Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin - Mauricio Umansky on “Rentvesting” a Bullish Real Estate Market and Where to Buy

Episode Date: August 10, 2026

Mauricio Umansky is one of the most successful luxury real estate agents in the world, selling homes for A-listers and closing massive deals. Today, he joins Nicole to break down exactly where the real estate market stands right now: why we're finally shifting out of a three-and-a-half-year transaction low, why “rentvesting” might be a move to consider in some markets, and the 10-year rule that means almost no one who buys a home ever ends up losing money on it. Then Nicole and Mauricio dig into the parts of his world reality TV can't capture: the $124 trillion wealth transfer reshaping who owns real estate next, his "playvestment" strategy for buying property purely because it makes him happy, his take on the mansion tax killing development in LA, and whether he'll ever trade real estate for a run at Mayor of Los Angeles. Start investing investing at SoFi.com/MNN  Check out Nicole's financial literacy course ⁠The Money School⁠  Find a Financial Advisor or Financial Coach from Nicole's company ⁠Private Wealth Collective⁠  Watch video clips from the pod on ⁠Money Rehab's Instagram⁠ and ⁠Nicole Lapin's Instagram⁠  Learn more about Mauricio’s work and The Agency Here's what Nicole covers with Mauricio: 00:00 Are You Ready for Some Money Rehab? 03:04 Is This a Buyer's or Seller's Market? 04:10 Comparing Today's Market to Past Cycles 08:17 The 10-Year Rule According to Mauricio 09:21 Rentvesting Explained 10:35 Real Estate Returns vs. the Stock Market 11:45 Where Mauricio Would Buy Right Now 14:35 His Investment Thesis: Hospitality, Flipping, and Branded Residences 15:43 The Real Odds of Getting a Deal Done 16:56 Inside His Portfolio: Real Estate vs. Equities 17:53 Will AI Replace Real Estate Agents? 19:01 The $124 Trillion Wealth Transfer and Family Compounds 22:15 Short-Term Rentals and the 2028 LA Olympics 23:12 Would He Run for Mayor of LA? 29:56 The Mansion Tax, Explained 32:16 Reality TV: Help, Hurt, and Are the Numbers Even Real? 39:01 The Passion Project That Makes Him Zero Dollars 40:16 The Truth Behind His "$6 Billion" in Sales 46:24 Mauricio's Tip You Can Take Straight to the Bank All investing involves risk, including loss of principal. This episode is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment, or legal advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making financial decisions.

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free introductory call at privatewealthcollective.com or check out the link in the show notes of this episode. That's privatewealthcollective.com. No matter where you buy, but even if you buy it a peak and you hold out 10 years, there is not one time where your property is worth less than 10 years later. There's not one 10 year cycle that's ever been lower than the peak. Mauricio Umanski built the agency into one of the most powerful luxury real estate firms in the world. He has personally done billions in real estate sales and has represented some of the world's most noteworthy properties like the Walt Disney estate, homes that were owned by Michael Jackson, Michael Jordan, and Prince. Today, he takes us behind the scenes in the real estate market right now. There's amazing deals out there right now to be had.

And so I think we're in the transition and we're moving from a bear market into a bull market. He gives us his take on rent vesting, the strategy where you rent where you live, but buy where you rent. I think right now it's a great opportunity to be a tenant in California. Insurance is super high. And so being a tenant right now, it's not a terrible place to be. And then building equity through somebody else's rent. Potential cash flow. And it builds equity.

Where he'd buy right now. A lot of money and people flocking to Miami. Florida, great tax haven. Texas, great tax haven. And whether we'll be calling him. Mayor Umanski anytime soon. I've thought about it a lot. I'm Nicole Lappen, the only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand.

It's time for some money rehab. Maraiso Yomanski, welcome to money rehab. Thank you, Nicole. It's good to be here. I'm excited to talk money. I'm always excited to talk money. So I'm glad to have somebody who shares in that. I have to start with where is the real estate market right now. I know everybody asks, Is it a buyer's market? Is it a seller's market? We are in a great time right now.

We're in a transitional time. We've been in a three year, three and a half year low. It's been a very difficult market. And when I talk about the market conditions, I talk about transactions. There's two different types of market conditions, right? One is price, is it maintaining price or is it, you know, depreciating or appreciating? But right now I'm going to tell you about transactions because I own the agency, which is a real estate brokerage firm with 170 offices around the world. And so I care more about transactions than I care about price.

And we are in a three and a half year low of transactions. It's been a very, very difficult three and a half years. Can you give us, because I've heard you talk about this a lot, but can you give us like a comp? So when you say it's a low, where have we been, where are we now? And why should individual buyers and sellers care about that number, even if they're not part of the agency? Great question, because it affects the market. That's the fast answer. But just to give you an idea, a typical 20, I look at, when I analyze the real estate market, I analyze 2019, and I kind of just get rid of the whole 2020 COVID world because it was an anomaly on every part.

for the first three or four months there was nothing. And then it was like, holy cow, it was everything. Right? So I take those that year and a half or whatever and I just throw it out because it's an outlier. It's an outlier. It will never happen again. Free money was giving the, you know, it better not happen again.

Yeah. So I look at 2019 and then I look at post-2020, right? And then I look at the history. But a typical year in transactions is somewhere in the neighborhood of 5.6, 5.7 million transactions in the country. Since the 1994 savings and loan crisis, we were generally, you know, we were even in 2007, 2008, during the banking crisis, we had more transactions. But a typical somewhere around 5.6, 5.7 million transactions. During COVID, we went up to 7 million transactions. right now we're at 3.5 million transactions. Okay, 40% drop from the average of 5.8 million.

So when you think about that, you know, what's occurring? High interest rates, okay? Owners that are sitting on low interest rates, they don't want to sell. What are they going to trade up or trade down? You're going to trade down and you're going to have a higher mortgage payment than if you, you know, if you stay. And if you trade up, it's unaffordable. So nothing happened. It was just kind of a dead market for three years.

But what happens with that? Eventually, people start hurting and eventually you start seeing prices drop. We have now seen prices drop. It took a long time. In 2008, when we had the crisis, prices dropped quickly. We had a 35, 40% price drop fast. So what had happened?

People started to buy quickly. So there was transactions. There was a very small, low amount of time where there was no transactions. Right? Today, it's taken us three years for prices to start dropping. Prices are now dropping. People are now getting back into the business. All of those three years, you've got a pamped up demand of buyers that have been sitting around whether they want to upgrade, whether they want to downgrade, whether they're an empty nestor, whether they went through a divorce, whether they've had three kids, right? They want to make a move and they want to make a change. And eventually they have to. Yeah, sometimes you have to, regardless of the macro conditions. You can wait for a while. Eventually, you've got to make a move, right? And nowadays people have, I think, accepted the new interest rate, okay, which by the way,

it's still low. Yeah, historically, you zoom out to the 80s, right? We're still low. We're still borrowing relatively inexpensive money, right? So now it's just becoming more of a norm. And so now you're seeing buyers starting to get into the buying mode. And there's amazing deals out there right now to be had. And so I think we're in the transition and we're moving from a bare market.

into a bull market. So you think it's a buyer's market? I don't know. Sometimes I get annoyed with this question. Because I think the better question is, and I'm surprised you're not annoyed by it, is it a buyer's market for me, right? Because it's all case specific. Correct.

And also when it's a buyer's market, there's going to be more competition prices are going to be high. Like you can't just use interest rates as a proxy. No, you can't. And again, you know, we're talking about, right now we're talking about you buying your house. Like, so we're not talking about buying an investment property, right? Which is a different conversation, which is also an important part of real estate.

But right now we're talking about buying your house. And how do you make a decision as to whether you're buying, you know, the right time, the wrong time, buyers market, sellers market. Like sometimes you just got to make your move. And so it's just, you know. It's never perfect conditions. It's never perfect conditions. But I can tell you one thing that will give everybody comfort here.

in a 10-year cycle, no matter where you buy at the peak or at the trough, obviously it the trough is easy. But even if you buy in a peak and you hold out 10 years, there is not one time where your property is worth less than 10 years later. It has not, you can grab, go back to like the, I think these graphs started like in the late 1800s. And you can see the graphs and all the peaks and all the troughs and everything. There's not one 10-year cycle that's ever been.

been lower than the peak. So if you're holding for long periods of time, we're not talking about flippers here. Again, we're talking about your home, right? So there's no time to buy your home. Like, buy your home. Make your family. You want to start getting into investments. You got to look at peaks. You got to look at troughs. You got to look at one to buy. When's the right time to buy? Flipping. When's the right time? How long is it going to sustain? All of that kind of stuff, right? So where are we? Multifamily. We're coming out of the trough. So we're like, coming on Yeah. What about this idea of rent vesting? So renting where you live, your primary house, and then owning where you rent as an investment property. I'm starting to see a lot more of that, which is quite interesting. And I actually don't have a problem with that. I think right now it's a great opportunity to be a tenant.

you know, there's lots, you know, with unfortunately, with the fires, with all of the natural disasters, in California, which we're in right now, taxes, insurance is super high, all of these different things make being an owner relatively difficult. And so being a tenant right now, it's not a terrible place to be. and then building equity through somebody else's rent. Potential cash flow. It gives you cash flow and it builds equity. Well, you know, sometimes prioritizing the equity argument gets me because if you're investing in actual equity, so if you look at those big charts compared to the S&P 500,

you're gaining more overtime if you put the money in the market versus the real estate market, four to five percent compared to, you know, eight to ten percent. So is that, I'll challenge that for one second because I think that in, in, you're really looking at an IRA in the, in the real estate market, right? Because so much of the borrowing power, right? So even though you're seeing perhaps an increase of a smaller amount, you know, four or five percent versus eight to ten percent or whatever it is that we're talking about your dollar for dollar, your purchasing power is so much greater. So when you see a four percent rise and you've only borrowed, you've borrowed 80 percent. Right, on loan to value, but you get that 4%, then your cash on cash return is greater. Borrowing against it is greater, potentially. I hate, though, when people come at me with the argument that you get a tax right off. Like, you can't make the biggest purchasing decision of your entire life because of a tax right off.

I agree. I'm with you on that one, by the way. I think you should be making the, look, nobody likes to pay high taxes, but the way I see it is if I'm paying, taxes, I'm making money. At the end of the day, right? Yeah, I mean, it's a high-class problem to pay more taxes. It's a high-class problem. So where are you buying right now? Where would you buy right now? You know, I think there's great opportunities in a lot of different markets. I really think there's opportunities everywhere. I think there's opportunities here in Los Angeles. I love the lifestyle play, right? You know, I've always loved the lifestyle play. Which is what? Buying someone.

where you love to play, right? Aspen, for example, somewhere I love to play. So, you know, I bought an Aspen. You know, a lot of money and people flocking to Miami. You know, Florida, great tax haven. Texas, great tax haven. But, you know, the idea of buying in the Caribbean, the Bahamas, Turks and Caicos,

the idea of buying in Mexico, the idea of buying overseas and space, Spain or Portugal, there's amazing properties out there in Italy, like gorgeous properties. So again, to me, it's about there's an investment and you can make a lifestyle investment where you're still holding onto your money, but you're also enjoying your life. Like creating that balance, right? Like I call it the enjoyment value, right? Because sometimes you don't need to maximize every single cent.

Sometimes you need to enjoy your life. Well, you don't have to maximize every. And that's really cool that you can have play vestments. Sure. I like that word, play vestments. If you were to flee the country. Does that word actually exists or do we just coined that right now? Do you like it?

I like that. Okay. Play vestments. Play vestments. I like it. I'm in. Because you're, you know, it's like you get paid in sun in California, right? Like there's certain things that are intangible and not quantifiable, but they're cool.

And that's why you make money and work hard. I like it. So if you wanted to flee the country for your, primary home, where would you look? That is a great question. You know, I think, you know, a few places that I've been looking at, and I think it are just fantastic. I think Mexico right now is amazing.

Mexico City is a great city. It's a great place to be. There's lots going on there. I think Spain, Madrid is super rocking and have. happening. I think, you know, Lisbon has a great, in Portugal has a great, particularly for some retirees and people that are looking at retiring and going overseas. And I mean, you can still get a cup of coffee in Lisbon for, you know, $1.50 or something like that. And it's delicious. And it's amazing. So it's a great place to be. The temperature is fantastic. The coastline is

amazing. Everybody speaks English. So, you know, I think those are great. great places. So what's your overall investment thesis right now and you're very thoughtful dude on real estate? Yeah, I think there's great opportunities in a lot of, in a lot of different areas. Hospitality is really interesting right now. I think there's an amazing opportunity when you know these branded residences and there and there's a lot of changes happening with these type of things. There's the longevity play. There's the wellness. All of these things where you can start bringing these new buildings into the new types of amenities

because your competition is very limited. I think that... So commercial real estate. Well, I, you know, I still like the housing. I think the Airbnb play is still fun. I think it can still play. I still... I'm currently flipping a couple of homes,

so I'm still playing in the spec world. I think, you know... In L.A. I just think, you know, the way I look at, investing is opportunistic. It's deal by deal. I think there's deals in, and you said it, in a buyer's market, in a seller's market, there's deals all the time. It's just a question of finding the right deal. And a lot of times people are just scared to make an offer. And you never know who's going to be out there. So, you know, if you're not scared of being

rejected 50 times in order to get the 51st deal, 50 first deal, the 51st deal, it works. Are those the odds? Again, it depends on the market. I was taking it. If it's a seller's market, it's probably going to go 50 to 1. If it's a buyer's market, it's going to go 10 to 1 or 5 to 1. And again, it depends on how, you know, aggressive your offers are. Because keep in mind the beautiful thing of, look, in the stock market, it's telling you, you're going to buy Nvidia at X.

You're going to buy Apple at Y. You're going to buy, like, boom, you want to hit it or you don't want to hit it. In the real estate world, you know, the offer is, you're going to buy, you're going to buy Apple at X. a million bucks, but, you know, the ask is a million bucks, but you can make an offer of 500K if you want, right? I mean... Yeah, a house is only worth as much as someone will pay for it. So you never know. I mean, you could also put some buy limit orders low for Invidia if it did.

Sure. Are you invested in Invidia and Apple, you mentioned? I have been, I have a position in both of those, yes. So when you think about your overall portfolio, how much of it is real estate? the majority of my portfolio is still real estate. And then, you know, and obviously a large of my portfolio was in the equity of the agency and the value of the agency as well. But I would say that a good 80% in my world is still real estate and 20% is in equities.

Equity is bonds? Bonds, stocks, all kinds of different things. Private equity? What other kind of... I am not in private equity. I do all of that risk and all of that stuff in real estate because that's what I know. what I live every single day. So I do all of that kind of stuff more in the real estate world.

Maybe one day will start playing. I like tech. I'm still an entrepreneur, so I'm actually working on a few different startups that I'm running with. Real estate related? Mostly real estate related, but tech and real estate. There's so much disruption that can happen. So much disruption.

So again, real estate's what I know best. So, you know, it always has to do something with real estate. What do you think that disruption is going to be in a big way? Like, are we going to see in the next 10 years a world where real estate agents don't exist? I don't think agentic AI is going to take away the real estate agent. I think we still need a real estate agent for many, many reasons, particularly in the luxury segment. I think if you're selling, you know, a PUD, a planned urban development,

that, you know, there's four different styles of homes, and there's 400 homes, and you're picking between one of the four, sure. There can be, like, you know, an agentic AI or something like that that takes over, you know, that transaction, or just makes it way easier, but you still need one or two people, you know, to kind of, like, I guess drive you around. I guess eventually we can have robots driving us around, but, like, do you really want that?

I don't know. I mean, I guess the tech... I mean, my Tesla drives me around. Your Tesla drives you around, for sure. But then, you know, yeah, I guess he can... you know, the new wind, they can also tell you stories. So I can see it happening with that, but in the luxury world, it's a whole different. We're watching one of the greatest wealth transfers about to happen right now. It's $124 trillion,

which is such a big number. I like, I can't even wrap my head around that by 2048. What should you know about preparing for that wealth transfer if you're listening and hoping to get into the real estate market because not only is cash going to get transferred, but a lot of boomers are going to transfer their homes and their real estate holdings. There's major change, major, you know, AI, SpaceX, all, you know, tech. I mean, there's just major, major. And then there's going to be a tremendous amount of wealth transfer, you know, generational to generational. And we are starting to see different ways, you know, that people are enjoying their life. I think that, you know, one of the things that we're seeing family compounds. So what is

that look like, just multi-generational. So this is kind of the sandwich generation that we're not really seeing as much. Multi-generational, yeah. You know, where you're, you know, I might create a compound where my four kids have a home, you know, and they have their own family in my compound, but we're all together, right?

They all have their own homes, right? And they don't have their own life and their own everything. But yet we're still. On the same land. On the same land, right? Or together. Is that something you would do? I would 100% do that.

I would love to do that. I think it would be super cool. And then have your parents. Yeah. So sort of the sandwich idea where we're taking care of our aging parents, but we're also taking care of our kids and everybody's helping out. Yeah. And by the way, in terms of taking care of them, eventually they start taking care of you, right?

I mean, if they have their own home, then, yeah. Then, you know, hopefully they're going to have grandkids and all kinds of other fun stuff. But we're also seeing a tremendous amount of investment occurring. one of the things that people used to love when they had money is to buy large homes. Today we're seeing not so much the volume and the size of the score footage, but more about more homes, more places to go to. I think that, you know, COVID, one of the things that it did is it changed the behavior about the way we work, right?

So before you went into your office every day, you lived in L.A., you went into your office every day, you lived in New York, you went it to your office every day, and then you had your vacation home. but today because we don't have to go into the office every day which sometimes I like and sometimes I dislike but today because of that what's happening is that we can have multiple homes where we work out of I can actually live in four different areas

three months a year right or in six different areas two months a year and like it not just be my vacation home but actually live there right I could live there because you can work there I can live in Miami in the winter I can live in, you know, Los Angeles in the summer. I can live in Aspen in the fall, and I can live in, you know, the Caribbean in the spring.

I mean, I can do whatever I want, right? So what you're starting to see with the wealth is you're starting to see them buy more homes versus the big one, you know, one big huge home that they put up all their money in order to live in their home. Well, as part of that, it's a trend. It's become so sexy on social media with short-term rentals. Yes. And you mentioned it briefly, but I want to double-click. on it. The Olympics, obviously coming to L.A. 28. Right now, L.A., you can't list your secondary

home or investment property as a short-term rental. It has to be your primary home. So now there's, I believe, a proposal to allow short-term rentals through 2028 of an investment property. Do you think that's a good idea for the city? I think it's a great idea for the city, and I think the city is going to need it. And I think, you know, A, in order for us to host what we need to host in the Olympic, I mean, we're seeing it right now with the World Cup and it's, you know, not, you know, and it's spread out over how many cities, I don't know, 20 cities maybe plus or minus. But imagine all of it being here, right? We're going to need to host the people. And it's going to be an opportunity to bring in a lot of money to a lot of different people. So I think it's going to be great for

Los Angeles. We need to do something great here. We're due. Are you going to make it happen? I mean, I'm going to try. I'm going to move hard to make things happen, but yeah. But I'm not running for mayor yet. I was about to ask. Yet. You don't say ever. I never said ever.

Will you? Maybe one day. I've thought about it a lot. Maybe for Republican Party? I'm a registered independent. And I believe in the middle. I think we've lost the middle. I think it's kind of gone, which is kind of sad.

where everything is just so extremist right now. And I think that we need to start making a push more for finding balance and finding that middle again. Okay. Well, I'm an L.A. voter. I love that. Why should I vote for you? Because I'm going to make L.A. great again. So perfect.

Did you just coin that? We're going to make L.A. great again. Well, look, we need to do a lot of things. We need to do a lot of great things for L.A. So look, on the financial side, I'm definitely more on the Republican side. I do believe in still, I still believe, I mean, Reagan was an L.A. guy and an L.A. native. And I do believe in Reaganomics. Reaganomics are no longer, I think if you took Reaganomics today, they're certainly not a Republican side.

And they're certainly not like, like, that's more of a middle thing. in today's world. And that's what I mean by the middle. And what I mean by that, it's not about only the trickle down, but it's about we need to bring businesses back. We need to bring employment back. We need to bring innovation back.

We need to keep Hollywood. We've lost so much of Hollywood. Like, we need to give Hollywood incentives, okay? Like, I am not in Hollywood business. This is not benefiting me. But I can tell you one thing, that what put Los Angeles on the map, was television and movies was Hollywood.

Okay? The reason we have people come from all over the world to visit L.A. is because of the movies. Okay? And if we stop filming movies and television here, it's not only about the employment that's coming, it's about the tourism,

it's about all of those things that continue to come here. We've lost, I can tell you, just on the real estate world, the international buyer that we used to have, they're gone. Like we're, we barely have that international buyer coming in anymore. And I'm seeing that early, okay? But if we don't start fixing that now, that's going to affect us.

One of the greatest things about the real estate market was that we had everybody buying here. We had Chinese. We had Russians. We had Europeans. We had Saudis. You know, one of the most beautiful things about L.A. is that it was an incredible melting pot of everybody. We're losing that.

Why? Many reasons. Bad PR. That's something L.A. needs to work on. We need to work on PR. And what I mean by that is, you know, right now somebody, you're even seeing it in the World Cup. People are coming out here and you're seeing it all over social media. Like, oh, my God, I've been reading the press on, you know, L.A., the U.S., and it's far from that.

You know, all we read is crime and theft and burglaries and, you know, people are scared to come to Los Angeles right now because of the press that's out there, the PR that's out there. But if we can change the PR that's out there and not only change the PR, but actually change it, right? so that we are safe here. You know, we cannot have criminals, you know, get out of jail in three days like that. Like, we just can't do that. Because what happens is that you just, more crime happens, right? Because they're not scared of being in jail.

They're not scared of being put away. They're like, ah, it doesn't matter. I didn't have a weapon. I can go burglarize a house. And worst thing that's going to happen to me is, you know, I'll spend 15 days in jail. that can't happen. Did you vote for Spencer? I did.

And seeing him lose, did that change your thoughts on running? Well, it changed my thoughts on running and, you know, it didn't change my thoughts on running. I haven't decided whether I want to run or not. It's a major commitment. And it's also very difficult to run against the Democratic Party in Los Angeles. And which is also kind of sad because, you know, A, it makes you wonder if, you know, if it's, the problem, the problem that I see with the Democratic Party is that they're making promises that are unsustainable in order to win votes. And they're not good for the city just to win votes. And, you know, when the ULA measure, let's go back to real estate, for example, the mansion town.

tax. Okay. I don't know if you remember on the ballot, but the ballot was pretty simple in terms of what you were voting for. Yeah. Can you explain it briefly? So $5 million. Yeah. So basically the ULA tax, the mansion tax is that you get taxed a percentage on any home that sells above five, I think it's $5.3 million right now or $5.4 million. It's gone up little by little. And so it's 5% on the total sale. So on a $5 million house, it's $250,000. But if you bought the house for $5.5 million, and you're selling it for five, you're still paying the $250,000, even though you're taking a loss. So this is not a capital gains tax. This is a transaction tax. And it makes it... There's no exception if you're taking a loss?

No. You're taking a loss. You're paying your taxes. You make an investment into... And that's why we don't have... A lot of developers are stepping away and they're going elsewhere to develop. I have one of the best development sites for sale right now ever, ever.

And I am struggling getting it sold. And it's at a steal. It's at a deal, okay? And I am struggling getting it sold because the developers don't want to work in L.A. That's sad. It's a great deal. And people don't want to work in L.A. And when you think about that, that's a political move.

Why do they not want to work in L.A.? Because of the politics and what's happening in L.A. So we're losing that investment. So all of these developers that are national developers, they're buying in New York, they're buying in Miami, they're buying in Texas, they're buying in St. Louis, Missouri. They're buying everywhere, Denver, Seattle,

but they're not buying in L.A. And they're scared of it. That's a problem. I've heard Spencer talk about the idea that reality TV has both helped him and hurt him, and I've heard you say the same thing. Yeah, it's both. Not one more than the other?

No, I would say for me it's probably 50-50 in terms of help and hurt. And there's a lot of sacrifices that come with reality television that you put out there. And it helps with a lot of different things as well. I mean, you know, but if I looked back and I had to do it all over again, it's very difficult. There's days where I would say I would not have done it and there's days that I would say I would have done it again. Which days would you not do it? just depends on the way I wake up and the way I feel about it. It's literally a 50-50 thing.

It's not a, it's not leaning towards one or the other. So it's literally just the way I wake up. And I'm like, why did I ever put myself and subject myself to, you know, to, because on reality TV, one of the things that happens with reality TV, which is different than television, is that reality television, people actually think they know who you are. And they build opinions about you.

If you're on television and you're acting as Spider-Man, I'm Spider-Man. Like, they're not, you know, nobody thinks they know me, right? Like, they might recognize me, but they don't think they know me. In reality television, people actually think they know you. That's weird for you? Well, it causes a lot of problems because, A, imagine somebody gets to know you based on an edit that's occurring that you're,

you know, you're filming, oh my God, I don't know, 30 hours of television, you know, and then you get edited down to, eight minutes and then that's what they put you know everybody bases their opinion on and that's how they know you kind of a weird way to know somebody so it hasn't helped your business

more people haven't wanted to work with it has definitely helped the business but that doesn't mean I would choose the money over privacy so is it money or fame for you that's right well money and fame

come in that particular one in the same side right so is it money fame or privacy what is it for you 50 50 why do you think there's such an access between influencers who are now becoming real estate agents or real estate reality stars and how much of that is real like the deals that we're seeing on real estate specific reality TV those big numbers slashed on the screen? They are somewhat real. They are somewhat not real.

They like to flash up the big numbers. You know, they never flash the struggles and how we got there and all of that stuff. And, you know, as real estate's become more and more difficult, you know, there's been some commission compressions. We don't talk about that. They don't talk about, you know, the split with the company, all kinds of different things. So it's a little bit fantasy. It's a little Fagasy.

Figgase, yeah. Why has real estate specifically become such a draw for people who had been on reality TV or influencers? I think that because the, well, first of all, one of the beautiful, when you talk about real estate, you're talking about real estate brokerage, right? And I think that one of the things about real estate brokerage is that with a small investment, you can make a lot of money.

And in order to be a great broker, you need transactions, lead generation. If you have influence, if you have people that know you, if you have people that want to be with you, then your lead generation becomes a lot easier. And so therefore it becomes a much easier job to become a real estate agent than somebody starting without an influence, without being on television. Some of the best real estate agents in the world have never been on television. Let's be clear. We've got, I mean, how many of us have been on television and have reality stars,

you know, a handful of us, right? I mean, there's a million 300,000 real estate agents, right? And if you look at the top agents in the country, first of all, you know, if you look at the top 20 agents in the country, you know, maybe four are reality stars, or five, you know, the other ones did it on their own, right? That's number one. Secondly, I'm not 100% sure about what I'm about to say,

but I think that most real estate agents that on reality television made their career because of reality television and did not have the career prior to reality television. I think I'm the only one that was the top, I think I was number three agent. in the country before I ever got on television. And then I got on television. So you don't need the television to make you an amazing real estate agent.

Oh, so you're a great test case for how much more lead gen you get. So what was your lead gen pre-reality and then post-reality? So post-reality, I changed my business. I actually created the agency. And so I used television and reality for the agency versus for myself. It became more scale. So it's very difficult for me to give you that exact answer. her because I stopped chasing

being number one. Before I did the agency and before I did reality, I became the number three agent in the country. I was two spots away from number one. And then I did reality and I decided to start the agency and I stopped chasing number one. There's a guy out of Texas. His name is Ben Caballero. He's been number one

forever. And its number one is based on Transactions. Strictly volume. Yeah. It's transactional volume. When I was number three in order for me to do that. And now today, everybody's got teams so now you're separating large teams small teams medium teams back when I did it it was just it was individuals there was no individuals but in order for me

to did that I did $640 million of volume by myself and um which so you were number one in California I was number one in California number three in the country that year did you have Ben Cavillard was number one do you know him so I never met him but I'll tell you a funny story about that he'd love to put it on his podcast and Sarah brought Rodman, Serena Broadman from New York was number two. And she beat me by like $5 million. I was so upset. It was a very, it was like a half a transaction or one transaction or whatever it was.

But I called up, and I was chasing Ben forever. He's in the Guinness Book of World Records and all that stuff. He put himself in there. But I picked up the phone and I called up Ben and I said, hey, Ben, it's Mauricio. I go, you may not know me, but I just want you to know I've been chasing you for 10 years. And I'm only two, I'm number three. And I also just want you to know I'm done chasing. I was starting my own company.

I go so congratulations, but I just wanted to talk to the guy that I've been chasing before I stopped chasing you, and I just wanted to say hello. And he loves that story. And what did he say? Oh, he was just great. He was fantastic. We had a great conversation, and it was funny. That's awesome.

I mean, you've grown your business so much since becoming on reality TV, and it makes it's so smart to scale yourself because you would have so much more publicity. being in the public eye, how has that obviously has been good for business, but what about relationships? I think it's more complicated to have not enough money. So have you not had enough money and had too much money? And which one do you prefer? Well, I definitely have not had enough money.

I mean, I started with nothing and that was very difficult. And I don't think I have enough money yet. What's enough money? I think enough money is when, um, you can live the lifestyle that you want to live, that is what you like to live, without having to work anymore. And so therefore it's different for everybody

because some people spend $10,000 a month, some people spend $5,000 a month, some people spend $200,000 a month, some people spend $2 million a month, right? So some people spend $20,000 a month. So it's very different for everybody what enough money is. How much do you spend a month? You left the most at 200.

So I would clock it around there. You're not far off. Like what's your F you number? Where we're never going to hear from you again. I think it's got to be in the neighborhood of maybe 200 million. And at that point, do you just peace out? I don't think I'll ever piece out. I, you know, money is not my driver.

What's your driver? Competition with myself. And the game, the chess game. I love the game. I love making moves. I love, you know, being disruptive. You know, right now I'm starting something that is a, I just started something that is super disruptive,

but will not make me any money. It's the American Real Estate Association. It's a non-for-profit. I'm not taking any salary. I'll never take a salary. It's, et cetera. It's not about me making it, But it's, man, is it disruptive?

It's disrupting the National Association of Realtors like crazy. They're going bananas with me. They have, you know, 1.3 million people. We're up to now approximately 100,000 people. And we're growing and we're growing fast. But it's, it's innovative, it's disruptive. It's fixing a problem that needs to be fixed. And it's one of my favorite things to do,

even though it literally, when I tell you I have, I don't make a cent on this thing. I don't make a cent on this thing. But it's one of my favorite passion projects I'm doing. So money is your driver just to keep the scoreboard? Yeah. For yourself. So what are you at now for sales? $5 billion in real estate sales?

So that number has been the number. I haven't measured it. That number has been a number that's been. I don't believe that. I have not. I got to measure it. That number has been a number that we came up with about three years ago. And it was accurate three years ago.

And I probably have done 300 million every year personally. So let's just pretend I'm around $6 billion now. Okay. What's another billion amongst friends? So the agency has offices. But by the way, those numbers, that's what the problem. I want to talk about that. That is exactly what the problem is with these reality shows.

And that is exactly what the problem is with the way that we measure volume in real estate. because $6 billion sounds like a hell of a lot of money, doesn't it? Right? But I certainly didn't make $6 billion, and that was not my revenue. No, that's so important to say that because when people see headline numbers like that or when a founder exits a company, they're like, oh, you have $100 million in your bank account. Yes. You have investors.

Do you guys have investors? Well, but it's not only that. Here's the thing about real estate sales and all of these reality shows, okay? And then all of these real estate agents that glorify themselves based on how much they sold a billion dollars this year. Who cares? How much did you make? What was your gross commissions? A lot of these people, you know, they do a typical number is that just use $100 million.

Okay. That's not a typical. That's a great real estate agent. A hundred million a year. This is gross, gross, gross, gross, gross. Gross, gross. But now they take that $100 million. They multiply that by 2%.

Okay. What is that? Two million? Right? But they're probably not taking all of that up. There you go. Then they split it. There you go. So what is realistic?

So they throw out this number of $100 million or a billion. Okay. And like what are these people bringing home? They're probably bringing home a million and a half, a million. Okay, which doesn't suck. Don't get me wrong. But you're bringing home a million and a half. Then you've got to pay Uncle Sam and your taxes and you live in California.

That's $750,000. And then your business expenses is probably another $250,000. You're down to $500,000. And that's what you're living off, $500,000. Don't get me wrong. That's pretty nice lifestyle. But it's not going to let you spend $200,000 a month. So to be clear, you don't have $6 billion.

I do not have $6 billion. I will not be chasing $200 million if I had $6 billion. But I'm really glad that you talked about that headline number being so misleading. It's misleading. And the way we measure in real estate, it drives me. bananas. We should not be talking about that. We should be talking about gross revenue just like every other business does. We should be talking about our volume, the way we measure should be based on what our gross commissions are, what our gross revenue is. Or net, either one. I mean, because,

again, but, you know, a company does not measure net, net profits or net revenue. They measure gross revenues. They measure EBITA. They measure at the end of the day, they measure EBITDA, right? But in terms of like your revenue, like Walmart, you know, whatever, or Amazon. on, they have a revenue, whatever their revenue is, right? It's not their net revenue. It's their revenue. Their net revenue is a different number. But in, in, in, in, in, like, gross motion. Great. That's how we should be measuring real estate companies. I mean, you look at these companies and they say, I did, they say, I did 30 billion dollars last year. They didn't do 30 billion dollars. They did 30, they probably did 600 million. Still a huge number, but let's measure it off the

600 million. But the 600 million is not what they're taking home either. No, but that's the revenue that they generated. I see. Right? Like, so whatever. Let's just take, let's take the agency, okay, for argument's sakes.

Okay, so lead by example. So let's change the website. Oh, I, well, I would, let's change the website. I'm in. I'll lead by example. The problem with that is, and I've talked about this all the time.

And by the way, I go to all these conferences and I talk about this, and I talk about it in the real estate conferences. Like I am vocal about this. The problem with that is that if you're in a competitive world, okay, think about this. I'm competing for a listing. I'm competing for somebody.

And somebody says, I did $2 billion. And I say, I did $200 million, right? Like I did $250 million, right? That's more than they're $2 billion. Okay, in reality. But they don't see it that way, right? So the consumer is going to be like, well, I'm going to go with the person that does $2 billion. Why would I go with the person that does $250?

million. Right? So unless I can change everything and talk real numbers. Change it all. So what's the goal with the agency? You have the agency in 14 countries at this point. 16 now. 16 countries.

Yes. You have eventually 6 billion in sales, top, top, top, top, top number. Would you take it public? Okay, so when you were talking about 6 billion in sales, that's my personal sales in my, in my history. That's Mauricio Umanski. So the agency, we're doing, and again, I'm the worst at this

because I actually would tell you the gross revenue. But the agency is doing something around $15 billion a year in terms of sales. So what's the end goal? End goal there. So right now, again, we're in a three, we began the show by me telling you

we're in a three and a half year low of transaction volumes. I can tell you that right now we have set up the agency to be a for growth and we have no EBITDA, okay? That is not the goal right now. As soon as this market changes and we start having profits, because right now, if you look at every real estate agency, every real estate broker on the markets, the stock markets,

nobody's making money, okay? As soon as we start seeing money being made and capitalizing, I feel like we've grown it to a great place, and we're budgeting for that. Like, I've planned for this, okay? then I'd like to take the company public. When we go back up. When we go back up.

On the way up. So somewhere within the next year, maybe. We read it here first. We end our episodes, Marisu, by asking all of our guests for a final tip that listeners can take straight to the bank. We talked about short-term rentals. We talked about rent-investing.

We talked about buyer-seller's market. What's one final tip that our audience can take away from the real estate market today? Real estate is a great wealth preservation. It's a great way of investing and saving money. Even if you look at all of these people that are making fortunes in AI, tech, et cetera, et cetera, once they make the fortune, they put it into real estate. It's just a great place to invest.

And there is no right or wrong as to where to invest. It's whatever makes you happy. Always optimized for happiness.