The Iced Coffee Hour - "Don't Buy A Home!" Ben Mallah's Final Warning For The 2026 Real Estate Market
Episode Date: August 2, 2026Northwest Registered Agent: Start Your LLC Today at https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/ich Even Realities: Go to https://evenrealities.bio/icedcoffee and use code ICEDCOFFEE for 10% off Even R1 ...and/or Even Clip when you add them to your Even G2 order ZipRecruiter: Post jobs for free at https://ziprecruiter.com/ICH FanDuel: Join All the Action at https://fanduel.com Follow @BenMallah Here! Consulting Here: https://benmallah.com/ *𝗖𝗢𝗡𝗡𝗘𝗖𝗧 𝗪𝗜𝗧𝗛 𝗨𝗦* 𝗜𝗚: https://www.instagram.com/icedcoffeehour 𝗝𝗔𝗖𝗞: https://www.instagram.com/jlsselby 𝗚𝗥𝗔𝗛𝗔𝗠: https://www.instagram.com/gpstephan 𝗖𝗹𝗶𝗽𝘀 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗹: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheIcedCoffeeHourClips 𝗫.𝗰𝗼𝗺: https://x.com/TheICHpodcast 𝗧𝗶𝗸𝗧𝗼𝗸: https://www.tiktok.com/@theicedcoffeehour 𝗦𝗽𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗳𝘆: https://open.spotify.com/show/5c2uoXBQkOjIiCOf60jJj7 𝗔𝗽𝗽𝗹𝗲: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-iced-coffee-hour/id1515070058 For sponsorships or business inquiries reach out to: icedcoffeehourpartnerships@gmail.com Apply for The Index Membership: https://entertheindex.com/ For Podcast Inquiries, please DM @icedcoffeehour on Instagram! Timestamps: 00:00:00 - Intro 00:00:57 - $70 Million To Spend And Why The Banks Won't Budge 00:08:46 - Selling The Harley Dealership, Buying A Tesla Dealership 00:13:20 - Sponsor: Northwest Registered Agent 00:14:26 - When It Makes Sense To Just Pay The Tax 00:17:48 - A $10 Million Offer Sight Unseen, And Why He Consults So Cheap 00:23:00 - Diversification And Why His Son Moved Into The Building 00:28:03 - Sponsor: Even Realities & ZipRecruiter 00:31:03 - Big Deals vs Portfolios, And Starting With A Fourplex 00:33:40 - Inside The $31 Million Mansion He's Trying To Sell 00:37:20 - How Much You Need To Buy A $30 Million House 00:40:21 - What The House Costs Yearly, And How Contractors Rip You Off 00:46:11 - The $40,000 Rolls-Royce Repair He Did For $4,000 00:49:06 - Best Sectors Right Now, And Why Owners Beat Management Companies 00:55:36 - Sponsor: FanDuel 00:57:10 - Spotting A Motivated Seller And Lowballing The Deal 00:59:12 - The 16-Story Flood Building And His Fastest Ever Flip 01:02:40 - AI, The 50% Rule, And Why Single Family Doesn't Cash Flow 01:06:30 - Should You Buy A House Right Now? 01:10:17 - Your Banker Comes Before Your Wife 01:15:07 - Where Beginners Start And Climbing The Lending Ladder 01:18:39 - Get Your Real Estate License In College 01:24:14 - Taxes, Politics, And The Clearwater Ferris Wheel 01:29:46 - Is It Easier Than Ever To Get Rich? 01:34:00 - Car Pool Tables And What He Does All Day 01:38:36 - The Boat, His Health, And Graham's Spending Anxiety 01:45:07 - Why He Lets Merrill Manage His Money 01:47:39 - The SpaceX IPO He Missed 01:51:53 - Muni Bonds And Building A War Chest *Some of the links and other products that appear on this video are from companies which Graham Stephan & Jack Selby will earn an affiliate commission or referral bonus. Graham Stephan & Jack Selby are part of an affiliate network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites. The content in this video is accurate as of the posting date. Some of the offers mentioned may no longer be available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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Not everybody's cut out to be rich.
That's a fact.
You've got to have that burning desire inside of you.
We pay $43 billion for this place.
I'm not just talking out of my ass like a lot of people.
I'm out there doing it.
Class is back in session.
If you're in real estate, the most important person in your life is your banker.
Why is banking the most important thing if you're trying to build wealth then?
You got enough money to buy a piece of real estate? No, average person don't.
Your bank comes before your wife.
My son gave the more than what he wants.
Don't ever buy a house for cash flow. It's stupid.
We've identified this property. We're going to thinking about buying it.
Why'd you buy a Tesla dealership?
Would you trust Elon Musk to pay your rent?
But you know what a hundred grand a month to him is?
It's like you go in the store and buying a soda.
Do you think it's easier than ever right now to get rich?
Well, don't worry, you know, the world needs dishwashers.
It's true.
Ben Mallet, you have to spend $70 million in the next few months.
How difficult is it to spend $70 million?
It depends.
Whether you want to buy smart or you want to buy...
I mean, it depends.
I'm out looking at deals every day.
You know, we just closed on a Tesla dealership.
We just closed on a private...
university where and going to contract on a brand new gym. My son's working on an apartment building.
You know, that's a major rehab. My other son's working on other rehab. I mean, you got to look.
You got to find deals that make sense. So explain why you're in this position. What did you sell
to have the $70 million you now need to spend? I mean, yeah, we sold quite a bit of real estate.
Maybe I shouldn't have. Maybe I shouldn't have sold. What makes you say that?
But I thought that the market was going to turn and the banks are keeping it from turning.
That's what's going on.
What are they doing?
I mean, listen, I'm out there on the street.
I'm dealing with brokers.
I'm at properties.
I know.
I really know.
I'm not just talking out of my like a lot of people.
I'm out there doing it.
And all the big shots and all the people that thought they were so brilliant.
that overpaid during COVID in 20, 21, 22, 23, they're getting screwed down because they didn't
know what they were doing.
Okay?
Typically, you know, these types of properties don't have long-term financing on them.
So they all locked in at their little 3% rate.
They locked it in for five years.
And now the rate's doubled.
They got to refinance.
They got to pay their bank back.
They're not going to cash flow.
What does that mean?
that means that the loans that the bank made are no longer at the same value they were when they made a loan.
Why?
Because the property can't cash low a double interest rate.
It's simple.
And listen, I deal with sellers every day that are just ready to throw the keys and walk away from millions of dollars in equity investment that they had.
And a lot of them pool people together, okay, with your syndicates and rents and.
raising money and all that. So, you know, a lot of people are going to lose their shirt.
But the banks loan too much money. Not only the buyer, the own people that bought property
are going to lose. The banks have to lose. Why? Because the property ain't worth it. And a lot of
these prices, these people shouldn't have bought real estate to begin with. Because when I go out
there, because they were bleeding, they're not operating properly. So therefore, the property
deteriorates, it's not being managed properly because they don't have the experience,
or they hire a management company, and the management company don't care.
They have no skin in the game.
So there's a lot of distress out there right now.
I've looked at thousands of apartments and multifamily, and there's a ton of distress out there.
So what are the banks doing right now to prevent the collapse from happening then?
They're on the fence.
They need to get off the fence and realize this loan is not worth what we loaned on it.
but they don't want to do that.
They don't want to admit it.
They don't want to realize it.
They all been praying and delaying.
Praying rates are going to come down.
Okay, keep delaying.
But now it's at the point where the sellers or the owners have let the properties go because they don't really know what they're doing.
So you're just letting it go to the bank.
Interest rates of now, what happens is when your time runs out on a loan, you have a fixed rate for so many years.
All right, well, when the fixed rate period is up, it goes to today's rate.
They can't handle that.
Okay, so the banks are just trying to work with them.
But there's nothing to work with.
Couldn't they just delay a little bit?
Delay, they've been delaying.
They've been delaying for years now.
But it sounds like they're still delaying.
It sounds like they're just delaying another six months, another year.
They aren't even paying now.
They just threw their hands up.
Because a lot of them, they bought these properties.
They realize that they're not equipped to rehab it.
They don't do a proper budget.
They don't know what they're doing.
Too many people have gotten into real estate now that don't know what they're doing.
And then what they're doing is they're pulling a bunch of money together, okay, which is even
worse because now you got, you know, all these investors and 10 different owners and it's a mess.
So there's a lot of real estate in the market right now that's distressed.
And the seller is ready to just walk away.
Hopefully, you know, a lot of them are personally guaranteed.
That's not good.
The ones that are not personally guaranteed, this is walk away.
But the banks have to get it in their head, get this off our books.
But they don't want to do that.
You know, why?
Because if it gets out, then the value is a stock will go down in that bank.
Why?
Because the bank is only worth the value of the loans.
So you're saying a lot of these properties are completely underwater.
It's not like they just wiped out the equity.
They owe more.
They're all over the board.
I've looked at properties that are barely keeping their head above water.
I've looked at properties underwater.
I've looked at properties that have drowned.
I looked at 200 apartments the other day, empty.
The guy just called me on the phone.
You witnessed it.
He just told me, oh, I got the 3004 unit building for you.
It's 20% occupied.
Oh, and then in Florida, a lot of people got hit by the last storm.
Flood coverage is not much if they had flood coverage.
So now that is sitting here.
I looked at a 16-story building the airport.
they shut down right here 10 minutes 20 minutes from here i looked at hotels on the beach shut down
why because the flood kicked their ass and now they need all this money pumped back into it some of
them been shut down by the city they got red tags on them and somebody needs to come in with major
capital and put the place back in shape but in order to do that you have to buy it right and the banks have to
realize, listen, we screwed up. Things happened in life. Okay? The flood came. Interest rates
are up. These are all things that cause major distress. They got to realize it. They got to just
cut their losses and move on. And then we're just waiting for them to finally do it. We're
starting to see a little, but not a lot. So are you getting good deals now? I'm getting a lot of
deals where the sellers are cooperating. They're a little long walk. But now we have to go
to the bank. We got to go to the bank and say, listen, you got to do a short sale. You got to do a
short sale or, you know, you got to take a loss. If you don't take a loss, you can be sitting
here where the property is going to keep deteriorating and there's no future except going down
the toilet. So what are your predictions then? How will this sort itself out? I mean, sooner or later,
the only solution is the banks have to say, okay, these are our troubled assets. Let's get them off
our books and move on.
How could you be wrong?
Like, what would need to happen?
It's been many times in history.
So there's no way that there is any other alternative solution.
I can't think of any other possible way, except it's all about cost basis.
Okay.
You got to have a good cause basis when you go into a deal and then prepare for all the rehab
that needed.
And you've got to bring up the operating, okay, especially to places heavily vacated.
I mean, you know, the number's got to work for an investor.
Why would an investor go in and overpay for something and not make any money?
It makes no sense.
So the reason that you have this $70 million right now that you have to spend is because the 1030...
I don't have $70 million to spend.
Only got...
Well, I guess now because, yeah, you bought the Tesla dealership, the private school.
I just sold a Harley-Davidson dealership yesterday, 47, $5760, right?
Close.
So you have $60 million-ish to spend?
That's correct.
And the reason you have this is because you sold a bunch of portfolio.
You know, I didn't see, I felt like I got to the point where I could, I did, you know, it was the best that I could do with these properties.
And I thought, which I was wrong, that the banks would be more encouraged to play ball right now and they haven't.
So do you think that it was a mistake then to sell the properties?
Some of them, yeah, some of them I should have held.
But I was also kind of worried about the future of some of those properties.
Okay. Why did I sell Holly Davis and dealership yesterday? Why? Sales are down, right?
I believe so. And also, I felt like this. I try to use common sense. In my growing up,
Harleys were really a big thing with guys that are now today, 50s, 60s, you know, after 60s,
you ain't right no bike monster anymore. And I felt like all the new generation, the new money,
wants the, you know, bass rice rockets.
You know, they want a different type of bike.
I think the old Harley style, except the police still use them, I think.
I think it was just, you know, it's going away.
I mean, that's what I felt like.
But it was a beautiful property.
It was a great operator.
I just felt like, you know what?
Why take the risk?
You know, I sold the Home Depot.
I sold the BJs.
Why?
Because I felt like the area was declining.
The shopping wall right near it was doing pretty, pretty bad.
So I felt like, you know what?
I've been with these assets.
They've been good.
Let's move on while I still got some term on a lease.
Let the next guy, maybe he sees a different future than I do.
Why'd you buy a Tesla dealership?
Would you trust Elon must to pay your rent?
Absolutely.
Well, there you go.
What's the cap rate on that?
Close six.
Yeah, we're a hair on the six.
So I was pretty happy with that.
And it was brand new.
and it was a very good thriving area.
And I felt good about it.
When I got there, I looked around, I checked it out.
Then you got all this stuff going on with SpaceX and all those autonomous stuff.
And listen, you know, I mean, it's definitely the future.
We all know that.
It's not just the electric car.
It's, you know, it's the cutting edge of technology, you know, with him and that company.
So Elon Musk rents your real estate.
How much does he pay you?
I don't know, about a million three a year or something.
to 100 grand a month roughly.
And what's the...
You know what 100 grand a month to him is?
Nothing.
It's like you go in the store and buying a soda probably.
It's actually probably even last.
Plus, the place is making money.
You know, I'm sure it's...
He probably makes that a minute.
Listen, before Tesla decided to commit
to leasing that place from a developer,
I'm sure they did their homework.
The next Tesla is an hour away in Orlando.
Okay.
And I'm sure they did a lot of thought process
and into that location and, you know, having a plan for it.
So, you know, I'm sure they're not just opening up dealerships just a hell of it.
They're doing it strategically.
So how much does it cost you then per month on the debt service on that property?
Like how much are you netting of this $100,000 a month?
Okay, I don't.
But let's say I leveraged it all.
Maybe I did 100%.
I could do that.
I could do it between a line of credit and a,
conventional loan. I can do whatever I want. But, you know, if they're paying me six and my
debts cost to me five, I make a point on, I don't remember what I paid for it. What I paid for it?
22 million. How much?
22, I believe. I mean, the point is this. The reason why I bought it was because if I go out and
buy something for 22 million while I'm in 1031, I have a choice. I could buy that, get a return,
or I could write Uncle Sam a check for probably in the neighborhood of,
close to $4 million.
Instead of buying a Tesla dealership.
So you got basically $4 million discount.
I had a Tesla dealership for $20-something million bucks or write Uncle Sam a check for $4 million.
So you have the $60 million in gains that you kind of do need to spend.
I'm curious, does it ever make sense just to pay the tax?
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So you have the $60 million in gains that you kind of do need to spend.
I'm curious, does it ever make sense just to pay the tax?
You know, it could.
You know, depends on the market.
If there's nothing that I'm thrilled about buying
or if I want to start, you know, scaling down a portfolio
and think about retirement
and maybe it's not the right assets to leave my kids.
Yeah, I can see paying.
I paid the tax on a couple of items.
That was the problem.
Last April, I said, you know what?
I'm retiring.
I'm going to start living life.
I'm going to travel.
I'm going to enjoy my life.
And these assets, they're really not for my kids.
They like multifamily.
I'm going to sell some.
And I'm not even going to replace them.
And when it came time to write that,
In the second April, that number was so big for my CPA.
I did it, but I don't think I could do it again.
At least I'm going to try not to do it again.
How much was the check?
Big.
Big.
Under 10 million.
Would that feel like to pay $10 million to the IRS?
I mean, you know, you've got to look at it every different way.
You know, listen, I've had 30 plus years of success and, you know, deferring tax.
I mean, you know, it's either, listen, you got to.
choice either paid a tax or you know I die and then you don't have to pay the tax well if I
die I'm not going to really enjoy not paying a tax so yeah I mean you know listen that's
life you can't have everything perfect and you know it's it's um you know it's a balance it's
you know sometimes you pay the tax sometimes you won't but I'm not gonna buy a deal just
based on the tax savings it has to be a good deal a solid deal well at least the taxes
easily lose the amount of tax that I would have to pay in that deal if it's a bad deal.
At least the taxes, though, go to a good cause.
Absolutely.
We're building a new wing on a White House.
I mean, listen, it's life.
You know, what are you going to do?
I'm only one schmuck doing the best I can, managing a big portfolio, you know,
and trying to prepare my kids for their future now.
That's basically my main concern.
So are you becoming more conservative as an investor to be able to buy a Tesla like that at a six cap?
because before it seems like you'd always be buying eight to tens.
Yeah, but I'm only borrowing a five because I got big power who borrow money.
So, you know, you do the numbers.
If I take a loan on that thing for 80%, 22 million, let's see, what's that, a $20 million loan or something like that or $18 million loan.
So I'll get the spread of the $4 million making a point off the bank.
plus I got my $4 million that's getting me to 6%.
It works out to be a good return.
How do you borrow at 5%?
Because I have relationships and I have the, I'm no risk.
Once you show the bank, you know risk, okay?
You're doing them a favor.
I'm doing them a favor by borrowing their money because I'm no risk.
So of course they've got to give me the best rate, the best terms.
How much do you have to put down?
I mean, typically I can easily do loans at 80%.
But, you know, that's because it's me.
Plus, the bank, you know, sees my assets.
They might have my assets within their bank, within their brokerage arms.
It's a lot of, you know, strings attached to that, you know, but it's about relationship
and proven to the bank that they can, there's no, there's just no question of any risk in giving
me a loan.
You know, it's funny.
You were actually on a phone call right before this episode.
You're walking down and you get a call, you take it.
This guy tells you this whole situation.
This guy's a distress seller.
And you're just like, tell him I'll give him 10 million bucks.
And then he was like, all right, yeah, I don't know.
Like you didn't even see it.
You just knew the area.
He said, hey, it's this property.
You're like, is it the north or the south side of the street?
He's all the south.
And you went like, oh, man.
Oh, God.
All right.
Just tell him, I'll give him 10 million bucks.
I know the property.
I mean, I've been in 20 years.
I know the property.
I know where it's at, you know,
and I can think about all the things I could possibly have to do to fix the property up.
You know, so I'm,
So I offered him $10 million.
The bank already loaned 30, which was stupid.
To me, it's just crazy that you have that level of expertise to not look at a picture,
to not look at like any of the details.
Obviously, it was a bit of like a.
It's only opening the door.
Yeah.
You know, I'm still going to go out there.
I'm still going to put my boots on the ground.
I'm still going to inspect the place.
I'm still going to factor in everything, you know, but I make a low offer that I know I can do.
Okay.
Why?
Because the land alone is probably worth.
30 a door.
Do you think that you're sharper in real estate knowledge now and expertise now than you were, say, 15, 20 years ago, 10 years ago even?
I mean, I'm sharper now or smarter now because of the experience, but I'm older so I don't have the drive I used to have.
And I don't have the passion I used to have.
So you think that you'd be more bullish on Ben Mal.
I don't get a thrill of it anymore.
I've done it for over 35 years.
okay or more. And I don't have the passion like I used to because it's age. It's normal. It's a human evolution.
And my kids do. And, you know, so I support them. And I'm always looking for a deal.
But, you know, I go in, I find a deal. I close a deal. And I just say, here, take care of this deal.
What's the best deal you've gotten in the last year? In the last year. In the last year, what's the best deal you've gotten?
I mean, I've had some really good small ones. You know, I got one to sale right now out in a senior affordable housing deal.
probably double my money on. It's about 70 something apartments. Um, you know, lately, I mean,
I don't know. I've sold some deals that I've had for many years. But as far as, I mean,
let's see, bada bada bada bambu, bada bing. I don't know. It's all over the board. I got hotels,
I got retail. I got apartments. I mean, everyone's a good deal, but, you know, I don't have any
big home runs to stick out since I've done some, I mean, you know, I've flipped some properties
recently that, you know, there was 10 million upside, you know, stuff like that.
One thing I want to talk about is a lot of people that are getting started, they feel like
they need to build their knowledge and their expertise before they move. How do they know
they have enough expertise or knowledge in the field before getting into their first deal?
Because now, I mean, you are like one of the leading experts. I feel like that we know.
They should go to Ben mallet.com, consult with Ben for pennies on a dollar.
Why is it so cheap? And I'm not trying to. Because I'm not.
I'm not doing it for the money.
All right.
He's got to make money the guy that runs the channel, the bookings, the time.
You know, people's time is valuable.
But I truly enjoy helping people.
Okay.
That just gives me a very big personal satisfaction.
Okay.
And I'm not knocking, you know, other people.
You know, listen, I do consulting with guys from nothing all the way up.
Yesterday I actually had a call with a guy.
He just sold his company.
he's probably worth
to half a billion
and doesn't know
what to do
but he wants to be in real estate.
Okay, I don't care.
You know,
but I really like helping
the small guy.
I like to help
the people that just
get their first deal done.
Okay,
whatever they can afford,
whatever they qualify for,
finding a good deal.
Because that,
once you get in the door,
then at least a lot of other doors.
Yeah, I actually booked you
for an hour Zoom call
for the group I run,
the index,
link in the description.
So it's a group of
entrepreneurs we booked to you for an hour. I mean, it's hard to be nice to you that day.
You do. Not him. Not Jack. But it's only, what, like $350 for 15 minutes? Yeah, I mean,
you know, but you'd be surprised you can cover 15 minutes. I can know somebody's whole life story
15 minutes. And all I do is I tell them, I put myself in their shoes and I tell them,
what would I do if I was in issues? They're married, they got a kid, they live here, they make this,
uh, their credit is this. Uh, they never bought a house before.
and they apply for FHA finance, and we go to the whole thing.
I mean, you know, and I've had so many people call me back and say, listen, I took your advice.
It worked out.
We're doing great.
I mean, listen, helping people is a great thing, you know, really helping them, affecting their life.
You know, all these, listen, I don't knock actors and sports guys and all these people entertain people, which is fine.
We need entertainment in life.
It's a human thing.
Okay, but I like actually helping people improve their life.
A big point of our last discussion was that you're trying to lean into retirement.
But by retirement, you mostly mean being done with real estate.
It's not done.
I'm always going to be around until the day I die, as long as my brain's working, my kids are going to get on a phone with me.
They're going to ask me questions.
We're going to make decisions.
You don't really ever retire when you have a real estate portfolio and you plan on turning it over to your family.
You don't retire.
But I could be on my boat anywhere or I could be in any country on the phone and I can consult from anywhere.
I enjoy doing a consulting.
Consulting is going to be a big part of my retirement.
Helping people.
Are you trying to lean away from value ad like distressed assets with high operational carry or you and lean more into like triple net safer like the Tesla?
It's a combination of both.
In my position, and this is not for everybody, in my position, you have to be diversions.
You can't just focus in on one type of assets.
You know, you've got to be diversified.
So that gives you stability, okay?
Something you need to learn about.
Stability.
You're very unstable.
Mentally, maybe not physically, but financially, how many house hacks?
How many people you got living in your frigate house?
You wake up in a morning and you got people strangers and you got a damn house.
I got four people.
I got four people living in my house.
Five because one of my husband.
One's moving out, though.
I'm also going to be moving out and maybe selling my property too.
So if you want a sub-2, a sub-3% deal in Las Vegas, let me know.
Michael, it's not worth his time to be sub-tuing a deal of three.
The only sub I want is a turkey sub.
What do you buy me for lunch today?
I'll buy you a turkey sub.
Turkey sub.
Yeah.
So basically, listen, I like diversification.
I feel like I'm stable.
I've got money in triple nets, like the Tesla dealership.
We just close a $43 million apartment building where my son's a partner.
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Thanks again to Superhuman for sponsoring this episode. All right, he's rehabbing it, he's getting it all
going. He's actually physically there being the manager. He hasn't done that in years. He only has a
property manager he supervised him. But this.
project, he's moved into the apartment building. My son lives in a million dollar home. He's a
multi-millionaire. He packed his family up and he moves into the building. Does that make you proud?
He's processed and maintenance requests. He's collecting rents. He's doing marketing. He's got a construction
project going on. I mean, listen, when your kids act like that, you know, you got to keep backing
him and you got to keep supporting him. And then the other son is in the Tallahassee on a project he's a partner
in rehabbing it right next to the university. I saw that video video.
that Ben Jr. did. I was really impressed by it. Yeah. And it's real. Yeah. And I was out there
the other day with him. It's real. So he's living in the apartment complex. He's living in the apartment.
Why? Because he's got his hands on it. He's got control. He's going to get that place running right,
stabilized. Of course, eventually he'll bring a manager in. But he's going to make sure that it's in the
right stage to bring a manager. Plus he's got major construction to do there. He's got about
50 apartments. He's got a bill for Michelle.
You think that always makes sense if you're getting started in, not that he's getting started, but for those that aren't experts in the field, if you want to get into your first deal, especially if it's multifamily, it makes sense to actually live in the property.
You know, you don't necessarily have to live in it, depend on the size of it.
It's such a big project.
He said, I'm not traveling.
I'm just going to stay here.
Otherwise, you have to drive two hours each way.
So you don't think that you'll ever fully, like, be mostly done, like you're always going to be working.
Because it seems like...
I am contemplating and thinking of it.
about hiring a sharp kid that I met, trained in New York, on a corporate level, to help me manage
the portfolio because he has a lot of the skills that, see, my kids have been in the trenches.
And we need to add a little more corporate type structure to the management of portfolio.
What would that do for you?
I got a kid that, you know, I call him a kid.
He's no kid.
He's probably, I don't know.
Well, he's not even 30 yet.
Anyway, you know, so I'm trying to get him aboard because I like what he can do.
What I've seen him, I have him come down here sometimes.
What he can do in a matter of a couple of hours on a computer and spreadsheets and all this stuff and formulating things takes me days.
Well, he's just using Claude most likely.
He's using Claude most likely.
And he's just typing in a few numbers.
I can have a conversation with him about basis, taxes, returns.
leverage, I can have a conversation and we can have a serious discussion.
Yeah, but Claude could do the same thing. You just talk to Claude. It's going to...
Claude, it's not the same. It's not reality. It's, it's, it's, um, artificial.
Would you say that doing one individual big deal requires a completely different skill set than
managing a bunch of different portfolios and relationships with the bank and this and that?
Like, what is the main differentiating factor between half a billion dollar portfolio?
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Would you say that doing one individual big deal requires a completely different skill?
set than managing a bunch of different portfolios and relationships with the bank and this and that.
Like what is the main differentiating factor between half a billion dollar portfolio and doing it?
Zeros. It's all about money and money out. So it's the same skills. It's all the same.
You know, you know, you just got to add zeros and add more, you know, there's more things to add on a bigger property. You got more expenses. You have more income streams.
You got different things that come up, you know, with the property. But basically, if you want to buy real estate, you want to own real estate.
I highly recommend you run it yourself.
Get your hands dirty.
That's the best experience you will ever get.
If you wanted to go out tomorrow and stop being a house hacker
with all these strangers walking around in their underwear every morning in your house,
go out, buy yourself a fourplex.
I don't believe in less than a fourplex.
You have four tenants paying your rent, okay,
and you should cash flow fairly well if you buy it right.
And it's not a lot of management.
but manage it yourself.
You collect the rents.
If there's a problem, send the handyman over to fix it.
There's not much else to it in paying bills,
and there aren't any bills on a foreplex,
your tax bill, your insurance bill, your mortgage bill.
And then you got some maintenance.
That's about it.
I got so tired of doing that, though.
It was just exhausting.
You don't want to work.
It's stressful.
It's just, this guy ain't going to work.
I like to wake up and not have a single care
other than just here's a task I got to do.
That's it.
You're from California.
You want everything easy.
I got to say, I just sold two of my multifamily in Los Angeles.
And every day I wake up that I think I don't own that anymore.
Well, that's because you've experienced it.
But we're talking about somebody starting out.
You've experienced it.
You looked at this situation.
You said, you know what?
These things are pain in the neck.
I live far away in another state.
I've already, if I sell it now, the number has probably made a lot of
sense, even with the tax ramifications.
And you made a decision.
You managed your portfolio.
That's what I do all the time.
I look at a property and I say, okay, is this property a painy ass?
Well, whether it is or not.
It's not going to be a painy ass to me, you know, too much because, you know, I got people
to run it.
But do the numbers make sense?
Is it best to keep it?
Is it best to refinance it?
Is it best to sell it?
You got to make decisions with your amount and general portfolio.
But if you're just getting into real estate, you've got to get your hands dirty.
and run your own stuff.
You have to.
That's the way you'll know
whether you want to grow in real estate
or you don't.
A lot of people don't.
Well, one thing that's pretty clear
is that you have a beautiful home here.
20,000 square feet that you're selling.
It's for sale.
What's the asking price?
It was asking $35 million.
Why?
Because if you go anywhere on this,
we're in a special little city
here on a private beach.
If you go anywhere in our area
on this beach,
people are paying $8 to $10 million for a lot, a single lot, and knocking down a house.
This house, the land alone is a value of $20 to $24 million.
Okay?
It's just, I can prove it.
To build this house with the qualities that this house has, I haven't even have the
contractors' bills that built it.
Okay.
You're going to spend minimum $25 million.
You have to.
with the bowling alleys and the lazy rivers and the quality of all this stuff.
Okay, so here you are.
You're somewhere in the neighborhood of 45 plus million.
So I put it on the market for 35.
And you'd have to wait four to five years to build it.
So here we go.
You could turn key, walk into this house, less than what the replacement cost is.
Okay.
Right now, we lowered the price to 31.
Have you had any offers?
I've had about a half a dozen showings.
but honestly nobody has made me a realistic legitimate offer that I would even consider.
Why?
Because people want you to carry or, you know, people want to do some creative stuff.
They all had the money to buy the house because we pre-qualify them before we let them look at the house.
But listen, it takes time.
The market is so small for in this price range and in this area.
Now, if this area was in South Florida, I mean, if this house was in South Florida, forget about it.
be worth a hundred million in certain areas, like the area you were talking about earlier.
Okay.
So it is what it is.
It's a great house.
It's going to be just got to find a right buyer for it.
What happens if you can't sell it?
I just keep it.
You know, what am I going to do?
I can't sell it, you know, I keep it.
Would you seller finance it?
No, I'm not like, I don't like, listen, why would I have to sell a finance?
I always say to myself, when people offer seller financing, beware.
There's a reason why.
Maybe it's helping them tax-wise.
Maybe.
But typically, let them go to a bank.
Why do I need to be the bank?
Why can't they just take the money, the down payment and go to a bank?
If the bank, maybe the bank won't qualify them.
Well, if the bank will qualify them, why the hell would I qualify?
What's your interest rate on this property?
Well, I locked in a good rate on this.
Two percent.
Interest only, right?
Two and a half.
So you could sell it, seller finance at three and a half.
That's incredible, though.
Seven years have gone by.
15 years.
So you get seven years at two and a half percent.
Wait.
I got about nine years left at a fixed rate loan interest only on this house.
But you could make a percent or a percent and a half if you seller financed it at four
percent or three and a half percent.
For seven years, yeah.
Yeah, but I wouldn't do it.
Listen, I don't want to be the bank.
I don't like loaned people money.
That's not what I do.
Yeah, but you're loaning the bank's money.
And if that person goes belly up, then what?
Then you take back their clothes on them?
Then you take back the property.
I don't like doing that.
I don't want to go after people.
I don't want to be in a bad situation.
I don't like to be on...
You want people going after you.
Banks.
People go after me.
Yeah.
What do you mean?
People going after me.
I pay all my bills, so nobody goes after me.
Right.
You'll take on debt, but you will not release the debt.
I'll take on debt all day long because that makes sense for me.
I make money on the bank's money.
Plus, I'm able to spread my money out, you know, much more by using the bank's money.
How much money do you have to have to buy a $30 million mansion?
I mean, typically, you're going to have to qualify.
But if you're going to buy a $30 million mansion, you probably have to go on and get a jumbo loan.
A jumbo loan is probably going to be at least 25%.
Okay, 25% of 30 million.
10% is 3, 3, 6, 7, 8 million down.
And you have to qualify for the loan.
You got to prove how am I going to pay the loan?
And then you've got taxes.
And then you got insurance.
You've got to make a substantial income to be able to buy a house like this.
Or a lot of people that own houses that will buy a house like this typically, you know, have that
kind of cash that they want to just buy it or put a lot down, have very little mortgage.
So you're selling a $30 million mansion. You've had a handful of showings on average,
the people that come see the property and want to buy it. How much money do they have?
I mean, typically, I would think that the rule of thumb in banking is if you buy a, if your
mortgage, let's figure it out. If your mortgage is going to be, let's say, 20 million, right?
20 million. Today's rate's probably about 6%. Okay. So that's going to put you at a million,
a year, correct?
Mm-hmm.
Is that right?
Yeah.
20 millions a million two a year?
Correct.
Multiply by three.
Well, if you're making, if you got to pay a mortgage for a million two a year, you
probably got to be making over three million a year to qualify.
But even so, I heard that if you're buying like anything over 15 million, you don't really
fit the 33% rule because those people kind of spread their money out a little bit more.
And your assets.
So realistically, like, wouldn't they, like, you have to have like a hundred million bucks
like to justify a 30 million.
No, we wouldn't need a hundred million.
Listen, if you have a, if you have a, if you can prove you have stable income coming in
or a few million a year, the bank will loan you, you know.
I don't think someone who's worth $20 million is buying a $30 million house, even if they have
the income to do that.
I don't know.
I mean, but no, listen, yeah, you got to be somebody that's not going to hurt you and, you know,
to buy this house.
It's got to be somebody worth probably like you said, 60, 70, 80, 100 million.
What about buying a $10 million house?
How much do you have to be worth?
I mean, a $10 million house, I mean, I would think you had to be worth maximum, minimum $20 million.
You think that's responsible if you're worth $20 million to spend $10 on a house.
It doesn't on what your income is, too.
It's not just a question of your worth.
Okay, you can be worked a lot of money, but, you know, what's your income, what your returns, what's your investments?
You know, the bank looks at the whole picture.
Also, I'll caution you again to this hitting the hit Jack instead.
You know, our editor is going to be like, yo, just like, oh, this fucking bad guy.
Just hit Jack instead.
My head's down here.
So.
How much time do you guys have?
I need a cigarette.
I didn't even smoke.
Yeah, if you need to take a break, we'll just, we'll just, we can pause.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I want to go have a cigarette, man.
In Scotland, I just came back from Scotland.
You know what they call cigarettes there.
So in owning a $30 million, $20,000 square foot house, how much does this cost you per year for
random things. I mean, you know, number one, a house like this, it pretty much requires two full-time
housekeepers. So you have two full-time staff members here that... I always had two full-time
housekeepers for 20-something years, but yeah, this house definitely, you know, because you got to
maintain everything. What's the cost of that? What do you use the house and not that much? What does a
housekeeper do? I mean, you know, what do you mean? Every day they got to clean bathrooms, they got to
make beds, laundry. I mean, you know, everything.
go through the whole house,
make sure everything's neat, clean, and kept up, you know.
So that's got to be $100,000 a year just in cleaning the house.
Well, it could be, you know, yeah.
I mean, I don't know how much they make,
but it's a significant expense.
Then you're always going to be on top of all the maintenance and stuff.
You got to have money for maintenance.
Now, I did rip out of all the lawns, but fake lawns in,
so I cut the landscape and down to zero, you know,
and I'm lucky my guys could pop over here and trim whatever I need.
Once a year, you go to do the trees.
That's going to cost you no more than a few.
grand. It's not tremendous, you know, but the tax bill is significant. It's over a quarter million a year.
And in insurance, you have insurance, you know. How much is the insurance? Insurance, I don't think as much.
You know, it's probably about 25 grand a year because I don't have much insurance. Typically,
somewhere I probably spend more than that. Probably 40 or something like that.
And what about pricing the neighborhood, like different contractors when they give you a quote to
replace a door as opposed to someone else. If they're walking into a 20,000 square foot,
massive estate, like, they could jack up the prices a lot. Have you noticed any of this?
Yeah, of course. You always got to know what the industry cost is for anything you're fixing
in life, you know, no matter what. You got to know what's the industry. And what AI today will
even tell you. But, you know, you've got to be careful not to get taken advantage of people that want
to over inflate your bill because you live in a big, fancy place. What's the craziest quote you've
ever gotten for repair. From small or big, I've had companies that, you know, we have what they call
a Christiana system here, all the house run by computers. You know, they want to charge a $100 an hour
just to talk to you on the phone. So, you know, that seemed a little ridiculous to me. I got a simple
question of me. You're going to bill me for a hundred bucks, a hundred dollar minimum, you know,
to talk to you. Anyway, I mean, you know, listen, everything you do, you got to look at your options,
what your options are.
Basically, whenever I hire anybody, in any aspect, I think about time, how long it
takes to do the job, materials, overhead and profit, okay?
And I come up with a realistic price that should be fair for everybody.
Okay?
If it's a two-hour job and the guy's making, whatever, if he bills the guy out at, you know,
50 bucks an hour, I don't know these days, we're plumbing.
electricians, I don't know.
All right, so you got a couple of hours with a plumber, you know, that could be 100, 200 bucks.
Then you got the materials.
There's a toilet.
All right, what toilet do I want?
Toil it could be another 200 bucks.
Then you got overhead of profit, even though he's already making money over billing out the guy from what he's paying him.
So you come up with some sort of, you know, realistic number that makes sense.
People are kind of scared to ask the contractor, like how much did this cost you,
how much up charge are you having?
Like to see how much can you even trust?
Yeah, can you even trust?
The problem is, number one,
you can do a lot of homework on your own.
All right, with today's technology,
you can figure out what it takes to fix almost anything.
And then basically, listen,
if a contractor is not willing to be transparent with you,
nine times out of ten, he's ripping you off.
So you should ask.
And you should be able to figure it out for yourself.
The other day, on top of our LA Fitness down the road here,
we have this giant metal crown thing
that's like a design that just sits on the roof, you know, some special design they came up with,
all the other witnesses have them.
It needed a paint job.
All right, the guy throws me some crazy number out there.
I said, listen, it's because it's on top of it only fitness.
You know, anyway, the long story short is we sat on a phone and I said, okay, he says, well,
I need a lift.
I said, okay, how much is the lift going to cost you?
All right, I need a lift for two days to do that job.
Fine, how much is the lift going to cost you for,
two days. I can call up and find out myself. All right. We figured out what that was. It was like,
I don't know, be delivered and picked up $1,000. Then what's the paint cost? All right,
we do need special paint so it doesn't rust again like it did. And it might be some prep work.
It's probably a two-day job for about a couple of guys. All right, a couple of guys, a couple of painters.
Maybe they're worth $300 a day. That's $3, $6, $9, $12, make it $1,500 in labor. What the hell?
always a little, we got 1,500 labor.
We got a thousand bucks for the lift.
It's $2,500.
The paint is probably only a couple of hundred, a few hundred bucks.
We're up to $2,000.
He's got to make, you know, 20%, another $500.
The jobs cost $2,500.
And what do you quote you?
$5,000.
We settled at three.
So you fully went on.
Hey, itemized expenses.
Tell me how much everything.
It's not, you know, everything is actually.
accessible these days. You know how much stuff costs? You simply go online and figure out
I'm buying it. Even apart from my boat, I will look up the part number and see what it would
cost me to buy that part. Okay? And in boats, you've got to be really careful. Boats,
planes I can't do much about it. You can't argue the plane guys. Cars, I do. I do. My son,
my partner that raised me in real estate, left to my son when he passed away, his Rolls Royce,
Vincent, the black one.
Wow.
He loved the car.
But the car was starting to get old.
And fixing an old Rose Royce can be very expensive.
He went to the dealership because he needed some kind of turbo injectors and this and that.
$40,000.
That's what the dealership wanted.
Luckily, I got a friend down in Orlando who is in the car business.
And he knows a mechanic that used to run a dealership.
started his own company, his own auto repair.
You're right?
We took, we had the carpet on a truck.
We shipped it down to Orlando.
And the guy looks at it.
He says, you know what?
I could rebuild these.
We spent $4,000.
No way.
Instead of 40.
And then we sold a car.
There's more, going to keep them.
Yeah, of course.
And then I gave my Bentley.
I said, I'll tell you what, sell your world's voice.
I'll give you my Bentley.
There you go, done.
So that just goes to show you, 40,000 compared to 4,000.
That's the way it goes with everything.
You got to spend your money wisely.
You can't spend money on anything significant unless you do your homework.
Everything is whole.
Oh, stop back.
Just hit Jack instead.
All right, you got to do your homework.
All right, anything you spend your money on.
Before you part with a penny, do your homework.
make sure you're not getting ripped off.
You know, in our company, we have a rule.
We have to get three bids on everything.
I got a million dollars worth of AC worker.
I got to get done on a university I bought.
Well, I had contacted three different AC companies and C,
and make sure they're all bidding on the, like,
when my son built a building, I was impressed.
He had seven contractors bid on exactly what he needed done.
And then he compared each bid.
Now, they play their little games where they hire on one thing and low on another,
but at the end, you got to pick the guy that you know he's not sticking it to you,
at least not too much.
How do you know they're not going to quote you really low and then go in and say,
well, actually, when they're halfway through the job?
Well, those are considered change orders.
I mean, once you've got a contract, you've got a contract.
When you're building, you've got a contract.
Okay, this guy has to build it for this price.
Now, if you start making changes, that's a different story.
But he's got to bid it based on whatever the prices are, the materials at the time.
He's got to bid it on the labor.
I mean, you got a contract in writing.
He can't go up in the price.
Always get things in writing, always.
So what are you noticing then throughout the entire real estate market right now?
How is it changed in the last six months?
Right now, we're in this weird zone right now.
Okay?
We're in a weird zone.
But if you want to make money in real estate,
It's all about 99.9% of it is finding a deal. Find a deal and make sure you bought it for the lowest possible price the seller would sell it for. You have to come in and low ball.
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Not saying you're going to end at that price and get at that price,
but you've got to play the game.
You've got to get in low.
So you're down here.
He's up here.
And then you've got to set your maximum price you're willing to pay.
You have to buy it right.
If you don't buy it right, you get screwed.
What type of real estate has the best deals right now?
Is it apartments, hotels?
All right.
Number one, you want to run away from office space because nobody's leasing it.
All right.
It's a bloodbath in offices, okay?
Unless you have some magic wand that you can rent the space out, you'd die.
And you can't convert anything else.
Everybody's tried.
Appointments.
I thought maybe storage, but listen, it's far-fetched.
Stay away from office.
Multi-family is always a great sector of real estate, okay?
Because it's not very difficult to run.
People pay your rent.
You fix something if it's broke.
You maintain it.
You pay your bills.
You're done.
And the banks love the loan on them.
But you have to buy them right.
Okay, you can't go on strictly projections.
A lot of people buy because they say, oh, yeah, rents are going up.
Rents aren't always going up.
Right now in Fort Myers, we just bought, rents are going down.
My competition is giving away two months free.
So how do you compete with that?
We try to, you know, go beyond the normal marketing leasing.
Well, number one, the product we bought was built as condos.
That's why I felt good about the property.
there is not one apartment building that you can rent in Fort Myers that's going to give you the square footage and the amenities that we have because it was built as condos.
You're basically renting something somebody typically would buy to own with garages, with private elevators, with big square footage, you know, things like that.
So I felt like we can market that property above everybody else regular apartments.
plus we're going to think out the box.
We're going to go right to the big employers.
We're going to do stuff management companies won't do because we're the owner.
A management company, and don't get me wrong, there are good management companies out there.
But still, even the best management companies are not going to cross the line and go beyond the call of duty.
They don't care.
They're going to charge you a fee based on the gross rents that they collect.
And they're going to do an average job of industry, industry.
standards. But we as the owners, we're going to go beyond that. You know, there's a guy named
Paul that works for me, right? I gave him a building out in that senior building I have. And it was a
problem. Phil in the Vegas used to why? Because it was in a very rural area. What does he do? He buys
those cheap bandit signs. He drives around, maybe a 20-mile radius or a 15-mile radius. He's sticking
and signs out in high traffic areas, grocery stores.
He's contacted senior centers and programs.
We do stuff that nobody else is going to do because we're the owners, all right?
Average people, employees won't even do it, you know?
I mean, we as owners will instruct employees to do it and have to do it.
But a management company, they're not going to lose sleep.
We lose sleep when we lose money.
So, you know, multifamily is always the best, smartest thing.
If you're small, try to get into a fourplex.
Why?
Because up to four units is still considered residential.
It's very easy to get a loan for.
You can get FHA.
You can get VA if you're a veteran.
Four units is a great place to start.
Retail, the only way you're going to make money in retail, I'm telling you right now,
you have to buy with vacancy.
I mean, otherwise you're buying for a good cap rate.
You're buying a cap rate, that's the end of it.
You get your little increases over the time, and that's it.
Retail is strictly about buying it with vacancy.
space that you could fill. That's your upside. How much does bad management ruin a deal?
Management is everything in real estate. Management is everything. You know, maintaining a property,
keeping it rented, making sure you're at market rents, taking care of your tenants. I mean,
management is after you buy it, 99% of real estate is finding a deal. Then 99% of it once you,
after you buy it is managing it.
And if you're doing rehab, you really got to make sure you got a good plan.
And then you talk about hotels and storage facilities.
Those are more of business.
That's all based on supply and demand.
You have to buy real estate like that where you know there's a demand, okay?
Because I've seen plenty of places, hotels and storage places do well in a high demand area.
And I've seen them go belly up because there was no demand.
What's the worst situation you've seen an owner be in?
I mean, typically they overpay.
That's the biggest problem you're going to see in real estate.
You overpaid and now something came up and you're going to be underwater.
Okay?
You didn't do your homework.
You didn't check the roof.
You didn't prepare for, you know, everything has a life expectancy.
Okay, that's why on your tax return, everything is depreciated.
Residential is 27.5 years.
They depreciate your rental income.
Why? Because they feel like these things are losing, and eventually they're going to have to be replaced, or money's got to be pumped into them.
On commercial, it's 40 years. So basically, you know, everything has a life cycle. You've got to be prepared for the end of that life cycle.
If I walk into a 200-unit building, and we look at all the A-Cs and the A-Cs are all 20 years old, ding, ding, ding, I may have to be replacing a lot of ACs soon. Same with appliances. You've got to check the roof.
You got to make sure, you know, you got to do your homework, plumbing, electric,
equipment. You got to take all these things in consideration when you buy a piece of property.
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How quickly could you tell if a seller's motivated?
Are there any signs to look for?
If it's on the market,
okay, I don't believe in all that off-market.
Off market, off market, please.
I can't have time for off-market.
I want something on.
the market, the seller is ready to sell, okay? I mean, you got every deal has a different story.
The first question I ask a broker, where I don't even ask the question, they tell me right off
the bat. What's the story here? What's the story? There's a story behind every real estate deal.
You know, is the partnership splitting up? Did the guy pass away and a family don't want it?
Does the place need work? He doesn't want to fix it up. Does he have a problem? Now, isn't it?
There can be a million different reasons why it's selling.
You've got to find out the story behind why he's selling.
And then you have to act accordingly.
And then you've got to come in and lowball the shit out of it
and make sure you're buying it at the lowest price possible.
Do you ever walk away from a deal just so that they'll chase you?
I walked away from plenty of deals and they chase me back down.
Does that work?
Is that a good strategy?
I mean, it happens because, you know, I know this guy is not getting
150,000 a unit when his rents are only 12 or 1300 a month.
He's dreaming.
Okay?
He thinks he created his own lottery.
It don't work that way.
It's all numbers.
It's all underwriting.
So I'm going to say, listen, I can't pay him more than 100 a door.
Simple as that.
You won't hear from him.
We'll go through his marketing process.
The broker will come up with no offers and he'll either move on to another broker,
which is a waste of time, or he'll have to come down in reality.
Okay, and a lot of times they'll come back to reality.
The broker will call me up and say, all right, you won't take you 100, but it'll take 110,
if you will move quick and show them some hard money.
I get my deals because I move quick.
I get in there, I get all my inspections done right away.
All right, I have bridge loan that I can do myself with a line of credit, so I need to wait
on no banks, okay, and I can move quick, and quick money normally gets you the best deal.
What's the most insulting offer you've made that's been accepted?
I mean, I don't think there's anything.
I mean, a lot of people say that, oh, he was insulted by your offer.
This is business.
This is numbers.
This is not a personal.
But do you ever just throw out a number that it's a lot ball of shit out of stuff?
I've lowballed the shit out of stuff and I've lost them.
Why?
Because I didn't want to pay more.
I've gone to my max.
I always determined this is the maximum I can pay for.
property to keep me in a safety zone that I feel safe in.
Okay.
I just offered $4.5 million on a 16-story empty building over here, not far from here.
It was ruined by the flood.
The broker said, listen, yeah, you're going to give him quick cash money, but I got other guys
who are real players offering six and eight and all that.
So, well, it's not for me.
The place needs a $10 million rehab.
I knew it for a fact.
I already calculated it.
My son had to walk up 16 flights at a roof because the power is totally shut down in the building because of a flood.
And we figured it out.
We need $10 million.
We need all new power.
We need all new plumbing.
We need, you know, the hot water heater systems.
We needed new elevators.
We needed everything.
We need to fix up all the units, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
We figured 10 million bucks with parking lots, landscape and all that.
And I said, if I pay more to $4.5 and I got to throw $10 million into it, I'm into it for $4,000.
15.5. Well, it's only like 180 units in the small units. So it don't make sense. You got to set
your comfortable price and not exceed it. Do you ever buy anything you don't want just because it's a
good price? I mean, if it was a good price, then I should always have the option or flipping it.
If I got it for a good price, I could always flip it. But, I mean, listen, I bought deals.
Maybe I shouldn't have bought it. I'm dinner made because of the tax reasons. But I don't know.
I mean, you really should never buy a deal that you're unhappy with.
If you're not happy the day of closing and you feel like you made a smart decision,
you shouldn't be closing that deal.
What's the quickest you've ever flipped a property?
I've flipped properties.
I've sold them before I even bought them.
So you like wholesale it?
Wholesailed it?
I bought a package of properties and somebody wanted to buy one piece out of a five-package deal.
So when it came to closing, I bought it at a.
certain price, but then I let the other guy take over that piece at a higher price.
How much did you make on that deal?
Probably about 30 grand a door. It was about 20 doors. I made about 600 grand.
I've also flipped deals at the, uh, when I was young, I would do foreclosures on the courthouse
steps. That's the way they used to do them. We don't stand on the courthouse steps and the
property's going up for auction and the guy comes out for the county and he's taking bids and
all that and we're all bidding against each other. And I,
I would win properties in California.
And as soon as the auction's over, the guy comes up to me, says,
you know, I should have overbidded you.
I really wanted that place.
And I was willing to pay X amount of dollars more.
Here, give me the money.
I wouldn't even take title to it.
Wow.
Give me the money.
I tell the guy putting in his name.
I mean, there's always opportunities there, you know, if you find the right deal.
So purchase price is the most important thing.
Most important thing.
How much are you paying for that property?
that's all it matters
what do you think about using AI
to evaluate
what do you think
that would be I
Ben's intelligence
and you go to binmel.com
and give me on a phone
and you can get some of Benz's eye
Bids AI
that would actually be interesting
I like that
that's a good idea
so people are making
you know you chat GPT
they have other GPTs
where you could put in all of your information
like how you analyze a deal
everything and record for three hours
straight
Five hours, however much she is.
Just upload all of your videos, by the way.
You go.
And then Chad GBT can make a BI.
And people can ask it questions.
And it's like you're getting an answer from Ben.
We use AI a lot, especially on the sun now when it comes to contracts,
the leases and things like that.
It's actually killing lawyers right now.
Really?
It's cutting down lawyers hours and the bills.
What about for evaluating cash flow?
It's like, what's a good price to pay for this?
Is it accurate and comping?
I don't know.
When it comes to cash and money, I don't trust anybody, but my own self.
in a calculator and a pen.
I'll sit there, old school, and I'll write down,
how much money is this place going to bring in a month, realistically?
What are my costs going to be?
Okay?
I'm going to tell you, you can do all the underwriting in the world,
and I'm always right, and my son just doesn't,
he likes to do all the, put in the numbers,
and do all the calculations and spreadsheets and all the stuff,
and it's great.
He gets into the penny almost.
Me?
the no-fail, sure way of being safe.
If you're dealing with 100-plus unit buildings, okay, this really doesn't work as well.
It's too safe for less than 100 units because less than 100 units typically don't have these same expenses.
Okay, but for 100-plus units, it's real simple.
You figure out what your gross rents are.
Let's say the place is making a million dollars a year gross rents, right?
Okay, that's reasonable.
million dollars a year, you cut it in half.
Half your money is going to all your expenses,
include your property taxes and insurance.
Half the money is gone to operate.
That's the way it typically works.
Then you have to calculate your debt.
So you got a million bucks coming in,
a half a million dollars to run the place.
Then you've got to figure out how much debt you're taking on
and what the interest payment is going to be
to come off that half a million.
Then that you're going to be your return.
It's always going to be so close, it's going to blow you away.
They say for single-family homes, it's usually about 15%.
15 is a lot.
Yeah, single-family homes, smaller buildings, it don't work.
You get a much, you have less expenses.
You don't use 50% rule.
Is that what you use is 15% rule?
Because now, I don't know what I mean.
I understand.
A 15% rule works for 100 plus units because you have managers, you have maintenance.
You know, you've got a payroll.
You got grounds.
You got all these expenses.
that you won't have with a single family house.
Single house is really nothing.
You collect the rent and if something fixed,
you send somebody over and unstop a toilet.
Typically, you can make the tenant take care of their own grounds of it.
It's a single family house.
You don't pay no utilities.
It's all on the tenant.
There are no expenses.
But single family houses don't cash flow.
They're the worst investment you can ever buy for cash flow.
You flip single family houses.
You buy them, you fix them.
Sorry, you flip them.
Don't ever buy a house for cash flow.
It's stupid.
It makes no sense.
I've never seen it makes sense.
And then some people end up with a ton of them.
Now you're sitting with all these single family homes.
You're not going to be able to package them together and sell them.
Very rare.
Okay?
Very, very rare.
You have to sell them individually.
And they're not going to cash flow, especially if you got debt on them.
And if they don't cash, and if they don't have debt on them, you're going to get a return.
Now, a lot of people say in terms of single family that we are in a housing
crisis, but there does seem to be a lot of inventory right now in the market for single family
house.
Nobody's buying houses right now.
Why?
Because they don't, they don't, they doesn't fit.
Their budget is six and a half percent interest rate for the house they want.
They got to pay six and a half percent interest rate.
They got to pay principal.
They got to pay insurance.
They got to pay taxes.
Now is the time to rent.
So now is definitely the time to rent.
So what do you tell people when they say, should I buy a house right now?
I mean, if your budget.
can handle it and your lifestyle requires it, you know, or it's a necessity. You know, and you can
handle it. And yeah, you always buy a house if you can afford it because it's a personal thing.
You know, it's not really an investment. Houses are non-investments. Typically, yeah, you buy a house
and you're living in it for five years. It typically appreciates. You make some money.
After two years, you don't have to pay on capital gains tax up to $250,000 or $500,000 if you're
married. It works. It works. But it's not an investment, really. House is a personal
purchase and never buy them for investment unless you're flipping it.
I mean, typically the best smartest thing to do is you buy a house and you improve it.
Because the house is that, there's a reason why a house is not selling too.
Okay, because there's something wrong with that house.
Maybe it doesn't have enough bathrooms.
Maybe it's too small square footage.
You come in and add value to the house.
Maybe it needs to be fixed up.
Whatever the story is, is there a solution to the fix?
you've come up with the solution, do the numbers make sense based on what you're buying, based
on what you're spending and approving, and what the market will pay for it.
And you want to be below the market so you know you can sell it quick.
This is the first time, though, that I've ever seen it where people are getting less than the
price that they spend fixing it up.
Because it seems like the prices right now for materials and labor, people are overspending.
So they might put, I've seen $500,000 into a property, but they might only get back $3.75, 400.
So they're taking a lot, fixing it up.
Nobody knew that the price of gas was going to go to $5 a gallon.
Okay, that affects every aspect of our human life.
Everything you need is tied to oil, you know, because the cost of making stuff,
the cost of shipping stuff.
So now because the price of that went up, the price of everything goes up.
You have to, you know, nobody has a crystal ball.
This is what I thought that would really help the housing market.
I wish they do this.
imagine if they said for people that build a house in the next 10 years,
if you build your profits could be tax-free.
Imagine how many people would build a house everywhere they could.
It seems like that would completely solve the housing shortage.
If they just...
You know about profits for who?
Somebody buying them just to sell it?
Yes.
A builder.
Building, adding a new housing unit onto the market.
If you're able to add, if you take the risk, the time, the capital...
How is that going to help anybody except make the builders more money?
Because it adds more supply under the market.
More supply should lower the prices.
Well, it's not so much.
I mean, listen, the cost of building is not cheap.
There are so many developments right now.
I bet you if we looked at it, you go to Lenars or you go to all these places,
I'm sure they got plenty of developments where they can't sell those houses and they already built them.
Boy, they had plans to build them.
Stop kicking me.
Jack.
I didn't know that was your foot.
Yeah.
Have a bite to eat?
Yeah.
All right, let's have a bite to eat.
Right now? Sure, if you're hungry. Yeah, we can take it.
I mean, we'll eat quick and then we'll knock it out.
All right. What time you guys got to get out of here or one?
We don't have a... Today is your day.
What do you want to talk about? Banking?
Why is banking the most important thing if you're trying to build wealth then?
Like, what did this seems like that...
Because you need their money!
You got enough money to buy a piece of real estate? No, average person don't.
You got it. The bank is your best friend in the world.
Your bank becomes, your bank comes before your wife.
Really?
So if your banker calls at the same time as your wife, which one do you pick up?
The banker.
My wife knows, well, banker calls, done.
Nobody's more important than your banker.
Okay, what about your wife and your banker both want to go out on a Saturday night, 9 p.m., who has priority?
Typically, bankers, you don't have to take out on dates.
It's not a date. It's just a business meeting. They just say, hey, Ben, I want to do banking after hours. You do lunch meeting, stuff like that. But the point I understand trying to make is, if you're in real estate, banking is the most important person in your life is your banker. So if you're trying to develop a relationship with a bank, do you pick a specific bank or do you try to have relationships with multiple banks? Do you get to a point where you don't shop the rate they provide you anymore? You'll get to a point where you don't need to shop around.
But at first, you got to kind of see who's giving you the best deals.
And whoever gives you the best deals, the best rates, the most LTV, you know what LTV is,
loan of value.
The people that are going to make your life easiest with the best terms, the best rates,
then you'll end up throwing more stuff their way.
Of course, common sense.
But, you know, I used to work with 10 different banks.
Now only work with one.
Who's the best bank?
In my world, you big.
Bank of America?
Biggest bank in a country in the world, I think.
Why not Chase or Wells Fargo?
I've dealt with Wells Fargo.
I've dealt with Wells Fargo.
I've dealt with them all.
The problem is, when you get to my level, you need to have a brokerage relationship and a banking relationship.
So you need two companies, basically B of A is the parent company.
B of A owns Merrill Lynch, right?
Mm-hmm.
So Merrill Lynch knows the brokerage.
B of A knows the banking, right?
So basically, my broker technically works for B of A because he works for Merrill Lynch.
Merrill Lynch is under B of A.
They tell B of A, they tell Merrill Lynch what to do and control everything.
It's a relationship.
The broker goes to bat for me to get my loans.
Why? Because I'm his client.
And the more money I make, the more money goes in his brokerage.
The bigger he is.
It's all ties together.
But I've actually believed I made it to the top level.
I've been with every big shop bank there is.
Okay.
And I'm going to tell you, they've been the best and easiest to me.
Not only that, once you have that kind of money to be in a brokerage, wealth management side,
You're basically getting a lot of help because these people care about you.
They care.
They have to care because your well-being is their well-being.
Okay?
If you make more money, more money goes into the brokerage.
And they get credit for all the loans they throw B of A through the brokerage.
Everybody's making money.
That sounds very similar to my second loan that I got.
The first loan I got, I shopped it around with like 10 different places, got a really good loan at 2.875.
during COVID.
And then now I bought last year.
And the problem was I shopped it around.
First of all,
couldn't get qualified because, like,
YouTuber income is very hard to show.
But I shopped it around a bunch of different places.
I was getting 6.5%, 6.3 quarters.
And the best rate I got was actually through my brokerage.
So I used Schwab.
But did you tie your assets up to get the loan?
I actually don't think that I did.
I think I was able to leverage my relationship.
He got a discount.
He got a discount because of the assets with Schwab.
But I didn't, but I didn't, I don't have to keep my assets there.
No.
It just showed because I was also having trouble qualifying, but having assets in Schwab,
I was able to use.
What?
You don't do tax returns?
Tax.
Do you file tax returns?
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
The problem, but, but as an entrepreneur, you have like weird money flows and
routing and stuff like that.
And this was confusing them and it wasn't like getting their seal of approval.
And so I had to shop it with Schwab.
And Schwab has rocket mortgage.
They're, you know, that's like their rocket mortgage's parent company is Schwab.
And so I was able to get.
the best deal by miles actually using the brokerage.
There you go.
It's all about relationships.
So if someone's just starting, where do they begin?
Do they go to Bank of America?
Credit unions.
Listen, when you first start, it's a whole different picture.
Yeah.
You go wherever you can get in.
Okay.
You know, because if you just start now,
you're not going to walk in in the bank like a big shot and want to get alone.
It's not going to happen.
Okay.
Like I said, it goes back to risk.
You know, if you're still a high risk person,
then, you know, you're going to have to shop around.
You should definitely be your first-time buyer.
You should be doing FHA with low money down and the government backing a percentage
of that loan.
Okay, typically most people start with FHA when they want to buy one or four units.
That's what I think.
You know, but when you first start out, you just got to shop around and get the best rate,
like we all did.
I used to borrow from hard money guys when I was in my 20s.
Why?
There was no banquet loan to me.
And then once I got established and,
And I made a few bucks.
Then I went to the D paper.
Then I moved up to the C paper.
As I move up the ladder, the interest rate comes down.
And the terms get better.
You know, and then I eventually went to B, and now I'm at A.
B of A.
So why is it that you want to do so much consulting?
I'm curious why you enjoy it so much.
To help other people, you have to do it to understand it.
Okay.
When I get off the phone with somebody knowing that I made an impact of their life,
and I help them, I get a certain human feeling that money can't buy it.
You can't buy it kind of feeling.
You know, it's just like I felt that I really did something in life.
I accomplished something to help other people while I was on this planet.
Okay.
I just, I know it's the right thing to do.
Okay, it's like religion.
Some people believe, you know, in the religion's part of it, they get some kind of special
religious feeling.
I get a great feeling by knowing that I help people while I was here.
I did it and I showed them how to do it and helping people improve their lives.
If the whole world acted like that, it would be a beautiful, peaceful world.
I mean, honestly, you know, helping people that generally just want to improve the quality of life.
I came from nothing from the most dangerous neighborhoods in the world.
I should have been dead or locked away in jail growing up in New York back in the 70s and 80s.
And luckily, the Army saved my life.
And I just know that helping other people is the right way to live in.
That's the way humans should live.
Always try to.
I'm not saying giveaway shit.
I'm not saying, you know, I mean, helping people help themselves.
That's the greatest thing in the world because then they don't need you.
It's interesting to me because when we're taking breaks between the podcast, the one thing you get so excited about it, you just want to talk about it as a consulting.
Even when we're just hanging out.
I like talking about people about their problems and helping them resolve their problems or putting together a plan that they're going to be successful.
I'm passionate about that.
Okay.
And not a lot of people, like I said, I've had some sports guys, you know, come and tell me, you know, you're really lucky.
you know, yeah, we go out there, we entertain and we score and people clap and applaud.
But you're actually helping people.
I mean, what greater diff is that in life to help the next person come up and enjoy your life and live a better life?
It just makes everybody happy when everybody's doing well, doesn't it?
Why don't you write a book?
I don't know how.
I never went to high school.
You don't have to write it, though.
You could have someone else write your book.
Ghostwriter.
I need a ghostwriter.
Yeah.
You could have had someone who just follows you around for a year.
But I have to find the right person and sit there and go to my life story with him and it's fine.
I mean, there's a lot of things I could do, but, you know, I need the right people to help me.
I think you can't do everything in life.
You could make, I think, one of the best real estate money, wealth books in existence.
I mean, you know, listen, to me it's just something that I really enjoy.
You know, if I could stop even being in real estate tomorrow and just help other people, I would definitely love doing that.
Plus, I could do it, excuse me, from anywhere.
you know, so it's just, it's a great thing, you know, imagine if the whole world just had that, you know,
if all the successful people in the world helped other people, it's like the old saying,
you know the oldest saying in the world?
Give a man a fish, he eats for a day.
Give the man a fish and pole, he eats for life.
You ever heard that before?
Yeah.
All right, so there you go.
It's a perfect sense.
Teach people how to help themselves.
Get them a push to where they can help themselves and they can grow as big as they want.
That's what you should do in life.
Now, it's up to them how big they want to grow.
But if you help them, at least they can't say nobody ever tried to help them.
How do you know who is worth helping and who is not?
You can tell why, you know, they explain their situation.
You know, people, the average guy calls me up.
He tells me, you know, he's married, he's not married, he's got kids.
He owns a house.
He doesn't own a house.
he's got this much in a bank.
This is what his annual salary is.
What do I do?
And we sit down and we go over your options.
I don't tell him what to do.
I just tell him what his options are,
what he could do if he applied himself
and what I would do if I was in his shoes.
Like all these young guys in college,
I got a big audience of college kids.
That's what my audience is.
I've even talked to colleges.
And I tell every one of these young guys in college or girls.
Get your real estate license while you're in college.
Okay, you're already going to school.
What's one more course online going to hurt?
Take the course online.
Take the four-hour test, right?
And it's a license to make money.
But not only is it a license to make money,
it's going to put you in a circle of people that are in real estate.
You got that license.
You can walk into a busy brokerage that's doing deals.
You could hang your license there.
You latch on to a team or other people who are seasoned in real estate.
You learn from the ground up.
And you're in it.
You're in the mix.
That's how we say in the street.
You got to get in the mix.
You know, you put you around what's happening if you're serious about being in real estate.
And once you learn to sell for other people, then you end up buying your own.
Or in my case, I went to management route.
I didn't go to sales route.
I went to management route.
I started managing other people's properties.
And then if you can manage other people's properties,
you can manage yourself, your own,
as long as you, you know, you had the money to buy the property.
So my entrance to real estate was management.
People would pay me to manage their properties that I did very well.
And I just moved on to ownership.
I mean, you know, it's up to the person to just take that ride
and drive that car in the direction they want to go.
but pushing people, giving them some gas to do it,
that's what is a great thing to do.
Because once they get the gas in the car,
and they start the car and they start driving,
and they start traveling and accumulating real estate assets
and making money, I mean, they're on their way to a great life.
Listen, we all know, or maybe he doesn't know.
I know you know, listen, going through life without money sucks.
Let's face it.
I feel sorry for all the people that have to go to bed at night, wondering how the hell are going to pay their bills.
Do you know what the hell?
I pay, I'm not kidding you.
I pay five, six, seven, eight kids, I pay for eight kids to go to private school.
How much is that?
Each kid is over 30 grand a year.
Oof.
The ones in college?
Oh my God, that's going to jack me up with room and board to 50 or 60.
Okay.
I mean, you want to make it more.
Money is definitely, it's part of our life.
It's our system.
It's part of being human and, you know, in our world.
Okay, we don't live out in the woods.
We're not hunters.
We're not killing for our food.
You know, having money does make your life easier.
Knowing that you've got enough money to pay your bills, get your kids a good education,
live in a decent house, not worry about your car breaking down.
You can't fix it.
Insurance, you know how much expensive it is to live these days?
It's crazy.
I don't know how my employees do it.
okay they got rent they got utilities they got cars they got clothes they got food it cost a fortune to live
these days so anything i can do to help people make their lives easier and better by making money is a great
thing and like i said it just it would be so great if everybody thought that way and everybody
tried to help other people get ahead people that want to get ahead they got to have a want
You can't waste the time with somebody that just doesn't want it or have to drive.
What do you say to people, though, that want to tax you more?
Listen, running a country is running a business.
We need leaders in charge that are more like accountants.
That's what we need.
We need accountants to be politicians because it's all about money.
You know, like DeSantis is talking about, you know, giving a bunch of property tax relief.
Well, if the counties can handle it and not collect as much as they're collected because they have a surplus, like, you know, I see them doing a lot of stuff that I don't think, I don't know, I don't, the problem is people in politics are not business people. That's the biggest problem we got with politics. Okay. And then we do get a business person, we get someone to, I'm going to say a cuckoos, you know, because you know why we can't find good leaders in politics? Why? Because nobody wants a job because all the Bureau.
bureaucratic and all the people in politics that don't know about business and they all got their
wacko ideas on how things should be. They don't just look at what is makes sense, okay? What is to
make sense that we need to do here that is just normal and pretty much is fair to everybody,
okay? Taxes, listen, I got to pay 37% of all the money I make and earn, okay? I think that's a bit
high. But the first thing we need to do is let's look and have a real budget. Okay, where are we
spending money at? Where are we wasting money at? But nobody wants the job because it's too much
bullshit goes on. All the CEOs of companies, successful companies, they wouldn't touch politics
with a 10-foot pole because you got all the people that don't belong in politics, in politics,
because they just want to have a ride-to-system job and they want to, you know, push their ideas
on you. And it's how they think things should go. You know,
You know, listen, and I'm sorry to say, people who are not successful do not belong in politics.
If you never ran a business and you never created anything and you never had any experience running anything, you know, with employees and then you shouldn't be in politics.
I would vote for you. Would you ever run?
Never. Of course, there's too many cuckoos. I try to get a, I, I, I, the downtown Clearwater, right?
It's occupied by a Scientologist. It's a fact. I'm not talking bad about them. It's a fact. They brought up.
up all the real estate and everybody's crying, oh, they own everything, oh, they own everything.
Well, you let them.
Now, we don't know tourism and downtown is dead.
Okay.
Well, they're always crying about that.
Everybody's about it.
We'll do something about it.
Okay?
I went to the mayor and I said, you know what we need on, it's across and the beach.
The beach is here.
We get tourism.
But on the downtown side and the base side, we get no tourism.
And we had this beautiful waterfront.
I said, let me, I burn in the designs and everything.
Let me put a Ferris wheel right here on the waterfront.
The kind that's air conditioned, good all year round.
It'll be a great drawer.
And the people will come to Ferris wheel.
It's like in Orlando.
It'll come to restaurants.
They'll come to all the stores and shops around there and will create a buzz.
Okay.
Number one, the mayor straight out told me he doesn't have the power to approve it.
Great idea.
But he doesn't.
I was going to pay for it.
All they'd do is give me a little piece of land a lease.
I would have put it there, bought it there.
I would even done shared profiting with them, profit sharing with them.
He says, well, this city has a no power mayor.
The mayor can't even make a decision.
It has to go in front of like seven or eight board members.
And these people, these people aren't qualified to run an ice cream store.
I've seen them.
They've never done nothing their whole life, but maybe a government job.
and they had no clue about business.
They had no vision of the future.
All they want to do is complain about everything.
We have the wrong people in politics.
That's the problem.
We don't have educated business people.
Is this ever going to change?
Unfortunately, the way our society is,
we got half the country that are doers
and half the country that are just want to ride the rite.
We have doers and takers.
We got doers and takers.
You got Democrats.
You got Republicans and then you have your cuckoo, whatever, what do they call the other people?
Anyway, the point is this, you know, everybody needs to come together and just do what makes sense
and be fair to everybody.
Of course, we need services.
We need police.
We need fire.
We need the roads.
We need everything.
Schools.
Takes a lot of money to run a place.
Yes, you need taxes.
Absolutely positively, we have to have taxes.
But do it reasonable.
You know, do it, do it where you get what you need.
All this waste that goes on.
You know, we got people, how many people in this country have jobs that we probably don't even need in politics or in bureaucrats?
You know, I mean, I'm just saying it.
It's just with technology, you know, these people should be more in private sector.
Private sector is what makes this country run.
Without private sector, you got nothing.
You wouldn't have government without private sector.
Right?
private sector employs the people and then gives the money to government and then the government
employs people because they're getting the money for the private sector.
But, you know, it starts with the public, you know, and we just got to get rid of all these people
running for office that just don't belong there.
Do you think it's easier than ever right now to get rich?
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We'll get back to the podcast now.
Do you think it's easier than ever right now to get rich?
I think it's always easy to get rich if you find what you really have a passion for doing
and have a good plan.
I think, you know, listen, I get consult calls from kids.
They're in the 20s.
They're making millions.
e-commerce.
E-commerce. They don't even touch the product.
I don't know much about e-commerce, but they're making millions of dollars online with technology.
I think it's even easier today.
I mean, you know, but if you have a passion for something, you're real serious about it, you know,
and it has the potential to make you're rich.
You know, I mean, the world needs everything.
So what do you think then is the main thing that's stopping people,
if it's easier than ever to get rich right now from becoming rich?
There's a lot of people getting rich, and then there's a lot of people that just want to sit on there and don't have the drive.
And that's fine.
I don't knock these people.
Listen, you know, I was told a long time ago, you know, I think the guy, he told me, you know, when I failed at whatever shitty job I had, he says, well, don't worry, you know, the world needs dishwashers.
It's true, you know, but you have to stay a dishwasher your whole life?
No.
Maybe you make it up to Sue Sheff.
Maybe you make it up to chef.
I don't know.
It depends on the individual.
Not everybody's cut out to be rich.
That's a fact.
You've got to have that burning desire inside of you.
Just like, you know, I don't know about you, but he has it.
But he knows he wants to get up every morning and he wants to create and he wants to grow.
And you know, he wants to be wealthier.
That's the reward.
Getting rich is the reward for hard work.
You work hard.
You get rewarded.
So you think the main obstacle in becoming rich then is mostly just a motivation.
and like a want, how badly do you want?
It's a frame of mind, okay?
It's a frame of mind.
If you have your frame of mind,
and you don't waste your time with nonsense,
if you have a logical, you know, frame of mind,
it says, okay, if I do this, this, and this,
it's going to get me to this point here.
You know, it's just like if I get off my ass,
like I tell everybody calls me,
get off your ass,
and get an agent to help you look for the deals
that you can afford, okay?
Why not? Why? Sitting around talking about buying something or looking on your own. Why? Get a professional
to help you. Find a tool that's going to help you. Find an agent. And then if you don't like the
agent, find another one that's dedicated and motivated to finding you the type of real estate that you
want to buy and you can afford. Okay, it understands what you're looking for, what you're trying
to accomplish. Okay, it's like when I sit down with lawyers, accountants, wealth managers, bankers,
I got to really feel that when I'm talking to you and we're discussing my situation,
that you understand what I'm trying to accomplish,
and you're going to be instrumental and help me accomplish that.
Okay, you've got to get with people that are on the same page,
and then you've got to just keep moving forward.
Get your ass out there, get a list from your realtor,
look at all the deals in your area, draw a circle on a map,
all right, in your price range, understand the market,
and look for opportunity.
Is real estate still one of the easiest ways to build wealth?
I mean, it's all I know.
I don't know how to make money doing anything else.
Anything else I ever tried or really barely tried in life.
You know, I never put forth the effort.
Real estate's worked for me.
That's why I like to talk to people and help them with real estate.
Because I know from real life experience that it's helped me.
And I am more than happy to share that knowledge and share my experiences with other people.
it can help them. Right here. I created that. Oh, I banged. I created this. It was a thought. I said,
you know what? I looked at a Mustang one day and said, that's a boxy car. You know, that would make a cool
pool table. We just whack off the roof, right? And we did it. I put together the right people that
had the right skills. This one's a Camaro, by the way. And it was just something I wanted to have for
myself. What happened? It came out so great that we started making them and selling them. I shipped
these all over the world. I shipped these to Dubai. I shipped them all over, you know, and it has real
parts from cars. This is real. This is real. Emblems are real. Lights are real. This is, we make this.
We use a good table. You know, when we make it and it comes in pieces and we have it put together
and somebody's Tommy Hilfinger bought one from us. Okay. How much was it? How much was it? How much?
How much? How much? I mean, they started the bottom of it, I think, of 15 grand, which is not a lot for, this is a real, this is a real item. And this is quality to paint, the table, the fiberglass, the parts. We have a license from GM and Ford to produce these. I didn't have the time to put one in a trailer, go to all the classic car shows like, you know, Meekam. Barrett Jackson's. You know, traveling around a country. I didn't hire salesmen.
I didn't market it.
So, you know, we sell quite a few, but not nowhere near the level it could have been
if I would have put my heart and soul into it.
But I couldn't because real estate is where I need to put my heart in soul in,
because real estate is big numbers, big numbers.
It's very, very possible.
I could go out tomorrow.
I could buy a deal for $10 million and I could turn it into $15 million.
In real estate, that's not hard to do.
if you apply yourself.
So I focused on that.
But my dream in life was to sell car pool tables.
Step right up, step right up.
Heating a ball at the big show, people flocking around.
Look at that.
It's a car and a pool table.
The ultimate man cave toy to have.
Are you good at pull?
I used to be in the Army.
Yeah, in the Army I was good.
No, I haven't played for a while.
So practice.
Practice.
You got to practice, practice, practice.
So what do you do all day with your time these days?
I wake up in the morning.
My phone starts ringing at 8 o'clock in the morning.
Brokers are calling me.
I got all kinds of brokers calling me.
What's the latest deal?
What are we working on?
What are we writing an offer on?
I'm talking to bankers.
I got different three, four different refinances going on right now.
I'm talking to, you know, management.
I got to go through all my assets in my head,
make sure I'm on top of everything needs to be done.
The school we bought.
When I bought that school, the university,
part of the deal was I have to put
on a new roof on that place. The seller gave me a credit for it. But I have to get on the phone.
I got to get biz on the roof. I got to get a roof lined up to get that done. We need a million
dollars worth of AC workers promised that it tended to be done. I got to get bids on that and get
that job cooking. I got to go through my whole portfolio. I'm managing, you know, a whole bunch of
assets and I got to be on top of everything those properties need, and whether it's financing,
whether it's improvements, rehab, whatever it is. You got to be on top of everything.
You know, and then I try to, you know, take time out and he books consulting calls, which I
probably do better off in the evening time when the day is kind of slow down.
I'm on the phone with my lawyer every day.
I'm on the phone doing, dealing with my 1031s.
I'm dealing with all kinds of stuff.
Do you enjoy that?
I mean, it's my life.
It's my career.
I mean, yeah, I enjoy it.
I enjoy it when I'm productive.
I like at the end of the day to think back and say, okay, what did I get done today?
That's what I really need to have that.
feeling. I hate the day to go by and I didn't really get done. To me, that's depressing. I like to,
you know, time management is very important. You know, me and Aaron drove around all the
properties. We took pictures of everything that we need to be done. He wrote up a big fancy report.
We emailed it out to all the people that were, you know, pertained to. We need this done. We need that
done. We don't want that fix. We want that painting. You know, we need hotel rooms built over here.
What's going on with the permit? Do we have all the subs lined up to build due to build out?
I mean, it's managing a portfolio.
That's what I do.
Run a portfolio.
And make sure every asset gets the proper attention to maintain that asset and make it grow, you know, or maintain it.
What is the greatest success in your life?
The greatest success in my life was being able to sit here with Jack and do a podcast.
I mean, I'm glad to give you that success.
Mine too.
You're welcome.
If I dropped it tomorrow, I can say I sat at tomorrow.
I can say I sat at 10.
table in my house, my table with Jack and did a podcast.
Well, I'm honored. Thank you. How do you like the new boat?
It's a great boat. I love it. You know, but, you know, that requires management too.
I got a captain. And then we need somebody to help him a lot of times, a mate. We got repairs
that have to be done all the time. We got to maintain it. It needs all kinds of stuff done.
And I pretty much have to manage it. He helps me and does it. But I got to oversee and make sure
Everything's being taken care of.
We're not overspending.
You know, if we go on a trip, we got to hire stew, we got to stock to boat,
we got to plan where we're going to go.
We got to get dockage here.
We got to get fuel delivered.
I mean, you know, I have the captain that helps me do all that, but I still got to be involved.
He has something that needs to be repaired.
Is this the best cheapest way of repairing it?
Sounds stressful.
How much is it?
Everything in life is stressful.
If you want to really take it to that level, could I hire somebody to handle all that?
Yes.
but I like to be involved.
This is where I know.
People do make mistakes, but it's not their money.
I don't, I always, I'm not saying I don't trust people with money,
but I like to, you know, monitor it, you know,
and make sure that everything is right.
Just like I told you about the Rose Roy's story.
You know, if I would have told somebody that worked for me, an assistant,
hey, get that rolls fixed.
They would have took a deal.
It would have cost $40,000, and there you go.
But no, I thought about other ways and other alternatives and options.
and it costs me $4,000.
Saving money is making money.
Is the bigger yacht worth it?
I mean, the yacht that I have now is,
it has different features than that yacht you were on.
This one has bow seating, real bow seating with tables
and the very front.
This one has the on-deck master.
So I don't have to hurt my knees going down the stairs.
This one's got a big open top deck.
I mean, you know, it's a step up.
I mean, yeah, I don't need,
a 20 or $30 million yacht because then you need a big crew
and then you have a tremendous amount of maintenance and expenses.
That's not my lifestyle.
My lifestyle is basically what I got now, 92,
maybe push into 100 one day, and that's good enough for me.
You know, but everybody has their own comfort zone.
My comfort zone is the boat I got now.
I did buy it right.
Maybe I'll sell it.
Maybe I'll get something, you know, a little faster, a little newer.
If there's something out there, I don't know.
But I mean, I like to be in my comfort zone.
What's something that I can improve on?
High platform shoes.
I think the extra few inches will make a big difference in your life.
Okay.
What's something I can improve on?
I don't think it's much hope for you.
So I'm already perfect.
The thing is you can't go any lower.
Perfectly, I don't want to pick on you too much.
I mean, listen, everybody really knows what they need to improve in their life.
I know I'm overweight.
I know I smoke.
Okay.
I mean, but am I doing anything about it?
Am I changing?
Everybody knows what part of their life do you need to improve.
It's just a matter of doing it.
You think those are the two main things for you?
Me, health and smoking, those are two things that are going to kill me quicker.
What do you think if you were to really, like you said,
we're only here for a short period of time.
Your favorite phrase, gun to your head.
Gun to your head.
Obviously mute the G word.
Yeah.
What do you think is the first thing that comes up that you need to improve on?
probably getting over spending anxiety.
That's what it is.
I get a lot of anxiety spending money.
What is the last thing you got anxious spending money on?
I didn't buy.
It sounds so bad.
It sounds awful when I say this,
but there was a SpongeBob animation cell
that I really wanted to buy,
and I set a price for myself
where if it goes beyond that,
I'm not going to bid on it.
I really wanted the thing.
And I lost it over like $150.
This is dumb.
And why do you regret it?
I guess it was a great piece of SpongeBob art.
It's from the first season.
It's a master key cell of SpongeBob himself.
Would you pay $300 right now to have it?
Well, it's $300.
Yeah, extra.
Yeah, I would.
Listen, you know, I used to have a lot of problems spending money, too.
Always had advice on cheap, cheap, cheap, you know, everything.
And now, once you get to a level that you know you've never been at before,
and now you have to enjoy your life too.
You do within moderation.
It's like, you know, me and my wife and a kid were sitting in a car last night.
And I said, you know what?
We've traveled a lot, but I've never been to Monaco.
And let me tell you something.
If I open up my wealth management account on any given day,
it could be up or downed by millions of dollars.
Not a lot of millions, but a few.
Depending on the market.
Bonds fluctuate.
Values fluctuate.
I do have stocks that I let them manage.
Okay?
So if my account can fluctuate by millions of dollars a day,
and it doesn't really change my life, whether it does or not,
is it really going to matter if I blow 50 grand to go to Monaco?
It's not going to change my life.
It's not going to affect me not one single penny.
If I saw $50,000 less in my account tomorrow,
It has no impact on my life.
Is it going to make me and my wife and my kid and family a lifetime,
rememberable experience?
Yes.
So you got to spend money when it comes to quality of life and if it's not going to hurt you.
You also went out and bought a Ford GT.
How much you pay for that?
306 and it's worth $500,000 now.
How much you pay for it?
$306,000.
Sell it.
No.
Have you seen the price?
of these things lately?
I think you're at a height.
No, no, nope, nope, nope, they're only going higher.
No.
When you bought it, they didn't buy it as an investment, did you?
It didn't buy it as an investment.
I did buy it as an investment.
I know, I walked into the dealership, and I could have bought the same car.
You didn't listen to sell a grand.
I couldn't.
I couldn't fit.
I was too fat.
Ben, where are you invested?
Okay, let me explain to you what I did.
I used to be a day trader.
During the, I got my hat handed to me in a crash.
when you guys were still
selling in a Boy Scout
was that the 1920s crash
no
2008
anyway the point is this
you can't do everything in life
all right
you got to pick something
and do it the best you can
you can dib and dab a little
but you know what I did was
it goes back to relationships
okay I let the experts do it
so basically my relationship
with Merrill Lynch is yes I'm mostly
in tax-free muni bonds.
That's where I like to be out
because it's safe
and I can bar against it
and it's tax-free.
All the interest on that
5% tax-free
is really like 8% to 9% to me.
But I give them a piece,
you know, I don't know,
whatever it is, you know,
30, 20, 30 million,
whatever it is.
And they have their models
where they have a team
that discusses what's going on
in the market,
where they think that they should be investing in,
what's good,
what should they sell,
They got like a dozen people that sit around a table and discuss this, like, pretty often.
And then they manage their customers' money, which they get a very, you know, a reasonable fee for.
Maybe, I don't know.
It's not much.
Yeah.
But don't you think you could achieve the same thing as buying an index fund?
I mean, yes, you can do that, but I ain't got time to worry about any of that.
Because the reason why I'm in successful in real estate is because I'm focused on what I know I can do.
okay stock market investing leave it to the experts but you got to be with the right experts
and they're going to have their ups and downs but i believe they've in the past couple of years
they've doubled my money i mean i know it for a fact i didn't give them 20 to 30 okay i think i gave them
half of that two years ago you gave them 15 million and they make gate got you 30 i think the
markets up a lot though too the markets doubled honestly to be honest we're going from 10 to 25
a couple of years everybody's done well in the market
really, especially with tech. So, you know, listen, everybody's got their own lifestyle, their own time
management. You know, my son likes stocks. I let him play with my little edge account. They have it
to call an edge account where I can trade myself. I let him play around with that because he showed
an interest. But, you know, does he have an interest or is he just like gambling? That's the question
when it comes to stocks. Are you going to do your homework? Are you going to look at the news? Listen,
I was offered SpaceX by Merrill Lynch and its IPO 135.
And I should have bought it.
But I was busy that day with real estate, so I didn't buy it.
Then I saw the thing go right up to like 200.
And I said, oh, I should have done something.
But yeah, I didn't.
IPOs are very rare lately.
And then it came back down.
I don't know where it's at now.
155.
150.
Okay.
So whatever, it goes up and down.
Listen, I got no time to be on a roller coaster.
The only way I could trade stocks is if I sat in a –
office and watch CNBC all day long and kept doing research.
Oh my God. Look at the price yesterday. I looked at the bright.
And see, Jeff's always always on this fun. The price yesterday was 137.
No, it was it. No, no, no, go back more than a day. Go back more than it. It was 15.
It was 15. Keep going. Keep going back. That was several days ago.
No, it wasn't. Right there. That's what I was looking at. What day is that? July 9th and
today is July 15th. That was a week ago. There's no way. What is it now?
That was a one 35. Okay. So it's back to the IPO price. Holy crap.
I'm just saying.
How do you just write off what I say without having any idea what you're talking about?
Okay, it's the last thing I looked at.
Apparently you need to look at things a little more often.
It trades during the day.
Let's think that was a week ago.
Tell me if you agree or disagree.
It did not trade during the day.
Okay.
The people that are in the stock market, serious players, serious stock brokers,
they're doing all this trading.
Okay.
Don't you think it's like a game you're playing when you're one of them.
Okay.
Things go up.
Things go down.
They dry.
I always have this.
I always think I have, I always had this conspiracy theory about stock market.
I could be wrong.
But I think they all kind of know what they're doing.
When something comes out, they buy the shit out of it, dried the price up.
And then they, when it goes up to the price, they want, they sell it, take money off
the table.
And they have their own system of making money.
Okay.
I really believe that.
And I don't think they even communicate with each other.
They don't have to.
They just all know that, yes, IPO comes out.
Everybody's emotional.
Ooh, it's SpaceX.
He's a trillionaire now.
Blah, blah, blah.
That thing goes through the roof to 220.
And it's all hype.
There's nothing.
The problem I have with the stock market is, it's not logic-based.
If you look at their income, there are companies that the stocks go through the roof based on speculation of the future.
Okay.
I don't, there's so many companies that don't make a dime and their stock keeps going up.
I'm right or wrong.
Right.
I don't believe in that.
I mean, yes, it's just a whole other world that I can't be in.
If I was in that world, I have to be in an office every day while the stock market's open, trading like I've done.
You don't have to.
And when a stock market's not open, I've got to be doing research.
You just buy an index fund.
And you average six to eight percent a year, 20 years.
Well, not necessarily.
Index funds go down.
They do.
What about airlines?
Airlines are getting crushed right now.
Yeah, but they're price of fuel.
But if you look at the global stock market, like a big fund that covers a global stock market, even if airlines go down, something else will think it's place.
Tell us a fund to invest in.
VT, VT, VTO, V-O, the Vanguard Index funds.
All right.
You're happy with it.
You recommend it?
I believe it.
You know, because, but, you know, they got tons of people behind that making the decisions.
They're experts.
They might have them invested more aggressively in a lot of tech.
The Mag 7.
I'm just saying an index.
Like, I wouldn't even be doing that.
I've lost money on BlackRock.
Well, Blackstone, one or two.
Probably BlackRock.
You know, because they had some fund that, you know, it was speculative, too speculative on startups.
Yeah, but if you owned Black Rock itself, the company itself, has done incredibly well.
It's true.
If you, you know, everybody should do their homework and get their comfort zone in the
invest where they want. But there's no way that I can sit here and start buying individual stocks on a
daily basis. It would drive me nuts. But I have to totally focus on my real estate portfolio will go
down. Your muni bond, because we're invested in the same one. Nothing. That's a piece of it.
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incur the cost of the spread between the prices at which shares are bought and sold. Buying and selling
shares may result in brokerage commissions, which will reduce returns. TROPrice Investment Services, Inc.
Walk in a park.
But I'm saying the reason it's a walk in the park is because that munibond that you bought is a collection of bonds.
The fund.
The fund is.
So the index fund would be the same thing of stocks.
Yeah, but the mutie bonds fund is only mutiny bonds.
Correct.
Muti bonds, and I know somebody's going to say, I'm wrong because there have been very, very, very minuscule occasions.
Don't fail unless you go to Puerto Rico.
So mini bonds don't fail.
They may go down.
They're tied to interest rates.
Yes.
But at the end, you're going to get paid back.
Okay.
So I like mini bonds because I believe in the government.
I believe in the municipality.
He's not going to, you know, fault on a debt.
And 5% tax free to me, like I said, it wasn't always 5%.
When interest rates are really low, you're only getting 3%.
Okay.
So I'm upside down to some of those mini bonds.
But who cares?
At the end of the day, I get my money back.
And it's tax-free income.
But right now, if I buy a muni bond for 5%, in fact, I bought a million-dollar one yesterday,
I know I'm getting $50,000 a year tax-free.
And I could borrow up to $900,000 at like 3% if I want to borrow against it,
or three-and-a-half.
It works for me.
It may not work for everybody else, but everybody's got to figure out what works for them.
You know, that's it.
But, you know, stock trading is something you've got to be totally into if you're going to do it.
We're real money.
I used to go to bed at night and sometimes wake up in the morning and lose millions.
And it would crush me.
It would drive me nuts.
I can't do it.
I don't have the tolerance for that.
That's why I stick with index funds.
You're not going to lose millions.
You might be down the worst in a day.
The worst might be like a few percent, five percent.
If you look at the bond funds, the combination of all kinds of bonds managed by a bond manager,
That's all he does.
Immuni bonds, different grade levels, different classes,
but they're never going to fluctuate more than 5%.
You know, and then they go up and down, up and down,
but no more than 5%.
You're never going to lose.
Do you have any real life advice for either Graham or I?
I mean, you know, listen, if you have money that you don't,
you want to put away like, or I call a war chest,
you got to have a war chest.
in case the bottom falls out or in case some super great deal comes your way, you're going to be able to tap into something so you don't lose the opportunity.
See, the biggest problem in life is that a lot of people get opportunities, but they can't execute it.
That's the worst thing in the world. I've been in that position. A greatest deal in the world came up when I was younger, but I didn't have the money to do it. I didn't have the wherewithal to do it.
You got to stash that money so you have the money. So you have the money.
muscle, the strength, and it's always there to protect you. COVID comes, your hotel's empty,
what do you do? Here's a question for you. What percentage should you have as a war chest and doesn't
matter, let's just say, if you have margin? I think you should basically, you should definitely
stash as much cash as you can. All right, you always got to have enough money to pay your bills
and live. But besides that, I mean, and it can be an investment, it's like you like, like your index
funds, whatever it is, you've got to have something liquid that you can access like that.
You never know.
When you need the money, whether it's for emergency, whether it's an opportunity, you never
know.
You got a stash.
There's like 10%, 20%, 25, 30.
As much as you can.
As much as you can.
Now, me, I spend my money on real estate a lot of it.
So it's a different story.
You know, I may have, you know, what?
whatever, a couple hundred million in real estate, a couple hundred money in here, you know,
a couple hundred million, whatever.
I mean, you know, I'm more diversified because real estate's my profession.
But everybody needs to have something put away for that rainy day.
Graham is saying how much in cash for someone like Graham who has a diversified portfolio
and index funds and stuff like that.
Nothing should be sitting in just cash.
No, cash equivalence, mooney bonds.
Taxi muni mony bonds.
If it's invested as something that you are comfortable with and you're happy with the
return, that's good enough. So I'm 25%, 20, 25% tax your munibons. The rest is real estate and
mostly stocks. Everybody's different risk tolerance. I don't need to have a risk tolerance. I don't
want risk. That's why I lean towards mini bonds. I mean, you know, I don't need to worry about really
growing. I've made enough money to last me a lifetime. Now I've got to figure out how I'm going to
pass it down to my family and generations, you know. So,
So, you know, it's whatever you're comfortable with where your money's at.
Me, I just happen to be a big believer in muni bond funds and mutiny bonds because I like the comfort of the safety.
And knowing when I go to bed tomorrow, even if you look them up in the worst crash possible,
they're not going to go down more than 10%.
And the total shit hits the fan, okay?
Even when interest rates go way down, which ain't going to happen again, they're still not going to crash.
It's still valuable because the government's going to pay back that loan or the state or the county or the city or the hospital or whatever.
Everybody's got their own, you know, taste.
Me, my taste is being safe.
I have a little risky.
You know, I let Merrill Lynch play with, but they turn out good.
The main thing is my focus is real estate.
The point is, make as much money as you can and stash it away in things that aren't risky or too risky.
You know, but if a real estate deal does come your way,
you want to be able to run that cash and snatch that real estate up.
If you know you're going to make money on a real estate, that's what I do.
Is there anything else that you want to mention, like consulting or?
We try really hard to put out good content.
You know, it's entertaining and helps educate people and show them what the real life is.
Listen, I'm not knocking anybody.
but how many real estate guys go out there?
I mean, yeah, you got your house people, you know,
but I don't really consider them in my world.
You know, they're doing houses, which is great.
For the people I want to do houses, I don't do houses.
You know, but I would like to, you know, educate more people in the world.
So, you know, we focus on our videos.
We go out there and show you what we're doing, how we're buying,
what we're looking for, analyzing deals, underwriting deals.
We try to explain.
that and teach people that because you know why they don't teach it in school they don't even teach
you in school how to run a bank account you believe that kids are graduating high school 18 years old
never walked into a bank and made a deposit I had to teach my kid how to make a deposit or you know now
it's online or even online I mean you know listen educating people so the world could all be grow together
is what I'm looking for and that's it you know we try to put out good of content you know share
video. And
the consulting, I love helping
people, and I'm
looking for the next deal. It's all
about finding a deal, baby.
Finding a deal.
We highly recommend the consulting. I've been
saying this for a while. I think you're
undercharging. So for anyone interested,
what's the website?
Benmala.com.
Consult with Ben.
Link down below description. Also, of
all of Ben's stuff is linked
down below in the description. Guys, thank you.
so much for listening to this podcast.
We would not be here without you.
So endlessly grateful for you guys watching,
especially if you made it to the end.
Oh, and also for the members,
there's a lot of content in here
that we did not include in the main episode.
So if you want to see it uncensored,
by the way, join the membership.
You're going to get extra content,
early access, uncensored,
and I personally respond to all the comments.
I think that's pretty good.
That's a good deal, too.
If you want to know the latest styles and haircuts,
Here you go, righty.
Thank you guys for watching.
Until next time.
When others hear noise,
Tiro Price interprets market signals to find investment opportunities.
That's the power of active ETFs from Tiro Price.
Their portfolio managers approach data from multiple perspectives,
analyzing trends and conducting deep research to give you their curiosity-backed active management expertise.
Learn more about their active ETFs at
TROPrice.com slash explore ETFs.
Exchange traded funds,
ETFs are bought and sold at market prices, not NAV.
Investors generally incur the cost of the spread
between the prices at which shares are bought and sold.
Buying and selling shares may result in brokerage commissions,
which will reduce returns.
TROPrice Investment Services, Inc.
