Real Estate Development with Darcy Marler

 

Real Estate Development with Darcy Marler

 

Guest: Darcy Marler is a seasoned real estate investor and developer with over two decades of experience in flipping houses, rental properties, land development, and new construction. From an MIT graduate to a successful real estate entrepreneur, Darcy’s journey has been marked by valuable lessons and insights. Passionate about transforming raw land into subdivided lots ready for construction, Darcy specializes in building and flipping houses, duplexes, and small multifamily properties.

 

Big Idea: In this episode, Darcy Marler delves into the transition from fixing and flipping houses to land development and new construction, stressing the need to align real estate strategies with personal preferences. He outlines risk mitigation and profit maximization strategies, emphasizing the substantial benefits of new construction, including higher returns, better tenants, and efficient management. Darcy highlights advantages such as ease of financing and incentives for developers addressing the housing crisis. He underscores opportunities for smaller investors in smaller-scale projects like multifamily units or residential development. Understanding market demand, leveraging financing, and exploring exit strategies are key takeaways for maximizing returns in real estate development.

 

 

    

Dan Breslin: Yeah, absolutely. I was excited by the topic. I think our listeners will be equally as excited. Most of us listening are probably fixing flipping houses. We are interested in buying and selling real estate. We would improve said real estate to get to that profit. And I think that our discussion today around land and development and making that transition will be a very much well-received topic by the audience and by myself today. So Darcy, would you mind giving us the background and the career evolution to getting where you’re at today?

Darcy Marler: Well, a lot of people, I was an actual IT guy way back in the day, about 23 years ago, I got tired of that. So I wanted to get into real estate and I started flipping and doing long term rentals and that led to some land development and construction. The bird, I’ve done all the strategies I’ve owned, had close to a thousand tenants and 240 renovated units, written a couple of books and then yeah. So now I’m doing a bit of everything, but I keep coming back to new. I like new, I like being creative. I like knocking stuff down instead of fixing it up now. [inaudible].

Dan Breslin: So why don’t we start with an example then this could be your first development deal, or you can not do that one. If that one’s not maybe the biggest lesson and maybe you could pick one that came with a really big lesson that helps us expand our vision from single-family fix and flip or buying duplexes that exist to ground up new construction?

Darcy Marler: Yeah, so actually the first one is a perfect one. So I had this 1950s bungalow. I was just going to flip it. The person next to me passed away, so I bought that as well. I said, ” You know what, I’ve always wanted to build. So what does that look like?” Actually I moved both of the old houses off. I didn’t even demolish them. I actually sold them. They got moved off. I split those two lots into four. I made sure all four lots were serviced and then I built four new homes and I loved it. It was exactly what I wanted. So the big thing that I’m all about too is, is not your personality to your strategy. If you’re not enjoying what you’re doing, what’s a better fit. And I love creativity. I love the pride of watching the stuff come out of the ground. I think it’s awesome.

 

This Episode of The REI Diamonds Show is Sponsored by the Deal Machine. This Software Enables Real Estate Investors to Develop a Reliable & Low Cost Source of Off Market Deals. For a Limited Time, You Get Free Access at http://REIDealMachine.com/

 

This Episode is Also Sponsored by the Lending Home. Lending Home Offers Reliable & Low Cost Fix & Flip Loans with Interest Rates as Low as 9.25%.  Buy & Hold Loans Offered Even Lower.  Get a FREE IPad when you Close Your First Deal by Registering Now at  http://REILineOfCredit.com

 

Resources mentioned in this episode:

https://www.hrrealestatementors.com/

 

For Access to Real Estate Deals You Can Buy & Sell for Profit:

https://AccessOffMarketDeals.com/podcast/

 

Darcy Marler & I Discuss Real Estate Development:

  • Budgeting and Risk Management in New Construction (3:31)
  • Philosophies on Holding vs. Selling Properties (10:02)
  • Pre-Selling Land vs. Building Spec Homes (15:54)
  • Identifying Potential Land for Development & Subdividing (18:21)
  • Evaluating Opportunities in Aging Neighborhoods (23:16)
  • Benefits of new construction for rental properties (36:38)
  • Importance of demographics and location in real estate investment (45:36)
  • The significance of partnerships and operational support in real estate ventures (49:48)

 

    

Relevant Episodes: (200+ Content Packed Interviews in Total)

 

The transcript of this episode can be found here.
Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

Inside the Self-Storage Industry with Jacob Vanderslice of Van West Partners

 

Inside the Self-Storage Industry with Jacob Vanderslice of Van West Partners

 

Guest: Jacob Vanderslice is a real estate investor and entrepreneur with over 15 years of experience in the industry. He is the founder of Van West Partners, a real estate investment firm that specializes in self-storage facilities. Jacob has an extensive background in residential fix and flips, multifamily, adaptive reuse retail, and town-owned development, but his passion lies in the self-storage business. Jacob explains the reasoning behind his shift towards storage, the company’s investment philosophy, and how they create value in their facilities.

 

Big Idea:  Real estate investor and entrepreneur Jacob Vanderslice shares his expertise in self-storage investment. Jacob discusses his journey in real estate investing and how his company, Van West Partners, moved from single-family rentals to self-storage investments. He emphasizes the importance of creating value through income streams and optimizing unit mix for maximum revenue. Jacob also talks about his investment philosophy, which centers around value-add investments in growing markets.

 

 

    

 

Daniel: Okay, nice. Yeah, I’m in Chicago. As listeners probably know. Figure maybe we’ll start with the evolution or the reader’s digest version. Maybe a little bit about who Jacob is, but then also VanWest and kind of how your personal career and your business model evolved to the point where they’re at today in 2022.

Jacob: Certainly. Well, it’s all been accidental and I guess unintentional to a degree like most things are. We started investing real estate full-time in about 2006, and we cut our teeth doing lots and lots of residential fix and flips. We did a bunch of rentals. We did buy, fix and sell deals. We did almost probably 1200 of them over a fairly long period. We really started in 06 and kind of kept going in that business until about we had some overlap, but kind of started to quiet it down in about 19 as deal flow constricted and returns kind of went down. So that’s how we cut our teeth. Just buying residential homes at the auctions and fixing them up, making them better, and either running them out or selling them. We’ve also done a fair amount of multi-family adaptive reuse, retail, some for-sale townhome development, and we got in the storage business in 2015. And we looked at storage for a while, and we like the fact that it’s historically downside protected.

It’s got durable recurring revenue streams. It’s scalable, repeatable, defensible. So we researched it for a while and we kind of jumped in head first on our first deal. We did a ground-up development project here in Denver, and then we did a few other development projects locally, and then we opened up the Milwaukee market starting in about 2016 just north of you. We did a handful of deals out there. And over time, I mentioned accidental earlier. Over time, I just kind of evolved to becoming our main line of business. The residential business is great. Fixed and Flips is a great business. But one of the things we didn’t like about it is it was I guess overly transactional, meaning you’re buying, selling over and over and over again. And to make money, you constantly have to be buying a deal, making it better than selling it. And we wanted to shift to a business that was more cash flow focused versus a quick reversion focused. And that’s why we landed on storage. And through today, we’ve got 38 storage facilities, about 275 million in asset center management all over the country, Midwest, southeast, south, got some stuff in Denver, and we’re buying more and we’re building more.

 

This Episode of The REI Diamonds Show is Sponsored by the Deal Machine. This Software Enables Real Estate Investors to Develop a Reliable & Low Cost Source of Off Market Deals. For a Limited Time, You Get Free Access at http://REIDealMachine.com/

 

This Episode is Also Sponsored by the Lending Home. Lending Home Offers Reliable & Low Cost Fix & Flip Loans with Interest Rates as Low as 9.25%.  Buy & Hold Loans Offered Even Lower.  Get a FREE IPad when you Close Your First Deal by Registering Now at  http://REILineOfCredit.com

 

Resources mentioned in this episode:

www.VanWestPartners.com

 

For Access to Real Estate Deals You Can Buy & Sell for Profit:

https://AccessOffMarketDeals.com/podcast/

 

Jacob Vanderslice & I Discuss the Self-Storage Industry:

  • The evolution of Van West Partners’ investment strategy

  • The state of the US real estate market and the impact of COVID-19

  • The role of technology in the real estate industry

  • The potential impact of government policies on the market

  • The outlook for the real estate market in the near future

    

Relevant Episodes: (There are 219 Content Packed Interviews in Total)

 

The transcript of this episode can be found here.
Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

Maximizing Asset Protection and Tax Savings with Scott Royal Smith

 

Maximizing Asset Protection and Tax Savings with Scott Royal Smith

 

Guest: Scott Royal Smith is a real estate investor, attorney, and founder of Royal Legal Solutions. He shares his background in real estate and law, and how he scaled his wealth through strategic planning and asset protection. He believes in educating people and forming relationships to help them leverage their assets to build wealth.

 

Big Idea: Scott Royal Smith shares his expertise on cost-effective legal structures for real estate investing and tax strategies for asset protection. He presents a practical system involving creating a series of LLCs and a Land Trust to hold assets, which provides effective asset protection and can help minimize maintenance costs. Scott’s insights offer valuable perspectives on how to reduce risk, minimize costs, and ultimately build wealth in real estate investing.

 

 

    

 

Dan: Nice. Scott, so for listeners, would you mind giving us maybe the reader’s digest version of the evolution of your business real estate and law career and then sort of what the business model is today?

Scott: Yeah and so my company is Royal legal Solutions but I got started in real estate when I was in law school. I bought a commercial property and auto repair and transmission repair shop for the back taxes. And I end up flipping the business in the building upon graduating to graduate from law school without any debt. And I thought that was going to be a hotshot litigation attorney. So I took a job suing insurance companies in a law firm. Turns out insurance company’s business model is collecting premiums and denying coverage, especially when things get expensive. And then that’s what attorneys does, they sue them whenever they do that. So, get first-hand experience about how does the whole game of insurance really work and how it’s important for us to have insurance, but also have additional protection in place.

But the whole time while I was working as an attorney there, I continued by real estate and I scaled my own real estate portfolio until I was making more money doing real estate and I was being an attorney. It took me about like a year and a half. I wasn’t sleeping a whole lot at those times in my life, and I didn’t need a lot of money, right? I wasn’t married, didn’t have kids and I was like, hey man, I’ve hit it. I’ve hit my financial freedom. I was like I’m golden, but then I ran into the problem and I think a lot of people run into which is like wait shouldn’t I be structuring this inside of like LLCs and should I be using any of trust to hold my assets and my company’s anonymously? And what should I be doing with all of my taxes and my estate planning, and my insurance? And why do I want to be doing all that? How’s that all suppose to work?

So, I did what everybody does and I was like, well, I’ll try to read the books and I’ll try to contact professionals. And so I did all of that, and I realized that nobody really have a complete system we’d put together. So I had to put one together for my own. So I built my own team of people because I was like, well, I want, I had the financial freedom but I wanted the time freedom. And the only way I can get there is if I built a team. If I studied for myself to understand how to do it for myself and then built a team of people that do it for me on basically managing my wealth for me.

It was great, I finally had everything that I wanted and I was traveling a ton and living a great life. And as I came back in living inside the states, a lot of my friends real estate Investors and asked me like hey man, how are you doing? What is he doing? How are you living this lifestyle? What is going on right now? And it’s like, well, here’s what I built. And this is how it all works. And they’re like, well, can I get in on that? Can you take on more people and help me build this thing? So I was just kind of helping people out, getting them into the things that I’d figured out for myself. And eventually when I was like, hey, you should go in this BiggerPockets podcast and go just share with people about asset protection. It’s one part of whether it’s some of the stuff you know. And I didn’t think anything was going to come of it. So I gave up my personal email and phone number into it.

And what happened was I was getting 30 to 40 phone calls a week from investors all over the country. They were like, hey man, I really need help on asset protection and how all these other pieces are supposed to put together. So then that’s where I realized that whatever you want to call, that higher power in life was really tapping me on the shoulder and says, hey, this isn’t all about just hanging out on the beaches and have a good time. You need to be of service to other people, help them be able to walk the path that you’ve walked and get them to that place of being secure and having the true freedom and protection in place for keeping what they’ve work so hard to be able to build. And that’s Royal legal Solutions is now turning and I, we serve all 50 states, we have over 2,000 clients that we’ve helped that are Real Estate Investors and we have about 30 people of attorneys, CPAs, paralegals and support staff.

 

This Episode is Also Sponsored by the Lending Home. Lending Home Offers Reliable & Low Cost Fix & Flip Loans with Interest Rates as Low as 9.25%.  Buy & Hold Loans Offered Even Lower.  Get a FREE IPad when you Close Your First Deal by Registering Now at  http://REILineOfCredit.com

 

Resources mentioned in this episode:

https://RoyalLegalSolutions.com/

 

For Access to Real Estate Deals You Can Buy & Sell for Profit:

https://AccessOffMarketDeals.com/podcast/

 

Scott & I Discuss:

  • Leveraging LLCs for asset protection

  • Land Trusts to hold assets

  • Private Foundations for tax savings

  • Strategic planning for building net worth

    

Relevant Episodes: (There are 220 Content Packed Interviews in Total)

 

The transcript of this episode can be found here.
Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

The Future of Commercial Real Estate Investing in Major Cities with James Nelson

 

The Future of Commercial Real Estate Investing in Major Cities with James Nelson

 

Guest: James Nelson is an industry expert in commercial real estate with over 20 years of experience. He is a Principal and Head of Tri-State Investment Sales at Avison Young, one of the world’s fastest-growing commercial real estate services firms.

 

Big Idea: In this podcast, James Nelson shares valuable insights into investing in commercial real estate in major cities like New York and Chicago. He discusses the challenges and benefits of doing business in these cities, the importance of thorough due diligence, and the potential for value-add opportunities in “tired” assets. Nelson also emphasizes the significance of location in real estate investing and provides guidance on navigating current challenges in the industry, such as the shift towards e-commerce and the need for more flexible office spaces.

 

 

    

 

Dan: So I was going to make a little bit of a perception of the New York real estate market from around the country, right? Oh, it’s overpriced, it’s outrageous. The price of land in Manhattan and those kind of things that we all hear around the country, it’s like, who could ever buy anything in New York, anywhere in the city and be successful at the way the prices are? So that was growing up in Philadelphia, James, so that’s my perception, right? We would get the New York buyers who would come down and see Philadelphia as just like discount bargain just pay cash for it. Who needs a mortgage kind of a market. Well, when I got to Chicago, Chicago had a similar, very priced out type of feel to it coming from Philadelphia. And long behold, it does work and you can’t make money.

Sometimes those high price points offer things like high commissions and high profit spreads and 8,9,10%, or even 3 or 4% appreciation on a larger number is larger numbers at the end of the day as well. So I’ve gotten more comfortable with the higher price points myself personally. And I’m curious, as we kind of get into today’s show, I imagine cut your teeth in the New York market, and it’s a high price point market we all know that. I’m excited to kind of hear today’s show with that frame, if you will.

James: Sure, yeah. New York certainly is a place to live. It is very expensive. So a studio apartment here is $3,000 a month. The median apartment sells for, I think it’s 1,000,00.

Dan: Wow.

James: So yes, it is certainly expensive. When you’re looking to buy here on the commercial side yes, the barriers of entry are high because there is global demand looking to purchase properties here in New York, when we talk commercial, I’m talking multi-family with five or more units. I’m talking retail, office development, industrial, and there’s only about in Manhattan about five or 600 of those sales that happen a year. So there’s always this supply demand imbalance. And so the New York terms here are very challenging, especially for kind of the first time investor because most of our deals are signed with a 10% hard deposit due diligence done prior to contract signing. So that’s pretty daunting to jump in and have to put in hard money day one, really tough when you’re buyer, but when you’re looking to turn around and sell again, the market is liquid. So there are challenges to break into this, but once you’ve been able to secure an investment, if your business plan is to resell, you’re going to have a much easier time exiting when the time is right.

 

This Episode is Also Sponsored by the Lending Home. Lending Home Offers Reliable & Low Cost Fix & Flip Loans with Interest Rates as Low as 9.25%.  Buy & Hold Loans Offered Even Lower.  Get a FREE IPad when you Close Your First Deal by Registering Now at  http://REILineOfCredit.com

 

Resources mentioned in this episode:

https://JamesNelson.com/

 

For Access to Real Estate Deals You Can Buy & Sell for Profit:

https://AccessOffMarketDeals.com/podcast/

 

James & I Discuss:

  • The challenges and benefits of investing in commercial real estate in major cities

  • The importance of thorough due diligence in real estate investing

  • The potential for value-add opportunities in “tired” assets

  • The significance of location in real estate investing

  • Navigating current challenges in the industry, such as the shift towards e-commerce and the need for more flexible office spaces

    

Relevant Episodes: (There are 218 Content Packed Interviews in Total)

 

The transcript of this episode can be found here.
Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

Revolutionizing the Apartment Industry: Mike Kaeding on Disruption, Inclusive Investing and Company Culture

 

Revolutionizing the Apartment Industry: Mike Kaeding on Disruption, Inclusive Investing and Company Culture

 

Guest: Mike Kaeding is the CEO of Norhart, a company designing, building, and renting apartments. Mike and his team are transforming the way apartments are built and managed, incorporating technologies and efficiencies from other industries. After his father’s passing, Mike took the reins of the family business and found success by changing the way construction is done, hiring the best talent and solving chronic construction inefficiencies. Through this process, he has been able to provide cost-effective projects to solve America’s housing shortage and improve the way we all live.

 

Big Idea: Mike Kaeding, CEO of Norhart, is revolutionizing the construction industry by creating an attractive company culture, solving chronic construction inefficiencies, and integrating traditionally unaffiliated trades to achieve higher quality, more cost-effective projects. His mission is to solve America’s housing shortage by transforming the way apartments are built and managed, ultimately improving the way we all live. Inclusive RE Investing is one way that Norhart is paving the way for the future of construction disruption.

 

 

    

Dan: Mike, I did the research, the listeners did not, before today’s episode, do you want to kind of give the brief Reader’s Digest version of your business model and maybe how it evolved to that point in some of your story about how you got there?

Mike: Yeah, I would be happy to do so. At a high level, we design, build and rent apartments, but we’re really focused on solving the cost of housing. And we’re doing that by transforming the way construction is done. We’re already achieving about a 20 to 30% reduction in construction costs, and we believe we can achieve a 50% reduction. But imagine what that means. It means someday your rent could be half or your mortgage payment could be half. And that’s the kind of impact that we want to make. We want to solve America’s housing affordability crisis. Now didn’t always start out that way, we were very small. My parents started the business. They built just small eight unit apartment buildings at the time. In fact, I can remember family outings where we drove off to the local hardware store about a half an hour away.

My brother and I, my mom and dad, we each fill up two carts full of supplies, then filled it at my dad’s trailer as we’re driving down the highway to go work on our building a little bit more. So summers, we’re often working on these small buildings with my family, winter season we’d be in school. So it was very much ingrained in my life and then went after college. But I wanted nothing to do with the family business. It was very small, but I wanted nothing to do with it. And the reason is, deep down, I didn’t want people to think it was given to me. So I really wrestled with my own ego on that and eventually realized that really what I wanted to do was try to make some kind of meaningful, positive impact on the world.

And I started to see that I could take this small business and grow it in something larger, but we can have a wider impact in the world. And so I jumped in with my dad and my dad and I doubled the size of the company in the first few years. And then overnight he passed away. And so at this stage it was horrible. It was a horrible experience. And this stage ended up taking over the company entirely. And since then, we’ve just started to make changes. And now looking back, that was sort of the magic because we didn’t know what we were doing and there’s a lot of pain in that. But we also didn’t know the way things were supposed to be done and we can start changing the way things were done as a result. And we started to have some decent impact. And today we’re at about a 200 million valuation and producing about 500 units a year. And we’ve been doubling in size almost every year.

 

This Episode is Also Sponsored by the Lending Home. Lending Home Offers Reliable & Low Cost Fix & Flip Loans with Interest Rates as Low as 9.25%.  Buy & Hold Loans Offered Even Lower.  Get a FREE IPad when you Close Your First Deal by Registering Now at  http://REILineOfCredit.com

 

Resources mentioned in this episode:

https://www.Norhart.com/invest/

 

For Access to Real Estate Deals You Can Buy & Sell for Profit:

https://AccessOffMarketDeals.com/podcast/

 

Mike & I Discuss:

  • Company Culture & Construction Disruption: How Norhart’s Unique Culture Revolutionized Construction

  • Housing Shortage: Solving America’s Growing Housing Crisis

  • Overcoming Leadership Challenges

  • Integrating Traditionally Unaffiliated Trades

    

Relevant Episodes: (There are 217 Content Packed Interviews in Total)

 

The transcript of this episode can be found here.
Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

Dani Beit-or: Leveraging Repetition and Reinforcement in Real Estate Investments

 

Dani Beit-or: Leveraging Repetition and Reinforcement in Real Estate Investments

 

Guest: Dani is a 20-year real estate investing veteran with extensive experience in the US market. He has collaborated on nearly 5,000 transactions since 2004 and has helped hundreds of investors cultivate robust property portfolios across a variety of metropolitan areas. Dani’s investment strategies have been refined from his experience during the 2008 market downturn, and he now leverages his expertise to help investors at all levels, from novices to seasoned professionals, optimize their real estate investments.

 

Big Idea: Dani Beit-or shares his 20+ years of experience as a real estate investor. He discusses the need to have each property standalone and pay its own expenses, the power of repetition and reinforcement and the kindness of those in the real estate industry in helping one another. Additionally, Dani explains how he uses his real estate investments as a 401K. This podcast is an invaluable source of advice for anyone looking to venture into real estate investing.

 

 

    

Dan: Cool. So I’m here in Chicago, listeners know I’m back from Florida, spent the winter there. It was pretty cool. I wish I was still there because it’s not quite done being winter in Chicago yet. But one of the things most of the listeners probably know, I think we were talking about before the show started, so I buy, sell. Buy, fixi and sell, I own rentals, and I do that in Philadelphia, originally. I moved to Chicago in 2015, so I could be near my daughter who was heading into late middle school at the time. So I was like, oh, it’s now or never. She’s back in Philly now at college. I’m still in Chicago. That’s how I ended up in Chicago. And then I met someone who we opened up the Atlanta market and we did a lot around the country.

And I say all that as kind of a setup, Dani. I never would’ve probably left my backyard in Philadelphia because flipping houses, making money. I know the market, the brand, people know me, they’re bringing me deals, my contractors are there, my money partners are there. And I was afraid that when I left, the whole thing would crumble when we would go away now. And I was okay with that if that happened when I got to Chicago, but grace of God, the business grew and things continued in all three areas. So that was my catalyst for looking around the United States at other real estate markets. And we’re now eight years later and I feel like the thing that’s most exciting to me right now is market selection and paying attention to the nuances of this huge variety of markets throughout the United States.

I guess I need the challenge of having to underwrite new markets. But I think it was really cool because I was able to see a market like Atlanta. Seeing like, let’s say 8% to 10% or 12% appreciation for several years. And then a market like Chicago, which maybe it had 3% or 4% and probably a 10% bump during COVID or something like that and there’s opportunities in each of those markets. But I would imagine for buy and hold investors, and I’ll allow you to encapsulate your business model here in a moment, but for buy and hold investors, I’m getting in getting out in a 12-month period or less. So it doesn’t matter how much the appreciation is unless it’s significantly negative one year. But to a buy-and-hold passive investor probably has another career or has a lot of rental properties. That appreciation component’s going to significantly drive or hinder the total IRR. So with that setup, I’ll pass it to allow you to describe what you do in the evolution of your business model.

 

This Episode is Also Sponsored by the Lending Home. Lending Home Offers Reliable & Low Cost Fix & Flip Loans with Interest Rates as Low as 9.25%.  Buy & Hold Loans Offered Even Lower.  Get a FREE IPad when you Close Your First Deal by Registering Now at  http://REILineOfCredit.com

 

Resources mentioned in this episode:

https://SimplyDoIt.net/

 

For Access to Real Estate Deals You Can Buy & Sell for Profit:

https://AccessOffMarketDeals.com/podcast/

 

Dani & I Discuss:

  • Making each property standalone and pay its own expenses

  • The power of repetition and reinforcement

  • Using real estate investments as a 401K

  • Selecting the Best Markets to Invest-No Matter Where You Live

    

Relevant Episodes: (There are 216 Content Packed Interviews in Total)

 

The transcript of this episode can be found here.
Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

The Power of Self-Belief with Ben Reinberg

 

The Power of Self-Belief with Ben Reinberg

 

Guest: Ben Reinberg started building his commercial real estate empire at 24 years old with nothing but shoe leather and a lot of hustle. Today he owns over $500 million dollars in assets across the country and shares his wealth-building, commercial real estate investing, self-improvement and leadership insights and knowledge with his audience around the world.

 

Big Idea: Ben Reinberg talks about his journey from Chicago to California, his successful career in real estate, launching his personal brand and podcast, and the business model of Alliance, his company. He emphasizes the importance of becoming the best version of oneself, investing in oneself, having confidence in oneself, and having mentors. He shares his advice on how to develop the ability to create, the importance of mental and physical health, and his two recommended books that have had a major impact on his life. Ben also shares his advice to those starting out in commercial real estate, and how his podcast is an opportunity for him to give back and add value to listeners.

 

 

    

Dan Breslin: All right, Ben, welcome to the REI Diamond Show. How are you doing?

Ben Reinberg: Good. Thank you for having me, Dan. I really appreciate it. It’s a pleasure to be here today and we’re starting to get some great weather in Southern California, so I’m very grateful for that. But everything else is good and appreciate you having me on your show.

Dan: Yeah, for sure. For context, for the listeners, I think we were talking about you leaving Chicago and me moving to Chicago from another state. What was it that drove you to go to California? Was it the weather of the environment, or something else?

Ben: It was part of it. Part of Chicago, my heart is always in Chicago and I am a Chicago kid. I lived there for 52 years and I was actually commuting back and forth from California to Chicago for a year and a half.

Dan: Oh, wow.

Ben: My kids, I have two kids in college at USC, one just graduated and my daughter’s at Dana Hills High School as well, and then my spouse is here as well. What I realized was I had a choice. When we first looked at where to move, I wanted to move to Texas or Florida on the other side. My family said, “Well, everyone’s out here.” My wife’s family was out here too, so it just made a lot of sense to move to California. The climate in Chicago, the rules and ordinances, and the way they handled the pandemic to the amount of violence in Chicago now, where I’ve walked the streets of Michigan Avenue for years and I see security guards, armed security guards, three four of them in a store up and down Michigan Avenue.

I just realized that this is not the place where I was born and raised and grew my business and it was time to make a change. I’m sad to say that it breaks my heart to say that. Chicago is near and dear, and I go back because my headquarters for my company Alliance is in Chicago so I go back. It’s a treat for me to go back, but I don’t miss it like I thought I would. It’s interesting how my mindset has changed. I really gravitated to California. I live in the Orange County area. I love it. The networking’s great. The people are wonderful here. The people in Chicago are wonderful too, don’t get me wrong. But it made a lot of sense to come out here, especially with launching my personal brand, which is growing rapidly.

My podcast is growing rapidly and it made a lot of sense as I get older I’ve been in this business, Dan, for over 28 years, and it just gets to a point where I was waking up and it was gray and dark when I woke up and it was gray and dark when I went home from the office in Chicago. I missed the food, I missed the people. I definitely missed my sports teams. But at the end of the day, it was a really healthy change for me to be in California. So I’m very grateful to be here.

 

This Episode is Also Sponsored by the Lending Home. Lending Home Offers Reliable & Low Cost Fix & Flip Loans with Interest Rates as Low as 9.25%.  Buy & Hold Loans Offered Even Lower.  Get a FREE IPad when you Close Your First Deal by Registering Now at  http://REILineOfCredit.com

 

Resources mentioned in this episode:

https://AllianceCGC.com

 

For Access to Real Estate Deals You Can Buy & Sell for Profit:

https://AccessOffMarketDeals.com/podcast/

 

Ben & I Discuss:

  • The Value of Self-Belief in Investing

  • Importance of Mental and Physical Health

  • The Significance of Mentorship

    

Relevant Episodes: (There are 215 Content Packed Interviews in Total)

 

The transcript of this episode can be found here.
Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

Dave Wolcott: Helping Entrepreneurs Protect and Multiply Their Wealth Through the Pantheon Holistic Wealth Strategy

 

Dave Wolcott: Helping Entrepreneurs Protect and Multiply Their Wealth Through the Pantheon Holistic Wealth Strategy

 

Guest:  Dave Wolcott is the Founder and CEO of Pantheon Investments.  After serving the country as a Captain in the Marine Corps, Dave and his wife hit the baby lottery-having triplets.  This inspired Dave to challenge the traditional financial planning advice of Wall Street.   Over the past 20 years Dave has founded several business, invested in alternative assets and created The Pantheon Holistic Wealth Strategy: the playbook to becoming ultra wealthy and having freedom of time, money & relationship.

 

Big Idea: Dave & I discuss building wealth by passively investing in superior real estate and alternative assets that provide predictable cash flow, tax efficiency, and upside potential as a reliable alternative to the volatility of the stock market.

 

 

    

Dan Breslin: Today’s guest, Dave Wolcott, is the founder and CEO of Pantheon Investments. After serving the country as a captain in the Marine Corps, Dave and his wife hit the baby lottery having triplets. This inspired Dave to challenge the traditional financial planning advice of Wall Street. Over the past twenty years, Dave has founded several businesses and invested in alternative assets while also creating the Pantheon Holistic Wealth Strategy, the playbook, to becoming ultra-wealthy and having freedom of time money and relationship.

Today, Dave and I discussed building wealth by passively investing in superior real estate and alternative assets that provide predictable cash flow, tax efficiency, and upside potential as a reliable alternative to the volatility of the stock market. Two areas of focus today are oil and gas investing which can generate humongous year 1 tax write-offs and the infinite banking strategy which you may or may not have heard of which is the method of recycling your investment dollar to make it work, at least, twice for every deployment.

 

Dave: Dan, we quadrupled the size of our family. If you could just imagine that. I know you have kids. You just think about what that does to you.

The first thing I did was have a drink. The second thing I did was go and see my financial advisor and said like, “Hey, how am I going to do this? How am I going to really provide for my family, create this financial security that I really need to?” You just move the goalpost 1 mile down the field. It was at that point in time that it really dawned on me that the top 1% were not building their wealth [inaudible], alternative investments, different things.

I launched down this kind of obsessive path to figure out how the top 1% are building their wealth. I started investing in alternative assets, everything from oil and gas to raw land to office space to retail, multifamily. You name it. I also became a business owner. I created a tech consulting company which I took full cycle and exited. Running a business, I learned a lot of things including taxes and creating a proper tax strategy.

Fast forward twenty years, I wrote my book called the Holistic Wealth Strategy which is really an encapsulation of my learnings over the past twenty years to try to really create this comprehensive system of how can you build your wealth outside of Wall Street and investing directly in Main Street and having this comprehensive system that truly can multiply your wealth as well as protect it?

This Episode of The REI Diamonds Show is Sponsored by the Deal Machine. This Software Enables Real Estate Investors to Develop a Reliable & Low Cost Source of Off Market Deals. For a Limited Time, You Get Free Access at http://REIDealMachine.com/

 

This Episode is Also Sponsored by the Lending Home. Lending Home Offers Reliable & Low Cost Fix & Flip Loans with Interest Rates as Low as 9.25%.  Buy & Hold Loans Offered Even Lower.  Get a FREE IPad when you Close Your First Deal by Registering Now at  http://REILineOfCredit.com

 

Resources mentioned in this episode:

https://PantheonInvest.com/

 

For Access to Real Estate Deals You Can Buy & Sell for Profit:

https://AccessOffMarketDeals.com/podcast/

 

Dave & I Discuss:

  • Achieving exponential wealth with the Holistic Wealth Strategy a 5 Phase Approach 

  •  How to offset Active income with oil & gas investing 

  • Creating a tax-efficient liquidity foundation with infinite banking 

  • Take back control by exiting your 401k 

  • Repositioning assets for maximum velocity and downside protection 

  • Creating a vision to achieve freedom of money, purpose, time, and relationship

    

Relevant Episodes: (There are 214 Content Packed Interviews in Total)

 

The transcript of this episode can be found here.
Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

Tom Dunkel: Strategies to Build Wealth Through Alternative Assets

 

Tom Dunkel: Strategies to Build Wealth Through Alternative Assets

 

Guest:  Tom Dunkel is an experienced entrepreneur and corporate finance leader who specializes in value-add self-storage investments, distressed mortgage note investing/dealing, private lending, and private investing in multi-family and self-storage properties.

 

Big Idea: Tom Dunkel is an experienced alternative asset investor who has completed over $40MM of transactions in fragmented, dislocated markets such as distressed debt and self-storage. He has over 25 years of real estate and investing experience, including $1.2B of middle-market M&A and financing transaction experience. Tom is passionate about helping alternative investors build wealth while improving communities through disciplined real estate investment initiatives.

 

 

    

Dan Breslin: Tom is an experienced entrepreneur and corporate finance leader who specializes in value add self-storage investments, distressed mortgage note investing in dealing private lending, and private investing in multi-family and self-storage properties. Today, Tom and I are going to discuss this $40 million plus of transactions in fragmented dislocated markets, such as distressed debt and self-storage. Tom also has over 25 years of real estate experience and investing experience, including $1.2 billion of middle market M&A and financing transaction experience.

We’re going to discuss the internetization. Yes, I made that word up. The internetization of real estate as a trend, especially pertaining to the self-storage real estate industry. We’re also going to touch on market selection and of course generating high passive returns. Let’s begin. Hi, welcome to the REI Diamond Show Tom, how you doing today?

Tom: Doing great, Dan. It’s great to be with you. It’s been a long time.

Dan: Yeah, for sure, so for listeners, Tom and I go back to the early days, probably 2006, when we were both dipping our foot into the Philadelphia Regional Real Estate Networking meetings.

Tom: That’s right.

Dan: What a path since then, right Tom?

Tom: I know, man. It’s been quite a wild ride, but I wouldn’t change it for the world. I know about you. It’s been a lot of fun.

 

This Episode of The REI Diamonds Show is Sponsored by the Deal Machine. This Software Enables Real Estate Investors to Develop a Reliable & Low Cost Source of Off Market Deals. For a Limited Time, You Get Free Access at http://REIDealMachine.com/

 

This Episode is Also Sponsored by the Lending Home. Lending Home Offers Reliable & Low Cost Fix & Flip Loans with Interest Rates as Low as 9.25%.  Buy & Hold Loans Offered Even Lower.  Get a FREE IPad when you Close Your First Deal by Registering Now at  http://REILineOfCredit.com

 

Resources mentioned in this episode:

www.BelroseStorageGroup.com

 

For Access to Real Estate Deals You Can Buy & Sell for Profit:

https://AccessOffMarketDeals.com/podcast/

 

Tom & I Discuss Real Estate Development:

  • Pitfalls for High-net-worth Investors and How to Avoid Them

  • What are the Hidden Risks for Self-Storage Investors

  • Why should I Consider Participating in an Equity Syndication

    

Relevant Episodes: (There are 213 Content Packed Interviews in Total)

 

The transcript of this episode can be found here.
Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

Real Estate Development with Karl Krauskopf

 

Real Estate Development with Karl Krauskopf

 

Guest: Karl Krauskopf is a multi family real estate investor and developer based in Seattle, Washington. He is the managing partner of Auroras Investment Group.

Big Idea: Real Estate development, specifically the entitlement process can produce large gains without the risk of construction. Flipping houses is a great place to start in real estate, but can be challenging to scale. This is why many real estate developers progress to development of land and larger projects after finding success in single family homes.

 

 

    

 

Dan Breslin: Welcome to the REI Diamond Show. I’m your host, Dan Breslin, and this is episode 209 on real estate development with Karl Krauskopf. Karl is a multi-family real estate investor and developer based in Seattle, Washington. He is the managing partner of Aurora’s Investment Group. Real estate development, specifically the entitlement process, can produce large gains without the risk of construction. Flipping houses is a great place to start in real estate, but it can be challenging to scale, which is why many real estate developers progress to the development of land and larger projects after finding success in single family homes. On this episode, Karl and I discussed this as his recent or past transition to larger deals and the same transition that I am currently going through myself.

Karl: Sure. Happily. So, how I got into real estate was probably a little bit different from most folks. I got into real estate. That was 10 years back, I was a veteran and working in the healthcare industry. I was a director of corporate strategy and business development. So, that is where my passion lies, which is really around growth partnerships. How do we basically, how do we grow an entity of business?

And what ended up coming to fruition and what bore the real estate endeavour was my wife and I going into a conversation about wanting to start a family, wanting to have a kid, and what better way to start a side business, which would become my future business, is having a kid. So, spent about six months during my wife’s being pregnant, self-educating myself, really learning how to maximise my income, as well as getting into diversifying my income by adding additional streams of revenue. Decided it was time to take the first leap, which was buying a duplex, a remote duplex across the state from me, and with full intentions of rehabbing, refinancing it, and repeating it. Come to find out that I was not the right asset for that. And now I just spent about $75,000, the majority of my at that time, disposable income in putting it, parking it into a duplex that had no direct path for the refinance. So, I started sweating. I was nervous, didn’t know what to do. We were about to have a baby. So I figured what’s the best next step? Well, the best next step, apparently at the time was to flip a massive home. My first flip ever, it was a hoarder home too. Fantastic idea, right? No, it was awesome. I believe it was four dumpsters’ worth, 440-yard dumpsters’ worth, of junk that we took out of this home. All this direct to say back is, I’m working a 40, 50 hour a week job as well as we just had our newborn, and apparently I’m a glutton for punishment.

 

This Episode of The REI Diamonds Show is Sponsored by the Deal Machine. This Software Enables Real Estate Investors to Develop a Reliable & Low Cost Source of Off Market Deals. For a Limited Time, You Get Free Access at http://REIDealMachine.com/

 

This Episode is Also Sponsored by the Lending Home. Lending Home Offers Reliable & Low Cost Fix & Flip Loans with Interest Rates as Low as 9.25%.  Buy & Hold Loans Offered Even Lower.  Get a FREE IPad when you Close Your First Deal by Registering Now at  http://REILineOfCredit.com

 

Resources mentioned in this episode:

www.AurorasInvestmentGroup.com/

 

For Access to Real Estate Deals You Can Buy & Sell for Profit:

https://AccessOffMarketDeals.com/podcast/

 

Karl & I Discuss Real Estate Development:

  • Entitlement Process-Real Estate Development

  • Finding Mentors doing Larger Deals

  • “Covered Land” play-teardown deals

  • The Microsoft Real Estate Market-Seattle, Washington

    

Relevant Episodes: (There are 209 Content Packed Interviews in Total)

 

The transcript of this episode can be found here.
Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.