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

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,

The True Value of Commercial Real Estate – The Net Operating Income In the world of investing, assets are valued on a spectrum between pure emotion and pure math. On one end, you have assets like fine art or classic cars, where value is almost entirely subjective. On the other, you have commercial real estate (CRE). While a “trophy” property might have some emotional pull, the true value of an income-producing property like a retail center or industrial warehouse is driven by one thing: its Net Operating Income (NOI). The NOI is the engine of the property. It is the total income generated (rents, etc.) minus all operating expenses (taxes, insurance, maintenance). This simple number dictates what an investor is

Are Diamonds Discovered? Or Built? As real estate investors & developers, we are always on the hunt for that next “diamond in the rough.”  But what if the most valuable diamonds aren’t found? What if they’re made? That’s the difference between a standard investor and an investor with a developer’s vision. An investor with “Developer’s Vision” creates the Best Deal Possible. It’s the ability to look at an empty lot, an outdated motel, or an underperforming property and see not just what is, but what could be. It’s a strategic foresight that goes far beyond blueprints and budgets; it’s about identifying an unmet need in the market and having the courage to build the solution. This vision is the engine