65: Real Estate Wealth Hacking With Philip Michael

Foreign. This is Real Estate Investing Live from New York with James Nelson, the principal and head of Avis and Young's Tri State Investment Sales Group. In this program, you'll learn about the world of commercial real estate and find out why it's one of the largest investment opportunities in New York and around the world. Now here is your host, James Nelson.

Welcome to Real Estate Investing Live from New York. This is your host, James Nelson, principal and head of Tri State Investment Sales for Avis and Young. And here we are with episode number 65. We just keep cranking here and well over the hundred thousand mark now. I'll keep you posted as we start getting closer to 200,000 downloads. But just really appreciate everyone's support here and had a great conversation with Marshall earlier from New York. He works for one of the top lenders out there. He said, look, love the show. And he's thinking about doing his own podcast now. And I think that's amazing and hopefully I inspire you all to get the word out there and share your experience. He also thought I was crazy for sharing my cell phone a couple episodes ago. And I will do that once again. And certainly for all you millennials listening who might be afraid to pick up the phone, you can also text me at 917-362-1485. Yes, that is my cell phone, so you can reach me there. But maybe easiest to connect with me. My social media channels are at James Nelson nyc, so you can link in with me or you can always try james nelsonavisonyoung.com so there are multiple ways to get ahold of me. If you want to connect, you need help to figure out your next investment. That is why I am here. That is why this show exists, is to make you the best investor possible. And on that note, I do hope you listen to last week's show. I had Doug Marshall back, back with us for a third time. He's the author of the Art of Commercial State, which is fantastic. There's few books out there that really teach you how to invest in commercial real estate. And he goes by step by step. And now he's got this incredible online course called the Great Game of Real Estate Investing. And you can use promo code nelson11 when you go to his website, marshallcf.com to get that course and you'll get $100 discount also by doing that. But enough about last week because super excited to have with us today Philip Michael. And he has such an amazing, amazing story having come to the U.S. you know, with under $100 in his pocket, you know, about five years ago and working his connections and I mean, he has done it all from being a boxing commentator to being an editor at one of the biggest real estate publications out there. And what I love about his story is he's just not afraid to jump in and ask and you're going to hear his story and approaching one of the biggest developers in New York City and saying, hey, I want to learn how to invest, how do I do it? So this is a must. Listen, he's got an amazing social media following too. And he's got his own webpage, Wealth Lab. And he also is about empowering and especially millennials and people of color to jump in the game and invest and create their own wealth and fortune. So I know you're going to get a lot out of this interview that we'll jump into right after we have a brief word from our sponsors.

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And now it's time for our investor spotlight and really excited to have with us today Philip Michael, who was born and raised in Denmark after coming to New York in 2014 with $79 to his name. Six years later, he has founded nice companies and has amassed a real estate portfolio worth $250 million, a substantial social media following and a mission to make real estate investing accessible to communities of color. He also runs a media site called Wealth Lab with content to empower creators, hustlers and doers. He's also an influencer on Instagram. I'm envious up to except around 100,000 fans and he also does a lot of zoom lectures and weekly Facebook Live Q and A. Michael wants to spread the wealth. Specifically, I love this goal. He wants to mint 100,000 millionaires of color by 2030. And to reach that goal, he's developing a crowdfunding app called Refi, which we're going to get into soon. So, Philip, welcome. So excited to have you with us here today.

Thank you. Thank you.

So what. What ultimately, tell us a little bit about your. Your story growing up there and then what ultimately brought you to the U.S.

Well, the way I first came here was when you're in Denmark, everything you see on television, the music you hear, everything is from America. I don't think people truly appreciate that in the United States, how this is really the capital of all entertainment commerce. Everything. It's not. We sit at home, we watch Australian television or Indonesian sitcoms. It doesn't work like that. It's just everything is imported from America. The top music acts, the top sitcoms, movies, everything. So it's like this. It's almost like this different planet, because I don't know how familiar you are with this, but in Danish culture, historically, although not historically, before Danish people used to go, the Vikings would travel and explore everywhere. But in recent times, Danish people don't like leaving the shores. We have our own little utopian bubble, which we like, and it's very rare. It's just not in the culture to go elsewhere. Somebody from my hometown, we're from a hometown of 70,000 people, and the farthest away, someone who's really, really daring, they might move to another town, another city, rather an hour and a half away. That's as far as it goes. And we have Germany right there. People don't move to Germany. We have London an hour to the. To the West. People don't go there. It just sticks to them. So I never really thought. I thought I'd like to, but I never really thought how I could. Although we do have family over here, so that was probably the link we would go. My sister's married to a man from Brooklyn, and they live in Denmark now. And I spent a large portion of my childhood living with them. So we did have that affinity. And then one of her childhood friends who lived with us when they were 17, 16, 17, she moved to America also and married a man who was a football player at the University of Nebraska. He ended up being the captain for the Kansas City Chiefs and set the records for the most Pro Bowls. He's now in the hall of Fame. But long story short, they came back to Denmark every summer and they asked if I wanted to come back and live with them. And I thought that was just so crazy. I said, tell my dad I asked him. I wanted to. And then he called me a few hours later and said, yes. Go. I got your ticket. So that's how I came here at first. And once that initial contact happened, it opened my mind to so many things. Even though it's not Kansas City's, not New York, it's very different. But America, just even a small town in America is so a small city. Rather, it's so much different than anything we know back there, especially in this small town that I come from. So that's just how it came about. So I always thought that that would be cool. And then I ended up coming back for. I was actually offered a soccer scholarship with some family, some of the family we have in New York. I came here for a summer, and this was 2004. They said, you should go try out with this team in Brooklyn. They have a Division 1 soccer team. So I went and did that, and they offered me a scholarship. I ended up not going. But later I came for journalism school and later business school, and I ended up staying behind. But at that point in time, I knew I wanted to find my way in business somehow. And I felt as though again, the capital of commerce, the big leagues of business is right here. So that's why I came in. Another thing also, in Denmark, there's no poverty because everything is so. It's high taxes, people take really good care of one another. But it also puts a cap on how you can go to America. You have extreme wealth, you also have extreme poverty. You just have those ends of the spectrum. Both things come to one another. You don't have that as much in Denmark. If you. You can't really pursue great dreams the same way at home. Culturally, there's just not the support system and environment for it. You have that here. So that's my long winded way of saying this is how and why that I'm here. Because this is sort of my natural habitat versus Denver.

So if you showed up and it was originally to go to school, $79 in your wallet, did you have to find extra work to, you know, to get by? And if so, I've read a bunch of things you were doing. And I don't know if it was later that you were an announcer for boxing, but I mean, it seems like you've done a whole lot of really interesting stuff.

Look, that was what I was doing at the time because I didn't even have it in my wallet. I didn't have a wallet. I had it in my PayPal account because I couldn't open a bank account. I couldn't do anything. I didn't have a Social Security number. I couldn't open a bank. I couldn't do anything. So the way that I was making money was I told myself I didn't want to be in media and journalism. I told myself that in 2010 when I enrolled in. When I first enrolled in business school, I told myself then I didn't want to be a media anymore because I had gotten my first job as a sports writer writing about soccer. And I thought, I'm going to write really nice things about my nephew. And I realized this is not for me, this is work. My first job was working at Lego in the factory, putting together those boxes that you see in all the stores all over the world. And it was some of the worst stuff ever. It was so, so boring. And writing about sports, I thought it would be fun. It wasn't. So I said, this is not for me. This is not for me. So I. I had left that alone. However, it was the only way that I could, outside, I guess, outside of bartending and stuff, but it was the only way that I could make money was. This was writing because you can get paid in PayPal. And there was this one boxing site that was taking. They had their writing staff, but also was open to the public. They could report and if it was good enough, you could, you could win like a freelancer type. But it was competition, so you weren't guaranteed to get paid. And I would just win these over and over and over and over until they started robbing me. Sometimes I wouldn't win. And I was far the best because I wrote like my life depended on it. And there's this other guy that was part of the competition. He's a broadcasting legend. He was the New York State athletic commissioner and he was. He was the editor in chief for this magazine called Ring Magazine, which is, they call it a bible of boxing and currently has a show on series xm. Long story short, he invited me to come on the show because you were like, who's this kid is writing all this amazing stuff? According to him. And so he invited me up there and I was there. I was terrified and I was so nervous. But then they invited me to come back and be a co host. That opened doors, but I still didn't have any money. I had maybe anywhere from. Because with the $79, I spent $55.23 on a hostel for three days. Then I just kept extending and extending until I had saved up enough to where I could rent a room somewhere in New Jersey. So that's how that happened. But I was Doing all this announcing, and they weren't paying me to be on the show. And I was happy they weren't because I didn't want them to ask about my raising status. So I was just happy they didn't bring it up. And they're probably happy I didn't start asking for cash. So. But that's how that came about. And then through, you know, the broadcasting team, then we got brought onto television, and that paid like a thousand bucks. And then from there, I just had to. I got a job with. Who's a friend of mine now. He had a PR company. He was working with different. He was working with different real estate clients. And through that, I sort of got to meet different people in real estate. And. Yeah, that's how it came about. Wow. Yeah, it was literally, I had the right to. It's not that I wanted to. I don't like to write. I just had to.

Well, where did you learn it? I mean, I guess growing up. Clearly, you're bilingual, so you learned to write at an early age. Because not only. I mean, I couldn't even tell that you're from overseas. I mean, really, you know, the way that, you know, you write, you were able to be compelling. And I guess. Did you have to learn about boxing as well, or did you already. Were you already a fan?

I just know. It's just. I just have. I have acquired this ability to pay, like, really close attention to things. So the take that I will have on boxing, I will unearth a lot of things that people wouldn't pay attention to. I'm good at reading body language, and I can sort of see how the person is feeling, and I can just find a lot of things, and it's a great metaphor for life because. And also, I've been boxing myself, so that gives me an advantage because I know what it feels like to get punched in the face, and it doesn't feel nice, even if you don't like it. A lot of times people say, why doesn't he throw any more punches? Well, because the last time he punched, he got punched back, and it hurts even though he's not showing it. You know, that type of thing. But in terms of writing, I'm trained in journalism and Danish and journalism in English. Living with my grandmother, she had me reading in Danish and English by the time I was five, six years old. Five years old, actually. So I started already then. And in terms of writing, just learning how to write is really simple. Once you know how to do it, it's just a matter of refining thoughts, writing how you speak. And one of the tips that I learned from writing is pretend like you're actually just a better analogy if you're writing on a row. If you're riding down a road, a nice, clean, crisp turnpike, it just feels smooth on that ride versus riding around in New York where there's potholes everywhere. Bad riding is like that. So you want to take them on a smooth ride. So that's how I learned it. It was just. I'm not even that good of a writer. I'm a better editor, actually. But it's just being able to articulate your thought and refine it. So that's how it came about. But I'm really not that good at it. I don't enjoy it at all.

Well, I've read your book and you could have fooled me, because I think you have. I think you have a gift for succinctly putting. I mean, you're taking something complicated and again, you're making it accessible. And so I want to get to that. So tell me, so you start working in pr, you start meeting some real estate people. So what were you doing now when.

I go from there? Well, one of the things was because I couldn't get a job elsewhere and I was gone through all this education and so one of the ways I figured I could stay indispensable to the company that was paying me $5 a week was that. Which was less than I made as a student writer at the university in Denmark. I was. They had this. The communications department had this magazine and they had. So that particular university, they had a program in English, which I was in, and I took some courses in Danish also. So even academically, I much. And journalistically, I'm a much better writer in English than I am in Danish, Although I am getting better at articulating myself in Davis. But that specifically I made more money then that I did here in New York. But anyway, so what I would do is I figured, how can I be indispensable? They have these clients that they need to get that they need to get featured. So I would reach out to financial publications and like, look, I can write for you. I see you have a lot of stuff here. Do you cover real estate? If not, I'd be glad to work for free. I'll write for you for free. And I have a good source network, which I did. So I said, look, now I have these platforms now I have leverage. I am now indispensable because your clients need to get their. Get their stuff out and if you look at some of the first articles that I wrote, I wrote some. It was one of my friends clients and it was people of note in real estate. It was the publisher of the Real Deal, it was Bob Nackle from Massie Nackle. Then, you know, then it became Cushman Wakefield. He joined Cushman Wakefield. And it was really just Q and A's because I had no idea what I was writing. Like I looked so everything was just Q and A's. So it looked like I know what I'm doing, but it's really just. I'm just transcribing what another person is saying. As I'm doing that, I'm learning. And as soon as you say it to me, I absorb that. So now I have that information. So that's how I would go about doing it at first. And people would like what I wrote. And then it just took off from there. And then BizNow. BizNow had gotten. I had gone to a Biznow event and there was a young developer there who was 36 years old, who was building high rises and skyscrapers. He was doing a project on Billionaires Road that he had just started. And Michael Stern was his name. And ironically, I asked him, I said, look, at this time I'm starting to think, look, I don't really want to write. I need to find a way so I can never be this short of money again. Because again, my family wanted me to come home. If I left, I couldn't come back to the United States for 10 years. Being over there would just be miserable for me. And they kept wanting me to come home. I said, no, I'm not doing it. So I wasn't talking to my family at the time time and I realized, wow, these business, they have some good. They have some real players here. And got into my head and, wow, maybe I can own real estate too. And so I asked him, and at these events, it seems as though everybody flocks around the developers. I didn't know what a developer was, so I was like, why everybody, Everyone flogging around these guys, all the other developers, like, what the hell is that? Anyway? So I walked up to him and said, hey, you own real estate. Goes, yeah. I said, I'm looking. I'm looking into buying a condo. And he did this thing with his face. I said, why? He said, you should have something more units because you're not as exposed to vacancy. I said, what do you mean? He said, well, if you have more leases and one leaves, you still get money coming In. I said, that makes perfect sense. I said, if I find a deal, do you mind if I send it to you? He's like, yeah, sure. And that's kind of how it ignited. So because this event was so cool, I thought to myself, wow, this business stuff, this is really good. Let me find out what. Oh, this is what they're writing. Oh, wait a minute. I can write something for them. So I said, hey, I'll write articles for you for free. Just let me go to your events. They said, well, we'd rather pay you as a freelancer. So I started writing stuff for them, and next thing you know, they said, would you like to come? Would you like to be our national editor? I'm like, editor? Like, I don't know how to edit. And I told him, I guess I'll figure it out. So I just figured it out. But I have to be honest. My first journalism job, I didn't have the skills yet to do it. I sat there like, I guess I got to figure this out. So I just started reading article how to restructure them, this and that. The other, same thing with editing. He had already put a team in place for me. So that's how it began. That was a journey. And long story short, a year later, I had bought my first property. Biznow had sold, and I put myself in a position where I never, ever had to do anything I didn't want to do again.

Love it. You know, so many people, they wouldn't just jump in and say, hey, I'll work for free. But your knowledge that, hey, I want to surround myself with really smart, successful people, and if I can just soak it in and be a part of it and to become indispensable. And for our listeners who might not know who Michael Stern is, I mean, he's one of the biggest developers. I believe his project down on walker Tower on 17th street sold out a billion dollars. His project, the steinway Building on 57th street, and the fact that you were just approaching him saying, you know, hey, Michael, what do you think about me buying an apartment? I could just. Knowing Michael, I could see him in the face that he gave you. But sometimes so many people would be afraid to ask that question, they'd be afraid to even call Michael.

And the fact that.

Yeah, the fact that you just put yourself on the front line and said.

Hey.

I want to help you out. I want to learn. I think that's really awesome and no surprise where you are today. So it's funny you said it.

When you say no surprise where I am today. Let me show you something. Let me show you something where I am actually this second. I am living in a Michael Stern building. Isn't that something?

Yeah, I was trying to. I could see the river from there. So are you in the copper building?

Yes.

Oh, that's a really cool building. Great spot. That's awesome.

Well, it's a full circle, right? You probably doesn't even remember because he was having a ton of conversations, but I, I think I took him up on it. I sent him some. He gave me some feedback. And that was. Yeah, that was. That was that. But it was just a pursuit of that type of stuff. And then I. Because I also had to be. I was honest with myself. I said, okay, I am 30 years old. I am a kid from Denmark. I don't have any money. I don't have really much to offer, but if I have a platform, then I have something. And if I could give them a safe space to tell the story, you know, without being, you know, not to just write fluff. That wasn't the intention either. Just. Just being a. And that's one of the. That was one of the principles also at the time with BizNow, is we let this. We would let the sources see the stuff beforehand. It wasn't. It was a principle of not doing. Doing gotcha journalism. It's like, look, there's something in here, like, approve it just being sourced, conscious, because it's all part of the same ecosystem. And that was the principle that I had, and I've always been that way that I let people see it because I don't want you to be blindsided, because that is. People underestimate how, like, if you get misquoted or if you see your name in print the wrong way, because that happened to me in Hawaii, believe it or not. I was. I was misquoted for like a local story or something like that. And like, oh, this sucks. You know, so. And so that's one thing I did. So I figured I could build a network that way and I could be a value and help that way. So that's sort of how. That's sort of how it took off. And I even asked before they asked me if I wanted to join BizNow, the vice chairman asked me. He goes, would you. Would you like to edit? I said, I'm sure I could figure it out. Then he goes, but I said, I'll do it if I can use or leverage the network that I'm creating for my real estate career. And he says, I do the same thing. I said deal, we have a deal. He knew what my business work and that's what I used it towards. I never wanted to be a media really, but I just, there's a skill set there that you get from articulating complex, like you said, complex material in an understandable way. And I really, really feel as though it has given us a competitive advantage and that's one of the main, one of the main engines behind our growth, whether it's on the following side or whether it's getting people to actually buy into whether it's us or just investing for themselves. And I think it's such an important point and that most people, 90 plus percent people in the industry, they fail to actually connect with people because you're indoctrinated into this jargon slang, this culture, whereas I just come with common sense. Even if you look at our decks compared to how others do, it's just so much simpler and it just makes people feel good about themselves because they actually understand it, you know, need to get someone to interpret it for you. And I think there's also key behind our growth on social media, no doubt.

And the fact that you're a power of example as well and you've actually done this. So I would imagine for our listeners, for those who have not taken the step yet and made their first investment, for a lot of them it's always fear. I don't have the capital, I don't have what it takes. And here you come to the US with practically nothing. And then I want to talk about that first purchase that you made in Jersey City because a three or four family that you bought with an FHA mortgage and if I'm not mistaken, and I have told so many people to do this, I mean the government has this first time home buyer program, 95% financing, the money's practically free. And people don't do it because. And I think, and I want to get to your book real estate wealth hacking how to 10 times your net worth in 18 months. But talk about how a lot of people say, oh, you know, I'd rather just, you know, rent that apartment in Manhattan than go get that four family in Newark. And there is a conscientious decision, hey, I can either, you know, live downtown and I can, you know, but I'm gonna be paying rent, which I'm not getting anything on, or I can actually make an investment. So you clearly took the long view and you were able to buy this and this was a live and best situation, right? You Lived in one of the apartments.

Absolutely, absolutely. And you only have to do that for a year. And the beautiful thing about this is that again, we're in New York, L.A. is a similar market. DC is a similar market where it's really, really expensive. If you use that same almost free money math, let's say a market like Atlanta or in Florida, even up in Rochester, in New York, you can find properties with 3, 4 units that are in the low six figures. It's practically no money you have to bring to the table. And when it's like that, it almost becomes a no brainer because the decision I made then was, okay, I just need to get into an asset so I can. Because I was living in these crappy apartments and because I didn't have all the documentation, I can only live in these seedy setups with, you know, renting a room somewhere under conspicuous circumstances. I was just tired of it. But then. Oh, also the business sold. I got my first property and then I got my green card. And that same is on the two week stretched. So I was very.

That was allowed you to get the government mortgage. I would imagine that they won't let.

Yeah, yeah, no, it was, it was myself and a partner. That's how we did it.

Okay, got it.

I was gonna do it regardless. I didn't have any credit or anything, but my partner had credit. And so that's, that's how we do it. We put our money together and that's how it came about. But I could have done it, but that way. But I didn't know I was gonna get my green card. I was just waiting, waiting. It's such a long process. But yes, for most people to do that, it's. It just gives. It's just so advantageous because let's say, just for the sake of math, I'm just going to use arbitrary numbers here. Let's say you have three apartments in one property. You live and run one. You collect $1,000 of rent from one, $1,000 from another one. But your mortgage is, let's say, $1,200 and just throwing out numbers, then you practically live with expenses. You're basically breaking even and you're living rent free in an asset that will only appreciate over time. Assuming that it's not dead. Real estate and no one is around it is always going to be A need for shelter is one of those business models. And it's one of those business models that you can never ever disrupt. You cannot suddenly come up with this technology that's going to eliminate the human need for a roof over your head. Right. It's just not going to happen. So that's why, that's why I like the simplicity and the common sense of owning a property. Because you know what, you don't have to be very smart to understand how the business works. Anybody, a child can understand that business model because the child understands, I want to go home. You know, everybody understands that. So that was the way that worked. And it's one of the, to me, the best ways to start because you figure out how money works. And I always say once you become an investor or a business owner, you start thinking about money differently. As children, we get taught, look, if you have $50, you're going to blow it all. Like, even psychological think, I'm going to blow it, I'm going to buy this candy until there's nothing left. And that's the psychology that a lot of adults have, that they feel as though you have to deplete down to zero. That's what you're supposed to do with money. But once you become an investor, investor and, or business owner, you start thinking, what yield can I get on this money? And that's, that's how the whole process begins, you know, so that's, that's what, that's why I encourage people to get started with it. Because even if you don't, to be honest, and let's face it, most people that own a property, you're going to have a lot of headaches. It's not going to be smooth. There's going to be stuff that happens with the building. Always does. It's gonna be tenants. They're gonna BS you about rent if they're late on rent. Always happens. It's actually gonna be a situation where you have line to like teenage kids that will, that will fib you from time to time. That's really what I liken it to. But you learn the process and you can figure out, wait, maybe I like to do this, or maybe I'm just more of a passive investor. But you understand the asset class and you can invest with people that know how to manage properties. It just opens up. It just opens up. There's so many things for you. So that's why I was saying you should. I'm 100% with you. I think it's one of the best places where people start. Absolutely.

And I also had, in the preface of your book, you said this is not like a get rich quick. This isn't a flipping, which I've always said this radio show is not about, you know, get rich quick. Nothing happens overnight. And there's a process. And I've also seen one of your videos where you talk about, you know, where are the neighborhoods that you should be looking for. And it was as simple. I never thought about this, but you said, you know, just follow Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts. Cause Starbucks, they've already done all the research to find out what neighborhoods are peaking. So just as soon as the Starbucks opens up, like just go buy right next to it. So I thought that was really cool. Cause again, these are very like simple practical points that you were making. What else is part of your six step process? Because the six steps of the investment, did we cover most of it or what else do our listing?

To be honest with you, James, I don't recall what the six steps are. We may have just covered it. The reason I just put it down to six steps was probably, look, I wrote this book, I went down to Florida. I had seen, this is the story behind the book. I seen another guy that owned a startup who had done well. I think he had sold his startup and I admired him. He had written the best selling book. Him I admired. I think I thought he was really smart. And I saw another person that I saw a book that had become a bestseller and I'm like, there's no way in hell that my worst article isn't better than that entire book. So I thought like, and I had always wanted to write one and I had had the outline for a while. I said, you know what, I'm just going to write it. So what I did was I put the COVID together and the table of contents and I put it for sale as a pre order. And I said, you know what? If it's up there, then I'm going to write it. Because I cannot back out of this book. Because I, as much as I dread writing it, I dread being a lying fraud by not delivering. Like, I dread that even more. So I said, you know what? So I went down to Jacksonville, decided to roll some highway and just sat in a hotel lobby for three days and just hammered it out. So that's how it came about.

That was the commitment though. You said, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna sell a book. You can order it now and don't.

Worry, I had a deadline like a month from there, so I did that anyway. So the sixth step, I think is pretty much without remembering exactly what I wrote. There's probably something like, go find it, go bid on properties, get it under contract. Management got it.

Definitely you had some good step by step advice. So after Jersey City now, what point did you end up buying land near Temple University? Because this was your first foray into ground up? Did that happen next or was it more in between?

No, it wasn't right after. This is what happened. In late 2016, I reached back out to my family and I hadn't talked to my dad for a while, and I had a property under contract in Baltimore and I said to my. And I reached out to my dad, said, hey, I'm doing real estate. Mind you, my father's. So me and my sisters, we have different mothers, but their mother passed away in 2001 and my mother passed away years ago also. So we only have my father. He's very protective of us. So he looks at us in a certain way. For my dad, he looks at which. One of the reasons I always wanted to get away was to. He looked at me as an overgrown version of the little child that he bred. And I suppose that's a challenge for most fathers and sons a lot of times to actually accept that the children are now adults and then view them as such on a peer to peer level. I can only assume it'd be so difficult. I think we're finding a good mix now, though. But that was one of the things. And I hit him up. He remembers me saying as a kid, I want to write about sports, me watching sports. So he thinks this is a sports writer now. Says he wants to do real estate. This is a little bizarre. And it's my son I haven't spoken to in years. So I said, hey, do you want to do this deal? He's like basically saying, am I crazy? That same. The reason I hadn't been home also was because you couldn't leave with, you know, with the green card. If you don't have your green card situation sorted, you'll be locked out of the country for 10 years. So at the time, I had gotten permission to travel. So I went home that December 2016 for Christmas. And then I think I was coming and I went home and I saw everyone again. And I asked my dad. He said, no, absolutely not. But then he came to visit that summer 2016, 2017. And I just. And I think he had brought up that he. Anyway, he saw what I was doing. He said, so about this real estate. I said, yes, maybe we should do something together. I ran out and I called my nephew. I said, old man is down. You down? You want to go buy some stuff together? He's like, Cool. All right, cool. I went to my dad, I said, martin's down. Yeah, because we had this conversation years ago. We were going to do this. And I said, yeah, all right, let's take a trip to Philly. Because I had been down to Philly, I had driven around and I saw to my. I thought to myself, Temple University seemed like a time lapse of gentrification. And it was something that I thought I could afford. Just like Jersey City versus Brooklyn. I went to Jersey City because I could afford it. It seemed to make more sense. I had to go far east in Brooklyn. And the third living unit would be, I'm not a tall guy, I'm five, ten. And the ceiling would be to here. I said, this is not gonna work. Whereas in Jersey City, I could be brand new, $750,000 three bedroom apartments. I said, this is more my style. Anyway, so I went down to Philly because The land was 10, 20, 30, $40,000, very cheap. My dad came down there with me and he said, you know what? This is some stuff we should buy. And we went and looked at another property. And he went back, we pulled that money together, and then I just started buying. And I bought a property in Jersey, another property in Jersey City that we could redevelop and do 10 units on. Then I got the piece of land in Philadelphia. And.

You never built anything ground up. Did you just figure, hey, I just figured out, I'll just ask a developer?

Actually, I figured the piece of land I thought is small enough to where I probably won't get myself in trouble. And the other project, we were just gonna take it as it was and just convert. It was two. Two bedrooms on top of each other, but it was separated in such a way where you can just by putting up a wall, you can turn into 41 bedrooms. I said, if the city says yes, we'll do it. If they don't, we just rent it out and say it's two bedrooms as of right. This is here one lives, and it's roommates without being roommates type of situation. I'm saying there's nothing illegal about that. So that was the plan. And then hooked up with a law firm that has a lot of stroke, a lot of Jews, a lot of pool in Jersey City. Long story short, we got the rights, we doubled the building rights, the asset tripled in value. And I'm like, I guess I'm a developer now. And then I said, you know, I said to my dad, okay, I said, good news and bad news. Bad news is you can't get the property issue. Good news is they gave us the right to do this, and it's just triple in value. So I said, I guess we're going to start in Philly now. And what I did was, of course, when you do something new, like I did with the property is I wouldn't have got it. I didn't buy something that needed construction because I wanted to limit my learning curves as much as humanly possible. Meaning if you buy something new and you come into something blind and naked, as I call it, I have to. If it needs to be renovated, there's a lot of variables that come with that. I have to find a contractor. I then have to learn how they transact, what's the etiquette, what's the culture like? Do they. Do they come on time? Are they reliable? Who do I find? There's a lot of stuff that comes with that. So I said, you know what? Let me get something that's brand new. And then I said, how do you manage tenants? Don't want to take on a learning curve right now. Let me get a property manager. How do you lease it out? Don't want to take on a learning curve right now. Let me get a. Let me get an agent. Then I can watch how they do it. And then I now have that information for the next time. So in terms of what I did in Philly was that I teamed up with a local development crew that had done something like that that I vibed and chilled with. And then I said, you know what? You guys handle it. I watch. I even took extra long with the pre. The pre construction phase, like going through zoning just so I can understand the process. Once I understand it, once I know what to. I don't have to be a master, but as long as I can see each piece of the. Of the cycle, that's all I need to know. Then I get the specialist, and that's just how I do it. I have three or five things that I know extremely well in life and everything else I haven't. I have enough of an intellectual framework where I can spot where I'm not good and where. Where I need to get somebody that's good. Does it make sense?

It makes a ton of sense. You know, I talked so much in the show about having the right people around you. It's really that. That is the key to the right successful investment is having the right teams. And I just love how you just. You go into new situations and you're watching, you're absorbing and every Single time.

And improving on it.

So really incredible. So talk about. You know, in your book, you talk about this wealth divide and especially the challenges that millennials have today, and especially for those of color. So maybe talk a little bit about the challenge there, the discrepancy, and then what we can do to change it.

Well, okay, so a couple things. So my grandmother, who I grew up with, her. This is another ultimate irony, actually. My grandmother came from South Africa, and she's a political refugee from South Africa because of apartheid, because her husband, my grandfather, was one of the founding members of this thing called the African National Congress. The anc, I think it stands for, is Nelson Mandela's political party. And it ended up being a political party that he was with when he became president, I think, in 1994. But anyway, so they were locking people up or throwing them out the country. So I live with my grandmother, and one thing about coming from that environment being. It just has a lot of psychological baggage that comes with it. And one of the things you would tell me why she had me reading in two languages and had me doing a lot of stuff before I even started school was she said, you're black, so you have a limit on how far you can go. Because obviously that's her belief system. She got sent out of a country being like, so naturally, this is what she's gonna believe. And I bought into that also when I came with my. When I moved in with my dad, who's a white businessman. He doesn't read much. He's just good at transacting. He's good at making money, and he understands that intuitively and very, very well. He has the right mindset for that. So he would say a lot of stuff and actually spend a lot of time stripping away those limiting beliefs. And. And I didn't really get it at first, but when I was out on my own, a lot of things he would echo. And as I went through my journey, I realized, oh, my God, this is what. Oh, this is what he meant. Oh, my goodness. So a lot of the stuff that I actually put out is shaped by, number one, understanding psychology and the people I speak to, but also understanding how it took me out of that to another place. So this is literally, I walk them through that journey. I understand exactly what they think of every step of the journey. And I was fortunate enough to have my dad do that for me and give me the. He said. Because he told me one time, he said, we had a conversation. I said, what is it that you said you did differently with Me, when I came to live with you, he said, oh, we just had to put some self esteem on you because you were very, very insecure and unsure of yourself. Interesting. But that is, that just rang so deep and so profound because that's essentially what it is that I do. The information that I share is easily accessible. But to your point before was it's the way that I articulated the way that I presented it, the way that I deliver it is I circumvent any type of bias because most people think I remember this, I remember this, would think, okay, this guy's talking about money, but he doesn't. You see something that doesn't look like you and you automatically dismiss it. Or they start speaking in jargon and then that triggers the bias that, well, I'm poor, he's not, I'm not a bad person. So therefore it must be because I'm dumb or I am under privilege, one of the two. So it's not about the information itself, is how I deliver it and people understand it. And by it coming through me, it becomes obtainable and attainable to people. And that's a good feeling. It's almost like being in the classroom. You probably remember this yourself. When there was a topic you didn't like and you felt confused, you probably didn't like it, but it was something you did like, it validated, you felt good about yourself, like, wow, I understand this now you want to study it more. So that's really the effect that I seek to recreate and that's the real true thing that I do. It's not so much about the information. For instance, there's another video I put out five stocks you can invest in for under $55. Big stocks. It was an eight minute video and people posted the tickers like, and they said, wow, this is a long video. I said, no one forces you to watch. But then the people. But that's just one out of maybe 100 comments. But most people say this is, this is good. Most of the times it is really just I keep them that length for people to feel as though the information that I give them is something that they already had there and that they can have. Like to the point I made before. And that's, that's really the secret and that's why people like it so much. But I hope that answers your question a little bit. It was a roundabout.

That was awesome. No, really, I mean, inspiring to those who are trying to break through. And you know, again, what we had to say about that self esteem and that Confidence for a lot of people, sometimes just lacking. And for you to say, hey, I'm not going to take no for an answer. I'm going to go out, I'm going to ask the questions I think is.

Awesome, but also when it's because I remember exactly what you said. But with the wealth gap, there's another point I want to make. In Denmark, again, you don't have any poverty. And the reason why you don't have any poverty or corruption or anything like that is because no one is poor. Okay? And I'm not advocating for communism or social. That's not what I'm saying at all. But the reality is no one is poor. So therefore there's no one you can leave. You probably know this. You can leave babies on the outside while you go on set and eat, because there's no incentive to steal a child, to blackmail someone to get the money. This doesn't exist. It doesn't exist. It's like a little utopian society and. But the reason why people have the excess to be nice to one another is because no one is hungry. No one is. Doesn't have a home to come home to. So you don't have to. You don't have to go into the deeper, darker sides of humanity to make it by. Because most people don't do stuff because they're evil. It's just because they're desperate or push to the point where they don't have any other recourse. So what I try to recreate is not again, not socialism, but the idea that if you have something worthwhile to focus on, if you feel like you have nothing to lose, you just gonna. You're behave as such. But if you have something to focus on, something good or something to strive towards goals, or if you just have enough money to get by where you're not hungry, indirectly, that's my contribute contribution to society by making people that will be nicer to each other because they got something more positive to focus on. That's the real thing I'm really doing. So that's not so much. Even when I say 100,000 millionaires, like, you know, I'll say it right here. 100,000 millionaires of color. I have white people write me and say, can I join? I said, white of color, isn't it?

I like it, I like it. So how do you. How do you get the word out? I mean, is it just. Do people just share what you're doing? I mean, to get to, you know, 100,000 followers? I mean, that's That's a real number. Right. And so are you just putting out content all the time? Like, are you, you know, are people just spreading the word? I think that might be interesting for our listeners to hear. You know, how do you become an influencer? How does this happen? I'm also asking for myself. Thanks.

Well, one of the ways. Oh, man, I gotta answer this short. One of the things that I always say, people, and I'll get to your. I'll get to your question. People overestimate others and underestimate themselves. And I say one of the biggest keys in negotiation. Even if there's something I'm looking to buy where I don't have enough money to do it, I'll find a way to make a tantalizing proposition that has an upside for you. For instance, the way I got this piece of land to build a high rise was I didn't have money to buy it when they bought it. But I said, look, I pay you this for cash, or we can joint venture and I'll bring the financing and I'll pay for all the architectural everything, the soft cost, and we can build it together. You don't have to do anything but bring the land. And your ask, I believe is 2.5 million will now be worth so much more once we build it. Now, it's a tantalizing proposition if you've been sitting on this land and you really don't want to sell. So it's always trying to. I call it repositioning the position of leverage now in terms of content. So what I did was I had asked my nephew who had signed with Barcelona at the time, so he had a couple hundred thousand followers out of nowhere overnight. I said, please, can you share my story so you can get me 10,000 followers so I can start linking in my stories? That was my initial ask. He said to me, I can, but you don't need me to. You are already it. I said, what the hell is that supposed to mean? This was in late March. He said, you're already it. I said, okay. So I decided to. This was in the middle of. And I would never do this because I was feel so uncomfortable talking into a camera. And this was when the pandemic with lockdown just hit. Everybody was in fear. And I just naturally don't like that. It's like, okay, this is the situation now. What do we do about it? What can we do? What's the upside? We can't just sit here and go and panic. That's just not going to work. So I put together this video that said, four ways COVID 19 can make you rich. And I said about the opportunities that arise when something like this happens. I recorded the video, and then I said to my team, we're going to have 10,000 followers by next week. And they just said, okay. They didn't believe it. I said it to my nephew too. And we put that out, and this one page picked it up and it got 300,000 views. Then another page that saw how well it performed on that page picked it up and it got 80,000 views. Next thing you know, I have. I have 10,000 followers a week later. It's literally how it came about. Now, that whole, I suppose people can call that viral moment, and it's like, well, how do I do that? Is impossible. Well, the way that you can do it is you can contact these pages. If you have good content that they need, you can offer them to run it and say, look, here, here, take it. It performs well. That's one way. And that's. That's how it went. And then just working with other pages and working with other pages that have that audience and giving them good stuff. Now, the reason it blew up is obviously because it resonates with people. It just. You have to have something interesting and jingling if you're doing. Doing your interviews, that is something that could be incredibly, incredibly useful for other pages. And then people see it, and then they want to find out more. In terms of what we did with our offering, offering micro shares in our real estate portfolio, that simply came about from the desire to help more people of color get into ownership, because that's what drives the wealth gap. And that's how it came about. Started from scratch. And yeah, it was in April, and next thing you know, people are just following. And I didn't push it. One thing is. And one of the guys that actually that ran my. That ran my video, and he had told me, if you want to get more followers, you have to ask yourself this one question. Actually, two he said. He said, one, why should they follow you? And two, just an extension of one, what do they get in exchange for following you? I said, wow, okay. Because some people think, like, why can't I get followers? And it's just posing about themselves. I'm like, because outside of your family, no one cares about you until they have a reason to. And unless you give them something worthwhile that helps their life. Obviously, I'm not that interesting to people where they would want to follow me for no reason. But if I put stuff out that makes them feel good about themselves. That helps them and help them start investing. Now that's something. So that's really what shapes. If you look at everything I post, it is something that is engineered and designed to give them some sort of value. And sometimes I'll use. Well, it's not clickbait, people call it clickbait, but I'll use a title that I know they will click on and I'll talk about was in the title. But the real message is just circumvent, circumventing all your biases are your biases to get to the root cause, which is the self belief or lack of self belief that you can actually do it. So that's why the videos are the links that link that they are. It's just. Yes, it's quite tricky in a way, but it's for a good cause. But yeah, that's how you do it and get, and get it out there that way. In fact, James, with this, here, with this, with this episode here, I'll probably chop that up into five, six, five, six pieces and then I'll put it in and I'll attack you and then likely.

Awesome. Oh, you're the best.

Yeah, that's one way of doing it, you know.

Yeah. But the key to it, as you said, is you're doing it to help other people. If it's just, oh, hey, I'm great, look at all the fortune, look at me. You know, it's hey, I want to help you. And so it's, it's incredible.

I don't even talk about any of my stuff. They have to find that out on their own. I don't even talk about it. I just talk about stuff that they're. I put my bio in the bio obviously because that's what's needed for them to validate that my, what I'm saying has any type of substance or credibility. So you obviously need that, who you are and this and that. But then I just put post from that perspective.

So we only have a couple minutes left. But I want to ask you about this crowdfunding platform and I love that book. Invest in it for as little as $79. So this is refi r e I F Y. So you've now essentially tokenized your portfolio and people can come invest with you. Is that how it works?

Tokenize typically is a term that's derived from crypto and blockchain and things like that. It's not quite that. It's really just public. It's just public offerings to Non accredited investors, as many may know, many listeners may know, is that most opportunities is private equity opportunities are service for accredited investors, which means you have to make $200,000 a year or be worth a million dollars, not including your primary residence, which basically excludes 90% of the population. Now then there's a new thing that came into play when the SEC allowed non accredited investors, which means basically everybody else, to invest in projects like this. Fundrise is one that pretty much pioneered the space. And then the same regulation is what a lot of early stage startup companies would use to raise money if they couldn't get money from VCs. Now the way I saw it, I saw it as an opportunity not to raise money to test an idea, but to give access to my portfolio. That was really the play there. So that's how it came about. And we actually became the fastest real estate company to sell a million dollars in micro shares that way. And in the process we helped 2,000 people of color, now we're not actually in the minority Sense to become first time real estate investors. I think it was 2,242, I believe the number is total. Some may have their investments didn't go through, but I leave people who wanted to get started and there's countless more that have gotten involved with stocks and they send me their stuff all the time and it makes me really happy. In terms of that platform, we work with Republic, we work with, we funder and we decided to create an app where people can come in directly. Still gonna work with the platform where people can come in directly. And the reason I call it Refi is cause you make money in real estate when you refinance Refi and if you break it down is real estate investing for you. Sounds like I really thought about it, didn't. It was a five second decision. I threw up on a white book. So.

You definitely have. Yeah, you definitely have a knack for this and you're giving people exposure to this. Right. So even if they just get a taste, hopefully that will, that should inspire them to go and make their own investments.

Here's the thing. Remember I said earlier, once you become an investor or business owner, the way you think about money is different. That's why I put the price point where it is because it doesn't take much to get you in there. And I always preface it by saying, Look, $79 is never going to make you a million dollars, but it's going to start you off and it's going to make you think about money differently. And it's going to make you forget everything else because now you're tracking your investments, you're looking at other stuff and you're going this and that. Next thing you know, see, you know, if you have a kid that's afraid of the water and you tell them you can swim, you can swim, they're not going to believe you until they're in the water and they're not dying. So how do you get them in the water? You just have to sometimes cruelly push them in there. So and that's what I do. Once you're in the way, I fully push them in there is like come in here. Low price point. Okay, here we go. Because of reality, we own 96% of everything. Is very, very, very, very 97, 98, probably some high amount. So if anybody, I have all the skin in the game and I think there's only right to do when it's first time investors and something like this. I wouldn't want to risk raise a fund with people who don't, who haven't done anything like that before unless I have significant skin in the game. But that's the idea. Just get them to get started. And app experience and we have a working relationship with another platform that has, that's working with NASA, with the nasdaq. There's a platform called Lex. They have properties that are cash flowing and people can invest in them just like they could in the stock market. They're going to be available on different brokerage accounts that's going to live in the app as well as the people. Because I can't just have my pride. There's only many prizes I can do just to give them inventory and give them that Robin Hood style experience and get the, get them into the wealth game. So that's really what it's all about because the more people that are doing this, the better will be for everybody.

No question. And yeah, for our listeners this is definitely something that you got to look into because it's the future of investing, investing and really exciting to hear what you've accomplished in a very short time. So just with a minute left, besides going and buying that 4 family for the first time. Investor, what would you say to our listeners right now to jump in the game and get started?

Here's the thing, one of the best, the beautiful thing, I'm stealing it. I'm paraphrasing Warren Buffett here. He says himself time is your best friend because the way the American economy is set up, your wealth will compound over time. If you put your money into S&P 500 index funds or just some of the top stocks or the fangs, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google. Just naturally your money will compound over time if you disregard the daily swings and the daily monthly short term volatility. But if you look at it on a longer term horizon your money will just compound. This is how it is. The stock market is like that with although there's that emotional factor of supply and demand and will shape prices in the short term but still over time it will go like that. Real estate is one of those almost income producing real estate that is recession proof asset class is simply because it's. If it's in an area where prices go up and inflation goes up, so will the values of real estate because rent will go up. It's just a natural function of things. So I would say get started. If real estate is your thing, you can invest in REITs, you can invest in stuff like that Fund rise like what we have is stock is your thing. I think you should diversify. You can download Robinhood, it doesn't cost anything. You can buy S&P 500 stocks, you can buy the companies that you know and then just look at it from a 10 year investment horizon commit over. The reason I say 100,000 million is by 2030. I tell you James, if people start now and they start making the right just changing how they think about money and buying a property and investing, diversifying and doing that consistently over the next 10 years becoming a millionaire isn't a problem. It becomes. It's not just a probability, it becomes an inevitability. So that's really what I'm they don't. People won't know that until they get started. So I would say just get started because time and time will work for you. As long as you have time on your side you should just get going. That's what I would say. I hope that's helpful.

That's fantastic Philip. Thank you so much. I know you've made a lot of our listeners very happy as well you know to know this is obtainable and with your story if you could do it again it's obtainable and so really great to have you with us here today. I really appreciate you taking the time.

Thank you James. I think we should do it again. Maybe I can bring you on my live anytime.

Thank you again Philip. And this is your host James Nelson of Real Estate Investing live from New York. Please remember to connect with me at James Nelson NYC and we'll connect with you next week. Thank you.

A different approach to putting our clients first Avis and Young's Tri State Investment Sales Group sells multifamily office retail development and specialty sales throughout the New York metro area. As experienced thought leaders in our industry, our 35 member group is available to help you make informed investment decisions by advising you on your current holdings or identifying new opportunities in the marketplace. Our one unified team is built on an industry unique platform which promotes unparalleled collaboration and teamwork. We share core values of hard work, integrity and expertise. We put our clients first, providing tailor made strategies to achieve superior results. Please Visit us at aytristateinvestmentsales.com and follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram amesnelsonnyc to learn more. Thank you for tuning in this week.

To Real Estate Investing Live from New York.

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