455: Mixtapes to Millions in Real Estate with DJ Envy and Cesar Pina
BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast- 2,323 views
- 28 Mar 2021
You’ve probably heard of The Breakfast Club, the morning radio show in over 90 markets that covers everything from hip hop culture, to celebrity gossip, to politics and more. If you've listened, you may recognize DJ Envy’s voice. He’s here today with his partner Cesar Pina, to talk real estate, seminars, and business.DJ Envy grew up in Queens, New York, and was neighbors with a successful DJ. After he heard how much money DJs were making in the city, he decided to start DJ-ing himself, and began releasing mixtapes. As his success grew, he started working for a radio station and landed a morning show, which later became known as The Breakfast Club.After buying his first house and later selling it due to a long commute, Envy walked away with around $80,000. He was hooked, and knew that real estate was a long-term way for him to build his wealth and create success for him and his family. He started out buying a house every year and selling it a year later, then bought some homes in Detroit for $15,000 that sold for over $260,000! Envy wanted to get more into real estate, so he was introduced to Cesar.Cesar was serving time in prison when he first learnt about real estate investing. Once he was released, he decided to jump in. He bought single family homes, then small multifamily homes, then went on to commercial buildings. Now, heowns more than 1,600 units and flips anywhere from 60 to 80 houses per year! His new book, Flipping Keys, comes out later this month.Cesar and Envy became an unstoppable duo, and now they're teaching others how they too can buy rentals and flip houses. They see this as a way to serve their community and let those who may be unaware of real estate investing have a chance at success and financial freedom.In This Episode We Cover:How DJ Envy started buying and flipping homes Buying homes under market value to make high profitsWhy house hacking is the best way to get started in real estateBuying in Detroit during the early days of the recession How to use other people’s money (OPM) to fund your dealsWhy most real estate seminars take more than they give to attendeesAnd So Much More!Links from the ShowBiggerPockets PodcastBiggerPockets book storeBrandon's InstagramDavid's InstagramGrant Cardone on Multifamily Investing and Why You Should Never Buy a House!Click here to check the full show notes: https://www.biggerpockets.com/show455
This is a bigger pockets podcast show, four hundred and fifty five, I got to be able to say, you know what, I was able to teach a community how to invest in properties. We were able to teach somebody that had no clue and gave him inspiration. And the best feeling is when you hear somebody's mom hit us and say, hey, my son was twenty two, he was a F up, and now he's into real estate because it came to a seminar or a kid that had no clue it was rented for 20 years and be like, I don't want to be like my mom, can you teach me.
And that's what we're doing.
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What's going on? Everyone is Brendan Turner, host of the Bigger Pockets podcast here with my co-host. Mr. David, I'm so envious of you. Green. What's up, man?
How you doing? What's up, Brandon? Thanks for that. I'm doing great, man.
So our guest today is D.J. Envy, who you may know from the super huge following famous show, morning radio show called The Breakfast Club, syndicated like over 100 stations. They're one of the biggest radio shows in the entire world. And and then SESAR, which is his like his real estate guy. And their stories are so powerful and amazing and good. And so you're going to hear all about that today, about both of them. And we talked about one of his deals he bought.
It was like 12 million, bought it for like half that much. And now it's gone back up to like almost were original price was I mean, just millions of dollars of growth there. In fact, one of the gentlemen actually learned how to invest while in prison. You're going to hear that story. Crazy good story. So he doesn't like this episode today.
Before we get to that, let's get to today's quick today's quick tip. A simple we talk about this in the show a little bit today, but it's one thing to build wealth for yourself. That's great. You and your family generational wealth. It's amazing.
But I want to encourage everyone to think, how can I pay this forward to more people? How can I let more people know about the power of real estate, whether it's I just I talk about it whether you're meant to someday write a book or someday you're going to go and start a podcast, whether you're going to just post on your Facebook real estate stuff, whatever it is, how can you give back to those people that are that are out there that are thirsty?
I say true story. I once spoke at a local high school out here, a local high school back. I don't know, three months ago, four months ago.
And I actually thought it was kind of like I didn't do that good of a job. It was weird because I covered more in my math. I couldn't read any of the kids because everyone's wearing a mask. Right. And I just kind of felt like overall I kind of like didn't didn't reach anybody at all whatsoever. Like, they just couldn't care less about real estate anyway. So, yes. And I'm in the parking lot, actually, a target.
My wife's inside target grabbing something and this kid knocks on my window and I roll down the window. It's like, dude, you're like, I have this book at my school. And I was like, Yeah, it's me. And he's like, I bought a bunch of your books and I've been listening to your podcast volume, Instagram, and I'm going to do real estate. I can't wait to get in.
And he was like, super excited. And I was like, that's cool. Right? And this is like one life. Right. But like, that's just my longer than a quick tip message for everyone today is you never know whose little life you can impact. So talk about real estate, talk about what you're doing. We see from our guests today that that desire to help people led to a huge business that I'm sure helps them in many ways, makes a better investors source of income, gets deals coming their way.
I'm sure that deals come their way through the funnel that they created with the intention of just we want to help people. So in a capitalistic environment, you are definitely benefited by helping more people. I think that that's something to keep in mind.
But that said, you guys are in love to this show. But let's first get to today's show sponsors.
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All right, N.V. and Cesar, welcome to the show, guys. Thanks for having us. Are you guys doing fabulous?
It's an honor to have you guys really like. It's it's amazing. So let's let's jump into your story a little bit. We'll start with you. Envy, envy. The best way to call you envy, not envy. Envy.
OK, we're going to be tell us about yourself a little bit. Where how did you get how how do people know you? Let's start there. How do people know you?
I'm a kid from Queens, Queens, New York. And I'm just like any other kid growing up. I was, you know, didn't have a lot but didn't need a lot. My neighbor at the time was a D.J. and I didn't know what he did. All I knew was he drove fancy cars and had nice jewelry. So one day when I was waiting for the school bus, I stopped his car and I was like, you know, what do you do now?
At the time, it was a Honda Accord.
Now, when I was growing up, a Honda Accord was everything like what you lived for. And he had a Honda Accord. And I asked what he did and he told me to come by his house after school. So after school, I came to his house and I thought he was going to be selling drugs, something illegal. And he told me he was a deejay. And at the time it was I didn't know who he was. He told me his name and his name was D.J. Clue.
And at the time, people didn't know who was because all he used was the questionmark symbol on all his mistakes, because he was playing all these people's records and didn't want anybody to know his face. And I was bootlegging his tape in high school, like selling it. And I didn't know. And he kind of introduced me into deejaying and told me what to get and what to do in the rest was history.
Now, I read something that you're a mix tape. What is the mixtape do like?
So before Spotify and Apple Music and SoundCloud and all this, there was no way to get mixes. So you would have to buy from bootlegger's African Bootleg as mom and pop stores or even record stores with DJs would make their own mixes, me Cloo drama deejays like that. And that's how we would sell and we would sell thousands and thousands and thousands of copies of mix tapes in and we would sell more than a lot of the artists that came out, because now if an artist comes out instead of just getting one single, you get his best single or my mixtape, then you get DMX as best single on my mixtape.
And then Jay-Z is best single on my mixtape. So we was selling so many units and that was considered a mixtape.
That's awesome. So how did you go from that to the host of The Breakfast Club now one of the guys on there and were that transition come from?
So I was on Hot 97 at first and I was just a mixer and I wanted more. I wanted to do more. I wanted to just be more than a mixer. So I ask and they teach me how to become a host. And they said, sure. So at first I was trying to talk proper. Hi, this is Sean know. And it was like, nah, just be yourself and, you know, do things that you would do.
And that's what I pretty much did. And I did ninety seven for about eight years and I did mornings and I wanted more and they didn't have more. They can offer me more. So at the time I went to five with the station I'm at now was kind of like a sinking ship. It was the second station. Nobody was really messing with it and they made me an offer, made me a deal. So I went over there, I started doing afternoons and everything was good, but they needed a morning show.
So they asked me what I do. A morning show. I said hello. They offered me some money. I said, Oh, hell no. They offered me some more money. And I said, yes.
And it was supposed to be my morning show at first, but I didn't want a morning show because I was like, if it doesn't work, where do I go after this? So we came up with an idea to create a collective. We brought it on Charlamagne. We brought on Angeliki and we came up with all these different names, Illuminati in the morning, the big three and all these different things in. Somebody came up with the idea, The Breakfast Club, and it stuck.
And ten years later we still have eleven.
And you guys are like syndicated around well over one hundred stations now, some like that over one hundred stations now and oversees the military stations.
And it's great. It's a blessing.
So the same three people that you founded it with have been the same that you've had the entire time.
Hasn't changed ten years. We made it into the radio Hall of Fame know hasn't hasn't changed the same three members and we still rock.
All right. So who's D.J.? Shrimp deejay shrimp is my name. I was in high school. I was five to six foot now, but I was five two in high school. So when I started playing it was me and my friend. At the time I was the shrimp. He was D.J. Mono and together we were in production. So the high school that we went to, we always used to say people envied us. So we were caught and we weren't making no money.
So he told me one day, look, I don't want to do this anymore. I'm into girls. You do this, I just can't do this and kept doing it. And every time I would bring a tape, it would say envy on it because it was both of us. So the African bootleg is who we sell. It was like we've got a new movie on NBC and it just stuff. Thank God.
Or you'd be calling me right is actually one more story David and I have to pull out of you today before you jump over there and we'll get to the real thing a little bit. I heard you got a gun pulled on you from somebody famous at one point. Tell us about that.
Yeah, Nas and Nas hates what I tell the story, but not pulled out a gun on me. This is when I first started doing mix tapes. I used to carry my mix tapes in my book bag and bring them to different stores and mom and pop. Wasn't I see nice when Dana's was in by Jamaica Avenue, where you would go buy your shoes, your sneakers, your clothes, your mix tapes, and he had a I remember a white guy, Alexis Jeans, and he had a girl with him.
And I see and I'm like, that's nuts. Now, being from Queens, NAS is everybody. So I'm running up to him. Nas, I got something for you. I got something.
So I'm reaching in my bag to get a mixtape. By the time I pull a mixtape out, he has a gun on me. What you got for me? I'm like, whoa, whoa. There's a mixtape. I swear this is only mixtape. And he took the mixtape and was like, I don't play like that man.
You know, these streets are real and you guys just got to see remember that.
Have you talked to him about it since?
Every time I talk to him about it, when the story comes up and he hates what I tell the story, he was like if he was 20 years ago, I'm a different guy. I'm like, yeah, but I'm still traumatized, you know, anybody like I got. So I go out with my hands up. I have something what you like. I don't know.
So he does remember that too then. He does remember it. Absolutely, yeah. That's awesome. All right. So let's let's jump over. Cesar, I do get connected with envy here.
A friend of mine, his name is Netgear. He owns the label where he was assigned to. He's the one who discovered he was in Paterson from Paterson. And he did the introduction between me and you.
Do you do a lot of real I read rather you do a lot of real estate stuff. Right. You're pretty hot and heavy in that.
I've been doing real estate now for about fifteen years. And you've been doing real estate seminars since we met about two two years ago to two and a half years ago. To be honest with you, it was never my cars to be a public speaker. I envy you know, he told me that I had a great story and I was by a lot of people, we started doing seminars.
So let's hear about the story. Where'd you come from? How'd you get into this real estate game?
You know, on the street guy, I I'm self educated. So I ended up doing things that I wasn't supposed to when I was younger. I ended up in prison before I came out. I met a guy in there. He told me about real estate. I came home. I got into real estate since then and I've been doing it for fifteen years. I started with the smaller properties, you know, your two, three, four family homes.
Then I was in that space for a while back in 08 when everybody was running away from the state. Right. That that's when I that's when I jumped in. And I started with the smaller properties, flipping properties, smaller rental properties, got into commercial properties. Then I kept on going, kept on going. Now we have about sixteen hundred rental units in the US and we flip about 50 to 80 single family homes a year. And now we're also developing bigger buildings, a 50 unit of 60 and 80 unit and one unit.
That's awesome. We are in New Jersey, Atlanta, Florida and Chicago. And yeah, that's awesome. So and you got a new book, Flipping Keys, right on where we plug that thing and we go back and it's on Amazon where books are so very cool.
You know, it's doing very well. No one real estate book, no one knew by the release, like I was number one over the weekend to money and find a whole bunch of categories I don't even know existed. Yeah, that's awesome.
Yeah. I thought when I went I would check that out this morning and I thought I had a little number one best seller like. That's awesome. Yeah. Crushing it though.
So SESAR, I have a question for you. When you first started in real estate investing, obviously there is a switch that got flipped and you took it to be really big. Do you remember if there was a pivotal point where something clicked or you realized, oh, this is the way I'm going to do it and you went all in?
You're like I said, I'm self educated. The guy that I met in prison, he ended up having to do another seven years. So I was only with him for maybe a year. So I came out and I started learning everything on my own. So when I first started, I didn't have any money, right. So we had to sell our car. I pulled my wife's engagement ring, pother jewelry, everything. Right, just to get that first deal done.
So year one and two were probably the toughest because at that point, I will I will take all the money that I had. Right. Buy one property. So I sold that property or refinanced that property. I didn't have any more money to buy property to play with.
Right. So you go to this guy called me up and he said, hey, you're doing it the wrong way, OPM, other people's money. And that's when I learned about private financing and hard money loans and how to leverage my money. Right. Which is one of the most important things in real estate is revenue, money, how to leverage. So you could buy more.
So after that happened, that's when I went from doing two to three deals a year to doing twenty to thirty deals a year.
That's awesome. What what kind of creative strategies have you focused on? I mean, like the hard money if you don't know other things as well.
You know, it all depends on the deal. But pretty much, you know, when I first started back in 08, it was pretty much kind of like the burn method that everybody talks about. I was buying properties sixty eight thousand. Thirty or forty thousand of them, fixing them, renting them, refinancing, taking that money out the new equity and buying more property, and I was in that space for about ten years. But again, every bill, as the market changes and we're not in that space anymore in the tristate area, when I first started, I was buying properties, you know, anywhere between forty thousand to one hundred thousand.
That doesn't exist right now. The market's on fire. Yeah. So that was the space I was in back then. So just by learning how to stretch my money, buying more with less by using private financing, that's how I got it. All right.
Let's jump back over to envy and ask where's your interest in real estate? Like, I know you talk about real estate a lot. Where's your interest? Where that come from? This idea of real estate investing and generational wealth in general? And then what does that look like today for you? What's your relation to real estate?
Right. Well, SISA has over sixteen hundred close to seventeen hundred dollars. I have one hundred and thirty four dollars. That's still far behind and far behind.
Well I'm just, just getting warmed up.
Warmed up. Yeah. So what happened was when I bought my first house I got my first check and I'm from Queens and I couldn't afford anything close to New York. I had to live in a town called West Milford. If you're not from New Jersey, this is where they tape Friday the 13th. It's Woodsy Lakes. That's what they pretty much taped it. So it wound up happening, was I would do a night in and have to drive home and I would fall asleep so I couldn't live there anymore.
So I sold the property within four months and I think in four months I made eighty thousand dollars selling that property. And I was like, this is at the time this was more than I was making a year. I'm like, this is great. So that's what I started doing. I didn't know anything about real estate. Like like I said, I was self educated when it came to real estate. I had no clue. So I was doing it all wrong.
I was actually buying a property, living in it, then selling it. And then I'd have to move everything to another property. But every year I was doing this, it was doing great. So one year I bought two properties and the market fell and I just remember having three mortgages and not that nobody wanted to buy the properties, but nobody could get mortgages and loans. So I was doing everything. I was doing bar mitzvahs I was doing with the Spanish with 16 casitas.
I was anything I could possibly do to make money. I was making money to buy these properties and I wound up selling them finally. And I was like, you know what, real estate is not for me. I don't like it. Angela Yee, who is a co-host, a co-worker with me at the Breakfast Club, she had a boyfriend in Detroit and was like, hey, Nvidia's these houses in Detroit, they are going for like ten, fifteen thousand.
You really should look at it. They're downtown is not not far. So I bought three of them. I bought three of them. I didn't know what to do with them and I just pretty much paid the taxes. I found a contract in Detroit and I started to use them and that was a disaster. I remember going to one at a house and he had bathroom tile on the master bedroom wall. And I'm like, What is this? And he was like, Well, that's my style.
I'm like, I'm not paying you for your style, bro. So I kind of shop and I didn't know what to do. So I just kept paying taxes. I just kept paying the taxes. And who was the the person that he was besides who was like, I got a guy I want you to meet. He does real estate. And there at the time everybody does real estate. You know, you sell one house, you do real estate.
So I kind of brushed it off. And then he was like, I really want you to meet this guy. So I went to his office, which he sees me and my wife, and he was like, yeah, I have all these properties in Patterson. And instead he was like, let me show you. I was like, I, I was like, I'll follow you when you drive. He was like, no, you have to get in my car so I can show you.
So my wife is standing behind him like we don't know him, not we're not getting in his car. And I'm like I'm like I can finally he's like, no, you have to get in my car. So I'm like, I so me and my wife get in his car and we start traveling. He starts showing us all the properties he has, what he owns, what he purchased, what he did, how he did it. And he was like, this is what I do when I was like, well, I do the same.
And he was like, you know, I want to help you. And I was like, you know, he started telling me a story. And I was like, we really should teach people how to do it. And we started looking at different seminars and webinars and we would see that a lot of people that looked like me were charging people like ten thousand dollars to teach them how to do real estate and teaching and charging of fifteen thousand and seventy five hundred and thirty thousand.
And, you know, I said this season was like, that's not right. I'd rather people take that ten thousand, put it into a property and it out. So we said, let's start doing it. We really started doing seminars just to piss those people off, like basically say if you like, you're not going to do that. And we only expected like 50 people at the seminar that we did. And the first one we did it was like fifteen hundred people, the second thousand then five thousand in ten thousand.
And then we just started traveling and really teaching people how to do real estate. But not only that, we would bring everybody there so we would bring credit repair, we would bring hard money lender, we would bring a conventional lender, we would bring contractors, we would bring an attorney. We would bring, you know, all these people and explain to them what these people did. And then if they wanted to talk to the people, it wasn't like, aha, well, if you want to talk to them, it's an additional find out.
No, it wasn't that at all. Want to talk to them. Yes, go talk to them. That's their job. And we kind of made a name by doing that and really helping the community learn how to invest in real estate. And, you know, we have so many calls and people that just bought their first home or were written for twenty years and never knew that they can do it. And that's really how we got into it.
And at the same time, I just kept buying real estate and buying real estate and we bought a school and we're turning that into a seventy unit building. And we just kept going like that. And that's, you know, in music. I don't have a phone. There is no retirement. It's not like I have a retirement fund. There is no retirement for if you look for artist deejay's, nothing like that, you have to figure it out on your own.
So this was my retirement. The fact that I can have one hundred and thirty units in that money comes in, comes in for the rest of my life. Whether I say something crazy on your podcast or say something crazy on a radio, it doesn't matter because nobody knows the homes that I own and that money continues to come in. So even when I'm gone, my kids can still get money. And I always encourage people to really look at real estate.
I'm not just saying just keep it one thing in your portfolio, but that's something that continues to bring generational wealth, continues to bring wealth. No matter what happens, no matter how nasty it is outside, no matter if I lose my job, no matter if I go to the club, I get drunk. It doesn't matter what I do because that money will continue to come in. That's so good.
So it makes sense why you love real estate so much. I mean, like we all love real estate. I'm also curious if you could spend. Why, like what? In your past or what. What about you makes you so fired up to teach other people, you know, because there's a lot of people out there who you love, real estate. And then then there's something about some people, I mean, like me and David here and obviously youtu that says, no, we want the rest of the world to know about this, too, like you guys.
What do you guys think?
Like what brought that in for myself? The same people that look like me to be able to invest in real estate and to be able to own own property, you know, seize the Spanish. I'm black. So when we go and we're bidding on homes, we never see nobody that looks like. And we always say why, or we go to areas where whether it's Brooklyn, whether it's Harlem, whether it's Paterson, whether it's Detroit, whether it is Chicago, whether it's parts of Florida, and these are areas where we are from and we live.
But you see it being gentrified. And, you know, we see in people that don't live in our neighborhoods but are taking care of our neighborhoods better than us buying our neighborhoods up. And then the value goes up where we are pushed out and forced out because nine times out of 10, a lot of us are written. So teaching us how to do it, you know, saying, wait, you don't need one hundred thousand to put down.
You know, there is something called FHA where you can get a loan. There are grants that can help you out and really trying to teach our people how to do it. I'm good. I'm successful. I have what he sees is good. He's successful. He has money. But you know what your legacy going to be? I got to be able to say, you know what? I was able to teach a community how to invest in properties.
We were able to teach somebody that had no clue and gave me inspiration. And the best feeling is when you hear somebody's mom hit us and say, hey, my son was twenty two, he was a F up, and now he's into real estate because he came to a seminar or, you know, a kid that had no clue it was rented for 20 years and be like, I don't want to be like my mom, can you teach me.
And that's what we're doing.
You know, one of our biggest shows ever, I think it's actually prior biggest show of all time. Ashley Hamilton from Detroit, single young black mother who used her like tax return money every single year to buy a property and fix it up and then rent the thing out. And over the course of a decade, she was able to, like, get a complete financial freedom up doing that.
It's like, I love that. Yeah, it's so good. It's so yeah. It's not taught that widely. And you're right, when I go to work, I go to an auction and there's 50 guys that look just like me, you know, like in it's not as widely taught. Branded.
Where are you finding wizard auctions wizard.
Well like everyone looks like the wizard.
Yes. Yeah, yeah exactly. OK, maybe not exactly like me. I do have a unique look to it, but. All right, so where do you guys see yourself headed? Real estate. I don't wanna spend the whole show talking about real estate, obviously, but like, where do each of you guys see this headed in the future? What do you want to get to?
You know what? I first thought all I wanted was twenty, twenty units. That's all I wanted. And in 20 to 50, 50 to 100. And now I'm at a point where, you know, I just want my kids and my family to be good. You know, I want to as much as people hate Donald Trump or hate the Rockefeller or hate whatever, I respect the fact that when I drive in these different areas and cities, you see his name plastered on buildings he owns.
And I want that to be for myself. I want to see my name on buildings that I own. I want to make sure that my kids, you know, the fact that somebody could come to their father, say, hey, I need a million dollar loan. I couldn't come to my dad and be like, Dad, I need one hundred alone. My dad go get a job, you know? I mean but, you know, I want to encourage my kids to do that.
Like my daughter who started her first year at NYU, she made me happy because her major is real estate. You know, that's cool that so many schools offer that, though. I'm not going to lie. But she was able to find a school and she's able to learn from that. She's able to learn from Uncle C's and she's able to take the necessary classes. But that's what I'm really encouraging people to do, like there's worker bees out there that people are going to work for the rest of their lives.
But I also want to really push people to invest in really to create that financial freedom so you can do what you want to do. If you want to be in sanitation and you want to become a garbage man, that's fine. I want you to. But I want you also to make sure that if something ever happens, you have money coming in.
Did you guys get that bug where the first time you took all this money that you earned and you invested it into something that made it bigger, that something swish where you just got, like, addicted to that just I just want to put all my money into this thing. Did you have a similar experience?
What makes me the happiest is just putting a deal together and seeing a deal close from beginning to end. So just that first deal that I did, that first property and after that, it was just, you know, like an addiction. You know, I just kept on and on and on. When I first started, my wife talk about all the time, I said I wanted to make five thousand dollars a month in rental income. That's all I wanted.
And then I went from five thousand to ten thousand, say, you know what I mean?
Let me go to twenty four point fifty to one hundred and so on. So far I want to show off. Right, but it just keeps on where real estate is really. There's so many different ways that you can go from residential properties, commercial properties, developer, you know that there's really no retirement. Right. And the thing about real estate, especially when it comes to rental income, which is the thing that we push the most, is when you think about everything and every single career right out there, if you're an athlete, an attorney, a doctor, you know, you're a cop, a fireman, eventually your career will end.
Right. So your income and your salary won't be the same. But if you have rental properties, rental income is forever. And it goes down to your kids and your. You can raise the rents so your cash flow growth grows every single year. It's one of the only things that is, you know, you could be financially secure.
I think it would like a little oil wells where, like every every property you buy the oil well, it's like pumping out oil from the ground and you like you put those working, you buy the one and you buy the second, you buy the third. And everyone's not just pumping oil when you die someday, your kids get all those oil wells. And, you know, with current tax law, like the kids get out of like a stepped up tax basis and don't pay any taxes on all that.
It's was may change, but it's it's just so. Well, that's why I was wondering if you guys had that vibe, because I remember the first time that it clicked with me. I felt like money's coming in from rental property or money's coming in from work, but it hits you different when you know you didn't go trade time for that money. It's it's there's this sense of I did all this work and I have this thing that will now just keep on paying that for me became the source of my addiction.
I just wanted to get more and more of those because there was there wasn't a connection between me getting up, driving to work, punching a clock to get that money. It was I already did a bunch of that work. Now it's just going to come in and be. Was it similar for you or was it something else that was driving you to get into this?
It was definitely that it was knowing that my kids would be great. And I tell everybody all the time between the first and the fifth when those envelopes come. And it could be a small bill, a small house, a small house that I own and it's a thousand dollars, that thousand dollar means more to me than my paycheck because I feel like I work even harder for that. You know, like they they just gave me a bunch of envelopes and you're like, wow, like I didn't have to do anything, you know, I already did the work for it.
And it comes in every first and fifth. And, you know, even with me, I'm blessed enough where for me I don't need that money. So when money comes in, it goes right back out to another.
They have a right is that Wall Street is one of the properties out. But when it comes in, it goes right back out to another property, know. So for myself, it's what else can you do? And I'm Caesar's patient. So your quick story, I we bought a house, I bought a house. The person who bought the house before me, it was twelve point eight million. Right. I was able to get it for five point four.
But the house was probably when I say I probably lost all the hair on my head if I have anything left a problem per grade, because I just it was just stressful.
And he was like, M.V., we're going to get the house. Just be careful. Just just be calm. And I'm like, no, it's just I just can't take this anymore. And he was like, when you get the house, it'll all be worth it. And we just it evaluate what was what was the value that today. And I'm like, no, no, he's alive.
I fall for it now when you buy that. Bought it February twenty twenty. Oh wow. That's a nice way to make some equity. That's, that's incredible.
And it does. What's funny about real estate, you hit on a really important point here. It's just that like when you're in the midst of it, like in you're you're dealing with the drama and the stress. And we've all been there. All four of us have been there. Right. We're just like I like I'm just going crazy and I want to pull my hair out and then, like, you get through it and you're like, oh, it was all worth it, right?
Like that with almost every business, it's worth it if you keep that perspective long term.
But that's what I think. This is the good yin and yang because he's like that, like he's even no matter what it is now, he's like, you have to worry about it. Just let's call this guy. We'll talk about it tomorrow. My wife is like, no, we have to know now is it seems like we'll take care of it. I'll call. And, you know, it's nothing that's going to drive us crazy killers, but it always works itself out.
All right. So how do you guys, his wives play into your current real estate and I mean, just real estate, just your business life in general. So everything you do like, how involved are they? Like what role have they played? I'm curious of just like their their role in your life?
Well, my wife is pretty much my partner. You know, she's involved with everything. She's actually I'm more of the check writer. If she's actually more hands on those up to her, she will probably be out there fixing properties herself because her dad's a plumber, her brother's an attrition. So I'm the guy that wants to pay everybody to do the stuff.
She actually wants to get her hands dirty, but she's 100 percent involved. She's been with me since the beginning. And everything we do, everything we have, we we both did together. And my wife is my partner, and that is hands on in real estate. We've been married twenty years this May. But she is my partner. She handles the bills. She handles the numbers. She handles the finances. I try to keep up with real estate because she has very expensive taste of a lot of stuff.
Doesn't know the difference between a flip property and our real home run to go get chandeliers for Flip. But that's her. And I will say one thing about his wife. So, you know, when we when we bid on properties and we have a lot of times people look at the properties before we bid on them, and a lot of times, of course, the doors are closed. His wife is the one that breaks into the house that he's going to do the window.
She's going to you know, we're going to the bars. She's going to McGyver. Something to get the door open. That is his wife. You know, she is strictly that. And, you know, she she gets things done. That's awesome.
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What do you have for those people who maybe have a spouse that's not supportive of their real estate or their their ambitions to get out of the life that they have? Like, there's like, hey, you know, I was raised blue collar when we want to stay blue collar forever, this is what we are.
That's perfect because his wife didn't believe it. First, his wife told him to go get a job.
Her she tells me you're a dreamer. You just like to go drive a cab. Yeah, that a couple of cabs in New York, the yellow cabs, the medallions was actually my dad wanted me to get into the cab business, too, and I chose not to and I didn't because I was destroyed over it pretty much killed it in New York City.
And all of them were like, you're a dreamer, blah, blah, blah. I get a job. And I didn't listen to them. You know, people don't understand what relisting is numbers. If the numbers make sense, the numbers make sense anywhere in the country. You know, and the most important thing, though, that the reason that we are successful in real estate is because we buy under market value properties and add value to them. Right.
We know we're not talking about we're not teaching our seminar properties at retail over retail. Right. That's not what we're teaching. You make your money when you buy. Right. Because that's when you get a good deal. So that's the most important thing is buying on the market that you hit on.
A really good point there as well, SESAR, that had you invested into the taxi industry, you'd be in some trouble right now. There's there's innovation in business that you can't foresee coming, but it's very hard to see something replacing real estate. And I think that's another reason why we are all why we double down on it and really why we're OK getting rich slow because real estate often takes time. I mean, if you buy right, like you said, SESAR, it's safer and you can get some equity, but you're usually not crushing it right off the bat, like somebody who starts a startup in it and it takes off.
It's just so much safer than every other investment. And I'm sure you guys have people that are afraid that they'll say, I don't want to invest in real estate. What if I lose my money? What if this happens? You know, what are some of the advice you guys give people as to why you believe this is an asset class that is solid? Well, you have to understand something.
When I first started, just to give you an example, right. Like you said, it takes time because there's no such thing as overnight success. Most people don't understand it. Right. They think, oh, my God, I saw this guy on Instagram. He's successful from yesterday. It doesn't work like that. I've been doing this for fifteen years. But just to give an example, when I first started my rents in Paterson, New Jersey were nine hundred dollars for a three bedroom apartment.
Today, those rents are two thousand to twenty five.
So imagine, you know, just buy me, you know, sticking to my vision and just buy more and more. Properties where I am today, because over time, what real estate values just keep on going and especially where rental properties, right? My first love is rental properties. Yeah, like flipping properties. But I think rental properties is really the key to long term wealth just because over time, every year you raise the rents. Right. In New Jersey, we could do five percent every year.
So we do those numbers and you have 50, 100, 200 units at five percent every month. Once you raise that rent in January. That's a big difference as far as cash flow. Right. And then the other thing is when you look at every single economy in the last, you know, any change in the economy in the last 10, 15, 20 years, rents never go backwards.
They always go up. It doesn't exist where you see rents going backwards. It doesn't happen.
You're exactly right. We saw that in 2010 when all the foreclosures were happening, prices dropped and you would have expected rents would drop, too. But what happened is all these people that lost their house needed somewhere to live and the people who did it lose their house, had the rentals. And so demand for rent actually went up. And and when I look at real estate, I feel like there's one Achilles heel in the whole thing. One thing that can make it not work.
And it's if you don't have a tenant because you got really one income source when you have a rental property. But we're seeing that that is that just doesn't happen. Rents don't go down. They go up as inflation goes up. But your your costs stay the same. And I think I mean, that's when you see how that clicks. I feel like people there's a sense of calmness and security that comes from investing real estate that before you get in, you just can't really see that you've got all these what ifs going on in your head.
You guys find that's a problem for a lot of people you're teaching?
Yeah, that's the main problem. Is that what it is? You know, somebody will get their credit, right? They'll they'll find out how much they can actually get from a lender. They'll find a property, but they just don't want to pull the trigger, you know, and that's the main thing is getting people to pull the trigger. And, you know, we just try to encourage them, like, do it. You can do it as long as you're getting the property for less than the value.
As long as we tell a lot of people to do this, especially first time buyers, you know, buy a two family or three family, you know, live on one of the floors, rent out the top two mortgage free and you make a little bit. Then when you get comfortable, go and get the next property. That's what we encourage people so that we didn't ask because we tell people all the time, you buy this property and you have a tenant, you're probably going to it's probably to be a little way less than what you pay anyway.
So we tell people to make that and charge and most people do that. They start off with a two family, three family. They live on one floor. We're not the other two. And then they get comfortable. They understand what it is. And then from there, they'll jump and do it again. And that's what we really feel good. But we definitely push people to really take that jump in to do it.
My very first house, like rental house was a duplex was to have someone like lot. Right? I lived in one of the little houses in the back in the alley like this crappy little one bedroom house. But I live there for free. And like we I mean, we still in that property there. I'm actually going to sell it now shortly. Just appreciate it so much.
But like that got me into real estate like I didn't have to pay a mortgage anymore because that other unit paid my entire rent. And so then I moved on to another one, rented that out. Now I'm making six hundred dollars a month in cash flow for years on that property. It was amazing. Coincidentally, this has nothing to do with the investment. But we found out later it was Kurt Cobain childhood home that it was like a baby home, like he was on like a year old when he lived there.
But those random doesn't do me anything at all. But a fun story to tell on podcast. But I know I just kind of cool. So, yeah, that's that was my very first thing. And I tell everyone the same thing we call a house hacking. Right. Live in one unit. Right. The other ones out. So it's an amazing way to get started. All right.
Couple more questions, but we'll throw out first of all, let's go to this one. What's something that you enjoy doing that you never get tired of, like was something in your business that you just like? This is my I love this thing. I'm this guy in the business. I love looking at homes. I enjoy looking at homes, homes and cars. That's my two things. So at night when I can't sleep, I'm looking at homes and cars.
I mean, when I'm on a plane, I'm looking at homes and cars. I'm buying, you know, home books and car books. Those are the two things that I really, really enjoy. So that's that's what I do. And if I get an opportunity to look at a house I love, like we go look at houses, it doesn't matter if it's the the issue is house. If it has heroin needles all over the place, you know, we really walk in the houses that had issues on every floor.
One time it was a guy sleeping in one of the properties we bought. Another time there was a guy on the balcony. He had two chicks. He was happy. You know, he had like a whole lot like these are the things that I really, really enjoy.
So for me is looking at going to see these houses. I love it for me. I just love putting it all together, man. It's just the art of the deal, you know, which is one of my favorite books of all time. But I just love putting a deal together, man, you know, from start to finish getting the door closed and getting people in there renting the property inside the property, it's just like a high for me.
Do you find, Cesar, that that's because you have a stronger creative side and you get to exercise it when you're putting all the pieces together?
Well, just like my wife called me, I am a dreamer.
So I actually dream through anything, you know, and dream about how is going to be what the finished product will be, and I would say what that you said about what makes Eichhorst he's a genius, like the other day, you know, we just purchased a home and we walk into the house and the house is it's a two family. And you could in the attic a finished attic. So we walk in there and, you know, we're looking at the house and seeing the work that has to be done.
And I said, you know, we're just sitting in the corner just looking and Kalgoorlie. And he has the mind for you to be like, you know what, this is two floors, two bedrooms. I can only get this amount of money for that. I need to make it a three bedroom and was able to figure out, you know what, we're going to cut this wall, put a wall here, put a door here, make it three bedrooms, this, that.
And and instead of getting, let's say, eighteen hundred dollars a month right now, we pull in twenty three hundred dollars a month plus the attic. So he's able to figure that out. Like that's like I would I would have had to go back and think about that. But for him that's always on his mind more and more and more and more and more. Hey. Oh, there's a garage there. Oh I can finish this garage and I could charge the money to park their cars in his garage.
Like he's that way of thinking. And I know I have to that like that really impresses me about the way he thinks.
You've accomplished quite a few great things in your life as well. And I want to I want to get into learning a little bit about your mindset and how you did it. But we've acknowledged, you know, Cesar kind of has that creative ability. He could see a vision. What would you say that your skill is that you bring to the partnership?
I would say creative marketing. I went to school for business management and marketing, and most people thought I would take to school for communications, but I was already a DJ, so I didn't need nobody could teach me how to deejay, you know. So for myself is putting the play together. You know, I just remember when I first met sees season, I didn't want to talk. You didn't want to speak. But I knew this season was a start is all right.
You know, what does it start look like? Nobody knows. But what he was talking and where he came from and the obstacles that he, you know, jumped over and hoops. I'm like, oh, he can be a star. So my whole thing was, well, let's market this together. Let's look. If we start to flip, we're now we have you know, he has a book, you know, we have a TV show that we you know, we're dealing with the deficit where it's going to be the first time where you see to do they look like us really teaching people how to make money in real estate where we're not putting on a suit, we're not putting on a tie and a bow tie.
And, you know, I don't know, we're doing it. We do it because this is honestly how we do it and we do it the right way. So I would say for myself is is the business side, the marketing side, and then taking it from here and bringing it up there. Yeah.
So what I see is that you are sort of driving opportunity and then Caesar's taken that is figuring out like, well, what do I do with it? Like you're you're supplying the resources and then he's making them work. And this is and I talk about this all the time. When you're looking for a partner, you don't want to go find your friend and say, well, we like each other, so let's get into business. You're you're literally looking for a partner that has a skill set that you don't have.
OK, like there's a reason you don't have a Kobe Bryant and a Michael Jordan on the same team. You have Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal. They're complementing each other. Same thing for a lot of athletes. And so I really like that you guys recognize that about each other and that you're both quick to say, here's where I'm not good. I think a lot of people are loathe to acknowledge a skill that they don't have an area of weakness, whereas successful people, they they they grab that right away.
They're like, yeah, I can't shoot free throws. I don't want to be the person going to the free throw line. You handle that side of the business. I really commend you guys for that.
Hey, I want to jump into your kind of business management of your life for a second here, navigating a little bit away from real estate. It's for both of you. But I'll start with NBA, this one. You've got a lot of things going on. You got a lot of business. You got the fifty cent thing, which is that's awesome. I can't wait to hear more about that. But like, you got, you know, the radio stuff, you got the real estate stuff.
How do you manage your life? I mean, I know you have a business manager, is that right? You have somebody that like we were talking with and I think it was like like how did that how does that how does your life run? I'm just wondering, like to be able to manage all that you have going on.
If I like it, I go I go hard. So everybody around me kind of does the same thing. They rarely sleep like to go ha. But we enjoy, we enjoy it. So for instance, John, who you just spoke to is somebody else since I was in high school who is an engineer and who left his job as an engineer to pretty much manage me, which I don't know how smart that was. But I mean, it's all pretty good.
But that's Joan. So Juliette knows everything when it comes to music, whether it's D.J. and Sholes, endorsements, albums, anything that comes with music, he pretty much handles all of that. Then I have an assistant. Her name is Mercedes. She handles anything when it comes to anything outside of that. So for me, I have a water company called Positivity Water that's in city trains, Kroger's. It's in the Atlanta airport that does pretty good.
We have a tap pop, which is a soda, which is was big growing up in New York, which I own a part of that. I have a podcast with me and my wife is called the KC Crew, which we talk about everything that's, you know. We have five kids, so it's Mirch, it's, you know, YouTube, it's SoundCloud, it's appearance's is the podcast is Flyways is traveling. I also have a car show now.
I own 14 or 15 cars or 15 cars, and we do these car shows every year. You know, people say, well, why do you have so many cars? Well, my dad always say, if you have a hobby, make it make money for you. If not, it would be a distraction. And that's what my car shows do. So we have these car shows every year in Jersey. This year will be Jersey, Atlanta, Detroit, Dallas, and one of the market I can't think of Atlantic City.
And we do these commercials. And of course, shows get about ten to fifteen thousand people where people get to see different cars. But I don't make it about the celebrities because if I make it about the celebrities, sometimes I get the wrong crowd. I make it about the celebrities cars. So I'll get Cardi B's car. I'll get 50 Cent's car. Michael Stagehand's car. Dr. Oz is car just different cars with different people. So you can come, you can bring your kids and we do it like a fun day.
So there's slides and rides for kids. But then adults could look at the cars, but then the women and done don't get a facial. So we do those things with the cause. I have a book that's coming out next year, May twenty twenty to try to think of all the businesses that want to have a juice bar that would Angeliki in stores in Brooklyn. That does pretty well. So, you know, I have hands in a little bit of everything and everybody has a job and everybody knows their job.
And even with the real estate, if it wasn't for Cesar, he's able to help me God and tell me, oh, you need to do this. You need to make sure that this LLC or you need to call the accountant or you just got a ticket for not cutting your grass, you've got to go pay that ticket like he's able to make sure that he gets it done. And what we do is we bought a office so that we're in the same space every day.
So we just bounce ideas off of each other all the time.
That's awesome. I was actually going to ask how you kind of manage your portfolio and ask both you guys. This question is how does that work? Maybe a Caesar. Do you have property managers? You guys have just all that in-house, like, what's that look like?
So right now I have about 30 employees. I have about three project managers, five property managers and a lot of contractors. Yeah. And his brother is actually the property manager.
So his brother is the one that he's in the pool and probably will probably goes and picks up the rent and they call it broken or anything, like he takes care of all of it.
But again, my problem is too, that is hard for me to like. I have a big team, but certain parts of my life, especially now, I do need more help. But it's kind of hard for me to, like, let go. So I have that part of me where, like me has Jun he has a Mercedes. I need a Mercedes. All right. But I'm so hands on that is kind of it's kind of tough for me because pretty much at this point now my whole Munmorah power is finding the deals.
Right, finding deals. But there's certain things that maybe I don't have to look at every single contract. I don't have to go to every single appraisal. I don't have to go for every single walk.
Like I bought three bullets in Chicago in the last couple of months.
I actually flew out there and I did a walk through every single property when I could just FaceTime. You sent me a video, but I'm so hands on that. I need to touch everything, you know. And so I kind of do have that issue where I need to let go a little bit more.
Dude, I'm right there with you. I spent the whole weekend remodeling my closet into a little playroom, sleeping rough, my my one year old. So I'm like, I got to hire this out. But, like, I feel like I had to get in there, get my get my hands dirty in it.
So I'm right there with you.
That's cool, man. All right, let's go. One more question before we move on. I like to ask this question occasionally. If you look back, what was the greatest day of your and I'll say real estate investing life. But if you want to pivot that one to just business life in general, like what what day, what memory, when you think back, just makes you smile. Go. Oh, yeah, that was a good day.
I have to run when I bought this new house that I'm about to move in, avoiding that one, that one was a great one. And when I bought those properties in Detroit. Not when I actually bought the properties, but when I seen what they were worth a year later, I couldn't believe it. You know, we bought those properties for like ten to fifteen thousand a property and we sold them for about two, 60 to 90 each. No, nothing.
Cut the grass.
Dang, I invested in the wrong areas.
Yeah. That that was like that was the fact that I got in early and was able to buy that. That was that. And the third one. It was the third one. Sorry we just scored. The fact that we bought a school is just the fact that we walk in a school like we own this issue like crazy to me, like we bought a school, you know, that we're going to turn into units. I'm like, this is this is one of those things like, wow, never in a million years to me, for me was I was like year number seven or eight.
Right. There was a 30 unit building. And this was when I was going into the bigger properties. Right now I had a couple of six unit buildings, eight abilities. So this is my first big problem that I'm getting. I'm looking at the numbers I see is a great deal. I'm getting the building for one point eight money. Right. I see the cash for it. And I'm like, you know what? You know, this building is probably worth about four or four and a half.
The reason that I got so cheap was because there was four brothers that owned the building together, the Italian, and each brother has six kids. So once the brothers passed away, now you have twenty four, you know, heirs. Right.
And they're all fighting with each other, whatever they don't want to do, you know, they're fighting about everything. So I got a great deal. So I go to this bank. Right. And we're about to close the deal and they come in the rumors and the guy's like, hey, did you stop doing what you were doing before? And I was like, what do you mean? He's like, Yeah, you have a criminal record. I was like, Yeah, but I'm buying this.
The other my wife's name. It has nothing to do with me. And, you know, he brought that up. Right, which kind of bothered me. I'm just looking at this down on you. You know, this guy is not a nice guy. Right. So they already have given us a commitment at that point. So we close on a deal. They do the loan because at this point they can't really back back out the deal.
Our taxes are great. We have assets. Right. And at this point that you didn't really know what you're doing. And again, what I'm doing. So a couple of months later, I come back and I tell them I want to refinance. Now, this property will give me a lot of credit. Give me two hundred fifty thousand. And I'm happy. You know, I put a couple hundred thousand into the building. The buildings make more money now.
You know, I got different tenants. I'm turning everything around. So they tell me, no, you're moving too fast. I don't like what you mean, which is you're buying property too quickly. So a couple of months later, I end up refinancing with a different bank. And at at the closing table, I sent them a picture of the HUD and the check. So I ended up refinancing that property, pulling out too many dollars.
Who? That's a good day. That's a real good day. Now, one of the highlights of my career, just rub it into those guy's face. Yeah, you called me a criminal. And you know that that was one of my biggest highlights. So good. Awesome guys.
All right. Well, we got to get you guys out of here in just a minute. But let's go to the last segment of our show here. It's time for our famous for.
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All right. This is the famous for the heart of the show. We asked the same four questions to every guest every week. And so this is really more like the famous eight today because we got to be here. So we'll talk to each of you. First of all, let's go and we will start with you. What's your do you have a favorite to or like an all time favorite or impactful real estate book? Anything you've read in your past that you're like, yeah, that that real estate book changed my life.
It's a new book is called Flipping Keys of Sisa. Yeah. All right. How to get into the real estate business he didn't come for. He came from nothing. Absolutely no real estate in jail. How crazy is that? I think that's book out there right now.
I love it. What do you think? Anything other than that one, which I hear is I hear it's phenomenal.
To be honest with you, my all time favorite book is actually The Art of the Deal with Donald Trump. Just read that book in prison. I read the draft board, then all those other books. But I think that the deal with Donald Trump, that's what I think. That's one of the greatest real estate books ever.
I've never read it. Is it worth reading? Yeah, it's definitely a book.
So there's a lot of is there like creative strategies that basically what books focused on, you know, like I said, my my all time high is putting it all together so that that's definitely one of my favorite books.
All right. What about your favorite business book now? I don't know.
I don't think you know, I think we're pretty much more self educated than emails, you know, just figuring out when it comes to a pivot.
And it might be you might have nothing to say there either. I'm curious, do you have a favorite business personality, mentor or teacher, someone that you like to follow, maybe you listen to on YouTube or something like that?
Me personally, and this is just growing up for my environment, is Jazy is because what he's been able to do with a lot of his businesses. You know, what Jay-Z does is he gets into a business, he brings the equity way up and sells it. He did it with Rockefeller, did it with what was his clothing line called Rocawear. He just with a spade. He's either he does it with a lot of his businesses. And that really inspires me because I see what he does.
He buys it. He makes the world love it, and then he sells it makes five hundred million dollars, but doesn't just walk away. He invest a lot of that money back into the communities, which I really love.
Brandon often says the Mark Cuban quote, that business is a sport. And what it's really getting down to is there are fundamentals just like any sport that when you learn them, you can play it. And like, that's a great example you're giving of what you guys do in real estate is the same principles that what Jay-Z is doing with businesses. You when you learn those fundamentals, you can apply them to whatever business you want to get into, which is awesome because there's a million there's a billions of people that are in the world.
They all have different personalities, different things they're interested in. But these principles work for everybody. So that that's a great answer.
Thank you for that. I'm not one to usually throw around Jay-Z quotes or anything like that, but like the one line I know he's going with this. Yeah, I'm not a businessman. I'm a business man. Yeah.
So you said the one Jay-Z and the only what I beg you for setting him up for life. Yes.
That's why I didn't worry about you. Online influencers or anybody that you follow.
I like Grandcourt don't you know, like I said, I'm about the units, you know he has housing units and I like both legit guys both.
Then I guess I have a podcast in the past. Some good dudes. All right. Next question, David. Well, we haven't got Jay-Z in our podcast that we have not got Jay-Z on our podcast. Right on that. We need Jay-Z and 50 Cent. Those are on my on my list now.
So that's my it is my guy. When that show comes out, I if you want him, get some promotion for that show. I would love to have him on the show. Yeah, that's absolutely great.
And if not, we'll take D.J. shrimp. You can go.
All right. What about some of your guys, his hobbies?
I would say my hobbies are my cars. I love cars. As a kid growing up in Queens, you know, I'm like any other kid. You know, you pointed a call. I say, that's my car, you know? So now that I got a little older and I could afford I buy, you know, from I have a nineteen eighty eight m3 thirty. I have 850, the old BMW with the lights that go up, I got SLR McLaren with the doors that go up, these are all kids.
All cars are seen as a kid that I wanted. So I think my hobbies is, is cars and my kids. You know, I have five kids, so I'm pretty much an Uber driver when I leave here.
So are you do you view your cars as an investment at all or do you treat them as like is just fun or do you treat them as an investment? Both.
So I purchased cars that will appreciate in value the majority of all my cars appreciate appreciated value, whether it is my thirty M3, which is the first M3 that they May 1st M series I paid fifteen thousand for. It is worth about eighty thousand now, has eighty thousand miles on it by eight series paid about twenty thousand worth fifty thousand. I have a 918 Spyder appeal about one point one. Ford is worth about one point five. I just wanted to forget about 500 for and it's worth about one point more now.
So yes, a lot of my cars are appreciating value. Some of them are just Ålesund. I just like them because I like the majority of them are they appreciate it. Very.
It's amazing. As far as me, I like toys, 80s wrestling or GI Joes.
And I was using his office. His office is behind this right here. And that's what wrestling Star Jones also is.
He has literally been toys.
I thought you meant like grown up toys, like jet skis, cars, and, you know, especially the kid, you know, I'm forty two. So I think back when we were growing up toys, we now like cats.
Oh, I love on the cat Voltaren Transformers. And so you can think about that from the eighties and nineties I collected all my kids come here. I love it. They love best boys.
Are they, are they like out of the box. Like you could play with them. They're not like still wrapped up in the packaging. Oh those are people to stop the investments. Right. There's a lot of information going around right now from some pretty influential people about the inflation that's happening with the US currency. And wealthy people are actually looking and investing into things outside of the dollar. So cryptocurrency is when we all know about. But baseball cards, action figures, comic books, this type of stuff is for the people listening to don't know.
Wealthy people are already getting into this because they're losing faith in the value of the dollar.
It's crazy right now that basketball car market and baseball card guys with a lot of money and they're investing millions in money. The money is going up. And like one of my friends told me, that they would invest like two hundred dollars. And these are not money. And I'm looking at a baseball card right now.
He's teaching me and I want to go. He's right.
I gave talks a lot about baseball. I thought he was like it was a gimmick, was like kind of a silly little thing. I didn't realize until recently that, like, that's a legit thing. Like people are doing this.
He's a but he's he's one of the big dogs right now. And I think he pushes the culture, too. You know, he's one of those guys that can say it and it'll go up in price. But he was on it earlier. He told me about it early.
And I was like, are you all right? Last question for me anyway. What do you think separates successful real estate investors from all those people who just never start? They never you know, they never they give up early, you know, like what's stop people from giving up?
I think it's the drive. And I think that's in anything. You know, people you know, I tell everybody all the time, you know, we all know what you know. And this is not big on myself, but we all know we all grew up with a D.J. We all knew a D.J. growing up a deejay in high school and college. But where are they now? Most of what D.J. at, because they were better than me, because I'm not the best deejay out there, but I'm the one that's going to push the hardest.
I'm the one that's not going to sleep. I'm the one that's going to outwork you. I'm the one that's going to continue to push no matter what. I have that drive and that's what makes me better than all those other deejays. And I think that's the same thing with real estate. You know, it's Sisa has that drive. I have that drive. Like when I come into the office, I tell everybody all the time, seizes on his phone.
So much is actually on auction dotcom. He's on Hub's, he's on all these different websites looking for properties, looking for homes, because this is his life and this is what his investment is. When I call him on the phone, he's like M.V. Meet me at this property over here and be like it's real estate. Twenty four, seven. That's the reason why he's so successful is that drive is that drive will take you out of being Rangeela to being one of the greatest and allow people to write.
The other thing is that people think that anything that you do. Right. I think in life there's no such thing as a perfect situation right now into something and you have to build it up. And then eventually that situation, you make it into a perfect situation. But along the road you have you've got to bob and weave, you know what I mean? There's going to be times like the thing, you know, it's not going to pay the rent or you won't be able to do a closing and flip a property.
This week, you know, there was a snowstorm. Nobody comes to the closing table is going to be next week. So I think a lot of times people, you know, they get punched in the face and they don't know how to move around pretty much. But you got to understand, nothing's ever perfect. You know, there is no such thing as the perfect deal. The. Perfect situation. You make that deal perfect by putting in that work.
All right, guys, this has been a great interview. Really appreciate it. You guys gave some incredibly insightful answers. Where can people find out more about you that wants some follow up?
You can follow me at Janvi. He's at Flippen underscoring and we do seminars all across the country. So our next seminar is going to be March 14th in Atlanta, where we actually teach people how to do it. You know, we don't charge thousands of dollars for it because that's not what we do it for. We actually do it because we want to give back to our community. We want to get to a spot where we can get a Home Depot or Lowe's or MasterCard and Discover to basically say, hey, we'll fund it, but let's community.
So that's what we want to go. So our next one is Atlanta. And during those seminars, we bring people, we bring credit repair, we bring conventional lenders, we bring hard money lenders. We bring sometimes people from auction that come up to explain how the system works and how you can do it. We you know, we show you pictures, we show you to HUDs, we show you everything so you can never be like that's not just not know.
We bring it and we break it down. We answer questions and we really get thorough with people because we want them to be able to invest. We want to make sure that everybody's not renting. So our next one is March 14th and we're doing one in New York in April of May as well. So that's what we are. But you can always follow us on Instagram. And remember, Pick-Ups sees his new book, Flipping Keys. There we go.
If you want to know how to get in the industry with nothing. So it's a great story. Really great story.
I'm picking it up today. Appreciate you guys. Thank you so much. If you ever want to do a Maui seminar, you know where to find me. I'm out here in Maui or we'll do a real sense of it all from the beach. It'll be amazing.
I'm not mad at that in the before I stayed at the Four Seasons. Oh, yes. So nice. Yeah. He's like five minutes from well I shouldn't say that on the podcast, but that's what I'm like five minutes from. I can see it from I can see it right now. But to see it from my house there. Yeah. It's not bad.
All right, guys, thank you so much. David, you want to get us out of here? Cesar N.V.. Thanks a lot, guys. This is David Greene for Brandon. I'm not a businessman. I'm a business man. Turner signing off.
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