In this lightning‑round interview, host Christian Osgood asks multimillionaire real‑estate investor Michael Zuber ten rapid‑fire questions covering policy, branding, personal life, and investing. Zuber argues that rent control fails because it reduces supply and quality, and predicts a prolonged government shutdown extending past Thanksgiving. He explains his choice of purple for the "One Rental at a Time" brand, linking it to childhood affinity and the impact of the purple "Rich Dad Poor Dad" book. When asked about Billie Eilish’s call for billionaires to give up money, Zuber cites Grant Cardone’s rebuttal about concert ticket pricing. He confirms he uses prescribed testosterone therapy, emphasizing medical supervision. Zuber forecasts mortgage rates staying between 5% and 6% through 2029, warning against wishing for lower rates. He recounts a regrettable property purchase—a mis‑converted garage that initially under‑performed but later appreciated. His coaching mantra stresses discipline over shortcuts, describing “shooting stars” who chase hacks. He highlights market‑identification skills as the core competency that survives any loss. Finally, he attributes his successful marriage to Olivia to complementary strengths and mutual growth. The interview blends policy commentary, personal anecdotes, investment advice, and relationship insights.
Chapters
All right guys, it's 10 Questions with a Millionaire time. Now Michael technically doesn't count, he's a multimillionaire, but I'm super excited to run this series. My team has written 10 questions. These can cover any topic, personal, political, pop culture, real estate, but they've been giving 10 questions to me. I have yet to read them. Michael has 60 seconds to respond. After 60 seconds, he will be cut off. The unofficial sponsor is Panerai, who will be keeping time for us. They failed to respond for sponsorship. However, I will keep the time. My role is to ask the questions. Michael's role is to answer. Michael, here we go. Question number 1. You've made millions of dollars in a rent-controlled state of California. Mayor Mom Dahmy now wants to freeze stabilized rents in New York. Your thoughts?
Wow. So first and foremost, rent control has never worked anywhere. Basically what will happen is the person who gets rent control The first will win and then everybody thereafter will lose. Landlords will take inventory out of the market, which will reduce supply, reduce quality, and it will end up in a huge dumpster fire eventually.
Next question. You wrote the book One Rental at a Time. You've branded everything One Rental at a Time. Your fans want to know, how did you settle on the color purple?
Purple's been my favorite color since I was a youngster, so it was an easy choice. I don't know what it is about the color purple. My mother says it's because I equate it with being a king or royal, right? Purple is a royal I don't know. I've liked it forever and it was just really became important when I read Rich Dad Poor Dad because it was the purple book. I remember looking on the bookshelf after I lost all that money and this purple book stood out, and if it wasn't purple, I probably wouldn't have picked it up. But that purple book changed everything. So it's kind of ties it all together.
A better answer than I expected. Doing well on the lightning round here. Multimillionaire Billie Eilish recently said billionaires should give up their money. What's your take on this?
I think Grant Cardone had an excellent reply to her. She was speaking in, or she was doing a concert in Louisiana and said that your lowest ticket price was $200. And did you know that Louisiana has the lowest income in the country? So why isn't your concert free?
I agree.
God.
Okay. Michael, you put on a ton of muscle lately. The internet needs to know, natty or not?
Not taking testosterone as a 53-year-old male and isomorlin, both prescribed by a doctor after getting your blood work done. Definitely, guys, if you're gonna go out there, get your blood work done. It has certainly helped, but obviously diet and serious exercise and coaching have helped. But yeah, no, I'm not claiming natty.
Well, whatever you're doing, it's working. I saw you at BPCon. You're looking huge. Well done, my friend. Well done, my friend. I appreciate that. When's the government shutdown going to end?
My current guess is, unfortunately, and I mean this with every breath, after Thanksgiving. This is a guy, I told you it would be the longest one ever when people were telling you it would end quickly. And I'm like, no, this is going to be the longest one ever. And it looks like it's now going to go past Thanksgiving, which is just tragic, right? They just cut 10% of flights. It's going to get worse. We're going to go through multiple snap things. It's bad. It's bad.
But yeah, after Thanksgiving, I'm hosting an event in Washington at the end of this month. I am not looking forward to figuring out the airports.
No, my wife just jumped on a plane and it was, the airports are a mess.
Okay. Not looking forward for that one. What is your forecast for interest rates over the next 3.4 years? Wow.
3.4 years. So that takes us to 2029, basically.
And partially true. I don't know why my team chose 0.4, but I'll ask them.
That's okay. That's all right. So I think as we end 2026, so that's, you know, that's a third of the way through, we're going to see mortgage rates sub-6. Again, we're talking owner-occupied, 30-year, good credit, all of that. And then I think we, I think we kind of bounce between 5.5 and 6. I do not see us going back to 7 and I don't see us going sub-5. So I think we're going to be basically in this basing period of 5 to 5 to 6%, probably for the foreseeable future. And again, you gotta be careful what you wish for. If you're someone out there wishing for 3 or 4% mortgages, you're also wishing for a nasty recession. So be careful what you wish for. So I'm gonna hope for, you know, 5 to 6, and I'll even get tighter, go 5.5 to 6.
So stability is good.
Yes.
If you can go back in time and not buy one rental property, which property would you not have purchased?
Oh, that's a good question. I've never thought about that. All the properties we've purchased, Which one? Oh yeah. So there was a property, I still own it actually. I bought a property, it was a house with an ADU on it. At least I thought it was an ADU. It turned out to be a garage that was badly converted that the city found out about that I had to scrape. So I basically overpaid for an asset and got half the rent that I expected. And it was a loser. And I wish I did not buy that one. And it's on a street called Courtland. Oh no, Princeton. It's on Princeton. And I wish I didn't buy it, but I own it now. And guess what? Even though it's just a little 560-square-foot house, it's now worth more than I paid. So even that drastic, horrible mistake, a decade of Time made it okay.
Time does heal most deals. You're coaching hundreds of new investors in your community. What is the biggest difference between someone who succeeds in buying real estate and someone who never buys?
The biggest thing I've seen is the people that buy have the discipline and don't fight the process, right? I'm not here to promise get rich quick. I'm not here to promise anything, frankly. I'm here to tell people to do the work, figure out average, do good or great, and move on. I'm not here for quick. I'm not here for the easy button. I don't make any promises. I just know it's possible. There's people like you and I who've, who've become million and multimillionaires and deca-millionaires because of real estate. It, it works for everyone. You just have to do the work. And lots of people, for whatever reason, want to fight it. They want to look for the hack, they want to look for the cheat code. They can't stay focused, they can't stay disciplined, and they just blow up. And I call 'em shooting stars. They come in and then they're gone in a minute.
If you lost all your rental properties today, what is the one skill you developed that you would keep moving forward? To build back?
I understand how to identify and grow a market, right? I understand how to identify good or great deals. I know how to, how to follow up, right? The skills I've harnessed now for 25 years, I certainly wouldn't want to do it again, right? You know, you don't want to go through 25 years of growth, but I certainly could do it again. I certainly could do it in, in 10 to 12 years and you know, we'd be right back here. I'm not an entrepreneur, so I would likely go get a sales job to stack paper with commission. But yeah, it would be, you know, once you have, that's the beauty of, of real estate investing is once you have the skill, you don't lose it, right? It's not something you age out of. You don't have to be You know, 28 years old and made of plastic. You can be a 53-year-old, you know, grumpy old man and, and still do this thing.
Final question, Michael, you're a good-looking guy. You've been immensely successful through your career. Fans want to know about your biggest close. What is the secret to marrying unbelievably out of your league?
Yeah, some of that's luck. She liked me too. Um, you know, Olivia is the better half, smarter, better looking. I certainly married up. That's really a question for her. I really have no idea why she said yes and why she still says yes after all this time. We just click. I, I think the one thing we've done well is we know what we do well, and, and thankfully it's, it's not really much overlap. Right. I ran down deals and try and raise capital. She runs the books. Not that either of us couldn't do the other one, but we're not naturally gifted. So I think the thing that we really figured out is we make, we make each other better together. Not that we're not great alone, and she would've done amazing without me, I'm sure. But we certainly are better together and we, we do complement each other and it's, very little overlap in what she's good at. I'm not, and that goes to everything. She's great at art. I suck. I'm good with numbers. She's okay. Yeah, we make each other better and we compliment and we force each other to grow. So, you know, that's my answer.
Well, my wife still talks about the one time she met your wife and how awesome she is.
She's pretty good.
One thing that I've always appreciated about Michael, this is the only question that I wrote of the 10 questions, but all right. The thing I appreciate about Michael is all the boys came in, we filmed a podcast episode after BPCon and Michael's like, nope. I spent time with my wife at that time. I'm not going to make it out. Sorry. This is, this is part of my routine. I love that you guys have established consistency and that was a, I appreciate that about you.
So yeah, again, we do all this thing, you know, to, to, you know, a lot of us and yourself included, right? We're doing this for the family. And when you get to the point, thankfully I'm 20 years past, right? Yourself, you gotta, you gotta live that dream, right? And, and BiggerPockets was 3 days. Right. Where I was out, I was there to the beginning, to the end. And you know, we were, you asked to do something after the end of day 3 and I'm like, dude, nope. I've been gone for 3 days. I'm going to go take Olivia to dinner and we're going to have a good time. So yeah, you just gotta, you gotta live what you believe.
I love it. I love it. Well, that was exactly 1 minute and that wraps up our series of 10 Questions to a Millionaire. Michael, thank you for kicking us off here. Everyone else, we'll see you on the next episode.
