One Man's Journey to 1,870 Units: A Mindset Shift That Changed Everything with Gino Barbaro

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Join our community of RE investors on Skool here: https://tr.ee/JoinTheClub  TIMESTAMPS: 0:00 - Episode Introduction & Guest Background 2:15 - From Pizza Restaurant to Real Estate Empire 5:30 - The Business Mindset vs Investment Mindset 8:45 - Systems and Scaling: Why Most Investors Fail 12:20 - Property Management vs Asset Management Separation 15:00 - The Syndication vs Self-Funded Portfolio Decision 18:30 - Happy Money: Your Relationship with Money 21:45 - Overcoming Money Scarcity Programming 24:00 - Education Recommendations & Quick Questions 27:00 - Deal Finding Strategies That Actually Work 32:40 - Biggest Deal Mistakes & Lessons Learned  REAL ESTATE EMPIRE BUILDING SECRETS REVEALED 🏢💰 In this game-changing episode of The Real Estate Investing Club podcast, I sit down with Gino Barbaro from Jake and Gino, who transformed from running a pizza restaurant for 20 years to building a massive 1,870-unit multifamily portfolio! This conversation is packed with actionable insights that will completely shift how you think about real estate investing and wealth building.  FROM PIZZA TO PROFIT 🍕➡️🏠 Gino shares his incredible journey from working in his family's restaurant business to discovering the power of real estate investing. After struggling with the limitations of a traditional brick-and-mortar business, he made the leap into multifamily real estate in 2011 and hasn't looked back since. His story proves that anyone can build massive wealth through real estate, regardless of their background.  THE BUSINESS VS INVESTMENT MINDSET 💡 One of the most powerful insights from this episode is Gino's emphasis on treating every real estate purchase as a business, not just an investment. This mindset shift is crucial for anyone serious about building wealth through real estate. We dive deep into why most investors fail because they think passively instead of operationally.  SYSTEMS AND SCALING STRATEGIES 📈 Gino reveals the exact systems and processes that allowed him to scale from zero to 700 units in just five years. He breaks down the importance of mission statements, core values, and documented procedures - elements most real estate investors completely ignore but are essential for growth.  PROPERTY MANAGEMENT MASTERY 🔧 We explore the critical distinction between property management and asset management, and why understanding both functions is essential for maximizing your profit per unit. Gino shares how they achieve over $275 profit per door monthly and why they chose to stay vertically integrated instead of using third-party management.  SYNDICATION INSIGHTS 🤝 Gino provides honest insights about their experience with syndications versus self-funded deals, explaining why they shifted away from raising capital to focus on their own portfolio. This discussion is invaluable for investors trying to decide between these two approaches.  Join our community of RE investors on Skool here: https://tr.ee/JoinTheClub

Transcript

00:00All right. We are back with another episode of the Real Estate Investing Club. I hope you guys

00:10are having a great day, whatever day it is for you. Usually we do this on Friday, but today is

00:15a Wednesday because it's a unique day because we had the opportunity to get Gino Barbaro on the

00:21podcast here. I always love talking to Gino. He's been on the podcast before, so I'm sure you guys

00:26remember those episodes. He really brings the fire. I'm excited to jump into this. For you guys

00:31who are not familiar with Gino, he is from jakeandgino.com. They have, I can't remember,

00:36some 1,800 or something multifamily units. They are crushing it in the multifamily space.

00:40They do coaching. Gino has recently launched a book called Happy Money, and he talks about

00:45mindset with money. It should be a good episode. Gino, thanks for hopping back on the show.

00:51Thanks, Gabe, for having me back on. How's it going, brother?

00:53It's going well, going well. On this podcast, we've already gone into your story a little bit,

00:59but I always like to refresh people so we don't have to hover on it too long, but I know you have

01:04a good story about how you got into real estate, how you got to where you are. Why don't we just

01:09start there and just take us through the beginning phases of your career in real estate, and then we

01:15can get to the current day. Sure. Real quick, this is important. I had two parents. They're both

01:21immigrants, and we'll get into why that's important for my story about money, but listen,

01:27both my parents are hardworking immigrants. They started a restaurant. I was eight years old.

01:31I worked with my dad until I went to college. He made me go to school because you got to go to

01:35college. You got a good job. Got a good job for a year. That's all I lasted. The cubicle space was

01:42not for me. I was working downtown in New York City back in the 90s. I just dreaded it. Got into the

01:47restaurant business with him and the family. Loved it until I didn't love it. Until the recession

01:53came, everything changed. Fortunately, I had made a couple of bad real estate mistakes. I say

01:59fortunately because I learned on the street. I decided to go learn in the classroom. I went through

02:04a couple of mentorships. I met my business partner, Jake, who was a pharmaceutical rep,

02:09hence the pizza guy and the drug rep. Launched our real estate careers in 2011. We bought our first deal

02:15in 2013. Five years later, we probably had around 700 units. To date, we've transacted on over 2,200

02:22units. We currently own 1,870 in the portfolio right now. No syndications. We've had syndications,

02:31but we've sold out, so it's our own capital right now. We could take this conversation in so many

02:37different directions. Gino, how did you go from one restaurant for 20 years to a couple thousand

02:43units? Gino, how did you go from the restaurant business that was in your blood for 20 years and

02:49decided to make a shift into something completely different? You're a pizza guy. How do you go into

02:54raising millions of dollars and building another business? There's so many different ways we can

02:58tackle this. I'd just love to be able to share anything that you think the listeners would love

03:02to listen to. Yeah, absolutely. First of all, I didn't actually know that your restaurant was a pizza

03:07restaurant. I feel like those have to be the type of restaurant that are really difficult to get

03:13profitable, so I feel like that was probably a good lesson for you, at least starting a business.

03:17You know, it's one of those things where if I had done it the right way and I had really created,

03:22we had a nice little brand and I was on the precipice of scaling. It was 2011. I wrote a cookbook.

03:30I started creating physical products. I started doing YouTube videos and I started building the

03:35brand around it. My brother wasn't there. He was my business partner. I'm like, bro, let's start

03:39opening up other little stores. We can start really creating a really cool brand and feel around

03:45it. We can start doing monthly subscriptions. We can start doing coaching classes. We can start doing

03:50lessons. It could be amazing and he just wasn't there and it really, business is business. You can do

03:57this. It transcends all different platforms and for me, I had really struck upon multiple streams of

04:03revenue. We wrote the book, The Honey Bee, and you think about your core business. Let's say this is

04:08real estate. For me, it was the restaurant. All of a sudden, you have that one little brick and mortar

04:13place and from there, you can just start expanding. We started doing catering. We started doing wedding

04:18events. We started doing backyard barbecues. We started doing all these different ancillary revenue

04:24streams attached to that one business, but for me, I wanted something bigger. I wanted to create a brand.

04:29I wanted to get out there and unfortunately, at the time, my brother wasn't ready and I got fed up.

04:34I met Jake. I'm like, this real estate thing is really an amazing tool. If you've got a little

04:39bit of time and you have a long-term vision and you're able to reinvest back into the business,

04:44you can create some serious wealth by investing in real estate and that's what attracted me to real

04:49estate. Well, we are glad that you took the leap into real estate because you helped a lot of

04:54people. I've actually had some of your students on the show about they're growing their

04:57multi-family portfolio. It's good to see that you've had an impact on the industry.

05:04You mentioned it took five years to get to 700 units and 700 units is life-changing money for

05:11the vast majority of people. That gets you to the point where you don't necessarily need to work

05:15anymore. If you wanted to, you could retire. Obviously, you didn't, but you got there within

05:22five years. Before that, you'd been working 20 years as a business and running the pizza shop.

05:28That type of transition, that type of growth in such a short period of time, there had to have

05:33been some flexion points. There had to have been some moments that your mind was opened and you

05:40realized what you were doing wrong and all of a sudden, the answers were in front of you. Take us to

05:44those moments in those first five years. What were some learning or some growth periods that you had

05:51that you can share with us? For me, being in the restaurant, I had a certain paradigm of the way

05:57I looked at business. I learned from my father, who back in the 70s and 80s, it worked really well.

06:04You have one location, you work really hard, you take care of your little baby, you show up,

06:10and you can make a really great middle-class income. That worked in the 70s and 80s and early

06:1590s. The model shifted. All of a sudden, my dad's like, you got to be there all the time.

06:20You can't scale. You've got to be the cook. You've got to be the dishwasher. You've got to answer the

06:26phone. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that. I'm going to get burned out. There were so many

06:32inflection points and understandings of why I couldn't scale that business. For me, that's what it was.

06:37I had to disassociate myself from the restaurant industry, even though it is a difficult industry

06:42to scale a lot harder than real estate because food is hard. It's really location central. The

06:48people you hire, the ingredients, whatever, that's challenging in and of itself. But there are systems

06:54that I didn't have. Systems seem really, really complex, but they're really not. How do you pick

07:00up the phone? How do you greet a customer? How do you drop a check? How do you take an order?

07:06All of these things, we didn't have these things documented. That's the first thing. That's why I

07:10couldn't scale, number one. Number two, I had no mission statement and no core values. How am I

07:17supposed to hire and fire and lead without those? Now, you may be saying to yourself, well, I don't

07:23really need that. I'm only buying a couple of units. It doesn't matter. You're at one point going to hire

07:27a resident manager. You're at one point going to be dealing with vendors. You're at one point going to be

07:31dealing with residents. Hopefully, investors and partners have a vision for your company.

07:36Have a mission statement. I'm going to jump in there real quick because that's one thing

07:40that I have an issue with is that people always, when they're talking about real estate, they're

07:45talking about real estate investing. When you put the investing at the end, it always seems like a

07:51passive thing. You invest in the stock market, but it doesn't matter what you buy. Every piece of real

07:57estate that you buy is a business. You have to run it as a business. You can't think of it as

08:03an investment. It is an investment. You are investing your money, but the operations, the

08:09day-to-day, that is a business. I'm glad you brought that up because I just don't like the

08:14mind, the framework that people put real estate in.

08:17That's probably the most important thing and probably the smartest thing that we're going to

08:21say in the podcast. We could just end it right now if you'd like. Seriously, this is the mistake

08:26that I made early on when I was by myself when I had no map. It's called buy right, finance right,

08:34and manage right. There's the operation side of the business. For someone stroking a check,

08:39it may be passive. Somebody has to have the baby, and then somebody has to raise the baby. That's how

08:45it goes in real estate, and that's great because all of a sudden, you can affect change. You can

08:51affect an increased NOI. If you understand that every deal you do, we have probably over

08:5630 different LLCs, 25-unit, 12-unit, 156-unit. We just bought a four-unit, closed on 63. We're

09:05selling 18 this month. All of them, if you can think of it as each deal is an individual cash-generating

09:13machine. You're buying a future stream of revenue from every single property you own,

09:18and the way we look at it is our KPIs or our key performance indicators, something that I didn't

09:24have at the restaurant because if you can't measure it, then you can't manage it. I wasn't

09:28managing measuring very much at the restaurant, but all of a sudden here, our KPIs are PPU. We

09:34want profit per unit. That's why we're not really high on syndication unless we can put a lot of our

09:38money into it. We want to be able to buy a property, reposition it, and then affect at least $250 to

09:44$300 in profit per unit. That's what we're looking for.

09:48That's cash flow profit?

09:49That's cash flow profit after all of the bills, and that's what we're doing. Last month, we hit a

09:53little over $275 per door on our portfolio, but you have to buy them properly, and you have to

09:59manage them properly. What you said about it, if you go into the business, I don't care what you're

10:04buying. If you're buying a single-family home, if you're buying a self-storage facility,

10:08self-storage looks more like a business, but it's the same concept. Mobile home parks,

10:13retail, you are buying businesses. Once you understand that, it's pretty cool because then

10:19you can implement systems and processes, and you can scale those businesses, and you can add

10:25employees, and you can start growing the portfolio properly. When it was just Jake and Gino, and we're

10:31running around, and we have two deals, we have two resident managers, that inflection point for us

10:36was our third deal. We bought our first deal in January of 2013. In July of 2013, we bought our

10:45second deal. It was a 25-unit, then a 36-unit, so we've got about 60 units. We're managing it

10:50ourselves because we don't know what the hell we're doing. We want to save on the property management

10:53fees, and Jake wants to get out of his job day-to-day, so hey, let's make 6% of the gross

10:59revenue. Jake, you take it as a property management fee. We'll control it. We like to learn. We're

11:03kinesthetic learners. We learn by doing, and then all of a sudden, February 14th of 2014,

11:10we closed on 136 units. We had a really great business partner who had a strong balance sheet.

11:16He actually lent us a half a million dollars as part of the down payment for this deal. We got up

11:21to 200 units. All of a sudden, we don't know what the hell we're doing. We're like, we need to hire

11:25property managers. We can't be cutting the grass. We have to like, it's property's 80% occupied. We got

11:31like 40 vacants. What do we do? Game was on, but everything changed from there. If you can

11:36understand that, when you get into real estate, you need to have the operations side and the asset

11:42management side. You're property managing the property, which is the customer service, the

11:46customer journey, the customer experience, the outward facing. Then you have the asset management

11:52side where you're actually running the budgets. You're talking to investors. For us, we're wearing

11:58both hats because we're managing the properties and we're also asset managing for ourselves. We

12:02didn't have investors. If you can separate and delineate those two functions, and if you're doing

12:08yourself, great, but they're different because when you're talking to your residents and you talk to

12:13your property managers and your maintenance techs, that's one thing. When you're trying to create owner

12:17draws and you're trying to create profitability, that's another thing. They need to learn how to work

12:22together to be able to be profitable in this business. Interesting. Okay. You separate property

12:28management and asset management. You separate them in your mind. I usually put managing property

12:37managers as a function of asset management, but you think of asset management as that is basically the

12:44investing side of the transaction, dealing with anybody who's put their money into it,

12:51dealing with the P&Ls, all the financial aspects of it. Is that-

12:54Yeah. As you start scaling, Gabe, that's the hard part of having a syndication company because the

13:00syndication company is out there raising money. When you're in real estate, there's two things you're

13:03doing. You're either sourcing capital or you're sourcing deals. Sourcing deals is a lot of fun.

13:08Sourcing capital can be painful, but that's a full-time job because you've got an investor on your list.

13:13You need to keep that investor warm. You need to be able to talk to the investor and not just go to

13:17the investor when you've got an opportunity. That in and itself is part of the asset management of

13:22managing the investors, but also creating budgets, executing the business plan, and then having your

13:28asset management team talk to the property management team, having those weekly, what we call

13:34level 10 meetings, having a weekly pulse sent out by the property management to the asset management,

13:40and having those two talk about what's going on. Why are delinquencies higher this month? Why are we

13:45having so many leases expire? They need to be working together because if the property management's

13:50goal is, hey, we're just going to try to fill as many butts in seats here. We're trying to hit our

13:55numbers because we're basically working on a, what you call it, where they're trying to get money and

14:00fees over here. The asset management is like, hold on a second. We have some strict adherence here.

14:04You can't just put anybody in those seats. We have to adhere to a budget and we have to make

14:09sure that it makes sense. So I like to separate both of them. When you're starting out, you obviously

14:14are going to do both, but as you start scaling, if you want to get third-party property management

14:18and you become the asset manager, great. But even if you're the property manager, what's interesting,

14:23Gabe, is when we started, my business partner made me understand that Jake was the property manager.

14:28He was getting paid before the ownership group was. There may be a little bit of conflict of

14:33interest there. Jake's getting his property management fee. Is there any money left over

14:37to pay the owners? Very interesting. I mean, if you don't have a strong relationship and you're

14:42not really dialed in, all of a sudden, Jake's making money in his fees, but why aren't the owners

14:46making any cash flow? That's where it can be a little difficult. There may be a conflict of

14:52interest. And all of a sudden, what do we need to do to right the ship on that? That's something you

14:56have to think about when you're wearing both hats.

14:58So at what point did you switch from, or do you guys use third-party property managers

15:04today?

15:04No, we're still vertically integrated. And let me touch on that real quick, why we are.

15:10We read the book called Small Giants by Bo Burlingham. And we realized, Jake and myself,

15:15that we wanted to create a really cool family-oriented company that had culture. We wanted to be able to

15:21really, I guess, control our own destinies. We didn't want to have investors as our bosses.

15:26We had that, but we decided, you know what? We want to become the small giants and multifamily

15:31where we have our own properties and we actually own the equity ourselves. We can make decisions

15:36based on what we want. Because when you have investors, it's not about you. It's about what's

15:41best for them. And you're on the ride with their capital. You have to understand that.

15:47You're their fiduciary responsibility. So for Jake and myself, it's, hey, what's best for us?

15:52And we want to really have a really profitable company where, like I said, we're focusing on

15:58the profit of every unit that we have in our portfolio.

16:03Yeah, that's one reason I feel like syndications are kind of a, it's like a necessary evil along

16:10the trajectory of your career. Because I don't like syndications. I just don't like having

16:15outside investors in the deals because it just puts a little bit, an extra layer of stress

16:20on the transaction. And I, you know, ideally I would just like to buy these properties myself,

16:26but you get to a point where you're a capital, you know, you run out of capital as you're on

16:30your portfolio. And so it comes to a point where you need to take on additional investors. So

16:34that's kind of, I don't know, it's a difficult, difficult road to run there, but it's a good

16:40point made. Well, we went through that. We started in 2011. We bought our first deal in 2013. By 2016,

16:47we had probably run a little over 600 units. We were able to refinance probably around $8 million

16:52on that first round before we ran out of money. You know, we ran out of money in 2018. We're like,

16:59okay, everyone's talking about this syndication thing. What's this syndication thing? The 2017

17:04Jobs Act came out and all of a sudden raising capital became more mainstream. You know, years ago,

17:09it was more backroom deals. It was more people who had bigger lists, more private equity. But in 2017,

17:17it came to mainstream. We're like, we need to learn this business. And we started syndicating

17:22deals because of what you said. We sort of ran out of capital of our own money. We did three

17:26syndications in 2018 and 2019. And we're like, okay, timeout. COVID's here. We don't know what's

17:33going on. We don't know how many deals are going to be. Let's just focus on our portfolio. Let's

17:37stabilize everything. And as we saw where the market was, we're like, let's take these syndications.

17:42We need to make money for our investors. So we're focusing on IRR. Whereas now Jake and I,

17:47we don't focus on IRR in our portfolio. We don't care about IRR. We care about investing in a deal,

17:53cash flowing it, pulling all the equity out and going to the next one. That's what the focus is

17:57when you're investing your own capital. But with the syndication, it's a little bit more of a fix and

18:01flip model. Unless you can, if you look at it and the fact that, hey, I bought this syndication,

18:06I can refi this deal. If I've done the operating agreement correctly, I can give a lot of the money

18:12to the investors. I can keep some and then we can continue operating this deal. But most syndicators

18:17don't look at it that way. Ken McElroy is famous for doing that model. He's been doing it for 30

18:21years. He's been super successful. I love it because you've got investors, you've got their money,

18:27you've made them money, you're giving them the money back, you're keeping the asset because you bought

18:32a great deal, you're continuing to run that asset. And then when you find the next deal,

18:36guess what? Your investors are going to jump in because they've had success on this prior asset.

18:41Yeah. And that's all, I mean, that's contingent on whether you can refi three, five, seven years

18:47down the road and get them their IRR if you're promising 18, 20%, whatever it is, which is,

18:56it's possible, but with a refi, sometimes it's difficult.

18:59It is.

19:01Yeah. So, I mean, this is a short form podcast. We always keep it around 20 minutes and I know

19:06you wrote your book, Happy Money. I want to talk a little bit about that, what kind of inspired it

19:11and what is the, give us the core message there.

19:16When I say the word money, what's your initial reaction? What do you feel in your body? I mean,

19:22like, what's the visceral reaction?

19:24It just feels like a tool, like something I'm going to use.

19:28That's actually pretty good because most people, when they hear the word money,

19:31they pucker up a little bit or they're not really sure. It's like the last taboo subject we have in

19:36this country, which is actually pretty weird if you think about it. But for me, teaching people and

19:42coaching people, I was always amazed at how some people were super successful that had no business

19:48being successful. And then you had others that had all the trappings. They had all the balance sheet,

19:54the net worth, and yet they couldn't close a deal. And I kept going back and forth and saying,

19:59what's the difference here? And you would mean you had talked about it before you started recording.

20:03It comes down to mindset number one, but I think number two, even more important is a person's

20:08relationship with money. And if you have a healthy relationship and you understand that it's a

20:14tool, you're not working for money, you're working to create value. And the more value you create,

20:20money is just the end result. See, there's a more of a healthier relationship and a healthier

20:24outlook with money. The old Gino was, no, no, no, I need to save. That was my money persona. That was

20:29my money script. I can't risk my money. I need to save my money for a rainy day. Never a sunny day,

20:36always a rainy day.

20:38Oh, he's always, you're just waiting for shit to hit the fan.

20:40Yes. So if you're waiting for shit to hit the fan, it's going to hit. If you're waiting for

20:44opportunity, then opportunity is going to come. See how the mindset, see how that speak. So if you

20:48have a really good relationship, and what do I mean by that? Go back into your childhood when

20:52you were young and what did you hear about money? What was said about money? What wasn't said about

20:58money? These are all things that you carry into your adulthood. And then I want you to take a chance.

21:03If you're married, if you have a spouse, boyfriend, girlfriend, talk to them and see how they were

21:09raised. And you'll be amazed that a lot of the fights that you have in your relationship really aren't

21:13about money. Money's the symptom. And see what's the underlying effect. What do we call your money

21:19personas? Were you a saver? Were you a spender? Were you a gambler? Were you an innocent? You had

21:24no idea. Were you an avoider of money? Well, if you bring that into your adulthood, you're creating

21:29patterns from childhood to adulthood, and you're continuing these patterns. I was fortunately

21:34able to understand this. And when I went to coaching school, I was like, this is great. I need to go

21:39forward. I need to create success. The problem was I was lacking this one last element of becoming a

21:45money coach and understanding that we need to go back into our past. Look at our money bio. Ask

21:50ourselves these questions. See what was going on. Come into the present. Look at what's going on with

21:56these patterns. Highlight some of them. Some of them are great. Some of them aren't so great. And let's

22:02talk about where we are right now and what your sole purpose is going forward. How are you going to

22:07affect that going forward? But you can't go forward unless you look back and at least acknowledge

22:11the past and see what happened back then and try to at least a lot of us have gone through money

22:16traumas. A lot of us have gone through things where we couldn't afford something. People were really

22:20negative about money. We're scarce about money. And if you bring that into adulthood, you're creating

22:26actions and you're taking paths and you're making decisions unconsciously. And I just want people to have

22:32a conscious awareness of it and say, Hey, I want to continue this behavior and I want to stop this

22:37behavior because it's really hurting me. That's what money coaching is all about. It's just, it's

22:41an incredible, incredible way for you to really see what was going on in your life and say, I'm here

22:47right now. Let me become responsible for my actions going forward. What do I need to do to accomplish

22:51those actions? Yeah. And when I look at my own life, I started out, had no money and took a bunch

23:01of leaps and finally got some stuff rolling. But in those moments when I had like zero money, I feel

23:10like the thing that allowed me to get to the mindset to where I can think of it as a tool and I can think

23:17of it as a tool that I can, that I can use to build wealth. I needed to actually get money first. And I, it's

23:25like a chicken and the egg thing in my mind. Cause I was just thinking, you know, when we were talking

23:28earlier, at what point did my mindset, my mindset shift to where now I think a bit, a bit more freely with

23:36money and a bit more, more like a, like a tool, like a, it has a use versus something that I need to hoard and I

23:43need to be scarce about. And the only thing that kept popping up in my mind was, well, I, once I got

23:49money, then I could be free with, with my money, but I needed to get there first. And so it's kind

23:55of, yeah, it's like a chicken and the egg. Um, how do you get that mindset that is required to create

24:01money? Uh, but before you actually have the money itself, it's in, it's actually an illusion. If you

24:06think about it, cause you're already free to begin with now, you don't need money to make you free

24:09that, that, that's the illusion. So we grow up in that scarcity mindset of saying, Hey, but my parents

24:14kept telling me, you need to save, we need to save, we need to save. I was okay without money. I just

24:20became, when I got married, what we call the tyrant, I became really controlling because I was afraid of

24:25the future. I wanted to control. And then you start taking actions and you think money's the problem.

24:31Money's not the problem. You'd mentioned it. It's your mindset. It's the way you think about it. It's the way

24:35you've learned about it. And then you bring it into your adulthood and you're taking these actions

24:39and saying, man, I can't spend $5,000 for my kids' braces. What are you, what are you talking

24:44about, Jewel? We can't afford that. When I didn't say I could afford it, but in my mind, if I'm

24:49spending that 5,000, I'm not going to have it to put them through college or to put them through

24:52whatever. And you're making these decisions based on the mindset that you had. It's pretty incredible.

24:57It's pretty enlightening for a couple to go through that. Yeah. Um, all right. So I do have to move us

25:03on it. So your book, happy money, where can people find that? Just go to, uh, barbaro360.com

25:09is B A R B A R O three six zero.com. You go to the website, you can get a free download copy of the

25:15book. I mean, it's happy money, happy family, happy legacy. To me, all three of those work in

25:19conjunction. You're making money. You want to get a happy family. And obviously that last component of

25:25creating a legacy for your family and teaching your kids a life of abundance and not only just leaving

25:30them money, but leaving them your values and leaving them what you think is important for

25:34the family unit, having a mission statement, having core values and a culture for your family

25:38and leaving that as part of your legacy. Nice. I love it. All right. With that, I'm going to push us

25:44into the quick question round. Are you ready? Ready? Let's do it. It starts with education. Um,

25:51it is a big topic. And so we're going to, we're going to open it up to not only books, but also conferences,

25:56mentorship programs, anything. I need two recommendations, one for general life wisdom,

26:00and then one for real estate. So generally life wisdom right now, I'm going to a lady called

26:05Deborah price. She works for the money coaching Institute, not getting paid to promote her. I

26:10just started this two months ago and I find it incredible. It is an incredible way to look at

26:16money. And it is really a little bit of therapy, a little bit of coaching, a little bit of money.

26:20It's finance is easy. Financial planning is easy. One plus one is two. It's about math. Why can't

26:26people figure it out? Go check out the money coaching Institute. And for, I mean, general

26:30real estate, general business, there's so many different mentors out there. If you're looking

26:34for a certain niche, go to chat. I'm going to throw a Jake and Gino out there. Cause I have had

26:38your students on and they are crushing it. So I'm going to put that. I know you're not going to say

26:42yourself, but thank you. I will say you guys do have a good program. Thank you. Um, but what was your

26:48recommendation? I couldn't cut. No, I mean, just for me, just Google the niche that you're in. Um,

26:53there's so many different conferences out there as far as multifamily, mobile home parks,

26:58self storage. Uh, I would, I would go to bigger pockets honestly, and just start perusing their

27:03site and seeing who the thought leaders are on there. Perfect. All right. Let's go. Uh,

27:09let's go back to your younger self. Let's go back to the Gino who was just, um, let's say just that

27:16it's the last day, uh, on, in the pizza business that you ran with your dad. It's that last day,

27:21go to him, look him in the eye, give him one piece of advice moving forward.

27:27Wow. Just one piece of advice, huh? Marry Julia. My wife. That's all I'd say.

27:35I love it. That's good. You're the first person to say that. And, uh, but that's really good advice

27:40because who you marry is, it's a huge thing. You're going to be with them more than pretty

27:44much any, anyone else in your life. So it's a huge decision. So having a good decision with your

27:49marriage partner, that is a great advice. All right. Uh, I know you guys are focused in on,

27:55on Nashville out there. I'm going to ask this anyways. The United States is a big place. There

27:59is a lot of opportunity out there. Give me the single Metro you're most excited about investing

28:04in today. Wow. That's a great question. I, you know, I would say Dallas, Texas, and no further reason

28:12other than once they get their supply issues worked out, everyone's moving to Dallas and

28:18what's going on in New York city. I don't know if it's going on with the mayor or people are

28:22going to be fleeing the people are going to be fleeing these blues. They're going to be fleeing

28:25them even more. And Dallas has got over 800,000 multifamily units. It's incredible. It keeps

28:30growing more fortune 500 companies are going there. The Metro keeps getting bigger and bigger

28:36and bigger. And for me, I'm not a huge fan of Florida. I think Florida is just overpriced

28:40still right now. There's just tremendous population growth, great capital appreciation.

28:44South Florida is a little crazy right now. The pricing is a little crazy. I like North Florida.

28:48I'm in St. Augustine, but the pricing here is a little crazy. I like Texas and I also like Tennessee

28:54places that have lower taxes, more freedoms are pro business and pro landlord. That's what I'm

29:02really looking forward forward to when I'm looking at a market. There you go. DFW man. That's one of

29:07my favorites. We have a two self storage facilities out there. We're always looking for more. Everybody

29:11likes DFW, but a lot of investors that come on here and they say, say that Metro. So good shout

29:16out. I'm moving us on to the next question. This is about finding deals. It all starts with getting

29:22in contact with the seller and pending that purchase agreement. So what is your favorite

29:25way to generate leads and find new deals? I have just taken over acquisitions for my business partner,

29:31Jake and myself. He was doing it, but now you know what? Over the last two weeks, he's like, bro,

29:35I need some help. I said, great. I got a list of brokers, went on chat. I said, give me the top 30

29:41brokers in Knoxville. Got them all printed out. I had already had a list. And first thing I did is I

29:46went on LinkedIn, make sure that I was connected with them. If I wasn't sent out a note saying here,

29:50you know what? I am going on. I'm going to take over acquisitions. We've got 1800 units. Let me

29:56introduce myself. That's the first step. I think the next step for me is, hey, Jake,

30:00let's create a really cool email. Just introduce myself again. Let me send that out. The next step

30:05is I'm going to actually give them a call and or text. You need to reach out to the top 10 or 15

30:11brokers. And in any Metro, Dallas is a little odd because like I said, there's so many brokers,

30:16but in Knoxville, there's probably 10 brokers, 10 multifamily brokers that you really need to

30:20know. And then you start just going out to the periphery. Then you may go to land brokers or you

30:25may go to small multifamily brokers, but you really need to introduce yourself. And now's the time

30:30because there's not a ton of deal flow. They're actually going to return your phone call because

30:34they're just as hungry. It's not like it was two years ago where they didn't need you. Now they sort

30:39of need you. So there's no excuse not to be talking to brokers right now. And I know it's scary.

30:44Just have your criteria. Just have a conversation. Just tell them that you're in the business,

30:49that you want to be in this business long-term. And this is what I'm looking to buy. And I'd love

30:54to connect with you. If you've got anything, please send it over to me. And oh, if you're on

30:59their website and you find a deal, call them up and do a property tour. Don't be a tire kicker.

31:04Get on site with them and talk to them. I know everyone likes to sit in front of a computer and

31:10love the AI and love the chat, but at some point shaking a broker's hand, looking them or her in the eye

31:15and saying, hey, nice to meet you. What deals you got? There's nothing better than doing that.

31:20You got to get out there. And then you can always do those direct to seller stuff. That's great.

31:26I'm a fan of that. Go on Crexie. Crexie's got a great platform as far as aggregating data,

31:31spending a couple hundred bucks a month for their platform. But for me, really is trying to find out

31:35who the major brokers are, at least in multifamily. It's not an MLS-driven market. It is a broker-driven

31:40market where we are. Other areas, it may be MLS, but you need to get in front of as many brokers as

31:46you possibly can down here. Thanks. I like that response. Specifically, you said it was kind of

31:52like multiple ways you're reaching out. Reaching out on LinkedIn was the first thing you said,

31:57and that is something I haven't even thought about, but I think it's a great way to do it.

32:01First, you said go to chat, ask who the biggest brokers are. That's a good idea. I am absolutely a huge

32:08fan of AI. I've been implementing it in as many areas as I can in my business and doing things

32:14like lists, AI does a really good job with. So go on to AI, get a list, and then reach out on

32:20LinkedIn. I like that answer. It's a good way to do it. And then you said also give them an email

32:24and call. So I like that. Moving on to the next question. This is about lessons learned. Not every

32:31deal that we get into goes the way we expect it. In fact, many times things go wrong, and that is when

32:37we get to learn a lesson. So what was a deal that went a little sideways for you, and then what was

32:41the lesson you pulled from it? Any deal that has gone sideways for me, it's because I never followed

32:47or I didn't follow the buy right, the finance right, and the manage right. And more specifically,

32:52what we call something called the three pillars of real estate, the market cycle, the debt,

32:58and the exit strategy. We bought in the wrong part of the market cycle, or we didn't have an exit

33:03strategy, and or we didn't have a great buy right criteria. The couple of deals that I'm thinking

33:08about is they didn't have great median incomes, and we thought we were buying in better areas.

33:13Now, there's nothing wrong with buying a lower median income, but it's a different business

33:17model. There's going to be a lot more tenant turnover, a lot more capex, rents aren't going

33:21to go where you think they're going to go, and there's not as much appreciation in those

33:24markets. Just understanding that's fine. So buying at a specific price point, executing the business

33:29plan, and if you think you're going to hold that asset for the next 20 or 30 years, it's already

33:33old. It's going to be even older 30 years from now. So understanding that, that's a great place to

33:38start. That's when you start trading up your assets. Hopefully, you start older, you start

33:42trading up your assets, and you get into newer assets. But for us, not having a crystal clear

33:47buy right criteria for the market cycle, when we started back in 2011, hey, you're buying older assets.

33:53That's great because your price points are so low. But in 2021 and 2022, when you're buying four caps,

33:581960s assets in Dallas, you're going to have problems. You're going to have issues. So that's

34:03not the type of asset you're buying in that part of the market cycle. And really being strict and

34:09diligent on what you're buying, and don't deviate. Don't what we call pencil whip a deal just to make

34:14it fit. Oh, I can get rent growth to go to 6%, when in reality, it's more like 1.5% to 2% now.

34:20Expenses are only going to go up by 1%, when in reality, they're probably going up 4% or 5%.

34:24Making sure that you have conservative and realistic underwriting will not catch you into

34:30trouble. And we've been culprits of that.

34:35Yeah. Yeah. And especially if you haven't closed the deal in the recent past, and you're just itching,

34:42you get in, you start underwriting, and you're like, well, maybe we can push this to 5%.

34:47It's so tempting to go away from your criteria, and not, you know, strictly stay with what you

34:55know to be true. It's alluring. You're calling the word alluring. And it's the get there-itis.

35:01Please. I don't know how old you are, Gabe. You're 40 years old?

35:05Almost. I'm 38.

35:06Okay. Okay, you're 38. You've probably got another 30 years left in this business. 40 years

35:10left in this business. So if you don't close a deal in the next year or two, it's not the end

35:14of the world. But we don't think that way. It hurts. Yeah. When you're in there, it's like,

35:17yeah, I want to close a deal. Yeah. You talked to my business partner. We closed a deal back in

35:22April. I mean, what, two months ago? And he's like, dude, we need a deal. I'm like, we just closed.

35:27It's okay. Let's calm down a little bit. Ask the dopamine. That's the money strategy. That's the

35:33money coaching way. Why do you need a deal? It's because that's what fuels you. That little dopamine

35:38hit keeps you going. And it's okay. But just understand that dopamine may get you into trouble.

35:43That dopamine may make you say, hey, I can get a 10% rent growth and meet an income of 30 grand.

35:49That's great. Okay. Just check the dopamine and check what's going on.

35:54I'm laughing because I'm in that moment right now. The last deal I closed was in February.

35:59And it's not that far away. No, it's not.

36:02But it's just like I'm looking at other deals and I'm just like, let's just do it. Let's just do it.

36:07It's hard. You got to say no, though. You got to say no.

36:10All right. That leads us to the very last question. This is for the listeners. You've

36:15given us a lot to think about. I'm sure people want to reach out, get in contact with you.

36:19This is a two-parter. Where can they find you? And then what can they expect when they reach out?

36:22You just mentioned jakeandgino.com. Go there. If you want to learn more about investing in real

36:26estate, we have the podcast. We have the Jake and Gino podcast and we have the how to. And if you

36:31want to reach out to me by email, it's gino at jakeandgino.com. Once again, if you want a free copy of the book,

36:37just say, hey, Gino, I want a Wheel of Our Profits book or I want a happy money book. I'll

36:40send you a PDF copy.

36:42Perfect. I will put those links in the show notes. So if you guys want to reach out, all you got to

36:46do is click the little more in the description. It'll pull down the full description in there.

36:50You can find Gino's links. All right, Gino. As always, it has been a pleasure having you on the

36:57show. I appreciate you hopping on. And yeah, thanks for coming on.

37:01Thanks, Gabe. Appreciate it, brother.

37:02Absolutely. For everybody who's with us today, thank you guys for showing up. You are the reason

37:07we do this. So if you guys have any questions, reach out to me, Gabe with realestateinvestingclub.com.

37:12If you guys want to support the show, just leave us a review. Other than that, I hope you guys have

37:16a great week. Keep rocking real estate and I look forward to seeing you on the next episode.

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