60. Vinney Chopra: Author of Apartment Syndication Made Easy

Hello, Book Thinkers family. You are going to love the energy of today's guest. Welcome to episode number 60 of our personal development podcast, Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books. During each episode, I interview one of the world's top authors. And as a listener, you can expect to discover new books, new mentors, and new resources that you can use to achieve more and live better. In this episode, I have the pleasure to interview author Vinnie Smile Chopra. Vinny came to the US from India with $7 in his pocket. He sold encyclopedias and Bibles as a door-to-door salesperson while he was a student so that he could gain business experience and eventually end up with an MBA in marketing. After entering the relationship building and networking space, Vinny has made his name as a successful multifamily syndication expert. He's executed dozens of successful syndications and listen to this, He manages a successful real estate portfolio of over $330 million. Our conversation today is all about his first book, Apartment Syndication Made Easy. You'll find his energy is infectious and his advice is very motivating. So without further ado, please enjoy this amazing conversation with Vinny Smile Chopra. Vinnie, thank you so much for joining the Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books Podcast. How are you doing today?

I'm doing awesome. I'm just so excited to be here with you, really. You know, Nicholas, the key thing is I got up at 4:15 this morning, 4:15, and it's like, what time is it, 12 or so? But you know, I'm ready. Looks like I just got up, you know.

Yes, it does. And you are almost 70 years old.

Yes.

Yes, I'm so fortunate. Thank God, you know, my genes from my dad and my wife. I gratitude, pay her gratitude because of my, you know, eating right and everything. And not only that, my exercises, my elliptical upstairs, which I'm on it and I'm holding a meeting, but also just pumping it away. And then I have my television where if I'm not holding a meeting, I'm watching some good motivational video and things like that and praying and, you know, all those good things.

Well, we will touch on your morning routine towards the end of today's discussion because I'm fascinated by your energy. You have infectious energy, you're smiling all over the place, and it's great to have you on. So for those in the audience that are not familiar with you and your books, can you introduce yourself and tell everybody a little bit about Who is Vinnie?

Sure, sure, Nicholas. I'm a humble man. I was a young boy in India out of 6 siblings, and I have an older sister and then me and then other children, 4 sisters and 2 brothers. And we lived in a 1-bedroom apartment, you know, in a hallway. Never had a television, never had a refrigerator or, you know, even scooter or something. We just had a bicycle and we used public transportation, but we were happy. I go back and think about it. We were walking to the school. My first school, when I went to elementary school, was in a tent. When the rain will come, it'll wash out everything. I mean, inside the flooring will get wet and all. I'm trying to remember, you know. But the key thing was, you know, and playing also, just the soccer, you know, because we didn't have much money to buy other equipments and all that. But we were happy, you know, really happy. So I always wanted to— I broke a lot of toys to get into the toys to see what's the mechanism. So I wanted to become an engineer. In Indian culture, you become a doctor or an engineer, as you see, a lot of IT engineers, a lot of mechanical engineers and doctors. So I became one. I got full scholarship. I couldn't believe it, you know, merit scholarship because I was a very studious boy. My parents actually, my dad was a very strict disciplinarian and he would hold a school at nighttime. Wow.

Wow.

And all the siblings had to study for certain hours after dinner and then be ready for the lecture tomorrow, you know? So that really instilled in us, and which is true now, our 2 kids, Neil and Monica, they love to read and read. And read, and I love to read, and I've ordered thousands of books in the last forty years. You know, in America, and I think books are the best thing. And thank you. Before even go further, I want to pay gratitude to you because what you have put together—the Book Thinkers Club and the whole platform—I think it's unique, it's fantastic, and a kudos to you. So. Essentially, you know, I got mechanical engineering degree. I always wanted to be coming here, even when I was in junior high school. Hold on. Junior high school, thinking about college, and then after that. So goal setting has been in my blood. I really think about bigger goals, higher goals, and write it down and all that. So I did my engineering, and then I wanted to come for my master's in business administration. And that's what I came to George Washington University. in Washington, D.C. with $7 in my pocket. That's all I could bring. My uncle sponsored me. I pay gratitude to him. My grandpa, who paid for my ticket to come here, all those people, you know. My parents didn't want me to come, by the way. They didn't. They thought that they'd lose a boy, you know, which they did. But I kept on helping my parents every dime I could save. after keeping my, you know, eating and the lodging, I'll send it to India every month, every month religiously, you know, take care of my sister's weddings and things like that. You know, just an obedient boy. But then the key thing was when I— that's about coming here now, right, into USA to do MBA. But then when I came to USA, somebody asked me, Vinny, what are you doing for summer? I said, I don't know. I just came from India, thick accent, nobody could understand me. I mean, I was very thin. I'm healthy now. But the key thing was, he said, I'm selling books. I sold books last year. Again, books, we are talking about book thinkers.

Best subject in the world.

Life is a circle. So I sold books, by the way, encyclopedias and Knave's Topical Bible and religious books and children's books, by the way, door to door. Literally door-to-door, because I was walking door-to-door outside Atlanta in Austell, Douglasville, Mableton, all that, and sold door-to-door books to educate the children. Their parents will then buy those books from us, from a company, you know, which we had anyway. So that converted me from an engineer to a salesperson.

An amazing story.

Thank you. Thank you. And you know, the good part was that I started enjoying sales more than anything else, you know, and I put my engineering— I worked for a very large company in Bombay, by the way. I many times, I don't tell anybody, but Larsen& Toubro is one of the finest companies, which is number one company in America— in India now. It grew and grew and grew. Reliance Group, it's called now. And I just was thinking, you know, what would I be if I stayed there 40 years back, you know? But I think I have wonderful life here with my family and what we have accomplished. But the key thing was that book sales job got me so fired up. And you only could do it for 3 months in the summer. It's a very old established company out in Tennessee. 1855, they started. And they still do these book sales from all Stanford to Harvard to MIT. The college students work with that company and abroad to sell books. And now maybe they are selling online or something. I don't know. But anyway, that's what got me going. Then I came second summer, third summer, 3 summers I did that and saved a ton of money, by the way. I didn't have to take any loan, you know. And then also, so that's when My whole beginning was as an engineer converted into a salesperson, sales consultant, marketing person, public speaker, all like that.

No, it's truly an amazing story. And there's a lot to unpack there. I do want to give credit to the fact that you're from India. India is actually our second largest audience. So we have a huge Indian following. They show so much love to Book Thinkers. And Yeah, and, and everybody's always asking me, hey, you need to have more Indian authors on the podcast. And so we're fulfilling that for everybody.

Oh, thank you, thank you. God bless you. No, I mean, we are big population, as you know.

Yes.

With a B, billion. That's a large, you know, 1/3 the size of USA, but 1/3, you know, 3 times more the population.

And our, our primary audience is 18 to 34, young professionals, really motivated people who are reading these amazing books. And the purpose of this podcast is to introduce them to new books and new mentors that they can use to achieve more and live better. And so, you are the perfect representation of what that means to me and to the audience. So, I'd like to talk a little bit about Apartment Syndication Made Easy. So, who is this book for and why did you write it?

Totally. You know, I actually— we started— my wife and I got married 41 years back. We are happily married. We have 2 children, Neil and Monica. They've grown up now and they've done very well. One very studious, Neil, went to Berkeley, did electrical engineering, computer science, and he's in IT. And our daughter went to UCLA, very good school again, and did MBA like dad. And now she's VP of operations in our businesses. So both are doing well. But the key thing is that, you know, we started buying real estate, single-family homes when we moved to California. We lived in Blackhawk Country Club now. With the grace of God for the real estate that has given— opened up doors for us, you know. And so we started buying single-family homes, bought many of them. But then about 20— 16 years back, I just became broker, a real estate broker. And with my motivational speaking and fundraising position also as a side business, we were in real estate, right? So then I looked into Okay, wow! You know we want to scale up. We want to grow our cash flow more, and that's when I got introduced to the word multifamily or apartment buying rather than buying one or two or three homes and having to take care of them all across different states and all that. The cash flow is not that much, but it just made sense my mind engineering mind to say that oh if I can get twelve. units in one building, then I have to collect only rent one time, go to all 12, or manager we can hire, economies of scale, things like that. But then the syndication part was introduced to me. I said, I just have limited money. What should I do now? So that's when I Googled the word syndication. That was pooling of money together. And then I got confused. Oh my gosh. It's such a big era. I mean, you have to learn this, you have to learn that, you have to learn this, you have to learn that. That's when the jugglers— when I was writing or thinking about how can I conceptualize, I just wrote this book after many years of hard work, by the way. I became a motivational speaker a long time back, but I started investing in real estate 2007 and '08, right? '09. And I published the book, I think, 2000— 2 years back. So it's like '19.

Oh my gosh.

So it took me almost 7 years or no more than that. Hold on. 2019, 11 years to perfect my system. And then I says, you know what? Why don't I just put something together to teach people how I took this whole thing and how I understood it in simpler terms. And that's when the jugglers, the plates idea came to my mind when I used to be young. And, you know, these jugglers used to spin the plates and not one plate, but 4 or 5 plates. And that's when I said, holy cow, okay, let's just grab it. What are the main facets where I could spell it out. And that's what I named the book, Apartment Syndication Made Easy.

Well, it's a very easy read, which is good. And so, for somebody who's dabbled a little bit in the real estate market, I've listened to a bunch of BiggerPockets episodes, I've made my first investments, I have some friends that are more involved, I've got enough information to digest this book in a healthy way. But this helps further my education and it's very actionable step by step. And you mentioned in the book, hey, this didn't exist before. There are no easy-to-read step-by-step syndication books out there. So you definitely fill the void.

Oh, thank you. Thank you so much. I just wanted to give it crisply, you know, my journey. Actually, I think that's what we said on the book, like $7 to $250 million. Yes, I was. And now we are about half a billion in 2 more years, right at about $441 million, and then we'll be concentrating at 2 billion more addition in this decade anyway. But, you know, maybe I should write a little bit more advanced book. I always have in my mind my third book now is— oh, I wrote the second book after that too on positivity, you know, but that's another topic. But then we have another one in the works now, which is on senior assisted living. where there is a huge demand and just the whole demographics is going that way. I'm a senior myself, so I have a real passion right now for the next 20 years to make a big impact in the lives of my fellow citizens.

Right. All of the baby boomers are moving into that, that age bracket now. I'm curious, how many syndications are you up to now? Because when the book came out, you were at 26 going on 27.

34.

34.

Today I have 34. And now I just opened up 2 funds, Mohnish, a multifamily fund, which is a $50 million fund, 506. Some of our followers can maybe, if they're, you know, looking into. And then another one is Mohnish Diamond Fund, we call it, which is for sophisticated as well as accredited investors, which is another $50 million. So I'm just, my mind is just, blossoming in the big, hairy, audacious goals. Like Bill's last book, remember, made a big impact on me. And that's what that BHAG, we call it, right? Never be thinking small, because if you think small in life, small things happen for you. If you think big things, you know, you may reach them or you may not, but it's always good to stretch.

Yes, no, absolutely. And the big, hairy, audacious goals, I'm, I'm constantly trying to elevate my thinking. Jim Collins is an excellent author. And exactly, yeah, he really reinforces that. So before we get into the 5 plates, there's one more thing I wanted to touch on, which is in the book, you say there are 4 very special words to you, which are enthusiasm, passion, persistence, and positivity. And so you've written an entire book about positivity. You have Smile in your name. How much does that mean to you?

You know, it really means a lot. Actually, I want to thank my wife for that, the second book, because she read my book. She says, Wow, The Apartment Syndication Made Easy. She says, you really put so much heart out in there. She said, you know, to me after reading that, she says, I'm so happy for you because we hit the top charts in the first day of like 12 different categories.

Wow.

In Amazon levels and all. She says, you know what? I've been married to you 39 years. And the real estate book you just wrote is limited audience. I want you to write on positivity. Literally, she was the seed. And guess what? She told me that a night before. Next morning, I got up early. I started writing my second book.

Well, I love it. And one of the reasons I love the subject of positivity, because just like you, people comment all the time and they say, Nick, you're always smiling. You're always happy. What is it? And I say, I wake up every day with a smile on my face because I'm fulfilled. I love what I'm doing, and it makes it easy to smile.

So true. And you know, Nick, what you're talking is so right. Everybody listening to me and watching, and you and I, you can really change your state. You can change your state. I'm telling you, I was depressed. Let me share with you now this little instance. I told my team, I said, 3 days back, 4 days back, I was a little bit depressed. And I was a little bit kind of, you know, stiff with my wife also and all, you know. And I said, Vinny, what's going on? No, literally, literally, I said, why are you moping around? You know, and I get to the heart of it and found out it was not that much, you know, it was just mental shift, right? I mean, you know, when you start getting a little bit depressed, then you go in a spiral down, literally. You know, you don't like this. You don't like that. You don't like the lunch. You don't like this. You know, and when you just change, just like Tony Robbins says, you know, you could change the state right now, right now. And I hope people listening to us can really change their state right now. If you're depressed, if you're thinking about something, you cannot take care of 30 seconds back. You can't. Whatever happened, if the deal is lost, if you know something bad happened in relationship or something very bad happened, you can't do anything about it. The biggest thing is we could take care of this moment and the next moment. And the many times, a lot of us spend so much time stressing out about the future. That will happen and those negative things will happen and my job will be gone or whatever, whatever. Or I'm just saying that, but you know, other things which will never happen. 4% of the things never happen that we think about. So let's just concentrate on today.

Yes. I love that lesson too. And just like you did back in those summers while you were in school selling books, I did door-to-door sales for 2 summers. And the biggest lesson that I learned is that when somebody says no and closes the door in your face, you don't go backwards in sales. You're still moving forward to the next sale. Exactly. And it's the same thing with being present in the moment, Not relying too much on the past, not relying too much on the future, being present right now. And so, yeah, I'd love to learn a little bit more about your, your daily mindfulness practices towards the end of today's conversation. But I want to make sure for people who showed up today and they said, I want to learn what are the basics of apartment syndication, you've come up with this great metaphor about the spinning plates. And you said that back when you were living in India, there were street performers and entertainers that were spinning plates. And that's kind of where you got this idea from.

So true. So true. Jugglers, right? We call them speed. And I said, okay, what's the plate that anybody getting into, you know, investing, right?

Mm-hmm.

Commercial space, mostly because single-family homes, my wife and I could make decisions, right? And it was simple. We made an offer, it got accepted. We got loan approved by the bank, done. But in the commercial space, It's got lots of moving parts, we call them. So that's why I say the very first plate is to form right teams of people. You got to choose your team members correctly. And actually, I learned big lessons by not having the right partner early on in my life, right? You know, and not only that, I paid for their training also. I've spoken sometime, $130,000, $150,000 trained them, took them and paid for their training, but they fizzled out. That's what fact of life is. Not everybody is going to be as passionate as you are. So you choose your team members correctly. I always say that don't get into an LLC or limited liability corporation, which I did way back. And then we had set percentages, no matter what, you worked harder, you set, you got only the same number, right? So That was a bad deal. But the good part is, who are the other team members? These are the brokers, the attorneys, the SEC attorney, the loan broker, the appraisers. So those are team members, I call them. Yeah.

Yeah. And in that section, you said you could show up and negotiate a deal with much more confidence if you have a great support system and team around you. And so you never want to show up to a deal And feel like your words are empty because you don't really believe in everybody.

Totally, totally, totally. And, you know, we talk about credibility kit in my courses, which I have a full academy now and everything where I coach and teach and mentor. But you're right. I mean, you know, having that team and putting their images and their bios in your credibility kit tells other people, oh my gosh, you're not just talking to Vinnie Chopra. You know, he's got You know, big team behind it.

You're right. Yes.

Well, credibility has been a really important thing for me over the years as well, because as I was building out this podcast and this Book Thinkers brand, I said, who can I align myself with so that the world will trust me? And if you start aligning yourself with better, more established people, then you can sort of skip the line. You can cut the line a little bit, and you can feel more confident going to the table with your services.

So true. So very true. You know, and again, I talk about syndication a lot. I tell my investors, which is our plate number 2 coming up.

Yes.

The key thing is we want to make sure that we impress on everybody that we are SEC, Securities and Exchange Commission regulated field, so that our brokers, our team members, everybody, it's transparency, it's the trustworthiness, it's the whole openness which keeps the players very strong and very, you know, right in the sync of everything happening, right? You know, so you're right, credibility is number one.

Yeah.

Number one, where the brokers— credibility with the brokers. If you are genuine and you are understanding their lingo and you are being considerate and you're not bothering them, You're taking care of, you know, replying to them, all this stuff, you know, they will be giving you good deals, which I talked about plate number 3. We'll talk about that. Yeah.

Well, let's go a little bit deeper on plate number 2. So you say there's a right way to do it, which you just talked about, and there's a wrong— or there are plenty of wrong ways to do it. So what are some of the common mistakes that people make when they're pitching investors?

Oh my gosh, I'm so glad you asked me that question. See, many times People feel, new investors feel, I can talk to this investor and tell me, show me, show him the deal or her the deal, and they need to make a decision right away. It doesn't happen that way. It should never happen that way because the right way to do syndication in USA at least is to have preexisting relationships. That is the word I say to everybody. You gotta start talking to the investors Get to know them, meet with them second time, third time. Of course, with the COVID and all that, Zoom. Zoom is the best way. Skype, Zoom, YouTube, no, GoToMeetings or Webex, all these, or FaceTime even. You know, why not?

Why not?

Why not? And I like to record the session and then even send a link back to my investors. Because if I'm meeting with only husband and wife is at work or something, vice versa like that, you know, if they couldn't be together, it's good to give them what you discussed and show them the PowerPoint presentation and everything. And it's recorded and they can look back and they can feel more secure what you're talking about, reinforce, and then ask you more questions about it. So that's a good nugget. You know, the key thing is you've got to build the trust. People will not give you a dime if they are not sure preservation of capital is number one in their mind. Then return on capital is the second thing. Preservation means return of capital. If you hundred thousand today, you're telling me you're going to give me in five to seven years that hundred thousand back. Okay, show me why I believe you. Secondly, you're telling me in your projections that you're going to give me 9% return per year on my money. Show me how, how can you produce that kind of money? So that's the return on capital and return of capital. So it's very, very important. I've lectured and lectured, maybe 75 lectures just on getting into the psychology of the investors, what they are thinking, what are their fears, where they have come from, you know, over the past many, many years, as have they lost money and, you know, what happened and how it happened and what their goals are with their education of the kids and their savings and charities and all those stuff. So the key thing is to have a very powerful elevator pitch.

Well, we'll go to the elevator pitch in just a moment. But I, I just wanted to reflect on something you said. I worked, I worked in sales for 5 or 6 years prior to really getting into Book Thinkers full-time.

Yes.

And I love that analogy about going on a date versus marrying somebody. Like, you never want to go on a date and then ask somebody to marry you after the first date. You don't know enough about that person and they don't know enough about you. So it sounds like that same thing could be applied to the investing.

So true. So very true. You got to not go to the wedding. Nobody will go to the wedding except for that bachelor show or whatever. But that's also, they take 3 months. But you're right. You know, you've got to go slowly because the thing is you got to build layer after layer after layer of trust and confidence and knowledge. And you're always dealing in educating. Whenever your investors are sitting down with you on, you know, coffee or other stuff, and giving them the newsletters and the different articles, and showing them how you're analyzing the deals, and what kind of assumptions you're making, and which emerging market you are heading out to, you know, then only money is going to flow. Money is not going to flow if you just talk to them and say, hey, can I count on you to give me the money now?

No. And you mentioned elevator pitches. So in the book, you, you give an example of an elevator pitch. That's your elevator pitch. What is an elevator pitch for people that haven't heard that term before?

I would love to say that elevator, just like the word elevator, pitch is, of course, talking to people and showing them what you do. Elevator, just like the elevator goes from ground level to maybe 5th floor or 6th floor or 20th floor, you have very little time And you have somebody in the elevator with you. So what would you say to that person in short period of time, maybe less than 30 seconds, less than 20 seconds, maybe less than 15 seconds? What could you tell them? Not sell them the program because you can't, but you can pique their interest to make an appointment with you.

Yes.

Absolutely.

Can you give us an example of an elevator pitch for who is Vinny?

Sure. Hi, you know, Nick, I'm Vinny Chopra. I'm a commercial real estate investor, and I'm always looking for investors who are my partners, and they are able to have not only the cash flow monthly or quarterly from the investments we purchase, but also take the upside And actually, we give majority of our upside and the cash flow to our investor partners. Would you like to meet with me sometime over coffee?

Yes, I'm sold. I love it. You did a great job. And I think it's very important. I mean, over time, I've continued to work on mine. And I think no matter who you are or what you do, you should be able to explain in a very simple way What your purpose is in this world and why people should sit down with you. So you did a great job.

Oh, thank you.

And that's for everything because we are marketing machine. Every business needs to be like a beacon of marketing because all the way from CEO to all the way down, because we are always looking at generating more referrals and more clients. And that's where the life and blood is. It is, right? Yeah.

It is, it is. So your first plate is all about building a superb team. Your second plate is all about the investors and how to approach investors and build relationships. The third plate is the one that intimidates me the most as somebody who's not great at math. It's all about underwriting and getting that piece worked out. So for people in the audience that are interested in following along, what is plate 3 all about?

Okay. I would love to. Building relationships with the brokers and also analyzing the deals that they send to us so that we could reply back to them. And then it's kind of like cultivating the relationship, just like in plate number 2 with the investors.

And that's a pretty big plate, by the way.

Mm-hmm.

The number 1 plate is small plate. Number 2 is the big plate. Number 3 is also very big plate, but not as big as number 2. Because you do want a couple of emerging markets, at least 2, because you want to start building with the broker network in that market. And also, I try to teach that you've got to first figure out— that's plate number 4, actually, which is loan qualification.

Yes.

I kind of put it— I was thinking about putting it even before number 3, but then I said, let me just put it on 4. And then the 5 plate, of course, is when you buy the property, right? So that's the last one. But the small plate also is number 4, to find out what can you qualify. Why are you doing this whole thing if you can qualify If you don't know how big units of the, you know, apartments or commercial space or mobile home park or, you know, you know, office space or shopping center, whatever we are trying to buy, any commercial thing, you know. But the key thing is to find out what the net worth is and what the net worth combined is with your partners or a principal. We call it as a principal. We'll talk about 4th split. But the key thing I wanted to bring right now was don't waste the time of brokers if you are not going to buy in that level of, you know, because you could look at the brokers who are very specialist in 4-plex, 5-plex, 5 units, 10 units, 15 units. These are special brokers. They deal in those kind of things. But then 50 units in apartments, we get to a little more sophisticated broker, and then 100, 200, 300 more sophisticated, and they will wipe you out literally if you are talking and wasting their time in the wrong segment. Because what's the job of the brokers? To sell, to sell for the seller. that property within 60 days or 90 days or 120 days from start to finish, you know, and then they want to get to the next one and the next one. So definitely plate number 3 is very important because you want to get the deals first, then you want to perfect the system of underwriting it, we call it. And over the 14 years, you know, we have perfected this very Great, great template, which is you don't have to really know the numbers. Aha. Yeah, that's the best thing. I'm glad you mentioned it. Because a lot of people are not that analytical, like, you know, engineer myself or other people. But what we have designed is fill-in-the-blank worksheets. But we have taken care of all the formulas and everything. And it's so easy to put down then what's the rent number, how many units, what's the total, you know, rent collections will be, and how much will be insurance and things like that. Rest of the things these workout sheets do automatically in 9 different places and all that. So if any one of you, as a special thank you, and I take so much thank you to you. for taking time to interview me. Anybody who would like to get that worksheet for free, I mean the whole toolkit, and we'll even let you come into our academy for free for that particular segment, which is $300, $400 worth or whatever, but you will be able to, you know, perfect that system and you will see me there teaching you the whole underwriting process also. So please email to our friend Nicholas and we will be able to let you, you know, come into it. Yes.

Yes. Amazing. Amazing. Well, thank you for that offer, Vinny. We'll definitely make sure everybody has, has access to that. Plate number 4. Well, Vinny, I've got to say, there's an elephant in the room, right? And it's money. That is a huge subject. And when I, when I first started thinking about apartment syndication, I thought, well, You know, I'm kind of young, I don't have that much money yet. Like, how in the world could I ever participate in something like this? So what is plate number 4 and how can somebody like me get involved?

Oh, wonderful. See, plate number 4 is loan qualification. I called it because it was pretty good big plate, because unless you have— the loan amount has to be equal to your net worth. That's what the stipulation is in the commercial field. You know, I know in single-family homes it's the FICO score and the, you know, your debt ratios and all that. But in the commercial space, it's the net operating income of the investment that we are purchasing. So NOI is based on the numbers of the property, the total income collected, expenses, taken out without the mortgage is that NOI, net operating income. But we do need to have net worth, our total net worth. What is net worth? Is total all the assets, the cash, the savings, the retirement plans, the physical, you know, home and other stuffs, you know, precious metals, everything, right? Or, you know, other things combined with it, some interest in other businesses, investments, all those assets, and then the liabilities. What are we, you know, our loans and everything. So net worth has to be equal to the loan or more than the loan amount. That's how it is, up to $10 million, I think. But after $10 million, it's not 1-on-1 ratio. But, you know, you are able to get get bigger loans. Like, I'm on $40 million loan and $35 million loan. And I mean, at the peak, I was on $289 million loans, literally.

Those are some big numbers.

I know, those are some very big numbers. But, you know, we have sold some properties, so we have paid off the loans. But essentially, loan qualification will give you the direction if you have— and a lot of my investors, students are, you know, starting out, right? So they might have small net worth, but my net worth has gone 15 times, you know, just in the last 15 years, let's say, kind of, you know. But the thing is, it will go for you too, listening and watching us. Remember, there are other people in your family and friends and the people, your parents, your relatives, who have the net worth and they could join hands with you. So you can qualify for the loan by combining the net worth of few other people. Yeah, principal. So once you know for sure what loan you can do, then you figure out if 80/20 or 70/30 is the ratio that tells you then the total amount of this purchase price. And then by finding in your emerging market How much is the— you know, it's A class, B class, C class, D class now, right? The units or the apartments. We never buy A class, by the way, because, you know, there's not much value add. And we never buy D at all. D is where the drugs and shootings and this and that. Sorry, you know. But the thing is, we have been kind of staying in C, C minus to put value add. to get to into C+, and now we are buying into B, B+, like that, right? So that way, you know how much that is per unit. So total purchase price, with counting the loan and all, divided by the number of— what's the average amount for each unit— gives us how many units we should talk to the brokers, you know?

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So we got the loans figured out, we've got the broker relationships, we've got the investor relationships, and you have an awesome team. Now you get a property under contract, it's yours. Okay, you've made your first syndication. Property management, that's the last plate. So once you can spin all 5 of these, you've got it under control. It's a balancing act, but you've got it under control. So this property management plate number 5, could you expand on that for a minute?

Oh, sure. I would love to, Nick. That's a big plate, by the way.

Not a small one.

But it's not a small one because see, the thing is, the first 4 plates get you to the closing. But once you pick up the keys from the seller, it's your baby, you know. And starting out with the investors who are starting out, I always teach you got to get the property management company involved during the sales closing process. in the due diligence even, you know, so that they are doing the lease audit, the physical audit, all that, right, of the property. And then they will charge you certain percentage to manage the asset, we call it, per month, depending on the rental income and all that, percentages change. But in our case, I had 2 acquisition companies and 2 management companies. So, we were vertically integrated, Because I didn't feel that, you know, I want to really have the pulse on the business and learn it myself and, you know, negotiate the deals and so forth and save money for my investors and all. So that way, you know, we had 135 people full-time in my companies, actually, you know, together with a full PR, HR, with the accounting department 5 full-time, all that good stuff. But the thing is, the 5th plate is very important because by managing the asset with the property management company or yourself, self-managed, you are bringing the cash flows that you promised in plate number 2 to the investors. You got to make sure you're running the asset properly for 3 to 5 to 7 years possibly, where you're doing value-add CapEx, we call it, capital improvements and the curb appeals and making sure that all the incomes are increasing and the rentals and the other stuff and expenses are decreasing to increase the NOI. That is the real deal because we projected conservatively for our investors in plate number 2 that you're going to get 7%, 8%, or 9% cash flow. We got to make sure we deliver that. Yeah. Yeah.

Amazing. Well, that, that wraps up a lot of our conversation about Apartment Syndication Made Easy specifically. So, you wrote a very good book. It's very easy to read. Like I said, I learned a lot reading this. And so, I think at this point in the conversation, And everybody who showed up to learn about syndication has learned a lot. So again, thank you for going through the book-related stuff. I know we still have a few more things to touch on.

Sure, sure. I'm yours. I'm totally yours. Yeah.

Hello, Book Thinkers family. A quick word from today's podcast sponsor. Today's episode is sponsored by Audible. Audible is the leading provider of spoken word entertainment and audiobooks ranging from bestsellers to celebrity memoirs, business, and my favorite, personal development. And as part of Audible's partnership with us, we're actually offering listeners a free 30-day trial. This trial includes one credit good for any premium selection titles you'd like on the whole platform. So that's pretty much any book, including the one we're talking about today. That book is yours to keep even after the trial is over. Now, this trial also includes access to Audible's Plus catalog of podcasts, audiobooks, guided wellness programs, and Audible Originals. You can listen all you want, no credits needed. Now, everyone on the Book Thinkers Instagram knows that I love physical paper books. There's nothing better than having a book in your hand, scribbling notes everywhere in the margins. I kind of tear those things up. But I've been completing an additional 20 to 30 books every single year using Audible by listening when I'm in the car, doing chores around the house, or while I'm on my morning walks or runs. You could take advantage of this free trial by clicking the link in today's show notes or going to www.bookthinkers.com/audibletrial. You will not regret it. Now back to today's episode. Well, in the book, you, you said, hey, listen, I was, I was young, I had this very thick accent, I wanted to learn more about business, so I started reading a ton of books. And I'd love to spend at least a few minutes on those. So what are some of the first books that you read when you started this journey?

Oh my gosh, you know, I thank my company, the bookselling company because they were converting people, right? Students into salespeople. So they gave me 7 books free, 7 books, or maybe I paid for them. I don't know. But they were the greatest salesmen in the world. So good. Like Og Mandino, The Magic of Thinking Big. I still have that book right there. 44 years I have it. You have it too, right?

Yes.

And always these, I write the name, uh, and then my name, signature, and the date I buy it or somebody gave me as a gift. I have Magic of Thinking Big. Then we can go to Charlie Tremendous Jones, Life Is Tremendous. That's the book. Napoleon Hill's book Think and Grow Rich. I read that 44 years back and I've read it many times after that. Then also Dale Carnegie's book How to Win Friends and Influence Oh my gosh, huge, huge, huge break. Then we, uh, I'm just trying to remember now, uh, Dale Carnegie's other some positivity books also. I remember those. And then we go into big chapter with Jim Rohn. Oh my gosh, Jim Rohn's books and videos. Tony Robbins, uh, of course Zig Ziglar's book, See You at the Top, See You Over the Top. I mean, his chimney being also an arrow in Dallas. I mean, you know, all these things coming back to me. Let's go back to Wayne Dyer's books. Let's go to John C. Maxwell's books. I have bought maybe thousands of books, literally. And I know when we moved to our new place here, I donated them to the library, you know. And of course, then I started to buy more of the Lots of books. Oh my gosh, I can think of, you know, I'm trying to look at that over here. Good to Great right there. I still have that. Lots of books. And over here also, Rich Dad Poor Dad, of course, you know, those books right there. Just amazing, amazing books from motivation books to all kinds of books, right? So I have real passion Literally, what you're doing is so great, so great, you know, because I think young people, young people should be learning and reading books and listening, you know, books on tapes also. Why not, right? You know, to keep— because it's again what we feed in our mind. And I want to talk about that. We spend so much money from the lips down.

It's very true. We do too much.

You know, literally, I mean, you know, we can go and blow $400 on a dinner, right, with Neil, Monica, Kanchan, and I, you know, into San Francisco area or whatever. But look at that, that only went down here, right? But it's the mouth up right here in our mind and thinking and subconscious. That's where we need to spend money. And that has the biggest payoff. That is the biggest payoff. And that comes by reading books and listening to the books and listening to podcasts and watching with our eyes. Again, this is investment up, you know, above the mouth, I call it. I know Zig Ziglar talked about stinking thinking from the neck down, you know, stinking thinking from the neck down. He said just get taken care of the neck Up, and you will be able to achieve so many things in life. And also, I want to say humbly to everybody watching and listening to us, just don't read books for the sake of reading.

You got to please, please, please decide from the book what you got, what you got, and write it on a notepad or somewhere and affirmations, you know, that this is what I'm going to implement in my life. And that's it all about, literally, you know, the books are books are books, and that can make us, you know, read lots of them. But what do we take out of that and put them and make it into a habit and just grow ourselves, explode in our thinking, in our demeanor, in our positivity, in our doing the things correctly, in our, you know, being a positive Pygmalion. I talked about Pygmalion, that word. And, you know, I know my, my previous company, they spent so many thousands of dollars, or I think quarter of a million dollars, uh, one time to take our spouses and us into Saddlebrook Resort Straddlebrooks, I think, in Clearwater in Florida. 7 days, and they invited the guest speakers to teach us about life skills, you know. And I really owe a lot, lot to my previous company. I don't sometimes talk about them, but we used to go on incentive trips, 5-star, 7-star trips every year. I even won automobiles in that professional fundraising business, you know, and then my stocks became 700% up. 700%. I started with that company with only 2 companies. And when I left them, we were 14 companies. And we built the companies within the company and sold them also.

Wow.

Built from scratch and sold for $241 million. And wonderful company, which really shaped me and my mentors and my engineer, my, you know, sales managers and all. And I grew as a top stockholder within the company and became pretty positive impact around. That's how I moved to California when we were married 41 years back. They said, Vinny, we would like you to expand the Out West region for us. So, you know, I really owe a lot to so many great mentors in books, in tapes, and my other fellow people who have shaped my thinking. And I pay gratitude to everybody. Yeah.

Well, I'm happy that you mentioned the piece about behavior change because I always try to reinforce that real behavior change is always the goal. If you read these books and you just breeze through them and then you don't change your life, there's no difference between this book and a video game or Netflix Netflix at that point. And so these books are meant to be used. I write all over mine. By the way, I, I think I mentioned this on your podcast, which I was on a few months ago.

Yes.

That I always write on the inside cover as well. I write my name, who gave it to me, whether I listened to it or I read it or I read it on ebook. Most of them are physical. And I write notes, I circle, I tear pages out, I put them up next to my mirror sometimes as affirmations.

Like, I love ripping these things I love it, love it, love it, love it. Because see, that's the real deal, you know. I mean, we want to grow. It's a short life, very short life. And I say that many times, you know, in the dinosaur years, if you look at the whole millions of, you know, span, we won't even have a line, and we might be not even on that line at all. So even if we live 100 years of age, we are just a small peck. So don't get worried about a lot of things in life. Just make the best of the best of the best which we can make it right now. I want to really stress my another book. I'm so sorry. Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle. New Earth, Eckhart Tolle. Oh my gosh, my change— my life has changed. And not only that, uh, Alan Lenkin's book, How to Control Your Time and Control Your Life. Who major impact on my life? Super Self was another book which changed my life. Oh ho ho ho! I can't let Stephen Covey go. Sorry. Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Eighth habit. I mean, taught me so much about the quadrants and how to really spend time in the preparation and the thinking time. The fourth quadrant. not urgent and not necessary. But, you know, I think that's what not urgent, not something like that. But the thing is, we spend so much time in the first 2 or 3 quadrants. We never spend time in the 4th quadrant. That's what I would make appointment with me. I've done it over all my life. And people say, are you busy that day? Yes. No, you say I have an appointment. That's it. But you have appointment with you in the morning or weekly or biweekly to just prepare what's going on in the business and how the things are going. What's the morale of our employees and how can all those things take thinking time? So I love the thinking time and preparation time and the investors relationship time. and the broker's time. Those are the best times when we get the 80% of the results come from 20% of the activity, literally Pareto principle, you know. And those things are so important.

I complimented your energy when we first started the show, but I've got to say, we're an hour in and this podcast is only an hour, but I know you could go for 5 more hours on these subjects. That's how passionate you are. So What are some of the secrets? I mean, your energy is just so crazy when you wake up in the morning. What's the first half an hour look like? Is there a consistent routine or anything like that?

Yes, it totally is. Totally, totally. I never even put a snooze alarm at all. I get up at about 4:15 nowadays. When I was W-2 job, when I was younger— I'm younger now, I came to be 70 next year. You know, I'll be 69 in August. But the thing is, it's just that, you know, I'm so awake when I get up. You know, even 5 hours of sleep is plenty for me. And I get up and I make sure I close the door nicely. Sometimes my wife is up too.

She says, what's the time?

Like this morning, I said, honey, it's 4:15, you know. And then she says, oh, I'm gonna go to bed. I said, great, you know. And I closed the door. Then our family room is way out there on the other side, and I get into the routine of listening to bhajans. Actually, that's the first thing I do, you know, my Hanuman Chalisa. Indian, you know, my audience, your audience will really understand. I've been a big bhagat of Hanumanji and Ramji and Krishnaji, you know, our gods and goddesses. And the key thing is I was very thin, like a pencil, literally in all India and all the way until I came here and got good food. We talked about— actually, this will be something if you have a second. We would talk about the Indian cows and American cows. And I want to say that because what happened was when I came here, my uncle said, Vinny, are you going to eat hamburgers? or things like that. Those are beef and cows and all. And I slept over it, literally. And I said, man, you know what, it's a long journey. How can I survive not eating hamburgers and all that, right? So I got up next morning and I said, uncle, I made a decision. I'm going to eat hamburgers because these are not Indian cows. But again, you know, the key thing is I grew up Because I thought the god of strength, Hanumanji, picked up on his, you know, like on his hand, even a mountain. He carried the mountain and he could fly and all that. So as a young boy, I said, you know what, I need to pray this god. He's gonna give me good health. And he gave me, he did give me health.

Absolutely. You are in good health.

It's like, I know I go and you know, get my— look at some things on my social media a little bit. And then I look at my schedule. I don't see schedule. It's already there. And then I do my Miracle Morning gratitude. I go upstairs and do the elliptical 1 hour every morning. I mean, I'm just religiously doing it. And I look at if I can do some meetings with, uh, on my iPad. On the elliptical, and then if I don't have a meeting, I listen to and I watch some very good motivational you know things and all that. And then yeah, those kind of routine. And you know, like this morning got up at four fifteen, and by eight thirty we had been in four different great meetings. People from all over the world were with me, and one of our very good movie maker and student. from Norway, uh, Oslo, Norway. He gets up at 1 AM in the morning on Wednesdays to be in the mastermind. That's his commitment. And he's already syndicating. Oh my gosh, I can't believe it. After learning from us a little bit, from me, he's able to just partner with the biggest company there in Oslo, Norway, and so forth. You know, it's really exciting see my students just crushing it. Oh my gosh. I mean, $80 million portfolios, my number one student, Dylan, and all those things. But again, it's not me. I want to not take the credit at all. It's there. It's them. It's their drive. It's their who they are. But they're able to pick up the tools and run with it. Yeah.

And John Hudson, John and Ethan.

Ethan at 18 years of age is syndicating at 18, you know, and John is, you know, gotten 20 units. He's looking at 86 units. Ethan is looking at 104 units right now at the age of 18, you know.

Truly amazing.

Very amazing.

Yeah. Well, the last, the last thing that I wanted to bring up in our conversation today before I want I guess the last thing will be to have you tell everybody a little bit more about the programs and the academy and everything. But there's a question in the book that I really liked. It's under the category, put yourself in your investor's shoes. And the question is, why would I invest my hard-earned money, my retirement money with me? And I thought that was such a good question because you're really forced to dig deep to answer something like that.

So true. So true. You know, I really, I just learned that. I think I wrote it because in Stephen Covey, he talks about you're going to a funeral and everybody's talking and talking and everybody, friends and pastors and other and family members, and you are paying homage to the casket and you go there and guess what? You find yourself lying down there. Oh my gosh. So we need to really introspectively look into our who we are and what kind of story we are writing our own book. We are talking about books today, you know. So what will this book talk about? What will be in the COVID between the two covers? What kind of content is going to be? So the same thing is true in my analogy metaphor. You know, you've got to say, would I pay Vinny Chopra half a million One of my, you know, investors paid me $1.9 million. One investor during COVID And then in January, he put another $550,000. $1.8 million he gave me. What did I do to deserve that? Oh my gosh. You know, we raised $32.8 million within 3 months during COVID So it all comes back to what I set the stage was to get into their heart and into their psyche to say who Vinnie is. And they look through me and through my dealings with them and the track record, you know, we are building. So all those things are so important. Nobody, nobody, please listen right now. Nobody will meet you anytime unless they Google you nowadays. You know, they're going to Google you. They're going to look for any kind of reviews. They will write your full name. As a matter of fact, one of my half a million dollar investors, he he said, "I'll commit half a million." In two days, he says, "Vinnie, I want to meet you again. I found a lot of bad things about you." Literally. It's only 10 minutes away from where I live. I said, oh, really? I said, let's meet. Let's meet. And we did a Zoom meeting, right? His dad and everybody were there. And they said, Vinnie, we did research on you and this loan and this and this jury and this thing. They had the wrong Vinnie Chopra.

Oh, wow.

So I gave them my real name, Vinod, you know, K. Chopra. My Social Security number, I gave them. I said, please investigate now. And then they did it. And 2 days later, they wrote a check for half a million.

Well, I can tell you're a very genuine person. And it's so easy to talk to you. You're so knowledgeable. You've read these thousands of books. You've built this huge portfolio. You have so many students that are building their own great resumes. So it's truly amazing what you've done. And I'm sure this is— well, this is really the second conversation since I was on your show as well, but I'm sure this will be the first of many or the second of many more conversations over the years. And I'm excited for BookThinkers to be partnering with you guys and promoting your work. But for those who are just as energized as I am and want to learn more, where should they go? What should they do?

Totally, totally. No, thank you again, Nicholas. You spent great time with me. I really thank you. And all the audience who's watching us and listening to us, please comment and, you know, share this podcast if you got some out of it. Again, Vinnie Chopra is my website. V as in Victor, I-N-N, Nancy, Nancy, E-Y, elephant yellow, Chopra like Deepak Chopra. No relative of Deepak. But he's accomplished so much in USA. So chopra chopra dot com. So Vinnie Chopra, and you could just email me directly by just saying Vinnie at Vinnie Chopra. I'll read every email. My team reads it, will reply, and we can we can help you in any way. You could passively invest with us. We have 506 C. You know the fund, Monil. Investment multifamily fund, which is for accredited investors only. And we can advertise, we can talk about it. We don't need a preexisting relationship with that one. But we have another fund, which is 506 simultaneously, which is Mohnish Diamond Fund. We named it a little differently. But, and if you would like to learn from the academy, we got multifamily academy.com, meltafamilysyndicationacademy.com, or you can just go to vinnychopra.com/academy, all those places. Or Google me, just Google me or YouTube me. My channels are there, Instagram. And you go to, you know, Amazon, you'll find my books. Fantastic.

We'll put some notes in the show notes for everybody or some links in the show notes for everybody. But Vinnie, One more time, thank you so much for coming on the show.

Oh, thank you. Thank you, Nicholas. You're amazing. Have a wonderful day, everybody, and let's make it happen and let's move the needle and let's make everywhere a good place, right? Every place a good place. Yeah.

That is a wrap. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of Book Thinkers. Life-changing books. It would mean the world to us if you could write a review and share this episode with a few of your friends. I mean, these books truly have the power to change people's lives, and by reviewing or sharing our podcast, you're helping us make an impact. If you have any recommendations for future guests or any constructive feedback for us on how we can improve our show, please feel free to submit a form on our website, www.bookthinkers.com, or send us a direct message on Instagram at book. With that, I am signing off, and I hope you have a wonderful day. Don't forget, go read something.