The R.E.I. Diamonds Show
The Real Estate Investing Podcast for Experienced Investors

Why are Mortgage Rates Still Above 6% (as of Friday, Dec 12) Mortgage rates are actually set by investors who view risk & reward in the same way you do. To illustrate the reason why mortgages are still above 6%, allow me to do a demonstration: (assume you have $300,000 to invest) Would you loan me $300,000 at 12% interest? Many readers actually make loans like this to Diamond Equity (my company) often. I assume this is because the 12% is an attractive return compared to competing opportunities AND our track record and strong balance sheet offers lower risk Would you loan me $300,000 at 6% interest? Most readers would NOT make this loan. They have better opportunities to earn

The Fireplace Fallacy: Why You Aren’t Getting “Heat” Imagine standing in front of a cold, empty fireplace and screaming at it to keep you warm. It sounds ridiculous, yet this is exactly how the majority of aspiring real estate investors approach the business. They stand before the marketplace with a sense of entitlement, believing they’re just going to find a deal for sale that is profitable at the list price. Don’t Mistake Movement for Progress Even those who are willing to put in effort often fall into the trap of dragging heavy stones into the hearth. They exhaust themselves carrying the dead weight of busy work—perfecting logos or organizing desks—genuinely confused why their backbreaking labor yields no sparks. In this

The Grind vs. The $1.8 Trillion Wall There is a misconception that real estate is a “passive” game. We are sold the dream of sitting back and collecting checks while the market does the heavy lifting. But in 2025, the investors who relied on the market to do the work for them are in trouble. The era of “lazy capital” is over, and the era of the operator is back. The “Easy Money” Crash Between 2020 and 2022, too many investors got comfortable. They bought properties with short-term bridge debt, assuming low interest rates were a permanent law of nature. They didn’t hustle to create forced appreciation; they leveraged cheap debt to fake it. Now, those bills are coming due.

No One Wants to Buy Your Property To 99.999% of buyers in the market, your property is a pass. They simply aren’t even interested enough to notice it’s for sale. To that remaining .001% your price is too high, except for that single buyer willing to pay the price, clear due diligence, and follow through on closing the deal. When searching for a buyer, it can feel like searching for a needle in a haystack. It’s even worse when a seller’s price expectations are above what a buyer is willing to pay. This has been the situation over the past 2 years in both commercial & residential. Most buyers aren’t willing to pay record high pricing, leaving us in a

Thank you Scott Scheel & the Commercial Academy Team! This year I won the award for Platinum Member of the year acknowledging the growth & results of the past several years. Humbled to be acknowledge among many great operators across the U.S. who share their wisdom at these Commercial Academy Events. Commercial Mastermind Take Aways The Wall of Defaults – $1.5 Trillion in commercial real estate debt is due for refinancing by the end of 2026. Much of this debt is upside down: the buildings are worth less than the outstanding mortgage. I see dozens of these deals monthly, many with sellers who have no clear exit. The Coming Interest Rate Reductions – Once Jerome Powell leaves his position with

The Value-Add Playbook: Flipping Commercial Property – Yield on Cost When most people hear “flipping,” they think of residential TV shows—a fast-forward montage of new paint, granite countertops, and a quick sale based on neighborhood comps. In commercial real estate, “flipping” is a different sport entirely. You can’t “flip” a 50,000-square-foot industrial building with fresh paint. The value isn’t based on emotion or comparable sales; it’s based on math. A commercial property’s value is a direct function of its Net Operating Income (NOI). The formula is simple: Value = NOI / Cap Rate. Therefore, to “flip” a commercial property (what we call a “value-add” play), you have only two options: Decrease the market cap rate (mostly out of your control,