Our guest for today is a believer, a father, a lawyer, a multifamily apartment syndicator, and an investor. He is a people connector, status quo hater, strategic planner, action taker, Pilates studio owner, and Entrepreneur wannabe.
Our guest has the vision to achieve control of his TPO, that’s time, place, and occurrence through financial freedom. He uses cash-flowing multifamily apartment investing as a tool to create generational wealth and financial freedom.
Let’s dive right in and learn from Yosef Lee on how to control our life by TPO.
[00:01 – 09:57] Opening Segment
- We introduce our guest, Yosef Lee
- Yosef talks about his background coming from South Korea
- Yosef goes over his WHY
[09:58 – 23:07] TPO = Time, Place, And Occurence
- Yosef talks about his start in passive real estate
- Getting over limiting beliefs
- Learn zoning
[23:08 – 33:47] Partnerships, Boots On The Ground, and The First Deal
- Starting backyard market if possible
- Finding potential partners
[33:48 – 43:02] Not Being Patient And Rushing Into It
- Just by joing a group, something great is not going to just happen
- Real Estate is a marathon not a sprint
- Bad investing advise
- Closing Segment
“I had that blanket belief. I mean, being positive is one thing, but at the same time, you got to be you’ve got to calculate that.” – Yosef Lee
“I think education is the key because it’s like studying the object that you’re looking at now when trying to find how you can tackle them.” – Yosef Lee
“I’m reading and listening to the podcast. I thought I was doing something, but actually, I was not. I was just passively absorbing the information from someone else” – Yosef Lee
“I got to know who I am. I got to know what I’m going to be able to do and what kind of value I could bring to the table.” – Yosef lee
Connect with Yosef Lee! See the links below:
Go to his LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, pages to connect with Yosef Lee.
Investing with Yosef Your Brosef
Investing with Yosef Your Brosef_processed.mp3
Anthony Vicino: [00:00:15] Hello and welcome to Multifamily Investing Made Simple, the podcast, it’s all about taking the complexity out of real estate investing so that you take action. Today, I am your host, Anthony, the CEO of Invictus Capital, joined, as always by Dan. I’m sitting in the new headquarters.
Dan Krueger: [00:00:31] Kruger, I am here. Our walls are blank. This is going to get way better. Looking behind me, we have an amazing consultant working with us named Jamie, who’s going to make this place look OK.
Anthony Vicino: [00:00:43] My significant other.
Dan Krueger: [00:00:44] Yes, we need a lady’s touch. Really bad here.
Anthony Vicino: [00:00:49] Moving is so stressful. They say that moving is one of the most stressful things that you can endure as a human being. And I think it’s true that in divorce, those are those rank up there and then a death in the family like those are the three big things. And so the takeaway here is when you’re dealing with tenants in residence and they’re moving into your properties or moving out, just realize like it’s a stressful time for them. It really sucks. And so try and be if you’re doing the property management, if you’re ever saying that, like, go in with a little bit of grace and goodwill because they’re going through something. All right, enough of that. Enough jibber-jabber. Let’s get to the meat and potatoes which came here to listen to you today. Folks, we have the one, the only Yoseph, your Bruce Lee. See, and you’re not the only one with the middle name. Now, Joseph is joining us. Come on through the curtains. How are you doing, Joseph?
Yosef Lee: [00:01:36] Hey, Anthony and Dan, thank you very much for having me here. It’s great to be I enjoyed your podcast before, and I know you guys are killing it and being here. It will be my honor and it’s happening.
Dan Krueger: [00:01:49] We’re excited to have you. I think you’ve got we’ll get into it. You’ve got a really interesting story. And so I’m just really excited to just dig deep because there’s always I’ve never really had a chance to sit down and just ask you a bunch of questions about your story, how you get started, what you’re doing. So I’m really excited. Unpack all that today.
Anthony Vicino: [00:02:05] Yeah. Let me give a little bit of a bio here. Give you guys and gals at home who are listening and you’re from the treadmill driving to work. So you know who Yoseph actually is. He’s a believer. He’s a father. He’s a lawyer, a multifamily apartment, syndicator, and investor. People can connector status quo, hater, strategic planner, action taker, Pelote studio owner. Entrepreneur, wannabe.
Yosef Lee: [00:02:26] There you go.
Anthony Vicino: [00:02:27] He has the vision to achieve control of his TPO, that’s time, place occurrence through financial freedom. He uses cash-flowing multifamily apartment investing as a tool to create generational wealth and financial freedom. That’s pretty cool. So there’s a lot there to unpack. So, Joseph, give us those are just the highlights. But who’s the man behind the bill? Who are you?
Yosef Lee: [00:02:49] So like I said, yeah, I’m from New York City, a South Korean immigrant, by the way. I came to the US like a month shy of 18 years old, looking for a new opportunity. And from that point on, my life was more of like a survival mode. Always wanted to be the best version of myself because I needed to prove in this new country right as to who I am. So that’s basically what my life was all about, like pushing myself, prove myself, prove who you are, and go to a kind of extreme version of myself. So I made lots of mistakes, but also achieve some goals. Became an attorney. I thought I was doing OK, but I didn’t realize until recently, like a few years back, that I was one of the reds still in the race reading Robert Kawasaki’s book. And I realized, OK, unless you change the entire mindset that you were going to be trapped in this for the rest of your life, living the life of trading my time for money. Right. The more money you want to make, the more time you need to spend. And that’s going to get to my notion of the ideal life that I wanted to have. I have two kids, grown-up girls ages 10 years. My older one just graduated from elementary school. She’s going to junior high. I can’t believe it’s happening so fast. So I just try to find a way out of the rat race and learned about creating a passive income stream through multifamily apartment investing. And this was the aha moment that I thought achieving the time freedom will be possible. Mm-hmm. Yes.
Dan Krueger: [00:04:36] How did you find your way down that how did you find that thread and how did you find your way going down that rabbit hole of real estate?
Anthony Vicino: [00:04:44] Like were you actively looking? Because at this point you were a lawyer, like you’re doing good, like you’re the quintessential great job, New York City, all that. So like what prompted the search for something different?
Yosef Lee: [00:04:57] So I guess I realized, like I said, my essentially my job by the trade I need to put a lot of time is so demanding from has the appearance of nine to six however you bring to work. I used to bring my work home and work at night, and if there is an appearance the next morning, I’ll wake up around six o’clock and just preparing for the oral arguments, things like that, and weekends as well. At that time my kids were still young and they wouldn’t really need my attention as much as I thought. They are needing it now. So. But naturally. Just from that experience, I realized I was at this pace, I will just spend the rest of my life like this, OK? My goal was to become a partner and going the corporate ladder in the firm and maybe after partner, you know, just I didn’t really have, like, a big Y here. It was it was great. Don’t get me wrong, I love my job of going to court, making arguments. Maybe the judges and associating with other attorneys is a great part of my career. However, I realized these busy professionals. Their life is just like that for the rest of your life.
Yosef Lee: [00:06:15] Busy, you know, always needing and needing time to spend with the families. And yeah, so I could kind of picture myself by looking at one of the old attorneys at the firm, but at the courthouse, it was like eighty-something years old still, you know, coming to the courthouse, making the arguments. OK, great. But again, is that the life I wanted to although it’s good. I said no to that, so that’s when I started thinking about how to create passive income and it was not real estate, in the beginning, I did a little bit of it. I tried mutual funds and stocks. Also looking into the beginning, I think the natural progression from there is realistic, right? Everyone has some sort of romance towards real estate investing without really knowing much. So that’s how I started. And in the beginning, was what should I do? Maybe a small multi-duplex or commercial mixed. And then the more I researched, I landed on multifamily by listening to a couple of podcasts out there. And then the benefit and the system that the multifamily provides over other things was no brainer not to take.
Dan Krueger: [00:07:38] I love the other residents a lot with me as well, because I remember very clearly sitting when I was still working in corporate finance, sitting there in this office I was working on and there was a Danish company. And so they had a very kind of European setup. And really what it was, is there were no walls. It was just glass offices. There are no cubes. And so you could see everything. And I sat right next to North America, North America president of the company, and I could see right in our office all day long. I remember looking at her and says I was in finance. I could see how much she made and she was taken on. I don’t know if I should say this on the air because you think a lot of money, the better part of a million bucks a year. And I remember just kind of looking at her and realizing, you know, I don’t want to be here and I don’t want to do what she does. The dollar amount looked impressive, but I was like, I bet I could do that and not sacrifice my entire life. And at the exact same time, we live next to another couple. And this the guy in this relationship was he owned his own little boutique commercial real estate brokerage. And he was always around. He was working a lot, but he was always with his kids. And I was like, I want to be that guy. He’s killing it. He’s making a lot of money. He’s working a lot. But he’s also always with his kids. And so it sounds like you kind of looked at that situation and said, I want to stop trading my time for money and I want to be able to have the time to do what I want, whether that goes buy properties or hang out with my kids, that kind of the mindset you’re in.
Yosef Lee: [00:09:02] Yes, definitely. Definitely.
Anthony Vicino: [00:09:03] And it’s interesting because, you know, in both of your guises, for instance, you looked and you could see if I stay where I’m at if I stay on this trajectory, what’s my outcome? Where is this leading me in 10, 15, 20 years? And is that a place that I want to go and most people never stop doing that self-evaluation? And I encourage if you’re listening to this at home, you’re still working your W-2 and you’re not you maybe got some mixed feelings are starting to have that sense of like maybe this isn’t the future for me. Like, really think like if you stay on that trajectory, best case scenario, what does it lead to? And a lot of times you can just plot it out and see, like, OK, if I stay in this corporate track, maybe someday I’m a VP or a president and this is what my life would look like. And if you’re not psyched on that life, well, maybe now’s a good time to start making that change. And Joseph, you talk about TPO, which is what does that time place occurrence. And so walk us through, like the importance of that for you in particular and what that means.
Yosef Lee: [00:09:58] It’s OK. So funny thing is that what I say to it’s how New York police officers rights on the police report. When I get that for an accident case, they say at TPO that means type place an occurrence. He was actually investigating the factual stuff. So that’s kind of familiar to TPO, but essentially that means everything time. So I want to work when I want to illimitable again, I love to work. I’m not a workaholic, sort of, but I want to work when I want to and when I can and wherever I want what whomever I can. Right. So that that kind of signifies the time, freedom that I’m aspiring to. When I said freedom of TPO.
Dan Krueger: [00:10:45] Mm. Yeah. That’s super cool and I love it and I really wish that everyone had the ability to recognize that early and actually start to act on it as you did, because I think a lot of people are just like, well this is life, just going to deal with it. But I’m curious, you mentioned that kind of like your first foray into some sort of quote-unquote passive income wasn’t real estate. You started off doing what pretty much everybody does is they look at the public markets and equities and stocks and mutual funds. And, you know, you got to Reid’s thinking, like that was probably some real estate exposure. And then you realized it wasn’t really that that great and some kind of curious when you kind of look back and compare, like, those forays into the public markets compared to what you’re doing now, what we’re like, the stark differences that really made it obvious that you need to be really focusing on acquiring properties that you own as opposed to trying to just do the stock thing or take the right approach, which for our listeners who don’t know, off the top of their heads, that’s a real estate investment trust. It’s a publicly-traded thing that looks like you’re investing in real estate. But it is we’re going to get into here. I think it’s more like a stock lunch.
Yosef Lee: [00:11:51] Yeah, well, so, yeah, I mean, and the beginning to me, the goal was just to create some sort of passive income stream. Right. But then as I study and research more, what was the way I started it? What that is? Because when I thought about real estate, in the beginning, it was too big for me. Right. I thought I had this limiting belief of, oh, if you want to do real estate, you got to have like a million dollars or you got to be like high up there already. And you got to know a lot of people, the players out there. Otherwise, you can’t right now. I know right now I know it was kind of limiting beliefs of myself, which I crushed. And but back then, that’s how I started. Stocks and mutual bonds, because which we call the entry the barrier to entry is really low like you can just go in and maybe try a couple of hundred bucks and just enjoy 10 bucks or 20 bucks. But, yeah, that’s that was mainly the reason why I didn’t start direct with the real estate in the beginning because it was it looked just too big for me.
Dan Krueger: [00:13:04] So how did you
Anthony Vicino: [00:13:05] Start breaking that down then? Like part of that was just overcoming the limiting belief that this is possible. But like, what were the education process and the next steps towards actually taking action towards acquiring your first property?
Yosef Lee: [00:13:19] Ok, I think people have a fear, mainly because they don’t know what they’re dealing with. They don’t know what they’re dealing with to me. So when I landed on the real estate of multifamily, I still had a limiting belief, right. Of, Oh, OK, I’m from New York and this is like the crazy expensive market. What do I do? And then you try to figure out how, OK, how can I invest here? So from that point on, I found out-of-state real estate investing, huh? What is an estate? Real estate investing? Let’s look at it. How can I do artist any real estate investing from New York? Oh, OK. There there’s something called Boots on the Ground Buttner. All right. How do I make boots on the ground? So this natural. Asking how led me to the next step and the next step, and little by little, helped me to crush the limiting beliefs. Yes.
Dan Krueger: [00:14:20] I was going to say it seems like the really big thing that’s sticking out to me here is instead of saying that I’m guessing that you’ve already kind of mentioned Robert Kiyosaki, I’m guessing that that logic really resonated with you from that book. And that’s one of the big things I pulled out, was the piece about asking how you can do something as opposed to saying, oh, I can’t do that, because just flipping it on its head and said, how could I do this? It really leads you to find the answer. It sounds like that was a really big change. So you started changing the questions you were asking.
Yosef Lee: [00:14:48] Exactly. You nailed that point. And yeah, that’s exactly what I did. I try to keep asking how as opposed to why I can’t do this. So I think that’s what usually happens if people are not doing things. They are trying to find a reason why they are not doing it, as opposed to trying to find how they can do it. Right. But I really trying to justify their not doing things. So, yeah, basically that’s how I started education. I think education is the key because it’s like studying the object that you’re looking at now when trying to find how you can tackle them. My fear is mostly I think to be the best way to tackle the fear is just confront it head-on and learn about that. Why am I having fear of this specific subject or object? Right. So that’s how I started it. But soon realized. Just doing self-education is not enough for me. I thought I was taking some action, right? Oh, I’m reading and listening to the podcast. I thought I was doing something, but actually, I was not. I was just passively absorbing the information from someone else, and that was it. So I had to make a choice at the beginning of twenty. So that was throughout my twenty nineteen. I was just sort of just, you know, listening to those gurus. Michael Blanks, green card. Don Jenkins was one of them to and sort of from that point to maybe I should be looking to have a mentor and that’s the mindset change at the beginning of twenty. And I joined one which expedited my journey.
Dan Krueger: [00:16:34] And I’m guessing one of the big things that the change once that mentor came in since you already did a lot of studies and I’m guessing you had a lot of you’d consumed a lot of information and retained a lot of it. And so you had a lot of knowledge. And I’m guessing the main value that mentor brought initially was calling you out on the fact that like all of that research actually isn’t the action that you need to be taking. That’s like the fun, easy stuff. Like you actually need to go out and do a thing, make an offer to find a partner with that, kind of like the first value add from that mentor.
Yosef Lee: [00:17:04] Absolutely. So I was getting all this advice and one famous website right now. I was just a multifamily DOT.
Dan Krueger: [00:17:16] Right.
Yosef Lee: [00:17:16] And I was asking this question, OK, hey, should I join this mentor group or not? Right. About 80 percent of people I spoke to did or individually. They give me advice. They all said that’s a bad choice. Don’t pay those gurus. Why? Did I say why? They said two things. First, you can learn all they teach free on YouTube podcasts or maybe by reading the books. Right? That’s true. And use that chunk of money to make a down payment and actually do the deal. So I was like, oh, this guy is at a point. Right? And then I spoke to the rest, 20 percent of the group. They said you said, just do what you’re going to meet amazing people, like-minded, high caliber group. OK, so now I going to make a choice and I made a choice of joining and listening to those 20 percent of people based on two reasons. One, by then always a really I really decided to go big on multifamily. So to me, saving ten thousand twenty thousand thirty thousand dollars as a down payment was not really making a big difference. Right. Because we’re now talking about multimillion-dollar properties. Was that going to do it right? Mm-hmm. And then, too, I see these groups and those people that I admired and those were making things happen, quote-unquote, are from these 20 percent. From this 80 percent. So to me, it was like, oh, all right, I will just follow their advice because they’re making it happen as opposed to the other groups.
Anthony Vicino: [00:19:01] This is one of the most important. There are two things that are really want to emphasize. As one, who you’re taking advice from matters so much. There’s a lot of opinionated people out there. And I think you’re probably talking about bigger pockets, forms there where, you know, I love those forms. I think there’s a lot of great information. But you put out a question and you need to be very cognizant of who are the people responding. And generally, if you would not trade places with them, then don’t take their advice. And a lot of the people that are offering the most vocal advice, are not people that you would want to trade places with. So you have to listen to the minority sometimes to get the, you know, that minority level result, which is really what you’re seeking. You’re not seeking the average majority result here. And then the other thing, one of the most interesting things about the current state of the world is that information is infinite and abundant. Yes, you can learn how to do all the different things.
Anthony Vicino: [00:19:52] Just go to Google and YouTube and spend a couple of hours and you can figure it out. That’s not what these groups are about. And that’s not what I like. Working with a coach or a mentor or any of that stuff is really about you’re not paying for the information, you’re paying for the organization, like in how they assemble the information to lead you through it in a linear way that makes sense. And then how to apply it, like the organization of information in the application of the information is the most important thing, because as you pointed out, you spent a lot of time probably consuming information like that wasn’t really the limiting issue anymore. Now it was applying it. So I just wanted to throw that out there because I think that’s something that a lot of people struggle with within the early days is it like, should I invest in myself? And I’m not saying all groups are worth investing and definitely do your due diligence there. But by and large, people who are afraid to invest in their network are going to struggle to grow.
Dan Krueger: [00:20:41] And there’s another point there as well that I think it’s worth noting. I think you kind of hit on it a little bit different verbiage. And they but I think the big thing for us sounds it was like someone called him and said, hey, all that studying that you’re doing isn’t really going to move the needle. So the accountability piece is huge. And I think that’s pretty much where you’re saying just education application accountability. But then also for those of you that are new and trying to get into this, you’re probably by yourself doing this. You probably don’t have a partner yet. And a mentor or a coach is effectively kind of like buying a partner, sort of like you’re buying a consultant to kind of sit in the room with you. Not physically, but they will advise you on the real projects we’re working on in the deals that you’re underwriting and be a very experienced set of eyes to kind of peek over your shoulder and give you the confidence that, yeah, this is a good deal, you should move forward or call you and say, hey, you missed this. This is actually a bad deal like that component of it is invaluable. And so really, it doesn’t matter if you know everything, having the accountability to make sure that you actually doing the things moving forward and having a second set of eyes or the third set of eyes before you have another partner to bounce ideas off of is huge.
Yosef Lee: [00:21:52] Right? Right. What if I don’t know if you noticed when they were giving me some advice, the words, or the phrase they used, if you look at it, those 80 percents were saying free education, it’s free. You can always get it. But if focus when I focused on the 20 percent, they were emphasizing the relationship, the type of people that you’re going to meet through this, this group’s right. It’s the difference in their focus is also one thing that I noticed.
Dan Krueger: [00:22:24] Yeah. And if you you could know all the things are to know. But if you don’t know the people in real estate like it’s a relationship business, if you don’t know the people, the players don’t matter. You could know every technical piece of information. If you don’t have a connection with the actual people out there doing business, then you’re not going to go very far.
Anthony Vicino: [00:22:40] Yeah, that’s the two most important investments that you can make, is one in yourself, your education, your skills, and then number two, your network. Who are you surrounding yourself with? And to be around the really big players that you want to be around, you usually generally have to pay to get to their proximity. So and it’s worth it. And it’s usually we’ll say usually I want to say all your three.
Dan Krueger: [00:23:03] Yeah. I’m not buying tickets to Greencard owns events, I’ll tell you that. But they’re not all great.
Anthony Vicino: [00:23:08] But you’re going to get a suit. So, Joseph, now you’ve learned like you’re starting to apply the education that you have, what was the next step, that first deal, or like the process that led to that? Because you talked about partnership and boots on the ground. And Dan and I, you know, we’re fortunate to invest in our backyard, and that’s great for us. But you’re in what can Marcarelli just came out with a video today and said is like the worst city to invest in. So you didn’t really have a great choice there. You had to, like, look a little external because that’ll work for you.
Yosef Lee: [00:23:40] Well, yeah, again, I’m telling you and I’m telling this to everyone I meet at the beginning journey and who doesn’t know where to start. If they’re in the market, I tell you, you’re so fortunate, man, you are in the market. That’s your niche, being able to be boots on the ground as a magnet to out-of-state investors. So the same thing happens. I’m here in New York. It’s not like even if so, let me go back so OK to me out of state investing. I was mainly looking at maybe New Jersey, maybe Connecticut, but because to me, still out-of-state investors to me, like Pennsylvania, was kind of for Tennessee, Georgia, to me it looked like it’s really far away. But then I soon realized, OK, even if I find something in New Jersey, what am I going to do? I’m going to go there every day. No, I’m going to have to find somebody to look up to Jersey property. So after that realization to me now, proximity is not really doesn’t really matter now because it’s not like I’m going there every day. And so I started going further away from it just to find, OK, let’s focus on where the numbers make sense that as opposed to where I could more emotionally feel security just because it’s closer to me. Right. So that’s when I started looking further away and then I kind of landed south is like a Mid-West area. That’s OK. So if I’m going to do something here now, I definitely need somebody who is from the market. So that was the natural progression of the thoughts. OK, out of state investing. I’m comfortable now. Next, then I got to find somebody puts on the ground. So that was the main goal when I joined Jenkins and yeah. To find a potential partner. First of all, boots on the ground.
Anthony Vicino: [00:25:44] And what were those initial conversations like, as you’re talking with people, because you go into a lot of conversations to find the right partner? The partnership is not one of those things. I always tell the stories that you can’t just walk into the bar and walk up to the first person and say, likely marry me like it doesn’t work like that. You have to kind of schmooze and put in the time. And so what was that process like for you where you started to get in proximity with potential partners? And then what were you looking for as you were vetting them to see if you had a good complement of skills or personalities? Like what was that like?
Yosef Lee: [00:26:15] So in the beginning, this was probably my mistake. In the beginning, I was just so pumped up. I was very motivated in the beginning because I just joined this great group, OK, a lot of great people. I’m going to do a lot of networking. So I started vetting my potential partners in a way that the way I see people. So let’s say we got into Anthony and then we got into a Zoome call for networking and then we have a good time. And in the end, I would just ask them. Tell me, what can I help you like, let me know, I’ll do anything I can. All right. I thought it was a way back then. I thought it was a way to show my motivation, eagerness, and my work ethic. But it was I soon realized it was not really giving them any doing any good to them because I was essentially creating another job for them because they
Anthony Vicino: [00:27:16] Don’t give homework.
Yosef Lee: [00:27:17] Yeah, I was giving them homework to figure me out. And then, you know, if there is anything that they could assign it to me, which is. No, no. So I soon realized that. So I sat down OK. So I’m going to have a different approach now. I got to know who I am. I got to know what I’m going to be able to do and what kind of value I could bring to the table. So I did the exercise of sitting down, putting out paper, pen, and paper. I started writing down what I can be and what I can be good at or Bastet right as some sort of skill sets in terms of multifamily skill sets. So the approach I had was, OK, I had this particular skill set that not many people have. I have a legal background, so how can I market myself with this? So I wrote down, OK, I can read a contract. I could probably read P.M. I’m not a contract attorney. Still, I have that educated background and I could, you know, make it easy for my teams to digest its contracts and I can negotiate things. And negotiation is part of my day-to-day work here at the job. So I think it’s
Anthony Vicino: [00:28:35] Not so good. I think the legal side of things is like one of the more powerful roles that you could fill on a team, right? Especially in real estate. There are legal contracts out the wazoo, especially when you’re doing syndications. And so bringing that skill set in particular is hugely valuable
Dan Krueger: [00:28:52] Because that’s expensive. I mean, the legal work on any deal, regardless of the size, is going to be substantial. So if you could take that bill off someone’s plate, then you really good sweat equity or whatever.
Yosef Lee: [00:29:05] Right. And I said I said I’m not a real estate attorney, but I could still, you know, create some simple legal documents myself. We don’t have to go through an attorney and pay for them and things like that. So that was the main thing. And then I can add, I added, and that I could structure the business as well, business savvy and things like that. So I started putting that out there and then I said, now I need a boots-on-the-ground partner who could complement my skill set. So before I was actually approaching the potential partners, now it got shifted, I was putting this out there consistently and constantly. People started deeming me like yourself, can we talk? OK, so you are looking for boots on the ground. I may be able to, you know, let’s talk. So that’s how I got connected. My first partner, we were in the same accountability pod as well. But he one day he called me or texted me, I forgot. And it was like, let’s talk. I know you’re looking for another partner. And I think it might be a good fit that complements my skill set. And can we talk? And I like the guy really, really much. And then we started on the writing together
Dan Krueger: [00:30:20] As super, super valuable right there. And I want to kind of just reiterate a little bit of what you just said for people because I think that could be applied. That practice you went through could be applied in a lot of different ways. And so you were kind of looking at the process of finding a partner and you said, OK, how can I do this? And you tried it away and started asking people like, OK, how can I help you? And then realized that, OK, that’s just trying to that’s putting too much on them. I need to, like, kind of audit myself, figure out what value I can bring, and then just tell people. And that’s great for finding a buyer, but that’s also great for just getting in the mix and getting into the room because I know that a lot of questions we get from people who are trying to get into this business is they know networking is the thing that they need to do. And going to a networking event could be intimidating for anybody, especially if you’re new and you’ve never closed the deal.
Dan Krueger: [00:31:10] So one of the biggest things that people do, if they’re feeling insecure, nervous about going out, networking, and getting into the rooms is to go around and just try to offer value to people and try to help them out. And that’s really a great way just to get your foot in the door with the whole network. So I think that’s a really cool practice for anybody to do. If they’re at all uneasy about going out and networking and meeting new people in this business when they’re new to it, it’s just kind of audit yourself, figure out like what makes you valuable, what kind of things are you good at that you could potentially help people with and then just go around and try to find people that might need that and throw it out there. That’s super huge. And so I’m curious, was your first was that partner that you found that through that group, the only attempted partner, or were there any false starts with partners, or was it just kind of like you follow that process and you found a good guy?
Yosef Lee: [00:32:05] Yeah, I, I think I could call myself lucky and fortunate to have started with great people. I think in general and the group in this masterminded group, everybody’s go-getters. And from the beginning, I really had some sort of trust. It’s mainly because this was a paid mentorship group. Right. To me, these people are committed, people. They paid their financial commitment. They are the ones who thought this is an investment, not a cost by joining these groups. So I really have a certain level of trust with them and but more so these people are just great, genuinely great. And I didn’t really experience any bad, bad partnership or anything. So it was great from the beginning.
Dan Krueger: [00:32:57] Good. We kind of lucked out in the same way as well. I mean, we haven’t really had partners in the real estate business outside of each other. And it just so happened that we end up working really well together. So that’s great. So I’m curious then, if that locating that boots on the ground partner were successful on the first foray, what kinds of mistakes have you made as you kind of transitioned from just being like the to a lawyer and doing that thing, realizing that, OK, I need to start shifting and developing some passive income and maybe even potentially shifting hypersomnia to that, like in that transition period over the last couple of years, it sounds like. What mistakes did you make that you think someone else who might be in a similar situation that you are one or two years ago should be aware of?
Yosef Lee: [00:33:48] Mistakes I make, I think we work with the partner we. Actually, had a deal, it’s almost going into contract in like a third-month mark, after which point of pretty quick, right? I think my mistake was. Not being patient, so I was kind of rushing into it because I thought, oh. Just by joining this group, something great is going to happen, like I had that blanket belief. I mean, being positive is one thing, but at the same time, you got to be you’ve got to calculate that. Right. It’s more I don’t want to use the word realistic, but it’s more calculated, blanket policy, and motivated. I think it’s different if you have a blanket belief of some amazing thing will just happen just because you join this group. I don’t think it’s the right approach, but I had that in the beginning. So I was not being patient. I was just we did a lot of underwritings. We found one good deal and we thought we could get it under contract. The seller actually told us we were preparing the Loan. The seller said, oh, let’s skip lead. Why don’t we just go into a just contract directly? So we said, oh, great. And he was asking us to draft a contract. So we had a buyer. So we had an attorney who drafted the contract and the PSA and then we deliver it to him. And then he ended up using it to shop around and find a better buyer. And then he just left like that or stood up.
Anthony Vicino: [00:35:36] Yeah, I guess it always feels bad, but you probably dodged a bullet because I find those sellers, they typically are the hardest ones to work with during the closing process.
Dan Krueger: [00:35:44] Yeah, I was going to say in the real estate game, if, like your downside, there was maybe was a couple of hundred bucks on some legal fees and maybe a few hours of your life, like it’s not too bad in the real estate game. So I’d say if that was your deal that didn’t work out, that’s not too shabby right there.
Anthony Vicino: [00:36:02] So I want to circle back real quick to the patience thing, because I see this a lot with people who, you know, just trying to get into real estate or talking about big multifamily and even joining educational groups. This idea that, like, real estate is slow. It takes time. And we’re not playing like a one to the two-year game here like these are these are long term projects. If you’re doing real estate right, you should be playing you should be running a marathon, not a sprint. And I’d like to give a little context. You know, Dan and I, we did our first deal together only a couple of months after we joined up. But the next deal that was a solid eleven months later, took a lot of time, a lot of energy. And granted, that was twenty, twenty, or twenty. Put a lot of kinks in the road there. But like, you got to really have a long horizon when you’re dealing with real estate. And I see a lot of newer people getting and thinking, I’m going to get one hundred units next month, and then I’m going to be out of my two and four months. And it’s like just reset the expectations a little bit. Calibrate.
Dan Krueger: [00:37:00] Yeah, that’s a slippery slope, too. I think any kind of investing, not just real estate, but like when someone identifies a path that they’re going to go down, whether it’s real estate or if they’re doing the stock market thing or anything, like once you kind of identify that is a thing that you want to do immediately. People just want to be in. They want to make they want to have that first deal. They want to buy the stock. They want to just get in. And they almost forget about waiting for the right time or the right deal. And they just need to, like, be in. And that’s a very slippery slope because then you’re just going to start to do a deal for the sake of doing a deal and not actually wait for a good deal. And sometimes they can’t. They said it takes a long time to find it. We were shopping around all of twenty. Obviously, covid slowed things down. But even this year we were shopping very aggressively for the first six months. We had some, you know, some smaller things happened, but it took us months and months of looking at literally over one hundred deals to find one that actually fit the parameters. And there were some mediocre ones we definitely could have run at and gotten our fix for doing a deal. But it would have taken that capital that we needed for the really good opportunity that came later. And so just kind of let people know and kind of reiterate Anthony’s point about real estate being slow, like don’t waste your time on mediocre deals. Sometimes it takes time. Don’t worry about getting in. Just wait for the good deals. And a lot of great investing is just sitting and waiting. And it’s really one that’s OK.
Anthony Vicino: [00:38:23] That’s exactly right.
Yosef Lee: [00:38:25] I agree 100 percent on being patient is the key.
Anthony Vicino: [00:38:28] Yeah. So so yes, if we’re hitting the top of the hour. So I want to be super respectful of your time here and we completely just scooted right through the best part of every episode, which is the weekly bad investing advice. So let’s hit that real quick. What what’s a piece of bad investing advice that you hear sometimes that you just like? It creates your gears or a piece of commonly held wisdom that you just want to turn on its head.
Dan Krueger: [00:38:55] Feel like you’re chock full of these. I’ve heard a handful of things come out of your mouth that would probably fit right into this.
Yosef Lee: [00:39:03] So one piece of advice I heard from one of the syndicators was. And which it didn’t align with my ideal investing technique or interest as he said, to maximize your profit, you should at the end of the syndication, you should always put the language in the way that you could buy them out. And drive them out or something.
Anthony Vicino: [00:39:33] I hate that one so much,
Yosef Lee: [00:39:36] And he was telling me in very like in a matter that he was very proud of himself, that he was able to retain the chunk of equity through that and as if it’s like the best way to do. And at a time, as I told him, how is it different from then having a debt investor did a deal and then later you just pay interest and then just buy. Right. But we’re not in a game like that. We were in the game where we want to build up together something greater. That is not what the syndication is about. Something that we can individually. We cannot tackle as a group of people with a common goal, we come together and tackle that goal. So that was a bad piece of advice and never, never aligned my interests with that.
Anthony Vicino: [00:40:36] That that is I love that piece of advice because it is truly bad. It’s a sign of a bad operator that I would stay away from with a thousand-foot pole because they are putting their interests so far ahead of their passive investors. And that is just a recipe for disaster from the word go. So that I thank you. Know, I don’t think that’s maybe my favorite new bad investing advice because. We haven’t heard that one. It’s pretty ballsy to like to say that, you know, as an operator to be like screw the investors more or less so. But this has been a really good episode, man. I’ve enjoyed this conversation a ton. I know Dan’s got a hard stop, but he’s got it. He’s got a baby he’s probably got to go take care of. So before we let you out of here, what can people get a hold of you yourself?
Yosef Lee: [00:41:20] Social media. I am active and I try to be more active and I will continue to try to be more active for the next year’s coming. So my social media handles that. You’ll set your process, LinkedIn, Facebook, and stuff you all the same handling suites. So the best have me.
Dan Krueger: [00:41:41] I’m just going to say
Yosef Lee: [00:41:42] I love that. Right, Markoe increase the company.
Dan Krueger: [00:41:46] That’s great. And then do it.
Anthony Vicino: [00:41:49] Awesome. So that’s going to do it for us here, guys. That multifamily investing made simple. We want to thank you all for taking some time out of your day and listen and join us for the conversation. Now, before you take off if your name is Bartholemew, Bill and Dan, you’re up, go leave a review over on iTunes. Everybody else. If you want to leave a review, you can. But really, it’s Bartholemew. Dan, who is the other person? I said, you know who you are,
Dan Krueger: [00:42:15] Bill, or something. I’m going to be really excited if we get some Bartholomews Bartholemew.
Anthony Vicino: [00:42:19] If you leave, I’m going to love you for this random.
Yosef Lee: [00:42:22] Is this your random
Anthony Vicino: [00:42:23] Just randomly calling people out to leave reviews. So if there are any Bartholomew’s bills and Dan’s out there, go leave a review and we’ll see you next week. Thanks, guys.
Yosef Lee: [00:42:33] All right. Thank you.
