Nishant Sondhi, an Indian Immigrant Arrived in NYC Just Before Covid and His Path to Success

Are you one of the many busy professionals working in offices day in and day out? Do you wonder how some people grow their wealth fast, retire early and play on work days? Well, you're in luck because Ginny Bolling hosts this show Pivots of Prosperity where she interviews people that can do just that play on work days. Many guests have become financially free. She also interviews people that are on their journey and people that are in support roles like attorneys, contractors, brain brokers and others. Commercial real estate is the common element. She is on a mission to be sure. Busy professionals know they can own substantial commercial properties too, like apartments, self storage facilities and others, and not have to do the work managing them. Passive investing is the key. Syndications are the typical method. Tax write offs are some of the biggest rewards. Ginny and partners find the deals, build a strong team and business plan, then offer the investment opportunities to passive investors. New episodes are released every Tuesday at 12, so watch for new releases. If you want to get involved, let us know. You need to get pre qualified to hear about most deals. See the show notes for contact information.

Hello. Hello. Jenny Bowling here with Pivot to Prosperity, brought to you by Pivotal Real Estate Investments, where we help our investors build wealth and income through commercial real estate that also improves communities. And today we have Nishant Sandi with us. Nishant, thank you for coming. I appreciate it.

Thank you Ginny, for having me. Excited to be here.

You're welcome. He's a part of at least one of the communities. Are you part of Race Masters too? I didn't ask you that.

No. Part of Connected Capital with you?

Yeah. Right, right, right. Okay. So. But yeah, we've worked together on some properties, looking through, doing diligence and there's lots of activities that go on there. And so we got to know each other there and I wanted to have you on the podcast. So let me read your bio first and then we'll chit chat.

Sure.

All right. Today we had the pleasure of Nishant Sandi, the visionary founder of Sandy Capital Group. With an MBA from the Indian School of Business and over a decade of experience in sales and real estate, Nishant is a leading expert in creating institutional level real estate investment opportunities. His deep passion for real estate goes beyond just investing. It's about empowering investors to achieve financial independence through strategic investments that offer consistent cash flow, long term appreciation and significant tax advantages. At Sandhya Capital. I said Sandhya.

I'm trying to say Sandhi. That's fine.

Sandy Sandhi, that's that name that everybody Keeps saying otherwise. At Sandy Capital Group, he leads with commitment to transparency and integrity, ensuring that every investor feels confident and informed throughout their investment journey. Let's dive into some incredible insights with Nishan. All right, so what would you add to that now?

Well, firstly that, you know, I've just recently become a father and being blessed with a baby boy. So from a personal side, big update and thank you so much. And I think what I'd like to add over is that my passion for real estate really started from New York City and probably I should mention that in bio going forward. And that's where I really started my real estate journey. And I'll show a deep dive into that as well. So those are the two things. Recently became a father and my passion from real estate all stem from New York.

All right. And you should mention you're a broker, right?

Yes, I've been a real estate broker in New York city since early 2019. I'm still licensed though I'm not selling as many properties as I used to since I'm more focused on investing and being the fund management side of the business and evaluating deals. However, you know, that's, that's really my first exposure selling condominium, stun homes, multifamily rentals, investors, and learning everything about real estate is being a broker.

So you're doing that infamous change that many of us are doing. We're going from broker to buyer. We're now the investor and it's because we've been enlightened now, wouldn't you say? Is that what happened to you?

Probably because it's only in late 2022 when rate margin has started to high and I sense the brokerage industry shifting. This is just my view, I thought, getting slightly more monetized. And then I like also the role of technology and our players like Zillow and Redfin only becoming more powerful. So. And I felt at that time that I wanted to do work and business in real estate, which has a lot of scale, where I'm not limited, at least geographically, I'm sure. And when I was working in New York City, I was very small region. I was most of my time focused on only so many buyers I could work with, despite building a team. So I was looking at doing something where I could potentially work with people from the entire United States or even globally, if I dare say so. And I found real estate investing to be a very clear path because it gave me scalability, it gave me location freedom as well, and an opportunity to use my past experiences as a broker into doing building financial freedom for myself as well as for my network.

That's great. That's great. Yes. And do you have a date that you consider the end of your working for other people? The W2, do you have a departure date?

Yes, I think it was just after the Memorial day weekend in 2019, June 1st. And. And I was. I just jumped in to become a real estate broker. I didn't know anything. Like it was one year. This had only been one year since I moved to the United States. Three months since I got married and dropped a, you know, dropped this onto my wife and my family then. Now I want to be broker and probably the world's most competitive city. And I jumped in and unfortunately in 2020 it was Covid, which was a challenging year. But then I joined the upside in 2122. So. Yeah, I. I see. The reason I shared story is because after that experience I learned that, okay, probably won't be able to do a W2 again if I've seen such a difficult time in the market and fairly succeeded after that.

Ding, ding, ding. You use the word pivotal.

Yes, of course. This was that. This was that little moment for me.

We'll come back to that. But anyway, yeah, I can appreciate what you're saying. And now, did you speak English when you came?

Yes, I was badly fluent in English. Having said that though, it was still a bit of a challenge for me that while I was speaking English, my accent was more coming from the Indian side. So I wanted to be sure that my, my tone and my speed of in terms of how I speak should at least align as much as possible. That people can understand me without. Without moving away from my roots. So the day I moved the U.S. it's actually that very night I went for Toastmasters. I completed the entire Toastmaster's program doing about 35 or 40 speeches, give or take. I participated in leadership roles and I became a distinguished ToastMaster, which is about 1% of Toastmasters receive high award globally. And the reason I did that is I wanted to platform for me each, you know, every bi weekly to go and practice my public speaking communication skills just to get more confidence to be able to speak with the locals.

So let me back you up. What was it you got an award from Toastmasters. What? What is it?

Yes, it's called Distinguished Toastmasters. What? It's a dtm.

Dtm. Okay.

Yes, I was a lot of speeches and it's a very structured program. I must complement how well they have designed it. At the end of the participating in Such program and within a certain structure only gave me more confidence because I started to present and gave more speeches amongst American audience. So despite me speaking English regularly, I got good feedback on how I could improve the tone or speed of my communication. And I would like to believe that helped me.

Great. That's great. Yeah, that's. That I have not done Toastmasters. I've thought about it many times and I, I know I should, but that's terrific.

It's a fun group. It's. I think it's, it's a. Is nice, it's social, it's good way to meet other people. They'll only inspire you because they're coming and working on themselves at the same time. It gives you a good opportunity to improve your, not only your public speaking skills, but also your leadership skills.

Right, right. Yeah. Well. So, hey, you want to tell us about your first deal?

Yes, I think I can retouch about my first deal as a real estate broker in New York City. And that was when I got a listing for slightly north of a million dollars. And most properties in Manhattan are over a million dollars. It wasn't entirely very unique, but it was special because my first was a cold call and I just, I remember I'd made that phone call, cold call, and the seller had got maybe 50 calls that morning, but somehow he had a good conversation with me. I went to see the property and he didn't want to list that time. I kept cheating him for at least a year with regular updates and being top of mind and just showing that I'm hungry for the. And during COVID literally during the lockdown with, you know, so many restrictions, that's the time when he gave me the opportunity to list his property and I was able to sell it. So very special first deal because that was my, you know, first real estate sales, though I'd done some rentals before, but that'll be always special because it made me realize the end to end process of sale of piece of property.

So tell us about your first deal as an investor now.

Yeah, so I've been running my fund of funds in the last seven months full time. And last year I worked as a 1099 as the private equity real estate company where I was assisting and raising capital as well as being a consultant. Well, because my own fund of funds from the first deal, which I did in January, which was for a new development, Brooklyn, New York City. And this was an 18 unit condo development which was in. Which is in Crown Heights, very small duration of a two and a Half to the whole target. I knew the GPS really well because they were. Not only had I got introduced to them through a personal connect, but also professionally we had spent some time getting to know each other and I felt it was a great first deal for me because I was able to leverage my skills of being a real estate broker and my local market knowledge to go through the underwriting analysis and assumptions, get a good sense of the neighborhood. Right. Because that's what I was doing full time. And that experience of nine my investors valued a lot and I was able to. I was almost hit a home run in my very first deal with over about eight new investors who joined that deal. So. Which was very exciting. But. But what helped was the confidence in knowing that I was able to do that due diligence to give them the comfort. So yeah, again, as I said, New York City has a special place for me. The first deal as a risk broker, as a real estate fund manager as well.

Well, you just hit on some real important things. I was taking notes because first of all you had the local knowledge and you leveraged your knowledge and you knew the GPS really well. Which is really important to feel like you can know like and trust those. G. Right. General part.

Absolutely.

Yeah. I shouldn't use the acronyms, but absolutely critical. Yeah. And then you said that you, you brought eight in and. And that due diligence was critical to. To them and. And that's the most important thing we can do. Right. That research that. That underwriting and due diligence of. Right. So that's terrific that you hit on all three in one. One little statement there most.

Thank you. I think due diligence is every real estate deal has a risk. Right. And that's just the truth. What we can do as fund managers is that do a very good job the due diligence to try and mitigate as many risks as possible and then take judgment call. Because you've been evaluating as many deals. We work together as teams. We have experts who look in different departments to eventually see a deeper what it is once we are comfortable. That's we presented to our investors and not seen that even a few diligence deals may still not go wrong. There are hundred things can go wrong, but at least we've done our full part to know that the chances are really low and based on what's available in the market, we've done our best to make sure that your dollars are safe.

Yeah. Well, as safe as can be. You know, there's no safety and. And so that's Kind of the interesting thing for me too because I've been a consultant, a 1099 person most of my life. Right. So on the one hand I want to be on the GP side so that I can help to not just identify the risks but try to mitigate more actively. As a fund manager we only have so much influence so then the important thing becomes if we can't influence or help mitigate by our discussions with the gps then it's a question of disclosing to our investors what we see as and to tell them what we think of it. We can't, can't advise them obviously. But yeah, that's the one difference between the, the being on the GP side and being a fund manager that you know, people need to understand. But yeah, it's, it's, I think it's, it's an amazing opportunity to be a fund manager where you can get into so many different deals without having to actually take the time to operate. You can, you can scale faster but you know these have been challenging times. So yeah, both of us launched right at Covid and yes, I delayed actually starting my investment company because of COVID and did some more flipping and some other things. But yeah then it's been the interest rates and you know, question of what markets you want to go into and so tell the listeners what markets you are into.

Yeah, so the markets that focus primarily are Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina and have interest in Florida and Brooklyn though I've not done anything in Florida yet and the reason for me to choose these markets is firstly Brooklyn because I have my biases being haven't been in a practicing in the city for five years. So I have a good sense locally and I'm a big fan of keeping things as simple as possible. So for example if you look at U HAUL data it clearly says the top five states where people have migrated in 2023 have been Texas for North South Carolina and Tennessee. So why should I deviate from such credible information? For example recently CNBC also had a report that came out that most of that which are the states where people, people who make over $200,000 are moving. The top two were Texas, Florida followed by North South Carolina. So we have such strong data points because end of the day real estate is a location driven business. You want to look at good fundament, where are people migrating to, where is their job growth and what are the fundamentals that are driving people there. Points such as good weather, no state taxes are here to stay and especially post Covid. I'm of a firm believer that unless you need work from home is going to be a culture which is only going to be growing more. Where you see not only independent contractors, entrepreneurs choosing not to in fact stay in large metro cities as if they don't need to. And if people don't need to travel to work every day, then you have opportunities of them living more remote. And that's where I see more growth in these areas. So that's how I identify these markets. And I want to know, I want to keep it simple and kind of stick to them as well. I know they're more maybe interesting markets or people say, you know, there's something more exciting. But I want to keep it, keep it simple.

You're doing multi family mainly, Right. And so what class are you into?

So I'm looking at mostly class B properties, 1980s, 90s bills, very good value add potential. Mostly 200 if I had to give broad numbers between 200 to 300 unit apartment complexes. I'm a big fan of the number and value add just because you add economies of scale and there's a lot of upside potential. At the same time, I'm also a big fan of built rent projects. And just to let your listeners know, build rent projects are essentially new rental gated communities which are built instead of having apartments, single family townhome style rental properties. And I feel going forward a lot of trend data do suggest people as home affordability is getting out of reach. People are preferring to stay in such communities because they're getting the benefits of purchasing a home such as a private, private on a garage and a dog park. Sense of community living. This is truly the American dream where you know, no one lives above you, no one below you, you want your own house. And I think build through rent is a new trend that we're picking up in the last few years. And I do see a great potential because just because value is value, these renters are seeking also they are new products. Right. So it's compared to properties which are. These are new ones and people okay to pay a slight premium for it as well.

Right? Yeah. And before we started recording we were talking about build to rent and that it's just really kind of arriving at least in central Florida. I can't be sure. Florida probably already. Usually it hits south Florida first and then comes north because you know, Miami and the population is really mostly in south Florida. But yeah, the, the build to rent is, is a big deal for just that reason. And you know, then you have also that flexibility of selling Those you know, you don't have to rent.

Yes.

So you've got exit strategies that, that you know can really help you with cash flow if need be. So I agree. Have you. Do you know of any build to rents where they started selling them at all or. Because it's been a cash crunch right now. Right.

Yes. I've actually only worked in two projects in 2023 which were new development built to rent. So they're still cross in the construction phase right now. By the time they'll be up and running would be more in 2026. But I think to your point, my sense is that built to rent is. And I think it's good for your listeners to know this is just my view that it's probably good for more experienced investors because it qualifies in the moderate to category versus value add multifamily simply because still doing ground development, you're still looking for permits, you're still looking for. It's still. You need an experienced operator developer who's done this before. Right. Versus value add. Your risk is slightly lesser because it's still most likely cash bring. It's only an established location and the property's already been there. But if you are, you know, if you feel you've had experience and private equity real estate opportunities, then definitely build to rent. Something you could consider because the returns are slightly more exciting.

Yeah, I, I've seen them even double what it is for multifamily depending on the developer. I guess class makes a difference there too, right?

Absolutely. This is just because you are. You kind of think of it more as you're the manufacturer of real estate. Right. You're right at the beginning. The maximum value is being created when you're building from the ground up. So once the property is already built and once construction is done, then it's similar to any other value add project. It's now about the product to just rent or sell. So the hardest part is to get it to reset construction points. If you have an experienced operator developer who is already local to the market, who has a very good track record, who understands permits really well and it's like rinse and repeat for them, then I would consider, you know, of course, after doing a due diligence and putting a disclaimer, every investment must review your private placement memorandum before you proceed. But keeping keeping all things constant, it's definitely at least worth reviewing in my view.

Yeah, yeah, no, I agree. I do. So the, the ones that you've reviewed and looked at and been involved with are they Doing much on the ESG side of things. You know what I mean by the environmental, sustainable and government. What's the G stand for?

I, no, if not I, I don't recall that, but I know what you're talking about. Not the projects I have been involved in. Having said that, it's, it's very important. I do see a lot of new GPS come in advertising that I think the onus really lies on. If I may give a shout out to the marquee players, right. And the day who have the deeper pockets, the experience and record because they have the biggest pool, largest pool of investors along with them to start taking charge. Because once they do that, you know, smaller New York players also sets a trend. Of course I'm not taking any efforts away from the, the new ideas who are doing that. And you know, that will also have a ripple effect. It's also a bigger shout out to the experience old timers over there so that together one can work on these kind of projects. Because if you can make profit with purpose, that'll be great.

And you said the name of a company was Marquee or.

No, I mean my market is more like the, the top company. I didn't name, I didn't give a shout out to anything.

Okay. Because I, I, if you want me to, I can help recognize them. That's all. But yeah, and, and actually that leads us to our big question for you. Well, should we do that yet? Let me see. What else haven't we talked about first though? Is there something else that's that you want to share with listeners before I ask you that big question?

Now I think the suspense is built up. Why don't you ask the question? If something, I'll go for it then.

Is there a pivotal person or event that brought you to where you are today or that is pushing you forward to where you want to be?

Danny, that's a, that's a fantastic question. And it's on also at so many levels and for so many reasons is a good question. And for me, the pivotal moment really in my life was more Covid because I was a very difficult time. It was just about two years since I'd moved to the U.S. it's just been a year since I'd gotten married, really far from family and friends. Just a year since I'd become a real estate broker. And all reasons at that time to leave the U.S. i had all reasons. It's just been nine months since I started my practice as a real estate broker. I had a very good pipeline of sales in front of me. The spring market was about to start and move ahead with the lockdown. And it's not fun being an independent contractor when you and work for a sales pipeline and the fact is outside your control almost shatter your, you know, your livelihood if I may say so. Right.

Because you're.

It's just your first year. It's hard. And I had all reasons to pack my bag and go back. Covid was to make me realize that you need to be closer to family and it's just not working out, it's expensive etc. But I powered through that and I worked a lot through and I won't forget that phase during lockdown when I focused a lot on working on myself. On my morning runs I focus on my meditation. I was reading a lot. I joined groups for Miracle Morning and I kept myself in a good mind space that at least in the morning for two to three hours I should be able to post content or lead, generate or do something to put myself out there and just speak to people about real estate. Good, bad news, just. Just be out there and put yourself out there. And that's at the end of the year I was able to do somewhere on $5 million sales and just in Deepak deals including one deal which is a $2.5 million plus deal. And I was only able to get access because my persistence and even Manhattan standards, that's a big number was and I feel like the universe conspired to get that sale to end that year positively. That gave me good momentum for 21:22 just because my positions and being in a good space. So whenever I'm in a tough space in my life, I just remember that action comes later. First it's your mindset, right? Like how are you looking at situation, how much are you working on yourself? How much are you in a good space? Because the stress was there and it's going to be there. But end of the day how you look at the situation is only. How it's only action that's going to be there. So that, that. That's probably the most pivotal moment in my life just to just the magnitude of the event and it's impacted my life until date is massive because if that didn't take place, I would have packed my bags, gone to India, I won't have in real estate, I won't have definitely become a fund manager, definitely won't be speaking right now. So that's how it all comes together.

And on top of that I'm wondering if your visual experience being There in Manhattan where the death rate was skyrocketing. Right. What was that doing on your mindset? Was there, was that an impact to you or were you isolating yourself from a lot of that?

It did like it, you know, I won't lie. Of course you avoided and you have for good reasons. Concerned family and friends reaching out to you, phone calls coming. Is everything okay? Just curious. And, and look, the beginning you didn't know what you're. Nor like people are trying to sanitize, there are lockdowns. You can't. People are trying to pack up groceries. You don't know what you don't know. Right. So you know, you're not ordering in food. You don't know how the thing is really going to spread and especially in the debt rate going high. And then news starts to come in from all over the world, someone passing away horror stories of no bad time for humanity. I feel from what we've escaped quite frank. And, and I think what I kept saying to myself is that there is somebody in this market who wants to buy or sell and my job is to find them today. And I heard that, kept hearing that Mike Ferry was a very famous real estate sales coach and that my mindset really helped me. Is that okay? Yes, this is all happening around me, but there is someone who wants to do something. So my job is to keep finding the pain. My job is to just keep putting myself out there and someone is going to find me. And wrong, behold, that happens. So it's sometimes hard to isolate. But you know, you need those one or two very strong affirmations which keep going and that's what at least helped me to move forward.

Now does your wife, or did she work at the time or were you the sole income earner?

She was working as well, though she's in recruitment, so her business was even more impacted than mine, I would say. So I think, I think at that time, you know, we were not looking too far ahead. Like mostly we. Our first motivate goal was to. We don't know what's happening is, you know, you as strong as it sounds. First survival, right. You're looking at just next three to six months. Okay. Do you know how do we make sure that we, we get through this first healthy and without any of our loved ones, anything happening and then that we do enough business that it keeps us moving. So. But as I said, it's just being in, in that good space and it's a lot of work. You know, I, I can just tell your listeners on my Perspective. I know we often hear about it and I'm guilty. I may not be doing it as much as I did it during overtime working on myself, but it was work. Like you're going early in the morning for a run when nobody's out there, just to isolate yourself, coming back, meditating 23 minutes a day, then reading for an hour, sleeping early, still working in the morning, knowing that you have every reason to not work, run weight, drink more alcohol, watch tea. You have every excuse to do so. But to kind of isolate yourself and still, you know, commit to a certain routine was work. And it did take a lot of work. It still takes a lot of work. Right. And then, then you. But you do get the results. So I feel this whole people talk a lot about personal development and mindset etc. I think people grossly undersell the work that is needed. A five minute affirmation is not going to cut. You need to put in the work.

So. And part of what you're describing is the program or book, it's after the book called Miracle Morning, right?

Yes, Miracle Morning was. Had a major impact because again, just your listeners, you know, some context is about six morning routines you can follow following the acronym savers. So S is for silence or meditation, A is your affirmations, V to visualize, E exercise, R for reading and S for scribing or don't link. So you, you know, I'm not saying you have to do all six of them. Obviously nothing like it when you do it, but it gives you a good system to follow. Even if you could do three or four out of the six, you are setting yourself up more. You're. You're always going to be in a better position than you were just scrolling out of your bed and trying to figure day out. So I think the whole idea of Miracle morning or the 5am Club by Robin Sharma or any of these morning books is that how do you start your day? With intention, Proactively versus reacting. Right. That's the real difference. And I think when it's crisis like Covid or the market where we are right now, it's more important not only for investors, GP Fund manager, all of us getting in together. How are we more proactive in finding the right opportunities and all working towards the same goals?

Well said. Well said. Right, well. And so. And I'll put the notes in the notes. Miracle Morning. For those that are just listening though, that, that is the author is. Oh my gosh, I thought I saw it right here. Yeah, yeah, but super. Okay, well, so tell people how they can get in touch with you.

Yes, I think the best way is you can reach out to me on LinkedIn follow me on LinkedIn and I regularly share my views on what's happening in the market updates I shared. I discuss a lot about passive investing as well so it'll be a great resource for you to learn more about real estate investing at the same time. Happy to have a conversation offline as well. Just drop me a message and mention that you heard me at Ginny's podcast. I'm sure to book time with you to have a one on one conversation and get to know you better. Be some good fun.

So while we'll put all the contact information in the show notes for the people that are just listening, go ahead and tell them what your email is or how you would want them to reach you and spell it too if you would.

Yes so I think the best way to reach me would be again you know the LinkedIn and I'll just give you is LinkedIn.comn/ so and for Nazi at S O N D H I so N is initial for my first name Sony last name you'll find me there. You're also yeah I think that that would probably be the best way. You could also visit my Website so the capitalgroup.com I repeat somdi as in my last name capitalgroup.com I have a few free resources such as the passive investor one on one course which I think is helpful for someone who's just learning more about passive investing. I also have book on Build to Rent so I like just continuation of conversation I had with Gene. You get a lot more detail about Build to Rent over there as well. And you can also join my investor club from my website if you want access to our 560 real estate deals. Very good.

Well thank you so much and I'll mention you are excellent at @ LinkedIn. You've been teaching us some tricks so yeah you definitely monitor your.

Thank you. Thank you for having me and having me had a good time.