From Making $48K/Year to Millionaire By His Mid-30s

David:
This is the BiggerPockets Podcast Show 821.

Ryan:
Day one, when I joined Grant’s team, he used to underwrite a deal. I used to tell him two minutes, it’s actually like 43 seconds, but I’m like, man, if I could underwrite a deal like Grant, then my whole life would change. What I do is I just take the number of units times the rents in place, not like what the broker’s telling me, in place rents, and then I just use the occupancy of 94 or 95% depending on the marketplace. And then I just use rough numbers, like, okay, my expenses typically in between 40 and 45%. And so I just, okay, this is what my NOI is going to be based on here’s the income minus the expenses, here’s my NOI. And so I can solve on these bigger deals, they all traded a cap rate. And so I literally can underwrite a multifamily deal, 300 units within two minutes.

David:
What’s up, everyone? This is David Greene, your host of the BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast, the biggest, the best, and the baddest real estate podcast in the world. Every week, we are bringing you stories, how-tos, and answers that you need to make smart real estate decisions now in this current and ever-changing market. I’m joined today by my co-host Roberto Abasolo, who does a great job today, by the way, Rob.

Rob:
Oh, thank you. I appreciate that. This was a fun one. You and I walked out of this with brand new shiny nicknames. You are the skyscraper of real estate, and I am the fire hydrant of real estate. And so I think people really going to have to stick around to the very end to find out how we got these self-dubbed nicknames.

David:
That is a great point. Make sure you check those out. This will be something funny. And when you see Rob in person, you’re going to want to call him the fire hydrant. Today’s guest is Ryan Tseko, an airline pilot turned real estate investor who started buying some single family properties, turned that into multifamily, now runs a fund and he’s crushing it. And he gives some great advice for how to do everything I just said, as well as the right way to approach somebody to get into the right situation. I thought this was fantastic. Rob, what did you think about that?

Rob:
It was really good. It was really good because he put himself out there in a way that showed value to someone else and solved the problem for them. And I think this is probably… I mean, there are so many lessons to take away from today’s podcast, but the way that he approached it and his willingness to just get in the mud, get a little dirty, figure things out and really jump in the ring, really set him apart to really have one of the most amazing career transformations I think I’ve ever heard of on this podcast. So I’m excited for people to hear his career unfold as we get into it for the next hour.

David:
Yes, sir. This is a great episode. You’re going to listen all the way through and take some notes. Before we bring in Ryan, today’s quick tip is simple. Show up with solutions and not just problems. Any human being can show up and say, “Hey, boss, there’s a problem over here.” That doesn’t help. It’s better to come and say, “Hey, here’s a problem and here’s what I’ve already done to try to fix it. What do you think? And what could I do better?” Be the person bringing the solutions in your world, not the problems.

Rob:
And by the way, and I have another quick tip. Number two, quick tip light. All right, if you ever get intimidated by RE terms, RE means real estate, by the way, real estate terms, you don’t know NOI, cap rate, LOI, go to biggerpockets.com/glossary. If you’ve ever heard us toss around abbreviations or things that really… Like terms, a lot of the times that can be found on the glossary and it could explain it for you. We do our best to always stop and rewind and explain anything that might be a little bit too much of an acronym. We get a little carried away with the eight-letter acronyms every so often. So yeah, go to biggerpockets.com/glossary if you want to brush up. Yeah, I’m excited when he talks about the GQLMIP. I think that’s one of the most standard real estate principles out there, so.

David:
Let’s bring in Ryan. Ryan Tseko, welcome to the BiggerPockets Podcast. A little background for our listeners. Ryan’s been investing for about 15 years. He started in single family and small multifamily early on in the state of Arizona. Has three million invested making 10 to 12 a month fully passive now, and we will find out why that is later. Ryan has a love of flying and leveraged that passion into a new career. The biggest hurdle he overcame was the do-it-yourself mindset, and we are excited to hear all about this. Ryan, welcome to the show.

Ryan:
Thank you so much for having me, Dave and Rob, always great to be here.

David:
Thank you for that. It sounds like a lot of your foundation is built on being a pilot, which is important. Because I’ve learned the older I get, how much the foundation of myself is built on looking at the world through the prism of a basketball player. It was like my first passion I ever had. So when I form a business, I build a team, I take an approach, I always see it analogous to playing basketball. I’m guessing that you’re probably going to have something similar to being a pilot. Is that the case?

Ryan:
For sure. And look, I actually didn’t even know I was going to be a pilot when I was growing up. My uncle, it was something that he always wanted to do. I was 17 years old, he was a builder. I wanted to buy my first house and he looked at me, he said, “Son, you don’t have any money.” And so we were flying one day and I looked at him and I’m like, “I could actually get paid to fly airplanes?” And when he said yes, I was hooked. So it was actually kind a roundabout way for me getting back into real estate. But 1,000%, I mean, aviation and flying like basketball, there’s just a lot of discipline, there’s a lot of training, there’s a lot of checklists. And so that’s helped me tremendously transfer the skillset that I’ve learned in my 20s into buying real estate and managing real estate, so 100%.

David:
Oh yeah, I imagine that’s very much like your pre-flight checklist, buying properties and knowing what needs to be done when they’re bought. You have to have great vision, know and trust your instruments, rely on the information that other people gave you, and trust that you’re getting good info. People are your priority. You value safety of others. You trust your team to get you on and off the ground and support you on this journey. In your opinion, what makes a great pilot?

Ryan:
So I think what makes a really good pilot is somebody who has the ability to learn, but also stay curious. When I was getting into becoming a pilot, there’s two different types of pilot. There’s bold pilots and there’s old pilots, but there’s no such thing as a bold old pilot. And so these are the different sayings that we have in the aviation business because we could all be bold, but at a certain point in time, you have to rely on, okay, what is the safe approach for the flight? And I really think that it’s a constant training event. As a pilot, it’s over and over and over, and so what makes a tremendous pilot is somebody who flies a lot. Same in the real estate game. Who’s the most proficient in real estate is somebody who’s doing deal over deal over deal. I just keep it simple.

David:
Ryan, you mentioned that your uncle introduced you to your love of flying as well as your love of real estate. It sounds like that’s a very influential person in your life. Can you tell me about your relationship with that person and how real estate sort of entered into the conversation?

Ryan:
Yeah. So when I was about 10 years old, my parents split. I moved from Southern California to Scottsdale. And my uncle, he was actually a builder in Scottsdale, Arizona. When I was a young man, he brought me on the job sites because for me, I was just trying to, okay, what’s next? So I wanted a car, and so he started teaching me about real estate. He was a builder. He always wanted to be a commercial airline pilot, but one day he took off, he was flying and he actually scared himself because he couldn’t find the airport, and so he literally gave up on his dream of becoming a commercial airline pilot.
And so when I was 17 years old, I didn’t have any money and we were flying and I asked him, I said, “Hey, look, can I actually get paid to do this?” And he said, “Yeah.” And so really that’s when aviation was introduced into my life from a young man and I really just started grinding. I started flying every single day. I put the real estate on hold, but I always knew that I wanted to come back to it. So that’s really how it was introduced to me from a young age and I had to wait because I didn’t have any money.

Rob:
That’s awesome. So that’s how you ended up in aviation. But what was life like in the early days of your career?

Ryan:
In aviation or in the real estate?

Rob:
In aviation.

Ryan:
So I mean, look, in aviation, when you first get started out, you’re traveling a lot. You’re not making a lot of money. My first year as a commercial airline pilot, I think I made $48,000 a year because they had to put so much time and energy and effort into training me. And so I went and got a loan student loan for 140 grand. My first year I made 48 grand. I was a first officer on a $40 million jet, and I was traveling all over the US, Canada, and Mexico. And as I built seniority, life started to become better for me and I started getting more days off. And so you fast track that to 25 years old. This is actually where 2008, 2009, 2010 happened, and it was really great timing for me because I started making money in the airline.
There was great deals in real estate in Arizona, and so that’s actually when I bought my first what I call a crash pad, which is really cool because in aviation it’s kind of like the house hacking. But in aviation, we call it a crash pad where you rent your rooms out to these other pilots. And so I bought my first home and I was able to rent out three of the rooms, collect net profit of 400 bucks. And so that was really my start in real estate. It was a single family home in Phoenix, Arizona, and I was making 400 bucks. I was living in the master bedroom, and that’s when I realized I needed to do something bigger.

David:
So why didn’t you scale and just buy a whole bunch of properties and make them all crash pads?

Ryan:
Because it’s management intensive. The reason I didn’t do that is because you had to manage it. Literally, I went home one night and it’s a common area, you share everything, and I could have scaled it with many homes and it would’ve been a great business, but it’s really management intensive. There’s a lot of people coming in and out of the homes, and it’s just really, really heavy on the time. What I started looking at is, okay, how do I buy these apartments? So my next deal was a fourplex because I didn’t want to live with the renters, I didn’t want to live with the people. And so that’s where my breakthrough happened, where I was like, okay, I could do these single family, but how do I scale?

Rob:
So how did you have the vision or the foresight to even save and invest in your first property? Do you remember how much you had saved up to even get into this crash pad, house hacking situation?

Ryan:
Yeah, so I bought that as my primary, so I needed 3.5% down, I think I put down 10 grand. I’m very frugal when it comes to money, and so even when I was making 50, 60, 70 grand, I was able to save 10 grand a year. What had happened was on my next deal, I saved up 25 grand because I actually had a car that I had bought and flipped in order to get the 25 grand to put down on the fourplex. And so I’ve always been creative, I’ve always saved my money to invest it, but I just knew that I had to keep buying deals because I wanted the cash flow. I wanted to buy a deal and actually make some passive income.

Rob:
I always thought commercial airline pilots were pretty high salaried starting right at the top, but it sounds like no matter what, you sort of have this base salary and incrementally over the years, just like any job, it kind of grows. Is there a side to that where it is super juicy, a really lucrative salary that you were sort of looking forward to? And that was kind of what was going to fuel your real estate in the future? Or did you not really have aspirations to go all in in the real estate space early on?

Ryan:
Early on, I literally thought that I’d buy a single family home and buy another one and buy another one, and then have some multifamily. I didn’t really think of it as I’d be a huge multifamily apartment owner or operator. I didn’t have the belief, I didn’t have the vision at that point in time. And I think any of us, we want to start off with our first deal and we want to kind of get our feet wet. I literally, when I bought my first deal, I didn’t even know what they were talking about when they asked me, “Hey, do you want to buy down a point? Do you want conventional? Do you want FHA?” I had no idea what any of that meant because I was never taught that in school. So for me, it was like, okay, once I found out I could do the first deal, it excited me because I was making 400 bucks.
My second deal, I was making $600, but it was a fourplex, and I actually bought that. It was a foreclosure, and I redid everything. And the biggest mistake that I did was I thought I had to do it myself. So I had no idea I’d end up with 21 units at the age of 30. I just knew that once I bought my first deal and I said, “If you could do one, you could do two. If you could do two, I could do four. If I could do five, I could do 10.” And so I literally just started reading a bunch of books. I mean, I really like to just figure things out. I’m very curious. And so once I had my first deal, I was like, okay, what’s next?

Rob:
That’s pretty cool. Yeah, so 21 by the age of 30 is really quite the accomplishment. You said you wanted to get into this and you’re like, “I’m just going to buy a single family house, single family house, single family house.” A lot of people have different reasons for getting into real estate, but what was yours? Did you have a why or a motivation that… Because it’s very, I don’t want to say rare, but it’s not like a lot of people go into real estate like, oh yeah, I’m going to buy one and on and on. Usually there’s some kind of turning point or some kind of fuel that’s firing them up. What was that reason for you?

Ryan:
So when I would go to work at the airline, what I started to realize is that when I was having these conversations about real estate with my family and with coworkers, a lot of them were saying, “Oh, be careful. Real estate’s risky.” And my turning point for me was I was going to work every single day and I was trading my time for money. And at the time I was getting paid a 100 bucks or 120 per hour, and I was like, how long can I do this for? How long can I travel for the airlines? And so I really had that turning point because I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Robert Kiyosaki, like, how long are you going to trade your time for money?
And that was awakening for me, and that’s really what got me on that path to real estate is like, okay, if I can make money here, put it to work in real estate, and then get the cash flow to pay off my student loans. I mean, you guys have to realize I was in debt, 140 grand. I was in debt, 140 grand, and people are like, “Pay it off as soon as you can. Pay it off as soon as you can.” And so what I did is I bought a fourplex with the 25 grand and the extra cashflow that I was getting from the fourplex, I would just pay down an extra $400 on my student loans every month.
And literally by the age of 30 years old, I had $140,000 paid off. I still had the principal, Rob and Dave, I still had the principal working for me and my student loans were paid off. So for me, it was really just that shift at 24 and 25. Although my uncle was very helpful in my early age, he didn’t understand cashflow. He didn’t understand having the assets because remember, he was a builder. He would build to sell for a profit. When I started getting my head right and my mental right, I was like, man, I want to buy it, I want to hold it, I want to cashflow it, and I want to get the benefits that real estate actually provides.

Rob:
Do you remember, just out of curiosity, because student loan payments, they aren’t very friendly. What was the student loan payment like on $140,000?

Ryan:
It was like 600 bucks for 30 years.

Rob:
What? That’s nothing.

Ryan:
But I mean, it was back in 2002 where interest rates were lower and you paid 600 or 700 bucks per month. And over 30 years, that’s a long time, right?

Rob:
It’s over 30 years. Got it. Okay, that makes a lot more sense because I was paying a thousand bucks, but it was amortized over 10 or 10 years or something like that. Okay, so 600 bucks, I mean, not super bad, but obviously if you could replace that with income, that was sort of the goal. You’re like, let’s chop that out and then let’s start figuring out how to use real estate to fuel the overall wealth of your life, right?

Ryan:
Well, yeah, and everybody was telling me I had 25 grand. They’re like, “No, you should pay off your student loan.” And I was like, “No, no, hang on, hang on. Let me go buy a four unit.” The rents were like 500 bucks so I was literally collecting two grand from four units. The mortgage and everything was like $1,200, and after expenses and everything, I had like 600 bucks. So I would literally take the 600 bucks, double it, and I would just start chipping it down so that way when the student loan was paid off, I still had this four unit or I still had that principle working for me.

Rob:
Yeah, okay. All right. That’s cool. So was there any benefit to being a pilot and getting into the real estate world and as a pilot just flying around into new markets, discovering markets? Yeah, certainly you must’ve been more privy to markets than the typical investor that never actually may get to visit a market before they invest there.

Ryan:
So I was based at Chicago O’Hare, LaGuardia, DC. My last base was actually Denver, and so I was able to go and see these cities and I was always shopping real estate on my overnights. And then also I was getting 13, 14, 15 days off because typically in the aviation space, you get four days on, four days off, four days on, four days off. And so it actually gave me time when I got back home to Scottsdale, I can go and look at real estate. When I bought my first deal, I’d have four or five days to actually renovate the units. And so for sure, I always think the biggest mistake for people is when they’re so…
When you grow up somewhere, you have to go and see other cities, you have to go and see other spots because you see the growth, you see the trends, you see different things that maybe you’re not seeing in your city. You see the path to progress. So I’ve always been a student and I’ve always loved real estate, so I used to take advantage of like, okay, the airline’s paying for my hotel, the airline’s paying for me to overnight, the airline’s paying me to eat. So when I was done doing all my job and all my duties, I would go and shop and drive blocks and shop real estate all over the US.

Rob:
That’s cool. So the thing that is always going to be like… I’d love your insight on how you can do this because you’re probably going to be a big help to a lot of the audience today, which is a lot of people get really nervous about investing long distance, and they’re like, “Man, what happens if I get called in the middle of the night,” and this and that. You were on an airplane, and it’s not like you could just take a phone call on an airplane because they make you put it in airplane mode, but mostly because you don’t have reception. So if you don’t have reception and you can’t physically answer a phone call, how can you even run a real estate business that way?

Ryan:
Well, it’s difficult and honestly, when I bought my fourplex, I was managing it myself. I’d have my girlfriend help me. When we’re all getting started out, you literally have to get creative. So my girlfriend would help me if I was traveling. But typically if they left a voicemail, I’d get back with them within four or five… My typical flights were between two and four hours so that wasn’t a huge issue. But yeah, no, it’s a big deal when you buy deals in other cities and states, you want to make sure you have boots on the ground because you have to have somebody who’s managing it very close.
And that’s actually one of my biggest fears. That’s why when I started investing in real estate, I started investing in my backyard because I was actually terrified. I was so scared to go to San Antonio in Austin because Texas was a really big market back in 2012, 2013. There was a lot of that growth between Austin and San Antonio, but I was always so terrified because I didn’t have any boots on the ground. I didn’t know any management companies, I didn’t know anybody who managed real estate. And the smaller the deal is, the harder it is to find a management company to actually manage it.

Rob:
Were you pretty good at that point? You said that you’re working with your girlfriend and she’s picking up the slack for you a little bit. Were you pretty good at turning off the real estate button while you were flying or did it take a while for you to… Because for me, when I go into the movie theaters, this is my big thing when I’m going into a movie theater, I’m like, I’m not going to get to enjoy this movie because I’m definitely going to get a text message or a phone call in the middle of this movie. And of course, it always does happen. Did that ever happen? Did you ever go through that when you were up in the air or were you able to shut that off pretty easily?

Ryan:
You can’t shut it off. I’m the same as you. I’m always looking at my phone. I was actually, I used to not go on vacations because I was like, well, what if the toilet gets backed up? What if they call me? What if they do this? What if I’m international and they can’t get ahold of me? I was the typical scared young investor in real estate and I wanted to do it and manage it all myself.

Rob:
So we haven’t covered who you actually started working for as a pilot yet. How did you go from commercial to private as a pilot?

Ryan:
So this is a crazy story. When I had 21 units, I was 30 years old and I said, “Okay, what’s next?” And I knew that I always, by this time, I knew that I wanted to own and operate and control multifamily units. I just didn’t have anybody where I was from that was doing what Grant was doing. So at 30 years old, I said, “What’s next?” And on YouTube, and actually BiggerPockets, I found Grant Cardone, and on BiggerPockets Podcasts, this is just crazy, he’s like, “Look, I’ve got 3,000 units I’m looking to grow. I’m looking to scale. If there’s anybody out there who’s listening who wants to come and join my team, call me.” And I picked up the phone and I called him, and I literally didn’t even get an interview with Grant, I got an interview with his team.
And they’re like, “Well, we don’t really have a job in the real estate yet,” because they knew I was a pilot. They’re like, “We don’t even have an airplane yet. It’s coming in two weeks, but we got a sales job,” like a sales world job. And I said, “Perfect, I’ll take it.” And so literally two weeks later, I packed all my stuff in Scottsdale in Arizona, and I moved out to Miami and I started working for Grant Cardone. And I knew the way he was talking about real estate when I heard him on BiggerPockets, when I heard him on YouTube, I just knew that he wanted to grow and scale his portfolio. And I was like, man, instead of me doing this by myself, how cool would that be to do it with somebody who has already has a huge headstart from where I was? And so that’s what I did.

Rob:
Yeah, that’s crazy. So how long ago was that?

Ryan:
That was nine years ago.

Rob:
So Grant Cardone, was he established at this point? Now, obviously he’s got a huge name, huge platform, huge portfolio. What did it look like back then? Was he super established? Because it seems like you just took a giant risk to go work for him. What did you see in kind of where he was at that moment?

Ryan:
Yeah, so I saw the opportunity in the real estate market, but I saw Grant was very passionate and he understood real estate. He had about 3,000 units at the time, so we kind of operated kind of a single family, like a family office. So he would buy the deal, invest it in himself. So he would buy a deal, he would take his money, he would invest the money, and he would hold it for long-term. We didn’t have the Cardone Capital and the crowdfunding, and the 12,000 units. We had none of that. It was literally Grant Cardone was a business and a consultant, and he had real estate on the side, and that’s it.

Rob:
Man, that’s nuts. Did you become a private pilot for him or did you join his sales team?

Ryan:
So I joined his sales team, and so two weeks later, he bought a Gulfstream G200. And Elena, I met Elena day one. I was like, “Look, I love flying airplanes.” I had almost 10,000 hours at that time. I was literally flying every single day building up my time. And so I had almost 10,000 hours. I said, “I love flying. I love real estate, and I love helping people.” And she’s like, “Does Grant know this?” I says, “No.” And she’s like, “Well, we’re buying an airplane.”
And so Grant was looking to hire these other pilots. And he called me in his office one day and he’s like, “Look, if I hire you to be my pilot, will you also work with me in my companies and in my businesses on the downtime?” And I said, “Where do I sign?” And so I literally signed a three-year contract with Grant to be his pilot, but then also work with them in whatever business, whether it’s the sales, whether it’s the real estate, whatever it was. I just knew that he was the right guy.

Rob:
Cool. Wow. What a crazy story, man. Well, first of all, I think the craziest thing is that you were like, yeah, you said to call him. So I picked up the phone and I called him. I feel like a different time.

Ryan:
Rob, I was terrified. I was on the line because it’s Grant Cardone, right? I was like, when you call anybody, if I wanted to go work for David and I’m 30 years old, it’s like, man, David’s this and you’re this. You’re like, you don’t know what you’re calling. So I was calling Grant’s office and I was like, “I want to come work for Grant.” And it was a little bit nerve-wracking because I was taking a huge risk because I was giving up my career, I was giving up the airlines, I was giving up the 401Ks. I was giving up the 18 days off. I had built an awesome career for myself, but I just knew there was something bigger.

David:
I want to ask you when you made the call, because here’s why I’m asking if I’m being transparent, this gets spoken about a lot. We just spoke with [inaudible 00:25:01] and he’s like, “You got to try. You got to reach out.” And so this gets spoken about often from influencers, and what that translates into is me getting 40 DMs a day from 23-year-old guys that are like, “I’ll do this. I’ll run your social media. I’ll build a course for you. I’ll automate something and make money off of you.” And meanwhile, this kid has 300 followers and he’s telling me he’s going to grow my brand.
And it’s exhausting having people reach out and say, “I want to work for you.” And you’re like, “What can you do?” And they’re like, “Yeah, I don’t know. Just tell me what you want me to do.” We get in this stalemate, right? So I’m sure if you spoke to Grant, you came in with a plan, you proposed something, and you thought about it. Can you share with our audience the effort you put in before you made the call? So we don’t give the impression simply making the call leads to life-changing things, and you end up on the BiggerPockets Podcast and you have this huge story.

Ryan:
Well, look, I think that I started building my resume and I started building my skillset because to your point, you have to have a skillset that adds massive value to the team. Otherwise, you just don’t add massive value. If I call up Grant, said, “Hey, I want to run your social media, I want to do this,” I don’t have any experience doing it. What I did is I said, “Hey, look,” I wanted to be super easy by the way, but I said, “Look, I’ve got a career in aviation. If you’re going to buy an airplane, I will run the entire flight department for you and I’ll do it for free.” The one thing that people don’t realize, I would’ve done this for free because when you get really close to somebody like Grant, like David, like Rob like me now, it’s so valuable because you just learn a whole new skillset.
And so my pitch was three things. I know how to fly airplanes, and Grant actually made a crack at me one day. He’s like, “Do you really know how to fly?” I’m like, “Look, in four weeks I can get type rate on your airplane and I’ll be the lead captain and I will be there every single day. I haven’t called in sick in 10 years at my current airline, and I also have 21 units in real estate that I know they’re kind of junk, but I want to grow and scale, but give me the shot at flying first and then I’ll work into the real estate piece.” And so really, I think that that was the big value add piece because number one, I was willing to come and make phone calls. I was terrible at it, by the way. I was making sales calls, but I was willing to do it.
And that showed Grant really like I’m willing to do any… Honestly, guys, I’ll sweep the floors. I’ll make the phone calls. I could be at the top, I could be at the middle, I could be at the bottom. I’m willing to do what other people are not willing to do. And he saw that from day one. And also it helped that I met Elena on day two, because Elena has been a huge part of my success, meaning that when I got in here, she’s like, “Hey, Ryan likes real estate. Hey, Ryan can fly airplanes. Hey, Ryan…” Because that’s really what led into me transitioning from being the pilot into real estate.

David:
A few things that we should highlight from that. One, you didn’t come with vagueness or ambiguity. You said, “I can help you in this way and here is why you can trust me.” When we get someone that reaches out and they’re like, “Just tell me something that doesn’t work.” You showed clear value. Two, you said, “I’ll do it for free.” Oftentimes when people reach out, they’re hoping that they get paid in some way or it’s some kind of a partnership and you don’t know who they are, so you’re not comfortable with that. So you took the smart road and said, “Let me just build trust with the person. I’ll work for free.” And three, you offered to work in a capacity where you said making phone calls in a system he already had established. Grant did not have to take you and say, “Follow me around, kid, and I’ll teach you the ropes on the first day.”
He could plug you into a team he already had and they could evaluate your character, your skills. They could see what you were good at. That would be the equivalent of someone saying, “Hey, David, I want to come be a real estate agent on your team.” I could say yes to that. I could stick them with another agent and they could tell me how they’re doing, versus I have to be the way to evaluate, which means I’m probably going to say no until I know the person better. So that, right there, is incredibly valuable.

Rob:
That’s great. I think you nailed down pain point, and you’re like a pain point is if you’re buying a plane, someone’s got to fly the plane, right? 1,000% of the time when I work with someone that reaches out, it’s because they’ve heard me say something on the podcast, they’ve heard me say something on my YouTube channel, on Instagram. That’s like, “Oh, I’m really struggling with this. I cannot figure this thing out.” Or does anyone have a recommendation when someone’s like, “Oh, hey, I’ve got the solution to that very specific problem you have.” Boom, door open immediately, right? It’s 100% what you said, David. I think you framed that up pretty correctly. Find the value, solve the pain.

Ryan:
And Rob, I didn’t negotiate too, when he said, “Here’s the deal,” I just said, “Hey, where do you want to sign?” He’s like, “I want to do a three-year deal with you.” I was like, “I’ll do a 10,” because I just knew. I hope that if people could take one thing away, if you can get around the movers and shakers, if you can get around the people who are actually doing [inaudible 00:29:43], that’s my advice to all the young guys out there. It’s like to my 21-year-old self, if you could add value to a team, if you can get around a team who’s already doing what you want, that is the fast track.

David:
Yeah, just take note there. It’s not about reaching out to someone with a terrible pitch or saying, “I just want to work with you.” You have to be clear about what you’re looking for if you want to get a clear response back from the person. But it can work out really well when they do it the way that we’re describing here. Now, we understand there was a pivotal moment when you went from flying high to being grounded. Can you share what happened in Alabama?

Ryan:
Yeah. So Elena was a huge part of my career in bringing me into what I call the circle. I literally, in Christmas, it was eight years ago, we landed the airplane in Fairhope, Alabama, which is a super cool runway. It’s like really, really small. We landed the G200 there. It’s kind of a private airstrip. And I went to the hotel and this is over Christmas, and Elena calls me, she’s like, “Hey, look, you guys are our crew.” Because the one thing about Grant and Elena is that they actually, the people who work with them and work for them, they’re really like an extended family. And so she’s like, “Hey, do you want to come over for Christmas dinner?” It’s at her parents’ house.
And I’m like, I looked at the other pilot, and Rob and David, I you not, he said, I’m like, “Hey, they just invited us to come over for dinner.” And the other pilot’s like, “No, I’ll pass. I’m going to go down the street and eat at this pub or whatever.” And I’m like, “Really? You don’t want to go in and have dinner with the boss?” And so I went over to the house and I noticed when I got there, Grant was a little bit aggravated. And I started asking him questions. I was like, “Well, what’s going on?” And he’s like, “Well, I have a property that’s 10 minutes north of here. And when I went there, the pool was dirty, the blinds were down, it was closed. There was nobody there.” And he’s like, “I pulled up a report and I had 40 units. I have 40 units that are not leased.”
And I was like, “Wow.” I was like, “That’s BS, number one.” But I was like, “Two, how can I help you?” And he’s like, “Well, what do you mean?” I’m like, “Well, how do I help you? I want to lease those units.” And he’s like, “You would do that?” And I was like, “Yeah.” I was like, “Heck, yeah. Tell me more about it.” And so he started going on and telling me about the property and everything else. And I looked at him, I said, “Well, what if I parked the airplane in Miami when we landed in three days, and I came back up here and I rented those 40 units for you? Would that be of service? Would that help you?” And he’s like, “Wow.” He’s like, “You would do that.” And I said, “Absolutely. I’m going to get a plane ticket right now and I’m going to come up here.”
And guys, you got to keep in mind, I’ve never ran a 344 unit complex before. I have 21 units, and I took a huge risk and I was like, you know what? I’m willing to do it because I knew I could lease. I knew I could call. I knew if I just got in this building, I can lease 40 units in 40 days. So I told him, “I’ll lease 40 units in 40 days. Will you give me a shot?” And he’s like, “Come up here, let’s do it.” Yes, that’s the transition. That was my transition where Grant actually gave me a shot working in the real estate and I was up there the next week.

Rob:
Okay, so a couple of things. You’ve kind of mentioned you were working with Elena was pivotal in this relationship with you and Grant. Who is that, for reference?

Ryan:
So Elena Cardone is Grant’s wife.

Rob:
Got it. Okay, cool, cool, cool. And so you’re flying for them. I guess you’re doing phone sales a little bit at the beginning of it. And then he’s like, “I got to lease all these units.” And you’re like, “I’m going to do it.” He’s like, “Wow, you would do this for me?” And like, great, and you go and you do it. How did you actually lease 40 units and how long?

Ryan:
So the task and the goal was 40 units in 40 days over New Year’s and over Christmas holiday.

Rob:
Okay, all right. So how the heck did you do that?

Ryan:
So here’s the cool thing. So I went up there the next week and he’s like, “Look, I want you to get an air mattress and I want you to live on site.”

Rob:
The high life right there.

Ryan:
Yeah. “And I want you to stay in a one bedroom apartment.” And I’m like, “Okay.” I was just willing to do whatever it took. And so I flew up there, got an air mattress, got a one bedroom, put the air mattress up. And I was literally the first day that I walked into the leasing office, I realized really quick that there was nobody leasing, there was no leadership. The manager was posting on Facebook, there was three likes. I’m like, well, clearly that’s not a lead gen. And so I called Grant, I said, “What would Grant do?” And he says, “This is what I would do, Ryan.” He’s like, “I’d go back in the last 90 days, pull out the list and print it off of all the people who came in and didn’t rent.” And I’m like, “Perfect. Done.”
He’s like, “I’d call them, I’d paint a picture, and I’d get them back in there and I’d lease them a unit.” And he’s like, “I’d just start with that.” And so without doing anything else, I pulled the list. I started calling people, cold calling them, right? “Hey, you came to this apartment complex 30 days ago, 45 days ago. Have you found a place yet?” “Nope, I haven’t.” “Perfect. I found the perfect unit for you. We actually have a discount, we have a special right now. Come back in tomorrow. I’ve already picked out your unit.” And so I started getting all these people coming in. I literally started getting all these people coming in. I said, “What else would you do, Grant?”
He’s like, “Well, I’d go put your phone number on the front side of the building, on the street I’d go and put your cell number.” I’m like, “Perfect. I’ll go get a sign made.” And so I went and got a sign made, got some new balloons, got new flowers, started cold calling people on the 90-day list, and I started going knocking on doors of all the businesses in the five-mile radius. And within 15 days I had 15 leases, each lease every single day. And by the 15th day, he called me back, he says, “Ryan, get your back here. You are now part of the real estate team.”

Rob:
Man, dude, rock and roll. I honestly am really impressed because I feel like I would be already pessimistic about that advice of call everyone who has come in the last 45 days and see if they are interested. I would’ve assumed everyone found a place and that wasn’t the case.

Ryan:
That’s what we call follow up.

David:
As a side note, that is the number one biggest area where people need improvement in almost every business. I call it lead bleed in the real estate books. I wrote the top producer series, so much of the time it’s lead bleeds what’s hurting you. You write an offer on a house, they say no, you forget to go back and check a couple weeks later. You just assume someone else bought it. The thing’s still sit in there. The sellers are singing a different tune, right? Maybe someone else tried to put it in escrow and they accepted.
And then it fell out of escrow and they’re heartbroken. And if you show up at that exact time, they’ll take an offer for 75 grand less, but you’re looking for the next deal that you can just write the offer on and try to get. We frequently give advice, you got to write a lot of offers, but we never remind people go back and write offers on houses that you were already rejected for. It’s that same principle, and yeah, he’s smart. He knows that.

Rob:
That’s crazy. That’s good. All right, so you get the 15 done, 15 days. What about the other 25 units? Was Grant no longer worried about that because you sort of figured out those systems for the rest of the team or what?

Ryan:
Yeah, so what happened was I identified who the real leadership was coming from in the community, which was the assistant manager. And so what happened was we promoted the assistant into the management role, and then also on the maintenance standpoint. Because that’s also a big thing in multifamily and apartments is you have to turn the units and make them ready because everybody, when you show an apartment, just like when you show a house, David, you know this better than anybody, you want to show the end result. You want to show the finished product. So I think 20 days, I was there for about 15 to 20 days, and that was plenty of time to identify who the players were, give them enough momentum and energy.
Because look, when a guy like myself or you or David go into somewhere, that’s great energy and you could really start building that momentum. So we got that place leased. It was like 95% within 30 days, and then the proper team members were in there. So now I could start going and focusing on, because at the time I think you had 3,000 units to 300, so you had about 10 deals. I was able to go and start working on other deals because that’s really where I started cutting my teeth in this business, is I wanted to make sure that Grant’s portfolio was running 10X. And so he started putting me on all these other deals saying, “Hey, you get in touch with this management company. You get in touch with this property manager. You go and just make sure that you’re going through all these deals.” And so I leased 15 units, I came back here, there was a team of two, it was called Grant Cardone and Ryan Tseko. That’s what we built off of. It’s crazy.

Rob:
What you’ve just showed is not only were you willing to roll up your sleeves, get your hands dirty, but you actually succeeded. That’s the thing is anyone might be willing to go out there and try it, but you actually did it. Were you already a natural leader? Was this something that you were good at? Are you particularly a charismatic salesperson or was it sort of like a fake it until you make it type of thing?

Ryan:
I think I’ve always had the ability to learn. I think back what David asked me earlier is how did the leadership and the pilot skills transfer into what you’re doing now? I was a captain for nine years of a 70-passenger jet, $40 million airplane. Leadership is highly trained in the airlines. And I think that from a piloting standpoint is I’m very systematic, I am very logical, and I am a people person. I think people are the most important part of the business. I know a lot of people are like, “Oh, it’s this, and it’s this, it’s this.” It’s the people. If a deal’s doing bad, it’s the people. If a deal’s doing good, it’s the people. Because you could have a great deal and crappy people, the deal’s not going to do great. You could have a okay deal and have great people, the deal’s actually going to do really well.
So I think that the people are super important and I think that for me, I’ve had a lot of great mentors where I’m just willing to do stuff that people aren’t. And I also had a great mentor, Grant. Grant had the ability, I was calling him every day. This is what built my relationship with Grant is I was calling him, “What would you do? What would you do? What would you do?” And also to one of David’s points too, Grant was not in the mood, Grant’s not going to teach me anything. Grant’s going to put me in the positions to learn. That’s what people are making the mistakes. They’re calling people saying…

David:
Just adjusting the expectations on that, Ryan. Grant can’t teach you anything. Even if he could, it’d be like drinking from a fire hose. You don’t have the capacity to sponge up what Grant would be able to teach you. I’ll give you an analogy. When you’re learning from a black belt and you’re first learning the martial art, they probably don’t remember what you need to learn because they were five years old when they learned that. It doesn’t make sense. They were not a grown person trying to understand these concepts. They were a kid whose brain soaked it up quickly. But we all think I want to be trained by the best person ever. That’s not the right coach for you. You want a person a step, maybe two steps ahead.
Grant has an ecosystem that he can put you in with people that are somewhat vetted, that have a standard that he upholds, that have a system that he had a hand in creating that puts you in a position to succeed. So that black belt built a school, he picked out instructors. Those people can teach you the martial art you’re trying to learn so much better. I love your saying that because there’s this idea where our ego says, “I want to learn from Grant Cardone. I want the best.”
And now you’re useless to him because you can’t keep up with the level of stuff he does. However, if you get plugged into his world, you learn something there. You prove yourself valuable. You become one of those captains at some point that he’s put in place. You’re training the new people. Now, as you gain the experience of living there, you do get to a level that you can start to rub elbows with Grant and what he needs is helpful. Would you like to add anything into just that story of how you climb the ranks?

Ryan:
Well, just to hit on that point too, Grant was never the type where he was, “Sit down and let me teach you how to do a deal or how to do multifamily.” I’ll just add this. When I got heavy in the properties, I got on these calls and I was learning from all the property managers and the regional managers and the really, really smart people in the real estate. When it comes to lending, Grant put me around a bunch of bankers and a bunch of brokers. And so I had to learn the lingo. So everything, David, that you were mentioning, like in real estate, there’s different buckets, right? You got to find a deal and you have to get with the brokers who are selling the deals. Grant put me into the cage and I learned the lingo and I learned the relationships.
You’re so right, you can’t build these relationships by yourself. You have to get around people who already have the relationships. And then you actually, by association, you become very powerful because you now have the relationships because you get spooled up quicker. Same thing with debt, same thing with property management company, same thing with all of this stuff in real estate. So I just think that for me, I understood that I wasn’t going to go back to Grant and say, “Hey, Grant, what can you teach me?” I would always go back to Grant David and say, “What’s next? What do you want me to help you? Can I take off your plate? What’s next?” And he loved that.
I’m always a guy who likes and wants more responsibility. I just kept going back because my bandwidth is there. I have bandwidth, right? We’re at 12,000 units, we have office, we have multifamily. I’m like, what’s next? I think a lot of us get bogged down and like, oh, well, this is a problem. Well, this is a problem. Leaders have solutions. Non-leaders have problems. And for me, I always wanted to come back to Grant with a solution.

Rob:
Well, we’ve kind of highlighted a lot of the skills that you said transferred over, but one thing that we haven’t really mentioned is that you are now the EVP of Cardone Capital nowadays. And so we’ve heard from your early days and what it was like, but what is your role nowadays in the business? Because obviously things have really exploded since your time at the beginning of this.

Ryan:
Well, now I run Cardone Capital with Grant. So I run Cardone Capital, and Grant is a phenomenal partner in what has happened. I mean, a lot changed in nine years. I think if people look back at what we’ve done, and this goes back to crowdfunding as well, because now Cardone Capital, we’re a crowdfunding platform where we go and find deals. We have our own platform, so we don’t use a lot of these third parties. And we’ve been really successful just going straight to investors who are looking to invest in multifamily real estate. And we’ve really built out a done for you platform where we got great, beautiful, awesome deals and we offer them to retail investors.
We’ve raised one point, almost $2 billion in capital, and our portfolio is $4.3 billion. And look, a lot of our deals are great assets, great locations. And so my day-to-day has changed a lot as we continue to grow the portfolio. But I’m always still very curious and I’m always still learning. And now the team’s different, the deals are different. They’re bigger deals, but it’s really the same thing. And I always go back to this, the people that we have on our team are phenomenal. The thing that I’ll tell people, if you’re just getting started in real estate, you don’t have to have a big team. You have to have really, really good third parties, meaning third party attorneys, third party property managers, third party bankers. You just have to have good people around you.

Rob:
So it sounds like you’re buying a lot of multifamily. Can you tell us, I mean, obviously your experience as a pilot, how does the pilot’s checklist apply to buying large multifamily as you sort of go down this route?

Ryan:
Well, the due diligence checklist on multifamily is a lot bigger than my checklist as a pilot.

Rob:
Yeah, I believe that.

Ryan:
And the checklist goes for the debt, it goes for the deal, it goes for the investors, but it’s all transferable. And this is what I always say too, it doesn’t matter if you’re in a corporate job or if you’re a pilot, because really being a pilot is really a corporate job. Everybody who has a skillset of either being a leader or managing a team, you can become a great real estate professional by transferring those skills. So yeah, look, I look at a lot of deals, and I look at a lot of markets. And so again, all of this stuff that I was telling you about earlier is I’ve been to a lot of markets. I’ve looked at a lot of deals. I’ve looked at a lot of deals with Grant. I’ve learned from the best.
I was literally with Grant, and this is what maybe if people didn’t pick up on this. I’ve literally been with Grant for nine years, but for the first six years, David and Rob, I was with him every day. I was with him every day because I was flying. When we were not flying, we were looking at deals. When we were not looking at deals, we were flying. When we weren’t flying, we were looking at deals. Everywhere we would land, we’d look at deals. And when we were overnighting somewhere, typically I would stay with him.

David:
By osmosis, you’re observing the framework that Grant sees the world through, the problems he’s anticipating before they come, and there’s a lot you’re learning in your subconscious. I didn’t think that was a problem. Or he sees opportunity where someone else wouldn’t, or he sees an order to take this deal down. It’s different than the last one in that here’s where the challenge is going to be, not there. Which now gives you the empowered ability to go out there, say, “Let me fix that,” which makes you even more crucial to him. And that’s the secret. If you want someone to become a partner with you, whether it’s romantic, whether it’s business, whether it’s friendship, whether it’s anything, make yourself such a crucial part of their life that they can’t live without you. I mean, that’s really how you take leverage in a relationship.

Ryan:
Yep. It really is, David. And then also you layer that with the rules that are changing because before 2014 and 2015, you actually couldn’t do general solicitation, which is the way you raise money. And so as we’re building this foundation in the real estate, 2015 and 2016 happened. And now the SEC, they started allowing us to go and do general solicitation. And so all of the business owners, all of his friends, all of his power base were reaching out and saying, “Hey, I see you guys are doing deals. I want to invest with you.”
Like Cardone Capital actually started because we did one deal that was $20 million. The debt was 14, the equity was six, we raised $6 million in seven days. And Grant looked at me and said, “Hey, can we do this again?” The next deal was 40 million. So all of these things, you can’t just look at Grant and Ryan and Cardone Capital, like, “Oh, these guys are overnight successes.” We literally built this thing in gradients, and I highly encourage people that are listening, you can do it, too.

David:
But you brought a skillset to the opportunity. That’s just why I really want to plant my flag here. You didn’t bring nothing and say, “Turn me into a superstar,” and then get frustrated when it didn’t happen. You had already done some things in life, and you brought those to the opportunity, and the opportunity to help you flourish.

Ryan:
And I was investing in the deals too, David. So I was at lunch one day with Grant in Chicago, and I started showing him my 21 units. And he looked at them, he’s like, “Man, these are junk.” And I was kind of offended at first. I was like, “Well, what do you mean?” I was like, “This is a A-plex. This is a single family home.” I was like, “This is good to me.” And he’s like, “Ryan,” he’s like, “look at what I’m buying.” And I’m like, “Well, what would you recommend?” And he’s like, “I would sell them all.” And I was like, “You would sell them all?” I went home the next day and I sold them all. I called Eddie, the real estate agent. I called David, I was like, “Sell them all.” And within 30 days…
I mean, Scottsdale was a great market. Within 30 days I ended up with 500 grand. I couldn’t 10-31 because Grant had already bought the deal. He buys the deal and you could roll your money in. So I paid the tax of 100 grand, but I literally took 400 grand, David. And this is really what you said, “I’m putting my flag in.” I took my 400 grand, I invested it with Grant in 826 units in Nashville, Tennessee. And I said, “I am committed to doing this. Not only am I going to time, energy, and effort, here’s my money.” And within three-and-a-half years, that 400 grand turned into 1.1. And Grant, I tell this all the time, grant actually made me a millionaire. And I’m the first millionaire from my family and I’m really proud to say that. And it’s been life-changing working for somebody. It’s been life-changing, working for Grant.

David:
I’ll bet you what Grant saw when he looked at that was the return on equity was very poor, where you were probably looking at the return on in your initial investment. They had appreciated to the point that the cash was not keeping up with how much equity you had. So he saw the inefficiency of your capital, you put it into a new deal with a value add component and stronger cashflow. And so you turn that equity into something that would give you a higher return.

Ryan:
And I didn’t have to work in the day-to-day, too. It’s like I went from 21 units being the manager. Because we all start there, right? And I actually encourage people start, do it, get a fourplex, get an eightplex, get 12 plus, get 32 units. Do it because the worst thing in the world is not doing anything. And then now you have no assets. All you have is liabilities.

David:
And sometimes it takes time. Today’s market, you’re not going to go out there and crush it. Add six figures to your net worth buying a fixer upper that nobody wanted that you found on Zillow. You may have to wait a significant period of time to build that equity up to go do what you did, but still, it’s better than not doing it right. It doesn’t make sense to cry about how easy the market used to be. So you’re not going to invest, well, this is what the market offers today. So how do you build a strategy around that?

Ryan:
Yeah, because as you buy these assets, they will over time, I truly believe, and this is my strategy, is 5, 7, 10 years even longer, you buy the best real estate, you buy great real estate that you want to hold for a long time. You don’t just buy the real estate that’s on a discount because my first deal was on a discount. I made the least amount of money on it because of the location, because of the market. The third deal that I bought, I actually paid the most, but I made 100 grand within 12 months because of the location. It was so good. So it’s interesting, as I did my first deal, second deal, third deal, fourth deal, I started learning. I started picking up on these different pieces where I was like, man, I want to go and invest in that market because the appreciation and the cashflow is better. I don’t want to just go here because it’s a discount.

David:
I’m working on a book like that right now.

Ryan:
Let me and Rob be the co-author on that book, okay?

Rob:
That’s right. I’ll write the foreword.

David:
Rob did write a foreword once and it was rejected. Nobody wanted it.

Rob:
It will be a four-word foreword.

David:
A four-word foreword. Ryan, you’ve mentioned that you’ve seen a lot of deals, you’ve underwritten a lot of them, and I understand you now have a two-minute process to underwrite a deal. Can you tell us what that’s like?

Ryan:
Yeah. I mean, so look, day one, when I joined Grant’s team, he used to underwrite a deal. I used to tell him two minutes, it’s actually like 43 seconds. But I’m like, man, if I could underwrite a deal like Grant, then my whole life would change. And so literally what I do, and as you get spooled up, you start learning these markets. And in multifamily, what I do is I just take the number of units times the rents in place, not like what the broker’s telling me, in place rents, and then I just use the occupancy of 94 or 95% depending on the marketplace. And then I just use rough numbers like, okay, my expenses typically in Florida on the East Coast are between 40 and 45%. On the West coast are 30, and so I just, okay, this is what my NOI is going to be based on here’s the income minus the expenses, here’s my NOI.
And so I can solve for on these bigger deals, they all traded a cap rate. And so I literally can underwrite a multifamily deal 300 units within two minutes. And it gives me so much power because now I’m communicating to the broker that I’ve got number one, speed. Number two, I know if it’s a good deal or a bad deal, so I don’t waste a bunch of time on bad deals. But I’ve learned that from Grant and I highly encourage people, if you’re listening, learn how to underwrite really quick. Identify bad deals, move them away from you as fast as possible so that way you could focus on really good deals.

David:
I got to give you some props, man. I’ve been asking every single multifamily operator that I know for something like that for years, and none of them will, because if they leave their spreadsheet, they get separation anxiety, they can’t handle it. We have that with single family houses. It’s called the 1% rule. Basically you throw out everything that isn’t… It doesn’t have to be exactly that, it has to be close to it. And then as interest rates are low, you can get further away from a full 1%, but as they go up, you got to get closer. And then I also learned that the higher price the asset is, the less dependent it is on the 1% rule. So a 50,000 house better rent for $500 a door, but a $900,000 house doesn’t have to bring in $9,000 a month just to cash a positive.
We’re not saying it’s a good investment, but that’s because I’ve seen enough of them that those patterns jump out. And you’re basically saying I’ve seen enough of these houses that I know expenses are X over here and Y over here. And it all goes in the algorithm of your brain and you could spit out an NOI that lets you say, “All right, if we’re trading at a six cap based on this NOI, hey, this is the ballpark we’re going to be in. Can we play ball?” And if they go, “No, no, no, it needs to be something.” All right, we’re done. We’re moving on. Not running it through a three-hour process of putting it into a spreadsheet.

Ryan:
You’re so spot on, David. And also the 1% rule, I still use it in today’s market. I looked at a deal today, it was 140 units. It was like 240 grand and rents it was like 1,900 bucks. And so I’m always looking at that 1% rule because I always know that if I could meet the 1% rule, I’m going to buy every deal. If a unit’s 100 grand and I can get a thousand bucks, I’m buying it, put it under contract, write an NOI, let’s move on. I’ll figure out the expenses, all that stuff later. And also, the bigger the deal gets, the less you have to be to the 1% rule.

David:
Same thing as you have a little bit more slack when it gets bigger.

Ryan:
Because you get economies at scale.

Rob:
Can you just define the 1% rule for anyone at home that doesn’t know exactly what that is?

Ryan:
Yeah. So if I buy a house for 100 grand, I need to get a thousand bucks per month in rent.

Rob:
Gross, not profit.

Ryan:
Gross.

Rob:
Awesome.

David:
Well, it’s encouraging to hear that that applies at the unit level of the apartment complex. So for clarity’s sake, we’re not saying if you buy it for 100 million, it doesn’t mean it has to bring in a million every single month. What we’re saying is the door count here, if it’s bought for $100,000 a door, if each average rent of these units is a thousand bucks, it’s worth putting through your analysis. I’m looking into deeper, that’s where you’re saying write the letter of intent, get that thing under contract. Let the guys then start to… The beam counters, kind of identify all the exact measurements, make sure that it’s a property you want. But if it doesn’t, you’re throwing that thing out right away. That right there is very, very useful.

Rob:
If it is 100 million, I’m just trying to understand why the 1% rule wouldn’t be proportional. Wouldn’t it still be if it’s a $100 million building, you would want it to bring in a $1 million gross?

David:
I feel like in multifamily there’s more expenses to take into account than there are with single family, and there’s more income sources, right? So with multifamily, you can have income coming in from laundry, from parking, from storage. It’s not just the rent versus with residential real estate, your only income sources.

Rob:
That’s true, though. That makes sense.

David:
When we’re spit balling how something feels to us, it makes sense in our head, but if you have to articulate how you got there, you almost got to pull apart the algorithm of your own brain to be like, “Why did I think that was a bad idea?” And hopefully there’s actually logic behind what you said. But a lot of what you’re doing, Ryan, when you’ve looked at so many deals is it will stand out like, oh, that just feels like that’s probably good. You don’t know why, you couldn’t explain it, but when you dive in deeper, you’ll be like, “Oh, that’s why. There’s inefficiency here.” They could bump rents much more than what they realize, or insurance is much higher than what they thought, so they’re not going to get this much money. Sometimes you don’t know exactly why it feels right, but you know that it does.

Ryan:
Yeah, exactly right. And to your point, David, the income in the rent is one thing, but then you also have utility reimbursements, you’ve got other income, and those are really big numbers on multifamily. That’s why it doesn’t have to meet and match the 1% rule on the door count. But what I was going with that too, David, is also knowing the numbers quick, it allows you to be the captain. It allows you to be the guy. Now, in these bigger deals where you have confidence where you could actually start using crew resource management, which is team resource management, which is actually the broker, “Hey, what numbers did you come up with? Hey, what are you showing for the going in yield? Hey, what are you showing debt guide.”
I think people overcomplicate multifamily. And really what I want to instill is saying, “Hey, look, know the numbers really quick so that way you can communicate with the brokers with confidence. That way you can communicate with the debt with confidence.” Because the bigger the deal you get, the more partners you have. And this is actually a safeguard in these bigger deals because the debt’s going to thoroughly look at the deal. My competition right now is these big institutions, whether it’s Blackstone or Starwood, you can go down the whole list. These guys are very, very professional and everything has to check a box. So the sooner you guys can get to these bigger deals, the less risk or the less chance of missing something actually occurs, which is crazy to think about.

Rob:
Man, that is kind of nuts. At what point, just out of curiosity, at what point will you be a big institution? I mean you guys are growing at such a fast pace.

Ryan:
Well, look, we slowed down our buying over the last eight, 10 months because of the shift. We think that there’s going to be a huge opportunity in the next 12 to 24 months, especially as debt and maturities and where interest rates are to buy assets at a great basis. What I mean by that is if you can buy a deal for 225 a unit and it costs 300 with inflation, everything else to build, we think that long-term over 10 years, those are great buys. But look, we’re competing with them now. It really is just a function of how do you grow and scale the correct way? We’re not in a hurry, but we know we’ll get there. So we’re just really patient. We are very conservative.
I know a lot of people look at Grant Cardinal Capital, Instagram is one thing, but when he goes and invest in money, Grant has a lot of money invested in these deals. He literally takes his money and invests in these deals. For me personally, all my net worth is invested in these deals so we know what will come. It’s just a matter of time. And the cool thing about it’s we’re doing it with retail investors, we’re doing it with partners. Like when I say retail investors, this is just everyday folks. This is just like me and my family and David and Rob and there’s no middleman. So it may take a little bit longer, but when we do get there, it’s going to be together, which is super awesome for us.

Rob:
It’s amazing, man. What a journey. What a journey. I’m excited. I want to connect with you after the podcast for sure, but we got one more segment for you if you’re willing to indulge us. We call it flight, fight, or fright. And we have three questions for you that we want you to answer that’s each one of those words. Is that cool?

Ryan:
What is it? It’s fight, flight, or fright?

Rob:
Close. It’s flight, fight, or fright. Okay, we’re going to send you some rapid fire questions here, all right? So first one, fright. What are the fears you had to overcome to get where you are?

Ryan:
I had to overcome the fear of failure. When I first started working with Grant on that 15 units are the 40 units in 40 days, I was actually terrified because I was like, what if I fail? I won’t have the opportunity, but I did it anyway.

David:
All right. Flight. When do you know to walk away from a deal, a job, or an opportunity?

Ryan:
When the numbers don’t make sense and there’s no more growth.

Rob:
Okay, last one, fight. What were the hardest lessons you had to learn in real estate?

Ryan:
The hardest lesson I had to learn was not doing it myself. So the hardest lesson that I had to learn was in my mind, my dad always taught me that I want to control 100% of everything. The hardest thing for me to undo was that partnerships are really, really good, and they actually accelerate what you could achieve if you partner with the right people.

Rob:
Awesome. I like that, David. That’s kind of a mental or a mindset deal deep dive almost. It’s like the mindset version of it.

David:
And Ryan, you gave awesome answers. It’s almost like you’ve been training for this.

Ryan:
Nobody even prepped me for that. That was kind of like random.

David:
Well, thanks, Ryan. This has been an excellent show. We covered how to get started with the advice that you have. It doesn’t have to be perfect. So your uncle gave you some advice for how to get you going in real estate. You built a portfolio that eventually Grant Cardone told you was crap, but it doesn’t matter because that crap got you to a point where you could even be called crap and you could put it into something better. We talked about the right way to reach out to somebody and we gave a framework for everybody that’s trying to get an opportunity. I hate the spaghetti against the wall method. Just send a bunch of DMs and hope that something sticks.
Actually come with something feasible that you’re proposing, and be humble, like you said, just “I’ll work for free. Let me prove my way.” But if you get in the right environment, that will get you to the top. You’re now running Cardone Capital. If that’s not a great example for everyone to follow, I don’t know what is. We talked about underwriting deals quickly, right? Not getting too caught up in the mess. That does not mean that you’re going to buy a property based off of a 43-second underwriting system, but it does mean that you’re going to get your foot in the door and that you can move with the power players. Those brokers are trying to figure out who’s legit and who’s kicking tires. And you kind of put yourself as a front runner in that situation and then take some time to analyze the deals.
And we talked about buying properties, thinking about the future, not just right now. What do you expect rents to do in that area? What do you expect jobs to do in that area? Is there going to be more supply coming in or is supply somewhat constricted? When we had Grant on the show the first time, he actually talked about how he likes to buy in liberal areas because they are less likely to issue new building permits, and it’s a way of eliminating competition. It’s a different way of thinking that your typical investor that just runs it through a calculator and says yay or nay. Is it taking into consideration? Rob, anything you want to add there?

Rob:
No, no. You covered every single thing. And just going back to your thing about people reaching out at everything. You mentioned getting your foot in the door. There was this old adage back in the day or this old kind of urban legend of this guy that really wanted to work at a very prestigious ad agency. And so what he did is he sent a shoe to the creative director with a note that said, I just wanted to get my foot in the door. So I just wanted to know would that work on you, David? Do you think that would be a way to get through your DMs if everyone just sent you a shoe?

David:
No, that’s the opposite of what I was just saying, people, come with a plan. Don’t try to be cute. “I’m so clever. I sent David a shoe.” And I get the shoe and I’m like, “Well, now what do I do with you?” It always sounds good when you hear the story and it just turns into a Cinderella tale. But no, that isn’t. Unless inside the shoe you have a business plan and you tell me what your skills are and say, “Give me a shot. I’ll do this thing for you,” and then you can see how it looks. All right. Well, thank you, Ryan. Man, this has been fantastic. I really enjoyed getting to know you and thank you for sharing things. Where can people find out more about you?

Ryan:
Very easy. Social media, Ryan Tesko. YouTube, Instagram, cardonecapital.com. I mean, I’m very out there. I’m very open. I typically give people my cell number, but I’ll leave it via social media and also the website.

David:
And Tseko is spelled T-S-E-K-O. So that’s RYAN T-S-E-K-O. Go give Ryan a follow. Rob, how about you? Where can people follow you?

Rob:
Oh, you can find me over on Instagram or Threads or YouTube at Robuilt, R-O-B-U-I-L-T. I teach people how to do real estate, Airbnb, short-term rentals, investing, life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and everything in between. What about you, David?

David:
Find me at DavidGreene24 all over social media including Threads and Instagram and everything else. Or at DavidGreene24 on YouTube. My website’s davidgreene24.com so thank you for saying that. My social media used to be pretty boring, I will admit, but it’s been stepped up quite a bit, so.

Rob:
It’s fired now, my friend. You have done it.

David:
Absolute fired. If my social media had a glow up, it would be Ryan going from a pilot to Grant Cardone’s pilot, and now running Cardone Capital. So just like you don’t want to miss out Ryan’s story, you don’t want to miss out on my social media. How was that, Ryan?

Rob:
So basically David’s social media is the Ryan Tseko of social media.

David:
That’s what I’m saying. Yes, thank you for clarifying that. This is David Greene for Rob, the Fire Hydrant, Abasolo, signing off.