Aileen (00:01):

Thank you, everyone for joining today’s episode of the, how did they do it? Real estate podcasts. We are your hosts Seyla and Aileen and today’s guests. We have Bill Manassero. Bill spent 11 years of his life serving with his family as missionaries to orphans abandoned and at-risk children, Haiti, he and his wife founded an organization called child’s hope international that helps the people of Haiti. There was a professional musician and has over 20 years in business, both in corporations and as an entrepreneur in 2014, he bought his first rental property through a turnkey company and has continued to scale since then. His focus now is by multifamily properties to create income, to support him and his family during their retirement years to help fund their mission in Haiti and to create legacy wealth for their children. We’re so grateful to have you on the show today, Bill, how are you doing?

Bill Manassero (00:44):

Great. [Inaudible].

Aileen (00:47):

Thank you. So we would love to hear a little bit more by your background. If you can share how you got started in real estate that would be awesome.

Bill Manassero (00:55):

Sure. Well, I think you kind of give an overview of my background. I have a business background you know all kinds of areas. I was in technology. I was in automotive and just a lot of different industries. And there was a time in my life where I felt like, well, you know, God was calling me into the mission field and we actually started with a children’s music ministry and we would travel all around the country and then started moving into different, you know, different countries around the world. And it was a fun thing because I had been in the corporate life for years. I actually spent a lot of time in Japan because I represented Nissan motor Corp and different companies. I was always gone and it was so nice to actually, you know, be able to be with my family for a change.

Bill Manassero (01:42):

And so they all, we all travelled together and we had this big, huge, you know, I don’t know 34 foot RV and we just we would go to concert to concert. We played at churches that cam said music festivals, just all over the place. It was just a really, really kick. And we had a little band too. So it was a kind of a big deal. And so in my kids kind of, well, I have seven kids and you know, a lot of them actually experienced this part of our lives. My oldest kids were actually my son was playing guitar in the band and then I had all the way down to, you know, real young ones and you know, we do our show is w the kids, my younger kids would like to get up and do hand motions and stuff for the kids.

Bill Manassero (02:28):

And, you know, they were part of it too. So everybody, you know, it was just a fun, fun thing. And while we travelled around we would spend night’s partner with other organizations. And at one point we were working at a music festival and I think it was compassionate or national that was there. And they were my, my daughter Ariana, who’s kind of my middle child at seven here. She really, really loved to go and work on their booth. And she just you know, she liked to go there and they had the little packets with the kid’s picture and everything, and she would just, just love, it was like one of his funders. And she was only like, I don’t know, eight or nine. She but she still loved to do it. And they loved to have her over.

Bill Manassero (03:12):

And so one day when she was doing that, she asked me they had a, you know, I’d like to sponsor a child. Is that okay? And I said, well, sure. But, you know, you know, you’re going to have to use part of your allowance, you know, to support it. I want you to take it seriously. You know, she said he had, of course dad. And so she ended up sponsoring this little boy from Haiti and she just got really into, it, wrote to him. She learned all about Haiti. Who’s looked studying about it, she’d go into the websites. They had orphans and a little babies for adoption, and she would you know, take pictures of the page. And she had this whole notebook. She knew every baby that was adoptable in Haiti at one point and convinced, you know?

Bill Manassero (03:55):

And so it was, it was really cool. She really got into it. And you know, one day, you know, talking to her, she had this whole jar on her dresser full of change. And I said, Oh, you saving for something, you know? And, and I said, what are you saving for? And she didn’t want to tell me, and he’s going, why, why aren’t you going to tell me, you know, I figured she’s going to trip to Disneyland or something like that. I didn’t know. And she just kind of stops and crosses her arms, you know, and she goes, okay, dad, it’s because don’t laugh at me. You know, I, I want to build an orphanage, a hospital, a church, and a school in Haiti, you know?

Seyla (04:30):

Wow.

Bill Manassero (04:32):

That’s a pretty, pretty big, and I go, but that’s great, you know, and, you know, young. So I thought, well, maybe next year or so, I want to be president. I don’t want to be to something different, but she never let up, you know, and as we travelled around we would, you know, we’ve talked to different peoples and as we get interviewed on radio shows and stuff like that, and one particular show we got interviewed and I was kind of using the, the analogy of, you know, that God can use young, young kids and you know, Samuel and David and all that stuff. And so my daughter I used her as kind of an example, and I talked about her dream for Haiti. Well, the next thing we know, we’re, you know, we’re traveling around, we get this call, there’s all this mail that’s been sent in.

Bill Manassero (05:17):

And all these checks that people were sending for my daughter’s Haiti dream, you know, and I go, Oh, Mike and his, you know, and so w something opened up where we actually could do we’re doing concerts and now we’re kind of moving globally in different places. And we had an opportunity to do this thing at Haiti and Haiti. And so my daughter of course, was dying to go. And you know, we went there and she literally got off the, you know, they came out of the steps onto the runway in Haiti and just got down on these kissed, the ground said, daddy, I’m home. You know, it’s like, so moved and so excited. You know,

Aileen (05:57):

How old was she at that time?

Bill Manassero (05:58):

She was probably around, she was close to 12, you know, so going on for a little while. And we, we toured all around there and it was just the most, I mean, it was the most emotionally moving experience of our lives, but it was one group of kids we really got attached to. And those were the kids that lived on the streets. And, you know, I mean, as young as four years old, some of these kids and, you know, all the way up to 18 and older. And we after we were there, it was just, it was just an incredible experience. We flew flying home and my wife says to me, you know, honey, I think we’re going the wrong way, you know? And I go, what do you mean? I think God’s calling us to Haiti and I go, Oh man, I’m not hearing it. You know, I can spend more time in prayer or something, but I’m not here. You know? And so I was just kind of, you know, it was funny because shear Ariana was already sold. And then, then they went back and sold the rest of the kids on it. And it was like, everybody wanted to go except for dad, you know? And it’s something happened. And there was one home of the street kids that incident happened and they and they were in trouble. And so we, we, we flew back to Haiti to go help them. And it was actually on that trip that I really, I felt like that was, you know, I was, I was amazed. We had this, all these orphan kids are trying to find a home for them, had like this big dump truck, you know, literally in the back of, and, and you know, after we dropped him off in a safe place that we’d found everything, I go, Lord, you’ve got to send somebody to watch over these kids. And, and I felt the Swift kick and God, you know, at that point basically, and he said, I did, you know, and I was like, Oh no. And so anyways, so that’s Pretty well, was it, we went back, we, you know, sold everything, gave away everything else and hopped on hopped on a plane for Haiti. And we started with a handful of street kids about 12 kids and, and it kind of grew to a pretty major ministry. And we you know, we spent almost 12 years there and

Aileen (08:06):

Your entire family?

Bill Manassero (08:07):

Yeah, my entire family. And it was just kind of later in life. I mean, I was doing the children’s music thing, you know, I was probably in my, probably started my late thirties, early forties, and I probably ended quarter close to my late forties. And, and so going over to Haiti and you know, almost 50 years old and stuff. And it was, it was just, it was just, it was exciting, but I was going to have no idea what I’m doing, you know, we just had to totally rely on God. But in that process, you know you know, we’re, we’re serving. I mean, we went through hurricanes, we had, I had dengue fever and malaria at the same time, and all my kids have malaria. We attempted kidnappings. I mean, all kinds of things happened. We have the big that hit the 2010 and it, it, it, my wife got cancer. I mean, just a whole lot of things happen there. And finally, we, we, we hadn’t taken us medical. I mean, we were, you know, we were wondering whether or not all our kids are kind of growing up and going back to the States, and I know you can get the real estate,

Aileen (09:12):

We love this story.

Bill Manassero (09:15):

But you know, it’s all going back to the States and we thought, you know, we’re going to take us a one year sabbatical and go back. And, and you know, in that process, we, we really realized it was, you know, it was time for us to stay home. And so we, you know, made plans, had some other friends come in and take over the orphanage for us. But in that process, I’m kind of before we left, you know, like we were there and we went back to Haiti to kind of unplug everything. I’m trying to figure out what the heck I’m doing. You know, I go, and I’m going back to the States. I don’t feel like I, you know, want to retire. I don’t even know retirement is, you know, I just, I can’t picture myself here collecting seashells and Laguna Beach, you know, or something. I mean, I just, I just like to do things, you know, and stuff. So, so I’m just kind of debating all these things. We opened a little online business, try that online, and it was, it was kind of fun, but they kicked me off of eBay. Not because they didn’t, they did wrong, but actually, I guess I did get some bad reviews. Because it was like Christmas time we could meet the needs. You know, it was, we had to like give people money back and that got negative reviews and stuff. So anyway, so I, I kind of fell apart and I got this other check and I go, Oh gosh, I’m just going to throw it into my investment account, which, you know, I had a lot of tech stocks and stuff from long, long ago and I just held onto them. But I think I’d had the, market’s kind of volatile looking at other ways to invest and looked at gold, precious metals, commodities.

Bill Manassero (10:43):

I mean, you name it, all of these different things. And, and I finally you know, I’ve, this guy’s on my board of directors for our non-profit and Haiti. They’re in real estate and one of them is a real estate investor here in California. And I thought, well, you know, maybe I can invest in real estate, but you know, maybe passively, I don’t know if I want to actually be a landlord or anything. So researched it found out about turnkey properties you know, looked at emerging markets and what were good markets where, you know, it looks like there’s going to be some appreciation and, you know, and you know, I can get some, some good houses for the value. So I, you know, hopped on a plane from Port-au-Prince Haiti landed in Atlanta, bought a house there, flew to Memphis, bought two, two properties there and then flew back home and boom, I had three, three properties and the next month, instead of getting money in the mail, the mail, but it’s go right into my account, you know, and I’m going

Seyla (11:37):

Well, how is it easy? You know, this is really, this is great.

Bill Manassero (11:42):

I thought, well, maybe I could do more than just make it part of my investment portfolio. Maybe I could do this in my retirement. So that’s kind of what happened is I started looking invested in Memphis and in Atlanta. One thing I noticed is I had to two single family homes and a duplex and the duplex you know, paid about the same as they did for the single family homes, but it’s making twice as much rent. And when, you know, and then I only have one property tax payment, I only have you know, one insurance payment in one roof to worry about. It’s, what’s the difference, except that, you know, I make twice as much and it can have 50% vacancy if the person’s gone, not a hundred percent vacancy. So, so the economies of scale hit me right between the eyes.

Bill Manassero (12:26):

And I said, okay, so I had to buy another duplex. So I bought one in Indianapolis this time. And then that one is just amazing. It just boomed and it tripled in value. And I go, this is, this is amazing. I’m going to get, go, and go for more. So I was thinking I was going to get a fourplex, six bucks, something like that, but I saw these, these apartments. And there are 20 is a 22 unit apartment that was really affordable. I mean, I couldn’t even buy house in California for the price of this apartment, you know? So I, I yeah, I w yeah, I thought, wow, I don’t know if I know how to do this. And I found on LoopNet. Okay. Which is, you know, where they say all good properties go to die. You know, it’s kind of like, and so I was like, wow, well, you know, okay. You know, I, I, it looked good and I did all the numbers and the numbers looked good and the market looked good. You know, I was trying to do everything right. And but I was like, just, it was analysis paralysis. I’m looking at everything I’m over, you know, studying the problem and looking at that worst case scenarios and different exit plans and all these things, which, you know, you should do anyway. But I finally said, okay, I’m going to make an offer, wrote an LOI, send it to them. And it was already under contract. That’s good. Oh man, that’s what I get for waiting. Right.

Bill Manassero (13:49):

That was all discouraged because it took me so long to research it. And I finally said, I called the broker back and I said, you know, I know it’s under contract, but if by chance, you know, the something falls through on the deal, I’ll buy it, I’ll buy it. No questions asked, you know, and he said, okay, okay. But, you know, it looks like it might go through. So I don’t know. It was like three months later, I get this call from the broker and he goes, well, you know, that property, you liked, if you want it, it’s yours. You know? And I go seriously. And I go, yeah. And he goes, yeah. And so I ended up buying a 22 unit apartment. And as I was like, at that point, I’m kind of going, okay this could be something nice, but I got an understand what I’m doing.

Bill Manassero (14:33):

And I’ve got to have a goal here. And I really started developing a strategic plan. And I came up with this goal of acquiring a thousand doors in six years. And I know that sounds pretty crazy, but that, you know, I I’m, I’m thinking two of, you know, this, this incredible, you know, group of kids in Haiti and how we want, you know, one of the things we wanted to do is build a special little village for them. And I thought, well, you know, if we could, I could, you know, if this could work, you know, that I could, I could go ahead and do this for the kids. And, and so that was kind of my, my motivation that, and also, you know, I still had young kids. I had still right now, I’ve got three and married daughters and two sons and three sons.

Bill Manassero (15:18):

And so, you know, there’s like thinking, well, there’s weddings, there’s, you know, first homes, there’s all these things, you know, and I want to be able to help the kids and stuff. So it wasn’t all, all hate you. It was really, you know, first my family then later, you know, really looking at Haiti. So, so that’s kind of how it got started. And that’s kind of where I, you know, I will you know, a lot has happened since then, but you know, that’s kind of an overview. I don’t ever want to hear more about what other properties and so forth, but maybe have some questions. I don’t know.

Aileen (15:50):

Absolutely. Well, first of all, I just wanted to say that what an incredible journey for you and your family and Haiti and what a, what a way to develop both the, all of you and your family and just being able to help those children is such an amazing thing that you guys have been able to do.

Bill Manassero (16:05):

Yep. Oh yeah. Well, it’s been, we’ve been the blessed ones, you know, I just I, those are the most incredible years of my life over there. I’ll never be able to match that or compare it to anything its just, it’s just amazing.

Aileen (16:19):

Yes. And especially like how you, your Arieanna your daughter was the one who had that dream and just started everything and just ended up leaving to you guys to where you are today. So that’s such an incredible story.

Bill Manassero (16:33):

Yeah, yeah. Its no, it’s been the total blessing and we’re all still, you know, we love it and we’re plugged in and just don’t get to go there. Like, you know, we used to, and, but you know, that’s, we’re hoping to change that after, you know, after we get sort of stop the acquisition process, you know, since, since the 22, the unit I have, you know, I was looking at inside to go to a hundred plus one of the advantages of going to a hundred pluses that you have onsite property management, and that’s, that’s really a, a cue, I mean, a real key advantage, especially for multis. And especially when you’re out of state, you want to get a good, strong property management team there. And I was looking now it was getting into 2017 and I saw a lot of larger properties, but I didn’t feel confident to invest in them, you know, when I was looking for the 20.

Bill Manassero (17:29):

And so I wanted to learn, you know, say family management, they tied into so 17 and 18 came in. The, the deals were kind of getting, you know, kind of going away and now that know that people are paying top dollar for these other units. So it wasn’t until last year that I bought my first or my first indication. And so I partnered with some folks or was one of the GPS and co-sponsors of a 529 unit apartment in Irving, Texas. And so that, you know, all of a sudden brought me just leaps and bounds closer to my goal. And then since then I’ve been involved in ground up senior living facilities, the single-story facilities that has up to 92 different seniors. And we’re on a goal there to build anywhere from three to six every year. So that kind of brought me up to where I’m at now at 924 units. So, so it’s not the end of the year yet. I still have a, you know, one month to go, it’s very possible, we’ll have one more offered before then. And that will reach my goal, but if not, Hey, I’m pretty happy, you know, just getting to this number. So yeah, so, so far so good.

Seyla (19:01):

Oh, that’s amazing. Well, thank you for sharing all that information. And I just want to go back to that 22 units, when you first, did you buy that 22 unit by yourself?

Bill Manassero (19:14):

Yeah, well, this was a, you know, I’ll give it a little bit of the dynamics for those, you know, nerdy, nerdy, real estate guys listening, you know, is that, you know, I paid cash for those first three and that, that I bought, so I had nothing but equity in those places plus that increased in value. So and it was interesting is prior while I lived in Haiti and years before that, I’ve been like, totally debt-free, didn’t have a credit card. I mean, when I was much younger, I got an all kinds of trouble with credit cards, everything cleared it up, but I didn’t want to have another credit card. I never wanted to finance anything. And so I, you know, I’d pay cash for whatever, you know, and that was it. Well, here I am in real estate and I’m looking to grow a portfolio and I’ve got, you know, basically no credit I have you know, and there was like, I think one American express card that I held on to.

Bill Manassero (20:09):

And that was the only thing that I think, you know, allowed me to even get a credit report. And so I figured, well, I’m going to have to, you know, I’m going to have to start applying for loans, especially if I get into, you know, more and more properties. So what I did is that one of the first things we did when we moved back to the States is I, you know, finance a car, I hated it. I was kicking and screaming. I didn’t want to, I want, no, I don’t want a car payment to deal with. You know, I’ve been there, done that, you know, but I did, you know, I got the car payment, got a bunch of credit cards and then I said, okay, I got these properties here. You know, what I can do is I can them.

Bill Manassero (20:47):

And so then I looked at doing a cash out cash out refinance on all three properties, use that money for the down payment on the, on the Oh, and I, I financed the, the later duplex I got in Indianapolis. And that one, I just, I just put the down payment down and got my first mortgage, you know, whatever. And then when I did the refi had a little bit more you know, credit report there. And then I went ahead and refinance the three, got that money. And you know, used that as a down payment on the 22 units. So, so now it was, you know, these mortgages, I’m looking at all of them going, no know, but you know, ever since I’ve done that, you know, I haven’t paid a cent on taxes at all because you know that you’re deducting the interest, you’ve got to depreciation, you’ve got all these other things and I’m going, this is, I mean, I like some years I have like a negative and now that’s not a good thing actually, because I’m a 10 99 employee, technically, I guess.

Bill Manassero (21:55):

And, you know, I’m retired basically call it that. And so I don’t I don’t have a W2. And so it’s a lot harder, you know, if you don’t have a W2 when I was at you know, in Haiti, I had a W2, you know, we, we took sort of tokens our either, but it was but it still helped because I had a W2 and a regular, you know, pay stubs to show them, but now I didn’t have it. And then all of a sudden I start getting these, these tax returns with zero income numbers on them, or negative income numbers. And it’s like, oh, okay. This is, I mean, it’s great. I don’t have to pay all these taxes, but, but at the same time, you know, it’s going to help, it’s going to hurt. It’s going to be more difficult. So yeah. And that’s when I really started looking at syndication because I was going okay. You know, if we get partners in and other folks in, you know, I think it’s obviously not looking so much at your credit, they’re looking at the business, you know, itself. And so it’s a little bit different, but yeah. To answer your question. Yeah. That’s, that’s what that’s kind of what I did there to get that

Seyla (23:01):

Did you have any tips or tricks of how to make sure that you have a property manager picking the correct property manager, especially like you mentioned, it’s out of state? How, how do you make sure that you pick the right one?

Bill Manassero (23:18):

Well, I can certainly tell you how to pick the wrong ones. No, I’m an expert at that. You know, if you want it was funny because when I bought the turnkey properties, I was all like, this is too easy, too good to be true. Well, that was definitely too good to be true because it wasn’t so good. You know, I found out shortly after I bought these properties, now they all had tenants in them, but some of these tenants were actually squatters. They weren’t even, they weren’t even, I mean, they weren’t paying rent and they were on the lease, but they weren’t paying rent. And then, you know, I, the property management company, as soon as I, and now one of the reasons I went with this turnkey company is they also had a six month guarantee. If you’re, if your property is vacant, they will pay you the amount that you would normally get.

Bill Manassero (24:03):

And I will, this is great. You know, it’s going to be easy. And, but what isn’t easy is that the property managers, weren’t finding me tenants and I pretty well used up the six months pretty quickly, and I’m going, Oh, this is crazy. You know? And so I started looking for a new property managers that, yeah, I didn’t really know what it was doing and, you know, I call them talk to them. It sounds like a good guy. He’s got good properties now. W what I didn’t do is sort of take a look back, take a step back and look at the property management business is out. And really the business model, as you know, again, tapping into my years back, you know, corporate experience and entrepreneurial experience was, it didn’t make any sense because they’re not making enough money to do what they do.

Bill Manassero (24:50):

Most of them need, you know, hundreds of properties in order to, you know, really pay the bills. And so that’s, that was like one of the challenges that I was seeing, I was seeing, okay, they, you know, they sign you up, they’re real great. You you’re getting his started and what have you, but if you really need something, you can’t find anybody, they don’t return the calls. And, you know, I kind of had every experience and I had one experience in Memphis. It was just horrible. I was just you know, the, the people were just destroying the place and, it was, I just had, but I had already gone through, I think about three property managers and I was just going, you know, I’m trying to figure out what, what to do here. And in that process, I actually went on bigger pockets and I said, okay, hell, you know, basically I went into one of the forum there, the forums, and I said, you know, here I am explained my situation.

Bill Manassero (25:45):

And, you know, everybody chimed in, Oh, you bought horrible properties. Get out of there. So where you can, you know, all these things, you know, I’m getting real discouraged and real depressed. And, and this one guy just kind of, you know, came out of nowhere. And he was just asking me a lot of really good questions. And he seemed like he knew what he’s talking about. And he said, you know, like I’m from the area where your property is in. I know it really well. I go really, that’s great. I go, what do you do? And he goes, well, I’m a realtor. And I go, Oh, wow. That’s great. That’s great. And it goes, yeah. And I also do property management. I go no way. And so I, I just, you know, I said, look, you know, I don’t know if you can do this or not.

Bill Manassero (26:22):

Anyway, he came in within a month. I had all the properties filled and this great, you know, this great property manager. And you know, for two years we did do it. We were just really, really good. And so that was, you know, that was a real help. But in the interim, you know, I have the properties in other States, I’m having similar problems there with the property management. So yeah, I came up with a whole list of questions that you need to ask your you know, your, your, your prop, property manager prospect, and you know, I, you can be happy to share with you guys too. And but there’s, no, these are questions with a lot of due diligence that has to be done. Sometimes the reviews online, aren’t accurate, a lot of times we’ll have employees, you know, do them and so forth.

Bill Manassero (27:11):

And so, you know, there’s a lot of little tricks that you can use to, you know, to kind of, kind of see, you know, what they’re like, you know, like a lot of them like rather deal on phone or by email, but yeah, if you stop by their office, a lot of times you can get the dynamics, you know, especially if you can learn sort of, you know, what, they’re, you know, what parts of their days they do what, and even what time of the year they be, what time of the month they bill and so forth. And, and you get, you get an understanding of their costs and this scenario where they tend to be real vague too. And I go, well, if I get a clogged toilet, you know, how much am I going to pay? Well, it can’t really tell you because it depends what you know is involved.

Bill Manassero (27:56):

You know, if it’s just a simple thing, you know you know, it would be this amount, but, you know, if it’s more involved and there’s something further up the pipes or whatever, and I understood that and go, okay, but, but on an average, what would it cost? You know, and it’s just real hard to get straight answers. So you know, what I did is kind of, I don’t know if this is dishonest or not, but I would call as kind of a shopper, you know, I do let you know how they do the, the, where they call them shoppers, you know, the kind of, you know, go into stores, pretend like they’re going to buy to see all the services, you know, that kind of thing. And I’d call up and as a tenant and see how they would treat me as a tenant, you know, and then I would try to call other places.

Bill Manassero (28:36):

And, you know, as a you know, as a client. And so, you know, I was just, and I was just testing all these things, then I would look at, you know, there’s, there’s sign. Like you could go on Google maps and you could look at the building in front of the building. A lot of times it’ll have the number of the property manager, if you call that number. And they’re no longer the property manager, that might be one red flag, but I looked around the area and I looked at other places and I would I get the name of the company. And then I’d start a look going to the website. I’d look at properties that were listed there. And then you can actually see the address of the properties.

Bill Manassero (29:18):

And then you can look up who the owner of those properties are. And I’d look at the ones that maybe look like they’re a little shabby, you know, or something like that. So there are things you could do, and it, it’s kind of like detective work, but it’s if you’re, if you do your due diligence and you find the right people it’s really, it’s really key. And what I do is I do a lot of stuff upfront, or this is, these are my expectations. These are the reports. I want them every month. This is this is what I want to happen in the case of a in an emergency, or this is what I want to know if there’s a, you know, flooding or whatever, and you get all those things and you get them to sign off on it.

Bill Manassero (29:59):

And if those things don’t happen, then you could leave in the first 30 days, you know, and do without any kind of penalty. So, you know, that’s, just a, kind of an overview of some of the crazy things that I did to try to, it was to try to find it. And I’m pretty happy with the folks that I have now you know, they have their moments, but, you know, I understand it because the issue is, is they, when you have hundreds of houses, you know, you look at it, you got to, you got to a thousand dollars rent in a place, and you’re getting 10%, you know, it’s a hundred dollars, okay. That a hundred dollars has got to take care of that place. Now, if the place is a nicer property, now I was buying C properties.

Bill Manassero (30:39):

That’s another thing I don’t do anymore. But when you’re pine bees, you know, you’re going to have less maintenance. You’re going to have less tenant issues. And so, but mine were all CS and they required stuff on a pretty regular basis. And so, because of that, they were like, no, we can’t give them that much time. You know, we only have so many guys that they can, we can spread amongst all these hundreds of houses. So, so that’s, you know, that’s it, the first thing is understanding the diet and the dynamics of the property manager and knowing that going in one guy I talked to, you know, he had, I asked him, you know, how many they had in their staff. And I said, well, how many properties do you have? Oh, we’ve got 2000. I got 2000 properties and they didn’t have that many people and I’m going, Oh my goodness.

Bill Manassero (31:24):

You know what I mean? They’re probably making bank, but you know, what about their board clients? I have no idea. So, so you just have to, you know, you got to measure all those things out of spreadsheets that I use to, to kind of analyse the data, you know, that, but it’s, it, there are ways that you can, you know, pick people. It’s just a, and of course I, you know, like to meet him too, it’s worth a plane trip for me to fly out there, meet them, to see some of their properties with them and without them, and then also drive by some of those, they didn’t show me. And if I could walk in there and talk to tenants, how do you like the service here? You know, that kind of thing. You know, how do you like the property management?

Bill Manassero (32:03):

Do they respond to your service calls? And you get really, that’s the only way I know of to do that a different way. Someone else I know that it does is either their realtor when they try to find properties. If you have a realtor that also does property manager, usually they can’t handle a lot of them. So they’ll only take on a, you know, a handful of them. But when they have a, they have an incentive for keeping you happy because they want you to buy more houses from them. Right. And the other, the other part of it is that they you know, they don’t just don’t have that many clients. So it’s, it’s easier to actually be, be more responsive. So, so that’s another approach that some people use too.

Aileen (32:45):

Awesome. Thank you so much for sharing. And so how did you, can you talk a little bit from how you started from the 22 unit jumping into the a hundred units indication and then growing to over 900 units to today?

Bill Manassero (33:00):

Yeah, well, I mean, that was, that was my thing I was looking for. I was, I wanted to step up a little bit, you know, I probably would have liked to find maybe 50 to 70, you know, in that, in between, before I went to a hundred, but I was realizing, you know, I’m still going to have the same, some of the same issues. Because I, I have plenty of property management issues at the 22 unit. And so I, you know, I just said, go, I’m just going to go for a hundred. What’s the difference between 70 and a hundred, not 30 units, that’s not a big deal? And so that’s, that’s kind of where I started looking at a hundred plus and I made offers. I would usually, I mean, lots of offers and, and I just couldn’t compete because the people that were really shopping were the international investors, the institutional investors you know, the, the rates, I mean, all these people that, that just, they could pay over what the, the, you know, the value was or what the asking price was.

Bill Manassero (33:54):

And I was, you know, my philosophy is any property I buy, I try to buy it under market. You know, it, 20% of the market is ideal and that’s what I shoot for. But you don’t always get it, but I was not going to go over, you know, and I, wasn’t going to pay, you know, asking price. Although a lot of people look at me and they go, you have to pay an asking price nowadays. So I took a while and that’s why it took me a while. And eventually I said, you know, it’s going to make more sense for you to part or with others, because then I can get the larger properties and we can, you know, we all benefit from it, but it’s, it is a lot it’s, it’s a different dynamic and syndication is different investor relations is a whole new bag to that you have to kind of add to that. So, but that’s I went right from 22. Well, I had 28 units at that time. I went from 28 units to 529. So it was a big jump. And then the others were 92 each and we have four of them for those properties and hopefully a fifth, you know, before the end of the year.

Aileen (35:02):

So how have you been, or the key strategies to finding these apartment deals?

Bill Manassero (35:10):

Yeah, well, the main thing is that if, I think if I had one of the things about starting later in life, you know, for those out there, other fellow old dogs out there listening is that you don’t have the time that like a millennial would have, you know, especially to make mistakes, to correct them, to do better, to leverage, to do a lot of these things, if it are, you know, situation as is probably the case with a lot of folks, you know, 50 and older is, you know, you’ve earned this, so they’ve got this nest egg, you’ve worked a lifetime to build, and you don’t want to gamble with it. You don’t want to lose money. So, so you really, really cautious and rightly so. So you don’t, you know, you want to try to always, you know, have as big a margin as possible on a property that you buy.

Bill Manassero (36:00):

And so I think, you know, one of the things that I, you know, I look to do is just you know, again, just to try to you know, as like with apartment buildings, for example, is that I wanted to look at you know, properties that were not too old, and I didn’t want to buy any more see properties. I only wanted to go to B properties that would just require just you know, again, you, we kind of do a value add approach, which means basically, as you guys already know, I’m sure is that you buy something that maybe it’s a little outdated, maybe it’s, you know, was furnished in the, in the eighties. And the appliances are kind of dated the paint, all of that stuff. And the exterior could use some upgrade. Maybe you can add some amenities, there’s some extra room, you can add a dog park, and you can do different things.

Bill Manassero (36:50):

So you know, you try to find something that’s kind of in that ballpark and where you can go in, you can for minimal expense, you can upgrade the units for minimal expense. You can improve the, you know, the landscaping, the exterior and then as you do that, you can increase rents. And what’s different from renting out houses, as opposed to multifamily is that it’s seen as a business, especially when you’re dealing with the banks and your or investors with like a single family home, the value as assessed by the cops, by the other, the price of similar homes that have sold in that area. Just like if you were buying a home for yourself, that’s part of the process when you’re evaluating apartments, but what they’re really looking at as your business plan, they want to see okay, what are the rents now?

Bill Manassero (37:48):

Okay. What’s your proforma? Where do you, where those rents going to go to what are you going to do to increase those rents? And why do you think you’re going to get that increase? And it’s, you know, one neat thing about this sort of the equation with prime minutes is that, you know, you increase a rent, you know, just, you know, $20. I mean, that can improve, that can increase the value of that property for a multi hundred unit property. I mean, maybe, you know, $500,000, you know, I mean little things like that really make a difference. So, you know, increasing the rent, isn’t a little thing. I mean, if you just add an extra 20 onto your single family rental, it’s you not even feel it, but with this, it is any improvement you make is really key.

Bill Manassero (38:37):

So, so that’s where the value add deals are so nice because if the properties are already going up in value and you buy it with the, you know, you’ve got your down, if you have that little bit of equity in there, but if you buy it under market, then you’re going to have even that much more equity. You go in there and spend six months to a year upgrading the apartment. Then your equity is like huge. And you know, you’ve got, so what a lot of people were doing at that time, especially 2016, 17, 18, is that they went you know, they do the upgrade. They’d probably sell it within two or three years. And they get this big landfall that they cannot only ended up benefits the owners you know, but all the investors as well. So it’s kind of an, it’s kind of a fun game.

Bill Manassero (39:26):

It’s like, you know, monopoly for big kids, you know, but it is, it is it is a nice approach. And that’s what you’re looking for. You’re looking for the types of properties that will meet your criteria, you know, exactly as you set out to, and don’t compromise, you know, I think that’s my philosophy. That’s why it took me so long is that and I know some people that did compromise and they were paying more for their money. And then what happened when COVID hit. And we started having all of these you know, folks that couldn’t pay rent is that they had to tell their investors.

Bill Manassero (40:00):

You’re generally paying monthly or quarterly that we can’t pay you. You know, you’re going to have to hold off until we can get our numbers back up in terms of occupancy.

Seyla (40:10):

Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing that. So how has investing impacted your life so far?

Bill Manassero (40:19):

Well, you know, it was funny because I’m looking at him in Haiti and I’m looking at going back the States and I’m going, you know, I can’t sit around, you know, now I’m like really longing to sit down and relax. I’m ready to collect some seashells down and look at me. No, I love it. It’s really what I like about it is, you know, especially, you know, when you’re, you know, you’re, you’re getting up to the years, you know, it’s something new that you’re learning. It’s a whole new adventure, a whole new just, I don’t know, just wall of information and on top of that. Okay. So I’m learning all this new stuff. And my, I picked up a mentor. I probably should have picked one up earlier, but I picked one up later on and the mentor, when the first things he told me, he said, start a podcast.

Bill Manassero (41:04):

I go start a podcast. I said, I’m still trying to figure these properties and be a landlord and do all this other stuff and evaluate, you know, markets. And, and he goes, no, get, get a podcast you won’t and I’m going, Oh gosh. And I go, okay, well its podcasts. It’s like radio. I said, I got a, I got a face for radio. You know, I can do this. So, so, but I go, you know, I stutter I say, and I go, yeah, no, I do all these other things. I’m going to be a horrible podcast host, but I said, okay, I’m going to do it. I said, only one day a week, that’s it? He does his every day and I’m going that’s, that’s crazy. So I got started doing it and one thing right away, I started to realize, I go, wow, this is actually really pretty cool.

Bill Manassero (41:52):

One, if you organize it right. And I do all of my interviews all on one day, you know, so I it’s back to back and it’s a killer day and end of the day, I’m my throat’s gone. And but it’s, it’s worth it. You know, you can focus on real estate the rest of the time, but the, one of the really cool things about it is it, you know, I was calling people and talking to people that wouldn’t have taken my call any other ways. I mean, major league players, you know, in the real estate world some of the, some of the top investors that own thousands and thousands and thousands of units and, and you know, creative people. I mean, you know, I had Robert Kiyosaki and all these people that you’d just never been able to even talk to.

Bill Manassero (42:35):

So when I interviewed people, I kind of forget the audience is there. And I just talked to this person about, okay, what, what can you teach me here? And this a half hour to 45 minutes, you know? And it, it’s just, it’s worked. And so I started adding Fridays, which is the day when I just do my own thing. And it’s like for education, I’ll talk about cap rates or I’ll talk about the economy or, or I’ll talk, I’ll share my experiences. Then one of the deals I did when I started my website and my podcast was, I said, look, I’m going to do this, but I’m not going to sell anything. You know, it’s going to be, people can come to my website or listen to my podcast and not worry about getting pitched constantly. And again, no offense, if you guys do that at all, it’s just not, you know, for me, I had kind of been down that road when I was first looking at different types of real estate.

Bill Manassero (43:25):

I have a bookcase full of wholesaling and flipping books and all these like home steady courses that I was just, you know, I started with a podcast. I ended up, you know, buying some, you know, multi hundred dollars, you know, $200 thing. And I just, I was going, okay, you got to be focused. You know, don’t go for that shiny object syndrome. You know, it just is, you know, keep focused. And so that’s what I’ve been trying to teach people in my, in my show. And that was, that was one of the best things. Yeah. It makes my life a lot busier. I probably have a lot more free time, but I’m meeting people, I’m helping people, you know, I love it. It’s, you know, it’s kind of, I was in the ministry field. I feel like it’s a new ministry for me, you know, in many regards.

Bill Manassero (44:08):

So it’s just, it’s a blast. I’m loving it, but it’s you know, I set this goal six years and I was going to, you know, start to start to back away and I have to start pulling the plugs. You know, my wife reminds me, you know, and you know, be able to spend, because it was full time for me. I mean, you know, have run businesses, and started my own businesses. So I’m used to wake up at four in the morning work until 10 o’clock at night, you know? And I, yeah, I kind of pulled away from that when I went into full-time ministry. But I, you know, I see, as I saw sort of falling back into that in real estate, because I can’t do all this stuff, I can’t analyse enough deals. I can’t, you know, and you know, talking to brokers, talking to, you know, you’re, now we’re trying to build, you know, those contacts. I mean, I could be doing this 24 seven, but you know, I’m getting tired, you know, I’m no young buck anymore. So,

Seyla (45:04):

So Bill. So if someone wanted to start up in the real estate investing business, what is the one thing that sets them successful?

Bill Manassero (45:13):

Well, one thing, well, that’s a big, well, I say that there’s like X number of steps that you have to take, but the first one is probably that one thing that’s really key. And that is, you just kind of know what your why is. Okay. And a lot of people think, Oh, I know my, why is I want to make a lot of money? You know, no, that’s not a why that’s in your mission. This is like your goals, you know, your mission vision, but that’s not your why your, why is that thing that just sticks you right here? That no matter how bad a day you had, no matter how many evictions you had to deal with, or, or, I mean, you know, whenever it was, you know, the, you know, you’re not discouraged. You’re not, you know, you’re, you’re, you’re still ploughing forward and you’ll keep ploughing forward.

Bill Manassero (46:01):

And that to me is key to me staying, doing this, as long as I’ve done it, because I’ll tell you, there were plenty of times I could see throwing in the towel, but, you know, it’s that why that really keeps you going. So I think picking your why is the most important thing, and then all the other stuff, you know, the you know educating yourself, getting a good mantra, all those things, writing a strategic plan, those are all things I think you need to do to, but unless you have your why there, you’re going to be in that position where you’re going to quit pretty easily. So

Aileen (46:36):

Thank you. And so bill, if our, the stairs wanted to find out more about you and listen to your podcast, where can they go?

Bill Manassero (46:43):

Well our podcast is on our website. It’s also in all of the, you know, Stitcher, Apple, Apple, what does Apple play now? Now Apple. Yeah, Apple podcasts. It used to be iTunes, but it’s, they still have iTunes. Right. And you know, all of those Sound Cloud, you name it, you know, anywhere there’s a podcast, it’ll probably be there. And we were up to like almost 470 episodes. And this month or next we’re going to reach a million downloads. So doing it for a while. Yes, it’s 2016. But the name of the podcast is the old dogs, actually just old dogs, REI network, and dogs is spelled D a w G S. Okay. Yeah. We’re hip. Yeah. And so it’s old dogs, REI network.com.

Aileen (47:36):

Awesome. Thank you so much, Phil. We love having you on the show today.

Bill Manassero (47:40):

Oh, the pleasure was all mine. You guys are great.

Aileen (47:43):

Okay.