Adding Value in Real Estate Syndications to Generate Massive Passive Income w/ Danny & Christine Bellish

[00:00:00] Danny Bellish: We like to live a nice lifestyle. We like to travel. We like to have nice things. But we are totally driven toward our goal, which is having enough cash flow for us, both to have to, for us both to not have to have nine to five jobs, 

[00:00:16] intro: you are listening to the real fi podcast where we discuss time, tested tricks, techniques, and strategies for pursuing financial independence today, so that we can enjoy a better tomorrow financial independence. Isn't about getting rich quick. It's about cultivating a foundation to grow financially, mentally, physically, and spiritually. Let's figure out how to kick the nine to five. Here are your hosts, Patrick and James. 

[00:00:48] Patrick McGrath: All right, guys. Welcome back to another episode of the real fi podcast. I'm your host Patrick McGrath with my co-host James Ripon.

[00:00:57] How's it going, James? Pretty good man.

[00:01:00] James Rippeon: Pretty good man. Hanging in there. No complaints over here.

[00:01:01] Patrick McGrath:  Excellent. Excellent. We are extremely excited today. We've got two great guests that are gonna talk about all kinds of different aspects of real estate investing. Why don't you guys go ahead and introduce yourself, Christina and Danny, how you guys doing out there?

[00:01:18] Christine Bellish: Awesome. Thanks for having 

[00:01:20] Danny Bellish: us guys. Yeah, we're really excited to be here. Obviously always love talking about real estate and having some fun with friends. I'm Danny Belles. This is my wife and business partner, Christine. We live in New Jersey and as of right now, we are apartment and net least syn indicators, but we haven't always been.

[00:01:40] So we have a long journey and a long story that we'd love to share with everybody. 

[00:01:44] James Rippeon: Absolutely. Why don't we start there? Why don't you guys tell us a little bit about your background and how you got started into your financial independence journey, where you came from, how you 

[00:01:53] Danny Bellish: came together and where you're headed.

[00:01:55] So let's start with the background. 

[00:01:58] Christine Bellish: Okay. So the background [00:02:00] part I'll get started with that one. So Danny and I met working in the corporate advertising industry in Manhattan. We both work for a publishing company, so that's where we initially met in 2014. And we started our real estate investing business together in 2018, the same year that we got married.

[00:02:16] So when we started in our real estate investing journey, we we first got our real estate licenses because we had never bought or sold real estate before . Our parents had once or twice in our lives, but like we knew nothing about the process buying and selling properties. So we got our licenses, we worked as agents for a little bit.

[00:02:36] We represented some buyers and sellers just cause he wanted to get familiar with the process. And then finally we, searching the MLS, running the numbers, doing all the underwriting. We finally took the plunge and bought our first investment property in New Jersey locally which was a two family in Asbury park in 2019.

[00:02:54] So for that one, we did a bur it was a huge huge undertaking. It was a complete gut [00:03:00] renovation wow. Yeah. For anybody who's gone down that road and our first construction project, you will feel our pain. I know what we're talking about. So we bought that property. We bird it. We can get more into that later, but we did buy another two family property in Garwood, which were house hacking.

[00:03:15] But we, we live in New Jersey. It's really expensive taxes are crazy. It's not really landlord friendly. And so we were just looking for another way to continue to build our cash flow. And that's really what got us into syndication. 

[00:03:26] Danny Bellish: Let's talk about that borough project 

[00:03:28] James Rippeon: that you guys did.

[00:03:29] Cause sounds like it was obviously 

[00:03:32] Danny Bellish: PTSD. 

[00:03:33] James Rippeon: Yeah. It sounds like it was an undertaking to stay the least. And I'm sure one of you might have been the idea person who had this bright idea to take on this project was one of, okay. Christina sounds like it was you. So one, you tell us about your thought process there and maybe how you convinced Danny to get on board with this 

[00:03:52] Christine Bellish: right.

[00:03:53] Okay. So just to give a little further background, neither of us are really handy people. Like we don't [00:04:00] have good point. We don't have manual labor skills. I blame 

[00:04:04] Danny Bellish: my dad for 

[00:04:04] Christine Bellish: sure. And I know that these are things that people teach themselves all the time. Watching videos on YouTube, doing research and a great way to learn is hands on, but just to give you background, we don't have any of that experience coming into it.

[00:04:17] The numbers made sense when I ran them. And that's really the way that I was able to convince Danny. The other thing to mention is that Asbury's been an up and coming area in New Jersey forever and I'm from New Jersey. So I grew up going to shows at the stone pony. I have friends that live locally that rent their year rounds.

[00:04:37] So we've seen firsthand both of us like that the area is definitely developing and that there's a lot of opportunity there. So we got something outta steel. But we really didn't have any concept of what it was gonna take to to do what we 

[00:04:54] Danny Bellish: were trying to do. It was also a hundred year old house.

[00:04:57] Yep. It was 1100 square feet for a [00:05:00] two unit multi-family. So it was really small one bedroom, 550 square foot units. And we had never undertaken a construction project like that before. , but this was also something we knew we wanted to do. We were actively trying to find rental property. And I think sometimes also when you're, gung-ho about something you, that you wanna get into real estate investing, especially in multifamily, you, see the brighter sides of things.

[00:05:27] And as you get more experience, you start to get more disciplined. I think this was something we, we believed in and we underwrote the financials made sense, but I think there were a lot of components about the rehab and about location and things that we fudged to make work in our favor.

[00:05:47] So yeah, 

[00:05:47] Patrick McGrath: everybody I think all new investors fudged the numbers a little bit on their first few deals. Cause every everyone's trying to get a deal and trying to make it happen. So at least you guys went out there and made it happen though. Would you so question. [00:06:00] As today, would you go back and do that same deal?

[00:06:04] Christine Bellish: Yeah, I, so I don't know if the answer will be the same for both of us. So I'll answer first. I would say yes, because we successfully bird it. We didn't get all of our money out, but we got a lot of our money out and we increased the equity significantly. 

[00:06:18] Danny Bellish: Sorry, hold on. Yeah. Should we explain what bur is for the audience?

[00:06:22] Sure. Go for it. Yeah. Go for it. Talk us through that. Yeah. So it's a really pretty sound method in real estate, especially used for small multi-family property, like two to four units. It's in acronym that stands for by renovate rent, refinance and repeat. So it allows you to go into a property rehab.

[00:06:46] Obviously, bring it up to market standards, fill it with tenants refinance so that you could realize and take out all the equity that you put into it, through the renovation and have it [00:07:00] continue to cash flow. So essentially in the ideal model, you end up leaving no cash in the deal, but it, you still own it and it continues to cash flow and you take that money that you've extracted from the equity.

[00:07:12] And you repeat that process over and over again. Yeah. 

[00:07:15] Christine Bellish: So we bought it. Yeah. So we bought it for 2 35. We put 130 K into it and it appraised at four 40. So we got a big chunk of change back. And to finance it, we financed it out of our pocket. So like from our corporate salaries, from our saving, from all of that, we went all in on this.

[00:07:33] We, we didn't finance the renovation at all. That was. All of our savings that we've, worked really hard for a long time. So on the other side of it, we're making we're cash flowing about 12%, which is like huge, especially in 

[00:07:46] New 

[00:07:47] Danny Bellish: Jersey conservatively 12% after taking out expenses, vacancy, CapEx, maintenance, putting reserves, having enough aside, if anything should ever happen.

[00:07:57] So what does it run for per side? [00:08:00] 

[00:08:00] Christine Bellish: So it's an up and down actually up and down. It was a single family that was converted to it too. So that's why it's up and down. And it rents for the downstairs is like 1750 now, or like 1742. 

[00:08:14] Danny Bellish: That's New Jersey for you. Yeah. 

[00:08:16] Christine Bellish: And the upstairs is like 16 around 1650.

[00:08:20] Danny Bellish: That's also here in 

[00:08:21] James Rippeon: North Carolina. You can literally rent a mans. 

[00:08:24] Danny Bellish: For 1700 bucks a month 

[00:08:26] Christine Bellish: and here you're renting 550 square feet. 

[00:08:28] Danny Bellish: You're also like six minutes from the beach. You're in a really young, fun music, culture, arts type of area that that we really believed in. She went to a ton growing up and just an area that we believed in and to get back to your original question of, would we do this again?

[00:08:47] I think we would do it again. We would execute it much differently. Yeah. Because there were a number of issues with our contractor, which of course is a recurring theme in real estate also. But now, [00:09:00] because we're also, we've drastically changed our business model to focus on syndication, which we could talk about also.

[00:09:08] But we also just have a passion for doing things more locally, right? When you invest in syndication, Normally, at least for us, a lot of that is not happening in the Northeast and in California, especially if we're talking B and C class value, add where you're really getting things at a good cost basis.

[00:09:27] Those are happening in different types of markets than we're in. And we still do wanna have property in our backyard. So I think this is something that we would do again. 

[00:09:37] Patrick McGrath: That's awesome. I think those first deals really make or break you and you guys went 

[00:09:42] Danny Bellish: out, oh man, it broke us a little bit, but yeah, we're back and fighting another 

[00:09:47] Patrick McGrath: day.

[00:09:48] So you guys went out you bird your first property and you guys were obviously living somewhere else at this time, and then you decided, Hey, you know what, let's go ahead and house ack. So right now you guys [00:10:00] are currently living in a house. Ack, is that 

[00:10:01] Christine Bellish: correct? Correct. Yeah. So we looked for a really long time.

[00:10:07] To try to find another deal in New Jersey. So as much PTSD as we have from our Asbury project, our bur we were like, okay, we learned a lot in that. I feel like we could do it better. Let's like try to do it again. Running the numbers in this area and the places that we wanna live, which are like on a train line, pretty close to Manhattan, it's really hard to make the numbers work.

[00:10:28] The only way for us to really make the numbers work was to house hack it. So we live right. We lived previously in Jersey city and we were renting. So Jersey city is like right across the river from Manhattan. We were living in a luxury Highrise 30th floor 

[00:10:41] Danny Bellish: overlooking the city paying $3,000 a month for a one bedroom.

[00:10:45] Yeah. Yeah. again, to your point what you could get in other places for $3,000 a month, but that's part of city living, right? That it's, it is expensive and you pay for that convenience . But we wanted to, continue on this real [00:11:00] estate journey. We knew that in a lot of ways, it takes money to make money.

[00:11:04] So where could we invest in an asset and still be able to collect rent and have that be part of our cash flow. So we could house hack. And when we move from here, it turns into another rental opportunity for us. So we have an up and down right now when we rent the upstairs for. We just raised the rent to $2,300 a month and it's a three bed, one bath upstairs, and a three bed, two bath downstairs where we live plus a full finished basement that we use, like as a gym.

[00:11:34] Yeah. And has another bathroom down there and our washer dryer. So this is way, significantly more space than we had in Jersey city. And we're paying, close to like less than half than what we were paying to live in Jersey city. And 

[00:11:49] Christine Bellish: to, just to jump in on that, I know that some people in other areas when they house hack, their living expenses are zero.

[00:11:57] So just to reiterate again, like where we live, it's [00:12:00] super expensive. So the fact that we cut our living expenses in half is huge for us 

[00:12:05] Danny Bellish: and tripled our space. 

[00:12:06] Christine Bellish: Exactly. And tripled our space. And when we move out, we're gonna cash flow. So for us, it's a win. 

[00:12:12] James Rippeon: So let's talk a little bit about how house hacking has helped you mentally with your financial independence journey.

[00:12:18] Cause I know that when I've done it in the past, it's been this eye opening experience where you realize that people will pay you to, live and you can actually really reduce your living expense. And you're, that has a big effect on you mentally. So can you talk about how that maybe opened up doors for you guys and what that did for.

[00:12:37] Christine Bellish: Oh man. It's, it really is one of those things where I wish that I knew about it sooner. And I feel like it's just such a straightforward concept. Like we're not reinventing the wheel here. So I feel like us having this experience and us learning about this firsthand is going to be like one of the best gifts that we can also give to our family and friends and [00:13:00] future generations, like when we have kids we're definitely gonna make them house hack.

[00:13:04] Like you can do that even when you're in college. I think from the mental aspect of it, I think it just, we got to the point where. We loved where we lived so much and living city life was amazing, but obviously a pandemic happens. Okay. And so when we're living in 800 square feet and we are paying for it and we're paying for the convenience of being in the city, but we're not able to enjoy any of the reasons why we pay so much money to live there.

[00:13:30] We really just started questioning, is it worth it? And it was when we first moved there, but by the time that we moved out, it just wasn't. And, just to take that a step further, when we moved out of our Jersey city apartment we didn't have a house purchased yet.

[00:13:45] So we moved in with my aunts and we saved money for a couple of months while we were looking for a place to live. And that in itself was huge too, because we were able to build up our savings even more. 

[00:13:57] Danny Bellish: Yeah. I think for me it's all part of a longer [00:14:00] journey, right? Like for me, Every dollar, at least that we get now gets reinvesting.

[00:14:07] So it's. It became a no brainer as we decided that our life was going to be in real estate investing, which it is in totality now. So even if we could save 12 or 1500 bucks a month and after a few months be able to take, that money and reinvest it into a syndication into one of our GP deals into something else, that's where that peace of mind comes in is , we like to live a nice lifestyle.

[00:14:38] We like to travel. We like to have nice things. But we are totally driven toward our goal, which is having enough cash flow for us both to have to, for us both to not have to have nine to five jobs. Yeah. And be in that rat race. So we had Christine quit her job almost four years ago and focus on our [00:15:00] real estate investing journey full time.

[00:15:02] I am like right behind her. So anything that we could do to contribute to that will help me mentally have some peace of mind that we are every day working toward that 

[00:15:14] Christine Bellish: goal. Yeah. And it's definitely provided us with more to Danny's point. It's provided us with more money to invest, right? And we personally invest in all of the deals that we are sponsors for when it comes to our syndications.

[00:15:28] And let's be real, like the money isn't endless, right? Like we if we have to get the money from somewhere and if we're not trying to put in more hours for it, him working more hours at his w two job, or like getting a salary increase or something like that, either you have to cut expenses somewhere or you need to make it up in investing.

[00:15:44] So us cutting our expenses has allowed us to invest in a lot more opportunities that we wouldn't have been able to. If we didn't cut that expense, I think that's 

[00:15:54] James Rippeon: super important. You meet a lot of people who try to cut. Every expense they have outta their life, but you can [00:16:00] only cut so much, but house hacking is the, probably the best place to start.

[00:16:05] Cause you're gonna reduce such a huge chunk of expense from your life. And then after that, it gives you the capacity to bill and grow and generate those streams of income that you guys are working on. Now it gives you that runway. So I think that's super powerful. 

[00:16:19] Patrick McGrath: Yeah. And yeah. 

[00:16:21] Go 

[00:16:21] Christine Bellish: ahead. Sorry. I was just gonna say that and for us, like it was cutting an expense, but it gave us a better quality of life also.

[00:16:30] So in this circumstance, I know that's not always the case for everyone. Sometimes it's more of a sacrifice for some people, but for us, we were sacrificing how close we were to Manhattan, but we have three beds, two baths, like multiple floors. We have a backyard, like we can ride our bikes outside, it's just a totally different way of life and it's 

[00:16:49] Danny Bellish: costing us less money.

[00:16:51] So yeah it's rolling with this, pandemic situation that we're all dealing with. So that's also like having the flexibility and a little bit [00:17:00] of the intuition to like make quick decisions and take quick action. Like it all brought it up to each other. It was like we were in Jersey city in this small apartment.

[00:17:10] Our lease came up and it was like, Let's house hack. Like this could be going on for another few years. Let's not wait another year and see what happens. Let's take action now, because even in the best case scenario, we're still doing something that's right for our future. 

[00:17:26] Patrick McGrath: Exactly. And that kind of segues into, our next part of, what financial independence kind of means to both of you and where you currently are with that.

[00:17:36] And then what your ultimate goals are because you guys have sacrificed and kept pushing the needle forward over the past few years. And all of the things that we just talked about have led you to where you are now. What does that look like right now? and then what are your guys' goals, coming up in say the next two or three years.

[00:17:57] Danny Bellish: Yeah. And I definitely appreciate that [00:18:00] question. And it's something that, especially as a husband, wife team you talk about all the time, right? When you're an independent person, like entrepreneur pursuing your goals, it might all stay in your head or you have a vision board, but like we talk about this stuff constantly.

[00:18:16] Yeah. Part of the gifted curse of having a spouse as your business partner is you never stop talking about business. But for us, it's When it comes to financial independence and again, the last eight months have been drastically different from us burring, a two family or us house hack, right?

[00:18:33] Like now we have 588 units and are starting a fund. It's like a whole different trajectory. And if you would've asked us this question eight months ago, it's completely different than the answer that I'll give you now. But for us, financial independence is we like to have fun first and foremost, like when we met, we were the two most fun people that we knew, right?

[00:18:55] Like we like to go out. We like to have fun. We think life is about having [00:19:00] fun and being happy. And financial independence has a lot to do with that. Financial independence will give us the opportunity to have more fun, to travel more, to do the things that we love to do most. And that could be.

[00:19:14] Something, or it could be nothing, but it gives us the choice and it gives us the options to do what we want to do, from a fun and hobby standpoint, but also from a project standpoint right now that we're getting involved in syndications, we get to pick and choose the projects that we want to be involved in.

[00:19:33] And that's, what's special for us. Yeah. And not only about doing things for us, but helping our family. So part of syndication is raising money from passive investors, right? So over the last. Eight months, we've raised almost 3 million from our network. And a lot of that is friends and family who are going to be making returns.

[00:19:56] And they're gonna be able to do more of the things that they [00:20:00] wanna do because they're gonna be getting those funds passively. So we have conversations with friends and family all the time, and they're so grateful and so appreciative of those opportunities that they wouldn't normally have. So that's what it looks like.

[00:20:14] Our ultimate goal obviously is for us both to be cash long enough for me to leave my job, which we are very much on the way to continue to do that. Get to a place where we both get to decide what we wanna do on a day to day basis. So let's 

[00:20:33] James Rippeon: talk a little bit about your syndication business.

[00:20:35] Tell us just generally. What is syndication? What the heck is it? How does it work? And then tell us a little bit about how that works into your guys' pursuit of generating passive income for you guys personally, maybe talk a little bit about what you do for the people that you're bringing into your deals, as well as investors.

[00:20:55] Christine Bellish: Yeah. So first things first, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna take it back to like how we [00:21:00] learned about syndication, because we had no clue, and I feel like most people that we talked to really have never heard of it before. We luckily right before the pandemic had a shut in the beginning of 2020, we.

[00:21:12] We went to a real estate meet up in Manhattan. And we just started networking with people. We were chit chatting like before the presentation started and we just so happened to start to talk to somebody and we really hit it off. He had a nice Southern accent. And then a couple minutes later he ends up being the keynote speaker and his name is Kenny Wolf.

[00:21:31] So this is the guy that we first learned about syndication from and what we thought we were going there to learn about was buying small multi-families out of state because I was killing myself, looking for deals, on the MLS off market, whatever in New Jersey. And I just couldn't make the numbers work as much as I was trying to fudge them and make them work.

[00:21:51] , I wasn't trying to get into another project like we had just gotten into, so was trying to be more disciplined, learn from our experience and We were just [00:22:00] like, okay, can't make the numbers work here in New Jersey. Like we need to start looking out of states. So we thought that it was gonna be about buying two to four units out of state.

[00:22:08] It didn't end up being about that. It ended up being about syndication. So what syndication is basically when people pool their money in resources to purchase large assets and then everybody shares in the returns from it. Okay. So there's a bunch of different structures depending on who you invest with, but.

[00:22:28] but in a nutshell, that's really what it is. And the projects that we personally have gotten involved with on the multifamily side of things are value add projects. So what you do basically is similar to what you would do. If you were buying a smaller multifamily, you go in there and you make updates, which improves the value of the property.

[00:22:47] But when you're talking about really large, multi-family proper. Their value is based on the income that they generate. When you improve a property, you can raise the rent most likely, right? That's the whole [00:23:00] purpose. And by raising the rent, you're exponentially raising the value of that property.

[00:23:04] So then when you go to seller refinance it, you split the proceeds between all of the people who participate in it. So there's two groups of investors that are involved. There's one group that's called the general partnership. And so that's the people who are actively participating in the deal.

[00:23:20] That's the people that are finding the deal, the people that are fundraising for the deal that are, getting all the lending for it. If you're getting financing on it, they're coming up with the With the plan that you're gonna implement. And then they're actually implementing the plan. They're hiring property management, they're handling all of the day to day operations.

[00:23:37] And then there's another side of the investing group and they're called the limited partners. And those are people that are passive investors. And when we say passive, we use passive and real estate a lot, right? So technically if you own like us, our Asbury park property that we bird that's a passive investment, but it wasn't we worked very hard for that.

[00:23:56] I mixed concrete. We like love, we, we did a lot for that project. [00:24:00] So when we say passive and we're talking about syndication, it's actually passive it's you invest your money and you don't do anything. 

[00:24:08] Danny Bellish: So it's definitely a method that we were not familiar with until a few years ago.

[00:24:14] And it's actually something that takes place all over the world all the time, right? These large experienced operators as they're called or GP general partners, they raise money from passive investors to, for the down payment, the closing costs, the renovation costs and the reserves. And then as they implement this strategy, this value add strategy where they make exterior improvements.

[00:24:40] They rebrand the property. They put in new property management, they do interior renovations and they raise the rents to market rents. You're able to cash flow and have those proceeds from the sale and everybody shares in those proceeds. So it's a phenomenal [00:25:00] structure that a lot of people are not really privy to.

[00:25:04] So it's really interesting how we got started. So that's what I was 

[00:25:08] Patrick McGrath: just about to ask is yeah. How the heck did you guys get in there? I've been to a couple different syndication kind of meetups and everything. And it's, Hey, you need a minimum of 25 or 50 or a hundred thousand dollars to invest in these deals.

[00:25:24] How did you guys. How are you guys able to get started in this and invest in, in one of these deals? 

[00:25:30] Danny Bellish: So essentially, like Christine said, we went to this networking event where they were the keynote speakers were there to talk about real estate syndication. And there they taught us about what this is, and they started to talk about some of the returns that these syndications offer.

[00:25:49] And a lot of it was more than what we were getting to, like Christine said, break our necks, dealing with the three tees of, rentals, tenants, toilets, and [00:26:00] termites, for our own property that you could make totally passively without doing anything. And I dunno, we looked at each other and we were like, that sounds like bullshit.

[00:26:09] I don't know. That sounds like too good to be true. So we left that meeting and we. We're intrigued though, at the same time. So we did our own due diligence. So for about nine months, we studied syndication. We talked to the keynote speaker who was there and asked him a million questions.

[00:26:29] We spoke to his investors, we spoke to his attorneys. We looked at the markets that he was investing in. We looked at his deal structure and his strategies, and he was super forthcoming about all of the information and answered every single one of our questions. So after about nine months, we ended up investing passively in two of his deals.

[00:26:51] And listen, we are. In our mid thirties, right early to mid thirties. And we had been working in New York city, corporate [00:27:00] advertising. We were pretty high income earners at that time. Yeah. And we were really doing a lot of saving for the purpose of investing. So we had created a nice nest egg for us to be able to put towards something like a new property.

[00:27:16] But in this case, we were. Maybe this is what we should be approaching, right? If our goal is to really scale our business and blow this out with a lot of units and also take our more corporate experience, like Christine said, we're not handy, right? We can't go in and just be able to re every property.

[00:27:35] But what do we know? We know marketing, we know branding, we know advertising, we know investor relations. Maybe this is a path that we should take, but by starting as a passive investor, now we get to see the inner workings of an individual deal. We get property management reports. We get to know the nuances of what it takes to purchase a large, several hundred [00:28:00] unit apartment complex and be able to add value to something of that size so we invested in two of his deals passively, and we just started to get quarterly checks. We were just getting checks for doing absolutely nothing. And we were like, holy shit. Yeah, we are onto something. Yeah. This really does work. This is incredible. I 

[00:28:21] Christine Bellish: just wanna track my quickly.

[00:28:22] So and I'm just gonna fast forward a little bit, the returns that we were getting in our passive and really truly passive investments in syndication became our benchmark when we were evaluating other deals. Because if we're gonna make that return for doing nothing. Why am I gonna put my money into something and I'm all and sweat and tears and sweat.

[00:28:43] Exactly. So that's really what sort of became like our north star. And so we never stopped evaluating deals locally, and we will still continue like we said, as a passion project, I would love to have more properties in our area, but we need to use logic and we need to be smart about [00:29:00] it.

[00:29:00] So if we're getting better returns for doing nothing, the whole point is we don't want to constantly be trading our time for money. And in this situation, we can put our money in and it doesn't take a lot of our 

[00:29:11] Danny Bellish: time. We know what the value of our dollar will get back for us.

[00:29:15] Yeah. Versus having to put energy and resources on top of that. My father always 

[00:29:20] James Rippeon: had a saying, he would always tell me he was a blue collar guy. He worked hard his whole life, but he had this saying, he'd always say work smart, 

[00:29:26] Danny Bellish: not hard. It 

[00:29:28] James Rippeon: sounds like you guys found something where you can work really smart.

[00:29:32] And here's the key leverage. Find ways to leverage time, money, and other people's experience to really get out outsized returns on your investment. I don't know if you can speak to this, but could you tell us a little bit more specifically what your returns were in those prior deals that you did? Is that something that you could talk about?

[00:29:53] Danny Bellish: Yeah, I think what might help is the deals that we ended up getting involved in, so we invested [00:30:00] passively with this guy twice, and I, here is I think, where a lot of the lesson could be. So like I said, we have been around the block in terms of our experience in the corporate world and in business.

[00:30:13] So what we decided to do at that time was say, so our, the guy we were investing passively with, he now has 7,000 units in six different states and 350 million in assets. So this guy was the model of success. If this is what we wanted to do. Yes. . So what we decided to do was take it upon ourselves to evaluate his whole consumer facing business and investor facing business because we come from an advertising, branding, investor relations, content creation background, So we created an entire innovative and evolved marketing strategy for him to not only reach new investors, but to be able [00:31:00] to reach new brokers and new opportunities.

[00:31:03] And we asked him for an hour of his time and presented him an entire marketing strategy, content strategy, and investor relations guideline that he could follow to better his own business. And we did that completely. Free as us wanting to show him value after walking him through it, he was totally receptive.

[00:31:28] Really saw the value in it. And after that, we spent an entire year just doing totally pro bono free consulting for him and his business. Again, just trying to show him that we are diligent, reliable that savvy and it was an exchange for him being available to us as a mentor, and to answer all of our syndication questions.

[00:31:54] So after a year of doing totally pro bono work for him and investing [00:32:00] passively with him, and investing passively to show him we are financially investing in yes. Skin in the game as well. We went for it. We said, Hey. Kenny. What do you think about us actually coming in with you on the GP side of one of your upcoming deals?

[00:32:15] And he was absolutely into it immediately said yes. And said, absolutely, I have a 291 unit deal in Cleveland, Ohio that I'm closing soon. Why don't you come in with me 

[00:32:26] Christine Bellish: and raise a million dollars? 

[00:32:28] Danny Bellish: We were like, first, we were like, holy shit. Oh my God. We just hit the jackpot. Yeah. All of our hard work just paid off.

[00:32:35] That is absolutely incredible. And then we 

[00:32:37] Christine Bellish: were like, oh shit, we've never raised money from anybody ever before. And now we're supposed to raise a million dollars. How the hell do we do that? 

[00:32:46] Danny Bellish: so raising money became a whole different scene. 

[00:32:49] Patrick McGrath: I think what's so important. There is that, you guys found something.

[00:32:54] Pique your interest for your skills. And you said, how can we provide value? What do [00:33:00] we have to offer to, to get our foot in the door? And you went for it and you did, you used your skills and you researched and you figured it out, you presented it to him and that got you. That just got you access.

[00:33:14] That gave you the phone number, the email, all of that, to start asking your questions, to learning more. So he's basically teaching you all the things that you need to know. So when you finally go and ask him, if you could be a part of the deal, he's the one that taught you. So he is I know their skills.

[00:33:31] I know what they bring to the table. And then you went out and you took your big shot and you got in on a deal, which is amazing. But all of this timeline sounds like it was about, 18 months. So for everybody out there, you gotta remember real estate is a long-term play. And you when you find your niche and your opportunity, you really gotta buckle down and play it out.

[00:33:54] And this isn't a get rich quick thing. It takes anyone, everyone, and anyone has to put in the work [00:34:00] to really make it happen. Here we are now you got the opportunity and he says, yeah, here's your opportunity, but I need you to raise a million dollars. How much have you raised before that? 

[00:34:11] Danny Bellish: Zero?

[00:34:12] Literally zero, zero. Like I said, we, we come from the corporate world, so we've done multimillion dollar deals in advertising with some of the biggest brands in the entire world. But that's all B2B, that's all within your job structure, right? Yeah, we're 

[00:34:28] Christine Bellish: getting marketing budgets.

[00:34:30] We're not asking people for their savings and their hard earned money to invest with us. So it was a totally different scenario. But one, one thing that I wanna mention too about like season the opportunity and getting the opportunity is we were really encouraged by our partner. Who gave us this opportunity because he said something that really stuck with us when we were having all these conversations with him, at certain points we were like, maybe this is something that we're interested in doing ourselves.

[00:34:57] We've done a couple small multifamily things locally in New [00:35:00] Jersey, but maybe this is something that we're interested in. And we had spent a lot of time on bigger pockets, listening to podcasts, like reading, everything, consuming, everything, YouTube videos, books, whatever, like everyone else. And a lot of the stories that we were hearing were about people buying a small multifamily and borrowing it and then using that money to buy another one and then using that money to buy another one.

[00:35:21] And then, Amasssing a decent portfolio of small multi families and then basically selling all of that to level up to the bigger stuff, right? Like a 60 unit apartment complex or something like that leveling up. And what Kenny said to us was you don't have to start small. He was like, you don't have to start small just because that's a narrative and that's a story and that's experiences that you've heard like of people having success with doesn't mean that has to be you.

[00:35:51] And I think that just totally opened our minds to the possibility. Also, like we definitely had limiting beliefs in the beginning when we first even started. [00:36:00] Having these conversations about syndication. We're like, oh, this guy has 5,000 units at the time. We're like, this guy has 5,000 units.

[00:36:05] There's no way, like he's out of our league. There's no way we could do something like this. Like we don't know the first thing about what to do. The reality is at these larger levels, there are the economies of scale, right? So it makes sense to hire property management. And you have people in place that are professionals that can implement these plans.

[00:36:24] And there's a lot of like strategies and processes that you can put in play to make it happen. So I think, that, that was just something that I thought really made a lot of sense. And I, I think for other people too, who feel like you have to get started small, you don't necessarily have to.

[00:36:38] I think I know 

[00:36:38] James Rippeon: what you're gonna say when I ask this question, but so I'm gonna, I'm just gonna throw this soft follow up for you. How much more difficult is a syndication deal to do, as opposed to maybe your Burr property deal like it, is it more 

[00:36:54] Danny Bellish: difficult? It is more difficult. I don't agree with you.

[00:36:58] It's a path. It is definitely it's [00:37:00] more cumbersome, right? There are just more nuances with it, you're dealing with whenever you're dealing with more money it's just. It, you need different types of lending. You need different types of insurance. You need to be really on top of property management.

[00:37:15] You need to be, you need to have a path and a strategy. And especially when you're dealing with syndication, you're dealing with a lot of different investors. So I'm not gonna say it's the same. It's definitely not the same. Yeah. But the fundamentals of how it operates are very much the same.

[00:37:32] Christine Bellish: I think to me, the reason why my initial response was gonna be like the same or easier is just because this is more in our wheelhouse. It's more of like the administrative side of things. It's more of the marketing and advertising and project management and investor relations. And that's what we have experience doing in our corporate careers.

[00:37:54] So to me, when I say that it's. Easier. It's not that it's, it wouldn't be easier [00:38:00] for everyone, for us. It is easier because it's more natural. It's more natural to us. It's the things that we're good at already. 

[00:38:07] Patrick McGrath: Yeah. Makes sense. For someone like myself, I am handy. I, and I'm not very detail oriented when it comes to a lot of those things.

[00:38:15] I'm great with, meeting with people, running numbers, all of that, when it comes to being detail oriented on that aspect. But I can just imagine all of the paperwork and making sure you have all the different things for the appraisals and the water and the title and the zoning and the lawyers and attorneys and everything else just in the, couple, medium size, deals that I've.

[00:38:41] And I'm the one responsible for all that. And it's man I think that's my limiting beliefs on getting to a 50 or a hundred plus it's holy crap. I'm the only one that does all that right now. And there's not enough meat on the bone in the beginning to hire someone to go out and do those things.

[00:38:57] So when you're talking about a couple hundred units, [00:39:00] like you said, you have the team in place, you're getting those you're getting those fees at closing or monthly, management fees and different things like that, that can pay for all those professionals. And with the economies a scale, you're talking a 300 unit property with $800 rents, 240,000.

[00:39:22] What is. I think a month or something like that. So close to that you can afford to do those things. So that's huge. 

[00:39:29] Christine Bellish: Yeah. That's huge. And this is why we're able to do it is because we partnered with the right people, right? Like we're not doing all of this on our own.

[00:39:38] And it, I don't know that we would've had the confidence to do it all on our own. Like the reason why we have the confidence in doing it is because we're partnering with people that are experienced and we're learning from them. And. They have a history and a track record of success. So when we're going to our family, friends, like the people that we love the most in the world, we're not just asking them to bet on us who have never done this [00:40:00] before.

[00:40:00] Like we're showing them these people who have a ton of experience who have a ton of success. And we're saying, this is something that we're involved in. We think that it's cool for XYZ reasons. Like you should learn more about 

[00:40:11] Danny Bellish: it too, and think that's huge, everybody. 

[00:40:13] Patrick McGrath: Sorry. Yeah. I wanna, say one thing though, real quick, because I think that's huge because there is a lot of different.

[00:40:19] Podcast and YouTube channels out there that are telling people to go out and start syndicating first with that and saying that you can do it with no experience. It's just the same as buying a, a four unit or whatever. And I think that's that what you just said right there is so huge because you are a part of a team that has a track record, and you're not going to your friends and family and relatives and asking to bet on yourself.

[00:40:49] And there's a lot of people out there that are doing that and are getting burned and burning not only themselves and their relationship, but their [00:41:00] relationships, their friends and family. And I think that's huge because syndication is a great model. It really is. And I'm looking forward to hearing the rest of the story, but I think that it's just so key is that you guys decided to partner.

[00:41:13] With someone else who was successful and maybe down the road, your ultimate goal might be to start your own syndication fund. I'm sure you guys have thought about that. But now with the experience and the backing, to be able to do that and have, a track record of being successful at it. And I that's huge.

[00:41:33] Danny Bellish: So we have a little bit of a trend and like of reaching up to people that we aspire to be in a way and holding on for dear life, right? Like that's what we wanna do. We wanna find those people that we look up to and that we could see ourselves being, and we want to add value to that person in any way humanly possible and get them to recognize us [00:42:00] and give us some attention if they're willing to.

[00:42:04] And we don't take that for granted whatsoever. So even before we met Kenny, we had been doing what we did for him for a bunch of other syndicators, too. And we went on meetups and for every meetup or event that we ever went on, After we went to that thing, we would write handwritten thank you notes to the speakers of those events.

[00:42:26] And we would thank them for their time. Let them know that we were marketing experts and that we're happy to evaluate their business totally for free, and that we're willing to give our time, energy and effort. So it wasn't just, we were one for one, we tried this all over town, right? With people who like you have their own podcast, or we know that they have a successful syndication business.

[00:42:48] We did this with a lot of leaders in this industry. So that we could so that we could level up sooner because that's what we're about. We're about ambitious and aggressive growth. And that's the [00:43:00] way that we know maybe it's a little of at New York city attitude in us, but it's like shoot for the stars, and, but do it with, by showing value, right? Like at this point now that we have like almost 600 units, we're starting a fund. People are reaching out to us now, too, but it's easy to weed out the people who have their handouts versus the people who are ready to, put the gloves on and ready to go to work.

[00:43:26] Patrick McGrath: . Yeah. And exactly what you guys are saying is what they say on bigger pockets and the Michael B Blanc show and rod Khali, they always say reach out and provide value and. Somebody is, if you provide enough value and you have something to offer, someone's gonna give you a shot. And that's exactly what you guys did.

[00:43:49] And it's the same thing. The, this is a proven roadmap to success that people tell you all the time that we're telling you right here, there's a proven roadmap to success. We're not [00:44:00] reinventing the wheel on any of this stuff that we're talking about. It's just the people that are actually going out.

[00:44:06] They're, committed they're dedicated and they're taking action because they want to go after their goals and their dreams. So that's absolutely amazing. I'd really like to get into. How you got over initially raising that first million dollars. Because I know that's something that I'm struggling with.

[00:44:24] I'm at a point in my investing journey where I need to start having some partners and asking for some money. And I know Danny me, and you have talked about this before offline, but I think for everybody else out there, can you give us a little idea of how that all went down and how you guys feel now eight or nine months later after raising over 3 million.

[00:44:45] Christine Bellish: So I just wanna start with we've been talking about real estate for a long time now. So even before we started reaching out to people and asking if they wanted to participate in an investing opportunity, they knew that we [00:45:00] were interested in real estate. They knew that we were involved in real estate.

[00:45:03] We talked about it constantly. and the perspective that we've had since we started, even though our journey has evolved since, since we got started with our bur and all that stuff, like we've always been open and we've always wanted to share with people. We always wanted to educate people through our experience.

[00:45:22] We always have been accessible to people to ask questions. And I think it's interesting because we would get asked a lot, like why do we spend so much time, like posting on social media? Why do we share so much? It's not everybody's business. And like you're giving away all this education for free.

[00:45:38] Like why are you doing that? And to us, it's a no brainer because we come from the marketing and advertising world. But it's part of that is establishing our credibility. And also establishing our experience. And it's also building trust with people, even if you're not having those day to day one-on-one conversations with people.

[00:45:56] So even if we're not talking to somebody, one-on-one [00:46:00] by seeing our social media posts, by seeing what we're up to, it's like a way for people to keep up with us and, get to know us better, whether we've ever met in person or not. So I, I just wanted to mention that first that we put ourselves out there way before we started having these conversations.

[00:46:15] And I think that helped a lot. 

[00:46:17] Danny Bellish: So to answer your question, so we were tasked, so each of the general partners sort of role and responsibilities to help raise money for the deal. So this first deal that we did had a total raise of 5.5 million. So our partner was. , it would be great if you guys could raise a million bucks.

[00:46:37] And the last thing that we wanted to do at that point was work so hard to get his attention. Finally get a piece of the GP and to let him down. So even though we were like, oh shit, we have never done this before. This is crazy. We were like, all right, what are we gonna do? Say, no let's jump in.

[00:46:55] Let's do what we do. Let's go nuts. And talking about [00:47:00] partnership, Christine and I have a phenomenal balance of skill, and things that we want to do. Like she can be a salesperson also. She can talk to investors also, but she doesn't like to do that as much as I do. I love meeting new people.

[00:47:16] I love talking about these deals. I have no. No qualms, no shame. Heel. It's not no shame. It's yeah. Yeah. It's this accomplishing, this goal is more important to me than anything else. Yeah. It's more important to me than my ego. It's more important to me than people thinking something about me. It's more important than us, like going out to a party.

[00:47:39] So we were just absolutely relentless and reached out to. Pretty much everybody we've ever met in our entire lives. So we came up with a little bit, we first we came in hot. And we were like, here's every detail about this deal. And like just wanted people to like immediately say yes.

[00:47:58] And then, we had a come to [00:48:00] Jesus moment where we were like, okay, let's take a step back. 

[00:48:03] Christine Bellish: We threw all of our sales principles out the door because we were so stressed out and we were so excited and we were like, we just gotta hammer this deal down everyone's throats. And then we looked at ourselves and we were like, Oh, my God.

[00:48:14] That's horrible. That is not who we are. That is not that's not how we approach anything. The way that we approach things is by making friends with people, we wanna empower people. We wanna teach people. We wanna have conversations with people. We want people to feel comfortable with us. We don't.

[00:48:29] We're not convincing people of anything. We want people to get involved who wanna be involved. And we want people to learn more who are interested in learning more. So we changed our approach after our initial blitz. 

[00:48:42] Danny Bellish: blitz 

[00:48:43] Patrick McGrath: is after your after your word. Information 

[00:48:46] Danny Bellish: vomit. We did. We did. I literally had some people text me and be like, I think that might be the longest text I've ever received in my life.

[00:48:54] and I was like, what am I doing? I was like, I need to really take a breath [00:49:00] here. And we got back to basics what we really know, and it started to come so naturally to us. So we just created a little bit of a marketing engine that started with everything from social media and building an email list and creating videos and content and filtered down.

[00:49:18] Our biggest call to action is let's have a one on one conversation. Let's go out for a drink. Let's go out for dinner. And as time consuming as that can really. That is absolutely what moves the needle. Yes. Is actually spending that personal time with somebody one on one and answering every single one of their questions to the best of your ability.

[00:49:38] And it's also that response time, right? Like we come from New York city, corporate life for the 800th time. It is unacceptable to respond to somebody after 24 hours. Yeah. So we were on every response, we answered everybody's question. We were professional friendly, reliable, relatable, and that's like what we wanted to create as our [00:50:00] brand moving forward.

[00:50:01] Christine Bellish: And I was just gonna jump to say that the more that you are reaching out to people genuinely and creating connections, the more that these conversations happen organically. As a salesperson as we have been in our corporate careers and everything in life is sales, right?

[00:50:17] Let's like people don't like to use the term sales, but what we're doing is sales too. Now the, exactly the best way to, to connect with people is to ask them questions. So when we reach out to people and we ask them how they are, like, when we're catching up with somebody, when you know, how are your kids, how was your birthday?

[00:50:35] How was your vacation? If you're friends with somebody on social media and you see what they're up to and you reach out to them and you see what's up with their lives, it's a natural human response for them to be like, what's up with you? How are you? How is work? How is real estate. And that's a perfect segue into us being able to talk about this without us hammering it over their head and blitzing them and being like, do you wanna invest in this deal?

[00:50:54] So that, that's how we changed our strategy. 

[00:50:57] James Rippeon: Like grant card says sell or [00:51:00] be sold. think you might have wrote a book on that. Yeah. And I think this is super important for every one of our listeners to pick up on this. And this has been a consistent theme throughout this whole episode is relationships are at the key and the base and the foundation of all your real estate transactions.

[00:51:17] Everything you're gonna do in this industry is gonna be built on relationships. No matter if it's managing your 

[00:51:21] Danny Bellish: contractors 

[00:51:23] James Rippeon: or working with the real estate agent or finding investors to work with uni syndication, and most importantly, which has benefited you guys is finding that mentor. That's gonna give you the time of data, get you guys where you want to go in your real estate investing journey.

[00:51:38] So I think that's super important for people to pick up on those little nuggets that you guys are dropping along the way here, manage those relationships and treat them properly as, and give them the time that they need. 

[00:51:49] Patrick McGrath: It's so true. Sorry. I think what's also huge now is. In being in sales, myself and anyone who's gonna be in real estate and invest in real estate.

[00:51:58] Like you said, you're either selling [00:52:00] or being sold. You're going to have to learn some sales abilities. And I think the biggest thing sometimes is letting people tell you how they need to be sold, because everyone has a different reason for why they're investing. Everyone has a different reason on what numbers are.

[00:52:20] Good. Anything that's good to, you might not be good to them or what you think is okay. They might think is great. So letting them tell you how to present to them is so huge. You did what every rookie salesperson does in the beginning when they're really excited about something is you tell everybody all the great things that you think are so great about the deal and they could give a shit less about any of that stuff.

[00:52:44] Yep. And you learned that and you rewind it and it helped you get there. And I think another key point, what you said is just anyone you guys were talking about real estate for years, your family members, your friends, they saw you investing in the duplexes. They know [00:53:00] that you're house hacking.

[00:53:01] You're doing all of those things. You're talking about all this stuff with everyone. So when you, when it finally becomes a question of if they wanna invest, or if they're interested in investing, they've probably already been thinking about all of this stuff. As you're telling 'em about all the different things that you're doing.

[00:53:18] So most likely. It's there and I'm sure a lot of people were really excited to talk to you about it and be like, Hey, I was wondering when you were gonna ask, cuz I've been me and the wife have been thinking about getting involved, your uncle, your aunt, whoever. So that's huge. And like you said putting yourself out there on social media, doing podcasts, like this, building your personal brand and letting everyone and anyone know what it is that you're doing.

[00:53:43] And I love what you said. I wanna accomplish my goals so bad. I don't care what people think about me, what people say about me or whatever, because it really doesn't mean anything to them. It's all about what me and my wife want do to accomplish our goals and our dreams. And I love that [00:54:00] conviction and that passion so much because that's exactly how I feel.

[00:54:05] What I'm trying to accomplish in life. And that just really goes to show you're the true person. You and your wife are you and your destiny are really what's out there. So you need to go after that and follow that. And you guys are just two people that are, grabbing the horn, dinging the bell, all that stuff.

[00:54:21] I love it. Oh yeah. All of it. And that's just so huge. So I love it. So let's get into thanks 

[00:54:27] Danny Bellish: pat. I really ah, appreciate mud. 

[00:54:30] Patrick McGrath: Of course, my man, of course, I really like to get into, alright, so you got 600 plus units. Now you invested in a couple of deals. Let's get down to brass tax.

[00:54:41] What's that really bringing. At this point, all this time effort and everything rough numbers, detailed numbers, however you want to get with it, but where you at now? And then what's that goal, is it 15,000, 20,000? You're in Jersey. It might be 50,000, cuz they're gonna take [00:55:00] 55% of your taxes.

[00:55:01] So break it down for the people out there and let 'em know where you're at and where you're trying to go. 

[00:55:07] Danny Bellish: Yeah. And I love that question too, right? Because. We all know, there's so many gurus out there and all they talk about is units, right? You never actually know how much money they're making So for our first few GP deals, right? So we have two of them under our belt. The first one was 291 units and we made, we got 1% of that deal, right? So it was a $12 million buy it's a five year hold. We'll make partial money in cash flow and we'll make money on the back end when we sell it or refinance it.

[00:55:43] We also invested passively in that deal. And our second deal was 293 units. That was a 15 million deal, 15.75 million deal that we got 2% of, now we are starting a fund for what are called net lease [00:56:00] assets. I know we talked a little bit about it, but those are really more commercial type deals where we're gonna be buying these single tenant net lease assets, like your local dollar store, your local pharmacy auto parts store banks.

[00:56:15] And they have long term leases with built in rent increases and corporate guarantees. So that's gonna be a cash flow, heavy deal. So to get into more specific numbers prior to launching the fund, we'll be at about 50 K year in cash. Okay. Okay. And that doesn't include our house hack, right? So we're not actually cash flowing our house hack because we're just saving money.

[00:56:43] So we're not actually producing profitability on the house hack, but when we leave, that will add another 15 K to that. So 50 K year in cash flow, when we're done raising for our fund and the fund starts producing cash flow, we'll be at about [00:57:00] 80 K annually at cash flow where we want to be is probably around double that.

[00:57:07] So we've been able to produce 80 K in cash flow in about the last 12 months. Yeah. So our, like I said, our goals are aggressive, right? Just like you both. So we want to really get to that next level in the next 12 months. Plus we know that when our syndication LPs and our GPS have that exit at the end, when we sell a refinance, we're gonna get a much larger payout also at that time, which we're likely gonna take and reinvest, but also will influence or be more income for us at that time.

[00:57:42] Patrick McGrath: Exactly. And I think that part is huge too. For everybody out there to get an understanding of how that all works. So you get a small piece every quarter or monthly, depending on how they do it, but most of them do quarterly. And then at the end you'll get the rest of the payout and it could be a larger percentage depending on [00:58:00] how well the deal actually goes.

[00:58:01] So that's huge. I You could fall into a couple hundred thousand dollars when one of these trade. So that makes up for, the smaller amount of cash flow that you're getting now for the big payout at the end. And that's really huge. To be 80 K in a year is huge. And for the ultimate goal one 60, but once you start, the beautiful thing about this syndication is once you start stacking these deals, they're doing a Burr project every six months, you're always gonna be refinancing and recycling cash, except, four or five years down the road, you're gonna be trading and refinancing these properties.

[00:58:38] And what you see right now may not be huge, but fast forward three to five years and life is gonna look comp completely different for you guys, which is 

[00:58:48] Danny Bellish: amazing. And just two quick things I wanna point out one is obviously the, that one 60 number that's like our next goal, right?

[00:58:57] That's to. We're not 

[00:58:59] Christine Bellish: [00:59:00] retiring. We're not 

[00:59:00] Danny Bellish: retiring. That gives us the flexibility to do more projects, but the projects that we wanna do and gives us the time and opportunity to do that. The other thing that's super important about these deals are when you are an equity partner in a syndication, like these are, you get crazy tax benefits, right?

[00:59:20] So it's not like in my W2 job where I pay exorbitant taxes on the W2 income that I get for these, you actually get to keep a lot of the profits and the returns that you get from these deals through tax benefits and depreciation. 

[00:59:35] Christine Bellish: And just to jump in for people that might be listening, who are active in real estate, right?

[00:59:41] Buying up rental properties and stuff like that. If you want. To get involved in syndication, the write offs, you can use the write offs from that against the rental income that you're getting on your rental properties too, for us and Danny in particular, it's an awesome situation for us because I'm a full-time real [01:00:00] estate professional.

[01:00:00] And so you can look this up, but the IRS has a specific designation for real estate professional, right? And that's me. Danny is still a W2 income earner because I'm a real estate professional. We can take all of the depreciation write offs that we get, and we can write it off against his income.

[01:00:19] Danny Bellish: I actually did that last year. 

[01:00:21] Patrick McGrath: Yeah. So you guys, it is amazing. So just for people out there, you have to prove 750 hours of active real estate activities. For me, that's working on the properties, but for you, that's, doing this syndication thing, maybe if you're still doing your real estate license, but you can carry that over into, you can carry those losses from your properties over to your personal income, which significantly saves you a ton of money, especially in a place like Jersey.

[01:00:50] So that 50,000 cash flow might not sound like that much, but that could have saved you 15, 20, $30,000 on [01:01:00] your taxes for that bring home money. So I'm so glad that you touched on that because that is huge. And I'm sure what is that? Is it called like a K 10. What's K one that they'll send you that you can do that for.

[01:01:12] So yeah, that and we 

[01:01:13] Danny Bellish: actually have a lot. Investors that are in the real estate space or real estate professionals. And they act, they invest in syndications all the time because and maybe they're more realtors than they are real estate investors or flippers or anything like that. So they focus on being reals.

[01:01:32] They're still real estate professionals. They take their income that they get, they have to pay a lot of taxes on when, they obviously buy and sell homes for people. We, they invest with us and they basically get depreciation and massive writeoffs, especially with bonus depreciation right now.

[01:01:51] And we use an accounting tool called a cost segregation study, which helps accelerate depreciation. Yeah. And they get to use it against their realtor [01:02:00] income. And they're like, this is the most amazing thing that I could ask for. But 

[01:02:03] Christine Bellish: I think just to piggyback that point, and I'm glad, and that's awesome that you got to take advantage of that last year.

[01:02:09] That's definitely something to celebrate, but real estate professional does not mean that you have to be a realtor. There are other ways to qualify and that's an important point to mention too. But the other thing that I wanted to quickly touch on is like, when we're talking about raising and I know you had asked a question about.

[01:02:25] Pat that you were saying that, you might need to start putting the feelers out there to get involved in larger projects. I think the thing that is cool is it's allowed more people to be involved, right? So not everybody wants to be an active real estate investor. They don't wanna be, finding the properties and burring them.

[01:02:44] They don't wanna be working on the renovation projects. Like maybe they're happy with their full-time jobs and they don't wanna be doing real estate full-time, but they definitely, maybe because they've had conversations with you have learned about, the opportunities that real estate investing provides.

[01:02:57] It's been cool to be able to share this with [01:03:00] our friends and family who are not trying to be active. 

[01:03:03] Danny Bellish: And that's a good point because like a lot. So we have investors of all different types of professions, right? We have, oh yeah. Surgeons. We have doctors, we have lawyers, we have CMOs, we have a Navy seal.

[01:03:18] We have we have a private jet pilot. We have people of all different types of professions and backgrounds who that's, what they do for a living. But they know that real estate is an amazing investing asset class that they need to diversify their portfolio. And this. The best way to get high, higher returns tax benefits and be actual equity partners in these deals.

[01:03:42] Patrick McGrath: Yeah. And what, so for anyone out there, I'm sure we're all thinking the same thing. What. Kind of returns. Are we talking here? I know you can't be specifics on any of your specific deals that you've done in the past or that might be coming up, so definitely go follow them on [01:04:00] Instagram. So you guys can learn about that stuff, what kind of returns are we talking here, eight to 10%, eight to 12, 15, what can someone that's, putting 50 or a hundred thousand dollars into one of these deals, expect as a conservative return on their money.

[01:04:17] Christine Bellish: So I appreciate you disclaiming it for us. So I'm just gonna go in and I'm gonna say again this is a disclaimer, we are not advertising any of our current deals and tell them why we're we can. Yeah. And so we can't do that because the deals that we are involved with allow accredited and sophisticated investors.

[01:04:36] And so what that means is. 

[01:04:38] Danny Bellish: But it's all regulated by the S E C that's why we can't talk about it. Yeah. They have very specific rules to protect the end investor. They wanna make sure that there's no fraud taking place, that we're not just blasting out something that isn't that isn't true, that we're not taking advantage of little old granny.

[01:04:56] They wanna make sure that we have established a personal connection [01:05:00] and you have not only had the opportunity to vet us, but we've had the opportunity to vet you as someone who is financially literate that has investing the experience and can invest in something like this. Yeah, of 

[01:05:12] Christine Bellish: course. So when we talk about returns, we're talking generally, and these are projected and hypothetical, right?

[01:05:20] So if we're talking about like on an estimated basis, I would say when you're getting involved in the deals that we like to get involved in are both cash flow and appreciation deals. So the deals that we like to get involved with. Are around eight to 12% annual cash flow. And obviously the different indicators that you work with will have different structures.

[01:05:42] But the way that we pay out on our multi-family deals is we project payments that are gonna come out quarterly. So if you're getting eight to 12%, you're getting a quarter of that each quarter . And then by the end of the deal, what we really look for is to our goal is to double.[01:06:00] 

[01:06:00] Everybody's money by the end of the deal. So that includes the cash flow that you're getting during the holds period, which could be, between four and seven years, depending on the type of project that you're getting involved with. But then you're getting a bigger chunk of change at the ends once you either refinance or sell the asset at the end.

[01:06:16] Danny Bellish: And it's normally directly correlated to the asset class, right? So in multifamily alone, there's a number of asset classes from a, B, C, and D. And that has to do with the market that it's in the condition of the property. Obviously the better condition, the better location, the lower returns, it's all of risk analysis, and then there's other different asset classes in real estate. Net lease. Like we're talking about working in now, which is historically the most stable and conservative of all real estate asset classes. And especially in a time, when inflation is at its highest and there's, some economic volatility that's happening, especially in the market, which I don't know when this is being posted.

[01:06:58] Between today and [01:07:00] yesterday, down six, 700 points, but then you can have industrial, you can have new development, right? So they're all different types of real estate asset classes and the returns that you can get do vary. But again, it's all backed by real estate. Make sure that you're vetting the operators.

[01:07:17] That's operating them. They're in markets that are backed by population and employment growth. There's all of these factors that help you vet deals other than just returns . But the returns that you get from these deals are generally better than you would get, let's say, in a rate or something like that.

[01:07:33] And you also get the tax benefits, right? Yeah. Makes sense. So what 

[01:07:37] James Rippeon: would you say to an investor who's looking to get into passive investing. 

[01:07:43] Danny Bellish: And they're shopping around, they're looking for syndicators 

[01:07:45] James Rippeon: and operators that are gonna suit them and their needs are the best. What are some good questions that they can ask to these syndicators and their, these operators to make sure that you're gonna be a good match?

[01:07:57] Danny Bellish: What are important things for them to know? I love 

[01:07:59] Christine Bellish: that [01:08:00] question. But before we even get into the specific questions, I just also wanna talk about a vibe thing for me, if I'm gonna hand over a significant portion of money, which like, we're like, don't get us wrong here. If you, if the minimums are 25,000 or 50,000 or a hundred thousand, you've worked hard to earn that money.

[01:08:15] You wanna make sure that you're giving it to somebody that you can trust. So a lot of that comes down to establishing a rapport with that person, and we understand that we're not gonna be the right people for everyone. This is the awesome part about it. We get to meet people and we get to create connections with people.

[01:08:32] And when we build those relationships, like the people that, that gravitate towards us, those are the people that end up working with us. So I think part of it is building rapport and just having a level of comfort with somebody. The other thing too is what's important to you when you are communicating with somebody, right?

[01:08:50] Like to us it's responsiveness, it's a thorough it's a thorough, thoughtful response. Also. Like I don't wanna be reaching out to somebody and they're taking a week or 10 days [01:09:00] or whatever to get back to me. If you have 50,000 of my dollars and you are just taking a week to get back to me did you take my money and run?

[01:09:06] You're scaring me now. So I think that besides just asking specific questions and Danny can get into that, but I think that there are a couple of other. Relationship building tests that you can put somebody through to see whether they're the right fit for you to invest with or not.

[01:09:22] Danny Bellish: Yeah, I think that's a great question. It, if that person is not asking questions about you first and understanding what your goals and your ambitions are here, then to your point, Patrick earlier, like that's how it needs to all start. Anytime I get on the phone with a new investor. Sometimes we like spend the least amount of time talking about the deal.

[01:09:44] And we spend the most amount of time where I wanna know where you're from. What you're about, what kind of business are you in? What are you trying to get into? What are your goals in real estate? What's your wife and your dog's name? Like how can we build a better friendship? Because I know the money is gonna come.

[01:09:59] If [01:10:00] this is, if you're interested in investing, all of that will come in time. We also try to be super present, right? We wanna show people that we are transparent. We are reliable. We are here and we're not going anywhere. We're not running away with anybody's money. We also like to be forthcoming about. The strategy that's behind it, the market that it's in, all of the financials and the underwriting that we've put against this, why we believe so much in this deal, but to get into like specific questions that people could and should ask, because you have to ask questions, right?

[01:10:33] You have to do your own due diligence as much as you believe in somebody or believe what they're saying and believe in a deal. I can be very convincing that's for sure, but I won't let somebody just invest with us without truly understanding what they're invest. So first you wanna ask about somebody's track record, right?

[01:10:52] You wanna know what kind of deals they've been into, what they've closed and what the success has been in those deals, right? You wanna know [01:11:00] who's partner who they're partnered with and not just like our other GP partners, but our attorney literally wrote the book on real estate syndication. His name is Genero bridge.

[01:11:11] You should buy his book. It is absolutely phenomenal. The first time we got on the phone with him, I didn't even realize that it was him. It was like we're getting on the phone with gene. And I was like Genero bridge, the guy who wrote the book, that's insane. It's these types of people that you know, that you are in a group with that.

[01:11:30] Just show your level of expertise, right? You wanna ask about the markets and why those markets, you wanna ask about the strategy? Okay. If we're talking about multi-family, where are the rents currently and what are the market rents of where they could be and you want to start to get to know a little bit more about syndication, so you could ask more deeper and more detailed questions when it comes to the net lease stuff.

[01:11:56] It's what locations are you looking at? What size [01:12:00] buildings are you trying to attract? What types of tenants are you trying to attract or build? So there's a lot of questions that you could or should ask. The main takeaway, I think is that syndicator has to be available. They have to be responsive and they have to be willing to communicate with you as long as you have questions for them.

[01:12:22] Patrick McGrath: Yeah. And I think I think. Another takeaway for a lot of people out there is to remember that you need to be responsible for your own decisions when it comes to this as well. Because everyone is pre presenting a deal that they plan on going well, and these are the plan returns, but shit can go south things can happen.

[01:12:44] And you need to vet. And do your due diligence, just like you were buying your own property, putting your money into this property and these people, it is a lot, is it is more passive for sure. It's gonna be probably the most passive [01:13:00] way to invest in these type of assets and in real estate.

[01:13:03] But you also want to do your due diligence, just like you would, if you were buying a house or, investing in anything else. Because like you said, there's a lot of charlatans and snake oil salesman out there, right? Like you said, you could be extremely convincing. I could be extremely convincing as well.

[01:13:19] We're all sales people here. And it really comes down to the intent behind everything. And I think every single thing that you just said is extremely important too, that vibe it's so great to have, both of your perspectives. I think your business Really J with that to have the masculine and the feminine, aspect of investing which is huge.

[01:13:40] But I just wanna pinpoint that down and really hone down to people is that you need to be responsible for your own investment. Just as much as you are counting on them to do their job, you need to be knowledgeable. Like we talked about on our thinking out loud is that you need to be knowledgeable on what you're investing in, who you're investing [01:14:00] in and why you're investing in just as much as you need to have, they need to have their why on why it's a good deal.

[01:14:06] You need to have your why on why you're giving him your money. And like you said, if they're not asking you why you're putting the money in and just asking you how much you're gonna put in that should be a huge red flag. Oh yeah. 

[01:14:20] Christine Bellish: Sorry, I go ahead. I was just gonna jump in to say everybody that has been interested in investing with us, we have not encouraged to invest with us.

[01:14:29] We've like to Danny's point, we vet people as much as they vet us. And the more that we get to know people, the more we know whether this is the right thing for them or not, ultimately, obviously it's somebody's decision, right? If, and if they wanna do it, they're gonna do it, but we want this to be successful.

[01:14:44] We want people to have a good experience and we're not trying to pretend like this is anything that it's not, we wanna be very clear crystal clear about exactly what we're here to do and what our plan is and the steps that we're gonna take to get there. But some of the best questions that people also ask [01:15:00] us are about, like what sort of protections are in place, right?

[01:15:04] And that's a pretty open ended question. And obviously anytime you're investing, there are risks associated with investing, right? Like it's not guaranteed. We understand that, but. Part of to Danny's point the track record thing, like in the deals that we're working on, we're working in markets where our partners have a ton of experience.

[01:15:23] So we're not trying to implement a new plan that has never been implemented before in a new market. This is a tried and true plan that is art that they have already implemented in this market that we are just implementing again. So that, that gives people and us a level of confidence.

[01:15:40] Also obviously like insurance, what type of insurance do we have? Do we have replacement insurance? What if it burns down? Do we have loss of rent? Do we have loss of rent insurance on the net lease side of things? Are there corporate guarantees? Are there franchise guarantees with the tenants?

[01:15:55] So these are, the more that you drill down and I think it happens naturally too, for people that are [01:16:00] interested. One question leads to another question, leads to another question. And just off the top of my head, even when we're talking about being available to people and transparent and open, we had a video call with one of our first time investors last week, and it was for two hours.

[01:16:16] Like we're not putting a time limit on the amount of questions that people can ask us or the amount of time that we're gonna spend with somebody we're gonna spend however much time you need to feel comfortable. That's how much time we're gonna spend 

[01:16:26] Danny Bellish: with you. 

[01:16:29] Patrick McGrath: That's great. I really think that you guys have provided.

[01:16:33] A ton of value for everybody out there. And I think it's time that we get down to the big picture. James, are we going off the old questions 

[01:16:44] James Rippeon: or I think we're gonna some, and the

[01:16:47] Progress, 

[01:16:47] Danny Bellish: you started, she was a softball player and I was a baseball player. So curve ball was no issue all day. You're gonna knock it out. 

[01:16:55] James Rippeon: so our first one what's something that you guys do that you feel [01:17:00] like as a cheat code for your path towards financial independence. What is one of those things that you guys have just figured out that you think that people should know as a hack?

[01:17:10] Danny Bellish: Oh, man, that is a good question. And it might be a little bit of a cheesy answer and it brings us back to the original point, make friends. Two, two things. Okay. I'll say, make friends and be genuine about it. The more friends you make, the more you'll talk about this stuff. The more people that will be interested in, the more people that will trust you with their money.

[01:17:31] That's number one. Number two is grab onto someone who is crazy successful and ride their coattails. I have been doing this my whole career. You can ask any of my bosses, like the second that I got outta college, I went to the CEO of our company and I just tried to offer value. And I was like, how can I be your henchman?

[01:17:52] I don't care. And you also have to not care. About who you're talking to and be afraid to talk to people. [01:18:00] matter how much money you make in this world or how successful you are, people are still people. Yeah. And they wanna make friends with people and they like helping people.

[01:18:07] So don't be afraid to go to someone, ask them a question, show that you're interested in their life, tell them that you admire them. Don't ever be afraid to do that. People love to hear that you admire them. And those handwritten notes that we always write, that little stuff like goes such a long way with people.

[01:18:26] Yeah. The personal 

[01:18:27] Christine Bellish: touch is huge and exactly what Danny said. It's I think it's also having, it's riding the line of having confidence, but also being humble. To put yourself out there, you have to have a level of confidence, but if you're a know it all, nobody likes that. And there's always something to learn from somebody else.

[01:18:46] And. Danny. And I, aren't afraid to admit that, like we're partnering with these people who are much more successful than us, because we wanna be like them. And we tell them that too. So I think it's learn from people who have already walked that path and [01:19:00] you don't have to learn everything the hard way.

[01:19:01] And I feel like everybody says this all the time. So I feel like it's annoying that we're echoing it, but it's really what we've done. And it's really what works in our business. 

[01:19:09] Danny Bellish: Perfect. 

[01:19:10] James Rippeon: Yeah. I couldn't echo that editing better. I think a little bit of humility sprinkle in some flattery and you got yourself a recipe for success right there.

[01:19:19] Patrick McGrath: Boom. Great answer to the first time we asked that question. So yes, let's move on to the next one, James. All right. Resources. Are there any. Particular books podcast or people that you feel have really shaped your journey to financial independence other than the number one answer every single time Patrick McGrath, which is Patrick McGrath.

[01:19:47] No rich dad, poor dad. So other than rich dad, poor dad. Yep. What book podcast person we got that shaped your guys' financial independence. 

[01:19:55] Danny Bellish: I'll start from the very beginning. The very first book that I read. I [01:20:00] think it's called multifamily millions by David Lindel that was, I think the first book that I ever read on multifamily and I immediately was like, we gotta buy rentals right now.

[01:20:09] Obviously it gets you really hyped, but like we've read a lot of books, right? Yeah. Over the years. I think it's also being current, especially for our business right now. A lot of it is about being current, because we're talking to people from every walk of life and, we have to know what's going on in the current economic climate.

[01:20:30] We have to know about the, not only the real estate landscape, but the financial landscape, the economic landscape the city, state, and country landscape. And we follow, Baron's Harvard business review, Motley, fool market watch business, insider market watch. Like these are all things that I read daily just to get little glimpses of news.

[01:20:53] And of course, bigger pockets and things like that. And I'm a huge proponent of YouTube, [01:21:00] right? Like for things that I don't know, but on the rabbit hole, I watch endless hours of YouTube videos on everything from taxes and depreciation to real estate syndication, to industrial and trailer parks, everything between, I wanna it all 

[01:21:16] Patrick McGrath: YouTube university.

[01:21:17] Come on. 

[01:21:18] Danny Bellish: It really is a real. 

[01:21:20] Patrick McGrath: I don't even watch TV anymore. I can't even remember the last time I watched an episode of a TV show or anything else. It's all YouTube. 

[01:21:28] Danny Bellish: But I think the other point to this is you have to develop this Insatiable curiosity. Yeah. Like you have to want to dig into the answers of the questions that you have.

[01:21:39] And one question like Christine said earlier, one question always leads to another, especially in real estate where there's so many nuances, follow that rabbit hole and see where it takes 

[01:21:49] Christine Bellish: you. I think also to the point of, we're not talking about books as much, we're talking about like the content that we really consume on a daily basis is it's great to get different people's [01:22:00] perspectives, different people, have different opinions about things.

[01:22:03] Like what we're saying right now, you might have another syndicate come on tomorrow and they might say something totally different. And that's okay. And I think hearing the different opinions, hearing the different perspectives, hearing people's backgrounds, their experiences, I think. The, when you hear that from somebody, it gives you a better, bigger picture about what's going on.

[01:22:22] And then you can also grab a nugget from here and a nugget from here, depending on what you relate to personally. And so that's why I think, consuming content from so many different sources is really important.

[01:22:37] Patrick McGrath: James is on mute. He done fucked it up right before 

[01:22:41] Danny Bellish: James, like my dog. You've only been doing this digital video thing for a few years now. It's not a big deal. Yeah. 

[01:22:47] Patrick McGrath: And we're leaving that in for sure. Cuz it was James who invested up. All right, James, I'm sure you had something extremely insightful. You were saying.

[01:22:54] Yeah. Yeah. We 

[01:22:55] James Rippeon: like to think that I'll think of something new right now and fresh. That sounds a lot better. Yeah. I was just gonna say you [01:23:00] definitely wanna have all these different opinions to compare and contrast. So you have the ability to call bullshit or at the same time replicate what works.

[01:23:08] So it all comes down to educating yourself and getting those perspectives that you can find valuable and fitting them into your path. So I think that's super valuable. So for our next question we're gonna teleport you guys into the future. Oh yeah. We're five years into the future. Tell us what excites you most about your lives either on a personal.

[01:23:27] Side or the business side. As you guys are working towards financial independence, it's five years down the road. What do things look like? 

[01:23:35] Danny Bellish: So it's funny that you say five years down the road, right? What, like the plan I just turned 35. And what we have always said to ourselves, as we're on this journey is like, what would 40 year old Danny want?

[01:23:50] Would he want you to go and talk to this person? Would he want you to put on your big boy pants and go present to these 20 big business owners in [01:24:00] New Jersey? Would he want you to make this move? Like we say that to ourselves all the time. So I think five years from now is a little bit of a lighter feeling than it is now, right?

[01:24:11] Yeah. Like now we understand that it is this grind, this sacrifice that we're gonna be making so that when we get to that point, We have the time, freedom and flexibility to do the things that we want. Yeah. So for me personally, it's neither of us are in a W2. We're doing our, we're doing our job full time.

[01:24:30] We've gotten into a number of different asset classes. We've built a million friendships with a million people that we absolutely love. We've raised, many millions of dollars. And a lot of our business. Even though we're gonna pursue new things is on autopilot, right? Yeah. We've set up those systems and processes in place to keep this ship moving.

[01:24:53] But from a personal standpoint, it's also, we have our own house that we feel settled and comfortable with. [01:25:00] All of our friends and family are making money from all of their, yeah. They're getting those returns investments in our syndications. That's right. We are maybe BI coastal, because we've always loved the idea of having maybe a place in San Diego and we're traveling and really just enjoying each other and getting back to like really being happy and having fun.

[01:25:19] That's who we are. That's our core. 

[01:25:20] Christine Bellish: We are definitely we are hard workers and I don't know that we ever will not be. But I think when you have the opportunity to choose what you're doing, Like that's what this is all about to us. Like when you enjoy what you do, like you're gonna hustle no matter what.

[01:25:36] And I think that we're always gonna have that level of hustle in us, but when we get to choose the projects that we wanna work on and we can choose and if we can choose whether we want to, or we don't want to, if we were able to, this is what I've seen in a few years too, is we could take a month off and that would be okay.

[01:25:52] And that's one of the main reasons why I think, everybody's listening to this, but a main reason too, like why we wanna get away from the corporate [01:26:00] nine to five life is that all of our future was dependent upon somebody else deciding how much money we're gonna make. And we worked in sales, so like we got paid commission. So we had some sort of say about how much money we were gonna make, but the reality. At the end of the day, you're answering to somebody and that person's deciding your future. And right now what we want is we want the ability to decide our future.

[01:26:23] So to have the opportunity to choose whether we wanna do another deal or not like that in itself, I think is exactly what we're looking for is to just have that option. 

[01:26:33] Danny Bellish: It's we also like to be non-traditional right. Like I'm sure everybody reads about morning routines and all, I don't like to wake up early what?

[01:26:42] Like I stay up super late working my ass off every night, but I don't like to get up early and some days I'm just feeling crazy lazy, and I just want to relax for that day. And I want just the freedom to hustle when I want and to relax when I want. And that to me is financial freedom. [01:27:00] Right?

[01:27:00] Patrick McGrath: I love. Absolutely love it. You guys have been fantastic. We, this is the longest podcast we've had so far. and there's not a doll moment in it. I think you guys have just dropped so much knowledge. So for all the people out there that loved it, want to get in touch with you, pick your brain, ask you questions, say that they hate you.

[01:27:26] They like you, whatever. How do they get in touch with you? What's the best. 

[01:27:30] Christine Bellish: Like we mentioned before, we're super active on social media. We're basically posting every day, if not every other day. So you can follow us on Instagram at the Belles team. You can email us@infoatthebellesteam.com. Check out our website is www.thebellesteams.com.

[01:27:50] Basically, if you wanna get in touch with us, look for the Mellish team and you're gonna find 

[01:27:55] Danny Bellish: us. And I might regret this, but I don't care. I like talking to people. [01:28:00] It's part of what we do. My phone number is (917) 617-0056. Text me, give me a call. I'm here to talk about this. I love talking about this stuff.

[01:28:11] So gimme a shout. And 

[01:28:12] Christine Bellish: he means, and he genuinely means 

[01:28:14] Danny Bellish: it. And that's that knows too. We talked for an hour. I first time we ever talked to, yeah, 

[01:28:19] Patrick McGrath: I think I was on a fishing trip. I was on a fishing trip in, in North Carolina and we chatted for an hour and a half. So it was great. That was so true.

[01:28:26] And he, and we weren't talking about any syndication things at the time we were just bullshitting. So that's 

[01:28:31] Danny Bellish: right. That was awesome. Yeah. You 

[01:28:32] Christine Bellish: don't have to reach out to us about real estate either. You can just talk to us if you just wanna be friends too, like that's all so cool. 

[01:28:39] Patrick McGrath: Awesome guys. Everybody.

[01:28:40] Thank you. We'll see you next time.

[01:28:44] outro: Thank you for listening to the real fi podcast where you learn from the investors that have lived, the hard lessons for you to connect with us during your pursuit of financial independence. Be sure to join our community by following us on Instagram or emailing us at  info@Therealfi.com. If this content made you financially, mentally, physically, or spiritually richer, please make sure to leave us a positive review on your preferred content platform. Cheers to kicking the nine to five.