Vinney “Smile” Chopra shares his amazing journey from arriving to this country from India with $7 in his pocket to building a $70M multifamily real estate empire.  In this episode, we focus in particular on how he started his multifamily investing career and how he eventually raised $1.1M to do his first two deals.

After having graduated from George Washington University, Vinney became a mechanical engineer. He was fascinated by sales and marketing and sold encyclopedias and bibles door-to-door. For several decades, he was a professional fundraiser for non-profit organizations. He started investing in single family houses in the mid-eighties, but in 2007 he became passionate about multifamily investing. Since then, he’s done $125M worth of real estate transactions and currently controls over 1,400 units.

Vinney’s middle name is “Smile” because that what he did a lot during our interview. Here are the topics we cover on the podcast:

• Why he decided to get started with real estate. Too much work! Couldn’t really scale.
• His first venture into MF: hard!, it took 12 months. It seemed impossible. He ended up closing a 14-unit and then a 109 unit just several weeks afterward, raised $1.1M.

Key Takeaways:

[7:30] Vinney’s start in real estate investing

• Started with single family housing
• Planned on selling the homes to fund retirement

[12:47] Vinny’s preferred method of learning

• Youtube
• Google
• Podcasts (12-15 per week)

[13:31] Why positive thinking is so important if you want to achieve your goals

[18:13] Why Vinney decided to stop investing in single family housing

• Minimal economies of scale
• Risk of 100% vacancy
• After the crash of 2007 lenders would only loan on multifamily housing

[20:33] Why Vinney recommends finding a partner

• Encouragement through the tough times

 [26:17] Why you should talk to a syndication attorney before raising money

• Vinney’s syndication attorney: Kim Taylor

[28:00] Vinney’s very first deal

• 14 unites
• Closed on 109 units soon after

[32:14] How Vinney raised money for his first deal

• Hustled!
• Decided not to accept money from friends or relatives
• Designed a great presentation

[38:55] How one happy investor can lead to 30 more

Connect with Vinney

Phone: 925-766-3518 (call or text)

Email: vinney@moneilig.com

Vinney’s course on syndication: realestateu.tv

Learning how to find and analyze multi-family deals is important, but if you can’t afford to fund it yourself, you need a strategy for raising money! Doing what everyone else is doing to raise money is less and less effective, and that’s why I’ve invited Richard Wilson on the podcast to talk about raising money. Richard’s business isn’t just about raising money for real-estate, but we can adopt many of the strategies that Richard talks about to raise money for our multi-family deals!

About Richard Wilson:

Richard Wilson helps $100M+ net worth families create and manage their single family offices and currently manages 14 clients including mandates with three billionaire families. Richard is also the founder of the Family Office Club, the largest membership-based family office association. Richard hosts the "The Family Office Podcast", and he is the author of the #1 bestselling book in the family office industry, The Single Family Office: Creating, Operating, and Managing the Investments of a Single Family Office. He is a sought-after speaker and has spoken at over 150 conferences in 17 countries. Richard currently resides on the island of Key Biscayne, Florida with his wife and two daughters.

Enjoy the interview!

Key Takeaways:

[1:54] Definition of a Single-Family Office: Private company that manages investments and trusts for a single person or family.

• Many wealthy people prefer to put their money back into operating businesses.

 [9:27] Richard’s experience raising money

• Around 250 million raised

[9:56] Richard’s strategies for raising money

• Stop pitching people. They don’t like it.
• Start educating people. Provide real value to other people that are already in the game.

[13:02] There are experts in your niche that don’t compete with you but have enormous credibility. Find ways of efficiently connecting them to each other, (like through a podcast), and you will get Triple ROI:

• Getting value out of their brain
• You will gain a connection to this person
• Now everyone knows your well connected and educated

[15:39] Richards advice on raising money from private investors.

1. Analyze your competition and what you offer. Know what’s really going on in your industry.
2. Identify your position so that almost no one can compete with you.
3. Architect exactly how you will attract the people based on your unique
4. Execution
5. Iteration

[20:45]- When you layer communities, you create good luck.

[23:44] What Richard would do if he had only 500 bucks and a laptop (EO Fire Podcast question)

• Position himself to own a checkpoint and find a way to control a critical resource.
• Own something that is a bottleneck in your industry

[29:03] Special offer:

• Download the first 4 chapters of the Capital Raising Book here: http://capitalraising.com/the-capital-raising-book/

Resources mentioned:

Family Office Podcast: Real Estate Investments, Co-Investing, Capital Raising, and Private Equity Business Strategies: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/family-office-podcast-real/id849850253?mt=2

In this episode, Mark Walker shares with us how he replaced his income from a high-tech job with passive income from multifamily properties. Like so many people I’ve talked with, Mark started with single family investing before realizing that multifamily investing would allow him to achieve his dream of financial freedom.

His path was not always easy but one day in Mark “decided” that he was going to achieve financial freedom and from that moment on he worked towards escaping the rat race. In my experience, once you truly decide to do something you can’t stop yourself from taking action! So decide already!

Mark has some great advice and he’s even got a free PFD that you can download entitled   “10 "Not So Obvious" Ways to Boost Your Multifamily Property NOI.”  You can download it here

Key Takeaways

[1:15] Mark’s Backstory

• Worked for a high-tech company
• Left his job in January of 2015 to become a full-time real estate investor

[3:38] The day Mark “decided” to achieve financial freedom

 [5:16] Why Mark started investing in condo’s and townhomes

• Higher returns (post-tax)

 [6:05] Marks Hiatus from real estate investing

• Defrauded on a deal

[9:10] Why Mark decided to shift strategy and start investing in multifamily

• value-added opportunities with cash flow
• Economies of scale
• “The bigger the deal, the easier it is”
• The way a multifamily property is valued

  [13:04] Why Mark decided to do bigger multifamily deals

• Bigger payoff for time spent
• Non-recourse financing that he couldn’t get on smaller deals

[14;13] Marks mental struggle transitioning from a W2 employee to a full-time real estate investor.

• Had 36 units when he left his job
• 6-12 months to get used to no regular paycheck

[17:4] What Mark would do differently if he could do it over:

• Find a mentor/co-sponsor that is doing multifamily deals

[20:11] Why a very successful investor would be willing to partner with a noobie

 [23:10] Marks advice for a new investor

• Never stop learning! “Learning leads to action and action leads to success”

Resources mentioned

Mark's gift to listeners: 10 "Not So Obvious" Ways to Boost Your Multifamily Property NOI