← The Code To Winning
The Code To Winning
HOW I BUILT 30 MILLION PORTFOLIO &120 UNITS IN MULTI-FAMILY REAL ESTATE || BRANDON LOCASCIO || EPISODE 071
00:39:29
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- [00:00]
A
I grew up in a real estate family and it was funny because, you know, the joke in our family has always been you could throw a stick and find a realtor, right? Like my both my parents are in real estate. My dad owns a REMAX office, but they're both in real estate. My uncle's in real estate. My grandma was in real estate. Everybody's always kind of done real estate. My buddy came to me and this is in 2005. My buddy comes to me and says, hey, my older brother is working at a mortgage company and they're looking for people to come do sales. And so the first thing I said to him was, well, the first thing I said was, sounds great if there's no oil. But the second thing I said to him was, what's a mortgage? Right? And so even coming from the family background all those years and have that subconscious, you know, experience of going to jobs and doing all these things, when I was 18, I still really didn't know much about the business. Once I got the bug and started working in mortgage, everything kind of just snowballed from there.
- [00:43]
B
Obviously, in your 20 years experience having assets worth $30 million that you're managing and owning as well, what would you say then are the systems and disciplines that it took for you to be able to upscale to like over 120 units?
- [00:57]
A
Well, you got to focus in this business because what happens is once you do get your feet wet, you start.
- [01:03]
B
The code to winning insights you need today to seize the world tomorrow. Today. If you are interested in learning a lot about real estate, acquiring, buying property, multifamily units, buying multiple units as well, this is the episode for you. I have a gentleman coming out of Los Angeles right here in the City of Angels. He goes by the name of Brandon Lecasio, like pistachio, Italian, background, obviously born and raised here in the United States. But yeah, we're going to learn a bit more about that. So if you're curious in learning a bit more about that in the real estate field, this is the episode for you. So without further ado, the man himself. Thank you for joining us in the studio. How you doing, boss man?
- [01:44]
A
Hell of an intro there. Thank you for having me, man. I'm like, you got it all, dude. First of all, my hat is off to you how professional you are, because we talked about doing this last night and within about an hour, all of a sudden, I've got a whole write up in my inbox, directions, everything. I mean, I can tell that you're serious about your podcast you know, like.
- [02:03]
B
Like you.
- [02:03]
A
And I could see why you have a big following because you guys are just on it.
- [02:05]
B
Oh, dude.
- [02:06]
A
So my hats off to you on that one.
- [02:07]
B
I appreciate that. Yeah. Every time I show people how much we. We spend in terms of, like, marketing, in terms of, you know, a production team, reels, editors, all this different stuff and.
- [02:18]
A
And like, big investment, right?
- [02:20]
B
Yeah.
- [02:20]
A
What was that? A big investment?
- [02:22]
B
It's super big. It's super big. But, like, professionality, like, being professional is like one of the biggest thing we care about. We care about studios like this. So that's why we always come back to the studios we have a good experience with. So now I appreciate that a lot.
- [02:34]
A
What an amazing location too, by the way. Right? I mean, it doesn't start to be looking at the skyline here, so great day. Perfect. Perfect time to do a podcast.
- [02:40]
B
Love it. Love it. Boss, can you tell us a bit more about your background, your upbringing, and how do you kind of like, went into this entrepreneurial journey?
- [02:46]
A
Yeah. So I grew up in a real estate family, and it was funny because, you know, the joke in our family has always been, you know, you could throw a stick and find a realtor, right? Like, my both my parents are in real estate. My dad owns a REMAX office, but they're both in real estate. My uncles are in real estate. My grandma was in real estate. Everybody's always kind of done real estate. And so growing up, you know, I was the little kid that was on the job sites, you know, going to their open houses. But it's funny because even when you do that, it's almost kind of subconscious when you're. When you're younger, right? So over time, you know, high school comes and it's a question of going to college or what you're going to do. And I remember it was the summer after I graduated high school, and I'm sitting there, I'm working at an oil place, like, where they change the oil, like a lube center or whatever. And I'm working all these long days. I'm getting, like, getting home, drenched in oil, just like, dirty as hell, just hot as hell. And I'm just like, what? What am I doing? You know? And granted, I just graduated high school a few months ago, but my buddy came to me, and this is in 2005. My buddy comes to me and says, hey, my older brother is working at a mortgage company, and they're looking for people to come do sales. And so the first thing I said to him was, well, the first thing I said Was, sounds great if there's no oil. But the second thing I said to him was, what's a mortgage? Right. And so even coming from the family background all those years and have that subconscious, you know, experience of going to jobs and doing all these things, when I was 18, I still really didn't know much about the business. And so anyway, flash forward, I end up going to work there, and, you know, we'll get into it. The rest was kind of history because once I got the bug and started working in mortgage, everything kind of just snowballed from there.
- [04:20]
B
Awesome. And you said 2005. Were you done with high school at that time?
- [04:23]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [04:24]
B
Okay.
- [04:24]
A
Just graduated high school, bro.
- [04:26]
B
I thought you just graduated high school. 2015. You look pretty young.
- [04:28]
A
Oh, appreciate that, man. So. So I'm 38. I've got three. Three kids. One hopefully soon on the way. So congratulations. Appreciate that, man. So, you know, listen. Yeah, I don't know, maybe it's the lemon water and the saunas or something, but I'll try. I try to stay young, but the kids will give me gray hair already, so, you know, it's just what it is, bro.
- [04:47]
B
No, that's awesome. No, I was gonna say you're probably 25 or something, so. No, that's. That's awesome. I'm glad. You're doing super well. You're looking pretty young. It's very important in California. It must be the sun as well, because, I mean, Utah's got very fluctuating weather. We actually have very good falls. We have very good winters, summers and so forth. But I just love, like, I left cold Utah and I came here. I'm like, I had to go to the beach for a quick scenery, 100%.
- [05:09]
A
See, I think of Utah, I think of it as, like, always hot, kind of like Vegas. That's not the case. Right. I mean, obviously Salt Lake is different. We were talking about, you know, St. George earlier, but, you know, St. George is definitely a little hotter.
- [05:19]
B
Awesome. I appreciate it. Now that we're in mortgage, can you tell us and walk us through the background of actually entering and, like, now in real estate, when was your first deal and how did you end up, like, just getting where you at right now?
- [05:30]
A
Yeah. So, you know, look, I got in the mortgage business, right, as the market was about to collapse. Right. I didn't know that at the time, but, you know, when I got in, you could, you know, pick up the phone and find 10 clients that wanted to refinance their property. Right. And so it's just Kind of an easy time to be in that game and kind of learn it. But within, you know, this out in Temecula, within probably about 20 months or something, a little less than two years of being in. You know, I remember I was sitting there one day and I'm working on a loan file and an appraiser calls and he says, hey, we're not going to be able to bring in the value on this thing. And I went, what are you talking about? I thought that values just keep going up and up and up and everything gets approved. Right? Because that was the market we were in, oh, five. And it was just about going into 2007 that all of a sudden the whole market started shifting. And so now I was going, okay, well, what do I do? I just got into this business. Things were going well. I started making some big bucks for an 18, 19 year old. And so that was when I decided to basically go get my real estate license, which I didn't know at the time would come in handy as far as all the wave of foreclosures and short sales and whole other transforming market. But, yeah, so I kind of got thrown into it. And I always tell everybody that, you know, I could have started a market that was going up for 10 years, but it kind of sharpened me fast to get in kind of like right now, obviously, we're not having all the, you know, loan programs and stuff. This. We're not in a. In a, in a. You know, what do they call that? The Great Recession, I think is what we call 0508, you know, the crisis. But, you know, my point is I got in at a good time because I got a little taste of the business. And then I quickly got my kicked, you know, I quickly got, you know, punched in the face. And it was like, wow, the market's changing. And because of that, I had to learn to be nimble. I had to learn to shift my business. And I subsequently went into real estate brokerage.
- [07:12]
B
Okay, and when was that? When you went and released? Was that after. Because the Great Recession, I remember it clearly, actually, I wasn't even in the country. I've been in America for like 11 years.
- [07:21]
A
Okay.
- [07:21]
B
Because of the global impact that it had. 2007, 8, 09, just the crash, Lehman Brothers, like, financial, everything was a disaster. But the ripple effect that had, from like the US To Europe, Africa, everywhere else, it was just like a ripple effect. And, you know, I'm glad you did mention that. When was that pivotal moment when you decided you wanted to go to that different field. And when did you start?
- [07:44]
A
So I started in 2008 in real estate. So it was pretty fast. Right when that was happening. I got my real estate license in 07, but right in 08 I was full time in real estate. I was like, okay, I'm out of loans, let me go into real estate. Bank foreclosures are here and I better figure this out if I'm going to stay in this biz.
- [08:00]
B
And how was that?
- [08:01]
A
It was interesting. Yeah, it was a whole different scenario. I mean, you know, if you, you realize at the time, like in Temecula you had houses that were probably, I don't know, pick a number. 6, 6, 600, $700,000 houses that almost overnight were $300,000 houses. And now any one neighborhood like had 50 dead lawns and bank, bank foreclosures. I mean, the Inland Empire got hit pretty hard out there. So it was a whole different landscape. And again, what did I know? I didn't know what a bank owned deal was. I didn't know what a short sale was. And so I had to learn all these things and you know, kind of get with, get with the program or get out of the business was pretty much how it was at that time.
- [08:37]
B
And have you always been in multifamily or was your first home like an actual family home?
- [08:44]
A
Single home, More residential. Yeah. So my background started in residential and I think over time I gravitated towards more the investment side of things. I don't know what it was, but growing up I always wanted to be like a big developer, a big real estate investor. I want to, you know, buy the Lakers here someday. You know, so we'll see, maybe we'll buy it together. But spot to say Genie plus just.
- [09:04]
B
Sold it like two months, 10 billion, right?
- [09:07]
A
I'm like, every time one of these teams trade and I see the new number, I'm like, okay, I better change the vision board number. I'm like, this thing just got more expensive. By the time I get around to buying, it's gonna be 30 million or something. It's crazy. But no, I always wanted to be more on the investment side. And it kind of took a lot of years, right? I mean, again, I've been a real estate broker now for like 20 years. And so, you know, probably the first 10, 12 years of my career was strictly sales. But when you're in this business and you see all of these clients and all these people around you that are flipping homes, that are buying apartment buildings, that are developing land, you kind of Start to take notes on that, and you kind of see what's working, what's not working. You kind of realize that, you know, you can go out every day and chase a commission, and that's fine. And if you're a good broker, maybe you have a lot of commissions coming in on a regular basis, but you're still always kind of like living and dying by the next deal. Right. I wanted to build something to where if I decide tomorrow I'm taking a month off or if I'm just chilling out for a little bit, I know that those checks are going to show up. And so that was what always attracted me to more. The investment side.
- [10:09]
B
No, dude, I actually love that. And so when was your first. First residential property? Like, when was that investment? Which year was that?
- [10:16]
A
So my. Well, my first house that I flipped was probably. So funny story. I flipped a mobile home, by the way. I flipped a mobile home in like, 2011 probably, and went on this listing. Little old lady was going into retirement or to assisted living, and she wanted to sell this. I mean, this place was like. I think she wanted to list it for, like, 10 grand or something, right? That. And so I don't even know why I was there, but that shows you point. I was in my career where I was like, I. I talked to her, and it was probably because she was nice, but I talked to her on the phone. It's like this little random thing, and I'm like, let me drive out there and see her. So I get there, and her family was there, and they're getting ready to move her out. And they were like, hey, yeah, we want to list it, whatever. And something just told me maybe I should buy it. And so I. I called my dad at the time, and I'm like, hey, come out here. Let's buy this. This mobile home. I think we could do something with it. And I remember he was telling me, he's like, dude, he was about to hang up on me. He's like, there's. I'm not driving out there for that. He's like, just. Just chill, like, you know, like. Like, I'm not you. Next thing I know, we're writing the lady a $4,000 check, and we bought a mobile home. And so that was. That was probably really the first deal that I bought. And we ultimately sold it for, like, 15 grand and made a couple bucks on it. So it worked out for us, and they were happy because they got their money. But I would say that as far as when I really started taking off in Investments or when I really started getting my feet wet, like more conventionally in the deal, in. In the. In the business was a couple years after that. So I had a client, that same type thing, right? It all kind of revolves around clients in this business. But I had a client who moved to Orange county, was trying to relocate, and he wanted to start a business flipping homes, and he wanted me to be his agent. And so I was thinking about it for a while, and I don't know what kind of got me on the idea, other than I've been like, hey, I got the bug from the mobile home. And I'm like, what am I doing? I'm chasing commissions. And I said to him, I said, hey, Jerrick, we got to have a meeting, man, I got to talk to you. So we were sitting down just like this one day, and I looked at him right in the eye and I said, listen, I don't want to be your broker. And he kind of looked at me like, what, did I piss you off? I said, I don't want to be your broker. I want to be your partner, because I'm ready to build an empire. I want to buy properties. I'm glad that you want to start doing this, but I'm telling you right now, I'm not going to be a broker, but I will go out there with you and we'll start flipping some homes. And he was kind of taken back a little bit, right? And he was kind of like, what the hell? Just calling this guy to, like, help me as my realtor. But I was like, dude, listen, there's something here, and I think we can make some money. And I think if you zoom out from that just for a second, I've found over my 20 year career already that a lot of the best opportunities that have happened have really come together because I had really the balls to ask a tough question or to, you know, take a position in a deal or the client or whatever. But I had. I had the ability to say, hey, there's something here. I'm going to think differently about it, right? And I'm going to capitalize on it. I think a lot of people go through life and they don't realize that they're missing opportunities that are right in front of them because they're not willing to take that next step. And so I think, like, you know, for me it was, here's a guy that has some money, he wants to start flipping homes. I know this market better than he does. He needs someone like me. Let's start a Business together versus me being his agent. And so it just kind of snowballed after that. But that was kind of my really first foray into, you know, now I'm going to become a house flipper.
- [13:31]
B
Dude, that's absolutely inspiring. And then Obviously, in your 20 years experience having assets worth $30 million that you're managing and owning as well, what would you say then are the systems and disciplines that it took for you to be able to upscale to like over 120 units?
- [13:48]
A
Well, you got to focus in this business because what happens is once you do get your feet wet, you, you start seeing shiny objects everywhere. So you're like, oh, I flipped a house. Hey, I bought an apartment building. Maybe I should buy that self storage. Maybe I should look at a mobile home park. Maybe I should do da da da da. Maybe I should fly to Detroit or to Tallahassee or whatever, right? And a lot of guys do operate that way. For some of them, it works out. But I've always found for me that when I focused, whether it's geographically, so I. Right, right now we only buy in California, right. We have a division up in Sacramento area. That's where a lot of our apartments are. And then we do a lot here in LA and SoCal. But the point is, I've noticed that when I focus, whether it's geographically or on the business model, I can go farther faster than say, you, if you're not focused that same way. And I've spent a lot of time seeking mentorship from some of the biggest names in the space. One on one, mentorships, coaching, whatever. And most of these guys stick with their core business. They might have other stuff that they do, but there's a core business there that really drives their growth. Because it's just a simple principle of, you know, if you're McDonald's and you're obsessed about opening up McDonald's franchises and you know your business to a T, you're going to beat a guy that's like, I'm going to open up a sushi bar and then, and then a burger place and then a whatever, right? And so to answer your question more specifically, you know, my, my investing career really took off when I said, okay, I'm just going to lean into the multifamily game. I'm going to learn everything about it. I'm going to buy the shittiest, smallest property I can find initially to get my, to get in the game and, and I'm just going to put one foot after the other and, and, and focus on getting great at that. And you know, I think a lot of us feel like, especially younger kids, it's, it's hard to think in longer terms as far as years. And so I think we're all guilty of sometimes saying, man, like right now, right, it's almost 2026, man, I want to have this huge year in 2026. I have to do everything in 2026 right now. But you'll be surprised at how fast you turn around. And five years has gone by, 10 years has gone by. And so if you actually kind of slow down a little bit and take a breath and focus, you'll get through that time period and you'll be much further ahead, is my point. You know, and so that's kind of what I've taken away from it is you got to have focus because if you're too spread out, if you're chasing all the shiny objects, you're just not going to go as fast as the next guy.
- [16:10]
B
I couldn't agree more and just yet. And then I think that's one of the things that many young entrepreneurs are struggling with because obviously if you raised up in the, in the social media aspect of things, you, I mean you and I have seen MySpace, but for those that were born past like the Snapchat stuff and you know, there's a lot of talent there, but usually because you, you so accustomed to the instant gratification, that dopamine where you need to get successful right now, it seems to be killing people rather than actually helping them success. Because when you just get that one quick spike, that's why there was a massive, there was a massive suicide rate that was happening with all these, the crypto when, when the bears just like took over and like people were just making significant losses and like young 20 year olds losing their life mainly because they were super successful at a young age. And I think sometimes with what you're saying, playing the long game, I mean, Warren Buffett is the perfect example of just play the long game.
- [17:06]
A
Can you imagine? Look what he's done. Insane, insane what he's done.
- [17:10]
B
He's such an inspiration. I often tell people I'll fly anywhere in the country. I'm so passionate with what I do and I'm great at like, you know, connecting and doing this stuff. But I said only one person I'll do a virtual for. That's Warren Buffett. Yeah, that's the only, not even Elon's Warren Buffett is the only exception. And not because I can't do it in person. It's because I know he's older right now, and so I want to make him as convenient because he's such a, you know, a man. Tone hero to many people. And the nice thing about the. There's no political affiliation. So everyone seems to really appreciate what.
- [17:42]
A
Which is rare in today's day and age, by the way. Yeah, well. And by the way, just on that point, you know, Grant Cardone, who I also follow, he has a saying that's. Don't get rich quick, get rich for sure. Right. And it's powerful words there because it's exactly what you said. You know, years fly by, and all of a sudden you're like, damn, I tried this thing and that thing and that thing. And that lack of focus will kill you every time.
- [18:04]
B
I love that gc. I was going to interview him last month and something just happened. Yeah, no, I'm a big fan of his.
- [18:09]
A
Dude, I love gc, and GC kind of got me started a little bit. Also on multifamily, I was watching YouTube videos. This is five, six, seven years ago. Just all the time, man. All this. You know, he did his Monday show. He'd get on every Monday with. With Jared and. And. And Captain Ryan, and they'll just spit game on the whiteboard and, you know, talk about multi. And I. I started watching and watching, and I remember I called my brother because we just bought a couple little houses as rentals, and I called him. I was like, chuck, this is bullshit. We gotta. We gotta get some units. And he was like, all right. And, you know, next thing you know, we're buying stuff in Bakersfield, you know, and it was funny how it came together, but a big part of it was looking up to Grant and him kind of, I think, making it relatable, you know, because so many people before him, it's like, you see. You see these big things, but they're very. Like, they're closed in a little bit, you know, they weren't out there. And now they're much more out there. A lot of. A lot of people. But one of the reasons why I.
- [19:01]
B
Also like him, he's just been the same person from, like, years ago. He's very consistent. Like, that's the same personality that I remember seeing on YouTube, like, in 2013, whatever it may be. He's just consistent, you know, nothing has changed. He's had the same, you know, outrageous excitement.
- [19:16]
A
Hate him or love him? He's the same guy.
- [19:18]
B
Hated the door. Never ignored.
- [19:20]
A
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah.
- [19:24]
B
All right. So one of the things Obviously, I noticed there's a lot of stuff where people are like, you can get real estate, no money down, all that kind of stuff. Of course, I've interviewed so many in the space, and like, people have breaking down credit card hacks. They're breaking down all these different hacks as well. What are the steps that have helped you acquire so much of units? Like, what are ways that you've done that?
- [19:44]
A
Well, it's really two things. It's one, it's opm other people's money. Because when you get into the investment space, you quickly realize that there's a lot of people that want to. Like, for example, a lot of people that want to be in multifamily real estate, but they don't know how to start or they don't have the time to become the expert. So it's. For example, if you're the expert in multifamily, and I'm a doctor, a lawyer, a plumber or whatever, and I'm making my income over here, I probably want to be. I may have some interest in being in that space, but I don't have the time to go look, look for deals and deal with contractors and have tenants calling me about toilets, termites, and whatever the other one is, but, you know the expression. And so I think for. For me, again, I really invested hard into learning the business inside and out. And so when I first started, I just used all my own money. But you quickly run out of your own money. I mean, most of us, again, if you're Warren Buffett. No, but, you know, the rest of us quickly run out of money. And so it was one of those things where, because I had spent the first few years of buying multifamily with my own cash, learning my own mistakes. And what worked then when I started going bigger, I could go to people and sit down with them and say, hey, here's what's working. Here's what we want to do with this new asset. It was this new acquisition, and they got behind it fast. It was very easy for people to say, hey, I'll put 50 grand into that deal. I'll put a hundred thousand in that deal. I'll. I'll. Whatever, you know, jump in at whatever the amount was. And so I realized part of that question is, you know, even if you go before that, right? Like, if someone wants to start and they don't even have enough money to buy their first deal. But I would say this, you know, living here in Los Angeles stuff's really expensive, right? I went to Bakersfield. I bought an $80,000 house. I put 20,000 down. I actually met my brother because he was putting the loan in his name. And so I called him, he's in San Francisco, I'm in la. And I said, hey, Chuck, let's buy this, blah, blah, blah. And he thinks I'm crazy at this point, you know, he was like, what? You want to go to Bakersfield and buy something? And I was like, just meet me there. So I met him, showed him this little $80,000 house I wanted to buy. And we were sitting there at like, some Starbucks or something, and I had a little duffel bag, and I had. I had 20,000 in cash in it. I was like, dude, here you go. You put five in. I got 20. Let's just bang out the $25,000 down payment and. And let's buy this sucker. And he was just looking at me like, dude, you're probably insane. But he's like, whatever, let's buy it. So. So that was how we started. And. And so I guess it goes back to if somebody wants to get into this business, you know, and they want to start off like we did, with maybe using their own money before they start going to other people, because that is a big responsibility, right, to go to other people and ask them to invest. You don't have to be a millionaire. You don't have to have $500,000. We had 20 grand, 25 grand. You know, it was only five for my brother. He got a pretty good deal. He signed a loan and got. And he put five grand, and I put 20 grand. And so, you know, we both got a good deal. But the point is, is like, you don't have to start with these massive numbers. Whether you do it in Bakersfield, California, or you go to Cincinnati, you know, you can find. You can still, in today's day and age, find reasonable prices. If you're serious about starting in real estate investing, you probably gotta have something, right? You gotta have some amount of cash. But that's not always true either, because let's say that you and I were going to partner on a deal, and I had. And you had good credit, and I didn't for some reason. And you can get the loan kind of like my brother and I did. Maybe I just put in the 25 grand, and you. And you just bring the loan. So it's all about that creativity, right? And that's why I love having partners, is because everybody can kind of bring something to the table, and then you can kind of can start Getting some momentum.
- [23:14]
B
And how many partners do you have right now?
- [23:16]
A
I have three partners right now.
- [23:17]
B
Okay.
- [23:17]
A
Yeah. So our company's called bcgk.
- [23:19]
B
Yeah.
- [23:20]
A
Chuck, Greg, Kevin, you know it's very. There it is. Brandon, Chuck, Greg, Kevin. You know, right on the nose. But, but yeah, that's, that's our company.
- [23:27]
B
Awesome. And so I think I, I also mentioned to you one of the things I like more than anything because I mean I'll go on social media and you hear people do say all these different stuff and I mean nothing wrong with that, but I just like basic fundamentals because I feel like especially with my audience there's a bunch of entrepreneurs in different fields. Of course. But just to break it down before I ask this question, in Utah one of the things very, very common is that people usually do have good, great credit. And also people are very self reliant in the sense where people always have like a small business or something. So you either go do sales because everyone's like majority is a Mormon culture. So you go serve your mission, you come back and you do door to door sales. Cause you're already accustomed to that as well. Which I did both. Yeah. One of the things is the fact that people will buy a home and then they'll rent like their basement. Basements are very common in Utah and almost all the homes have that because of the snow and like just how climate and the environment is. So majority of people, even if they aren't like big entrepreneurs, they'll actually have a home that they'll rent a portion out as well before people end up like getting a duplex. One or two, almost everyone has like one or two homes. But now for those that don't, if you kind of break down the basic fundamentals, what are probably the first few steps that you would do today? Right now I have great credit and I earn about like a million dollars a year. What's the first step in order to acquire a multi family unit?
- [24:49]
A
Well, first I would start looking at properties. Right. Because you'll be surprised even just looking at properties, you know, reviewing the listing packages, talking to the brokers, going to some open houses, you know, with multifamily it's a little different. That's not always open houses. But you know, you need to start getting educated because wherever you're going to buy, whatever you're going to buy, you need to start figuring out what it is, right? You're going to build a car, you better figure out how cars run, you know, and how they, how they're built, right. So I would, I would recommend, if you have an interest in real estate, start watching some podcasts like this, you know, go to some of the real estate conferences, you know, talk to the local brokers in your area, drive some properties on the weekend. But you want to start figuring out where you want to buy probably first. Because every market has its own differences, owns, competition, property types, you know, regulations or laws, depending if you're buying in California, Texas, that's a big difference, right? Even in California, one of the reasons we buy a lot of property in Sacramento or outside of Sacramento in these middle class suburbs is because there's no local rent control and they're pretty flexible so you can get permits reasonably quickly. You know, the rules are not totally slanted to the, to the tenants. Whereas if we were to buy in San Francisco or la, it might be a little bit different, right? And so I think the thing is you really need to understand how the business works and start learning it. And you also need to start studying your market. And you'd be surprised if you picked up, you know, if you open the computer right now, went to LoopNet or realtor.com and just said, hey, show me triplexes in the area, you'll get a good feel for what's going on. You'll start to see a trend, right? Like these types of deals are going for 200, okay? And these types of deals, why is this one 250, why is this one 180? You pick up the phone, you talk to the brokers and you'll be surprised at how much information you actually get when you start talking to people and you start taking notes and like, okay, this is what's going on in the marketplace.
- [26:39]
B
And then what have you found more success in throughout your real estate career? In 20 plus years, has it been flipping? Has it been like renting, has it been investing? What, what is the, what fun, more success on your end?
- [26:50]
A
Multifamily man number, number one. Multifamily. I'm the multifamily guy.
- [26:55]
B
Grant Cardone.
- [26:56]
A
Grant Cardone. There you go. GC was right. What can I say? I can't argue with the guy. You know, I drank the Kool Aid, you know, once. See, the whole thing is once you. Okay, if you go from selling houses, for example, like I did, to flipping houses. Flipping houses are great, right? But it's kind of a different type of commission you're chasing. You're still having to buy the property, fix it up, there's no income coming in. You're hoping you're going to sell it for X amount. Sometimes you flip a house and you make 100 grand, sometimes you make 50 grand, sometimes you break even or lose a little bit of money, right? And hopefully that doesn't happen a lot if you're doing a handful of them. But you're always still kind of chasing the next deal. Now don't get me wrong, if you build up a flipping business and you systematize it, right, and you get it to start kind of semi running without you, and you have a great contractor and a team that can find the deals, it can, it can kind of be a little bit on autopilot. But typically again, you're still, it's kind of like you're still chasing that next deal constantly. Whereas what I do, I can buy one or two deals a year. Like this year I bought two deals. I bought a 50 unit for 8 million bucks. I bought a 32 unit, excuse me, 29 unit for 3.2 million. So, you know, roughly speaking, bought 80 units this year, only had to do two escrows, you know, cost 11 million bucks. These are nice deals, but you know, the money that we think will make on these two deals, and we're talking six, seven, eight, $9 million. Now, we got to hold them for five years, we got to fix them up, we got to do certain things. But the, the, what happens is once you start coming over to this side of things and building a portfolio, whether it's multifamily, whether it's commercial or whatever, you kind of just start. It's almost like playing the real life Monopoly game, right? You just buy these things, pop them over here, buy these things and all of a sudden you turn around and we've had deals that like this year, right, I sold a deal, I bought two that I just told you about, but I sold one. I only owned it for three years. It was in Bakersfield as well. I paid 900,000 for it. And in after three years, I sold it for 1.6 and it cash flowed every month. I only had a couple hundred grand of my own money into it.
- [29:03]
B
Wow.
- [29:04]
A
And you know, almost pulled a million bucks back out of it. And during the three years I was down here running around, chasing commissions, doing podcasts, whatever that thing was up there, just working on its own. You know, rents were coming in and I did a little bit of work. Don't get me wrong, I was up there a few times. You know, we had to renovate a few things, but it kind of was self sufficient. And that's kind of the reason I like this business. If you can set these deals up, I don't want to say you forget about them, but if you have good systems and processes, they kind of run on their own. And so then you just kind of do what you're doing and then, hey, one day we can refinance this one or we can sell it and make a million bucks or whatever the case may be. So it's going to keep paying you until you get that big pop down the road versus these smaller deals, which I still flip homes, actually. I mean, I've got two on the market right now here in town. And so I do that more now just to kind of have what I call the smaller money. You know, turn over a couple flips, make a hundred thousand here, a hundred thousand there, and then it's more money I can go buy some more apartments with or whatever. It kind of keeps the office bills paid and things like that. But it's a mind, it's a mindset shift, you know, it's a totally different thing. But I've never met anybody, whether they're buying hotels or commercial or multi family, that once they get into the idea of building this massive portfolio, I've never met anybody that looks back because it will totally change your life. If you, if you lean in and you can build something and learn how to scale it. Which is a GC thing, right? Uncle GC is all about scale. Go big. Right. But if you can learn how to scale it and really stick with. Becomes bulletproof.
- [30:34]
B
No, dude, I love that you mentioned, what's it, San Francisco and Sacramento. And I stayed literally in between. Called Tracy.
- [30:42]
A
I don't know if you know, I've been through Tracy. I've studied the Central Valley, so I know exactly where Tracy is. I know all the sounds in there.
- [30:48]
B
And we golf down at. At. At Livermore and so Tracy, Livermore, Pleasanton. Because I lived in Cali for a while.
- [30:54]
A
Yeah.
- [30:55]
B
And I mean I lived in Utah before I went there. But I decided to show you this license.
- [30:59]
A
That's funny, man.
- [31:00]
B
Just still not yet expired. But yeah, no, that area. Because we. We sold solar for many years.
- [31:05]
A
Okay.
- [31:06]
B
Door to door. Yet again, good place to do it around. And it was perfect because you started having PG&E ripping people off. And so you're coming there with a solar saying, hey, listen, here's a system that's going to be half of what you're currently paying. You own the thing and you get way more. And it's literally from the sun directly. So it was a no Brainer. Well, like obviously around the period of time where it was hot before everything went down and under like two years ago.
- [31:29]
A
So perfect exit yet again. Right.
- [31:31]
B
But no, I'm glad you mentioned that. Like obviously people are listening to opm, another GC school of GC building trust building rapport, getting investors to believe in what you currently doing and the project in trying to acquire multifamily unit. What are the steps that we can do to help people do that?
- [31:53]
A
Well, there's a few things. So first of all, you got to be transparent, right? Anytime that you're asking somebody to give you their hard earned money, part of their retirement fund or their kids college fund or whatever it might be, you need to be very transparent with the process. So like when our investors invest with us, you know, there's quarterly statements that come out, all the financials they can look at, the bank statements they can drive to the properties. A lot of our investors do. They'll send me a picture, hey, I was in town, I'm in front of the property. So everything's very transparent. We also do weekly calls with our core team, but we invite it, it's open to any of the investors. So if they want to pop in one Wednesday and hear us, you know, argue about which vendor we're going to select for something or solve one of our problems we're working on, they can, they can pop on. So I think from my standpoint, the first thing is like you need to be an open book. That's number one. Number two, you really need to understand your core business. Because remember, if you don't understand the core business, whether you have a track record or whether you've invested in the upfront training or there's some reason, or you have someone on your team that understands it, you need to be proficient in that core business. If an investor can go out and buy their own apartment building and deal with their own headaches and make a nice return without you, they're going to do it. But if you can offer them something where it's like fairly hands off for them, they know you're honest and transparent. They know that you understand your business and you treat it like a business. And maybe the most important part, you're giving them a nice return, then they're not going to have anywhere else to go. Because I'm telling you, what I've seen out there is that people are tired of the stock market. They don't really understand crypto. A lot of our investors have made a lot of money in both of those Places. But they understand the value of being in a hard asset and they understand the value of diversifying their portfolio and taking some of the risk out of the stock market holding, selling some of that Tesla stock that's been on fire, but parting with a little bit of it and getting it into a real asset on a real estate deal.
- [33:48]
B
Dude, these are golden nuggets, man. That's, that's good stuff. You know, I, I just like, I like those because I've been doing a lot of IG questionnaires where I ask people and often people just like basic fundamentals because I'll have all these successful people, but sometimes they'll tell us how successful they are. And people are like, we just heard this guy's resume. And so I'm grateful we kind of breaking down.
- [34:15]
A
Yeah, 100, man.
- [34:16]
B
Because that's the entire purpose of the podcast where it's educational, right? And people get value out of that as well.
- [34:21]
A
We use a bunch of big words and don't go into any details. They're like, okay, whatever, he buys apartments, you know, but why did I watch this? You know, for the view. I mean, it is a nice view. But.
- [34:31]
B
Now with, with high interest rate environment, how do you go around underwriting deals differently right now?
- [34:37]
A
Well, you got to put more down. Number one, that was a big change, you know, 24 months ago when rates shot up or whatever it is now. You know, we used to buy an apartment complex and put 30% down. And then when the rates first shot up, instantly the deals that we were in we put closer to 50% down. And we kind of had to and kind of wanted to because the rates got so high, it was so expensive and we didn't want the risk of them going up even further and getting caught being over levered or having a large loan that we had to refinance later. So that was one thing. We had to start putting, you know, bigger down payments. And I think just really back to the fundamental of like when you're buying a property, you know, the whole reason you go to a multifamily is that if I have use the number, if I have 10 tenants, right? I got a temple, I got 10 people that rent from me. You know, you need to do the math up front on how many of these guys have to stop paying me before I'll have a problem making my mortgage payment, right? If two people move out and you're going to be upside down on your mortgage, you're probably paying too much for the deal or your, or your loan's not making sense for some reason. But I always look at these deals in terms of staying power. Rates will come down, property values will go up. If you're fixing things up or raising rents or whatever, right? Over time you catch that appreciation and there's things you can do to make them go up faster. But, you know, the bottom line is, is that, you know, you want to make sure you understand what your, what your break even is on your rents, because that's really important and it's important in a high interest rate environment, making sure that you're going to cover that. But, but hey, what I've seen recently though, rates are starting to come down. I mean, we just, on the deal we just closed, got a 6%, which wasn't bad for a big commercial deal. You know, a year ago it might have been a six and a half. So we were happy to get that half point discount, so to speak.
- [36:22]
B
Love that, man. Second last question before we wrap up. You have your eye towards $100 million portfolio. The roadmap is inspiring. What are the strategies that you're going to implement to try and achieve that?
- [36:33]
A
I got to get known, like GC says, man, I got to get known. I need more people, I need more investors, I need more brokers to sell, send me deals. I need more contractors to want to work on my deals. I just, I need to do more. And so that's why now I'm shifting more of my time doing things like this, right? Having a real estate event that's coming up in February, getting on other people's.
- [36:54]
B
Podcasts, jumping, coming to my event as well.
- [36:57]
A
Coming to your event in Salt Lake City, December 12th, 12th and 13th. Let's go, guys. So, but, yeah, but that's the whole thing, right? Because I can't do it by myself. I need more people to want to join and come along on the journey, right? And so that's, that's really the big thing is, and, and, and really the back end of it is new systems and processes. Because you realize in this business that the same way you managed three properties or a smaller portfolio, it starts to change, right? Like for us, when we got to $10 million of property, some of our systems were breaking down, some of our people couldn't keep up anymore. And so we had to get new team members. We had to invest in new technology, new systems. Like accounting is a perfect example. We used to use QuickBooks, now we use Yardi, which is all integrated. So it's just, you have to do those types of things. And so bottom line is I'm investing hard right now and getting known, marketing, branding, going to events, throwing events and, and really building a solid team in the background so I can be out here doing stuff like this. And when I'm sure when we wrap up I'll have a text with all the good things that are hopefully going on at our apartment building. So that's, that's the bottom line.
- [38:04]
B
Awesome stuff. When's the event? February. When?
- [38:06]
A
February 21st.
- [38:07]
B
February.
- [38:08]
A
So we're gonna have a big real estate event February 21st here in LA. We're gonna have some like rock solid speakers that are gonna come talk about development, wholesale flipping, multifamily of course. And yeah, I'm gonna be dropping some more info about that. So if people are watching this, not to, not to do a self promotion here but people after I'm self promoted but if people are watching it and they do find me through the gram you be we'll be dropping some announcements on that.
- [38:32]
B
Awesome stuff. Well Brandon, if you could let our viewers know by looking at the camera letting us know where they get a hold of you if they want to learn about real estate, connecting, funding and so forth. What's the best way to contact you?
- [38:42]
A
Best way would be through Instagram, go to @misterlocaccio. That's M r l o c a s cio I'm sure we'll drop the link on that. But yeah, go to my Instagram. We got links to all of our pages, upcoming webinars, our real estate event on February 21st and yeah, love to connect with anybody.
- [38:58]
B
Awesome stuff. The code to Winning insights you need today to seize the world tomorrow learning about multifamily. The description section will also have the link to his social media platform, company website and also the event as well. Click the link below if you want to find out a bit more regarding that as well. But yeah, the code to Winning Insights you need today to seize the world tomorrow. Brandon Locasio. Pleasure sir. Thank you.
- [39:23]
A
Thank you my friend Bamboo.