Stop Blaming, Start Building Gino Barbaro on Family, Wealth, and Taking Control

Speaker 0

Alright. If you do not wanna change your life for the better, you probably shouldn't listen to this episode. Gino Barbaro joins us. It was fantastic. It it's just such a good conversation. High energy, a lot of positivity, and some tough love. We talk a lot about taking ownership and and not blaming, you know, politics or the economy, everything else that that's very easy to blame. He talks about once you take ownership, it's it's so liberating to be able to take control of your financial situation and your future. Gino is a big multifamily investor. He had a multifamily education business that he recently sold, and now he's much more focused on legacy and family. And, he's certainly still into multifamily real estate investing, and we talk we do whip out the crystal ball, toward the end, and we and I ask him what he sees in the in the near future as far as multifamily real estate goes. But, man, he is so focused on, the family and teamwork and building a legacy and that it's not one size fits all. That, you know, maybe multifamily real estate is best for you, maybe single family, maybe a w two. Every every question is is really personal, but he delivers a lot of frameworks in this episode that are very practical. He's got a new book out that you can get for free, actually, which he mentions toward the end. And I just I just love this episode. This is really good for anyone who's interested in real estate and building wealth and taking ownership of your future. I mean, he just seems he he's just feels so blessed, and he's and he's not even sure how he's been able to he he looks back and he just you know, there's been a lot of adversity, a lot of ups and downs, but if you take the long term view and you approach real estate investing and life as a team sport, man, you can't go wrong. And Gino's story is is the epitome of how to do that. Enjoy this episode. 

Speaker 1

From adversity to abundance, hosted by entrepreneur and seasoned real estate investor, Jamie Bateman, is the ultimate guide for active and passive investors seeking clarity, mental fitness, and the confidence to make inspired decisions in the world of real estate. With a decade plus of investing experience across various niches and a background as a combat veteran, former army officer, and multimillion dollar mortgage note company owner, Jamie brings a wealth of knowledge and inspiring stories to each episode. Through weekly episodes featuring insightful interviews with industry leaders and solo explorations of mindset and strategy, listeners will uncover actionable advice and tips to overcome challenges and build lasting financial success. Whether you're a seasoned investor or just starting, from adversity to abundance is your road map to turning obstacles into opportunities and achieving financial freedom. 

Speaker 0

Welcome, everybody, to another episode of the from adversity to abundance podcast. I am your host, Jamie Bateman, and I'm thrilled today to have with us Gino Barbaro. Gino is a very experienced multifamily real estate investor and author, has a lot of experience in real estate education, and we're getting it get into more detail later as to what Gino's up to, specifically, today. But, Gino, for the listener out there, let's talk about some of the abundance that you've been able to reach, able to accomplish, and that that you're living in today. What does it look like? What's a day in your life look like? What are you up to? What's some of the abundance that you're experiencing? 

Speaker 2

Jamie, thanks for having me on, number one. And number two, the show should be called from adversity to adversity to adversity to maybe a little abundance and then to a little bit more abundance, then back to adversity, and then back to a little bit more abundance. I love that. How life really is. A life in the day of Gino. Well, listen. I have six kids. The oldest one is twenty five years old. She's gonna go back out and become a missionary again. She's going back out to camp and being a missionary. That's her passion. Her passion is art. She's such a creative person. She loves music. She loves film, and she wants to spend, you know, time with kids this summer, you know, preaching the word of God. That's what her passion is all the way down to a ten year old. She is at home. She is going to be the entrepreneur of the family. I think, we we homeschool our kids, so I see my kids all the time. I'm living and working out of my house currently right now. I bought a farm about a year ago, six acres. I've got a shooting berm on there. I've got two donkeys. I've got a little cow, five and a half month old, black Angus, called Antonio. I've got a but I've worked at thirty chickens right now. I've got a nice vegetable garden, so my day is filled. Listen. I just had a big transition in life. We just sold the education company, and it's one of those things where I'm just resetting right now. I'm focusing on a family company, and it's one of those things where people think they become financially free. They think they become abundant, and they're gonna sit on a beach. If you've worked your entire life to become really good at something, all of a sudden you become good at something. Do you think that person who's been motivated their entire lives is just gonna go check out? That's not how life works. 

Speaker 0

Absolutely. 

Speaker 2

How life really works is you finally get good at something. You finally find your soul passion and your purpose. You're like, I want more of this. How can I get more of this? And you end up putting more on your plate. And my wife, who's an amazing person, always has these ideas. I've got this idea, and if she's gonna give me an idea, I have to go off that idea, and I have to actually expand upon that idea. 

Speaker 0

Love it. Yeah. That's so good. And you're you're absolutely right. And we do talk about that on the show as far as the the success or happiness or abundance. It's not a a path that's, you know, a straight line up into the right. We we often talk about how we all experience adversity, and we're gonna experience more adversity for sure in the future. It's it's more a matter of how do you deal with that. You don't you don't know what it's gonna look like exactly. But, but that said, you're in a position now, Gino, because you've been successful financially to pursue your passion and focus on your family business and focus on the things you just you just rattled off, which sound amazing. So it's not to say you don't have any problems or challenges, but you're experiencing a level of abundance that I don't think you could have experienced decades ago. So there is something to be said for, you know, grinding and and working and and fit finding a way to make make money and, and and overcoming adversity, financial adversity, specifically. So for the listener out there, let's jump back, and and we're gonna I know before we hit record, you and I were talking about I mean, we have a lot of practical value that we're gonna deliver in this episode for sure. I mean, with with you all all the educational experience you have and the multifamily investing experience, we have a ton of practical value for sure that we're gonna deliver. But let's talk about your backstory, Gino. Two thousand eight, what was your life like personally? What was going on? 

Speaker 2

So for those of you listening, you may be saying to yourself, why should I listen to this Gino guy, this pizza guy? I mean, simply, I had one restaurant for literally twenty something years. I partner up with my business partner, Jake, in two thousand eleven. And within five years, we own over a thousand multifamily units. It didn't happen by accident. And one thing when I look back that really shaped my financial future was that time in two thousand and eight where it seems like it was a hundred years ago. And it seems as if we're going back into the o eight period. At least I hope so because we need a reset. And, hopefully, with all the work that the government is doing right now, cutting all these useless jobs, trying to cut the spending, it it it slows the economy down. I'm hoping that happens. But in two thousand and eight, I was the person who was blaming everybody. I was blaming Obama. I was blaming Bush. This recession. But I had to take a step back and say, how is that person making millions of dollars and I'm not? Right. I pick up the book by T. Harv Eker, The Secrets of the Millionaire Mind. I start reading it, and I say to myself, this guy's a jerk. But then I I I I read it again, and I'm like, this guy's a hundred percent correct. I mean, for lack of a better word, I'm being a little bitch. I'm I'm blaming everybody. 

Speaker 0

Right. 

Speaker 2

It's everybody's fault except my own. Everything I've done up until that point in my life is all on me. All of the results that I've had up until that point in my life were all mine. Right. Once I understood everything, I would say ninety five percent of our problems, we call them energy blocks, are external. I I I'm sorry. Our internal. Mhmm. Mhmm. Five percent are external. I can't control the economy. I can't control who gets elected, but I can control what goes into my mind. I can control my thoughts, my limiting beliefs, my assumptions, all at once. I understood that. It's as if something a weight was lifted because now all of a sudden, I have hope. Now all of a sudden, I can start planning. 

Speaker 0

Absolutely. It's very liberating, once that that mental transition to to not blaming and not being the victim constantly, once that occurs. I had a similar experience in around a little bit later. It wasn't until twenty fifteen where I'd been working at w two for for years and and then just kind of it was Groundhog Day. And I was like, my life is going nowhere. It's fine, but I wasn't passionate about what I was doing or anything. So had a a mental reset, and we won't tell my whole story here. But just ins I I just I flipped the script mentally, and I I said, what what what is what strengths do I have? You know, what people do I have in my corner? What's my network? What do I what can I focus on that are positives that I can kind of take ownership of my situation with? Right? And so there was a real mental shift then, and that's when I started really diving into real estate myself. But I I couldn't agree more. It's it's it's liberating. It's it's hard to do initially. It's hard to accept that maybe your our problems are due to our own choices and our own behavior. 

Speaker 2

Been living a lie your whole life, and you have to accept it. Let's see what's been going on the last ten or fifteen years. All of a sudden, doctors are starting to realize, wow, maybe pharmaceuticals aren't the answer. Maybe a little nutrition. Can you imagine understanding that you think you've been right for the whole last twenty or thirty years of your life, and you need to admit to yourself, I may have made a mistake? Right. And it's all comes down to the pride and to the ego. Ray Dalio says ego, there's your blind spots. And if you can really have an honest assessment and have people around you and be able to look, as Stephen Covey says, through that paradigm and start widening your paradigm, it's really difficult because it does hit the ego. But if you can start to do that and you can start asking yourself better questions, you're gonna start getting better answers to your life. 

Speaker 0

I love that. Alright. So set the stage for two thousand eight. What did things look and I know you mentioned the the pizza business and and all that, but, you know, kinda how did those next you said three years, I think, from two thousand eight to two thousand eleven. What did that look like, that growth period after you made that mental shift? 

Speaker 2

It sucked. I had a I had a real estate deal that I overpaid on in two thousand and six. At the end of two thousand six, I bought at the wrong part of the market cycle. I overpaid. I didn't know how to do underwriting. I didn't know the asset class itself. I bought in the wrong city. I didn't know what a or or a commercial lease was. I made every mistake imaginable, and I was in the midst of that. So I'm trying to rectify how do I get out of that? How as I'm working harder and making less, How do I, you know, deal with that? Because at the time, I had four children. I need to put food on the table. Sure. I don't see a future. The GDP of the country literally sucks. I mean, it's it's horrible. And I said to myself, I need to learn this real estate business. I went out and I started getting mentored by Rich Dad Poor Dad. I'm at a company, a gentleman named Dave Lindahl. I met another gentleman named Craig Haskell. I started pouring money that I didn't have into my education because I saw there's two ways to learn. You can either learn on the street or you can learn in the classroom. I had learned on the street, and that education had cost me hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars. This education was a lot less, but it gave me some type of framework. And when I met my business partner, Jake, he was selling, you know, pharmaceuticals to doctors, coming to the restaurant, getting catering food, and going to the doctor's offices. I was ready. He knew nothing about real estate. He was following his passion about building sports equipment. That's what he wanted to do. Okay. And then I said, Jake, let's do real estate together. And he ended up moving down to Knoxville, Tennessee. When he moved to Knoxville, that's where we started investing. Okay. And I was ready. I had the mentorship. I had the skills and the understanding of the business. 

Speaker 0

Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. So how so you just already you two knew you were gonna be partners. It was just a matter of what what industry you were gonna venture into. Is that right? 

Speaker 2

At some point, I liked the way my business partner functioned. He was a young dude. 

Speaker 0

Uh-huh. 

Speaker 2

And and at the time, I didn't know the word values based decision making, but our values truly aligned. Mhmm. We both didn't wanna stay in our businesses. He he obviously hated the job he was at because all of a sudden Obamacare started coming in. Things started changing. His compensation started changing. As far as being long term minded, being family focused, focusing on one asset, wanting to create wealth having no shiny object, all of those things really aligned well for the two of us. And we found our partnership to work really well. The only unfortunate thing actually, it's a fortunate thing now. It did take us eighteen months to find that first deal because we had no map and no process. We didn't have what we call our three step framework of buy right, manage right, and finance right. We didn't have that. That's why it took us eighteen months to find the first deal. But after that first deal, three months later, the same broker brought us another deal. So it's one of those things where you're in la la land. You just in in multifamily, and I think personally, real estate is a team sport. Trying to do it trying to do it on yourself can be challenging. I was just fortunate to understand what the partnership look like, and we took it slow in the beginning. We did one deal together, then we did a second deal together, then we realized that our personality is really aligned. Yeah. I never made mistakes. I I'm sorry. I never made excuses. 

Speaker 0

Gotcha. 

Speaker 2

Jake never made excuses. We made tons of mistakes, but we we we at least live up to those mistakes. Sure. I'm on I'm on a podcast right now. I've been sick for the last four days. I'm not gonna call Jake up and say, hey, bro. I can't make this podcast today. No. That's that's not even in a a thought in my mind. And the same thing with him. He's on vacation right now. And guess what? We just put an offer in on a deal. So it's one of those things where he got a deal sent to him by our quote, unquote deal dogs off market. He's not gonna sit there and go, oh, well, you know, I'm out here in, in in the Caribbean. I'm hanging out. I'm chilling. Yeah. He checks his phone. He puts in that offer. It's it's a life changing deal. So that's the that's the mentality that we have. We don't wanna let our we don't wanna let our our partners down. And if you're gonna go part with somebody, make sure your values align and make sure your work ethic aligns as well. 

Speaker 0

Yeah. That's really interesting. And that I don't know if we've really had that that, you know, approach discussed on the show as far as choosing your business partner before you really choose which which industry you're gonna go into. Because a lot of times, most people generally, you know, oh, I like real estate. I see successful people in real estate, and then they go into a niche in real estate, and then they look around for for partners. 

Speaker 2

You can do that. There's nothing wrong with that. I think that's a good idea. I just I just knew that I wanna do some I I knew that I wanted real estate. And then Jake, luckily for him, met a doctor who was financially free through investing in real estate multifamily up and down the East Coast. And he's like, wow. That's great. You're the only doctor who who's not getting bought out by all of these different medical groups. He's like, I love being a doctor. I can be a doctor because this real estate is providing for my financial, you know, life. I can do this because I love to do this. And I think that concept and that thought of Jake, like, wow. I can do real estate, create a business, and really love what I'm doing. I think that's what hooked him into the business. 

Speaker 0

So say, two thousand eleven, how were the the next ten years? I know you mentioned there were lots of ups and downs, a lot of mistakes made, but say, what what did I mean, you said the first eighteen months, you didn't do a deal, then you did a couple deals pretty quickly. Say years two through ten. I know that's a long time, but what did what did the scaling look like? What did your business look like? 

Speaker 2

Well, I had two more children. So in two thousand eleven, my fifth child was born. Two thousand fourteen, my sixth child was born. I wish I'd had more kids, to be honest with you. I'm fifty four right now. It would have been nice to have a couple more, but I, you know, we we stopped. As far as the portfolio goes, I was really fortunate that I'm sitting at my restaurant one day. I've got my chef coat on. I've got some pizza stains on my shirt, and in walks a friend. Look up, and he's got these beautiful shoes on, Bruno Maier shoes on. He's got a nice watch. And I'm like, let me start talking to him. I haven't talked to him in a while. His name was Mike. We sat down. He worked at a hedge fund, and he was buying single family homes. And I said, Mike, you know what? I'm investing in real estate and multifamily downs in the southeast. I just bought this asset at six hundred thousand dollars. The rent we're collecting monthly is thirteen grand a month. It's a hundred fifty thousand dollars in rent gross we're collecting a year. That's a four gross rent multiplier. And he he remember him looking at me going, really? I'm buying these two million dollars single family homes, and I'm getting ten grand a month. So it didn't take a rocket scientist to find out that I was on to something. Sure. But that's where luck and and and taking a chance happened. I was ready. I was I was Right. Right. With the information. So when Mike sat down, I had an intelligent conversation with him. He eventually ended up partnering up on that second deal. Okay. And then from there on, he's been our partner ever since. And the reason why I mentioned that story is people are always using limiting beliefs to say, well, I don't have the money. I don't have the balance sheet. Sure. I did neither. Right. I found my mic, and Mike was our balance sheet. And on our third deal, it was a four million dollar deal. Mike lent us five hundred thousand dollars to get into that deal. He diluted his equity to do that for Jake and myself because he saw saw the value in the deal. So don't let lack of money hold you back. That's the relationship you have with money. I knew that I wanted it bad enough. I knew that I could provide value to Mike, and I knew that Mike saw the value in our proposition. 

Speaker 0

Right. 

Speaker 2

And that's what we aligned, and that's why we got together. 

Speaker 0

But I love that you mentioned that that you're providing value to Mike be because it's not it's not something you're selling to him that he doesn't need or anything like that. You're you're solving a problem for him, and he's solving a problem for you. And that's, like you said, it's a team sport, and that's the whole point. It's mutually beneficial so that it can be win win win. Absolutely. What did that first deal with Mike look like? I mean, how successful was it, and how did things go from there? 

Speaker 2

I mean, the deal was a thirty six unit deal. We paid twenty three thousand dollars per unit on that deal. It was actually four of us now because my brother was a partner. So we were all twenty five percent in. We bought the property. It was generating ten thousand dollars a month in rental income. Within five months, I think it was up to eighteen thousand dollars a month. We currently still own that asset. We paid eight hundred yeah. We paid eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars for that asset. Today, conservatively, it's probably worth four and a half million dollars. So we still own it. We've refinanced it twice. We we had it with the community bank. We refinanced Yeah. To community bank, then we refinanced the agency. That debt is coming due probably in the next three years. Okay. But the ability to to do that one deal and him to understand and this is for the listener out there. When you're buying real estate, it is income over expenses. It's your net operating income. It's how are you adding value to that property. That's what real estate really is, and it's a business. And Mike understood that because he's a numbers guy. And if you can understand real estate from that perspective that you're buying a business, every deal we've done, we own, I think, little over forty LLCs, forty different properties. Every single one of them is its own cash generating machine. Every single one of them has its own future stream of revenue. And if you can understand that going in early, you'll look at this business completely different. Interesting. 

Speaker 0

And now you're up to over you you own over two thousand multifamily units, and two hundred fifty million in assets under management. Right? 

Speaker 2

We have eighteen hundred and sixty units right now. We have sixty under contract, and we have a potential to get another sixty eight under contract. I think the number is four hundred and fifty million dollars in assets. Wow. But more importantly, there's no syndications. It's all our capital. Gotcha. And you may be saying to yourself, how the heck did you do that in ten years? The real answer is I have no idea. I guess if you expand on that answer of having no idea, it just takes a little bit of time. We're able to refinance this equity out. It's like a loan payback to us. Yeah. And I'm not one that goes and spends money on toys and gadgets. I just take that money and reinvest it back into the business. And this is an important point I need to make. Yeah. When I started in two thousand eleven, I was still working at my restaurant. I was there for five years. Okay. I left in March of two thousand sixteen. So all of the money that I made into the business, I reinvested it into the real estate business. The restaurant paid for my lifestyle. At a particular point, there becomes law of diminishing returns where you're saying I'm spending too much time on my job and not a much time on the real estate. That is a very personal question to you, but I what I would say is if you're starting out, if you have what I had, I had a large family. I had decent amount of expenses. I could not quit early on. I stayed out longer. And to me, I think it was a benefit because it actually made my balance sheet stronger, and I was able to live off of my restaurant earnings. Right. And everything I made in the real estate, I continue to plow back into real estate. 

Speaker 0

I love that. And like you said, it is a very personal question, and we we I've we've talked about this on the show before. When do you know it's time to leave your your you know, make that transition from whether it's a w two or another business in your case, and what and whether to do it instantly. You know? I did I went part time at my job for seven years while I was building out my real estate. 

Speaker 2

Excellent. I went part time for six months. Great. That is excellent. 

Speaker 0

Yeah. And, you know, it's it's over time. And then eventually, you know, when I did quit my w two, did my income go down? Yeah. Because I had a w two income that was no longer there. So people talk about, well, I need I need to replace my income. Well, yeah, but there's still gonna be a point where you when you walk away, you actually do have a a drop in income. But to your point, Gino, it's how are you spending your time. You mentioned this already. What there's opportunity cost when you're working at the in the pizza business because you're not working in the real estate business, and you you longer term, the real estate business, in your case, was a better bet for sure. Mhmm. So anything else to add to for the listener as far as when when is the right time to transition into real estate if that's the right path for them? 

Speaker 2

Jamie, I need to give a little tough love right now. Okay. If you're serious about doing this, you need to really become an expense hawk. If you've got cars, if you've got personal debt, if you've got a dog, if you have a farm and you wanna transition, you need to get lean. You need to get mean, and you need to focus everything on earning. You need to get rid of as many expenses and as many luxuries as you possibly can because for the next twelve to twenty four months, it may be a bumpy road. But then after that, life changes, and you're not even worried about the material possessions. You need to go into producer mode. You have to shed the consumer mode and say, you know what? I'm not gonna consume. I need to focus everything, all of my efforts on producing. I'm producing value. I'm producing income. That's hard for the vast majority of the population, and that's why the vast majority of the population lives paycheck to paycheck. That's just the reality. But if you want it and I think everybody listening to this deserves to have that opportunity, but there is a little tough love. There's a little bit of denial. There's a little bit of, like, instant gratification needs to go by the wayside. And it's hard and it's challenging, but when you get through that period, you're not even worried about buying another car because you don't really care. You're having so much fun buying deals and building the business that that comes secondary. 

Speaker 0

That's awesome. That's so good. I that's that I I think the listener needs to rewind that last two minutes and just listen to it again. That that was fantastic. So finishing up your your story here, I mean, you know, it's never finished, of course. But, say, what did the last, like, five years look like as far as your real estate business goes? 

Speaker 2

In two thousand and eighteen, we got into the syndication world, now that I'm looking back, because we had to teach it. All of a sudden, syndication became this catchword because the two thousand seventeen jobs act, it became a lot easier to raise capital Yeah. Cross segregation. We did three syndicated deals. We found that it was not to our liking. We didn't want to work with investors, although it was an amazing bridge because we started running out of capital. So we're saying to ourselves, how do we continue to expand the portfolio? Right. One way is to start syndicating deals. And at that point, it was a great avenue. We'd built up our social media content. We had a brand, and it was I don't wanna say easy, but it was fairly easy to raise ten million dollars for three deals, and that's what we did. Ultimately, we ended up exiting those syndications. The third one, we ended up exiting, I think, last February. So a little over a year ago, we exited our our third syndication, and it was great. But since then, we've been able to accumulate enough capital where we're just investing in our own deals. And we're basically, on average, doing twenty five to thirty million dollars in deals a year internally. We're vertically integrated, so we don't wanna do thousands of units. We have to manage our own assets, so we have to hire our own people. So that becomes a challenge in and of itself. So we love to buy newer assets, and every now and again, we'll sprinkle in an older asset where it takes a lot more bandwidth of our team. Right. So we're really, I guess, cognizant of that. What I would say to anybody listening to this, read the book Small Giants by Bo Burlingham. For me and Jake, we realized that we did not want to become the Facebook of multifamily. We wanted to focus on one metric, and that's PPU or profit per unit. We wanted to run it with the intent of extracting as much equity and as much value out of every deal that we bought. We weren't out there trying to accumulate units and try to accumulate fees. That's a great strategy in a market going up. But the problem is there's no long termism there. Those investors tend to have to sell out after three or four years and return capital to their investors. We had done that. We just didn't like that. When I read the book, Small Giants, it made total sense to me. I wanna have a smaller company, not in size of units, but just smaller as far as being able to manage the culture, having values, having the mission statement, serving whatever investors we had. And then, obviously, what we started doing is we started allowing our employees that were with us for more than two years to start investing in our deals as well. Oh, that's awesome. Me, that was a seminal shift reading that book and saying, This is what I wanna do with our business. I wanna have a business that way. We can profit three hundred bucks profit per unit on every deal that we own, and that's that's the metric for us is we're gonna do a deal. That's what we gotta focus on. 

Speaker 0

Yeah. I've heard that, book recommended. I need to I need to read it. 

Speaker 2

Oh, that's great. 

Speaker 0

And, I love that the focus on quality over quantity and and just, efficiencies and people, right, and team and, adding value, you know, in every every asset, every instead of it just trying to amass a bunch of units, just really approaching it in from a quality and efficiency standpoint and investing in your people. I love that. 

Speaker 2

Jamie, I'm I'm not here to tell people to do that. I'm here to tell people that's what I did. It really served me well. Right. 

Speaker 0

Right. 

Speaker 2

And I would caution everybody out there. It it could be very challenging. During twenty one and twenty two, we were buying smaller deals, twenty units and thirty units, and then everybody had seen we're buying these big deals. Everyone's doing great. Right. Right. You guys suck, and that's how it felt. Right. Pull back. Yeah. Go off Instagram. Yeah. Focuses on what you want. Focuses on what you see yourself doing the next five to ten years. Yeah. Pull that back. And if if that is going after a hundred units and three hundred units and only five thousand units, get clear on that. 

Speaker 0

Yeah. 

Speaker 2

You don't have to be brainwashed into Instagram and to say you need to scale up. 

Speaker 0

Right. If you 

Speaker 2

don't feel like scaling up and owning a couple hundred units, that's phenomenal. This sixty eight unit deal that we're gonna do, if we buy this deal at three point four million dollars, once we're repositioned with it, it's gonna be probably worth I mean, at a hundred and fifty thousand a unit, it's probably gonna be worth nine or ten million dollars. It's seventy, sixty eight units. If you're doing three hundred dollars in profit per unit, it's generating eighteen to twenty thousand dollars a month in revenue, in profit per unit for yourself. So if you don't don't think that you need to own thousands of units to become financially free through real estate. That's what we the bill of goods we've been sold. Yeah. Old Burlingham's book lays it out and says, you don't have to do that. You have to do what makes you happy. 

Speaker 0

I love that. That's really good. So you recently sold off the education business. So what does your business look like today as far as, you know, the people? How many team members? What are the part what's the partnership look like? 

Speaker 2

We still are vertically integrated as far as the property management company and as far as the acquisitions. We probably are approaching a hundred team members, maintenance techs, property managers, regionals, COO. And as far as the education company, I just stopped falling in love teaching real estate because it's very challenging right now. And I decided, you know what? I love talking about money. I love life coaching. I love talking about family. Right. I love talking about legacy, so I created a company with my family called Barbro three sixty. 

Speaker 0

Awesome. And and what is dive into that a little bit. What is that all about? 

Speaker 2

So for us, what I've seen over the last thirty to forty years has been the degradation of the family. And you could point every and I don't maybe maybe I'm overstating this, but almost every single metric that's gone down in this country has due to the family. You can blame the school districts all you want, but it's really hard when you have a when you have a kid going to school that doesn't have a great family life and he's trying to learn. Right? Sure. You can see crime. You can see, you know, as far as as far as kids being born out of wedlock, every problem that we have. Poverty, it's due to the disintegration, in my opinion, of the family. So I wanna take it upon myself not to complain about it Mhmm. But to be a light, to shine a light on it. And my mission with the new company is to change the world one family at a time. And if I can change one family, that ripple effect will start changing other families. And how do you do that? You don't do that by telling people. You do that by showing people. Mhmm. And that's what this whole company is all about. It's showing people through faith, through family, through finance, through health and wellness, how you can start transforming your family and become the light that others need to see as well. 

Speaker 0

Okay. So get a little more granular, and then I do have, some questions to to fire at you. But what what does that mean for the listener? How do they work with you? What, you know, what does that mean for me? 

Speaker 2

For me is the first thing is just to read our book, Happy Money, Happy Family, Happy Legacy. For every person that is is in a family, it's like running a business. It's your your family should have core values and a mission statement. Yeah. You as a father should be transparent, open, and honest. We teach people through our mentorship, through our coaching, through our platform. We've got podcasts out there. How to start connecting at a different level with your family? To me, it all starts with the finance. It all starts with money. I love talking about happy money. How do you start that conversation with your kids? How do you even start talking to them about money and laying that foundation? Because through generating and earning what I call happy money, positive, you know, energy, money that comes into your life, you can start earning that and and showing your kids that. All of a sudden, you can start empowering your family and the legacy piece. You know, Jamie, you were talking about the restaurant years ago. Right. I was in the throes of unhappy money, and I needed to be there because I needed to pay the bills. Right. But most of us continue to make that excuse of, well, it's a job, and I need to be there. Right. Not stepping aside and saying, well, where's my happy money? Where do I love to reside? And for me, it was always the real estate aspect of it. I never gave up on that dream. 

Speaker 0

Right. 

Speaker 2

And once I got out of the restaurant, became financially free Right. I started Jake and Gino. That was my happy money, coaching, helping others. I mean, over a hundred and fifty students have left their w twos, over five billion dollars. They've raised over eight hundred million dollars in that community. That's where the happy money came from me. That's where I showed up. That's my abundance. That's my sole purpose. 

Speaker 0

Love it. 

Speaker 2

And now I've just shifted into trying to help out families. Right. And how do we do that? Try to go a little bit broader. Yeah. And multifamily is an important aspect of it, and investing is an important aspect of it. Right. But I think this whole different brand brings on a level. 

Speaker 0

Well and I think what you what you're getting to as well is is life has seasons, and your your passions can change, and that's okay. 

Speaker 2

It doesn't mean 

Speaker 0

Gino's passions have been identical from age five to however old you are now. So I love that. And it's you were leaning into multifamily more for a long time and when it was more of your passion, and now it's not that you're not passionate about it, but you're maybe a little more passionate about a a broader topic. And 

Speaker 2

You bring you, Jamie, I don't I'm sorry to cut you off. No. You bring you bring an amazing point up. And now that you're saying that I'm going back, I started Jake and Gino for a dual purpose. I started it, and this is a mistake that most business owners make. We start a business to provide for the family. We don't start a business to provide for the customer. And and I have a little bit of bias for that with Jake and Gino. I started it because I wanted to start a brand where I could raise capital, where I could be more at I I could actually be more, viable, be be more known to brokers and and start that. When in reality, I start to look back at it. It was dual purpose. I really started it because I loved what I was doing, and I was providing value to the customers and to the Jake and Gino members. So if you're out there and you're looking to get into your passion, there's nothing wrong with that. But try to couple your passion with providing value to the people you're delivering your passion to. That's where the link was. Because the restaurant, it became at first, I love to cook. I love to be with my family, but then it became a drudgery Right. Because all I was thinking about was myself and not looking at my customer as the end user and saying, man, this person is paying me. This person, I need to put love into the food. Mhmm. It became more of a job, and it became more of just Yeah. A soul sucking experience when it shouldn't have been. 

Speaker 0

Absolutely. And we we were talking we talked a little bit about that before we hit record, and we we've talked about this on the show before as far as when to follow your passion and when not to or what, you know, when to do something you don't love doing. But I think, ideally, there's that Venn diagram of I'm passionate about it in this circle, and the other circle is someone will pay me for this. But but like you said, at some point, you need to be not focused on yourself and your own, quote, unquote, passion because many people will turn their passions into something they despise if they're trying to milk every dollar out of it, and they're only focused on what am I getting out of this. They're not focused on delivering value, adding value to the customer. 

Speaker 2

Jamie, the problem is that most of us don't know how to start a business. So could you imagine if you're passionate about sewing? My kids love to sew. You can make a ton of money with sewing if you find the correct visionary that will help you monetize your passion. 

Speaker 0

Sure. 

Speaker 2

Sure. Find a partner that will help you with systems, with processes, with creating, core values and a culture within what you're trying to create. You do the sewing. You're the you're the technician, as Michael Gerber likes to say. 

Speaker 0

Right. Right. 

Speaker 2

Visionary that will help you out. Now most people say Elon Musk doesn't do whatever he does. He's he's not really that smart at all. Give me a break. The guy is not only a visionary. He knows how to build businesses, So he's a rare person. But if you have a passion, you can create it into a business. You just need to understand the business principles, and value creation is number one. But there's also income expenses. And if you're not that kind of person that doesn't like that Right. Either number one, don't get into the business, or number two, find someone that can help you monetize what you love to do. Sure. 

Speaker 0

That's really, really good. Awesome. Alright. I've got some, rapid fire questions. You ready? Gino? Yes. Let's see. What's one thing that people misunderstand about you? 

Speaker 2

I really don't think people misunderstand me. I'm an open book. I just I'm transparent. I'm honest. I think sometimes when we talk politics, I may get a little heated or passionate about it, and they may think that, I get a little tough on people, but Mhmm. I just try to 

Speaker 0

I just Keep it real. 

Speaker 2

Stay like it is. Exactly. 

Speaker 0

Love it. What's one of your biggest failures, and what did you learn from that experience? 

Speaker 2

That's a that's a great question because so many different ideas pop into my mind. But as far as financially, failure financially, well, I'll give you failure personally. As a father, it took me years to learn how to say sorry to my kids, and I still I still struggle with that because it's part of the ego. As a parent, you think you're always right when in reality, we make tons of mistakes. And I always thought being sorry and that vulnerability was a weakness when in reality, it's a strength. Right. Now my financial mistake was that deal that I'd mentioned to you back in two thousand six. Mhmm. Probably lost close high six figures, touching maybe seven figure over a span of ten years once I sold out of it, but the lessons that I learned were invaluable. The pain that it went through, that's why the adversity through abundance, through adversity, there was adversity for a ten year hold on that. But while that was going on, I got together and partnered with Jake, and I started buying other assets. And that deal pushed me into the mentorship. 

Speaker 0

Which has obviously provided a good bit of abundance for you. It sure has. Obviously, paid it forward, you know, many many times over. If you could go back and give your eighteen year old self some advice, what would that be? 

Speaker 2

I really like where I am, so I don't really wanna change the trajectory of my life. Yeah. But early on, when I got married, I would have told that eighteen year old self, you don't need to buy new homes. You can buy fixer up homes, get in there, fix them up, save that equity, and invest in other things. But I and the the homes that I built, there's so much memory there, and there's so many great times there, so it's really hard to. Sure. But for me as a younger person, anyone who's listening to this younger, your goal is to really focus on producing and really focus on learning how to create value for others Right. And learning how to save money because that saving of money will allow you to invest money. Do not go into debt where someone else owns you. Sure. That is today's form of slavery is when you are when you are shackled by debt payments and you can't see your way out. Please avoid that. That's one thing I would say to young people. 

Speaker 0

Yeah. And defer that satisfaction, 

Speaker 2

you know Yes. For a 

Speaker 0

period of time. If you were given ten million dollars tomorrow, Gina, what would you do with it? 

Speaker 2

That's another great question. I really don't know other than I've been on this website called James Edition. They've got beautiful villas in Europe. I'd possibly buy a villa in Europe for three, four mil in Tuscany and use that as a retreat 

Speaker 0

Nice. For, 

Speaker 2

for for my daughter, have missions going out there and have pilgrimages out there. If I had to be honest with you, that's probably what I'd wanna do. 

Speaker 0

Nice. There you go. What is the challenge that you're facing in your business right now? 

Speaker 2

The challenge for me right now is trying to start this business and and see where it's where where we wanna take it. Mhmm. I've been burned out with social media for the last several years doing Instagram shorts and YouTube videos and trying to get clicks and likes. To me, anybody listening to this, one of my mentors, Brenda Bouchard, said this, and it's really stuck with me. It's purpose over popularity. Too many of us focus on trying to become popular by not focusing on our purpose. And that's something that I've struggled with and I will continue to struggle with, and I wanna be able to focus my purpose on what I'm trying to accomplish. And, hopefully, some popularity comes from that. 

Speaker 0

Sure. And I think that's, just as you were saying that, it it I I realized that that as another version of taking the focus off of yourself because popularity is really, how does it make me feel? It's all about me. How many people like me? Whereas purpose is not really about you. It's about serving others and what am I meant to do? What was I called to do? How do I add value to others? So that's really 

Speaker 2

the hero and the guide mentality. Yeah. On this podcast, typically, the person who's hosting the podcast is the guide. Right. And the person that's being interviewed is the hero. 

Speaker 0

Right. 

Speaker 2

And and I think anybody listening to the show right now is also a hero. You're on this journey, and you're taking them on this journey. And if you can look at life from that perspective where you're a guide and you're helping other people out and you treat others as the hero in their story Yeah. You're gonna have a lot of friends. 

Speaker 0

That's the, Donald Miller marketing. Forget 

Speaker 2

Yes. StoryBrand. 

Speaker 0

Yes. Thank you. All about the being the guide and and the customer is the hero, and you're just the guide providing, you know, assistance along the way. I love that. And it's really really gets down to I heard, Alex Hormozi talking about this the other day, but it's, you know, talk as far as understanding people's pain points, he was saying it's fine to talk about your your solution a little bit, but it's really more about if you can well articulate the pain that the customer is experiencing Yeah. That's empathy and that's, like, understanding, and that's what's gonna sell. I mean, that's that's that's what's gonna really do it for you. And then sharing then you're not selling something 

Speaker 2

they don't need. I've listened to a gentleman named Zig Ziglar for the vast majority of my adult life. He used to say there was a radio station called WIIFM. What's in it for me? Right. 

Speaker 0

I've heard that. 

Speaker 2

If you can really look at it from that perspective, and that's what the person the customers want. They don't care about you, honestly, and and that's just human nature. And if you understand that, what's in it for them? Don't tell them about yourself so much. They wanna know how you're gonna help them out. And if you can cut to the chase and, like, Hormozi, the genius that he is, understands that, he's providing them a solution. He's providing them a problem to their pain. Right. Are you gonna become rich doing that? You're gonna become fantastically rich if you can realize that. 

Speaker 0

Right. Right. Love it. Awesome. Before we get to well, I know you've, well, before I get to that one, back to the multifamily space. 

Speaker 2

Sure. 

Speaker 0

You know, get out your crystal ball. You know, what what do things look like going forward? I think, there are a lot of, loans and debt that's gonna be coming due. You mentioned earlier about, you know, possibly removing back toward two thousand eight or something similar to that. I know whatever we say is gonna be not a hundred percent accurate here because nobody knows. But what are your best guesses on the next, say, five years as far as the multifamily real estate space goes? 

Speaker 2

If you go back to two thousand and nineteen or two thousand and twenty, if you're listening to this, I have a question for you. Would you have bought an asset five years ago? The answer is probably yes. Mhmm. So if we fast forward to the year two thousand and thirty and I ask you the same question, would you have bought an asset in twenty twenty five? What would that answer be? Probably yes. Yeah. So for me, long term, understanding the market cycle, understanding what we call the three pillars of real estate and our buy right, manage right, finance right framework. If you're an investor and you understand risks and market cycle, to me, this is one of the best times to buy real estate in the last fifteen plus years. Right now, debt is very difficult to obtain. They're being a pain in the ass. They're pulling back. They're asking for more. So what happens is sellers sooner or later are gonna have to continue to drop pricing. We're going into a softening of the economy, which we should. I hope Trump slows this economy down where we can start dropping interest rates. We need to take care of inflation. So shorter term, there may there may be bumps. And, yes, debt has been trying to reset for the last twelve to eighteen months. There's gonna be a lot of older assets coming online. Don't overpay for them. Mhmm. Be careful because sixty five, you know, nineteen sixty five plumbing is still nineteen sixty five plumbing. It still costs a lot of money. Roofs, driveways, you need to be able to budget for that. So understand where we are. To me, long term, as far as demographics, just be aware of where you are as far as investing. The southeast is great. The Midwest is great. The sun belt is great where people are moving to. And, obviously, you want more favorable landlord laws if you can. Right. You want great. As far as I'm concerned, you want great areas where they promote business, where they promote growth, where they promote jobs. If you can lock all of that in and you have a long term mindset and you're not there trying to flip out every two months and you can say to yourself, I can hold this asset for the next three, four, or five years, you're in a great position with real estate. 

Speaker 0

Love that. It's really good. Real estate is very forgiving over the long haul. You can make a mistake or two or you know? But, yeah, I love that I love that answer. Closing questions here. How has financial abundance made your life better, Gino? 

Speaker 2

It's been my life better with one word. And in the book, Happy Money, I talk about it. It's giving me autonomy. I mean, money doesn't make you happy. No. But the the option to get on this podcast with you this morning Yeah. Made happy. As you I freaking love talking about it. If I had to go and work at the restaurant at ten o'clock on a Friday, god forbid, you would want a chance in a you'd see snow in hell before you saw me in a podcast at ten o'clock on a Friday morning at the restaurant. That's the reality. It gives you the options. It gives you the ability to create impact in your life. Money is just a result. Money is a tool. The last thing I'll say is profit to me is the fuel. It's not my destination. That's what's changed in my life, and I'm trying to use money to impact others to create more happier experiences in my life. It's not the money that's doing that. It's the autonomy that's allowing me to do that. Sure. 

Speaker 0

That's so good. Now you've mentioned several books. Is there another book or two that you could recommend for our listener? 

Speaker 2

It's interesting. I had a book that jumped into my head and jumped right out of it. You were talking about, I forgot what you're talking about. Well, you've got 

Speaker 0

three three books, Wheelbarrow Profits, The Honey Bee and Family, and then Food and the Friars, and then you've Yes. 

Speaker 2

It's a cookbook. Yes. And and I would say The Honey Bee is an excellent book because it's a book about multiple streams of revenue. If you're in there, it's a story about Noah who's who's a pharmaceutical rep who meets Tom who's a beekeeper, and all of a sudden Tom starts telling him and teaching him about various ways to start building a real estate empire. I mean, if I'm looking at a book right now, the book that I'm reading right now, I would say it's James Clear's Atomic Habits. I'm reading that for the fourth time. 

Speaker 0

Yeah. I need to read it. 

Speaker 2

Of marginal returns. I mean, there's just so many different Yeah. And I'm looking at I'm looking at goal setting, and I've been goal setting for the last twenty years. Yeah. And I love what he says. Goals are the results. That's the problem. We all focus too much on the results, and those those results don't create happiness in our lives because once we get the hundred units, all of a 

Speaker 0

sudden it's like what next. Yeah. 

Speaker 2

Yeah. 

Speaker 0

It's like and and you do need and I read it. I've read it. I need to read it again. It's so good. But you need to know the direction you're headed in for sure. You don't just start doing stuff without any kind of intention. But at the same time, yeah, James Clear is all about process and habits, obviously, and not not just the end result. So I think he I don't think he puts goals down necessarily. It's just they're No. 

Speaker 2

He doesn't. 

Speaker 0

Yeah. People are just a little less you know, a little too focused on goals without being focused on the process and habits. 

Speaker 2

Yes. Great great synopsis. I love that. Thank you. 

Speaker 0

How do you like to serve others, Gino? 

Speaker 2

That's a great question. I've got all the community members calling me up. I mean, obviously, their time is done. I've sold the business. Mhmm. They're calling me up, asking for advice, asking for help. I I just love talking real estate. And now I struggle with others. I've got this book for free. Yeah. I I hand it out to people. And the book is more of having a conversation with yourself. Once you start reading it, you start listening and hearing stories. And I had my deacon at church a couple of weeks ago. I handed him the book. Out of all people, I thought, you know, he's not gonna have a conversation with me. And he says to me, you know what? I've gotta get my will going. I've gotta secure my legacy, and he's seventy years old. So there's a little bit in this book for everybody. Yeah. And it starts conversation. 

Speaker 0

And how can the listener get a hold of that book, did you say? 

Speaker 2

You can go to barbero three six zero, b a r b a r o, three six zero dot com. It's on our website. We're selling it on Amazon as well. If you want a free PDF copy, just email me gino at jake and gino dot com, and I'll send you a free PDF copy. 

Speaker 0

Perfect. So good. What's one question that you wish I'd asked that I have not asked? Anything you think we should cover here before we hop off? 

Speaker 2

You know, that's that's another great question. I could talk about real estate forever. Yes. One thing that I love to talk about is our three step framework. This is really important because you want to talk a little bit about real estate. So when you're looking at a deal, you're looking to buy a mobile home park, you're looking to buy a business, look at it through the lens of buy right, finance right, and manage right. Think of a wheelbarrow. You have the two back legs. Yeah. Buy right? What's your buy box? What are you buying? That's right. Where? Median income. Right. 

Speaker 0

Number of 

Speaker 2

units, unit mix. Right. Average rents. That's the buy right. Mhmm. Finance right is how you financing this. When those both legs are done, they're fixed. That's it. Then it's the manage, which is the wheel. Right. Right. Barrel. I love that. And if you don't understand that the real estate is a business, and even if you're buying a business, a franchise, whatever that is, that wheel is crucial. That's why a lot of these assets are having issues. People just thought they could buy real estate, raise rents, and flip out. Nobody was managing these assets. 

Speaker 0

Sure. 

Speaker 2

That's the 

Speaker 0

important good. And and I and I I actually it's interesting. I hadn't thought of it till you explained it so well just there, but I I talk with my team. I have a a mortgage note fund, residential mortgage notes. We raise capital and we buy fund, buy notes and and manage those those notes. And that's exactly it's you know, I talk about the three legs of the stool and, you know, one leg is raising capital. The second leg is finding the deals and and doing your due diligence. You gotta have your buy box to be able to do all that. So it's essentially first leg is is getting money. Second leg is is getting deals, buying, you know, buying the notes. And the third leg is managing those two two things, managing the capital and managing the notes, which most of probably seventy five percent of my time is is spent in that asset management area, maybe even more, because that's where the work happens. And that that's that's what I'm good at, quite honestly. But but, it's it's that's so true, and it's whether it's, note business or multifamily business or or, like you said, buying a business, those are the three three things to consider. That's really good. I've never heard it put exactly the way you did, so that's that's awesome. Do you know anything before we hop off? Where can our our listeners find you online? 

Speaker 2

It's been a pleasure to be on. I love talking real estate. I love talking family. I love talking money. Just go to barbero three sixty dot com. Check us out. We have a YouTube page. You can go online to jake and jeano dot com as well. We've got our podcast on there as well. And I just launched a show called The Happy Money Podcast with my twenty two year old son. So go check that out on Apple as well. 

Speaker 0

So good. You've delivered a ton of value, and I I this is definitely one I'm gonna be listening to for sure. So, Gino, thanks for joining us. 

Speaker 2

Thanks, brother. 

Speaker 0

This has been great. And to the listener out there, thank you for spending your most valuable resource with us, and that is your time. Thanks, everyone. Take care. 

Speaker 1

Thank you for joining us on from adversity to abundance. We hope today's episode has equipped you with valuable insights and practical advice to elevate your real estate journey. For more inspiring stories and resources, visit us at w w w dot adversity to abundance dot com. If this episode has inspired you, please share it with a friend who could also benefit from our conversation. Together, let's turn adversity into abundance. Until next time, keep building your mental fitness and your real estate empire.