Aileen (00:01):

Thank you, everyone for joining today’s episode of the, how did they do it Real estate podcast. I’m your host, Aileen Prak. And today our guest is Anthony Vicino. Anthony is the co-founder and managing partner at Invictus capital. He is a serial entrepreneur has helped to build multiple multi-million dollar companies from the ground up by creating efficient systems at scale, utilizing value-based content marketing strategies, and always focusing on providing exceptional end user experiences. He is also a best-selling author investor and small business owner who successfully managed his own personal portfolio of multi-family assets spread across the country before joining forces with Dan Krueger in 2019 to create Invictus capital and together, Anthony and Dan are driven to help people achieve financial security by providing solid multifamily based investment opportunities in an environment of trust, transparency, and clarity. So welcome to the show, Anthony, how are you doing today?  So we would really love to have, if you can share a little bit with the audience about your background and how did you get started in real estate?

Anthony Vicino (01:09):

Sure I have been Kind of a serial entrepreneur for a long time. Had my fingers in a bunch of different types of businesses currently have a manufacturing business, used to have a high rise window washing company. I was an author for a while. They’re writing science fiction and fantasy. So I’ve always kind of liked to do my own thing. I’m not a very good employee when I, when it comes to working for other people. So pretty early on in my journey, I knew that kind of the corporate mind-set, the corporate path was never going to work well for me in my, my personality. So just from the day one out of getting out of college was always kind of focused on my own thing and things that could allow me maximum time, freedom. That’s something that I value a lot, not so much money, but what money allows me to do.

Anthony Vicino (01:50):

And that’s freeing up my time and real estate is been really great for me in that sense, because one of the things I love about it is that there’s so many different ways that you can create a career. You can create a business within real estate. And most of them for the most part are fairly simple. So that’s what attracted me to it. I got my start doing fix and flips back in college with my roommate. But I quickly learned that I hate construction. I’m not very good at, you know, I can swing a hammer, but I can’t hit the nail. So like that was never going to work out for me. Very long-term. So we did about two or three of those and I was like, no, I’m not going to do this anymore. And then fast forward, a couple of years later started doing some passive investing into small multi-families things like quads and triplexes, things like that, but it wasn’t really until about 2017.

Anthony Vicino (02:36):

When I was living back here in Minneapolis that I really got bit by the multifamily bug and the story that I tell, and I don’t know if it’s accurate anymore. It’s been a couple of years. And I think sometimes we, we mis-remember the past, like when the light bulb finally went off, but how I remember it was, I was driving into downtown Minneapolis and the sunset was behind the, the skyscrapers. It was really pretty, the skyline was just glorious that day. And I was looking at the skyscrapers and I was hit with the question, what’s it take to buy a skyscraper? And that was a really strange question because I realized I had no context for what that would even look like. Does an individual own a skyscraper? Is that a business? Like the whole thing was like this black, this black box. And up until that moment, I had never wondered about, but now I was like, well, these big buildings are everywhere who owns these things.

Anthony Vicino (03:24):

And I don’t necessarily have any interest in owning a skyscraper per se, but trying to answer that question led me down the rabbit hole of learning more about real estate and specifically got onto the tale of multifamily real estate. And that’s when I really became interested in the whole business model because it’s really, really simple. It’s like Legos. They only go together in so many different ways, but once you understand how they stack together, you can create whatever you want. You could create the death star. You could create a skyscraper of your own. You could create a little plane, like you can do anything with Legos, but at their core, they go together only in a number of ways. And that’s really what real estate is for me is it’s a simple business that you can scale really well once you understand it. So I went and I bought a triplex and I wanted to learn the systems and manage them, actively myself.

Anthony Vicino (04:09):

I wanted to work with the tenants. I wanted to run this little building as though it was a business. I wanted to learn the ins and outs before scaling. And I did that. And then very quickly learned, okay, I’m ready to start scaling. And that’s when I met up with my now partner, Dan Krueger, and we started Invictus capital late last year. And we did our first indication in January of 2020. And we just completed our second syndication about two weeks ago. So depending on when this episode goes live so not too, not too long ago. And it’s just been a, it’s been a really crazy, awesome experience so far because multifamily is a really cool vehicle in and of itself. But then when you can start bringing in passive investors, people who have no interest in Reno dealing with tenants or trash or toilets or any of the headaches or the nightmares that everybody thinks about when I think of real estate to be able to bring those people and allow them an Avenue to invest in this vehicle where they can still get great returns, they can still get the tax benefits and it gives them an alternative.

Anthony Vicino (05:06):

That’s not as volatile as the stock market. Like that’s really cool for Dan and I. So we’ve, we’ve been really doubling down into how can we educate as many people in this, in the same way that, you know, with this podcast of like sharing stories, because once people realize how accessible it is that light bulb goes off and they go, Oh, I want to get involved. And that’s just really cool for us.

Aileen (05:26):

Awesome. And so for the first tripod, the triplex that you bought, how did you go about purchasing it? Like, what did you do and how did you find the deal?

Anthony Vicino (05:36):

Yep. So that one, I got off the MLS, it was, and here in Minneapolis, it’s a really competitive market. So pretty much the day anything hits the market, you either need to be on it or you just have no chance. And I don’t remember exactly why the seller chose my offer, but he was doing a 10 31. He was eager to get out of this deal a pretty tight timeframe. And I was just coming in and saying, Hey, I’ll be sure to get this done and get it across the line. But I was coming in with an FHA. So it wasn’t exactly, you know, as a first time home buyer, like that’s not the ideal scenario, a lot of sellers don’t like to work with an FHA. Especially if they’re doing a 10 31, because there can be more moving parts, more rigorous requirements.

Anthony Vicino (06:18):

And so the deal might implode or just get dragged out a little bit longer than expected. And if you’re on a tight timeframe with a 10 31, that can be a little bit stressful, but for whatever reason, the numbers made a lot of sense on the MLS, which is really strange because it’s the only deal I’ve ever seen on the MLS where the numbers actually worked. And so we went in there, I think we ended up putting $7,500 down. We got the building over the course of a year and a half. We put in about maybe 10 grand worth of work and then ended up selling it just about two months ago. So it was just shy of two years. And we, we made about 70,000 in capital gains on that. So that was a really good project for us, but a lot of that was born off the back of just local market appreciation and not necessarily us going in there and making huge improvements.

Anthony Vicino (07:06):

We got really good tenants in there. We ran it as efficiently as we could. But at the end of the day, the market was just rapidly appreciating. And we just got caught in that wave of appreciation, which was one of the reasons I was really eager to actually get out of the small stuff, because I don’t like that the valuations weren’t based off of my merit, that wasn’t based off of me improving the operations of the business. It was just based off of, Hey, did Joe down the street who had a similar house? Did he sell high or did he sell low? And that’s kind of what my evaluation was locked into. So it was a really good learning experience for me, but I don’t think I would want to go back and, and into the small stuff again, just for that very reason.

Aileen (07:46):

That makes sense. And so walking from your triplex to how you met Dan what were the steps that you took to meet him and how did you know that he was the right partner for you?

Anthony Vicino (07:57):

Oh, you know, like Star crest cross lovers, you see each other from across the room and he was just like, you just, No, but yeah, everything’s kind of slows down. Yeah. It was nothing like that actually. Well, actually, you know, we met at a, at a real estate conference, so at a networking event, and this is they’re hugely powerful events if you’re an introvert, Dan and I are both introverted people. So our, the way we met is actually kind of funny. I went to this conference and I said, I go, I do go into any activity, any event. And I asked myself the question, okay, what’s my outcome. What’s my desired outcome at this event? And in this particular instance, all I said to myself was just go and meet one person. That’s all, you got to do one person. And that takes a lot of the stress then of going to a networking event. And, you know, feeling like, oh, maybe I need to go meet all these people. There’s so many to talk to. So I went in there and I immediately went into the ballroom, found the table in the corner.

Anthony Vicino (08:50):

Nobody was sitting at it and I sat at it. I claimed it as my own. And I was like, all right, we’re going to going to ease our way into this event and all these people here. Well, Dan was there also, and he had the same idea. He looked across the room and saw one guy sitting at one table in the corner. He was like, sweet. That seems low, low, low risk. So he came and sat by me. And next thing I know, like a couple other people came and like now we had a full table, but for a while there, Dan and I were the only ones. And he was the first person I talked to at this event. And we just struck it off. We just had a really good conversation. We went to get lunch and we just kept in touch after that.

Anthony Vicino (09:23):

Actually we weren’t looking for partners at that point. We were just like-minded individuals who had similar focus, similar goals, and it became evident after a couple of months of just kind of sitting down and chatting and staying in touch that we had a lot of synergies. His strengths were my weaknesses and my strengths were his weaknesses. And we looked at and we’re like, well, why aren’t we working together? This just makes too much sense. And so we partnered on that deal in January and it’s been smooth sailings ever since, but I’ve had a lot of business partnerships that didn’t go nearly as smoothly. And usually it’s because one of two things happens. One is we’re either both really good at the same thing and really bad at the same thing. And therefore we’re not actually getting that, you know, effective synergy of one plus one equals three.

Anthony Vicino (10:09):

We’re actually one plus one somehow equals negative one. And so it’s like not very helpful. The other thing that tends to happen is that you have misalignment of goals and expectations and how quickly you want to hit those goals. You might both have in your mind, like, hey, we want to get to say a thousand units, but if one of you is like, I want to get to a thousand units in three years. And the other saying in 10 years, that’s a big gap there. So being sure that you’re, you have the same vision, but then also the same pace for getting to that vision. And Dan and I were just ticking all those boxes. And so it’s been a really good relationship. And now I, I can’t imagine, you know, not really working with them at this point.

Aileen (10:47):

That’s great. So the first deal that you did your first multi-family, was it with Ghana? Was it with the, or was it on your own?

Anthony Vicino (10:54):

My very first was that triplex all by myself. I would say actively before that I was doing passive investments. So I don’t really count that as I count that like pre real estate career. So the first thing I did was a triplex all by myself. And then Dan and I, the first deal that we did together was a 32 unit in St. Paul. That’s the one that we syndicated and Dan up to that point had been doing, I think he had 30 or so units of his own at that point that he had been doing his joint ventures with friends and family. So he had a bit more experience than I did with the larger properties. So he brought that to the table, whereas I brought a little, slightly different skillset.

Aileen (11:30):

Okay. So then for the 32 unit how did you guys find that deal? And did you guys do this as a general partnership and then you bring investors on board?

Anthony Vicino (11:40):

Yeah. So that’s actually a pretty interesting story. Dan had been before we even met, he had been putting out educational videos on YouTube. I’m on Facebook and Instagram, just a little short little things like, hey, what is cash on cash return? What is IRR those types of videos and a broker in our, in our area happened to see them. And he had a deal come across this table that he, he kind of specializes in the smaller residential stuff. And so sometimes what happens with those guys when they get these big multi-family deals, they don’t know what to really do with it. They don’t really have the right avenues or the, the vehicles to kind of push that to market in a big, meaningful way. So he had this deal off market. He reached out to Dan, he said, Hey, I’ve seen your videos. Here’s the high levels of the deal.

Anthony Vicino (12:23):

Does this looks like something that you’re interested in. And Dan saw that email and thought this actually looks too good to be true. So he thought it was a scam, but it never hurts just to respond, to kind of see where the conversation takes you and sure enough, it was a real deal it got through and it was its incredible. So that’s an instance where just kind of putting yourself out there into the universe, putting out content, providing value was the means by which Dan was discovered and the broker eventually found him. And that’s very similar then to our second deal that we just got done closing, which is we leaned heavily into putting out more content. We started a podcast, got more serious about our YouTube channel. We wrote a book and so all these things. And so then that deal also came about in a very similar way where the broker was very aware of us from previous relationships with Dan and then the seller was aware of us from the content that we’re putting out. So it was kind of, you know, put yourself out there into the universe and, you know, things have a way of coming back around to you.

Aileen (13:19):

Awesome. That totally makes sense. And so for the second deal is that one in the same market, or was in a separate market,

Anthony Vicino (13:28):

Same market. So we’re vertically integrated. We do all the property management in house. We have a full-time leasing agent, full-time maintenance staff. And we’re all of our portfolio right now is in St. Paul, Minnesota just happens to be where the numbers are really good, and they make a lot of sense. It’s a really strong market but it could just as easily be in Minneapolis. And so we tried to cluster our properties as much as we can. So everything all about hundreds of our units at this moment are within, I would say a 15 minute drive of one another. You could hit them all in 15 minutes. So that gives us a lot of synergy in terms of, you know, being able to bop between them because in St. Paul, it’s not like in the Southeast where there’s these huge apartment complexes that you can like 250 unit complexes that you can get for $60,000 per unit up here, it’s a higher price point per door. And it’s an older city. So a lot of the inventory is of an older vintage. And so they come in smaller sizes, things like 15 units, 20 units, 40 units. And we do have the bigger stuff they’re just fewer and farther between. So we’ve been focusing on, let’s pick up those small things where the numbers make really good sense cluster them together so that they feel like it’s a bigger property for our staff. And then just get the economies of scale that way.

Aileen (14:40):

And so for the second property that you guys had, or just closing on, congratulations on that by the way. So it’s great that you guys have been able to find a great deal even during COVID time. So did you guys to do any differently underwriting or anything like that into your assumptions for COVID?

Anthony Vicino (14:57):

Definitely it definitely. And we actually even changed our business model slightly. We did a tweak. So before we were focusing on value, add multifamily things, where there was a lot of meat on the bone, the deal that we did in January was a perfect case in point of this, where there was, we just got to at a really great basis, there was a ton of Delta between the in place rents and the market rent. The problem was the tenants were troublesome and a really good area. So we just needed to get the tenants out. And re-tenant the building and doing some light modifications along the way. I actually some I’d say about four to $5,000 per unit of renovation. So, you know, a decent amount of input that way, but on the outside, there was just so much Delta there that the upside has been very, very large.

Anthony Vicino (15:39):

We didn’t want to do that type of business model right now, midst of COVID because 2021 really is a murky future. It’s not clear what it’s going to be. And we didn’t want to be in a situation where we were doing a really big value add that required us to deploy a ton of capital on improvements or trying to get tenants out, like right now with, you know, the state of eviction moratorium is like, maybe you could get tenants out. Maybe you could, and maybe you could do these flips, maybe the money dries up, like it’s, it’s not clear. So we didn’t want to focus down on that same business model. So we did a slight pivot and what we pivoted to was going up just slightly about half a class in building quality. So we went to about B class high B class and an A-plus neighbourhood.

Anthony Vicino (16:23):

And we focused on buildings that they’re a little bit older, but they’ve been maintained really well. They have very low Capex requirements and the tenants are phenomenal. They’re a hundred percent leased. They pay on time, they’re in the hottest neighbourhood. And so these are really good, high quality tenants. And the value for us is that we bought it for about 20% below market value. And then there’s also about 18% movement for in place rents versus market rent. And there’s really interesting stories about why those things are, but really what it comes down to is you buy right, and you have a lot of value baked in from the very beginning. And that’s what we were fortunate enough to find with this deal.

Aileen (17:01):

And so was this deal competitive? Or was it off-market

Anthony Vicino (17:08):

This was on market, but I would say it was like first day on market. The story there was the broker of this deal was actually a former client of Dan’s way back in the day. So dad had a side nutrition consulting company and they were friends from back then he had worked together with him and this was before the broker was ever even in real estate. And so it wasn’t until about two years ago, he started getting into real estate, started making a name for himself. And now he’s actually one of the top five brokers in our market in terms of deal volume sold per year in this space. So he’s really made a name for himself. So you just never know who’s going to turn out to be the next big whoever, but what ended up there was the seller, I’m sorry, the broker put our deal specifically in front of the seller and said, Hey, you should work with these guys.

Anthony Vicino (17:56):

And the reason was the seller has about 1400 units spread across the twin cities. And he’s looking to offload his St. Paul portfolio to focus on as Minneapolis side, which is closer to his home. He wants to, he’s been, he’s been in the business since the nineties, and he’s looking to consolidate, just have less headache and less travel across the cities. And so he’s offloading the St. Paul side and what he’s looking to do instead of getting top dollar per deal, because he’s had these things since the nineties, he has a ton of equity on them. What he’s looking for is really smooth transactions with young hungry investors that he knows you can transact with consistently. So for him, it’s about, Hey, don’t, if you, if you say, you’re going to buy it at this number, don’t come back to me during due diligence, trying to nickel and dime me and trying to retrade on this. I need to know that you guys are serious, that you’re going to actually get the money and close this thing. And if you do, then I have more inventory lined up behind this and we’re going to be able to do a lot of transactions together. So it was a great opportunity for us to prove ourselves to the seller and say, Hey, we can do this nice and smoothly. And also a good opportunity for him because he gave us a great deal on this.

Aileen (19:01):

Yeah, that’s a really great story because it definitely shows the power of relationships and you never know who you’re going to meet down the road and who, who will be able to help you when you help them. So it’s really great. Yeah.

Anthony Vicino (19:14):

It’s like the Zig Ziegler says you can get anything you want in life. If you help enough people get what they want. And if you know, you don’t need to look at it. So transaction ally and go into every relationship saying, what can I get out of this person? Right. It’s more just be good to everybody. Treat them with value, like with respect, and add value to their lives, even if there’s not a clear way in that moment for them to add value to yours. Cause you just, you never know what is, what, how it’s going to come around. I think there’s a great phrase out there about like doing the right things, always the right thing. And you know the, what is it return on karma is always positive. So just think about it that way. And you know, these relationships, they have a way of giving back more than you could have ever expected.

Aileen (19:59):

Thank you for that, Dan. So what are some of the biggest challenges you guys have found during while purchasing these deals?

Anthony Vicino (20:09):

So with this deal, a couple of things happened that were kind of interesting. One was first our bank that we had been working with on for the last 10 months or so they had, we had forged a really good relationship with them, the terms that they had been giving us throughout from January, till now, as we were looking at different deals, they were really, really awesome. Great, great terms and a great bank just in general, but for whatever reason, as soon as we got this deal under contract and they sent over the term sheet, it was completely different than what they had been telling us before that. And so all of a sudden our underwriting assumptions weren’t right. We, we had to change them and that’s hard to do once you already have the deal under contract, its 11,000 and you’re like, Oh, where’s our bank.

Anthony Vicino (20:51):

Where’s our financing coming from? Well, the seller actually stepped up and did something pretty cool for us, which was all his properties are financed through a single credit union. So he has a really great relationship with them. You know, he has all these units with them. And so he has this powerful relationship. He went to bat for us and said, hey, work with these guys, you know, I’ve, I’m vouching for them. And so this bank that we had never met, had no relationship with came out of the woodworks and offered us even better terms than the first bank had offered us. And that was really, really powerful. So, you know, we got really lucky there, but sometimes luck, you know, it just kind of manifests itself when preparation and opportunity meet each other and you don’t necessarily see where the prep and the opportunity kind of work.

Anthony Vicino (21:34):

You just kind of see the lucky outcome. So it’s easy to focus on that. So that was one thing that happened in the middle of that deal. And then just because with COVID and the title company, we were working with a title company based out of the state which was good. And it was bad for different reasons. When you’re working with a title company outside of the state, they don’t necessarily know how to all the nuances of what’s expected inside that state. So that propose, posed some issues. And then in terms of getting everybody to the same table with COVID, there was none of that. It was all handled remotely, signing papers, overnighting things. And that’s, you don’t realize how much the title company does until you have to do all of that yourself. And then you’re like, Oh, this is actually a lot of paperwork, a lot of places to go sign, you got to go find the signatory and like overnight these things.

Anthony Vicino (22:24):

So that was kind of a headache. And so what ended up happening was the closing ended up getting pushed three times because of that first, it was, Oh, we were closing on a Monday and then we’re like, Oh, actually it looks like it’s not going to go until Friday. Okay. Well now it’s too late on Friday, so now we’re going into Monday. Oh, okay. Maybe we’re going to Tuesday. And so it just kept getting pushed further and further. And luckily we had a really good relationship with the seller at this point, because when we did the property tour, he came out, he wanted to meet us. He spent the day with us doing the property tours on during due diligence, because he’s like, I want to get to know these guys, if I’m going to do more business with them in the future, I need to vet them, like, see how this deal goes.

Anthony Vicino (23:02):

And I made a point throughout that day just to kind of like be his shadow and just get to know him, build rapport and have conversations like about not just real estate, but what else he’s interested in outside of that in life in general. And so we had a, just a really good relationship with him. And then whenever these issues were arising throughout the deal, we were just calling them right away and saying, hey, just want to be transparent. Let you know what the situation is here. And so I think a lot of investors, their first instinct would be just too when things aren’t going right to kind of pretend like everything’s going well, hope it kind of works itself out. And then if it does work out great, then nobody needs to be the wiser. But if it doesn’t work out, then you have a lot of people upset. And so we try to be really proactive with both with our investors, with, you know, sellers or brokers and just in working relationships in general, always kind of lead with the bad news.

Aileen (23:54):

And so as you guys have implemented your business plan how have you been managing the tenants and doing the communications with the tenants that you currently have in place?

Anthony Vicino (24:05):

Yeah, so our current tenants, we are doing a letter and then just in face, it was our leasing agent. He’s the one that’s front-facing with all the tenants. We try to stay a little bit more removed from the day-to-day operations, with the tenants. And just communicating clearly about what things like during COVID specifically, you know, we were in the middle of this big turn for this building. We were trying to re you know, renovate and turn about 32 units. And so we had a lot of tenants in there. This is blue collar classy workforce housing. So these, these people were very much in a vulnerable position with, COVID not really knowing what was going to happen with their jobs, or if they’re going to be able to afford their rent next month. And so there was a lot of questions. This is like pre stimulus even. And so at that point, it was about let’s have really active communications with the tenants to let them know about what their options are so that they understand, hey, there are some, some places where you can get assistance.

Anthony Vicino (25:04):

Here are some of those options. If you’re out of work, let’s have a conversation and get you on a payment plan so that we can, you know, make sure that you’re up-to-date, that you’re not stressed out about this because when people are really stressed out, they make poor decisions that they otherwise wouldn’t make. And so if you can just, if you can help provide that solution for them pre-emptively, it takes a lot of stress off their, their shoulders. And then you don’t have to worry about later, okay. Are we actually going to collect this rent or are we going to have to evict this person? Like, because nobody wants to go down that path, if at all, avoidable,

Aileen (25:34):

No, that’s great that you’re providing the resources to the tenants so that they’re able to figure out their situations and be able to help them out that way. And so what are some of the systems that you guys have implemented in your business that has helped you and Dan grow?

Anthony Vicino (25:52):

You know, I think I’m trying to figure out what we can outsource where our time and energies are best served and what our super powers are and playing to those superpowers rather than trying to get good at our weaknesses. Right? So way I was listening to a podcast the other day, and he was talking about superheroes. Like the Hulk is really good at certain things. And captain America is really good at other things. And the Falcon’s great at this thing. And, but there would be a whole lot less effective if suddenly, you know, the Hulk was trying to do the thing. The Falcon is really good at. And captain America is trying to do the thing that black widows really good at. And so the reason that they’re so effective is that they all play to their strengths. And they’ve surrounded themselves with a team of people who, once they’re all together, they have a really robust set of skills.

Anthony Vicino (26:34):

And so that’s what we’ve been focusing on a lot is how do we build systems with people around us that are smarter at the things that we’re bad at than we, than we are surround yourself with smart people, put them in a position to succeed, and then, you know, allow them the responsibility and accountability to run with that. Because people, people aren’t coin operated. They don’t just care about how much you pay them. A lot of people care about the purpose behind the work or the impact that they have or the respect or the control that they get. And so I like to try and create a scenario for our staff or our VA’s where, hey, here’s the instructions. Here’s the goal that we’re trying to get to. I’m going to leave it to you to try and figure out how you get there. And so not spending so much time micromanaging people, but allowing them to spread their wings and fly. But with that, then there’s also a lot of typically back and forth failures, a little micro failures, or okay. That wasn’t in alignment with what I was thinking. Maybe I need to articulate it more clearly, or maybe I just need to let go of that expectation that I had, maybe it wasn’t relevant in this case. And this is actually just as good. So that’s been really helpful for us is bringing in people and entrusting them.

Aileen (27:42):

And so Anthony, what’s next for you and for Dan and for your company?

Anthony Vicino (27:49):

Yep. So we’re continuing to grow in terms of acquisitions. That’s the big primary focus. We’re going to be doing that in a number of ways here in the twin cities. Like I said, with the seller, we have a number of transactions lined up for the future now. And so now it’s just a matter of getting to those points where his he’s ready for a capital event, his is coming due. And so we’ll keep plugging away at that. We’re also launching a fund right now or in the midst of it. And so probably in the next two months, we’ll have it fully launched where we can offer a service for investors who are not so much interested in vetting every single deal. They, they’re more interested in investing with us, but having a diversified across multiple deals and they don’t necessarily want to wait until the deal comes along to throw their money into it.

Anthony Vicino (28:31):

They just want to put their money in and know it’s going to be diversified. So we’re working on launching that fund as well. And then we’re just doubling down into the educational content. We’re not interested in monetizing that in any kind of way. We just want to keep putting it out there because it’s one it’s really fun for us. We love talking about real estate. And so it’s really just an excuse for us to talk about real estate and then if people want to listen, that’s great too. So we’re doubling down into our podcast. We’re going to two episodes a week currently. And I think we’ll be adding a third in by the end of the year. So trying to, you know, just get more content that way we’re launching a book, which should probably be out next month. I would guess before the end of 2020, it’s called passive investing in multifamily made simple. And that’s really designed for passive investors who have never heard about real estate syndications to go from complete newbie to feeling like, Hey, I understand this well enough that I’m ready to fund this. And then they’re ready to go out there and start finding their operators to work with. So that’s really where our focus is at.

Aileen (29:29):

So it sounds like you guys have your plates full, so that’s really good for you guys. And so Anthony, how has real estate investing impacted your life so far?

Anthony Vicino (29:42):

I think a lot of people look at real estate investing and they’ll say the, the financial freedom, like that’s a big, that’s a big component for a lot of people looking at real estate. The financial side has actually always been the least interesting part of real of business to me in general and real estate in particular, the really interesting parts. And one of them I couldn’t have foreseen was the people, the people in real estate by and large are very open positivity abundance mind-set people, which I find really, really refreshing to be around. It’s really rare that you find somebody in real estate who’s closed minded and negative and is just like scarcity mind-set. And so that’s been really cool because when you’re surrounding yourself with people of like this, this mind-set that, Hey, the sky’s the limit, we can do this, let’s do this together and they’re not viewing it as competition per se, but they’re saying, how can we partner on this? Then you become better through that as well. So that’s been really incredible.

Aileen (30:41):

No, I totally agree with you on that. So I would definitely echo what you said on the real estate and the people that we’ve been meeting with it. And so what is one thing that you know now about real estate that you wish you knew when you first started?

Anthony Vicino (30:57):

Hmm, that’s a, that’s a good question, you kind of have to rewind and say what didn’t I know I knew so little, honestly, by the time I jumped in, I wish I had known more about everything, but I don’t think you can ever, you just, I think life is a constant learning, a battle you’re constantly growing or at least you should be. I know for me, I think one thing in particular is depreciation and taxes. It’s always been this gravy area for me. It’s something that hasn’t been super interesting in my other businesses, you know, all I’m it, isn’t something that I’m looking at leveraging in a meaningful way, in the same way that you can in real estate. And so really understanding depreciation cost, segregation studies, and how that can play in helping to retain more of your money. But then also helping it to grow I think is, is actually pretty understated. And a lot of people don’t realize how powerful it is, myself being. One of them, I would say all the way through the first two years of my real estate investing career.

Aileen (31:59):

So what is one thing that sets a successful people apart in the real estate investing business?

Anthony Vicino (32:05):

I think two things, one there’s a bias towards action. Always. They don’t tend to overthink things. Yes, you got to have well due diligence and good processes, but by and large the people that are successful in this area, they, they take action. They know what needs to be done. They don’t make excuses and they, they, they do the thing that needs to get done. The other thing that they do is they do that consistently. They have consistence across every spectrum. And so I think a lot of people when they first get started in anything that they do, they’ll come at it with a ton of energy, a lot of motivation, but motivation doesn’t last very long. And if it’s not replaced with discipline, then it’s not going to last. And the people that succeed in this industry are some of the most disciplined people. I know. And so I would say try as soon as possible if you’re still new to real estate and you’re still riding off the fumes of motivation, start building the muscle of discipline because that’s, what’s going to really pay dividends in the future.

Aileen (33:03):

Great, great, great advice. And so what some, what are some tools or techniques that you have found have that you’ve been able to improve the efficiency of your business or your personal life?

Anthony Vicino (33:15):

Yeah, for me, I’m really big about time-blocking has been massive. I have ADHD, so that’s attention deficit, hyperactivity disorder. I don’t schedule out exactly. What’s expected of me? Then I go off on these scatterbrain tangents and nothing gets done. And so actually by creating structure that that structure actually allows me more freedom because inside that structure I can create. But outside of that, I’m just, I’m scattered. And so what I do then in terms of time-blocking is every night I sit down and I map out the next day, I don’t just set my to-do list. I used to do that, but it wasn’t very effective because at the end of the day, I would just pick off the easiest things or the things that looked most interesting to me, but they weren’t necessarily the highest priority thing that was going to move me or my business forward.

Anthony Vicino (34:02):

And so now what I do the night before, right before I go to bed, I sit down with my calendar and I actually block out time as for one, I’m going to do the thing that I put in front of myself. So if that is, I’m going to meditate for one hour, okay. When am I doing that? I’m doing that from 7:00 AM, till 8:00 PM or until 8:00 AM, 8:00 PM would be a really long name. I blocked that out and I say, okay, now I’m going to work on the book. When am I going to work on the book from 11 till 12, I’m going to make time to go for a run. When am I going to do that? And I get really granular and I allow myself freedom, like schedules get blown up all the time. It’s a guide. It’s not supposed to be, you know, a chain and you know, that holds you to it. And so you got to be flexible and have some grace with yourself, but that’s been huge for me is just setting out that intention. This is when I’m going to do that thing. And by the end of the day, by and large, I get most of those things done.

Aileen (34:54):

Anthony we’re so grateful for having you on the show today. And so if our listeners wanted to find out more about you, where can they go?

Anthony Vicino (35:01):

So you can find us over at Invictusmultifamily.com. And right now, if you’re interested in learning more about passive investing, we have a free resource over there called the quick start guide to passive investing. It’s again, it’s going to take you from beginner to a little bit more experienced, maybe not ready to fund a deal yet, but you at least know all the questions to start asking so that you can find an operator. You can find a market and you can start actually looking at deals. So go check that out. Otherwise you can find me on LinkedIn. I’m Anthony Vicino we’re on Facebook, Instagram, we’re all over the place so you can find us.

Aileen (35:32):

Awesome. Thank you. And we’re going to look forward to having your book come out soon.

Anthony Vicino (35:36):

Thank you. Yeah, we’re excited for that one.

Aileen (35:38):

All right. Thank you so much, Anthony really enjoyed having you on our show today.

Anthony Vicino (35:42):

Thank you for having me.