The Personal Finance Podcast - He Lost $50 Million In Real Estate Then Got Rich Again (With Rod Khleif)

Starting point is 00:00:00 In 2006, my net worth went up $17 million while I slept. And you might say, wow. And I said, wow. When I got a head so big, I could barely fit it through a door. I thought I was a real estate god. 2008 and 9. I lost $50 million conservatively. You know, if you're going to do a side hustle, you know, if you're going to go out there

Starting point is 00:00:16 and do something else, don't make it your identity. It's the first thing I did when I lost everything is I re-associated with my goals. And I'm going to tell you, fear regret. Don't fear failure. Happiness comes from progress and growth. It never comes from the goal. So, Rod, welcome. to the personal finance podcast. Oh, that's great to be here, my friend. Let's have some fun.

Starting point is 00:00:35 We are in your great studio here. We just did an episode on your show. So anybody listening right now, would love for them to check out the episode on your show as well. But I want to dive into your story because you have this incredible story of investing in real estate where you had thousands of units now. And I want you to kind of dive into this. But you had a big, big deal that happened in 2008 and 2009 as well. So can you kind of dive into your story and kind of talk about what's happened to you? I wouldn't call it a deal. I would call it a deal. I would call it a, train wreck. But yeah, so I'm, let's let me go back because it'll lend some work to our conversation. So I'm a Dutch immigrant. You know, I immigrated from Holland,

Starting point is 00:01:10 you know, think wooden shoes and windmills. And when I was six years old, my brother Albert, my mother's vancho, and we ended up in Denver, Colorado. And we really didn't have much growing up. I remember we shopped at an expired food store, believe it or not. They had that back then. And we bought food there. And we drank powdered milk with our shill in the morning because it was cheaper than real milk. And trust me, it sounds better than it is. And, I wore clothes, hand me down, clothes in the Goodwill in the Salvation Army, all the way through junior high school until I lied about my age when I was 14 to get a job at Burger Kings. You could get the job there at 15. And I was tall. So I was flipping burger, I started buying my own freaking clothes eventually. And I'm sure you've got listeners that had it harder than I did or maybe even have it harder now with AI removing jobs and stuff. But I knew I wanted more. And luckily, my mom had an incredible work ethic. So she babysat kids. So we'd have enough money to eat. And I always had a house full of kids. And with her babysitting money, she was bit of an entrepreneur. She actually invested in IPOs in the stock market without any formal education. She also invested in real estate. Well, her first real estate acquisition was the house right across

Starting point is 00:02:10 the street from us that she bought from a family named the Jewels when I was about 14 for 30 grand. Okay. When I was 17, she told me it was now worth 50 that had gone up in value 20,000. And I said, what? You made 20 grand? You didn't do anything? Screw college. I'm getting into real estate. This was when 20 grand was a lot of money, mind you. This is 1977. Okay. And so I got into real estate. I got my real estate broker's license right when I turned 18, which you could do back then with education. Now they got smart. You need some experience before you can have your own office and be a broker. But I was a broker. I was smart enough to go work for another broker. And that's part of the story, actually. My first year in real estate I made about $8,000. My second year maybe $10,000. But my

Starting point is 00:02:51 third year made over $100,000. Back in 1980 was some pretty decent money. So what happened between year two and year three that caused me to $10x my income? What happened was the guy was working for the broker taught me about the importance of mindset and psychology, how really 80 to 90% of your success in anything is your mindset and psychology. And so, you know, fast forward to today, I went over 2,000 houses that I've rented long term. I had, you know, I own thousands of apartment units now. And in 2008, I had 800 houses from north of you in Spring Hill all the way down to Benita Springs all along the coast here. And in 2006, my net worth went up $17 million while slept. And you might say, wow. And I said, wow, when I got a head so big, I could barely

Starting point is 00:03:36 fit it through a door. I thought I was a real estate God. And you know what that happens? God would give you a nice little smackdown. Well, that was 2008 and 9. I lost 50 million dollars conservatively in 2008 and 9. And so what I'm known for talking about on my podcast and at my boot camps and events and to my students is really the mindset it took to have 50 million to lose in the first place. And probably more importantly, the mindset it took to recover from that to the success that I'm blessed to have today. So happy to talk about some of those strategies of you like. That is an absolutely incredible story. And this is why I wanted to dive in even deeper because you have, you know, you started and started to build this tremendous

Starting point is 00:04:12 amount of wealth in the 80s and started to kind of build up this portfolio, had one of the worst financial crisis we will probably ever see in our life. Countries went bankrupt. Exactly. And we had to live through that. And it regained ground and came back and started to build wealth again. And now you have this tremendous amount of, you know, doors and things that you've built through I'll tell you, a lot of people, I mean, there were people that killed themselves in 08, 9. You know, there was that crypto guy that shot himself in his Lambo about a year ago. And, you know, the thing I'll tell you, just as an aside is, you know, if you're going to do a side hustle, you know, if you're going to go out there and do something else, don't make it your identity. It needs to be a vehicle.

Starting point is 00:04:46 You know, I call them seminars when they fail. That was a, it was an expensive freaking seminar, but it was a $50 million seminar. And, you know, I built 29 businesses so far in my career, several worth tens of millions of dollars. I've got two right now that are, but most were spectacular flaming seminars, okay? But we fail our way to success. So don't fear failure. But also don't make your vehicle your identity, have it be your – because if that fails, no big deal. You get up and you do the next one.

Starting point is 00:05:13 But if it's your identity, then you're a failure. And so be very careful with that. What lessons did you learn from – let's go back to some of those early deals that you did into 80. Sure. Well, there are specific lessons you learned in those early deals. So I had 800 houses. Okay. And I had several apartment companies.

Starting point is 00:05:27 And it was the houses that pulled me down. So, you know, if you have a house and you're empty, you're 100% vacant. If you have a house and let's say you're cash flowing three, $400 a month. Awesome. You think that's great, right? Well, when you have a turnover, you might have $5,000 in make-ready costs to get it ready again. And you're going to lose a couple months rent and you lose one or two years of your cash flow. Yeah. And see, the problem is every house has its own taxes. Every house has its own insurance. Now, in my case, I was too spread out. That was one of the problems with what I did. It was logistically challenging because I was two hours north of me and two hours south of me and everywhere in between, which I don't recommend. However, even with that,

Starting point is 00:06:07 you know, one of the things that that led itself to was if I had a problem with one of my apartment complexes who could stockpile parts, plumbing parts, electrical parts, appliance parts, appliance parts, door locks, window locks, whatever. And maintenance guys in and out in an hour. Well, if I had to send them to, you know, two hours north or an hour and a half north, they have to go to the house. They can't stockpile the parts because every house is different. They have to see what's wrong. Then they have to go find a Home Depot or a Lowe's where we have an account. And I don't know about you, but when Rod tries to fix something, he ends up going to home people more than once. And so what took an hour at one of my apartment complexes is called day at one of my 800 houses.

Starting point is 00:06:40 Now, these were C-class houses. You know, there's A, B, C, and D. A is the brand new stuff. D is the hood. Stay out of the hood. Okay. Just ask me how I know. But these were C-class. So they're older, tougher demographic. They're harder on the property. So lots of maintenance. So I was only at a 30% loan to value, okay? I only owed 30 cents on the dollar and I still crashed and burn. Yeah, because they didn't really quite cash flow because of the maintenance and the, you know, I had properties in wind and flood zones, higher insurance. Taxes in Florida are higher because there's no state income tax.

Starting point is 00:07:12 So you give property tax that all impacts cash flow. And so, yeah, when the, when the shoe dropped or the light switch went off in 2008 and 9, you couldn't refinance, you couldn't sell, you couldn't do anything. I don't know if you went through it or not, but probably before your time. I was in college at the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Probably before your time. But it was like a light switch went off, and you want to know what's crazy is by the end of 2009, my portfolio, I was trying to sell the whole portfolio just to get out was less than what I owed on it, the value.

Starting point is 00:07:41 It dropped more than 70%. Yeah, Florida was like a bomb went off. So was California, Vegas. You know, some of these high appreciation markets, they crashed and burned hard. And we're seeing that now in the multi-term. family space. There's a meltdown in what I teach. And I teach, I blessed to have the largest commercial real estate podcast really in the world at this point. And I teach people how to buy apartment complexes and mobile home parks and senior housing, stuff like that. But we're seeing a meltdown because a lot

Starting point is 00:08:10 of operators bought in 21 and 22 and they had adjustable rate debt. And that debt went from 3% to 8%. And I mean, it's just unsustainable. So we're seeing my SEC attorney that does syndications from my students got six brand new foreclosures, apartment complex foreclosures in one day two weeks ago, he told me. So, yeah, so it's tough right now, but it's opportunity, you know, because with crisis comes opportunity, right? You know, Warren Buffett's got a famous quote, something like, you know, be fearful when others are greedy and be greedy when others are fearful. And right now they're fearful. So, you know, we're seeing some phenomenal deals. I'll give you an example. I've got a 200-unit asset. Comm assets, apartment complex in San Antonio, and right next door is a 300-and-some unit place that sold for 43 million

Starting point is 00:09:00 in 22. It's down to 28 million now with the bank. I'm not even interest unless it gets to 24 because it's all about cash flow. The name in the game is cash flow. And with the rates where they are, it doesn't work unless it's down to 24. So 43 to 24, just to give you an idea what's out there right now. Wow. Yeah. And so early on, you had, you had those houses and those houses kind of caused the biggest issue for you. But you also had multifamily property. My multifamily did just fine. It would have survived. It pulled back about 11%. But, of course, in my brilliance, I cross-collateralized my multifamily with packages of houses to save 50 basis points, a half a percent interest thinking I was brilliant.

Starting point is 00:09:36 So everything went, you know. But I still have the apartment complex, which is why I started my podcast. Yeah. So I started my podcast nine years ago. And I used to tell people, you know, like I said, it's called lifetime cash flow through real estate investing. And I used to tell people, I'm never going to sell you anything. So I just wanted to add value. I want to say, if you're going to buy real estate for God's sakes, do multifamily, don't do single family.

Starting point is 00:09:58 Ask me how I know. We give away these T-shirts at my live events to say hashtag, ask me how I know, because I've made every freaking mistake you can make. And one of my students got it for me. And it's funny. Now we give it away. But, you know, I want to teach people. If you're going to buy and hold real estate, for God's sakes, do multifamily. It's just much safer.

Starting point is 00:10:15 You know, again, ask me how I know. And I've had 2,000 houses that I've rented long term. So, you know, I've got a little bit of credibility to make that statement. But yeah, I'd still have those apartments if that hadn't happened. And so you went from, you know, this point where you felt like you were rising to the top and you were, you know. I thought I was at the top. You were at the top. Oh, yeah.

Starting point is 00:10:32 I mean, I had a $50 million net worth and it blew up and evaporated. And so when that happened, A, can you kind of walk us through what that felt like? And then how did you have the resilience to kind of pick yourself back up and dip back into it? It sucked. Okay. That's what it felt like. Okay. It was miserable.

Starting point is 00:10:48 But see, this is what I teach is, is the mind. mindset to recover from that. It's the same mindset you'd use to get started. So if you're listening and you know you need to go do something, maybe you've got a job that's going to get eliminated by AI. I don't know if you heard Elon Musk's latest interview. Everybody's talking about how these jobs are going to be gone like in a year or two years. So if you're in a job that could go away, by God, you better be thinking about reinventing yourself. And so, you know, I teach this. But the first piece is you've got to get very clear on what you want. If you come to one of my bootcamps. The first thing we do is goal setting on steroids. Because how do you get anything if you don't

Starting point is 00:11:25 know what it is? You don't know what it is you want. And you've got to create what Napoleon Hill calls a burning desire in his book, Think and Grow Rich. You got to have hunger. You got to want it. Because you've got to have enough of a hunger to push through fear or to push through limiting beliefs or maybe you're comfortable right now. And the comfort zone's a nice warm place. We all know nothing freaking grows there, right? So, you know, you need to, it starts with goal setting. But so that's the first thing I did when I lost everything, what's the first thing I did to get started is I re-associated with my goals when I lost everything and got clear. And then the next piece is you got to make a decision, you know, and I don't only dip your toe in the water. I don't mean one foot in, one foot out.

Starting point is 00:12:04 I mean, it's freaking done. You make a decision, it's done. You know, the Latin root for the word decision means to cut off. For example, if you're going to attack the island in battle, you burn your ships because you're taking their ships home. That's a decision. Okay, it's done. And that's the next piece is you've got to make that decision. And then you've got to take the first step. You know, Dr. Martin Luther King says you take that first step in faith. The next step will be revealed. Workplace chaos.

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Starting point is 00:15:04 And I'm going to tell you, fear regret, don't fear failure. There's this nurse in Australia. I don't know if you heard about this. She was a hospice nurse. And so she took care of patients right before they were about to die. Her name was Brani Ware. And she asked him a question. And the question was, do you have any regrets?

Starting point is 00:15:17 She wrote a book about it. It's a national bestseller, something like the five regrets of dying or something like that. And the number one regret was not living the life I could have lived, living someone else's life, not doing what I know I'm capable of. Fear that. Don't fear, don't fear freaking failure. Fear that. Fear that regret. And, you know, and I'll tell you, you know, if you do, you know, if you're afraid to make a decision or you're afraid of, you know,

Starting point is 00:15:44 if you're one of these analytical people like you, right, how you know how you are. You know, you told me it took three years to get going. You know, you have to check off every single box before you make a move. Don't do that. You can't see the whole road. You've got to have some faith. And a great analogy or example of this would be you can drive all the way across the United States at night,

Starting point is 00:16:02 seeing your headlights seeing 60 feet in front of you. You know you can make it. You know, other people have done it before you. You may have some obstacles, but you know it can be done. It's the same way in my business. And I tell people, Alan, some of the most successful. students that I have, a coaching program called my warriors. Most successful ones are the analytical ones.

Starting point is 00:16:19 Because it's primarily numbers. You know, this business, my business, you know, commercial real estate, multifamily, and the like is empirical. You know, you get the numbers right and you ask all the right questions. It's pretty hard to make a big mistake. And so analytics is required. But, but yeah. So, and then, you know, the next piece, I'll keep talking. Sure.

Starting point is 00:16:41 Okay. Well, the next piece is, you know, so many people have fear or they have limiting beliefs. And I'll give you a great example of limiting beliefs. So when I immigrated this country, I didn't speak English. And I got thrown into school and I found out what bullies were for the first time. Okay. So I got my butt kicked occasionally. And then my mom thought it would be a great idea to send me to school in these wooden shoes right here.

Starting point is 00:17:03 These are the actual freaking shoes. We found them when she went in assisted living. And these leather shorts, the Germans were for October Fest. So that was crack. Crack freaking cocaine. Crack cocaine for the bullies, you know. So I got my ass kicked again. And then, you know, the bullies had chased me home and she chased them off of the fly swatter. So the next day, ass beaten. And, you know, I came up with this belief system. I wasn't good enough. I'm like, how can I show them I'm good enough? And a lot of people have these limiting belief systems, you know, but I'm going to tell you the reason the acronym for belief systems is BS is because 99% of them are BS. But we believe they're real. And, you know, but if you have one of these and you're listening, you're, you know, listening and another one of mine was I'm not analytical enough you know and and a lot of people have them I'm not good enough I'm not courageous enough I'm not old enough young enough whatever um you know drag it out in the daylight when it comes up now sometimes you're not consciously aware of it

Starting point is 00:17:54 but if you're consciously aware of this limiting belief drag it out look at it recognize that it's BS because it's not based in fact yeah and you'll be able to diminish it I mean I used to be afraid to raise my hand in front of 10 kids in a classroom and I always speak in front of literally thousands of people a year typically in flip-flops and sometimes in shorts I just don't care. So, you know, I was able to push through that. And if you're listening, you can as well. But anyway, so.

Starting point is 00:18:19 So you had this point in time where you hit that rock bottom and you had this mindset to get you back out of that. Well, I'd already done it. Right. And luckily, I was around Tony Robbins at the time, too. I was in his, I was in his, and that's another piece, his peer group. I was in his mastermind when I lost everything, which is like it's called his platinum partnership. And, you know, so I was actually around. on people that were killing it in that crash.

Starting point is 00:18:43 They were thriving. And they're like, get up, you a puss, 50 million, schmillion, go make something happen. That's who you want to be around when the stuff hits the fan, right? But here's the problem. Most people default to a peer group that they went to school with or that they work with. And they may have their own fear in limiting beliefs, and they'll hold you back, maybe afraid of losing you, afraid of feeling less than, whatever. So, you know, be very careful who you, a lot of influence you.

Starting point is 00:19:06 I'd say, and sometimes it's family, right? So I'd say love your family, but proactively choose your peers, would be my advice. How important was personal development for that mindset in terms of you prepared yourself? It was everything. Personal development is everything. I'm going to tell you, guys, if you're not working on your mind and self-actualizing and looking in the mirror and exploring who you are and what drives you, what drivers you have, you know, what things that are holding you back, if you're not exploring that, you're never going to grow, you know. And I spent 23 years with Tony. And I credited him with, because I love that energy. I love, I love emotion. You feel emotion at these, at his events. If you have an opportunity to see him, highly, highly recommend it.

Starting point is 00:19:51 And, you know, or someone like him, you know, get around that kind of energy because it impacts everything. It really is 80 to 90 percent of your success. Like I said, these, these things I'm talking about, you know, and things like focus. Focus is power. Right. Right. You know, and, you know, the most successful people on the planet have the highest degree of focus. Look at Elon. You know, Jeff Bezos. I mean, incredible focus. And the problem is, whatever you focus on gets larger, both positive or negative. You know, I'll get people calm me and say, how do I get out of the student loan debt? And I'm like, well, they should see you for that, I guess. But, but, you know, I'm like, well, wrong question. How do you make so much money? The debt's irrelevant is the question I want you to be asking me, you know, because what you focus on grows. You know, they asked Mother Teresa if she was anti-weiser. war. She just said, no, I'm pro peace. I mean, you get, you get the, you get the message here. You know, I, I, um, I, uh, I, my podcast, I think we're over 30 million downloads. We're

Starting point is 00:20:47 around there somewhere. And I listen to two podcasts. I listen to Joe Rogan. Yeah. And I listen to Tim Ferriss. I try to get both sides of the aisle. And the reason I bring that up is I think they get 30 million a week. But, but anyway, you know, I try to get both sides of the aisle. And, and on the side that I'm not on, which is Tim Ferriss's, I love his podcast because he interviews the best of the best in the world, like the best athletes, Michael Phelps, the swimmer, NFL, NBA players, billionaires like Ray Dalio, heads of the biggest companies in a world, like Zuckerberg, actors, Hugh Norton, Hugh Jackman, Ed Norton, you know, big actors, Arnold. And he deconstructs their success.

Starting point is 00:21:23 And it's fascinating conversation, you know, how they became successful. And I started to hear a pattern. The pattern was they all meditate. Like 85% of them meditate. We did the math on it. It was 85%. What is meditation and meditation? hands. Focus. Right? So I thought that was, that was fascinating. So pay attention to what you're

Starting point is 00:21:41 focused on is another tip. It's focused right now in this day and age, especially with, you know, cell phones and social media and all that stuff. It's just a rare commodity for most people. And I think it's one of those things that if you can learn how to focus, it'll absolutely change your life. Yeah, I don't know about you, but my dumb ass will be sitting there watching Netflix, scrolling through social media, which kills your freaking focus, right? It tears it up. And so you've got to be really careful. I'm really glad you brought that up because you know, you're making these micro decisions and your brain just can't focus after that. Exactly. You're trying to focus on 10 different things. And I think that's one of the most powerful things to exercise even now is just learning how to do that. So we got this point in time where you decided, okay, I'm going to restart this. I'm going to get this going again. What did you do? How did you get started again? Well, I started with the goals. Then I made a decision. All right, get up off your pity party and go make something happen. Then I took the first step. I actually built another company at that time. But then I, you know, I paid attention to my focus. I got in the right rooms. I got around the right people. And I played to my strength.

Starting point is 00:22:40 That's another really important piece. Don't try to maximize your weaknesses. Your strengths are your greatest assets. You know, and, you know, people will try to maximize their weaknesses, but when you're playing your strengths, not only are you loving what you do because you're in your power, you're doing what you're really good at. And I would tell you, play to your own strengths and then hire a line or partner for your weaknesses, okay?

Starting point is 00:23:04 Because hire a line or partner for weaknesses because, like in my business, in the commercial multi-family world, it's a team sport. You're not going to do it by yourself. I mean, I bought 2,000 houses mostly by myself, but I wouldn't buy a hundred unit department complex by myself. You need the numbers. You need the strength. You need the net worth. You need liquidity requirements. You need experience. And the best partnerships I see. And I've had, you know, I don't know how many episodes I'm at now well over 12, 1,300. And I've had some of the best operators in the world sitting in this couch telling me, you know, what they did. And some of the best partnerships I see are an analytical person like yourself with an outgoing person. Now, you become

Starting point is 00:23:44 outgoing too. You're an anomaly by will tell you. But typically, that's a match made in heaven. You know, I'm the mouthpiece, obviously, and my partner with very analytical people, CPAs and things like that. And, but I play to my strengths because of my greatest assets. And so, you know, and when I'm playing to my strengths, I'm passionate about it because I'm loving what I'm doing. And passions require to influence people, right? So if you're going to start something, play to your strengths, hire a line or partner for your weaknesses, and you're off to the freaking races because, you know, you're going to love what you're doing. You're going to be passionate. That would be the, that would be the, and you know, and that passionate breeds innovation

Starting point is 00:24:21 or breeds creativity. And when you have a bump in the road, it's not as big a deal because you're loving what you're doing, right? Right. Exactly. And that's the biggest key, I think. So we have a lot of folks who are very interested in real estate investing on this podcast that listen to the show. And I think this is going to be something where they would love to even to hear from you. If someone out there right now is invested or interested in investing in multifamily, where would you tell them to get sorted? You know, the first thing is competence. You've got to build your competence. And so, you know, whatever it is, whatever side hustle you decide to do, if it's real estate, come see me. You'll leave juiced out of your skin. Because I spend time on mindset psychology. You know, my students, like I said, own about 300,000 units, which is more than every one of my competitors combined. And it's because they actually do it because I'm kicking them in the butt.

Starting point is 00:25:09 and teaching them, you know, how to focus on what they want and, you know, and, and, and so it's very, very successful. But the key is, is it starts with competence. You've got to learn what it is you want to do. So I think there's going to be incredible opportunity to buy businesses. I was telling you offline that I'm going to start teaching how to buy businesses because I've, I've had so many myself. And, and, you know, there's 10,000 people a day turning 65 in this country. Senior housing. I'm into senior housing now about my first assisted living facility. My students own, I don't know, dozens of assist the living facilities, and I'm getting going in it as well. And so there's a lot of opportunity there. There's an opportunity to buy businesses because those people turning 65, 10,000 a day for

Starting point is 00:25:48 a decade. I mean, they have businesses that they're going to want to sell. And so, you know, there's a lot of opportunity to buy those nothing down. So I'm excited about getting into that and teaching it because I love it. I love entrepreneurship. But you've got to decide on your vehicle. So if it's buying businesses, if it's real estate, whatever it is, if it's stock market trading, you better go learn it, right? You need to go study it and learn it. and I'll tell you, if you're in one of these businesses, or if you're in one of these jobs that could go away, you better not wait.

Starting point is 00:26:15 You better get going. Don't wait for the freaking shoe to drop. I know you think it may not happen, but it's going to happen. I mean, look at Amazon and meta, they've already laid off tens of thousands of people. It's going down to the rank and file soon. So you want to be ahead of it. Pick your sidehouse. So think what you might enjoy doing.

Starting point is 00:26:31 Go learn it. And there's tons of money looking to invest. My students have bought, you know, like I said, 300. or 1,000 units plus all these other asset classes, senior housing, student housing, mobile home parts, you name it, assisted living, I'm sorry, industrial flex space, you name it. And very few of them use their own money. They raised the money for these deals and you can do the same thing. You told me yourself when I interviewed you, you did stuff where you didn't put money in. You only had 20% of the deal, but who cares? Exactly. You're off to the races when you get that going. It's the same way in these big apartment complexes. You raise the money for these deals, but you got to get up to speak. So that's the first piece is the competence, become competent, because then you'll be confident and you'll be able to influence people. If someone is struggling, they're sitting here saying, okay, you know, I want to get started, but I don't know which direction to go in. I don't know what part of real estate or buying a business or whatever else. Is there a way that you think about that? Do you, does market conditions

Starting point is 00:27:25 matter? Does it matter what the market's given you? It's a fantastic time to buy right now. Right. Now, it's harder to raise money right now because investors are so scared, you know? but, you know, if I promise you we've got a network and if you're, and if you're competent and you're, then you become confident and then you become congruent in your message, you'll be able to find money. I mean, again, I, my students are doing it every day. It's almost a closing almost every day in my Facebook group for my warriors, my coaching students, literally almost every day there's a closing. So they're raising money for these deals and they're buying these deals. And, and like I just said, there's some incredible opportunity right now. But you got to push past the fear. You know, there's a lot of fear right now. And, you know, you're basically becoming a contrarian investor is what it's called. And that's what Warren Buffett's famous quote is about is, you know, be greeting when others are fearful. And there's a lot of fear right now. That's the best time to do this. And, you know, and again, God help you if you're in one of these jobs, it's going to be gone because there's a ton of them that are, I mean, basically Elon, I listened to Joe Rogan, like I said in his last interview

Starting point is 00:28:26 with Elon, Elon said that these, those jobs, any job in front of a computer is going to be gone. I think his quote was lightning fast. Right. Yeah. That's sobering. Yep. Those people got to go do something else. Maybe they learn AI. Maybe I don't, you know, but even doctors, surgeons are going to be robotic. And they're rolling out these robots any day, too. I mean, it's going to be, we're in a weird, we're in a very crazy world right now. It's increasing the importance of asset ownership. It's increasing, you know, you really have to be an owner. Yeah, real estate. You know, we were talking about nest eggs when I was interviewing you and, and, you know, I'm in gold, thank God, because it's gone through the freaking roof, gold and silver. But that's a tangible hard asset.

Starting point is 00:29:05 Real estate, tangible hard asset, business. See, even with the interest rates, you know, the beautiful thing about real estate is once you buy it, your debt's locked for the most part. Now, your rate could go up if you do adjustable, which I don't recommend you do. But the amount of the debt's not going to go up. But, you know, inflation is not going away. Okay. I'm single, and I never used to go to the grocery store. And I go there, and I'm like, 150 for that.

Starting point is 00:29:31 Are you freaking kidding me? You know, or $100 to fill my car up? I don't know how some people do it. Right. But see, the nice thing about real estate is inflation also impacts rents. So rents go up. And the way commercial real estate is valued, it's based on a multiple of the net income. So an increase in the net income is an exponential increase of the value.

Starting point is 00:29:50 I'll give you an example of this. I have a 296 unit asset in San Antonio as well. And we had a towing company paint numbers on the parking spaces. Okay. And then we told the tenants, hey, you can have your own parking space right in front of your unit. It's $25 bucks a month. First come first serve. We had 100 people take it.

Starting point is 00:30:09 Now, here's the math. I get hate on this all the time. You can't do math. Well, here's the math. You basically, you annualize that number. So $25 times $100 is $2,500 or $30,000 a year. Okay? At that time, that property was valued at a 4% capitalization rate, which is one of the valuation methods for commercial real estate.

Starting point is 00:30:30 And so you divide that 30,000 by 4% do the math on that. That was a $750,000 increase in value for some freaking paint and we didn't even pay for it. Okay. Now, that's an extreme example, but that's, that's, actually it's not that extreme. We actually found pets in that property. And there were about 50, 60 people with pets. And that was about a $500,000 increase in value because we charged them a $25 pet fee. So that's why I love my business, because in the single family world, you can only increase

Starting point is 00:31:00 value values based on comparable sales. And you have no control over comparable sales, right? In my world, commercial real estate values based on a multiple of the net income. And you can force appreciation through your efforts. And it's very exciting. I'll give you one more. This is an extreme example. I had 101 unit in Dayton, Ohio, a wealthy suburb of Dayton called Beaver Creek, got destroyed by a tornado. I mean, completely destroyed. All 101 families had to move. Two people had to have surgery. Thank God. No kids got hurt. Nobody died. But I was there the next day. And there was a woman pulling stuff out of her, you know, everybody had to leave. Water was off, power was off. She was pulling her clothes out, loading her car. I said, well, you're here

Starting point is 00:31:38 when it happened? She said, yeah, I was sleeping. My son was up in his bedroom. And thank God, his phone went off because by the time he came downstairs, his bedroom was gone. I look up, all you see is a tub. Everything was gone. But that, I digress. I digress for a minute. But the story there is, we rebuilt it and we got $600 to $650 rent bumps, okay? That was a 10 to $10. million dollar increase in value for 101 units. Wow. That's why I love my business. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, anyway. So, so when you look at this, like you're thinking through, this is a big debate a lot of people have, is they have the cash flow versus appreciation debate. Oh, no, I'll kick ass on. I'm sorry. I'd love to hear it. I will obliterate that argument. It's all about cash flow. Okay.

Starting point is 00:32:21 Like I told you, I can buy a property that was 43 million it sold for for 28. I'm not interested until it gets down to 24 because it's all about cash flow. You will live or die by cash flow. I wrote a bestselling book called How to Create Lifetime Cash Flows in Multi-Family Properties. The reason I bring that up is the subtitle is called The New Rules of Real Estate Investing. Okay. And the new rules are, it's all about cash flow. Don't tell me what you bought it for a year, what they sold it for 10 years ago, five years ago, three years. It doesn't matter. Right. What are the numbers right now? Is it going to cash flow? It's everything. And I 100% agree with you. And that's why I think that for most people, If someone is looking at this, and maybe they want to build a portfolio to replace first,

Starting point is 00:33:00 maybe they want to replace their income. And they're thinking about cash flow and they're thinking about how can I do this? Because they want financial freedom. They want to get started by doing something like that. Is there something that you tell them to do? Do they think through, you know, when they're planning this out, did they look at, you know, small, multifamily's and kind of grow to somebody's larger ones? Honestly, it's the courage muscle, candidly.

Starting point is 00:33:17 Because I get people that sit in my couch here and they, and people that have 10,000 units or 5,000 units. And I'm like, and I asked the question because I know what the answer is going to. be every time. I say, if you could tell 18-year-old, sell something, what would you tell them? And it's always go bigger, faster. But I want my audience to hear it from them instead of from me. You know, it's always go bigger, faster. So, you know, it's whatever you have the courage to do, candidly. But the key is to get started, okay? You know, people are like, should I wait to buy real estate? No, buy real estate and wait, but get freaking started, right? That's the key. And are you someone who, for example, if we're looking at holding, you know, real estate for long term,

Starting point is 00:33:53 Are you someone that believes in, hey, I need to hold this asset for the long term? I regret every deal I've ever sold. Same. You know, the only, the ones that I don't regret are in areas that were in trouble or going declining. Okay. It's area driven. But, no, I regret every property I ever sold. I, I'm, you know, I interviewed a billionaire.

Starting point is 00:34:15 It was my first interview on my podcast, actually. That's kind of funny story. I'm an hour in. His name is Albert Berris. He owns a McKinley Corporation in Ann Arbor, Michigan. And he's a billionaire. Okay. And I'm an hour in and realized I forgot to hit the record, but that's my first interview. Yeah. Just to digress for another second. So, you know, I had a mastermind. It was probably the biggest mastermind in the world for commercial real for

Starting point is 00:34:38 multifamily. It's about 40, 50 billion in assets in it. And we invited him to speak there. So my assistant called his assistant Nina and said, hey, you know, we're going to fly him down first class. We're going to put him up through its Carlton. She's like, no, no, no, he'll take his own jet down. It's fine. It's like, yeah, baby. That's awesome. Yeah, yeah. But the reason I bring all that up is he said he called himself a real estate owner, not a real estate seller, period. And, you know, he kind of hammered home the family. Interesting. You don't want to sell. You hold this real estate. You refinance it, pull money out tax free. It's the burr method on stair rights. You know, it's a buy, renovate, refinance, repeat method for. And that's my business model for commercial real estate as well. And when you've built this network of people or you had your mastermind, I know it that you had for years and years. And you built these networks of other investors out there. How important was that to to build this network?

Starting point is 00:35:28 And how did you do that? How did you kind of build out this network of other investors that you could partner with? Well, no, I had them on my podcast. So, you know, that's, that was a beautiful thing about having a podcast. So I had some of the best operators on the planet on my podcast. And so I called and I said, hey, let's get together. I had 16 here at my compound in Florida. And we had the, because I wanted to be around people that thought where I thought was hard was easy. And, and, and, and they did. And, and so I did it for my own benefit. And, and it was so amazing. I'm like, screw it, I'm going to do this. And then I got, you know, I maximized it. And we met three times a year and had, you know, had a really good time. But it just became too much work. So I let it go. But I think I'm thinking about reenacting it because I'd love to see what they think about what's happening right now. I may just do like one, one meeting just to pull them all together again and compare notes on the opportunity that's here right now, which is incredible. For a lot of people out there who can't find a network locally, what we tell them a lot is if you can't find a network, start your own. Start your own real estate meetup in your area.

Starting point is 00:36:22 Are your own meetup group. Yeah. Meet with two people. It'll grow and grow and just add value and then get mouthpieces like me to come talk. And, you know, the beautiful thing about starting your own is you're perceived as an authority, even if you bring people into interview, you know, because you're the one asking questions, right? Which, you know, you kind of fake it until you make it kind of a thing. And you can bring in experts to talk about everything from 1031 exchanges to, you know, cost segregation to, you know, cost segregation to. you know, to buying real estate, to managing real estate, to them. You bring in experts to talk

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Starting point is 00:42:44 to take a business and really turn it into something. So, you know, I think there's a lot of definitely any service-based business. I think any automotive-related business is great. I was interviewed a guy that bought five automotive repair shops and killed it, and he's about to, he's non-compete's about to end, and he's about to do it again. You know, I mean, you name it. I mean, you name it.

Starting point is 00:43:09 I don't care what it is. There's just a tremendous amount of businesses that are going to come online that these guys want to sell, that these 65-year-olds that want to, you know, sail off into the sunset and they can't until they sell their business. And so that's why, you know, I really believe there's an incredible opportunity to buy these things nothing down. Exactly. And just have the, you know, because all they want is they want cash flow. They're not really interested in the big hit in most cases. Because if you're a retiree, you're not going to take your hard-earned money from your business you've had for years and invested in a high-risk

Starting point is 00:43:39 investment. Oh, no. It's going into the bank at whatever it is, three percent interest. And if you can, you know, do the math and pay somebody more than that, secured by the business. that they understand, you know, that they're comfortable with, that if they had to step back in, they could. They don't want to, but they could. Yeah, I think you could do that all day long. I know you could do that all day long. And so the incredible opportunity there, incredible opportunity in the multifamily space and to really commercial real estate in general is a lot of opportunity right now. I've never seen so much opportunity. And I think the skills translate really well because I noticed like you didn't, when I bought my businesses and, and, you know,

Starting point is 00:44:15 the deal structure, the way that you could look at some of these is, you know, you can sell or finance buying a business. You could find someone out there who maybe that's their retirement plan is they want to sell their business and then you are going to make payments to them over that time frame. You could do an SBA loan and put 10% down, 90% note. And you could raise that 10%. I mean, there's so many ways to do these things without any of your own money. Again, but it starts with the education. So decide what your vehicle is going to be. Go learn it and start now at night. Go learn it right now. Yeah, because, you know, the opportunity is here. It's upon us. And that's the big key is if you look at Rod's story, the biggest thing is, you know, his mindset is a huge, huge piece of this, his personal education.

Starting point is 00:44:52 80 to 90% of it. Exactly. It's the technical stuff I talk about in my podcast. You talk about on your show is 10% of it. You actually have to do it. My most successful students aren't the smartest. They're not the ones that have the most money. They're not the ones that are the most educated.

Starting point is 00:45:06 And they're not the ones that live in the biggest cities. They're the ones that just go freaking do it. They just take massive action. Yeah, they bloody their nose on occasion. I pick them back up and help them keep going. But those are my most successful students by far. You know, many people have a story that holds them back, like the limiting beliefs I was just telling you about. And my successful students are the ones that change the story and just then just go do it.

Starting point is 00:45:29 I love that. That's the big thing is taking that action and just kind of, it compounds over time. And more action you take is kind of compound for you over time. So, I'm going to shift gears here. I'm going to ask you a bunch of questions that we ask a lot of our guests. And we can do these rapid fire. You can expand on them as much as you want. So what is the best finance tip that you've ever put into practice?

Starting point is 00:45:45 just OPM, other people's money. I mean, you know, there's so much money that got crushed in the stock market. We won't even talk about Bitcoin, you know. And so there's just a lot of money looking for a more safe, secure, consistent cash flow and return, which is what real estate provides, which is what some businesses provide. That's my best finance tip is you can go raise the money and go do these deals. You don't have to have your own money. I mean, I know it sounds like hyperbole in real estate guru, B.S. You know, no money down deals, but this just, that's reality.

Starting point is 00:46:18 That's, you know, these big apartment complexes, office buildings, retail, strip centers, shopping centers, they're bought with other people's money. These operators come in, they put them together and they do it. What is the best book that you have read, maybe in the last year? Does that be real estate related? It doesn't be finance related. Is there a book that kind of changed your life in your personal growth? So my love language is gifts.

Starting point is 00:46:37 Okay. So my students get lots of books from me. Okay. Now, obviously think and grow rich, when I tell you, I've given away over 10,000 copies. I'm not exaggerating, okay? Because everybody in my life events got one. Think and Grow Rich. It's a book you should read three times a year.

Starting point is 00:46:50 It's the precursor foundation to all self-actualization. But my students get Gary Keller's one thing, fantastic book. I had the co-author, Jay Papason on my show, Hal Elrod's Miracle Morning about what you do every morning to get going. I've been blessed to have him on my show. The Five Love Languages. I mean, I had that author on my show as well. I'm thinking of books I've had on my show here. but, you know, if you love anybody, you should know how they feel love the most.

Starting point is 00:47:19 The slight edge about those decisions you make that either trajectory, life up or down, they're not a big deal that day, but, you know, how you, your life projects either up or down. And so, there's some. There's perfect. That's perfect. I could keep going on. I wish you.

Starting point is 00:47:39 You saw my library here. Yes, exactly. I've got a few books. And I've wished that. I knew you loved Napoleon Hill that much because I bought, so I bought a used thinking grow rich copy. And when I bought it, I actually got it on Thrickbooks.com. Wow. And it came in the mail and I opened it up.

Starting point is 00:47:54 And the last page, it was this torn up book. It's just an old copy. The last page, he wrote a letter to this woman. And it says, this book is for you to have Napoleon Hill's autograph on there. And then it said to this specific woman. You got a book with his autograph? Holy crap, dude. I would have brought it with me if I knew.

Starting point is 00:48:09 Wow. Wow. That's amazing. It was a $3 book. I think somebody just didn't notice. what it was. God, how cool is that? Which is really cool. So it is one next time. But I've given away 10,000 copies. Wow. That is incredible. So yes, I like that book. What is the number one thing you're planning on doing to change your finances long term? Now, I know you're in this spot where you

Starting point is 00:48:27 are, you know, I'm reinventing myself because, you know, a lot of people are afraid, so they're not really doing coaching as much. My coaching program, again, is bigger than anybody else combined. But I'm reinventing myself and I love businesses. So I'm thinking about teaching how to buy businesses because that opportunity is there. You know, but now, you know, I, I mean, I'm set financially. Sure. I mean, I'm good. But, you know, I will tell you, I'm looking at life more of a life. I'm 66, you know, and I'm looking at life more of a lifestyle filter rather than, you know, needing to kill it. I've had the Lamborghini and the Rose Royce and the Bentley and all that stupid shit. I have millions of dollars with watches and that's still my vice. That's my last remaining vice.

Starting point is 00:49:11 But, you know, I'm not about things anymore. I'm about experiences. I love that. The last one is my favorite one. We ask every guess this. What does wealth mean to you? Wealth means, I have a sign right there that says God's wealth flows through me in avalanches of abundance. Thank you, God. I don't know if you can see where you're at. And those avalanches of abundance are, of course, financial as well, but their relationships, their deep relationships of people. I love. They're, you know, wealth is health. Health is the most biggest wealth, okay? Because you lose your health, you, you lose everything. So I don't know if you saw my exercise room. I mean, it's, you know, I take health very, very, very seriously. So wealth is health. Wealth is relationships. Wealth is financial. And candidly, wealth is your ability to look in the mirror and really see who you are

Starting point is 00:50:02 as well, in my opinion. I love that answer. And actually the biggest answer for wealth, I'm going to tell a story. So when I lived in Denver, this is going to take a couple of minutes. Sure. Absolutely. It's a really good answer to your question. So when I lived in Denver, I knew I was wanted to live on the beach. And there's no beach in Denver.

Starting point is 00:50:21 But I would visualize the palm trees and the sand and the surf. And 20 years later, I built what's now about a $10 million mansion on the beach. I mean, I owned the beach on one side, had my boats on the back side, it's called a Gulf to Bay. It's literally right across the bay from where we are. Okay. And on Casey Key. And it was unthinkable when I was 18, but I made it happen. I manifested it.

Starting point is 00:50:40 I mean, just described this place. I had a big spiral staircase up to the middle. I had a waterfall from the second giant waterfall. I'm a second floor balcony to the pool. Pool was in magazines. It was really cool. Aquarium built around the staircase that cost me almost $200,000. So this gives you an idea of the house.

Starting point is 00:50:55 Two months after I moved in, I'm floating in the pool at night. It's changing colors. It's got fiber optic lighting. And I'm looking up at this testament to my ego, which is really what it was. It was to prove the freaking world I was good enough. I mean, if that didn't do it, forget it, you know. My family's inside sleeping. I had the Maserati and the Mercedes and all the stupid shit I thought was important.

Starting point is 00:51:12 And so I worked for that for 20 years. Two months after I moved in, I'm looking up at this thing and I got depressed. I don't mean a little depressed. I mean, I got really depressed. I'm like, what is going on? How can I be depressed? I've just achieved success like times 10,000. What was happening?

Starting point is 00:51:27 There were three things happening. The first thing is I didn't know what I was going to do next. You know, when you achieve a big goal, you better have other goal. lined up behind it, you know, like the good book says without a vision that people perish. I didn't have a vision for the future. So that was number one. The second thing was happiness comes from progress and growth. It never comes from the goals. You know, they say the happiest days of a boat owner's life of the day they buy the boat and the day they sell the boat, right? You need the goals to create that burning desire and that hunger that Napoleon Hill talks about in his book,

Starting point is 00:51:56 but it's not about the goals. Happiness comes from progress and growth. And I didn't know how I was going to progress in growth after that. But the biggest thing was I was totally focused on me, Rod, rod, rod, show the world a matter. Blah, blah, blah. Vomit. And that's the year I saw Tony Robbins for the first time. I called my brother and I knew I needed to do something because, I mean, I was in a bad place. And so went and saw him in Fort Lauderdale and saw that he fed families for the holidays.

Starting point is 00:52:21 I'm like, what a concept, do something for someone else. I'm embarrassed to say to be 40 to get that memo. This is 26 years ago. So I called my brother in Denver. I said, bro, let's feed five families. So he called his church five families who really needed help. He had a lot of fun buying the food because I was growing up. there for Thanksgiving. So we bought Thanksgiving meals, frozen turkeys and toys for the kids if we knew

Starting point is 00:52:40 they had them. Third family changed my life, man. We go up to this shack and it was a shack. And there was a Hispanic woman in there with five kids. It wasn't even a one bedroom. It was like a studio. It was a piece of crap. It's in there with five kids. She comes out. She sees all this stuff on the porch. She starts crying. Her kids come out. Two of the old ones started crying. I started crying. And I was hooked. And please don't leave me. This is not ego. There's a real message in this. So if you're listening, don't tune this out. This is if you want financial success, stay with me. In the last 26 years, I've fed somewhere between 150 and 160,000 children here in the Sarasota-Brington area for the holidays. I provided tens of thousands of backpacks filled with school supplies to local

Starting point is 00:53:19 kids don't even have basic supplies for school. Don't get me started on that. I provided tens of thousands of teddy bears to the local police departments for officers to keep in their vehicles they encounter a child that's been in a traumatic situation. Now, the reason I bring this up is, wealth is not just financial. Okay, I get people in my chair here that have incredible financial success, but they're not fulfilled. Tony Robbins calls it the science of achievement versus the art of fulfillment. Achievement's a science, but fulfillment's an art. You've got to figure out what juices you. For me, it's kids and also the elderly. Maybe for you it's animals. Maybe it's the environment. Whatever it is, give back right now. And don't say, well, you had money. That's why you gave back. You want the money, give back because you get the money.

Starting point is 00:54:01 that's the way God works. You get it faster. And, you know, we've been taught to achieve to be happy. Like, we shouldn't be happy until we've achieved in this country. I want to tell you, when you give back, you're happily achieving. And that is wealth. Absolutely. Wealth is so much further than just money. And I think that's what that's perfect to kind of wrap up. Sorry about the long answer. No, I love it. That was perfect. So, Rod, well, thank you so much for coming on here. This has been absolutely fantastic. Where can people find out more about you and everything else you got going on? Rod's links.com is all my stuff is there. My boot camp. site is there. There's a community there that's free with all kinds of free resources. So rodslinks.com.

Starting point is 00:54:37 There's also a goal setting workshop there. If you're not interested in real estate, go do the goal setting. People spend more time planning a freaking birthday party and they do designing their lives. Go do the goal setting. It's up an hour. Have your kid do it if they're over 10 years old. Have your spouse do it. You know, design your life. That's designing your life. So it's at the bottom. My goal setting workshop, there's a guide you can download. I'm not going to try to sell you anything. Just go go do the goal setting. But Rod's links. And if you're driving, text, link. Links to 7-2-3-4-5. Links to 7-2-3-4-5.

Starting point is 00:55:04 Awesome. We'll link all that up down in the low of the show notes. Rod, thank you so much for coming on here.

The Personal Finance Podcast - He Lost $50 Million In Real Estate Then Got Rich Again (With Rod Khleif)

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