Escaping the Drift with John Gafford - From NBA Courts to Real Estate Empires: Cory Jacobson's Journey to Financial Growth
Episode Date: November 11, 2025Philadelphia's own Cory Jacobson, a real estate investor and co-host of the Wealth Juice podcast, takes us on a fascinating journey from the basketball courts at the Philadelphia 76ers to the... complex world of real estate investment. Cory talks candidly about the financial challenges he faced despite the glamour of working in the NBA. His leap into real estate began with a simple but strategic move: buying a multi-bedroom house and renting out rooms to cover the mortgage. This episode is packed with insights on how he capitalized on networking, creative strategies, and partnership opportunities to build a thriving real estate portfolio.Transitioning from the world of basketball coaching to a multifaceted career in sales and podcasting, Cory emphasizes the importance of aligning one's career with personal passions and financial goals. His story underscores how investing in real estate can offer both financial stability and the joy of mentoring others. Whether it's through tribe-building or personal branding, Cory shares how his authentic experiences have fostered a supportive community of real estate enthusiasts, drawing parallels with standout figures like Pace Morby to illustrate the power of collaboration and community.We also dive into the complexities of real estate investing strategies, the impact of institutional investors on housing affordability, and the controversial topic of wholesaling. Cory provides practical advice for newcomers, such as starting locally and building teams in more affordable markets. He also explores innovative investment structures, like real estate syndication, and discusses the risks and rewards of different approaches. This episode is a treasure trove for anyone eager to understand the nuances of real estate investing, offering a blend of Cory's personal journey and actionable strategies that highlight the importance of trust, due diligence, and community support in achieving long-term growth.CHAPTERS (00:00) - Real Estate Investing and Financial Growth(05:19) - Coaching and Real Estate Transition(09:27) - Building Tribes Through Real Estate(19:34) - Real Estate Investing Strategies and Analysis(24:54) - Real Estate Investment Strategies and Growth(30:39) - Institutional Property Ownership and Housing Affordability(35:18) - Regulation of Wholesaling in Real Estate(45:34) - Real Estate Syndication and Investment Structures(49:55) - Real Estate Investment Strategies and Risk(58:25) - Escape the Drift Book Promotion💬 Did you enjoy this podcast episode? Tell us all about it in the comment section below! ☑️ If you liked this video, consider subscribing to Escaping The Drift with John Gafford *************💯 About John Gafford: After appearing on NBC's "The Apprentice", John relocated to the Las Vegas Valley and founded several successful companies in the real estate space.➡️ The Gafford Group at Simply Vegas, top 1% of all REALTORS nationwide in terms of production. Simply Vegas, a 500 agent brokerage with billions in annual sales Clear Title, a 7-figure full-service title and escrow company.*************✅ Follow John Gafford on social media:Instagram ▶️ / thejohngaffordFacebook ▶️ / gafford2🎧 Stream The Escaping The Drift Podcast with John Gafford Episode here:Listen On Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7cWN80gtZ4m4wl3DqQoJmK?si=2d60fd72329d44a9Listen On Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/escaping-the-drift-with-john-gafford/id1582927283 *************#escapingthedrift #coryjacobson #realestateinvesting #financialgrowth #basketballcoaching #sales #podcasting #wealthbuilding #networking #partnershipopportunities #personalbranding #tribebuilding #realestateenthusiasts #pacemorby #collaboration #community #realestateinvestingstrategies #institutionalinvestors #housingaffordability #wholesaling #realestatesyndication #investmentstructures #riskmanagement #duediligence #bookpromotionSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Transcript
Discussion (0)
If one is just drinking out of your beverage too loud, and 10 is slapping your mother, all right, that's the scale.
Drinking too loud out of a cup, 10 is slapping your mother.
Where on that scale, as a Philadelphia sports fan, are you throwing batteries at the opposing teams fans?
Hey, it's John Gafford from the Escaping the Drift podcast.
And big news, my new book, Escaping the Drift is coming out.
November the 11th, you can pre-order it right now at thejohngaffer.com.
There are tons of bonuses, tons of giveaways.
Get the book.
If you are somebody that feels like you might be drifting along, this is for you.
If you know somebody that feels like they might be drifting along, this is for you.
Available everywhere, all bookstores, everywhere, Amazon, Barnes & Nobles, the whole nine yards.
But pick your copy up right now at thejohngaffer.com and get a bunch of the awesome bonuses I've
thrown out because I promise you, I put my heart and stuff.
soul into this thing, I want it to help you change your life. Pick it up everywhere.
And now, escaping the drift, the show designed to get you from where you are to where
you want to be. I'm John Gafford and I have a knack for getting extraordinary achievers to
drop their secrets to help you on a path to greatness. So stop drifting along, escape the drift,
and it's time to start right now. And back again, back again with another episode of like it says
in the opening, the podcast that gets you from where you are to where you want to be.
And today, Beaming Live at the studio, we're blessed to have a pretty awesome entrepreneur.
This is a guy that I met not too long ago because I was on their podcast, which is actually
one of the top 1% podcasts on Earth.
He hosts that with his buddy Ryan.
He is an unbelievable leader in the real estate investment space.
He has expertise across the board in that market.
We're going to talk a lot about investing in real estate today.
and again like I said he is the host of the wealth juice podcast which I love check it out
everywhere stuff is streaming ladies and gentlemen welcome to the program this is Corey Jacobson
Corey what's up my man John that was one of the better intros that I've ever received
unbelievable leader I don't know if I really don't know about that but I appreciate you
hype me up man thanks so much are you just well see I see this point it's either all it's either
all downhill or I pump you up and you have to rise to the occasion I got that intro it's one
The two. Yeah, it's one of the two. There's no in between. It's one of the two. So let's talk a little bit about you, dude. Where did you grow up? What's the backstory? Give me the thing that warped you as a child that turned into your superpower. This is a great question. So I'm from the Philadelphia area. I live in Philadelphia right now. You know, I came from like middle class. So I didn't want for anything when I was younger. I didn't have it all. But I had a good life. I have a great family. So when I got into the workforce after college,
I was actually working for the Philadelphia 76ers, which basketball was my life.
But I looked at my paycheck every day and I was like, man, I'm making a whopping $35,000.
Is this what I went to college for?
Like, can I really do this forever?
Like, is this what I'm supposed to do?
Just try to get by and save up and retire when I'm 65.
And I found the fire movement somewhere along the line of my researching how to build wealth, right?
And real estate popped up for me.
And one of the things that happened actually when I was working for the 76ers is that my boss couldn't pay me much more.
He's like, Corey, you know, I think we can get to 40 or 45.
But you know what you should do?
You should buy a five-bedroom house and rent out four of the bedrooms to people that live here so you can save more money so you can stay.
And I took his advice.
I bought a three-bedroom house.
I lived in one of the bedrooms.
I rented out the other bedrooms and I was able to completely cover my mortgage.
So this allowed me to think differently about money, wealth, and just growth in general and thinking, well, I can save money for the first time really ever.
I had like a little nest egg, put all of that down in this property.
And then from there, I started to save up and I bought a duplex here and a triplex there.
And that was able to grow.
And Ryan and I started our podcast, a social media platform when we had two units.
I just wanted to share my story organically.
Hey, this is what I'm doing.
Hopefully people follow along.
Not trying to preach down to anyone.
I didn't buy 1,000 units starting in 1995.
This is what we're doing.
Hopefully people will follow the journey.
And by osmosis and organically networking with people like yourself and other people,
I was able to grow our, not just our network, but our portfolio.
And then we started a partner on other deals.
So that's the long-winded story.
And I can get into the details of it.
But I started out with just like, hey, how do I make some more money?
And real estate was the first thing that allowed me to save money and accelerate my wealth.
Well, I think, let's unpack everything you just said.
Let's go back to talking about you working for the 76ers.
Of course, the problem with most really cool jobs is they don't pay well.
And I think they know this.
They're like, you know, people just want to be affiliated with what we're doing in pro sports.
And yeah, we can pay you nothing to do it.
And I think that happens to a lot of kids, especially at a college.
I know what happened to me.
I was way more consumed with being able to tell people the story, mainly girls, of what I was doing.
rather than how much I was making.
It was such a cool job, John.
And honestly, I had such a great time doing it.
I don't regret any of those years.
It was amazing.
I ran their youth program, so I got to run their camps.
So my day was spent teaching kids out of play basketball, running the business.
But, like, I was doing stuff that I love to do.
So it was one of the better experiences I've ever had.
But you're right, they save the big dollars and cents for the players.
So unless you work your way up in the organization in there for 20 years, you can take on some
leadership roles.
There is money to be made.
but like entertainment, sports, it's cool.
That's exactly right.
It's a cool job to have.
And whenever I told people, they were like, oh, that's sick.
So, well, that's what I was going to say.
Were you running around telling people you ran a youth sports thing?
Are you running around telling people I work for the 76ers?
Exactly.
I was telling everyone I worked for the 76ers, which was true.
And it was great.
And I had access to the players and all that stuff.
But yeah, my paychecks didn't reflect what I felt the energy I was putting in.
So here's a question, because this is the trap.
I think a lot of people fall into when they get one of these gigs.
I've had one of these gigs that you're talking about.
And how much of your identity at the time, your personal identity, your personal view of your own
self-worth was attached to the fact that you worked for the 76ers?
A large percentage of me.
And the reason was because I grew up a basketball fan.
And I played basketball.
And we're not standing next to each other.
But if we were, you'd see that I'm about five, nine.
And so how was the playing of basketball going to work out for me?
It wasn't going to take me too far.
So I got into coaching and I got into like I just actually stopped coaching.
I was coaching Division III, Division 2.
And then I went to high school actually just because I loved it.
So that was that was my entire identity.
And the Sixers helped me meet a lot of great people.
It got me kind of established in the city of Philadelphia, if you will,
just like meeting big players and who to chat with and who to network with.
So one of the best experiences ever.
but it was truly my identity.
And then I had to shift to say,
how important is money to me?
I did not want to make it everything.
I really didn't.
But I knew how important it was for my future,
for me to get into like a sales role,
for me to learn how the gift of the gab
and learn how to communicate with people.
And that was what accelerated my negotiation skills
and all these other things to eventually hosting a podcast
to being able to amplify other people's voices.
But it started with just the $35,000 job
that I could tell everyone was.
It was cool.
Again, I'm going to dive a deep on this because I think the difference with you a little bit,
and one of the biggest mistakes I think people make is they tie their identity so much to what they do
rather than who they are.
But I think you just said something that probably at a young age, you identified yourself as more,
like if I had to get to the core of what you were at that time, probably a little bit today too,
the answer is going to be coach.
I think that probably, just from what you said, coaches your identity because you can
you can coach anybody to do anything, but it's the investment you're making in others where you
find personal satisfaction. Hey, I don't know if I've had many people diagnose me within the first
seven minutes, seven minutes of a podcast, but I'll tell you, you're 100% right because I never,
and to this day, Ryan and I have just over 90 units together. Some we own the two of us. Some we
own in general partnerships. But I don't say that to brag. I say it, it's like, I can't believe
that I got to this stage. So why would I not show other people how to get started, how to build
their journey? Because it changed my life forever. And it's going to continue to do so because of the
amount of dollars that I now have invested. Now as I'm turning 34 tomorrow, the acceleration of my
wealth is now really starting to get fun. So I'm like, okay, I got to get as many people as I know
to just buy a couple properties. Like if you buy, if you just get involved in the game and I can
teach you, I can handhold you to the way to do that. And you're right. That is what you can just
tell my heartbeat went up. Like that is really what fires me up. And it started with basketball. I love
basketball still to this day. I'll probably get back into coaching. But coaching and mentoring is truly
a passion of mine. So you nailed it. Thanks for the session there. Well, I think also when you
look at like you mentioned something, the second thing you were talking about is, you know, before I had
had any huge moniker of success with real estate, I started going online and telling people to
follow my journey. And I think a big mistake that people make is,
especially in the tribe building, we'll call it, right, is they wait too long to get started.
I look at some of the guys that I know that have built incredible tribes over the years.
I mean, obviously Pace Morby and Jamil have an enormous tribe built around sub two.
And more recently in the last four years, man, I lost my train of thought.
But yeah, just seeing those guys build tribes, they didn't wait until they were massively successful.
because I think people would rather root for somebody that's almost like an underdog.
It's why we watch Rudy.
It's why we do those things that people would rather root for an underdog and see if they can do it
because they can see themselves in you.
Once you become massively, you know, successful, sure, Grant Cardone has his audience when
it comes to real estate investing, absolutely.
But I'd think way more people probably maybe aspire to be that person, but I think they
probably identify more with people earlier on the journey that are finding success.
They probably feel a little bit, I did, feeling disconnected from somebody like Grant.
And that's honestly, you know, why we started the podcast because I was listening to
bigger pockets and I was hearing people say they have a thousand units.
And I'm like, the level, yeah, and I love Brandon.
We had them on our podcast.
But the level that I needed to get to, to get to that stage, it was like, I don't even
know where to put one foot in front of the other or how to do it.
So you wouldn't believe what our DMs were looking like when I was just
sharing, hey, I forgot to fix these windows and now it's raining inside my house. So what do,
like I'm showing you what this is what's happening. Hey, actually I got my first rent check. Hey,
I bought a property. I sold it three years later and I made a hundred grand. Like that's pretty
cool. I'll show you what I did. And people were starting to say, hey, this, this is like the problems that
I'm going through right now as a beginner, as a novice, as a rookie. And they're like, they followed
along our journey. And now we take them along the journey with us so that we can show you how
to do it yourself and I couldn't agree more personal branding especially today it's it's not what
people think it is it's not about like trying to shout from a pedestal down to people it's about
just being authentic and being you and there are so many people that need to hear your story and that's
what you might not realize even you're an expert at something at any stage that you're at and
that's what I I didn't realize because I go back and listen to my like first podcast episodes and
look at my first Instagram posts and I'm like dude you suck but I'm just so that I still I
I'm so glad I kept doing it, you know?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, I think that when you look at what you do and how you do it, you know, the purpose of the tribe, there's a lot of people that I've seen that try to build a tribe around themselves, but you can tell it's little self-serving.
The ones that really get built are when the people really are, the number one thing is investing in others.
They really want to see other people win.
And the advantage with that is once you start, especially in real estate, right?
I think Pace has been the master at this over the last couple of years.
They've built such a giant tribe that those guys don't look for deals anymore.
Dills show up in their DMs all day long with their students that want to partner with them.
And I'm sure you guys are experiencing that same kind of velocity right now.
It's funny.
We are.
We teach people how to buy your first rental property because if you had 20 units and you wanted to learn how to scale it, I could help you.
But I'm not the guy to teach you how to do that.
go to pace or go to somebody else who's even bigger than us.
But if you want to get started, like your first, second, third, I can handhold you on how to do it.
I can plug you in the team.
I can do all that.
And then as a byproduct, what ends up happening is that the deals that we buy are people in our community are buying them with us.
And it's the coolest thing ever.
Like they're saying, hey, I got my first second, third property.
I love the partner with you on them.
We have deal flow.
We have opportunities for people to help them grow.
And I think in a world of AI now that's coming, and information is abundant.
You can chat GPT anything that you want.
Information is all over the place.
But the community and the, hey, I got your back.
Hey, we can do this together.
The team building is, I think, what is AI won't ever touch.
You know, so I tell people all the time, you can go do all this yourself if you want
to be a lone wolf.
But you're going to go so much further when you associate your someone, associate
yourself with someone who's a couple steps ahead of you, who can show you the way.
And that's, I mean, it's been so fun because I'm like, I'm getting to relive the beginning
stages of my journey through the eyes of somebody else, but with the help I never had.
And that is like, I'm just like, oh, man, I'm saving you from a $30,000 mistake right here.
And it's so cool. Watch this. This is going to turn out in your favor, you know?
So that's, I mean, it's just like, it's been the most rewarding thing.
Yeah, I would say the responsibility of success is reaching back to pull others forward as you
search forward yourself. That's always there. Well, have you ever noticed that when you, I'm sure you
have haters online. You're, you have a really big presence. Have you ever known? I need them all.
I need as many as I get. Nobody punches down. No one. Yeah. No one punches down. And I've even
learned that through us just having a couple conversations because you, you came on our podcast and you're like,
let me reciprocate this. I only know you from the conversation we had, but let me reciprocate this and
I'll come on yours. And I'm thinking, man, there's such an abundance collaboration mindset. Once you get to
this certain level of like, hey, I've peaked a little bit of success. Everyone who's down
below is just trying to punch up at the people that they don't even understand and they don't
know. So I've tried my best to be always lending a helping hand because I get hate online. I get
people yelling at me that I'm doing something that they have no idea about. So it's a,
it's a weird world out there because the internet is like this echo chamber of all these thoughts
and there's no real like repercussions for the thoughts. You just have to try to continue to be a good
person and do your best. And hopefully when you get into real life conversations like this,
that authenticity shines through. Well, I think you said something earlier, which was we were talking
about, you said, oh, this guy's bigger than me and call this, but you can do this. I think everybody,
and it doesn't matter, once you start getting, especially in real estate, once you got the game
down, right, once you've kind of done enough deals that you understand the flow, there's no magic
juice to it. Everybody's got the same story. So the point is, it's like music for me. Anything and
motivation or coaching it's all like music and what i mean by that is you've got to find the
frequency at which you receive the information the best and how you deliver information is different
from brandon it's different from any other coaches in the space some people might resonate with how
he delivers the information delivers with his vibe more and cool then go to him but people are gonna
it doesn't matter how big you are you just got to find the people that resonate with your voice
and i find that the information doesn't change but people still even if the information is the same
they're just going to hear it differently depending on how connected they are to the person
that are talking that's such a great point it's the level of comfortability with like does this
person feel sound relate to me like i feel heard like do they have yeah exactly do they have this
kind of whether it's a similar background or similar story just a similar vibe like i wear a hat
i wear a t-shirt like i'm i'm coming to you just authentically as i am and i feel like people
do like that the people that don't that's totally fine too like that's i'm not going to button up
myself in a suit. It's just not me. But, you know, I love that point, John, because I think it's
you find the people, the more you put your message into the universe, the more you find the people
that you're supposed to be around. And in today's day and age, that may not be your family.
Some, some, it may be your family, but that may not be your existing friends. It may be new people.
And that's what's so cool about just this online world is I've met so many amazing people just
by sharing my story. And now I'm like, oh, dude, this dude in Arizona, or this dude in
California, like, he's just like me. How cool is that?
Then you take them to the in-person relationships, and it gets even bigger and better from there.
Well, let's talk about this because I am a big proponent of the podcast.
I tell people all the time, I don't care if you've got three people listening to it, start a podcast because if you start it with good intention, which is trying to get either entertain people or help people, but you also use it as a networking tool.
There's no, I have no better networking tool in my shed than this one.
This is the best tool I have for that.
You know, you know that 90% of podcasts don't make it past episode 10.
So what ends up happening is it's a very much of a delayed gratification game.
We don't need to get into the numbers, but my podcast specifically doesn't bring me tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Like, you know what I mean?
Like it's we have sponsors.
It's great.
But it's this that is what it brings me.
It's like you and I would have not anywhere cross paths in any conversation if I didn't have a podcast and you didn't have a podcast.
and you didn't have a podcast and then you build this mutual respect and you're a hell of a lot
further along than we are but we can share a conversation and have some commonality because
I I'm so genuinely curious about how you did what you did.
I'm not trying to flip the script here and interview you and I know we already did that but
that's how I think. I'm like I'm very curious about what John's doing.
If you can let your curiosity shine and just be the most interested person in the room
instead of trying to be the most interesting person in the room, you can everyone wants to share
their story. Everyone wants to talk about themselves. And I think that that has allowed us to get
in rooms we never would have even sniffed. Like I didn't think I would be interviewing David Green or
Brandon Turner. There are people I read books about. But they're like, hey, you guys have a
platform. I have something to show, something to sell, whatever it might be. Maybe the people
that are listening to you would resonate with my voice. And I highly recommend people, even if it's
not a podcast, if it's a social media platform where you can interact with people, a podcast is even
better. It's just a little bit harder to scale, but just keep doing it. Just keep showing up.
And you don't need fancy lighting or mics or any of that. Just be you. And I think you'll
find the people that are meant to be around you. So I totally agree. Totally. All right. Well,
let's teach the people something. Let's talk about real estate investing. And I want to specifically
talk about because right now it can be tough out there. There's a lot of volatility and a lot of
markets across the country. And I think the biggest problem with newbies thinking about getting
into real estate investing or buying that first property is, A, they think you have to buy it
within five miles of their house.
Yep.
So if your market might be one of the ones that's in the danger zone a little bit, that's
a bad idea.
And then how do you, so how do you analyze if your market is okay?
And if it's not, how do you get over the hump of buying a property in another market?
Let's walk through that.
So I would tell you this, if you're brand new to real estate investing, I do recommend you
buy in your backyard.
I do. That doesn't mean that you have to, but I would say that's a good start. And here's the thing, if you're younger or you're single or you don't have three kids, without a hesitation of a doubt, you should be buying a duplex or a triplex and living in one unit, renting out the others or living in one bedroom. And if you want to bring friends, you don't have to live with strangers. Yeah, you can. But I did it where I brought my friends from where we were renting when I was 26. They're like, I'd rather pay you rent. So I was sharing the living space with them. I realized that people are all.
up in arms about that. They want their privacy. Fine. So I would recommend that to start.
Also, the biggest thing is that the numbers will drive you crazy. They will make you think
left, right, up, down, good deal, bad deal. Like, if your goal, and our goal is always to hold
on to projects for six to ten years, if you hold on for six to ten years, real estate is
very, very, very forgiving. So you can make a deal work. However, let's say you live in California
and you're like, you know what, I can't necessarily, I don't think that I can buy a property
that's $1.6 million or whatever in house hack. Okay, fine. There are teams that you can build
boots on the ground in Detroit, in Cleveland, in Houston, in Augusta, Georgia. I'm just throwing out
some examples of places that you can buy properties for $120, $130,000 and you can put an entire
team and never have to deal with it, never have to not, it's, you do have to deal with it. You have to
manage the manager, but there's a team that you can put in place.
Just as an example, one of the things that we did in the beginning, I started out in my backyard to get comfortable, like we're saying.
But then once I realized these properties were like 45 minutes away, you know, in my backyard, but not too far, I wasn't going to the properties once I hired the right team.
So if I wasn't going to these properties, does that mean I could invest two hours away?
Does that mean I can invest a three hour plane right away?
And then I slowly started to move into other markets, but it is all about who you know and how you can piece these deals together and make.
sure you have the right property manager, make sure you have the right contractors. And things
will go wrong. Contact will be made. But as long as you have those pieces in place, you can invest
anywhere. I know people that are investing out of the country. I don't do it, but I know people that do
it. Oh, you know, I got a freebie for you if you want it. Yeah. Because I met this dude did a
speaking deal at five-star a couple weeks ago with Dallas. And I met this guy who was the vice
president of construction for offer pad. I don't know if you know about this deal or not. I
I've never heard of Offerpad actually.
Okay, so offer, they're an I buyer, right?
There's Open Door and there's OfferPad.
They're the two biggest ones.
They may not be in your market in Philadelphia.
But OfferPad does about rehab, you know, flip 4,000 doors a year is how many they do nationwide.
It's a lot of doors.
And so in talking to the guy that was the vice president of rehab, who built their entire network of contractors.
And everybody's like, yeah, obviously the market's a little squarely right now, so we can't buy on the margin.
And they asked me, because I don't want to, I don't want to lose my crews, because
our crews are hyper loyal to us, but based strictly on the amount of work that we give them.
We buy everything in bulk.
So we have like bulk flooring prices, bulk tile prices, bulk everything.
So what they've started doing is they'll do your rehab for you as a flipper.
The crews don't know if it's hedge fund's house or your house.
They don't tell them any different.
And they'll guarantee you $1,000 worth of work a day.
So if it's a $27,000 rehab, it's done in 27 days guaranteed.
And it's from I got a couple buddies in sub markets using them and they tell everybody tells me this has been a game changer for us because now because without fear they can buy anywhere.
And then if you're using a couple of the different big lenders, I'm again, I'm not sponsored by any of them.
So I won't name them.
But a couple of the big lenders, I'm not sponsored by an offer bat either, but a couple of the big sponsors, a couple of the big lenders, fix and flip vendors, they'll handle the draws directly with them.
You don't have to deal with it.
So the draws are handled out on the fix and flip money on the.
the levered money. And it's free. So if there's some markets you've been looking at,
you're like, I don't know if I want to build crews, check that out. No, I definitely will.
I think that's great advice. I, you know, it's funny. I think you mentioned like what,
what the biggest mistake that newbies, like what was their biggest mistake? I think it's
expectation. I really do. I think if I find a rental property in a B plus market or a B minus
market or a market that I can see potential appreciation that has some cash flow, like that like middle
ground that cash flows 250 or $300 a door. I would buy that property and I know that $300 or $300 a
month does not excite people these days. I think that's the issue is that they're looking at it like
I need to escape my job right now. I hate this shit. I can't do it. I like get me out of this.
Well, I don't think real estate investing, meaning buying rentals, buying long term, building your
portfolio is a great way to do that at all. If you're looking to fix and flip, that's a new job.
If you're looking to wholesale, that's a new job. You can escape what you're already doing.
we teach people how to buy long-term rentals and people come to us like next year I need to be out of my job like I'm not saying it's impossible but I'm saying if you work in five to 10 year time horizons you're going to be so happy you're that the delayed gratification is going to come through and you're going to be like I am so glad that and I'm telling you this because I've only been investing in real estate for seven years but now I'm starting to see the fruits of my seven year ago labor right that's the I not and you know maybe people disagree with me and say they can get out of your job in a year if you have that strategy great
But I like to be conservative and I like to tell people, this is what you can expect.
And I love to hear that there's like even new strategies that I haven't thought of like partnering with these like large scale firms.
It's really, really cool because finding contractors is.
That's the hardest part.
The trades. The trades is the worst.
Yeah.
I mean, I'm on a three week shower remodel at my house right now because it's been.
Your primary home?
My primary.
Yes, because it got that incorrectly twice.
And so now they're coming tomorrow to rip all the slabs out again and redo it.
And it's like, I, you know, and these are like the best guys in town.
And I'm like, how did this happen?
But yeah, the trades are the worst.
And I think that's the biggest mistake is when, let me ask you the order at which
you should start doing this.
Tell me the order because I have my opinion.
So say I'm a brand new investor.
Yeah.
What is the order in which I should do things?
Strategy wise?
Like what strategy?
Strategy was like laying it up.
Okay.
So this, I kind of hit this a little bit.
It depends on your age and your living situation, but I would, without a doubt, if I could, three times in a row, live in a property, rent out the other units, stay there for six to 12 months, leave.
You have to be making money at your job to do this, right?
You're not going to pay for it from the rents, right?
But buy a property, live in one unit, rent out the others.
Do this three times in a row.
Do it once.
Do it twice.
Do something like that because you can put as little as three and a half percent down.
A $600,000 property can cost you $30,000 to get into, something like that, right?
I would do that because you're going to build a base of a place that you would want to live.
And that's half of real estate.
It's like, I know there's a lot of people that are going to buy in war zones and it looks good on paper in terms of the numbers.
But if you can't get tenants in there, the properties are, they're not going to work.
So I would say go to an area that you'd want to live, put three and a half or five percent down, live in that property for six to 12 months, then leave and do it again.
Now, this requires you to delay the gratification of the lifestyle that you ultimately want to live.
And that's where people mess up.
So do that.
And then I think people should get into the long-term rentals
where it's like, hey, maybe I do go to a different market.
For example, I have a good friend, Mike.
Shout out to Mike.
He's in our community.
He lives in New Jersey.
He bought his first property in Detroit.
And then he bought his second property in Detroit.
And then all of a sudden his team starts to build.
And now he has seven units in Detroit.
And then he has since branched out and he bought a short-term rental in the Pocono Mountains.
I say all this to say, I don't think people should dabble in a bunch of different strategies.
I think it's like house hack if you can, get into long-term rentals.
And then when you're like, okay, I understand this game.
That's how we got into more of the short-term boutique hotel type stuff.
But it was only from learning what we didn't know.
So that's kind of a little bit of a path there.
And if you live in a high price point market, you can go right to long-term rentals.
You just have to find the right team in front of the right market to do that.
Yeah.
And it's, I mean, there's certain markets that just do not pencil at all right now.
Vegas is almost impossible right now.
pencil an acquisition.
Vegas is what, I mean, I was looking at this the other day.
I think Vegas is, and I don't know too much about Vegas, but it's like top three
hottest markets in the country.
I mean, in terms of like just appreciation and growth and what you've seen.
So yeah, it's going to be harder to make long term rentals work in a market like that.
But if you can get in with the primary that you can also subsidize your mortgage, I would
be doing that all day.
That's, that's how I would do it.
Well, let me ask you this, because I wrestle with.
this as a as a pure capitalist i wrestle with this thought but i think the biggest problem with
housing is the hedge funds commoditizing the single family home last 10 years has caused the housing
issue so what says you should there be a cap on how many homes an institutional hedge fund
can own this is a tough question uh i get a lot of like hate on instagram because we put up a post
the other day got like a couple hundred thousand views but the good comments start to come in first
and then after a day or so the bad ones come in and they kind of blame you for the housing crisis
right you know um as if as if i'm you know black rock but this is a good question because i do not
believe it is good for the greater good of the country that we have this housing on affordability
just because i'm an investor does not mean that i want all all the money and all the greed and all my
prices of homes to go up and people not to be able to afford them i think that's an insane way to
about the greater good of the United States. However, I think without the opportunity for prosperity
and the opportunity for growth and competitiveness, you leave yourself in a world where
there's not an incentive to do well. There's not the output of effort because it's not the outcome.
It's the effort that typically gets people there. Some people are given a golden spoon. That's fine,
too. But to get back to your question, I'm going to say, I'm going to say,
Yeah. I think I think there should be a limit on institutions being able to buy. And I don't know
what that limit should be. That's maybe we can work through this together or you might disagree
completely. But I, I said I wrestle with it. That's why I wanted to hear your answer. I do think
there's a challenge with should the young starter family that used to be able to buy homes
when they were 28, now they're 38, do I think that's good for the country? No, I don't. I don't know
how to fix it. I think a housing affordability needs to be something that is looked at. But with
the debasement of the dollar, I don't know if this is reversible. That's the problem. I don't
think it is. So I think there should be a limit. I don't know what the limit is, but I don't want
to see the wealth gap widen. And that's happening every single year, every single month that's
happening even faster. Yeah, I have, again, mixed feelings with that as well. I worked for both,
not worked for, but I bought a huge portion of invitation homes portfolio in Vegas, a huge portion
of Goldman Sachs's portfolio here. I bought a huge, I helped them buy a huge portion of that
in 1213. Now granted, they haven't stopped since I quit work with them, you know, over 10 years ago,
but still, it was a huge portion of that. And I never could have foreseen how much they were
going to buy. And what's your take then? Do you feel like, are you? I think I, well, okay, I am a
free market capital is at its finest. And the problem, the only issue, so two, two parts of
this. Number one, I genuinely think that the large institution should have to divest of their
holdings. I think that is, I think that would be best for the American public. The problem with
the other side of that slope is, okay, so if we're going to say that you can't do this, what else,
where's it stop? Where else is that going to go? So now all of a sudden it's like, well, maybe you can't
have a position in gold that's greater than X amount or you can't have position in this that's
greater this and I think that's that's the that's the slippery slope so how do you how do you pick
and isolate this one thing that has created a very large problem and I and I do believe that the
hedge funds are at the leading cause of the housing crisis I do believe they are and you look at
the rents that have just gone through the roof across the country I think I just don't know
how you fix it that's the problem I think it's a problem I think they should fix
it. I don't know how you, I don't know how you break that one section of the pipe without breaking
all of it. Well, you probably have seen this in your life and just, once the government or the,
entity that is above takes some form of power, they typically don't give it back, right? So that,
so that starts at, you probably saw this in the last couple of years. I don't know where I read it,
but I was seeing the unrealized capital gains structure, how it was potentially going to shift from,
like you could you would have to pay unrealized capital gains that was a Biden that was a
Biden objective right and what ended up happening with it is it scared people completely because once
you read the fine print you saw I think it was like a hundred million and above but what but where did
where does it stop you know what does that go to 50 million does that go to 10 million does it go to a
million does it go to 500,000 and then everyone's affected and I think that's maybe what you're
alluding to is like if you tell X company that they can't buy this then when does Joe and his
wife not be able to buy this thing? Like, does it go, does it trickle all the way down? And then you just have
an authoritarian type of government, which is never a good thing, in my opinion. So I, it's funny,
I didn't know the conversation would go this way. But we don't have the solutions necessarily,
but I think we're both in agreement that it's like you either play the game or you get played
by the game. So learning the game is the best thing that anyone can do. And I had no real leg up
other than that I wasn't poor growing up and had a good family and a good,
mindset, I would love if other people started to say, hey, real estate investing isn't just
for the rich people. It's for anybody. Yeah. And the more that you can start to build your
portfolio, you'd be shocked at the generational wealth that you can at least provide for your
family, whether or not Black Rock continues to buy up all these properties. So that's my take.
I think that, well, let me ask you this. Next question, because it's starting to become illegal
in a lot of, in a lot of places. Let's talk about wholesaling. Okay.
What are your thoughts on wholesale?
Because you are not a licensed real estate agent, correct?
I am actually.
You are.
Okay, so you are.
Okay.
I didn't know.
The last six months I got licensed because it's so adjacent to my business.
And I love, I just love helping people.
Got it.
I think it's another avenue for me.
So I am.
I have an interesting take on this.
I have a good friend who lives in Tampa, Florida.
He wholesales.
He flips.
He's licensed.
And his take is I think you should have to be licensed to wholesale.
And I think the,
the reason that he thinks that, and keep in mind, I don't wholesale. So maybe I'm not the best to
speak on this, but I do have some opinions. He says you should have to be licensed. And one of
the reasons is, is because, or some sort of licensing structure is because he's getting
19 year olds and 20 year olds that are calling him about deals that have no clue what's going on in
this property. And he has seen the end user, not the flipper, but the person that has sold it to
have a $100,000 problem of, you know, X drywall issue or mold that could have been avoided
if the first wholesaler actually knew what they were flipping the contract for or had some
liability and they just moved the paper and they're off with it and they make 10 grand.
So I would say I do think there should be some regulation.
Is it the same test that realtors take?
I don't know if that really helps.
It's not driving any like real education into the space.
But I don't think I do like that there is some regulation around it because I think it protects
people.
I don't want too much.
And again, it's kind of a similar thing.
How do you, how do you see it? Do you think it should be unregulated?
I think it's absolutely predatory and should be against the law.
I actually, I'll tell you what, I wrote the bill that the session here just ended the legislation session.
Governor was behind it. Everybody was behind it. They were absolutely, it was going to get passed, but they just ran out of time with the legislation session.
So the next time our legislation comes here, you'll see, you'll see wholesale and become illegal in Nevada.
And here's why. Here's my problem.
My problem is for $19 right now, I can shut my computer off.
And for $19, I can go online somewhere and buy a how to wholesale property business.
Train me to wholesale property.
And I can get on the phone and I can start banging people out.
And the problem I have with wholesaling is this.
You're not creating anything.
You are simply stripping equity from the homeowner.
That is all you're doing.
You're not providing a service.
You're not providing an open market highest offer.
Like people are like, whoa, you know, realtors are just you, you charge the same thing for this.
No, I put the property on the open market and I extrapolate the maximum amount that the market will pay for that property.
That's what I do.
I got.
Wholesale, wholesalers normally have one or two flippers that they have to get a property and they send it out.
And anybody that will pay them as much as they can strip away from the homeowner is what they're,
trying to do. Now, flippers I love. I have flipped hundreds of homes in my life and you are bringing
value to the community. You are taking a property that is bringing down property values and you are
improving it and bringing up property values. Improving neighborhoods across the board for everybody
that lives in that community. Love a flipper, love an investor. But the wholesaling rules as they are
now in South Carolina, which it's what they're going to be here in Nevada when this passes in a couple
years is you are not allowed to market a property in any way for sale as a deal that you have
unless you are, unless you're a licensed realtor, unless you own 51% of the property.
It's like FISBOS can still do what they want.
If you own your own house and you want to sell it, knock yourself out, but you can't write
a contract.
And again, all of those, like all of those offers, most wholesalers, the concept of it starts with
deception. Yes. It starts with pure deception. Cash offer to buy your house,
all by your house, regardless of condition, all by your house, all by your house,
when they have no intention of buying it, which is why they write and or assigning
on the contract. And they don't necessarily, now there are some, I'm sure, above board wholesalers
out there, but they're not too concerned about the, not the condition, but the situation
that the, why does somebody need to get out of this? Like, what's the, what's the pain,
what's the hurt they have? It's like, most of the time, it's like, that doesn't matter. I'm just
trying to make $15,000.
And some people, wholesalers make $150,000 on a deal.
I'm not trying to downplay anyone's business.
You know, like do what you want as long as you're a good person.
But I know that there is a very predatory realm out there.
And I actually, it's funny.
I'm glad we're having this conversation.
I'm tending more to agree with what you're saying.
Now, more that I think about it because, you know, properties can be wholesaled
two, three, four times before a flipper actually buys them.
And then you're just basically middlemanning someone to death.
And these flippers now have to maybe do properties at a not as high quality.
And then you end up selling that to an end user.
So I agree with you.
So here's the question.
How many people do you think, and here's my bigger problem, which is if you look at a heat
map of where properties get wholesale and I don't know if even such a thing exists.
In Vegas, I know, because I used to get sent a lot of these deals, they are in a part of
town that is not the most economically viable part of town with people that are probably not
educated. So they're not going to the most educated parts of town and pulling these wholesale deals
together. That does not happen. Yep. Yeah. They're taking advantage of people that,
that understand that this is, okay, you're going to buy my house for cash. Okay, great. And then
it's just scraping off. I don't like the predatory nature of it. And the biggest problem with
it is, with it is for me. And this is going to be getting my soapbox and I'm going to make some
wholesalers mad. But the biggest problem for me is the lie you tell yourself,
becomes the truth. And these guys get in their echo chamber, and they get an echo chamber,
and they start telling every, they start telling each other how much they're helping people.
Yeah.
Dude, if you take a $250,000 in our house and you make a $70,000 assignment on it, the only person
you helped in that scenario is yourself.
Totally agree. Totally. And I also think, um, what ends up, you know,
this because you're an agent and you run a team, the biggest, single biggest piece of wealth
that people have in their 60s and 70s is often their primary residence.
It's, you know, that's the only source of wealth they have.
A lot of them, right.
Yeah, the average 401 balance of that age is like $250,000.
I mean, that's pretty hard to live off the 4% rule on that.
So now, if you have a property as a homeowner that you purchased in 87, that you bought for
$100,000 and it's worth $800. Now you have something that you can tap into and that is your
biggest source of wealth. And if wholesalers are stripping that at 70 grand, a 50 grand away,
then I totally agree with you. So maybe that will help the housing affordability if wholesaling
is, you know, because what I was saying doesn't even make sense actually. Like just to have
a license to do the same thing. Like that doesn't really help. But here's the difference. So if
you're licensed and you're going to work real estate, then you have to be a realtor and as much
nonsense as NARA has gone through and as irrelevant as I think that is most days too, you know,
at least we have that code of ethics. We have to abide by where you have to do what is in the
best interests of the clients. Exactly. And you get held accountable. And now there becomes some
sort of governing body that, you know, when this happens. But if you, and also if you're a realtor,
you don't want to review that says this guy stole grandma's equity. That's stuff you don't want. So
there's a little bit more responsibility that comes with that.
But yeah,
hopefully that'll change.
And that's what's best for the consumer.
It's not about giving up choice.
It's about doing this.
I'm not just picking on the little guy that's the 19-year-old that's
learned how to wholesale.
I stood on the stage at Enman.
I sit on the stage,
the big stage at Enman Connect,
which is one of the biggest real estate conference in the country,
when Zillow was the title sponsor,
and this is when Zillow was I buying.
And I genuinely felt they were manipulating values,
and then they would buy your house for a cash offer.
and I thought that was such a conflict, it was insane.
And I stood on that stage and I said Zillow is perpetuating the largest theft of American
wealth that you've ever seen right now.
And it's a heist.
Yeah.
They need this to say,
I was not super thrilled with that.
Yeah.
So it's,
and you're right.
It's,
I'm not trying to despair as a 19 year old.
Go go do what you feel is right.
And like everyone's got to start somewhere, right?
But there's ways to do it.
There's ways to do this without taking advantage of somebody else.
It's, that's the, that's the, that's the wonderful.
thing about real estate. Like you look at the fast, easy money being made in crypto, all the, all the
alt coins and all that stuff. For you to win, somebody else has to lose. You're playing poker
to table. Somebody's on the other side of table. Your win is their loss. That's how this works
when you pull money on the table. Real estate doesn't have to be a zero-sum game. It can be a good
for everybody. The seller gets the max value for their property. And in its condition, you should be
able to improve it to a place where you can make money or you can hold on to it long term
through the Burr method.
Agreed.
Yeah, I totally agree.
That's a great point.
And that's why I do love real estate.
And it's interesting, I feel like realtors, since I became one, have gotten this weird
rap of like, oh, I'm not paying.
I heard all this.
I'm not paying a realtor.
They don't do anything.
They just show houses.
And the more realtors I've met, the more good ones that I've met, the more I realize, like,
these people are walking people, a lot of consumers through the biggest purchase of their life.
And they're almost therapists because they have to talk down the emotional level.
They have to make sure that they're negotiating on their behalf.
I think there's so much skill set that's involved in it, again, if you're good.
And the thing is that the barrier to entry to become an agent is pretty low.
So there ends up being people that are not that good that don't have the best intentions
that are just out there for a dollar.
And John, it's probably any field that you look in.
Well, let's talk about this.
I want to talk about one more thing before we go, which is let's talk about deal making
because obviously, as well as you guys are doing with the acquisitions, you've become a good dealmaker.
So what do you think makes a good dealmaker?
Well, I would say this.
I think figuring out your skill set as it relates to the deal.
And I can break this down.
So the way that we buy real estate now is that we're general partners.
So we have focused, we buy it actually New England.
We buy New Hampshire, Vermont.
And we focus on five to 30 units.
Why do we do that?
Well, you mentioned institutional money is not always looking in that like small to midsize multifamily.
They're buying 200 unit plus or they're buying, you know, single family owns in Vegas.
But the five to the five to 30 unit has allowed us to play in a field that I have a boots on the ground team.
My partner, Sean, lives in this market.
So he knows it like the back of his hand.
He grew up there.
So he's finding these deals, and then we're helping him underwrite them.
We're helping him market the deal.
We're doing investor relations.
We're managing the property management team, and we're managing the contractors together.
And then we're also bringing funds to the deal.
So putting that together is like, well, our skill set has been able to create a community of
people that want to get involved in real estate, whether they want to buy actively or they
want to just be passive, that they come to us and say, guys, I know you've been buying real estate
for seven or eight years. What deals do you have? So that's how we piece these deals together
where people can come in passively and everyone can win because they can still work their nine to
fives. They can run their businesses and they can make money on the side without having to fix
toilets at 2 a.m. I don't know if you were asking about that type of dealmaking or more so like the
structure of like dollars and cents, but that's how we piece this together. Yeah. For those
you don't know. What he said was GP means general partner, for those of you guys don't know.
So when you're raising capital for these multifamily deals, are you guys bringing in limited
partners or LPs or are you just strictly doing it as a structured loan?
No, we are doing it as we're bringing in limited partners. And we do 506Bs, which is for people
that are listening, that's, you can bring in friends and family, people that you know, like and
trust. And I'm not, we're not marketing this to the masses, which is called 506C, or we can just
blast that we have these deals because there's a lot of ed,
SEC regulation around it. We bring in people that have known us that are investing with us
consistently that we've had conversations with in person, their friends, their family, all
of that. So we're bringing in limited partners. We put money in ourselves as general partners. We
have collateral as well. And then limited partners also bring their funds and just invest
passively. And it ends up being these five to seven year projects that turn into win-wins for
everyone. But again, patience is the key there. Are you guys doing on these big multifamily projects?
Are you guys doing like paid cost seg?
Yeah.
So, yeah, we're doing cost segregation studies,
and especially with 100% bonus depreciation that happened in the early,
I think it was after January 19th, I believe,
or mid-January this year where we can, you know,
accelerate all that depreciation.
And that's one of the biggest reasons why people like investing
is because if you're an LP and you have other rental properties,
you can offset a lot of your passive gains.
Now, if you're a GP, you can offset your other active income too.
which is great. So we're doing that. And, you know, we have the structure where we're paying
a waterfall back to a preferred return to our LPs and then we get paid after they do.
Yep. Yeah, it's money raising season because everybody's going to start scrambling to try to get
some stuff before the end of the year. It's exactly right. Yeah. We've had a number of conversations
with people who, some people in our community who are like, hey, I'm selling this property
or I want a 1031 and there's ways that you can 1031 into syndications, which is pretty
cool. I learn new stuff every day. But yeah, they're trying to, you know, make sure that money's
parked somewhere else so they don't have to pay capital gains on it or they can defer it.
What a cool game once you learn, like, how to play it. And I think, you know, we're just getting
started. Just getting well, let's, I want to ask you this because you brought, you just said it,
I was going to bring it up. But a lot of syndicated multifamily deals that were done in the last
three years are getting hammered right now. Because they're, everything they did was projected
on rates coming back into the low fives. And now they're getting absolutely thumped. So, A,
have you avoided that through your syndications? B, are you trying to vulture fund in on any of the
guys that are scrambling? That's a good question. No, we're not trying to vulture in. At least,
to my knowledge, me and my partners haven't really set. What we have done is we've tried to educate
people because what's happened is I had somebody come to me who was going to invest with us,
a good friend of mine. And he said, hey, I found this deal. He's an accredited
investor. So you can invest in the 506 funds. You know, he makes it for people that are listening,
if you're makeover, I think it's $200,000 a year and or have a net worth of a million
dollars. You're an accredited investor or $300,000 combined with you and a spouse. So you can
invest in these 506 funds. He saw a fund, um, or a syndication. It wasn't necessarily a fund,
but he saw one that had a 29% IRA. And I said to him, dude, do your due diligence.
That's aggressive. Yeah. And I, I said,
Just so you know, we typically are in the 14 to 16% because we only underwrite as conservatively as possible because I always want to under promise and overdue and that's my biggest thing.
I would rather lose my own dollars than lose investor dollars every single day of the weekend.
I have lost my own money, which is why I feel qualified enough to say, this is what I should do and shouldn't do.
So I haven't really got into like that taking from, you know, what people have their losses and trying to like redirect.
them, but I've, I've just warned people, hey, if you're seeing a 29% IRA and it's being blasted out to the masses, just do your due diligence and just know who you're working with. Because the relationship with the sponsors and a relationship with those people, to me, is way more important than the dollars and sense that you see on paper as how good this deal can be. Now, maybe people are making 30% returns. That's great. I hope they're out there. I just don't want to promise. But if you're, but if you're, my see, here's my opinion on that, right? That's like, that's like the Lamborghini on Instagram.
If the 29% to me might as well be a lamb on Instagram, if you're that good, if you're really that good and you've got a track record of turning those 29%, that deal's not getting blasted to anybody because your investor pool has already gobbled up every, every possible point of it.
That's a good point too. Yeah. So I get a little weary with it. And, you know, there's investors that are way bigger than me that are. So I don't know at all. But what I do know is that I now stay in my lane. Like I buy these five to 30 units. We're buying in New Hampshire. We're buying in Vermont. We're buying it value add.
And we're just, we're able to find these deals from an off market fashion, whether our property
manager refers them to us or our lender up there refers them to us because they know that we're
going to close and that we're actively buying. And then they had, especially the property
manager, they have people coming in and out, selling all of that. And I think that's been a win-win
for us. But I'll, I, the last thing I ever want to do is lose investor capital. And, you know, knock on
wood, we have had a great track record with doing that. But we keep our circle small. That's the thing.
I, you know, people that I really,
smart.
Hey, you have to trust not just the numbers, but you're trusting us.
And I take that to heart.
Yeah.
What's your number one value add right now on, on multifamily when you do something?
Like the, uh, the thing that you would fix in the property that, that brings the value.
Yeah, which, yeah, which why I heard a really slick one the other day that I love.
And I don't know what the, I don't know what the eviction laws are and you're part of the world over there where you're doing this, but I heard a really good with the other day.
That's a good question.
I mean, you know, anytime that you can put in new.
kitchens and bathrooms obviously they sell houses but typically what we're doing right
now is we're turning over like 1980s build or maybe a little bit earlier and we're
taking and we're putting in new flooring quartz countertops new cabinets that
that to me has helped just even the vibe of this property see the vibe of all
these properties significantly but I'm looking we're buying in typically B to B
plus markets so you have a little room of like hey if there's a if there's a
dip and people that are in the A class lose their jobs.
They can come down to B class.
I don't like to play in C class.
It's a little bit too risky for me.
So I don't know if that totally answers your question.
Well, I was going to tell you a slick one.
Again, it might help you with your eviction laws if you have them if they're terrible.
But my good friend Kendra Todd that actually got me into real estate has a lot of units
in Washington state where eviction rules are just dreadful.
So what they did was they started adding mini storage to all of their where they could build
on a pad.
at all of their multifamily stuff.
And then what they do is they just make, they make the, they only do the mini storage for the
people that live there.
So it creates a revenue source for them, additional revenue.
But they do an incredibly good pricing on it to incentivize people to take it.
And what happens is they tie the mini storage bill to the rent.
And if they default on the rent, they can't evict them necessarily, but they can put a lock
on that storage unit and then auction off all their stuff.
That is legal.
And that lever has gotten people to be like, okay, no, no, no, we'll move.
move or, okay, no, no, let me get caught up because you can't do anything except in the house.
I've never heard of that. Yeah, I had neither. I thought it was, I thought it was really,
really smart. And she was like, we were just having, we were getting murdered with people that
just weren't banished. And that has essentially now driven it to zero. That was one of the reasons
why I stopped investing in, in New Jersey. I'm in Philly, like, very close to New Jersey.
And I love Philadelphia. It's actually easier to invest in Philly than it is in New Jersey.
But the eviction laws were favoring the tenants so much. And, you know,
I wanted to be the best landlord that I could be so that my tenants never wanted to leave.
Like that's what I pride myself on.
I don't want to be a bad landlord.
But if somebody stops paying, especially in the past couple of years, it was six months minimum before the people were getting out.
We're in Texas, the sheriff shows up the next day, basically.
So in Vermont, New Hampshire, it's a little bit better.
They're a little bit more landlord friendly than you would potentially think for the northeast, like Massachusetts is worse.
So we kind of have a blend
But it's it's I mean so far it's worked out
I think that that's where our team is
And that's why I'm saying like I never thought
I was going to invest in the Northeast in those areas
It's just where my team started to grow
And we started to be able to plug and play with the right people
I think if anywhere in the United States
You can find a great place to invest
It's just about where you have your team
Okay all right then the last question I'm asking before we jump off
Because I'm sure it's the one that everybody wanted to know
since the second you said you were from Philadelphia, which is this.
If one is just drinking out of your beverage too loud,
and 10 is slapping your mother, all right, that's the scale.
Drinking too loud out of a cup, 10 is slapping your mother.
Where on that scale as a Philadelphia sports fan are you throwing batteries at the opposing teams fans?
Okay, that's an 11.
But are you going to ask me where I stand or just like how are Philadelphia?
fans in general.
Okay, give me the Philly fans in general.
I would say this.
The city, it's funny.
If you're not from Philly,
you think Philly is like this war-torn third world country,
like get me out of here.
I absolutely love Philadelphia.
I love the passion.
I love the fans.
I think it's kind of one of those things that we're like holding our sports teams
to this really high standard.
It's super working class.
It's like blue collar.
It's like, you know, and I'm not from the inner in the city.
But I love Philadelphia sports fans.
I do think, however, maybe don't wear a Cowboys jersey to leave it.
Maybe you're asking, maybe you're just asking for it if that happens.
Okay, fair, fair, fair.
All right, cool.
Brother, I appreciate it so much.
If they want to find you, where do they find you?
The best place to find us is on Instagram, actually, at Wealth Juice official.
It's me and my partner, Ryan.
We've been doing this.
We post every single day for the past six years and we'll continue to do so.
And then the Wealth Juice podcast, wherever you listen to podcasts, if you want to listen to
some more long-form content.
We're sharing our story.
We're amplifying other voices, and we're bringing it out twice a week.
So that's where to find us.
I love it, man.
Well, thanks so much.
Anytime you're at Vegas, I got you.
John, I appreciate you having me all, man.
This is awesome.
So, guys, if you listen to that today, and hopefully you'll listen to it all.
I mean, if you took nothing away from it, take this away from it.
It is never the wrong time to get started investing in real estate, ever.
So start today.
Figure out how to do it today because one of my favorite quotes is the best time to chop.
you know, what the best time to plant a tree is 50 years ago.
Second best time is right now.
So it could do something right now.
Six years, seven years from now, you'll thank yourself for it.
We'll see you next week.
Hey, it's John Gafford from the Escaping the Drift podcast.
And big news, my new book, Escaping the Drift is coming out.
November the 11th, you can pre-order it right now at thejongafer.com.
There are tons of bonuses, tons of giveaways.
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If you are somebody that feels like you might be drifting along,
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Pick it up everywhere.
What's up, everybody?
Thanks for joining us
for another episode
of escaping the drift hope you got a bunch out of it or at least as much as i did out of it anyway
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