TME 17 | Scorched Earth Real Estate: Why You Don’t Want a Billion Dollar Business with Gino Barbaro

Title: TME 17 | Scorched Earth Real Estate: Why You Don’t Want a Billion Dollar Business with Gino Barbaro

 

In this episode, Seth Bradley sits down with multifamily investor and coach Gino Barbero for a deep conversation on real estate investing, mindset, and values. They discuss the reality of today’s uncertain market and why deals are still possible if you stick to timeless frameworks like Buy Right, Manage Right, Finance Right. Gino emphasizes that choosing between syndications, joint ventures, or long-term holds should come after reflecting on your personal patterns, values, and lifestyle goals. Seth shares his journey from a blue-collar upbringing to med school, then law school, before breaking free of the W-2 mindset after discovering Rich Dad Poor Dad and BiggerPockets. Both reveal how emotions like anger or a thirst for freedom became catalysts for entrepreneurial growth and how inherited beliefs from parents shaped, and sometimes limited, their early choices. Gino outlines his core values, People First, Unwavering Ethics, Extreme Ownership, Make It Happen, and Growth Mindset, and explains why values-based decision making is the foundation of success in business, partnerships, and life. The conversation ends on legacy: living by values, helping families, and leaving the world a better place.

 

Bullet Point Highlights:

• Market Reality, deals are harder but not dead, framework Buy Right, Manage Right, Finance Right still applies

• JV vs. Syndication, JVs may better fit lifestyle goals, decide based on whether you want scale or freedom

• Mindset Shift, success starts with identifying empowering vs. disempowering patterns before picking a vehicle

• Seth’s Story, from coal miner’s son, med school, law school, house hacking, real estate entrepreneur

• Catalysts for Change, Seth’s thirst for freedom and Rich Dad Poor Dad, Gino’s anger channeled into growth

• Inherited Beliefs, parents’ caution or W-2 mindset often shape early decisions until consciously broken

• Values-Based Decisions, align investments and partnerships with personal values to avoid costly mistakes

• Gino’s Core Values, People First, Unwavering Ethics, Extreme Ownership, Make It Happen, Growth Mindset

• Redefining Success, question vanity goals like “a billion in real estate”, align goals with lifestyle vision

• Parallel Lives, closed doors in Wall Street and med school led Seth and Gino to better aligned entrepreneurial paths

• Legacy, Gino wants to be remembered for living by values, helping families, and leaving the world stronger

 

Links from the Show and Guest Info and Links:

Seth Bradley’s Links:

https://x.com/sethbradleyesq

https://www.youtube.com/@sethbradleyesq

www.facebook.com/sethbradleyesq

https://www.threads.com/@sethbradleyesq

https://www.instagram.com/sethbradleyesq/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethbradleyesq/

https://passiveincomeattorney.com/seth-bradley/

https://www.biggerpockets.com/users/sethbradleyesq

https://medium.com/@sethbradleyesq

https://www.tiktok.com/@sethbradleyesq?lang=en

Gino Barbaro’s Links:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/gino-barbaro-03973b4b/

https://www.instagram.com/barbaro_360/

https://myworstinvestmentever.com/ep732-gino-barbaro

https://www.facebook.com/JoinGinosFamily/ 

 

Transcript:

Seth Bradley, Esq. (00:00.169)
but man, that's, I was like, I was being sarcastic. Like, is that volume up?

Gino (00:03.278)
.

No, actually, sarcasm is, I'm Italian and I'm from New York, so sarcasm works really good. So how you been?

Seth Bradley, Esq. (00:12.105)
There you go.

I've been good brother, been good man. How about you?

Gino (00:18.54)
I mean, on the deal front, last year or so, it's been pretty painful. I mean, everything else is great. I got no complaints. Everything else is excellent, seriously. But other than that, I'm doing okay. What are we talking about today? What do you want to touch on today?

Seth Bradley, Esq. (00:20.359)
Yeah

Yeah, sure. Yeah. Yeah.

Seth Bradley, Esq. (00:30.707)
Good,

Cool, yeah, man, so I rebranded, so I changed it from, and I did this because my audience is different now. My audience used to be passive investors, because I raising capital, doing all that kind of stuff. You still probably get back into that at some point when it makes sense, but started selling the shovels a little bit, and working on growing my securities law firm, and I'm chief legal officer for TribeVest, so we put together fund to funds for people to raise capital into for bigger deals. So now we're.

Gino (00:54.67)
Seth Bradley, Esq. (01:01.927)
So now I'm talking to active capital raisers, entrepreneurs, real estate investors, as opposed to passive investors. So a little bit different.

Gino (01:08.494)
Good, let's go a little scorched earth because I'm feeling a little annoyed today, especially after this volume thing. And I want to go at it from a perspective of real estate. Like, I don't even know what data to believe anymore. I think it's all bullshit. I think the whole thing is, so for me as being an investor, I've been frustrated for the last five years because I know we've been in a recession for the last two. Inflation wasn't transitory. What about tariffs? Like nobody's telling me any of the, I'm not getting any real information. It's all politicized.

Seth Bradley, Esq. (01:13.161)
Hahaha

Seth Bradley, Esq. (01:18.641)
I can't. Yeah. Yeah.

Gino (01:38.262)
I'm both sides, I'm so frustrated, I don't know which way to go. And I'm lucky because I've got some really great assets. I'm blessed with that. But I'm just trying to figure it out for everybody else. Like, I don't understand. The only thing I can lean on is our framework. So that's what's holding me and not making me make any mistakes. And I like to share that with everybody out there. And this AI thing is great, but AI is wrong a lot also. And I think people are leaning too much on it. So if you want to talk about that, great. If you want to talk about the current situation, what rate's gonna...

Seth Bradley, Esq. (01:41.417)
.

Seth Bradley, Esq. (01:59.966)
Yeah.

Alright.

Let's fucking go. Let's go. Don't hold anything back, buddy. Let's get into it, man. Let's do it. Let's do it. All right. Welcome to Raise the Bar Radio, elevated conversations around entrepreneurship, capital raising, and real estate. Today we have Gino Barbero, a legendary investor, entrepreneur, and author of three bestselling books. He's the co-founder of Jake and Gino, a multifamily real estate education company founded on the framework of buy right.

Gino (02:06.478)
I'm just whatever you want to do.

I'm not gonna, I won't.

Seth Bradley, Esq. (02:33.958)
manage right and finance right. Gino, old friend of mine, welcome back to the show. Good to have you on today,

Gino (02:40.952)
Seth, I appreciate being on because I think we're going to get a little of our frustrations out on this episode and have fun while we're doing it,

Seth Bradley, Esq. (02:46.856)
Let's do it man. I don't want you to hold anything back brother I want you to to just say say what you need to say get it off your chest and let's have some fun with it

Gino (02:56.024)
Well, after spending 10 minutes feeling like an idiot and not even being able to get on the show, that was the precipice. I said, you know what? I'm going to let it rip on this show. And I'm going to start off by saying that I don't know jack shit about what's going on in this economy right now. And I've been investing for over 20 years. We own 1,800 units. I don't have any syndications. It's my capital. We're printing $300 in profit per unit. So I have the track record. I have the experience. And yet, I don't know what the hell is going on.

And why is that? There's a reason why. And I think, I don't think we could really have trust in the institutions and the data that we're getting. And this is not one side. It's not politics. It's policy. First, inflation was transitory. Then we got whacked with it, right? Then there's 17 million jobs. Now, did he create any jobs? Tariffs were supposed to create this inflation nut. Now it doesn't. Now, like,

I don't even know what to believe, what not to believe. And I have to be honest, Seth, am I the only one feeling this or are there other people out there? That's the frustration that I have. But I can always lean on our framework of buy right, manage right, finance right. The fundamentals of real estate haven't changed. Maybe the strategies have. Well, maybe harder to syndicate deals right now. So you might have to JV.

or get a small group together. You can go out there and sell or finance a deal or master lease option a deal where you couldn't a few years ago. But right now, and the reason why I feel this way, and I think the vast majority of really good investors feel this way as well, is there's not a lot of deals being traded. Because sellers are still in la-la land, and buyers are like, I've already gotten burned, and if I go to the bank, they're gonna laugh at me. So it's just like this weird spot where we're at. And I'm like, how do you do a deal? I mean, we did.

300 units in 23. We did almost 200 units last year. We've done a 68 unit deal this year. Now it was phenomenal, but I mean, that was it. And it was actually from a seller who sold us two previous deals. Anything that's going online on market right now, it's just not worth bidding. There's older assets, there's a lot of work to be done. And it's stuff where, you know, they're 20 to 25 % from where they were two years ago. They need another 20, 25 % haircut. So I know usually people jump on and say,

Gino (05:14.612)
I've been in business for 30 years at all and I want to skip to that and get to the meat of the conversation because I want to know how you feel. How do you feel about what's going on with the market and the economy right now?

Seth Bradley, Esq. (05:24.467)
Dude, I agree. It is crazy times because everything is politicized, right? So you can't even take what are presented as facts as facts. And then when that happens time and time and time and time again, even when it's presented as facts, like, and it's proven later and you're like, just kidding. They're actually a massive job loss. It wasn't a positive. It's like, well, you just made all the interest rate cuts and or not interest rate cuts based on these things over the past year.

Gino (05:33.709)
Yes.

Seth Bradley, Esq. (05:52.978)
And now you're telling me that you just didn't report it right. It's just like, what the hell are you supposed to do? because it's hard to live life that way also. It's hard to have to literally question every single thing because where's the truth, right? Like you get in the data and the data is wrong. So where do you find like that source of truth? There really isn't one. So it's really difficult to make decisions. So.

Gino (05:58.127)
Mm-hmm.

Gino (06:15.29)
And the positive thing for us is we're in a good market. We're in East Tennessee in Knoxville. Just understand, I think to be clear, is if you can get clarity about what your goals are, if you're just starting out, you're gonna have a different underwriting template, you're gonna have a different strategy than if someone's been in the business for 20 years. Are you gonna be doing this part-time, maybe investing passively? Or do you wanna get into the GP side? Or do you just wanna start buying 10-unit deals, small deals by yourself?

There's so many different things. So before you start getting into the market and saying I gotta get a deal Don't do what I did. Don't just jump in and try to find a deal Try to really follow somebody's strategy somebody's framework that they've put together and something that resonates with you And I always say Seth I had a life before Jake and I had life after Jake before Jake I made every mistake conceivable and that sucker cuz I call him a sucker in a good way

He hasn't lost money on one deal because I was the one who lost all the money before I met him. Then I got in school, I had mentorship programs. I was fortunate enough and blessed enough that he arrived into my life when I had the experience and the knowledge and we just partnered up and I say jokingly, he's an incredible partner. He has really done an amazing job of these last 15 years. But it's interesting.

when you're running around with a chicken without a head, without a process, without somebody having the experience. And that's why it's important if you're just starting out, maybe by tipping your toe in the water, you go as a passive investor and you find out what people are doing. Log in to every person who's doing a syndication, try to get their offering memorandums, see everyone's different strategy because there's no one size fits all. There could be a syndicator raising money for self storage, ATM machines, mobile home parks, multifamily.

What is it that you like? I love multifamily because I like the customer service aspect of it. I like the fact that it's a basic human need. I like the fact that more people are renting. That's the reality. Less people are buying homes. Renting is becoming more convenient. So I think long term it has that as well. So just go out there, try to understand what you're trying to accomplish. And then once that, just pick a vehicle and learn about the vehicle. Give yourself some time to actually learn about the vehicle and grow with your experience.

Seth Bradley, Esq. (08:12.211)
Yeah.

Seth Bradley, Esq. (08:39.677)
Yeah, 100 % dude, there's different levels to it, right? When you're first starting out, I mean, you've gotta get yourself in the right rooms, you've gotta network, you've gotta get yourself exposed to a bunch of different things because you don't even know what you want. Like maybe you listen to a podcast or watch a YouTube video and you're like, that sounds cool, but you don't really know what's out there yet. You need to figure out what's out there first. So get kind of a general idea of like, it's not just multifamily. Okay, there's mobile home parks, there's RV parks, there's debt funds nowadays, there's oil and gas, all kinds of stuff, right?

Like get yourself exposed to what's out there first and then start formulating which one you want to go with and what's your end goal, right? Because I think a lot of people they see like, you know, see a lot of like coaching programs and things like that. I run one, you run one, but it's just like, well, what are your end goals, right? Like, do you want a lifestyle business or do you want to own a billion dollars in real estate? Not everybody needs to own a billion dollars in real estate, right? Like you hear that number all the time or even a hundred million dollars, like all these

Gino (09:35.158)
great.

Seth Bradley, Esq. (09:38.666)
crazy numbers, but that's not for everybody. Like you're gonna have to bring in investor capital to do those sorts of things. Like you're gonna have to make sacrifices to do those sorts of things. But you know what? You could probably JV or just buy a few smaller multifamily assets or a little retail shopping center around the corner and make some nice cash flow and quit your W-2 and just live off of that. Like you don't have to go all the way, right? Like think about like what your goals are and what's gonna make you and your family happy.

Gino (09:59.652)
Yes.

Gino (10:07.855)
I wanna learn a little bit about you and then I'll share my story of how what you just said really highlights the transition that I've had over last 15 years with our portfolio. But when you started, what were your goals? Were your goals, hey, I just wanna do this a little passively, figure out the real estate thing, make a little extra income, then grow the business and like, oh wow, I'm doing this fund the funds now. What did that look like for you?

Seth Bradley, Esq. (10:30.545)
Yeah, I mean for me it was going, I am an all in type of guy. So I was like all in. was like, all right, how can I buy as much as I possibly can? But I also am a lawyer. So I had to kind of tippy toe first. So I invested passively. I bought a duplex, house hacked into it, bought bigger multi, like, you know, four unit, a 10 unit, a 16 unit. Then I started raising capital with operators and I started being the operator. So I kind of like stepped my way up.

Gino (10:43.737)
Yes.

Gino (10:57.081)
Yes.

Seth Bradley, Esq. (10:57.321)
with the end goal that I wanted to go big and now I've actually kind of come back because I'm like, you know what, like I don't want to just own a few percentage points of all these deals. I'd rather just own, you know, a 30 unit where I own 100 % of it or I own 25 % of it with a couple of JV partners or try to find some trophy assets, right? Things like an awesome short-term rental in a A-plus market that's only going to appreciate over time and I can use it with my friends and family.

and go visit and utilize the property, things like that, more like kind of lifestyle type of decisions. So I think it evolves over time.

Gino (11:34.735)
And what made, what was the switch? What was the epiphany of the moment in your life that you said, I don't really need to go all big. I'd rather do a 30 unit that I own all the equity instead of having 17,000 units and having 1 10th of 1%.

Seth Bradley, Esq. (11:49.643)
I think it came down to operating. the bigger assets that I was actually operating on, doing the asset management, I was like, all right, here we go. This is a lot of work. Not saying I didn't know it was a lot of work. I'm a business owner and other things too. I know it's gonna be a lot of work, but I'm gonna have to build out a team, a big team. It's gonna have to grow. It's gonna have to be a massive business if I wanna own $100 million, $500 million in real estate, right?

And it wasn't necessarily something I wanted to do there. I wanted to keep things on the simple side. And that's when I started saying that, you know, I'm not gonna be to do this by myself. A lot of work. This is not necessarily what I wanna do. I got into real estate for freedom, for flexibility, for cashflow. And this is probably not gonna create that for me.

Gino (12:36.131)
That's a great answer. So I'm just writing down what do you and as you're listening to this, ask yourself this question. What are you getting into it for? And that's important because you may want to get into it to make a billion dollars. And that's why what I've done over the last year and 18 months, I've transitioned from just teaching people about real estate to becoming a certified money coach. Cause it really comes down to your relationship with money. I mean, we all view money differently. Money is not the problem. Money is usually the symptom.

So if you want to hit a billion dollars, man, I want you to crush it. But really ask yourself, what's the real reason that you want to hit a billion dollars? And always ask yourself, when is enough enough? Because people always say, when I make more money, my problem is going to go away. And I realized I had 100 units, had problems. Had 200 units, had problems. Have 350 million, there's always problems. Making more money is not going to solve all of your problems. And actually,

Seth Bradley, Esq. (13:15.146)
That's right.

Gino (13:36.033)
I've got a spousal lifetime access trust now. I've got six kids where I've got to create estate planning. So I'm not complaining, but I'm just telling you, it creates different kinds of problems. So your story is very similar to ours. When we started, Jake and I were like, bro, if we can hit 100 units, we're gonna be like two pigs in crap. And it took us 18 months to find our first 25 unit deal. But three months after that,

Seth Bradley, Esq. (13:58.409)
Ha ha.

Gino (14:05.059)
We we closed on a 36. So we're at 60 units within almost two years, which may not seem like a lot, but it is a lot when you look back because what happens is you have that hockey puck curve. Cause then I remember in January, in February of 2014, after a year after we closed that first deal, we closed 136 units. So within three years of Jake and myself meeting and starting, we had 202 really excellent units. were three deals.

Seth Bradley, Esq. (14:17.258)
Mm-hmm.

Gino (14:35.215)
And within five years, we had a little over 500 units. And there was no syndication involved. It was refi and roll. It was a partner who had a significant balance sheet who helped us out and interspersed in that. We closed on a 200 unit seller finance deal. So people are like, well, how did you do it? A little seller financing, little JVs, refi and rolls. But then 500 units were like, holy crap, we're sort of got lint in our pockets. Where are we gonna find money?

Seth Bradley, Esq. (14:43.476)
Yeah.

Gino (15:04.047)
And oh, by the way, everyone's talking about this syndication thing. Let's try it. And Seth, we did. We did three deals in syndication in two in 2018, one in 2019. We saw that it wasn't for us long-term because we wanted to hold a really quality asset for the long-term. And syndications, in a lot of instances, you put money in and then all of a sudden you have to return that capital. And sometimes if you're lucky, you can actually refi it out. But as us as the GPs, we're doing all the work and we're not getting

Seth Bradley, Esq. (15:04.426)
Yep, yeah

Gino (15:33.391)
Compensated as much so we said to ourselves after the third one. Let's stop regroup. We've got more capital We sold those off and we continued to buy our own and one of the things I want people to focus on is When you're in business, what is the KPI that you're really measuring for us? It's PPU now. It's profit per unit. It's not number of doors It's not IRR and real cash flow. That's what we want at the end of the month. We have 1800 units and

Seth Bradley, Esq. (15:56.074)
Mm-hmm.

Gino (16:02.669)
How much profitability does those 1800 units are giving us? That's what we're looking for. So from a syndication model, doesn't really work. From a syndication model, you're trying to expand, you're trying to get as many units under management, you've got asset management fees, it's a different model. We didn't like that model as much. We did what you did. We put the e-brake on and we're gonna do smaller deals with our own capital and we're gonna really control those deals and we're vertically integrated. We have our own property management company.

So that's not for everybody. And I hate when people say this is the only way to do it, only buying multifamily. If you want to really get rich in the next 10 years, if you buy one single family home for the next 10 years, within 15 years of your first purchase, that house may be completely paid off. You may be able to sell that house in a seller finance node and really get mailbox money. That's a great strategy. It's not for everybody, but really getting clear on what you're trying to accomplish is really, really important.

Seth Bradley, Esq. (16:51.935)
Yep.

Seth Bradley, Esq. (16:59.306)
100%, man, 100%, you said so many good things there. I syndication, so I love them. I make a living off syndication. So I'm a securities attorney, I work at TriVest, it's a great vehicle, but I do think that kind of the traditional sense of it where people are like, all right, let's syndicate this deal, let's flip it basically as quick as possible. Like if we can unload it in two years, let's unload it in two years. It's like, they just turn into house flipping, but with apartment flipping, right? Yeah.

Gino (17:06.319)
Yeah.

Gino (17:16.963)
Yes.

Gino (17:23.449)
glorified yes.

Seth Bradley, Esq. (17:25.116)
And it's just like, that's not why we got into it. Or most of us, I shouldn't say everyone, but most of us got into this thing for long-term, for cashflow, for freedom, flexibility. And that's not, because that's just like, okay, well, I got to live for my upfront fee. I've got to live for the exit fee. I'm not making any money in between. I know a lot of capital raisers and syndicators got washed out in this last market because there's no cashflow, right? Like they made a little bit of money when they started. They were going to make, maybe, maybe not now.

Gino (17:32.163)
Yes.

Gino (17:39.961)
Yes.

Seth Bradley, Esq. (17:53.749)
but they were planning on making some money on the backend, on the sale, possibly on the refi, which has gotten washed out too at this point. And it's like, there's no cashflow for these people, right? So they've had to go back and get a W-2, they went back to work. They haven't been able to sustain. So you're seeing a lot of people get washed out with that model, but you can still use that model. Just your investors have to know that you wanna stay in it for the long term, right? You have to set those expectations versus like...

Gino (18:16.845)
Yes.

Seth Bradley, Esq. (18:19.284)
We're not trying to sell this thing in two or three years. We're gonna keep this as long as we can. We're just gonna keep refinancing it. We're gonna keep improving it. We're gonna keep doing these things and you're gonna get your capital back and you're gonna get great returns or you might get great returns. But we're not trying to get out of this as soon as possible. So plan on staying with us for the long term.

Gino (18:23.161)
Yes.

Gino (18:39.065)
You said a couple of really important things there that I don't want to gloss over. The first one is know who your investor is. If you're going to create that model, and I love that part of the syndication model, it's tell your investor this is not a two-year fix and flip and we're going to sell it. We're buying this thing for tax benefits. So the longer we hold it, better it is. We want to give you some kind of IRR number, but we're really focusing on holding this asset. Why would I kill the golden goose if my goal is to really reposition this asset, really get it up the snuff?

and maybe refinance some of the capital out, distribute it back to you, and continue to hold this, operate this like a business. That's what my model is. See, the syndication model, sometimes it doesn't lend itself to really running real estate as a business. The manage right portion is so important, and operators out there, they know that, hey, asset management's important, but you need to couple it with property management. Those two components are so important for the business. And there's another thing you said in there that really caught my mind.

The fixing and flipping is so important. It's understanding what your role is and what you're trying to do. And I think as a syndicator, it could work if you put your money on the LP side as well. If you're just going in there with no money down, I think you need to start investing in your own deals. And I've seen syndicators not invest in their deals. And there's less of an alignment, in my opinion at least, with the general partnership and the limited partners. I want, as our general partnership team, to put that money

into the deal to show that there's confidence in the deal. But I love your model of going in there, looking at this asset, not saying a three-year exit. Now, if the market lends itself for you to make a ton of money after three years and you'd be foolish not to get it, and you understand market cycles, and you're like, hey, I got to hold this thing for the next 15 years to get my cash flow back if I sell this thing today, then maybe it behooves you because

you have to do your fiduciary for your investors. You gotta do what's best for them, not what's best for you. So that may preclude itself, but understanding that if you can tell them, hey, this is a business, I really wanna run this thing as a business, and I really wanna cash roll this thing and control it, I think that is a good way in setting the expectations with your investors. If you do that, I like that model with syndication personally.

Seth Bradley, Esq. (20:38.027)
Absolutely.

Seth Bradley, Esq. (20:57.429)
Yeah, I think people are a lot more open to it now too than they were, let's say five years ago when that was just kind of what everybody was doing, right? There's no alternative to that. It's like, great, like rents are going up so fast. The market is so good. Like we're basically just gonna sit on this for two years and then we're gonna just sell it for, and we're gonna do extra money in two years. And that's great. I mean, for investors, they're like, yeah, sure, we're gonna do that.

Gino (21:00.983)
Yeah, yes.

Seth Bradley, Esq. (21:22.687)
But now that it's a little bit harder to pull that off, I think people are going to be a lot more open to that. They are more open to that, to that long term kind of, I call it traditional kind of way, right? Like that's why I get into real estate for those reasons. So I think investors are more open to that. And you're actually seeing that with like other asset types too, because they want cash flow. You're seeing people get away from multifamily a little bit, get into oil and gas for the tax benefits.

Gino (21:40.505)
Have you ever heard?

Seth Bradley, Esq. (21:50.39)
for the immediate cash flow, if it's the right one, and like the debt fund, things like that, because people want the cash flow, they want to stay in it for 10 years, they don't want to figure out what they got to do with their money here in two years again.

Gino (22:02.137)
Yes. It's interesting. Have you ever heard of a gentleman named Sam Freshman? I don't know if you've ever read his book. He's got that really thick book on syndications. I mean, it'll put you to sleep, but I mean, it's great content and he's written a couple of books for younger people. Honestly, I would be lying if I knew if he was still alive. When I had him on the podcast, he was in his late 80s and massive syndicator. Two mistakes he said he made. I mean, he'd been syndicating deals and owning deals in California and

Seth Bradley, Esq. (22:11.849)
Yeah.

Gino (22:30.627)
His model is very similar to what we're talking about, but his two biggest mistakes was not buying enough real estate and selling too soon. And if you think about that, it's incredible. And I can give you an illustration exactly what he's talking about. Jake and I, when our first bought our first deal, it was called the Shamrock Motel in 2013. It was a 25 unit little crappy property. Dude, I'm telling you.

Seth Bradley, Esq. (22:53.791)
Sounds classy. Come on, Shamrock Hotel? Motel? Yeah.

Gino (22:56.559)
I'm telling you, Shamrock went six unit, a little efficiency. It had cottages, it still hasn't. It had couple duplexes on the property, 25 units. We paid $675,000 for the property. It would have come out to about 25 a door. Rents were weak, it was weekly renters. Over the years, we were able to fix it up. We were able to refi out. We put down $87,000. We were able to refi $160,000, you know, back in 2015. We currently still own this asset. It's 2025.

the asset is probably worth $125 a door right now. We paid $25 a door. That asset would have traded hands three or four times. Now, my point is we bought it at that price point. It's still producing between $8,000 $10,000 a month in cash flow on a crappy little 25 unit asset. Now, when you talk about like wealth, that is printing money. Now that asset's probably, like I said,

Is it worth $2.5 million at $100 a door? So you can see there's a ton of equity. We can go back in the next two years, refi some of that equity out. And that's the thing with real estate. Real estate is different than businesses. You can exit an asset in real estate without selling it. The refi is so powerful, because it's basically a loan to yourself, so you're not paying taxes on that loan unless...

you end up selling it. So for us, we did the same freshman model. And the reason why we kept it, it's because it was pretty easy to fix. The basis was low. We love the area and the market that it's in. Rents are going to continue to rise in that market. It's an easy asset to manage because it's an affordable kind of asset where people want to be into it. These one bedroom cottages, they feel like homes. They feel like apartment homes. So there's very little turnover in these things. So understanding you need to buy the right asset.

to be able to hold long term. But I'm telling you, just from that 25 unit little property, it's incredible if you have that mindset of buying the right deals and giving yourself a little bit of time to be able to create wealth, it's incredible what can happen.

Seth Bradley, Esq. (24:58.027)
Yeah, yeah, for sure. And how do you present kind of like all these different pathways that you can take to your coaching clients? I know that, you a lot of people will, a lot of folks out there that are teaching stuff, like they just kind of zoom in on, okay, look, multifamily syndication, for instance, right? Like that's the only way, there's no other way to do it. Or, you know, RV parks, like you have to do RV parks because you got to ride this wave or, you know, they're always focusing on like one.

very specific thing. Now know you love multifamily, but it sounds like you kind of look at the general picture for each person, investor, student, whoever it might be, and they kind of have their own, they need to figure out their own pathway. How are you able to kind of coach that out of them?

Gino (25:41.679)
And that's a great question. That's why I've transitioned into this money coaching because I always see the problem and I'll give you a perfect example. Student named Ethan, 17 years old, he bought his first deal. He couldn't even sign on the docs because he wasn't an adult yet. He needed to 18 to sign on an LLC and close a contract. His dad had to buy the deal for him. Fast forward, he's 23 years old, probably owns 300 units, syndicated deals. How does that kid do it? He's only, he never went to high school.

Seth Bradley, Esq. (25:46.313)
Mmm.

Gino (26:11.471)
How can somebody at that age with no experience, no capital be able to do that? Then you take a gentleman who's in their 40s or a woman in their 40s, they've got a nice balance sheet, they've got seven figures net worth, and they can't close a deal. And I'm like, holy crap, how is that? It didn't make sense to me. I'm out here teaching the framework, and the first part of the answer to your question is, I'm not gonna tell you what vehicle anymore, because I don't specifically train just on real estate, but I would say is you need to learn the framework of the buy right.

the manage right and the finance right. There's little tweaks, right? Buying a multifamily, there's different buy right criteria as opposed to buying a self storage. Buying a multifamily, the management, the expense ratios and all that, it's a little different than it is in self storage. But the basic foundational principles are all the same. You need to buy it properly, you need to finance it, whether that's community, using seller finance notes, Fannie and Freddie, whatever that looks like, and then the manage portion. So I would say,

Those three pillars, you can buy a business, you can invest in any asset using that. But then let's peel that onion again. Once again, what happened with Ethan as opposed to this person in their 40s? Well, Ethan had a much better relationship with money because he had a father who was a doctor, who was entrepreneurial. All these messages that he'd heard from his dad growing up, the positivity of making money, going out there and you know what, son, I want you to go to college because I'm a doctor.

Seth Bradley, Esq. (27:13.536)
Hmm.

Gino (27:38.383)
But if you want to do this real estate thing, I am going to be there for you. And what does that do? All of a sudden the patterns and the behaviors and your beliefs around money are completely different. And I'm a product of that. It took me forever. I was 43 years old before I bought a deal with Jake. I mean, I was there. had a, I don't want to say terrible, but I had a challenging relationship with money. I had a lot of limiting beliefs. It takes money to make money. Money doesn't grow on trees. We've got to save for a rainy day.

Seth Bradley, Esq. (27:55.061)
Yeah.

Gino (28:07.373)
Be afraid, scarcity. And if you don't explore that, it's gonna hold you back because at some point there's gonna come a deal and you're gonna be like, wow, I finally got a deal, but where am gonna find the money? And how am gonna do it? And all these beliefs pop into your head and then you don't put the LOI in, you wait a week and then that deal goes off market and someone else bought it. That's really important, understanding that relationship that you have with money and fleshing out what are you doing wrong as well as what you're doing right.

Seth Bradley, Esq. (28:08.523)
Yep.

Gino (28:35.831)
What patterns do you have that are really empowering and which patterns are disempowering? Which patterns do you want to start adopting? And that is a longer conversation than just saying pick this strategy or that strategy. But that's really where we should start, Seth, if you're asking me what investment vehicle. Before the investment vehicle, let's figure out what's going on underneath the hood before you actually start putting the key in the ignition and driving that car away.

Seth Bradley, Esq. (28:59.884)
Yeah, yeah, I love that man. I grew up in a blue collar family as well. I wasn't around entrepreneurship or buying real estate or any of sorts of things. My dad's a retired coal miner. My mom's a retired school teacher. So I didn't come from that. So it was like for me, it was like, the best job you can get, like trade your time for money. And that's just how it works. But at least try to get the best one you can. That's why I went to med school for a little bit, because that was in my mind was like, okay, what can I do? What's the best job I can get? It's going to be a doctor.

Gino (29:11.471)
Seth Bradley, Esq. (29:28.1)
And then I hated that got out of that and I was like, all right, I'm still in that mindset I was like, well, what do I what's the next best job? get I was like, all right, I guess I'll be a lawyer. So then I went to law school Turns out that worked out pretty well because I could leverage that skill set into the a lot of entrepreneurial things But I was still stuck in that mindset forever. I mean forever

Gino (29:41.849)
Yes.

Gino (29:47.961)
And what changed? What made you change that mindset? Was there any person, any group, any mentor, any event in your life?

Seth Bradley, Esq. (29:55.521)
Yeah, I mean, it was pretty typical, man. I read the Purple Bible, Rich Dad Poor Dad, and that just kind of, you know, just changes, it's simple book, but it just changes your mindset a little bit. At the time, you know, Bigger Pockets is still big, but it was like really big, you know, around 2013. Like that was like the real estate thing. And then the chat forums and all those things on Bigger Pockets, and that was, my mind going. That's when I house hacked into a duplex with my wife and she was willing to do it.

Gino (30:19.971)
What was the anger? What was the anger when you read that book? I'm sorry, I gave it away. What was the emotion? What was the emotion when you read that book? What was, when you read that book?

Seth Bradley, Esq. (30:26.118)
Hahaha!

Yeah, it was like a thirst for freedom. don't know. think I'm like entrepreneurial to my core, but I don't think I knew it until that time. Like I don't think that I knew it because I didn't know it exists. Like I didn't know it was possible for me. And then as an attorney, I got around entrepreneurs as clients. I got around syndicators. I got around people that were buying big pieces of real estate. And I was like, man, how in the world?

Do they do that? And even then it was still a mystery. was like, even though I'm helping them close a deal, but I was like, well, that can never be me, right? Like, how can I get, they probably had a trust fund or something or, know, Donald Trump's her dad. don't know, don't know, something crazy, right? But then I realized, you know, it's not, right? It's not that hard. You just have to take a little bit of risk. You gotta change your mindset a little bit and we can all get into those sorts of things. But, you know, growing up the way that I did, it was a big mindset shift to get there.

Gino (31:20.451)
Yes.

Gino (31:27.215)
I'm gonna ask you another question, but my story is very similar to yours where I read the secrets of the millionaire mind and the emotion that I had was anger. I was just pissed and anger is actually really good unless it turns into resentment, right? Anger is a really good emotion if you can channel it. And I channeled it into listening to Jim Rohn, Zig Ziglar, and I channeled it into something positive, into saying, I'm gonna take responsibility. I'm gonna take some massive action. So if you could do that,

Seth Bradley, Esq. (31:35.453)
Mm.

Seth Bradley, Esq. (31:47.99)
yeah. Yep.

Gino (31:56.131)
That's great, but then what happens is if people get that anger and they get that resentment, that's not a good way to lead the anger. Anger can be really good. If you're moving away from pain, that's really good. Then you ultimately want to move towards pleasure. But when you say you're entrepreneurial to your core, what happens is as we're younger, we either adopt our parents' identities, beliefs, patterns, or sometimes we move away from them. We do the exact opposite of what they did. And I'm wondering that, did you see your dad's job as like,

Seth Bradley, Esq. (31:59.949)
Mm-hmm.

Seth Bradley, Esq. (32:22.401)
Mm-hmm.

Gino (32:24.855)
I don't want to be stuck in a coal mine. I want to have opportunity. I want to make money. And you saw med school, lot of money, and that's where you jumped. Do you think that affected your thought process?

Seth Bradley, Esq. (32:36.364)
100%, 100 % and he even told me, he's like, you don't wanna do this. Like you do not wanna be doing this. So you've gotta do better for yourself than this. But that pathway was still kind of the W-2 mindset, trading time for money, not necessarily entrepreneurship, because my parents didn't know that. they weren't entrepreneurs, so they weren't able to give me those ideas at a young age because they didn't have them. So they're not able to pass those on.

Gino (33:02.127)
And that's why it's important because if you're listening to this right now, you may be making those decisions based upon unconscious behaviors or beliefs or things that your parents were telling you like my mom would tell me, Gino, don't take risk. Stay small. You know, we're immigrants. We're little fish. That's why I had one restaurant for 20 years. How do you explain having 500 apartment units in less than five years with Jake? It really comes down to, I shattered those beliefs.

and those patterns that were I don't want to say pushed on me by my mom but when you hear these things for years and years and years that's what you adopt and I finally got sick and tired of it and I did the opposite and then from all having all these mentors and having these different things that you're listening to it's all of a sudden you're creating your own patterns and your own beliefs but if you don't at take that step or become unconscious of it I was just fortunate I became a life coach I started noticing these things but that's the difference I think somebody when they're

doing really well with money, understanding what it is and understanding how the past can help you but it can also hinder you. And you went right into med school. So anybody listening to this, just question yourself, why are you getting into the ventures you're getting? Why do you need a billion dollars in real estate? Why are you even getting into real estate? Are you getting into it because your parents did it? Are you getting into it because you hate your job and you just want to do this to make more money? That usually isn't the good result of why you're doing it. Just start questioning.

Seth Bradley, Esq. (34:07.34)
Mm-hmm.

Gino (34:27.587)
the things that you're doing, especially around making decisions with money.

Seth Bradley, Esq. (34:31.724)
Yeah, I mean, we've gone full circle, man. You've got to pause and you got to think. Have some deep thoughts and say like, what are your goals and why? Like, why are those your goals? You're not just making up a number. Are you saying, want to own a billion dollars in real estate because you actually do? Or is it just kind of like a number? You're like, yeah, a billion dollars real estate. Cool, I'm going to own that. I want to own that. Great. But why? Like, are you going to be able to...

Sacrifice what you need to sacrifice to get there? Are you gonna be happy at the end of your lifetime and say, I enjoyed that and that was worthwhile? I don't know, maybe, it depends on what you had to do to get there. So you gotta stop and before you kinda go down a lot of these ventures, think about what it is that you want, the type of life that you wanna live, the time you wanna spend with your family. You've gotta have some introspection into that sort of thing.

Gino (35:24.855)
Let's give them a little framework on how they can do that because that's important what you said. My mentor taught me a word or a phrase called values based decision making. Every decision that you make is based on your values, not Gino's values, not Seth's values. And you have to understand that values are created early on in life and they're just carried through. I was eight years old going to the restaurant, working with my dad. Values of hard work.

I would say entrepreneurship a little bit, but really being loyal, showing up, being a good provider, loving my family, growing. These are all things that I learned early on and they've come into my adulthood. So now when you're making a decision, whether it's taking a job, whether it's living in a different area, whether it's investing in an asset, does that align with what you're doing? I had the opportunity for a company to invest, partner up with us and market on our website.

Seth Bradley, Esq. (35:56.246)
Mm-hmm.

Gino (36:22.881)
On our podcast, it's a cannabis company. Money's great. It just doesn't align with my values. I cannot align with something like that. I've got six kids. I want to practice my faith. I'm not saying it's good or bad for anybody else. It just doesn't fit with me. So that's how you make those decisions. And once you're clear about that, you can make decisions so easy. Just like when you have a buy box. I'm buying a multifamily. 20 to 200 units. $50,000 median income. Two bedroom, one and a half bath town homes.

I like garages. If you've got washer and dryers, great. Brick exterior, anything after the 1980s, really clear. That's my buy right. That would be my values that I'm looking for in a multifamily asset. Translate that into anything. And I'll give you one last example. When I was here back in 2017, I had just moved to Florida and I was doing really well with multifamily, but I got the itch. I'm like, I'm in Florida. This vacation rental thing's going great. I met a guy down here that I really liked. He introduced me to these two other

I would call them jabronis for lack of a better word. I just didn't have the right feel Seth, but the model was good. We're buying these vacation homes. This guy was a builder and he was a property manager and we're getting them good basis, but it didn't feel right. Now looking back at it, it didn't align with my values. My values and their values did not align and that's why ultimately, fortunately, I only lost $30,000 on this venture. It could have lost more, but to me, it didn't align with the values.

Seth Bradley, Esq. (37:24.737)
Hahaha.

Gino (37:51.853)
the long-termism, the way the partnership, the integrity, the openness, the commitment, the expectation of outcomes, all of that didn't align and I didn't know and I could have blamed the partners but ultimately I need to blame myself and take responsibility because it wasn't aligned with my values. So just have an open mind. If you want to set goals, set goals with your values in mind that in case you value having time with the family.

being able to jump on podcasts, being able to take two weeks off a year, are you gonna be able to do that if you wanna hit a billion dollars in real estate? Now I'm not saying that you can't, but they may not be congruent, because if you ultimately do hit a billion dollars in real estate, you may be miserable as hell because all that stuff that's really important to you, singing opera, going to shoot guns, going to fish, going to hang out with the kids on the weekends, that may go by the wayside. So I'm not saying the goal is good or not, just make sure that it aligns

with your values.

Seth Bradley, Esq. (38:51.149)
100 % man, I love that, I love that. What are a couple of your core values? What is the primary couple of core values that you just live by?

Gino (39:03.673)
Well, for Jake and Gino and our property management company, it's people first, unwavering ethics, extreme ownership, make it happen, and growth mindset. That's why when I'm not growing, I'm annoyed. When I'm not learning something or I'm not part of something, it's bothering because I'm in transition right now, right? I'm sitting here, Jake's doing the property management, I'm still doing a little bit of the education.

but I need to be part of something and I understand that. So if there's an opportunity, if there's an opportunity for me to learn and to enjoy and have fun, that's what I love. And I think to me, people first is important. I always thought with those small businesses that I was always a part of, I wanted to have really great people. I didn't like the job at the restaurant. So ultimately I'm saying to myself, I want employees to come into work or be on a podcast with me or have a conversation or be part of the company where they're empowered, they're enjoying to be there.

That's what I want. That's why for me, People First is such an important core values. I mean, obviously, make it happen. I mean, that sounds like a little marketing thing, but man, I want to live by that because I've got a bunch of kids. I've got an amazing wife. She seems like she's always trying to make it happen, and she does. I want to make sure that I end up to my end of the bargain and do it well. And when you have a business partner like Jake, who's just incredible, he's an incredible dude. The guy never...

Complains he goes on vacation. He takes care of business. There's never any excuse So for him to be able to do that, I don't want to be the slack or anything I like once again is the responsibility. It's you know, the control it's part of my values I want to be part of that team

Seth Bradley, Esq. (40:35.852)
You

Seth Bradley, Esq. (40:42.859)
Yeah, yeah, those are some really good ones, man, really good. We kind of touched on this a little bit, but I'd love to hear this, because there could have been a lot of different ways you could have gone, but in a parallel universe, tell me about a different version of you. For example, for myself, told you I went to medical school, I could have easily finished that, went down that pathway, and that would have looked a lot different than where I'm sitting today. Was there a time in your life where there was that kind of one...

turning point and you could have went down a different pathway, not a bad way, but just different. What's a different version?

Gino (41:16.911)
When I was younger and I graduated college in 92, there were no jobs. Job market sucked. I went to work for AIG. And I think the job market had been better and I had found the job that I liked. I actually wanted to work for a company called Value Line, which did stocks. They're probably still in business, but they're a shell of what they were. You look at these reports, they're six months old, but I love the stock market. I loved analyzing. If I had not had a tough time finding a job that I liked, I probably would not have bought the restaurant.

I would have stayed down on Wall Street, would have made a ton of money, probably wouldn't have been happy, and then I never would have met my wife, and then everything would have completely changed from there. So I think God closed that door of working down in Manhattan and said, you know what, you've gotta struggle for a few years, you've gotta buy a restaurant, you're gonna like it, it's gonna be difficult, but that's the door. And I would have been a completely different person, in a completely different venture, living a completely different life.

Seth Bradley, Esq. (41:55.33)
Yeah.

Seth Bradley, Esq. (42:08.225)
Yeah.

Yeah, it's crazy sometimes you can look back and there's just, there's a few things that easily could have gone the other way. And you probably would have preferred it at the time to go that way. And you're like, man, where would I have been? Where would I have been? Crazy, crazy how life works. Yeah. Yeah. All right, brother. I don't ask everybody this, but I think you'll enjoy this one. But when you're gone, what's one thing that you want people to remember you by?

Gino (42:13.133)
I know, it is.

Gino (42:20.835)
Yes. That's a great question. Great question. Thanks for that.

Gino (42:35.695)
Well, I mean, it's interesting. You obviously saw what happened last week with Charlie Kirk. Don't know you're a friend or not, or if you know him or not. I'm not going to say I was a Rabbit fan. I really enjoyed him. But what I like most about him is the way that people are really talking about him. Like his wife said that, you know, he never raised his voice.

Seth Bradley, Esq. (42:54.477)
Mm-hmm.

Gino (43:02.159)
And I have to say that, you know, when I'm not here, I want my wife to be able to say that about me. I want my kids to say, dad, would take a bullet for me. I want the people that I worked with, I want my investors, I want my friends and my family to say, that dude was really cool. He lived by his values. He helped lot of people out and he left the world a better place. Now you may agree or disagree with his policies, what he talked about, but you saw what he did with a lot of young people. He helped a lot of people out that were struggling.

Seth Bradley, Esq. (43:30.327)
Yeah.

Gino (43:31.833)
Forget about his politics. I'm just saying there's a lot of people out there that he empowered, that he made actually become thinkers. And I think I'd like to leave that kind of legacy myself where I can help me and my wife are talking about this. Change the world one family at a time. Because I think the family is just the core of what this country should be all about. Because if you have a healthy family unit, then that family unit can grow and that family unit can help other family units. Then all of a sudden...

We don't really need to rely on other people as much. We can rely on our families.

Seth Bradley, Esq. (44:04.619)
Yeah, yeah, well you're doing it man. You're doing it brother. Appreciate you. Where can our listeners find out more about you?

Gino (44:11.577)
just go to jacongino.com and if you want to learn about the family company it's barbarobaro360.com.

Seth Bradley, Esq. (44:20.077)
Alright brother, thanks again, really appreciate you coming on the show man, always a pleasure talking to you.

Gino (44:25.348)
Thanks, Seth.