multiple high rises in a portfolio I bought as a group.
So I didn't buy Ferrari.
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.
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What's going on of everyone? It's Brennan Turner, host of the Bigger Pockets podcast here with my co-host, Mr. David Green.
David, man, I didn't have a good nickname for you today, but what's up? How you doing?
I'm doing pretty good. The Northern California and the Southern California markets are
softening up a little bit. I think a lot of the buyers that were competing over the houses
just got frustrated and backed out. So we're actually able to put people in contract again.
I don't know if I mentioned it, but I'm looking for another house for myself to house hack,
maybe a couple of them. So if for those people that were like, hey, I really want to get a house,
but it's too hot. Some of that is shifting. The buyer psychology is, it's like,
in Gladiator. Remember they talked about like the mob. They'll be with you and then they'll be against you. It happens very quickly. Fleeting. Fleeting. Well, good luck, man. You deserve something great. Thank you. Speaking of something great. You like that transition. Today's episode is with Manny K-K-S-H-Mashbin. So if you guys don't know Manny. Huge Instagram account, you can find him at Manny K-H-O-S-H-B-I-N. So Manny and he has 2.2 million followers over there on Instagram and for good reasons. Got an amazing
account. But here's a cool thing about Manny. Manny has been invested in real estate for like 20 some years,
almost 30 years, very, very successful. But in almost a billion dollars worth of real estate,
does most of it, or really almost all of it, with his own money. So it's not like syndicating.
He just has snowballed wealth to a massive level. And he does a lot of what's called value ads.
So the first, the first half of the show, it's really about his story today. You're going to hear
about a story about being homeless, working at Kmart. I think he said before we were recording,
he was making three bucks an hour at Kmart. And that to where,
where he is today, buying some incredible real estate, some huge deals, and some really amazing cars.
We talk a little bit about the car thing today as well, which you'll see on his Instagram.
It's not quite what you might think.
I was actually pretty surprised at his kind of logic behind it.
Now I'm like, I'm going to go buy some cool cars.
So you hear about that and more coming up.
Also, make sure you listen towards the end of the interview.
He lays out a bunch of tips for adding value to real estate, how to dramatically make the price go up,
especially when it comes to bigger deals, but really any real estate.
That concept and some of the tips he gives there are going to make some people listen to this show millions of dollars over their career.
So listen for that and more all coming up.
But first, let's get to today's quick tip.
Today's quick tip is avoid the temptation of wanting to just carbon copy somebody else's success.
It's so easy to say, how did you do it?
Okay, control C, control V.
Now I've done it.
The problem is nothing in life actually works that way.
In today's episode, Manny, it's command on a Mac.
It's command C, command V.
That's why it doesn't work that way.
I do use a Mac.
I just don't like being labeled as a Mac.
Okay.
What was that really funny joke you had?
I'm a millennial.
We don't like labels.
I think that's just still such a hilarious joke.
Yeah.
I don't think that was supposed to be a joke.
I think I was saying that legit.
Anyway, keep going.
Well, it was funny to me.
Today's guest, Manny describes how his deep understanding of the fundamentals of real estate,
not esoteric rocket science level stuff, really basic, simple things that he has mastered
at a high level.
allows him to find ways to make properties work that somebody would miss if they're just looking for command C. Command C, Control C, Control V.
I don't know. Command. Yeah, Control C does flow, but then it's just wrong. I mean, if you're okay being wrong, David, that's okay. If you're okay with that, but you know, how you do anything is how you do everything.
I don't know if it's politically correct to talk about commanding. We should probably. I guess controlling is just as bad. All right. This quick tip has gone completely off the rails.
Remember was open Apple? It was like Open Apple C, open Apple B, but that was too long. So they changes the command on my little Apple keyboard now.
I don't remember that, but there is an Oregon trail reference later in this show that would probably work well with your open apple for that age demographic.
So, quick tip summed up.
Don't look for ways to copy someone else's success.
Instead, focus on mastering the thing you're getting into.
And then the ways that you will be successful will make themselves known to you.
Yeah, so that I quote from, I think everyone has said this, but success leaves clues, right?
It's like, success isn't a follow this step by step, the cookbook.
It's not a cookbook, right?
but there's a lot of clues out there and a lot of really good ingredients that then you can learn to be a great chef.
So how's that for an analogy, man?
Look at that.
I'm taking over your analogy roll.
You would have dropped your mic, but it's got an arm, so it just hangs there.
I could push it down just like, like that.
That's like the new thing.
It's dropping mics.
It's smashing mics.
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All right.
And with that said, I think it's time to get into our episode today with Manny Kochbeen.
You guys are going to love this show.
I loved it.
I think he's a fantastic guy doing some really big stuff in real estate.
Very smart, very driven.
And you're all going to hear more from Manny right now.
Anything you want to add before we jump in, David?
No, let's get to it.
Mani, welcome to the Bigger Pockets podcast, man.
It's an honor to have you here.
Thank you.
Likewise.
Thanks.
So let's dive into your story a little bit.
I know you got kind of a crazy long entrepreneurial journey,
and we'll get from that into real estate.
So where does this all begin?
Oh, my God.
This is going to take a couple of hours, but I'll shorten it.
I'm from Iran originally, and back 30 years ago, there was an Iran, Iraq war.
and when you reach age 14, you're automatically drafted into the army.
And my dad had seven brothers and four of them got crippled from being injured in the war.
So two weeks before my 14th birthday, my dad decided to bolt and didn't want me to get pulled into the army.
And that was a very sudden decision on his part.
And with four kids, you know, in short order, jumping ship from one country to another,
it takes a lot of balls and a lot of guts.
And at the time, I didn't realize what he's doing.
But we arrived in US in 1985 with a little over $2,000.
And my dad was promised a job at a gas station pumping full service gas.
When we arrived here, that job had gone away.
And that puts us on a very bad spot.
So, you know, we were pretty much homeless.
Now, my dad was educated.
He was a CPA by trade.
And he was able to get a job.
I took a couple of months.
So for that couple of months, you know, we had to live in a car.
It was very hard times, you know, six people in a 1972 Dotson station wagon.
And I turned all that, you know, guilt.
I had a lot of guilt because everybody's suffering because of me.
So I turned that into motivation.
Now, mind you, I didn't speak a word of English.
I didn't know anybody.
I didn't have no money.
And I didn't have any, you know my way around.
It's a new place, right?
So it was a lot of obstacles I had to overcome.
But my first job was every time I took the trash out to the dumpster, I noticed people leave stuff outside the dumpster.
I'm like, hey, it's a nice chair.
You know, it's not broken or a toaster or a black and white TV or what have you.
So I would haul those back to my apartment patio.
And then after a while, you know, I realized we got to have a place to sell these.
Across from our apartment, there was Orange Post College.
They had to swap me every weekend.
So me and my brother haul those across the street and got a couple of them.
spots and that was my first business for two years. And yeah, until 16, I was able to legally work and
I applied at Kmart as a clerk and mopping the floors, collecting shopping cards. And I got
promoted within the two years I was there three times. At the end of the day, I knew that's not
where I want to stop. And it's a stepping stone. So I was always getting the Sunday paper looking
for employment opportunities. I found a company that sold nuts and candies,
door to doors of multi-level marketing i applied for it within three months i was at one of the top
sales people so one day i'm at uh a price club back then it wasn't costco it was price club and i did a
quick math on the cashews and jilly beans or juju-jubes i'm like wait i'm at this company selling
half a eight-ounce bags to me at three bucks and if i buy a whole pound it's you know a buck
50 so i can you know save like 70 percent on the cost so i went into business for my own i really
had my customers. So I started my own business, UWP, on the whole-sale
product. I was 18, little over 18 years old. Had to have my dad call signed for a small
office for me, and I went to pay phones and put earn 100 bucks a week, tear up my phone number,
and I got four employees. Within six months, I was making $4,000 a month. To me, that was like
the American dream, being 18. After that, I got caught by health department, and I didn't know
any of the health permit. I didn't know any of the health permit. Every time you repackaged food for
resell purposes, you have to have a permit. And I didn't know that. And they shot me down. I had
$20,000-some thousand dollars saved. And my dad's buddy says, why don't you buy a gas station?
You could buy a 90%, you know, get a 90% SBA financing and buy a gas station.
And a lot of the gas stations back there were mechanical pumps. They were going through the
motherization to digital. And once the oil company picked your location to convert, it would
skyrocket the value, right? Triple, you know, three, four X. And the guy that was a broker,
sending gas station, goes, you know, this mobile gas station off the Crenshaw, Boulevard, and 405,
I have a very good feeling, you know, mobile oil companies, got to pick it next. So we made an
offer, wearing escrow, 90-day escrow for a hundred, 70,000 bucks or so for the gas station. I went
to mobile school, learned how to measure the tanks, run the snack bar. So I became a mobile
dealer cost me 3,500 bucks. Then the loan guy turned out to be a fraud, told me to take my
20, yeah, told me to go to Palace versus Bank, open a savings passport account with 20,000,
and put his name on it so he can access, you know, for appraisal, you know, all these other fees.
Within three months, there was no money left in my account. He had written processing fees to
himself, and he ended up going jail later on. But anyhow, I lost on my money. And at that
point, I'm like, all right. I called Winston Tire's manager, one of the shops in Montabello, California
that used to buy a lot of nuts from me. Ruben Padilla, hopefully he's still alive. Great guy.
And I said, Ruben, I'm back to a square one. I have no money and I need a job. He goes, come on
down. He hired me as an assistant manager. While working there, every time I say Porsche, Mercedes,
I always ask him, hey, what do you do? What do you do for a living? And nine out of ten times with either a loan
company or a real estate company. Occasionally you had a doctor, occasionally had a doctor or an
attorney, but for most part, it was real estate related. So I'm like, you know what? I got to get into real estate.
There's one guy that had a 9-11 cab relay. You know, he said he was a mortgage company. I said,
hey, I would love to work. He goes, I love your energy. I'll hire you as a loan officer.
So I worked for him for a few months. I learned the ropes. And within six months, I was like his best
processor, but I wanted to go ahead work for myself, right? I wanted to make a lot more money.
So I found a broker to partner with and I opened my own mortgage company. And this was 1993,
92, 903. And we got lucky. I got auction.com. Back then was REDC, real estate resolution,
disposition, trust, something like that. And I became their primary lender. So this is met 90s.
There was a big recession in Orange County. And in real estate, a lot of overbuilt new project in
housing and they wanted to auction these off right so they would give me one of the condos out of like a
60 unit complex i would set up my loan officers there and they had every bidder had to come to our
to my unit and get pre-approved before they get a number to go out of bet on the auction so we did
$300,000 in one year and that was huge for me this is 1994 and then after that we start doing a lot of refinances
run full page ads anyway long story short i made
Pretty good money for a couple of years, and then rates went up in 94.
Greenspan increased the rate's 50 bases point in one FOMC meeting, and we're like, whoa,
we just lost 60 refines because we didn't pre-lock him until we get ready for loan docs to get more rebate, right?
Long story short, I had about $150,000 are saved.
My partner, the broker also had to say, me goes, why don't we going to discount store?
Everyone's doing 99 cent only.
Why don't we do 79 cents plus?
So we took a 10,000 square feet warehouse in Santa Ana and opened a discount store.
It was doing fantastic, and we opened a second location.
We were going to do 10 of them and go public.
We had all these big vision.
And then a discount supermarket opened right next to us, food for less,
opened literally right next to us, right next to it, like 30 feet away from our store.
Underground opening, our sales dropped 50%.
And it continued.
It continued. Within a year, we were upside down. We were not only making the $30,000 a month we were making. We were losing $15,000 a month. And my partner says, you know what? I don't want to put any more work into this. If you want, you can take it over. So I cut him $15,000 check. I bought his 50% share out. And then I had to get to work. I said, I told my parents, they were in Oregon at the time. I said, you need to calm down. So I had 11 employees. I laid off a few. I had my parents help me out. And I got the sales back up.
and then I sold it. During this whole time, while I was selling it, we had a buyer in escrow
that defaulted on the purchase, citing my landlord is not fair, didn't give me good favorable lease
terms. So we end up in court while I'm sitting with my landlord for our case to be heard.
My landlord, mind you back then, Mr. Dave Billiam, he was worth, you know, $6 to $700 million probably
back then, very, very prominent. Yeah, he came in the 50s that start buying commercial real estate
and kept reinvesting, reinvesting. Long so.
You're doing many. You've been my tenant for five years. I love your energy. You put in
200% a day. But why are you enslaving your way? Why don't you put this energy into real estate?
You know, like I did. I came in the 50s. I started with one a small property. And I'm like,
well, you need money. As you know, I'm not having money right now. And he was, well, once you
sell your supermarket, come and see me. So that's how things worked out. Again, when I sold
the supermarket, finally, I dabbled with the stock market a bit.
all my buddies were making money and I owed 200,000 on my credit cards and I got 185,000 net from escrow.
So I was a still negative net worth.
I'm like, all right, I busted my butt.
I'm not paying off my credit cards and still going to owe 15 grand after.
So I opened the e-trade account.
I bought AOL, e-trade, brocate communication, all these stocks.
They were splitting three-for-one at every earning announcement.
And I more than doubled my money.
I didn't close to triple by September 1999.
And I said, okay, you know, enough is enough.
This is too good to be true.
I'm going to pay off my credit card and go ahead call Mr. Williams and get started with real estate.
So I left $85,000 in my e-trade.
I said, hey, if I can do $1.85 to this much, I can do the same thing with $85,000, right?
So I call Mr. Williams.
He set me out with his top broker and sold me a shopping, send me a weed here.
I put $200,000 cash down.
And he basically taught me, you want to buy real estate, you can add value.
You want to buy real estate that's good location.
So a lot of the strategies I use now, it was basically what the broker, his broker, taught me back then.
And long story short, that was the journey of my real estate investment.
I've probably done close to a billion dollars in real estate.
I've never added it up, but now my average deal size is between 20 to 40 million.
I got two deals in a sprung out, one for 41 million.
And then the one I'm buying from my headquarters is 22 million for myself to occupy.
And it's been a fantastic journey.
I've made a lot of mistakes.
I lost $5 million on one deal, single tenant.
So I've learned a lot of mistakes,
and I don't want other young investors
that are getting to the business
to make those mistakes.
That's why I have my program.
And I love passing on the torch.
And I enjoy hunting for the right deal,
something I can add value,
transform the property,
like the one I'm going to buy in headquarters
for Koshpin company.
And in a nutshell, that's really my journey.
It's been fantastic.
I retired my parents,
20 some years ago, bought him a ranch. I just bought him a really nice house at Orange Park Acres.
And, you know, I feel like they took the risk to bring me here. And now I owe it to him in a nutshell.
I left a lot of things out. I've done a lot of other businesses too. I started a mechanic,
you know, auto mechanic business, door to door, changing people's oil, brake pads, calibers,
engine overhaul. Yeah. In high school, in college, I was going to do a mobile oil change,
business and I didn't. Yeah. And you know, I've always had, you know, that one of the secrets I want to say to
staying afloat and ahead of everybody else was I always had a side hustle too. I used to get up super
early and go to 7-Eleven, pick up the auto trader. It used to come out every Thursday. So I would go up
two in the morning. So I, as soon as I will find out what's their first drop, which 7-Eleven is their first
drop on their distribution. And then I would get in my car with a flashlight, boom, boom, boom,
find deals that are priced lower. And back then I was buying a lot of Honda
and quarts and pickup trucks, things like that, Toyota, MR2s. And I used to buy those,
do a massive detail on it, and then just put it back on auto trade there and sell it,
make a few hundred bucks. So I always had a side hustle. You know, the whole thing is
don't just stand around for an opportunity. There is opportunity. Just do what's in front of you
until something better comes. That's so good. Man, there's about a million things I want to unpack in here.
Why don't we start?
I want to know why, like, why did you go into, I mean, you started with commercial real estate,
like the big stuff.
Let's go into the real estate specifically.
You started with a shopping center.
Most people that I know start with like, you know, a house, right?
Or maybe they buy a duplex if they were really crazy.
But you just jumped into the big game.
And it sounds like that's basically what you've been playing ever since is the commercial real estate game.
So why is that?
And do you recommend that for other people?
Should people start small or can they jump in at that level?
Well, let me backtrack.
My first property actually was a single-family home. It was 1996. Yeah. So when I had the supermarket, 96, I bought a house. It was bank-owned for $142,000. I only used $1,800 to buy it. I used FHA financing, and I had, you know, the bank credit made 3% for non-recording closing costs and all that good stuff, you know. And then I rented it out. A year later, sold it for $80,000 more. And then I did $1031 exchange. I bought two other homes. But my big money has always been commercial real estate, you know, from the first travel.
shopping starting with year, then I did another one. A couple years later, I made a million
bucks on a single flip. But I didn't have that much money to begin with. I've had my ups and downs,
as you know. I've been close to broke twice in my past 35 years. And what I recommend people
to do, housing is the easiest way to start investing in real estate, right? And the best way to
buy it, you buy a property, you can add value, and it's selling at a discount. And of course,
it has to check off a few other boxes, right? Location, density, and there's a lot I teach in my
courses. But no, I started with a single-family home. It was my first property. All right. And so
now you buy these large deals today. I want to go to the end of your story, then maybe we'll fill in.
When you're talking buying a $40 million property, are you syndicating that, like where you're
raising money from a bunch of different investors and they all pool money to buy it and you're leading
it? Or are you just buying it? Like, is that just your company you put the money in? Like, how does that
function today. Yeah. So I've never syndicated, but this particular property, I am dabbling a bit
to maybe raise 20% from my members. A lot of the members in the group, they're always asking me,
okay, the good deals are out of reach, you know, for us, but can we put a little bit with you to
co-invest? So I opened it only to my group, only as a, you know, only because they demanded and
asked me so many times. Not that because I need the money, but the previous deal I sold the 41 million
a year and a half ago, that was Cashman's landing.
That I bought for 27 and sold for 41.
So all of it has been my money up to now.
And I still don't have any partners as of right now to answer your question.
It's all my money.
Yeah, that's phenomenal.
I mean, I hear guys, you know, we have people on the show and I even talk about, you know,
I buy a 40 million or 50 million dollar property, but they're all syndicate.
It's not like I own it.
I own a very small piece of a very large business that buys it.
But I'm always so impressed to talk to the guys.
Like, no, I just, I just buy this.
And you didn't start out buying a $40 million property, right?
That first deal was significantly cheaper.
But it kind of snowballs, right?
Over the course of the last 20 years, you've snowballed it into this machine that you can buy a lot of cool stuff.
Yeah.
Honestly, real estate is the best asset class to build wealth if you know what you're doing and you're patient.
And just like anything else is cyclical.
And I like to say I'm a cyclical investor.
You know, I double triple down in recessions throughout the recovery and expansion in the economy cycle.
I try to scale as much as I can.
I love leverage.
Leverage could be your best friend
and it could be your worst enemy.
Depends when you're leveraging
and what you're leveraging on.
Right?
So I've learned, I've been through many recessions,
but the real estate is the best asset class.
Gives you the tax write off.
You can pull out money,
tab into your equity tax fee, cash-hour rify.
And when you sell it,
you can kick the count down the road
on capital gain taxes.
And there's a lot more to it,
you know, doing acceleration and depreciation,
which is cost segregation, a lot of things I teach in my program.
Yeah, cost segregation stuff has been a game changer for me.
All right, so I'm going to do a few questions that are maybe questions like better audiences
wondering from somebody who's been a seasoned veteran of the real estate world for 20 years.
First one, you've been through ups and downs in the market.
Where are we right now?
Like, where do you think we're headed?
What are you betting on right now?
Well, it depends what, I guess, real estate category.
Office is in depression.
There is so much subtlice space, industrial and distribution center.
are gangbusters because, you know, e-commerce. Housing's hot because of lack of inventory and lower
rates. And that's going to change eventually. And that retail, big box retailers in depression,
a small mom and pop community centers, gangbusters, they're huge because they have, you know,
e-commerce resistance type of tenants, you know, your optometrist, caracctors, seven-elevent, dry cleaners.
So it all depends. But in terms of economy in general, I mean, it's all artificial economy.
It's a body economy. I mean, people that are spending money, the taxpayers have to pay back. It's not generated. It's not a healthy economy. So once the music stops, it's not going to be pretty. You know, at some point, I think our debt to GDP is like 130% now, which has never been this high. But, you know, the rates are low and real estate's one of the most leverage assets in the world. And it does well when, you know, yields are low. And I think they're going to be forced to keep it low for a while.
because of the interest payment is going to skyrocket if it goes up. So I am bullish on real estate,
but, you know, some different sectors, not overall. I wouldn't say John Patton by a house.
I love that you brought that up because people oftentimes will just say, you know, what's real
estate doing? Like, how is the real estate market? But the fact is, like, like a seasoned person
understands, like there is no such thing as the real estate market. It's different sectors.
There's the things that, you know, like you said, there's retail, there's office. So what are you,
What are you focused on?
What have you been the last few years focused on buying?
What's your portfolio?
Like, is it retail?
Is it the small shopping centers?
Is it malls?
Like, what do you buy in?
Yeah.
Well, I'm by nature.
I'm a contrarian investor.
I buy things that people don't like.
It's not sexy.
Right now.
It's office.
Both properties are having escrow.
The $41 million is all office and the $22 million is all office, general office.
But I am buying a small little shopping center.
One of my members brought it to me and says, hey, I can't buy it, pull it off by myself.
Do you want to go, $15?
50, I'm like, sure. That was unique because there's CBS as a tenant that pays 258,000 a year, triple net.
And as you know, CBS farm right aid, those trade as a single tenant. Their credit, they trade at a
much lower cap. So we bought that at a nine cap at 56% occupancy. We're going to subdivide
it, sell the CVS, which will make us what we paid for the entire property, plus a million
bucks profit and then we got 40,000 square feet free. So there's a lot of ways to add, you know,
to add value to property or actually create value by subdividing property, for example,
that has a credit tenant. And then also there is properties where there is still tower income.
I teach my program how you can actually sell the roof easement. I just did one in a building in
Arizona. I bought six months ago. I bought it for 4.3 and I sold a roof for 827,000 cash for a 50 year
Eastman. Yeah. And then I sold a building. It's in escrow, as we speak, for 5.6 million. So I made
two million dollar profit by doing that. So there's a lot of ways to scan the cat. Yeah, that's cool.
And I'm assuming just the longer you're in real estate, the more that you think of these things.
Like, so you hear some guy talking about cell phone towers, you're like, wait, that's a thing.
And you dig into that and all of a sudden that becomes an opportunity. Absolutely.
Yeah, that's cool. All right. And then let's go to some new investors that are listening right now.
They're just getting started.
They're where you were 25 years ago.
What advice do you give to people who are brand new in real estate?
They're saying, I just want to get rich.
I just want to get financial freedom.
I want to get started.
What do I do?
Well, depends.
If you have money or you don't have money, get educated, a study, the sub-market you
want to invest in.
Because even if you don't have money and you network with other investors, get licensed,
obviously power up.
I tell you always get licensed.
For a few hundred bucks, it's amazing how much you learn getting licensed.
just learn the real estate principles.
And then once you study the market, work your ass off going out, doing your research.
When you find a property that's well positioned on a pricing and also it's mismanaged,
you can go ahead, share that with your network and, you know, you bring a deal,
take some profit 80, 20, 3070, whatever it is, and get started that way.
That's what I would recommend.
There is a lot of opportunities in real estate if you learn the game and you learn
how you can add value to real estate, and you just go and find those opportunities.
And there is so much liquidity in the market, especially people that want to put money in real
estate, you know.
Opportunities are enormous.
You just got to do your homework, learn the market, and find those opportunities.
If you have the money yourself, pull it off.
If you don't, you can partner up and bring your equity partner with some other investors.
Yeah.
That concept is so important that people are like, I can't get in real estate because I don't have any money.
I'm like, there's a lot of people out there.
today who have money that don't have the time or the hustle or the knowledge or like the
drive to go out and find those deals. So bring in an equity partner. Yeah, well, look what happened
with Amy and my student, you know, he learned a game from me. And then he found the property
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Let's talk about finding deals.
you know, in the commercial space as you're trying to buy these big properties,
like the two offices that you have under right now, how are you finding them?
Yeah, so one of them was, yeah, one of them was probably listed by C.B. Richard Ellis,
the $22 million deal.
And then the $41 million deal, I mean, escrow, that was just through my network of brokers.
It's the same broker that got me cashmings landing for $28 million, four years ago.
So when I'm running low on deal flow, I pick up the phone and call the top brokers I've dealt with
in the past 10, 20 years.
And I'm telling, hey, Brian, I'm running loan deal flow.
Which one of your properties in you guys' portfolio with your leasing department,
you have a landlord that's not throwing tenant improvement money or it's mismanaging
the property.
And he says, hey, I have a perfect location for you.
It's so-and-so owns it for 15 years.
He's out of money.
He's having problems.
The tenants are leaving.
The roof's leaking.
And that's how the property came about.
But typically I get about 30 to 40 deals email to me because I'm on their email list, email blast.
And most of these big brokerage houses, you know, they get a listing.
They don't want to put it on a public.
They want to double end it.
So for 30 days, they'll send it within their network of principals and buyers, investors.
And then if they can't get a deal done, then they go ahead put it on Kostar, LoopNet, or their local MLS, right?
as you get more years under your belt, it gets much easier.
You know, people, you build that credibility.
They know you close.
You're not going to ask for a fee.
They double in that.
You're an easy buyer.
And I like to say, you know, I've earned that in the past 30 years.
So I get a lot of deals that way.
You know, you mentioned that you've been in the real estate game for over 30 years now,
which is really impressive.
And it's something I love when we get to talk to a guest that's seen more than one market cycle.
So like I'll admit, I host the podcast, but I got in at the last crash.
So I've really only seen the elevator go up.
I watched it go down, but I've only wrote it on the way up.
And I really like to get insight from people that actually experienced what it was like
when the elevator crashed and you had to feel that fear of, am I going to die?
Where is this going to stop?
And the insight that comes out of that, would you mind sharing maybe some of the things
you've learned about the right way to invest with the ups and downs you've
seen. And then what I'd really like to get is for you to elaborate a little more on when you mentioned
the economy we're in isn't real, I think is what you said. A lot of it is based on, like,
created wealth that we're just like, we're bought with debt is really fueling this entire thing.
If you could just speak a little bit about how that works in a general sense and then how you
use that information as a contrarian investor to make good decisions. Sure. Well, you know,
I started my mortgage company in 92. I didn't buy my first property.
to 96. So when I say 30 years, when you have a mortgage company, as you know, you look at your
10 or 3 application, loan application, and you run into a lot of people that have real estate
portfolios. So you have to analyze it, see if they qualify based on their income, all this stuff.
But I've seen recession from mid-90s and then early 2000.com. We had another recession.
And then again, 2008, we had another recession. So as I've seen these cycles come and go,
I've noticed, you know, if you have a credit tenant, you're probably going to weather the storm.
If you don't have a credit tenant and you have a small mom and pop office building, you're probably
going to be in trouble. So in 2007, I had a $130 million portfolio, a million a square feet of
high rises in Houston. I've sold it in July 2007. And everybody says, what are you doing?
You know, everything's going on gangbusters. You're making, you know, crazy money on these buildings.
But I was like, yep, but, you know, I had a pretty good run. And we're pretty much.
due for the recession. So I sold those and I started buying, I bought a million square feet.
I sold those and I bought a million square feet worth of food line centers in North Carolina,
which is a pretty big grocery chain. And I bought 700,000 square feet of multi-tenant,
mostly credit industrial distribution, warehouses in Houston. And that was Continental Airlines,
FedEx, Halliburton, these were my tenants. And guess what? I had barely any defaults
throughout 2008, and I had that, you know, 300,000 a month cash flow coming in while everybody else
was letting go off their office buildings. And I end up buying five out of the eight buildings I sold.
I actually end up buying those back from mortgage servicers in three years after I sold them.
So, 2011, 2010, I bought five of those high rises back from L&R mortgage servicers.
You know, people listening to this right now, you sold a massive portfolio in 07. So I'm sure
some people in the audience are thinking, wow, he got super lucky. Other people are like, wow,
he's super smart. How do you balance that? Like, did you see it? You knew something was coming?
Or did you think you got more lucky? Or where do you fall on that luck versus skill in that regard?
Well, you know, I hate to say I use a lot of common sense. When I was selling my buildings,
I had people offer me from Florida, New York, crazy prices on my property without even seeing it.
And I'm like, and all 1031 exchange money, right? I'm like, okay, this is getting way out of
hand, when you see that kind of activity in real estate, you're like, all right, it's too good to be
true, just like the 1999 when I sold my portfolio of stocks because it was too good to be true.
But overall, you know, luck obviously has something to do with it, but I think timing is important.
When you know things will go parabolic, you know things will have a counter direction, right?
And I don't know. I mean, I like to think some has luck, but mostly just use common sense.
if it's too good to be true, you may want to take some chips off the table.
I remember when I was listening to this podcast before I was hosting it, and Josh Dorkin
was talking about a time when he saw a police officer was buying a million-dollar house.
And this was like 15 years ago, right?
This wasn't a million-dollar house now.
Maybe a police officer could buy it.
That would be like a two-million-dollar house now.
And he just recognized, like, school teachers are buying $800,000 houses, cops are buying
a million-dollar homes.
This does not make sense.
And like you're saying, Manny, it's the slightest bit of common sense when you just ask how, how do they do it?
And someone says, oh, well, they got a adjustable rate mortgage with negative amortization and like all these bells and whistles thrown on to force it to work.
You're like, oh, right?
If you saw a car that was running that way, right?
Like it's this, yeah, they took an engine out of a lawnmower and they threw it into a Honda Civic, but they added a turbo booster here and they added some DOS there.
You might be able to make it go forward for a period of time, but that car is not going to continue running.
And I think a lot of people get themselves in trouble trying to outsmart the system.
They're looking for some special algorithm that will tell them when the market's going to change,
when the answer might be right in front of their face.
Is that the common sense that you're sort of describing?
Yes, absolutely.
And you know, homes, for example, right now, single family home, you know, to get a deal,
you've got to pay over in most markets.
And chances are, you know, when rates eventually go up, your value is going to go down.
I mean, it's just natural economics, you know, whatever.
happens with cost of money. So we know rates being low for 40, 50 years and eventually things have to
change. We're not going to go negative like Japan. I hope not. So with that said, you know, use common sense.
If you find a building that you can, a home that you can buy, that's a foreclosure, short sale,
that's a different story. But I'm talking about that regular listing. They're asking over at pay's value,
and now you've got to chase it. So that's the thing, you know, that's a speculation. And a lot of people
don't know the difference between speculating and investing.
You know, another thing that's come up a lot in your story that I've noticed when you were
describing kind of your, what's it called when you're hearing how a superhero was formed?
The origin story.
When you're telling your origin story, was this fact that cars played a role in it, right?
You noticed other people with nice cars and you saw these cars.
And I see in the background, you've got cars there.
Is there a special relationship that you have between nice cars and motivation?
Well, yeah, I love investing in this car for several factors.
One, I'm passionate about the history of some of these brands like Bugatti, you know,
McLare and Mercedes.
Second, I've noticed a lot of wealthy people do have art and exotic cars, collectible cars,
in their portfolio as an investment.
And I've actually made money on some of these cars.
I mean, on one car alone, I made $1.9 million after five months of owning it.
I sold it for $1.9 million profit.
I have several cars here that have been offered few million over what I paid for.
But I use them more as a passion-driven investing, but at the end of the day, there is still an
investment for me.
There are a lot of cars that could buy that I know I'll lose money on, and I don't dare
to buy.
Yeah, that's funny.
You know, I see your Instagram, and you have a massive Instagram, and you post a lot of
videos and pictures.
It's phenomenal.
It's one of my favorite accounts out there.
It's not my favorite.
You go do a really good job.
But you're sharing real estate advice and then you're sharing these car things.
And I always just thought the cars were just kind of like, hey, you got a lot of money.
So you buy some cars.
But I'm totally seeing you in a new light now.
You're like, this is a passion driven investment.
And I love that concept because like you can have cool stuff and then know that you can
eventually then, you know, like make at least make your money back if not some.
Why not enjoy it while you have it?
It's not a liability.
In other words, you're buying assets still.
that majority of the world, you know, I don't know, we'd only dream of having. That's super cool.
Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. A lot of young investors, the minute they get their big fat check
commission, they love to run over to the Ferrari or a Lamborghini dealer and put that down
and finance their dream is sports car. But I tell people, it said,
grind now so you can shine later spending the fruits of your investments. So, you know,
believe it or not, that power of compounding, you know, taking that one first house I bought,
flipped it, bought two more homes, and then that first shopping center, I 1031 exchange the
with your property into another one, office building, and then a high rise, and then a multiple
high rises in a portfolio I bought as a group. So I didn't buy Ferrari, you know, until 2005,
when I was worked, you know, well over $30, $40 million back then. And people said, oh,
how come you don't have a Ferrari or Lamborghini? Because I was reinvesting my money.
And that's a lot of the investors' mistake is they, instead of reinvesting their big chunk of
income they make early on, they go ahead and explore.
And that's very common.
It's so hard to resist, I know.
Yeah, it is hard.
Especially when you see the social media, all these people with the awesome stuff and
cool houses, cool cars.
And you're like, I want that.
But you didn't do that.
Like you said, you didn't do that right away.
You waited to you built up that business.
And that's why we bring it up, because a lot of people see that.
and they think, oh, if I buy a house, I can buy a Ferrari.
And that's as far as they think.
They don't think I have to master real estate or become excellent.
I heard Dave Ramsey telling a story about Jay-Z spending $250,000 in one night on basically
like bottle service at a club.
And he took a lot of heat for spending this much money on something that was frivolous.
And Dave Ramsey was saying, do you understand that Jay-Z spending $250,000 in one night
is like you spending $25 in one night?
Right.
Like you're not playing the same game as him.
You can't judge him by the same rules.
And I thought that was a really, really good point that there is a point you can hit where
this isn't actually threatening your business anymore.
And I was actually curious in a way, Manny, if it's in a way motivating your business,
if this is one of the things you do to keep yourself motivated once you've hit financial freedom
and you don't need more money or more success.
Well, you know, it's not the money anymore for me.
It's the hunt for the deal.
I love taking a property, transforming it.
It's kind of becomes an art after a while.
I don't buy a property that I can't add value or transform because at that point I'm just parking my money in real estate.
Yeah, you're going to make money, but it's not my passion.
You know, it doesn't drive me.
I don't know.
I don't think it's another business you can do in this country that you have the leverage options and also the different economies in different states that you can't 1031 into.
I mean, to me, it's like, I don't know.
I'm in love with real estate.
Sorry.
You almost sound like a really successful, like coach, like Mike Shoshavsky at Duke, who said,
I'm retired.
I don't need to coach.
But he just gets joy out of coaching AAU kids and helping this turn this kid into the best version of themselves.
Yeah.
Yeah, I do.
So you mentioned the value add piece.
I want to hit on that real quick.
What kind of things do you do when you buy a property?
What are some of your favorite things to do to add value to a property?
Number one, remeasure your building.
Most commercial buildings, you know, the POMA standard changes.
every few years. I picked up 4,000 a square feet just by remeuring my building on the water at
Coshman's Landing. 4,000 feet at 1,500 bucks a foot. That's 6 million bucks in value. And it costs you
6 to 10,000 depending on how big the properties for them to get re-measure. That's one. Two, I look at
different common areas where I can convert into rentable space. For example, I put a cigar lounge
on the third floor at Cautchman's Landing. That was a huge patio. The tenants didn't use.
So I just, that then compared to Kubano room, charged, you know, pay 10,000 amount of rent at,
you know, 4% cap. That's extra 3, 4 million bucks on the resale. Other things is conversion
of lease types. If somebody's on a, somebody's on a gross lease, and you can go ahead,
come around to triple net lease or modified gross at renewal. That's huge because when you sell
the property for much higher, the property tax gets reset, that gets passed on to the tenant,
and the buyer is not going to ding you for the excess property tax and deducted from the net
operating income. There's a lot, but those are some of the main ones. Changing tenant type,
taking a restaurant that's mom and pop and put a restaurant that's credit, either a public
company or regional, national restaurant chain, boom, you double, at least double your value
because at mom and pop, you're not going to get probably, you know, less.
than a seven cap and a national restaurant chain, you're probably going to get four cap.
So things of that nature. But those are just a few.
Wow, that's really good. Yeah, really good stuff there. Because, again, I love this idea of value
ad. If you buy the property, like you said, you can park money in real estate if you really want
to, just you'll make some money. But if you want to grow fast, if you want to be aggressive or
if you just want to, you want to build that wealth quickly, that value is where it's at.
And where it's at is like, the more you get into this and the more you start thinking,
how do I make this better? How do I change this? Most people in life and business,
except what they're given. Oh, they said it was a duplex. Okay, that's what it is.
They said it's three-bedroom. They said it was a 10,000 square foot, you know, property.
They're not thinking, how do I drive more value out of this? How do I bring that out?
And that mentality I just see in you from the time you came to America until now is this,
I'm going to figure out a way to make it through. That's cool. It kind of ties that all together.
I would also, let's highlight too before we move on.
Mani, you're not just saying, hey, buy real estate. Just buy real estate.
it, find a partner and buy it. What you're actually talking about is at a deep level understanding
how real estate is valued and how it works. You've mentioned if it's used for this purpose, you might
get a four cap, but at this purpose, you might get a nine cap. You can double the value of the
property just by repurposing it. That shows a pretty significant level of understanding with what
makes real estate worth what it's worth. You're not just advocating, get out there, just buy something.
You're actually talking about understanding it at a deep level and developing a mastery of it.
And when you hit that, it does become almost effortless like you're saying, right? You don't sound scared about deals anymore. It's exciting. You have a lot of confidence that I can take this and turn it into more. And then you can do things like buy the cards that you like or whatever other passions that you have in real estate sort of funds. And so that would be what I would hope everyone would take from this is if you pour into mastering this, it will pay you back more than you ever put into it. Absolutely. You hit it right on the nail. Cool, man. Well, last question before we get to the famous four. So it's like the last question before the final.
which is before the final one, is you mentioned just briefly over there that you lost $5 million
on a property. Can you explain that? Like, what, that's a lot of money to lose. Like, I can't let you
just gloss over that one. We got to touch on that. Yeah, this was a single tenant building in Clear Lake
NASA. Subsidary of Boeing occupied the USA United Space Alliance. They handle all the communication
with Discovery Shuttle. They put millions and millions in fiber into the building. So I'm guessing
they're not going anywhere. They had four years left with two five-year option. And when I did my
tenant interview and the CEO says, hey, the only way we would not renew exercise our five-year renewal
is if we lose the contract with NASA, which it's almost impossible. Nobody else is going to be
able to fulfill that. What happened? Elon Musk happened. Space X got the contract and I got a FedEx
notification with one page in there that said we're moving out of the building and we're not going to renew.
And I bought that building for $17 million. I put $5 million down. And I had my own brother, sister,
you know, some of family friends, they wanted to invest with me. That was one building I put
their money in there that we lost. And it was very painful. I didn't care losing $2.5 million
of my own money because I know I can make more. And my network was pretty good at the time. It
didn't really ding me, but it was just, it still hurts $2.5 million in order to lose.
So that's one of my painful listener I learned.
It doesn't matter how good of a credit that tenant is.
It could be U.S. government.
If a single tenant, you know, you're putting all your eggs in one basket.
So I don't buy any single tenant buildings, no matter what.
I don't buy any building that a single tenant occupies more than 20% of the rent rule.
That's one of my rules.
Diversify.
I love that you said that because, yeah, I've seen investors.
I talked to investors who they will buy a large single tenant property.
Like, you know, and they're like, yeah, those people never leave or those, you know,
they're a great, they're a great company.
They'll be there for years.
And I'm still like, ah, I couldn't do it.
I couldn't do it.
Like, that freaks me out.
Like, I need that diversification.
So.
So it's on the chopping block and consumer behavior changes.
And if that happens, look, if you got all your money into 10 Walgreens,
and guess what, 10 years from it, if Walgreens is not in business,
you've just lost all your money.
And the dirt is worth whatever the dirt is worth,
but you're paying a huge premium for that credit tenant.
And if that credit tenant is not here, you're going to be in a bad shape.
Yeah, that's fascinating.
I never thought about Walgreens or CVS being in trouble,
But when I think about it, nobody ever thought Blockbuster was in trouble either.
Like, when you can, like, when you can press a button on your phone and your medicine's delivered, you know, six hours later and, you know, you can have a virtual call with a pharmacist.
Like, what, like, why do you go to Walgreens?
Yeah, that's fascinating.
This actually supports, though, what we were saying earlier because that fact right there could scare some people so they never buy.
I just don't know.
Too many things could happen.
I don't know, right?
But what happens is when CVS goes out of business or whatever and you're left with all this
space, you need to get your manny on.
You need to coach bin this thing and ask, how could I better use this space, right?
Is this something I could turn into residential living and get it rezoned?
Is this something I can rent out as office space or warehouse space or storage or something?
To me, that's how real estate is meant to be done.
You're always asking that question is what's the highest and best value of what this space is
and how could it be repurposed?
And if it wasn't for that, I would also be too scared to ever take action.
It's just paralyzing when you think about what happens if.
But as long as you've got that like, well, if we come out there, you know, like Peyton Manning
sees the defense and the coach called a running play and he sees that it's stacked with linebackers,
he's got the confidence to call a pass play.
That's all that we're really describing here is if you understand the fundamentals of how
this works, you won't have to operate in that fear.
Yeah.
As you find the right location and the density is there, you can always find a better use
for that property.
You know, you got to buy in the right demographic, you know,
population's increasing.
That's why I like Arizona.
I love Texas.
These are business-friendly estates that's always having increasing population year over year.
You know what else they all have in common?
Tennessee, Florida, Texas, all these Arizona, these Idaho, the states are doing well.
Californians are moving there.
Yeah, absolutely.
Bringing all their money with them.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I was just having dinner last night with a guy from Boise.
And he's like, yeah, he's like, property values have like double.
than the last couple of years. It's just nuts.
So, yeah, he's like, it's all Californians.
It's all your guys.
All the people in Idaho are saying, our values doubled, and all the people in California
are saying, my house is half as expensive as they move there.
All right, well, let's go on to the last segment of the show, and that is our
Famous Four.
This is the part of the show where we ask the same four questions every week to every guest.
And, Mani, we're going to throw them at you real quick.
Number one, is there a real estate-related book that has made a big impact on your life?
Like, what's a favorite real estate-related book?
Oh, I hate to tell you, but art of the deal by Donald Trump.
I like that because I just liked how he took a property that was basically run down and nobody wanted it and turned it into a massive development and made money.
And the art of deal is basically negotiating how to make a deal happen.
Whatever where it says, oh, city is not going to ever give you an approval for this.
He made it happen.
So just that challenge he took on a property and turned it into a massive success.
That was an eye-opener, but more than anything, my landlord, Mr. Williams, was a very big inspiration for me, getting to commercial real estate, seeing his wealth.
He's accumulated over the years buying commercial real estate.
But the only book I've written in real estate, I hate to tell you, it was the art of the deal many, many years ago.
All right.
All right.
Next question.
What is your favorite business book?
You're not going to believe this, but I'm not a big bookworm.
I don't read much.
Everything I've learned is being out in the field, either through transaction or actually watching, you know, doing a lot of research online, reading a lot of news.
But I don't, there is no specific book. I would say that comes to mind.
Well, maybe we'll write one someday. Maybe you got a book in you.
Now, I've written two books, but.
So let's hear about those.
Yeah. So I have a contrarian playbook in 2011, 10 years ago. I self-published it. It did great to
this day, I still get great residual. It's sold on Amazon. That is basically the principle,
basics, basic principles of my strategies of it as a contrarian, how to buy, when to buy,
time the market, and things of that nature. And basically it tells a little bit about my journey,
but not a whole lot. And a lot of people read that book. They love the business part of it,
but they said, we want to know more about you personally. So I wrote my second book,
Dreben, a few years ago, and entrepreneurs.
magazine actually reached out to me.
So, hey, we want to write your book.
We'll pay for the ghost writer, all that stuff.
I'm like, okay.
And we did that.
That's driven.
It's more focused on my biography.
And my journey has a lot of pictures of my kids and past and present.
I like the car theme, too, with that driven.
It's a good name.
You have a smart marketer there.
Yeah.
I mean, you have to have the driving.
Otherwise, you're not going to go anywhere in life.
All right.
Next question.
What are some of your hobbies?
Ooh.
Well, you say this.
beautiful cars behind me.
Well, exercise, exercising.
I love fishing, driving cars.
Those are, I would say, my top three that I love.
And then, obviously, hunting for real estate.
Believe it or not, I still hop on internet and start searching for properties.
When I have a downtime, kids go to bed.
I just love it.
Finding it that, you know, diamond in the rough.
What it reminds me of, especially for someone, Mani at your level who still likes it,
If you guys ever played that computer game when we were kids, the Oregon Trail, to me,
the funnest part of it was when you would go hunting, right?
You'd, like, go out there and you'd, like, try to shoot a buffalo, right?
So I would just always want to hunt.
But then I'd end up with 9,000 pounds of meat and I can only take back like 20 pounds of it to the camp, right?
That's what it gets like when you're hunting deals, when you have all these ideas.
You're like, I want to take down this one and I would do this.
But then you realize, I don't have the bandwidth to actually execute on 90% of this.
It's that same feeling from the Oregon Trail.
That's funny.
All right, my last question of the day.
Manny, if you had to really boil it down,
what do you think separates successful people
from those who give up, fail, or never get started?
I would say successful people have one thing in common, right?
They don't look at failure as a failure.
They look at it as a lesson, and they move up.
And to me, I've had many failures,
but I don't think it was failure.
Those were lessons I learned along,
and I took that and I improve myself.
So failures are self-improvement.
You got to, it's how you look at it.
So my mental state of mentality is anything that happens to me is for a reason.
And there is something bigger and better waiting for me.
And with that, you never look at anything negative, right.
That's really good, man.
Really good.
Last question of the day, Manny, where can people find out more about you?
Well, manikoshpin.com.
And we have a couple of links for the contrary and academy on my various programs,
but Manny Quashpin.com, just my name.com.
And also, you know, if they want to follow me on Instagram,
I do share basically everything on Instagram.
I love to share my story often.
And also some of the things I do with real estate on there to inspire others,
that, hey, you know, American dream is well and can happen.
And a lot of people say, oh, it was easy back then,
but it's so hard to do it now.
It's the opposite.
Right now it's so much easier to do anything,
life because you can network you can access you have access to everything back then you had to fly out
to look at a property in houston now i get on internet and i do google earth i checked around a lot of them
has virtual tours it's so much easier to make money now than 30 years ago so if you power up yeah
if you power up you get knowledgeable and you start networking i mean anybody can be a multimillioner in time
if you commit to it and have a never give up mentality.
Love it.
I love it, man.
Well, thank you so much.
It's been phenomenal.
I love hearing your story and all the lessons you can share.
Can't wait to see where you're heading the future as well.
So you're killing it.
Thank you so much.
Thank you, David.
Thank you, Brandon.
Pleasure.
And that was our show with Manny Koshbyn.
That was awesome.
That was awesome.
Especially, I love that value ad piece at the end.
I love the whole thing, but I love that, like, tangible.
Like, here's some things that'll make you millions of dollars.
It was like, oh, that's great.
Yeah, phenomenal.
Yeah, I also love that he has a 30-year-plus perspective on real estate. He's gone through different
market cycles. He's seen what worked at different times. He's got a very well-rounded and mature
perspective on wealth building. And you don't find a lot of people that have been investing that
long that are still willing to come on a podcast and share what they know. Yeah, man, that was very cool.
You know, one thing he brought up, and I didn't want to stay in the show because I know
we had limited time with Mani today, but I'll say it now. You know, when we talked about the car
thing, how like he buys these really, you know, just amazing cars. You guys got to check out his
Instagram for the cars, but just amazing cars. And he said it's like a passion project investment or
whatever, passion investment. In other words, like he's not buying them to lose money. They are assets
like we talked about. Well, I had a similar conversation. I was on the north shore of Oahu a few
days ago to having dinner on this amazing property that was like right on the beach in front of where
all the surfers go, like right by pipeline. And it was like, this just stupid nice property.
And somebody that was there said something like, oh, man, it would be so cool to own one of these.
I said, I said, oh yeah, I'm going to own one of these someday. And I didn't say that from a, like,
bragging thing. It's just the fact that, like, I'm in real estate and I have a passion for
nice properties. So the same way, Mani buys cars, knowing he can sell him again for later, I was like,
yeah, of course I'm going to own a $30 million beachfront mansion because I'll sell it for
later on. So it's not a liability. It's not just some rich guy trying to, like, buy a fancy
house to show off. I'm like, it's just like, I'll buy it and then I'll sell it for more.
It's not even a question of my mind that I'm going to own one of those. Same thing with this,
real estate and fancy cars. Unlike, you.
If you go buy a 2021, you know, I don't know, Tesla, that thing's going to be worth significant less, like significantly less five years from now.
But the older, either older cars or really fancy cars or artwork or houses, stuff like that.
Yeah, there could be some fun stuff in there.
Cars go out of style, clothes go out of style, computers go out of style, but real estate never goes out of style.
You can put that on your tombstone.
Here lies David.
He went out of style.
All right.
My grave site won't go out of style because it's real estate.
Yeah, you can resell that thing later.
It's horrible.
All right.
Let's get out of here, man.
I appreciate you and everything you do for the bigger pocket community.
So thanks, man.
Awesome, man.
Thank you.
This is David.
Wait, hold on.
What day does this episode come out?
Like mid-September.
So, okay, mid-September, which means BPCon is coming up next month.
So if tickets have not sold out yet, which I don't know, we're recording this early,
but you can check by going to BPCon, 2021.com.
And if they are sold out,
check back and you never know we might release more tickets or maybe there'll be a digital version
or at least you'll know to sign up for next year's conference because they sell out quick
here at BP World. With that said, David, get us out of here. This is David Green for Brandon.
What Do You Want on your Tombstone Turner? Signing off. You're listening to Bigger Pockets Radio,
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