From NBA Courts to Real Estate Empires: Cory Jacobson's Journey to Financial Growth

Summary

Podcast Summary: "From NBA Courts to Real Estate Empires: Cory Jacobson's Journey to Financial Growth"

Podcast: Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Host: John Gafford
Guest: Cory Jacobson (Co-host of the Wealth Juice Podcast)
Release Date: November 11, 2025

---

Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into the journey of Cory Jacobson, a former Philadelphia 76ers employee turned real estate entrepreneur, who shares how he escaped mediocrity and built financial growth through real estate. The conversation is rich with actionable insights on starting in real estate, building authentic personal brands, finding the right investment strategies, ethics in real estate, and the power of building community and networks. Both John and Cory bring candor, practical advice, and their trademark humour, making the episode both informative and inspiring for anyone wanting to "escape the drift" of an ordinary life.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Cory’s Unique Origin Story and First Steps in Real Estate (03:27–10:28)

• Childhood & Early Career: Cory grew up middle class in Philadelphia, loving basketball and eventually working for the 76ers, earning a modest salary.
• Turning Point: Realizing his job was cool but financially limited, Cory's boss suggested house hacking—a strategy that opened Cory’s eyes to wealth-building beyond a corporate paycheck.
• Quote:
  “I bought a three-bedroom house. I lived in one of the bedrooms, I rented out the other bedrooms and I was able to completely cover my mortgage. So this allowed me to think differently about money, wealth, and just growth in general…” (03:54 - 04:30)

2. The Power of Identity and Serving Others (07:14–10:28)

• Cory’s identity shifted from “76ers employee” to “coach,” emphasizing that coaching and helping others became his driving force.
• Memorable Quote:
  “Coaching and mentoring is truly a passion of mine. So you nailed it. Thanks for the session there.” (10:22)

3. Building an Authentic Personal Brand & Community (10:28–15:00)

• Authenticity Over Expertise: Cory and John discuss that waiting for “perfect” success before sharing publicly is a mistake. People connect with someone still on the journey, not just at the finish line.
• Vulnerability Wins: Cory’s willingness to document his mistakes and small wins resonated deeply with beginners.
• Quote:
  “Personal branding, especially today, it's not what people think it is...there are so many people that need to hear your story. Even you're an expert at something at any stage.” (12:40)

4. Podcasting as a Networking and Growth Tool (19:00–21:02)

• Both agree that podcasting is invaluable for networking and building genuine relationships.
• Perseverance is crucial—a huge majority never reach ten episodes.
• Quote:
  “If you can let your curiosity shine and just be the most interested person in the room instead of trying to be the most interesting person in the room...you’ll get in rooms you never would have even sniffed.” (20:00)

5. Real Estate Investing for Beginners: Strategies & Practical Advice (21:02–30:39)

• Start Local, Build Comfort: Cory suggests beginners start investing locally to learn, ideally through house hacking (live in one unit, rent others).
• If Local Isn’t Viable: Build trusted teams in other markets—PMs, contractors, lenders.
• Delayed Gratification is Key: Real wealth comes from long-term plays, not chasing quick, risky flips.
• Quote:
  “If your goal...is to hold on to projects for six to ten years, real estate is very, very, very forgiving.” (22:05)

Notable Strategy Flowchart (28:05–30:04)

• House hack > Long-term rentals > Branch to boutique/short-term when comfortable
• Don’t scatter—master one approach before diversifying

---

6. Housing Affordability Crisis & Institutional Investors (30:39–36:20)

• John poses a tough question on whether hedge funds should be limited in single-family ownership.
• Cory advocates for balance: opportunity for individual growth must not come at the cost of housing affordability.
• Recognition that the wealth gap is widening and the government’s involvement is a slippery slope.
• Quote:
  “I do not believe it is good for the greater good of the country that we have this housing unaffordability. Just because I’m an investor does not mean that I want all the money…” (32:00)

---

7. Ethics of Wholesaling and Calls for Regulation (36:20–45:53)

• Both John and Cory are critical of unregulated wholesaling, citing its predatory aspects—targeting uninformed or vulnerable homeowners, particularly in less affluent communities.
• John is candid: he is working to make wholesaling illegal in Nevada unless regulated.
• Flipping is differentiated from wholesaling—flipping adds value, wholesaling often just strips equity.
• Quote:
  “You are not allowed to market a property in any way for sale as a deal that you have unless you are a licensed realtor, unless you have owned 51% of the property.” (39:40)
• Memorable Riff:
  John compares the wholesaling mindset to a self-serving echo chamber.
  “The lie you tell yourself becomes the truth. And these guys get in their echo chamber...they start telling each other how much they're helping people...” (42:18)

---

8. Deal-Making & Running Syndications in Multifamily (46:41–54:11)

• Cory explains his targeted strategy: 5–30 unit properties in New England, working with trusted partners and offering LP (limited partner) opportunities.
• They stick to conservative underwriting, prioritizing investor trust over wild projected returns.
• Tax strategies like cost segregation and 1031 exchanges are used to maximize returns for themselves and their investor community.
• Quote:
  “The last thing I ever want to do is lose investor capital. And...we have had a great track record with doing that, but we keep our circle small.” (53:10)

---

9. Value-Add Strategies & Navigating Tough Local Laws (54:11–57:26)

• Focus on practical upgrades (new kitchens, baths, flooring, countertops).
• Creative value-add: John shares a tactic for handling tough eviction laws—providing tenant-only mini-storage, then leveraging lien laws as a pressure point.

---

10. Rapid-Fire Fun: Philly Sports Fandom (57:26–58:47)

• A trademark Gafford humorous close:
  “If one is just drinking out of your beverage too loud and 10 is slapping your mother...where on that scale, as a Philadelphia sports fan, are you throwing batteries at the opposing team's fans?” (57:26)
• Cory: “That’s an 11!”

---

Notable Quotes

• On Escaping Mediocrity:
  “I had to shift to, say, how important is money to me? I did not want to make it everything. I really didn't. But I knew how important it was for my future.” — Cory (07:34)
• On Community Over AI:
  “Information is all over the place. But the community and the, 'Hey, I got your back,'...is what AI won’t ever touch.” — Cory (14:41)
• On the Key to Success:
  “The responsibility of success is reaching back to pull others forward, as you search forward yourself.” — John (15:57)
• On Starting Now:
  “It’s never the wrong time to get started investing in real estate ever...the best time to plant a tree is 50 years ago. Second best is right now.” — John (59:16)

---

Timestamps for Important Segments

• Cory’s Backstory and House Hacking — 03:38–05:45
• Identity & Coaching as Core to Success — 07:14–10:28
• Building Personal Brand While Still Learning — 10:28–14:41
• Podcasting as the Ultimate Networking Tool — 19:00–21:02
• Beginner Real Estate Advice: Where and How to Start — 21:02–24:00
• Debate on Hedge Fund Home Ownership — 30:39–36:20
• Wholesaling Ethics & Regulation — 36:20–45:53
• Deal-Making in Multifamily, Raising Money — 46:41–54:11
• Value-Add and Navigating Landlord Laws — 54:11–57:26
• Philly Fan Humour & Close — 57:26–58:47

---

Where to Find Cory Jacobson

• Instagram: @WealthJuiceOfficial
• Podcast: Wealth Juice Podcast

---

Summary

This episode is a masterclass in escaping professional drift and building wealth via real estate, straight from someone who’s gone from modest beginnings to major momentum. Cory’s authenticity and John’s sharp, pragmatic wisdom together make for a must-listen for aspiring investors, entrepreneurs, or anyone feeling stuck in place. The value is found as much in candid talk about struggle and ethics as it is in tactical strategies. Whether you’re a rookie, a seasoned investor, or a “coach” at heart, you’ll walk away with both inspiration and practical tools to move forward.

Transcript

[Sleep Number Representative]

Why choose a Sleep number Smart bed.

[Shopify Representative]

Can I make my site softer?

[John Gafford]

Can I make my site firmer? Can we sleep cooler?

[Sleep Number Representative]

Sleep number does that cools up to eight times faster and lets you choose your ideal comfort on either side your sleep number setting. Enjoy personalized comfort for better sleep night after night. And now max out your savings. The more you buy, the more you save on beds, bases and more. Plus, get free home delivery on any smart bed with base limited time. Check it out at a Sleep number store near you [e-mail] today.

[Vrbo Representative]

With stays under $250 a night, Vrbo makes it easy to celebrate sweater weather. You could book a cabin stay with leaf views for days, or a brownstone in a city where festivals are just a walk away. Or a lakeside home with a fire pit for cozy nights with friends. Or if you're not a sweater person, we can call it corduroy weather. More flexible and with stays under $250 a night, you can book a home that suits your exact needs.

[John Gafford]

Book [e-mail] if one is just drinking out of your beverage too loud and 10 is slapping your mother. All right, that's the scale. Drinking too loud out of a cup. 10 is slapping your mother. Where on that scale as a Philadelphia sports fan, are you throwing batteries at the opposing team's fans? Hey, it's John Gafford from the Escaping the Drift podcast. And big news. My new book, Escaping the Drift is coming out November 11th. You can pre order it right now at thejohngafford.com There are tons of bonuses, tons of giveaways. Get the book. If you are somebody that feels like you might be drifting along, this is for you. If you know somebody that feels like they might be drifting along, this is for you. Available everywhere, all bookstores, everywhere, Amazon, Barnes and Nobles, the whole nine yards. But pick your copy up right now at thejohn gaffer gaffer.com and get a bunch of the awesome bonuses I've thrown out. Because I promise you, I put my heart and soul into this thing. I want it to help you change your life. Pick it up everywhere. And now, Escaping the Drift, the show designed to get you from where you are to where you want to be. I'm John Gafford, and I have a knack for getting extraordinary achievers to drop their secrets to help you on a path to greatness. So stop drifting along, Escape the Drift. And it's time to start right now. And back again. Back again with another episode of like it says in the opening the podcast that gets you from where you are to where you want to be. And today, beaming live at the studio, we're blessed to have a pretty awesome entrepreneur. This is a guy that I met not too long ago because I was on their podcast, which is actually one of the top 1% podcasts on Earth. He hosts that with his buddy Ryan. He is an unbelievable leader in the real estate investment space. He has expertise across. Across the board in that market. We're going to talk a lot about investing in real estate today. And again, like I said, he is the host of the Wealth Juice podcast, which I love. Check it out. Everywhere stuff is streaming. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the program. This is Corey Jacobson. Corey, what's up, my man?

[Corey Jacobson]

John, that was one of the better intros that I've ever received. Unbelievable leader. I don't know if. I really don't know about that, but I appreciate you hyping me up, man. Thanks so much.

[John Gafford]

Are you just. Well, see this point, it's either all downhill or I pump you up and you have to rise to the occasion of that intro.

[Corey Jacobson]

It's one of the two.

[John Gafford]

Yeah, it's one of the two. There's no in between. It's one of the two. So let's talk a little bit about you, dude. Where did you grow up? What's the backstory? Give me the thing that warped you as a child that turned into your superpower.

[Corey Jacobson]

This is a great question. So I'm from the Philadelphia area. I live in Philadelphia right now. I came from middle class, uh, so I didn't want for anything when I was younger. I didn't have it all, but I had a good life. I had a great. I have a great family. Um, so when I got into the workforce after college, I was actually working for the Philadelphia 76ers, which basketball was my life. But I. I looked at my paycheck every day, and I was like, man, I'm making a whopping $35,000. Is this what I went to college for? Like, can I really do this forever? Like, is this what I'm supposed to do? Just try to get by and save up and retire when I'm 65? And I found the fire somewhere along the line of my researching how to build wealth, right? And real estate popped up for me. And one of the things that happened, actually, when I was working for the 76ers, is that my boss couldn't pay me much more. He's like, corey, you know, I think we can get to 40 or 45, but you know what you should do? You should buy a five bedroom house and rent out four of the bedrooms to people that live here so you can save more money so you can stay. And I took his advice. I bought a three bedroom house. I lived in one of the bedrooms, I rented out the other bedrooms and I was able to completely cover my mortgage. So this allowed me to think differently about money, wealth, and just growth in general and thinking, wow, I can save money. For the first time really ever, I had like a little nest egg. Put all of that down in this property. And then from there I started to save up and I bought a duplex here and a triplex there and that was able to grow. And Ryan and I started our podcast, a social media platform and we had two units. I just wanted to share my story organically. Hey, this is what I'm doing. Hopefully people follow along, not trying to preach down to anyone. I didn't buy a thousand units. Starting in 1995, this is what we're doing. Hopefully people will follow the journey. And by osmosis and organically networking with people like yourself and other people, I was able to grow our. Not just our network, but our portfolio. And then we started a partner on other deals. So that's the long winded story. And I can get into the details of it, but I started out with just like, hey, how do I make some more money? And real estate was the first thing that allowed me to save money and, and accelerate my wealth.

[John Gafford]

Well, I think let's unpack everything you just said. Let's go back to talking about you working for the 76ers. Of course, the problem with most really cool jobs is they don't pay well. That's, I think, and I think they know this. They're like, you know, people just want to be affiliated with what we're doing in pro sports. And yeah, we can pay you nothing to do it. And I think that happens to a lot of kids, especially out of college. I know it happened to me. I was way more. I was way more consumed with being able to tell people the story, mainly girls, of what I was doing rather than how much I was making.

[Corey Jacobson]

And I think it was such a cool job, John. Like, I. And honestly, I had such a great time doing it. I don't regret any of those years. It was, it was amazing. I ran their youth program, so I get to run their camps. So my day was spent teaching kids how to play basketball, running the business. But like, I was doing stuff that I love to do. So it was One of the better experiences I've ever had. But you're right, they save the big dollars and cents for the players. So unless you work your way up in the organization in air for 20 years, you can take on some. There is money to be made, but like entertainment, sports, it's cool. That's exactly right. It's a cool job to have. And I, whenever I told people, they're like, oh, that's sick. So.

[John Gafford]

Well, that's what I was gonna. That's what I was gonna say. Were you running around telling people you ran a youth sports thing or you run around telling people I work for the 76ers?

[Corey Jacobson]

Exactly. I was telling everyone I worked with seven 6ers, which was true and it was great and I had access to the players and all that stuff. But yeah, my paychecks didn't reflect what I felt, the energy I was putting in.

[John Gafford]

So here's a question, because this is the trap I think a lot of people fall into when they get one of these gigs. I've had one of these gigs that you're talking about. And how much of your identity at the time, your personal identity, your personal view of your own self worth was attached to the fact that you worked for the 76ers?

[Corey Jacobson]

A large percentage of me. And the reason was, is because I grew up a basketball fan and I played basketball and we're not standing next to each other, but if we were, you'd see that I'm about five, nine. So how did, how was the playing of basketball going to work out for me? It wasn't going to take me too far. So I got into coaching and I got into like. I just actually stopped coaching. I was coaching division three, Division two, and then I went to high school actually, just because I loved it. So that was, that was my entire identity. And the Sixers helped me meet a lot of great people. It got me kind of established in the city of Philadelphia, if you will, of just like meeting big players and who to chat with and who to. Who to network with. So one of the best experiences ever. But it was truly my identity and, and I had to shift to, say, how important is money to me? I did not want to make it everything. I really didn't. And. But I knew how important it was for my future for me to get into like a sales role, for me to learn how the gift of the gab and learn how to communicate with people. And that was what accelerated my negotiation skills and all these other things to eventually hosting a podcast, to being able to amplify other people's voices. But it started with just a $35,000 job that I could tell everyone was. It was cool.

[John Gafford]

Well, again, I'm gonna. I'm diving deep on this because I think the difference with you a little bit, and one of the biggest mistakes I think people make is they tie their identity so much to what they do rather than who they are. But I think you just said something that probably at a young age, you identified yourself as more like, if I dig to the core of what you were at that time, probably a little bit today, too, the answer is going to be coach. I think that probably just from what you said, coaches your identity, because you can. You can coach anybody to do anything, but it's the investment you're making in others where you find personal satisfaction.

[Corey Jacobson]

Hey, I don't know if I've had many people diagnose me within the first seven minutes. Seven minutes of a podcast, but I'll tell you, you're 100% right, because I never. And to this day, Ryan and I have just over 90 units together. Some we own the two of us. Some we own in general partnerships. But I don't say that to brag. I say it. It's like, I can't believe that I got to this stage. So why would I not show other people how to get started, how to build their journey? Because it changed my life forever, and it's going to continue to do so because of the amount of dollars that I now have invested. Now, as I'm 30, turning 34 tomorrow, the acceleration of my wealth is now really starting to get fun. So I'm like, okay, I got to get as many people as I know to just buy a couple of properties. Like, if you buy. If you just get involved in the game and I can teach you, I can handhold you the way to do that. And you're right. That is. You can just tell my heartbeat went up. Like, that is really what fires me up. And it started with basketball. I love basketball. Still, to this day, I'll probably get back into coaching, but coaching and mentoring is truly a passion of mine. So you nailed it. Thanks for the session there.

[John Gafford]

Well, I think also when you look at, like you had mentioned something, the second thing you were talking about is, you know, before I had had any huge moniker of success with real estate, I started going online and telling people to follow my journey. And I think a big mistake that people make is, especially in the tri. In the tribe building, we'll call it, right, is they wait Too long to get started. I look at some of the guys that I know that have built incredible tribes over the years. I mean, obviously, Pace, Morbi and Jamil have an enormous Tribe built around sub 2. And more recently in the last four years, man, I lost my train of thought. But, yeah, just seeing those guys build tribes, they didn't wait till they were massively successful. Because I think people would rather root for somebody that's almost like an underdog. It's why we watch Rudy. It's why we do those things that people would rather root for an underdog and see if they can do it because they can see themselves in you once you become massively, you know, successful. Sure. Grant Cardone as his audience when it comes to real estate investing. Absolutely. But I think way more people probably maybe aspire to be that person, but I think they probably identify more with people earlier on the journey. They're finding success.

[Corey Jacobson]

They probably feel a little bit disc I did feeling disconnected from somebody like Grant. And that's honestly John, why we started the podcast. Because I was listening to bigger pockets, and I was hearing people say they have a thousand units, and I'm like, the level. Yeah. And the. I love Brandon. We had him on our podcast. But the level that I needed to get to to get to that stage, it was like, I don't even know where to put one foot in front of the other or how to do it. So you wouldn't believe what our DMS were looking like when I was just sharing. Hey, I forgot to fix these windows, and now it's raining inside my house. What do, like, I'm showing you what this is, what's happening. Hey, actually, I got my first rent check. Hey, I sold. I bought a property. I sold it three years later, and I made a hundred grand. Like, that's pretty cool. I'll show you what I did. And people were starting to say, hey, this. This is like, the problems that I'm going through right now as a beginner, as a novice, as a rookie. And they're like, they followed along our journey, and now we take them along the journey with us so that we can show you how to. How to do it yourself. And I couldn't agree more. Personal branding, especially today, it's. It's not what people think it is. It's not about, like, trying to shout from a pedestal down to people. It's about just being authentic and being you. And there are so many people that need to hear your story. And that's what you might not realize. Even you're an expert at something at any stage.

[Shopify Representative]

Shopify's point of sale system helps you sell at every stage of your business. Need a fast and secure way to take payments in person? We've got you covered. How about card readers you can rely on anywhere you sell?

[Corey Jacobson]

Thanks.

[Shopify Representative]

Have a good one. Yep, that too. Want one place to manage all your online and in person sales? That's kind of our thing. Wherever you sell. Businesses that grow grow with Shopify. Sign up for your $1 a month trial at shopify.com listen shopify.com listen stage that you're at.

[Corey Jacobson]

And that's what I, I didn't realize because I go back and listen to my like first podcast episodes and look at my first Instagram post and I'm like, dude, you suck. But I'm just so glad. I'm so glad I kept doing it, you know, like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[John Gafford]

Well, I think that when you, when you look at what you do and how you do it, you know, the, the purpose of the tribe. There's a lot of people that I've seen that try to build a tribe, but you can tell it's a little self serving. The ones that really get built are when the people really are. The number one thing is investing in others. They really want to see other people win. And the advantage with that is once you start, especially in real estate.

[Corey Jacobson]

Right.

[John Gafford]

I think PACE has been the master at this over the last couple of years. They built such a giant tribe that those guys don't look for deals anymore. Deals show up in their DMs all day long with their students that want to partner with them. And I'm sure you guys are experiencing that same kind of velocity right now.

[Corey Jacobson]

It's funny, we are. We teach people how to buy your first rental property because if you had 20 units and you wanted to learn how to scale it, I could help you. But I'm not the guy to teach you how to do that. Go to Pace or go to somebody else who's even bigger than us. But if you want to get started, like your first, second, third, I can handhold you on how to do it. I can plug you in the team. I can do all that. And then as a byproduct, what ends up happening is that the deals that we buy, our people in our community are buying them with us. And it's the coolest thing ever. Like, they're saying, hey, I got my first, second, third property. I love to partner with you on them. We have deal flow. We have opportunities for people to Help them grow. And I think in a world of AI now that's coming, and information is abundant. You can chat anything that you want. Information is all over the place. But the community and the, hey, I got your back. Hey, we can do this together. The team building is, I think what is AI won't ever touch, you know, so it's like, I tell people all the time, you can go do all this yourself if you want to be a lone wolf, but you're going to go so much further when you associate your someone, associate yourself with someone who's a couple steps ahead of you, who can show you the way. And that's. I mean, it's been so fun because I'm like, I'm getting to relive the beginning stages of my journey through the eyes of somebody else, but with the help I never had. And that is like, I'm just like, oh, man, I'm saving you from a $30,000 mistake right here. And it's so cool. Watch this. This is gonna. This is gonna turn out in your favor, you know? So that's. I mean, that's just like, it's been the most rewarding thing.

[John Gafford]

Yeah. I always say the responsibility of success is reaching back to pull others forward. As you search forward yourself, that's always there.

[Corey Jacobson]

Well, have you ever noticed that when you. I'm sure you have haters online, you're. You have a really big presence. Have you ever.

[John Gafford]

I need as many as I can get.

[Corey Jacobson]

Nobody punches down. No one. Yeah, no one punches down. And I've even learned that through us just having a couple conversations because you came on our podcast and you're like, let me reciprocate this. I only know you from the conversation we had, but let me reciprocate this and I'll come on yours. And I'm thinking, man, there's such an abundance. Collaboration mindset. Once you get to this certain level of like, hey, I've peaked a little bit of success. Everyone who's down below is just trying to punch up at the people that they don't even understand and they don't know. So I've tried my best to be always lending a helping hand, because I get hate online. I get people yelling at me that I'm doing something that they have no idea about. So it's a weird world out there, because the Internet is like this echo chamber of all these thoughts, and there's no real repercussions for the thoughts. You just have to try to continue to be a good person and do your best. And hopefully when you get into real life conversations like this, that authenticity shines through.

[John Gafford]

Well, I think you said something earlier which was we were talking about, you said, oh, this guy's bigger than me and call this but you can do this. I think everybody and it doesn't matter. Once you start getting, especially in real estate, once you got the game down right, once you've kind of done enough deals that you understand the flow, there's no magic juice to it. Everybody's got the same story. So the point is it's like music for me. Anything in motivation or coaching it all, it's all like music. And what I mean by that is you've got to find the frequency at which you receive the information the best. And how you deliver information is different from Brandon. It's different from any other coaches in the space. Some people might resonate with how he delivers the information, delivers with his vibe more and cool. Then go to him. But people are going to. It doesn't matter how big you are. You just got to find the people that resonate with your voice. And I find that the information doesn't change, but people still, even if the information is the same, they're just going to hear it differently depending on how connected they are to the person that they're talking.

[Corey Jacobson]

Oh, that's such a great point. It's the level of comfortability with like, does this person feel, sound, relate to me? Like, are they feel heard kind of like, do they have. Yeah, exactly. Do they have this kind of what. Whether it's a similar background or a similar story, just a similar vibe. Like, I wear a hat, I wear a T shirt. Like I'm, I'm coming to you just authentically as I am. And I feel like people do like that. The people that do and the people that don't, that's totally fine, too. Like, that's, I'm not going to button up myself in a suit. It's just not me. But you know that I, I, I love that point, John, because I think it's. You find the pe. The more you put your message into the universe, the more you find the people that you're supposed to be around. And in today's day and age, that may not be your family. Some, some it may be your family, but that may not be your existing friends. It may be new people. And that's what's so cool about just this online world is I've met so many amazing people just by sharing my story. And now I'm like, oh, dude, this dude in Arizona or this dude in California, like, he's just like me. How cool is that? And then you take them to the in person relationships and it gets even bigger and better from there.

[John Gafford]

Well, let's talk about this, because I am a big proponent of the podcast. I tell people all the time, I don't care if you've got three people listening to it, start a podcast. Because if you start it with good intention, which is trying to get either entertain people or help people, but you also use it as a networking tool, there's no. I have no better networking tool in my shed than this one. This is the best tool I have for that.

[Corey Jacobson]

You know that 90% of podcasts don't make it past episode 10. So what ends up happening is it's very much of a delayed gratification game. We don't need to get into the numbers. But my podcast specifically doesn't bring me tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. Like, you know what I mean? Like, it, it's. We have sponsors, it's great. But it's this. That is what it brings me is like, you and I would have not anywhere crossed paths in any conversation if I didn't have a podcast and you didn't have a podcast. And then you build this mutual respect and you're a hell of a lot further along than we are. But we can share a conversation, have some commonality. Because I, I'm so genuinely curious about how you did what you did. I'm all, I'm not trying to flip the script here and interview you. I know, I know we already did that, but that's how I think. I'm like, I'm very curious about what John's doing. If you can let your curiosity shine and just be the most interested person in the room instead of trying to be the most interesting person in the room, you can. Everyone wants to share their story. Everyone wants to talk about themselves. And I think that that has allowed us to get in rooms we never would have even sniffed. Like, I didn't think I would be interviewing David Green or Brandon Turner like I had. There are people I read books about, but they're like, hey, you guys have a platform. I have something to show, something to sell, whatever it might be. Maybe the people that are listening to you would resonate with my voice. And I highly recommend people. Even if it's not a podcast, if it's a social media platform where you can interact with people, a podcast is even better. It's just a little bit harder to scale. But just keep Doing it. Just keep showing up. And you don't need fancy lighting or mics or any of that. Just like, just be you. And I think you'll find the people that are meant to be around you. So I totally agree. Totally.

[John Gafford]

Yep. All right, well, let's teach the people something. Let's talk about real estate investing. And I want to specifically talk about. Because right now, it can be tough out there. There's a lot of volatility in a lot of markets across the country. And I think the biggest problem with newbies thinking about getting into real estate investing or buying that first property is a. They think they have to buy it within five miles of their house.

[Corey Jacobson]

Yep.

[John Gafford]

So if your market might be one of the ones that's in the danger zone a little bit, that's a bad idea. And then how do you. So how do you analyze if your market is okay and if it's not, how do you get over the hump of buying. Buying a property in another market? Let's watch.

[Corey Jacobson]

Great question. So I would tell you this. If you're brand new to real estate investing, I do recommend you buy in your backyard. I do. That doesn't mean that you have to, but I would say that's a good start. And here's the thing. If you're younger or you're single or you don't have three kids, without a hesitation of a doubt, you should be buying a duplex or a triplex and living in one unit, renting out the others, or living in one bedroom. And if you want to bring friends, you don't have to pad split, live with strangers. Yeah, you can. But I did it where I brought my friends from where we were renting when I was 26. They're like, I'd rather pay you rent. So I was sharing the living space with them. I realized that people are all up in arms about that. They want their privacy. Fine. So I would recommend that to start. Also, the biggest thing is that the numbers will drive you crazy. They will make you think, left, right, up, down, good deal, bad deal. Like, if your goal, and our goal is always to hold on to projects for six to 10 years, if you hold on for six to 10 years, real estate is very, very, very forgiving. So you can make a deal work. However, let's say you live in California and you're like, you know what? I can't necessarily. I don't think that I can buy a property that's $1.6 million or whatever in house hack. Okay, fine. There are teams that you can build boots on the ground in Detroit, in Cleveland, in Houston, in Augusta, Georgia. I'm just throwing out some examples of places that you can buy properties for 120, $130,000 and you can put an entire team and never have to deal with it. Never have to, not. It's. You do have to deal with it. You have to manage the manager, but there's a team that you can put in place. And just as an example, one of the things that we did in the beginning, I started out in my backyard to get comfortable, like we're saying. But then once I realized these properties were like 45 minutes away, you know, in my backyard, but not too, too far, I wasn't going to the properties once I hired the right team. So if I wasn't going to these properties, does that mean I could invest two hours away? Does that mean I can invest a three hour plane right away? And then I slowly started to move into other markets. But it is all about who you know and how you can piece these deals together. Make sure you have the right property manager, make sure you have the right contractors. Things will go wrong, contact will be made, but as long as you have those pieces in place, you can invest anywhere. I know people that are investing out of the country. I don't do it, but I know people that do it. So.

[John Gafford]

Oh, you know what, you know, I got a freebie for you if you want it. Yeah. Because I met this dude at a speaking. I was, I did a speaking deal at five Star a couple weeks ago in Dallas and I met this guy who was the vice president of construction for offer Pad. I don't know if you know about this deal or not.

[Corey Jacobson]

I've never heard of offer Pad actually.

[John Gafford]

Okay, so offer, they're an ibuyer right there. There's opendoor and there's Offer Pad. They're the two biggest ones. They may not be in your market in Philadelphia, but offer pad does about rehab, you know, flip 4,000 doors a year is how many they do nationwide. It's a lot of doors. And so in talking to the guy that was the vice president, rehab, who built their entire network of contractors. And everybody is like, yeah, obviously the market's a little squirrely right now, so we can't buy on the margin. And they asked me because I don't want to, I don't want to lose my crews because our crews are hyper loyal to us based strictly on the amount of work that we give them. We buy everything, you know, in bulk. So we have like Bulk flooring prices, bulk tile prices, bulk everything. So what they've started doing is they'll do your rehab for you as a flipper. The crews don't know if it's the hedge fund's house or your house. They don't tell them any different. And they'll guarantee you $1,000 worth of work a day.

[Corey Jacobson]

Wow.

[John Gafford]

So if it's a $27,000 rehab, it's done in 27 days guaranteed.

[Corey Jacobson]

Wow.

[John Gafford]

And it's from. I got a couple buddies in sub markets using them and they tell, everybody tells me this has been a game changer for us because now, because without fear, they can buy anywhere. And then if you're using a couple of the different big lenders, again, I'm not sponsored by any of them, I also won't name them. But a couple of the big lenders, I'm not sponsored by Alphabet either, but a couple of the big sponsors, a couple of the big lenders, fix and flip vendors, they'll handle the draws directly with them. You don't have to deal with it. So the draws are handled out on the fix and flip money on the levered money and it's free. So if there's some markets you've been looking at, you're like, I don't know if I want to build cruise. Check that out.

[Corey Jacobson]

No, I definitely will. I think that's great advice. You know, it's funny, I think you mentioned like what the biggest mistake that newbies like what's their biggest mistake? I think it's expectation. I really do. I think if I find a rental property in a B plus market or a B minus market or a market that I can see potential appreciation that has some cash flow. I like that like middle ground that cash flows 250 or 300 a door. Like I'm, I would buy that property and I know that 350 or 300amonth does not excite people these days. I think that's the issue is that they're looking at it like I need to escape my job right now. I hate this. I can't do it. I like get me out of this. Well, I don't think real estate investing, meaning buying rentals, buying long term building your portfolio is a great way to do that at all. If you're looking to fix and flip, that's a new job. If you're looking to wholesale, that's a new job. You can escape what you're already doing. We teach people how to buy long term rentals and people come to us like next year I need to be out of my job. Like, I'm not saying it's impossible, but I'm saying if you work in five to ten year time horizons, you're going to be so happy. You're that delayed gratification is going to come through and you're going to be like, I am so glad that, and I'm telling you this because I've only been investing in real estate for seven years, but now I'm starting to see the fruits of my seven year ago labor. Right? That's the. I know. And you know, maybe people disagree with me and say they can get out of your job in a year if you have that strategy, great. But I like to be conservative and I like to tell people this is what you can expect and I love to hear that. There's like even new strategies that I haven't thought of. Like partnering with these like large scale firms. It's really, really cool because finding contractors.

[John Gafford]

Is, that's the hardest part. The trades. The trades is the worst. I mean, I'm on a three week shower remodel at my house right now.

[Corey Jacobson]

Because it's been your primary, your primary home.

[John Gafford]

My primary, yes, because it got done incorrectly twice. And so now they're coming tomorrow to rip all the slabs out again and redo it. And it's like I, you know, and these are like the best guys in town and I'm like, how did this happen? But yeah, the trades are the worst. And I think that's the biggest mistake is when. Let me ask you the order at which you should start doing this. Tell me the order because I have my opinion. So say I'm a brand new investor. What is the order in which I.

[Corey Jacobson]

Should do things strategy wise? Like what strategy?

[John Gafford]

Strategy was like laying it out.

[Corey Jacobson]

So this, I kind of hit this a little bit. It depends on your age and your living situation. But I would without a doubt if I could, three times in a row, live in a property, rent out the other units, stay there for six to 12 months, leave. You have to be making money at your job to do this. Right? You're not going to pay for it from the rents, Right? But buy a property, live in one unit, rent out the others, do this three times in a row, do it once, do it twice, do something like that. Because you could put as little as 3 1/2% down. A $600,000 property can cost you $30,000 to get into something like that. Right? I would do that because you're going to build a base of a place that you would want to live. That's half of real estate is like, I know there's a lot of people that are going to buy in war zones and it looks good on paper in terms of the numbers, but if you can't get tenants in there, the properties aren't, they're not going to work. So I would say go to an area that you'd want to live, put three and a half or five percent down, live in that property for six to 12 months, then leave and do it again. Now this requires you to delay the gratification of the lifestyle that you ultimately want to live. And that's where people mess up. So do that. And then I think people should get into the long term rentals where it's like, hey, maybe I do go to a different market. For example, we have a good friend, Mike, shout out to Mike. He's in our community, he lives in New Jersey. He bought his first property in, in Detroit and then he bought his second property in Detroit. And then all of a sudden his team, his team starts to build and now he has seven units in Detroit and then he has since branched out and he bought a short term rental in the Pocono mountains. I say all this to say I don't think people should dabble in a bunch of different strategies. I think it's like house hack. If you can get into long term rentals and then when you're like, okay, I understand this game, that's how we got into more of the short term boutique hotel type stuff. But it was only from learning what we, you know, what we didn't know. So that's kind of a, a little bit of a path there. And if you live in a high price point market, you can go right to long term rentals. You just have to find the right team and find the right market to do that.

[John Gafford]

Yeah, and it's, it's, I mean there's certain markets that just do not pencil at all. Right now is Vegas almost. Vegas is almost impossible right now to pencil an acquisition long term.

[Corey Jacobson]

I was looking at this the other day. I think Vegas is, and I don't know too much about Vegas, but it's like top three hottest markets in the country. I mean in terms of like just appreciation and growth and what you've seen. So yeah, it's going to be harder to make long term rentals work in a market like that. But if you can get in with the primary that you can also subsidize your mortgage, I would be doing that all day. That's, that's, that's how I would do it.

[John Gafford]

Well, let me ask you this because, Because I wrestle with this as a. As a pure capitalist. I wrestle with this thought. But I think. I think the biggest problem with housing is the hedge funds. Commoditizing the single family home over the last 10 years has caused the housing issue. So what says you? Should there be a cap on how many homes an institutional hedge fund can own?

[Corey Jacobson]

This is a tough question. I get a lot of hate on Instagram because we put up a post the other day, got like couple hundred thousand views. But the good comments start to come in first, and then after a day or so, the bad ones come in. And they kind of blame you for the housing crisis. Right? You know, as if. As if I'm, you know, BlackRock. But this is a good question, because I do not believe it is good for the greater good of the country that we have this housing unaffordability. Just because I'm an investor does not mean that I want all the money and all the greed and all my prices of homes to go up and people not to be able to afford them. I think that's an insane way to think about the greater good of the United States. However, I think without the opportunity for prosperity and the opportunity for growth and competitiveness, you leave yourself in a world where there's not an incentive to do well. There's not the output of effort because it's not the outcome. It's the effort that typically gets people there. Some people are given a golden spoon. That's fine, too. But to get back to your question, I'm gonna say, yeah, I think. I think there should be a limit on institutions being able to buy, and I don't know what that limit should be. That's. Maybe we can work through this together, or you might disagree completely. But I.

[John Gafford]

No, I said I wrestle with it. That's why I wanted to.

[Corey Jacobson]

There's a challenge with should the young starter family that used to be able to buy homes when they were 28, now they're 38. Do I think that's good for the country? No, I don't. I don't know how to fix it. I think housing affordability needs to be something that is looked at, but with the debasement of the dollar, I don't know if this is reversible. That's the problem. I don't think it is. So I think there should be a limit. I don't know what the limit is, but I don't Want to see the wealth gap widen. And that's happening every single year, every single month. It's happening even faster.

[John Gafford]

Yeah. I have again, mixed feelings with that as well. I worked for both, not worked for, but I bought a huge portion of Invitation Homes portfolio in Vegas, a huge portion of Goldman Sachs's portfolio here. I helped them buy a huge portion of that in 1213. Now granted, they haven't stopped since I quit working with them, you know, over 10 years ago, but still, it, it was a huge portion of that and I never could have foreseen how much they were going to buy.

[Corey Jacobson]

And what's your take then? Do you feel like, are you.

[John Gafford]

I think I, well, okay, I am a free market capitalist at its finest. And the problem, the only issue, so two, two parts of this. Number one, I genuinely think that the large institution should have to divest of their holdings. I think that is, I think that would be best for the American public. The problem with the other side of that slope is, okay, so if we're going to say that you can't do this, what else, where does it stop? Where, where else is that going to go? Well, so now all of a sudden it's like, well, maybe you can't have a position in gold that's greater than X amount, or you can't have position in this that's greater than this. And I think that's, that's the, that's the slippery slope. So how do you, how do you pick and isolate this one thing that has created a very large problem? And I, and I do believe that the hedge funds are at the leading cause of the housing crisis. I do believe they are. And you look at the rents that have just gone through the roof across the country. I think, I just don't know how you fix it. That's the problem. I think it's a problem. I think they should fix it. I don't know how you break that one section of the pipe without breaking all of it.

[Corey Jacobson]

Well, you probably have seen this in your life. And just once the government or the entity that is above takes some form of power, they typically don't give it back. Right. So that, so that starts at. You probably saw this in the last couple years. I don't know where I read it, but I was seeing the unrealized capital gains structure, how it was potentially going to shift from like you would have to pay unrealized capital gains.

[John Gafford]

That was a Biden. That was a Biden objective.

[Corey Jacobson]

Right. And what ended up happening with it is it scared people completely because once you read the fine print you saw, I think it was like 100 million and above. But where does it stop? You know, what does that go to 50 million? Does that go to 10 million? Does it go to a million? Does it go to 500,000? And then everyone's affected. And I think that's maybe what you're alluding to is like if you tell X company that they can't buy this, then when does Joe and his wife not be able to buy this thing? Like, does it go, does it trickle all the way down? And then you just have an authoritarian type of government, which is never a good thing in my opinion. So it's funny, I didn't know the conversation would go this way, but. But we don't have the solutions necessarily. But I think we're both in agreement that it's like you either play the game or you get played by the game. So learning the game is the best thing that anyone can do. And I had no real leg up other than that I wasn't poor growing up and had a good family and a good mindset. I would love if other people started to say, hey, real estate investing isn't just for the rich people, it's for anybody.

[John Gafford]

Yeah.

[Corey Jacobson]

And the more that you can start to build your portfolio, you'd be shocked at the generational wealth that you can at least provide for your family, Whether or not BlackRock continues to buy up all these properties. So that's my take.

[John Gafford]

I think that. Let me ask you this next question because it's starting to become illegal in a lot of. In a lot of places. Let's talk about wholesaling.

[Corey Jacobson]

Okay.

[John Gafford]

What are your thoughts on wholesale? Because. Because you are not a licensed real estate agent, Correct?

[Corey Jacobson]

I am actually. Yeah, you are.

[John Gafford]

Okay. So you are. Okay.

[Corey Jacobson]

I didn't know the last six months I got licensed because it's so adjacent to my business and I just love helping people.

[John Gafford]

Got it.

[Corey Jacobson]

I think it's another avenue for me. So I am. I have an interesting take on this. I have a good friend who lives in Tampa, Florida. He wholesales, he flips, he's licensed. And his take is I think you should have to be licensed to wholesale. And I think the reason that he thinks that. And keep in mind I don't wholesale. So maybe I'm not the best to speak on this, but I do have some opinions. He says you should have to be licensed. And one of the reasons is because. Or some sort of licensing structure is because he's getting 19 year olds and 20 year olds that are calling him about deals that have no clue what's going on in this property. And he has seen the end user, not the flipper, but the person that has sold it to have a hundred thousand dollar problem of X drywall issue or mold that could have been avoided if the first wholesaler actually knew what they were flipping the contract for or had some liability and they just moved the paper and they're off with it. Make ten grand. So I would say I do think there should be some regulation. Is it the same test that realtors take? I don't know if that really helps. It's not driving any like real education into the space. But I don't think I, I do like that there is some regulation around it because I think it protects people. I don't want too much. And again, it's kind of a similar thing. How do you, how do you see it? Do you think it should be unregulated?

[John Gafford]

I think it's absolutely predatory and should be against the law.

[Corey Jacobson]

I actually like.

[John Gafford]

I'll tell you what, I wrote the bill that the session here just ended the legislation session. Governor was behind it. Everybody was behind it. They were absolutely. But it was going to get passed. But they just ran out of time with the legislation session. So the next time our legislation comes here, you'll see, you'll see wholesaling become illegal in Nevada. And here's why. Here's my problem. My problem is for 20, for $19 right now I can shut my computer off and for $19 I can go online somewhere and buy a how to wholesale property business. Train me to wholesale property and I can get on the phone and I can start banging people out. And the problem I have with wholesaling is this. You're not creating anything. You are simply stripping equity from the homeowner. That is all you're doing. You're not providing a service, you're not providing an open market highest offer. Like people, whoa, you know, you know realtors are just you, you charge the same thing for this? No, I put the property on the open market and I extrapolate the maximum amount that the market will pay for that property. That's what I do. I got wholesalers normally have one or two flippers that they to get a property and they send it out and anybody that will pay them as much as they can strip away from the homeowner is what they're trying to do. Now flippers I love, I have flipped hundreds of homes in my life and you are bringing value to the Community, you are taking a property that is bringing down property values and you are improving it and bringing up property values, improving neighborhoods across the board for everybody that lives in that community. Love a flipper, love an investor. But the wholesaling rules as they are now in South Carolina, which it's what they're going to be here in, in Nevada when this passes in a couple years, is you are not allowed market a property in any way for sale as a deal that you have unless you are, unless you are a licensed realtor, unless you have owned 51% of the property. It's like fizbos can still do what they want. If you own your own house and you want to sell it, knock yourself out. But you can't write a contract. And again all of those, like all of those offers most wholesalers, the concept of it starts with deception. Yeah, it starts with pure deception. Cash offer to buy your house. I'll buy your house regardless of condition. I'll buy your house. All by your house, I'll buy your house. When they have no intention of buying it, which is why they write and.

[Corey Jacobson]

Or assignee on the contract and they don't necessarily. Now there are some, I'm sure above board wholesalers out there, but they're not too concerned about the, not the condition but the situation that the. Why does somebody need to get out of this? Like what, what's the, what's the pain? What's the hurt they have? It's like most of the time it's like they're, that doesn't matter. I'm just trying to make $15,000 and some people, wholesalers make $150,000 on a deal. I'm not trying to downplay anyone's business, you know, like do, do what you want as long as you're a good person. But I know that there is a very predatory realm out there and I, I actually, it's funny, I'm glad we're having this conversation. I'm tending more to agree with what you're saying. Now the more that I think about it because you know, properties can be wholesaled 2, 3, 4 times before a flipper actually buys them. And then you're just, just basically middlemanning someone to death. And these flippers now have to maybe do properties at a not as high quality and then you're end up selling that to, to an end user. So I agree with you.

[John Gafford]

So here's the question. How many people do you think and here's my bigger problem, which is if you look at a Heat map of where properties get wholesaled. And I don't know if even such a thing exists in Vegas. I know because I used to get sent a lot of these deals. They are in a part of town that is not the most economically viable part of town with people that are probably not educated. So you're. It's. They're not going to the most educated parts of town. And pulling these wholesale deals together, that does not happen.

[Corey Jacobson]

Yep. Yeah. These.

[John Gafford]

They're taking advantage of people that. That understand that this is. Okay, you're going to buy my house for cash. Okay, great. And then it's just scraping off. I don't like the predatory nature of it. And the biggest problem with it, with it is for me, and this is going to be getting in my soapbox, and I'm gonna make some wholesalers mad. But the biggest problem for me is the. The lie you tell yourself becomes the truth. And these guys get in their echo chamber, and they get an echo chamber and they start telling every. They start telling each other how much they're helping people. Yeah, dude, if you take a $250,000 house and you make a $70,000 assignment on it, the only person you helped in that scenario is yourself.

[Corey Jacobson]

Totally agree. Totally agree. And I also think what ends up. You know this because you're an agent and you run a team. The biggest, single biggest piece of wealth that people have in their 60s and 70s is often their primary residence. Tornado.

[John Gafford]

That's the only source of wealth they have.

[Corey Jacobson]

The only source of wealth, right. Yeah. The average 401k balance at that age is like 2 or $250,000. I mean, that's pretty hard to live off the 4% rule on that. So now if you have a property as a homeowner that you purchased in 87, that you bought for $100,000 and it's worth 800, now you have something that you can tap into, and that is your biggest source of wealth. And if wholesalers are stripping that at 70 grand to 50 grand away, then I totally agree with you. So maybe that will help the housing affordability if wholesaling is, you know, because what I was saying doesn't even make sense, actually. Like, just to have a license to do the same thing. Like, that doesn't really help.

[John Gafford]

But here's the. But here's the difference. So if you're licensed and you're going to work real estate, then you have to be a realtor. And as much nonsense as NARA has gone through, and as irrelevant as I think that is most days too. You know, at least we have that code of ethics. We have to abide by where you have to do what is in the best interest of the clients. Like.

[Corey Jacobson]

Exactly. And you get held accountable.

[John Gafford]

And now there becomes some sort of governing body that you know when this happens. But if, and also if you're a realtor, you don't want to review that says this guy stole grandma's equity. That's stuff you don't want. So there's a little bit more responsibility that comes with that. Yeah. Hopefully that'll change. And that's what's best for the consumer. It's not about giving up choice. It's about doing this, keep mine. I'm not just picking on the little guy. That's the 19 year old that's learned how to wholesale.

[Corey Jacobson]

Totally.

[John Gafford]

I stood on the stage at Inman. I sit on the stage, the big stage at Inman Connect, which is one of the biggest real estate conferences in the country. When Zillow was the title sponsor and this is when Zillow was I buying and I genuinely felt they were manipulating values and then they would buy your house for a cash offer. And I thought that was such a conflict, it was insane. And I stood on that stage and I said Zillow is perpetuating the largest theft of American wealth that you've ever seen right now. And it's a heist. Yeah. They. Needless to say, no, I was not.

[Corey Jacobson]

Super thrilled with that. Yeah. So it's. And you're right, it's. I'm not trying to disparage the 19 year old. Go, go do what you feel is right. And like everyone's got to start somewhere. Right.

[John Gafford]

But there's ways to do it. There's ways to do this without taking advantage of somebody else. It's. That's the, that's the wonderful thing about real estate. Like you look at the fast, easy money being made in crypto, all the, all the altcoins and all that stuff. For you to win, somebody else has to lose that you're playing poker at a table. Somebody's on their side of the table. Your win is their loss. That's how this works when you pull money off the table. Real estate doesn't have to be a zero sum game. It can be a good for everybody. The seller gets the max value for their property and in its condition you should be able to improve it to place where you can make money or you can hold on to it long term through the Burr method.

[Corey Jacobson]

Agree? Yeah, I totally agree. That's a great point. And that's why I do love real estate. And it's interesting. I feel like realtors, since I became one have gotten this weird rat of like, oh, I'm not paying, I heard all this. I'm not paying a realtor. They don't do anything. They just show houses. And the more realtors I've met, the more good ones that I've met, the more I realize like these people are walking people, a lot of of consumers through the biggest purchase of their life. And they're almost therapists because they have to talk down the emotional level. They have to make sure that they're negotiating on their behalf. I think there's so much skill set that's involved in it, again, if you're good. And the thing is that the barrier to entry to become an agent is pretty low. So there ends up being people that are not that good, that don't have the best intentions, that are just out there for a dollar. And John's probably any field that you look in.

[John Gafford]

Well, let's, I want to talk about this, I want to talk about one more thing before we go, which is let's talk about deal making because obviously as well as you guys are doing with the acquisitions, you've become a good deal maker. So what do you think makes a good deal maker?

[Corey Jacobson]

Well, I would say this. I think figuring out your skill set as it relates to the deal. And I can break this down. So the way that we buy real estate now is that we're general partners. So we have focused, we buy actually New England, we buy New Hampshire, Vermont and we focus on five to 30 units. Why do we do that? Well, you mentioned institutional money is not always looking in that like small to mid size Multifamily. They're buying 200 unit plus or they're buying, you know, single family homes in Vegas. But the five to fit the five to 30 unit, it has allowed us to play in a field that I have a boots on the ground team. My partner Sean lives in this market, so he knows it like the back of his hand. He grew up there. So he's finding these deals and then we're helping him underwrite them. We're helping him market the deal, we're doing investor relations, we're managing the property management team and we're managing the contractors together. And then we're also bringing funds to the deal. So the putting that together is like. Well, our skill set has been able to create a community of people that want to get involved in real estate, whether they want to buy actively or they want to just be passive, that they come to us and say, guys, I know you've been buying real estate for seven or eight years. What deals do you have? So that's how we piece these deals together, where people can come in passively and everyone can win because they can still work their nine to fives, they can run their businesses and they can make money on the side without having to fix toilets at 2am I don't know if you were asking about that type of deal making or more so like the structure of like dollars and cents, but that's how we piece this together. Yeah.

[John Gafford]

Well, when you would. For those of you who don't know, what he said was GP means general partner. For those of you guys don't know. So when you're raising capital for these multifamily deals, are you guys bringing in limited partners or LPs, or are you just strictly doing it as a structured loan?

[Corey Jacobson]

No, we are doing it as we're bringing in limited partners and we do 506bs, which is for people that are listening. That's. You can bring in friends and family, people that you know like and trust. And I'm not. We're not marketing this to the masses, which is called 506C. Or we can just blast that. We have these deals because there's a lot of SEC regulation around it. We bring in people that have known us, that are investing with us consistently, that we've had conversations with in person, their friends, their family, all of that. So we're bringing in limited partners. We put money in ourselves as general partners. We have collateral as well. And then limited partners also bring their funds and just invest passively. And it ends up being these five to seven year projects that turn into win wins for everyone. But again, patience is the key there.

[John Gafford]

Are you guys doing on these big multifamily projects? Are you guys doing like paid cost seg?

[Corey Jacobson]

Yeah, so yeah, we've just. Yeah, we're doing cost segregation studies, especially with 100% bonus depreciation that happened in early, I think it was after January 19th, I believe, or January, mid January this year, where we can, you know, accelerate all that depreciation. And that's one of the biggest reasons why people like investing is because if you're an LP and you have other rental properties, you can offset a lot of your passive gains. Now if you're a gp, you can offset your other active income too, which is great. So we're doing that and we have the structure where we're paying a waterfall back to preferred return to our LPs and then we get paid after they do. Yep.

[John Gafford]

Yeah, it's money raising season because everybody's going to start scrambling to try to get some stuff before the end of the year.

[Corey Jacobson]

It's exactly right. Yeah. We've had a number of conversations with people who some people in our community who are like hey, I'm selling this property or I want a 1031 and there's ways that you can 1031 into. Into syndications which is pretty cool. I learn new stuff every day. But yeah, they're trying to, you know, make sure that money's parked somewhere else so they don't have to pay capital gains on or they can defer it. What a cool game once you learn like how to play it. And I think, you know, we're just getting started, just getting.

[John Gafford]

Well, let's. I want to ask you this because you brought, you just said it. I was going to bring it up but a lot of syndicated multifam deals that were done in the last three years are getting hammered right now because they're. Everything they did was projected on rates coming back into the low fives and now they're getting absolutely thumped. So A, have you avoided that through your syndications? B, are you trying to vulture fund in on any of the guys that are scrambling?

[Corey Jacobson]

That's a good question. No, we're not trying to vulture in, at least to my knowledge. Me and my partners haven't really set. What we have done is we've tried to educate people because. Because what's happened is I had somebody come to me who was going to invest with us, a good friend of mine and he said hey, I found this deal. He's an accredited investor so he can invest in the 506C funds. You know, he makes for people that are listening. If you're makeover I think it's $200,000 a year and or have a net worth of a million dollars, you're an accredited investor or $300,000 combined with you and a spouse so you can invest in these 506c funds. He saw a fundamental or a syndication it wasn't necessarily a fund but he saw one that had a 29% IRR. And I said to him dude, do your due diligence and look at this. Yeah. And I said just so you know, we typically are in the 14 to 16% because we only underwrite as conservatively as possible because I, I always want to under promise and over deliver and that's my biggest thing. I, I would rather lose my own dollars than lose investor dollars every single day of the week. And I have lost my own money, which is why enough to say this is what I should do and shouldn't do. So I haven't really got into like that taking from, you know what people have their losses and trying to like redirect them. But I've, I've just warned people, hey, if you're seeing a 29% IRR and it's being blasted out to the masses, just do your due diligence and just know who you're working with. Because the relationship with the sponsors and the relationship with those people to me is way more important than the dollars and cents that you see on paper as how good this deal can be be. Now maybe people are making 30% returns. That's great. I hope they're out there. I just don't want to.

[John Gafford]

But if you're, but if you're my. See here's my opinion on that, right? That's like, that's like the Lamborghini on Instagram. If the 29% to me might as well be a Lambo on Instagram. If you're that good. If you're really that good and you've got a track record of turning those 29%, that deal is not getting blasted to anybody because your investor pool has already gobbled up every, every possible point of it.

[Corey Jacobson]

That's a good point too. Yeah. So I get a little weary with it and you know, there's investors that are way bigger than me that are. So I don't know it all, but what I do know is that I now stay in my lane. Like I buy these five to 30 units. We're buying in New Hampshire, we're buying in Vermont, we're buying it value add multifamily. And we're just, we're able to find these deals from an off market fashion, whether our property manager refers them to us or our lender up there refers them to us because they know that we're going to close and that we're active, actively buying. And then they have, especially the property manager, they have people coming in and out selling all of that. And I think that's been a win win for us. But the last thing I ever want to do is lose investor capital. And you know, knock on wood, we have had a great track record with doing that, but we keep our circle small. That's the thing, you know, people that I really smart, hey, you have to trust not just the numbers but you're trusting us and I take that to heart.

[John Gafford]

Yeah. What's your number one value add right now on. On multifamily when you do what, like.

[Corey Jacobson]

The, the, the thing that you would fix in the property? That.

[John Gafford]

Yeah, yeah. Which. Why I heard a really slick one the other day that I love and I don't know what the. I don't know what the eviction laws are in your part of the world over there where you're doing this, but I heard a really good one the other day.

[Corey Jacobson]

That's a good question. I mean, you know, anytime that you can put in new kitchens and bathrooms, obviously they sell houses, but typically what we're doing right now is we're turning over like 1980s build or maybe a little bit earlier, and we're taking. And we're putting in new flooring, quartz countertops, new cabinets. That, that to me has helped just even the vibe of this property, the vibe of all these properties significantly. But I'm looking. We're buying in typically B to B plus markets. So you have a little room of like, hey, if there's a. If there's a dip and people that are in the A class lose their jobs, they can come down to B class. I don't like to play in C class. It's a little bit too risky for me. So I don't know if that totally answered your question.

[John Gafford]

Well, I was going to tell you a slick one again that might help you with your eviction laws if you have them, if they're terrible. But my good friend Kendra Todd, that actually got me into real estate, has a lot of units in Washington state where eviction rules are just dreadful. So what they did was they started adding mini storage to all of their. Where they could build on pad at all of their multifamily stuff. And then what they do is they just make, make. They make the. They only do the mini storage for the people that live there. So it creates a revenue source for them, additional revenue. But they do an incredibly good pricing on it to incentivize people to take it. And what happens is they tie the mini storage bill to the rent. And if they default on the rent, they can't evict them necessarily, but they can put a lock on that storage unit and then auction off all their stuff that is legal. And that lever has gotten people to be like, okay, no, no, no, we'll move or okay, no, no, let me get caught up because you can't do anything. Yeah, I had neither. I thought it was really, really Smart. And she was like, we were just having. We were getting murdered with people that just weren't paying us. And that has essentially now driven it to zero.

[Corey Jacobson]

That was one of the reasons why I stopped investing in New Jersey. I'm in Philly, like, very close to New Jersey. And I love Philadelphia. It's actually easier to invest in Philly than it is in New Jersey. But the eviction laws were favoring the tenants so much. And, you know, I respect, like, I, I wanted to be the best landlord that I could be so that my tenants never wanted to leave. Like, that's what I, I pride myself on. I don't want to be a bad landlord. But to. If somebody stops paying, especially in the past couple years, it was six months minimum before people were getting out. Where in Texas, you. The sheriff shows up the next day, basically. So, yeah, in Vermont, New Hampshire, it's a little bit better. They're a little bit more landlord friend friendly than you would potentially think. For the Northeast, like Massachusetts is, is worse than. So we kind of have a blend. But it's, it's. I mean, so far it's worked out. I think that that's where our team is. And that's why I'm saying, like, I never thought I was going to invest in the Northeast in those areas. It's just where my team started to grow and we started to be able to plug and play with the right people. I think if anywhere in the United States you can find a great place to invest, it's just about where, where you have your team.

[John Gafford]

Okay. All right, then the last question I'm gonna ask you before we jump off. Cause I'm sure it's the one that everybody wanted to know since the second you said you were from Philadelphia, which is this. If one is just drinking out of your beverage too loud and 10 is slapping your mother. All right, that's the scale. Drinking too loud about a cup. 10 is slapping your mother. Where on that scale, as a Philadelphia sports fan, are you throwing batteries at the opposing team's fans?

[Corey Jacobson]

Okay, that's an 11. But are you gonna, Are you gonna ask me where I stand or just like, how are Philadelphia fans in general?

[John Gafford]

Okay, give me, give me the Philly fans in general.

[Corey Jacobson]

I'll say this, the city. It's funny if you're not from Philly. You think Philly is like this war torn third world country, like, get me out of here. I absolutely love Philadelphia. I love the passion, I love the fans. I think it's kind of one of those things that we're like holding our sports teams to this really high standard. It's super working class. It's like blue collar. It's like, you know, and I'm not from the inner in the city, but, but I love Philadelphia sports fans. I do think, however, maybe don't wear a Cowboys jersey to lead again.

[John Gafford]

Maybe you're asking, maybe you're just asking for it if that happens. Okay, fair, fair, fair. All right, cool, brother. I appreciate it so much. If they want to find you, where do they find you?

[Corey Jacobson]

The best place to find us is on Instagram, actually at Wealth Juice Official. It's me and my partner Ryan. We've been doing this. We post every single day for the past six years and we'll continue to do so. And then the Wealth Juice podcast, wherever you listen to podc, if you want to listen to some more long form content, we're sharing our story, we're amplifying others voices and we're bringing it out twice a week. So that's where to find us.

[John Gafford]

I love it, man. Well, thanks so much. Anytime you're in Vegas, I gotcha.

[Corey Jacobson]

John, I appreciate you having me on, man. This is awesome.

[John Gafford]

So guys, if you listen to that today and hopefully you listen to it all, I mean, if you took nothing away from it, take this away from. Is never the wrong time to get started investing in real estate ever. So start today, figure out how to do it today. Because one of my favorite quotes is the best time to chop. You know what the best time to plant a tree is 50 years ago. Second best time is right now. So could do something right now, six years, seven years from now. You'll thank yourself for it. We'll see you next week. Hey, it's John Gafford from the Escaping the Drift podcast. And big news. My new book Escaping the Drift is coming out November 11th. You can pre order it right now at thejohngaffer.com There are tons of bonuses, tons of giveaways. Get the book. If you are somebody that feels like you might be drifting along, this is for you. If you know somebody that feels like they might be drifting along, this is for you. Available everywhere, all bookstores, everywhere, Amazon, Barnes and nobles, the whole nine yards. But pick your copy up right now at thejohngaffer.com and get a bunch of the awesome bonuses I've thrown out. Because I promise you, I put my heart and soul into this thing. I want it to help you change your life. Pick it up everywhere. What's up everybody? Thanks for joining us for another episode of Escaping the Dr.

[Corey Jacobson]

Drift.

[John Gafford]

Hope you got a bunch out of it. Or at least as much as I did out of it. Anyway, if you want to learn more about the show, you can always go over to escaping the drift.com you can join our mailing list. But do me a favor, if you wouldn't mind, throw up that five star review. Give us a share. Do something, man. We're here for you. Hopefully you'll be here for us. But anyway, in the meantime, we will see you at the next episode.