Welcome to the Accelerated Real Estate Investor podcast with Josh Cantwell. If you’re looking to retire early with forever passive income, you’re in the right place. This podcast is the go-to destination for real estate investors, both active and passive. And multifamily apartment investors, both new, intermediate and advanced. Now sit back, listen, learn and accelerate your business, your life and your investing with the Accelerated Real Estate Investor podcast.

Josh: So, hey, guys, welcome back to Accelerated Real Estate Investor, this is Josh, I’m so excited to have you and this episode of the show, I’m going to be interviewing Jake and Gino, Jake Stenziano was not able to join us for this interview, but his partner, Gino Barbaro, is able to join us. Gino and Jake are both experts at multifamily real estate investing, and they’ve achieved it in just the last couple of years. And they’ve created financial freedom that for most people is very tough to achieve and for even for them they thought wasn’t even possible. Started the business back in 2013 with the desire to create long term wealth in multifamily and escape the drudgery of their nine to five jobs and their small business. Gino was working seven days a week running his pizzeria, truly being stuck in the business, working in the business instead of on it. Jake was in the high-pressure sales role in pharmaceuticals and wanted to spend more time with his family. They have since gone on to purchase over one thousand six hundred units of apartments. They’ve held massive events, which they call M4 is coming up in October. And in this interview, we’re going to talk about a few things, Gino and I, a number one, we talk about how he is actually feeding thirty-eight thousand people through his multifamily investments and his Rand Cares charitable network. Number two, we’re going to talk about how right now in the current state of the market, why the mom-and-pop deals, the deals that are one hundred units and under are some of the absolute best deals to buy. Number three, we’re going to also talk about the two types of deals that Gino loves to invest in in today’s market, the first deal being the heavy lift and the second type of deal being the down the fairway deal. And we’ll explain what that means. Number four, we’re also going to talk about their favorite strategy for buying multifamily properties, which they call the refi and roll strategy. And in just the last eight years, how they’ve been able to pull out over eleven million dollars in tax free refinance proceeds through their refi and roll strategy. I also asked questions about his favorite way to find deals, his favorite way to find money, his favorite book, his favorite way to decompress, and his favorite mentor that he’s ever had. You’re going to love this episode of the accelerated real estate investor with me and Jake and Gino. 

Josh: So listen, man, I’m so excited to have you on the show. Thanks for joining me today on accelerated investor Josh. 

Gino: My pleasure. Dude, let’s let it rip. 

Josh: Yeah, absolutely. I was on your show, man, nine months ago already. Meantime, as time has passed, flown by, I’m excited to have you on the show. So listen, tell me tell our audience what is something that you and Jake and Jake’s busy today couldn’t jump on. But what’s something you and Jake are working on today? Like literally like this afternoon, next week, something that you’re working on right now that really gets you going. What are you passionate for? What’s something you’re really excited about? 

Gino: Well, we have what we call the ram power wheel. It’s multifaceted multifamily of a property management company. We have an education company, a syndication company, a capital company. And the most one of my favorite parts is our Rand Cares. It’s our charitable arm. We’re doing the food drive. And I started back about two and a half years ago that I wanted to feed a million kids by 20, 30. I got the idea from a company called Sherpa. Every time they sell a product, they do they donate hours of education to kids in India. I thought that was amazing. So I said, how do I how do we do this? And talk is cheap. And what I’ve learned is you put something in and you don’t get the result and you quit. So I started about two years ago and, you know, one thousand meals, fifteen hundred meals, two thousand. It was slow, Joshua, slow growing. But I know one thing. You need a team around you. So we got the team and right now we’re at forty three thousand meals and we decided and the march for the next two weeks, let’s do this food drive. So right now to date, we’re at thirty eight thousand meals donated for this food drive. And if you want to donate, go to jakeandgino.com/randcares. Click on that link and click the donate where we’re partnering up with a company called Second Harvest Food Bank of East Tennessee. They’re an amazing organization and Jake doesn’t like to get hungry. You got to feed the kids that that’s his mission. His mission is to feed the kids. Next Friday. We’re actually stuffing backpacks for kids because, you know, covid is we’re fortunate. We do what we love to do. We can still make money during these times. There’s a lot of people out there that have had a rough year, rough last twelve months. And you know, the best however we can do to help and Rand Cares was just a thought in our mind a couple of years ago. And now that all these different components are working, the business is really, you know, trying to give back. And this is one of the ways that we’ve decided to do it. 

Josh: That’s fantastic stuff. So you’re able to give back Gino because you’ve had so much success as a multifamily investor, as an authority in the apartment space buying apartments. Let’s let’s talk a little bit more about your moneymaking strategy. So there’s a lot of different ways to buy multifamily and apartments. There’s a lot of different ways to create cash flow. Help me understand your brand of cash flow. What is your favorite way to structure a deal and what’s your favorite way to make money in the multi-family apartment space? 

Gino: Josh, when we first started out, it was just buy and hold forever. That’s all Jake and I knew. Yeah. And so what we did is we created the buy, right. The manage right. To find finance. Right. That’s the three pillars that we really talk about when you’re looking at a deal, those three pillars, you got to work on those three. So we’ve used creative financing. We’ve bought and hold for a long time. We’ve flipped apartment deals, we’ve syndicated deals. Our favorite to date is the refi and role. I mean, that’s basically cash out reifies. And the great thing about it is start out a single family or a duplex, you know, try the process by it, undervalued, push it up, refi the money that we’ve been able to refine over eleven million bucks on our portfolio. And, you know, it’s really technically a loan back to yourself. So you’re not only taxes on that, on that refi until you sell. So ding, ding, ding. It’s not what you make. It’s what you keep. So I you know, when I was the pizza guy, I was in the restaurant for years and years. You know how many pies I got to sling? Two hundred grand a year. I think I think about those pies flying in the air. Like I just refied two hundred grand in a property or five hundred grand in property and only pizzas. I got to sell and I keep all the two hundred thousand dollars and I roll it into the next deal. Now I want to with a picture, a conveyor belt out there. This is not going to happen overnight. This is why a lot of us fail in this business. You got to become an entrepreneur. You got to think long. The conveyor belt start stacking those assets on the conveyor belt. Josh, you guys have done this beautifully as well. Once those two assets start to matriculate, it may take you twelve to eighteen months for an asset to go cycle to get that deal repositioned. But once that deals reposition, you get that money out and you buy into the next deal and you keep stacking those assets and once you stack those assets in the conveyor belt gets full. And by year three a year, four of your journey, you’re like, you know what, Rand Cares here we come. 

Josh: Here we come. Heck, yeah. I mean, you know, compare that to this. And this might be an easy comparison, but it’s sort of a rhetorical question. But a lot of people, you know, thirty, forty years on the hamster wheel, even if they’re a highly paid executive or doctor or an attorney, somebody that owns a business, but they’re just constantly grinding out sixty hour weeks to make good pay. You know, you and Jake have successful careers and a successful career before I got into real estate. Making that pivot into this is different. It’s hard and it’s. Tough to go from having this transactional mentality of how can I make as much money today kind of slave and save to having this a little bit and you’re not even talking like a thirty year long term mentality. You’re talking like, how can I just stack things up for the next twenty-four to sixty months, really the next two to five years? So we talk about the mindset shift that you, your students, people that follow you, that you’re kind of empowering people to take on this mentality. It’s a different mentality starts there and then your body, your mind is going to follow what you’re thinking. When I started to make these longer-term investments, man, it was it was almost like a weight off my shoulder. I was like for me, I had to get comfortable with maybe making a little bit less money in the short term because I wasn’t going to be as transactional to being in a situation where I’m like I’m really building for long term, like, you know, family offices. Often they’ll talk about how they’re investing for three generations down the road. So I guess just what’s your take on the mentality of just being a little bit longer term thinker to think about true financial freedom and how just small pivot from investing for today, for investing three to five years from now, how they can make all the difference? 

Gino: Josh, this is full disclosure. I was that guy week to week. I had a small business. So anybody out there that says they can’t do that, that’s on them. You know, we see the world as we are, not as it is. That’s great. Steven Covey says, so I was seeing the world as a transaction. I always had the dopamine hit. I was hitting the likes on Instagram. That’s the life I was leading. Every week I got paid. I went to do it every week until twenty eight hit. That was my pandemic and everything changed and all of a sudden I’m working harder, making less. My mom owns the building at the restaurant. She’s got three apartments upstairs. It’s snowing outside. She’s getting paid that week. That month and I’m not getting paid. That’s when it all changed me. I said something has to change because they’re out there, people out there making millions of dollars and I’m not one of them. So you have to become responsible. The ability to respond. I think then you have to have an epiphany and you have to change what Covey’s talks about your paradigms, what are your perceptions of the world? My perception was I need to get paid every week. Right. But then when I saw that, that didn’t work anymore. Well, let me go out and let me see what other successful people are doing. And fortunately, I met Jake and I didn’t need the real estate income. That was the key to me. I didn’t need that on that first deal at two thousand dollars a month in cash, I had my job. So I said, you know what? I’m going to start this side, hustle and see how that works and just take it slow and then proof of concept. After that first deal, we got our second deal three months later, those two deals by month six, we’re getting about about six or seven grand a month in cash flow from the studio. I’m like, dude, this works, you know, but how do I keep doing this? Right. And I think that’s what it is. Everyone out there who has fear just understand fears. Hold me back. I had a lot of fear. I’ve got six kids, so everyone’s tell me a lot of risk. Got to put food in the family. Once you have that fear, understand that that’s holding me back. Once I got angry with my situation, everything changed for me because anger leads to action. That’s what it did for me. So if you’re out there, it’s OK to be afraid. Just acknowledge it. It’s just part of your journey. Become clear. We don’t lack motivation. We lack clarity. And I was unclear beginning multifamily. Why multifamily? But I promise you, once you put that first asset on the contract, that first asset on the contract that you like, you know what? It’s starting to work. It’s starting to make sense for me, that proof of concept and then opportunities come about and then people can say, well, how do I find money for the next deal? Let’s worry about this deal right now. Let’s get this deal in the contract. Then you know what? People are going to come knocking and going, hey, what do you do? Your real estate? How do I do that? That’s how life works. 

Josh: Are you ready to automate and explode your real estate investing? We’re searching for extremely motivated individuals who are sick and tired of wasting time and want to finally see real results from their real estate investing business. We’re searching for investors, looking to get to the next level and become a bigger, better version of themselves while being a more successful real estate investing entrepreneur. Apply for mentoring and coaching at JoshCantwellcoaching.com/podcast. That’s JoshCantwellcoaching.com/podcast. 

Josh: You know, it’s funny, I don’t know, back to my childhood, I listen to a lot, you know, and I do, yes. So there’s a quote about my age. So this is a quote from Easy that wasn’t in one of his songs, but it was something I read. And I’m going to I’m going to watch it. But it was something along the lines of, you know, there’s two types of fear. There’s the fear that stops you, the fear that gets in front of you and stops you from achieving your goal. And then there’s the fear that pushes you from behind, where it’s the fear of kind of staying where I’m at. It’s the fear of not accomplishing my goals. It’s the fear of man. I could be so much more. I could be such a bigger, better version of myself. And I’m going to let this fear push me from behind. So you have to work with a lot of students. You guys got a huge advance, but you guys got an event coming up in October. You’re going have five hundred people there and probably more. You’ve had massive events in the past. You mentor a lot of people. You’re an authority in multifamily. How can people use this fear or overcome the fear? What is some natural challenges that people are experiencing or first getting started? And what kind of advice do you give to them, you know, going and just doing the deal? Yes, we understand. If you do, the deal makes sense. That’s going to help overcome the fear. But is it is it maybe partnering with someone that’s got more experience? What are some, like, tactical things that they could do? Understanding that fear is not going to go away. It’s about taking action, accomplishing things, even though the fear is there. What are your thoughts on that? 

Gino: Great question. Let me answer the first part that I think everyone on this podcast should do. If they haven’t done, explore your values. Stephen Covey, second principle, start with the end in mind. What do you want people to say about you and your future when you when you talk about that? Fear really struck a chord with me because I never could put it in words like the way you did. I didn’t want. It was all from easy, by the way. Easy. Thank you. Because I didn’t know I didn’t know how to. I don’t I didn’t want to let my kids down. When I was at the restaurant, I was gliding. I wasn’t growing. I was dying. And I wasn’t being the role model that I should be to them. I’m going to work working hard. I’m hating work. I don’t want my kids to grow up in that environment. I want them to see dad go to work, love, work, crush work, be successful. And that was the fear those drive me. So what are your values? My values when I’m hopefully long time from now, everyone’s going to have a great mentor, great person, love to work with him. Was always there for his kids. Now I bring that back to today. How do I empower that today? And that’s why I got into multifamily, because I can build that business. I can affect tons of people. Now, the tactical part, listen, success leaves clues out there. Don’t do what I did back in 2005 when I got into a mobile home park space, I had a few extra bucks. I jumped in headfirst. Great. Taking massive action. But I know what the hell I was doing. I didn’t know due diligence and I lost a ton of money. I can blame the guy, my partner. He sucked. He was a criminal. That’s OK. I have to take responsibility because it was me who didn’t take the education. So the first thing before you get into any endeavor, get massively educated, make sure No. One, that that’s what you want to do. Like right now, I’m fully locked into multifamily. There aren’t that many deals out there. I’m not going to jump to crypto, although I have some money crypto. I’m not going to go to a different space because I love this venue. And there’s so many different ways that we make money through multifamily, so be committed to it. Don’t have the shiny object syndrome where you’re jumping around from one niche to the next. You don’t really master one, so you have to commit yourself and it may take you. It took Jake and I 18 months to find that first deal. So the next part I would say is find a partner out there and accountability partner. Someone is going to say to you, you know what, today was rough, but let’s keep trucking on. Hey, Jake, how many brokers did you call today? You didn’t call any. Well, maybe we should call a couple. When you partner with somebody of that accountability, guess what? You’re not going to let that person down. You’re going to let yourself down. But I ain’t letting Jake down. You know, I’ve been on call since eight thirty this morning with Jake. I’m not letting him down. You don’t. I mean, that’s the that’s the reality. So clarity, accountability, learning the space. Then the next part is you got to go out there and you’ve got to take action. Yeah. How do you do it? By taking action. You’ve got to figure out market, what market you can invest in. When you’re starting out one market, don’t go three or four markets go deep, you really want to learn that one market because you got to meet the brokers, you have to get the relationships right. You have to understand the valuations in the market and you’ve got to get deal flow. And by getting deal flow, you’re going to you’re going to be calling brokers and you can be calling direct owners. But you once you’re in that market, you understand and you start making connections, that’s how you start getting deal flow in this business, whether it’s a five unit or it’s a five-hundred-unit, same principle, learning the market. And then from there, listen, you’re going to have to give me just two things in this business you’re going to be sourcing deals are going to be sourcing capital. Let everybody know what you’re doing out there, whether you’re the pizza guy. I found my partner today. His name is Mike from our from our second deal. I’m sitting out front in the pizzeria. I got pizza sauce on my shirt. Mike sits down. He’s a very intelligent hedge fund dude sits down, he starts talk about China and oil and gold. And I go right back and hit him right back. And he looks at me. He goes, Who are you? Because he never knew me. He only knew me as the pizza guy. Don’t be afraid. And that’s where the opportunity shows up. You all think it’s lucky when something happens. I put in years and years of work to understand and know what I knew at that point. And I attracted Mike because Mike needed something. So its value for value. I provided Mike value. He was buying two and a half million-dollar homes, single family homes up in Connecticut, renting them out. He thought that was a great model. When I showed in the multifamily model, his mind almost exploded. Right. But I’m talking about rubs and I’m talking about, you know, you lost the lease and he’s like, dude, hold on a second, let’s try. And that’s the thing. You got to be ready. You’ve got to be able to provide value out there. So those I mean, I went all over tactical, but I think you get the point. You really need to know what you’re talking about. You really need to provide value and you really need to focus on this niche long term. 

Josh Yeah. Gino, now, listen, that’s great advice. I appreciate that. And I know before we got started with this interview, we were talking about some deals and the market is tight right now. So I’d love to hear your take your opinion on what you’re actually seeing in the market. You guys are looking for deals every day. Deals are tougher to come by because there’s a lot of money in the system. What is your thought on the current market? Where do you think it’s kind of going and maybe the next year to three years? And then secondly, let’s talk about this deal that you guys just bought, because I think that will it’ll lead us to that discussion about the deal you just bought. So what are your thoughts on today’s market, what’s working and what’s not? 

Gino: It’s really hard because the delta between what sellers are willing to sell and what buyers are willing to pay, it’s still big right now and the brokers are still in the seller’s ears and something has to go right. We thought the moratorium would end. It hasn’t ended. It has. It has really, really continued. What I see right now is in certain markets, multifamily is great. You still have job growth down in the southeast, in Arizona, certain areas, Texas, those markets, I don’t think going slow. I don’t think cap rates are going to rise anytime soon because there’s so much there’s so much money out there. And all the experts said rents would slow down. Rents are growing. Rents in Tennessee are up five percent. Knoxville, because there’s there’s the there’s the job growth and the population growth. So I see prices still being a little bit hard. I like the smaller businesses. We’re talking about the twenty, thirty, forty, fifty units. We like to see valuation through operation, not renovation. In this part of the market cycle. You need to know the three pillars of real estate. And in this part of the market cycle, be wary of buying those assets that are really old four cap C properties with a ton of capex unless you’re paying a really good price for them. They’re overpriced right now. So if you’re buying them at a certain price, having to put a ton of capital in and then all of a sudden the market decides to turn, well, if you don’t have long term fixed rate financing and your strategy is to buy and hold the long term, guess what? You may be catching a falling knife. So just be aware where you are in the market, in the markets that you’re looking at. And now’s the time to maybe lock in that long rate and long-term fixed rate financing because rates, interest rates may come up because I see inflation as the big problem for the middle class right now, because printing a ton of money and hey, gas is already three bucks a gallon. It’s up almost 40 percent since since Biden took over. I’m not going to blame him, I thought going to that place right now. But when you pump four trillion dollars into the system, that money sitting around. So there is opportunity in the smaller assets, the bigger assets, they’re going to be bid up. If you’re looking to scale into that, you really need to have the long game. You really need to get into the brokers. You really need to create those relationships with those brokers. 

Josh: Yeah, you know, talk about the small deals. So when I look at like where the brokers play primarily and those seventy five to one hundred units and up and then the mom and pop game is like seventy five fifty units and under and our model is really built off of having two hundred units in an area because we know of about two hundred units could be separate buildings or all one complex, but about two hundred units allows us to have full time property manager, probably a property manager and a half or two property managers, at least two maintenance guys. So that full time staff, full time leasing office, you got enough space there to have that, some amenities and things like that. So we’re willing to buy like the four unit buildings and the sixty two unit buildings where I look at a twenty three unit building. Last week, because it’s helping us round out a portfolio to 200 units in a certain location, so just talk a little bit more about your opinion of these smaller mom and pop deals or the brokers aren’t playing and whether isn’t this big institutional money. 

Gino: I love your strategy because it’s simply what we’re doing at 200 units. Everybody, you know, Josh makes a fantastic point. The property manager is going to be tapped out once they go above 200 units. There’s a lot of moving parts. There’s a lot of heavy lifting for them to do. So you can have a property manager and an assistant. But our our offices are structured around 200 units each. So we have like five different offices in Knoxville because we we we saw that at one point one of our one of our offices had three, three hundred fifty units. It was too much getting overwhelmed, not doing the work orders, not calling back the residents. So I love that. Now, technology, Josh, we’re a little slow to technology, but technology is going to have a huge play with these smaller assets. You’re going to have remote, you know, maintenance. You’re going to have smart locks where you’re going to be able to actually open doors without being on property. You’re going to be doing virtual tours, virtual leasing. A lot of that’s going to help a lot of these bigger operators get into our little space. That’s the problem. What’s going on? I see that happening right now and we’re going to adopt that. So this forty eight unit deal that we bought was about twenty minutes away from one of our other assets. So what we did is it had forty-eight units and it had an office. That office, we’ve converted it to two units. We’ve got a twelve hundred square foot two bedroom, which we had to get twelve hundred bucks a month. And that studio is going to be six hundred bucks. So it’s another eight dollars a month in revenue, twenty grand a year and a six cap. What does that another four hundred grand in value that we’ve added on that property. We’re able to do that because our main office is twenty minutes away. So we’re going to be leasing out of that office. So I love these small and the two deal types. I should have mentioned the two deal types that we’re really looking at right now, deal type A, is that smaller or even larger? Heavy lift. You’re going in there. You’re not getting any cash flow. Day one, cap rates don’t mean anything, right? It doesn’t mean what the hell. You’re buying a cap rate. You’re basically the whole the whole formula would be what you’re stabilized would be what you’re stabilize anyway is going in afterwards. If you’re cap rate is higher than what the market is, once you stabilize it, then go ahead and do it. Funny. That’s the hairy one, right. The second one that we’re looking at, deal type B. It’s really something down the fairway between a seven to 10 percent cash on cash return, Fannie Freddie agency kind of debt. And that’s the kind of deal we’ve got locked up. We’re closing in on a unit deal in the next two to three weeks. We love that deal. We’re not overpaying. But if you told me would be paying this two years ago, I’m not paying that price. But you know what? You know what? It’s funny because Amazon’s building right next door rents are going to really you’re going to go up to about a thousand bucks a month with nine seventy five and a thousand bucks a month. And we see that inflation and that rent growth in that market. So we see the long term, we see the cost segregation benefits we’re going to get from the property. It’s a nicer build town homes, brick, lot less capex requirements on this property is really well maintained. So that’s a little bit more of the fairway down the fairway kind of property. So you’ve got those two deal types right now, I think, in our part of the market cycle. Now, as things start loosening up, hopefully we get those Cs coming up. Those see properties, those cap rates maybe rise a little bit. We can jump back into that part. 

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Josh: It’s funny you said that because I literally close on a two hundred twenty unit yesterday, that was deal type A heavy lift guy owned it for the last four years, didn’t do a lot of work to it guys from Pittsburgh’s great guy, but he hasn’t really done much because it’s about three hour drive for him. And he was never able to get like the CapEx team and the economies of scale because this was his only asset here in the Cleveland area. And then the deal I just underwrote this morning was your deal type B, like it’s already stabilized. It could use new cabinets, but it’s ninety nine percent occupied. Grab cash flows on day one, permanent financing down the fairway. The returns aren’t as high, the rent arms aren’t as much, but it’s more of that. Like hold for four to seven years. Right. Cash flow on day one and not a lot of management headaches, not a lot of capex. So there’s room for both. Just got to prep yourself. And they’re really different types of teams to manage those two. 

Gino: Do you mind if I mention one thing I should mention one thing we can only do one or two of those heavy lifts a year through vertically integrated. We got about 60 people on our property management team. We actually have a CapEx crew. We just started a floor and crew about six months ago, which is freaking awesome because paint, flooring, reply’s, those are the three bras right there. So we finally took flooring in-house. So it’s a big saver, right? And when you’re training a unit, it’s really great. But those heavy lifts we can do once to a year after that, we start stressing out the whole the whole team. So we have to be very cognizant, very wary, because when you’re doing in-house property management, hey, you can’t buy three or four thousand units a year, at least we can’t right now. We don’t have the scalability to implement those systems. So one or two hairy deals a year and then if we can buy those ones, there are seven to ten percent because, listen, it’s coupon clipping, but you’re getting the inflation hedge, you’re getting the principal pay down, and you’re also getting those costs education benefits as well. 

Josh Pack. Yeah, great stuff. You listen. So let’s before I jump into the final five, let me just ask you one thing. So you’ve learned a lot like you’ve mentioned a lot of people you’ve done with sixteen hundred units or more. You guys are adding more all the time. You probably think about your younger former self like young Gino and some of the things like, you know, young Gino thought he was great and had this big ego ran the pizza shop and all the great stuff. But you’ve learned a lot along the way. So what is just one or two pieces of advice you think that you would pass along the to the younger former Gino or some of our audience that’s maybe getting going? Or maybe it’s entrepreneurial advice or just leadership advice? What are a couple of things that stand out some of your best lessons you’ve learned along your entrepreneurial journey? 

Gino: That’s a great question. I mean, the first thing is the more I invested in myself, the better I became. And I wish everyone when they got out of college or went into college, went into personal development and did some kind of life coaching. Fantastic. When you invest in yourself. That’s why I’m so invested in education. That’s why I love the Jake and Gino brand, because we’re lifelong educators. I mean, I can I probably spent over half a million bucks in the last three to four years to get coach on scaling a business. No one’s born knowing how to scale a business. No one’s born being a great salesperson or being a great presenter. You need to invest in yourself. So I want everyone to shift their mind, their paradigm on you know what? I’m not spending on education. I’m not spending on myself. I’m investing in myself. That’s the first thing. And I think the second thing is I love all the listeners really to focus on their financial freedom, because once you become financially free, something weird really happens. All of a sudden, the thought of money and making money is not as prevalent. It’s not in my mind as much anymore. I’m not chasing money right now. I’m chasing opportunities. And that’s really hard to fathom. But when you’re on that hamster wheel you’re working at, can I do a food drive? I can barely pay my own bills. How am I going to go and do a food drive? That’s not possible. Right. But now that I can divert some of my resources and some of my assets and some of my my mind to that to that function, I can do it. So everybody out there try to become financially free and if not become financially free, don’t always think about money, create yourself a budget, live within your means and try to expand those means. Don’t always worry about the expenses, worry about how are we going to grow that income, because once we grow that income in and control where that income goes, that’s one of the best things in life. 

Josh: Love it, man, it’s the mindset of pursuing long term personal freedom instead of pursuing the next transaction. That’s fantastic stuff. So, Gino, the final five looks like this. Let’s fire away. Take a couple seconds to answer each one. Here we go. So, number one, your favorite way to find deals. 

Gino: Deal dogs, we have guys getting on the phone call on brokers to direct it’s been working the last six months. We call the deal dogs. 

Josh: Deal dogs love it. Favorite way to find money for deals. 

Gino: Host events go on webinars and then for go there, you’re going to have five hundred people in the audience, you you’ll be raising capital from them. 

Josh: Perfect. Favorite book you ever read. 

Gino: I have so many. But, you know, the last one that I read in the last six months, which I had never read before, I don’t know why Stephen Covey’s said, OK, you got to read that book, everybody. You got to it’s character ethic versus personality ethic and character, I think is all about the long term. You know, it’s flash in the pan is great being showy, but you need to have principles and you have morals. You need to have core values. And if you have that, you can build off of that foundation 

Josh: Love it, you know, favorite place to vacation or to decompress. 

Gino: It’s crazy. I live in St. Augustine, Florida. I moved from New York four years ago, so I pinch myself every day. I feel as if I’m on vacation every day. I’m literally three hundred feet from the beach. So when I want to decompress, I go offshore and I see a little fishing off shore. So I’m not too far 

Josh: well off to go deep sea fishing sometime. I love the to sea to. That’d be awesome. I got hooked on deep sea fishing. You know, when my when my ten-year-old daughter caught a barracuda that was about as big as she was. Dude that was. Yeah that was pretty cool. But that was I was hooked after that last. And final question, Gino, is who do you think is the most impactful mentor that you ever had and why why do they have such a big impact on your life? 

Gino: I mean, I guess you might get this from a lot of people, but my dad was in a certain kind of way, an Italian immigrant. He was a hard worker and he never made excuses. He was sick a lot of his life had ulcers and all. He worked in the restaurant, had a business. And I never heard him say, can’t go to work. He just strapped it up and he worked hard. And I think a lot of good things come out of hard work. 

Josh: Yeah, my wife’s dad is an immigrant Italian barber, and he’s eighty-five years old, is doing really well. And, you know, he’s got like little things, little health issues. Never bring it up, never mention it. Dude only cares about his family and like he’s the most selfless guy ever. So I imagine that’s a lot like the way your dad was. Fantastic stuff. You know, you guys got an event coming up and for tell us about it, where can we get more information? 

Gino: Multi Mastery Live four October. Twenty third and twenty fourth. It’s the Gaylord Palms in Orlando. So if you guys are all out there making plans, I mean, Disney is five minutes away from there October the twenty. It’s beautiful down in Florida, in Disney. I mean it’s in MM3 we had five hundred people. I’m we’re going to be walking into five hundred people on this and we’re going to panels, we’re going to sponsors boots. It’s just it’s just an awesome. And I think people want it. I think people just want to get out and go to an event. The place is massive. There’s so much room there. I’m excited. It’s about time I missed last year. This year. Let’s bring it on. Yeah. 

Josh: And it’s about time you and I and Jake, we hung out face to face with it on webinars, calls together. It’s about time we connected face to face. I look forward to being there, guys. Check it out. Go to JakeandGino.com  for more information. You had an absolute blast on this interview. Thanks for joining us today on Accelerated Investor. 

Gino: Josh, thanks for having me. Take care, everyone.

Josh: Hey, Josh here. And do you want to win a free accelerated investor t shirt? All you have to do is give Accelerated Investor our podcast, Accelerate Investor a rating and a review on iTunes. OK, do that now then send us a screenshot on Facebook or Instagram or Twitter. What we’re going to do then is every week we’re going to pick our favorite rating and review and we’re going to send that person a free T-shirt and maybe again, some other cool fun stuff as well from Accelerated Investors. So again, don’t forget to take a screenshot, leave a rating review, take a screenshot, send it to us so we know exactly who you are. And then once a week, every week on the podcast, we will announce a new winner. Don’t forget to take a screenshot and send it to us so we know exactly who you are. We’ll announce a new winner every week. 

You were just listening to the Accelerated Real Estate Investor podcast with Josh Cantwell. If you enjoyed this episode and learned something new, help us build the A.I. community by leaving a review and five-star rating on our iTunes podcast channel. Also, don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss another episode. To see passive investing opportunities, visit FreelandVentures.com/passive. To start your journey toward the lifestyle you’ve always dreamed of with multifamily apartments, apply for one-on-one coaching with Josh at www.JoshCantwellCoaching.com.