Category: <![CDATA[Podcast]]>

Everyone wants to be right all the time. We have so many preconceived notions running through our heads at all times, and we always think that we’re the ones standing on the right side of history. What if that train of thought was secretly pushing you to failure, or even death? Adam Grant argues this point in his book Think Again.

Adam hypothesizes that the main reason so many businesses, relationships, and experiments fail is because those in them tend to be locked in on one view. How many times have you been in a fight with your partner where you realize you may be wrong, but also realize it would be worse to back down from your original stance?

This is how businesses like Blockbuster and Blackberry slowly faded away while the likes of Apple and Microsoft flourished. Adam talks through some of the best (and worst) moments in business history when companies thought they were too big to fall. The same goes for political candidates, social movements, and almost any other type of human-to-human interaction. The one way you can be sure you’re coming out with the right conclusion? Think like a scientist! 

Alan Corey has had an interesting career to say the least. He’s been an IT worker, a comedian, an author, a real estate investor, and even a reality TV star. Alan has always been fascinated with making passive income in a frugal, but very intelligent way. He’s so frugal in fact, that he made up a crazy story to be on the Jerry Springer show, just to get a free trip to Chicago out of it. Talk about being committed!

Alan’s real estate story starts off with buying a 1 bedroom apartment in Brooklyn, New York, hanging up a curtain in the living room, and house hacking. He then repeated this strategy over and over again, becoming a millionaire before 30 years old, with a lot of property and “good debt”. Alan is part of the FIRE (financial independence retire early) community, but instead of investing mainly in stocks, he does so in real estate.

His strategy is simple: buy a rental property for every bill you have, then start inventing “fun bills” as excuses to buy more rental property. Whether you’re looking to pay off your phone bill every month, or finance your brand new Tesla, this strategy will work for you. Alan also “hides money from himself” so he can be better off in the future. Right now he’s sitting on around $8,000,000 of real estate solely from his own investments.

His new book House FIRE teaches you everything you need to know about retiring early with real estate!

If you don’t feel amped up to accomplish your goals, you definitely will after this episode. Today we talk to real estate agent, entrepreneur, author, and Million Dollar Listing New York star, Ryan Serhant. You’ve probably seen Ryan selling ridiculously nice (and expensive) homes on TV, but today you’ll be the private audience to hear his backstory, his work ethic, and how he developed his big confidence.

Ryan moved to New York to become the next big star in theatre, but after seeing the financial position of those “successful” actors he looked up to, he made a pivot. Ryan got his real estate license and started listing apartments to pay his bills, but was given a golden opportunity when an foreign buyer specifically chose him to find her next multi-million dollar home in New York City. Ryan still remembers the lack of confidence he felt when he got the listing, and knew the only thing to do was educate himself and practice his pitch. Long story short, he helped the buyer find her dream home, and the rest is history.

You’ll hear Ryan talk about the importance of confidence, not only in this podcast, but in his new book Big Money Energy. Brandon and David both agree with Ryan on how important, and often undervalued, having confidence is. Not just confidence in your work, but confidence that you’ll be able to accomplish the most challenging tasks you set for yourself!

Many, many people give up on real estate after just one bad deal, one bad tenant, or one bad flip. But what if you lost all you had from real estate deals, would you still be willing to bet on real estate? What if you lost it all twice? Welby Accely, has been in that position. He lost all he had, two separate times through dicey real estate deals. He never did give up on real estate, and now he’s sitting on 50 rentals and over 70 completed flips.

Welby grew up in Brooklyn, and knew that his godfather was doing well in real estate, so when he got older, he decided to give it a shot. He invested in a multifamily deal in Atlanta, overleveraged himself, and had it foreclosed on him. A few years later, he had another Atlanta property taken from home. Welby was wiped out. He got scammed, lied to, and dove in too deep a couple times.

After these tough experiences, he knew he had to do whatever he could to make sure his due diligence was top notch. He was later told about Connecticut, and decided to take some serious time exploring the market, building relationships, and networking. Then, he started flipping. 1 house a year, 2 houses a year, then 15 houses a year, and now 20 houses a year.

Now, Welby takes young and aspiring real estate investors on “ride alongs” so they can see exactly what it’s like to be a real estate investor!

We often have famous guests come on the BiggerPockets podcast and talk about their deals, their businesses, and their journey. Today you’ll hear from one of the biggest real estate celebrities, Brandon Turner, as he goes through the 90-day challenge, preparing you to buy your first (or next) real estate deal in the next 90 days.

You’ll hear Brandon’s story on why he went into real estate, how he grew his portfolio, and the exact steps he took to reach financial freedom and grow his portfolio to over 1,000 units! We’ll go through developing a real estate strategy, picking a niche, finding your “why”, finding a deal, marketing, financing, and calculating a real deal live on the (pre-recorded) webinar!

This is the hand-down best place to start as a newbie investor or an investor who just wants to grab some more deals in the next 90 days. These actionable steps have helped hundreds of investors across the BiggerPockets forums, and can help make you a successful real estate investor sooner!

Some would call Terrance Doyle a “baller”. Not because he’s done hundreds of millions of dollars in real estate transactions, or because he has done over 600 flips, or because he helps lead the Tribe of Multifamily Mentors. Terrance played college basketball, which grew into working as an NBA sports agent, garnering him access to famous coaches, players, and executives.

Terrance and a couple of his college teammates started a franchise after college, and needed somewhere to park cash. Another teammate helped Terrance buy a foreclosure at a public trustee sale, which he flipped for a sizable profit. This is when he knew that the real money was made in real estate. Between 2008 and 2014, Terrance did over 600 flips, in multiple different areas of the country.

As he learnt to build relationships and rapport with buyers, sellers, lenders, and contractors, Terrance started taking on bigger and better deals. He’s done $35,000,000 in transactions since the start of the pandemic and relies on the five basic fundamentals of real estate: know your market, be aggressive, be faster than the competition, have solid lenders, and make sure your ducks are in a row.

It’s daunting to wake up every day and try your best at whatever it is that you do. Maybe it’s your job, maybe it’s real estate, maybe it’s writing a book. When you sit down at your desk, there’s that little voice that says “get another cup of coffee” or “just take a little email break before you start” or “you’re not going to get anything done, who are you kidding?”

This is the voice of resistance, and to author Steven Pressfield, it’s a voice that needs to be silenced and controlled at all costs. Steven should know, he wrote the book on fighting resistance, The War of Art, where he talks about how to keep up inspiration, even when there isn’t any to be found. As Steven puts it “an amateur does things when they feel like it, a professional doesn’t care how they feel, they just do it.”

This is something many real estate investors struggle with. We want to buy another property, but we get stuck in analysis paralysis, or scared off by some new type of financing, or don’t want to take on another rehab. Professionals don’t let their environment (or their own mind) tell them what they should and shouldn’t do. Professionals do what has to be done.

We also talk with Steven about his latest book A Man At Arms and why the ancient world of nobility and strength intrigued him so much. If you’ve seen any of Steven’s films, read any of Steven’s books, or just want to push through to success, you’ll love his take on writing, success, and failure.

Have you ever been in a conversation where someone has had to ask you to repeat something multiple times? It’s frustrating when you’re trying to tell someone something and they just won’t listen, but what about all the times you’ve been distracted in a conversation? There are a handful of reasons why humans aren’t great at listening, but the benefits to becoming a true listener are off the charts. Better connections, more trust, and happier relationships just to tout a few.

In her book, Listen Like You Mean It, Ximena Vengoechea talks about why listening is so important, and why we often get it wrong. Being a great listener is almost like having a super-power, you’ll be able to tell what a person wants and needs faster and more accurately. This can help in almost any business, but especially in a people-first business like real estate when you’re constantly talking to tenants, management, sellers, buyers, or agents.

Ximena goes through the 3 qualities that are most needed when becoming a great listener and how you can put yourself into “listening mode”. She also walks through how to have difficult conversations or conversations with people who aren’t the best listeners, plus what you can do to make sure that the person talking to you really feels heard. This isn’t just a crucial trait for anyone in real estate, but for anyone who wants successful relationships with the ones they love.

Every real estate investor knows that things don’t always go as well as we’d like. What happens when you’re hit with a $16,000 bill to fix a sewer, or when 20 of your tenants call you all at once with problems? Some things, like those examples, make active real estate investors envy passive investors. This is why Tamar Hermes decided to go on a more passive route for real estate investing.

Tamar started at age 28, working as an executive in the television industry. She realized that she was trading her time for money, and without her job, she wouldn’t be able to pay her bills. So, she put 10% down on a duplex and started house hacking. Over time she bought more and more duplexes, some even out of her 401(k). She was an aspiring landlord, but after being hit with the situations above, she decided to sell all her units in Los Angeles and put her money into more passive income streams.

Now she’s invested in syndications, like Brandon’s Open Door Capital to be exact. This gives her far more freedom to pursue her passions in life, without having to worry about those 2 A.M. toilet calls. Tamar refers to herself as a very cautious investor, and that may be why she feels far more diversified with passive investing than active investing.

She also talks through “finding your tribe” and how Gobundance has helped her meet friends and partners within the real estate space. This doesn’t mean you need to go out and find a group, but having friends and allies within your certain niche can help move you miles ahead of the competition!

The way the housing market moves largely depends on the real estate cycle we’re currently in. We all saw this during the 2007 subprime mortgage crisis as overleveraged homeowners saw their properties foreclosed on and later sold to investors who had cash on hand. We’re currently experiencing dramatic demand coupled with low inventory, so are we at the end of the housing market cycle, ready for a recession to knock down this house of cards?

Whether we are or aren’t close to a housing bubble bursting, smart real estate investors are protecting their wealth regardless of what is to come. This is where today’s guest, Doug Lodmell, has gleaming insight. Doug and his team have worked for decades to protect the wealth of real estate investors. This is commonly known as asset protection but can be thought of as simple risk mitigation for the new real estate investor.

Doug has been through expansion, crashes, corrections, recoveries, and everything in between and has seen what a poor asset protection strategy can do to an investor’s portfolio. He drops some knowledge on today’s show around how real estate investors in 2022 can protect themselves from going through a repeat of 2008. His simple, yet undeniably valuable advice could save you not only money but years worth of work you’ve put into real estate investing.