The Science of Flipping - Why Strategic Partners Are the Key to Scaling Your Real Estate Portfolio | Stan Gendlin

Episode Date: September 6, 2024

INVEST WITH VANROCKRE TODAY! Go to: https://vanrockre.com/---In this episode, Stan Gendlin, a seasoned real estate investor, dives deep into his evolution from flipping homes to building a massive real estate portfolio, currently managing over 700 rental doors with a goal of reaching 10,000. He explains how he strategically mapped out his financial goals and created a simple, actionable plan by calculating the income he needed from rentals and working backward to determine the number of properties and flips required. Stan highlights the power of virtual real estate investing, revealing that most of his transactions were done remotely, proving that physical presence isn’t always necessary to succeed.He emphasizes the importance of building strategic partnerships, sharing how teaming up with specialists in construction and development helped him scale from a solopreneur doing 10 deals a year to running multiple businesses and completing hundreds of deals. One of the key takeaways is his method for raising private capital, making lenders feel comfortable through transparency and strong relationship-building. He also touches on the significant tax benefits available to high-income earners through cost segregation, particularly for those who want to invest in real estate without being directly involved.---Connect with Stan!Instagram - @stangen9Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/stanislav.gendlinWebsite - vanrockre.com---The #1 training and coaching system to launch, grow, and scale your investing business! 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐞: http://www.thescienceofflipping.comTurn cold real estate leads into engaged motivated sellers on auto-pilot using the power of A.I! 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐞: https://www.rocketly.ai/Have a question? Ask me anything at https://www.askjustin.ai/𝐀𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐉𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧: After graduating from UCLA in 2003 with an English degree, Justin went directly into business for himself. He has never had a W-2 job. In 2005 he got into real estate by co-founding a brokerage in the Northern California area. Quickly he realized that being a realtor was not for him.In 2007 he got into real estate investing full time. 16 years later, Justin has flipped well over 2600 properties, accumulated millions in rental properties, and is an active investor to this day.His success in real estate led him to start The Science Of Flipping podcast and education company, where he has coached and mentored over one thousand aspiring and active investors. He is a nationally recognized speaker and is on a mission to educate as many people as possible on becoming a successful dynamic real estate investor.𝑾𝒉𝒂𝒕𝒕𝒉𝒆𝑷𝒓𝒐𝒔𝑯𝒂𝒗𝒆𝑻𝒐𝑺𝒂𝒚𝑨𝒃𝒐𝒖𝒕𝑱𝒖𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒏: “Justin is one of the best trainers in this space. He really gives everything to his tribe.” – Brent Daniels (TTP) “Justin’s ability to connect with people and help them understand what he is teaching, is unparallelled” – Kent Clothier (REWW) “We have been in the trenches flipping homes in Phoenix for over a decade, he is one of the best to do it.” – Sean Terry (Flip2Freedom) Subscribe To Justin Colby: http://youtube.com/justincolbyView All My Videos: https://www.youtube.com/c/JustinColby 

Yeah, the biggest difference to go from that to from 40 to 50 or 350 was really building a team. Probably one of the biggest mistakes I made for a long time, and I see a lot of people make, is just remaining a solopreneur. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's a great lifestyle. But to think you can grow on your own to that level is impossible. So the biggest shift I made was building an actual team, taking the advice of being in a mastermind and actually building a team. That's what took me from having a couple that I'm buying per year to hundreds. What is up, Science Flipping family?

This episode is going to be fire because I have a good friend of mine, someone who's well over $30 million in real estate, done over a thousand transactions, done it all virtually, and has a nose to pick the right market to build a massive amount of wealth. Stan Gendlin is here. What's up, my friend? Hey, man. I'm doing good.

Thank you for having me. This is an honor to be on your podcast. Bro, it's been a long time. Long time coming. We were just able to break bread and have a little bit of breakfast. And I'm telling you that you have something many people don't and it's being able to look around the corner being able to pick markets being able to understand the numbers in real estate and so you've done the bulk of your thousand transactions all virtually correct yep

okay you have bought how many doors for rentals you're well into the 400 500 doors and rentals you may not hold them but you've been able to buy them and self-liquidate some yeah i mean as of today i probably own 700 doors right now love that and we have another 200 doors under contract that we're buying your building so we'll be over a thousand by the end of the year what's your number where do you want to go we We're going to 10,000. Let's go. Yeah. I love that.

I had a mutual, someone everyone knows, Grant Cardone. Basically, I sat in a chair just like this and he looked at me and said, Justin, you're playing way too small. Go get 3,000 doors in the next 36 months. Yep. And it's just a function of going and doing it. Right? So now that you know that, you gave a little insight secret of some of your success to me personally. So I want to I want to leak that out. You've been told by some of your coaches and mentors and people that you look up to. You need to understand where you're going first and walk it backwards. Talk about your philosophy in that in the real estate space. philosophy is I told you personally before I heard the way this guy told me how to do it,

right? So when I moved to South Carolina, I came there with a game plan of knowing exactly where I'm going to go, right? I wrote down my ideal life. What is the house that I want to live in going to cost? The cars that I want to have going to cost, you know, having a landscaper and then all the good things in life yeah i came up with a number about 20 grand yeah so i knew when i moved to south carolina to start my company 20 000 was the goal but not only the number i wrote out a plan how to get there right knowing that each rental that i bought here's how much cash flow it would give me so i knew exactly how many rentals i needed to get to get that to that number. Yeah, right.

And to get those rentals, I knew how many flips I had to do to generate enough money to buy those rentals. So I came in with a game plan. It took me about three years to three to four years to get to that number. And I was dying 20,000 a month. Isn't that crazy? I just it's such a simple thing when you say it to me. I'm like, that's not that difficult. Yes. But it actually starts with something a mutual friend, Kent Clother says all the time, start with the end in mind. Right. And then you walk it backwards. So you basically effectively said, okay, how much money am I going to need to buy these rentals? How much is my average profit on a fix and flip? How many of those do I need to get the capital so I can buy another rental? Yep. How many more fix and flips? How many more rentals? That is actually over the over the top simple i mean i'm assuming you probably did it on like a google sheet like

it's not some crazy calculator that you had this big algorithm on i would assume you're just saying i did on a yellow pad you did on a yellow pad yes even better because we're old we actually still use pen and paper yeah um so that is really imperative because you can do this in a function that boils it down so simply. As long as you know a couple key metrics, right? So you had to figure out what? What's my average profit per flip? Yep.

What's my average money needed for a rental, right? And there it's just a function of go. Yeah. But, you know, as you know, it wasn't I needed enough money for this many rentals because you can refinance yourself out, right? So I just had to have enough to do it twice a year for this many years, right? So when it came down to it, that number was pretty achievable and low. It wasn't this crazy big number I needed to achieve to get 20,000 a month in passive income. It was, what do I need to get if I broke that down by four years?

That's 5,000 a year, right? Twice a year, 2,500 bucks for passive income. How do I get that twice a year? That's what made it so achievable. And I just rolled that same amount of money over and over and over and got to 20,000 pretty easily. Now, raising private money, you are an expert at this. And I would tell you, you're one of the best and you can see around the corner and you do it in a way that makes your lenders feel incredibly comfortable. And we talked a lot about your kind of secret sauce with that. When you had to go to scale, I know there was a, you had what, 40 or 50 rentals to get to that 20 grand a month, give or take, give or take. Yep. But then you get up to 350 rentals. Yep. You had to go raise some capital or maybe you didn't have to, but you chose to correct. Yeah. The biggest

difference to go from that to from 40 to 50 or 350 was really building a team. Probably one of the biggest mistakes I made for a long time. And I see a lot of people make is just remaining a solopreneur and there's nothing wrong with that. It's a great lifestyle, but to think you can grow on your own to that level is impossible. So the biggest shift I made was building an actual team, taking the advice of being in a mastermind and actually building a team. That's what took me from having a couple that I'm buying per year to hundreds. So you did four, right? So you were on pace to buy what? 10 rentals a year. I know to me and you,

like that doesn't even sound like a big number, but many of the listeners or watchers might be like, I want one. Yeah. How the hell do I get one? Like what would be your advice to that person maybe watching this or listening to this? Like, great, you were on pace at 10 a year.

I would like to get one or two. Yeah. What would you tell them? Yeah. I mean, the thing that so many people approach me, especially in the market that I'm in, and because I have a pretty deep knowledge of the industry, and I have several companies that can do the entire project. There's so many investors like myself, like in South Carolina, if someone came to me and said i want to get a rental dude i will sell you i will wholesale you a deal i will renovate it for you and then you can go and refi it yeah i will do everything for you so the key to my growth has been partnerships i have six companies today i have partners in all of my companies love it uh the reason I started doing 60 flips a year

it took me uh two and a half years ago from doing you know uh 10 in my first year to 60 was I made a partnership with a builder right and it was like I'm not good at rehabbing I'm not I'm not a contractor this is all new to me. My experience was always acquisitions. I will go 50, 50 with you. I'm going to find the deals. I'm going to go get a loan. You do all the work. Yep. Right. And so that one relationship took me from doing 10 deals a year to 60 within 12 months. And my lifestyle was fantastic because all I had to do was lock it up and I was done. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's, that's, I think when I met you and everyone was like, Holy crap, how are you? Right. like i remember that trip to mexico that was a fun little trip yes i worked i worked so little yeah and i was making more than ever because of one strategic partnership so i think

this is something everyone has to understand too many people who get into this space they partner with their bro like hey bro let's get into real estate, right? I don't believe that's the right type of partner. A strategic partner, like you're talking about, is the right type of partner, right? Whether it's a developer, could even be a money partner that has a really big checkbook that you say, hey, instead of being a lender, why don't we do a strategic partnership on these deals, right?

Talk about that. And like, we already talked about your developer but like how do you find them when's the right time how do you you know what would you advise those people to be looking for because i would tell everyone don't go bro it out with your best friend and say we're gonna go crush it and create this llc and all that stuff i don't actually believe in that model would you agree i do 100 i say that all the time i'm gonna start a business with my brother my friend whatever it's usually a disaster. Right. And all of our relationships work because like you said, they're strategic and these people have complimenting skill sets.

Yeah. Right. So we own a construction company today. We build a whole neighborhoods. My partner is a licensed builder who's done this for 30 years. He wanted to have a legacy, something that right passed on to his kids so we start a construction company and we give him all the projects all the money he's just got to build yeah so that's just one example now does he cover any costs does he go and like front the material cost nope not you'll still pay for everything for him okay so we bring all the deals to him we bring all the money to him. We bring all the money to him. He's, he's just got to grow a construction company. So he's got multiple project managers. He's licensed. He takes,

gets all the permits done for us. You know, basically when I buy a piece of land, I say, Hey, here's a piece of land. Here's the house we're building. And then it come back to me in a few months and I sell it and make a profit. You're giving me something to think about. Cause when we're done with this, I'll tell you a little bit more of what I'm going through, not to waste time on this episode, but I'm in a construction nightmare. Yeah. I have a contractor that basically is doing fraudulent, like I believe criminal stuff, right? Like not paying the subcontractors. Subcontractors come back to us like, hey, can we get a paycheck? We're like, we paid. Right. Right. Like it's a nightmare and and it's it's a hundred percent because of what he's done going and getting a

strategic partnership on the construction side seems to make a lot of sense because you have a lot more control yep right now so do you essentially you pay him for the costs and he does everything else like you just have no part of that business at all yeah so he he basically he gets paid as a employee too okay um because he's the owner in the company but he's also working so he gets a income to make up for the time that he spends every week but we all the bills are passed through him to us so we pay everything all materials all the contractors and we just have that trust with him yeah he's the owner in the business that he's gonna do the right thing and it's been awesome so far that's incredible now do you have like an LLC at this point or is it still kind of and he's on the operating agreement the whole thing yep he's a partner in our construction company that's great that's great so when you're

what we did was we look we we started um you know flipping when we were flipping and building houses we said what are our biggest expenses right project management construction we said the commission on selling and so we started on realty um so we took all of our expenses and turned them into profit centers that's how you should do it right is to look at your pnl and say where am i bleeding and how does that turn into a revenue stream yep you know and so today when I buy a piece of land or a house, our acquisitions company wholesales it to our investment company. So we make a wholesale fee. That's right. Right. Our construction company or our renovation company, because we have a maintenance and renovation company as well. They're either doing the renovation or we're building. And so we make a profit there.

Right. When we're done, we sell it. And then we make a profit there right when we're done we sell it and then we make a profit on the commission as well as well as the being the investor and the owner of the deal too so we make it four times essentially yeah and so do you have any oversight or do you like critique his costs in terms of the projects your own projects or do you kind of just say i trust you right you're a partner so you got to do right by us financially you can't charge us something that's exorbitant because you're a partner so you got to do right by us financially you can't charge us something that's exorbitant because you're going to hurt the partnership right yep at that point do you kind of just say hey we trust the numbers based around that so the way it works

is he's a licensed general builder and he uses subcontractors right none of these guys work for him directly or for us our team looks like just admin project managers builders so all the costs are passed through we give him a plan and a budget yep and it's his job to hit it i love that very simple and so where do you see um what you're doing where you live you now live in scottsdaletsdale, Arizona. We talked about like the importance of building it, knowing where you're going and being able to math that back down. But part of that has the need to say, hey, where's the money to help me get there? Yep. Right. I have a little bit of a philosophy and it's always five first class. Always pay for the most expensive gym. Always join the memberships in the country clubs. And it's not because you just want to flex.

Like a lot of people think the first class thing, oh, you're just. No, because the person next to you can also afford first class. Yep. And that conversation can lead to some incredible things. We talked about lifetime fitness. I'm paying almost $400 a month for my family to go to lifetime fitness. This week, I just met a developer here in Miami who's like, hey, we have some projects. I hear you on the phone talking about real estate.

What do you do? No idea whether we're going to do a deal or not. But like, that's a cool little connection here in Miami. You are big into cars. You joined car clubs, things of that nature. Talk about your experience and your philosophy on this raising capital part. Yeah, I would advise people to be in communities of things they enjoy, whether it's cars or golf or whatever, right?

There's money to raise in every hobby. I just love cars. And kind of like you said, there's some people in car clubs that are talking about the motors and the pistons. I don't know what they're talking about. Yeah. I love to look at cars. I love to drive cars.

I don't know much about them, but I, yeah, I joined all these car clubs, um, again, to gain access to people that also have the same hobby, make some friends. But a lot of these people are, you know, retired business people and they have tens and tens of millions to invest. So it's been great for networking with like-minded people who understand real estate investing because whatever industry you're in, money always flows to real estate. That's where everyone parks their money, whether they're in tech, in biotech, medicine, whatever, it's always flowing to real estate. Everybody owns a home. One of the questions I get is like, why would someone who has $10 million, $20 million,

why would they lend you money? Why would they? like, what would their interest be? And I know I have my answer because I've raised a lot of money just like you, but it, part of my answer goes back to what you just said. People want to be in real estate. They don't want to be in real estate in the toilets and tenants, but they want to be in real estate. Correct. Right. So they may have made, they may have sold their tech company for a hundred million dollars. So they have the cash to say, well, I want to be a part of real estate.

So talk to the people that you're talking to and like, why do they lend you money? What is it? Is it just a numbers game? Is it because they want to be a part of it? How does that look like for you? Yeah. I mean, it seems like we have people approach us

for two main reasons. Number one is tax write-offs. If you're selling your company, you're having a huge tax that year. Or if you're exiting a bunch of stocks or whatever. So one of the biggest reasons is certainly for big tax write-offs. Because usually when we buy a piece of real estate, we're going to do something called a cost segregation, which means a cost segregation engineer is going to say, things in your apartment complex are not going to last a long time, right? Toilets, appliances, air conditioners, things like that. So the value of those by law can be depreciated in one year.

So I'll give you an example. We bought an apartment complex for $13.5 million last year. We had one investor give us $3 million for that one apartment complex. I gave him a K-1, which basically says, this is how your investment performed this year. And by doing the depreciation play, he got a $1.8 million loss on his income. So that's a huge reason people have success in other industries and they want to offset their gains through real estate. The other one is really just a good return, right? Because the average real estate return in multifamily is doubling your money every three to five years, right? That's something we shoot for, doesn't always happen, but that's the goal. And that's what you can do in real estate with a relatively safe pathway

because it's attached to something physical right rather than crypto or stocks which can evaporate overnight so that's right that's those are the two biggest reasons so let's let's pour into this and stay on the subject because i think people have to understand if you're a doctor you're a lawyer you're a dentist you have even some level of savings right even if you're a doctor, you're a lawyer, you're a dentist, you have even some level of savings, right? Even if you just last 20 years have been saving and you have a hundred grand or 200 grand, you have to understand if you're still working or if you have paydays, this works for everyone. And I want you to talk to this cost seg, talk a little bit more in depth, because I think there's going to be people watching this, people listening to this, that I would encourage you reach out to Stan right now.

Where can they find you easiest? Probably Instagram, Facebook, social media? Instagram, Facebook, and our website, vanrockre.com. What's your handle on Instagram? StanGen9. Stan, and I tagged him online. So if you're following me, I just tagged him. Make sure you're following him.

Facebook? That's my name, Stan Gimlin. There you go. And we have vanrockre.com make sure you follow this man he's an expert at this again let's dive into the people that might have a w2 job high income earners maybe they have maybe they've had an exit let's talk about the power of this cost seg what it really means and how people can utilize it yeah well let me just touch upon the doctor thing um i had a conversation with my neighbor a couple days ago.

Both him and his wife are doctors. I'm sure they make a ton of money. They have absolutely no passive income because they've been raised like most people put into your 401k. They have huge 401ks. And I'm like, how is that helping you live an amazing life today? Right? No, no answer because it doesn't. None. You can use that money in 20, 30, 40 years. Hopefully, if the government doesn't raise the retirement age or raise the taxes on it. So a lot of doctors, they make a lot of money, but they don't understand finances. And so having a conversation with these high powered white collar or people that own blue collar companies and explaining to them how you can have passive income and not have to wait till you're 65 or 67 to access your 401k has just been so powerful. Yep. Yeah. It's interestingly enough, I have people that have retirement accounts that are great private lenders to me because of what you're talking about, right? Is if you put it in the right retirement account, it's self-directed,

you can actually use it like your checkbook, right? And you can do it that way. And then my return, same thing for you. What we do for our investors is, it's essentially tax-free as long as they put it back into their retirement account, right? So now they're able to actually grow it

and not wait for the stock market or whatever nonsense is happening. The other component of that, that I just had one of our guests, Chris Noggle, friend of yours, friend of mine mine life insurance policies become great investment tools where they have a life insurance policy i have them myself and they're actually able to invest into my stuff from money that they're not actively using anyways alone from the light life insurance companies alone and they're able to make the investment get the the returns, and be able to have equity. I mean, there's a lot of different ways to do this. The key though,

is for those that have high income, I believe their most seductive part of what we do is going to be the tax write-off. So go a little bit deeper into when people do this, like how does that actually work for them? Can they not be in real estate? Do they have to actually do something like define a little bit more of what you're seeing with your lenders? Yeah. Um, again, usually it's our highest income earners that are looking for the tax benefits. Um, most of our family and friends are looking for a good return income. Yeah. Um, and I mean, it's my understanding that if you don't have any passive income you can't use the tax write-off on it um so most people that are having a lot of revenue

coming in from long-term capital gain tax related activities whether selling stocks or selling your business things like that other investments that's where they're coming up to us for the uh big tax savings yeah and there is some nuance to all this that people should be talking to their accountants and stuff like that. Right. But there's some nuance in the sense of you're not a professional professional in real estate. You actually can't take the write off in the way that you and I can. Right. Again, we're not accountants. Please go talk to your accountants about all the laws about it. But you still get the tax write off. You just don't get to do the rapid appreciation the way you and I can, right? Correct. Yes. But still,

$1.8 million in tax write-offs is $1.8 million in tax write-offs. I don't care how you cut that. I want it, right? And that's why people should be doing this. Everyone should be in real estate, right? And so to talk to what you're about to do, where your journey going, what are you going to be focusing on now going in the next, let's just say 24 months, we don't need to go five, 10 years, what are you doing for the next 24 months? What are you focusing on? Yeah, very, very clear to us. So in the last year, we bought 50 million worth of real estate. Nice. That's a big number, dude. Congratulations. Thank you. This year, we're going to buy another 50 million.

Let's go. And then next year, we have another $50 million plan. So we'll have about $150 million in assets under management, which will mean we'll have around $35 million in funds under management over the next 24 months. So what is your... And let me tell you the strategy there, because a lot of our investors love it. So if you have only $100,000 to invest, right? Most real estate investments say, hey, this is a three to five year investment. Most of our investments, our goal is to,

not always happening, but it's to always, it's to try to refinance your money within one year to 18 months and let you take your $100,000 and keep rolling it. That's right. Right. So most of our investors are continuing to roll their money deal into deal into deal. And now they're getting cash flow from that same $100,000 investment on multiple deals and getting the tax write-off on multiple investments with that same $100,000 investment. Yeah, I mean, listen, anytime you can make an investment for a year, let's call it 18 months, let's call it two years, and be able to get the vast majority of your money back potentially even all of it yep still have equity percentages or income or distribution still have the return while your

money was out and to be able to rinse and repeat that and do it in and for the people that are making money you have a tax write-off yep and you have an asset depending upon how you structure it that when it sells they're gonna have another pay another payday. I mean, it's literally like, if you're out there watching this follow Stan, like this is the epitome of how to actually think and work like an investor without being the investor, right? Your money's actually working for you. Yeah. Our, our investors make the majority of the profit. I would love to be on the other foot. Yeah, no doubt. So they make, you know, we give 70% of the upside to our investors.

That's right. And us as the general partners, we get the very last dollar that goes out. Our investors get the first $7 out of $10 to go out the door. That is the right way to do it. And here's why I believe and give you kudos to doing it and doing it the right way. And there's a lot of people in the syndication world that are trouble and hot water right now. And why I believe you'll always be safe and have great opportunities is because you're the last to get paid. You're the one taking on all the work. But also those investors will

probably never leave you. Yep. I just would, if I was an investor with you, I would just say, less, can we do this again? Like, why do I want my money back? That means I have to go do something with my money or I'm going to spend it. I had a conversation yesterday with someone who makes millions of dollars a year. And her point to me was like, I, if I have my money in my account, it is being spent. It's going somewhere. I'm buying something something expensive i'm taking a vacation i have to give it to the irs like why not get into real estate she has nothing to do with her and and i just gave her a very soft like well you'd have a tax write-off from all your millions you

make you have equity you have something that's going to give you a return and you're not going to go blow it on yeah a birkin bag right i'll tell you the thing i'm most proud of and i'm gonna get maybe a little emotional here is retiring my parents yeah dude you know one of the reasons i got into passive income is i had a conversation with my parents okay about hey when are you guys going to retire right what does that look like how old are they by the way uh let's see they were 59 so what is that 65 this year nice yeah okay so it was like we need to save a million dollars in cash. And I was, this was maybe 10 years ago. We got to save a million dollars in cash back then to me. That was like a ton of money, a ton of money. And then if we save a million dollars in cash, we could

spend 30 grand a year to live. And hopefully we don't live long enough until it runs out. Jeez. Right. I'm like, so 30 grand a year is only 2,500 bucks a month. Like, what if I help you guys get to 2,500 bucks in passive income? That's like five houses. That's it. Yeah. Like you guys are saving up all this cash that can purchase these houses

today by using a 401k rollover. Right. Totally. And now you guys don't have to worry for the rest of your lives, right? And so it took from 2014 to 2018, my parents bought enough rentals where today my dad gets 15,000 a month doing nothing, including the houses he owns are worth, you know, over a million and a half dollars. Right.

And so if he wanted a bigger payday one day and just say, F it, I'm out. Yeah. Why would you, when you can make 15 grand a month? I mean, the beautiful part of real estate, everyone again, being real estate, it just, there's no reason you shouldn't. If you can follow Stan, follow my set, like we can help you invest your money, right? You're going to have opportunities for the next five to 10 years that people can go to you and say, Hey, help me understand what you know. Show me the product, like help me do that. Right. And I encourage you all to follow Stan. He's a trusted friend of mine.

He is the guy. So let's kind of jump into what asset classes you're now focusing on. Right. Your story, which we didn't go too far into, but you started the single family flipping. Flipping led to single family rentals. Single family rentals then led into some apartments. Where are you now in your journey of real estate? Yeah, right now we are pretty much we're either buying or building 100 unit properties or bigger building building. Yeah, that's a unique never done 100

unit property. I did a 79 unit development that almost made me go bankrupt so that's a different story but uh building a hundred doors yes so we're building a hundred door townhome rental communities nice yes build the hold yep and and that's part of my strategic partnership uh that i talked about before my partner brian in van rock he has he's a lawyer in town owns a law firm but he's also a seasoned developer and so when i came to him i didn't know anything about developing entitling taking a piece of land and getting it approved for a neighborhood no clue what that process was like i still don't know too much today he handles that so i had a a 10 acre site uh that i was looking at i already purchased a part of it. I was hesitant to buy the rest of it because I don't know what the heck to do with it. I tried to get a multifamily

property approved. Didn't know what I was doing. Blew through a bunch of money. Tried to get a townhome neighborhood concept. Didn't know what I was doing. Blew. He came in and said, hey, this is what I could do for you here. And that was the start of our partnership. I had this 10 acre site that I was just going to walk away from. I already spent a bunch of money on it. He's like, Hey, you have something special here. Here's what I think we can do. And that was our first deal. And so that started two years ago. It just got approved. Um, that's a 95 town home neighborhood in, uh, in the area that we work in. and he worked with the local city to get massive tax abatements on it right uh because the city is right now wanting development wanting growth so

they're throwing whatever they can to get good quality products and affordable too yeah so that was the start of our relationship so it's taken two years to get it to a approval stage and that's what i think a lot of people don't understand of the reason I'm bald, right? Is we go through the stuff that you don't want to, right? So your investors, the people that want to invest, they don't have to go through all that. Correct. They have to just cut the check when the time's right for the ground up development or maybe an infrastructure, things of that nature. But you don't have to go crazy dealing with the cities and dealing with contracts and dealing with the bureaucracy of getting projects to that level. Yes. Right. And so that's probably one of our most successful investment avenues. We do developments like we'll take a piece of land, we'll get it approved to build a neighborhood and we'll have a national builder come in way before we're done and come and give us a contract for the whole site.

That's great. And then we'll split the profits 50-50 with our investors. That's great. And most of them are one-year investments. Yeah. And so you at this point, not to say you don't or won't, do you have anything to do with single family anymore? Absolutely.

Okay. Yeah, it's tested. Yeah. And it always works. Right. It will always make you cash. Yeah, today our construction company is building 11 homes. Right now we have another 11 under contract.

That's great. We have another 150 in our neighborhoods we're going to build next year. And then we're also flipping seven houses right now as well. And where are all these locations? In South Carolina, upstate Greenville, Spartanburg. And where do you live? I live in Scottsdale. I wanted to point that out because you can do this without physically being there, right?

You don't need a big office. You don't need a big team in an office that you're, you don't have to. I wanted to point that out because you can do this without physically being there, right? You don't need a big office. You don't need a big team in an office that you're, you don't have to. Now, if you choose to fine, I would probably say that you don't need the operational bloat in your cost, but anyone can do this business. It's about taking action essentially, right? You had it in you to go off on your own, to go get the first flip done. So let's do a little rewinding because that first deal that you did, you were living in San Diego.

Yep. You bought a flip in South Carolina. I put it under contract. Okay. Right. So I was planning on, let me find a deal for, I already knew I was moving to South Carolina. Okay.

It's like, I'm going to move there when I find my first deal. So I found my first deal. I had two weeks or 10 days of due diligence, right? To make sure I really want to buy it. So once I put it under contract, I had 10 days to move there. Yeah. Right. That was my start date.

So I had 10 days to pack up, move across the country. And I drove across the country. It took me two days with a trailer and all my stuff. And I got there the day before my due diligence was up. Yeah. I did one day of due diligence, only had enough money to buy one house, including the place to live. So I moved into the basement of the house that I was buying a flip and live there while I was flipping the house above. That's how my journey started. This is why most people won't even get started because that is way harder than cutting

a hundred thousand dollar check, putting in an investment in one of your projects and getting return on that. Right. Yeah. Not to mention before this, I was working for another company, uh, doing real estate as well. I was making $30,000 a month. So I went from 30,000 to zero and I moved into a basement of a house. I was living the life in San Diego. Yeah. Ocean views, you know, just everything I wanted. And I went to living in a basement of my first house. So it certainly takes a little bit of something special to do that. So I was just recently told by my mentor, and this is a very unique framing. Most people say, create the vision that we want. Think about what you're trying to achieve,

right? And then work that backwards and that whole thing. I get that. But what's unique about what I was just told by my mentor is he said, don't worry about what you're trying to achieve. Worry about what sacrifices you have to make and what pain you're willing to go through to actually achieve it. Absolutely. So put that goal out there, but be more focused on what am I actually willing to sacrifice and what am I actually willing to go through a pain? Am I willing to go through to achieve the thing? And I think a lot of people would never do what you did. A lot of people would never do what I've done and slept on a couch and borrowed money for my first coach

and all the different things that I had to go through to get to where I'm at. And that's, it's an argument for why you've been so successful because that is not the first story or last story you're going to have about like, you know, I'm going to make this big sacrifice. I'm going to do this thing. I'm going to go live in a basement, flip a home.

But it's a testament to why you've been able to achieve what you've been able to achieve and have the tens and tens and hundreds of millions of dollars in assets over these years. It's because you have the personality willing to go say, I'm making the sacrifice. I'll go through the pain. I'll do whatever it takes to achieve it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And understanding, uh, you know, I came here as an immigrant, uh, when I was a little boy as a refugee, actually from Eastern Europe and understanding what my parents went through to get us here, the sacrifices. And, you know, knowing that my thought was like, I would be

not achieving the most I can. They sacrifice all that for me. I'm going to, I'm going to take it to the highest level possible because they, they deserve it. Right. I don't want to go back to them. So that, that was kind of the motivation behind me doing this. Yeah. Well, and then what, what keeps pushing you after all the success you've had and now you're going to push even harder. Why, why push harder? What's going to drive you through this next five or 10 years? Or whenever you say, you know what, enough is enough. I have what I needed. Why keep going? What pushes you now? Yeah, right now it's our team, our investors to see the dreams we're able to create for people and accomplish, you know, through our investment vehicle when it's, you

know, they invest with us and they're able to retire. They're able to do things with their family. It's so fulfilling, especially our employees, our team members. I absolutely love seeing that. Yeah. So being able to, to grow our team and accomplish dreams for our team members and our investors, like I was able to retire my parents. I was just going to say, use your dad as an example. I mean, for the fact that you could show your dad how to invest his retirement account. And now he's making $15,000 a month. Cause you said, Dad, let me show you what I know. And now you can choose to work or not. Like, I don't know.

Does he even work anymore? He still works. Yeah, that's part of it. But he still, he doesn't have to. Now he has the choice to work. Yeah. I mean, that's why we do like, I don't think I can give you my answer I'll never not be in real estate right my wife to this day why do you push so hard why are you pushing harder

why do you why and I'm like part I love it part I'm built for it yeah but the other part is like it can create this life that you literally now have the choices whether you want to work whether you don't want to work whether you want to go to Disney World or or not like you have these choices yeah and I think that's something for me I'll never not be in the real estate game. It may change. I might be doing, you know, the $150 million apartment here in the next five, 10 years, and it may not be the $150,000 home, but I'll be doing real estate. Do you ever see yourself not actively being in real estate? No, I mean, it's a, it's a passion for me for sure. And, uh, why would you ever stop growing as a person? Right. Ever. Right. So it's like, why stop doing regardless of it's

not about the money at all. Yeah. Right. It's like, well, it is because you want to have the life, right. And it takes a lot of money to live the life that we live. Yeah. So to some extent, I don't want to just say it's never about the money because at some level you have to say it's about the money because that's what affords us to have two beautiful kids you have two beautiful kids i have to you know i mean like yeah but once you get to a certain level yeah then it's not about the money it's not about the money that's right right and after that it's just growing meeting amazing people like the people you meet on this podcast the people you've met traveling around the country. Yeah. Right. The sage advice I learned from this one guy two weeks ago that I told you before. Just stuff like that is incredible.

That's right. It's fulfilling and you're able to pass it on to your family and kids and your team. And it's just, I love it. Never stop growing. Let's go. Yeah. I really appreciate you coming by. VanRockRE.com.

Yep. Stan Gendlin on Instagram, Facebook, all of the places. This man is an expert real estate investor. And by the way, if you're out there and you do have a W-2 job and you're just curious to know more, reach out to Stan. He could at least give you some great information about how to invest, what it looks like, what's good, what's bad. And he is just someone I fully trust as a good recommendation

and a great source, brother. So thank you for coming by. Thanks, man. Thanks for having me. All right. If you guys got something good from this, make sure to share this with at least two of your friends so that they can start getting real estate too. We'll see you on the next episode with an incredible guest. Peace.